Within the system of modality, modalization builds an area of uncertainty. It is an intermediate point between positive polarity (it is) and negative polarity (it is not), which has various degrees of indeterminacy (Halliday and Matthiessen 2014: 176). This indeterminacy includes probability and is expressed through items that Holmes (1990) and Hyland (1998) termed hedges and boosters. However, hedges and boosters can also function within intensity, where they convey a certain level of degree. Through them, writers achieve approval by finding the right balance between the reinforcement of statements with the assurance of reliable knowledge and the tentativeness to convey doubt and adequate social interrelations (Hyland 1998b: 349). The aim of this comparative study is to investigate the usage of hedges and boosters in Italian and Albanian student academic writings in their L1 and L2. Author-related and proposition-related hedges (e.g. suppose, approximately) and boosters (e.g. show, completely) as well as interrelated aspects such as their positioning, orientation, manifestation, and prosody of modalization will be analysed. My paper will interweave Prince et al.’s (1980) categorization of hedges, Quirk et al.’s (1985) model of boosters, Lafuente Millán’s (2008) categorization of approximative meanings and related concepts of the Systemic Functional Grammar (henceforth SFG) (Halliday and Matthiessen 2014) to create an innovative combination. I have compiled two corpora of Italian student writings (around 3 million words each) respectively in Italian and English and two corpora of writings by Albanian students in Albanian (around 2.2 million words) and in English (around 600.000 words). All corpora include a similar number of words and genres for each disciplinary domain as well as a balance of male and female writers. Disciplinary domains pertain to both soft and hard sciences (Social Sciences, Languages and Literature, Medicine, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Informatics). As Toska (2015) stated, very little research has been conducted on academic writing in Albania. Thus, it is essential to initiate research in this field. Results of the quantitative analysis show that hedges were favored by Albanians and boosters were favored by Italians. The neutral position (in-between the clause complex, next to the verb, temporal or finite operator) of hedges and boosters was the most frequently encountered position in my corpora, followed by medial (in-between the clause complex, not next to verb, temporal or finite operator) and thematic position (at the beginning of the clause). Lastly, the same hedge (probably) and booster (significantly) appeared as author-related (shield) and proposition-related (approximator). This overlap between author-related and proposition-related categories demonstrates the importance of context in ranking these items and suggests relevant modifications to the original categorization by Prince et al. (1980). From my findings, I conclude that Italians show more commitment than Albanians, who appear more tentative in their writings. / Da Sprache (nach Halliday/Matthiesen 2014: 25) ein Mittel des persönlichen Ausdrucks und der fachlichen und gesellschaftlichen Verständigung ist, beinhalten unsere Texte unsere persönlichen und pädagogischen Erfahrungen, unseres alltäglichen Umfeldes und unserer Kultur. Die vorliegende Dissertationsschrift ist ein Beitrag aus der Perspektive der systemisch-funktionalen Grammatik und des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens. Sie befasst sich mit pragmatischen, semantischen und syntaktischen Aspekten von Hedges und Booster. Dafür wurden vier Korpora albanischer und italienischer wissenschaftlicher Arbeiten von Studenten in deren Muttersprache sowie ihrer Zweitsprache Englisch erstellt und untersucht. Die fünf Forschungsfragen beziehen sich größtenteils auf die qualitativen und quantitativen Unterschiede in der Verwendung von Hedges, Booster und deren semantischen und pragmatischen Unterkategorien in den albanischen und italienischen Korpora. Zudem wurde untersucht, welche Rolle Geschlecht und Genre bei der Verwendung von Hedges und Booster spielen.

The Translation of the Passive Voice in Simultaneous Interpreting Using Czech-German Material Abstract This thesis examines the transfer of passive diathesis from German to Czech in the process of simultaneous interpreting. The aim of the research in the empirical section of my thesis is to describe the main tendencies within the language transfer of the passive diathesis. The analysis is based on the records and transcripts of the European Parliament Plenary sessions. The analysis of the speeches focuses on three aspects 1) preserving or changing of the diathesis 2) expression of the agent 3) interference. The initial passive diathesis is mostly preserved. The target speech in Czech language contains more passive diathesis than common written or spoken Czech. If the agent in the original speech is expressed, in most cases it is preserved in the target speech. In case when the agent in the original speech is not stated and it is expressed only implicitly, in the target speech it is expressed directly. The occurrence of interference can be stated thanks to the overall high level of passive diathesis in the target speech compared with common written or spoken Czech. Most of the choices made by interpreters are examples of a positive language transfer.

