contrastive rhetoric studies in applied linguistics

ulla connor

"Three approaches concerning tranfer have dominated: contrastive analysis; error analysis; and its later development, an analysis of the transitional system called 'interlanguage'."

"Non-Anglo-American English as in international language encourages tolerance for nonnative norms of English."

"English readers expect and require landmarks of coherence and unity as they read. The writer needs to provide transitional statements. In Japanese, on the other hand, trasnsitions may be lacking. The reader is expected to piece sections together to make a coherent text."

"In addition to emphasizing the personal growth and integration inherent in such self-evaluation, social constructionist theory in L1 composition has allied itself with an anti-authoritarian ideology."

"...critical pedagogy...has not been embraced by ESL teachers and researchers..."

The role of repetition in Arabic argumentative discourse

adnan j.r. al-jubouri

"the different types of formal devices that Arabic employs for expressing repetition and achieving rhetorical effect."

"Repetition in Arabic discourse...is realized at several levels...the morphological level, the word level, and the 'chunk' level."

"k-t-b has to do with writing"

"Notice that the repetition of a morphological pattern creates repetition on the phonological level if said aloud, which intensifies the effect of repetition."

"English discourse rules, codified in rhetoric textbooks under 'variety in word choice', encourage writers to avoid repetition of this sort. The converse is true in Arabic."

"They occur in English in a number of frozen, or semi-frozen idiomatic expressions, particularly in legal English where they are known as 'doublets'.

"The consttuents in the word strings of this group are antonyms or near-antonyms. This is an old rhetorical device in Arabic and has been used for centuries in poetry as well as in prose."

"When reiterated through an argument they tend to create an immediate emotional impact."

"Parallelism is a rhetorical as well as text-building device."

"The tendency towards forceful assertion also explains what, in the eye of a Western recipient, appears to be a florid and verbose style of argumentative discourse. Brevity will simply fail to convey the required effect."

"Expository paragraph structure in Slavic and Romance languages"

paul neubauer and elizabeth riddle

Kaplan claimed that English is more linear and contains fewer digressions than Slavic or Romance texts.

This study found that "the Romance and Slavic paragraphs in our sample exhibited no more digression than the English paragraphs. Furthermore, in none of the cases does this data support a claim that digressiveness is typical of expository prose paragraphs in that language."


Kaplan's doodles should not be repeated by other researchers as "gospel."

linguistic rituals for thanking in japanese: balancing obligations

jun ohashi

"The data of this investigation are naturally ocurring telephone conversations which took place in the Japanese enf-of-year gift-giving seaosn, seibo."

"This study reveals that conversational participants cooperate to achieve a mutual pragmatic goal of 'debt-credit equilibrium'."

"o-rei does not free the debtor form debt."

"the mutual and reciprocal aspects need to be taken into account."

"The norm of reciprocity--the social obligation to reciprocate benefits to one another--is claimed to be universal (Goulder, 1960)..."

"THe social goal of reciprocity is not debtless or creditless state in social relationship, but the continuation of the relationship."

rei can mean politness/social hierarchy or a bow

"'the giver and the thanker collabortate in the development of a successful thanking episode' (Eisenstein and Bodman, 1993: 74)"

"were also told that any conversations they had reservations about presenting to the researcher should be erased....The transcripts ...are simplified and modified for the purpose of this study."

"A(11) can be interpreted as a topic change to end an o-rei. This exmaple is unique because the beneficiary changed the topic. In other xamples it was always the benefactor who changed the topic."

"benefactive verbs emphasises imbalance and 'ie ie' denigrates it."

"...'thanking' and 'apologizing' are hardly distinguishable in Japanese; they are closely related in the indebtedness the speaker feels towards the interlocutor."

speakers repeat "'No, not at all'."

"It is often the case that doomo is used alone, that is, the later parts are unsaid. The frequent se of doomo supports the view that Japanese native speakers may not be conscious of distinguishing the speech act of thanking and apology in particular contexts where the speaker needs to express indebtedness."

"Imbalance is overtly acknowledged by beneficiary and the imbalance is dneied by benefactor."

"Such a sudden topic change, which is initiated by the benefactor, is observed frequently in the data."

"Working on the debt-credit equilibrium emerged clearly as a common practice outside a family circle."

'The more intimate the interlocutors were, the more a 'complimenting-gladness' pair tended to emerge. This is clearly a norm for intimate situations."

"Both ends of the continuum of social distance tend to have predictable sequences; the minimum end tends to be complimenting-gladness', while the maximum end tends to be 'thanking, apology, debt-sensitive speech formula, and/or a benefactive verb-denial."

"Working on debt-credit equilibrium is observed as a default except for conversations between family members."

"Overlaps:
When conversationsl participants work together on debt-crdit equilibrium, overlapping speech frequently ocurred. In otehr words, as soon as the beneficiary indicates his/her pragmatic intention of compensating debt, even partially with thanking apology, debt-sensitive formulae or a benefactive verb, the benefactor counteracts with a 'dneial'. A 'denial' serves the pragmatic function of de-burdening the beneficiary, thus, it often overlaps, or at least is latched with the beneficiary's attempt to work on o-rei. This conversational overlap or harmony is also evidence that mutual work on the debt-credit equilibrium is in operation. If I use the notion of face, as a motivational drive, derived from Goffman (1967:5): "the positive value a person effetively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact", the state of being in debt without an acknowldgment is dishonorable, and for the benefactor, claiming that s/he is a creditor is seen as arrogant and a social disgrace. 'Dnial', as an expected follow up of beneficiary's acknowledgement of benefit/debt, may in fact care for both beneficiary's and benefactor's face."

"This supports Apte's description of thanking (verbalization of gratitude) in Marathi and Hindi, that is "verbalization of gratitude indicates a distant relationship" (Apte, 1974:75), and thus it should be avoided among family members."

sociolinguistic competence in the complimenting act of native chinese and american english speakers: a mirror of cultural value

ming-chung yu

"The present study examines sociolinguistic features of a particular speech act, paying compliments, by comparing and contrasting native CHinese and native American speakers' performances...this apper aims at illuminating the fact that, in cross-cultural communication, foreign langauge speakers have to pay close attention to sociolinguistic rules of the target language in addition to structure and discourse rules to meet the needs of linguistic accuracy and fluency."

"Complimenting is chosen in that this speech act, while seemingly common and simple at first glance, is often considered so complex as to cause a great deal of troble in intercultural encounters (e.g., Wolfson, 1989)."

"The issue of universality versus culture-speciicity in speech act studies is still hotly debated."

"It has been argued that the main function of compliments is to establish solidarity between speaker and addressee (e.g., Herbert, 1989;...)"

"...people frequently offer praise to reinforce or encourage the desired behavior in specific situations, such as teaching and learning. Another possible function compliments may serve is to strengthen or replace other speech acts like aplogizing, greeting, reprimanding, or thanking, or to soften acts such as criticism, or even to serve as acts like sarcasm or a conversation opener 9Wolfson, 1983, pp. 86-93)."

