Indian Journal of Language and Linguistics
Linguistic Imperialism: A Study of its Impact on the Assamese Language in the Greater Sivasagar District of Assam
The state of Assam in India is the home to the people who speak Assamese, an Indo-Aryan language. Assamese is the native tongue of the people of Assam and the official language of the state of Assam. Based on linguistic standards and conventions, Assamese is a vital language for writing. However, when we attempt to see the language from the viewpoint of native speakers' attitudes towards the language, we find that the language is steadily deteriorating among the linguistic community. This deterioration is caused by Linguistic Imperialism. Linguistic Imperialism is a phenomenon in which a dominant language attempts to weaken other languages both socially and politically and in a theoretically founded way. The impact of the dominance is increasing day by day due to which a negative attitude has increased significantly among the native speakers of Assamese who considers English as superior to their mother tongue. Negative attitude is one of the reasons of language endangerment and we cannot deny the possibility of endangerment of the Assamese language in the far future if the dominance of English goes on increasing. History is evident that languages with a huge literature and population got extinct because of the reasons like negative attitude, dominance of other languages, decreasing rate of fluent native speakers, examples of such languages are Sanskrit, Hebrew, etc. This paper tries to analyse the negative attitude which is gradually increasing in the Assamese language and ways to strengthen it by reverting the dominance of Linguistic Imperialism by languages like English and Hindi.
Copyright (c) 2023 Iftikar Ali Ahmed, Baishalee Rajkhowa, Arup Kumar Nath (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Immediate and Delayed Recall for Words and Non-Words in Native and Non-Native Speakers
Memory is an important aspect of cognition. Recall and recognition can be used as experimental tasks for assessing memory. Non-Word Recall taps phonological short term memory. The non-word recall is language sensitive hence there is a need to investigate this ability in native and on-native speakers. The current study aimed to study immediate and delayed recall in native and non-native speakers. A total of 30 participants (15 native and 15 non-native speakers) in the age range of 18-30 years participated in the study. 15 words and 15 non-words were presented in Malayalam and the participants were asked to recall the stimulus immediately after the stimulus presentation and 2 days post stimulus presentation. The results of the showed that the performance on recall varied for words and non-words. Performance on Recall was better for native compared to non-native speakers.
Copyright (c) 2023 Nuha Haleema, Persis John, Neha Shafeeq, Abhishek B.P (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Linguistic Divide in between self and other: A Critical Analysis of Standardisation of Language: A North Kerala Village Study
This study examines the linguistic experiences of three caste categories in a community in North Kerala in an effort to comprehend how caste is embodied in language. It examines how linguistic inequality is caused by language standardisation and how people who speak non-standard languages deal with the issue without forsaking their mother tongue. Through a comparative comparison of three caste groups, including the scheduled caste (SC), other backward class (OBC), and the general category (GEN), the study was carried out in Thachankunnu in Kerala (GEN). The participants' direct experiences with the educational institutions are used to analyse the causes and effects of linguistic discrimination. The theoretical frame of the register has been used as the basis of analysis. The study found that participants experienced job loss and linguistic inequality in class participation, demonstrating the existence of language-based discrimination. In various contexts, dialect shifting is regarded as a means of concealing the social status and identity of vernacular language speakers. Identification of the value of mother tongue, language diversity, and resistance to deprivation all play essential roles in achieving language uniformity.
Copyright (c) 2023 Fasna K (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
ESP on the border between tradition and innovation
This paper focuses on English for specific purposes (ESP) for Nursing students at a tertiary level institution and the materials designed for these classes. It does not cover all the fields of ESP. It aims at exploring just one facet of the process of language teaching and learning. That one point of view will contribute to understanding the optimal means of successful teaching mastery. The first part represents the theoretical background of ESP methodology. In the second part, the authors provide examples of activities designed for their students that have proved to be an effective way to facilitate the process of language acquisition.
