bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Detection of endogenous biomolecules in Barrett's esophagus by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy
Authors: Wang Thomas D. , Triadafilopoulos George , Crawford James M. , Dixon Lisa R. , Bhandari Tarun , Sahbaie Peyman , Friedland Shai , Soetikno Roy , Contag Christopher H.
Published: September 2007

Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy provides a unique molecular fingerprint of tissue from endogenous sources of light absorption; however, specific molecular components of the overall FTIR signature of precancer have not been characterized. In attenuated total reflectance mode, infrared light penetrates only a few microns of the tissue surface, and the influence of water on the spectra can be minimized, allowing for the analyses of the molecular composition of tissues. Here, spectra were collected from 98 excised specimens of the distal esophagus, including 38 squamous, 38 intestinal metaplasia (Barrett's), and 22 gastric, obtained endoscopically from 32 patients. We show that DNA, protein, glycogen, and glycoprotein comprise the principal sources of infrared absorption in the 950- to 1,800-cm
−1
regime. The concentrations of these biomolecules can be quantified by using a partial least-squares fit and used to classify disease states with high sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. Moreover, use of FTIR to detect premalignant (dysplastic) mucosa results in a sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and total accuracy of 92%, 80%, 92%, and 89%, respectively, and leads to a better interobserver agreement between two gastrointestinal pathologists for dysplasia (κ = 0.72) versus histology alone (κ = 0.52). Here, we demonstrate that the concentration of specific biomolecules can be determined from the FTIR spectra collected in attenuated total reflectance mode and can be used for predicting the underlying histopathology, which will contribute to the early detection and rapid staging of many diseases.
Some current trends in applied linguistics
Authors: Bygate Martin
Published: September 2007

This paper argues that the most significant trend in applied linguistics is the emergence of the field as a generic discipline, involving several subareas, all characterised by the aim of developing theoretical and empirical studies of language as a key element in real world problems. Various subsidiary trends are apparent including numerous methodological and theoretical developments. The paper argues that so far these trends respond only inconsistently to two major challenges in the relationship between the academy and the lay community: (1) identifying and studying issues held to be problems by those outside the academy; and (2) clarifying the nature of the contributions of research to those real world problems. Three themes are considered: the relationship between surface data and theory development; the problem of the specific and the general; and the importance of problematicity. The paper concludes that applied linguistics needs to be accountable to two communities, the academy and the lay communities it aims to work with.
Applied Linguistics
Authors: Cavalcanti Marilda C.
Published: September 2007

The aim of this paper is to present perspectives in Applied Linguistics (AL) against the background of a historical overview of the field in Brazil. I take the stance of looking at AL as a field of knowledge and as a professional area of research. This point of view directs my reflections towards research-based Applied Linguistics carried out from within in places where it is continuously developed, that is, in universities. Having done this, I locate the Brazilian experience within Latin America.
Perspectives in applied linguistics
Authors: Grabe William
Published: September 2007

This overview focuses on the work of Applied Linguistics in North America with an emphasis on publications in the past 6 years. Follow a brief interpretive section on the nature and status of Applied Linguistics, the article reviews a number of major areas of research in Applied Linguistics. These areas include second language acquisition (and its various sub-domains), L2 reading and writing research, language learning and teaching, language and culture, corpus linguistics, critical perspectives, language assessment, language policy and planning, language uses in professional contexts, and technology in Applied Linguistics. The overview closes with comments on seven possible areas for growth in Applied Linguistics in addition to the mainstream fields noted above.
Language politics in Latin America
Authors: Rajagopalan Kanavillil
Published: September 2007

This paper is an attempt to take stock of the politics of language as it has been playing out in Latin America, ever since the countries in this region were colonized by European powers, mainly Spain and Portugal. Linguistic imperialism is by no means a new phenomenon in this part of the world. In more recent times, the relentless advance of English as the world’s leading lingua franca has only brought to light the difficult North–South relations that have underpinned the geopolitics of the region.
Individual differences in second language acquisition
Authors: Dörnyei Zoltán
Published: September 2007

Ever since the early days of its existence, the field of psychology has been trying to achieve two different and somewhat contradictory objectives: to understand the general principles of the human mind and to explore the uniqueness of the individual mind. The latter direction has formed an independent subdiscipline within the field, usually referred to as individual difference (ID) research. IDs are a prominent feature of SLA because a great deal of the variation in language learning outcomes is attributable, either directly or indirectly, to various learner characteristics. This paper first provides an overview of the five most important ID variables (personality, aptitude, motivation, learning styles and learning strategies) and then concludes by describing certain common themes in contemporary ID research.
Making sense of a blend
Authors: Brandt Line , Brandt Per Aage
Published: September 2007

