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Technological tools have complemented face-to-face instructions at university from the beginning of the 21st century. However, COVID-19 pandemic forced many faculty members to switch rapidly, and without any specific training, to an emergency remote teaching. The aim of this paper is to analyse the impressions of Spanish faculty members teaching interpreting in an online mode. A total of 65 faculty members answered a semi-structured online survey, covering the 80.8% of all the Spanish universities where interpreting subjects are taught. The results revealed some pitfalls derived mainly from the lack of physical issues (booth, body language evaluation), absence of human contact, lack of suitable technology, more teaching hours, cognitive load, lack of concentration, and students monitoring. However, the benefits detected were more self-practice, more attendance to sessions, and the preparation of students for a remote interpreting, taking into account that this will be the future of professional language interpreting practice.

The present paper explores the lexical profiles of monolingual and bilingual learners acquiring English as a second and third language, respectively. Those profiles allow to get insights into learners’ lexical access and lexical organization in the new language. To shed more light in this issue, a lexical fluency task was used to gather data. Results showed lack of significant differences in all the measures taken, but some very interesting differences appear when graph theory metrics are applied. Thus, educational bilinguals show higher levels of lexical organization and stronger connections among the nodes. This can be indicative of a mental lexicon which is better organized, more compact, and more stable. Additionally, educational bilinguals’ networks display highest clustering coefficient and shortest path length. In semantic terms, this means that educational bilinguals can navigate their lexicon more efficiently and in a way that better resembles native lexical search. These findings open up new avenues for insightful studies concerning lexicon organization in different types of learners, with bilingualism being a relevant modulating factor.

This paper offers the basic guidelines of a formalized version of the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM; Ruiz de Mendoza & Mairal Usón, 2008, 2011; Ruiz de Mendoza & Galera, 2014), the Formalized Lexical-Constructional Grammar (FL_CxG), which will pave the way for future computational developments, such as parsers or lexical databases. The FL_CxG deploys (i) the typologically oriented syntactic apparatus of Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin, 2005; Van Valin & LaPolla, 1997), (ii) the catalogue of constructional units arranged in a 4-layer typology, as proposed by the LCM, and (iii) some insights for semantic representations from the Generative Lexicon Theory (Pustejovsky, 1995; Pustejovsky & Batiukova, 2019), and Minimal English (Goddard, 2018). All the components of the FL_CxG (lexical units and construct(ion)s) are formally encoded as Typed Feature Structures in the format of Attribute Value Matrixes. These units are to be understood as constraints operating in the unification processes which underlie the generation/decoding of a given fragment of language.

The collaborative volume Attitude and Stance in Discourse is a product of academic research, compiling papers which analyze the role stancetaking plays in oral and written discourses. The volume explores changes in meaning negotiation processes and intercultural communication and diachronic contexts. The issues are tackled from an interactional and pragma-rhetorical standpoint, but key components of the studies also comprise interdisciplinarity, cultural anthropology, and social psychology. This volume's papers are organized into six sections. The first section examines stancetaking in political and judicial discourse. A few online communicative forms represent the object of the second section. In the third section, the focus is stancetaking in conversation, as well as in fiction. In the fourth section, stancetaking is examined diachronically, taking into account its various oral and written discourses. In the fifth section, stancetaking is discussed in the framework of intercultural communication, while in the last section, the studies examine it from an applied linguistics perspective.

The collaborative volume Attitude and Stance in Discourse is a product of academic research, compiling papers which analyze the role stancetaking plays in oral and written discourses. The volume explores changes in meaning negotiation processes and intercultural communication and diachronic contexts. The issues are tackled from an interactional and pragma-rhetorical standpoint, but key components of the studies also comprise interdisciplinarity, cultural anthropology, and social psychology. This volume's papers are organized into six sections. The first section examines stancetaking in political and judicial discourse. A few online communicative forms represent the object of the second section. In the third section, the focus is stancetaking in conversation, as well as in fiction. In the fourth section, stancetaking is examined diachronically, taking into account its various oral and written discourses. In the fifth section, stancetaking is discussed in the framework of intercultural communication, while in the last section, the studies examine it from an applied linguistics perspective.

Translation solutions for dealing with ambiguity in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This paper shows how different types of ambiguity embedded in the matrix of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (the 1993 edition) are dealt with in two prestigious Romanian translations – Frida Papadache’s Peripeţiile Alisei în Ţara Minunilor (1976) and Antoaneta Ralian’s Alice în Ţara Minunilor (2007) – as a tribute to the international appeal of Alice. My focal aim is to present a comparative analysis of the methods employed in translating Carroll’s equivocal lexical items, which make it increasingly difficult to match grammatical categories with function. This paper also aims at describing disambiguation techniques applied primarily in determining if the two translators managed to reinforce the original textual leeway at their disposal in the pure spirit of Carroll. My analysis relies heavily on Dirk Delabastita’s translation strategies as precautionary measures to cope with Carroll’s specialized type of literary discourse. The findings submitted by this paper are consistent with the idea that translating Carroll’s craft unavoidably entails a partial loss of meaning, brought about by the yawning gap between the intended message and interpretation, which can result in either overtranslation or undertranslation. The extensive use of double-entendre in the source-text cannot be recoded entirely in the target language, despite the translators’ excellent command of English. Article history: Received 8 June 2022; Revised 21 November 2022; Accepted 25 November 2022; Available online 20 December 2022; Available print 30 December 2022. REZUMAT. Soluții de traducere a ambiguității din Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Acest articol arată că modul în care diferitele tipuri de ambiguitate încadrate în matricea textuală a lui Lewis Carroll în Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (ediția din 1993) sunt tratate în două traduceri românești de vază – Peripețiile Alisei în Țara Minunilor (1976), tradusă de Frida Papadache, și Alice în Țara Minunilor (2007), tradusă de Antoaneta Ralian – aduce un omagiu notorietății internaționale de care se bucură Alice. Scopul acestui articol este să prezinte o analiză comparativă a metodelor alese în traducerea termenilor echivoci care împiedică formarea corespondenței formă-funcție. Un alt obiectiv rezidă în descrierea tehnicilor de dezambiguizare aplicate pentru a determina în ce măsură traducătoarele au împrumutat, în manieră carrolliană, atmosfera lingvistică a textului-sursă, având în vedere strategiile de traducere propuse de Dirk Delabastita ca măsuri de precauție în explorarea discursului specializat al lui Carroll. Constatările acestei lucrări arată că încercarea de a-l traduce pe Carroll inevitabil implică omisiuni lexicale cauzate de distanța mare dintre mesajul scriptic livrat de autor și interpretarea ulterioară. Aceasta duce, în cele din urmă, fie la supratraducere, fie la subtraducere. Folosirea deasă a calamburului în textul-sursă nu poate fi oglindită integral în textul-țintă, în ciuda nivelului excelent de limbă engleză deținut de cele două traducătoare. Termeni-cheie: umor carrollian; ambiguitate; soluții de traducere; tehnici de dezambiguizare; provocări textuale

