This is an investigation about linguistic diversity, examining its decline in different societal conditions over the last century, and interrogating claims in language policy and planning to be 'protecting linguistic diversity', using the UK as its main example. Chapter 1 comprises a review of variationist sociolinguistics, showing how it has never fully defined linguistic diversity. Adjustments are suggested, and a working definition of linguistic diversity offered. Chapter 2 presents data from two major nationwide dialect surveys, in 1889 and 1962, showing how local dialects were weakening in this period. The main focus is declining diversity, but information is presented about possible conditioning factors, primarily increases in literacy. In the absence of such nationwide reports after 1962, Chapter 3 collates individual dialect studies from two regions of England, the northeast and southeast, describing dialect convergence across these large geographical areas. These changes are contrasted to those reported in Chapter 2. Again the main theme is declining diversity, but information is reviewed to help explain these contrasts, primarily increases in geographical mobility in the latter half of the 20th century, concentrated around these regions. Chapter 4 examines dialect weakening that some researchers have attributed, at least in part, to the media. This also represents a change in societal conditions undergirding declining diversity. Some theoretical work is done to distinguish such changes from those observed in Chapter 3. Chapter 5 reviews the rhetoric of minority language policy and planning, and its frequent and explicit claims to be 'protecting linguistic diversity'. The insights developed in Chapters 1-4 are applied to two modern UK language revivals, Cornish and Welsh, to see how diversity overall is faring here. The conclusion sums up the gaps in our thinking about linguistic diversity, and clarifies the limitations of planned interventions upon language.

A thesis exploring the nature of the native Irish Gaelic dialect of County Down. Includes discussions and analyses of eighteenth-nineteenth century religious texts and scribes from Co. Down, and of the Irish place names of Co. Down, to ascertain the salient traits of the dialect as it was spoken before its decline.

This thesis is an investigation of the traditional dialect of Gloucestershire. The concept 'traditional dialect' is examined in the Introduction, as is the nature of the county itself. The data for the investigation is the Survey of English Dialects (SED), the nature of which is also discussed in the Introduction. Where this investigation differs from other studies, however, is that its core data is not the published Basic Material of the SED but the notebooks of the original fieldworkers. This allows a detailed consideration of the process of transmission by which the data passed from notebook to published volume. Editorial practices are evaluated, omissions and errors noted, and the value of the original material stressed. This is one of the primary outcomes of the investigation, and fonns the second chapter ofthe thesis. The succeeding chapters, three to ten, analyse the data from the notebooks of the seven localities visited by the SED fieldworkers in Gloucestershire. They consider phonological, grammatical and lexical material with the aim of arriving at a description of the dialect found in those seven localities. Preliminary investigation suggested that these localities share the broad characteristics of the south-west, but that while this is true to a marked degree in the most southerly localities it is much less the case further north. Therefore a further aim of the investigation is to see whether a major isogloss runs through the county, and to consider issues such as boundary and transition. This is the main subject of the concluding chapter, which also compares earlier studies where dialect areas in the south-west have been identified.

This thesis explores the status of Chinese intellectuals from 1980 to 2005 and its diachronic change in this period as represented by dialogues between intellectuals and their leaders in fiction. June 1989 functions as a historical dividing line on which to base this diachronic study. In order to carry out the study, firstly, the direct speech of intellectuals and their leaders is extracted and compiled into corpora for a key key-words analysis. Secondly, a stylistic analysis is undertaken with the aim of conducting a more detailed qualitative investigation of the dialogues. Three dialogues in each of the two periods are selected for the stylistic analysis. The key key-words derived describe features of the speech of intellectuals, the speech of intellectuals as compared to the speech of leaders, and the speech of leaders as compared to that of intellectuals. The study shows that the key key-words indicating topics of the speech and the key key-words characterising the style of the speech represent the social identity of intellectuals. A comparison of these key key-words between the two periods uncovers the diachronic change in the status of intellectuals. The corpus approach is complemented by a stylistic analysis, which explores dialogues selected from different years to emphasise the diachronic change. A dual model is formulated to incorporate dialogue analysis into a larger structure of goal development analysis. The study shows how speakers use discursive strategies to manage relationships and have their situational goals achieved in interaction. Negotiation of goals invokes the institutional and social identities of speakers, bringing out their status. The research shows that the corpus. approach and the stylistic analysis can be combined to present a more comprehensive description of data. Hopefully it sheds some light on studies of post-Cultural Revolution Chinese intellectuals and on how quantitative and qualitative approaches merge in the investigation of interaction between superiors and subordinates.

Following the national Linguistic Survey of Scotland 1951/53, an in-depth dialect study of Galloway was appropriate as the dialect of Galloway had not been reported on in detail since McTaggart's Gallovidian Encyclopaedia of 1824. The close connection between Galloway and Ireland over centuries and particularly with the in-flow to Galloway of many Irish in the nineteenth century suggested a particular study. A questionnaire of 240 items was prepared and personally administered to 221 primary informants of 50 years and older, over the whole region and during a period of 10 months. In this thesis, 192 responses from 55 items are presented and analysed; together with appropriate Word Notes and two essays on 'Physical Communication in Galloway' and 'The Irish in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Galloway'. It was found that i) 3 rivers and 2 lines, less easily defined geographically, formed boundaries, beyond which varying numbers of words did not appear; ii) certain words were found in Wigtownshire only and others in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright only; iii) there were also certain responses to the same items which showed differentiation between Wigtownshire and the Stewartry, the two major sub-divisions of the region; iv) 61 per cent of the responses given in Wigtownshire and 59 per cent in the Stewartry have reference to Irish Word Lists.

