Papers reviewed and determined not to be word norm studies. Use the flag icon to report errors or suggest re-inclusion.
16504 papers
The current study investigated typical, everyday Chinese interaction online and examined what linguistic meanings arise from this form of communication – not only semantic but also, importantly, pragmatic, discursive, contextual and lexical meanings etc. In particular, it set out to ascertain whether at least some of the cultural values and norms etc. known to exist in Chinese culture, as reflected in the Chinese language, are maintained or preserved in modern Chinese e-communication. To do all this, the author collected a sample set of data from Chinese online resources found in Singapore, including a range of blog sites and MSN chat rooms where interactants have kept their identities anonymous. A radically semantic approach was adopted – namely, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) model – to analyze meanings that arose from the data. The analyses were presented and compiled in the way of “cultural cyberscripts” – based on an NSM analytical method called “cultural scripts”. Through these cyberscripts, findings indicated that, while this form of e-communication does exhibit some departure from conventional socio-cultural values and norms, something remains linguistically and culturally Chinese that is unique to Chinese interaction online.
As our understanding of the basic processes underlying reading is growing, the key role played by attention in this process becomes evident. Two research topics are of particular interest in this domain: (1) it is still undetermined whether sustained attention affects lexical decision tasks; (2) the influence of attention on early visual processing (i.e., before orthographic or lexico-semantic processing stages) remains largely under-specified. Here we investigated early perceptual modulations by sustained attention using an ERP paradigm adapted from Thierry et al. [1]. Participants had to decide whether visual stimuli presented in pairs pertained to a pre-specified category (lexical categorization focus on word or pseudoword pairs). Depending on the lexical category of the first item of a pair, participants either needed to fully process the second item (hold condition) or could release their attention and make a decision without full processing of the second item (release condition))
Background: Languages differ greatly both in their syntactic and morphological systems and in the social environments in which they exist. We challenge the view that language grammars are unrelated to social environments in which they are learned and used. Methodology/Principal Findings: We conducted a statistical analysis of >2,000 languages using a combination of demographic sources and the World Atlas of Language Structures- a database of structural language properties. We found strong relationships between linguistic factors related to morphological complexity, and demographic/socio-historical factors such as the number of language users, geographic spread, and degree of language contact. The analyses suggest that languages spoken by large groups have simpler inflectional morphology than languages spoken by smaller groups as measured on a variety of factors such as case systems and complexity of conjugations. Additionally, languages spoken by large groups are much more likely to u)
What kind of mental objects are letters? Research on letter perception has mainly focussed on the visual properties of letters, showing that orthographic representations are abstract and size/shape invariant. But given that letters are, by definition, mappings between symbols and sounds, what is the role of sound in orthographic representation? We present two experiments suggesting that letters are fundamentally sound-based representations. To examine the role of sound in orthographic representation, we took advantage of the multiple scripts of Japanese. We show two types of evidence that if a Japanese word is presented in a script it never appears in, this presentation immediately activates the ("actual") visual word form of that lexical item. First, equal amounts of masked repetition priming are observed for full repetition and when the prime appears in an atypical script. Second, visual word form frequency affects neuromagnetic measures already at 100-130 ms whether the word is pre)
We recently used computational phylogenetic methods on lexical data to test between two scenarios for the peopling of the Pacific. Our analyses of lexical data supported a pulse-pause scenario of Pacific settlement in which the Austronesian speakers originated in Taiwan around 5,200 years ago and rapidly spread through the Pacific in a series of expansion pulses and settlement pauses. We claimed that there was high congruence between traditional language subgroups and those observed in the language phylogenies, and that the estimated age of the Austronesian expansion at 5,200 years ago was consistent with the archaeological evidence. However, the congruence between the language phylogenies and the evidence from historical linguistics was not quantitatively assessed using tree comparison metrics. The robustness of the divergence time estimates to different calibration points was also not investigated exhaustively. Here we address these limitations by using a systematic tree comparison )
Background: When two targets are presented in close temporal proximity amongst a rapid serial visual stream of distractors, a period of disrupted attention and attenuated awareness lasting 200-500 ms follows identification of the first target (T1). This phenomenon is known as the "attentional blink" (AB) and is generally attributed to a failure to consolidate information in visual short-term memory due to depleted or disrupted attentional resources. Previous research has shown that items presented during the AB that fail to reach conscious awareness are still processed to relatively high levels, including the level of meaning. For example, missed word stimuli have been shown to prime later targets that are closely associated words. Although these findings have been interpreted as evidence for semantic processing during the AB, closely associated words (e.g., day-night) may also rely on specific, well-worn, lexical associative links which enhance attention to the relevant target. Metho)
The verb google is intriguing for the study of morphology, loanwords, assimilation, language contrast and neologisms. We present data for it for nineteen languages from nine language families.
