On Conceptual and Axiological Aspects of the Word Mutter ʻMotherʼ in Context (Based on Corpus Material)

This paper focuses on a linguistic image of mother in German languages. It seeks to grasp it through a typical context of the German word Mutter ʻmotherʼ. The research is based on results of distributional and thematic analyses of these words. These analyses are used as a base for reconstructing prototypical characteristics of “mother” and the related concepts used by speakers of German. The paper develops these findings into compiling the most frequent collocations and other (mostly contextual) information gathered by the use of corpus tools. The paper concludes with an outline of unconscious axiological processes used in evaluating the image of mother on the good/bad axis.

Bildungs Roman in Avni Doshi’s ‘Girl in White Cotton”

The term “Bildungsroman” is a literary genre. The German word Bildungsroman means “novel of education” or “novel of formation”. It deals with the particular person‟s intellectual and ethical growth from the childhood to adulthood. Avni Doshi „s „Girl in White Cotton”relates the growing up or “coming of age” of a protagonist. Bildungsroman also deals with the conflict between the main character and society, where the protagonist tend to accept the social value. This paper brings out the Bildungsroman based novel.

Symbolism of the blue/light blue color in the English and German publicistic texts

This article aims to determine similarities and differences in manifestation of symbolism of the blue/light blue color in the English and German publicistic texts. The subject of this research is the semantics of English and German lexemes representing the blue/light blue color in both languages. The symbolism of this color designation is selected due to its insufficient coverage in comparative linguistics. Based on the material of lexicographic sources, the author describes the dictionary meanings of the aforementioned lexemes, which resemble symbolism of the blue color in the English and German publicistic texts. The scientific novelty lies in the establishment of similarities and differences of symbolism of the blue/light blue color on the example of the English and German publicistic texts, highlighting that in the English texts, the lexemes that denote these colors are used more often than in the German texts (English word ‘blue’; German word ‘blau’). The conducted analysis reveals that in the English publicistic texts, symbolism of the blue/light blue color is applied in creation of precedent names, as well as nominations of affiliation to a particular party, nobility, symbol of nobleness, purity, or despondency, suppression of wrongdoing. In the German publicistic texts, this color designated affiliation to the political party, or authorization document for foreign employees. Comparison of the content of lexemes ‘blue’ and ‘blau’ in the English and German texts reveals more similarities. However, in the English publicistic texts, this lexeme denotes the symbolism of sadness, despondency, or noble descent.

Constructional change in Germanic

This chapter tracks several of the major changes in English and German word order and accounts for them in terms of constructional change as formulated in Chapter 3. It argues that the changes are relatively simple in constructional terms, although the superficial results are quite dramatic. Topics include clause-initial position, V2, VP-initial and VP-final verb position, the loss of V2 and case marking in English, and verb clusters in Continental West Germanic.

„Ist es B2-Niveau genug?“

This contribution focuses on the use of the multifunctional German word form es in the learner corpora MERLIN and DISKO (1,452 texts; 3,700 manually annotated occurrences of es). These corpora cover a wide proficiency range (A1-C1), and they include an L1 control group. Due to its multiple functions, using es is assumed to be challenging for learners. After laying out its main functional features, this paper first addresses the question of whether the frequency patterns of es actually differ between L1 und L2 texts, which is shown to be true only for beginning learners, and whether differences related to learners’ L1 can be observed, which seems to be the case. Secondly, the study links the emerging use of different es types and their relative frequencies to CEFR proficiency levels. A third focus regards the accuracy of es usage, which is generally high but differs among the various es functions, with anaphoric es presenting the greatest challenge for learners. A closer look at interlanguage structures reveals that learners often omit compulsory es and that they use redundant es in peculiar syntactic slots. Furthermore, the use of anaphoric es without clear textual reference regularly encumbers the reading process of the texts.

Cross-linguistic differences in parafoveal semantic and orthographic processing

In this study we investigated parafoveal processing by L1 and late L2 speakers of English (L1 German) while reading in English. We hypothesized that L2ers would make use of semantic and orthographic information parafoveally. Using the gaze contingent boundary paradigm, we manipulated six parafoveal masks in a sentence (Mark found th*e wood for the fire; * indicates the invisible boundary): identical word mask (wood), English orthographic mask (wook), English string mask (zwwl), German mask (holz), German orthographic mask (holn), and German string mask (kxfs). We found an orthographic benefit for L1ers and L2ers when the mask was orthographically related to the target word (wood vs. wook) in line with previous L1 research. English L2ers did not derive a benefit (rather an interference) when a non-cognate translation mask from their L1 was used (wood vs. holz), but did derive a benefit from a German orthographic mask (wood vs. holn). While unexpected, it may be that L2ers incur a switching cost when the complete German word is presented parafoveally, and derive a benefit by keeping both lexicons active when a partial German word is presented parafoveally (narrowing down lexical candidates). To the authors’ knowledge there is no mention of parafoveal processing in any model of L2 processing/reading, and the current study provides the first evidence for a parafoveal non-cognate orthographic benefit (but only with partial orthographic overlap) in sentence reading for L2ers. We discuss how these findings fit into the framework of bilingual word recognition theories.

