Продуктивни модели на валентна вариативност в английския и българския език

Author(s): Svilen Stanchev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2017

It is conventional in traditional structural linguistics to assume that one verb may occur in different syntagmatic realizations, such as ‘He closed the door – The door closed’ or ‘She stopped the car – The car stopped’. Dik’s (1997) Functional Grammar postulates a differentiation between the semantic component of a verbal lexeme and its predicate frame. The latter may undergo variation in terms of reduction or extension without affecting the semantic core which remains unchanged. This paper outlines typical productive patterns of valence variation – predicate frame reduction or extension, in processes of verbal derivation in English and Bulgarian. The functional analysis applied here offers an innovative account and subsumes within one theoretical model a wide gamut of phenomena, such as structures with a ‘locative Object’, ‘free datives’ or the Bulgarian ‘dative of disposition’.

Немски сложни съществителни в специализирани текстове и техните съответствия в български език – формален и семантичен анализ на мотивационните отношения между непосредствено съставящите им (2. част)

Author(s): Milkа Encheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2013

The present paper represents a unilateral contrastive study with German as the source language. The object is a motive analysis of the formal and semantic relations between the immediate constituents of the German composite nouns and their Bulgarian equivalents in specialized texts from the field of technical chemistry. The first part of the paper – due to the limited space – the research model in the contrastive analysis is elaborated and only the semantic motive analysis of the immediate constituents of German composite nouns and their Bulgarian equivalents is carried out. In the second part of the paper the formal motive analysis and the projection of the semantic relations onto the formal structures are carried out.

Максими за учтивост в речите на Саад Ал-Харири и Франсоа Оланд относно бежанците

Author(s): Mohammed Abdulsada,Balsam Yacoub / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2022

This study explores the politeness maxims implied in two refugee-centric speeches given by Lebanese prime minister Saad Al-Hariri and French president François Hollande. Drawing on Leech’s (1983) six-maxim politeness approach, the study aims at recognizing these maxims, describing their forms, and uncovering the intended purposes. The research, additionally, elaborates on sympathy as a key element in the pragmatic analysis of the two speeches sampled for analysis. To do so, a careful investigation of the words, phrases, and sentences is conducted so as to sort and highlight all sympathetic forms. Then, a brief comparison is made between the two speeches in terms of sympathy and politeness. To do so, a quali¬tative methodology is followed in the analysis, where frequencies are reached. First, the research intro¬duces the preliminaries of the study as to the definition of key terms, elaborates on politeness, draws on Leech’s politeness theory, and reviews a few related studies. Then, a sample of two speeches is chosen, analyzed, and investigated for politeness. Finally, the paper reaches a few conclusions and findings, in addition to some further studies. The paper finds that the two speeches under study are very sympathetic towards refugees and that the relevant references carry multiple forms of politeness maxims. The paper, also, reports a noticeable difference between the Arab discourse and the European discourse concerning refugees and their suffering.

Приносът на Зоя Кьостер-Тома за въвеждане на понятията стандарт, нонстандарт и субстандарт в руската лингвистика

Author(s): Aleksandar Petrov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2022

At the end of the 1980s some German Romanists initiated a discussion about the concepts of standard, nonstandard and substandard. The German linguist Zoya Kyoster-Thoma brings the discussion into the context of the modern Russian linguistic reality. In this way, she introduces new frameworks for the study of appearance in the Russian language that have not so far been the subject of special research. These frameworks are the subject of analysis in the present study.

За текста в обучението по български език

Author(s): Fani E. Boykova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 2/2021

The article draws attention to the role of the literary text in Bulgarian language teaching and learning. The function of the language units in a literary text to transfer cultural knowledge is considered. In the analysis of a literary text, the system-structural and communicative approaches to the study of language and to the mastering of models for communication in different socio-cultural contexts are integrated.