"American compliments serve to negotiate social solidarity, South African praise functions non-negotiatively, probably as a way to affirm such solidarity." (Herbert and Stright, 1989)

"complimenting can also be seen as...action that attends to the addressee's positive face by including him or her in the group...complimenting itself can also be deemed as a face-threatening act." both "positive politness device as well as face-threatening act"

"each field worker was asked to note as soon and as accurately as possible the exact compliment exchange and relevant contextual information he or she observed in his or her everyday life right after each exchange had taken place."

"two-year data collecting period" "audio-tape the observed spoken exchanges."

"In the Chinese data, 356 participants produced 410 compliments, while in the Americna ENglish data, 636 participants produced 789 compliments."

"Direct compliments, which refers to remarks including linguistic forms that dircetly and unambiguously frame these comments as compliments, such as, "Isn't the food great!"

"Indirect compliments, which refers to remarks which would be seen as compliments by the addressee, althought he positive semantic carrier generally assoicated with complimenting is missing at the level of the linguistic form...."Wow, I hope I'll have a coat like this.""

"(a) that complimenting frequency is much lower for CHinese speakers than for English speakers, (b) that direct complimenting was the most often adopted strategy for both speaker groups, and (c) that CHinese speakers used indirect compliments proportionately more than Americans did."

Direct: CHinese: 334. American: 719
Indirect: CHinese: 76. 18.5% Americans: 70 8.9%

"there were more Chinese speakers than expected who complimented indircetly, and fewer American English speakers who did so."

"there seem to be conceptual differences of directness/indirectmess between Chinese and English speakers."

"many Chinese speakers believe that the Chinese tend to consider these strategies equally direct when presented as single utterances."

Chinese compliments: "You must have put a lot of thought into it. That's a very clever idea." To Yuanyuan, the first part seems indirect and the second part seems direct. "You smell great. What kind of perfume are you wearing?" small talk and compliments overlap. The second sentence of the 2nd example here, "when ocurring on its own, can be considered a core compliment."

"...for native CHinese speakers, supportive moves and/or small talk are likely to be found before the core request in seemingly high imposition situations, whereas for American English speakers, they usually occur after the core request (Yu 1999b)."

Chinese: "Hi, I stood in line right behind you, so I got a chance to see you play. Do you often come here? Maybe we cna practice together some day. I think you play pretty well." long
American: "Nice shot! Wanna play together sometime?" short

"whereas the complimenting utterances of Americans were mostly so straightforward that few supportive moves or little small talk were used, Chinese speakers employed such moves or talk much more frequently so that many of their complimenting sequences tended to be longer, as we can see above in Examples (9) and (10). In practice, native CHinese speakers' use of small talk and/or supportive moves has to do with a socio-cultural convention that embraces a communicative style valuing reciprocal face work very highly."

"the use of linguistic devices that serve functions like supportive moves or small talk plays a very important role in CHinese politeness behavior and face concerns."

"compliments have been found to occur in a much wider variety of speech situations in AMerican culture than in other cultures (e.g. Wolfson, 1989."


this is unusual for the Chinese; they usually won't say this to a stranger: "Hi, we were just sitting near each other. By the way, I think you look great in this dress."
B: "So so!" A normal response
A: Do you come here often? How do you like the food here?"
B: Just so so!
A: Maybe we can get together again."
B: We'll see. I've been very busy recently. We'll probably meet again at school." this means I don't want to see you again. An exmaple that complimenting a stranger doesn't work with the CHinese

"In these two exchanges, compliments appear to function primarily as a conversation opener for the speaker to try to establish some rapport with the addressee."

"Not only is this behavior generally considered inappropriate, but also the addressee may think that the speaker is in effect contriving something."


"Given that the Chinese tend to offer fewer compliments in everyday discoursal activities than Americans, the question arises whether the Chinese have less of a need to establish solidarity than native ENglish speakers."

American-democratic
South AFrican-elitist
"...comliments in American culture function primarily as a vehicle to negotiate solidarity between speaker and hearer, wheeas compliments in South Afrucan society serve mainly as an instrument to show the speaker's admiration."

"Oliver (1971) argued that Chinese society traditionally legitimizes a hierarchical class structure that places a high value on subordination to and respect for authorities."

"
Therefore, compliments in CHinese culture, like those in South African society, may be primarily used to display the speaker's positive assessment of some object or concern relevant to the addressee instead of offering solidarity." Compliemts in South African and CHinese cultures "may serve a more restricted set of functions and are thus more limited in discourse."

"cultural norms play an important role in determining language behavior."

"In Chinese culture, the speaker is generally expected to employ compliments as assertions of admiration."

"In American culture, however, it is common practice for the speaker to employ compliments to establish solidarity or rapport."

"...compliments could also serve to replace other speech acts such as aplogizing, greeting, or thanking, and so forth, and both speaker groups employed compliments this way."

"compliments in AMericna ENglish mostly fall into two main categories: (a) appearance and/or possessions; and (b) ability and/or performance."

"The Chinese speakers' tendency to compliment on ability and/or performance can be accounted for by the fact that the Chinese traditionally tend to emphasize the virtues and qualities of individuals, and thus do not regard good looks or possessions as having great social value (Yang, 1987)."

"First...the act of explicitly admiring a person's appearance and/or possessions will usually be regarded as uncultivated...Second, physicla appearnce in Chinese socio-cultural contexts traidtionally has a sexual implication, and is, therefore, seen as taboo in social intercation.

"...newness is very highly valued in American society. Thus, offering a compliment is appropriate whenever an acquaintance is seen with something new (Wolfson, 1989)."

Recipient is higher in status: Chinese: 4.9%. American 15%

"For both speaker groups, the great majority of compliments occur in interactions between people of equal status."

"...Chinese socio-cultural convention...legitimizes a vertical class structure following Confucian political philosophy that places special emphasis on respect for and subordination to the authorities."

..."in American culture...the asymmetric power relations in conversational dyads are often not recognized."

"...where status is concerned, there were more compliments downwards than upwards for Chinese speakers, whereas there were more compliments upwards than downwards for Chinese speakers."

"for both speech groups, the great majority of compliments occur in interactions between interlocutors who are casual friends, co-workers, non-intimates, and acquaintances rather than intimates or total strangers."

In CHinese culture, complimenting a close friend or intimate is considered distancing.

Recipient is a close friend or intimate: Chinese 7.8% American 16.4%

"social distance appears to be seen as an easily surmountable boundary to everyday interactions in American culture, while in CHinese culture, a vertical social class structure is still observed."



"this Chinese word, due to its stronger semantic force, is employed in indirect requesting more often than in complimenting; in contrast, "like" in ENglish, due to its stronger complimentary force, is used in complimenting much more frequently than in requesting."

politeness ideology in Spanish colloquial conversation: the case of advice

nieves hernandez-flores

"...politeness is based on a social ideology, i.e. on a set of ideas about behaviour which are shared by a community...the members of this community have to follow the rules in order to continue their membership in the group."

"the social ideology arising in European SPanish colloquial conversation."


autonomy: "the fact of perceiving, and to be perceived by people, as someone with his/her own surroundings inside the group."
affiliation: "the fact of perceiving, and to be perceived by people, as an integrated part of the group."

