Neutral Connotations Research Articles

A SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF CONNOTATIVE MEANING IN BEN HOWARD’S SONG LYRICS

In linguistics, semantics studies how meaning is expressed through language, including sentences, phrases, and words. Connotative meaning, which gives words emotional depth and resonance, is significant in song lyrics. This study, titled “A Semantic Analysis of Connotative Meaning in Ben Howard’s Song Lyrics,” aims to explore the connotative meanings in Ben Howard's lyrics. The researcher chose five of his most popular songs on Spotify for this analysis. Using a qualitative descriptive analysis approach, the study looks into the sense of values and types of connotative meanings in the lyrics. The analysis shows that the songs’ themes affect the types of connotations found. Songs about love, vulnerability, and youth memories tend to have positive connotations, while themes of self-doubt, separation, and searching for life’s meaning have more negative and neutral connotations. Moreover, associative meaning is the most common connotative form, followed by affective, reflective, and allusive meanings. The findings indicate that song themes greatly influence the types of connotations used, with positive connotations more frequent in hopeful songs and negative ones in introspective songs. This research adds to language studies by offering insights into the complex and rich meanings in Ben Howard’s song lyrics.

Construction and Semantics of Idioms with Colors in Mu'jam at-Ta'bir al-Ishthilahi fi al-Arabiyat al-Mu’ashirah

This study presents information about the meaning of connotations, grammatical construction, and semantic categories of color idioms in Arabic. Through library research, the main data source is Mu'jam at-Ta'bir al-Ishthilahi. Data collection techniques are reading techniques and note-taking techniques. The determining element sorting technique is used to analyze the data. The results of this study show that white and black are the dominant elements in forming Arabic idioms, followed by yellow, green, and red. White color is dominated by positive connotations, although there are uses with negative and neutral connotations. In contrast, black is dominated by negative connotations, and there is one data with positive and neutral connotations. The colors yellow and green only have negative connotations. Meanwhile, red has both positive and negative connotations. There are full and partial idioms in terms of the meaning of the forming elements. In terms of grammatical construction, there are three categories: First, N + Adj. The colors in this construction are all attribute elements. Second: Intransitive verb + N, which is one case. Third: V + Preposition 'ala + Adjective, which is one case. Fourth: Verb + preposition + Adjective + conjunction + adjective, which is one case. The implication is that color symbolization is closely related to people’s perceptions. In Arab society, giving connotations to black is more dominant as a negative or white as a positive symbol. However, color connotations are not closed. The connotation of a particular color is closely related to the language user's perception of the object.

Associations of Suicide Referents With Different Moral Connotation With Actual Suicides.

Background: Different words used for suicide (so-called suicide referents) have different moral connotations, and neutral referents are recommended in media reporting guidelines. Aims: To assess how different referents in media reports are related to actual suicides. Method: Austrian news articles for each month between 2000 and 2021 (n = 276 months) were obtained from the Austrian Press Agency. Time series were modeled for media items referring to suicide as a crime [Selbstmord], an act of freedom [Freitod], or neutral connotation [Suizid]. Temporal associations with suicides in the month before, during, and after the reporting were examined. Results: Terminology referring to suicide as an act of free will [Freitod] was weakly associated with increases in total, male, and female suicides and with suicides in up to 64-year-olds in the same month. No other statistically significant associations were found. Limitations: No detailed content analysis of media reports was done. Conclusion: During times of prevalent use of referents suggesting suicide to be an act of freedom, there are small-sized increases in suicides. The simultaneous occurrence of this referent and suicides might reflect effects of a societal framing present in both the media and the community rather than a sheer media effect.

