Linguistic Items Research Articles

Distributional Semantics: Meaning Through Culture and Interaction.

Mastering how to convey meanings using language is perhaps the main challenge facing any language learner. However, satisfactory accounts of how this is achieved, and even of what it is for a linguistic item to have meaning, are hard to come by. Nick Chater was one of the pioneers involved in the early development of one of the most successful methodologies within the cognitive science of language for discovering meaning: distributional semantics. In this article, we review this approach and discuss its successes and shortcomings in capturing semantic phenomena. In particular, we discuss what we dub the "distributional paradox:" how can models that do not implement essential dimensions of human semantic processing, such as sensorimotor grounding, capture so many meaning-related phenomena? We conclude by providing a preliminary answer, arguing that distributional models capture the statistical scaffolding of human language acquisition that allows for communication, which, in line with Nick Chater's more recent ideas, has been shaped by the features of human cognition on the timescale of cultural evolution.

Exploring the Language of Suffering and Redemption through Discursive Manifestations of the Religious in Film Reviews

This paper explores the manifestations of religious discourse in film reviews, particularly focusing on the discursive markers of suffering and redemption. It analyses two sets of reviews of the religious films The Passion of the Christ and The Exorcist as a means of creating and deciphering meaning and observes how specific linguistic items reveal distinct representations of suffering within religious episodes. The reviews highlight the profound emotional and physical responses elicited by these films, underscoring the deep spiritual and existential impact on the viewers. In addition, the focus also lies on the connection between divine and mortal suffering, an intricate topic examined through the lens of salvation. In this respect, critics had in view episodes of great emotional and spiritual intensity, as Christ’s sacrifice, mirrored by the possessed girl’s plea for divine intervention and salvation. Our study intends to confirm that religious discourse in film reviews serves as a process of self-expression, effectively conveying complex emotional and spiritual reactions. The audience, composed of simple viewers and critics alike, are intrigued and persuaded into exploring the intense manifestations of religion in cinematic discourse. This is the reason why the aim of this paper is to identify and to analyse such discursive manifestations of the religious within film reviews, while focusing upon the manner in which certain feelings and emotional responses, such as suffering and redemption, are transmitted.

Dialect levelling and merchant writing in Renaissance Italy

Abstract This article aims to assess the extent to which merchant language in Renaissance Italy can be said to have undergone a process of dialect levelling. Merchant letters in the Italian context are characterised by their high degree of verb allomorphy, both verbal and nominal. Previous investigations have shown that this degree of allomorphy is much more present in merchant texts than in other text genres immediately preceding codification in the 1500s. This article continues this line of research, showing how a process of dialect levelling occurs in a corpus of merchant writing sent from Milan in the late 1300s and early 1400s. Specifically, it focuses on 1pl. verb endings and the presence of voicing in past participles to show that Tuscan linguistic items infiltrated and then spread into neighbouring dialectal areas, such as Gallo-Italian, that is typologically distinct from Tuscan. Since this process of levelling was occurring at the same time as literary Tuscan was spreading, sometimes mediated also by merchants, the article also discusses these issues. While focus is placed on the contribution of merchant language in Renaissance Italy, the article can be seen as a case-study as evidence of language evolution ‘from below’. Overall, it argues that historical sociolinguistics provide powerful tools which help to show the various processes identified during standardization.

Stance-Taking and Responses in Selected Social Media Posts and Comments on Arise TV Morning Show

This study investigates stance-taking and responses in selected social media posts and comments on the Arise TV Morning Show. Stance-taking features and engagement responses in the selected texts on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) were identified and analyzed in the study. Norman Fairclough’s (1989) Critical Discourse Analysis was adopted as the analytical tool for the study. Fairclough’s approach facilitates the investigation of meaning and agendas embedded within texts, thereby enhancing the understanding of discourse. Five (5) posts (three for Facebook and two for X) and twenty-five (25) responses (i.e. fifteen for Facebook and ten for X; five comments under each post) formed the data for the study. Qualitative content analysis was used for the data analysis. The findings reveal that linguistic items are important in positioning oneself as an authority to influence other participants in a discourse on the Facebook and X platforms. It also shows that the most prominent features of stance-taking and responses used by social media users are boosters and self-mention. They serve as discursive strategies employed by writers to convince other discussants to align with their position.

