Language sciences

In many studies, the crucial role of lexis in language learning and proficiency has been repeatedly highlighted, especially concerning multi-word items. The current research focuses on the Lexical Approach, developed by Lewis in 1993, which implies a change of focus in the traditional way of teaching language. The aim of the research is to analyse the exercises of ten EFL textbooks of different levels, used in Italian upper secondary schools and universities in the last decade, and to observe whether some of Lewis’ approach principles are implemented. The investigation is both quantitative and qualitative and it employs three tables that aim to discover which types of lexical items are mostly observed, whether the concept of grammaticalized lexis is implemented and how multi-word lexical items are treated. The results obtained by the collected data show on one hand that the exercises presented in the analysed material focus more on features of single words than on multi-word lexical items, which present a clear minority of activities. On the other hand, also grammaticalized lexis principle does not seem greatly considered, aside from a restricted number of exercises. Finally, the treatment of multi-word items does not follow Lewis’ suggestion of using consciousness-raising activities. In conclusion, the results show that although the attention paid to lexis has increased in the last decades, the Lexical Approach does not appear to be fully implemented in EFL learning material.

Resumen El rumano Eugenio Coseriu es una de las figuras más importantes de la filología del siglo XX y su legado es uno de los más destacados de la lingüística europea. Se le reconoce como uno de los lingüistas más importantes del siglo XX. Fue investido como Doctor Honorario en múltiples ocasiones (más de cuarenta). La Sociedad Lingüística de América, la Sociedad Internacional de Lingüística Románica y el Circulo Lingüística de NY le otorgaron diversos títulos de honor. Su aportación a la lingüística internacional es invaluable. En este artículo se analizan sus aportaciones más importantes a la lingüística y la filología actuales a través de la historia, al mismo tiempo que se discute su contribución al estudio científico de la lengua. Palabras Clave: Eugenio Coseriu, lingüística general, aportaciones a la lingüística, obra de Coseriu. Abstract The Romanian Eugenio Coseriu is one of the most important figures of twentieth century philology and his legacy is one of the most highlighted of European linguistics. He has been recognized as one of the most important linguist of the twentieth century. He was invested as Doctor Honoris Causa in multiple occasions (more than forty).

Feature theory is a significant part of phonological theory due to the fact that it deals with the basic units of analysis, i.e. distinctive features. In this essay, I intend to argue that features play a fundamental role in the expression of generalisations about the phonology of English. I will address this issue by presenting an overview of the emergence of feature theory, describing the formal properties as well as the functions of distinctive features and, ultimately, illustrating the manner in which features help us express generalisations about the phonology of English.

Theme, Topic, and Information Structure all influence readers' perceptions of the pacing of a text and what information is emphasized in that text. Since these three concepts relate to the perceived flow of information in texts, it is worthwhile to examine how they interact in texts. This is particularly true for the discussion of the relation between Theme and Topic since many linguists equate the two concepts (See, for example, Gundel 1978, and Huddleston 1988.)

A study of written texts (advertisements and other genres) will trace the differing contributions of these three structures to the interpretations of the texts. Since the advertising data consist largely of texts which have been written to be read as if heard, word order and punctuation have been used to signal tonicity and tonality. In the data studied, sentence punctuation was clearly used to emphasize relevant points. Further, information which was placed at the ends of the punctuated sentences regularly correlated with information which was obviously important for the reader to remember. Information which was placed thematically in the clauses was used to orient readers to the message which was to come. Often Themes were also the Topics of their sentences, but this was not true in all cases. Indeed, in a number of cases, the topics were omitted from some sentences of an advertisement, even though those topics were obviously relevant to the interpretation of every sentence of the passage.

... in areas where the regional speech style serves as a marker of ethnic or national identity. In such areas, the latter may be'preferred to the standard as it functions as a symbol of ingoup loyalty and solidar-ity. Such results were obtained re-cently in Wales (Bourhis, Giles, and ...

ABSTRACT
Speech act is a functional unit in the form of an act which helps humans understand or accomplish things with words in communication. This research was aimed to find out and analyse the types of speech acts which were performed by teachers and students in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms. The researcher employed the speech act theory from Cruse (2000) to analyse and interpret the research results. Qualitative research was applied in this research due to the data source was from the teaching and learning activities in naturalistic environments in English classrooms. The subjects of this research were teachers and students in REAL Equivalent English classrooms. The results showed that there were three types of speech acts found in the interactions between the teachers and students, namely locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act. Locutionary act was performed when teachers and students uttered expressions with no certain intentions. Illocutionary act, on the other hand, was performed when the expressions contained certain intentions to listeners. Perlocutionary act was performed when the listeners showed responses and acted as feedback to the speakers’ utterances. By conducting this research, the researcher hopes that it can give more insights to readers regarding to the study of speech act theory in pragmatics field.
Keywords: English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Classrooms, Speech Acts, REAL Equivalent English, Teachers and Students.

