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Page 1: PUBLISHER Faculty of Education and Humanities ...99 Deontologija učiteljskog poziva, Sokratova zakletva ili Etički kodeks Melisa Zukić 110 Bilingualism in Kuwait – a linguistic
Page 2: PUBLISHER Faculty of Education and Humanities ...99 Deontologija učiteljskog poziva, Sokratova zakletva ili Etički kodeks Melisa Zukić 110 Bilingualism in Kuwait – a linguistic
Page 3: PUBLISHER Faculty of Education and Humanities ...99 Deontologija učiteljskog poziva, Sokratova zakletva ili Etički kodeks Melisa Zukić 110 Bilingualism in Kuwait – a linguistic

PUBLISHER

Faculty of Education and Humanities, International Burch University

Address: Francuske revolucije bb, 71210 Ilidža, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Phone: +387(0) 33 944 400

Fax: +387(0) 33 944 500

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Vildana Dubravac, PhD, International Burch University, BIH

EDITORIAL BOARD

Senad Bećirović, PhD, International Burch University, BIH

Amna Brdarević-Čeljo, PhD, International Burch University, BIH

İbrahim Murat Öner, PhD, International Burch University, BIH

Irena Zavrl, PhD, University of Applied Sciences, Burgenland, Austria

Ruta Eidukevičlene, PhD, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania

Teodora Popescu, PhD, University “1 Decembrie 1918”Alba Iulia, Romania

Mirna Begagić, PhD, University of Zenica, BIH

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS

Azur Avdić

E-MAIL

[email protected]

© International Burch University, 2018

Page 4: PUBLISHER Faculty of Education and Humanities ...99 Deontologija učiteljskog poziva, Sokratova zakletva ili Etički kodeks Melisa Zukić 110 Bilingualism in Kuwait – a linguistic

JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AND HUMANITIES Faculty of Education and Humanities, International Burch University

Volume 1, Issue 2, Winter 2018

Page 5: PUBLISHER Faculty of Education and Humanities ...99 Deontologija učiteljskog poziva, Sokratova zakletva ili Etički kodeks Melisa Zukić 110 Bilingualism in Kuwait – a linguistic
Page 6: PUBLISHER Faculty of Education and Humanities ...99 Deontologija učiteljskog poziva, Sokratova zakletva ili Etički kodeks Melisa Zukić 110 Bilingualism in Kuwait – a linguistic

CONTENTS

53 The influence of Grade point Average and Socioeconomic Status on Learning Strategies

Haris Delić & Senad Bećirović

65 Semantic preference and semantic prosody - a theoretical overview

Mirna Begagić

89 An Analysis of Gender Differences in the use of Swear Words on Facebook

Melika Muhanović, Nejla Babić & Esma Latić

99 Deontologija učiteljskog poziva, Sokratova zakletva ili Etički kodeks

Melisa Zukić

110 Bilingualism in Kuwait – a linguistic landscape approach

Amna Brdarević Čeljo & Sead Zolota

126 Translation and Translators in Romani Context

Hedina Tahirović-Sijerčić

Page 7: PUBLISHER Faculty of Education and Humanities ...99 Deontologija učiteljskog poziva, Sokratova zakletva ili Etički kodeks Melisa Zukić 110 Bilingualism in Kuwait – a linguistic

Journal of Education and Humanities Volume 1 (2), pp. 53-64, Winter 2018 Original research paper ISSN 2566-4638 © International Burch University http://dx.doi.org/10.14706/jeh2018123

The influence of Grade point Average and Socioeconomic Status on Learning Strategies

Haris Delić, MA Senad Bećirović, PhD

Faculty of Education and Humanities, International Burch University

Francuske revolucije bb, Ilidža 71210, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract: A variety of different factors seem to have an influence on

both second language learning difficulties as well as learning

strategies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of

different socio-economic status and grade point average on learning

strategies and learning difficulties in second language acquisition

(SLA) process. A 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was used to

gather data, i.e. a survey method was applied. The research sample

included 206 high school participants. The results showed that a

socioeconomic status did not have a significant influence on the

students’ second language acquisition difficulties. However, the

students’ grade point average significantly affected second language

acquisition difficulties and also language learning strategies. The

results of this study may help instructors to tailor instructions and

content to students’ needs and their preferable styles of learning.

Taking into consideration students’ learning difficulties and

learning strategies in designing and implementing classes may

significantly improve teaching and learning outcomes.

Keywords: learning strategies, learning difficulties, socio-economic status, GPA level, second language acquisition.

Article History Submitted: 1 December 2018 Accepted: 15 January 2019

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Journal of Education and Humanities Volume 1, Issue 2, Winter 2018

54

1. INTRODUCTION Many factors make English language instruction in a foreign language context such as the one in Bosnia and Herzegovina largely important. As the country strives to become a part of international bodies and an equal member in the international community, the significance of the mastery of the English language is increasingly emphasized (Bećirović, 2017). As Wu (2001) points out, the English knowledge has become highly important worldwide since it plays an important role in all fields of modern life, starting from business or science to communication between members of different cultures. With the growing number of educational institutions in the country that are oriented towards international education, it becomes natural that learners in Bosnia and Herzegovina are expected to reach an advanced level of proficiency in the English language by the time they finish their high schools. Thus, there is a need to investigate all possible factors influencing the process of reaching higher levels of proficiency, including socioeconomic status, learning strategies and average grade.

Ariani and Ghafournia (2016) suggest that in the process of language acquisition a socio economic status plays one of the major roles. However, the literature on the relationship between socioeconomic status and language learning does not include many empirical studies. On the other hand, there are numerous research papers that deal with the relationship between socioeconomic status and motivation for language learning presenting a bridge to the language learning process. Khansir et.al. (2016) investigated to what extent a higher socioeconomic status can influence motivation for language learning. After investigating 10 year old students they realized that “when parents were at the high level of the economical status, participants could have better situation in dealing with English learning“ (2016, p. 749) mainly because students could be more reinforced by their parents’ financial support and the level of language success is increased as the family’s economical level is increased. In almost similar investigation conducted in Chile, Kormos and Kiddle (2013) found that “social class has an overall medium-size effect on motivational factors“ (2013, p. 400).

Next, language learning strategies, i.e. tactics making a new cognitive demanding linguistic system simpler (Selinker, 1972), appear to be one of the psycholinguistic processes that shape interlanguage system. Likewise, Abhakorn (2008) deals with the learners’ strategies, also known as a cognitive model of learning, as one of the possible factors in the L2 acquisition process. Learning presents an active, ongoing, and dynamic process in which a learner “shapes” the information that he/she receives, connects it with the previous ones, retains the parts he/she thinks are important and uses it for further learning. Strategic knowledge refers to the information about what strategies are likely to be effective in achieving the learning goal (Flavell, 1979, p. 909). In other words,

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strategic knowledge is general knowledge about the nature and utility of strategies (Wenden, 1987, p. 580). More precisely, it includes information about the strategies as such, why they are useful and specific knowledge about when and how to use them. The implications in learning English as a second language that may negatively influence students’ achievement are situations when the teaching methods used do not match students’ preferred learning styles, or the teaching content does not match students’ levels.

Following, GPA (Grade Point Average) is a very important factor in the process of language acquisition. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines GPA as “the average obtained by dividing the total number of grade points earned by the total number of credits attempted“ (Merriam-Webster.com, 2017). The relationship between GPA and other factors such as gender, age, and language proficiency has been investigated by Pan (2005). She explored the relationship between these factors and found a significant correlation between GPA and other three factors (2005, p. 109-121). She also investigated the connection between GPA and language learning strategies. The results in her study showed that “the higher the proficiency level, the greater the variety of learning strategies used“ (Pan, 2005, p. 120).

The purpose of this study is to investigate how GPA and socioeconomic status influence second language learning difficulties and strategies among high school students. In order to investigate the impact of these factors the study employed quantitative methods of data collection and analysis. The identification of those factors and relationships enables easier understanding of the situations and steps that need to be taken into consideration in order to create a better SLA environment and improve the existing one.

2. THE PRESENT STUDY Based on the aforementioned aim, the following research questions guided the study: RQ 1 Is there any statistically significant difference in second language acquisition difficulties based on the students’ socio-economic status? RQ 2 Is there any statistically significant difference in second language acquisition difficulties based on the students’ GPA? RQ 3 Is there any statistically significant difference in language learning strategies based on the students’ GPA? The following null hypotheses were tested: H01 There is no statistically significant difference in second language acquisition difficulties between the students with different socio-economic status,

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H02 There is no statistically significant difference in second language acquisition difficulties between the students with different GPA and H03 There is no statistically significant difference in language learning strategies based on the students’ GPA.

2.1. PARTICIPANTS The research sample consisted of 206 high school student. The participants were selected from all four high school grades. The research sample includes 125 males (60.7 %) and 81 females (39.3%). All participants were from Bosnia and Herzegovina. A detailed summary of the sample according to socio-economic status and GPA level is presented in the table below.

Table 1 Descriptive analysis of the participants

N Percentage

Socio-economic status Low 15 1.5 Middle 124 61.7 High 67 36.9

GPA groups 2.5-2.9 10 4.9 3.0-3.4 10 4.9 3.5-3.9 31 15.0 4.0-4.4 39 18.9 4.5-5.0 116 56.3

2.2. INSTRUMENTS AND PROCEDURE

The instrument used for data collection was built on Rebecca Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (Oxford, 1990) and Dörnyei's Motivation questionnaire (You & Dörnyei, 2016). The parts from the aforementioned instruments were utilized and adapted for this research. The questionnaire consisted of 40 statements and a 5-point Likert scale was used. The students could choose one out of five statements (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree). The questionnaire is composed of the following subscales: second language impact on mother tongue (α = 0.51), motivation difficulties for acquiring second language (α = 0.50), negative impact of school environment and atmosphere (α = 0.97), target language difficulties (α = 0.86), passive learning strategies (α = 0.64), individual strategies (α = 0.65), and language skills strategies (α = 0.50). The questionnaire containing 40 items was distributed to the high school students in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and they needed around 20 minutes to fill it out.

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In order to minimize the possibility of false responses the students were informed that the questionnaire was completely anonymous and would not have any effect on their grades or school status. They were also told that the results would be used just for the purpose of this study.

2.3. DATA ANALYSIS The collected data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, v. 23). Following the guidelines for the questionnaire analysis, frequencies and means were computed to ascertain the types and frequencies of the implications and language learning strategies expressed by the participants. Firstly, descriptive analysis including mean, standard deviation (SD) and frequencies was employed. A one way ANOVA was used to show the differences between the study groups.

3. RESULTS The first research question focused on the differences of second language acquisition difficulties between three different levels of socioeconomic status, namely low, medium, and high.

Table 2 Descriptive statistics of differences based on socio-economic status

Socio-economic status N Mean Std. Deviation

Low 15 3.42 .56

Middle 124 3.25 .47

High 67 3.27 .49

Total 206 3.27 .48

A one-way ANOVA between subjects was conducted to compare second language acquisition difficulties among students with different socio-economic status. The results showed that there was an insignificant difference F (2.203) = 1.18, p = .450, η2 = .008. The group of students of low socio-economic status had the highest mean (M = 3.42, SD = 0.14) and the lowest mean was achieved by the group of middle socioeconomic status (M = 3.27, SD = 0.47) Therefore, the results showed that the students’ socio-economic status did not have a significant effect on second language acquisition difficulties and the first null hypothesis was supported. However, a one-way ANOVA between subjects showed that socio-economic status had a significant influence on the difficulties in terms of second language impact on mother tongue F (2.203) = 3.86, p = .023, η2 = .037, and on motivation difficulties for acquiring second language F (2.203) = 4.84, p = .009, η2

= .046, and did not significantly affect the school environment and atmosphere F (2.203) = 0.556, p = .574, η2 = .005 and target language difficulties F (2.203) = 0.522, p = .594, η2 = .005.

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The second research question referred to the differences in second language acquisition difficulties among five different GPA groups of students.

Table 3 Descriptive statistics of differences based on GPA

GPA N Mean Std. deviation

4.5-5

116

3.42

.48

4-4.5 39 3.11 .41

3.5-4 31 3.10 .51

3-3.5 10 2.98 .21

2.5-3 10 3.05 .37

Total 206 3.27 .48

A one-way between subjects ANOVA was conducted to compare second

language acquisition difficulties among students with different GPA levels. There was a significant difference at p < .05 between the students of different GPA levels F (4.20) = 6.65, p < .001, η2 = .117. The students with the highest GPA (4.5-5.0) reported the most difficulties M = 3.42 (SD = 0.48), while students with GPA 3.0-3.5 reported the least difficulties M = 2.98 (SD = 0.21). Thus, GPA proved to have a significant impact on second language acquisition difficulties and the second null hypothesis was refuted. Post hoc Tukey HSD (Table 4) showed that the GPA group 4.5-5.0 was statistically significantly different from all other GPA groups except the group 2.5-3.0. The differences between the 2.5-3.0 group and all other groups were insignificant.

Table 4 Analysis of variances between different GPA scores

Multiple Comparisons

Dependent Variable: Overall Implications Tukey HSD

(I) GPA

(J) GPA Mean Differenc

e (I-J)

Std. Error

Sig. 95% Confidence Interval Lower Bound

Upper Bound

4.5-5 4.0-4.5 .30* .08 .00 .07 .54 3.5-4.0 .31* .09 .00 .06 .57 3.0-3.5 .43* .15 .04 .01 .84 2.5-3.0 .36 .15 .12 -.05 .78

4-4.5 4.5-5.0 -.30* .08 .00 -.54 -.07 3.5-4.0 .01 .11 1.00 -.29 .31 3-3.5.0 .12 .16 .94 -.32 .57 2.5-3.0 .05 .16 .99 -.39 .50

3.5-4 4.5-5.0 -.31* .09 .00 -.57 -.06 4.0-4.5 -.01 .11 1.00 -.31 .29 3.0-3.5 .11 .16 .96 -.34 .57

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2.5-3.0 .04 .16 .99 -.41 .50 3-3.5 4.5-5.0 -.43* .15 .04 -.84 -.01

4.0-4.5 -.12 .16 .94 -.57 .32 3.5-4.0 -.11 .16 .96 -.57 .34 2.5-3.0 -.06 .20 .99 -.63 .50

2.5-3 4.5-5.0 -.36 .15 .12 -.78 .05 4-4.5.0 -.05 .16 .99 -.50 .39 3.5-4.0 -.04 .16 .99 -.50 .41 3.0-3.5 .06 .20 .99 -.50 .63

*. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.

As for the subscales of second language difficulties, GPA had a significant

influence only on target language difficulties p < .001, η2 = .139 and did not have a significant influence on second language impact on mother tongue p = .147, η2

= .033, on motivation difficulties for acquiring second language p = .124, η2 = .035, school environment and atmosphere p = .413, η2 = .019.

The third research question was related to the differences in language learning strategies between five different GPA groups. In order to answer this question, a one-way between subjects ANOVA was conducted. The results showed that in terms of overall usage of language learning strategies there was a significant difference F (4.201) = 2.87, p < .024, η2 = .054. The group of students with GPA 4.0-4.5 reported the highest mean M = 2.73 (SD = 0.37), while students with GPA 4.5-5.0 reported the lowest mean M = 2.51 (SD = 0.41). GPA also had a significant influence on passive learning strategy F (4.201) = 2.76, p = .029, η2 =

.052. where the group 4.0-4.5 reported the highest mean M = 2.63 (SD = 0.68), and the group 4.5-5.0 reported the lowest mean M = 2.24 (SD = 0.73). GPA did not have a significant influence on individual learning strategies and on the language skills strategies. Regarding the subscale of individual learning strategies the highest mean was again reported by the group with GPA 4.0-4.5 M = 3.13 (SD = 0.74), and the lowest by the group with GPA 2.5-3.0 M = 2.73 (SD = 0.43). As for the language skills strategies the group with GPA 2.5-3.0 reported the highest mean M = 2.77 (SD = 0.51), while the lowest mean was reported by the group with GPA 4.5-5.0 M = 2.35 (SD = 0.59).

Table 5 Descriptive results of learning strategies

Report

GPA groups Overall Lang. learning

strategies

Passive learning strategies

Individual Strategies

Language Skills

Strategies

4.5-5 Mean 2.51 2.24 3.06 2.35 Std. Dev. 0.41 0.73 0.64 0.59

4-4.5 Mean 2.73 2.63 3.13 2.55

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Std. Dev. 0.37 0.68 0.74 0.60 3.5-4 Mean 2.62 2.44 2.97 2.55

Std. Dev. 0.33 0.58 0.85 0.46 3-3.5 Mean 2.70 2.60 3.03 2.50

Std. Dev. 0.42 0.64 0.65 0.86 2.5-3 Mean 2.67 2.54 2.73 2.77

Std. Dev. 0.33 0.63 0.43 0.51 Total Mean 2.58 2.38 3.04 2.44

Std. Dev. 0.39 0.71 0.69 0.60

4. CONCLUSION

We anticipated that there is no statistically significant difference in L2 difficulties between students belonging to three major socio-economic groups, or that this socio-economic status does not affect the language acquisition process. The results showed that this hypothesis was supported. There can be a number of reasons for such results, but we believe that they might be mainly attributed to the fact that the most participants study at a private school with strict procedures regarding paying and students are forced and inspired by their families or tutors to struggle and force for the success regardless of their socio-economic status. Moreover, the school administration struggles to treat all students equally which is more probably recognized by the students. These results are even more indicative when we compare them with our previous research on related topic. Delić, Bećirović and Brdarević-Čeljo (2018) investigated gender differences in second language acquisition difficulties and found out significant differences. This is without doubt interesting for this research mainly because Bosnian cultural identity, according to Bećirović (2012), is not gender-biased, and, on the other hand, socio-economic status is an extremely important variable in this community in general (Foco, 2002).

By the second null hypothesis we supposed that there was no statistically significant difference in second language acquisition difficulties between students with different GPA scores. We were interested in the students’ grade-point average (GPA) because we believe GPA is important for many reasons. GPA shows how hard-working a student is, how much he or she knows, and what his or her strengths and weaknesses are. Students may find that improving their study skills can have a positive effect on their overall academic performance. The findings indicated the existence of a significant difference based on GPA groups and the null hypothesis was rejected. The research of Rizvić and Bećirović (2017) also showed that GPA had a significant influence on willingness to communicate in English as a foreign language in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian EFL context. Besides the refutation of the null hypothesis, we were also surprised by the group that had the highest mean. Among five different groups based on GPA the highest mean had the group 4.5-5.0, that is the students

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with best grades and achievements. Here we also anticipated that lower achievement groups would have the highest mean but that was not the case. The results showed that the group with the lowest mean is the GPA group 3.0-3.5 group. What is indicative here is that the students from the group that had the highest mean, i.e. the group 4.5-5.0, comprised more than half of the total number of sampled students, exactly 56.8 %. This means that more than half of the students had some implications in terms of some of the categories that had been examined.

By the third hypothesis we predicted that there was no statistically significant difference in language learning strategies based on the students’ GPA. According to the results, GPA had a significant influence on learning strategies. However, Bećirović, Brdarević-Čeljo and Dubravac (2018) found that GPA had an insignificant influence on reading strategies and Bećirović, Brdarević-Čeljo, and Sinanović (2017) found that grade level and gender had a significant influence on metacognitive reading strategies. The research conducted by middle school participants showed that grade level and social context had a significant effect on learning strategies while gender did not (Brdarević-Čeljo & Asotić, 2017).

Many researchers suggest that educators need to take into consideration the needs and background of each learner in order to be able to employ methodologies that guide students in using strategies which enhance their L2 learning process (Montano, 2017). Learning strategies are not always feasible to promote L2 proficiency in advance students; these can be rather used by students with a lower level of language proficiency (Oxford, 2003). As we discussed in the review of literature, and as the definitions of individual strategies state, each students adopt and create his/her specific way of learning. In the case of this research we did not have any significant correlations between individual strategies. There can be a possibility that our sample students did not actually have much differentiated strategies or that, due to experience of having much time spent together, they adopted similar learning strategies which did not differ significantly. Each student has a certain degree in which he or she organizes and follows his own way of learning. As presented in Table 5 individual strategies had the highest mean (M = 3.04) which indicates that those strategies that each individual adopts for him/herself are mainly used to overcome implications in learning.

It is helpful for each individual to reveal which strategies work best for them so the teacher or the facilitator can organize a lesson with the most dominant strategies. There are supported arguments that some strategies work better than others for learners but there can always be exceptions that teachers need to be aware of. To do this all must be included, that is students, teachers, and educational institutions. Educators should explain useful learning strategies to students, raise their awareness of the importance of effective strategy usage,

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and what is the most important, the purpose of an appropriate strategy for them. What can also be implemented is that teachers first identify already used strategies and those that can be added then try to incorporate them in the learning process later. In that was, a learner with strategy-adopted way of learning would become an autonomous and independent learner.

