Earticle

The purpose of this study is to reveal the syntactic nature of the components of English focus constructions. The focus constructions are characterized in the spec-head configuration between an operator carrying the focus feature and the head with the matching feature of the functional projections in CP domain. From the same theoretic standpoints, the syntactic mechanism of the cleft-based focus operation is characterized to reveal how the cleft-based structure generates the focus functions. In the cleft-based focus constructions, the syntactic roles of the complementizer type nominal that are closely related to the configuration of spec-head of FocP. The complementizer type that is somewhat distinctive from the wh-pronominal such as who, due to the subject-completement asymmetrical nature of the movement operation. The copula is treated as a spell-out of a functional category of predication (Pr) resulted from the predication percolation. It becomes the condition under which the [EPP] feature carried by the head of PrP triggers occurrence of the expletive it.

When Philip Larkin died of cancer of the esophagus in 1985, the obituaries endowed him with near sainthood. His fame was great and his claims on immortality considerable. But a funny thing happened on his way up Parnassus. Thanks to two of Larkin’s literary executors, his reputation has been sinking in a critical storm whose rumblings continue to this moment. With the publication of the Selected Letters by Anthony Thwaite in 1992 and Andrew Motions’s biography in 1993, opinion changed sharply. Larkin had become a racist, a misogynist, foul-mouthed, neurotic, addicted to pornography, a fascist, a politically incorrect misanthropist who belittled even his closest friends. But the relationship between Larkin’s life and work is highly problematic and teasingly oblique. So, for a rightful access to the recent criticism against Larkin, we have to move away from a concern with Larkin as person to a more deep look at his poetry and at its major themes and techniques. In order to understand Larkin’s dichotomy between his social life and his writing life, we should return to the rhetorical strategies which make his poems simultaneously self-revealing and self-protective. He must be estimated and remembered on the basis of his work, not of the biographical details.

This study discusses the cognitive effects of wh-clefts based on a cognitive-functional approach. The main purpose of this study is to present a cognitive framework for the cognitive-functional analysis of the relationship between the syntactic structure of wh-clefts and their discourse-motivated pragmatic functions. This study introduces the conceptual (or cognitive) notion of wh-cleft and argues that the cognitively salient structural properties of wh-clefts contribute crucially to their diverse discourse-pragmatic functions. It proposes that the cognitive structure of wh-clefts allows the speaker/writer to project effectively what she/he wishes to deliver through the cognitively salient process of information, creating topicalizing and focusing effects, a background effect, and the speaker/writer-oriented strategies for a communication effect in the flow of discourse.

Gerald Vizenor’s treatment of such concepts as terminal creeds, trickster figure, and shaman as well as animal images such as the crow, the dog, and the bear in his trickster novel Darkness in Saint Louis Bearheart appears somewhat destructive according to Jean Baudrillard’s theories of simulation, fossil, obscene sexuality, and the fourth world. Vizenor’s own theory reveals that Vizenor does not contrive to deny tradition as Baudrillard’s theories interpret but rather attempts to cure his readers through the imaginative and deconstructive writing tool of the trickster. The comparative study of the two different interpretations by Baudrillard’s occidental and Vizenor’s aboriginal theories locates Vizenor’s discourse in the global horizon. While Baudrillard’s theory discloses Vizenor’s trickster discourse as driven by the energy which causes tradition to vanish, Vizenor’s theory discloses his discourse in harmony with tradition and in the pursuit of cure.

This paper examines the difference in contextual effects when metaphors in the source language text are paraphrased in the target language text. Here the concept of metaphor is defined as Lakoff and Johnson (1980) have defined it, that is, not as an attribute of a word, but as a conceptual attribute. The metaphor is categorized as Kövecses (2002) does into three types: structural, ontological, and orientational metaphors. After a brief discussion of the metaphor in translation and relevance theory, this paper provides data from published translations of news stories. The contextual effect in the SL and the TL seemed to be different when SL images are paraphrased in the TL text. Given that translation is a type of communication between different languages and cultures, the notion of optimal relevance can be applied to translation. In the past, little attention has been given to metaphor translation in translation theory, and no standards have been established for the translation of metaphors. Translators made decisions based on their experience and intuition. Relevance theory and the concept of contextual effect can provide some help for translators in creating a standard for decision-making.

