1,721,042 research outputs found
Modal Verb Usage in Tourism Discourse
Full text linkThe present contribution examines the use of modal verbs in specialised tourism discourse, with a focus on the Verona Corpus. Modal verbs play a crucial role in expressing modality and conveying information about necessity, possibility, and permission (Maci 2020; Palmer 1990). Through a comprehensive analysis of the Verona Corpus, a corpus of websites promoting the city of Verona (Italy) as a destination, this study categorises modal verbs into epistemic, deontic, and dynamic modalities (see Palmer 1990) and investigates their relative frequencies. Non-parametric statistical tests (Kruskal-Wallis) are employed to determine the significance of differences in modal verb usage, followed by a qualitative analysis. The results show statistically significant differences among the three categories of modality used in the texts: epistemic, deontic, and dynamic, whereas there are no differences between the verb groups (e.g., can, could, may, might, etc.) within the same type of modality. In addition, the use of pronouns shows an attempt at establishing an empathic relationship with the tourists but risks coming across as too artificial and persuasive
The AMC-50 DATA Reference
No full textThe data illustrated in the present paper are intended as a mere quantitative reference for learners, teachers and scholars interested in movie discourse and are just an example of the role that movie language and corpora can have in the mastering of the most recurrent linguistic patterns found in conversatio
ADVERB + ADJECTIVE COLLOCATIONS IN A SPOKEN LEARNER CORPUS: A QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE APPROACH
No full textNegli ultimi 70 anni, c'è stato un incremento degli studi e ricerche inglesi sulle collocazioni (Firth 1957; Hoey, 2005; Moon, 1998b; Sinclair 1991; 2004; Stubbs, 1996; 2001), i quali hanno evidenziato che la fraseologia è pervasiva alla lingua (Altenberg, 1998; Biber et al., 1999; Cowie, 1991; 1992; Howarth; 1998). Questo indica anche che una buona padronanza delle collocazioni è necessaria se i discenti mirano a raggiungere una fluidità simile a quella di un nativo nella L2. Infatti, la ricerca sulla produzione di linguaggio formulaico da parte degli apprendenti ha dimostrato che le collocazioni sono essenziali nell'acquisizione della lingua seconda (Cowie, 1998; Pawley & Syder, 1983; Peters, 1983) e sono una componente chiave per lo sviluppo della "fluency" (Ellis, 2002; 2003; Ellis et al., 2015; Howarth, 1998).
Nonostante il maggior numero di studi sulle collocazioni, la maggior parte degli studiosi si è concentrata su dati scritti e su un insieme ristretto di combinazioni, come le collocazioni verbo + sostantivo. La scarsa disponibilità di corpora orali di discenti e la maggiore attenzione per le sequenze formulaiche più soggette a errori hanno portato i ricercatori a trascurare collocazioni come avverbio + aggettivo. L'intensificazione è una parte intricata dell'apprendimento delle lingue straniere (Lorenz, 1999) e merita ulteriore attenzione, soprattutto per quanto riguarda i dati parlati, che riflettono meglio il linguaggio dei discenti (Myles, 2015). Il presente lavoro indaga le collocazioni di avverbi + aggettivi in un corpus parlato di recente compilazione di studenti italiani avanzati di inglese L2. La tesi adotta un approccio di Analisi Interlinguistica Contrastiva (Granger, 1998) per verificare se: a) ci sono differenze tra la produzione di collocazioni degli studenti italiani di inglese rispetto ai coetanei madrelingua; b) ci sono differenze tra le collocazioni prodotti dagli studenti italiani e quelle dei madrelingua in termini di modelli sintattici e significato lessicale; c) la congruenza della L1 ha un effetto di trasferimento sulla produzione da parte dei discenti di collocazioni poco frequenti e/o non attestate.
Per rispondere alle tre domande di ricerca, sono state condotte analisi quantitative e qualitative sull'Italian Spoken Learner Corpus (ISLC) e sul corpus gemello di LINDSEI, LOCNEC. LOCNEC è stato utilizzato come corpus di riferimento di madrelingua per il suo alto livello di comparabilità con ISLC. Per le analisi quantitative, è stato seguito l'approccio di Durrant e Schmitt (2009) per il calcolo dei punteggi delle misure di associazione delle collocazioni (t-score e MI) sulla base del corpus di riferimento BNC e le collocazioni sono state poi divise in tre categorie in base al loro punteggio: collocazioni (t-score e MI maggiore o uguale a 2 e 3 rispettivamente), collocazioni infrequenti/non attestate (t-score e MI non disponibili a causa dell'infrequenza), collocazioni in area grigia (t-score e MI inferiore a 2 e 3 rispettivamente). I test T-test e Wilcoxon rank sum test sono stati utilizzati sulle collocazioni estratte da ISLC e LOCNEC e sono state calcolate le dimensioni degli effetti. Inoltre, i test sono stati impiegati per valutare i valori medi individuali di t-score e MI degli studenti e dei madrelingua.
