Lexical Gaps Research Articles

Neology, Competing Authenticities, and the Lexicography of Regional Languages: The Case of Breton

Lexicographic practices when dealing with minoritized regional languages demonstrably differ in certain key respects from such practices with “big” languages like English or French. Prominent among such differences is the treatment of onomasiological gaps, common in small languages of limited currency, including the handling of neologisms and deliberate coinages. Here we propose a case study of Breton, the regional Celtic language of northwestern France, whose sociolinguistic history has divided intellectuals into two camps with competing visions of authenticity: a traditionalist camp focused on the dialectal speech of older, rural native speakers who have long filled lexical gaps by resorting to borrowing from French; and a modernist camp of younger, urban, well educated “Neo-Breton” speakers, whose standardized Breton eschews French lexical influence, looking rather to the Celtic roots of Breton, and even the closely related language Welsh, to fill lexical gaps. In this case study we examine a selection of quasi-technical terms in a corpus of twentieth- and twenty-first-century bilingual Breton lexicography. The study examines the issue of terminological variation attested for such words, their lexicological profile, and the extent to which their lexicographic handling reflects a position with respect to competing notions of authenticity.

The oretical problems of language translation of official papers

The article deals with the translation of legal documents. The analysis of the translation peculiarities, involving the adequate ways to business correspondence translation has been conducted. Since the translation of contracts and commercial agreements is referred to legal literature, this article describes the features of the legal literature and the requirements for its translation because legal translation reflects the socio- political and cultural characteristics of the society. Apart from terminological lacunae, or lexical gaps, the translator may focus on the following aspects. Textual conventions in the source language are often culture-dependent and may not correspond to conventions in the target culture. Linguistic structures that are often found in the source language may have no direct equivalent structures in the target language. The translator therefore has to be guided by certain standards of linguistic, social and cultural equivalence between the language used in the source text to produce a text in the target language.

A rule-based translation from written Spanish to Spanish Sign Language glosses

One of the aims of Assistive Technologies is to help people with disabilities to communicate with others and to provide means of access to information. As an aid to Deaf people, we present in this work a production-quality rule-based machine system for translating from Spanish to Spanish Sign Language (LSE) glosses, which is a necessary precursor to building a full machine translation system that eventually produces animation output. The system implements a transfer-based architecture from the syntactic functions of dependency analyses. A sketch of LSE is also presented. Several topics regarding translation to sign languages are addressed: the lexical gap, the bootstrapping of a bilingual lexicon, the generation of word order for topic-oriented languages, and the treatment of classifier predicates and classifier names. The system has been evaluated with an open-domain testbed, reporting a 0.30 BLEU (BiLingual Evaluation Understudy) and 42% TER (Translation Error Rate). These results show consistent improvements over a statistical machine translation baseline, and some improvements over the same system preserving the word order in the source sentence. Finally, the linguistic analysis of errors has identified some differences due to a certain degree of structural variation in LSE.

Phrasal Paraphrase Based Question Reformulation for Archived Question Retrieval

Lexical gap in cQA search, resulted by the variability of languages, has been recognized as an important and widespread phenomenon. To address the problem, this paper presents a question reformulation scheme to enhance the question retrieval model by fully exploring the intelligence of paraphrase in phrase-level. It compensates for the existing paraphrasing research in a suitable granularity, which either falls into fine-grained lexical-level or coarse-grained sentence-level. Given a question in natural language, our scheme first detects the involved key-phrases by jointly integrating the corpus-dependent knowledge and question-aware cues. Next, it automatically extracts the paraphrases for each identified key-phrase utilizing multiple online translation engines, and then selects the most relevant reformulations from a large group of question rewrites, which is formed by full permutation and combination of the generated paraphrases. Extensive evaluations on a real world data set demonstrate that our model is able to characterize the complex questions and achieves promising performance as compared to the state-of-the-art methods.

Lexical Gaps in Translation of Qur'anic Allusions in Hafez’s Poetry: Strategies and Difficulties

Translating culture-bound elements in literary translations seems to be one of the most challenging tasks to be performed by a translator. Taking this into account, this paper discusses the treatment of Qur'anic allusions in translation of Hafez’s Divan from Persian into English. For this purpose a number of instances have been collected and the strategies applied by various translators have been identified. All these examples are highly-specific cultural references or words that are commonly known in Persian culture, but are generally unknown for the target culture reader. The examination of such items has been carried out through the English translations of Clark (2005) and Ordoubadian (2006) based on Venuti’s overall strategies of domesticating and foreignizing. At the same time, the model of this research has been developed by using some of the translation strategies proposed by Leppihalme (1997). It was revealed that various strategies adopted by Ordoubadian (2006) are generally toward domesticating a term and by Clarke (2005) towards preserving its local color and cultural strangeness. Therefore, as demonstrated in this paper, the allusive language of the original poems and connotations conveyed by them were largely ignored by the translator.

