Ampersand

• Children’s responses in argumentative discussions relating to parental rules and prescriptions

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: Available online 4 September 2015
  Source:Ampersand
  
  Author(s): Antonio Bova
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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• Editorial

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: 2015
  Source:Ampersand, Volume 2
  
  Author(s): H. Pichler, R. Truswell, K. Van de Poel, D. Van Olmen, K. Watson
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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• Move analysis of research articles across five engineering fields: What they share and what they do not

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: 2015
  Source:Ampersand, Volume 2
  
  Author(s): Sayako Maswana, Toshiyuki Kanamaru, Akira Tajino
  
  While many genre researchers have examined the rhetorical structure of research articles in various disciplines, few have investigated the complete structure of articles for students in engineering, a discipline that includes a wide range of fields. Using Swales’ move framework (1990), this paper analyzes the rhetorical structure of 67 engineering research articles from five subdisciplines: structural engineering, environmental engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, and computer science. Six engineering researchers participated in the study by coding texts of full-length papers into moves and steps. The study found that the abstract, introduction, and concluding sections and some of their moves were conventional across all subdisciplines. The finding of no common move patterns throughout the papers across the subdisciplines is explained by the differences in the nature of research in each field. There were, however, limited subdisciplinary similarities such as the use of Move 5, Step 2 observed in environmental, electrical, and chemical engineering. The study results provide practical pedagogical resources, a theoretical background to guide writing in an engineering school, and implications for collaboration with researchers in specialized fields. 
  
  
  
  
  
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• Identifying absolute subjects: A systemic functional approach

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: 2015
  Source:Ampersand, Volume 2
  
  Author(s): Qingshun He, Junhui Wu
  
  The absolute subject refers to the subject of absolute nominative clauses in traditional grammar. It can be either nominative or accusative. Corpora data show that the number of nominatives has been decreasing, and that of accusatives, increasing over time. Absolute nominative clauses of appositive, attendant circumstance and clausal adjunct in traditional grammar correspond to the non-finite clauses of elaboration, extension and enhancement with subject in the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. In addition, absolute subjects can also be used in non-finite clauses of projection and embedding. The relationships between absolute subjects in different non-finite clauses and the primary clauses are different in independence. The tendency to be independent can be embodied in the dimension of the absolute subjects and that of the primary clauses. From either dimension, the tendency to be independent can form a cline. The primary clause based tendency is more in line with the characteristics of absolute subjects. 
  
  
  
  
  
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• Phonaesthemes and sound symbolism in Swedish brand names

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: 2015
  Source:Ampersand, Volume 2
  
  Author(s): Åsa Abelin
  
  This study examines the prevalence of sound symbolism in Swedish brand names. A general principle of brand name design is that effective names should be distinctive, recognizable, easy to pronounce and meaningful. Much money is invested in designing powerful brand names, where the emotional impact of the names on consumers is also relevant and it is important to avoid negative connotations. Customers prefer brand names, which say something about the product, as this reduces product uncertainty (Klink, 2001). Therefore, consumers might prefer sound symbolic names. It has been shown that people associate the sounds of the nonsense wordsmaluma and takete with round and angular shapes, respectively. By extension, more complex shapes and textures might activate words containing certain sounds. This study focuses on semantic dimensions expected to be relevant to product names, such as mobility, consistency, texture and shape. These dimensions are related to the senses of sight, hearing and touch and are also interesting from a cognitive linguistic perspective. Cross-modal assessment and priming experiments with pictures and written words were performed and the results analysed in relation to brand name databases and to sound symbolic sound combinations in Swedish (Abelin, 1999). The results show that brand names virtually never contain pejorative, i.e. depreciatory, consonant clusters, and that certain sounds and sound combinations are overrepresented in certain content categories. Assessment tests show correlations between pictured objects and phoneme combinations in newly created words (non-words). The priming experiment shows that object images prime newly created words as expected, based on the presence of compatible consonant clusters. 
  
  
  
  
  
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• The semantics of slurs: A refutation of coreferentialism

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: 2015
  Source:Ampersand, Volume 2
  
  Author(s): Adam M. Croom
  
  Coreferentialism refers to the common assumption in the literature that slurs (e.g.  faggot) and descriptors (e.g. male homosexual) are coreferential expressions with precisely the same extension. For instance, Vallee (2014) recently writes that “If $S$ is an ethnic slur in language $L$ , then there is a non-derogatory expression $G$ in $L$ such that $G$ and $S$ have the same extension” (p. 79). The non-derogatory expression $G$ is commonly considered thenonpejorative correlate (NPC) of the slur expression $S$ (Hom, 2008) and it is widely thought that every $S$ has a coreferring $G$ that possesses precisely the same extension. Yet here I argue against this widespread assumption by first briefly introducing what slurs are and then considering four sources of supporting evidence showing that slurs and descriptors are in fact not coreferential expressions with precisely the same extension. I argue that since slurs and descriptors differ in their extension they thereby differ in their meaning or content also. This article additionally introduces the notion of a conceptual anchor in order to adequately account for the relationship between slurs and descriptors actually evidenced in the empirical data, and further considers the inadequacy of common dictionary definitions of slurs. This article therefore contributes to the literature on slurs by demonstrating that previous accounts operating on the assumption that slurs and descriptors are coreferential expressions with the same extension, and that they thereby have the same meaning or content, are inconsistent with empirical data and that an alternative account in accord with Croom (2011, 2013a, 2014b) better fits the facts concerning their actual meaning and use. 
  