Copyright (c) 2023 Elitsa Stoichkova (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Intricate Relationship between Memory and Attention
Memory and attention are viewed as important cognitive processes which we use in our daily routine. Attention is regarded as a prerequisite for memory. Memory involves three stages namely encoding, storage and retrieval. Attention is found to be important for encoding. The study was carried out with the aim of determining the relationship between memory and attention. 20 Participants in the age range of 18-30 years served as participants. In the first second tasks, the stimuli was presented orthographically and the task of the participants were asked to recall the items in the absence and presence of noise. In the third and fourth tasks, the participants were asked to recall one specific item (not told beforehand) and recall all items respectively. Statistical analysis revealed that there was no difference between task 1 and task 2 and significant difference was seen between task 3 and 4 respectively showing that attention and memory are related.
Copyright (c) 2023 Manasi S.K, Chandana S, Abhishek B.P (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Bilingual Palestinians' Attitudes towards Code-Switching
Prestige is a matter that concerns everyone as an attempt to follow the high class. The way people speak is one of the most noticeable factors that are used to determine if they are prestigious or not. Code-switching helps to create a new level of prestigious speech which is what we are trying to test in this study in the community of Hebron-Palestine. The purpose of this study is to investigate participants’ attitudes towards Code-switching (whether it is prestigious or not) and what reasons led to these attitudes. Data were collected from 80 members of the society from different educational levels and different age categories using a questionnaire that was sent to participants online. The study revealed that that code-switching is considered prestigious and it reflects the level of education of people in the society. Society turns out to believe that code-switching is a sign of prestige after the dramatic growth of the use of social networking. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 24. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed. Researchers hope that this study will help other linguists who are trying to search in this field.
Copyright (c) 2025 Rahaf N. Abu-Aisheh, Nada S. Melhem, Mohammed Farrah (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This paper aims to discuss some properties and characteristics of complex predicates with reference to negation in Nepali. The paper will analyze how negation works with compound verb and serial verb constructions in Nepali. It will also discuss compound verbs like N+V along with V+V structure and analyze the conjunctive participle marker in certain construction. We will also look into the agreement system of negative compound verbs where certain agreement feature gets attached to the negation marker. In this paper we will enquire the condition of negation marker occurring as both prefix and suffix in Nepali serial verbs. We will also try to show how negative polarity items occur in Nepali complex predicate configuration. This paper is a descriptive account of the negative constructions in Nepali complex predicates. Theoretical account is outside the scope of this paper.
Copyright (c) 2022 Sourabh Chetry, Madhumita Barbora (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Teaching L2 Listening in EFL Large Classes of Mixed-Ability University Students
This paper attempts to summarize what is known about the nature and process of listening. It also tries to relate theoretical issues to classrooms practices. Teaching L2 listening in EFL large classes is not a passive process but an active one which assists students construct meaning in their mind. The paper then introduces listening types and different strategies that teachers can select to suit their listening teaching at language schools in general and in university in particular in which activities viewed from top-down, bottom-up, and interactive approaches are recommended. The paper focuses on activities and strategies such as lecturing, teacher talks and student talks that mainly occur at university settings. Web-based resources, online listening training with technology, and online assessment tools are also introduced. The paper ends with limitations and conclusion that encourage teachers and educators to further investigate related issues of this listening topic.
