Grammatical Structure Research Articles

Students' Difficulties in Spelling Vowels: Case Study

This paper aims to reflect the difficulties students have in spelling the vowels of the Albanian language. The unified spelling of a language, in our case the Albanian language, is an expression of the crystallization of the national literary norm in all the main links of the phonetic, grammatical, word-forming and lexical structure. It reflects the current state and general trends of the development of our literary language. Given that the basic principle of Albanian spelling is the phonetic principle and seeing the constant spelling errors of Albanian speakers in the use of vowels, we conducted research with primary school students in rural areas, to see the most common errors frequency in vowel spelling. Our goal was to see the differences between students whose parents have primary education and those with higher education. Through this research we have also seen the reasons that lead to the impossibility of writing correctly and how the vowels should be written in different words. Our hypothesis is that children of parents with primary education make more mistakes in vowel spelling than children of parents with high education. We have conducted the research through the theoretical, comparative method, distribution of questionnaires and data analysis. The results have shown that parents' education does not affect children's knowledge of spelling. Received: 27 August 2024 / Accepted: 28 October 2024 / Published: 05 November 2024

Interaction between grammatical phenomena and information structure in Northern Mansi

Interaction between grammatical phenomena and information structure in Northern Mansi

Throtel, throttel, trottel or trotel. Engineering Undergraduates’ Perception of the Use of Kahoot! to Review Course Content

Education has undergone a fundamental change driven by technological advances, significantly altering the way teaching and learning is conceptualized in the classroom. Currently the variety of learning and teaching platforms is extensive and in general, these have been very well received by language teachers. The use of these platforms is often driven by teachers’ eagerness to keep students motivated, engaged, and focused throughout a class. This exploratory study investigates engineering undergraduates’ perceptions of integrating Kahoot! (a Game-based Student Response System (GSRS)) to review technological vocabulary and grammar before their unit tests. Students’ perceptions were assessed using quantitative and qualitative methods throughout one semester. The findings indicated that students found the use of Kahoot! to be beneficial in relation to: (1) improving technological vocabulary in English (2) review more complex grammatical structures; (3) enjoy a more relaxed classroom environment. Finally, the present article presents some implications that may be useful to language lecturers.

Grammar in ELT and ELT Materials: Evaluating its History and Current Practice (Second Language Acquisition, 164) (Book Review)

The teaching of grammar in ELT has evolved from the grammar-translation method to communicative language teaching, where the focus of grammar teaching is not entirely on language forms, but rather involves learners in the pragmatic and functional uses of authentic language for meaningful purposes (Brown & Lee, 2015). Despite its evolution, exact rules on what grammatical structures to teach and the order in which they should be taught have never been fully addressed due to a lack of consensus from experts in the field. English language teachers may then rely on intuitions about what grammatical point is important without any empirical evidence. In response, Graham Burton’s book Grammar in ELT and ELT materials investigates the current and historical practice of pedagogical grammar in ELT and ELT materials, especially for general English teaching. The book also presents interviews with ELT authors and publishing professionals to explore evidence on how learners use grammar and current classroom practices. [First Paragraoph of Reviw]

Gender Bias in Linguistic Structures: A Comparative Study of French

Language is a form of power that can shape the cognitive thinking of its users and even serve as a tool of domination for those in authority. Historically, language has been an instrument of patriarchy, with its use under patriarchal systems that often serving to suppress women. However, in the modern era, with the rise of feminism, there has been increasing attention to issues of gender inequality. Many linguists have begun to question whether gendered languages exacerbate existing gender biases. Yet, few have undertaken comparative analyses across different language families. Considering grammatical structures and language origins, this paper will examine French from the Romance language family and German from the Germanic language family—both of them are gendered languages. This study will conduct a comparative analysis to identify the gender biases present in these languages and to explain the cognitive and linguistic causes underlying these biases. By highlighting these issues, the research aims to raise readers’ awareness of gender bias in linguistic structures.

It all made sense: ASL-first approach in classroom practice.

This qualitative study delves into the innovative Bilingual Grammar Curriculum. The curriculum aims to enhance bilingualism and linguistic skills among deaf students by integrating American Sign Language instruction and written language grammatical structures. The researcher conducted in-depth interviews with 12 experienced educators of the deaf who have implemented the curriculum in their teaching practices. Employing a thematic analysis approach, the researcher sought to uncover the educators' perceptions, experiences, and insights regarding the curriculum's effectiveness and its impact on bilingual language acquisition for deaf learners. Findings revealed a diverse range or perspectives, highlighting both the advantages and challenges of the curriculum's implementation. Themes emerged encompassing the curriculum's alignment with linguistic theories, its adaptability to diverse learning needs, the role of educator training, and the incorporation of cultural nuances within bilingual instruction. The study contributes valuable insights to the field of deaf education, shedding light on the intricate dynamics of bilingual grammar pedagogy and providing recommendations for curriculum refinement and educator professional development. Ultimately, this research underscores the significance of innovative approaches in enhancing the linguistic abilities and educational experiences of deaf and hard-of-hearing students within a bilingual framework.

