Public Language Use Research Articles

Jezički pejzaž mesta Kovačica

In researching the linguistic landscape of Kovačica, we analyze the linguistic diversity of this multicultural town with a focus on both official and public inscriptions. The aim was to ascertain how minority language policies regulate public language use, as well as to examine whether one of the languages is more dominant than the other and whether a certain language is used for certain domains. The research corpus consisted of 152 photographs and accompanying notes taken during fieldwork. Through a detailed analysis of the corpus, we come to the conclusion that the linguistic landscape of the town of Kovačica is diverse and in accordance with the structure of the population and the languages that are in official use in the territory of the municipality of Kovačica. Regarding official inscriptions, we notice that Serbian, as the official and majority language in the Republic of Serbia, is more dominant than Slovak, except for some situations, for example street names and inscriptions on local historical monuments. On the other hand, the Romanian and Hungarian languages appear only on official signs as a feature of a multinational municipality in which four languages are in official use, which means that those two languages do not appear in other domains of the language landscape of Kovačica. In addition, English is becoming more prevalent in the official language landscape of Kovačica, especially in the tourist sector, which reflects the impact of globalization and the need to communicate with a wider international audience. When public written signs are concerned, our analysis shows the indisputable dominance of the Serbian language, which indicates a tendency towards monolingualism in the public space. In addition, there are occasional deviations in the spelling and correct use of both the Serbian and Slovak languages in the public space. Overall, the linguistic landscape of Kovačica reflects the town's rich traditional culture and confirms that the official use of languages is in line with Serbian legislation, but the private sphere does indicate a gradual shift from multilingualism towards monolingualism.

외국인 유학생의 관점에서 본 대학 내 공공 언어 실태와 개선 방안 연구

This study is to analyze the use of public language in universities from the perspective of foreign students and to seek improvement measures for efficient communication. To this end, the concept and analysis standards of public language were re-established within the university, and the status of public language use in terms of accuracy and communication was analyzed according to the analysis criteria. Data collection was conducted through the website of K University in Gwangju, and as a result of the analysis, there were many errors in the order of spacing, spelling, grammar, and foreign word notation at the level of language regulation. It can be seen that there is a relatively lack of understanding among university members. In the area of communication, there were many parts that were difficult to understand information or grasp the meaning because the level of vocabulary was not considered, and it was found that it would be very difficult to understand the public language. Through the results of the study, if members recognize the importance of public language in universities in the future and make efforts to improve it, the difficulties of foreign students can be solved to some extent.

Phraseologie, Polysemie und Pragmatik im öffentlichen Sprachgebrauch Italiens - zur Kreativität und Effizienz im Umgang mit focuzioni idiomatiche

Idiomatic expressions have a considerable semantic and pragmatic potential that has remained hidden in all previous lexicographic descriptions, at least as far as verbal idioms of Italian are concerned.The article aims to show that a corpus-based and holistic approach, which systematically examines all levels of language, can help to uncover not only the semantic and pragmatic but also syntactic features (e. g. valency) of each verbal idiom, as it is the case in the research project Gebrauchsbasierte Phraseologie des Italienischen (GEPHRI), in English Usage-based Phraseology of Italian. Ch. 1 gives a brief overview of the state of research on the use of phrasemes in public and political speech. Ch. 2 explains general features of the phraseological category of verbal idioms. Ch. 3 introduces the project (3.1) and describes the underlying speech corpora (3.2). Ch. 4 illustrates some semantic and pragmatic peculiarities of verbal idioms in public language use, as they could be analysed in the GEPHRI project. Ch. 5 draws a brief conclusion.

Pedagogical Potential of Linguistic Landscape for English Teaching and Learning: An Analysis of Pre-Service Elementary School Teachers’ Activities in a Multimedia English Course

With the growing interest in linguistic landscape in sociolinguistic studies, many language educators and researchers have begun to consider how the sociolinguistic concept and analytic methods can be mobilized for language learning and teaching. To explore the pedagogical potential of linguistic landscape, this study examines how pre-service teachers understand the concept and implications of linguistic landscape for English education. For this purpose, 35 South Korean pre-service elementary school teachers taking a multimedia English course attended a session about linguistic landscape and engaged in two activities using multimedia resources and online platforms: a virtual linguistic landscape task and a linguistic landscape fieldwork project. The analysis of the learning outcomes of these two activities revealed that linguistic landscapes helped pre-service teachers increase their language awareness of public language use. However, their engagement with language awareness was affected by the spaces they chose to collect public signs. In their reflections on the activities, the pre-service teachers indicated that linguistic landscapes could be valuable resources for authentic English and cultural learning. They also stated that the levels of linguistic difficulty and cultural contents of public signage should be controlled. This article concludes by discussing how linguistic landscape can contribute to improving English teachers’ critical language awareness.