In this paper we propose an analysis of the metaphor “This surgeon is a butcher!” discussed in Grady, Oakley & Coulson (1999), introducing it into a mental space framework derived from conceptual metaphor theory (CMT), blending theory (BT) and cognitive semiotics. The method of analysis is to work backwards; we attempt to reconstruct the meaning of the butcher-surgeon metaphor by giving a step-by-step description of the cognition involved in understanding an occurrence of the metaphoric expression, and hypothesize a general framework for analyzing metaphoric blends and other kinds of rhetorically potent integrations of semiotically distinguishable conceptual contents (mental spaces) in expressive blends. It is argued that examples of expressive blends, such as metaphor, need to be accounted for in semiotic terms, since they occur in — intersubjective as well as private — communication, which is essentially semiotic in nature; expressive blends occur as signs and are therefore a natural subject of cognitive semiotics, the study of cognition in semiosis.
Leonard Talmy. A windowing to conceptual structure and language
Authors: Ibarretxe-Antuñano Iraide
Published: September 2007

This interview is the result of a series of email exchanges with Leonard Talmy from February to May, 2005. It was designed to cover Talmy’s research career from its beginning (the linguistic representation of conceptual structure, cf. 1972, 1985, 1991, 1996, 2000ab) to present day (sign language, cf. 2003, in press; the attentional system of language, cf. forthcoming). It was divided into two main parts: (i) a general overview of Talmy’s main ideas about language and cognition, both past and future, and (ii) a detailed discussion of one of Talmy’s most widely discussed and successful areas of study: lexicalisation and typology in motion events. In this ARCL issue we publish only the latter.
Constructions with get
Authors: Bonnefille Stéphanie
Published: September 2007

The present article analyzes the copular realization of GET in relation to its lexical transitive, intransitive motion and passive realizations. The change-of-state construction was previously defined by the author as X CHANGES TO Ystate. If COME, GO, TURN… copular realizations were proved to be constrained (Bonnefille, 2001 and 2004; Bonnefille & McMichael, 2001) by X MOVES TO Ylocation (Goldberg, 1995), the search for real-world constraints at work in this construction when used with GET leads us to the conclusion that the copular realization of GET is constrained by the blending of two constructions, i.e. X MOVES TO Ylocation and either X EXPERIENCES Y (with the meaning “receiving an object”) or X ACTS ON Y (with the meaning “obtaining/possessing an object”), depending on the degree of agenthood of X.
Leonard Talmy. A windowing onto conceptual structure and language
Authors: Ibarretxe-Antuñano Iraide
Published: September 2007

This interview is the result of a series of email exchanges with Leonard Talmy from February to May, 2005 and, from January to May, 2006. The first part, published in the previous ARCL issue (3:325–347) discusses some of the most important and, at the same time, controversial aspects of Talmy’s theory of lexicalisation patterns in motion event. This second and final part offers an overview of Talmy’s understanding of what language and cognition are.
Using Parallel Corpora for Translation-Oriented Term Extraction
Authors: Vintar Spela
Published: September 2007

In many scientific, technological or political fields terminology and the production of up-to-date reference works is lagging behind, which causes problems to translators and results in inconsistent translations. Parallel corpora of texts already translated can be used as a resource for automatic extraction of terms and terminological collocations. Especially for smaller languages where existing resources are scarce, collecting and exploiting parallel corpora may be the chief method of obtaining terminological data.

The paper describes how a methodology for multi-word term extraction and bilingual conceptual mapping was developed for Slovene-English terms. We used word-to-word alignment to extract a bilingual glossary of single-word terms, and for multi-word terms two methods were tested and compared. The statistical method is broadly applicable but gives results of very limited use, while the method of syntactic patterns extracts highly useful terminological phrases, however only from a tagged corpus. A vision of further development is given and how these methods might be incorporated into existing translation tools.
How Can Semantics Work to Help Translation
Authors: Wen-Li Ke
Published: September 2007

This paper attempts to probe into some aspects of semantic studies which may be of help to the understanding, explaining, and solution of some of the problems in translation. In the first part ense and reference, he author states the relationship between sense and reference, and points out that failure to understand this and to make a distinction between them can lead to paradoxes and mistakes in translation.

In the second part “Hyponymy,” the author, through examples and diagrams, explains the implication of hyponymy, and proves that a better knowledge of hyponomy is not only important in language acquisition but also quite helpful to the translator. Examples are given to show how the knowledge of hyponymy can be applied to translation.

In the third part hanges of meaning, he author discusses how Bloomfield, and Baugh and Cable classified types of changes of meaning, and points out if insufficient attention is paid to the change of meaning, a translator can hardly avoid falling into error in translating.

In the fourth part ontext, he author discusses how different scholars treated context in different ways and makes it clear that context is very important in correctly understanding the original text. Without contextual knowledge and information, a translator is sure to make mistakes. Examples are given to show how anomalous or deviant sentences can be understood and translated with the help of context.

