Itayi Artwell Mareya

The Comparative study of Chinese Adverbs of Degree has always been a missing task by Zimbabwean students learning or studying Chinese language as a Second Language. This has therefore brought the misunderstanding and misuse and incorrect use of many Chinese Degree Adverbs by Zimbabwean students.The use of Chinese Degree Adverb “tai” has been in the main centre of debate by Zimbabwean students learning Chinese language at the Confucius Institute of Zimbabwe during their Chinese classes due to its ambiguous use in Zimbabwean Shona and English speakers. Due to a great extend of how Shona language has been influenced by English language this article aims to identify and show the errors and causes of the errors faced by Zimbabwean students when learning Chinese Degree Adverb “tai”.

Guo Fuliang, Bneijeck Mohamedou

In teaching a second language, vocabulary is the essential component that constitutes a language, and vocabulary teaching is an essential part of Chinese language teaching. Teaching Chinese as a second language in Mauritania plays a vital role in developing the cultural exchange between China and Mauritania. The author will conduct quantitative research within the specific context of learning Chinese oral vocabulary for Mauritanian students. This paper analyses the new Chinese spoken vocabulary and explores the new Chinese spoken vocabulary from three aspects: definition, characteristics and provide some suggestions in the teaching Chinese as the second language. It devotes to investigating the misuse of the spoken Chinese vocabulary by Mauritanian Arabic speakers, to improve their oral vocabulary system.

Mehrnoosh Pirhayati, Farzaneh Haratyan

Nowadays visual signs as the tools of perception and communication, are considered very significant and prominent in our contemporary societies. In fact, visual signs, as the communicative tools can be used for various reasons and aims, such as advertisement, announcement and the like, in order to draw people’s attention. In addition, visual features are especially employed by the writers and translators for better and quick understanding the content of their books at first glance. Therefore, they can bear particular loads of ideology. In other words, the functions of visual concepts in writing and translation are to attract, and provoke the reader for a particular aim. In this regard, this study attempted to analyze the semiotic features of the Persian translated versions of the feminist book “A Room of One’s Own” written by Virginia Woolf, which were translated after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, in comparisons with the semiotic features of their corresponding English book, in order to reveal their ideological implications. To do so, this study was conducted based on Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) framework, and Machin’s (2007) model of typographical analysis was also employed in this research. In addition, the priority of the name of the author versus the priority of the name of the translator were taken into account. This study as a descriptive-comparative research was organized in a qualitative approach. The findings showed that translators, with their choices and selections, caused to manipulate the ideological loads of the feminist book, which were lied behind its visual features, but these manipulations did not affect the feminist ideological loads of the semiotic signs of the original book significantly.

Claudia Toldo, Débora Facin

This paper engages in reflection over concepts of language and sign from a semiological conception as presented by two great names of modern linguistics: Ferdinand de Saussure, in Writings in General Linguistics and in Course in General Linguistics, and Émile Benveniste, in Language Structure and Society Structure [free translation]and The Semiology of Language. The work involving these concepts intends to show man in language even when linguistics studies sought to determine a worthy object that guaranteed linguistics would be considered science. Thus, reading Writings unveils a Saussure whose principles, especially those targeted at the sign value, disconnects us from approaches conceiving linguistics as merely attached to the signifying matter of language.

Bneijeck Mohamedou, Ghulam Hyder

Arabic and Chinese are two important and different languages of the world, with different grammatical structures and language rules. This study attempts to explain the differences of noun structures of these two languages in detail, in order to help learning Chinese language to Mauritanian (Arabic) students. This paper compares modern Chinese and Arabic noun structures, analyzes the characteristics of noun formation in Chinese and Arabic languages, and explores the role of noun prefixes in teaching second language.

