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Flavors of Progression in Urban Jordanian Arabic WORD Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Mohammad Alhailawani, Basem Ibrahim Malawi Al-Raba’a
This study investigates the syntactic and semantic properties of three grammaticalized aspectual markers in Urban Jordanian Arabic (UJA): the particle ʕam, the active participle ʕammal, and the act...
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A Corpus-Based Study of Nominalizations in the Sports News of Shanghai Gazette (1919–1920) WORD Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Bingru Li, Bingjun Yang
With the theory of grammatical metaphor in systemic functional linguistics as the theoretical basis, this study explores the nominalizations used in the sports news of Shanghai Gazette (1919–1920),...
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Get the Picture: Learning Referents in a Single-Day Context WORD Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Hiroki Horinouchi, Xinyi Liu, Russell Sarwar Kabir, Ryota Kobayashi, Yutaka Haramaki, Toshimune Kambara
Associative learning provides a common substrate for studying learning and memory in language sciences. Studies on recognition memory tasks have found higher proportions of homonyms relative to non...
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Bilingual Grammar: Toward an Integrated Model WORD Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Pablo M. Tagarro, Vincenzo Verbeni
Published in WORD (Vol. 70, No. 1, 2024)
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A Sign-Based Analysis of Must, May and Could WORD Pub Date : 2023-11-13 Lauren Whitty
This paper analyzes the English forms must, may and could using a Columbia School framework. As with previous sign-based analyses of the modals, must, may and could are considered members of a gram...
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Discipline-Specific Writing and Embedded Clauses: The Case of Cell Biology and Classics WORD Pub Date : 2023-11-13 Alvin Ping Leong
Research work on the grammatical features of academic writing has revealed that science writing relies more on phrases and nominalization, and humanities writing on clauses. Embedded clauses, howev...
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Ba in the Chinese Ba-Construction: A Cardiff Grammar Approach WORD Pub Date : 2023-08-15 Wei He
This study explores the semantic and the syntactic status of ba in the Chinese ba-construction from a systemic functional perspective. At the level of meaning, ba functions as the Process element in the transitivity structure of the overall construction, and delivers an influential meaning. This means that the ba-construction involves a dominant and a dependent process. The dominant process is a configuration
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Rendition of Noncanonical Opposition: A Case Study of Qur’anic Composition in Bilingual Transposition WORD Pub Date : 2023-08-15 Hamada Hassanein
Grammar and meaning, form and function, are two linguistic levels intrinsic and indispensable to reading and rendering the Qur’an, the Divine Word of Islamic Scripture, in a foreign tongue. Nida and de Waard’s (1986) ‘functional equivalence’, an amalgamation of formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence, posits that emphasis in translation activity and practice must also be laid on SL form which must
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Defining the word WORD Pub Date : 2023-08-15 Martin Haspelmath
In this paper, I propose a definition of the term word that can be applied to all languages using the same criteria. Roughly, a word is defined as a free morph or a clitic or a root plus affixes or a compound plus affixes. The paper relies on earlier definitions of the terms free, morph, affix, clitic, root, and compound, which are summarized here. I briefly compare the proposed definition with Bloomfield’s
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The Word-building Category Potential in the Analysis of the Names of Persons in the Russian and Bashkir Languages WORD Pub Date : 2023-06-28 Zilya Khazhieva, Olga Novikova, Andrey Belyaev, Larisa Ivanova
This article aims to perform a comparative analysis of the word-building category with the person meaning in the Russian and Bashkir languages. The research was conducted on the material of Russian-Bashkir dictionaries. The structural-functional research method made it possible to determine the morphemic affixal composition of the compared languages, the types of a functional connection between the
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The Acquisition of the English Spatial Prepositions: in, on, and at by Saudi EFL Students WORD Pub Date : 2023-06-28 Reham Alhammad
This study investigates the acquisition of the three English spatial prepositions: ‘in’, ‘on’, and ‘at’ by 100 Saudi EFL students within the framework of the Markedness Theory. From the markedness point of view, marked/infrequent structures are more difficult in acquisition compared to their corresponding unmarked/frequent structures. English and Arabic differ in the way they express the semantic relations
