Issue 75/2011
Vorwort
Timo Ahlers, Jerra Lui Busch & Markus Rheindorf
Die Fachsprache der Tontechnik.
Johannes Adamski
This paper takes a closer look at the terminology of sound technology. As every technical terminology, it serves the purpose of providing vocabulary for devices, processes and parameters used in technicians’ daily work. Sound technology being a very young field, the roots of its terminology are still easy to identify. They are, of course, the languages of music, electronics and physics. But the influence of special features that sound devices provide and the need of describing the outputs rather than the complex processes behind them, forms the very own nature of this terminology. This linguistic approach starts with the analysis of a lexicon and combines the results with some practical observations in order to provide a general overview of the sound engineer’s everyday language.
Lego City, tooth tunes und Co. Beobachtungen zur Sprache in Werbespots für Kinder.
Sigrid Fichtinger
This paper summarizes the results of an analysis of commercials with children as primary target group. The aim is to show characteristic features of 15 individual spots advertising, for example, a tooth brush, a toy, food or vacation for children. Despite the focus on spoken and written texts in the spots, other aspects of their composition (sounds, music, dramaturgy and picture sequences) are also discussed. The main focus is on the specific advertising messages of the analysed spots. An accurate description of every spot is an adequate starting point for the following interpretation. An important attribute of these commercials is their multi-addressing: Parents and grandparents can be a target group as well. This analysis shows the importance of amusement in commercials that want to attract children’s attention. Fun and enthusiasm keep children in suspense. The language works with affirmative connotations to create a prestigious product.
Morphonotaktik in der Sprachverarbeitung: Online- und Offline-Tests mit deutschsprachigen Erwachsenen.
Eva Maria Freiberger, Carmen Abbrederis, Franziska Luckabauer & Magdalena Stammler
Recent studies on first language acquisition (Kamandulyte 2006; Freiberger 2007; Zydorowicz 2007, 2009) based on the theoretical framework of Dressler & Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (2006a, 2006b) and research on Specific Language Impairment (e. g. Marshall & van der Lely 2006) show a significant difference in the acquisition of morphonotactic and phonotactic consonant clusters. The experiments of this paper build on studies of first online experiments by Reinisch (2006) and investigate the role of morpheme boundaries in language processing of German speaking adults. In contrast to the investigations of Lithuanian and Polish child language, which demonstrate that morphonotactic clusters are acquired before phonotactic consonant groups, the results of the Visual Target-Experiments and of an offline study confirm that the influence of the position of graphemes is more relevant in language processing than of morpheme boundaries.
Französische Jugendsprache in den Vororten von Paris mit einem vergleichenden Blick auf das Deutsche.
Johanna Humenberger
This paper examines the Français Contemporain des Cités/Contemporary French of the suburbs (FCC) which is a French variety mainly spoken in the suburbs of Paris. First of all, we will examine possible reasons for the emergence of a special kind of youth language by analyzing the social background of the speakers. Subsequently we will present some particularities of the FCC concerning lexicon, morphology and pragmatics and compare it to German youth language. The basis of the analysis is the French film L'Esquive.
Die interkulturelle Trainingspraxis in Entwicklungsorganisationen aus linguistischer Perspektive. Eine Fallstudie.
Gisela Linschinger
This article takes as its point of departure the notion that linguistic knowledge is not recognized in common programs for intercultural communication trainings, although it could make a major contribution to the understanding of intercultural and institutional communication among international staff. Hence interculturality is a main influence in development-aid projects, the current practice of what is today called „Intercultural Communication Training“ is examined exemplarily in one of the most influential Austrian development organizations, following the principles of discourse analysis, empirical social research and triangulation.
After the evaluation of the trainings from a linguistic point of view, three different discourse analytical training concepts, which could be implemented in a development organization, are presented. Further, it is examined whether these linguistic intercultural communication trainings could mitigate the deficiencies of the current training’s practice. The study reaches the conclusion that the execution of empirically founded discourse-analytical intercultural communication trainings in development aid organisations would be difficult, but effective, and would improve the quality of preparation seminars targeting future staff of development aid projects.
Greek American Greek: Lexical Borrowing in the Speech of Greek Americans.
Lisa Matejka-Hanser
In this contribution we propose the establishment of morphonotactics as a subpart of morphonology based on previous research in morphonology, Natural Morphology and Natural Phonology, notably the Beats-and-Binding model of phonotactics. Our area of investigation concerns consonant clusters. Focusing on morphonotactics in English (5.1.), German (5.2.), Italian (5.3.) and Polish (5.4.), we establish a gradient continuum between morphonotactics and phonotactics and investigate the impact of morphological and phonological typology on cross-linguistic differences in the number and nature of morphonotactic clusters.
Untersuchungen zur ungarischen Fachsprache Logistik.
Nyakas Judit
Studies on the technical language of logistics in Hungarian.
In the age of globalization, the need to understand technical languages has been steadily increasing. The internationalization of economic and scientific relations implies the mutual interaction of languages as a consequence. Language as an important means of communication has always been exposed to influences (e.g. Latin, French) due to the development of social forms, political integration and technological progress. In the globalized world, the dominance of English plays an important role in both general and technical languages. The evolution of vocabulary means new tasks and challenges for both language users as well as linguists. The language of economics is an important area of research within the field of technical languages. The field of logistics should be considered a multidisciplinary science that exhibits points of contact with economics and engineering.
In my linguistic research, I examine the characteristics of the written technical language of logistics drawing on professional texts published by two Hungarian journals specialized on logistics. The focus of my research is the influence of anglicisms on Hungarian terminology.
Parallel and “Antagonistic” Complementation Structures in the History of the Greek Language.
