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Despite some critical voices, in German linguistics the concept of confix can meanwhile be considered as an established morpheme category. Schmidt (1987) introduced the term into German to describe bound morphemes that are lexical, but not inflectable. Since the 2000s, an increasing number of publications deal with the phenomenon and the term has begun to enter linguistic reference works as well. In French, the situation is completely different due to the structure of the language (poor in compounds and mostly post-determinative). Although the term and the concept have originall y been coined by the French structuralist André Martinet ([1961] \(^3\)1980 ), the denomination itself is barely present in Romance linguistics. French researchers usually take different approaches to discuss the phenomenon (e.g., neoclassical compounds, constructed lexemes). In Italian, the denominations confisso/ confissazione are first used by De Mauro (1999), who adopts both the term and concept directly from Martinet; moreover, they can be found in some contributions on word formation and lexicology (e.g., Adamo/Della Valle 2008). Nevertheless, the Italian termino-logy remains heterogeneous, with some researchers still using the terms prefissoide/suffissoide coined by Migliorini (1963). As I will show by comparing the languages in question, the terminology and the concept of confixes vary greatly between Romance and Germanic languages.
The nameless protagonist of the postmodern novel Monsieur, written by Belgian author Jean-Philippe Toussaint, can be described as a rather strange man. He lacks ambition, a drive for action and seems to be unfit for daily life. He constantly fails to accomplish his predestined role as a real man, as for instance to pay the bill for dinner when dating a woman. The scope of the present paper is to analyse, on the one hand, how this novel deconstructs hegemonial concepts of masculinity but, on the other hand, is in itself also a parody of the latter.
The aim of this article is to document the outcomes of language contact between Yucatecan Maya and Mexican Spanish. In order to do so, two theories are applied to newly assembled data, gathered during a field study in 2019 in YucaThe aim of this article is to document the outcomes of language contact between Yucatecan Maya and Mexican Spanish. In order to do so, two theories are applied to newly assembled data, gathered during a field study in 2019 in Yucatán: The Interface Hypothesis (Sorace 2011) and Heine/Kuteva’s contact-induced grammaticalization (2003). The village Xocén in which the field study was conducted is characterized by monolingualism in Maya as well as bilingualism in Spanish and Maya. Data was collected to investigate the influence of Spanish on Mayan morphology, especially on the use of the subjunctive. I propose that the data can best be explained by combining the Interface Hypothesis with Heine/Kutevas’s (2003) approach.tán: The Interface Hypothesis (Sorace 2011) and Heine/Kuteva’s cThe aim of this article is to document the outcomes of language contact between Yucatecan Maya and Mexican Spanish. In order to do so, two theories are applied to newly assembled data, gathered during a field study in 2019 in Yucatán: The Interface Hypothesis (Sorace 2011) and Heine/Kuteva’s contact-induced grammaticalization (2003). The village Xocén in which the field study was conducted is characterized by monolingualism in Maya as well as bilingualism in Spanish and Maya. Data was collected to investigate the influence of Spanish on Mayan morphology, especially on the use of the subjunctive. I propose that the data can best be explained by combining the Interface Hypothesis with Heine/Kutevas’s (2003) approach.ontact-induced grammaticalization (2003). The village Xocén in which the field study was conducted is characterized by monolingualism in Maya as well as bilingualism in Spanish and Maya. Data was collected to investigate the influence of Spanish on Mayan morphology, especially on the use of the subjunctive. I propose that the data can best be explained by combining the Interface Hypothesis with Heine/Kutevas’s (2003) approach.
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.
Mittelalter erschließen
(2021)
Research communication has been gaining public attention in recent years. Therefore, medievalists also need to focus on the transfer of their research topics to the public both within and outside the university. Based on current political demands calling for a change in communication culture, the article first of all deals theoretically with two different concepts of research communication, by distinguishing between forms of translation and those of popularization. Numerous public events, exhibitions, and cooperative projects with cities, schools, adult education centres, museums, and other educational institutions show that knowledge about the Middle Ages has been trans-mitted to interested laypersons for a long time. The authors see a particular challenge in the alterity of medieval culture, which at the same time provides an excellent opportunity for transferring research findings into society. The fascination with medieval materiality facilitates the transfer of knowledge by those disciplines that work with concrete objects, addressing issues of visuality and aesthetic experience. The article pinpoints conditions, strategies, and perspectives of successful research communication in medieval studies, and when focussing on cur-rent topics, the authors refer to concrete occasions and regional examples, showing why medieval research is still relevant today.