"what the categories of autonomy and affiliation aim at in terms of behaviour is open to cultural interpretation."

in Spanish groups:
self-affirmation: (Thuren 1988): "It is important to express your opinions forcefully and persuasively; one should be able to persuade through showing the invinsible structure and logic of one's opinions and also demonstrating their emotional charge, because what is emotionally strong carries its own logic."
confianza: (Thuren) "closeness or a sense of deep familiarity"

"the face want of self-affirmation (the desire to be seen by others as someone with good social qualities) does not refer to the fact of being or not being unimpeded in one's actions, as negative face does, but to the wish of standing out form the group...With regard to confianze (sense of deep familiarity), this notion does not refer to the wish of being appreciated and approved of (positive face) but to the wish of achieving closeness..."

"advice would be understood as a speaker's imposition on the hearer's freedom of decision and action."

note 8: "Also in American English, by using Brown and Levinson's features for face, Decapua and Huber display that unsolicited advice shows people's enagagement in related stories or descriptions arising in daily conversation and this is not seen as a threat in many situations...advice has other functions...to establish or maintain rapport."

"she plays down her task by using a diminutive in the adjective (tranquilita)"

"advice arises without a demand deom th addressee, it presents clear assertions and it is rejected by the hearer."

a cross-cultural comparison of apologies by native speakers of American English and jordanian arabic

rula fahmi bataineh, ruba fahmi bataineh

"This study investigates the apology strategies used by the speakers of American English and Jordanian Arabic...there were more differences between Jordanian male and female resondents than between American male and female respondents, which may be attributed to the fact that there is a greater similarity between how boys and girls are raised in the US than between how they are raised in Jordan."

apologies

survey taken by undergraduates

"Westerners concentrate more on culpability and Easterners on consequences."

"only Jordanians used strategies such as praising God for what happened, attacking the victim, minimizing the degree of offense, and interjection."

Strategies differed, but not that much.

developing awareness of crosscultural pragmatics: the case of american/german sociable interaction

catherine evans davies

"...this article draws teachers' attention to three interrelated aspects of conversational style which are important in initial crosscultural encounters between Americans and Germans."

criticizes the natural approach

"The argument is made that language teachers should give pragmatic competence/awareness the highest priority in the classroom, form the beginning of language study."

3 points:

1. "we need to organize teaching around speech activities as discourse rather than around isolated speech acts."
2. "we need to develop in learners the ability to looks for patterns, through discourse analysis and a certain critical distance, rather than 'facts' or 'rules' about language and culture."
3. "we need to present cultural themes (e.g., the public versus the private self: what is the boundary betwen an acceptable and unacceptable degree of self-disclosure in small talk?) as opportunities to explore diversity within the home and target cultures."

"Too often we also find an avoidance of cultural generalizations."

"...compared to German strategies, American conversationalist style (in particular with reference to the experience of university students engaged in crosscultural conversations) 'is weighted toward deference strategies' (Byrnes 1986)...Such a conversational style in fact allows the individualism which Americans favor ideologically, in that respect for the individuality of others protects one's own by maintaining reciprocal respect."

Byrned characterizes "conversational style among German univeristy students not in terms of solidarity or deference politeness strategies, but rather as placing greater emphasis on the 'information-conveying function of language, as compared with the social bonding function' (1986). She suggests further that this emphasis leads naturally to more dircet strategies."

Example in which a roommate stains another roommate's blouse. "Germans were much more willing to pass judgment on the violators, exercising a more overt social control function than English speakers."

"An alternative explanation might be that Germans have more of a sense of homogeneity with a shared set of norms which they can enforce, whereas Americans are more aware of their heterogeneity."

"...among Americans the average 'social distance' between different individuals seems to be smaller than among Germans, but only in regard to the peripheral regions."

(1) SMALL TALK
"The existence of the expression 'small talk' in English suggests that it is a cultural category; in contrast, German simply describes the practice as ...(unconstrained, unrestricted, easy interaction).

"Germans seemed to have obligatory opening and closing rituals for public encounters, with nothing in between; whereas Americans seemed to have more flexible (and sometimes optional) openings and closings, with the focus on the sociable interaction in the middle."

"It is easy to envision the difficulties of an Americna trying to develop small talk along American cultural lines."

"Germans in the US often misunderstand small talk to be the initiation of a 'close friendship' and can feel set up for a disappointment."

(2) JOKING
"...for Germans, joking is private behavior, whereas for Americans it is public as well as private...English speakers (and Austrian German speakers) have a more creative and lighthearted attitude and less prescriptive approach to language than Germans do."

"Germans tend to judge Americans negatively on the basis of what was seen to be their excessive joking; they were assumed to be 'frivolous' and 'not serious enough.'"

"human beings are not cultural robots."

aspects of polite behaviour in French and Syrian service encounters: a data-based comparative study

veronique traverso
2006

conversational routine: highly predictable expressions in specific social situations

ritual acts (related to sociology): "conventionalised act through which an individual portrays his respect and regard for some object of ultimate value." (Goffman)

The script in the service encounter:

• opening sequence of the encounter
• sequence including the request
• (payment sequence)
• leave-taking sequence

To what extent are encounters determined by cultural norms? How far away could one stray form those norms?

Syrian: "may it be blessed" can be used in many situations

"In the Syrian corpus, the request is routinized through the use of even fewer formulas, including indirect devices:
'Is there?' 'have you got?'"

"at your service, willingly (lit. 'on my eye,' 'on my eye and on my head')"

theories of identity and the analysis of face

helen spencer-oatey

"I propose that in cognitive terms, face and identity are similar in that both relate to the notion of 'self'-image..., and both comprise multiple self-aspects or attributes. However, face is only associated with attributes that are affectively sensitive to the claimant. It is associated with positively evaluated attributes that the claimant wants others to acknowledge..., and with negatively evaluated attributes that the claimant wants others NOT to ascribe to him/her."

A Hungarian student called Spencer-Oatey a kind old lady, hurting her face. She didn't want to be considered old.

A British businessman gave a welcome speech but didn't allow the Chinese to make a return speech, insulting them.

At a meeting, each British person introduced himself. Then it was the Chinese's turn. They spoke together, then allowed the delegation leader to introduce all of them. The interpreter interrupted and insisted they follow the British lead. "...the Chinese visitors were not used to introducing themselves and were expecting the delegation leader both to handle all the introductions and to give a return speech. Their acceptance of business meeting conventions, as well as their belief in hierarchical differentiation (cf. Pan 2000) significantly influenced how they interpreted and reacted to the British chairman's behavior."


"...important insights into why people experience certain ocurrences as face threatening can be gained by considering their underlying conceptions of sociality rights--obligations. Such considerations may also help us anticipate people's face sensitivities and thereby help us to manage them more effectively."

data collection in pragmatics research

gabriele kasper

How you collect data depends on what you are studying.

"Depending on the research purpose, it may take an unreasonable amount of data to obtain sufficient quantities of the pragmatic feature under study--for instance, of a particular speech act."

