Pub Date : 2018-12-01DOI: 10.2478/linpo-2018-00010
A. R. Altakhaineh
Abstract This study examines two types of semantic change, namely amelioration and pejoration, through comparing the positive/negative senses of 20 English adjectives over time in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It also aims to explore whether the semantic change, which may have occurred in these words, can be associated with their frequency in The British National Corpus (BNC). The results reveal that the stability of the target adjectives has indeed changed over time. The positive adjectives were originally somewhat negative, neutral or positive, and then started to become positive if they were previously negative or neutral if they were previously positive. Conversely, the negative adjectives tend to become less negative over time. The study suggests that the semantic change of these adjectives could have been motivated by a tendency to reduce lexical complexity, which speakers may have done for pragmatic reasons, such as successful communication. The study also proposes that the semantic change could also be related with the frequency of the adjectives undergoing the change. The study concludes with recommendations for further research.
{"title":"The semantic change of positive vs. negative adjectives in Modern English","authors":"A. R. Altakhaineh","doi":"10.2478/linpo-2018-00010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/linpo-2018-00010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study examines two types of semantic change, namely amelioration and pejoration, through comparing the positive/negative senses of 20 English adjectives over time in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It also aims to explore whether the semantic change, which may have occurred in these words, can be associated with their frequency in The British National Corpus (BNC). The results reveal that the stability of the target adjectives has indeed changed over time. The positive adjectives were originally somewhat negative, neutral or positive, and then started to become positive if they were previously negative or neutral if they were previously positive. Conversely, the negative adjectives tend to become less negative over time. The study suggests that the semantic change of these adjectives could have been motivated by a tendency to reduce lexical complexity, which speakers may have done for pragmatic reasons, such as successful communication. The study also proposes that the semantic change could also be related with the frequency of the adjectives undergoing the change. The study concludes with recommendations for further research.","PeriodicalId":35103,"journal":{"name":"Lingua Posnaniensis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48364099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper proposes an Optimality-Theoretic analysis of stress assignment in Levantine Arabic. The proposed hierarchy incorporates two constraints, namely *EXTENDED-LAPSE-R, which restricts stress to one of the last three syllables, and ALIGN-LEFT, which demands that the left edge of the prosodic word be aligned with a foot. This hierarchy is superior to earlier research as it successfully accounts for stress assignment in a more comprehensive and economical way. Most interestingly, it can account for the unexpected stress on a light penult in prosodic words ending in four light syllables and the paradoxical status of foot extrametricality without ad hoc parameterization of constraints. Moreover, findings show that footing in Levantine Arabic is iterative, an indication that secondary stress is attested in Levantine dialects.
{"title":"Stress assignment in polysyllabic words in Levantine Arabic: An Optimality-Theoretic analysis","authors":"M. Guba","doi":"10.2478/linpo-2018-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/linpo-2018-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper proposes an Optimality-Theoretic analysis of stress assignment in Levantine Arabic. The proposed hierarchy incorporates two constraints, namely *EXTENDED-LAPSE-R, which restricts stress to one of the last three syllables, and ALIGN-LEFT, which demands that the left edge of the prosodic word be aligned with a foot. This hierarchy is superior to earlier research as it successfully accounts for stress assignment in a more comprehensive and economical way. Most interestingly, it can account for the unexpected stress on a light penult in prosodic words ending in four light syllables and the paradoxical status of foot extrametricality without ad hoc parameterization of constraints. Moreover, findings show that footing in Levantine Arabic is iterative, an indication that secondary stress is attested in Levantine dialects.","PeriodicalId":35103,"journal":{"name":"Lingua Posnaniensis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45194792","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The aim of this paper is to give a preferably brief overview of research undertaken in the project Comparative analysis of oral descriptions of events in Swahili and Polish. A semantic and morphosyntactic perspective funded by the Polish National Science Centre within Preludium 4 funding scheme (grant no. 2012/07/N/HS2/00963). The project includes applying the conceptual apparatus that enables comparison of genetically and typologically diverse languages within the scope of one of the most complex linguistic categories, that of diathesis. The material for analysis was collected by means of interviews with Polish and Swahili native speakers by use of audiovisual prompts. The collected material was then subjected to comparative analysis with respect to diathesis. The analysis makes use of the concepts of Jerzy Bańczerowski’s general theory of diathesis and concentrates mainly upon semantic and morpho-syntactic schemata for the diathetic meanings of transitivity and transmittivity. The semantic schemata proposed below are conceived to be universal in our theory. The lingual material reveals some morpho-syntactic schemata which are intertwined with the semantic schemata in each of the two languages under description.
