In der letzten Zeit sind u.a. diese frei verfügbaren Titel erschienen:
Death-related Intensifiers in the History of English
Zeltia Blanco-Suárez
https://doi.org/10.3726/b21920
An all-important question for humans, death is unsurprisingly used as a source of intensification in language, perhaps even cross-linguistically. This book explores the use of death for intensification purposes in English and aims to shed light on how certain forms from this semantic field came to be used with an intensifying function over time, specifically dead(ly), mortal(ly) and to death. The author provides a full account of the evolution of these intensifiers from their origins up to present-day English from the perspective of grammaticalisation and other concomitant phenomena. To this end, this corpus-based research resorts to evidence from historical dictionaries, diachronic corpora and electronic collections. The study conducted, unprecedented in the number of examples analysed, combines both a qualitative and a quantitative approach to provide the most comprehensive picture of the long diachrony of these intensifiers.
Processing dependencies in discourse: Memory retrieval in dependency resolution beyond the syntactic domain
Tijn Schmitz
https://doi.org/10.48273/LOT0694
Language is structured in a way that requires the establishment of linguistic dependency relations. This involves the storage and retrieval of linguistic information in memory during language processing. Linguistic rules determine which dependency relations are possible and which are not. Studying the real-time deployment of these rules has provided important insights into the retrieval mechanism underlying language processing, which is generally assumed to be a cue-based, content-addressable memory mechanism.
The majority of existing research focused on the deployment of syntactic rules in intra-sentential dependency relations. However, dependencies are not limited to the syntactic domain: relations in discourse are essential for language production and comprehension as well. This dissertation focuses on the resolution of linguistic dependencies that span across multiple sentences, and the impact of structural constraints at discourse level. In a series of experiments on the resolution of cross-sentential anaphoric pronouns and additive presuppositions, this dissertation shows that the retrieval of information from memory is not restricted to the syntactic level but also exists at a much larger scale: discourse. The relevance of structural constraints at discourse level challenges the architecture of existing theories of language processing, and this dissertation advocates a general cue-based memory retrieval mechanism, by assuming that not the resolution process itself, but the relevant constraints can be domain-specific.
In sum, this dissertation provides an important window into the memory retrieval process underlying the resolution of dependencies in discourse, and in this way contributes to a more complete picture of language processing.
Standard English in Trinidadian secondary schools: Accent variation and attitudes
Philipp Meer
https://doi.org/10.17879/18988575787
Diese Arbeit wurde 2023 von der Universität Münster als Dissertation angenommen.
Die Studie untersucht die Produktion und Perzeption von gesprochenem Standardenglisch im Sekundarschulkontext in Trinidad. Das zugrunde liegende Ziel besteht darin, einen Beitrag zur Frage zu leisten, ob und in welchem Ausmaß sich in Trinidad ein endonormativer Standard herausbildet. Soziophonetische Variation wurde in der Sprache von 100 Lehrkräften und fortgeschrittenen Schülerinnen und Schülern auf vokalischer, konsonantischer und prosodischer Ebene analysiert und die Einstellungen zu lokalen und nicht-lokalen Akzenten des Standardenglischen unter 485 Schülerinnen und Schülern untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen vielfältige Tendenzen. Die Sprachproduktion zeigt klare und ausgeprägte endonormative Trends. Gleichzeitig zeichnet sie sich durch mehrdimensionale Normorientierungsprozesse aus, die lokale und nicht-lokale Kräfte integrieren. Die soziophonetischen Befunde lassen auch ein erhebliches Maß an systematischer Differenzierung erkennen. Die Sprachperzeption zeigt eine allgemeine Koexistenz verschiedener Standards des Englischen und keine klare Unterscheidung zwischen exo- und endonormativen Akzenten. Zusammenfassend liefert die Studie empirische Belege für Multinormativität in Produktion und Perzeption.
The study investigates standard English speech production and perception in the secondary school context in Trinidad. The underlying aim is to contribute to the question of whether and to what degree an endonormative standard is emerging in Trinidad. Sociophonetic variation in the speech of 100 teachers and advanced students is analyzed at the vocalic, consonantal, and prosodic level, and attitudes toward local and non-local accents of standard English among 485 students are investigated. The results reveal multifaceted tendencies. Speech production shows clear and pronounced endonormative trends. At the same time, it is characterized by multidimensional norm orientation processes that integrate local and non-local forces. The sociophonetic findings also reveal a considerable degree of systematic differentiation. With respect to speech perception, there is a general coexistence of different standards of English and no clear-cut distinction between exo- and endonormative accents. In sum, the study provides empirical evidence of multinormativity in production and perception.
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