Exploring Liminal Aesthetics: The “Glitchy and Decayed” Worlds of Vaporwave, Semiotic Assemblages, and Internet Linguistics. The topic of online identity formation in the realm of computer-mediated communication is nothing new. However, what does stand out, especially in recent years, in the larger framework of Internet-based sociolinguistic practices (David 2010; Williams 2006), is a much-needed exploration of various new microcultural aggregates. Some of these niche-genres are frequently encountered on YouTube, while others are primarily short-lived Instagram or TikTok community-driven trends. In essence, this paper states the belief that it is precisely these relatively contemporary microcultural trends that manage to accurately take the pulse of a new, post-pandemic world. Moreover, since many of these forms of artistic self-expression can be understood through a Cultural Sociolinguistic lens (Cotrău, Cotoc, and Papuc 2021), a translation of their particular symbolic meanings can only help decipher the increasingly chaotic, hypersubjective, and “semiotic assemblages” (Pennycook 2017) that individuals seem to be inhabiting and creating. Thus, the current paper aims to offer an analysis that ties together an array of only seemingly disparate elements, namely: cultural economy, creation and consumption of online cultural artefacts, and an affective processing that ties real-life traumatic events to the creation of particular cultural trends - liminal aesthetics and vaporwave, paired with a fascination with all things “glitchy and decayed” (Loignon and Messier 2020). Article history: Received 31 July 2022; Revised 18 October 2022; Accepted 8 November 2022; Available online 20 December 2022; Available print 30 December 2022. REZUMAT. În explorarea esteticii liminalității: universul „inexact și degradat” al genului vaporwave, asamblaje semiotice și lingvistica internetului. Subiectul formării identității online în cadrul comunicării mediate de computer nu este neapărat unul inedit. Cu toate acestea, ceea ce se remarcă, mai ales în ultimii ani, în contextul mai larg al practicilor sociolingvistice digitale (David 2010; Williams 2006), este necesitatea explorării îndeaproape a unor noi și varii agregate microculturale. Unele dintre aceste genuri de nișă sunt des întâlnite pe platforma YouTube; iar altele iau forma trendurilor de scurtă durată, tipice comunităților utilizatoare de Instagram sau Tik-Tok. În esență, tema principală a lucrării de față sugerează importanța acestor trenduri microculturale contemporane, ele constituind exact instrumentele de analiză prin care se poate lua cu mai multă acuratețe pulsul unei lumi emergente, cea postpandemică. De asemenea, datorită faptului că multe dintre aceste forme de exprimare artistică pot fi înțelese prin prisma unei abordări cultural-sociolingvistice (Cotrău, Cotoc, and Papuc 2021), traducerea sensurilor particulare propuse de acestea poate doar ajuta în descifrarea „asamblajelor semiotice” (Pennycook 2017), tot mai haotice și hypersubiective ce par a fi concretizate și create, în mediul digital. Astfel, în cadrul lucrării de față se oferă o analiză ce urmărește să aducă laolaltă elemente doar aparent disparate, și anume: economia culturală, crearea și consumul de artefacte culturale online și o procesare afectivă ce face legătura între evenimente resimțite în viața reală ca având un impact traumatic și realizarea compensatorie de trenduri culturale particulare. Astfel, se remarcă în principal predilecția pentru estetica liminalității și genul vaporwave, alături de o vizibilă fascinație față de tot ce este „inexact și degradat” (Loignon and Messier 2020). Cuvinte-cheie: identitate online, sociolingvistică, lingvistica Internetului, multimodalitate, vaporwave, estetica liminalității, asamblaj semiotic

Eugenio Coseriu’s (1921–2002) seminal contributions to linguistic theory went largely unnoticed in mainstream linguistic research in the English-speaking world. This paper discusses three concepts that have loomed large in present-day linguistics and were already addressed in the work of Coseriu. The paper focuses on the question whether Coseriu’s contributions might be a stepping stone to establishing synergies with current strands of linguistic research, also with a view to determining the topicality of Coseriu’s approach to concepts that are at the centre of ongoing discussion. The three concepts dealt with in the paper are: 1) Coseriu’s well-established theory of language norms against the backdrop of the (Neo-)Gricean pragmatic theory of generalised conversational implicatures and default inferences; 2) Coseriu’s detailed exposition of schematic meanings in syntax and word formation as compared to cognitive approaches within the frameworks of Construction Grammar and Construction Morphology; 3) Coseriu’s elaborate account of general language-specific meanings (G. “Bedeutungen”, Fr. “signifiés”, Sp. “significados”) in light of recent developments in psycholinguistic research which focuses on the role of semantic underspecification in meaning representations. The paper argues that Coseriu’s work has the potential to offer solutions for a number of as yet unresolved issues in the study of pragmatics, syntax, word formation and semantics.

The aim of this study is to analyse four different expletives in the Irish English variety, following a semantic and pragmatic approach. Thus, this paper observes the connection between individual expressiveness and Irish identity, through the use of Irish expletives. These pejorative terms are loanwords borrowed from Irish into Hiberno-English in the Republic of Ireland. The analysed terms belong to the semantic fields of geography, scatology and sex. Through a corpus-based analysis and lexicographical treatment, this paper identifies and examines these terms regarding the following parameters: degree of frequency, semantics, etymology and pragmatic move.

This paper aims at exploring the process of semantic shift in Compositional Cospecification with regards to the prototype effects found in the middle construction, understood as a prototype category which allows the subsumption of both central and peripheral members within the middle spectrum. The range covers structures from action- oriented to ergative-like ones, including their metonymic extensions. This paper is conducted through a corpus of contextualised examples (4500+) compiled with the Sketch Engine tool. By examining the lexical-semantic, discourse- pragmatic, and situational features that influence the process of constructional coercion, the family- resemblance analysis provided here reveals that different patterns in Compositional Cospecification can be found within the middle spectrum. The parameters examined are: (i) the qualia structure of the nominal; (ii) the semantics of the predicate in combination with the nature of the nominal; (iii) the semantic charge of the adjunct; and (iii) other external and contextual factors surrounding the construction.

This paper identifies causes of grammatical borrowing and related grammatical phenomena in L1 English L2 Czech immigrant speech. This study contributes to the literature on causes of grammatical borrowing and considers key ideas including social pressure (Thomason and Kaufman 1988), cognitive pressure (Matras 1998; Sanchez 2005) and gap filling (Campbell 1993). Thirteen semistructured interviews were conducted. Participants were affected by social pressure and cognitive pressure surrounding their language use, whether it acted as a driving or inhibiting factor in terms of grammatical borrowing. Participants also engage in borrowing akin to “language play” (Porte 2003: 116) with those close to them; it is a conscious choice to borrow in these cases and it usually represents matter (MAT) (Matras and Sakel 2007) borrowing (Castle 2021a). This paper proposes a new model which considers both conscious and subconscious borrowing whilst also considering factors inhibiting the possibility of borrowing.

This paper aims to analyze the social representations of women in Portuguese Textbooks (LDP) distributed in high school programs of state schools and selected based on the Guide of the National Textbook Program (PNLD) 2018. To this end, we draw from the field of Discourse Analysis, more specifically, from Foucault’s postulates (2009, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016) in dialogue with the notion of “gender identity”, by Louro (1997, 2008). The corpus of analysis is comprised of visual-linguistic texts collected from the three most chosen collections of high school textbooks by schools of Minas Gerais State. Based on the analyses, we found that the corpus presents visual-linguistic texts that foster possible questions about normalized gender representations for women. However, we could perceive that most of the scenes portray previously normalized roles based on the traditional model of asymmetric gender relations. Therefore, in this paper we present other interpretations of the visual-linguistic materialities of LDPs, outlining possible practices of sexism confrontation in Portuguese language teaching and learning.

