Contributions of the philosophy of science to juridical semantics

Ghenghea, Ph. Dr. Voichita Alexandra

Metacommunication in LSP-texts : an empirical study

Considering LSP-discourse from the sender-recipient perspective, written LSP-texts reveal three main categories of metacommunicative elements (MCE) : structuring devices, commenting and reference elements. These are analysed both at an inter- and intralanguage level in correlation with the degree of technicality of LSP-texts (materialised in different genres/text-types),with the professional field, as well as with the intercultural aspect, i.e. different languages (German vs. Romanian).

It is assumed that these variables influence the occurrence of MCE in different LSP text types. This hypothesis is supported by a contrastive analysis carried out on two corpora of German and Romanian LSP-texts from two professional fields, i.e. mechanical engineering and economics. Three genres/text-types are considered: scientific articles (SA), texts in handbooks (HB) and popular science materials (PSM).
The analysis of the results shows that: a) MCE are most frequent in PSM, though not all categories are present; there are also differences in their occurrence relative to professional field and language; b) metacommunicative elements in HB rank second, being represented in a great variety of forms, but showing no clear differences in their distribution with respect to professional field and language; c) MCE are less frequent in SA; nevertheless, certain categories are typical of this genre/text-type, irrespective of professional field and language.
Conclusions: These findings partially validate the above mentioned hypothesis in that one variable out of three, namely the genre/text-type, influences to a large extent the use of MCE in the analysed LSP-texts, whereas the professional field and the intercultural aspect play a less important role. However, there is still much empirical evidence needed in written LSP discourse in order to highlight the complex interplay between metacommunication and the diversity of genres/text-types, professional field and intercultural aspects in written LSP discourse.

Ghiyasiyan, M.A. Maryam Sadat
The semantic classification of Persian verbs and its application in scientific text
This article tries to classify Persian verbs in the Halliday’s systemic grammar framework. In this framework four different linguistic metafunctions are introduced as linguistic universals which this article aims at introducing and explaining one of them, i.e experiential metafunction. This study tries to scrutinise and analyse Persian clauses and meanwhile explain two semantic categories, namely, process and participant represented by verb phrase and noun phrase in syntax respectively. As a result, Persian verbs are semantically classified into six different processes: 1- material process 2- mental process 3- relational process 4- verbal process 5- behavioural process 6- existential process. Each of which is differentiated on semantic and syntactic criteria. By participant we mean: Humans and non-humans, things, accidents, etc. It is shown that each process has its special participant(s). The verbs classification and the frequency of each process will be determined.of a scientific Persian text are analysed according to the mentioned.

Gotti, Maurizio

Developments in the lexis of computer science

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the lexis used in computer science texts, in order to ascertain the processes most commonly used in the formation of their terms. Such processes will be compared to those commonly adopted in general English and any possible discrepancies will be pointed out. Comparisons will also be made with the main features of other specialized languages in order to discover similarities and differences.

The second part of the paper will take into consideration some recently-coined terms belonging to the lexis of computer science, in order to ouline the processes of word-formation employed. The results of this analysis will be compared to the ones reported in previous studies, and similarities and differentiations will be pointed out. The present research testifies to a greater recourse to the internal resources of the language of computer science and a far more limited number of loans from other tongues or other specialized languages.


Hafner, Christoph
Developing web-mediated genre-based English language resources for universitystudents of law
see: Christopher N. Candlin

von Hahn, Walther
Quality evaluation of LSP machine interpretation: the verbmobil experience
Quality Evaluation of MT Systems is an open issue, even in technical language translation. The Verbmobil system is a prototype for speech-to-speech machine interpreting in the domain of negotiations about appointments and travelling. The languages are English, German and Japanese. Any quality evaluation must meet the following requirements: (1) No training material can be used, (2) No developer must evaluate the system, (3) Criteria with technical, linguistic, and pragmatic parameters must be used.
The evaluation of such real-time translations of spontaneous and continuous speech input is done by non-informed users in a two step machine-aided process. The success is measured in pragmatically correct translations, weighted by the importance of the dialog act. One of the most interesting results is that no strong correlation holds between syntactic correctness and user satisfaction.

Halasz, Renata
EUROMOBIL Multimediales Sprachlernprogramm zur Förderung studentischer Mobilität
together with: Johanna Peltola, Sabine Ylönen
Vorgestellt wird ein Projekt zur Erstellung eines multimedialen Sprachlernprogramms für den studienbegleitenden Fremdsprachen­unterricht zum Training kommunikativer Fertigkeiten, die auf ein Auslandsstudium vorbereiten. Zielgruppe des Programms sind Studenten, die im Rahmen von Austauschprogrammen der EU sowie anderer bi- und multinationaler Träger oder auch selbständig in Deutschland, Finnland, Ungarn oder Großbritannien studieren wollen. Mit dem geplanten Sprachlern- und Informationsprogramm EUROMOBIL auf CD-ROM und im WWW für die Zielsprachen Deutsch, Finnisch, Ungarisch und Englisch als Fremdsprachen soll sowohl auf das Studium (Informationen über Studienmöglichkeiten, Studieninhalte und Anforderungen bestimmter Fächer im Ausland sammeln; in Kontakt zum Personal der Gastuniversität treten; auf kulturgebundene Unterschiede der Textsorten Vorlesung, Seminar, Praktikum usw. aufmerksam werden) als auch auf das alltägliche Leben im Ausland (wie bekomme ich eine Wohnung oder Kontakte zu anderen Studenten, wo kann ich mich krankenversichern lassen usw.) vorbereitet werden sowie typische sprachliche Wendungen der entsprechenden Situationen geübt und auf kulturgebundene Besonderheiten aufmerksam gemacht werden. Grundlage des Programms bilden authentische Situationen (AV-Mitschnitte, Texte). Sowohl bei der Produktion als auch bei der Nutzung des Programms sollen vor allem moderne Informations- und Kommunikationstechniken (ICT) zur Anwendung kommen. Aktualisierungen zum Website sowie Updates zum Programm sind auch nach Projektende möglich.

Hellekjær, Glenn Ole
Lies, damn lies, and statistics: a quantitative approach to assessing student reading of English textbooks
Small language communities, such as the Nordic countries, must from necessity make extensive use of English textbooks in higher education. It is taken for granted that EFL instruction in upper secondary provides the required reading proficiency.
In this paper I will present key findings from a survey of student reading proficiency of English with respondents from three faculties at the University of Oslo. This project is part of my Ph.D. thesis
Findings, which are processed statistically, will provide information about:

-how students compare textbooks written in English vith textbooks written in Norwegian,

-the nature of their reading problems in English,

-how reading performance correlates with background variables, with particular focus on variables from upper-secondary EFL instruction.

I will conclude with a brief discussion of the utility of a quantitative approach to assessing reading proficiency.


Hippisley, Andrew