A Socio-Cultural Aspect of Anti-language

Author(s): Monika Piechota / Language(s): English / Issue: 8/2019

The article has been devoted to the phenomenon of anti-language and the focal point of the paper refers to the analysis of socio-cultural processes involved in the formation and reception of anti-language. The analysis has been aimed at defining the circumstances of the occurrence of anti-language as well as determining its role and functions at both individual and collective levels. My general approach to the study of anti-language outlines the social functions which govern the emergence of anti-languages with the explicit reference to language, context and text. Kenneth Burke (1966) defines man as a symbol-using animal. In his “Definition of Man”, Burke draws attention to the concept of negativity when he argues that negatives do not occur in nature and they are solely a product of human symbol systems. According to Burke, “(...) language and the negative ‘invented’ man (...)” (Burke 1966: 9). The study has begun with the premise that anti-language permanently depicts an antagonistic attitude towards the official language, whereas the negative attitude towards anti-language translates directly into stigmatisation of its users. The negativity of the affix anti—in anti-language has been culturally and socially structured as antithetical to language. Nevertheless, language and anti-language do not necessarily forge a typical antithesis in a polar sense. Victor Turner (/1969/ 1975) employs the affix anti—for his term anti-structure and explains that the affix has been used strategically and does not imply radical negation. This paper seeks to revise the one-dimensional attitude towards anti-language and fortify its social significance with a new quality. The basis for the study of anti-language has been its multi-functionality and multifaceted character. A small corpus of anti-languages has been analysed in order to illustrate a complex and polysemic nature of this phenomenon.

A sociolinguistic investigation of Arabic ‘professional reputation’

Author(s): Ahmad Khalaf Sakarna / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2013

The current work attempts to investigate the vital role of linguistics in saving and defending ‘reputation’ as an important social and cultural phenomenon that is widely known in Jordan as al-isim ‘the name’ or al-sum‘a ‘the reputation’. A good example that illustrates the common application of this social phenomenon in the Arabic culture is an ordinary job known as samsara, i.e., the act of marketing a property, which, to the best of my knowledge, has not been studied in the linguistic literature. The study attempts to shed lights on the different linguistic features associated with the struggle to save ‘reputation’ within the field of samsara. It argues that it is a big challenge for alsimsār, ‘the dealer’, to resist losing ‘reputation’, as maintaining it requires mastering the skill of using certain linguistic strategies and structures, which I call linguistic power, to maintain al-isim or al-sum‘a as an important social and cultural value. It is an interesting case where three different fields (business, linguistics, and sociology) interact in which business appeals to using linguistic and social tools to survive socially and professionally.

A statistical analysis of satirical Amazon.com product reviews

Author(s): Stephen Skalicky,Scott Crossley / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2014

A corpus of 750 product reviews extracted from Amazon.com was analyzed for specific lexical, grammatical, and semantic features to identify differences between satirical and non-satirical Amazon.com product reviews through a statistical analysis. The corpus contained 375 reviews identified as satirical and 375 as non-satirical (750 total). Fourteen different linguistic indices were used to measure features related to lexical sophistication, grammatical functions, and the semantic properties of words. A one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) found a significant difference between review types. The MANOVA was followed by a discriminant function analysis (DFA), which used seven variables to correctly classify 71.7 per cent of the reviews as satirical or non-satirical. Those seven variables suggest that, linguistically, satirical texts are more specific, less lexically sophisticated, and contain more words associated with negative emotions and certainty than non-satirical texts. These results demonstrate that satire shares some, but not all, of the previously identified semantic features of sarcasm (Campbell & Katz 2012), supporting Simpson’s (2003) claim that satire should be considered separately from other forms of irony. Ultimately, this study puts forth an argument that a statistical analysis of lexical, semantic, and grammatical properties of satirical texts can shed some descriptive light on this relatively understudied linguistic phenomenon, while also providing suggestions for future analysis.

