Papers reviewed and determined not to be word norm studies. Use the flag icon to report errors or suggest re-inclusion.
16504 papers
From the perspective of lexicography, this paper presents an analysis of participles ending in -ci, -vsi and -m(i), which in contemporary Serbian language fall within two categories: 1) the category of contemporary participial continuants, whose action is attributed to the noun as a temporary, current feature at a definite point in time, and 2) the category of adjectives that semantically correspond to past participles or to adjectives proper. As regards the descriptive dictionaries of the contemporary Serbian language, the participles ending in -ci, -vsi and -m(i) are lexicographically treated primarily in the Dictionary of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (the SASA Dictionary). Comparing the example sentences excerpted from various texts belonging to the contemporary standard Serbian language, on the one hand, with those excerpted from the SASA Dictionary, on the other, it can be noted that the SASA Dictionary does not contain examples of participle forms with the reflexive morpheme -se, while they can be said to be confirmed in other sources. This can be explained as resulting from the impact of the Serbian language norm, according to which participles do not belong to the contemporary standard Serbian language. This is especially true of forms containing the reflexive morpheme -se, which are not to be found in any modern grammar of the standard Serbian language. It is concluded in the paper that the SASA Dictionary treats the participle forms of both aforementioned categories and of three separate participle forms according to the verb tense (past and present) and voice (active and passive). As for the sources confirming the use of these forms, they can be found not only in those dating from the first half of the 19th century, when participles were commonplace in the literary language of Serbs, but also in the works of the 20th-century authors using the contemporary standard Serbian language. In accordance with that, the conclusion to be drawn is that participles should be treated and included in dictionaries, both in those whose compilation is ongoing (i.e. the SASA Dictionary) and in the future dictionaries of the contemporary Serbian language. The excerpted material shows that participles are used by prominent authors in Serbian science, religion and culture. As for the issue of which label to use for the indicated types of participles in the descriptive dictionary of the contemporary Serbian language, it is argued in this paper that in order to resolve it one should take into consideration at least two sets of facts related to the presented material. One refers to the examples of the formation of participles that in fact originate from the older layers of our literary language and which have been preserved in identical or similar form to this day (e.g. odsedsi, usopsi), while the other concerns participles created in a contemporary synchronic process involving contemporary verbs in current use and their meanings (dogorevajuca sveca, plac radjajucih stvorenja, etc.). The former set of examples is marked with standard labels, such as?zast.? (?obsolete?),?arh.? (?archaic?),?rsl.? (?Russian Church Slavonic?),?csl.? (?New Church Slavonic?),?ssl.? (?Serbian Church Slavonic?),?stknj. arh.? (?from earlier literary sources, old-fashioned?), used in the lexicographic description of participles in the SASA Dictionary, which can also be used in other descriptive dictionaries of the contemporary Serbian language to indicate the literary epoch in which a particular form of participle originated, or its pragmatic value. Concerning the latter set of participles, if they were to be introduced into a descriptive dictionary of the Serbian language, they would require different labels, since these are the words formed according to the participle-building pattern of the present-day synchronic lexical-grammatical process.
Print media representation about Islam and Muslims has never been ideology free especially post 9/11. A war of words has ever been there between non-Muslim west and Muslims. The dichotomy of Otherisation divides the world into two poles i.e. good vs. evil. Similarly, the present research critically decodes discourse of articles published in an American newspaper i.e. ‘The Washington Post’ about representation of Muslim women. The data has been collected from the newspapers’ articles which appeared from June 2019 to December 2019. The study employs Fairclough’s (1993) model of Critical Discourse Analysis. The analytical categories of the mentioned model include representation, metaphor, lexicalization, back/fore grounding, in/out group and number game. The data has been analysed at the levels of word, sentence and discourse. The analysis of the data reveals that Muslim women are represented stereotypically through the discourse of the articles of the mentioned newspaper as oppressed, narrow minded, hijabbed, and deviation from norm. Moreover, according to western perception and representation of this American newspaper they are contriving to harm civilized West by introducing new system of caliphate to disturb the activities of civilized world. The study concludes that print media discourses act as distorting prism to represent a desired version of reality about Islam and Muslim women to shape the mindset of the target audience accordingly.
The article is devoted to the consideration of one of the aspects of the problem of the interlingual translation process: transformations. The relevance of studying the use of transformations is due to the goal of achieving equivalence and the condition of observing the norms of the target language. Based on the translation of J. Bowen's novel «A Street Cat Named Bob» by comparing the source text with the translation text, the article examines the lexical transformations used in the translation of descriptions of the urban environment static elements from English into Russian. Particular attention is paid to the issues of defining a translation transformation, the choice of a convenient classification, as well as the reasons for using certain transformations. The study confirms the opinion of the majority of linguists that the use of translation transformations is inevitable: it is due to the differences in the lexical and grammatical systems of the two languages. E. I. Kolyabina, translator of the novel “A Street Cat Named Bob”, resorts to a large number of transformations and sometimes uses them in combination. Analysis of the translation text shows that the choice of transformation can be forced, or dictated by the translator’s personal preferences.
Nowadays, no works in Tuvinian linguistics consider the specificity of anthroponyms borrowed from the Mongolian language, peculiarities of their adaptation and functioning in Tuvan Buddhist texts. Meanwhile, studying this word group can shed light on the formation and functioning of the Tuvan Buddhist vocabulary and reveal additional data on the history of the formation of lexical and phonetic features of the Tuvinian language associated with the Tuvan- Mongolian language and cultural contacts. It is worth studying Mongolian borrowed anthroponyms in the Tuvan translation of the Buddhist work “Üleger-Dalay” – the sutra “Sea of Proverbs,” the only Tuvan Buddhist source not influenced by the Russian-speaking Buddhist literature actively published and translated into Tuvan since the 1990s. The specificity of the Mongolian anthroponyms analyzed is that their nominative function simultaneously characterizes the referent and reflects its essence. They are divided into six thematic groups: names-epithets of Buddha, names associated with Buddhist practices, names indicating the inner qualities of a person, names of celestials, names associated with natural objects, names with somatismatic components indicating the appearance or associated with the circumstances of the referent’s birth. They are divided into three structural types: 1-component, 2-component (most of them), and 3-component. All borrowed Mongolian names have mostly been adapted to the phonetic norms of the Tuvinian language. The main ways of phonetic transformation are assimilation, formation of long vowels, replacement of some sounds and sound combinations with other sounds, simplification of vowels.
The article is a study of the formation of a methodology for studying the stylistics of the Russian language. The goal is to trace the origin of the methodology for studying stylistics in the works of authors who chose it as the subject of their research. In the course of the work, in the process of studying various sources of information, it became known that many scholars-philologists turned to this topic, for example: V.V. Vinogradov, A.I. Efimov, M.N. Lotina, A.N. Veselovsky, A.A. Potebnya and many others. Stylistics received the status of an independent science in the XX century, at the same time, its study was of interest to people much earlier. Particular attention is paid to the exercise systems of T.I. Chizhova and S.N. Ikonnikov, designed to study the stylistic features of the text. S.N. Ikonnikov drew attention to the combination of analytical and creative exercises. The system of exercises developed by T.I. Chizhova. There are two types of exercises in her system: exercises to observe the use of phonetic, lexical and other means of speech; exercises to observe speech styles and their key features. Noteworthy is the fact that T.I. Chizhova is assigned a special role as a stylistic exercise in her didactic complex. It includes the following types of exercises: exercises for the analysis and study of individual sections of science related to language (phonetics, vocabulary, etc.); exercises for mastering certain stylistic principles of the language and in its sections; exercises for teaching coherent speech; exercises for understanding the norms, characteristics of individual styles of speech (scientific, journalistic, etc.).
Rhetorical move analyses of research article (RA) abstracts have established variations across disciplines and cultures. However, there is still a need for more explorations on Applied Linguistics discipline. Comparing native and other group of non-native speakers of English, such as Filipino users of the language, has also been a neglect in research as far as the researcher’s knowledge is concerned. Hence, this study investigated the rhetorical moves in the RA abstracts of American and Filipino writers who are published in two journals related to Applied Linguistics field. The study also explored the lexical verbs underlying each move in all the abstracts. Each abstract was then segmented into moves. Findings revealed that the moves Situating the Research (STR), Presenting the Research (PTR), and Discussing the Research (DTR) were obligatorily used by both groups of writers, while the moves Describing the Methodology (DTM) and Summarizing the Findings (STF) were obligatory only among Filipinos and optional among Americans. Filipino writers appear to develop their own conventions deviating from Americans who are considered native speakers and norm providers. The results also amplify the existence of cultural differences even in abstract writing. Further, the study details lists of lexical verbs that may be used to realize a rhetorical intent of each move. Hence, academic writing instructions may be informed by the rhetorical and linguistic realizations unveiled in this study. Directions for future research are likewise provided.