Фразеологизмы с компонентом "денежная единица" в русском и английском языках

The article presents the results of a study aimed at revealing common characteristics and differences in the structure, lexical composition and semantics of English and Russian phraseological units that contain monetary units. Reflecting universal or culture-specific mentality characteristics, these phrases represent people’s attitude to money, to wealth or poverty. They also disclose people’s values, customary ways of living and inclinations, as well as their apprehension of one’s financial and social status. Both mono- and bilingual phraseological dictionaries served as sources of samples. The authors selected 220 Russian phrases and 116 English phrases. The sample phrases include proverbs and sayings, idioms, fixed expressions, collocations, metaphors, phraseological fusions that contain names of monetary units. It is interesting to note that in both languages names of coins that are out of circulation are quite frequent in phraseology. The authors employed component and semantic analysis to investigate the phrase samples features. The sample phrases were divided into several groups depending on the kind of monetary unit used as the key lexeme. The quantitative data unveil that the names of small coins (kopeck, penny, cent, etc.) outnumber the words “ruble” and “pound”. The study has shown that names of small coins in phraseology do not always mean “little money”. They sometimes mean large amounts of money, “a fortune”, mentioned in an ironic tone. Many phrases include small coins alongside with bigger ones. Small and large sums contrasted help to form utterances that moralize and evaluate people’s deeds in both languages. The next step was to divide the samples into three groups. Each one contained phrases with a definite connotation: negative, neutral and positive. The comparative analysis reveals that negative subjective evaluative component is frequent in both languages. However, the quantitative data demonstrate a substantial shift towards negative connotation of monetary units in the Russian phraseology. In the Russian phraseology negative phrases with monetary units constitute 63% of all samples, whereas in the English phraseology negative ones account for 28%. The use of names of small coins helps figuratively express how worthless, miserable or trivial the speech subject is. English phrases with neutral connotation are frequent (40%), but only 6% of neutral Russian phrases were found. This indicates that monetary units in the Russian phraseology tend to be used in utterances expressing either appraisal or condemnation and discontent. They substitute lengthy, neutral descriptive expressions. In the English language neutral phrases often have a nominative function and form names of objects and phenomena, without evaluating them in any subjective way.

Internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy positively influences the social representations of tinnitus

IntroductionThe aim of the current study was to examine changes in social representations of tinnitus as a result of Internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (ICBT).MethodsThe study used a pretest-posttest design. A total of 106 individuals with tinnitus (mean age 57.5 years) completed a series of questionnaires before and after undertaking ICBT. A free association task was used to collect data. The data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis and also series of quantitative analyses using the IraMuTeQ software.ResultsThe most common categories reported by individuals with tinnitus before and after ICBT intervention varied. Examination of valance showed that the negative associations decreased from 81 to 56% and the positive and neutral connotations were increased after the intervention. Examination of the frequency of responses and similarities analysis did not reveal major changes following the intervention. However, the prototypical analysis, which considers both the frequency of categories as well as their ranking, showed that more positive and less negative categories appeared in the central zone and in the first periphery following the ICBT intervention.DiscussionThe study suggests that ICBT reduces the negativity associated with tinnitus and increases positivity. The results are consistent with what is seen in patient-reported outcome measures in clinical trials.

Sentiment analysis of the Spanish financial stability Report

This paper presents a text mining application, to extract information from financial texts and use this information to create sentiment indices. In particular, the analysis focuses on the Banco de España's Financial Stability Reports from 2002 to 2019 in their Spanish version and on the press reaction to these reports. To calculate the indices, a Spanish dictionary of words with a positive, negative or neutral connotation has been created, to the best of our knowledge the first within the context of financial stability. The robustness of the indices is analysed by applying them to different sections of the Report, and using different variations of the dictionary and the definition of the index. Finally, sentiment is also measured for press reports in the days following the publication of the Report. The results show that the list of words collected in the reference dictionary represents a robust sample to estimate the sentiment of these texts. This tool constitutes a valuable methodology to analyse the repercussion of financial stability reports, while objectively quantifying the sentiment conveyed in them.

Молодежный сленг в речи студентов: роль в коммуникации, масштабы распространения, причины и особенности употребления

The article analyzes the reasons, peculiarities of usage, role in communication, and the extent of spread of youth slang among students. In 2023, the author conducted a survey and testing of students and graduate students from universities in the Central Federal District in order to study their knowledge of everyday and student slang, as well as their knowledge of Russian language spelling and punctuation. It was found that slang is one of the important elements (attributes) of a student's social status, as it demonstrates belonging to a specific group and indicates the position a person occupies in the university hierarchy. Slang allows to describe everyday reality in the most concise, accessible, emotional and comprehensive way, while expressing one's attitude towards it (event, action, etc.). Additionally, it has been established that girls (who know slang) have a similar level of slang proficiency as boys, but unlike boys, they tend to use it less in everyday practice. It has been revealed that girls avoid using non-academic slang when communicating with boys, although they are perfectly capable of using it. Instead, they prefer actively using slang related to the educational process, rather than describing reality beyond its limits. It has been found that one of the main reasons for the rapid appearance of new words in youth slang is the swift adoption of borrowings from English, French, and other foreign languages, as well as active borrowing of words after watching foreign movies and listening to foreign music. Out-of-town students possess a different range of slang and jargon than those who study in universities in their own city. As a result, an exchange of slang and jargon takes place. Students, regardless of their field of study, mostly use slang related to the educational process, rather than everyday life. Girls, more than boys, use slang terms that express qualities of a person. Students and undergraduates of different nationalities use different slang words and jargon. It was revealed that students from different regions of Russia are familiar with different slang expressions, which creates certain difficulties and complicates interpersonal communication during their adaptation on the first year of studies. It has been established that the majority of girls, unlike boys, prefer to use jargon and slang with positive or neutral connotations rather than negative ones. The research shows that students who frequently use slang and jargon in their everyday activities (outside of studying) have lower academic performance compared to those who use slang less. In conclusion, the author suggests implementing measures aimed at studying the Russian language and literature among students.

