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16504 papers
In this paper, we describe and compare two statistical parsing approaches for the hybrid dependency-constituency syntactic representation used in the Quranic Arabic Treebank (Dukes and Buckwalter, 2010). In our first approach, we apply a multi-step process in which we use a shift-reduce algorithm trained on a pure dependency preprocessed version of the treebank. After parsing, the dependency output is converted into the hybrid representation. This is compared to a novel one-step parser that is able to learn the hybrid representation without preprocessing. We define an extended labelled attachment score (ELAS) as our performance metric for hybrid parsing, and report 87.47 % (F1 score) for the multi-step approach, and 89.03 % (F1 score) for the onestep integrated algorithm. We also consider the effect of using different sets of morphological features for parsing the Quran, comparing our results to recent work on Modern Standard Arabic.
The Internet has rarely been used in auditory perception studies due to concerns about standardisation and calibration across different systems and settings. However, not all auditory research is based on the investigation of fine-grained differences in auditory thresholds. Where meaningful ‘real-world’ listening, for instance the perception of speech, is concerned, the Internet may be a more appropriate and ecologically valid setting to collect data. This study compared affective ratings of low-pass-filtered infant-, foreigner- and British adult-directed speech obtained with traditional methods in the laboratory, with those obtained from an Internet sample. Dropout rates and demographic distribution of participants in the Internet condition were also assessed. The results show that affective ratings were similar for both the Internet and laboratory samples. These findings indicate the viability of Internet-based research into affective speech perception and suggest that precise acoustic environmental control may not always be necessary.
This paper introduces Chart Inference (CI), an algorithm for deriving a CCG category for an unknown word from a partial parse chart. It is shown to be faster and more precise than a baseline brute-force method, and to achieve wider coverage than a rule-based system. In addition, we show the application of CI to a domain adaptation task for question words, which are largely missing in the Penn Treebank. When used in combination with self-training, CI increases the precision of the baseline StatCCG parser over subjectextraction questions by 50%. An error analysis shows that CI contributes to the increase by expanding the number of category types available to the parser, while self-training adjusts the counts. 1
Manually performed treebanking is an expensive effort compared with automatic annotation.In return, manual treebanking is generally believed to provide higherquality/value syntactic annotation than automatic methods.Unfortunately, there is little or no empirical evidence for or against this belief, though arguments have been voiced for the high degree of subjectivity in other levels of linguistic analysis (e.g.morphological annotation).We report a double-blind annotation experiment at the level of dependency syntax, using a small Finnish corpus as the analysis data.The results suggest that an interannotator agreement can be reached as a result of reviews and negotiations that is much higher than the corresponding labelled attachment scores (LAS) reported for stateof-the-art dependency parsers.
We propose a relaxed correspondence assumption for cross-lingual projection of constituent syntax, which allows a supposed constituent of the target sentence to correspond to an unrestricted treelet in the source parse. Such a relaxed assumption fundamentally tolerates the syntactic non-isomorphism between languages, and enables us to learn the target-language-specific syntactic idiosyncrasy rather than a strained grammar directly projected from the source language syntax. Based on this assumption, a novel constituency projection method is also proposed in order to induce a projected constituent treebank from the source-parsed bilingual corpus. Experiments show that, the parser trained on the projected treebank dramatically outperforms previous projected and unsupervised parsers. 1
Historical linguistics aims at inferring the most likely language phylogenetic tree starting from information concerning the evolutionary relatedness of languages. The available information are typically lists of homologous (lexical, phonological, syntactic) features or characters for many different languages: a set of parallel corpora whose compilation represents a paramount achievement in linguistics. From this perspective the reconstruction of language trees is an example of inverse problems: starting from present, incomplete and often noisy, information, one aims at inferring the most likely past evolutionary history. A fundamental issue in inverse problems is the evaluation of the inference made. A standard way of dealing with this question is to generate data with artificial models in order to have full access to the evolutionary process one is going to infer. This procedure presents an intrinsic limitation: when dealing with real data sets, one typically does not know which model of evolution is the most suitable for them. A possible way out is to compare algorithmic inference with expert classifications. This is the point of view we take here by conducting a thorough survey of the accuracy of reconstruction methods as compared with the Ethnologue expert classifications. We focus in particular on state-of-the-art distance-based methods for phylogeny reconstruction using worldwide linguistic databases. In order to assess the accuracy of the inferred trees we introduce and characterize two generalizations of standard definitions of distances between trees. Based on these scores we quantify the relative performances of the distance-based algorithms considered. Further we quantify how the completeness and the coverage of the available databases affect the accuracy of the reconstruction. Finally we draw some conclusions about where the accuracy of the reconstructions in historical linguistics stands and about the leading directions to improve it.
Parallel treebanks with annotation of syntax, discourse, coreference, morphology, and semantics. Version 3 also includes the Danish Dependency Treebank (version 1) and the Danish-English Parallel Dependency Treebank (version 2).
The paper introduces the application of cartographic methods to research on a culture at the last moment of its in situ existence. The atlas in progress seeks to determine the historic external borders, the internal differentiation and the cultural and linguistic structure and characteristics of Líte ([lítə] – the territory of traditional jewish Lithuania (coterritorial with today's Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, and swaths of northeastern Poland, northern and eastern Ukraine and westernmost Russia). The main linguistic data were initially organized by lists of locations where use of a particular form had been documented. Sparse information has been converted to a relational database model, linked to geographic data (locations) and analyzed. The discovered information was sufficient to approximately locate spatial clusters that were not thought to be recoverable when the project was initiated. The results of the geographic analysis are presented in the form of maps in the evolving draft of Litvish: An Atlas of Northeastern Yiddish that is accessible for preview at http://www.dovidkatz.net/WebAtlas/AtlasSamples.htm. The structure of the linguistic database also enables publication of the data as a web service representing the location of occurrences of linguistic forms on a larger scale map. However, the small scale linguistic maps represent characteristics of the dialect areas that are more convenient for readers who specialize in the relevant language and culture, but are not familiar with geospatial technologies. Santrauka Aptariamas ir iliustruojamas kartografinių ir erdvinės analizės metodų taikymas atliekant lingvistinius tyrimus. Lietuvos jidiš tarmių žemėlapiais siekiama atskleisti iš esmės jau išnykusios kultūros teritorinę įvairovę, istorines ribas, kultūrinius ir lingvistinius ypatumus. Tyrimų objektas yra tradicinė Lietuvos žydų teritorija Líte, apimanti didžiąją dalį dabartinės Lietuvos, Latvijos, Baltarusijos bei šiaurės rytų Lenkijos, šiaurės ir rytų Ukrainos, vakarinės Rusijos pakraščio teritorijas. Kuriamas atlasas apima per 30 žemėlapių, kuriuose pavaizduota dažniau pasitaikančių žodžių formų įvairovė ir teritorinė jų sklaida. žemėlapiai sudaryti naudojantis GIS duomenų baze, kurioje registruoti D. Kadz beveik 20 metų trukusių tyrimų Lietuvos žydų teritorijoje duomenys. Prielaidos apie Lietuvos jidiš dialektų paplitimą buvo tikrinamos erdvinės statistikos metodais. Nors duomenys nėra labai išsamūs ar vientisi, sudarytuose žemėlapiuose aiškiai matyti skirtingų lingvistinių formų paplitimo teritorijos, šių teritorijų homogeniškumas ar heterogeniškumas, jų kitimo laikui bėgant ypatumai. žemėlapiai sudaryti taip, kad būtų lengva pastebėti ir interpretuoti juose įžvelgiamus dėsningumus. Atlasą galima rasti internete: <http://www.dovidkatz.net/WebAtlas/AtlasSamples.htm>. Резюме В статье обсуждается применение картографических методов в лингвистических исследованиях территории северо-восточного (Литовского) идиш. На составленных авторами картах представлено распределение характерных форм идиш на территории современных Литвы, Латвии, Беларуси и соседних стран. Данные, собранные во время экспедиций по территории Литовского идиш, неоднородны и недостаточны для статистических исследований, тем не менее карты позволяют выявить интересные пространственные закономерности и глубже познать культуру на грани исчезновения. Карты составляют атлас, с которым можно познакомиться на сайте: http://www.dovidkatz.net/WebAtlas/AtlasSamples.htm.