The paper focuses the essence of the wedding ceremony. The purpose of the study is to restore the ritual that took place in the 1950s in the village of Vysokiy, Talovsky District of the Voronezh Region, to describe its cultural elements and accompanying vocabulary that have not been paid due attention to in previous research. The material of the research is the living popular speech, recorded by the author in the course of non-formal natural communication, and the personal archival records of the native dwellers of the village. Tthe following methods were used in the course of the work: survey, interview, stationary observation, analysis, comparison, description, etc. As a result, it was possible to fix the unusual components of the festive event and reproduce them in their original form. Plunging into the past, the author established a sequence of parts of the prewedding, wedding and post-wedding periods, objectifying an interconnected and interdependent system. The meanings of the lexical units, reflecting rituality, were checked using the Small Academic Dictionary, the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language, the Dictionary of Russian Folk Dialects, the Dictionary of Voronezh Dialects, etc. The study determined the areas of functioning of the words in question in the dialects of other territories, noted the similarity in use, and identified localisms. Having summarized the established norms of organizing ritual actions, the author presented them in the form of a kind of set of universal rules. The constituent elements revealed the essence of the custom, displayed a unique picture of the prevailing rituals in a completely original form, which testifies to the real transformation of the ancient celebration. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the ritual, which is almost 70 years old, has been restored in detail and presented with the help of the language of the native dwellers of rural areas as an inseparable part of popular culture. The practical significance of the work lies in the fact that the factual information underlying it is sure to help the younger generation to reproduce historical reality in the future. The resulting materials supplement the bank of existing data with new information, including valuable data, both from an ethnographic and linguistic point of view. The author hopes that they will be of interest to the linguistic community and a wide range of people interested in traditions.
The article investigates functional techniques of extralinguistic expression in multimedia texts; the effectiveness of figurative expressions as a reaction to modern events in Ukraine and their influence on the formation of public opinion is shown. Publications of journalists, broadcasts of media resonators, experts, public figures, politicians, readers are analyzed. The language of the media plays a key role in shaping the worldview of the young political elite in the first place. The essence of each statement is a focused thought that reacts to events in the world or in one’s own country. The most popular platform for mass information and social interaction is, first of all, network journalism, which is characterized by mobility and unlimited time and space. Authors have complete freedom to express their views in direct language, including their own word formation. Phonetic, lexical, phraseological and stylistic means of speech create expression of the text. A figurative word, a good aphorism or proverb, a paraphrased expression, etc. enhance the effectiveness of a multimedia text. This is especially important for headlines that simultaneously inform and influence the views of millions of readers. Given the wide range of issues raised by the Internet as a medium, research in this area is interdisciplinary. The science of information, combining language and social communication, is at the forefront of global interactions. The Internet is an effective source of knowledge and a forum for free thought. Nonlinear texts (hypertexts) – «branching texts or texts that perform actions on request», multimedia texts change the principles of information collection, storage and dissemination, involving billions of readers in the discussion of global issues. Mastering the word is not an easy task if the author of the publication is not well-read, is not deep in the topic, does not know the psychology of the audience for which he writes. Therefore, the study of media broadcasting is an important component of the professional training of future journalists. The functions of the language of the media require the authors to make the right statements and convincing arguments in the text. Journalism education is not only knowledge of imperative and dispositive norms, but also apodictic ones. In practice, this means that there are rules in media creativity that are based on logical necessity. Apodicticity is the first sign of impressive language on the platform of print or electronic media. Social expression is a combination of creative abilities and linguistic competencies that a journalist realizes in his activity. Creative self-expression is realized in a set of many important factors in the media: the choice of topic, convincing arguments, logical presentation of ideas and deep philological education. Linguistic art, in contrast to painting, music, sculpture, accumulates all visual, auditory, tactile and empathic sensations in a universal sign – the word. The choice of the word for the reproduction of sensory and semantic meanings, its competent use in the appropriate context distinguishes the journalist-intellectual from other participants in forums, round tables, analytical or entertainment programs. Expressive speech in the media is a product of the intellect (ability to think) of all those who write on socio-political or economic topics. In the same plane with him – intelligence (awareness, prudence), the first sign of which (according to Ivan Ogienko) is a good knowledge of the language. Intellectual language is an important means of organizing a journalistic text. It, on the one hand, logically conveys the author’s thoughts, and on the other – encourages the reader to reflect and comprehend what is read. The richness of language is accumulated through continuous self-education and interesting communication. Studies of social expression as an important factor influencing the formation of public consciousness should open up new facets of rational and emotional media broadcasting; to trace physical and psychological reactions to communicative mimicry in the media. Speech mimicry as one of the methods of disguise is increasingly becoming a dangerous factor in manipulating the media. Mimicry is an unprincipled adaptation to the surrounding social conditions; one of the most famous examples of an animal characterized by mimicry (change of protective color and shape) is a chameleon. In a figurative sense, chameleons are called adaptive journalists. Observations show that mimicry in politics is to some extent a kind of game that, like every game, is always conditional and artificial.
The study aims to determine the features charactering the process of feminisation of the French lexis denoting professions. The article analyses the main ways of feminisation, semantics and stylistic colouring of lexical units. Scientific novelty of the study lies in conducting a comprehensive analysis and developing a classification of ways for forming new feminine units of the French lexis denoting professions. As a result, the researcher has identified the features and problems peculiar to feminisation of profession names which are related to both linguistic factors and the issues pertaining to women’s position in the French linguistic culture. It is proved that the predominant factors for the language phenomena being accepted as a linguistic norm are social conditions and frequency of using units in speech.
The paper presents the features of computer interaction as a type of mediated communication. It is noted that in terms of their content and structure the texts of Internet-mediated communication represent oral speech given in writing. Faster processing of information in language terms is reflected in the use of a minimum set of lexical tools with the maximum content fullness of text messages. Non-verbal means of communication in the Internet environment are particularly importance since being used in oral communication they make it possible to establish the interaction using the body language, to promote psychological contact or to distance the communicators. The transfer of oral communication to the Internet environment imposes a requirement on communicators to comply with the rules adopted on public network resources. Content may be presented as a collage reduced to a repetition of previously produced information. The reasons for this combinatorics are seen in accelerating the pace of life, saving time, using technical means that facilitate the process of text creation. The main criteria include the speed of creating the text and its accessibility, the comprehensiveness of a wide audience. However, such a democratization of the language is fraught with the following risks. First, the human brain loses the ability to in-depth thinking and learning, detailed analysis. Second, the language itself as the cultural code of the nation will undergo significant changes in terms of simplifying syntactic constructions, word forms and norms of the literary language.
The system of French accentuation is a relevant case of a language change, observable in a relatively short period of time in a stable synchrony. Since the mid-twentieth century, the formation of linguistic norms has largely depended on a specific type of utterance, media discourse, continually available in spoken audio-visual media. The impact of spoken media on the development of linguistic expression in the last few decades is unprecedented in language history. It is based on a communicational model in which speech is produced by a single speaker and instantly perceived by a multitude of receivers who have no possibility of intervening in the communicational process. Thus the receivers are passively exposed to an exclusive speaker and to language strategies conceived by the media and its linguistic authority. The analysis of two professional spoken interventions, uttered on French television, shows an important modification of the traditional accentual system: conserving the final accent (FA), the speakers systematically introduce an initial accent (IA), a landmark in the evolution of the French language and its normative features. The IA affects the first syllable of a stressed lexeme or the first syllable of an extended accentual unit, regardless of the syntactic function of the stressed morpheme. The FA is operated by the intonational action, while the IA seems to be realized by an accentual augmentation of vocal intensity. The automatism of lexical stressing is generating a systematic accentuation of the first syllable of the accentual unit. The IA mostly affects lexemes that speakers insist on because of their informative value (numerals, adverbs, proper names), but an important part of IA concerns different proclytics, such as deictic elements, articles and determinants. Accentual limitation of the unit on both sides is a specific feature of the speech in French audio-visual media. In recent decades it has found its echo in the normative speech of French linguistic communities.
The article describes issues on the communicative and pragmatic features of colloquial words in newspaper style. At present, the main source of updating the literary norm is the mass media, including periodicals. It actively responds to the events of each day and thereby reflects changes in the vocabulary of the language. As we know, the newspaper style is currently characterized by a irony, emotional intensity and expressiveness, which makes the language of journalism mobile, subtly responsive to situations in society. At the same time, the opposite phenomena are also observed - the loss of literary purity and a general decline in the style of the mass press. Consequently, while selecting lexical means, a journalist must remember that he/she is responsible for the future of the language, for developing the language taste of readers.
