International Linguistics Research

The Characteristics of Indonesian Legal Language in Notarial Documents

I Wayan Ana, Ida Bagus Putra Yadnya, I Made Budiarsa, Ida Ayu Made Puspani — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0800

This study is aimed at finding out the characteristics of Indonesian Legal Language in notarial documents. This study is theoretically based on Cao's theory (2007) in her book entitled “Translating Law”, and supported by Djatmika in his book entitled “Prilaku Bahasa Indonesia, dalam Teks Kontrak”. The data of this study were collected from 6 ( six) legal documents in the form of lease agreement, sale agreement, prenuptial agreement, deed of company establishment, employment agreement and conciliation agreement. From the results and analysis, two (2) characteristics were found in the ILL of notarial documents: (1) general characteristics (boilerplate) and (2) specific characteristics. There are fifteen (15) specific characteristics of ILL found in the notarial documents in this research. The fifteen characteristics consist of eight (8) lexical characteristics and seven (7) syntactical characteristics. The lexical characteristics found in the notarials documents are (a) the use of legal terminologies, (b) the use of repetitive words (tautology), (c) the use of words dan/atau “and/or”, (d) the use of synonymous words, (e) the use of foreign terms, (f) the use of sebagaimana word, (g) the use of the word mana as demontrastrative adjective, and (h)the use of formal address; while the syntactical characteristics consist of (a) the use of long and complex sentences, (b) the use bahwa clause, (c) the use of passive sentences, (d) object fronting, (e) declarative sentence beginning with verb, (f) the use of reference system and (g) pre-supposation.

Evaluation of Business English Writing Course-book Based on the Needs Analysis Model

Guihang Guo, Beiying He — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0800

Since business English (BE) was ratified as an undergraduate major in China by the Ministry of Education in 2007, domestic research on it has been mushrooming. BE writing course is one of the core courses in the module of English knowledge and skills for BE undergraduate program. Although there are more than 354 BE writing course-books have been published, few researches have been done to evaluate these textbooks. This paper aims to evaluate one of the BE writing course-books used by Guizhou University, namely, A Basic Course for Business English Writing. Targeting on the students majoring in Business English, the paper adopted the needs analysis model proposed by Hutchinson and Waters as well as the present situation analysis model raised by Richterich and Chancerel to design the questionnaire, which was used to identify students’ needs for business English writing. Based on the results of the questionnaire survey and the course-book evaluation criteria created by McDonough and Shaw, we identified the problems with the course-book and proposed some suggestions for modifications and further improvement.

An Application of the "Harmony-Guided Criteria" to the English translation of Song ci: A Case Study of "Immortals at the Magpie Bridge" by Qin Guan

Wang Feng, Huang Hongxia — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0800

Ezra Pound's Cathay set the stage for a translation of free verse and influenced many translators such as Arthur Waley and Kenneth Rexroth. However, before Pound, rhymed Chinese poems were mainly translated into rhymed English poems by Herbert Giles, W. J. B. Fletcher, etc. Is it necessary to challenge the dominant translation poetics of free verse and insist that rhymed Chinese poems are best translated into rhymed English poems? Six English versions of a Song ci poem "Immortals at the Magpie Bridge" on the Chinese Valentine's Day were analyzed in details based on the newly proposed "Harmony-Guided Criteria" for poetry translation, which takes "Harmony" as the translation standard at the macro level, "resemblance in style, sense and poetic realm" at the middle level, and the "eight beauties of poetry translation" at the micro level. It shows that the criteria can be applied to the translation of rhymed Chinese ci poems into rhymed English poems, though with limitations.

Discourse-semantics Analysis of References in two Selected Excerpts from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah

Daniel T. Yokossi — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0800

This article seeks to explore the discourse-semantics of two selected excerpts from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah with a focus on reference chains study. The choice to focus on studying reference chains in the selected excerpts aims at first appraising the way Adichie has used them to realize texture within her studied texts. It second aims at finding the extent to which references have contributed to the encoding of underlying meanings therein. To arrive at this, the research has appealed to the mixed quantitative and qualitative methodology. Through the quantitative methodology, the data obtained after analyses have been summarized organized and presented statistically in an informative way. The qualitative methodology ensued has allowed to give sense to the most interpretable data collected. Indeed, the research has interestingly arrived at impressive results. Among several others, the research has revealed that the studied texts are highly cohesive with endophoric references largely predominating over the other reference types. Using such cohesive ties as Adichie has done, has allowed her texts not only to stick together but also to be highly readable and flow logically. Moreover, the extensive use of endophoric references, as witnessed in the studied texts, is revelatory of their mode which is archetypal of a monologic written text. In other respects, the considerable number of exophoric references in the first excerpt reveals its tenor dimension. Such a linguistic feature indicates that it was produced in a context of immediate face-to-face feedbacks with language accompanying action. On the other hand, the fewer number of the same reference type in the second excerpt reveals its field and unveils that it is a written reflective text reconstructing an experience. Drawing upon the theoretically founded analysis of the selected excerpts and the interpretation of the collected data arrived at, the research opens up to such further investigation areas of the systemic functional linguistics as the interpersonal meaning, the experiential meaning, and the textual meaning.