This report presents a new way of applying cultural scripts (a form of reductive paraphrase) to the study and description of culturally specific linguistic behavior. Cultural scripts are used to define levels of formality in German culture. This is done by describing typical situations that range from formal to informal in terms of how members of German culture typically conceive of them. The purpose of these levels is to create a scale of formality that can be used to rate particular linguistic expressions in a reference source, thus approximating native speaker intuitions about linguistic formality, and helping readers understand the norms of (in)formal linguistic behavior in German culture. Such a reference source would be immeasurably helpful for students of German, as register variation, particularly formality variation, can be quite difficult for foreign language learners to master. This reference source should help students determine when it is appropriate to use one linguistic expression over another with a similar meaning (and a different level of formality). It would inform students, for example, that a word like “Bulle” in German (“cop” or “pig”) is not appropriate in an academic presentation on European law enforcement agencies, and that the less colloquial terms, “Polizist” or “Polizeibeamte”, would be better suited to such a context. / text

This thesis contributes to the discussion of register variation within Egyptian Arabic by focusing on the usage of verbs in blogs and transcripts of movies and television. Register variation has been extensively researched for English as well as several other languages; yet, the lexical and grammatical features that distinguish registers of Egyptian Arabic have not been analyzed. Several challenges have prevented such an analysis, among them the perceived lack of an automatic annotator and the uncertainty of results. In order to overcome these challenges, two corpora were compiled: one containing texts from blogs and the other transcripts of movies and television shows. With each corpus representing a potential register of the dialect, the verbs in each corpus were lemmatized and semi-automatically annotated for either aspect or mood. The verbs were then counted according to lemma, aspect, and mood in order to determine the extent of variance between the two corpora. The effectiveness of the state-of-the-art automatic annotator was also evaluated by comparing the counts it provided to those produced from corrections of its output. This thesis found that verbs are in fact used differently in the two corpora suggesting register variation and identified potential verbal features characteristic of each register. It also found that the automatic tagger produced counts that lead to the same conclusions as the corrected annotation.

Narratives are the product of a basic human tendency to make sense of real or imagined experiences. The research question posed in the dissertation is: how is narrativity encoded in East African English? Can the narrativity model in the dissertation distinguish between registers that prototypically focus on narration versus registers that do not primarily focus on narration? The narrativity model consists of four main groups of features, namely Agency, Causation, Contextualisation and Evaluation. These groups are representative of the fundamental structure of narratives: things happen to people at a specific time and place. Agency concerns the people who either instigate or are affected by the events. The things that happen can be denoted by Causation when they are the result of cause and effect in the world. Contextualisation refers to the grounding of events in time and space. Lastly, Evaluation concerns the reactions and attitudes people have towards the events. Eighteen linguistic features such as third person pronouns (part of the Agency group) and past tense verbs (part of the Contextualisation group) were analysed as micro-level indicators of narrativity. The corpus-based investigation analysed the linguistic features used to encode narrativity across 22 spoken and written registers of the East African component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-EA) using WordSmith Tools 4.0. The raw scores for each feature were standardised across all registers to enable comparisons between features, as well as between registers. The results indicate that narrativity is a gradient phenomenon that occurs across a variety of East African English spoken and written registers. After the initial analyses were done, the narrativity model was revised to include only 11 core narrativity features. These features are past tense verbs, third person pronouns, proper nouns for persons, activity verbs, time and place adverbials, perfect aspect, emotional stance verb feel, first person pronouns, evaluative adjectives and non-finite causative clauses. ICE-EA registers that focus on narration as a MEANS to make sense of experiences (the objective or END) are Fiction, Social letters, Oral narratives, Face-to-face conversation and Legal cross-examination. In other words, the core narrativity features are the MEANS and the END is to make sense of experiences and facilitate understanding using narration. Twelve registers have an intermediate focus on narrativity. Narration is a secondary or simultaneous objective in these registers alongside primary objectives such as scientific exposition, persuasiveness, information presentation or interpersonal interaction. There are five registers with low scores for the core narrativity features: Student writing, Business letters, Popular writing, Academic writing and Instructional writing. These registers do not primarily focus on narration and have other primary and even secondary objectives such as scientific exposition and persuasiveness. The narrativity model sheds light on the way narrativity is encoded using linguistic features and gives insight into East African English register variation / Thesis (M.A. (English))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2011

Narratives are the product of a basic human tendency to make sense of real or imagined experiences. The research question posed in the dissertation is: how is narrativity encoded in East African English? Can the narrativity model in the dissertation distinguish between registers that prototypically focus on narration versus registers that do not primarily focus on narration? The narrativity model consists of four main groups of features, namely Agency, Causation, Contextualisation and Evaluation. These groups are representative of the fundamental structure of narratives: things happen to people at a specific time and place. Agency concerns the people who either instigate or are affected by the events. The things that happen can be denoted by Causation when they are the result of cause and effect in the world. Contextualisation refers to the grounding of events in time and space. Lastly, Evaluation concerns the reactions and attitudes people have towards the events. Eighteen linguistic features such as third person pronouns (part of the Agency group) and past tense verbs (part of the Contextualisation group) were analysed as micro-level indicators of narrativity. The corpus-based investigation analysed the linguistic features used to encode narrativity across 22 spoken and written registers of the East African component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-EA) using WordSmith Tools 4.0. The raw scores for each feature were standardised across all registers to enable comparisons between features, as well as between registers. The results indicate that narrativity is a gradient phenomenon that occurs across a variety of East African English spoken and written registers. After the initial analyses were done, the narrativity model was revised to include only 11 core narrativity features. These features are past tense verbs, third person pronouns, proper nouns for persons, activity verbs, time and place adverbials, perfect aspect, emotional stance verb feel, first person pronouns, evaluative adjectives and non-finite causative clauses. ICE-EA registers that focus on narration as a MEANS to make sense of experiences (the objective or END) are Fiction, Social letters, Oral narratives, Face-to-face conversation and Legal cross-examination. In other words, the core narrativity features are the MEANS and the END is to make sense of experiences and facilitate understanding using narration. Twelve registers have an intermediate focus on narrativity. Narration is a secondary or simultaneous objective in these registers alongside primary objectives such as scientific exposition, persuasiveness, information presentation or interpersonal interaction. There are five registers with low scores for the core narrativity features: Student writing, Business letters, Popular writing, Academic writing and Instructional writing. These registers do not primarily focus on narration and have other primary and even secondary objectives such as scientific exposition and persuasiveness. The narrativity model sheds light on the way narrativity is encoded using linguistic features and gives insight into East African English register variation / Thesis (M.A. (English))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2011

The comparative method of variationist sociolinguistics has demonstrated that frequency changes are not reliable determinants of whether grammatical change is taking place. Frequency changes can be the result of extra-linguistic register changes, changes within the underlying grammar, or a combination (Szmrecsanyi, 2011; Tagliamonte, 2002). This work examines two variables known to vary along the written-to-spoken continuum — relative clause pronouns, and the genitive construction — across three registers of English and 100 years, with the goal of furthering our understanding of the relationship between spoken and written language. The s-genitive (i.e. Canada's government vs. the government of Canada) is on the rise in the 20th century (Hinrichs and Szmrecsanyi, 2007; Rosenbach, 2007). Statistical modeling confirms the press register leads this increase — a register change. Examination of internal linguistic constraints over time indicates simultaneous grammatical change, with the s–genitive increasing with certain inanimate subtypes. The WH-forms (who, which) of the relative pronouns have become increasingly restricted to written registers (e.g. Romaine, 1982; Tottie, 1997), leaving that as the variant used most for subject function in vernacular speech (D'Arcy and Tagliamonte 2010). Although who continues to be used for animates, which is shown to have lost any grammatical conditioning that it once had and to be undergoing lexical replacement by that for non-human subject antecedents. Unlike the genitives, though, examination of internal linguistic factors reveals no evidence of grammatical change. The methodology employed here provides a way to tease apart grammatical change from register change, with register-internal change shown to be a motivating factor in change from above. While the vernacular is ''the most systematic data for our analysis of linguistic structure'' (Labov, 1972a:208), it is not necessarily the most innovative, nor is it always the locus of change. With that in mind, this work provides a model of language change that integrates change across speech and writing.

The comparative method of variationist sociolinguistics has demonstrated that frequency changes are not reliable determinants of whether grammatical change is taking place. Frequency changes can be the result of extra-linguistic register changes, changes within the underlying grammar, or a combination (Szmrecsanyi, 2011; Tagliamonte, 2002). This work examines two variables known to vary along the written-to-spoken continuum — relative clause pronouns, and the genitive construction — across three registers of English and 100 years, with the goal of furthering our understanding of the relationship between spoken and written language. The s-genitive (i.e. Canada's government vs. the government of Canada) is on the rise in the 20th century (Hinrichs and Szmrecsanyi, 2007; Rosenbach, 2007). Statistical modeling confirms the press register leads this increase — a register change. Examination of internal linguistic constraints over time indicates simultaneous grammatical change, with the s–genitive increasing with certain inanimate subtypes. The WH-forms (who, which) of the relative pronouns have become increasingly restricted to written registers (e.g. Romaine, 1982; Tottie, 1997), leaving that as the variant used most for subject function in vernacular speech (D'Arcy and Tagliamonte 2010). Although who continues to be used for animates, which is shown to have lost any grammatical conditioning that it once had and to be undergoing lexical replacement by that for non-human subject antecedents. Unlike the genitives, though, examination of internal linguistic factors reveals no evidence of grammatical change. The methodology employed here provides a way to tease apart grammatical change from register change, with register-internal change shown to be a motivating factor in change from above. While the vernacular is ''the most systematic data for our analysis of linguistic structure'' (Labov, 1972a:208), it is not necessarily the most innovative, nor is it always the locus of change. With that in mind, this work provides a model of language change that integrates change across speech and writing.

Zugl.: Zürich, University, Diss., 2006/2007.