Papers reviewed and determined not to be word norm studies. Use the flag icon to report errors or suggest re-inclusion.
18265 papers
The development of social media among Indonesian youth has created a new communication ecosystem that accelerates the emergence of slang and reshapes the meanings of English loanwords. This phenomenon shows that language use is no longer limited to its lexical dimension but is strongly connected to identity formation, the circulation of popular culture, and the communicative practices that characterize digital interaction. Although English loanwords are increasingly used across various platforms, studies examining the mechanisms of semantic change within youth slang remain limited and have not fully mapped the sociocultural factors that shape these shifts. This study aims to analyze the changing meanings of English loanwords in youth slang and to explain the social and digital processes that influence these transformations. A qualitative approach using Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis was employed to examine digital secondary data drawn from posts and public conversations on several social media platforms. The findings indicate that widely used terms such as cringe, flex, insecure, gaslighting, and random experience various forms of semantic change, including narrowing, expansion, generalization, and amelioration. These changes emerge through discursive reproduction shaped by virality, platform algorithms, patterns of user interaction, and the expressive tendencies of contemporary youth. From a sociocultural perspective, these evolving meanings reflect the formation of hybrid linguistic identities that align with global popular culture while adapting to local communication norms. This research contributes to the development of digital sociolinguistics and provides a deeper understanding of how language continues to evolve within an increasingly connected and algorithm-driven society.
The language of the law encompasses lexical, syntactic, and stylistic elements that shape the text of a law or other normative legal act. Requirements for the language of the law are considered during the drafting of a bill. However, in the process of legislative work, complete elimination of linguistic errors from the text is not always achievable. Such errors often include lexical and stylistic inaccuracies. The subject of the article is certain legal texts analyzed from a linguistic standpoint as part of fundamental and applied research on the topic "Monitoring Compliance with Content and Style Requirements in the Laws of the Republic of Kazakhstan." The relevance of the article lies in identifying and rectifying errors in the text of current legislation, determining gaps that lead to a distortion of the meaning of the main legal norms, and exploring ways to prevent such distortions. The author presents specific examples of typical linguistic errors of lexical, grammatical, and stylistic nature, as well as others found in the texts of current legislation. An analysis is conducted of regulatory proposals and legal norms to assess their conformity with the norms and rules of modern Kazakh literary language. While examining the texts of current laws, the author believes it is necessary to conduct comprehensive monitoring of current legislation to ensure high-quality content of legal acts; to develop a compendium of rules for the use of legal terminology to standardize terms; to create conditions for the development of research on legal technology across various legal domains; and to introduce into the educational process of universities the study of relevant legal and linguistic disciplines such as "Language and Law" and "Legislative Technique" in the form of courses or specialized courses.
Different historical periods are characterized by different attitudes of native speakers of the Russian language to its norms. Russian history during the Soviet period was marked by the struggle for the purity and correctness of the Russian speech. The process of protecting the Russian language was filled with deep ideological meaning, since the Russian language acts as a single means of communication for the multinational population of the USSR. The period of perestroika is characterized by the struggle against Soviet officialese, which took the form of the democratization and vulgarization of speech, the abolition of censorship in the media. This resulted in a stream of substandard and non-literary vocabulary penetrating into public speech, a special literary-jargonizing type of speech culture being formed in the journalistic environment. The second and third decades of the 21st century demonstrate an easy attitude of native speakers of the Russian language to its norms, the decreasing concern about the form of thought expression, the active penetration of colloquial speech into other spheres of communication. Digitalization of communication leads to a decrease in the level of speech culture, the development of clip thinking and the predominance of “point” attention (this is especially noticeable among adolescents and young people). Globalization of the most important spheres of society, on the one hand, contributes to the expansion of the morphemic and lexical repertoire of the Russian language, the development of the meanings of its lexemes, on the other hand, it brings about a fashion for anglicisms and a focus on foreign speech culture. Nowadays, protecting Russian literary language standards is becoming one of the most important national tasks; finding an effective solution will help preserve the Russian culture.
В статье ставится проблема анализа категории вежливости в лингвокультурном аспекте на материале учебной литературы. Коммуникативный подход в преподавании РКИ закономерно приводит к необходимости включения вежливых формул в базо- вый репертуар. Актуальность данного исследования обусловлена необходимостью проанализировать представленность категории вежливости на современном лексическом материале. Набор рече- вых клише, представленных в учебниках, для иностранных обу- чающихся стал материалом исследования. Проведенный анализ позволил отметить наиболее частотные речевые клише, а также выявить периферийные зоны, отличающиеся недостаточной сте- пенью экспликации категории вежливости. Отдельно отмечено отсутствие примеров невежливых формул, а также отсутствие комментариев, разъясняющих ошибкоопасные места, связанные с нарушением коммуникативных норм. This paper presents the problem of analyzing the category of politeness in the linguocultural aspect on the material of educational literature. The communicative approach in teaching Russian as a foreign language leads to include polite formulas in the textbooks. The relevance of this study connected with the need to analyze the representation of the category of politeness on the modern lexical material. The set of speech clichés presented in textbooks for foreign learners became the material of the study. The analysis made it possible to note the most frequent speech clichés, as well as to identify the peripheral zones characterized by an insufficient degree of politeness category expression. The absence of examples of impolite formulas, as well as the absence of comments explaining the error-prone places associated with the violation of communicative norms were also noted.
Calques, also known as loan translations, are expressions that are translated literally from one language to another. Arabic subtitles of three English and French movies are utilized as a corpus for this study where their formation techniques are deduced and categorized as either lexical calques or structural calques following the categorisation proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet (1995: 32). Their calque quality is assessed and classified as good, or bad calques as proposed by Hervey & Higgins (2002, p.35) depending on their level of flouting to the TL norms. However, this study proposes adding a new category, to be referred to as ‘perfect calques’ to current binary good-bad categorization previously proposed by Hervey & Higgins (2002). Perfect calques are ones which would sound natural in Arabic to the extent that they would sweep unnoticeably into the stock of Arabic vocabulary. This study recommends that Arabic language authorities, government media bodies, academics, and translators should place importance on the issue of calquing in order to avoid language contamination.
The object of the research is the linguistic means of explication, namely euphemisms, which were collected by continuous sampling from English and Uzbek dictionaries, encyclopedias and other reference and journalistic publications. The subject of the research is the communicative and pragmatic peculiarities of euphemistic units containing information about the moral values and ethical prescriptions inherent in society. The purpose of the research is to identify the communicative and pragmatic peculiarities of euphemistic nominations in the Russian and Uzbek languages, taking into account the national and cultural specifics of the compared languages. With the help of the cross-cultural method, we found that in addition to the uniqueness of the national context, there are phenomena in language systems, both universal and differential, including semantic universals and linguo-pragmatic maxims. The novelty of the research is a comparative analysis of the communicative and pragmatic peculiarities of euphemisms, taking into account the national and cultural aspect, which indicates the scientific novelty of the study. The results of the research showed that euphemism is not just a lexical substitute, but a broader concept, a form of discursive maneuvering. It has various strategies that perform the function of non-proximal manipulation of the discursive space, through which the speaker tries to increase the symbolic distance between himself and the mentioned event, on the one hand, and on the other hand, in certain situations, the use of a euphemistic unit may be due to the desire to mask real circumstances. The research work also shows that there is no relationship between the choice of euphemism strategy in the compared languages. Another important discovery is that Russians and Uzbeks resort to taboos when dealing with death and lies, but almost never sexual relations in Russian. Euphemistic language is influenced by the cultural and religious beliefs, lifestyle and norms of its speakers, especially in Uzbek, as we found when describing sexual relations and when addressing elders.