A Study of Complaint Speech Acts in Turkish Learners of English

Author(s): Ahmet Bikmen,Leyla Marti / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Pragmatic knowledge is knowing to say the right things at the right time. If a person does not know how to use the appropriate language in the appropriate context, he or she runs the risk of having their character assessed negatively. Describing the differences in pragmatics across languages and cultures is one way to help language learners to approximate correct pragmatic behaviour in the target language and culture. The current study investigates whether or how Turkish learners of English (TLEs) transfer pragmatic knowledge from their native language into English when performing the speech act of complaining. Complaints were defined as expressions of discontent that could be in the form of: hints, annoyance, ill consequences, indirect and direct accusation, modified blame, explicit blame of behaviour and explicit blame of person, and requests. A total of 3000 written complaints collected from TLEs, native speakers of English (ENSs) and Turkish (TNSs) were analysed. It was found that (1) requests, hints, and annoyance are the most commonly-used strategies by all three groups. (2) TLEs use the strategies hints, ill consequences, direct accusation, and threats/warnings at frequencies that are closer to the ENSs’ frequencies, (3) the TLEs, ENSs and TNSs are statistically indistinguishable in their use of annoyance, blame (behaviour), and blame (person), and finally (4) the TLEs use modified blame at an intermediate level with respect to the ENSs and the TNSs, reflecting weak negative pragmatic transfer.

A Translation-Oriented Approach to Person Deixis

Author(s): Oana-Maria Puiu / Language(s): English / Issue: 20/2021

The paper focuses on the equivalence of person deixis in the translation of the World Health Organization (WHO) institutional discourse in the context of COVID 19. Accordingly, the aim of the paper is twofold: to detect the linguistic and cultural gaps between the source text in English and the target text in Romanian with respect to the conceptualization and grammatical encoding of person deixis, and to determine the optimal, context-sensitive equivalents in translation. Our assumption is that, given the text type and the supranational identity of the text producer (WHO), the optimal equivalents will be based on cultural symmetry.

Abordarea interdisciplinară a despicăturilor facio-labio-palatine

Author(s): Ioana Mădălina Orian / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 1/2021

Labio-maxillo-palatine clefts represent the most common congenital anomaly of all congenital malformations of the face and they are the most frequent cause of rhinolic disorders. The complexity of the therapeutic approach is determined by nutrition and eating problems, hearing and ENT problems, dento-facial and orthodontic abnormalities, breathing disorders, phonation disorders, reduced speech intelligibility, various physiognomic disorders.The presented case study emphasizes the need of an interdisciplinary approach to labio-maxillo-palatine clefts and follows the recovery process from a multidisciplinary perspective. The conclusions of the paper support the idea that the recovery process of the child with facio-labio-palatine cleft is a complex, long-termed one and the concern of the speech and language therapist to expand his field of activity is justified because this disorder involves pre and post surgery intervention and the therapist supports the entire process in all the mentioned areas.

Abraham Kajzer i jego tekst z obozów koncentracyjnych – studium przypadku

Author(s): Barbara Elmanowska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2015

The author analyses one of the intimate diaries from concentration camps written by AbrahamKajzer, who was a prisoner of KL Auschwitz-Birkenau and AL Riese (which was a part of KL Gross-Rosen on Lower Silesia). In article is uses Paweł Rodak’s theory of broad understanding of diary’s materiality as a writing practice, which was very complicated and difficult during the World WarII, especially at concentrations camps (finding material and tool to write, organizing space andwork out a ritual of writing; also place where notes were hiding and their fates in the post-war years). Diary it’s not only on textual level but it’s closely related to regular life. But in the campwriting daries was extremely dangerous practice (author could pay with his own life for it). Abraham Kajzer was an writing in Yiddish on empty cement bags with indelible pencil in camplatrine, where he was also hiding notes. After war he passed on his material to Adam Ostoja, who translated them and edited to publication.Kajzer described his reality in concentration camps and many traumatic experiences, which are one of many evidences of the Nazi genocide.

Abstrakt: Čo? Prečo? Ako?

Author(s): Diana Krajňáková / Language(s): Slovak,English / Issue: 23-24/2015

Although the abstract as an academic genre originated in the context of the Anglo-Americanwriting tradition, it has progressively penetrated all academic settings and nowadays is aninherent part of the majority of academic publications. While the official documents reifyingthe standard of academic writing in the setting of Slovak universities provide clearinstructions for writing this particular genre, the Slovak academic community seems to stillunderestimate its significance and usually considers its writing an inescapable evil. Thereforeon the basis of a theoretical-empirical methodological approach, the present article aims tooutline a complex picture of the abstract, including its history, genre analysis, structuraltypology and linguistic features, and further focuses on the most frequent text type of abstract.At this point, the paper describes the individual steps when writing a linear and informativeabstract by way of demonstrating the use of five rhetorical moves, hence motivation, problemstatement, methodology, results and conclusion, and the linguistic preference for the thirdperson singular in connection with active verbs. The comprehensive writing guideline offers ahelping hand not only for students finishing their final theses, but also for other members ofacademia who may make use of these instructions when submitting the linear and informativetype of abstract.

Academic event report

25th annual conference of Australasian Humour Studies Network, 6–8 February 2019, Melbourne, Australia

Author(s): Kerry Mullan / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2019

Academic event report

The Second National Conference on Historical Humour (II Ogólnopolska Konferencja “Komizm Historyczny”), 26-27 October 2017, Warsaw, Poland

Author(s): Anna Krasowska / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2018

Accommodation of L2 Speech in a Repetition Task: Exploring Paralinguistic Imitation

Author(s): Léa Burin / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2018

Phonetic convergence is the process by which a speaker adapts his/her speech to sound more similar to his/her interlocutor. While most studies analysing this process have been conducted amongst speakers sharing the same language or variety, this experiment focuses on imitation between non-native and native speakers in a repetition task. The data is a fragment from the ANGLISH corpus designed by Anne Tortel (Tortel, 2008). 40 French speakers (10 male intermediate, 10 male advanced, 10 female intermediate and 10 female advanced learners) were asked to repeat a set of 20 sentences produced by British native speakers. Segmental (vowel quality), suprasegmental (vowel duration) and voice quality were analysed. Level of proficiency, gender and model talker were taken as independent variables. Level appeared not to be a relevant parameter due to a high amount of inter-individual variability amongst groups. Somewhat contradictory results were observed for vowel duration and F1-F2 distance for male learners converged more than female learners. Our hypothesis that low vowels display a higher degree of imitation, and especially within the F1 dimension (Babel, 2012), was partially validated. Convergence in vowel duration in order to sound more native-like was also observed (Zając, 2013). Regarding the analysis of voice quality, and more particularly of creaky voice, observations suggest that some advanced female learners creaked more than the native speakers and more in the reading task, which indicate, both linguistic idiosyncrasy and accommodation towards the native speakers. Low vowels seem also to be more likely to be produced with a creaky voice, especially at the end of prosodic constituents.

Acknowledgment patterns in English and Lithuanian research writing

Author(s): Jolanta Šinkūnienė,Gabrielė Dudzinskaitė / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2018

The paper focuses on the features of acknowledgments in scientific texts written by British and Lithuanian authors in the Humanities. The data comes from a self-compiled corpus of acknowledgments in scientific books written by British and Lithuanian researchers in their native languages, and from doctoral dissertations written by Lithuanian doctoral students in Lithuanian. The results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis suggest that the British scholars place more importance on acknowledgments as they single out their thanks as separate sections, make them longer and express gratitude for a larger number of individuals and institutions than the Lithuanian scholars. Generally the same moves and steps are employed in the three data sets, but the distribution of some moves and steps is different.

