Theticity

The subject matter of this chapter is the semantic, syntactic and discoursepragmatic background as well as the cross-linguistic behavior of types of utterance exemplified by the following English sentences […]: (1) My NECK hurts. […] (2) The PHONE's ringing. [...] Sentences such as […] are usually held to stand in opposition to sentences with a topical subject. The difference is said to be formally marked, for example, by VS order vs. topical SV order (as in Albanian po bie telefoni 'the PHONE is ringing' vs. telefoni po bie 'the PHONE is RINGING'), or by accent on the subject only vs. accent on both the subject and the verb (as in the English translations). The term theticity will be used in the following to label the specific phenomenological domain to which the sentences in (1) and (2) belong. It has long been commonplace that these and similar expressions occur at particular points in the discourse where "a new situation is presented as a whole". We will try to depict and classify the various discourse situations in which these expressions have been found in the different languages, and we will try to trace out areas of cross-linguistic comparability. Finally, we will raise the question whether or not there is a common denominator which would justify a unified treatment of all these expressions in functional/semantic terms

Directional adposition use in English, Swedish and Finnish

Directional adpositions such as to the left of describe where a Figure is in relation to a Ground. English and Swedish directional adpositions refer to the location of a Figure in relation to a Ground, whether both are static or in motion. In contrast, the Finnish directional adpositions edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) solely describe the location of a moving Figure in relation to a moving Ground (Nikanne, 2003). When using directional adpositions, a frame of reference must be assumed for interpreting the meaning of directional adpositions. For example, the meaning of to the left of in English can be based on a relative (speaker or listener based) reference frame or an intrinsic (object based) reference frame (Levinson, 1996). When a Figure and a Ground are both in motion, it is possible for a Figure to be described as being behind or in front of the Ground, even if neither have intrinsic features. As shown by Walker (in preparation), there are good reasons to assume that in the latter case a motion based reference frame is involved. This means that if Finnish speakers would use edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) more frequently in situations where both the Figure and Ground are in motion, a difference in reference frame use between Finnish on one hand and English and Swedish on the other could be expected. We asked native English, Swedish and Finnish speakers’ to select adpositions from a language specific list to describe the location of a Figure relative to a Ground when both were shown to be moving on a computer screen. We were interested in any differences between Finnish, English and Swedish speakers. All languages showed a predominant use of directional spatial adpositions referring to the lexical concepts TO THE LEFT OF, TO THE RIGHT OF, ABOVE and BELOW. There were no differences between the languages in directional adpositions use or reference frame use, including reference frame use based on motion. We conclude that despite differences in the grammars of the languages involved, and potential differences in reference frame system use, the three languages investigated encode Figure location in relation to Ground location in a similar way when both are in motion. Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: Crosslingiuistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M.A. Peterson, L. Nadel & M.F. Garrett (Eds.) Language and Space (pp.109-170). Massachusetts: MIT Press. Nikanne, U. (2003). How Finnish postpositions see the axis system. In E. van der Zee & J. Slack (Eds.), Representing direction in language and space. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Walker, C. (in preparation). Motion encoding in language, the use of spatial locatives in a motion context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln, Lincoln. United Kingdo

Text Types in Personal Chronic Pain Blogs : Variation of Werlich's Text-Typical Clause Structures

