bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
pu-based Greek Rude Negators
Authors: Nicholas Nick
Published: September 2007

This paper describes the distribution and typology of Greek Rude Negators: a colloquial, productive class of expressions based on the factive connective pu, whose illocutionary effect is emotive and denegatory, comparable to English Rude Negators (e.g. the hell I will). The semantics of this class, and even whether it denies or affirms its referent, is to a large extent motivated by implicature, and by the strength (appropriateness) of the invective introducing it. Other uses of pu, syntactically ambiguous with the rude negator, are seen to have had a clear effect on its interpretation. The existence of the class challenges the established wisdom that pu is factive: it demonstrates the need to understand the presuppositionality of pu in pragmatic rather than truth-conditional terms. I conclude with some speculation on the origins of the construction.
An iota of difference: Attitudes to
Authors: Rytting C. Anton
Published: September 2007

The factors controlling synizesis and hiatus in Modern Greek have long been debated. Some accounts, e.g., Kazazis (1968, 1992), suggest that a speaker’s knowledge of a word’s origin (or alternatively, its appropriateness in a formal setting) plays a role. Other accounts, e.g., Nyman (1981), discount this factor. Petrounias (1987) cites word frequency as a factor, claiming that “rarer words follow [the synizesis rule] less frequently” especially if the words seem more formal.
 To test the influence of frequency and perceived formality of {-ια} words on their pronunciation, two experiments were conducted, in which ten native speakers of Modern Greek heard 40 words pronounced with hiatus (e.g., σχέδια /sxeðia/ “plans”) and synizesis (e.g., πόδια /poðja/ “feet”). They rated these words on (1) word familiarity, (2) appropriateness of the word in informal conversation, and (3) appropriateness of the word in formal proceedings. In the first experiment, they heard the canonical pronunciations of each word. In the second they also heard non-canonical pronunciations, e.g., [sxe.ðja] and [po.ði.a]. In a third experiment, speakers produced the words in question in a sentence-reading task. The results of these experiments suggest that speakers still have an awareness of the connection between hiatus and formality (contra Nyman 1981), and that this awareness may play a role in favoring hiatus not predicted by declensional class for less frequent items, consistent with Petrounias’ (1987) predictions.
Évolution sémantique des prépositions spatiales de l’ancien au moyen français
Authors: Fagard Benjamin
Published: September 2007

Summary
The aim of this paper is to investigate a particular aspect of semantic change. Many theories have tried to capture the regularity in semantic change. In this respect, some linguists have claimed that space is the necessary starting point of any semantic development, and others have stated that space is situated at the same distance from the “semantic core” of a given lexeme as other semantic domains, such as time. I will formulate a partial answer to the question of the primacy of space. Using diachronic corpus data, I will examine prepositions in Old and Middle French (11th to 16th centuries). The prepositions I have focused on are vers, envers, devers, and pardevers, chosen from a wider corpus of prepositions (which I have studied in the same way) because of their semantic behavior, which is particularly complex, and which I try to explain here in detail.
Le lexique-grammaire
Authors: Martinot Claire
Published: September 2007

Summary

The description of the language as used by children along the acquisition period leads to question about the most elementary principles which base all theory about language organization.

The principal tools and concepts of the Lexicon-Grammar theory give account of the language organization inspite of the fact that they were not conceived to describe the language in acquisition. In particular the organization of the language in a set of discourses which gives the way of discovering its organization allow children to acquire the language through Reformulation. To acquire language children produce their predications as a function of previous predications. They repeat a part without any change and modify the rest of the source utterance. The invariant part and the modified part change in the course of the acquisition.
Les propriétés des complétives en -ko en coréen
Authors: Eum Du-eun
Published: September 2007

Summary

Various types of sentential complements are known in Korean, they differ in their complementizer. We considered those with the complementizer ko (P-ko). Due to their grammatical properties, they do not have the status of noun phrase (NP), and they have particular properties: question in mwôlako (what) or in ôt’ôhke (how) and pronominalization with kîlôhke (this way). Thus, P-ko sentential complements show a mixture of nominal and adverbial features, though they often alternate with NP sentential complements in position of direct object. P-ko sentential complements do not share these properties with other similar sequences which must be classified as adverbial clauses.
Les syntagmes prépositionnels en «en N» détachés en tête de phrase référant à des domaines d'activité
Authors: Vigier Denis
Published: September 2007

Summary

Among the least integrated adverbials, one can find, at the front of the clauses, detached adverbials which delimit frames: these frames gather the following information in sets semantically homogeneous relating to a criterion specified by these adverbials (M. Charolles: 1997). These criteria are extremely various: they can be spatial criteria («Aux Etats-Unis, ...»), temporal criteria («Durant l’année 1989, ...»), criteria of activity («En biologie, ...»), etc.

