Language Sciences最新文献

{"title":"Gender bias in the Chinese epicene pronoun ta","authors":"Ming Dong ,&nbsp;Rong Chen ,&nbsp;Lin He","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2023.101543","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2023.101543","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Unlike all the failed attempts proposed to mitigate gender bias in English, the Chinese language—which has an epicene pronoun, <em>ta</em>—took an opposite path: changes were implemented to make the third person pronoun gender specific by inserting a feminine third person pronoun and a non-human third person pronoun in its writing system (which did not affect speech). As a result, written Chinese became a mirror image of English (having the equivalents of <em>he</em>, <em>she</em>, and <em>it</em>). In this empirical study on gender bias in the Chinese language, we find that this institutional effort has also failed despite a century's implementation in the educational system of the country: the language exhibits a dominating male-as-norm bias as well as bias based on stereotyping, regardless of participants' gender and age groups. Our study therefore contributes to the understanding of language change as well as gender bias in language.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 101543"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50188844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mythbusters united? A dialogue over Harris's integrationist linguistics and Gibson's Ecological Psychology","authors":"Peter E. Jones ,&nbsp;Catherine Read","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2023.101536","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2023.101536","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this paper an integrationist linguist (Peter E Jones) and an Ecological Psychologist (Catherine Read) open a dialogue on the possibility of a productive relationship between the integrationist approach to language and communication of Roy Harris and James Gibson's Ecological Psychology of perceiving/acting/knowing. Within their own disciplinary contexts, each position is one of profound critique and innovation in relation to established and pervasive ‘myths’. Specifically, Harris is concerned with the ‘language myth’—the explicit positions and implicit assumptions in the Western language tradition (including modern linguistics) about the nature of language and the relationship between language and communication. In sharp contrast to mainstream approaches, Harris rejects both coding and representational views of meaning and takes signs (including linguistic signs) to be the product, rather than the precondition, of communicational activity. Similarly, Gibson critiques assumptions about how perception takes place, especially in the case of vision, that have informed Western science at least since Descartes' <em>Optics</em>. In particular, Gibson rejects the passive ‘retinal image fallacy’ of seeing in favour of an activity based non-representational perspective of ‘direct perception’. The paper offers a critical dialogue over the key theoretical perspectives of both traditions, focusing particularly on the import and implications of each theorist's claims and assumptions about the other's field. Highlighting key areas of apparent common ground across the two approaches, we also argue that Gibson appears not to be entirely free of assumptions about language that belong to Harris's ‘language myth’, while Harris appears at times to assume the ‘image’ based model of perception that Gibson rejected. In the context of current interest in a possible reconciliation or combination of integrational linguistics and Ecological Psychology, the paper, therefore, raises fundamental questions around the extent to which these independently developed programmes of demythologization are compatible or possibly synergistic.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 101536"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50188845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Inference and indexicality, or how to solve Bakhtin's problem with heteroglossia","authors":"Ken Hirschkop","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2023.101544","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2023.101544","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Bakhtin's concept of heteroglossia was ambiguous on a central point: whether the styles or socio-ideological languages that constituted it were creations of novelistic discourse itself or were already established in everyday speech and incorporated into the novel. The sociolinguistic and anthropological literature on indexicality has greatly enriched our understanding of heteroglossia, but, it, too, leaves this question up in the air. After a brief review of writing on indexicality, we show that the idea of ‘<em>n</em> + 1’, higher-order, indexicality, first mooted by Silverstein, intersects with debates in analytic philosophy of language about the relative roles of inference and semiosis in linguistic understanding. Higher-order indexicality, crucially, depends upon inferential processes, ranging from simple analogy to complex argument, and this has consequences for where indexical values are established.