Lexical Bundles Ending in that in Academic Writing by Czech Learners and Native Speakers of English

The aim of this paper is to explore how Czech learners of English use lexical bundles ending in that in their academic texts in comparison with novice and professional L1 authors. The analysis is based on three corpora (VESPA-CZ, BAWE and our own cor- pus of papers published in academic journals). The results suggest that Czech learners of English do not use a more limited repertoire of lexical bundles ending in that than pro- fessional writers. However, there are differences between the groups studied, especially in the range of various shell nouns used in nominal bundles. Novice writers, both L1 and L2, use bundles ending in that to express stance more frequently than professional writers.

Shell nouns as register-specific discourse devices

This article provides a corpus-based investigation into shell nouns. Shell nouns perform a variety of referential functions and express speaker stance. The investigation was motivated by the fact that past research in this area has been primarily based on written texts. Very little is known about the use of shell nouns in speech. The study used the ICE-GB corpus of contemporary British English and investigated cataphoric shell nouns complemented by appositive that-clauses across fine-grained spoken and written registers. It has revealed that the deployment of shell nouns is governed by the principle of register formality definable in terms of contextual configurations of the Field-Tenor-Mode complex rather than the mode of production. Additionally, the study has uncovered the frequent use of a small core set of shell nouns common across speech and writing. Hence it argues that shell nouns are part and parcel of spoken and written discourse and that they pertain more to grammar than to lexis.

Gramaticalização de construções condicionais em português: trajetórias de mudança do nome caso

O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar os processos de mudança linguística que deram origem às construções condicionais com caso, na história do português. À luz do quadro teórico da gramaticalização (Heine & Kuteva 2007,;Bybee 2010, 2015), aliado às tendências translinguísticas acerca da emergência de condicionais (Traugott 1985; Kortmann 1997), busco respaldo diacrônico para responder ao quando e ao como dessas mudanças. A análise é fundada em dados extraídos de uma amostra longitudinal, que reúne textos de gêneros diversos, produzidos ao longo dos séculos XIV ao XX. O eixo central da investigação repousa no exame das propriedades do item nominal fonte que habilitaram a formação de diferentes padrões funcionais de caso, no âmbito da junção condicional. Argumento que o nome caso integra um subconjunto particular de “shell nouns” (Schmid 2000), genéricos e inespecíficos, cujas propriedades semântico-cognitivas e textuais permitem explicar sua seleção para expressão condicional nos diferentes padrões. Os resultados da pesquisa, obtidos na conjugação das abordagens qualitativa e quantitativa, fornecem um conjunto de evidências sobre os contextos condicionadores da mudança, sobre possíveis relações de derivação entre os padrões de caso e sobre a gradiência na constituição das formas e dos significados.

Shell nouns as grammatical metaphor revealing disparate construals: Investigating the differences between British English and China English based on a comparable corpus

This article describes a study of shell nouns (SNs) complemented by appositive that-clauses observed in a two-million-word corpus of media English by British and Chinese writers. The grammatical metaphor theory was applied to the data in the light of a novel proposal that the metaphorical forms of SN+that constructions, in their contextual semantic settings, serve to re-construe various transitivity processes. The study produced significant findings, including: (1) the two writer groups demonstrate significantly different preferences for SN types but the British and the Chinese uses are instantiated from a common core set; (2) the Chinese group prefers the re-construal of Identifying Relational processes of facts and evidence as markers of neutral and impersonal discourse; (3) British writers favour the re-construal of Verbal processes of assertion and stance and tend to re-construe Attributive Relational processes with varying degrees of commitment to the encapsulated propositional truth; (4) both groups are inclined towards the re-construal of Mental processes of cognition with a common preference for the re-construal of the experience of knowing, believing and thinking. The findings above lend important empirical support to systemic functional theories and suggest further research in the future regarding SNs as indicators of disparate construals in discourse.

SHELL WORDS IN ANATOMY A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF BULGARIAN AND ENGLISH ANATOMICAL SYSTEMS

Shell words are a particular category of lexemes that make up an open-ended functionally defined class of abstract nouns having the potential to be as conceptual shells for complex, proposition-like pieces of information. Examples include: “fact”, “case”, “idea”, “problem”, “position”, “cause”, “situation”, “something”, etc. The idea of a particular class of words that group semantic features, but are not related to a referent is also found in many authors. Such words have greater reference potential and thus become useful for naming different referents (onomasiological salience). From a theoretical point of view, the need for a context to determine the meaning of a single lexeme is in fact equivalent to deleting the difference between polysemy and vagueness. Shell nouns are indexical words or "hollow words, envelopes" because their meaning is incomplete; they only point to what can fill the envelope, but still give it some structure. Thus, the meaning associated with these shell units is both context-related and in turn generates a linguistic context. At first glance it seems strange that generalized words such as shells are not hyperonimic, but in connection with the nature of the anatomical terms (physically perceived) it is important to note that it is precisely words from the basic level that are conceptualized as sensory and functional gestalts. The eventual clash between the specificity of the object and the abstract nature of terms causes the conflict in terminology. Once again, the choice of a linguistic rather than a terminological approach to the names of the anatomical objects is argued. The current research assumes that shell function may be applicable to specific nouns, i.e. anatomical terms, the so-called termini generales. In both Bulgarian and English anatomical terminologies, there are about 190 such terms that are head words in anatomical expressions and occur in all parts of anatomy, e.g. terms such as: glava (en – head), greben (en – crest), gynka (en –fold), klon (en – branch), list (en – leaf), plocha (en – plate), sloy (en – layer), tyalo (en – body), vryzka (en – “link”, “connection”), etc. What is special about them is that with their help are formed the names of organs in the different systems. Their semantic value is contextually defined. They "mark” large branches in the anatomical terminology system and are expressions of terminological multiplicity. Obtained through specialization of commonly used nouns, general terms are a manifestation of re-terminologization through metaphorical projection. In our view, termini generales have lost their metaphorical status (if they have one) and some of them serve as shell nouns. We also perform a cross-linguistic Bulgarian – English analysis of shells in both anatomical systems.

SHELL WORDS IN ANATOMY A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF BULGARIAN AND ENGLISH ANATOMICAL SYSTEMS

Shell words are a particular category of lexemes that make up an open-ended functionally defined class of abstract nouns having the potential to be as conceptual shells for complex, proposition-like pieces of information. Examples include: “fact”, “case”, “idea”, “problem”, “position”, “cause”, “situation”, “something”, etc. The idea of a particular class of words that group semantic features, but are not related to a referent is also found in many authors. Such words have greater reference potential and thus become useful for naming different referents (onomasiological salience). From a theoretical point of view, the need for a context to determine the meaning of a single lexeme is in fact equivalent to deleting the difference between polysemy and vagueness. Shell nouns are indexical words or "hollow words, envelopes" because their meaning is incomplete; they only point to what can fill the envelope, but still give it some structure. Thus, the meaning associated with these shell units is both context-related and in turn generates a linguistic context. At first glance it seems strange that generalized words such as shells are not hyperonimic, but in connection with the nature of the anatomical terms (physically perceived) it is important to note that it is precisely words from the basic level that are conceptualized as sensory and functional gestalts. The eventual clash between the specificity of the object and the abstract nature of terms causes the conflict in terminology. Once again, the choice of a linguistic rather than a terminological approach to the names of the anatomical objects is argued. The current research assumes that shell function may be applicable to specific nouns, i.e. anatomical terms, the so-called termini generales. In both Bulgarian and English anatomical terminologies, there are about 190 such terms that are head words in anatomical expressions and occur in all parts of anatomy, e.g. terms such as: glava (en – head), greben (en – crest), gynka (en –fold), klon (en – branch), list (en – leaf), plocha (en – plate), sloy (en – layer), tyalo (en – body), vryzka (en – “link”, “connection”), etc. What is special about them is that with their help are formed the names of organs in the different systems. Their semantic value is contextually defined. They "mark” large branches in the anatomical terminology system and are expressions of terminological multiplicity. Obtained through specialization of commonly used nouns, general terms are a manifestation of re-terminologization through metaphorical projection. In our view, termini generales have lost their metaphorical status (if they have one) and some of them serve as shell nouns. We also perform a cross-linguistic Bulgarian – English analysis of shells in both anatomical systems.