Use of L1 as a Strategy for Acquisition of English in the Bilingual Indian Context

Code-switching/-mixing has enormous pedagogical value in the Indian bilingual context of teaching English and it can promote interactive classroom which is otherwise difficult in an artificial monolingual “English only” classroom. In addition to creating a healthy and encouraging home-like ambiance for interaction in the formal classroom setting, this bilingual approach by learners helps them overcome certain social-psychological problems like cultural disloyalty, negative language attitude, and subconscious language behaviour, and linguistic factors like lexical gap, low level of competence, and communicative inability. Moreover, code-switching/-mixing is a rule-governed behaviour as a result of interaction between two contact languages in society aiding communication in both languages at once. Code-mixing and switching between the home language and English is more beneficial to the acquisition of the latter at phonological, grammatical, lexical, sentence, and discourse levels. It creates awareness in learners of similar and dissimilar linguistic elements and idiomatic expressions between languages. It is also a natural way of learning a second language in multilingual contexts. Some teachers’ attitude toward this natural bilingual phenomenon is negative on the ground that it promotes communication neither in English nor in the home language. They fail to perceive language basically as a social phenomenon and they fear that it will ultimately stunt learners’ growth at the level of subordinate bilingualism, an unfounded fear. The present paper analyzes the attitudes of English teachers toward the use of Tamil as a perfect strategy in the English class that is the home language of the vast majority of English learners both in regional and English medium schools.

Exploring lexical gaps in Australian Sign Language for the purposes of health communication

Until recently no linguistic research had been carried out on Australian Sign Language (Auslan) with regard to its use in healthcare settings, although anecdotal information suggests that the health lexicon of Auslan is strikingly under-developed. This paper describes a study that examined health terminology from the perspective of deaf people. Based on a thematic analysis of focus group data, the paper outlines strategies that deaf Australians report using when communicating about health concepts that do not have established signs in Auslan. Participants described a variety of communicative strategies--including the use of fingerspelling, depiction and explanations--that they employ in order to circumnavigate lexical gaps when talking about health. The study provides a crucial starting point for a discussion of the implications of lexical gaps in Auslan and highlights issues of particular relevance for interpreters who take responsibility for brokering health terms and mediating health communication.

Lexical choice and language selection in bilingual preschoolers

This study examined single-word code-mixing produced by bilingual preschoolers in order to better understand lexical choice patterns in each language. Analysis included item-level code-mixed responses of 606 five-year-old children. Per parent report, children were separated by language dominance based on language exposure and use. Children were assigned to a no-risk or at-risk for language impairment group based on individual performance from an English–Spanish screening battery. Data analysis compared the prevalence, frequency, and accuracy of code-mixed responses on expressive semantic items across participants’ language dominance and risk status. Language dominance and risk status impacted children’s code-mixing patterns. The correct number of code-mixed responses on the English screener was influenced by risk status, whereas language dominance determined the number of correct code-mixed answers on the Spanish screener. Lexical choice and language selection depend on linguistic knowledge and skill. During this emergent stage of bilingualism, preschoolers demonstrate the use of code-mixing as a compensatory strategy to fill lexical gaps. Consistent with previous studies, findings indicate that code-mixing necessitates linguistic competence in more than one language.

Lexical Gaps in Romanian From the Perspective of English: The Case of Culinary Verbs

Abstract This paper aims at presenting the lexical gaps which occur when translating a text from English into Romanian. In the first part of the paper causes for and types of lexical gaps, common strategies for dealing with lexical gaps in the process of translating are investigated and illustrated. The analysis made in the second part of the paper focuses on English verbs expressing the technique of cooking in water. The verbs which lead to lexical gaps in Romanian are insisted upon and the appropriate solutions to fill in these gaps are offered.

Queer Women's Performance Symposium

On 1 July 2011 Moynan King brought together fourteen queer artists to discuss their work and their goals. The symposium initiated a conversation about methods of production for queer creators, the necessity for initiating a discourse on queer women’s performance, and the lexical gap in the terminology for “queer” performers. This article is a transcript of that discussion, edited and with an introduction by Laine Newman.

