English-speaking Community Research Articles

Towards Equal Status: English-Speaking Minority Communities in Canada and the Official Languages Act

The introduction of the Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism lays the foundation for two official language minority communities in Canada, and the principle of equality, which “implies respect for the idea of minority status, both in the country as a whole and in each of its regions.” However, the Official Languages Act that flowed from the ‘Bi and Bi Commission, and the structures that oversee it, have not reflected an approach based on equality. The English-speaking community of Quebec—Canada’s English linguistic minority community—has not received “generous treatment” in the implementation of the Act. This paper based on my presentation at the 87th annual Acfas congress, offers some ideas about why this situation has developed and the impact this has had on the vitality of Quebec’s English-speaking community. I conclude that equality for both official language minority communities—the outcome envisioned by the Commissioners—must be achieved through the modernization of the Official Languages Act.

CONCEPTSYSTEM OF MODERN ENGLISH GASTRONOMY ADVERTISING AESTHETIC DISCOURSE

The article presents a study that allowed us to construct a cognitive map of modern English gastronomic advertising aesthetic discourse. The main features in the understanding of gastronomic advertising discourse by the representatives of the English-speaking community – gourmet aesthetes are analyzed. The research material for the modern English gastronomic advertising aesthetic discourse was the gastronomic Internet texts of the social network Instagram, which contained a particularly expressive specific aesthetic component. It is established that the mental framework of the cognitive space of a modern English gourmet esthete is formed by 48 significant discourse-creating autochthons-concepts (sensations, emotions, recipe, ingredient, taste and others). The separation of the constants of the concept system of modern English gastronomic advertising aesthetic discourse – generative autochthonous concepts was carried out through the inventory of texts, fixation of objectifiers of concepts and their grouping into semantic areas. To verify the objectivity of the facts, a quantitative method of calculation is used, the criterion χ2. With the help of linguo quantitative methods, system connections (strong, medium and weak) between the main autochthonous concepts (RECIPE – INGREDIENT, TRADITIONAL MEAL – TEA, EXPERIENCE – SATISFACTION and others) were established and significant autochthonous concepts in modern English gastronomy were identified. The components of the conceptual system of modern English-language gastronomic aesthetic discourse and their combination builds a unique representation in the form of a cognitive map. The study allowed to construct a cognitive map of the studied type of discursive practice, which reproduces its conceptual system and, thus, explains the main mental cores of its participants – modern English gourmet aesthetes: characteristics of products, feelings and emotions they evoke, the principle of healthy eating, demonstration of their own gastronomic preferences in social networks in the form of blogs, because the modern English-speaking aesthetic and gourmet world of social network is impossible to imagine without a blog, where it is important to post on the social network Instagram, which describes the author's experience and feelings and emotions from food (first of all, pleasure and happiness), which provide the aesthetics of the advertising text. Key words: discourse; advertising discourse; gastronomic discourse; aesthetic discourse, cognitive mapping.

Preparing Ell Writers for Becoming Multilingual Writers: Challenges and Strategies

Summary The increasing number of international students enrolled in higher education in English-speaking countries has presented the growing need to support their academic writing development. It, however, has often led to the hasty assumption that English language learner (ELL) writers need to quickly adopt the dominant academic writing conventions in order to succeed in an English-speaking academic community. Even though the growing number of scholars have started to pay attention to ELL writers’ diverse writing styles and multiple identities, little research and discussion have taken place on how language practitioners could engage ELL writers in developing their voices as multilingual and multicultural writers. By analyzing a qualitative interview with ten experienced writing consultants and instructors, this paper explores major challenges that ELL writers experience and different strategies that could effectively help them develop their voices as writers in the academic context where English is dominantly used as the medium of instruction. Findings show that while many colleges and universities in English-speaking countries still adopt a monolithic view and label ELL writers as ‘a troubled non-native writer’, it is crucial for writing consultants and instructors to acknowledge ELL writers’ multilingual background and help them to develop their unique voices and achieve sustainable development and progress.