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‘Noticeably Better / Visibly Shaken’: The Use of Four Adverbs of High Perceivability with Meanings of Attitude WORD Pub Date : 2023-06-28 Marta Carretero
This paper is a study of the use of four adverbs of high perceivability, manifestly, noticeably, patently and visibly (MNP&V), with expressions loaded with evaluative meanings belonging to the Appraisal category of Attitude. The paper starts with a characterization of MNP&V in terms of their meanings of manner and evidentiality and also as devices of Engagement within the Appraisal framework. Next
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On the Syntax of Existential Sentences in Standard Arabic WORD Pub Date : 2023-06-28 Khawlah Sulaiman Allahem, Bader Yousef Alharbi
Existential sentences are noncanonical sentences that express the (non)existence of an entity. They have not received considerable attention in Standard Arabic (SA). This paper, thus, aims to propose a syntactic analysis of SA existential sentences. We first discuss the key grammatical properties of the four syntactic items, namely the copular verb, the expletive hunaaka, the pivot, and the coda phrase
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Non-finiteness: A Process-Relation Perspective WORD Pub Date : 2023-06-28 Dajun Xiang
Published in WORD (Vol. 69, No. 2, 2023)
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The Seduction of Etymology: Heidegger’s Philosophical Cognates WORD Pub Date : 2023-03-27 Walter Petrovitz
The use of etymology is an essential characteristic of the writing of Martin Heidegger. Believing that ordinary language had lost its power to express certain philosophical ideas, Heidegger often looked to earlier meanings of words or parsed derived words in order to analyze separate morphemes. An appreciation of this approach is central in understanding Heidegger’s work. He also believed that etymologizing
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Lost in Translation in 1666. A Translation Dispute Between the Philosophical Transactions and the Journal des Sçavans WORD Pub Date : 2023-03-27 David Banks
The Journal des Sçavans and the Philosophical Transactions were the first two academic periodicals, and in their early years each frequently translated items taken from the other. In one such case, an item in the Journal des Sçavans which was a translation of a piece from the Philosophical Transactions, provoked a critical letter subsequently published in the French periodical. This letter produced
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On the Grammaticalization of Iterative Aspectual Markers in Rural Jordanian Arabic WORD Pub Date : 2023-03-27 Basem Ibrahim Malawi Al-Raba'a
This article explores the grammatical functions of iterative aspectual markers in Jordanian Arabic from a synchronic perspective. It will be argued that the aspectual markers in question are functional elements that have been grammaticalized from lexical items belonging to the verbal category. It will be shown that, as a consequence of grammaticalization, reduplication of verbs whose second and third
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Unpacking the Semantics of Coronaviruses’ “Referent Things”: A Corpus-Driven Systemic Functional Linguistic Analysis WORD Pub Date : 2023-03-27 Amir H.Y. Salama
The current study seeks to unpack the corpus-driven semantics of the “referent things” underlying the use of the lexical item coronaviruses in the data of The Coronavirus Corpus [Davies, Mark. 2019-. The Coronavirus Corpus. https://www.english-corpora.org/corona/]. Drawing on the Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) Model of the Cardiff Grammar, a concordance-bound analysis has been conducted on the
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“Look with thine ears”: Why Writing Is Syllable-based WORD Pub Date : 2023-03-27 Peter T. Daniels
Writing, both ancient and modern, originates de novo only when the language written is syllabically organized, because only there does the most salient unit of speech, the syllable, correspond with the most salient unit of language, the morpheme, thus bringing a sound sufficiently to consciousness that a pictograph for the item named by the morpheme can be recognized as also representing its sound
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A Modern Western Aramaic Account of the Syrian Civil War WORD Pub Date : 2022-12-07 Alexey Duntsov, Charles Häberl, Sergey Loesov
Modern Western Aramaic is one of the most critically endangered Aramaic languages, and the only extant member of the Western Aramaic subfamily. Its speakers are among the few who have not migrated away from their original territory, but the Syrian Civil War (2011–present) has accelerated its endangerment and resulted in the abandonment of one of the three villages in which it was previously spoken
