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18265 papers
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.
Summary With the celebration in 2008 of the 125th anniversary of the first publication of Olive Schreiner's novel, The Story of an African Farm, in 1873, the question of reliability of the text came up once again for review. This article accounts for the circumstances of the first printing in London with an inexperienced author as proofreader, without any existing standardisation or other lexical references to non-British usages particularly proto-Afrikaans, to consult, and the prevailing London publishing norms in control. Subsequent editions with numerous corrections by her hand, as well as by later editors, are mentioned, while the quest to establish a definitive edition is outlined, now that English South African usages incorporate many fringe language examples which have since become nativised into common usage. The article suggests that lax proofreading, on the one hand, together with scantily informed metropolitan standards of language outreach, on the other, have led to unfortunate errors being perpetuated, even in numerous scholarly spin-offs, despite the attempts of previous scholars to standardise the text to conform to present-day professional norms and conventions.
This thesis describes an extensive norming study of Spanish verbs and an online language \nprocessing study investigating whether bilingual lexical processing is nonselective (both \nlanguages are activated) when only one language is required for use. To study bilingual lexical \nprocessing, researchers have relied upon words of shared orthography and semantics between \nlanguages in order to determine how word form and meaning impact bilingual word recognition. \nHowever, because these words have been of exact form overlap through cognates (words sharing \nform and meaning between languages: banana in Spanish and English) and homographs (words \nsharing form yet differing in meaning: the English adjective red meaning net in Spanish), it has \nbeen difficult to distinguish which language(s) participants engage during processing tasks. The \npresent research addresses this issue by investigating cognate and homographic verbs between \nlanguages. Because differences in verb morphology between Spanish and English never result in \nexact form overlap between languages (e.g., assist and asistir), interlingual cognate and \nhomographic verbs between Spanish and English should ensure that participants operate in one \nspecific language. Hence, utilizing verbs provides an original testing ground to determine if the \nbilingual language processor is nonselective when operating in one language and to what degree \nthe access depends on form and meaning overlap between languages. An extensive norming \nstudy of Spanish verbs produced a reliable list of cognates and homographs with English. The \nonline research indicated that bilingual lexical access is guided not only by form and meaning, \nbut also by how the frequency of a word???s meanings from both languages attach to a single form. \nThese results mirror recent discoveries in ambiguity research in monolinguals (e.g., Rodd, Gaskell and Marslen-Wilson, 2002), the implications of which suggest an overriding mechanism \nof language processing???not just a theory of bilingual lexical processing.
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
In the previous chapter we looked at some proposals about the types of cognitive operation that underlie semantic ability. In this chapter, we examine some attempts to formalize and model the conceptual representations involved in language. In 8.1 we examine Jackendoff's conceptual semantics, a theory about the cognitive structures behind language and the modes of their interaction. This is followed by a discussion of the treatment of meaning in computational linguistics, which uses computer models of language as an aid to understanding the mental processes involved in language production and understanding (8.2). We will concentrate on the aspects of computational linguistics which give insight into the nature of the task of meaning-processing. We specifically look at WordNet, an online lexical database, at the problems of word-sense disambiguation, and at Pustejovsky's solution to this in his model of qualia structure.
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
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.
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.
자연언어처리는 여러 가지 모호성 문제를 가지는데, 특히 영한기계변역은 번역 과정의 각 단계마다 해결해야 할 모호성 문제를 가진다 본 논문에서는 실용적인 영한기계번역 시스템의 개발을 목적으로 영어 분석의 효율성을 높이기 위해 영어 단어의 품사 모호성 해소 문제에 초점을 두었다 기계번역의 효율성 제고를 위해 영한기계번역 시스템에 통합하기 위한 품사결정 모듈은 빠른 시간에 정확한 품사결정을 하면서도 오류를 최소화 하여야 한다 본 논문에서는 확률적 품사결정 방법을 제안하고 3가지 품사결정 확률 모델을 제시하였다 Penn Treebank 말뭉치로부터의 통계 정보를 이용하여 확률 모델을 구축하였으며 실험을 통해 제안한 품사결정 방법의 정확성과 품사결정에 의한 기계번역 시스템의 효율 향상 정도를 제시하였다.
This study presents a description of the role of verbs in introducing the direct dialogue in literacy and of the way they are translated from Swedish to French in children’s literature. In order to adapt the text to the target language, these verbs sometimes change and lose their impact on the tone and character of the dialogue. This can be problematic in texts aimed for children where readability depends on a child’s language capacity. Another aim of this study is to expose des difficulties encountered in the transfer of values and emotional effects when translating children’s literature from source language to target languageOur conclusion is that the Swedish children’s literature translated to French is often subject to modifications rather than translation of verbs that introduce direct dialogue. Consequently, dialogue meaning and character personalities are modified within the text translation. In our analysis of four Swedish children’s books and their translation to French we have seen that these adaptations are not made for adapting to the intended reader’s capacities in the target language or to the literacy of the source text but rather to adapt to certain linguistic norms relative to the style of French language.
