Hasil untuk "Language. Linguistic theory. Comparative grammar"

N. Hyams

Erni Nurjaya, A. Dani, Hamzah

This research discusses the concepts of i’rab and ‘amil in Arabic grammar and examines the methodological differences between the Basra and Kufa schools as the two primary streams in the construction of nahwu (syntax). I’rab is understood as the changes in the vowels at the end of words influenced by the presence of an ‘amil (governor) and the word's position within the sentence structure, thus playing a vital role in preserving meaning and syntactic order in the Arabic language. This study employs a qualitative approach with a library research method, tracing primary sources from the works of classical scholars and secondary sources from modern studies. Data analysis was conducted using content and comparative analysis methods to identify the epistemological characteristics of both schools. The results of the study show that the Basra school is prescriptive, rational, and selective regarding linguistic sources, whereas the Kufa school is more descriptive, flexible, and open to various speech patterns, including those considered syadz (irregular). These differing approaches impact how both schools understand and formulate the rules of i’rab and ‘amil. This study concludes that both schools provided distinct yet complementary contributions to the development of Arabic nahwu, where Basra played a role in theoretical standardization and Kufa contributed to the preservation of linguistic reality. These findings emphasize that the understanding of i’rab is not only related to grammatical aspects but is also supported by historical and epistemological perspectives within the scientific tradition of the Arabic language.

Nicola Riccardi

Abstract This article investigates the epistemological convergence between French historiography and French Discourse Analysis (FDA), emphasizing their shared focus on language as a vehicle for historical meaning and ideological formation. Tracing the evolution from the Annales School to post-structuralist thinkers such as Foucault and LaCapra, the study highlights how history has increasingly embraced discourse as both a methodological tool and an object of analysis. Through a case study of Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right party Vox, the article illustrates how FDA concepts – such as lexical worlds, interdiscursivity, and discursive ethos – can be applied to political rhetoric in the digital age. Using lexicometric methods (IraMuTeQ, SketchEngine) and qualitative interpretation, the study analyzes a corpus of Abascal’s tweets (2019-2022), focusing particularly on the term golpista as a strategic signifier of ideological antagonism. The findings show how far-right discourse reactivates historically loaded terms to construct binary oppositions and mobilize collective memory. Ultimately, the article argues that FDA offers historians a powerful framework to interrogate the linguistic production of identity, power, and historical continuity in contemporary political narratives.

Aneeqa Ahmad, Musarrat Azher, Muhammad Asim Mahmood

This study aims at investigating how humor is constructed in corporate memes through cognitive mechanisms and how corporate memes are used as a collective voice by Pakistani employees to express discontent with their work culture and organizational practices. Based on Conceptual blending theory (Fauconnier, & Turner, 2002), this research paper analyzes Pakistani corporate memes selected from widely used platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Pinterest. Drawing upon Bakhtin’s conception of Carnivalesque (Bakhtin, 1984), the significance of workplace humor in challenging dominant narratives, questioning power imbalance and facilitating collective acknowledgement has been highlighted. The findings suggest that the dynamic cognitive processes are responsible for the successful interpretation of humor within corporate memes, depending upon integration of distinct mental spaces evoked by exposure to various ideas present in targeted memes. Further, it is revealed that the workplace memes have the potential to express critique and assert new perspectives by employing techniques such as grotesque exaggeration, visual metaphor, imagery, hyperbole and sarcasm. This article contributes to new debates on internet memes and their potential to galvanize action within digital realm.         Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no potential conflicts of interest and falsification/fabrication of data with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Alina Dushkevych

