Open Access Published by De Gruyter Open Access

Volume 6 Issue 1

January 2020

Issue of Open Linguistics

Contents
Journal Overview

Regular Articles

Open Access March 4, 2020

A Diachronic Analysis of the Translation of English Sound Symbolism in Italian Comics

Pier Simone Pischedda

Page range: 19-37

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Abstract

Phonosymbolic elements such as ideophones and interjections test the translator’s ability in various ways. These forms would, in theory, require a complete change of form and substance of the source text but this has not always been possible because of graphical, cultural and linguistic reasons, and this led, in certain cases, to a foreignized target-text environment. Recent research has started to consider the relationship between verbal and visual modes as beneficial and not just as a mere constraint for the translator. This research aims to align itself with this approach in order to analyze how verbal and visual modes in Disney comic books have come together to welcome sound symbolic forms and how translators have dealt with them in Italian Disney comics, in particular. In order to clarify the behavior, function, translation and use of expressive sound symbolic devices in Italian Disney comics, this article will offer a diachronic analysis of these strategies as found in a diachronic bidirectional corpus compiled through extensive archival research.

Open Access May 19, 2020

Realization of preemptive focus on form in the English-language teaching context

Leila Tajik, Khadijeh Karimi, Ameneh Ramezani

Page range: 094-108

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Abstract

While reactive focus on form (FonF) has been addressed extensively in the literature, preemptive FonF has not attracted the attention it deserves. To fill in part of this gap in the English-language teaching (ELT) context, the present study was conducted to examine the occurrence of preemptive focus on form episodes (FFEs) in the classes of two male and two female English-language teachers. Additionally, it aimed to explore the frequency of student-initiated and teacher-initiated FFEs as well as the uptake and no uptake moves in four classes. To address these issues, all cases of preemptive FFEs were identified in 6 h of instruction obtained from videotaping of four classes. Results confirmed that preemptive FonF does occur in the process of meaning-focused communication and that they are used by male and female teachers almost equally to deal with linguistic difficulties. The findings further showed that student-initiated and teacher-initiated FFEs occurred almost equally in four classes. As to the type of moves, no uptake move was recorded to occur more frequently in male teachers’ classes and to occur more frequently in student-initiated episodes in all classes. Results can raise the awareness of ELT teachers about the benefits of employing preemptive FonF in the context of meaning-focused communications.

Open Access June 11, 2020

The state of Spanish /s/ variation in Concepción, Chile: Linguistic and social trends

Brandon M. A. Rogers

Page range: 132-153

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Abstract

The current study examines /s/ variation in the southern-central city of Concepción, Chile and its relation to a variety of linguistic and social factors. A proportional-odds mixed effects model, with the random factor of “speaker”, was used to treat the categorically coded data on a continuum of acoustical variation ([s] > [h] > ∅). The results presented show that contrary to the previous assertions, heavy sibilant reduction, especially elision, in Concepción, Chile is the rule, rather than the exception, to the extent that it is no longer a marker of certain social demographics as has been reported previously. Furthermore, based on the trends reported, it is likely that this has been the case for several decades. Finally, the overall observed trends are indicative that the rates of /s/ elision will continue to increase across social demographics and different phonetic and phonological contexts in Concepción, Chile.

Open Access June 4, 2020

English comparative correlative constructions: A usage-based account

Thomas Hoffmann, Thomas Brunner, Jakob Horsch

Page range: 196-215

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Abstract

English Comparative Correlatives (CCs) consist of two clauses, C1 and C2: [The more we get together,] C1 [the happier we’ll be.] C2 Recently, large corpus studies based on the Corpus of Contemporary American English have unearthed various meso-constructions in English CCs using covarying–collexeme analysis. The present study tests these findings against data from the British National Corpus (BNC), aiming to replicate previous results against data from another standard variety of English (British English) and a corpus that is sampled from a wider range of registers. Over 2,000 CC tokens from the BNC were analyzed with regard to hypotactic features, filler types encountered as comparative elements, and deletion phenomena. Moreover, in contrast to earlier corpus studies (such as Hoffmann, Thomas, Jakob Horsch, and Thomas Brunner. 2019. “The more data, the better: a usage-based account of the English comparative correlative construction.” Cognitive Linguistics 30 (1): 1–36), the present study also investigates the frequency of the semantically related C2C1 construction ( You will be the happier C2 , the more we get together C1 ) that previously has been found to be considerably less frequent than its counterpart. The results of the present analysis confirm that English CCs possess more paratactic than hypotactic features and, supporting most of the findings of Hoffmann, Horsch, and Brunner (2019) provide even stronger evidence for the existence of several symmetric meso-constructions.

Open Access June 10, 2020

Darker shades of “fairness” in India: Male attractiveness and colorism in commercials

Sayantan Mukherjee

Page range: 225-248

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Abstract

The skin-lightening products for men in India and their mode of advertising have been shaping the concept of attractiveness for Indian men by portraying lighter skin tone as the most fundamental quality of being attractive, always desirable, and successful. Although women’s skin-lightening products in India have received attention by a few scholars lately, men’s products are still underresearched. Hence, this study aims to investigate the issue of colorism augmented by television commercials for men’s “fairness” (light skin tone) products in India. The primary data for this study are six Hindi television commercials for men’s skin-lightening products which were broadcast from 2005 to 2015 and were available on YouTube during data collection. The commercials are by one popular brand, Emami Fair and Handsome. The target commercials are significant for their categorical distinction in directness as well as for their nature of storytelling that helps facilitate the discourse of colorism itself. The methodology is a combination of multimodal analysis, critical discourse analysis, and advertisement analysis. The overall goal of this study is to bring visibility to this subtle and multilayered problem of colorism in Indian society which is being reinforced by the skin-lightening products for men.