Acknowledgements
(2023)
A New International
(2023)
Contributors
(2023)
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.
Die Zeitschrift promptus – Würzburger Beiträge zur Romanistik erscheint einmal jährlich und wird durch den gemeinnützigen Verein promptus e.V. herausgegeben.
Sie richtet sich an alle Nachwuchswissenschaftler im Bereich der romanistischen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft sowie der Fachdidaktik und bietet diesen die Möglichkeit, in einem frühen Stadium ihrer akademischen Laufbahn qualitativ hochwertige Arbeiten zu publizieren. Zudem versteht sich die Zeitschrift als Impulsgeber für junge romanistische Forschung, ohne sich dabei thematisch zu beschränken.
The article deals with the educational comics of the Mozambican artist Sérgio Zimba, especially in the context of the current pandemic situation caused by Covid-19. First, comics from and comic research on Africa will be presented, especially in their repercussion within the German-language comics landscape. This will be followed by a discussion of the special situation in lusophone Africa, exemplified and illustrated by the works of the Mozambican cartoonist Sérgio Zimba. The article closes with a brief comparison of Zimba’s work with the cartoons of Sérgio Piçarra from Angola, to better classify the artist's work.
The arrival of the Spanish in present-day Oaxaca, Mexico, led to manifold communicative challenges and was the origin of the first written documents in the local indigenous languages. This paper focuses on Spanish-Zapotec translations produced by Christian missionaries during the colonial period. In this context, it aims to investigate the expression of the concept of soul in their catechisms and confesionarios by analyzing chronologically how different authors apply the Spanish synonyms alma and ánima. On the one hand, we can observe some similar tendencies in central Mexican documents for the early colonial period so that we can assume that the corpus was influenced by Nahuatl translations. On the other hand, there is an independent development in Spanish-Zapotec translations not only regarding the target text but also the source text.
This article aims to trace the development of different verb forms that express future tense of Old Portuguese from the 13th to the 15th century by analyzing a historical text corpus. During this period, Portuguese future tense could be expressed through one synthetical as well as two analytical morphological verb constructions. Adapting an analytic model formerly employed by the Mexican researcher Concepción Company Company for an investigation of similar future tense forms in Old Spanish, this article seeks to point out that the use of the different verb forms in Portuguese followed distinct functions regarding aspects of both information structure as well as modality.
According to the Senegalesian scholar Felwine Sarr who conceives an African utopia in his programmatic essay Afrotopia (2016), this Afrotopos has already germinated in contemporary African literature. However, it still needs to be enquired to what extent the narrated topos of the street in Sarr’s own anthology 105 Rue Carnot (2011) has already realized the Afrotopos. In order to respond to this question, we would like to mobilise Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, which elaborates on the interactions between truth production/knowledge, power and space, and permits us to conceive of «les lieux utopiques» (Foucault 2005: 40) as actually locatable on the map and real other places outside of all places (cf. Foucault 1994: 755). Thus, in the street, a different relationship between global North and South is founded, which becomes legible as an African «utopie localisée» (Foucault 2005: 41) that Sarr calls for in Afrotopia (2016).
The encounter with non-human animals has always been a major preoccupation in the (philosophical) quest of understanding the human (condition). Of course, they are not only present in literary texts, but also in other media such as music and art. We consider ourselves aware of their selves, natures and skills as well as their sensory perceptions. Indeed, the ways we interact with non-human animals in everyday life and in the fictional world, how we perceive, think and talk about them as well as how we communicate with them are often related to our own self-perceptions in the social collective and in social-historical discourse. If we take a closer look at literary interspecies relations, we can detect clear shades in language and communication. Based on the approaches of Human-Animal Studies, this article deals with those nuances regarding animal-human encounters in Juan Ramón Jiménez’ Platero y yo (1914/1917) and Thomas Mann's Herr und Hund (1919) in a comparative perspective. In addition to this, a special focus is placed on the effect these elements can have on (inter)acting literary subjects as well as on extra-textual recipients.