L’objet de notre recherche sont les relations conceptuelles exprimées dans les définitions des dictionnaires et celles exprimées dans un corpus spécialisé. Nous avons pour but d’analyser et comparer ces relations pour identifier les relations les plus communes d’un domaine spécialisé et déterminer où ces relations se trouvent plus fréquemment. Notre approche considère que ces relations se trouvent plus souvent dans les corpus et qu’on pourrait enrichir les définitions terminologiques en incorporant ces relations conceptuelles extraites des textes spécialisés. Le domaine choisi pour cette étude est celui de la pêche durable dont nous analysons la terminologie en anglais. Les termes analysés sont extraits d’un corpus de textes de ce domaine construit pour notre étude et qui comporte des articles scientifiques et des comptes rendus d’organismes spécialisés dans le domaine de la pêche. Pour l’analyse de définitions, trois dictionnaires spécialisés en pêche ont été sélectionnés dans l’étude. L’échantillon final de termes analysés inclut 20 noms (dont 12 termes dénotent des entités et 8 termes dénotent des activités). Ces termes sont les plus spécifiques extraits du corpus avec l’extracteur TermoStat (Drouin, 2003) et définis dans au moins deux des dictionnaires choisis. Les unités lexicales du corpus sont repérées de façon semi-automatique à l’aide de la fonctionnalité word sketch, « an automatic corpus-derived summary of a word’s grammatical and collocational behavior » (Kilgarriff et al., 2010, p. 372) dans la plateforme de gestion de corpus Sketch Engine (Kilgarriff et al., 2014). Nous travaillons avec deux types de word sketches: le word sketch conventionnel fourni par défaut par Sketch Engine et l’EcoLexicon Semantic Sketch Grammar (ESSG; León Araúz & San Martín, 2018). Seules les unités lexicales les plus fréquentes sont sélectionnées de tous les résultats de l’interrogation du corpus. L’analyse des définitions se penche sur toutes les unités lexicales reliées directement au terme analysé. Nous utilisons des paraphrases dans les analyses pour identifier et valider les relations entre le terme analysé et chaque unité reliée. À la suite de l’identification des relations, nous compilons une liste de relations et nous faisons une comparaison entre les résultats du corpus et des définitions. La comparaison des types de relations repérées dans chaque source montre qu’il y a plus de types de relations dans le corpus que dans les définitions pour 70 % de l’échantillon de termes. Lorsque la comparaison examine séparément des termes dénotant des entités et des activités, plus de types de relations se trouvent dans le corpus que dans les définitions pour 83 % des entités et pour 50 % des activités. Les résultats montrent également que 54 % des types de relations repérées sont identifiés pour plus de termes dans le corpus que dans les dictionnaires. Par ailleurs, seulement 16,7 % des relations repérées sont identifiées pour plus de termes dans les dictionnaires que dans le corpus. La recherche a également identifié quels types de relations se trouvent plus souvent dans le corpus, dans le dictionnaire ou dans les deux sources pour le même terme. Ce constat a permis de classifier les types de relations dans trois groupes: les relations qui se trouvent la plupart du temps dans les dictionnaires, celles plus souvent présentes dans le corpus ou celles présentes dans les deux sources. / The object of our study are the conceptual relations expressed in dictionary definitions and those expressed in a specialized corpus. Our goal is to analyze and compare these relations to identify the most common relations of a specialized subject field and determine where these relations are more frequently found. Our approach considers that these relations are more often found in the corpus and that we could enrich terminological definitions if we include the conceptual relations extracted from specialized texts. The subject field chosen for this study is sustainable fisheries from which we analyze the terminology in English. The terms analyzed were extracted from a corpus of texts belonging to this subject field and built for the study. The corpus includes scientific articles and reports issued by specialized organizations in the field of fisheries. For the analysis of definitions, three specialized dictionaries were selected for the study. The final sample of terms analyzed includes 20 nouns (12 terms designating entities and 8 terms designating activities). These terms are the most specific terms extracted from our corpus using the term extractor TermoStat (Drouin, 2003) and defined in at least two of the selected dictionaries. The lexical units from the corpus were extracted semiautomatically using the function word sketch, “an automatic corpus-derived summary of a word’s grammatical and collocational behavior” (Kilgarriff et al., 2010, p. 372) in the corpus management platform Sketch Engine (Kilgarriff et al., 2014). We worked with two types of word sketches: the conventional word sketch provided by default in Sketch Engine and the Ecolexicon Semantic Sketch Grammar (ESSG; León Araúz & San Martín, 2018). Only the most frequent lexical units were selected from all the results of the corpus interrogation. The analysis of definitions included all the related lexical units directly linked to the analyzed term. Paraphrases were used in the analysis to identify and validate the relation between the analyzed terms and the related lexical units. Once all the relations were identified, a list of relation types was compiled, and a comparison was made between results from the corpus and the dictionaries. The comparison of the relation types found in each source shows that there are more relation types in the corpus than in the definitions for 70% of the sample. When the comparison focuses separately on entity and activity terms, more relation types were found in the corpus than in the definitions for 83% of entity terms and 50% of activity terms. Results also show that 54% of the relation types are associated with more terms in the corpus and only 16.7% are associated with more terms in the dictionaries. Additionally, the study identified which relation types are more often found in the corpus, in the dictionaries or in both sources. These findings allowed us to classify the relation types in three scenarios: relation types mostly found in the dictionaries, those more often found in the corpus and the group of relation types which are mostly found in both sources for each term.