The aim of this paper is to show empirically, albeit in an indirect manner, some aspects related to language development and knowledge construction, in the frame of the relations between thought and language proposed by contemporary philosophy and by systemic functional linguistics (SFL). To do this, we compare two versions of the same two texts, produced by university students as part of an explicit genre-based learning process, and argue for an evolution of their cognition. Different stances of contemporary philosophy, socio-historic psychology and cognitive studies are revised as part of the conceptual framework, along with the language-based pedagogy proposed within systemic-functional linguistics. Based on this theoretical revision, two teaching-learning experiences informed by this genre-based pedagogy and SFL discourse analysis methodology are presented. These experiences offer some achievements in the direction of the goal of the paper. We propose that students evolve in the construction of knowledge and, hence, in the development of thought, through the development of their writing competences, achieved by the application of genre-based teaching for written discourse. Therefore, based on the experience and the theoretical base proposed, evidence is provided for the hypothesis of cognition of the world as a human faculty constituted by the development of language.

Based on data from the GRAAL group's questionnaire on remote teaching, caused by the Covid-19 emergency as reported in Conti (2021), oral production practice was neglected by both high school and college students. The aim of this paper is to reflect on how to promote and sustain speaking from the beginning of the language learning process, during in-person, remote and/or hybrid teaching. The framework presented indicates task-based language teaching (TBLT) as an effective approach to help learners participate in successful communication. The paper provides: 1. an overview of current literature on the subject; 2. applicable examples integrated with Flipgrid; 3. data analysis of students’ performance.

Postcolonialism speaks of those people, who have been militarily, politically, and perforce culturally subjected to another nation. This branch of criticism is worth practicing because it plays a very important role at least in the lives of the oppressed all over the world by providing them with pain relief; a pain that still continues to gnaw away at the souls of a large colonized population. Although at the mention of post colonialism most people think of African and Caribbean countries and of black people, this paper signifies that the first and oldest British colony had been Ireland; that exploitation does not make a distinction between black and white. This paper is going to find traces of anti colonialism or decolonization in Joyce’s Ulysses and to show that how using the colonizer’s language, the Irish novelist implicitly writes back to the empire and what extent Joyce’s personality has been under the influence of post colonialism. The paper also reiterates that although Joyce regarded Irish Nationalism and Irish Literary Revival as useless and failing, he never surrendered to the language and culture imposed by the colonizer.

Despite the many international human rights declarations affirming the equality of men and women, and the techno-scientific accomplishments of humanity, in many non-Western societies and indigenous cultures there are still much discrimination against women. The discrimination and violence against women on the basis of their sex and their being perceived as subservient to men by some cultures, societies and persons are morally unacceptable. Discrimination and violence against women are wrong for they offend against the ontological status of women as human beings; violate their human dignity/ rights as persons. The arguments that some persons have used to treat women as unequal to men are flawed. It is an issue of morality for it speaks of how human beings should act. This paper uses a critical analytic, hermeneutics and evaluative methods to examine the issues. The issues of gender equality will be dissected and interrogated. The value in gender equality through all these methods will be highlighted. The paper finds that there are gender inequalities still prevalent in some parts of the world. The paper concludes that all societies, cultures and persons have a moral duty to struggle against gender inequalities. This will help to create a more harmonious world.

In times of geocultural subalternization of knowledge and education, English language teaching (ELT) is torn between subalternizing policies and subjectivating practices. Within this context, ELT teacher educators face policies and discourses aimed at framing their teaching practices, professional lives, and research agendas. However, at the same time, they are expected to engage in practices and processes that allow for personal adaptation and social change. Amid this ambivalence, this reflection paper makes a call to decolonize ELT in Colombia. To this effect, this paper reviews some basic epistemological perspectives such as colonialism and decolonial studies. Then, it proposes the decolonization of ELT, along with a grammar of decoloniality based on discursive alternatives about power, knowledge, and being with the potential of bringing about a transformative teacher subjectivation. The main conclusion is that the Colombian ELT community needs to first deconstruct dominant structures and strategies that enact epistemic and cultural dominance of the global north, and then construct alternative discourses and practices that acknowledge and disseminate the singularities of its knowledge and culture.

Influenced by certain factors and motives, some educated Nigerian English speakers use high-sounding expressions, as well as dense, windy, and complex syntactic structures. This paper examines this linguistic habit in Nigerian English to show how entrenched it has become; explain the sociolinguistic, historical, and idiosyncratic factors that influence it; show its effect on its audience and readers; and determine its implications for teaching and learning English in English as a second language (ESL) settings. The paper adopted the qualitative research method, and data were extracted from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data were extracted from well-known Nigerian ‘bombast bombardiers’ (users of bombast). Secondary data were gleaned from historical events and published and creative works. The study established that the use of ‘language explosives’ (high-sounding lexical items) is a common linguistic habit in ESL. Some educated Nigerians, for instance, use the habit to show off learning and their mastery of the language, estrange others in communication, create humor, and gain popularity. Although the paper avers that the habit in its unguided form hampers effective communication, it submits that it possesses certain socio-political and pedagogical utilities in ESL settings.

This paper intends to argue for the necessity to preserve the Christian identity in the secular world, in which the believer is called to live in. The manifestation of this identity is seen especially in the area of ethics. It is analysed the way ethics is interpreted in postmodernism and in Christianity. On the one hand, the postmoderns want to equalize the biblical perspective on ethics, which supports the good and evil antithesis. Stanley Hauerwas talks about differences between Christian and Postmodern perspective in the area of ethics. The reader is invited to compare the two systems of moral values, and come up with some conclusions. It is demonstrated that Christianity bases its morality on Scripture. On the other hand, the postmodern perspective allows all the voices in the society to support their own view. The author presents the actual tendency to ignore the classical values, such as good and evil. There is also a tendency to remove guilt. In this paper it is argued that from the biblical perspective of moral antithesis is rooted in creation. The sacred text argue that because man ignored the divine commandment from Genesis 2:16-17, he committed a moral action with dramatic consequences for all human race. The biblical books written by the so called “Deuteronomistic School”, are guided by the central idea of “blessings and curses”. By doing good, man is expected to be blessed, and by doing evil, he is expected to be punished.

Stand-up comedy is an oral dramatic performance that is commonly enacted by a solo-performer or a duet before a live audience. Some existing literatures examined it largely from humour and entertainment to the neglect of its deeper societal values. Therefore, this paper investigates its new trend in gender discourse through its oral structural form by discussing the social responsibility of mothers on proper monitoring and parenting of the girl child. Besides, it also investigates the linguistic devices employed by the selected female comedian to reveal the roles of female comedians as the gatekeepers and conscience of society. Five digital video discs of live performance recordings of Helen Paul, a Nigerian female comedian, were purposively selected. The selected live recordings were based on the informing sociological realities and choice of satiric mode. The paper employed Schechner’s Performance, Freudian and Jungian psychoanalytic theories were used to analyse the informing sociological realities and choice of satiric mode. The data were subjected to performance and literary analysis

The purpose of this paper is to sketch a working definition of holiness, by offering a brief, comparative, and critical tour d’horizon of the notion, on the basis of five influential socio-religious accounts, namely those put forth by Emile Durkheim (taboo), Jonathan Söderblom (mana and tabu), Rudolf Otto (the numinous), Emmanuel Levinas (ethical meaning), and Mircea Eliade (sacred vs. profane). The paper ends with a theological wrap-up in lieu of conclusion.