Background: Decoding of frequency-modulated (FM) sounds is essential for phoneme identification. This study investigates selectivity to FM direction in the human auditory system. Methodology/Principal Findings: Magnetoencephalography was recorded in 10 adults during a two-tone adaptation paradigm with a 200-ms interstimulus-interval. Stimuli were pairs of either same or different frequency modulation direction. To control that FM repetition effects cannot be accounted for by their on- and offset properties, we additionally assessed responses to pairs of unmodulated tones with either same or different frequency composition. For the FM sweeps, N1m event-related magnetic field components were found at 103 and 130 ms after onset of the first (S1) and second stimulus (S2), respectively. This was followed by a sustained component starting at about 200 ms after S2. The sustained response was significantly stronger for stimulation with the same compared to different FM direction. This effect )
Background: Vision provides the most salient information with regard to stimulus motion, but audition can also provide important cues that affect visual motion perception. Here, we show that sounds containing no motion or positional cues can induce illusory visual motion perception for static visual objects. Methodology/Principal Findings: Two circles placed side by side were presented in alternation producing apparent motion perception and each onset was accompanied by a tone burst of a specific and unique frequency. After exposure to this visual apparent motion with tones for a few minutes, the tones became drivers for illusory motion perception. When the flash onset was synchronized to tones of alternating frequencies, a circle blinking at a fixed location was perceived as lateral motion in the same direction as the previously exposed apparent motion. Furthermore, the effect lasted at least for a few days. The effect was well observed at the retinal position that was previously exp)
Variation is a ubiquitous feature of speech. Listeners must take into account context-induced variation to recover the interlocutor's intended message. When listeners fail to normalize for context-induced variation properly, deviant percepts become seeds for new perceptual and production norms. In question is how deviant percepts accumulate in a systematic fashion to give rise to sound change (i.e., new pronunciation norms) within a given speech community. The present study investigated subjects' classification of /s/ and /∫ / before /a/ or /u/ spoken by a male or a female voice. Building on modern cognitive theories of autism-spectrum condition, which see variation in autism-spectrum condition in terms of individual differences in cognitive processing style, we established a significant correlation between individuals' normalization for phonetic context (i.e., whether the following vowel is /a/ or /u/) and talker voice variation (i.e., whether the talker is male or female) in speech )
Background: Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI TOF-MS) allows the identification of most bacteria and an increasing number of fungi. The potential for the highest clinical benefit of such methods would be in severe acute infections that require prompt treatment adapted to the infecting species. Our objective was to determine whether yeasts could be identified directly from a positive blood culture, avoiding the 1-3 days subculture step currently required before any therapeutic adjustments can be made. Methodology/Principal Findings: Using human blood spiked with Candida albicans to simulate blood cultures, we optimized protocols to obtain MALDI TOF-MS fingerprints where signals from blood proteins are reduced. Simulated cultures elaborated using a set of 12 strains belonging to 6 different species were then tested. Quantifiable spectral differences in the 5000-7400 Da mass range allowed to discriminate between these species and to build)
Discrete phonological phenomena form our conscious experience of language: continuous changes in pitch appear as distinct tones to the speakers of tone languages, whereas the speakers of quantity languages experience duration categorically. The categorical nature of our linguistic experience is directly reflected in the traditionally clear-cut linguistic classification of languages into tonal or non-tonal. However, some evidence suggests that duration and pitch are fundamentally interconnected and co-vary in signaling word meaning in non-tonal languages as well. We show that pitch information affects real-time language processing in a (non-tonal) quantity language. The results suggest that there is no unidirectional causal link from a genetically-based perceptual sensitivity towards pitch information to the appearance of a tone language. They further suggest that the contrastive categories tone and quantity may be based on simultaneously covarying properties of the speech signal and t)
Background: Absolute pitch (AP) is the ability to identify or produce isolated musical tones. It is evident primarily among individuals who started music lessons in early childhood. Because AP requires memory for specific pitches as well as learned associations with verbal labels (i.e., note names), it represents a unique opportunity to study interactions in memory between linguistic and nonlinguistic information. One untested hypothesis is that the pitch of voices may be difficult for AP possessors to identify. A musician's first instrument may also affect performance and extend the sensitive period for acquiring accurate AP. Methods/Principal Findings: A large sample of AP possessors was recruited on-line. Participants were required to identity test tones presented in four different timbres: piano, pure tone, natural (sung) voice, and synthesized voice. Note-naming accuracy was better for non-vocal (piano and pure tones) than for vocal (natural and synthesized voices) test tones. Th)
Background: A crucial question for understanding sentence comprehension is the openness of syntactic and semantic processes for other sources of information. Using event-related potentials in a dual task paradigm, we had previously found that sentence processing takes into consideration task relevant sentence-external semantic but not syntactic information. In that study, internal and external information both varied within the same linguistic domain—either semantic or syntactic. Here we investigated whether across-domain sentence-external information would impact within-sentence processing. Methodology: In one condition, adjectives within visually presented sentences of the structure [Det]-[Noun]-[Adjective]- [Verb] were semantically correct or incorrect. Simultaneously with the noun, auditory adjectives were presented that morphosyntactically matched or mismatched the visual adjectives with respect to gender. Findings: As expected, semantic violations within the sentence elicited N4)
Background: Prosody, the melody and intonation of speech, involves the rhythm, rate, pitch and voice quality to relay linguistic and emotional information from one individual to another. A significant component of human social communication depends upon interpreting and responding to another person's prosodic tone as well as one's own ability to produce prosodic speech. However there has been little work on whether the perception and production of prosody share common neural processes, and if so, how these might correlate with individual differences in social ability. Methods: The aim of the present study was to determine the degree to which perception and production of prosody rely on shared neural systems. Using fMRI, neural activity during perception and production of a meaningless phrase in different prosodic intonations was measured. Regions of overlap for production and perception of prosody were found in premotor regions, in particular the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Act)
