English Studies at the University of Silesia:
Forty Years On
NR 3028
English Studies
at the University of Silesia:
Forty Years On
Edited by
Danuta Gabryś ‑Barker and Jacek Mydla
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego Katowice 2013
Redaktor serii: Historia Literatur Obcych Magdalena Wandzioch
After this edition runs out, the book will be available online:
The Silesian Digital Library www.sbc.org.pl
List of Contents
Introduction
Part one
Studies in Language and Applied Linguistics
Janusz Arabski: Gender Differences in Language Acquisition and Learning Bogusław Bierwiaczonek: Representations of Major Subcategories of LOVE Ewa Bogdanowska ‑Jakubowska: Metaphors of Femininity
Bożena Cetnarowska: The Occurrence of Zero ‑derived Nouns in the English Verbo‑
‑nominal have a N Construction
Danuta Gabryś ‑Barker: The Role of Transfer of Learning in Multilingual Instruction and Development
Andrzej Łyda and Krystyna Warchał: Pleonasms in Polish ‑English Interpreting Piotr Mamet: Slogan as a Corporate Mission Statement
Rafał Molencki: Brains versus Software: New Possibilities and Limitations of Compu‑
ter Assisted Historical Studies of English Syntax
Kazimierz Polański: Some Remarks on the Correctness of Language
Andrzej Porzuczek: English Nasal Consonants in the Pronunciation of Polish Learners Kamilla Termińska: Czas i rozmowa. Alegorie epistemiczne
7
11 29 49
59
67 85 97
107 113 121 129
6 List of Contents
Adam Wojtaszek: Forms of Salutations in Polish Student ‑To ‑Teacher Electronic Mails
Maria Wysocka: Diaries, Observations and FL Teachers’ Creativity Contibutors
Part two
Studies in Literature and Culture
Zbigniew Białas: Mnemotechnics, “Projection” and Colonial Cartography: Enforcing a Comprehensibility of Strangeness
Ewa Borkowska: The Traces of Otherness. The Mediterranean Culture in Walter Pater and Zbigniew Herbert
Leszek Drong: Theory’s Other: Reintegrating the New Pragmatism into Literary Studies
Wojciech Kalaga: Tertium non datur? Wildness and Methodology
Sławomir Masłoń: Between Pleasure and Pleasure: Fools and Knaves Making Their Reading Lists
Jacek Mydla: The Earth’s Bubbles and Slaughter’s Pencil: Macbeth and the Philosophy of Imagination
Teresa Pyzik: The Yankee in Poland in 1831 Tadeusz Rachwał: Liberty and the Art of Walking
Tadeusz Sławek: “Sunny Flocks” and the “Hollow Pit”: Blake’s Book of Thel and a Ques‑
tion of Sexuality
Andrzej Wicher: Freedom versus Intolerance — Variations on the Theme of Super‑
natural Wives and Husbands Contributors
143 157 169
175
189
203 219
229
241 263 277
287
311 331
Introduction
This volume has been compiled on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the English Department, University of Silesia. We present herein a selec‑
tion of articles written by the senior scholars working in the Institute of English and the Institute of English Cultures and Literatures. All the texts have been previously published by the University of Silesia Press and present different areas of research and expertise developed over forty years. The volume consists of two parts: articles in the area of language studies (Part 1) and texts on literature and culture (Part 2).
Some of the authors are no longer with us but their contribution to the develop‑
ment of the department and research are still remembered and appreciated. Some of us have made our academic careers working in the department from the very beginning, while others joined it at a later time when it was already an established research and educational institution, to continue the tradition of research and didac‑
tics developed by its founders, Prof. Kazimierz Polański and Prof. Janusz Arabski.
We hope that the present volume will make for interesting reading, demon‑
strating how our research interests have evolved over the forty years of existence of both institutes, the Institute of English and the Institute of English Cultures and Literatures, which constitute the English Department of the University of Silesia.
The Editors
Part one
Studies in Language and Applied Linguistics
Janusz Arabski
Gender Differences in Language Acquisition and Learning
The present article was selected by me for inclusion in this volume as it discusses the issues connected with gender differences in language acquisition and learning that have been the major concern of my academic research over the past years. The article presents an overview of well ‑known studies on gender as well as those not gener‑
ally known. I also report in this article on my contribution to this area of research on language acquisition. The issue of gender is discussed here from psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives.
1. Introduction
There is a lot of evidence showing that females outperform males in various lan‑
guage skills, in different aspects of language use, in foreign language learning and second language acquisition. In this chapter we would like to present traditional views on the subject and confront them with the new opinions and methods con‑
cerning research, as well as studies on gender differences in language acquisition and language learning.
The studies on language and gender are conducted from the following three perspectives:
I. how is gender represented in language?
II. what are the differences between the language of males and females and what language is used when we address men and what language is used when addressing women?
III. what are the differences in language aptitude between males and females; who acquires first language and learns foreign language better and faster?
Representation of gender in a given language reflects the traditional attitudes of its speakers passed on from generation to generation. In every language males are represented in a more positive way than females (Karwatowska, Szpyra‑
‑Kozłowska, 2005: 14). In Polish, e.g. most words for positions or professions have only masculine forms like szofer, górnik, dziekan. In English similarly congressman, and many other names with the morpheme ‑man do not have feminine counter‑
12 Janusz Arabski
parts. There is of course a new tendency to coin neuter counterparts in English, e.g. chairperson (instead of chairman), and feminine ones in Polish, e.g. ministra for a lady minister.
Certain occupations or features are associated with a given gender. In Polish męski has a positive meaning — męski charakter, męska decyzja — and the adjec‑
tive denoting female provides negative connotations: babskie gadanie, babska ciekawość; chłopski rozum but babska logika. In English, as in Polish, certain pro‑
fessions or positions are associated with a given gender. Professor and doctor with a man, and singer with a woman. Killer, robber, criminal, and jerk are associated with men. Genius is always masculine.
Our concern here is II and III (above). We are going to present the results of studies concerning the differences between language of males and females and then discuss those differences in the context of acquisition and learning.
This presentation includes the findings of our earlier publications (Arabski 1999, 2009, 2012).
2. Gender versus language use
2.1. Defining gender
Gender is understood here as a social construct, something we learn throughout our whole life. People are not strictly masculine or feminine; in fact we are a com‑
bination of many characteristics that could be considered as either, or both, mas‑
culine and feminine. Gender is not something we are, but something we do. Sex, by contrast, is biologically based and is related to genes, hormones and anatomy.