This paper explores only one set of these frames: the frames of activity (which we will call “praxeological frames”). In addition, among the adverbials which can introduce frames of activity, we will only examine the prepositional phrases detached at the front of the clauses, introduced by the preposition “en” immediately followed by a noun (“En biologie”, “En biologie cellulaire”, ...). In particular, we will try to determine the features of the nouns which can appear just after the preposition “en” in this type of frame of activity.
Verbes à complément locatif temporel en portugais
Authors: Baptista Jorge
Published: September 2007

Summary

This paper provides a sketch of the main syntactic properties of verbs selecting a time‑related noun as their argument, in order to be able to distinguish them, during automatic text processing, from formally identical adverbs that present the internal structure of a noun phrase.
Niveaux de langue et variations linguistiques dans la comparaison interlangue de tables du Lexique-Grammaire
Authors: Camugli Gallardo Catherine
Published: September 2007

The purpose of this study is to solve translation problems between French and Italian as they appear on the tables of the Lexique-Grammaire. These difficulties are originated by differences in speech level ; others stem from the specific usages of the Italian language (caused by regional variation, or due to specific cultural references).

After reexamining the criteria traditionally used by the community of the Lexique-Grammaire, the author proposes returning to the criterium of frequency which enables one to draw a distinction between panregionalims and less extensive diatopic data and to identify specific dialectal variations. This encoding is complementary to the three usual layers of electronic dictionaries.
et les adjectifs comme ça
Authors: Haïk Isabelle
Published: September 2007

The syntax of psychological verbs like amuse has interested linguists for a number of years. Certain phenomena may be explained in a framework in which the syntax of these verbs involves a primitive causative predicate and a derived subject (originating from an object position). In other words, psych verbs like amuse are causative unaccusative (have a derived subject) transitive (have a direct object) verbs. I argue in the first part of the article that Romance object pro, the null object found in simple sentences like le chômage, ça n’amuse pas (“unemployment, that does not amuse (people)”) or a complexe sentence like ça ne fait pas rire (“that does not make (one) laugh”), is a property of Romance causative constructions, combined with the requirement that semantic computation be compositional. The latter requirement accounts for the very specific distribution of pro, basically only found with psych verbs. The former property explains why object pro is found in Romance languages and not in English.

Still probing in the properties of French psych constructions, the second part of the article examines an exceptional class of slang psychological adjectives like marrant “funny”, which do not conform to the general syntax of V-ant adjectives. They have specific properties, explained within the framework developed in the first part of the article.
La topologie du français à la lumière de deux autres systèmes
Authors: Herslund Michael
Published: September 2007

The article gives an introduction to the concept of an independent topological level of description as developped by Danish grammarians. According to this approach topology (the linear ordering of constituents) and syntax (the hierarchical ordering of constituents) constitute two different levels with a certain, but not necessary, isomorphy between their elements. The topology of Danish and Old French, two V2 languages, is described and confronted with a proposal for a topological description of Modern French. It is proposed that whereas the verb constitutes the topological centre or pivot in V2 languages, it is the (nominal) subject which has this role in Modern French. Some consequences of this proposal are examined and it is shown that a description of word order based upon the syntactic structure necessarily amounts to a topological description because the syntactic trees needed to describe certain word order phenomena are so « flat » that they become indistinguishable from the linear and unidimensional sequence of topology.
L’assertion et l’inversion du sujet nominal dans les subordonnées adverbiales
Authors: Lahousse Karen
Published: September 2007

In this article we show that the distribution of nominal inversion is not the same in all types of embedded adverbial clauses. We present a new descriptive generalization according to which the appearance of postverbal subjects must necessarily be favoured by the presence of a spatio-temporal topic or an indication of the subject’s focal interpretation in asserted clauses (including concessive and causal clauses), but not in non-asserted clauses (including temporal, comparative and final clauses and embedded clauses beginning with sans que). We argue that the factors which must necessarily be present to license nominal inversion in asserted clauses indicate that the subject is not interpreted as the topic with respect to which the clause is asserted. In non-asserted clauses, the postverbal subject can never be interpreted as the topic with respect to which the clause is asserted, and no additional factors are needed for nominal inversion to be acceptable.
Reduction in language
Authors: Kechaou Salah
Published: September 2007

This paper deals with reduction in Arabic. It attempts to give evidence that the phenomena goes beyond the simple cases of isolated word deletion. In this order, data, relating to deverbal, appropriate and classifier noun constructions, are examined.

