‘Backwards talk’ in Smith Island, Maryland

This article presents an exploration of the discourse-level phenomenon known as ‘backwards talk’ in Smith Island, a small, endangered dialect community in Maryland’s Chespaeake Bay, on the U.S. mid-Atlantic coast. The article examines how backwards talk, basically pervasive, highly creative irony, compares with irony more generally; how it patterns across generations and contexts; how important it is to island residents, who view backwards talk as the defining feature of their dialect; and why the feature has gained such importance in the face of dialect loss - and potential loss of community continuity as well. Because backwards talk is irony, it has important solidarity functions. As playful, nonliteral language, it serves as a symbol of the performed ‘islandness’ that islanders increasingly take up as they come into more and more contact with outsiders. Finally, as a means of offering critical evaluation of outsiders, backwards talk can be seen as a form of anti-language or counterlanguage, with a central function of resistance against outside forces.

No, No One Had Fun. Individual Differences in Nonliteral Language Perception

Nonliteral language represents a complex form of communication that can be interpreted in numerous different ways. Our study explored how individual differences in personality and communication styles affect the evaluation of literal and nonliteral language in the context of assumptions made by the Tinge Hypothesis (Dews & Winner, 1995). Participants watched videos of social interactions focusing on positive, negative, sarcastic, and jocular statements. They evaluated speaker intentions and social impressions and completed several personality and communication style questionnaires. Individual differences in empathy, defense style, and sarcasm use correlated with the accuracy of identifying speaker intent. Additionally, positive statements were rated as friendlier when compared to jocular statements, thereby supporting the Tinge Hypothesis. However, literal negative statements were rated as more friendly than sarcastic statements, which is inconsistent with the Tinge Hypothesis. The current results provide novel evidence for the Tinge Hypothesis using multimodal, dynamic stimuli and highlight the role of the individual personality of the recipient in evaluating sarcasm and jocularity.

Using Context Clues in Sentences by Cambridge IGCSE Students to Understand the Nonliteral Meanings of Words

Purpose: The main objective of the study is to help Cambridge IGCSE students to develop their acquisition abilities as well as linguistic knowledge of figurative language to figure out the context-dependent meaning. Approach/Methodology/Design: This is a type of qualitative study on how Cambridge IGCSE students can develop their analytical thinking skills to understand figurative language through using context clues theory in order to figure out the meanings of idioms and expressions used by authors. Findings: A lot of progress in the use of figurative language was noticed. At the end of the course, students’ megacognitive skills highly improved and turned the students optimistic, after being frustrated at the beginning, to achieve the IGCSE Exams confidently. The study points out the necessity of teaching this type of language since students may encounter it in the Cambridge IGCSE Exams. It also focuses remarkably on the difference between literal and nonliteral language, and since these two are related to semantics and pragmatics, the scope of the study extended to cover the difference between the two. Practical Implications: Through TBD, periodicals help college students develop their listening and writing skills, raise awareness on problematic language areas, and avoid biases in analyzing texts. Originality/value: Through designing some sample lessons, the study tries to assist teachers to get immensely engaged in teaching different aspects of figurative language and how to approach teaching it.

SPECIFICITY OF RUSSIAN ART BLOGGING AS A NEW FORM OF MEDIA CREATION IN DIGITAL AGE

The article is devoted to art blogging as a specific format of artistic communication, the most popular type of which is movie video blogging. It is characterized by a vivid experimental nature, the search for new creative models and new aesthetic orientations, and the borrowing of the rhetoric and aesthetics of unprofessional video bloggers by professionals, which has become one of the trends in modern professional blogosphere. The main and innovative features of art blogging include its synthetic character reflecting the integration of literature, media, everyday life, as well as visual and musical codes; the prevalence of user generated content that displaces traditional forms of film criticism and film journalism; a wide range of issues covered in the performances and a variety of communication formats; the development of its own value systems. Three types of film blogs are distinguished as belonging to a certain media platform: a. blogs on movie portals; b. authorial blogs on personal web pages in social networks and messengers; c. autonomous film blogs. Russian video blogging development is connected with YouTube video hosting. One of the important problems in analyzing movie blogs is the problem of defining new forms of creativity and aesthetics of bloggers' activities, whose popularity is high, making them opinion leaders and new intermediaries between film production and mass audience. This factor is due to several characteristics of film blogging: a. orientation towards freedom of opinion and honesty; b. interactive nature of communication providing various forms of feedback; c. entertainment, ease of presentation, playful style, humor; d. low style of speaking, colloquial nonliteral language; e. prevalence of negative criticism as a response to audience expectations.

Metaphor

A standard dictionary definition describes a metaphor as ‘a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object is used in place of another to suggest a likeness between them’. Although the theoretical adequacy of this definition may be questioned, it conveys the standard view that there is a difference between literal and nonliteral language; that figurative speech is nonliteral language and that a metaphor is an instance of figurative speech. The three most influential treatments of metaphor are the comparison, interaction and speech act theories. According to the first, every metaphor involves a comparison; a specific version of this view is that every metaphor is an abbreviated simile. According to the second, every metaphor involves a semantic interaction between some object or concept that is literally denoted by some word, and some concept metaphorically predicated on that word. According to the third, it is not words or sentences that are metaphorical but their use in specific situations; thus, to understand how metaphors function, one must understand how people communicate with language.

Figurative Language Processing: Irony. Introduction to the Issue

Processing of figurative (nonliteral) language is the focus of this special issue of Psychology of Language and Communication. The main theme is irony, which has been called “the ethos of our times” (Wampole, 2012). The texts presented here consider irony from many different angles, thus expanding the psycholinguistic perspective to include problems of key importance for understanding the phenomenon. All of these texts open up new questions on irony comprehension and production. The next special issue (to be published in 2017) will discuss research on a different type of nonliteral language: metaphors.

Social Skills in Individuals with Nonverbal Learning Disabilities

Nonverbal learning disability (NLD) is often a highly misunderstood diagnosis. Challenges with the understanding and use of language in social contexts can have significant negative impacts on individuals with this diagnosis, in that they struggle to interpret both nonverbal communication and nonliteral language. Understanding these challenges is critical in order to provide effective intervention. Assessment in these domains provides information about the areas to target for intervention. While individuals with NLD rely heavily on their auditory skills, it is imperative to provide means for them to learn social pragmatic and language skills in order to function in dynamically changing social exchanges. It is often indicated that teaching must occur only through verbal scripting. However, relying solely on this modality will limit students' abilities to effectively learn to apply targets in real life social situations. Therefore, a balanced approach that strives toward generalization is necessary. This chapter will provide information regarding assessment and intervention practices related to social interactions for individuals with NLD.