Българската политическа реч в балкански и славянски контекст

Author(s): Vladislav Milanov / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2021

The article studies in comparative plan the displays of speech aggression in Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Greek, Serbian and Croatian language. Analyzed are identical example that clearly show the tendencies to verbal aggression and the use of language cliches as well. Presented are lexical and topical groups that unite most typical means of expression for nomination of offence, intolerance to different human features and acts/manifestations? The idea of this initial study is to form a context for comparative research of the main linguistic characteristics of the political speech. Not only to outline the similar elements but also to unfold the scales of the dissimilarities. Both these factors are directly related to the social and economic status of the countries, to the built up or not political culture, to the attitude towards language literacy and the speech etiquette in official communication.

За връзката „интелект – хитрост“ в българската езикова картина на света

Author(s): Iliyana Dimitrova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2023

This paper examines some Bulgarian phrases, idioms, proverbs, and sayings related to being cunning. The linguocultural analysis points to a close relationship between intellect and cunning in the Bulgarian linguistic picture of the world. The research also shows that the Bulgarian phrases, idioms, proverbs, and sayings related to being cunning have mainly positive connotations in the Bulgarian mentality.

Смехът по време на криза

Author(s): Anita Todoranova-Dushkova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2023

The joke or the anecdote is considered as a product of wit, a source of laughter, or a means by which the Bulgarian manages to overcome the negative consequences of the financial crisis. The authors dealing with the study of jokes as a linguistic and cultural phenomenon emphasize that telling and composing jokes is activated when there are problems in society that accumulate serious tension, since the jokes are considered as an outlet or a form of reaction against social phenomena and personalities. In this paper is made an attempt to clarify the mechanisms and the linguistic means that produce the comic effect in the jokes.

The tsifteteli of irony and the dance of the ignorant Lilipuans:

Author(s): Aikaterini Giampoura / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

This paper studies the old Greek children’s radio show Edo Lilipoupoli transmitted from December 1977 to May 1980 by the Third Program of the Greek State Radio. The considerations of this paper result from the examination of the content of the radio show regarding its cultural and social parameters and correlations as a collective media project. The insight gained from this endeavour is significant, particularly due to the common claim among the broadcast listeners and contributors that the children’s radio program Edo Lilipoupoli functioned as a “mirror” of Greek society. The broadcast can be therefore understood as a kind of social snapshot depicting the ideological and identity conflict between the conservative and the progressive voices prevailing in society during that time. The analytical interest focuses on one specific song, very popular in the context of the radio show, with the title “We are not Zulu”. This approach will include an analysis of the lyrics in connection to their setting, i.e. morphology, harmony, instrumentation as well as the singer’s performance. Within the framework of this music-aesthetic and linguistic analytical point of view, I will try to identify the role and function of humour in the song and pursue an interpretive approach in the context of its sociocultural implications. The conclusions will form an attempt to bring out the point of view of the show’s contributors.

Beyond laughter and smiles:

Author(s): Bageshree Ramdas Bageshwar,Shahila Zafar / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

Amid the deluge of serious social media posts regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, humorous posts brought users much-needed respite. This article reviews studies on social media-based COVID-19 humour in 42 research articles that were selected from four databases, viz. Science Direct, Scopus, Taylor & Francis, and Web of Science. After the classification and analysis of the articles on the basis of some key features, a detailed description and discussion of the findings have been carried out. The results concerning the characteristics and functions of COVID-19 humour reveal that most studies investigated image-text memes; the most important feature found was ‘humour’, in addition to others like sarcasm, irony, satire, criticism, juxtaposition, and locality. Intertextuality played a significant role in the structure of humorous posts, especially those related to specific countries. Additionally, it shows that although research on COVID-19 humour on social media is still in an early phase, several findings appear stable across various studies included in this review. Moreover, most humour studied is not only about the virus or the disease itself, but also focuses on absurd situations individuals found themselves in due to the pandemic and the lockdown that followed.