What can we learn by observing how children process and interpret compound terms? The aim of this study was to explore how children’s pragmatic development is reflected in their interpretation of compound nouns, revealing their growing adherence to linguistic norms, but also their increasing openness to unconventional reference. Across three experiments employing a picture selection task for referent selection, young children were presented with lexicalized and novel exocentric and endocentric compound nouns. Examining age-related differences in referent selection, Experiment 1 (baseline), tested the preference for conventional and semantically transparent referents. Experiment 2 showed that an individual speaker influenced referent selection across both age groups, with 5-year-olds showing more accommodation of the speaker’s intended meaning. Experiment 3, examining gaze behavior, indicated that both 3- and 5-year-olds decompose lexicalized compound terms similarly to novel compounds. This research highlights the interplay between language and social development, showcasing key stages in children's pragmatic development.
This study investigated gender representation in English textbooks from Classes 6 to 10 in Bangladesh, using corpus analysis. AntConc, a textual analysis tool, was used to quantify the occurrence of gender-related lexical items in resources. The corpus comprises approximately 147,698 tokens distributed across the four textbooks. The results revealed significant disparities in the distribution of male- and female-associated lexical items. Here, male-related words occurred 1,958 times (1.33 %), whereas female-related words occurred 1,165 times (0.79 %). The highest imbalance ratio (0.94 %) was found in textbooks of class 6 having male represented words (1.95%) and female represented words (1.01%). This male-dominated gender disproportion appeared in the other three textbooks at different ratios, which may reflect Bangladesh’s cultural and societal norms. These distinctive and male-centred gender-biased textbooks may have an impact on students’ perceptions of gender roles and societal expectations. The findings of this corpus analysis predict how much textbook content may affect female students’ sense of inclusion and their collective consciousness of gender rights. Finally, it recommends ensuring gender equality and inclusion in the textbooks.
The article analyzes lexical-semantic processes in modern scientific texts. In the aspect of the literary norm, the activation of rarely used, reactivation of outdated, determinologizing, expansion of the meaning of special, functioning of foreign vocabulary was observed. The word-forming tendencies of the scientific style are highlighted, taking into account the internal laws and potential possibilities of the Ukrainian language. Scientific style, under the influence of the trends of language democratization, expands its own possibilities in the choice of linguistic means, activates the passive fund of the literary dictionary, creates new contextual opportunities for the development of semantic connotations. The main challenges of this sphere of linguistic life are the spread of general negative tendencies of the lexical norm (restriction of word-formation potential, excessive variability, tracing of determinologized nominations and terms) and, as a result, the threat of losing the basic definition of style as a standard of literary language. In the aspect of stylistic norms, excessive expression of texts due to the use of means not typical for scientific language was recorded: colloquialisms, neologisms, ideologues, slangisms, etc. Such processes cause the phenomenon of stylistic polymorphism with the possibility of destroying the established functional capabilities of the language. Keywords: scientific style, scientific text, literary norm, stylistic norm, lexical-semantic processesces, linguistic expression.
This article highlights that attitude toward death and the deceased demonstratng moral norms and a fundamental factor reflecting views of any society. Death and burial represent a crisis situation, primarily for the family unit and other social groups associated with the deceased (local, professional, etc.). In this context, the informational potential of Kyiv’s periodicals from the late 19th century (especially the “Kievlyanin” newspaper) is analyzed as a source for reconstructing mourning practices—an integral part of urban daily life—and how the citizens of Kyiv perceived the deaths of doctors, medical professionals, and active public figures such as M. Stukovenkov, Ye. Afanasiev, and I. Cheshykhin in 1897. The study's methodological foundation includes both general scientific and historical methods, as well as press analysis techniques, such as content analysis and genre analysis. These methods helped identify different types of mourning notices, track the frequency of their publication, and distinguish common lexical clichés. The research demonstrates that mourning practices for renowned medical professionals were complex sociocultural phenomena, reflecting broader trends in urban mourning culture as well as specific characteristics within the medical community. Study of late 19th-century newspaper publications reveals that the death of prominent doctors in Kyiv was not only a personal tragedy but also a public event, reflecting the complex interrelations between individuals, society, and culture. The mourning rituals surrounding these events were multifaceted sociocultural phenomena, mirroring both the overall trends in mourning culture and the specific characteristics of the medical profession. Press publications allow for the reconstruction of the structure and content of mourning ceremonies, determining their duration, the circle of participants, and the symbolism involved. The social status of the deceased doctor influenced the scale and solemnity of the mourning events, as well as the range of participants involved. The findings contribute to the understanding of urban history in relation to mortuary practices, revealing the role of doctors in society, the perception of their deaths as unifying events, and confirming the press's role in both information dissemination and memorialization. Keywords: Kyiv, newspapers, “Kievlyanin”, daily life, mortuary practices, doctor, death, obituary, M. Stukovenkov, Ye. Afanasiev, I. Cheshykhin.
Grammars of old Romanian described various types of “double subject” constructions, explained from two sources: an internal one (spoken language structures, in the case of original texts), and an external one (imitations from original texts of various foreign origins). In a discourse analysis perspective, the present article challenges the “double subject” interpretation and argues that the subject is only apparently double. The constructions under scrutiny show a canonic subject and some additional discursive phenomena that result in an opaque linearization, which is misleading due to the lack of prosodic markers in written texts. The apparent “double subject” results from two interrelated phenomena: (a) the transfer of spoken language disfluencies to written texts (in a period when writers were not fully aware of register differences, and register differentiation was not the norm, especially in Romanian culture, but in other cultures too) and (b) various lexical-syntactic topic – focus management strategies (some of them specific to all discourse configurational languages, Latin included, others specific to Romanian, with some of them possibly emerging in the translation process from other languages). Hence, the syntactic subject is attracted in various discursive phenomena which result in the following categories: (i) discontinuous subject, a strategy of topic confirmation; (ii) recurrent subject, a focus confirmation strategy used as affective stance marker; (iii) hanging topic, anaphorically resumed as syntactic subject, which is a strategy of information structure management common to discourse configurational languages, as well as to spoken varieties of configurational languages; (iv) verum focus operator, a strategy specific to Romanian, which varies cross-linguistically; (v) appositive subject with clarification function; (vi) additive focal adverbial, a pronominal device alternative to the focal adverbial și; (vii) continuity marking relator, with a conjunction-like status, syntactically not integrated in the sentence it heads as apparent subject; (viii) focal particle marking affective stance. All these discursive configurations were transmitted to present-day Romanian. What makes the difference is the degree of tolerance for spoken language structures in the written register and speakers’/writers’ higher degree of awareness regarding written language norms. They are all part of information packaging strategies in discourse.
Following recent research on the conceptualisation and expression of amazement and on cognitive models for wonder and awe, this paper examines these two emotional responses in the Old English Martyrology (OEM). Using different Old English lexical resources, and a bilingual edition of the OEM this paper analyses these two aesthetic emotions with the aim of determining what role they played in the emotional community where this text was composed. Additional aims include establishing whether there is a secular dimension to these emotions and whether it is censored in this text. This research argues that, while the author of the OEM does employ the terms in these two lexical domains in instances of emotional education, the text also contains examples where these emotional experiences are more consistent with how they are described in contemporary aesthetic emotion models, unlike other Old English hagiographical writings, where these emotions are fundamentally religious and spiritual responses.
