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Nabataean Aramaic contains a large number of loanwords from Arabic. Together with other evidence, this has been taken as an indication that the Nabataeans used Aramaic as a written language only, while a Pre‐Islamic variety of Arabic was their spoken language. Based on a comprehensive review of the evidence, however, this article concludes that both Arabic and Aramaic were in spoken use in the Nabataean Kingdom and Late Antique Northwest Arabia. Departing from this modified understanding of the linguistic status of Nabataean Aramaic, various features of Pre‐Islamic Arabic are then examined based on the Nabataean evidence: the realisation of the voiceless sibilant /s/, nominal morphology, the reflexes of stem‐final *y, verbal syntax, and the lexicon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One way or another, loan words have to be grammatically integrated in the grammar of their recipient language. For verbs, Wohlgemuth (2009) finds that direct insertion, where native inflections are added directly onto the borrowed stem, is cross‐linguistically the most frequent accommodation strategy. He concludes from this that the borrowing of loan verbs is not constrained by inflection. Based on a two‐fold corpus study on the integration of English loan verbs in Present‐day Dutch and French loan verbs in Late Middle English, we propose a correction to Wohlgemuth's (2009) argument. Even under direct insertion, loan verbs are subject to constraints, as they enter some usage categories more readily than others. More specifically, we find evidence for loan verbs being avoided in finite forms and in morphologically marked forms. We refer to these joint tendencies as accommodation biases. The specific nature of accommodation biases in loan verbs suggests that loan verbs are underrepresented in those categories where they carry a dense functional load as markers of both lexical and grammatical information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a series of complex and unresolved issues in the historical phonology of West Iranian languages, (Persian, Kurdish, Balochi, and other languages), which display a high degree of irregular, non‐Lautgesetzlich behaviour. Most of this irregularity is undoubtedly due to language contact; I argue, however, that an oversimplified view of the processes at work has prevailed in the literature on West Iranian dialectology, with specialists assuming that deviations from an expected outcome in a given non‐Persian language are due to lexical borrowing from some chronological stage of Persian. It is demonstrated that this qualitative approach yields at times problematic conclusions stemming from the lack of explicit probabilistic inferences regarding the distribution of the data: Persian may not be the sole donor language; additionally, borrowing at the lexical level is not always the mechanism that introduces irregularity. In many cases, the possibility that West Iranian languages show different reflexes in different conditioning environments remains under‐explored. I employ a novel Bayesian approach designed to overcome these problems and tease apart the different determinants of irregularity in patterns of West Iranian sound change. This methodology helps to provisionally resolve a number of outstanding questions in the literature on West Iranian dialectology concerning the dialectal affiliation of certain sound changes. I outline future directions for work of this sort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study is a multidimensional analysis of spoken and interactive online registers—comments, Facebook groups, Facebook status updates, and tweets—of Pakistani English in comparison to U.S. English. Four dimensions of variation are identified, namely oral narrative, abstract informational versus first person focus, interactive focus on mental activities and feelings, and present and future activities. Dimension 1 and 2 are the most prominent indicators of regional variation, while some registers also show variation on dimensions 3 and 4. The results suggest that conveying abstract and other kind of information is the most prominent general communicative purpose in Pakistani registers. US English, in contrast, also has communicative purposes like the expression of feelings and narration, in addition to conveying information. It is also suggested that the Internet is providing new avenues of communication for non‐native speakers of English, which demands further study and inclusion of these registers in corpora of varieties of English around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World Englishes as a discipline has developed more than half a century of research and practice. It is closely connected with such other disciplines as applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and applied cultural linguistics. In this paper, we adopt a holistic analytical framework drawing upon world Englishes and applied cultural linguistics with reference to lexical borrowing, semantic variation, and cultural conceptualizations to unpack the culturally‐embedded meanings underlying the twelve Chinese zodiac animals. In particular, we explore the cultural meanings of creative