Reconstructed sequences are established and, in almost all situations, summed up in equivalent reduced ones. This gives place to some kind of information, with neither loss, nor redundancy.
Un lexique-grammaire du football
Authors: Moustaki Argyro , Dimitriadi Aspasia
Published: September 2007

Taking as a starting point one of P. Sabatier’s work on the Lexicon-Grammar of football, we present the phrases we have established and translated for the Greek language (Ph-foot).

We have retained the classes of objects established by P. Sabatier for French. For the Greek study our point of departure is a selection of 600 sentences.

We have established not only a lexicon-grammar but also a list of classes of objects and compound nouns of this vocabulary.

The aim of this analysis was to describe morphosyntactic similarities as well as differences between simple sentence constructions and compound nouns in both languages.

This study will serve as a basis for future comparative studies wich will ultimately serve to support automatic translation.
A Norwegian Progressive Marker and the Level of Grammaticalization
Authors: Tonne Ingebjørg
Published: September 2007

In this paper it is shown that parallel concordancing represents an efficient means of explicating the grammaticalization level of linguistic forms. One progressive form in Norwegian and the progressive in Spanish are found to be translationally equivalent in some contexts but not in others. In addition, the degree of overlap of the two constructions is seen to vary with the direction of the translation, i.e. the Norwegian progressive is more often translated by a Spanish progressive than vice versa. These results correspond neatly to the part of grammaticalization theory which emphasizes the relation between the general meaning of a form, the widening of distribution and the increase in frequency.; The general meaning of the Spanish progressive gives it a wider distribution and a higher frequency than the Norwegian progressive. Corresponding results are also found in a test case comparing the Norwegian and the English progressives. Parallel concordancing thus strengthens the claim based on monolingual studies that this Norwegian progressive is partially but not totally grammaticalized. The parallel concordancing method has the additional advantage that the contexts determining when the forms are translationally equivalent can be read off directly from the concordances.
Idiom variation in Italian and English
Authors: Cignoni Laura , Coffey Stephen , Moon Rosamund
Published: September 2007

This article reports on two parallel but independent studies of idiom variation in corpora — one of Italian and one of English. In the Italian study, 324 idiomatic expressions were looked for in a corpus of 16 million words, while the English study investigated more than 2,800 idioms in an 18-million word corpus. A description is given of the search techniques employed to locate instances of variation.
We present our findings by first describing the variation types common to both languages and thereafter examining cases where variation seemed to be wholly or predominantly language specific. Many similarities were found to exist between the two languages, and language specific variation could often be related to more general language specific features. We also comment on the overall frequency of idiom variation, which was found to be very similar in the two studies. In our concluding remarks we suggest that contrastive idiom analysis of the sort carried out, could and should be undertaken between other language pairs, and that the resulting interlingual descriptions would be of use in practical applications such as second language learning and computational tasks.
Discourse relators and the beginnings of sentences in English and German
Authors: Doherty Monika
Published: September 2007

Felicitous translations between English and German show that discourse relators like adversative connectors interact with the basic strategies of discourse linking superimposed upon the grammatical rules of word order. For initial position they compete with elements from the propositional meaning of a sentence, which they precede if the propositional elements are given information; if the elements are new (or resumed) information, discourse relators tend to follow them. Attitudinal expressions like probably and possibly precede or follow propositional elements in the same way, but tend towards a greater degree of explicitness in initial positions of English sentences.
Second-level discourse markers across languages
Authors: Siepmann Dirk
Published: September 2007

This article looks at a particular type of routine formula, called ‘second-level discourse marker’ (SLDM), which falls within the scope of what is sometimes termed ‘procedural vocabulary’. Having defined and exemplified the notion, I set up a structural typology of SLDMs. I then proceed to discuss the possibility of structural equivalence between English, German and French SLDMs. I conclude by exploring the treatment accorded to SLDMs in some of the major bilingual dictionaries. The language material used for purposes of illustration is drawn from a wide variety of corpora.
Nuclear transitivity in English and Spanish
Authors: Lavid Julia , Arús Hita Jorge
Published: September 2007

This paper presents a contrastive overview of nuclear transitivity in English and Spanish from a systemic-functional perspective. The study attempts to achieve two main goals. Firstly, we investigate the usefulness of the transitive/ergative distinction developed by Davidse (1992) for material processes in English, when applied to different process types in both English and Spanish. Secondly, we attempt to provide a fine-grained specification of these linguistic resources which might form the basis for computational treatment in the applied context of Multilingual Generation (MLG), the automatic production of texts in various languages from a single underlying data source.

