Category
Topic
Year
From strangeness to closeness
Keywords: affect, intimacy, post-structuralism, Estonian literature, Lauren Berlant, feminism
Emil Tode’s novel Raadio (Radio, 2002) feels more than it knows. Although Raadio can be viewed as an ironic postmodern text, it feels too much for postmodernism, a mode of writing often associated with the waning of affect. Raadio is full of bubbling sensations and affective moments, which are not just decorative. Instead, these moments help the narrator to express intimacies that are otherwise suppressed under “major” narratives of love, to use Lauren Berlant’s (1998) term. The moments that are full of odd bodily sensations and affectively-loaded encounters in Raadio can be…
Emil Tode’s novel Raadio (Radio, 2002) feels more than it knows. Although Raadio can be viewed as an ironic postmodern text, it feels too much for postmodernism, a mode of writing often associated with the waning of affect. Raadio is full of bubbling sensations and affective moments, which are not just decorative. Instead, these moments help the narrator to express intimacies that are otherwise suppressed under “major” narratives of love, to use Lauren Berlant’s (1998) term. The moments that are full of odd bodily sensations and affectively-loaded encounters in Raadio can be…
About the features of Estonian academic writing
Keywords: academic writing, coherence, stance, authorial presence, rhetorical structure, argument
This paper aims to present a comprehensive overview about studies describing Estonian academic writing. Academic writing inherently belong to the everyday life of an academic community. While aspects of the Anglo-American writing tradition have been extensively described, not much is known about writing traditions of smaller languages, such as Estonian. This paper takes the first step towards understanding the essence of an Estonian academic writing tradition. This paper first presents a summary of our novel model that combines five features of academic writing: coherence, stance, authorial presence, rhetorical structure, and argument…
This paper aims to present a comprehensive overview about studies describing Estonian academic writing. Academic writing inherently belong to the everyday life of an academic community. While aspects of the Anglo-American writing tradition have been extensively described, not much is known about writing traditions of smaller languages, such as Estonian. This paper takes the first step towards understanding the essence of an Estonian academic writing tradition. This paper first presents a summary of our novel model that combines five features of academic writing: coherence, stance, authorial presence, rhetorical structure, and argument…
News of old primers
Keywords: primers, book history, literary history, language history, printing
The article introduces some early Estonian primers recently discovered. So far the Estonian national bibliography was known to include five different primers – one of them survived in duplicate, the rest as single copies – printed before 1750, more specifically, from 1694 to 1741. Now, four new findings have been discovered, only one of which is similar to a copy known earlier.
All four primers have survived as bound-with works in three bound-with volumes. Two of the volumes belonged to the library of the Earls of Macclesfield removed from Shirburn Castle, England, to…
The article introduces some early Estonian primers recently discovered. So far the Estonian national bibliography was known to include five different primers – one of them survived in duplicate, the rest as single copies – printed before 1750, more specifically, from 1694 to 1741. Now, four new findings have been discovered, only one of which is similar to a copy known earlier.
All four primers have survived as bound-with works in three bound-with volumes. Two of the volumes belonged to the library of the Earls of Macclesfield removed from Shirburn Castle, England, to…
Evasive poetry
Keywords: cyberliterature, Instagram potery, rap poetry, poetics, semiotics of poetry
According to statistics, over the last decade, and especially during the last five years, the importance of lyrical poetry as an art form in Western culture has started to grow again. The increasing popularity of both written and oral poetry is associated with the emergence of new media. Here, the platforms of the written poetry are text, photo or/and video sharing social networking services (at first Tumblr, now primarily Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook), and of the oral poetry audio and video distribution media services (SoundCloud, Spotify, YouTube). Therefore, written poetry is…
According to statistics, over the last decade, and especially during the last five years, the importance of lyrical poetry as an art form in Western culture has started to grow again. The increasing popularity of both written and oral poetry is associated with the emergence of new media. Here, the platforms of the written poetry are text, photo or/and video sharing social networking services (at first Tumblr, now primarily Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook), and of the oral poetry audio and video distribution media services (SoundCloud, Spotify, YouTube). Therefore, written poetry is…
An etymological nut still uncracked – linnased ’malt, germinated (barley) grains’?
