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Sex Differences in Emotional Processing in Language
Issue:
Volume 9, Issue 6, November 2021
Pages:
275-278
Received:
11 October 2021
Accepted:
28 October 2021
Published:
5 November 2021
Abstract: Many studies report sex differences in language processing, but there is still no consensus about differences between men and women in language processing. However, the sex differences in emotional processing are more evident and consistent. In this paper, some studies on sex differences in specific emotional area: emotional processing in language, empathy and pragmatic aspect of language, and humor processing are reviewed. These results demonstrate that women engage more emotion-related brain areas than men and the results are in consistent with sex-related cognitive style strategy hypothesis, that is, men and women favor different cognitive strategies during emotional processing. Based on the findings, sex-related cognitive strategies hypothesis and extreme male brain hypothesis are discussed. Men and women favor different cognitive strategies during emotional processing, and women show more sensitivity to emotion processing in language. Although biology may play a role to affect sex differences, the most important factor might be the different cognitive strategies employed by men and women influenced by sex hormones. The favor of different cognitive styles encourages women to have stronger drive to empathize and play the key role in sex-related differences in emotional processing in language, empathy and pragmatic reasoning, and humor processing. It is concluded that women are more efficient than men in emotional processing.
Abstract: Many studies report sex differences in language processing, but there is still no consensus about differences between men and women in language processing. However, the sex differences in emotional processing are more evident and consistent. In this paper, some studies on sex differences in specific emotional area: emotional processing in language,...
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Chinese EFL University Students’ Use of Vocabulary Learning Strategies
Issue:
Volume 9, Issue 6, November 2021
Pages:
279-289
Received:
8 October 2021
Accepted:
1 November 2021
Published:
10 November 2021
Abstract: This study investigated into the types of vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) employed by EFL university students. The VLSs questionnaire was conducted and the sampling in this study was 71 English major students with higher and lower educational levels in a Chinese university. The study discovered that the determination and cognitive strategies were frequently employed by students. They most frequently used written and visual repetition, rehearsed on words’ spellings and sounds, had meaning-oriented note-taking, memorised the fixed phrases and sentences, used bilingual dictionaries, guessed words’ meanings and understood words through Chinese equivalents. Students also learned to tell themselves to feel less stressed when learning vocabulary. Students mainly focused on getting words’ meanings and the mechanical strategies they used were associated with understanding. By contrast, social/affective and metacognitive strategies were the least frequently used. Also, memory strategies such as words’ grammatical forms and word association, were less often employed. Students with a higher educational level more often associated words and noticed their vocabulary learning progresses. Therefore, learning maturity had impact on students’ choices of VLSs. In these cases, it is suggested that students use more types of VLSs such as memory and metacognitive strategies. English teachers are suggested to have strategy instructions and guide students to learn vocabulary through group discussions in classes. Additionally, studying vocabulary incidentally through both intensive and extensive reading is recommended to be taken into consideration.
Abstract: This study investigated into the types of vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) employed by EFL university students. The VLSs questionnaire was conducted and the sampling in this study was 71 English major students with higher and lower educational levels in a Chinese university. The study discovered that the determination and cognitive strategies ...
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Lexicographic Treatment of Lexemes with a Cultural and Historical Significance
Issue:
Volume 9, Issue 6, November 2021
Pages:
290-297
Received:
28 September 2021
Accepted:
28 October 2021
Published:
17 November 2021
Abstract: This paper analyses the treatment of specific lexical items which belong to rituals and customs, and in that way they depend on the concept, organization and symbolism of the very act, whose part they represent. This type of lexicon can be understood only within specific spheres whose part it is. These are lexemes that go back to the distant past and form complex concepts that rely on numerous encyclopedic-type facts. Theoretical and methodological postulates of the theory of possible worlds can serve as a very functional approach in the lexicographic presentation of these lexemes. The possible world is an analytical concept present in the domain of modal logic, where statements about the same, similar or different worlds are ascertained, confirmed or refuted by means of indeterminacy, necessity and probability. Lexemes of this type imply encyclopedic knowledge related to past times that are not close and necessarily known to contemporary man. These complex concepts that go back in time from the modern world represent one possible world. It is possible through the semantically possible world, and the reconstruction of the world of the concept sphere. The analysis starts with these lexemes and their lexicographic treatment in Vuk’s Dictionary, the Dictionary of the Lužnica Dialect, the Dictionary of the Timok Dialect, and the single-volume Serbian Dictionary of Matica Srpska. The question arises as to how to place the concept of rituals and customs into the lexicographic paper since the usual descriptive semantic lexicographic definition is insufficient for that type of lexicography. Vuk’s approach opens the possibility of space for the concept of a possible world of rituals and customs in the framework of space, which is enabled by the confirmation in the structure of a full dictionary entry.