After discussion of the four aspects, the author comes to the conclusion that for a satisfying translation, it is particularly necessary and helpful for a translator to have some idea of the relationship between semantics and translation and to have some general knowledge of semantics.
Arab Translators’ Problems at the Discourse Level
Authors: Jabr Abdul-Fattah M.
Published: September 2007

Abstract

Arab translators, whether they be freelance or translator trainees, continue to encounter problems in translation from Arabic into English and vice versa at the textual and structural level. This is partly due to the sentence-based approach still favored and practiced by most translators and translation teachers. In addition, most of those translators seem to be unaware of the differences between the two languages and between different text types in terms of their textual and structural features.

This paper attempts to shed light on such problems in three texts that represent three different text types. Two texts that are translated from Arabic into English and one text translated from English into Arabic have been analyzed. The text analysis has confirmed the tentative assumptions of the author. Arab translators are shown to have problems at thetextual and the structural level in both languages and different text types. It is also shown that such problems vary according to language and text type.

Résumé

Les traducteurs arabes, qu’ils soient indépendants ou en formation, ne cessent de rencontrer des problèmes de traductions de la langue arabe vers la langue anglaise et vice-versa tant au niveau textuel que structurel. Ceci est partiellement dû à l’approche encore en vogue et pratiquée par la plupart des traducteurs et des professeurs de traduction, notamment en se basant sur la phrase. En outre, la plupart de ces traducteurs semblent ne pas avoir conscience des différences entre les deux langues et des divers types de textes au point de vue de leurs caractéristiques textuelles et structurelles.

Cet article tend á éclairer ce type de problèmes dans trois textes qui représentent trois types de textes différents. Ont été analysés deux textes traduits de la langue arabe vers la langue anglaise et l’un déux de la langue anglaise vers la langue arabe.

L’analyse du texte a confirmé les suppositions provisoires de l’auteur. Les traducteurs arabes rencontrent des problèmes tant au niveau textuel que structurel dans le deux langues et les différents types de textes. Il est aussi démontré que ces problèmes varient selon la langue et le type de texte.
Experts vs. Novices
Authors: Künzli Alexander
Published: September 2007

Résumé

Ce travail a pour objectif d’tudier le développement de deux éléments de la compétence traductionnelle, à savoir les compétences discursive et pragmatique, grâce à l’tude de la façon dont est traduit le dialogue fictif entre émetteur et receveur dans des textes publicitaires. Trois étudiants en traduction (en première, troisième et quatrième années de leur formation) et un traducteur professionnel avaient pour tâche de traduire une publicité en pensant à haute voix. Les résultats révèlent une interdépendance entre l’importance accordée au dialogue fictif, les compétences discursive et pragmatique et léxpérience de la traduction. Notre étude présente un intérêt pour la pédagogie et la recherche. Elle met ainsi en évidence le bénéfice que l’enseignement pourrait retirer de la combinaison d’exercices de traduction et dánalyses de corpus. Elle fait également apparaître l’intérêt que la recherche aurait à manipuler les variables de façon plus systématique.

Abstract

This study investigates the development of two components of translational competence, i.e., discursive and pragmatic competence, by analyzing the way the fictitious dialogue between sender and receiver in advertising texts is translated. Three translation students (1 st , 3 rd and 4 th year of study) and one professional translator were asked to translate an advertisement while thinking aloud. The results show a correlation between the degree of awareness of the role played by the fictitious dialogue, discursive and pragmatic competence, and experience of translation. The study has implications for teaching and research: It reveals the potential benefit of combining translation exercises and analyses of corpora in teaching on the one hand, and of a systematic variation of variables in research on the other.
Shakespeare’s Use of Malapropisms and their Reflection in Spanish Translation
Authors: Vázquez Adolfo Luis Soto
Published: September 2007

The purpose of this paper is to delve into the most representative Spanish versions of Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing and The Merry Wives of Windsor in order to analyse and evaluate the way malapropisms are rendered and whether the Spanish equivalents or the other solutions successfully or unsuccessfully convey their original function embedded in the English discourse. Since the main function of the malapropism is to generate hilarity in the
audience or readers, in Spanish, as a romance language, it is very easy to find a great deal of equivalent malapropisms reflecting the comic effect of the original text, thus the lack of this literary device in the Spanish versions is unforgivable
Arabic translation across cultures
Authors: Homeidi Moheiddin A.
Published: September 2007

Abstract

This paper deals mainly with some of the difficulties the translator might encounter when translating some culturally bound pieces of information. These would include the translation of some idioms, and some culturally bound concepts. The paper starts with definitions of translation, language and culture followed by an extensive analysis of the examples provided. All the examples are drawn from Arabic and English. The examples include the translation of some idioms which violate truth conditions, which are easily recognizable, and some others which may be translated either literally or idiomatically with obviously different results. Then the analysis moves to the translation of some culturally bound expressions from both Arabic and English. Here, we find examples that cannot be translated into the other language simply for lack of cultural equivalents. The skill and the intervention of the translator are most needed in this respect because above all translation is an act of communication.