Formation of linguistic, speech and communicative competences in the field of written speech of Korean students (levels A2-B1) is an important and labor-intensive process of foreign language teaching. The article describes the specifics of teaching written speech among other types of speech activities, examines the main approaches to teaching productive written speech, as well as types of exercises designed to teach written speech, defines the role of the teacher in the process of teaching Russian written speech to foreign students. The proposed educational lexical module “My Family” is a set of exercises and tasks aimed at the effective and consistent development of written speech skills in the Korean audience. The first type of exercises is language exercises, aimed at forming the language skills necessary for written speech, as well as their actualization. These are exercises to consolidate lexical material based on grammatical models aimed at studying various cases. The second type of exercises is speech exercises, serves to form speech skills, i.e. skills in working with written text (extracting the necessary information, transformation in accordance with a given setting, etc.). This group also includes communicative exercises that enable students to become familiar with some genres of written texts used in everyday communication (questionnaire, invitation, greeting card, etc.) that are accessible for a given level of language proficiency. In the educational lexical module “My Family” we applied a linguacultural approach, which involves systematic teaching of a “foreign” language and “foreign” culture through familiar Korean national images and concepts, which contributes to a gradual entry into the Russian foreign-language space and introduces to the culture of the studied language. The presented thematic module is aimed at developing the skills of writing texts of different types of speech and genres, independently producing the content of a written statement and formatting this content in accordance with the norms of the Russian literary language, the laws of text construction and the structural and functional features of written speech. In preparing the lexical module, we relied on the principles of awareness, clarity, accessibility and feasibility of the educational material, as well as the strength of consolidation of the acquired knowledge, developed skills and abilities. The methodological module can be used in teaching Russian as a foreign language in a foreign-language environment in order to update and effectively teach written speech to Korean students of the specified levels.
INTRODUCTION Electronic communication sees a ubiquitous incorporation of wordless cues. The trend started with the introduction of emoticons, which were combinations of punctuation marks representing particular facial expressions. For simpler and more attractive communication, emojis were introduced starting from characters to facial expressions with subsequent cultural and ethnic diversification. Emojis, introduced in 1999, are graphic symbols with pre-defined indicative names given by unicode consortium guidelines, which represent facial expressions, abstract concepts, and emotions. Emojis are now being considered an advancement over emoticons and smileys[1] and are superior to them in terms of content richness, input speed, and expressiveness.[2] Today, one encounters emojis personalized with the user’s face emojis or memojis and even three-dimensional Animojis that respond to the user’s facial expressions. One primary function of emojis is the establishment of an emotional tone within a message. Unlike face-to-face communication, where tone is conveyed through vocal intonation and facial expressions, digital communication often lacks these cues. Emojis help bridge this gap by allowing individuals to convey their emotions more explicitly. For instance, a simple smiley face or a heart emoji can add warmth and positivity to a message.[3] Usage patterns and interpretations vary widely based on group characteristics such as age, gender identity, and so on[4] with studies showing better accuracy in the recognition of emojis in females and younger people.[5] Besides their online usage, emojis increasingly feature on merchandise like cups, mugs, and T-shirts to posters and pamphlets of socio-political and health campaigns. EMOJIS IN GENERAL HEALTH CARE Healthcare communications utilize emojis to cut across linguistic and cultural differences toward effective delivery of sensitization, stigma reduction, and even preventive messaging. Similar findings of universality and positive impact on communication are reflected in studies done in India.[6,7] However, there have been notable differences found in their usage pattern between the eastern and western parts of the world mainly in terms of frequency, constructs of friends, family, food habits, and government policies.[8] Emojis have been shown to have similar interpretations and usage patterns across cultures and linguistic groups.[9,10] Emojis emerge as potent tools, seamlessly integrating into the discourse to enhance communication dynamics. Their versatility serves as a cue for context appropriateness, bridging gaps in understanding and reducing ambiguity within discussions.[11] In health promotion, emojis have played an active role. Emojis are used to denote symptomatology in a simple manner. Emojis of soap and clapping hands and faces with medical masks have been used to a great effect in increasing awareness regarding regular handwashing, the use of masks, and social distancing in public places during the coronavirus disease (COVID) pandemic.[12,13] They have also been utilized to assess pain. Emojis play a pivotal role in conversation management, offering a visual language that transcends linguistic barriers and aids in tone adjustment.[14] A comprehensive analysis of 1031 emojis, highlighting their affective properties across six dimensions, was undertaken, and they found that emojis exhibit similarities to words in affective processing, making them valuable stimuli for research in multiple fields.[15] Standardized emojis, validated through studies such as Emoji-SP, the Spanish emoji database, Lisbon Emoji, and the Emoticon Database (LEED), offer immense potential for improving communication and fostering understanding across diverse disciplines. The LEED, encompassing subjective norms from everyday users on 238 stimuli, provides standardized insights applicable to research in communication, psychology, and technology, thereby enhancing the utilization of emojis in various research applications.[2] Due to these advantages, emojis have proven to be useful tools in the evaluation of disorders using scales like the Emoji Faces pain Scale for assessment of pain, the Animated Emoji Scale for assessing dental anxiety in children,[16] and the Emoji Current Mood and Experience scale.[12] EMOJIS IN MENTAL HEALTH CARE AND THEIR LIMITATION In mental health research, emojis serve diverse purposes, appearing in studies assessing sleep satisfaction,[17] emotional states,[4] and mood fluctuations[18] through ecological momentary assessments. They evoke neural responses akin to facial cues[19] and boost attractiveness and engagement in research communications.[20] Notably, emoji-type images yield comparable responses to real-face images in attentional bias studies among young adults with depressive disorders.[21] Beyond research, emojis significantly influence communication dynamics online and offline. Online, they foster interpersonal trust among college students, particularly positive emojis like smiley faces.[22] Offline, emojis act as substitutes for non-verbal cues, conveying emotions, tone, and emphasis often absent in text-based communication. Harnessing emojis in youth mental health research presents several advantages, notably the ease of adoption given their widespread acceptance and validation by international consortia. Beyond their communicative role, emojis empower youth in self-presentation, facilitating impression management, and establishing a digital social existence while maintaining social status.[23] Moreover, the utilization of emojis provides a practical alternative to conventional Likert scales. Unlike the intricate nature of Likert scales with numerous response categories that may pose challenges in selection to capture nuances, emojis offer a more intuitive and versatile means of expression. This adaptability ensures that respondents can convey their authentic sentiments, avoiding the limitations often associated with rigid scale structures.[24] Studies have found that emoji-anchored Likert scales have been effective and acceptable relative to lexically anchored Likert.[25] Comparative studies between emoji-based pain assessments and numeric rating scales, conducted in an emergency department setting, demonstrated homologous pain reporting efficacy.[26] Additionally, a novel tool, the Animated Emoji Scale (AES), was introduced for assessing dental anxiety in children during initial dental visits. AES exhibits robust validity and child preference, simplifying anxiety assessment in pediatric dentistry.[16] Furthermore, the EmojiGrid, designed as a language-independent tool, enables users to evaluate food-related emotions. An online experiment across multiple countries reveals consistent U-shaped valence-arousal patterns, suggesting EmojiGrid’s utility in cross-cultural research on food-related emotions.[27] Employing smartphone applications with emojis for Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) demands lower cognitive abilities for comprehension, potentially enhancing its appeal to individuals with learning disabilities or those who lack formal education. Additionally, it may prove to be less time-consuming and cost-effective. Furthermore, this approach has the potential to mitigate social desirability bias during data collection. In the developed West, particularly among young adults, emojis have demonstrated successful integration into research methodologies. Notably, a study involving the mobile application “GMoji,” designed for daily emotional state tracking using a selection of 14 emojis, revealed high acceptability among participants. This approach enhanced participants’ awareness of their mental health.[28] Additionally, another mobile application employed emojis on a metric scale to assess sleep satisfaction, mood, and anxiety in breast carcinoma patients, yielding results comparable to traditional assessments like the Patient Health Questionnaire-9.[29] Furthermore, a study involving an older population with various limitations showcased the versatility of emojis as participants used them to describe their mood on a metric scale over week.[17] These instances underscore the adaptability and effectiveness of emojis as valuable tools in mental health research, offering an inclusive and user-friendly approach. In the context of India and South Asia, where multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic factors influence mental health research, particularly among adolescents and youth, nuanced expressions matter and emojis become agents of promoting meaningful interactions.[30] Their symbolic richness may foster a deeper connection between researchers and participants. Therefore, a comprehensive and extensive literature search was conducted on psychological and psychometric tools incorporating digital expressions. The objective was to identify instruments that could potentially alleviate cultural and linguistic challenges in data collection. Surprisingly, the findings revealed a conspicuous absence of such tools within the commonly used local language instruments. Despite the recognized benefits of leveraging digital expressions like emojis for cross-cultural communication, the current landscape in the region indicates a notable gap in the integration of these tools into established mental health research. Exploring the potential drawbacks of regular emoji usage in youth mental health research reveals several caveats, particularly with the introduction of Animoji, Bitmoji, and stickers. The risk of heightened ambiguity necessitates more research.