Abstract This paper reports on new approaches to the analysis of poetic occasionalisms, i.e. of words created by an author for a specific place in a literary text, and exemplifies them with the occasionalisms found in three comedies by Johann Nepomuk Nestroy, the greatest Austrian comedy writer and creator of new words in the 19th century. Corpuslinguistic search in Nestroy’s complete works and in large German electronic corpora enables better decisions with regard to whether an unfamiliar word was really an occasionalism. Comparison with Nestroy’s French models (never done so far) shows that these occasionalisms are really Nestroy’s original creations. Two new analyses of their relative audacity offer novel insights, which are corroborated by a first comparison between Nestroy’s and a rival’s occasionalisms. Next, the results of a cotextual and contextual analysis of occasionalisms are offered. Finally, for the first time it is studied to which actors the presentation of most occasionalisms was assigned in order to achieve optimal theatrical effects.
{"title":"New corpus-linguistic approaches to the investigation of poetic occasionalisms: The case of Johann Nepomuk Nestroy","authors":"W. Dressler, Barbara Tumfart","doi":"10.1515/yplm-2017-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/yplm-2017-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper reports on new approaches to the analysis of poetic occasionalisms, i.e. of words created by an author for a specific place in a literary text, and exemplifies them with the occasionalisms found in three comedies by Johann Nepomuk Nestroy, the greatest Austrian comedy writer and creator of new words in the 19th century. Corpuslinguistic search in Nestroy’s complete works and in large German electronic corpora enables better decisions with regard to whether an unfamiliar word was really an occasionalism. Comparison with Nestroy’s French models (never done so far) shows that these occasionalisms are really Nestroy’s original creations. Two new analyses of their relative audacity offer novel insights, which are corroborated by a first comparison between Nestroy’s and a rival’s occasionalisms. Next, the results of a cotextual and contextual analysis of occasionalisms are offered. Finally, for the first time it is studied to which actors the presentation of most occasionalisms was assigned in order to achieve optimal theatrical effects.","PeriodicalId":431433,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127507087","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}
Sonja Schwaiger, Jutta Ransmayr, Katharina Korecky-Kröll, Sabine Sommer-Lolei, W. Dressler
Abstract The judicious use of electronic corpora allows new possibilities in the study of word formation. In contrast to the usual way of contrasting morphosemantic transparency (or compositionality) and morphosemantic opacity (or non-compositionality) in a dichotomous way, we present a ten-step scale from maximum transparency to total opacity, exemplified with the common German diminutive suffixation in -chen and Austro-Bavarian -erl. Our corpus-linguistic investigation allows new insights into problems of distribution of type and token frequency according to degrees of morphosemantic transparency/ opacity and of the two rivalling diminutive formations. An analysis of diminutive acquisition is added as external evidence for or against previous claims. Acquisition data come from three longitudinal corpora and from 24 children of a transversal quasi-longitudinal study. Here the order of acquisition of diminutives according to the ten-step scale of morphosemantic transparency/opacity and to adult type and token frequency will be presented and the relation between morphosemantic and morphopragmatic meaning will be discussed.
{"title":"Scaling morphosemantic transparency/opacity: A corpus-linguistic and acquisitionist study of German diminutives","authors":"Sonja Schwaiger, Jutta Ransmayr, Katharina Korecky-Kröll, Sabine Sommer-Lolei, W. Dressler","doi":"10.1515/yplm-2017-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/yplm-2017-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The judicious use of electronic corpora allows new possibilities in the study of word formation. In contrast to the usual way of contrasting morphosemantic transparency (or compositionality) and morphosemantic opacity (or non-compositionality) in a dichotomous way, we present a ten-step scale from maximum transparency to total opacity, exemplified with the common German diminutive suffixation in -chen and Austro-Bavarian -erl. Our corpus-linguistic investigation allows new insights into problems of distribution of type and token frequency according to degrees of morphosemantic transparency/ opacity and of the two rivalling diminutive formations. An analysis of diminutive acquisition is added as external evidence for or against previous claims. Acquisition data come from three longitudinal corpora and from 24 children of a transversal quasi-longitudinal study. Here the order of acquisition of diminutives according to the ten-step scale of morphosemantic transparency/opacity and to adult type and token frequency will be presented and the relation between morphosemantic and morphopragmatic meaning will be discussed.","PeriodicalId":431433,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127614390","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 research scrutinizes the observation that when the thematic subject is extracted (i.e. questioned) in Jordanian Arabic, temporal/locative inversion may occur. Temporal inversion occurs irrespective of the verb being transitive or intransitive, whereas locative inversion is limited to contexts with an unaccusative verb. This research argues that this distinction correlates with the base-generation of temporal/locative adjuncts; temporal adjuncts are base-generated adjoining to TP, whereas locatives are base-generated adjoining to VP. Temporal but not locative adjuncts resist fronting with VP, demand the use of a tense copula (or a tensed verb), and are not subject to deletion along with the lexical verb. With the assumption that Spec, SubjP must be filled with a non-silent copy due to the effects of the so-called Subject Criterion (Rizzi and Shlonsky 2007), a temporal or locative adjunct, if any, fills this position instead of the extracted thematic subject. Given its low position, a locative adjunct is accessible to Subj0 only when there is no v*P, hence the account of the correlation between locative inversion and the type of the verb. Furthermore, this research explores the existence of temporal/locative inversion in other two Arabic dialects (Najdi Arabic and Iraqi Arabic), arguing for a micro-parametric view of this strategy across Arabic dialects.