Экспрессивные средства языка в речи глав государств Японии и России (на материале обращений к нации в период пандемии COVID-19)

The paper considers the problem of the political discourse of Japan and Russia. The significance of the coverage of this issue is due to new social threats, which include the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the study is to identify similarities and differences in expressive language means in the speeches of the Japanese and Russian heads of state during the COVID-19 pandemic (Shinzo Abe (2020), Yoshihide Suga (2021), Fumio Kishida (2022), V. V. Putin (2020-2022)). The study is novel in that it is the first to identify the stylistic markedness of the speech of Japanese and Russian top officials using the material of the official addresses made during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of the study, it can be argued that in the official addresses of the Japanese and Russian heads of state, metaphors, epithets, set expressions, rhetorical questions are more often used, which makes the speech expressive, emphasizes its imagery, emotionality and evaluativeness. The speeches of the Prime Ministers of Japan are characterized by a more neutral connotation compared to the speeches of the President of the Russian Federation V. V. Putin, whose speech is dominated by the use of expressive means.

For the semantics of German toponymic and ethnonymic phraseologisms

The aim of the article is to determine the semantic meaning and groups of toponymic and ethnonymic phraseologisms. In research process, two semantic groups were identified:  phraseologisms created with the names of countries, that is toponymic. For instance:Leben wie Gott in Frankreich - living like God in France, i.e. living well, and phraseologisms created with the names of nationalities, that is ethnonyms:stolz wie ein Spanier - proud like a Spaniard. Phraseologisms with positive, negative and neutral connotations were revealed.

Lighting Up the Darkness: The Emergence of the “Family of Origin” Discourse in China

ABSTRACT Since the mid-2010s, the concept “family of origin” has achieved surprising popularity in China. Different from family of origin’s academic meaning and neutral connotation in English, its Chinese translation, yuansheng jiating (原生家庭), explicitly draws attention to how parents and family can do harm to children. Adopting a phronetic iterative approach, I analyzed 48 family of origin narrative videos and their comments on one of China’s largest video-sharing sites, Bilibili.com, using the Darkness Model of Family Communication as a heuristic tool. Results revealed an interlocking system of individual, dyadic, familial, and social levels of family darkness, collaboratively articulated by online narrators and commenters. I argue that the Chinese discourse of family of origin opens up a dialogic space where communication about family problems and critiques of patriarchal family culture can take place in the time of neo-familism in China.

Exploring the referential range of etymologically-related lexical pairs in the language of the Qur’an: A cognitive-semantic approach

The present study conducts a cognitive-semantic analysis of etymologically-related lexical pairs in the language of the Qur’an. Based on objective selection criteria, the lexical pair rīĥ (a singular form literally meaning wind) and riyāĥ (a plural form literally meaning winds) has been claimed to be representative of the final data set, which includes 20 lexical pairs. Building on the theoretical underpinnings of descriptive semantics and frame semantics, the analysis sought to fulfill three main objectives: (a) identifying the referential range of the pair rīĥ and riyāĥ and its central reference point; (b) explaining the way the historical and theological context helps to mark the connotations associated with each sense in the referential range; and (c) sorting the discourse functions communicated through the cognitive frame(s) evoked by such a lexical pair. Findings showed that the central cognitive frame of both lexical items is that of moving air. However, rīĥ has developed, through metaphorical extension, two other senses that are not applicable to riyāĥ: power/predominance and smell. Finally, both lexical items have been proven to have positive, negative, and neutral connotations that have been divinely manipulated to perform various discourse functions.

Voice Assistants' Responses to Questions About the COVID-19 Vaccine: National Cross-sectional Study.

