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Schriftenreihe
A New International
(2023)
Acknowledgements
(2023)
Kein Abstract verfügbar.
High rates of land conversion due to urbanization are causing fragmented and dispersed spatial patterns in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) worldwide. The occurrence of anthropogenic fires in the WUI represents an important environmental and social issue, threatening not only vegetated areas but also periurban inhabitants, as is the case in many Latin American cities. However, research has not focused on the dynamics of the local climate in the WUI. This study analyzes whether wildfires contribute to the increase in land surface temperature (LST) in the WUI of the metropolitan area of the city of Guanajuato (MACG), a semi-arid Mexican city. We estimated the pre- and post-fire LST for 2018–2021. Spatial clusters of high LST were detected using hot spot analysis and examined using ANOVA and Tukey’s post-hoc statistical tests to assess whether LST is related to the spatial distribution of wildfires during our study period. Our results indicate that the areas where the wildfires occurred, and their surroundings, show higher LST. This has negative implications for the local ecosystem and human population, which lacks adequate infrastructure and services to cope with the effects of rising temperatures. This is the first study assessing the increase in LST caused by wildfires in a WUI zone in Mexico.
This dissertation focuses on selected novels written by contemporary indigenous authors from Aotearoa/New Zealand and examines the fictional imagination of the human body as a medium of cultural identity and memory. The novels discussed are Keri Hulme’s »The Bone People« (1984), »Nights in the Gardens of Spain« (1995) and »The Uncle’s Story« (2000) by Witi Ihimaera as well as James George’s »Hummingbird« (2003). In order to further decolonisation processes and to come to terms with the colonial past and the complexity of present realities, the fictional works position the human body as an active entity in the negotiation of specific cultural epistemologies. This project explores the narrative translation of corporeality that is used to locate alternative concepts of identity and cultural memory. Taking into account indigenous perspectives, this thesis makes use of the current theoretical approaches presented by pragmatism and affect theory in order to analyse the investment of the novels in feeling and the reciprocal relationship between text and corporeality depicted by the narratives. On the one hand, the novels aim to undermine oppressive and marginalising categories by placing particular emphasis on »sensuous gaps« in the text. On the other hand, the narratives intend to construct alternative identities and evoke specific aspects of indigenous histories and knowledge by imagining the human body in terms of »sensuous inscription«. The novels portray individuals who act from a place in-between different cultures, and articulate a desire to dissolve polarities and emphasise individual and cultural transformation as a formative element in the creation of complex identities and new perspectives.
To indicate emphasis, auxiliary do is used in affirmative contexts (do+) when no other auxiliary is present. It is thus rooted in the grammatical system of do‐support; however, do+ does not always bear stress and can fulfil various discourse‐marking functions (Nevalainen & Rissanen, 1986). Positioned at the intersection of grammar and discourse, do+ constitutes an interesting study for its use in ‘non‐native’ varieties of English since it can be assumed that the more salient grammatical functions are easier to master for learners. Focusing on Asian Englishes in contrast to Inner Circle varieties, this exploratory paper assesses the frequency and distribution of do+ in the spoken and written parts of eight ICE components.
Within the relatively new area of research on Third Language (L3) Acquisition, the subfield of phonology is growing, but still relatively understudied. Testing the current L3 models adopted from research on L3 syntax (see Rothman 2010, Bardel & Falk 2012, Flynn et al. 2004), the studies conducted in the area have mostly focused on the source and directionality of language transfer – both into the L3 and into the respective background languages – with some recent excursions into the role of extra-linguistic factors for multilingual learners (e.g., Wrembel 2015). The findings so far (mostly on production, with perception lagging behind) have been very diverse and, depending on the concrete study, can often be taken to give evidence for any of the prevalent models. This can be attributed to the wide range of different speaker and learner biographies as well as their language combinations and state of acquisition, but crucially the dilemma seems to be inherent in the (phonological) system in and of itself since viewing phonological interlanguage transfer as a one-dimensional and immediately transparent process based on direct correspondences between language systems does not seem to capture the complex nature of the phenomenon.
In this doctoral thesis I investigate the acquisition of an additional phonological system by child and adult German heritage speakers of Turkish. Specifically, I explore how the learners deal with diverse phonological contrasts that promote positive contra negative transfer from their HL (Turkish) and their L2 (German), and how their perception and production is modulated by cognitive and affective variables. Moreover, I test contrasts that can be found neither in the HL nor in the L2 phonological system.
