Search results for "linguistics and language"
showing 10 items of 3037 documents
Register Variation in Electronic Business Correspondence
2011
Electronic correspondence is a highly dynamic genre within the business world in which Register Variation (RV) is frequently used as a tool to improve communication but it often can lead to misunderstanding. In order to shed some light on this still unexplored area, the present study firstly offers a practical approach to classify and analyse RV within professional communication. After this, it reviews previous studies on email writing to apply their findings to this approach and, in the third part of the study, a corpus of recent business emails in English is analysed to examine how the key parameters of RV are currently used within this genre. The results will show that, not only the cont…
Coordinating action in technology-supported shared tasks: Virtual pointing as a situated practice for mobilizing a response
2021
Drawing on recordings of remote screen-based work meetings in Finland, this conversation analytic study investigates interactive properties of mouse cursor movements in technology-mediated shared tasks. The article illustrates how participants rely on features afforded by the input device in ways that divert from its pre-designed functions to accomplish virtual pointing gestures. These gestures serve as an organizational resource in the precursory phase of action, i.e. when a next on-screen action is observably made relevant. In this sequential environment, pointing by means of the tool is a collaborative resource: an embodied practice for sustaining co-orientation and advancing the sequent…
Milieux professionnels et FASP médicale : de l’autre côté du miroir
2004
Le but de cette étude, est de mettre en lumière et d’analyser les relations entre les milieux professionnels de la médecine et la fiction à substrat professionnel (FASP). Il est convenu de dire que les medical thrillers, dont les caractéristiques principales en tant que sous-groupe générique de la FASP sont présentées ici, offrent un reflet plutôt fidèle du monde de la médecine. L’auteur montre l’intégration en profondeur du discours et des pratiques de la communauté médicale dans la trame paratextuelle, narrative et linguistique des romans à suspense à dominante médicale. Afin de mieux comprendre les relations entre l’environnement professionnel et l’œuvre de fiction, l’auteur présente les…
In the name of security : Governmentality apparatus in a multilingual mine in Arctic Finland
2021
This critical sociolinguistic study explores how mining work is governed in the name of security in a mine in Arctic Finland. Although the mining industry is dominated by multinational corporations, mines themselves tend to be concentrated in peripheries where a mobile and multilingual workforce is recruited. Mining is a high-risk business: industrial accidents and environmental damage can be severe. Discursive practices play a crucial role in risk management. In this study, the nexus of language, security, and production in mining work is analyzed by applying the Foucauldian concept of 'governmentality'. The data comprise ethnographic observations, work-related documents, and interviews co…
Linguistic recycling : The process of quoting in increasingly mediatized settings
2020
“She said that he said that they said…” – This issue of the AILA Review focuses on practices of quoting by which language is recycled in new contexts, transgressing formerly clear boundaries in environments of increasing mediatization. In the introduction, we first present working definitions of our topic’s key terms (Part 1). Then, we go through the topics, outcomes, and main interconnections of the ten approaches as discussed in the papers of this issue (Part 2). Based on the insights from the discussion so far, we develop a systematic framework to analyze the formal, functional, and procedural aspects of linguistic recycling (Part 3). Finally, we touch some of the white spots of this iss…
Further notes on sociolinguistic scales
2015
AbstractThis short paper seeks to reformulate and refine the notion of sociolinguistic scales as relative scope of understandability, thus drawing the notion fully into the realm of semiotics, rather than in the rather unproductive sphere of spatiotemporal and distributional interpretation where it has been deployed. Differences in scope of understandability are differences in the presupposability of signs, and such differences are not equivalent but stratified in a polycentric environment. Scales, in that sense, point towards the non-unified and hierarchical-layered nature of the sign and of meaning making practices. Scalar effects, once established, can furthermore be carried over into di…
Sobre alguns participis actius amb verbs de moviment
2021
L’objectiu d’aquest estudi és analitzar les estructures formades a partir de la combinació d’un participi amb un verb de moviment, en casos com venir plorat de casa. L’interès d’aquestes dades rau en el fet que els participis que descrivim no són actius (plorat, tossit), però adquireixen una lectura activa en combinar-se amb verbs de desplaçament (venir, sortir, arribar). Al llarg de l’article recopilem i descrivim les dades que segueixen aquesta configuració i mirem d’esbossar alguns apunts per a una possible anàlisi formal. D’una banda, seguint la proposta d’Armstrong (2017), defensem que verbs com plorar o tossir permeten la formació d’un participi actiu resultatiu perquè tenen un object…
The Translation of Sex-Related Language: The Danger(s) of Self-Censorship(s)1
2009
While censorship is an external constraint on what we can publish or (re)write, self-censorship is an individual ethical struggle between self and context. In all historical circumstances, translators tend to produce rewritings which are ‘acceptable’ from both social and personal perspectives. The translation of swearwords and sex-related language is a case in point, which very often depends on historical and political circumstances, and is also an area of personal struggle, of ethical/moral dissent, of religious/ideological controversies. In this paper we analyse the translation of the lexeme fuck into Spanish and Catalan. We have chosen two novels by Helen Fielding—Bridget Jones’s Diary (…
Dynamic assessment of word derivational knowledge: Tracing the development of a learner
2016
The present paper reports on a case study that explored the applicability of dynamic assessment (DA) for promoting learners’ word derivational knowledge in English as a second or a foreign language (L2). One learner’s performance on tasks assessing his word derivational knowledge was measured four times. The first two measurements were conducted before and after three weekly human-mediated DA sessions and the last two, which took place a year and a half later, before and after three weekly computerised DA sessions. Think aloud protocols and interviews were used to trace changes in the learner’s use of strategies and knowledge sources. The results revealed that following the dynamic assessme…
Towards Equivalence Links between Senses in PlWordNet and Princeton WordNet
2017
AbstractThe paper focuses on the issue of creating equivalence links in the domain of bilingual computational lexicography. The existing interlingual links between plWordNet and Princeton WordNet synsets (sets of synonymous lexical units – lemma and sense pairs) are re-analysed from the perspective of equivalence types as defined in traditional lexicography and translation. Special attention is paid to cognitive and translational equivalents. A proposal of mapping lexical units is presented. Three types of links are defined: super-strong equivalence, strong equivalence and weak implied equivalence. The strong equivalences have a common set of formal, semantic and usage features, with some o…