Résumé

Cet article traite principalement de certaines difficultés que le traducteur peut rencontrer quand il traduit des textes d’information qui présentent un aspect culturel. Ces difficultés ont trait à certaines locutions idiomatiques et concepts culturels. L’article commence par définir la traduction, la langue et la culture, puis analyse en détail les exemples fournis. Tous les exemples sont tirés de l’arabe et de l’anglais. Ces exemples comprennent la traduction de certaines locutions idiomatiques qui trahissent les conditions de vérite et sont facilement reconnaissables, et de quelques autres qui peuvent etre traduites soit litteralement, soit de manière idiomatique, mais avec bien sur des résultats différents. Puis l’analyse passe à la traduction de certaines expressions de nature culturelle, en arabe et en anglais. Nous y trouvons des exemples qu’il est impossible de traduire dans l’autre langue, tout simplement parce qu’il leur manque des équivalents culturels. L’habileté et l’intervention du traducteur sont des plus nécéssaires dans ce cas, parce que la traduction est avant tout un acte de communication.
Translation as a learning and teaching strategy
Authors: Al-Kufaishi Adil
Published: September 2007

Abstract

This paper deals primarily with the potentiality a translation task could bring to the learning/teaching environment. Since translation deals with language in its socio-cultural communicative context, it could serve as an indispensable teaching/learning tool, a medium for developing the learners’ communicative competence and for teaching properties and types of meaning, underlying semantic relationships, communicative language functions, sentential and suprasentential information structure and discourse values. In this paper, it is argued that translation is

a. an interlingual, interactive, communicative and cognitive activity

b. a macro-skill that subsumes a number of micro-skills

c. a meaningful task-based exercise, a problem-solving exercise that helps develop the learners’ data processing capabilities

d. a meaningful communicative context for presenting and practising language forms and lexical items

e. a means for highlighting interlingual structural differences, and

f. a medium for teaching thematic meaning

Résumé

Cet article traite principalement du potentiel qu’une tache de traduction pourrait présenter pour l’environnement d’apprentissage ou d’enseignement. Étant donné que la traduction traite de la langue dans son contexte communicatif socioculturel, elle pourrait servir d’outil indispensable d’enseignement ou d’apprentissage, un moyen de développer les compétences de communication des apprenants, et d’enseigner les propriétés et types de signification qui sous-tendent les relations sémantiques, les fonctions de communication de la langue, la structure d’information phraseale et subphraseale et les valeurs du discours. Dans cet article, nous soutenons que la traduction est:

a. une activité interlinguale, interactive, communicative et cognitive

b. une macro-technique qui subsume un certain nombre de micro-techniques

c. un exercice significatif basé sur une tache — un exercice de résolution d’un problème qui aide a développer les capacités de traitement des données des apprenants

d. un contexte communicatif significatif pour présenter et pratiquer les formes de la langue et les élements lexicaux

e. un moyen de souligner les différences structurelles interlinguales

f. un moyen d’enseigner la signification thématique.
Playing with Figures
Authors: Klimenko Svetlana
Published: September 2007

Abstract

The paper is based on a corpus investigation of Danish theatre repertoire for the second half of the twentieth century. The discussion opens with a detailed presentation of those genre-specific challenges and even obstacles to a statistically oriented approach that arise the moment an investigation turns from ‘plays as published texts’ to ‘plays as performances and productions’. The main part of the analysis is a discussion of British and Russian theatrical import to Denmark, and the ways in which its development can shed light on the mechanisms of power working through translation politics. Danish repertoire choices reveal egotistic, self-centred motivation behind their treatment of British and Russian sources, respectively, when the English culture emerges as a source of, first of all, light entertainment, while the Russian one, on the contrary, seems to be called on to satisfy the demand for the artistic exploration of the more melancholic, dark side of human character. The analysis is focussed on the uses of Chekhov and Shakespeare in the construction of Danish cultural Self, and framed in a more theoretical discussion of the challenges and signifi cance of the theatre for Translation Studies in the new, culture conscious phase of its development.

