Hartmut Haberland

English – the new Latin of academia? Danish universities as a case

Abstract In recent discussions about the increased use of English at European universities, English is often referred to as the “the new Latin”. The current article puts this comparison to the test by presenting a critical historical overview of the use of Latin, Danish, English and other languages at Danish universities from 1479 to the present day. The article argues that the current use of English in Danish academia cannot, despite some apparent similarities, be compared to the use of Latin at earlier stages of Danish university history. Most importantly, the article argues that the motivation for using English today is radically different from the motivation behind the use of Latin at the early stages of Danish university history as well as the motivation for the use of Danish in more recent history.

Whose english, nobody's business

Abstract This paper deals with nothing less than the question: Who owns the English language?

Text, discourse, discours: The latest report from the terminology vice squad

Abstract A distinction between ‘text’ and ‘discourse’, based on suggestions by Bronislaw Malinowski (1935) and Konrad Ehlich (1979, 1981), is proposed and contrasted with the distinction between ‘text’ and ‘discourse’ as made by Jacob Mey (1993). A few remarks on the term discours in the French tradition are added.

Transcription as Second-Order Entextualization: The Challenge of Heteroglossia

This chapter argues that transcription should be conceived of as a special case of entextualization, viz., the reification or fixation of verbal interaction, making it transportable in space and time. The chapter discusses issues of readability and naturalness of representation, especially with regard to the representation of multilingual interaction and the use of non-Latin scripts in transcription.

Topics and clitics in Greek relatives

Abstract In Greek clauses Topical Objects can be expressed by both an NP and a clitic pronoun - a ‘doubling clitic’. In relative clauses introduced by the invariant relativizer pu, clitics - ‘resumptive clitics’ - can represent the antecedent. Previous studies show that the conditions for clitic doubling and resumption are not identical. The main purpose of the paper is to refine the understanding of these conditions and to refine the exact relation between the two phenomena. The differences between doubling and resumption will be explained in terms of independently needed hypotheses, esp. the claim that an antecedent is a Topic of the relative clause, the Keenan-Comrie Accessibility Hierarchy, and the ‘Clitic Host Constraint’.

Die schwache Adjektivflexion im Dänischen und Deutschen. Eine Fingerübung in diachronischer Typologie

Abstract Obwohl deutsche und dänische Adjektive der traditionellen Anschauung nach eine Bestimmtheitsflexion haben, so sind die Ähnlichkeiten oberflächlich. Während es sich im Dänischen um eine echte Beugung des Adjektivs mit der dazugehörigen Inhaltsgröße Bestimmtheit handelt, sind deutsche Nominalgruppen als Ganze als [±definit] markiert — wobei die Adjektive gelegentlich an dieser Markierung mitwirken, gelegentlich aber auch nicht. Die schwache Flexion ist der reine Nominalgruppenkitt. Ein Vergleich mit anderen germanischen Sprachen und früheren Sprachstufen zeigt, dass Deutsch und Dänisch verschiedenen diachronischen Entwicklungstypen gefolgt sind. Nebenher wird der Mythos der ,gemischten Adjektivbeugung ‘im Deutschen endgültig abgeschafft.

Thetic–Categorical Distinction

In the late 19th and early 20th century, there were two major attempts at overcoming the Aristotelian articulation of the clause (or ‘judgment’) in subject and predicate: one by Gottlob Frege, who did away with the distinction altogether, and one by Franz von Brentano and Anton Marty, who restricted the traditional subject–predicate articulation to what they called ‘categorical judgments,’ as opposed to ‘thetic judgments,’ which do not involve an act of predication about some ‘psychological subject’ but attribute something to a situation as a whole.

Cognitive technology and pragmatics: analogies and (non-)alignments

This paper presents some considerations about the relationship between languages and computer systems from a pragmatic, user-centered point of view.

Natural language and artificial technology-it ain't necessarily so

The paper takes its point of departure in issues that have been discussed previously by the author (H. Haberland, 1995; 1996, 1997). In these contributions, the author has tried to explore the implications of some obvious parallels between the linguistic discipline of pragmatics (H. Haberland and J.L. Mey, 1977; J. Verschueren, 1987) and the concept of cognitive technology as explicated by B. Gorayska and J.L. Mey (1996), and B. Gorayska and J. Marsh (1996).

Logic Won't Plug Real Life Gaps: A Remark on Gerald Gazdar's Class, Codes, and Conversation

Abstract In his recent paper in Linguistics (Gazdar 1979), Gerald Gazdar tries “to plug a linguistic gap” in the body of literature that has criticized Basil Bernsteins code theory. I will attempt to unplug some of these gaps. I contend that Gazdar misinterprets Bernsteins theory as a theory of conversation (whereas it is rather an attempt to explain working class childrens lower level of school achievement), and that his use of arguments from logic is misleading, especially where linguists and sociolinguists have already brought more substantial arguments, partly in the same area as Gazdars claims.