Background: The geographical position of Maharashtra state makes it rather essential to study the dispersal of modern humans in South Asia. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the cultural, linguistic and geographical affinity of the populations living in Maharashtra state with other South Asian populations. The genetic origin of populations living in this state is poorly understood and hitherto been described at low molecular resolution level. Methodology/Principal Findings: To address this issue, we have analyzed the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of 185 individuals and NRY (non-recombining region of Y chromosome) of 98 individuals belonging to two major tribal populations of Maharashtra, and compared their molecular variations with that of 54 South Asian contemporary populations of adjacent states. Inter and intra population comparisons reveal that the maternal gene pool of Maharashtra state populations is composed of mainly South Asian haplogroups with traces of east and w)
Background: A trend towards automation of scientific research has recently resulted in what has been termed "data-driven inquiry" in various disciplines, including physics and biology. The automation of many tasks has been identified as a possible future also for the humanities and the social sciences, particularly in those disciplines concerned with the analysis of text, due to the recent availability of millions of books and news articles in digital format. In the social sciences, the analysis of news media is done largely by hand and in a hypothesis-driven fashion: the scholar needs to formulate a very specific assumption about the patterns that might be in the data, and then set out to verify if they are present or not. Methodology/Principal Findings: In this study, we report what we think is the first large scale content-analysis of cross-linguistic text in the social sciences, by using various artificial intelligence techniques. We analyse 1.3 M news articles in 22 languages det)
A leading notion is that language skill acquisition declines between childhood and adulthood. While several lines of evidence indicate that declarative ("what", explicit) memory undergoes maturation, it is commonly assumed that procedural ("how-to", implicit) memory, in children, is well established. The language superiority of children has been ascribed to the childhood reliance on implicit learning. Here we show that when 8-year-olds, 12-year-olds and young adults were provided with an equivalent multi-session training experience in producing and judging an artificial morphological rule (AMR), adults were superior to children of both age groups and the 8-year-olds were the poorest learners in all task parameters including in those that were clearly implicit. The AMR consisted of phonological transformations of verbs expressing a semantic distinction: whether the preceding noun was animate or inanimate. No explicit instruction of the AMR was provided. The 8-year-olds, unlike most adu)
Background: Cultural differences in socialization can lead to characteristic differences in how we perceive the world. Consistent with this influence of differential experience, our perception of faces (e.g., preference, recognition ability) is shaped by our previous experience with different groups of individuals. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here, we examined whether cultural differences in social practices influence our perception of faces. Japanese, Chinese, and Asian-Canadian young adults made relative age judgments (i.e., which of these two faces is older?) for East Asian faces. Cross-cultural differences in the emphasis on respect for older individuals was reflected in participants' latency in facial age judgments for middle-age adult faces—with the Japanese young adults performing the fastest, followed by the Chinese, then the Asian-Canadians. In addition, consistent with the differential behavioural and linguistic markers used in the Japanese culture when interacting with )
Background: Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by a specific triad of symptoms such as abnormalities in social interaction, abnormalities in communication and restricted activities and interests. While verbal autistic subjects may present a correct mastery of the formal aspects of speech, they have difficulties in prosody (music of speech), leading to communication disorders. Few behavioural studies have revealed a prosodic impairment in children with autism, and among the few fMRI studies aiming at assessing the neural network involved in language, none has specifically studied prosodic speech. The aim of the present study was to characterize specific prosodic components such as linguistic prosody (intonation, rhythm and emphasis) and emotional prosody and to correlate them with the neural network underlying them. Methodology/Principal Findings: We used a behavioural test (Profiling Elements of the Prosodic System, PEPS) and fMRI to characterize prosodic deficits a)
Population migrations in Southwest and South China have played an important role in the formation of East Asian populations and led to a high degree of cultural diversity among ethnic minorities living in these areas. To explore the genetic relationships of these ethnic minorities, we systematically surveyed the variation of 10 autosomal STR markers of 1,538 individuals from 30 populations of 25 ethnic minorities, of which the majority were chosen from Southwest China, especially Yunnan Province. With genotyped data of the markers, we constructed phylogenies of these populations with both DA and DC measures and performed a principal component analysis, as well as a clustering analysis by structure. Results showed that we successfully recovered the genetic structure of analyzed populations formed by historical migrations. Aggregation patterns of these populations accord well with their linguistic affiliations, suggesting that deciphering of genetic relationships does in fact offer clue)
Language and music, two of the most unique human cognitive abilities, are combined in song, rendering it an ecological model for comparing speech and music cognition. The present study was designed to determine whether words and melodies in song are processed interactively or independently, and to examine the influence of attention on the processing of words and melodies in song. Event-Related brain Potentials (ERPs) and behavioral data were recorded while nonmusicians listened to pairs of sung words (prime and target) presented in four experimental conditions: same word, same melody; same word, different melody; different word, same melody; different word, different melody. Participants were asked to attend to either the words or the melody, and to perform a same/different task. In both attentional tasks, different word targets elicited an N400 component, as predicted based on previous results. Most interestingly, different melodies (sung with the same word) elicited an N400 componen)
In the present study, orthographic metrics for Greek children’s Grade 1 and Grade 2 reading materials were presented. Data for five transparency metrics—three of which being neither feedforward nor feedbackward— were presented and offered for use in the research of children’s reading and spelling acquisition. The analysis demonstrated the complex relationships between metrics and compared the results with those obtained for the English language. The structure of these metrics from a variety of corpus sizes was investigated, and we concluded that large corpus sizes do not necessarily make a substantial contribution to the value of such metrics when compared with smaller samples.