[3] Differential meanings, such as the distinction between a thumbs-up and an OK sign in conveying agreement or approval, present a challenge in interpretation. Factors like age, gender, culture, social relationships, emotional connections, and even platform usage can affect how emojis are perceived and understood. Different platforms and devices may also display emojis differently, adding another layer of complexity to their interpretation. Commonly misinterpreted emojis include the ‘dizzy emoji’: Often mistaken as a shooting star, this emoji illustrates dizziness or the phenomenon of seeing stars when someone is hit on the head; ‘folded hands emoji’: Often mistaken for a praying emoji, this gesture is commonly used to say thank you or please. Some ways to prevent or reduce misinterpretation would be understanding the context, using it in moderation depending on the recipient’s comprehension, and seeking guidance if one is unsure. Another strategy would be to utilize clear, unambiguous emojis in mental health research.[5] Some potential drawbacks of using emojis for people with mental health conditions include concerns about the inaccurate representation and prediction of emotional states, privacy issues, and the fear of being controlled by an App. Additionally, connecting mentally ill individuals through chat functions on apps may facilitate mutual support but could also pose risks, such as planning harmful activities like suicide attempts. Cultural differences in interpreting emojis and the need for further research to understand differences in emoji interpretation between youth with and without mental health problems have been highlighted as well.[31] Emojis also facilitate positive communication and conflict resolution by providing a visual tool to express emotions without escalating situations. Emojis contribute to enhancing emotional regulation, self-awareness, and positive communication among individuals with mental health conditions, ultimately supporting their emotional well-being.[32] Administering these tools may pose difficulties for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), social cognition deficits, or visual impairments, raising concerns about accessibility. The intricacies of interactions for those with intellectual impairments remain an unknown aspect. Moreover, the variance between users’ intended meanings and official definitions of emojis can lead to misinterpretations and has the potential for miscommunication and/or misunderstandings.[33] Additionally, the users’ selection of emoji content and the alignment between expressed emotions and real sentiments contribute to the complexity of emoji usage in mental health research.[3] Finally, the formality in research communication may influence the abstractness and static quality of the emojis selected.[34] Addressing these multifaceted challenges becomes a priority for the routine integration of emojis in youth mental health studies in South Asia. CONCLUSION Embracing emojis as a language-independent tool holds immense potential for South Asian youth mental health research, especially in community-based settings. The shift from traditional paper and pencil assessments, particularly for adolescents, is imminent, and emojis emerge as catalysts for enhancing data quality and expediting research processes, addressing a current void in South Asian psychometric research. With over 600 languages in the region, the universality of emojis in representing emotions can enhance the effectiveness of public mental health care delivery while incorporating screen-based tool administrations. This measured integration of emojis reflects a forward-looking approach, marking a departure from outdated assessment methods and fostering inclusivity in diverse cultural and linguistic landscapes. Recommendation Immediate initial steps include anchoring emojis using the emoji grid into the translated scales in South Asia. Their ubiquitous use and sufficient cross-cultural pre-validation might obviate the need for re-validation in research studies. Research review boards may also support this by suggesting their incorporation in relevant screen-based assessments. The era of psychometric research in South Asia is poised for a transformative and emotive emoji revolution. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.
The topicality of undertaken research is determined by the constantly changing social norms in modern society, which are reflected in the cinematographic world. Cinematography provides a golden opportunity to consider and analyze a range of unique linguistic phenomena. The major purpose of the present paper is to study the phenomenon of dysphemisation in the English-speaking film space based on the set of the following films in English: Green Book by the American film director, Peter J. Farrelly, the screen adaptation of the autobiography 12 Years a Slave by Terrence S. McQueen, the well-known film The Help by Tate Taylor and the biographical drama Hidden Figures by Theodore Melfi. In the films the main storyline is generally based on the aspect of discrimination against persons of certain racial backgrounds and women, based on the policy of the United States of America during the infamous period of slavery (XVII–XIX centuries) and the historical era of segregation (XIX–XX centuries). During the study theoretical methods (analysis and synthesis) and empirical methods (observation and description) were used. As a result of the conducted study, the classification of dysphemistic lexical units was determined in terms of author’s intentions (dysphemisms with an emphasis on a different skin color; dysphemisms-comparisons with animals, plants and inanimate objects; dysphemisms-designations of social status; dysphemisms expressing gender discrimination), as well as their role and reason for use in the selected set of films – demonstration of a biased, cruel attitude towards recipients and also a reflection of the socio-cultural environment that encompassed US society during the historical time period under study.
The article talks about the linguistic and stylistic features of works of art, about language norms manifested at the level of phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, stylistic possibilities of the literary language, and literature in general is interpreted as the art of words.The textbooks "Azerbaijani Language" of the 10th grade discuss lyrical texts, linguistic aspects that appear in the process of their assimilation, the meaning of artistic language, the role of artistic description and means of expression in lyrical poems.The influence of these issues on student speech and the artistic and aesthetic world is explored.The structure, form, lexical-semantic and stylisticgrammatical landscape of literary texts are analyzed from the point of view of both artistic and didactic requirements.Metaphor, metonymy, exaggeration, irony, litatoty, etc. Visual means are considered as material for a deep understanding of artistic material and the formation of artistic imagination.In general, a search is underway for effective methods and means of mastering language, stylistic features, and the poetic landscape of works of art.
In recent decades, linguistic research has seen an expansion of the range of issues that address the relationship between emotions and language. The importance of studying the emotive vocabulary in languages of the world is proven by an increased interest in the analysis of various aspects of emotive vocabulary, also by the development of the history of emotion as an independent theoretical concept of modern linguistics. One of the areas of analysis is the study of emotive vocabulary in texts written in ancient languages from the point of view of its etymological, functional, stylistic and semantic characteristics. The study of ancient Germanic emotive vocabulary contributes to the reconstruction of fragments of a medieval person’s emotional picture, contributes to the systematization of linguistic means of representing emotions and clarification of the norms of socially prescribed emotional behavior in a particular linguistic culture. The purpose of this article is to identify an inventory of the lexical and semantic group “basic emotions” in the Gothic language and to characterize their etymological links. The article is a case study of 119 lexical units, representing both the names of basic emotions and their manifestations as reactions in Gothic texts. The empirical material for analysis was formed using continuous sampling. The analysis of the language material was carried out using the methods of scientific description and generalization, the method of analyzing dictionary definitions, interpreting the results, and using the method of quantitative calculation. In this article, the emotive vocabulary (i.e. emotives) is understood as a set of language units with differing structural and functional characteristics (lexical, phraseological, syntactic, morphological, textual), in the semantics of which emotions are reflected in different proportions. The inventory of emotion vocabulary includes lexical and phraseological emotive units that are capable of expressing emotional experiences independently, and emotive means of the phonetic, prosodic, morphological, syntactic levels, which are of an auxiliary nature. The article analyzes a group of emotive units of the first type. The emotive vocabulary of the Gothic language is a system of lexical means functionally aiming at the social coding of the emotional behavior accepted in the corresponding language community. The lexical units of the Gothic emotive vocabulary include direct representations of emotions, descriptions of emotional reactions through the symptomatology of their manifestation, and units that directly express emotions. The article analyzes the lexical units of the first two types, semantically representing basic emotions (according to K.E. Izard). The study of the Gothic emotive lexicon confirms the fact that all emotions of the basic level, namely, interest, joy, surprise, grief, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame and guilt are lexically designated in the language. The lexical-semantic group “basic emotions” is represented by nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, in quantitative terms unevenly distributed in segments related to different emotions. According to the collected data, such core emotions as joy (pleasure), anger (rage) and fear (horror) have been extensively represented in Gothic, for which more than ten designations have been identified. The analysis of representations of basic emotions in the Gothic language makes it possible to evaluate both the relative chronology pertinent to the entrance of the emotion words to the word stock and the adaptability of language means for conveying nonnative concepts in a translated text in the context of a social bilingual environment. In the overwhelming majority, the vocabulary of emotions is represented by derivatives based on the verbal or adjectival stems. Nouns denoting basic emotions in Gothic are represented by the lexemes of all three grammatical genders that belong to the declension types ending in either a vowel or a consonant, with a prevalence of feminine nouns. The morphemic structure of emotion words usually contains a word-forming suffixal element (a suffix per se or a stem-forming suffix of a “younger” origin). The most ancient layer of nominal designations of emotions includes neuter nouns of the declension types in -a and in -ja. Verbal representatives of the emotion vocabulary under consideration belong to different classes of the Gothic weak verbs; a few cases are examples of strong, preterite-present and reduplicating verbs. A written religious document in the Gothic language demonstrates the whole range of basic emotions that people could experience in the past, and why they experienced them, i.e. in connection with what situations, also in what form they felt them, what social practices generated a certain “code” of emotional manifestations.