A Pragmatic Analysis of Parenthetical Structures in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

This paper aims to investigate the functions of parenthetical structures in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. It seeks to identify how these structures are employed from a pragmatic perspective and examines three specific types. The first type is comment clauses, which have pragmatic value; these expressions are important for readers to understand the intended meaning. The second type is relative clauses, which are used to present additional information, thereby enhancing meaning and interpretation. The final type is apposition, which helps the reader identify a referent. Hence, this paper focuses on the functions of these types, which hold significant contextual value in aiding the reader's interpretation. Therefore, it is asserted that such expressions cannot be analyzed solely through sentence grammar, as they are influenced more by contextual factors than by grammatical structures.

AI versus human effectiveness in essay evaluation

The evaluation of student essay corrections has become a focal point in understanding the evolving role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education. This study aims to assess the accuracy, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of ChatGPT's essay correction compared to human correction, with a primary focus on identifying and rectifying grammatical errors, spelling, sentence structure, punctuation, coherence, relevance, essay structure, and clarity. The research involves collecting essays from 100 randomly selected university students, covering diverse themes, with anonymity maintained and no prior corrections by humans or AI. An analysis sheet, outlining linguistic and informational elements for evaluation, serves as a benchmark for assessing the quality of corrections made by ChatGPT and humans. The study reveals that ChatGPT excels in fundamental language mechanics, demonstrating superior performance in areas like grammar, spelling, sentence structure, relevance, and supporting evidence. However, thematic consistency remains an area where human evaluators outperform the AI. The findings emphasize the potential for a balanced approach, leveraging both human and AI strengths, for a comprehensive and effective essay correction process.

Semantic Valence and Cultural Representation of Phraseological Units (Kazakh and English)

The rules for the compatibility of idiomatic units in the linguistic consciousness of native speakers are a particular problem that is related to the formation and evolution of the language norm. It is still unknown what is the catalyst for the transformation of language norms — usage or the laws and rules of the language. As a result of the cultural interpretation of a phraseological unit in the process of its use, the most important component of the cultural and linguistic meaning of the phraseological unit is formed, the content of which is the value-emotional attitude to what is happening. The focus of the article is the notion that phraseological valence - beyond grammatical structure to cultural and semantic dimensions. This perspective likely emphasizes the importance of cultural and semantic factors in shaping the meaning and usage of phraseological units, rather than purely grammatical considerations. Comparing English and Kazakh phraseological units with similar concepts but different cultural representations provides an insightful examination of how language reflects unique cultural perspectives and values. The article determines that there is a certain pattern in the semantic variation of phraseological units, and also compares the semantically equivalent and non-equivalent structure of English and Kazakh phraseological units. The purpose of the article is to prove that in the valence of phraseological units the role of the transitive meaning, rather than the literal meaning, predominates, and the grammatical construction has valency.

The Effect of Peer Interaction Enhancement on Sixth-Grade Jordanian EFL Students’ Reading Comprehension and Grammatical Knowledge

This study explored the impact of peer interaction enhancement on sixth-grade Jordanian EFL students' reading comprehension and grammatical knowledge. Sixty female EFL students from two Al Mowaqqer schools were divided randomly into an experimental group and a control group. It employed a quasi-experimental design, over a ten-week duration, one experimental group underwent a peer interaction enhancement intervention, while the other group served as the control group, adhering to conventional teaching methods as outlined in the instructions of Action Pack 6 Teachers' Book. The experimental group used a structured approach involving peer interaction techniques for reading comprehension lessons and grammatical structures. The study utilized two pre-post tests on reading comprehension and grammatical knowledge for data collection Descriptive statistics and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) were used to analyze the data. The study revealed that peer interaction enhancement improves students' reading comprehension and grammatical knowledge through communicative activities and corrective feedback.

Noun phrase complexity in English integrated writing placement test responses

Research has shown that the use of noun phrases is a salient characteristic favored in academic writing (Biber et al., 2011; Biber & Gray, 2011; Parkinson & Musgrave, 2014). Although studies have examined the structure of noun phrases, further research is needed to deepen our understanding of noun phrase complexity in order to inform the instructional content of academic writing courses. In response to this need and the call for more empirical evidence for the developmental stages for complexity features proposed by Biber et al. (2011), this study aimed to investigate differences in the use of noun modifiers among second language learners of English at varying proficiency levels. A corpus consisting of 286 essays, written by international students in response to an English integrated writing placement test, was analyzed for grammatical structures of noun phrases. Results indicated that more proficient writers employed significantly more attributive adjectives, prepositional phrases, finite relative clauses with non-animate head nouns, and nonfinite relative clauses. These findings support previous research on the relationship between writing proficiency and the use of noun modifiers and provide implications for both academic writing instruction and the development of writing assessment criteria.