Discursive Strategies of Indirect Apology in English-Language Personal Communication

Introduction. The urgency of the paper is due to the increased interest of linguists in the harmony of interaction and polite interpersonal communication maintenance and restoration. By means of discursive parameters of the communicative situation of apology modelling the research aims to identify the linguistic and strategic peculiarities of their realization in the form of direct and indirect apologies, and to describe the discursive and pragmatic specificity of indirect apology scenario, which prevails in the English-language interaction.Methodology and sources. The research is carried out on the material of modern British writers’ original texts (R. Joyce, J. Rowling, R. Golman) and scripts of feature films in English (Bridget Jones’ Diary, directed by Sharon Maguire, Emma – Directed by Douglas McGrath, etc.) selected by means of a continuous selection method, 172 text excerpts verbalize direct or indirect apologies. The speech act of apology, being a unit of the analysis, is aimed at demonstrating awareness of interpersonal relations and polite communication conventions violation. Linguistic-and-pragmatic analysis of direct and indirect apologies application stipulated the use of parametric modelling method, which involves building a model of communicative situation with the identification of constants, or parameters that vary and adapt to the circumstances of their use. The study of the strategic and tactical peculiarities of communicative behavior in situations with explication of indirect apology was performed by using content analysis method. It was accompanied by application of interpretive analysis of motives, reasons and conditions. In the course of the study, content analysis was applied to state out the subject matter of apologizing and forgiveness statements within the framework of a categorical communicative situation and the subsequent description of their lexical, grammatical, and syntactic peculiarities.Results and discussion. In order to restore harmony broken by accidental or deliberate violation of norms and conventions the communicants use direct or indirect apologies in situations of interpersonal interaction. The parametric modelling method application has enabled the identification of scenario realization variability and proved its conformity with direct and indirect apology strategies. The scenario realization mostly depends on the assessment of severity of the damage caused. The pragmatic-and-linguistic peculiarities of direct and indirect apology scenarios development in English speech practice have been considered and described. The immediate apology intention, which is verbalized in t he speech act of forgiveness request, constitutes the basis for direct apology scenario and is intensified by algorithmized sequence of speech-behavioral actions, such as admitting the guilt, giving excuses, shifting blame, communicating feelings, calling for empathy. In situations of indirect apology, as compared with the direct apology scenario, the replacement of a request for forgiveness by means of one or several speech actions is observed, which confirms the hypothesis of their compensating function in English-speaking interpersonal communication. The paper presents the results of a quantitative and qualitative calculation, which has enabled the researchers to draw a conclusion about the strategic preferences of English-speaking communicants, their gender-stipulated choice, frequency and effectiveness of speech actions application whilst the identified variants of apology scenarios implementation.Conclusion. The discursive strategies of indirect apology, which are expressed by means of speech acts of fault intensification and minimizing, uttered in case of offence or damage of various degree caused to a person, are viewed as value -oriented means of interpersonal relations regulation in the English-speaking community. They reveal the specificity of communicative self-distancing and personal space preservation.

Pandemic as Reflected in English and Russian

The article deals with verbal and non-verbal means of reflecting the present situation of pandemic in humour from linguo-cultural and intercultural point of view. The pandemic brought about numerous outbursts both in traditional mass media and social networks. One of its manifestations is a great number of jokes, anecdotes and memes about COVID-19. Various online platforms present innumerable humorous short texts. Mass media and social networks generate jokes, memes, anecdotes and caricatures. The corpus is drawn from popular social media platforms (Russian and English) and examined through derivational, stylistic, pragmatic and interpretative analyses. The paper explores the ways of creating a humorous effect on the word level (puns based on blends), on the level of short monologues and short dialogues (jokes). Special attention is paid to internet memes – multimodal (polycode) user-generated digital elements consisting of pictures or photos plus captions. The humorous effect in jokes is revealed by means of defeated expectancy when both primary and secondary meanings are manifested. The humorous effect in memes is achieved with the help of text reminiscences displayed by proper names and set phrases typical of various types of texts. The main topics distinguished in these humorous texts are quarantine, social distancing, mask wearing, hand washing and distance learning both in Russia and in English-speaking internet communities. It is shown that humour — even coronavirus and quarantine jokes — bring people together and help them feel connected in the face of adversity and uncertainty. The research will be continued by means of involving German and French humorous texts.

Gender Markers in the English Picture of the World

Gender is determined as an ideological frame that assembles the idea of what it means to be a man or a woman in a certain culture, a non-linguistic category with linguistic ways of actualization. The article substantiates the key theoretical problems concerning gender-marking based on English phraseology and their influence on the formation of the gender picture of the world. The objective of the current paper is to analyze gender-marked phraseological units of the English language, which are the basic matrices of the phraseological picture of the world of a given cultural community, and to identify the frequency and impact of gender stereotypes on the development of the national picture of the English-speaking community, such as word, phraseology, paremia, text, which contain background knowledge and ways to reflect these meanings in the national picture of the world. The paper’s main conclusion is that the semantic basis of gender markers on the material of English phraseological units predominantly consists of stereotypical-associative units, which are perceived as social activity and characteristics of the images of both sexes with certain asymmetry for male denotata. The connotations of words can illustrate this inequality and the double standards between men and women.