The paper provides a semantic analysis of expressive vocabulary that reflects the ideas of the Russian-language speakers about drinking alcohol. The material of the study are colloquial words and idioms expressing emotional / psychological attitude of the speakers to different referents of the alcohol consumption situation (that is: the process of drinking, the drinker himself, the alcoholic beverage, the state of intoxication, etc.). The authors study expressive units used by representatives of different social strata, including such units found in fiction, colloquial language, slang, vulgar speech. The theoretical and methodological framework of the study is based on the works of N. A. Lukyanova, T. V. Matveyeva, V. N. Teliya and other Russian linguists, where expressiveness is defined as a lexical category associated with the emotional-evaluative attitude of the speaker to the phenomena of reality and manifested in the connotative part of the lexical meaning of the expressive word. This study is the first to provide an analysis of the two semantic components of the ‘alcohol consumption’ vocabulary – intensity and emotional evaluation. It has been established that the intensity of the expressive vocabulary in question correlates with the deviation from the socially approved norm of drinking and the subsequent state of intoxication; this vocabulary manifests both negative and positive evaluation of the referents. The authors underline the influence of context on the emotional connotation of an expressive word and the consequent difficulty of interpreting expressive words (positively or negatively), describe the contextual means that make it possible to identify the emotional connotation of the used expressive. The authors come to a conclusion that a large number of expressive lexical units in narrations about drinking alcohol indicate their relevance to the speech behavior of native speakers of the Russian language. This confirms the expediency of further study of collective and individual perceptions of alcohol consumption present in the Russian-language linguistic worldview.
This article introduces a new pragmatic framework for dual character concepts and their expressions, offering an alternative to the received lexical‐semantic view. On the prevalent lexical‐semantic view, expressions such as “philosopher” or “scientist” are construed as lexical polysemes, comprising both a descriptive and a normative dimension. Thereby, this view prioritizes established norms, neglecting normative expressions emerging in specific contexts. In contrast, the pragmatic view integrates pragmatic modulation as a central element in explaining context‐dependent dual character concepts and expressions. This not only accounts for a wider range of phenomena but also addresses several theoretical shortcomings of the lexical view.
The work is devoted to studying the definition and legal nature of judicial error, the specifics of its occurrence in the practice of courts of general jurisdiction and arbitration courts, as well as identifying trends in reducing the risk of its occurrence in the law enforcement activities of courts. It has been established that at present there is no legal concept of a miscarriage of justice, the scientific literature operates with different lexical meanings of the term, and in judicial practice there has been an understanding of a miscarriage of justice as a discrepancy between a court decision and the norms of substantive and procedural law. It has been determined that the only way to eliminate judicial errors is to review judicial decisions by a higher court, the mechanism of which, due to its procedural and legal nature, does not create preventive measures, eliminating only the consequences of identifying a judicial error. As a result of the study, the authors come to the conclusion that it is necessary to develop an innovative and universal way to reduce the risk of a miscarriage of justice, which is considered in the presented work as testing artificial intelligence in the judicial process; the authors cite the experience of foreign countries as evidence of the relevance of the proposal.
Each language harbours historical, cultural, and social connotations, contributing to the layers of meaning within the narrative. Sociolinguistics studies how language and society interact, a topic covered in various literary works that examine dialects, the intricacies of communication, and the impact of language on individuals and groups. The study of language interacts with social factors, and sociolinguistics is the intersection of linguistics and sociology. Sociolinguistics, a multidisciplinary field, provides a rich framework for comprehending language dynamics in various social contexts. This study aims to investigate the representation of critical elements such as register, polyglossia, diglossia, code-switching, lexical borrowing, bilingualism, trilingualism, code-switching, and language planning in literary narratives. Through closely examining selected novels, this paper investigates how authors employ linguistic diversity as a narrative tool, mirroring societal norms, cultural identities, power dynamics, and intergroup communication. This research aims to contribute to a more in-depth understanding of language's role in shaping fictional worlds and reflecting real-world linguistic complexities by investigating the interplay between sociolinguistic concepts and literary expression.
Abstract Phonotacticon is a cross-linguistic database that contains syllabic phonotactic information about spoken lects (linguistic varieties), including the possible forms of the onset, nucleus and coda of each lect, as well as the phonemic and tonemic inventories. In this paper, we present Phonotacticon 1.0, which contains the phonotactic profiles of 516 Eurasian lects retrieved from descriptive literature. The later versions of Phonotacticon will extend beyond Eurasia and will ultimately cover spoken lects in all macroareas. As an example of the research potential of this database in future studies, we have generated from Phonotacticon several descriptive visualizations, such as the distribution of the maximal onset length, to demonstrate the visually discernible areal distribution of certain phonotactic patterns.
This study explores the phonetic and lexical adaptations of German loanwords in English, emphasizing their role in enriching English vocabulary and fostering cultural exchange. By examining phonetic adjustments, such as changes in consonant and vowel sounds, and lexical transformations that include semantic shifts, the study highlights how loanwords adapt to align with English phonological and conceptual norms. This research underscores the significance of loanwords as agents of linguistic and cultural interconnectedness, showcasing how language evolves to reflect social and intellectual ties between English- and German-speaking communities.
The traditional ontological division between the lexicon and grammar has often resulted in a reductionist view of the lexicon and lexical competence as composed of individual words in isolation. This narrow view of the lexicon has transcended disciplinary boundaries and is apparent in the focus on single words of widely used psycholinguistic measures of language (e.g. picture naming, verbal fluency, lexical decision) and cognitive ability alike (e.g. Stroop, recall in working memory span). This article argues that such an approach has imposed limitations on the questions that can be examined by researchers and on the generalizability of some results. Here I propose that, rather than assigning multiword units their own ‘niche’ in psycholinguistic studies, they should be viewed as part of the way core lexical competence is measured and conceptualized, both in monolingual and bilingual speakers. I also review promising advances in recent years brought about by a surge in the number of studies focused on multiword units and by new tasks of individual cognitive skill (e.g. multiword-based chunking ability). These hold the potential to allow for a cross-disciplinary shift in the examination of lexical competence as grounded in community-based norms and in line with current usage-based approaches.
