Number Of Lexical Items Research Articles

Sociolinguistic Monitoring of Word Usage Frequency of Youth Sociolect

The current paper describes the lexical units of youth sociolect and is aimed at monitoring youth speech. Special attention is given to heterogeneous social factors that influence the word usage in youth sociolect and involve micro-and macrosociolinguistic pilot projects on frequency occurrence of English words in a multicultural society. Miscrosociolinguistic analysis was focused on societal and gender differences in youth sociolect. The initial stage of the macrosociolinguistic monitoring included the questionnaire development, setting the boundaries of a sociolinguistic survey and the number of lexical items under consideration. The second step in the project was monitoring itself. Finally, the results of the monitoring were analyzed. The study was carried out through an online questionnaire, face-to-face and remote interviewing, with native English speakers and speakers of other languages from different countries and regions. The monitoring of usage frequency demonstrated that a limited number of English lexical units are used in interpersonal and professional communication; the other part of words presents a diverse picture. The respondents involved in professional activity tend to demonstrate more tolerance to the youth sociolect than ordinary people. The analysis proved the point about the heterogeneous character of sociolect usage by youth and its dependence on the sphere of communication.

Professionally-related communication: sociolinguistic monitoring of most frequently used words of youth sociolect

The current article deals with functioning of youth sociolect in professionally-related and everyday communication. It relies on the concept of professional discourse. A special attention is given to professional interaction, based on professional interests. The field study is developed to investigate the usage of youth sociolect words, involving macro-sociolinguistic monitoring of frequency occurrence of English slang words in production sphere. The initial stage of the field study included the questionnaire development, defining the boundaries of monitoring, the number of lexical items under monitoring, the place of monitoring and the age of respondents. The second step in the project was monitoring. Finally, the results of monitoring were analyzed. The study was carried out through on-line questionnaire, face-to-face and remote interviewing, administered to respondents both in the production sphere and other spheres of activity. Native and non-native speakers from different countries and regions participated in the on-line questionnaire. The monitoring of frequency usage demonstrates that a limited number of lexical units of English youth slang are used in professional activity; the other part of lexicon presents a diverse picture. The article gives a number of diagrams and graphs to provide statistics confirming priority and universal use of English words of youth slang.

The Role of Technical Vocabulary in the Construction of the Medieval Romance Text Type

This paper seeks to discover in what sense we can classify vocabulary items as technical terms in the later medieval period. In order to arrive at a principled categorization of technicality, distribution is taken as a diagnostic factor: vocabulary shared across the widest range of text types may be assumed to be both prototypical for the semantic field, but also the most general and therefore least technical terms since lexical items derive at least part of their meaning from context, a wider range of contexts implying a wider range of senses. A further way of addressing the question of technicality is tested through the classification of the lexis into semantic hierarchies: in the terms of componential analysis, having more components of meaning puts a term lower in the semantic hierarchy and flags it as having a greater specificity of sense, and thus as more technical. The various text types are interrogated through comparison of the number of levels in their hierarchies and number of lexical items at each level within the hierarchies. Focusing on the vocabulary of a single semantic field, DRESS AND TEXTILES, this paper investigates how four medieval text types (wills, sumptuary laws, petitions, and romances) employ technical terminology in the establishment of the conventions of their genres.

“Specially in the last years…”: Evidence of ELF and non-native English forms in international journals

While the number of research articles written by non-native speakers of English and published in English-medium international journals is on the rise, little is known about the extent to which that trend may be affecting the way in which English is used in that genre. To address this gap, a corpus comprising 192 non-native English articles published in 8 different international journals, spanning two different time periods (2000–2005 and 2010–2015), was compared with a parallel native-speaker corpus from the same journals and of the exact same characteristics. Analysis of the various word and phrase lists generated by the corpora show that there are a number of lexical items used by non-native authors that are used significantly less by native speakers — if at all. The identified items were shown to be used by several different nationalities, and consistently attested in the majority of the journals sampled. Moreover, comparison between the two time periods reveals that all items have become increasingly accepted over the years. It is concluded that this exploratory study merely scratches the surface in terms of the extent of ELF that may be present in international academic publication. Directions for future research are suggested.

