Journal articles on the topic 'Greek language, pronunciation'

Summary The sixteenth-century Hellenist Adolf van Meetkercke (1528-1591) was a talented humanist and diplomat, who divided his time between philology and politics, excelling in both professions. Meetkercke’s first scholarly work was his Commentary on the ancient and correct pronunciation of the Greek language (De veteri et recta pronuntiatione linguæ Græcæ commentarius), published in 1565 by Goltzius in Bruges and reedited in 1576 by Plantin in Antwerp. In this work, the scholar from Bruges defended the reconstructed pronunciation today closely associated with Erasmus. After offering a biographical sketch of Meetkercke and briefly recapitulating the pronunciation debate, I discuss his innovative treatise, which was the first freestanding systematic outline of the reconstructed pronunciation. I argue that the Commentary was tremendously influential and had an impact beyond the subject of pronunciation. In particular, I intend to illustrate that Meetkercke elaborated a linguistic ideology which advocated the active usage of the Ancient Greek language as a learned lingua franca next to Latin, and which involved appropriating this classical language from the Byzantine teachers who had brought it to western Europe in a ‘corrupt’ state. In the conclusion, I dwell on Meetkercke’s importance for language studies and briefly relate his rather aggressive domestication of Ancient Greek to the position of this language in the present-day Low Countries.

The article presents the results of a study of some aspects of the formation and use of Erasmian pronunciation of the Ancient Greek language (in particular, the vagueness of the concept, lack of standardization and certain linguistic inconsistencies), based on analysis of the original work of Erasmus of Rotterdam "Dē rēctā latīnī graecīque sermōnis prōnūntiātiōne dialogus" and works devoted to the analysis of Ancient Greek pronunciation and the history of the Greek language in general. Attention is paid to the non grata status that Erasmian pronunciation has in Greece, as well as to alternative views on the origins of the mentioned work of Erasmus, to which, from the 16th century to the present day, opponents of both the Erasmian pronunciation and the reconstructed systems in general refer. Some important facts from the history of Erasmian pronunciation are outlined, in particular that Erasmus was not the pioneer in the search for the "true" pronunciation of Classical Greek (a Spanish humanist Antonio de Nebrija researched this issue at least a quarter of a century before the publication of Erasmus's work); in writing the Dialogue, Erasmus relied on the work of his predecessors, with whom he was maintaining friendly communication; Erasmus's work was not a clear enough proposal for a new reformed system, and the scholar himself continued to use the Byzantine pronunciation and recognized its status. The article gives examples of some differences between variants of Erasmian pronunciation. It is concluded that the Erasmian pronunciation from its inception was not a clearly defined system, and, despite the revolutionary and impressive breakthrough of this linguistic initiative, had some errors, which were compensated by later attempts in the Ancient Greek pronunciation reconstruction in the 19th–21st centuries. It is suggested that, given the significant non-uniformity of present-day Erasmian pronunciation variants (which sometimes leads to complications in international communication between specialists), it is advisable to use, or at least be familiar with modern, more clearly defined and scientifically sound reconstructions, and / or Modern Greek pronunciation which is especially important for rapport with Greek colleagues in classical studies.

One of the most cited features of the supposed migrant “ethnolect” in Australian English is the pronunciation of word-final -er. This article presents data from sociolinguistic interviews that support the view that there is a pronunciation difference between Anglo and non-Anglo speakers in Sydney, and that this difference is most pronounced in Greek and, to a lesser extent, Lebanese speakers. The variant the Greek and Lebanese speakers tend to use more than the Anglo speakers is backed and lengthened, and commonly used in words with final High Rising Tone (HRT). There is some evidence that Greeks are leading a change to a more backed variant. I show that length, backing, and HRT make up a style of speaking that I call “new (er)”. This style is indexical of being Greek for some, but more basically creates a stance of authoritative connection. These findings are significant for understanding the spread of new linguistic features, and how the meanings of some linguistic variables contribute to linguistic change.

Sign Language is used to facilitate the communication between Deaf and non-Deaf people. It uses signs-words with basic structural elements such as handshape, parts of face, body or space, and the orientation of the fingers-palm. Sign Languages vary from people to people and from country to country and evolve as spoken languages. In the current study, an application which aims at Greek Sign Language and English Sign Language learning by hard of hearing people and talking people, has been developed. The application includes grouped signs in alphabetical order. The user can find Greek Sign Language signs, English sign language signs and translate from Greek sign language to English sign language. The written word of each sign, and the corresponding meaning are displayed. In addition, the sound is activated in order to enable users with partial hearing loss to hear the pronunciation of each word. The user is also provided with various tasks in order to enable an interaction of the knowledge acquired by the user. This interaction is offered mainly by multiple-choice tasks, incorporating text or video. The current application is not a simple sign language dictionary as it provides the interactive participation of users. It is a platform for Greek and English sign language active learning.

The ideology of decline is a part of the history of the study and characterization of the Greek language from the Hellenistic period and the Roman Atticist movement right up to the emergence of katharevousa in the 19th century and the resulting modern diglossia. It is also clear, however, that there is an overwhelming presence of Ancient Greek vocabulary and forms in the modern language. Our position is that the recognition of such phenomena can provide a tool for introducing classicists to the modern language, a view that has various intellectual predecessors (e.g., Albert Thumb, Nicholas Bachtin, George Thomson, and Robert Browning). We thus propose a model for the teaching of Modern Greek to classicists that starts with words that we refer to as carry-overs. These are words that can be used in the modern language without requiring any explanation of pronunciation rules concerning Modern Greek spelling or of differences in meaning in comparison to their ancient predecessors (e.g., κακός ‘bad’, μικρός ‘small’, νέος ‘new’, μέλι ‘honey’, πίνετε ‘you drink’). Our data show that a beginners’ textbook of Ancient Greek may contain as many as a few hundred carry-over words, their exact number depending on the variety of the Erasmian pronunciation that is adopted in the teaching practice. However, the teaching of Modern Greek to classicists should also take into account lexical phenomena such as Ancient-Modern Greek false friends, as well as Modern Greek words that correspond to their ancient Greek predecessors only in terms of their written forms and meanings.

In most varieties of modern Greek, the consonant /l/ is typically a “clear” [l] in most environments, as in /ala/ [ala] αλλ⋯ ‘but’; but with positional variation involving also palatalised and/or palatal variants, as in /skili/ [skiļi] σχυλ⋯ ‘dog’. In a number of areas of northern Greece, velarised [⃒]-type pronunciations may also be found, as they may also be in those areas of Attica and Biotia where Albanian/Greek bilingualism is or has been common (see Trudgill & Tzavaras 1975 – most varieties of Albanian have a phonemic contrast between /l/ and /l/). In his book The Generative Interpretation of Dialect (1972), however, Brian Newton also points out that ‘in the Sphakiá area of Crete /l/ has a retroflex pronunciation before back vowels’. This feature is also cited by Kondosopoulos (1959, 1969, 1974) and Pangalos (1955), who also mention some other areas of Crete where a similar phenomenon occurs. (Following Kondosopoulos and Pangalos, Newton also indicates that /l/ → Ø or /l/ → /w/ in certain Cretan villages.)

This study of the language of the Halbturn amulet focuses on the pronunciation of Hebrew. The Halbturn amulet shows that the shewa was pronounced as a vowel (συμα), in contradistinction to other elisions which are known elsewhere in Hebrew (σμα) and that the name Israel was sometimes pronounced with a [t] between the śin and the resh. Furthermore, the transliteration of the name (*αδωναι) with a contracted diphthong (αδωνε) points to the effect of the colloquial Greek speech on the pronunciation of Hebrew.

Abstract The Gothic Bible offers valuable secondary evidence for the pronunciation of Greek in the fourth century AD. However, inferences based on such data may result in a vicious circle, as the interpretation of Gothic is, to a great extent, dependent on the historical details of contemporary Greek. I show that a circular argument can be avoided by using a novel method, which is based on the comparison of transcription correspondences of Greek loan words and biblical names occurring in the Greek original and the Gothic version. I test the method by applying it to three example cases. The first concerns the aspirated stops φ, θ, χ: Gothic evidence confirms the fricativization of these stops. The second case concerns the potential fricativization of voiced stops β, δ, γ: the results are inconclusive, which is an important finding, since this shows that Gothic cannot be used as evidence for the fricativization of these stops. The third case concerns front vowels: Gothic evidence confirms the coalescence of αι and ε on the one hand, and ει and ῑ on the other, while it also indicates that η was not (yet) pronounced as [iː] in the fourth century AD.

AbstractThe results of a study of the variation between the palatal and alveolar pronunciation of the coronal sonorants /l/ and /n/ in a rural Greek community are presented. The study integrates the methodologies of both large surveys and ethnographic studies and shows that there is change in progress as younger speakers adopt the alveolar pronunciation through contact with urban varieties. The results of the statistical analysis indicate that the variation is determined by factors such as gender, education, attitude toward the local community, and awareness of the variation. The responses given in the interviews reveal that the palatal pronunciation is stigmatized as vlachika, a term that connotes rural rather than urban, uneducated rather than educated, and naive rather than sophisticated attributes. This information coupled with a closer look at the behavior of particular individuals helps elucidate aspects of the pattern of variation that at first appear to be counterintuitive.

Abstract Significant linguistic research has been carried out in the field of language register and its relevance for speech patterns. In various contexts, language users tend to employ different linguistic features, especially but not limited to the realm of pronunciation. In many linguistic communities, there is a higher register of language associated with more formal settings, a lower register of language associated with less formal settings, and a wide spectrum of variation in between. In the context of reading traditions that develop around a sacred text, the same principles may apply. While the pronunciation (or phonology) of the reading tradition often interacts with and is influenced by the vernacular, tradents of the reading tradition often try to preserve a more “archaic,” conservative, and/or simply distinct pronunciation. There appears to be evidence that such a phenomenon was already at play in Biblical Hebrew reading traditions of late antiquity. By comparing Greek and Latin transcriptions of the Biblical Hebrew reading traditions of late antiquity to transcriptions of Hebrew taken from non-biblical sources, we can actually isolate multiple features that demonstrate a distinct difference in pronunciation between biblical and non-biblical sources. The collection of linguistic features characteristic of the reading tradition may properly be termed a “performance register,” the societal implications of which for Jewish communities of late antiquity will be explored in closing.