Lecturers should emphasize skills such as analyzing and evaluating content, using typographical features, summarizing text and using reference materials. Typically, lecturers should analyze the strategies they teach, and find out in which contexts these strategies should be applied. They should also provide students with opportunities to practice these strategies. According to Mokhtari and Sheorey (2002), teachers and mentors can use a combination of direct and indirect strategy training.

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Journal of Education and Humanities Volume 1 (2), pp. 65-88, Winter 2018 Review paper ISSN 2566-4638 © International Burch University http://dx.doi.org/10.14706/jeh2018121

Semantic preference and semantic prosody- a theoretical overview

Mirna Begagić, PhD

University of Zenica

Bosnia and Herzegovina

[email protected]

1 Studies which use corpus data to investigate semantic preference and semantic prosody have been published since the early 1990.

Abstract: Semantic preference and semantic prosody are two notions that were carefully analysed in post-Firthian corpus linguistics and in the past few years there has been a growing interest in them. As corpora have become larger in size, and tools for extracting different lexical items for different purposes have been developed, the two terms have been addressed more frequently by linguists1. Throughout history, semantic preference and semantic prosody have sometimes been used for the same phenomenon but at other times the two were considered different but closely related. Previous corpus-based studies on the two terms have shown that they can be attached to many investigated lexical items. Therefore, this paper aims to present a detailed theoretical overview of the two terms in order to emphasise their immense importance for identifying the meaning of all the lexical items.

Keywords: semantic preference, semantic prosody, corpus, corpus linguistics.

Article History Submitted: 15 November 2018 Accepted: 3 January 2019

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1. INTRODUCTION Semantic preference and semantic prosody are two distinct yet interdependent collocational meanings (McEnery, Xiao & Tono, 2006, p.84). As it is almost impossible to examine semantic preference separately from semantic prosody, the two notions will be presented as contingent on each other.

Throughout history, semantic preference and semantic prosody have sometimes been used for the same phenomenon but at other times the two were considered different but closely related. Stubbs (2001) points out that “the distinction…is not entirely clear-cut. It is partly a question of how open-ended the list of collocates is: it might be possible to list all words in English for quantities and sizes, but not for ‘unpleasant things’” (p.66). Therefore, the need for precise definitions of the two terms emerges.

Partington (2004) states that the relationship between the two terms can be described in two ways- on the one hand, semantic prosody can be described as a sub-category or special case of semantic preference i.e. it is “reserved for instances where an item shows a preference to co-occur with items that can be described as bad, unfavourable or unpleasant, or as good, favourable or pleasant” (p.149). However, some examples discussed in the literature prove that the relationship is more complex. Sinclair points out that semantic prosodies are “evaluative or attitudinal and are used to express the speaker’s approval (good prosody) or disapproval (bad prosody) of whatever topic is momentarily the object of discourse (Sinclair 1996, p. 87). On the other hand, semantic prosody can be described as a further stage of abstraction than preference.

…semantic preference generally remains relatively closely tied to the phenomenon of collocation. As we have seen, it describes a phenomenon whereby a particular item x collocates frequently, not with another item y, but with a series of items which belong to a semantic set. (Partington, 2004, p.150)

Therefore, Partington describes the difference between the two in his claim that semantic preference and semantic prosody have different operating scopes: the former relates the node item to another item from a particular semantic set whereas the latter can affect wider stretches of text. Semantic preference can be viewed as a feature of the collocates while semantic prosody is a feature of the node word. Partington also adds that these two terms interact. While semantic prosody “dictates the general environment which constrains the preferential choices of the node item”, semantic preference “contributes powerfully to building semantic prosody” (Partington, 2004, p.151).

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In order to exemplify the above mentioned, two examples commonly

discussed in the literature are presented. The first one of the verb break out, explained by Stewart (2010). The verb is investigated in the BNC (all inflected forms of the verb) where 1,126 occurrences were found. In the majority of cases break out showed semantic preference for ‘situations of conflict’, ‘disease’ or more broadly for ‘problematic circumstances’, since in the immediate environment of break out the following words are found: war, conflict, infection, crisis. As the verb cannot be classified as an item whose basic meaning is unfavourable, it is “considered to be associated with an unfavourable semantic prosody or ‘aura of meaning’, which is contingent upon its semantic preferences” (Stewart, 2010, p. 3).

The second example is the verb undergo, discussed by Stubbs (2001, pp. 89-95). The collocates to the right of the verb indicated that undergo expresses several semantic preferences- for ‘medicine’ (treatment, hysterectomy, brain, surgery, etc.), ‘tests’ (examination, training) and ‘change’ (dramatic changes, a historic transformation among others). All these preferences result in a very strong unfavourable prosody of the verb undergo, since people are forced to undergo something they would rather not.

Moreover, the verb bent on is classified as the verb with unfavourable prosody, but bent on can be also found in neutral as well as in favourable environment. Louw investigated how the speakers/writers change from the “expected profiles of semantic prosodies” (1993, p. 157). He explains that if they do that unconsciously, they are trying to sound ironic. Louw mentions an example from Small World by David Lodge:

The modern conference resembles the pilgrimage of medieval Christendom in that it allows the participants to indulge themselves in all the pleasures and diversions of travel while apparently bent on self-improvement.

Louw explains that since the verb bent on is usually found in the environment of unpleasant items (destroying, harrying, mayhem), in the cited example the author is trying to produce ironic effect and therefore uses the verb bent on in the environment of self-improvement.

Corpus-based analyses from recent years have shown that semantic preference and semantic prosody have been considered in terms of ‘priming’ (Hoey 2003; Partington 2004) i.e. “as the word is learnt through encounters with it in speech and writing, it is loaded with the cumulative effects of those encounters such that it is part of our knowledge of the word that it co-occurs with other words” (Hoey, 2003, p. 5). Partington (2004) adds that the theory of priming helps us to answer one of the frequently raised question about prosody,

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...if the favourable or unfavourable evaluation of an item said to display semantic prosody is not part of its in-built, inherent meaning- as is clearly the case for words excessive or timely – then how do language users decide to employ such items in the appropriate environment? The answer is that language users have a set of mental rules derived from the priming process, alongside or integrated with the mental lexicon, of how items should collocate (p. 132).

2. SEMANTIC PREFERENCE

The term semantic preference seems to be less problematic than the term semantic prosody. Stubbs (2001, p. 65) defines it as “the relation, not between individual words, but between a lemma2 or word form and a set of semantically related words”. In his work, Stubbs analysed the item large in the 200-million-word corpus and found out that at least 25 per cent of the 56, 000 occurrences of large collocated with words for “quantities and sizes”, such as numbers, scale, part, amounts, quantities. Later, Stubbs adds that an item shows semantic preference when it co-occurs with “a class of words which share some semantic feature” (Stubbs, 2001, p. 88).

Partington (2004) examined the collocational behaviour of maximizers- absolutely, perfectly, entirely, completely, thoroughly, totally and utterly (group of items defined as such by Quirk et al. 1985). His analysis states that absolutely expresses semantic preference for items which have superlative sense such as: delighted, enchanting, splendid, preposterous, appalling, intolerable. Semantic prosody of absolutely is equally divided between favourable and unfavourable items. When it comes to perfectly, the tendency of the item to occur with pleasant things is evident (capable, correct, fit, good, happy, harmless, healthy, lovely, marvellous, natural). Furthermore, Partinton’s analysis showed that completely, entirely, totally and utterly shared a large number of collocates. Utterly indicated semantic preference for ‘absence’ (collocates are: helpless, useless, unable, forgotten, failed, ruined, destroyed) and ‘change’(changed, different, failed, ruined, destroyed). The overall semantic prosody is evidently unfavourable. Totally demonstrates semantic preference for ‘absence’ or ‘lack of’ collocating with bald, exempt, incapable, irrelevant, lost, oblivious, uneducated, unemployed, etc. but also for ‘change of state’ and ‘transformation’ words such as destroyed, different, transformed, absorbed, failed. Completely also showed semantic preference for ‘absence’ (devoid, disappeared, empty, forgotten, hopeless, ignored, lost, oblivious, vanished, etc.) but also for ‘change’ (alerted, changed, destroyed, different). Entirely expressed semantic preference for ‘absence’ and ‘change’ as well. Partington found the last maximizer thoroughly in the company of words relating to ‘emotions’ and ‘states of mind’, such as

2 The lemma make is realized in text by the word forms make, makes, made and making

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annoyed, approved, enjoyed, confused, happy, sure, disgruntled and he concluded that thoroughly evidently retains traces of its ancient sense of thorough-like. Table 1 Summary of maximizers (Partington, 2004, p. 148)

Maximizer: Preference for: Prosody Absolutely hyperbole, superlatives Perfectly favourable Utterly absence/change of state unfavourable Totally absence/change of state Completely absence/change of state Entirely absence/change of state,

(in)dependency

Thoroughly emotions/ liquid penetration

Partington (1998, pp. 34-39) also analysed the item sheer in the newspaper and

academic corpora. His analysis indicates that sheer collocated with a number of

items from specific semantic sets i.e. 1. ‘magnitude’, ‘weight’ or ‘volume’, 2. items

expressing ‘force’, 'strength’or ‘energy’, and 3. words expressing ‘persistence’.

Then Partington (1998, pp. 39-47) compared the behaviour of sheer with other

items that are consider to be its synonyms- complete, pure and absolute, and

discovered that none of them shared semantic preferences with sheer.

3. SEMANTIC PROSODY

The term semantic prosody was originally Sinclair’s idea in 1987 (later recited in

Sinclair 1991), but he did not use the term as such when he first discussed it.

Sinclair was observing the lexicogrammatical environment of the phrasal verb set

in using a corpus of about 7.3 million words and he noticed that the verb is

associated with unpleasant events.

The most striking feature of this phrasal verb is the nature of the subjects. In general they refer to unpleasant states of affairs. Only three refer to the weather; a few are neutral, such as reaction and trend. The main vocabulary is rot (3), decay, ill-will, decadence, impoverishment, infection, prejudice, vicious (circle), rigor mortis, numbness, bitterness, mannerism, anticlimax, anarchy, disillusion, disillusionment, slump. Not one of these is desirable or attractive. (Sinclair 1987, pp. 155-156)

In the same work Sinclair notes that “many uses of words and phrases show a

tendency to occur in a certain semantic environment, for example the word

happen is associated with unpleasant things- accidents and the like” (Sinclair,

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1991, p. 112). Sinclair’s remarks were something completely new and they were

completely backed up by corpus data.

The ‘father’ of the term semantic prosody is Bill Louw who introduced the

term to public in 19933. The term was coined with the reference to Firth’s

discussion of prosody in phonological terms. Namely, Firth noticed that the

realization of the phoneme /k/ depends on the sounds which precede it as well

as the sounds which follow it, so the /k/ in word kangaroo is not the same as the

/k/ in word keep because during the realization of the consonant the mouth is

already making provision for the production of the next sound. In the same way,

Louw (1993) claims that the expression symptomatic of prepares for the production

of what follows i.e. something undesirable (e.g. parental paralysis, numerous

disorders).

In his definition of semantic prosody, Gavioli (2005) also points out the

connection between meaning and sound:

The term ‘prosody’, which is generally used in linguistics to refer to the sound or rhythm of words, is applied here to the sound of meanings rather than phonemes and particularly to the way in which words and expressions create an aura of meaning capable of affecting words around them. Gavioli (2005, p. 46)

Several other linguists investigated the subject- they analysed several lexical

items, proposed their definitions and expressed their standpoints on the topic of

semantic prosody: Bublitz (1996) analysed the words cause, commit, happen,

somewhat and prevail; Sinclair (1996a, 1998) analysed set in, cause, the idiom naked

eye, the collocation true feelings, the word place and the verb brook; Stubbs (1995,

2001) investigated the lexical environment of heritage, provide, career, credibility,

accost, loiter and lurk; Tognini-Bonelli (2001) analysed prosodies in both English

and Italian including proper, expression andare incontro (literally “go towards”)

and face; Chanell (1999) investigated fat and self-important; Partington (1998, 2004)

analysed the verb peddle, 'happen' words (happen, take place, occur, set in, come

about) and amplifying intensifiers (absolutely, perfectly, entirely, completely,

thoroughly, totally, utterly).

3 Bill Louw introduced the term semantic prosody in his article Irony in the text or insincerity in the writer?: The diagnostic Potential of semantic prosody (1993)

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Table 2. The chronological review of the literature on semantic prosody.

Study

Examined lexical Items

Semantic prosody

Definition / contribution

The most important standpoints

Sinclair (1987, 1991)

set in happen

-semantic prosody was Sinclair’s idea, although he did not use this very term when he first discussed it

-many uses of words and phrases show a tendency to occur in a certain semantic environment; the words happen and set in are associated with unpleasant things

Louw (1993)

symptomatic of utterly bent on

Louw was the first to use the term semantic prosody, connecting the term to Firth’s discussion of prosody in phonological terms

-Louw was interested in irony produced by deviations from habitual co-occurrence patterns (pp.157) -He also made few allusions to diachronic considerations claiming that prosodies are undoubtedly the product of a long period of refinement through historical change (pp.164)

Stubbs (1995)

cause Cause is near the stage where the word itself, out of context, has negative connotations. (1995:50)

-made reference to diachronic consideration related to the word cause

Bublitz (1996)

cause happen commit somewhat prevail

-node may be coloured by its habitual co-occurrences acquiring a “halo” of meaning as a result

-prosodies vary according to the different basic meanings of any given word -diachronic emphasis on semantic prosody

Sinclair (1996a, 1998)

naked eye true feelings brook

A semantic prosody… is attitudinal, and on the pragmatic side of the semantics/pragmatics continuum. It is thus capable of a wide range of realization, because in pragmatic expressions the normal semantic values of the words are not necessarily relevant. But once noticed among the variety of expressions, it is immediately clear that the semantic prosody has a leading role to play in the integration of an item with its surroundings. It expresses something close to the ‘function’ of an item- it shows how the rest of the item is to be interpreted functionally. (Sinclair 1996a:88)

-in his work from 1996, Sinclair explained semantic prosody within his model of extended unit of meaning -in 1998 Sinclair stated that semantic prosody is one of the obligatory elements of the unit of meaning along with the ‘core item’, which is invariable, and constitutes the evidence of the occurrence of the item as a whole. (1998:15)

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Partington (1998)

peddle green fundamentalism/ fundamentalist

-focuses on similarities and differences between semantic prosody and connotation -Partington is interested in prosodies within the political discourse in newspapers

Hunston and Francis (1999)

A word may be said to have a particular semantic prosody if it can be shown to co-occur typically with other words that belong to a particular semantic set. (1999:137)

-the importance of semantic consistency of lexical profiles

Hunston and Thompson (1999)

The notion of semantic prosody (or pragmatic meaning) is that a given word or phrase may occur most frequently in the context of other words or phrases which are predominantly positive or negative in their evaluative orientation…As a result, the given word takes on an association with the positive, or, more usually, the negative, and this association can be exploited by speakers to express evaluative meaning covertly. (1999:38)

-the importance of the evaluative quality of semantic prosody -the words ‘take on’ meaning from their surrounds

Chanell (1999)

regime par for the course fat self-important off the beaten track

Speakers and writers cluster negative items so that there is a mutually supporting web of negative words (Channell 1999:44)

-she does not refer to items with less obviously evaluative meanings -fat and self-important are also to be found in undesirable company -she adopts the expression ‘evaluative polarity’ -focuses on unfavourable prosodies

Louw (2000)

A semantic prosody refers to a form of meaning which is established through the proximity of a consistent series of collocates, often characterized as positive or negative, and whose primary function is the expression of the attitude of its speaker or writer towards some pragmatic situation. A secondary, though no less important attitudinal function of semantic prosodies is the creation of irony through the deliberate injection of a form which clashes with the prosody’s consistent series of collocates. (2000:60).

-Contextual Prosodic Theory which would seek to elucidate through semantic prosodies the Firthian view that that situational and linguistic contexts are co-extensive. (2000:48) -makes the difference between semantic prosody as strongly

collocational phenomenon from connotation which he

considers to be more ‘schematic’ in nature.

Tognini-Bonelli (2001)

proper largely broadly (to) face

-importance of strict relation between lexical and grammatical choices -stresses that the pragmatic dimension is central

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Stubbs (2001a)

accost amid amusement backdrop care cause commit community deadlock distinctly soar heritage lavish loiter lurk proper provide somewhat standard undergo untold discoveries expression mutual career launch

A discourse prosody is a feature which extends over more than one unit in a linear string… Discourse prosodies express speaker’s attitude. If you say that something is provided, then this implies that you approve of it. Since they are evaluative, prosodies often express the speaker’s reason for making the utterance, and therefore identify functional discourse units. (2001:65)

in 2001 Stubbs switched from ‘semantic prosody’ to ‘discourse prosody’

Stubbs (2001b)

sit through

Hunston (2002)

Semantic prosody…refers to a word that is typically used in a particular environment, such that the word takes on connotations from that environment. (2002:141)

semantic prosody is a result of transferred meaning

Sinclair (2003)

As corpus enables us to see words grouping together to make special meanings as to the reasons why they were chosen together. This kind of meaning is called a semantic prosody; it has been recognized in part as connotation, pragmatic meaning and attitudinal meaning. (2003:178)

Partington (2004a)

‘happen words’ (happen, take place, occur, set in, come about) absolutely perfectly entirely completely thoroughly totally utterly

Semantic prosody is a type of evaluative meaning which is spread over a unit of language which potentially goes well beyond the single orthographic word and is much less evident to the naked eye. (2004a:131-132)

-Partington also discusses the interaction between semantic preference and semantic prosody

Hoey (2005)

Priming prosody occurs when the collocations, colligations, semantic associations, textual collocations, textual semantic associations and textual colligations of words chosen for a particular utterance

-Hoey points out that the words are primed in all sorts of different ways, and that results in priming prosody -states that the boundaries between semantic preference

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harmonise with each other in such a way as to contribute to the construction and coherence of the utterance. (2005:166)

and semantic prosody should be avoided -favours the term ‘semantic association’ instead ‘semantic preference’ only because he thinks that the term ‘semantic preference’ leads to a psychological preference on the part of the language user and may lead to confusion

Whitsitt (2005)

-focuses on the synchronic/ diachronic questions, on the function of intuition in identifying prosodies

Hunston (2007)

-discusses whether semantic prosody should be regarded as the property of a word or a longer unit of meaning; whether the binary distinctions should be used (favourable vs. unfavourable prosody); whether semantic prosody can be transmitted from one context to another -gives overview of the literature on both, semantic preference and prosody

Bednarek (2008)

-stresses the importance of the role of different registers for realisations of both semantic preferences and semantic prosodies

Stewart (2010)

make sense -presents extensive literature overview of the literature on semantic prosody

Begagić (2013)

initial/preliminary following/subsequent sufficient/adequate

-More uses of the collocation are found than provided by dictionaries -Semantic prosody for 'difficulty', almost always accompanied by the preposition of

Wei & Li (2014)

-A word may be associated with more than one group of semantic features thus designating different prosodies

Hu (2015) -Sematic prosody of a word cannot be accurately detected until its collocates are carefully scrutinized in the text -An apparently negative collocate might indicate a positive connotation

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Throughout literature, semantic prosody is mostly described as a type of

meaning. However, several authors defined it rather as a process. For example, Baker et al. in their Glossary of Corpus Linguistics (2006, p. 58) define it as a term “relating to the way that words in a corpus can collocate with a related set of words or phrases, often revealing (hidden) attitudes”. Coffin et.al (2004, xxi) also define semantic prosody as “a way in which apparently neutral terms come to carry positive or negative associations through regularly occurring in particular collocations”. Both authors refer to semantic prosody as the ways that contributes to establishing meanings. Berber-Sardinha (2000, p. 94) refers to semantic prosody as a pattern, while Lewandowska-Tomaszcyk (1996, p. 153) refers to it as a phenomenon.

From the literature review it can be said that semantic prosody includes some type of reference to its evaluative or attitudinal quality. It is described as an aspect of evaluative meaning, which is defined by Hunston and Thompson (1999, p. 5) as “the speaker or writer’s attitude or stance towards, viewpoint on, or feelings about the entities and propositions that he or she is talking about”. Though this definition seems to be too broad, some other authors defined the term in a more restricted sense, i.e. with emphasis on lexical expressions of the speaker’s/writer’s emotional attitude (see Conrad and Biber 1999 and Martin 1999).

