Linguistic Investigation Research Articles

Реализация коммуникативных стратегий и тактик посредством использования автоэтнонима русский

The results are presented of the study of the mechanisms of realizing the communicative strategies and tactics in Russian advertising discourse, the language representative of which is auto-ethnonym Russian and corresponding derivatives. The interest to the phenomenon of discourse is linked both with the need to study linguistic phenomena in close connection with communicative, cognitive and sociocultural factors, and with the need to bring linguistic research beyond the study of traditional units of sentence and text. The need for a theoretical understanding of the specificity of advertising discourse is linked to the active development of this type of discourse and its increasingly prominent place in the modern communicative space. The novelty of the research is to analyze the functioning of auto-ethnonymic lexis in advertising discourse, which until this time was not the object of researchers in this aspect. The material were taken from advertising slogans and texts of Russian advertising discourse. Peculiarities of advertising communication is described, main positioning of communicative strategy: auto-presenting, evaluative, targetising, mitigative, value-oriented - are analyzed. Some optimizing communication strategies are discussed: the strategy of recognition and the strategy of increasing attractive strength of the advertising message. The practical significance of the research is connected with the possibility to apply its results in practice of creating advertising messages and in judicial and non-judicial linguistic expert investigations in cases of improper advertising and extremism.

Complex Ancient Genetic Structure and Cultural Transitions in Southern African Populations.

The characterization of the structure of southern African populations has been the subject of numerous genetic, medical, linguistic, archaeological, and anthropological investigations. Current diversity in the subcontinent is the result of complex events of genetic admixture and cultural contact between early inhabitants and migrants that arrived in the region over the last 2000 years. Here, we analyze 1856 individuals from 91 populations, comprising novel and published genotype data, to characterize the genetic ancestry profiles of 631 individuals from 51 southern African populations. Combining both local ancestry and allele frequency based analyses, we identify a tripartite, ancient, Khoesan-related genetic structure. This structure correlates neither with linguistic affiliation nor subsistence strategy, but with geography, revealing the importance of isolation-by-distance dynamics in the area. Fine-mapping of these components in southern African populations reveals admixture and cultural reversion involving several Khoesan groups, and highlights that Bantu speakers and Coloured individuals have different mixtures of these ancient ancestries.

Phonetic Linguistic Investigation of Relationships between the Occurrence of Palatalized Articulation and Palatine Form, Occlusal Relation and Velopharyngeal Closure Function in Patients with Cleft Palate

Phonetic Linguistic Investigation of Relationships between the Occurrence of Palatalized Articulation and Palatine Form, Occlusal Relation and Velopharyngeal Closure Function in Patients with Cleft Palate

Inclusion and foreign language education

Prompted by the increased visibility of inclusive pedagogies, the present article discusses the concept of “inclusion” in relation to foreign language teaching from a linguistic perspective. The foreign language classroom constitutes a special environment that poses specific language-related challenges to inclusive education. In an effort to face these challenges, the present article elaborates how linguistic research and insights can contribute to an implementation of inclusive foreign language education. In terms of theorisation, the narrower and broader senses of educational inclusion are outlined, the notion of “linguistic barrier” is introduced, and various ways in which linguistic exclusion may manifest itself are identified. It is argued that purely cognitivist approaches to second language acquisition are insufficient for achieving higher levels of inclusivity, as they do not cater for the social and contextual aspects that shape practices of exclusion and inclusion. Alternative approaches such as sociocultural theory are shown to be better equipped for this purpose. Various prominent exclusion-related dimensions are discussed with respect to their repercussions in language and linguistic practices, among them exclusion related to learners with special needs, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and non-native language users. Suggestions are made of how to proceed methodologically in linguistic investigations of exclusionary practices, with the aim of creating effective, linguistically based inclusion strategies. It is suggested that typological, discourse analytic and ethnographic linguistic approaches are most promising in this respect. The concluding section recapitulates central aspects that have surfaced in the theoretical and methodological discussion, calls for inclusion-oriented changes in foreign language teaching and highlights conspicuous parallels between the inclusive EFL classroom and English as a lingua franca communication.

