JournalTOCs

International Journal of Linguistics
Number of Followers: 12

This is an Open Access Journal

Open Access journal
ISSN (Print) 1948-5425
Published by Macrothink Institute

[47 journals]

A Pragmatic Study of Corporate Apologies for Impression Management: A Case
of Chinese Food Industry
- Authors: Kexin Zhou; Zhanghong Xu
  Abstract: Some of Chinese corporations in food industry have recently faced sharp criticism for their illegal operation or unethical behavior. To deal with such crisis, these corporations are inclined to manage their public impressions by issuing apology statements. Serious as these problems are, yet scarce research has focused on the impression management of Chinese corporations through apologies. This paper aims to make a pragmatic analysis of apology strategies employed by Chinese food companies for impression management, drawing upon the framework of Jones and Pittman’s (1982) impression management strategies and Blum-Kulka and Olshtain’s (1984) theory of CCSARP. Based on a self-built corpus of 50 apology statements issued by Chinese food companies, the paper identified different apology strategies and their accompanying linguistic features through discourse analysis. The results show that IFIDs and offer of repair are two of the most common strategies in Chinese corporate apologies, whereas taking on responsibility is less frequently used. The apology strategies are often accompanied with such linguistic features as person deixis, honorifics, intensification and repetition. Chinese companies adopt these diverse apology strategies and linguistic features for the sake of impression management, which is realized by using such strategies as ingratiation, self-promotion, exemplification and supplication. Finally, the paper provides insights into the understanding of crisis management and corporate communication practice online.
  PubDate: Sun, 01 Jan 2023 19:13:01 -080
Conceptual Metaphors and the Smell Perception in English and Arabic
- Authors: Salha Mohammed Alqarni
  Abstract: Perception has long been seen as a basis for understanding abstract concepts and experiences and their linguistic encoding. Conceptual metaphor is considered a cognitive link between physical and sensory experiences and abstract mental representations. The olfactory perception has been treated as peripherical in contrast to other sense modalities. The purpose of the study is to establish how the smell sense is conceptually structured in Arabic in comparison with English and to examine conceptual metaphors based on our olfactory perception. Using the theory of conceptual metaphor, the study sought to compare the conception of smell and its metaphorical extensions in both languages. The data collected for this study was Modern written Standard Arabic acquired from online Arabic corpora and the total number of sentences searched is 3400 sentences. The study demonstrated that smell is used as a source domain to express suspicion, knowledge, and emotions. Arabic expresses a few extra metaphors including experiencing and anticipating. The domain of emotions in Arabic is closely connected to the smell sense more than English is. On the other hand, the most prevalent conceptual metaphors that employ smell as their target domain are INTENSITY OF SMELL IS EFFECT STRENGTH and SMELL IS A PHYSICAL FORCE, which exist in both languages equally. Besides, the study demonstrated that the sense of smell is not peripheral to cognition as it was previously believed. It is hoped that this study has contributed to further appreciation of the smell domain and its function in cognition.
  PubDate: Sun, 25 Dec 2022 19:12:10 -080
The Role of Corpus Linguistics in Grammar Instruction: A Review of
Literature
- Authors: Basim Alamri
  Abstract: The development of grammar instruction and research has begun in the past two decades (Conrad, 2000). Teaching English grammar has been delivered via a traditional method. The present study provides a literature review of how grammar instruction has been influenced by corpus linguistic (CL). The review points out the benefits of implementing corpus-based approach in grammar instruction and some difficulties encountered both teachers and students when applying CL tools. The perceptions of students and teachers towards using CL in grammar instruction was also highlighted. The results of the review showed that corpus-based approach enhanced students grammar knowledge, fostered learning autonomy, and improved students scores in grammar tasks. The review also reported some challenges, such as technical difficulties and glitches, issues in designing corpus-based materials and conducting corpus-centered activities, and increased teachers workload. Overall, the participants in the reviewed studies reported positive perceptions towards using corpus-based approach in grammar instruction. Implementing this approach helps teachers design suitable materials and students gain grammar knowledge. It is suggested that further studies are needed to investigate the effectiveness of corpus-based approach in specific grammatical aspects.
  PubDate: Sun, 25 Dec 2022 19:08:18 -080
Code-Switching Elicitation Task in Standard Arabic, Dialectal Arabic, and
English Among Bilingual Saudi Arabian Students in the United States
- Authors: Sharifa Bahri
