Under the deliberative, the epideictic: the social function of dissertation considered through

Perelman’s rhetoric

 

The traditional French dissertation is considered here as an illustration of a discourse challenged by the New Rhetoric. Dissertation’s anti-rhetorical discourse is the outcome of a long tradition summarized by Perelman’s formula: L’honnête homme du XXe siècle. This “Honest Man” is supposed to speak in the name of Logic and Reason. But in Perelman’s terms those discourses can’t be considered logical demonstrations. They can only deemed to be rhetorical argumentations. In other words, dissertation should be, at the same time, a counter-example and an ordinary example of Perelman’s system. It would be a theoretical problem if Perelman’s model of argumentation could not describe the specificities of an exercise which for decades was the first contact with practical argumentation at school. We would like to show that Perelman’s sensitivity to historical relativity enables the system to cope with this challenge: dissertation is not a bad rhetoric but a rhetoric determined by a specific socio-historical situation. Dissertation will be considered here as a mixed genre: beyond its deliberative character, it recalls common values at the beginning of the 20th century in France. It also provides a model of what “good argumentation” should be. This is consistent with Perelman’s conceptions: epideictic (understood in a much broader sense than the Aristotelian genre) should be considered as the foundation of deliberative and forensic discourses. Our proposition is also consistent with the Universal Audience’s definition as a necessarily imperfect representation of the Ideal Audience. In contrast, a social group normally needs a common representation of the Universal Audience, a common representation of what is true and reasonable. Of course, those representations and their rhetorical codifications are doomed to crisis. But it should be possible to analyze those crises in rhetorical terms.

Reduction of listening comprehension anxiety

 

In majority of the literature on language anxiety students report that speaking in the foreign language generates the most anxiety. Little by little, however, listening comprehension anxiety has begun to surface as a problematic area for students. The language teaching profession needs to develop listening comprehension activities that also reduce anxiety associated with this competency because of the fact that listening comprehension is the most frequently used language skill in the classroom. What is more, this kind of anxiety can short-circuit the entire language-learning process from processing input to producing output. The purpose of this paper is to present suggestions and sample activities to address listening comprehension anxiety and to describe some difficulties related to changing classroom patterns.  

Tyhe Italian preposition da and some of the Polish equivalents – a cognitive stud

 

The analysis of the Italian preposition da in spatial, temporal and fictive motion contexts leads to the conclusion that this unit engenders path schema interpretation (source – path – goal) with focus on the initial component of the trajectory. In dynamic contexts path schema highlights the initial location of a trajector that has started moving along a path built up into the verb stem. In temporal contexts the unit da signs the initial point of a temporal distance interpreted in the context of TIME HAS AN EXTENSION AND CAN BE MEASURED metaphor. In fictive motion contexts we perceive simulated movement accomplished by a primary landmark from a secondary landmark (source) to the trajector’s sphere of influence (endpoint).

The Polish equivalents of da phrases are the following: z + gen, znad + gen and od + gen. They all involve path schema combined with other image schemas such as container and verticality. In Polish the schematic meaning is conveyed not only by prepositional units but also by inflectional case governed by prepositions. The genitive case required by the Polish prepositions marks some path related information included in case marker.

Pragmatics of Paris market sellers’ exclamations: sociolinguistic and ethnographic aspects

 

This paper deals with an analysis of the sellers’ exclamations at the marketplaces in Paris. The article aims to examine socio-demographic, ethnographic and linguistic characteristics of Paris market sellers’ exclamations. Our empirical study was based on direct observation in this field, interview with vendors and customers at different Paris markets, notes taken there and recorded exclamations of the sellers in the marketplaces.

A detailed description of two types of Paris marketplaces is provided, notably those in the city centre (e.g. Monge, Port-Royal, Raspail) as well as several others located outside the central area (e.g. Belleville, Aligre, Barbès). According to the participant observation in the marketplace, the latter are more animated and noisy; therefore the vendor exclamations can be found frequently here. The interaction between vendors and customers is quicker and more rapid at markets which are distant from the city centre. It is often a simple commercial transaction. The prices are lower here. The sellers are basically immigrants from Algeria, Morocco, Bangladesh, Cameroun, Senegal, Egypt, India, China, Spain, Czech Republic, etc., who generally speak their native language. The predominant language, however, is Arabic. Female sellers are not numerous here. 