We first review the specifications provided for English in the computational grammar Nigel (Mann 1983; Matthiessen 1988; Matthiessen and Bateman 1991), and in the extensive reference grammar developed by Matthiessen (1995), showing that, though useful for practical generation purposes, they conflate the notions of agency and causation under the same system. These specifications thus blur the transitive/ergative distinction, which is also fundamental to observe how semantically related verbs may behave differently in English and in Spanish (Lavid and Arús 1998a, 1998b; Arús and Lavid 2001). We propose, instead, a model of nuclear transitivity consisting of three simultaneous systems: a system of agency (concerned with the presence or absence of the feature Agent), a system of process type (concerned with the semantic type of process involved), and a system of causation (concerned with the variable of instigation). This latter system establishes the paradigmatic distinction between transitive and ergative processes which we claim to be fundamental for an accurate contrastive description of English and Spanish. It is expected that the proposed model, which captures the common semantic potential of nuclear transitivity in English and Spanish, will prove useful as the linguistic basis for a more detailed computational specification in the context of MLG.
Viewing languages through multilingual corpora, with special reference to the generic person in English, German, and Norwegian
Authors: Johansson Stig
Published: September 2007

This paper explores three types of correspondence relations in a multilingual translation corpus: translations, sources, and parallels. German structures of the type man sieht, with the generic subject man and a perception verb, are compared with (1) their translations into English and Norwegian, (2) the sources in English and Norwegian texts which give rise to such structures in German translations, and (3) the parallel translations in English and Norwegian where German man is introduced in the translation from the other language. Although similar means are available in the three languages, there are important differences, particularly between German and English. For German and Norwegian the three correspondence relations produce the same overall pattern, for German and English the patterns vary greatly with the type of correspondence relation. The multilingual comparison throws the characteristics of the languages into relief, so that we can see similarities and differences more clearly and in more detail.
Cohesive ties in translation
Authors: Behrens Bergljot
Published: September 2007

Within a dynamic semantic/pragmatic framework this article discusses the translation relations of the Norwegian connective dermed with respect to English primarily, but also to some extent with respect to German. Data are extracted from the Oslo Multilingual Corpus. Translations between English and Norwegian are analysed in detail with a view to their interpretive resemblance as this concept is used in relevance theory. An event-based analysis is considered a fruitful addition to the relevance theoretic framework for an evaluation of the translation data. Corpus-based frequency counts are then presented to demonstrate the extent to which source language norms influence the use of linking adverbials in translation. The discrepancy between the norms of originally produced Norwegian and the findings in the translation data suggests that the translator is well advised to look for alternative means to trigger the consequential interpretation this connective gives rise to.
Mapping adversative coherence relations in English and French
Authors: Lewis Diana M.
Published: September 2007

An approach to contrastive analysis is discussed that combines semantic mapping with analysis of comparable corpus data. Such an approach can help elucidate the many-to-many relationships between expressions or constructions of two languages. In turn, contrastive analysis is what enables us to represent the conceptual space that forms the basis for semantic mapping. The approach is illustrated with examples of expressions of adversative coherence relations from English and French political discourse.
Some properties of texts in terms of ‘information distribution’ across languages
Authors: Steiner Erich
Published: September 2007

On a global level, an attempt will be made to relate relatively macro-level intuitions about properties of texts to more micro-level notions and to empirically testable lexicogrammatical properties. The strategy will be to (a) partly reduce an intuitive notion of ‘information distribution’ in texts and sentences to more technical and better understood notions of ‘information structure’, ‘informational density’ and ‘grammatical metaphoricity’, and (b) operationalize these latter notions in such a way as to make them empirically testable on electronic corpora, using the ‘shallow’ concepts of ‘explicitness, density, and directness’ as properties of semantics-to-grammar mapping in sentences. It will furthermore be suggested that aspects of intuitive qualities of texts, such as ‘content orientation’ vs. ‘interactant orientation’ and others can be partly modelled in terms of (a) and (b). The argumentation in this paper thus proceeds from intuitive text-level notions to more technical and clause-based concepts, and from these concepts to operationalizations. It then moves ‘upwards’ again to text-level properties, exploring the relationships between the two levels. Finally, an outline is attempted of some implications for studies of language contact and language change.
Contrasting languages and varieties with translational corpora
Authors: Mauranen Anna
Published: September 2007

Translations are invaluable sources for contrastive research. Yet they possess specific linguistic features, which arise from the nature of translation as a form of language contact. This paper explores some aspects of the specificity of translated texts: social and cognitive determinants of translations are briefly discussed, and the linguistic consequences are evaluated in view of recent findings of corpus research based on translational corpora, parallel as well as monolingual comparable corpora. It is argued that we cannot hope to ‘purify’ translational data so as to have them reflect two fully independent languages, unless we sacrifice the use of naturally-occurring data. Translational corpora are biased for genre, because translation situations are asymmetrical, and they are biased for equivalence, because the situation necessitates a search for equivalence more than might be natural in spontaneous production. However, translation and other language contact are ubiquitous in our globalized world; thus entirely independent, ‘pure’ languages are more illusory than real, thus hardly worth hankering after.
Clause combining across languages
Authors: Cosme Christelle
Published: September 2007

