Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.2478/topling-2022-0003
D. Ponton, D. Davletshina
Abstract Thanks largely to the affordances of social media, the Covid-19 pandemic has provoked a glut of neologisms, loan-words, abbreviations, calques and other linguistic variants. The crisis was accompanied in most nations by social measures curtailing what have long been seen as fundamental liberties; hence, it has foregrounded the re-emergence of old controversies about individualism vs collectivism, the nature of personal freedom, the role of the state, the right to healthcare, the distribution of wealth, and so on. On the UK side, our study explores some emergent neologisms in English and Russian, especially implicit meaning in terms like “social distancing” and “lockdown”. We consider cross-cultural implications that relate to the way each national group conceptualized, and lived through, the experiences of lockdown. Linguistic practices may reflect deep-seated habits of being that characterize different countries, and thus our research may shed light on long-standing questions of national stereotypes. We look at some of the Covid-19 neologisms produced and/or used in British and Russian contexts, on the assumption that, by comparing these micro-linguistic practices, it is possible to learn something concerning the cultural realities of the countries in question, along the lines proposed in the works of Hofstede (2001) and Wierzbicka (2003).
{"title":"Poems in lockdown: Cultural aspects of English and Russian “coroneologisms”","authors":"D. Ponton, D. Davletshina","doi":"10.2478/topling-2022-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2022-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Thanks largely to the affordances of social media, the Covid-19 pandemic has provoked a glut of neologisms, loan-words, abbreviations, calques and other linguistic variants. The crisis was accompanied in most nations by social measures curtailing what have long been seen as fundamental liberties; hence, it has foregrounded the re-emergence of old controversies about individualism vs collectivism, the nature of personal freedom, the role of the state, the right to healthcare, the distribution of wealth, and so on. On the UK side, our study explores some emergent neologisms in English and Russian, especially implicit meaning in terms like “social distancing” and “lockdown”. We consider cross-cultural implications that relate to the way each national group conceptualized, and lived through, the experiences of lockdown. Linguistic practices may reflect deep-seated habits of being that characterize different countries, and thus our research may shed light on long-standing questions of national stereotypes. We look at some of the Covid-19 neologisms produced and/or used in British and Russian contexts, on the assumption that, by comparing these micro-linguistic practices, it is possible to learn something concerning the cultural realities of the countries in question, along the lines proposed in the works of Hofstede (2001) and Wierzbicka (2003).","PeriodicalId":41377,"journal":{"name":"Topics in Linguistics","volume":"23 1","pages":"24 - 38"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44039827","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}
Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.2478/topling-2022-0005
Habib Boudjemaa, Noureddine Mouhadjer
Abstract This paper aims at dissecting the foremost innovative linguistic features that characterize the hybrid text-based online social network communication of some Algerian Facebook users. It also seeks to emphasize the role of computer-mediated communication, mainly social networking sites (SNSs), in the modernization of stigmatized informal language varieties as in the case of Algerian Dialectal Arabic (ADA). To achieve this, a qualitative research approach, in which both the researcher’s long-term participant observation and a descriptive content analysis of a corpus of 30 hybrid text-based Facebook posts, is adopted for investigation. Moreover, the relevant data was collected from a virtual Facebook group community that was chiefly created by some younger Algerian EFL students at Ibn Khaldoun University of Tiaret in Algeria in order to share information related to their studies. Interestingly, the findings of our case study revealed that the ADA is linguistically accommodated to some nonstandard and unconventional spellings of hybrid informal writing such as transliteration in its two forms, the use of distinctive signs such as numbers for some letters, the partial and/or full removal of vowel sounds for shortenings, the occurrence of written code switching/mixing and loanwords, and deficiency in using punctuation marks. Ultimately, the research ends with some recommendations for future research in the domain of text-based online communication with reference to the sociolinguistic situation in Algeria.
