Volume 44, Issue 2 -

The Syllable Shape of Al-Ahsa Dialect: An OT Perspective This work discusses the syllable structure of Al-Ahsa dialect of Arabic. Al-Ahsa dialect is a variation of Arabic spoken in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. An OT (Prince and Smolensky 1993, 2004) framework is adopted and provides a complete analysis of the syllable structure found in the dialect under discussion. It is concluded that Al-Ahsa dialect prohibits initial consonant clusters but allows complex codas. The geminates, however, are allowed medially and finally.

Linguistic Replacement in the Movies In this paper, I discuss the use of the English language in movie dialogues where, logically, other languages would have been used by the fictional characters. A shared characteristic of many Hollywood movies (as well as countless other fictional narratives, written or performed) is the notion of linguistic replacement. Even when the depicted story would realistically have taken place in a different linguistic setting, the language(s) are replaced by the base language of narration; in my case, English. Using a taxonomy of semiotic strategies proposed by Petr Mareš as a point of departure, I discuss examples of linguistic replacement from a corpus of twelve recent, commercially successful Hollywood movies with European and American settings. I argue that even though the different strategies (e.g. the use of L2 accents or the presence of the replaced language in filmed writing) fulfill more complex symbolic functions than that of compensatory realism, there has been a recent shift away from linguistic replacement altogether.

Possibilities of Analyzing Visual Conduct with an Eyetracker Device: Searching for Visual Dialects In this paper we will consider the possibilities of recording gazing for visual analysis. Besides describing and characterizing some general possibilities of eyetracking in visual research, we will present a design and a preliminary study which aims at analyzing an aspect of visual conduct, namely the "style" of gaze behavior in public places. Since its beginnings, sociology, just like some other social sciences, has been trying to understand the details and consequences of living in a mass society as opposed to a more traditional way of living. Specifically, on the basis of a "visual interview" procedure and with the help of an eyetracker instrument, we analyzed and compared the gaze behavior pattern of two groups — rural people and city dwellers — while in a simulated situation of walking in the street. Our preliminary results indicate that there may be differences between the gaz e behavior of little town people versus city dwellers while watching a couple of scenes recorded from a pedestrian's perspective.

Minimise Ad (?/*In-)finitum? In Defense of Weakly Cartographic Computational Models This paper provides a critical overview of the strongly derivational and non-cartographic approaches to syntax based solely on the relation between a newly selected lexical item (LI) and the so-called derivational space (the existing syntactic object) treated as the pivot of the syntactic derivation. Specifically, it is argued that, given the asymmetry requirement requisite for linearization, as stated in Kayne's (1994) Linear Correspondence Axiom (LCA) and Chomsky's (1994) Bare Phrase Structure (BPS), the abovementioned procedure is unattainable in certain strongly derivational syntactic configurations. The latter sections of the paper, while still arguing against the excessively minimized derivational space, focus on the non-cartographic Escape system proposed by Zwart (2007). It is shown that the data (comprising mostly the so-called "look-ahead"- based cases) that prove problematic for Escape can be captured within a moderately (i.e. weakly) cartographic view of the left periphery in accord with Thráinsson's (1996) Limited Diversity Hypothesis.

Non-Verbal Cues in Politics: An Analysis of Gestural Signals sent by American and European Politicians "Speech is accompanied by an intricate set of gestural signals which affect meaning, emphasis and other aspects of utterances" Argyle (1972: 245). They are at least as influential as the verbal content of the message in determining how an individual is perceived (Rosenberg et al. 1986). Kopacz (2006) claims that non-verbal behaviours play an immense role in forming people's judgements and may be used in political persuasion to elicit positive reactions from voters. The objective of this paper is to analyze some of the most popular body signals sent by American and European politicians and show which of them are considered positive and strengthen the verbal message and which are said to be negative and make the performer look unprofessional and untrustworthy. The next purpose is to determine which non-verbal channel such as eyes, face, hands, posture, legs is the strongest and attracts the greatest attention.

Visual Representations as Effective Instructional Media in Foreign Language Teaching Although research on the effective use of visual representations in instruction has concentrated predominantly on the teaching of scientific and technical subjects, the principle that visual elements can only be used effectively if they are perceived as important instructional resources that require attentive processing is equally valid in foreign language learning. A study of language learners performing an authentic classroom task in which they were asked to use visual information as a basis for free language production suggested that pictures in this instructional context were processed efficiently but superficially, and were frequently not regarded as significant sources of information. The study also suggested that divergent picture interpretations are not unusual and could lead to communication problems mistakenly attributed to language deficits. A pragmatic way to achieve effective processing of the visual elements in language teaching materials, I propose, is to design materials which include explicit, specific guidance on how the pictures they contain are intended to support language learning activities, together, where needed, with processing instructions.