This paper deals with the origin of the hundred-year old theory of tierras bajas and tierras altas, focusing on the description of vowel weakening within that theory developed in 1921 by Henríquez Ureña. I argue that the early conception of vowel weakening and its dialectal distribution has strongly influenced the kind of research we have been conducting about this phonetic feature to this day. The aim of this study therefore, is to sharpen our understanding of the former zeitgeist of research and to stimulate further big data-based studies on vowel weakening overcoming the traditional dialectal division of tierras bajas and tierras altas.
This article will examine the cinematic approach to the trauma of the Falklands/Malvinas War in Lola Ariasʼ film Teatro de Guerra (AR/ES, 2018). The armed conflict between Ar-gentina and Great Britain in 1982 can be understood as a traumatic liminal experience, whose artistic reception pushes conventional aesthetics to their limits and calls for innova-tive representational strategies. Based on a cultural studies approach to the Falklands/Mal-vinas War as a collective trauma, this contribution will highlight selected moments of aes-thetic border crossing in Teatro de Guerra, by which the film succeeds in transcending boundaries between former enemies of the war.
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.
Climate
Changes
Global Perspectives
brings together creative approaches to representing environmental crises in a globalized world, which originated in an eponymous symposium hosted virtually by the University of Würzburg in August of 2021. This volume, and the unruly texts that claim space here, are written not only to question and challenge standardized patterns of representation, but also to contribute to undisciplining the genres and practices of traditional academic writing by exploring alternative representational form(at)s.
Climate Changes Global Perspectives is the first publication in the Challenges of Modernity series, which seeks to collect and make available projects of engaged scholarship in the humanities.
The article deals with the notion of internet aggression (cyber aggression). It considers the mentioned term from both psychological and communicative approaches. The paper also provides detailed analyses of the cyber aggression in political discourse. The provided ex-amples are taken from the speeches of politicians during the time of Covid pandemic. The author also identifies several types of cyber aggression.
English language is being taught as a second foreign language in India. For most of the learners in India, English still a foreign language or target language. The study of this language is important to fulfill different kinds of academic and professional requirements. Still, there is a big gulf between demand and supply for which the failure of the system is largely responsible as its main emphasis on to adherence to the foreign curriculum. The government tries to impose this curriculum on English teachers, but, in fact, the curriculum is outdated.
This research paper concentrates on the analysis of the aphoristic potential of G. W. Bush’s presidential rhetoric. Aphorisms are the most ancient laconic forms of expressing original and completed thoughts which reveal the peculiarity of their authors’ world perception and worldview. From this perspective, these units can serve as the means of values codification. Repeatability and widespread use of aphorisms in various communications contribute to transmitting the values and ideas between the generations.
Political aphorisms, which are a combination of aphoristic expressions from political communication and discourse, play an important role in this process. The authors of these expressions are not only politicians, but also philosophers, historians, writers, celebrities of different nationalities and generations. Presidential rhetoric is an integral and significant part of political discourse.
The use of aphorisms as the means of codification of national and common human values in President G. W. Bush’s formal addresses and speeches is intentional. It makes them concise and original, influential and convincing. Aphoristic expressions denoting common human values show the ideas and beliefs of their authors, as well as the politician, about life, justice, equality, freedom, faith, family. Aphorisms defining national values become the means of updating concepts of democracy, unity and diversity, freedom and security, success, and opportunity to fulfill one’s potential in American society. The distinctive feature of G.W. Bush’s rhetoric is the frequent use of aphorisms whose authors are the Founding Fathers.
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
In the present chapter, an attempt has been made to discuss the need to create Zambian English to address English language variations in Zambia. No language in the world can remain the same after interacting with other languages. The present chapter intends to propose and support the idea of using ‘Zambian English’ for both formal and informal business. Such a measure would create the communicative competence that the majority of the Zambians have always longed for. In Zambia, the purpose of using English language office is to deliberate day to day’s business. On the contrary, this has been found to be an obstacle to those who lack principles of command in the language usage, but are able to construct sentences for communicative purposes yet are deprived in international interactions. The views expressed in this chapter are those of the language experts who were engaged in a conversation with regard to the possibility of creating what would be known as Zambian English (ZamEnglish).
The paper analyses specific characteristics of language that influence the development of culture and societies. The problem of the connection between language and culture has occupied the minds of many famous scientists: some believe that language is a part of the culture as a whole; others think that language is only a form of cultural expression. Undoubtedly, language constitutes a vital component of the cultural background underlying social development. Language is an essential means of communication and interaction. However, language is at the same time sovereign about culture as a whole and can be separate from culture or compared to culture as an equal element (i.e., that language is neither a form nor a component of culture).