{"title":"Comparative analysis of oral descriptions of events in Swahili and Polish. A semantic and morphosyntactic perspective","authors":"Agnieszka Schönhof-Wilkans","doi":"10.2478/linpo-2018-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/linpo-2018-0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The aim of this paper is to give a preferably brief overview of research undertaken in the project Comparative analysis of oral descriptions of events in Swahili and Polish. A semantic and morphosyntactic perspective funded by the Polish National Science Centre within Preludium 4 funding scheme (grant no. 2012/07/N/HS2/00963). The project includes applying the conceptual apparatus that enables comparison of genetically and typologically diverse languages within the scope of one of the most complex linguistic categories, that of diathesis. The material for analysis was collected by means of interviews with Polish and Swahili native speakers by use of audiovisual prompts. The collected material was then subjected to comparative analysis with respect to diathesis. The analysis makes use of the concepts of Jerzy Bańczerowski’s general theory of diathesis and concentrates mainly upon semantic and morpho-syntactic schemata for the diathetic meanings of transitivity and transmittivity. The semantic schemata proposed below are conceived to be universal in our theory. The lingual material reveals some morpho-syntactic schemata which are intertwined with the semantic schemata in each of the two languages under description.","PeriodicalId":35103,"journal":{"name":"Lingua Posnaniensis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47817578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The purpose of this paper is to outline the fundamental grammaticalization and degrammat(icalizat)ion processes observable in the restructuring of the tense/aspect/mood systems of the West Iranian languages during their historical development. Their core aspectual systems will be presented as consisting of three categories: Imperfective, Perfective and Perfect. Special attention will be paid to the rise of the analytic Perfect in Middle Persian and its further development in Early New Persian and other West Iranian languages. It will be shown that the degrammation of the copula played a significant role in the formation of compound temporal (Perfect, Pluperfect) and modal categories (Evidential, Conjectural) in New Persian, Kurdish, Balochi and Tajik. The Evidential mode of New Persian is based on the analytic Perfect rafte ast ‘he is gone’ and it is found in all the three aspectual categories (Imperfective, Perfective and Perfect) and both voices. It is usually claimed that it developed in the Iranian languages probably under Turkic influence. We intend to address the contentious issue of syntactic borrowing in terms of language contact in another paper.
{"title":"Restructuring of the Iranian tense/aspect/mood system","authors":"V. Bubeník, L. Ziamajidi","doi":"10.2478/linpo-2018-0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/linpo-2018-0013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The purpose of this paper is to outline the fundamental grammaticalization and degrammat(icalizat)ion processes observable in the restructuring of the tense/aspect/mood systems of the West Iranian languages during their historical development. Their core aspectual systems will be presented as consisting of three categories: Imperfective, Perfective and Perfect. Special attention will be paid to the rise of the analytic Perfect in Middle Persian and its further development in Early New Persian and other West Iranian languages. It will be shown that the degrammation of the copula played a significant role in the formation of compound temporal (Perfect, Pluperfect) and modal categories (Evidential, Conjectural) in New Persian, Kurdish, Balochi and Tajik. The Evidential mode of New Persian is based on the analytic Perfect rafte ast ‘he is gone’ and it is found in all the three aspectual categories (Imperfective, Perfective and Perfect) and both voices. It is usually claimed that it developed in the Iranian languages probably under Turkic influence. We intend to address the contentious issue of syntactic borrowing in terms of language contact in another paper.","PeriodicalId":35103,"journal":{"name":"Lingua Posnaniensis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48306072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The morphological categories belonging to the semantic dimension of Tense in Modern Greek, as it is traditionally conceived, seem to be distinguished by means of non-homogeneous criteria. In this paper the temporal and aspectual meanings are treated separately. In consequence, Modern Greek has at its disposal (i) six Tenses and (ii) two Aspects. The meanings of the six Tenses are captured systemically by means of three Time-points: (i) Event Time, (ii) Reference Time and (iii) Speech Time, which are referred to each other in the order given by means of the relations of (i) previousness and (ii) simultaneity. In turn, the meanings of the two Aspects are captured by means of the notions of (i) Shortness and (ii) Longness, which are identified as the bedrock of the aspectual oppositions in Modern Greek. Other aspectual meanings such as Termination, Inchoativity, Completion, etc. are conveyed by the lexical stems of the appropriate verbs linked with the affixal markers of the two Aspects.