摘要本研究考察了约旦阿拉伯语中主位主语提取(即提问)时可能出现的时间/位置倒置现象。无论动词是及物动词还是不及物动词,时间倒装都会发生,而位置倒装仅限于带有非宾格动词的语境。本研究认为,这种差异与时间/位置修饰词的基础生成有关;时间修饰词是毗邻TP的碱基生成的,而位置修饰词是毗邻VP的碱基生成的。时间而不是位置的修饰语抵制用VP作为前面,要求使用时态连词(或时态动词),并且不能与词汇动词一起删除。假设由于所谓的主语标准(Rizzi and Shlonsky 2007)的影响,Spec, SubjP必须用非沉默的副本填充,如果有的话,一个时间或位置的辅助词会填充这个位置,而不是提取的主题主语。由于位置较低,主语只有在没有v*P的情况下才能使用位置助词,这就是位置倒装与动词类型之间的关系。此外,本研究还探讨了其他两种阿拉伯语方言(纳吉迪阿拉伯语和伊拉克阿拉伯语)中时间/位置倒转的存在,并论证了阿拉伯方言中这种策略的微观参数观点。
{"title":"Temporal/locative inversion in Arabic","authors":"Marwan Jarrah","doi":"10.1515/yplm-2017-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/yplm-2017-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This research scrutinizes the observation that when the thematic subject is extracted (i.e. questioned) in Jordanian Arabic, temporal/locative inversion may occur. Temporal inversion occurs irrespective of the verb being transitive or intransitive, whereas locative inversion is limited to contexts with an unaccusative verb. This research argues that this distinction correlates with the base-generation of temporal/locative adjuncts; temporal adjuncts are base-generated adjoining to TP, whereas locatives are base-generated adjoining to VP. Temporal but not locative adjuncts resist fronting with VP, demand the use of a tense copula (or a tensed verb), and are not subject to deletion along with the lexical verb. With the assumption that Spec, SubjP must be filled with a non-silent copy due to the effects of the so-called Subject Criterion (Rizzi and Shlonsky 2007), a temporal or locative adjunct, if any, fills this position instead of the extracted thematic subject. Given its low position, a locative adjunct is accessible to Subj0 only when there is no v*P, hence the account of the correlation between locative inversion and the type of the verb. Furthermore, this research explores the existence of temporal/locative inversion in other two Arabic dialects (Najdi Arabic and Iraqi Arabic), arguing for a micro-parametric view of this strategy across Arabic dialects.","PeriodicalId":431433,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting","volume":"60 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124671438","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 notion of HEAD is reflected in the basic lexicon of all known languages; the identification of the head as a distinct and vitally important body part, labelled with a simplex word, seems to be a cross-cultural universal. Thanks to their high frequency of use and their “basic concept” status, words meaning ‘head’ tend to be diachronically stable and therefore important for comparative reconstruction. Their expected retention rate - as estimated on the basis of data from several uncontroversial language families - is on a par with words meaning ‘heart’ or ‘foot’. On the other hand, culture-specific factors may lead to the proliferation of secondary meanings, the rise of stylistically marked nearsynonyms, and consequently to locally accelerated lexical evolution. This seems to have happened repeatedly in the Indo-European family, in which not only the oldest reconstructible ‘head’ word, *ḱreh₂- but also secondary, branch-specific terms have often been subject to lexical replacement. This unusual variability of words for HEAD in Indo- European contrasts with the remarkable conservatism of words for several other bodypart concepts, such as EYE, EAR, TOOTH and HEART. In this paper, we shall attempt to identify recurrent patterns of semantic change in the emergence of new synonyms and the polysemic development of inherited ‘head’ words. Insights derived from recent studies of “embodiment” will be used to explain the observed tendencies.
