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English Text Construction - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2008
Volume 1, Issue 2, 2008
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English middles with mental and verbal predicates: Towards a typology
Author(s): Kristin Davidse and Nele Olivierpp.: 169–197 (29)More LessIn this article we investigate whether verbs of perception, affection, cognition and verbalization can be construed in the English middle voice against (at least partial) claims to the contrary such as Fellbaum (1986), Keyser and Roeper (1984), Quirk et al. (1985). We view the middle as a modal statement about the conduciveness of the subject entity to action on or with it by the implied agent in the way specified by the predication (Heyvaert 2003, Davidse and Heyvaert 2007). Examples with mental and verbal predicates that correspond to this definition were found in data extracted from the COBUILD corpus as well as from the Internet. We then propose that, on the basis of Halliday’s (1994) description of process types and their participant roles, mental and verbal middles can be classified into five subtypes, containing respectively: (1) verbal predicates, e.g. The stories narrate easily, (2) please-type mental predicates, e.g. You astonish easily, (3) like-type mental predicates, e.g. Two-line display sees easily, (4) perception predicates used in attributive mode, e.g. That cheese smells nice, and (5) verbal predicates used in identifying mode, e.g. Xitaqua pronounces chi-ta-qua. We also investigate to what extent these subtypes instantiate the characteristics of core middles, viz. letting modality, conducive subject and specification by the predication of the way the process is carried out
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Intersubjective patterns of English modalised mental state verbs
Author(s): Roberta Facchinetti and Elisabetta Adamipp.: 198–225 (28)More LessWe survey a set of syntactic configurations resulting from the modalisation of the mental verbs know, see and think in different varieties of English. The patterns are identified as falling within two discourse functions expressing intersubjectivity: (a) recognising the other without taking over and (b) acknowledging the other without giving in. In the former case, the Speaker/Writer intends to lead the interlocutor in one direction without overtly expressing his/her aim; the latter pertains to the Speaker/Writer’s attempt to anticipate a possible objection of the Addresssee or to counterbalance a previous statement. The data are drawn from seven components of the International Corpus of English and highlight specific trends of locutionary intersubjectivity pertaining to the varieties under scrutiny.
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The use of literature as a means of dealing with different language levels within the same classroom
Author(s): Purificación Sánchez Hernándezpp.: 226–238 (13)More LessLiterature has a long history in the teaching of language: it was essential in the classical paradigm and still plays a fundamental role in the language classroom in many countries. The advantages of using literary texts for teaching language have been widely discussed (Maley and Duff 1989; Carter et al. 1989; Widdowson 1992; Kramsch 1993; Lazar 1993; Carter and McRae 1996; Edmonson 1997). The text is the perfect vehicle to investigate the stylistic features of an author and the characteristics of a period. Texts can also be explored at different levels: they can present information about culture and society and may be analysed with different purposes. Literature also provides the teacher with a flexible instrument to deal with classes where not all the students have the same level of language. This paper presents the design of a course to teach English language and literature, highlighting the role of literature in dealing with classes where there is a heterogeneous proficiency level.
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Activity-oriented and characteristic-oriented constructions: The distribution of voice in the history of the post-adjectival infinitive
Author(s): An Van lindenpp.: 239–266 (28)More LessThis paper is a diachronic study of post-adjectival infinitive constructions with adjectives denoting goodness, fitness, or necessity. Traditionally these constructions are analysed as tough-constructions. They can be divided into two semantically and syntactically distinct types, viz. activity-oriented and characteristic-oriented constructions. This distinction can be used to explain the variation in clausal voice type that is found with the post-adjectival constructions from the Late Middle English period onwards. In addition, a distinction needs to be made between adjectives expressing necessity, which only occur in activity-oriented constructions, and those expressing goodness or fitness, which may occur in the two construction types. Voice variation is only meaningful for the latter type of adjectives: in characteristic-oriented constructions they tend to be construed with an active infinitive, whereas in activity-oriented constructions they appear with a passive infinitive. As such, the distinction between these construction types helps to explain formal properties of the post-adjectival infinitive construction.
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Spatio-geographical abstraction in Samuel Beckett’s Not I/Pas moi
Author(s): Pim Verhulstpp.: 267–280 (14)More LessSamuel Beckett’s drafts often depart from a concrete depiction, which is then gradually compacted. A peculiar example is the textual development of Beckett’s play Not I/Pas moi. The recognisable Irish setting of the early ‘Kilcool’ manuscripts is cut back as the writing process evolves. The French translation removes all Irish references, yielding a spatially self-enclosed text. Besides a linguistic motivation, another important reason for the omission seems to reside in the more impersonal and archetypal approach Beckett adopted towards his protagonist (Mouth/Bouche). The purpose of this paper is to show that Pas moi offers a continuation of the writing process rather than a repetition of the written product and that the spatio-geographical aspect of the text is used to implement changes in Beckett’s artistic conception.
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Past and present interacting: A memory discourse in Robert Coover’s Gerald’s Party
Author(s): Lovorka Gruic-Grmusapp.: 281–296 (16)More LessPast and present merge in the phenomenon that we call memory. Memory is a mode of re-presentation and belongs to the present — the act of remembering always being in and of the present, while its referent is of the past and thus absent. Robert Coover’s Gerald’s Party is a perfect example of how every act of memory carries with it a dimension of betrayal, forgetting, and absence. The dynamics by which the protagonists’ brains work — shifting, modeling, connecting, changing — identify memory as process-dependent, sustaining its qualities to store data but also modifying it while some fragments of experience disappear from consciousness totally, demonstrating that both memory and forgetting are uneven, discontinuous temporalities
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Notions of (inter)subjectivity
Author(s): Jan Nuyts
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A case for corpus stylistics
Author(s): Michaela Mahlberg and Dan McIntyre
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