The name-picture verification task is often used to assess the difficulty of prelexical processes (object recognition and semantic access) during picture naming. However, whether to use responses from word-picture match or from mismatch trials to index the difficulty of pre-lexical processes is debated. Levelt (2002) argued for the use of mismatch trials because on match trials the printed object name might facilitate picture recognition. However, in a study with speakers of Spanish Stadthagen-Gonzalez et al. (2009) showed that visual and conceptual properties of objects only correlated with the latencies of match responses but not with those of mismatch responses and therefore advocated the use of match responses. The present study aimed to replicate Stadthagen- Gonzalez et al. (2009) findings using native British English speakers and English norms for non-lexical and lexical variables. We replicated the finding that non-lexical variables affected the speed of match, but not mismatch responses. However, in addition, we found that lexical variables also affected the speed of match responses, which means that these latencies need to be interpreted with caution. In other words, neither match nor mismatch responses seem ideally suited to assess the difficulty of pre-lexical processes in picture naming. Levelt, W. J. M. (2002). Picture naming and word frequency. Language and Cognitive Processes, 17, 663–671. Stadthagen-Gonzalez, H., Damian, M. F., Pérez, M. A., Bowers, J. S., & Marín, J. (2009). Name-picture verification as a control measure for object naming: A task analysis and norms for a
This paper highlights the challenges encountered by the African Languages Lexical (ALLEX) Project (at present the African Languages Research Institute (ALRI)) in Harare, Zimbabwe, which is in the process of compiling an advanced Shona dictionary (ASD). Its forerunner is the general Shona dictionary, Duramazwi ReChishona (1996). The ASD is intended to be a comprehensive reference work, which will serve as a resource for more advanced users, especially those at higher secondary and tertiary education levels. The most important challenges have been in the areas of headword selection and the treatment of geographical/individual variation. The matters discussed here show the conflict between usage, i.e. popular acceptance, and (orthographic) norm, a problem often experienced in young literary languages subject to heavy foreign influence. This paper looks at: (a) the limitations of the current Shona orthography, the selection and codification of international vocabulary, and the presentation of variants and synonyms in the dictionary, and (b) the solutions suggested, and/or the ongoing debate on the topics. Keywords: headword, compilation, dictionary, general dictionary, advanced dictionary, international vocabulary, variant, variation, synonym, cross-reference, implicit cross-reference, explicit cross-reference
Dimensional expressions are regarded as linguistic reflections of spatial cognition. By contrastive analysis of German and Japanese constructions using dimensional expressions, it is revealed that there are three functions associated with dimensional expressions: identification, norm-related comparison and non-norm-related comparison. These three functions are based on different ways of perceiving spatial objects, but for their linguistic realization the existence of certain grammatical constructions, especially the adjectival and the nominal, together with their markedness, plays an important role. In both languages, individual dimensional expressions are essentially characterized by cognitive parameters. German expressions are mostly explored in terms of the parameter, but certain Japanese expressions require additional conditions for lexicalization. This difference is mainly based on the different strategies taken by German and Japanese respectively: the observer-based (O) strategy and the proportion-based (P) strategy (Lang 2001). O terms are mostly free from selectional restrictions, but P terms often involve some restriction regarding the shape of the object. It is assumed that such restrictions are related to the cognitive saliency of the term, and a saliency hierarchy of dimensional parameters is proposed.
Le tour de force de Zribi consiste à réunir le satirique et le tragique dans un seul personnage qui prend soudainement conscience du mensonge qui avait auparavant guidé sa vie et qui l’avait mal préparé à vivre une vraie histoire d’amour. Ses contacts humains étant limités aux échanges superficiels entre collègues et aux propos démoralisants de sa “grande amie ni mâle ni femelle” (35), la narratrice se voit comme “enterrée vivante dans un non-dit écrasant” (95) qui l’empêche de se sentir à l’aise avec “C”, femme dynamique “dont la présence ne peut être qualifiée que de solaire” (17). Par contraste, la figure ténébreuse d’une vieille voisine qui passe tout son temps à épier les passants depuis sa fenêtre hante la narratrice en dépit du mépris qu’elle lui voue. Malgré sa propension à se moquer de cette femme repoussante et voyeuse—“Loraleï décatie aux cheveux se dégrafant du crâne, elle surplombait le combat en déglutissant son dentier” (25)—elle comprend amèrement que cette apparition misérable n’est qu’un symbole de sa propre existence terne et solitaire: “chaque soir me donnait l’occasion d’être le reflet exact de la personne que je détestais le plus au monde” (33). Wright State University (OH) Kirsten Halling Linguistics edited by Stacey Katz CARPOORAN, ARNAUD. Diksioner Morisien. Sainte Croix, Maurice: Koleksion Text Kreol, 2009. ISBN 978-99949-27-50-0. Pp. 1017. 40,00 a. Après le créole haïtien, son congénère mauricien est le créole à base française parlé par le plus grand nombre de locuteurs, plus d’un million. Dans un état multilingue où l’anglais règne comme langue officielle, où le français maintient son statut de langue prestigieuse et où perdurent une grande variété d’autres langues, notamment indiennes, le créole mauricien sert véritablement de ciment national. Ce dictionnaire plurifonctionnel, unilingue et trilingue, constitue une étape importante dans la standardisation et l’aménagement linguistique de la langue. En effet, ce n’est que lorsqu’une langue accède à l’écrit et qu’elle assume des fonctions véhiculaires que ses utilisateurs sont exposés à un corpus lexical qu’ils ne maîtrisent plus totalement, d’où le besoin de catégorisation, d’exemplification et de définition du lexique. Ce dictionnaire a l’honneur d’être le premier recueil unilingue pour une langue créole qui réponde aux normes de la lexicographie professionnelle. Il offre une abondante nomenclature qui s’ouvre largement sur les deux langues dominantes, le français et l’anglais. En général, la distinction entre homonymes et polysèmes, un obstacle sur lequel trébuchent nombre de dictionnaires, se révèle adéquate. Par exemple, les trois lexies dart [da:r t] apparaissent sous trois entrées homonymes distinctes: “aiguillon d’insecte”, “fléchette” (emprunt à l’anglais), “dartre”. En revanche, les trois sens distincts de bal (“ballot”, “bal”, “balle”) sont regroupés au sein du même article. Même si ces polysèmes apparaissent numérotés séparément, l’inconvénient est que les sous-entrées (donn bal “battre son plein”, bal maske, etc.) ne suivent pas le polysème particulier (“bal”) mais figurent à la fin de l’entrée. La microstructure est très fournie. Chaque article comprend la transcription Reviews 211 phonétique de la vedette. Suivent la catégorisation grammaticale, une définition, un exemple illustratif, parfois un renvoi synonymique et, le cas échéant, une indication du niveau de langue ou de restriction d’ordre socioculturel, par exemple, nana (rare) “petite amie”. L’étymologie est fournie pour les vocables d’origine non transparente, par exemple, nenenn (français dialectal nénaine) “nourrice”, toulsi (hindoustani) “basilic”. Un grand plus du Diksioner Morisien est qu’il peut servir aussi de dictionnaire trilingue puisque chaque article se termine par les glosses française et anglaise. Se pose pour tout dictionnaire le problème de la délimitation de la nomenclature, tâche difficile pour le créole mauricien qui évolue en contact avec la...