Per quanto riguarda le analisi qualitative, è stato impiegato uno schema a tre livelli per analizzare due serie di collocazioni: la prima serie comprende 11 collocazioni con t-score e MI maggiore uguale a 2 e 3 rispettivamente e una frequenza di 5 nell'ISLC; la seconda serie comprende 9 collocazioni infrequenti/non attestate con una frequenza maggiore o uguale a 2 nell'ISLC. Seguendo lo schema, i due set di collocazioni estratti sia dall'ISLC sia dal LOCNEC sono stati analizzati tenendo conto del loro background collocativo (etimologia, livello CEFR, congruenza L1), delle variabili del discente (sesso, esperienza di soggiorno all'estero, corso universitario, altre lingue), e delle variabili testuali (funzione attributiva vs predicativa dell'aggettivo, pronomi vs it-sentences, tempo verbale, affermativo vs negativo, connotazione positiva vs negativa).
I risultati dei test statistici sono stati tutti significativi con effect size medio-grandi e, insieme alle analisi qualitative, hanno indicato che: gli studenti italiani di inglese producono un minor numero di collocazioni; un maggior numero di non-collocazioni; le loro combinazioni sono meno collocative di quelle dei madrelingua (ovvero, i loro punteggi di misura delle associazioni sono in media più bassi di quelli dei nativi); non ci sono differenze marcate in termini di modelli lessico-grammaticali tra le collocazioni degli studenti e quelle dei madrelingua, ma gli studenti tendono ad assegnare alle loro collocazioni funzioni più creative dal punto di vista pragmatico; non è stata trovata alcuna prova di trasferimento L1 (negativo) in relazione alla produzione da parte dei discenti di collocazioni infrequenti/non attestate, sostenendo così ulteriormente la conclusione precedente.
I risultati corroborano ulteriormente la letteratura sulle collocazioni prodotte dai discenti e aggiungono un altro tassello al puzzle della lingua parlata: il ritardo collocazionale, cioè lo sviluppo più lento delle prestazioni di produzione di collocazioni, può essere trovato anche nei dati parlati e i discenti sembrano anche produrre meno collocazioni identificate da punteggio t-score. Questo ha due importanti, anche se semplici, implicazioni: che gli studenti dovrebbero probabilmente essere esposti a più input di lingua parlata, e che le teorie di acquisizione della lingua seconda potrebbero utilmente rivedere i processi di acquisizione fraseologica degli studenti nel contesto EFL. Un'altra scoperta è relativa ai modelli lessico-grammaticali delle collocazioni degli studenti non erano marcatamente diversi da quelli dei madrelingua, ma erano meno vari e mostravano una creatività pragmatica. Questo potrebbe informare gli studiosi sui potenziali processi di fossilizzazione (Selinker, 1972) nella fraseologia e/o sulle strategie di semplificazione o di evitamento (Farghal & Obiedat, 1995). Infine, anche se gli studi tradizionali hanno trovato che la congruenza L1 gioca un ruolo chiave nella produzione di collocazioni (cfr. Bahns, 1993; Granger, 1998b; Nesselhauf, 2005; Wang, 2016), nessuna prova di congruenza L1 è stata trovata per quanto riguarda i dati parlati, il che è un'interessante controprova. Nel complesso, questa tesi ha sottolineato che la produzione di collocazioni, sia quantitativamente sia pragmaticamente, è in ritardo rispetto alla competenza collocazionale e, sebbene questa linea possa essere molto sottile e non significativa nei testi scritti, il divario si allarga nella lingua parlata.In the last 70 years, there has been an increase in English studies on collocations (Firth 1957; Hoey, 2005; Moon, 1998; Sinclair 1991; 2004; Stubbs, 1996; 2001) and research which have documented that phraseology is pervasive to language (Altenberg, 1998; Biber et al., 1999; Cowie, 1991; 1992; Howarth; 1998). This also indicates that a good command of collocations is needed if learners aim to achieve native-like fluency in the L2. Indeed, research on learner production of formulaic language has shown that collocations are essential in the acquisition of second language (Cowie, 1998; Pawley & Syder, 1983; Peters, 1983) and are a key component for the development of fluency (Ellis, 2002; 2003; Ellis et al., 2015; Howarth, 1998).
Despite the surge in studies on collocations, the majority of scholars have focused on written data and on a restricted set of combinations, such as verb + noun collocations. The poor availability of spoken learner corpora and the more error-prone formulaic sequences have led researchers to neglect collocations such as adverb + adjective. Intensification is an intricate part of foreign language learning (Lorenz, 1999) and deserves further attention, especially as regards spoken data, which is a better reflection of learner language (Myles, 2015).
The present work investigates adverb + adjective collocations in a newly compiled spoken learner corpus of advanced Italian learners of English L2. The thesis adopts a Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (Granger, 1998) approach to verify whether: a) there are any differences between the collocation production of Italian learners of English compared to native-speaker peers; b) there are any differences between the Italian learners’ collocations and the native speakers’ in terms of syntactic patterns and lexical meaning; c) L1 congruency has a transfer effect on the learner production of infrequent and/or unattested collocations.