Annotated data have recently become more important, and thus more abundant, in computational linguistics. They are used as training material for machine learning systems for a wide variety of applications from Parsing to Machine Translation (Quirk et al., 2005). Dependency representation is preferred for many languages because linguistic and semantic information is easier to retrieve from the more direct dependency representation. Dependencies are relations that are defined on words or smaller units where the sentences are divided into its elements called heads and their arguments, e.g. verbs and objects. Dependency parsing aims to predict these dependency relations between lexical units to retrieve information, mostly in the form of semantic interpretation or syntactic structure. Parsing is usually considered as the first step of Natural Language Processing (NLP). To train statistical parsers, a sample of data annotated with necessary information is required. There are different views on how informative or functional representation of natural language sentences should be. There are different constraints on the design process such as: 1) how intuitive (natural) it is, 2) how easy to extract information from it is, and 3) how appropriately and unambiguously it represents the phenomena that occur in natural languages. In this article, a review of statistical dependency parsing for different languages will be made and current challenges of designing dependency treebanks and dependency parsing will be discussed. Request access from your librarian to read this chapter's full text.
Linguistic annotation, the reunification of linguistics and philology, and the reinvention of the Humanities for a global ageThis paper addresses the critical role that treebanks in particular and linguistic annotation in general must play if the Humanities are to advance the intellectual life of society as a whole.During the twentieth century we saw a rise in specialization that not only separated the practices of philology and linguistics among different researchers but wholly separate (and sometimes conflicting) departments.The reunification of linguistics with philology is an essential element in the evolution of the Humanities and serves three critical functions.First, linguistic annotation, both machine generated and human curated, is an essential element both for large scale analysis of topics that cross more languages than any research can study, much less master, and for the intensive analysis of individual source and topics.Second, the associated changes in the scale of research demand that we draw upon more cultural and linguistic expertise than the established universities of North America and Europe can offer -we must enlist new collaborators in nations such as Egypt, India, and China, whom boundaries of language and of culture have often kept isolated.Third, even a global network of advanced scholars and library professionals is not sufficient to analyze sources in thousands of languages produced over thousands of years.We must develop student researchers and citizen scholars and a new participatory of scholarship.The potential consequences of these three changes are immense and each depends upon contributions by members of this workshop.
Hierdie artikel stel 'n tipologie van leksikografiese etikette met die fokus op standaard tweetalige woordeboeke voor. Hoewel 'n aantal tipologiee in die literatuur voorkom wat op die oppervlak grootliks ooreenstem, is daar onenigheid ten opsigte van die dieper klassifikasies. Die literatuur toon dat hierdie stand van sake die gevolg is van algemene verwarring en 'n gebrek aan konsensus oor die gebruik van leksikografiese etikette en die pragmatiese parameters wat hulle verteenwoordig, wat veroorsaak word deur die afwesigheid van 'n teoretiese basis vir hulle klassifikasie en standaardisering. Die doel van hierdie artikel is juis om sodanige teoretiese basis te skep op grond waarvan 'n tipologie ontwikkel kan word. A general typology of lexicographical labels This article develops and presents a typology of lexicographical labels with the focus on standard bilingual dictionaries. Generally, a lexicographical label can be described as a meta-entry in a dictionary article which indicates to the dictionary user that the entry it is addressed to represents an element of some form of marked language usage, for example informal language, jargon, geographical variation and temporal variation. Lexicographical labels contextualise their addresses in terms of actual language usage and therefore provide important pragmatic guidance to the dictionary user, thereby promoting communicative success. They have a long history and have not only become a lexicographical tradition, but also an indispensable instrument of description for the lexicographer. This article takes cognisance of an initial definition of lexicographical labels, the fact that a number of typologies of lexicographical labels have been proposed and the concept of markedness as it pertains to language usage. With regard to existing typologies, it is noted that while they are more or less similar at the superficial level, there are significant differences in deeper classifications and subclassifications. The literature suggests that this is the result of general confusion and a lack of consensus about the use of lexicographical labels and the pragmatic parameters that they represent, which is in turn caused by the absence of a theoretical basis for their classification and standardisation. Hence, the initial definition and the concept of markedness represents the point of departure for developing precisely such a theoretical basis. The concept of markedness is extended to lexicographical markedness, since what is regarded as linguistically marked is not necessarily marked for lexicographical purposes. A different set of norms have to be applied when deciding if a source or target language entry should be labelled. This implies that the linguistic markedness of a lexical item does not presuppose its labelling in a dictionary. The norms which should be applied to determine lexicographical markedness, and as such define lexicographical labels, include (i) the dictionary type, as a product of the purpose, function(s), typical usage situation and target user profile of the dictionary, which includes referential equivalence and translingually transposed lexicographical markedness in the case of a bilingual dictionary; (ii) certain linguistic criteria that apply to linguistic markedness, like usage restrictions pertaining to specific domains as well as relevant formal and stylistic criteria; (iii) the dictionary-specific context.
WÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊË Second,Williamsis an obviouslyintelligent andwell-read poet, and his learning findsits proper placeinhispoems,sometimes centrally asinthe poem"Marina," mentioned above.Thatsaid,attimes the musty smelloftheacademy canbe detected and be a little off-putting. Whenone poemencounters cows, thespeakermust(ofcourse)think ofIo;whenanother poemdescribes an encounter betweena man and womanon themetro, thespeaker must(ofcourse)recall Gombrowicz foran idea as simpleas physical assertion. Thereare multiple other examples oftimes whenthisreader wishestheauthor wouldputaside hisprofessor's cap. Third, there are too many stretches, even whole poems, in whichthepoet managesto barely includeconcreteimagery.For example, consider theselinesfrom "AllButAlways": "andifyouwere unable to give / an unqualified response to thesequestions, / but were forcedto admitthatyou / couldn't saywithcertainty whether / theactivities of thethingwere yourdoing/ ortheresult ofsome other agency." Suchlongstrings of abstractions seem less like poetry and moreliketherushedhurtle of abstract cogitation bysomeone consuming toomuchespresso. FredDings University ofSouthCarolina Miscellaneous Beyond Words:Translatingthe World. Susan Ouriou, ed. Banff, Alberta. BanffCentre Press. 2010. 175 pages. Can$21.95. isbn 978-1-894773-38-6 BeyondWords:Translating theWorld is a collection oftwenty-one short, mostlyinformal essays,thoughts on translation bya kaleidoscope of translators who have participated at varioustimesin theBanff literary Translation Centre's Summer ResidenceProgram. It is stimulating to confront in a shortspace how twenty-one translators with different approachesand attitudes facetwenty-one different problems oftranslation in as manydifferent ways.How does translating make us think aboutlanguage? Whatcan translators do, caughtin thegaps between twolanguages? How does each individualtextdetermine its translation? Whatabouttranslating from a major language into anindigenouslanguage?Whatis involved intranslating from a minor national language into a major one?What ifa translator isalsoa writer? Howdoes one carryacrossstylistic and linguistic norms from onelanguageto another - eveninthecaseofclosely related languages? How canpoetry be translated? Is translation political?Shoulditbe subjective? Is the translator translating him-or herself?Whataboutliterary imports? ■Hli^^H^H^^HHIII^^^MH^^HHH^^MI^^HHIJ^H ^^^^^HpHBBWBBBBBBBIBBBBBW^BMBBWBHBWpi^BjMIM^M^^^^^fe^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B^^ What about translationin a bilingual country? How does translation relatetotheory? That all these questions are raised cogently and in briefformin thisbook reveals to the reader the multilayered complexitythatevery translation involves.Especiallyinterestingforthistranslator is theessay "Literary Translation intotheIndigenous Languages of theAmericas," by Enrique ServínHerrera,investigatingproblemsraisedbytherecent "renaissanceofaboriginallanguages as literarymedia of expression," whichcreatesa "realcultural chasm" when a moderncultureis translated intothe conceptsof an archaicculture,leading the translator to "performactsofsocialintervention, thus transcendingthe mere functionof whatwe call translation." "We must remember," theauthorwrites,"that languages are not parallel systems ofsignsthat'reflect' theworld,[but] rather