Постановка задачи. В исследовании рассмотрению подвергаются антропонимы, репрезентирующие женщин по внешности, неполноценности, особенности речи и голоса, чертам характера, темпераменту, кулинарным предпочтениям, роду занятий, должности, отношению к работе, и их отражение в диалектной картине мира жителей небольшого посёлка Высокого Таловского района Воронежской области. В процессе работы определены своеобразные черты и характеристики образа представительниц слабого пола, которые одобряются и не одобряются в деревенском социуме. Обращение к живой народной речи, функционирующей в устах коренных селян, с целью изучения с последующим сохранением языковых материалов является актуальным, так как в ней содержится современная информация о целом поколении людей и их взаимоотношениях в коллективе. Результаты. В ходе изыскания описано 43 неофициальных имени, представленных 7 тематическими группами. Определена самая продуктивная группа - антропонимы, данные по внешности человека, и самая малочисленная - уличные именования по неполноценности. Выявлено, что 5 человек имеют по 2 прозвища, 1 женщина считается обладательницей 4 прозвищ, которые получила за особенности внешности и поведения. Установлены имена-метафоры, маркирующих их носительниц. Они репрезентируются множеством возникающих ассоциаций: со стрекозой, планетой Солнечной системы, установкой для обработки мяса или рыбы, предметом для глажения, рекой, оружием, птицей, ядовитым растением, надзорным учреждением, рок-группой и др. Функционирующие антропонимы выражены существительными и прилагательными, образованы двумя способами: суффиксальным и сложением основ. С помощью рассмотренных лексических единиц представлен идеальный женский образ с присущими ему чертами. Продемонстрированы качества его антипода. Выводы. Осуществлённое исследование определило использование в народном языке своеобразных уличных именований женщин, являющихся частью диалектной картины мира высочан. Она подчинена определённым условным нормам и правилам, известным только местным жителям, разработанным ими самими для удобства в межличностном общении. Отражение картины мира через прозвища свидетельствует о богатом лексическом запасе, воображении и фантазии диалектоносителей. Она раскрывает и состояние местного говора в наше время - живого, активно развивающегося, самобытного. Мир всех и каждого в отдельности, естественность и простота - таково содержание картины мира деревенского человека. Представленное изыскание дополняет имеющиеся немногочисленные работы воронежских лингвистов-диалектологов и ономастов и вносит вклад в изучение местной антропонимики. Statement of the problem. The study examines the anthroponyms that represent women in appearance, inferiority, speech and voice, character traits, temperament, culinary preferences, occupation, position, attitude to work, and their reflection in the dialectal picture of the world of the inhabitants of the small village of Vysoky Talovsky district of the Voronezh region In the process of work, the peculiar features and characteristics of the image of the fairer sex were determined, which are approved and disapproved in the village society. The appeal to the living folk speech, functioning in the mouths of the indigenous villagers, with the aim of studying with the subsequent preservation of linguistic materials, is relevant, since it contains modern information about a whole generation of people and their relationships in the team. Results. During the survey, 43 unofficial names were described, represented by 7 thematic groups. The most productive group has been identified - anthroponyms, data on a person's appearance, and the smallest - street naming for inferiority. It was revealed that 5 people have 2 nicknames, 1 woman is considered the owner of 4 nicknames, which she received for features of appearance and behavior. The names-metaphors, marking their carriers, have been established. They are represented by a multitude of emerging associations: with a dragonfly, a planet of the solar system, an installation for processing meat or fish, an ironing object, a river, a weapon, a bird, a poisonous plant, a supervisory institution, a rock band, etc. Functioning anthroponyms are expressed by nouns and adjectives, formed in two ways: suffix and base addition. With the help of the considered lexical units, an ideal female image with its inherent features is presented. The qualities of its antipode are demonstrated. Conclusion. The carried out research has determined the use in the folk language of the peculiar street names of women, which are part of the dialectal picture of the world of Vysochan. It is subject to certain conventional norms and rules, known only to local residents, developed by themselves for convenience in interpersonal communication. The reflection of the picture of the world through nicknames testifies to the rich vocabulary, imagination and fantasy of dialect carriers. It also reveals the state of the local dialect in our time - living, actively developing, original. The world of each and every one individually, naturalness and simplicity - such is the content of the picture of the world of a village man. The presented research supplements the few available works of Voronezh linguists-dialectologists and onomasts and contributes to the study of local anthroponymy.
Statement of the problem. The study examines the anthroponyms that represent women in appearance, inferiority, speech and voice, character traits, temperament, culinary preferences, occupation, position, attitude to work, and their reflection in the dialectal picture of the world of the inhabitants of the small village of Vysoky Talovsky district of the Voronezh region In the process of work, the peculiar features and characteristics of the image of the fairer sex were determined, which are approved and disapproved in the village society. The appeal to the living folk speech, functioning in the mouths of the indigenous villagers, with the aim of studying with the subsequent preservation of linguistic materials, is relevant, since it contains modern information about a whole generation of people and their relationships in the team. Results. During the survey, 43 unofficial names were described, represented by 7 thematic groups. The most productive group has been identified - anthroponyms, data on a person's appearance, and the smallest - street naming for inferiority. It was revealed that 5 people have 2 nicknames, 1 woman is considered the owner of 4 nicknames, which she received for features of appearance and behavior. The names-metaphors, marking their carriers, have been established. They are represented by a multitude of emerging associations: with a dragonfly, a planet of the solar system, an installation for processing meat or fish, an ironing object, a river, a weapon, a bird, a poisonous plant, a supervisory institution, a rock band, etc. Functioning anthroponyms are expressed by nouns and adjectives, formed in two ways: suffix and base addition. With the help of the considered lexical units, an ideal female image with its inherent features is presented. The qualities of its antipode are demonstrated. Conclusion. The carried out research has determined the use in the folk language of the peculiar street names of women, which are part of the dialectal picture of the world of Vysochan. It is subject to certain conventional norms and rules, known only to local residents, developed by themselves for convenience in interpersonal communication. The reflection of the picture of the world through nicknames testifies to the rich vocabulary, imagination and fantasy of dialect carriers. It also reveals the state of the local dialect in our time - living, actively developing, original. The world of each and every one individually, naturalness and simplicity - such is the content of the picture of the world of a village man. The presented research supplements the few available works of Voronezh linguists-dialectologists and onomasts and contributes to the study of local anthroponymy.
The article deals with lexical and phraseological means as representatives of expressiveness. The importance of the study is due to the fact that the analysis of expressive lexical and phraseological means allows to interpret in detail the intentions of the author and understand the principles of thinking of the writer. The study of the communicative-pragmatic meaning of utterances is extremely important within sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. The aim of the work is to trace the peculiarities of the realization of expressiveness at the lexical-phraseological level and to determine the dominant functions of expressive units in the book “Samovchytel hrafomana»” [“Graphoman’s self-study»] by A. Sanchenko. Expressiveness is a complex category that actively functions in linguistics and manifests its power in a large number of linguistic tools, techniques, signs. Expressiveness has the ability to activate cognitive process, show various plans of relationships, motivate to action. The text is written in a language that, of course, focuses on literary norms, but the author avoids excessive use of vocabulary that performs only a cognitive-informative function. It was found that in the analyzed text colloquial, abusive and slang vocabulary performs expressive-emotional, evaluative, character-creating functions and explicitly or implicitly reproduces the ironic-humorous effect. The choice of the expressive vocabulary depends on the micro-topic, within which specific images and situations are presented. The phraseological units in an unchanged and transformed form reproduce the leading intentions of the author: irony, informing, mostly disapproving attitude to human behavior. Phraseological units are divided into two groups according to the level of expressiveness: 1) phraseological units that function with an unchanged structure and reproduce traditional ideas about the world of things and people in the work; 2) transformed phraseological units, the semantic field of which is loaded with the subjective assessment of the writer. It is established that lexical and phraseological expressions appeal to the emotional and sensory sphere of recipients, release a powerful suggestive influence. The analyzed expressive means can be investigated in more detail on the basis of known claims about implicit and explicit expressiveness, strong and weak stance of expressiveness.
