Tanulmányok
Abstract
The aim of the paper is to present the results of a study into gender differences in the use of the discourse markers you know and I mean. The data for analysis is taken from televised interviews, the methodology of the research combines qualitative and quantitative tools and involves mapping the functions of you know and I mean on the basis of previous research and the tokens in the test corpus, categorising the total number of occurrences in the full corpus as well as identifying co-occurrence patterns. The results seem to contradict previous claims that women use discourse markers more frequently as well as the hypothesis that men and women use discourse markers for radically different interpersonal and discourse functions.
Keywords: sociolinguistics, discourse variation, discourse markers, gender differences
Abstract
This study investigates the phonological differences between Written Arabic (hereafter WA) and Madani Arabic (hereafter MA) as an aspect of diglossia. The differences identified in this study between WA and MA prove that there is a wide gulf between the two varieties. Many of the differences found are quite common in situations where other different spoken dialects are compared with WA (cf., Blanc 1953, Harrel 1960 and Suleiman 1985). The emergence of the long vowels /e:/ and /o:/, the consonantal changes /./ > /./, /č/ > /t/, /đ/ > /z/ or /d/, /d./ > /./ and /q/ > /?/, and insertion of anaptyctic vowels lead to declusterization and initial cluster formation or some such phonological changes. The trend in Arabic diglossia in general proves to be that there are clear cut linguistic differences between WA and different spoken varieties, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the distinctive identities of the spoken dialects are also simultaneously maintained. The situation on the whole reflects the maintenance of cultural unity within linguistic diversity among different Arabic communities.
Keywords: diglossia, Arabic Language, Jordanian Arabic, phonological changes
Abstract
Based on the classic thesis that the relationship of sound shapes and meanings is arbitrary, linguistics has, as a rule, studied the semantics of words without reference to the phonotactic properties of sound patterns. Mainstream structuralist and formalist approaches have repeatedly claimed that they would draw a sharp line between "meaning", conceived as an absolute notion and defined as the sum of particular sense properties, on the one hand, and incidental "interpretation" on the other. Regarding word meaning as an intrinsically relative concept, deriving it from the presence or absence of various semantic constituents, appears to be rather infrequent, and virtually restricted to cognitive linguistics. Assuming the principle that as soon as we understand the formation of a particular phenomenon, we can understand the phenomenon itself, the present paper investigates the ontogenesis of the semantic properties of words, pointing out that word meanings can only be linguistic entities formed in terms of patterns embedded in the social-cognitive context, and evolving in organic unity with the patterns of sound.
Keywords: language acquisition, syllabic patterns, statistic learning, prototypes, the acquisition of words/word meanings, contextual embeddedness
Abstract
The aim of the present paper is to provide insight into the German-Hungarian contrastive grammar project with special emphasis on its part concerning text linguistic problems. It will be shown which phenomena are dealt with here, i.e. how the relevant chapter of the planned contrastive grammar is structured. Furthermore, an attempt is made to shed light on the conception of Ulrich Engel (which the whole grammar is based on) as regards text types. A sample contrastive analysis of the text type newspaper article is also presented.
Keywords: Keywords: contrastive text linguistics, German language, Hungarian language, text types
Abstract
The paper gives an overview of the grammar of particle verb constructions in English and Hungarian, and outlines the framework of an LFG-theoretic analysis and its computational implementation that tackles both the lexical and the syntactic properties of these constructions.
Keywords: particle verbs, English, Hungarian, Lexical-Functional Grammar, computational implementation
Abstract
This study investigates the relationship between social and cultural factors in the request behaviour of native speakers of American English and Hungarian. It also tests the extent to which speakers’ directness is influenced by social factors, such as distance, power and imposition. It examines whether the request strategies of American English speakers and of Hungarian native speakers follow a similar trend across different social situations; and if so how and to what extent they are similar. Requests were chosen because they intrinsically involve the usage of politeness strategies; and they are frequently used in everyday situations.
Results have shown that there is a great degree of correspondance between the two cultural groups in terms of general trends of situational variation, at the same time, there are cross-cultural differences in the specific directness levels employed for particular situations. This study argues that distance, power and imposition alone do not always decide speaker’s level of directness. A number of situational and cultural factors need to be taken into consideration when interpreting speakers’ linguistic choices.
