A COMPARATIVE STUDY of ENGLISH and KURDISH CONNECTIVES in NEWSPAPER OPINION ARTICLES Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor
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A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ENGLISH AND KURDISH CONNECTIVES IN NEWSPAPER OPINION ARTICLES Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leicester by Rashwan Ramadan Salih BA, MA School of English University of Leicester 2014 A comparative study of English and Kurdish connectives in newspaper opinion articles Abstract This thesis is a comparative study that investigates English and Kurdish connectives which signal conjunctive relations in online newspaper opinion articles. This study utilises the Hallidayan framework of connectives in light of the principles of Relevance Theory established by Sperber and Wilson (1995). That is, connectives are considered in terms of their procedural meanings; i.e. the different interpretations they signal within different contexts, rather than their conceptual meanings. It finds that Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) classification of conjunctive relations and connectives needs to be modified, in order to lay out a clearer classification of English connectives that could account for their essential characteristics and properties. This modified classification would also help classify Kurdish connectives with greater accuracy. The comparison between connectives from both languages is examined through the use of translation techniques such as creating paradigms of correspondence between the equivalent connectives from both languages (Aijmer et al, 2006). Relevance Theoretic framework shows that any given text consists of two segments (S1 and S2), and these segments are constrained by different elements according to the four sub-categories of conjunctive relations. Different characteristics of connectives are considered in relation to the different subcategories of the Hallidayan framework of the conjunctive relations as follows: additive: the semantic content of the segments S1 and S2; adversative: the polysemy of the connectives; causal-conditional: iconicity in the order of the segments and temporal: the time scenes in the segments S1 and S2 The thesis comprises eight chapters. Chapter One introduces Kurds and Kurdish language, provides the rationale for conducting this project, and outlines the research aims and questions. Chapter Two reviews the existing research on connectives in particular and discourse markers in general. Chapter Three outlines the data and the combined methodology used in the following chapters. Chapters Four, Five, Six and Seven are dedicated to the four subcategories of conjunctive relations and connectives: additive, adversative, causal-conditional and temporal relations respectively. Finally, Chapter Eight reflects on the contribution of the research to the field in terms of findings and methodology and gives suggestions for future research. Rashwan Salih II Acknowledgements I owe a great deal of gratitude to many people who supported me in completing this project. First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Ruth Page, for all the time, energy and devotion she put into this thesis during the past three years. I also would like to thank my sponsor, KRG's Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, for their continuous financial support during this research project. I would not have been able to study in the UK if it was not for their generous support. I am indebted to Dr Wrya Ali for his support and comments and for being the local advisor for my thesis. I am also grateful for the support of the Kurdish translators for participating in the translation task in the current thesis. Their contribution to this project is highly appreciated. Many thanks to Ms Joanne Payton for the enormous help I received from her in proofreading this thesis word by word. I must not forget the endless support of my family; my wife and children, who have endured me during the past three years. My parents, sisters and my brother who have always been there for me and encouraging me throughout my study abroad. Last but not least, the intensive support programmes and training workshops at the University of Leicester are highly appreciated which have helped me throughout the process of planning, writing and completing the current project. Many thanks for all staff members at the School of English for their continuous support and their devotion in supporting all postgraduate students in general and international students in particular. III Table of contents ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................... II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................................. III TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................................................. IV LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................................... VII LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................................ VII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................................................................... VIII CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 1 1.0 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 KURDS AND KURDISH LANGUAGE .................................................................................................................... 1 1.1.1 Kurdish alphabets............................................................................................................................ 5 1.1.2 Kurdish grammar ............................................................................................................................ 8 1.2 RATIONALE ................................................................................................................................................. 9 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ................................................................................................................................ 10 1.4 AIMS AND CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY ....................................................................................................... 10 1.5 THESIS OUTLINE ......................................................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................................ 13 2.0 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................................... 13 2.1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF CONJUNCTIVE RELATIONS AND CONNECTIVES ......................................................... 13 2.1.1 Definitions of connectives ............................................................................................................. 14 2.1.2 Properties of connectives .............................................................................................................. 17 2.1.2.1 Syntactic properties................................................................................................................................ 17 2.1.2.2 Semantic properties ............................................................................................................................... 19 2.2 CONNECTIVES ACROSS LANGUAGES ................................................................................................................ 20 2.3 COHESION AND COHERENCE ......................................................................................................................... 23 2.4 A RELEVANCE-BASED APPROACH TO CONNECTIVES ........................................................................................... 26 2.5 THE USE OF TRANSLATION AS A TOOL TO STUDY CONNECTIVES ............................................................................. 28 2.6 HALLIDAY AND HASAN'S (1976) CLASSIFICATION OF CONJUNCTIVE RELATIONS ....................................................... 29 2.7 REFORMULATION OF HALLIDAY AND HASAN'S (1976) CLASSIFICATION OF CONJUNCTIVE RELATIONS .......................... 34 2.7.1 Additive ......................................................................................................................................... 35 2.7.2 Adversative ................................................................................................................................... 36 2.7.3 Causal-conditional ........................................................................................................................ 37 2.7.4 Temporal ....................................................................................................................................... 38 2.8 GENRE ..................................................................................................................................................... 39 IV 2.8.1 Journalistic language .................................................................................................................... 39 2.8.2 Opinion articles ............................................................................................................................