This study explores clause combining in English and French, with special emphasis on the relationship between and/et-coordination and subordination. More precisely, the claim that English shows a strong preference for coordination while French makes more intensive use of subordination is tested against bilingual corpus data, viz. a comparable corpus of original texts and a bidirectional translation corpus. The study shows that the number of shifts from coordination to subordination is higher in translations from English into French than in translations from French into English. This finding lends strong support to the initial hypothesis.
Passive constructions in English and Chinese
Authors: Xiao Richard , McEnery Tony , Qian Yufang
Published: September 2007

This article combines the corpus-based and contrastive approaches, seeking to provide a systematic account of passive constructions in two typologically distinct languages, namely British English and Mandarin Chinese. We will first explore, on the basis of written and spoken corpus data, a range of characteristics of passives in the two languages including various passive constructions, long vs. short passives, semantic, pragmatic and syntactic features as well as genre variations. On the basis of this exploration, passive constructions in the two languages are contrasted in a structured way. Methodologically, this study demonstrates that comparable monolingual corpora can be exploited fruitfully in contrastive linguistics.
Semantic parameters of vision words in Hebrew and English
Authors: Myhill John
Published: September 2007

English and Hebrew use sharply differing systems for categorizing the meanings of words referring to vision. In English, the relevant parameters of meaning relate to whether information has been visually recorded and registered and what type of image was captured (a still picture, a moving picture, a close-up, etc.). In Hebrew, on the other hand, vision words code whether the information which has been recorded is particularly significant to the subject, and, if so, how (intellectually, personally, etc.).
Contrasting ways of expressing restriction in English and Spanish and suggesting translational options into Spanish
Authors: Labrador Belén
Published: September 2007

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a corpus-based contrastive study on a semantic function — restriction — and their applicability to translation. A number of restrictive elements in the two languages involved, English and Spanish, have been selected as search words and their behaviours have been analyzed on the basis of their textual environments. Apart from an overall description of meanings and uses, the article aims at verifying a linguistic hunch: cognates and also word-forms coming from the same lexeme were intuitively considered to differ more than might be expected, which has altogether been proved by the data found. Finally, a series of correspondences are suggested as translational options into Spanish for the most frequent uses and co-occurrences of the English elements.
Cross-linguistic analyses of backward causal connectives in Dutch, German and French
Authors: Pit Mirna
Published: September 2007

The Dutch, German and French languages display a variety of regularly used connectives all of which introduce causes, arguments or reasons, such as Dutch omdat, want and aangezien, German weil, denn and da, and French parce que, car and puisque. Why should these languages have different connectives to express the notion of backward causality? The central argument developed in this article is that the use of these connectives is dependent on the degree of subjectivity associated with the causal relation. The pre-eminence of this account with respect to prior accounts of the uses of these connectives is established on the basis of a series of corpus analyses. The outcomes show that the degree of subjectivity of the main participant involved in the causal relation strongly predicts the occurrence of one or another connective. A distinction can be made between objective connectives like omdat and doordat, parce que and weil on the one hand and subjective connectives like want and aangezien, car and puisque and denn and da on the other hand. No differences between the subjective connectives aangezien/want, puisque/car and denn/da could be observed in terms of subjectivity, but additional frequency data and analyses of translation practices revealed promising directions for supplementary explanations.
English in South Africa
Authors: Bernsten Jan
Published: September 2007

In a departure from language policy in most other African countries, the 1996 South African Constitution added nine indigenous languages to join English and Afrikaans as official languages. This policy was meant to provide equal status to the indigenous languages and promote their use in power domains such as education, government, media and business. However, recent studies show that English has been expanding its domains at the expense of the other ten languages. At the same time, the expanded use of English has had an impact on the varieties of English used in South Africa. As the number of speakers and the domains of language use increase, the importance of Black South African English is also expanding. The purpose of this paper is to analyze current studies on South African Englishes, examining the way in which expanded use and domains for BSAE speakers will have a significant impact on the variety of English which will ultimately take center stage in South Africa.
English or Greek language? State or ethnic identity?
Authors: Karoulla-Vrikki Dimitra
Published: September 2007

