"La Langue de Bois" et "Le Politiquement Correct" dans le Discours Public Roumain

Author(s): Sorina Serbanescu / Language(s): French / Issue: 16/2017

Le discours public roumain d’après la Révolution de '89 a gardé des anciennes habitudes langagières communistes dont "la langue de bois". D’autre côté, il a emprunté, comme une conséquence de la synchronisation trop rapide à la modernité, des clichés langagiers qui continuent les tendances agressives et autoritaires héritées du totalitarisme communiste. Notre analyse imbrique la sémantique du discours, la sémiotique, la pragmatique linguistique et la psycholinguistique, se concentrant sur des corpus tirés des discours publics des dernières dix années.

"ZAJEDNIČKIM" JEZIKOM DO TREĆE JUGOSLAVIJE

Author(s): Blaženko Strižic / Language(s): Bosnian / Issue: 89-90/2017

Jugoslavenska nacionalistica dr. Snježana Kordić sa svojim istomišljenicima te političkim i financijskim sponzorima i pokroviteljima nastavlja provoditi pseudoznanstveni lingvistički projekt „Jedan materinji jezik i jedna mater za sve“ u tzv. „regionu“ objavom sarajevske „Deklaracije o zajedničkom jeziku“. Toliko simplifikacije i vulgarizacije te do grotesknih razmjera glorifikacije jezične genetike te semantičke podudarnosti/različitosti leksika jezikâ kao glavnih, bitnih i presudnih pokazatelja i odrednica njihove međusobne identitetske podudarnosti/različitosti; nije čak ni u vremenu Novosadskog dogovora/diktata i lingvistike Aleksandra Belića/Rankovića zabilježeno na „zajedničkim“ nam područjima odnosno i Prvoj i Drugoj Jugoslaviji! Dr. S. Kordić i njezini istomišljenici te politički i financijski sponzori i javni promotori kao da nisu čuli ni čitali da je identitet jezika složen i višeznačan fenomen; te da ga tvore i književnost, kultura i znanost nastali na tom i u tom jeziku.

"Быдлим в Чехии", или, Специфика чешских заимствований на примере онлайн-коммуникации русскоязычных иммигрантов в Чешской Республике

Author(s): Anna, Vladimirovna Golubeva,Anastasija, Anatol´jevna Timofejeva / Language(s): Russian / Issue: 2/2014

The article speaks about borrowings from the Czech language through the prism of Internet communication (social networks, forums, blogs), presented by Russian-speaking expatriate community, which is one of the largest expatriate communities in the Czech Republic. This report contains the overview of processes that occur in the immigrant's use of borrowings, as well as the analysis of borrowings on lexical, morphological, and syntactical levels. Word-play is discussed here as well. Authors give characteristics of expatriate's language from 3 various points of view: in light of the language of Russian expatriate community on the whole, from the perspective of Russian expatriate community in the Czech Republic, and in terms of similarity to the processes which occur in the language of the metropoly.

(U)śmiech na języku: o walorach zastosowania żartu lingwistycznego w publicznej komunikacji interpersonalnej

Author(s): Jolanta Krzyzewska,Seweryn Krzyzewski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2014

Despite the fact, that polish society doesn’t seem to be so much jolly, we can find often in polish public space many examples of (sense of) humor. There any many rules of official interpersonal communication, which enables saving mutual wellbeing of both “actors” – sender and receiver of message. Many good features of linguistic joke make it an attractive tool for advertisements (also for political marketing) and create between them a specific (and socially desirable interaction – media school etc.

A da ipak popijemo čaj ? Reakcije na anglicizme u bosanskom, hrvatskom i srpskom jeziku od druge polovine 20. stoljeća

Author(s): Mia Slavik / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 5/2016

The way in which we understand and analyze language has been so changed that believing that one nation speaks one language is slowly becoming a myth. Changes in language perception and defining culture are stronger thanks to globalization process, and those changes are reflected in the best way in observing influence of English, one of the strongest lingua franca today, on the other languages. In former Yugoslavia are as that influence started after the Second World War. In that way the oryof languages in contact became reality in this area as well and stayed dominant in sociolinguistic analyses of the English language influence on Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian, mostly through the works by Rudolf Filipović. The most obvious indicator of what is going on when those languages come into contact are the anglicisms which can be shortly defined as words originating from English language and culture. Reaction of academics and wider public to anglicisms have been both positive and negative.The final aim, in this case, is to show those reactions and tackle the topic of language purism and facts that some academics decided that it was not important if “kahva”, “kava” or “kafa” were drunk as long as it was not “coffee”.

