Press Texts Research Articles

Algunas peculiaridades de los titulares de actos de habla en la prensa española e hispanoamericana

In this research we studied the use of reported speech in the headings of current Spanish and Latin American press. We emphasized the way in which the headings of speech acts have developed their own ways of expression in the privileged space of the press texts. With this aim, we analyzed the corpus of press headings published in the second half of May 2007, both in Spain and in Latin America. This comparative study wants to show the process of text writing for this type of headings in every one of the countries included en the sample.

Corpus, collocations et dictionnaires d'apprentissage

In this article we would like to show how we conceived the description of the word debat in the Dictionnaire d’apprentissage du francais langue etrangere ou seconde (Dafles), an online semi-multilingual learner’s dictionary of French intended for learners at an intermediate or advanced level. We successively present the delimitation of the different senses (lexies) and the definition style we used, the syntagmatic relations (word syntax and word combinations) and the paradigmatic relations (e. g. the synonyms).For each of these points, we stress the need of a corpus analysis. For the Dafles project we use a corpus of press texts from three important French speaking communities with more than 75 million words.We also compare exhaustively our data with the data found in the most important dictionaries of collocations of French available at this moment. The comparison focuses not only on the selection of the collocations, but also on their modeling.

Corpus, collocations et dictionnaires d'apprentissage

In this article we would like to show how we conceived the description of the word débat in the Dictionnaire d’apprentissage du français langue étrangère ou seconde (Dafles), an online semi-multilingual learner’s dictionary of French intended for learners at an intermediate or advanced level. We successively present the delimitation of the different senses (lexies) and the definition style we used, the syntagmatic relations (word syntax and word combinations) and the paradigmatic relations (e. g. the synonyms).For each of these points, we stress the need of a corpus analysis. For the Dafles project we use a corpus of press texts from three important French speaking communities with more than 75 million words.We also compare exhaustively our data with the data found in the most important dictionaries of collocations of French available at this moment. The comparison focuses not only on the selection of the collocations, but also on their modeling.

Addressing ill‐structured problems using Goldratt's thinking processes

Purpose – Problem‐solving techniques for poorly structured problems have been the subject of recent academic research and popular press texts. The purpose of this paper is to explain the use of one of the Theory of Constraints thinking process (TP) tools — the Current Reality Tree (CRT). The purpose of the tool is to clearly identify the root problem or problems that cause the surface problems or undesirable effects occurring in an organization.Design/methodology/approach – One must fully understand the core problems in the environment before proposing a system solution to these core problems. Without this systems perspective, a proposed solution may create more problems than it solves. Through the use of an actual white‐collar service case, the paper explains how the CRT is created.Findings – The overall objective of this research is not to propose solutions to the case but to demonstrate how the CRT might provide structure by identifying and logically linking the surface problems encountered in each are...

Viešumo ir privatumo sankirtos : tiesioginė kalba politinėje spaudoje

Contemporary texts in press tend to be heteroge neous. There are plenty of quotations, direct and indirect speech, references, allusions, etc. Marked and unmarked forms of heterogeneity complement the text, render novelty and originality to expression. The article deals with one of marked forms of expressed heterogeneity - direct speech. The aim of the analysis is to discuss the main features of direct speech; to analyze the usage and role of spoken language as well as agreement of functional styles in direct speech of Lithuanian and French political articles of information and comment genres; to determine the tendencies in contemporary political press, differences in publications, and social-cultural peculiarities. To carry out the work, a special comparative corpus, containing more than 1 000 000 words, was compiled. It was created using the political articles of infor mation and comment genres, printed in Lietuvos rytas, Lietuvos žinios, Liberation and Le monde, following the criteria of presentability, thematic and problematic similarity, and pragmatism.

Schémas formels des textes de presse: implications pour le développement des capacités rédactionnelles en FLE

The writing of expositive-explicative and argumentative texts is most difficult in learning French at the advanced level. This is due to the fact that students must have not only a knowledge of language and skills in communication but also (or, perhaps, in the first place) the ability to reason. The difficulties also result from the specific formal-rhetorical nature of the above mentioned types of texts. In this article, we propose to make use of the formal patterns of press texts in order to develop the capacity for cohesive writing in French at the advanced level.

Representing Indian decolonization in the Parisian press 1923–54

The diverse range of texts in the Parisian press on the decolonization of the Indian subcontinent, and the creation of India and Pakistan in 1947, has hitherto been overlooked. The present article will address this omission. Engaging with existing discourse analysis, in particular that of Said and Teltscher, the representation of 'India' by papers such as L'Humanité and Le Monde will be examined. It will demonstrate that, whilst certain aspects of existing colonial discourse analysis provide adequate theories explaining the construction of India by French journalists, an important neglected element in francophone Indian discourse is the relationship between Britain and France, and the latter's role as the subordinate colonizer on the subcontinent. Francophone representations of India are thus marked by their lack of homogeneity, politically and rhetorically: India is a 'contested space', open to simultaneous occupation by conflicting French ideologies. In this respect, the 'India' of the ostensibly 'fact-based' journalism is permanently dislocated from its geopolitical referent of the same name, and essentially functions as a trope augmenting a wider tradition of French language discourse on India.

Word class frequencies in Brazilian‐Portuguese press texts*

Brazilian‐Portugese press texts are investigated with respect to their word class frequency distributions. It is shown that the 1‐displaced mixed Poisson as well as the 1‐displaced hypergeometric distributions are acceptable models.