THE LONG WAY TO BILINGUALISM: THE PECULIAR CASE OF MULTILINGUAL SOUTH TYROL

En el presente trabajo, debatimos los retos y los resultados del proceso de aprendizaje de segundas lenguas en el Tirol del Sur, la región fronteriza multilingüe del norte de Italia donde las comunidades autóctonas hablantes de alemán y ladino han convivido con la comunidad italohablante desde el fin de la Primera Guerra Mundial. La imagen resultante de los datos recogidos en el proyecto Kolipsi (Eurac/DiScoF), una investigación abarcadora tanto lingüística como psicosocial sobre alumnado de secundaria del Tirol del Sur, proporciona información muy valiosa a todas las entidades que intervienen en el proceso de la formación y el cambio de las actitudes, desde el entorno familiar hasta el ámbito de la política.

Paintings as “Visual Poetry”: Diagrammatic Iconicity in the Art of Juan Miró

Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) and work on multimodal metaphors (Forceville, 2006) has opened up a new approach to the study of language and other modalities. However, relatively few cognitive linguistic investigations of visual art have been performed. We analyzed paintings done by Spanish Surrealist Juan Miró (1893-1983), focusing on diagrammatic iconicity, i.e. how his pictorial elements are arranged structurally in ways that correspond to their meaning. In particular, we examined the artist’s paintings between 1940 and 1970, based on the model advanced by Hiraga (2005). Our results show that iconic mappings like SIMILARITY IN MEANING IS SIMILARITY IN FORM, MORE CONTENT IS MORE FORM, and SEMANTIC RELEVANCE IS CLOSENESS, function as cognitive principles prevalent in these paintings. The current study therefore supports the proposal that diagrammatic iconicity operates across different semiotic systems, and at the same time contributes to the description and explanation of artistic practices involving language and painting.

Linguistically Annotated Corpus as an Invaluable Resource for Advancements in Linguistic Research: A Case Study

Abstract A case study based on experience in linguistic investigations using annotated monolingual and multilingual text corpora; the “cases” include a description of language phenomena belonging to different layers of the language system: morphology, surface and underlying syntax, and discourse. The analysis is based on a complex annotation of syntax, semantic functions, information structure and discourse relations of the Prague Dependency Treebank, a collection of annotated Czech texts. We want to demonstrate that annotation of corpus is not a self-contained goal: in order to be consistent, it should be based on some linguistic theory, and, at the same time, it should serve as a test bed for the given linguistic theory in particular and for linguistic research in general.

English

There is persistent linguistic sexism in the anthems of some countries that are members of the United Nations which diametrically negates the principle of gender equality and the global condemnation of gender-biased language use, especially in public communication. This can be very serious because anthems represent unique symbols of national identity that epitomise nations whose male and female citizens deserve equal recognition and representation. This paper presents the outcome of a linguistic investigation of selected fifty-eight translated anthems originally written in some West/North Germanic and Romance/Italic languages. Firstly, this reveals twenty (20) cases of replication of linguistic sexism that originate from the Source Texts (STs) and which are duplicated in the Translated Texts (TTs) of the anthems. Secondly, it discovers thirteen (13) cases of evocation of linguistic sexism in the anthems which do not originate from the Source Texts (STs) but which only emanate from the Translated Texts (TTs) of the anthems. Thirdly, it detects eleven (11) cases of revocation of linguistic sexism where cases of sexism reflected in Source Texts (STs) are neutralised in Translated Texts (TTs) of anthems. The paper then details a Critical Discourse Analysis via the description, interpretation and explanation of the cases of replication, evocation and revocation of linguistic sexism of the translated national anthems. Finally, the paper suggests the need for resolution of linguistic sexism of translated anthems via replacement of misogynistic expressions which are gender-biased with androgynous expressions that are gender-neutral among others. Keywords: linguistic sexism; translated anthems; linguistic overhaul; linguistic panaceas; CDA DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2016-2202-15

代表属性: 发音人的选择和语料有效性 [Parameters of representativeness: Subject selection and data integrity

