IF 1.1 3区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Lingua

Pub Date : 2025-05-13 DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2025.103948

Robert Fuchs , Xinyue Yao , Peter Collins , Adam Smith

Previous research has identified and studied a wide range of non-standard syntactic constructions in global varieties of English. However, there is currently a lack of large-scale corpus-based evidence on non-standard syntactic variation in English from a global perspective. The present study seeks to fill this gap through an analysis of a set of syntactic constructions across the fourteen L2 and six L1 varieties of English included in the Corpus of Global Web-based English, totalling 1.9 billion words. We conceptualise non-standard features as lying outside the “core” of the language that represents the object of description in English grammars, including those that might be regarded as “colloquial” or “vernacular”, such as there-existentials with singular agreement. The methodological approach is onomasiological, modelled on the alternation between non-standard features and corresponding standard forms. Across 28 morphosyntactic features drawn from eWAVE 3.0, a total of 289,827 non-standard and more than 37 million standard occurrences were analysed in a logistic mixed effects regression model. Register variation was accounted for by means of a co-variate for involved discourse following Biber’s Multidimensional Analysis. Results indicate a relatively low degree of non-standardness across both L1 and L2 varieties. The register dimension of involved discourse is the most important variable governing non-standard variation, followed by differences between world regions. These results were further confirmed by a hierarchical clustering model and a multidimensional scaling analysis.

以往的研究发现并研究了全球英语变体中广泛存在的非标准句法结构。然而，目前还缺乏从全球视角对英语非标准句法变异进行大规模语料库研究的证据。本研究试图通过分析全球网络英语语料库中包含的14种第二语言和6种第一语言的句法结构来填补这一空白，这些语料库共包含19亿个单词。我们将非标准特征概念化为位于英语语法中代表描述对象的语言的“核心”之外，包括那些可能被视为“口语化”或“白话”的特征，例如具有单数一致的存在性。方法方法是象形学的，以非标准特征和相应的标准形式之间的交替为模型。在eWAVE 3.0中提取的28个形态句法特征中，采用logistic混合效应回归模型分析了289,827个非标准出现和3700多万个标准出现。根据Biber的多维分析，通过涉及话语的协变量来解释语域变异。结果表明，L1和L2品种的非标准化程度相对较低。涉入语篇的语域维度是影响非标准变异的最重要变量，其次是世界地区差异。层次聚类模型和多维尺度分析进一步证实了这一结果。

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引用次数: 0

Polyadic fronting does not exist in German (but crowded CPs do): Cyclic internal Merge and multiple external Merge in the left edge of the clause 在德语中不存在多进对齐（但拥挤的cp有）：循环内部合并和多个外部合并在子句的左边缘

IF 1.1 3区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Lingua

Pub Date : 2025-05-12 DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2025.103950

Nicholas Catasso

Present-day German adheres to the Verb-Second (V2) rule, generating the finite verb in V before relinearizing it to C, with only one constituent targeting Spec,CP in main clauses. However, recent studies have identified several mismatches between structural and linear syntax in the CP domain. While various proposals have addressed these individual patterns, configurations with multiple intrasentential phenomena that violate the V2 constraint have been largely neglected. This paper proposes a model within the cartographic framework to derive complex CP linearizations in German. This approach excludes polyadic – i.e., dyadic or multiple – fronting, integrates cyclic movement (internal Merge) and multiple base-generation (external Merge), and effectively applies the bottleneck effect to account for the observed derivations. The findings reveal that all possible linearizations are complex variants of the basic V2 pattern, offering a nuanced understanding of the CP domain’s structural complexities.

现代德语遵循动词-秒（V2）规则，在V中生成有限动词，然后将其重新线性化为C，只有一个成分针对Spec，主句中的CP。然而，最近的研究发现，在CP领域中，结构语法和线性语法之间存在一些不匹配。虽然各种各样的建议已经解决了这些单独的模式，但具有违反V2约束的多个本质现象的配置在很大程度上被忽视了。本文提出了一个在地图框架内的模型来推导复杂的德语CP线性化。该方法排除了多进-即双进或多重前向，集成了循环运动（内部合并）和多基生成（外部合并），并有效地应用瓶颈效应来解释观察到的衍生。研究结果表明，所有可能的线性化都是基本V2模式的复杂变体，提供了对CP域结构复杂性的细致理解。