Book review

Author(s): Lucy Spoliar / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

“The General Said”:

Author(s): Desislava Cheshmedzhieva-Stoycheva / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

Times of trial require resorting to new methods for venting up the tension. Internet memes during the first outbreak of the pandemic proved to be the necessary outlet, while, at the same time, provided a platform for the public to share their opinion, albeit in a humorous way, on the measures imposed, the people involved in the fight against the virus, and basically on everything that determined their everyday lives. The latter has been fostered greatly by the fact that humour is a generally relatable phenomenon. At the same time though, it can also be culture specific and some peculiarities of the embedded message can remain hidden for the general public. In order to trace these opposing aspects in the creation of internet memes, the paper analyses a corpus of 84 memes circulated on Facebook and Instagram in the period of 13 March 2020 – 30 May 2020. The subject in all these memes is General Ventsislav Mutafchiyski, who was in charge of the struggle with COVID-19 pandemic in Bulgaria, and the main methods of analysis are Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Multimodal Discourse Analysis. The focus is on intertextuality and the paper argues that some of the intertextual links used in the creation of the memes might be left misunderstood by the general public due to the specificity of the message carried or the images that have been selected by the authors of these pieces of digital humour. Thus, mediation, i.e. the time needed to decode the message, would be longer for people who are not familiar with the images or ideas used, while smaller for those aware of them. Additionally, the paper argues that the age of the recipients as well as their personal preferences are also of significance for the proper understanding of the message a meme carries. Furthermore, the analysis also proves the fact that although some images might be used simply as a background and do not carry substantial information, without them one cannot understand the full array of ideas the author/ poster of a particular meme is trying to convey.

ON BINOMIALS IN GERMAN: FORMULAE OF INTENSIFICATION AND ATTENTION CONTROL

Author(s): Bogdana Crivăț / Language(s): German Issue: 32/2023

The aim of this paper is to linguistically analyse lexicalized pair formulae in contemporary German. The study brings together distinctive structural, prosodic and semantic features of binomial expressions and emphasizes their formulaic character in several respects. Their specific stylistic and pragmatic functions will also be discussed. As memorable linguistic means, such fixed form idioms may be assigned to the cognitive domain of intensification and attention-getting.

TYPES OF PRAGMATIC MARKERS IN WHICH PRONOUNS FUNCTION IN CURRENT ROMANIAN ADVERTISING DISCOURSE

Author(s): Mădălina Chirilă / Language(s): French Issue: 33/2023

This article examines the types of pragmatic markers in which pronouns function in current Romanian advertising discourse. After clarifying the theoretical concepts, the author analyzes the function of the pronoun in the pragmatic markers of the turn to speak, where it is a component part of a certain number of verbal and non-verbal signals for assuming or transfer of the role of speaker.

Interactive metadiscourse in dentistry research articles: Iranian vs non-Iranian academic writers

Author(s): Mohsen Khedri,Elham Basirat / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

Linguistically, interactive metadiscourse devices are responsible for creating an unfolding and persuasive piece of writing. They help writers come up with a cohesive and reader- friendly text and highlight how they control the interactive meaning. This corpus-driven study is an attempt to explore the use of interactive metadiscourse markers in English dentistry research articles published in International ISI-indexed and Iranian local research-based journals. The aim was to see if interactive resources, as realized by rhetorical options, such as transitions, code glosses, endophoric markers, evidentials, and frame markers, are predisposed to discipline-specific rhetorical conventions. To this end, fourty dentistry research articles were analyzed using Hyland’s (2005) Interpersonal Model of Metadiscourse. The results disclosed similarities and differences in both the frequency and use of interactive resources between the two sets of research articles. The present results are expected to extend our understanding of authorial preferences for the use of metadiscourse markers in tandem with discourse functions in research articles in the selected discipline. The results of such studies may also improve different features of language pedagogy, such as teaching and learning academic writing, namely research articles.