independent - oratleastlargelyindependent - systems ofinterpretationoftheworld." Edith Grossmanwritesthat in translating Cervantes's DonQuixote, "I believethatmyprimary obligation as a literary translator is to re-create for thereaderin Englishthe experience of thereaderin Spanish.... When Cervantes wroteDon Quixote, hislanguage was notarchaicor quaint.He wroteina crackling, up-to-date Spanish thatwas an intrinsic partof his time,... a modernlanguagethat both reflected andhelpedtoshapetheway peopleexperienced theworld." For those who believe translationis simple,FrançoiseRoy offers a not atypical conundrum: "If a verse reads sus hermanos in Spanish,thetranslator intoFrenchmust know the gender of the hermanos and whetherthereis morethanone of each gender in order to decide "j EditedbySusanOuriou "j bey bySusanOuriou m -w ■ I Translating X^| JL JL theWorld ÛWO ras whetherto use sesfrères, leurs frères, sesfrères etsa sœur, sonfrère etsa sœur, sesfrères et ses sœurs,sonfrère etses sœurs,leursfrères et leursœur,leurs frères et leurssœurs,leurfrère et leur sœurorleur frère etleurssœurs." Burton Pike Graduate Center, CUNY Hispanic New York: A Sourcebook. Claudio Iván Remeseira, ed. & intro. AndrewDelbanco, foreword.NewYork. Columbia University Press.2010. xxiv+ 547 pages. $89.50 ($29.95 paper), isbn 978-0-231-14818-4(14819-1 paper) The publication of Hispanic New York:A Sourcebook by Claudio Ivan Remeseira, founder and director of the Hispanic New York Project in the American Studies Program at Columbia University, marks a significantmilestone in Nueva York studies as an interdisciplinary,multinationalfieldwithhemispheric and transatlantic scope. The twenty-five textsanthologized infoursections(HistoricalPerspectives;Race, Ethnicity, and Religion; Language and Literature; Music and Art) represent numerousintersectingsocialscienceand humanities disciplines:demographics, literature, journalism,women's studies, sociology, religion,dialectology,musicology, and art history.Although thisselectionof readingscould not possibly cover, uniformly,every nationalgroup or scholarlyissue of HispanicNew York,thebreadthand depth of the classifiedbibliography helps compensateforany perceived omissionofcoverage.Extensivesubject and name indexes also provide access to thevast rangeoftopicsin thereadings,and thecoverillustration...
Tant dans le domaine de la psychologie que dans celui du traitement automatique des langues, les normes portant sur des proprietes semantiques, comme le caractere concret ou abstrait, la polarite ou le caractere emotionnel, constituent des ressources importantes. La construction manuelle de ces normes, par l’intermediaire d’evaluateurs, est couteuse, d’ou l’interet de developper des methodes de construction ou d’extension automatique. Plusieurs methodes ont ete proposees, mais elles portent sur une seule dimension: la polarite. Nous proposons de voir dans quelle mesure l’une d’entre elles peut etre etendue a six autres normes, et ce pour le francais et l’espagnol. Les experimentations confirment l’efficacite de la technique non seulement pour etendre une norme, mais egalement pour mettre en evidence des mots pour lesquels les valeurs attribuees par les evaluateurs sont sujettes a caution.
In this paper, we analyze the behaviour of Singular Value Decomposition in a number of word similarity extraction tasks, namely acquisition of translation equivalents from comparable corpora. Special attention is paid to two different aspects: computational efficiency and extraction quality. The main objective of the paper is to describe several experiments comparing methods based on Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) to other strategies. The results lead us to conclude that SVD makes the extraction less computationally efficient and much less precise than other more basic models for the task of extracting translation equivalents from comparable corpora.
Research in automatic text plagiarism detection focuses on algorithms that compare suspicious documents against a collection of reference documents. Recent approaches perform well in identifying copied or modified foreign sections, but they assume a closed world where a reference collection is given. This article investigates the question whether plagiarism can be detected by a computer program if no reference can be provided, e.g., if the foreign sections stem from a book that is not available in digital form. We call this problem class intrinsic plagiarism analysis; it is closely related to the problem of authorship verification. Our contributions are threefold. (1) We organize the algorithmic building blocks for intrinsic plagiarism analysis and authorship verification and survey the state of the art. (2) We show how the meta learning approach of Koppel and Schler, termed “unmasking”, can be employed to post-process unreliable stylometric analysis results. (3) We operationalize and evaluate an analysis chain that combines document chunking, style model computation, one-class classification, and meta learning.
Most previous work on authorship attribution has focused on the case in which we need to attribute an anonymous document to one of a small set of candidate authors. In this paper, we consider authorship attribution as found in the wild: the set of known candidates is extremely large (possibly many thousands) and might not even include the actual author. Moreover, the known texts and the anonymous texts might be of limited length. We show that even in these difficult cases, we can use similarity-based methods along with multiple randomized feature sets to achieve high precision. Moreover, we show the precise relationship between attribution precision and four parameters: the size of the candidate set, the quantity of known-text by the candidates, the length of the anonymous text and a certain robustness score associated with a attribution.
Human language technology (HLT) has been identified as a priority area by the South African government. However, despite efforts by government and the research and development (R&D) community, South Africa has not yet been able to maximise the opportunities of HLT and create a thriving HLT industry. One of the key challenges is the fact that there is insufficient codified knowledge about the current South African HLT components, their attributes and existing relationships. Hence a technology audit was conducted for the South African HLT landscape, to create a systematic and detailed inventory of the status of the HLT components across the eleven official languages. Based on the Basic Language Resource Kit (BLaRK) framework Krauwer (ELRA Newslett 3(2), 1998), we used various data collection methods (such as focus groups, questionnaires and personal consultations with HLT experts) to gather detailed information. The South African HLT landscape is analysed using a number of complementary approaches and based on the interpretations of the results, recommendations are made on how to accelerate HLT development in South Africa, as well as on how to conduct similar audits in other countries and contexts.
A new method, with an application program in Matlab code, is proposed for testing item performance models on empirical databases. This method uses data intraclass correlation statistics as expected correlations to which one compares simple functions of correlations between model predictions and observed item performance. The method rests on a data population model whose validity for the considered data is suitably tested and has been verified for three behavioural measure databases. Contrarily to usual model selection criteria, this method provides an effective way of testing under-fitting and over-fitting, answering the usually neglected question "does this model suitably account for these data?"
The main goal of this work is to determine whether a computer mouse can be used as a low-cost device for the acquisition of two-dimensional human movement velocity signals in the context of psychophysical studies and biomedical applications. A comprehensive overview of the related literature is presented, and the problem of characterizing mouse movement acquisition is analyzed and discussed. Then, the quality of velocity signals acquired with this kind of device is measured on horizontal oscillatory movements by comparing the mouse data to the signals acquired simultaneously by a video motion tracking system and a digitizing tablet. A synthesis of the information gathered in this work indicates that the computer mouse can be used for the reliable acquisition of biosignals in the context of human movement studies, particularly for many applications dealing with the velocity of the end effector of the upper limb. This paper concludes by discussing the possibilities and limitations of such use.
In this article, we introduce a software package that applies a corpus-based algorithm to derive semantic representations of words. The algorithm relies on analyses of contextual information extracted from a text corpus—specifically, analyses of word co-occurrences in a large-scale electronic database of text. Here, a target word is represented as the combination of the average of all words preceding the target and all words following it in a text corpus. The semantic representation of the target words can be further processed by a self-organizing map (SOM; Kohonen, Self-organizing maps, 2001), an unsupervised neural network model that provides efficient data extraction and representation. Due to its topography-preserving features, the SOM projects the statistical structure of the context onto a 2-D space, such that words with similar meanings cluster together, forming groups that correspond to lexically meaningful categories. Such a representation system has its applications in a variety of contexts, including computational modeling of language acquisition and processing. In this report, we present specific examples from two languages (English and Chinese) to demonstrate how the method is applied to extract the semantic representations of words.
