Syntactic and semantic coordination in finite complement-clause constructions: a diary-based case study

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
BAHAR KÖYMEN ◽  
ELENA LIEVEN ◽  
SILKE BRANDT
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Lexical Knowledge ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Audio Recordings ◽  
Complement Clause ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Simple Sentences

AbstractThis study investigates the coordination of matrix and subordinate clauses within finite complement-clause constructions. The data come from diary and audio recordings which include the utterances produced by an American English-speaking child, L, between the ages 1;08 and 3;05. We extracted all the finite complement-clause constructions that L produced and compared the grammatical acceptability of these utterances with that of the simple sentences of the same length produced within the same two weeks and with that of the simple sentences containing the same verb produced within the same month. The results show that L is more likely to make syntactic errors in finite complement-clause constructions than she does in her simple sentences of the same length or with the same verb. This suggests that the errors are more likely to arise from the syntactic and semantic coordination of the two clauses rather than limitations in performance or lexical knowledge.

The acquisition of word connotations: asking ‘What happened?’

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERTA CORRIGAN
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Relative Frequency ◽  
American English ◽  
Adult Child ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Negative Connotation

Although words have both denotative and connotative meanings, there has been little research on the child's acquisition of connotations. In large segments of written texts, connotations can be studied by examining word co-occurrences (collocations). Using this technique, corpus linguists have found, for example, that ‘happen’ has a negative connotation; it most often collocates with negative words (e.g. ‘accidents’, ‘something dreadful’). The current research is a case study of the use of the lemma ‘happen’. Adult production of ‘happen/happens/happening/happened’ was examined in 151 American English-speaking, adult–child dyads from the CHILDES database. Within these dyads, 35 children used ‘happen’ and its variants. Both adults and children were increasingly likely to use ‘happen’ to describe negative contexts as children's language progressed from MLUs around 1·00 to MLUs greater than 4·00. Results are consistent with usage-based theories of language that claim that the relative frequency of information in the input is critical to language learning.

scholarly journals Influence of language skills on the choice of terms used to describe lung sounds in a language other than English: a cross-sectional survey of staff physicians, residents and medical students

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. e044240
Author(s):  
Abraham Bohadana ◽  
Hava Azulai ◽  
Amir Jarjoui ◽  
George Kalak ◽  
Ariel Rokach ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Medical Students ◽  
Dual Language ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
C Language ◽  
Audio Recordings ◽  
Chest Auscultation ◽  
English Speaking

IntroductionThe value of chest auscultation would be enhanced by the use of a standardised terminology. To that end, the recommended English terminology must be transferred to a language other than English (LOTE) without distortion.ObjectiveTo examine the transfer to Hebrew—taken as a model of LOTE—of the recommended terminology in English.Design/settingCross-sectional study; university-based hospital.Participants143 caregivers, including 31 staff physicians, 65 residents and 47 medical students.MethodsObservers provided uninstructed descriptions in Hebrew and English of audio recordings of five common sounds, namely, normal breath sound (NBS), wheezes, crackles, stridor and pleural friction rub (PFR).Outcomes(a) Rates of correct/incorrect classification; (b) correspondence between Hebrew and recommended English terms; c) language and auscultation skills, assessed by crossing the responses in the two languages with each other and with the classification of the audio recordings validated by computer analysis.ResultsRange (%) of correct rating was as follows: NBS=11.3–20, wheezes=79.7–87.2, crackles=58.6–69.8, stridor=67.4–96.3 and PFR=2.7–28.6. Of 60 Hebrew terms, 11 were correct, and 5 matched the recommended English terms. Many Hebrew terms were adaptations or transliterations of inadequate English terms. Of 687 evaluations, good dual-language and single-language skills were found in 586 (85.3%) and 41 (6%), respectively. However, in 325 (47.3%) evaluations, good language skills were associated with poor auscultation skills.ConclusionPoor auscultation skills surpassed poor language skills as a factor hampering the transfer to Hebrew (LOTE) of the recommended English terminology. Improved education in auscultation emerged as the main factor to promote the use of standardised lung sound terminology. Using our data, a strategy was devised to encourage the use of standardised terminology in non-native English-speaking countries.

Classifying the “ideal migrant worker”

Focaal ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 (57) ◽  
pp. 79-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet McLaughlin
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Worker ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Migration Program ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Seasonal Agricultural Workers ◽  
Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
The Ideal

This article analyzes the ideology and practice of multi-unit competition that pervades neoliberal subjectivities and produces the “ideal” flexible worker within contemporary global capitalism. It demonstrates how state and capitalist interests converge to influence the selection of the ideal transnational migrant worker, how prospective migrants adapt to these expectations, and the consequences of such enactments, particularly for migrants, but also for the societies in which they live and work. Multiple levels of actors—employers, state bureaucrats, and migrants themselves—collude in producing the flexible, subaltern citizen, which includes constructions and relations of class, race, gender, and nationality/citizenship. The case study focuses on Mexican and Jamaican participants in Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, a managed migration program that legally employs circular migrant farmworkers from Mexico and several English-speaking Caribbean countries in Canadian agriculture.