NGHIÊN CỨU HIỆU QUẢ CỦA PHƯƠNG PHÁP TƯƠNG TÁC TRONG PHÁT TRIỂN KĨ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG TRUNG QUỐC GIAI ĐOẠN CƠ SỞ TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HÙNG VƯƠNG

The ultimate goal of foreign language teaching and learning is communicative competence. Speaking holds a particularly vital position in the communication process. For language-specialized students at the foundation level, developing speaking skills is of utmost importance. Among these, interactive methods employed in communicative tasks have a positive impact on the language acquisition process in general and speaking skills in particular. From the perspective of applied linguistics, this study employs scientific experimentation to demonstrate the constructive influence of interactive methods on enhancing vocabulary usage, grammatical structures, accurate language forms, attention engagement, retelling, and precise responses of students towards teaching Chinese speaking skills at the foundation level. The research also suggests the application of interactive methods in the development of Chinese speaking skills at the foundation level at Hung Vuong University.

The Pedagogical Tipiṭaka: OER & the Three Baskets of Ancient Language Instruction

Ancient languages present a unique teaching challenge: for spoken languages, common pedagogy recommends engaging students via dialogue; for ancient languages, no speakers survive with whom to practise. This paper highlights how the Linguistics Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin has approached this challenge by creating the Early Indo-European OnLine (EIEOL) collection, an online educational resource whose lesson series present early languages directly through original, unsimplified ancient texts. Currently accessed by over 20,000 users per month, EIEOL spans 18 languages, from Greek and Latin to Old Church Slavonic, Sanskrit, and other important languages of ancient Asia such as Hittite, Classical Armenian, Avestan, and Tocharian. Each series presents extensively annotated excerpts of original texts in the target language, with accompanying modules explaining grammar and context. The text-centred approach affords learners a direct path to understanding that suits a variety of experience levels and minimises the conceptual grammatical apparatus necessary to begin interpreting original texts. This format fosters theoretical flexibility, adaptable to different approaches and grammatical descriptions of ancient languages. It is also useful for languages whose grammatical structures have shifted dramatically over their history, like Tocharian, or remain hotly debated or under-described by experts. Finally, it facilitates applications to typologically diverse languages and language families, with early Mesoamerican, Semitic, and Sino-Tibetan language series already under development. The EIEOL infrastructure therefore provides a robust platform for free, text-centred, self-paced introductions to ancient languages from a variety of language families.

The interrelationships between corporate political activity and corporate environmental performance: the role of language diversity

AbstractLanguage affects almost every aspect of management in multinational enterprises (MNEs) but little is known about the impact of language on environmental performance. Our study investigates how language diversity affects the environmental performance of MNEs worldwide. We show that the grammatical structure of a language – specifically the first pronoun drop – is an important factor explaining the environmental performance of firms. Our analysis of 4454 company-year observations suggests that MNEs operating in societies that permit the first pronoun drop tend to have better environmental performance. Furthermore, we explore the impact of linguistic structure on the relationship between environmental performance and corporate political activity (CPA). We find that using the first pronoun drop of the local language moderates the influence of CPA on firms’ environmental performance. Our study concludes that international managers must pay greater attention to the neglected role of language in implementing environmental initiatives.

On the Sound of Qurʾān: Nasalization (ghunna) as Ornamentation and Accentuation in Recitation

Abstract The sound of Qurʾān recitation will be studied with a new approach. As the Qurʾān is a sacred text, it is performed with an exalted voice. Its performance mode extends beyond ordinary speech, but at the same time it is clearly distinguished from singing. The investigation exemplifies that the holy text and its pronunciation rules, which are preserved in the rules of tajwīd, somewhat predetermine the sound of recitation – regardless of its recitation style. For this purpose, it is necessary to first grasp the grammatical and rhetorical structure of the text, then to apply the specific rules of pronunciation when reading the text, and finally to evaluate their realization in melodic modes of recitation. Musical and linguistic criteria must be considered equally when interpreting the sound of Qurʾān recitation. This paper considers nasalization (ghunna) not just as a phonetic feature of tajwīd but also as an ornamentation that can be performed musically in recitation, thus marking rhetorically significant passages in the holy text.