Teaching L2 Listening in Mixed-Ability Classes
Copyright (c) 2022 Nguyen Minh Trang (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Demonstratives in Arabic: Evidence from Taizi Yemeni Arabic and Hodeidi Yemeni Arabic
This study aims at exploring demonstratives in two dialects: Hodeidi Yemeni Arabic and Taizi Yemeni Arabic, and comparing them to Modern Standard Arabic. The description of the demonstratives in the two dialects along with Modern Standard Arabic focused on tracing the syntactic and semantic evidence they are like to exhibit. The model used to undertake the analysis follows Diessel (1999). Although demonstratives attracted considerable scholarly attention, the literature reflects a scarcity of research on the two dialects chosen for this study. The findings reveal that the two dialects somehow differ from Modern Standard Arabic. It is concluded that the differences between Modern Standard Arabic and the two other dialects are confined to a semantic aspect. As for the similarities, the study evidences that demonstratives in Modern Standard Arabic, Taizi Yemeni Arabic, and Hodeidi Yemeni Arabic syntactically belong to two categories (demonstrative pronouns and demonstrative adverbs) and they can occur in more than one syntactic context. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate that Taizi Yemeni Arabic and Hodeidi Yemeni Arabic almost share similar linguistic features as far as demonstratives are concerned. The study ends up recommending further research on more Yemeni dialects.
Copyright (c) 2022 Adel Abdulrahman L, Utpal Lahiri (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A Diachronic Hypothesis about Imperfective unnu in Malayalam
Across languages, the imperfective is associated with three distinct readings－“event in progress”, “habitual or generic” and “continuous” with stative predicates. In Malayalam, the suffix unnu had been identified as the imperfective suffix in linguistic literature. However, it has been noted in subsequent studies that the “generic or habitual” reading with unnu is distinctly different from a typical generic reading and that such ‘typical generic’ readings are obtained by the modal um in Malayalam. This has also led to the claim that unnu is not an imperfective marker, but an iterative pluractional bundled with progressive aspect. This paper attempts to deal with this puzzle differently, arguing that unnu is a progressive marker in the process of becoming an imperfective in Malayalam. A description of the properties of unnu-sentences, contrasting them with sentences that use the progressive marker uka and sentences that use the modal/generic marker um, is attempted. The paper also explores the role of uND(ə), the existential copula, in obtaining habitual and episodic readings with unnu. This alternative account for unnu is shown to be supported by opinions of traditional grammarians in history as well as theories of grammaticalization in diachronic semantics. It is also hypothesized that this process is blocked or halted in Malayalam by a suffix devoted to generic constructions and previously unexplored in the literature.
Copyright (c) 2022 Gouthaman K.J (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
EFL Palestinian Students’ Perception of E-Assessment amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic
It is not surprising that most institutes, schools, and universities are shifting from traditional learning to online learning due to the coronavirus, which is an international concern that has changed the educational system all over the world. This study aims to investigate the perception of EFL students at Hebron University about online assessment benefits and challenges during COVID-19. The participants of this study were 64 English major students from Hebron University. An online questionnaire consisting of 40 questions was used to collect the data. The researchers followed the quantitative approach. According to the findings of this study, Students' overall view of e-assessment was moderate. The researcher included in the questionnaire eight domains. They got varying degrees. Compatibility domain (M=3.74), awareness domain (M=3.71), self-efficacy domain (M=3.57), perceived usefulness domain (M=3.53), IT support domain (M=3.48), perceived ease of use domain (M=3.48), peer influence and superior influence domain (M= 3.41), resource facilitation domain (M=3.20).
Copyright (c) 2022 Reem Jabari, Mohammed Farrah (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Perception and Preference Towards English Language Learning and Teaching Through Virtual Mode: A Study on English Language Learners and Teachers
The paper intends to discuss English Language teachers' and students' perceptions and preferences toward English Language Teaching and Learning through online or virtual classes. The COVID 19 outbreak and the nationwide lockdown created a new set of environments for all. All educational institutions were closed down to prevent the widespread of the virus as a result the teaching and learning activities were disrupted extensively. All sorts of activities, including teaching and learning, were being carried out through online mode. Traditional classroom teachings shifted to online classroom teaching in order to continue with teaching and learning practices. The online mode of teaching became an effective strategy to continue the teaching and learning process without any interruption. The closure of educational institutions affected a large number of students. The abrupt change in teaching and learning methods impacted both the teachers as well as students. The main purpose of the study was to examine the perception and preferences of learners and teachers towards online learning and teaching. The study adopted the questionnaire method, and the data were collected from undergraduate students (Currently in B.A Third Semester) of Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Madhya Pradesh by sending a questionnaire to participants' email ids. The English language teachers and students were selected for the present study. English language course is taught at this university as a compulsory subject for first-semester undergraduate students. Two questionnaires, one for the teachers' group and another for the students' group, were prepared to know the opinion of both the participant groups. The study reveals that students are more satisfied with face-to-face teaching than the online mode. All learners believe that learning and speaking English is an advantage, but they prefer classroom teaching over online. Similarly, the teachers’ group also showed their preferences for offline teaching over online teaching. The present paper elaborates on the findings of the present study.