Open Access June 16, 2020

Types of allography

Dimitrios Meletis

Page range: 249-266

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Abstract

Variation in writing is highly frequent at both the visual and the functional levels. However, as of yet, the associated notion of allography has not been systematically described. In this article, two major types of allography are proposed: graphetic allography, conceptually comparable to allophony, depends on visual similarity and captures how concrete units are associated with visual abstractions, i.e., how three graphs in <cabana> are instances of the basic shape |a|. Graphematic allography, conceptually closer to allomorphy, does not depend on visual similarity but groups together units that share the same function, i.e., represent the same linguistic unit (phoneme, syllable, morpheme, etc.) and are complementarily distributed, meaning there exist no contexts in which they contrast. An example is the positionally conditioned alternation between |σ| vs |ς| for the Greek grapheme <σ>. By means of a number of criteria, subtypes of graphetic and graphematic allography are proposed and examples are given from different writing systems. A special case that is discussed is the complex phenomenon of capitalization. Additionally, examples of variation phenomena that are not included in the concept of allography are given, and orthographic variation is addressed as a marginal case of variation dependent on the norm rather than the system.

Open Access June 16, 2020

A multimodal discourse analysis of English dentistry texts written by Saudi undergraduate students: A study of theme and information structure

Hesham Suleiman Alyousef

Page range: 267-283

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Abstract

The study of multimodality in discourse reveals the way writers articulate their intended meanings and intentions. Systemic functional analyses of oral biology discourse have been limited to few studies; yet, no published study has investigated multimodal textual features. This qualitative study explored and analyzed the multimodal textual features in undergraduate dentistry texts. The systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA) is framed by Halliday’s (Halliday, M. A. K. 2014. Introduction to Functional Grammar. Revised by Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen . 4th ed. London/New York: Taylor and Francis) linguistic tools for the analysis of Theme and Kress and van Leeuwen’s (Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen. 2006. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design . London: Routledge) framework for the analysis of visual designs. Oral biology discourse intertwines two thematic progression patterns: constant and linear. Although a split-rheme pattern was minimally employed, disciplinary-specific functions of this pattern emerged. The SF-MDA of the composition of information in oral biology pictures extends Kress and van Leeuwen’s functional interpretations of the meaning-making resources of visual artifacts. Finally, the pedagogical implications for science tutors and for undergraduate nonnative science students are presented.

Open Access June 27, 2020

A mitigator in Mandarin: the sentence-final particle ba (吧)

Hongmei Fang, Kees Hengeveld

Page range: 284-306

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Abstract

It has been widely claimed in the literature that the sentence-final particle ba in Mandarin Chinese is a modal element. This article argues against this claim and shows that ba is an element that has a unified mitigating function with scope over the utterance as a whole. Using the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG), and more specifically its hierarchical, layered organization, the article provides several arguments that support this new classification of ba . First, ba , like mitigators in general, but unlike modal elements, can occur in sentences with different basic illocutions. Second, ba may co-occur with modal elements of all different subtypes and thus cannot be a modal element itself. Third, ba may occur in sentences in which the speaker is highly confident of the propositional content. Fourth, unlike modal elements, ba may occur in certain types of non-propositional utterances. And fifth, the position that ba occupies with respect to other sentence-final particles shows that it has scope over the utterance as a whole. After thus arguing for the status of ba as a mitigator, we show how the general mitigating function of ba can acquire the more specific mitigating effects that have previously been attributed to it in the literature.

Open Access July 2, 2020

Persuasive appeals in Jordanian and Algerian telecommunication television commercials

Ghaleb Rabab’ah, Lydia Idir, Sharif Alghazo

Page range: 307-321

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Abstract

The present study seeks to explore the link between persuasion and advertising by examining the persuasive appeals used by telecommunication companies in Jordanian and Algerian television commercials. To this end, 12 television advertisements (six from Jordan and six from Algeria) were randomly selected from YouTube. The data were analysed based on previous categorisations of persuasive appeals. The findings revealed that both groups of advertisements adopted various appeals to persuade their target audience to purchase products and experience their services, and that the most widely used appeals were play on words , brand , celebrity and music appeals. These findings provide insights into the value of understanding how persuasion is used in media discourse and in different linguistic and cultural milieus.

Open Access July 27, 2020

Numerals in Akebu

Nadezhda Makeeva, Andrey Shluinsky

Page range: 344-356

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Abstract

This article presents an overview of the numeral system in Akebu, a Kwa language of Togo. The Akebu numeral system is a decimal one and contains simple numerals from ‘1’ to ‘9’ and decimal bases for ‘10’, ‘100’, and ‘1,000’. The former have noun class agreement markers, while the latter do not. Only some noun classes are compatible with numerals, but among them there are both plural and singular classes.

Open Access July 13, 2020

Analytic relations versus syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations of vocabulary depth knowledge: Their correlation and prediction to academic reading comprehension of EFL learners

Md Kamrul Hasan, Mohammad Mosiur Rahman

Page range: 357-371

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Abstract

The aims of the study were to examine the correlation and prediction of different dimensions of vocabulary depth knowledge to academic reading comprehension. Students were instructed to take part in four English-language proficiency tests voluntarily. The research was carried out, administering four instruments, word associates test, morphological knowledge test, and analytic relations test to measure the depth of vocabulary knowledge. In addition, a reading comprehension test that consisted of three reading passages by Longman Test of English as a Foreign Language was adopted and administered for the current study. The results highlighted that the analytic (part–whole) relations, which represented the depth of vocabulary knowledge had the highest correlation with academic reading comprehension in comparison with morphological knowledge and combined syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations, which represented word associates test. Of all the three independent variables, analytical relations made the most statistically significant unique contribution to the prediction of the outcome variable compared to word associates test and morphological knowledge. The present study suggests that the depth of vocabulary knowledge would have practical use for students and English teachers at tertiary level and further implications for lexical researchers.