2.2. Differences between female and male language (an overview of studies)
Females are traditionally known to use different language than males. The cognitive differences between males and females and different social roles which they have played result in their verbal abilities and the language they use. Language and gen‑
der studies can be traced back to the 1920s when the first piece in linguistics regard‑
ing “women’s language” was published by Otto Jespersen. He described women’s vocabulary as less extensive, and attributed more genius and greater variability to men. According to him females’ speech was just a deviant form of the average male speaking patterns. In other words, women’s speech was held to be deficient when compared with the male “norm.” His claims are undoubtedly grounded in the pre‑
vailing gender ideologies of his time.
Gender Differences… 13
A new approach and opinions are represented by Lakoff (1973) who also considered women’s speech as weak in comparison with men. She argued that gender inequity in women’s use of language stemmed not from inherent biological or mental deficiency but rather from their marginalization in society.
In other words, females’ language was deficient because their position in society was so.
According to Lakoff, females
• Hedge: using phrases like “sort of,” “kind of,” “it seems like,” etc.
• Use (super)polite forms: “Would you mind…,” “I’d appreciate it if…,” “…if you don’t mind.”
• Use tag questions: “You’re going to dinner, aren’t you?”
• Speak in italics: using intonational emphasis equal to underlining words — so, very, quite.
• Use empty adjectives: divine, lovely, adorable, etc.
• Use hypercorrect grammar and pronunciation, English prestige grammar and clear enunciation.
• Use direct quotation: men paraphrase more often.
• Have a special lexicon: women use more words for things like colours, men for sports.
• Use question intonation in declarative statements: women make declarative state‑
ments into questions by raising the pitch of their voice at the end of a statement, expressing uncertainty.
• Use “wh ‑” imperatives: (such as, “Why don’t you watch this film?”)
• Speak less frequently.
• Overuse qualifiers: (for example: “I think that…”)
• Apologise more: (for instance, “I’m sorry, but I think that…”)
• Use modal constructions: (such as can, would, should, ought — “Should we turn up the heat?”)
• Avoid coarse language or expletives.
• Use indirect commands and requests: (for example, “My, isn’t it cold in here?” — really a request to turn the heat on or close a window)
• Use more intensifiers: especially so and very (for instance, “I’m so glad you came!”,
“He is very nice!”)
• Women don’t tell jokes (Jenkins, 1986; Painter, 1980).
Coates (1993) describes the ways in which women and men differ in their sense of what is appropriate for them as speakers (communicative competence). She has surveyed many works that have been done in this area and her findings are as fol‑
lows (Coates, 1993: 106—140):
• In mixed sex conversations men interrupt more and use more overlaps, indicat‑
ing a lack of understanding or interest. Men tend to violate turn ‑taking rules in conversation and try to dominate it. Silence is used by men to keep up their dominance.
14 Janusz Arabski
• Contrary to myth, men have been shown to talk more than women in social settings. The evidence is that women and men tend to discuss different topics.
Women choose topics such as children and personal relationships and men pre‑
fer to talk about sport, politics and cars.
• Women’s speech is often described as “tentative” and this is linked to the claim that they use more hedges — linguistic forms such as I think, I’m sure, sort of and perhaps.
• Women use questions and tag ‑questions more often than men to keep conver‑
sation going.
• While giving directives women phrase them as proposals for joint action, e.g.
well, let’s make that our plan, while men prefer to use aggravated forms, such as imperatives.
• Men are reported to use swear words, taboo language, and non ‑standard gram‑
mar more often than women.
• Women give and receive more compliments than men.
• Women’s speech is more collaborative than competitive in style. Men’s speech shows reverse tendencies.
One of the interpretations of the differences between genders in language use is the isolation of women, who traditionally stayed at home and did not have language contacts as intensly as working men did. Chambers (1995) gives a lot of exam‑
ples of isolation or mobility which are responsible for variants among contiguous social groups in contemporary Western society. Mobility is responsible for language change and isolation for the preservation of traditional forms, e.g. dialects which have survived in complete isolation.
Another sociolinguistic explanation of the linguistic differences between men and women in the New York area studied by Labov (1972: 301—4) is “a special sen‑
sitivity” represented by women. It is women who assist the language acquisition of their children most directly and who therefore are more sensitive to language use.
He also claims that women of the same area speak with ‘hypercorrection’ (Labov, 1966).
According to Trudgill (1972: 182—3):
Women in our society are more status ‑conscious than men, generally speak‑
ing, and are therefore more aware of the social significance of linguistic vari‑
ables. There are two possible reasons for this:
(i) The social position of women in our society is less secure than that of men, and, usually, subordinate to that of men. It may be, therefore, that is more necessary for women to secure and signal their social status linguistically and in other ways, and they may for this reason be more aware of the importance of this type of signal. (This will be particularly true of women who are not working.)
Gender Differences… 15
(ii) Men in our society can be rated socially by their occupation, their earning power, and perhaps by their other abilities — in other words by what they do. For the most part, however, this is not possible for women. It may be, therefore, that they have instead to be rated on how they appear. Since they are not rated by their occupations or by their occupational success, other signals of status, including speech, are cor‑
respondingly more important.
According to Chambers (1995: 133), the interpretation of hypercorretion and face ‑saving is that women compensate in this way for shortcomings of a social nature. The empirical evidence shows women to be better performers in the whole spectrum of sociolinguistic situations, i.e. linguistic variants and repertoire. Besides, women also show an advantage over men in fluency, speaking sentence complexity, analogy, and listening comprehension of written and spoken texts (Maccoby and Jacklin, 1974: 75—85). This results then in their sociolinguistic superiority.
A more sophisticated typology is offered by Deborah Tannen (1990) who presents male and female language characteristics in a series of six contrasts. These are:• Status vs. support
• Independence vs. intimacy
• Advice vs. understanding
• Information vs. feelings
• Orders vs. proposals
• Conflict vs. compromise Status versus support
Men see the world as a place where speech is used to build status. Women, in con‑
trast, perceive the world as a network of social connections and try to find consen‑
sus rather than triumph.
Independence versus intimacy
Women seem to think in terms of closeness and support; they are concerned with an attempt to gain and preserve intimacy. By contrast men, who are concerned with status, tend to focus more on independence.
Advice versus understanding
Women seek sympathy and comfort for their problems, while men will automati‑
cally look for a solution to the problem.
Information versus feelings
Men’s conversation is message orientated, based upon communicating informa‑
tion. For women, conversation is much more important for building relationships
16 Janusz Arabski
and maintaining social links. Men seem to focus on the brevity of speech and the aspect of exchanging information, while women value sharing of emotion and com‑
menting on feelings.
Orders versus proposals
Men prefer to hear and use direct imperatives, like close the door, switch on the light.
Women, by contrast, prefer to use indirect and superpolite forms, for instance let’s, would you mind if…?
Conflict versus compromise
Women are more likely to avoid fights and conflicts by refusing to oppose, even if they do not get what they expected. Men seem to be much more prepared to argue their preferences even at the risk of conflict.