Abstract Especially for non-experts, translating legal texts is a complicated and multifaceted process, demanding much linguistic and technical competence from translators. Legal systems differ from one another, and each one has a specific set of norms, especially reflected at the lexical level – that is, in terminology. Understanding two legal systems is not easy, even for experts; of course, it is even more difficult for translators, who are usually not legal experts. This article focuses on how to quickly and transparently provide translators with some (basic) technical knowledge using ontologies, which in recent years have found considerable application in synthesizing and visualizing knowledge.
From a global perspective, bilingual language acquisition can be considered the norm rather than the exception. In bilingual communities around the world, infants exposed from birth to two different languages, or even dialects, succeed in the task of simultaneously learning their two native languages. Infants growing up in this type of environments are exposed to a complex input that contains information relative to two different phonological systems. Early in development bilingual-to-be infants must be able to differentiate the sound patterns of their two languages and start building languagespecific phonetic categories. Research on young bilinguals’ phonetic categorization and perceptual reorganization processes by the end of the first year of life has revealed interesting differences between consonant and vowel categories. Once in the lexical stage, phonetic categories already established will turn into the contrastive categories that form the phonological systems for each of the ambient languages. This is by no means an automatic process. Data from studies with monolingual toddlers participating in word learning tasks have revealed that minimal pair word labels, differing in their initial stop consonant, such as [bih] and [dih], cannot be easily learned at 14 months of age, even though /b/ and /d/ contrastive sounds can be discriminated with no difficulty at the same age (Stager & Werker, 1997). In the case of bilingual toddlers, engaged in the process of establishing two lexicons based on two distinct phonological systems, the situation is even more challenging. There are still relatively few studies specifically focusing on bilinguals’ setting up the phonetic and phonological categories of their native languages (see Werker & Byers-Heinlein, 2008, for a review). Experimental data come mostly from three research groups settled in areas where bilingual populations are available for participation in speech perception studies: J. Werker group at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (Canada), L. Polka group at McGill University in Montreal (Canada) and the group at the University of Barcelona (Spain) whose main findings will be described in the following sections. Researchers from the above mentioned groups, dealing with bilingual infants and toddlers from various language communities and exposed to different pairs of languages, have all contributed to shed light on the adaptability of the speech processing system to cope with different types of linguistic input. What previous research in bilingual language development had told us, from a general perspective, was that the pattern of acquisition in bilinguals was rather similar to the pattern of acquisition that had been described for monolingual infants: an early language differentiation was suggested as words in both of the ambient languages were present in their initial expressive lexicons (Genesee, Nicoladis & Paradis, 1995; Pearson, Fernandez & Oller, 1995) and they followed the same steps as monolinguals’ in reaching the key milestones in the language acquisition process (Oller, Eilers, Urbano & Cobo-Lewis, 1997). From a phonological acquisition perspective, however, input to bilinguals has specific properties and clearly differs from monolingual input, not only in complexity (two lexicons, two phonologies), but also in quantity and quality of exposure to each language. Moreover, the degree of proximity between the specific lexical, phonological and morpho-syntactical properties of the two ambient languages is also a relevant factor to be taken into consideration. The complex and variable nature of the input to bilingual infants and toddlers can determine minor time-course differences in reaching specific sound discrimination abilities or in stabilizing certain phonetic categories when comparing bilingual and monolingual infants. But, more interestingly, similarities or differences in the phonetic and phonological properties of the two languages in the input can result in differences in perception/discrimination abilities observed in groups of bilinguals from different linguistic environments. Language differentiation processes, the setting up of language-specific phonetic categories, phonological representation of sounds in the lexicon, might differ when comparing bilinguals from different pairs of languages.
In two experiments, we used an effective new method for experimentally manipulating local and global contexts to examine context-dependent recall. The method included video-recorded scenes of real environments, with target words superimposed over the scenes. In Experiment 1, we used a within-subjects manipulation of video contexts and compared the effects of reinstatement of a global context (15 words per context) with effects of less overloaded context cues (1 and 3 words per context) on recall. The size of the reinstatement effects in Experiment 1 show how potently video contexts can cue recall. A strong effect of cue overload was also found; reinstatement effects were smaller, but still quite robust, in the 15 words per context condition. The powerful reinstatement effect was replicated for local contexts in Experiment 2, which included a nocontexts-reinstated group, a control condition used to determine whether reinstatement of half of the cues caused biased output interference for uncued targets. The video context method is a potent way to investigate context-dependent memory.