The aim of this article is to investigate the structure of language in Ahmad poetry. Since violation of norms and defamiliarization have been used a lot in one of his works named “Kafshhaye Mokashefeh”, this work provides the data of this research. The linguistic structure of this work is analyzed by using Formalist and Structuralist models and frameworks. On the basis of this, it can be said that the poet’s stylistic innovations are manifested in various forms at phonetic, lexical and syntactic levels. In other words, the poet’s innovations at each of these levels trigger the formation of a new and unique style. The main characteristic of this new style is the harmony created between formal elements and the meaning of the poem so that the poem functions not only as a tool for conveying the message but also the emotions of the poet to the reader via the words.
In the era of globalisation and simultaneous grouping, multilingualism has become a norm. In their job or studies, most of educated Estonians have to mediate information from one or more foreign languages. At the same time, several difficulties arise: (1) these people are not familiar with theoretical issues of translation; (2) they may be faced with a lack of suitable special terms in the target language; (3) for marking the same concept, several parallel scientific paradigms and groups characteristic of the era may use different 114 signifiers, and the other way around: the same lexical units may mark different notions. The article mediates empirical findings of editing (and retranslating) CEFR (2001) and PISA 2009 (2008) terminology; some more general conclusions may address practitioners of every-day translating, some others point to problems to be solved on the higher level of society. Keywords multilingualism, LSP, English, Estonian, translation
The paper addresses the core problems of foreign students' communicative competence and justifies the «language culture» course as mean to build the required skills; the paper also proposes methodology of teaching those skills in the lexical norms study.
This study compares three target texts of ``A Journey to Mujin`` written by Kim Seung-ok and examines how they show the faithfulness to the source text and/or readability for the target readers. The target passages for analysis are: texts that include unfamiliar images, symbolic expressions derived from the author`s experience, expressions that are hard to understand with only the utterance of the text, texts which are likely to miss out within ``the net of awareness`` established by the author, texts which the author annexed additional explanation during the interview with the literary critic, Lee Tae-dong, and texts which has syntactic devices for emphasizing the author`s intention. The concrete method of analysis applies the inductive method which defines the states of each target text and finds the norms to control the target texts. The results of the analysis will reveal the tendency of the target text in regards to faithfulness to the source text and readability for the target readers. Whether the target text reflects syntactic and lexical equivalence at maximum level or applies the devices to make the target readers understand in the translator`s own way is examined in detail. Factors which are considered to judge how faithful the target text is to the source text are as follows; how the three translations reflect the register of the source text, the typical author`s tone, the form, aesthetic sensibility and image. Back translation is applied, if necessary, to see how the translation is derived from the source text. The researcher concentrated upon the author`s intention and the way to express theme in translation focused on readability. A class of readers is a main factor to decide the level of readability. The results show that the translational strategy for faithfulness applies to reflect the register of the source text as it is, to make the number of the sentences agree with that of the source text, to reflect the inversion, and to add an independent clause to preserve the style of the source text. A look at the formal shifts for readability suggests the way to separate the original sentences in translation, to change the perspective of the original sentences, to deconstruct the syntactic structure, to use punctuation and to omit some of the original. As for the sifts of the contents, the three target texts show addition of translation, omission of the original, the change of syntactic structure, substituting of cultural factors into senseto- sense translation, and concrete explanation of difficult texts.
Because fast and frugal heuristics theorists believe that people make all decisions, including decisions about whether to comply with legal regulations, by looking to a small number of lexically-processed decision-relevant cues, they argue that we will not manipulate crime rates as well by tinkering with expected punishments as we will by, for instance, engraining habits or conforming law to pre-existing social norms or altering the capacity of putative violators to engage in unwanted conduct. Heuristics and biases theorists believe that would-be criminals may care about the expected value of crimes they are considering committing, but that they often misestimate the probability of being sanctioned and evaluate sanctions in ways that are highly contextually sensitive. The chances of punishment may often be underestimated, and both the experienced and remembered pain of the punishment that criminals actually suffer may be counter-intuitively low. Incapacitationists should note that F&F scholars are wary of using multi-cue regression measures in predicting future dangerousness, and that H&B work should lead us to worry that we will systematically overestimate the dangerousness of criminals.
Event Abstract Back to Event Fast access to "hate" and "love": rapid neural responses to emotional categories during word processing Kati Keuper1*, Marisa Nordt1, Peter Zwanzger2 and Christian Dobel1 1 Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis, University of Münster, Germany 2 Department of Psychiatry, University of Münster, Germany Neuroscientific and behavioral studies investigating emotional word processing reveal selective and prioritized processing of emotional words (Kissler et al., 2009). Arousal-dependent ERP modulations have been observed as early as the P1 time window (e.g. Ortigue et al., 2004) suggesting the apparent paradox that some linguistic features might be processed before (or in parallel with) their lexical distinction. However, the detailed neural correlates of such early processes are still unknown. The present study intended to explore arousal- and valence-related neural networks by means of a simultaneous MEG-EEG measurement in which subjects were required to silently read streams of positive, negative, and neutral words. Neural sources within the P1 time window (80-120ms) were identified by means of current density reconstruction (L2 minimum norm) based on individualized boundary element models and a cortical constraint. The data reveal an enhanced activation for emotional compared to neutral words in left temporal regions. Furthermore, we observed left-temporal and parietal regions to be more strongly activated in response to positive words compared to negative words, whereas negative words resulted in enhanced activation of right parietal and left anterior cingulate cortex regions. These findings demonstrate that not only arousal- but also valence related aspects of words are encoded by complex cortical networks as early as 100 ms. This corroborates that emotional items receive preferential processing. Overall, these results are compatible with the observation that a range of psycholinguistic processes, up to the level of semantic access, emerge already 100-250 ms after word presentation (Pulvermüller et al., 2009). Funding: Supported by IZKF (Do3/021/10). Keywords: EEG, Language Conference: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Sessions: Neural Bases of Language Citation: Keuper K, Nordt M, Zwanzger P and Dobel C (2011). Fast access to "hate" and "love": rapid neural responses to emotional categories during word processing. Conference Abstract: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00203 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 21 Nov 2011; Published Online: 28 Nov 2011. * Correspondence: Dr. Kati Keuper, Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis, University of Münster, Münster, Germany, k.roesmann@uni-muenster.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Kati Keuper Marisa Nordt Peter Zwanzger Christian Dobel Google Kati Keuper Marisa Nordt Peter Zwanzger Christian Dobel Google Scholar Kati Keuper Marisa Nordt Peter Zwanzger Christian Dobel PubMed Kati Keuper Marisa Nordt Peter Zwanzger Christian Dobel Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.
The article differentiates functional specifics of lexal connotations in the Russian literary language of the 18th c. on the opposition of bookish:: spoken lexemes; the author characterizes stylistic norms of official written communication on the basis of co-occurrence of bookish, official, and colloquial lexical means in the documents of Tsaritsin town council.
We have been developing a system for creating three dimensional computer graphics (3D-CG) that can accept natural-language sentences as an input, in addition to the mouse and pen-tablet inputs. Our system is unique in that when it does not know the shape of a noun used in the input sentence, it can estimate the shape by consulting the WordNet lexical database. In the present study, we have improved our system so that it can understand a wider variety of words and sentences than the previous system. We have also compared the performance of six different methods for the shape estimation.
In some theories of sentence comprehension, linguistically relevant lexical knowledge, such as selectional restrictions, is privileged in terms of the time-course of its access and influence. We examined whether event knowledge computed by combining multiple concepts can rapidly influence language understanding even in the absence of selectional restriction violations. Specifically, we investigated whether instruments can combine with actions to influence comprehension of ensuing patients of (as in Rayner, Warren, Juhuasz, & Liversedge, 2004; Warren & McConnell, 2007). Instrument-verb-patient triplets were created in a norming study designed to tap directly into event knowledge. In self-paced reading (Experiment 1), participants were faster to read patient nouns, such as hair, when they were typical of the instrument-action pair (Donna used the shampoo to wash vs. the hose to wash). Experiment 2 showed that these results were not due to direct instrument-patient relations. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 1 using eyetracking, with effects of event typicality observed in first fixation and gaze durations on the patient noun. This research demonstrates that conceptual event-based expectations are computed and used rapidly and dynamically during on-line language comprehension. We discuss relationships among plausibility and predictability, as well as their implications. We conclude that selectional restrictions may be best considered as event-based conceptual knowledge rather than lexical-grammatical knowledge.