In this article I explore the construction of singing child characters in Isaac Watts’ Divine and Moral Songs for Children (1715) and Christopher Smart’s Hymns for the Amusement of Children (1771). The first part focusses on the nature of the lyrical persona within the lexical fields »voice and vocal sound« and »religion« and also looks at the possible addressees. The second part examines stylistic, phonetic, and formal elements, and explores their role in constructing the ›singing I.‹ To show the potential of Watts’ »Against Quarrelling and Fighting« to function as an invitation to playfully adopt behaviour opposed to Christian norms, the article examines a performance of Let Dogs Delight to Bark and Bite, a chorale by Matthew J. Zimnoch, whose text is taken from Watts’ hymn. Combining approaches from research on children’s poetry with ones from the interface of children’s literature and hymnody, the article also integrates a digitally supported close reading. The hymn texts were inputted into f4analyse, a software used in text linguistics and the social sciences, which allows for the assignment of categories, such as positive self-connotation of the ›singing I‹ or rhyme patterns. In conclusion, the article evaluates the potential of such a digitally supported research methodology for future research at the intersection of children’s literature and digital humanities.
The study of idiom as a separate unit by Ukrainian scholars marks the beginning of its general linguistic interpretation. In this regard, it is established that the completeness of fixing its linguistic data (e.g. corpus approach), verification of linguistic fact and modern methodological approach to it based on models and generalizations will provide from specialized to interscientific interpretation of idiom in the system of language knowledge. Idiom as a language system has a number of features - structure, normative, systematic organization, etc. - similar to the language system in general, which is determined by the internal laws of the idiom, dialect norm or immanent essence of language. The idiom system organizationally consists of units – the idiomеms - significant units of speech as linguistic facts. To study them, it is appropriate to allocate a special section of dialectology - idiomology, which is devoted to a comprehensive study of speech as a language system with all its conceptual apparatus in metalanguage linguistics, methodology and empirical fund. The fixation of idiom data cannot be differential or in some way limited by other factors. The scientific approach is provided only by the completeness of fixing the vocabulary of the dialect in a certain period. Based on substance, the structure of the idiom system is a comprehensive network of relations between all its elements at different language levels (phonetic, grammatical, lexical). The structure of idiom as a language system can be realized in the description of speech linguistics in the context of monodialectal research, which is, on the one hand, a way to justify its status as a unit of dialect microsystem, and on the other - to clarify its ontological features and pragmatics of speech as a language system in metalanguage linguistics.
[EN] This article explores how the death of the elderly is represented by examining the death notices of 3,160 people aged 65 and over that were published in two daily newspapers in French-speaking Switzerland. Notices no longer merely announce death, but have become more extensive since the 1950s, providing information about the death and the dead person. The words chosen by the family to announce that an elderly relative has passed away reveal several social norms. Using textual statistics, our analyses show that representations of death differ according to age, sex, religion, and place of death. Thus, a plural vision of death in old age emerges, one that goes beyond a simple opposition between good and bad death. The age criterion is important, reiterating the distinction found in old age between the young-old and the oldest-old. We identify what is perceived as an “unfair” age and a “normal” age to die. The death notices document the use of a vocabulary that associates death in the third age with the fight against disease, justifying an early departure. On the other hand, when the deceased leaves us at the age of 85 or older, the vocabulary borrows figures and metaphors from the lexical field of sleep, such as “fell asleep,” or “fell asleep peacefully.”
Developing communicative competence of future teachers majoring in non-linguistic specialities is a priority of the progressive educational paradigm. Nowadays in linguodidactics the perfect mastery of professional communicative skills, the skill of text creation in different discourse conditions is especially relevant. Taking into account the linguistic and didactic characteristics of higher education seekers is the basis for the development of public communication skills that correlate with the requirements of the time, the needs of society, the tasks of modern education.
 Substantiation of the phenomenon of “public communication” in terms of linguistic didactics is important for the development of guidelines, concepts and models for teaching the theory and practice of public communication, for the selection of effective methods and techniques. Speech is a necessary basis for thinking. Public communication especially foregrounds significant mental-speech operations: analysis, synthesis, abstraction, concretization, reproduction of material, text creation. The method of developing public communication skills focuses on solving problems related to the perception of educational material, awareness of the essence of rhetorical concepts, text creation. Effectiveness is ensured by synergy with psychological research on the patterns of mental operations that underlie the perception, memorization and reproduction of prepared material. Approaches to the development of public communication skills are largely based on well-known ancient theories, including those based on folk speech culture. The analysis of the basic concepts of classical rhetoric and practice of public communication (logos, ethos, pathos and topos) require innovative methodological and methodical elaboration and directing at the communicative competence of the contemporary teacher majoring in non-linguistic specialities.
 The character of the linguistic personality is determined by typical communicative national features, existing in the form of thought forms / formulas, concepts, value lexical and semantic dominants. The university should ideally mould a speaker ready for different types of public communication, to create a discourse in any time and space, who knows language norms and communicative qualities of oral and written speech as indicators of speech culture, text technology, speech etiquette. Age features, openness to the perception of information, self-expression in competitive speech situations, ambition, search for authority, the desire to overcome negative stereotypes in the perception of the teaching profession are the very linguistic and didactic aspects that should be relied on while working on communicative competence. We see the prospect of further research in the development of a system of work on the development of the idiosyncrasy of public communication which underlies the formation of a personal brand of the teacher.
This article explores how the death of the elderly is represented by examining the death notices of 3,160 people aged 65 and over that were published in two daily newspapers in French-speaking Switzerland. Notices no longer merely announce death, but have become more extensive since the 1950s, providing information about the death and the dead person. The words chosen by the family to announce that an elderly relative has passed away reveal several social norms. Using textual statistics, our analyses show that representations of death differ according to age, sex, religion, and place of death. Thus, a plural vision of death in old age emerges, one that goes beyond a simple opposition between good and bad death. The age criterion is important, reiterating the distinction found in old age between the young-old and the oldest-old. We identify what is perceived as an “unfair” age and a “normal” age to die. The death notices document the use of a vocabulary that associates death in the third age with the fight against disease, justifying an early departure. On the other hand, when the deceased leaves us at the age of 85 or older, the vocabulary borrows figures and metaphors from the lexical field of sleep, such as “fell asleep,” or “fell asleep peacefully.”
В статье рассматриваются специфические черты терминологии хендмейд - творческой деятельности, связанной с созданием изделий ручной работы. В современном русском языке это динамически развивающаяся область терминообразования, которая требует лингвистического описания и словарной фиксации. Объектом исследования являются лексические единицы тематической группы «Хендмейд» в количестве около 200 слов. Целью исследования является определение состава и особенностей данной терминологии. С одной стороны, она демонстрирует основные черты отраслевой терминологии, с другой, - для терминологии хендмейд характерны образность, экспрессивность, полисемия, что показано на примерах. Данная терминология формируется преимущественно стихийно в рамках разговорной профессиональной коммуникации в интернет-дискурсе. Выделяются шесть основных тематических групп рассматриваемых терминов. Терминологию хендмейд можно рассматривать как систему систем, так как вокруг центрального понятия «техника или вид рукоделия» формируется разветвленная система номинаций, связанных с этой понятийной областью. Терминология хендмейд не имеет лексикографической фиксации в виде специального словаря, и нормы правописания многих слов еще только формируются. Очевидно, что в дефиницию подобных лексических номинаций желательно включать элементы толкования, а сам словарь считать толково-дефиниционным. The article studies the specific features of hand-made (creative activity associated with handwork) terminology. This is a dynamically developing area of the term formation in modern Russian, which requires linguistic description and dictionary fixation. The object of the research is the lexical units of the thematic group "Handmade" in the amount of about 200 words. The purpose of the research is to determine the composition and features of this terminology. On the one hand, it demonstrates the main features of industry terminology. On the other hand, handmade terminology is characterized by imagery, expressiveness, polysemy, as shown in examples. This terminology is formed mainly spontaneously in the framework of spoken professional communication in the Internet discourse. There are six main thematic vocabulary groups. Handmade terminology can be viewed as a system of systems. Around the central concept of “technique or type of handiwork” is formed a ramified system of nominations. Handmade terminology does not have a lexicographic fixation in the special dictionary, and the spelling norms of many words are still being formed. Obviously, that the definition of such lexical nominations should include elements of interpretation. And the dictionary itself should be considered explanatory and definitional.
