Volume 5, Issue 1 , March 2017, Pages 0-0
Volume 5, Issue 1 , March 2017, Pages 0-0
Zia Tajeddin; Ali Rahimi
Volume 5, Issue 1 , March 2017, Pages 1-14
Abstract
Despite the body of research on textbook evaluation from the discourse analysis perspective, cohesive devices have rarely been analyzed in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) textbooks. The acquisition and use of cohesive devices is inherent to naturalistic communication, including business interactions. ...
Read More
Despite the body of research on textbook evaluation from the discourse analysis perspective, cohesive devices have rarely been analyzed in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) textbooks. The acquisition and use of cohesive devices is inherent to naturalistic communication, including business interactions. Hence, L2 learners of business English should be exposed to these devices through cohesion-rich textbooks. This study examined the realization of ellipsis and substitution as two cohesive devices in 11 volumes of four global business English textbooks: Business Result (5 levels), Business Opportunities (1 level), Business Venture (2 levels), and Powerbase (3 levels). The corpus included 626 conversations with a total of 72,889 words. Corpus analysis of ellipsis and substitution frequency per 1,000 words showed that (a) frequency of ellipsis and substitution in conversational corpus was high, (b) ellipsis and substitution were not equally distributed across different levels, and (c) the textbook series constituting larger corpora did not necessarily represent more realization of ellipsis and substitution. Due to the importance of ellipsis and substitution, L2 learners of English for business communication need to be exposed to them through textbooks.
Johanna Ennser-Kananen; Christian Fallas Escobar; Martha Bigelow
Volume 5, Issue 1 , March 2017, Pages 15-28
Abstract
This qualitative study analyzes the reasons of college students for learning English as a foreign language (EFL) in Costa Rica and the reasons of high school students for learning German as a foreign language (GFL) in the US. It asks to what extent the learners’ reasons align with or deviate from ...
Read More
This qualitative study analyzes the reasons of college students for learning English as a foreign language (EFL) in Costa Rica and the reasons of high school students for learning German as a foreign language (GFL) in the US. It asks to what extent the learners’ reasons align with or deviate from neoliberal discourses that commodify foreign languages. The analysis of 27 interviews in a US high school and 17 interviews in a Costa Rican university revealed how language and context mattered: GFL learners used German for identity building and connecting to their heritage, whereas EFL learners felt pressure to learn English in order to survive on the competitive job market. The GFL learners’ ability to deviate from neoliberal language learning motivations is interpreted as a privilege that derives from their linguistic and social status. The authors call for a common effort to broaden the spectrum of FL learning motivations for the benefit of more successful and more equitable language learning experiences.
Eucabeth Ong’au-Mong’are; Augustine Agwuele
Volume 5, Issue 1 , March 2017, Pages 29-43
Abstract
The stories we tell about our lives unveil their content just as much as the lexical choices we make index a certain worldview, attitude, positionality, and relationship to reality. In essence, in narratives, individuals construct the self and denote personal identities. The available narrative identity ...
Read More
The stories we tell about our lives unveil their content just as much as the lexical choices we make index a certain worldview, attitude, positionality, and relationship to reality. In essence, in narratives, individuals construct the self and denote personal identities. The available narrative identity studies have largely ignored the language employed by the bewitched while narrating their experiences. Based on the personal narratives obtained from three self-professed previously bewitched individuals from the AbaGusii community of Kenya (Aba = people, hence AbaGusii = Gusii people), this article examines the verbal clauses employed by these narrators as they recounted their experiences. The goal is to understand how these individuals constructed their personal identities through the three different phases (i.e., pre-bewitchment phase, the bewitchment phase, and the post bewitchment phase) of their bewitchment experiences. The paper argues that understanding the various identity constructions by the bewitched is invaluable for understanding not only how they represented and structured events in their lives, but also how the identities represented them as particular agents in their world, and how they viewed themselves as particular community members.
Marianna Zummo
Volume 5, Issue 1 , March 2017, Pages 44-57
Abstract
This study looks at the communication between users concerning health risks, with the aim of exploring their use of fora and assessing whether participants establish a niche with like-minded users during these exchanges. By integrating a corpus linguistic approach with content analysis and multiple studies ...
Read More
This study looks at the communication between users concerning health risks, with the aim of exploring their use of fora and assessing whether participants establish a niche with like-minded users during these exchanges. By integrating a corpus linguistic approach with content analysis and multiple studies on computer mediated health discourse, this study analyses the intense attention paid to the correlation between the Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism, as an example of elaboration of the message and risk of emotive amplification, with fora working as echo chambers. Results include: a) a qualitative analysis of the content of posts and their qualification, b) a focus on the type of concerns questioners raise, and c) a comparison of the qualifier proportions between the posts and the responses they get. The comparison between posts/responses investigates whether the forum works as an amplification station of emotions, or as a locus to establish a belief niche.
Kaseem Olaniyi
Volume 5, Issue 1 , March 2017, Pages 58-67
Abstract
This essay examines greetings as one of the elements of politeness in a Nigerian community and how it influences the cultural characteristics of the people. To analyze, this essay makes use of speech act theory and politeness principle and also considers the pragmatic context in analyzing different types ...