引用次数: 0

Chinese coverbal phrases and coverbs: a systemic functional account 汉语口头禅与口头禅：系统的功能描述

IF 1.1 3区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Lingua

Pub Date : 2025-04-30 DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2025.103939

Pin Wang

For the most part Modern Chinese grammars treat coverbs as prepositions but acknowledge their grammaticalisation from verbs. This paper firstly provides a description of Chinese coverbal phrases and coverbs from a systemic functional perspective, taking as point of departure the system and structure of Chinese verbal groups. Secondly, it explores the functions that coverbal phrases realise at both clause and group ranks, and the conjunctive usage of coverbs in marking hypotactic clauses. Thirdly, this paper provides a classification of coverbs in Modern Chinese based on their relationship with the corresponding verbs. This systemic functional description supplements and complements existing Chinese grammars in multiple ways.

现代汉语语法在很大程度上将复盖词视为介词，但承认动词的语法化。本文首先从系统功能的角度，以汉语语群的系统和结构为出发点，对汉语成语和复盖语进行了描述。其次，探讨复盖语在子句和组句中的作用，以及复盖语在形合从句中的连词用法。第三，本文根据复盖词与动词的关系对现代汉语复盖词进行了分类。这种系统的功能描述从多个方面补充和补充了现有的汉语语法。

引用次数: 0

Emotion and moral stance in evaluations of impoliteness in L1 and L2 from video clips of workplace interactions 职场互动视频片段对第一、二语言不礼貌行为的情感和道德立场评价

IF 1.1 3区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Lingua

Pub Date : 2025-04-26 DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2025.103949

Nicola McNab , Irini Mavrou

This study investigates how emotions and moral stance influence evaluations of impoliteness between first language (L1) and second language (L2) English users, from an interdisciplinary perspective combining pragmatics, bilingualism, emotion research, and moral psychology. The study widens previous impoliteness research by focusing on both L1 and L2 users and analyses moral stance and emotions following a mixed methods approach. The study was preregistered prior to data collection and analysis. Fifty-five L1 English participants and 45 Spanish-speaking participants with L2 English watched video clips of workplace interactions and assessed the level of impoliteness in these videos. Moreover, the participants indicated the emotions they experienced after watching the video clips and completed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. The results revealed that L2 users perceived higher levels of impoliteness. By contrast, emotional reactions to impoliteness did not significantly differ between L1 and L2 English users. Qualitative analysis of the participants’ emotions showed that these alluded to notions of moral order, with moral emotions being prevalent. The moral foundation of harm/care appeared to be the most prominent within impoliteness evaluations. In light of the above findings, this study suggests L2 (pragmatics) teaching should raise L2 learners’ awareness of the pesonal and psychological factors involved in impoliteness events, provide input on inferences from gesture, and draw on workplace interactions as a useful context for discussions on infelicitous interactions.

本研究从跨学科的角度，结合语用学、双语学、情感研究和道德心理学，探讨了情感和道德立场如何影响母语和第二语言英语使用者对不礼貌行为的评价。该研究扩大了之前对不礼貌行为的研究，同时关注母语和第二语言使用者，并采用混合方法分析道德立场和情绪。该研究在数据收集和分析之前进行了预登记。55名母语为英语的参与者和45名母语为西班牙语、英语为第二语言的参与者观看了工作场所互动的视频片段，并评估了这些视频中不礼貌的程度。此外，参与者还指出了他们在观看视频片段并完成道德基础问卷后所经历的情绪。结果显示，第二语言使用者感知到的不礼貌程度更高。相比之下，母语和二语使用者对不礼貌的情绪反应没有显著差异。对参与者情绪的定性分析表明，这些情绪暗示了道德秩序的概念，道德情绪普遍存在。伤害/关怀的道德基础似乎在不礼貌评价中最为突出。基于上述发现，本研究建议二语（语用学）教学应提高二语学习者对不礼貌事件中涉及的个人和心理因素的认识，为手势推理提供输入，并将工作场所互动作为讨论不礼貌互动的有用背景。

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引用次数: 0

‘What the X’ in Anglophone government meetings: Areal distribution, emotionality, and euphemism 英语国家政府会议中的“What the X”：地域分布、情绪和委婉语

IF 1.1 3区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Lingua

Pub Date : 2025-04-24 DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2025.103947