Complexity and Difficulty in Second Language Acquisition: A Theoretical and Methodological Overview

AbstractThis article presents a theoretical review of and methodological guidelines for the study of two key notions in second language acquisition research, complexity and difficulty. The term complexity has gained considerable currency over the past decades and has taken on a wide range of meanings. We argue for a more restricted interpretation, focusing exclusively on formal, structural properties of linguistic items. The less employed term difficulty in our account refers to the cognitive costs associated with learning and using such items. On the basis of our theoretical definitions, we critically review measures operationalizing these constructs and discuss their strengths, limitations, and potential applicability to second language research, in order to establish a small set of measures to be used routinely in the interest of replicability and knowledge accumulation in the field. In addition, we discuss the relationship between complexity and difficulty and the associated notions of proficiency and development.

Critical Discourse Analysis of Intercultural Communication through the Lens of Multiculturality and Interraciality

Recent research on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has focused on the identity construction of agents within discourse. This study delves into intercultural communication through the lens of multiculturality and interraciality. Employing the CDA framework, the research investigates how online Filipino Chinese writers construct their identities and those of their readers, examining the dynamics of dominance and subordination in selected intercultural discourse. The study is guided by three central questions: how online intercultural writers position themselves in terms of their social identities, how the relationship between the writer and readers is linguistically realized, and how the representations and relationships of the writer and reader manifest in terms of discursive strategies. By concentrating on identity construction through the analysis of linguistic items, the study offers critical discourse analysts an alternative method for unveiling power and dominance in written texts. Furthermore, the examination of discursive strategies allows this CDA study to perceive texts as dual in nature, serving not only as a means for writers to influence their readers but also as instruments to endorse ostensibly positive values. In conclusion, the study presents an approach for analyzing intercultural discourse, enriching the field of CDA with a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between writer, reader, and text within the rich tapestry of intercultural communication.

Does Timed Testing Affect the Interpretation of Efficiency Scores?—A GLMM Analysis of Reading Components

AbstractThe efficiency of cognitive component skills is typically assessed with speeded performance tests. Interpreting only effective ability or effective speed as efficiency may be challenging because of the within‐person dependency between both variables (speed‐ability tradeoff, SAT). The present study measures efficiency as effective ability conditional on speed by controlling speed experimentally. Item‐level time limits control the stimulus presentation time and the time window for responding (timed condition). The overall goal was to examine the construct validity of effective ability scores obtained from untimed and timed condition by comparing the effects of theory‐based item properties on item difficulty. If such effects exist, the scores reflect how well the test‐takers were able to cope with the theory‐based requirements. A German subsample from PISA 2012 completed two reading component skills tasks (i.e., word recognition and semantic integration) with and without item‐level time limits. Overall, the included linguistic item properties showed stronger effects on item difficulty in the timed than the untimed condition. In the semantic integration task, item properties explained the time required in the untimed condition. The results suggest that effective ability scores in the timed condition better reflect how well test‐takers were able to cope with the theoretically relevant task demands.

Evolution in Linguistics – Conceptual Innovation, Metonymy, and Miscommunication

Abstract Conceptual innovations in science (‘paradigm shifts’ in the sense of Kuhn) come with changes in the meaning of basic terminology in that field. Linguistics is no exception. But linguistics is in the peculiar position that it comprises the study of the meaning of linguistic items, and the way these meanings change. Some basic ideas of cognitive semantics, especially the concept of metonymy, shed light on the risk of miscommunication in a scientific field in a period of innovation. Paradoxically, these risks are instantiated in a controversy in the field of linguistics itself that was triggered by the then new, Darwinian understanding of evolution. The paper ends by exploring a recent theoretical innovation (the ‘usage-based’ approach, especially its most recent variants) that holds a promise for overcoming the controversies, provided theoretical linguists accept that terminology also in their own field is to be semantically more precise than in everyday language use.