{"title":"Deconstructing the linguistic features of hybrid text-based online social network communication among Algerian Facebook users: A case study","authors":"Habib Boudjemaa, Noureddine Mouhadjer","doi":"10.2478/topling-2022-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2022-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper aims at dissecting the foremost innovative linguistic features that characterize the hybrid text-based online social network communication of some Algerian Facebook users. It also seeks to emphasize the role of computer-mediated communication, mainly social networking sites (SNSs), in the modernization of stigmatized informal language varieties as in the case of Algerian Dialectal Arabic (ADA). To achieve this, a qualitative research approach, in which both the researcher’s long-term participant observation and a descriptive content analysis of a corpus of 30 hybrid text-based Facebook posts, is adopted for investigation. Moreover, the relevant data was collected from a virtual Facebook group community that was chiefly created by some younger Algerian EFL students at Ibn Khaldoun University of Tiaret in Algeria in order to share information related to their studies. Interestingly, the findings of our case study revealed that the ADA is linguistically accommodated to some nonstandard and unconventional spellings of hybrid informal writing such as transliteration in its two forms, the use of distinctive signs such as numbers for some letters, the partial and/or full removal of vowel sounds for shortenings, the occurrence of written code switching/mixing and loanwords, and deficiency in using punctuation marks. Ultimately, the research ends with some recommendations for future research in the domain of text-based online communication with reference to the sociolinguistic situation in Algeria.","PeriodicalId":41377,"journal":{"name":"Topics in Linguistics","volume":"23 1","pages":"62 - 71"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48677913","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}
Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.2478/topling-2022-0006
Dereje Adane Menore, S. Beyene
Abstract This study identifies, analyses and describes the devices and functions of focus in information structuring in Hadiyya, a Highland East Cushitic language. Data, which were collected from native speakers, were dealt with based on the theory of Functional Grammar (Dik 1997). For focalization, the language uses morphological, lexical and syntactic means. The latter involves word-order change and cleft construction (including pseudo-cleft). Comparatively, the morphological mechanism is the most dynamic and frequent in use while the lexical means is limited both in the number of items employed and in frequency of occurrence.
{"title":"The focus system in Hadiyya","authors":"Dereje Adane Menore, S. Beyene","doi":"10.2478/topling-2022-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2022-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study identifies, analyses and describes the devices and functions of focus in information structuring in Hadiyya, a Highland East Cushitic language. Data, which were collected from native speakers, were dealt with based on the theory of Functional Grammar (Dik 1997). For focalization, the language uses morphological, lexical and syntactic means. The latter involves word-order change and cleft construction (including pseudo-cleft). Comparatively, the morphological mechanism is the most dynamic and frequent in use while the lexical means is limited both in the number of items employed and in frequency of occurrence.","PeriodicalId":41377,"journal":{"name":"Topics in Linguistics","volume":"23 1","pages":"72 - 82"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49361529","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}
Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.2478/topling-2022-0002
Judyta Pawliszko
Abstract The present study aims to determine the overall language choices that shape emotion-related language preference among bilingual communities. The author also seeks to answer the question of whether those choices are affected by norms or emotional spontaneity. Since the study yields only a slight preference for the second language, it may not necessarily lead to concluding any linguistic system to be more dominant than the other. Yet, the research proves not only that greater emotional weight of the situation results in a greater impact on the emotion-related language choice, but it also suggests that the main determiner of the language choice within bilinguals is not necessarily the different emotive power of both linguistic systems, but sociocultural norms.
{"title":"Emotion-Related Language Choice theory in the cross-fire: Evidence from Mexican-American bilinguals","authors":"Judyta Pawliszko","doi":"10.2478/topling-2022-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2022-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The present study aims to determine the overall language choices that shape emotion-related language preference among bilingual communities. The author also seeks to answer the question of whether those choices are affected by norms or emotional spontaneity. Since the study yields only a slight preference for the second language, it may not necessarily lead to concluding any linguistic system to be more dominant than the other. Yet, the research proves not only that greater emotional weight of the situation results in a greater impact on the emotion-related language choice, but it also suggests that the main determiner of the language choice within bilinguals is not necessarily the different emotive power of both linguistic systems, but sociocultural norms.","PeriodicalId":41377,"journal":{"name":"Topics in Linguistics","volume":"23 1","pages":"15 - 23"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48628918","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}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.2478/topling-2021-0008
N. Bazylevych, V. Nikonova
Abstract This study presents the results of a cognitive analysis of Winston Churchill’s historical works and memoirs at the textual, lingual and conceptual levels in order to interpret the implicatures of Churchill’s reflection discourse. The scope of the present research covers Winston Churchill’s historical works and memoirs as one of the most fruitful types of literary text with regard to the realization of reflection, which is organically interwoven into his texts. The study is done by means of complex analysis with the application of discourse, textual, semantic, cognitive, and conceptual analyses. In the process of the investigation, it was found that Churchill’s reflection discourse represents a special form of language use that discloses a cognitive personality type, which is characterized by the prevalence of logical, deductive and cause-and-effect reasoning. The conceptual space of Churchill’s reflection discourse is constructed as a network model which represents different types of relations among the reflection concepts (subordination, identity, spatial, associative, subjective-and-causative, opposition, causativeand-resultative, attributive, qualitative, attributive-and-possessive, attributive-and-appositive, partitive, functional, reversive-and-functional, paradoxical, and dependency). The verbalization of the reflection concepts actualizes the implicatures of Churchill’s reflection discourse and helps determine the dominant messages implied in Winston Churchill’s historical works and memoirs.