As stated in Table 2, according to both Sinclair and Stubbs, prosodies express speaker attitude. Stubbs claims that if something is provided, then you approve of it, “since they are evaluative, prosodies often express the speaker’s reason for making the utterance” (Stubbs 2001a, p. 65). Sinclair (1994) states that semantic prosody is attitudinal, and on the pragmatic side of the semantics/ pragmatics continuum and continues that:

It is thus capable of a wide range of realization, because in pragmatic expressions the normal semantic values of the words are not necessarily relevant. But once noticed among the variety of expressions, it is immediately clear that the semantic prosody has a leading role to play in the integration of an item with its surroundings. It expresses something close to the ‘function’ of the item- it shows how the rest of the item is to be interpreted functionally. (Sinclair 2004, p. 22)

According to the above mentioned, Stewart (2010) follows that when speakers use items like naked eye, true feelings, provide, commit, set in, undergo, happen, cause, symptomatic of, they make some type of evaluation or convey some type of attitude.

In this way an utterance such as the cold weather set in might be considered more obviously attitudinal than, for instance, the cold weather started; John Smith had to undergo an operation more attitudinal than John Smith had to have an operation; and symptomatic of management inadequacies more attitudinal than indicative of management inadequacies (Stewart 2010, p. 22).

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However, there are certain examples that prove this does not have to be that way. Sinclair (1996a, p. 87) ascribed the prosody of difficulty to item naked eye, and the evaluative element does not seem to be of huge importance at all4. Stewart (2010) also mentions example of the item cause, which has been assigned an unfavourable prosody in the literature, since it co-occurs with accident, problem, chaos, etc. Nevertheless it seems problematic to postulate that some sort of attitude has been expressed in certain examples, such as in the following examples:

The door closed and then Elaine pulled the magazine in, causing the letter box to snap shut smartly.

The inhibitors might therefore be causing amnesia not because they prevent protein synthesis but because of their effect on increasing animo acid levels.

(Stewart 2010, p. 23; examples taken from the BNC)

The fact that the notions of evaluation and attitude are the complex one is proved by the following citation from Bernardini and Aston (2002, p. 291):

Would this be the speaker as principal, author or animator (to use Goffman’s (1981) famous breakdown of the speaker discourse role (Levinson, 1988)? In contexts of reported speech, it is clear that prosodies may indicate the evaluation of the cited speaker, not the citing one, as the author (but not animator) of the text in question.

It can be concluded that in most of the examples the two elements are present, evaluative and attitudinal quality of an item, however not in all cases. Each item in question should be carefully analysed in its environment in order to be claimed that evaluative and attitudinal qualities are pivotal for its semantic prosody.

Apart from the evaluative and attitudinal quality, element that is found in almost all definitions and discussions on semantic prosody is its hidden nature. Most of the authors mentioned in Table 1 refer to semantic prosody as to something subliminal, covert or unconscious. Louw (1993, pp. 169-171) writes that semantic prosody can reveal speaker attitudes even when the speaker tries to conceal them, and Tognini-Bonelli, citing Louw’s statement argues that “semantic prosodies are mainly engaged at the subconscious level”. Hunston and Thompson (1999, p. 38) state that semantic prosody “can be exploited by speakers to express evaluative meaning covertly” and Hunston (2001, p. 21, 2002, pp. 61,

4 While analysing the idiom naked eye, Sinclair used The Bank of English as corpus which contained 211 million words of current English. Sinclair found 154 instances of naked eye, but since 3 pairs of lines were identical he used 151 lines. Words see and visible (and their variations) are evident on position N3 which prove the clear semantic preference for visibility. Since the words visible and see are in 85 per cent of instances combined with words such as small, faint, weak and difficult, Sinclair concluded that the idiom naked eye indicates semantic prosody of difficulty.

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119, 141-142) makes several points to how semantic prosody conveys covert messages and hidden meanings. Partington (2004a, p.131) also states that semantic prosody “is much less evident to the naked eye”.

Most of the authors interested in semantic prosody analysed lexical items that are neutral in semantic sense i.e. that have neither positive nor negative meanings. It seems that literature review suggests that the meaning of the item in question must be hidden, otherwise the prosody cannot be ascribed to it. However, there are still some examples that prove that the lexical item in question does not need to be semantically neutral in order to possess semantic prosody (e.g. verb brook). This study will also test weather only the neutral meanings of investigated items possess semantic prosody.

As stated above, most of the authors investigated ‘neutral’ lexical item (happen, cause, break out, set in, undergo etc.) and to most of them the unfavourable prosody is ascribed (cause, set in, happen, break out, load of, undergo…) while only a few of them revealed positive or favourable semantic prosody such as provide and career. Saying this, it should be mentioned that several linguists noticed the importance of registers and genres in revealing semantic prosodies of certain lexical items. Hunston (2007, p. 263) argues that the verb cause “loses its association with negative evaluation when it occurs in ‘scientific’ registers”. Bednarek (2008) also mentions the importance of analysis of items in different registers:

..for instance, an analysis of concordance lines for responsibility for in the Bank of English shows a negative semantic preference (it co-occurs with recent bombings, Sunday’s suicide bombing, one of the murders, some of the explosions, the killing, these murders, the Holocaust, the kidnapping, the worst act of terrorism) while an analysis of the same lexical expression in a business English corpus does not (here responsibility for collocates with budgets, a major functional area, the product, a new stream of scheme, outcomes, decisions, aspects, the technical aspects, scale/up and operation, outcomes )(Walker 2004 in Bednarek 2008,p. 126)

Analogous to O’Halloran (2007) this could be called register or genre preference i.e. semantic preference that is register or genre dependent. O’Halloran claims that there is a greater likelihood of some lexicogrammatical patterns in certain registers than others and as example she mentions the item ‘erupted’ saying that “the fact that ‘erupted’ in the past tense has largely positive associations in the sports report register, but largely negative ones in the hard news register, provides evidence for seeing ‘erupted’ in register prosody terms” (O’Halloran, 2007, p. 12). At this point, it is important to define the word ‘register’. According to Halliday and Hasan (1985, pp. 38-9) registers are varieties of language which are “typically associated with a particular situational configuration of field, tenor and mode”. Genre, on the other side is mostly treated at a ‘higher level’ than register, as Wales (2001, p. 338) states that “genres are groups of texts which perform a similar function”. However, in this study all the

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newspaper texts found in COCA are considered to belong to the newspaper register, whereas the academic texts belong to the academic register. Partington (2004) anlaysed words that belong to the happen semantic group with the hypothesis that not only happen and set in have unfavourable prosody but all the other words from that group as well. Therefore he looked at the behaviour of set in, happen, occur, come about and take place in two corpora, one of the academic texts and the other of the newspaper texts. Partington presented the frequency of occurrence of all the ‘happen’ words as follows: Table 3. The analysis of happen words (Partington, 2004, p.134)

Academic (one million words)

Newspaper (four million words) Total

Per million words

Happens 70 187 47 Happen 80 230 57 Happened 67 326 82 Totals 217 743 186 Occurs

125

27

7

Occur 221 32 8 Occurred 114 112 28 Totals 460 171 43 Comes about

2

2

1

Come about 16 9 2 Came about 9 5 1 Totals 27 16 4 Takes place

25

47

12

Take place 39 87 22 Took place 44 68 17 Taken place 23 38 9 Totals 131 240 60 Sets in

1

4

1

Set in 8 9 2 Totals 9 13 3

After the analysis of each happen word separately (he decided to examine only the examples from the academic register), Partington confirmed his hypothesis that all investigated happen words have unfavourable prosody, although there are different degrees of unfavourable prosody among the items in the group. “Set in has the worst prosody, followed by happen, followed by occur and take place,

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while come about does not seem to evince any particular inclination” (Partington, 2004, p.144). Partington also states that there are register differences among the investigated lexical items “probably linked to cohesive function, i.e. more formal items like occur are used for extended cohesion more often than less formal ones such as happen” (ibid.).

Most of the linguists discussing semantic preference and semantic prosody agree that semantic prosody is primarily contingent upon semantic preference and that “semantic preference 'feeds’ semantic prosody” (Stewart 2010, p.88, citing Hoey 2005, p.16ff). When Sinclair (1996) analysed expression true feelings he found out that there is a clear semantic preference for ‘expression’- verbs: express, communicate, show, reveal, share, pour out, give vent to, indicate, make public. Hunston and Francis (1999, p. 137) stated that “a word may be said to have a particular semantic prosody if it can be shown to co-occur typically with other words that belong to a particular semantic set”, while Louw (2000, p. 57) writes that “semantic prosody refers to a form of meaning which is established through the proximity of a consistent series of collocates”.

On the other hand, when Stubbs (1995) analysed the word provide in the 200-million word corpus, he found that some of its top collocates were information, service(s), support, help, money….It cannot be argued that there is an obvious semantic set in other words clear semantic preference, but there is definitely favourable prosody (which is interesting, since most of the investigated lexical items in literature review on semantic prosody have unfavourable prosody). The necessity to investigate more examples emerges, in order to claim that semantic preference is obligatory element in constituting semantic prosody.

Very interesting example analysed by Sinclair (1996) is the one of the verb brook. Its dictionary meaning is something like ‘tolerate’ as Sinclair analysis shows that “ ‘tolerate’ can replace brook in all the examples without disturbing their message” (Sinclair, 1996, p. 91). Sinclair points out (ibid.) “since it always appears with some form of negative, e.g. brook no interference, will not brook any attack, it is used by speakers to indicate not tolerance, but intolerance.” Regarding this it could be concluded that the item expresses an unfavourable prosody. However, Sinclair’s analysis confirms that the verb brook expresses “the intolerance of intrusive behaviour by another” (ibid.). The overall prosody does not tend to be unfavourable but favourable. It can be concluded that although some words have negative basic meaning it is possible to find out that they reveal positive semantic prosody.

Another interesting verb is alleviate which has positive meaning although negative semantic prosody can be ascribed to it. Stewart (2010) analysed this verb in the BNC and from his analysis it is obvious that the verb is associated with negative prosody “in view of the fact that its co-text is peppered with seriously undesirable elements”, but he adds that “we could not by any stretch of the

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imagination argue that they have negative connotations” (Stewart, 2010, p. 73). Accordingly, it can be said that the verb alleviate has a positive basic meaning although it is mostly mixed with bad company (collocates with the words such as pain and suffering). Therefore, alleviate has not been ‘contaminated’ by its unpleasant co-occurrences.

Stewart (2010) analysed the lexical environment of intuition in the BNC (British National Corpus) as well as in the other, the corpus of semantic prosody. On the one hand, in the BNC he found out that intuition seems to be neutral or even leaning towards the favourable prosody (according to the OED intuition is defined as our instinctive, immediate ‘feel’ for language). On the other hand, in the corpus on semantic prosody, intuition has thoroughly unfavourable prosody “occurs in the company of, unreliable, wrong, stranglehold, not reliable and accurate, chancy and unreliable…” (Stewart, 2010, p. 122). If this is observed from the diachronic view, we can say that a good word intuition has fallen under the influence of bad company and has been contaminated by its bad influence. The word intuition can also be observed from synchronic view and in that case it shows unfavourable prosody in the corpus of semantic prosody.

It seems important to mention that the work, in which examples for the corpus on semantic prosody are gathered, is the book Semantic Prosody written by Stewart. Most of the scholars who dealt with the topic of semantic prosody agree that intuition is a poor guide to revealing semantic prosody as follows: “speaker’s intuition is usually an unreliable guide to patterns of collocation and that intuition is an even poorer guide to semantic prosody” (Xiao & McEnery, 2006, p. 103). “attested data are required in collocational studies, since native speaker intuitions are not reliable source of evidence” (Stubbs, 1995, p. 24) “analysis of evaluation can be removed from the chancy and unreliable business of linguistic intuitions based in systematic observation of naturally occurring data” (Channell, 1999, p. 39). “semantic prosodies are difficult, if not impossible, to determine on the basis of intuition alone” (Adfolphs & Carter, 2002, p. 7). “The quantitative analysis of text by computer reveals facts about actual language behaviour which are not, or at least not immediately, accessible to intuition” (Widdowson, 2000, p. 6). “It may well turn out to be the case that semantic prosodies are less accessible through human intuition than most other phenomena to do with language” (Louw, 1993, p. 173).

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“SPs are open to introspection in principle...but native speakers have no reliable and accurate intuitions about them” (Bublitz, 1996, p. 8).

Considering the historical development of language, the roots of the synchronic and diachronic approach can be seen in the works of Breal (1897), Saussure (CLG) and Bloomfield (1933). Breal, who is usually considered to be the father of semantics, differentiates between what is the synchronic and the diachronic study of a language, however his statements remained within the realms of historical linguistics5. Saussure recognised one of the major distinctions in linguistics, between synchronic and diachronic study of a language where the latter relates to the historical dimension or the outside world6. However, Bloomfield restricts the object of linguistics to the decriprion of language in a synchronic way, even when the decription aims to study the historical development of a language (the historical development is considered to present series of synchronic slices of evidence at different times)7.

When mentioning synchronic and diachronic approaches, it seems important to point out that the corpora used to evidence the existence of semantic prosody have always been synchronic.

As Stewart notices (2010) the diachronic dimension seems to be of huge importance in descriptions on semantic prosody, though it has never been entirely central. The interests of all the mentioned linguists interested in the subject were somewhere else, and the diachronic analyses are almost entirely absent.

Sinclair describes semantic prosody using synchronic criteria, while most other authors approach the subject using both diachronic and synchronic criteria, with scarcely acknowledgement that a single appellation (semantic prosody has been adopted to denote distinct phenomena). Diachronic explanations tend to…favour the folkoristic notion of good being contaminated by evil. (Stewart, 2010, p.55)

An issue that is commonly discussed among linguists is whether semantic

prosody resides in a single word or in several words. Bublitz (1996, p. 9) claims that “with prosody we refer to the fact that a feature extends its domain, stretches over and affects several units…something that accords with Firth’s idea that meaning is regularly dispersed in context”. Partington (2004a, pp. 131-132) also describes semantic prosody as a type of evaluative meaning which is “spread over a unit of language which potentially goes well beyond the single

5Breal (1897) outlined new scientific criteria for the study of language based on observation. 6 According to Saussure, the meaning of a word is no more just the relationship between a word and a

concept or thing, but the set of relationships that a specific word may entertain within a relational

network. 7 Bloomfield accepts that “in some cases a transferred meaning is linguistically determined by an

accompanying form” (1933, p. 150)

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orthographic word” and Sinclair (2003, p. 117) claims that “semantic prosody typically ranges over combinations of words in an utterance rather than being attached just to one”. Although many of the authors agree that semantic prosody does not reside in a single word but in several words, there are still several who argue for the opposite. Stewart (2010, pp. 57-58) summarizes their statements as the following:

“utterly has an overwhelmingly bad prosody” (Louw, 1993, p. 160)

“affect has a clearly negative prosody” (Stubbs, 1995, p. 45)

“the lemma cause has a strongly unfavourable prosody...the word provide, on the other hand, had a favourable prosody in the Cobuild corpus material” (Partington, 1998, p. 68)

“we know that the English equivalent of forarsage, namely cause, has an overwhelmingly negative prosody” (Dam-Jensen & Zethsen, 2007, p. 1618)

“The negative semantic prosody of cause has been widely observed” (Xiao & McEnery, 2006, p. 114)

However, Cotterill (2001, p. 291) refers to “the SP of a word” and to “the

semantic prosodies of words” (p. 293), whereas later assigns semantic prosody to “lexical items” (p.297). It seems that another open question remains and the need for more lexical items to be investigated in other to claim the former or latter.

Another interesting question regarding semantic prosody that arises is whether connotation is a synonym of semantic prosody. In order to connect this term to the notion of semantic prosody, several definitions of the connotations are presented:

connotation of a word is “an emotive or affective component additional to its central meaning” (Lyons, 1977, p. 176)

connotation implies “emotive or evaluative meaning” (Palmer, 1981, p. 92)

the main application of connotations “with reference to emotional associations (personal or communal)which are suggested by, or are part of the meaning of, a linguistic unit, especially a lexical item” (Crystal, 1991, p. 74)

On the one hand Partington (1998), Berber-Sardinha (2000) Stubbs (2001),

Hunston (2002) and Whitsitt (2005) all agree that semantic prosody is connotational. Partington, while analysing concordances of the verb commit says “unfavourable connotation can be seen to reside not simply in the word commit but over a unit consisting of commit and its collocates” (1998, p. 67). Partington continues that “connotation would locate the meaning within a word, while semantic prosody would locate meaning as spread[ing] across words” (p. 68). Berber-Sarinha (2000, p. 93) states that “semantic prosody is the connotation

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conveyed by the regular co-occurrence of lexical items” whereas Hunston (2002, p. 142) writes that semantic prosody “accounts for ‘connotation’: the sense that a word carries a meaning in addition to its ‘real meaning’ ”. While analysing the verb cause, Stubbs concludes that “cause has overwhelmingly unpleasant connotations” (2001a, p. 49) and Whitsitt (2005, p. 285) states that semantic prosody is defined in three different ways and one of these “which is very widespread, treats semantic prosody as if it was a synonym of connotation”.

On the other hand Louw (2000, p. 49-50) argues that “semantic prosodies are not merely connotational” as “the force behind SPs [semantic prosodies] is more strongly collocational than the schematic aspects of connotation” and he indicates that that semantic prosody is more strictly attitudinal than connotation. Louw’s remarks suggest that semantic prosody is dependant on the relationship between the item and its lexical environment, whereas connotation is related to the single word and the experience the speaker/hearer associate with that word. Besides Louw, Sinclair is another important person to be mentioned, who does not seem to support excessive overlap between connotation and semantic prosody. Sinclair (1996, p. 34) stated that:

But once noticed among the variety of expressions, it is immediately clear that the semantic prosody has a leading role to play in the integration of an item with its surroundings”...and he continues (ibid., p. 39) “The major structural categories that have been proposed here- collocation, colligation, semantic preference and semantic prosody- and their inter-relationships, will be elaborated and will assume a central rather than a peripheral role in language description (emphasis my own).

Therefore, according to Sinclair, semantic prosody is completely central to the unit of meaning and has nothing to do with something peripheral.

A statement claimed by McEnery, Xiao and Tono (2006, p. 85) represents the link between the two views above mentioned, as they argue that “connotation can be collocational or non-collocational whereas semantic prosody can only be collocational”.

To sum up, the notions semantic preference and semantic prosody have been addressed frequently in several past years. The two prominent names to be found in relation to the two terms are Sinclair and Louw. Stewart (2010) presents the most common features of semantic prosody prioritised by Sinclair’s and by Louw’s approach.

Element’s prioritized by Sinclair’s approach:

it is central to the unit of meaning, one of the two obligatory elements

it is considered within a synchronic framework

it is a feature of a unit which is larger than the single word/expression

it is not restricted to semantically ‘neutral’ lexical items

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it is not restricted to descriptions in terms of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Elements prioritized by Louw’s approach:

it is transferred or attached meaning

it is considered within both a diachronic and synchronic framework

it is a feature of the word

it is associated above all with more semantically ‘neutral’ lexical items

it is generally expressed by means of a binary distinction whose primary terms are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ (positive / negative, favourable / unfavourable)

(Stewart, 2010, p. 161) Their approaches can be described in different ways, and other linguists interested in the topic are either influenced by Sinclair or by Louw. Still most of the issues related to the two terms and mentioned above are open for further discussion.