This paper explores the asymmetry in repair by ellipsis between IP and VP ellipsis. The former renders amnesty effects to violations of the Subjancency condition when the ‘record’ or star(*)-marking of the violations is included in the elided IP. In contrast, the latter does not, even though it is included in the elided VP. In addition, it is noted that the elided VP is a simple one when extraction takes place out of it. On the basis of this asymmetry, this paper has advanced three points. First, movement proceeds in a cyclic fashion, and the chain formed by movement undergoes adjustment in the mapping from Overt Syntax to Logical Form. In particular, argument Wh-movement forms an operatorvariable chain, deleting other intermediate traces. Second, ellipsis also proceeds cyclically, especially in meeting the identity/parallelism condition on ellipsis. It is proposed in this paper that the size of ellipsis is determined by the minimal constituent requirement for the identity condition on ellipsis. Third, various elements in the antecedent clause of the ellipsis construction, such as overt and covert indefinite expressions, universally quantified expressions and focused elements, take different scope-taking strategies. It is noted that their different scope possibilities in the antecedent clause affect the scope of Wh-movement in the ellipsis clause.

This study addresses two principal questions about the acquisition of English phonology by speakers of Korean. The first is: Do native speakers of Korean show a difference in transfer of Korean phonological processes and morphophonological rules in the acquisition of English? My second question is about the effect of phonological and phonetic factors in L1 transfer: How do word boundaries and high front vocoids affect the application of transferred processes? In order to answer these questions, I tested a Korean phonological process―S-Palatalization―and a morphophonological rule―T-Palatalization. An elicited production task was performed by thirty-two speakers of Standard South Korean. The main findings from the production task are, first, that S-Palatalization and T-Palatalization show different behavior in L2; that is, the L1 phonological process tends to transfer in L2 and the L1 morphophonological rule does not. Second, phonological factors that seem irrelevant in L1 may still affect the degree of difficulty of sequences in L2. Word boundaries affected S-Palatalization; these occurred more frequently within words than across word boundaries. And high front vocoids (/i/ versus /j/) affected S-Palatalization, which occurred more frequently before /j/ than /i/.

The purpose of this study was to explore the applicability of the threshold hypothesis to a proficient ESL learner, who had passed the threshold in L2 proficiency. By using qualitative methods such as interviews, think-aloud and recall protocols, the ten-week long case study examined the nature of her difficulty in EAP reading, transfer of L1 reading ability to L2 reading, and the use of reading strategy. The findings revealed that the proficient learner still experienced difficulty in her L2 reading mainly due to the lack of background knowledge and unfamiliar words. One of the most interesting findings is that the participant used her L2 reading skills in L1 reading to compensate for her difficulty with L1 texts. In doing so, unlike the assumption of the threshold hypothesis, she showed greater transfer of L2 reading to L1 reading. The reverse transfer seemed to result from her L1 attrition from extensive exposure to L2 academic texts as well as insufficient training in L1 academic literacy. This paper suggests that L1 loss factor be taken into account in the study of the threshold hypothesis (particularly for proficient learners in a second language learning environment), and that academic literacy be viewed as a set of disciplinary practice that requires special training in a given context.

In this paper we will discuss general properties of caki. First, the characteristics of caki with regard to anaphoric and pronominal properties will be treated as its major properties. However, it is difficult to get a clear definition for each of the above terms since caki shares its properties with pronominal and anaphor. Therefore, it is obvious that the property of caki is “a fusion of pronominal and anaphor” due to its ambiguity. That is, caki is considered to be a ‘pure anaphor’ like him/herself in English when bound in the local domain. And when caki is an LDA bound in the off-local domain, it is classified as a ‘pronominal-anaphor’ due to its pronominal property. Finally, discourse binding, larger domain preference, subject-orientedness, multiple anaphoric properties will be supplemented as its residual properties.