To reopen educational institutions and return to the classroom, we all need to modify how we act to successfully face the challenges of the new normal resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and entailing our insights into and the after-effects of the pandemic. More specifically, the new normal might encompass online education we are getting used to during the pandemic and the age-old onsite education as well. Thoughtfully integrated, online and onsite learning combine to create blended learning. However, the pertinent literature reveals that English as a foreign language (EFL) students and teachers differently perceive and react to blended learning in diverse contexts. This study was designed to explore student and teacher perceptions of and reactions to blended learning in the Department of English, Jahangirnagar University in the new normal. Fifty undergraduates of EFL and eight teachers of the department participated in the study. To collect data from them, the Student Questionnaire and the Teacher Questionnaire were used. And the data were processed by applying the SPSS programme module. The findings revealed that the majority of the students and the teachers had mostly positive perceptions of blended learning, although the former did not have sufficient exposure to online learning and the latter lacked adequate insights into online teaching. Further, both the students and the teachers expressed mostly positive reactions to blended learning in the new normal, though the former deemed online examinations inadequately smooth and reliable, and the latter had insufficient experience of online instruction and assessment. The study categorically recommends reforming the curriculum, adopting relevant instructional strategies, developing suitable materials, customizing the assessment, integrating and installing technology, training the teachers, upskilling the students for blended learning, improving the infrastructure, and adjusting the management.
A Case Study of the Basic Learners’ Struggles in Guessing from Context to Retain Words Learned
(2022)
Guessing meaning from context is a challenging strategy for Second Language Learners (SLLs). In using the strategy, research found that poor students or low proficiency learners struggled in their attempts to use it. Mainly, it was reported that it was due to their vocabulary knowledge was limited. In another aspect, retaining vocabulary learnt is also important. Such is essential since learning vocabulary does not mean knowing the definition only. Yet, learners must also be able to use the vocabulary as they engage in language skills such as reading, writing, speaking and listening. The study aims at finding the hindrances faced among poor students’ using contextual clues in retaining vocabulary. The study employed a case study to collect data from two basic students studying at a tertiary level. The study found that their hindrances in guessing meaning contexts were due to their being confused in guessing meaning when reading a sentence. Also, it was found that they were not able to find clues since they lacked vocabulary to guess correctly. The study implied that guessing meaning from context required sizeable vocabulary knowledge. Therefore, more training is necessary to assist basic learners in being successful in guessing from contexts.
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.
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.
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).
This paper analyzes the mental development of the main character Salvador in the Spanish movie Los girasoles ciegos (2008) by José Luis Cuerda, based on the camera perspective and focalization, as well as the three-instance model according to Sigmund Freud. For this purpose, screen captures from the movie are examined to see how Salvador’s loss of control is pictured. This is applied to Freud’s three-instance model to prove the takeover of the Id. Throughout the whole movie, the inner conflict between his Ego and Id, i.e. his life as a deacon versus his life as a soldier, is present. The whole process of the breakdown of his mental state is revealed through the camera perspective and visual focalization.
The present article aims to examine images of the Mediterranean Sea in Jean-Daniel Pollet’s essay film Méditerranée (1963), with a particular focus on its representation as a multifaceted space of cultural memory. After some preliminary observations on the relation between the essay film as a genre and images of the Mediterranean, I shall, on the one hand, have a look at the semantic processes through which the film builds up a recognizable image of the Great Sea. On the other hand, however, I will argue that, at the same time, Méditerranée calls this signifying process into question by representing the sea as a space of cultural memory understood as a space of becoming and of deferral of meaning.
To this day, Lorca’s most popular plays, the Trilogía dramática de la tierra española, are considered to be among the most widely read texts of twentieth century Spanish literature. By combining elements from Antiquity with classic and modern features of Spanish theatre and placing them in new functional contexts, the author succeeds in creating an innovative theatre of sociocritical nature in times of political repression. This article analyses several of these innovations and aims to demonstrate the influence Lorca’s Tragedias rurales still have on today’s literature and culture. Simon Stone’s play Yerma (2017) and the Netflix series Las Chicas del Cable (2017-2020) are approached here with this purpose.