The phenomenon of globalization has led to many globalized societies. Globalized societies are societies that have experienced and are influenced by the features of globalization. In globalization, time and space have shrunk and the world’s peoples and cultures are now more interlinked and interconnected through transportation and information communication technology which has led to the movement of human capital and transmission of ideas and cultures. Globalization has facilitated the meeting of different religions and cultures. In many societies today you now have people of different religions and cultures living/working side by side. Religious pluralism and multiculturalism are now ideological standpoints as they are now sets of beliefs of how society should be organized. This paper will hermeneutically examine these phenomena and the challenges that they present. Through analysis the paper argues that both religious pluralism and multiculturalism are facts of globalized societies not to be ignored. The paper concludes that religious pluralism and multiculturalism can be managed for harmony in society. These done globalized societies will experience more social harmony and concord.

The paper investigates the process of textbook adaptation from Portuguese to Brazilian Sign Language by treating textbooks as a pedagogic support which mirrors our educational culture. More specifically, it aims at reviewing the literature widely accepted as relevant to the topic. The paper is grounded on a framework — Basso (2003), Souza (2015), Moses, Golos e Holcomb (2018), Krusser (2017), Munakata (2016), Ramos (2013), Miranda (2010, 2019) and Silva et al. (2013) — which explores specifically pedagogic materials dedicated to deaf children. It goes on to offer some reflections on the following themes: the relation between schools and didactic materials adapted to Brazilian Sign Language; the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to the school environment; the way students read adaptations, and how adaptations to Brazilian Sign Language can build meanings as it becomes a new mode for reading. Lastly, the paper presents future possibilities for adapted didactic materials as they are described by relevant publications in the field.

Based on data generated for an ethnographic research carried out in 2018 - which aimed at comprehending how literacy practices developed in Portuguese lessons delivered to senioryear students of a public high school dialogue with literacy practices in which such students participate outside school -, this paper proposes to present and discuss the concept of “culturally hybrid zones”. The proposal discusses Erickson’s concepts of “cultural borders” and “cultural boundaries” and is grounded on Bakhtin’s notion of textual “hybridization” as well as on Bhabha’s understanding of “cultural hybridity”. In order to achieve the goal, this paper analyzes reading and writing activities taught in the classroom that was observed, and literacy practices produced by students outside school. The outcomes show educational practices more and less responsive to the students’ linguistic culture. The conclusions point out the possibility and the urgent need of establishing critical dialogues between linguistic knowledge that is traditionally taught in school and the knowledge that is built/utilized by students in other social instances

This paper has a double purpose. On the one hand, it intends to prove the existence of a discourse marker (DM) Hauptsache. This element preserves the core conceptual meaning of the homonymous noun, but differs from it with regard to its morphosyntactic and semantic features as well as to its discourse-organizing, information structuring, and modal functions. On the other hand, the emergence of Hauptsache as a discourse particle is explained on the grounds of a grammaticalization process similar to the ones described for the prototypical German DMs. Evidence drawn from a corpus of German and Austrian parliamentary protocols will show in which ways the six fundamental processes implied in the grammaticalization of DMs (decategorization, scope expansion, subjectification, persistence, syntactic fixation, phonetic and/or morphosyntactic reduction) can be found in the evolution from the matrix clause die Hauptsache is to the monolexematic Hauptsache. The paper ends with a brief discussion of the formal, semantical, and functional characteristics of Hauptsache.

Towards a Decentralized Literature. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the History of Contemporary Romanian Literature by Mihai Iovănel opens new paths both in interpreting literature and towards understanding Romanian cultural identity at large. In this sense, “transnational specificity,” as Iovănel calls it, becomes a most resourceful field that allows, as Vancea shows, important insights into national and global identity in the context of significant technological developments. In the same vein, Vancea draws from Daniel David’s work on the psychology of the Romanian people to highlight new cultural aspects that could lead to changes in literature. At the same time, the paper tries to bring humanities closer to the perspectives that the Web3 phenomenon announce. Article history: Received 22 May 2022; Revised 25 August 2022; Accepted 31 August 2022; Available online 20 September 2022; Available print 30 September 2022 REZUMAT. Către o literatură descentralizată. Scopul acestei lucrări este de a evidenția modul în care Istoria Literaturii Române Contemporane scrisă de Mihai Iovănel deschide noi căi de interpretare a literaturii, dar și a identității culturale. Specificul transnațional devine în acest sens un teren ofertant care permite deschiderea unei discuții mai largi cu privire la identitatea noastră națională și globală în contextul profundei dezvoltări tehnologice. În acest sens, voi completa exemplele menționate de criticul literar cu studiul lui Daniel David despre psihologia poporului român pentru a evidenția noi puncte vulnerabile care ar putea să determine schimbări în viitorul apropiat al literaturii. Totodată, lucrarea încearcă să apropie umanioarele de perspectivele pe care le aduce în viitor fenomenul Web3. Cuvinte-cheie: identitate culturală, literatura descentralizată, Web3, istorie literară, NFT

This paper reports on a doctoral research project, carried out by the first author under the supervision of the second one, whose original focus was on elaborating a first draft of a written code of ethics for Brazilian language teachers. Even though this project was initially conceived to elaborate such a draft in light of some European ethics perspectives, as the proponents were generating data with the research participants, it became evident to them that the European-centered worldview would not properly address the struggles and needs of Brazilian language teachers. Two instances of colonial seeds becoming decolonial flowers are then introduced. The first one relates to the conception of the research project and the data collection; and the second, to the analysis itself. It does not take a village to fail, but it certainly takes one to face it in the way described in this paper. In a highly competitive context as the academia is, time to fail and to reflect upon it would seem to be nonsense to a vast number of scholars. The paper ends with reflective questions to be locally and creatively answered by scholars and teachers from the language education arena.

The genre of metapoetry thematizes the fictional elements – the inspiration of a poet, his poetic process, meta-poetic metaphors, the role of the poet in society, and intertextual references – partaking in the making of poetry explicitly or implicitly carried through a poem within a poem technique. This paper presents Eva Müller-Zettlemann’s theoretical pronunciation of meta-poetic elements, i. e., poetic inspiration, poetic process, and meta-poetic metaphors, at play in the metalyrics of Taufiq Rafat from his anthologies Arrival of the Monsoon: Collected Poems 1947-78 (1985) and Half Moon: Poems 1979-1983 (2008). Rafat’s inspiration is the South-Asian terra firma and lived experience that makes him infuse the regional sensibility through a poetic process of perceiving and penning down immediately. His meta-poetic metaphor involves the invention of an image of cultural genesis that informs the process of poetic creativity. Moreover, the study also considers the explicit expression of the role of the poet in society and the functions of poetry in Rafat’s poems, otherwise a prose phenomenon. Thus, the paper analyzes the conscious expression of the construction of South-Asian singularity inspired by the cultural kernel in content and form in Rafat’s metalyrics.