A discourse approach to conceptual metaphors: a corpus-based analysis of sports discourse in croatian

Author(s): Daniela Katunar,Ida Raffaelli / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

This paper deals with the analysis of sports discourse in Croatian through the theoretical framework offered by conceptual metaphor theory. Within this framework, certain metaphorical expressions found in sports discourse are analyzed as expressions of two conceptual metaphors: sport is war and sport is force. The analysis of these metaphorical expressions combines the methodology of cognitive linguistics with corpus linguistics, resulting in the proposal of a new method for discourse analysis in general. In our research, we introduce the notion of the specialized digitized corpus as a basis for further quantitative and qualitative research. On the basis of the specialized digitized corpus created for the purposes of this research, it is shown how the formation of sports discourse is dependent on three categories of metaphorical expressions relative to the degree of their conventionalization within sports discourse: (a) conventionalized, (b) semi-conventionalized, and (c) innovative metaphorical expressions. Each of these categories is analyzed according to their frequency and various aspects of meaning that it entails. Through the introduction of the semi-conventionalized metaphorical expression category, we aim to examine the gradable line between language creativity and conventionality as it is formed within the discourse of sports.

A hermeneutical reading of Penrose and Nelson and Winter - tracing origins of a misunderstanding?

Author(s): Oliver Krone / Language(s): English / Issue: 11/2012

This paper aims to understand based on a hermeneutical reading of Penrose (1959) and Nelson and Winter (1982) what knowledge is and where it is stored in the respective authors. Furthermore, the author wants to learn whether the subsumption of Knowledge Integration to Knowledge Management, as it can be often in the literature, has any foundation when coming from these authors. Reason for this overall analysis is the widely held view in the discipline of Knowledge Management that these authors are forefathers for it. Based on an interpretative, qualitative approach the author examines the way in which knowledge is held and created within organisations in the main work of this pair of author. The author comes to the conclusion that the discipline of Knowledge Management has seemingly overemphasized certain elements in the work of Penrose and Nelson and Winter, while neglecting the key aspect that for both author(s)the act of Knowledge Integration is much rather described in these works.

A keresztnévdivat változása Szlovákiában

Author(s): Ján Bauko / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 2/2017

