Tense Choice Research Articles

TOP REPORTING VERBS IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH ARTICLES: EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL FACTORS AFFECTING THE TENSE USE

This study employs a sociolinguistic framework to conduct an in-depth analysis of how reporting verbs are impacted in research articles on electrical engineering. 160 Electrical research papers containing 4,206 tokens were examined using the R software. The past and present tenses of the top three verbs propose, show, and describe were chosen as the binomial values for the dependent variable tenses. The findings indicate that publication periods (external factor) and verb choice, verb types, and verb voices (internal factors) influence the choice of tense. Additionally, the interaction of the correlations between the factors and the dependent variable is taken into account.

Material Use in Collaborative Dialogue by Japanese University Students Learning Future Tenses in French as a Foreign Language: A Discourse and Interaction Analysis

This article reports on the use of an experimental material to enable discrimination between the periphrastic future (PF) and simple future (SF) intended for initial level university students in Japan studying French as a Foreign Language. A dyad was filmed using the material in a task on tense choice in short dialogues modelled on Galperin’s procedure. A discourse and interaction analysis were then performed on excerpts of the videoed session where the participants interacted with the material. It was found that the material enabled the dyad to complete the task. Moreover, if the pragmatic effect of the SF was not fully grasped, the analysis nonetheless showed that the participants transformed the linguistic knowledge from the material into metalinguistic resources of their own, and that internalization of the targeted concepts occurred to some extent.

Translating linguistic time

If Sartre is right and the tense of a text holds the key to its special strangeness (1947), how does this strangeness fare in translation? What can we learn from looking at the translation of grammatical tense and aspect in narrative texts in different languages? It is often simply assumed that translating grammatical cate gories of time in languages - because it has to do with what is considered the hard core of language, i.e. the grammar as opposed to the lexicon of the language - mainly involves mere linguistic constraints. Jakobson ’s famous motto (1987: 433) - “languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they can convey”- would therefore suffice to tell the whole story about the way in which linguistic time is translated. This paper argues, however, that this is not the whole story: it argues that the choice of tense in translation is more than just a grammatical agenda, and may actually reflect a number of different commitments. Section 2 examines some intriguing tense changes in the translation of children ’s literature: it discusses the motivations behind these changes and shows that by changing the ‘how’ of the original story through the tense choice the entire subjective perspective of the text is altered. Section 3 identifies a few patterns in the translation of past distinctions in Modern Hebrew. It suggests that in contrast to the more diversified means of translating aspectual meanings in previous decades, a major trend in the last decade or so has been to reduce all past sphere distinctions essentially to one single form, i.e. the simple past tense. Finally section 4 deals with the classical problem regarding the Biblical Hebrew tenses and their translation; it shows that the translation of the biblical verbs may be strongly determined by the different linguistic ideas (and even systematic theories) the translators adopt regarding the Biblical Hebrew tenses. In all these cases then, we observe that the translation of temporal meanings involves not only a commitment to specific temporal interpretations but also a commitment to more subtle conceptions of subjectivity in translation, of literary conventions and linguistic ideas.

Towards a typology of linguistic and stylistic errors in scientific abstracts written by low-proficiency geoscience and mechanical engineering doctoral students in France

To date, few studies have attempted to formulate typologies of errors by non-native speakers in English scientific writing. In this study of 123 doctoral dissertation abstracts written by doctoral students in France, we present a tentative typology of frequent errors that covers issues with general grammar, expert grammar and style. In order to specifically ascertain the errors made by students who experience very significant difficulties, the 123 items of our corpus were chosen after an initial review of 1018 abstracts because they demonstrated low linguistic and stylistic proficiency. The typology of errors was sought in support of an error identification exercise in the Scientific Writing Assessment Program (SWAP), an English language certification recently developed at ENS Paris-Saclay. Although some disciplinary variation was seen in the distribution of errors, a convergence towards six major error types (determiners, syntax, tense choice, compound phrases, collocations and lack of clarity) was observed (62.96% of all errors in geoscience, and 83.89% in mechanical engineering), suggesting that efforts to mitigate errors should primarily focus on these key issues. Another key finding was that, in contrast with previous studies, traditional grammar issues did not represent the bulk of overall errors (52.78% in geoscience and only 37.32% in mechanical engineering), while the overall frequency of stylistic errors was high in both corpora (30.25% in geoscience, 46.05% in mechanical engineering), showing the importance of errors in relation with genre-specific style. We propose a metric of error frequency, the Comprehensive Error Ratio or CER, to assess the overall quality of abstracts written by non-native speakers of English. In conclusion, we suggest that any typology of errors in ESP/EAP contexts results from a trade-off between seeking descriptive specificity and achieving the specific purposes for which a typology is developed.