{"title":"The embarrassment of riches: ‘Head’ words in the Indo-European family","authors":"P. G̨asiorowski","doi":"10.1515/yplm-2017-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/yplm-2017-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The notion of HEAD is reflected in the basic lexicon of all known languages; the identification of the head as a distinct and vitally important body part, labelled with a simplex word, seems to be a cross-cultural universal. Thanks to their high frequency of use and their “basic concept” status, words meaning ‘head’ tend to be diachronically stable and therefore important for comparative reconstruction. Their expected retention rate - as estimated on the basis of data from several uncontroversial language families - is on a par with words meaning ‘heart’ or ‘foot’. On the other hand, culture-specific factors may lead to the proliferation of secondary meanings, the rise of stylistically marked nearsynonyms, and consequently to locally accelerated lexical evolution. This seems to have happened repeatedly in the Indo-European family, in which not only the oldest reconstructible ‘head’ word, *ḱreh₂- but also secondary, branch-specific terms have often been subject to lexical replacement. This unusual variability of words for HEAD in Indo- European contrasts with the remarkable conservatism of words for several other bodypart concepts, such as EYE, EAR, TOOTH and HEART. In this paper, we shall attempt to identify recurrent patterns of semantic change in the emergence of new synonyms and the polysemic development of inherited ‘head’ words. Insights derived from recent studies of “embodiment” will be used to explain the observed tendencies.","PeriodicalId":431433,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130740607","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 “Downtoning” can be understood as the nuancing of an utterance in view of the interlocutor’s reaction. Typical downtoners in German include the so-called modal particles, although downtoning can also be expressed in other ways, including at the non-verbal level by means of gestures. Given their meanings, downtoning elements are typically restricted to particular illocution types. The goal of this paper is to investigate how this link between downtoning and illocution type is reflected in the use of these downtoners. This is done for both verbal and gestural downtoners in German and for downtoning patterns in German Sign Language (DGS). The question is addressed from two points of view, looking first at the topology of the downtoners in German and DGS, then at the kind of gestural markers co-occurring with verbal downtoners in German.
{"title":"On the relation between (verbal and kinesic) downtoning and illocution type","authors":"Steven Schoonjans","doi":"10.1515/yplm-2017-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/yplm-2017-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract “Downtoning” can be understood as the nuancing of an utterance in view of the interlocutor’s reaction. Typical downtoners in German include the so-called modal particles, although downtoning can also be expressed in other ways, including at the non-verbal level by means of gestures. Given their meanings, downtoning elements are typically restricted to particular illocution types. The goal of this paper is to investigate how this link between downtoning and illocution type is reflected in the use of these downtoners. This is done for both verbal and gestural downtoners in German and for downtoning patterns in German Sign Language (DGS). The question is addressed from two points of view, looking first at the topology of the downtoners in German and DGS, then at the kind of gestural markers co-occurring with verbal downtoners in German.","PeriodicalId":431433,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124189483","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 present paper addresses doubtful cases concerning the use of umlaut in the adjectival comparison of contemporary German: bang ‘anxious’ - banger/bänger - am bangsten/ bängsten. It aims to shed light on the concrete distribution of this variation, i.e. the preference for one of the variants. Corpus-based analyses will show that the adjectives under discussion are not equally affected by umlaut variation: some are (surprisingly) stable (e.g., gesund ‘healthy’), whereas many others have a clear preference (i.e. > 70%) for non-umlauting forms (e.g., blass ‘pale’, nass ‘wet’). Interestingly, a few of the supposedly stable cases appear to have at least some non-umlauting forms (e.g., krank ‘ill’, nah ‘near’, grob ‘rough’). Even more interesting (but still comparatively rare) is the use of umlaut in conceptual orality contexts with adjectives that exhibit no umlaut comparison in Standard German, e.g., klar ‘clear’, falsch ‘wrong’, doof ‘stupid’. As will be demonstrated, these doubtful cases reflect a centuries-old and still ongoing reorganization process within umlaut comparison. It will turn out that a complex network of interacting factors such as token frequency, phonological schemas, and morphological complexity is at work.
