Scalar and Counterfactual Approximatives: Investigating Heritage Greek in the USA and Germany

Approximative constructions present special interest for acquisition due to the counterfactual and scalar inferences they give rise to. In this paper we investigate the acquisition of Greek approximatives by heritage speakers in Germany and the USA. We show that while in English and German there is a single lexical item encoding counterfactuality and scalarity, in Greek there are two lexical items which, as we show, have different interpretations. In view of this difference, we test whether the crosslinguistic differences and the interface nature of approximative constructions affect their representation in heritage language. We present a production study and a comprehension study of approximative constructions. Our findings suggest that the two heritage groups do not diverge from the monolingual group in the domain of approximative constructions.

Lexical Characteristics of the Translation of the Russian Newspapers: "Komsomolskaya Pravda" as Example Лексические особенности перевода газетных заголовков (На материале газеты «Комсомольская правда»)

The present study discusses the semantic characteristics of the Russian newspapers journalistic headlines (The Russian newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" as Example"). The study traces the characteristics of the Russian newspaper headlines, its relevance to grammar, syntax, lexical items and style. These characteristics in Russian will be investigated and compared to their Arabic correspondents in the process of translation. The study also specifies the meanings and the functions of the newspaper headlines in the light of modern linguistics stressing the grammatical, lexical and stylistic aspects of headlines translation from Russian into Arabic. Journalistic headline reports a piece of information of a piece of news, presents, neutrally, new information related to the main story. The ideal headline is characterized by being composed of only few words carrying lots of significance. Its relevance to the news ought to be clear and answers several inquiries about the story, including: Who, What, When, Where, How and What for. Аннотация Статья посвящена вопросу особенности русского газетного заголовка, обусловлены нормами грамматики, лексики и стиля. Будут выявлены, какие соответствия этим особенностям существуют в русском языке. в статье будет определены значения и функций газетных заголовков в современной лингвистике. А также будет обсуждены Лексико-грамматические и стилистические аспекты при переводе заголовков с русского языка на арабский язык.. заголовок несет информацию по сопутствующей теме и предоставляет новую информацию, относящуюся к основным новостям, с полной беспристрастностью, а идеальный заголовок новости состоит из нескольких слов с множеством коннотаций, а заголовок новости отличается четкой новостной значимостью. поскольку он отвечает на ряд основных вопросов в новостях, в том числе: Кто? и что? И когда? Где? Как? Почему?

INVESTIGATING THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT IN THE ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF OGUNDIMU’S A SILLY SEASON

This paper investigates the importance of context in the analysis and interpretation of Ogundimu’sA Silly Season. It aims to describe, analyse and interpret linguistic context, situational context, and cultural context of the production of speech events in A Silly Season. Basing on a descriptive survey method relevant passages that require the clarification of contexts for their full understanding have been selected. It has been contended that the description of the linguistic context of the highlighted lexical items has helped determine who the speakers and hearers are in terms of the roles they have played either individually or collectively. In the same way, the description of the situational context clarifies the circumstances in which the speech events take root and even helps disambiguate ambiguous sentences. The description of the cultural context of words and expressions used has helped contend that the author values Yoruba culture and tradition.

The Use of American and British Lexis in Brunei English

In pronunciation, influenced by American English, a shift in Brunei English can be observed in the increasing use of [r] in tokens such as car and heard particularly among younger speakers whose pronunciation may be influenced by American English. In contrast, older speakers tend to omit the [r] sound in these tokens as their pronunciation may be more influenced by British English. However, it is unclear whether American English has influenced the vocabulary of Brunei English speakers as the education system in Brunei favours British English due to its historical ties with Britain. This paper analyses the use of American and British lexical items between three age groups: 20 in-service teachers aged between 29 to 35 years old, 20 university undergraduates aged between 19 to 25 years old, and 20 secondary school students who are within the 11 to 15 age range. Each age group has 10 female and 10 male participants and they were asked to name seven objects shown to them on Power point slides. Their responses were recorded and compared between the age groups and between female and male data. The analysis is supplemented with recorded data from interviews with all 60 participants to determine instances of American and British lexical items in casual speech. It was found that there is a higher occurrence of American than British lexical items in all three groups and the interview data supports the findings in the main data. Thus, providing further evidence for the Americanisation of Brunei English and that Brunei English is undergoing change.

The Representation of America and China in Trump's Press Conferences Concerning COVID-19: A Critical Discourse Analysis

This study explores the construction of “Self” and the “Other” in President Donald Trump’s political discourse concerning COVID-19. The study is based on two Critical Discourse Analysis approaches which are van Dijk’s ideological square and Fairclough’s three-dimensional approach. Van Dijk’s ideological square is utilized to investigate the representation of the “self” and the “other” throughout Trump’s conferences. Fairclough’s three-dimensional model is utilized to reveal the lexical items that are used in Trump’s political discourse to construct the “self” and the “other”. Fourteen press conferences of Trump are used for the analysis. The data is selected between periods from February 2020, until September 2020. This period represents the period of appearance and the spreading of COVID-19. The results of the study revealed that before the spreading of COVID-19, China was represented in a positive portrayal, while after the spreading of COVID-19; China was represented in a negative portrayal. On the other hand, America was represented in a positive and noble portrayal after and before the outbreak of COVID-19. Furthermore, lexical items, such as “China virus, Wuhan virus, Wuhan labs, Kung flu, got out of control, etc.” are associated with China, to hold it responsible for creating and spreading COVID-19.

