LINGUIST List 7.1244

Sun Sep 8 1996

Qs: L2 reading, References, Dictionary, Historical syntax

Editor for this issue: T. Daniel Seely <dseelyemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. Walkyria Magno e Silva, computer science students
2. Oesten Dahl, Standards for bibliographical references
3. mdavis, Berber/English Dictionary
4. Aimee Ashbaugh, Historical Syntax

I'm conducting research on difficulties computer students in Brazil 
find when reading this specific area in English (English for Specific 
Purposes). Is there anybody doing something similar? I'd like to 
exchange ideas about which hypothesis we can make trying to sort 
out these difficulties.

Thanks for any response.

Is there anyone except me who feels the need for a unified way of writing
bibliographical references? You may not believe me, but the style sheets of
two major publishers of linguistics literature, Benjamins and Mouton, differ
on EIGHT points in how a totally ordinary journal article should be
referenced. (After having looked into a few more publications from these
publishers, I have to modify this statement. Actually, each publisher seems
to have several style sheets which differ between each other no less than
the ones I mentioned.) Every time you submit a paper, you have to spend
several hours studying intriguing details such as single vs. double quotes,
the order of first and last names, full stops vs. commas, italics vs. no
italics etc. And still you don't get it right...
I think we need a standard for these things that has the following properties:
* It should be easy to learn and use.
* It should allow import and export of records from and to bibliographical
databases using any standard database program.
* It should be accepted by everyone, in such a way that you can always
recycle a reference that you have used in an earlier publication.
It is possible that someone has thought of such a standard already. In that
case, it should be made known to all of us and we should try to get it
accepted as soon as possible. If no such standard exists, we should decide
upon one. I have some ideas what it should look like, but first I would like
to hear what other people think about this. The time we invest in this
project will be well spent; we'll save many hours in the future that can be
used for more productive purposes.
If you write to me what you think, I will be back with a summary and a proposal
.
Oesten Dahl
oestenling.su.se

My companion and I have become very close with a Berber family in the
Atlas Mountains. We are looking for a Berber/English Dictionary. Do you
know of one? We'd appreciate any info.

Kathy Kaufman

I shall be writing an undergraduate honors thesis on approaches that have
been taken toward historical syntax. As attempts at syntactic
reconstruction seem far less numerous than, say, phonetic reconstruction,
my aim is mainly to review the depth and scope of such endeavors. I would
be most appreciative if anyone could suggest sources that might be helpful
to start with, e.g. references on theories of historical syntax and
methods for syntactic reconstruction, affects of changing syntactic
theories on historical grammar, or even reconstructions of specific
languages.

Many thanks,

Aimee Ashbaugh
ashbaughmailhost.tcs.tulane.edu