{"title":"Some general thoughts on tense and aspect in Modern Greek","authors":"Robert M. Bielecki, Kamil Trąba","doi":"10.2478/linpo-2018-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/linpo-2018-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The morphological categories belonging to the semantic dimension of Tense in Modern Greek, as it is traditionally conceived, seem to be distinguished by means of non-homogeneous criteria. In this paper the temporal and aspectual meanings are treated separately. In consequence, Modern Greek has at its disposal (i) six Tenses and (ii) two Aspects. The meanings of the six Tenses are captured systemically by means of three Time-points: (i) Event Time, (ii) Reference Time and (iii) Speech Time, which are referred to each other in the order given by means of the relations of (i) previousness and (ii) simultaneity. In turn, the meanings of the two Aspects are captured by means of the notions of (i) Shortness and (ii) Longness, which are identified as the bedrock of the aspectual oppositions in Modern Greek. Other aspectual meanings such as Termination, Inchoativity, Completion, etc. are conveyed by the lexical stems of the appropriate verbs linked with the affixal markers of the two Aspects.","PeriodicalId":35103,"journal":{"name":"Lingua Posnaniensis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44609718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The paper examines conditioned changes that occurred in Miyakoan (mostly Proto-Miyakoan) reflexes of Proto-Ryukyuan close vowels *i and *u after the unconditioned raising of Proto-Ryukyuan *e and *o had taken place. These changes in close vowels are interpreted here as chain shifts. The core assumption is that changes in *i and *u occurred in response to the raising of *e and *o in order to avoid or compensate for the functionally damaging merger of *i/*e and *u/*o. The paper shows that there is a rather wide range of conditions under which *i and *u produced distinct reflexes in Miyakoan. Consequently, these vowels acted differently after stops, after sibilants, after nasals, in an onsetless/standalone position, after the flap, before the flap, and before nasals and other sonorants word-initially. At the same time, reflexes of both proto-vowels have been observed to maintain certain symmetry, meaning that in a similar environment, *i and *u generally underwent similar or analogical changes. Thus, the conditions for identifying Miyakoan reflexes or *i and *u are listed and specified in this paper. Conversely, it is argued that unless one of these conditions has been met, one should reconstruct a Proto-Ryukyuan mid-vowel rather than a close vowel. Such specification may influence the comparative study of Ryukyuan languages to a significant degree, challenging a number of the so far established reconstructions (most notably Thorpe 1983).
{"title":"Reflexes of Proto-Ryukyuan *i and *u in Miyakoan as a chain shift","authors":"A. Jarosz","doi":"10.2478/linpo-2018-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/linpo-2018-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The paper examines conditioned changes that occurred in Miyakoan (mostly Proto-Miyakoan) reflexes of Proto-Ryukyuan close vowels *i and *u after the unconditioned raising of Proto-Ryukyuan *e and *o had taken place. These changes in close vowels are interpreted here as chain shifts. The core assumption is that changes in *i and *u occurred in response to the raising of *e and *o in order to avoid or compensate for the functionally damaging merger of *i/*e and *u/*o. The paper shows that there is a rather wide range of conditions under which *i and *u produced distinct reflexes in Miyakoan. Consequently, these vowels acted differently after stops, after sibilants, after nasals, in an onsetless/standalone position, after the flap, before the flap, and before nasals and other sonorants word-initially. At the same time, reflexes of both proto-vowels have been observed to maintain certain symmetry, meaning that in a similar environment, *i and *u generally underwent similar or analogical changes. Thus, the conditions for identifying Miyakoan reflexes or *i and *u are listed and specified in this paper. Conversely, it is argued that unless one of these conditions has been met, one should reconstruct a Proto-Ryukyuan mid-vowel rather than a close vowel. Such specification may influence the comparative study of Ryukyuan languages to a significant degree, challenging a number of the so far established reconstructions (most notably Thorpe 1983).","PeriodicalId":35103,"journal":{"name":"Lingua Posnaniensis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42623845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract An attempt is made to describe the syntactic structure of the Finnish non-attributive participial construction of the type Näen lintujen lentävän etelään ‘I see birds flying south’ by investigating the actual construction, and not a cognate sentence from which the construction is said to be derived. The analysis leads to the conclusion that two parts can be distinguished in the construction. The words belonging to the first part clearly determine syntactically the participle, e.g. lentävän ← etelään. In the case of the words of the other group, however, there exists no syntactic test by which it would be possible to verify the direction of the relation of syntactic determination. This part of the construction is therefore to be conceived of as syntactically ambiguous, i.e. both lintujen ← lentävän and lintujen → lentävän. It represents the neutralization of two structures: (i) a nominal structure (lintujen lentäminen ‘birds’ flying’) and (ii) a nominal-verbal structure (linnut lentävät ‘birds are flying’). In consequence of this fact, different syntactic interpretations of the construction do not give rise to different semantic interpretations.