This article deals with discursive and argumentative strategies used by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to bring science in discredit during the 2020’s COVID-19-pandemic. Based on official statements and Tweets launched over the crisis the Discourse-Historical Approach is applied to make strategies brought into play by Bolsonaro visible. While the President declares scientific advice such as distancing and quarantine as ineffective, he recommends the use of hydroxychloroquine as well as old fashioned prayers for staying safe and healthy. He evokes that there are «fake news» and «partners of paralysis», to which he responds by demasking and bringing the one and only truth towards «the people». The analysis points out that Bolsonaro is downplaying the virus and the risk of transmission and puts the economy ahead of health. His supporters as a consequence tend to ignore the
WHO recommendations how to behave during the pandemic.
The present article examines the narrative modes in which Lebanese author Amin Maalouf investigates his roots in Origines a hybrid work which stands in contrast with his previous essays and fictions as to its (auto)biographical dimension. Resembling what Dominique Viart and Bruno Vercier in their analysis of predominant themes and narrative strategies in contemporary French literature name «récit de filiation», Maalouf’s quest for his familial past explores the concept of intergenerational transmission of memory. However, despite this individual postmemorial approach, Maalouf’s intimate writing is intrinsically linked with the complex history of the Ottoman Empire and therefore with collective narratives of war, diasporic identities, and migration relating to the present time or the recent past.
France, Italy, and Spain are three Romance-speaking countries which – at least in Europe – have been affected to a very high degree by the consequences of the Corona pandemic. This paper examines discursive strategies on social media (Twitter and Facebook) by the three heads of government/state of the aforementioned countries – namely Emmanuel Macron (France), Giuseppe Conte (Italy), and Pedro Sánchez (Spain)- from a corpuslinguistic point of view. For this purpose, a corpus was created which contains all Twitter and Facebook messages posted by these heads of government/state from the beginning of February until the end of April 2020. By applying corpus-linguistic methods we find that all three politicians consciously use social media to sensitize, inform, and – in view of a dramatic pandemic situation – unite their respective populations behind them.
With her famous suggestion to «give her [the woman] a room of her own and five hundred a year, let her speak her mind» from 1929, Virginia Woolf verbalized a core issue of female
writing by hinting at the socioeconomic circumstances and domestic obligations of most women – valid at her times, but still today. Both Elena Ferrante and Annie Ernaux discuss, in their respective novels, the topics of being women in the particular sociocultural landscape (in Italy and, respectively, in France) after World War II and up to these days, the themes of marriage and motherhood, employment and especially (female) authorship. This article aims to show in a close reading of both Ferrante and Ernaux that the two writers play with the literary form of the (auto-)biography on a diegetic, but also extradiegetic level, while formulating at the same time a collective work that embraces the experience of womanhood but circumvents the hazard of a merely subjective and sensitive writing, as female writing has sometimes been claimed to be.
This article examines so-called colonial discourses in Belgium on the former Sub-Saharan colony owned by the Belgian King, Leopold II., which today is known as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) or the Congo-Kinshasa. After having introduced the colonial history of the DR Congo from the 15th century until 1910, an empirical analysis of the colonial discourses in Belgium from the 1890s until today will be illustrated in conjunction with Belgium’s linguistic-cultural division and the age-related divergence. Belgian colonial discourse is characterized by a historical misrepresentation by the political authorities while especially social forces have pled for a critical examination of their own colonial history in Belgium since the year 2000.
Die Zeitschrift promptus – Würzburger Beiträge zur Romanistik erscheint einmal jährlich und wird durch den gemeinnützigen Verein promptus e.V. herausgegeben.
Sie richtet sich an alle Nachwuchswissenschaftler im Bereich der romanistischen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft sowie der Fachdidaktik und bietet diesen die Möglichkeit, in einem frühen Stadium ihrer akademischen Laufbahn qualitativ hochwertige Arbeiten zu publizieren. Zudem versteht sich die Zeitschrift als Impulsgeber für junge romanistische Forschung, ohne sich dabei thematisch zu beschränken.
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.