LEXICAL DENSITY OF READING TEXTS IN ENGLISH TEXTBOOK OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

This study deals with lexical density of English reading texts in the textbook of junior high school. The objectives of the study are to find out the lexical density of reading texts of English in Focus textbook, the text which has the highest lexical density in the reading texts, and the reason of the text which has the highest lexical density in reading texts. This study was conducted by descriptive qualitative method. The data of this research were the English reading texts of English in Focus textbook for ninth grade students of junior high school published by National Education Department. The result of the analysis showed that: (1) The lexical density of procedure texts are 5.90, 5.08, 5.5, and 4.69, report texts are 5.92, 4.22, 4.06, and 3.64 and narration texts are 2.92 and 2.90. The score showed that the lexical density of eleven reading texts on English in Focus textbook for ninth grade of junior high school is categorized medium based on the Halliday’s theory. It means that the texts are not difficult, easy to understand and suitable for ninth grade students of junior high school. (2) The highest lexical density of the reading texts is report text entitled “The Chinese Influence in Indonesian Visual Art” (5.92) because of the higher number of lexical items than grammatical items, few clauses and more vocabularies of words. (3) Report text has the highest lexical density because of the high proportion of lexical items in the text and it also because of the generic structure, language features and the style of writing report text.

The relationship between first language (L1) and second language (L2) lexical development in young Turkish-German children

ABSTRACTLexical development in first language (L1) Turkish and second language (L2) German in two- to three-year-old children was examined, using parental vocabulary checklists in Turkish and in German. Children showed strong Turkish dominance in the number of lexical items they produced, which was due to the more frequent exposure to Turkish and higher quality of the input. Their vocabulary in Turkish and German comprised a largely different conceptual make-up, as evidenced by a high conceptual count of items across languages. Translation equivalents made up around 10% of the Total Vocabulary. An exemplary analysis of six noun categories showed that the more domestically oriented categories (Furniture, People) were represented more strongly in Turkish vocabularies, while the Food and Drink category contributed equally to both languages. In Turkish, 18% of words were verbs, whereas in German, verbs constituted only 7% of the children’s vocabularies. A comparison between the parent checklists TIGE (developed for Turkish monolingual children in Turkey) and TILDA (developed for Turkish children growing up in Germany) revealed conceptual differences, which can be attributed to culture-specific developments and use of specific lexical items in the two countries. Therefore, language- and culture-specific instruments should be used to assess early vocabulary skills.

Social, Cultural and Natural Factors in Formation of the Tatars Culinary Vocabulary

The human life, associated with food, is varied and complex. The food is relevant and valuable to any people at ay stages of its development, therefore in each language the lexical-thematic group “food” presents a significant number of lexical items, many of which have a long history in the language. Due to the natural habitat of the people, its main historical occupations, the cultural and historical development of food, related national cuisine is one of the most specific areas of the culture, which is reflected in its linguistic scope. Main factors determining the nature of traditional dish are the way of life of the people, economy, religion, natural resources, climate, geography of the country, neighboring peoples, etc. National Tatar cuisine was influenced by external factors and formed to provide the human body with all of the nutrients to promote effective adaptation to the environmental conditions. The article discusses the food names of the Tatar language on the background of those natural conditions that influenced the formation of eating behavior of the ethnic group. Studying the food vocabulary leads to the conclusion that each language is an integral part of the life of any nation and the history of a native speakers. Such research is determined by the need of modern linguistics in the study of the circumstances and factors of the formation of material and spiritual culture of a nation. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s2p55

The Impact of Contact Languages on the Degrammaticalization of the Hebrew Definite Article

The Hebrew articleha- is apparently undergoing a process of degrammaticalization within Modern Hebrew. Its distribution has been changing in a particular direction that is unexpected from the point of view of historical linguistics. Whereas in Classical Hebrew it was found with a limited number of lexical items, it now attaches to a variety of phrases. This change is indicative of a change in its morpho-syntactic category: it is becoming more a clitic than an affix. The morpho-syntactic change is accompanied by a semantic change; its function is to mark the definiteness of the phrase it attaches to, rather than being part of the Classical Hebrew state system. We propose that the change has its roots in a language-internal change that affected the periphrastic genitive construction of Mishnaic Hebrew and was enhanced through several phases of language contact such as the contact of Medieval Hebrew with Arabic and the contact of nineteenth-century Hasidic Hebrew with Yiddish.