Open Access August 9, 2020

Second language acquisition from Syrian refugees’ perspectives: Difficulties and solutions

Hayat Al Masri, Emad A. S. Abu-Ayyash

Page range: 372-385

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Abstract

The current study explored the second language acquisition (SLA) difficulties that 45 Syrian refugees and asylum seekers encountered in nine countries (Germany, Turkey, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Malay, Austria, and Romania) that they fled to away from the ongoing war in Syria. The study also sought to elicit the solutions for these difficulties from the participants’ views. This research employed interviews and an open-ended questionnaire utilizing the Facebook Messenger application to gather data. The study builds on and broadens the scope of language acquisition research and questions main SLA theoretical underpinnings. The study found a variety of difficulties pertinent to economic, personal, social, linguistic, temporal, and psychological factors. The participants’ recommendations were classified into refugee-based, community-based, and authority-based ones.

Open Access October 12, 2020

Strategies and Leadership Values in Obama’s Apology Discourse

Susanna Bithiah Varma, Shamala Paramasivam, Vahid Nimehchisalem

Page range: 463-481

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Abstract

This study analyses leadership apologies to gain insights into effective leadership performance from the perspective of apologising. The study explores Obama’s leadership qualities that are projected through his apology discourse mainly the strategies used to construct his apologies and values that emerge from them. The study concluded that leadership should be versatile for a leader to be able to perform efficiently in crucial situations. It is important for a leader to have the ability to blend strategies to display good values to perform the speech act of apology well because in doing so, they will be able to bind themselves in good rapport with their followers which creates unity in the relationship. The significance of the study can be viewed in the potential to reframe apology as an empowering act that can positively impact leaders’ image rather than an act that is viewed as taboo or ineffective for leadership.

Open Access October 16, 2020

Political Humor in Ibn Mammātī's Kitāb al-Fāshūsh fi Aḥkām Qarâqûsh (The Decisions of Qarâqûsh)

Ibrahim Dowaidar

Page range: 482-511

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Abstract

This study is an attempt to investigate medieval humor in the Ayyubid period (1171–1250). In a period of constant wars, terrible plagues, and turmoil, Ibn Mammātī wrote a pamphlet entitled Kitāb al-Fāshūsh fi Aḥkām Qarâqûsh (stupidity, or the decisions of Qarâqûsh) . It is a small volume which contains words and actions that Qarâqûsh could have said or done. The book is written as an attempt to ridicule one of the most important political leaders of the Ayyubid state Emir Qarâqûsh Ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Asadī (surnamed as Bah’āaddīn Qarâqûsh) (n.d. – April 1201). The book is so influential that historical facts are overshadowed, and overwhelmed by the humorous anecdotes that branded Qarâqûsh forever as a symbol of a lunatic tyrant. This manuscript, however, is believed to be one of the oldest books on political humor in the Egyptian history (Al-Najjār 1978: 56). Therefore, using a critical discourse analysis perspective, the study seeks to examine and analyze humor and jokes in selected anecdotes from Ibn Mammātī’s book. I have drawn upon the three-dimensional model of discourse analysis developed by Norman Fairclough (1992a, 1995a, 1995b, 2001, 2003). The study aims to prove that this pamphlet has been used in the entire Islamic world in different epochs as a defense mechanism against all the ruthless sultans, kings, rulers, and presidents. I claim that these jokes have served as a sort of recreation for the people, as a means of peaceful protest, and as a silent cry against oppression and tyranny.

Open Access October 31, 2020

Crosslinguistic Interference in Simultaneous Acquisition of Turkish and Italian

Anna Lia Proietti Ergün

Page range: 512-531

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Abstract

This study compared the acceptability judgment task (AJT) and translation task (TT) in 10 simultaneous Turkish–Italian bilinguals with age-matched Turkish and Italian monolinguals as a control group. The position of subjects occurring with unaccusative verbs was investigated as the linguistic property. The results of the AJT in Turkish revealed no significant difference between the groups. However, in the Italian AJT, high variability was found in the younger bilinguals. Only bilinguals could participate in the TT. The participants, while translating into Turkish, always produced pragmatically appropriate sentences. In the case of translation to Italian, a significant effect correlated with the position of the subject in the Turkish stimulus was found.

Open Access December 13, 2020

Multiple Other-Initiations of Repair in Norwegian Sign Language

Kristian Skedsmo

Page range: 532-566

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Abstract

Not all other-initiations of repair (OIR) are instantly followed by a functional self-repair that restores the progress of the conversation. Despite previous observations of OIRs generally leading to restored progress after one single-repair initiation, data from a multiperson conversational corpus of Norwegian Sign Language (NTS) show that 68% of 112 individual repair initiations occur in multiple OIR sequences. This article identifies three different trajectories of multiple OIR sequences in the NTS data, which are as follows: (1) a trouble source being targeted by more than one repair initiation, (2) the self-repair becomes a new trouble source, or (3) the repair initiation becomes a new trouble source. The high frequency of multiple OIR sequences provides an opportunity to quantitatively investigate how the various formats of repair initiation are distributed in single- and multiple-OIR sequences, how they occur as first or subsequent, and whether they restore the progress of the conversation or are followed by another repair initiation.