The Use of Mobile Learning Application in Interview RolePlay: A Preliminary Study

This paper gives an overview of a preliminary study which aims to shed light on one of the most popular communicative activities in English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom, i.e interview role-play conducted with a video response application-Flipgrid, a platform which allows easy video submissions and responses from the students. An intact class of thirteen (13) Diploma in Mechanical Engineering students taking Communicative English 3 in one of the polytechnic institutions in Malaysia has participated in this study. Participants’ spoken data and perceived usefulness and enjoyment of using the mobile learning application were explored. Interview role-play based on the use of the mobile learning application was carried out to prepare students for Mock Job Interview assessment. Findings revealed that incorrect choice of tense, omission of plural forms and omission of verb forms are the three main language problems faced by the learners. Apart from learners’ positive perceptions towards the use of the mobile learning application in their interview role-play, the overall findings also showlearners’ favourable responses correspond to their perceived enjoyment of using the application. The findings thus highlight the potential use of mobile learning application, specifically the use of video recording in interview role-play.

Terorisme dan Simalakama Media Massa

This article discusses the symbiotic relationship of mutualism between mass media andterrorism. Whether we realize it or not, acts of terrorism in the homeland are still interestingand economically valuable news material in front of the mass media. On the other hand, onthe part of terrorists, the news about terrorist acts actually becomes a strategic campaignarea to show their existence. The research uses a qualitative approach to narrative analysismethod. The results of the study are www.okezone.com and www.tribunnews.com placingthe terror terror events in Medan Mapolrestabes as interesting and economically valuablenews material. The style of the news flow is arranged with a choice of tense, dramatic andsensational nuances of words. In addition, the display of photo and video illustrationsshortly after the explosion also aims to display as if the news of the explosion event is true,not engineering, objective and valid. The combination technique of choice of words, storyline, placement techniques and the size of photos and videos all aim to make the emotions ofthe reader participate dissolved in a tense situation as the situation at the scene of theexplosion. The practice of compiling this kind of news flow is called, as Jean Baudrillard'spractice of simulation. The practice of simulation through the practice of compiling newslines and the touch of visual image technology will eventually create conditions ofhyperreality. Namely the conditions between reality will be mixed with the pseudo so it isdifficult to distinguish which is original and fake. Next, the airing of a list of victims ofunknown origin will actually give birth, as Pierre Bourdie calls it symbolic violence. That is,the practice of violent symbols aimed no longer at the physical target but rather consciousthoughts. Symbolic violence in the appearance of the victim list really has the potential tocreate traumatic feelings towards the families of the victims.

Temporal ‘Since’ in Slovak: Conjunction(s) and Aspect Choice – A Corpus Study

Abstract It has recently been shown by especially [1] through [4] and [12] for Russian and by [8] and [9] for Polish that conjunctions corresponding to Dutch sinds (cf. also [1], [2], [3]) and English since (cf. also [7], [10]) have temporal functions, which are subject to restrictions on the choice of tense and aspect. Ultimately these restrictions can be related to the semantic input of tense and aspect into complex sentences with these connective items. For Polish extensive data provided by corpus research enabled us to shed light on the usage and restrictions in this area and also to establish which constellations with particular conjunctions are more or less likely or not possible (cf. [8], [9]). In the present contribution we present freshly sourced quantitative Slovak SNK-corpus data. We consider the sixteen logically possible tense-aspect constellations, and the Slovak connective items: odkedy; odvtedy, čo / ako; od chvíle, keď / čo / ako; od tých čias, čo / ako; od tej doby, čo / ako. This quantitative data study is intended to pinpoint the areas of future research; for this purpose at certain instances comparisons are made with Polish, the only other language we have such data for to date.