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 101544"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50188846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Multimodal coordination and pragmatic modes in conversation","authors":"Camila Alviar ,&nbsp;Christopher T. Kello ,&nbsp;Rick Dale","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2022.101524","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2022.101524","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Language is intrinsically multimodal. Speakers use gestures, prosody, gaze, and facial expressions as cues that complement and expand the meaning expressed in their words. These varied signals operate in remarkably flexible coordination, constantly adapting to the conversational partners and topics as they change over time. We argue that an ecological approach to multimodal behavior offers a promising account of natural conversation as it takes place both in experimental contexts, and in natural ones outside the lab. After reviewing major historical themes in the study of language and communication, we describe how this ecological perspective situates future work, especially work that seeks to quantify these processes. We describe a quantitative hypothesis that multimodal signals are projected on manifolds of lower dimension that can be described in terms of dynamical systems. We refer to these lower dimensional patterns as “pragmatic modes,” and compare this idea to a number of prior theoretical proposals. We describe how the notion of pragmatic mode frames a quantitative basis to supplement and extend prior research with explicitly quantitative goals. The paper concludes with an outline to link quantitative descriptions of multimodality with more abstract, qualitative theories of the past few decades, and describe how future research might explore pragmatic modes, how they change over the course of conversation, and relate to our understanding of human communication.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 101524"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50188842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A quantitative study on zero copula in Japanese","authors":"Satoshi Nambu","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2022.101534","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2022.101534","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This article investigates the nature of zero copula in Japanese from variationist sociolinguistic and historical perspectives. The corpus-based surveys revealed that zero copula has existed for a long period of time and used to be the default form in the relevant linguistic environments in the past, which currently undergoes a change toward an increase in the use of the overt copula. The questionnaire survey confirmed that the overt copula is considered the correct form as the norm of Japanese, and that zero copula is not linked to the casualness of speech unlike the case of copula omission. The discrepancy between the norm and the historical trajectory suggests that the change involves two stages: a change in grammar followed by a change from above. Regarding the change in grammar, a hypothesis was proposed as to how the change has progressed by drawing attention to the reanalysis of the structure with the particle <em>to</em> and subject markers related to the ECM construction.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101534"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50197541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tracing and classifying German intensifiers via information theory","authors":"Tatjana Scheffler ,&nbsp;Michael Richter ,&nbsp;Roeland van Hout","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2022.101535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2022.101535","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We apply information theoretic notions to model intensifiers in German. We show that information theory can explain that despite their common referential meaning, some intensifiers are extremely frequent (<em>so</em>), while others are uncommon (<em>arsch</em> ‘butt’), and seem to induce a stronger intensifying effect. We introduce two notions to model the expressivity of an intensifier in a given message: the local (paradigmatic) information content of an intensifier (surprisal), and the transitional information, based on Markov transition probabilities. Based on a large corpus of intensified predicative adjective phrases from German Twitter data, we confirm that (1) local information and transitional information are strongly anti-correlated: The more common an intensifier is, the lower its expressive value in communication and the less it constrains following adjectival heads; and (2) “stackings” of multiple intensifiers are frequent and are used to frame and strengthen the expressiveness of the intensification. We further confirm that stackings tend to occur in incremental surprisal rank order, following the Uniform Information Density hypothesis. Our analyses show that information theory is not limited to the domain of referential semantics and morphosyntactic patterns of reduction, but offers a framework to capture the expressive function of German intensifiers.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101535"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50197543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Voice, rhythm, and genre in children's early writing","authors":"Bettina Perregaard","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2022.101525","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2022.101525","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Studies within evolutionary musicology and ontogenetic development propose an intimate relation between the quality of the human voice, the rhythm of interactional patterns (e.g. the alternation between repetition and improvisation), the origins of aesthetics, and the characteristics of performances within the temporal arts. Focusing on the role of auditory perception in children's development of narrative skills, this article similarly proposes an intimate relation between children's voices in interaction, their imitative use of formulaic and genre-specific language, and their creative and aesthetically attuned written compositions. The notion of voice opens up a productive and coherent approach to investigating how children interactionally and imitatively come to develop a command and reflexive understanding of spoken and written genres. The discussion is based on a full ethnography of children's acquisition of written language during their second school year.