Following­ the­ 1989­ change­ of­ regime,­ there­ were­ more­ factors­ that­ influenced­ the forename­ giving­ in­ Slovakia.­ After­ opening­ the­ state­ borders­ the­ rise­ of­ migration, both­ emigration­ and­ immigration­ has­ resulted­ in­ a­ dynamic­ change­ of­ given­ name stock­ that­ has­ mainly­ broadened­ by­ foreign­ language­ name­ elements.­ While before­ the­ change­ of­ regime,­ the­ loadedness­ of­ a­ name­ was­ bigger,­ strivings towards­ having­ more­ unique­ and­ rare­ names­ registered­ have­ been­ more­ powerful nowadays.­ Due­ to­ interethnic­ relationships­ the­ name­ stock­ is­ being­ enriched­ by given­ names­ of­ various­ foreign­ origins.­ There­ are­ also­ generational­ differences­ in name­ bearing:­ the­ younger­ generation­ uses­ many­ of­ those­ given­ names­ that­ are absent­ from­ the­ older­ generation’s­ name­ stock.­ The­ number­ of­ the­ registered given­ name­ variants­ is­ increasing;­ the­ foreign­ spelled­ names­ are­ also­ frequent. Movie­ and­ TV series­ characters­ often­ serve­ as­ inspiration­ for­ naming.­ More­ and more­ nicknames­ become­ registerable­ given­ names.­ Giving­ two­ forenames­ has become­ a­ new­ fashion­ in­ Slovakia­ in­ recent­ years.­ The­ members­ of­ minorities have­ a­ wider­ choice­ of­ names­ since­ they­ might­ choose­ from­ the­ minority­ as­ well as­ majority­ name­ stock.­ Among­ the­ members­ of­ the­ minorities,­ the­ name registration­ in­ mother­ tongue­ is­ increasing. Minority­ name­ planning­ is­ one­ of­ the­ fields­ of­ applied­ onomastics,­ the­ tasks­ of which­ include­ propagation­ of­ the­ mother­ tongue­ name­ usage.­ The­ minority­ name planning­ deals­ primarily­ with­ the­ official­ use­ of­ personal,­ geographical­ and institution­ names.­ Publishing­ a­ Hungarian–Slovak­ forename­ dictionary­ (under preparation­ by­ me)­ may­be­ one­ of­ the­ methods­ for­ the­ minority­ (mother­ tongue) name­ planning­ in­ Slovakia,­ which­ could­ serve­ as­ a­ guideline­ for­ mother­ tongue name­ planning,­ for­ registering­ the­ personal­ names­ of­ Hungarians­ living­ in Slovakia­ in­ their­ mother­ tongue.­ The­ study­ deals­ with­ the­ laws­ of­ the­ Slovak Republic­ concerning­ personal­ names,­ the­ name­ registers­ and­ name­ catalogues­ in Slovakia­ and­ Hungary­ used­ at­ registering,­ the­ importance­ of­ name­ planning­ as well­ as­ the­ features­ of­ the­ planned­ forename­ dictionary­ and­ the­ structures­ of­ its entries.

A miks sa torusse ei räägi? Miks-küsilausetega tehtavad suhtlustegevused argitelefonivestlustes

Author(s): Kirsi Laanesoo / Language(s): Estonian / Issue: 13/2017

This paper analyses interrogatives formed with the why pronoun in Estonian everyday telephone conversations. Why-interrogatives are regularly defined as questions asking for reasons for or accounts of actions. This paper, however, demonstrates that only a small fraction of why-interrogatives are actually used for questioning. The data come from the Corpus of Spoken Estonian of the University of Tartu. Altogether 41 why-interrogatives were analysed using the approach of interactional linguistics. The primary social actions conducted by why-interrogatives are the following: question, reproach, command, suggestion, complaint and challenge.The study reveals that why-interrogatives are multifunctional, used to carry out several social actions concurrently. The question form makes it possible for the recipients to interpret why-interrogatives as questions (by giving a neutral answer) or as some socially dispreferred actions, such as reproaches, challenges etc (by justifying themselves). Why-interrogatives demonstrate the speaker’s negative stance towards a preceding action.

A missing chain? On the sociolinguistics of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Author(s): Andrii Danylenko / Language(s): English / Issue: 41/2017

The article critically assesses the theory of communicative networks and its applicability in the study of multilingualism as found in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL). The author analyzes foundations for postulating the existence of a speech community in the GDL and adduces counterarguments against viewing this community as a linguistic alliance of the Balkan type. The article offers new sociolinguistic and areal-typological methods of the study of language contacts. The author substantiates a systematic approach toward the problem of the ethnic attribution of Ruthenian. Based on the literary, linguistic, and cultural parameters, the author offers to drop the term ‘Old (Middle) Belarusian’ or ‘Old (Middle) Ukrainian’ in reference to this language.

A New General Atlas of Hungarian Dialects is Forthcoming

Author(s): Jeno Kiss / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2010

The author presents the New General Atlas of Hungarian Dialects which is in progress. We get a short review about the necessity of a new general dialect atlas in Hungary. The main reason is the radical decrease of dialect words which was effected by the end of the traditional agricultural way of life. The other reason is that the data of the first general Hungarian Dialect Atlas was collected between 1949 and 1964. The author presents the aspects of the research and the content of the questionnaires; the character und the number of the lexical, morphological, syntactical, and sociolinguistic questions; and the sociolinguistic aspects of the informant selection. The collection was started in 2007 and will be finished in 2011.