Towards a Multilingual Dictionary of Academic Words

Vocabulary is an essential component of study, of reading and writing skills. At present, English is the primary language of tertiary education in South Africa, and this puts students from other language backgrounds at a disadvantage. The proposed dictionary will therefore be aimed at second language English users who are entry level students at university. It will be in four languages: English, Afrikaans, Zulu and Sepedi. I.S.P. Nation and J. Coady have compiled an academic core vocabulary which tertiary students in all subject fields need to master in order to be able to encode and decode tertiary level texts, and this has been the basis for the planned dictionary. However, this list needs to be compared to and updated with material from a South African academic corpus. A preliminary comparative study has been conducted on the basis of authentic South African data, and a revised list has been created. The dictionary will not be subject-specific, but will deal with a general subtechnical vocabulary. Full definitions will be provided in all four languages, as well as translation equivalents, with English as the pivot language. Where a lexical gap occurs, translation equivalents will be coined with the help of the relevant experts. Thus the dictionary will also participate in much-needed corpus development of the African languages. It should become a valuable reference tool for both teacher and student.

Emergent neologisms and lexical gaps in specialised languages

One of the characteristics traditionally attributed to neologisms is that they label new realities, which is particularly relevant in terminological studies because these are concerned with areas of intense denominative activity. This article proposes that, besides this well-known feature, the neologisms of specialised fields may also take a different role, more related to filling lexical gaps than to naming innovative concepts. This investigation examines the specialised vocabulary of modern olive oil agriculture and analyses a selection of neologisms before bringing forward a theoretical proposal concerning their linguistic use. Subsequently, this argument is illustrated by applying our model to the definitions of the terminological neologisms under study.

Übersetzen von Rechtstexten – einige didaktische Hinweise

Translating legal texts is a highly complex and multilayered process, especially for non-professionals. The first obstacle is the discipline itself. Legal systems differ from one another and each has its own specific norms, which is especially reflected at the lexical level, or in the terminology. Translating legal texts is thus primarily a type of comparative law because we continually ponder to what extent the terms in the target text correspond to the terms in the source text; they only rarely match completely in terms of content and they most often differ from one another to various degrees. Lexical gaps are also frequent; for example, a term exists in the source legal system, but there is no equivalent for it in the target system.

Queer Women's Performance Symposium

This article is a transcription of Queer Women's Performance Symposium, an event organized by artist Moynan King in July 2011. The symposium initiated a conversation on the lack of resources for queer women creators, the necessity for a discourse on queer women's performance, and the lexical gap in terminology for queer performers. The event was an opportunity not only to identify barriers, but also to celebrate the accomplishments of a vibrant theatre community.

What language do employers speak?: On recent Anglicism's in the names of the most popular professions advertised on the internet

In this paper, the titles of the most popular professions advertised on the Internet are analyzed for the purpose of identifying those titles which can be classifi ed as a certain type of recent anglicisms. The classifi cation of anglicisms is performed in line with the typology suggested by Prcic (2005), who, based on the form they take, distinguishes between raw, obvious, and hidden anglicisms, indicating the degree of their adaptation within the system of the Serbian language. The following hypotheses are tested by applying a corpus analysis: (1) obvious anglicisms account for the most numerous group of anglicisms in the titles of professions; (2) raw anglicisms account for the least numerous group of anglicisms; (3) the share of anglicisms demonstrates a constant growth within the most popular categories of professions in the period observed in this paper. The presence of anglicisms in the titles of professions, on the one hand, implies that there are certain lexical gaps that need to be fi lled in so that the register of job titles can be completed, while, on the other hand, it demonstrates an alarmingly increasing number of anglicisms within the same register of the Serbian language.

Issues and Challenges for a Modern English-Arabic Dictionary

Lexicography in the Arab world has had important effects on the development of the Arabic language. The origin and subsequent development and refinement of traditional Arabic grammatical theory—as early as the eighth century- had intimate links with the practice of writing dictionaries. The Kitab al-ʿayn , by al-Khalil ibn Ahmad (d.c.786), which is the first full-scale dictionary in the Arab world, marked a significant milestone in the history of grammatical thought and set the tone for more works on Arabic grammar. For many centuries, the general mode of the theory has acknowledged a "closed" corpus of Qur'anic diction and pre-Islamic poetry and prose as the major source of Arabic lexicographic works. The main credo is that Arabic dictionaries should contain the "unattained" forms of the language and remain impervious to external persuasions; namely colloquialisms, borrowings, neologisms, and coinages. Arabic dictionaries continued to resist the slightest reform as to the codification of lexical innovations and the treatment of lexical gaps exhausting themselves to the point of stagnation. Today, English-Arabic dictionary editors have to deal with a huge number of lexical gaps that have cumulated over time. The lexical gap-filling process is carried out in a very unsystematic way that is far from creating an atmosphere of cooperation that ultimately contributes to creating unified English-Arabic lexical databases for lexicographic purposes. The paper explains how a modern English-Arabic dictionary can fall short in its modernizing role, and gives a snapshot of the most salient microstructural issues that characterize the Al-Mawrid Al-Hadeeth: A Modern English-Arabic Dictionary (2010).