As an empirical study, linguistic investigations rely heavily on the selection of suitable subject speakers as representatives of a language community, which in turn underline the necessity of determining representativeness. Through explicit description of the parameters that define a target population, this paper argues that (i) representativeness can be most straightforwardly captured using the same parametric description; and (ii) the degree of representativeness of the subject increases with the degree of satisfaction of the parameters. On this footing, this paper exemplifies the fundamental quality of the parameters of representativeness across different linguistic research topics, purposes and even methodologies. Evidently, the clarification on what counts as representative through the use of parametric description is a founding stone to ensuring reliability of language data in the establishment of any linguistic theorizing.

Substitute infinitives and Oberfeld placement of auxiliaries in German subordinate clauses: A synchronic and diachronic corpus study using the CLARIN research infrastructure

The historical development and the linguistic triggering environments for Oberfeld formation in German subordinate clauses represent long-standing research questions in Germanic Linguistics, dating at least as far back as Jacob Grimm's famous Deutsche Grammatik. The present corpus study traces this historical development back to the 17th century. The study is based on three text corpora. For contemporary German, two syntactically annotated newspaper corpora were consulted: the TüBa-D/Z and TüPP-D/Z treebanks,11TüBa-D/Z: http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-1778-0000-0005-896C-F; TüPP-D/Z: http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-1778-0000-0007-5E99-D which provide linguistic annotations for articles published in the daily newspaper die tageszeitung (taz). For diachronic data, the corpus collection Deutsches Textarchiv (DTA)22http://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/ was utilized. The DTA contains texts ranging from 1610 to 1900. All three corpus collections are part of the Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure (CLARIN) initiative33http://www.clarin.eu/ and will be developed further as part of the CLARIN research infrastructure. The study demonstrates the added value that annotated corpora can provide for in-depth studies in historical syntax. At the same time it showcases the added value of interoperable language resources for linguistic investigations that require access to and analysis of multiple linguistic resources.

A Critical Review of Consciousness-Raising Approaches: Applied Linguistics vs. Systemic Functional Linguistics

<p class="2"><span lang="EN-AU">This paper is a critical review of the notion of consciousness-raising approach in the mainstream Applied Linguistics (AL) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). It reviews the development of this approach from traditional grammarian perspectives to the recent developments in AL, and compares and contrasts this approach in AL with the notion of grammatical metaphor (GM) in SFL as a compatible resource for consciousness-raising. The paper concludes that SFL introduces new and developmental resources of consciousness at different times and spaces, which is subject to further linguistic investigations. It has also implications for the English language teaching and learning in EFL contexts. </span></p>

A preliminary account of the Thangal sound system

This work presents instrumental acoustic analysis of Thangal, a severely under-resourced Tibeto-Burman language spoken primarily in the Senapati District of Manipur by around 2500 people. While some research has been conducted in recent years on related languages such as Rongmei, and several Thangal wordlists compiled mainly from data collected in the 1800s also exist, linguistic investigation of Thangal in the past century has been limited at best, and empirical phonetic investigation is nonexistent. We use data from wordlists produced by native Thangal speakers to compile a preliminary phonetic inventory of the language and map the Thangal vowel space. Initial notable observations include the existence of prenasalized plosives and both aspirated and unaspirated consonants. This work was undertaken at the request of the community, whose ultimate hope is to develop a practical orthography in service to developing written materials in Thangal.

San Juan Quiahije Chatino: A look at tone

San Juan Quiahije (SJQ) Chatino is an under-documented indigenous language spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico, by some 3000 speakers. Like other members of the Eastern Chatino branch, SJQ has a complex tonal system—in particular, four tone levels and 11 lexical tones (14 when considering sandhi contexts). Excellent linguistic investigations of SJQ phonology (Cruz 2004, 2011) and discourse analysis (Cruz & Woodbury 2014, Cruz 2014) exist, but there is virtually no empirical phonetic work. We present exploratory and descriptive investigation of the tones of San Juan Quiahije Chatino. Data from one female native speaker largely align with the tonal description provided in Cruz (2011): our findings confirm the presence of a multitude of tones, and reveal that several lexical tones are merged in isolation. Furthermore, while depressor consonant effects—wherein tonal targets are lower after voiced obstruents than after voiceless obstruents—have traditionally been discussed primarily in the context of African languages (Bradshaw 1999), we discover a consistent lowering of tone by approximately 25 Hz after voiced consonants. The effect is present in both low and high tone contexts and perseverates throughout the vowel.