  Abstract: This study explores code-switching practices among bilingual Saudi Arabians within three language varieties: English, Standard Arabic (SA), and Dialectal Arabic (DA). While there are studies that examine the use of code-switching between SA and DA, and others that investigate Arabic-English code-switching, no study to date has examined natural code-switching into English in conversations of SA vs. DA as compared to code-switching into Arabic in English conversations. Controlling the language of the interviewer (English, SA, or DA), this study examines (1) the likelihood of code-switching relative to the language of the interview, (2) the rate of switches in each interview context, and (3) the mean duration of those switch segments. Results show that code-switching to Arabic was very rare in English interviews (only 0.89% of interview time was in Arabic with a switch rate of 1.74 switches/minute and average length of 0.59 s). However, participants in SA and DA interviews did code-switch to English 8.32% and 10.08% of the time, respectively. The mean rate of switches was about twice as frequent for participants interviewed in DA (14.18 switches/minute) than for participants interviewed in SA (7.21 switches/minute). Moreover, participants in SA interviews had significantly longer mean English segments than DA interviewees (1.21 s vs. 0.81 s, respectively). The results demonstrate that (1) English has the greatest impact on participants’ tendency to code-switch, (2) SA encourages code-switching in a way that aims to preserve its formal status, and (3) DA encourages code-switching the most, i.e., code-switching is an emblem of DA conversations.
  PubDate: Sun, 04 Dec 2022 18:50:57 -080
A Corpus-Based Study on Politeness Used by L1 Thai EFL Learners
- Authors: Zhaoyi Pan
  Abstract: This research aimed to identify politeness super-strategies, the strategies under each category of super-strategy, and common lexical patterns in each strategy when performed by L1 Thai intermediate-level EFL learners in English conversation. It attempted to use the corpus-based approach to examine the pattern of how L1 Thai intermediate-level EFL learners use politeness in English conversation and, on the other hand, to examine the existing problems with L1 Thai intermediate-level EFL learners’ use of politeness super-strategies based on the findings. In total, 30 L1 Thai intermediate-level EFL learners were involved in this research. A learner corpus was built to investigate the use of politeness super-strategies and the frequencies of lexical patterns. The findings illustrated that L1 Thai intermediate-level EFL learners tended toward using the negative politeness super-strategy, while no off record super-strategy was found. Moreover, L1 Thai intermediate-level EFL learners used a limited number of politeness strategies under the super-strategy categories identified in this research, with a limited selection of lexical patterns in each strategy. The findings reveal that L1 Thai intermediate-level EFL learners adopt only a small range of politeness strategies, thereby resulting in a discrepancy in the performance of politeness in English conversation.
  PubDate: Sun, 04 Dec 2022 18:50:57 -080
The Relationship Between Reading Self-Efficacy and Perceived Use of
Reading Strategies Among Saudi EFL Students
- Authors: Effat S. Altumigah; Tarek A. Alkhaleefah
  Abstract: This study aimed to explore the relationship between reading self-efficacy and perceived use of reading strategies among Saudi EFL senior high school female students. With a correlational research design, the study data were collected by administrating two questionnaires: The Reader Self-Perception Scale (RSPS) questionnaire adapted from Henk & Melnick (1995), and the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) adapted from Li & Wang (2010). The two instruments were administrated to 90 Saudi senior high school female students randomly selected from three different public schools in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and regression analysis to determine the relationship between self-efficacy and EFL learners’ perceived use of reading strategies. The study findings revealed how Saudi senior high school students possessed more low and moderate levels than high levels of reading self-efficacy, and that metacognitive processes were the most frequently used strategies among cognitive and compensation strategies. In addition, a positive relationship between students’ reading self-efficacy and perceived use of reading strategies was detected. Pedagogical implications of the study findings and its recommendations were presented and discussed.
  PubDate: Sun, 04 Dec 2022 18:50:57 -080
Effects of Perceptual Learning Styles on Chinese EFL Learners’ Writing
Proficiency in the Reading-writing Integrated Continuation Task
- Authors: Huafeng Wang; Mengwei Tu, Meiqiong Liang
  Abstract: Previous studies have manifested that the reading-writing integrated continuation task has great language learning potential and linguistic alignment facilitated by the continuation task positively affects L2 learners’ written performance. As an individual difference construct, perceptual learning style has been investigated from its impact on EFL learning, while research on how it affects learners’ performance in the continuation task seems deficient. To this end, this study investigated the relationship between Chinese EFL learners’ perceptual learning style and writing proficiency in the reading-writing integrated continuation task. Participants were 46 intermediate learners of L2 English from two intact classes who were required to perform both independent topic writing and the continuation task. The results showed that 1) group and auditory style learners slightly outperformed on phrasal alignment while visual and tactile performed better on clausal alignment; 2) visual, tactile and auditory learners were likely to generate content-rich, well-organized and more accurate written production, but students’ linguistic fluency in topic writing outperformed that in the continuation task; 3) learners who prefer audio input showed in inferiority on the continuation writing. These findings confirm that perceptual learning style might be a mediator affecting learners’ linguistic alignment within the continuation task.