Word‐length distribution in English press texts*

Abstract Within a project on quantitative linguistics, which deals with the problem of proving regularities in various text entities, sixty English press texts were analyzed to display the distribution of word length frequency. In order to get a homogeneous text sample, all texts were taken from the daily newspaper The Guardian and the weekly magazine The Economist. Although there has been research into German and English press texts, the question this study concentrates on is if the same mathematical model applies to the distribution of word length in daily and weekly English press texts alike and if there is a difference between them at all. As is shown in the study, for 57 of the 60 texts analyzed, the mixed Poisson distribution worked out to be the main application (Riedemann, 1994). In spite of this result there were 3 texts which could only be applied by the Hirata‐Poisson distribution. Surprisingly, this model could mainly be proven for French and Japanese texts. One assumption to deal with this result is that in these texts both the Germanic and the Romance influence came through. As a matter of saving space only 20 of the 60 texts analysed are displayed below.

Word length distribution in Brazilian‐Portuguese texts

Abstract In most languages it is a characteristic feature that lexical parts contain words of different length. Thus, the distribution of word length can be used to characterize texts and language itself. The present analysis tries to give a first contribution to the word length distribution of a variety of Portuguese, namely Brazilian Portuguese. It tries to find out the frequencies of different word lengths in Brazilian‐Portuguese press texts and whether the 1‐displaced mixed Poisson distribution can be considered as one suitable model of word length frequencies for Romance languages. The sources of all processed texts of the survey were two Brazilian newspapers, which take a stand on topics like Brazilian literature, language, culture and history. The examination defines specific criteria of measuring and counting word lengths in texts and modifies those criteria according to the characteristic features of the Portuguese language and concerning the Portuguese orthographical conventions. As one result the examination shows the fitting of the theoretical to the empirical distributions of the processed texts. The analysis provisionally tries to confirm the assumption of a non‐accidental distribution of word lengths in Brazilian Portuguese texts, on the one hand, and the hypothesis that texts of an individual language can follow different models, on the other.

Caxton's Print vs. the Winchester Manuscript: An Introduction to the Debate on Editing Malory's Morte Darthur

Caxton's Print vs. the Winchester Manuscript: An Introduction to the Debate on Editing Malory's Morte Darthur MICHAEL N. SALDA In December 1991 I applied to the president ofthe North American Branch ofthe InternationalArthurian Society for permission to organize a Kalamazoo session on issues surrounding the editing ofThomas Malory's L·MorteDarthur. It seemed the proper time for taking stock: there were now two major editions ofMalory on the market, the 1983 University ofCalifornia Press text by James Spisak and William Matthews, and the 1990 Oxford Clarendon Press text by Eugène Vinaver, newly revised in a third edition by PJ.C. Field. But beyond their common interest in establishing Malory's text, the Spisak-Matthews and Vinaver-Field editions shared little common ground. While the former insisted on the superiority of Caxton's version, the latter steadfasdy held to Vinaver's original 1947 thesis that the Winchester manuscript was nearer Malory's final intent than Caxton's print. Even more curiously, scholars reading the introductions and notes to these editions were likely to be struck by just how little the editors seemed to be addressing each others' concerns about the better Malory text; in short, each appeared so confident ofthe better version that the other was dismissed in as little compass as possible. It seemed to me high time to talk. Norris Lacy, then president ofthe ias/nab, agreed. I was granted a session for the 1993 Kalamazoo Congress. I drew up a list ofthose I most wanted to hear discuss the topic: James Spisak, P.J.C. Field, Shunichi Noguchi, Charles Moorman, and Kevin Grimm - the first four old hands in the debate, the last someone whose work on Malory has been developing in a series ofarticles in recent years. I sent out invitations and - to my great surprise, because Spisak is no longer in academe, Field and Noguchi are overseas, and Moorman retired some years ago — all five accepted. How was I going to fit five people into a one and one-halfhour session? As it turned out, that was a problem I did not have to face. As I corresponded with these scholars during the year preceding the session, I began to get the sense that there was something at the center ofthis textual ARTHURIANA 5.2 (1995) 2 ARTHURIANA dispute that I didn't fully understand: an essay byWilliam Matthews that had been read shortly after his death by Roy Leslie at the 1975 Exeter International Arthurian Congress. Although never published, everyone seemed to know something about the essay- andeveryone seemed to know somethingdifferent. All agreed that the essay was important, because in it Matthews claimed that Caxton's text of Le Morte Darthur (compositorial issues aside) was Malory's own revision ofthe text represented in theWinchester manuscript, that Caxton's text was what one scholar would call Malory's own 'second edition.' Like most people, I had read the published accounts ofMatthews's essay. Also like most, I had never actually seen the essay itself. As the Congress neared and I acquired more information, I came to learn that there were, beyond the synopses published by others after Matthews's death, at least^«rversions ofMatthews's essay: a 62-page typescript entitled ? Question of Texts'; a much shortenedversion based largelyon the final section ofthis typescript, evidently edited by Matthews himselfto fit the presentation time he had been allotted for Exeter, entitled 'Who Revised the Roman War Episode in Malory's Morte Darthur?; a tape of Roy Leslie reading at Exeter [described to me alternately as a 'forceful, convincing presentation' and by another as 'rapidly, in a thick Scottish accent']; and a transcription made from the tape. Tb make things more confusing, American scholars with access to copies ofMatthews's essay apparently knew the longer version and the Exeter reading text, while English and Japanese scholars knew only the Exeter text and its two descendants. I was certain that a textual scholar the likes ofMatthews would be delighted to learn that his own critical work on Malory was rapidly gaining a textual tradition more complicated than that ofthe very texts he was discussing. I looked forward to the clash at Kalamazoo. Unfortunately, a rapid...