Artificial intelligence-powered voice assistants (VAs), such as Apple Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa, interact with users in natural language and are capable of responding to simple commands, searching the internet, and answering questions. Despite being an increasingly popular way for the public to access health information, VAs could be a source of ambiguous or potentially biased information. In response to the ongoing prevalence of vaccine misinformation and disinformation, this study aims to evaluate how smartphone VAs respond to information- and recommendation-seeking inquiries regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. A national cross-sectional survey of English-speaking adults who owned a smartphone with a VA installed was conducted online from April 22 to 28, 2021. The primary outcomes were the VAs' responses to 2 questions: "Should I get the COVID vaccine?" and "Is the COVID vaccine safe?" Directed content analysis was used to assign a negative, neutral, or positive connotation to each response and website title provided by the VAs. Statistical significance was assessed using the t test (parametric) or Mann-Whitney U (nonparametric) test for continuous variables and the chi-square or Fisher exact test for categorical variables. Of the 466 survey respondents included in the final analysis, 404 (86.7%) used Apple Siri, 53 (11.4%) used Google Assistant, and 9 (1.9%) used Amazon Alexa. In response to the question "Is the COVID vaccine safe?" 419 (89.9%) users received a direct response, of which 408 (97.3%) had a positive connotation encouraging users to get vaccinated. Of the websites presented, only 5.3% (11/207) had a positive connotation and 94.7% (196/207) had a neutral connotation. In response to the question "Should I get the COVID vaccine?" 93.1% (434/466) of users received a list of websites, of which 91.5% (1155/1262) had a neutral connotation. For both COVID-19 vaccine-related questions, there was no association between the connotation of a response and the age, gender, zip code, race or ethnicity, and education level of the respondent. Our study found that VAs were much more likely to respond directly with positive connotations to the question "Is the COVID vaccine safe?" but not respond directly and provide a list of websites with neutral connotations to the question "Should I get the COVID vaccine?" To our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate how VAs respond to both information- and recommendation-seeking inquiries regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. These findings add to our growing understanding of both the opportunities and pitfalls of VAs in supporting public health information dissemination.

Socialist Challenge! A snapshot of leftist language and discourse in the UK, 1977-1983

This paper is based on close lexical and semantic analysis of a collection of newspaper texts stored in the Marxists’ Internet Archive which, in effect, constitute an opportunity sample of Leftist language. The texts run to approximately ten million words. The purpose of the paper is to identify key linguistic features that appear to be typical of Leftist discourse during the period (1977–1983) when the paper (Socialist Challenge) was sold on the streets of Britain. There is a particular focus on lexical choices made by the text producers, and it is argued that a significant number of these involve the selection of what might be termed inflammatory or provocative words and phrases over those of a similar meaning but more neutral connotations. The discourse that emerges from the analysis is shown to involve portraying society as divided into two distinct and irreconcilable groups (workers and capitalists), and it is demonstrated that the use of words in the semantic fields of “war”, “flighting” and “struggle” underpins and sustains this discourse. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the relationship between language, discourse and ideology, as well as with several suggestions for future research.

Konotasi Kolektif Istilah Covid-19 Berkategori Nomina dalam Bahasa Indonesia di Portal Berita Online Nasional

This article discusses the collective connotation (value of taste) of terms in the Indonesian noun category related to covid-19 on national online news portals. The purpose of this study is (1) to describe the form of noun category terms related to covid-19 in Indonesian in the national onlinenews portal, (2) to explain the collective connotation (taste value) of noun category terms related to covid-19 in the Indonesian language contained in the national online news portal. This type of research is a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research with descriptive methods. The results of this study indicate that the noun categorized terms regarding covid-19 in the Indonesian language are found in four forms, namely in the form of 36 words, 58 terms in phrases, 13 abbreviations, and 8 acronyms. The most dominant form of the term is the phrase form. Then, the sense values orconnotations found are very positive, positive, neutral, and negative connotations. The most dominant connotation is neutral connotation.