4. CONCLUSION From the literature review it is evident that some basic problems concerning semantic preference and prosody are yet to be solved. There is evident necessity for more examples, lexical items, to be analysed in this way in order to prove or refute some of the conclusions that have already been reached. In sum, the following are some of the open and much disputed issues that can serve as the commencement for the further research for the linguists interested in the subject:

the possibility of the existence of semantic prosody in the targeted V-N collocations

‘neutral’ meaning is necessary when revealing semantic prosody

hidden element is (not) crucial for semantic preference

semantic preference is (not) obligatory element in identification of semantic prosody

connotation is (not) the synonym of semantic prosody

semantic prosody resides (does not reside) in the single word

semantic prosody can be considered in a diachronic framework as well

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REFERENCES Baker, P. (2006). Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London and New York: Continuum. Bednarek, M. (2008). Semantic Preference and Semantic Prosody re-examined. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 4/2, 119-139. Begagić M. (2013). Semantic preference and semantic prosody of the collocation make sense. Jezikoslovlje 14(2), 403-416. Berber-Sardinha, T. (2000). Semantic prosodies in English and Portuguese: a contrastive study. Cuadernos de Filologia Inglesa (University of Murcia, Spain), 9/1, 93-110. Bernardini, S. and Aston,G. (2002). Review of Michael Stubbs: Words and Phrases. Corpus Studies in Lexical Semantics. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 7/2, 283-295. Bloomfield, L. (1933). Language. London: Allen and Unwin. Bublitz, W. (1996). Semantic prosody and cohesive company: somewhat predictable. Leuvense Bijdragen: Tijdschrift voor Germaanse Filologie, 85/1-2,1-32. Chanell, J. (1999) Corpus-based analysis of evaluative lexis in S. Hunston and G. Thompson (eds.), Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 38-55. Coffin, C., Hewings, A. and O’Halloran, K. (eds.) (2004). Applying English Grammar. Functional and Corpus Approaches. London: Arnold. Cotterill, J. (2001). Domestic discord, rocky relationships: semantic prosodies in representations of marital violence in the O.J. Simpson trial. Discourse and Society, 12/3, 291-312. Crystal, D. (1991). Stylistic profiling. In K. Aijmer and B. Altenberg (eds.) English Corpus Linguistics. London: Longman, 21-38. Dan-Jensen, H. And Zethsen, K. (2008). Translator awareness of semantic prosodies. Target, 20/2, 203-221. Gavioli, L. (2005). Exploring Corpora for ESP Learning. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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Halliday, M. and Hasan, R. (1985). Language, Context and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hoey, M. (2003). Lexical Priming and the Properties of Text. Available from www.monabaker.com/tsresources/Lexical/PrimingandthePropertiesofText.htm (1-15). Hoey, M. (2005). Lexical Priming: A New Theory of Words and Language. London and New York: Routledge. Hu, M. ( 2015). A semantic prosody analysis of three adjective synonymous pairs in COCA. Journal of Language and Linguistics Studies, 11(2) , 117-131. Hunston, S. and Francis, G. (1999). Pattern Grammar: The Principles and Practice of Corpus-driven Grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hunston, S. and Thompson, G. (1999). Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hunston, S. (2001). Colligation, lexis pattern and text, in M. Scott and G. Thompson (eds.), Patterns of Text: In Honour of Michael Hoey. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 13-33. Hunston, S. (2002). Corpora and Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hunston, S. (2007). Semantic prosody revisited. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 12:2, 249-268. Lewandowska-Tomaszcyk, B. (1996). Cross-linguistic and language-specific aspects of semantic prosody. Language Sciences, 181/1-2, 153-178. Louw, B. (1993). “Irony in the text or insincerity in the writer? The diagnostic potential of semantic prosodies” in M. Baker, G. Francis and E. Tognini-Bonelli (eds), Text and Tecnology: In Honour of John Sinclair. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 157-175. Louw, B. (2000). Contextual prosodic theory: bringing semantic prosodies to life, in C. Heffer and H. Suaunston (eds), Words in Context: In Honour of John Sinclair. Birmingham: ELR 48-94. Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics. Vol.1,2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Martin, J.R. (1999). Beyond exchange: APPRAISAL systems in English, in S. Hunston and G. Thompson (eds), Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 142-175. McEnery, T., Xiao, R., Tono, Y. (2006). Corpus-based Language Studies: An Advanced Resource Book. London and New York: Routledge. O’Halloran, K.A. (2007). Critical discourse analysis and the corpus-informed interpretation of metaphor at the register level. Applied Linguistics 28, 1-24. Palmer, F. (1981). Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Partington, A. (1998). Patterns and Meanings: Using Corpora for English Language Research and Teaching. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Partington, A. (2004). Utterly content in each other’s company: semantic prosody and semantic preference. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 9, 131-156. Sinclair, J. (1987). Looking up. London/ Glasgow: Collins. Sinclair, J. (1991). Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sinclair, J. (1996a). Lexis and Lexicography, J.A. Foley (ed.) Singapore: Unipress. Sinclair J. (2004). Trust the Text: Language, Corpus and Discourse. London: Routledge Stewart, D. (2010). Semantic Prosody: A Critical Evaluation. London and New York: Routledge. Stubbs, M. (1995b). Corpus Evidence for Norms of Lexical Collocation. In Cook and Seidlfofer (eds.), 245-256. Stubbs, M. (2001). Words and Phrases: Corpus Studies of Lexical Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell. Tognini-Bonelli, E. (2001). Corpus Linguistics at Work. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wales, K. (2001). A Dictionary of Stylistics. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd. Walker, C. (2004). Factors which influence the collocational behavior of business English nouns and verbs. Paper given at the annual meeting of the British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL) at Kings’ College, London, September 9-11, 2004.

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Wei, N. & Li, X. (2014). Exploring sematic preference and semantic prosody across English and Chinese: Their roles for cross-linguistic perspective. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistics Theory, 10 (1), 103-138. Whitsitt, S. (2005). A critique of the concept of semantic prosodies. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 10 (3), 283-305.

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Journal of Education and Humanities Volume 1 (2), pp. 89-98, Winter 2018 Short report ISSN 2566-4638 © International Burch University http://dx.doi.org/10.14706/jeh2018125

An Analysis of Gender Differences in the use of Swear Words on Facebook

Melika Muhanović Nejla Babić Esma Latić, MA

International Burch University

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract: The question of gender differences in language use has

been repeatedly explored and claims about these distinctions that

were once considered invariable have been questioned and refuted.

One of the less explored areas within this issue, however, is the

phenomenon of swearing. This paper aimed to explore how and why

men and women swear on one of the most popular social media sites,

Facebook, and how the context in which such utterances are

produced modulates their frequency and form. The study found that

both men and women are more likely to swear when commenting on

the content produced by the same gender and also when surrounded

by other males and females, respectively. Furthermore, the research

confirmed some previous studies in which men were found to swear

more out of aggressiveness, while women do so to exaggerate their

words.

Keywords: gender, differences, taboo language, swear words, social media

Article History Submitted: 15 January 2019 Accepted: 3 February 2019

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1. INTRODUCTION Research into language use in social media websites has shown it to reinforce and reproduce the gender dichotomy and gender roles of the offline world (Miller et al., 2016). In other words, the gender, here understood as a sociocultural category constructed through social upbringing and nurturing (Beauvoir, 1949; Haslanger, 1995; Millett, 1971) that one projects in the real world is likely to mirror the one projected on social media. Furthermore, taking into consideration that individuals form their identities, and thus different parts of it, including gender, by continually exploring and embodying different selves (Waterman, 1999), it is natural for individuals to find social media a suitable place for such an endeavour (Manago, Graham, Greenfield, & Salimkhan, 2008).

This paper focuses on the use of taboo language as one of the features through which this formation of gender identity is realized. More specifically, it explores whether and how men and women differ in their use of taboo language on one of the most popular social media sites, Facebook, and what kind of image they desire to portray about themselves while using the language. Moreover, it attempts to clarify the question of whether certain patterns of behaviour or use of this kind of language might be gendered, i.e. attributed to one of the genders. Furthermore, the study looks at how the environment allows and encourages different types of behaviour as well as how some specific web pages reinforce the expressive language.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Taboo language has been broadly defined as the category of expressions socially prohibited or evaded due to their, more or less severe, psychological harm that may affect the society’s members (Jay, 2009; Wardhaugh, 2010). The vagueness of this phenomenon makes its categorization quite difficult, but Jay (2009) suggests they can be classified into “sexual references; those that are considered blasphemous; scatological references and disgusting objects; animal names; ethnic-racial-gender slurs; insulting references to perceived psychological, physical, or social deviations; ancestral allusions; substandard vulgar terms; and offensive slang” (p. 154). Gauthier (2012) suggests that profanity is “bad language” that provokes many tensions and debates, similarly to slang, jargon, misuse, new forms etc. (p. 8). He further notes that bad language refers to linguistic performances deemed unacceptable by a majority due to their lack of conformity to the traditional linguistic rules of the culture in which they are uttered (Gauthier, 2012). Furthermore, Fägersten (2012) proposes that swearing refers to the use of words which have the potential to be offensive, inappropriate, objectionable, or unacceptable in any given social context. She adds that not every use of a swear word is an instance of swearing, nor has the definition of swearing

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traditionally been restricted to the use of a particular subset of words, which implies that what is considered a swear word is quite subjective (Fägersten, 2012).

Being stereotypically portrayed as “leaders, as dominant, aggressive, independent, objective, and competitive”, and juxtaposed with women, being “emotional, subjective, tactful, aware of the feelings of others, and as having their feelings easily hurt” (Aries, 1996, p. 164), it comes as no surprise that males, as is the case with many other linguistic forms demonstrating assertiveness, have often been associated with the use of swearing (Coates, 2013; Latić & Brdarević-Čeljo, 2018). Although the accounts of real language use have shown that taboo language usage is found to be prevalent both among men (Coates, 2003; Gomm, 1981; Mehl & Pennebaker, 2003) and women (De Klerk, 1992; Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2003; Uhlman, 2015), the inclination to use strong swear words has been found among males mostly (Bailey & Timm, 1976; McEnery, 2005; Mehl & Pennebaker, 2003). One of the explanations for this phenomenon states that, in our ancestral communities, women probably adopted the so-called “tend-and-befriend” reaction, i.e. a less aggressive response to stress and danger (Lee & Harley, 2012; Taylor et al., 2006), since the costs of aggressive behaviour, involving the actions of fighting or fleeing, was often higher than its benefits, as the mother’s presence was more essential to the progeny’s survival than the father’s (Campbell, 1999). Consequently, as some studies of brain biology have shown (Gur et al., 2000; Jordan et al., 2002), these differences in the roles of men and women affected our brain development, causing the female brain to have a larger orbital frontal cortex that regulate amygdala-generated anger. The linguistic consequence of this phenomenon is thus reflected in the overall inclination of males to use taboo language more than females (Guvendir, 2015).

In the context of social networking, commenting on threads online, as a form of social interaction, is a type of identity and hence gender performance (Marwick & Boyd, 2011; Thelwall, 2008). Studies on gender differences in online behaviour have shown that individuals tend to emphasize different aspects of their identity through varied linguistic behaviour (Nguyen et al., 2014), including the use of stereotypically feminine (e.g. a heart emoticon written as <3) or masculine (e.g. taboo words) language. Moreover, a variety of studies have researched online spaces including blogs (Mukherjee & Liu, 2010; Schler et al., 2006), Twitter (Bamman et al., 2014; Bergsma and Van Durme, 2013), YouTube (Filippova, 2012) and social network chats (Peersman et al., 2011) in search for differences in linguistic behaviour of men and women, and found that the former tend to use more links, numbers, technology words, etc., while the latter generally use more first person pronouns, emoticon, words expressing emotions, etc. (Bamman et al., 2014; Nguyen et al., 2013). In online spaces, although men have been found to swear more on sites such as MySpace (Thelwall, 2008), the difference that has been gaining more attention is the context as well as types of swearing (Murray, 2012), since, as Hall (2003) suggests, linguistic studies on gender should aim to “document the diverse range of women’s and men’s

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linguistic repertoires as developed within particular contexts” (p. 375). Furthermore, these virtual spaces, just as any other space for social interactions in which people read contextual cues in order to understand what constitutes appropriate behaviour (Boyd & Heer, 2006), set and encourage certain social norms. This paper, therefore, aims to explore whether males and females on two different Facebook pages differ in their frequency as well as type of swearing, taking into account different contextual cues that might have encouraged such behavior.

3. METHODOLOGY The corpus of language data for this study was Facebook – a social website with over one billion daily active users. As a source of linguistic data, it does not only provide researchers with authentic language but also allows for inferences based on the users’ publicly available information such as age, education, gender, etc. In addition to that, the website contains interactive groups, i.e. Facebook pages, gathering users with common interests, which enables researchers to collect data from highly specific communities and thus infer more contextualized and reliable conclusions. In order to analyse data from demographically, socially, and psychologically varied language users, the data in this study was collected from five different public Facebook pages, all of which are considered popular, with millions of followers and hundreds of comments on every post: YouTube, 9gag, and the official pages of Nicky Minaj, Eminem, and Miley Cyrus. The pages receive comments that are mostly in English and this paper analysed only what is considered taboo in the English language.

The total number of language users whose data was analysed is 50. The manner in which the data was gather is by searching through the comments of the most recent posts on these five pages and selecting only those containing taboo language. Further, the comments were categorized based on the users’ gender and the page the comments were found on. In addition to that, the swear words were categorized according to their purpose into those used humorously, for exaggeration, assertively/aggressively, and for disrespecting/insulting.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION As is shown in Table 1, with 29 comments containing taboo words, males produced swear words more frequently than females (n=21), outnumbering them in three out of five pages. More specifically, on 9gag’s and YouTube’s Facebook pages, respectively six and nine out of ten comments observed were written by a male. When it comes to Nicki Minaj’s as well as Miley Cyrus’ official Facebook pages, more comments containing taboo language were written by

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females. Finally posts on Eminem’s page had seven swearing comments written by males and only three written by females. Table 1: Frequency of Comments Containing Swear Words

9gag YouTube Nicki Minaj Miley Cyrus Eminem Total

Male 6 9 4 3 7 29

Female 4 1 6 7 3 21

Interpreting these distinctions, certain patterns may be discriminated. First of all, the pages with more swear words used by females were the ones of female celebrities – Nicki Minaj and Miley Cyrus. Although they contain roughly equal number of female and male users’ comments, it seems that females here feel more encouraged to use swear words. Another important thing to note is that the swear words used by females on these posts were of the descriptive nature, i.e. they were mostly used to enhance their compliments or exaggerate their current feelings. On the other hand, men used swear words mostly to objectify or insult these female celebrities, and their usage of taboo words increased when commenting on pictures of a provocative nature. Furthermore, following the same pattern of using taboo language when commenting on the content produced by the same gender, more male fans (n=7) employed swear words on Eminem’s Facebook page.

Based on these findings, it seems reasonable to infer that the use of taboo language is influenced and encouraged by the context. Both females and males used more swear words on pages of female and male celebrities, respectively, implying thus that males, as well as females, seem to generally feel bolder and more encouraged to use such words when writing comments about the same gender. In addition to that, taking into consideration that these pages usually attract either men or women, depending on the gender of the celebrity, it seems that both males and females find it safer to use taboo language in interaction with the same gender, while the opposite might lead to their losing of face. These findings are in line with Uhlman (2015), who found that 75% of participants believed to be more conscious of swearing when surrounded by the opposite gender as well as the study by Jay and Janschewitz (2008), where men were found to use swear words more often in company of other men.

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Table 2 - Frequency of comments containing swear words classified according to their purpose

Gender Humorously Exaggeration Anger/Assertiveness Disrespect/Insult

Male 5 7 10 5

Female 5 13 3 2

In terms of the purpose of their swearing, as the data in Table 2 shows, male

and female users used swear words equally for the purpose of being humorous, while women used them more than men for the purpose of exaggeration. On the other hand, males were found to swear more when angry or when trying to be assertive, as well when they are being disrespectful or insulting someone. Therefore, it seems that the results obtained by this study support previous research that have found men to be more likely to swear out of anger and frustration (Bird & Harris, 1990; Jay, 1996; McEnery, 2005; Mehl & Pennebaker, 2003).

5. CONCLUSION The study found that both men and women use swear words when commenting on social media, but with slight variations influenced by different factors, including the context in which the utterances are produced, the type of interaction being either single or mixed-gender one, and the purpose of the act of swearing itself. More specifically, men were found to swear on the site where the male community is larger, while women were found to do so on the website of a female celebrity, arguably attracting more female users. Furthermore, both men and women were more likely to use swear words when commenting on the sites of same-gender celebrities. Finally, the results have shown that men utter swear words mostly to express aggressiveness and assertiveness, while women do so to exaggerate their comments.

In general, what may be inferred from this study is that swearing, be it online or offline, is a highly complex linguistic phenomenon that cannot be simplified through a mere calculation of its frequency of appearance in one’s language without taking into account a variety of other factors that cause, influence, and shape their use by individuals across different demographical, social and psychological categories.

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Eckert, P., & McConnell-Ginet S. (2003). Language and gender. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Fägersten, K. B. (2012). Who’s swearing now? The social aspects of conversational swearing. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Filippova, K. (2012). User demographics and language in an implicit social network. In Proceedings of the 2012 Joint Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing and Computational Natural Language Learning, 1478-1488. Association for Computational Linguistics. Gauthier, M. (2012). Profanity and gender: A diachronic analysis of men's and women's use and perception of swear words. Profanity and Gender: A Diachronic Analysis of Men's and Women's Use and Perception of Swear Words. Gomm, I. (1981). A study of the inferior image of the female use of the English language as compared to that of the male. Unpublished BA dissertation, Edge Hill College, Ormskirk. Gur, R. C., Alsop, D., Glahn, D., Petty, R., Swanson, C. L., Maldjian, J. A. & Gur, R. E. (2000). An fMRI study of sex differences in regional activation to a verbal and a spatial task. Brain and language, 74(2), 157-170. Guvendir, Emre. (2015). Why are males inclined to use strong swear words more than females? An evolutionary explanation based on male intergroup aggressiveness. Language Sciences. 10, 1-7. 10.1016/j.langsci.2015.02.003. Hall, K. (2003). Exceptional speakers: Contested and problematized gender identities. In J. Holmes & M. Meyerhoff (Eds.), The Handbook of Language, Gender, and Sexuality (pp. 353–380). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Haslanger, S., 1995, Ontology and Social Construction, Philosophical Topics, 23, 95–125. Jay, T. (1996). What To Do When Your Students Talk Dirty. Resource Publications, Inc., 160 E. Virginia Street,# 290, San Jose, CA 95112-5876. Jay, T. (2009). The utility and ubiquity of taboo words. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4(2), 153-161. Jay, T., & Janschewitz, K. (2008). The pragmatics of swearing. Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture, 4(2), 267-288. Jordan, K., Wustenberg, T., Heinze, H.-J., Peters, M. & Jancke, L., 2002. Women and men exhibit different cortical activation patterns during mental rotation tasks. Neuropsychologia 40, 2397–2408.

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Latić, E., & Čeljo, A. B. (2018). An Exploration of Beliefs about Gender Differences in Language Use. Journal of Language and Education, 4(3), 48-57. Lee, J., & Harley, V. R. (2012). The male fight‐flight response: A result of SRY regulation of catecholamines?. BioEssays, 34(6), 454-457. Manago, A. M., Graham, M. B., Greenfield, P. M., & Salimkhan, G. (2008). Self-presentation and gender on MySpace. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29(6), 446-458. Marwick, A. E., & Boyd, D. (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New media & society, 13(1), 114-133. McEnery, T. 2005. Swearing in English. London: Routledge Mehl, M. R., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2003). The sounds of social life: A psychometric analysis of students' daily social environments and natural conversations. Journal of personality and social psychology, 84(4), 857. Miller, D., Costa, E., Haynes, N., McDonald, T., Nicolescu, R., Sinanan, J., Spyer, J., Venkatraman, S. & Wang, X. (2016). How the World Changed Social Media. London: UCL Press. Millett, K., 1971, Sexual Politics, London: Granada Publishing Ltd. Murray, T. E. (2012). Swearing as a function of gender in the language of Midwestern American College students. A cultural approach to interpersonal communication: Essential readings, 233-241. Mukherjee, A. & Liu, B. 2010. Improving gender classification of blog authors. In Proceedings of the 2010 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, 207–217. Nguyen, D., Trieschnigg, D., Doğruöz, A. S., Gravel, R., Theune, M., Meder, T., & De Jong, F. (2014). Why gender and age prediction from tweets is hard: Lessons from a crowdsourcing experiment. In Proceedings of COLING 2014, the 25th International Conference on Computational Linguistics: Technical Papers (pp. 1950-1961). Schler, J., Koppel, M., Argamon, S., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2006, March). Effects of age and gender on blogging. In AAAI spring symposium: Computational approaches to analyzing weblogs (Vol. 6, pp. 199-205).

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Taylor, S. E. (2006). Tend and befriend: Biobehavioral bases of affiliation under stress. Current directions in psychological science, 15(6), 273-277. Thelwall, M. (2008). Fk yea I swear: cursing and gender in MySpace. Corpora, 3(1), 83-107. Uhlman, K. M. (2015). Use and perception of taboo language in college-age females. Honors Theses and Capstones, 227. Retrieved from: https://scholars.unh.edu/honors/227. Wardhaugh, R. (2010). 6st ed. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. USA: Wiley-Blackwell. Waterman, A. S. (1999). Identity, the identity statuses, and identity status development: A contemporary statement. Developmental Review 19, 591–621.

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Journal of Education and Humanities Volume 1 (2), pp. 99-109, Winter 2018 Pofessional paper ISSN 2566-4638 © International Burch University http://dx.doi.org/10.14706/jeh2018126

Deontologija učiteljskog poziva, Sokratova zakletva ili Etički kodeks

Melisa Zukić, PhD

Srednjoškolski centar Hadžići

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

[email protected]

Sažetak: Deontologija, znanost o dužnostima, učiteljskog poziva

upućuje na moralnu obavezu učitelja prema učenicima. Načelo

deontologije: „Age quod agis“ ili „Radi dobro ono što radiš“

obuhvata pravne propise, psihologiju komuniciranja, ponašanje i

etiku. Prevazilazeći pedagošku etiku kao odnos prema profesionalnim

obavezama, zajednici i kolegama, ona proučava prava i dužnosti

regulisane kodeksom profesije. Razlika između Benthamovog i

Kantovog pogleda na dužnosti je razlika između profesionalne zakletve

i etičkog kodeksa škole. Stoga, deontologija dužnostima polazi od

moralno i profesionalno zrele ličnosti koja se zaklinje na uspjeh, a

etički kodeks polazi od nepovjerljivog društva koje sumnja u

istoznačnost moralnih vrijednosti, profesionalca i društva.