Resumé

L’article est basé sur l’examen du corpus du répertoire théâtral danois pendant la seconde moitié du vingtième siècle. La discussion débute par une présentation détaillée des défi s spécifi ques au genre, voire des obstacles à une approche statistiquement orientée. Ces défi s surgissent au moment où la recherche passe des « pièces sous forme de textes publiés » à des « pièces devant être représentées et produites ». La partie principale de l’analyse est une discussion sur l’importation théâtrale britannique et russe au Danemark et sur la manière dont son développement peut éclairer les mécanismes de force qui agissent dans la politique de la traduction. Les choix du répertoire danois révèlent l’existence d’une motivation égotiste et égocentrique derrière leur traitement des sources britanniques et russes; la culture anglaise apparaît surtout comme une source de divertissement léger, tandis qu’au contraire, il semble qu’on fasse appel à la culture russe pour satisfaire la demande d’une explora tion artistique du côté sombre et plus mélancolique du caractère humain. L’analyse se concentre sur l’utilisation de Tchekhov et de Shakespeare dans la construction du Moi culturel danois, et s’inscrit dans une discussion plus théorique sur les défi s et la signification du théâtre pour la traductologie, dans la nouvelle phase de son développement, consciente de la culture.
The deterioration of the usage of ‘kaana’ in the Holy Quran via translation
Authors: Al-Khawalda Mohammad
Published: September 2007

This paper investigates the accuracy of the translation of the Arabic copula kaana (be-past-he) in the holy Quran. The first one hundred usages of kaana are selected for investigation. The examples are exclusively derived from Surat al-baqarah (1) and surat ali?umran (2). The translation under discussion is taken from ‘Holy Quran, CD, 6th ed. Saxir for Computer Programs’ The translation has been checked via back translation, which was compared with the original temporal and aspectual meaning expressed by the usage of kaana. It turns out that the translation of kaana caused confusion rather than understanding. It also seems that most of the inadequacies result from insufficient understanding of the mechanism of tense and aspect in both the Arabic and English languages. Moreover, in most cases, the modal usage of kaana which plays a significant role, is ignored by the translator(s). In addition to back translation carried out by some scholars, the translation has also been checked via ‘Machine Translation’ which shows a real abuse of the original text.
Traduction et littérature beure
Authors: Duchêne Nadia
Published: September 2007

This study starts from a well-known premise, which states that translation is not exclusively a linguistic practice; rather, it
should integrate a set of social and cultural interrelations. Once accepted that premise, we propose a synthetic case study of the
French work Le gone du Chaâba, by Azouz Begag, published in Spanish in 2001 by Ediciones del Bronce. Our case study is focused on
the translating difficulties found in this particular work when dealing with the peculiar linguistic and cultural specificities of
the Arab population living in France, the real "protagonists" of the novel. The study does not intend to be prescriptive; rather,
it is an illustrated descriptive analysis based on textual pairs (French and Spanish), selected almost at random throughout the
text. Thus, we propose a synchronic and well-limited analysis, which deals basically with: (i) the omissions found in the target
text; (ii) the Spanish rendering of Arab colloquialisms, fairly frequent in the source text; (iii) the translator´s strategies
when rendering the orality of the source text; (iv) the translation of the different linguistic registers; and (v) the contresens,
along with the potential semantic misrenderings.
The Role of Semantic Type in Differential Object Marking
Authors: Bleam Tonia
Published: September 2007

Spanish, like many other languages (e.g. Hindi), exhibits differential object marking (DOM). It is well-known that DOM seems to be sensitive to the animacy and/or specificity of the direct object (Bossong 1985, Aissen 2003). It is argued here that the Spanish prepositional accusative, or a-marking, is a realization of the features [+accusative] and [+animate] within a nominal projection containing a determiner (D). Nominal projections lacking D are property-denoting and are not a-marked. I show that there is a direct map between the presence or absence of a-marking and the semantic type of the (animate) direct object nominal.
The interpretation of pronouns by Japanese Learners of English
Authors: Ito Myoko
Published: September 2007

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether adult L2 learners of English have the same kinds of problem interpreting pronouns as L1 learning children do. Based on Reinhart and Reuland’s (1993) ‘Reflexivity’ and Grodzinsky and Reinhart’s (1993) ‘Rule I’, specific error patterns were predicted for 58 Japanese high school students, as compared to 14 English native controls, and 40 Japanese native controls. The experimental sentences included simple as well as complex sentences with both quantified and referential antecedents. Results indicate that L2 learners do have similar problems to L1 learning children. Specifically, they can use syntactic and lexical knowledge of English pronouns in interpreting pronoun reference but they have difficulty using the pragmatic principle Rule I.
Beyond the Aspect Hypothesis
Authors: Labeau Emmanuelle
Published: September 2007