  
  
  
  
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• The formulaic schema in the minds of two generations of native speakers

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: 2015
  Source:Ampersand, Volume 2
  
  Author(s): Diana Van Lancker Sidtis, Krista Cameron, Kelly Bridges, John J. Sidtis
  
  Schemata are expressions that are fixed except for slots available for novel words (I’m not a ____ person). Our goals were to quantify speakers’ knowledge, examine semantic flexibility in open slots, and compare performance data in two generations of speakers using cloze procedures in formulaic expressions, schemata open slots, fixed portions of schemata, and novel sentences. Fewer unique words appeared for the schemata-fixed and formulaic exemplars, reflecting speakers’ knowledge of these utterances; the most semantic categories appeared for schemata-open responses. Age groups did not differ. Schemata exemplify creative interplay between novel lexical retrieval and fixed formulaic expression. 
  
  
  
  
  
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• Towards a typology of focus: Subject position and microvariation at the discourse–syntax interface

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: 2015
  Source:Ampersand, Volume 2
  
  Author(s): Ángel L. Jiménez-Fernández
  
  In this work I explore the different discourse–syntax interface properties of focus fronting in Standard Spanish (SS) and Southern Peninsular Spanish (SPS) including Andalusian and Extremaduran varieties. In SS it is taken for granted that in focus fronting the verb is obligatorily adjacent to the preposed constituent. I show that this is not the case in SPS, where this condition is optional. I carry out an analysis of three types of foci which involve movement to the left periphery (contrastive focus, mirative focus and quantifier fronting) and one type of topic (resumptive preposing). Discourse, syntactic, and semantic properties are taken into account to illustrate this typology. Crucially, only contrastive and mirative focus contexts allow for preverbal subjects in SPS, which are proposed to be Given Topics in this variety. On the other hand, resumptive preposing is shown to entail a case of topic fronting. I use different experiments with empirical data and judgements by native speakers to test my proposal that focus-verb (or topic-verb) adjacency is subject to microparametric variation in Spanish. 
  
  
  
  
  
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• Rhetorical argument, folk linguistics, and content-oriented discourse analysis: A follow-up study

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: 2015
  Source:Ampersand, Volume 2
  
  Author(s): Rebecca Day Babcock
  
  In 1994, Dennis Preston published “Content-Oriented Discourse Analysis and Folk Linguistics”, in which he applied Deborah Schiffrin’s argument structure analysis and Vantage Theory to folk-linguistic data. The present study applies Schiffrin’s analysis to similar folk-linguistic data, as both Preston’s and my subjects discussed African American English. Preston found that his subjects used Oppositional Argument while the subjects in the present study used Rhetorical Argument. According to Schiffrin’s analysis, arguments contain positions, dispute, andsupport. The resulting analysis compares the conclusions that can be drawn from each set of arguments, such as social and distributional facts about language variety, and facts about variety acquisition and use. 
  
  
  
  
  
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• Processes and variations in language economisation

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: 2015
  Source:Ampersand, Volume 2
  
  Author(s): Jonathan R. White
  
  This article analyses the processes of reducing language in textchats produced by non-native speakers of English. We propose that forms are reduced because of their high frequency and because of the discourse context. A wide variety of processes are attested in the literature, and we find different forms of clippings in our data, including mixtures of different clippings, homophone respellings, phonetic respellings including informal oral forms, initialisms (but no acronyms), and mixtures of clipping together with homophone and phonetic respellings. Clippings were the most frequent process (especially back-clippings and initialisms), followed by homophone respellings. There were different ways of metalinguistically marking reduction, but capitalisation was by far the most frequent. There is much individual variation in the frequencies of the different processes, although most were within normal distribution. The fact that non-native speakers seem to generally follow reduction patterns of native speakers suggests that reduction is a universal process. 
  
  
  
  
  
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• A critical evaluation of two approaches to defining perceptual salience

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: 2015
  Source:Ampersand, Volume 2
  
  Author(s): Bethany MacLeod
  
  The notion of perceptual salience is frequently invoked as an explanatory factor in discussions of various linguistic phenomena, but the way salience is defined varies between studies. This paper provides a critical evaluation of two approaches to operationalizing perceptual salience that have been applied to studies of phonetic accommodation: the criteria-list approach and the experimental approach. The purpose is to provide a starting point for researchers interested in exploring the role of perceptual salience in linguistic patterns, such as phonetic accommodation. In addition, the paper aims to consider the nature of the information captured by the different approaches, to explore how these approaches might be best used, and to examine how they reflect changes in theorizing on linguistic variables more generally. 
  
