Punctuation

The article focuses on methodological and methodic considerations concerning the research on every day literacies of adolescents from a sociolinguistic perspective. Relating to the linguistic-anthropological concept of enregisterment the article advocates for the integration of ethnographic methods to the research designs of sociolinguistic writing studies. In the light of the enormous differentiation of writing events due to the mediatiziation of communication, the term of sociolinguistic registers of writing becomes important. The article suggests a three-level-model of analysis and gives a concluding case example of its application by discussing the pragmatic functions of the period within informal, interpersonal registers of digital writing.

This guide is designed as a practical resource. In the twenty-first century, we write much more than our parents did in the twentieth. We send emails, SMS’s, join blogs, forums and chat-rooms on the Internet. When we apply for a position, the first impression on the potential employer is made by our CV, not by the way we talk or behave. All this gives support to the idea that to assume a certain standard of professional communication, one must organize his or her writing clearly, making it look professional. This is where this book might help.

The first part of it illustrates the uses of punctuation marks. By giving sentences from prominent writers and well-known personalities for both examples and exercises, we hope to show the full range of possibilities for punctuation in contemporary writing as well as expand your background knowledge, which is crucial for non-native speakers of the language. If you study the examples carefully, you will gain understanding of how to use each punctuation mark in your own writing. Besides learning how to use punctuation correctly, you will see how punctuation can give you the freedom to write new kinds of sentences and express ideas in more effective ways.

Surely, there is one supreme rule: that punctuation is best which best serves to make writing subtle, supple, delicate, nuanced and efficient. Of course you can write using only periods and commas for punctuation. You can cook using only salt and pepper for seasoning. But why do it when there are so many seasonings pleasing to a mature palate? – George Will

The second part of the guide is dedicated to mechanics – conventional rules such as the one requiring capitalization of the first word of a sentence or writing titles of books and films. You need to follow the conventions so that your writing will look the way formal writing is expected to look.

The third part of the book aims at helping students prepare their paper for submission to the instructor as well as organize their article and acknowledge reference sources in their contribution, in case it is submitted for publication in Europe or the U.S.A.
Finally, the book is followed by the appendices. The first of them is a compact reference guide aiming to assist learners in understanding the corrections made by the instructor. The second appendix helps students avoid the most common mistakes when spelling English words.

The book was conceived as reader-friendly and easy to use.

Can you really master punctuation and mechanics? Of course, you can! It is just a matter of knowing the rules the guide provides.

Dans cet article, nous présenterons les résultats d’un test de perception où 28 informateurs finnophones ayant un niveau avancé en français ont entendu les cinq premières pages de L’étranger d’Albert Camus. Leur tâche a consisté à ajouter tous les points et les virgules au texte écrit correspondant sur la base des indices prosodiques.  Les résultats montrent qu’un contour intonatif descendant, où l’intonation baisse jusqu’au plancher de la tessiture du locuteur, est fortement associé à la présence d’un point ; un contour descendant moins profond n’est pas aussi fortement associé au point. Les virgules sont performées des manières différentes, et elles sont interprétées en perception comme des virgules ou comme des continuatifs sans ponctuation.

Perché scrivere bene, in modo adeguato alle situazioni e alle richieste della società, della scuola e dell’università, è così complicato? Quali sono le principali difficoltà della scrittura di oggi? E i dubbi più ricorrenti? È davvero possibile migliorarsi? Se sì, in quale modo? Il libro risponde a questi e ad altri interrogativi, adottando un’impostazione diversa da molti altri manuali di scrittura: partendo, cioè, dai reali problemi della scrittura nel terzo millennio, ai quali viene dedicato ampio spazio, proponendo strategie, soluzioni pratiche ed esercizi stimolanti e innovativi. Il tutto nella convinzione che il dovere di comporre testi possa anche trasformarsi nel piacere di scrivere.