The purpose of the current thesis is to develop a better understanding of the interaction between Spanish and Quichua in the Salcedo region and provide more information for the processes that might have given rise to Media Lengua, a ‘mixed’ language comprised of a Quichua grammar and Spanish lexicon. Muysken attributes the formation of Media Lengua to relexification, ruling out any influence from other bilingual phenomena. I argue that the only characteristic that distinguishes Media Lengua from other language contact varieties in central Ecuador is the quantity of the overall Spanish borrowings and not the type of processes that might have been employed by Quichua speakers during the genesis of Media Lengua. The results from the Salcedo data that I have collected show how processes such as adlexification, code-mixing, and structural convergence produce Media Lengua-type sentences, evidence that supports an alternative analysis to Muysken’s relexification hypothesis. \n \tOverall, this dissertation is developed around four main objectives: (1) to describe the variation of Spanish loanwords within a bilingual community in Salcedo; (2) to analyze some of the prominent and recent structural changes in Quichua and Spanish; (3) to determine whether Spanish loanword use can be explained by the relationship consultants have with particular social categories; and (4) to analyze the consultants’ language ideologies toward syncretic uses of Spanish and Quichua. \n \tOverall, 58% of the content words, 39% of the basic vocabulary, and 50% of the subject pronouns in the Salcedo corpus were derived from Spanish. When compared to Muysken’s description of highlander Quichua in the 1970’s, Spanish loanwords have more than doubled in each category. The overall level of Spanish loanwords in Salcedo Quichua has grown to a level between highlander Quichua in the 1970’s and Media Lengua. Similar to Spanish’s lexical influence in Media Lengua, the increase of Spanish borrowings in today’s rural Quichua can be seen in non-basic and basic vocabularies as well as the subject pronoun system. Significantly, most of the growth has occurred through forms of adlexification i.e., doublets, well-established borrowings, and cultural borrowings, suggesting that ‘ordinary’ lexical borrowing is also capable of producing Media Lengua-type sentences. \n \tI approach the second objective by investigating two separate phenomena related to structural convergence. The first examines the complex verbal constructions that have developed in Quichua through Spanish loan translations while the second describes the type of Quichua particles that are attached to Spanish lexemes while speaking Spanish. The calquing of the complex verbal constructions from Spanish were employed when speaking standard Quichua. Since this standard form is typically used by language purists, I argue that their use of calques is a strategy of exploiting the full range of expression from Spanish without incorporating any of the Spanish lexemes which would give the appearance of ‘contamination’. The use of Quichua particles in local varieties of Spanish is a defining characteristic of Quichuacized Spanish, spoken most frequently by women and young children in the community. Although the use of Quichua particles was probably not the main catalyst engendering Media Lengua, I argue that its contribution as a source language to other ‘mixed’ varieties, such as Media Lengua, needs to be accounted for in descriptions of BML genesis. Contrary to Muysken’s representation of relatively ‘unmixed’ Spanish and Quichua as the two source languages of Media Lengua, I propose that local varieties of Spanish might have already been ‘mixed’ to a large degree before Media Lengua was created. \n \tThe third objective attempts to draw a relationship between particular social variables and the use of Spanish loanwords. Whisker Boxplots and ANOVAs were used to determine which social group, if any, have been introducing new Spanish borrowings into the bilingual communities in Salcedo. Specifically, I controlled for age, education, native language, urban migration, and gender. The results indicate that none of the groups in each of the five social variables indicate higher or lower loanword use. The implication of these results are twofold: (a) when lexical borrowing occurs, it is immediately adopted as the community-wide norm and spoken by members from different backgrounds and generations, or (b) this level of Spanish borrowing (58%) is not a recent phenomenon. \n \tThe fourth and final objective draws on my ethnographic research that addresses the attitudes of syncretic language use. I observed that Quichuacized Spanish and Hispanicized Quichua are highly stigmatized varieties spoken by the country’s most marginalized populations and families, yet within the community, syncretic ways of speaking are in fact the norm. It was shown that there exists a range of different linguistic definitions for ‘Chaupi Lengua’ and other syncretic language practices as well as many contrasting connotations, most of which were negative. One theme that emerged from the interviews was that speaking syncretic varieties of Quichua weakened the consultant’s claim to an indigenous identity. \n \tThe linguistic and social data presented in this dissertation supports an alternative view to Muysken’s relexification hypothesis, one that has the advantage of operating with well-precedented linguistic processes and which is actually observable in the present-day Salcedo area. The results from the study on lexical borrowing are significant because they demonstrate how a dynamic bilingual speech community has gradually diversified their Quichua lexicon under intense pressure to shift toward Spanish. They also show that Hispanicized Quichua (Quichua with heavy lexical borrowing) clearly arose from adlexification and prolonged lexical borrowing, and is one of at least six identifiable speech styles found in Salcedo. These results challenge particular interpretations of language contact outcomes, such as, ones that depict sources languages as discrete and ‘unmixed.’ The bilingual continuum presented in this thesis shows on the one hand, the range of speech styles that are accessible to different speakers, and on the other hand, the overlapping, syncretic features that are shared among the different registers and language varieties. It was observed that syncretic speech styles in Salcedo are employed by different consultants in varied interactional contexts, and in turn, produce different evaluations by other fellow community members. \n \tIn the current dissertation, I challenge the claim that relexification and Media Lengua-type sentences develop in isolation and without the influence of other bilingual phenomena. Based on Muysken's Media Lengua example sentences and the speech styles from the Salcedo corpus, I argue that Media Lengua may have arisen as an institutionalized variant of the highly mixed "middle ground" within the range of the Salcedo bilingual continuum discussed above. Such syncretic forms of Spanish and Quichua strongly resemble Media Lengua sentences in Muysken’s research, and therefore demonstrate how its development could have occurred through several different language contact processes and not only through relexification.
