LingBaW. Linguistics Beyond and Within

Euphemisms and teacher–student interactions

Anna Bloch-Rozmej — 2023-12-30

The quality of teacher-student interactions appears to be one of the most significant prerequisites for effective instruction. One of the factors involved in determining this quality is definitely teacher talk that should adequately correspond both to the type of knowledge the teacher intends to transfer and students’ ability to absorb this knowledge. The latter we claim is directly related to the students’ attitude to the subject itself and the teacher. In this article we will delve into the problem of euphemisms as part of teacher and student talk with a view to determining the extent to which they might affect teacher-student interactions. The issue of euphemism use and their role in building positive relations in the language classroom will be discussed from the perspective of teachers’ experiences. To this end, we chose the research tool of an online questionnaire addressed at university teachers. The survey was administered in June 2023 and the results will be described and analyzed in the forthcoming pages. Euphemism use will also be considered as a manifestation of language creativity that should characterize good language teachers.

Automatically generated language learning exercises for Finno-Ugric languages

Zsanett Ferenczi — 2023-12-30

Morphologically rich languages always constitute a great challenge for language learners. The learner must be able to understand the information encoded in different word forms of the same root and to generate the correct word form to express certain syntactic functions and grammatical relations by conjugating a verb or declining a noun, an adjective or a pronoun. One way to improve one’s language skills is through exercises that focus on certain aspects of grammar. In this paper, a language learning application is presented that is intended to help learners of Finnish and Hungarian (with Hungarian and Finnish L1, respectively) acquire new vocabulary items, as well as practice some grammar aspects that according to surveys are considered difficult by learners of these languages with the other Finno-Ugric language being the learner’s native tongue, while alleviating the need to create these exercises manually. This application is a result of an on-going research project. In this research project, bilingual translation pairs and additional monolingual data were collected that can be utilized to build language learning exercises and an online bilingual dictionary with the help of automatic methods. Several linguistic patterns and rules were defined in order to automatically select example sentences that focus on a given part of the target language. These sentences were automatically annotated with the help of language processing tools. Due to the large size of the previously collected data sets, to date, only a subset of the analyzed sentences and the bilingual translation pairs has been manually evaluated. The results of this evaluation are discussed in this paper in order to estimate the precision of the methodology presented here. To ensure the precision of the information and the reliability of the application, only manually validated data sets are displayed. In this project, continuous data validation is planned, since it leads to more and more examples and vocabulary items that learners can benefit from.

Representing temporal concepts using redundant gestures in L2 ongoing interactions

Hiroki Hanamoto — 2023-12-30

Human conversational interaction is multimodal, involving both verbal and non-verbal modalities. That is, when a speaker and listener interact, they use not only spoken messages but also manual gestures. Manual gestures and spoken messages are semantically and temporally related and work together to create and express a complete meaning. This study employs a data-driven approach to investigate how L2 learners spontaneously employ gestures to express temporal concepts in ongoing dyadic interactions using 11 recorded interactions among L2 learners. The distribution and frequency of specific types of manual gestures were examined using sequential and gesture analyses. The results showed that, when representing temporal concepts, the participants produced language-redundant gestures. For example, to convey temporal concepts, they tended to co-express the same information with manual gestures, namely abstract deictic and metaphoric gestures, on an imaginary mental timeline axis, which appeared to represent the English grammatical concepts of tense and aspectual meaning. Regarding the functional differences in gestures in interactions, based on sequential analysis, speakers employed language-redundant gestures to express time concepts explicitly in comprehension sequences and in the negotiation of meaning as a strategy of repair for lexical retrieval, paraphrasing, and clarification. These findings reveal that understanding the use of both modalities, speech and gestures, is critical in uncovering how speakers conceptualize time in their minds and integrate space and time in language.