The effects of input flood and input enhancement techniques in teaching collocations to EFL learners

Input flood and input enhancement are two prominent techniques to develop learners’ writing competence. While the former refers to offering multiple sources to increase students’ gains, the latter implies highlighting certain linguistic items to attract attention. A plethora of studies have been conducted to measure the effectiveness of both techniques. However, a gap in the literature has been noticed in comparing input flood with input enhancement technique in terms of writing improvement in Iraq. Thus, the present study was conducted to measure the impacts of the input flood technique to teach collocations on 48 EFL learners who joined an intensive language learning program at the Language Preparatory School of Tishk International University in Erbil, Iraq. Participants, chosen by convenience sampling method, were exposed to input flood or input enhancement techniques to expand their colloquial expression knowledge within six weeks in the 2022–2023 academic year spring semester. Data were collected via writing exams and interviews as a part of the explanatory sequential research design. The findings, analyzed by SPSS 27 and MAXQDA, revealed that experimental group students who received the instruction via input flood increased their writing marks more significantly than control group students whose instruction was via input enhancement. Likewise, students who received the instruction with input flood had more positive views than students receiving input enhancement. The findings of the study may have several implications for educators who think about teaching collocations via input flood and input enhancement techniques professionally.

Prompting learners to use target language forms: Elicitation practices in one-on-one instructional sessions

This paper explores instructor elicitation practices used in mandatory one-on-one instructional sessions to prompt learners of Japanese to incorporate specific linguistic items in their responses. Specifically, the study is based on a corpus of 15 h of video-recorded interactions in a study abroad program in Japan. Drawing on multimodal conversation analysis, the study investigates: (1) how instructors design and sequentially place elicitations to prompt learners to use a specific target language form while engaging in meaning-focused activities; and (2) how these elicitation designs and placements affect the accomplishment of the intended pedagogical goal. The findings contribute to the understanding of elicitation practices for specific pedagogical purposes and yield empirically based insights that can inform interactional decisions.

Doing language testing: learner-initiated side sequences in a technology-mediated language learning environment

ABSTRACT We present doing language testing sequences; L2 learners decide for themselves to test themselves or each other explicitly on new linguistic items, outside the official task cycle with no professional present, investing extra time and energy. We examine how and why pairs of learners do this, and its impact on their learning. They use an App to learn Chinese language and culture whilst cooking in their university dormitory kitchens, receiving multimedia instructions and help from a tablet. Using a mixed-methods research design, we asked: How is the practice of doing language testing organised in interactional terms? Using multimodal CA we found: learners organised the interaction themselves and introduced their own learning interests. Some self-tested and some peer-tested; some consulted the system and some did not. To ascertain the reasons why the learners decided to do language testing, we used post-hoc interviews and found their major motivation was to have an improved learning experience. We then compared their vocabulary post-test score gains with those who did not do language testing and found they made significantly higher gains with a learning advantage. The study shows that some students are motivated to do language testing in order to enhance their task performance and learning experience, in which they succeed.

Nativazation of Hausa Loanwords in Kanuri through Deglottalization and Sonorization

The paper attempts to identify and study those linguistic items borrowed from Hausa to Kanuri language with special attentions to the deglottalization and sonorization processes employed in incorporating the loanwords. Borrowing is a phenomenon which is as old as human social, economic, and administrative contact. When a contact is established between two or more different linguistic communities, there is the tendency for linguistic borrowing to take place. Therefore, despite the fact that Hausa belongs to Chadic family and Kanuri belongs to Nilo-Sahara, there exists linguistic borrowing between them. The paper focuses on the deglottalization and sonorization in nativazation of the borrowed words. The research sought data from two sources. These sources are primary and secondary. The primary source includes unobtrusive observation when discourse is taking place in Kanuri language. Similarly, the researcher’s intuition plays significant role in identifying the loanwords being a native speaker of the language. On the other hand, the secondary sources include written records, such as journal articles, dissertations, thesis, dictionaries etc. The paper concludes that Kanuri, a Nilo-Saharan language uses deglottalization and sonorization in nativazation of some Hausa borrowed lexical items. This resulted in making the loanwords to behave like the native words of the target language (Kanuri).

Discourse repetition and phonetic reduction in a person with dysarthria secondary to Parkinson’s disease

Background: A common concern for persons with dysarthria is a difficulty in being understood. This is captured clinically using assessments of intelligibility. Any attempt to measure intelligibility must be carried out in a way that is sensitive to the phonetic variation that occurs in naturally occurring conversational speech. This article identifies examples of an interactional event known to trigger phonetic variability: discourse repetition. Method: This article is a case study of a 68-year-old male with dysarthria secondary to Parkinson’s disease. The method of analysis is interactional phonetics. Results: Examples of discourse repetition are presented with accompanying interactional and phonetic analysis. The speaker is seen to produce the same linguistic tokens with varying phonetic features. In some cases, this variation means the tokens are realized as markedly different phonetic forms. Discussion: The results highlight how variable a single speaker’s realizations of the same word can be within a single conversation. Given this, it is proposed that intelligibility is best conceptualized as a range rather than as a single, invariant score.