Chief executive officer positive framing and employee ownership

AbstractEmployee ownership is an important governance tool used to encourage employee participation and enhance employee productivity, but we know little about what encourages employee ownership. This study investigates the influence of chief executive officer (CEO) positive framing in public speeches on employee ownership. We propose that CEO positive framing can increase employee ownership when employees internalize CEOs' positive beliefs about firms' accomplishments and prospects. Using a sample of 664 U.S. listed firms from 2002 to 2018, we find that CEO positive framing increases employee ownership. In addition, the stock purchasing behaviors of top executives, analyst recommendations, and positive media coverage strengthen the effectiveness of CEOs' positive framing on employee ownership. Findings from this study advance employee ownership research by highlighting the vital role of CEOs' public language use in promoting employee ownership.

Excluding Agency

Excluding Agency

Beständigkeit im Handeln: Sprachkultur mit Konjunktur. Rezension zu Rudolf, Gerhild: Wurzeln und Wege. Soziolinguistische Studie zur kirchlichen Sprachen wahl der Siebenbürger Sachsen. Hermannstadt: Honterus-Verlag. ISBN 978-606-008-037-4, Reihe: Miscellanea ecclesiastica des Zentralarchivs der Evangelischen Kirche A. B. in Rumänien, Sibiu/ Hermannstadt, Band XX, 406 S.

Abstract German in space and time is a central aspect both from a scientific perspective and from the perspective of one´s own identity preservation within the language island situation. MsGerhild Rudolf’s thesis offers an analysis of the choice of languages within the Evangelical Church A.B. in Romania (ECR) and at the same time a general overview of language change processes within the ECR. There is an irreversible paradigm shift that is taking place along with the ongoing transition from a monolingual to a bilingual linguistic culture in worship. The status of German in the public use of language is also reflected, the efforts of preserving the German language and culture are presented from a current perspective, and the importance of the German minority is discussed historically and in a forward-looking manner. The thesis offers sufficient reason as well to think about future research on the role of the church and of German from different perspectives, to also emphasize the relevance of interdisciplinarity.

Patterns ‘We’ Think By? Critical Cognitive Linguistics Between Language System and Language Use

AbstractTaking the interrelationship of language and thought as starting point, Cognitive Linguistics considers language as providing central insights into cognitive structures and processes as well as into their experiential basis. In its role as a gateway for exploring and describing phenomena at the interface between the individual and society by means of public language use, Cognitive Linguistics thus ranges between the poles of trans-situational, overarching language structures and situated, specific language use. But how exactly are system and use to be distinguished and related to one another? What range has, for example, a particular political frame detected from a sample of media coverage with regard to ‘its’ audience? When can we reliably label several instances of individual language use as an overarching language pattern or a frame? The paper aims to address these and further questions in reference to Critical Cognitive Linguistics concerning, for one thing, its own theoretical and methodological assumptions and, for another, its social role in light of current social and political phenomena and developments.

Meaning in Phonology and Other Departures from Modularity in the Living Language

Abstract I review evidence of three kinds relating to leakages in modularity within language domains and between linguistic and nonlinguistic action. One kind of evidence shows that the form-meaning “rift” in language that enables the important principle of duality of patterning and the particulate principle of self-diversifying systems is bridged in many ways. Segmental language forms have iconic meanings, and form-meaning correlations of other kinds emerge cross linguistically. A second kind of evidence occurs in parallel transmission of linguistic prosodic information with iconic and emotional information conveyed suprasegmentally. The final kind of evidence shows the integrality of linguistic and nonlinguistic action (deictic points, speech-accompanying gestures, head motions, facial expressions, etc) in conveying communicative information in public language use. I suggest that these violations of modularity within language and between linguistic and nonlinguistic action reflect the dynamic effects of sets of competing and cooperating constraints including, among others, parity and learnability of language forms that shape communicative actions in social activity.