Comparative analysis of American and Russian political discourse: A discourse analysis study

Monika Kopik — 2023-12-30

This article provides an exhaustive analysis of American and Russian political discourse through the examination of the linguistic techniques employed by President Joe Biden and President Putin in their speeches. The aim of this research is to examine the linguistic approaches employed in referencing social and political traditions in the United States and Russia, investigate disparities in linguistic strategies within both political discourses, and assess variations in semantic outcomes. The analysis has been conducted to answer the following research questions: (1) What are the linguistic methods of referring to social and political traditions in America and Russia? (2) Do the linguistic strategies differ depending on the political discourse? (3) Is the semantic output different depending on the political discourse? The findings reveal marked differences between the two discourses, reflecting the social and political discrepancies between the political systems of the United States and Russia.

Register in Czech: Designing an MDA-based experimental study

Anna Marklová — 2023-12-30

There are no conventionalized ways to investigate the results of multidimensional analysis (MDA) from the perceptual perspective in an experimental setting. An MDA of the Czech corpus Koditex by Cvrček et al. (2020) established eight dimensions of variation based on 122 linguistic features. The first two dimensions, which explain the largest proportion of shared variance, are labeled as 1. dynamic (+)/static (-) and 2. spontaneous (+)/prepared (-). In our study, we investigated if some situational contexts of language use evoke stronger associations with the poles of the two dimensions than others. Furthermore, we aimed to explore the impact of the mode of language use and the properties of the interlocutor on the ratings.

Czech native speakers (n=107) rated various situational contexts on 7-point Likert-like scales representing the MDA-based dimensions. The items were balanced in the formality of the interlocutor’s name (Mr. or Mrs. in connection to surname/first name), the interlocutor´s gender, and the mode of language use (spoken/written). The statistical analysis uncovered a significant effect of the formality of the interlocutor's name and the mode of language use on the ratings. Using first names and spoken mode resulted in ratings closer to the positive poles of the dimensions. The comparison of individual items showed that some situations, mainly those representing the negative poles of the dimensions, are rated more consistently than others. The results of our study offer insight into how native speakers evaluate situations of language use on the scales of preparedness, subjectivity, and interactivity.

When spatial agency bias and the advantage of the first mention are in contradiction: Evidence from Czech, German, and Spanish

Anna Marklová — 2023-12-30

Evidence from Art (History), perceptual psychology, and (psycho-)linguistics support the claim that in Western culture (or rather within left-to-right writing languages), people depict or visualize more important or salient figures to the left. However, linguistics studies investigating this topic almost exclusively use active sentences with standard Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) syntax as stimuli, where the subject takes the role of an agent. However natural language exhibits much more syntactical variation. To determine if this pattern is also present when the less common syntax is used, we asked native German, Spanish, and Czech speakers (N=300) to draw situations representing ten sentences varying in syntactic structure. These drawings, simplified versions of the mental representation of the situation, provide a glimpse into the conceptualization of the scenes. The spatial placement of the agent figures in the sentences was coded. Results show that although the asymmetrical effect is strong in prototypical SVO sentences, where the subject has the function of an agent and the object a function of a patient, the effect is weaker or disappears in passive sentences, where the subject at the first position is a patient and object on the second position is an agent, as well as in topicalized (OVS) sentences. Furthermore, we found cross-linguistic differences, which suggests that the character of the bias is language-specific. We postulate that placing the agent to the left is only one of the factors influencing spatial placement. The other factor playing an important role is the naming order.

Critical Discourse Analysis of RT news headlines on Venezuela’s post-coup crisis in 2019-2020

Ihor Matselyukh — 2023-12-30

This article researches the biased content of the propagandistic channel RT through the prism of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It attempts to uncover the linguistic means of creating biased content in RT headlines that cover the Venezuela’s post-coup crisis of 2019-2020. It offers a CDA approach to the systemic bias in the headlines of 375 news stories featured on one of the most tendentious webcasters, the Russian state news provider RT. The current CDA focuses on presuppositions and implicatures, back- and fore-grounding, agency, lexis, punctuation, and briefly on other figurative linguistic means in the headlines and traces their relative recurrence that might form a pattern.