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101525"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50197544","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Linguistic descriptions and cultural models of olfaction in Umpila and English","authors":"Thomas Poulton ,&nbsp;Clair Hill","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2022.101533","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2022.101533","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>People describe olfactory phenomena in various ways. Some, like Umpila speakers (Pama-Nyungan, Cape York Peninsula, Australia), most commonly describe smells in terms of their pleasantness and other subjective evaluations (e.g., <em>kanti</em> ‘intense of sense’<em>, miintha</em> ‘good’<em>, kuntha</em> ‘strong’). Others, like English speakers, most commonly refer to real-world entities (e.g., <em>floral, woody, like pizza</em>). However, the reasons why a language community might use one strategy over another is not yet clear. Drawing on Cultural Model Theory, this study elucidates why speakers of each language may rely on their preferred strategy in accordance with the different olfactory-related cultural practices and ideologies in the respective speaker communities. Umpila speakers have salient cultural models of Country (i.e., the conceptualisation of land/seas/skies as a being with which the Umpila people form a reciprocal relationship with interconnected rights and responsibilities) and resultingly, Country recognises ‘locals’ from ‘strangers’ according to their smell. Being recognised as a local or stranger can have good/bad effects, aligning with the reliance on evaluative descriptions. Important Western cultural models include histories of using smells to signify class and smells being treated as carriers of disease. These models feed into the modern deodorisation and perfuming practices of today, which require a balance between subjective information and precise perceptual detail, which source-based descriptions allow for. The connection between cultural models and linguistic behaviour allows us to further understand the relationship between not only olfactory but sensory culture and sensory language in the minds of speakers.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101533"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50197542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Nominal classification in Mabia languages of West Africa","authors":"Hasiyatu Abubakari ,&nbsp;Samuel Alhassan Issah","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2022.101514","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2022.101514","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The literature on the nominal classification system of Mabia languages reveals a consistent pattern where nominals are often classified based on their morphology, phonology and semantics. What has not received mention is the role of ethnolinguistics and linguistic anthropology in the classification of nominals in these languages. This study offers a comparative analysis of the nominal class systems of three Mabia languages: Dagbani, Kusaal and Mampruli. The main purpose is to examine the role of semantics from the angles of both ethnolinguistics and linguistic anthropology in the nominal classification system of these languages. The hypothesis is that the morphophonology of nominal classes in these languages is triggered by a shared semantic network and pragmatic association of member elements influenced by the beliefs, traditions and world views of speakers of these languages. The sameness or near sameness of beliefs, and world views of these people explains the observation of identical items from all the languages in specific groups. Nouns in the various categories behave the same morphologically, phonologically and semantically. Nouns are classified under 5 concepts: Human-beings and kin relationship, spirituality, protection, shape and Non-count nouns. This work is entirely qualitative.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 101514"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50193224","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Discursive practices of the performative theory of solidarity discourse","authors":"Ahlam Alharbi ,&nbsp;Mary Rucker","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2022.101515","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2022.101515","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This exploratory study examined the discursive practices of solidarity discourse, contributing to the performative theory of solidarity discourse. Five discursive practices were identified. It was noted that plurality and assimilation practice, complete assimilation, and partial assimilation were the most frequently employed practices. Assimilation is accomplished using three strategies: inclusive first plural pronouns, collective nouns, and spatialization. The second discursive practice was appraisal. There are three strategies that are utilized by speakers: to appraise and praise the ‘self’ or one's support, to appraise or bash and attack the ‘other,’ and to appraise and praise the ‘us/we.’ The third practice is representation and positioning, which is realized by intertwined representations of the ‘us,’ the common enemy/challenge representation, and self-positioning/representation. Endorsement is the fourth discursive practice to achieve solidarity through which the speaker endorses policies or ideologies to show solidarity. Finally, storytelling is a practice employed to build solidarity, manage knowledge, achieve performative acts, and shape the future through past events. The current paper contributed to our understanding of solidarity and expanded our perspective on discourse in general, and solidarity discourse in particular. In addition, the application of this study can bridge the gap between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ by addressing the ‘us/we.’</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 101515"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50193222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}