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Typological Change Across Registers – the Case of Malaysian WORD Pub Date : 2022-12-07 David M. Karaj
The analyses of Malaysian Malay focus on the language’s verbal morphology as the main means of rendering grammatical meaning, applying to it a somewhat outdated label of ‘agglutinative language’. Although the language situation in Malaysia can be described as diglossia or, more accurately, polyglossia, most of the current studies of Malay syntax are concerned with its standard variety. The present
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Tracing Vowel Quality in Iraqi Arabic Dialects: A Typological Study WORD Pub Date : 2022-12-07 Wisam Saeed Abed
Iraqi Arabic dialects have a range of phoneme inventories, and there is a necessity for tracing the distribution of phonological features of such phonemes within these dialects. Three dialects were investigated to trace variations in vowel quality tracking any distribution patterns or deviations. The first three formants were extracted and analyzed with the application of a number of statistical methods
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When a General Classifier Acts as a Quantifier? The Case of Ħabbit ‘a Grain of’ in Jordanian Arabic WORD Pub Date : 2022-12-07 Abdulazeez Jaradat, Marwan Jarrah
This article offers a morphosyntactic account of the observation that the general dividing classifier ħabbit ‘a grain of’ in Jordanian Arabic (JA) can express another unpredictable interpretation when it is combined with non-count nominals. When ħabbit occurs with nominals that refer to [-animate] collectives (granular aggregates, legumes, nuts and seeds), it can give rise to individuation or paucal
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Repositioning Can: Modifications to the English “Modal” System WORD Pub Date : 2022-12-07 Lauren Whitty
This paper analyzes the English form can using a Columbia School framework to explain the distribution of this form in written texts in terms of its expressive contribution to communication. Keeping with previous sign-analyses of this form, can is seen as a member of a grammatical system. Contrary to previous analyses, however, can is shown to contribute to a larger range of messages than previously
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What’s in a Word? The Ubiquitous and Multidimensional Address Form hoca(m) in Turkish WORD Pub Date : 2022-09-12 Mohammad Hossein Keshavarz
Like many other words, hoca(m) has undergone a historical development. Originally a religious term, hocam has turned into a widespread and multidimensional address form in Turkish academic settings expressing the sociosemantic notions of solidarity, equality, respect, intimacy, and distance. In this study, after tracing the historical development of the word hoca, the results of first-hand observation
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Overlapping Reactions During Tag Questions WORD Pub Date : 2022-09-12 Ditte Kimps, Gerard O’Grady
This article examines the form and the functions of what we label overlapping reactions. These are premature responses which overlap utterances containing a variable interrogative tag, e.g., It’s nice, isn’t it. They are orientated towards the proposition contained in the tag question. Our research is grounded in a corpus of spoken British English and, employs methods and insights from corpus linguistics
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Towards a Systemic Functional Description of the System of Temporal Values in Arabic WORD Pub Date : 2022-09-12 Mohamed Ali Bardi
There is a general consensus about how difficult it is to come up with a proper description of the system of temporal values in Arabic. Overall, while Arab linguists mostly interpret the system from a temporal angle, western studies have treated it as fully aspectual. Both camps have been inspired by the work of traditional Arab grammarians who clearly stated that the system is not paradigmatically
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Categorization of Experience of the World and Construction of Transitivity System of Chinese WORD Pub Date : 2022-09-12 Wei He
The main streams of Systemic Functional Linguistics present two distinct transitivity systems of English, which is attributed to their different views about the relationship between experience, meaning and the transitivity system. Particularly, they both take experience as the starting point, but adopt different upward approaches to the description of the experiential metafunction. Accordingly, existing
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A Functional Linguistic Perspective on Developing Language WORD Pub Date : 2022-09-12 Fei-Hong Gai, Yao Wang
Published in WORD (Vol. 68, No. 3, 2022)
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Systemic Functional Linguistics, Part 1 WORD Pub Date : 2022-09-12 Akila Sellami-Baklouti
Published in WORD (Vol. 68, No. 3, 2022)