This paper presents a new perspective on the origin and development of the Mary-merry-marry merger, the conditioned merger, or neutralization, of mid and low front vowels before /r/ in dialects of North American English. The city of Montreal, Quebec represents one of very few regions in which this merger has not taken hold, despite the fact that a near-complete merger is found in the nearby rural region of Quebec’s Eastern Townships. This paper attempts to shed light on this puzzling geographic distribution using data from archival interviews conducted with Eastern Townshippers born between 1895 and 1915. An acoustic analysis of the vowels before /r/ is presented and compared with data from recent studies of Montreal English. Acoustic analysis of the mean values of the first and second vowel formants shows a great deal of variation in these speakers’ productions of the historically low front vowel before /r/. In some tokens it is clearly merged with the mid vowel, while in others the two phonemes remain clearly distinct. Further, this variation is found both between speakers and in the speech of individuals themselves. Although not entirely homogenous, the speech community does appear to share general norms with regard to which words are or are not merged. These results demonstrate that the merger was not a lexically abrupt sound change. Rather, the results are consistent with a theory of sound change via lexical diffusion, which implies a much longer timeline for this change than previously assumed, suggesting its origins may go back many more generations. As such, it is suggested that the current geolinguistic pattern of the merger may be traced to the different settlement histories of Montreal and the Eastern Townships.
This research identifies different controlled English (CE) norms to be followed in technical writing for a variety of purposes and for different machine translation (MT) systems. The results of the investigation show that CE norms for MT application are stricter than those for communicative reading. The primary inference here is that human beings can interpret the meanings of polysemous words, pronouns, prepositional phrases based on the context and easily detect the misspellings, but MT systems fail to do so. In addition, a comparison of CE norms for the application of two MT systems indicates that the corpus-based Google MT is less constrained than rule-based TransWhiz in the lexical area. This phenomenon is attributable to the selection of a highly probabilistic module as the semantic scoring preference for the suggested translation provided by Google MT, not word-for-word translation by TransWhiz. In contrast, Google MT is more constrained than TransWhiz in the syntactic area. The inference is that TransWhiz parses syntactic constructions and transfers the parsing result based on grammatical rules stored in the MT system, so it may modify the original word sequence to make the translation conform to linguistic patterns in the target language. Contrary to this, Google MT depends on fuzzy or exact matches statistically retrieved from the labeled corpus. If no matches can be found, syntactically inappropriate translations will be produced. Seen in this regard, CE norms are never fixed and have to be modified through the evolution of time and MT technology.
The main purpose of this study was to examine the validity of the approach to lexical diversity assessment known as the measure of textual lexical diversity (MTLD). The index for this approach is calculated as the mean length of word strings that maintain a criterion level of lexical variation. To validate the MTLD approach, we compared it against the performances of the primary competing indices in the field, which include vocd-D, TTR, Maas, Yule’s K, and an HD-D index derived directly from the hypergeometric distribution function. The comparisons involved assessments of convergent validity, divergent validity, internal validity, and incremental validity. The results of our assessments of these indices across two separate corpora suggest three major findings. First, MTLD performs well with respect to all four types of validity and is, in fact, the only index not found to vary as a function of text length. Second, HD-D is a viable alternative to the vocd-D standard. And third, three of the indices—MTLD, vocd-D (or HD-D), and Maas—appear to capture unique lexical information. We conclude by advising researchers to consider using MTLD, vocd-D (or HD-D), and Maas in their studies, rather than any single index, noting that lexical diversity can be assessed in many ways and each approach may be informative as to the construct under investigation.
The article shows the wealth of colloquial language features in the city environment through the presence of texts in the city reality which are designed for collective receivers/recipients (eg. sign-board, information advertising, price labels, etc.). In the research, the components revealing descanting in the urban language (dialectal and sociolectal features) were found, as well as the associated evaluation of objects and phenomena, colloquiality or even familiarity of idea transfer, and free realisation of orthographic and stylistic norms. Urban texts bear testimony of frequent language taboo breaking in the original sphere as well as in the area violating tactfulness and politeness canons, up to violation of decency and modesty. In the thesis, the changes in the sphere of native words meaning (neologisms and neosemantisms) and examples of introducing allogenic lexemes (orientalisms) are discussed. The important feature of the examples analysed is ambiguity, present in the lexical area as well as in the global apprehension of the message, which could decide about the language game played with receivers.
Based on her study of the changes affecting the understanding of premarital intimate relationships in Ukrainian villages and cities during the period of mass modernization, the author argues that pre-modern sexual practices do not correlate precisely with modern sexual practices and thus cannot be described by current lexical definitions. The modern phrase sexual intercourse has no exact correspondence to such premarital practices as poliuvannia ("hunting") and prytula ("leaning against"). They consisted of non-penetrative (or incomplete penetrative) sexual activities, rather than sexual congress for the purpose of pleasure or reproduction. Unlike modern norms, the traditional culture allowed and even encouraged premarital intimate relationships, which were understood as a sign of healthy, successful maturation. Although premarital mixed-gender sleeping arrangements were tolerated in premodern villages but condemned in growing urban areas, the percentage of premarital births markedly increased in Ukrainian cities in the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries. The author provides a brief statistical survey of premarital births.
Eyetracking facilities are typically restricted to monitoring a single person viewing static images or prerecorded video. In the present article, we describe a system that makes it possible to study visual attention in coordination with other activity during joint action. The software links two eyetracking systems in parallel and provides an on-screen task. By locating eye movements against dynamic screen regions, it permits automatic tracking of moving on-screen objects. Using existing SR technology, the system can also cross-project each participant’s eyetrack and mouse location onto the other’s on-screen work space. Keeping a complete record of eyetrack and on-screen events in the same format as subsequent human coding, the system permits the analysis of multiple modalities. The software offers new approaches to spontaneous multimodal communication: joint action and joint attention. These capacities are demonstrated using an experimental paradigm for cooperative on-screen assembly of a two-dimensional model. The software is available under an open source license.