The article is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the resources of forming the English terminological system of inclusive education in the modern educational environment. The role of terminology as a tool for standardizing knowledge, communication and scientific understanding of inclusion problems is considered. It is shown that the development of inclusive education requires a clear delineation of the terminological apparatus, since it is the terms that ensure accuracy in defining concepts, unambiguousness in use and unity in the interpretation of international and national educational documents. The formation of the English-language terminological system is based on international regulatory acts, such as the "Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities", "Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education", as well as numerous legislative acts of the USA (in particular the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act" - IDEA). An important role in this process is played by glossaries, encyclopedias and textbooks on pedagogy, psychology and special education, which systematize, unify and disseminate professional vocabulary. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of key concepts of English-language inclusive education: "inclusive education", "special educational needs", "learning disabilities", "barrier-free environment", "universal design for learning", "accessibility" and their Ukrainian counterparts. It is emphasized that when translating and adapting terms, it is necessary to take into account not only the lexical-semantic aspect, but also the cultural-pedagogical context in order to avoid shifting meanings. The terminological base of inclusive education performs a number of functions: cognitive (ensuring the scientific validity of concepts), communicative (unification of interdisciplinary and intercultural communication), normative (consolidating standards in legislation and educational policy) and practical (ensuring the effective work of teachers, psychologists, social workers). It is noted that the terms must meet the criteria of accuracy, conciseness, unambiguousness and international comprehensibility.

Vera Hohaus

Beck et al. (2009) and much follow-up research (including Bochnak 2015; Bowler 2016; Deal and Hohaus 2019) argue that languages systematically differ in the semantics of gradable predicates like tall and old, with some languages adopting a vague, delineation-based semantics and others adopting a relational, degree-based semantics. Beck et al. (2009) capture this point of variation in the so-called Degree Semantics Parameter. Based on elicitation and corpus data, we suggest here that the grammar of Samoan (Austronesian, Oceanic; Independent State of Samoa, American Samoa) has recently undergone a change from one parameter setting to the other, triggered by the addition of a degree-based comparative operator to the functional lexicon of the language. This operator developed through lexical and syntactic re-analysis from a directional particle. In Samoan, the grammar of degree is thus modelled after the grammar of another scalar domain, directed motion in space, a strategy that the typological literature suggests is cross-linguistically common.

Chen Chen

: Based on the theory of critical discourse analysis and the method of system functional grammar, this study utilizes Wordsmith software to construct a delimited corpus. The corpus comprises the English translations of the Chinese New Year's addresses spanning from 2021 to 2024 and the New Year's addresses of the British Prime Minister. Through a critical examination, this paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the modal system and mood system within the selected discourses. The primary objective is to discern the linguistic nuances characterizing the New Year's speeches under different contexts, with the ultimate aim of elucidating how adept employment of linguistic strategies can enhance the efficacy of political speeches.

Yan Du

: There are many adverbs in English and Chinese, and the grammar community usually thinks that adverbs can be used to modify verbs and adjectives, but in actual language use, it is found that there are many unconventional uses of "Adverb +Noun" in both English and Chinese, and this structure appears more and more frequently in Chinese, especially in colloquial language and online media. Many English grammar books deal with the phenomenon of "Adverb+Noun ", but none of them give an adequate explanation. In Chinese, since the emergence of the " Adverb+Noun " in the 80s of the last century, the previous studies on this phenomenon have achieved great results from the initial denial of the structure to the current multi-angle interpretation and research, but there are also problems such as single research object, few cross-linguistic comparative studies, and confusion of classification. Therefore, from the perspective of cognitive comparative linguistics, this project intends to scientifically classify and compare the “Adverb+Noun " in Chinese and English languages from the syntactic level and the lexical level. Secondly, at the synchronic level, the cognitive reference point theory (CRP) and the combination of "constructive coercion" and "lexical coercion" jointly explain the cognitive mechanism of the "Adverb of degree+ Noun" type that needs to be studied after classification. Thirdly, at the diachronic level, this paper explores the development process of "Adverb of degree +Noun" in English and Chinese from grammatical construction to rhetorical construction and back to grammatical construction.