The Aspect Hypothesis (AH) (Andersen 1986, 1991) suggests an eight-stage development of the Spanish tense–aspect system by English learners in which tenses progressively mark verb categories. The current paper, which presents some of the main findings from Labeau (2005), explores the relevance of the AH to an acquisitional setting other than that for which it was developed. Specifically, it tests the four tenets of the AH, as described by Shirai and Kurono (1998) against data from the acquisition of the French tense/aspect system by advanced learners of French in a tutored environment. It compares the use of French verbal morphology by advanced Anglophone learners with a control group of native speakers engaging in a variety of tasks: (1) oral and written narratives (2) a grammar cloze-test and (3) a written editing task. Having shown that the basic hypothesis is unable to account for the development of advanced French, the study tests an expanded version of the AH (Andersen 2002) and suggests further factors to take into account in the description of advanced stages of tense–aspect acquisition.
Motivating multiword units
Authors: Boers Frank , Eyckmans June , Stengers Hélène
Published: September 2007

In recent years, many educational linguists have emphasised the importance of drawing language learners’ attention to multiword units (i.e., strong collocations, idioms, etc.), because knowledge of such units is believed to help learners come across as fluent, native-like and accurate L2 speakers. We report a controlled experiment the results of which support this belief. The question now is how learners can be helped to commit multiword units to memory. We borrow insights from Cognitive Linguistics, which, contrary to other frameworks, holds that the meaning and the lexical composition of many multiword units is motivated rather than arbitrary. The article surveys experiments that were set up to measure the mnemonic effects of presenting multiword units (especially idioms) as semantically and/or phonologically motivated. The overall encouraging results are explainable by established theories of memory, such as ‘levels-of-processing’ and ‘dual coding’ models. At the same time, the results point to cognitive-style variables that may enhance or dampen the effectiveness of the proposed instructional methods.
The changing sociolinguistic status of the glottal stop in northeast Scottish English
Authors: Marshall Jonathan
Published: September 2007

The spread of the glottal stop as a variant of /t/ in British English has been well documented in the recent literature (Macafee 1994; Macaulay and Trevelyan 1973; Stuart-Smith 1999; Kerswill and Williams 2000; Fabricius 2002). The origins of this feature are not easy to pinpoint, and some theories (Macafee 1997, for example) even point to Glasgow, though not without controversy. It is, nevertheless, spreading rapidly throughout Scotland in predictable patterns along the lines of social class, age and sex (Macaulay 1991; Stuart-Smith 1999; Romaine 1982). This paper presents some of the findings from a recent study of pronunciation changes in rural Aberdeenshire (north-east Scotland). The data confirm the spread of the glottal stop in this area in apparent time. In addition to this, there is an interesting pattern visible. While all of the other phonetic variables in this study show remarkable similarity of patterning across age, the glottal stop shows a different distribution. I argue that the reason for this has to do with its status as an incoming variant which is not a Scottish Standard English form, and that the groups which resist it and those which adopt it are predictable from the results of sociolinguistic research elsewhere in Britain.
Atlantic, Pacific or world-wide?
Authors: Avram Andrei A.
Published: September 2007

This paper addresses the issue of the distribution in English-based pidgins and creoles of a number of selected diagnostic features. A large corpus of 17 Atlantic and eight Pacific varieties is surveyed in search of attestations. Examples are listed to illustrate the occurrence of features in the pidgins and creoles considered. Citations include the first attestation of a feature in the earliest records currently available of both Atlantic and Pacific English-lexicon contact languages. The textual evidence adduced appears to indicate that 23 diagnostic features considered to be Atlantic or Pacific respectively have a wider distribution than hitherto assumed and should therefore be reclassified as world-wide features. Also discussed are some of the implications of these findings.
Peer group identification and variation in New York Latino English laterals
Authors: Slomanson Peter , Newman Michael
Published: September 2007

Following recent work showing that adolescent peer culture affiliation correlates with phonological variation, our research explores the effect of peer identities and national heritages on the English of Latino students in a New York City high school. Data were gathered in sociolinguistic interviews embedded in a two-year ethnography. The peer groups investigated for Spanish-English contact effects include Hip-Hoppers, Skaters, Geeks, and non-participants in high school peer cultures. Our data show that New York Latino English (NYLE) is distinct from both African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and New York European American Vernacular English (NYEAVE). Here we discuss a previously unexamined variable: the lateral (l). Our most robust research finding is the frequent occurrence of apical /l/ in the L1 Latino English onsets of our sample. This Spanish feature is foreign to NYEAVE and AAVE. Its frequency in L1 NYLE is highest among speakers unaffiliated with the high school peer cultures which promote convergence with NYEAVE and AAVE.
Botswana English
Authors: Arua Arua E.
Published: September 2007

The paper discusses some of the syntactic and lexical features of Botswana English. The syntactic features are the tag questionisn't it?and the conversational tagis it?, the exclamationSharp!, the indefinite pronoun phrasethe other one, the dangling modifier, the inversion of auxiliary verb and subject in reported questions, the redundant use of personal / reflexive pronouns, the use of the negative auxiliarydon't,the conflation of the English adjectivesorryand the Setswana adverbialhoo!,the use of the subordinating conjunctionwhichand the modal auxiliarycan be able.The lexical items discussed include Setswana words that have been borrowed and/or translated into English and words such ascondomise,diarise,shameandbrigadewhich have been formed through the processes of derivation and semantic extension. The lexical and syntactic features are those which the researcher has observed, over a six-year period, to be in frequent and widespread use in Botswana.
Nigerian English prosody
Authors: Gut Ulrike
Published: September 2007