Translation in Language Teaching - The Need for Redefinition of Translation

Translation has been long excluded from language classes due to its association with the drawbacks of the Grammar Translation Method (GTM). However, in recent years, translation has made a comeback with its positive impact on students’ language performance. The effect of translation on the learner’s language knowledge has been finite compared with other language activities. The paper presents a critical analysis of research on translation in language teaching. It is found that the limited results of studies on the impact of translation may involve linguistic focus. Generally, most of the studies did not focus on the meaningfulness of linguistic items, which can only be achieved by placing them in context. In other words, the linguistic view of translation is still common in studies supporting translation. The redefinition of translation should incorporate communicative aspects of translation and the function of translation in a communicative context. The literature-based paper reinstates the importance of a communicative view of translation in language teaching, and it makes proposals related to the inclusion of translation in language learning classes.

Parsability revisited and reassessed

Abstract This paper provides evidence that the inveterate way of assessing linguistic items’ degrees of analysability by calculating their derivation to base frequency ratios may obfuscate the difference between two meaning processing models: one based on the principle of compositionality and another on the principle of parsability. I propose to capture the difference between these models by estimating the ratio of two transitional probabilities for complex words: P (affix | base) and P (base | affix). When transitional probabilities are comparably low, each of the elements entering into combination is equally free to vary. The combination itself is judged by speakers to be semantically transparent, and its derivational element tends to be more linguistically productive. In contrast, multi-morphemic words that are characterised by greater discrepancies between transitional probabilities are similar to collocations in the sense that they also consist of a node (conditionally independent element) and a collocate (conditionally dependent element). Such linguistic expressions are also considered to be semantically complex but appear less transparent because the collocate’s meaning does not coincide with the meaning of the respective free element (even if it exists) and has to be parsed out from what is available.

Unmasking Metaphors of COVID-19 Pandemic in Kenya’s Virtual Space: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach

The outbreak of COVID-19 in late 2019 led to the emergence of metaphorical framing. Life almost came to a standstill for more than two years. As a result, the entire world was engaged in combat with an elusive enemy widely seen as a warning sign. The study explored the metaphors employed in the fight against the virus in Kenya’s virtual space when it became a public health concern. Since this pandemic was the first in a century, people came up with new vocabulary and mental analogies to describe it. This study aimed to identify and describe the lexical items used in the Citizen TV Twitter handle, Kenya, to construct COVID-19 metaphors. The Conceptual Metaphor Theory by Lakoff and Johnson (1980/2003) was adopted in the study. The study utilized the descriptive qualitative research design. The data obtained from the Citizen TV Twitter handle, using Python code, was subjected to the Metaphor Identification Procedure developed by scholars at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (MIPVU). This criterion identifies the metaphorically used linguistic items. The identified metaphors were classified into their domain following source-target domain analysis. Based on the selected metaphors, the macro domains obtained were WAR, PATH, and ORGANISM. The study revealed that conceptual metaphor was extensively employed in Kenya. Metaphors were found to be widespread in discussions on COVID-19. People consistently associate certain aspects of reality with others, transferring the characteristics of one domain to another. They naturally and instinctively think in terms of metaphors. The abundance of metaphors in the discourse around COVID-19 may have been employed to motivate Kenyans to confront the challenges presented by the pandemic and show how COVID-19 was conceptualized in Kenya.

