The Stacks (Library of Anglo-American Culture & History - FID AAC, Göttingen State and University Library)
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3117 research outputs found
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A New ‘Construction’ and Its Theoretical Challenges
No full textThis paper deals with the controversial connection between sentence type and illocutionary force. I focus on wh-configurations of the form How cool is that! and demonstrate that this recent phenomenon presents some interesting challenges to approaches that are concerned with the illocutionary potential of sentence forms. In particular, the exclamation component of How cool is that! cannot be derived from features of exclamative syntax, but rather is a cumulative effect of exclamative intonation, the respective adjective, and the degree reading of how. However, the V-to-C-movement property results in a special pragmatics that proper exclamatives (i.e., without V-to-C movement: How cool that is!) lack. I claim that How cool is that! asks for affirmation or objection on the part of the addressee, and that this addressee-oriented component is signaled by a dedicated class of modal particles in the German version(s) of How cool is that! To analyze these addressee-oriented exclamations (A-EXCs), I adopt a syntactic approach to the connection between sentence types and their potential illocutionary uses and thus argue that this connection is by no means arbitrary and unrestricted. I show that both the special pragmatic function of How cool is that! and the corresponding distribution of modal particles in the German counterparts can be accounted for by referring to a compositional conception of sentence-type meanings, and I hence disagree with recent approaches that deal with How cool is that! and its counterparts in German as constructions (i.e., arbitrary form-function mappings) only.Universität Konstanz (3156
Current Research on the Linguistic Features of Chinese English
No full textAbstractThis article argues that there are central features of Chinese English regardless of a speaker's Chinese first language (L1) or dialect. The current state of research on Chinese English is reviewed, outlining phonological, lexical, syntactical, prosodic, and discourse and pragmatic features of Chinese English. These features are categorized according to their pervasiveness based on different L1 backgrounds, to show that there are core features of Chinese English. The argument is limited by the low number of quantitative studies and the absence of large‐scale quantitative studies.</p
Question Tags in Philippine English
No full textAbstract
This study investigates the use of question tags (QTs) in a subcorpus of dialogues from the Philippine component of the International Corpus of English. It takes into account the full range of QT forms used in Philippine English, including English variant QTs as well as English and Tagalog invariant forms. The analysis investigates the effects of text type and pragmatic function on the selection of particular forms. The results show that Filipino speakers use English and Tagalog forms to almost equal proportions, but invariant forms dominate by far over variant ones. Text type has a strong effect on the overall frequency of QTs and on the distribution of individual forms. In addition, function is shown to be a significant factor that influences QT use: speakers preferentially use specific QTs over others for particular functions in specific contexts. The results show that it is beneficial to analyze the full range of QTs to describe the characteristics of Philippine English and to illustrate variety-internal variation. Furthermore, the analysis of English and Tagalog QTs shows that variation in discourse-pragmatic features can provide valuable insights into language contact situations. In conclusion, the study highlights the benefits of small diverse corpora for corpus-pragmatic research as they allow studying pragmatic phenomena in a range of different contexts.Research Advisory Board of the Department of Philology at the University of Münste
Material Manifestations of Poverty and Prosperity in Alice Munro’s “Royal Beatings” and “The Beggar Maid”
No full textThis article argues that material objects in Canadian writer Alice Munro’s short fiction both reflect socio-economic concerns of pre- and post-WWII Canadian society and complicate common conceptions of deprivation and material ambition. The analyses of “Royal Beatings” and “The Beggar Maid” demonstrate how Munro describes economic hardships, class anxieties, and social discrimination and distinction through items of material culture such as clothes, furniture, and paintings. These objects and their symbolic significance draw attention to the conflicts resulting from the interplay of her characters’ upbringings, loyalties, and their longings and aspirations.Projekt DEA
Development of Educational Language at Home and at School