English-medium instruction (EMI) affects lecturers’ classroom practices as they face a new teaching scenario where language(s) can be used to construct lecturers’ identities. Therefore, lecturers can take up different identities because their language-choice acts depend on their communicative and identification purposes. Employing Membership-Categorisation Analysis (MCA) to examine classroom interaction, this paper examines the classroom practices of one EMI lecturer to explore how the orientation towards one language over the others implies a specific function associated with a particular identity. The alternation between languages reveals to what extent EMI lecturers accept or challenge the English-only policy and how lecturers position themselves as English-only or as translanguaging lecturers. This study documents lecturer’s teaching behaviour, particularly how L1-choice acts can be more effective for certain purposes. Studying how lecturers draw from both their EMI-lecturer identity and their L1-lecturer identity, this paper shows how multilingual practices unfold in EMI and highlights the pedagogical value of the L1, hence advocating that the use of languages other than English has, after all, a particular purpose.

In addition to the grammaticalization of nouns and verbs into adpositions, which has been widely discussed in the grammaticalization literature, this paper identifies and describes a much less well known grammaticalization path, by which deictic spatial adverbs (i.e., words such as English here or there) are converted into adpositions. Based on data from two sub-Saharan languages (Tswana, Bantu and Jóola Fóoñi, Atlantic), this study proposes that in this grammaticalization process, the source construction is the LOCATIVE APPOSITION CONSTRUCTION, defined as a construction consisting of the juxtaposition of two coreferential spatial expressions, a deictic spatial adverb and a spatial expression whose nucleus is a noun (as in English here in the village or there on the table). Considering also some other languages, such as Hoocąk (Siouan), Baule (Kwa), Beng (Mande), and Classical Nahuatl, the study defends the idea that the initial stage of the grammaticalization path DEICTIC LOCATIVES > SPATIAL ADPOSITIONS is the routinization of the locative apposition construction, eventually leading to its reanalysis as an adpositional phrase in which the role of adposition is fulfilled by the former deictic spatial adverb.

The paper is a narratological study that problematizes the graphic or textual demarcation between the preface to the novel as a secondary text and the novel as a primary text. Methodologically, it draws on the study Thresholds (Seuils, 1987) and attempts to explain Genette’s structural and functional definition of prefaces, especially those that the French structuralist labels as pseudo-editorial, through more recent studies on the frame narrative (e.g. Abbot 2004, Fludernik 2009, Wolf 2006). On one hand, it outlines the possibilities of the above-mentioned structural categories coinciding, while on the other hand it points to the presence of an independent, broader fabula in both the preface and the frame narrative. In particular, it focuses on the problem of the functional image of certain prefaces in the Enlightenment novel, analysing the prefaces to Prévost’s Manon Lescaut and Marivaux’s The Life of Marianne, while taking Cervantes’s Don Quixote as a historical starting point. The chosen examples demonstrate how and why the boundary between the preface and the novel became blurred in the 18th century, a time when the novel as a narrative genre was articulated and established. One of the main, if not the only, functions of the pseudo-editorial preface, which is per definitionem fictional, is to create the impression of authenticity, with the preface-writer most often using the topos of a found manuscript. However, it turns out that its “dramatization” goes beyond the textual boundaries of the preface and continues in the novel itself, proving that the graphic image of the preface as a paratext no longer corresponds to its functional image. Even if we can trace a similar narrative strategy in both Baroque and Enlightenment novels, it is necessary to distinguish between the reasons for it application. Don Quixote is an example of artful, dynamic, “ingenious” composition and parodies the preface as a rhetorical convention. The fictional nature of the Enlightenment novel, however, inevitably rests on an impression of verisimilitude, and consequently the preface, the privileged place where these two characteristics meet, becomes a full-fledged literary component of the narrative work.

The transition between the Late Bronze and Iron Age, often described as a collapse, is most often characterized by comparing the changes between these two periods. As trade and connectivity is one of the hallmarks of the Late Bronze Age, the lack of evidence for international trade during the early Iron Age is seen of evidence of the profound changes that occurred during this transition. In this paper, I will reassess the evidence for international trade during the early Iron Age in Philistia and neighboring regions, demonstrating that while there was a substantial degrading in the volume of international trade during this period, it did not cease completely. And based on this, what does this tell us about the processes and mechanisms occurring during the Late Bronze Age/Iron Age transition in the eastern Mediterranean.

The markedness principle in Brazilian Portuguese verb-based discourse markers viu? and entendeu?. A productive, vigorous debate on grammar issues took place as the new millennium approached. A significant amount of work was published in that field as we witnessed a grammatical boom between 1991 and 2014 in Brazil (Faraco and Vieira 2016). Along with a resulting new range of descriptive perspectives and propositions, the debate over discourse markers (DMs) relevance has increased sharply among language curriculum professionals. Although they have played an important role in functionalist grammars where interaction is a key component, DMs are still regarded as a peripheral category in natural language normative grammars. Also, DMs are typically associated with language users’ social status. Based on cognitive-functionalist grammar studies, my research has placed DMs on the common ground between a functionalist framework (by investigating the relationship between form and content) and cognitive linguistics theory (categorization, prototypicality, conceptual metaphors). This paper explores some of my research findings on the markedness principle as applied to Brazilian Portuguese DMs viu? and entendeu? in the light of cognitive-functionalist theories. Some contrast between these DMs and their English equivalent is also explored. In doing so, I hope to bring forward new resources to explore verb-based DMs in teaching Portuguese to speakers of other languages. REZUMAT. Principiul de marcare în cazul marcatorilor discursivi verbali din portugheza braziliană viu? și entendeu?. O dezbatere productivă și viguroasă pe teme gramaticale a avut loc odată cu apropierea noului mileniu. O cantitate semnificativă de lucrări a fost publicată în acest domeniu, asistând la un boom gramatical între 1991 și 2014 în Brazilia (Faraco și Vieira 2016). Împreună cu o nouă serie de perspective și propuneri descriptive rezultate, dezbaterea privind relevanța marcatorilor discursivi (MD) a crescut brusc în rândul profesioniștilor în curriculum lingvistic. Deși au jucat un rol important în gramaticile funcționaliste în care interacțiunea este o componentă cheie, MD sunt încă considerați o categorie periferică în gramaticile normative ale limbii naturale. De asemenea, MD sunt de obicei asociați cu statutul social al utilizatorilor de limbi străine. Pe baza studiilor de gramatică cognitiv-funcționalistă, cercetarea mea a plasat MD pe terenul comun definit de un cadru teoretic funcționalist (prin investigarea relației dintre formă și conținut) și teoria lingvisticii cognitive (categorizare, prototipicalitate, metafore conceptuale). Această lucrare explorează unele dintre rezultatele cercetării mele privind principiul marcării aplicat MD viu? și entendeu? din portugheza braziliană în lumina teoriilor cognitiv-funcționaliste. De asemenea, sunt explorate unele contraste între acesti MD și echivalentul lor în limba engleză. În acest fel, sper să aduc noi perspective pentru a explora MD deverbali în predarea limbii portugheze pentru vorbitorii de alte limbi. Cuvinte-cheie: marcatori discursivi, funcționalism, lingvistică cognitivă, marcare, predarea limbii portugheze vorbitorilor de alte limbi. Article history: Received 25 August 2023; Revised 5 October 2023; Accepted 5 November 2023; Available online 20 December 2023; Available print 31 December 2023.