The studies will shed light both on the question of how a new language is shaped and affected by different existing systems and on how two or more phonological grammars co-exist and/or interact in a speaker’s mind. I will argue that, rather than being regarded as simple full projection of language-specific property sets onto the target language, phonological transfer in multilinguals needs to be considered as a process of complex interactions and layers that are established on the level of individual phonological properties and abstract (typological) associations.
Hotels are popular settings in European and American literature. They fire readers’ imagination and many of them have a personal relationship to hotels. These institutions are not only alive in the realm of literature but are real existing buildings which have become fixed parts of modern society. Conrad Hilton (1887–1979), founder of the international hotel chain of the same name, was very aware of the glamorous aspects of his field of profession and published his experiences in the autobiography Be My Guest (1957). One copy of the book was placed in each room of the Hilton chain. Due to this Hilton was reaching an enormous audience which inspired other writers to fictionalize Hilton and turn him into a character in their own books. In this paper I will show how Conrad Hilton achieved world-wide fame, partly with the help of his life account. Furthermore, the methods will be explained that he used to present himself as a prototypical American of the Cold War era. I will then focus on two fictional texts, Arthur Hailey’s novel Hotel (1965) and the TV-show Mad Men (2007) by Matthew Weiner, which both incorporated Hilton as a character, yet in very different ways. The aim of this article is to show the potential of celebrity autobiographies to inspire other cultural creations and how authors react very differently to these texts according to their own socio-historical background.
Abstract
Constructing evidence constitutes a practice to establish the speaker's authority at Prime Minister's Question Time (PMQT), a weekly half-hour session in the British House of Commons. Here the verb see constitutes a resource for both the questioning Leader of the Opposition (LO) and Members of Parliament (MP) as well as for the responding Prime Minister (PM) to claim first-hand perceptual experience. This paper takes an integrated approach, offering a combined analysis of the grammatical formatting, semantics and pragmatics of the verb see in the context of evidential moves at PMQT. It shows how the verb see is functional in referring to the perceptual basis of a claim made and how its grammatical formatting is reflective of the contingencies of the local interactional context. The analysis is grounded in 32 sessions of PMQT (ca. 16 hrs of video-recordings). The results can be summarised as follows: 1) The evidential function of the verb is achieved through its context-specific grammatical formatting and semantics. 2) The reference to the perceptual basis of a claim evoked by see may co-occur with epistemic qualification and evaluative expressions. 3) The formatting of the verb may be indexical of the political relationship between the questioner and the responding PM.
Contributors
(2023)
The paper focuses on digital discourse. This is a speech-intellectual product of innovative information technologies, a phenomenon, which needs further interdisciplinary and linguistic interpretation. The English-language digital discourse shows how linguistic verbal communication is mediated by digits and to what extent these Signum and Verbum unity reigns over the world.
The paper analyzes the ways and methods of integrated and differential use of verbal and non-verbal sign systems in the English language as compared to programming languages, considering the types of synchronous changes in the socio-cultural dimension of the sign. This research describes the processes of signs transformation during their functioning in programming languages and in the English language, common and distinctive features in the arrangement of grammatical, lexical-semantic, and graphic means of (natural) English and (artificial) programming languages in their projection on different modes of communication in the system Human ↔ Machine.
Programming languages are constituted by verbal means of the English language with additional use of its own semiotic resources, which testifies to their integrative linguistic and mathematical nature. The specific representation of ElDD conveys its reciprocal nature when the English language using its own tools combines them with the elements of the programming languages thus creating an effective toolkit for self-process
This essay argues that Orwell’s representation of animals as companion species offers a strikingly new, as-yet largely neglected view of animal agency and interiority in his work. In “Shooting an Elephant”, Burmese Days and “Marrakech”, the writer’s focus on the social reject is supplemented by a marked sense of community implying human tragedy yet framing it within precariously situated human-animal, colonial or urban-imperial transitions that visualise animals as agents of change and co-shaping species interdependent with the lives of the humans that utilize and domineer them. Animals are required whenever Orwell aspires to shift from isolation to communality, from the self-conscious outsider to the larger realm of ideas framing the world in which his characters strive to overstep the accepted lines of social performance and conformity. Read in and around disciplinary structures of rationalization, Orwell’s animals appear to secure themselves, quite paradoxically, a place within the normative anthropocentric framework excluding them. They extend beyond anthropomorphising or allegorical modes of description and open up bio-political perspectives within and across regimes of knowledge and empathy. Orwell’s writings thus present a challenge to the culturally accredited fantasy of human exceptionalism, collapsing any epistemic space between humans and animals and burying the idea of sustaining radical species distinction.