Using the Concept of Aspect to Mediate the Choice of Past Tense in L2 French: Case Study of an Advanced Student at the Tertiary Level

Les auteurs approfondissent les recherches réalisées à ce jour sur la pédagogie basée sur les concepts en étudiant l’usage du concept grammatical d’aspect comme instrument médiateur de la prise de décisions dans le cadre de tâches. Ils rapportent plus précisément les résultats d’une étude de cas longitudinale dans laquelle ils se penchent sur les explications d’un étudiant quant à son choix du temps passé français (passé composé ou imparfait). Parmi les données qu’ils recueillent au moyen d’enregistrements audio figurent les échanges chercheur-étudiant sur les réponses écrites de l’étudiant aux tâches qui lui ont été assignées et dont il s’est acquitté avant et après une heure de cours sur le concept d’aspect. Les résultats de l’exercice révèlent une évolution dans les explications de l’étudiant. Avant le cours, l’étudiant utilise des règles empiriques formelles, mais la terminologie conceptuelle apparaît dans ses explications immédiatement après le cours. Quatre semaines après le cours, l’étudiant justifie ses choix en mettant l’accent avant tout sur le sens qu’il souhaite communiquer. Plus important encore, il s’appuie sur une méthode qu’il a lui-même élaborée, à partir d’un raisonnement logique, pour expliquer ses décisions quant aux formes du verbe. Les auteurs traitent des répercussions pédagogiques de ces observations et font valoir que les cours de rédaction de niveau supérieur pourraient être ceux qui se prêtent le mieux à l’application de la pédagogie basée sur les concepts.

Error Analysis of Written Academic Essays of Fijian Undergraduate Students: A Case Study

<em>The purpose of the present study was to examine errors of written academic essays of Fijian undergraduate pre-service and in-service students at the Fiji National University Lautoka campus. Previous studies have focused only on pre-service undergraduate students but this paper takes into account in-service students as well which is a new dimension and knowledge to existing literature. The study mainly focused on eighteen errors as classified and adapted from Darus and Ching (2009) with the top six errors discussed in this paper. Twenty writing samples were analysed with the top errors for pre-service students being mechanics, subject verb agreement, redundancy, prepositions, tense and vocabulary choice while in-service students had errors in mechanics, redundancy, tense, articles, incomplete structures, word form and clarity. The authors found that carelessness and failure to recognize important words in the sentences as the main reasons for the errors. The paper recommends that remedial lessons on usage of articles, word formation, and prepositions are required in the course curriculum to improve upon the areas mentioned.</em>

Cotextual Cues for the Annotation of Perspective in Livy’s Ab Urbe condita

The current paper examines the statistical correlation between a number of cotextual cues and the latent variable of perspective in a corpus of episodes taken from Livy's narrative. The possible perspectives (external, internal, scenic camera-eye, immersive eyewitness and distanced eyewitness; cf. focalization in narratological studies) featured in Latin historiographical narratives are introduced and hypothesized to co-occur with a number of lexical (e.g. evaluative, descriptive), deictic (e.g. proximal, distal) and grammatical (e.g. voice) elements in the cotext of events and situations occurring in the main narrative tenses (especially the perfect, imperfect, and present indicative). During the analysis, statistical tests are used to ascertain the combined impact of these cues on (a) Livy's choice of verb tense and (b) the linguist's annotation of perspective. While the former is objectively observable, the latter relies on the functional linguist's interpretation as a non-native speaker. Therefore, an additional test is used to show the correlations between the different narrative tenses and the perspectives to corroborate the results. This paper's findings pave the way for a more systematic and objective annotation method for the latent variable of perspective in Latin narratives. Its argumentation is built on the statistical tests performed on the data gathered in close readings on a larger scale. From those close readings, some examples are provided in the current paper to illustrate specific or challenging concepts