The differences can be summarized as follows:
Women:
• Establish intimacy and community
• Talk too much
• Speak in private contexts
• Build relations
• Overlap
• Speak symmetrically Men:• Establish status and power
• Get more air time
• Speak in public
• Negotiate status/avoid failure
• Speak one at a time
• Speak asymmetrically
The large body of literature on sex differences in verbal ability conveys the opin‑
ion that females are better in this respect than males and that they outperform males in many language functions. This includes language acquisition.
2.3. Biological and cognitive gender differences in language abilities
The differences between the genders resulting in language abilities including better acquisition could also be caused by biological and cognitive differences. Females have more bilateral brains than males. This means that they use both hemispheres when undertaking certain cognitive tasks. Many studies suggest that the corpus cal‑
losum, the thick bundle of nerves that allows the right half of the brain to communi‑
cate with the left, is relatively larger in women than in men. If size really corresponds
Gender Differences… 17
to function, the better communication between the hemispheres might explain women’s greater ability to read and express emotional clues. In men the functional division between the left and the right hemispheres is more clearly defined and the hemispheres are connected by a smaller number of nerves. The flow of informa‑
tion between the emotional side of the brain and the verbal one is possibly more restricted and men thus find it more difficult to express their emotions.
Specialists speculate that the greater communication between the two sides of the brain could impair women’s performance on certain visual ‑spatial tasks. For example, the ability to tell directions on a map without rotating it appears to be weaker in women, whose brains try to control the process by two hemispheres, while men restrict the process to the right hemisphere.
As far as verbal fluency is concerned, women’s superiority may be explained by the fact that they have a greater capacity than men to integrate information from the emotional and spatial side of the brain with that from the verbal side. Female speech appears to be enhanced by input from various cerebral regions, especially those that control vision and feelings. This greater access to the brain’s imagery may help explain why girls often begin speaking earlier than boys and develop a larger vocabulary. It has to be mentioned, though, that boys often catch up with their female peers in secondary school and some of them are better at verbal tasks.
The spatial, mathematical/quantitative and linguistic categories of intellectual abilities are the three ability factors in which sex differences are most frequently reported. Baker, as noted by Halpern (1992: 62), discusses numerous sex differ‑
ences in each of the sensory systems. She documents that in hearing, for example, females are better at detecting pure tones (tones of one frequency) during child‑
hood and later. As far as vision is concerned, males under the age of 40 have better dynamic visual acuity (ability to detect small movements in the visual field). She also mentions sex differences in taste, in touch and in perception ranging from bin‑
aural beats (an auditory phenomenon) to visual acuity.
Halpern (1992: 66) reviews a number of studies done on age trends in verbal abilities. The general findings of the research done among English speaking chil‑
dren are as follows:
• girls produce longer utterances at younger ages
• girls produce more varied constructions, e.g. passive voice, truncated passive, participles
• girls make fewer errors in language use overall
• girls have larger vocabularies at earlier ages than boys
• girls are better in reading processes
The results of a large ‑scale longitudinal study done by Martin and Hoover (1987) show that girls scored higher on tests of spelling, capitalisation, punctuation, language use, reference materials, and reading comprehension.
The established opinion that females outperform males in language func‑
tions was critized as early as in 1974 by Maccoby and Jacklin. They found that the
18 Janusz Arabski
“classic” studies of child language development which demonstrated sex differ‑
ence in language development in the first years of life were based on very small samples, where differences would not even reach statistical significance in large samples. They concluded, on the basis of a large number of studies on pre‑
‑school children that had been conducted up to the time of their review, that no consistently significant sex differences in linguistic abilities were found in children of that age.
Research on children in their early school years through to early adolescence was, according to Maccoby and Jacklin (1974), more easily reviewed, because studies used larger samples and more standardized measures of language ability.
The conclusion they reached with regard to that literature was that there was no evidence of sex difference in verbal ability until about age 10 or 11.
They concluded:
for large unselected populations the situation seems to be one of very little sex differences in verbal skill from about 3 to 11, with a new phase of differentiation occurring at adolescence (Maccoby and Jacklin 1974: 85).
This view was then supported by Halpern (1986: 47):
Although verbal sex differences favouring girls in early childhood may be somewhat tenuous, they emerge clearly at adolescence and continue into old age.
2.4. Sound production differences between male and female speakers Language abilities which are natural, untrained and without any educational bias are presented in our study on differences between young, eight ‑year ‑old males and females in foreign sounds production (Arabski 2009). The subjects were 40 eight‑
‑year ‑old primary school pupils (20 girls and 20 boys), native speakers of Polish, who were asked to repeat after hearing the following items recorded by an Ameri‑
can native speaker (Table 1).
Table 1. Tested items
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
pat rib gate teethe Today bat dip Kate tang thane
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Ridge baths mesh shot Veal Cloth cause dove tip
tip mug
mug
Gender Differences… 19
The aim of the study was to find out about the differences between young pre‑
‑pubescent males and females in foreign sound production. All the subjects had been exposed to English for about five months before the recordings. They took English as their first grade curriculum subject with the same teachers and the same amount of instruction time — two hours a week.
We were expecting the following pronunciation problems in the above 20 items:
1. pat aspiration, — 2. rib r, final voiced /β/
3. gate minimal pair with Kate 4. teethe aspiration, final voiced /?/
5. to ‑day /§/
6. bat /— /, minimal pair with pat 7. dip minimal pair with tip 8. Kate aspiration
9. tang aspiration, | 10. thane initial >
11. ridge r, final palatalized /}/
12. baths final />s/
13. mesh final palatalized /♣/
14. shot initial palatalized /♣/
15. veal final /l/
16. cloth final >
17. cause aspiration 18. dove final voiced /v/
19. tip
tip intonation (rising) 20. mug
mug final voiced /g/, intonation (falling)
The number of correct repetitions is given in the following table. Aspiration was measured by Praat 4.6.18 speech ‑analysis programme and the results of the analysis are presented after the following table. (Table 2 and Table 3).
The results of the study show that the differences between genders in the inves‑
tigated skill are almost non ‑existent (2%). It seems that the eight ‑year ‑olds have not yet acquired the language roles characteristic of mature males and females. They have not acquired any strategies to deal with the language input they are exposed to. The differences between genders may not exist at that age yet.