Open Access November 24, 2020

Media Bias: A Corpus-based Linguistic Analysis of Online Iranian Coverage of the Syrian Revolution

Amaal Al-Gamde, Thora Tenbrink

Page range: 584-600

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Abstract

This study explores the influence of a government’s ideology on linguistic representation in a news agency that characterizes itself as independent. It focuses on the coverage of the Syrian civil war as reported by the Iranian news agency Fars, addressing the discursive constructions of anti-government powers in relevant online reports released between 2013 and 2015. Since the Islamic Republic of Iran was a major regional ally of the Syrian government, we questioned the extent to which ideological independence could be expected during a politically critical time frame. Taking a corpus-based linguistic approach, the study explores the semantic macrostructures representing the opposition as well as the lexical clusters and keywords characterizing the news discourse. The findings indicate that Fars’ representation of the Syrian Revolution was, to some extent, biased, despite its claimed independence of the government’s political stance. It excluded the Sunni social actors, suppressed the Islamic faction identity of the rebels and depicted the uprising as a war against foreign-backed militants. The rebels were stereotyped in terms of terrorism and non-Syrians. In addition, the analysis reveals Fars’ tendency to emphasize the power of the government, depicting it as the defender of the Arab land and foregrounding the discourse of international conspiracy against Syria. The results of this work project the dimension of media bias caused by the underpinning political perspective of media institutions.

Open Access November 28, 2020

Linguistic Profiling of Heritage Speakers of an Endangered Language: The Case of Vlach Aromanian–Greek Bilinguals

Alexandra Prentza, Maria Kaltsa

Page range: 626-641

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Abstract

This is the first attempt to profile the heritage speakers of an endangered spoken-only variety of Vlach Aromanian in Greece. Neither the variety nor its speakers has been investigated before; hence, the study also aims at evaluating the exact state of endangerment of the Sirrako variety, as this is revealed by the language practices and skills of its bilingual speakers. To this aim, a background questionnaire was developed and administered to 60 bilingual speakers of Vlach Aromanian and Greek including questions on the age of onset of exposure to both languages, early home language practices, current language practices (orality and literacy) and attitudes toward the heritage and majority language. Significant variation in language practices, literacy skills, oral input and current competence across three generations of speakers was identified with a substantial decline in heritage language competence in younger bilinguals, verifying our claim of the endangered state of Vlach Aromanian.

Open Access December 15, 2020

“We Speak Pidgin!” – Family Language Policy as the Telling Case for Translanguaging Spaces and Monolingual Ideologies

Tijana Hirsch, Orly Kayam

Page range: 642-650

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Abstract

With the increase in global movement, both temporary (travel and transsettlement) and permanent (e/immigration), traditional conceptions of the linguistic processes rooted largely in the long-term translocation(s) or migrations are revisited through the study of family language policy. The present study of family language policy serves as a telling case (Mitchell, 1984) of (1) translanguaging (Williams, 1994) as a practical theory of language (Li, 2018), describing how the transnational individual experienced the construction of two intergenerational translanguaging spaces (Li, 2011): the family and the community and (2) how the phenomenon of monolingual ideologies infiltrates the translanguaging space of the family to exert its influences toward the standard, in this case the standard Russian dialect. Importance of increased mobility characteristic of contemporary times and the central role of temporality in linguistic processes and their disruptions are discussed in this article.

Open Access December 31, 2020

The pluripotentiality of bilabial consonants: The images of softness and cuteness in Japanese and English

Gakuji Kumagai

Page range: 693-707

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Abstract

The current study experimentally examined whether labial consonants were sound-symbolically associated with the images of softness and cuteness in Japanese and English. The results showed that all the bilabial consonants [p, b, m, ɸ, w] used in Japanese convey such images. In English, the consonants evoking the image of softness were bilabials but not labiodentals, and those linked to the image of cuteness were unaspirated, low-frequency bilabials. These results demonstrated the pluripotentiality of sound symbolism, meaning that a certain set of linguistic sounds evokes different meanings and images both within a single language and across languages (e.g. Winter et al. 2019; Kawahara and Kumagai to appear). Moreover, under the backcloth that the description of the glide /w/ concerning the place of articulation in Japanese and English is not uncontroversial, the current paper indicates – based on the current sound-symbolic experimental results – that the glide /w/ is phonologically labial in each language.

Open Access December 31, 2020

Figure–Ground Spatial Relationships in Finnish Sign Language Discourse

Danny De Weerdt

Page range: 723-746

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Abstract

This study is about expressing spatial relationships between Figure and Ground in Finnish Sign Language discourse and shows that the variation in this expression is primarily discourse dependent. The main findings are, first, that Ground mainly precedes Figure whether the Figure is new or a known referent within the discourse; the reverse order is possible only when the Figure is known. Second, the lexical sign olla (‘have’) appears more frequently in expressing spatial relationships with a new Figure and less frequently with a known Figure but never in a construction with Figure preceding Ground; the form oli (‘had’), referring to the past, appears only in Figure preceding Ground constructions when Figure is known. Finally, the main way to express the spatial relationship between Ground and Figure is either the simultaneous production of the units, or Ground and an adposition sign. A sequential strategy is another way of expressing spatial relationships but this can be used only when the Figure is new within the discourse. The choice of strategy can be attributed to the emphasis put on the Figure’s presence when it is new while with a known Figure, the emphasis is on the location of that Figure.