  
  
  
  
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• Thematic progression in the writing of students and professionals

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: 2015
  Source:Ampersand, Volume 2
  
  Author(s): Thomas Hawes
  
  This article outlines advances in thematic progression theory in the hope they may be useful to teachers of writing, especially with non-native and non-European students. Thematic progression denotes the strategies available to writers for linking the themes and rhemes in a clause to those of surrounding clauses. It is a key factor in the structuring of information because it acts as a bridge between sentence level and discourse level, coordinating cohesion and coherence. This paper compares the use of thematic progression in essays by students on a course leading to MA studies in journalism, media and communications with that in two leading British newspapers. It considers how assignment writing could be improved generally by teaching the rudiments of progression theory. If students' assignments are to be clear in their development but also varied and interesting for the reader, additional progression skills are required. In particular, this paper recommends certain variations on Daneš' progression types, as well as the use of more breaks (non-participant themes) to mark rhetorical transitions in the text. Familiarisation with the thematic progression in tabloids and broadsheets, respectively, should provide an overview of a range of progression from formal to outspoken, which would raise awareness of what is available, even if not all elements are appropriate for all types of academic writing. 
  
  
  
  
  
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• Reflections on the grammatical category of the than element in English comparative constructions: A corpus-based systemic functional approach

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: 2015
  Source:Ampersand, Volume 2
  
  Author(s): Qingshun He, Binli Wen
  
  It is generally accepted that in comparative constructions, when the clausal element compared is the subject of the matrix clause, the personal pronoun following than can be either nominative which is usually used in formal English, where than is considered as a conjunction, or accusative which is usually used in informal English, wherethan is considered as a preposition. However, the data collected from the COCA corpus indicate that nominative pronouns do not tend to end a comparative construction in either formal or informal English. Based on the fundamentals of Systemic Functional Linguistics, it is improper to consider the accusative form of personal pronouns in comparative constructions as the object of than; rather they are the stressed personal pronouns. It is concluded that in comparative constructions than is always a conjunction, and the personal pronoun followingthan can be expanded into a finite clause. However, if the nominal group following than has no comparee in the matrix clause, it is not a comparative clause and the than-phrase is a prepositional phrase. It is further concluded that in comparative constructions than is best considered as a paratactic conjunction because comparative constructions cannot be transpositioned with the primary clauses in clause complexes. 
  
  
  
  
  
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• Wanderwörter in languages of the Americas and Australia

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: 2014
  Source:Ampersand, Volume 1
  
  Author(s): Hannah Haynie, Claire Bowern, Patience Epps, Jane Hill, Patrick McConvell
  
  Wanderwörter are a problematic set of words in historical linguistics. They usually make up a small proportion of the total vocabulary of individual languages, and only a minority of loanwords. They are, however, found frequently in languages from across the world. There is, to our knowledge, no general synthesis of Wanderwörter patterns, causes of exceptionally high borrowing rates for particular lexical items, or estimates of their frequency across language families. Claims about the causes of their spread exist, but have not been widely tested. Nor, despite researchers’ intuitions that Wanderwörter form a distinct type of borrowing, is there a clear demonstration that Wanderwörter are, in fact, different from other loanwords in any concrete way. In the present paper, we examine the phenomenon of Wanderwörter using a standard sample of vocabulary in languages of Australia, North America and South America. The investigation presented here examines Wanderwörter in great enough detail to answer questions about the linguistic and social processes by which Wanderwörter migrate as well as the shapes and densities of the resulting networks. We show that Wanderwörter can be categorically distinguished from other borrowing. The study of Wanderwörter to date has focused on agricultural or industrialized societies; however, the phenomenon is well attested in networks of smaller languages. There are areal differences in types of Wanderwörter and the networks through which they spread. Specific categories of cultural association, including but not limited to agricultural cultivation, condition widespread borrowing. Wanderwörter are outliers in the realm of loanwords, borrowed far more frequently than typical lexical items but still a subset of a more general phenomenon. We show that the link between Wanderwörter and cultural diffusion may be a more sound basis for defining this term than the traditional definitions that invoke the loan frequency, areality, or untraceability of these terms. 
  
  
  
  
  
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• A description of ASL features in writing

  2015-09-11 18:59:34 PM

  Publication date: 2014
  Source:Ampersand, Volume 1
  
  Author(s): Kimberly A. Wolbers, Shannon C. Graham, Hannah M. Dostal, Lisa M. Bowers
  
  Similar to second language students who embed features of their primary languages in the writing of their second languages, deaf and hard of hearing (d/hh) writers utilize features of American Sign Language (ASL) in their writing of English. The purpose of this study is to identify categories of language transfer, provide the prevalence of these transfer tendencies in the writings of 29 d/hh adolescents and describe whether language features are equally or differently responsive to instruction. Findings indicate six categories of language transfer in order of prevalence: unique glossing & substitution, adjectives, plurality & adverbs, topicalization, and conjunctions. ASL features, of both lexical and syntactical nature, appear to respond similarly to instruction. 
  
  
  
  
  
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