Though graffiti has become a significant cultural and linguistic phenomenon that has been studied throughout history, there is still room for further investigation into how graffiti in various contexts, particularly in a primary education institution, serves to voice students’ thoughts and feelings. As a result, this study investigated the common themes as well as the lexical and syntactic elements of graffiti written on students’ textbooks at four UNRWA preparatory schools in Amman, Jordan. This study found that students' graffiti covered a wide range of themes, including love and hate as the most dominant themes and faith and religion as the least prevalent themes. The data analysis also found examples of lexical features such as autonomies and repetitions. The most common lexical feature observed in students’ graffiti was antonymy, while swear words were the least common feature. The findings provided great value to those interested in studying social, sociological, sociolinguistic and psychological issues as they explained some of the themes that help reveal the values and cultural norms of students’ society. The findings also offered a valuable source of data for those in education, especially teachers, school principals, school counsellors and education stakeholders to understand students’ community in an attempt to construct a conducive, supporting and peaceful learning environment and ultimately improve students’ achievements and performance.
This study focuses on the linguistic phenomenon of code-switching (CS) in the bilingual Ethnic-Adyghe community in the Black Sea region of Turkey. Specifically, this paper aims to analyze the types of CS and the factors that influence CS in different situational conversations, with a focus on Ethnic Adyghe individuals. The study utilizes a qualitative research design, using a purposive sample type of 10 Ethnic Adyghe individuals living in Samsun, Turkey. This study favors the use of informal settings to gather data from various linguistic contexts and analyze the frequency of CS. The findings indicate that participants used intra-sentential CS the most (59.9%). One major reason for that was the lack of vocabulary in Adyghe, leading participants to switch to Turkish to fill the lexical gap and effectively communicate their thoughts. Moreover, a total of 14 factors were identified. These factors encompassed aspects such as proficiency, social norms, cultural identity, vocabulary limitations, and communication effectiveness. The identification of these factors contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the complex dynamics of code-switching within the bilingual Ethnic-Adyghe community.
This article presents case studies of the relative ability of two subjects (OB1 and OB2) to make lexical associations; they have spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 and Parkinson’s disease, respectively. Test method: subjects gave associations (orally, with no time limit) to 63 verbal stimuli presented on a computer screen. Verbal stimuli were selected from Gatkowska’s experimental study (Gatkowska 2017). Responses were recorded on an Olympus 650 digital voice recorder, then analysed linguistically and psychologically. Results: psychological analysis – subjects within intellectual norm (Raven’s Matrices test), dysarthric disorder, difficulty in implementing instructions. Linguistic analysis: OB1 – predominance of paradigmatic relations (hyponymy, meronymy, synonymy) over syntagmatic relations (diffi culty building context), lack of causality. OB2 – richer paradigmatic relations (hyponymy, meronymy, synonymy, antonymy, complementarity), syntagmatic relations diverse. Conclusions: possible complex background of language disorders (executive, emotional), higher level of language functioning of OB2 compared to OB1. The study illustrates the need for an interdisciplinary and holistic approach in diagnostic and therapeutic management.
In accordance with Article 35 of the Law on Languages in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), signs with the names of state and municipal institutions must contain information in the state languages of the republic: Russian and Yakut. The analysis of bilingual signs and the development of norms and rules for translating the nominations of the linguistic landscape in the Yakut language are especially relevant for the correct design of the texts of the signs of official authorities. The purpose of this article is to conduct a linguistic analysis of the texts of signs of state institutions of the Central District of Yakutsk. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were completed: 1) collection and processing of the material; 2) linguistic analysis of the texts of signs in the Yakut language to identify grammatical errors; 3) classification of errors into groups: a) graphic and spelling errors; b) lexical errors; c) syntactic errors and b) stylistic errors; 4) development of recommendations for correcting the texts of signs in the Yakut language. Research methods: data processing and analysis, comparison and description. The study showed that in the linguistic landscape of the Central District of Yakutsk, the main requirements of Article 35 of the Law on Languages of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) regarding the signs of official institutions are observed. Thus, most municipal educational institutions, government institutions, cultural, sports institutions, etc. of this district of Yakutsk have bilingual signs. The main reason for the mistakes made in the translation of official signs into the Yakut language is that the compilers of the Yakut texts do not observe the literary and usal norms of the modern Yakut language. The use of several variants of the names of institutions when translating the official signs of the Central District of Yakutsk shows the lack of a unified terminology in the Yakut language, which today is a problem of Yakut linguistics. The proposed correct translation can be used in the design or correction of bilingual signs of other institutions of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).
This research explores the written narratives of Greek-Turkish bilingual and Greek monolingual children, focusing on their retelling abilities. We analyze both the macrostructure and microstructure of their narratives, utilizing the story-grammar model for the macrostructure analysis and examining lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, spelling accuracy, connectives, and word stressing for the microstructure assessment. We also examine correlations with contextual factors, including home and schooling input. Thirty-six children, comprising an equal number of bilinguals and monolinguals, participate in a picture narrative task (retelling mode). Our findings indicate that while bilingual children exhibit proficiency in constructing the story-grammar comparable to their monolingual counterparts, notable differences emerge in the microstructure of their narratives. Specifically, bilingual children produce shorter narratives. They also demonstrate lower lexical and noun diversity, syntactic complexity, and spelling accuracy (in inflectional suffixes) compared to monolingual children. These observed differences in the microstructure imply a potential trade-off between establishing the core story schema and elaborating on narrative details in bilingual narratives. Additionally, our study identifies early literacy practices (i.e., print exposure in preschool years) and current literacy practices (literacy habits outside the school setting) as predicting differently aspects of the microstructure in each group, further enhancing our understanding of how bilingualism influences narrative development. This underscores the importance of examining both the macrostructure, microstructure, and contextual factors for a comprehensive understanding of narrative development in bilingual and monolingual children.
This paper introduces A Library for Innovative Category Exemplars (ALICE) database, a resource that enhances research efficiency in cognitive and developmental studies by providing printable 3D objects representing 30 novel categories. Our research consists of three experiments to validate the novelty and complexity of the objects in ALICE. Experiment 1 assessed the novelty of objects through adult participants' subjective familiarity ratings and agreement on object naming and descriptions. The results confirm the general novelty of the objects. Experiment 2 employed multidimensional scaling (MDS) to analyze perceived similarities between objects, revealing a three-dimensional structure based solely on shape, indicative of their complexity. Experiment 3 used two clustering techniques to categorize objects: k-means clustering for creating nonoverlapping global categories, and hierarchical clustering for allowing global categories that overlap and have a hierarchical structure. Through stability tests, we verified the robustness of each clustering method and observed a moderate to good consensus between them, affirming the strength of our dual approach in effectively and accurately delineating meaningful object categories. By offering easy access to customizable novel stimuli, ALICE provides a practical solution to the challenges of creating novel physical objects for experimental purposes.
Abstract The paper presents ParlaMint-It, a new treebank of Italian parliamentary debates, linguistically annotated based on the Universal Dependencies (UD) framework. The resource comprises 20,460 tokens and represents a hybrid language variety that is underrepresented in the UD initiative. ParlaMint-It results from a manual revision process that relies on a semi-automatic methodology able to identify sentences that are most likely to contain inconsistencies and recurrent error patterns generated by the automatic annotation. Such a method made the revision process faster and more efficient than revising the entire treebank. In addition, it allowed the identification and correction of annotation errors resulting from linguistic constructions inconsistently represented in UD treebanks and from characteristics specific to parliamentary speeches. Hence, the treebank is deemed as an 18-karat resource, since, although not fully manually revised, it is a valuable resource for researchers working on Italian language processing tasks.
