Cognitive Verbs Research Articles

ФУНКЦІЙНИЙ ПОТЕНЦІАЛ АНГЛІЙСЬКИХ КОГНІТИВНИХ ДІЄСЛІВ У НАРАТИВІ (НА МАТЕРІАЛІ ТВОРІВ М. ЕТВУД)

The paper identifi es and systematically substantiates the peculiarities of the functioning of English cognitive verbs in the literary discourse. The material of the study is the cognitive verbs in the novels of the famous contemporary Canadian postmodernist writer Margaret Atwood. The research is theoretically framed by the works on lexical and functional semantics of (cognitive) verbs (K. Aijmer, D. Biber, M. A. K. Halliday, A. Fetzer, I Dilai, etc.), as well as by the works on narratology (I. Bekhta, G. Freytag, etc.). The study’s methodological framework is a comprehensive application of the corpus analysis of empirical textual data using the psychometric software LIWC, discourse analysis, and M. A. K. Halliday’s metafunctional analysis. Based on the classifi cation of linguistic metafunctions proposed by M. A. K. Halliday, the cognitive verbs in the narrative mainly perform the ideational metafunction, which lies in construing human experience. The ideational linguistic metafunction of the cognitive verbs realized in the works refl ects the internalized structures of the narrator’s and characters’ consciousness and appeals to the reader’s active mental cooperation. Thus, English cognitive verbs in the narrative act as explicit markers of the internalization of speech. They are represented by the corresponding mental processes which alternate in the narrative as a linear sequence of processes with diff erent intensity. It has been revealed that the distribution of the cognitive verbs in the novels is mostly uneven, although refl ects a certain pattern associated with the canonical principles of the structural organization of the narrative. According to the narrative arc (Boyd et al., 2020), the cognitive verbs become most frequent in the middle and closer to the end of the narrative as explicit markers of cognitive tension – the third (main) stage of narrative progression. Cognitive tension refl ects the peak of psychological tension due to the need to resolve the confl ict and constitutes the climax of the narrative. At this stage, characters are actively engaged in confl ict resolution making numerous mental efforts. In addition to the ideational metafunction, some cognitive verbs, in particular those which serve as discourse markers, such as I think, I believe, perform the interpersonal metafunction. As a rule, they are found in the direct speech (dialogues) and aim to construct a common mental experience, cooperation with the interlocutor (and the reader) based on intersubjectivity. LIWC helped to inventory, quantify, and follow the distribution of the cognitive verbs in seven novels by M. Atwood. Deviations in the frequencies and distribution are perceived as indicators of the author’s idiostyle and genre peculiarities. Thus, the realization of the functional potential of the cognitive verbs and the peculiarities of their distribution in the narrative canvas have been identifi ed and substantiated. Key words: cognitive verbs, narrative, function, metafunction, M. Atwood.

‘What we found is’

Abstract This paper examines two variants of the pseudo-cleft construction which display a WHAT-NP-VP-be pattern with the VP realised with cognitive verbs and the proform do in the context of spoken British English dyadic and multi-party BBC podcasts. It is based on the premise that the construction’s referencing potentials are both cataphoric and projective, and that depending on its contexts, one of the two referencing functions is foregrounded while the other is backgrounded. The analysis focuses on those linguistic features and contextual configurations which either contribute to its cataphoric referencing function, or which go beyond the local cataphoric referencing function and indicate its projective, discourse-organising function. The research is corpus-based and uses quantitative and qualitative methodologies, filtering out the linguistic features and contextual configurations which contribute to assigning the two variants the status of a projective construction with a discourse-organising function. The features under investigation are (1) the semantics of the constitutive NPs and VPs marking for tense, aspect and modality and their uptake in the discourse, (2) degrees of continuity and discontinuity in the cohesive chains triggered by the constitutive parts of the construction. The paper shows that when semantic continuity between the what-clause and what follows is discontinued and thus deferred, the construction’s projective function is foregrounded.