The article analyzes 97 elementary schoolbooks in Buenos Aires to determine which social representations about linguistic norm underlie in these school materials. The paper reviews -especially in the defi nitions of categories, and exercises and activities- the concepts of linguistic variety, standard language and español neutro. Based on these variables, this article sees the possible repercussions in social representations that students and teachers can develop from point of view of the publishing companies.<br>El artículo analiza 97 manuales de lengua de la escuela primaria de Buenos Aires para determinar cuáles son las representaciones que allí se plasman sobre la norma lingüística. Revisa especialmente los conceptos de variedad lingüística regional, el concepto de español estándar y español neutro tanto en las defi niciones conceptuales como en las actividades de ejercitación. A partir del trabajo sobre estas variables este trabajo ve las posibles repercusiones en las actitudes que los alumnos y docentes pueden desarrollar a partir del ejercicio normativo editorial.
Natural language processing has several ambiguity problems, and English-Korean machine translation especially includes those problems to be solved in each translation step. This paper focuses on resolving part-of-speech ambiguity of English words in order to improve the efficiency of English analysis, which is in part of efforts for developing practical English-Korean machine translation system. In order to improve the efficiency of the English analysis, the part-of-speech determination must be fast and accurate for being integrated with machine translation system. This paper proposes the probabilistic models for part-of-speech determination. We use Penn Treebank corpus in building the probabilistic models. In experiment, we present the performance of the part-of-speech determination models and the efficiency improvement of the machine translation system by the proposed part-of-speech determination method.
Systems for syntactically parsing sentences have long been recognized as a priority in Natural Language Processing. Statistics-based systems require large amounts of high quality syntactically parsed data. Using the XLE toolkit developed at PARC and the LFG Parsebanker interface developed at Bergen, the Parsebank Project at Powerset has generated a rapidly increasing volume of syntactically parsed data. By using these tools, we are able to leverage the LFG framework to provide richer analyses via both constituent (c-) and functional (f-) structures. Additionally, the Parsebanking Project uses source data from Wikipedia rather than source data limited to a specific genre, such as the Wall Street Journal. This paper outlines the process we used in creating a large-scale LFG-Based Parsebank to address many of the shortcomings of previously-created parse banks such as the Penn Treebank. While the Parsebank corpus is still in progress, preliminary results using the data in a variety of contexts already show promise.
Investigating local linguistic norms to discover larger patterns of language behaviour has been standard practice in sociolinguistic study. Looking closely at socially salient variables reveals patterns that problematize accepted trajectories of variation as traditional and newly emerging sociolinguistic identities interact. This paper integrates findings from multiple complementary projects to describe the forces influencing the stopping of interdental fricatives (dis ting for this thing), a highly salient marker of Newfoundland English, in and around St. John’s, the province’s major city. In urbanizing communities multivariate analysis reveals variation patterns typical of dialect erosion: older men maintain traditional norms while younger women move toward the standard, especially in linguistically salient contexts. In the same communities, a timing-based approach finds that young women seem to be agentively inserting stopped forms, suggesting that they have adopted a system with fricatives as the default choice. When we contrast urban and rural communities and affiliations, we find a more complex pattern: style shifting is greatest among urban males and rural females. We posit that these seemingly divergent patterns result from efforts by speakers to position themselves within the local social landscape during a period of rapid social change.
Current automatic wrappers using DOM tree and visual properties of data records to extract the required information from the search engine results pages generally have limitations such as the inability to check the similarity of tree structures accurately. Our study on the properties of data records shows that these data records located in search engine results pages are not only having similar visual properties and tree structures, but they are also related semantically in their contents. In this context, we propose an ontological technique using existing lexical database for English (WordNet) for the extraction of data records. We find that wrappers designed based on ontological technique are able to reduce the number of potential data regions to be extracted, thus they are able to improve the data extraction accuracy. We then use visual cue from the browser rendering engine to locate and extract the relevant data region from the web page by measuring the size of text and image of data records. Experimental results indicate that our technique is robust and performs better than the existing state of the art visual based wrappers.
Each type of specialized discourse has its own set of linguistic norms which determine the characteristic styles of various specializations. However, subject-specific elements and the corresponding definitional clarity and precision of expression only make up a part of such discourse. To a considerable extent, specialized discourse also draws on non-specialized style. In contrast to specialized terms, which convey technical concepts and models neutrally, non-specialized language is culturally biased. Common expressions, such as frequently-occurring word combinations, are building blocks of linguistic memory ("Bausteine des Sprachgedächtnisses"; Schmidt). They convey judgements, preconceptions and attributions (i.e. socially-shared stereotypes). These can interfere with the required objectivity in disciplines focusing on people, since the cultural values, norms and stereotypical preconceptions reflected in linguistic fixities are reproduced and reinforced by the habitual use of fixed expressions. As the influence of non-specialized language cannot be eliminated from specialized discourse, it should to be "neutralized" as much as possible by conscious use of the language to avoid undesirable implications. Using an example of medical discourse on the topic of AIDS/HIV, this paper shows how stereotypes can be detected on the basis of a broader conception of collocation and discourse-analytical and context-sensitive text analysis. It also demonstrates how habitual attributions can be linguistically realized through preferred selections.