Understanding Dialogue: Language Use and Social Interaction represents a departure from classic theories in psycholinguistics and cognitive sciences; instead of taking as a starting point the isolated speech of an individual that can be extended to accommodate dialogue, a primary focus is put on developing a model adapted to dialogue itself, bearing in mind important aspects of dialogue as an activity with a heavily cooperative component. As a researcher of natural language processing with a background in linguistics, I find highly intriguing the possibilities provided by the dialogue model presented. Although the book does not itself touch upon the potential for automated dialogue, I am inevitably writing this review from the point of view of a computational linguist with these aspects in mind.Building on numerous previous works, including many of the authors’ own studies and theories, Understanding Dialogue presents the shared workspace framework, a framework for understanding not just dialogue but cooperative activities in general, of which dialogue is viewed as a subtype. Based on Bratman’s (1992) concept of shared cooperative activity, the framework provides a joint environment with which interlocutors can interact, both by contributing to the space (with actions or utterances for example), and by perceiving and processing their own or the other participants’ productions. The authors do not limit their work to linguistic communication: Many of their examples, particularly at the beginning of the book, are non-linguistic (e.g., hand shaking, dancing a tango, playing singles tennis); others are primarily physical, but will most likely also involve linguistic communication (such as jointly constructing flat-pack furniture); and others are purely linguistic (e.g., suggesting which restaurant to go to for lunch).The notion of alignment is highly important to this framework both from a linguistic and non-linguistic perspective, and is one of the main inspirations of the book, having previously been presented in Toward a Mechanistic Theory of Dialogue by the same authors. As individuals interact via the joint space, alignment concerns the equivalence in their representations at a conceptual level, with respect to their goals and relevant props in the shared environment (dialogue model alignment) and linguistic representations shared in the workspace (linguistic alignment). Roughly speaking, in this second (linguistic) case, this may for instance correspond to whether or not the individuals have the same representation of the utterance in terms of phonetics (were the sounds perceived correctly?) or in terms of lexical semantics (do they understand the same reference by the word uttered?). From here can be explained a number of different dialogue behaviors linked to the quest for alignment and the resolution of misalignment should it occur.The book is structured in four main parts, preceded by an Introduction presenting the challenges of dialogue and the main ideas behind the framework. The focus of the book is clearly stated from the beginning as being dialogue first, in a rejection of models that seek to study language primarily from a monologic point of view. As the authors point out, the notion of alignment underpinning the framework involves by its very nature multiple participants and therefore dialogic interactions must be studied in their own right. I shall provide only a brief summary of the four parts here, highlighting some components that in my view are key to the model, without however covering all themes, which would require a far more extensive description.Part I introduces the basis of the shared workspace framework as applied to activities with a cooperative component and then specifically to dialogue. The basic sender-receiver framework is quickly rejected, as it lacks the ability to represent certain key ele- ments of cooperative activities, such as allowing for feedback and representing an environment that is common to the participants. The shared workspace framework is then introduced, along with the four important characteristics of cooperative joint aspect systems that can be successfully illustrated with it: alignment (mentioned above), simulation (the representation of an activity without actually going through with it), prediction (the anticipation of participants’ behaviors), and synchrony (concerning the timing of behaviors in a joint activity), elements that are first studied in the context of joint activities in general (Chapter 3), before being reviewed specifically for dialogue (Chapter 4).Part II is dedicated to the aforementioned concept of alignment, fundamental to the framework of cooperative activity. The chapters in this section look at the distinction between the different levels at which alignment can occur, the processes involved, and the consequences of alignment, such as participants uttering similar linguistic productions. Another important notion introduced in this part is that of the meta-representation of alignment, which represents the participants’ belief about how aligned they are, which has inevitable consequences on how they then plan and implement their contributions.Part III continues with the theme of alignment but turns to aspects involving the efficiency of communication: succinctness of formulation (Chapter 8) and how we time our contributions (Chapter 9). Particularly interesting is the role of commentaries, which are contributions providing some sort of feedback on the alignment of participants and which can therefore affect the participants’ meta-representation of alignment. There is an important distinction between positive and negative commentaries, positive commentaries (such as “uh huh” in English) providing feedback that the speaker is aligned, therefore enabling the participants to meta-represent alignment, and negative ones (such as “huh?”) indicating a misalignment, but then enabling the participants to recover from that it. These commentaries contribute to the succinctness of dialogue and to maximizing the efficiency of joint participation by indicating meta-alignment. Finally, Chapter 9 discusses the notion of “speaking in good time,” related to the necessarily sequential nature of dialogue and the importance of timing, including the effects of different speech rates and the natural adaptation that occurs between interlocutors.Part IV looks beyond the main theme of dialogue to other forms of conversation, including multiparty conversations and collectives, exploring the possible roles of the different participants, and how this relates back to alignment and their contribution to the shared workspace. Also mentioned is monologue and the challenges that it poses with respect to the primary and more natural form of language communication that is dialogue. The final chapter introduces how the shared workspace can be augmented by adding props, illustrations, and recordings and by using alternative communicative tools, such as text messages and social media, which come with their own constraints with respect to the access they allow to the shared workspace.The description of the framework is thorough and well exemplified, with a continuity in the use of examples throughout the book. A repetition and embellishment of schemas helps to keep track of how the new additions from each chapter fit into the framework. I found some of the descriptions a little wordy, particularly because of the reiteration of definitions and motivations, and in the minutely detailed illustration of examples. However, from the point of view of pedagogy, this could be seen as adding clarity, particularly for the reader who decides to focus on particular chapters rather than reading the book from cover to cover. In my opinion, the book will be highly accessible to all readers, even those who have limited background on the topic, and the authors take care to make it clear how their framework and definitions agree with or differ from previous works.For me, there remain two main areas that could have been worthy of further exploration within the scope of this book. The first is the effect of cultural and linguistic differences. The authors do address the topic in Chapter 11, but in comparison with the detail afforded to the description of the framework, this subject remains rather lacking, with only a short section touching on it, under the the title of Social Norms and Joint Planning. The authors cite an interesting study by Fujii (2012) on the differences between American and Japanese speakers in terms of their use of language to foster alignment. However, this teaser does not lead on to a deeper discussion about cross-cultural differences as explained in terms of the concepts used in this framework. The second topic is the link to sign languages, which would appear to link more than perfectly with the shared workspace framework and yet is not mentioned by the authors.There is little doubt that the framework is an important step in modeling dialogue from a psycholinguistic perspective. As a researcher in natural language processing, I would be excited to see the the possibilities for this framework in a computational setting for automated dialogue, something that the authors mention in their conclusion. They evoke the failure of current chatbots such as Siri and Alexa to effectively dialogue due to their inability to provide commentary (e.g., in the context of an ambiguous question) and to meta-represent alignment (i.e., have an opinion on whether the representations of the dialogue participants are the same). They suggest that this framework could help provide the solution to the current disruptions in communication we meet when interacting with these systems. I therefore look forward to seeing what progress can be made from this point of view.
AbstractThe article examines the influence of the Arabic, Persian-Tajik, Russian languages on the structure of the dictionary of the Uzbek language, interference errors in language learning, their causes, views on interference, types of interference, elimination of speech errors associated with interference, methods are described. The development of vocabulary in the dictionary of the Uzbek language took a strong place in the dictionary arsenal of our language by two factors: through the colloquial language and the biblical language. Such non-zero factors, due to the development of Science and technology, are now entering our lexicon very rapidly, as a result of using their own language without finding an alternative to this word, lexical interperience takes place from colloquial speech. Over time, the words adopted from the Arabic, Persian-Tajik, Russian languages have lost their interperensiveness and have passed into the literary norm.
The article analyzes the problems that arise when teaching students of economic specialties, in particular: limited lexical components, ignorance of professional terminology, lack of communication skills, psychological and communicative barriers. Violation of the norms of the Ukrainian language use is outlined. The theoretical basis was the work of linguistic didactics, who emphasized that business language is a dynamic phenomenon that a specialist must constantly study, while researching and improving their own competencies. It is noted that the program in the discipline "Ukrainian for professional purposes" should acquaint students with the basics of professional language culture, the specifics of oral and written modern literary language, direct to study the terminology of the chosen specialty, develop skills in modern documentation and motivate to improve language and speech competencies. A list of tasks that can be used during practical classes to avoid errors is identified. Such tasks included: memorizing the correct accents of both professional terms and words of common vocabulary; work with texts, namely: elimination of lexical errors by choosing the right option; correction of spelling errors in the given texts; placement of missing punctuation marks in texts of official business, journalistic and scientific styles and their fragments; selection of Ukrainian equivalents to words of foreign origin; determining the correct endings in the genitive case of nouns; ability to translate narrow and interdisciplinary terminology into Ukrainian; preparation of professional documents. An important stage of language training of specialists in economic specialties is the knowledge and observance of the modern Ukrainian literary language norms in both oral and written speech. It is also pointed out that students should be aware that studying the state language is closely related to their personality and interests, and not to the methods and teaching aids used by the teacher. Keywords: norms of modern literary language, oral professional speech, professional culture, culture of professional speech, language training of students, teaching aids.