The Semantic and Contextual Meanings of the Cognitive Words “yʕqilu:n, yatafakaru:n, yatadabaru:n, yafqahu:n” in Holy Qur’an

The current study endeavors to identify the semantic and contextual meanings of four cognitive words: “yʕqilu:n, yatafakaru:n, yatadabaru:n, yafqahu:n” in Holy Qur'an. The motive for this study comes from the vague semantic relations expressed by Muslim exegetes and interpreters of these words. Additionally, translating them into other languages such as English is considered challenging due to the cognitive resemblance, nature, and senses they express. Thus, the study aims to unravel the slight cognitive distinctions among these cognitive words by scrutinizing the micro and macro levels of structure and contexts of the Holy Qur'an. To accomplish the aims of the study, the Semantic Approach of Toshihiko Izutsu (2008) is adopted as a theoretical framework along with a contextual syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis of the targeted data. The findings reveal that the four cognitive verbs denote different semantic senses and are used in the Holy Qur'an in different contexts. They express different cognitive skills and mental abilities. Moreover, the findings show that these verbs are used differently in the Holy Qur'an to whom they are addressed and the consequences of using them.

Scammer Strategies and Social Actions in Online Filipino Transactions

As technology has developed newer and faster forms of communication, the internet has also become a convenient medium for scammers to interact with their targets. Since deception is understudied from a linguistic perspective, this paper investigated the persuasive strategies and linguistic markers of scammers and analyzed the social actions of both scammers and their targets—all of whom are users of the Filipino language. This qualitative study employed digital conversation analysis in analyzing ten conversations between scammers and their targets—all of which were failed scams. The results showed that scammers used emotion, credibility, and logic in persuading their targets. The following linguistic markers were found in their utterances: (1) pronouns that are personal, exclusive, inclusive, noncommittal, impersonal, and ambiguous; (2) negation used for denial, non-existence, refusal, discouragement, inability, loss, contrast, clarification, and correction; (3) emotion words expressing happiness, astonishment or amusement, worry, doubt or fear, shame, regret or inadequacy, and fondness, and lastly, (4) cognitive verbs indicating equivocation, and expression of knowledge or understanding. Furthermore, the social actions of the scammers and the targets were categorized into four sequences that generally involved certain actions: (1) pre-offer (asking about and providing details), (2) insert (expressing doubt and explaining), (3) offer (offering or asking for money/info, and rejecting), and (4) post-offer (insisting, showing aggression, or conceding and retaliating or interrogating). Although all conversations resulted in the targets’ rejection of the scammers’ offer, which undermines social solidarity, dispreference is seen as a beneficial response in conversations involving scams.

Futuristic Questions in our Thinking: The Case of Apprehensionals in Korean

Korean has a large inventory of apprehen- sionals, the grammatical markers of fear. This study analyzes six apprehensionals that developed from Future and Question, i.e., -lkka, -lkkapwa(se), -lkkamwusewe(se), -lkkatwulyewe(se), -lkkamolla(se), and -lkkasiphe(se), all involving the future marker -l and the question marker -kka. Lexical forms serving the grammaticalization source constructions are the verbs of perception, cognition and emotion, e.g. po- ‘see’, mwusep- ‘be afraid’, twulyep- 'be afraid', molu- ‘not know’, and siph- ‘think’. It is particularly intriguing that there is no logical necessity that the notions such as ‘future’, ‘question’, ‘thinking’, ‘not knowing’, etc. should engender the notion of fear. This strongly suggests that the emergence of the 'fear'-meaning is the result of interaction among the source components, i.e., indeterminacy from the future, lack of confidence from the question, and self-oriented contemplation from the cogitation, among others. In this respect the development exhibits ‘subjectification’ of meaning.

Scammer Strategies and Social Actions in Online Filipino Transactions

As technology has developed newer and faster forms of communication, the internet has also become a convenient medium for scammers to interact with their targets. Since deception is understudied from a linguistic perspective, this paper investigated the persuasive strategies and linguistic markers of scammers and analyzed the social actions of both scammers and their targets—all of whom are users of the Filipino language. This qualitative study employed digital conversation analysis in analyzing ten conversations between scammers and their targets—all of which were failed scams. The results showed that scammers used emotion, credibility, and logic in persuading their targets. The following linguistic markers were found in their utterances: (1) pronouns that are personal, exclusive, inclusive, noncommittal, impersonal, and ambiguous; (2) negation used for denial, non-existence, refusal, discouragement, inability, loss, contrast, clarification, and correction; (3) emotion words expressing happiness, astonishment or amusement, worry, doubt or fear, shame, regret or inadequacy, and fondness, and lastly, (4) cognitive verbs indicating equivocation, and expression of knowledge or understanding. Furthermore, the social actions of the scammers and the targets were categorized into four sequences that generally involved certain actions: (1) pre-offer (asking about and providing details), (2) insert (expressing doubt and explaining), (3) offer (offering or asking for money/info, and rejecting), and (4) post-offer (insisting, showing aggression, or conceding and retaliating or interrogating). Although all conversations resulted in the targets’ rejection of the scammers’ offer, which undermines social solidarity, dispreference is seen as a beneficial response in conversations involving scams.