This paper presents a rational argument based on examples of real language to make the case that lay definitions of parts-of-speech are more complex than commercial language pedagogy appreciates. Put simply, school grammars are misleading. They tend to pick the most convenient words for explanation and categorize them as if there were few or no variants within that category, when in reality, however, variation is the norm. Word class categories as presented in typical textbook illustration function as a handicap to future learning. I thus argue two points in this paper. First, that the definitions of lexical categories ought to be made in the form of respecting distinct linguistic dimensions and not in oversimplified and misleading one- dimensional categories which must be unlearned in order for learners to begin actually learning about how languages function. Secondly, a proper theory that radically separates the representation of linguistic expressions in the various grammatical components must be adopted for pedagogy to develop. I illustrate these points with examples drawn from English and Japanese.
The study of variation in terminology came to the fore over the last fifteen years in connection with advances in textual terminology. This new approach to terminology could be a way of improving the management of risk related to language use in the workplace and to contribute to the definition of a “linguistics of the workplace”. As a theoretical field of study, linguistics has hardly found any application in the workplace. Two of its applied branches, however, Sociolinguistics and Natural Language Processing (NLP) are relevant. Both deal with lexical phenomena, — i.e. terminology — sociolinguistics taking into account very subtle inter-individual variations and NLP being more interested in stability in the use. So, taking into account variations in building terminologies could be a means of considering both description and prescription, use and norm. This approach to terminology, which has been made possible thanks to NLP and Knowledge Engineering could be a way of meeting needs in the workplace concerning risk management related to language use.
Même si la présence du français est attestée à date très ancienne en Belgique, cette langue y a coexisté pendant plusieurs siècles avec des parlers endogènes, d’origine romane ou germanique. Jusqu’à l’éviction récente (20e siècle) de ces parlers régionaux, les Belges francophones ont été confrontés à une double diglossie: interlinguistique (français et langues régionales) et intralinguistique (français « de France » et français régional). Cette situation a généré une profonde insécurité linguistique, mais aujourd’hui, une norme endogène semble émerger dans les représentations linguistiques des Belges francophones. Cette contribution décrit ce processus, tant dans les productions métalinguistiques qu’épilinguistiques, puis le confronte à l’observation des spécificités langagières dans les domaines de la prononciation et du lexique. Il apparaît que ce dernier fournit aujourd’hui une assise suffisamment partagée pour fonder une norme endogène qui repose sur une adhésion identitaire forte, en rapport avec l’ancrage géographique des locuteurs.\n*************************************************************************************************************************\nEven though the French language has been in use in Belgium from a very early date, French, in fact, co-existed alongside endogenous languages of Roman or German origin for several centuries. Until the eviction of those regional languages (in the twentieth century), French-speaking Belgians were confronted with a twofold diglossia, one inter-linguistic (French and regional languages) and the other intra-linguistic (the French “of France” and the French “of Belgium”). This situation has generated severe linguistic insecurity, but today an endogenous norm seems to be emerging among the French-speaking Belgian linguistic representations. This paper describes that process in terms of both meta-linguistic and epi-linguistic productions and then goes on to analyze language specifics within their phonetic and lexical domains. It would appear that lexicon today provides a sufficiently significant common basis to construct an endogenous norm, together with a strong cohesion of identity based on the geographical origin of the speakers.
The language in which Nikolaj S. Leskov wrote his prose is extremely complex. The writer's lexical material in particular is perceived "by the reader as strikingly original and not entirely conforming to the literary standards prevalent in Leskov's time. The aim of the present study is to identify and categorize lexical items in Leskov's vocabulary that have not been established in the Russian language other than in Leskov's usage. The discussion concentrates primarily on lexical innovations excerpted from Leskov's works. In order to give the reader a complete view of the intricate qualities of Leskov's language, some attention is devoted to the writer's use of stylistic devices. Included in the illustrative material are lexical items that, although not invented by Leskov, are nevertheless indicative of the writer's originality in utilizing the resources of the Russian lexicon. Chapter I serves to introduce Leskov to the reader. Linguistic creativity is shown to be an organic part of Leskov's life. The distinctive qualities of his language are viewed against the background of the literary atmosphere of his time. In chapter II the most important stylistic levels of Leskov's vocabulary are discussed. Lexical items from different stylistic strata illustrate the basic principle underlying Leskov's vocabulary selection. Chapters III and IV are devoted to a detailed analysis of neologisms that occur in Leskov's works. The cited material is analyzed from the viewpoint of morphological structure. The investigation of the methods with which Leskov formed new words confirms the reader's intuition that the writer has adhered closely to the norms for derivation in the Russian language. The neologisms listed in chapter IV are discussed from the viewpoint of meaning. It is demonstrated that Leskov intentionally used semasiological devices in order to produce a comic effect upon the reader. The lexical items that belong to this category are shown to be essential means of expression for Leskov's intended narrative purposes. Chapter V deals with foreign lexical elements in Leskov's usage. It is indicated that Leskov was in principle opposed to the introduction of words from foreign languages into the Russian lexicon. His disapproval of lexical borrowings is reflected in the numerous distortions of foreign words that appear in his vocabulary. It is also illustrated in this chapter that Leskov made use of morphemes from languages other than Russian to form invented words. The cited examples point to the conclusion that the material upon which Leskov drew to enrich his vocabulary comes from a variety of sources. The neologisms that are investigated in the present study were created by Leskov in a conscious effort to make the speech of the characters who appear in his stories as vivid as possible.