English language learning motivation of students at the Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania in Miercurea Ciuc

Aim. The present research aims to explore the English language learning motivation of students at the Sapientia University, Faculty of Economics, Socio-Human Sciences and Engineering, Miercurea-Ciuc (Csíkszereda). Method. 103 students took part in the exploratory research where an online questionnaire containing 50 statements was used to find out students’ motivations to learn English, focusing on seven different motivational factors (instrumentality, desire to become a global citizen, ideal foreign language self, desire for self-satisfaction, attitudes towards learning English, cultural integration and ought-to foreign language self). Results and conclusion. Results show that instrumental motivation has a strong effect on the surveyed students as they are highly motivated by the idea of getting a well-paying job with the help of their English language knowledge. Moreover, we also found out that participant students do not want to integrate within a native English-speaking community; they do not want to speak the language as native speakers, they rather aim to become global citizens with English. Cognitive value. The results of this exploratory research might offer valuable insight into students’ language learning motivation. Therefore, the study might be helpful for university teachers to have detailed information and a clearer picture of their students’ language learning motivations.

Reflections for a Sociological Representation of the Eater

Professor Jean Pierre Corbeau is an important author of the French sociology of food. He played a decisive role in the emergence of the concept of the eater. This essay is a reflexive discussion by the author of one of his theoretical articles published in 1997. It is an opportunity for the English-speaking sociological community to become better acquainted with this current in the sociology of food.

Translation, Re-translation, and the Reception of Arabic Literature in English: The Case of Ahlam Mostaghenami’s Novel Chaos of the Senses

The current study compares the two translations of Ahlam Mostaghenami’s second novel Fawda Al-Hawas into English as Chaos of the Senses by (Baria Ahmar Sreih, 2004) and Chaos of the Senses by (Nancy Roberts, 2015) and examines the reception of both translations in the English-speaking communities where they were circulated. The study seeks to find out answers to questions about: the reasons for retranslating Fawda Al-Hawas after a relatively short period of time after its first translation, the roles of human agents such as the author, translators, and publishers in the production and reception of the two translations of Fawda Al-Hawas , how the retranslation tried to avoid previous problems, if any, that hindered the circulation of the first translation, the role of paratexts in the reception of the two translations. The study draws on major concepts form reception theory as adopted by (Brown, 1994) in her study of Latin American novels published in West Germany. Specifically, the current study draws a close comparison of the paratexts associated with the two translations of Mostaghenami’s Fawda Al-Hawasas well as the roles of stakeholders. The study concludes that despite the use of more paratextual elements as well as textual improvements in the retranslation, it has not shown better results in terms of reception and circulation. Received: 4 May 2021 / Accepted: 9 August 2021 / Published: 5 September 2021

LONGITUDINAL L2 DEVELOPMENT IN THE PROSODIC MARKING OF PRAGMATIC MEANING

AbstractThis study investigated whether L2 English learners’ prosodic properties in speech acts change as they are immersed in the English-speaking academic community over time, and if so, what individual and contextual factors (proficiency, orientation to language study, and target language contact) potentially affect these changes. Forty-seven Japanese learners of English in an English-medium university in Japan completed a speaking task that elicited two speech acts (request and opinion) three times over one academic year (8 months). Their speech was analyzed for discourse intonational features (e.g., tone choices, prominence ratio, and pitch range). Results showed that all prosodic properties changed over time, although the pace and patterns of changes differed among the properties. Proficiency and language contact significantly affected the change in tone choice, but no other relationship was found between individual/contextual factors and changes in prominence ratio or pitch range.

Dynamics of Functional Aspects of Verbs of Movement in English Drama

Drama reflects everyday life of a certain linguistic community. It reflects all the changes which occur either in the language itself or in the society. Any play is based on the notion of action which is represented through verbs of movement. The functional approach towards analyzing such verbs seems to be reasonable as it may result in acquiring the knowledge of the models according to which communication is built. Once synergetic approach is applied, one will learn the way the two main parts of a play the dialogue and the authors remark interact. The research is based on 300 verbs of movement which are distributed into several periods. The first period under consideration is the Renaissance of the English culture (14751660). The second period is the Restoration and the Age of Normalization (second half of XVII XVIII). The third period starts with the XIX century. In this paper the XXI century is analyzed separately due to the tremendous changes it has brought both to the English language and the English-speaking community. The diachronic approach allows to see how verbs of movement developed their functions from being secondary to becoming essential for expressing emotional, axiological and aesthetic aspects. The material of the recent century being scarce, it is possible only to see the main tendencies of further dynamics.