Multiple representation theories posit that concepts are represented via a combination of properties derived from sensorimotor, affective, and linguistic experiences. Recently, it has been proposed that information derived from social experience, or socialness, represents another key aspect of conceptual representation. How these various dimensions interact to form a coherent conceptual space has yet to be fully explored. To address this, we capitalized on openly available word property norms for 6339 words and conducted a large-scale investigation into the relationships between 18 dimensions. An exploratory factor analysis reduced the dimensions to six higher-order factors: sub-lexical, distributional, visuotactile, body action, affective and social interaction. All these factors explained unique variance in performance on lexical and semantic tasks, demonstrating that they make important contributions to the representation of word meaning. An important and novel finding was that the socialness dimension clustered with the auditory modality and with mouth and head actions. We suggest this reflects experiential learning from verbal interpersonal interactions. Moreover, formally modelling the network structure of semantic space revealed pairwise partial correlations between most dimensions and highlighted the centrality of the interoception dimension. Altogether, these findings provide new insights into the architecture of conceptual space, including the importance of inner and social experience, and highlight promising avenues for future research.
The article deals with linguo-cultural and linguo-pragmatic characteristics of the substandard based on the material of artistic works of the mid XX - early XXI centuries. Substandard units (jargonisms, slangisms) are a necessary part of artistic space, without using them it is impossible to realistically recreate the signs of the time, describe the inner feelings of characters, verbalize the picture of the world. Lexical units of substandard express the intentions of the authors of artistic texts, their use allows to recreate the linguistic and conceptual picture of the world not only of the characters of the work, the system of their norms and values, but also to rise to the generalization and comprehension of the real reality. The main functions of substandard units are ideological and emotional-evaluative, as well as cognitive and, less often, nominative. The use of substandard units allows writers to express an implicit evaluation and at the same time to draw a conclusion about the worldview basis of Russian society in difficult periods of Russian history.
the systematic study of the lexicon of Orthodox versions of the biblical text in Polish from the perspectives of cultural and theological-dogmatic conditioning.Thus, the article contributes through the presentation of critical reflections on the ongoing standardization of
The language, as a communication system, is established through speech production by the speaker. Linguistics and Sociology postulate criteria for analyzing linguistic and social factors. The linguistic performance is governed by norms acquired by the speaker, but this does not exempt speech communities from verbal creation. This work intends to explore both the language and linguistics realms, which are susceptible to the insertion of verbal creativity. This creativity arises from the variation observed at each level of language and the extralinguistic factors that influence it. The conclusion of this work presents a didactic proposal aimed at expanding vocabulary, which can be used for the creation of phonological words in Spanish.
Cet article a pour objet les caractèristiques linguistiques des emprunts qui apparaissent et se fixent dans la langue française. On présente une description de la liste des entrées lexicales qui renvoient les rapports entre normes et usages phonétiques et sémantiques
Visual word recognition in developing readers is affected by several factors, many of which are important in the design of teaching and testing materials. Among these, one well-studied factor is word frequency: more frequent words are recognised more quickly than less frequent words. Another is the presence of consonant sequences, where words containing a consonant sequence (e.g. ‘tsh’) are recognised more slowly than non-consonant-sequence-containing words of equivalent letter and phoneme length. In isiXhosa, there are currently no publicly available word frequency norms that are based on children’s literacy materials and are thus appropriate for the testing of developing readers. Publicly available information on the frequencies of particular consonant sequences, which would be valuable in the design of classroom materials, is also lacking. To address these gaps, this paper reports on the creation of a corpus of isiXhosa texts aimed at children (321 texts, 125,447 tokens, and 31,216 types), which was subsequently processed to derive (i) word frequency measures, (ii) descriptive statistics about the characteristics of the most frequent words, and (iii) information on sublexical frequency, with a focus on two-, three-, and four-consonant sequences. The findings of the article are relevant to scholars and practitioners working on literacy development and language processing in isiXhosa.
The global dominance of English has transformed it into a dynamic, hybrid language enriched by contributions from non-native speakers. This paper investigates the integration of loanwords, grammatical structures, and narrative techniques from languages such as Spanish, French, Arabic, and Kurdish into English, emphasizing the role of non-native authors in reshaping its lexicon and syntax. Through a mixed-methods approach—combining corpus analysis, lexical examination, and discourse studies—the study reveals how linguistic borrowing reflects sociocultural exchanges and challenges traditional norms of "standard" English. Case studies of authors like Khaled Hosseini and Sheni A. Othman illustrate how multilingual narratives preserve cultural identity while innovating English literary expression. Findings indicate that loanwords often retain phonological and semantic traits of their source languages, with social media accelerating their adoption. Grammatical adaptations, such as syntactic calques and code-switching, further demonstrate the fluidity of English in multicultural contexts. The paper argues that non-native contributions foster linguistic diversity, though tensions persist between global intelligibility and local authenticity. By examining these phenomena, the study advocates for inclusive language policies that recognize non-native varieties as legitimate forms of English. Ultimately, this research underscores the transformative power of linguistic hybridity, positioning English as a living, evolving entity shaped by its global users rather than a static, monolithic system.
This study examines zero marking, i.e. the absence of an overt exponent, in adjectival, nominal, and verbal inflectional morphology across languages. The first part of the study provides an overview of the distribution of zero markers in inflection paradigms using the UniMorph dataset. The results show that there is a general preference against zero marking. The distribution of zero markers varies to a great extent across languages and lemmas, the only robust trend being that they are avoided in cells that express a high number of grammatical values. The second part of this study examines the association between marker frequencies and phonological length, using the Universal Dependencies treebanks. While token frequency is a good predictor for the length of overt markers, it does not account for the occurrence of zero markers. This is taken as evidence to support a differential non-development scenario of zero marking rather than a phonetic reduction scenario.
The paper focuses on the problem of language ecology in modern academic texts and analyses Russianlanguage scientific articles on construction and building. The study is relevant due to the need to establish linguoecological norms to improve the effectiveness of scientific communication. The study aims to identify the main linguistic and ecological problems of scientific text, i.e. lexical, grammatical, style errors, excessive nominalization, and syntactic complexity. The material of the study includes Russian-language scientific articles of the thematic area “Construction and Architecture” published in the journal “Bulletin of SUSU” in 2023. Linguotoxic elements can be traced both in the title complex, in the abstracts and full texts of research papers. The most characteristic linguoecological problems of scientific texts of this area are syntactic complexity, excessive nominalization, as well as cliches. The formation of linguoecological competence of a researcher will improve academic literacy and develop the culture of academic writing.
In this paper, we introduce the annotation process of the Air Travel Information Systems (ATIS) Dataset as a parallel treebank in English and in Turkish. The ATIS Dataset was originally compiled as pilot data to measure the efficiency of Spoken Language Systems and it comprises human speech transcriptions of people asking for flight information on the automated inquiry systems. Our first annotated treebank, which is in English, includes 61.879 tokens (5.432 sentences) while the second treebank, which was translated into Turkish, contains 45.875 tokens for the same amount of sentences. First, both treebanks were morphologically annotated through a semi-automatic process. Later, the dependency annotations were performed by a team of linguists according to the Universal Dependencies (UD) guidelines. These two parallel annotated treebanks provide a valuable contribution to language resources thanks to the spontaneous/spoken nature of the data and the availability of cross-linguistic dependency annotation.
Purpose. The authors conducted a comparative study of the general statistical characteristics of modern Russian and Serbian punctuation practice using the material of Internet texts from the early 20s of the 21 st century. Results. The authors analyzed three important characteristics of punctuation practice: the composition and frequency of punctuation situations, the lexical indicators of syntactic relations used (conjunctions, particles, introductory words, etc.), and the occurrence of punctuation marks. The Russian and Serbian parts of the sample are balanced in terms of the number of uses of punctuation marks and in terms of their focus/lack of focus on compliance with the norm on the Internet platforms provided to the authors of the texts. The comparative study revealed similarities and differences in all analyzed parameters. Conclusion. It was found that the high degree of similarity of the main indicators caused by the kinship and typological similarity of the languages is combined with obvious differences, including different occurrence of punctuation situations in graphic practice, different composition and different activity of formal indicators of syntactic connection, different density of punctuation marks per punctuation situation. This means that a comparative study of punctuation practice taking into account statistical data allows us to identify the real relationship between the two punctuation systems, rather than the relationship set by normative documents.