摘要:本文讨论了在当代德语形容词比较中使用变音符的可疑情况:bang ' anxious ' - banger/bänger - am bangsten/ bängsten。它旨在阐明这种变异的具体分布,即对其中一种变体的偏好。基于语料库的分析将表明,所讨论的形容词受到变音符变化的影响并不相同:有些(令人惊讶地)稳定(例如,gesund ' healthy '),而许多其他形容词则明显偏爱非变音符形式(例如,glass ' pale ', nass ' wet ')。有趣的是,一些被认为是稳定的案例似乎至少有一些非变音形式(例如,krank表示“ill”,nah表示“near”,grob表示“rough”)。更有趣的是(但仍然相对罕见),在标准德语中,在概念口语语境中,对形容词使用变音符,而这些形容词在标准德语中没有变音符比较,例如,klar表示“清楚”,falsch表示“错误”,doof表示“愚蠢”。正如将证明的那样,这些可疑的案例反映了在变音比较中一个有数世纪历史且仍在进行的重组过程。事实证明,一个复杂的相互作用因素网络,如符号频率、语音模式和形态复杂性在起作用。
{"title":"Klar – klärer – am klärsten? Umlaut comparison as a doubtful case in contemporary German","authors":"J. Nowak","doi":"10.1515/yplm-2017-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/yplm-2017-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The present paper addresses doubtful cases concerning the use of umlaut in the adjectival comparison of contemporary German: bang ‘anxious’ - banger/bänger - am bangsten/ bängsten. It aims to shed light on the concrete distribution of this variation, i.e. the preference for one of the variants. Corpus-based analyses will show that the adjectives under discussion are not equally affected by umlaut variation: some are (surprisingly) stable (e.g., gesund ‘healthy’), whereas many others have a clear preference (i.e. > 70%) for non-umlauting forms (e.g., blass ‘pale’, nass ‘wet’). Interestingly, a few of the supposedly stable cases appear to have at least some non-umlauting forms (e.g., krank ‘ill’, nah ‘near’, grob ‘rough’). Even more interesting (but still comparatively rare) is the use of umlaut in conceptual orality contexts with adjectives that exhibit no umlaut comparison in Standard German, e.g., klar ‘clear’, falsch ‘wrong’, doof ‘stupid’. As will be demonstrated, these doubtful cases reflect a centuries-old and still ongoing reorganization process within umlaut comparison. It will turn out that a complex network of interacting factors such as token frequency, phonological schemas, and morphological complexity is at work.","PeriodicalId":431433,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132140154","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 use of computational methods in comparative linguistics is growing in popularity. The increasing deployment of such methods draws into focus those areas in which they remain inadequate as well as those areas where classical approaches to language comparison are untransparent and inconsistent. In this paper we illustrate specific challenges which both computational and classical approaches encounter when studying South-East Asian languages. With the help of data from the Burmish language family we point to the challenges resulting from missing annotation standards and insufficient methods for analysis and we illustrate how to tackle these problems within a computer-assisted framework in which computational approaches are used to pre-analyse the data while linguists attend to the detailed analyses.
{"title":"Challenges of annotation and analysis in computer-assisted language comparison: A case study on Burmish languages","authors":"N. Hill, Johann-Mattis List","doi":"10.1515/yplm-2017-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/yplm-2017-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The use of computational methods in comparative linguistics is growing in popularity. The increasing deployment of such methods draws into focus those areas in which they remain inadequate as well as those areas where classical approaches to language comparison are untransparent and inconsistent. In this paper we illustrate specific challenges which both computational and classical approaches encounter when studying South-East Asian languages. With the help of data from the Burmish language family we point to the challenges resulting from missing annotation standards and insufficient methods for analysis and we illustrate how to tackle these problems within a computer-assisted framework in which computational approaches are used to pre-analyse the data while linguists attend to the detailed analyses.","PeriodicalId":431433,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130751550","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 objective of this contribution is to provide an analysis of consonant clusters based on the assumption that phonotactic preferences are encoded in phonological features of individual segments forming a cluster. This encoding is expressed by a set of parameters established for the following features: complexity, place of articulation, manner of articulation and voicing. On the basis of empirically observed tendencies of feature distribution and co-occurrence, novel phonotactic preferences for English word-initial consonant clusters are proposed. Statistical methods allow us to weigh the preferences and determine a ranking of phonological features in cluster formation.