Abstract: Deontology, the science of teaching professional duties refers to

the moral obligation of teachers towards students. The principle of ethics:

"Age quod agis" or "Do (well) what you're doing“involves legislation,

psychology of communication, behavior and ethics. Overcoming pedagogical

ethics as attitude towards professional obligations, community and

colleagues, it studies the rights and duties regulated by the code of the

profession. The difference between Bentham's and Kant's views about duties

is the difference between professional oath and school's code of ethics.

Therefore deontology consider duties as base of moral and professionally

mature person who swears to success, while code of ethics is based on a

mistrustful society that doubt in the identity of moral values, professionals

and society as well.

Key words: deontology, code of ethics, Socrates oath

Keywords: deontologija, etički kodeks, Sokratova zakletva

Article History Submitted: 18 January 2019 Accepted: 4 February 2019

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1. UVOD

Svakodnevni rad učitelja je obilježen promicanjem dobra kao najznačajnijeg društvenog potencijala. Sama ličnost učitelja, stoga, bi trebala biti takva da prepoznaje vlastite dužnosti autentično, te ih posvećeno obavlja najbolje što može „Age quod agis“. Vlastitim obrazovanjem učitelj bi se trebao i etički usavršavati čiji vrhunac bi bio obilježen profesionalnom zakletvom. Sa druge strane, kako bi se izbjegle moguće individualne različitosti u ličnosti i sistemu vrijednosti učitelja kao profesionalaca, donose se profesionalni etički kodeksi koji sistematiziraju postupke i ponašanja u akciji, na taj način otvarajući mogućnost za samoprocjenu i eksternu procjenu kvalitete rada. U tom smislu tekst se osvrće na teorijsko razumijevanje etike kao društvene nauke o moralu, njenog normativno-znanstvenog aspekta kao i same deontologije sa namjerom razumijevanja dužnosti učitelja da prenese dobro učeniku, dok istovremeno nastoji da prevaziđe (često nametnutu) činovničku komponentu poziva.

2. ETIKA

Iako je etika, kao pojam, rasprostranjena u svakodnevnom govoru potreban je izvjestan trud za njeno definiranje. Etika i moral imaju ista značenja koja potječu iz grčkog jezika (ethos) i latinskog jezika (mos, mores i moralis) u značenju navika, običaj, karakter, ćudoređe. Stoga, prema Čehok, Koprek i dr. (1996) etiku možemo definirati i kao društvenu nauku o moralu koja proučava ciljeve i smisao morala, kriterije za vrednovanje moralnih postupaka te izvor, zasnovanost, razvitak i usavršavanje morala. Vukasović (1993) se u tom smislu oslanja na samog osnivača etike Sokrata, koji je smatra vrlinom življenja u skladu sa zahtjevima “unutarnjeg glasa”, na njegovog učenika Platona koji je ideju dobra smatrao osnovnom moralnosti, te na Aristotela koji etiku predstavlja kao sistem društvenog ponašanja. S obzirom da se definicije etike svode na lično uvjerenje čovjeka – lični sistem vrijednosti u kojem se zna što je dobro, a šta je loše, šta je ispravno, a šta je neispravno, naslućuju se tri temeljne implikacije etike koje Radoš (2017) predstavlja kao:

1. individualnost etike - pojedinci imaju etiku, a ne organizacije 2. etičko ponašanje može varirati od osobe do osobe 3. relativnost (a ne apsolutnost) etike

U tom smislu Radoš (2017) smatra da se od same etike očekuje usavršavanje

kao zauzimanje stava prema postojećim moralnim sistemima. Etiku možemo vrlo jednostavno klasificirati na principu koji je predstavio Vukasović (1993):

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1. Kada kao kriterij uzmemo cilj čovjekovog praktičnog djelovanja, etika se dijeli na:

Eudaimonizam (eudaimonia- grč. sreća) – svrha i smisao moralnog djelovanja je u postizanju sreće.

Hedonizam (hedone- grč. užitak) – najveća vrijednost i smisao života je u trenutačnom pozitivnom tjelesnom užitku.

Utilitarizam (utilis- lat. koristan) – u prvi plan stavlja težnju za korisnošću.

2. Po kriteriju sadržaja i namjere svijesti, etika se dijeli na:

Etika dužnosti (deontološka etika) – Kant je predstavio samu dužnost kao takvu, uzvišenom i veličanstvenom. Poštovanje dužnosti je moralni imperativ, unutrašnja zapovjed našeg uma koja zahtjeva da načelo prilikom postupanja bude tako postavljeno da ga mogu prihvatiti i druge osobe, tj. da ono bude opće ljudsko načelo.

Etika odgovornosti – pojam odgovornosti se često svodi na pravnu i/ili moralnu uračunljivost podrazumijevajući znanje, volju i slobodu kao nužne elemente. Danas, ovaj pojam sve više zauzima mjesto koje je u etici imala dužnost konkretizujući se profesionalnim etikama.

3. Po kriteriju porijekla moralne obaveze, etika se dijeli na:

Autonomnu etiku – izvor morala je u samom čovjeku.

Heteronomna etika – izvor morala je izvan čovjeka (npr. društvene norme, autoritet i sl.)

4. Po kriteriju odnosa pojedinca i društva, etika se dijeli na:

Individualna etika – lično uvjerenje pojedinca o ispravnosti/neispravnosti njegovog ponašanja.

Socijalna etika – se bavi socijalnim aspektom moralnih odnosa i moralnim obavezama pojedinca prema zajednici i zajednice prema pojedincu.

5. Po kriteriju važenja etičkih zapovijesti, etika se dijeli na:

Etika suštine - suština tvori postojanu prirodu neke stvari.

Situacijska etika - tvrdi da je moralnost nekog čina određena konkretnim kontekstom.

6. Po kriteriju sadržaja pravila djelovanja, etika se dijeli na:

(Formalna) Etika dužnosti – može se poistovjetiti sa radnom etikom kao skupom stavova i ponašanja utemeljenih na vrijednostima rada.

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(Materijalna) Etika vrijednosti– Shvatajući vrijednosti kao javna dobra u sferama morala, religije, umjetnosti i tehnike koja podrazumijevaju opstanak društvene zajednice.

7. Po kriteriju utemeljenja moralnog zahtjeva, etika se dijeli na:

Normativna etika – postavlja pitanja ispravnosti i opravdanosti postojećih moralnih shvaćanja i odnosa zuzimajući kritički stav prema postojećim oblicima istovremeno postavljajući i formulirajući određene kriterije pravilnog moralnog prosuđivanja i djelovanja. Ovakva etika se pita: „Kakav bi to moral trebao biti da čovjek (pojedinac) kao i društvo ispune svoju ulogu?“

Deskriptivna (empirijska) etika –ima empirijsko eksplikativni (deskriptivni) zadatak sastavljen od proučavanja i opisivanja moralnih odnosa i moralnih shvaćanja koji su se pojavljivali u određenim etapama društvenog razvoja. Ona nastoji dati odgovor na pitanja: „Šta je moral?“, „Od kada postoji?“, „Kako je nastao?“, „Od čega ovisi?“, i sl.

3. ETIKA KAO NORMATIVNA ZNANOST

Normativni aspekti etike, fokusiraju se na čovjekovo ponašanje, odnosno na etiku u praksi. U tom smislu normativna etika kao nauka nastoji da ostane oslonjena na objektivne činjenice, koje su zadane i nepromjenjive. Stoga Rošić (2017) prema Polić (1990) ukazuje a to da znanstvena etika odnosno etika kao normativna znanost, teži da utvrdi one teorijske principe, prema kojima svaki pojedinac treba živjeti i djelovati, što ukazuje na njen bitan zadatak da znanstveno-teorijski odredi moguće ljudsko djelovanje. Etika u tom smislu pokazuje pravac u kojem se osoba treba ostvariti kao čovjek, stavljajući naglasak kako je to moguće tek uz pomoć nauke, suprotstavljajući je samovolji i pokazujući put ispravnog ljudskog djelovanja. Tek tada umjesto čovjekovog lutanja u svakodnevnom životu etika ga nedvosmisleno usmjerava prema dobru. U tom smislu prepoznajemo etiku kao normativnu znanost u težnji ka tome da u danom traži mjesta ka mogućem. Kao i kod svake znanosti, Rošić (2017) ukazuje da normativna etika želi znati da bi mogla mijenjati, a čini se kako je upravo znanje najbolja osnova za to. Pri tome Rošić (2017:7) predlaže da se vodi računa o tome da „... moguće iz kojega i po kojem promjene mogu doći, još nije ali niti ne može biti predmet znanstvene spoznaje sve dok moguće ne postane zbiljsko, čime se potvrđuje da je zbiljsko moguće, ali istovremeno, barem za znanost, prestaje biti moguće kao nešto drugo od onoga što već jest. S obzirom na navedeno, znanost je uvijek korak iza djelatnog čina, koji po njoj mora biti određen, što znači da normativna znanost može zahtijevati isključivo ono što jeste“.

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4. KANTOVA ETIKA

U želji da probudi moralnu svijest savremenika, Immanuel Kant je nedvosmisleno ukazivao na čovjekovu potrebu za uvažavanjem i poštovanjem ljudskih dužnosti. Na tom stanovištu se suprotstavio „etici dobara“, materijalnom vrednovanju, korisnosti, osjetnim efektima kao izvoru morala i kriterija moralnih vrijednosti. Kao takva Kantova etika kategoričkog imperativa, započinje potpuno novo razdoblje u historiji etike. Kant je u svojim reformama kako primjećuje Rošić (2017) zahtijevao temeljitu razradu moralnih shvaćanja kreirajući etiku prihvatanja normi i zakona. U tom smislu, Kantova etika ne temelji etičku normu na sadržajnom dobru, već dobro izvodi na temelju norme. Iz tog razloga, Kantova etika je apriorna jer istražuje načela ljudskog uma i čistu volju, neovisno o vanjskim utjecajima ali i pobudama. Kantova etika je isto tako i etika moralnih dužnosti. Rošić (2017:8) u tom smislu citira Kanta koji govori: “ Čovjek mora izvršavati svoju dužnost, svoju ljudsku dužnost!” Iz navedenog se vidi da je za Kanta dužnost nešto veliko, uzvišeno i veličanstveno. On je smatrao kako se ljudski duh uzdiže pomoću unutarnje svijesti o dužnosti, njenim ispunjavanjem i poštivanjem. Poštovanje i obavljanje ljudskih dužnosti spada u imperative unutrašnjeg ili apriorornog zahtjeva kao zapovijedi našeg uma. U takvim okolnostima unutarnji glas uma kako navodi Rošić (2017) kategorički zahtijeva od nas i naše volje da načela našeg postupanja, budu takva da ih mogu prihvatiti i druge osobe, odnosno da ono bude opet ljudsko načelo. Kant pritome ističe da slobodu ne trebamo doživljavati tako da možemo raditi šta god želimo i kako god to želimo, već da čovjek koji postupa u skladu s ljudskim dužnostima i u skladu s moralnim zakonima je istovremeno u skladu sa kategoričkim imperativom i predstavlja najslobodnijeg čovjeka na svijetu. Rošić (2017) ne zaobilazi ni drugi Kantov moralni zahtjev, kojim traži da se čovjek ali i sve ljudsko u čovjeku tretira kao svrha a ne samo kao sredstvo, zato što čovjek pripada svojevrsnom “carstvu svrha”, sam sebi propisujujući zakone i norme te ih kao takve sam primjenjuje i izvršava. Kantova etika čovjeka postavlja kao mjerilo moraliteta, a sam moralni zakon postaje plod čovjekova uma koji se ostvaruje njegovom voljom. Vujović (2017), Kantovu filozofiju morala centralizovanu oko principa moralnosti postavljenog u Kritici praktičkog uma, postavlja kao osnov za razumijevanje njegove deontološke etike. Karakterizacija kategoričkog imperativa kao objektivnog, racionalnog, neophodnog i bezuslovnog principa, kojim se mora uvijek voditi svako umno biće, fundament je za oblikovanje deontologije.

5. DEONTOLOGIJA

Pedagoška etika kao dio pedagoške kompetencije predstavlja normativnu znanost djelovanja učitelja nastojeći dati odgovore o potrebi činjenja dobra i njegovog definisanja, predstavljajući odraz moralnosti učiteljskog posla.

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Savremena škola je potreba i imperativ postmodernog društvenog stanja obilježenog kontradiktornošću između „ja hoću" i „ja treba da", tragajući za učiteljem osposobljenim za aktivni komunikacijski proces od kojeg ovisi uspješnost međuljudskih odnosa, a to je učiteljska deontologija kako je Rosić (2011) predstavlja. Naziv deontologija se pojavljuje polovinom 19.vijeka u djelu „Deontology“ engleskog filozofa Jeremije Benthoma oslanjajući se na grčke termine „deon“ - što treba biti i „logos“- nauka. U tom smislu deontologija je nauka o dužnostima koje treba ispuniti, o dužnostima kao moralnoj obavezi učitelja prema osobama koje se oslanjanju na njegovo znanje. U tom smislu osnovno načelo deontologije predstavlja grčka izreka: „Age quod agis“ – „Radi (dobro) ono što radiš“. Deontologija učiteljskog poziva se reguliše odgovarajućim kodeksom profesije. U okvire deontologije spadaju i pozitivni pravni propisi koji regulišu učiteljsku struku kao i svojevrsna psihologija komuniciranja, ponašanja i etika. Iako je deontologija dio etike ona je šira od pojma pedagoške etike jer obuhvata i zakonske propise. Stoga možemo govoriti o etičkoj, stručnoj i kaznenoj deontologiji učiteljskog poziva. Etička deontologija učiteljskog poziva je najšira, pa jednim dijelom obuhvata i stručnu koja može, a i ne mora biti etički neprihvatljiv postupak ili čak kazneno djelo. Etiku klasificiramo kao deontološku i teleološku etiku ili kao formalnu i materijalnu etiku. Deontološke teorije o etici grupišu norme ili načela djelovanja koje etiku čine dobrom u skladu sa normom ili u skladu sa načinom djelovanja. Baziraju se na dužnosti da se nešto učini ili ne propusti učiniti ističući vrijednosti moralnog djelovanja kao takvog. Istraživači deontologije dijele se na monističke i pluralističke. Monistička deontologija polazi od jednog etičkog načela kao ishodišta za sva ostala npr. Kantov kategorički imperativ, dok pluralistička deontologija polazi od više međusobno ravnopravnih pravila npr. deset (Božijih) zapovjedi. Stoga se pluralistički deontolozi češće nalaze u moralnim dilemama. Odgovarajući primjer deontološke etike prema mišljenju Rosić (2011) i Živković (2009) je Kantova etika, koja polazi od pojma dužnosti koja za njih predstavlja “nužnost djelovanja iz poštovanja prema zakonu”. Profesionalne etike se pak oslanjaju na osnovna opća etička načela nastojeći ustanoviti norme djelovanja pojedinih struka i zanimanja, dok personalistička etika kao načelo etike postavlja osobu, čineći je temeljem svih kriterija etičko-moralnog djelovanja i vrijednošću koja nadilazi sve druge. Personalistička etika, kao takva, predstavlja bazu Hipokratove zakletve i Opće povelje o pravima čovjeka, kao općeprihvaćenim aktima etičko-moralnih vrijednosti savremene civilizacije. Za Rosića (2011) učiteljska etika obuhvata odnos prema profesionalnim obavezama, prema zajednici i prema drugim učiteljima, postavljajući etička načela od kojih su neka: načelo koristi, dobročinstva, neškodljivosti, autonomnosti, pravednosti, povjerenja, istinoljubivosti itd.

6. ETIČKI KODEKS ILI ZAKLETVA

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Pedagoška etika se može definirati i kao disciplina koja se bavi procesom moralnog prosuđivanja uspostavljanjem kriterija koji preciziraju šta je dobro a šta loše u procesu i rezultatu odgoja i obrazovanja, ali i kao zaseban sistem moralnih normi koji reguliše ponašanje učitelja prema učenicima, sebi, nastavnom sadržaju i drugim učesnicima pedagoškog procesa. U njenim okvirima, učitelji nastoje postići najviše ideale svoje profesije. To se odnosi na temeljne profesionalne odgovornosti (individualno, kolektivno i institucionalno) usmjerene prema njihovoj profesiji, akademskoj disciplini, obrazovnoj instituciji i društvu u cijelosti. Pedagoška etika u svojoj srži predstavlja deontologiju učiteljskog posla, u smislu učenja o dužnostima učitelja prema učenicima. Savremena škola u praksi očekuje da učitelj svoje dužnosti usmjeri ka pomaganju učenicima da napreduju u skladu sa individualnim mogućnostima, ka sticanju iskustava, ohrabrivanju učenika kao partnera odgovornog za preuzete obaveze, organiziranju učenika da iskažu vlastitu kreativnost, poticanju učenika itd. Iz navedenog se može uvidjeti da je pedagoška etika razvijajuća a ne statična, doprinoseći tako mijenjanju i učenika i učitelja. Iako je posao učitelja za etiku određen moralnim zakonom, učitelj ipak zakonske propise struke svakodnevni uči i primjenjuje. Rosić (2011) stoga kaže kako u etičkom, pedagoškom i deontološkom značenju u svom moralnom djelovanju gospodarimo nad postupcima od početka do kraja. Deontologija učitelja je smislena aktivnost koja povezuju učiteljska umijeća i to najprije znanje o nastavnom sadržaju, nastavnim metodama, nastavnom planu i programu, učenicima i drugim faktorima koji utiču na uspješnost učenja sa pripremanjem za nastavni rad i konkretnim nastavnim aktivnostima. Stoga nas ne iznenađuje što se mnoge deontološke postavke o odgoju i obrazovanju kao interakcijsko-komunikacijskom procesu ostvaruju u ličnosti samog učitelja i njegovom načinu rada na šta su ukazivali Henting (1997), Liessmann (2008) i Rosić (2011). Uvriježeno je mišljenje kako je poštovanje etičkih pravila i načela istoznačno sa poštovanjem zakona. Međutim, profesije poput medicine, obrazovanja ili vojske zahtijevaju ponašanja koja prevazilaze zakon. Stoga, među bitnim elemenima za razlikovanje profesija i neprofesija je postojanje profesionalne etike formulisane eksplicitnim profesionalnim kodeksom. Živković (2009) ukazuje kako je UNESCO u Preporukama za učiteljski status od 5. 10. 1966. zahtijevao da „norme ponašanja i mjerila koja se utemeljuju u prirodi nastavničke djelatnosti treba definisati u saradnji s nastavničkim udruženjima i onda ih se pridržavati“. U SAD-u postoji „Code of Ethics of the Education“, dok je kod nas npr. radna grupa, Agencije za predškolsko, osnovno i srednje obrazovanje uz tehničku podršku UNICEF-a, izradila dokument pod nazivom „Etički kodeks“, namijenjen svim osnovnim školama u Bosni i Hercegovini. Kodeks je nastao u okviru projekta: Razvoj sistema praćenja kvalitete u obrazovanju, tj. etičkog kodeksa i indikatora interkulturalnog i inkluzivnog obrazovanja, u okviru pružanja tehničke pomoći pri razvijanju interkulturalnog etičkog kodeksa za nastavnike i učenike u osnovnom obrazovanju koji stoji na stavu da razvijanje i usvajanje etičkog kodeksa omogućava instituciji definisanje parametara zrelog profesionalnog identiteta kao standarda u praksi te pravnu regulaciju njegove upotrebe, ali i kao