Ethnic Tourism: A Case Study of Language and Culture Preservation of the Bateq Indigenous Group of Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia

Malaysia provides ethnic tourism which is related to the more popularly known as nature or eco-tourism where an indigenous or traditional group of people who live in this environment will interact with and provide services to the tourists who would like to experience ethnic tourism. Ethnic tourism refers to travel motivated by the search for the first hand, authentic and sometimes intimate contact with people whose ethnic and/or cultural background is different from the tourists. Tourists are also driven by the desire to see some of the threatened cultures that may soon disappear through assimilation into the nation’s majority. This paper aims to explore ethnic tourism as a preservation strategy for language and culture in a selected community of Bateq Orang Asli group in Peninsular Malaysia in relation the language and cultural preservation of this community. An in-depth interview, a qualitative research technique, was selected as a method of data collection. The multimedia data was also collected including the recordings of the indigenous languages, still pictures and videotapes of the indigenous and cultural activities. The findings of this study show that the Bateq Orang Asli groups have preferences of their languages even though there is a pattern that a high number of lexical items have been borrowed from Malay. Language shift among younger speakers is also becoming a trend. In terms of the preservation of cultural heritage, the Bateq Orang Asli are still very positive about keeping their practices and lifestyles. The involvement of Bateq Orang Asli in promoting ethnic tourism in the surrounding areas near their settlements has contributed to their language and cultural preservation.

Genetic Factors and Normal Variation in the Organization of Language

In this essay we present two themes. The first is a factual review of the behavioral and neurological differences in language and cognition between people with and without familial left handedness: These differences begin to justify the claim that there is a continuum of how language and cognition are represented in the brain, reflecting a quantitative difference in the role of the right hemisphere, and consequent potential qualitative differences. The second theme involves the implications of this finding. Various cases of rare neurological organization for language have called into question the idea that there is a single form of representation: These include cases of left-hemispherectomy in which the patients with a lone right hemisphere can grow up to be normal linguistically (Curtiss et al. 2001, Devlin et al. 2003) with normal developmental stages (Curtiss & Shaeffer 1997) as well as unique instances such as the infamous formerly hydrocephalic mathematician whose neocortex was a thin layer of tissue lining the skull (Lewin 1980) — clearly the topology and connections of different cortical areas are very different in these cases from the norm. Even classic and recent studies call into question the unique location and function of a linguo-central structure such as Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas (Penfield & Roberts 1959, Bogen & Bogen 1976, Anderson 2010, Rogalsky & Hickok 2011). But people with familial left-handedness comprise 40% of the population, so we cannot consign their unique behavioral and neurological structures to an odd distaff ‘minority’. A profound implication for language of these considerations is the possibility that the existence of language is not causally dependent on any particular unique neurological organization. Rather, especially the sentence construction mechanism of syntax is a computational type that recruits different neurological structures. On this view the possibility for syntax emerges as a function of the availability of propositional relations, combined with an explosive growth in the number of lexical items that can externalize the internally represented categories. The syntactic computational architecture is represented neurologically via cooption and integration of multiple brain regions that are collectively suited to the type of computation that language requires. On this view, there can be significant lability of how language will be represented in an individual’s brain, if there is significant variability in how the computationally relevant areas function or are interconnected.

Challenges of Getting Lexical Equivalents in Interpreting Religious messages: Case study of Public Religious Meetings in Bondo Town-Kenya

Interpretation plays an important role in religious meetings where those in the audience speak different languages. However some interpreters face serious challenges in their attempt to interpret the messages from one language to the other. This paper discusses some difficulties of lexical nature in interpreting religious messages in Bondo town in Kenya. The main objective of the study was to establish challenges in translation during religious meetings where English and Luo languages were used. Data was collected by taping the messages during the meetings. These were then transcribed and analyzed to establish whether the lexical items in the interpreted message gave the accurate message that the orator intended to put across to the audience. The analysis showed that a number of lexical items used did not give the accurate message the orator intended to pass to the audience. This distorted the message in a number of cases.

Yet More on the Position of the Languages of Eastern Indonesia and East Timor

The line dividing the Austronesian languages into Western Malayo-Polynesian (WMP) and Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (CEMP) is drawn east of Sulawesi and through the middle of Sumbawa. A number of phonological or semantic changes are claimed as forming the basis of this distinction, as well as the typological profile of the languages to the east being different from those to the west, and a number of lexical items being attested only east of the line. We examine the phonological and semantic innovations, as well as the erratic morphological ones, showing that none of them define the CEMP line, but indicate that (a) the Central Malayo-Polynesian (CMP)–area languages do not convincingly meet the criteria commonly accepted for a subgroup or even a linkage, (b) some of the WMP-area languages exhibit more of the same features found in at least some of the CMP-area languages than do others, and (c) many of the traits ascribed to the CMP- or CEMP-area languages can be found in more conservative WMP-area or Formosan languages as well.

