The trappings of order

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Oenbring ◽  
Matthias Klumm

Abstract This study builds off of previous research into Caribbean Standard Englishes (which has largely used newspaper genres) by comparing the rates of features found in corpora of Bahamian, Jamaican, British, and American administrative writing, paying particular attention to whether and how the noted formality of Caribbean Standard Englishes manifests itself in administrative writing. The study employs expanded versions of ICE administrative subcorpora for the analysis. Features analyzed include lexis, orthography, as well as different morphosyntactic constructions such as be-passives and modals of obligation and necessity. The study finds that the contemporary British administrative writing corpus contains the most informal lexical choice of the national corpora studied, problematizing a Caribbean folk narrative that associates formality in administrative language and practice with Britishness.

1994 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liu Shouhua ◽  
Hu Xiaoshen

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-544
Author(s):  
Tatiana Nikitina

AbstractIn spite of the growing body of research on frames of spatial reference, a number of important questions remain unanswered. This study explores reference frame use in Bashkir, based on a linguistic matching task and a nonverbal task. In the linguistic task, speakers relied freely on intrinsic and relative frames. In intrinsic descriptions, two different kinds of mapping were attested: a mapping based on the Ground’s function, and a mapping based on the Ground’s shape. Several factors were identified that affect the choice of linguistic description, including lexical choice, the chair’s orientation with respect to the viewer, and the speaker’s age. Interference from Russian was not a significant factor. The repair strategies speakers used when encountering misunderstanding suggest that they were not aware of the source of their difficulties. A number of previous studies reported, for different languages, a correlation between reference frame use in linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks, supporting the linguistic relativity hypothesis. The data from Bashkir shows no such correlation: nonverbal coding strategies did not correspond to the same individual’s linguistic strategies, but correlated with the use of Russian in linguistic descriptions. I interpret this finding tentatively as pointing toward a mediated relationship between spatial cognition and language.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arab World English Journal ◽  
Abdalmonem S. Rajab ◽  
Saadiyah Darus ◽  
Ashinida Aladdin

The aim of this paper is to investigate some semantic interlingual errors in the writing performance of Libyan English as Foreign Language Learners (LEFLLS). The study seeks to analyze these errorsthat appear in the learners’ written production. The data was gathered from 25 essays written by 25 Libyan postgraduates majoring in different fields. It was collected and organized according to the errors committed. Errors taxonomy adapted from James’ (1998) and Al-Shormani and Al-Sohbani’s (2012) was used in identifying and analyzing these errors. Semantic errors were classified into five categories namely formal mis-selection, formal mis-formation, lexical choice, collocation and lexico-grammatical choice. The semantic errors identified were 346. These errors were classified into four categories namely, formal misformation (46.7%), distortion due to spelling (32.4%), lexical choice (40.6%) and lexicogrammatical choice (2.4%). The results show that direct translation from the first language (L1), assumed synonym and misselection of letters sub-categories score the highest number of the errors, i.e.14.2%, 13.08% and 12.08% respectively. While the sub-category, both collocations incorrect error was the lowest (0.52%). The other errors take the form of paraphrase (11.5%) and Idiomacity (8.5%). Two main sources have been found to be the cause behind these errors namely, L1 influence and insufficient knowledge about the second language (L2). Moreover, cultural differences between L1 and L2 had its impact in the written products of Libyan students.


2021 ◽  
Vol VI (I) ◽  
pp. 65-72
Author(s):  
Rizwan Aftab ◽  
Asim Aqeel ◽  
Saba Zaidi

This study explores the linguistic selection focusing on the use of N-word choice by African-American fiction writers. This study explains the basic concepts of language and language use, language as a text and discourse, and also the function it plays within the context. With Halliday and Hassan's semantic set of choices, this study argues that Zora Neale Hurston does not seem aware of consciously using N-words in her novel, but her use of Nword linguistic choice to communicate the theme of race is in line with her true reflection of the society and culture she is born and bred in. Hurston might have used N-word deliberately both to appropriate lexical choice with that of characters' roles as many of the Harlem Renaissance writers did and to establish a kind of community building and collective cultural solidarity, the major determinants of Hurston's use of the N-word in Their Eyes Were Watching God.


1992 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnès Tutin ◽  
Richard Kittredge
Keyword(s):  

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 237
Author(s):  
Rahman Sahragard ◽  
Meisam Moghadam

<em>The purpose of this study is to critically analyze the discourse of the de facto inaugural speech presented by president Rouhani while receiving his presidential percept from the leader, to seek the ideology beyond his speech and to detect the point that to which of discourses, reformists’ or principalists’, Rouhani’s discourse belong to. Based on Dijk’s socio-cognitive model of critical discourse analysis the selected corpus’ ideological and persuasive components are assessed. To this end and based on the model, the historical, political or social background of the election is discussed firstly. Then, the political groups and parties, specifically reformists and principalists, their ideologies and power relations are elaborated. Finally, based on the examination of all formal structure, lexical choice and syntactic structure, the presupposed and the implied notions are made explicit, to determine the ideology beyond the formal text. Comparing the extracted notions from the speech with the polarized viewpoints of two political parties, it was concluded that Rouhani tried to keep the golden middle path while presenting his ideas, trying to introduce himself a moderate person and base all his plans on moderation. His speech revealed the strategies to move in a gyre of ideas trying to avoid condemning any party or person of eminence in line to keep all parties in one line to make his move.</em>


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