Arguably, the catalyst for the best research studies using social analysis of discourse is personal ‘lived’ experience. This is certainly the case for Kamada, who, as a white American woman with a Japanese spouse, had to deal first hand with the racialization of her son. Like many other mixed-ethnic parents, she experienced the shock and disap-pointment of finding her child being racialized as ‘Chinese’ in America through peer group taunts, and constituted as gaijin (a foreigner) in his own homeland of Japan. As a member of an e-list of the (Japan) Bilingualism Special Interest Group (BSIG), Kamada learnt that other parents from the English-speaking foreign community in Japan had similar disturbing stories to tell of their mixed-ethnic children who, upon entering the Japanese school system, were mocked, bullied and marginalized by their peers. She men-tions a pervasive Japanese proverb which warns of diversity or difference getting squashed: ‘The nail that sticks up gets hammered down’. This imperative to conform to Japanese behavioural and discursive norms prompted Kamada’s quest to investigate the impact of ‘otherization’ on the identities of children of mixed parentage. In this fascinat-ing book, she shows that this pressure to conform is balanced by a corresponding cele-bration of ‘hybrid’ or mixed identities. The children in her study are also able to negotiate their identities positively as they come to terms with contradictory discursive notions of ‘Japaneseness’, ‘whiteness’ and ‘halfness/doubleness’.The discursive construction of identity has become a central concern amongst researchers across a wide range of academic disciplines within the humanities and the social sciences, and most existing work either concentrates on a specific identity cate-gory, such as gender, sexuality or national identity, or else offers a broader discussion of how identity is theorized. Kamada’s book is refreshing because it crosses the usual boundaries and offers divergent insights on identity in a number of ways. First, using the term ‘ethno-gendering’, she examines the ways in which six mixed-ethnic girls living in Japan accomplish and manage the relationship between their gender and ethnic ‘differ-ences’ from age 12 to 15. She analyses in close detail how their actions or displays within certain situated interactions might come into conflict with how they are seen or constituted by others. Second, Kamada’s study builds on contemporary writing on the benefits of hybridity where identities are fluid, flexible and indeterminate, and which contest the usual monolithic distinctions of gender, ethnicity, class, etc. Here, Kamada carves out an original space for her findings. While scholars have often investigated changing identities and language practices of young people who have been geographi-cally displaced and are newcomers to the local language, Kamada’s participants were all born and brought up in Japan, were fluent in Japanese and were relatively proficient in English. Third, the author refuses to conceptualize or theorize identity from a single given viewpoint in preference to others, but in postmodernist spirit draws upon multiple perspectives and frameworks of discourse analysis in order to create different forms of knowledge and understandings of her subject. Drawing on this ‘multi-perspectival’ approach, Kamada examines grammatical, lexical, rhetorical and interactional features from six extensive conversations, to show how her participants position their diverse identities in relation to their friends, to the researcher and to the outside world. Kamada’s study is driven by three clear aims. The first is to find out ‘whether there are any tensions and dilemmas in the ways adolescent girls of Japanese and “white” mixed parentage in Japan identify themselves in terms of ethnicity’. In Chapter 4, she shows how the girls indeed felt that they stood out as different and consequently experienced isolation, marginalization and bullying at school – although they were able to make better sense of this as they grew older, repositioning the bullies as pitiable. The second aim is to ask how, if at all, her participants celebrate their ethnicity, and furthermore, what kind of symbolic, linguistic and social capital they were able to claim for themselves on the basis of their hybrid identities. In Chapter 5, Kamada shows how the girls over time were able to constitute themselves as insiders while constituting ‘the Japanese’ as outsiders, and their network of mixed-ethnic friends was a key means to achieve this. In Chapter 6, the author develops this potential celebration of the girls’ mixed ethnicity by investigating the privileges they perceived it afforded them – for example, having the advantage of pos-sessing English proficiency and intercultural ‘savvy’ in a globalized world. Kamada’s third aim is to ask how her participants positioned themselves and performed their hybrid identities on the basis of their constituted appearance: that is, how the girls saw them-selves based on how they looked to others. In Chapter 7, the author shows that, while there are competing discourses at work, the girls are able to take up empowering positions within a discourse of ‘foreigner attractiveness’ or ‘a white-Western female beauty’ discourse, which provides them with a certain cachet among their Japanese peers. Throughout the book, Kamada adopts a highly self-reflexive perspective of her own position as author. For example, she interrogates the fact that she may have changed the lived reality of her six participants during the course of her research study. As the six girls, who were ‘best friends’, lived in different parts of the Morita region of Japan, she had to be proactive in organizing six separate ‘get-togethers’ through the course of her three-year study. She acknowledges that she did not collect ‘naturally occurring data’ but rather co-constructed opportunities for the girls to meet and talk on a regular basis. At these meetings, she encouraged the girls to discuss matters of identity, prompted by open-ended interview questions, by stimulus materials such as photos, articles and pic-tures, and by individual tasks such as drawing self-portraits. By giving her participants a platform in this way, Kamada not only elicited some very rich spoken data but also ‘helped in some way to shape the attitudes and self-images of the girls positively, in ways that might not have developed had these get-togethers not occurred’ (p. 221). While the data she gathers are indeed rich, it may well be asked whether there is a mismatch between the girls’ frank and engaging accounts of personal experience, and the social constructionist academic register in which these are later re-articulated. When Kamada writes, ‘Rina related how within the more narrow range of discourses that she had to draw on in her past, she was disempowered and marginalized’ (p. 118), we know that Rina’s actual words were very different. Would she really recognize, understand and agree with the reported speech of the researcher? This small omission of self-reflexivity apart – an omission which is true of most lin-guistic ethnography conducted today – Kamada has written a unique, engaging and thought-provoking book which offers a model to future discourse analysts investigating hybrid identities. The idea that speakers can draw upon competing discourses or reper-toires to constitute their identities in contrasting, creative and positive ways provides linguistic researchers with a clear orientation by which to analyse the contradictions of identity construction as they occur across time in different discursive contexts
Automatic acquisition and recognition of collocation is one of the basic work in natural language processing.Considering with the affects by sentence structure,this paper proposes a collocation acquisition method by reserving the headwords and a collocation recognition method adding with the syntax restrictions.The result shows that the collocation acquisition method runs effectively,and the collocation recognition method has the effect of 10%~15% increase compared with the baseline.
How to quickly locate the interested information in the XML database under a certain twig pattern is a popular research topic.To solve the problem that the TwigStack algorithm for handling the case with parent-child nodes would come out with massive intermediate results,an improved twig pattern query algorithm of cTwigStack was proposed,which was based on caching the non-leaf nodes and delaying the leaf nodes output.The experimental results on Treebank dataset indicate that the proposed algorithm can achieve the most accurate results of the queries that contain the ancestor-descendant relationships below branching nodes.Besides,compared with the present algorithm,it is also highly effective when processing parent-child relationships below branching nodes.
Documentation of medical records requires professional knowledge,which is also the basis for medical translation.Centering on medical terminology and anatomical logic,this article,by way of examples,discusses Chinese to English translation skills at lexical,syntactical,grammatical and textual levels.It is hoped that these skills will help translators produce English versions of medical records up to the standards and norms of this profession.
This dissertation shows how signers mark polite register in JSL and uncovers a number of features salient to the linguistic encoding of politeness. My investigation of JSL politeness considers the relationship between Japanese sign and speech and how users of these languages adapt their communicative style based on the social context. This work examines: the Deaf Japanese community as minority language users and the concomitant effects on the development of JSL; politeness in JSL independently and in relation to spoken Japanese, along with the subsequent implications for characterizing polite Japanese communicative interaction; and the results of two studies that provide descriptions of the ways in which JSL users linguistically encode polite register. The studies show that JSL displays social indexical features with potential typological salience across sign languages.The elaborate system of overt encoding of polite expression in Japanese speech is commonly conceived of as indicating and reinforcing the special significance of polite behavior or practice in Japanese society. Nevertheless, sign language users as members of an overlapping society use a different language, which either marks politeness contrastively or fails to signify certain aspects of politeness signaled by spoken Japanese. The structural contrasts between JSL and spoken Japanese show that a language must receive consideration in light of actual communicative practice in order to determine its relation to social norms. Additionally, the reliance of JSL on dependent segments, or nonmanuals, to mark polite expression indicates that any linguistic analysis of politeness is impoverished as long as such kinds of dependent segments, analogous to features such as prosody in spoken languages, do not receive consideration.Since JSL and spoken Japanese represent, in a sense, two languages sharing one society, they represent a novel language contact context in which two languages segregate primarily via language modality rather than physical geography, as in the case of spoken contact languages. Using contact signed and spoken language pairs, researchers can uniquely tease apart the relation between language use and social context as a sign language is cultivated in a closely related society or ground of material relations of a preexisting spoken language.Chapter Two, "JSL as a Minority Language" illustrates the social context of Deaf Japanese people and JSL, and shows how Deaf Japanese inhabit a society dominated by a hearing culture. The resultant saturation in the language-context relations of the hearing culture produces a sign language with a number of influences from the socially dominant spoken and written language culture, along with concomitant effects on the JSL lexicon and morphology. A shared visual-kinesic communicative culture additionally results in a JSL that has assimilated features bearing resemblance to gestures from the inventory of speakers and signers. Chapter Three, "Japanese Signer and Speaker Polite Expression" demonstrates that although the structures of JSL and spoken Japanese differ, they have the capacity to index the same social interaction contexts. The presence of two differing languages, with a mixture of shared and unique indices, derived from a shared social milieu demonstrates that the examination of language structures in relation to their actual application is prerequisite to framing any cross-cultural analysis grounded in linguistic form. Chapter Four, "JSL Politeness Studies" unearths a number of JSL politeness marking features, including nonmanual, lexical and discourse features. The first study reproduces for JSL the Hill et al. Pen Study (1986) and elicits responses to a request for a pen signed with various levels of politeness. The second study replicates the Hoza ASL study (2007) and uses a Discourse Completion Test (Blum-Kulka et al. 1989) to collect responses from JSL signers to request scenarios. The close examination of polite expression via the two JSL studies shows that a subset of JSL politeness marking features appear to emerge from the visual-kinesthetic modality shared with Japanese speakers, as some features maintain enough transparency for non-signers to interpret them similarly to signers. Additionally, besides confirming some of the results of an earlier JSL politeness study by Okabe et al. (2005), the studies identify a number of politeness indices in JSL similar to register marking cues described in the ASL literature (Berkowitz 2008; Cokely and Baker-Shenk 1980; Hoza, 2007; Liddell and Johnson 1989[1985]; Roush 2007 [1999]; Zimmer 1989). JSL exhibits particular politeness indexing features shared with ASL, such as the polite grimace, manipulation of signing space size and variation of signing rate, which may have typological salience across sign languages.