Keywords: Finnic languages, Baltic languages, Slavic languages, lexical history, etymology
There is still no good etymology for the Estonian-Votic terms for malt – Est. linnas, usu. pl linnased, Vot. linnaz, linnahzõt. The etymologies offered this far are based on occasional juxtapositions without sufficient semantic motivation, thus raising more questions than providing answers. The main Finnic brewing terms are Germanic (Scandinavian) loanwords, while Est. õlu ‘beer’ etc. is either of Germanic or Baltic origin. This article considers the possible Baltic (Balto-Slavic) origin of the Estonian-Votic malt name, seeing the donor form in the Balto-Slavic stem variant *linda- (*lindā) ~ *ln̥da- (< I.E.…
There is still no good etymology for the Estonian-Votic terms for malt – Est. linnas, usu. pl linnased, Vot. linnaz, linnahzõt. The etymologies offered this far are based on occasional juxtapositions without sufficient semantic motivation, thus raising more questions than providing answers. The main Finnic brewing terms are Germanic (Scandinavian) loanwords, while Est. õlu ‘beer’ etc. is either of Germanic or Baltic origin. This article considers the possible Baltic (Balto-Slavic) origin of the Estonian-Votic malt name, seeing the donor form in the Balto-Slavic stem variant *linda- (*lindā) ~ *ln̥da- (< I.E.…
Estonian adolescent speech III
Keywords: adolescent speech tempo, speaking rate, articulation rate, phone rate, syllable structures, syllable duration, speech motor development
The paper explores the developmental changes of speech tempo and syllable durations in Estonian adolescent speech depending on age, gender and text characteristics. The research material consists of read speech utterances from 175 girls and 134 boys in the age range of 10 to 18 years. For each sentence, the speech rate, articulation rate and phone rates were calculated. Generalized additive mixed models (GAMM) were applied to analyze the variations in the measures of speech tempo and syllable durations.
The effect of age on the…
The paper explores the developmental changes of speech tempo and syllable durations in Estonian adolescent speech depending on age, gender and text characteristics. The research material consists of read speech utterances from 175 girls and 134 boys in the age range of 10 to 18 years. For each sentence, the speech rate, articulation rate and phone rates were calculated. Generalized additive mixed models (GAMM) were applied to analyze the variations in the measures of speech tempo and syllable durations.
The effect of age on the…
Healthiness of the nurse
Keywords: literary reviewing in Estonia, sociology of literature
An old cliché in Estonian literary criticism describes the critic as ‘kirjanduse sanitar’ – the nurse of literature, implicitly comparing her role to that of wolf in the natural ecosystem. But the healthcare of a literary ecosystem does not have to take predatory forms. Research in the sociology of literature has identified the role of journalistic book-reviewing in establishing the canon and enabling a system to emerge from the multitude of books and authors. On the other hand, sociologists have downplayed the critics’ ability to base their assessment on ‘internal’ qualities of texts…
An old cliché in Estonian literary criticism describes the critic as ‘kirjanduse sanitar’ – the nurse of literature, implicitly comparing her role to that of wolf in the natural ecosystem. But the healthcare of a literary ecosystem does not have to take predatory forms. Research in the sociology of literature has identified the role of journalistic book-reviewing in establishing the canon and enabling a system to emerge from the multitude of books and authors. On the other hand, sociologists have downplayed the critics’ ability to base their assessment on ‘internal’ qualities of texts…
National identity in the late 19th-century travelogues from Japan written by Estonian sailors
Keywords: depiction of a nation, travelogues, sailors, Japan, 19th-century Estonia
The aim of the article is to examine what the Estonians’ idea of their own nationality was in the late 19th century. The empirical evidence comes from Estonian sailors’ travelogues from Japan, published in Estonian language press. Those travelogues, comparing own and other cultures, enable an analysis of how Estonians would depict and construct the Estonian nation, doing it from a considerable distance and against the background of another nation. The sailors could be relied on as people with a wide horizon and rich experience, while Japan is distant enough, both…