Steven Coats

This article examines the use of potentially offensive expressions, specifically “what the hell” and its euphemistic variants, in local government meetings across English-speaking countries. Two primary research questions are addressed: first, are there noticeable differences in the frequency of these expressions between countries and within regions? And second, how do euphemistic alternatives compare to “what the hell” in terms of emotional intensity and valence, both across and within national varieties? The study draws on data from three large, recent corpora of geolocated automatic speech recognition (ASR) transcripts and the corresponding underlying audio to explore the geographic distribution and emotional nuances of these expressions in various English-speaking countries, including the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. To assess the emotionality of expressions, specifically anger, the speech emotion recognition model emotion2vec is employed. The findings provide insight into how the acceptability and emotional weight of “what the hell” and variants differ across regions. Additionally, the study demonstrates the potential of vector-based representations of speech in multimodal corpus analysis, while empirically validating theoretical claims in semantics related to pejoration and euphemism.

本文研究了在英语国家的地方政府会议上使用的潜在冒犯性表达，特别是“what the hell”及其委婉变体。两个主要的研究问题：首先，这些表达在国家之间和区域内的频率是否存在显著差异？其次，在情感强度和效价方面，无论是跨国家还是国内，委婉语的替代品与“什么鬼”相比如何？该研究利用了三个最新的大型地理位置自动语音识别（ASR）文本和相应的底层音频语料库的数据，以探索这些表达在不同英语国家（包括美国、加拿大、英国、爱尔兰、澳大利亚和新西兰）的地理分布和情感细微差别。为了评估表情的情绪性，特别是愤怒，我们使用了语音情绪识别模型emotion2vec。研究结果揭示了不同地区对“管他的”及其变体的接受程度和情感分量的差异。此外，该研究还展示了基于向量的语音表示在多模态语料库分析中的潜力，同时从经验上验证了与贬损和委婉语相关的语义理论主张。

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引用次数: 0

Vulgarity in online discourse around the English-speaking world 英语世界网络话语中的粗俗

IF 1.1 3区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Lingua

Pub Date : 2025-04-23 DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2025.103946

Martin Schweinberger , Kate Burridge

This paper takes a corpus-based approach to study vulgar language in online communication across 20 English-speaking regions based on the Global Web-Based English Corpus (GloWbE). The identification of vulgarity combines word lists used in profanity detection with regular expressions to identify a wide range of vulgar elements including spelling variants and obscured forms. The results show a notable trend for inner circle L1-varieties to exhibit higher rates of vulgarity online compared to outer circle and L2-varieties. The results also show that inner circle varieties have lower adapted corrected type-token rations which indicates that inner circle variety speakers use more varied English vulgar forms compared with speakers from other circle varieties. In addition, there is a general register difference with vulgarity being more common in blog data compared with general web content. Finally, the results show that different regions exhibit preferences for specific vulgar lemmas feck being preferred in Ireland, cunt, in Britain, and ass(hole) in the United States. The findings are interpreted to show that cultural differences are reflected in region-specific preferences for vulgarity and that the creativity observed in inner circle varieties is linked to norm-setting compared to norm-reception associated with outer circle varieties.

本文采用基于语料库的方法，基于全球网络英语语料库（GloWbE）对20个英语地区的网络交流中的粗俗语言进行了研究。粗俗识别将粗俗检测中使用的单词列表与正则表达式相结合，以识别包括拼写变体和模糊形式在内的各种粗俗元素。结果表明，与外圈和l2品种相比，内圈l1品种的网络低俗率呈显著趋势；结果还表明，内圈品种的适应校正类型符号比例较低，这表明内圈品种的使用者使用的英语粗俗形式比其他品种的使用者更多样化。此外，与一般的网络内容相比，博客数据中的粗俗更为普遍，这是一个普遍的语域差异。最后，结果表明，不同地区对特定的粗俗词源表现出偏好，爱尔兰喜欢fek，英国喜欢cunt，美国喜欢ass（hole）。研究结果表明，文化差异反映在对粗俗的特定地区偏好上，与外圈品种相关的规范接受相比，内圈品种所观察到的创造力与规范设定有关。

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引用次数: 0

Nominalised Activities in Chinese History Texts: A Systemic Functional Linguistic Perspective 中国历史文本中的名词化活动：系统功能语言学视角