Wie über Krisen geredet wird. Einige Ergebnisse eines diskursgeschichtlichen Forschungsprojekts

In this article, we report on basic findings of a discourse-historical study on linguistic constructions of economic and social-political ›crises‹ in Germany from 1973 to 2009. The study is based on a text corpus comprising approximately 11,000 newspaper articles that address one of the following ›crises‹ in Germany: (a) the ›oil crisis‹ in 1973/1974, (b) the so-called ›party political turnaround‹ in 1982, (c) the ›labor market crisis‹ in 1997, (d) the ›Agenda 2010‹ in 2003, and (e) the ›financial crisis‹ in 2008/2009. The guiding hypothesis is that the way we talk about crises, and thus linguistically conceptualize the phenomena addressed, substantially shapes the way we think and envision facets of crises. Employing both data-driven methods of corpus analysis and interpretative techniques in the domain of content analysis, we (a) systematically compare the vocabulary of the crises in terms of their specific and shared lexis, (b) provide detailed, frame-based investigations of important key words, and (c) highlight and analyze significant discourse-specific metaphors as well as argument patterns. Overall, the results obtained contribute to a more comprehensive account of a contemporary history of public language use in German.

War, language removal and self-identification in the linguistic landscapes of Nagorno-Karabakh

The disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) resulted in demographic shifts and drew new boundaries in a once borderless region. The South Caucasus, an area that has been characterized by its linguistic diversity witnessed one of the most destructive interethnic wars in the former USSR. Fought between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, it resulted in the removal of the Azerbaijani population. Two decades later the political status of the self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh Republic remains unresolved, but apparently a new linguistic self-identity of the population takes shape. While possibilities for extensive sociolinguistic research are limited, linguistic landscape research provides insights into patterns of individual and public language use. This paper analyzes the linguistic landscapes of Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, and establishes functional domains of the languages visible. Furthermore, it traces remnants of an Azerbaijani linguistic landscape in abandoned settlements and documents patterns of language use in rural parts of the territory. The demographic situation suggests a majority of Armenians, yet the results point toward a bilingual situation with Russian as a language of wider communication. On the other hand, the study shows the link between the removal of Azerbaijani from the public sphere and the eradication of Azerbaijani culture.

An ecological alternative to a “sad response”: Public language use transcends the boundaries of the skin – ERRATUM

An ecological alternative to a “sad response”: Public language use transcends the boundaries of the skin – ERRATUM

An ecological alternative to a “sad response”: Public language use transcends the boundaries of the skin

Embedding theories of language production and comprehension in theories of action-perception is realistic and highlights that production and comprehension processes are interleaved. However, layers of internal models that repeatedly predict future linguistic actions and perceptions are implausible. I sketch an ecological alternative whereby perceiver/actors are modeled as dynamical systems coupled to one another and to the environment.

Talking as doing: Language forms and public language

I discuss language forms as the primary means that language communities provide to enable public language use. As such, they are adapted to public use most notably in being linguistically significant vocal tract actions, not the categories in the mind as proposed in phonological theories. Their primary function is to serve as vehicles for production of syntactically structured sequences of words. However, more than that, phonological actions themselves do work in public language use. In particular, they foster interpersonal coordination in social activities. An intriguing property of language forms that likely reflects their emergence in social communicative activities is that phonological forms that should be meaningless (in order to serve their role in the openness of language at the level of the lexicon) are not wholly meaningless. In fact, the form-meaning “rift” is bridged bidirectionally: The smallest language forms are meaningful, and the meanings of lexical language forms generally inhere, in part, in their embodiment by understanders.

How Taking a Word for a Word Can Be Problematic: Context-Dependent Linguistic Markers of Extraversion and Neuroticism

This study conceptually extends recent research on linguistic markers of psychological processes by demonstrating that psychological correlates of word use can vary with the context in which the words are used. The word use of 90 participants was analyzed across two theoretically defined communication contexts. Information about participants’ public language use was derived from recorded snippets of their daily conversations with others. Information about their private language use was derived from stream-of-consciousness essays. Personality trait–word use associations emerged as highly context dependent. Extraversion as a public trait was related to verbal productivity in public but not private language. Neuroticism as a private trait was related to the verbal expression of emotions in private but not public language. Verbal immediacy was indicative of Extraversion in public and Neuroticism in private language use. The findings illustrate the importance of considering communication contexts in research on psychological implications of natural language use.