Copyright (c) 2022 Deepa Moni Boruah (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Gender Differences in Listening: Research Perspectives
This paper reviews gender differences in listening. The paper focuses on three main questions for reviewing related studies published previously: (1) Between boys and girls, who listen better? (2) Reasons males or females listen better? and (3) Which method(s) researchers mainly used to explore gender differences in listening? Two major fields of research in listening were investigated: cognitive and metacognitive studies. The review reveals that male and female students have used different brain hemispheres for their listening comprehension although there are still debates and discussions on this issue. The reasons males seem listen more attentively than females are due to that fact that males are likely to pay attention to facts while females on the contrary like to listen to information. Surprisingly, there is no clear indication or conclusion to the question “Between males and females, who listen better?”, but this review recognizes that metacognitive instruction helps raise learners’ metacognitive awareness and assists them in their listening comprehension improvement. Three research methods mostly used for investigating gender differences in listening are recognized which are dichotic listening, brain-dominance inventory, and Metacognitive Awareness of Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) focusing on raising listeners’ cognitive and metacognitive awareness when students perform their listening tasks.
Cognition and metacognition in listening
A Study on Topicalization and Focalization in the Zanjani Dialect
Topicalization and focalization are syntactic issues studied in a variety of languages. Topicalization is defined as the proposing of a constituent to the beginning of the sentence. It has the old information and the rest of the sentence is about it. Focalization, on the other hand, is a process in which a constituent may stay put in its canonical position represented by a relativizer or may be preposed, but bearing the new information. To study these issues, we studied the Zanjani dialect, an offshoot of the Azeri language. We analyzed sentences in a number of film scripts and found that the minimal program may not be able to deal with these issues in this dialect, and that information structure theories may be used to consider topicalization and focalization in this dialect.
Copyright (c) 2022 Danial Adrang, Ataollah Maleki (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Relationship Between Proficiency and Interference in Second Language
Bilingualism is viewed as alternative use of two languages in day-to-day context. Earlier views of bilingualism assumed the bilinguals to have equal proficiency in L1 as well as L2, while the recent views in bilingualism suggests that a bilingual can have competence to any degree in his/her second language. The competence factor is also called proficiency. In individuals who have limited proficiency, the domain language is believed to exert interference on the weaker language. Interference can be of two main types lexical interference and grammatical interference. Lexical interference is manifested through borrowing, while grammatical determined through incorrect subject-verb agreement and incorrect usage of PNG markers. The study aimed at determining the relationship between interference and proficiency levels on conversation, narration and picture description tasks. 40 participants were considered for the study, LEAP Q was administered on these participants and they were divided into high and low proficient speakers based on rating on LEAP Q. The results suggested that the interference was more for low proficiency group in regard to both grammatical as well as lexical interference. The amount of interference did not vary much with respect to the three different linguistic tasks.