A popkultúra-kutatás praxeológiája

Egy hibrid teória vázlata

Author(s): Péter H. Nagy / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 3/2018

This study is devoted to the possibilities of the pop culture research after the media theories of the 20th century. It proposes a praxeology working with a dynamic concept of pop culture, and puts emphasis on increasing complexity. The line of reasoning also notes the role of alternative canons, the distinction between pop culture and mass culture, and the consequences of posthermeneutical practices. Theoretical combinatorics does not give preference to any preliminary theory, it considers each as a research practice. It can also be conceived as an experiment opening the way for metacritical case studies.

A report on the symposium “Juri Lotman and sociosemiotics” (Elva, Estonia, 19–20 May 2017)

Author(s): Remo Gramigna / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2018

Th e fi rst symposium devoted to Juri Lotman’s legacy in the discipline of sociosemiotics was recently held in Elva, a small town situated on the banks of Lake Verevi in Tartu County, Estonia. Th e seminar, entitled “Juri Lotman and sociosemiotics” and organized by the Department of Semiotics of the University of Tartu, saw the participation of distinguished foreign guests as well as a substantial attendance of both local and international fellow semioticians, many of them doctoral students. An informal and friendly environment, coupled with exceptionally warm and sunny weather, created a convivial atmosphere where young and veteran semioticians could meet to discuss the relationship of Juri Lotman, founder of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, with sociosemiotics.

A Romanian Community in Ōsaka: A Case Study of Class Discrimination in Two Languages

Author(s): Adriana Tamasan,CARMEN SAPUNARU TAMAS / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2016

The idea for this research topic came to me after listening to a Romanian acquaintance speak first in Romanian, then in Japanese. Coming from a poor gypsy community from the south of Romania, A. had barely finished high school and her speech contained clear markers of her social background. Her Japanese, however, learned from her Buddhist priest husband and her mother-in-law, sounded cultured and elegant. Focused on field work conducted at a bar in Osaka, owned by a former Romanian hostess and tended by a Romanian man, as well as on numerous interviews, our paper will analyze the language choices made by other Romanian hostesses who tend to gather there when their regular hours are over. The concept of social class is less defined in Japan compared to other societies, but the lines and borders exist and it is our purpose to try to define them.

A SELYEMÚT NYELVEI

Author(s): János Harmatta / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 1/2003

The Seleucid rulers and the Graeco-Bactrian kings already realized the great possibilities of the commercial relations between China and Central Asia on the one hand, and between Central Asia and Europe on the other hand. Later, the Chinese Han Empire extended its supremacy over the Tarim Basin and opened the “Silk Routes”, both the northern and the southern ones, foe the caravan trade. The necessity of language communication in long-distance trade favoured the use and spread of some languages both along the continental “Silk Routes” and the maritime one. Thus became at first the Sogdian and the Gāndhār Prakrit, later the Khwarezmian, the Persian and the Syrian and after the Mongolian conquest the Cumanian, the Uyghur the Armenian and the Russian languages of the “Silk Route”.

A SEMANTIC-COGNITIVE ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPT OF UKRAINE IN THE SPEECHES OF B. OBAMA (2014)

Author(s): Anatoliy Khudoliy / Language(s): English / Issue: 16/2016

This article presents a semantic-cognitive analysis of the concept of Ukraine, verbally represented in the speeches of the American President, Barak Obama. The peculiarities of the President’s worldview are highlighted. The objective of the article is as follows. Firstly, it aims to demonstrate that the concept of Ukraine is verbally represented in the speeches of Obama. This means that Ukraine as a country, moving towards democracy despite the war with Russia, is an object of focus for American leaders. Secondly, the article suggests that there is a connection between the concept described, its pragmatic orientation and its cognitive processes. Thirdly, it describes the semantic peculiarities of the concept of Ukraine in the political speeches of the American leader, which are due to the role Ukraine plays in the local and regional context. Our research is based on the content-analysis of political speeches delivered by American President. The functional, communicative and pragmatic orientation of the speeches is highlighted. In line with the approaches of cognitive scholars, the article concludes that the concept of Ukraine is a complex semantic-cognitive structure that consists of core, transition zone and periphery. During the research for this article, fifteen speeches made by Obama in 2014 were analysed. This research presupposes the application of content analysis. It is relevant in the analysis of international relations with respect to the notions used by President Obama in his speeches delivered during 2014 in the relations between: the USA – Ukraine, Ukraine – Russia, the USA – Russia, and Europe – Ukraine.