The following pieces, which were first printed by Walter Scott in his 1824 edition of Swift's Works, cannot be dated with any certainty. Because they deal satirically with the practices of spoken language, they are often associated with his Polite Conversation (pub. 1738, though written over a period of more than two decades). The Dialogue and Irish Eloquence take as their object of ridicule the non-standard English of the "planters": those settlers, largely soldiers and adventurers, who "planted" a colony in Ireland out of lands confiscated from the native Catholics as a result of the Cromwellian campaign in Ireland in the mid-seventeenth century. Political, cultural, and class factors would have made this group a particularly fitting target of Swift's satire. We might keep in mind, however, that counterbalancing Swift's censoriousness at violations of linguistic norms was a fascination with the varieties of the spoken and written word—a delight in linguistic diversity evident in his own use of dialectal and colloquial expressions and jeux d'esprit composed in Anglo-Latin and Hiberno-English. Full background and contexts for the following pieces are provided in the edition by Alan Bliss; most word definitions can be found in Dolan's Dictionary of Hiberno-English (see "Further Reading"). Copytext: Huntington Library Manuscripts HM 14342 and HM 14343. Care has been taken to remain as faithful to the MSS as possible while yet providing a readable text.KeywordsReadable TextWord DefinitionRefuse CoalLinguistic NormPolite ConversationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Burgenland Romani (henceforth BR) is spoken in Burgenland, the easternmost province of Austria. Until recently BR was an exclusively oral language. However, active language use of BR has almost totally ceased in the second half of the 20th century. The self-organisation of the group from the 1990s onwards led to a new appreciation of the language, which is now accepted as the primary identity marker. This new interest in their own language and culture entails the desire for the revival, maintenance and spread of BR. One aspect of language planning in BR concerns the functional expansion of the language into acrolectal domains where it has never been used before. BR is lexicographically documented in two different media, i.e. in ROMLEX (henceforth RL), which is an extendible multi-dialectal lexical database with a freely accessible web-interface (http://romani.unigraz.at/romlex/) and a print dictionary. RL is intended as a tool for comprehensive lexical documentation of BR. At the same time, it is a practical, low-threshold tool for text producers. The print dictionary, on the other hand, primarily serves an emblematic purpose. Given the differing purposes of RL and the print dictionary, different strategies are used in lexicographic decision-making. Roughly speaking, RL favours an inclusive descriptive approach while the print dictionary is rather restrictive and follows normative principles. The paper discusses decisions taken with respect to orthography, lemma selection and meaning for RL and the print dictionary, respectively. We are highlighting lexicographic phenomena, such as increased polysemy, generic usage of terms and heavy borrowing, which are typical of the functional expansion process of stateless minority languages.
MLR, 105.3, 2010 889 between participants. The chapters in this book document the present concern about the state of the language and show how these concerns are really about the state of society, not of the language. University of Bristol Nils Langer Was istgutesDeutsch? Studien undMeinungen zum gepflegten Sprachgebrauch. Ed. by Armin Burkhardt. (Duden? Thema Deutsch, 8) Mannheim: Duden. 2007. 411pp. 25. ISBN 978-3-411-04213-5. It has been noted by many scholars that there is a singularly defensive attitude towards codified linguistic norms inGermany, memorably termed Sprachnormen frommigkeit by Peter von Polenz over twenty years ago, and the question of these norms has once again become a hotly debated issue inGermany, perhaps spread ing out from the insecurity caused by the unexpectedly contentious orthographic reform of 1996 and the concern about the effect of Anglicisms on the language, with puristic tendencies which had been suppressed since 1945 re-emerging after unification. This has taken the form of concern and discussion in themedia about the supposed decline of the language and increasing deviation fromwhat has tradi tionally been considered 'gutesDeutsch', and books such as those by Bastian Sick (e.g. Der Dativ istdem Genitiv sein Tod (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2004)) lambasting 'bad' German have enjoyed immense (and thoroughly undeserved) success. The aim of this volume, as the editor makes clear in his introduction, is to provide a set of informed contributions to this debate from experts across a wide range ofGerman linguistic studies. A major problem, as the editor sees it,is the lack of connection between professional scholars of language and the general educated public, who often feel that such experts (especially those held responsible for the spelling reform) fail tounderstand their concerns and arewilling simply to observe the ongoing demise of the language from their ivory towers. Despite this aim, itmust be doubted whether the twenty-nine essays in this book can succeed in bridging this gap. They are divided into four sections entitled Rucksichten (three essays giving a historical perspective), Einsichten (nine essays on what can be considered good in terms of linguistic aspects such as pronunciation, grammar, and style),Hinsichten (twelve essays on theuse of the language in specific registers or genres), and Ansichten (five essays expressing views from a number of perspectives on the state of the language). In practice, all but one (that by Dieter E. Zimmer in the fourth section) are by precisely thekind of professional scholars who are held to lack concern for the dire condition of the language. In general, these essays are of an unusually consistent quality for an edited volume of this kind, and some are quite outstanding?notably those by Gottfried Kolde on Sprachpflege from 1945 to 1968, by Hans-Werner Eroms on what con stitutes 'good' grammar, and by Jiirgen Schiewe on Sprachkritik. The essays are informed and informative (and written in good German), and they are unanimous 890 Reviews thatwhat is good German' isGerman used appropriately for the topic, comprehen sibly,and imaginatively?in Schiewe's terms (p. 373) it isGerman characterized by Angemessenheit, Pragnanz, and Variation. Rudolf Hoberg's essay entitled 'Besseres Deutsch: Was kann und soil eine wissenschaftlich begrundete Sprachpflege tun' is a succinct and eminently sensible summary ofwhat the criteria should be forgood German, by an academic linguistwho despite the stereotype does care deeply about quality in language?but is not convinced thatGerman civilization as we know it will perish when people no longerwrite sentences like 'Die Blumen sturben sicher, wenn du sie nicht bald begossest'. It is unlikely that the book will win over the self-appointed guardians of lin guistic excellence and sundry other pedants to the view thatmodern German has immense vitality and is in no way in decline. But what James and Lesley Milroy in their Authority in Language, 3rd edn (London: Routledge, 1999) refer to as the complaint tradition'?the idea that the language of the present is in often unspecified ways 'bad' compared with the language of the past?has a long history across many languages, and the desire for stable linguistic norms appears very deep-rooted. In themain, the essays in this book can be recommended without hesitation, but, unfortunately, theywill probably neither...