Action and understanding in the semi-structured research interview: Using CA to analyse European research scientists’ attitudes to linguistic (dis)advantage

The semi-structured research interview is commonly used in EAP research to gain emic or insider perspectives. However, critics suggest that simplistic approaches to interview are pervasive, and that interview data is over-used and under-analysed by qualitative researchers. In this study, I consider the interactional nature of the EAP research interview by using the Conversation Analysis (CA) lens of action and understanding to enhance a more traditional qualitative analysis of interview data from semi-structured interviews with six European research scientists. I examine how the scientists position attitudes to the proposition that non-native English speakers are disadvantaged in writing for publication compared to their native speaker counterparts. The analysis focuses on how the scientists use pronominal subject + cognitive verb discourse markers (e.g., you know, I mean, I guess) to mark stance, shift focus, and renegotiate the linguistic (dis)advantage proposition. In doing so, they move beyond the native/non-native binary and introduce non-discursive factors as barriers to research publication success. The study highlights how an analysis of both the structure and the content of interview talk can enrich understanding of the worldviews of interview participants. It also illustrates how EAP researchers might address existing methodological critiques concerning the simplistic use of interview data.

국어 명사절, 관형절의 논리-의미 유형 연구

Objectives In the clause complexing systems of systemic functional linguistics, the logico-semantic types(LSTs) between ‘clause’ and ‘clause’ are realised in different ways in coordinate clauses, subordinate clauses, and em-bedded clauses. The purpose of this paper is to identify the LSTs of Korean nominal clauses and adjective clauses that are distinct form other embedded clauses.
 Methods SFL's clause complexing system consists of three optinal systems: taxis, LSTs, and repercussions. Among the LSTs of Korean embedded clauses, three are used: [projection], [phenomenon], and [extension]. These are realised in different ways in quotation clauses, nominal clauses, and adjevtive clauses, repectively.
 Results After applying the aforementioned methodology, we were able to establish [phenomenon] of the com-plement participants of mental verbs as the common LST of Korean nominal clauses. Based on this, it was further found that the nominal clause ‘-기’ combined with desrative verbs and emotional verbs has the LST of [phenom-enon_ideas]; and the nominal clause ‘-음’ combined with cognitive verbs has the LST of [phenomenon_facts]; and the nomonal clause ‘-는 것’ combined with perceptual verbs has the LST of [phenomenon_acts]. On the other hand, the LSTs of adjevtive clauses were broadly distinguished as [projection] and [expansion]. The [projection] semantics of adjevtive clauses are mainly realised in the complement clauses of superordinate Projective Nouns and Factual Nouns.
 Conclusions The LSTs between ‘clause’ and ‘clause’ in clause-complexing systems in systemic functional lin-guistics are big research topics. This can be realised in different ways in coordinate, subordinate and embedded clauses. So far, this paper focuses on the LSTs that appear in nominal clauses and adjective clauses, examining them in detail using examples from the Korean language dictionary, and summarising the results. It is hoped that further research could conduct to investigate the LSTs of the entire Korean clause complexing systems.

The distributional and embodied contexts of verbs in caregiver-infant interactions.

The process by which infants learn verbs through daily social interactions is not well-understood. This study investigated caregivers' use of verbs, which have highly abstract meanings, during unscripted toy-play. We examined how verbs co-occurred with distributional and embodied factors including pronouns, caregivers' manual actions, and infants' locomotion, gaze, and object-touching. Object-action verbs were used significantly more often during caregiver-infant joint attention interactions. Movement and cognition verbs showed distinct co-occurrences with different contexts. Cognition and volition verbs were differentiated by pronouns. These findings provide evidence for how verb acquisition may be supported by the distributional and embodied contexts in caregiver-infant interactions.