摘要本文试图通过考察芬兰语中“Näen lintujen lentävän etelään I see birds flying south”类型的非定语分词结构的实际结构，而不是一个同源句来描述该结构的句法结构。分析得出结论，在结构上可以区分出两个部分。属于第一部分的词在句法上清楚地决定了分词，例如lentävän←etelään。然而，在另一组词的情况下，没有任何句法测试可以用来验证句法决定关系的方向。因此，这部分结构被认为是语法上不明确的，即lintujen←lentävän和lintujen→lentävän。它代表了两个结构的中和:(i)一个名义结构(lintujen lentäminen“鸟在飞”)和(ii)一个名义-言语结构(linnut lentävät“鸟在飞”)。因此，不同的句法解释并不会产生不同的语义解释。
{"title":"Näen lintujen lentävän etelään ‘I see birds flying south’ – About an interesting case of syntactic ambiguity in Finnish","authors":"Robert M. Bielecki","doi":"10.2478/linpo-2018-0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/linpo-2018-0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract An attempt is made to describe the syntactic structure of the Finnish non-attributive participial construction of the type Näen lintujen lentävän etelään ‘I see birds flying south’ by investigating the actual construction, and not a cognate sentence from which the construction is said to be derived. The analysis leads to the conclusion that two parts can be distinguished in the construction. The words belonging to the first part clearly determine syntactically the participle, e.g. lentävän ← etelään. In the case of the words of the other group, however, there exists no syntactic test by which it would be possible to verify the direction of the relation of syntactic determination. This part of the construction is therefore to be conceived of as syntactically ambiguous, i.e. both lintujen ← lentävän and lintujen → lentävän. It represents the neutralization of two structures: (i) a nominal structure (lintujen lentäminen ‘birds’ flying’) and (ii) a nominal-verbal structure (linnut lentävät ‘birds are flying’). In consequence of this fact, different syntactic interpretations of the construction do not give rise to different semantic interpretations.","PeriodicalId":35103,"journal":{"name":"Lingua Posnaniensis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47652171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The article deals with the origin of the Proto-Indo-European comparative suffix. It is claimed that the morpheme in question, reconstructed here as *-i̯ōs < *-i̯o-os, evolved in predicatively used *-s-stem nominals. It is also claimed that the first component of the complex *-i̯o-os is the allomorph *-i̯o- of the verbal suffix *-i̯e/o-. Both intrasystemic and typological parallels indicate that the verbal component could originate from intransitive change-of-state verbs. It is suggested that the ablaut varieties of the comparative suffix and the frequent predesinential extensions are due to independent inflectionalization in various post-Proto-Indo-European dialects.
{"title":"The origin of the Proto-Indo-European comparative suffix (with Turkic and Uralic parallels)","authors":"Rafał Szeptyński","doi":"10.2478/linpo-2018-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/linpo-2018-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article deals with the origin of the Proto-Indo-European comparative suffix. It is claimed that the morpheme in question, reconstructed here as *-i̯ōs < *-i̯o-os, evolved in predicatively used *-s-stem nominals. It is also claimed that the first component of the complex *-i̯o-os is the allomorph *-i̯o- of the verbal suffix *-i̯e/o-. Both intrasystemic and typological parallels indicate that the verbal component could originate from intransitive change-of-state verbs. It is suggested that the ablaut varieties of the comparative suffix and the frequent predesinential extensions are due to independent inflectionalization in various post-Proto-Indo-European dialects.","PeriodicalId":35103,"journal":{"name":"Lingua Posnaniensis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41679864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Linas Selmistraitis, Katarzyna Gęborys, M. Krawiec
Abstract The concept of specialist languages has been widely discussed and analyzed not only with respect to the linguistic field (in the context of which certain changes are anticipated in language as a communicational tool), or translation studies (including cultural aspects of expressions and their equivalents) but also with respect to strategies and techniques used in the foreign language teaching process. The main objective of this paper is to examine the language of law on a sample of selected Polish legal expressions (property law expressions) and their English equivalents. The article points to the ways of translating expressions from this specialist language and emphasizes the need to include some cultural aspects in the translation process. The article starts with a presentation of various views on translation, and then provides information on specialist languages, their types and features, leading subsequently to the analysis of certain terms and concepts of law and the ways of translating them.