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The Nominal Group in British Sign Language: A Preliminary Description WORD Pub Date : 2022-06-16 Luke A. Rudge
Research investigating British Sign Language (BSL) – and sign languages more generally – from systemic functional perspectives is gradually increasing but remains nascent overall. The current paper offers a step towards a steadily growing set of functional descriptions of BSL, focusing on the nominal group and potential nominal functions. The findings of a small-scale analysis of publicly accessible
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Sundanese Nominal Groups: Meaning in Text WORD Pub Date : 2022-06-16 Y. J. Doran, Lungguh Ariang Bangga
This paper considers the nominal group in Sundanese, a Malayo-Polynesian language of West Java, Indonesia, through Systemic Functional Linguistics. In particular, it builds a meaning-based description of Sundanese nominal groups, born of educational concerns associated with developing literacy programs. To this end, it describes not only the formal syntagms at play, but also their functions; not only
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Re/construing Our World: An Ecolinguistic Perspective on Tagalog Nominal Group Resources WORD Pub Date : 2022-06-16 J. R. Martin, Priscilla Angela T. Cruz
This paper focuses on Tagalog nominal groups and the way they are used in a children's picture book narrative. Its purpose is two-fold. On the one hand it presents an analysis of Tagalog nominal group structures, proposing Function Marking, Focus, Specifier, Numerative, Epithet, Deictic, Thing and Qualifier functions. On the other hand it is concerned with the way Tagalog nominal groups are used to
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The Ancient Greek Nominal Group, with Attention to the Greek New Testament WORD Pub Date : 2022-03-28 Stanley E. Porter, Christopher D. Land
Together with Latin, Ancient Greek has had a strong influence on grammatical theories and descriptions. This is reflected in traditional descriptions of the Ancient Greek nominal group (i.e., noun phrase), which are heavily syntagmatic and dependent on conventional parts-of-speech. In this paper, we explore the nominal group from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics. This allows for a
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Nominal Groups in Pitjantjatjara WORD Pub Date : 2022-03-28 David Rose
This chapter explores nominal grammar resources in Pitjantjatjara, an Indigenous language of Australia's Western Desert. Data for the description comes primarily from recordings of oral discourse. The description takes a discourse semantic perspective on ideational and textual resources in nominal grammar. Options are described for construing entities by naming, pronaming, classifying, describing,
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In Memoriam: Franklin Eugene Horowitz 1932–2022 WORD Pub Date : 2022-03-28 Jo Anne Kleifgen
(2022). In Memoriam: Franklin Eugene Horowitz 1932–2022. WORD: Vol. 68, Special Issue (Part 2, b): Theme: The Grammar of Nominal Groups: Systemic Functional Linguistic Perspectives, pp. 81-82.
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Serbian Nominal Groups: System and Structure WORD Pub Date : 2022-01-12 Dragana Stosic
This paper presents a study on nominal groups in Serbian grounded in systemic functional grammar (SFG). Its aim is to complement traditional and formal descriptions of nominal group structures in Serbian and contribute to growing SFG research on nominal groups across languages. Adopting a top-down approach to investigating the relationship between systems and structures, this study uses registerial
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The Nominal Group in Brazilian Portuguese WORD Pub Date : 2022-01-12 Giacomo Figueredo
In this paper, we follow basic systemic principles for language description – an axial perspective, text-based evidence and reasoning “from above”, “from roundabout” and “from below” – to provide a description of the nominal group in Brazilian Portuguese. Our description starts by presenting an overview of the nominal group seen “from above” and the ways it is related to items in register and entities
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Interpreting the Old English Nominal Group from a Parsed Corpus WORD Pub Date : 2022-01-12 Michael Cummings
The object of this study is to derive a systemic functional interpretation of the experiential structure of the Old English nominal group from a parsed database. The database is the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE), a parsed structuralist corpus. The methodology uses the CorpusSearch search engine to isolate nominal group tree-structures in two separate inventories. The
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Introduction WORD Pub Date : 2021-10-19 J. R. Martin, Y. J. Doran, Dongbing Zhang
(2021). Introduction. WORD: Vol. 67, Special Issue (Part 1): Theme: The Grammar of Nominal Groups: Systemic Functional Linguistic Perspectives, pp. 247-247.