The article analyzes the A. Krymskyi’s codification works in the context of the linguistic heritage of Ukrainian linguists of the late XIX – early XX centuries. The formation of Ukrainian educational institutions prompted linguists to create educational language codes. And the school was a testing area for newly created prescriptions. Theoretical and practical problems of formation of literary standard in connection with tendencies of prescriptive norm are actualized, bases of scientific proof in grammar of historical antiquity, originality of phonetic, lexical and morphological systems of Ukrainian language, evidence of its own way of formation, dialectal variety and scales of functioning are clarified. The source base of codification codes were the language of writers, ethnographic sources, journalistic practice in the projection on the living vernacular. Tendencies of normalization depended on socio-political conditions, the need to justify the status of the Ukrainian language, bringing it to a new cultural level and manifested themselves in the activation of their own internal language resources, fixation of lexical-semantic, grammatical, functional perfection. This statement was indisputable due to the united normative activity of many other linguists, who laid the theoretical foundations for the establishment of the literary norm of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of public life. Issues of Ukrainian rule-making were raised in the late XIX – early XX centuries intensified intralinguistic potential, helped to find acceptable for the whole Ukrainian space literary samples, outlined trends in language development, encouraged future generations of linguists to solve theoretical and practical problems that have not lost their relevance today.
We examined how well imageability, concreteness, perceptual strength, and action strength predicted recognition memory, lexical decision, and reading aloud performance. We used our imageability estimates [Cortese, M. J., & Fugett, A. (2004). Imageability ratings for 3,000 monosyllabic words. Behavior Methods and Research, Instrumentation, & Computers, 36(3), 384–387. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195585; Schock, J., Cortese, M. J., & Khanna, M. M. (2012a). Imageability ratings for 3,000 disyllabic words. Behavior Research Methods, 44(2), 374–379. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-011-0162-0], concreteness norms of Brysbaert and colleagues [Brysbaert, M., Warriner, A. B., & Kuperman, V. (2014). Concreteness ratings for 40 thousand generally known English lemmas. Behavior Research Methods, 46(3), 904–911. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-013-0403-5], and perceptual and action strength ratings of Lynott and colleagues [Lynott, D., Connell, L., Brysbaert, M., Brand, J., & Carney, J. (2020). The lancaster sensorimotor norms: Multidimensional measures of perceptual and action strength for 40,000 English words. Behavior Research Methods, 52(3), 1271–1291. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-019-01316-z]. Our results indicate imageability is the best predictor, but methodological differences between ratings studies may contribute to the results. Surprisingly, action strength was negatively (albeit weakly) related to recognition memory. Analyses of item zRTs from the English lexicon project indicate these variables were not strong predictors of reading aloud or lexical decision performance. However, there is a small, consistent positive relationship between concreteness and zRTs (i.e., a facilitative abstractness effect). We believe researchers should either employ or control for imageability rather than concreteness, perceptual strength, or action strength when conducting recognition memory experiments. In addition, image-based codes generated at encoding strengthen memory traces but do not provide major inputs into reading aloud and lexical decision processes. Also, the facilitative abstractness effect on lexical decision and reading aloud zRTs may reflect more robust lexical representations for abstract words than concrete words, and that these two constructs are distinct.
The article deals with the problem of improving the quality of machine-based translation. The paper provides the neural network and statistical approaches with control over the created automatic specialized dictionaries for the development of a system for the automatic translation of English scientific and technical texts on information technologies into Belarusian. The article considers the main aspects and stages of linguistic database and algorithmic model developing for the given purpose and analyses the results and prospects of the developed automated information system “English-Belarusian Dictionary”.
The mood induction paradigm has been an important tool for investigating the effects of negative emotional states on working memory (WM) executive functions. Though some evidence showed that negative mood has a differential effect on verbal and visuospatial WM, other findings did not report a similar effect. To explore this issue, we examined the negative mood's impact on verbal and visuospatial WM executive tasks based on grammatical reasoning and visuospatial rotation. Participants with no anxiety or depression disorders performed the tasks before and after negative (n = 14) or neutral (n = 13) mood induction. Participants' mood at the beginning and the end of the session was assessed by the Present Mood States List (LEAP) and word valence rating. The analyses showed changes in the emotional state of the negative group (ps <.03) but not of the neutral group (ps >.83) in the LEAP instrument. No significant differences between groups were observed in the WM tasks (ps >.33). Performance in the visuospatial WM task improved after mood induction for both groups (p <.05), possibly due to a practice effect. In sum, our findings challenge the view that negative mood modulates WM executive functions; thus, they were discussed considering the similarities and differences between studies that found negative mood effects on WM and those that did not find. Different WM tasks tap distinct processes and components, which may underlie behavioral effects of negative mood on WM tasks.
The basic prerequisite for using any language is the willingness of the speaker to follow the rules of the game. Socially defined norms of language use then tend to set the limits within which one can express oneself using this language. Whether these norms set the speaker free or whether they act as constraints in a free expression of Self, is a question that will be raised in this article. Using examples from Hindi, the paper highlights the role of such norms of language use in perpetuating gender stereotypes. Gender stereotypes get constructed as part of a broader process of social differentiation but the site of this construction is to a large extent the normal everyday discourse. A normal classroom discussion amongst university students in New Delhi thus shows how deep rooted such stereotypes are and how effectively they get perpetuated through language and linguistic norms in Indian society. The basic premise in this paper is that meanings are context-specific, they are not fixed and they get created in discourse. But since language use is one thread in social fabric, it serves as an instrument to construct and perpetuate gender stereotypes. The paper is more of an essay on issues that became obvious about gender stereotypes during two classroom discussions. It should not therefore be taken as a study into the deeper aspects of gender representation in Hindi.
Introduction: The addition of graphic health warnings on cigarette packets can facilitate smoking cessation, primarily through their ability to elicit a negative affective response. Smoking is linked to COVID-19 mortality, thus making it likely to elicit a strong affective response in smokers. COVID-19-related health warnings (C19HW) may therefore enhance graphic health warnings, when compared to traditional health warnings (THW). Further, because impulsivity influences smoking behaviours, we also examined whether these affective responses were associated with delay discounting.Methods: In a between-subjects design, 240 smokers rated the valence and arousal elicited by tobacco packaging that contained either a C19HW or THW (both referring to death). Participants also completed questionnaires to quantify delay discounting and attitudes towards COVID-19 and smoking (eg, health risks, motivation to quit).Results: There were no differences between the two health warning types on either valence or arousal, nor any secondary outcome variables. There was, however, a significant interaction between health warning type and delay discounting on arousal ratings. Specifically, in smokers who exhibit low delay discounting, C19HWs elicited significantly greater subjective arousal rating than did THWs, whereas there was no significant effect of health warning type on arousal in smokers who exhibited high delay discounting.Conclusion: The results suggest that in smokers who exhibit low impulsivity (but not high impulsivity), C19HWs may be more arousing than THWs. Future work is required to explore the long-term utility of C19HWs, and to identify the specific mechanism by which delay discounting moderates the impact of tobacco health warnings.
Manually annotating a treebank is time consuming and laborintensive. We conduct delexicalized crosslingual dependency pars ing experiments, where we train the parser on one language and test on our target language. As our test case, we use Xibe, a severely underresourced Tungusic language. We as sume that choosing a closely related language as the source language will provide better re sults than more distant relatives. However, it is not clear how to determine those closely re lated languages. We investigate three differ ent methods: choosing the typologically clos est language, using LangRank, and choosing the most similar language based on perplexity.
Civil identity is one of the most significant factors in modern political practice. Today’s identity formation and development of large national groups is less based on a cultural and historical foundation and increasingly depends on political technologies. Among them, the construction of new languages plays an important role. The article studies the Bosnian language policy, which, contrary to forming a common civil identity, as a result of the politicization of linguistic norms becomes a factor in creating a “forge of hatred”. Drawing on constructivist social theories, the author summarizes Bosnian linguistic practices and examines them through the prism of symbolic interactionism and negative feedback systems. Particular attention is paid to situations when the desire for effective communication motivates speakers to abandon ethnically colored linguistic markers and situations in which the language acts as a defense against the internal “other.” Applying the criteria for distinguishing between language and dialects, the author concludes that the phonetic principle of the Serbo-Croatian language formation made it possible, after the destruction of Yugoslavia, to turn this linguistic continuum into an identification weapon to delimit the citizens of one country. This experience helps analyze the politicization of literary interpretations and linguistic norms in other regions of the world, where there are also examples of the growth of xenophobia, nationalism, and intolerance resulting from a differentiating language policy.
Compound probabilistic context-free grammars (C-PCFGs) have recently established a new state of the art for unsupervised phrase-structure grammar induction. However, due to the high space and time complexities of chart-based representation and inference, it is difficult to investigate C-PCFGs comprehensively. In this work, we rely on a fast implementation of C-PCFGs to conduct an evaluation complementary to that of~\citet{kim-etal-2019-compound}. We start by analyzing and ablating C-PCFGs on English treebanks. Our findings suggest that (1) C-PCFGs are data-efficient and can generalize to unseen sentence/constituent lengths; and (2) C-PCFGs make the best use of sentence-level information in generating preterminal rule probabilities. We further conduct a multilingual evaluation of C-PCFGs. The experimental results show that the best configurations of C-PCFGs, which are tuned on English, do not always generalize to morphology-rich languages.