Copyright (c) 2022 Abhishek B.P (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Prosodic Experimentation in Hopkins’ Poetry
The paper aims to explore prosodic experimentation and musical sensibility designed for limning the dynamism observed in the Victorian world by the poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins in his poetry, especially, in “The Windhover”, “God’s Grandeur”, “Pied Beauty”, “Inversnaid” and “Spring”. Through a close reading of the prosody, rhythm, rhyme, metrics, alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia in Hopkins’ poems from the theoretical paradigms of the prosody, and sprung rhythm, propounded by Hopkins himself, and some other theorists, the study is an attempt to prove how Gerard Manley Hopkins exploits the rhythmic novelty to give each poem a distinctive design to capture his apprehension of dynamism, the intense thrust of energy in nature. The finding is that it was the Victorian culture and milieu evoked by the Second Industrial Revolution, technological advance, and Hopkins’ conviction that God manifested in the material world that influenced him to use innovative rhythmic patterns in his poetry so that we could perceive how the universe is characterized by a distinctive design that constitutes individual identity. It is expected that researchers intending to observe the prosodic techniques in poetry in general and Hopkins in particular can take the paper as a reference.
Copyright (c) 2022 Bimal Kishore Shrivastwa (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
ki and naki - Alternative Question Particles in Bangla
The primary discussion of the paper is centered on two polar question particles in the Eastern Indo-Aryan language Bangla. One is ‘ki’ and the other one is ‘naki.’ These two polar question particles also appear as interrogative disjunction morphemes in alternative questions. This further leads to the argument that there exists a disjunction operator in both polar and alternative questions and the polar question particle is the lexical realization of that disjunction operator.
Copyright (c) 2022 Ambalika Guha (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Translation between register analysis and critical discourse analysis
In the present piece of research, we argue that translation cannot be effective unless the purpose and the audience are clearly identified. One of the main lessons we have learned during this journey is the need for a thorough register analysis of the source text before translation, in addition to the necessity of embedding the target text in its immediate cultural environment within a critical discourse analysis. In this respect, an analysis of the article “Asymmetric struggle for the hearts and mind of viewers: Can the media actually trigger sympathy towards terrorists? (Maoz, 2010), which was translated by Badia Elharraki (2012), will give the reader an idea about the difficulty of translation because this article, if translated without some modifications at the lexical level, will have huge undesirable effects on the Arab/Muslim audience.
Copyright (c) 2022 Badia Elharraki (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Development of The English Language in Parallel with the Changing Socio-Cultural Trends in India
This paper explores several political and historical events intersected with concepts from sociology to examine the growth and development of the English language in India during the pre-Independence and after independence eras. This development is viewed in parallel with the changing societal setup by utilising concepts like westernisation and modernisation that helped facilitate education and promote social equality among the people by shrinking the persisting barrier of caste system to a profound extent and diminishing the role of indigenous concepts of social upliftment like Sanskritisation. After foreseeing the number of speakers of English that gives rise to the standard variety of English in India, i.e., Indian English, its potential in a socio-cultural context, and the interest among subsequent learners of the language, the paper concludes that the growth prospects for English appear to be vital, and it will continue to emerge as an essential language in the coming generations in India.
Copyright (c) 2022 Pranav Badyal (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Multiple Determiners in Magahi: A Case Beyond Agreement
The paper proposes that Magahi, a modern Indo-Aryan language, presents the phenomenon of multiple determiners in the syntax of modification and argues that the phenomenon is not a simple case of agreement in definiteness in the noun phrase whereby the additional determiner carries a similar semantic feature. I present examples that contest the possibility of it as a case of concord or agree. For the semantic motivation of the phenomenon, following Plank (2003) & Kumar (2020), the paper claims that the definite determiner /-wa/ in Magahi is not an exclusively dedicated definiteness morpheme, and therefore, the language needs an additional linguistic element. I claim that the additional determiner weakens the definiteness of the definite determiner /-wa/, creating a projection problem in the overall referentiality of the NP. By further describing the individual semantics of the determiner on the noun and the adjective, the paper claims that the determiner on the adjective exudes the semantics of specificity that can co-occur with the numeral. However, the determiner on the noun has the semantics of familiarity or identifiability. The paper further provides an exhaustive account of semantic and structural description and motivation of the phenomenon.