한국어 인용절의 논리-의미 관계 연구

Objectives The purpose of this paper is to identify the types of logico-semantic relations that Korean quotation clauses have with their main clauses.
 Methods The clause complexing system of systemic functional linguistics separates the logico-semantic relations of quotation clauses and the Taxis into a optional system. This method can solves the previous problems of mixing the two criteria within the framework of embedded clauses.
 Results First, we argued that the logico-semantic relationship(projection) and clause complexing of quotation clause are independent systems, so that quotation clause can be used as a paratactic, hypotactic, or adverbial clause. we, also, explained that projecting nouns and fact nouns require adjective clauses as complement clause, and some factual cognitive verbs require nominal clauses as complement clause. Second, we explained that Korean quotation clauses can be logically and semantically categorized into locution, idea, and fact projections, respectively. Each of these is governed by the locution verb, the idea verb, and the fact noun in the main clause. In addition, a projecting clause always functions as a proposition or a proposal: thus, projenting clause can be defined as an obligatory bound clause that functions as speech acts of proposition or proposal. Third, from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics, we proposed the morpho-syntactic structures of quotation clauses as paratactic, hypotactic, and adverbial clauses, reflecting the aforementioned logico-semantic types and clause complexing system of quotation clauses.
 Conclusions The clause complexing system of SFL adopted in this paper is expected to provide a more comprehensive explanation than existing grammar theories because it reflects both logical-semantic types and the Taxis.

Exceptional ECM with a Cognitive Verb in Korean

Exceptional ECM with a Cognitive Verb in Korean

Semantics of verbs of thought in the Ob-Ugric languages

Introduction. The article describes the semantics of verbs of mental activity in the Mansi and Khanty languages. The relevance of the topic is determined by the lack of research devoted to the analysis and semantic classification of verbal lexico-semantic groups, primarily in comparative terms. The purpose of the work is to reveal the internal organization of the verbs of cognition and understanding “to know”, “to understand”, “to learn”, “to notice” in the Ob-Ugric languages and to characterize the semantic relations between their members. Materials and Methods. The article is based on the verbs of mental activity of the Mansi (Sosvinsky dialect) and Khanty (Kazim dialect) languages received by the authors from informants and extracted from dictionaries of the Khanty and Mansi languages and texts. When working on the material, component analysis, the method of contextual (distributive) analysis were used. Results and Discussion. For the first time, the lexico-semantic group of the verbs of thought (“to know”, “to understand” and their analogues) of the Ob-Ugric languages was studied; differential signs of the semantics of the verbs under study were revealed, the relationships of these verbs and the peculiarities of their compatibility, primary and derived lexico-semantic variants of the meanings of these verbs were determined, their aspectual variants were partially revealed. The main verbs of the group are described and their signs are indicated; the semantic structure of polysemous verbs is determined. Conclusion. Comparison of the semantic structures of similar words in the Ob-Ugric languages allows us to conclude that the main distinguished meanings of the verbs of knowledge and understanding coincide in the studied dialects, however, each language has specific meanings and special semantic shifts in meanings.

Classification of Cognition Verbs in Kazakh Turkish and Investigation in terms of Structure and Origin

Dil, insanın düşüncelerini, duygularını, algı ve bilgi birikimini yansıtmasına olanak tanıyan temel araçtır. Düşünce, bellek, dikkat ve öğrenme gibi zihinsel süreçlerin anlamlandırılması ve ifade edilmesi dil vasıtasıyla gerçekleşir. Dilin zihinsel süreçlerle ilişkisi, bilişsel dil bilim alanında dikkat çekici konulardan biri olmuştur. Türkçe literatürde biliş fiilleri terimi, “düşünmek, anlamak, tahmin etmek, bilmek, hatırlamak, öğrenmek, karar vermek, değerlendirmek” gibi zihinsel faaliyet bildiren fiilleri tanımlamaktadır. Biliş fiilleri, yapılan semantik fiil sınıflandırmalarda mental fiillerin alt grubunda değerlendirilmektedir. Mental fiiller, (1) algılama (duyu) fiilleri (2) biliş (idrak) fiilleri ve (3) duygu fiilleri olmak üzere üç gruba ayrılmaktadır. Türkiye’de mental fiiller ve mental fillerin alt türlerini konu alan çalışmalar oldukça zengin bir literatür oluşturmasına rağmen, Kazak Türkçesinde biliş fiillerinin yapıları ve kökenleri kapsamlı şekilde ele alınmamıştır. Bu çalışmada, çağdaş Kıpçak grubu lehçelerinden Kazak Türkçesindeki biliş fiillerinin incelemesi ele alınmıştır. Çalışma kapsamında, Kazak Türkçesinde biliş fiillerinin söz varlığı “Kazak Türkçesi-Türkiye Türkçesi Sözlüğü” adlı eserin taranmasıyla tespit edilmiştir. Çalışmaya konu olan fiiller, semantik bakımdan sınıflandırılarak yapı ve kökenleri üzerinde durulmuştur. Yapılan çalışmayla biliş fiillerinin Eski Türkçe dönemindeki kullanımları, günümüz Kazak Türkçesiyle karşılaştırılmıştır. Günümüz Kazak Türkçesinde kullanılan Türkçe kökenli bil-, ele-, aŋla-, belgile-, ḳanıḳ-, oyla-, sezin-, tüsin-, tüy-, uḳ- gibi birçok fiilin yapı ve anlam bakımında değişikliğe uğramadan korunduğu tespit edilmiştir.