Rapid Communication

Open Access September 2, 2020

Do Sibilants Fly? Evidence from a Sound Symbolic Pattern in Pokémon Names

Shigeto Kawahara, Mahayana C. Godoy, Gakuji Kumagai

Page range: 386-400

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Abstract

Ancient writers, including Socrates and the Upanishads, argued that sibilants are associated with the notions of wind, air and sky. From modern perspectives, these statements can be understood as an assertion about sound symbolism, i.e., systematic connections between sounds and meanings. Inspired by these writers, this article reports on an experiment that tests a sound symbolic value of sibilants. The experiment is a case study situated within the Pokémonastics research paradigm, in which the researchers explore the sound symbolic patterns in natural languages using Pokémon names. The current experiment shows that when presented with pairs of a flying-type Pokémon character and a normal-type Pokémon character, Japanese speakers are more likely to associate the flying-type Pokémons with names that contain sibilants than those names that do not contain sibilants. As was pointed out by Socrates, the sound symbolic connection identified in the experiment is likely to be grounded in the articulatory properties of sibilants – the large amount of oral airflow that accompanies the production of sibilants. Various implications of the current experiment for the sound symbolism research are discussed throughout the article.

Retraction

Open Access July 10, 2020

Cree-English intrasentential code-switching: Testing the morphosyntactic constraints of the Matrix Language Frame model

Hussein Al-Bataineh, Saleem Abdelhady

Page range: 322-322

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Special Issue: Language and Prejudice, edited by Mats Deutschmann and Anders Steinvall

Open Access July 27, 2020

Gender, language and prejudice: Implicit sexism in the discourse of Boris Johnson

Jane Sunderland

Page range: 323-333

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Abstract

While linguistic prejudice is commonly understood to concern individuals or social groups because of the way they speak, we can also see it as damaging language used about individuals or social groups. In this article, I start by looking at the traditional sociolinguistic understanding of linguistic prejudice, then go on to look rather widely at various forms of prejudicial/sexist language about women . In doing so, I identify various lexical asymmetries and associated “lexical gaps”. The main part of the article takes this further by exploring how certain insults to men draw on an understood prejudice again women. I illustrate this with a “telling case”: three naturally occurring examples of prejudicial, sexist language recently used by British prime minister Boris Johnson: big girl’s blouse , man up and girly swot . For all three to work, they draw on what we might call a discourse of “Women as ineffectual”. I conclude with a discussion of intentionality as regards this sort of prejudicial language use, what it is intended to achieve and how it can be resisted.

Open Access July 27, 2020

The language of rhetorical feminism, anchored in hope

Cheryl Glenn

Page range: 334-343

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Abstract

“The Language of Rhetorical Feminism, Anchored in Hope” honors contemporary expansions of rhetoric in terms of theory, practitioners, and practices. I’ve forged a new pathway that begins at the nexus of rhetoric, feminism, and hope, a juncture where the traditionally disregarded rhetorical practices and powers of so-called Others can be appreciated for their potency. Their purposeful resistant rhetorical praxes provide the constituent features of a theory I call “rhetorical feminism.” My hope is that the best parts of these rhetorical feminist praxes will meld with the best parts of rhetoric writ large.

Open Access November 24, 2020

An Exploratory Study on Linguistic Gender Stereotypes and their Effects on Perception

Mattias Lindvall-Östling, Mats Deutschmann, Anders Steinvall

Page range: 567-583

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Abstract

This study explores how stereotypical preconceptions about gender and conversational behaviour may affect observers’ perceptions of a speaker’s performance. Using updated matched-guise techniques, we digitally manipulated the same recording of a conversation to alter the voice quality of “Speaker A” to sound “male” or “female.” Respondents’ perceptions of the conversational behaviour of Speaker A in the two guises were then measured with particular focus on floor apportionment, interruptions and signalling interest. We also measured respondents’ explicit stereotypical gender preconceptions of these aspects. Results showed that respondents perceived the male guise as having more floor apportionment and interrupting more than the female guise. Results also indicated that the respondents had explicit stereotypes that matched these patterns, i.e. that interrupting and taking space were deemed to be stereotypically male behaviour, while signalling interest was deemed to be a female feature. The study suggests that stereotypical preconceptions about gender and conversational behaviour may skew perceptions of similar linguistic behaviour.

Open Access November 24, 2020

Investigating the Syrian “Other” in Donald J. Trump’s Twitter Campaign Rhetoric

Mourhaf Kazzaz

Page range: 601-610

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Abstract

This study investigates the discursive techniques and processes employed by Donald J. Trump to portray Syrian refugees as a negative out-group and threat in tweets during his 2016 election campaign. The article argues that this anti-immigration argument facilitated and materialized not only as a right-wing populist discourse but also as an actual policy as evidenced by the travel ban of 2017. The data are comprised of 32 tweets from Trump’s personal Twitter account between his first available commentary tweets on the Arab Spring situation in November 2011 and his inauguration in January 2017. The article employs the Ideological Square (van Dijk 1992, van Dijk 1995, van Dijk 2013) and proximization theory (Cap 2008, Cap 2010, Cap 2013) to study how Donald J. Trump employs an ideological “othering” of Syrian refugees and constructs threatening representations of them as a political agenda to set himself apart from competitors and advance his election campaign.

