Word-Picture Conjunction: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Cellular Network Companies Slogans in Pakistan

Word -picture conjunction is an effective mode of communication. Words cannot be understood without pictures and vice versa. The present study investigates how linguistic and meta-linguistic features of cellular network companies are employed to propagate desired ideology to the target audience to win their consent through discursive moves.  The data for the present research has been collected from Mobilink Jazz's slogans. The time span for data collection ranges from year 2015-16. The methodological perspectives used in the present research include Fairclough (1993) model of Critical Discourse Analysis, Barthes' (1974) model of Semiological Discourse Analysis and Kruger's (2000) model of Focus Group Discussion analysis. The data used in the study comprises three modes (linguistic, visual and views of focus group participants). This justifies the use of tri-angular research method employed in the study. The research contends that role of new media has increased communication among the people the world over. Additionally, it finds that new media is one of the best sites for ideological investment because significance of visual and verbal practices has increased many folds.</p

A Corpus-based Study of Rhetorical Questions in Monologic Genres in the Framework of Relevance Theory

This thesis takes the form of a pragmatic study of Rhetorical Questions (RQs) in the environment of monologue within the theoretical framework of Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1986). Two main research questions are involved. The first is how an addressee manages to identify the rhetorical nature of a question, and infer the possible intended assumptions of the addresser. I aim to show that the Code Model, which holds that communication is achieved by encoding and decoding messages in words, is not sufficient in interpreting RQs. In contrast, I shall show that implicatures (implied propositions) conveyed by an RQ can only be interpreted by an inferential model. The second question is how different types of RQ are used to achieve the addresser’s persuasive intention in monologic environments. My study consists not only of theoretical argumentation but also of a qualitative analysis of corpus data, in an attempt to extend corpus study to rhetoric and pragmatics, beyond the recent concentration (Sinclair, 1991; Biber et al., 1999; Stubbs, 2001a; Hunston, 2002; Renouf, 2013 etc.) on the lexical, semantic, and syntactic domains. The corpora consulted are the BNC and FLOB, complemented by two self-compiled textual corpora, comprising the genres of political speeches, newspaper editorials and sermons. In the first part of the study, I propose a procedure for identifying an RQ based mainly on the concepts of ‘implicature’, ‘mutual manifestness’ and ‘optimal relevance’ in Relevance Theory. In the second part, the proposed criteria are applied to the identification and interpretation of RQs in three monologic genres to analyse their uses, which display both common and distinctive features. The results of the current study achieve a number of goals. The study endorses Sperber and Wilson (1986)’s arguments about the Code Model and the inferential model. It verifies their claim about the principle of relevance, proving that Relevance Theory is more suitable than Speech Act Theory (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969) and Grice’s Principle and Maxims (1967) for the study of RQs. It extends the application of Relevance Theory to the new field of RQs in the context of monologue, further endorsing the explanatory power of Relevance Theory

“Local, but intelligent”: Language Ideologies in the Informant Biographies of the Linguistic Atlas Project

This thesis argues for the relevance of the Linguistic Atlas Project (LAP) for studies of language ideologies, indexicality, and enregisterment. The LAP represents the largest dialect survey of North American English to date, offering an abundance of historical linguistic data for research in dialectology, linguistic geography, and variation over space and time. Additionally, the LAP also contains additional sources of sociolinguistic data, including informant biographies — documents written by fieldworkers at the conclusion of the LAP interview that summarize an informant’s demographic profile, as well as their personality, speech, and caliber as an interviewee. Rife with subjective judgments from the fieldworker, informant biographies present the opportunity for the study of language ideologies in the LAP. This thesis performs a qualitative discourse analysis of 583 informant biographies collected as part of the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States (LAMSAS). Focusing on analysis of pragmatic features, this study reveals the ways that language ideologies, indexicality, and enregisterment are encoded into informant biographies and the LAP more broadly. This analysis suggests that linguistic data in the LAP can be understood as products of an indexical, ideological, and enregistered negotiation of language and identity, co-constructed between informants and fieldworkers

Do Individuals with Benign Vocal Fold Lesions Have Increased Vocal Load Due to Nuanced Differences in Language Use?

Individuals who engage in larger amounts of voice use have greater vocal loads, which may contribute to the development of benign vocal fold lesions (BVFL). The Personality traits of extroversion and talkativeness has been a predominant theory about increased vocal load in those with BVFL. Ambulatory monitoring has verified increased vocal use in those with BVFL, adding intensity and fundamental frequency to describe vocal load. Three vocally healthy women and three women with BVFL provided conversation and narrative language samples that underwent language analysis. Descriptive analyses of language samples revealed those with BVFL used up to twice as many words in conversation compared to healthy controls. Those with BVFL also presented with more determiners, whereas healthy controls used more adverbs during conversation language samples. Findings suggest that those with BVFL do indeed use more words to communicate and addressing aspects of communication style may be important in reducing vocal load