Konstantinos Sampanis
Zielsetzung des vorliegenden Aufsatzes ist: a.) eine bündige Skizzierung des graduellen Verlusts des Infinitivs in der Geschichte des Griechischen anhand von Belegen aus der späteren klassischen Antike bis zur späteren byzantinischen und frühen neugriechischen Sprachperiode vorzunehmen und b.) die syntaktischen „Parallelismen“, die vornehmlich im Koine-Griechisch bzw. im Neuen Testament auftreten, zu untersuchen. Außerdem wird eine genauere Untersuchung des Neuen Testaments durchgeführt, um die Ausbreitung von finiten Satzkomplementen auf Kosten von Infinitivkonstruktionen festzustellen. Zu diesem Zweck wird ein statistischer Ansatz in Bezug auf bestimmte Autoren des Neuen Testaments angewandt. Je nach „Übereinstimmung“ oder „Abweichung“ hinsichtlich der Norm der klassischen „Standardsprache“ im Sprachstil dieser Autoren werden wir versuchen, den Sprachwandel in der Umgangssprache dieser Periode darzustellen und etliche kontextuelle Parameter, die zur frequenteren Verwendung von finiten Komplementen im Griechischen beitrugen, ausfindig zu machen.
Zur Struktur von Reduplikanten: Vereinfachung in der Reduplikation.
Thomas Schwaiger
Diachronic and cross linguistic work on the reduplication phenomenon over the past decades has yielded the common assumptions that partial reduplication always develops out of full reduplication and that in no synchronic state of a language is there productive partial reduplication without full reduplication. This article shows that strictly adhering to these claims is tantamount to ignoring important structural facts about reduplication which manifest themselves in individual languages as well as across languages over and over again. The following hypothesis is put forward: The copying process of reduplication is influenced by a tendency to simplify its resulting structures. Inspired by implicational scales in linguistic typology, developmental pathways in grammaticalization theory and the prosodic hierarchy in phonology, a tentative hierarchy of structural simplification of reduplicants is proposed. Then – although some shortcomings of such a hierarchy and the need for its further empirical substantiation and modification are acknowledged – the importance of the basic conclusions following from it and its usefulness for the typology of reduplication are emphasized. Finally, a first step towards an explanation of the above mentioned observations is attempted.
Diskursanalyse und Tagebuchforschung: Politik im Tagebuch von Rosa Mayreder 1918-1937.
Brigitte Semanek
This paper examines the relationship of discourse analysis and diary studies by means of a brief survey of the diary written by the Austrian feminist author Rosa Mayreder (1858-1938). First, relevant definitions of diaries are explored and, second, two approaches to discourse analysis are compared: one established by the historian Achim Landwehr and one developed at the Department of Linguistics in Vienna, the Discourse-Historical Approach of Ruth Wodak et al. Adapting the latter for the analysis of Mayreder’s diary, this paper shows how the discourse about politics is produced and reproduced in the diary by studying examples of entries from 1918 to 1937.
Narrative Kompetenz im Vorschulalter.
Strutzmann Elisabeth, Katrin Bartl, Ralf Vollmann & Peter B. Marschik
Story-telling is a fundamental ability of non-contextual language use which develops in preschool age and serves as a precursor of further literate competences emphasized in school education. It is therefore useful to develop robust test methods of narrative competence aiming at the possibility of early intervention. In this study, narrative data of 54 children (27 girls and 27 boys) between age 3;0 and 6;0 with normal language development have been analyzed within the framework of the "Narratives in Communicative Development Inventories" project both with picture stories and relevant testing methods. For this analysis, narrative structure and tense forms have been considered. Three-year-olds are not able to tell a story on their own; they need scaffolding from the caretakers. Shortly afterwards, narrative abilities are improving rapidly, but remain dependent on certain factors such as the type of story used. As for tense forms, present tense is the primary tense used by the children. At 4;0, however, children establish the use of perfect and imperfect tense forms, whereby switches between tense forms have a number of specific functions.
Rufnamenbildung im Vergleich: Österreich - Norwegen.
Irina Windhaber
There are numerous possibilities to call our friends, family and colleagues by. Often, the baptized name(s) play a minor role in this process, at least in their exact, baptized form. Speakers choose from many variants of alternation to fit those baptized, formal names of their friends and family to the informal environment they are to be used in. In addition, they make use of alternative sources for informal names, like appellatives and names originally belonging to other people.
After a research project conducted in Austria and Norway, the 564 informal names collected have been categorized and analyzed. This paper shows and explains the biggest and most interesting differences in informal names between Austria and Norway as well as between females and males. Also, the domains of usage of the different forms of informal names are explored.
As examples, the influence of the high linguistic competence of Norwegians in English on their informal personal names has been shown. Furthermore, the author investigates the reasons for the lack of profession-influenced names among the females of both countries.
Das Lemniskatenmodell. Konzeption einer psychosemiotischen Theorie.
Johannes Maximilian Zweimüller
Psychosemiotics is an emergent discipline, not yet established, which involves the psychic reality of sign textures and operates in the crossroads area of various theories. Indeed, hypotheses on psychosemiotic issues are already emerging from diverse disciplines, but there is no discipline which treats the whole phenomenon of sign psychism, owing to a serious fade-out of elementary manners of the observation field. As a consequence, it seems necessary to facilitate a methodological realignment. Therefore only an incremental approximation to an effective explication of the sign psychism seems to be practicable, because the theory is ab ovo twisted into its own subject. A key stage on this way will be the conception of an open system, the so-called lemniscates model. Therein an entanglement of otherwise separated scientific discourses should be established, the model functions as a generator of a solitary sign concept, respectively.