Language planning in the domain of the courts in Cyprus is of interest because of the concealed salience placed upon the link between language and either state or ethnic identity. The article first examines the dominant role of English in court from 1960 until 1988 as reflecting Cyprocentric state identity associations. It then investigates the establishment of the use of Greek after the enactment of Law N.67/1988 brought the reversal of the linguistic situation. The law, which aimed at putting into action the provisions on language of the 1960 Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus and at safeguarding the use and protection of Greek, derived from Hellenocentric tendencies and its ultimate purpose was to foster Greek ethnic identity rather than to enhance the identity of the state of Cyprus. The above observations are illustrated in the analysis of the legislation on language in the courts, the linguistic situation in the judicial proceedings, and the court verdicts/judgments pertaining to language use. Finally, the article draws parallels between Fishman’s ‘nationism’ and ‘nationalism’ and the Greek-Cypriots’ language selections and identity orientations.
“You see me no up”
Authors: Hoon Chng Huang
Published: September 2007

Singlish, Singapore’s brand of colloquial English, is accepted by some as an essential marker of
Singaporean identity but deplored by others as a variety of English that puts Singapore and Singaporeans at a
disadvantage because of its lack of international intelligibility. For this reason, it has been argued that
Singaporeans cannot afford to maintain Singlish as a viable linguistic resource. A campaign known as the
“Speak Good English Movement” was established in 2000 to counter the ill effects of Singlish
through the promotion of Standard English. This paper addresses the Singlish-Standard (Singaporean) English
debate in terms of discourse resources and the politics of language planning in Singapore. It may be true that
Singlish is not the most internationally intelligible of Englishes, but what is more interesting is the considerable
disparity between the official concern over international intelligibility and the reality of life in Singapore,
especially for the Singlish speaker. Such a disparity suggests differing notions of what constitutes an important
linguistic resource for the nation as a whole and for specific speech communities. On another level, it provides
insights into the politics of language management in Singapore. The Singlish-Standard English debate also
provides clear evidence of struggles over the determination of the choice of a preferred variety of English and
the control over linguistic resources. Through an examination of media reports, official statements, and letters
to local newspapers, the author considers the implications of this debate for Singaporeans (especially Singlish
speakers) and their participation within the society. In the process, the author also examines the power
relations that are intertwined in this debate for determining the ideal Singaporean society.
The metacommunicative ideology of Esperanto
Authors: Goro Christoph Kimura
Published: September 2007

The issue of whether a particular humanistic ideology is immanent in Esperanto has been a topic of
controversy since the early days of the movement. The question is explored here on the basis of evidence drawn
from discussions in Esperanto between Japanese and Koreans about reconciliation between their respective
countries. It is concluded that, while the convictions of the language’s initiator are not universally
shared among Esperanto speakers, one may legitimately speak of a common metacommunicative ideology
which valorises dialogue among ordinary people from different linguistic and cultural
backgrounds.
Recent foreign language education policies in Palestine
Authors: Amara Muhammad Hasan
Published: September 2007

The paper investigates the development of foreign language education policies in Palestine, at a time when the establishment of a Palestinian state has become a real option, and when, following the Oslo agreements, the Palestinians have become responsible for Palestinian education. As the New Palestinian Curriculum shows, an international orientation is clearly part of the policy, and accordingly the learning and teaching of languages are a primary concern in identity formation. Through Arabic the relations with the Arabic countries in the region can be maintained, while Hebrew and also English will serve as the medium of communication with Israel, which will remain part of the Palestinian reality. Knowledge of other foreign languages will be needed to maintain contacts with other parts of the world. For historical reasons, Palestine has been in contact with many different countries all over the world, probably more than most other Arabic-speaking countries. It remains to be seen how the current battle between Arabization and Muslim fundamentalism on the one hand, and westernization and desecularization on the other will be resolved, but, whatever the outcome, Palestine cannot allow itself to turn away from the rest of the world.
From internationalisation to globalisation
Authors: Oakes Leigh
Published: September 2007

In recent years, much has been made in the media and in academic circles of the risk that the world is heading towards linguistic convergence. But as internationalisation gives way to globalisation, as the emphasis shifts from mere contact between states to pressures for homogeneity, there is a paradoxical tendency towards cultural divergence. Economic-inspired theories of globalisation seem to have underestimated the power of identity, which has contributed to nationalist revivals around the globe. This paper therefore seeks to make identity considerations more central to the current debate on language and globalisation, by focusing on the lesser-known context of Sweden. The minimal importance attributed to national and linguistic identity in Sweden during the era of internationalisation is contrasted with the renewed sense of national identity that has arisen in the more advanced era of globalisation. This nationalist revival could provide the necessary support amongst the general public for the protective language planning measures for Swedish currently proposed. With its traditionally positive attitudes towards English, the case of Sweden thus offers a unique opportunity to examine whether it is possible to establish a stable diglossic relationship between English and a national language, thereby reducing the risk of language shift that globalisation is so often claimed to pose.
Glück im Unglück
Authors: Köstner Christina
Published: September 2007