{"title":"In search of phonotactic preferences","authors":"Paula Orzechowska","doi":"10.1515/yplm-2016-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/yplm-2016-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The objective of this contribution is to provide an analysis of consonant clusters based on the assumption that phonotactic preferences are encoded in phonological features of individual segments forming a cluster. This encoding is expressed by a set of parameters established for the following features: complexity, place of articulation, manner of articulation and voicing. On the basis of empirically observed tendencies of feature distribution and co-occurrence, novel phonotactic preferences for English word-initial consonant clusters are proposed. Statistical methods allow us to weigh the preferences and determine a ranking of phonological features in cluster formation.","PeriodicalId":431433,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128079785","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 In the tradition of teaching English as a second language, there has been an increased interest in how functional language descriptions and understandings of genres may be used as resources for making meaning. The present study investigates what impact writing instruction that draws upon systemic functional linguistics (SFL) applied through a genre-pedagogy approach has on students’ ability to write argumentative essays. This includes explicit grammar instruction inspired by SFL, as well as instruction on text structure. The study uses a mixed-methods approach, with a quasi-experiment followed up by quantitative and qualitative analyses of the collected material. Statistical analyses indicate a significant positive effect on writing performance in the intervention groups, regardless of gender, first language and previous level of writing. As the study lacks control groups, the quantitative analysis was complemented with examples from student texts to illustrate the improvement revealed in the statistical analysis. The findings suggest that SFL applied through a genre-pedagogy approach to teaching writing may help students to improve their writing skills.
{"title":"An experimental study on the effect of systemic functional linguistics applied through a genre-pedagogy approach to teaching writing","authors":"M. Horverak","doi":"10.1515/yplm-2016-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/yplm-2016-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the tradition of teaching English as a second language, there has been an increased interest in how functional language descriptions and understandings of genres may be used as resources for making meaning. The present study investigates what impact writing instruction that draws upon systemic functional linguistics (SFL) applied through a genre-pedagogy approach has on students’ ability to write argumentative essays. This includes explicit grammar instruction inspired by SFL, as well as instruction on text structure. The study uses a mixed-methods approach, with a quasi-experiment followed up by quantitative and qualitative analyses of the collected material. Statistical analyses indicate a significant positive effect on writing performance in the intervention groups, regardless of gender, first language and previous level of writing. As the study lacks control groups, the quantitative analysis was complemented with examples from student texts to illustrate the improvement revealed in the statistical analysis. The findings suggest that SFL applied through a genre-pedagogy approach to teaching writing may help students to improve their writing skills.","PeriodicalId":431433,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting","volume":"41 4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116336468","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 revisits intervention effects in Mandarin Chinese why-questions. I present new data showing that the ability for quantifiers to induce intervention hinges upon their monotonicity and their ability to be interpreted as topics. I then develop a semantic account that correlates topicality with monotone properties. Furthermore, I propose that why-questions in Chinese are idiosyncratic in that why directly merges at a high scope position that stays above a propositional argument. Combining the semantic idiosyncrasies of why-questions with the wide scope behaviors of topicality, I conclude that my account explains a wide range of intervention phenomena in terms of interpretation failure.
{"title":"Why-questions, topicality and intervention effects in Chinese","authors":"Dawei Jin","doi":"10.1515/yplm-2016-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/yplm-2016-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper revisits intervention effects in Mandarin Chinese why-questions. I present new data showing that the ability for quantifiers to induce intervention hinges upon their monotonicity and their ability to be interpreted as topics. I then develop a semantic account that correlates topicality with monotone properties. Furthermore, I propose that why-questions in Chinese are idiosyncratic in that why directly merges at a high scope position that stays above a propositional argument. Combining the semantic idiosyncrasies of why-questions with the wide scope behaviors of topicality, I conclude that my account explains a wide range of intervention phenomena in terms of interpretation failure.","PeriodicalId":431433,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115045832","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}