Register Variation on the Searchable Web

Most previous linguistic investigations of the web have focused on special linguistic features associated with Internet language (e.g., the use of emoticons, abbreviations, contractions, and acronyms) and the “new” Internet registers that are especially salient to observers (e.g., blogs, Internet forums, instant messages, tweets). Multi-Dimensional (MD) analysis has also been used to analyze Internet registers, focusing on core grammatical features (e.g., nouns, verbs, prepositional phrases). MD research differs theoretically and methodologically from most other research approaches in linguistics in that it is built on the notion of linguistic co-occurrence, with the claim that register differences are best described in terms of sets of co-occurring linguistic features that have a functional underpinning. At the same time, though, most previous MD studies are similar to other previous research in their focus on new Internet registers, such as blogs, Facebook/Twitter posts, and email messages. These are the registers that we immediately think of in association with the Internet, and thus it makes sense that they should be the focus of most previous research. However, that emphasis means that we know surprisingly little at present about the full range of registers found on the web and the patterns of linguistic variation among those registers. This is the goal of the present study. Rather than beginning with a focus on new registers that are assumed to be interesting, we analyze a representative sample of the entire searchable web. End-users coded the situational and communicative characteristics of each document in our corpus, leading to a much wider range of register categories than that used in any previous linguistic study: eight general categories; several hybrid register categories; and twenty-seven specific register categories. This approach thus leads to a much more inclusive and diverse sample of web registers than that found in any previous study of English Internet language. The goal of the present study is to document the patterns of linguistic variation among those registers. Using MD analysis, we explore the dimensions of linguistic variation on the searchable web, and the similarities and differences among web registers with respect to those dimensions.

Graphemic Analysis and the Spoken Language Bias.

In the history of linguistics, the investigation of written language got off on the wrong foot. For a long time, writing was regarded as a secondary medium, its raison d'etre being the recording of spoken language. Spoken language in turn was regarded as the primary object of linguistic investigation. Consequently, there was no interest in an unbiased analysis of writing; if writing was analyzed at all, it was seen through the eyes of phonology. It took decades for things to improve, but written language was eventually accepted as a linguistic object in its own right. Yet the old spoken-language-bias is still influential, for example in the call for papers to this research topic. It is (as mostly nowadays) stated implicitly, which makes it harder to tackle. The topic editors state the importance of prosody for spoken language and the lack of its explicit marking in written language. On this basis they suggest that 'the informativeness of written text may seem astonishing.' This line of reasoning could be called the phonocentric fallacy: What is important in spoken language must be important in written language; moreover, there cannot be independent structures and relations in writing mediating between graphemic form and meaning, i.e., bypassing the phonological route.

Who were the Antipa Jivaroans? A linguistic and ethnohistorical investigation of a forgotten tribe

The ethnonym Antipa was commonly mentioned as one of the major lowland Jivaroan (also known as Chicham) tribes of north Peru in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before disappearing both from the historical record and from the oral history of the modern Jivaroan groups. This work presents insights gained by approaching the sparse historical data from a linguistic perspective. Taking into account documented linguistic evidence, the possible etymology of the ethnonym, and evidence from oral tradition, it suggests tentative hypotheses regarding the origin and disappearance of the Antipa ethnonym.