The topic of this paper is Latin personal names and their adaptation into South Slavic languages based on a shtokavian standard (Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian and Montenegrin), with examples and proposed solutions. According to tradition, Latin names were first read and written phonetically, a process in which the original name was completely distorted, as its root was masked. A problem arises when researchers come into contact with rarer or newer names, either Greek or Latin, and, not paying attention to the rules of adaptation, adapt the new names by modelling them after similar names according to the Latin nominative or incorrectly read the root of the name and write them down phonetically. This requires a permanent solution, which, we believe, lies in the original writing which preserves the root of the name and leaves open the possibility of both pronunciations: the original Roman (classical) pronunciation, and the simplified (traditional) pronunciation brought about in the Middle Ages, e.g. Caesar-Caesara-s Caesarom [Kajsar-Kajsara-s Kajsarom / Cezar-Cezara-s Cezarom]. In order to apply or, at least, attempt to apply this, it is necessary to become acquainted with the nature of the Latin language, which has its own principles of writing and pronunciation, especially with regard to ancient Rome as the subject of scholarly writing and publication. This, of course, cannot by applied to newlycoined technical terms from the fields of medicine, pharmaceuticals, and information technology, as they do not date from the classical period, but are rather modern coined words which have a traditional approach to Latin and, while they are often incorrectly coined, are not the subject of this paper. Examples are added which are incorrectly coined from the fields of government, law and religion, which are also adopted haphazardly and written according to the researcher’s discretion.

Summary During the course of the 19th century, many English dictionaries carrying information on pronunciation directed that Greek-derived words beginning ps- should be pronounced with a silent initial p. In the relevant section of the OED, however (published 1909), the editor J. A. H. Murray (1837–1915) advised that, contrary to general practice, pronouncing the p was preferable, since it made clear the etymology of such words thus enhancing their intelligibility. Dictionaries after the OED have reported p as an optional pronunciation for many years subsequently — even as late as the 1970s — though their conflicting evidence supports the hypothesis that pronouncing the p was a dictionary chimaera never adopted by more than a handful of pedantic philologists. The article concludes that claims to descriptivism rather than prescriptivism, even by the most reputable dictionaries, should be taken with a pinch of salt.

In this paper is presented the algorithm of an automatic grapheme-to-phoneme translator for the Greek language. The proposed algorithm is designed to collaborate with a high quality Text-to-Speech synthesis system in Greek. The algorithm assimilates the full reading process of written text as realized by a Greek speaking person. A detailed study of the Greek language's operation, led us to the implementation of an automatic integrated system which describes its phonetic behaviour in an exact and natural way. The software that implements the algorithm has the capability to receive written text from any input (keyboard, file, screen reader, OCR system e.t.c.) and transform it to phonetic form. Afterwards the output of the algorithm is directed to the input of a concatenation-based speech synthesizer and the right pronunciation of any written text is achieved in real-time. During the reading process the software locates and distinguishes Greek written text from any foreign language words, specially written symbols, abbreviations e. t. c… and afterwards manages them in order that the flow of the reading process permits the right perception of the produced spoken messages. The most important qualification of the algorithm is the possibility to incorporate it in other Text-to-Speech synthesis systems of different technology. Finally experimental measurements indicate the successful operation of the algorithm.

The review paper on N.I. Kareev’s first work published in the September issue of the Journal of the Ministry of National Education in 1869 was analyzed. N.I. Kareev’s publication was focused on the pronunciation of sounds and the graphic system of the ancient Greek language. R.A. Fogt, the qualified expert in classical philology, reviewed it. R.A. Fogt emphasized N.I. Kareev’s good skills in ancient languages studies that he trained at the Moscow gymnasium and used as the background for his reflections about the ancient Greek language. The critical comments of the reviewer were discussed. These remarks concerned the following aspects of N.I. Kareev’s work: historiographical sources, conceptual apparatus, argumentation, logical inconsistencies in the text, and vision of the specifics of the ancient Greek phonetics. In particular, R.A. Fogt pointed out that N.I. Kareev showed little interest in G. Kurtius’ work, expressed his disagreement with the proposal to use the methods of I. Reuchlin in philological research when transcribing Greek letters with Latin, disputed the claim that θ retained its ancient sound in the modern Greek language, etc. As an experienced educator, R.A. Fogt gave advice not only concerning the research procedures, but also about writing methodological manuals for the educational process. The balanced nature of the review paper, its friendly tone, and a generally positive assessment of N.I.’s Kareev work were revealed. It was concluded that this review meant recognition of the young N.I. Kareev in the scientific and educational environment and turned out to be an incentive for his further work as a scientist and author of textbooks.

This review article discusses the recent book by Chris Caragounis on the development of the Greek language in its relevance to the study of the New Testament. Special attention is paid to the elements of continuity and change in pronunciation, semantics and syntax. In spite of the fact that Caragounis overstates his case in some respects, this book undoubtedly throws new light on several problems of NT interpretation.

This research aims to shed light on the problem of the relationship of the word with the meaning in the Islamic rhetoric field, because it is the basic epistemological linguistic problem that occupied the forefront in the rhetoric cognitive system, and it has worked to crystallize it since the era of codification, as this dilemma was a subject of dispute among scholars with their various references in the deliberative Islamic field, but in the history of mankind as a whole, which extends through times and epochs, this problem was raised in the Greek era by the poles of Greek philosophy as an integral part of the study of ontology, as the philosophy of language that concerned itself with language in its general and abstract concept was not a self-contained philosophy for them. Pioneers of Greek philosophy who are credited with developing linguistic and logical studies. It has been associated with Islamic thinkers, especially among jurists, with understanding the Qur’anic text and determining its true and intended meaning, which requires that the truth matches between human understanding or human knowledge on the one hand and the intended divine meaning expressed in the Qur’anic text on the other hand. They defend it against the anti-Islam sects, as they add to this problem a metaphysical dimension, which is organically related to the issue of "creating the Qur'an", and it was not confined to linguistics and forensic sciences only, Rather, it was strongly present among the logical philosophers who were influenced by Greek philosophy to the point of fascination, and the positions of the rhetoricians differed according to their different starting points.

On early pseudo-learned orthographic forms: A contribution to the history of English spelling and pronunciation The history of English contains numerous examples of "improved" spellings. English scribes frequently modified spelling to make English words and some popular borrowings look like words of Latin or Greek origin. The typical examples are Eng. island, containing mute <s> taken from Lat. insula or Eng. anchor ‘mooring device’ (< Fr. ancre), with non-etymological <h>. Although such "reformed spellings" became particularly fashionable during the Renaissance, when the influence of the classical languages was at its peak, "classicised" spellings are also found earlier, e.g. in texts from the 14th century. In the present contribution which concentrates on identifying such earliest influences on spellings in Middle English attention is focussed on the regional distribution of reformed spellings, with a sociolinguistic focus on the type of the text. The data for the study come from standard sources like the Middle English Dictionary (2001) and Oxford English Dictionary (2009).

This research investigates cacoepy of science terminology encountered by the secondary level school students of Kohat district. The problem of cacoepy of scientific terms needs investigation due to the assumption that mispronunciations if learned in secondary level were still frequently performed by the advanced level students or may be throughout their life. The current research was designed in order to identify the cacoepy of common science terminologies by secondary school students and to study the science teachers’ views on secondary level science textbooks produced by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook board. It was found that majority of the students like science subjects and find the terminologies difficult in which most of the terms contain more than 7 alphabets and were considered as complex terms. Due to this complexity, students feel difficulty in learning of scientific terms. Most of science terms were derived from Greek, Latin and other ancient languages, so students cannot understand their meanings. Almost every chapter of secondary school biology, chemistry and physics is overloaded with difficult terms and students felt difficulty in preparation of those subjects in which mostly difficult terms were found in biology. Usually, science teachers prioritize goals for school science that are solely focused on preparing students for the next academic level (for future formal study of science) and completing his course within the sessions while disregarding the students' pronunciation of scientific terms. It is advised that authors use basic phrases and limit terminology with more than seven alphabets. It is critical to expose secondary pupils to workload that is appropriate for their learning requirements rather than annual book revision and insertion of heavy workload. Teachers should insert few terms into science lessons for practicing daily, and it is enough to devote a minute or two to some pronunciation issue so that fluency during lecture is not interrupted a lot. Pointing out a pronunciation problem when it has just arisen in the course is a good way of introducing correct pronunciation into the class. English plays an important part in the development of students because of its present and future as an international language. Real life activities or examples should be associated with important topics. Textbooks should be altered for language of explanation to match the level of students in secondary schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and some outdated themes should be replaced with new themes to meet the needs of the 21st century. It is suggested that the textbook board in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should include the Urdu phonology and meaning of the found terminologies at the start of each chapter.

This paper attempts to evaluate a teaching textbook used in the Greek Merchant Marine Center of Further Education: School of Mechanics. The evaluation considers adult learners’ needs and practices to evaluate the prescribed textbook used in this institution. This textbook has been used for a long time and, though it includes proper ESP knowledge, it is considered to need embellishment to satisfy learners’ growing needs, especially as it concerns engineering vocabulary. The research question mainly investigates whether this textbook helps learners in their practice of receptive and productive language skills both in general English and English for Specific Purposes use. Following a checklist of evaluation criteria, internal and external evaluation took place. It was found that the textbook is considered very plain and unattractive by learners. Though it includes the teaching of main vocabulary and grammar necessary to learners, it does not include material for pronunciation practice. Furthermore, it does not offer enough practise of all four language skills. It does not present activities for the practicing of vocabulary use or writing. There is also a lack of participatory tasks like group activities or teamwork. The findings contribute to the field because they could help embellish the teaching material with more communicative tasks and open-ended activities, which would motivate, interest, and engage learners more. The more purposeful use of technical language would be aiding mechanics in their training and in their work field in merchant navy vessels.

En este artículo se dan ciertas informaciones para intentar explicar la diferente pronunciación de un conjunto de palabras entre español y portugués. Las causas de dicha diferencia son diversas. Se observa, sobre todo, una distinta evolución y/o adaptación del término originario (principalmente latín y griego), en ocasiones esperable y en otras no; también se ve la influencia de una tercera lengua (francés, sobre todo, inglés y otras) y en palabras formadas a partir de otras dos, a veces domina el acento de una y a veces el de la otra.The aim of this article is to try and explain the different pronunciation of a set of words between Spanish and Portuguese. The causes of this difference are diverse. We observe, above all, a different evolution and/or adaptation of the original term (mainly Latin and Greek), sometimes expected and sometimes not; the influence of a foreign language (French, especially, English and others) is also seen, and —in compound words formed from other two— sometimes prevails the stress of one word and sometimes prevails the other.

In a much discussed passage Pindar uses the expression when speaking of early performances of the dithyramb. The passage was famous in antiquity and before the discovery of a papyrus fragment early in the Twentieth Century, we owed our knowledge of it chiefly to citations in Athenaeus. In discussing it, Athenaeus explains the words in the context of asigmatic odes, i.e. odes in which for the sake of euphony the letter sigma was avoided or omitted altogether. This explanation remains the most commonly accepted one, though scholars continue to puzzle over it, as it is hard to see why Pindar would use the word which means ‘false’ or ‘counterfeit’ in such a context. A more natural interpretation, and one which would, I believe, have been readily accepted had it not been for the comments of Athenaeus, is that in early dithyrambic performances the ‘s’ sound was in some way impure or unauthentic when compared with current practice. In what follows, I will re-open the discussion, arguing that Athenaeus misunderstood the passage or based his explanation on a tradition which obscured its true meaning. It will be necessary in the first place to examine evidence for the pronunciation of Greek sibilants and it is here that some light may be cast upon the discussion from a rather unexpected source—the adaptation of the Greek alphabet for writing down the Middle Iranian language of Bactria.