On fera ici l’éloge de la ponctuation, l’éloge de ce dérisoire répertoire de points et de blancs qui est partie prenante du style de l’écrivain. Au-delà, on verra dans ces signes minuscules – blanc, virgule, deux-points ou parenthèses – un des traits formels du rythme, celui de l’œuvre littéraire comme celui de toute œuvre d’art.

The material features of the Shanghai Museum *Yong yue 用曰 and Zhangjiashan Yinshu 引書 manuscripts structure their texts in ways different from each other, inviting questions on production methods and the influence of form on the reception of content. I provide an overview of developments in manuscript formatting, noting a gradual development towards increased visual formatting in manuscripts over time. The article examines what the use of codicological features such as manuscript materiality, layout, and punctuation reveal about manuscript production and how these translate to the reception and understanding of text. It analyzes how such features in the two manuscripts contribute to a sense of textual unity, order their respective contents, and facilitate different modes of reading such as vocalization, memorization, browsing, and linear reading. I propose that developments in manuscript formatting increasingly facilitated visually clearer, context-independent, and text-centered modes of reading, allowing for a dynamic involvement of readers with the modes of engagement structurally favored by the manuscripts. This, in turn, possibly reveals broader shifts towards the formation of readership in Early China.

上海博物館所藏的《用曰》寫本以及張家山漢簡中的《引書》寫本在物質屬性層
面上對其各自文本的結構安排互不相同，從而引發了與其生產方式以及形式如何
影響內容的接收所相關的問題。在本文中，作者提供一個有關寫本格式發展的綜
覽，并指出其中逐漸出現的對寫本的視覺格式安排的愈發重視。同時，本文考察
寫本的“形制和形態” (codicological) 特征，即寫本的物質性、格式佈局、以及
標識符號能為我們揭示出什麼樣的有關其生產的信息，以及這些信息如何轉化成
讀者對其文本內容的接收和理解。本文逐一分析上述兩個寫本的該類特征如何有
效地促成了一種文本的一致性，如何安排各自的文本內容，并使得不同的閱讀模
式更為便利，比如發聲閱讀 (vocalization) ，記憶性閱讀 (memorization) ，瀏覽
性閱讀 (browsing) 以及線性 (linear) 閱讀。本文認為寫本的格式發展促進了視覺
上更為清晰，語境獨立，且以文本為中心的閱讀模式，從而也使得讀者與寫本之
間不同的交互模式 (modes of engagement) 成為可能。寫本這種物質性的發展或
許也凸顯出早期中國閱讀習慣的轉變。
Full paper: http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/15685322-10412p02

Variation of sentence length across time and genre: influence on the syntactic usage in English Abstract The goal of this paper is threefold: i) to present some practical aspects of using full-text version of Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), the largest diachronic multi-genre corpus of the English language, in the investigation of a linguistic trend of change; ii) to test a widely held assumption that sentence length in written English has been steadily decreasing over the past few centuries; iii) to point to a possible link between the changes in sentence length and changes in the English syntactic usage. The empirical proof of concept for iii) is provided by the decline in the frequency of the non-finite purpose subordinator in order to. Sentence length, genre and the likelihood of occurrence of in order to are shown to be interrelated.

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Bedeutung, die dem Komma im Leseprozess zukommt. Zuvor wurde dieses lediglich als mit der Rhetorik und in Folge mit der Grammatik verbundenes graphisches Instrument interpretiert, weshalb seine psycholinguistische Relevanz als Hilfestellung für den Lesenden im Ablauf des syntaktischen Parsings unbeachtet blieb und erst innerhalb der letzten Jahre mit dem Aufkommen einer sprachverarbeitungsorientierten Sichtweise verstärkt untersucht wurde. Nach der Darlegung der theoretischen Grundlagen gibt diese Arbeit einen Überblick über die bisher betriebene Forschung und präsentiert schließlich eine Studie, welche die Relevanz des Kommas an bestimmten syntaktischen Stellen anhand der Verarbeitungsdauer von jeweils zwei korrespondierenden Sätzen unter-sucht, die sich lediglich in der Realisierung des Kommas unterschieden. Schließlich werden die Ergebnisse diskutiert und theoretische Rückschlüsse gezogen.

