The relative clause marker in Scots English: Diffusion, complexity, and style as dimensions of syntactic change

1980 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Romaine

ABSTRACTA historical study of variation in the relative clause marker in Scottish English indicates that sociolinguistic methodology has some important contributions to make to historical linguistics. The use of the frequency with which NPs in certain syntactic positions are relativized as a measure of syntactic complexity reveals that the WH relativization strategy appears to have entered the language in the most complex styles and least frequently relativized syntactic positions, until it eventually spread or diffused throughout the system. The addition of the WH relativization strategy seems to have resulted in a ‘squish’ of two strategies which are opposed in stylistic meaning rather than in actual qualitative change in the relative system. The process of diffusion can be seen as completed as far as the more formal styles of the modern written language are concerned, but it has not really affected the spoken language, where the native TH strategy prevails. (Sociolinguistic methodology, historical linguistics, language change, relativization, history of tle English language)

Author(s):  
Kathryn M. de Luna

This chapter uses two case studies to explore how historians study language movement and change through comparative historical linguistics. The first case study stands as a short chapter in the larger history of the expansion of Bantu languages across eastern, central, and southern Africa. It focuses on the expansion of proto-Kafue, ca. 950–1250, from a linguistic homeland in the middle Kafue River region to lands beyond the Lukanga swamps to the north and the Zambezi River to the south. This expansion was made possible by a dramatic reconfiguration of ties of kinship. The second case study explores linguistic evidence for ridicule along the Lozi-Botatwe frontier in the mid- to late 19th century. Significantly, the units and scales of language movement and change in precolonial periods rendered visible through comparative historical linguistics bring to our attention alternative approaches to language change and movement in contemporary Africa.


2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vilmos Benczik

Language emerges and changes primarily through communication; therefore communication technologies play a key role in the history of language change. The most powerful communication technology from this point of view is phonetic writing, which has a double effect on language: on the one hand it impoverishes suprasegmental linguistic resources; on the other hand it evokes in language a profound and sophisticated semantic precision, and also syntactic complexity. The huge progress in abstract human thought that has taken place over the past three or four centuries has come about on the basis of these linguistic changes. Today, when writing seems to be losing its earlier hegemony over communication, the question arises as to whether this will lead to the erosion of human language, and also of human thought.


The Oxford Handbook of Taboo Words and Language defines taboo as a proscription of behaviour for a specifiable community of one or more persons at a specifiable time in specifiable contexts. What is in fact tabooed is the use of those words and language in certain contexts; in short, the taboo applies to instances of language behaviour. For behaviour to be proscribed it must be perceived as in some way harmful to an individual or their community but the degree of harm can fall anywhere on a scale from a breach of etiquette to out-and-out fatality. All tabooed behaviours are deprecated and they lead to social if not legal sanction. Taboos are described and the reasons and beliefs behind them are investigated. Tabooed words are typically dysphemistic, think of insults and swearing; tabooed language is avoided through various kinds of euphemism. In twenty chapters, the volume offers comprehensive coverage of tabooed language as perceived by experts in general linguistics, cultural linguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, historical linguistics, linguistic philosophy, forensic linguistics, politeness research, publishing, advertising, and theology. Although the principal focus is the English language, reference is occasionally made to linguistic taboos in other languages in order to compare sociocultural attitudes. The existence of taboos and the need to manage taboo lead not only to the censoring of behaviour and the imposition of censorship but also to language change and language development.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne O. Mooers ◽  
Panayiotis A. Pappas