Pois: discursive and interactional properties of a Portuguese discourse marker translated into Italian. In this paper we intend to present the study of the Portuguese discursive marker pois to emphasise the various discursive and interactional possibilities. This discursive connector is included by Lopes e Carrilho (2020) among the explanatory discursive markers: the lexical element takes the form of an operator with anaphoric value that proposes the part of discourse that follows it as an explanation of the part of discourse that precedes it. Part of this semantic value is also found in the pois with an interactional function of response. This phenomenon could be explained by considering the process of semantic drift that sees the expansion of the discursive space of use of a lexical element. To present the various areas of use of the discursive marker pois, written and oral language data will be examined. In addition, a contrastive analysis with Italian will be proposed based on the possible translations that this discourse marker can have in this language in order to broaden the contrastive studies between the two Romance languages. REZUMAT. Pois: proprietăți discursive și interacționale ale unui marcator discursiv portughez tradus în italiană. În această lucrare ne propunem să studiem marcatorul discursiv pois (portugheză europeană), pentru a sublinia diferitele sale posibilități discursive și interacționale. Acest conector discursiv este inclus de Lopes e Carrilho (2020) în categoria marcatorilor discursivi explicativi: elementul lexical ia forma unui operator cu valoare anaforică ce propune partea de discurs care îl urmează ca explicație a părții de discurs care îl precedă. O parte a acestei valori semantice se regăsește și în pois cu funcție interacțională de răspuns. Acest fenomen ar putea fi explicat prin prisma procesului de derivă semantică care cuprinde extinderea spațiului discursiv de utilizare a unui element lexical. Pentru a prezenta diferitele domenii de utilizare ale marcatorului discursiv pois, vor fi examinate date de limbă scrisă și orală. În plus, se va propune o analiză contrastivă cu limba italiană, bazată pe posibilele traduceri ale acestui marcator discursiv, pentru a îmbogăți studiile contrastive între cele două limbi romanice. Cuvinte-cheie: marcatori discursivi; portugheză, italiană; pois; interacțiune lingvistică. Article history: Received 1 August 2023; Revised 1 November 2023; Accepted 10 November 2023; Available online 20 December 2023; Available print 31 December 2023.

Contributions for the description and translation of the discourse marker ainda por cima in contemporary European Portuguese. Based on a cognitive-functional framework, this paper analyses the different uses of the discourse marker ainda por cima in contemporary European Portuguese and, in a second step, its translation into Spanish, French, English, and German. This analysis is based on data collected in two corpora, CETEMPúblico, which allowed the identification of the functions of the marker in European Portuguese, and Europarl, for the listing of its translations. The research carried out in the source language reveals that the marker has an elaborative value, and more specifically an additive value, always associated with an element of unexpectedness, prefacing a new argument that reinforces the conclusion to be reached, which may (or may not) be the strongest argument in an argumentative scale. The contrastive analysis, in turn, shows the great variety of translational solutions adopted and a value not mentioned in any of the monolingual analyses: the counter-argumentative. The text concludes that (i) the different meanings of the marker in Portuguese are quite close and present themselves in a continuum, linked by family resemblances; (ii) there are important challenges in translating DM; (iii) the analysis of translations may require a reinterpretation of the DM in the source text. REZUMAT. Contribuții pentru descrierea și traducerea marcatorului discursiv ainda por cima în portugheza europeană contemporană. Pe baza unui cadru cognitiv-funcțional, această lucrare analizează diferitele utilizări ale marcatorului discursiv ainda por cima în portugheza europeană contemporană și, într-o a doua etapă, traducerea acestuia în spaniolă, franceză, engleză și germană. Această analiză se bazează pe date colectate în două corpusuri, CETEMPúblico, care a permis identificarea funcțiilor marcatorului în portugheză, și Europarl, pentru identificarea traducerilor. Cercetarea efectuată în limba sursă relevă faptul că marcatorul are o valoare elaborativă și, mai precis, o valoare aditivă, asociată întotdeauna cu un element ce exprimă neașteptarea, prefațând un nou argument, care întărește concluzia la care se va ajunge, care poate fi (sau nu) cel mai puternic argument dintr-o scală argumentativă. Analiza contrastivă arată, la rândul ei, marea varietate de soluții de traducere adoptate și o valoare care nu este menționată în niciuna dintre analizele monolingve: contra-argumentativul. Textul concluzionează că (i) diferitele sensuri ale marcatorului în portugheză sunt destul de apropiate și se prezintă într-un continuum, fiind legate prin asemănări de familie; (ii) provocările pe care le ridică traducerea MD sunt semnificative; (iii) analiza traducerilor poate necesita o reinterpretare a MD din textul sursă. Cuvinte-cheie: ainda por cima; marcatori discursivi; traducere; strategii de traducere; analiză contrastivă. Article history: Received 12 August 2023; Revised 19 October 2023; Accepted 30 October 2023; Available online 20 December 2023; Available print 31 December 2023.

Multifunctionality of discourse marker portanto in Braga’s Speech. This paper explores the multifunctionality and usage patterns of the discourse marker portanto in Braga’s speech. Our main goal is to propose a revised description of portanto, while acknowledging the validity of previous research on the topic. The investigation focused on the co-occurrence of functions associated with portanto, emphasizing its pivotal role in speech construction. The frequency distribution of portanto usage was found to be consistent with earlier studies, affirming its most prevalent application as a filler (marker). Our study also highlighted that an excessive use of discourse markers can create the illusion of coherence, rather than genuinely ensuring it, especially in contexts characterized by frequent pauses, verbal hesitations, and syntactic interruptions. Furthermore, this research examined the influence of discourse genre on portanto’s usage patterns. Notably, the two predominant uses observed in Braga’s speech were linked to specific aspects of sociolinguistic interviews, particularly the recollection of life stories and features of spontaneous speech. The findings enrich our understanding of this discourse marker's multifaceted role in facilitating coherent communication and its significance in various speech contexts. REZUMAT. Multifuncționalitatea marcatorului discursiv portanto în graiul din Braga. Acest articol explorează multifuncționalitatea și modelele de utilizare ale marcatorului discursiv portanto în graiul din Braga. Scopul nostru principal este să propunem o descriere revizuită a marcatorului portanto, recunoscând în același timp validitatea cercetărilor anterioare. Cercetarea noastră s-a concentrat asupra co-ocurenței funcțiilor marcatorului portanto, care subliniază rolul esențial al acestuia în coeziunea discursului. Distribuția frecvenței utilizării lui portanto s-a dovedit a fi în concordanță cu studiile anterioare, confirmând că cea mai frecventă utilizare este de marcator. Studiul nostru a subliniat, de asemenea, că utilizarea excesivă a marcatorilor discursivi poate crea iluzia coerenței, fără însă a o asigura cu adevărat, mai ales în contexte caracterizate de pauze frecvente, ezitări verbale și discontinuități sintactice. În plus, cercetarea noastră a examinat și influența genului discursiv asupra modelelor de utilizare ale marcatorului portanto. Cele două utilizări predominante observate în graiul din Braga au fost influențate de aspecte specifice ale interviurilor sociolingvistice, în special nararea poveștilor de viață și trăsăturile discursului spontan. Concluziile noastre contribuie la înțelegerea rolului multifațetat al acestui marcator discursiv în facilitarea comunicării coerente și clarifică sensurile sale în mai multe contexte. Cuvinte-cheie: graiul din Braga, registrul colocvial, marcatori discursivi, portugheză europeană, multifuncționalitate. Article history: Received 28 July 2023; Revised 2 November 2023; Accepted 12 November 2023; Available online 20 December 2023; Available print 31 December 2023.