{"title":"Churchill’s reflection discourse","authors":"N. Bazylevych, V. Nikonova","doi":"10.2478/topling-2021-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2021-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study presents the results of a cognitive analysis of Winston Churchill’s historical works and memoirs at the textual, lingual and conceptual levels in order to interpret the implicatures of Churchill’s reflection discourse. The scope of the present research covers Winston Churchill’s historical works and memoirs as one of the most fruitful types of literary text with regard to the realization of reflection, which is organically interwoven into his texts. The study is done by means of complex analysis with the application of discourse, textual, semantic, cognitive, and conceptual analyses. In the process of the investigation, it was found that Churchill’s reflection discourse represents a special form of language use that discloses a cognitive personality type, which is characterized by the prevalence of logical, deductive and cause-and-effect reasoning. The conceptual space of Churchill’s reflection discourse is constructed as a network model which represents different types of relations among the reflection concepts (subordination, identity, spatial, associative, subjective-and-causative, opposition, causativeand-resultative, attributive, qualitative, attributive-and-possessive, attributive-and-appositive, partitive, functional, reversive-and-functional, paradoxical, and dependency). The verbalization of the reflection concepts actualizes the implicatures of Churchill’s reflection discourse and helps determine the dominant messages implied in Winston Churchill’s historical works and memoirs.","PeriodicalId":41377,"journal":{"name":"Topics in Linguistics","volume":"22 1","pages":"15 - 31"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49230590","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}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.2478/topling-2021-0007
Dor Miller
Abstract In the so-called Brexit referendum which took place on 23 June 2016, a slim majority of British citizens voted in favour of the United Kingdom leaving the EU. Following this decision, the United Kingdom officially withdrew from the European Union on 31 January 2020. On both occasions, British newspapers responded with a series of articles and front pages where they elaborated on various arguments for and against Brexit and declared sides in the Brexit campaign. The following study, which focuses on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, is based on Brexit-related front pages and articles from print and online editions of British newspapers published in both June 2016 and late January/early February 2020. The analysed periodicals represent diverging viewpoints: some argued against Brexit, whereas others backed the Leave campaign. The main points of interest are the intertextual techniques implied in the analysed media texts, ranging from direct quotation to (visual) allusion. They are viewed and discussed as means of (1) revealing the stance of the analysed newspapers; (2) extending the meaning of a given text; (3) attracting attention; and, last but not least, (4) “infotainment”, i.e. involving and entertaining the readership. The conducted analysis proves visual allusions based on British and European national symbols as well as structural allusions to films, songs and works of literature, proverbs and fixed phrases to be a widely applied journalistic strategy in the British media coverage of Brexit. Carefully targeted by producers of media and appropriately decoded by the readership not only do they fulfil a meaning-making and evaluative function but first and foremost provide entertainment, enhance the attractiveness and thus maintain and/or increase the circulation of the newspaper in question.