The Peking Opera or the Beijing Opera? An International Usage Frequency Analysis Based on the Corpus of Global Web-based English (GLoWbE)

The regional differences in the frequency of synonym use reflect the social cognition of various speech groups. Both Peking opera and Beijing opera refer to an identical Chinese cultural entity, but they differ considerably in international usage frequency in the GLoWbE where disparity can be manifested among 20 English-speaking communities. Beijing opera enjoys a slightly higher frequency than Peking opera in total, and several Asian and African countries even have no relevant data concerning this art. Besides, we explore some potential reasons for interpreting these phenomena.

Semantic Change of Hijab, Halal and Islamist from Arabic to English

This paper explores the interrelationship between culture, language and communication. English language has established a position for itself as a widely spoken language in the world in many aspects of people’s lives regardless of race, creed or religion . Many Islamic specific terms have been borrowed into English as a result of continuous contact between Muslims and English-speaking communities. This study analyzes the semantic change of three commonly used Islamic terms by English speakers in daily life: hijab, halal, Islamist, and their definitions in English dictionaries. It aims to investigate their definitions and explore their associated meanings both in dictionaries and language in use. The definitions of the terms were compared in two reliable English dictionaries, Collins English Dictionary (CED) and Oxford Learner’s Dictionary (OLD). A well-known Arabic dictionary, Al Mu‘jam Alwasit Dictionary (AAD), was used for reference of the original Arabic meaning. The Intelligent Web corpus (iWeb) was used to provide information on the use of the examined terms in daily language, and the words they collocate with. The study adopts a semantic change framework for data analysis. Findings of the research suggest that all three terms have undergone semantic changes, and their new meanings in English do not include the extra levels of social and religious meanings as in the original Arabic language. In particular, the term Islamist has developed negative connotations. Language in use has a strong influence on connotations associated to culture-specific terms. Keywords: Islamic terms; Semantic change; Meaning connotations; Cross-culture loanwords

Media Representations of Official Declarations and Political Actions in Brazil During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Our case study situates science communication within the interaction of the COVID-19 disease, scientific research about the disease, public statements by relevant officials, media messages, political actions, and public opinion. By studying these interactions in the Brazilian context, we add to the understanding of science communication complexity by studying a context less easily available to the English-speaking research community. Methodologically, we identified key moments in Brazil during the pandemic using tools such as Google Trends, and content analysis of influencers' Twitter and Instagram accounts and digital newspapers. These episodes are then explored as case studies, using both quantitative and qualitative content analysis of messages to identify message emphasis frames and political agendas. The results introduce issues rarely explored in previous science communication research, especially ones associated with nationalism and political populism and national inequalities of privilege, income, and trust.

Processing implicatures in English as a Lingua Franca communication

The paper argues that cognitive mechanisms responsible for implicatures are the same no matter what language someone uses. However, linguistic knowledge, conceptual knowledge, encyclopedic knowledge and contextual effect that are all needed for producing and comprehending implicatures vary significantly in ELF users. They cannot be expected to act in accordance with the conventions and norms of the societal culture of native English-speaking communities. It is claimed that in ELF discourse participants must create their own temporary norms and conventions with implicatures among them. Consequently, it seems mistaken to test L2 users or ELF speakers on the use of L1-based conversational and/or frozen implicatures (functioning as idioms) as many studies have done.The paper offers a modified understanding of implicatures with the notion of “simplicature”, and a model to explain the relationship and interplay between factors that affect implicature processing: linguistic knowledge, conceptual knowledge, encyclopedic knowledge and contextual effect.

CULTURAL TERMS IN EFL TEXTBOOKS FOR YOUNG LEARNERS

This paper analyses the Festival/Cultural section of the four most used 6th Primary EFL textbooks in La Rioja (North of Spain) to examine whether (i) festivals is a topic covered in the syllabi of these four materials, (ii) the topics and terms refer to British and American celebrations, represent festivals in other English-speaking communities or allude to students’ own culture, and (iii) songs and rhymes are included in the materials and related to the celebrations represented in them.
 Our findings show that the most recurrent cultural topics are everyday living, values, beliefs and attitudes and ritual behaviour. As for the cultural terms, our sample mostly portrays references to the target culture. Songs and rhymes are part of the teaching materials, but are barely related to the festivals. These data seem to show that sociocultural aspects are gaining importance in ELT primary materials, but they mostly focus on the target culture and omit references to students’ own culture.

