Volume 8, Issue 2

This article proposes a model for route description dialogues based on the integration of the theories about route directions with those related to specific spatial instructions. This proposal is based empirically on a corpus of spoken Italian. The analysis of the corpus has shown that the basic dialogue strategy proposed by previous researchers requires further integration and elaboration. Also the model of spatial language developed in cognitive linguistics applies to the description of the giver�s instructions and directions, despite the fact that the literature in the field often overlooks this approach. This way of accounting for route descriptions is suitable to explain the lexicalization of the conceptualization of the displacements the follower must accomplish. A model of dialogue partitions integrated with the cognitive modelling of spatial language is proposed and supported by examples from the linguistic data.

An approach is presented for familiarizing foreign language learners with the content and organization of extended written speech acts. It comprises awareness-raising activities (e.g. matching text segments with functional glosses, providing glosses for text segments), manipulation tasks (e.g. reconstructing texts whose functional components are provided in jumbled order) and writing tasks (e.g. drafting texts at first by following directions which specify functional components, and then by drawing on descriptions of communicative scenarios). The approach shows how explicit training in linguistic-textual strategies can enable foreign language learners to develop metalinguistic awareness (i.e. to recognise the connections between linguistic forms and functions) and to develop interactional skills (i.e. to verbally negotiate social rights and duties effectively and politely).

The paper aims to reveal the thinking processes and identify comprehension patterns of three groups of Cantonese learners of English who were secondary students while they were working on a multiple-choice speech act comprehension exercise. The elicited verbal protocols provide significant information for interlanguage pragmatic comprehension and development from the learners.A multiple-choice pragmatic comprehension exercise which consisted of five English direct and indirect speech acts (requests, apologies, refusals, compliments and complaints) in contextualized dialogues was conducted to 156 Cantonese learners of English. They were studying from F2 to F6 of about ages 14 to 18 in three Hong Kong secondary schools during the research period. The comprehension exercise scores showed that the interlanguage pragmatic competence of the three groups of secondary students progressed steadily. The students� verbal protocols exhibited that they were less reliant on literal meaning in interpretation of meaning, and adopted more varied and complex processing strategies from F2 to F6 gradually. The variety and complexity of comprehension strategies and patterns illustrate the characteristic features of the formal representation stage in Bialystok�s cognitive processing model.

This article discusses the covert language of Kenyan hip hop lyrics. It will show that it has two interacting factors for its covertness, one is the uniqueness of Sheng and the other is the lexical adjustment processes that involve the construction of ad hoc concepts based on the interrelation between the encoded concepts, contextual information and the pragmatic processes of narrowing and broadening. This article will also show that Kenyan hip hop lyrics are prone to misinterpretation as a result of the lexical manipulation processes and the figurative language used. It will also prove that the misunderstanding of Kenyan hip hop lyrics is triggered intentionally by the speakers� abilities and preferences to exploit covert language, which is intended to lock out outsiders and create a new identity for the Kenyan urban youth. Hidden in the figurative language is a demeaning understanding of women as sex objects.

Advertisements need to focus on a product or service on offer in order to disseminate a message effectively. Any other focus, for instance on the advertisement�s provider, seems at first sight counterintuitive. However, in an early nineteenth-century South African newspaper analysed here (1824), the focus is frequently on the advertisers themselves, because separate brand names or logos are not in use. Therefore, advertiser presentation appears to be a striking feature of the text type in the period. In this paper two basic strategies of advertiser presentation are discussed. Firstly, advertisers may be backgrounded by means of passivisation and block strategies. Secondly, advertisers may be foregrounded by means of third-person author (self) reference. The paper aims at integrating these two strategies into the global scheme of ad structure as discussed, among others, by Gieszinger (2001), Auf dem Keller (2004), G�rlach (2004), Gotti (2005) and Studer (2008).

In this article, two areas of scholarship have been combined, namely journalistic English and international relations. More precisely, current word-formation tendencies in press articles have been analysed against a background of events on the international arena. First, the language of Newsweek�s press articles on international affairs has been searched for derivations (affixed formations) with names of all 192 UN member states. The five most productive affixes involved are: the prefixes un- and anti- and the suffixes -ize, -(iz)ation and -ness. The results obtained demonstrate vast quantitative disproportions between particular names with these affixes. Secondly, arguments from the area of international relations have been brought in and displayed alongside the linguistic statistics. The results of the quantitative and qualitative linguistic analysis are claimed to have a strong political motivation. �Pure� linguistic findings, such as high numbers of certain derivations only, can be linked with negative attitudes toward a particular state described in the political literature. Current derivational trends in English for international relations are intrinsically related to events that unfold and situations that obtain on the international scene. In conclusion, semantic consequences of the linguistic phenomena in question are also predicted.