expressions that use dragon and horse in Chinese English, for example, the dragon horse spirit, by analysing qualitative data collected through semi‐structured interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyse how English has been incorporated into contemporary Korean vocabulary, analysing vocabulary items from the 2014 New Words list published by the National Institute of Korean Language. It also surveys previous research on the Englishization of Korean vocabulary in order to devise a descriptive model of lexical borrowing from English in the contemporary Korean language. The examination of a wide range of data demonstrates that lexical borrowing into Korean is highly complex, involving at least four combinations of source languages: (i) English (only), (ii) traditional Korean and English, (iii) Sino‐Korean and English, and (iv) English, traditional Korean and Sino‐Korean. The findings suggest that 'borrowed' words undergo hybridized word formation processes in creative and innovative ways, which this paper attempts to describe using the model of lexical borrowing presented in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How an isolate distribution of the Austronesian outrigger canoe complex came into the possession of Pama‐Nyungan speakers of Cape York Peninsula and Torres Strait has long been obscured by the diverse typology and lexicons of these canoes. Here I pinpoint links between the typological variation and the distribution and ages of associated Austronesian loan words. These links implicate several Austronesian contact sequences, one in Torres Strait and another in southeast Cape York Peninsula, and point to speakers of Papuan Tip Oceanic languages as the main source. Some of these loan words reflect archaic forms of Papuan Tip words and are thus indicative of early contact dates. I suggest that the introduction of these canoes most likely involved past episodes of sustained trade engagement and/or small‐scale colonization by speakers of Austronesian languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study conceptualizes lexical sophistication as a multidimensional phenomenon by reducing numerous lexical features of lexical sophistication into 12 aggregated components (i.e., dimensions) via a principal component analysis approach. These components were then used to predict second language (L2) writing proficiency levels, holistic lexical proficiency scores, and longitudinal lexical growth. The results from regression analyses indicated that 5 lexical components (i.e., bigram and trigram strength of directional association, content word properties, bigram mutual information, bigram and trigram proportions, and word specificity) explained 16.1% and 31.0% of the variance of L2 writing proficiency and lexical proficiency, respectively. Two additional components (i.e., word acquisition properties and content word frequency) explained an additional 8.5% of the variance of L2 writing proficiency. Six lexical components (i.e., bigram and trigram proportions, word acquisition properties, content word frequency, bigram frequency and range, content word properties, and function word frequency and range) showed significant developmental trends in L2 beginning learners over a year‐long period. These findings provide information about the multidimensional nature of lexical sophistication by expanding its scope beyond frequency and toward other primary dimensions that include various lexical and phrasal features such as concreteness, orthographic density, hypernymy, and n‐gram frequency and association strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The first printed grammar of Dutch, which appeared in 1584, was created by members of the Amsterdam chamber of rhetoric De Eglantier. They presented their text as breaking with traditional ways of dealing with Dutch in the chambers by treating the vernacular as an object of study, by proposing rules, and by rejecting words borrowed from other languages. By studying three cases of rhetoricians active before De Eglantier's grammar was printed this essay shows that the Amsterdam chamber, in fact, took part in an already established tradition of studying the vernacular. These three rhetoricians, Eduard de Dene, Matthijs de Castelein, and Jan van Mussem, were interested in the rules, form, and structure of Dutch, and in how it differed from other languages. All three of them accepted, to a certain extent, loanwords, but they also emphasised the importance of using them carefully and critically. De Eglantier could delve into this pre‐existing learned stance on language. De Dene's case shows, moreover, that language study was not just a theoretical enterprise. Through his poetry, he experimented with neologisms and with the ability of Dutch to incorporate elements taken from other languages, thus exploring the frontiers of his mother tongue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the short story "Williamsburg Bridge" by John Edgar Wideman. It mentions that the story probes the affinities between photography and death, time and memory. It also mentions Jeffery's zeal in identifying foreign words in the Qur'an is his affirmation that k-t- b, a shared Semitic root that also exists in Arabic, is a loanword.