Tiivistelmä – Referat – Abstract Tutkimuksessa määritetään kroonisen kivun henkilökohtaisissa englanninkielisissä blogeissa esiintyvät yleisimmät tekstityypit. Määrittely kuvaa Werlichin tekstityypillisen lausemuodon yleisyyttä kertovana, kuvailevana, perustelevana, erittelevänä tai ohjailevana tekstityyppinä blogitekstin lauseissa sekä tekstiryhmätasolla. Lisäksi arvioidaan tekstityyppien yleisyyttä sosiolingvistisestä näkökulmasta blogikirjoittajien kolmen tilastollisen ominaisuuden vaikutuksena tekstityyppien esiintymiseen. Työssä tekstityyppi määritellään lausetasolla tiettyjä lauserakennemuotoja edustaviksi luokiksi, jotka kuvastavat kirjoittajan keskittymistä tiettyyn tapaan jäsentää havaintoja. Tekstityyppi määritellään tekstin kielipiirteitä kuvaavaksi luokaksi erotuksena tekstin käyttötapaan perustuvaan genreluokitteluun. Kroonisen kivun blogien tekstityyppejä ei ole tutkittu vaikka krooninen kipu on yleinen tila aikuisväestössä. Tutkimuksissa on todettu kirjoittajien hyötyvän kipublogeista kivunhallinnassa. Lisäksi on tunnistettu useita kipublogien kirjoittamisen tavoitteita, joiden on todettu muuttuvan ajan mittaan osalla kirjoittajista. Aiemmissa blogitekstien luokitteluissa on tunnistettu kaksi yleistä blogityyppiä, joita määrittävät kielipiirteet havaitaan osittain lausetason tekstityyppejä vastaaviksi. Tutkimusmenetelmänä käytettiin tekstilingvististä yhdistelmää tekstityyppien laadullisesta lauseanalyysistä ja määrällisestä kokotekstianalyysistä sekä määrällistä sosiolingvististä tilastollisten muuttujien analyysiä. Tarkasteltavien blogitekstien aineisto koostuu 26:sta kokonaisesta blogitekstistä. Kirjoittajia on 13 ja jokaiselta on kaksi blogitekstiä. Analysoitavia lauseita on 1068. Lähdeblogit valittiin tekstitietokantaan lumipallo-otannalla ja tarkoituksellisella otannalla, joissa valintakriteerinä olivat kirjoittajan krooninen kipu ja toimiminen blogin ainoana kirjoittajana. Tuloksissa huomataan lausetasolla tekstityyppiluokkien määritelmien osittainen päällekkäisyys. Yleisimmiksi tekstityypeiksi muodostuvat väittävän, ohjeistavan ja kertovan tekstityypin yhdistelmät, joista väittävä tyyppi on yllättävän vallitseva. Tekstityyppien osuuksien vaihtelu ei työssä selity kirjoittajan tilastollisten ominaisuuksien vaihtelulla, koska tilastollinen tarkastelu nähdään pienen otannan takia vain suuntaa antavana. Lisätutkimusta toivotaan tekstin lausekohtaisista aiheista ja tekstityypeistä yhdistämällä sisältöanalyysiä ja tekstilingvistiikkaa. Lisäksi ehdotetaan kipublogitekstien tutkimista vertailemalla tekstien hierarkkisia ja vaihemaisia rakennepiirteitä, kuten lauseen Teema-Reema aiheita.This study describes personal chronic pain blog entries written in English by defining the common text types in the blogs. Text types are defined as text-classifying tools that combine a clause-level structural perspective and a whole-text level category perspective. On the clause level, each clause is defined as representing one of five Werlich's text types that reflect author focus on cognitive processes. The study also explores the effect of author socio-demographic attributes of gender, age and duration of chronic pain on the text types identfied in the analysis. Chronic pain is a common health condition that also affects the sufferer’s focus of attention. The text types in chronic pain blogs have not been studied even though studies have found that blog writing has therapeutic effects on pain management for chronic pain sufferers. Studies have also identified several purposes for writing chronic pain blogs. The purposes have been found to change for some of the chronic pain blog writers. Previous studies on blog types suggest two common text types. A combined qualitative-quantitative analysis of text-typical clauses and blog entries was conducted on a sample of 26 whole-text entries. The sample consists of two entries from 13 authors with total of 1068 clauses. Additionally, a socio-linguistic variable analysis was conducted with text types as dependent variables and author attributes as independent variables. The data was gathered with a combined purposive-snowball method with author chronic pain condition and personal authorship as sample selection criteria. The results show some overlapping analytical criteria for clause-level text types. The most frequent text types are identified as combinations of argumentation, instruction and narration with argumentation being surprisingly high in prevalence. The text-typical variation does not seem to be an effect of a specific author variable although the socio-linguistic analysis is not proved as statistically significant because of the small sample size. Further study on text types is suggested in a combined interpersonal feature and text type analysis of chronic pain blog entries. A different approach is also suggested in identification and comparison of hierarchical and text-organizational features such as Theme-Rheme analysis of clauses