Resumen: En el marco de la traducción automática árabe-inglés, el enfoque pseudointerlingüístico de UniArab ha logrado, incluso con oraciones simples, mejores resultados que los traductores automáticos basados en modelos estadísticos. El éxito de UniArab se cimienta en el modelo funcional de la Gramática del Papel y la Referencia, la cual es capaz de reconstruir la estructura lógica subyacente a un texto de entrada. No obstante, es preciso reemplazar la base de datos léxica de este traductor automático por una base de conocimiento más robusta con el fin de procesar textos lingüísticamente más complejos. De hecho, la integración de FunGramKB en la arquitectura de UniArab permite que este traductor automático utilice ahora una auténtica representación interlingüística denominada “estructura lógica conceptual”, dando lugar a un enfoque conceptualista que favorece la generación multilingüe. Palabras clave: traducción automática, UniArab, FunGramKB, base de conocimiento, estructura lógica, interlingua Abstract: In the field of the Arabic-to-English machine translation, the pseudo-interlingual approach of UniArab clearly outperforms existing statistical machine translators, even only with the processing of simple sentences. The success of UniArab is founded upon the functional model of Role and Reference Grammar, which is able to reconstruct the logical structure underlying the input. However, it is essential to replace the UniArab lexical database with a robust knowledge base which enables linguistically-complex texts to be processed adequately. Indeed, the integration of FunGramKB into the architecture of UniArab allows the system to use a real interlingual representation known as “conceptual logical structure”, resulting in a conceptualist approach which supports multilingual generation.
Objective: To investigate whether interviewer personality, sex or being of the same sex as the interviewee, and training account for variance between interviewers’ ratings in a medical student selection interview. Design, setting and participants: In 2006 and 2007, data were collected from cohorts of each year’s interviewers (by survey) and interviewees (by interview) participating in a multiple mini-interview (MMI) process to select students for an undergraduate medical degree in Australia. MMI scores were analysed and, to account for the nested nature of the data, multilevel modelling was used. Main outcome measures: Interviewer ratings; variance in interviewee scores. Results: In 2006, 153 interviewers (94% response rate) and 268 interviewees (78%) participated in the study. In 2007, 139 interviewers (86%) and 238 interviewees (74%) participated. Interviewers with high levels of agreeableness gave higher interview ratings (correlation coefficient [r]=0.26 in 2006; r=0.24 in 2007) and, in 2007, those with high levels of neuroticism gave lower ratings (r=− 0.25). In 2006 but not 2007, female interviewers gave higher overall ratings to male and female interviewees (t=2.99, P=0.003 in 2006; t = 2.16, P = 0.03 in 2007) but interviewer and interviewee being of the same sex did not affect ratings in either year. The amount of variance in interviewee scores attributable to differences between interviewers ranged from 3.1% to 24.8%, with the mean variance reducing after skills-based training (20.2% to 7.0%; t=4.42, P = 0.004). Conclusion: This study indicates that rating leniency is associated with personality and sex of interviewers, but the effect is small. Random allocation of interviewers, similar proportions of male and female interviewers across applicant interview groups, use of the MMI format, and skills-based interviewer training are all likely to reduce the effect of variance between interviewers.
For over 30 years, reference resolution, the process of determining what a noun phrase including a pronoun refers to in written and spoken language, has been an important and on-going area of research. Most existing pronominal reference resolution algorithms and systems are designed to use syntactic information and surface features (e.g. number and gender). These lines of research with regard to pronominal reference resolution have plateaued with accuracy rates in the vicinity of 80%(+/-10), depending on the domain and techniques used. This thesis explores how to incorporate multiple theories and algorithms into a single system (i.e. a pipeline of components each specializing in a certain aspect of reference resolution). Our framework combines subsystems that each specialize in an aspect of reference resolution for the pronoun it. The framework contains a total of five subsystems: (1) Creates a set of prospective antecedents that is previous forms such as noun phrases, clauses, and verb phrases that introduce possible referents. Rules established by our empirical study investigating the Givenness Hierarchy’s claim that the cognitive status of being in focus is necessary for being a referent of it are used to guide antecedent selection. (2) Uses binding theory to disqualify possible antecedents using syntactic information. (3) Uses number and gender to disqualify possible antecedents. (4) Creates a framework for semantic reasoning by integrating information from VerbNet, Propbank, and WordNet. The framework allows for reasoning about what type of semantic restrictions and constraints for a given verb can be enforced on the prospective antecedent of it. (5) When two or more forms remain in the set of prospective antecedents, a preference-based algorithm is employed to select the best guess from the set of possible antecedents. The framework created by this thesis includes a database and a computer system that implements a portion of the pipelined architecture. The database describes in tabular form all the information used to create the semantic reasoning subsystem, the parts of the Penn Treebank Wall Street Journal corpus used for testing, the information used by the number and gender subsystems, the results of each stage of the pipelined system, and the information used to create the preference-based algorithm for the best guess. The system integrates research from the fields of linguistics, cognitive science, and computer science to create the next generation of reference resolution systems capable of understanding what we mean when we write or talk.