This paper discusses how to verify hypotheses about the use of a given lexical choice when synonymic pairs of archaisms and preslavisms (and their different readings) occur in manuscripts of both direct and indirect traditions of the Didactic Gospel [DG] of Constantine of Preslav. Using three synonymous pairs as examples (тъкъмо/тъѭ, постт/алъкат, пастꙑрь/ пастѹхъ), the paper illustrates the potential of lexicological and textual analysis (identifying the frequency and distribution of synonymic pairs in the text, examining their semantic differences, and analyzing the different readings in textual transmission). The work highlights how the existence of synonymic pairs often influences a priori assumptions in discussions concerning the unique characteristics of the homiletic collection, leading to the identification of geographical and temporal markers of the Preslav redaction in the text. Finally, the work shows that Constantine of Preslav’s Didactic Gospel reflects the transitional nature of late 9th century Bulgaria, marked by the Christianization of Slavic communities – a period and a text where written and spoken language, the language used in liturgical, homiletical, and intra-church communication coexist, despite their different norms.
PURPOSE: Prior work has identified weaknesses in commonly used indices of lexical diversity in spoken language samples, such as type-token ratio (TTR) due to sample size and elicitation variation, we explored whether TTR and other diversity measures, such as number of different words/100 (NDW), vocabulary diversity (VocD), and the moving average TTR would be more sensitive to child age and clinical status (typically developing [TD] or developmental language disorder [DLD]) if samples were obtained from standardized prompts. METHOD: We utilized archival data from the norming samples of the Test of Narrative Language and the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument. We examined lexical diversity and other linguistic properties of the samples, from a total of 1,048 children, ages 4-11 years; 798 of these were considered TD, whereas 250 were categorized as having a language learning disorder. RESULTS: TTR was the least sensitive to child age or diagnostic group, with good potential to misidentify children with DLD as TD and TD children as having DLD. Growth slopes of NDW were shallow and not very sensitive to diagnostic grouping. The strongest performing measure was VocD. Mean length of utterance, TNW, and verbs/utterance did show both good growth trajectories and ability to distinguish between clinical and typical samples. CONCLUSIONS: This study, the largest and best controlled to date, re-affirms that TTR should not be used in clinical decision making with children. A second popular measure, NDW, is not measurably stronger in terms of its psychometric properties. Because the most sensitive measure of lexical diversity, VocD, is unlikely to gain popularity because of reliance on computer-assisted analysis, we suggest alternatives for the appraisal of children's expressive vocabulary skill.
Introduction. Since the second half of the 20th century, scientists have become interested in the pragmatic side of language. This article discusses names with a figurative desemanticized numerological meaning «large (more than the norm, measures) quantity», combined in direct meaning into the lexical and semantic group "Atmospheric phenomena". The history of the emergence of these meanings, as well as the peculiarities of their functioning, is traced. The relevance of the study is determined by an attempt to analyze the figurative numerological values of atmospheric phenomena nominations in the spoken language of native speakers. Materials and Methods. The words storm, rain, downpour, hurricane, squall are taken as the material. Based on the comparison of dictionary meanings, the lexemes were combined into the lexical and semantic group "Atmospheric phenomena". A comprehensive methodology, including the semantic method and the method of component analysis, made it possible to identify the features of the functioning of lexemes in speech and their lexical compatibility. Analysis. The article examines the peculiarities of the semantics of each named nomination in numerological meaning, revealed changes in their content due to the development of the language, as well as discovered new semes in their content in everyday communication of native speakers. The analysis of examples of figurative uses of names of atmospheric phenomena in numerological meaning is carried out by highlighting individual components of meaning, including the component ‘a large number, a multitude’ with further identification of the ability to implement an identifying or characterizing function. Results. The lexemes related to the LSG «Atmospheric phenomena» reveal differences in the pragmatic component. Some names are used by speakers in the figurative meaning of ‘a large number, a multitude’ often, others are rare and from a functional point of view serve only to directly designate the subject of reality. There are new examples of figurative numerological use of these lexemes, which have not yet been recorded by lexicographers in modern Russian.
Street names, as important geographical identifiers, carry rich historical and cultural significance. Translation norms help ensure consistency and accuracy in translations, as well as enhance the efficiency and understanding of cross-cultural communication. With the development of globalization and the tourism industry, standardization of street name translation can not only promote international communication and cultural understanding but also enhance the urban image. This study, by establishing a parallel corpus for analysis, focuses on the C-E translation of street names in cities. Through analyzing lexical density, word length, and high-frequency vocabulary, it explores the linguistic characteristics and current status of C-E translation of street names. Furthermore, it explores the translation standardization of street names translation, including the norm of consistency, distinctiveness, and structural uniformity from the perspective of translation norms. It is hoped the corpus-based study on norms of C-E translation of street names may provide valuable references for C-E translation of urban street names.
The article examines idioms related to folk customs and rituals in the Polish and Ukrainian languages as a key element of intercultural dialogue between the two nations. It is studied how these phraseological units reflect the cultural, historical and social aspects of Polish and Ukrainian folk life. Particular attention is paid to common and distinctive features in the phraseological systems of both languages, which allows for a deeper understanding of the national identities and cultural features of Poles and Ukrainians. The article analyzes the role of phraseology in the preservation and transmission of cultural heritage, as well as in the formation of modern intercultural dialogue between Poland and Ukraine. The purpose of the article is to research and analyze phraseology related to folk customs and rituals in the Polish and Ukrainian languages in the context of intercultural dialogue between the two nations. Phraseologisms are an integral part of any language, reflecting not only lexical features, but also deep cultural and social structures inherent in one or another nation. Through these language constructions, it is possible to trace how two close, but at the same time unique cultures reflect their worldview, beliefs and social norms. Religion occupies an important place in the lives of both Ukrainians and Poles, which is clearly reflected in the phraseology of both languages. One of the most striking examples is the Christmas and Easter holidays, the rites and rituals of which are reflected in phraseology. The analysis of phraseological units associated with religious holidays allows us to better understand how religious traditions shape the linguistic picture of the world. The article examines phraseological units related to wedding and funeral rites in the Polish and Ukrainian languages. It was found that they have both common features and certain differences. The article examines folk customs and everyday life, which also found a place in phraseology. The study showed that the Polish and Ukrainian phraseological systems contain both common elements that reflect similar cultural practices and unique phraseological units that emphasize the national specificity of each nation.
Infants' early words tend to be phonologically similar. This may reflect a systematic approach to early production, as they adapt newly acquired forms to fit familiar structures in the output. This "rich-get-richer" approach to phonological acquisition, known as preferential attachment in network science, proposes that new words cluster together with existing phonologically similar words in the lexicon (or network). This contrasts with recent work (e.g., Fourtassi et al., 2020) showing that the learning environment is the key predictor of learning (preferential acquisition). This study expands on previous analyses of vocabulary norm data to analyze naturalistic data, namely phonetic transcriptions of nine infants' word productions, from word onset to age 2;6. Network growth models test whether (a) acquisition is best modeled through preferential attachment or preferential acquisition, (b) the trajectory of network growth changes over time, and (c) there are any differences in network growth of adult target forms versus infants' actual productions. Results show that preferential attachment predicts acquisition of new words more convincingly than preferential acquisition: newly acquired words are phonologically similar to existing words in the network. Furthermore, systematicity becomes increasingly apparent over the course of acquisition, and infants produce their early words more systematically than we would expect from looking at target forms alone. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).