Semiotics, as the field dealing with the production of meaning-making mechanisms, was supposed to be a holistic project. Semioticians in the 20th century were concerned about providing semiotics an epistemological identity. For instance, semiotics was aimed at following a meta-role (Greimas, 1976) as ‘a metadiscipline of all academic disciplines’ (Posner, 2003, p. 2366). In fact, Sebeok (1976) deemed semiotics as a ‘doctrine of signs’, refusing to call it a science or a theory. Despite this sophisticated terminology, semiotics remained poorly organised in the national academic systems. This lack of organisation in the academic institutions did not allow semiotics to show this allegedly federative role of general knowledge. Instead, semiotics ended up receiving different designations such as ‘esoteric knowledge’, ‘cabalistic language’, ‘formalistic paranoia’, and so forth. This paper delves into the institutional disorganisation of semiotics by addressing two main aspects. Firstly, the lack of interest by early semioticians to accurately organise their field in the institutions, and secondly, how this treatment, as a meta-field, thwarted its aspirations to be considered as a fully-fledged discipline. Thirdly, I engage in a current discussion (Parra, 2020) in semiotics that questions how semiotics has favoured applied approaches to the production of meaning.

The majority of recent research studies show the emotional state of language learners at the onset of the Covid-19 . Although the language students themselves identified issues limiting their learning, such as lack of interaction, lack of motivation and feedback, isolation, problems with the Internet, language teachers have admitted their concerns about students learning and confessed to being flexible, tolerant, and more humane. Today, there is a need to follow up on those student issues regarding their language learning beyond the Spring of 2020. This paper sheds light on the evolution of life, emotions, and wellbeing of the students, and their language learning beyond the rapid transition in Spring 2020 from forced unplanned teaching to the planned teaching during the pandemic of Fall 2020 and Spring 2021. This study explores the perceptions of 68 foreign language students in an American context through a survey. The results report on college language students’ needs, their emotions and wellbeing, and their recommendations to administrators based on their needs and perceptions.

The idea of assessment, while prevalent in education, needs rethinking. This paper reflects on the notion of assessment in today’s society, proposing an alternative for what it could (and should) be. By critically analyzing the role of assessment in today’s education, we conducted a hermeneutic examination of its original concept’s influence on the potential shift away from subject taxation and its current pornification. Through a discussion of assessment’s role in contemporary society and its true nature, the authors propose a shift from viewing assessment as a mere curriculum add-on to envisioning how a philosophy of assessment could profoundly transform education and society.

El objetivo de este artículo de investigación es indagar sobre el impacto de los artefactos pedagógicos derivados de las prácticas de maestros en formación en los procesos de enseñanza/aprendizaje de literatura en niños, niñas y adolescentes, en diversos contextos socioculturales colombianos durante y después de la pandemia. Se asume un enfoque cualitativo y una metodología de estudio de caso que abarca tres fases: diagnóstico, experiencia in situ, socialización e impacto de los productos creados. Las técnicas e instrumentos incluyeron, entre otros, observación directa, diario de campo y formatos de diagnóstico; así como elaboración de propuestas pedagógicas, clases espejo, working papers y creación de artefactos pedagógicos. Los participantes fueron maestros en formación activos en los periodos académicos 2020-2, 2021-2 y 2022-2 de VI y VIII semestres de las asignaturas Práctica Experiencias Significativas, Práctica en Transición y Creación Lingüística, y Literaria de la Licenciatura en Literatura y Lengua Castellana, de la Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira y las licenciaturas en Pedagogía Infantil y Educación Infantil, de la Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina. Los resultados destacan que los artefactos pedagógicos fueron una solución innovadora para las necesidades y demandas identificadas en los lugares de práctica, y enriquecieron los procesos de enseñanza/aprendizaje de la literatura. Se concluye que la práctica pedagógica debe valorar cada vez más la investigación educativa in situ, y aunque los artefactos pedagógicos aún no son plenamente explorados en el campo formativo, sí poseen potencial para integrarse en estas instancias investigativas.

El objetivo de este artículo de investigación es indagar sobre el impacto de los artefactos pedagógicos derivados de las prácticas de maestros en formación en los procesos de enseñanza/aprendizaje de literatura en niños, niñas y adolescentes, en diversos contextos socioculturales colombianos durante y después de la pandemia. Se asume un enfoque cualitativo y una metodología de estudio de caso que abarca tres fases: diagnóstico, experiencia in situ, socialización e impacto de los productos creados. Las técnicas e instrumentos incluyeron, entre otros, observación directa, diario de campo y formatos de diagnóstico; así como elaboración de propuestas pedagógicas, clases espejo, working papers y creación de artefactos pedagógicos. Los participantes fueron maestros en formación activos en los periodos académicos 2020-2, 2021-2 y 2022-2 de VI y VIII semestres de las asignaturas Práctica Experiencias Significativas, Práctica en Transición y Creación Lingüística, y Literaria de la Licenciatura en Literatura y Lengua Castellana, de la Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira y las licenciaturas en Pedagogía Infantil y Educación Infantil, de la Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina. Los resultados destacan que los artefactos pedagógicos fueron una solución innovadora para las necesidades y demandas identificadas en los lugares de práctica, y enriquecieron los procesos de enseñanza/aprendizaje de la literatura. Se concluye que la práctica pedagógica debe valorar cada vez más la investigación educativa in situ, y aunque los artefactos pedagógicos aún no son plenamente explorados en el campo formativo, sí poseen potencial para integrarse en estas instancias investigativas.

In this paper, we present an experiment for complexity-level analysis of Portuguese texts from the 18th century using NLP tools. The 18th century was the time for the realization of a new world that had been built since the Renaissance, it was the period of consolidation of many of the current sciences. One of its characteristics is the presentation of scientific written records in national languages, rather than Latin, and the expressed wishes that the specialized texts could be more understandable to people of lesser erudition. As such, we intend to collaborate to identify if and how these wishes were fulfilled. To achieve this goal, we resort to an NLP supporting methodology to detect degrees of complexity of a medical work of this time period, and compare it with two other works that have hypothesized lesser and greater complexities. By using NILC-Metrix, we intend to identify features of a continuum of complexity in this kind of documents.

There are some studies that analyze definitions of the term “suicide” in academic works, as well as in generalist dictionaries and encyclopedias in several languages, but there still seems to be no investigation focused on specialized dictionaries and encyclopedias (SDEs) on this topic. Hence the general objective of this study was to describe the suicide SDEs available in the literature. To accomplish this purpose, a basic, quantitative, qualitative, descriptive, bibliographical and documental method was used. The 12 criteria proposed by John Humbley in 2018 for the analysis of SDEs were determined as the main theoretical foundation. From 2017 to 2022, through an integrative review in 6 languages and 4 databases, 8 SDEs were excluded. The 4 included ones were 2 dictionaries and 2 encyclopedias published between 2003 and 2016, 3 in English and 1 in Spanish. One of the most relevant findings was the fact that the SDEs examined try to address the various aspects of this object, instead of adopting a reductionist perspective. However, as only 4 books were analyzed, it was not possible to identify a clear pattern about all 12 criteria and all 4 sources. For example, it is not known which terms would be more feasible to include in a work of this nature nor the optimal way to predicate them. Even so, this paper is a relevant contribution to the studies on language and suicide, providing elements for the evolution of dictionaries and encyclopedias specialized on this binomial.