In order to address the three overarching research questions, quantitative and qualitative analyses were carried out on the Italian Spoken Learner Corpus (ISLC) and the sister corpus of LINDSEI, LOCNEC. LOCNEC was used as the native-speaker reference corpus for its high level of comparability to ISLC. For the quantitative analyses, Durrant and Schmitt’s (2009) approach was followed for the calculation of the collocation’s association measure scores (t-score and MI) based on the large reference corpus BNC and the collocations were then divided into three categories based on their score: collocations (t-score and MI equal or greater than 2 and 3 respectively), infrequent/unattested collocations (t-score and MI scores unavailable due to infrequency), grey area collocations (t-score and MI lower than 2 and 3 respectively). T-tests and Wilcoxon rank sum tests were computed on the collocations extracted from ISLC and LOCNEC and effect sizes were calculated. In addition, the tests were employed to assess the average individual t-score and MI values of learners and native speakers.
As regards the qualitative analyses, a three-fold scheme was employed to analyse two sets of collocations: the first set comprises 11 collocations with t-score and MI equal or greater than 2 and 3 respectively and a frequency of equal or greater than 5 in the ISLC; the second set includes 9 infrequent/unattested collocations with a frequency equal or greater than 2 in ISLC. Following the scheme, the two sets of collocations extracted from both ISLC and LOCNEC were analysed by taking into account their collocational background (etymology, CEFR level, L1 congruence), the learner variables (gender, stay-abroad experience, university course, other languages), and the text variables (attributive vs predicative function of the adjective, pronouns vs it-sentences, tense, affirmative vs negative, positive vs negative connotation).
The results of the statistical tests were all significant with medium to large effect sizes and, together with the qualitative analyses, indicated that: Italian learners of English produce a fewer number of collocations; a higher number of non-collocations; their combinations are less collocational than native speakers’ (i.e., their association measure scores as on average lower than the natives’); there are no marked differences in terms of lexico-grammatical patterns between the learners’ collocations and the native speakers’, but the learners tend to assign more pragmatically creative functions to their collocations; no evidence of L1 (negative) transfer was found in relation to the learners’ production of infrequent/unattested collocations, thus further supporting the previous finding.
The findings further corroborate the literature on learners’ collocations and add another piece to the puzzle of spoken language: collocational lag, that is the slower development of collocation performance, can also be found in spoken data and learners also seem to produce fewer t-score collocations. This has two important, though simple, implications: that learners should probably be exposed to more spoken language input, and that second language acquisition theories might usefully review phraseological acquisition processes of EFL learners. Another finding is that the lexico-grammatical patterns of learners’ collocations were not markedly different from native speakers’, but they were less varied and displayed pragmatic creativity. This could inform scholars about potential fossilisation processes (Selinker, 1972) in phraseology and/or simplification or avoidance strategies (Farghal & Obiedat, 1995). Lastly, although mainstream studies have found that L1 congruency plays a role in the production of collocations (cf. Bahns, 1993; Granger, 1998b; Nesselhauf, 2005; Wang, 2016), no evidence of L1 congruency was found as regards spoken data, which is an interesting counter-finding. Overall, this thesis has underlined that collocation production, both quantitatively and pragmatically, lags behind collocation competence and, although this line may be very thin and not significant in written texts, the gap widens in spoken language
Reflections on a small word: the position of “also” in learner language
No full textThis article reports on research conducted on a quasi-longitudinal corpus of learner language collected students ranging from Junior School to Post-graduate. The research investigated whether the same mistakes were being made at each level, or whether certain grammatical categories or syntactic errors diminish as the level of schooling rises. It picks up on one category, word order, which continues to be problematic for learners, even at post-graduate level. The example that illustrates this is the small adverb, also
Universali e storia della linguistica
No full textIn nineteenth century linguistics the interest in common features of language, universally shared among the different historical languages, shows both in the quest for the proto-language and in the identification of the linguistic 'type' to which the different languages individually belong. The first case corresponds to historical-comparative linguistics, which, at least initially, advocated linguistic monogenesis. The second research perspective opens a most fruitful line of enquiry in the history of linguistic thought which, looking for individuation of further possible similarity relationships, elaborates the hypothesis of affinity through contact. This model is at the origin of interesting reflections developed in the 19th and 20th centuries (including both linguistic typology and areal linguistics). In this contribution examples of both research perspectives will be tackled and commented
The Popularisation of Legal Rights in Brochures: A Multimodal Analysis
No full textThis paper presents the preliminary results of a broader study into the communication of European Union legal rights to citizens. The EU produces its own legislation which is then implemented in the 27 Member States in different ways, depending on the type of law. In order to make legislation accessible to the lay public, one or more simplified versions of the legislation are published on the EU website. The present study analyses a corpus of brochures popularising EU legislation and proposes to investigate how verbal communication is complemented by visual elements in creating a relationship between the various participants. The findings indicate that the linguistic features in the brochures contribute to creating an interpersonal relationship between the EU institutions and the viewers more than the photos. However, despite their limited number, the photos that represent people support the linguistic elements in involving the lay public and to bringing them closer to EU institutions
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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