Linguistic realizations of engagement in TED talks

The article describes linguistic items used for actualizing the engagement strategy in the oral genre of popular science discourse of TED lectures, which seems to be understudied in modern scientific linguistics literature. A huge number of studies have shown that popular science discourse is an interactive event, the success of which depends on the degree and efficiency of interaction between the speaker and the audience. However, the metadiscourse strategies employed in popular science genres, including TED talks addressed to a wide audience, remain insufficiently studied. The research gap in this area of pragmalinguistics predetermines the need to study the strategies of interaction between the speaker and the audience. The research corpus consists of 80 scripts of TED talks posted on the ted.com website. The aim of the study is to analyze linguistic items used for realizing the strategy of engagement of the audience into the discussion, their categories, pragmatic functions and frequency. In order to study the types, functions and frequency of linguistic actualizers of engagement, the methods of quantitative and interpretive analysis were adopted. The study showed that TED lecturers use a variety of language tools, the most productive of which were questions and reader mentions. It was found that at the lexical and grammatical levels, the engagement strategy was realized through imperative verbs, first and second personal pronouns, interrogative constructions, as well as impersonal constructions with solidarity adjectives. The results of the analysis suggested that TED speakers strive to construct an effective dialogue with the addressee, to engage the audience in the process of representing scientific information, making it accessible to lay listeners. It was concluded that the pragmatically correct use of the engagement strategy in the genre of TED talks is an indicator of the pragmatic competence of the speaker and the key to effective communication with the audience.

Expression of Emotions in the Spanish and Italian Filmic Audio Descriptions of The King’s Speech

This paper puts forward a three-layered model for the analysis of linguistic items in filmic audio description (AD). The model is applied to three Spanish and Italian audio described scenes of the drama film The King’s Speech (Hooper, 2010). The aim is to evaluate lexical items that are chosen to verbalize information on characters’ emotional condition, or psyche. Verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs used in the compared ADs will be analysed taking into consideration the communicative function(s) associated with each scene. The overall objective of the research is to shed light on the linguistic strategies that could potentially be used in AD to enhance the communicative value of the audiovisual source text, guiding the choice of informative or expressive rendering in AD to foster the audience’s engagement with the narrative. Results suggest that it might be useful to identify the communicative function of a given scene; this can turn into a valuable criterion, to be given due credit when creating AD. Lay summary In this article, we presented a model for the analysis of the words used in filmic audio description. Audio description is the verbal explanation of images or other elements which are difficult to grasp when it is not possible to access the visuals. We analysed the Italian and Spanish audio descriptions of three scenes from the drama film The King’s Speech (Hooper 2010). We focused on what types of verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs are used in the audio descriptions to talk about the characters’ emotions and disposition. We wanted to verify if the words used in the audio description scripts manage to reveal the hidden meanings expressed through images and sounds in each film scene. The model helped us to obtain initial results. We found that both the Spanish and Italian scripts prefer objective descriptions of the images, explaining the characters’ actions and reactions. At the same time, the Italian audio description tends to employ non-literal meanings, as shown by the use of some verbs in figurative senses and the inclusion of nouns that overtly refer to the character’s feelings. The study led us to conclude that, when the expression of emotions prevails in the film scene, it is crucial to determine which layer of meaning stands out in the scene, in order to choose the most appropriate words in audio description.

Developing Reading Skill among Iraqi ENGLISH AS FOREIGN LANGUAGE learners

The main thrust of the present study was to improve Iraqi English as foreign language learners’ speaking. To this end, 30 ENGLISH AS FOREIGN LANGUAGE learners were selected as the participants of the study. All participants took the pretest followed by 25 ninety-minute sessions in which the learners presented their lectures (totally 9 lectures) followed by the challenging questions that they had to answer and the correction feedback in terms of vocabulary, structure, collocation, etc. Moreover, every three lectures followed by taking a progressive test, the posttest and the delayed posttest. Having followed the repeated measure ANOVA, the researcher put the data into SPSS 22 and analyzed it in terms of both descriptive and inferential statistics. It was found that teaching Reading through the tenets of sociocultural theory is influential and equally effective for all participants irrespective to their level or age. The results of the study indicated that presenting lecture improves the learners’ Reading development, consciousness-raring regarding learning processes and learning linguistic items, collaboration, autonomy and motivation. It was also pointed out that learning is not a straightforward transmission of knowledge provided by the teacher but a transformative and complex process for which learner’s agency, engagement and their co-construction of knowledge are crucial.

Deutsche und kamerunische Stellenanzeigen im Vergleich

Abstract Across different cultures in the world, companies recruit new workers by publishing job announcement in newspapers. This contribution examines job announcement in German and Cameroonians newspapers in order to bring out theirs similarities and differences. The analysis reveals that job announcements in both countries are quite similar as far as the communication situation is concerned. Differences and similarities appear in text structure and in the usage of linguistic items.