Online: authentic discourse, elicited conversation, role-play, multiple choice, think-aloud protocols

Offline: production questionnaire, multiple choice, scales, interview, diary

power pragmatics in asian languages

jyh wee sew

quote Power in Language by Ng and Bradoc, 1993: "facts and logic alone are often insufficient for persuasion. Facts and logic--the prescribed basis of persuasion--must be adapted to the situation, and it is language and language style that will bear the burden of this mission."

quotes Robin Lakoff, 1990: "we are always involved in persuasion...If we succeed, we have power."

Hong 1985: "...since the addressee is supposed to anticipate your needs, if you mention them to him, it will embarrass him."

Sew: "Therefore, indirectness is understood as a style of formulating speech acts, which has an inherent pragmatic role."

In a Tamil family, "The wife in the family usually addressed the husband 'father of X: X being the eldest son/daughter' whereas the husband called his wife by her name." Not true now.

"Some explicator markers (V2), for instance, convey contempt" in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Kurukh.

Indirectness is tied to face-saving. Can be tied to powerlessness, but not necessarily.

complexity in isolating languages: lexical elaboration versus grammatical economy

elizabeth m. riddle

"I argue that although isolating Asian languages such as Hmong, Mandarin Chinese, and Thai may be economical in terms of inflection, they exhibit significantly more complex lexical patterns of particular types than more synthetic lanaguges such as Polish and English in like contexts."

non-inflecting languages have lots of complexity in other ways.

linguistic typology and sinospheric languages

elizabeth riddle and herbert stahlke

Why are West African and SE Asian languages so similar?

Overspecifying languages: subordination, polysyllabic words, derivational affixes, high degree of inflection

Underspecifying languages: juxtaposition, monosyllabic words, compounding, no inflection, verb classes blend together

language typology and language transfer

william e. rutherford
1983

ESL students trying to make topic-comment constructions:

"1a. These ways almost can classify two types.

3. A man choose a wife is a man's business [level 3]

5. Choosing a husband or wife in my country is quite an interesting thing [level 5]"

Rutherford found that Mandarin L1 students produced 10% topic-comment constructions, which supports what Li & Thompson argued for Chinese.

Topic-Comment:
10a. "In my country man and woman chooses husband or wife 0 is very simple [level 3]"

Uses "this as subject:
10b. "Choose a good husband or wife, this is very important problem for everybody [level 4]"

The way an English speaker would mark a subject:
10c"...choosinga husband or a wife is one of the essentials of life [level 5]"

13a1. "The streat of in the United States have a many many road..
2. In my country hasn't army, navy, and air force.

b1. Japan, just like other countries, we have distinctive history."

Subject and Topic: A New Typology of Language

charles n. li and sandra a. thompson
1975

subject-prominent lanaguges: English
Topic-Prominent Languages: Chinese
Subject-Prominent and Topic-Prominent Langauges: Japanese, Korean
Neither Subject nor Topic Prominent Languages: Tagalog

Mandarin (TP):
"here very hot
'It is hot in here.'

possible this-CLASS war will soon end aspect
'It is possible that this war will soon end.'"

double subject constructions:
Japanese:
"fish-TOPIC red snapper SUBJ delicious
'Fish (topic), red snapper is delicious

Korean:
airplane-top. 747-subj. big-stative
'Airplanes (topic), the 747 is big.'

Mandarin:
that tree leaves big
'That tree (topic) the leaves are big.'"

some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements

joseph h. greenberg, 1963

"Appendix III
Universals Restated
1. In declarative sentences with nominal subject and object, the dominant order is almost always one in which the subject precedes the object.
2. In languages with prepositions, the genitive almost always follows the governing noun, while in languages with postpositions it almost always precedes. [English is an exception. French holds to the rule.]
3. Languages with dominant VSO order are always prepositional.
4. With overwhelmingly greater than chance frequency, languages with normal SOV order are postpositional.

7. If in a language with dominant SOV order there is no alternative basic order, or only OSV as the alternative, then all adverbial modifiers of the verb likewise precede the verb. (This is the "rigid" subtype of III."

29. If a language has inflection, it always has derivation.
30. If the verb has categories of person-numer or if it has categories of gender, it always has tense-mode categories.

32. Whenever the verb agrees with a nominal subject or nominal object in gender, it also agrees in number.

34. No language has a trial number unless it has a dual. No language has a dual unless it has a plural."

the relevance of complement choice: a corpus study of 'believe'

"...the 'to-/that' complement alternation is sensitive to whether the writer intends the reader to focus on the implications of the proposition expressed by the embedded clause, or on the those of the proposition expressed by the sentence as a whole."

Dr. Riddle said this is wrong: "...the use of the infinitive complement is not unconstrained: on the one hand, it can only be used with stative verbs or those marked for perfective aspect; on the other, it is limited to formal, generally written, genres."

Predictions:
"As Noel found, 'believe' complements which introduce information new to the discourse should be more common in a sample of 'believe(s) that X is/are' cases than in a sample of 'believe(s) X to be' cases."
"There should be a higher incidence of behaviour/reaction-explaining cases in a 'believe(s) X to be' sample, for the reasons explained above."

He didn't find a big difefrence.

clause combining across languages: a corpus-based study of english-french translation shifts

christelle cosme.

This study uses bilingual corpora to test “the claim that English shows a strong preference for coordination while French makes more extensive use of subordination” (71). The results support this claim.
This article has two primary goals: “(a) gain more insight into the contrast between English and French in terms of clause-combining; (b) shed more light on clause combining in general – and, more particularly, on the relationship between coordination and subordination” (72). The article also has two secondary goals: (a) demonstrate how “corpus linguistics can serve the needs of syntactic cross-linguistic research” and (b) encourage language teachers to introduce translation corpora as a teaching tool (95-99).

Syntactical Background Information
There are three types of interclausal relations (73-74).
Juxtaposition He ate too much for dinner; he was ill the next day. Parataxis: establishes equivalent relation between clauses
Coordination He ate too much for dinner and (he) was ill the next day. Parataxis
Subordination Because he ate too much for dinner, he was ill the next day. Hypotaxis: establishes hierarchical relation between clauses

“No clear borderline seems to exist between coordination and subordination.”
The claim is that English prefers coordination, while French prefers subordination (76, example 8).

Methodology

Cosme used both monolingual and translation corpora for this study, analyzing two registers: fiction and journalese (78-79).


Monolingual corpus results

“Interclausal and is significantly more frequent than interclausal et” in fiction; this difference is not observed in journalese (80-81).

French is more apt to coordinate full clauses than English, which is more likely to coordinate predicates by ellipting the subject in the second clause (82).

Coordinating conjunctions convey two separate meanings: the static meaning (pure addition) or dynamic meaning (temporal sequence or consequence). In journalese, French tends to use et to convey a static meaning more often than English, which tends to use and to convey a dynamic meaning (83-84).


Translation corpus results

“It is more common for inter-clausal and to be translated by something else other than inter-clausal et ( . . .) than vice-versa” (84). This occurs in both fiction and journalese (85).

In the majority of examples, translators have the option of either coordinating or subordinating: the change is not obligatory (86).