How Taking a Word for a Word Can Be Problematic: Context-Dependent Linguistic Markers of Extraversion and Neuroticism

This study conceptually extends recent research on linguistic markers of psychological processes by demonstrating that psychological correlates of word use can vary with the context in which the words are used. The word use of 90 participants was analyzed across two theoretically defined communication contexts. Information about participants’ public language use was derived from recorded snippets of their daily conversations with others. Information about their private language use was derived from stream-of-consciousness essays. Personality trait–word use associations emerged as highly context dependent. Extraversion as a public trait was related to verbal productivity in public but not private language. Neuroticism as a private trait was related to the verbal expression of emotions in private but not public language. Verbal immediacy was indicative of Extraversion in public and Neuroticism in private language use. The findings illustrate the importance of considering communication contexts in research on psychological implications of natural language use. DOI:10.2458/azu_jmmss_v3i2_mehi

What does the „bedrock“ of rules consist of? Mcdowell on Kripke’s and Wright’s interpretation of Wittgenstein

This text discusses McDowell?s position with regard to particular problems of Wittgenstein?s philosophy, primarily through his criticism of Saul Kripke?s and Crispin Wright?s interpretation of Wittgenstein?s understanding of rules. What these interpretations have in common are certain perspectives of the possibility of grasping rules, when the solution differs both from the explanation through interpretation and from the platonism of rules. According to McDowell, Kripke?s and Wright?s interpretation state that congruence of individuals and their behavior, that is, their use of language, comes before language norms and meanings. Normativity of linguistic rules is eliminated in this way, that is, it is compensated with description of current public use of language which basically does not follow Wittgenstein?s initial intention. Contrary to this, McDowell speaks about Wittgenstein?s emphasis placed on the autonomy of rules, as well as on the implicit normative basis of forms of life. The last part of the text considers justifiability of McDowell?s criticism of these two interpretations. It is also emphasized that beside the fact that particular objections referring to the importance of practice and interpretation are not sufficiently founded in writings of Kripke and Wright, there still is a significant criticism, which has substantially contributed to understanding Wittgenstein?s positions regarding rules and their practical basis.

"We Can't Feel Our Language": Making Places in the City for Aboriginal Language Revitalization

"We Can't Feel Our Language":Making Places in the City for Aboriginal Language Revitalization Natalie J. K. Baloy (bio) The Squamish teens . . . show an appreciation of their culture. It may not be to the same level or depth as their elders, but it may help to ensure that it lives on, even if in a different form. They have all heard their traditional language spoken at story-tellings, and at gatherings and funerals. Even though they don't understand it, they enjoy hearing it. "It sounds better," says Ralphie, "it's a lot more pretty than English." Belinda, growing up in urban Port Alberni, is one teen who feels a strong and deep connection to both her language and culture. Yet she still faces numerous stumbling blocks in her quest to learn more about it. . . . "I want to learn more prayers. When we go to workshops, I want to hear the prayers from beginning to end. If I knew the prayers, I would say them. I told my grampa that, so he's been teaching me, taking me out on the road, and now I'm learning about medicinal plants and foods." Belinda recognizes that there are teachings associated with her people's songs and dances. "I want to understand what they mean, so I go and ask my grampa. I don't want to sing without knowing what it means." Native language revitalization efforts are overwhelmingly located in rural environments, despite the fact that aboriginal people are increasingly choosing to live and raise families in urban settings.1 This profoundly affects aboriginal people living in cities, many of whom, like the Squamish and Port Alberni teens quoted above, are anxious to learn, speak, hear, see, and feel their languages. This article explores possibilities for extending aboriginal language education opportunities into the urban domain based on qualitative research in Vancouver, British Columbia. I [End Page 515] argue that aboriginal language revitalization efforts have a place in the city, as demonstrated by emerging language ideologies of urban aboriginal people expressed in interviews for this study. I identify three central challenges facing language workers and learners. I suggest possible ways to address these issues through urban language revitalization projects. First, language workers and learners must work against the sometimes subtle but pervasive idea that a strong aboriginal identity and an urban lifestyle are mutually exclusive.2 Many people acknowledge that urban aboriginal people can and do maintain strong connections to their heritage and homelands; however, language revitalization projects are located primarily on reserves, perpetuating a divide between language and the city. I present several approaches to reconceptualizing urban aboriginal identity that can support urban-based language initiatives. Second, language workers must consider how to address linguistic and cultural diversity among urban aboriginal people through language projects. Research participants suggested that attention to the local languages ought to be the first step, particularly for public use of language. Participants emphasized important links between land, language, and identity. Acknowledgment of local peoples, their lands, and their languages offers a starting point for addressing diverse language needs in the city. I call this step "placing language." Third, language workers and learners must identify how ties between land, language, and identity can be fostered and nurtured in urban spaces not only for local peoples but also for those who have moved to the city from elsewhere. For nonlocal urban aboriginal peoples, connections with homelands can be strengthened through enhanced access to language and culture.3 I suggest several approaches for "making places" for language and culture in the city. Including the urban dimension in language revitalization efforts is of pressing importance as languages continue to lose speakers and aboriginal people continue to dwell in urban spaces.4 Through recognition and promotion of connections between land, language, and identity, language workers and learners can make places for aboriginal language education in the city. Talking About Language: Language Ideologies Linguistic anthropologists and other scholars have recognized the sociocultural implications of language and examined its social functions. [End Page 516] The study of "language ideology" has emerged as a "mediating link between social structures and forms of talk."5 Language ideology refers to the social connections people make...