The paper studies the use of Latin in Neurology terminology. Specialised communication in medicine isimpossible without recognizing the unique role of Latin being the language of scientific progress in the processes ofaccumulation, preservation, documentation, and transfer of knowledge and expertise. The comparative terminologyresearch deals with the identification, analysis, and assessment of Latin terms used in the English and Slovakneurological environment in the modern era. Latin presents the foundation of medical terminology and has beenused since the beginning of the formation of medicine as a scientific discipline. The theoretical part of the paperdefines basic terminological concepts and focuses on the field of neurology, English/Slovak neurology specialty,research methods, and methods of terminology work. To achieve the objective of the paper the following methodshave been used: observation, excerption, conceptual analysis, term analysis, comparative analysis, classification ofterms, and synthesis of data. It also describes the historical development of Latin, and medicine including medicalterminology. Specialised medical language and terminology performs at international and national levels. Besidesthat, the paper describes the Greek influence on medical terminology and the importance of terminology literacy andterminology culture. The empirical part deals with the terminology work consisting of excerption, harmonization,and terminography. Many bilingual terminology records have been compiled with equivalents and terminologycontexts and prepared for multiple uses as a terminology product: glossary, dictionary, database…). Neurologicalterms of Latin origin are excerpted from highly specialised neurology papers (100 terms from English papers, 155terms from Slovak ones, 255 excerpted terms with their equivalents in total). As a result of partial comparativeterminology, analysis terms have been classified according to their degree of assimilation and latinity. 100neurological terms excerpted from the English written papers are divided into 3 categories: 46 multiple-assimilatedterms, 45 Latin assimilated terms, and 9 semi-assimilated terms. 155 neurological terms excerpted from the Slovakwritten papers are assigned into 4 categories: 75 multiple-assimilated terms, 63 Latin assimilated terms, 15 nonassimilatedterms, and 2 semi-assimilated terms. As a conclusion of comparative terminological research there aresome findings and recommendations for practice pointing out that firstly, neurology specialists from both countriesprefer use of Latin terms in communication with professionals, secondly, Latin terms are more dominant in theSlovak professional environment using the origin unchanged pronunciation, thirdly, studying the Latin language andterminology is essential for comprehending and defining the medical (neurological) concepts even in contemporaryage, thoroughly, there are non-assimilated Latin terms in English written neurology papers, the English languageprefers its own pronunciation rules, fifthly, findings help to model concept structures based on specialisedknowledge of the field and clarify the relations between concepts, sixthly, preference for native language isrecommended in national terminology, seventhly, the conceptual system facilitate the comparative analysis ofconcepts and designations across languages, and finally, the terminology literacy and competence is important forlanguage users in every subject field.

According to the International Astronomical Union, 317 natural satellites have been discovered, including 199 space objects with official names. There are also 243 alternative names. During the analysis it was established that such onyms belong to the onym field of space objects’ names, subfield of cosmoorbitonyms, segment of monocosmoorbitonyms. They are abionyms, realonyms, individual micro-, meso- and macro-names. Official forms are simple new and newest nominal propriatives of artificial origin, which have a known and opaque etymology, borrowed from ancient Greek and other languages, formed by the actual semanticization, mainly from mythonyms. They are variable or unchangeable. Alternative forms are new and newest associative-qualitative names of artificial origin, which have a known and transparent etymology. They are syntactically formed most often from names of space objects and numerals. Thus, they are derived from onyms and appellatives and are hybrid names, mostly unchangeable. The main functions of natural satellite names are nominative and informative, which are relatively common in scientific and artistic styles. Such onyms mostly do not have connotative, associative, symbolic and ethnocultural features and differences in pronunciation and writing, belong to the macroconcept “Expanse” and the mesoconcept “Space” and at the same time – to passive vocabulary, are used in language, are little known. They are low-frequency and emotionally neutral. In the future, it is planned to characterize other categories of proper names of space objects according to this algorithm: asteroids, galaxies, stars, comets, constellations, etc.

For a long time in Bulgaria, there has been a need for a suitable Latin textbook for medical specialties with a 30-hour course, such as nursing, obstetrics, dental assistance, etc. The authors Dimitar Mirchev, PhD and Assoc. prof. Rossen Milanov aim to fill this niche through the preparation of the presented textbook. The textbook is based on the existing Latin-language textbooks in Bulgaria, while at the same time the authors strive to improve the available methodical systems for the education of students with a schedule of 30 hours per term. The main feature of the textbook is the separation of the grammar into 15 topics, according to the number of study weeks for the specialties mentioned. The authors’ purpose is to offer a balanced amount of exercises corresponding to the limited amount of time for the students to acquire the desired knowledge. This is also one of the main differences between the existing textbooks for а 60-hour schedule and the current textbook. The selection and synthesis of these exercises and the achievement of the final goal, namely the acquisition of sufficient Latin terminology corresponding to the actual needs in the students’ practical field, proved to be a difficult task and a great challenge for the authors. In Bulgaria, before 1989, there are relatively few Latin-language textbooks for medical specialties. Then the nursing and obstetrics are outside the higher education system and study in special secondary schools or colleges, while in the higher schools they prepare specialties of medicine, dentistry and pharmacy. For this reason, Latin textbooks are divided respectively for higher education institutions and for secondary school specialties. Since 2007 the nursing and obstetrics enter the higher education system and receive a Bachelor's degree. These specialties are taught in Latin, usually with textbooks prepared for medicine and dentistry. Basically this is not a problem, but gradually textbooks that are appropriate for these specialties have been prepared, according to their academic workload. Nowadays , there are no more than 3-4 textbooks in Bulgaria for classes of 30 hours. In this article, the above-mentioned textbook will be presented, highlighting its advantages and benefits on the basis of existing ones. Nurses, obstetrics and other specialties with similar workload in latin language have chiefly difficulties in learning the grammar that is absolutely necessary for the proper use of anatomical and clinical terminology. At the same time, the practice shows that all medical specialists are hampered by the correct pronunciation of medical terms, which is also a major challenge for the teachers. The textbook is divided into a grammar part with exercises according to the teaching material, greek terminology and Latin-Bulgarian and Bulgarian-Latin dictionary.

Latin and Greek are primary donor languages to Swedish and Danish, which do not belong to the Romance but Germanic languages. The present study conducted a vocabulary survey to examine the advantage of frequently used Swedish and Danish vocabulary of Latin or Greek origin and their English equivalents for learning Swedish and Danish. The Oxford 3000 list was used as the primary reference of high-frequency English words. As a result, 556 loanwords of Latin or Greek origin are included in the most frequently used 3,000 Swedish and Danish words and approximately 430 loanwords can be used with a similar pronunciation in English. Therefore, the present study concluded that knowledge of most used Swedish and Danish vocabulary of Greek or Latin origin could help speakers of English learn Swedish and Danish.

The article seeks to study a new period in the typological characteristics of language situations related to the functions of the Ukrainian language. The purpose of the article is to analyze the changes in the language situation and the causal interaction of social functions of languages used by the indigenous Ukrainian population on the outskirts of ethnically Ukrainian territory of Kholmshchyna and Pidliashshia in 1815–1915. In order to reach this goal, the author reveals the political factors that led to a variety of language situations, communicative practices, and assimilation processes. The analysis is based on the results of interdisciplinary research on the history, politics, and culture of Kholmshchyna and Pidliashshia, as well as the works on historical sociolinguistics. The sources of analysis include travel records, memoirs, and documents, to which the method of sociolinguistic interpretation and reinterpretation is applied, as well as comparative and biographical methods, elements of discourse analysis. The results testify to three geopolitical influences that changed the directions of development of the language situation: the transition of territories within the Kingdom of Poland to the Russian Empire in 1815; military actions on the territory of Kholmshchyna and Pidliashshia during the First World War in 1914– 1915; the arrival of the new occupation authorities in 1915. In early 20th century, there was a decrease in the number of native speakers of the Ukrainian language: after the permitted conversion from Orthodoxy to the Roman Catholic faith under the tsarist law of 1905 and in connection with the deportation in 1915. Communicative practices of Ukrainians in different spheres of life included a combination of languages: colloquial Ukrainian and Polish, literary Polish, Russian and occasionally Ukrainian, Church Slavonic with Ukrainian and Russian pronunciations, and the German language. Based on the assimilative interaction of the languages, it might be suggested that the life of Ukrainians took place in the face of Polonization. This was particularly a manifestation of the resistance of the Polish and non-Polish population to the tsarist government as an occupation after the uprisings of 1831 and 1863–64, and after 1875, and Russification as a result of the planned conversion of Greek Catholics to Orthodoxy, the creation of new educational institutions and separation on the basis of Lublin and Siedlce Voivodeships

<p class="1">It is extraordinary how extra information such as age, birthplace, education, and social strata is displayed when people talk. Sometimes, it is enough to hear a person to know where that person is from. For instance, the juxtaposition placed on intelligence regarding the southern English dialects in the US:</p><p class="1">Gov. Clinton, you attended Oxford University in England and Yale Law School in the Ivy League, two of the fines institutions of learning in the world. So how come you still talk like a hillbilly? (as quoted in Lippi-Green, 1997: 211)</p><p class="1">Indeed, language aspects such as prosody, syntax, lexis, and/or pronunciation reveal certain characteristics such as birthplace, age, ethnicity, and social strata, to mention some. In Ecuador, one just needs to hear the interlocutor to know where the person is from or is not from. One peculiar characteristic of the speech of Quiteños in Ecuador is the usage of the Spanish trill [ r ] and/or the assibilated [ ř ]; that is, the intervocalic phone in the Spanish word ‘arroz’ can be realized with a trill [ r ] or an assibilated [ ř ] sound. This variation is allophonic and might make people rank individuals on a social scale, judge them as educated or uneducated, and/or link them to a particular speech community. </p><p class="1">This paper explores some possible extra-linguistic factors such as education, social class, and language domains that may be associated with this allophonic variation in the speech of young Quiteños. Data for this paper was collected through a questionnaire at one relatively large university in Quito-Ecuador and mainly reflects participants’ perception on the usage of these two sounds. <strong></strong></p>