Translations from English to French shift to subordinating structures by use of the following:
• Participle clause (28.3%)
• Purpose clause
• Relative clause (23.9%)
French-to-English translations display the following shift strategies:
• Participle clause (41.2%)

complementation

michael noonan

• That Cartier defeated Dugue would be significant (that-clause)
• For Cartier to defeat Dugue would be significant (infinitive clause)
• Cartier's defeating Dugue is significant (gerundal or verbal noun clause)
  
• Nelson saw Cartier defeating Dugue (participial clause)

"Derivational affixes, such as English -ing, which are used to convert a form from one part of speech to another are not considered here to be complementizers."

"Complementizers typically derive historically form pronouns, conjunctions, adpositions or case markers, and, rarely, verbs, and so may resemble words currently used in these capacities." In SE Asia, it's common for complementizers to derive form verbs.

"Parataxis and verb serialization may be used in complementation."
IN 100s of E. and SE Asian languages, "Each verb phrase contains a fully inflected verb."

In Lango, and African language:
"woman told (3SG DAT) man sifted (3SG) millet
'The woman said it to the man, he sifted millet'
The woman told the man to sift millet (and he did)"

Complement types: indicative, subjunctive, paratactic, infinitive, nominalization, participle

"Zeke wants Norma to plant the corn.
Zeke wants to plant the corn."

acquisition of relative clauses in relation to langauge universals

john a. hawkins
2007

In East Asian languages, many structures called RCs should "be reclassified as attributive clauses." RCs "can be of different types--head-external, head-internal, or headless--and the precise grammar of each needs to be defined and contrasted with that of attributive clauses."

"Given an implicational universal of the form 'if a language has property P, then it has propoerty Q,' you cannot logically derive the prediction that property Q should be acquired before property P."

"...we can say that the predictions made by language universals for acquisition and interlanguages appear to hold, all things being equal. However, things might not always be equal!"

"In short,we need a predictive complex adaptive model of language acquisition."

the acquisition of relative clauses in relation to language typology

bernard comrie

noun phrase accessibility hierarchy (NPAH)
subject>direct object>other object>genitive/possessor

"...for native speakers of European languages learning japanese or korean as a second lanaguge (L2), the articles in this collection suggest surprisingly little transfer..."

"RCS in Japanese and Korean are so different structurally form their European translation equivalents...that learners simply treat them as a new strcture to be learned rather than as variants of any structure familar to them form their native language."

"Each position on the NPAH is justified empirically by the existence of at least one languge that relativizes on that position but on no lower position."

relativization

ronald w. langacker. fundamentals of linguistic analysis. 1972

"The story (that I read) GAP was sad."

includes a deep structure tree

Relative clauses

edward l. keenan

"Our purpose here is to characterize the types of relative clauses which the langauges of the world present."

restrictive relative clause (RCS):
"I picked up two towels that were lying on the floor
John gave a check to the farmer whose cows Bill stole
Every student who Mary advised passed the exam."


restrictive clause includes:
determiner (optional)
domain noun (optional)
restrictive clause (S rel)

"There is a general tendency across languages to favor postnominal as opposed to prenomical RCS. More specifically, postnominal RCS are almost the only type attested in verb-initial languages."

In SVO languages, "postnominal RCS are the overwhelming norm..."

"...it is only in verb-final languages that prenominal RCS are the only or most productive form."

Corelatives
"These are not NPs and thus a fortiori not RCS on our definition, but they are the functional equivalent of RCS in many languages..."

S
S rel S main
COREL + NP rel NP ana

Hindi:
COREL man GEN dog sick is, that man DO I ERG saw
Which man's dog is sick, that man I saw

"...corelatives are not attested in rigid verb-final languages such as Japanese and Turkish. Nor are they attested in rigid SVO or verb-initial languages"


'I saw the man whose dog is sick'

Noun Phrases in Chinese and English: A study of English structural problems encountered by CHinese ESL students in Hong Kong

alice y.w. chan

"This paper attempts to find the sources of the problems and proposes a system of teaching priorities for the benefit of teachers and students."

"In terms of usage, Chinese pronouns are used more sparingly than their English counterparts--they are normally omitted if their referents are contextually clear."

ze5 bun2 syu1
this CLASSIFIER book

tung4 hok6 mun4
student plural

"While plural nouns (whith plural determiners when necessary( in English are obligatorily used to mark plurality...the Chinese plural marker mun4 is not used across the board."

"Like English, Chinese nouns also have the common case...and the genitive case...but neither Chinese nouns nor CHinese pronouns are distinguished by the subjective or objective case--the same form is used no matter whether the pronoun is the subject or object of a sentence."

Chan got confused between written and spoken.
"...the Chinese third person singular pronouns are also distinguished in gennder, i.e., taa1 (he), taa1(she)."

"Determiners introduce noun phrases."

"CHinese has no articles equivalent to the ENglish articles."

jat1 go 3 jan 4
one CLASSIFIER person
(a person)

dik1=possessive
ngo5 dik1 ji1 fuk6
I GEN clothes
(my clothes)

"Though the inclusion of a possessive dterminer does not make the imperatives ungrammatical, it tends to destroy the favorite style of terseness typical of the CHinese language.

baa2 (nei5 dik1( daai6 ji1 tyut3 haa6
BA (you GEN) big coat take off
(Take off your coat.)

"Classifiers in Chinese are important because in many cases the absence of a classifier, such as the direct translations from corresponding English noun phrases, would result in ungrammatical structures."

"Unlike ENglish, CHinese does not have post-modifiers."

Table 1 has ungrammatical ENglish sentences.

Topic-comment structure: "*My father he alays get my mother's money."

Resumptive pronouns: "*She is the teacher that she taught me grammar last year."

Missing relatives: "*You are the first person come to Hong Kong."
"*There is only one people look after my whole life."
"*One obvious smptom can be detected is insomnia."

Missing verbs: "The reduced relative clause in ENglish"
"*I have a large family which including grandmother, grandfather...."
"*After enjoying our delicious food which cooked by my mum, we wnt to school together."
"*The negative consequence that brought by its growth was...."

Missing subjects: "Chinese pronouns are used much more sparingly than their English counterparts...Chinese learners tend to produce English sentences with the subjects missing..."
"*I think my most important person in my life is not one, is my family."

Multiple Modification in English and Spanish NPs: A corpus-based contrastive study

noelia ramon garcia

"The aim of this study is to unveil the inetraction between meaning and grammar in this linguistic area in English and Spanish, revealing the different grammatical structures used in the two languages to actualise a particular meaning."

"Adjectives,,,occupy...a premodifying position in English...and a postmodifying position in SPanish..."

"A handful of English constructions allow the postposition of an adjective, particularly in noun compounds (attorney general, heir apparent) or when the head is an indefinite pronoun (something awful, nothing interesting). IN Spanish, on the other hand, premodifying adjectives may occur and usually mark affectivity: un viejo actor (an old actor)."

"...semantic constraints in this field are based on different factors in the two langauges: implicitness versus explicitness in English, and non-restrictiveness in SPanish."

Descriptive adjectives (a big bear) versus classifying adjectives (a polar bear).

"This implies that in Spanish premodifying adjectives carry only descriptive meanings (un buen coreografo, un gran hombre)..."