Japanese and English share a relatively short but intense history during which the number of English-based loanwords in Japanese has risen to at least 10 per cent of the entire lexicon. This paper explores the creative uses of English (loan)words in Japanese punning, where homophonic, homonymic and paronymic relations between English words and Japanese phrases play a crucial role in creating amusing ambiguities that arise only due to the peculiar and extensive processes of loanword assimilation into Japanese which render them phonologically undistinguishable from 'original' Japanese words. English is thus naturalized in the Japanese language to such an extent that it can be widely and creatively applied to generate humor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how the promotion of goods and services is lexicalized in commercial signs on shops in contemporary Omani society. The analysis of lexical features is based on data drawn from a corpus of over 1,600 signs photographed nation-wide. Processes identified include the lexicalization of cultural concepts, lexical innovation and borrowing, foreign cultural referents, and the use of repetition, attributes, and generalization and specification strategies to enhance salience and explicitness. This study contributes to our understanding of the use of English in lingua franca contexts in a region of pronounced ethnolinguistic diversity. English is used to reflect localized cultural values and practices and may display the influence of Arabic and South Asian English dialects. Evidence for the stabilization of particular innovative lexemes is found in their extensive use country-wide, which suggests their widespread acceptance and emergent nativization within this genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linguistic purism is a term that refers to the urge to preserve a 'desirable' language form while eliminating 'undesirable' linguistic elements - a drive profoundly intertwined with nationalism. A particularly salient manifestation of this phenomenon is the controversy on the use of foreign loanwords. This article examines the contrasting expressions and metaphors used to describe the national language and foreignisms found in newspaper articles published in contemporary Japan and argues that the growing tendency to discuss national language in contrast to foreignisms can be understood as a particular manifestation of ongoing (re)negotiation of national identity. Criticisms and praises of the use of loanwords are found to be grounded upon a desire to establish specific understandings of Japaneseness in reference to the otherness felt within a society that is symbolized by loanwords, constructing an 'internal Other' to a Japanese 'Self', the identity of which is neither autonomous nor clearly delineated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of theoretical and experimental investigations into voiced geminates in Japanese. Active discussion was initiated by Nishimura's () discovery that in Japanese loanword phonology, voiced geminates can be devoiced, when they co-occur with another voiced obstruent (e.g. / do ggu/ → /do kku/ 'dog'). This context-sensitive devoicing of geminates has been analyzed within several different theoretical frameworks. The phonetic and psycholinguistic natures of voiced geminates have also been explored, in tandem with corpus-based analyses and computational modeling. This devoicing pattern of voiced geminates in Japanese therefore has had substantial impacts on the recent phonological literature. The empirical focus of this paper is on one simple devoicing phenomenon in Japanese, but implications for general linguistic theories are discussed throughout the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author begins by situating the question of francophonie in Russia in the European context, which was multicultural and multilingual. As far as Russia under Catherine II is concerned, historians do not have at their disposal tools that would enable them to assess the importance of francophonie. In order to understand this phenomenon we therefore need to resort to indirect means, especially: (i) the teaching of French in educational establishments and in the domestic setting; (ii) the amount of French books in bookshops and libraries; (iii) the influence of French on Russian (Gallicisms); (iv) the presence of French in private correspondence. Each of these means is discussed, with what it can contribute and its limitations, and with the help of examples. The discussion of the question of Gallicisms and private correspondence rests to a large extent on the Golitsyn archives. The conclusion is that the Russian secular elites of this time, like elites elsewhere in Europe, were familiar with a multilingual situation, within which the position of French was indeed very strong but not necessarily dominant and in any case variable depending on the different social and cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is great variability in whether foreign sounds in loanwords are adapted, such that segments show cross-word and cross-situational variation in adaptation. Previous research proposed that word frequency, speakers' level of bilingualism and neighborhoods' level of bilingualism can explain such variability. We test for the effect of these factors and propose two additional factors: interlocutors' level of bilingualism and the prestige of the donor language in the loanword's domain. Analyzing elicited productions of loanwords from Spanish into Mexicano in a village where Spanish and Mexicano enjoy prestige in complementary domains, we show that interlocutors' bilingualism and prestige influence the rate of sound adaptation. Additionally, we find that speakers accommodate to their