Este artigo visa a contribuir para o ensino de português brasileiro (PB) como língua estrangeira. Para tanto, segue dois argumentos: o de que a língua é um sistema adaptativo complexo – o que implica a necessidade de se conspirarem variáveis extralinguísticas no processo de ensino-aprendizagem em interação com variáveis linguística - e o de que é preciso conhecer a estrutura fonético-fonológica do PB e da língua materna dos aprendizes, para que se possa desenvolver uma abordagem próxima à realidade desses aprendizes. Para embasar tais argumentos, lançamos mão de dados português brasileiro produzidos por falantes nativos de crioulo haitiano e analisados acusticamente.REFERÊNCIASAlbano, E. C. O gesto e suas bordas – esboço de fonologia acústico-articulatória do português brasileiro. Campinas: Mercado de Letras/FAPESP, 2001.ALVES, U.K.; BRISOLARA, L.B.; PEROZZO, R.V. Curtindo os sons do Brasil – Fonética do Português do Brasil para Hispanofalantes. Lisboa: Lidel, 2017.Becker, M.R. Inteligibilidade da lingua inglesa sob o paradigma de língua franca: percepção de discursos de falantes de diferentes L1s por brasileiros. Tese de doutorado. Inédita. UFPR. 2013.Beckner, C. et al. Language is a complex adaptative system: position paper. Language Learning, v. 59, n. 1, p. 1-26, dez. 2009.Cadely, J.R. Haiti: the politics of language. Journal of Teaching and Education, 1(3):389–394, 2012.CADELY, J. R.. Les sons du Creòle haïtien. The Journal of Haitian Studies, 9 (2): 4-41, 2004.Celce-Murcia, M.; Brinton, D.M.; Goodwin, J.M.; Grainer, B. Teaching pronunciation: a course book and reference guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.Chan, S. Complex Adaptative Systems. Research Seminar in Engineering Systems. October 31, 2001/November 6, p. 1-9, 2001.DOVE, L. How does a forest fire benefit living things? DISPONÍVEL em https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/how-forest-fire-benefit-living-things-2.htm. ACESSO em 18/02/2019.MAJOR, R. C. Transfer in second language phonology. In: EDWARDS, J. G. H; ZAMPINI, M. L. Phonology and Second Language Acquisition. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2008.SCHMICHECK, J. V. Produção de taps e laterais do PB por falantes de kreyòl. Relatório de Pesquisa de Iniciação Científica. Inédito. Universidade Federal do Paraná. 2018.Silva, A.H.P. Caracterização acústica de [r], [ɾ], [l] e [ʎ] nos dados de um informante paulistano. Cadernos de Estudos Linguísticos, 37:51-6, 1999.Silva, A. H. P. As fronteiras entre fonética e fonologia e a alofonia dos róticos iniciais em PB: dados de dois informantes do sul do país. Tese de doutorado. Inédita. Universidade Estadual de Campinas. 2002.Silva, A.H.P. Uma ferramenta para o ensino do acento primário do PB para falantes nativos do crioulo haitiano. Organon, 30 (58): 175-191, 2015.Tardieu, G.M. Gramè Kreyòl. Kopivit-Laksyon Sosyal, 2013. Recebido em 18-02-2019.Aceito em 21-02-2019.

Abstract Originally, Ancient Greek employed the letter digamma ( ϝ) to represent the /w/ sound. Over time, this sound disappeared, alongside the digamma that denoted it. However, to transcribe those archaic, dialectal, or foreign words that still retained this sound, lexicographers employed other letters, whose sound was close enough to /w/. Among these, there is the letter gamma (γ), attested mostly but not only in the Lexicon of Hesychius. Given what we know about the sound of gamma, it is difficult to explain this use. The most straightforward hypothesis suggests that the scribes who copied these words misread the capital digamma (Ϝ) as gamma (Γ). Presenting new and old evidence of gamma used to denote digamma in Ancient Greek literary and documentary papyri, lexicography, and medieval manuscripts, this paper refutes this hypothesis, and demonstrates that a peculiar evolution in the pronunciation of gamma in Post-Classical Greek triggered a systematic use of this letter to denote the sound once represented by the digamma.

From a historical perspective, shewa mobile (shewa na') in the Biblical Hebrew reading traditions may be regarded as an epenthetic vowel which breaks up a consonant cluster that came into being through the process of deletion, syncope, etc. Evidence from the attested reading traditions of Biblical Hebrew suggests that the kind of vowel reduction that would bring about the ubiquity of “shewa” in the medieval traditions was already underway in the Second Temple period. At the same time, there is evidence from antiquity that other phonological strategies were implemented to prevent such (complete) reduction of short vowels in open unstressed syllables. In particular, there is evidence in both the ancient transcription traditions of Hebrew and in the Samaritan tradition for non-etymological gemination of a consonant immediately following a vowel in the “shewa slot.” Though some such examples of gemination may be explained as variant morphological patterns, etc., it will be argued that such gemination was implemented to ensure the distinct pronunciation of the phonological sequence. While some cases of this phenomenon are best explained as orthoepic strategies for careful reading, other cases may have developed more naturally in the spoken language. This conclusion is significant because it demonstrates both that vowel reduction/deletion was already prone to occur in the late Second Temple period and that there was an impulse in both speech and in a careful reading of the Biblical Hebrew tradition to avoid consonant clusters (at least in some cases) already in this early period.

06–108Andrew, Michael D. (U New Hampshire, USA), Casey D. Cobb & Peter J. Giampietro, Verbal ability and teacher effectiveness. Journal of Teacher Education (Sage) 56.4 (2005), 343–354.06–109Beran, Tanya (U Calgary, Canada) & Claudio Violato, Ratings of university teacher instruction: How much do student and course characteristics really matter?Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education (Routledge/Taylor&Francis) 30.6 (2005), 593–601.06–110Cadman, Kate (U Adelaide, Australia; kate.cadman@adelaide.edu.au), Towards a ‘pedagogy of connection’ in critical research education: A REAL story. Journal of English for Academic Purposes (Elsevier) 4.4 (2005), 353–367.06–111Francis, Dawn (James Cook U, Australia) & Louise Ingram-Starrs, The labour of learning to reflect. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice (Routledge/Taylor&Francis) 11.6 (2005), 541–553.06–112Gordon, June A. (U California at Santa Cruz, USA), The crumbling pedestal: Changing images of Japanese teachers. Journal of Teacher Education (Sage) 56.5 (2005), 459–470.06–113Green, Catherine & Rosie Tanner (IVLOS Institute of Education, Utrecht U, the Netherlands; catherine_green@usamedia.tv), Multiple intelligences and online teacher education. ELT Journal (Oxford University Press) 59.4 (2005), 312–321.06–114Hsu, Shihkuan (National Taiwan U, Taiwan), Help-seeking behaviour of student teachers. Educational Research (Routledge/Taylor&Francis) 47.3 (2005), 307–318.06–115Kolesnikova, Irina L. (St Petersburg, Russia; vkolesni@rol), English or Russian? English language teacher training and education. World Englishes (Blackwell) 24.4 (2005), 471–476.06–116Leeman, Yvonne & Guuske Ledoux (U Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Teachers on intercultural education. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice (Routledge/Taylor&Francis) 11.6 (2005), 575–589.06–117Longaker, Mark Garrett (U Texas at Austin, USA), Market rhetoric and the Ebonics debate. Written Communication (Sage) 22.4 (2005), 472–501.06–118Lovtsevich, Galina N. (Vladivostok, Russia; lovtsev@ext.dvgu.ru), Language teachers through the looking glass: Expanding Circle teachers' discourse. World Englishes (Blackwell) 24.4 (2005), 461–469.06–119McDonald, Ria (U South Africa, South Africa) & Daniel Kasule, The monitor hypothesis and English teachers in Botswana: Problems, varieties and implications for language teacher education. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Multilingual Matters) 18.2 (2005), 188–200.06–120Orland-Barak, Lily (U of Haifa, Israel), Lost in translation: Mentors learning to participate in competing discourses of practice. Journal of Teacher Education (Sage) 56.4 (2005), 355–366.06–121Postholm, May Britt (Norwegian U Science & Technology, Norway), The teacher shaping and creating dialogues in project work. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice (Routledge/Taylor&Francis) 11.6 (2005), 519–539.06–122Poulou, Maria (U Crete, Greece), Educational psychology with teacher education. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice (Routledge/Taylor&Francis) 11.6 (2005), 555–574.06–123Shahrzad, Saif (Université Laval, Quebec, Canada), Aiming for positive washback: A case study of international teaching assistants. Language Testing (Hodder Arnold) 23.1 (2006), 1–34.06–124Siew-Lian Wong, Mary (Batu Lintang Teachers' College, Malaysia; marywsl@yahoo.com), Language learning strategies and self-efficacy: Investigating the relationship in Malaysia. RELC Journal (Sage) 36.3 (2005), 245–269.06–125Sifakis, Nicos C. & Areti-Maria Sougari (Hellenic Open U, Greece), Pronunciation issues and EIL pedagogy in the periphery: A survey of Greek state school teachers' beliefs. TESOL Quarterly (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) 39.3 (2005), 467–488.06–126Yin Wa Chan, Alice (City U Hong Kong, China), Tactics employed and problems encountered by university English majors in Hong Kong in using a dictionary. Applied Language Learning (Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center and Presidio of Monterey) 15.1 & 15.2 (2005), 1–27.

Consonant and vowel sounds of English (segmentals) carry a significant weight in communication. Pronunciation instruction focusing on segmental features has been found to be highly effective (e.g., Thomson & Derwing, 2015). However, students with different first languages (L1) or even students from the same L1 backgrounds, have different pronunciation needs. With limited class time, teachers cannot be expected to cater to the pronunciation needs of every student. This has made individualized pronunciation instruction, which enables pronunciation instruction tailored for the needs of each second language (L2) learner, a requirement in today’s language classrooms (Levis, 2007). The growing number of computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT) tools have been responding to this need, making individualized pronunciation instruction, as well as individualized feedback more feasible and available for L2 speakers. Chun (2012) asserts that in order for a CAPT tool to be effective, it must contain “auditory and visualization features, automatic speech recognition (ASR), and appropriate and accurate feedback” (p. 8). Speakometer, an online application that provides segmental practice for its users, was built around Chun’s (2012) three pillars, with a strong auditory feature combined with an ASR to provide learners with relevant pronunciation feedback. The application uses an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm and ASR to rate the user’s spoken English pronunciation. It is targeted for all users who aim to improve their English pronunciation. The users are provided with immediate feedback, which appears on the screen as verbal (e.g., “Very good”), along with the image of a ‘speakometer’ displaying four colors for the rating: red, orange, yellow and green.