On the other hand, central markets are distinguished by smaller size and higher prices. The interaction between vendors and their clients is more individualized and has more distinctive individual character than in the other type of markets described above. Ethnic French people are regular customers of these markets and make the majority of the vendors too. About 80% of vendors deny practicing exclamations in the marketplace in central Paris. 

On the contrary, the more distant markets are from the city center the oftener vendor exclamations are used, especially at the end of the day. As a result of the analysis, two types of vendor exclamations are defined, namely a) exclamations to specific client and b) general ones, addressed to no-one in particular. 

The first type of vendor exclamations includes various forms of address: standard, familial terms of address, affectionate ones and forms of address for the nobles.  

The second type of sellers’ exclamations is aimed to attract attention to the price, often in different languages, especially to announce price reduction or discount.

The vendors also call the customers’ attention by a sell-off advertisement and ∕ or exclamations providing essential information about their production, producers and origin of their goods, their quality, flavor etc.

The sellers’ exclamations are often followed by whistle, interjections and other paralinguistic elements intensifying their influence upon potential customers. 

New etymological contribution: Waaren-Lexicon by Ph. A. Nemnich (1797)

 

This article deals with the theme of possible etymologies of thirty-six lexems found in a little-known in the Hispanic world lexicon: Waaren-Lexicon in zwölf Sprachen by Ph. A. Nemnich (1797). They are etymological proposals with an indispensable commentary of these voices which etymology has been inaccessible to us in other etymological or lexicographical sources. In the end of the article there is a list of voices originating from the same work which etymology remains yet to be discovered.

The cataphoric feautres of the demonstrative neuter pronoun questo

 

The aim of the present paper is to examine the cataphoric uses mediated by the Italian demonstrative neuter pronoun questo in order to define the typology of these uses, observe and measure its cataphoric properties and potential and also to determine in intralinguistic perspective the most productive demonstrative form in cataphora, by comparing the analyzed proximal with its corresponding distal in Italian. In terms of general methodological and theoretical network, we discuss the multifunctionality of demonstratives as context-sensible unities of language and we present a summarised description of the cataphora conceived as an independent and complementary cohesive relation to anaphora, conforming to the theories of Marek Kęsik. As for typological analyses, we have recourse to the theories proposed by Kęsik and Michel Maillard for the purpose of distinguishing and describing cataphoric relations according to the following criteria: 1) complusory or optional nature of cataphoric reference, on the basis of which cataphoras in the strict and in the wide sense (or pseudocataphoras), respectively, can be discriminated; 2) form of cataphoric expression, in accordance to which morphematic cataphoras, realized by explicit pronominal form, and zero cataphoras, mediated by implicit pronominal form, can be discerned; 3) field of relation, i.e. the form of cotext, in conformity to which segmental and resumptive cataphoras can be distinguished; 4) scope, in other words the textual space covered by the cataphoric relation, which can be included within or surpass the sentence limit in intraphrastic and transphrastic cataphoras respectively; 5) manner of referent identification, direct or indirect, according to which we can differentiate between metalinguistic and cognitive cataphoras respectively. 

Our analyses, carried out on 135 occurrences of the Italian neuter proximal form, are based on the linguistic material extracted from NUNC (NewsGroup UseNet Corpora) corpora, mapped out by the University of Turin researchers and reflecting, first and foremost, evolutionary tendencies observable in written/spoken Italian used in discussion groups of the global network. The observations proposed here are enriched with quantitative and qualitative statistics of textual uses, including not only cataphoric, but also anaphoric, ana-deictic and ana-cataphoric uses, referring to the analyzed demonstrative form, prepared in order to draw conclusions about its peculiar functions and with the aim to discover in which differential form (proximal questo vs. distal quello) the preponderance of cataphoric uses can be remarked. 

Verbs of becoming in Polish and Spanish. II. Part: Semantics

 

The main objective of this paper is to show the main semantic differences and similarities between the Polish and Spanish subsystem of the verbs of ‘becoming’. In this study the author demonstrates that the Polish subsystem is based on criteria of aspectuality that entails many additional semantic nuances, whereas the Spanish one opts for several semantic factors.