"el dia en que me dieron de baja (the day I was made redundant)" British English for getting laid off

"Multiple modification in NPs is thus not an uncommon phenomenon in Spanish, contrary to what some authors have claimed."

Are Emotions UNiversal or Culture-Specific?

Anna Wierzbicka

"According to Izard and Buechler (1980:168), the fundamental emotions are 1. interest 2 joy 3 surprise 4 sadness 5 anger 6 disgust 7 contempt 8 fear 9 shame/shyness and 10 guilt."

"English terms of emotion constitute a folk taxonomy, not an objective, culture-free analytical framework, so obviously we cannot assume that English words such as disgust, fear, or shame are clues to universal human concepts or to basic psychological realities. Yet words such as these are usually treated as if they were objective, culture-free 'natural kinds'."

Polish words tesknota and teskknic:

"X teskni do Y -->

X thinks something like this:
I am far away from Y
when I was with Y I felt something good
I want to be with Y now
if I were with Y now I would feel something good
I cannot be with Y now
because of this, X feels something bad.
"Several English words may come to mind as potential translation equivalents of the Polish word (homesick, long, miss, pine, nostalgia) but they all differ from another and from the Polish term as well."

"Both everyday speech and psychologically sensitive literature are full of attempts, often highly successful, to convey feelings for which there is no simple word."

"What is really important, I think, is that the feelings of lek and of tesknota are not sufficently salient in our American culture to have merited lexicalization...lexical differences between lek and guilt, or between tesknic and miss, may not only reflect but also encourage different, culture-specific, modes of hinking and feeling.
Are there any emotion concepts which have been lexically recognized as distinct and identifiable in all languages of the world?
The evidence available suggests that there are no such emotions."

Comparison of the English disgust and the French degout:

Izard (1969) reports that French and American children show very similar patterns of growth of recognition of individual emotions with age. He notes, however, that with respect to disgust there is an unexpected difference: the French slightly exceed the Americans at most age levels. Izard tries to explain this puzzling fact in terms of greater emphasis placed on the culinary art in French culture:"

"...the English word disgust encodes a feeling caused by 'bad and ugly' human actions (or their results), not by food as such. This is not to deny that the English concept 'disgust' contains a reference to 'something like bad taste and an impulse to get something out of one's mouth', but in 'disgust' this reference serves only as a simile."

"From an ENglish speaker's point of view, shame and fear are two different emotions. But form the point of view of speakers of Gidjingali, apparentky they are not, because both are seen in terms of the same impulse to retreat."

"Many languages of the world (for example, Korean, Ewe in West Africa, and JKuman in Papua) don't lexically distinguish shame and embarrassment. In fact, the same word also seems to be applied to situations in which English would use the word shy rather than either embarrassed or ashamed."

"...some tests showed that pre-literate subjects in New Guinea failed to distinguish between fear and surprise."

Figurative language in anger expressions in tunisian arabic: an extended view of embodiment

zouhair maalej

"...anger in tunisian arabic (TA) shows many more dimensions of embodiemnt than physiological embodiment. Anger in TA comes as physiological embodient, culturally specific embodiment, and culturally tainted embodiment."

"when the conceptualization of an emotion does not come as a rsult of a physical cause-effect relation, the conceptualization and the emotion are not physically close, which gives room for other kinds of embodiemnt."

"American make use of a folk model for the expression of anger governed by the container metaphor."

Kovecses (1995) explained that the model describes 3 submetaphors: "THE BODY IS A CONTAINER FOR THE EMOTIONS"..."ANGER IS HEAT"...and "EMOTIONS ARE FLUIDS"..."

"Lakoff (1987) argued that the scenario view of anger in American English must have "made sense to hundreds of millions of English speakers over a period of roughly a thousand years" (p. 407), strongly suggesting a universal status for physiology in emotion concepts. Furthermore, Lakoff and Kovecses (1987) claimed that "if we look at the metaphors and metonymics for anger in the lanaguges of the world, we will not find any that contradict the physiological results that they [the Ekman group] found" (p.220 that amounts to a claim for the universality of an anger scenario based on the nervous system and physiology."

"Cognitive linguistics is one of the very few current theories of linguistics to have given a place to the body in the mind, thought, meaning, and reason. This conceptualization of embodiment is inherent in the fact that we have a body."

"However, TA (together with other languages), for instance, includes emotion expressions where the basic-level category capitalized on is a body part that is not actually involved in any physiological change to the body. This kind of embodiment will be labeled culturally specific embodiment...the basic-level category is culture-specific, thus tainting the emotion with a cultural flavor."

TA: "He made my blood half-boil like a half cooked egg."
English: "He made my blood simmer."

TA: He lifted blood up to my head."
Eng: "I was flushed with anger."

TA: "He made my blood steam."
Eng: "I was fuming."

TA: "He half-boiled my brain to me like a half cooked egg."
"the heart is a container for anger."
"My heart is sloshing [with anger[".
"My heart was full of him."

TA: "X is a well without a bottom."
"X is a secretive and uncomplaining person."

"because the allowable amount of anger in the heart is definately smaller than the amount that the body can accomodate. As noted earlier in connection with anger and the heart, people who are said to have big hearts are likely to take in more anger than those who have a small one."

TA: "He swelled my nerves for me." "He made me have nerves." "My nerves escaped form me."

"He left me about to explode." "He exploded my bile to me."

"I found him dancing with two scarves." = "He went into a trance form anger." Rehab said it actually connotes great joy.

"He inflated my testicles." John said it is exactly the same as French.

Maalej ties the broken bones metaphor to cultural experience: the father buys a sheep, children play with it for a few days or even weeks, then it is slaughtered for a religious meal. This causes physical traums for the Tunisian children. Rehab and Asher disagreed that this causes trauma.

Bodies and their parts: an NSM approach to semantic typology

anna wierzbicka

She proposes that all languages have a word for "hands" and "head."

She's angry!

"To say that some far-away language has no word for 'hands' just because it uses the same word for 'hands' and (roughly) 'arms is like saying that Russian has no word for 'hands' becasue the Russian word ruki can mean eitehr 'hands' or (roughly) 'arms': or that English has no word for 'head' (as a body part) because the English word 'head' can also be used in some otehr senses."

"Ultimately, the only way to establish whether a wrd is polysemous or not is to show what the hypothetical 'gerneal' or 'vague' meaning might be."

"...while many concepts are language- and culture-sepcific, the concept of BODY is universal, just as the concepts of KNOW and THINK are universal."

"The hallmark of the NSM system is that meanings are represented in a tightly constrained, yet expressively flexible, "mini-language" of empirically established universal semantic primes along with ethir inherent universal grammar."

"It is or aspires to be a formal semantic metalanguage based on natural language."

"Crucially, an NSM explication is intended as a conceptual representation as well as a semantic one: what is of interest to NSM is not just formal elegance or ingenuity, but the psychological reality."

"The concept of ;mind'...is highly language specific...But 'body' as a conceptual universal has so far passed all rigorous semantic testing with flying colors."

"The words for KNOW and THINK are likely to be polysemous in many languages of the world, including Papua New Guinea and Australia, but this does not undermine their status as coneptual universals."

"...human hands mediate to a very large extent, between the world and the human mind."