Benoît Leclercq

One of the key challenges in linguistics is to account for the link between linguistic knowledge and our use of language in a way that is both descriptively accurate and cognitively plausible. This pioneering book addresses these challenges by combining insights from Construction Grammar and Relevance Theory, two influential approaches which until now have been considered incompatible. After a clear and detailed presentation of both theories, the author demonstrates that their integration is possible, and explains why this integration is necessary, in order to understand exactly how meaning comes about. A new theoretical model is offered that provides ground-breaking insights into the semantics-pragmatic interface, and addresses a variety of topics including the nature of lexical and grammatical concepts, procedural meaning, coercion and idiom processing. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Magdalena Lidia Lobert

In the article, selected names of places in southern Warmia will be discussed and subjected to linguistic analysis. On this basis, the division of these toponyms will be made in terms of the linguistic affiliation of their morphemes, which have their source in Polish, German and Prussian. The history of the activity of the Commission for the Determination of Place Names will also be presented, which after World War II, immediately after the incorporation of Warmia into the Polish state, began intensive work on giving German names their Polish equivalents. The collected material will make it possible to formulate the methods most likely used by the Commission during its work, as well as to show conclusions regarding the impact of national identity and state policy on changes in the naming of places in Warmia.

Muhammad Waqar Ali, Muhammad Iqbal, Sareer Badshah

Teaching of English as an international language (EIL) necessitates promoting intercultural communicative competence (ICC) to enable the individual to survive and progress in multicultural societies. It thereby requires them to develop intercultural attitudes—one of the essential components of ICC. The current paper strives to fathom their intercultural  attitudes before and after the intervention, and to measure the impact of the treatment on their intercultural attitudes. Based on the material designed for promoting intercultural competence, a semester-long course was carried out as the intervention. Unlike the control group, the treatment group was exposed to the treatment. A self-report survey was administered to both groups before and after the treatment. Though both groups reported improvement in their attitudes, the mean differences and effect size values for the cumulative scale and subscales indicate a substantial difference between the attitudes of the two groups; it thereby may be inferred that the treatment proved to be effective in cultivating intercultural attitudes. Furthermore, female participants slightly surpassed the male participants in certain attitudes, but the difference infinitesimal.

Ieva Šelekaitė, Robertas Kudirka

Hans Christian Andersen is one of the most famous Danish writers whose fairy tales have been read by almost every child. The first book of Andersen’s fairy tales appeared in Lithuanian in 1895 and their popularity has not faded ever since. However, most Lithuanian translations consist of fairy tales translated not from Danish, but from intermediate languages (English, Spanish, Italian, French). This article analyses abridged, retold versions and translations from the intermediate languages of Andersen’s tale “Thumbelina”. It is concluded that, due to commercialization and the desire to publish the tales more cheaply, they are distorted and simplified. As a result, the storyline changes and the artistically motivated, integral structural elements of content and form are violated.

Atoullo Rahmatovich Ahmedov

Cheruiyot Evans Kiplimo

Linguistic creativity is realised in our everyday text and it allows formulation and expression of ideas. Online content creators (humourists) have created meme tags or headlines posited to done by Nation TV comparing them to other unspecified TV stations. These humourists utilise language. This paper does a comparative analysis of the meme TV headlines to comprehend how language has been utilised in this scenario by determining the structural differences in the process of formation, determining whether the grammar constructed would say practical and sensible things about the written text, identifying figures of speech, and determine the source of amusement in the meme. This paper was guided by functional grammar (Halliday, 1985), a theory that is oriented toward describing how language makes contextual meanings. It analyses the grammatical structure, the communicative situation, participants, and context of the discourse. This paper has identified that the online humourists or content creators have conveyed meaning artistically with creativity by use of figures of correlation such as metonymy, symbolism, figure of comparison, truncation, wordplay and paronyms. The data that was utilised in this paper was collected from Kenyan Facebook fun pages.

Luke A. Rudge

Angela Lee-Smith

Korean language programs in US higher education are experiencing noticeable and continuous growth. While students’ interest in Korea may initially be driven by Korean pop culture, Korean language educators need to expose these students to advanced-level language study and content. This paper addresses content-based project modules designed by interweaving the multiliteracies- and Standards-based frameworks. These modules enable students to connect with other disciplines and acquire information and diverse perspectives in order to use the language to function in academic- and career-related contexts.