Spaces for Counter-Narratives: The Phenomenology of Reclamation

Spaces for Counter-Narratives:The Phenomenology of Reclamation Farah Godrej (bio) In this essay I explore the following question: how can women gain authority and ownership over their self-understanding? I offer an understanding of feminist reclamation that goes beyond existing analyses, by shifting our focus from the public sphere of explicit verbal discourse to the private sphere of the interior female consciousness. I will argue that there are two kinds of spaces within which a reclamation project takes place: the first is a public and communal space of external interlocutors who provide semantic authority to the meanings we wish to construct: the second is the private sphere of one's consciousness, which remains a site of colonization by patriarchal discourse. This space remains relatively undertheorized by feminists. I will argue that in thinking more carefully about this space, and in delineating its relationship to the public sphere of discourse, we will gain a fuller understanding of reclamation. Existing analyses of reclamation focus mostly on the explicit, public use of language in shaping discourse about and among women.1 We reclaim words and phrases so that we refashion their meanings to correspond to our particular goals. We rescue or salvage them from their earlier—often derogatory—meanings so that they have the authority of our ownership behind them. Thus, the immediate target of reclamation is our discourse with one another. This specifically linguistic reclamation is a tool for disarming the power of a dominant group to control one's own and others' views of oneself, to categorize oneself or one's group in a totalizing way. It is "a demand for women to take the kind of authority to name, describe and create our world . . . defining, describing and re-creating ourselves while simultaneously defining, describing, and re-creating our social and material world."2 Thus, the reclamation I refer to here will be a project of consciousness-raising through identity reconstruction, a project in which linguistic reclamation is a necessary component. But this project becomes complicated as soon as we acknowledge that the [End Page 111] construction of self-conception remains a site of deep contestation. We are, in different complex ways, always subject to others' stories about us, so that our ownership of our identity is partial at best.3 In the construction and maintenance of any one person's identity, a complex web of personages participates in an equally complex web of ongoing dialogical interactions that involves the authoring of stories, the exchange of ideas, and the carving out of ownership.4 Drawing occasionally on insights from narrative psychology, I will rely on this discursive model of identity construction in order to shed light on the reclamation that occurs within the space of the individual female consciousness. Reclaiming self-understanding, I will show, is in part about liberating this consciousness from its propensity to judge itself through the lens of the dominant group, to speak to itself and of itself in the voice of patriarchy. Doing so, however, depends crucially upon understanding what I call "internal interlocutors" and exploring the relationship of these interlocutors to the communities they encounter within the public space of reclamation. I will argue that these communities serve to model a series of skills and capacities associated with autonomy competency. Understanding this phenomenon gives us a fuller understanding of the reclamation process. In naming this project a "phenomenology of reclamation," I follow the lead of feminist thinkers who point to a "modest and situated phenomenology": a descriptive analysis of the lived experience and "embodied consciousness of a feminine subject . . . with a specific social and historical location."5 While some feminists use phenomenology to demonstrate how the values of an oppressive system are able to take up residence inside the female consciousness, my essay gives an account of the reverse. It offers an experiential articulation of how the individual female consciousness might, in collaboration with others, expel from within itself these oppressive values and reclaim ownership of and authority over its self-definition. I call this the phenomenology of reclamation. The Internalized Others and Internal Interlocutor(s): Psychological Perspectives In her influential work Femininity and Domination Sandra Bartky offers us a phenomenological understanding of the...

The reality of phonological forms: a reply to Port

I suggest four grounds on which an argument can be made that phonological language forms are not merely emergent properties of the public language use of members of a language community. They are: (1) the existence of spontaneous errors of speech production in which whole consonants or vowels misorder or are replaced; (2) the necessary existence of language “particles” used by individual language users in order for words to be able to be coined; (3) the remarkable effectiveness of alphabetic writing systems and the tight coupling among skilled readers of orthographic and phonological language forms; (4) the finding that, by late infancy, children have discovered phonological constancies despite phonetic variation.