No description available.

Le projet de thèse s'inscrit dans le travail collectif ALIENTO « Analyse Linguistique Interculturelle d'Enoncés Sapientiels et leurs Transmission Orient-Occident » de la MSH. Lorraine. Ce projet réunit des chercheurs membres de diverses équipes scientifiques dont trois sont lorraines (ROMANIA [Nancy2], HISCANT [Nancy2] et CELTED [METZ]) et une parisienne (CERMOM [Inalco]). Le projet de thèse vise à contribuer à la définition de l’énoncé sapientiel, communément appelé « proverbe ». Dans le cadre d’Aliento, cet essai de définition intégrera nécessairement une dimension historique qui est souvent marginalisée dans les tentatives linguistiques de définition actuelle du proverbe. La recherche s’appuiera également sur la particularité interculturelle et plurilingue de la Péninsule ibérique du Moyen-âge qui fut une plaque tournante pour ce type d’énoncé en favorisant la circulation et la traduction. Le travail consistera à interroger les sources de la littérature arabe du XIe et s’achèvera sur une approche anthropo-linguistique, circonscrite principalement au Maroc et à titre subsidiaire en Europe / The PhD project aims to contribute to the definition of sapiential statement, commonly known as "proverb". Under Aliento, this test definition necessarily incorporates a historical dimension that is often marginalized in the language attempts to current definition of proverb. The research will also benefit from the intercultural and multilingual feature of the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages which was a hub for this kind of statement in promoting circulation and translation. The work will be to examine the sources of Arabic literature and the eleventh will conclude with a anthropo-linguistic approach, confined mainly in Morocco and in the alternative in Europe

Cette étude adopte une analyse cognitive et contrastive des métaphores de l'alimentation en arabe tunisien, en français et en anglais. Cette étude a pour objectif la comparaison des métaphores dans leurs cadres culturels tout en analysant l'effet du contexte socioculturel sur la compréhension et l'utilisation de ces métaphores. Cette étude part d'un corpus qui contient des expressions métaphoriques utilisant des termes en rapport avec l'alimentation. Ces termes incluent les différents types d'aliments et la description des expériences accompagnant l'alimentation. Le corpus a été collecté en consultant des dictionnaires pour le français et l'anglais dans les langues étudiées et en enregistrant des communications avec des sujets parlant la langue arabe tunisienne, où ils répondent à des questions portant sur l'utilisation des termes de l’alimentation. L'analyse qualitative du corpus est basée essentiellement sur les correspondances entre les domaines (cross-domain mapping) (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980 ; Lakoff, 1993) l'un des principaux axes sur lesquels la théorie de la métaphore conceptuelle est construite. L'étude est divisée en trois grandes étapes : 1-Une description et l'analyse des différentes métaphores de l'alimentation dans les trois langues tout en essayant d’extraire les différentes métaphores conceptuelles et en expliquant leur rôle en interaction avec la théorie de l’incorporation (embodiment) : Johnson, 1987 ; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999 ; Maalej, 2004) dans la compréhension et l'utilisation de ces métaphores. 2- Une comparaison de ces métaphores en se basant sur le modèle postulé par Kövecses (2005) analysant la variation métaphorique et l'effet du contexte culturel. Ce modèle étudie les différents aspects de variation métaphorique entre langues/cultures. Ces aspects sont les domaines source et cible, les relations entre la source et la cible, les métaphores linguistiques, les correspondances et modèles culturels. 3- Une investigation de l'effet du contexte socioculturel sur la compréhension et l'utilisation des métaphores de l'alimentation a lieu à travers une étude basée sur la décomposition des différentes métaphores étudiées en métaphores simples et métaphores complexes. Ce modèle développé par Yu (2008) démontre à travers une étude comparative des métaphores conceptuelles l’existence d’un filtre culturel qui permet l’apparition ou l’absence de certaines métaphores spécifiques à la langue/culture en question. / This study adopts a cognitive contrastive analysis of English, French and Tunisian Arabic (for short TA) food metaphors corpora. The three main objectives of the present study are: 1) reveal the cognitive tools governing the understanding of food metaphors across the three languages. 2) sort out and compare the different target domains of food in the three languages with a particular focus on universality and variation. 3) address through variation, the impact of the socio-cultural context on metaphors understanding, use, creation and recreation. Investigating the conceptual role of food expressions, the impact of culture and the interaction between mind, body and culture is the common point among the main objectives of the present research. The study started with collecting a corpus of food-related terms used metaphorically in context. The data collection relied on written and spoken material. The corpus was then analysed qualitatively on the basis of the cross-domain mapping. The study investigated the pertinence of food and related practices in conceptualizing abstract experiences and then being a depository of familiar experiences ready for being created and recreated to frame newly abstract domains and situations. By doing so, the present work defined the role of the socio-cultural settings in metaphorical thought and reviewed the ways through which the context shapes metaphor use and understanding.

No description available.

Die vorliegende Korpusdokumentation informiert über die Mehr-Ebenen-Annotation des SiGS-Korpus der Hexenverhörprotokolle. Die Annotation des Korpus umfasst graphematische und syntaktische Tokenisierung, Lemmatisierung, POS-Tagging, Belebtheitskategorisierung von Nomina, Satzgrenzen, semantische Rollen und Satzglieder. Sie ist im Rahmen des DFG-Projekts zur 'Entwicklung der satzinternen Großschreibung im Deutschen' unter Leitung von Renata Szczepaniak (2013-2019) und Klaus-Michael Köpcke (2013-2015) (Projektnummer 228096696) entstanden