  PubDate: Sun, 04 Dec 2022 18:50:57 -080
The Occurrence of Apology Expressions in Moye's Me Before You and
After You: A Pragmatic Study
- Authors: Aliaa Ahmed Albadri
  Abstract: Pragmatics in general and speech acts theory in particular have witnessed an ever-lasting revolution in the number of studies, papers and articles that are conducted and written to deal with how their nature and state of affairs have been developing and to depict the extent which they have been reaching. The present study adds and completes, but not beautifies, other pragmatic portraits already demarcated by others. It is an in-depth treatment of apology expressions manipulated in Moye’s Me Before You and After You. It adopts a descriptive-analytical approach in which the frequencies and percentages are statistically used in the analysis of the apology expressions. The study concludes different findings as to how apology expressions of complex and simple types are concerned. The complex strategy of expressions is of more considerable variations than those of simple one in a way that for the complex one, the number of apology expressions is larger than the number of the other strategy.
  PubDate: Sun, 04 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -080
Translating the Chinese Modal Particle 啊 (a)
- Authors: Leong Ko; Yang Xu
  Abstract: The Chinese language has many modal particles, which often appear at the end of a sentence, hence also known as sentence-final particles. Such particles have specific functions and carry implied meanings in different contexts. However, modal particles are generally considered not existing in English, so their translation from Chinese into English presents a challenge for translators. This study focuses on the English translation of the Chinese modal particle 啊 (a) in sentence-final positions based on examples from three Chinese movies. The translated subtitles with the modal particle 啊 (a) are categorised into four types of sentences – namely, declarative, interrogative, exclamative and imperative. The examples are analysed within the framework of Nida’s functional equivalence theory by comparing the modal particle’s functions and meanings in the source and target texts. It was found that omission, explicitation and linguistic amplification are the three strategies used for rendering this modal particle, while omission is the dominant strategy. Though acceptable in many cases, omission may lead to the loss of functions or implied meanings. The findings suggest that translators should rely on an analysis of the context to decide which strategy is most appropriate to convey the function and implied meaning of 啊 (a).
  PubDate: Sun, 04 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -080
Flaps and Trills in Najdi and Hijazi Arabic
- Authors: Eisa S. Alrasheedi
  Abstract: This study is an investigation of flaps and trills in Najdi and Hijazi Arabic, which are the most spoken Arabic varieties in Saudi Arabia. It focuses on how flaps and trills behave in relation to vowels and consonants in the two varieties of Arabic. The data in this study were collected from four Hijazi and five Najdi participants. A total number of 730 sentences were read by the participants. It was found that /r/, which is the underlying phoneme, surfaces as [r] when it occurs word-initially or after a [-coronal] consonant, a [+voiced] consonant, or a [-coronal, +voiced] consonant, otherwise /r/ surfaces as [ɾ]. In Najdi Arabic, /ɾ/, which is the underlying phoneme, surfaces as [r] after a [-coronal, +voiced] consonant; otherwise /ɾ/ surfaces as [ɾ] elsewhere. Also, it was found that Najdi Arabic violates the sonority hierarchy, as in [ɾtaʕ] and [batɾ], in which the segments in the onset of [ɾtaʕ] and the coda of [batɾ] do not maintain the universal sonority hierarchy: glides>liquids>nasals>obstruents, which is maintained in Hijazi Arabic. This paper argues that rhotics in both varieties of Arabic may be sensitive to the preceding adjacent consonants, but not to vowels.
  PubDate: Sun, 04 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -080
Moroccan Arabic Consonant Clusters Resulting From Negation as an Exception
to Benhallam’s SSAA: An Optimality-Theoretic Account
- Authors: Radouane Belkhadir
  Abstract: This article examines the status of the consonant cluster resulting after the concatenation of the discontinuous plural morpheme ma…….∫. In disconformity with Benhallam’s Syllable structure Assignment Algorithm (henceforth SSAA) which predicts that every succession of consonants is resolved in MA by inserting schwa to break hiatus, the succession of consonants after the abovementioned morphological operation does not permit schwa epenthesis. As such, it is imperative to account for the status of the final consonants and incorporate them into the syllable structure of the language. The claim of this article is that schwa is not inserted here as the ∫ of the negative morpheme is assigned an appendix which is moraless. So, it cannot make a mora in combination with the moraless schwa. The analysis is couched within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT). More specifically, the constraints that interact to account for this seeming ad hoc are both faithfulness and markedness constraints. It is argued that some faithfuness as well as markedness constraints interacting with each other are responsible for the existence of such consonant clusters.
  PubDate: Sun, 04 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -080