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31	The Albanian Linguistic Journey from Ancient Illyricum to EU : Lexical Borrowings Kulla, Ariola January 2010 (has links) Where does a language come from? Every language has its own history and during the course of that history, it might change, evolve or even die. Why do languages borrow from each other? Borrowing seems to be true for every language that has contact with another, even for major cultural languages such as Greek. Every case though is unique in itself. From which languages can a language borrow? Speakers of a certain language borrow from the people that they come in contact with, face-to-face or otherwise. How do languages incorporate those borrowings? Lexical borrowings are responsible for as much as ninety percent of the Albanian vocabulary and due to globalization, this percentage is about to grow even more. With a great history of three thousand years behind it and being neighbor to the two great civilizations of the then known world, Ancient Greece and Rome, Albanian has borrowed more words than any other European language.Lexical borrowings are tightly connected to the history and culture of this nation. Depending on the presence of which foreign power ruled in the Albanian territories at which time, these borrowings have had as a primary source either Greek (Ancient, Middle or New), Latin or Turkish with a few minor interferences from Gothic and Slavic languages.Every language has its own reasons for borrowing from another language. There are two main reasons: prestige and need. Albanian is not an exception. Albanian has borrowed from Greek and Latin both on the basis of need and on the basis of prestige. The primary objective for this master thesis is the identification of the vast numbers of lexical borrowings in the Albanian language, which languages they primarily come from, why the Albanian language has borrowed so many words during the course of its history and how those borrowings are incorporated in the Albanian language. Linguistics Lexical Borrowings Loanword Illyricum Albanian Direct loan Lingvistik Lexikala lån Lånord Illyricum Albanska Direktlån Specific Languages Studier av enskilda språk General Language Studies and Linguistics General Language Studies and Linguistics
32	Examination of the (si) and (ʃi) confusion by Japanese ESL learners Nogita, Akitsugu 30 August 2010 (has links) It is a general belief in Japan that the English /s/ and /ʃ/ before high front vowels (as in "see" and "she") are problematic for Japanese ESL (English-as-a-second-language) learners. Some research has also reported the /s/ and /ʃ/ confusion by Japanese ESL learners. Their pronunciation errors are often explained based on phonetics, but there are reasons to believe that the learners’ knowledge of the phonemes of the target words is at fault. This study examines 1) whether monolingual Japanese speakers distinguish the [si] and [ʃi] syllables in both perception and production in the Japanese contexts and 2) what would be the sources of Japanese speakers’ challenges in mastering the distinction between [si] and [ʃi] in their English production if Japanese speakers can produce and perceive the difference between these syllables. This study conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, 93 monolingual Japanese speakers between the ages of 17 and 89 in and around Tôkyô read aloud the written stimuli that had [si] and [ʃi] in the Japanese contexts, repeated the sound stimuli that had [si] and [ʃi] in the Japanese contexts, and listened to the [si:] and [ʃi:] syllables in isolation recorded by a native speaker of Canadian English. The results showed that the participants all distinguished [si] and [ʃi] in both perception and production regardless of their ages. Based on these results, I hypothesized that the [s] and [ʃ] confusion by Japanese ESL learners is caused by misunderstanding, rather than an inability to articulate these sounds. In the second experiment, 27 Japanese ESL students were recorded reading an English passage. The passage contains /s/ (7 times) and /ʃ/ (11 times) before high front vowels. After the reading, the participants were taught the basic English phonological system and the symbol-sound correspondence rules such as “s”-/s/ and “sh”-/ʃ/. The lesson lasted 40 minutes during which the participants were also interviewed to find out their awareness of the symbol-sound correspondence. No articulation explanations were given during the lesson. After the lesson, the participants read the same passage. The results showed that /s/ and /ʃ/ were mispronounced 39 and 67 times respectively in total by the 27 participants before the lesson, but only 7 and 19 times after the lesson. These changes are statistically significant. Moreover, the interview during the lesson revealed that the participants lacked phonological awareness in English as well as the knowledge of the symbol-sound correspondence rules. This study concluded that many of the mispronunciations by Japanese ESL learners, including /s/ and /ʃ/, can be solved by teaching the English phonics rules and some basic phonological rules without teaching the articulation of these sounds. Japanese EFL post alveolar fricative palato alveolar fricative alveo palatal fricative [ʃ] s and sh s vs sh [s] and [ʃ] confusion distinction between [s] and [ʃ] L2 phonology second language phonology pronunciation problem ESL pronunciation orthography spelling rule phonics 42 sounds katakana English phoneme awareness Japanese pronunciation English pronunciation s vs ʃ before i orthographic interference loanword interference palatalization depalatalization hyper correction phonological awareness hypercorrection overgeneralization pronunciation rule orthographic s and ʃ s-sh s-ʃ spelling acquisition phonics for adult

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The Albanian Linguistic Journey from Ancient Illyricum to EU : Lexical Borrowings

Examination of the (si) and (ʃi) confusion by Japanese ESL learners