Die Geschichte des Wiener Esperantomuseums beginnt mit der Gründung im Jahr 1927 und ist sehr eng mit seinem Initiator Hugo Steiner verknüpft, der bis zu seinem Tode 1969 all seine Engagement in den Aufbau „seines“ Museums gelegt hat. In der Zeit der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft in Österreich von 1938 bis 1945 war das Museum geschlossen, Hugo Steiner stand unter Hausarrest, zwei seiner Mitarbeiter wurden in Konzentrationslagern ermordet. Trotz großer Bedrohung (viele Esperantobibliotheken im Deutschen Reich wurden zerstört) überstand das Wiener Esperantomuseum diese Zeit, da der damalige Direktor der Nationalbibliothek Paul Heigl die Bestände in Kisten verpackt im Keller der Bibliothek lagerte und deren Abtransport verhinderte. Die nach dem Krieg wieder aufgestellten Bücher stellten die Grundlage für die heute weltweit größte Fachbibliothek für Interlinguistik dar.
Democratic language policy for multilingual educational systems
Authors: Francis Norbert
Published: September 2007

This article outlines a proposal for evaluating educational policy and planning for multilingual school systems. Often, debates on language policy in education suffer from a restricted perspective that elevates socio-political considerations above all others. Assigning secondary importance to language learning constraints and developmental principles of second language learning renders the discussion incomplete and incoherent. Bilingual instructional models need to be based on current research findings that prioritize both an early introduction of content-based second language instruction (immersion), and the development of higher-order language abilities through a language that children understand.
Language planning for the smallest language minority in Italy
Authors: Coluzzi Paolo
Published: September 2007

After an introduction to the Cimbrian language (a Bavarian variety that has maintained many characteristics of early Middle High German) and a brief overview of the sociolinguistic situation (attitudes in particular) in the area regarded as ‘ethnically’ Cimbrian, this article looks at the language planning that has been carried out in the Cimbrian area (particularly in the areas of graphization, mass-media and education) and at the institutions devoted to it. It is evident that not enough planning has been done. There are various reasons for this, such as the low ethnic and linguistic consciousness of the speakers (particularly in the Veneto region) and the lack of both adequate funding and of a policy that takes economic development seriously into account. Considering the size of the speaking community, its socio-economic situation, the invasive presence of Italian and the lack of resources, the chances for the survival of Cimbrian are not high, particularly in the Veneto region. However, language planning is worth attempting anyway, not only to preserve Italy’s (and the world’s) rich diversity, but particularly for the cultural, social and economic benefits that reversing language shift always entails.
Linguistic identities
Authors: Joseph John E.
Published: September 2007

Linguistic identities are double-edged swords because, while functioning in a positive and productive way to give people a sense of belonging, they do so by defining an “us” in opposition to a “them” that becomes all too easy to demonise. Studying the construction of identities is important precisely because it offers our best hope for helping to undo their negative impact, while at the same time providing deeper insight into the role languages play in our interpretation of who does or doesn’t belong to which particular group. Djité, in a recent article in this journal (2006), argues that, in our multilingual world, linguistic identities are not the monolithic entities which people often take them for, with the result that individuals get misinterpreted based on the way they speak, provoking prejudice and discrimination. This is also, contrary to what Djité suggests, one of the principal thrusts of Joseph’s book Language and Identity (2004). The present article summarises the relevant arguments made in this latter book and attempts to clarify points of agreement and disagreement with Djité.
Language rights in the 2004 draft of the European Union Constitution
Authors: Faingold Eduardo D.
Published: September 2007

The 2004 draft of the EU Constitution contains legal language defining the linguistic obligations of the EU and the language rights of its citizens, but the draft fails to achieve language justice for EU citizens who speak regional minority languages. These minority languages include Catalan, Basque, and Galician in Spain, Welsh in the UK, and others.
Continuity and change in narrative study
Authors: Hogan Patrick Colm
Published: September 2007

Since its ancient origins, narrative theory has involved two broad types of analysis — componential and functional. Componential analysis seeks to isolate the elements and operations that make up narrative. Functional analysis explores the purposes of narrative. Commonly, writers isolate two functions — one emotive, the other ethical and/or political. The broad framework of narrative theory has remained largely the same since its inception. Changes have primarily been a matter of expanding the scope or detail of componential or functional analyses. In the twentieth century, there was a particular expansion of the ethico-political part of functional analysis. One distinctive feature of very recent narrative theory is its use of cognitive neuroscience to expand our componential analyses treating narrative causality and plot organization and our functional analyses treating emotion. Unfortunately, the work on emotional functional analysis has not been integrated with its ethico-political counterpart. This lack of integration may be due to the political economy in which cognitive literary study arose. Moreover, the future of such integration may be less a matter of the analyses themselves and more a matter of the political economy in which these analyses are embedded.
Dialogue in a discourse context
Authors: Herman David
Published: September 2007