Can cultural studies attend to the problems of our globalized world? Or is this project of “engaged scholarship” too deeply rooted in the parochial terrain of the national?
This collection of essays – the first volume in the new JMU Cultural Studies publication series – attends to this vital yet difficult question. Based on joint seminars bringing together emerging scholars from Germany and India, the contributions confront “classic texts” from US-American, British, and Indian cultural studies with the specific concerns and contemporary perspectives of the authors.
The collection thus tests the potentials of the tradition to speak to the transnational as well as the national environments of the very present. Emphasis is placed on Marxist and feminist legacies, which are then projected into the domains of contemporary disability, food, and film studies.
Insights;
(2023)
The cluster of texts assembled here were imagined, crafted, and brought together as a collaborative writing project that emerged from the seminar titled "Words Matter Worlds: Activist Scholarship and Literary Praxis," which convened over the course of the 2021/22 winter semester as an offering of the American Studies department of the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg. Like the seminar that nurtured the considerations that evolve here, these contributions engage with how scholarly writing practices in general, and literary and cultural studies in particular, can remake the world.
Phonetic and phonological variability in the L1 and L2 of late bilinguals: The case of /r/ and /l/
(2021)
A large body of research has shown that a late bilingual’s L1 and L2 phonetic categories influence each other, yielding deviations from monolingual norms in the phonetics of both languages. Existing models of L2 sound acquisition (e.g., the Speech Learning Model; Flege, 1995, 2007) predict unified phonetic spaces which accommodate both L1 and L2 sound categories. Such connections between an L1 and an L2 are believed to lead to persistent non-nativelikeness in the L2, but also to divergence from the monolingual norm in the L1, as shown in numerous studies (e.g., Bergmann et al., 2016). In this dissertation, I focus on the differences in the sound patterns of a bilingual’s languages which do not only emerge in the precise phonetic realizations of L1 sounds but also in language-specific distributional patterns that determine the realization of these sound categories in different phonetic contexts. Previous work in L1 attrition is limited to a small set of phonetic properties (especially VOT, e.g., Flege, 1987), variables beyond L2 transfer which are known to give rise to variable realizations have been neglected. Thus, little is known as to whether bilinguals’ realizations of an L1 sound category in different phonetic contexts (e.g., position within a syllable) are subject to change in L1 attrition, and whether such changes arise due to long-term exposure to different distributional patterns of an equivalent L2 category.
In this dissertation I address these gaps by exploring L1 attrition in the distributional and phonetic characteristics of liquids to shed light on the contribution of the L2 and the role of general phonetic and phonological variables to the processes that drive change in an L1. I investigate changes to phonetic properties and distributional patterns of rhoticity and /l/-allophony in the L1 of American-German late bilinguals, a language constellation which offers an instructive test case to investigate the causes of L1 attrition as well as the source from which changes due to L1 attrition emerge. Furthermore, changes to liquids can also shed light on the processes which drive sound change, gradience and variability due to various positional and phonetic factors (e.g., preceding vowel, syllable structure) in liquids across many native varieties of English. In particular, I explore the variable realization and distributional patterns of two sounds known to be subject to a considerable degree of gradience and variability, namely English /r/ and /l/, in American English-German late bilinguals.
To that end, I present the results of a production study of 12 L2-dominant American English-German late bilinguals as well as a monolingual control group for each language. The speakers performed a variety of production tasks which were aimed to elicit the realization of (non)-rhoticity and /l/-(non-)allophony in both languages of the late bilinguals, English and German which were analyzed auditorily (/r/ only) and acoustically (/r/ and /l/). Although L1 attrition of rhotics and laterals has been investigated previously (e.g., de Leeuw, 2008; Ulbrich & Ordin, 2014), the effect of contextual variables on L1 attrition and whether such variables also shape L1 attrition remains unexplored.
