Types and Functions of Interjections in Wole Soyinkas Ala?pata? A?pa?ta and Yoruba Speech Community

Interjections are universal means of communication among human beings which pass across different emotions and information in different cultures and languages. However, while some are found in nearly all languages but with varied meanings and functions according to context, some are peculiar to specific languages and cultures. This work, therefore, investigates the functions and meanings of both universal interjections (specifically Oh and Ah) and the Yoruba language specific interjections found in Wole Soyinkas Ala?pata? A?pa?ta. The work also discusses two other significant Yoruba language specific interjections although they are not found in the analyzed text. The authors chose the text because it is replete with interjections Oh and Ah which carry various meanings and perform various functions (few of which have not been discussed in the literature) and also because it contains the Yoruba language specific interjections which probably have not been investigated in the literature, thereby contributing to knowledge.Keywords: universal interjections, Yoruba language specific interjections, Ala?pata

Interjections and the Language Functions Debate

Five views of the function of interjections, developed in the first half of the 20th century by the psychologist-linguist Bühler, the linguists Gardiner, and Jakobson, and the psychologists Révész and Duijker, are discussed. All five scholars reject the earlier psychologism that reinforced the traditional emotion-expressive view of interjections; all of them argue for a listener-directed, communicative view of language in general, and all include a specific appeal-to-the-listener-function in their model of language functions. My original hypothesis was therefore that these scholars would reject the one-sided traditional view that interjections mainly express the speaker’s emotions, acknowledging instead that the central function of most interjections is to make some appeal to the listener (a view supported by recent investigation of a corpus of spoken Dutch, which shows that only 7% fulfils a purely expressive function). As it turns out, however, all five scholars support the traditional view and attributed an expressive function to interjections. In this paper I try to explain this unexpected result

Interjections, phonetics, and the body

Emotive interjections are normally associated with the spoken language, but in this article, I will investigate the use of two interjections, åh ‘oh’ and puha ‘whew’ in written communication on Facebook – on the two Danish Facebook groups built around the illness and death of two young children in 2015: “Fighting for Magnus (Miv)” and “Commemorative site for Lærke Rønde Timm”. Interjections are understood as affective expressions because they reflect some of the bodily reactions and participatory investment of the followers of the two groups.  The main argument in the article is that the participants write interjections as a way to deal with affective extraordinary experiences. Through phonetic analysis the interjections are seen as bodily felt and triggered reaction. &nbsp

New tools for translators : INTCA, an electronic dictionary of interjections

This essay is based on Matamala's doctoral thesis, supervised by Mercè Lorente and developed within the PhD in Applied Linguistics at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), published online in 2005.This paper presents INTCA (Interjeccions Català-Anglès, i.e. Interjections Catalan-English), a prototype for an electronic dictionary of interjections in English and Catalan, aimed at the needs of language professionals in general and audiovisual translators in particular. This proposal is based on a theoretical framework developed by Cuenca (2004), who includes cognitive postulates to define interjections. The audiovisual corpus used for the analysis of interjections and the collection of lexicographical data for the prototype are also described

Nja… En korpusbaseret undersøgelse af interjektioner i talesprog

Interjections have often been viewed as unsystematic and unimportant to the description of language. Ordbog over Dansk Talesprog challenges this idea of interjections as irregular and insignificant by creating a dictionary of Danish interjections, in this article exemplified by the Danish interjection nja. By examining interjections in Danish spoken language, it is found that interjections can in fact be systematically described and are very relevant to language description. Also a sound based approach to language produces new lemmas which are not orthographically distinct and thus not visible in the written language. This way Ordbog over Dansk Talesprog can supplement traditional orthography based dictionaries and contribute to a more precise and thorough description of the Danish language