Einführung / Martha Kleinhans
„Io Caterina, scrivo a voi“: le lettere di un’instancabile comunicatrice di fine Trecento / Maria Chiara Levorato
Flammende Liebe und fragmentarischer Selbstentwurf: Maria Savorgnans Briefe an Pietro Bembo / Martha Kleinhans
Per una tipologia della scrittura epistolare femminile nel Rinascimento / Veronica Andreani
La lettera tra sincerità e simulazione: l’esempio di Le nozze di Figaro di Mozart e Da Ponte / Tanja Schwan
Sperimentazioni avanguardistiche tra desiderio, follia e delusione – le lettere d’amore di Grazia Deledda e Sibilla Aleramo / Eva-Tabea Meineke und Stephanie Neu-Wendel
La lettera informale come risorsa per l’insegnamento: alcune proposte / Marinella Vannini
Geschwister auf Distanz: transkulturelle und didaktische Perspektiven auf den E-Mail-Roman Caro Hamid, fratello lontano von Anna Russo / Julia Görtz
No abstract available.
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.
This article exemplifies Gunter Grimm’s concept of productive reception by analyzing César Fernández García’s young adult novel La última bruja de Trasmoz (2009) and the episode Tiempo de hechizos (2017) of the TV series El ministerio del tiempo as two modern works which artistically and creatively deal with Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer’s Cartas desde mi celda (1864). The study is based on the core assumption that the choice of genre greatly influences the treatment of motives such as the perception of nature and the idea of dreams, as well as the image of the witch. While Bécquer’s letters, which focus on the rural people’s superstition, present the witch of Aragonese folklore, the modern examples portray two of her fantastic counterparts: the novel depicts its magical protagonist as an evil supernatural being, whereas the TV episode of the science fiction series shows the witch as a time traveller and a victim.
When it comes to linguistic norms in France, one standard will be immediately evoked – le bon usage. This version of traditional French is taught at school and has been serving as a model ever since the French Revolution. Yet – and maybe as a counter-reaction to such strict and prescriptive norm – there exists a multitude of alternative forms, especially with regard to the lexis, which are marked by different registers or styles. Thus, the French language is characterized by lexical doublets in the transition area between standard and familier. A varied terminology in the description of styles in dictionaries as well as a stigmatisation of the nonstandard lead to speaker insecurities and to a general devaluation of the parallel vocabulary. What are the consequences of this in speech behaviour? Is there a remarkable difference between speech behaviour and prescriptive norm? Do speakers show any sign of linguistic insecurity when using nonstandard structures? The research issue will be addressed by means of a qualitative analysis of videoblogs from French YouTubers.
This article is dedicated to the analysis of the body, which is staged as sick and painful. El último cuerpo de Úrsula by Peruvian author Patricia de Souza is characterized by the connection between body, pain perception and eroticism. Illness and paralysis play a fundamental role in the narrative because they cause the recomposition of the ego, which leads the protagonist, Úrsula Res, to perceive and reflect the fragmentation of her identity and the increasing distance from her body. Through approaches to pain and disability, the expressiveness of the narrativized eroticism of this text, based on an obedient relationship to the body, is revealed.
This article focuses on selected Latin American female rap artists (Anita Tijoux, Rebeca Lane, and the duo Krudas Cubensi), and the way they perform feminism, autobiography and testimony through their lyrics and performances. The analysis concentrates on the synergies between the texts themselves, the official music videos shared on YouTube and the background music. It aims to demonstrate that only such a synergistic approach to rap allows a profound understanding of its particularities and its contributions to feminist discourses and spaces for feminist testimony in the current rise of both right-wing politics and feminist movements on the continent.
This article explores the construction of Catalan masculinity and Catalan identity in literature on the Spanish-Moroccan War of 1859/60. During the war, an immense amount of patriotic literature in Catalan language was published in Catalonia, in which the authors glorified the deeds of the Catalan general Joan Prim i Prats and of the Catalan volunteers who fought in the war. The article aims to illustrate, on the basis of the analysis of poems, theatre plays, patriotic songs, reports and chronicles written by Catalan authors, the importance of the First Spanish-Moroccan War for the development of Catalan identity. It attempts as well to demonstrate that the authors used the literature about the war to diffuse a specific Catalan ideal of masculinity and to stylize General Prim and the volunteers into national heroes, who embodied the strength of the Catalan cultural nation, since the Catalan community needed new idols after a long time of political and cultural decline caused by the centralist policies of the Spanish state. The Catalan ideal of masculinity was utilized to differentiate the Catalans from the other Spaniards whose masculinity was considered to be in decadence by the other European nations.