The aim of the article is to examine what the Estonians’ idea of their own nationality was in the late 19th century. The empirical evidence comes from Estonian sailors’ travelogues from Japan, published in Estonian language press. Those travelogues, comparing own and other cultures, enable an analysis of how Estonians would depict and construct the Estonian nation, doing it from a considerable distance and against the background of another nation. The sailors could be relied on as people with a wide horizon and rich experience, while Japan is distant enough, both…
I’m afraid your happiness and mine lie at some distance from each other
Keywords: Estonian, verb, emotion, epistemic modality, markers, pragmatisation
Based on the material of Estonian language corpora the uses of the sequence (ma) kardan (et) ‘I’m afraid (that)’ as a discourse marker and the relationship of those uses with the marker’s source structure – a predicate expressing a psychological state and modified by a complement clause – are analysed. Compared to other complement taking predicate markers (CTP-markers) the kardan-marker stands out for semantic diversity. To analyse the (inter)subjective uses of the kardan-marker we propose a model considering four layers co-operating in semantics and pragmatics: 1) shifts in the semantic structure, 2) the function…
Based on the material of Estonian language corpora the uses of the sequence (ma) kardan (et) ‘I’m afraid (that)’ as a discourse marker and the relationship of those uses with the marker’s source structure – a predicate expressing a psychological state and modified by a complement clause – are analysed. Compared to other complement taking predicate markers (CTP-markers) the kardan-marker stands out for semantic diversity. To analyse the (inter)subjective uses of the kardan-marker we propose a model considering four layers co-operating in semantics and pragmatics: 1) shifts in the semantic structure, 2) the function…
CTP-marker (ma) arvan (et) ’(I) think (that)’ in directives in Estonian everyday interaction
Keywords: CTP-markers, subjectivity, deontic authority, epistemic authority, opinion, interactional linguistics
This paper targets directive utterances in Estonian everyday interaction that include the CTP-marker (ma) arvan (et) ‘(I) think (that)’. The aim of the study was to find out for what purposes interactants use this marker in directives. The data was drawn from the Corpus of Spoken Estonian of the University of Tartu. For analyzing the data, principles of interactional linguistics and conversation analysis were applied. The study revealed that the main functions of the CTP-marker (ma) arvan (et) in directives are the following:
The marker is used for showing that what…
This paper targets directive utterances in Estonian everyday interaction that include the CTP-marker (ma) arvan (et) ‘(I) think (that)’. The aim of the study was to find out for what purposes interactants use this marker in directives. The data was drawn from the Corpus of Spoken Estonian of the University of Tartu. For analyzing the data, principles of interactional linguistics and conversation analysis were applied. The study revealed that the main functions of the CTP-marker (ma) arvan (et) in directives are the following:
The marker is used for showing that what…
Complement-taking predicate markers in different registers in Estonian
Keywords: Estonian language, corpus pragmatics, discourse markers, register variation
The use of Estonian CTP-markers (ma) arvan (et) ‘I think that’, (ma) usun (et) ‘I believe that’, (ma) loodan (et) ‘I hope that’, (mulle) näib (et) ‘it seems to me that’, (mulle) tundub (et) ‘it feels to me that’, (mulle) paistab (et) ‘it looks to me that’ was analysed in everyday conversation, oral institutional communication, prose fiction, the press, scientific research, online chats and online comments. It was revealed that:
1) Compared to others, (ma) arvan (et) occurs very often.
2) The marker (ma) arvan (et) dominates in oral registers, exceeds the frequency of…
The use of Estonian CTP-markers (ma) arvan (et) ‘I think that’, (ma) usun (et) ‘I believe that’, (ma) loodan (et) ‘I hope that’, (mulle) näib (et) ‘it seems to me that’, (mulle) tundub (et) ‘it feels to me that’, (mulle) paistab (et) ‘it looks to me that’ was analysed in everyday conversation, oral institutional communication, prose fiction, the press, scientific research, online chats and online comments. It was revealed that:
1) Compared to others, (ma) arvan (et) occurs very often.
2) The marker (ma) arvan (et) dominates in oral registers, exceeds the frequency of…