Shifting sands: A bibliometric analysis of L2 vocabulary research in 1991

Paul Meara — 2023-12-30

This paper uses a co-citation analysis to examine the research on L2 vocabulary acquisition that was published in 1991. Two analyses based on co-citations in this research are presented. The first analysis provides a context for the 1991 data. It looks at work that was being cited in a five-year window covering 1987-1991. The second analysis is a more detailed account of the 1991 research on its own terms.

Is a quantifier mismatch a problem for L1 Japanese learners of English?

Paul N. Nehls — 2023-12-30

After identifying a linguistic difference between the English quantifier most and the Japanese quantifier hotondo ‘most’ we set out to find if the semantic difference between the two would constitute a learning problem for Japanese second language (L2) learners of English. The difference we hypothesized between the two is that English most is considered “more than half,” while hotondo is “nearly all.” As this semantic difference is not explicitly taught in a classroom environment, acquisition by learners would need to take place through experiencing most in contexts where they might receive contextual clues. An examination of a corpus indicated that contextual clues towards such a semantic difference would be unavailable or rarely available. Two sets of experiments (Experiments 1 and 2) were conducted using the Truth Value Judgment Task methodology. The results of Experiment 1 showed that L2 speakers treated most as meaning “nearly all” but that the level of learner proficiency has an effect. The upper intermediate L2 learner group (Experiment 1a) behaved more like the L1 English speaker group (Experiment 1b) than the lower proficiency L2 group (Experiment 1c). Experiment 2, testing Japanese L1 speakers on their interpretation of Japanese hotondo ‘most,’ revealed that while a majority of participants treated hotondo as “almost all,” there was, somewhat unexpectedly, a group of speakers who interpreted hotondo to mean “more than half.” Therefore, although the possibility cannot completely be eliminated that the result of Experiment 1a is due to L1 transfer, if some Japanese learners of English can unlearn the incorrect meaning, then some prior, if not innate, knowledge that makes the process possible must be available to them.

Aradıınız kişi (şu anda) ulaşılamıyor! The Turkish vowel system, (the so-called) 'Yumuşak g' (ğ), and Turkish phonology: On a missed opportunity

Nicolas Royer-Artuso — 2023-12-30

In this paper, some core premises that are held about Turkish Phonology are put into question, both theoretically and empirically. Some modifications to the Turkish phonological inventory and to the language's phonotactic constraints are then proposed. It is shown how modifying the phonological inventory and modifying phonotactic statements about the language gives a more realistic perspective on the empirical data. In the conclusion, some new avenues of research are finally proposed.

Methodology for conducting linguistic research into visual impairment: Challenges and recommendations

Jolanta Sak-Wernicka — 2023-12-30

Despite great value of research into visual impairment (VI), there is a dearth of empirical studies in linguistics investigating the extent to which the sense of seeing impacts language development, processing and production. The lack of methodological rigour in previous studies as well as large diversity of the population, small incidence of visual impairment and little awareness of blind people’s needs make this field of study challenging for researchers. This article presents and discusses the most challenging aspects of performing experimental studies in the field of VI. The overarching aim of this paper is to guide good research practice which ensures robust and unbiased experimental design and at the same time respects individuality of people with VI.

Enclisis, mesoclisis and inflection in Italo-Romance varieties: A minimalist analysis

Leonardo M. Savoia — 2023-12-30

This contribution addresses a central theme in morphological analysis, namely the relationship between clitics and inflectional elements. Important contributions on the point are due to Anderson (1992) and Marantz (1988), who, in different ways, connect clitics and affixes. We will propose a solution based on the idea that clitics are part of the inflectional arrangement of the verbal head. Specifically, we will investigate two types of data coming from some Romance varieties in which enclisis and mesoclisis phenomena interact with word formation. These phenomena affect the expression of the Internal Argument and lead us to rethink the analysis of enclisis and mesoclisis in terms of the ability of the inflected verb to realize Phasal domains. In other words, morphology is part of the syntactic computation, and morphemic elements, endowed with interpretable content, are introduced by the operation of Merge.