Keywords: politeness, politeness strategies, requests
Abstract
The aim of the paper is to give a brief analysis of activity verb predicates in English and to show various mechanisms of encoding telicity of these predicates in English and Hungarian. Two major mechanisms of encoding telicity in these languages are either marking an object as countable, i.e., a quantized object, or utilizing a specific particle (also recognized as “coverb” in Hungarian) on the verbal form. English predominantly uses the first mechanism, while Hungarian mostly utilizes the second. The class of activity predicates is the most ‘productive’ of all the event types revealed in the literature in the sense of accepting telicizing particles.
Keywords: telicity, particles, activity verb, quantized object, perfectivity
Abstract
It is known that English and Hungarian have semelfactive verbs, similar to Russian, but there is only an occasional mention of the exact types of these verbs in the literature and their role in the overall system of English and Hungarian aspect. This paper challenges an analysis of semelfactive verbs in English and Hungarian describing semantic and morphological characteristics associated with these verbs. The exact classification of semelfactive verbs in both languages is another goal of this study. In English, the term “semelfactive” for punctual events is adopted for general use by Smith (1991) and Verkuyl (1993), among other writers. It will be argued that punctual events are not all semelfactive in Smith’s (1991) sense.
Keywords: semelfactive, punctual, durative events, instantaneous
Abstract
The works of Chrétien de Troyes are constituted by easy to be found and linguistically well-defined, repeated structural units which contribute to the textual coherence and to the linear division of the works and which are composed of clearly separable motifs succeding in a definite order. In my study, my aim is to observe the places compared to one another and the textual junction of the motifs constituting the night lodging and hospitality, structural unit that determines the adventure seeking way of the heroes and constitutes a turning point in the stories, with the consideration of the thematic progression and the linguistic means representing a textual unit boundary through three episodes of similar structure in the romance of Chrétien de Troyes entitled Yvain ou le Chevalier au Lion (the episodes selected are the adventure of Yvain at the fountaine, Harpin de la Montagne, Pesme-Aventure).
Keywords: Chrétien de Troyes, knightly adventure, night lodging and hospitality, textual units, textual unit boundary, thematic progression, proppian functions.
Abstract
Dyslexia, a reading disorder, is considered as the most common language disability in which individuals experience difficulties with language processing and specifically with reading. In spite of its widespread nature in Iran, not too many studies have been carried out on dyslexia compared to English-speaking countries. Also, the available studies have mostly focused on dyslexia in native language rather than in foreign language context so the findings in L2 context are not rich. The aim of the present study is to investigate whether Iranian dyslexic students have difficulties learning foreign languages (English and Arabic) and also to highlight the areas in which these individuals show the most difficulty. By the help of a questionnaire, information was gathered about the situation of dyslexic students as foreign language learners in middle schools. The findings showed that Iranian dyslexic students encounter many difficulties in learning English and Arabic as foreign languages and they are significantly weak in spelling, reading and phonological processing compared to normal students .
Keywords: Developmental Dyslexia, Reading, Foreign language learning, Middle school
Abstract
This study examines the usage of the letter \ in the Milyatin Codex (from the late 12th or early 13th century), which was written in Old Russian. The Codex contains several examples that reflect the changes of the sound marked by \ in the Proto-Slavic clusters *tert, *telt, and its usage in various morphemes. The analysis demonstrates some Old Russian features, the manifestation of the eastern Church Slavic orthographic norm, and the Novgorod origin of the Codex. The study contributes to a better understanding of the changes in the Russian phonological system.
Keywords: Milyatin Codex, East Church Slavic, Old Russian, clusters, *tert, *telt, Proto-Slavic
Abstract
The aim of this article is to provide insights on the importance of genre awareness in the study, correct understanding and accurate use of Professional and Academic Language (PAL), with special emphasis being placed on the language of industrial ceramics and that used in academia. First of all, the concept of PAL as the big “container” of specialised languages is put forward and linked with the notion of genre as a communicative event characterised by its recurrent, dynamic, recognisable, expectable and conventionalised nature and by the communicative purpose it aims to achieve. Such a description attempts to show how the correct understanding and use of PAL goes beyond merely terminological considerations and in fact needs genre so that it can be “packed” appropriately for the audience. Thus, the importance of genre in PAL is analysed from two main points of view: firstly, by focusing on its more professional aspects (dealing with the relevance of generic balance in corpus compilation and of genre awareness in general in discourse communities) and, secondly, by focusing on the importance of observing generic conventions (even “constraints”) in academia. Additionally, digital genres are also analysed as an increasingly significant way of packaging information, all this leading to the conclusion that genre awareness necessarily implies accomplishing the expectations and conventionalised use of language (both general or professional and academic) established by discourse communities.
Keywords: genre, Professional and Academic Language (PAL), specialised language, corpus, discourse community, cybergenre and industrial ceramics
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