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Nominal Group Grammar: System and Structure WORD Pub Date : 2021-10-19 J.R. Martin, Y.J. Doran, Dongbing Zhang
In this introductory paper for this series of special issues, we review the development of nominal group description in SFL – focusing on its syntagmatic and paradigmatic modeling, and stepping through a number of the principles that underpin SFL description more broadly. We then explore a number of issues that have arisen in relation to nominal groups as more languages have been described in SFL,
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deixis in the Dagaare Nominal Group: Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic Perspectives WORD Pub Date : 2021-10-19 Isaac N. Mwinlaaru
Although the use of multiple deictic items such as definite articles, possessives and demonstratives in the nominal group of many languages has been noted in the literature, the motivation for this phenomenon is often unexplained. The present study examines this phenomenon in the Lobr dialect of Dagaare (Niger-Congo: Mabia/Gur) from both syntagmatic and paradigmatic perspectives. It first identifies
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Nominal Group Systems and Structures in Lhasa Tibetan WORD Pub Date : 2021-10-19 Pin Wang
This paper presents a text-based study of the construal of entities through nominal groups in Lhasa Tibetan based on a focus text selected from a local folk tale. It approaches the grammatical description of nominal group systems and structures from ideational and textual perspectives, taking as point of departure the discourse semantic systems of ideation and identification. From the perspective of
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The Nominal Group in Khorchin Mongolian: A Systemic Functional Perspective WORD Pub Date : 2021-10-19 Dongbing Zhang
The main focus on nominals in traditional descriptions of Mongolian is in terms of word class. Their combinations are described either with respect to their role as clause constituents or in terms of a simple modifier-modified relationship. This paper, on the other hand, recognizes the Khorchin Mongolian nominal group as a unit, whose structural configuration is realized mainly through nominals, as
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Korean Nominal Groups: System and Structure WORD Pub Date : 2021-10-19 J. R. Martin, Gi-Hyun Shin
The nominal group in Korean typically involves some combination of nouns (including common noun, proper noun, pronoun and bound noun), adjectives, numerals, determiners and clitics. In addition, the Korean nominal group has the potential to include embedded groups, embedded phrases and embedded clauses in its structure. These units realize a number of nominal group functions: Deictic, Epithet, Order
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Writing in the Sciences and Humanities: A Clause-Complex Perspective WORD Pub Date : 2021-07-22
Stereotypes concerning writing in the sciences and the humanities suggest that they are two distinct varieties. However, corpus-based studies comparing their language features are limited. This present study addresses this research gap by focusing on the distribution of clauses and inter-clausal relationships using Michael Halliday’s framework of clause complexing. The corpus comprised 40 articles
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Gemination: Weight or Length? Evidence from Rural Jordanian Arabic WORD Pub Date : 2021-07-22
The aim of the paper is to evaluate how the implementation of geminates in Rural Jordanian Arabic (RJA) differs from that of clusters and by doing so, provided evidence for a prosodic weight. Geminates are represented and viewed controversially either as prosodic length (skeletal tier) or as prosodic weight (Moraic Theory) in the current theories of phonology. In this study, I argue that the geminate-singleton
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On the Syntax of ʔanna and ʔan in Modern Standard Arabic: A Phase-based Approach WORD Pub Date : 2021-07-22
This study seeks to identify the syntactic motivation and problems of the associations of the complementizers ʔanna and ʔan with word order and case marking in Modern Standard Arabic (henceforth MSA) with reference to the Minimalist Program (MP), the updated version of MP Phase Theory, and the split CP hypothesis of Rizzi (1997. “The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery.” In Elements of Grammar, edited
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Translations of Representations of Moving and Saying from English into Spanish WORD Pub Date : 2021-07-22
This paper presents a systemic-functional contrastive analysis of an original English text – a chapter, ‘The Land of Shadow’ from J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings – and its Spanish translation, ‘El País de la Sombra’, focusing on the shifts in translation of representations of motion and of saying. These two realms of experience provide an interesting contrast in terms of experiential complexity
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A Systemic Functional Sketch of Material Clauses in Sundanese WORD Pub Date : 2021-07-22
This paper explores the experiential grammar of Sundanese from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) by focusing on material clauses within the system of transitivity. The description takes a fable as its point of departure in order to map out the grammar of material clauses in detail. It considers material clauses in relation to both their structural configurations and systemic
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Functional Variations in English: Theoretical Considerations and Practical Challenges WORD Pub Date : 2021-07-22
(2021). Functional Variations in English: Theoretical Considerations and Practical Challenges. WORD: Vol. 67, No. 2, pp. 237-240.