The study begins with pinpointing potential problems about the use of a traditional, institution-enforced teacher evaluation instrument in evaluating teachers in practical English programs in Korean universities. The study further investigates the possibility of successful application of a new teacher evaluation instrument developed for English-speaking classes (Shin, 2003). The 30 items of the new teacher evaluation tool reflected students’ perspectives well as the new teacher evaluation form had been based on in-depth interview of students and English-medium classroom observation. Correlation analysis showed that the reponses of students in practical English classes on the two survey forms (the institution-wide and the new one) did not have much association in overall and item-level. Moreover, deeper content investigation of the traditional teacher evaluation items revealed lack of diversity of criteria against which one can appropriately evaluate task-based, dynamic, interactive nature of English instruction in practical English classes. Further statistical analyses were conducted to see the validity and applicability of the newly devised teacher evaluation form. The paper also discussed suggestions for developing a new instrument for teacher evaluation in practical English programs at universities in Korea.

This essay traces Hemingway’s primitivism and his identity as a great American writer, relating his ‘African stories’. His concerns about Africa were influenced by European imperialism, which view Africa as a space of redemption or recreation in the literary sphere. In “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, we find that the American virtues such as hard work, self-reliance and courage are revived and intensified with the African people and their culture remaining as the marginal or the oppressed. His characters are indulged in the pursuit of redemption and their shortcomings are seen in that they are ignorant of African culture and people, or at least don’t care about them. Africa remains as the playground for white people’s individuation. With the publication of these stories, Hemingway reclaims his status as a great American writer. He reaffirmed the American virtues in the modern world. With his affirmation, puritanism and frontier mind are revived through his characters. Therefore, Hemingway’s Africa can be defined as the space of his revival as a writer, and that of national ideologies’s intensification. Hemingway’s lack of insight for African culture and its people limits his scope of imagination and gives little space for criticizing his own people and culture.

Graham Greene and Iris Murdoch are contemporary British novelists whose religious attitudes are different. Greene is a Catholic widely known as what is called a Catholic writer, and Murdoch is an atheist interested in religious ideas and practices as a moral philosopher. Greene and Murdoch, in their respective novel The Power and Glory and The Bell, assume a critical attitude to the law-abiding Christians, exposing their lack of human understanding and love. The two novelists who criticise the law-abiding pious remind us of Christ who blamed the Pharisees for adhering to the law. Christ proclaimed man was prior to the law, by saying “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” Greene and Murdoch show in their novels that the law is made for man. They hope Christians become free from the law which hinders them from understanding and loving others. Now that Greene inside the pale of the Church and Murdoch outside it deal with the same theme about Christianity in their novels in the post-Christianity era, their efforts probably help evoke interest in the Christian theme.

The purpose of this study was to analyse the nature of composition of high school students who have hardly been taught over the sentence level. In the analysis, essays of two groups with distinct English abilities were compared mainly in terms of holistic evaluation, composition length and cohesion use. The subjects are were first year students at a High School in Suwon, Kyungi-do, who were placed into two groups according to a trial examination of Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test. The research questions were as follows: (1) Does the upper group excel the lower in the score of a composition? (2) Does the upper group excel the lower in the number of T-units in a composition? (3) Does the upper group excel the lower in the density of cohesion in a composition?(4) Is there any difference in the nature of cohesion use in a composition between the two groups? (5) Is there any correlation between English ability, the composition score, the number of T-units and the density of cohesion in a composition? The findings of the study are as follows: (1) There is a slight correlation between underdeveloped English ability and the quality of the composition. (2) The quality of the composition is correlated with the number of T-units. (3) The quality of the composition is correlated with the density of cohesion. Based upon these findings, it is recommended that linguists and teachers develop more advanced and efficient methods in teaching English composition. Additionally, it is imperative that the schools hire English teachers who are capable of teaching English composition.