Linguistic Characterization Research Articles

Wið or mid? A Glimpse into Treebeard's Diachronic Perspective

Wið or mid?A Glimpse into Treebeard's Diachronic Perspective Amber Dunai (bio) There are Ents and Ents, you know; or there are Ents and things that look like Ents but ain't, as you might say. (TT, III, iv, 68) Thus comments Treebeard—the enormous, troll-like, tree-like creature whom Merry and Pippin have just met—regarding the hobbits' unusual (to him) haste in revealing their "name," Hobbit, to a stranger: which, at this point in the story, he certainly is. Names are powerful things, he suggests, and one should not be too quick to give others access to them. There are Ents and Ents, after all. "You'll be letting out your own right names if you're not careful" (TT, III, iv, 68). Notable, in this exchange, is the ent's already emerging preoccupation with words, one which matches that of J.R.R. Tolkien, his (sub)creator. A more subtle linguistic joke also lies just beneath the surface in the line "there are Ents and things that look like Ents but ain't." Ain't may seem out of place in this utterance, and, based on the rest of Treebeard's dialogue, it is not a word he uses terribly often.1 What is it doing here, then? Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull illuminate its placement: "Ain't, a dialectal contracted form of 'are not,' 'am not,' etc., is sometimes pronounced [ent]" (RC 383, 2014 rev. ed.). Treebeard is, apparently, making a pun, having some fun with words. Words, whether functioning as a source of amusement or information, are of great importance to Treebeard: that is immediately clear. It is my aim in this paper to draw out what I will argue is another linguistic Easter egg hovering just beneath the surface of Treebeard's dialogue: his marked use of the preposition with in an early conversation with Merry and Pippin. Treebeard's usage of and apparent quibbling over the meaning of the preposition, I will argue, hints at Treebeard's—and Tolkien's—tendency to think of language from a long-term point of view, accessing multiple current and archaic meanings while communicating with others. I will close with some brief remarks on how this glimpse into Treebeard's diachronic perspective [End Page 235] hints toward another trend in his linguistic characterization: his careful use of language to facilitate productive communication and potential partnership with others. The passage I wish to analyze in detail occurs in Book III, shortly after Treebeard first encounters Merry and Pippin, decides that they are not "little Orcs," and learns their names. Despite the un-Entish hastiness with which they name themselves, the hobbits—understandably, given their recent captivity—are not immediately assured of Treebeard's good intentions. He is first described to readers as "a large Man-like, almost Troll-like, figure, at least fourteen foot high, very sturdy, with a tall head, and hardly any neck" (TT, III, iv, 66): no doubt an alarming sight to the two lost hobbits. It is no wonder, then, that Merry is not overly generous with news about the Fellowship's activities during their first conversation. In response to a series of questions initially posed by Treebeard upon their meeting—including "What is going on? What is Gandalf up to? And… these Orcs, and young Saruman down at Isengard?"—Merry replies rather cagily: "But you told us not to be hasty. Ought we to tell you anything so soon? Would you think it rude, if we asked what you are going to do with us, and which side you are on?" (TT, III, iv, 69). Treebeard's response to Merry's questions can, on the surface, read as equally cagy: "I am not going to do anything with you: not if you mean by that 'do something to you' without your leave. We might do some things together. I don't know about sides. I go my own way; but your way may go along with mine for a while" (TT, III, iv, 69). The focus on the prepositions with versus to may appear unnecessarily pedantic—splitting hairs over word choice with the potential effect of obfuscating or misconstruing the...

