This study investigates language use and code switching (CS) in parliamentary sessions of the People’s Council of Representatives in Aceh, Indonesia. Three recordings of plenary sessions of the...Show moreThis study investigates language use and code switching (CS) in parliamentary sessions of the People’s Council of Representatives in Aceh, Indonesia. Three recordings of plenary sessions of the Council were transcribed and used as data sources for the research. The study used transcriptions to obtain frequency and syntactic constructions and interviews with speakers of Acehnese to obtain social functions and perceived attitudes toward CS. It was found that the use of Acehnese relative to Indonesian and other languages in the parliamentary was 26.5% in terms of word count and 3.3% in terms of continuous speech duration and furthermore could be classified as CS wherein Acehnese served either as Matrix and Embedded Language based on Matrix Language Framework (MLF – Myers-Scotton and Jake, 2009). The CS were mostly intersentential in both direction and extrasentential CS were found only from Indonesian to Acehnese. In addition, the CS mainly functioned as a manner of quotation and interlocutor addressing. This study contributed to a better understanding of language and code switching in politically-motivated settings in Aceh or other multilingual regions in Indonesia. Future research in this area could focus on the intellectual and political factors underlying deliberate code switching.Show less
Bilingual compound verbs (BCVs) are constructions where an inflected light verb from one language co-occurs with an inserted lexical verb from another language, which provides the semantic content,...Show moreBilingual compound verbs (BCVs) are constructions where an inflected light verb from one language co-occurs with an inserted lexical verb from another language, which provides the semantic content, e.g., Spanish/English hacer cook “to cook”: Spanish/Maya hacer loch “to hug”. Although previous studies, i.a., Balam (2015); Balam et al. (2020); Michalski (2017), have analyzed the (morpho)syntactic structure of hacer “to do” BCVs in Spanish/English code-switching and Maya/Spanish code-switching respectively, there is no study that offers a semantic analysis of these innovative constructions in these bilingual varieties. Endeavoring to fill this gap, the present study examines the semantic use of BCVs in Orange Walk, Belize and the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico; two linguistically and sociohistorically connected yet distinct communities where Spanish hacer BCVs have been attested (e.g., Balam, 2015; Michalski, 2017). More specifically, we analyzed which semantic domains are open to other language lexical verbs in these two bi/multilingual communities that markedly differ in terms of their frequency of use of BCVs. 903 BCVs from Balam ́s (2016a) corpus of oral production data from Northern Belize and 237 BCVs from Michalski ́s (2021) Yucatan Spanish Twitter corpus were coded using our categorization model, consisting of 3 mains semantic categories, 28 mutually exclusive categories and 5 references to identity. Results show that there are significant similarities and differences regarding the openness of semantic domains to other language lexical verbs in the two communities. In terms of similarities, subcategories “C1 School, Education, Learning-Related” and “B2 Friendships, Social Communication” evinced high levels of openness (> 7%) across the two communities. In terms of differences, the BCVs from Yucatan encapsulated a relatively high degree of cultural and linguistic references (47%) that are idiosyncratic to the Yucatecan/Mayan community. We therefore posit that Backus ́s (2001) concept of specificity and Treffers-Daller ́s (2023) listedness to be the main motivations for the insertion of Maya verbs in hacer BCVs. The Belize results demonstrate that many different semantic contexts exhibited openness to English verb insertions, reflecting the multicultural and multilingual identity of the Northern Belizean society. The high degree of openness found in “C1 School, Education, Learning-Related” (20%) and “C2 Work-Related”(13%) can be attributed to the more frequent (official) use of English in educational and professional settings, possibly resulting in higher levels of “entrenchment” in the speakers´minds (Backus, 2014).Show less