Semantic Variations in Punjabi Circumfixal Pattern: An Optimality Theory Analysis

Circumfixation is a type of affixation in which a word is changed into a different form by adding a morpheme in two parts on both sides at the same time. This study is focused on the semantic changes occur while a circumfix is attached to root and new word is formed, which changes its meaning and connotation simultaneously. For instance: kɘm „work‟ is a root word with neutral connotation while its derivation ni-kɘm-ma „incompetent‟ has a negative connotation. This negativity of meaning is indicated from the circumfix attached with the root word. This study examines the semantic variations that occur through derivation. To analyze these features, Optimality Theory will be used as theoretical frame work

The Beauty of Words in Maher Zain’s Selected Song Lyrics: A Study of Connotative Meaning

There were so many connotative meaning could be found in Maher Zain’s song lyrics. This research gained the data through identifying the words or phrases on the lyrics in six Maher Zain’s songs and were analyzed based on Leech’s theory. The data were analyzed qualitatively, while the techniques of data collection are done by downloading the song and the lyrics, listening the song, reading the lyrics and watching the videos. Then, reducing the data, displaying the data, verifying the data and making the conclusion were done in analyzing the data. The result of the study described words/phrases containing types of connotative meaning. There were twenty-four data found in this research; sixteen data contained positive connotations, four data contained neutral connotations, and four data contained negative connotations. The researchers expected the next researchers to study the types of connotative meaning in other songs from Maher Zain in this album. The researchers also expected the next researchers to identify the types of connotations by using different relevant theory.

Linguistic representation of psychotypes in the artistic discourse of W. Golding

The article is devoted to the study of specific lexical representations of psychotypes in the framework of a work of art. The relevance of this article is that linguists are concerned with studies in the field of functional linguistics and psycholinguistics, in which language is considered within the framework of an instrumental function. The aim of the work is to identify specific tokens that reflect the psychotypes of the characters. The material for the study is the lexemes from Lord of the Flies by William Golding. The meanings of selected language units convey the personal touch of Ralphs and Jacks nature. The study used contextual description and structural and semantic approach. The article describes their behavior and speech from the perspective of psychology and psycholinguistics. Ralph is a hypertim and Jack is an epileptoid. The contrast of the boys behavior indicates that the hypertim and epileptoid are not able to find a common language in the distribution of social roles. The characteristics of the psychotypes have an impact on the management of the group. Ralph manages the group in the following ways: relying on humanism, mutual understanding; he jokes to defuse the situation; he encourages the guys to save them from the outside, and tries to awaken the humaneness in the guys. Jack uses the following means of controlling the group: authoritarianism, mental intimidation, physical violence. Authoritarianism is expressed through the use of the imperative. Mental intimidation is achieved by using lexemes that reflect physical influences, insults. In addition, mental bullying occurs through body language (piercing gaze, looking down). In conclusion, the author comes to the following conclusion: psychotypes are transmitted mainly through lexemes that reflect body language; hypertim is reflected through language units with positive or neutral connotations, while epileptoid is expressed through language units with negative and neutral connotations.

The Connotative Meanings In “The Internship” Movie’s Dialogue: A Semantics Study

The aims of this study are to describe and analyze connotative meanings of the internship movie’s dialogue. The researcher divides the data into two parts which are primary and secondary data. The primary data consists of the movies and the script were taken from the internet. The method used in this study is qualitative descriptive and documentation technique. The main theory that the researcher used is the theory of semantics proposed by leech (1991). The result of this study shows that the connotative meaning of the internship movie’s dialogue consists of three types of connotative meanings both positive, negative and neutral connotations. Furthermore, this study shows that the word or the phrase selected and used by the characters in the movie depended on the condition or situation and with who they are talking to.

How Google Autocomplete Algorithms about Conspiracy Theorists Mislead the Public

How Google Autocomplete Algorithms about Conspiracy Theorists Mislead the Public

Investigating the Use of Singular ‘they’ across Two Social Contexts: A Comparative Study of Iranian and Polish EFL Students

With the increasing attempts to use gender-fair language, different studies have investigated this issue from different viewpoints. To find an epicene pronoun used as a third-person singular, some research has been conducted investigating them in various contexts, yet few studies have focused on cultural differences. Since how to use language differs among cultures, this study aims to investigate and compare the use of epicene pronouns (he, she, he/she, and singular they) among Iranian and Polish Non-Native Speakers (NNSs) of English with different cultures, social backgrounds, and L1s (in terms of gender markedness; Iran with a genderless-grammar language, and Poland with a grammatical-gender language). A survey containing sentences and questions was given to 64 university learners in 4 contexts (indefinite noun, feminine, masculine, and neutral connotations) to choose the most suitable pronouns while exploring the reasons for choices followed by the source of learning. The results revealed that singular they was the highest deployed pronoun in all four contexts, with no significant difference between Iranian and Polish learners. Furthermore, gender neutrality was mentioned most as the main reason for their selection of choices. Finally, roughly half the Polish students and about a third of Iranian participants had already heard about singular they, with private institutions and schools were respectively mentioned as their main sources of this knowledge.