scholarly journals Xuan Zang’s Five Transliterations Revisited: A Corpus Linguistic Study of Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 226-235
Author(s):  
Xiaodong Yang ◽  
Zhen LI
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Translation Theory ◽  
Linguistic Study ◽  
Parallel Corpus ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
Early Translation

This paper examines the early translation theory of the Five Transliterations, which has been considered to be proposed by Xuan Zang back to 1300 years before, through corpus linguistic methods. The statistics based on our Sanskrit-Chinese Parallel corpus of Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra reveals that there exists very weak linguistic evidence that Xuan Zang proposed such a translation theory. The tension between historically recorded translation theories and practice is also discussed based on our findings. It is recommended that a corpus linguistic study may play a significant role in analyzing historical translation documents.

scholarly journals GRAMMATICAL EQUIVALENCE IN THE FRENCH TRANSLATIONS OF CATULLUS 5 «TO LESBIA»

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (11(79)) ◽  
pp. 95-99
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Levko ◽  
Valeriia Zapolska
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Semantic Equivalence ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
Grammatical Structures

The article examines the phenomenon of grammatical equivalence based on the Latin poem «To Lesbia» by Catullus and its French translations of the XVI-XXI centuries. The research reveals that the sequence of certain grammatical structures in Catullus 5 plays a significant role in revealing the author's message addressed to Lesbia. In the article we present a brief analysis of the structure of this Latin poem with an emphasis on the role of conjunctive, gerund, imperative and constructions with the sequence of tenses and moods in the author's speech. Given the importance of grammatical structures of the Latin poem for the expression of the author's intentions, their adequate rendition in translations facilitates the achievement of grammatical and semantic equivalence while also helping the translator to convey the message accurately. We have found out that French translations of Catullus 5 mainly reproduce the grammatical meanings of the original poem, often expressing them in other grammatical structures and forms. Some translations retain the architectonics of the poem, using direct grammatical equivalents of the Latin original, while others render the grammatical structure of the poem by equivalent French grammatical constructions. Further studies in this area could focus on the research of grammatical equivalence in poetic translations with the use of corpus linguistic methods.

A corpus linguistic study of the situatedness of English pop song lyrics

Corpora ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heiko Motschenbacher
Keyword(s):  
Major Focus ◽  
Linguistic Study ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Semantic Fields ◽  
Eurovision Song Contest ◽  
Reference Corpus ◽  
Song Lyrics ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Linguistic Methods

This study uses corpus linguistic methods to investigate how the situatedness of pop song lyrics may affect their linguistic make-up. For this purpose, I compare a corpus of Eurovision lyrics (ESC-ENG) to a general pop lyrics corpus (G-Charts) which is used as a reference corpus. This is done to detect specificities of the Eurovision lyrics, which can be related to the contextual salience of Europeanness in the Eurovision Song Contest. The major focus is on semantic keyness analyses carried out with the help of Wmatrix. These analyses highlight semantic fields that occur unusually frequently or infrequently in the Eurovision lyrics in comparison to the general charts corpus. The semantic keyness analyses are further complemented by keyword analyses and a closer examination of lexical items within particular semantic fields. The results show that Eurovision lyrics construct a discursive world that differs in various respects from that of commercially successful pop songs.

What Russian University Stands for: Analyzing Socially Embedded Vision and Values

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-506
Author(s):  
Valeria Chernyavskaya ◽  
Olga Kamshilova
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Mission Statements ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Analytical Methodology ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Core Mission ◽  
New Research ◽  
Linguistic Methods

Summary The present investigation is a response to the discourse analytical methodology expanded by corpus linguistic techniques. Within a discursive approach the university’s identity is seen as existing in and being constructed through discourse. The research interest is in how ideology and the obligation models set by the state construct the university’s self-image and university-based research as its core mission. The study is generally consistent with current trends in social constructivism where identity is considered as the process of identity construction rather than a rigid category. It is presumed that key factors are developed within a definite socio-cultural practice, which then shape the concept of collective identity. Detecting and analyzing such factors on the basis of Russian realities and modern Russian university is becoming a new research objective. The focus of the given article is on how certain values can be foregrounded in texts representing university strategies to the public. The research employs corpus linguistic methods in discourse analysis. The organization of the paper is as follows. First, it outlines the socio-political context in which the transformation of academic values and organizational principles of Russian national universities are embedded. Second, it discusses corpus findings obtained from an original research corpus which includes mission statements posted on the websites of Russian national research and federal universities. Conclusions concerning the university mission statements reflect ongoing transformations of the universities’ role in the society. The rhetoric of the statements is declarative and foregrounding new values. The linguistic data analysis shows their socially constructive nature as they build a framework for currently relevant uniformed ideas and concepts.

Corpora and intuition: a study of Mandarin Chinese adverbial clauses and subjecthood

Corpora ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
May L-Y Wong
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Semantic Function ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Semantic Classes ◽  
New Information ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clause ◽  
Linguistic Methods

This paper presents a corpus-based approach to investigating the distribution of adverbial clauses and their subjects (overt vs. non-overt) in spoken and written Mandarin Chinese. It argues that the choice of subject type is determined by three variables, namely, given-new information, semantic function of adverbial clause and text type. In written Chinese, the distribution of subject types varies across semantic classes of adverbial clauses, but not across text categories. The influence of semantic classes on the distribution of subject types, however, depends on text type. For the same semantic function, the decision as to whether to include a subject is governed by given and new information. In contrasting the distribution of subject types of adverbial clauses across speech and writing, it was found that both spoken and written Chinese use more overt subjects in clauses of reason. Methodologically, this study demonstrates how quantitative corpus-linguistic methods can be used to supplement introspective theoretical assumptions with authentic, observable evidence in order to gain better insights into the behaviour of adverbial clauses in speech and writing.