Building on recent studies of speech and thought representation in narrative fiction (Fludernik 1993; Herman 2002; Palmer 2004; Thomas 2002), this essay outlines the advantages of forging interconnections between narrative theory and a range of disciplinary frameworks concerned with talk — including literary theory, linguistic pragmatics, discourse analysis, gender studies, and research on socially distributed cognition. Using Virginia Woolf’s 1927 novel To the Lighthouse as a case study, the essay first explores general theoretical and interpretive issues raised by scenes of talk portrayed in the novel. Then it zooms in on one chapter that centers around a communicative encounter between two characters. This scene both illuminates and is illuminated by research on socio-communicative practices in general. Further, the scene requires a rethinking of modernist narrative construed as a privileging of characters’ interiority over the concrete social and material environments in which they think, act, and communicate. Hence an interdisciplinary approach to scenes of talk like Woolf’s not only necessitates a reconsideration of key ideas in literary studies, but also suggests new directions for narrative theory after the second cognitive revolution.
Rhetorical aesthetics and other issues in the study of literary narrative
Authors: Phelan James
Published: September 2007

The current study of literary narrative is a vibrant and various activity, marked not by a single orthodoxy but by multiple approaches. Within that variety there are five especially salient issues currently being investigated: nonmimetic narrative; digital narrative; the fact/fiction distinction; narrative space; and rhetorical aesthetics. Rhetorical aesthetics moves not toward a universal standards of literary quality but toward an understanding of how narratives work on their own terms and of appropriate general criteria for judging those terms. These criteria, as a comparison of the endings of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep and Howard Hawks’s adaptation of the novel to film suggests, typically are not purely aesthetic but involve the interrelation of form, ethics, and aesthetics.
Narratives in action
Authors: Gergen Mary M. , Gergen Kenneth J.
Published: September 2007

In various professional fields today, a profusion of practices are inspired by or draw sustenance from narrative inquiry; similarly, narrative inquiry must attend to these practices as they are vital to its future. Ultimately a full fledged dialogue between scholars and practitioners is to be sought. We review three major domains in which narratives are in action: psychotherapy, organizational change, and conflict reduction. We conclude by taking up theoretical issues raised by these practices. Of particular concern are questions of why narratives are effective in social change, and what theoretical orientations are most adequate to the challenge of practice.
Frankie, Johnny, Oprah and Me
Authors: Sartwell Crispin
Published: September 2007

Narrative is one of many strategies for making texts or coming to understand the world. This paper attempts to restore narrative to that status: as one mode of writing or telling among others. The main example developed is the contrast between blues ballads such as “Frankie and Johnny,” which tell a story, and traditional or modular blues songs, which do not.
Rescuing narrative from qualitative research
Authors: Atkinson Paul , Delamont Sara
Published: September 2007

We review some of the recent trends that have made the collection and exploration of narratives especially prominent among the social sciences. While we acknowledge the significance of narratives in many aspects of social life, we sound a note of caution concerning the popularity of ‘narratives’, and ‘testimony’, not least among ‘qualitative’ researchers. We suggest that too many authors are complicit in the general culture of ‘the interview society’, and are too ready to celebrate narratives and biographical accounts, rather than subjecting them to systematic analysis. In the same way, we suggest that the contemporary fashion for ‘autoethnography’ too often leads to unreflective uses of personal accounts.
“I was my momma baby. I was my daddy gal”
Authors: Gubrium Aline
Published: September 2007

This paper is inspired by recent trends in narrative research that orient to the meaning-making actions of those involved in describing the life course. Applying concepts of narrative, discourse, and contrast, the complex meaning of growing up is presented by way of Lakeesha’s story, one of the 20 women interviewed for a project on African American gender socialization. Rather than viewing the participant in question as having been subject to the ostensible forces and parameters of socialization, she was offered the opportunity to represent her growing-up experiences in her own terms. She talked herself into being, situating herself as a particular type of women throughout her growing-up story — strategically employing and manipulating particular cultural discourses to do so. Lakeesha’s story is presented in this paper to illustrate a strategic model of narrative activity. In particular, I trace her use of the American Dream to analyze the ways that she situates herself with particular identities linked to local conceptions of successful womanhood. Methodological implications of this approach are considered in the conclusion.