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sredstvo za procjenu i samoprocjenu profesionalca. U tom smislu bi se definicija etičkog kodeksa usmjerila na zajedničke vrijednosti i skup pravila ponašanja koje neka profesija prihvata sa svrhom osiguravanja svim sudionicima u radu, bez obzira na rang i položaj, jasnih smjernica potrebnih za donošenje jednoobraznih etičkih odluka u profesionanom kontekstu. Etički kodeks se istovremeno obraća i javnosti govoreći o određenoj profesiji, njenim zalaganjima i očekivanjima. Hartmut von Hentig (1997) se, sa druge strane u svojoj knjizi Humana škola, zalaže za Sokratovu zakletvu koja nastupa sa pozicije personalističke etike baš kao i Hipokratova zakletva. Tekst Sokratove zakletve obavezuje učitelja:

da odgojno-obrazovnom poslu pristupi svjesno i obavlja ga savjesno

da cjelokupni odgojno-obrazovni rad utemelji na saznanjima pedagogije, psihologije i njima srodnih nauka

da poštuje svako dijete

da ga braniti od svega što je usmjereno protiv njega

da se zalaže za njegov psihički i fizički sklad

da poštuje njegove osjećaje

da ga uvažava kao ravnopravnog sagovornika

da traži njegovo odobrenje za sve što čini za njega

da upozna zakonitosti njegovog razvoja

da otkriva i razvija njegove sklonosti

da ne lomi njegovu volju

da ga poučava kako korištenju sopstveni razum

da ga osposobljava za preuzimanje odgovornosti za život, rad i stvaralaštvo u zajednici

da ga ne podčinjava svojim shvatanjima svijeta, ljudskog društva i čovjeka

da mu nastoji pružiti viziju boljeg svijeta

da mu omogući upoznavanje dobrog života

da ga uvjeri kako se vizija boljeg svijeta može ostvariti

da ga podučava istinoljubivosti

da pokazuje ličnim primjerom

da javno obrazlaže svoja uvjerenja i djela, argumentima ih braneći od kritike

da sopstveni rad svjesno provjerava

da bude spreman za provjeru djelatnosti U tom smislu bi se etičke norme internalizirale u samu osobu, u njen

sistem vrijednosti, dok bi se sa druge strane izgubila prethodno navedena svrha eksterne mogućnosti standardiziranog testiranja kvalitete rada. Stoga, ne iznenađuje sveprisutna zapitanost treba li donositi učiteljski kodeks ili pak učiteljsku zakletvu, jer je razlika bitna. Zakletvu polažu ljekari završavanjem medicinskog fakulteta a vojnici završavanjem obuke. Pitamo se: „Je li logično da učitelji imaju svoj profesionalni kodeks, a ne zakletvu“? Zakletva, koja sugeriše neupitnu obavezu čini se da bi bolje odgovarala prirodi učiteljskog poziva, kako

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konstatuje Živković (2009). U tom smislu Živković (2009) navodi kako se nakon Hentiga i Cindrić zalaže za zakletvu koju bi davali studenti preuzimanjem diplome, predlažući da tekst zakletve R. Dottrensa iz 1996., uz UNESCO-vu podršku čiji je tekst: „Vršiću svoju obavezu savjesno i ponosno. Moji učenici biće mi ne samo učenici nego i djeca te nikada neću zaboraviti da za njihovu sudbinu i sam snosim dio odgovornosti. Svim raspoloživim sredstvima ću čuvati čast učiteljskog poziva. Moje kolege će mi uvijek biti prijatelji. S njima u saradnji nastojaću stalno usavršavati puteve kojima škola ide priznajući svima pravo na odgoj i socijalnu pravednost u obrazovanju. Ovu zakletvu polažem sasvim slobodno i časno“. Za razliku od zakletve kodeksom se pobraja skup konkretnih dužnosti kojih se treba pridržavati u obavljanju neke službe. Prema Kantu, etički kodeks bi se trebao temeljiti na formulaciji kategoričkog imperativa obuhvatajući osnovne dužnosti prema sebi i prema drugima sa pozicije specifičnosti učiteljskog poziva. Iz navedenog razumijevamo da bi svaki kodeks za učitelje trebao imati pet osnovnih teza: kategorički imperativ i četiri odredbe koje govore o odnosu učitelja prema sebi i prema drugima (učenici, kolege, šira socijalna sredina, država). Iz ovoga slijedi da bi prema Živkoviću (2009) jezgra etičkog kodeksa za učitelje mogla glasiti ovako:

1. Učitelj poučava tako da su mu učenici svrha a ne sredstvo 2. Učitelj kao uzor, živi tako da se hrabro nosi s nevoljama života ne

narušavajući svoj tjelesni i duhovni integritet, a tome poučava i svoje učenike

3. Učitelj raste kao duhovna osoba koja unaprjeđuje svoje znanje i umijeće poučavanja, a svojim učenicima pomaže da otkriju i razvijaju vlastite talente

4. Učitelj kao istinoljubiva osoba tome poučava i svoje učenike 5. Učitelj pomažući ljudima, tome poučava i svoje učenike

7. ZAKLJUČAK Vođeni promišljanjima iz ovog rada proveli smo akcijsko istraživanje u jednom od Srednjoškolskih centara KS na uzorku od 80 profesora (opći predmeti, stručno teorijski predmeti i praksa), primjenom anketnog upitnika koji se nalazio kao prilog tekstu Etičkog kodeksa škole i tekstu Sokratove zakletve. Pitanje u anketnom upitniku je glasilo: „Koji od priloženih tekstova (Etički kodeks škole ili Sokratova zakletva), po vašem mišljenju, autentičnije predstavlja učiteljev doživljaj dužnosti?“

Rezultati su nas doveli do saznanja da je 72 (90%) od ispitanih profesora sklonije Sokratovoj zakletvi u poređenju sa 8 (10%) profesora kojima je etički kodeks preferirana formulacija za sistematiziranje učiteljskih dužnosti. Interesantno je spomenuti i zapažanje da je Sokratova zakletva kao neformalan

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dokument vidljivo istaknuta u zajedničkim prostorijama nastavnog osoblja škole u kojoj je istraživanje provedeno. To nas je povelo putem do pedagoške službe i neformalnog objašnjenja kako Sokratova zakletva ipak „ima motivacijski učinak“ a etički kodeks „normativni učinak“. Razloga vjerojatno ima još, a to bi moglo pokrenuti potpuno novi istraživački proces. Bez obzira na okolnosti, učitelji ulažu izuzetan trud u savjesnom odnosu prema svojim dužnostima, ostvarujući tako osnovno pravilo odgojnog rada da se prihvatanjem dužnosti prihvatamo i svakodnevnog djelovanja, prevazilazeći spoznaju o činovničkoj dimenziji učiteljskog poziva u pravcu spoznaje o učiteljima kao kreatorima znanja i razvoja. Stoga, promišljajući o razvoju etičkih kompetencija učitelja, kreira se okosnica za promišljanja o savremenom učitelju koji predstavlja ključnog aktera promjena u budućnosti.

REFERENCES

Cindrić, M. (1995), Profesija učitelj u svijetu i Hrvatskoj. Velika Gorica–Zagreb:

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Čehok, I. Koprek, I. i dr. (1996. Etika – priručnik jedne discipline, Zagreb: Školska

knjiga.

Fiamengo, A. (1985). Osnove opće sociologije, Zagreb: Narodne novine.

Fočo, S. (2003). Sociologija odgoja i obrazovanja, Zenica: Dom štampe.

Glasser, W. (1993). Nastavnik u kvalitetnoj školi, Zagreb: Educa.

Hentig, V. H.(1997). Humana škola, Zagreb: Educa.

Kant, I. (1953), Osnove metafizike ćudoređa. Zagreb: Matica hrvatska.

Konig, E. i Zedler, P. (2001). Teorije znanosti o odoju: uvod u osnove, metode i

praktičnu primjenu, Zagreb: Educa.

Liessmann, P.L. (2008). Teorija neobrazovanosti- Zablude društva znanja,

Zagreb: Naklada Jesenski i Turk.

Radoš, M. (2017). Etika i odgoj, Završni rad, Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Učiteljski

fakultet, Odsjek za odgojiteljski studij, na sajtu:

https://repozitorij.ufzg.unizg.hr, očitano: 22. 1. 2019.g.

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Rosić, V. (2011). Deontologija učitelja - temelj pedagoške etike, u časopisu:

Informatol. 44, 142-149.

Strike, K. A. (1988). The Ethics of Teaching. The Phi Delta Kappan, 70(2), 156-158.

Tillmann, K-J, (1994). Teorije škole, Zagreb: Educa.

Vukasović, A. (1993). Etika-Moral-Osobnost, Zagreb: Školska knjiga.

Vujović, M. (2017). Osnovni principi Kantove etike dužnosti, u časopisu: Matica,

br. 71, str. 389-426, očitano na sajtu: http://www.maticacrnogorska.me, 22. 1.

2019.g.

Warnick, B. R. & Silverman, S. K. (2011). A Framework for Professional Ethics

Courses in Teacher Education, Journal of Teacher Education 62, 273-285.

Živković, M. (2009). Kodeks učitelja zasnovan na Kantovom nauku o dužnosti,

u časopisu: Metodički ogledi, 16, 23–34

Učiteljska zakletva, na sajtu:http://www.prviprvinaskali.com, očitano: 26. 3.

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National EducationAssociation (2002). Code of Ethics of the Education

Proffesion. www.nea.org./aboutnea/code.html.

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Journal of Education and Humanities Volume 1 (2), pp. 110-125, Winter 2018 Original research paper ISSN 2566-4638 © International Burch University http://dx.doi.org/10.14706/jeh2018122

Bilingualism in Kuwait – a linguistic landscape approach

Amna Brdarević Čeljo1, PhD Sead Zolota2

1 International Burch University,

Sarajevo B&H

2 Kuwait Academy Bilingual School, Riggae, Kuwait

[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract: This paper examined the linguistic landscape of the

Governorate of Farwaniya, the biggest governorate in the State of

Kuwait, by means of public and private signs displayed in the city

center and side streets. A corpus of 150 photos of diverse signs, both

official and non-official, was collected, categorized, analyzed and

discussed. The results point to an undeniable representation of the

Arabic language in both public and private spheres of life as well as

to a substantial presence of the English language on a wide range of

signage therefore confirming the imprint the process of globalization

has made on this EFL context. The findings also indicate that some

other world languages, namely Bengali, Hindi, and Chinese, are

represented in the linguistic landscape of Kuwait but rather poorly.

Keywords: linguistic landscape, monolingual and multilingual signs, official and non-official signs, ethnolinguistic vitality

Article History Submitted: 15 January 2019 Accepted: 10 February 2019

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Bilingualism in Kuwait – a linguistic landscape approach Amna Brdarević Čeljo & Sead Zolota

1. INTRODUCTION

In the modern day and age, we are constantly surrounded by a maze of intricate signage, whether it is a street sign, a shop sign, an advertisement, or a graffiti. The most frequent manifestation of a sign takes the shape of a written message, an image, or in most cases, a combination of both. Their display, content, location, and context constitute the concept of linguistic landscape and they represent the main investigatory data from which information about the linguistic and socio-political context of a country in question can be drawn. The field of linguistic landscape focuses on studying representations of language in public spheres of human life, which may include any visible signs, people`s perception of it, and how they interact with it. With the process of globalization in full swing and the ideologies of multilingualism and multiculturalism firmly rooted in different countries around the world, this field has attracted the attention and intense interest of researchers in different disciplines, such as sociolinguistics, sociology, linguistic anthropology, politics, semiotics, and urban studies. The term linguistic landscape has been contested and some other terms have been proposed, namely “the decorum of the public life” (Ben-Rafael, Shohamy, Amara & Trumper-Hecht, 2006, p. 10), the “environmental print” (Huebner, 2006, p. 33-35) and a “multilingual cityscape” (Gorter, 2006, p. 2). In all the aforementioned proposals, the notion of landscape has been avoided due to the fact that the term landscape denotes a large area of the countryside or “a painting depicting a scenery on land” (Gorter, 2006, p. 83) whereas the main focus of this field is actually a public, urban area. In addition to this, the term linguistic has also been found problematic since, as Jaworski and Thurlow (2010) maintain, linguistic is only one of the elements for the construction and interpretation of a place as the written discourse always “interacts with other discursive modalities: visual images, nonverbal communication, architecture, and the built environment” (Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010, p. 2). Still, as the notion of linguistic landscape has been widely accepted and frequently used by many researchers in the field (e.g. Backhaus, 2005; Ben-Rafael et al., 2006; Huebner, 2009; Landry & Bourhis, 1997) it is employed as such in the current paper.

Linguistic landscape (LL) is described as “the language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings [that] combines to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region, or urban agglomeration” (Landry & Bourhis, 1997, p. 25) or as a language on the objects in the public space (Ben-Rafael et al., 2006). It determines and clarifies which languages are most prominent and particularly valued in the public and private spheres and “indexes the social positioning of people who identify with particular languages” (Dagenais et al., 2009, p. 254). Shohamy and Gorter (2009, pp. 1-2) believe that the prime focus of LL research is language in the immediate environment, namely words as well as images displayed in public spaces and they associate the LL

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with language that is visible and can be observed in schools, buses, government buildings, cities, etc. Thus, analyzing the language displayed in the researched context, the context itself, people identifying with that language as well as messages conveyed is the core of LL research.

Researchers in the field of linguistic landscape gather data on language displayed in public spaces by visiting different geographical sites which they believe might contain interesting information on the (socio)linguistic or socio-political situation. Thus, some studies focused on the analysis of main streets or shopping streets (Blackwood & Tufi, 2015; Cenoz & Gorter, 2003) or researched the surrounding of a public transport route (Backhaus, 2007), while others focused on advertising billboards (Tulp, 1978) or shopping malls (Trumper-Hecht, 2009). As mentioned earlier, the main investigatory data in this field are signs from the environment performing different functions. The purpose and location of signs play a vital role in their interpretation and we distinguish them based on their function and the context in which they are displayed. According to Chandler (2002, p. 4) signs “take the form of words, images, sounds, odors, flavors, acts or objects, but such things have not intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning”. Chandler (2002) emphasized that something represents a sign when it is interpreted as a signifier of something “referring to or standing for something other than itself” (p. 4). Scollon and Scollon (2003) state that there are three different ways a sign can have a meaning in semiotic theory. Firstly, the sign can be a picture of something in the environment and it is called an icon. Secondly, it can be a random representation of a thing in the world and it is called a symbol and thirdly, a sign has a meaning because of the place and time it is located in and it is called an index.

Signs have been classified in various ways. Heubner (2009) focused on the purpose a sign has in the linguistics landscape and proposed that signs be classified as informational, interactional, directive, expressive, and poetic, which emphasizes the importance of the function of a sign. Likewise, Landry and Bourhis (1997) also attached great importance to the function of a sign and the function of the linguistic landscape of a territory in general and they stated that the linguistic landscape of a territory can have two different functions, namely informational and symbolic. Thus, the linguistic landscape serves to inform “in-group and out-group members of the linguistic characteristics, territorial limits, and language boundaries of the region they have entered” (Landry & Bourhis, 1997, p. 25). However, Landry and Bourhis (1997) also point out the symbolic function of a sign and state that signs can emotionally and ideologically impact the members of the linguistic landscape in which these signs are displayed. Thus, the absence of a language on public signs certainly affects the feelings of the members of that language group in a setting featuring more than one language (Bourhis, 1992).

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Signs, such as traffic signs, may inform us or contain a warning notice we should heed, whereas other signs may display names of government institutions or product advertisements providing us with information which is in accordance with our interest. Based on the type of the information signs provide, they can be classified into private signs and government signs (Landry & Bourhis, 1997; Leclerc, 1989). Private signs are non-official and they are commercial signs on shops and other businesses, commercials on billboards, advertising signs in public transport system and individual cars (Landry & Bourhis, 1997). On the other hand, government signs are road signs, street names, names of different governmental institutions etc. Additionally, Ben-Rafael et al. (2010) rely on this classification providing different names for public and government signs. Thus, they classify signs as top-down and bottom-up, whereby top-down or official signs designate government signs while bottom-up or non-official signs designate private signs. In this division of signs, there exists an ambiguous area related to the discrepancies in the design of official and non-official signs due to a substantial difference between them. That particular area was scrutinized by Huebner (2009, p. 74), who claimed that “the distinction between `top-down` versus ̀ bottom-up` failed to capture the notion of agency and how it impacted language forms in the linguistic landscape”.

Official or government signs are frequently translated into some widely spread world languages mainly for the purpose of ensuring that tourists and foreigners who visit the country can read them and because of the language policy in the country (Backhaus, 2006), though there are still some official signs which are left untranslated. As for non-official or private signs, their translation depends on the owners of the shops or any other businesses and most owners decide to provide the translation because they want to attract as many tourists or foreigners as possible. The representation of other languages on signs apart from the native tongue is the basic criterion for distinguishing between monolingual and multilingual signs, the distinction made by Backhaus (2006) and the distinction which will be made in this paper.

Though a rather new research field, linguistic landscape has sparked an interest of many researchers involved in decoding multilingualism on a global scale. One of the pioneers of linguistic landscape research, Spolsky and Cooper (1991), examined 100 signs in Jerusalem, proposing three classifications of signs. The first classification relates to the function and the use of signs (street signs, advertising signs, warning notices, building names, informative signs, commemorative plaques, signs labelling objects and graffiti), the second one takes into consideration the materials from which the sign is made or its physical form (metal, tile, poster, wood, and stone), while the third classification takes into account the language used in the sign and the number of languages, thus making clear distinction between monolingual signs, bilingual signs, and multilingual signs. The main focus of this study in the field of linguistic landscape was the language choice on street signs in Jerusalem and the results revealed that public

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signs make an important contribution to communication between people of different ethnicities and that ethnic diversity is reflected on multilingual signs and “recongized and respected” (Spolsky & Cooper, 1991, p. 151) in the Old City of Jerusalem. Some other studies in this field followed. Hence, researching linguistic landscape of Montreal, Monnier (1991) presented interesting results which suggest that French was an overwhelmingly dominant language on the signs in department stores, whereas English was highly prevalent in hotels and restaurants. Moreover, Scollon and Scollon (2003) investigated the presence of English signs in the linguistic landscape of Beijing and they concluded that English is not used for the convenience of foreigners, but simply to advertise their taste and manners. In addition to these studies whose main investigatory data were solely signs, there were also some studies which employed questionnaires to gain people’s perceptions of the linguistic landscape of the area they inhabit or visit. Thus, Bruyèl-Olmedo and Juan-Garau (2009) conducted research on tourists’ expectations about the linguistic landscape in the resort of Arenal in Majorca and they stated that they expected to be able to see English in every place in public thus confirming a global trend of the omnipresence of English in the public space of an area, a tourist area in particular.

A broad range of countries, cities, and environments have been analyzed offering a number of distinctive perspectives on multilingualism in different parts of the world. However, to our knowledge, no studies in the field of linguistic landscape have been conducted in Kuwait. Hence, this paper might make a modest contribution to the future of studies in this field. This paper examines the linguistic landscape of Kuwait which involves the presence of official and non-official signs and their dissemination throughout the Governorate of Farwaniya located in Kuwait. Kuwait, officially known as State of Kuwait, is a small country located in the Middle-East in the northern edge of the Persian Gulf bordering Iraq and Saudi Arabia. It is a culturally diverse country boasting numerous cultures and nationalities coming from Iran, Egypt, India, Arica, and western countries as well. Due to its highly developed economy, it has attracted many expatriates from around the globe. Consequently, more than half the population consists of expatriates, which was confirmed by The World Factbook (2015) stating that “Expatriates in Kuwait account for around 70% of Kuwait's total population. 60% of Kuwait's total population are Arabs (including Arab expats)”. The official language of Kuwait is Arabic. In addition to Arabic, minority languages, such as Hindi, Bengali, Tagalog, Chinese and Japanese, are also used as well as English which is most widespread due to its role as a global lingua franca. The fact that the members of this linguistic landscape speak different languages has contributed to the development of multilingualism and the emergence of bilingual or multilingual signs.

In this paper, the representation of languages on signs in two urban areas, the main market street abounding in both official and non-official signage,

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Bilingualism in Kuwait – a linguistic landscape approach Amna Brdarević Čeljo & Sead Zolota

namely the Governorate of Farwaniya and Riggae. Farwaniya was chosen on the grounds of it being culturally and linguistically diverse. On the other hand, Riggae is a sparsely populated area but was selected as a useful contrast to Farwaniya. Taking into consideration all the shops selling perfumes, food, jewelry, clothes, spices, and phones in the area of Farwaniya as well as some areas neighboring the institution of Manpower and Government Restructuring Program, the need for convenient signs was compelling, which granted us a generous amount of signage to capture and analyze. Thus, this paper will explore the presence of the native as well as minority languages on public and private signage to see which language dominates this linguistically contested area. Due to the importance and omnipresence of English in the world today, its representation on the signs in the linguistic landscape of the two aforementioned areas will be given particular attention. Thus, the current paper aims to answer the following research questions: RQ1: Which languages are most frequently represented on official and non-official signs in Kuwait and what is the role of English in the linguistic landscape of Kuwait? RQ2: What is the difference in the representativeness of two contestant languages, namely Arabic and English, on official and non-official signs in the linguistic landscape of Kuwait? RQ3: What is the difference in the representativeness of two contestant languages, namely Arabic and English, on signs displayed in city streets and in side streets in the linguistic landscape of Kuwait?