890 Reviews thatwhat is good German' isGerman used appropriately for the topic, comprehen sibly,and imaginatively?in Schiewe's terms (p. 373) it isGerman characterized by Angemessenheit, Pragnanz, and Variation. Rudolf Hoberg's essay entitled 'Besseres Deutsch: Was kann und soil eine wissenschaftlich begrundete Sprachpflege tun' is a succinct and eminently sensible summary ofwhat the criteria should be forgood German, by an academic linguistwho despite the stereotype does care deeply about quality in language?but is not convinced thatGerman civilization as we know it will perish when people no longerwrite sentences like 'Die Blumen sturben sicher, wenn du sie nicht bald begossest'. It is unlikely that the book will win over the self-appointed guardians of lin guistic excellence and sundry other pedants to the view thatmodern German has immense vitality and is in no way in decline. But what James and Lesley Milroy in their Authority in Language, 3rd edn (London: Routledge, 1999) refer to as the complaint tradition'?the idea that the language of the present is in often unspecified ways 'bad' compared with the language of the past?has a long history across many languages, and the desire for stable linguistic norms appears very deep-rooted. In themain, the essays in this book can be recommended without hesitation, but, unfortunately, theywill probably neither appeal tonor convince the public who have been avid consumers of Bastian Sick's books and who appear only too willing to be told that their command of theirnative language is inadequate. University of Manchester Martin Durrell Roman eines Lebens: Die Aktualitat der Bildung und ihreGeschichte imBildungsro man. ByWilhelm Vosskamp. Berlin: Berlin University Press. 2009. 210 pp. 39.90. ISBN 978-3-940432-42-1. Deconstruction was clever, but had pragmatic shortcomings. One was that ittended to undermine thehumanities' claim to educate rounded human beings, who would be not only critically independent but also responsible and able tomake decisions. If thehuman subject is an effectof language, learning thiswill not enhance a young person's sense of agency (or ability tomake an impact). Both the Berlin University Press, andWilhelm Vosskamp in this book, aremaking serious attempts to repair the damage. The BUP is doing this by means of itswhole, cleanly branded, cata logue of books designed to lightenWissenschaft and make itavailable to intelligent general readers, and Vosskamp by pleading the case for continuity between the enlightenment ideal of Bildung and the possibilities of self-development available to individuals in the information universe. Der Roman eines Lebens is thus two things at once. It is an intervention in the contemporary debate about higher education and a book about theBildungsroman. In the firstfunction it is entirely admirable, but as to the second, it is disappoint ing. There are two reasons for this. The first is that it isn't really a book with its own argument at all, but a collection of some of Vosskamp's articles on the Bildungsroman, stretching back to 1982, and including barely twenty-fiveoriginal MLR, 105.3, 2010 891 pages. The individual items are of course often extremely valuable. The character ization of the German discourse of Bildung and its contextualization in relation to contemporary Europe is handled with beautiful lucidity (the style throughout is exemplary in its rigour and clarity). The material about images and Utopia is compelling and insightful. The piece about Botho Strauss and Thomas Bernhard is thought-provoking, ifnot obviously relevant. The most persuasive component of Vosskamp's analyses in this volume, and the one forwhich he is justly renowned, ishis attention to the sort of reader identification that literature facilitates; a form of complex identification thatmakes itpossible to deal on the practical level of everyday life,aswell as on the level ofmoral and pragmatic decision-making, with philosophical aporia. However, without the Bildungsroman, these various pieces don't really cohere. And here we encounter a problem. For Vosskamp's argument about reader iden tification towork one has to believe thatmany readers were actually guided and focused by Goethe's rather ponderous Meister novels and that it actually makes sense (as itdoes in the case of theNovelle) to talk of a genre and a tradition here. Itmay be my own ignorance, but I don't believe these things...