The Translatability of Interjections: A Case Study of Arabic-English Subtitling

This paper examines the translatability of Arabic interjections into English subtitling, illustrated with a subtitled Egyptian film, State Security subtitled by Arab Radio and Television (ART). Theoretical framework regarding both Audiovisual Translation (AVT) and interjections is first discussed. The significance of interjections is approached from the perspective of technical and translation paradigms. The study shows that although technical issues limit the subtitler’s choices, they have very little to do with translating interjections because they are typically short words. With regard to translation, the study shows that the subtitler may opt for three major translation strategies: 1) an avoidance of source language (SL) interjection whereby a SL interjectional utterance is translated into a target language (TL) interjection-free utterance; 2) a retention of SL interjection in which SL interjection is rendered into a TL interjection; and 3) an addition of interjection whereby SL interjection-free utterance is translated into a TL interjection.Le présent article examine la traductibilité des interjections arabes dans un sous-titrage anglais. La recherche est illustrée par un film égyptien, intitulé State Security (La sécurité d’État), qui est sous-titré par le réseau de radio et de télévision arabe (Arab Radio and Television Network; ART). Le cadre théorique relatif à la traduction audiovisuelle (TAV) et aux interjections est tout d’abord présenté. L’importance des interjections est abordée du point de vue des paradigmes techniques et traductionnels. L’étude montre que, bien que les questions techniques limitent le choix des sous-titreurs, elles ont peu d’influence sur la traduction des interjections, car celles-ci sont généralement des mots courts. En ce qui concerne la traduction, l’étude montre que le sous-titreur peut opter pour trois grandes stratégies: 1) ne pas prendre en compte l’interjection dans la langue source (LS) et utiliser une expression sans interjection dans la langue cible (LC); 2) prendre en considération l’interjection dans la LS et la traduire dans la LC; 3) ajouter une interjection dans la LC alors qu’elle est absente dans la LS

Unua aliro al la uzo de interjekcioj en Esperanto

Interjections are a class of words found across all natural languages. Their use relates to the expression of mental states or speech acts within the discursive context. Although they are relatively common in natural languages, they represent a class of words that are poorly integrated into the grammar, and therefore, are theoretically less predictable as linguistic elements for planned languages ​​such as Esperanto. In this article, I propose to analyze the use of some interjections in Esperanto. The aim is to understand how competent speakers of this language employ interjections. For this, in the first part I review the literature on the linguistic aspects of interjections, in comparison with the Esperanto grammatical tradition; then I analyze the data related to the use of these words by competent speakers, which I obtained through the application of a survey specially designed for this purpose, which is also described in this article

On conversational valence and the definition of interjections

Interjections, like some other word classes, have proven difficult to define in a principled way, and therefore there has been disagreement about whether some words belong to this class. Lists of interjections in grammars sometimes include arguably disparate items, e.g. greeting terms, along with words such as oh and ah. There has also been dispute about the possibility or necessity for interjections to be in a syntactic relation to other components, that is, about their valence. In this paper I propose a definition of interjection which involves an extension of valence in the usual syntactic sense, introducing the notion of conversational valence to distinguish between interjections and words such as goodbye. The latter can only be felicitously used when there is an addressee present, as well as the speaker, thus having a conversational valence of 2, while interjections do not require an addressee, i.e. their conversational valence is 1. For example, if I stub my toe I can appropriately say ouch! in the absence of anyone else. Interjections are distinguished by being the only linguistic items with such a low conversational valence.ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences, School of Language Studies; ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, School of Culture, History and Languag

AN ANALYSIS OF INTERJECTION EXPRESSION FOUND IN DIGITAL COMMUNICATION VIEWED PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE

Interjection was an important part of language used to express feelings or emotions under any circumstances. In Digital communication, interjections were often used to express feelings quickly and efficiently. The purpose of this research was to describe the expression of interjections in digital communication. This research used qualitative research. The method used in this research was the descriptive method. Digital communication, WhatsApp user was the subject of this investigation in WhatsApp Group. The object of the research was the text used in conversations within the WhatsApp group.The findings contained 6 type interjections from 12 data. There were Interjection of Annoyance, Interjection Admiration or Satisfaction, Interjection of Gratitude, Interjection of Hope, Interjection of Surprise, and Interjection of Call which were found as a consequence of the research. Annoyance was the most frequently used interjection

The linguistic anatomy of individual differences in Japanese monologues: focusing on particles and interjections

This is a linguistic study on idiosyncrasy manifested through language use in Japanese monologues. For this purpose, we use speaker classification techniques as analytical tools. Focusing on Japanese particles, the subcategories of these particles, and interjections, we aim to find out to what extent Japanese speakers are idiosyncratic in selecting certain words above others in monologues. We are interested in how differently or similarly the individualising information of speakers is manifested between the subcategories of these particles, and also between particles and interjections. The genres of the monologues in this study vary from conference presentations on various topics covering humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering to mock public speeches on a variety of general topics, such as “most pleasant memory,” “about your community,” etc. We demonstrate in this study that Japanese particles and interjections carry different degrees of individualising information. We also discuss what contributes to the identified differences between them.ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences, School of Language Studies; ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, School of Culture, History and Languag