The function of scare quotes in hard news: metadiscoursal and generic perspectives

Author(s): Zuzana Nádraská / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

This paper is concerned with the issue of scare quoting in British hard news reports. It examines two types of scare quotes distinguished by voice origin – scare quotes originating with the internal voice and scare quotes attributed to an external voice (Dillon 1988, Schneider 2002, Predelli 2003, Bednarek 2006, Meibauer 2015, Nacey 2012). Scare quotes originating with the internal voice are comparable to code glosses (Hyland 2005, 2007) and they reflect the writer’s assumptions about the reader’s expectations regarding various aspects of the enclosed words, including meaning, register and style. Such scare quotes tend to co-occur with explicit verbal metadiscourse, partial quotes and contextualising authorial discourse with which they create functionally homogenous sections. Scare quotes attributed to an external voice overlap with partial direct quotes but the former are overlayed with an authorial attitude towards the enclosed words or the reported speaker; attitude is induced by the interaction between scare quotes and context, especially generic/discourse patterns such as contrast and repetition. The authorial comment signalled by code glossing and attitudinal quotation marks is implicit and thus in line with hard news generic conventions. The functions of scare quotes bear relevance to the novelty and negativity of reported events and are also reflected in the distribution across the generic structure (Urbanová 2013).

Request strategies and modification devices as performed by Czech EFL learners: a focus on borrowing objects

Author(s): Věra Sládková,Marie Lahodová Vališová / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

This study presents an analysis of informal written requests from the national school-leaving exam and simulated spoken requests collected via Written Discourse Completion Task (WDCT) to describe pragmalinguistic features used by Czech EFL learners in requests for borrowing objects. In both types of data, the findings reveal strong preference for conventionally indirect strategies and external modification, but considerable underuse of softeners within head acts. The written requests show significant reiteration with a great deal of modification devices outside head acts and a higher proportion of face-threatening features, such as expectations and direct strategies realized by want statements and imperatives. The WDCT requests tend to employ more face-saving strategies but show less variability in request realization. Consequently, awareness raising activities, helping Czech EFL learners fully understand the face-threatening nature of requests, as well as explicit metapragmatic treatment, focusing on strategic use of requests constituents, are recommended.

What is in the paragraphs of various sections of research articles?

Author(s): Renata Pípalová / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

This paper strives to uncover the leading paragraph build-up patterns in academic writing. It employs the framework pioneered by Mathesius (1942/1982) and Daneš (1994, 1995), and elaborated on by Pípalová (2005, 2008a, 2008b, 2014). The corpus assembled for the study involves three distinct sections of Research Articles, viz. Abstracts, Introductions and Conclusions. The research confirms the general prevalence of Broad P-theme paragraphs, especially the Content Frame categories. It also demonstrates that non-canonical (i.e. transitional and peripheral) forms of paragraph build-up tend to prevail and identifies a number of factors at play. The paper also shows that the distribution of paragraph patterns is not homogeneous and appears to change across the space of the Research Articles.

“Where got i that truth?” an analysis of external sources in English and Persian news reports on Syria

Author(s): Abbas A. Rezaee,Mohammad Mozaffari / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

While there has been a plethora of inquiries into reported speech, a cross-linguistic analysis of the source segments in political news reports is still a rarity. This study aims at a three-fold investigation: first, tracking the frequency, transparency, and types of the sources; second, identifying the strategies employed to introduce these sources in text, and third, interrogating the contextual elements. To this end, a bottom-up analysis of 120 news reports from four quality newspapers (Kayhan and Jomhouri-e Eslami from Iran and The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal from the U.S.), mainly informed by van Leeuwen’s (1996) model of social actors, was carried out. The findings suggest a heavy reliance of both sets of newspapers on external sources to fulfill their vested interests, although they varied significantly with respect to frequency, transparency, and type.

Review

Author(s): Helena Worthington / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

Review of: Locher, M. A. and Jucker, A. H. (2021) The Pragmatics of Fiction: Literature, Stage and Screen Discourse. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 275 pp.