The exact description of a speech community

1989 ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Labov
Keyword(s):  
Speech Community ◽  
Exact Description

NAMING OF BASOTHO MEDICINAL PLANTS: SEMANTIC CONNECTION TO THEIR REMEDIES

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
R Possa ◽  
P Khotso
Keyword(s):  
Medicinal Plants ◽  
Medicinal Plant ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Future Generation ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Traditional Medicines ◽  
Traditional Medicinal Plants ◽  
The Future ◽  
Economic Sphere ◽  
Medical Plants

The indigenous knowledge of the Basotho makes it simple for this speech community to name their traditional medicinal plants in such a way that they are meaningful; this could also be viewed as an empowerment technique, especially in the economic sphere. Their medicinal plants names seem to be idiomatic and to express certain philosophies of the Basotho society. Creativity is observable in this kind of naming, and many names allude to the kind of remedy that is associated with the medicinal plant. It is therefore the interest of this paper to consider the names of medical plants among the Basotho whose names allude to the remedy they provide. The names of Sesotho medicinal plants and the reasoning of the Basotho in general behind the name and the use of each medicinal plant will be discussed in this article. This paper will further preserve and promote the use of Basotho traditional medicines for the future generation.

The Concept of Animals in Balinese Proverbs

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
I Wayan Budiarta ◽  
Ni Wayan Kasni
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
The Body ◽  
Biological Characteristic ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Target Domain ◽  
Source Domain ◽  
Mapping Process

This research is aimed to figure out the syntactic structure of Balinese proverbs, the relation of meaning between the name of the animals and the meaning of the proverbs, and how the meanings are constructed in logical dimension. This research belongs to a qualitative as the data of this research are qualitative data which taken from a book entitled Basita Paribahasa written by Simpen (1993) and a book of Balinese short story written by Sewamara (1977). The analysis shows that the use of concept of animals in Balinese proverbs reveal similar characteristics, whether their form, their nature, and their condition. Moreover, the cognitive processes which happen in resulting the proverb is by conceptualizing the experience which is felt by the body, the nature, and the characteristic which owned by the target with the purpose of describing event or experience by the speech community of Balinese. Analogically, the similarity of characteristic in the form of shape of source domain can be proved visually, while the characteristic of the nature and the condition can be proved through bodily and empirical experiences. Ecolinguistics parameters are used to construct of Balinese proverbs which happen due to cross mapping process. It is caused by the presence of close characteristic or biological characteristic which is owned by the source domain and target domain, especially between Balinese with animal which then are verbally recorded and further patterned in ideological, biological, and sociological dimensions.

scholarly journals Redefining Forro as a marker of identity: Language contact as a driving force for language maintenance among Santomeans in Portugal

Multilingua ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Eve Bouchard
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Maintenance ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Group Code ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Sao Tome And Principe ◽  
Semistructured Interviews ◽  
Changing Attitudes

AbstractIn São Tomé and Príncipe, the language shift toward Portuguese is resulting in the endangerment of the native creoles of the island. These languages have been considered of low value in Santomean society since the mid-twentieth century. But when Santomeans are members of a diaspora, their perceptions of these languages, especially Forro, change in terms of value and identity-marking. It is possible to observe such changes among the Santomeans who learn Forro when they are abroad, who use it as an in-group code, and start to value it more. In this article, I address the role of language contact in the maintenance and expansion of Forro. I investigate the mechanisms of language maintenance by focusing on the shifts in community members’ attitudes and beliefs regarding their languages, as a result of contact. The changing attitudes and beliefs have led to a redefinition of the role of Forro in the speech community. This qualitative study is based on semistructured interviews conducted on São Tomé Island and in Portugal. Findings suggest that the change in value attributed to Forro by Santomeans as a result of contact contribute to the valorization of the language.

Language as a phenomenon of the third kind

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-229
Author(s):  
Ewa Dąbrowska
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Communicative Interaction ◽  
Levels Of Abstraction ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
The Third ◽  
Dual Perspective ◽  
Micro Level

AbstractWhile many linguists view language as either a cognitive or a social phenomenon, it is clearly both: a language can live only in individual minds, but it is learned from examples of utterances produced by speakers engaged in communicative interaction. In other words, language is what (Keller 1994. On language change: The invisible hand in language. London: Taylor & Francis) calls a “phenomenon of the third kind”, emerging from the interaction of a micro-level and a macro-level. Such a dual perspective helps us understand some otherwise puzzling phenomena, including “non-psychological” generalizations, or situations where a pattern which is arguably present in a language is not explicitly represented in most speakers’ minds. This paper discusses two very different examples of such generalizations, genitive marking on masculine nouns in Polish and some restrictions on questions with long-distance dependencies in English. It is argued that such situations are possible because speakers may represent “the same” knowledge at different levels of abstraction: while a few may have extracted an abstract generalization, others approximate their behaviour by relying on memorised exemplars or lexically specific patterns. Thus, a cognitively realistic usage-based construction grammar needs to distinguish between patterns in the usage of a particular speech community (a social phenomenon) and patterns in speakers’ minds (a cognitive phenomenon).

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