Виждам, значи съществува (употреба на неспецифични глаголи с екзистенциална функция в чешкия и българския език)

Author(s): Margarita Mladenova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2016

The paper considers cases of non-specific existential verbs expressing existence in Bulgarian and Czech on material from concrete fiction texts. There are a lot of examples in which the existential meaning is conditioned by the context. A scheme of the structure of the existential semantic field is proposed. The analysis is focused on the verbs of perception and the motional verbs meaning perception which manifest an existential meaning influenced by the context.

Anaphores argumentatives. Entre l’axe sémantico-pragmatique et l’axe rhétorico-discursif

Author(s): Françoise Collinet / Language(s): French Issue: 28/2016

This paper focuses on two questions. Firstly, how the use of argumentative anaphora to express an opinion / truth dissociation (Perelman) should be described in terms of grammatical / lexical resources. The other question has a methodological dimension: in which aspects could this approach distinguish itself from linguistic or discursive studies?

Функционалните семантико-стилистични категории аксиологичност и оценъчност

Author(s): Andreana Eftimova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2017

The article examines the concept of the functional semantic-stylistic category (FSSC) the introduction of which is the result of the development of functional direction in linguistics, particularly functional grammar and Bondarko’s theory of functional-semantic categories and fields. The interest through FSSC axiology and evaluation was prompted by the awareness of language as a space in which the structures of knowledge, opinions, beliefs and imagination are associated with evaluation. The place and role of lexical-stylistic means are outlined in the field of evaluation and axiology.

Вицовете в часовете по български език и литература

Author(s): Valentin Stoyanov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2017

Комуникативното поведение на събеседника в експанзията на диалогичната единица

Author(s): Donka Mangatcheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2018

The expansion of the basic dialogic unit, i.e. the arrangement/chaining of adjacency pairs with a similar first turn (in this case a directive speech act) in a larger discourse fragment constitutes an interesting phenomenon in the light of conversation sequencing. The attention is drawn to the second-pair part, in particular to the type of verbal reaction to the cue act in each segment. Тhe variation of the addressee’s approach outlines the essential, significant steps in a particular disposition/arrangement contouring his manifold communicative attitude in two main perspectives: sustaining or modulating the initial choice. The article traces and systematizes some general considerations of the complex interactive composition under the said conditions and suggests some indicative parameters for their interpretation.

За визуалната и вербалната комуникация в политическата карикатура

Author(s): Dafina Genova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2018

The article studies the visual and verbal communication and their interaction in political cartoons. It analyses the indispensable means of expression the cartoonist uses to convey his/her message such as visual metaphors and metonymies. Visual metaphors and metonymies are analysed from the point of view of Conceptual Metaphor and Metonymy Theory. The author studies the implications arising from the interaction between image, title and text (for the cases when there is title and/or text), as well as the metaphors and implications beyond image, title and text. The main theoretical construct used is the notion of incongruity from the Incongruity Theory of Humour that is extended to verbal and visual metaphor. The notion Logical Mechanism from the General Theory of Verbal Humour is applied in the analysis to (partially) resolve the incongruity/ies. Political cartoons are compared to a joke, a fundamental unit of humour in psychology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, philosophy and sociology. Pictorial representations and text function as contextualization cues to get to the probable cartoonist’s message. The interpretation of political cartoons is open-ended and indeterminate and is dependent on the viewer’s/reader’s general knowledge and his/her familiarity with the genre.

Projekt badawczy (ETNO)EUROJOS a program etnolingwistyki kognitywnej

Author(s): Stanisława Niebrzegowska-Bartmińska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 25/2013

An observation is made that the linguistic worldview is grounded in values, which play a decisive role in the shaping of a given community’s (collective) identity. Therefore, it is postulated that the folk Slavic axiological system (the world of values cherished in folk Slavic traditions) be investigated. The project called (ETHNO)EUROJOS – parallel to EUROJOS, an international research programme headed by Jerzy Bartmiński and based on standard language varieties and “national” traditions – would thus be concerned with the values common to Slavic folk cultures. It has been shown that Slavic nations are much closer to one another at the level of folk cultures than at the level of national, elite-shaped cultures. A survey among distinguished researchers in various Slavic traditions reveals that the values important for Slavs are: health and life, family and kinship, home, land, work and diligence, love, beauty, happiness, wisdom, frankness, integrity, faithfulness, justice, freedom, honour, faith (religion) and God. A description of these values could follow the methodological assumptions of the Lublin Dictionary of Folk Stereotypes and Symbols.

English Mnemonic Lexicon: Constituent Structure and Verbalization Potential

Author(s): Irina Tivyaeva,Olga Syomina / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

This paper presents a study of the system of lexical devices used by English speakers to verbalize theirpersonal memory experiences. The approach presented in the paper presupposes inclusion of nonnarrativestructures into the spectrum of language forms conveying mnemonic meanings and extends thelatter so as to encompass the meanings of encoding, storage, retrieval and loss. The research is based onthe hypothesis that lexical units expressing memory-related meanings in English constitute a specificallyorganized system. A variety of communicative contexts representing mnemonic situations are analyzed asto d evelop a t ypology o f m emory v erbalizers i n E nglish, estimate t heir f unctional p otential a nd role i nobjectifying personal memory experiences on the lexical level. The results confirm the original hypothesisand suggest that mnemonic lexicon as a linguistic reflection of the mnemonic faculty is an important andlargely understudied element of the language – memory system.

Език на разделението или език на омразата?

Author(s): Elena Tarasheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2020

The article analyses a specialized corpus of texts by a Bulgarian radio host to establish what language items qualify as hate speech. Definitions of hate speech are adapted from the political sphere and given a linguistic dimension within a framework of corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis. The concordances of key words in the corpus are searched for labelling, namecalling, denotation-shifting etc.

Новелата като алтернатива на риболова в "развлеченията" на Джироламо Парабоско (XVI в.)

Author(s): Petia Petkova-Staleva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2020

The article analyses a little-explored collection of short stories – novellas – by the sixteenth-century Italian novelist Girolamo Parabosco. The argument is developed that in Diporti several innovative features occur for the first time. While following the structure of Boccaccio’s frame novel, the text refrains from imposing a common theme and digresses into several alternative genres, such as discussions, poetry, comment.

Колко е голямо предизвикателството на английската ортография?

Author(s): Blagovesta Troeva_Chalakova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2020

The article tackles the issue of English orthography and the challenges it presents to people with various learning disabilities. A range of experiments is reported to elicit the responses of people with dyslexia to specific problems in the traditional system of English spellings. Approaches are put forwards to deal with such challenges both in the ordinary classroom and with people with disabilities. The author urges for more open-mindedness towards the challenge of English orthography.

El concepto de interlengua desde la perspectiva de la linguistica aplicada española

Author(s): Magdalena Karadjunkova / Language(s): Spanish Issue: 2/2020

The article outlines the concept INTERLANGUAGE as developed by Larry Selinker and Pit Corder last century. Defined as a complex system, the phenomenon of Interlanguage needs to be taken into consideration both by specialists in foreign language teaching who research the area of linguistics, and by teachers. Then contributions to the topic by Spanish speaking specialists are described with a view of the specifics of learning Spanish.

Constructing the Hybrid Identity of the ‘Stranger’:

Author(s): Villy Tsakona,Rania Karachaliou,Αrgiris Archakis,Angela Ralli / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

The aim of our study is to examine the multiple ways Greek immigrants position themselves in terms of cultural identity. Recent approaches to immigrants’ cultural identities tend to employ the concept of transnationalism to account for their hybridity and fluidity. Here, we intend to show that Georg Simmel’s ([1908] 1971) notion of the ‘stranger’ is also relevant to the analysis and interpretation of such transnational identities. In this context, and drawing on positioning theory (Davies and Harré 1990), we argue that our informants mainly construct hybrid ‘stranger’ identities as both Greeks and Canadians or as feeling Greek but not when in Greece. Our data consists of 15 semi-structured interviews exploring the immigrant experiences of Greeks who migrated to Canada from the mid-1940s until the late 1970s. The analysis focuses on (a) the discursive means the informants employ to construct the hybrid identity of the ‘stranger’, and (b) the specific purposes they fulfill. It appears that hybrid self-positionings are achieved via the use of (a) the disclaimer ‘I am/feel Greek but…’, (b) metaphors, (c) small stories, and (d) repair mechanisms. We also argue that, via constructing ‘stranger’ identities, the immigrants of our data claim Greekness, on the one hand, and legitimize themselves as Canadian citizens on the other, while also distancing themselves from the Greeks living in Greece and the respective negative stereotypes.