interlocutors, regardless of the interlocutors' level of bilingualism. As retention of foreign sounds can lead to sound change, these results show that social factors can influence changes in a language's sound system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like biological species, languages change over time. As noted by Darwin, there are many parallels between language evolution and biological evolution. Insights into these parallels have also undergone change in the past 150 years. Just like genes, words change over time, and language evolution can be likened to genome evolution accordingly, but what kind of evolution? There are fundamental differences between eukaryotic and prokaryotic evolution. In the former, natural variation entails the gradual accumulation of minor mutations in alleles. In the latter, lateral gene transfer is an integral mechanism of natural variation. The study of language evolution using biological methods has attracted much interest of late, most approaches focusing on language tree construction. These approaches may underestimate the important role that borrowing plays in language evolution. Network approaches that were originally designed to study lateral gene transfer may provide more realistic insights into the complexities of language evolution. Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays Linguistic evidence supports date for Homeric epics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This interpretive study explored native-speaker ELT teachers' beliefs and practices regarding bilingual dictionaries, both as language learners and teachers. Evidence emerged of a significant discrepancy: while respondents reported that bilingual dictionaries were indispensable in their own language-learning, they felt constrained from encouraging their use among their own students because they felt bilingual dictionaries are viewed negatively by current ELT theory, which they perceive as continuing to support the monolingual approach. The study indicates an imbalance of power within ELT, as respondents felt obliged to follow certain pedagogical approaches, which may conflict with their own instincts and experiences. It offers support for recent calls for the reinstatement of the L1, a reappraisal of the role of bilingual dictionaries, and investigation into the distribution of pedagogical power. Cette étude d'interprétation explorait les opinions et expériences d'enseignants en anglais (l'anglais étant leur langue primaire) concernant les dictionnaires bilingues, en tant qu'étudiants et enseignants. Une différence importante est apparue: alors que les participants ont déclaré que les dictionnaires bilingues sont indispensables à leur propre apprentissage des langues, ils se sentaient contraints d'éviter leur utilisation parmi leurs propres étudiants parce qu'ils pensent que les dictionnaires bilingues sont perçus négativement par la théorie actuelle du ELT, une vue qu'ils considèrent comme une continuation à favoriser l'approche monolingue. Cette étude indique un déséquilibre de pouvoir au sein du ELT, car les participants se sentaient obligés de suivre certaines méthodes pédagogiques, qui pouvaient entrer en conflit avec leurs propres instincts et expériences. Ceci offre un soutien aux appels récents pour la réintégration de la méthode L1 (langue primaire), une réévaluation du rôle des dictionnaires bilingues, et une enquête sur la distribution du pouvoir pédagogique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines the evidence for early contacts between Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and the languages of the Caucasus. Although we were not able to find certain proofs of lexical borrowing between PIE and North Caucasian, there are a few undeniable areal-typological parallels in phonology and grammar. Some features generally attributed to PIE are not found in the majority of languages of North and Northeastern Eurasia, while they are common, or universally present, in the languages of the Caucasus (especially North Caucasus). Those features include the high consonant-to-vowel ratio, tonal accent, number suppletion in personal pronouns, the presence of gender and the morphological optative and, possibly, the presence of glottalized consonants and ergativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: This study uses corpus and media data to investigate cultural scripts in both spoken and written New Zealand English (NZE). The distinctiveness of words can be said to lie on a continuum, with some words being used exclusively in New Zealand and others used elsewhere but used more frequently in New Zealand. One aspect that makes New Zealand English distinct from the English of other former British colonies is the number of loan words borrowed from the indigenous Maori language. Data from the one million word written and one million word spoken Wellington (NZ) corpus and ICE-NZ corpus, as well as from newspapers and magazines, is used to show what aspects of the lexicon reflect both the culture and attitude of the users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines an ideology of standard pronunciation and spelling of English loan words in South Korea through the lens of Korean vowel harmony. I focus specifically on the alternation between an older Japanese-style 'a'[a] and a newer Korean-style 'ŏ'[ɔ] for the mapping of mid-vowels from English to Korean. The opposition between 'a' and 'ŏ' also figures into the dichotomy of vowel classes between 'yang' or 'light' vowels and 'yin' or 'dark' vowels in Korean vowel harmony. This opposition is pervasive in Korean's rich stock of denotationally iconic words (e.g. onomatopoeia), where ablaut between vowel classes produces semantic and pragmatic contrasts. I suggest that this latter structure of phonological opposition has an influence on speakers' perceptions of vowel difference and associated values in English loan words, despite an overarching ideology of standard pronunciation that is based on assumptions about phonetic fidelity. 