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Language Acquisition and the Multilingual Ideal – Exploring Japanese Language Learning Motivation WORD Pub Date : 2021-07-22
(2021). Language Acquisition and the Multilingual Ideal – Exploring Japanese Language Learning Motivation. WORD: Vol. 67, No. 2, pp. 241-245.
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Lenguaje y territorio – parte II WORD Pub Date : 2021-03-31 María Florencia Rizzo, Cecilia Magadán, Jo Anne Kleifgen
(2021). Lenguaje y territorio – parte II. WORD: Vol. 67, Special Issue Part 2: Language and Territory/Lenguaje y territorio, pp. 1-17.
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Las gramáticas y los recortes territoriales en la construcción de los Estados nacionales WORD Pub Date : 2021-03-31 Elvira Narvaja de Arnoux
En el proceso de formación y consolidación de los Estados nacionales, las gramáticas han intervenido construyendo las representaciones de lengua común del Estado, marcando las fronteras entre lo admitido y lo rechazado. Asimismo, han incidido sobre las subjetividades nacionales facilitando el reconocimiento, desde la lengua, de lo que integra la nación y de lo que queda fuera de ella. En este artículo
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Iniciativas glotopolíticas de comunidades inmigrantes. El caso argentino WORD Pub Date : 2021-03-31 Roberto Bein
Tras discutir la noción meramente geográfica de ámbitos de uso de las distintas lenguas o variedades conforme a Lluís Aracil y Joshua Fishman, analizaremos de qué manera no solo la distribución territorial sino otros hechos, entre los que se destacan las iniciativas glotopolíticas, contribuyen al mantenimiento o al abandono de las lenguas en el caso de las comunidades inmigrantes. Para ello procuraremos
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Which Pluricentrism? Tensions and Conflicts on the Construction of the Spanish and Portuguese International Linguistic Space WORD Pub Date : 2021-03-31 Xoán Carlos Lagares
Pluricentrism presupposes the existence of several territories under the influence of different linguistic usage norms. From a glottopolitical perspective, focused on the conflicts and tensions involved in the control and understanding of the language as a social object, the normative dynamics of Spanish and Portuguese are compared, paying attention to the differences in the colonizing processes undertaken
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The Digital (De)territorialization of Ladino in the Twenty-First Century WORD Pub Date : 2021-03-31 Carlos Yebra López
Since the nineteenth century, the global diasporic community of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) speakers has enjoyed a number of opportunities to reclaim a territory for itself (Spain, Portugal, Israel). Devoid of a specific geographical home, in the twenty-first century this community has resorted to the creation of Sephardi online communities, also conceptualized as “Digital Home-Lands” following Held (2010)
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Transidioma and Territory: Language and Power in the Age of Globalization WORD Pub Date : 2021-03-31 Marco Jacquemet
The experience of linguistic globalization and the communicative disorder it entails require a serious retooling of most basic units of linguistic analysis. The chaos and indeterminacy of contemporary flows of people, knowledge, texts, and commodities across social and geographical space challenge most sociolinguistic assumptions about social interactions. In particular, we can no longer assume that
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Language and Territory – Part I WORD Pub Date : 2020-12-01 Cecilia Magadán, Florencia Rizzo, Jo Anne Kleifgen
(2020). Language and Territory – Part I. WORD: Vol. 66, Special Issue Part 1: Language and Territory/Lenguaje y territorio, pp. 239-254.
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“You Have to Be Against Bilingualism!” Sociolinguistic Theory and Controversies Over Bilingualism in Catalonia WORD Pub Date : 2020-12-01 Kathryn A. Woolard
“Bilingualism” has long been a provocative term in Catalonia, where the concept is more often treated as ideology than as a description of sociolinguistic fact. I present a critical overview of controversies over bilingualism in Catalonia and focus on excavating the rationales underlying Catalanist anti-bilingual stances. This case exemplifies issues in the social contextualization, de-contextualization