20 Janusz Arabski
Table 2. Number of correct repetitions (productions)
Number of repetitions Tested items Males Females
— 60 (1) pat 6 7
(2) bat 6 4
(9) tang 4 6
16 17
§ — 20 (5) to ‑day 15 16
r — 40 (2) rib 5 3
(11) ridge 4 1
9 4
| — 20 (9) tang 6 10
Final voiced — 100 (2) rib 11 12
(4) teeth 2 4
(17) cause 4 6
(18) dove 4 4
(20) mug 7 6
28 32
Palatalization — 60 (11) ridge 4 3
(13) mesh 7 6
(14) shot 8 11
19 21
Initial > — 20 (10) thane 2 6
Final />s/ — 20 (12) baths 4 6
Final /l/ — 20 (15) veal Ø 2
Rising intonation — 20 (19) tip
tip 19 17
Falling intonation — 20 (20) mug
mug 18 12
Table 3. Percent of correct repetitions Repetetition Number Percent
Males 136 34
Females 143 36
Razem 400 100
Gender Differences… 21
2.5. Sociolinguistic perspective on gender differences in language use The next group of objections concerning the opinion that females outperform males in language functions comes from sociolinguists. It concerns THE ENVIRON‑
MENT of second language acquisition and foreign language learning. According to Ehrlich (2001), who presents a historical overview of research that has investigated the relationship between gender and second language acquisition:
Such research … has not acknowledged the complexity of gender as a social construct and thus has simplified and overgeneralized the relationship between gender and language acquisition.
She illustrates her claim by the ethnographic study (Siegel, 1994) of four white Western women in Japan, learners of Japanese who improperly used honorifics and sentence ‑final pragmatic particles associated with Japanese women’s language. The reason was “their resistance to adopting what they perceive as an overly humble, overly silly Japanese feminine identity.”
While linguistic simplification is a universal property of learners’ interlanguages, the particular kind of linguistic simplification displayed by these female learners of Japanese resulted from their distaste for Japanese constructions of femininity as manifested in Japanese women’s speech styles. That is, viewing social factors as an analytic category that alters a ‘normal’ trajectory of second language development misses the fact that learners are always situated by age, race, class, and gender and that these social locations permeate the learning process.
The language of males or females from a sociolinguistic perspective has to be considered as a linguistic variable. Another example of gender as a secondary cri‑
terion of successful language acquisition is described by Ellis (1994: 204).
Asian men in Britain generally attain higher levels of proficiency in L2 Eng‑
lish than do Asian women for the simple reason that their jobs bring them into contact with the majority English ‑speaking group, while women are often ‘enclosed’ in their home.
In the new studies on gender differences in language acquisition and learning the above methodological objections encouraged researchers to look for gender ‑related characteristics of learners and not only for innate gender characteristics.
2.6. Internal and external gender ‑related characteristics related to language use
Current research suggests that adult women do not have a richer vocabulary nor higher verbal intelligence though they are better at spelling, and have a higher ver‑
22 Janusz Arabski
bal fluency understood as generating words beginning or ending with a specific letter. Most important for the purpose of the present discussion, they consistently do better than men on tests of verbal memory (Kimura, 2006).
In school conditions girls outperform boys in linguistic abilities. There is a lot of evidence that females are more successful language learners than males. This evidence comes from tests results and all kinds of achievement measures. In con‑
nection with this the following three areas seem to be problematic for researchers;
namely, a) whether males perform better than females during standardized, single performances, b) whether it is females who are better in such cases, or c) whether females score higher on measures of achievement constituting long ‑term assessment (as, for example, final grades). The source of these discrepancies in opinion lies in the fact that single performances are more prone to fluctuations resulting from test bias (e.g. topic selection), anxiety, and time limitations. All of these factors may dif‑
ferently affect males and females. On the other hand, achievement measures (e.g.
final grades) may in fact take into consideration criteria other than a summary of scores during single performances. These other criteria may include, for instance, the “class participation” grade. This may be of advantage to female learners, who are more likely to participate actively during the class. Girls in general are liked more by teachers since it is easier to work with them. They are more disciplined and they accept school with its rules and regulations more willingly than boys.
The achievement measures are therefore not fully reliable sources of informa‑
tion which might justify the conclusion that it is natural aptitude that makes females more successful than males in language abilities. These other factors which happen to go with gender are also seen in the results of a study by Piasecka (2010) on gen‑
der differences with respect to reading in a foreign language. They include reading preferences, attitudes to reading, use of computers, use of dictionaries, and specific learning difficulties (e.g. dyslexia). These are gender ‑related features, components of reading aptitude which are responsible for differences between males and females in reading abilities (discussed in p. 2.8)
2.7. Gender ‑determined strategy use in language learning
Wallentin (2009) after analyzing over 140 publications on sex differences in verbal abilities, claims, among other things:
[…] it is important to stress that most language ‑processes are highly com‑
plex, and thus there may be more than one cognitive strategy for solving many language ‑related tasks…,
Sex differences may exist in the choice of strategy for certain tasks along with other socio ‑demographic variables, such as age, level of education and previous exposure.
Gender Differences… 23
Indeed the difference between males and females in the application and use of learning strategies was convincingly seen in the results of our study, “Gender Dif‑
ferences in Language Learning Strategy Use” (Arabski,1999). We investigated and wanted to show the differences between males and females in terms of their reli‑
ance on and use of learning strategies in the process of foreign language learning in a school setting.
The subjects were 30 girls and 30 boys from the final grade of secondary school (18 years old) in Katowice, Poland. They were students of an intensive English pro‑
gram consisting of 5—6 hours per week for the previous four years. All the students were native speakers of Polish.
The subjects were to identify strategies that they used in learning English. We used “Strategy Inventory for Language Learning” (SILL) by Oxford (1990) for this purpose. The students were to answer questions listed in SILL (see Appendix I) to identify strategies that they had used in learning English.
Our data provides evidence that a majority of strategies are used more often by girls than by boys. Only four strategies out of fifty were used more often by boys than by girls (nos. 19, 27, 39, 41), but the difference between the two groups in this respect was not statistically significant. These strategies are:
(19) Analyzing contrastively (I look for words in my own language that are similar to new words in English).
(27) Reading without looking up every word (I read English without looking up every new word).
(39) Using relaxation (I try to relax whenever I feel afraid of using English).
(41) Rewarding yourself (I give myself a reward or treat when I do well in English).
There are 30 strategies from Oxford (1990) list in which a significant statistical dif‑
ference appeared and all were used more often by the female group.