Measuring talkativeness is of interest to several areas of research. However, there are few brief, validated measures available. We examined test-retest reliability, inter-relationships and convergent/divergent validity for five brief measures of verbal productivity. Nineteen men and 32 women participated in four sessions, completing five speech tasks that varied in demand, purpose of speech and sociability. Several potential metrics (word count, duration and rate) were examined. All tasks except a novel Unprompted Speech task demonstrated good word count test-retest reliability (interclass correlation coefficients from .71 to .85). Factor analysis revealed low-demand, non-functional tasks formed one factor (“Voluntary Talkativeness”), while higher demand tasks formed a second factor (“Speech Ability”). This finding and examination of relationships with IQ, personality and gender indicate “Voluntary Talkativeness” is not wholly accounted for by verbal ability, and is only weakly related to self-reported personality. Recommendations for the measurement of “Voluntary Talkativeness” are made.
Background The importance and protective nature of children's early communication capacities, from birth to preschool years, in relation to later academic and social functioning is well established in the literature. Studies have shown links between early language competence (from birth to preschool) and later language, literacy, behavioural and social outcomes 1-3 as well as language, literacy and numeracy being shown to serve as key protective factors for positive life outcomes.4 The term ‘communication’ includes speech (the physical production of sounds), language (understanding and expression of spoken and written language, from sounds to words to sentences, to discourse), pragmatics (the social use of language in interactions), fluency (the smooth rhythm and pattern of talking) and voice (the production of sound through the vocal cords). 5, 6 Prelinguistic and early language development are the areas of communication that are of primary interest in this systematic review because they are the predominant aspects of communication that studies measure, when investigating the impact of parent responsiveness on children's communication development. Prelinguistic communication skills are the foundation skills that facilitate infants' communication competence.7-10 The prelinguistic period is typically from 0-12 months and skills include early vocal behaviours such as cooing and babbling,5 symbolic and functional play,(cited in 7) attention,11, 12 gestures such as facial expression,13 eye contact, turn taking, copying9 and phonetic (speech) perception.10 Language development encompasses the sub-components of sound and sound patterns (phonological development), words (lexical development), sentences and grammar (syntactic and morphological development) and the development of communicative competence, incorporating pragmatic skills (language use in a social context).5 Communication development starts from the prelinguistic period and is influenced by environmental factors including parental (particularly maternal) responsiveness and directiveness. Responsiveness refers to adults' ‘prompt, contingent, and appropriate’ (cited in 14 pp64) responses to a child's behaviours. This definition underpins the various aspects or descriptions of responsiveness that have been researched in relation to children's communicative development, for example: maternal encouragement,15 supportive parenting, 16 interpersonal timing, 17 and maternal behavioural and verbal responsiveness.14 Masur and colleagues14 also discuss the importance of considering directiveness (as well as responsiveness) when investigating the impact of parent speech and behaviour on children's communication development. Directiveness is described as being ‘characterised by attempts to command and control children's behaviour or attention’ 14(pp64) and may be supportive or intrusive in nature. Research has shown predictive relationships between parental responsiveness and directiveness and children's language development.14,16,18,19 Enhancing parent responsiveness to children's early communication can have positive effects on child development, social development, self esteem, the attachment relationship between parent and child literacy outcomes. 20-23 Hence, parents, as the primary caregivers, are in a powerful position to influence their child's communication development, and subsequent academic and social success, through the way they respond to their children from birth. The importance of this systematic review This systematic review aims to support and direct evidenced based practice and health promotion in speech pathology and related fields that work with parents and infants or children. To the reviewer's awareness, no systematic reviews on the relationship between parent responsiveness and children's communication development have been developed to date. Systematic reviews can play a role in the education of health professionals and lay people.24 A systematic review on the relationship between parental responsiveness and children's communication development could support health professionals and policy makers in easily accessing synthesised information on this topic. Prevalence data on speech-language difficulties in 2 to 4 ½ year olds has been reported as 5-8%. (cited in 25 & 26) Whilst this percentage is not categorized into causal factors, it is plausible, based on the research on parental responsiveness, that a proportion of these children have speech-language difficulties due to a reduced level of parental responsiveness in their early learning environment. Despite the established evidence regarding the importance of maternal responsiveness on children's early communication development, which in turn, influences later life outcomes, it is the reviewer's opinion that this information is not widely promoted in the general community to serve as a preventative measure. Using Gordon's operational classification of disease prevention, a universal or selective preventative measure would include public education as ‘an essential aspect of the strategy for optimal public health practice’. 27 (pp108) According to Gordon a universal preventative measure is desirable for everybody in the general population (i.e. all parents of infants or expectant parents), while a selective preventative measure is aimed at subgroups of the population who are considered to have characteristics that place them ‘at risk’ (i.e. parents who are at risk of being less responsive to their infants). This systematic review could encourage the focus of universal or selective health promotion and policy development on educating society about the benefits and importance of parent responsiveness in relation to child development outcomes. Health promotion and early parent education on the parent's role in children's early communication development could potentially reduce the number of preschool and school-age children with speech-language difficulties, hence reducing the economic, social and individual costs of this issue. This comprehensive systematic review will incorporate both quantitative and textual components. A preliminary search of the literature has found that studies on parental responsiveness and children's communication development are quantitative by nature. The textual component of this review will set the context of current thinking and action in society in relation to the quantitative component. The textual component is important because it will investigate whether the research is being put into action, or at least has a profile in society. The textual component may help to clarify the direction, if any that government needs to take regarding public education on this topic. A qualitative component of this systematic review is not included because a preliminary search did not identify any qualitative papers, and a qualitative approach is not required to answer the research question presented. Review question/objective The quantitative objective of this review is to determine the best available evidence on the relationship between parents' responsiveness to children's prelinguistic and early communication and their subsequent communication development. More specifically, the questions are: What are the attributes of parental responsiveness? That is: To delimit the attributes of parents' verbal and behavioural responsiveness and directiveness that influences children's preverbal and early communicative development. Do some attributes of parent responsiveness have more consequence to children's early communication development than others? Is the amount or frequency of parent responsiveness important? That is: Do varying levels of parent responsiveness impact differently on children's communication development? Are there parental factors (e.g. education level) within the well population that predict or influence responsiveness quality and quantity? If so, what are they? The textual objective is to identify the current social context within Australia, regarding the topic of parental responsiveness and children's communication development. More specifically, the questions are: Does current government policy on child development reflect the research evidence identified in the quantitative component of this systematic review? What is society's current awareness and standing (perception) on this topic, as identified through policy, expert and public opinion? Are there preventative universal or selective health promotion measures in place relating to the review question? If the answer to question 3 is ‘yes’, then what are they? Inclusion criteria Types of participants The quantitative component of this review will consider studies that include parents as the primary independent variable and children as the secondary, dependent variable. More specifically, the review will include studies with: 1. Parents Because a main goal of this review is to support public education for universal or selective health promotion, parents who are identified as falling within the well or at risk, but not clinically significant population will be included. Well parents refer to the general public who are not affected by current suffering. 27At risk parents may include parents whose social circumstances place them at risk of being less responsive to their children. For example, parents of low education or intellectual capacity, or of certain age. At risk parents will be included in this review because they have characteristics that place them in a position for selective preventive health promotion 27 and could provide insight into the outcomes of varying levels of parent responsiveness to children. The term clinically significant refers to parents who have clinical diagnoses that impact on their capacity to respond to their children. For example, hearing impairment, and mental illnesses such as psychoses, schizophrenia, clinical or post-natal depression. These parents are excluded from the review because they present compounding factors that are beyond the scope of this review. 