Acomodarea substantivului abstract în terminologia filozofică

Author(s): Doina Butiurcă / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 19/2015

The study proposes a descriptive-semasiological research of the terminology in the field of philosophy. The relationship between the hard nucleus and the external areas of this sphere of terms, accommodation of abstract nouns in the language of philosophical terminology, identification of opposition markers at specialization level are a few of the objectives set out. The means of maintaining unambiguousness of terms are another focal point for this research. Contrastive analysis, descriptive-linguistic methods and semasiological study are used. One of the conclusions of the research is that the hard nucleus of the philosophical language is the sphere with the highest stability, maintaining a high degree of abstraction. External areas are common variants, migrating from one language to another, having an interdisciplinary character.

Acoustic analysis of monophthongs, diphthongs, and triphthongs in Mandarin for 3- to 5-year-old children with articulatory phonological disorders

Author(s): Man-ni Chu,Jia-ling Syu / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2018

Ten 3- to 5-year old children (5M, 5F) who were diagnosed as children with articulatory phonological disorders (CWAPD) and attending a therapy program were recruited to participate in a ‘repeat-after-her’ experiment. They were asked to produce a total of 85 real Mandarin words, including 28 monophthongs, 41 diphthongs, and 16 triphthongs. The results indicated that CWAPD have no problem producing monophthongs. However, attempts to articulate diphthongs and triphthongs induced more errors. CWAPD showed more errors when producing words with 1st sonorant diphthongs than words with 2nd sonorant diphthongs—this is because the least sonorant segment in the last position is prone to distortion. Similar phenomena were found in other triphthongs, except with /iai/ and /iou/, which did not see deviant pronunciation. Comparing our study to the information provided by two therapists showed that the participating CWAPD encountered difficulties in producing multi-vowel syllables, where the position and sonorant matters. In addition, our results also reveal a similar vowel acquisition order among CWAPD as among normal children.

Acquisition of noun derivation in Estonian and Russian L1

Author(s): Reili Argus,Victoria Kazakovskaya / Language(s): English / Issue: 14/2018

Acquisition of derivation is not a well-studied area in first language research and a comparative approach to the acquisition of derivation in different languages doesn’t exist. There is no information on how a child acquires derivation in a language with a rich and regular system of derivational patterns, or in a language where derivation is productive, but the system of derivational patterns is opaque. According to general ideas of complexity in a language, the child should start to use simplex stems first and, only after that, complex ones, that is, complexity should increase in the course of acquisition. Our paper is intended to address these issues, based on longitudinal child data from typologically different languages, Estonian and Russian. The results revealed significant differences in the acquisition of noun derivation in the two languages under observation. The system of noun derivation is acquired at a faster pace in Russian, while Estonian children have far fewer noun derivatives in their speech and they use different derivation suffixes with less regularity. Even so, the so-called building block model may be applied for both languages only partially.

Actualisation du sens des séquences figées en contexte

Author(s): Anna Krzyżanowska / Language(s): French / Issue: 4/2018

The article aims to show the role of the context and the situation of speaking (communication situation) in the process of updating the meaning of phraseological units (fixed expressions). It has been observed that in communication, disambiguation usually takes place by means of context. On the other hand, it turned out that the context itself can be a source of ambiguity. The results obtained in this short study seem to confirm the claim that the update is essentially a modal process, and the semantic coherence results from the interweaving of language, pragmatic, socio-cultural and cognitive constraints.

Addressing and acknowledging readers and writers.

