| June
2006. Volume 2
Foreword
John Adamson, Ed.D.
Senior Associate Editor
The
June edition of The Linguistics Journal presents four articles on a variety
of themes. Congratulations to the authors who have successfully negotiated the
review procedure. The
first piece is from Thailand, entitled "Thai and American Responses to Compliments
in English" by Dr. Payung Cedar from Naresuan University. This study investigates
responses to compliments among American and Thai students at university in the
U.S. Specifically, this research looks at the sociocultural knowledge of Thai-speaking
learners, asking whether there are differences with their American counterparts,
and also if gender plays a role in such responses. Using Chiang and Pochtrager's
(1993) categories of compliment response for interview data, Cedar finds a significant
effect of gender on compliment responses in both groups. The
second study "A Critical Discourse Analysis of Euphemization and Derogation
in Emails on the late Pope" is by Mr. Ali Rahimi and Dr. Rahman Sahragard
from Shiraz University in Iran. Taking a framework of analysis from van Dijk (2004),
Rahimi and Sahargard investigate the "discursive structures which lead to
ideologically based parochial, prejudiced as well as antireligious statements"
in emails addressing the death of the late Pope, John Paul II. The use of CDA
is, as the authors reveal, a means to show how "language has been used as
a shield and weapon to support austere catholic ideologies or, conversely, to
instil secular viewpoints."
The next piece is by Professor Z. N.
Patil from the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages in Hyderabad,
India, entitled "On the Nature and Role of English in Asia." Patil looks
at the global spread of English in Asia and categorises the stances of scholars
into two camps diametrically opposed to each other. One camp views the multiple
variations of English as "symptoms of linguistic degeneration and deterioration"
while the other sees them as "inevitable manifestations necessitated by the
demands of the new cultural contexts." He concludes that Asian specialists
need to "prioritize the teaching of national and regional varieties over
that of the so-called native varieties." The
final article in this edition, "Corpus Linguistics and the Study of Meaning
in Discourse" comes from Dr. Nelya Koteyko at the University of Birmingham.
Koteyko looks at how corpus linguistics contributes to the study of meaning in
discourse, specifically the "historically-oriented 'genealogical' analysis
of discourse in the tradition of Foucault." The discussion focuses on how
corpora "compiled according to a set of pre-determined criteria" can
help in understanding lexical meaning within certain discourse communities.
We
hope these four articles are of interest to the readers of The Linguistics
Journal. Your comments and your own submissions are most welcome.
Volume
2. Issue 2. June
2006
PDF
E-Book Version pps. 1-155 View
Foreword by Dr. John Adamson.
1.
Payung Cedar. Thai and American Responses to Compliments
in English
2.
Ali Rahimi and Rahman Sahragard. A Critical Discourse
Analysis of Euphemization and Derogation in Emails on the Late Pope
3.
Patil. Z.N. On the Nature and Role of English in Asia
4.
Nelya Koteyko. Corpus Linguistics and the Study of
Meaning in Discourse
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