A Corpus-based Contrastive Study on English and Chinese Semantic Prime happen and fasheng in Natural Semantic Metalanguage

This paper reports a corpus-based study on English and Chinese semantic prime happen and fasheng in Natural Semantic Metalanguage. With the aids of computer software Wordsmith 5.0 and SPSS19.0, we conducted a contrastive study on happen and fasheng based on a small English and Chinese comparable corpus constructed by ourselves. By extracting evidence from the corpus, the distribution of happen and fasheng, their syntactic patterns, their colligation types as well as their semantic prosody are identified and analyzed. We found that there is no significant difference between English semantic prime happen and its Chinese counterpart fasheng with respect to their distribution, their syntactic patterns, their colligations, and their semantic prosody. The results reveal that semantic prime happen is identical with its Chinese counterpart fasheng. Thus it provides an evidence to justify the premise of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage Theory.

Understanding Malay Corpora: A Content Analysis of 15 Malay Corpora

Corpus research becomes an important area of research of late, especially in Malaysia and for the national language, Malay language. A corpus includes texts and transcriptions of speeches for variety of situations. For this short paper, the focus is on Malay language, which is the national and official language of Malaysia. The purposes of this paper are to identify features and types of Malay Corpora and to determine the needs for a military biased Malay Corpus. In so doing, as a short paper, the methodology involves only content analysis of relevant documents on the development of Malay language corpora. Preliminary findings suggest that there are at least 15 Malay corpora in existence, and that some of the features in these corpora overlap. Further, the researchers argue for the need for a Malay Corpus for Military Operations since the existing corpora do not fully cater for this type of corpus.

A Study on Mandarin Proficiency and Multidimensional Poverty in Ethnic Areas

To study the role of language in anti-poverty, based on the theory of multidimensional poverty and the economic value of language, this paper analyzes the correlation between Mandarin proficiency and multidimensional poverty in ethnic minority areas by using CFPS data from 2010 to 2018. The regression results show that the improvement of Mandarin proficiency is beneficial to solve multidimensional poverty problems. The endogenetic analysis and robustness test are carried out, and the conclusion is consistent with the baseline regression. Further, the influence of language ability on different samples is analyzed. The study shows that Mandarin proficiency has a greater influence on male, 18-28 and 29-50 years old, high poverty groups and non-agricultural workers.

Empirical Research of Mandarin Popularization Boosting County-level Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Ethnic Minority Regions: Evidences from Eight Counties (Cities) in Guangxi Sino-Vietnam Border

From the perspective of the transaction cost theory, this paper analyzes that the mandarin popularization in ethnic minority regions helps reduce the transaction cost, enhances trust, results in the "innovation and entrepreneurship" effect, and improves the action mechanism of the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship rate. Furthermore, based on the complete sample investigation results of rural residents within 0-3km in eight counties of Sino-Vietnam border, it constructs the quantitative model to conduct the empirical analysis of the significant positive role played by mandarin popularization in the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship in ethnic minority regions, which is that when the mandarin level is changed by 1%, the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship rate is changed by 0.397%.

Onomatopoeia in Omani Arabic

Onomatopoeia is believed to be of a widespread occurrence in all languages of the world though with different extents. Arabic language is attested to be rich in the use of onomatopoeia in speech, prose, and poetry. Omani Arabic, a unique variety of vernacular Arabic spoken in the Sultanate of Oman in the eastsouthern part of Arabia, likewise has numerous usages of onomatopoeic words in everyday life interactions. Both lexical and non-lexical onomatopoeia exist in Omani Arabic falling into three main categories: human sounds, animal sounds, and sounds associated with nature and objects. Onomatopoeic sounds appear in different syllabic forms including full syllables and non-syllabic forms with one or more consonants. The use of voiceless sounds and fricatives is more prevalent compared to other types of sounds. Cases are attested of sounds captured in diverse manners exhibiting alternation among sounds close in place of articulation as well as between emphatic sounds and their non-emphatic counterparts. The use of fricatives is used to mark the duration of sounds as opposed to the use of plosives employed to show abruptness and short duration of sounds. Morphologically, most of these words are used as verbs and derivative nouns. Reduplication is likewise used to mark the intensity and duration of actions signified by these sounds.

