scholarly journals A questionnaire-based study of impersonalization in Romanian and English

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentin Rădulescu ◽  
Daniël Van Olmen

Abstract This paper is the first contrastive study of impersonalization in Romanian and English. Taking an acceptability judgment approach, we describe the functional potential in all impersonal uses of not only the pronouns ‘one’, ‘you’ and ‘they’ but also the lesser studied passive. We find inter alia: a similar division of labor in the languages between ‘you’ and ‘they’ for contexts paraphrasable as, respectively, ‘everyone’ and ‘someone/some people’; a wider range of uses for pro-dropped ‘they’ than for its overt counterpart, as hypothesized in previous research; and a preference in English, but not Romanian, for passives to ‘they’ especially in contexts like ‘they’ve stolen my wallet!’, where the referent is entirely unidentifiable and likely to be singular. Levels of identifiability and number, each of which has been suggested in a separate semantic map as necessary for capturing impersonalization, are also shown to interact, supporting a proposal to combine them in one map.

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Hanan Mohammed Kabli

This study aims to examine nominal tautology functioned as human nature based on the assumptions by Wierzbicka (1987). It compares English and Arabic tautology on construction like Boys are boys. This study integrates Miki’s evocation function with two other core concepts namely a macro-frame and a micro-frame. In addition, the role of the context is closely investigated as it forms an essential component in the realization of nominal tautology as proposed by Gibbs and McCarrell (1990). All these notions are merged into one solid framework to comprehend the mechanism of tautology in the brain of the speakers/hearer in any given language. Acceptability Judgment Task is used as an instrument to elicit participants’ acceptable judgments and interpretations on human nature tautology. The study includes two groups; English native speakers (51 participants) and Arabic native speakers (34 participants). According to the analyses, the results show no difference between the study groups, in the realization of nominal tautology related to human nature at the level of the acceptability and the interpretation.


2009 ◽  
pp. 54-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Shastitko ◽  
S. Avdasheva ◽  
S. Golovanova

The analysis of competition policy under economic crisis is motivated by the fact that competition is a key factor for the level of productivity. The latter, in its turn, influences the scope and length of economic recession. In many Russian markets buyers' gains decline because of the weakness of competition, since suppliers are reluctant to cut prices in spite of the decreasing demand. Data on prices in Russia and abroad in the second half of 2008 show asymmetric price rigidity. At least two questions are important under economic crisis: the 'division of labor' between pro-active and protective tools of competition policy and the impact of anti-crisis policy on competition. Protective competition policy is insufficient in transition economy, especially in the days of crisis it should be supplemented with the well-designed industrial policy measures which do not contradict the goals of competition. The preferable tools of anti-crisis policy are also those that do not restrain competition.


1976 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 304-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliot Freidson

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