이 논문은 영어 차용어의 표준 발음 및 철자법 속 이데올로기를 모음조화를 통해 재조명 하는것이 목적이다. 특히, 영어 중모음이 'ㅏ'[a]나 'ㅓ'[ɔ]로 전사(mapping)되는 점에 초점을 둔다. 그러나 최근 한국에서는 'ㅓ'가 원어 영어 발음과 더 음성학적으로 가깝다고 여겨지며 정음(正音)으로 인식되어지고 있다. 이제 'ㅏ'는 구식말투나 사투리, 아니면 교양없는 언행을 연상시키는 음(音)으로 여겨지고 있다. 그러나, 'ㅏ'/'ㅓ'의 대립은 한국어 모음조화 속의 양성모음과 음성모음의 구분; 즉, 일종의 모음종류의 이분법으로 보아야 한다. 또한, 모음조화는 의성어와 의태어에서 중요한 역할을 한다고 할 수 있다. 그러므로, 모음조화가 표준발음의 이데올로기 속에서 영어 차용어의 모음구분에 영향을 미치는 것이다. [Korean] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the state-of-the-art in the (generative) study of Dutch word stress. In the past 25 years, consensus has been reached on a number of properties of the Dutch stress system, such that it obeys the so-called three-syllable window and that it is quantity sensitive. However, not all of these arguments are equally convincing in the light of modern developments in phonological theory, in particular since experimental data on native speakers' intuitions are missing. Although there is strong evidence for quality-sensitivity (in particular to the quality of schwa), the evidence for quantity-sensitivity is not so strong, given that the main sources of loanwords (which are usually argued to be quantity-sensitive) themselves are quantity-sensitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines an ideology of standard pronunciation and spelling of English loan words in South Korea through the lens of Korean vowel harmony. I focus specifically on the alternation between an older Japanese-style 'a'[a] and a newer Korean-style 'ŏ'[ɔ] for the mapping of mid-vowels from English to Korean. The opposition between 'a' and 'ŏ' also figures into the dichotomy of vowel classes between 'yang' or 'light' vowels and 'yin' or 'dark' vowels in Korean vowel harmony. This opposition is pervasive in Korean's rich stock of denotationally iconic words (e.g. onomatopoeia), where ablaut between vowel classes produces semantic and pragmatic contrasts. I suggest that this latter structure of phonological opposition has an influence on speakers' perceptions of vowel difference and associated values in English loan words, despite an overarching ideology of standard pronunciation that is based on assumptions about phonetic fidelity. 이 논문은 영어 차용어의 표준 발음 및 철자법 속 이데올로기를 모음조화를 통해 재조명 하는것이 목적이다. 특히, 영어 중모음이 'ㅏ'[a]나 'ㅓ'[ɔ]로 전사(mapping)되는 점에 초점을 둔다. 그러나 최근 한국에서는 'ㅓ'가 원어 영어 발음과 더 음성학적으로 가깝다고 여겨지며 정음(正音)으로 인식되어지고 있다. 이제 'ㅏ'는 구식말투나 사투리, 아니면 교양없는 언행을 연상시키는 음(音)으로 여겨지고 있다. 그러나, 'ㅏ'/'ㅓ'의 대립은 한국어 모음조화 속의 양성모음과 음성모음의 구분; 즉, 일종의 모음종류의 이분법으로 보아야 한다. 또한, 모음조화는 의성어와 의태어에서 중요한 역할을 한다고 할 수 있다. 그러므로, 모음조화가 표준발음의 이데올로기 속에서 영어 차용어의 모음구분에 영향을 미치는 것이다. [Korean] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss various reports within the issue on topics including language contact and multilingualism in Great Britain, the influence of the Latin language on Brittonic morphology, and how loanwords reflect the technological transfer at different periods.

I examine patterns of lexical variation in the homeland varieties of Faetar and Cellese, endangered Francoprovençal dialects spoken in two villages in southern Italy, and in Toronto, one of their largest émigré communities. While lexical change due to borrowing has been in progress for some time in Faetar and Cellese, cross-generational and diatopic comparisons within a sample of 80 speakers surprisingly indicate that the lexicon is currently quite stable. The lack of systematic patterns of differentiation across age, sex, social class, and regional groups indicates that diachronic lexical variation may not be reflected synchronically in the same ways as the structural variables that form the majority of quantitative sociolinguistic investigation. This suggests the need for further comparisons across types of variables, while maintaining consistent methods of data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Esamino gli schemi di variazione del lessico nella varietà di faetar e cellese, dialetti francoprovenzali in via di estinzione parlati in due paesi dell'Italia meridionale e a Toronto, dove risiede una delle più grande comunità emigrate. Se da un lato, vi sono stati per un po' di tempo mutamenti lessicali dovuti ai prestiti, dall'altro, i confronti inter-generazionali e diatopici in un campione di 80 locutori suggeriscono che il lessico del faetano è attualmente abbastanza stabile. La mancanza di modelli sistematici di differenziazione attraverso l'età, il sesso, la classe sociale ed i gruppi regionali indicano che la variazione del lessico diacronica non possa essere riflessa in sincronismo negli stessi sensi delle variabili strutturali che formano la maggior parte di ricerca sociolinguistica quantitativa. Suggerisco l'esigenza di ulteriori confronti attraverso i tipi di variabili, coi metodi costanti di raccolta di dati, di analisi e di interpretazione. [Italian] J'ésamene lò sestème de variaziun de le parole pe faetar e cegliaye, dialèt francpruvenzale che i stunt pe muriye e ché se parlunt ancore a dò paiye de l'Italye méridionale e a Toronte, addou a y at une de le cumunetta mé rose a l'èstre. Si de na pare, de le parole faetare e cegliayse i stunt cangian da bunariel de tén pe toche i venunt cangia tò parole d'ate lén e dialèt de n'ata banne, lu cunfrunt diatopeche e de defferént generaziun ghyòcche un grup de 80 crestian ché i parlunt faetar o cegliaye i proue ché le parole de lu faetar e de lu cegliaye òre nun tan i cangiunt. La mancanze de modèl prècise pe fa destenziun a second de la yettà, de si se tratte de muén o fén, de la classa sociale e de lò grup de crestian de Faite