Metaphors of Life in German Idioms

The aim of the study is to define the metaphoric meaning of the concept ‘life’ in the German idioms. The German word das Leben means both to live and life in Georgian. It means German does not differentiate them. Our task is to define the positive and the negative connotations of idioms containing the concept of life/ live. To solve this task, we searched for the relevant phraseologisms in the dictionaries and classified them. The study has revealed that lexemes denoting seasons prevail in such idioms. In a metaphoric sense, we can show these idioms as a whole life cycle: from cradle to grave. The lexeme spring stands for youth years (Der Frühling des Lebens-the spring of life), while the lexeme autumn stands for the old age (Der Herbst des Lebens- the autumn of life). In the same figurative sense, the lexeme Lebenmay refers to one day only. For instance, Leben ist ein Tag – Life is one day. This phraseologism shows the brevity of life. Metaphorical compound Lebensabend means the evening of life, that is the old age. The brevity of life is also reflected in the idiom sein letztes Stündlein hat geschlagen- ‘his last hour struck’, meaning, his life came to an end. Metaphorisation of human’s life is also common with the following lexemes: plants, travel, road, food, struggle, liquid and vessel. Thus, life is alternation of positive and negative moments. The former are often compared to light and the sun, while the latter - to shade, darkness and night. Proceeding from this life is a regular alteration of light and darkness, the sun and shade, light and dark.

METHODOLOGICAL ASPECT OF THE USE OF INTERFIXES IN GERMAN COMMON COMPOUND WORDS

В статье предлагается систематизация правил употребления интерфиксов в немецком словосложении, представляющих собой одну из сложных тем в преподавании немецкого языка как первого и второго иностранного языков. В первой части работы подробно описывается происхождение соединительных элементов - интерфиксов, связывающих основы атрибутивным отношением, подчеркивается практически полная десемантизация интерфиксов, анализируются основные функции интерфиксов. Во второй части исследования рассматривается каждый из выделяемых в немецком словосложении соединительных элементов. С одной стороны, проводится отграничение интерфиксов от омонимов, например, падежных флексий и суффиксов множественного числа. С другой стороны, анализируются парадигматический и непарадигматический способы употребления интерфиксов, что особенно свойственно таким соединительным элементам, как -s-, -er-, -en-. Здесь же систематизируются дополнительные функции интерфиксов, обеспечивающие морфологически и фонологически корректное членение композит на слоги, необходимую в немецком языке двусложность композитных компонентов, сохранение традиционной ритмико-ударной группы «ударный слог - безударный слог», маркирование частеречной принадлежности отдельных композитных компонентов, препятствие редукции компонентов сложного слова. В работе также приводится трансформационный способ в качестве маркирующего для подтверждения необходимости употребления интерфиксов, разбираются случаи ограничения употребления интерфиксов или их непоследовательного использования. The article proposes a systematization of the rules for using interfixes in the German word-composition, one of the most difficult topics in teaching German as a first and second foreign language. In the first part of the work, the origin of interfixes, the linking elements connecting the stems with an attributive relation is described in detail, the almost complete desemantization of interfixes is emphasized and the main functions of interfixes are analyzed. Each of the connective elements distinguished in the German word-composition is considered in the second part of the study. On the one hand, a distinction is made between interfixes and homonyms, for example, case inflections and plural suffixes. On the other hand, paradigmatic and non-paradigmatic ways of using interfixes are analyzed, which is especially characteristic of such linking elements as -s-, -er-, -en-. The paper systematizes additional functions of interfixes providing morphologically and phonologically correct division of compound words into syllables, the disyllabic structure of compound word components necessary in the German language, the preservation of the traditional model “stressed syllable - unstressed syllable”, marking the part of speech belonging of the particular compound word components and preventing their reduction. The paper also provides a transformational method as a marker to confirm the need for using interfixes and deals with cases of restricting the use of interfixes or their inconsistent use.

A World Full of Stereotypes? Further Investigation on Origin and Gender Bias in Multi-Lingual Word Embeddings

Publicly available off-the-shelf word embeddings that are often used in productive applications for natural language processing have been proven to be biased. We have previously shown that this bias can come in different forms, depending on the language and the cultural context. In this work, we extend our previous work and further investigate how bias varies in different languages. We examine Italian and Swedish word embeddings for gender and origin bias, and demonstrate how an origin bias concerning local migration groups in Switzerland is included in German word embeddings. We propose BiasWords, a method to automatically detect new forms of bias. Finally, we discuss how cultural and language aspects are relevant to the impact of bias on the application and to potential mitigation measures.

Zur Etymologie von ahd. sumbar ‚(geflochtener) Korb, Gefäß‘

The Old High German word sumbar m./n. ‘basket, vessel’ is up to now without a convincing etymology. It is shown that the word sumbar continues PIE *sm̥-bhoro‑ ‘one-carrier’, i.e. an object with one handle and that this is a parallel formation to Old High German zwibar, zubar n. ‘tub, jug’ < PIE *du̯i-bhoro‑ ‘two-carrier’, i.e. an object with two handles.