This contribution deals with the phonetic heterogeneity of spoken Spanish in Andalusia in the sector of public auditory media, specifically in the program ¡Anda Levanta! of Canal Fiesta Radio. First, we take into consideration Article 10 of the Statute of the Autonomy of Andalusia, which enhances the protection, promotion, study, and prestige of the Andalusian modalities and its respective variety (cf. Parlamento de Andalucía 2007: 13). Second, we refer to the Libro de Estilo, a mandatory guide for presenters of public audiovisual media in Andalusia since 2014. The results of the qualitative analysis indicate divergences between the presenters and their audience with regard to their use of phonetic characteristics typical of the Andalusian varieties: where the presenters tend to avoid the salient aspects of the varieties, the audience employs a range of phonetic characteristics typical for Andalusian varieties, including some of the characteristics that are considered less prestigious.
Investigations focusing on the social criticism in La Regenta (1884-1885) by Leopoldo Alas «Clarín» have constantly referred to the unmasking of society’s hypocrisy and provincialism through the implementation of satire and irony in the novel. This observation, though, has to be defined more clearly. Vetustan society, specifically the bourgeoisie, is characterized primarily by the incessant exhibition of supposed wisdom and intelligentsia in public to generate social prestige and power. By analyzing the narrative strategies which are related to the composition of the secondary characters, the role of two specific public venues (Casino and Theatre of Vetusta) and the (de)construction of P. Ronzal, P. Guimarán and S. Bermúdez in the novel, this article illustrates how false wisdom and pseudo-intelligentsia become central motifs regarding social criticism in La Regenta.
Die Zeitschrift promptus – Würzburger Beiträge zur Romanistik richtet sich an alle NachwuchswissenschaftlerInnen im Bereich der romanistischen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft sowie der Fachdidaktik. Das Ziel der Zeitschrift ist die Förderung der romanistischen Forschung im Allgemeinen und des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses der Romanistik im Besonderen. Sie versteht sich damit als Impulsgeber für junge romanistische Forschung, ohne sich dabei thematisch zu beschränken.
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.
This paper deals with the interrelation between the concept of linguistic insecurity described by Labov (1966) and the irregular formation of Spanish superlatives based on Latin roots such as paupérrimo, celebérrimo etc. instead of the analogue formation pobrísimo or celebrísimo. After a brief overview on the frequency of these forms and their alleged regular equivalents in Spanish corpora, a closer look is taken on the speakers’ internal and external aspects of linguistic (in)security. Finally, it is shown by an acceptability test that there are forms on -érrim*, which are not exclusively restricted to the norma culta in Spanish.
Kein Abstract verfügbar.
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.
AbstractUne tradition grammaticale largement répandue distingue trois types de relations entre propositions, donc trois types de phrases complexes: les propositions juxtaposées, les propositions coordonnées et les phrases hypotaxiques. Riegel et al. (2009) ajoutent en outre les phrases avec incise ou incidente comme quatrième type. Les grammaires et traités décrivent les différentes sortes de coordination (copulative, disjonctive, adversative, causale et consécutive) et de subordination (complétive, relative et circonstancielle). Pourtant, jusqu’à présent il n’existe pas, à ce qu’il semble, de description plus détaillée, ni des divers degrés de l’hypotaxe et de la parataxe d’une part, ni des différentes combinaisons de structures hypotaxiques et parataxiques d’autre part. Le but de cet article est donc de proposer une typologie plus complète des phrases complexes sur la base d’un petit corpus de référence. Cette typologie distinguera, d’un côté, divers degrés de phrases parataxiques homogènes et de phrases parataxiques hétérogènes et, de l’autre côté, des phrases hypotaxiques simples et des phrases hypotaxiques multiples.
Arrogante und nüchterne Briten, ein Bundespräsident, der nicht deutsch sein kann, da er den Briten sympathisch ist oder militante Deutsche, die gemocht werden wollen - so schreiben die überregionalen britischen und westdeutschen Tageszeitungen während einer der brisantesten Krisen des Kalten Krieges übereinander. Die zweite Berlin-Krise (1958 bis 62) repräsentiert dabei eine schicksalhafte Zeit sowohl für die Bundesrepublik als auch für das Vereinigte Königreich. Themen wie die Suche nach einer gemeinsamen westlichen Strategie als Antwort auf sowjetische Ultimaten und die Teilung Deutschlands, die ambivalente britische Außenpolitik gegenüber Berlin, die deutsch-französischen Annäherungen und die Einbindung des Vereinigten Königreiches in die kontinentaleuropäische Wirtschaft dominieren die Pressediskurse beider Nationen.