IF 1.1 3区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Lingua

Pub Date : 2025-04-22 DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2025.103935

Jing Hao

This paper examines the nominal realisations of activities in Mandarin Chinese history texts from a Systemic Functional Linguistic perspective, focusing specifically on texts that recount historical activities. Drawing on a distinction between experiential metaphors (i.e. metaphorical realisations of figures) and activity entities, the study investigates how these two resources function within text-wide language patterns. The analysis is conducted from a metafunctional perspective, exploring how the two resources interact with textual, interpersonal, and ideational meanings in the text. The findings reveal that both resources exhibit important characteristics across metafunctions. Textually, they present and presume meanings similarly in higher-level Themes, but differently in troughs and higher-level News. Interpersonally, they interact differently with evaluative resources. Ideationally, they function similarly in their relation to figures and sequences of figures within the unfolding text. These findings contrast with their distinctive metafunctional orientations (textual vs. ideational) previously recognised from a grammatical perspective.

本文从系统功能语言学的角度考察了汉语普通话历史文本中活动的名义实现，特别关注叙述历史活动的文本。利用经验隐喻（即数字的隐喻实现）和活动实体之间的区别，本研究探讨了这两种资源如何在文本范围内的语言模式中发挥作用。本文从元功能的角度进行分析，探讨这两种资源是如何与语篇意义、人际意义和观念意义相互作用的。研究结果表明，这两种资源都表现出跨元功能的重要特征。在文本上，它们在更高层次的主题中呈现和假设的意义相似，但在槽和更高层次的新闻中则不同。在人际关系上，他们与评估资源的互动方式不同。理论上，它们在展开的文本中与人物和人物序列的关系中发挥着相似的作用。这些发现与之前从语法角度认识到的它们独特的元功能取向（语篇与概念）形成对比。

引用次数: 0

Language contact and translation: dependency relations as a lens for source language influence in fiction 语言接触与翻译：从依存关系看小说中源语的影响

IF 1.1 3区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Lingua

Pub Date : 2025-04-16 DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2025.103937

Isabelle Chou , Kanglong Liu , Han Xu

Recognising translation as a site of language contact, this study utilises measures of dependency relations, namely dependency distance and dependency direction, to examine the influence of the source language in translation and how this influence is shaped by directionality and language pair. The data was obtained from a large-scale bidirectional multilingual corpus of original fiction and its translation across ten language pairs, with English serving as either the source or the target language in each pair. The findings reveal a balanced presence of source language influence in both translation directions, as shown by the patterns in variation of the mean dependency distance. However, this influence was not observed across all language pairs, which suggests that its manifestation was affected more by language pair than by directionality. At the same time, this study identifies a tendency for the characteristics of the translated fiction’s dependency direction to align with the word order convention of the target language, indicating that the influence of the source language is limited. Additionally, this study found that simplification, a widely recognised “translation universal”, may not be a unique property of translational language. Rather, it results from language contact, where the linguistic properties of the source language permeate the target language, causing the latter to reflect structural features of the original text.

本研究认识到翻译是语言接触的场所，利用依赖关系的度量，即依赖距离和依赖方向，来考察源语言在翻译中的影响，以及这种影响是如何由方向性和语言对形成的。数据来自一个大规模的双向多语言原始小说及其翻译的语料库，跨越10个语言对，英语作为源语言或目标语言。研究结果表明，从平均依赖距离的变化模式可以看出，源语影响在两个翻译方向上都是平衡存在的。然而，这种影响并不是在所有语言对中都观察到的，这表明其表现受语言对的影响大于方向性。同时，本研究发现，翻译小说的依赖方向特征有与译语语序习惯相一致的趋势，表明源语的影响是有限的。此外，本研究还发现，简化这一被广泛认可的“翻译共性”可能并不是翻译语言的独特属性。相反，它是语言接触的结果，源语的语言特性渗透到目的语中，使后者反映出原文的结构特征。

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引用次数: 0

Mandarin-speaking children’s acquisition of the additive particle ye ‘also’ 讲普通话的儿童对加点词 "也 "的习得

IF 1.1 3区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Lingua

Pub Date : 2025-04-11 DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2025.103936