MLR, 105.2, 2010 579 are integrated into a full lexical database of Paduan dialect literature from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. This volume is undoubtedly a welcome addition to our knowledge and under standing of themost remarkable author-actor of the Italian Renaissance. This is especially so textually, in itsbringing a significant and neglected work?in terms of theatre and ideas?to an anglophone audience, and in its raising provocative questions about the degree of daring and the limits of the polemical in Ruzante. At times, though, Carroll's (con)textual commentary and conclusions needed tobe more cautious or nuanced. Our knowledge of the relationship between themanu scripts, and between these and thefirsteditions, is still awork-in-progress, as isour grasp of the significance of the linguistic variants in the Beolco corpus in the ab sence of autograph texts and a secure Ruzantian usus scribendi. Our understanding of the playwright's complex network of patronage remains fragmentary. University of St Andrews Ronnie Ferguson Beyond theFamily Romance: The Legend ofPascoli. ByMaria Truglio. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2007. viii+203 pp. $45;?28. ISBN 978-0 8020-9191-8. Inmoving 'beyond the family romance', Maria Truglio's study ofGiovanni Pascoli seeks to break with the dominant mode of biographical scholarship on the author while also engaging psychoanalytical theory (especially Freud) beyond applied criticism. In following a predominantly structural model, Truglio does not advo cate a Freudian interpretation of Pascoli's texts somuch as consider the common preoccupation with origins, and especially with loss, shared by these two near contemporaries. Thus, Pascoli's poetry is just one thread of a wider argument that embraces such diverse subjects as sexuality, infanticide, and the relationship between science and religion, while skilfully bringing them back to the central nexus between the self and primordial sites of trauma. It is an ambitious project in which a unified methodology helps provide thematic coherence. Beginning by citing theOrpheus myth, Truglio establishes the dangers implicit in the backward look that leads both Pascoli and Freud into the search for an ori ginating moment that, likeEurydice, proves tobe slippery, intangible, and, inmany respects, infernal' (p. 3), a trope that recurs as a structuringmotif in her analysis as awhole. 'Turning back' proves to be a privileged path both to rediscovering the lost object and losing itagain, and Freud's concept of the 'uncanny' (as elaborated in his essay 'Das Unheimlich') ispresented as the central paradigm explaining the double moments of possession and dispossession, familiarity and strangeness that also shape the Pascolian poetic universe. The uncanny is examined in relation to the very space of origins?respectively, inPascoli, thenest (both cradle and grave), parent (absent fatheror abject mother), or nature (consoling and threatening)?that betrays an ambivalence or doubleness at themoment inwhich the subject would be constituted as whole ormeaningful. Rereading the complex poetics of Pascoli's IIfanciullino in the light of its struc 580 Reviews tural parallels with Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, and revisiting Agamben's thesis on Pascoli's language as a Tingua morta', Truglio suggests that the pre-grammatical, ana-logical linguaggio (p. 46) that thefanciullino speaks, which lies at the very border ofmeaning and non-meaning, reactivates something akin to theKristevan 'semiotic chora\ rehearsing inparticularly intense fashion the identity of poetry as themiddle space ofmemory and desire, and the constituting annihilation of the self. In thisway, she convincingly argues for an interpretation of desire in Pascoli beyond the purely sexual (towhich some existing psychoana lytic readings, for example Gioanola's, have been limited) and demonstrates how impulses towards regression and return dovetail with the desire to keep the dead alive and the concomitant refusal tomourn. It is significant in this respect that the chapters of the study,while moving forward, proceed to take us ever furtherback. Beginning from the assassination of the father and the uncanniness of the nest, we move through the double space of borderline identities?the phantasmatic presences of the poetry of the scapigliati (especially Tarchetti and Boito) and Pascoli's own cari morti; the abject or infanti cidal mother?finally regressing to themyth (more ideal than real) of theGolden Age, a point of origin that reveals itself...
Especially since the mid 20th century, Newfoundland English has experienced considerable change, much of which appears to involve weakening or even loss of local speech features, and greater alignment with supralocal (typically, North American) norms. This chapter begins by contextualising language change relative to (largely negative) insider and outsider attitudes to Newfoundland dialects. Using illustrative examples, the chapter documents the social and stylistic patterns associated with ongoing phonetic and grammatical change. Despite fairly rapid intergenerational decline in the use of some local features, others are shown to be more robust: they display obvious style shifting, in that they tend to be avoided by younger speakers in formal, though not in casual, speech styles. Rapid change is also in evidence at the levels of vocabulary and discourse. Loss of traditional lexicon is countered by the borrowing of lexical innovations from outside the province, along with such “trendy” discourse features as quotative be like, and the prosodic features of creaky voice and high rising intonation in statements.
IntroductionA common experience in education is lack of synthetic view upon data - not only among students but also teachers. Obviously, students are taught to a certain extent to recognise and understand dependencies, interrelations within single fields of study, and they encounter methods of both distinction between analysis and synthesis but they are hardly ever capable of carrying out similar activities on their own, not to mention their serious scarcities in recognising and interpreting connections among different fields of study such as geography and literature, or physics and biology.Contemporary approaches to foreign language teaching often stress importance of using literature in language classroom as it provides a wide range of topics for students. Graded readers are becoming extremely popular with those preparing for state and international language examinations, but also with learners out of institutional framework - even these works are regarded as authentic. Although graded readers are undoubtedly useful for this type of approach, they are limited to a finite number of lexical items and a definite level of grammar, and as such, they are capable of transmitting a small number of cultural characteristics.J. Thompson defines culture as the pattern of meanings embodied in symbolic forms, including actions, utterances and meaningful objects of various kinds, by virtue of which individuals communicate with one another and share their experiences, conceptions and beliefs. (Thompson 1990:132) His definition includes significant constituents: pattern, which is syntax in a broad sense, meanings, which are studied in semantics, whereas symbolic forms are signs, use of which - communication - is dealt with by pragmatics; his definition is, therefore, another semiotic definition of culture, a little more detailed, thus applicable to education. According to his point of view, we can assume that authenticity of literary pieces in English refers to true reflection of Anglophone pattern of meanings. By 'Anglophone' is meant a multicultural, multinational and multilingual vortex, as English language is incessantly pushing its boundaries outwards by taking in new grammatical and lexical elements, thus broadening its register and improving its grammatical flexibility or tolerance in order to meet needs of various cultures employing it as a lingua franca. Its permanent relationship with other languages offers a great variety of unfamiliar items, with unusual characteristics that are welcomed or refused by English language, depending on its relative acceptability on receiving side.As for case of language teaching and learning, broadening set of devices employed by a language means immeasurable challenge for both teachers and learners, therefore, it is a must to consider observation of Claire Kramsch thatnative speakers of a language speak not only with their own individual voices, but through them speak also established knowledge of their native community and society, stock of metaphors this community lives by, and categories they use to represent their experience.(Kramsch 1993:43)Non-native speakers, learners of foreign languages usually do not share above elements, simply because underlying patterns of their mother tongue, even among members of one language family, differ from those in target language, and so structuring of information and art of expression have very little in common, and acquisition of this kind of linguistic experience requires incredible effort. Obviously, task of meeting needs and expectations of target language community is always very difficult, and for this reason, use of literature in language classroom proves to be a considerable contribution to intercultural education.Foreign language learning is always a process of getting to know another experience of existence, meeting another culture, people, and standards, norms and values of living. …
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.