AbstractWe review and assess the different ways in which research in evolutionary-theory-inspired biology has influenced research in historical linguistics, and then focus on an evolutionary-theory inspired claim for language change made by Pagel et al. (2007). They report that the more Swadesh-list lexemes are used, the less likely they are to change across 87 Indo-European languages, and posit that frequency-of-use of a lexical item is a separate and general mechanism of language change. We test a corollary of this conclusion, namely that current frequency-of-use should predict the amount of change within individual languages through time. We devise a scale of lexical change that recognizes sound change, analogical change and lexical replacement and apply it to cognate pairs on the Swadesh list between Homeric and Modern Greek. Current frequency-of-use only weakly predicts the amount of change within the history of Greek, but amount of change does predict the number of forms across Indo-European. Given that current frequency-of-use and past frequency-of-use may be only weakly correlated for many Swadesh-list lexemes, and given previous research that shows that frequency-of-use can both hinder and facilitate lexical change, we conclude that it is premature to claim that a new mechanism of language change has been discovered. However, we call for more in-depth comparative study of general mechanisms of language change, including further tests of the frequency-of-use hypothesis.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rosslyn Joan Johnston

<p>This thesis is an historical study of the development and the relationships between some aspects of colour printing in New Zealand from 1830 to 1914, including the practitioners, the technology and the products, in the context of printing in New Zealand beginning as a largely British inheritance, but within an Australasian setting. A review of the printing history literature has shown that there have been relatively few works in the English language devoted specifically to the history of colour printing. Much of the literature bearing on the topic in relation to British colour printing history deals with specialized aspects such as colour plate books or technical processes. There has been no previous specific scholarly study of New Zealand colour printing history. The research for this aspect of thesis has been in the nature of exploratory work. An historical methodology was employed to approach the gathering and analysis of data from a wide array of sources, both secondary and primary. A theoretical framework suitable to an academic historical study, of which history' of print culture is a part, has been developed using the new model proposed by Thomas R. Adams and Nicolas Barker (1993) as an appropriate foundation framework. This model shows the phases of the 'book cycle', publication, manufacture, distribution, reception and survival, as being central to the whole socio-economic conjuncture. The paradigm developed for the present study is based on the section of the framework relating to the manufacture or production phase, using themes that emerged from the literature to facilitate analysis and explanation of New Zealand patterns and relationships with comparison to British colour printing history. Within this setting more detailed study was made of some of the colour printers. Especially those of the lower North Island, including a case study of the Wanganui firm of A.D. Willis where colour printing was a specialty. A genre study of special numbers from the New Zealand weeklies has also been presented. Rather than attempting to provide a definitive colour printing history the research has provided an interpretive thematic study that has aimed to increase understanding of some aspects of New Zealand colour printing history, and accordingly, responses to research questions have been tentative. It was found that although colour printing practice continued with strong ties to the British craft' from the beginning, new relationships were being forged particularly with the neigbouring Australian colonies whence immigrant printers and lithographers were arriving. After local lithographic colour printing had begun to develop in New Zealand in the eighteen sixties, in the period to 1914 local printers were found to have used colour in diverse ways, especially in the context of jobbing printing, chiefly to produce letterpress and lithographic items. The later New Zealand photomechanical colour methods developed within these styles. By the end of the nineteenth century, New Zealand colour printers were following international trends, and more influence was arriving from America, but such trends were still chiefly coming to New Zealand via Britain and Australia, although in a technical sense, New Zealand was generally in a following position. After the eighteen sixties colour printers were found to have been in business in all the main centres of New Zealand, and in some of the smaller centres. It was apparent that many of the global and technological factors that had driven colour printing were common to both Britain and New Zealand, but that local conditions had also been important. Although print products tailored to local demand and often featuring local images had been produced using a variety of available technologies in each place, limiting factors present in New Zealand, particularly its isolation from the larger markets coupled with a small local population, had dictated that colour was appearing from colonial printers in a more circumscribed way than was the case in Britain. In the main, New Zealand colour printers appear to have responded to marketplace differences by choosing appropriate genre and cutting format costs.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rosslyn Joan Johnston