O que tem de ser tem muita força... deôntica Contributos para a caracterização do verbo modal ter de

In this paper, we will aim at contributing to the linguistic characterization of the verb ter de/ter que [have to], pointing out some particularities that individualize it among the modal semi-auxiliaries of Portuguese. We will gather information from morphology, syntax, semantics and textual and discourse linguistics, also observed in examples collected from the CETEMPúblico corpus. The semi-auxiliary ter de, like dever [must], appears in the domain of necessity. Although the deontic reading prevails in several contexts, it is possible to find utterances of epistemic nature, external to the participant and even internal to the participant, following the typological classification proposed by van der Auwera and Plungian (1998). Its modal strength results from a maximum restriction of possible worlds (Kratzer 1981; 2012), being situated in the positive pole (certain/obligatory) of the modal verbs scale, which, in Portuguese, contemplates two other verbs, poder [can] and dever (Oliveira 1988). However, the prototypical strong obligation reading associated with ter de is only available in controllable by the subject situations and, even in these cases, the principle of politeness and the hedging effect can convert utterances with this semi-auxiliary into suggestions or recommendations, particularly in injunctive acts of a non-impositive nature and in certain expressive acts. From a syntactic point of view, and following a proposal outlined by Óscar Lopes (2005), we tried to evaluate the effects of the combination of ter de with different syntactic types of verbs, namely unaccusative verbs and unergative verbs. Besides the aspects mentioned above, it was necessary to consider criteria such as the aspectual class of the verb, the nature (impositional or not) of the discourse acts, and the intentionality and status of the interlocutors. As a rule, and taking into account the analysis of utterances from CETEMPúblico, unaccusative verbs combine with aspectual classes that predict an achievement and, in the face of the modal semiauxiliary ter de, they may activate readings that focus on needs determined by external or internal circumstances of the participant. Regarding unergative verbs, we see that the atelic verbs are present in predicates that configure processes and activate the reading of modality external to the participant, while the potentially telic verbs are articulated with accomplishments and may also assume a modal reading external to the participant. Careful observation of other examples may, however, open the way to new modal readings

Professionalisms as components of the vocabulary of forensic examination

The vocabulary of forensic examination, diverse in its composition, requires a multifaceted study. Promising and linguistic characterization of professionalisms as one of the categories of functionally specialized vocabulary of forensic examination is promising. The purpose of the article is to identify and characterize the features of the use of professionalism in the vocabulary of forensic examination, to determine their role in the professional communication of forensic experts. Professionalisms in the vocabulary of forensic examination are unofficial short words that duplicate the established and fixed terms of the specified field, which call the realities, as well as convey the actual production information. The article defines a range of special concepts, which are called professionalisms, namely: types of examinations, subjects that conduct examinations, names of objects, their properties, stages of production and professional processes, etc. It is established that professionalisms, which are used as synonymous doublets in the oral speech of specialists, are almost not recorded in dictionaries of various types, but sometimes able to penetrate into written speech while covering current issues in professional publications. The peculiarities of the differences of forensic professionalisms from forensic terminology, which are connected with emotional coloring, stylistic expressiveness, imagery, are clarified. It is established that the main means of creating professional vocabulary of forensic examination is the implication of the analytical term (reception of language economy), which is mostly associated with the word-forming modification of the basic component of the analytical term. It is determined that the semantic way of creating professional jargons mostly consists in the metonymic name of specific subjects.

'Big Brother' Germany and Spain: a Linguistic Characterization from a Theory of Register

The aim of this paper is to justify the suitability of using Big Brother as a means of addressing the study of colloquial register in German and Spanish. Drawing on the conceptualization of register as a continuum (Briz Gómez 2010), in the following pages we examine an unpublished bilingual corpus consisting of conversations in daily routine contexts. The analysis of the data reveals that the situational features are highly colloquial in the interactions studied, and shows a specific display of the following parameters: control on language production, lexical in/accuracy, deixis, un/familiar treatment, syntax, extra/linguistic contextualization and tone. In conclusion, this qualitative study sheds light on the language used in conversations in reality television and lays the foundation to consider Big Brother an adequate corpus for analyzing colloquial register in both languages.

Gênero e caracterização na Medeia de Eurípides

Este trabalho examina a caracterização da personagem Medeia na tragédia homônima de Eurípides. Em primeiro lugar, observo como os seus discursos se conformam aos padrões de fala geralmente identificados como femininos na tragédia e como ela usa falsas fórmulas de submissão para enganar seus adversários. Em segundo lugar, investigo em que medida sua caracterização linguística também contém traços de um heroísmo mais tipicamente masculino, deixando entrever medos e angústias subjacentes aos estereótipos femininos da tragédia.