"Hands are far too important in human cognition to be conceived of as two flaps at the end of people's arms: they are universally conceived of as two parts of the body...--they are not mediated via the conept of 'arm'."

"To say that some langauges do not have a word for hands may have a certain shock value, but there is a difference between shock value and truth value."

The concepts of head, arms, and legs are determined by their shape (round, long). The conept of hands is not determined by their shape.

allolexy: "two differentw ords (or morphemes) may function in different contexts as two lexical variants of the same ismple meaning."

She compares polish and english concepts of hands, feet, and fingers.

"...both the words for 'body' and the word for 'hands' can be polysemous (as can of course be the word for 'part') but this should not prevent us form recognizing the universality of these concepts as distinct word-meanings."

"The body is not just a "physical universal'...it is almost certainly a conceptual universal. It is a shared human yardstick for interpreting the world."

body part categorization in punjabi

asifa majid

"..there may be key ways in whic languages differ in both the categorization of the body into parts, and in how these parts are related to one another."

"Is categorization the same between individuals, either as a result of innate concepts, or regularities in the perceptual array? Or, is human categorization arbitrary--a matter of cultural or linguistic convention?" Dr. Riddle said "it's obvious that it's some of both."

"Unlike many other objects, the body is the same around the world ... So, we might expect that categories for parts of the body would be the same everywhere. But PUnjabi speakers show some interesting differences in how parts of the body are categorized in comparison with other languages in this volume, suggesting that body part categorization is not universal."

In Punjabi, "there is a category of internal body part which has no anatomical correlate."

"The use of multiple terms is probably a function of the pervasive multidialectism of PUnjabi speakers (Bhatia, 1993) which is discussed more in the next section."

"There are 2 grammatical genders in Punjabi: masculine and feminine...Where a body part term freely occurs with either the masculine or the feminine form...[both terms are given]."

"masculine gender represents a bigger size (both actual and speaker's perception) than the feminine." (But leg is feminine and it's very large)

There are 5 different words for face. "The terms are extensionally equivalent covering the oval-shaped area on the fornt of the head not including the neck or the ears. But the term muu difefrs here in that it is ambiguous in reference between the whole 'face' and just the 'mouth'...Despite its ambiguity and the lack of ambiguity associated with other terms for face, muu is the common word used in everyday speech to refer to face."

"Buttha (masculine) and butthi (feminine) are used with negative connnotation...used to refer to someone sulking or in a bad mood." Can be used as a term of endearment.

"The use of masculine indicates that the face is even bigger, and correspondingly that the emotional state of the eprson is more intense."

"Marshellese, an Austronesian language, was the only example in Brown and Witkowski (1981) found in a sample of 118 languages which equates the pupil with astar. To this sole example, we can add PUnjabi, as well as Hindi and Urdu, as examples of languages which use the expression 'the star of the eye' to refer to the pupil."

"A distinction is made between the living body and the dead body, meiyet."

There are many Hindi-Urdu loanwords for body parts in Punjabi.

"There are 2 terms to refer to the shoulder--moDa and kenda. MoDa can refer to the side of the shoulder, whereas kenda cannot So, while it is possible to describe bumping into someone as MoDa marna (lit. 'shoulder hit')," you can't say kenda marna. "MoDa does not exclusively refer to the side of the shoulder, however as when things are carried on the shoulder they can be described as moDe te cuk (lit. shoulders on carry') or kende te cuk (lit. 'shoulders on carry'), suggesting that both terms can be used to refer to the shoulder as a whole." Asher says they refer to the same thing, but aee form different languages.

"There is large variation in the extension people give for the terms referring to the back."

"Both fingers are toes are referred to as Ungli, but its primary sense is 'finger' and not 'digit.' There is converging evidence to support this interpretation. First, consultants say that there 10 Unglia, not 20, as would be expected if the term denotes 'digit' and not the 'finger.'

"The clitoris is referred to as the phephondi danna. It is unclear what phephondi means, but danna is used to refer to a single grain of rice, or a single bean, or a single pea." Similar to French.

"The womb is the becce dani 'child pot.'"

folk taxonomy: "The most striking thing about the Punjabi body lexicon for internal parts, is that there is a term for a body part which does not exist taxonomically. The keddi is believed to be an organ which is located at the bottom of the sternum. It is said to be about the size of a small egg, and like an egg oval in shape."

"xiphoid process...folk theory...there is a collective 'delusion' about its new location that is not accompanied by any perceptual evidence....the keddi is believed to exist only in humans."

the splayed hand is a measuring unit

"The 2 emblematic gestures under discussion are "begging gestures"...The single cupped hand is used when there is a direct appeal being made to the person; whereas the dual cupped hands are used when the appeal is being made indirectly via God."

"The term for 'sou' is ru..."
"The ru is incorporeal, while the body is corporeal, so consultants claimed that the ru cannot be a part of teh body."

"Punjabi data suggest that both types of conceptualizations exist side by side: a small set of body parts are conceptualized as forming part-whole relations, namely the limbs; while most other body parts are conceptualized as being in a locative relation."

semanticategories of cutting and breaking: some final thoughts

john r. taylor

"The studies reported in this special issue exemplify two approaches to semantic typology and to the study of word meaning more generally...It is encouraging that these very different approaches partition the verbs of material seperation in roughly compatible ways...Attention is drawn to the fact that in general the cut and break verbs seem not to display much taxonomic depth, a finding which is in stark contrast to the often elaborate taxonomies exhibited by nominal concepts."

"MacLaury used the follwoing data elicitation procedures:
i. naming...
ii. focal reference...
iii.mapping...

These procedures deliver different kinds of data:
i. elicits the basic color terms of the langauge
ii. elicits the prototypical exemplar of each color term
iii. elicits the extensional range of each color term."

onomasiological: "(What do you call this?")
semasiological: ("What can this word refer to?")

'Appeal to mapping data also makes it possible to identify various kinds of semantic relation between words, such as taxonomic inclusion, synonymy, overlap (or partial synonymy), and contrast."

"The papers in this issue suggest that C&B verbs do not, in general, display any great degree of taxonomic depth, or indeed, in some cases, any kind of taxonomic structure at all."

'He cut-break the rope': encoding and categorizing cutting and breaking events in mandarin

Jidong Chen

"Mandarin categorizes cutting and breaking events on the basis of fine semantic distinctions in the causal action and the caused result."

"3 semantically different types of predicates can be identified: verbs denoting the C&B action subevent, verbs encoding the C&B result subevent, and resultative verb compounds (RVC) that encode both the action and the result subevents."

qie1-duan4
cut.eith.single.blade-be.broken

"The 1st verb (V1) of the RVC, qie1, encodes only the sub-event of the cutting action while the second verb (V@), duan4, encodes the state change of being broken that results from the cutting action."

"I show that Mandarin supports the proposed universal distinction between C&B verbs . . ., but Mandarin C&B verbs differ crucially from the English cut and break in their semantics and argument structure, and the two-way distinction of C&B verbs should be broadened to include a third type of C&B verb, the RVC."

"C&B RVC verbs are semantically compositional. As a whole, they entail a state change, which is indefeasible..."