Iran Ferreira de Melo, Natanal Duarte de Azevedo, Renata Barbosa Vicente, Djalma Albuquerque de Hollanda Wanderley

In the present study, we display results from an analysis of the Transitivity System as a mechanism for the representation of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people in the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. Our aim is to reflect upon the representationalist potential of such grammatical resource, so as to understand how the most read newspaper outlet in Brazil depicts this group of social actors who are historically marginalized from their social and human rights. We selected all the news issued by the publication about the LGBT Pride Parade, from 1997 until 2012, and we analyzed sentences about people who are characterized by the news outlet as LGBT, regarding how the Transitivity System components are manifested, according to the Systemic-Functional Linguistics (SFL), proposed by Michael Halliday and Christian Matthiessen [1]. Then, we interpreted the results intending to analyze how the representation of the LGBT is constructed and which implications such construction might bring. In order to summarize such study, we divided our discussion into two moments: first, we explain what the Transitivity System is; then, we socialize the results; finally, we develop a brief observation on the effect of our findings contrasted with the LGBT sociopolitical circumstances in Brazil.

Diana Kartika

This qualitative study investigates Aizuchi used by the third semester students of the department of Japanese Literature, Bung Hatta University. There were 20 students who participated in this research. Aizuchi is a verbal and non-verbal feedback signal in Japanese that is often spoken and done by the other persons in Japanese language communication. The sources of data used in this study are quotes of conversations of the Japanese Literature students. This research used recording technique to collect the data. The results of data analysis show that from all conversation quotations, there are six types of aizuchi forms: Ee, Aa, Un, Soudesuka, Hē, Sa, and Iie. Six functions that Aizuchi found in the quote of the conversation are: (1) kiteiru toiu shingo (sign hearing the opponent's speech). (2) shoryiru shingo rikai (the opposite sign says understand the contents of the conversation.) (4) fujyouno shingo (opponent's rejection). (5) kanjyouno hyougen (expression of feeling), and (6) Fujo u, futei no shingō (Signs of opponents' rejection of speech content).

Ulisses De Oliveira, Marcelo Saparas

The nominal group (NG), in both English and Portuguese, has substantial differences in relation to the order of its constituents. So the comparison of such constituents can shed some light on the issue. We have examined the constituents of the NG in English and their translations into Portuguese in terms of: (a) function, as well as (b) their occurrence order in both languages. As an example, one can realize the Portuguese translation of the following NG: (1) generalizable (2) model (3) of clause and (4) sentence (5) structure, into current Portuguese as “(2) modelo (1) generalizável (5) da estrutura (3) de oração e (4) da sentença” shows that the order of its constituents in both languages differs considerably. The consideration of the semantic/discursive structure involved in it – and not just its morphosyntactic structure – can help us to cope with difficulties such translations can cause.

Hisham Ibrahim Izedin Mohamed Ali

This study aims to identify the extent to which Arabic typography conforms to the developments in printing technology. It comprises eight purposive samples that illustrate the development of Arabic typography designs through different historical phases. Content analysis and descriptive methodologies along with regular observation method is used to describe and analyze the content of the eight samples under study. Moreover, the study discussed the opinion of various critics and researchers, which blames the advanced printing technology for the lack of beauty in Arabic printing letters when compared with the gracefulness of classic Arabic calligraphy. The main conclusion of this study is that Arabic typography managed functionally to keep pace with the technological advancement of printing design and production equipment. Much was achieved since the first samples of computer aided Arabic typography compared with the latest developments. It also concludes that ugly and poorly designed fonts are not a consequence of the advancement in printing technology instead it's a shortcoming from the part of the specialists. Furthermore, the development of Arabic typography design should be judged by its readability, printing economics and other functional attributes, not by the tough rules of classic Arabic calligraphy traditions alone. The study recommends that designers of Arabic typography should endeavour to achieve greater formal similarities between the current and future designs of Arabic typography and the traditional forms of Arabic calligraphy.

Frida Akinyi Miruka

Names are an important aspect in the analysis of any literary work. Besides helping in the understanding of the character in question, names also help in communicating important thematic aspects in various works of literature. Many literary critics hence pay a lot of attention to the use of names to help unveil the writer’s message, ideology and themes as he is perceived to communicate through them. In most cases, these names usually obtain their meanings contextually hence giving a clear connection between onomastics and pragmatics. This paper presents a pragmatic analysis of selected personal and place names as depicted in John Habwe’s novel, Maisha Kitendawili.