This is nominally a book review of Hutto and Myin’s Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds Without Content (The MIT Press, 2013). But it is a narrowly focused and highly prejudicial review, which presents an analysis of a contradiction at the heart of the book. Radicalizing Enactivism is a powerful and original philosophical argument against representations in cognition, but it repeatedly endorses an old-fashioned representationalism about language. I show that this contradiction arises from the authors’ unexamined, reflexive adoption of traditional linguistic concepts and terminology, which presuppose a representational interpretation of linguistic capacities and phenomena. The key piece of evidence for this analyses is the separability of Hutto and Myin’s substantive remarks on the ontogeny of language-dependent cognitive capacities, which they explain in terms of scaffolding and decoupling, from the representational gloss on those remarks that they present as if it were simply identical with observed empirical matters of fact. They follow a model laid out in Hutto’s earlier work, in which everyday linguistic activity is understood as instantiating abstract public vehicles with representational content (i.e., sentences which express propositions). I argue that this model is susceptible both to pre-existing arguments against representational theories of language and to a variant of their own ‘Hard Problem of Content’. The take-away lesson from Radicalizing Enactivism is that anti-representationalist accounts of language remain unconvincing - even to radicals like Hutto and Myin - because they have no way of explaining the phenomenal experience of literate speakers, wherein words really do feel like instantiations of abstract forms with determinable semantics. I suggest that anti-representationalists can address this by focusing on the ways in which patterns of attention become stabilized and interpersonally regularized as we learn language.

The aim of this dissertation is to study how facework, mitigation and impersonality are configured in the discourse of jurists (judges and lawyers) during trials.
To elaborate this work, we base our study in a corpus of eight trials (two for each jurisdiction in the Spanish legal system). This corpus has been transcribed following the transcription system of the group Val.Es.Co. (2003.) Our corpus contains 4 hours, 7 minutes and 9 seconds of recording (49,227 words), and has been analysed adapting Albelda et al.’s (2014) method to the needs of our genre and the four objectives that guide this research.
The first of these objectives was to specify the characteristics of the communicative situation and the formal register in trials. This goal has been one of the key factors used to identify the contextual parameters of the genre, as well as the attributes of the face (Goffman, 1967 [1970]) of judges and lawyers during their professional performance.
The second objective was to study facework, understood as the sum of enhancing, threatening and neutral activities involving face (Tracy, 2011), in trials. The analysis of our data has led to the conclusion that the enhancement of the face is associated mainly to ritual values. However, it is possible to identify a number of cases where face enhancement is related to strategic purposes. Regarding the cases where the face is threatened, we follow the proposal of Archer (2008), which distinguishes between face threat and impoliteness. Thus, in trials we can properly talk about impoliteness when an action involving a potential damage to the face of a participant is also a transgression of what might be expected from the genre, and from the particular communicative situation in which the trial occurs.
In connection with facework, we pursue a third objective related to the study of attenuation, which is one of the discursive manifestations of facework. In our study, we assume that attenuation must be understood as a pragmatic strategy whose aim is not only related to face protection, but also aims to facilitate negotiation and agreement. Our analysis of the functions of attenuation in trials supports this latter idea: the functions found in our corpus range from the speakers’ concern for the face, in its social dimension (as in the cases of self-correction or mediation between the parties) to a rhetorical-argumentative use where the satisfaction of social needs is not that relevant (this happens, for example, when attenuation is used to bring objectivity to the discourse).
Finally, the fourth objective is to undertake a more thorough study of impersonality in trials, since impersonality is one of the resources that most frequently relates to attenuation in court. According to the data, there is a tendency to use impersonality with an attenuating value when the speaker seeks for self-protection or acceptance. In fewer cases, impersonality is employed as an attenuation device in order to prevent a conflict. We found no cases in the corpus where impersonality serves to the function of redress the negative effects of a threat or a conflict.
In conclusion, this study shows that, with regard to the concept of facework and, more specifically, impoliteness, it must be rethought the equation that has been done so far between ‘face threat’ and ‘impoliteness’. In some genres, such as trials, it can be proven that the relationship between these two types of facework is not equivalent. Regarding attenuation, the study of this pragmatic phenomenon from a genre such as trials, being intrinsically transactional and decidedly argumentative, has highlighted the need to understand attenuation as a pragmatic strategy whose motivation is not always taking care of the face, but which can also reflect the desire of convincing others or preventing a conflict. Lastly, with regard to the mechanisms of attenuation, impersonality has emerged as a resource where the de-focalization of one of the participants in the interaction relates primarily to self-protection or care of the own face.