{Maddie Chiu, Washington University in St. Louis} In Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Woolf explores the force of punctuation, particularly those of brackets and parentheses, on the text itself and those reading the text. She frequently engages with parentheses, but experiments with brackets in the novel, especially in the “Time Passes” section of decay and demise during World War I.

Abstract. This paper deals with Italian punctuation marks within the interlinguistic subtitles in tv shows. What makes this text type interesting, apart from some very specific features (coexistence of different communication codes, contact between punctuation marks and spoken language etc.), is the widespread use of audiovisual products, especially among young audience, hence their possible influence on the new forms of writing. We first describe the main features of subtitling; then we analyse three punctuation marks (comma, colon, ellipsis) in a corpus of 12 episodes taken from 10 tv shows in English language.

Estado del arte sobre las investigaciones sobre el subsistema de la puntuación en la escritura. Se sintetizan los trabajos previos más relevantes desde los campos de la lingüística y de la didáctica de la lengua, con numerosos ejemplos comentados. También se ofrecen algunas orientaciones didácticas para su enseñanza aprendizaje.

This guide is designed as a practical resource. In the twenty-first century, we write much more than our parents did in the twentieth. We send emails, SMS’s, join blogs, forums and chat-rooms on the Internet. When we apply for a position, the first impression on the potential employer is made by our CV, not by the way we talk or behave. All this gives support to the idea that to assume a certain standard of professional communication, one must organize his or her writing clearly, making it look professional. This is where this book might help.

The first part of it illustrates the uses of punctuation marks. By giving sentences from prominent writers and well-known personalities for both examples and exercises, we hope to show the full range of possibilities for punctuation in contemporary writing as well as expand your background knowledge, which is crucial for non-native speakers of the language. If you study the examples carefully, you will gain understanding of how to use each punctuation mark in your own writing. Besides learning how to use punctuation correctly, you will see how punctuation can give you the freedom to write new kinds of sentences and express ideas in more effective ways.

The second part of the guide is dedicated to mechanics – conventional rules such as the one requiring capitalization of the first word of a sentence or writing titles of books and films. You need to follow the conventions so that your writing will look the way formal writing is expected to look.

The third part of the book aims at helping students prepare their paper for submission to the instructor as well as organize their article and acknowledge reference sources in their contribution, in case it is submitted for publication in Europe or the U.S.A.

Finally, the book is followed by the appendices. The first of them is a compact reference guide aiming to assist learners in understanding the corrections made by the instructor. The second appendix helps students avoid the most common mistakes when spelling English words.

Can you really master punctuation and mechanics? Of course, you can! It is just a matter of knowing the rules the guide provides.

In one of his last books, the famous French literary theorist Gérard Genette wrote that the true hero of Gustave Flaubert's novel Sentimental Education was not Frédéric Moreau, but rather… the semicolon. He then suggested that one could even study the "stylistic and moral function" of this unlikely hero. As a follow-up of sorts to Genette's musings, I wish to focus on a different punctuation sign within a different corpus: the em-dash, an unlikely hero of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's works.