"...the verb expressing the causal act always precedes the verb expressing the state change . . . no NP can intervene between the constituent verbs..." ungrammatical: qie1 (rope) duan4

"So the state change that is entailed by a monomorphemic verb like cut or break in ENglish is defeasible for Mandarin C&B verbs, as in (5): I qie1 the rope, but rope not duan4 (canceling the action)

"Mandarin C&B verbs encode the causal sub-event and leave lexicalization of the resulting event to an additional verb."

"In contrast, ENglish monomorphemic C&B verbs lexicalize--hence, entail--the resulting event."

"Both English C&B verbs and Mandarin C&B RVCs are telic. But the former are compatible with the progressive aspect, the use of which switches the focus to the process leading up to the state change. In contrast, Mandarin C&B RVCs are incompatible with progressive aspect: they focus only on the endpoint of the event (Tai 1984) and they present the event as a non-decomposable whole (Li and SHirai 2000; Smith 1997)."

"Correspondence analysis revealed 5 distinct clusters of C&B causal events and the Mandarin verns used to describe them:
1. Cutting with scissor(-like) (2-bladed) instrument (e.g. nail clippers, pliers)...thsi distinction is not universal...
2. Cutting with single-blade(-like) instrument...
3. Breaking with hammer(-like) instrument...
4. Pulling on flexible 2-D object (e.g. cloth, paper) with hands or a hand(-like) instrument...'tear, rip'.
5. Bending or pulling on a linear (usually rigid) object (e.g. stick, carrot) with hands or a handlike instrument."

Mandarin C&B action verbs can be distinguished by the instrument and the manner.


"Mandarin does not have an overarching generic verb like cut that can be used across events like slicing, hacking, chopping, trimming, and sawing. Rather, a specific C&B verb must be selected on the basis of the manner or instrumet involved."

'These result verbs can be seen to differentiate C&B events along the following semantic distinctions:
-feature os the affected object (linear objects vs. others).
state or degree of being broken (e.g. sui4 'be in pieces' vs. po4 'be broken')
direction of seperation: cross wise vs. in some other direction (e.g., duan4 'be broken (of long objects broken crosswise').

7b apple qie1 le
The apple cut

"Sentences like 7b resemble the inchoative construction superficially, since the affected object appears in the subject position and the cause is left unexpressed. But such sentences are not real inchoatives."

"Result verbs resemble English breka verbs to some degree: both specify a state or state change but leave the causing subevent open; both can appear in the inchoative construction. But Mandarin result verbs differ crucially from English break verbs in that they cannot be directly used as causatives."

The Semantic Categories of cutting and breaking events: A crosslinguistic perspective

Asifa Majid, Melissa Bowerman, Miriam Van Staden and James S. Boster

"we show that although there is crosslinguistic variation in the number of distinctions made and in the placement of category boundaries, these differences take place within a strongly constructed semantic space."

2 views of "the categories associated with everyday words": they "are largley universal. This is because, by hypothesis, they originate in nonlinguistic cognition. . . acquiring basic vocabulary is a process of mapping words to concepts that have already been established on a nonlinguistic basis. The other view: "lexical categories do not reflect shared nonlinguistic cognition directly, but are to some extent linguistic conventions that are free to vary . . ."learning words, even for seemingly universal human experiences and activities, often involves working out language-specific principles of categorization."

"actions of C&B have been central to hominid cognition and culture for more than two million years . . ., which might plead for a degree of universality in the conceptualization of such events."

"On the other hand, preliminary crosslinguistic work ... shows that C&B verbs have intriguingly different extension patterns in different languages."

"...the necessary set of categories may not be obvious to first langauge learners purely on the basis of nonlinguistic experience, but must be learned through exposure to the input language. . . .Children make many errors in their spontaneous speech in referring to events of C&B..."

"There are, then, arguments both for and against the hypothesis that core categories of C&B events are cognitively obvious and universally shared."

"Our central question is how similar the semantic categories of C&B events are across languages."

"The extremes of Dimension 1 are distinguished in all the languages; that is, the events represented to the far left are systematically described with different verbs than those represented to the afr right. Clips at intermediate positions along the dimensiona re reated in different ways by different languages."

"chopping off branch with axe" and "breaking stick with karate chop" are distinguished in English "The common denominator of this categorixzation is the use of a blade (-like) instrument to effect the seperation, regardless of whether it is applied with precise placement or ballistic swing." But in "German: chopping events were routinely classed with events positioned toward the right end of the dimension . . . The common denomiator defining this category is the use of a sharp blow, whether by a bladed implement or a blunt one."

In Sranan, and English-based Carribbean Creole, "Sranan cares more about the nature of teh seperation than about the instrument."

"Events can be distinguished on the basis of how predicatable the location of seperation is in an object (Dimension 1), tearing events are very often honored with a verb of their own (Diemsnion 2), and snapping events are likely to be distinguished from smashing events (DImension 3.
Of course, non eof the langauges categorized C&B events in exactly the same way."

Shifting out of "neutral": beginning teachers' struggles with teaching for social justice

deirdre m. kelly and gabriella minnes brandes

"We discerned 5 distinct positions about the possibility and desirability of teacher neutrality."
"Teachers alone cannot overcome the social injustices that currently impede democracy, but they can play an important role in nurturing a more active form of citizenship among young people."
"Those who have written about critical pedagogy are clear that teaching is inevitably political and teachers cannot be value-neutral."
"knowledge is individually rather than socially constructed"
"Teacher neutrality is not only undesirable but impossible."
Some teachers thought "of action in modest and student-appropriate ways that unfolded in local contexts."

Field Notes from a Catastrophe Ch. 4 "The Butterfly and the Toad"

Elizabeth Kolbert

The Comma butterfly has, in the past 4 decades, expanded its habitat northward. The same is true for most butterfly species in England.

A breed of mosquito has been shown to have had its genes changed by climate change: its mating season has been altered due to global warming.

The golden toad, once found in a single biological "island" in the cloud forest of Costa Rica has gone extinct due to global warming.

As the earth warms, up to 50% of species could go extinct.

"Homeboys and hoods: gang communication and cultural space"

by Dwight Conquergood

Middle-class American ideology is intensely individualized. Linguists often study interaction through the lens of individual-to-individual interaction. Gangs are entirely group-centered. They say "Hook up or pull up" and it can be physically dangerous to be alone on the streets. They have safety in numbers.

Police literature uses insulting language to discuss gangs, comparing their graffiti (which is intensely meaningful) to dogs urinating on fire hydrants and gang members as animals marking their territory.

Conquergood lived for many years in a gang neighborhood and is sympathetic to gangs. He discusses gang history and how the many small gangs became grouped into the Folks and People Nations. He says that gangs are territorialized but gangs are not divided along racial lines.

Field Notes from a Catastrophe Ch. 3

"Under the Glacier"

Elizabeth Kolbert journeyed to Swiss Camp, a scientific research station in Greenland. She describes firsthand the culture of the camp, the scientists working there, and how the data is collected that proves the glaciers are melting. She also went to Iceland and interviewed Icelanders and Greenland Inuit about how they know it is warming and how the warming will impact them.