Some Remarks on Computer Terminology in Persian and Hindi on the Basis of the Localizations of the Kdelibs4 Package

Scientific and technological vocabulary, especially computer terminology, is a particularly interesting field in which to analyze/study the most recent trends in the development of vocabulary. The present article focuses on the Persian and Hindi translations of the Kdelibs4 software package. The author attempts to address a number of questions on the basis of the analyzed material, i.e., what are the origin and the proportion of loanwords within the analyzed vocabulary? Are the languages historically important as vocabulary donors (Arabic in the case of Persian and Persian in the case of Hindi) still prominent in this new sphere of vocabulary? What are the widespread syntactic and word-formational patterns among the discussed forms? The vocabulary in question is also juxtaposed with the official language policy in India and Iran, thus exhibiting various levels of deviations in both cases. The lexical items selected on the basis of objective criteria have been compared with the official vocabulary lists issued by the responsible/authoritative/ relevant governmental bodies. Additionally, in the case of Persian, an extensive Internet search has been performed to check their popularity among the users.

Noun formation processes in Nda’nda’

This paper examines nouns formation processes in Nda’nda’, a littledocumented language spoken in Western Cameroon. My concern is to account for the various strategies used by the language to expand its vocabulary in the face of new realities. How are new words created? What are the linguistics transformations loanwords undergo when they enter the language? To answer these questions, data are collected with a wordlist, transcribed in IPA and analyzed in a structural approach. Four lexical enrichment processes are identified here, namely derivation, conversion, borrowing and compounding. Derivation mainly explores how suffixes function in Nda’nda’ in the creation of new words. Conversion from verbs to nouns, though not very productive, is also examined. An analysis of loanwords highlights the phonological, morphological and semantic behavior of the latter in the language. Compounding studies the rules that govern the association of lexical items that exists independently in the Nda’nda’ lexicon.

The Semantic Map of Aktionart and Troponymy of Old English Strong Verbs

The aim of this article is to analyse the semantic relations that hold between Old English primitive and derived verbs in terms of troponymy and Aktionsart. The results of this analysis are presented in a semantic map, while emphasis is made on the points of contact between these phenomena. The main conclusion is that semantic maps represent a more flexible and applicable methodology than previous work suggests since they have been used to deal with one language, to explain historical languages and to refer to specific lexical items. Likewise, this analysis shows evidence of an inherent relationship between both phenomena: troponymy and Aktionsart.

Biblical Lexical Items vs Biblical Phraseological Units: Specifying the Notions (Based on English and German Texts)

This article discusses the problem of delimiting the notions of biblical lexical item and biblical phraseological unit within the framework of studying the formation and development of biblical phraseology as a separate branch of general phraseology. The author believes that biblical phraseology should to be considered as an independent research area due to the progressive development of the study of phraseology in general, as well as the growing interest among scholars in phraseology of biblical origin and pertinent research materials that have accumulated over the past two decades. To begin with, the paper specifies the status of the biblical phraseological unit as a phraseological unit. Further, the definitions of the above-mentioned notions are analysed and a typology of biblical lexical items and phraseological units of biblical origin is developed based on a review of scholarly works dealing with various aspects of biblical lexical items and biblical phraseological units. Examples of the use of biblical lexical items and biblical phraseological units in English and German texts are provided as illustrations. The research methods applied here include analysis and synthesis, generalization and hypotheticoinductive method; comparative, contextual, and classification methods, as well as analysis of definitions, phraseological identification, and phraseological analysis. The author concludes that biblical lexical item is a broader notion, which includes biblical phraseological units. Biblical lexical items are numerous and diverse in terms of composition and can be presented in the form of multi-level linguistic units (from a word to a sentence), while biblical phraseological units are structured as fixed expressions, from a phrase to a sentence. Thus, a biblical phraseological unit is defined as a fixed reproducible linguistic unit in the form of a phrase or a sentence, having integrity of nomination and integrity of meaning that is etymologically related to the Bible. It is emphasized that the specificity of phraseological units of biblical origin is manifested at the formal, content and functional levels.

Semiotic Essence of Linguistic Ambiguity in the German Poetic Discourse of the XXI Century

The article deals with the problem of the phenomenon of linguistic ambiguity and methods of its resolution in the context of modern German poetic texts, as well as possible communication failures associated with differences in the sociocultural characteristics of the author and recipient. In particular, there are illustrations of ambiguity of the entire poem, when the analyzed concept has a dualistic origin and certain linguo-stylistic means; lexical ambiguity, which main mechanisms are a language game, polysemantic words, chains of key lexical items, allusions; syntactic ambiguity, that is realized through special punctuation and two-way communication, that allowed two different interpretations of the sentence. In addition, the German poetic text is characterized by temporary and permanent types of ambiguity. As part of the study, it was found that the phenomenon of ambiguity can be resolved due to contextual peculiarities, and situations of communicative failure can be avoided by an increase of the level of linguistic and intercultural competence.