{"title":"Make leave, not war. Intertextual references in the British press coverage of Brexit","authors":"Dor Miller","doi":"10.2478/topling-2021-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2021-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the so-called Brexit referendum which took place on 23 June 2016, a slim majority of British citizens voted in favour of the United Kingdom leaving the EU. Following this decision, the United Kingdom officially withdrew from the European Union on 31 January 2020. On both occasions, British newspapers responded with a series of articles and front pages where they elaborated on various arguments for and against Brexit and declared sides in the Brexit campaign. The following study, which focuses on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, is based on Brexit-related front pages and articles from print and online editions of British newspapers published in both June 2016 and late January/early February 2020. The analysed periodicals represent diverging viewpoints: some argued against Brexit, whereas others backed the Leave campaign. The main points of interest are the intertextual techniques implied in the analysed media texts, ranging from direct quotation to (visual) allusion. They are viewed and discussed as means of (1) revealing the stance of the analysed newspapers; (2) extending the meaning of a given text; (3) attracting attention; and, last but not least, (4) “infotainment”, i.e. involving and entertaining the readership. The conducted analysis proves visual allusions based on British and European national symbols as well as structural allusions to films, songs and works of literature, proverbs and fixed phrases to be a widely applied journalistic strategy in the British media coverage of Brexit. Carefully targeted by producers of media and appropriately decoded by the readership not only do they fulfil a meaning-making and evaluative function but first and foremost provide entertainment, enhance the attractiveness and thus maintain and/or increase the circulation of the newspaper in question.","PeriodicalId":41377,"journal":{"name":"Topics in Linguistics","volume":"22 1","pages":"1 - 14"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44846199","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}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.2478/topling-2021-0011
A. Bączkowska
Abstract This paper aims to propose a typology of replies to insults based on data retrieved from Twitter, which is ripe with offensive comments. The proposed typology is embedded in the theory of impoliteness, and it hinges on the notion of the perlocutionary effect. It assumes that what counts as an insult depends primarily on whether or not an utterance is evaluated as offensive by the insultee. The evaluation can be signalled behaviourally or verbally and includes expressed replies as well as so-called silent replies. The insults, regardless of the presence or absence of an insulting intention of the insulter (potential insult), that are not rendered as offensive by the target are only attempted insults, while those that are experienced as offensive amount to genuine insults. The analysis has illustrated select types of reactions and has shown that potential, attempted and genuine insults may be further divided into: in/direct insults, explicit/implicit, non-/pure, and non-/vocatives, whilst reactions can be subsumed by three overarching strategies: agreeing, attacking and rejection.
{"title":"“You’re too thick to change the station” – Impoliteness, insults and responses to insults on Twitter","authors":"A. Bączkowska","doi":"10.2478/topling-2021-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2021-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper aims to propose a typology of replies to insults based on data retrieved from Twitter, which is ripe with offensive comments. The proposed typology is embedded in the theory of impoliteness, and it hinges on the notion of the perlocutionary effect. It assumes that what counts as an insult depends primarily on whether or not an utterance is evaluated as offensive by the insultee. The evaluation can be signalled behaviourally or verbally and includes expressed replies as well as so-called silent replies. The insults, regardless of the presence or absence of an insulting intention of the insulter (potential insult), that are not rendered as offensive by the target are only attempted insults, while those that are experienced as offensive amount to genuine insults. The analysis has illustrated select types of reactions and has shown that potential, attempted and genuine insults may be further divided into: in/direct insults, explicit/implicit, non-/pure, and non-/vocatives, whilst reactions can be subsumed by three overarching strategies: agreeing, attacking and rejection.","PeriodicalId":41377,"journal":{"name":"Topics in Linguistics","volume":"22 1","pages":"62 - 84"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45737524","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}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.2478/topling-2021-0010
J. Kruyt, S. Benus
Abstract Entrainment is the tendency of people to behave similarly during an interaction. It occurs on different levels of behaviour, including speech, and has been associated with pro-social behaviour and increased rapport. This review paper outlines the current understanding of linguistic entrainment, particularly at the speech level, in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a disorder that is associated with social difficulties and unusual prosody. Aberrant entrainment patterns in individuals with ASD could thus contribute to both their perceived unusual prosody and their social difficulties. Studying the relationship between speech entrainment and ASD holds great potential for applied benefits in utilizing this knowledge for pre-screening or diagnosis, monitoring progress longitudinally, and intervention practices. Our findings suggest that research on entrainment in ASD is sparse and exploratory, and the ecological validity of experimental paradigms varies. Moreover, there is little consistency in methodology and results vary between studies, which highlights the need for standardized methods in entrainment research. A promising way to standardize methods, facilitate their use, and extend them to everyday clinical practice, is by implementing automatic methods for speech analysis and adhering to open-science principles.