Exploring metadiscourse in opinion writing online

Author(s): Ylva Biri / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2018

Effective opinion writing should present the author’s viewpoint in a convincing way but also engage the reader. Whether the author makes more references to their own viewpoints or to the reader is determined by the context of the text. Metadiscourse is a pragmatic framework of explicit linguistic devices used to make references to the reader, the writer and their evaluations, as well as references to the textual organisation. This paper employs the corpus-driven method called Multi-Dimensional Analysis to study statistically significant correlation patterns between metadiscourse markers. Four patterns emerge from a specialized corpus of opinion writing online in English by (semi-)professional writers (285,000 words). The patterns are interpreted as representing writers’ strategies to define the relationship between themselves, the reader and the topic. While there are some overlaps and cross-genre tendencies, the use of metadiscourse is to some extent determined by the prevailing norms of the sub-genre of the text – here, whether the publication platform is a blog, a news site, or the website of a print-newspaper. Blogs tend to use a writer-oriented strategy with more self-mentions, and news sites a reader-oriented strategy or a solidarity strategy uniting the reader and writer under a shared “we”-pronoun. The results of the study may be of value both in understanding the journalistic online genres and for the development of the metadiscourse framework.

Adriana Maria Robu, Discursul publicitar din perspectivă pragmalingvistică, Editura Universității „Al. I. Cuza” Iași, 2015, ISBN 978- 606-714-107-8, 532 de pagini.

Author(s): Oana Magdalena Cenac / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 1-2/2016

Având ca punct de plecare teza de doctorat, susținută la Universitatea „Al. I. Cuza” din Iași, cartea doamnei Adriana Maria Robu exploatează un teren extrem de ofertant – discursul publicitar – care îi permite o abordare din perspective multiple: pragmalingvistică, retorică, stilistică. Plasată în contextul amplu al lucrărilor existente în domeniu, multe dintre ele compilații sau sinteze din diverse lucrări din bibliografia internațională, Discursul publicitar din perspectivă pragmalingvistică se impune, la o primă vedere, printr-o abordare sistematică, bazată pe o documentare foarte bogată și actualizată a domeniului, pornind de la o selecție valorică a tuturor studiilor parcurse și inserate în bibliografie.

Adverbs as evidentials: an English-Spanish contrastive analysis of twelve adverbs in spoken and newspaper discourse

Author(s): Marta Carretero,Juana I. Marín-Arrese,Julia Lavid-López / Language(s): English / Issue: 70/2017

This paper presents a contrastive analysis of six English evidential adverbs ending in -ly with their Spanish nearest translation equivalents, in spoken and newspaper discourse. The adverbs may be associated with varying degrees of reliability: high (clearly/claramente, evidently/evidentemente, obviously/obviamente), medium (apparently/al parecer) and low (seemingly/aparentemente, supposedly/supuestamente). The analysis is based on tokens of authentic language extracted from two contemporary corpora, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and the Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual (CREA). The qualitative analysis focuses on the evidential functions of the adverbs and on their pragmatic interactional uses; the quantitative analysis centres on the relative frequency of type of evidential functions and the clausal position of the adverbs. The results uncover a number of differences between the English adverbs and their Spanish correlates and also between the two discourse types. Practically all the adverbs are strongly specialized in expressing either indirect-inferential or indirect-reportative evidentiality. English obviously and Spanish evidentemente show a high frequency of cases of loss of evidential meaning due to pragmaticalization, specifically in spoken discourse. Regarding position, the English adverbs are more frequent in medial clausal position, while some Spanish adverbs are often found in the more prominent parenthetical position.

Affect philosophy meets incongruity:

about transformative potentials in comic laughter

Author(s): Mark Weeks / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

The emergence of philosophical affect theory, sourced substantially in Continental philosophy, has intensified scholarly attention around affective potentials in laughter. However, the relationship between laughter’s affect and the comic remains a complicated one for researchers, with some maintaining that the two should be approached separately (Emmerson 2019, Parvulescu 2010). While there is a credible academic rationale for drawing precise distinctions, the present article takes an integrative approach to laughter and the comic. It analyses, then synthesises, points of convergence between key texts in affect philosophy and certain elements of incongruity-based humour theory. Specifically, the article seeks to demonstrate that some integration can bring insight and clarity to discussion of transformative potentials sometimes attributed to forms of comic laughter, especially within cultural studies and social science following the philosophy of Deleuze. This approach may also usefully complicate the concept of incongruity itself.