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Conspiracy theories attribute a series of events, whether they are interrelated or otherwise, to some malignant activity of usually influential people. Such theories are actually irrefutable since they treat evidence supporting and undermining their arguments in an asymmetrical manner: they accept supporting evidence without further ado but they claim that contrary pieces of evidence are misleading, deceptive, or even unscientific. Cultural epidemiology accounts for their widespread acceptance by three reasons: first, their intuitive appeal (claims that fulfil our intuitive, non-conscious, automatic and spontaneous expectations have the most chance of becoming popular); second, the mimicry of scientific statements (they appear to employ scientific methods, language, and system of institutions), and third, their immunity to criticism (they defy any empirical evidence). The paper studies conspiracy theories that spread in the online media with respect to the coronavirus pandemic of 2019–2020 in two respects: it analyses such theories as memes, treating the latter as units of cultural epidemiology, and then it presents a selection of internet memes from 2020 that treat conspiracy theories in a critical perspective.
conspiracy theory, memetics, internet meme, pseudoscience, coronavirus pandemic
The paper tries to clarify some terminological, content-related, formal, and classificational issues related to two concepts pertaining to the aspectual characteristics of verbs, Aktionsart vs. situational/lexical aspect. The discussion focuses on the narrower category of the two, Aktionsarts; in particular, on problems and paradoxes of their classification. The idea is to integrate Aktionsarts into lexical aspect, a concept better suited to the determination of the aspectual properties of verbs. The new classification differentiates between Smith’s derived aspects, the iterative, frequentative, durative/diminutive, and delimitative aspects, and the kinds of Aktionsarts expressed by prefixed accomplishment and achievement verbs. Such integration of Aktionsarts into the category of lexical aspect is underpinned by the following arguments: the individual types of Aktionsarts do not fully comply with the criteria of being an Aktionsart; their taxonomy is mainly based on semantic considerations, rather than on their aspectual properties; and the dividing line often drawn between the roles of preverbs in word formation and in forming Aktionsarts is a non-existent one.
lexical aspect, aspectual classes, Aktionsart, derived aspect
The study examines speech rate and articulation rate in 6-, 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old speakers in three types of tasks (interview, storytelling based on a series of pictures, and summarizing the content of a heard text). The tempo values are presented and compared in several ways: sound/s, syllable/s, and word/minute. Results show that although age has an effect on speech and articulation rate, its effect is not present in all speech tasks and for all tempo values. The effect of speech tasks on tempo values was significant from the age of 13 on. However, it is also important which unit the tempo values are given in: they can lead to quite different results and therefore different conclusions. While we measured significant differences between the data obtained in one unit, there were no statistical differences across age groups or speech tasks in the other units. Our data enrich the knowledge related to first language acquisition with new results on the one hand, and draw attention to an important methodological issue, namely the importance of units of measurement, on the other hand.
speech rate, articulation rate, speech task, units of measurement, children
In recent years, attention given to speech-related disciplines has shifted to analysing extra- and paralinguistic information occurring in speech. This is mainly due to the fact that they significantly influence the evaluation of linguistic information and provide an additional incentive to improve technological opportunities. Moreover, public interest in the factor of age is growing which, in turn, may encourage the conduct of this type of research. Earlier research has mostly analysed older speakers, and, to date, we have little information about the changes taking place in the voices of healthy, young speakers as they get older. Our study examines how certain timing characteristics of speech change in two different types of speech over a period of about 10 years. 13 healthy, young adult male speakers’ reading and spontaneous speech were selected from two databases. The development of temporal and pausing patterns was analysed with regard to the type of speech, position, the time of the recording (10-year difference). The paper focuses on timing differences within and between the recordings. The results showed that not only the types of speech but also the differences within and between the recordings affected the pausing strategies. In the case of articulation rate, individual differences dominated.
temporal patterns, longitudinal data, articulation rate, age, speech type
This paper examines the pragmatic functions of overlapping speech in Hungarian political debate shows. In terms of conversation analysis, overlap means that two or more participants are speaking at the same time (Hayashi 2013; Schegloff 2000), an event that regularly occurs in the case of turn-taking. The present study combines the methods of conversation analysis and pragmatics, especially im/politeness theories, to reveal the interactional functions of simultaneous speech. It shows that overlapping speech has various pragmatic functions in Hungarian political debate shows which belong to the semi-institutionalized discourse type (Ilie 2001; 2006). But to determine the interactional functions of overlaps we need to take a closer look at the context of the utterance and take discursive expectations into consideration. These factors can provide a way of distinguishing simple interruptions from overlaps that can function as linguistic strategies. The study reveals that in Hungarian political debate shows overlaps are suitable for expressing dis/agreement and interpersonal relationships, for forming the direction of discourse, and for taking turns. The multimodal corpus used here contains six videos where the participants are politicians, journalists, or political experts. The study differentiates the main pragmatic functions of overlap; the categories are built simultaneously with the processing of the videos and are set up with a heuristic method. The suggested categories may provide insight into the possible intentions and motivations of participants and shows the interactional features of this genre.
simultaneous speech, overlap, interruption, political debate shows
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