Psycholinguistic and corpus-linguistic evidence for L2 constructions

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 163-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Th. Gries ◽  
Stefanie Wulff
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Short Distance ◽  
Priming Effect ◽  
Sentence Completion ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
Acceptability Rating

In Construction Grammar, highly frequent syntactic configurations are assumed to be stored as symbolic units in the mental lexicon alongside words. Considering the example of gerund and infinitival complement constructions in English (She tried rocking the baby vs. She tried to rock the baby), this study combines corpus-linguistic and experimental evidence to investigate the question whether these patterns are also stored as constructions by German foreign language learners of English. In a corpus analysis based on 3,343 instances of the two constructions from the British component of the International Corpus of English, a distinctive collexeme analysis was computed to identify the verbs that distinguish best between the two constructions; these verbs were used as experimental stimuli in a sentence completion experiment and a sentence acceptability rating experiment. Two kinds of short-distance priming effects were investigated in the completion data: we checked how often subjects produced an ing-/to-/’other’-construction after having rated an ing- or to-construction (rating-to-production priming), and how often they produced an ing-/to-/’other’-construction when they had produced and ing- or to-construction in the directly preceding completion (production-to-production priming). Furthermore, we considered the proportion of to-completions before a completion in the questionnaire as a measure of a within-subject accumulative priming effect. We found no rating-to-production priming effects in the expected direction, but a weak effect in the opposite direction; short-distance production-to-production priming effects from ing to ing and from ‘other’ and to to to, and, on the whole at least, a suggestive accumulative production-to-production priming effect for both constructions. In the rating task, we found that subjects rate sentences better when the sentential structure is compatible with the main verb’s collexemic distinctiveness.

Lexical priming in humorous satirical newspaper headlines

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 583-602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Skalicky
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
American English ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Lexical Priming ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
Pragmatic Knowledge ◽  
Do So

Abstract Satire is a type of discourse commonly employed to mock or criticize a satirical target, typically resulting in humor. Current understandings of satire place strong emphasis on the role that background and pragmatic knowledge play during satire recognition. However, there may also be specific linguistic cues that signal a satirical intent. Researchers using corpus linguistic methods, specifically Lexical Priming, have demonstrated that other types of creative language use, such as irony, puns, and verbal jokes, purposefully deviate from expected language patterns (e.g. collocations). The purpose of this study is to investigate whether humorous satirical headlines also subvert typical linguistic patterns using the theory of Lexical Priming. In order to do so, a corpus of newspaper headlines taken from the satirical American newspaper The Onion are analyzed and compared to a generalized corpus of American English. Results of this analysis suggest satirical headlines exploit linguistic expectations through the use of low-frequency collocations and semantic preferences, but also contain higher discourse and genre level deviations that cannot be captured in the surface level linguistic features of the headlines.

Terminological Entrepreneurs and Discursive Shifts in International Relations: How a Discipline Invented the “International Regime”

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Steffek ◽  
Marcus Müller ◽  
Hartmut Behr
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Regime Theory ◽  
International Regime ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Digital Discourse ◽  
Disciplinary History ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Linguistic Methods

Abstract The disciplinary history of international relations (IR) is usually told as a succession of theories or “isms” that are connected to academic schools. Echoing the increasing criticism of this narrative, we present in this article a new perspective on the discipline. We introduce concepts from linguistics and its method of digital discourse analysis (DDA) to explore discursive shifts and terminological entrepreneurship in IR. DDA directs attention away from schools of thought and “heroic figures” who allegedly invented new theories. As we show exemplarily with the rise of “regime theory,” there were entire generations of IR scholars who (more or less consciously) developed new vocabularies to frame and address their common concerns. The terminological history of “international regime” starts in nineteenth century international law, in which French authors already used “régime” to describe transnational forms of governance that were more than a treaty but less than an international organization. Only in the 1980s, however, was an explicit definition of “international regime” forged in American IR, which combined textual elements already in use. We submit that such observations can change the way in which we understand, narrate, and teach the discipline of IR. DDA decenters IR theory from its traditional focus on schools and individuals and suggests unlearning established taxonomies of “isms.” The introduction of corpus linguistic methods to the study of academic IR can thus provide new epistemological directions for the field.

scholarly journals Public discourses on multilingualism in the UK: Triangulating a corpus study with a sociolinguistic attitude survey

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Jaworska ◽  
Christiana Themistocleous
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Attitude Survey ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Media Discourses ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
Large Press

AbstractThis article investigates public discourses of multilingualism in Britain. In contrast to previous research focusing on specific languages or varieties of language, we examine multilingualism as a metalinguistic construct and are interested in what is frequently said about multilingualism, and how it is said. More specifically, we explore the extent to which media discourses are consonant or diverge from the attitudes of lay people. Media discourses are investigated using a corpus-assisted discourse-study approach to the analysis of large-press corpora. Results from the corpus study are then incorporated in an attitude survey distributed to 200 participants living in a large superdiverse town in Britain. Our study shows that while positive media discourses are mostly shared by the general public, some of the negative themes, especially those relating to immigration, are either reinforced or challenged. The article demonstrates the usefulness of triangulating corpus-linguistic methods with a survey to provide a more comprehensive understanding of public discourses about language matters, and offers some implications for promoting multilingualism in society. (Multilingualism, metalanguage, corpus-assisted discourse study (CADS), attitude survey, triangulation)

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