Abstract Background The Montessori Method underpinned by the principle of person-centered care has been widely adopted to design activities for people with dementia. However, the methodological quality of the existing evidence is fair. The objectives of this study are to examine the feasibility and effects of a culturally adapted group-based Montessori Method for Dementia program in Chinese community on engagement and affect in community-dwelling people with dementia. Methods This was a two-arm randomized controlled trial. People who were aged 60 years or over and with mild to moderate dementia were recruited and randomly assigned to the intervention group to receive Montessori-based activities or the comparison group to receive conventional group activities over eight weeks. The attendance rates were recorded for evaluating the feasibility. The Menorah Park Engagement Scale and the Apparent Affect Rating Scale were used to assess the engagement and affect during the activities based on observations. Generalized Estimating Equation model was used to examine the intervention effect on the outcomes across the sessions. Results A total of 108 people with dementia were recruited. The average attendance rate of the intervention group (81.5%) was higher than that of the comparison group (76.3%). There was a significant time-by-group intervention effect on constructive engagement in the first 10 minutes of the sessions (Wald χ 2 = 15.21–19.93, ps = 0.006–0.033), as well as on pleasure (Wald χ 2 = 25.37–25.73, ps ≤ 0.001) and interest (Wald χ2 = 19.14–21.11, p s = 0.004–0.008) in the first and the middle 10 minutes of the sessions, adjusted for cognitive functioning. Conclusions This study provide evidence that Montessori-based group activities adapted to the local cultural context could effectively engage community-dwelling Chinese older people with mild to moderate dementia in social interactions and meaningful activities and significantly increase their positive affect. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04352387. Registered 20 April 2020. Retrospectively registered.
Dutch reading culture is so international that it is fair to say foreign texts in Dutch translation are part of Dutch literature. But translation of literature ‘into Dutch’ is itself not without pitfalls, it proves to be an arena where Dutch diverging linguistic norms become visible. Retranslation can be a means to negotiate these complex target culture norms. In the Dutch language literary field the policy of avoiding ‘Flemish’ for the Dutch language book market seems to have been consistent and widespread as e.g. the case of Richard Scarry’s ABC-books shows. Three consecutive translations of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Books, seen from a cultural-political angle, clearly show how the unity or heterogeneity of the Dutch speaking literary field is negotiated. My paper demonstrates how retranslations can serve as negotiations between not only source and target culture but even within the target culture itself.
Music tempo is closely connected to listeners’ musical emotion and multifunctional neural activities. Music with increasing tempo evokes higher emotional responses and music with decreasing tempo enhances relaxation. However, the neural substrate of emotion evoked by dynamically changing tempo is still unclear. To investigate the spatial connectivity and temporal dynamic functional network connectivity (dFNC) of musical emotion evoked by dynamically changing tempo, we collected dynamic emotional ratings and conducted group independent component analysis (ICA), sliding time window correlations, and k-means clustering to assess the FNC of emotion evoked by music with decreasing tempo (180–65 bpm) and increasing tempo (60–180 bpm). Music with decreasing tempo (with more stable dynamic valences) evoked higher valence than increasing tempo both with stronger independent components (ICs) in the default mode network (DMN) and sensorimotor network (SMN). The dFNC analysis showed that with time-decreasing FNC across the whole brain, emotion evoked by decreasing music was associated with strong spatial connectivity within the DMN and SMN. Meanwhile, it was associated with strong FNC between the DMN–frontoparietal network (FPN) and DMN–cingulate-opercular network (CON). The paired t -test showed that music with a decreasing tempo evokes stronger activation of ICs within DMN and SMN than that with an increasing tempo, which indicated that faster music is more likely to enhance listeners’ emotions with multifunctional brain activities even when the tempo is slowing down. With increasing FNC across the whole brain, music with an increasing tempo was associated with strong connectivity within FPN; time-decreasing connectivity was found within CON, SMN, VIS, and between CON and SMN, which explained its unstable valence during the dynamic valence rating. Overall, the FNC can help uncover the spatial and temporal neural substrates of musical emotions evoked by dynamically changing tempi.
We present an initial study into the representation of tree-adjoining grammar formalism for parsing Manipuri language. Being a low resource and computationally less researched language, it is difficult to achieve a natural language parser for Manipuri. Treebanks, which are the main requirement for inducing data-driven parsers, are not available for Manipuri. In this paper, we present an extensive analysis of the Manipuri language structure and formulate a lexicalized tree-adjoining grammar. A generalized structure of Manipuri phrases, clauses and the structure of basic and derived sentences have been presented. The sentence types covered in our analysis are that of simple, compound and complex sentences. Using the tree-adjoining grammar we have formulated, one can implement a Manipuri parser whose results can be of immense help in creating a Treebank for Manipuri.
Previously we found perspective taking (PT) influenced affect ratings of negative pictures more than neutral pictures. The current follow-up experiments extend that research to explore effects of perspective taking with positive valence pictures. We used stimuli consisting of neutral, happy and sad pictures. Stimuli were presented either mixed within blocks (Experiment 1) or separated by emotion (neutrals + happy/sad) into two separate blocks (Experiment 2). Participants rated (from 1- to 7 based on emotional strength) stimuli from different perspectives (sensitive/tough/their own, i.e., "me"). Emotional strength rating was a dependent variable. A significant interaction between valence and PT was found in both experiments. The difference between adopting sensitive and tough perspectives toward sadness was larger than toward the neutral condition, replicating our results from the previous study. The same difference (sensitive-tough) was larger toward the happiness condition than toward the neutral one (this was a trend in Experiment 1 and was significant in Experiment 2) and toward the sadness condition than toward the happy one. These results suggest that PT effects on emotional ratings are modulated by valence of stimuli.
Recent theories propose moderate (compared to high or no) stressor exposure to promote emotion regulation capacities. More precisely, stressful situations are expected to serve as practice opportunities for cognitive reappraisal (CR), that is, the reinterpretation of a situation to alter its emotional impact. Accordingly, in this study, we expect an inverted U-shaped relationship between exposure to daily hassles and performance in a CR task, that is, best reappraisal ability in individuals with a history of moderate stressor exposure. Participants (N = 165) reported the number of daily hassles during the last week as indicator of stressor exposure and completed the Script-based Reappraisal Test (SRT). In the SRT, participants are presented with fear-eliciting scripts and instructed to either downregulate negative affect via reappraisal (reappraisal-trials) or react naturally (control-trials). Two measures indicate CR ability: (1) reappraisal effectiveness, that is, the difference between affective ratings in reappraisal- and control-trials and (2) reappraisal inventiveness, that is, the number of valid and categorically different reappraisal thoughts. Multiple regression analyses revealed positive linear, but not quadratic, relationships of exposure to daily hassles and both indicators of CR ability. Potential benefits of stressor exposure for emotion regulation processes are discussed.
There are only a few previous EEG studies that were conducted while the audience is listening to live music. However, in laboratory settings using music recordings, EEG frequency bands theta and alpha are connected to music improvisation and creativity. Here, we measured EEG of the audience in a concert-like setting outside the laboratory and compared the theta and alpha power evoked by partly improvised versus regularly performed familiar versus unfamiliar live classical music. To this end, partly improvised and regular versions of pieces by Bach (familiar) and Melartin (unfamiliar) were performed live by a chamber trio. EEG data from left and right frontal and central regions of interest were analysed to define theta and alpha power during each performance. After the performances, the participants rated how improvised and attractive each of the performances were. They also gave their affective ratings before and after each performance. We found that theta power was enhanced during the familiar improvised Bach piece and the unfamiliar improvised Melartin piece when compared with the performance of the same piece performed in a regular manner. Alpha power was not modulated by manner of performance or by familiarity of the piece. Listeners rated partly improvised performances of a familiar Bach and unfamiliar Melartin piece as more improvisatory and innovative than the regular performances. They also indicated more joy and less sadness after listening to the unfamiliar improvised piece of Melartin and less fearful and more enthusiastic after listening to the regular version of Melartin than before listening. Thus, according to our results, it is possible to study listeners' brain functions with EEG during live music performances outside the laboratory, with theta activity reflecting the presence of improvisation in the performances.