Beyin temelli bir algılama süreci sonucunda ortaya çıkan dinleme, konuşma, okuma ve yazma
faaliyetleri fiziksel ve zihinsel bileşenlere sahip bir sürecin farklı boyutlarıdır. Okuma ve yazma
sürecinde etkin rolü olan noktalama, cümle veya yan cümledeki türlü ögeleri birbirinden ayırmaya
yarayan işaretlerdir. Noktalama; çeşitli duraklama veya soluklanmaları, doğru bir telaffuzda ifade
edildiği gibi doğru miktarda veya oranda cümleler ve cümle parçacıkları arasında işaretleme sanatıdır.
Gerek akademik içerikli yayınlarda gerekse ilk ve orta öğretim seviyesindeki yayınlarda sayısal
bilimlerde özellikle matematik ve fizik alanlarındaki noktalama işaretlerinin kullanımı konusunda
yeterince örnek ve açıklama bulunmamaktadır. Alana ait özel isimlerin ve terimlerin okunuşu ve
kısaltmaların açılımı konusu bunlardan biridir. Alana özgü terimlerin yazımında Türk Dil Kurumu
Bilim ve Sanat Terimleri Ana Sözlüğü, bu kaynakta yer almayan sözcüklerin yazımında ise ilgili bilim
dalının sözlükleri esas alınmaktadır. Bilim dilinin ortak olması sebebiyle ortak terim ve kullanımlar
mevcuttur. Yazım kılavuzunda sayısal bilimlerle ilgili terimlerle ilgili eksiklikler bulunmaktadır.
Sayısal bilimlerdeki noktalama işaretlerinin kullanımı ile ilgili mevcut uluslararası temel birimlerin
sadece sayısal içerikli sözlüklerde yer almaması gerektiğini aynı zamanda yazım kılavuzunda da
gerekli açıklamalarla birlikte yer alması gerektiğini düşünmekteyiz. Yazım kılavuzu sadece Türk dili
ile ilgili alan çalışması yapanların kılavuzu değildir; Türkçeyi kullanarak diğer alanlarda çalışanların
da kılavuzudur. Kılavuz ve sözlükler bir milletin medeniyet seviyesini yansıtmaktadır. Bu sorun
sadece orta öğretim seviyesinde değil yüksek öğretim seviyesindeki yayınlarda da kendini
göstermektedir. Türkçe, eğitim ve bilim dili olabilecek yapıya ve zenginliğe sahiptir. Yazım kılavuzu
elbette öncelikle sözel bilim metinleriyle ilgili olabilir lakin sayısal bilimlerin metinleri oluşturulurken
de kullanılırken de yazmaya ve okumaya ihtiyaç duyulduğundan bu konudaki eksiklikler
giderilmelidir. Bu çalışmada bu konudaki düşünce, tespit ve önerilerimizi ortaya koyacağız.
Anahtar Sözcükler: Dil, yazım, noktalama, sayısal bilimler, terimler.

En este trabajo se realiza un pequeño acercamiento al tratamiento de los signos de interrogación en algunos de los principales tratados ortográficos publicados en nuestro país desde el siglo XVI, centrándonos, principalmente, en las obras ortográficas de la Real Academia en el siglo XVIII y en  la decisión adoptada en 1754 de colocar un signo de apertura y uno de cierre, lo cual es una de las marcas gráficas, junto con la ñ, que diferencian nuestra ortografía de la de otras lenguas.

The majority of scholarship on Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener. A Story of Wall-Street” focuses on Bartleby’s enigmatic statements and the narrator’s confused responses. This paper turns away from the famous statements that have drawn the most critical attention, and instead focuses on interstitial, non-linguistic moments in the story—specifically, the lawyer’s emphatic use of punctuation and the serialization of the story in two parts in Putnam’s Monthly Magazine. I argue in this essay that through these verse-like, semiotic gaps Melville creates a place of mixed agency where individual authority recedes, generating an absence in which the lawyer and Bartleby experience an inarticulate union.

The present paper aims at presenting some fundamental ideas that clarify the concept of graphology as a linguistic level of analysis. Departing from the lack of a theoretical apparatus at this level, this article explains what graphology means, what has been previously published on this matter and how this can be categorized into different sub-levels of study according to Levenston (1992) and Lennard (2005). This paper takes for granted Firth’s (1957) belief that all branches of linguistics are concerned with meaning; and that graphology should therefore receive due attention from linguists as all the other linguistic levels (i.e. lexis, grammar or phonology) have. The results of this research indicate that graphology as a system has been neglected both in theoretical and in practical terms. Further work in this field is therefore needed in order to facilitate the analysis of visual elements in literary and non-literary texts.

