Indian Journal of Language and Linguistics
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Review on the Child in Modern Iraqi Poetry
Get PDFThe image of the child in its various shades is one of the common images in Arabic poems from the pre-Islamic era to the modern era, but it did not receive the attention of scholars, and it was not studied in depth showing its connotations and symbols. Hence came my study entitled "The Child in Contemporary Iraqi Poetry", which is an attempt to clarify the symbols of the word (the child) and what it indicates according to the context in which they are mentioned, as well as the statement of the aesthetic aspects of how to employ these symbols through the selection of poetic texts of modern poets in which the image of the child was mentioned Where this image was linked to the intellectual and political framework of the trends of Iraqi poets to create with it multiple connotations that were in harmony with the successive conflicts and revolutions that the poet employed to express intellectual, political and artistic positions. Modern Iraqi poetry by this expression means what many poets wrote in a non-traditional or traditional (classical) poetry curriculum in the literature of their languages. It appeared in Arabic literature at the end of the first half of the twentieth century, especially at the hands of Al-Rihani, Al-Sayyab, the angels and the Arab diaspora in a number of European countries that they went to settle in, especially Italy, France, Britain and then the American states. One of the most prominent differences raised by this trend was what was raised about (authenticity and contemporary) in his book and its production, over decades of years, which lasted about a century
Adulteration of the Igbo Language Through Multilingualism in South-Eastern Nigeria
Get PDFThe study seeks to find out the linguistic adulteration of the Igbo language through a sociolinguistic process known as multilingualism. Many scholars are lamenting that the Igbo language is going into extinction just because it is losing its original linguistic structures via multilingualism. Such alteration brings to the limelight of the study in order to address these issues on Nigerian indigenous languages in general and the Igbo language in particular. A descriptive approach is used to harvest some of these language contact issues among the Igbo populace and language. A random sampling is used to ascertain the population of the five Igbo states: Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States on how communication and written aspects of the language have been dealt with negatively. Participant observation and students’ essay writing in the Igbo language are used to collate these sub-standard Igbo grammar structures. The study expounds at a length the intricacy of the proper Igbo written forms and as well as pulling the Igbo language away from the effects of multilingualism. The findings of the study prove that the different types of multilingualism abound among the Igbo language native users. They also exemplify some linguistic related issues on the bold face of multilingualism among the Igbo interlocutors and how they vary among the Igbo speech communities in Nigeria. The study also finds out the effects of multilingualism on the standard Igbo teaching. The study goes further in suggesting some quintessential solutions to recuperate the status quo of the Igbo language
On Mean Dependency Distance as a Metric of Translation Quality Assessment
Get PDFThis paper has adopted a quantitative approach to carry out a linguistic study, within the theoretical framework of dependency grammar. Translation is a process where source language and target language interact with each other. The present study aims at exploring the feasibility of mean dependency distance as a metric for automated translation quality assessment. The current research hypothesized that different levels of translation are significantly different in the aspect of mean dependency distance. Data of this study were based on the written translation in Parallel Corpus of Chinese EFL Learners which was composed of translations from Chinese EFL learners in various topic. The translations were human-scored to determine the levels of translation, according to which the translations were categorized. Our results indicated that: (1) senior students perform better in translation than junior students, and mean dependency distance of translations from senior group is significantly shorter than the junior; (2) high quality translations yield shorter mean dependency distance than the low quality translations; (3) mean dependency distance of translations is moderately correlated with the human score. The resultant implication suggests the potential for mean dependency distance in differentiating translations of different quality
A Linguistic Analysis of ‘Pet Names’ in Nzema: A Morphosyntactic Description
Get PDFoai:ojs2.journals.asianresassoc.org:article/2In the field of Onomastics, many researchers have delved into the study of personal names, place names, church names and school names, among others. This paper gathers another exciting data, (i.e. names that are ascribed to pets in Nzema society) and seeks to examine the morpho-syntactic features of the ‘pet names’. The paper employs the qualitative research approach in providing a descriptive analysis of the linguistic properties that feature in pet names among the people of Nzema. In this paper, ninety (90) pet names are discussed. Relying on Haspelmath’s notion of Framework-free Theory of Grammatical Analysis, the paper demonstrates that the morphological structures of Nzema pet names include single root morphemes, lexical compounding, derivational and inflectional processes, lexical borrowing, and reduplication. These word formation processes are accompanied by some phonological processes such as vowel elision and harmony. At the syntactic/sentential level, the pet names function as simple declarative sentences, imperatives and interrogatives. Compound and complex-embedded clauses were also prevalent in the structure of the pet names. It is ascertained that these pet names are grammatically insightful and can provide a window to understanding the morphosyntactic features of the Nzema language
Analogical mapping of ỌKỤKỌ proverbs in Ideke lect
Get PDFThis study examines how analogical mapping is used to analyse ọkụkọ proverbs in Ideke lect. The objectives of the study are to analyse the attribute and relational mapping of selected ọkụkọ proverbs in Ideke lect. The data of the study are drawn from ọmaba chant of Ụmụdịaka in Nsukka area of Enugu State, through an audio recording of Ụdara Nwa onyishi (Ọmabe) chant and also the study uses introspection since the researchers are indigenous speakers of the Ideke lect. The research desgn used in this study is a qualitative research paradigm. The study was done descriptively and purposive sampling was used to sample the population. The analogical mapping theory is adopted as the framework for this study. The study finds out that ọkụkọ proverbs in Ideke lect has abstract meanings which contradict the physical (source concepts) image. Another finding of the study proves that in Ideke lect, ọkụkọ as used in this study possess different semantic impulse due to the sociolinguistic environment where such proverbs are being used. These different shades of meanings will be gotten by aligning the physical concept to abstract concept(s). During the analysis of ọkụkọ proverbs in Ideke lect, it is evident that source domain is liable to form various new abstract semantic realisations which was not the initial semantic usage of the linguistic expression. From the semantic purview, proverbs are complex cognitive tasks which links source domain to the target domain