Open Access December 10, 2020

Mediatized Taiwanese Mandarin: A Text-mining Approach to Speaker Stereotypes

Chun-Yi Peng, Nicholas Garcia

Page range: 611-625

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Abstract

This study adopts text-mining techniques to investigate Chinese mainlanders’ attitudes toward gangtaiqiang , a mediatized variety of Taiwanese Mandarin. The study provides evidence for an emerging shift in attitudes toward gangtaiqiang as discussed in Peng (2018). Using key qualifiers (e.g., babyish, soft, and polite) scraped from online forums discussing gangtaiqiang and Taiwanese television programs, this study constructs a “lexical network” with links between words or phrases that co-occur in the data set to discover distinct themes or conceptual categories linked to gangtaiqiang . Our analysis attributes the effeminized perceptions of gangtaiqiang to (1) the mediatized representations of Taiwanese Mandarin inspired by Korea’s burgeoning trend of metrosexuality and (2) a patriarchal culture that equates China’s ascending global power with traditional notions of manhood.

Open Access December 23, 2020

Combatting Linguistic Stereotyping and Prejudice by Evoking Stereotypes

Mats Deutschmann, Anders Steinvall

Page range: 651-671

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Abstract

The article offers an account of two projects conducted at Örebro University and Umeå University, Sweden, which are aimed at raising awareness of issues related to linguistic stereotyping using matched-guise-inspired methods ( Raising Awareness through Virtual Experiencing [RAVE] funded by the Swedish Research Council and a Cross-Cultural Perspective on Raising of Awareness through Virtual Experiencing (C-RAVE) funded by the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg foundation). We provide an overview of the methods used in university courses, with the aim to raise awareness of how stereotyping can affect our perception. We also give a more detailed account of the findings from two case activities conducted in Sweden and the Seychelles. Here the response patterns indicate that the perceived gender of a voice as well as the accent (native vs non-native) do affect respondents’ judgements of performance. We were also able to show that discussions and reflections inspired by these response patterns led to raised self-awareness of matters related to language and stereotyping. The article then moves on to a critical query of our methods and also contextualizes our work in a broader discussion on methods and initiatives for how educational institutions actively can contribute to combatting (language) prejudice and discrimination in various ways.

Open Access December 31, 2020

Overcoming Aggressive Monolingualism: Prejudices and Linguistic Diversity in Russian Megalopolises

Vlada Baranova, Kapitolina Fedorova

Page range: 672-689

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Abstract

The study deals with linguistic prejudices of citizens of the two main Russian cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, toward speakers of foreign languages. It aims to reveal possible recent changes in the language ideology dominating Russian society. Monolingual and linguistically normative orientations rooted in the Soviet ideological approach are being challenged nowadays by global processes of migration and cultural diversification, which influence the everyday reality of Russian megalopolises. The research is based on the analysis of two sets of data: (1) meta-discourse on language attitudes derived from interviews with labor migrants and native Russian speakers in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and posts and comments on issues of language, migration, and linguistic landscapes, collected from websites and social media and (2) linguistic landscape data collected in 2016–2019, mainly in St. Petersburg, which reflect recent changes in attitude toward linguistic diversity in public space. These data show, on the one hand, that most city dwellers still relate to monolingual speech norms and try to implement control over public space; on the other hand, that the tolerance toward multilingual communication has been increasing over the years. The study suggests that these “first cracks” in monolinguals facades of Russian cities could eventually lead to the establishing of a less rigid language regime.

Open Access December 31, 2020

Language, Prejudice, Awareness, and Resistance

Mats Deutschmann, Anders Steinvall

Page range: 708-712

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Abstract

As an introduction to the themed special volume on Language and Prejudice, this short editorial highlights aspects related to prejudice within , through, and towards language as well as how prejudice and stereotyping can affect our perception of language. We provide short summaries of the articles included in the volume and contextualise these within the general thematic framework. The article also discusses the roles and responsibilities of language studies in raising awareness of issues related to language and prejudice, and how this forms part of a more general resistance against xenophobia and sexism.

Post-conference Special Issue on Language and Migration

Open Access March 11, 2020

An Approximation to Inclusive Language in LMOOCs Based on Appraisal Theory

Elena Barcena, Timothy Read, Beatriz Sedano

Page range: 38-67

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Abstract

This article explores inclusive language as a form of verbal communication in an open online language course for refugees and migrants. Firstly, the existing evidence of the benefits of using inclusive language in education is analyzed. Secondly, the specific need to use this type of language in the context of online courses for displaced people is discussed. Thirdly, a first approximation towards the identification of linguistic resources that may impact both group inclusion and individual discrimination is attempted, based on principles and categories from Appraisal Theory. Fourthly, the presence and effects of these linguistic resources are analyzed in the materials and forums of a highly successful LMOOC of elementary Spanish for refugees and migrants. Fifthly and finally, conclusions are drawn on the convenience of incorporating inclusive language as a design element in LMOOCs for displaced people, enhance its use in forums, and train facilitators accordingly.

Open Access March 11, 2020

Study on the Usefulness of Machine Translation in the Migratory Context: Analysis of Translators’ Perceptions

Lorena Pérez Macías, María del Mar Sánchez Ramos, Celia Rico

Page range: 68-76

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Abstract

The use of machine translation in the field of migrations seems to be very limited and, in view of the latest developments, it is only natural to explore its usefulness in the migratory context. In an attempt to introduce this technology into this particular area, this article reports on a qualitative study on translators’ perceptions towards machine translation and post-editing tasks. The findings of the study indicate that both are not widely developed within the migratory context and further work is required. Based on our findings, we believe that this study can contribute to opening the way for machine translation and post-editing tasks to be included into the field of migrations.