Analysis of Grammatical Transformations (Using the Example of Translation from Vietnamese into Russian)

The article considers the issue of using grammatical transformations in the process of translating Vietnamese texts into Russian. The author notes that the need for this type of transformation is determined by the discrepancies in grammatical forms and structures in Russian and Vietnamese languages, which belong to different language systems. The article distinguishes absolute and partial discrepancies, analyzes the frequency of using such grammatical transformation techniques as substitutions, rearrangements, division, and unification. Theoretical provisions are illustrated by examples taken from modern Vietnamese media. It is concluded that the use of grammatical transformations, which involve replacing grammatical forms and constructions of the Vietnamese language with formally non-equivalent forms and constructions of the Russian language, contributes to achieving the equivalence of the original and translation texts.

A Model For Teaching Arabic Grammar In Light Of The Common European Framework Of Reference For Languages

With its intricate arrangement, classification, abundance, and bifurcation, Arabic grammar presents challenges for learners rooted in historical contextual factors and pedagogical approaches. This study addresses the need for a comprehensive examination and categorization of Arabic grammatical rules based on specific criteria aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). It aims to identify prevalent and obscure rules, offering a compilation organized according to CEFR standards. The objective is to streamline Arabic language acquisition by reducing the overwhelming quantity of rules presented in textbooks for non-native speakers. The primary obstacle learners face is the complex nature of Arabic grammar, compounded by inadequate organization and delivery of existing materials. This leads to a skewed focus on less practical rules, hindering everyday speech and writing proficiency. Statistical analyses reveal the need for restructuring instructional sequences to prioritize commonly used rules. The proposal advocates aligning grammatical structures with CEFR guidelines and incorporating essential structures for non-Arabic speakers, promoting a modern and coherent language. By addressing these issues, this study motivates learners and bridges the gap between non-native and native proficiency levels in Arabic. The research relied on older references for the theoretical framework due to the need for more specialized references on teaching Arabic grammar to non-native speakers.

Translating Four-Character Structures in Chinese Literary Works on Traditional Architecture—A Case Analysis of Canal Towns South of the Yangtze and Folk Houses South of the Yangtze

Traditional Chinese architecture boasts a unique style and profound cultural connotations. Accordingly, the related literary works attain value for international dissemination. The four-character structures in these works serve as concise expressions for describing architectural details and design concepts. However, due to their linguistic implicitness, grammatical structure diversity, and rich cultural images, their translation into English requires multidimensional shift, redundancy elimination, and the avoidance of cultural defaults. This research has developed an effective translation workflow that leverages the synergistic strengths of Large Language Models (LLMs) and the human translator. By strategically employing tailored methods and techniques, it addresses the challenges in the translation process. Analysis suggests: It is recommended that the technique of shift be employed to address the implicit content and complex grammatical structures in translating four-character structures in Chinese literary works on traditional architecture into English. Besides, the selective application of combination and omission can help deal with information redundancy. Furthermore, it is advisable to apply foreignization and a combined method of literal translation and paraphrasing in conveying cultural images. These approaches will, to a certain extent, convert the untranslatability of four-character structures into translatability, enhancing the dissemination of the essence of traditional Chinese architecture.

The use of mnemonics techniques in teaching german grammar

The article deals with the specifics of teaching grammatical structure of the German language. Particular attention is paid to the use of mnemonic techniques designed to facilitate the processes of perception and memorization of new information, as well as to facilitate the usage of already studied grammar rules. Mnemonic techniques used when working with the category of gender of nouns, temporary forms, the morphological structure of lexical units of the German language are described separately.

The Pragmatic Impact of Grammatical Structures in Courtroom Interpretation and Translation

Courtroom interpretation and translation require a nuanced understanding of not only vocabulary but also the pragmatic impact of grammatical structures. This paper examines the pragmatic impact of grammatical structures on interpretations in the Kisii Law Courts. Using data collected from actual proceedings, the paper analyzes how seemingly minor grammatical differences can have significant consequences for the accuracy and fairness of the legal process. By applying Mey's (2001) Pragmatic Act Theory (PAT), we analyze how modal verbs, passive voice and nominalisation function within the context of the courtroom, influencing the interpretation of witness testimonies, judge's instructions, and lawyer's arguments. Specifically, we explore the use of passive voice within the context of PAT, analyzing how these choices interact with the social context and speaker intention. We will also examine the pragmatic effects of passivisation on agency, responsibility, and the focus of witness testimony, examining how they shape the understanding of events and culpability. It is crucial for court interpreters and translators to accurately convey the intended meaning and effects of pragmatic acts in court proceedings. Keywords: Pragmatic Act Theory, court interpretation and translation, passive voice, nominalisation, modal verbs