As escolhas temporais e a criação de sentidos em Água Viva, de Clarice Lispector e em duas de suas traduções para o inglês

Este artigo insere-se numa observada lacuna, dentro da literatura acadêmica, ao pretender relacionar a tradução e a estilística, pelo viés das escolhas temporais feitas por Clarice Lispector, em Água Viva, e por dois de seus tradutores para a língua inglesa, resultando em grande diversidade de sentidos. Para tanto, Celce-Murcia e Larsen-Freeman (1999), Yule (1998), Bechara (2004) e Castilho e Elias (2012) serão utilizados para a compreensão dos tempos e aspectos verbais nas línguas inglesa e portuguesa, numa abordagem discursiva. No âmbito do discurso literário, Benveniste (1989, 1995), Maingueneau (2001) e Fiorin (2005) fundamentarão as relações entre a temporalidade verbal e a formação de sentidos. Finalmente, Lambert e Van Gorp (1985) e Aubert (1998) fornecerão referências para os processos de seleção e interpretação dos dados. Espera-se, dessa forma, demonstrar intersecções possíveis entre os estudos estilísticos, partindo-se dos aspectos e tempos verbais, e os estudos na área da tradução.

A prominence-based account of temporal discourse structure

In this article, we develop an account of temporal discourse structure that is composed of three different levels and based on the notion of prominence. The levels of temporal structuring in discourse are as follows:(i)the level of the linear and hierarchical temporal structure, which is constituted by time points and time spans as well as their interrelations,(ii)the level of perspective and perspective taking, and(iii)the level of foregrounding and backgrounding and text segmentation into story lines.Although these levels have already been identified by the research literature, they have neither been explicated in a systematic way while taking prominence into consideration nor brought together in a complete descriptive account. The unifying ingredient of our account is the principle of prominence, according to which the elements of a set of equals compete as to their prominence status, with one of them standing out with respect to the others at a certain point of the unfolding discourse. We show the crucial role of prominence in the structuring of discourse on each of the three levels.Our prominence-based account highlights the hierarchical structuring of discourse. This allows us to consider all important features of temporal discourse structure in one integrated account: tense choice, aspect, adverbial expressions and connectors, discourse relations and episode structure.

A VARBRUL Analysis on The Reporting Verb Propose in Electrical Engineering Research Articles

Choosing an appropriate reporting verb is not only a technique to report a claim but also a tool to imply the writer’s stance or attitude towards the claim. The manner in which the reporting verb is employed can reflect the writer’s underlying implication. By using a variationist framework, this study is an in-depth investigation on how reporting verbs are affected in Electrical engineering research articles, taking propose as a variation. With the assistance of VARBRUL program, 397 tokens from 160 Electrical research articles were analyzed. Past tenses of propose was selected as an application value. The results show that time periods that the articles are published and verb voices are two factors independent from the application value. Meanwhile, tense choice of the verb has a significant correlation with journal editions and verb types. In different journals, frequency of propose used in past tenses can vary, and a significant proportion of self-reporting propose is used in past tense. Regardless the limitation of sample size and verb types, the study is potential in analyzing reporting verb from the sociolinguistic approach in future.

Analysis of syntactic errors made by intermediate English learners and the impact of their treatment on the learning progress

This study is an extension of previous researches on fundamental syntactic errors which intermediate English learners make in their English writing. It aims at investigating sources of syntactic errors and how they affect the language learning progress. 82 secondary school students were subjected to two free written 350-word essay tests to back up possible sentence structure errors they make. The questionnaire was also administered to elicit opinions as to what are the error causes and reactions to error treatment strategy. 3647 syntactic errors were pinpointed and classified under four categories: selection, omission, addition and ordering errors. The findings reveals that selection errors outrank the forefront occurring frequently more than other errors (51.93%). Omission errors positionon on the second (26.92%). The next error category visible in learners’ English writing is addition errors cover 13.40% out of 3647 errors computed. The last category is misodrering errors (7.73%). The most predominant errors in all language areas are wrong verb form, wrong choice of verb tense, tense marker omission or unnecessary tense marker addition as well as subject-verb agreement errors. It appears that tenses and verbs are the major problematic areas. Yet not all syntactic errors are the same for all English learners. The major sources of the above errors include rules over-generalizations, language transfer, poor motivation and practices, inherent natural complexity of the language, problem of language input and most importantly error treatment among others. The implications for language teachers are obvious. There is need for a change, for instance, in the techniques with which learners should be exposed to language input, predictable order of materials in Language teaching and new approaches to error treatment