Jak historia odkłada się w pamięci, jak pamięć odkłada się w języku

<p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"> </p><p>Tematem artykułu jest zakreślenie ram pola badawczego tworzonego przez trzy tytułowe pojęcia: historia, pamięć, język. Ponieważ każde z nich jest wieloznaczne, a na dodatek w różnych sytuacjach odnoszone są do różnych porządków ontologicznych (do rzeczywistości pozajęzykowej i do rzeczywistości tekstowej, narracyjnej), autor stara się doprecyzować znaczenia odnośnych wyrazów i pokazać złożone relacje, jakie występują zarówno między poszczególnymi znaczeniami każdego z wyrazów oddzielnie (a więc pomiędzy „historią1” i „historią2” z jednej strony oraz między „pamięcią1” i „pamięcią2” – z drugiej), jak też, w układzie „horyzontalnym”, między „historią1” i „pamięcią1” oraz między „historią2” a „pamięcią2”. Autor uważa, że każdy z tych porządków rzeczy ma odrębną charakterystykę językową, istnieje jednak pięć cech, które między trzema konstruktami: „historią2” (tj. historiografią), „pamięcią2” (relacjonowaniem zawartości pamięci) i językowo-kulturowym obrazem świata stanowią wspólny mianownik; to podmiotowość, narracyjność, selektywność, interpretacyjność i ujęzykowienie. Ten wspólny mianownik pozwala na zestawianie i konfrontowanie z sobą zróżnicowanych obrazów tego samego wycinka przeszłości.</p><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><br /></span></span></p>

A Discourse Analysis of Canadian PM’s Speech after New Zealand Christchurch Mosque Shootings

We use language for different purposes that are mostly related to the social practices in different contexts and perspectives. Discourse analysis is one of the disciplines which examines the use of language from different perspectives to reach a possible understanding of the discourse. This paper is also an attempt to analyze language used in a particular context and perspective to understand and expose some constructed realities. The objective of this study is to examine the Canadian PM’s moral and ideological standpoint, his commitment to show solidarity with the grieved community, his determination to eradicate terrorism and his linguistic characterization of terrorism that he confirmed in his speech in the House of Common on March 18, 2019 after the Christchurch Mosque Shootings in New Zealand. The analysis is based on Fairclough’s conceptions in CDA. It claims that ideologies and texts are interrelated, and it is not possible to break this link between ideologies and texts because the texts can be interpreted in maximum possible ways. This study analyzes the components of ideology and persuasion used in Justin Trudeau’s speech to reveal his commitment and persuasive strategies against terrorism, and it gives new hopes to the targeted communities worldwide as well as the general public. He tried to ensure the public that they are not alone because the world leaders and the heads of the states are unconditionally united to eradicate worldwide terrorism.

A Discourse Analysis of Canadian PM’s Speech after New Zealand Christchurch Mosque Shootings

We use language for different purposes that are mostly related to social practices in different contexts and perspectives. Discourse analysis is one of the disciplines which examines the use of language from different perspectives to reach a possible understanding of the discourse. This paper is also an attempt to analyze the language used in a particular context and perspective to understand and expose some constructed realities. The objective of this study is to examine the Canadian PM’s moral and ideological standpoint, his commitment to show solidarity with the grieved community, his determination to eradicate terrorism and his linguistic characterization of terrorism that he confirmed in his speech in the House of Common on March 18, 2019, after the Christchurch Mosque Shootings in New Zealand. The analysis is based on Fairclough’s conceptions in CDA. It claims that ideologies and texts are interrelated, and it is not possible to break this link between ideologies and texts because the texts can be interpreted in maximum possible ways. This study analyzes the components of ideology and persuasion used in Justin Trudeau’s speech to reveal his commitment and persuasive strategies against terrorism, and it gives new hopes to the targeted communities worldwide as well as the general public. He tried to ensure the public that they are not alone because the world leaders and the heads of the states are unconditionally united to eradicate worldwide terrorism.