Multilingualism in Hong Kong’s Formal and Informal Settings: A Brief Historical Review of The Development from The Early 1900s To the Late 2010s

This article aims at tracing back the making of multilingualism in Hong Kong from a socio-historical viewpoint. It primarily illustrates the linguistic profiles of Cantonese, English, and Putonghua in official domains throughout the colonial period and after the 1997 handover, secondarily describing their roles in Hongkongers’ daily life. The situation of other minor languages is mentioned in passing. The snapshots reveal that a) Cantonese has developed to be a powerless lingua franca of Hongkongers, b) English has become a powerful second language with high economic value that hugely outweighs Cantonese, and that c) Putonghua has been similar to a foreign language despite its official status on the mainland. Other heritage languages of ethnic minorities have existed since the early colonial period, but they have never entered the mainstream or vastly impacted the three dominating languages. The discussion concludes that Hong Kong has yet to be a typical multilingual metropolis where citizens are fluent or native in multiple languages. It is still fluctuating in between monolingualism and multilingualism, however, showing an inclination to the latter.

Impoliteness in Indonesian Language Hate Speech on Social Media Contained in the Instagram Account

The phenomenon of hate speech is very interesting to draw. This is related to various recent events that have caused unrest in the community. Hate speech is an expression that stimulates people from certain social groups that are oriented toward differences, race, national origin, religion, and gender. The hate test in this study is seen from the perspective of the impoliteness theory. The research uses forensic theory, while the methodology uses qualitative. The data used, as many as 40 comments were used as research objects. Realization of hate speech based on impoliteness, there are 3 strategies, namely positive impoliteness strategies, negative impoliteness strategies, and satire or scoffing strategies. In other words, linguistic hate speech can be sent in the form of words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and in the form of discourse.

Language Learning Difficulties Reported by Beginner-Level Learners of Arabic Using Online Tools

This study examined how two classes used online supplementary material to learn Arabic and the difficulties they reported in the process of their learning. The two classes have a total of 33 students who completed the course. The data from their weekly journal entries and log information from the site where the material was housed are used to describe the extent and the ways in which students used the material and issues they faced learning Arabic. Results show that students in both classes spent roughly 265 hours practicing Arabic with an average of 8 hours per student throughout the semester and that vocabulary recall and pronunciation were key struggles in their learning. Furthermore, this paper discusses some of the themes that emerged of students’ journal entries about their learning Arabic. Further implications are provided and discussed.

An Empirical Study on the Relationship between Language Proficiency and Economic Income of Chinese and Vietnamese Border Residents: A Case Study of Dongxing City, Guangxi Province

Based on the full sample survey of border residents in Dongxing City, Guangxi, this paper uses language economics theory and data analysis methods to analyze the relationship between language proficiency and income of border residents in Dongxing City, Guangxi. The conclusions of the study include: multilingual ability can enhance residents' self-employment ability, obtain more employment opportunities and stable income sources, and have a positive correlation with their annual income. Putonghua popularization is an effective measure to promote poverty alleviation in border areas; Government departments should optimize and improve local industrial policies and promote the promotion and protection of traditional cultures of ethnic minorities while giving full play to the positive economic and social benefits of Putonghua popularization and cultivating new economic drivers.

Editorial, Volume 10 (2019)

On behalf of the Editorial Board, it is with great pride and sincere privilege that I am writing this message to present the volume 10 (2019) of the JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN LINGUISTICS The issue comes from a long process, and we took all the necessary steps to make it a high-caliber scientific publication. We are relying on the collaboration of all our Editors, reviewers, and contributors to make it a contemporary, lively, and relevant publication.