Rhetorical Functions of Reporting Verbs in Author Prominent Citations of Graduate Students’ Research Papers

This study investigates the rhetorical functions of reporting verbs employed in the author prominent citations of research papers written by graduate students. Specifically, this study aims to 1) describe the use of reporting verbs functioning as research acts, cognition acts and discourse acts in the graduate students’ research papers, and 2) evaluate the appropriateness of those uses of reporting verbs in each research paper. Thus, the examples of the use, misuse, and overuse of the reporting verbs committed by the students were presented in this study. Following this, Hyland’s (2002) insightful framework is used as preliminary identification of the functional activities of research verbs, cognitive verbs, and discourse verbs. Documents analysis with checklist worksheet was used to obtain the data. The data comprised eighteen research papers completed as the final project of linguistic subject. The findings show that the students tend to use reporting verbs in discourse act category instead of research act and cognitive act categories. More specifically, the findings reveal that 1) for research act category, the most used verbs were ‘find’, ‘show’ and ‘identify’, 2) only the verb ‘believe’ was found in cognition act category, 3) the verb ‘state’ which belongs to the functional categories of discourse verb has the highest occurrence in all of the data. It means that the students tend to overuse and misuse the verb ‘state’ to present any kinds of cited sentences without fully understanding its functional meaning within the context. And 4) for the appropriateness of reporting verbs, the students’ problems were found on the misuses verb choice, tense choice, and syntactic pattern of the reported sentences. This indicates the students are likely to be unaware of the functional use of reporting verbs in cited sentences. To achieve successful communicative purpose in citing others’ work, students should be encouraged in advancing their knowledge to familiarize the meanings of reporting verbs within the context in academic writings.

Rhetorical Functions of Reporting Verbs in Author Prominent Citations of Graduate Students’ Research Papers

This study investigates the rhetorical functions of reporting verbs employed in the author prominent citations of research papers written by graduate students. Specifically, this study aims to 1) describe the use of reporting verbs functioning as research acts, cognition acts and discourse acts in the graduate students’ research papers, and 2) evaluate the appropriateness of those uses of reporting verbs in each research paper. Thus, the examples of the use, misuse, and overuse of the reporting verbs committed by the students were presented in this study. Following this, Hyland’s (2002) insightful framework is used as preliminary identification of the functional activities of research verbs, cognitive verbs, and discourse verbs. Documents analysis with checklist worksheet was used to obtain the data. The data comprised eighteen research papers completed as the final project of linguistic subject. The findings show that the students tend to use reporting verbs in discourse act category instead of research act and cognitive act categories. More specifically, the findings reveal that 1) for research act category, the most used verbs were ‘find’, ‘show’ and ‘identify’, 2) only the verb ‘believe’ was found in cognition act category, 3) the verb ‘state’ which belongs to the functional categories of discourse verb has the highest occurrence in all of the data. It means that the students tend to overuse and misuse the verb ‘state’ to present any kinds of cited sentences without fully understanding its functional meaning within the context. And 4) for the appropriateness of reporting verbs, the students’ problems were found on the misuses verb choice, tense choice, and syntactic pattern of the reported sentences. This indicates the students are likely to be unaware of the functional use of reporting verbs in cited sentences. To achieve successful communicative purpose in citing others’ work, students should be encouraged in advancing their knowledge to familiarize the meanings of reporting verbs within the context in academic writings.