2. METHODOLOGY

The research was conducted in the city of Farwaniya and in a smaller area in Riggae. The city center is replete with small businesses and large enterprises, local stores, supermarkets offering a wide variety of services and these were a remarkable source for this study because of innumerable signs strewn in and around the city center. Despite the overwhelming prevalence of non-official signage, we managed to collect a sufficient number of samples of official signage. For the research purposes, a smartphone camera was employed to capture the signage in both areas as it was done in some previous studies as well (Huebner, 2006; Muth, 2008). Thus, 150 photos were taken containing a wide range of signs including street, traffic, shop, warning signs and public places brimming with advertisements. In order to create data as diverse as possible, we photographed a range of different signs including street signs, advertisements, shop signs, warning notices, graffiti, and shops and restaurants of Indian, Filipino, and even Chinese cuisine in particular. The main street served as an ample source of

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official signage consisting mainly of street names and traffic signs. Taking pictures of the signs near government buildings was impossible due to a strict prohibition of recording or photo taking imposed by the authorities. Nevertheless, in addition to the main street, we decided to explore a few side streets which proved to be abundant supply of non-official signage. The data analysis was conducted by means of qualitative method, which allows for convenient inspection and examination of signs and observation of the languages used on signs but “since such observations are not based on a clearly defined corpus, they cannot be quantified.” (Backhaus, 2005, p. 92-94)

3. RESULTS

Which languages are most frequently represented on official and non-official signs in

Kuwait?

For the purposes of this study, 150 photographs of signs were collected, 42 official and 108 non-official signs. Although the number of two types of signs is disparate, it will not negatively affect the research results. Moreover, there were 11 official monolingual signs and 31 official bilingual signs, whereas there were as many as 52 non-official monolingual signs, 54 non-official bilingual signs, and 2 trilingual signs (Table 1).

Table 1. Official and non-official signs

Total Monolingual Bilingual Multilingual

Official signs 42 11 31 0 Non-official signs 108 52 54 2 Total 150 63 85 2

The native language of Kuwait, namely the Arabic language, is most commonly represented on various official and non-official signs displayed either in city or side streets (n = 128), which makes 85.33% of the overall number of signs. The language that seems to be contesting Arabic in this linguistic landscape is English as it is present on 108 signs (n = 108) or in 72% of instances. The number of signs in which only Arabic is employed is rather low (n = 42), which makes it only 28% of the overall number of signs, whereas there are 21 signs on which only English is displayed (14%). In addition to two competing languages on signs in the linguistic landscape of Kuwait, there are some other languages, such as Hindi, Bengali and Chinese, which are underrepresented since each language was presented on one sign only (Table 2).

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Bilingualism in Kuwait – a linguistic landscape approach Amna Brdarević Čeljo & Sead Zolota

Table 2. Languages displayed on the signs

Language Number of Instances

(out of 150)

Arabic 128

English 108

Hindi 1

Bengali 1

Chinese 1

The majority of sings is in Standard Arabic, since apart from natives many expatriates coming from other Arabic countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon live in Kuwait. Since the varieties of Arabic spoken and used in those countries are rather different and sometimes mutually unintelligible, the use of Standard Arabic on signs is needed for their proper interpretation by both natives and expatriates. However, since a large number of people from some western countries and people from Pakistan, China, India and the Philippines etc. live in this area, such a high representation of English on signs is rather expected as it is a means of overcoming language barriers and it plays the role of a Kuwait’s lingua franca. Thus, with English being the most represented foreign language on signs in the linguistic landscape of Kuwait, its immense international prestige has been confirmed once again. Therefore, the results of the current study are fully in line with some previous research which also emphasized the leading role of English (among other foreign languages) in the linguistic landscapes around the globe (Cenoz & Gorter, 2006; Edelman, 2006; Lamarre, 2014 etc.). A low representation of other minority languages is not unexpected due to a small number of people using those languages living in this area. However, two of the three signs representing these minority languages are multilingual and they contain information in Arabic and English apart from either Chinese (Figure 1) or Bengali (Figure 2). One remaining sign is bilingual with the restaurant’s menu in Hindi and only the name of the restaurant in English (Figure 3). It seems plausible that these languages represent the language choice of the owners because they aim people from those specific cultures apart from others as signs very often serve either an expressive or a poetic function (Huebner, 2009).

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Figure 1. Example of Chinese Language Representation

Figure 2. Example of Bengali Language Representation

Figure 3. Example of Hindu Language Representation

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Bilingualism in Kuwait – a linguistic landscape approach Amna Brdarević Čeljo & Sead Zolota

What is the difference in the representativeness of two contestant languages, namely Arabic and English, on official and non-official signs in the linguistic landscape of Kuwait? Most official signs are bilingual (n = 31) in English and Arabic, and they represent 73.81% of the overall number of official signs (n = 42) (Figure 4). Out of those 31 bilingual official signs, the Arabic language is represented first and displayed above the English translation on 29 signs (93.55%) (Figure 4), whereas these two languages are placed next to each other, English on the left side and Arabic on the right side, on 2 signs only (6.45%) (Figure 5). However, there are no official bilingual signs on which English is represented first. 11 official signs (26.19%) are monolingual, and out of those 4 official signs represent only English, whereas 7 signs display information only in Arabic.

Figure 4. A bilingual official sign

As for non-official signs (n = 108), there are 105 signs which contain only English and/or Arabic and we will elaborate on these further. Namely, out of these 105 non-official signs, 52 signs are monolingual (49.52%), with 35 signs representing only Arabic and 17 signs displaying only the English language. 53 signs (50.48%) are bilingual containing information both in Arabic and English. On 25 bilingual non-official signs information in the Arabic language is represented first, on 11 signs the information in English comes first, whereas on the remaining 17 signs English and Arabic seem to be equally represented as the information in English is displayed on the left side and the information in Arabic on the right side of the sign (Figure 5).

Figure 5. A bilingual non-official sign

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These results are rather interesting, as they show that official signs are more frequently bilingual (73.81%) than non-official signs (50%), which points to the consciousness of the governmental institutions of the presence of foreigners in the country and their need to understand the displayed signs. The fact that Arabic is not present on only 4 official signs out of 42 (9.52%) and on only 17 out of 108 non-official signs (15.74%) points to a rather high awareness of nativism. Moreover, it is rather interesting that on bilingual official signs Arabic is displayed first in 93.55% instances which contrasts with the bilingual non-official signs on which Arabic is presented first in 47.17% instances. Such a predominance of Arabic on bilingual official signs can be ascribed to the country’s policies related to the language choice on public governmental signage. On the other hand, on 28 out of 53 bilingual non-official signs (52.83%), English has either an equal representation as Arabic or it is more prominent as it is presented first. Such findings point to the fact that English is directly competing with Arabic on non-official signs. Still, the high representativeness of Arabic and the place given to it on both official and non-official signs seem to suggest that nativism is still valued in Kuwait and that that country still has high ethnolinguistic vitality (EV) if Landry and Bourhis’s (1997) explanations of EV are taken into consideration.

Official signs constitute a vital aspect in an ever-growing expatriate community of the State of Kuwait. One of the critical requirements for a functional community of expatriates is a proper and complete translation of public government signs which convey crucial information regarding street names, warning notices, or names of government buildings. Table 3 examines the translation of English on public signage and strives to see whether the information in Arabic is fully or partially translated into English. All 31 bilingual official signs have been translated from Arabic into English in their entirety. Conversely, the results are somewhat different concerning the translation of bilingual non-official signs into English. Thus, out of 53 bilingual non-official signs, 36 signs have been fully translated, and 17 signs have received a partial translation. Table 3. Translation on bilingual official and non-official signs

Type of translation Full translation Partial translation

Official signs 31 0 Non-official signs 36 17

What is the difference in the representativeness of two contestant languages, namely Arabic and English, on signs displayed in city streets and in side streets in the linguistic landscape of Kuwait?

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The research sample was further subdivided into two additional categories, namely the signs found in the city center along the main street and the signs located in side streets outside the city center. Following this division, 106 photos (70.67%) of signs were taken in the city center, whereas 44 photos (29.33%) of signs were taken in side streets. Out of 106 signs displayed in the city center, 36 signs are monolingual (33.96%), 69 bilingual (65.09%) and 1 sign is trilingual (.94%). On the other hand, out of the 44 signs on display in side streets, 27 signs were monolingual (61.36%), 16 signs were bilingual (36.36%) and 1 sign was trilingual (2.27%) (Table 4).

Table 5. Signage in the city center and in side streets

Total Monolingual Bilingual Trilingual

Signs displayed in the city center

106 36 69 1

Signs displayed in side streets

44 27 16 1

Total 150 63 85 3

The results also point to an almost equal presence of English (n = 87; 82.07%) and Arabic (n = 88; 83.02%) on the public signage in the city center and to a much greater prominence of Arabic (n = 40; 90.9%) than English (n = 21; 47.73%) in side streets (Table 5), which is an indication of a great presence of the Arab communities in those areas. Table 5. The representation of English and Arabic on the signage in the city center and side streets

Language City Center Side Streets

English 87 21 Arabic 88 40

Out of 68 bilingual signs displaying English and Arabic in the city center, it is rather peculiar to notice that on 42 signs Arabic is displayed first, on 16 signs both languages are represented equally and there are even 10 non-official signs in the city center which are only represented in the English language. Moreover, out of 16 bilingual signs displayed in side streets, 12 signs present information in the Arabic language first, 1 sign presents information in English first and on 3 signs both English and Arabic are given equal credit. It is rather interesting to notice that monolingual signs are more frequently displayed in side streets than in the city center as they represent 33.96% of all the signs displayed in the city center and 61.36% of all the signs displayed in side streets. Out of 36 monolingual

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signs displayed in the city center, 17 signs are English and 19 Arabic. The discrepancy between monolingual English and Arabic signs is much more conspicuous in side streets, where out of 27 signs there were only 4 monolingual English signs and 23 monolingual Arabic signs.

Table 6. Monolingual Signs in English and Arabic

Monolingual Signs

Area of Inquiry City Center Side Streets English 17 4 Arabic 19 23

Such findings show that monolingual English signs are not highly valued and present in side streets (only in 14.81% cases), where the majority of signs were monolingual Arabic signs. On the other hand, in the city center monolingual English and Arabic signs were almost equally represented, which also indicates that English and Arabic in this sociolinguistic context are two contestant languages. Due to the fact that side streets are not frequently visited by foreigners, Arabic seems to be a predominant language in such places, whereas in the city center, which is visited by many foreigners, both English and Arabic are displayed almost to an equal extent. This shows that in the linguistic landscape of Kuwait English is not competing with other foreign languages but its contestant language is the country’s native language, which proves that immense importance is attached to English in this rather peculiar sociolinguistic context.

4. CONCLUSION

This study aimed to analyze the linguistic landscape of the Governorate of Farwaniya, the biggest governorate in Kuwait. Within the corpus of 150 photographs taken in the city center along the main street and side streets, the overall presence and language structure of official or public signs and non-official or private signs was explored. The results indicated that English is the most dominant foreign language and that no other foreign language is so highly represented in this socio-cultural context with Bengali, Hindi and Chinese each occurring only once in the corpus. Thus, English is the only foreign language competing with the native tongue, namely Arabic in this linguistic landscape. The findings further pointed to a difference between official and non-official signs, as well as between the signs displayed in the city center and those displayed in side streets in terms of the property of monolingualism and bilingualism and the positioning of the languages represented. Thus, it was noticed that on bilingual official governmental signs Arabic is either represented

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first or Arabic and English are on an equal footing while there were no signs on which English was positioned first. However, this was not the case with non-official signs. Moreover, the findings also pointed to a much lower presence of English monolingual signs in side streets (n = 4) than in the city center (n = 17). Compared to the number of 23 Arabic monolingual signs in side street, it strengthens the belief that nativism is still nourished in this country in particular outside a strictly public domain. The results of the current study are rather important as they provide a clearer insight into the linguistic landscape of yet another country where English has a prominent international role.

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Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. (2003) The linguistic landscape of Erregezainen / Escolta

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landscape and language awareness. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic

landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 253–269). New York: Routledge.

Gorter, D. (2006) Further possibilities for linguistic landscape research. In D.

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Huebner, T. (2006). Bangkok’s linguistic landscapes: environmental print,

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[Welcoming language and language of service at merchant locations in

Montreal]. Québec, Canada: Conseil de la langue française.

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Gorter (eds) Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery (pp. 238–252).

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Journal of Education and Humanities Volume 1 (2), pp. 126-142, Winter 2018 Professional paper ISSN 2566-4638 © International Burch University http://dx.doi.org/10.14706/jeh2018124

Translation and Translators in Romani Context

Professional paper

Hedina Tahirović-Sijerčić

Council of Europe - Committee of Experts for the European Charter for

Regional or Minority Languages

France

[email protected]

Abstract: Since the area presenting former Yugoslavia has no

mandatory Romani langauge classes and consequently no offically

recognized translation classes, nor does it provide training for

Romani translators, this paper deals with the experience and the

current situation of Romani translation and translators. Theoretical

background of Polysystems, Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS),

Skopos and non-systems oriented ‘Cluster concept’ provide support

for a better approach to translation in the Romani context. ‘Cluster

concept’ allows the possibility to create a definition of Translation

Romani as a new approach to Translation Studies. As translation

represents one of the ways to preserve and develop linguistic vitality

in the minority languages, reassuring its speakers, activating the

creation of new vocabulary, and strengthening domains of language

use that are under-used, it also applies as a way for creating

translation strategies for teaching Translation Romani. This

research is grounded in personal experience, and presents the

beginning of the research on Translation Romani (TR).

Keywords: translation, Romani language, Roma, Romani translator, Romani translation, training

Article History Submitted: 18 Decemeber 2018 Accepted: 30 January 2019

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1. INTRODUCTION

Romani language/čhib1 is the common language of Roma, Sinti, Kale and other European groups pejoratively known as “gypsies“. It “is the only new Indo-Aryan language spoken exclusively outside of the Indian subcontinent (Zatreanu & Halwachs 2013, p. 3)” by about 10-15 million Roma throughout the world, and “comprised of almost 80 dialects”2 of the Romani language. As stated by Halwachs, Klinge and Schrammel (2013) Romani “may be described as a heterogenous cluster of varieties with a homogeneous core – a common morphology and a common lexicon- but without any generally accepted homogenizing standard“ ( p. 5).

Even though the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages has been signed by eight (8) countries3 and ratified by twenty five (25) countries4, fifteen (15)5 “have officially recognised Romani as a minority language traditionally present on their territory” (Tahirović-Sijerčić, 2018, p. 36), the development of Romani čhib is given an inadequate opportunity.6 In the situation where discrimination and racism against Roma and Romani exist in their visible and invisible forms, the speakers’ identity and the identity of the language disappear. Such a situation, according to Hughes (2013), warrants “intervention from governments to protect Romani language, as it is considered an important, but vulnerable facet of the Roma peoples identity” (p. 19).

It is obvious that, as stated by Pym “political dimension [is] involved [in the languages], especially in situations where translation policies are associated with the defence and development of minority languages“ (2002, p. 4). A political dimension is also present in the situation of the Romani language, and consequently in Translation Romani. There are, unfortunately, no educational programs where both the Romani language and Translation Romani are

1 Denomination of Romani language in Romani is Romani čhib. In further text will be used as Romani.

2 Translation Romani. See: http://www.translationromani.net/en/romani/language

3 Azerbaijan, France, Iceland, Italy, Malta,Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

4 See: https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventions/treaty/148/signatures)

5 As Part II language signed by Austria, Finland, Germany, Norway, Netherlands, Romania, Sweden,

Slovenia, and as Part III language signed by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Hungary,

Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, and Germany in Hesse.

6 ”This is the highest number of ratifications for a single language under the Charter and it reflects, among

others, the status of Romani as a European language.” Statement adopted by the Committee of Experts of

the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) on 5 November 2015 on the occasion

of the International Romani Laguage Day.” (Tahirović-Sijerčić, 2018, p. 36).

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mandatory, and there are no trained Romani translators nor interpreters.7 The Romani language is a complex linguistic issue of translation process in Romani context.

Until the twentieth century, the Romani was a spoken language only and even today, as stated by Tahirović-Sijerčić,

[d]ominant ideology and culture erroneously understand Romani as an oral language and not as written, and Romani literature as a folk literature with no focus on contemporary creation. However, international Romani authors do, in fact, write in Romani and publish in its different dialects, and the written language is used in Romani networks, email, and chatrooms. (2017, p. 14)

At the present time, Romani as a mandatory subject is only taught within Romistika in the frame of graduate studies at the Department of Indology and Far Eastern Studies, Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. In a frame of elective courses, Romani is taught at the College of Professional Studies for Educators “Michael Palov“ in Vršac, and at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade. Romani is taught occasionally through short training courses, thanks to the small grants and educational projects, within the Romani and non-Romani NGO circles. These organizations are dealing with different issues in the areas of language, politics, economics, history etc. for and about Roma. The main issues of such education are not only Romani čhib and majority8 official language/s, but also Romani culture and majority culture/s of the countries where the Roma live.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW Within his theoretical framework of polysystems, Even-Zohar, cited in Pym (2010, 72), sees translation playing an innovative role when: “(a) a polysystem has not yet been crystallized, that is to say, when a literature is ‘young,’ in the process of being established; (b) a literature is either ‘peripheral’ (within a large group of correlated literatures) or ‘weak,’ or both; and (c) there are turning points, crises, or literary vacuums in a literature” (Tahirović-Sijerčić, 2018, p. 10).

7 There is an individual initiative since 2016. Translator is not a professional translator, and does not have

any translation training but has translation experience. „Romany Interpreting and Translations (RIT) is

registered trademark and sole trading business based in Manchester, UK.

https://www.romanyinterpretingandtranslations.com/resume

8 The “majority society language” refers to dominant and powerful society and language which is in

contact with Roma as minority people or ethnic groups, and with Romani as minority language.

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It accounts for bilingual and multilingual communities.

The literature of Roma and written by Roma is ‘young’, ‘peripheral’ and ‘weak’. As already stated, it started first to be published in the 20th century, and its invisibility has been reflected by the history of Roma (Tahirović-Sijerčić, 2018, p. 10), and their historical and current socio-economic situation.

In their difficult socio-economic situation Romani translators were engaged because of different project needs related to human rights issues. On that way, translation in Romani has been seen only as the need for “the ‘aim’ or ‘purpose’ (‘skopos’)9 that guides the production of a translation. According to this perspective, it is the target culture which “defines [a translation’s] adequacy” (Vermeer in Venuti, 2000, p. 222)” (Tahirović-Sijerčić 2018, p. 16).

It means that source text, depending of goals or purposes, could have many different translations, also with possibility that the source text does not meet meaning of the context in the target language and the source text is destabilized, and does not have its function in the target culture.

The Skopos rule thus reads as follows: translate/interpret/speak/write in a way that enables your text/translation to function in the situation in which it is used and with the people who want to use it and precisely in the way they want it to function (Pym, 2010, p. 45), (Tahirović-Sijerčić, 2018, p. 16).

Within the Romani translation using the concept of Skopos theory, there are, also, the other problems such as: directionality of languages (majority – Romani or Romani – majority); contact language effect including existence of loanwords and neologisms in Romani; Romani readers and their different dialects; acceptance of translation; and fulfillment of the needs (Tahirović-Sijerčić, 2018, p. 17).

It is important to state that a need for, and interest in, Romani translators and interpreters was awakened during the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015.10 The funding provided for the projects of different institutions also covered activities to bring Romani language to the forefront and thus to become more visible. The issues that have been most translated are in the domain of human rights and law, with special emphasis on housing, health, employment, and education for Roma.

Diverse institutional and NGO reports on law and human rights have been translated into Romani and have spawned many types of translation. Translation

9 “Skopos theory” is a concept of translation studies from the 1980s.

10 The Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005-2015) was an initiative of 12 European countries (Albania,

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia,

Slovakia and Spain), to improve the socio-economic status and social inclusion of the Romani

people across the region. An observer status had Slovenia and United States.

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and interpretation for different cultural events are also widespread, and found in the form of flyers, guidelines and advertisements. Almost all of the official Decade of Roma Inclusion conferences used Romani interpreters.

When looking for a Romani translator or interpreter, the institutions and non-Romani NGOs mostly have recourse to certain individuals within certain Romani NGOs. Once eligible for these institutions and NGOs, the translator/interpreter, after gaining his/her first job, the translator/interpreter is engaged with clients and is always called for the next engagement. Clients are not aware of the specific challenges that inadequate translation and/or their choice of translator/interpreter can cause.

In order to make readers aware of problems “of identity politics, to experiences shrouded in silence, and to forms of representation that deepen our to empathize with people who are different from us (Ellis & Bochner, 2000)“ (Ellis, Adams & Bochner, 2011, par. 3), it is important that client institutions and NGOs as clients have translators/interpreters who identify themselves as Romani, and as the speakers of the Romani language. These are the only criteria. Of no interest to clients are the quality of the translator’s educational background; the dialect/s he/she uses; the levels of his/her Romani as the target language, the majority language as the source language; the quality of her/his translation/interpretation; or the knowledge of cultural differences. Above all, the cheapest price for translation would be appreciated. With Romani identity and work being done at the cheapest rates possible, the client’s expectations are fulfilled.