Abstract: This paper analyses the treatment of specific lexical items which belong to rituals and customs, and in that way they depend on the concept, organization and symbolism of the very act, whose part they represent. This type of lexicon can be understood only within specific spheres whose part it is. These are lexemes that go back to the distant past a...
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New Trends in Pragmatics Research -- A Structured Review on Further Advances in Pragmatics and Philosophy: Part 2 Theories and Applications
Issue:
Volume 9, Issue 6, November 2021
Pages:
298-303
Received:
3 October 2021
Accepted:
26 October 2021
Published:
2 December 2021
Abstract: This paper provides a structured review of the book Further Advances in Pragmatics and Philosophy: Part 2. As this book is the second volume of Part 1, it naturally maintains the editorial and selective styles of the first one, but it is much more varied in topics, excelling the former one in both quantity and quality. This review article comprehensively reviewed with a pair of critical each paper collected in the book in sequential order, aiming to contribute some constructive ideas to the field of pragmatics in both theoretical and applied angles. Via a think-aloud protocol, this article captures the main arguments and the strengths of each research piece included, and summaries the overall trends and the major gaps in current pragmatic researches, from reading which the readers would keep up with the innovations in research paradigm and methodologies as well as the potential explorative scopes. It clearly shows that despite the strenuous efforts made in traditional logic reasoning and conversation analysis, empirical studies through more cutting-edge approaches constitute the mainstream of pragmatic researches in recent years. Hopefully, they would use the article as a primary guide for their own future studies.
Abstract: This paper provides a structured review of the book Further Advances in Pragmatics and Philosophy: Part 2. As this book is the second volume of Part 1, it naturally maintains the editorial and selective styles of the first one, but it is much more varied in topics, excelling the former one in both quantity and quality. This review article comprehen...
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Teaching Vocabulary Using the Semantic Feature Technique in Saudi EFL Virtual Classrooms; Students’ Attitudes and Challenges
Issue:
Volume 9, Issue 6, November 2021
Pages:
304-319
Received:
16 November 2021
Accepted:
14 December 2021
Published:
24 December 2021
Abstract: EFL learners' weak performance in English vocabulary is a problem commonly found in a foreign language context. This research aims to suggest a fun and exciting way for helping students memorize a lot of new words quickly and better. The researcher presents the semantic feature technique to achieve this goal. In addition, this study generally attempts to investigate students' attitudes towards learning vocabulary via their semantic features in an EFL virtual setting. It also sheds light on the challenges they faced during their involvement with such a technique. Fifteen female intensive course students at Onaizah College for Sciences and Arts voluntarily participated in this research. The data were obtained by analyzing students' questionnaires and the observations in the virtual class during semantic feature activities. The questionnaire findings show students' positive attitudes towards semantic feature activities. On the other hand, results of the observation indicate four major fundamental problems students encounter while applying this technique, 1) the time gap between participant and researcher, 2) students' cheats, 3) weak level in English. 4) students' shyness to ask or participate. However, observation shows that they respond to this technique enthusiastically. Hence, semantic feature activities could be a practical technique if carefully planned to teach vocabulary.
Abstract: EFL learners' weak performance in English vocabulary is a problem commonly found in a foreign language context. This research aims to suggest a fun and exciting way for helping students memorize a lot of new words quickly and better. The researcher presents the semantic feature technique to achieve this goal. In addition, this study generally attem...
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A Critical Review of Some Contentious Issues in the Phonetics and Phonology of Ẹdo, Igbo, and Yoruba
Issue:
Volume 9, Issue 6, November 2021
Pages:
320-333
Received:
22 November 2021
Accepted:
11 December 2021
Published:
24 December 2021
Abstract: Some contentious/controversial issues in the Phonetics/Phonologies of Ẹdo, Igbo, and Yoruba, (all members of the Kwa group of languages) are examined in this paper. This includes the appropriateness or otherwise of the use of the term “coalescence” in phonology based on available data in Ẹdo and Yoruba. The data from the Ẹdo language, and the reanalyzed Yoruba data do not seem to support the continued use of the term “coalescence” without any overt phonetic motivation as a tool for defining/describing what is actually vowel assimilation, vowel elision, and tone shift as a set of phonologically ordered processes. The second issue examined in this paper is the generally held view of the total assimilation of V2 by V3 across word boundary in a V1CV2 # V3CV4 collocation in Igbo. It is a known fact in languages that a more plausible (natural) assimilatory process involves a left to right movement not a right to left movement. It is argued that the so-called (total) vowel assimilation in Igbo V1CV2 # V3CV4 collocation is simply the case of the elision of V2, and the re-association of the tone thereon with V3, i. e., the first vowel of the second word. The autosegmental perspective is employed to elucidate this fact. In the third issue examined, it is argued that mutual exclusivity, used as the defining characteristic of languages that manifest vowel harmony, effectively excludes the Ẹdo and other Ẹdoid languages, in which there is free co-occurrence of vowels in any position of the word from being characterized as languages that manifest vowel harmony. The fourth issue examined is the manifestation of the downdrift and downstep phenomena. It is argued that the phenomena are language specific: non-phonemic in Ẹdo, involving a set of phonologically ordered rules whereas it is phonemic in Igbo. It is demonstrated that the only condition for obtaining a downstepped tone in Ẹdo is the presence of a H # L tone pattern across word boundary. The donwnstepped High tone in Igbo is phonemic irrespective of the nature (voice or voiceless) of the intervocalic consonants in VCV words.
