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- Volume 2, Issue, 2015
International Journal of Language and Culture - Volume 2, Issue 1, 2015
Volume 2, Issue 1, 2015
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A whole cloud of culture condensed into a drop of semantics: The meaning of the German word Herr as a term of address
Author(s): Anna Wierzbickapp.: 1–37 (37)More LessThis paper investigates the meaning and use of the German word Herr as a form of address, in a historical and cross-linguistic perspective. The paper argues that despite their apparent insignificance, generic titles used daily across Europe, and in all the parts of the world to which European languages have travelled, can reveal complex and intricate webs of cultural assumptions, attitudes, and values, as well as how these assumptions, attitudes, and values change across time and space. Terms of address available for everyday use in a particular language can provide keys to the inmost recesses of the speakers’ cultural and mental worlds. But if we are to use these keys effectively, we need some basic locksmith skills. Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) semantics, with its stock of primes and molecules and its mini-grammar for combining these into semantic texts, provides both the necessary tools and the necessary techniques. It allows us to practice semantic microanalysis with rigor and accountability, while at the same time exploring big questions of values, history, and culture. There has been an upsurge of interest in nominal terms of address in recent years, but as illustrated by the rich and valuable recent volume S’adresser à autrui (2014), edited by Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni, research of this kind focuses on frequencies, forms, and functions, with virtually no mention of meaning — as if basic titles such as Monsieur and Madame, Signore and Signora, or Herr and Frau had no meaning at all. As a result, while formal and functional aspects are carefully examined, the secrets hidden in the meanings of such words (and in their semantic evolution) escape scholars’ attention. To uncover these secrets and to bring to light their cultural significance, we need an appropriate methodology. By putting the German word Herr under the microscope, this paper demonstrates that NSM is a methodology that allows it to be done in illuminating and empirically verifiable ways.
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Society and culture as container: (Re-)drawing borders and their metaphorical foundation from a communicative and extracommunicative point of view
Author(s): Ulrike Schröderpp.: 38–61 (24)More LessWithin the social sciences and humanities, especially in the field of cultural studies, research has increasingly been dealing with the dissolution of cultural and social boundaries. However, the question of how interactants perceive themselves and construct and describe their interaction space in a certain ‘culture’ or ‘society’ can only be answered empirically. In this regard, the methodological framework of cognitive metaphor theory has proven to be facilitative. From a cognitive semantics point of view, metaphors by no means refer to an external world in a descriptive sense, but are important mediators between cognition and language, as well as between the individual and society. On the basis of two research projects — one on the metaphorical construction of society in German and Brazilian written and spoken corpora, and another on filmed intercultural interactions in the context of an ongoing research — it will be revealed how participants in communication use culture-specific metaphorizations when localizing themselves and others. In addition, the role of animated ‘compound image schemas’, such as container, outside-inside and up-down, will be explored at the linguistic as well as the gestural level when functioning as ‘patterns of orientation’ and ‘meaning formulas’. While from a communicative-participative perspective such schemas serve to reduce complexity, they are also highly significant from the participants’ own extracommunicative-reflexive point of view where interpretations regarding divergent behavioral patterns are concerned.
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Emotion recognition ability in English among L1 and LX users of English
Author(s): Pernelle Lorette and Jean-Marc Dewaelepp.: 62–86 (25)More LessThis article focuses on individual differences in emotion recognition ability among 356 first language (L1) and 564 foreign language (LX) users of English. Recognizing emotions can be particularly challenging in LX contexts. Depending on their linguistic profile, individuals may interpret input very differently, and LX learners and users have been found to perform significantly worse than native control groups (Rintell 1984) in tests of emotion recognition ability. In the present article, we investigate the effect of three independent variables, namely, L1 versus LX status, proficiency in English, and cultural background, on emotion recognition ability. We used an online survey in which participants had to identify the emotion portrayed by a native English-speaking actress in six audiovisual clips. Despite LX users having lower proficiency scores, English L1 users and LX users’ emotion recognition ability scores were broadly similar. A significant positive relationship was found between LX proficiency and emotion recognition ability. A similar but only marginally significant relationship emerged among L1 users. A significant effect of L1 culture was found on emotion recognition ability scores, with Asian LX users scoring significantly lower than European LX users. It thus seems that audiovisual input allows advanced LX users to recognize emotions in LX as well as L1 users. That said, LX proficiency and L1 culture do have an effect on emotion recognition ability.
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Metaphors of Anger in Akan
Author(s): Kofi Agyekumpp.: 87–107 (21)More LessThis paper addresses the semantic shifts, extensions, semantic patterns, and pragmatic nature of the metaphor of anger and its usage in different contexts. It looks at the conceptual relationship between the two words akoma, “heart” and bo, “chest,” and how they have been lexicalized in the Akan language to express anger. The paper concentrates on fossilized metaphorical expressions relying on the conceptual metaphor frameworks of Lakoff and Johnson (1980). I will discuss the body parts akoma and bo in terms of their physical, semantic, metaphoric, and cognitive representations. The data are taken from Akan literature books, the Akan Bible, and recorded materials from radio discussions. The paper illustrates that there is a strong relation between a people’s conceptual, environmental, and cultural experiences and their linguistic systems. We will consider the universal concepts of body part expressions and, in particular, Akan specific body part expressions of anger. In the end, we will be able to establish how body parts help us in the lexicalization of expressions of emotion.
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Reporting land conflict in Uganda: A genre and appraisal theoretical analysis of Runyankore-Rukiga newspaper reports
Author(s): Levis Mugumya and Marianna Visserpp.: 108–131 (24)More LessNews reporting studies have largely been confined to the Western cultures and languages, yet news reporting in other languages has proliferated throughout the world (Thomson et al. 2008; Thomson & White 2008). This article explores news reporting in Runyankore-Rukiga, an agglutinating Ugandan Bantu language, focusing on land conflict. Assuming the influential discourse-linguistic framework of Appraisal theory and genre theory (Thomson et al. 2008), the article investigates the linguistic expressions of evaluative language in Runyankore-Rukiga across government-oriented and private newspapers. It also examines the properties that constitute Runyankore-Rukiga hard news reports. Although the genre analysis reveals that the structure of Runyankore-Rukiga hard news reports resembles the satellite structure of the English hard news reports as proposed by White (1997), some differences are identified. Not only does the news report unfold in a chronological order, it exhibits a distinct discursive feature that is characterized by anecdotes, metaphors, grim humor, or proverbs in the lead paragraph. This type of introduction does not necessarily capture the gist of the entire report but rather seeks out the reader’s attention. The article further explicates the nature of lexicogrammatical properties of evaluative language that news writers invoke to express attitudes in the news events. The appraisal exploration also examines instances of graduation in which different figures of speech and non-core lexis are invoked to amplify attitudinal values. The article thus extends Appraisal theory analysis to one of only a few African languages examined within this framework, and contributes to the understanding of news reporting in these languages and cultures.
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Fairies, banshees, and the church
Author(s): Arne Peters
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