{"title":"Specialist Languages in Translation: The Case of Selected Expressions of Property Law","authors":"Linas Selmistraitis, Katarzyna Gęborys, M. Krawiec","doi":"10.2478/linpo-2018-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/linpo-2018-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The concept of specialist languages has been widely discussed and analyzed not only with respect to the linguistic field (in the context of which certain changes are anticipated in language as a communicational tool), or translation studies (including cultural aspects of expressions and their equivalents) but also with respect to strategies and techniques used in the foreign language teaching process. The main objective of this paper is to examine the language of law on a sample of selected Polish legal expressions (property law expressions) and their English equivalents. The article points to the ways of translating expressions from this specialist language and emphasizes the need to include some cultural aspects in the translation process. The article starts with a presentation of various views on translation, and then provides information on specialist languages, their types and features, leading subsequently to the analysis of certain terms and concepts of law and the ways of translating them.","PeriodicalId":35103,"journal":{"name":"Lingua Posnaniensis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47993907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Though corrective feedback (CF) has generally been accepted as an effective means for improving student writing, some debate still exists as to whether focused (narrow) or unfocused (broad) CF is more effective in improving student writing in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. A comparative study was undertaken of two groups of high-proficiency Japanese and international students of English at one private university in the Kansai area of Japan. A third control group who did not partake in any corrective feedback were also used for comparison. Both groups of students wrote argumentative essays on a subject of their choosing over the course of eight weeks. The first group, Treatment Group A, was comprised of seven Japanese and non-Japanese university students (n = 7) who were trained in giving meta-linguistic (error coded), computer-mediated unfocused peer CF. The second group, Treatment Group B, was comprised of seven Japanese university students (n = 7) who were trained in giving meta-linguistic, computer-mediated focused feedback on five errors identified as being the most common in an initial diagnostic writing sample done in the first week. The initial draft, post-peer CF draft, post-teacher CF draft, and final draft were then analyzed. Students’ ability to correctly resolve errors, and the number of errors per 100 words that emerged in each draft were then examined. The results suggest that unfocused peer and teacher CF may be a more effective means of reducing student errors in writing, possibly because it provides more overall learning opportunities.
{"title":"A comparison of focused and unfocused corrective feedback in Japanese EFL writing classes","authors":"Bradley D. F. Colpitts, L'Shawn Howard","doi":"10.2478/linpo-2018-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/linpo-2018-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Though corrective feedback (CF) has generally been accepted as an effective means for improving student writing, some debate still exists as to whether focused (narrow) or unfocused (broad) CF is more effective in improving student writing in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. A comparative study was undertaken of two groups of high-proficiency Japanese and international students of English at one private university in the Kansai area of Japan. A third control group who did not partake in any corrective feedback were also used for comparison. Both groups of students wrote argumentative essays on a subject of their choosing over the course of eight weeks. The first group, Treatment Group A, was comprised of seven Japanese and non-Japanese university students (n = 7) who were trained in giving meta-linguistic (error coded), computer-mediated unfocused peer CF. The second group, Treatment Group B, was comprised of seven Japanese university students (n = 7) who were trained in giving meta-linguistic, computer-mediated focused feedback on five errors identified as being the most common in an initial diagnostic writing sample done in the first week. The initial draft, post-peer CF draft, post-teacher CF draft, and final draft were then analyzed. Students’ ability to correctly resolve errors, and the number of errors per 100 words that emerged in each draft were then examined. The results suggest that unfocused peer and teacher CF may be a more effective means of reducing student errors in writing, possibly because it provides more overall learning opportunities.","PeriodicalId":35103,"journal":{"name":"Lingua Posnaniensis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49308644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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