This study aimed to gain understanding of the directive behavior of 4- and 5- year-old English-speaking children in child-to-child and child-caretaker interactions. The research analyzed 660...Show moreThis study aimed to gain understanding of the directive behavior of 4- and 5- year-old English-speaking children in child-to-child and child-caretaker interactions. The research analyzed 660 directives extracted from 10 hours of video recordings. The findings showed that the compliance with the directive was influenced by the speaker's familiarity with their surroundings and the degree of directness of the directive. Additionally, children who were more familiar with each other used more indirect directives, while 4-year-olds used more indirect directives than 5-year-olds. A pattern was observed where children phrased their directives differently when speaking to a teacher or to a peer, with directives to teachers being less direct and relying more on the teacher's inference skills.Show less
In this thesis, I analyse and discuss palatalisation of the consonant sequence /tj/, particularly within the context of Dutch diminutives. First, an overview is provided of Dutch diminutive...Show moreIn this thesis, I analyse and discuss palatalisation of the consonant sequence /tj/, particularly within the context of Dutch diminutives. First, an overview is provided of Dutch diminutive allomorphy, palatalisation in general, and about frequency and productivity and their possible effects on sound change. Based on a detailed review of the literature within this topic, the expectation was that frequency would be a major influencing agent of this palatalisation process. In respect of the specific sequence of /tj/, data was elicited by means of a small-scale production experiment, in which I used beetje (a very frequent diminutive) and weetje (a low-frequency diminutive) as target words. The findings indicate that the alternation of what was perceived as the unmarked [tɕ] and the frequency-conditioned, palatal [ç] is no longer sensitive to frequency, and that [ç] is more recurrent than it was expected to be.Show less
Donald Trump was a highly controversial figure in the 2016 and 2020 elections. He presented himself as America’s hero (Mercieca, 2020). Trump's 2016 campaign was marked by an unique and...Show moreDonald Trump was a highly controversial figure in the 2016 and 2020 elections. He presented himself as America’s hero (Mercieca, 2020). Trump's 2016 campaign was marked by an unique and idiosyncratic rhetoric and campaigning style in which social media play a large role and especially his use of Twitter was remarkable (Polak, 2018). Trump’s rhetoric was full of pathos-driven techniques like: America first exceptionalism, hyperboles, repetition, fear appeals, ad populum and ad hominem arguments (Mercieca, 2020) while his rhetoric lacked complexity (Skinnel, 2018). Furthermore, Trump was known to distort facts (Skinnel, 2018). Although Trump was suspended from Twitter, begin January 2021, shortly after losing the election and the storming of the capitol took place, he has recently made a re-entrance on Twitter. The author of this paper wishes to contribute to the current research on Trump’s unique rhetorical style which continues to have a strong influence in America and do so by analysing Trump’s Twitter use during the 2020 elections, making use of a corpus based approach supplemented by a qualitative analysis of his rhetoric.Show less
This thesis examines peace negotiations as a critical discussion, analysing what strategies are used in peace talks and the strategic manoeuvring used in each stage of the argumentative activity...Show moreThis thesis examines peace negotiations as a critical discussion, analysing what strategies are used in peace talks and the strategic manoeuvring used in each stage of the argumentative activity based on the topical potential, audience demands and presentational devices. Following Van Eemeren’s (2010) extended pragma-dialectical theory, the thesis, after establishing the theoretical framework on negotiations as a communicative type, the stages and the participants of a peace negotiation and the peace processes and approaches that are adopted during a peace negotiation, analyses the strategies that are used in each stage of the peace negotiations between the United States and Vietnam, that led to the end of the war in Vietnam and to the signing of a peace agreement between the U.S and Vietnam. The thesis concludes with the identification of strategies used in the U.S and North Vietnam peace talks and a discussion about the degree of success of the strategies used in the U.S and Vietnam peace negotiations that led to the a mutually accepted peace accord.Show less
![Why do the Kardashians talk like [ðæ̰t̰]: An intra-speaker investigation of Kim Kardashian's Creaky Voice.](/sites/all/themes/scholarly/img/closed_access.png?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=b2b247b5f5efae047744&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=0&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=4)