<p>This thesis is an historical study of the development and the relationships between some aspects of colour printing in New Zealand from 1830 to 1914, including the practitioners, the technology and the products, in the context of printing in New Zealand beginning as a largely British inheritance, but within an Australasian setting. A review of the printing history literature has shown that there have been relatively few works in the English language devoted specifically to the history of colour printing. Much of the literature bearing on the topic in relation to British colour printing history deals with specialized aspects such as colour plate books or technical processes. There has been no previous specific scholarly study of New Zealand colour printing history. The research for this aspect of thesis has been in the nature of exploratory work. An historical methodology was employed to approach the gathering and analysis of data from a wide array of sources, both secondary and primary. A theoretical framework suitable to an academic historical study, of which history' of print culture is a part, has been developed using the new model proposed by Thomas R. Adams and Nicolas Barker (1993) as an appropriate foundation framework. This model shows the phases of the 'book cycle', publication, manufacture, distribution, reception and survival, as being central to the whole socio-economic conjuncture. The paradigm developed for the present study is based on the section of the framework relating to the manufacture or production phase, using themes that emerged from the literature to facilitate analysis and explanation of New Zealand patterns and relationships with comparison to British colour printing history. Within this setting more detailed study was made of some of the colour printers. Especially those of the lower North Island, including a case study of the Wanganui firm of A.D. Willis where colour printing was a specialty. A genre study of special numbers from the New Zealand weeklies has also been presented. Rather than attempting to provide a definitive colour printing history the research has provided an interpretive thematic study that has aimed to increase understanding of some aspects of New Zealand colour printing history, and accordingly, responses to research questions have been tentative. It was found that although colour printing practice continued with strong ties to the British craft' from the beginning, new relationships were being forged particularly with the neigbouring Australian colonies whence immigrant printers and lithographers were arriving. After local lithographic colour printing had begun to develop in New Zealand in the eighteen sixties, in the period to 1914 local printers were found to have used colour in diverse ways, especially in the context of jobbing printing, chiefly to produce letterpress and lithographic items. The later New Zealand photomechanical colour methods developed within these styles. By the end of the nineteenth century, New Zealand colour printers were following international trends, and more influence was arriving from America, but such trends were still chiefly coming to New Zealand via Britain and Australia, although in a technical sense, New Zealand was generally in a following position. After the eighteen sixties colour printers were found to have been in business in all the main centres of New Zealand, and in some of the smaller centres. It was apparent that many of the global and technological factors that had driven colour printing were common to both Britain and New Zealand, but that local conditions had also been important. Although print products tailored to local demand and often featuring local images had been produced using a variety of available technologies in each place, limiting factors present in New Zealand, particularly its isolation from the larger markets coupled with a small local population, had dictated that colour was appearing from colonial printers in a more circumscribed way than was the case in Britain. In the main, New Zealand colour printers appear to have responded to marketplace differences by choosing appropriate genre and cutting format costs.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-31
Author(s):  
Muh Arief Muhsin ◽  
Ika Sastrawati

Abstract The research aimed to describe the phenomena of feedback given by the teacher in learning writing. In addition, this study was also described how the response given by the student when receiving feedback from the teacher. The long term goal to be achieved was the improvement of the teaching system so that every educational institution had aimed at teaching concepts to form an intelligent generation. This study was a descriptive qualitative research to be carried out in SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Unismuh Makassar which one of top schools Muhammadiyah. The ability of students in the school had been considered good in communication, but their ability to write was still lacking , especially in terms of grammatical . Therefore, the researcher was described the feedback given by the subject teachers of English subjects at the time of writing , especially when students learned making mistakes in the process of teaching and learning in the classroom . The extent, the teacher can give feedback to the students.  The research was described the positive feedback and negative feedback given by the teacher so that it can be information and feedback in the learning process.Giving feedback subject teachers more English language based situation in the classroom. In writing instructional materials for example, most teachers use an explicit correction and metalinguistic feedback. This is because students are using written language than spoken language. Almost kinds of feedback used in teaching but not as often as with the two types of feedback. The students have different conditions, but most were more likely to agree given feedback after speaking or after making a mistake. The most powerful reason is the lack of experience of students in learning English so want to get direct feedback.Key words: Teacher Feedback, murid, Writing


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document