The results of the auditory analyses of postvocalic /r/ revealed that the late bilinguals showed non-convergence with monolingual (non-)rhoticity in both of their languages by vocalizing postvocalic /r/ more frequently in their L1 (English) and failing to entirely suppress rhoticity in their L2 (German) leading up to a higher degree of rhoticity in their L2. While the loss of rhoticity in the bilingual’s English was distributed along a spectrum of contextual constraints (e.g., type of pre-rhotic vowel and morpho-phonological environment) known to affect rhoticity in other English varieties, the non-targetlike productions of non-rhoticity (i.e., non-vocalized postvocalic /r/) in their L2, German, were not sensitive to the same contextual constraints. The acoustic analyses of the bilinguals’ rhotic productions in English and German differed from the monolinguals in the acoustic correlates of rhoticity in pre-rhotic vowels where they showed reduced anticipatory F3-lowering (i.e., less /r/-colored vowels).
I take my results to indicate that the bilinguals operate in two separate phonological grammars which approximate the respective L1 norm but show an increase of variability along constraints already present in each grammar. In contrast, the bilinguals’ phonetic system seem shared between the two grammars. This leads to persistent L1-L2-interactions as the two grammars operate within the same phonetic space. Thus, the changes in L1 attrition are induced but not governed by the L2: Change to the L1 reflects constraints underlying the L1 as well as more general laws of phonetics and universal trajectories of language change.
The lateral results revealed that just like in postvocalic /r/, the bilinguals showed non-convergence with the monolingual norm regarding the velarization of coda /l/ in both their languages. The changes to English laterals were sensitive to their positional context and more substantial for word-initial laterals than word-final laterals. Similarly, their German laterals were non-convergent with the monolinguals in two ways. Firstly, the bilinguals differed with regard to the acoustic specifications of their laterals, and secondly, the bilinguals failed to suppress the lateral allophony from their L1, leading to a non-targetlike allophonic pattern in their L2 laterals.
I interpret the lateral results to lack evidence that the L1 allophonic rule was affected by the presence of an L2; nevertheless, L1 change emerged in the phonetic specifications of laterals. Furthermore, the bilinguals did not establish a nativelike allophonic pattern in their L2, leading to non-convergence in the allophonic distribution as well as the phonetic realization of German laterals.
In this way, this dissertation provides evidence for L1 attrition in the distributional and the phonetic properties of liquids in the L1 of late bilinguals. In particular, the study presented in this dissertation provides evidence that L1 attrition is induced by the presence of a similar sound pattern in the L2. The pathway of attrition follows constraints not only underlyingly present in the L1 but also part of the universal laws of phonetics known to shape sound change. To explain these results, I draw from existing constraint grammars in phonological theory (such as Optimality Theory and Harmonic Grammar) to develop my Dynamic Constraints approach which allows the effects of external variables (e.g., L2 acquisition and its effect on the mind), and internal variables such as an increased likelihood of variability due to articulatory differences can be modeled using scaling factors which can interact with each other, the noise within the grammars, and the constraint weight itself. In this way, the model links previous findings on L1 attrition and its connections to diachronic and synchronic variability, offering insights into the links between the individual languages in a bilingual’s mind.
Studies in Modern English
(2022)
The book "Studies in Modern English" interprets English-language communication in the humanitarian paradigm of knowledge within the linguistic and psycho-sociocultural study of speech activity prioritizing cognitive and communicative paradigms. Digital discourse as the formation of new semiotic phenomena has crowned the rapid scientific and technological progress. Researchers' scientific achievements represented in the book are systemic and valid in terms of evidence-based narratives, which reflect the transformational horizon of information theory, communication theory, and theory of linguodidactics in modern English verbal, creative and digital environments. The book represents an integrated approach to the study of modern English as an open synergetic system, which requires a description of the relationship between verbal and nonverbal notions in digital space. The book integrates such innovative perspectives as the interaction of natural English and programming languages, cyber aggression as a communicative pattern in English-language digital discourse, ethics, and democratization of modern English language, relevant developments in the field of English language as a Foreign Language, and other related issues. A complex focus of the book in the realm of modern English-language communication concerns verbal and nonverbal notions analyzed in the context of socio-cultural and digital communicative spaces.