O bramie pupowej i pryskaczce, czyli o stylu dziecięcego mówienia do siebie

Author(s): Edyta Manasterska-Wiącek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2017

Dzieci przedszkolne i wczesnoszkolne poza komunikowaniem się z otoczeniem często „rozmawiają” same ze sobą – mówią do siebie i dla siebie. Podjęte w niniejszym artykule rozważania dotyczą analizy wypowiedzi dzieci na płaszczyźnie językowej. Na wskazanie cech charakterystycznych mówienia do siebie pozwoliły wypisy z kilku zarejestrowanych zabaw dzieci. Na podstawie przeprowadzonych badań autorka dowodzi, że można mówić o odrębnym stylu „mówienia do siebie”. Cel wewnętrznego komunikowania się jest tylko pozornie inny niż w tradycyjnej komunikacji – ma swojego nadawcę i odbiorcę. Jest on jednak na tyle specyficzny, że komunikacja między nadawcą a odbiorcą generują się w jednym umyśle. Korpus badawczy został przeanalizowany na poziomie leksykalnym, morfologicznym, składniowym oraz na poziomie tekstu. Pozwoliło to na uwypuklenie osobliwości mówienia do siebie dziecka, m.in. spontaniczność wypowiedzi naruszanie spójności wypowiedzi, liczne mikrotematy zabawy, niejasność komunikatu słyszanego „na zewnątrz”, kreatywność, teatralizacja. // Apart from communicating with the outside world, children at kindergarten and early primary school often “speak” to themselves and for themselves. The present article attempts to reflect upon children’s speech in its linguistic dimension, aiming at isolating the characteristic features of speaking to oneself based on a few recorded children’s plays. The results of the analysis demonstrate that there exists a separate style of “speaking to oneself”. The objective of internal communication is not much different from the traditional interaction – it does have its sender and receiver. However, it is peculiar since the interaction between these two persons is generated in a single mind. The research corpus has been analysed on the level of lexis, morphology, syntax and discourse. As a result, idiosyncratic features of a child’s speaking to oneself have been isolated, such as spontaneity of speech, violation of coherence of speech, numerous micro-topics of play, ambiguity of the message when heard “on the outside”, creativity and dramatization.

Dyskusja panelowa – Style komunikacyjne

Author(s): Piotr P. Chruszczewski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2017

The role of secondary incongruities in cartoon appreciation

Author(s): Beatriz Carbajal-Carrera,Olga Sánchez Castro / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

Failed humour in conversational exchanges has received increasing attention in humour research (see Bell 2015; Bell & Attardo 2010). However, tensions between what constitutes successful and failed humour have yet to be fully explored outside conversational humour. Drawing on Hay’s (2001) classification of humour stages and using a socio-cognitive approach to pragmatics to examine responses from Spanish L1 and L2 users to differing combinations of structural and content features in cartoons, the present study aims to explore what factors contribute to successful and failed responses to multimodal humour. Previous research has predominantly investigated the role of caricature as one of the prototypical features of cartoons affecting humour communication, suggesting that this feature plays an active role in the recognition of the humoristic genre (Padilla & Gironzetti 2012). Findings from the present study indicate that caricature operates not only in the recognition, but also in the understanding and appreciation stages. In particular, our results point to two other roles of caricature as a secondary incongruity and as a factor that can trigger appreciation through empathy and/or a sense of superiority. Importantly, this investigation indicates that the presence of secondary incongruities can compensate for a partial lack of understanding, highlighting the relevance that this type of incongruity has in humour appreciation.

Affect philosophy meets incongruity:

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.

Commentary piece

Author(s): Massih Zekavat / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

Because most theories of humour emphasize its intersubjective and/or semantic nature, they fail to fully appreciate and explain self-directed humour. Through a critical exploration of the implications of different theories of humour and satire, this paper argues that the spectrum of reflexive humour and satire can be categorized according to the figure of the satirist and the target of satire, both of whom can feature individual or collective social selves. Depending on the satirist and the scope of satire, the functions of reflexive humour may range from securing psychological homeostasis to dealing with more impersonal, social and philosophical concerns.

Laughing at robots:

Author(s): Tereza Walsbergerová / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2018

This article addresses the synthesis of humour and paranoia in portrayals of artificial intelligence (AI) in the popular American podcast Welcome to Night Vale (2012-). It argues that contrary to the Relief Theory, fusing humour and cyber-paranoia does not help release the tension (anxious energy) generated within the narrative. Rather, the synthesis of humour and paranoia maintains suspense by creating within the narratives moments of ambiguity with the potential to leave the reader or audience caught between fear and laughter after the story ends.

Book review

Author(s): João Paulo Capelotti / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018