06–20Abbott, Chris (King's College, U London, UK) & Alim Shaikh, Visual representation in the digital age: Issues arising from a case study of digital media use and representation by pupils in multicultural school settings. Language and Education (Multilingual Matters) 19.6 (2005), 455–466.06–21Andreou, Georgia & Napoleon Mitsis (U Thessaly, Greece), Greek as a foreign language for speakers of Arabic: A study of medical students at the University of Thessaly. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Multilingual Matters) 18.2 (2005), 181–187.06–22Aune, R. Kelly (U Hawaii at Manoa, USA; kaune@hawaii.edu), Timothy R. Levine, Hee Sun Park, Kelli Jean K. Asada & John A. Banas, Tests of a theory of communicative responsibility. Journal of Language and Social Psychology (Sage) 24.4 (2005), 358–381.06–23Belz, Julie A. (The Pennsylvania State U, USA; jab63@psu.edu) & Nina Vyatkina, Learner corpus analysis and the development of L2 pragmatic competence in networked intercultural language study: The case of German modal particles. The Canadian Modern Language Review (University of Toronto Press) 62.1 (2005), 17–48.06–24Bird, Stephen (U Brunei Darussalam, Brunei; sbird@fass.ubd.edu.bn), Language learning edutainment: Mixing motives in digital resources. RELC Journal (Sage) 36.3 (2005), 311–339.06–25Carrington, Victoria (U Plymouth, UK), The uncanny, digital texts and literacy. Language and Education (Multilingual Matters) 19.6 (2005), 467–482.06–26Chung, Yang-Gyun (International Languages Program, Ottawa, Canada; jchung2536@rogers.com), Barbara Graves, Mari Wesche & Marion Barfurth, Computer-mediated communication in Korean–English chat rooms: Tandem learning in an international languages program. 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TESOL Quarterly (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) 39.3 (2005), 425–440.06–31Dörnyei, Zoltán (U Nottingham, UK; zoltan.dornyei@nottingham.ac.uk) & Kata Csizér, The effects of intercultural contact and tourism on language attitudes and language learning motivation. Journal of Language and Social Psychology (Sage) 24.4 (2005), 327–357.06–32Enk, Anneke van (Simon Fraser U, Burnaby, Canada), Diane Dagenais & Kelleen Toohey, A socio-cultural perspective on school-based literacy research: Some emerging considerations. Language and Education (Multilingual Matters) 19.6 (2005), 496–512.06–33Foster, Pauline & Amy Snyder Ohta (St Mary's College, U London, UK), Negotiation for meaning and peer assistance in second language classrooms. Applied Linguistics (Oxford University Press) 26.3 (2005), 402–430.06–34Furmanovsky, Michael (Ryukoku U, Japan), Japanese students' reflections on a short-term language program. The Language Teacher (Japan Association for Language Teaching) 29.12 (2005), 3–9.06–35Gass, Susan (Michigan State U, USA; gass@msu.edu), Alison Mackey & Lauren Ross-Feldman, Task-based interactions in classroom and laboratory settings. Language Learning (Blackwell) 55.4 (2005), 575–611.06–36Gatbonton, Elizabeth, Pavel Trofimovich & Michael Magid (Concordia U, USA), Learners' ethnic group affiliation and L2 pronunciation accuracy: A sociolinguistic investigation. TESOL Quarterly (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) 39.3 (2005), 489–512.06–37Gerjets, Peter & Friedrich Hesse (Knowledge Media Research Center, Germany; p.gerjets@iwm-kmrc.de), When are powerful learning environments effective? The role of learner activities and of students' conceptions of educational technology. 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ELT Journal (Oxford University Press) 59.4 (2005), 287–297.06–49North, Sarah (The Open U, UK), Disciplinary variation in the use of theme in undergraduate essays. Applied Linguistics (Oxford University Press) 26.3 (2005), 431–452.06–50Nunan, David (U Hong Kong, China), Styles and strategies in the language classroom. The Language Teacher (Japan Association for Language Teaching) 29.6 (2005), 9–11.06–51Paribakht, T. Sima (U Ottawa, Canada; paribakh@uottawa.ca), The influence of first language lexicalization on second language lexical inferencing: A study of Farsi-speaking learners of English as a foreign language. Language Learning (Blackwell) 55.4 (2005), 701–748.06–52Potts, Diana (U British Columbia, Canada; djpotts7@hotmail.com), Pedagogy, purpose, and the second language learner in on-line communities. The Canadian Modern Language Review (University of Toronto Press) 62.1 (2005), 137–160.06–53Pretorius, Elizabeth J. (U South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa; pretoej@unisa.ac.za), English as a second language learner differences in anaphoric resolution: Reading to learn in the academic context. Applied Psycholinguistics (Cambridge University Press) 26.4 (2005), 521–539.06–54Ramírez Verdugo, Dolores (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain; dolores.ramirez@uam.es), The nature and patterning of native and non-native intonation in the expression of certainty and uncertainty: Pragmatic effects. Journal of Pragmatics (Elsevier) 37.12 (2005), 2086–2115.06–55Riney, Timothy J., Naoyuki Takagi & Kumiko Inutsu (Interntional Christian U, Japan), Phonetic parameters and perceptual judgments of accent in English by American and Japanese listeners. TESOL Quarterly (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) 39.3 (2005), 441–466.06–56Rossiter, Marian J. (U Alberta, Canada), Developmental sequences of L2 communication strategies. Applied Language Learning (Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center and Presidio of Monterey, USA) 15.1 & 15.2 (2005), 55–66.06–57Rubdy, Rani (Nanyang Technological U, Singapore; rsrubdy@nie.edu.sg), A multi-thrust approach to fostering a research culture. ELT Journal (Oxford University Press) 59.4 (2005), 277–286.06–58Schneider, Jason (jasoncschneider@yahoo.com), Teaching grammar through community issues. ELT Journal (Oxford University Press) 59.4 (2005), 298–305.06–59Shaaban, Kassim (American U Beirut, Lebanon), A proposed framework for incorporating moral education into the ESL/EFL classroom. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Multilingual Matters) 18.2 (2005), 201–217.06–60Sider, Steve R. (U Western Ontario, Canada), Growing up overseas: Perceptions of second language attrition and retrieval amongst expatriate children in India. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics (Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics) 7.2 (2004), 117–138.06–61Spiliotopoulus, Valia (U Toronto, Canada; valia.spiliotopoulos@ubc.ca) & Stephen Carey, Investigating the role of identity in writing using electronic bulletin boards. The Canadian Modern Language Review (University of Toronto Press) 62.1 (2005), 87–109.06–62Sueyoshi, Ayano (Michigan State U, USA; hardiso2@msu.edu) & Debra M. Hardison, The role of gestures and facial cues in second language listening comprehension. Language Learning (Blackwell) 55.4 (2005), 661–699.06–63Taguchi, Naoko (Carnegie Mellon U, USA; taguchi@andrew.cmu.edu), Comprehending implied meaning in English as a foreign language. The Modern Language Journal (Blackwell) 89.4 (2005), 543–562.06–64Taillefer, Gail F. (Université Toulouse I Sciences Sociales, France; gail.taillefer@univ-tlse1.fr), Foreign language reading and study abroad: Cross-cultural and cross-linguistic questions. 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Aim and questions: Second language learners are often acquiring a second language (L2) in multilingual and bidialectal sociolinguistic environments. The competing pronunciations can be challenging to language learners. This study aims to determine the effects of language variety—standard variety versus local variety—on L2 vowel learning. Methodology: Vowel productions from 55 speakers were analyzed in the study; 10 speakers of Egyptian Arabic were recorded in a reading task producing Greek vowels and their vowel productions were compared to L1 vowel productions produced by 20 Standard Modern Greek and 25 Cypriot Greek speakers from a study by Themistocleous. Data and analysis: We conducted linear mixed effects models and tested the effects of language variety, vowel, and stress on the first and second formant frequency and on vowel duration. Findings: Egyptian Arabic speakers merge the middle Greek vowels /e/ and /o/ and the high /i/ and /u/ vowels. Also, they did not differentiate phonetically between L2 stressed and unstressed vowels. These findings are arguably an effect of the L1 vowel structure on L2 vowels. The two varieties exercised competing effects on learners’ vowel productions, which suggests that both varieties are influencing vowel learning. Originality: There has been substantial research on L2 vowel learning in monolingual environments but not in diglossic environments; this study fills this gap by offering evidence about vowel learning in diglossic environments. Implications: In modern societies, communication takes place in multilingual environments. The findings highlight the impact of diglossia on L2 vowel learning and, ultimately, they demonstrate the importance of sociolinguistic factors on L2 learning.

Max Mangold, who died on 3 February 2015 aged 92, devoted his whole life to learning and describing languages and their pronunciation. It is no exaggeration to say that he was the IPA phonetician par excellence of the German-speaking world, adopting the system at an early age in preference to the established German transcription systems of the time, because it enabled him to acquire more efficiently the correct pronunciation of the many languages he studied. And many there were! Apart from those he could speak fluently – estimates vary between 10 and 20 in different reports – he studied the grammars of many more. His answer to a personal enquiry in 1992 as to how many languages he could speak was 15 – and a few weeks to polish up the other 15! He then circulated among the multi-national staff and students at the departmental summer barbecue, speaking to the Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Czech, Bulgarian, Greek, Spanish and Swedish guests in their respective native tongues. That was about three years after retiring from his position as professor of phonetics at the Universität des Saarlandes in Saarbrücken, where he had taught since 1957. He continued to offer transcription classes and a colloquium each semester until he was over 90.