Copyright (c) 2022 Chandan Kumar (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Reduplication, Expressives, and Echo-Formation in Hajong
This paper is an attempt to document and investigate the reduplication in Hajong. Hajong is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Bangladesh and Indian northeastern states of Assam, Meghalaya, and Arunachal Pradesh. The present study is based on the data collected from 12 Hajong speakers of the Goalpara district of Assam. Reduplication is a widespread phenomenon that is common in the languages of Southeast Asia. However, grammarians have ignored this phenomenon primarily because they follow the Western grammar description model, where reduplicated structures do not exist or are rare (Abbi, 1992). The aim is to study the reduplicated structures, expressive and echo-formation and its semantic aspects in Hajong. There are mainly two types of reduplicated structures in Hajong: Morphological reduplication and Lexical reduplication. The morphological reduplication is expressed through expressive. “Expressive behave and function like regular words and thus form a part of the lexicons of Indian languages” (Abbi, 2018). The semantics of expressive morphology in Hajong represent five senses of perception, states of mind and manner of an action, and kinship terminology. However, lexical reduplication is constructed through the process of echo-formation (partial reduplication), compound, and complete word reduplication. Echo-word Formation acquires the status of a meaningful element only after it is attached to a word (Abbi, 1992). Echo formation is formed by replacing the initial consonant sound in the reduplicant. The common replacer sounds in Hajong are /ʧ͡/, /t/, /tʰ/ /m/, and /s/. The semantics of Hajong's echo formation represent generality, plurality, intensity, and sets or types.
Copyright (c) 2022 Albina Narzary (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Using PPT as an Effective Cutting Edge Tool for Innovative Teaching-Learning
One of the fundamental purposes and goals of learning and teaching around the world has been the active participation of students in higher education institutions. The teacher's knowledge alone is insufficient to ensure that the students understand the subject during the curricular transaction. The manner in which the lecture is delivered is equally important. As a result, in addition to the conventional method, PowerPoint presentations are being used on a larger scale. Furthermore, it enhances students' sense of pleasure and commitment and assists the teacher in attaining its objectives. It can also play an important part in creating a dynamic environment for teaching and learning when deployed as an efficient cutting-edge tool. In this paper, the focus is given on understanding using PPT as an effective cutting edge tool for innovative teaching-learning and impressive presentation through a questionnaire-based online survey of 915 students and teachers from 20 different states and 2 Union Tertiaries of India and 6 overseas countries too. The analysis of the collected data confirms that using multiple modalities in PPT might bring together all types of learners, kinesthetic, auditory, and visual and provide them the opportunity to be active learners and increase their interactivity.
Copyright (c) 2022 Arvind M. Nawale, Apurva Nawale (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Erroneous Word-Stress Patterns Used by EFL Yemeni Learners
This experimental study aims at investigating the English word-stress patterns used by Yemenis, learning English as a foreign language, and the erroneous stress patterns used by them. Accent or stress is a feature of high significance in English speech. At the level of a word, one syllable gets accentuated with primary stress. To achieve the purpose of this study, and to find out to what extent word stress of Received Pronunciation English poses difficulty on Yemeni Arabic speakers using English as a foreign language, 120 subjects of various scientific disciplines, were chosen for data collection. They were recorded and their utterances went through deep analysis based on the auditory impression of the researcher and on the spectrographic evidence resulting from the speech analysis of the software program PRAAT. The most significant findings reached by the researcher were that word-stress in the four-syllable target words were the most problematic for the speakers in which 53.2% of them put the stress, randomly, on the wrong syllables in words. Three-syllable target words appeared to be less problematic as 44.4% of the participants placed the stress inaccurately in words. The least difficulties encountered by the speakers were with the two-syllable target words where 70.6% of the speakers managed to pronounce the words with correct stress placement. It is noteworthy to mention that there was a tendency among the speakers who produced wrong stress patterns, to accent either the first syllable or the one including a long vowel or a diphthong in the words.