A. Memory Strategies 1. Associating/elaborating 5. Using rhyming
6. Using pictures 8. Reviewing
9. Remembering location B. Cognitive Strategies 10. Repeating
11. Imitating native speakers 12. Practising with sounds
14. Starting conversations in English 15. Watching TV/Going to movies
24 Janusz Arabski
16. Reading for pleasure 18. Skimming
20. Recognizing and using formulas and patterns 23. Summarizing
C. Compensation Strategies 25. Using mime or gesture 26. Coining new words D. Metacognitive Strategies
30. Looking for various ways to use English 32. Paying attention
33. Finding out about language learning 34. Planning for a language task
35. Looking for practice opportunities (speaking) 36. Looking for practice opportunities (reading) 37. Setting goals and objectives
38. Self ‑evaluating E. Affective Strategies 42. Listening to your body
43. Writing a language learning diary
44. Discussing your feelings with someone else F. Social Strategies
46. Asking for correction
48. Cooperating with proficient users of the new language 50. Developing cultural understanding
The biggest difference between males and females is manifested by the follow‑
ing nine strategies. In their case the mean difference between the two groups ranges from 1.0 to 1.2. The strategy numbers are given in brackets and p value is 0.00. Table 4
1. (6) Using pictures 1.1 0.00
2. (8) Reviewing 1.2 0.00
3. (10) Repeating 1.0 0.00
4. (12) Practising with sounds 1.0 0.00
5. (25) Using mime or gestures 1.0 0.00
6. (33) Finding out about language learning 1.1 0.00
Gender Differences… 25
7. (44) Discussing your feelings with someone else 1.0 0.00
8. (46) Asking for correction 1.0 0.00
9. (50) Developing cultural understanding 1.1 0.00
According to Wenden (1991: 18), learning strategies are “mental steps or operations that learners use to learn a new language and to regulate their effort to do so.” They are abilities which have been acquired through training and they are responsible for success in the language learning process.
2.8. Gender differences in reading
Gender differences in L1 and L2 reading were investigated by Piasecka (2010).
The participants of the study were 152 girls and 163 boys, at the age of 15, secondary school students. In her study the girls show a statistically significant advantage on all the measures related to school success. They read better in both languages, they show a higher level of language aptitude and they obtain higher grades for language subjects than boys. Academically they are more successful than boys, as rendered by the mean general average grade. This does not mean that the boys in the study are not successful. They are — a general average grade of 4.25 implies a better than B level of school achievement.
Other gender differences were found with respect to leisure activities, attitude to reading and reading preferences, the use of dictionaries, the use of computers and learning difficulties.
The girls prefer spending their free time meeting friends and family, reading, watching TV, using the internet, developing their own interests and hobbies, going to the movies, practicing sports, walking, and going to the disco. The boys watch television, use the internet, meet people, read and practice sports. They also go to the movies and the disco. The statistically significant gender differences refer to meeting people, reading, watching TV, using the internet, practicing sports, going for walks and to the disco. The differences in the manner in which teenagers spend their free time show that girls care more about social relations, read more than boys, watch less television, go for walks and to discos more frequently. The boys, on the other hand, watch more television and are more interested in computers and com‑
puter technology. They also meet other people and read, but these activities are less preferred than TV and computers. They also practice more sports than the girls.
Girls’ reading preferences are completely different from those of boys. Thus, females like reading youth magazines, youth literature, adventure novels, memoirs, and obligatory books from the school reading list. They also read poetry, newspa‑
pers, mystery and fantasy novels, plays and documentaries. Boys also like reading youth magazines but the girls’ preferences are stronger. In contrast to girls, boys prefer newspapers, comics, and fantasy and adventure novels. Dyslexic females read better than dyslexic males.
26 Janusz Arabski
Piasecka’s conclusions are: the empirical findings refer only to a fraction of human cognitive abilities, namely to reading literacy where the female advantage is well documented across all age groups. The genders display differential abilities and skills, though recently cognitive gender differences have been reported to be decreasing (Feingold, 1996; Kimura, 1999).
3. Concluding remarks
Although genders differ as groups, an individual’s activity, behavior and perform‑
ance in a range of sociocultural contexts results from a combination of neuronal, genetic, hormonal, environmental and motivational factors and therefore is unique.
The study by Piasecka (2010) is evidence that reading ability consists of or is influenced by many factors, such as language aptitude, school grades, attitude to reading and reading preferences, use of dictionaries, use of computers and learning difficulties. It seems that the same applies to other language skills with the combi‑
nations of other factors, of course, but sex is only one of the factors deciding the differences between groups representing different genders.
I have selected the above findings to show that when studying gender differ‑
ences in language learning we have to consider other factors than gender and by so doing we become acquainted with them better.
Studies on gender differences in language learning make us aware of the com‑
plexity of the role of gender in language acquisition and in the language learning process. The factors which may influence this role and only those which were men‑
tioned in this presentation are (putting aside methodological shortcomings like small samples):
A age
B social locations
C language aptitude related features
A: There was no evidence of sex difference in verbal ability until about age 10 or 11.
B: a) Western women in Japan learning Japanese applied simplification strategies because of their distaste for Japanese constructions of feminity.
b) Asian men in Britain attain higher proficiency in L2 English because they have more contact with English than their wives.
c) school conditions do not guarantee reliable achievement measures.
C: The use of learning strategies.
In the case of reading:
— reading preferences
— attitudes to reading
— use of computers
— use of dictionaries
For other language skills (e.g. speaking or listening) counterparts can also be found.
Gender Differences… 27
Studying gender differences we discover factors which decide successful language learning. We discover which components of e.g. reading abilities, and to what degree, decide proficiency levels in this respect.
In section 2.2. we have presented an overview of studies on differences between male and female language. It was the starting point of the discussion which then followed and concerned the differences between males and females in second lan‑
guage acquisition and foreign language learning. Different aspects of the problem were presented together with different methodology, points of view and different study results. The main idea of the chapter is to show how they were evolving in the course of time.
References
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Arabski, J. (2009): Gender Differences in Production of Foreign Sounds in 8 ‑year ‑olds. Pa‑
per presented at 21st International Conference on Foreign Language Learning and Second Language Acquisition at Szczyrk (May 28—30, 2009).
Arabski, J. (2012): New Perspectives on Gender Differences in Language Acquisition and Learning. Proceedings of 9th ISAPL Congress in Bari (June 23—25, 2010).
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Coates, J. (1993): “No gap, lots of overlap: turn taking patterns in the talk of women friends.” In: Graddol, D., Maybin, J., and Stierer, B., (eds.): Researching Language and Literacy in Social Context, Cleveland: Multilingual Matters. 177—192.
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quisition.” In: Pavlenko, A., Blackledge, A., Piller, I., and Teutsch ‑Dwyer, M.
(eds.): Multilingualism, Second Language Learning, and Gender. Berlin—New York:
Mouton de Gruyter, 103—129.
Ellis, R. (1994): The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Feingold, A. (1996): “Cognitive gender differences: Where are they and why are they there?” Learning and Individual Difference, 8, 25—32.
Freeman, R., and McElhinny, B. (1996): “Language and gender”. In: McKay S., and Hornberger H. (eds.): Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching. Cambridge: CUP, 218—280.