Biracial Phenotypes as Ambivalent SignifiersRacialisation is the process of imbuing a body with meaning (Ahmed). Rockquemore et al.’s study on American Black-White middle-class college youth emphasises the importance of phenotypes in interracial children because “physical appearance is the primary cue for racial group membership… and remains the greatest factor in how mixed-race children are classified by others” (114). Wilson’s work on British mixed race 6 to 9-year-olds argues that interracial children classify other children based on how “they locate themselves in the racial structure and how they feel about the various racial groups” (64).However, interracial children often struggle with claiming a racial identity that does not correspond to their obvious physical appearance because society is more likely to classify or perceive the child based on their corporeal manifestations than their self-identified racial master status. In instances where they are unacknowledged or rejected by homoethinc groups, interracial persons may be deemed ‘illegitimate’ trespassers within social contexts. In response, interracial bodies may selectively hyper/under-visibilise one racial identity depending on personal connotations of the social group in particular settings (Choudhry 119). Choudhry’s book on the ‘chameleon identities’ of mixed race Black-Asian and White-Asian British young people sets out four ‘interpretative repertoires’ that interracials cognitively adopt: ‘Identity in Transition’ where individuals are still coming to terms with their master status; ‘One Ethnic Identity’ where individuals always privilege one race over the other regardless of context; ‘Interethnic Identity’ where individuals consciously and equally express their dual race and parentage at all times; and ‘Situational/Chameleon-like Identity’ where individuals selectively emphasise one race over the other when it benefits them (112-116). This paper follows on a similar mode of enquiry among Malay-Chinese women in Singapore, whose racial master status is situationally-based.In ethnically heterogeneous and culturally diverse Singapore, an individual’s racial phenotype is convenient shorthand that demarcates Others’ appropriate interactions with and expectations of them. Malbon describes these brief encounters in crowded urban settings as ‘mismeetings’, in which a body’s visual markers allow for a quick assessment and situation of a person’s identity and status. A visibly racialised body thus informs Others on how to negotiate cross-cultural sensitivities and understandings with them in a shared social space. For instance, this visibility may help inform the Other of an appropriate choice of mother tongue to be adopted in conversation with a stranger, or whether to extend non-halal food to a ‘Malay-looking’ – and by extension in most parts of South East Asia, Muslim – person.Unlike previous studies, this paper is not focused on interracial individuals’ felt-race, cognitive development, or the ethnic influence in their upbringing. Instead, it concentrates on their praxis of enacting corporeal markers to enable homophilous interactions with homoethnic social groups. Some Malay-Chinese in Singapore have phenotypic features that may not distinctly reflect their ethnic diversity. Hence, they are not readily acknowledged or accepted into some homoethnic contexts and are deemed ‘illegitimate’ trespassers. It is important for Others to be able to situate them since this “brings with it privileges or deprivations that affect [their] relationships with others and [their] relation to the world” (Mohanty 109). Every day interactions that affirm or negate one’s biraciality then become micropolitics of legitimating one’s in-group status; in the words of one woman’s reactions to Malay classmates excluding her from conversations about Hari Raya, “I also Melayu ok”. These women thus find themselves under- or hyper-visibilising facets of their biracial corporeality to negotiate legitimacy and sense of belonging. Through in-depth interviews with five young Malay-Chinese women who have had to renegotiate their biraciality in educational institutions each school year, this paper seeks to document the intentional under/hyper-performativity of biraciality through visible bodily signifiers. It argues that these biracial women who are perceived as illegitimate inhabitants of social settings have agentically adopted the ambivalence others display towards them as everyday micro-actions to exercise their autonomy, and strategically reposition themselves favourably.The five women were contacted through snowball sampling among personal networks in polytechnics and universities, which are education settings where students have the liberty to dress themselves, and thus, visibilise facets of their identity. These settings were also places in which the women had to continually under/hyper-visibilise and remark their race and ethnicity in rotating tutorial and lecture groups every semester, therefore (re)constructing their identities through peer interactions (Wilson in Choudhry 112).They were aged between 18 and 23 at the time of the interview. Their state-documented ‘official’ race, self-identified religion, and state-assigned mother tongue are tabulated below. Pseudonyms are employed.Semi-structured open-ended interviews were conducted to draw out personal nuances and interpretations of their bodies as read by Others. Our face-to-face interaction proved to be especially useful when informants physically referenced bodily markers or performed verbal cues to convey their under/hyper-visibility strategies.InformantNadiaAtiqahSaraClaireWahidaSexFemaleFemaleFemaleFemaleFemaleAge2322221822‘Official’ raceMalayMalayMalayMalayChineseReligionChristianMuslimChristianChristianMuslimMother tongueMandarinMalayMandarin MandarinMalayThe Body BeingAmong primary phenotypic cues, the women acknowledged popular perceptions of Chinese as fair-skinned and Malay as darker-skinned. This shorthand has been ingrained into society through rampant media images, especially in annual national-wide initiatives based in educational institutes such as Racial Harmony Day, International Friendship Day, and National Day. These settings utilise a ‘racial colour code’ to represent the CMIO – Chinese, Malay, Indian, Others; the four racial categories all Singaporeans are officially categorised into by the state – multiracialism in Singapore. Media imagery employs four children of different skin tones clad in ethnic dress, holding hands as symbolic of unity across diversity. So normative was this image even at the level of Primary School (7-12 year-olds) that Sara found her legitimacy in Chinese lessons questioned: “I used to be quite tanned in Primary School, quite Malay-looking… during Chinese lessons, the teacher always explained [difficult things] to me in English, as if I don’t understand Mandarin. But I even took higher Chinese...”The non-congruence of Sara’s apparently Malay phenotype and Mandarin mother tongue was perceived by her teacher as incompetence; Sara was an ‘illegitimate’ pupil in Mandarin class. Despite having been qualified enough to enrol in the higher Chinese stream that she says only takes in 10% of her cohort annually, Sara felt her high performance was negated because the visual marker of her Malayness took precedence during interactions with the teacher. Instead, English was adopted as a ‘neutral’ third language for conversing.In other instances, the women reported that while their skin tone generally enabled an audience to assign them a race, closer observations of their facial features such as their eyes signposted their racial hybridity. Claire states: “People always ask if I’m mixed blood because my eyelashes are very long and thick.” Sara experienced similar questioning gazes from strangers: “… maybe it’s my big eyes, and thick eyebrows… and my double eyelids are also very ‘Malay’?"Both Claire and Sara pointed out anatomic subtleties such as the folds of their eyelids, the size of their eyes, the volume of their eyebrows, and the length of their eyelashes as markers of their racial hybridity. There also emerged a consensus based on personal experience that Malays are more likely to have double eyelids, larger eyes, thicker eyebrows, and longer lashes, than to Chinese.Visual emphases on subtle characteristics thus help audiences interpret the biraciality of these women despite the apparent ‘incongruence’ of their skin tone and facial features. However, since racial identity is “influenced by historical, cultural, and contextual factors” (Rockquemore et al. 121), corporeal indications only serve as a primary racial cue. The next segment places these women in the context of secondary cues where the body is actively engaged in performing biraciality.The Body SpeakingThe women code-switched with choice of language, mother tongue, and manner of accents and vocal inflexions to contest initial readings of their racial status. Atiqah shares: “People always think I’m Chinese, until I open my mouth and speak Malay to ‘shock’ them. After that, they just ‘get’ that I am Malay.”Atiqah’s raised vocal inflexions and increasingly enthusiastic body language – she was clenching her fist as if to symbolically convey her victory at this point of the interview – seemed to imply that she relished in the ‘shock value’ of her big racial ‘reveal’. In a setting where her racial status was misidentified, she responded by asserting her racial legitimacy by displaying her competency of the Malay language.However, this has not always had a lasting impact in her interactions. She adds that within familiar social groups where she has long asserted her racial identity, she does not always feel acknowledged. Atiqah then attempts to ‘fit in’ by quietly deciphering her peers’ verbal exchanges: “… sometimes my Chinese friends forget that I’m ‘different’ because I’m so fair. They always talk in Mandarin… and I’ll try to figure out what they are saying from facial expressions and gestures.”Given her fair skin tone, Atiqah finds herself hypervisiblising her Malayness by utilizing the Malay language among Malay friends, even though they often converse in English themselves. In contrast, among Chinese friends where she feels her phenotypic Chinese features are visually dominant, she appears to under-visibilise this same Malayness by not speaking up about her language barrier. Language’s