Nigerian English (NigE) prosody has often been described as strikingly different from Standard English varieties such as British English (BrE) and American English. One possible source for this is the influence of the indigenous tone languages of Nigeria on NigE. This paper investigates the effects of the language contact between the structurally diverse prosodic systems of English and the three major Nigerian languages. Reading passage style and semi-spontaneous speech by speakers of NigE, BrE, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba were analysed acoustically in terms of speech rhythm, syllable structure and tonal structure. Results show that NigE prosody combines elements of intonation / stress languages and tone languages. In terms of speech rhythm, syllable structure and syllable length, NigE groups between the Nigerian languages and BrE. NigE tonal properties are different from those of an intonation language such as BrE insofar as tones are associated with syllables and have a grammatical function. Accentuation in NigE is different from BrE in terms of both accent placement and realisation; accents in NigE are associated with high tone. A proposal for a first sketch of NigE intonational phonology is made and parallels are drawn with other New Englishes.
The “Indian English” of Tibeto-Burman language speakers
Authors: Wiltshire Caroline R.
Published: September 2007

English as spoken as a second language in India (IE) has developed different sound patterns from other varieties of English. While most descriptions of IE have focused on the English of speakers whose first languages belong to the Indo-Aryan or Dravidian families, in this study, I examine the phonetic and phonological characteristics of the English produced by speakers of three Indian L1s from the Tibeto-Burman language family (Angami, Ao, and Mizo). In addition to describing aspects of Tibeto-Burman Indian English, a previously unreported Indian English variety, I also examine how and why this variety of English differs from General Indian English. The English of Tibeto-Burman L1 speakers seems to form a variety distinct from Indian English, most noticeably in terms of the lack of retroflexion of coronal consonants, the devoicing of word-final obstruents, the simplification of consonant clusters, the presence of post-vocalic [p], and the reduced set of vowel contrasts. Most of these can be traced to transfer from the L1 phonology, with the coda devoicing and cluster reductions reflecting simplification in terms of markedness, following developmental sequences found in second language acquisition.
Predicting the past
Authors: Trudgill Peter , Gordon Elizabeth
Published: September 2007

The division of the world’s Englishes into rhotic and non-rhotic types is clearly due to the fact that the former are conservative in not having undergone loss of non-prevocalic /r/, whereas the latter have. The beginnings of the loss of non-prevocalic /r/ in English have generally been dated by historians of the language to the 18th century. It is therefore obvious, and has been widely accepted, that Irish English, Canadian English, and American English are predominantly rhotic because the English language was exported to these colonial areas before the loss of rhoticity in England began; and that the Southern Hemisphere Englishes are non-rhotic because English was exported to these areas in the 19th century after the loss of rhoticity. Analysing newly-discovered data from Australia, we present some surprising evidence that shows that this obvious conclusion is incorrect.
Niuean English
Authors: Starks Donna , Christie Jane , Thompson Laura
Published: September 2007

This paper provides an initial analysis into the phonetic and phonological features of Niuean English as spoken in the New Zealand Niuean community. The paper highlights similarities and differences between New Zealand English and Niuean English, points to subtle differences due to potential substratal influences, and considers the effects of recent changes in New Zealand English on the English of Niuean speakers in New Zealand.
New variety or learner English?
Authors: Mollin Sandra
Published: September 2007

In deciding whether non-native English is to be classified as a new variety or simply as learner language, a yardstick is needed against which the candidate variety can be tested. This paper offers such criteria for ESL-variety status, based on the three processes in the development of a new variety: expansion in function, nativization of form and institutionalization of a new standard. The criteria are exemplarily applied to the case of non-native English spoken on the European Continent, a recent controversial contender for variety status. It is suggested that if the proposed criteria are applied, Euro-English does not qualify as a New English.
Negotiating identity
Authors: Herriman Jennifer
Published: September 2007

This study investigates the interpersonal functions of basic and reversed wh-clefts extracted from the Freiburg LOB corpus of written English (FLOB). It shows that, within the framework of appraisal (Martin 2000, White 2001), wh-clefts function in the heteroglossic system of engagement. They allow writers to acknowledge the existence of divergent positions in the text. At the same time they are dialogistically contractive. They close down discussion by expressing the authorial position in preference to all other alternative positions. This rhetorical strategy increases the argumentative force of the authorial position. Basic wh-clefts tend to express newsworthy, often contrastive, authorial positions, whereas reversed wh-clefts tend to negotiate, confirm and sometimes challenge already established authorial positions.
“This is the linguist in me speaking”
Authors: Pang Kam-Yiu S.
Published: September 2007