Copyright (c) 2021 Asmaa Adel Abdulrahman, Ramamoorthy L (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Translation Competence: Beyond Bilingualism
According to some scholars of Translation Studies, bilinguals are in possession of innate translation competence. In the present research, aspects of bilingualism and translation competencies are investigated. The questions driving the research are: is being bilingual enough to be a translator? And what are the competencies a translator needs to perform a good translation? This article addresses these questions through a comprehensive literature review and a small-scale empirical study. First, the relevant literature on bilingualism and translation competence was reviewed. Second, an empirical investigation was carried out in which bilinguals and professional translators translated a source text to generate empirical data on using two languages and relevant translation competencies. The results have shown that being a translator is more than being bilingual, and going to a translation school is not a guarantee to be a good translator. The subject matter knowledge also matters. The research yields insights into the description and development of translation competence and provides potential avenues for translators’ self-improvement.
Copyright (c) 2021 Megaptche Megaptche Yvan Rudhel, Xu Wen (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
On Mean Dependency Distance as a Metric of Translation Quality Assessment
This paper has adopted a quantitative approach to carry out a linguistic study, within the theoretical framework of dependency grammar. Translation is a process where source language and target language interact with each other. The present study aims at exploring the feasibility of mean dependency distance as a metric for automated translation quality assessment. The current research hypothesized that different levels of translation are significantly different in the aspect of mean dependency distance. Data of this study were based on the written translation in Parallel Corpus of Chinese EFL Learners which was composed of translations from Chinese EFL learners in various topic. The translations were human-scored to determine the levels of translation, according to which the translations were categorized. Our results indicated that: (1) senior students perform better in translation than junior students, and mean dependency distance of translations from senior group is significantly shorter than the junior; (2) high quality translations yield shorter mean dependency distance than the low quality translations; (3) mean dependency distance of translations is moderately correlated with the human score. The resultant implication suggests the potential for mean dependency distance in differentiating translations of different quality.
Copyright (c) 2021 Chenliang Zhou (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Dialectal Intelligibility of Assamese Tested Functionally
This paper includes a detailed discussion on the intelligibility of the speakers of four regional dialects of the Indo-Aryan language of Assamese. Prior research on Assamese dialects mostly being confined to examining structural variation lends this study relevance and urgency. The dialects of Standard Assamese, Central Assamese, Kamrupi, and Goalparia, covering three varieties each, were considered for the study. Using a functional intelligibility testing approach, the rate of overall intelligibility as well as of inter- and intra-dialectal mutual intelligibility of the dialects were determined. 24 speakers (1 male and 1 female from each variety) were asked to record ‘texts’— words, sentences, and connected speech in their native varieties of Assamese. 11 listeners from each variety (132 in total) were then tested on their comprehension of texts from non-native varieties. Thereafter, their rates of comprehension were used to determine the rates of mutual intelligibility between speakers of the different dialects and varieties of Assamese. This paper establishes that the rates of mutual intelligibility are unequal and asymmetric among the dialects— the native speakers of the Standard and Central Assamese dialects were more intelligible to the speakers of Kamrupi and Goalparia than vice-versa. Finally, the paper finds that the rate of intelligibility is the lowest for words in isolation and reinforces the important role of context in intelligibility.