2. Children Children who's language level is preverbal (i.e. prelinguistic period) up to production of early phrases (E.g.: two-word utterances) will be included in this systematic review. Based on child development norms, these ages would typically include 0 - 3 year olds, however, studies that have older cohorts will also be included, providing the earlier years are also represented within the study. Children who are typically developing, or defined as a ‘late talker’ or as having a specific speech/language issue will be included in this systematic review because these studies may reveal important information about parent responsiveness as a causal or influencing factor. Studies may or may not have control groups. Studies will not be considered for this review when children are identified as having any primary co-morbid condition such as syndromes, global developmental delays or disorders, Autism Spectrum Disorder, or hearing issue including hearing impairment and cochlear implant because this introduces too many confounding factors. Studies on bilingual children will not be included for the same reason. Consideration will be made as whether to include children who spend care time with a carer other than their primary parent/caregiver, for example, childcare. The amount of time spent in the care of persons/institutions other than their parents is important to consider because the review is examining the relationship between the parent's impact on the child through their responsiveness attributes and levels. It is beyond the scope of the review to consider the language development of children independent of their parent's responsiveness. The reviewer will examine the literature to determine the cut off point for time spent in childcare. Where this is not clear, the reviewer will contact the authors of the studies for this specific information. The textual component of this review will consider discourse and opinion reported or published by government agencies, experts, the public and media, about the systematic review question, that is of direct relevance or interest to Australia. Types of intervention(s) The quantitative component of the review will consider any studies that evaluate parent verbal and behavioural responsiveness and directiveness to their children's preverbal and or early linguistic communication. Studies may investigate parent responsiveness and or directiveness in the context of a home or clinical/education environment. The reviewer will take the environment (e.g. home, laboratory, community settings) in which studies gather their data into consideration throughout the review process. The textual component of this review will consider published and unpublished papers that describe society's and government's current attitudes and opinions regarding the topic of parental responsiveness to infant and early communication. Types of outcomes The quantitative component of this review will consider studies that include outcome measures of child prelinguistic and early language development. This includes, but is not limited to, measures of language milestones such as comprehension of first words, speech sound perception, babbling, first word production, first 50 words and first 2-word utterance. The process of the systematic review may reveal other important prelinguistic or early language outcomes, which may be considered for inclusion depending on the validity, reliability and standardisation of the tools used to obtain the data. The preferred type of assessment tools used to retrieve data about child language outcomes will be standardised language/communication assessments. However, parent reports and non-standardised assessments will also be considered for inclusion. The textual component of this review will consider discourse and opinion about the topic of parental responsiveness and children's communication development, as reported in textual or policy papers. The outcome will be the main themes and concepts identified through expert and society opinions, and government policy, in relation to the review question. Types of studies The quantitative component of the review will consider analytical epidemiological study designs including prospective and retrospective cohort studies, case control studies and analytical cross sectional studies for inclusion. Randomised control trials of parent responsiveness are not ethically possible, therefore will not be included in this review. Case series studies have not been identified in preliminary search of the topic, therefore will not be included in this review. The textual component will consider expert opinion, discussion papers, position papers, government policies and reports, conference papers, theses and dissertations, and other text relating to child development/health promotion/early education within the context and parameters of the review question. Discourse must be written in English and be of western culture. Discourse from Australia is of primary interest. Discourse from other countries that constitute western society (i.e.: the Americas, New Zealand and Western Europe)28 will only be included where it has been shown to be of interest to Australia. For example, an Australian expert has commented on a paper from another Western country. Search strategy The search strategy aims to find both published and unpublished studies. A three-step search strategy will be utilised for each component of this review. An initial limited search of PubMed and CINAHL will be undertaken followed by analysis of the text words contained in the title and abstract, and of the index terms used to describe article. A second search using all identified keywords and index terms will then be undertaken across all included databases. Where necessary, terms and indexing language will be adjusted to search the other databases listed. This process will be done in close consultation with the Research Librarian for Mental Health, Psychiatry, Psychology, University of Adelaide. Thirdly, the reference list of all identified reports and articles will be searched for additional studies. Studies published in English will be considered for inclusion in this review. As there are no other identified systematic reviews on this topic, any quantitative studies within an unlimited timeframe will be considered for inclusion in this review, in order to increase the breadth of the results and so not to miss any pertinent earlier studies. To keep textual information of current opinion and policy relevant and up to date, the timeframe will be the past 10 years (2002 - 2012). The databases to be searched include: PubMed PsycINFO CINAHL Embase Scopus Web of Science Mednar Proquest Dissertations and Theses Index to Theses Australian Digital Theses Program The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLDT) Keywords and concepts to be used for the initial search of PubMed and CINAHL will include:Table: No Caption available.The search for textual information will also include relevant websites in the English language, related to child development, literacy, parent-infant attachment, government policy on early childhood development and education, and media releases relating to the review question. An initial search to identify a comprehensive list of relevant websites for grey literature will be done through the Google search engine using initial key words seen above and additional keywords including: Government policy Early childhood Parent education Parent training Infant mental health Expert opinion(s) Individual countries (eg Australia, New Zealand, Canada, America, United Kingdom) Examples of potential grey literature sites include: Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Council of Australian Governments The Hanen Centre. Speech and Language Development for Children Assessment of methodological quality Quantitative papers selected for retrieval will be assessed by two independent reviewers for methodological validity prior to inclusion in the review using standardised critical appraisal instruments from the Joanna Briggs Institute Meta Analysis of Statistics Assessment and Review Instrument (JBI-MAStARI) (Appendix I). Textual papers selected for retrieval will be assessed by two independent reviewers for authenticity prior to inclusion in the review using standardised critical appraisal instruments from the Joanna Briggs Institute Narrative, Opinion and Text Assessment and Review Instrument (JBI-NOTARI) (Appendix I). Any disagreements that arise between the reviewers will be resolved through discussion, or with a third reviewer. Data collection Quantitative data will be extracted from papers included in the review using the standardised data extraction tool from JBI-MAStARI (Appendix II). Textual data will be extracted from papers included in the review using the standardised data extraction tool from JBI-NOTARI (Appendix II). The data extracted will include specific details about the interventions, populations, study methods and outcomes of significance to the review question and specific objectives. Data synthesis Quantitative papers will, where possible, be pooled in statistical meta-analysis using JBI-MAStARI. All results will be subject to double data entry. Effect sizes expressed as relative risk for cohort studies and odds ratio for case control studies (for categorical data) and weighted mean differences (for continuous data) and their 95% confidence intervals will be calculated for analysis. A Random effects model will be used and heterogeneity will be assessed statistically using the standard Chi-square. Where statistical pooling is not possible the findings will be presented in narrative form including tables and figures to aid in data presentation where appropriate. Textual papers will, where possible be pooled using JBI-NOTARI. This will involve the aggregation or synthesis of conclusions to generate a set of statements that represent that aggregation, through assembling and categorising these conclusions on the basis of similarity in meaning. These categories are then subjected to a meta-synthesis in order to produce a single comprehensive set of synthesised findings that can be used as a basis for evidence-based practice. Where textual pooling is not possible the conclusions will be presented in narrative form. Conflicts of interest The primary reviewer is not aware of any conflicts of interest at the time of submitting the systematic review protocol. Acknowledgements The primary reviewer would like to acknowledge the support of the secondary reviewer, Matthew Kowald; her principal supervisor, Dr Aye Aye Gyi from the Joanna Briggs Institute, University of Adelaide; her associate supervisor, Dr Debbie James from Research and Evaluation Unit, Children, Youth and Women's Health Service, and Maureen Bell, Research Librarian for Mental Health, Psychiatry, Psychology, University of Adelaide. As this systematic review forms partial submission for the award of Masters of Clinical Sciences degree, a secondary reviewer will be used for critical appraisal only.
In this paper we describe preparatory work for constructing a Treebank for Latvian as no such resource currently exists. Previously elaborated SemTi-Kamols hybrid dependency based grammar model has been extended to make it appropriate for broad coverage text annotation. We also have integrated extended SemTi-Kamols model with graphical tree editor TrEd and complementary toolkit, which originally was developed for Prague Dependency Treebank. Using the obtained environment we have annotated small amount of Latvian text.