A Constructional Analysis of Obligatory XVS Syntactic Structures

AbstractThe analysis of obligatory or formulaic XVS structures - as in “Here comes the sun” or “Now is the time to solve our problems” - has been neglected in the literature since it has been argued that there seems to be no linguistic variation involved in the use of these types of syntactic constructions. Here, I defend the view that obligatory XVS structures are productive, highly structured constructions which are worthy of serious linguistic investigation. On the basis of a corpus-based analysis of written and spoken texts, it is argued that the different obligatory XVS types distinguished in the literature are clear instances of constructions as understood in the Construction Grammar framework. Despite their formal and functional dissimilarities, the article shows that these XVS structures still relate to one another in systematic and predictable ways, and are in fact grouped in relation to a unit in the schematic network which is naturally most salient - the prototype - and form with it a family of nodes which are extensions from the prototype - in the system. In sum, the analysis here will show that obligatory XVS structures are constructions which form an interconnected, structured system or network and are best understood with reference to different forms of inheritance.

Current Problems of Linguistic Norm and Variability in E. Koseriu Integrative Lingvistic

The article presents methodological analyses of topical ideas of the famous modern linguist – E.Cosseriu. The authors argue that incorporation of theoretical ideas of E.Cosseriu could substentially extand the euristic potential of the conept of norm in the sphere of linguistics. The key to solvation of the problem lies in the necessity of changing of modern theoretical context of the question. The authors of the article consider the history of operationalization of the concept of norm in linguistics from the point of view of a specific hermeneutic approach in relation to other linguistic techniques. In the course of study of the role of linguistic norms in interaction of content and expression the article presents examples of extrapolation of the concept of norm from one discipline to another. In case of extrapolation of the concept of norm from the other disciplines into linguistic investigations the structural and functional dichotomy of language turns out that it is impossible to avoid considering spiritual as the world of objects, so that speech and language are considered as two different things. The rapid development of information technologies made possible to calculate many of the aspects of Humboldtian ideas. Computer statistics created conditions where the idea of "language picture of the world" and of the "inner form of the language" is gradually losing its original romantic charge and turns in a very trivial thing. Yet despite the fact that global standardization significantly enhances the processing and automatic addition of translation, which once gave beginning to hermeneutics the hermeneutic potential of linguistic norm still preseves many promissing prospects from the epistemological point of view.

Participant-Reference Shifts in Zech. 1:1-6

Using Zech. 1:1-6 as a case-study, diachronic and synchronic methodologies are discussed in terms of their ability to explain participant-reference shifts in the Hebrew Bible. It is suggested that the analysis should begin with a linguistic investigation of the form and function of the participant-references in their literary context. Accordingly, building upon the participant tracking that Eep Talstra has done in Zech. 1:1-6, a linguistic framework is outlined in order to assess various interpretations and translations. Patterns of participant-reference shifts observed in other parts of the Hebrew Bible are included to suggest rhetorical functions of the participant shifts. It is concluded that it is necessary to combine the linguistic analysis with a discourse theory that treats the text as an act of communication. In particular, Role and Reference Grammar is suggested as a beneficial starting point for further research.

What sound symbolism can and cannot do: Testing the iconicity of ideophones from five languages

Sound symbolism is a phenomenon with broad relevance to the study of language and mind, but there has been a disconnect between its investigations in linguistics and psychology. This study tests the sound-symbolic potential of ideophones—words described as iconic—in an experimental task that improves over prior work in terms of ecological validity and experimental control. We presented 203 ideophones from five languages to eighty-two Dutch listeners in a binary-choice task, in four versions: original recording, full diphone resynthesis, segments-only resynthesis, and prosody-only resynthesis. Listeners guessed the meaning of all four versions above chance, confirming the iconicity of ideophones and showing the viability of speech synthesis as a way of controlling for segmental and suprasegmental properties in experimental studies of sound symbolism. The success rate was more modest than prior studies using pseudowords like bouba/kiki, implying that assumptions based on such words cannot simply be transferred to natural languages. Prosody and segments together drive the effect: neither alone is sufficient, showing that segments and prosody work together as cues supporting iconic interpretations. The findings cast doubt on attempts to ascribe iconic meanings to segments alone and support a view of ideophones as words that combine arbitrariness and iconicity. We discuss the implications for theory and methods in the empirical study of sound symbolism and iconicity.