e de Toronte, i demostre ché lu cangemmén diacroneche de le parole i puot pa étre refletti sincronecammén a la stéssa maniére de le variable strutturale ché i furmunt la para mé rose de la recérca sociolinguisteche quantetative. Su ò vint a dire chéò abbesugne fare mé de cunfrunt tra lò tipe de variable, tò lò stésse sestème pe recchitre lò date, pe fare le analese e l'enterpretaziun. [Cellese. A recording of this Cellese abstract is available at ] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how contact between English and Chinese has resulted in the incorporation of Chinese borrowings into the lexicon of Malaysian English (ME). Using a corpus-based approach, this study analyses a comprehensive range of borrowed features extracted from the Malaysian English Newspaper Corpus (MEN Corpus). Based on the contexts of these features, the specific processes that shape the patterns of changes in ME are deduced. Haugen's analysis of lexical borrowing is employed in the description of the linguistic changes. It is proposed that the preservation of traditional Chinese culture and practices by a multilingual society that maintains a local variety of English has created the stimulus for this type of contact phenomenon. Borrowers are conditioned not only by their need to expand the communicative and expressive powers of English but also by their need to integrate the borrowed features into the linguistic system of the English language. The outcomes of this phenomenon, as represented in the relatively formal genre of newspaper English, are mainly loanwords, compound blends and loan translations, although some inflected and derived forms based on these borrowings are also observed. This paper demonstrates the potential of corpus-based methods in the study of new Englishes from the perspective of contact linguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a corpus-based study comparing Chinese borrowings with acceptance in general English that appear in desk dictionaries published in the 1980s with those found in dictionaries presently in use. Defined arbitrarily as borrowings collected in three to eight older or newer leading desk dictionaries, such words total 100 in the former and 154 in the latter. It is found that Chinese borrowings with acceptance have not only increased by about 54 per cent during the past 20 years, but also occur more frequently at present. Influenced by the close contact between Mandarin and English in China, the newly added words are mostly from Mandarin, rather than Cantonese or Amoy, which are responsible for a larger portion of the words in the older dictionaries. The newer loanwords are also mostly Pinyin-based, helped by the popular use of Pinyin in and outside China. Semantic fields are also found to be related to source languages, with Cantonese borrowings and the few Amoy words mostly in food and drink, and Mandarin borrowings in high culture. It is predicted that the borrowing of Chinese words will be expedited, there will be more Pinyin-based Mandarin loanwords, and the borrowings will represent various semantic fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning to read in a foreign language often entails recognizing the printed form of words learned by sound. In the current study, the ability to map novel phonological information from the auditory modality onto the written modality was examined at different levels of overlap between the native language and an artificially constructed foreign language. In this study, monolingual English-speaking adults learned novel foreign words in the auditory modality. Recognition testing was first conducted in the auditory modality and then in the written modality. Participants who learned foreign words that matched English phonology showed similar accuracy rates when tested in either modality. Participants who learned foreign words that mismatched English phonology showed decreased recognition accuracy when tested in the written modality. Results indicate that cross-linguistic matching in phonology facilitated mapping of phonological information to the written modality. In addition, at different levels of cross-linguistic overlap, specific cognitive skills were found to correlate with the ability to map phonological information across modalities. This finding suggests that the cognitive skills required for acquisition of a foreign language may vary depending upon degree of cross-linguistic similarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to construct a Swedish version of the National Adult Reading Test (NART-SWE), a test for assessment of premorbid IQ, and to investigate its validity and reliability on healthy controls and patients with mild Alzheimer's disease. As Swedish pronunciation rules are fixed, NART-SWE was constructed using loan words. NART-SWE has satisfactory psychometric properties: Inter-rater and retest reliability as well as internal consistency are very high. The NART-SWE demonstrates face validity. In addition, high correlation with IQ was obtained. A significant model emerged when using NART-SWE to predict IQ. Furthermore, no significant differences were observed when comparing performance for healthy controls’ with that of patients with Alzheimer's disease on NART-SWE. It does appear that reading of irregular words is intact in mild Alzheimer's disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a case study that analyzes the influence of cross-linguistics on word search in states that are considered to be "tip-of-the-tongue." The article discusses English as a second language, native Spanish speakers, first language, word-finding problems, and word retrieval. The article defines a tip-of-the-tongue state (TOT) to describe a word that the speaker or reader knows but cannot access.