This paper gives a comprehensive view about the systems of metrical punctuation in old Hungarian poetry. In the era from the Hungarian Planctus Mariae to the end of the 16th century, I am examining sporadic manuscripts, the most important codices of Hungarian history of poetry, and the most frequently used books of the 16th century: the song books and the histories (historical songs). --
Dolgozatom szinte kizárólag külsőségekkel foglalkozik. Pontosabban: a vers külalakjával. Sokfelé ágazó vizsgálataim során az 1600 előtt keletkezett, magyar nyelvű vagy részben magyar nyelvű, kéziratos és nyomtatott verses anyagot tekintem át abból szempontból, hogy milyen vizuális
tagolási rendszerek működnek a versek szövegében.

The correct placement of punctuation characters is in many languages, including Czech, driven by complex guidelines. Although those guidelines use information of morphology, syntax and semantics, state-of-art systems for punctuation detection and correction are limited to simple rule-based backbones. In this paper we present a syntax-based approach by utilizing the Czech parser synt. This parser uses an adapted chart parsing technique for building the chart structure for the sentence. synt can then process the chart and provide several kinds of output information. The implemented punctuation detection technique utilizes the synt output in the form of automatic and unambiguous extraction of optimal syntactic structures from the sentence (noun phrases, verb phrases, clauses, relative clauses or inserted clauses). Using this feature it is possible to obtain information about syntactic structures related to expected punctuation placement. We also present experiments proving that this method makes it possible to cover most syntactic phenomena needed for punctuation detection or correction.

By Ruth Finnegan -- This book is upside down from many monographs. In moving from the familiar to the unfamiliar and back, its ordering is to go backwards from the present to the past rather than the other way round, and outwards from the nearby to the further-off. It’s in an unusual order in another way too: the first part begins with the personal and local rather than the conventional prolegomena about scholarly literature and theoretical rationale. That academic gesture mostly comes in Appendix 1 and to a smaller extent the footnotes. Between them these two have a dual role for they also function as a pertinent example of the quote-heavy academic style which is currently a prominent setting for quotation.

This contribution aims to establish a graphematic theory of medieval writing and to demonstrate that the graphic signs admit, like any other level of language, a historical analysis through the parameters of variational linguistics. This work defines four areas of language where the variation of spelling and punctuation occurs and puts forward the example of several manuscripts, covering the periods of the Old and the Middle French. The diamesic axis refers to the relations of correspondence or autonomy between the phonic and the graphic substances of language. The enunciative parameter concerns the relations of the written form to the recording of reported speech. The diastratic parameter is related to the variation of register between prestigious graphs or less valued graphs. The conceptional parameter allows for the classification of the punctuation traditions in relation to the textual typology established by Koch and Oesterreicher  (2001), which opposes the linguistic forms proper to immediate communication and those specific to language of distance.

POETICAL PUNCTUATION AND PROBLEMS WITH THE TRANSLATION
THE EARLY LYRICAL WORKS OF ANNA ACHMATOVA INTO POLISH

The punctuation’s marks such as quotation marks, exclamation mark, question-mark,
comma, point, omission points and “the author’s punctuation” are the object of this research
in Polish translations of early lyrical works of Anna Achmatova. The placing (architectonic)
of punctuation marks in lyrical work is the expression of individual author’s perception.
The differences between punctuation marks in original text and in its translation only to
some degree can be explained by the divergence of punctuation rules in Russian and Polish
languages. Characteristics of poetical punctuation of the translation in some way reflect also
the level and quality of translation works, understanding and interpretation of Achmatova’s
lyrical works by Polish translators. Sometimes neglectful interpretation of the „author’s
punctuation”, that characterizes the early lyrical works of Anna Achmatova, can lead in
translation to deformation not only the architectonics of original text but also to its inner
content. In order to make translation as close as possible to the original text, a translator should
be concerned of author’s individual characteristics of poetical punctuation, and struggle to
preserve architectonic framing of translated work.