Open Access May 23, 2020

The development of written expression in immigrant children from 6 to 9 years old

Elisa de las Fuentes Gutiérrez

Page range: 109-131

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Abstract

This article presents the results of a pilot study carried out based on texts from 15 immigrant children aged 6 to 9 years, who are learning Spanish in situations of immersion in the Communities of Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha. The aim is to understand how these students try to integrate into the school context and especially to determine whether the development of written expression during the early years of primary education allows them to carry out more complex linguistic actions aimed at communication, such as expressing positive attitudes towards the recipient. These actions may reveal the need to communicate and, therefore, the need to learn the language in order to integrate. The texts were taken from the ESCONES Corpus and were collected in a prior study on lexical retrieval and auditory perception in the development of communicative skills in children aged 6 to 9. The analysis carried out considered the vocabulary used, syntactic complexity and the use of linguistic actions in the different grades and found that the development of written expression may allow students to better express actions related to manifesting positive feelings and attitudes towards their interlocutor.

Open Access May 28, 2020

Negotiation of meaning in Chinese non-native speaker – Spanish native speaker communication in assessment context

Tatiana Pliego Cordero, Susana Martín Leralta

Page range: 77-93

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Abstract

The article describes the characteristics of the negotiation of meaning (NOM) in oral interaction between native Spanish speakers and Chinese immigrant speakers of Spanish by assessing the context through 15 recordings, in which the candidates orally interacted with their interviewers. The goals of the research were to observe whether, in this context, NOM occurs; identify and classify the most frequent negotiation strategies of meaning in terms of their function; determine whether reactive negotiation strategies or preventive strategies predominate; establish which of the two interlocutors leads the negotiation; and determine whether this negotiation is effective. It has been observed that NOM is present in 11.21% of the total number of conversational turns ( n = 4,379). The most frequently used strategies were confirmation check, comprehension check response, and confirmation. Of the strategies used ( n = 491) by participants and interviewers to negotiate the meaning in this context, 64.95% was of a preventive nature. The NOM was effective in 90.02% of the cases.

Open Access June 4, 2020

That damn financial crisis: A turning point in the linguistic integration of the migrant population?

Carmen Valero-Garcés

Page range: 154-161

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Abstract

Spain’s sluggish recovery from the financial crisis of the past decade, changing domestic and international politics, armed conflicts and natural disasters, all constitute factors that prompt migration and lead to significant changes in the composition of society. The main objective of this article is to compare and contrast the level of linguistic integration of the migrant population at two different moments during the twenty-first century. The study is focused mainly on central Spain and two specific public-service settings: police and health care. A descriptive–comparative method is used to observe, collect and analyze data and describe and compare them to previous studies. A quantitative and qualitative approach is followed. The results indicate that the situation has changed only slightly over the past two decades. Communication between immigrants and public-service providers is still far from fluent, and the financial crisis has negatively affected the development of public service interpreting and translation.

Open Access June 4, 2020

Challenges and difficulties of translation and interpreting in the migration and refugee crisis in Germany

Elke Cases Berbel

Page range: 162-170

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Abstract

This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the role that interpreters and translators of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees ( Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge [Bamf]) played during the 2015–2016 migration crisis in Germany along with the improvements made by the German Ministry of the Interior. To this end, we first investigated all the occasions when a refugee needs interpreting and translation services. We then present the requirements to be a Bamf interpreter/translator as well as their working conditions. In addition, we offer research into all the working tools that the German Government has made available to these interpreters/translators, so they can get a comprehensive training in the profession of community interpreter, one of the most demanding branches of interpreting and translation services. Finally, we have summarized the challenges that, in our opinion, Germany faces for the future in order to achieve a better quality in their interpretation and translation services.

Open Access June 6, 2020

Migratory movements in the press of Spanish-speaking countries (2017)

Luis Guerra Salas, María Elena Gómez Sánchez

Page range: 216-224

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Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze journalistic texts on migratory movements appeared on the main newspapers of Spanish-speaking countries along 2017. The focus is put on the subjects that the newspapers highlight, the regions selected and the linguistics elections being made. The research has a multidisciplinary approach that uses the concept of representation, as being used in linguistics pragmatics and cultural anthropology. We use the database Factiva® as the starting point to collect the journalistic pieces that we use for our analysis. The search has been refined using linguistic, contextual, geographic and chronological criteria. Two sub-corpora have been built with the texts obtained through the search. One focuses strictly on Spanish press and the second one is related to the Hispanic area (seven newspapers have been chosen to build this corpus, and each one of them represents one of the seven ample dialectal areas of Spanish language). The qualitative analysis is based on the key words of each of these sub-corpora; such key words are stablished from a text-mining technique that offers the most relevant words and sentences of the first 100 texts obtained through every specific search.

Special Issue: Exploration of engagement

Open Access April 2, 2020

Grammar and levels of addressivity

Exploring Ungarinyin engagement

Stef Spronck

Page range: 1-18

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Abstract

Evans et al. (2018a,b) introduce the notion of ‘engagement’ as a new grammatical domain related to intersubjective coordination of knowledge. The present paper applies this notion to data from the Australian Aboriginal language Ungarinyin. It identifies three markers/construction types in the language as expressions of engagement and develops a descriptive framework rooted in Bakhtinian Dialogism in order to demonstrate why these expressions represent the category. It is argued that the main problems that arise in the analysis of engagement are very similar to those that have been encountered in the description of (other) TAME-categories as well, and that these may be overcome by applying Mikhail Bakhtin’s idea of ‘addressivity’. It concludes that a better understanding of the category of engagement that explores its relation to addressivity may contribute to the development of an approach to grammar in which sociality takes priority, a Dialogic linguistics.