potential to demarcate social boundaries thus becomes a negotiative tool for Malay-Chinese women, while they simultaneously “shift their involvement and alliances” (Choudhry 119) to exercise choice over their identity.In another instance, Wahida is a fair skinned, tudung-clad, officially documented Chinese woman who identifies more as Malay. Her apparent ‘incongruence’ is of particular concern because Wahida had been attending a Madrasah up till the age of 18. Madrasahs are Islamic learning schools which also provide full-time education from Kindergarten to Junior College level, as an alternative to the mainstream track offered by the Ministry of Education in Singapore; a vast majority of Madrasah students self-identify as Malay Muslims. The desire for a sense of belonging encouraged Wahida to undervisibilise her Chineseness when she was younger:There was once my father came to pick me up from Madrasah… I forgot why but he scolded me so loudly in Mandarin! Everybody stared at me… I was so embarrassed! I already tried so hard to hide my Chinese-ness, he ruined it.Although Wahida never spoke Mandarin in school to underplay her Chineseness, ‘passing’ as a Malay necessitated intimate Others to sustain the racial construct. In this instance, her father had broken the ‘Malay’ persona she had deliberately crafted by conversing fluently in Malay in the Madrasah.Butler’s work on ‘gender as performed’ may be applied here in that what she describes as the “sustained set of acts” or a “stylization of the body” (xv) is also necessary to enact a sustained visual signifier of one’s racial identity. Although portrayed as a natural, innate, or unquestioned heritage in CMIO media portrays for Singapore, race is in fact an intentional construction. It is the practice of a certain regime of actions that contributes to the establishment of one’s raced personality. One is not naturally ‘Malay’ or ‘Chinese’ for these identities have to be carefully rehearsed and performed in order to translate one’s hereditary race into an outward expression of visible-race as practiced. As evidenced, this constant performance of Wahida’s racial self is fragile and dialectic, especially when other actors (such as her father) do not respond favourably to her intended presentation of self.Within a supposedly neutral third language such as English, the women also demonstrated their manipulation of accents emphasising or underplaying what they deem to be Malay or Chinese intonations and syllabic stresses. Sara explains:When I’m with my Malay friends, I speak with the mat [shortened from the local colloquial term matrep which loosely stands for the Malay version of a chav or a redneck] accent. Sometimes it’s subconscious… but sometimes it’s on purpose... they all speak like that… when I speak my ‘proper’ English, I feel out of place.Sara then demonstrates that Malay-accented English nasally accentuates the ‘N’ consonant, where words such ‘morning’ and ‘action’ have weighted pronunciations as ‘mornang’ and ‘actione’. Words that begin with a ‘C’ consonant are also developed into a voiced plosive ‘K’ sound, where words such as ‘corner’ and ‘concept’ are articulated as ‘korner’ and ‘koncept’, similar to the Malay language. Claire, who demonstrated similar Malay-accented utterances, supported this.Claire also noted that within Singlish – the colloquial spoken Singaporean English – Malay-accented English also tends towards end-sentence inflexions such as “seh”, “sia”, and “siol” in place of the more Mandarin-accented English that employs the end-sentence inflexions “ba”, and “ma”.Racialising spoken English is a symbolic interaction that interracial bodies may utilise to gain recognition and acceptance into a racial group that has not yet acknowledged their ‘legitimate’ membership. This is a manifestation of Cooley’s ‘looking glass self’ where an individual’s presentation of the body is based how they think other actors’ perceive them. In doing so, biracial bodies are able to exaggerate or obscure some corporeal traits to convey their preferred racial master status.The Body DoingPhysical gestures that constitute a ‘racial code’ are mirrored and socialised among children during their upbringing, since these designate one’s bodily boundaries and limits of exchange. Thus, while unseen by outsiders, insiders of the racial group may appropriate subtle gesticulations to demarcate and legitimate each other’s membership. Atiqah contends: “We [the Malays] always salaam each other when we first meet, it’s like a signal to show that we are ‘the same’ you know, so as long as I ‘act’ Malay, then my [colour] doesn’t really matter.”The salaam is a salutation of Islamic origin, signifying ‘peace to you’. It usually involves taking the back of the hand of a senior and bringing it to one’s forehead, heart, or lips. It is commonly practiced among Malays and Muslims. However, when a body’s phenotypic markers do not adequately signify racial identity, insiders may not extend such affective body language to them. As Nadia laments:When I first came to uni, the Malay kampong [literally translates into ‘village’, but figuratively stands for a social group in which reciprocal Malay cultural relationality is attached] couldn’t tell I was one of them… when I tried to salaam one of [the boys], he asked me why I was shaking his hand!Butler illuminated the notion of bodily signifiers (skin tone) marking access and limitations of corporeal exchange (salaam). Visual signifiers on biracial bodies must thus be significant enough to signpost one’s racial master status, in order to be positively assessed, acknowledged, and legitimated by Others.Among the women, only Wahida had committed to wearing a tudung at the time of the interview. Although a religious Islamic practice (as opposed to a culturally Malay one), such ethnic dress as ethnic signifier takes precedence over one’s ambivalent bodily markers. Wahida expressed that dressing in her jubah hyper-visualised her Malayness, especially when she was schooling in a Madrasah where fellow students dressed similarly.Omar’s concept of Masuk Melayu – literally ‘to enter Malayness’ – describes non-ethnic Malays who ‘become’ Malay through converting into Islam and practising the religion. Despite Wahida’s ambivalent fair skin tone, donning a tudung publically signifies her religious inclination and signals to Other Malays her racial master status. This thus earns her legitimacy in the social group more so than other ambivalent Malay-Chinese women without such religious symbolism.Agentic IllegitimacyIn negotiating their biraciality within the setting of educational institutions, these five Malay-Chinese women expressed the body ‘being’, ‘speaking’, and ‘doing’ strategies in which selected traits more commonly associated with Malayness or Chineseness were hyper-visibilised or under-visibilised, depending on the setting in which they find themselves (Wilson), and social group in which they want to gain membership and favour. Sara recalls having to choose an ethnic dress to wear to her Primary School’s Racial Harmony Day. Her father suggested “a mix” such as “a red baju kurung” or a “green cheong sum” (in Singapore, red is associated with the festivities of Chinese New Year and green with Hari Raya) where she could express her biraciality. Owing to this childhood memory, she says she still attempts to convey her racial hybridity by dressing strategically at festive family gatherings. Atiqah similarly peppers conversations with Chinese friends with the few Mandarin phrases she knows, partly to solicit an affective response when they tease her for “trying”, and also to subtly remind them of her desire for acknowledgement and inclusivity. Despite expressing similar frustrations over their exclusion and ‘illegitimate’ status in homoethnic settings, the women reacted agentically by continuously asserting emic readings of their corporeal ambivalence, and entering into spaces that give them the opportunity to reframe Others’ readings of their visual markers through microactions. However, enacting this agentic ethnic repertoire necessitates an intimate understanding of both Malay and Chinese social markers (Choudhry 120).None of the women suggested completely dissociating themselves from either Malayness or Chineseness, although they may selectively hyper-visibilise one over the other to legitimate their group membership. Instead, they engage in a continuously dialectic repositioning that requires reflexivity, self-awareness, and an attentiveness to how they are perceived from the etic. By inculcating Malay and Chinese social cues into their repertoire, these biracial women can strategically enact their desired racial master status fluently, treating ethnic identity as fluid and in flux (Choudhry 120). In transgressing popular perceptions of CMIO imagery, Malay-Chinese women use their bodies as a sustained site for contesting visual racial stereotypes and reframe their everyday ‘illegitimacy’ into agentic ambivalence, albeit only selectively in spaces where their racial membership would be favourable.ReferencesAhmed, Sara. “Racialized Bodies.” Real Bodies: A Sociological Introduction. Ed. Mary Evans, and Ellie Lee. New York: Palgrave, 2002. 46-63.Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1999.Choudhry, Sultana. Multifaceted Identity of Interethnic Young People: Chameleon Identities. Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2010.Cooley, Charles. Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner's, 1902. Katz, Ilan. The Construction of Racial Identity in Children of Mixed Parentage – Mixed Metaphors. London: J. Kingsley Publishers, 1996.Malbon, Ben. “The Club. Clubbing: Consumption, Identity and the Spatial Practices of Every-Night Life.” Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures, Ed. Tracey Skelton, Gill Valentine. Routledge: London, 1997. 266-288.Mohanty, Satya P. “Epilogue. Colonial Legacies, Multicultural Futures: Relativism, Objectivity, and the Challenge of Otherness.” PMLA 110.1 (1995). 14 Sep 2014 ‹http://www.jstor.org/stable/463198›.Omar, Ariffin. Bangsa Melayu: Malay Concepts of Democracy and Community, 1945-1950. Oxford: Oxford University, 1993.Rockquemore, Kerry Ann, and Tracy A. Laszloffy. Raising Biracial Children. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press, 2005.Wilson, Anne. Mixed Race Children – A Study of Identity. London: Allen & Unwin, 1987.