When a speaker makes an utterance that comments on herself, she is doing more than simply making a reflective statement about herself. She is drawing attention to a part of her self that she deems relevant to the current exchange by objectifying that part of her self. As it happens, meta-discoursal self-evaluative statements are often made by a speaker about what she has just said or is about to say in the ongoing discourse. Based on a model that sees the self as a conglomeration of all the narratives constituting a person’s experiences, and in all of which the person occupies the role of the protagonist, this paper investigates three meta-discoursal constructions which refer to facets of the self, and their pragma-semantic function of distancing in discourse. These are the ‘my N V-ing’, the ‘N in me’, and the ‘N in me V’ constructions, as exemplified respectively by That was my arrogance speaking, That’s the purist in me talking, and The cynic in me would say yes.
Acts and the relationship between discourse and grammar
Authors: Hannay Mike , Kroon Caroline
Published: September 2007

In modelling the discourse–grammar interface, a central question concerns the status of discourse act as the minimal unit of discourse organization and its relation to units of grammatical structure. This paper seeks to clarify the notion of act by defining it as a strategic rather than a conceptual unit, and by setting out a classification of strategic acts. Illustration is then offered for the position that discourse acts are to a very considerable extent realized in English by intonation units and punctuation units. This is done by considering how punctuational variation and cases of intonation/syntax mismatch can be explained in terms of the specific discourse contribution of the units concerned. Although the correlation between discourse acts and intonation/punctuation units remains problematic, in that there may not be a 1 : 1 correspondence, it is still attractive — at least for English — to see the linguistic correlate of acts in intonation and punctuation units rather than in syntactic structures. The paper finishes by considering the implications for the formalizing of relations between discourse, semantics and syntax in Functional Discourse Grammar.
Recognizing and realizing ‘what counts’ in examination English
Authors: Macken-Horarik Mary
Published: September 2007

This paper interrogates examination English in Australia from the point of view of two analytical frameworks: Bernstein’s code theory and systemic functional linguistics. Linguistically it explores the semantic features of six responses to an open question about an unseen narrative in Year 10 examinations. Two responses at three achievement levels are described in terms of ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings and the overall orientation to narrative interpretation in each grade is related to a particular type of reading — tactical, (D or E grade), mimetic (C grade) and symbolic (A- grade). Capturing students’ orientations to meaning through text analysis is one aspect of the challenge. The other is explaining how some students appear to ‘recognize’ and ‘realize’ what the ‘open question’ requires of them in this context while others do not. The second half of the paper applies Bernstein’s code theory, particularly his notion of ‘recognition’ and ‘realization rules’ to the readings students make of the interpretive context. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the potential of this dual analysis (textual and contextual) for making success in school English both more visible for students currently disadvantaged by examination English and more tractable rhetorically in their production of successful responses.
From language-specific constraints to implicational universals
Authors: Hollmann Willem B.
Published: September 2007

This article seeks to shed more light on the well-studied, yet still challenging, dative alternation. It starts from the cognitive-typological suggestion of Croft (2001, 2003) that language-internal variation is subject to the same constraints as cross-linguistic variation (the semantic map model), and that careful language-specific research may therefore reveal facts about language in general. I argue that there is a parallel between dativisability and passivisability. Then, using a sample of active tokens from the British National Corpus of ditransitive give in both the indirect-object and double-object constructions and comparing these to a matched sample of passive examples, I evaluate the effect on passivisability — and hence dativisability — of the semantic parameters proposed in previous scholarship. The results are stated as a set of implicational universals. They should hold for all languages that feature the alternation, and make diachronic predictions as well. In addition to the semantics — which has been discussed in many previous studies — I argue that token frequency also plays a role in promoting dativisability — which has never been suggested before. The conclusion identifies some general implications for theoretical linguistics and for the practice of research on language structure and meaning.
Grammatical relations in active systems
Authors: Velázquez-Castillo Maura
Published: September 2007

An active system is frequently analyzed as the most semantically transparent case-marking system, where the agent-patient opposition underlies case marking and/or cross-referencing patterns. It has also been claimed that transitivity and its prototypical manifestation of subject-object opposition are irrelevant for this language type. This paper examines these claims in the light of the grammatical system of Guaraní, an active language spoken in Paraguay. Based on lexical and morpho-syntactic data such as reflexivization, passivization, relativization, incorporation and external possession, the results suggest that grammatical relations are indeed semantically driven and that they do not correlate with subjects and objects. The paper clarifies the semantic underpinnings of the active-inactive distinction in this language and shows that the relevant opposition is not that of agent-patient but rather that of source-locative. The study argues for an analysis based on language-specific event typing and construal.