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A Comparative Account of Possession Expression in Tugen and Kiswahili
Issue:
Volume 7, Issue 2, March 2019
Pages:
55-62
Received:
21 January 2019
Accepted:
13 March 2019
Published:
10 April 2019
Abstract: Ownership, kinship and whole/part relationships are possessive expressions in natural languages. Possession is distinguished between alienable and inalienable possession, depending on the semantic relationship between the possessor and possessum. Alienable possession is a contextually dependent semantic relationship, where the elements in the relationship do not show any semantic dependency, whereas inalienable possession is a permanent semantic relationship between the possessor and the possessum for example as used in the expression of body parts. Besides possession, languages also exploit possessive expressions to express non possessive relationships, for example, emotive states. This paper attempts to compare how possession is expressed in Tugen, a Southern Nilotic language of the Kalenjin macro language and Kiswahili, a Bantu language. It also seeks to show how alienable and inalienable possession is distinguished in the languages, if at all, as well as how possessive expressions are used to express other non possessive relationships in both languages. It also seeks to find out the role of definiteness in the semantic expression of possession. This paper shows that in spite of the differences in the two languages the expression of possession is somewhat similar. Tugen is a VSO language while Kiswahili is an SVO language. Tugen is a native language spoken in Baringo county of Kenya, while Kiswahili is an official and national language in Kenya.
Abstract: Ownership, kinship and whole/part relationships are possessive expressions in natural languages. Possession is distinguished between alienable and inalienable possession, depending on the semantic relationship between the possessor and possessum. Alienable possession is a contextually dependent semantic relationship, where the elements in the relat...
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The Design and Publication of iBooks Author Conference Interpreting Course-Books in the Age of Big Data
Issue:
Volume 7, Issue 2, March 2019
Pages:
63-68
Received:
15 February 2019
Accepted:
18 March 2019
Published:
10 April 2019
Abstract: In the age of Big Data, the heterogeneous omnimedia conference interpreting (CI) books are introduced into the design and publication of the CI course-books by providing the learners with enormous amount of bilingual information and an interactive reading mode in accordance with their cognitive patterns. The present paper sets forth the four modern features of the iBooks Author (iBA) CI course-books with the prominence to the development of the self-formed mode of independent learning and CI learning strategies, and, on the strength of the well-accepted evaluation system, assesses the performance of this new kind of CI course-books through questionnaires and interviews with 57 candidates for the degree of Master of Translation and Interpreting (MTI) and some teachers in two Chinese universities. According to the results which prove the efficiency and advantages of iBA CI course-books in future CI teaching, the present paper suggests that iBA, an e-book authoring application, may well overcome the buckets effect of the traditional CI course-books, namely the cumbersome publication and time-consuming selection of suitable teaching materials, and thus it meets the talent market’s need for more qualified conference interpreters and contributes to professional, customized CI skill development and practice on account of its sound theoretical basis, advanced teaching methods and scientific evaluation system.
Abstract: In the age of Big Data, the heterogeneous omnimedia conference interpreting (CI) books are introduced into the design and publication of the CI course-books by providing the learners with enormous amount of bilingual information and an interactive reading mode in accordance with their cognitive patterns. The present paper sets forth the four modern...
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English Communication Needs of Engineering Students
Dwi Poedjiastutie,
Lailatul Rifah
Issue:
Volume 7, Issue 2, March 2019
Pages:
69-77
Received:
18 February 2019
Accepted:
25 March 2019
Published:
22 April 2019
Abstract: Oral communication is critical for engineer graduates to be more competitive in the work-places. In foreign and second language teaching, one of several consequences is the increasing importance attached to careful studies of learner needs as a prerequisite for effective course design. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the oral communication needs of Civil Engineering students at UMM and so as to examine the challenges engineering students face to fulfill the needs. Qualitative research was employed in this study. Research of this type is always based on the voices and interpretations of the participants. Therefore, in this study, the ideas and perspectives of Civil Engineering students were constructed by following this approach. As in qualitative a theory was constructed from the new data rather than the old ones. The participants of this study were students of Civil Engineering Department who were enrolled in the sixth and eight semesters and attended the internship program in academic year 2017-2018. The research instruments used in this study are: Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and Web-based Survey. The finding showed that oral communication was strongly needed by the engineering students.