Diese Studie untersucht die diskursiven Mittel, mit denen die überregionale Presse außenpolitische Ereignisse in den eigenen nationalen Referenzrahmen integriert, und welche Rolle dabei textuelle Stereotype und Charakterisierungen spielen. Mithilfe der Methode der Kritischen Diskursanalyse will diese Arbeit anhand qualitativer und quantitativer Darstellungen jeweils diskursive Mechanismen der westdeutschen und britischen Tagespresse aufzeigen und damit ein kleines Stückchen Licht in die mediale Tradierung eines komplexen deutsch-britischen Verhältnisses bringen.
Ce présent mémoire se donne pour objectif d’analyser le champ d’application et d’étude des concepts de biofiction et d’exofiction qui, à travers le brouillage entre la réalité la fiction, passeraient pour des récits de vie dans le roman postmoderne. Pour cela, nous avons étudié les relations entre la fiction et l’(auto)biographie, la fiction et la réalité axée sur les apports des stratégies linguistiques et conceptuelles, entre autres. Grâce à une méthode qualitative se fondant sur une approche hypothético-déductive pour montrer comment l’(auto)biographie a été retravaillée dans les deux textes, mais aussi de montrer le potentiel fictionnel, dont regorge notre sujet, à travers le récit de vie.
Outre l’intérêt que nous avons porté aux travaux de Lejeune, Vincent Colonna et François Dosse dans leurs textes respectifs Le pacte autobiographique, L’autofiction : essai sur la fictionnalisation de soi en littérature et Le pari biographique pour souligner la connexion avec notre sujet, nous avons également fait appel au concept clefs du domaine, tels que théorisés par Alexandre Gefen et Alain Buisine (1991).
Over the past few decades, a multitude of scientific research has been published on the topic of discourse markers, intending to define this linguistic phenomenon. Despite this increase of interest in discourse markers, fundamental questions pivotal to a clear definition remain unanswered. On basis of an empirical analysis of Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan discussions, this essay sets out to demonstrate that combining of the two prevailing research approaches (formal-syntactical vs. functional-pragmatic) has advantageous effects on the definition of discourse markers.
In the wake of the general tendency towards slow cinema which has been evolving in Mexican cinema, cinematographic devices have gained importance not only with regard to the construction of a persuasive narrative but also in terms of the aesthetic constitution of the movie itself. Not only is this observation evident in the absence of camera movements but also in the semiotic depth of mise en scène resulting from this circumstance. Natalia Almada’s movie Todo lo demás (2016) provides an impressive example of both the repercussions of this technique in the representation of loneliness as well as the suggestive power of the scenographical composition. Hence, the ensuing analysis of those scenes referring to water is to elucidate the semiotics of mise en scène and its influence on the representation of the main character and the repetitive routine constricting her freedom.
This article summarises an examination of sentence patterns in modern European standard Spanish, in order to give an answer to the following questions: How many different sentence patterns are there and which are the most frequent patterns in modern European Spanish? Based on the principles of verb valency, as established by Lucien Tesnière and further developed by Ulrich Engel and others, a corpus of 500 sentences is analysed, identifying the sentence patterns of the main clauses. The analysis shows 19 different sentence patterns, the most frequent of which is p-s-cd, that is, predicate – subject – direct object. Subsequently, the results are compared to those of a different study on Spanish sentence patterns.
The normative use of past tenses is supposed to be a big challenge for learners of Spanish. Although they might understand the grammatical chapter in theory, adequate past tense use in spontaneous oral production is not guaranteed. Morphological errors, overgeneralizations of tenses and interferences with other languages characterize the interlanguage of the learners. Based on two corpuses, we analyse how the past tense use differs between secondary school students from Austria and Romance polyglots. Qualitative and quantitative analyses show that polyglot speakers surpass the secondary school students in some areas such as the distinction of verbal aspect. However, the students tend less to use the perfecto compuesto in an inadequate way in narration.
Die Zeitschrift promptus – Würzburger Beiträge zur Romanistik richtet sich an alle NachwuchswissenschaftlerInnen im Bereich der romanistischen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft sowie der Fachdidaktik. Das Ziel der Zeitschrift ist die Förderung der romanistischen Forschung im Allgemeinen und des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses der Romanistik im Besonderen. Sie versteht sich damit als Impulsgeber für junge romanistische Forschung, ohne sich dabei thematisch zu beschränken.