Jenkins, M. (1986): “What’s so funny?: Joking among women.” Proceedings of the First Ber‑
keley Women and Language Conference 1985. Berkeley: Berkeley Women and Language Group, department of Linguistics, University of California at Berkeley, 135—151.
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Kimura, D. (1999): Sex and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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Labov, W. (1966): The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.:
Center for Applied Linguistics.
Lakoff, R. (1973): “Language and woman’s place.” Language in Society, 2, 45—80.
Maccoby, E. E., and Jacklin, C. N. (1974): The Psychology of Sex Differences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Martin, P.J., Hoover, H. D. (1987): “Sex differences in educational achievement: A longi‑
tudinal study.” The Journal of Early Adolescence SPRING 1987 7: 65—83. (Special Issue:
Sex Differences in Early Adolescents).
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taszek, A. (eds.): Neurolinguistic and Psycholinguistic Perspectives on SLA. Bristol—
Buffalo—Toronto: Multilingual Matters. 145—158.
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ying Japanese in Japan.” In: Bucholtz, M., Liang, A. C., Sutton, L., and Hines, C.
(eds.): Cultural Performances: Proceedings of the Third Berkeley Women and Language Conference. April 8—10, 1994. Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley Women and Language Group, 642—650.
Tannen, D. (1990): You Just Don’t Understand: Men in Conversation. New York: William Morrow.
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lish of Norwich.” Language in Society1 (2): 175—195.
Wallentin, M. (2009): “Putative sex differences in verbal abilities and language cortex:
A critical review.” Brain and Language 108: 175—183.
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‑Barker D. (ed.): Readings in Second Language Acquisition. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 201—220.
Bogusław Bierwiaczonek
Representations of Major Subcategories of LOVE
This contribution is part of Chapter 3 of my book A Cognitive Study of the Concept of Love in English (2002). The book is a detailed analysis of the semantics of the word love in modern English. What is unique about it is that the lexeme love is shown to be a polysemous lexical item with several distinct senses, such as Erotic LovE, ParEntaL
LovE (with its two subcategories MothErLy LovE and FathErLy LovE), Man’s LovEoF God, etc., each represented as a separate cognitive model in the form of a Parallel Distributed Sub ‑Symbolic Representation (PDSSR), which has the overall structure of a script.
The initial chapters of the book present critical discussion of other studies of LovE in English, in particular those of Wierzbicka and Kövecses, and argue in favour of the cognitive approach to LovE as a polysemous category. The model of representation is based on Langacker’s notion of domain matrix and the theory of Parallel Distributed Processing. In subsequent chapters the differences and links as well as projections between the particular subcategories of LovE are discussed and explained in terms of the theory of Intracategorial Projection Hypothesis. In addition, two separate chap‑
ters are devoted to the most common metonymies and metaphors of LovE.
1. EROTIC LOVE (EL) (typical)
“And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh”
(Gen. 2,23—24)
“Man’s original body having been thus cut in two, each half yearned for the half from which it had been severed. When they met they threw their arms round one another and embraced, in their longing to grow together again, and they perished of hunger and general neglect of their concerns, because they would not do any‑
thing apart” (Plato, The Symposium: Speech of Aristophanes).
“Love is always a kind of interpersonal synthesis and synchronization of prefer‑
ences, passions, and kindness” (Wojtyła, 1986: 88)1.
1 „Miłość jest zawsze jakąś międzyosobową syntezą i synchronizacją upodobań, pożądań i życzliwości” [transl. Mine — B.B.].
30 Bogusław Bierwiaczonek
“[Erotic love] is the craving for complete fusion, for union with one other person”
(Fromm, 1985: 48)
“Romantic love is an emotion that provides a powerful bond between two people, possibly strangers, on the basis of a single readily available shared and complemen‑
tary set of attributes which we sometimes lump together with the simplistic name
‘sex’ ” (Solomon, 1990: 138)
“The course of true love never runs smooth” (Proverb, after Shakespeare).
It is EL that corresponds most closely to the traditional Greek eros and Latin amor. Indeed, a number of crucial aspects of love is certainly deeply rooted in those traditions and Sappho, Mimnermos, Plato’s speakers in The Symposium, Ovid and hundreds other Roman writers would certainly easily recognize their own passion in modern British or American lovers (cf. Solomon, 1990 for illuminating discus‑
sion). Nevertheless, there is little doubt that the modern conception of LOVE was also considerably influenced by the Bible and the Christian writings as well as the medieval ideals of COURTLY LOVE (cf. de Rougemont, 1968; Starczewska, 1975), the rise of modern individualism (cf. Solomon, 1990), psychoanalysis (cf. May, 1978; Gołaszewska, 1992) and feminism (cf. Solomon, 1990).
STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS:
SYMMETRICAL:
GENDER OF L ≠ GENDER OF OL;
L(lover): ADULT, ANY GENDER2
OL(object of love): ADULT, ANY GENDER;
Age of L INCL & PROX age of OJ};
LL(love link): EXCLUSIVE: one L & one OL MUTUAL
TABOO: sex of L = sex of OJ;
OL: NOT ADULT;
OL: ~HUMAN TYPICAL SCRIPT STAGE 1. Falling in love DOMAIN OF EMOTIONS:
L FEELS: (FOREGROUNDED): AFFECTION, ENTHUSIASM,3 INTEREST, LONGING, SEXUAL DESIRE, ADMIRATION, PLEASURE (BACKGROUNDED): JEALOUSY, DEVOTION, LIKING, DOMAIN OF PROPOSITIONAL ATTITUDES:
L BELIEVES THAT OL IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PERSON IN THE WORLD
L BELIEVES OL IS SPECIAL
2 Notice that in the concept of HOMOSEXUAL LOVE it is not only the SCs that change but also the whole script is affect, e.g. PIVOT 2 is (still) blocked and consequently STAGE 3 is different too.