The Symbolization of Sounds in Thai Onomatopoeic Words

In addition to the arbitrary invention of words in human language, there are also a number of lexical items in languages generated from the symbolization of particular groups of sounds. The present study investigates the structural and semantic characteristics of “soundsymbolic words” (or onomatopoeic words) in Thai. Data were drawn from formal and informal written documents. The Royal Institute’s and Matichon’s dictionaries were used as representatives of formal documents, while 40 Japanese-to-Thai translated comics were used for the informal documents. Structurally, it was found that most sound-symbolic words are either monomorphemic or reduplicated. In relation to semantics, sound symbolization in the data shows semantic relations to human behaviors, activities, and surroundings.

Lexical Gleanings from Bašākard

AbstractThe paper presents some comparative notes on a number of lexical items recorded during a field expedition to Bašākard and its neighbouring areas. The whole related vocabulary in the dialects of the region, denoting kidney, lizard, hedgehog, frog, and date-palm are thoroughly discussed. The history of the study of Baškardī with the relevant literature is also provided.

Malayo-Polynesian: New Stones in the Wall

Some linguistic subgroups are established by exclusively shared innovations that affect scores or even hundreds of lexical items. This is true of the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian, where the merger of PAN *p and *b, of the palatal obstruents *c, *z, *s (plus *j in all but the languages of the Admiralty Islands), and of *e (schwa) and the diphthong *-aw left effects that are widely attested in the lexicon. The preliminary (and now very much dated) list of roughly 700 POc forms in Grace 1969, for example, contains at least 93 items reflecting pre-POc *p or *b, and at least 18 reflecting pre-POc *mp or *mb. There are thus over Ioo lexical items in this list alone that exemplify the loss of the voicing distinction between *p and *b or their prenasalized equivalents in Proto-Oceanic. The number of lexical items in the Grace list that are affected by the merger of the palatals (79) and of *e and *-aw (82) is smaller, but nonetheless substantial. The phonological evidence for a Malayo-Polynesian subgroup containing all of the Austronesian languages spoken outside the island of Taiwan differs fundamentally from that for Oceanic in that most of the exclusively shared phonological innovations found in MP languages are either sporadic, or apply under very restricted conditions. There are at least two exceptions to this statement. First, many of the Formosan languages distinguish *C from *t or *N from *n (or both), and no non-Formosan language does. The apparent merger of *C with *t and of *N with *n in MP languages affects a fairly large number of lexical items, but it has been argued that these segmental distinctions are historically secondary products of earlier stress contrasts (Wolff 1991).' Second, although PAN *S is reflected as a sibilant in nearly all Formosan languages (Blust 1999:43), it invariably appears as h,

Prosodic Units in Speech Production

Four experiments demonstrate effects of prosodic structure on speech production latencies. Experiments 1 to 3 exploit a modified version of the Sternberg et al. (1978, 1980) prepared speech production paradigm to look for evidence of the generation of prosodic structure during the final stages of sentence production. Experiment 1 provides evidence that prepared sentence production latency is a function of the number of phonological words that a sentence comprises when syntactic structure, number of lexical items, and number of syllables are held constant. Experiment 2 demonstrated that production latencies in Experiment 1 were indeed determined by prosodic structure rather than the number of content words that a sentence comprised. The phonological word effect was replicated in Experiment 3 using utterances with a different intonation pattern and phrasal structure. Finally, in Experiment 4, an on-line version of the sentence production task provides evidence for the phonological word as the preferred unit of articulation during the on-line production of continuous speech. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the phonological word is a unit of processing during the phonological encoding of connected speech.

Locality constraints on yes/no questions in Singapore teochew

This paper describes the formation of yes/no (Y/N) questionsin colloquial Singapore Teochew (ST), a variety of Teochew(Chaozhou) which has borrowed a significant number of lexicalitems from Malay. The varieties of Y/N questions which we shalldescribe are A-Not-A questions, questions employing the questionparticle ka and postposed negative auxiliary (PNA) questions.

The prefix conjugation in Qafar‐Saho: the survival and revival of a paradigm — Part I

Summary It will be necessary to reserve our main conclusions and claims until after the presentation of the second case study in Part II of this paper. Notwithstanding, we feel it would be of value to offer an interim recapitulation of the main points of the case study just considered. 1. As part of its inheritance from Afroasiatic, the linguistic ancestor of Irob and the other Qafar‐Saho varieties preserved a pattern of verbal conjugation involving prefixation of derivational and subject agreement markers together with stem‐internal ablaut processes associated with mood and aspect categories. 2. The number of lexical items exhibiting this pattern of conjugation, while not negligible, was (and still is) small, relative to the total lexical stock of verbs in Irob, the vast majority of which conjugate according to another pattern. This dominant pattern was also inherited by ancestral Qafar‐Saho, though its origin was less remote than the Prefix Conjugation, belonging to ancient Cushitic, rather than Afroasi...