Characteristics of Working Memory and Mental Verbs in Preschool Children

Objectives: The purpose of study was to examine preschool children’s attribute to understand mental verbs (emotion, cognitive) depending on their working memory ability. Methods: The participants were 45 children who were 5 years old. They were classified into groups: higher, intermediate and lower group, based on the results of a working memory task which included non-word repetition and judging whether a sentence was said with correct grammar. We analyzed their understanding of mental verbs and gave them mental verb comprehension task. Results: First, there was a statistically significant difference among the three groups in understanding mental verbs. Second, in examining the difference in comprehension between the two different types of mental verbs among the three groups, both emotional verbs and cognitive verbs showed higher understanding in the order of higher group working memory, intermediate group, and lower group respectively. Lastly, in analyzing the difference in comprehension of the two different types of mental verbs within the three groups; in the higher group, children performed better on cognitive verbs performed compared to emotion verbs; there was no difference in the intermediate group; and in the lower group, children performed better on the emotion verbs compared to the cognitive verbs. Conclusion: This study could be an indication of a shortage of capacity in comprehension or in processing those words due to poor working memory compared to the other groups that performed relatively better. Therefore, this suggests that there is a need to understand the importance of considering children’s working memory and improving it as we provide intervention for them, rather than solely focusing on vocabulary comprehension or expanding expression.

Language Play and Linguistic and Cognitive Modeling of Reality – Real and Imagined (as Exemplified in Carroll L. «Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There»)

The problem of linguistic description of a literary text, where the main place is given to play techniques, is relevant and of keen interest. The effect of playing with words, as a special form of linguistic creativity, creates a sense of intellectual obstacle, the overcoming of which gives great pleasure. Language play is not only an opportunity to realize linguistic meanings, but also a form of comprehension and cognition of the world. The study of the linguistic and cognitive mechanism, modeling reality, is promising in terms of the study of linguistic means, determining communicative situations. The aim of the article is to identify and comprehensively analyze the linguistic means involved in modeling real and imagined reality. The material of the research is examples of wordplay of L. Carroll's work fragment. Basic methods of research are analysis, synthesis, method of linguistic description. The methods of observation, contextual and stylistic analysis revealed the types of language play that give a special expressiveness, comic effect, created consciously and paradoxically. Using the system-descriptive method, the method of lexico-semantic analysis, the author identified linguistic means of reality modeling: verbs of orientation in space, verbs of cognition, intellectual activity, modal verbs expressing emotional state; comparative constructions, idioms, containing basic axiomatics of language consciousness, leading to ambiguity with simultaneous realization of literal and figurative meanings. Semantic analysis of phrasal verbs with post-verbs showed the results of their meanings reinterpretation in the context of communicative situations. Within the framework of polysemy a choice of meanings associated with the parameters of a given situation is provided. A special role is played by metaphors, in which the play of words is enclosed. They create new meanings from fragments of subjective experience. In conclusion, it is assumed that when new meanings are generated as a result of semantic anomalies or paradoxes, the identified linguistic means, describing the real and imagined reality, set the parameters of the situation, and can be considered as codes, extracting the underlying meanings and differentiating communicative situations.

Variable First Person Singular Subject Expression in Spoken Valencian Catalan

In this paper, I analyze first person singular subject pronoun expression in spoken Valencian Catalan varieties. I present a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 7 interviews from the corpus Parlars, examining 1sg subject rates regarding tense markings (syncretic vs. non-syncretic forms), verb type, and discourse type (monologues vs. conversations). It will be shown that the factor of morphological syncretism as well as verb type influence 1sg subject expression rates. Differently from what has been observed in some previous studies on Spanish, cognitive verbs are not associated with particularly high 1sg subject expression rates, but verbs of saying are. Looking at frequent verb forms in the spoken interviews, it will be shown that (jo) dic ‘(I) say’ plays an important role, direct speech being a commonly used mechanism in the data examined here. Furthermore, discourse type (monologue vs. conversation) affects subject expression rates. These results suggest that 1sg subject expression is influenced by an interaction of verb morphology, verb type and specific verb forms, but that subject expression rates and the factors influencing them vary depending on particular pro-drop varieties, discourse types and the type of data. Looking at the contexts in which the strong pronoun jo ‘I’ is used with verbs of saying in spoken Valencian Catalan, I argue that subject expression triggers a perspectival, rather than referential shift in several cases.