Abstract: The paper aims to make a comparison study between word association of native speakers and that of Chinese English learners (CELs). Through data analysis of the word association results, the nature of the second language (L2) mental lexicon is explored. A continuous free word association test (WAT) was conducted to 150 students from Dalian University of Technology (DUT). And the Minnesota word association norms are selected as a native speakers' word association test for the comparison. The results of WATs are classified and analyzed with respect to response type and part of speech. The major findings in the paper are as follows: (1) The words in L2 mental lexicon are essentially semantically-related, just like the mental lexicon of L1 speakers. But phonological relation plays a more important role in L2 mental lexicon than in L1 mental lexicon. (2) Nouns are easy to be activated for both native speakers and L2 learners. And responses of the same part of speech as the stimulus word are easier to be activated. (3) Difference in culture and limitation of language competence may cause the different word association of natives and L2 learners. And L2 learners' native language is likely to have influence on their L2 mental lexicon. Keywords: mental lexicon; word association; Chinese English learners Resume: Le document vise a faire une etude comparative entre l'association de mots entre les locuteurs de langue maternelle anglaise et les apprenants chinois de l'anglais (ACA). Grâce a l'analyse des donnees des resultats d'association de mots, la nature de lexique mental de la deuxieme langue (L2) est exploree. Un test continu de l'association de mots libre (TAM) a ete realisee chez 150 etudiants de l'Universite de Technologie de Dalian (UTD). Et les normes d'association de mots de Minnesota sont selectionnee comme un test d'association de mots chez les locuteurs natifs pour faire la comparaison. Les resultats de TAM sont classes et analyses en fonction du type de reponse et de la partie du discours. Les conclusions principales de cet article sont les suivantes: (1) Les mots dans le lexique mental L2 sont semantiquement lies, tout comme le lexique mental des locuteurs de L1. Mais les relations phonologiques jouent un role plus important dans le lexique mental L2 que dans le lexique mental L1. (2) Les noms sont faciles a etre actives pour les locuteurs natifs et les apprenants de L2. Et les reponses de la meme partie du discours en tant que le mot de stimulus sont plus faciles a activer. (3) La difference de culture et la limitation de la competence linguistique peuvent causer une association de mots differente des autochtones et des apprenants de L2. Et la langue maternelle des apprenants de L2 est susceptible d'avoir une influence sur leur lexique mental L2. Mots-cles: lexique mental; association de mots; apprenants chinois de l'anglais INTRODUCTION For any language, vocabulary plays a significant role. Without vocabulary, communication cannot happen in a meaningful way. Thus lexical researches have aroused more and more interest among linguists. And the study of mental lexicon has drawn special attention from researchers. In the past thirty years, there has been great development in lexical research. Researchers make great efforts to try revealing the organization of mental lexicon which contains an extremely large amount of information. By now, agreement has been reached on the organization of the fust language (Ll) mental lexicon. Researchers commonly agree that words in L1 mental lexicon are connected with each other semantically and are stored in mind around a semantic network. However, there is still disagreement among researchers on the organization of the second language (L2) mental lexicon. Three kinds of viewpoints have been advanced, namely phonological view, semantic view and syntactic view. With the application of word association test (WAT) to linguistic study, more and more researchers have started to use this efficient method in the study of L2 mental lexicon to try to find answers to this unsettled issue. …
Based on an analysis of the speech of long-term émigrés of German and Dutch origin, the present investigation discusses to what extent hesitation patterns in language attrition may be the result of the creation of an interlanguage system, on the one hand, or of language-internal attrition patterns on the other. We compare speech samples elicited by a film retelling task from German émigrés in Canada (n = 52) and the Netherlands (n = 50) and from Dutch émigrés in Canada (n = 45) to retellings produced by predominantly monolingual control groups in Germany (n = 53) and the Netherlands (n = 45). Findings show that the attriting groups overuse empty pauses, repetitions, and retractions, whereas the distribution of filled pauses appears to conform more closely to the second language norm. An investigation of the location at which disfluency markers appear within the sentence suggests that they are indicators of difficulties that the attriters experience largely in the context of lexical retrieval.
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.