{"title":"Prosodic entrainment in individuals with autism spectrum disorder","authors":"J. Kruyt, S. Benus","doi":"10.2478/topling-2021-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2021-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Entrainment is the tendency of people to behave similarly during an interaction. It occurs on different levels of behaviour, including speech, and has been associated with pro-social behaviour and increased rapport. This review paper outlines the current understanding of linguistic entrainment, particularly at the speech level, in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a disorder that is associated with social difficulties and unusual prosody. Aberrant entrainment patterns in individuals with ASD could thus contribute to both their perceived unusual prosody and their social difficulties. Studying the relationship between speech entrainment and ASD holds great potential for applied benefits in utilizing this knowledge for pre-screening or diagnosis, monitoring progress longitudinally, and intervention practices. Our findings suggest that research on entrainment in ASD is sparse and exploratory, and the ecological validity of experimental paradigms varies. Moreover, there is little consistency in methodology and results vary between studies, which highlights the need for standardized methods in entrainment research. A promising way to standardize methods, facilitate their use, and extend them to everyday clinical practice, is by implementing automatic methods for speech analysis and adhering to open-science principles.","PeriodicalId":41377,"journal":{"name":"Topics in Linguistics","volume":"22 1","pages":"47 - 61"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48777827","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}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.2478/topling-2021-0009
Monika Maňáková
Abstract English has firmly established itself as a lingua franca in the international environment and in no environment is this more true than in the academic one. Self-mention, especially in academic settings, has been studied extensively; however, not so in written ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) academic discourse, as the prevailing focus of ELF studies has been on the spoken form. In this corpus-based study, I choose Walková’s (2019) three-dimensional model of self-mention and apply it in the self-mention analysis in the SSH category of the SciELF corpus, a corpus of unpublished research articles written by ELF users. The results are compared with the reference corpus CSSH compiled to be comparable to the SSH corpus in terms of discipline. Features related to self-reference are chosen to represent each dimension. The results are tested for statistical significance using the Log-likelihood test. Some data proved to be of greater statistical significance (the use of personal pronouns) while other data did not carry any (the use of boosters).
{"title":"Self-mention in the academic discourse of ELF writers","authors":"Monika Maňáková","doi":"10.2478/topling-2021-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2021-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract English has firmly established itself as a lingua franca in the international environment and in no environment is this more true than in the academic one. Self-mention, especially in academic settings, has been studied extensively; however, not so in written ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) academic discourse, as the prevailing focus of ELF studies has been on the spoken form. In this corpus-based study, I choose Walková’s (2019) three-dimensional model of self-mention and apply it in the self-mention analysis in the SSH category of the SciELF corpus, a corpus of unpublished research articles written by ELF users. The results are compared with the reference corpus CSSH compiled to be comparable to the SSH corpus in terms of discipline. Features related to self-reference are chosen to represent each dimension. The results are tested for statistical significance using the Log-likelihood test. Some data proved to be of greater statistical significance (the use of personal pronouns) while other data did not carry any (the use of boosters).","PeriodicalId":41377,"journal":{"name":"Topics in Linguistics","volume":"22 1","pages":"32 - 46"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43614442","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}
Pub Date : 2021-06-01DOI: 10.2478/topling-2021-0005
Katarína Nemčoková, Z. Kráľová, Aneta Holíková, Danielle Sampey
Abstract Perfume descriptions serve as an important persuasive tool in fragrance advertising. Scents traditionally elude clear verbal description, yet perfumes are nowadays frequently sold online, with no direct olfactory experience on the part of the consumer at the point of purchase. The products are thus often represented by metaphorical means depicting a desirable experience or portraying attractive identities of wearers, including stereotypical images of men and women. This article analyses 80 e-shop fragrance descriptions equally divided among adverts targeted at males and females. The sample texts were collected randomly from British and American e-shops, with the primary research objective to determine how male and female identities are reflected in these descriptions. The method of discourse analysis was applied and the AntConc 3.4.4 toolkit was used to calculate the frequency of words and their collocations. It was found that current female perfume descriptions on e-shops generally suppress gender stereotypes quite successfully, while gender stereotyping is more prominent in male perfume descriptions. The possible causes as well as ramifications of this disparity are also discussed.
{"title":"Gender identities in e-shop perfume descriptions","authors":"Katarína Nemčoková, Z. Kráľová, Aneta Holíková, Danielle Sampey","doi":"10.2478/topling-2021-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2021-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Perfume descriptions serve as an important persuasive tool in fragrance advertising. Scents traditionally elude clear verbal description, yet perfumes are nowadays frequently sold online, with no direct olfactory experience on the part of the consumer at the point of purchase. The products are thus often represented by metaphorical means depicting a desirable experience or portraying attractive identities of wearers, including stereotypical images of men and women. This article analyses 80 e-shop fragrance descriptions equally divided among adverts targeted at males and females. The sample texts were collected randomly from British and American e-shops, with the primary research objective to determine how male and female identities are reflected in these descriptions. The method of discourse analysis was applied and the AntConc 3.4.4 toolkit was used to calculate the frequency of words and their collocations. It was found that current female perfume descriptions on e-shops generally suppress gender stereotypes quite successfully, while gender stereotyping is more prominent in male perfume descriptions. The possible causes as well as ramifications of this disparity are also discussed.","PeriodicalId":41377,"journal":{"name":"Topics in Linguistics","volume":"22 1","pages":"63 - 77"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42523176","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}