This study sought to examine linguistic and discursive strategies used to construct messages reflective of the implementation of the HIV and AIDS policy for Zimbabwe of 1999 by government and private newspapers. Such analysis was perceived to be important since media content has a bearing on Zimbabweans‘ perception and attitudes regarding HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment and control. The study was aimed at comparing messages from newspapers with views by the people of Zimbabwe regarding the implementation of the policy. Findings reveal that empowerment programmes particularly those targeting women and children are lagging behind as Zimbabweans, literature and newspaper data sources testify. In addition, information sources concur that cultural (For example, stigmatisation, polygamy, religious practices, spouse inheritance) and structural (For example, patriarchy, masculinity, bureaucracy, politics) are stumbling blocks that negatively affect the implementation of the policy. Further, even though private and government newspapers do not fully agree on the portrayal of human agents, there is a general consensus between newspaper reports and Zimbabweans that people still face socio-economic and econo-political challenges that militate against the smooth implementation of the HIV and AIDS policy. Government newspapers tend to downplay aspects which reveal inadequacies of government activities. The study notes this as betrayal of use of ideological squares both by government and private newspapers whereby certain aspects regarding the implementation of the policy are either downplayed or highlighted to influence perception. The study reveals that newspaper reports used nominalisation, quantification, positive politeness, thematisation, rhematisation, intertextuality, euphemism, proverbs, idioms, action verbs, metaphors and citation of experts as linguistic and discursive strategies both for agenda setting and building purposes regarding the implementation of the HIV and AIDS policy. Other devices used particularly in the encoding of Operation Murambatsvina are, claptraps, deictic referencing, personal pronouns, adjectives and direct speech. The study attributes problems regarding the Zimbabwean HIV and AIDS intervention model to the top – down approach inherent in the policy. Hence, the call for an adoption of an unhu/hunhu/ubuntu inspired bottom – up HIV and AIDS intervention model in Zimbabwe. This would inculcate pro-family, pro-village, pro-nation/people and ―servant leadership‖ (Mangena and Chitando, 2011) values in the fight against the pandemic through the embracing of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS). Unfortunately, such values largely continue to elude the radar of the current top – down HIV and AIDS intervention model cuurently in use in Zimbabwe. / African Languages / D. Litt et Phil. (African Languages)

L’enseignement du lexique arabe à l’Institut supérieur des langues de Damas n’est pas encore à la hauteur des attentes de l’apprenant pour lui fournir une bonne connaissance lexicale. Les outils pour développer ce travail n’ont pas évolué dans les méthodes utilisées. Dans ces méthodes, on applique toujours l’approche classique du lexique. Cette approche n’est plus valable au moment où le critère de fonctionnalité lié à la notion de fréquence a commencé à avoir sa place dans la nouvelle conception du lexique. Ce projet de thèse vise donc à contribuer à l’enseignement de l’arabe langue étrangère à l'Institut supérieur des langues en profitant des recherches faites pour l'enseignement d’autres langues vivantes, et spécialement celles qui s’inscrivent dans le Cadre européen commun de référence pour les langues (CECRL). / Standard Arabic is actually the language of writing. The speeches made in the media and in some TV series are, in most cases, a literal restatement of visual coding of the language (text written in standard Arabic) in auditory coding (reading aloud the written text). Similarly, everyday Arabic does not have the same coding as Arabic that exists in the media, in books and in Arabic language courses. This gives the impression that the current teaching content is not suitable for a usage outside the language classroom.This thesis deals with the problem of the composition of the lexical content of textbooks of teaching Arabic L2 of Higher Language Institute of Damascus (Syria). A content that does not withdraw from standard norms (focus on the adaptation of a classic or moderne standard Arabic), but seeks to be as close as possible to the daily practice of language that is very rich in dialect. The current content represents the traditional approach of the lexicon, which focuses on the semantics of words and phrases while the communicative features of these language elements are little treated. The proposed analysisshows the weak points in the structure of textbooks now in use. It is based on the criteria of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and the skill references of Niveaux pour le français that offer an approach batter adapted to the preparation of the lexicon in recent textbooks of teaching moderne languages. This analysis focuses on finding the crossing points in standard and spoken Arabic in Syria to build a route map that allows the learner an easy passage from what he learns in the Arabic language classroom to Arabic that is really practiced in everyday communications. It provides some solutions to reduce the gap between these two usages of Arabic.