3 Solomon (1990: 176): “Nothing is more obvious about love than its enthusiasm.”
Representations of Major Subcategories… 31 DOMAIN OF VOLITIONS:
L WANTS TO SEE OL AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE L WANTS TO BE INTIMATE WITH OL
L WANTS TO SHARE HIS/HER THOUGHTS WITH OL L WANTS OL TO BE SATISFIED WITH L
DOMAIN OF BEHAVIOR:
L EXHIBITS: INCREASE IN BODY HEAT, INCREASE IN HEART RATE, BLUSHING, INTERFERENCE WITH ACCURATE PERCEPTION
L THINKS OF OL A LOT
L TRIES TO WIN OL’S FAVOUR L OFTEN GOES OUT WITH OL L TALKS WITH OL A LOT L LOOKS IN OL’S EYES A LOT L OFTEN HOLDS OL
L HELPS OL WHEN OL IS IN NEED
PIVOT 1: BODILY &/or EMOTIONAL &/or SPIRITUAL UNITY,… i.e. {L COINC OL}
STAGE 2: Being in love DOMAIN OF EMOTIONS:
L & OL FEEL: (FOREGROUNDED): AFFECTION, ENTHUSIASM, INTEREST, SEXUAL DESIRE, RESPONSIBILITY, DEVOTION, JEALOUSY, PLEASURE
(BACKGROUNDED): ATTACHMENT, ADMIRATION, LIKING, KINDNESS, LONGING, FRIENDSHIP, TRUST, RESPECT4 DOMAIN OF PROPOSITIONAL ATTITUDES:…
L BELIEVES THAT S/HE AND OL WERE MADE FOR EACH OTHER
L BELIEVES THAT THEIR LL WILL LAST FOR EVER DOMAIN OF VOLITIONS:
L & OL WANT TO LIVE TOGETHER L & OL WANT TO RETAIN THEIR LL
L & OL WANT TO MAKE EACH OTHER HAPPY5
L & OL WANT TO SHARE EACH OTHER’S THOUGHTS AND PROBLEMS
4 I agree with Solomon (1990: 129) that “romantic love renders respect irrelevant”, but if love is to continue, e.g. go beyond its romantic stage, respect must appear.
5 “One of my primary concerns is _’s welfare” in: Rubin’s (1970): Love Scale and “A wishes to see B’s welfare promoted” in: Newton ‑Smith’s (1973) definition.
32 Bogusław Bierwiaczonek
L & OL WANT TO GET MARRIED L & OL WANT TO HAVE CHILDREN DOMAIN OF BEHAVIOR:…
L & OL ARE OFTEN INTIMATE6 L & OL OFTEN HAVE SEX7
L & OL CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER
L & OL SPEND A LOT OF TIME TOGETHER L & OL TALK A LOT
L & OL OFTEN ARGUE8 PIVOT 2: Wedding and after…
L & OL GET MARRIED
L & OL GO ON HONEYMOON L & OL START LIVING TOGETHER STAGE 3.Conjugal love
DOMAIN OF EMOTIONS:
L & OL FEEL: (FOREGROUNDED): AFFECTION, ATTACHMENT, RESPONSIBILITY, LIKING, KINDNESS, FRIENDSHIP,
(BACKGROUNDED): INTEREST, SEXUAL DESIRE, ADMIRA‑
TION, SELF ‑SACRIFICE, RESPECT, DEVOTION, PLEASURE DOMAIN OF PROPOSITIONAL ATTITUDES:…
L THINKS THAT THEIR LL IS GOOD L THINKS S/HE CAN COUNT ON OL DOMAIN OF VOLITIONS:
L & OL WANT TO LIVE TOGETHER L & OL WANT TO RETAIN THEIR LL
L & OL WANT TO SHARE EACH OTHER’S THOUGHTS AND PROBLEMS
…
6 Perhaps we should be reminded that “intimacy is not knowledge, or familiarity, or comfort” or, even less, the exchange of information,” though a private talk may be. The essence of intimacy is pri‑
vacy accompanied by the “breakdown of barriers and individual independence that is most commonly identified with intense sexual ecstasy and oblivion. ‘Being intimate’ is a generalization of that experi‑
ence , and sexual activity is but one among many actions and activities that contribute to that sense of
‘union’ ” (Solomon, 1990: 247). These activities include baby talk, cooing, kissing, holding, petting, etc.
7 As the most conspicuous expression of loving intimacy in our culture.
8 This particular aspect of E ‑lovers behavior may seem strange, but most psychologists (cf. Solomon, 1990; Wojciszke, 1993) claim that the stronger the LL is, the more likely it is that it will be accompanied by fierce arguments. Linguistically, this is borne out by the LOVE IS WAR metaphor (cf. Lakoff and Johnson; 1980; Kövecses, 1986, 1988).
Representations of Major Subcategories… 33 DOMAIN OF BEHAVIOR:
L & OL LIVE TOGETHER
L & OL RAISE THEIR CHILDREN L & OL CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER L & OL ARE INTIMATE
L & OL HAVE SEX
L & OL SPEND TIME TOGETHER L & OL GO OUT TOGETHER L & OL TALK A LOT
…
1.1. Non ‑prototypical subcategories of EL
Non ‑prototypical subcategories of EL result from various modifications of the model of Typical Love. The modifications may be qualitative and/or quantitative.
Qualitative modifications change the some of the properties of the model, while quantitative modifications change, usually reduce, the number of elements in the model. The subcategories we discuss below are as follows: ROMANTIC LOVE9, PUPPY LOVE, PLATONIC LOVE, UNREQUITED LOVE, LOVE AFFAIR, TRI‑
ANGULAR LOVE, LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT, LOVE ‑HATE, and LOVE FOR SALE.
1.2. ROMANTIC LOVE
So much has been already written about ROMANTIC LOVE that it would be extremely difficult to try to discuss the whole huge literature. Besides, others have already done it extremely competently (cf. e.g. de Rougemont, 1968; Starcze‑
wska, 1975; Solomon, 1990; cf. Kövecses 1986, 1987; Wojciszke, 1993). For our purposes, what is relevant is the difference between EL and the ideal of ROMANTIC LOVE which has pervaded the European culture at least since late middle ages and defines a lot of erotic expectations even now. Since the subject is virtually bound‑
less, we shall reduce it to two related essentials: etherealization and eternalization.
Etherealization is a term suggested by Solomon (1990, Ch.7) to denote the Platonic version of EL, whereby LL is viewed as transcending the bodily, hence also ordi‑
nary, emotional, conditioning of its participants. ROMANTIC LOVE is viewed as
9 I regard courtezia, or COURTLY LOVE, as a thing of the past now. From the historical point of view it should be probably regarded as the medieval ancestor of the nineteenth ‑century ROMANTIC LOVE, hence the representation of ROMANTIC LOVE shares some of its proper‑
ties, e.g. the demeaning of sexual desire, almost religious worship and devotion, propensity for self ‑sacrifice, fatalism, etc. (see particularly de Rougemont, 1967; Starczewska, 1975; Solomon, 1990, Gołaszewska, 1992).
34 Bogusław Bierwiaczonek
God ‑given, divine. It is also “magic,” hence L’s volitional structure may be reduced to zero: everything happens by itself, miraculously. Etherealization also means that demands of everyday life, which require friendship and care, are simply irrelevant.
Furthermore, the “ontological miracle” of unity (Solomon) in ROMANTIC LOVE is extremely exclusivist and, almost by definition, rules out any third party, in par‑
ticular, a child. Hence, the script of EL is cut short at its climax and it is this climax, the moment of total unity, that becomes eternalized, either through, usually disas‑
trous, marriage (institutionally) or death (existentially [sic!]). The latter solution is usually chosen by artists (most obviously in Romeo and Juliet, Love Story and The Titanic), probably to satisfy our attachment to this very old and deep ‑rooted myth, all the more attractive and appealing in the society in which most other intimate social bonds, e.g. family, friends, community, have been severed, “in a world that has made belonging an achievement rather than a presupposition” (cf. Solomon, 1990: 139).
