scholarly journals Post-Intensifying

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Bengtson
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Lexical Item ◽  
Moving Target

Language is a “moving target”; the meaning and use of elements of a language can change so that former understandings and explanations become insufficient. The contemporary, American English colloquial use of the ass-intensifier, such as in “a grown-ass man”, is an example of that. This article is an examination of the ass-intensifier and a comparison with its Danish counterpart røv, exploring the similarities and dissimilarities. It will be argued that the English intensifier is post-intensifying and has two distinct meanings; furthermore, that intensification by a grammaticalized version of a lexical item for posterior is not exclusively an English phenomenon, showing a cross-linguistic link.

Neder-Engels Of Neder-Amerikaans?

1991 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 63-74
Author(s):  
Monique van der Haagen
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Word List ◽  
Preference Test ◽  
Lexical Item ◽  
British English ◽  
Listening Tests ◽  
Activity Factor ◽  
Identification Test ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
Received Pronunciation

Although the model of English pronunciation in Dutch schools is, and always has been, British English (commonly known as Received Pronunciation, RP), not only teachers, but also informed laymen notice that the pronunciation of learners seems to be more and more influenced by American English. An investigation into the nature and spread of this influence therefore seems in order. This paper discusses some of the preliminary results of a research project which aims to give an inventory and description of the influence of American English (General American, GA) on the pronunciation of 10 phonological variables, among which are /æ/ in words like classroom and wineglass, and flapped /t/ in words like pretty and meeting. A second aim of the project is to find out to which the degree the American and British varieties are attractive to our population. Therefore a number of listening tests were administered: - a preference test, in which subjects had to indicate which pronunciation of a lexical item they thought (a) best (i.e. confirm to the school norm) and (b) they would prefer to use themselves. - an identification test, in which subjects had to indicate whether an item was pronounced in RP or in GA. - a matched guise test consisting of 12 versions of the same story, read by 8 speakers, 4 of them in both varieties. A preliminary inventory shows that in roughly 25% of all the pronunciations of single lexical items (word list style) we can speak of an 'American-like' pronunciaton. The variables that are pronounced most frequently GA-like are flapped /t/ in little, /æ/ in classroom, /a/ in hockey and postvocalic /r/ in morning. It also appears that RP is still the preferred variety on both the preference tests, although this preference decreases slightly when asked which pronunciation they would prefer to use themselves. Roughly 65% of the items was correctly identified as being RP or GA. Finally, the matched guise test showed a significantly high rating of GA female voices on all factors except for the factor 'school-norm'. RP males and females scored relatively high on this factor as well as on 'social status', but dropped considerably on the 'activity' factor and remained below the GA voices on 'personal affect'.

Addressing African American English in Early Literacy Assessment and Instruction

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Patton Terry
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Early Literacy ◽  
American English ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
African American English ◽  
Literacy Assessment ◽  
Learning To Read ◽  
Speech Language Pathologist ◽  
Early Literacy Assessment

Abstract Determining how best to address young children's African American English use in formal literacy assessment and instruction is a challenge. Evidence is not yet available to discern which theory best accounts for the relation between AAE use and literacy skills or to delineate which dialect-informed educational practices are most effective for children in preschool and the primary grades. Nonetheless, consistent observations of an educationally significant relation between AAE use and various early literacy skills suggest that dialect variation should be considered in assessment and instruction practices involving children who are learning to read and write. The speech-language pathologist can play a critical role in instituting such practices in schools.

Zero Marking of Past Tense in Child African American English

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 173-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Lee ◽  
Janna B. Oetting
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American English ◽  
African American English ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Grammatical Function

Zero marking of the simple past is often listed as a common feature of child African American English (AAE). In the current paper, we review the literature and present new data to help clinicians better understand zero marking of the simple past in child AAE. Specifically, we provide information to support the following statements: (a) By six years of age, the simple past is infrequently zero marked by typically developing AAE-speaking children; (b) There are important differences between the simple past and participle morphemes that affect AAE-speaking children's marking options; and (c) In addition to a verb's grammatical function, its phonetic properties help determine whether an AAE-speaking child will produce a zero marked form.

Where's That Wascally Wilber? The Challenges of Hitting a Moving Target

PsycCRITIQUES ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 52 (13) ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas A. MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
Moving Target

Pediatric rehabilitation psychology: Rehabilitating a moving target.

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline N. Kaufman ◽  
Sarah Lahey ◽  
Beth S. Slomine
Keyword(s):  
Moving Target ◽  
Pediatric Rehabilitation ◽  
Rehabilitation Psychology

Recent change in non-present perfect constructions in British and American English

Corpora ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinyue Yao ◽  
Peter Collins
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Recent Change ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
British English ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Communicative Functions ◽  
General Decline ◽  
Modal Auxiliaries

A number of recent studies of grammatical categories in English have identified regional and diachronic variation in the use of the present perfect, suggesting that it has been losing ground to the simple past tense from the eighteenth century onwards ( Elsness, 1997 , 2009 ; Hundt and Smith, 2009 ; and Yao and Collins, 2012 ). Only a limited amount of research has been conducted on non-present perfects. More recently, Bowie and Aarts’ (2012) study using the Diachronic Corpus of Present-Day Spoken English has found that certain non-present perfects underwent a considerable decline in spoken British English (BrE) during the second half of the twentieth century. However, comparison with American English (AmE) and across various genres has not been made. This study focusses on the changes in the distribution of four types of non-present perfects (past, modal, to-infinitival and ing-participial) in standard written BrE and AmE during the thirty-year period from the early 1960s to the early 1990s. Using a tagged and post-edited version of the Brown family of corpora, it shows that contemporary BrE has a stronger preference for non-present perfects than AmE. Comparison of four written genres of the same period reveals that, for BrE, only the change in the overall frequency of past perfects was statistically significant. AmE showed, comparatively, a more dramatic decrease, particularly in the frequencies of past and modal perfects. It is suggested that the decline of past perfects is attributable to a growing disfavour for past-time reference in various genres, which is related to long-term historical shifts associated with the underlying communicative functions of the genres. The decline of modal perfects, on the other hand, is more likely to be occurring under the influence of the general decline of modal auxiliaries in English.

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