Proposing Thematic Diversity Reference Model for Essay Writing and Assessment

The tertiary level learners show inadequacy in thematic diversity in their essay writing in English, especially in non-English speaking countries. The learners’ effectiveness in developing the topic is unsatisfactory, affecting their creativity and performance and, finally, the evaluation of their essays. Though there are guidelines and textbooks for developing writing skills, inadequate training with a proper practice model reflects weak performance at the university level. Writers can develop a topic in diverse ways from multidisciplinary, spatial, and temporal perspectives. Therefore, a simplified guiding Model is proposed for facilitation. This paper describes the Model and application instruction in the pre-writing, writing and post-writing processes. It can be an efficient tool for students in their written course assignments, essay questions in examinations, and creative writing. In addition, it can be an effective tool for teachers to teach and assess expressive language skills like essay writing. A visually designed Thematic Diversity Reference Model for textual production and assessment developed in this research addresses this thematic non-diversity. The topic is approached at four levels: 1) Content, 2) Strategic, 3) Tactic, to 4) Logical Approaches. It stimulates feelings, ideas and activities in abstract and concrete ways and from different perspectives, as described in the schema theory of J. Piaget (1957) and the Social Learning Theory of Albert Bandura (1999), thus diversifying and enhancing the theme or topic and the sub-themes consequently. The researchers analysed an essay written in English to explain its usefulness in writing and assessment. The analysis was dominantly qualitative. The application reveals a significant failure in all four approaches. It identifies the absence of multidisciplinary nature, critical, creative, temporal, spatial, and contextual expansion, statistical, ideological, experiential, and referential information, causal and logical relationships, cohesion, and coherence. Thus, the Model assists the writer and the reader, advocating pedagogical solutions in developing writing strategies for better performance and assessment. It applies to interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary writings, social sciences, and humanities. KEYWORDS: Essay writing, Thematic diversity, Creativity; Evaluation; Reference mode

SCHIZOPHRENIC AUDITORY AND VISUAL HALLUCINATIONS IN THE POEM “DU PYEON-EUI JUGEUM”

Although the mental health issue is often brought up as an interesting discussion topic for these past few years, negative stigmas towards people with psychological disorders, especially schizophrenia, still exist within society. However, by expressing self-acceptance and innermost thoughts in her poetry, Choi Seung-Ja succeeded in breaking the stigmas and lived her life as a schizophrenic poet. Based on this fact, this research aims to unfold the meaning of the auditory and visual hallucinations shown in Choi Seung-Ja’s poem entitled “Du Pyeon-eui Jugeum” and to explain the motives behind the creation of the schizophrenic aspects. In order to achieve these goals, this research was carried out in three stages: reading stage; reconciliation stage; interpretation stage, through expressive psycho-literary approach. The result was obtained by associating the poem’s sensory imageries with theories related to schizophrenia disorder, the poet’s life history, and historical events. The findings show that “Du Pyeon-eui Jugeum” reflects Choi Seung-Ja’s notion which doesn’t portray death merely as a beginning of destruction but also as a gateway to self-restoration and catharsis. Furthermore, hallucinations were used not only to develop the poem’s imageries but were also used to project the feelings and the external aspects of the poet

The cultural outcomes of social movements : a computational linguistics approach.

Scholars have long established the importance of the cultural outcomes of social movements in the context of political power and representation. However, they have also acknowledged the methodo-logical difficulties associated with studying cultural outcomes, especially when culture is manifested through linguistic practices. This paper addresses the potential for dealing with movements and culture as mani-fested in symbols, public discourse, narratives, and rhetoric and makes two contributions: It links the social movement literature studying culture through language with Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques for systematic and comprehensive cultural analysis; and introduces a state-of the-art method which pro-vides a better understanding of language change and linguistic influence given the capacity of computa-tional analyses to process large volumes of data for multiple actors and varied data sources during long pe-riods of time. The paper describes the cultural influence of women organizations in Spain between 2000-2020 on issues such as gender inequalities, abortion, gender violence, prostitution, and surrogacy. Tweets and manifestos by women's organizations', as well as national press coverage of women issues and inter-ventions by MPs in the parliamentary arena, are used to describe the advantages and limitations of the method for the study of cultural outcomes. Computational linguistics provides new possibilities for scholarly research on cultural outcomes of social movements but also shows that these methods should be accompa-nied by precise definitions of cultural outcomes, detailed and replicable operationalisation processes, and theoretical models that identify the mechanisms that explain the linguistic phenomena that underly cultural change