TERRAINS OF CONSCIOUSNESS emerges from an Indian-German-Swiss research collaboration. The book makes a case for a phenomenology of globalization that pays attention to locally situated socioeconomic terrains, everyday practices, and cultures of knowledge. This is exemplified in relation to three topics:
- the tension between ‘terrain’ and ‘territory’ in Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’ as a pioneering work of the globalist mentality (chapter 1)
- the relationship between established conceptions of feminism and the concrete struggles of women in India since the 19th century (chapter 2)
- the exploration of urban space and urban life in writings on India’s capital – from Ahmed Ali to Arundhati Roy (chapter 3).
Texts, Animals, Environments. Zoopoetics and Ecopoetics probes the multiple links between ecocriticism and animal studies, assessing the relations between animals, environments and poetics. While ecocriticism usually relies on a relational approach to explore phenomena related to the environment or ecology more broadly, animal studies tends to examine individual or species-specific aspects. As a consequence, ecocriticism concentrates on ecopoetical, animal studies on zoopoetical elements and modes of representation in literature (and the arts more generally). Bringing key concepts of ecocriticism and animal studies into dialogue, the volume explores new ways of thinking about and reading texts, animals, and environments – not as separate entities but as part of the same collective.
This paper intends to trace the introduction of an English-induced, COVID-related neologism, covidiota, into the Spanish language. The study is based on a corpus of tweets, starting in March 2020. It examines several specific features which mark the word as a new, unfamiliar item, such as different ways of graphical highlighting, for example. On the other hand, the paper aims to detect possible indicators of an integration of covidiota into the Spanish language use in the tweet corpus compiled for this case study.
The fastest growing regional crisis is happening in West Africa today, with over 8 million people considered persons of concern. A culmination of identity politics, climate-driven disasters, and extreme poverty has led to this humanitarian crisis in the region and is exacerbated by a lack of political will and misplaced media attention. The current state of the art does not present sufficient investigations of the thematic and spatial coverage of news media of this crisis in this region. This paper studies the spatial coverage of this crisis as reported in the media, and the themes associated with those locations, based on a curated dataset. For the time frame 12 March to 15 September 2021, 2017 news articles related to the refugee crisis in West Africa were examined and manually coded based on (1) the geographical locations mentioned in each article; (2) the themes found in the articles in reference to a location (e.g., Relocation of people in Abuja). The dataset introduces a thematic dimension, as never achieved before, to the conflict-ridden areas in West Africa. A comparative analysis with UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) data showed that 96.8% of refugee-related locations in West Africa were not covered by news during the considered time frame. Contrastingly, 80.4% of locations mentioned in the news do not appear in the UNHCR repository. Most news articles published during this time frame reported on Development aid or Political statements. Linear multiple regression analysis showed GDP per capita and political stability to be among the most influential determinants of news coverage.
Work is seen by many thinkers as the fundamental dimension of man`s existence on earth. Through work, he provides his basic necessities on earth and co-operate with God in the work of creation.
He received this mandate to work from the very beginning of creation by God. In carrying out this mandate, man every human being reflects the very action of the creator of the Universe.
God worked and intended that man who is created in His image and likeness continues the work of creation by working.
Even though Man suffers and sweats through work and yet, in spite of all this toil-perhaps in a sense because of it – work is a good thing for man. It is not only good in the sense that it is useful or something to enjoy; it is also good as being something worthy, that is to say something that corresponds to man's dignity that expresses this dignity and increases it.
This project examines man as a creature called to work and born into work. It is true that through work, man provides himself and his family with the basic necessities of life and everyday needs for the reason he charges wages for his sweat. Work goes beyond and should exceed the boundaries of the material benefit that comes out of it to the satisfaction and fulfilment for the very purpose we should work. The modern society has attached so much importance to money and material possession, the question then is how do we go along working in the spirit of improvement and renewal of the earth? The modern man understands work only as a means of making his daily bread. For this reason, he engages himself in an occupation that he has little or no interest in. He ends up quarrelling everyday with the people that he or she is supposed to serve through work. The result is low work output and waste of talents and the society loses an opportunity for improvement as every creature is supposed to contribute uniquely.
A good example is Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with a population estimate of about over 170,000,000 people and the sixth Oil producing Nation.