The eternalization of ROMANTIC LOVE means that conceptually it is a reduced version of EL in which the stages following the climax, i.e. PIVOT 1, do not occur. The moment they occur, love ceases to be romantic. Therefore the concept is construed either as a self ‑contained conceptual unit, as in e.g. Every young girl dreams of romantic love, or as a predicate denoting the first two stages of the script of EL.
1.3. PUPPY LOVE, CALF LOVE
The main difference between full ‑fledged EL and puppy love lies in the relatively young age of L and OL. Other, reduced properties follow. To some extent puppy love is like romantic love: ethereal and emotional. It is unlike romantic love, how‑
ever, in that it usually does not reach its full climax. Moreover, like love affair (see below), it entails its own, usually not too unhappy end: L and OL just grow out of it. Hence, although Romeo and Juliet were in their teens, we are reluctant to call their relationship puppy love.
In slang the category is also metonymically designated as tits ‑and zits (Widaw‑
ski, 1998: 74).
1.4. PLATONIC LOVE
Ever since the 12th century, when the Italian celibate Ficino first used the expression platonic love, it has been regarded as a term denoting “worshipfulness of romantic love stripped of desire” (cf. Solomon, 1990: 61). Indeed, here is how it is defined in the OEED: “purely spiritual, not sexual.” However, it seems clear from our represen‑
tation of EL that Platonic Love is not just EL minus sexuality. The fact that sexual
Representations of Major Subcategories… 35
desire is absent from it has serious consequences both for its related concepts and its script. Without going into details, we may just point out that it is a subcategory of love which seems to have no salient climax or Stage 4. Similarly, Stage 1 and 2 are considerably reduced in all the related domains. […] If the paragons (cf. Lakoff, 1987) of Platonic love are Abelard and Heloise, the we must agree with Solomon (1990: 73) that the term refers to “that particularly sexless and abstract emotion that may be directed through a person but ultimately only to God”.
1.5. UNREQUITED LOVE
“Even so ‑called ‘unrequited love’ is shared love and shared identity, if only from one side and thereby woefully incomplete. Of course, occasionally an imagined iden‑
tity may be far preferable to the actuality, but even when this is the case unrequited love represents at most a hint toward a process and not the process as such. Unre‑
quited love is still love in the sense that a sprout from an acorn is already an oak, no more, however beautiful” (Solomon, 1990: 146). Thus unrequited love is a love that never reaches the stage of shared identity typical of Stage 2 of EL. It is the kind of love in which LONGING and SEXUAL DESIRE never reach the point of INTI‑
MACY. The domain of volitions is more or less the same as in Stage 1 of EL. In the domain of behavior, however, actual acts are usually replaced by L’s mere attempts do certain things with OL which OL refuses to do. Thus such elements as “L often goes out with OL” should be replaced with “L often invites or asks OL to go out, but OL usually refuses. The same goes for talking. If refusals are categorical, PIVOT 1 is never reached. If it is reached in some form, usually only physical, it usually either ends the relationship or may mark the beginning of its new stage, in which case UL becomes an unprototypical Stage 1of EL.
1.6. LOVE AFFAIR, LIAISON
The crucial difference between EL and LOVE AFFAIR is that the latter is proto‑
typically much shorter lived10, more sexually oriented (most dictionaries stress this aspect), and usually illicit on account of either one or both lovers being involved in another, marital relationship. The latter two elements are particularly salient in liai‑
son. Hence both often collocate with clandestine _, extramarital _, or _on the side.
Prototypically, neither LOVE AFFAIR nor LIAISON reach PIVOT 2 and STAGE 3, but they may also denote the first two stages of EL.
10 Newton ‑Smith (1973: 131) claims that “Love isn’t any less true for having been short ‑lived”
but “a one ‑night stand” could hardly be called love, though it could, I believe, be referred to as a love affair, albeit an unprototypical one.
36 Bogusław Bierwiaczonek
1.7. TRIANGULAR LOVE
Although Newton ‑Smith (1973: 134) claims that “any move to rule out the MPLR”
[i.e. multiple person love relation — BB] will be a legislative one, the very existence of the category shows that this particular LL, even if far from prototypical, is by no means uncommon, as Bergmann (1987) has shown. If all the participants reach a workable EMOTIONAL and BEHAVIORAL agreement, TRIANGULAR LOVE may exhibit considerable overlap with the category Ménage à trois.
1.8. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
The expression, as well as a number of its variants, such as love at first glance, sound, sentence, or even bite (in G. Hamilton’s vampire spoof “Love at First Bite”) makes salient only the perceived aspect of OL which caused L to fall in love. Because of its focus, LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT should not be regarded as a separate subcategory, but a potential extension of all the other subcategories of EL. Since the perception is equated with the sudden, instantaneous onset of L’s love, it may be argued that this extension of the category of EL introduces and makes salient a new PIVOT, call it PIVOT 0, in the script of EL. Therefore it may characterize all different subcatego‑
ries of EL, e.g. ROMANTIC, PUPPY LOVE or LOVE AFFAIR, regardless of their differences, including UNREQUITED LOVE, since OL’s response is unprofiled.
1.9. LOVE—HATE Relationship
The category consists of elements of two complex categories of LOVE and HATE intertwined in time. Interestingly, the category seems to be linked to the most emo‑
tionally charged subcategories of LOVE, i.e. EL, PL and CLP. Except for the domain of PEOPLE, the opposite elements of all the remaining domains tend to alternate;
e.g. ADMIRATION with CONTEMPT; PRIDE with SHAME, SEXUAL DESIRE with DISGUST; L BELIEVES THAT OL IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PERSON IN THE WORLD with L BELIEVES THAT OL IS THE MOST UNATTRACTIVE PERSON IN THE WORLD; L WANTS OL TO BE HAPPY with L WANTS OL TO BE UNHAPPY; L WANTS TO SEE OL AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE with L WANTS TO NEVER SEE OL AGAIN; L LOOKS IN OL’S EYES A LOT with L AVOIDS LOOKING IN OL’S EYES, etc.
The only constant elements in the domain of BEHAVIOR are probably the physi‑
ological effects, e.g. L EXHIBITS: INCREASE IN BODY HEAT, INCREASE IN HEART RATE, BLUSHING, INTERFERENCE WITH ACCURATE PERCEPTION and L THINKS OF OL A LOT. It is love, nonetheless, and should be regarded as a subcategory of LOVE, not HATE.