Haiquan Huang , Yixiong Chen , Xuewu Qin , Xin Wang , Jie Xu

Previous studies have reported conflicting findings on children’s interpretation of additive particles. One of the previous studies has reported that Mandarin-speaking children up to 7 have difficulty deriving the presupposition triggered by the additive particle ye ‘also’. By contrast, another body of research has found that 3-to-4-year-olds can correctly interpret additive particles across languages. Such conflicting findings might have resulted from the different research techniques. Moreover, no study has been conducted to probe whether children are able to identify subject- versus object-associated focus in sentences with an additive particle. Against this backdrop, the current study attempts to systematically re-evaluate how Mandarin-speaking children interpret sentences with ye ‘also’, using an adapted research method. Two experiments were conducted with 3-to-4-year-olds and a group of adult controls. Experiment 1 probed whether children were able to identify object-associated focus in sentences with ye. Experiment 2 evaluated whether another group of children were able to identify subject-associated focus in sentences with ye. It was found that 3-year-olds already performed quite well and 4-year-olds nearly had adult-like performance in both experiments. The findings indicate that Mandarin-speaking preschoolers are able to identify subject- versus object-associated focus in sentences with ye, and such a linguistic ability develops in an incremental fashion. We discuss the methodological and theoretical implications of the findings.

以往的研究报告对儿童解释加点词的结果相互矛盾。其中一项研究报告指出，7 岁以下讲普通话的儿童很难推导出加点词 ye "也 "所引发的预设。与此相反，另一项研究发现，3 到 4 岁的儿童可以正确解释不同语言的加法语气词。这种相互矛盾的研究结果可能是由不同的研究技术造成的。此外，还没有研究探究过儿童是否能够识别句子中带有加点的主语和宾语相关的重点。在此背景下，本研究试图采用一种经过调整的研究方法，系统地重新评估讲普通话的儿童如何解释带有ye "也 "的句子。本研究以 3-4 岁儿童和一组成人对照组为对象，进行了两项实验。实验 1 探讨了儿童是否能够识别带有 ye 的句子中与对象相关的重点。实验 2 则评估了另一组儿童是否能够识别带 ye 的句子中与主语相关的重点。结果发现，在这两项实验中，3 岁儿童的表现已经相当不错，而 4 岁儿童的表现几乎与成人相当。研究结果表明，说普通话的学龄前儿童能够识别带ye的句子中与主语或宾语相关的重点，而且这种语言能力是以渐进的方式发展起来的。我们讨论了研究结果的方法论和理论意义。

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引用次数: 0

Linguistic indicators differentiating translated and untranslated diplomatic discourse: A diachronic analysis of the United Nations General Debate (1946–2022) 区分翻译和非翻译外交话语的语言指标：联合国一般性辩论的历时分析（1946-2022）

IF 1.1 3区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Lingua

Pub Date : 2025-04-01 DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2025.103933

Lin Shen , Haidee Kotze

This study examines the linguistic features that distinguish translated from untranslated English diplomatic discourse at the United Nations General Debate (UNGD) and investigates whether these features change from 1946 to 2022 and vary in relation to English language varieties. The translation features identified by elastic net regression analysis suggest that translated texts exhibit higher levels of formality, abstractness, and informational density than untranslated texts, aligning with existing studies on translated language. Over time, the translated texts tend to lag behind untranslated speeches in terms of language change, supporting the notion that UN translation is a conservative language variety: UN translators tend to be slow in adopting innovative usages, preferring established variants. Varietal differences are also evident in relation to the selected translation features. These findings contribute to the understanding of translated language and underscore the importance of considering diachronic analysis and varietal influences in relation to the features of translated language.

本研究考察了联合国一般性辩论（UNGD）中区分翻译和非翻译英语外交话语的语言特征，并调查了这些特征在1946年至2022年期间是否发生了变化，以及这些变化是否与英语语言种类有关。弹性网络回归分析发现，翻译文本的形式性、抽象性和信息密度高于非翻译文本，这与已有的翻译语言研究结果一致。随着时间的推移，翻译后的文本在语言变化方面往往落后于未翻译的演讲，这支持了联合国翻译是一种保守的语言变体的观点：联合国翻译人员在采用创新用法方面往往很慢，更喜欢已有的变体。品种差异在选择翻译特征方面也很明显。这些发现有助于理解翻译语言，并强调了考虑历时分析和变化影响与翻译语言特征的重要性。

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引用次数: 0

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