Social Construction of Language Learners: A Bakhtinian Analysis of EFL Learners’ Subjectivity in the Multilingual Context of Pakistan

ESL/EFL scholarship has traditionally adopted a cognitivist andpsychoanalytical approach towards learning a language based on the premisethat languages are abstract unitary systems. In recent decades, however, therehas been a greater emphasis on the role of social, cultural, andautobiographical factors in language learning. Bakhtin’s socially-orientedphilosophy of language offers a useful lens to view EFL learning as a situatedactivity and EFL learners as multidimensional social actors who configuretheir English learning trajectories within broader social and institutionalfactors. Based on a broader ethnographic study, analysis in this article takes aBakhtinian perspective to understand how multilingual EFL learners innorthern Pakistan construct their identity at the intersection of social,domestic, and future-oriented factors. The analysis shows that locallanguages, school, and family language policies, and imagined Englishspeaking communities have significant implications for learners' orientationand motivation towards learning EFL. The article suggests that responding tothe social turn in applied linguistics, EFL classroom, and pedagogy inPakistan needs to broaden its purview to support individual learnerseffectively negotiate their complex learning trajectories and build empoweringlearner identities.

Linguistic Distance, Languages of Work and Wages of Immigrants in Montreal

We use the Levenshtein linguistic distance measure to explore the question of whether the distance between an immigrant’s mother tongue and a Canadian official language (English or French) has an impact on his/her economic integration into the labor market. Using microdata from the master files of the 2001 and 2006 Canadian censuses and from the 2011 National Household Survey, we investigate the relationship between linguistic distance and the intensity of use of English and French at work in the Montreal metropolitan area. That region is characterized by the presence of sizeable French- and English-speaking communities, as well as by a large number of immigrants from a wide variety of linguistic backgrounds. Those elements of linguistic diversity interact in the environment of English being the lingua franca. We find that linguistic distances between immigrants’ mother tongues and English and French have an important impact on the relative intensities of use of the two Canadian official languages at work. We further investigate the role of the languages used at work on the earnings of immigrants by estimating earnings functions. We find that the use of both French and English is remunerated positively in the labor market, but that using English at work has a larger impact on earnings.

Science denial and medical misinformation in pandemic times: A psycho-criminological analysis

This study integrates criminological social learning and psychological explanations of individual factors and mechanisms for science denial to offer an individual-level analysis of ‘alternative lifestyle’ subcultural groups in cyberspace in order to understand the assimilation, success and proliferation of potentially dangerous health-related misinformation. Through a rigorous passive online ethnography of two relevant self-identifying ‘alternative lifestyle’ Italian- and English-speaking online communities observed over the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed the unfolding of online narratives and behavioural intentions of criminological and psychological interest. We identified in our data both individual factors and mechanisms for science denial and clues to social learning, and we showed how they interrelate. Furthermore, by looking at the linguistic and visual resources used to shape how participants think through social learning mechanisms, we identified four main narrative frames: informative; oppositional; empathetic; and agency and spirituality. The findings of this study provide a more comprehensive understanding of the reasons for and mechanisms behind medical misinformation online and suggest ways to mitigate the related harms.

Perception of the English Phonotactics by Saudi English Majors: A Comparative Study

This paper investigates the perception of phonotactics by Saudi English majors, beginners and advanced. Due to the significance of pronunciation of consonant clusters, which are almost absent from Arabic, this work attempts to find the extent to which beginner and advanced English majors accept or reject permissible and impermissible sounds combinations in the onset position. It also attempts to find whether there are any intervening factors that could influence students’ perception of English phonotactics. The focus was on the consonant clusters occurring in onset position. These clusters included two-sound and three-sound clusters starting the word. Most of the words were pseudowords, and the focus was on whether the students would accept or reject these sounds, and whether there was a significant difference between beginner and advanced students, male and female. The paper also considered some intervening factors that could have influenced students' performance. To this end, the researcher conducted a survey to test the perception and rejection of certain sounds in some carefully selected pseudowords. The findings showed that most advanced students scored better in permissible sounds while the results were close in the impermissible sounds. There were some factors that could have had some impact on the results, such as living in an English-speaking community, watching English TV, and listening to the news in English. Suggestions for further research would include sounds in the coda position.