Abstract: Oral communication is critical for engineer graduates to be more competitive in the work-places. In foreign and second language teaching, one of several consequences is the increasing importance attached to careful studies of learner needs as a prerequisite for effective course design. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the oral com...
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Cognitive Study for Language as a Complex Adaptive System: Evidence from Chinese WeChat Communications
Issue:
Volume 7, Issue 2, March 2019
Pages:
78-84
Received:
28 January 2019
Accepted:
3 April 2019
Published:
15 May 2019
Abstract: The nature of language has always been the core issue of academic inquiry. Form and function, symbol and representation, linearity and system, static and dynamic, inner and outer, mind and brain, etc. are always the hot arguing topics in both linguistics and philosophical fields. The complex adaptive theory argues that language understanding requires whole-hearted intelligent participation and the adaptive selection of complex systems, which is the overall response of human beings to the external world and language stimulus. In order to prove this, this article chooses Chinese daily language on the WeChat as examples so as to provide evidence for explaining the complexity of language expression and language understanding. With thoughtful analysis and discussion by exploring the essential features of language evidence, this paper concludes that language understanding goes beyond the syntactic sequences of words and involves the whole cognition and adaptation of human being to the environment; semantic generation needs to mobilize the comprehensive coordination of all elements of human cognitive systems to produce the overall effect. It further indicates that thinking is literal and coherent, and suitable for logical modeling. This conclusion is in accordance with the biological and neural science claim by the second generation of cognitive science.
Abstract: The nature of language has always been the core issue of academic inquiry. Form and function, symbol and representation, linearity and system, static and dynamic, inner and outer, mind and brain, etc. are always the hot arguing topics in both linguistics and philosophical fields. The complex adaptive theory argues that language understanding requir...
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Calculating the Distance Between Near-Synonyms Across Languages: A Case Study on Chinese and Japanese
Issue:
Volume 7, Issue 2, March 2019
Pages:
85-92
Received:
19 March 2019
Accepted:
26 April 2019
Published:
15 May 2019
Abstract: The study of differences between near-synonyms across languages has always been a hot area of research in foreign language teaching and cross-language comparison. A linguistic phenomenon received special attention, Chinese-Japanese homographs often confuse learners since they have same forms yet differ slightly in terms of their meanings and usages. Traditional studies were unfolded mainly in two aspects: case studies on homograph discrimination and division of homographs according to meaning & usage distance. Researches concerning the latter aspect tend to distinguish near-synonyms between languages by means of a three-way classification, i.e. synonyms, heteronyms, and near-synonyms. However, this classification is far from satisfactory in that they cannot measure “near-synonymy” in an accurate and gradable manner since the term “near-synonymy” per se is too broad a term to define. This paper proposes a statistical method for calculating near-synonyms across languages by means of parallel corpus, where translation ratio, F-measure and inter-translation ratio are taken into account as parameters. By means of the F-value, this highly productive method is not only applicable in classifying synonyms, heteronyms, and near-synonyms between Chinese and Japanese, but also allows measuring the meanings & usage distance between cross-linguistic near-synonyms. To prove the effectiveness of this method, around 1900 pairs of Chinese and Japanese near-synonyms are compared and has gained good effects.
Abstract: The study of differences between near-synonyms across languages has always been a hot area of research in foreign language teaching and cross-language comparison. A linguistic phenomenon received special attention, Chinese-Japanese homographs often confuse learners since they have same forms yet differ slightly in terms of their meanings and usages...
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