It has been claimed in the literature that referential null subjects receive definite readings in consistent null-subject languages, like Spanish. That is why they are said to display the typical behavior of definite pronouns (pro). However, referential null subjects can receive indefinite readings under the following conditions: i) the antecedent must be a bare plural, ii) the indefinite null argument is interpreted as a bare noun, typically as an internal argument, and iii) identity of sense anaphora is involved. Crucially, referential null objects appear under the same conditions, and receive indefinite readings in Peninsular Spanish. This suggests that the gap could be analyzed in the same way. In this paper, I argue that both null arguments should not be analyzed as empty pronominals (pro), given the syntactic behavior that they show. By contrast, I will argue that an argument ellipsis analysis should be assumed, given that the internal argument position is occupied by an indefinite, non-specific bare noun, the null gap can receive sloppy readings, and the omission is not as ‘big’ as the one at verb-stranding VP-ellipsis, nor as ‘small’ as the one at nominal ellipsis.

The behavior of Spanish verbs of becoming (e.g., volverse rico ‘to become rich’), also known as pseudocopular or semicopular verbs, has received relatively little attention in the literature. Bybee & Eddington (2006) (B&E) analyze these verbs employing an exemplar model based on frequency and semantic similarity. The current paper presents an analysis of verbs of becoming based on the notion of cluster concepts (Jackendoff 2002, 1983), set within a scale, as an alternative account to B&E’s, that explains the behavior of this class of verbs in a more precise and comprehensive way. The current study shows that there are strong tendencies in the use of adjectives with a given verb of becoming, which correlate to their use with the copular verbs ser/estar. Crucially, the cluster concept model accounts for uses of adjectives that do not fall into any particular grouping in B&E’s model. A corpus study supports the analysis. The current study represents an original contribution in that it is the only study that treats verbs of becoming using the notion of cluster concepts.

This paper proposes a system of pragmatic tagging for the VALESCO.HUMOR corpus, available at the Observahumor.com website. To date, the work of the GRIALE group has involved the study of irony and humour in Spanish, leading to the creation of a taxonomy of humour markers and indicators that serve to identify ironic and humorous utterances in the corpus. Markers are elements that help in the interpretation of an utterance as humorous (e.g., intonation or laughter), whereas indicators are humorous elements per se (e.g., certain suffixes or phraseological units). Timofeeva and Ruiz Gurillo (2021) have developed a pilot version of a pragmatic tagging system, based on markers and indicators, for the CHILDHUM corpus (also available at Observahumor.com). However, their system incorporates characteristics which are applicable to that specific corpus of children’s narratives, and as such cannot easily be extrapolated to all the corpora hosted at Observahumor.com. For this reason, it is necessary to carry out a detailed study of the pragmatic tags that might best be used towards a better interpretation of each text therein, and hence that would be suitable for each type of corpus. In the present study we present a proposal for the VALESCO.HUMOR corpus, which comprises 148 ironichumorous sequences extracted from 67 colloquial conversations of the Val.Es.Co. corpus (http://www.valesco.es/). The aim of this proposal is to provide the reader with all the necessary information to be able to interpret these humorous sequences and thus be able to analyse the corpus adequately..

This paper explores expressive illocutionary acts in responses to hotel guests' reviews posted on Tripadvisor and aims to compare their occurrences and realizations in 320 managerial responses in English from English and Serbian hotels, with manifestations of linguistic politeness a focus of analysis. Drawing largely on Leech's (2014) framework, it has attempted to determine whether the acts which tend to come in the form of formulaic, routinized expressions occurring in the responses written by hotel representatives with different backgrounds exhibit some differences as a reflection of culture-specific politeness values. The analysis has revealed considerable similarity between the two data sets in the lexico-grammatical realization of expressives and the use of resources for politeness. However, some noteworthy points of dissimilarity have emerged which correlate closely with the differences in cultural value preferences of the two countries in Hofstede et al.'s (2010) dimensions of power distance and of individualism.

This paper provides a discourse analysis of two poems selected from the book Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature (Driskill et al., 2011b) to explore the concept of grief in Two-Spirit/Queer Indigenous poetry. It analyzes the diction, voice, formality, themes, metaphors, similes, personification, and the use of repetition the authors utilize to represent grief and discover the social, cultural, and political realities and discursive practices behind the poems. It concludes that through their expression of grief, the poets highlight the emergence and endurance of a community and people who will continue to fight for survival and the right to live in peace and harmony outside of colonial gender and sexual binaries. Both poems engage with a continuing sense of Two-Spirit identity that call forth new generations of Queer Indigenous/Two-Spirit people while remembering their history and the Elders who came before to heal personal and historical trauma often through connection with nature, their ancestors, and spirituality.

This paper draws upon arguments about spaces as a central idea in order to understand language inequality and invisibility through the framework of family language policy. Tracing the history of sociolinguistic studies, space occupies a pivotal role whose importance has been revealed making contribution to many useful theories. Family language policy is the private sphere within the concept of space, long neglected, but renewed interest over the past 20 years has demonstrated in a sustained manner the tussle over the maintenance of the heritage language in the face of the host language. Language invisibilization within the family domain is not confined to heritage language and its accents but also to other non-reported languages, such as secret language and sacred languages. More in-depth empirical observations with new innovative methodologies are needed to understand the inequality and invisibility of languages at micro-level. The importance of the Family domain as the first place of socialization for children, compels us to seek a better understanding of spatially organized language practices and beliefs which have an impact on the whole upcoming generation.

In order to investigate whether the acquisition of N-drop (null nouns) is related to the acquisition of the agreement system of Spanish determiners this paper analyzes L1 longitudinal Spanish data from two children and L2 longitudinal data from two children learning Spanish in a naturalistic setting. Based on the results, it is argued that in L1, the acquisition of N-drop may be triggered by the feature 'word marker' which constitutes the make-up of Spanish Nouns, Adjectives and Determiners (Harris 1991, Berstein 1993). However, in the case of L2 acquisition, projecting the abstract ‘word marker’ feature of the Spanish DP the morphology of the Spanish determiner may not be a condition for the productive use of Null Nouns. We base this conclusion on the following pieces of evidence: (1) Monosyllabic place-holders (non-tonic vowels which appear before referential categories) occur in child L1 Spanish, which leads us to propose that these items play a role in the projection of the abstract [+word marker] syntactic feature in L1 Spanish; (2) Monosyllabic place-holders do not occur in child non-native Spanish, which leads us to propose that L2 acquires’ sophisticated phonological systems may prevent them from dissecting the incoming input data (using a ‘bottom up’ processing strategy) which leads to the projection of abstract features; (3) In L1 acquisition non-adult null determiners cease to occur when N-drop becomes productive. This is not the case on L2 acquisition, which again leads us to propose that L2 acquires do not rely on the ‘bottom up’ strategy to deal with input data; (4) In L1 acquisition gender mismatches cease to occur when N-drop becomes productive. In the case of L2 acquisition there is not correlation between productive use of N-drop and the disappearance of gender mismatches. Given the fact that the morphological realization of word markers and gender markers is difficult to tease apart in Spanish, these results provide further evidence that L1 learners make indirect use of morphological markers (via phonological dissection) to project abstract syntactic features.