Abstract: Some contentious/controversial issues in the Phonetics/Phonologies of Ẹdo, Igbo, and Yoruba, (all members of the Kwa group of languages) are examined in this paper. This includes the appropriateness or otherwise of the use of the term “coalescence” in phonology based on available data in Ẹdo and Yoruba. The data from the Ẹdo language, and the reana...
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Ẹdo Orthography: The Compelling Need for Harmonization and Standardization
Victor Ẹdosa Ọmọzuwa,
Osaigbovo Obed Ẹvbuọmwa
Issue:
Volume 9, Issue 6, November 2021
Pages:
334-343
Received:
22 November 2021
Accepted:
11 December 2021
Published:
24 December 2021
Abstract: The earliest attempts at reducing the Ẹdo language to writing were the singular efforts of the colonial administrators with the aim of facilitating communication with the people. Records show that the writing system of the time, and its subsequent post-colonial reviews, lack the basic criteria that characterize a good orthography and show evidences of the direct adoption of European (mostly English) writing systems for the language. This study presents primary data that include synchronic written texts by Ẹdo writers with the aim of examining whether or not the Ẹdo writing system (as currently used) is consistent with established principles of a good orthography. Results of the study reveal that the writings of the average Ẹdo writer violate the orthographic principles of consistency, simplicity, accuracy, one sound-one letter/digraph, and harmonization. A phonetic-based orthographic system made up of thirty-nine (39) letters of the roman alphabet representing each of the thirty-nine distinctive sounds in the language on a one sound-one letter/digraph basis, in addition to other writing conventions, is proposed for the language. It is recommended that immediate and deliberate steps should be taken by all relevant stakeholders to halt the glaring trend of a 'free-for-all' writing system by organizing regular specialized seminars, workshops and conferences, for the purpose of harmonizing and standardizing the Ẹdo orthography.
Abstract: The earliest attempts at reducing the Ẹdo language to writing were the singular efforts of the colonial administrators with the aim of facilitating communication with the people. Records show that the writing system of the time, and its subsequent post-colonial reviews, lack the basic criteria that characterize a good orthography and show evidence...
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Cross-language Syntactic Representation in Chinese-English Bilinguals: Evidence from Structural Priming
Issue:
Volume 9, Issue 6, November 2021
Pages:
344-348
Received:
2 December 2021
Accepted:
16 December 2021
Published:
24 December 2021
Abstract: The tendency to use the syntactic structure that has been processed or encountered before is called syntactic priming or structural priming. There are an increasing number of bilingual speakers, therefore, it is crucial to explore the mental storage and processes of two languages in people’s mind and to discover the potential similarity or difference between bilinguals and monolinguals so as to interpret the language use in real world. With regard to cross-language priming, it is uncertain about whether bilinguals shared information with the two languages or separate the storage and processing of syntactic information one after another. This study focused on how Chinese-English bilingual speakers represent cross-language syntax using the phenomenon of syntactic priming. With the confederate scripting task, 60 Chinese-English bilinguals took part in the experiment of syntactic priming on passive structure. It was found that the participants produced more English passive structure after they heard either marked passive or unmarked passive in Chinese. However, there is no significant difference between the number of English passive structures produced after Chinese marked and unmarked passive sentences. In other words, both marked passive and unmarked passive structures in Chinese primed English passive structure, which supported the view of syntactic representation as shared between languages and shed light on syntactic account across languages.
Abstract: The tendency to use the syntactic structure that has been processed or encountered before is called syntactic priming or structural priming. There are an increasing number of bilingual speakers, therefore, it is crucial to explore the mental storage and processes of two languages in people’s mind and to discover the potential similarity or differen...
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