Fig. 1: "Xiao Ming (little Ming) and xiao meng (little sprout/cutie)", satirical take on a popular Chinese textbook character. Shared online Introduction: Cuteness, Online Vernaculars, and Digital FolkloreThis short essay presents some preliminary materials for a discussion of the social circulation of contemporary Chinese vernacular terms among digital media users. In particular, I present the word meng (萌, literally "sprout", recently adopted as a slang term for "cute") as a case in point for a contextual analysis of elements of digital folklore in their transcultural flows, local appropriations, and social practices of signification. One among many other neologisms that enter Mandarin Chinese from seemingly nowhere and gain a widespread popularity in everyday online and offline linguistic practices, meng belongs to a specific genealogy of Japanese animation fansubbing communities, and owes its rapid popularisation to its adaptation to local contexts in different syntactic forms. The resulting inclusion of meng in the changing repertoire of wangluo liuxing ciyu ("words popular on the Internet")—the online vernacular common among Chinese Internet users which is often the target of semantic or structural analyses—is in fact just the last step of processes of networked production and social signification happening across digital media and online platforms.As an anthropologist of media use, I aim to advance the thesis that, in the context of widespread access to digital media, vernacular terms popularised across online platforms and making their way into everyday linguistic interactions are not necessarily the epiphenomena of subcultural formations, nor can they be simply seen as imported aesthetics, or understood through semantic analyses. Rather, “words popular on the Internet” must be understood as part of a local digital folklore, the open repertoire of vernacular content resulting from the daily interaction of users and digital technologies (Lialina & Espenschied 9) in a complex and situated media ecology (Fuller). I argue that the difference between these two approaches is the same passing between a classical structural understanding of signification proposed by Lévi-Strauss and the counter-Copernican revolution proposed by Latour’s quasi-objects proliferating in collectives of actors. Are incredibly pervasive terms like meng actually devoid of meaning, floating signifiers enabling the very possibility of signification? Or are they rather more useful when understood as both signifiers and signifieds, quasi-objects tracing networks and leading to collectives of other hybrids and practices?The materials and observations presented in this essay are part of the data collected for my PhD research on Chinese digital folklore, a study grounded on both ethnographic and archaeological methods. The ethnographic part of my project consists of in-depth interviews, small talk and participant observation of users on several Chinese online platforms such as AcFun, Baidu Tieba, Douban, Sina Weibo and WeChat (Hine). The archaeological part, on the other hand, focuses on the sampling of user-generated content from individual feeds and histories of these online platforms, an approach closer to the user-focused Internet archaeology of Nicholson than to the media archaeology of Parikka. My choice of discussing the term meng as an example is motivated by its pervasiveness in everyday interactions in China, and is supported by my informants identifying it as one of the most popular vernacular terms originating in online interaction. Moreover, as a rather new term jostling its way through the crowded semantic spectrum of cuteness, meng is a good example of the minor aesthetic concepts identified by Ngai as pivotal for judgments of taste in contemporary consumer societies (812). If, as in the words of one of my informants, meng "just means 'cute'," why did it end up on Coca-Cola bottle labels which were then featured in humorous self-portraits with perplexed cats? Fig. 2: "Meng zhu" (Cute leader, play on word on homophone “alliance leader”) special edition Coca-Cola bottle with cat, uploaded on Douban image gallery. Screenshot by the author Cuteness after JapanContemporary Japan is often portrayed as the land of cuteness. Academic explanations of the Japanese fascination with the cute, neotenic and miniaturised abound, tackling the topic from the origins of cute aesthetics in Japanese folkloric characters (Occhi) and their reappearance in commercial phenomena such as Pokémon (Allison), to the role of cuteness as gender performance and normativity (Burdelski & Mitsuhashi) and the "spectacle of kawaii" (Yano 681) as a trans-national strategy of cultural soft power (683). Although the export and localisation of Japanese cultural products across and beyond Asia has been widely documented (Iwabuchi), the discussion has often remained at the level of specific products (comics, TV series, games). Less frequently explored are the repertoires of recontextualised samples, snippets and terms that local audiences piece together after the localisation and consumption of these transnational cultural products. In light of this, is it the case that "the very aesthetic and sensibility that seems to dwell in the playful, the girlish, the infantilized, and the inevitably sexualized" are inevitably adopted after the "widespread distribution and consumption of Japanese cute goods and aesthetics to other parts of the industrial world" (Yano 683)? Or is it rather the case that language precedes aesthetics, and that terms end up reconfigured according to the local discursive contexts in ongoing dialogic and situated negotiations? In other words, what happens when the Japanese word moe (萌え), a slang term "originally referring to the fictional desire for characters of comics, anime, and games or for pop idols” (Azuma 48) is read in its Mandarin Chinese pronunciation meng by amateur translators of anime and manga, picked up by audiences of video streaming websites, and popularised on discussion boards and other online platforms? On a broader level, this is a question of how the vocabularies of specialised fan cultures mutate when they move across language barriers on the vectors of digital media and amateur translations. While in Japanese otaku culture moe indicates a very specific, physically arousing form of aesthetic appreciation that is proper to a devote fan (Azuma 57), the appropriation of the (originally Chinese) logograph by the audiences of dongman (animation and comics) products in Mainland China results in the general propagation of meng as a way of saying 'cute' slightly more fashionable and hip than the regular Mandarin word ke'ai. Does this impact on the semantics or the aesthetics of cuteness in China? These questions have not been ignored by researchers; Chinese academics in particular, who have a first-hand experience of the unpredictable moods of vernacular terms circulating from digital media user cultures to everyday life interactions, appear concerned with finding linguistic explanations or establishing predictors for these rogue terms that seem to ignore lexical rules and traditional etymologies. Liu, for example, tries to explain the popularity of this particular term through Dawkins' neo-Darwinian theorisation of memes as units of cultural transmission, identifying in meng the evolutionary advantages of shortness and memorisability. As simplistic treatments of language, this sort of explanations does not account for the persistence of various other ways of describing general and specific kinds of cuteness in Mandarin Chinese, such as ke'ai, dia or sajiao, as described by Zhang & Kramarae (767). On the other hand, most of the Chinese language research about meng at least acknowledges how the word appears under the sign of a specific media ecology: Japanese comics and animation (dongman) translated and shared online by fan communities, Japanese videogames and movies widely consumed by Chinese young audiences, and the popularisation of Internet access and media literacy across China. It is in this context that this and other neologisms "continuously end up in the latest years' charts of most popular words" (Bai 28, translation by the author), as vernacular Mandarin integrates words from digital media user cultures and online platforms. Similar comparative analyses also recognise that "words move faster than culture" (Huang 15, translation by the author), and that it is now young Chinese digital media users who negotiate their understanding of meng, regardless of the implications of the Japanese moe culture and its aesthetic canons (16). According to Huang, this process indicates on the one hand the openness and curiosity of Chinese youth for Japanese culture, and on the other "the 'borrowist' tendency of the language of Internet culture" (18). It is precisely the speed and the carefree ‘borrowist’ attitude with which these terms are adopted, negotiated and transformed across online platforms which makes it questionable to inscribe them in the classic relationship of generational resistance such as the one that Moore proposes in his treatment of ku, the Chinese word for 'cool' described as the "verbal icon of a youth rebellion that promises to transform some of the older generation's most enduring cultural values" (357). As argued in the following section, meng is definitely not the evolutionary winner in a neo-Darwinian lexical competition between Chinese words, nor occupies a clear role in the semantics of cuteness, nor is it simply deployed as an iconic and rebellious signifier against the cultural values of a previous generation. Rather, after reaching Chinese digital media audiences along the "global wink of pink globalization" (Yano 684) of Japanese animation, comics, movies and videogames, this specific subcultural term diffracts along the vectors of the local media ecology. Specialised communities of translators, larger audiences of Japanese animation streaming websites, larger populations of digital media users and ultimately the public at large all negotiate meng’s meaning and usage in their everyday interactions, while the term quickly becomes just another "word popular on the Internet” listed in end-of-the-year charts, ready to be appropriated by marketing as a local wink to Chinese youth culture. Fig. 3: Baidu image search for 萌 (meng), as of 28 February 2014: the term ‘cute’ elicits neotenic puppies, babies, young girls, teen models, and eroticised Japanese comic characters. Screenshot by the author Everything Meng: Localising and Appropriating CutenessIn the few years since it entered the Chinese vernacular, first as a specialised term adopted by dongman fans and then as a general exclamation for "cute!", meng has been repurposed and adapted to local usages in many different ways, starting from its syntactic function: while in Japanese moe is usually a verb (the action of arousing feelings of passion in the cultivated fan), meng is more frequently used in Chinese as an adjective (cute) and has been quickly compounded in new expressions such as maimeng (literally "to sell cuteness", to act cute), mengwu (cute thing), mengdian (cute selling point), widening the possibilities for its actual usage beyond the specific aesthetic appreciation of female pre-teen anime characters that the word originally refers to. This generalisation of a culturally specific term to the general domain of aesthetic judgments follows local linguistic patterns: for example maimeng (to act cute) is clearly modelled on pre-existing expressions like zhuang ke'ai (acting cute) or sajiao (acting like a spoiled child) which, as Zhang & Kramarae (762) show, are common Mandarin Chinese terms to describe infantilised gender performativity. This connection between being meng and setting up a performance is confirmed by the commentative practices and negotiations around the cuteness of things: as one of my informants quipped regarding a recently popular Internet celebrity: "Some people think that he is meng. But I don't think he's meng, I think he's just posing." Hence, while Japanese moe characters belong to a specific aesthetic canon in the realm of 2D animation, the cuteness that meng indicates in Chinese refers to a much broader scope of content and interactions, in which the semantic distinctions from other descriptors of cuteness are quite blurred, and negotiated in individual use. As another informant put it, commenting on the new WeChat avatar of one of her contacts: "so meng! This is not just ke'ai, this is more ke'ai than ke'ai, it's meng!" Other informants explained meng variably as a more or less performed and faked cuteness, as regular non-specified cuteness, as a higher degree or as a different form of it, evidencing how the term is deployed in both online and offline everyday life interactions according to imitation, personal invention, context and situation, dialogic negotiations, shared literacies, and involvements in specific communities. Moreover, besides using it without the sexual overtones of its Japanese counterpart, my research participants were generally not aware of the process of cross-linguistic borrowing and specialised aesthetic meaning of meng—for most of them, it just meant 'cute', although it did so in very personal ways. These observations do not exclude, however, that meng maintains its linkages to Japanese cultural products and otaku fandom: on the same online platforms where meng was originally borrowed from the lines of fansubbed Japanese anime series, its definition continues to be discussed and compared to its original meaning. The extremely detailed entries on Mengniang Baike (MoeGirl Wiki, http://zh.moegirl.org) testify a devoted effort in collecting and rationalising the Japanese moe aesthetics for an audience of specialised Chinese zhainan (literally 'shut-in guy", the Chinese word for otaku), while Weimeng (Micro-Moe, http://www.weimoe.com) provides a microblogging platform specifically dedicated to sharing dongman content and discuss all things meng. The recent popularity of the word is not lost on the users of these more specialised online platforms, who often voice their discontent with the casual and naive appropriations of uncultured outsiders. A simple search query of the discussion board archives of AcFun, a popular zhainan culture video streaming website, reveals the taste politics at play around these vernacular terms. Here are some complaints, voiced directly by anonymous users of the board, regarding meng: "Now I really detest this meng word, day and night everywhere is meng meng meng and maimeng but do you really understand what do these words mean?" "Don't tell me, alternative people think that watching anime is fashionable; they watch it, learn some new word and use it everywhere. Last time I was playing videogames I heard a girl saying Girl: 'Do you know what does meng mean?' Guy: 'I don't know' Girl: 'You don't even know this! Meng means beautiful, lovely' Fuck your mom's cunt hearing this I wanted to punch through the screen" "Anyway these 'popular words' are all leftovers from our playing around, then a bunch of boons start using them and feel pleased of 'having caught up with fashion', hehe" Fig. 4: "Don't tell me, alternative people think that watching anime is fashionable…", anonymous post commenting on the use of meng on the AcFun message board. Screenshot by the authorConclusion: Do Signifiers Float in Media Ecologies? The choice of examining the networks traced by a slang term signifying cuteness was determined by the conviction that the "minor aesthetics" described by Ngai (812) play an important role in the social construction of taste and judgment in contemporary consumer societies. This is especially significant when discussing digital folklore as the content produced by the everyday interactions of users and digital media: cuteness and the negotiations around its deployment are in fact important features of the repertoires of user-generated content shared and consumed on online platforms. In the case of this essay, the strange collective included green sprouts, textbook illustrations, cats, Japanese anime characters, selfies, and Coke bottle label designs. Summing up the overview of the word meng presented above, and attempting a critical response to Ngai's linkage of the minor aesthetics of cuteness to national contexts which make them "ideologically meaningful" (819), I suggest the recuperation of Lévi-Strauss’ concept of floating signifier as developed in his analysis of Melanesians’ fuzzy notion of mana. This theoretical choice comes almost naturally when dealing with pervasive terms: as Holbraad explains, “part of the original attraction of mana-terms to anthropologists was their peculiarly double universality – their semantic breadth (‘mana is everywhere’, said the native) coupled with their geographical diffusion (‘mana-terms are everywhere’, replied the anthropologist)” (189). Meng seems to be everywhere in China as both a term (in everyday, online and offline interactions) and as cuteness (in popular culture and media), thus making it an apparently perfect candidate for the role of floating signifier. Lévi-Strauss deployed Mauss’ concept as a reinforcement of his structuralist conception of meaning against a surfeit of signifiers (Holbraad 196-197), "a symbol in its pure state, therefore liable to take on any symbolic content whatever [...] a zero symbolic value […] a sign marking the necessity of a supplementary symbolic content over and above that which the signified already contains" (Lévi-Strauss 63-64). Moore’s framing of the Chinese ku and the American cool as “basic slang terms” (360) follows the same structuralist logic: extremely pervasive terms lose in meaning and specificity what they gain in supplementary symbolic content (in his case, generational distinction). Yet, as shown through the examples presented in the essay, meng does in no case reach a zero symbolic value—rather, it is “signifier and signified (and more)” (Holbraad 197), meaning different kinds of cuteness and aesthetic judgement across more or less specialised usages, situated contexts, individual understandings and dialogic negotiations. This oversimplified rebuttal to Lévi-Strauss' concept is my attempt to counter several arguments that I believe to be grounded in the structuralist theorisation of series of signifiers and signified: the linkage between aesthetic categories and national contexts (Ngai); the correlation between language and cultural practices or aesthetics (Yano); the semantic analyses of slang terms (Moore, Bai); the memetic explanations of digital folklore (Liu). As briefly illustrated, meng’s popularity does not necessarily convey a specific Japanese aesthetic culture, nor does its adaptation mirror a peculiarly Chinese one; the term does not necessarily define a different form of cuteness, nor does it confront generational values. It could be more useful to conceptualise meng, and other elements of digital folklore, as what Latour calls quasi-objects, strange hybrids existing in different versions and variations across different domains. Understood in this way, meng traces a network leading to: the specialised knowledge of fansubbing communities, the large audiences of video streaming websites, the echo chambers of social networking platforms and participatory media, and the ebbs and flows of popular culture consumption. To conclude, I agree with Yano that "it remains useful for Asia analysts to observe these ebbs and flows as they intersect with political frameworks, economic trends, and cultural values" (687-88). Meng, as scores of other Chinese slang terms that crowd the yearly charts of ‘words popular on the Internet’ might not be here to stay. But digital folklore is, as long as there will be users interacting and negotiating the minor aesthetics of their everyday life on online platforms. The general theoretical aim of this brief discussion of one vernacular term is evidencing how the very idea of a "Internet culture", when understood through the concepts of media ecology, online vernaculars and quasi-objects becomes hard to grasp through simple surveying, encyclopaedic compilations, statistical analyses or linguistic mapping. Even in a brief contextualisation of one simple slang term, what is revealed is in fact a lively bundle of practices: the cross-linguistic borrowing of a specialised aesthetic, its definition on crowdsourced wikis and anonymous discussion boards, the dialogic negotiations regarding its actual usage in situated contexts of everyday life, and the sectorial dynamics of distinction and taste. Yet, meng just means 'cute'.ReferencesAllison, Anne. “Portable Monsters and Commodity Cuteness: Pokémon as Japan’s New Global Power.” Postcolonial Studies 6.3 (2003): 381–95. Azuma, Hiroki. Otaku: Japan's Database Animals. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2009. Bai, Lin. “Qianxi Wangluo Liuxingyu - Meng [A Brief Analysis of a Popular Internet Term - Meng].” Wuyi Xueyuan Xuebao 31.3 (2012): 28–30. Burdelski, Matthew, and Koji Mitsuhashi. “‘She Thinks You’re Kawaii’: Socializing Affect, Gender, and Relationships in a Japanese Preschool.” Language in Society 39.1 (2010): 65–93. 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