Special issue: Linguistic variation, edited by K. Habicht, T. Hennoste, and H. Metslang

Open Access June 7, 2020

The expression of change-of-state in the Finnic languages

Miina Norvik

Page range: 171-195

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Abstract

The present article studies verbs that are used to convey change-of-state in the Finnic languages: “to come”, “to go”, “to remain/stay”, “to get”, “will be”, “to make/do”, and “to be born/give birth”. These are polysemous core verbs, which can be expected to be integrated in constructions with (new) generalized grammatical meaning. As will be shown, in order to convey change-of-state typically they occur in constructions that either mark the goal and the source or leave both unmarked. In addition, change can be associated with experiential, existential, and possessive constructions, which also enable to shed more light on the development of the above-mentioned verbs, including the possible development change-of-state → future . The article demonstrates that each Finnic language uses several verbs from the list presented above, but there are differences in what are the most commonly used ones and in what kind of constructions they occur. In some languages, there is a general change-of-state verb, which also appears as a future copula if there is no competing future copula. In the case of Estonian, Finnish, and Livonian, the results of previous studies on change-of-state predicates were used; for the other Finnic languages, a separate data set was compiled using various collections of texts.

Open Access December 17, 2020

Variation in differential object marking: On some differences between Spanish and Romanian

Monica Alexandrina Irimia

Page range: 424-462

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Abstract

Although differential object marking (DOM) has been studied from a multitude of perspectives, research into the types of variation it allows in closely related languages is still needed. This article examines DOM from the point of view of (micro)variation, focusing on two genetically related languages, namely, standard Spanish and Romanian. Both identities and points of divergence are discussed in detail and argued to result from a morphosyntactic parameter in the realm of differential marking. Following López [López, Luis. 2012. Indefinite Objects Scrambling, Choice Functions and Differential Marking . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press], the Spanish special marker signals certain types of nominals which undergo short scrambling in order to have Case licensed. In Romanian, however, DOM is equated with an additional operation beyond the valuation of Case.

Open Access December 30, 2020

Introduction: What Varies when Language Varies?

Helle Metslang, Külli Habicht, Tiit Hennoste

Page range: 690-692

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Special issue: Argument structure across modalities, edited by V. Kimmelman, R. Pfau, and E.O. Aboh

Open Access December 1, 2020

Valence orientation and psych properties: Toward a typology of the psych alternation

Julian A. Rott, Elisabeth Verhoeven, Paola Fritz-Huechante

Page range: 401-423

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Abstract

Languages differ with respect to the morphological structure of their verbal inventory: some languages predominantly derive intransitive experiencer-subject verbs from more basic transitive experiencer-object verbs by morphosyntactic operations such as stative passivization (e.g., German, English), reflexivization (e.g., German, Spanish), or mediopassive voice (e.g., Greek, Icelandic). Other languages apply transitivizing operations of causativization to intransitive basic forms, e.g., via causative affixes (e.g., Turkish, Japanese, Yucatec Maya) or embedding under causative predicates (e.g., Korean, Chinese). Yet other languages derive both alternants from a common base (e.g., Hungarian, Cabécar). This classification is especially pertinent when applied to psych verbs, given that variable linking is a widely recognized characteristic of this domain. The valence orientation profile of a language’s psych domain has recently been linked to the presence or absence of noncanonical syntax, another well-known property of psych predicates. This article reports results from an ongoing study which aims to test this observation on a larger typological scale, presenting comparative empirical data on the interplay of morphology and syntax in the psych domains of Icelandic, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Yucatec Maya, Finnish, Turkish, and Bété.

Review Articles

Open Access December 31, 2020

What is Salience?

Vincent Boswijk, Matt Coler

Page range: 713-722

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Abstract

A commonly used concept in linguistics is salience. Oftentimes it is used without definition, and the meaning of the concept is repeatedly assumed to be self-explanatory. The definitions that are provided may vary greatly from one operationalization of salience to the next. In order to find out whether it is possible to postulate an overarching working definition of linguistic salience that subsumes usage across linguistic subdomains, we review these different operationalizations of linguistic salience. This article focuses on salience in sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, second-language acquisition (SLA), and semantics. In this article, we give an overview of how these fields operationalize salience. Finally, we discuss correlations and contradictions between the different operationalizations.

About this journal

Open Linguistics is an academic peer-reviewed journal covering all areas of linguistics. The objective of this journal is to foster free exchange of ideas and provide an appropriate platform for presenting, discussing and disseminating new concepts, current trends, theoretical developments and research findings related to a broad spectrum of topics: descriptive linguistics, theoretical linguistics and applied linguistics from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives.

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Translation Times
Coordinating Editors: Titela VÎLCEANU, Antonia CRISTINOI BURSUC, Verónica PACHECO COSTA, Loredana PUNGÃ
manuscript submission deadline: 15 June 2023

Recently Published Special Issues

Translation Times, Titela Vîlceanu & Daniel Dejica (eds.)
Modification in Functional Discourse Grammar, Thomas Schwaiger, Elnora ten Wolde, & Evelien Keizer (eds).
Current issues in Morpho-syntax in Japanese and Korean
Perspectives on multilingual speakers, A. Stêpkowska & J. Sypiañska (eds).
Weak cesuras: what fuzzy boundaries can accomplish in talk-in-interaction, Dagmar Barth Weingarten & Richard Ogden (eds).
Language and Prejudice, Mats Deutschmann & Anders Steinvall (eds).