AN ANALYSIS OF ACEHNESE EFL STUDENTS’ GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING RECOUNT TEXTS

This study aims at finding empirical evidence of the most common types of grammatical errors and sources of errors in recount texts written by the first-year students of SMAS Babul Maghfirah, Aceh Besar. The subject of the study was a collection of students’ personal writing documents of recount texts about their lives experience. The students’ recount texts were analyzed by referring to Betty S. Azar classification and Richard’s theory on sources of errors. The findings showed that the total number of error is 436. Two frequent types of grammatical errors were Verb Tense and Word Choice. The major sources of error were Intralingual Error, Interference Error and Developmental Error respectively. Furthermore, the findings suggest that it is necessary for EFL teachers to apply appropriate techniques and strategies in teaching recount texts, which focus on past tense and language features of the text in order to reduce the possible errors to be made by the students.

Proposals in meeting minutes

This paper provides an analysis of the lexico-grammatical features used in English and Spanish in the rhetorical part pertaining to the proposal step of a particular genre, meeting minutes. The results have been used in the construction of a computerized writing aid designed to assist Spanish writers when writing minutes in English. Corpus-based contrast reveals that minutes share a common rhetorical structure but show differences in the lexico-grammatical choices associated with the various rhetorical parts. Proposals are conveyed both in English and Spanish by means of lexical verbs, deverbal constructions and certain clause types. Cross-linguistic differences are in the choice of tense, mood and voice. The analysis also suggests different degrees of conventionalization of these resources in the two languages. Results form part of a linguistic prototype that includes three main components: rhetorical information in Spanish, grammatical strings in English and bilingual genre/move restricted glossaries.

The Choice of Tense in Translation into the Second Language

<p><em>English tense is widely believed as one of the most problematic areas in the “interlanguage”, which includes non-native English speakers’ English writing and translations into the translator’s second language. This study aims to investigate the relationships between the tense choice in translation, the tense in the Chinese source text, and the translation competence of translators. A small Chinese-English parallel corpus has been built with 127 translations of Chinese press editorials by experienced native English speaking translators, experienced native Chinese speaking translators, and novice native Chinese speaking translators. Cross-tabulate analyses of this study have shown that the three groups of translators differ from one another significantly in their handling of marked Chinese past tense verbs, while they do not when translating Chinese sentences with contextually marked tense. This study suggests that in order to improve their translation </em><em>quality</em><em>, (1) experienced native Chinese speaking translators need to increase the</em><em> percentages</em><em> of Present Simple, Present Progress, Present Perfect, and Past Simple, and reduce the</em><em> percentag</em><em>e</em><em>s</em><em> of Past Perfect</em><em> in their translation</em><em>; (2) novice native Chinese speaking translators need to increase the</em><em> percentages</em><em> of Present Simple, and Present Progress, and reduce the </em><em>percentages</em><em> of Past Perfect, Past Simple, and Present Perfect</em><em> in their translation.</em><em> </em></p>

Transfigurauit in se: sacramentalidad de la doctrina agustiniana del totus Christus

This article argues that Augustine’s choice of verb tense for the phrase transfigurauit in se offers a sacramental dimension to his doctrine of the totus Christus, the whole Christ with Christ as Head and the Church as Body. While the apostle Paul chooses the future tense, transfigurauit (Phil. 3: 21), to locate the transformation of the Church in eternity, Augustine shifts the verb tense to the perfect, thus stretching the eschatological transformation back into the historical event of the Incarnation. Augustine’s writings emphasize, however, that the transformation culminates in eternity, thus giving rise to the question of why he chooses the perfect tense. This article asserts that the grammatical shift is a theological move that reveals the sacramental dimension of the totus Christus. It considers Augustine’s use of the word transitus to describe Christ’s passage through life on earth in the Incarnation. As the Body of Christ, the Church extends Christ’s passage through earthly life, thus the transitus that was completed with the resurrection and ascension of Christ actually continues to take place in the present. And neither the transitus nor the transformation it brings will be completed until the Church foliows Christ in his ascension into heaven. Thus, the union of the totus Christus is a sacramental reality that transcends time, bringing eternal realities into the present because of past actions. The article concludes that Augustine intentionally manipulares the verb tense in order to express the sacramental dimension of the unión of Christ and the Church as each generation of Christians is transformed anew by Christ in his transitus.