‘Eww wtf, what a dumb bitch’: a case study of similitudes inside gender-specific swearing patterns on Twitter

Corpora ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-61
Author(s):  
Michael Gauthier
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Gender Specific ◽  
The Way

Contrary to the idea which has been widespread for at least a hundred years that women differ substantially from men when they express themselves in English-speaking contexts (e.g., Jespersen, 1922 ; and Steadman, 1935 ), empirical studies have shown that these differences are often minimal and are not due to gender alone (e.g., Eckert, 2008 ; and Baker, 2014 ). This also frequently applies to the way they swear, despite certain preferences which have been documented in empirical studies. With the growing impact that social media now has in our everyday lives, these represent a unique opportunity to study vast quantities of written data. This paper is based on a corpus of about one-million tweets and is an attempt to delve deeper into the analysis of gendered swearword habits. First, the goal is to show that even if there are certain gendered preferences in terms of the choice of swearwords, women and men frequently display similar patterns in using them, thus reinforcing the idea that they are not so linguistically different. Secondly, this paper provides insights into how collocational networks can be used to achieve this, and thus how focussing on differences can be one way to spot similarities across two sub-corpora.

Japanese English Majors’ Experiences and Attitudes to Study Abroad: A Case Study of Students at a Private University in Tokyo

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-52
Author(s):  
Anthony Tobin
Keyword(s):  
Study Abroad ◽  
English Language ◽  
Private University ◽  
Studying Abroad ◽  
Short Term Study ◽  
Overseas Travel ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Japanese English

This study investigates both the benefits of and recent trends in studying abroad for Japanese students and examines the results of a survey on study abroad taken by students majoring in English at a private university in Tokyo. Statistics from JASSO showed that the trend in study abroad before 2020 was for an increasing number of Japanese university students to spend a period of time studying abroad, though most of the increase was in short-term study. The English language questionnaire sought to discover what proportion of a group of seventy-two students had already studied abroad, or planned to do so, and to establish whether those who had gained experience had benefited from it, as well as detailing student anxieties which may have deterred students from studying abroad. The survey on study abroad, taken in January 2018, had a 100% response rate. Twenty-three (32%) of the students answered that they had already studied abroad, mostly for short durations in English-speaking countries. Most of the students who studied abroad had a positive experience, reputedly improved their English skills and recommended that other students study abroad. Twenty-six (53%) of the students without study abroad experience were planning to study abroad, even though they had some issues which concerned them, such as their ability to communicate in English, personal safety, and financial matters. The main reason for not electing to study abroad for this particular sample was found to be related to the overall costs of overseas travel, accommodation, and tuition. この研究では日本人学生に対する留学の利点および最近の留学の傾向を調べ、さら に東京の私立大学で英語を専攻している学生に対して実施した留学についての調査 の結果を検討している。JASSO の統計によると、２０２０年までは留学する日本人 大学生の数は増加傾向であったが、そのほとんどは短期留学であった。英語で行わ れたアンケート調査の目的は、著者の三つのクラスの７２名の学生のうちの何割が 留学経験がある、もしくは留学の予定があるか、またすでに留学した学生はその経 験から恩恵を受けたと感じているか、学生は留学をするにあたってどのような不安 を持つか、さらに留学しないと答えた学生の場合は留学しない理由を明らかにする ことである。２０１８年１月に行われた調査の回答率は１００パーセントであっ た。２３人（３２パーセント）の学生は留学経験があり、ほとんどの場合が英語圏 の国への短期留学である。留学経験のある学生の大半数が有益な経験ができ、英語 力が上達したと感じており、他の学生に留学を勧めると答えている。留学経験のな い学生の２６人（５３パーセント）が留学する予定だが、英語のコミュニケーショ ン、安全、金銭などについて不安を感じていた。留学しない理由については、旅 費、宿泊代、授業料など経済的な理由が大半であった。

scholarly journals Corpus-based analysis of the collocational profiles of the terms denoting the mentally challenged

2017 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liana Markelova
Keyword(s):  
Public Perception ◽  
American English ◽  
Public Attitude ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
Gradual Change ◽  
Web Based ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Semantic Prosody

The present study aims to trace the evolution of public attitude towards the mentally challenged by means of the corpus-based analysis. The raw data comes from the two of the BYU corpora: Global Web-Based English (GloWbE) and Corpus of Historical American English (COHA). The former is comprised of 1.8 million web pages from 20 English-speaking countries (Davies/Fuchs 2015: 1) and provides an opportunity to research at a cross-cultural level, whereas the latter, containing 400 million words from more than 100,000 texts ranging from the 1810s to the 2000s (Davies 2012: 121), allows to carry on a diachronic research on the issue. To identify the difference in attitudes the collocational profiles of the terms denoting the mentally challenged were created. Having analysed them in terms of their semantic prosody one might conclude that there are certain semantic shifts that occurred due to the modern usage preferences and gradual change in public perception of everything strange, unusual and unique.

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