Chomsky put forth his "A-over-A" theory in his book "Language and Mind", which means if a sentence contains (S… (A...) A…) S (A-over-A) structure, then this sentence can only be transformed on the basis of the larger phrase. In this paper the author puts forth the "Psychological Momentum" theory to analyze the…

The current study aims to investigate the discursive construction and navigation of agency in oral narratives of English learning by Chinese college English majors. Based on the theoretical framework integrating Bamberg et. al.'s theory of identity dilemma and Hallidayan systemic functional linguistics, the study has addressed two research…

Anaphoric expressions are among the most frequent language forms which depend on context for their resolution. Among efforts made in theorizing referential choice, distance approaches take into account how accessibility/continuity is reflected by choice of referring expressions. The thing is that individual's choices are made under major and minor…

Generative semantics is (or perhaps was) a research program within linguistics, initiated by the work of George Lakoff, John R. Ross, Paul Postal and later McCawley. The approach developed out of transformational generative grammar in the mid 1960s, but stood largely in opposition to work by Noam Chomsky and his students. The nature and genesis of…

What and how we translate are questions often argued about. No matter what kind of answers one may give, priority in translation should be granted to meaning, especially those meanings that exist in all concerned languages. In this paper the author defines them as universal sememes, and the study of them as universal semantics, of which…

According to the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English 1999 by Biber et al. (p. 266) generic article uses are more than twice as common in academic English than in conversation or fiction. This is an area that English for Academic Purpose (EPA) textbooks and teachers would need to target more than general English teaching. This paper is…

The study aimed to investigate whether or not negotiation of meaning is effective in L2 vocabulary acquisition of Chinese learners of English in the classroom setting. In the study there were two experimental groups (pre-modified input and negotiation of meaning) and two control groups (pre-modified input). The four groups were required to do a…

What we know through language is whether the way things are or the ways the things are constructed through anthropological tradition and socio cultural shaping. Actually at the very outset, it is not very clear the settling point of this query. However, we can very well understand the point why a critical understanding of…

Studies in interlanguage pragmatics have shown that L2 learners' proficiency has an influence on the occurrences of L1 pragmatic transfer. However, questions remain whether the relationship between L1 pragmatic transfer and L2 proficiency is positive or negative. This paper is designed to study L1 pragmatic transfer in requests made by Chinese…

Translation studies stem from comparative literature and contrastive analysis. It involves the transfer of messages between two different language systems and cultures, and Munday (2001, p.1) notes that translation "by its nature" "is multilingual and also interdisciplinary". Translation subjects are the texts in various…