The Use of Lexical Cohesion Elements in the Writing of ESL Learners

This study investigated the use of lexical elements of cohesion in the essay writing of students of English as a Second Language. Two hundred essays of final year students of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka were collated and analyzed by the researchers in order to identify the lexical elements used to achieve cohesion in writing. The result showed that students used three lexical elements as postulated by Gutwinski in varying degrees in their writings. These include: repetition, synonyms, and lexical sets (collocations). Students tended to use more of repetitions and made minimal use of synonyms and lexical sets to achieve cohesion in writing. This has led to poorly written essays by students. It also implies that lexical cohesion elements should be taught in schools to enable students use them appropriately in writing

Contexting Koreans: Does the High/Low Model Work?

South Korea is assumed to be a high-context culture with extensive shared information and an emphasis on relationships in doing business. The follow ing study reported here tests this assumption and illustrates similarities and differences between Korean and American writers in an attempt to document language differences between high- and low- context societies. Data in the texts studied did not confirm the high/low contextfeatures expected. South Korean texts showed more similarities to than differences from the American texts, and the language features found suggest a more complex context situa tion than the high/low context model may be able to accommodate.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66563/2/10.1177_108056999806100403.pd

Principles for language tests within the 'discourse domains' theory of interlanguage: research, test construction and interpretation

This article considers an alternative framework for handling the language testing enterprise and proposes some tentative theoretical hypotheses concerning principles of language testing. It is the writers' view that taking account of the perspective of interlanguage domain engagement and contextualization in testing research, production and interpretation allows for a richer conceptualization of the language testing process.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69012/2/10.1177_026553228500200208.pd

Perspectivization and modes of quoting in Hungarian

This paper examines modes of quoting with special regard to the organization of perspective. Due to the pragmatic interest of the study, our focus is on the functioning of two context-dependent vantage points, the subject of consciousness and the referential centre. Our key question about the former is to whom speaking as a sign of active consciousness is attributed and how this is linguistically marked. As regards the latter, the central issue is from where and how the spatio-temporal and interpersonal relations of the quoted discourse are represented.Further problems to be discussed include the questions of how and to what extent quoting is associated with pragmatic or metapragmatic awareness, and how various quoting modes may differ along this dimension.Although the paper is mostly concerned with a ‘universal pragmatic’ characterization of the functioning of perspective in quotations, it also highlights some language-particular features of Hungarian quoting strategies and touches on their evolution in the history of the language

Imdeduya - Variants of a myth of love and hate from the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea

This volume presents five variants of the Imdeduya myth: two versions of the actual myth, a short story, a song and John Kasaipwalova’s English poem “Sail the Midnight Sun”. This poem draws heavily on the Trobriand myth which introduces the protagonists Imdeduya and Yolina and reports on Yolina’s intention to marry the girl so famous for her beauty, on his long journey to Imdeduya’s village and on their tragic love story. The texts are compared with each other with a final focus on the clash between orality and scripturality. Contrary to Kasaipwalova’s fixed poetic text, the oral Imdeduya versions reveal the variability characteristic for oral tradition. This variability opens up questions about traditional stability and destabilization of oral literature, especially questions about the changing role of myth – and magic – in the Trobriand Islanders' society which gets more and more integrated into the by now “literal” nation of Papua New Guinea. This e-book is available under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license

The role of account length in detecting deception in written and orally produced autobiographical accounts using reality monitoring

Reality monitoring lie‐detection studies, like others that use raw frequency counts as primary data, seem consistently to underestimate the influence of the length of (or number of words in) the account. The decisions as to whether to standardise or not, or what method of standardisation to use, are rarely empirically driven, so it is still unclear as to whether reality monitoring is more effective before or after standardisation for length. Another factor that also has received little attention in the reality monitoring literature is whether statements are produced orally or in written form. To investigate these issues, 42 autobiographical statements, 21 truthful, and 21 deceptive, including 22 oral and 20 written accounts, were analysed before and after word count standardisation. Results showed that reality monitoring criteria only discriminated significantly between truthful and deceptive accounts when no attempt to control for word count was made. Also, oral statements contained more evidence of reality monitoring criteria before standardisation for word count, whereas written statements were denser and contained more evidence of reality monitoring criteria after standardisation. Implications are discussed

Review of recent research (1998-2012) in German for Academic Purposes (GAP) in comparison with English for Academic Purposes (EAP): cross-influences, synergies and implications for further research

This state-of-the-art review reports on the major studies conducted in the field of Deutsch als Wissenschaftssprache (academic German) since the late 1990s. To begin with, the current position of German as a language of academic communication nationally and internationally will be discussed, focusing especially on the challenges posed by the status of English as a lingua franca. Subsequently, the major research undertaken since the late 1990s will be reviewed and its contribution to the development of teaching materials evaluated. Since studies on academic German have been influenced, to some extent, by research in English for Academic Purposes (EAP), this paper also attempts to dovetail developments in EAP in order to highlight commonalties and differences. The final sections will discuss some potential synergies and implications for further research in both fields