Though machine learning algorithms are able to achieve pattern recognition from the correlation between data and labels, the presence of spurious features in the data decreases the robustness of these learned relationships with respect to varied testing environments. This is known as out-of-distribution (OoD) generalization problem. Recently, invariant risk minimization (IRM) attempts to tackle this issue by penalizing predictions based on the unstable spurious features in the data collected from different environments. However, similar to domain adaptation or domain generalization, a prevalent non-trivial limitation in these works is that the environment information is assigned by human specialists, i.e. a priori, or determined heuristically. However, an inappropriate group partitioning can dramatically deteriorate the OoD generalization and this process is expensive and time-consuming. To deal with this issue, we propose a novel theoretically principled min-max framework to iteratively construct a worst-case splitting, i.e. creating the most challenging environment splittings for the backbone learning paradigm (e.g. IRM) to learn the robust feature representation. We also design a differentiable training strategy to facilitate the feasible gradient- based computation. Numerical experiments show that our algorithmic framework has achieved superior and stable performance in various datasets, such as Colored MNIST and Punctuated Stanford sentiment treebank (SST). Furthermore, we also find our algorithm to be robust even to a strong data poisoning attack. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first to adopt differentiable environment splitting method to enable stable predictions across environments without environment index information, which achieves the state-of-the-art performance on datasets with strong spurious correlation, such as Colored MNIST.
Multisensory integration influences emotional perception, as the McGurk effect demonstrates for the communication between humans. Human physiology implicitly links the production of visual features with other modes like the audio channel: Face muscles responsible for a smiling face also stretch the vocal cords that results in a characteristic smiling voice. For artificial agents capable of multimodal expression, this linkage is modeled explicitly. In our study, we observe the influence of visual and audio channel on the perception of the agent’s emotional state. We created two virtual characters to control for anthropomorphic appearance. We record videos of these agents either with matching or mismatching emotional expression in the audio and visual channel. In an online study we measured the agent’s perceived valence and arousal. Our results show that a matched smiling voice and smiling face increase both dimensions of the Circumplex model of emotions: ratings of valence and arousal grow. When the channels present conflicting information, any type of smiling results in higher arousal rating, but only the visual channel increases the perceived valence. When engineers are constrained in their design choices, we suggest they should give precedence to convey the artificial agent’s emotional state through the visual channel.
We present a recurrent neural network memory that uses sparse coding to create a combinatoric encoding of sequential inputs. The network is trained using only local and immediate credit assignment. Despite this constraint, results are comparable to networks trained using deep backpropagation or BackProp Through Time (BPTT). With several examples, we show that the network can associate distant cause and effect in a discrete stochastic process, predict partially-observable higherorder sequences, and learn to generate many time-steps of video simulations. Typical memory consumption is 10-30x less than conventional RNNs, such as LSTM, trained by BPTT. One limitation of the memory is generalization to unseen input sequences. We additionally explore this limitation by measuring next-word prediction perplexity on the Penn Treebank dataset.
Abstract Quantitative 23 Na magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides tissue sodium concentration (TSC), which is connected to cell viability and vitality. Long acquisition times are one of the most challenging aspects for its clinical establishment. K‐space undersampling is an approach for acquisition time reduction, but generates noise and artifacts. The use of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) is increasing in medical imaging and they are a useful tool for MRI postprocessing. The aim of this study is 23 Na MRI acquisition time reduction by k‐space undersampling. CNNs were applied to reduce the resulting noise and artifacts. A retrospective analysis from a prospective study was conducted including image datasets from 46 patients (aged 72 ± 13 years; 25 women, 21 men) with ischemic stroke; the 23 Na MRI acquisition time was 10 min. The reconstructions were performed with full dataset (FI) and with a simulated dataset an image that was acquired in 2.5 min (RI). Eight different CNNs with either U‐Net–based or ResNet‐based architectures were implemented with RI as input and FI as label, using batch normalization and the number of filters as varying parameters. Training was performed with 9500 samples and testing included 400 samples. CNN outputs were evaluated based on signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) and structural similarity (SSIM). After quantification, TSC error was calculated. The image quality was subjectively rated by three neuroradiologists. Statistical significance was evaluated by Student’s t‐test. The average SNR was 21.72 ± 2.75 (FI) and 10.16 ± 0.96 (RI). U‐Nets increased the SNR of RI to 43.99 and therefore performed better than ResNet. SSIM of RI to FI was improved by three CNNs to 0.91 ± 0.03. CNNs reduced TSC error by up to 15%. The subjective rating of CNN‐generated images showed significantly better results than the subjective image rating of RI. The acquisition time of 23 Na MRI can be reduced by 75% due to postprocessing with a CNN on highly undersampled data.
In this paper, we leverage pre-trained language models (PLMs) to precisely evaluate the semantics preservation of edition process on sentences. Our metric, Neighbor Distribution Divergence (NDD), evaluates the disturbance on predicted distribution of neighboring words from mask language model (MLM). NDD is capable of detecting precise changes in semantics which are easily ignored by text similarity. By exploiting the property of NDD, we implement a unsupervised and even training-free algorithm for extractive sentence compression. We show that our NDD-based algorithm outperforms previous perplexity-based unsupervised algorithm by a large margin. For further exploration on interpretability, we evaluate NDD by pruning on syntactic dependency treebanks and apply NDD for predicate detection as well.
Can the presence of unrelated flanker words change the way that lexical decisions are made to target words in the flankers task? Here we examined the impact of flanker presence on the effects of word concreteness. Target words had high or low concreteness ratings (e.g., fork, free) and were either presented in isolation or flanked to the left and right by an unrelated word (e.g., cold free cold) that was irrelevant for the task. Results revealed that the facilitatory effect of concreteness (faster responses to concrete words compared with abstract words) was significantly greater in the presence of flankers. A control experiment revealed the same pattern with pseudoword and nonword flankers. We conclude that the mere presence of flanking letter strings causes a greater depth of processing of target words. We further speculate that this might arise by flankers inducing a more "sentence-like" context by the presence of multiple, spatially distinct letter strings, that prohibits the use of more superficial decision processes and can be used to make lexical decisions to isolated words.
Research has identified three different types of smiles – the reward, affiliation and dominance smile – which serve expressions of happiness, connectedness, and superiority, respectively. Examining their explicit and implicit evaluations by considering a perceivers’ level of social anxiety and psychopathy may enhance our understanding of these smiles’ theorised meanings, and their role in problematic social behaviour. Female participants (N=122) filled in questionnaires on social anxiety, psychopathic tendencies (i.e. the affective-interpersonal deficit and antisocial lifestyle) and callous–unemotional (CU) traits. In order to measure explicit and implicit evaluations of the three smiles, angry and neutral facial expressions, an Explicit Valence Rating Task and an Approach-Avoidance Task were administered. Results indicated that all smiles were explicitly evaluated as positive. No differences in implicit evaluations between the smile types were found. Social anxiety was not associated with either explicit or implicit smile evaluations. In contrast, CU-traits were negatively associated with explicit evaluations of reward and dominance smiles. These findings support the assumptions of non-biased explicit information processing in social anxiety, and flattened emotional sensitivity in CU-traits. The importance of a multimethod approach to enhance the understanding of the effects of smile types on perceivers is discussed.
The presence of a partner can attenuate physiological fear responses, a phenomenon known as social buffering. However, not all individuals are equally sociable. Here we investigated whether social buffering of fear is shaped by sensitivity to social anxiety (social concern) and whether these effects are different in females and males. We collected skin conductance responses (SCRs) and affect ratings of female and male participants when they experienced aversive and neutral sounds alone (alone treatment) or in the presence of an unknown person of the same gender (social treatment). Individual differences in social concern were assessed based on a well-established questionnaire. Our results showed that social concern had a stronger effect on social buffering in females than in males. The lower females scored on social concern, the stronger the SCRs reduction in the social compared to the alone treatment. The effect of social concern on social buffering of fear in females disappeared if participants were paired with a virtual agent instead of a real person. Together, these results showed that social buffering of human fear is shaped by gender and social concern. In females, the presence of virtual agents can buffer fear, irrespective of individual differences in social concern. These findings specify factors that shape the social modulation of human fear, and thus might be relevant for the treatment of anxiety disorders.
FrameNet is a lexical semantic resource based on the linguistic theory of frame semantics. A number of framenet development strategies have been reported previously and all of them involve exploration of corpora and a fair amount of manual work. Despite previous efforts, there does not exist a well-thought-out automatic/semi-automatic methodology for frame construction. In this paper we propose a data-driven methodology for identification and semi-automatic construction of frames. As a proof of concept, we report on our initial attempts to build a widerscale framenet for the legal domain (LawFN) using the proposed methodology. The constructed frames are stored in a lexical database and together with the annotated example sentences they have been made available through a web interface.