Applying L2 Lexical Research Findings in ESL Teaching

& English language learners face a debilitating lexical gap between the words they know and the words they need to know. Although educated native speakers of English know approximately 20,000 word families (Nation, 2001), or roughly 70,000 words, one estimate of ELLs’ lexical needs is approximately 2,000 words to maintain conversations, 5,000 to read authentic texts, and perhaps 10,000 to comprehend challenging academic materials (Schmitt, 2000). Unfortunately, even well-educated ELLs may know less than a quarter of their native counterparts’ vocabulary (Laufer & Yano, 2001). Within the last 15 years, this lexical gap has prompted a number of useful studies addressing issues relevant to both learners and teachers. Though much of this work has investigated reading (e.g., Cobb, 2008), lexical knowledge impacts all skill areas, including writing (Engber, 1995; Ferris, 1994), listening (Chang, 2007), and speaking (Joe, 1998). The purpose of this short article is to present several teaching applications from the current body of L2 vocabulary research. This information focuses on four key pedagogical questions. (Readers interested in research details should see the timeline of influential L2 vocabulary studies of vocabulary acquisition presented by Laufer [2009], the review of extant research on vocabulary instruction by Schmitt [2008], and the extensive vocabulary bibliography by year or topic at the Vocabulary Acquisition Research Group Archive [2011] at http://www.lognostics.co.uk/varga/.)

Depth of lexical knowledge among bilingual children: the impact of schooling

The majority of studies examining the language and literacy skills of second generation immigrant bilingual children have focused on the breadth of lexical knowledge in populations with a low level of involvement in literacy activities. This study extends previous work in three ways. First, we focused on a sample of second generation immigrant bilingual children from favorable socio-cultural backgrounds. Second, we examined whether these children show lexical knowledge gaps in their second language on various measures of breadth and depth, as compared to their monolingual peers. Finally, we asked whether this gap tends to increase, remain stable, or decrease with formal schooling. Bilingual (n = 70) and monolingual (n = 55) children between the ages of 7 and 8 years were evaluated on measures of depth and breadth of lexical knowledge in the second language of the bilingual group. Both groups were tested twice: at the beginning of second grade and at the beginning of third grade. The findings indicate a significant gap between the target groups with respect to most measures of both depth and breadth at the beginning of second grade. However, after a year of schooling, the bilingual children showed significant progress in their lexical knowledge in their second language. The discussion addresses theoretical and clinical implications of these findings.

Lexikalische Kompetenz – ein Plädoyer für eine breitere Auffassung des Begriffs

The subject of the present paper is the notion of ‘lexical competence’. This type of competence is often analysed in a too narrow sense, although over the years the notion has been broadened. Since in the Author’s opinion the definition of lexical competence should include not only the knowledge about vocabulary or its usage, but also the ability to compensate for lexical gaps, a new, slightly broader definition has been formulated and the factors were presented which may influence its development

Symbiosis Between a Multilingual Lexicon and Translation Example Banks

We propose a symbiotic framework in which correspondences between electronic multilingual lexicons and translation example banks can be captured, so that their functions and contents may benefit and improve upon one another. Several mechanisms are used for this purpose: i.) two flexible annotation schemas, S-SSTC and SSTC+L, for supporting irregular multi-level correspondences across languages; ii.) an axis-based translation cluster structure for connecting translation equivalents; and iii.) translation profiles, for capturing contexts of translation equivalent instances in the corpora. There are two main contributions: i.) the design of SSTC+L, which allows the annotation of multi-word expressions and transla- tion lexical gaps in the translation examples; and ii.) the overall framework facilitating the symbiotic flow of information between the multilingual lexicon and translation bank. We give illustrative examples to show how these mechanisms can be used for translation selection, addition of new language items, and verification of lexicon contents. Preliminary tests show there is potential in our approach.