Personification and relationships in English as a Medium of Instruction business discourse: Crossing paths in metaphorical constructions

In this paper we explore the presence of personification in the speech of participants in two academic seminars that were carried out in an English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) course at a Swedish university with a multicultural group of students (17 people from 15 different countries) that focused on business and marketing topics. We analyse if the purposeful humanization of companies is present in university discourse interaction by examining these EMI participants' personification of companies and brands in the two selected seminars. Our data were analysed from a principally qualitative perspective in a small-scale case study that shows the multiple ways personification permeates EMI students’ language to treat companies as human-like entities, both for specific brands as well as for the concept of businesses in general. This was especially noteworthy in verbs of cognition in discussions on businesses and marketing. The presence of personification in the figurative uses of EMI students points to some of the pragmatic success of these EMI students in referencing well-established marketing strategies that attribute human-like characteristics and relationships to businesses and brands. It also reflects a natural tendency to employ personification and see a person behind a corporate entity. Unlike other figurative uses that have shown to be challenging for L2 speakers, these EMI students use personification in business English, a frequent device in their discourse community, naturally and appropriately, showing how they are part of that specific discourse community.

Community Norms and Lexical Frequency Shape U.S. Bilingual Children’s Subject Pronoun Expression

Abstract This study explores variable Spanish subject pronoun expression (e.g., yo veo ~ veo) in Spanish-English speaking children in different regions of the United States (U.S.): Los Angeles (LA), California, and the Tri-Cities area of the state of Washington. We also compare the U.S. children to monolingual Spanish-speaking children in Mexico. Binary logistic regression analyses of 2,064 verb tokens produced by nine U.S. children and nine children in Mexico, ages 5;11 to 7 years old, show that the children are sensitive to linguistic factors that typically influence children’s Spanish subject pronoun expression in their respective communities. In addition, we find that the LA children’s subject pronoun expression is predicted by lexical frequency. A subsequent analysis of the LA children’s frequent verbs uncovers two phrases with high degrees of prefabrication, yo creo and yo no sé, which, we argue, obscure the LA children’s sensitivity to Reference, all while acting as central exemplars of a [1sg+cognitive verb] construction.

"I Am Aware, but Who Am I to Comment.": Critical Stance in Indonesian EFL Students' Academic Essay

The study examined the reporting verbs (RV) and tenses of RV in the academic essay of English-majored undergraduate students in Indonesia. Employing a sequential explanatory mixed-method research design, the study first collected quantitative data in the form of frequency of RV using Hyland’s (2002) framework and tenses of RV using Thomas and Hawes’ (1997) framework. Qualitative data were then collected to explain the reasons behind the use of RV and the tenses of RV. The study found that discourse verbs are prevalent in the students’ essays, with 66,67% occurrence of total corpus, followed by research verbs, with 30,72% occurrence of the total corpus. Cognition verbs, however, were the least used, with 2,61% of the total corpus. The study also found that present tense (58,82%) and past tense (41,18%) were the most frequently used tenses in students’ RV. The interview revealed students’ reasons behind the frequent use of discourse and research verbs and the limited use of cognition verbs in their essays. Among which are their lack of engagement with literature and reticence to evaluate the author’s claims due to their inadequate cognitive competence and English proficiency. The study concludes that students’ use of discourse and research verbs reflects their relatively low criticality toward the cited materials.

Rhetorical questions as reproaching devices

Abstract This paper studies rhetorical questions containing cognitive verbs that function as reproaches in Spanish. Its two main goals are to determine the degree of specialization of rhetorical questions as reproaches and to examine the characterization of reproaching as a speech act, indicating the distinctive features that distinguish it from other similar speech acts. Based on a contextual analysis of approximately 500 instances of reproaches in conflict talk drawn from the Spanish Royal Academy’s Corpes XXI corpus, I identify and describe the most commonly used cognitive verbs and syntactic structures used in rhetorical questions. The results show that reproach is a reactive-provocative speech act in which the speaker reacts to a contradiction perceived in their interlocutor’s words, actions or thoughts. The speaker appeals to their interlocutor’s moral conscience, making them think about this inconsistency; finally, the speaker creates the expectation of a duty that should have been carried out by the interlocutor.