No full textIn sozial differenzierten Familienwelten herrschen charakteristische Erziehungsmethoden, in denen Kinder sprachlich differente Gesprächsmodi entwickeln. Gegenüber familialer Kommunikation ist die Kommunikation im Unterricht deutlich rigider und bietet für Kinder aus ressourcenarmen und bildungsfernen Familien wenig Möglichkeiten, eine bildungssprachlich angemessene Ebene zu finden, um fachliche Gespräche zu führen. Um die Defizite unterrichtlicher Kommunikation zu mindern und die Chancen zu erhöhen, mangelnde bildungssprachliche Kompetenzen zu kompensieren, werden didaktische Vorschläge gemacht.Universität Siegen (3162
Otherness, Cloning, and Morality in John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)
No full textThe British writer John Wyndham (1903–1969) explored societal effects of surprising or mystical events. A paradigmatic example is The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), which portrays identical-looking children born without sexual intercourse. I propose a reading strategy that focuses on the fictional spatial order and analyses how the construction of the children’s otherness interferes with the village’s demarcation. Furthermore, I interpret the mysterious pregnancies as a reference to basic embryo research in the 1950s – cloning. Finally, I scrutinize Wyndham’s negotiation of utilitarianism throughout the novel and his critique of truly utilitarian decisions that are based on constructions of Otherness.Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (1018
In/Exclusion, Health Care, and Well-Being in a World in Motion
No full textIn this introduction, we propose the notion of ‘embodied belonging’ as a fruitful analytical heuristic for scholars in medical and psychological anthropology. We envision this notion to help us gain a more nuanced understanding of the entanglements of the political, social, and affective dimensions of belonging and their effects on health, illness, and healing. A focus on embodied belonging, we argue, reveals how displacement, exclusion, and marginalization cause existential and health-related ruptures in people’s lives and bodies, and how affected people, in the struggle for re/emplacement and re/integration, may regain health and sustain their well-being. Covering a variety of regional contexts (Germany/Vietnam, Norway, the UK, Japan), the contributions to this special issue examine how embodied non/belonging is experienced, re/imagined, negotiated, practiced, disrupted, contested, and achieved (or not) by their protagonists, who are excluded and marginalized in diverse ways. Each article highlights the intricate trajectories of how dynamics of non/belonging inscribe themselves in human bodies. They also reveal how belonging can be utilized and drawn on as a forceful means and resource of social resilience, if not (self-)therapy and healing.Freie Universität Berlin (1008
Facing the Pandemic with Trust in Science
No full textHow essential is trust in science to prevent the spread of COVID-19? People who trust in science are reportedly more likely to comply with official guidelines, implying that higher levels of adherence could be achieved by improving trust in science. However, analysis of a global dataset (n = 4341) suggests otherwise. Trust in science had a small, indirect effect on adherence to the rules. Nonetheless, it predicted people’s approval of prevention measures such as social distancing, and bridged political ideology and approval of the measures (conservatives trusted science less and in turn approved of the measures less). These effects were stronger in the USA than in other countries. Even though any increase in trust in science is unlikely to yield strong behavioural changes, given its relationships with both ideology and individuals’ attitudes to the measures, trust in science may be leveraged to yield longer-term sustainable social benefits
Who Reads Contemporary Erotic Novels and Why?
No full textIn the wake of EL James’s series Fifty Shades of Grey, the book market has seen a veritable surge of bestselling erotic novels over the past decade. The online study reported here pursued two questions: (1) Who reads these erotic novels? (2) What are the reasons underlying this preference? Most of the readers of erotic novels that responded to our survey are heterosexual women in committed relationships. They are highly educated, from a broad age span, describe themselves as avid readers and like to share their reading experiences with others. Distraction and feelings of ease were identified as prime rewards associated with reading erotic novels. The sexual explicitness of the novels and their potential to provide guidance in life also play a role, yet turned out to be less important than suggested in previous research. Contrary to critical opinion, our participants consider erotic novels––at least to a certain degree–to be emancipated, feminist, and progressive. We relate this finding primarily to the surveyed participants’ rather traditional beliefs regarding gender roles. Our study is the first to explore empirically the readership and the reading rewards underlying a current large-scale cultural phenomenon, emphasizing the need for future investigations off the literary canon