Previous studies demonstrate that lexical coding of colour influences categorical perception of colour, such that participants are more likely to rate two colours to be more similar if they belong to the same linguistic category (Roberson et al., 2000, 2005). Recent work shows changes in Greek–English bilinguals' perception of within and cross-category stimulus pairs as a function of the availability of the relevant colour terms in semantic memory, and the amount of time spent in the L2-speaking country (Athanasopoulos, 2009). The present paper extends Athanasopoulos' (2009) investigation by looking at cognitive processing of colour in Japanese–English bilinguals. Like Greek, Japanese contrasts with English in that it has an additional monolexemic term for ‘light blue’ (mizuiro). The aim of the paper is to examine to what degree linguistic and extralinguistic variables modulate Japanese–English bilinguals' sensitivity to the blue/light blue distinction. Results showed that those bilinguals who used English more frequently distinguished blue and light blue stimulus pairs less well than those who used Japanese more frequently. These results suggest that bilingual cognition may be dynamic and flexible, as the degree to which it resembles that of either monolingual norm is, in this case, fundamentally a matter of frequency of language use.
This article focuses on the variability of one of the subtypes of multi-word expressions, namely those consisting of a verb and a particle or a verb and its complement(s). We build on evidence from Estonian, an agglutinative language with free word order, analysing the behaviour of verbal multi-word expressions (opaque and transparent idioms, support verb constructions and particle verbs). Using this data we analyse such phenomena as the order of the components of a multi-word expression, lexical substitution and morphosyntactic flexibility.
We investigate the performance of an easyfirst, non-directional dependency parser on the Hebrew Dependency treebank. We show that with a basic feature set the greedy parser’s accuracy is on a par with that of a first-order globally optimized MST parser. The addition of morphological-agreement feature improves the parsing accuracy, making it on-par with a second-order globally optimized MST parser. The improvement due to the morphological agreement information is persistent both when gold-standard and automatically-induced morphological information is used. 1
In this paper, we argue for and demonstrate the use of Prolog as a tool to query annotated corpora. We present a case study based on the German TüBa-D/Z Treebank to show that flexible and efficient corpus querying can be started with a minimal amount of effort. We end this paper with a brief discussion of performance, that suggests that the approach is both fast enough and scalable. 1
News can be propagated by newspaper and periodical,radio and television,and internet.News on the Internet is different from that delivered by other media.Their characteristics are expressed as below:laconic in parts,and overloaded with details as a whole in text;concise partially and confused in general in expressing;full of creativity and riddled with errors from time to time in linguistic norm;advocating objective by weakening of subjective in public opinion.
All in-text\treferences\tunderlined\tin\tblue\tare\tlinked\tto\tpublications\ton\tResearchGate, letting you\taccess\tand\tread\tthem\timmediately.
This dataset adds annotation of multiword expressions and multiword named entities to the original PDT 2.0 data. The annotation is stand-off, stored in the same PML format as the original PDT 2.0 data. It is to be used together with the PDT 2.0.
Mandarin Chinese is always classified as a topic-prominent language (Li and Thompson 1975). One of the characteristics of a topic-prominent language is that pronouns may drop since speakers and addressees know what they are talking about. It is this feature that makes topic-prominent languages or pronoun-drop languages interesting, for the dropped pronoun or the zero pronoun can be controlled by the topic in the previous discourse not just in the local sentence. Interestingly, there are three levels or layers in Chinese speech (Li, Ing Cherry 1985, Chu 1991), which causes foreigners to make some mistakes when they make Chinese sentences and paragraphs because they might not know how to use noun phrases, pronouns, and zero pronouns in a proper way. That’s why Chinese discourse grammar is important in teaching/learning Mandarin Chinese as a foreign language or as a second language. Jyun-Gwang Chen (2008) found the specific rules of the third person singular tā他 in Chinese discourse grammar from the linguistic database. His study is meaningful on the view of Chinese discourse grammar. Chen (2008) reported that the distributions of zero pronoun are the most unmarked and the most prevailing way of anaphora in Chinese. Pronouns and noun phrases are used markedly as event markers in Chinese speech (Chen 2008). However, it seems that Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan has changed a great deal since its establishment as national language in the early years of the republic and is still changing. Non-human pronoun它tā, for instance, is used more frequently nowadays. The purposes of the present study are to find out if there is language change of Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan, involving the use of pronoun它tā, and to what extent has the rules of its use been changed. In addition, we hope to discover what are the sociolinguistic factors involved in the changes. There are English-Chinese and Chinese-English translation exercises in our study. We elicit subjects to translate English pronoun it into Chinese in order to check if the zero anaphoric system of Mandarin Chinese has changed. Besides, an investigation of discourse database has been done to reconfirm our study purposes. The results of the translation exercises support our claim that Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan has changed. Currently, a few speakers keep using zero pronoun more often than non-human pronoun它tā, while other speakers tend to use less zero pronoun and more and more non-human pronoun它tā. A close examination of the discourse database also shows that the usage of non-human pronoun它tā in subject position and after-preposition position has increased these years with a significance level of p < 0.1. As for sociolinguistic factors involved, both gender difference and age difference were found. College males and high school males preferred to speak conservatively than our female subjects did. High school males and high school female used more disposal constructions than the other senior subjects did. The research questions of the present study are answered. Nevertheless, further study is absolutely needed. The instrument of the present study is Chinese-English and English-Chinese translation tests, and the sample numbers are quite restricted. Subjects’ performances may still be influenced by the written language. Even though to double check whether this is the case or not, we have also made a careful examination of a database corpus of transcripts from a popular TV show, which is not spontaneous discourse data. Thus, study based on spontaneous discourse database involving a sufficient of speakers is needed before a firm conclusion can be drawn.