Cet article présente les résultats d'une analyse synchronique des verbes de perception auditive en français moderne dans leur variation lexicale (écouter, entendre, ouïr, ausculter et auditionner). L'approche, basée sur des données de corpus, essaie d'intégrer, de façon cohérente, des concepts issus de la théorie des champs lexicaux, de la valence verbale et de la coercion. Les verbes clés du paradigme, écouter et entendre, étant employés dans des structures lexicales et syntaxiques variées, le but de l'étude est de montrer que la polysémie verbale peut être expliquée à partir de signifiés unitaires en termes de norme et d'effets de sens en discours.
Abstract. In this paper we present an evaluation of new techniques for automatically detecting sentiment polarity (Positive or Negative) in the students responses to Unit of Study Evaluations (USE). The study compares categorical model and dimensional model making use of five emotion categories: Anger, Fear, Joy, Sadness, and Surprise. Joy and Surprise are taken as a Positive polarity, whereas Anger, Fear and Sadness belong to Negative polarity in the binary classes, respectively. We evaluate the performances of category-based and dimension-based emotion prediction models on the 2,940 textual responses. In the former model, WordNet-Affect is used as a linguistic lexical resource and two dimensionality reduction techniques are evaluated: Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) and Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF). In the latter model, ANEW (Affective Norm for English Words), a normative database with affective terms, is employed. Despite using generic emotion categories and no syntactical analysis, NMF-based categorical model and dimensional model result in better performances above the baseline. 1
Megastudies with processing efficiency measures for thousands of words allow researchers to assess the quality of the word features they are using. In this article, we analyse reading aloud and lexical decision reaction times and accuracy rates for 2,336 words to assess the influence of subjective frequency and age of acquisition on performance. Specifically, we compare newly presented word frequency measures with the existing frequency norms of Kucera and Francis (1967), HAL (Burgess & Livesay, 1998), Brysbaert and New (2009), and Zeno, Ivens, Millard, and Duvvuri (1995). We show that the use of the Kucera and Francis word frequency measure accounts for much less variance than the other word frequencies, which leaves more variance to be "explained" by familiarity ratings and age-of-acquisition ratings. We argue that subjective frequency ratings are no longer needed if researchers have good objective word frequency counts. The effect of age of acquisition remains significant and has an effect size that is of practical relevance, although it is substantially smaller than that of the first phoneme in naming and the objective word frequency in lexical decision. Thus, our results suggest that models of word processing need to utilize these recently developed frequency estimates during training or setting baseline activation levels in the lexicon.
This dissertation deals with interference in Batak Toba language (BT) related to the language attitudes of bilingual BT speakers living in Medan.BT language is interferenced due to the intervention of the element of Bahasa Indonesia (BI) system that there is a deviation in standard BT. The deviation is clearly revealed in the phonological, grammatical,and lexical levels.Theinterference in this language is related to the language attitudes of bilingual BT speakers.\n The purposes of this study are to a) to describe interferences found in BT, b) to describe the language attitudes of BT speakers based on the variables of sex,age,language use,and length of stay,c) to describe the relationship between the language attitudes of BT speakers and interference, and d) to describe the current use of BT in Medan.\n The main theories are used in this dissertation such as a) the languages in contact theory by Weinreich (1968) describing that interference in the relocation of language element into the other languages and the deviation of the use of rules and norms of language, b) language attitude by Anderson (1974) arguing that attitude is a belief system related to the language which lasts relatively long about a language object which makes someone tend to act in a certain way he/she likes.Garvin and Mathiot (1968) argued that there are three characteristics of language attitude such as language loyalty, language pride, and the awareness of language norms. The application of structural theory of this study is to discuss the comparison of BT – BI systems.\n\t This study employed qualitative and quantitative methods. The data for this study were collected by a passive participatory observation technique, questionnaire, and test as well as recording technique. The speech interference data were analyzed through comparative descriptive techniques, while the data of language attitude were statistically tested through t-test and ANOVA test. The statistic result of the speakers language attitude were correlated with the result of the test of interference in BT by using the Product Moment by Pearson.\n\t The result of the study showed that in Medan BT has been interferenced by BI in the phonological aspect in the forms of phoneme alteration and assimilation, morphological interference in the forming of noun and verb, interference in the aspect of syntaxe on the use of particles ni, na,on the marker of topic sentence do, ma, pe, dope, and be, and phrase construction pattern. Interference of the lexical aspect is found in noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. The result of the language attitudes of BT speakers in Medan showed a positive attitude toward BT.The relationship between language attitude with the interference of BT speakers showed a significant negative relationship which means that if the attitudes of BT speakers are more increased,the phenomenon of interference in BT will be decreasing.
This article delves into the connections between language as a rule-governed system of communication and music as a means to express subcultural ideologies and satisfy collective needs. By resorting to the morphological analysis of a corpus of names of alternative music artists, the article evinces that language is a manipulable code through which users can convey their desire for self-assertion and their rejection of established commercialism and mainstream culture. Language is thus used to break away from the norm, and also from what is foreseeable or even politically correct. In morphological terms, this is reflected in the manipulation of morphological rules, which results in the creative or deviant use of word-formation devices, such as affixation (Preprophecy), conversion (Damnwells), compounding (The Lovemongers), or blending (The Beatscuits). Moreover, the fragile correspondence between an orthographic word, a phonological word and a lexeme is constantly challenged by the creative use of graphemes and punctuation, word play, or semantically anomalous word combinations (W00d5b17ch, Celibate Rifles). In conclusion, the study illustrates the users’ awareness of the possibilities of the system and their ability to manipulate it in order to meet pragmatic, aesthetic, intellectual, and social needs.