Pluralisation in Ígálá and English
Get PDFLanguages of the world have certain similar linguistic features in terms of a finite set of fundamental principles which are universal to all languages on one hand, and a finite set of parameters which determine syntactic variability amongst them. In order to substantiate evidence of linguistic universals, there is need for comparative analysis of languages. The thrust of the paper is to expound the diversities and similarities in Ígálá and English linguistic systems in the area of patterns of pluralisation. The paper is hinged on Inferential-realizational theory. The paper observed that the noun class in Ígálá is marked for number through three inflectional markers [ám(á), ìb(ó) and áb(ó)] while the noun class in English is inflected for number by the following exponents: [-s, -es, -ies, -en, -ren, -ves] not losing sight of zero concept. Germane to this work is the fact that Ígálá and English exhibit extended exponence- a linguistic situation where a particular morphosyntactic property could be expressed by more than one morphological marking in the same word depending on the lexeme’s root. Plural markers in Ígálá are prefixes while plural markers in English are suffixes. In conclusion, English and Ígálá are uniform in one specific sense of the capacity to inflect words for grammatical purposes, but have different structures in the process of inflection or associating an inflected word with a specific set of morphosyntactic properties
Pronouns in Lotha
Get PDFThe paper gives an account of pronouns in Lotha, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Nagaland, India. Lotha is a generic name and refers to both the linguistic group and the ethno-cultural entity. Lothas are racially Mongoloid and linguistically, it has been classified under the Central Naga group of the Naga sub-branch of the Tibeto-Burman languages. Pronouns in Lotha are free forms which can function solely to fill the position of a noun phrase in a clause. Personal pronouns are typically deixis to the speech participants for each of the three grammatical person i.e. first person, second person and third person. In annex to person, numbers i.e. singular, dual and plural are also distinguished on pronouns. Personal pronouns in Lotha are independent and free-standing and for that matter it takes case-markers and postposition in similar ways as full noun phrase. The first, second and third personal pronouns take case marking only when it serves as a subject and does not take any case markers when it serves as an object. Demonstrative pronouns function in several ways based on proximity and distance in time. Lotha has three-way distinction of identifying demonstrative pronoun i.e. proximate, distance and remote marked by ʃi ‘this’ (near the speaker), ci ‘that’(near the hearer) and o-ci ‘over there’( far away from both the speaker and hearer). The interrogative pronouns kvə, ndo and otʃɔ are attached to the bound nominal suffixes. Indefinite pronouns can be formed from the question words which can change to affirmative by attaching the indefinite suffix -sana and its negative particle counterpart mek. Reflexive pronoun in Lotha is expressed by the reflexive lexeme bɔbɔ ‘self’ which is a free morpheme
Derivational Morphology of Assamese Lexical Word Categories
Get PDFWord formation by derivation is very productive in Assamese. A significant amount of words in Assamese owe their origin to derivation. The analysis in this paper takes into account the derivational processes related with lexical word categories, and, numerous bound morphemes that are used in the derivational process in the language. This analysis helps us to understand some of the important aspects of Assamese morphology. These aspects are - role of class maintaining and class changing morphemes, derivation of word from synonyms, productivity of derivational morphemes, morphophonemic changes in root as a result of affixation of derivational morphemes, presence of allomorphs of various bound morphemes, ability of a morpheme to derive words from different word categories. The significance of this papers lies in the fact that these word formation processes could help develop morphological rules that can be used for developing computational morphological tools like- stemmer, spell checker, tagger etc
Echoic Communications and Pragmatic Relevance of COVID 19 Memes in Nigeria’s Social Media Space
Get PDFThere are greater possibilities for a language utterance to have more meanings than what is stated. It is also possible for the hearers/audience to interpret what the speaker has in mind beyond what the speaker has put out in words. These meanings derived in this form are echoic and they are arrived at by choosing meanings that contextually relevant involving the least effort. How echoic relevant definitions are achieved has been studied using different language instances. Still, none in the researchers' knowledge has investigated how the COVID 19 social media memes, as used by Nigerians, communicate deeper meanings that are contextually relevant and how the echoic interpretations reveal the users' attitude. On this basis, therefore, the present study investigated the echoic nature of COVID 19 related social media memes as used by Nigerians. The study used Sperber and Wilson (1986) relevance theory as the theoretical framework and qualitatively analyzed Ten (10) purposefully selected memes. In the end, the study found out that interpretations of memes are significantly linked with the shared cognitive background knowledge which the speaker/meme creator and the hearer/audience have. Also, memes could echo the attitude of concern, disdain and fear while also harboring deeper meanings that contextually relevant and implicit
The Theme of Infidelity in Ajo Obi: A Reader Response Approach
Get PDFThematic study is an area in any literary study that cannot be easily overlooked. It is an area that cuts across the three major genres of literature. This paper examines the literary text Ajo Obi which is written by I.G. Nwaozuzu in form of drama with the view of studying the theme of infidelity as portrayed in the text. This work aims at showing the ambiguity of the claim of innocence by the accused in the text. It also brings to light how cultural divergence brings about different interpretations of an action. The data for this study are drawn from intensive study of the literary text Ajo Obi. Following a qualitative research paradigm the study adopts reader response approach in its analysis. Findings show that there is a kind of uncertainty in the claim of innocence by the accused in the text. Again cultural divergence is also found to bring about differences in interpretation of an action