Copyright (c) 2021 Sabbah Qamri (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Adulteration of the Igbo Language Through Multilingualism in South-Eastern Nigeria
The study seeks to find out the linguistic adulteration of the Igbo language through a sociolinguistic process known as multilingualism. Many scholars are lamenting that the Igbo language is going into extinction just because it is losing its original linguistic structures via multilingualism. Such alteration brings to the limelight of the study in order to address these issues on Nigerian indigenous languages in general and the Igbo language in particular. A descriptive approach is used to harvest some of these language contact issues among the Igbo populace and language. A random sampling is used to ascertain the population of the five Igbo states: Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States on how communication and written aspects of the language have been dealt with negatively. Participant observation and students’ essay writing in the Igbo language are used to collate these sub-standard Igbo grammar structures. The study expounds at a length the intricacy of the proper Igbo written forms and as well as pulling the Igbo language away from the effects of multilingualism. The findings of the study prove that the different types of multilingualism abound among the Igbo language native users. They also exemplify some linguistic related issues on the bold face of multilingualism among the Igbo interlocutors and how they vary among the Igbo speech communities in Nigeria. The study also finds out the effects of multilingualism on the standard Igbo teaching. The study goes further in suggesting some quintessential solutions to recuperate the status quo of the Igbo language.
Copyright (c) 2021 Virginus Onyebuchi Aruah (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Do Cues Facilitate Retrieval of Verbs in Persons with Bilingual Aphasia?
Word retrieval difficulty is commonly seen in persons with aphasia. The cues would repair word retrieval difficulty. The effect of cues during verb retrieval was gauged via Action Naming Test (ANT) in Kannada and English languages in persons with aphasia (PWAs). A total of eight persons with bilingual Aphasia (Broca's, conduction, and isolation type) were recruited for the study. The participants were expected to have a minimum quantum of verbal output were considered for the study. Specifically, the study used phonemic, semantic, and verbal contextual cues to assess verb retrieval abilities. The result of the study manifested that all participants of the study were able to perform better with phonemic cues followed by semantic and verbal contextual cues in both Kannada and English languages.
Copyright (c) 2021 Girish K.S, Abhishek B.P, Deepak P (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The paper discusses in detail echo formations and expressives found in the Odia language and the strategies for forming them. The complex semantic structure as well as the wide semantic and conceptual space they occupy, make them complex categories that have been ignored both by Western and Asian linguists because they are a prototypical grammatical feature not fitting the traditional grammar writing (Abbi, 2018). Odia has morphological fixed segmentism with the variants /ph/ and /m/. Morphological fixed segmentism is a kind of affixation, and so it resembles affixing morphology generally. [ɡaɽɪ > ɡaɽɪ phaɽɪ ‘car and other transport’ ; ʧɪra > ʧɪra mɪra ‘ torn and such’ ] This paper endeavours to find the reason behind this particular choice of phonemes by Odia speakers. Furthermore, the paper investigates if Odia base-reduplicant structures follow the Syllable Contact Law (Vennemann, 1988). According to the Syllable Contact Law, sonority should fall across syllable boundaries. This paper proves that Odia base-reduplicant structures follow the Syllable Contact Law as rise in sonority across syllable boundaries is a marked feature in Odia.’
Copyright (c) 2021 Suhasini Dash (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This paper examines verb valency in Urhobo, using minimalism as a theoretical framework. Verb valency deals with the question of how many participants a specific verb logically presupposes in order for the event denoted by the verb to be realizable. The method of data collection is categorized into two main sources: primary and secondary data. The preliminary data refers to the information obtained using intuitive knowledge, the secondary source refers to documented information obtained from the library, internet, and other published materials. The study reveals that where we have one argument structure, we have one theta function. There are two place predicates we have two theta roles or functions, and also, three arguments predicates possess three theta roles. This goes a long way to say that Urhobo verbs can take different arguments, and their syntactic and semantic well-formedness will still be intact. It also reveals that it takes only one individual to carry out one event, such as òvwèrẹ̀ (sleeping event) in the Urhobo language. Finally, the paper identifies three valency classes in the Urhobo language (Mono-valent verb- takes or involves one entity, Di-valent verb- takes or involves two entities, and Tri-valent verb- takes or involves three entities).
Copyright (c) 2021 Imu Oghoghophia Famous (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0