Read More
This essay examines greetings as one of the elements of politeness in a Nigerian community and how it influences the cultural characteristics of the people. To analyze, this essay makes use of speech act theory and politeness principle and also considers the pragmatic context in analyzing different types of greetings such as condolences, departure and arrival, rejoicing, daily greetings, casual greetings, and seasonal or festivity greetings. The paper finds among others that ‘greeting’ is part of the culture of Ilorin people, and the failure to comply is an aberration. It does not only create warmth, but establishes relationships which go a long way in cementing communality. The paper concludes that Ilorin greetings are embedded in and constrained by cognition, social principles of communication, and the contexts of use. Little wonder why Ilorin greetings may come as carefully chosen, catchy, and precise words which are not without religious colorations.
Lee Fergusson; David Kettle; Geoffrey Wells
Volume 5, Issue 1 , March 2017, Pages 68-81
Abstract
The principles and practice of sustainability have gained momentum in the last 15 years and now form a central part of conversations around social praxis and the future. It has been proposed that the theories driving sustainability science are embedded in Indigenous history, and it has been shown that ...
Read More
The principles and practice of sustainability have gained momentum in the last 15 years and now form a central part of conversations around social praxis and the future. It has been proposed that the theories driving sustainability science are embedded in Indigenous history, and it has been shown that many ancient traditions always concerned themselves with sustainable and ethical living. Among the traditions identified with environmental stewardship are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders of Australia and Māori of New Zealand. Of interest in this context is the Vedic tradition, a tradition of sustainability and ecological awareness which identifies the source of sustainability in Natural Law, the universal source of tradition, language, and knowledge. In this paper we survey two Indigenous traditions as they relate to environmental stewardship, and explore their relation to the Vedic tradition.
Siti Noor Fazelah Mohd Noor
Volume 5, Issue 1 , March 2017, Pages 82-93
Abstract
This paper presents the first part of a larger study on the issue of graduate employability in Malaysia as construed in public discourse in English, a language of power in Malaysia. The term employability itself has many definitions depending on the requirements of government and industry, and in the ...
Read More
This paper presents the first part of a larger study on the issue of graduate employability in Malaysia as construed in public discourse in English, a language of power in Malaysia. The term employability itself has many definitions depending on the requirements of government and industry, and in the case of Malaysia, the English-language ability of graduates is inseparable from graduate employability. Data were collected from three socially significant English-language publications: a mainstream newspaper, an alternative newspaper, and a government document outlining the national approach to improving graduate employability in universities. The data were collected between 2012 and 2013, a significant two-year period of time due to the publication of the Graduate Employability Blueprint in 2012, and the five-yearly Malaysian General Election in 2013. Applying Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study also employs Transitivity Analysis (TA) from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The analysis looks at the grammatical roles and evaluation of important social actor groups in the graduate employability issue.
Debalina Maitra
Volume 5, Issue 1 , March 2017, Pages 94-102
Abstract
This chief aim of this paper is to explore the concept of Funds of Knowledge (FOK) in relation to Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). This study unveils the basic tenets of FOK from the lens of activity theory and analyzes pertinent discoveries, key concepts, and scholars’ arguments relating ...
Read More
This chief aim of this paper is to explore the concept of Funds of Knowledge (FOK) in relation to Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). This study unveils the basic tenets of FOK from the lens of activity theory and analyzes pertinent discoveries, key concepts, and scholars’ arguments relating to FOK and literacy development over time. The major purpose of this study is to expand the perspective of FOK and make an argument that cultural identity has a great potential to promote school literacy. The literature review done on some education journals explicitly reveals that FOK is a concept embedded in one’s cultural identity, and that the various aspects of cultural identity – such as ethnicity, language, and customs – are all linked to student engagement. This article illuminates the diverse cultural resources of different ethnic groups and proposes that academic institutions connect those resources with education.
Lin Zhu
Volume 5, Issue 1 , March 2017, Pages 103-117
Abstract
Language is primarily constituted by action and interaction based on sensorimotor information. This paper demonstrates the nature of subjectivity and intersubjectivity through the neural mechanism and typological evidence of sentence-final particles from East Asian languages and extends to the discussion ...
Read More
Language is primarily constituted by action and interaction based on sensorimotor information. This paper demonstrates the nature of subjectivity and intersubjectivity through the neural mechanism and typological evidence of sentence-final particles from East Asian languages and extends to the discussion of the relationship between them. I propose that intersubjecivity is a kind of embedded or nested interpersonal synergy grounded in mirror neurons. By means of shared motor information and embodied simulation, one’s self models can be generated in which other self-models are embedded. With the process of embedded interpersonal synergies, the relationship between synergies might be concerned to produce mutual shaping of meaning between speaker and hearer. Accordingly, I propose a hypothesis that the more intersubjective markers a language has, the more embedded or nested interpersonal synergies it has. This proposal opens new perspective on the understanding of the nature of language communication and (inter)subjectivity.
Brian Seilstad
Volume 5, Issue 1 , March 2017, Pages 118-121