Over the past decades, there have been a number of studies investigating the vocabulary strategies used by learners of Indo-European languages, especially English. However, studies of the strategies used by learners of non-Indo-European languages are rare. This classroom-based case study investigates the vocabulary learning strategies used by nine learners of Chinese as a foreign language and tests a taxonomy, based on Long's (1996) interaction hypothesis,for classifying strategies that may facilitate our understanding of strategies and their role within second language acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the factors that may incline a language speaker to use a loanword when an equivalent first language term is already available. The paper begins by drawing evidence from New Zealand English, where words of Maori origin are an increasing presence, to demonstrate that a diachronic shift from English language to Maori language synonyms is occurring. This shift has contributed to ongoing nativization of New Zealand English through an increase in the use of both Maori word types and tokens. The reasons for this shift are then considered, and six factors that may account for changes in an individual speaker's lexical choices are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research report focuses on the use of English loanwords related to the Internet and computer technology. A corpus-based approach was used to analyze a total of 33,193 words including 11,063 tokens found on 10 Macedonian business websites. Type/token ratios were obtained for 4 different types of lexical item found in the data: Macedonian items, English loanwords, English semantic loans and English items. Borrowed lexeme structures by word class were also described. Results suggested that several types of English loan existed in the Macedonian language: loanwords, semantic loans and English words (non-nativized forms of loanwords). Other types of loan, such as loan translations and hybrids, and grammatical influences from English were also present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the relation between level of general cognitive function and the oral reading of irregular words in Swedish. Swedish is an orthographically regular language, so many irregular words are loan words from other languages. A test comprising such words (irregularly spelled words (ISW)) was designed, and tested on a sample of 48 healthy Swedish adults, stratified according to age, gender, and level of education. The results confirmed that the ability to read words that do not follow the regular rules for decoding in Swedish was positively related to general cognitive level. ISW in combination with demographic variables gave a good estimate of general cognitive function and a better estimate than demographic variables alone. Exposure to written and spoken vocabulary during the lifespan may be indexed by ISW performance, for factor analysis suggested that this may constitute a discrete factor contributing to cognitive function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to investigate the influence of word class on word association test results in both the L1 and L2. The data clearly suggest that word class type affects test results: nouns elicit a higher proportion of paradigmatic responses than verbs and adjectives. The influence of word class on test results is discussed in terms of the acquisition and semantic organisation of nouns, verbs and adjectives. However, results also show a surprising majority of syntagmatic responses in the L1 test. These results lead to a critical discussion of the concept of the syntagmatic–paradigmatic shift, which in the light of the test results in this study is seriously challenged. Theoretical and pedagogical implications for lexical network structure are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the expectations of a nonlinguistic anthropologist, this is a highly readable linguistic anthropology. Anna Babel presents an account of her personal engagement with people of all walks of life from Saipina, Bolivia, halfway between lowland Santa Cruz de la Sierra and the Bolivian highlands. For nonlinguistic anthropologists and, I assume, for linguistic anthropologists alike, Babel's study carefully and insightfully addresses the complexities that shape any type of identity formation at any time and place. [Extracted from the article]

The present study examined two questions concerning the cognitive processing of Japanese loanwords borrowed from English and written in katakana. The first question was whether “interlexical activation” occurs between Japanese and English. Results from a lexical decision task showed that loanwords phonetically similar to the original English words were judged with the same speed and accuracy as those being phonetically dissimilar to their original English words. The study further examined the cognitive processing of unadopted loanwords (i.e., words unlisted in a Japanese loanword dictionary). Reaction times displayed the shortest mean for non–words, followed by pseudo–loanwords, and finally unadopted loanwords. Thus, the only time the lexical representation of an original English word was possibly activated was when native Japanese speakers had seldom seen the word in katakana. The second question was what creates the “lexical mental boundary” between adopted and unadopted loanwords. A questionnaire showed that native Japanese speakers are likely to use decision–making strategies for determining lexicality of loanwords in Japanese based on their daily experience of exposure to katakana words in print. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature of lexical and structural borrowing has been at the forefront of sociolinguistic debates for many years. This study analyzes bilingual lexemes and morphemes of English-origin loanwords from a Louisiana corpus of twenty-two French/English speakers. French Louisiana, however, has been undergoing language shift from French to English for three generations and, as a consequence, language dominance is in a parallel state of shift. This competing dominance produces borrowings characterized by a range of phonological integration coupled with bound morphemes from both languages. These data suggest that examining borrowing beyond the word level reveals a highly complex interplay of often competing and overlapping grammars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines foreign-language (FL) learning and forgetting among Psychology students from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Use of a paired-associate training technique as method of assessment; Guidelines in making up the cognate translations; Roles of word concreteness, cognate status, and word frequency in learning and forgetting.

Cites a study to observe the behavior of a group of experienced foreign language students in Australia, as they attempted to learn the definitions of Italian words. Presentation of sentences in Italian for testing; Subjects having to think aloud; Task as representative of several situations; Insight on student's strategies for vocabulary learning; Procedure of method; Conclusive details on results.

The status of lone nouns of one language in discourse of another is often ambiguous, since they typically provide few indications of their language membership. Making use of the facts of linguistic variability in each of Ukrainian and English, we examine the quantitative conditioning of such forms in bilingual performance data. Results yield a synchronic portrait of the integrated loanword, even when it bears no surface indication of that integration, is neither recurrent nor widespread, and has no history of attestation or other status in the language. Distinguishing the languages involved in the contact situation (Canada) as produced by the first generation (G1) or the second generation (G2), further reveals that G1 speakers incorporate borrowed items - nonce or established - into recipient language discourse by applying to them the fine details of their native language constraints on linguistic variability. In contrast, G2 speakers' treatment of English-origin nouns coincides neither with their own treatment of Ukrainian nouns nor with G1 speakers' treatment of Ukrainian or English-origin nouns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article studies the arbitrary fashion words that appear to have special importance in current publications in science education. Many definitions, represent a composite or modification of sources, while others have no identifiable origins. The area of methods is a composite, with gleanings from other more sharply defined disciplines like testing, educational psychology and curriculum. Published materials in science education are sparse in glossaries. Moreover, some meanings are not particularly clear in written contexts.

The article offers an overview of the directions that research is taking in English for medicine and allied health fields. Given the power of words in the medical field, the second language professionals and medical professionals are concerned with improving communication between English-speaking medical professionals and English-speaking patients. The medical professionals are concerned with the English of overseas medical personnel. They are analyzing various aspects of the oral and written language such as syntax, functions, conversation management and ethnomethodology. They are also trying to identify the areas of misunderstandings and the general lack of clarity in writing in medical journals. The medical profession in Great Britain is focusing on testing for performance on certain communicative tasks in medical settings. In the United States, the focus is on validating results of a more general oral test with native-speaker judgments by medical professionals and consumers.

While language contact has so far been predominantly studied on the basis of detailed case studies, the emergence of methods for phylogenetic reconstruction and automated word comparison—as a result of the recent quantitative turn in historical linguistics—has also resulted in new proposals to study language contact situations by means of automated approaches. This study provides a concise introduction to the most important approaches, which have been proposed in the past, presenting methods that use (A) phylogenetic networks to detect reticulation events during language history, (B) sequence comparison methods in order to identify borrowings in multilingual datasets, and (C) arguments for the borrowability of shared traits to decide if traits have been borrowed or inherited. While the overview focuses on approaches dealing with lexical borrowing, questions of general contact inference will also be discussed where applicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a list of loan-words in the Norwegian language taken from the novel 'Når markene pløies,' by Waldemar Brøgger.