When must not is not forbidden

Leszek Szymański — 2023-12-30

The present paper describes an empirical investigation into an English modal predicate with the auxiliary verb must, the negative particle not and the bare infinitive of the main verb. Typically, the negator not changes the meaning of must from obligation or strong recommendation to forbiddance. This, however, takes place only with the root flavor of must. Epistemic must does not interact with not in this way. The study uses authentic language samples retrieved from the online version of The Corpus of Contemporary American English. The analysis adapts the model of the semantic field of modal expressions developed by Kratzer (1991), and it attempts to find what lies behind the said lack of interaction between must and not. After a scrutiny of the conversational backgrounds influencing the studied modal meanings, the study found that the meaning expressed by a speaker with must not depends on whether the speaker evaluates the propositional circumstances directly or infers from them. Moreover, the study proposes patterns of must-not interfaces with regard to the modal flavor.

Subject-Object binding dependencies in Romanian

Alina Tigău — 2023-12-30

This paper dwells on an interesting contrast between Romance (Romanian, Spanish a.o.) and Germanic languages (English, German a.o.) with respect to the syntax and the interpretation of the direct object (DO). One structural difference between these two groups of languages amounts to the fact that the former clitic double (CD) and differentially object mark (DOM) their direct objects while the latter do not. This leads to important interpretive consequences when it comes to phenomena such as Subject-Object binding dependences: Non-CD languages rely on the c-command configuration and surface word order in resolving binding relations (the antecedent must c-command the element containing the bound pronoun. As a consequence, a natural way for the DO to bind into the Subject is to have it moved to the left, in a preceding, c-commanding position). As will be shown, in CD languages, the word order configuration is not decisive: the direct object may bind the subject without having to precede it at the same time. The paper draws a parametric difference between configurational languages (where binding is closely linked to the c-command configurations and is sensitive to surface word order) and non-configurational languages, where the same semantic properties can be derived from the internal structure of the direct object (through its featural specification).

Hypocoristic palatalization in Basque and historical applications

Jackson Wolf — 2023-12-30

This paper examines the processes of expressive palatalization in the Basque diminutive. Basque has two forms of the diminutive, a list of inflectional suffixes and a method of palatalization with specific phonological requirements. A speaker will first palatalize any coronal sibilants in the word. If there are none, then a dental obstruent that has a palatal counterpart is the next candidate. If there are again, none, then the last candidate is a dental coronal, but only the consonant on the leftmost edge. However, if there is a sibilant and a dental consonant, only the sibilants are palatalized. If there is a dental obstruent and a dental sonorant, only the obstruent is palatalized. To describe this process, I adopt an OT approach and an autosegmental approach to determine where the [+palatal] inflection morpheme can attach. Finally, I show the application of unworking the hypocoristic formation through internal reconstruction of Basque in animal names to produce two reconstructions.

Mirative focalization: A case study of Mandarin lian-DP dou construction

Yue Xing — 2023-12-30

The paper investigates Mandarin lian-DP dou construction (aka. ‘even’-construction) in terms of the following controversial aspects – i.e., the contributions of the syntactically indispensable elements lian ‘even’ and dou ‘all’, and the syntactic distribution of the construction in connection with associated information structure. It is extensively accepted in the literature that a lian-DP – i.e., the chunk formed by lian and the following nominal phrase, can represent two functional positions – in the clause-external Left Periphery (henceforth LP), and in the low IP area, because it occurs either preceding or following the alleged subject. In the present paper, however, I argue that a lian-DP, regardless of its linear position, undergoes successive-cyclic movement and, specifically, it first makes a stopover in SpecdouP for quantificational reasons before it takes a further step of mirative focus fronting targeting the LP. Support is threefold – pragmatically, lian-DP dou construction denotes contextually similar implicatures as Sicilian mirative expressions do; semantically, the quantifier dou, serving as a maximality operator, imposes exhaustivity over the alternatives available on a scale and therefore forces the lian-DP to move to SpecdouP; and syntactically, the observable weak crossover effects (WCO) manifest that lian-DP movement is inherently focus fronting.