RESUMEN
Esta tesis trata de determinar la manera en que se configuran las actividades de imagen, la atenuación y la impersonalidad en el discurso de los profesionales del derecho (jueces y abogados) durante el transcurso de los juicios orales.
Para la elaboración de este trabajo, partimos de un corpus de ocho juicios orales (dos por cada jurisdicción presente en el ordenamiento jurídico español) que ha sido transcrito siguiendo el sistema de transcripción del grupo Val.Es.Co. (2003). En total, el corpus suma 4 horas, 7 minutos y 9 segundos de grabación y consta de 49227 palabras. El corpus se ha analizado adaptando la ficha metodológica de Albelda et al. (2014) a las necesidades de nuestro género y los cuatro objetivos que guían esta investigación.
El primero de estos objetivos ha sido precisar las características de la situación comunicativa y el registro formal en los juicios orales. Este objetivo ha sido una de las claves para poder identificar los parámetros contextuales y los atributos de la imagen de jueces y abogados durante su ejercicio profesional.
El segundo objetivo se ha centrado en estudiar las actividades de imagen, entendidas en el sentido de Tracy (2011) como aquellas actividades valorizadoras, amenazantes y neutras por lo que respecta a la imagen (Goffman 1967 [1970]), en los juicios orales. En concreto, el análisis de nuestros datos ha permitido concluir que la valorización de la imagen se relaciona, fundamentalmente, con valores rituales. Con todo, es posible identificar casos donde el refuerzo de la imagen desarrolla propiamente fines estratégicos. En lo que se refiere a la amenaza a la imagen, seguimos la propuesta de Archer (2008), que distingue entre amenaza a la imagen y descortesía. Así, en los juicios orales podremos hablar de descortesía cuando una amenaza a la imagen suponga, además de un potencial daño a la imagen de algún participante, una transgresión de lo esperable en el género y la situación comunicativa concreta.
En relación con las actividades de imagen, se planteó un tercer objetivo relacionado con el estudio de una de sus manifestaciones discursivas, la atenuación. Para nuestro estudio partimos de que la atenuación debe ser entendida como una estrategia pragmática destinada no solo a proteger la imagen sino a facilitar la negociación y el acuerdo. La manera en que se concretan las funciones de la atenuación en nuestro corpus refuerzan esta idea, puesto que van desde una preocupación por la imagen en su dimensión más social (como sucede en los casos de autocorrección o mediación entre las partes) hasta usos retórico-argumentativos donde la imagen se sitúa en un segundo plano (esto sucede, por ejemplo, cuando la atenuación se emplea para la creación de un discurso objetivo).
Finalmente, el cuarto objetivo se ha concretado en estudiar uno de los mecanismos que más frecuentemente se asocia a la atenuación, la impersonalidad, en el contexto de los juicios orales. Los datos muestran una tendencia a emplear la impersonalidad con valor atenuante para proteger al propio hablante y que se acepten sus ideas, y en menor medida, para prevenir un conflicto. No encontramos casos en el corpus donde la impersonalidad se relacionara con la función reparación de la amenaza o el conflicto.
A modo de conclusión, este estudio pone de manifiesto que, por lo que respecta a las actividades de imagen y, más concretamente, a la descortesía, es preciso replantearse la equiparación que se ha hecho hasta ahora entre ‘amenaza a la imagen’ y ‘descortesía’, ya que en géneros como los juicios orales se demuestra que la relación entre estas dos actividades de imagen no es equivalente. En lo que se refiere a la atenuación, partir de un género transaccional y marcadamente argumentativo ha evidenciado la necesidad de entender la atenuación como una estrategia pragmática cuya motivación no siempre parte del cuidado de las imágenes, sino que también puede relacionarse con la voluntad de convencer o prevenir un conflicto. Finalmente, por lo que respecta a los mecanismos de atenuación, la impersonalidad se ha revelado como un recurso donde la ocultación del agente se relaciona, fundamentalmente, con la autoprotección o autoimagen.

... In the late 19th century, things got more complicated. ... Instead it relates to any cohesive social grouping… Small culture is thus more to do with activities taking place within a group than with the nature of the group itself. (Holliday, 1999, p. 240, 250). ...

When researchers think about the interaction between language and emotion, they typically focus on descriptive emotion words. This review demonstrates that emotion can interact with language at many levels of structure, from the sound patterns of a language to its lexicon and grammar, and beyond to how it appears in conversation and discourse. Findings are considered from diverse subfields across the language sciences, including cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and conversation analysis. Taken together, it is clear that emotional expression is finely tuned to language-specific structures. Future emotion research can better exploit cross-linguistic variation to unravel possible universal principles operating between language and emotion.

... the second line, ie 'as this someone wanted', indicates the controlled nature of the effect on thepatient. ... has to be performed with a tool other than a part of the agent's body and that ... This formulation accounts for the fact that (in English) one does not normally speak about cutting ...