Las relaciones de sucesos como instrumento de control: el caso de los antimodelos femeninos

The aim of this analysis is to study the news pamphlets as a control instrument in the Spanish Monarchy from a discursive perspective, focused on appraisal by means of the lexicon study, which is still quite limited in the works carried out about these documents. The linguistic characteri-zation of four pamphlets about different women sinful behavior in 17th Century Spain will be carried out on the following pages in order to portray women ―the antithesis of good conduct― in contrast to men. This analysis will highlight the importance of the news pamphlets as an instrument of social and moral oversight from the highest to the humblest strata of society during the Golden Age. It is throughout the narration of tabloid stories that the printing business would be enhanced at the dawn of journalism in Spain.

Análisis del lenguaje de la Pedagogía. Caracterización y tipología

Conocer el lenguaje de una disciplina científica permite entender mejor su epistemología. El lenguaje pedagógico precisa de un análisis, dado que no ha sido objeto de estudio. Por ello, el objetivo de este artículo es mostrar su caracterización lingüística del lenguaje de la Pedagogía. Se realiza una revisión bibliográfica del concepto de «lenguas especiales» y se analiza el léxico y los factores extralingüísticos. Se utiliza una metodología de investigación cualitativa, en una dimensión descriptiva. Los resultados muestran que es un «lenguaje sectorial». La caracterización del léxico y de los factores pragmáticos muestra que este lenguaje se sitúa en un «nivel umbral». Esta caracterización permite conocer cómo la Pedagogía construye su lenguaje, cómo sus hablantes transmiten los significados.

O funcionamento de falas sintomáticas para além da distinção normal/patológico: contribuições Saussurianas

O presente artigo questiona o estatuto da distinção normal/patológico no âmbito dos estudos dos distúrbios de linguagem. Para tanto, realiza uma reflexão acerca da caracterização linguística de falas sintomáticas baseada em pressupostos teóricos saussurianos. De Ferdinand de Saussure (1974), serão consideradas as noções de linguagem, língua e fala, bem como a teoria do valor e o circuito da fala. Foram analisados dois recortes de dados que apontam que a oposição normal/patológico não sustenta a interpretação linguística de fenômenos envolvidos nestes casos. Dessa forma, o estudo evidenciou elementos que permitem pensar a singularidade do funcionamento da linguagem, a partir das referidas noções saussurianas, sem a necessidade de estandardização na classificação dicotômica normal/patológico.

Sentence repetition deficits in the logopenic variant of PPA: linguistic analysis of longitudinal and cross-sectional data

ABSTRACTBackground: The logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia (lvPPA) is the most recently identified subtype within the primary progressive aphasia spectrum. Data characterizing this subtype based on comprehensive testing and sophisticated error analyses over time are still rare. One of the two core features of this subtype is a deficit in sentence repetition.Aims: To provide a more fine-grained linguistic characterization of the sentence repetition deficit in lvPPA.Methods & Procedures: We longitudinally analyzed sentence repetition abilities of eight lvPPA patients (mean age 67.6 years; two women) and a group of seven healthy controls (mean age 66.7 years; three women) using a novel schema for the classification of linguistic errors.Outcomes & Results: At their first examination, patients with lvPPA showed an overall impaired repetition performance compared to controls with a variable degree of impairment on the first and all subsequent dates of measurement. Two patients presented with a steady, rather unimpaired profile, similar to the control group. In progression, however, five patients showed an increase of errors especially in the categories omissions and phonological errors, occasionally resulting in violation of syntactic rules.Conclusions: These results expand existing descriptions of repetition abilities in lvPPA patients. The paper thus provides a more fine-grained classification scheme for sentence repetition performance and emphasizes the role of omissions and phonological errors in lvPPA. This, in turn, offers new insights into the linguistic nature of sentence repetition deficits in lvPPA beyond the application of mere correctness judgments.

A Discourse Analysis of Canadian PM’s Speech after New Zealand Christchurch Mosque Shootings

We use language for different purposes that are mostly related to social practices in different contexts and perspectives. Discourse analysis is one of the disciplines which examines the use of language from different perspectives to reach a possible understanding of the discourse. This paper is also an attempt to analyze the language used in a particular context and perspective to understand and expose some constructed realities. The objective of this study is to examine the Canadian PM’s moral and ideological standpoint, his commitment to show solidarity with the grieved community, his determination to eradicate terrorism and his linguistic characterization of terrorism that he confirmed in his speech in the House of Common on March 18, 2019, after the Christchurch Mosque Shootings in New Zealand. The analysis is based on Fairclough’s conceptions in CDA. It claims that ideologies and texts are interrelated, and it is not possible to break this link between ideologies and texts because the texts can be interpreted in maximum possible ways. This study analyzes the components of ideology and persuasion used in Justin Trudeau’s speech to reveal his commitment and persuasive strategies against terrorism, and it gives new hopes to the targeted communities worldwide as well as the general public. He tried to ensure the public that they are not alone because the world leaders and the heads of the states are unconditionally united to eradicate worldwide terrorism.

Anleitungen rezipieren, Anleitungen produzieren: Empirische Befunde zu kognitiven Prozessen bei Übersetzungsnovizen und Übersetzungsprofis

The article presents results from the research project TransComp, a process-oriented longitudinal study which investigates the development of translation competence in 12 students of translation over a period of three years and compares it with that of 10 professional translators. The article focuses on the translation products and processes of six novices and five professional translators who had to translate operating instructions from English (their L2) into German (their L1). During the translation process, the participants had to think aloud. They were allowed to use any external reference resources they wished. Their think-aloud and all their activities on the computer were screen-recorded using CamtasiaStudio. In addition, their writing processes were logged using the keystroke-logging software Translog. Immediately after the experiments, they were asked to complete a questionnaire. The data gained in this multi-method approach are analyzed both from a product-oriented and from a process-oriented perspective. For the product-oriented analyses, an error classification was developed that combines a linguistic characterization of the mistakes with a functional approach of determining how detrimental these are with regard to the target text function. The process-oriented analyses are based on the subjects’ think-aloud, their activities recorded with CamtasiaStudio, their questionnaires and their log files. These process data are analyzed to determine the subjects’ problem awareness and their problem-solving competence. Based on the findings, implications for translation pedagogy and text production didactics are discussed.

Linguistic Characterization of Natural Data by Applying Intermediate Quantifiers on Fuzzy Association Rules

The paper aims at applying fuzzy natural logic together with the Fuzzy GUHA method to analyse and linguistically characterise scientific data. Fuzzy GUHA is a tool for extracting linguistic association rules from data. Obtained associations are IF-THEN rules composed of evaluative linguistic expressions, which allow the quantities to be characterized with vague linguistic terms such as very small, big, medium etc. Originally, fuzzy GUHA provides several numerical indices of rule quality, which may not be easily understandable for domain experts that are not familiar with GUHA association rules. Therefore, we show in this paper that the theory of intermediate quantifiers (a constituent of fuzzy natural logic) can be applied to the results in an automatic manner in order to obtain natural linguistic summarization. We also present an idea of how the theory of generalized Aristotles's syllogisms can be used for a detailed data analysis. We also open the possibility to use fuzzy partial logic for cases where some data is missing or undefined.

Profiles of cognitive and language impairment of logopenic and non-fluent variant of primary progressive aphasia

To decipher the cognitive and linguistic feature of logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia (lv-PPA) and nonfluent variant primary progressive aphasia (nfv-PPA) and to explore the extent to which cognitive and language impairment contribute to the dysfunction of activity of daily living(ADL). Seven lv-PPA and five nfv-PPA were enrolled in memory clinic of Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University from January 2015 to January 2016 accordig to the international consensus criteria for PPA and its three subtypes. 20 age-matched normal controls (NC) were included. Both the patients and the NC completed a battery of neuropsychological test, lingusitic test and brain magnetic resonance imaging. All the patients conducted (11)C Pittsburgh compound B (PiB) PET imaging. Lv-PPA patients were characterized by deficits in lexical retrieval and long sentenses repetition, while nfv-PPA were with motor speech apraxia and phonetic distortion. Compared with nfv-PPA, lv-PPA patient displayed more severe cognitive deficit with younger onset of age (56±5 vs 61±5, P<0.05) , rapid decline of MMSE score within 1.5 years and pariental cortex dysfunctions such as ideomotor praxis, Gerstmann syndrome and contructional apraxia. Correlation analysis indicated that there was more significant association between pariental cortex dysfunction and ADL/mini-mental state examination(MMSE) than that of language deficit(r=-0.868, r=-0.922; r=0.312, r=-0.257). All seven lv-PPA were PiB-PET positive and five nfv-PPA were negative. This study enriched the chinical and linguistic characterization of lv-PPA and nfv-PPA, which has implication for diagnosis, disease management and treatment for clinicians.

Términos y estructuras para designar los referentes del evento futbolístico en el diario L’Équipe

This article identifies the syntactic and lexical structures most commonly used by sports journalists to designate the referents of football events in a corpus of ten articles from the French sports newspaper L’Equipe. This allows us to contribute to the linguistic characterization of sports discourse in French, especially football newspaper articles. In order to analyze the corpus, we will first identify the terms and syntactic structures used in articles from L’Equipe that refer to the most prototypical elements of the football event, i.e., teams, players, coaches, moves, and other elements. Secondly, we will determine how regularly journalists mention each one of these referents in terms of types and tokens. Finally, we will examine the syntactic configuration of the structures.

Defuzzification of Fuzzy Numbers for Student Assessment

In an earlier work, recently published in this journal, we have used the Triangular Fuzzy Numbers (TFNs) as an assessment tool of student skills. This approach led to an approximate linguistic characterization of the students’ overall performance, but it was not proved to be sufficient in all cases for comparing the performance of two different student groups, since two TFNs are not always comparable. In the present paper we complete the above fuzzy assessment approach by presenting a defuzzification method of TFNS based on the Center of Gravity (COG) technique, which enables the required comparison. In addition we extend our results by using the Trapezoidal Fuzzy Numbers (TpFNs) too, which are a generalization of the TFNs, for student assessment and we present suitable examples illustrating our new results in practice.

Linguistic characterization of time series

The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of applications of special soft computing theories — the fuzzy transform and fuzzy natural logic — to analysis, forecasting and mining information from time series. The focus is especially placed on the ability of methods of fuzzy natural logic to provide information in sentences of natural language. Our approach is based on the decomposition of time series into three components: the trend-cycle, seasonal component and noise. The trend-cycle is extracted using the F-transform, and its course is characterized by automatically generated linguistic description. The latter is then used to forecast the trend-cycle. The trend-cycle can be, furthermore, decomposed into trend (general tendency) and cycle. The former is computed again using the F-transform. Moreover, the F1-transform makes it possible to estimate the direction of the trend, which can then be characterized by expressions of natural language (stagnating, slightly increasing, sharply decreasing, etc.). Finally, we focus on selected problems of mining information from time series. First, we suggest an algorithm for finding intervals of monotonous behavior and then show how the theory of intermediate quantifiers (a constituent of fuzzy natural logic) and generalized Aristotle's syllogisms can be applied to automatic summarization of information on time series.

Mikrotoponimia i ojkonimia gminy Uniejów

This article examines the linguistic aspect of names of places, both inhabited and uninhabited, within Uniejów commune. In total, 350 objects have been described. Information was obtained mainly through direct interviews with residents of the localities and from written sources. The article begins with explanations concerning proper names, toponyms and their classification model. It then presents a lexicon of all collected place names (oikonyms and microtoponyms) and discusses it, and provides a linguistic characterization of all the names according to the chosen classification model. The presented material can be useful in dialectological studies as many of the names have retained phonetic features specific to the local dialect. Names of geographical locations contained in this study are usually limited in range to single villages, in which they were created and transmitted from generation to generation or modified.