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 Structural Analysis of Newspaper Articles

Author(s): Madalina Cerban / Language(s): English / Issue: 1-2/2015

This article analyses the structure of newspaper articles as text organization, taking into account the three elements of structure which represent the minimal unit of interaction in written texts. The term ‘exchange’ is used as referring to its structure that is made up of three parts: initiation, response and follow-up. The second part of the article focuses on text analysis, explaining that the triad consists of three turns or elements, namely, Lead, Follow, and Valuate, serving distinctive functions of initiation, follow-up, and evaluation. The last part of the article refers to triad combinations that form the text itself.

A Study of Assyrians’ Language Use in Istanbul

Author(s): Arda Arikan,Ozan Varli,Eyüp Yasar Kürüm / Language(s): English / Issue: 10/2017

Being one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East, Assyrians have continued to live in various parts of Turkey for thousands of years. Today, the estimates related to the number of Assyrians living in Turkey vary between 4,000–25,000 while they cannot benefit from the rights put forward by the Lausanne Treaty among which schooling is the most important. Assyrian community can be said to be deteriorating in number. This decline in the number of Assyrians living in Turkey raises the question of whether they could maintain their ethnic identity while maintaining their language (Syriac). No studies so far have been carried out to find out the linguistic practices of Assyrian community living in Turkey, as well as their attitudes toward the languages they use. This study aims at shedding light on the present situation of Syriac used among the Assyrian community living in Turkey. The participants are limited to those living in Istanbul due to practical reasons. In this study, language attitudes and language use practices of Assyrian community living in Istanbul are found out through a language attitudes questionnaire. It is hoped that the results of the study will provide the current situation of the Syriac language in terms of its ethnolinguistic vitality as spoken among the community. It is also hoped that the results of the study will provide useful data for those who would like to help protect the ethnolinguistic identities of Assyrian minority in Turkey, as well as all those dispersed around the world, which seems to have become increasingly important for such a country at the gates of the European Union as Turkey.

A Study of Gender-Conditioned Use of Inflectional and Periphrastic Forms in English Adjective Comparison

Author(s): Jelena Grofulovic,Vladimir Ž. Jovanovic / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

First introduced to the study of language by Robin Lakoff in her 1975 book Language and Woman's Place, gender has gained a status of a significant variable when it comes to language realization (Frank, 1978). As such, gender is an object of many sociolinguistic studies (Jespersen, 1922; Kramer, 1974; Edelsky, 1976; Thorne et al, 1983; Crawford, 1995) and is assumed not only to play a role in the pragmatics of language usage, but also to influence the frequency and nature of different lexical and structural realizations, resulting in what Kramer termed “a genderlect” (Kramer, 1974). The aim of this paper is to present the results of a case-study of periphrastic and inflectional instances of the grammatical category of comparison in English, attempting at answering the question whether gender causes a preference for periphrasis in language usage, which, in the broadest sense, presents a multi-unit alternative to a single-unit meaning, be the meaning lexical or grammatical, and the unit a word or a bound morpheme. We analyzed a sex-wise and quantity-wise symmetrical corpus, comprised of different registers and genres – fiction, scientific non-fiction, and on-line magazine articles, encompassing a million words approximately per sex, and looked for the frequency of periphrastic instances of the two categories. Our assumption is that gender on its own, with all other social and textual variables excluded (discourse, register, author’s age and social groups, personal language background) is not a sufficient factor to unambiguously and conspicuously determine an author’s/speaker’s preference for the periphrastic form of the studied grammatical values.