In such situations, clients and translators could experience problems with

the final product – the translation into Romani čhib. According to Rosemary Mackenzie, it is not just because they “ [h]a[v]e insufficient information about the situation or about the subject matter in hand“ (1998, p. 202), but also because they are “ in the game“ and they have an opinion to hold a monopoly over translation for NGOs and institutions (Mackenzie, 1998, p. 202). These translators would not generally or readily confess that they do not know the grammar of the language pair they translate. In fact, they will do the ‘work’ despite its bad quality and despite a low understanding of the source text.

In fact, not just the Romani language but also its translation suffers from a cultural, economic, political and educational pressure of the majority languages in which they have been in contact. This unequal relationship of power between minority and majority languages, their linguistic and cultural differences led me to the postcolonial approach where question on power hierarchy came to attention.

Since there is no translation theory nor approach that could be used to all translations, Tymoczko’s ‘cluster concept’ as the most acceptable concept,

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especially in the context of Translation Romani makes and “allow[s] for self-definition of translation by all cultures thus far been dominated by Western logocentrism (2007, 2010, 2014, p. 105) ” (Tahirović-Sijerčić, 2018, p. 22).

This approach provides a space for creation and self-definition of Translation Romani.

3. TRANSLATION ROMANI AND ROMANI TRANSLATORS – DEFINITION

Romani, as a minority language,11 has been constantly influenced by neologisms and loanwords and creates an obstacle for communication between various groups of Roma, as does the different use of writing style and script, likewise a difficulty for translation. This situation of complex linguistic and cultural differences leads to the importance of translation in Romani context, i.e. Translation Romani.

Translation Romani as a new approach to Translation Studies, is translation in and from the Romani language involving different dialect groups, cultures, customs, religions, different geographical areas and nationality languages where Roma live. In other words, Translation Romani is a cluster of translation produced by Romani translators in diverse domains in and from different Romani dialects, which preserve and still live in different Romani and non-Romani cultures.

Following this definition, the Romani translator is any individual who has been educated about both cultures and both languages, and has a very good language knowledge in TL and SL, i.e. a majority language and Romani language.

Romani translators, despite their bilingualism and multilingualism, have different levels of knowledge of national language/s and of Romani, which also creates difficulties in Translation Romani. The biggest problem is insufficient and incomplete translators’ education in national language/s and their national culture/s colored with particularities in expressions.

In the domain of literary translation, Translation Romani is produced mostly by Romani poets who are self-translators.12 Without institutional support or access

11 According to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages “regional or minority languages

means languages that are: (i) traditionally used within a given territory of a State by nationals of that State

who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the State's population; and (ii) different from the

official language(s) of that State; it does not include either dialects of the official language(s) of the State

or the languages of migrants;“ Retrieved from https://rm.coe.int/168007bf4b

12 My PhD dissertation which seeks -through the optic of translation studies - to address some preliminary

questions with regard to Romani literature and self-translation. My readings of Romani poetry, in particular,

have led me to make some initial observations worthy of analysis: poems are written bilingual and

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to mainstream publishers, these poets and writers publish their own work through their Romani NGOs.

The situation of translation and interpretation is in an unrivaled position for both minority and majority languages, especially in the countries of Western Balkans, having in mind that

[t]here are no translator training institutions as such in BiH. Most people who engage in translation/interpreting hold a degree in modern languages and many do translation/interpreting part time. Companies which offer translation or interpreting services are very rarely found in BiH. The only professional association of translators/interpreters in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the Association of Translators of BiH (Udruženje prevodilaca Bosne i Hercegovine). (Jurida & Pavlović, 2016, p. 73)

In the case of Romani, both, the language and translation education is lacking, and only a small percentage of Roma are fluent and literate in Romani. Educational institutions that are responsible for supporting Romani programs, and Romani language programs in particular, face difficulties in teaching Romani and consequently in teaching Translation Romani.

4. ANALYSIS: CHALLENGES FOR CLIENTS, ORGANIZATIONS, NGOS

As an illustration of the problems in Translation Romani, we will briefly analyze an excerpt of the Akcioni plan Bosne i Hercegovine za rješavanje problema Roma u oblasti zapošljavanja, stambenog zbrinjavanja i zdravstvene zaštite [Аkcijako plаno Bоsnе thaj Hеrcеgоvinе pala pandime e romenge problemura ande оblаst bućaripe ćherako zbrinime thaj sastimake zаštita/Action plan of Bosnia and Herzegovina for addressing Roma Issues in the field of employment housing and health care] which was published by the Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2009. The publication is written in Bosnian as the source language and translated into Romani as the target language by a Romani translator. The translation in English is made by a professional English translator.

multilingual – in Romani and majority language/s; poems are self-translated by their writers; all versions

of the poem are complementing each other; versions of the poem are read ‘together’, “stereoscopically”, in

the sense that textual meaning is obtained through a reading of one in relation to another – bilingually or

multilingually.

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Table 1. Translation Romani in 2009.

BOSNIAN ROMANI ENGLISH

Akcioni plan Bosne i Hercegovine za rješavanje problema Roma u oblasti zapošljavanja, stambenog zbrinjavanja i zdravstvene zaštite (title page)

Аkcijako plаno Bоsnе thaj Hеrcеgоvinе pala pandime e romenge problemura ande оblаst bućaripe ćherako zbrinime thaj sastimake zаštita (2009, 72)

Action plan of Bosnia and Herzegovina for addressing Roma issues in the field of employment housing and health care (2009, 133)

Zаključаk

(...) Оčеkivаni rеzultаti u plаnu pоstižu se krоz јаsnо dеfinirаnе mјеrе Аkciоnоg plаnа kоје оbuhvаtајu niz аktivnоsti kоје trеbа poduzеti i kоје mоrајu imаti u vidu i uzеti u оbzir pоstојеćе stimulаtivnе mјеrе i аktivnоsti u оblаsti zаpоšljаvаnjа kоје su dаlе оdrеđеnе rеzultаtе. (2009, 47)

Zаključko

(...) Оčеkuvime rezultatura an planpostignin pe krezo jasno definišime mjere Akcionone

planoha save obuhvatin nizo aktivnosturengo save trubuj te poduzmin pe i save mora te aven an uvid i te lol an obzir već postojime stimulativni mjere te aktivnostura an oblastura zapošljavanjeko save dje određeni rezultatura. (2009, 112)

Conclusion

(...) The results anticipated by the Plan are achieved through the clearly defined measures of the Action Plan that include a series of activities which need to be undertaken and which must also take into account the already existing incentives and activities in the area of employment, which have already produced certain results. (2009, 171)

Example 1. *The words in bold in the Bosnian source text have influenced the Romani target text.

As stated by Munday, Vinay and Darbelnet’s translation strategy is the “orientation of the translator […]” and procedures are specific techniques or methods which are used “by a translator at a certain point in a text” (2012, p. 57), on the basis of the appropriate translation procedure chosen by the translator (Tahirović-Sijerčić, 2018, p. 93).

In this example, even though unconsciously, the Romani translator uses

word for word translation procedure. Translator does not pay attention to the style of the text, but to the grammar and idioms keeping the meaning in the target language. This procedure is “the most common procedure when translating between two languages of the same family [...], and even more so when they also share the same culture (Vinay & Darbelnet 2000, p. 86)” (Tahirović-Sijerčić, 2018, p. 96). It is the fact that Romani and Bosnian are not of the same language family, but Romani uses Bosnian grammar, orthography and morphology. Contact effect language, loanwords and neologisms, provide characteristic of Romani, hybridity and mimicry.

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Romani čhib, such as other minority languages, is constantly under the pressure from dominant, majority languages, and therefore it can very easily, as Cronin stated, “become mirror-image of the dominant language“ (1998, p. 147), which is obvious in this example.

In the example of the Romani translation provided, several problems are identified:

1. Translators seem to be very heavily influenced by the source text. 2. Compatibility between Bosnian / Serbian / Croatian / Montenegrin /

Macedonian and Romani is more than obvious. 3. Neologisms and loanwords dominate in the Romani translation. 4. Translators do not have enough knowledge about Romani language

grammar, about dialects and their differences. Their knowledge depends on the second language grammar level which they learn in schools as a mandatory subject.

5. The translator does not pay attention to punctuation or proper use of uppercase letters. There is no uniformed textual use of the nouns Rom, Roma, and adjective Romani/o/e, even though these nouns and adjectives in the source text are correct.

6. Translators do not use translation technologies or tools, and they are mostly unaware of the existence of Romani dictionaries.

7. The degree of translators’ textual awareness or use of textual knowledge is limited. This might be attributed to the following: a) the translator does not understand the text i.e. the meaning in the source language; b) the translator imports the words from the source language into the target language because he/she is not aware of their existence in the target Romani language; c) in importing the source language words, the translator builds, creates and self-invents ‘new Romani words’ (clumsy hybrids) adding to SL words Romani suffixes; and d) the translator is not aware of the existence of Romani dictionaries and grammars.

8. The revision phase is not done.

As another example in Revidirani Akcioni Plan Bosne i Hercegovine za rješavanje problema Roma u oblastima zapošljavanja, stambenog zbrinjavanja i zdravstvene zaštite 2013-2016. godine published by Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2013, a translation shows how a Romani translator produces Translation Romani when the translator is well educated, uses language books, grammar and dictionaries, and has good knowledge in both, the Bosnian and Romani language and culture.

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Table 2. Translation Romani in 2013.

BOSNIAN ROMANI ENGLISH

Revidirani Akcioni Plan Bosne i Hercegovine za rješavanje problema Roma u oblastima zapošljavanja, stambenog zbrinjavanja i zdravstvene zaštite 2013-2016. godine (title page)

Bosnako thaj Hercegovinako Revidirano Akciono

Plano pala ćhinavipe e Romenge problemura

ande pašipende pala bući, ćheresko ažutipe thaj sastipesko arakhipe 2013. - 2016. (title page)

Revised Action Plan of Bosnia and Herzegovina for addressing Roma issues in the field of employment, housing and healthcare 2013-2016 (title page)

Položaj pojedinaca i/ili ove manjinske grupe udaljava Rome od mogućnosti obrazovanja i zaposlenja, te smanjuju njihovu mogućnost za ostvarivanje prihoda, tako da su mnogi od njih isključeni i ne učestvuju u društvenim mrežama ili drugim aktivnostima u zajednici. (1)

E peravneski situacija jal situacija pala gova nacionalno minoriteto ćerel lungo drom e Romendar koring edukacija, bući thaj ćeren lengo bišajipe jal cikno šajipe pala bućako poćinipe jal bućako therdipe, thaj pe gova drom but katare lendar si ačhavne thaj na den participacija ande amalipeske inzardende jal ande aver aktivitetura ande amalipeste. (1)

This position of individual Roma and/or this minority group alienates Roma in terms of educational and employment opportunities and hence restricts their ability to generate revenue. It is for this reason that many members of the Roma national community are excluded and do not participate in social networks or other community activities. (1)

Example 2. (neologisms and loanwords in bold)

In this translation, the Romani translator uses Vinay and Darbelnet’ (2000) sense by sense translation procedure taking into consideration Romani grammar, Romani dictionaries Romani writing, and Romani everyday communication.

In the final observation we would refer to Newmark who states that, “[i]n communicative as in semantic translation, provided that equivalent effect is secured, the literal word-for-word translation is not only the best, it is the only valid method of translation” (1981, p. 39), and disagree in the case of Translation Romani. Even though both examples are equivalent, the translation in Example 1 (one) does not work for revitalization activities: education of and in Romani13, the development of written standards, vocabulary development, and learning

13 The Romani alphabet consists of 34-38 letters, two genders (feminine and masculine no middle genus),

two numbers (singular and plural), and eight cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative,

instrumental, locative, and ablative. Romani does not have infinitive (Tahirović-Sijerčić, 2018, p. 44).

The effect of contact language enabled the exchange, acquisition, adaptation and creation of a large

number of loanwords and neologisms from majority and other minority languages which influence

Romani in every country where Roma live.

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materials to serve Romani translators’ training and Translation Romani. In both

examples, invisibility of translator/s is lacking.

Accordingly, as Venuti stated “linguistics remained a basic component in the curricula of translator training programs” (2012, p. 391). As translation is one of the ways to preserve and develop linguistic vitality in minority languages,1415 reassuring its speakers, activating the creation of new vocabulary, and strengthening domains of language use that have remained under-used (Toury, 1985, p. 7), it applies also for the development of linguistic vitality in the case of Romani (Tahirović-Sijerčić, 2018a), although at the same time, it could cause a threat to its distinctiveness (Cronin, 1995, p. 89).

5. TRAINING RECOMMENDATIONS

Taking into consideration the position of Romani as a minority language, as well as general situation of Romani, Translation Romani and Romani Translators, the models found in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Jurida & Pavlović, 2016, pp. 74-82), Montenegro (Lakić & Pralas, 2016, pp. 98-109) or other models in the Western Balkans or Europe would not be applicable in the Romani context. Therefore, it is necessary to create a course which complements language, translation and translators training.

Since each student has a different cultural, social and linguistic background (different dialects, customs and religion), and in order to avoid the common generalization about Roma, we should state that “[...] no individual is a typical example of the culture within which they live [and keep] in mind that all individuals are unique“ (Garant, 1997, p. 26). Therefore, the mean goal is to make students aware about “Rromanipe(n) /Romanipe(n) [as] the common denominator of [what] is considered or believed to make up the essential characteristics of [the world] Roma/Rroma. [Romanipe(n) is] the feeling of belonging to the same people, to the same history, culture, and habits despite the differences” [specific to each group and their linguistic and cultural sub-groups] (Tahirović-Sijerčić, 2017, p. 18).

In order to get professional teachers of Romani and thus professional translators, it is necessary to develop Translation Romani as a university curriculum program to provide training for professional Romani Translators specializing in certain domains. These courses should inspire students to speak

14

15 (European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, European Treaty Series - No. 148, Strasbourg,

5.XI.1992, pg. 1-2.

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and cooperate in a group, to exchange, discuss and share their knowledge and ideas of possible strategies employed for their work in translation. The course would also help Roma and non-Roma students to eliminate anti-Roma prejudices and stereotypes.

For example, we would suggest introducing an elective course for two semesters Translation Romani within Romani Studies.16 The objective is to facilitate student learning of relevant Romani linguistic and cultural traits and issues (history, language, literature, migration, minority) through the concept of cultural translation, using multi-modal content (text, image, audio-visual) in Romani and other languages as examples for analysis and discussion. Through lectures, reading assignments, discussions and practical exercises in small groups students will learn about cultural translation in the unique context of the Romani language and culture, with a special emphasis on the Romani identity.

Students will have opportunities to practice cultural translation in three specific contexts: literary expression (poetry, short story); film; and advertising and marketing. They will learn how language is used creatively in translation to express Romani cultural identity and representation for reception in diverse domains. The contents for this class would be presented at the introductory level, and eventually at an intermediate level class with increased difficulty in reading assignments and practical exercises. Oral presentations, discussion, individual and collective textual analysis, manipulation of audio and video material with subsequent analysis and demonstration would serve teaching methods and would be used.

The basic themes for two semesters are: Introduction to Translation Romani and Introduction to Romani Studies, Romani language and translation history, Romani bilingualism and multilingualism within translation, and Translational tools: Romani grammar and dictionaries, Special problems in Romani translation, Translation Romani within Romani culture, Translating Romani identity (self-perspective), and Self-translation in Romani context. Also, included might be themes such as Terminology studies and Romani translation, Translation Romani and Romani translators, Romani literary expression and translation, Romani media and translation, Romani film and translation, and Translation Romani and advertising/marketing.

Also, terminology classes are a necessity, and should include ongoing exercises which deal with different types of interference and ‘false friends’. In most translation, as well as in Romani translation, interference and interlanguage forms are present and they are, as Toury stated, “likely to occur whenever one language is used in some contact with another” (1978, p. 224). According to Havlásková, “the seriousness of mistake caused by interference can be diverse-from

16 when possibility approved

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“mistakes” which cause that the text is clumsy, but which preserve the meaning of the

original, to errors which completely change sense of the source text” (2010, p. 39).

Learning from one’s own errors and mistakes awakens ideas for creation of terminology lists and glossaries, of use to all translators and interpreters in and from Romani čhib. They could help in the creation of more uniform sets of words missing or forgotten in Romani through their translation, and would provide better understanding, communication, translation and interpretation.

In order to establish requirements and expectations for Romani translators while being in training17 it is essential that theoretical discussions are promoted in conjunction with a hands-on practice of translation (Pym, 2009, pp. 6-7).

6. CONCLUSION

It appears impossible to write about translation in the Romani context, about creation of syllabuses of Translation Romani, along with training for translators, without the knowledge of the Romani language, cultures and identities of Roma and Romani translators.

This knowledge constitutes Translation Romani as a new approach to Translation Studies. Translation Romani is a cluster of translations produced in

17 The translators should understand the text as readers better than even the author at the moment of writing;

they should investigate the problems they have while translating, and think about processes and the methods

which would be the most appropriate for this translation. Further, they should be aware of the language and

readership (source and target text) specificities, highlight the importance of the length of time devoted to

the translation of text, and consider the number of hours or days needed for quality translation. This may

include consultation with other translators about certain terminology problems in Romani. They may

require time for self-revision and revision by others, and think about realistically meeting the client’s

deadlines. They may need to think about the degree of their awareness or use of textual knowledge, and

reflect on the importance of self-confidence (advantages and disadvantages in the Romani case). In

addition, they must recognize the significance (and importance) of the text as a whole and what is the

interest of Translation Romani, and find the ways to develop Romani čhib and increase its value as a

language.

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diverse domains in and from different Romani dialects, which preserve and still live in different Romani and non-Romani cultures, done by Romani translators.

The biggest problem that faces Translation Romani is training of

professional teachers and trainers. A trainer of Romani must always have in mind one important question: Which dialect/which Romani is the most correct and most appropriate for the class teaching translation? When working with the educational mediators in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the best way to approach students is to establish good atmosphere, provide students with available literature (different dictionaries, grammars, language text books etc.), and teach them how to use these tools. After discussion about the accessibility of educational and translational tools, students could work in groups to translate a short text from Bosnian into Romani. In that way, both languages, of the source and target text are taught. These classes should be mostly interactive and practical, with translations discussed with students in detail so that

[i]ndividually and in groups students develop their own glossaries, learning the basics of terminology and creating at the same time a solid basis for their future activities in translation and interpreting. (Lakić & Pralas, 2016, p. 100)

The use of different Romani dialects could be of great challenges not just

for students but also for trainers who should have knowledge and experience to explain the differences between them. Creating and building terminology must be a challenge especially in case of Romani where terminology is lacking. A need for the establishment of the program and designing curriculum, as the situation imposes, should start “from the idea that the goal of the entire course was to meet the needs“ (Lakić & Pralas, 2016, p. 115) of the speakers in the countries where translation programs are supported and approved.

An important issue of translation, and especially of Translation Romani, is intracultural and intercultural diversity along with cross-cultural knowledge and skills that help development of communication skills (Yang, 2015, p. 249) and provide people from “different cultural background an opportunity to observe and analyse the differences, thus to understand them better and approach them positively” (Yang, 2015, p. 250).

Finally, there is the problem of the evaluation/revision phase in translation.

How should revision be done, and who should provide a revision? Who should validate Romani translation and validation, for certain translation choices? These and many other questions should be a part of creating strategies for teaching Translation Romani using “different Romani dialects to try to preserve [vitality] of Romani čhib and its translation through intra-dialect exchange“ (Tahirović-Sijerčić, 2018, p. 87).

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jezika, Zbornik radova sa naučnog skupa održanog 20-21. oktobra 2016 (pp. 111-130). Beograd: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti (SANU). Toury, G. (1985). Aspects of Translating into Minority Languages from the Point of View of Translation Studies. Multilingua 4, 3-10. Toury, G. (1978). Interlanguage and its Manifestations in Translation. Meta, 24 (2), 1978, pp. 223-231. Reprinted in 1979. Retrieved from http://www.erudit.org/revue/meta/ Venuti, L. (Ed.). (2012). The Translation Studies Reader. Third Edition. London and New York: Routledge. Yang, P. (2015). Appreciation of Cultural Diversity through Translating Australian Aboriginal Culture: A Project-Based Learning Approach. Current Trends in Translation Teaching and Learning E, 2, (pp. 246-284). Retrieved from http://www.cttl.org/uploads/5/2/4/3/5243866/chapter_8_cttlappreciationofculturaldiversitythroughtranslatingaustralianaboriginalculture-currenttrend.pdf