Profane Research Articles

„...dieweil er aber alt und schwach ist”. Alter und Altern in den siebenbürgisch-sächsischen Urkunden aus dem 15.-17. Jahrhundert

The aim of this article is to trace the phenomenon of age and ageing as it is reflected in the German-language documents from Transylvania. Four directions can be recognized. On the one hand, ageing is associated with frailty, weakness and illness, so that the elderly must be supported by family and descendants. On the other hand, old age is associated with experience, wisdom and tradition. Sometimes "old" is only used as an identifier in comparison to other people names. Another aspect is society's disparaging attitude towards older people, which is reflected in the documents in swear words containing the adjective "old".

Female students' participation (over the years) in esports and its implications on psychological conditions, communication, and virtual gaming risks

eSport is a sport of choice and is quite popular, especially among young people, including women. This virtual sport has been developed entirely with various ways to play. At the same time, there is a negative paradigm of eSport games for women in Indonesia, including damaging vision, causing numbness in the hands, forgetting to eat, being introverted, and using harsh language. From a cultural perspective, women who play eSport are considered to violate the nature of women because they reflect masculine characteristics. This study uses quantitative research with a causal-comparative design to examine the effect of female students' participation in playing eSports on psychological development, communication skills, and the risks of virtual games. The research data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially (Multivariate Analysis of Variance). The analysis results prove a simultaneous influence between eSport participation (duration of playing) and ​​female students' psychological conditions, communication, and virtual game risks. In partial testing, eSport participation only significantly affected the communication skills variable of female students, while the other two variables did not. Future research needs to conduct qualitative investigations to explore the clinical experiences of female gamers that help them train their communication skills. Given the existence of various gender discriminatory behaviours in eSports, female gamers may have good communication to protect themselves from the threat of discrimination, or vice versa.

First-language acquisition in a multimodal language framework: Insights from speech, gesture, and sign

Children across the world acquire their first language(s) naturally, regardless of typology or modality (e.g. sign or spoken). Various attempts have been made to explain the puzzle of language acquisition using several approaches, trying to understand to what extent it can be explained by what children bring to language-learning situations as well as what they learn from the input and the interactive context. However, most of these approaches consider only speech development, thus ignoring the inherently multimodal nature of human language. As a multimodal view of language is becoming more widely adopted for the study of adult language, a multimodal approach to language acquisition is inevitable. Not only do children have the capacity to learn spoken and sign language equally easily, but spoken language acquisition consists of learning to coordinate linguistic expressions in both modalities, that is, in both speech and gesture. To provide a step forward in this direction, this article aims to synthesize findings from research studies that take a multimodal perspective on language acquisition in different sign and spoken languages, including the development of speech and accompanying gestures. Our review shows that while some aspects of language acquisition seem to be modality-independent, others might differ according to the affordances of each modality when used separately as well as together (either in sign, speech, and/or gesture). We argue that these findings need to be integrated into our understanding of language acquisition. We also identify which areas need future research for both spoken and sign language acquisition, taking into account not only multimodal but also cross-linguistic variation.

The Duties of Sangging in the Implementation of the Hindu Religious Ceremony of Manusa Yadnya Metatah Mass in Bali: A Study of Occupational Health Science

Occupational Health and Safety (K3) is our effort to create a healthy and safe working environment, so that it can reduce the probability of work accidents / diseases due to negligence that result in demotivation and deficiencies in work productivity. According to the Basic Health Law of the Republic of Indonesia No. 9 of 1960 Chapter I Article II, Occupational Health is a health condition that aims for workers to obtain the highest level of health, both physical, spiritual and social, with prevention and treatment efforts for diseases or health disorders caused by work and the work environment or general diseases. in all work activities in human social and religious life such as research on mass metatah ceremonies that are often carried out by Hindus in Bali, in this case the position of the sangging is the key in this metatah ceremony. Sangging is a person who is tasked with cutting teeth during the metatah ceremony. The duties of the sangging in carrying out metatah are to sharpen the two canine teeth and four incisors in the upper jaw with a file. Providing toothpaste made from turmeric, betel lime and sandalwood rubbing. Following up on the Yama Pati Tatwa palm leaf, a sangging needs to understand the structure of tooth tissue and occupational health science to maintain the sanctity of the ceremony. The metatah ceremony or 'mepandes', 'mesangih' or 'metah ceremony' (Balinese) is a Hindu religious ceremony that must be carried out by all Hindus in Bali. The metatah ceremony contains meaning for life, namely changing behavior to become a true human being who can control himself from the temptation of lust, and fulfilling the obligations of parents to children in order to find the true nature of humanity. This study aims to analyze the nature of the implementation of the mass metatah ceremony in Bali Province in the study of occupational health science. The research design uses a case study based on its type, namely an explanatory case study, which focuses on the mass metatah ceremony. Data is analyzed descriptively and carefully until complete. The results of the study indicate that: 1) occupational health knowledge for the sangging in the mass metatah ceremony has the nature to achieve the maximum goal of the yadnya metatah ceremony, namely suppressing bad thoughts, words, and behavior by controlling themselves from the temptation of lust; 2) the process of implementing the metatah ceremony carried out by a sangging is done by filing both canine teeth and four jaw incisors. However, the process is carried out carefully according to health science and the impact of mass metatah, namely social, psychological, health and economic impacts. The implications of the research results, namely the implementation of the 'manusia yadnya' metatah must be carried out carefully by paying attention to health risks when the metatah ceremony is carried out, internence and application of occupational health science need to be carried out so that religious ceremonies become pure physically and mentally according to the purpose of the metatah ceremony.

Linguistic models of abusive language

ABSTRACT Abusive language and hate speech that incites violence is a growing problem for governments trying to manage social media posts on the internet. Such language incites civil disorder by angering target individuals and groups, and tends to reinforce the identity and cohesiveness of those who use it. Abusive language is an intelligence target because it can be a leading indicator of violence. Black box predictors can achieve high accuracy but they reveal nothing about the structures, both social and technical, that underlie abusive language. We build a set of abusive language predictors leveraging both social constructs such as otherness, and linguistic properties. A stacking predictor then determines the most significant component predictors. We achieve prediction accuracy of 96.5%, with an 88% accuracy for abusive documents. This is an improvement of more than 16% points in detecting abusive documents compared to a popular empirically derived predictors, and provides insights into the mechanics of abusive language.

Using Deep Learning Techniques to Detect Hate and Abusive Language in Arabic Tweets

Using Deep Learning Techniques to Detect Hate and Abusive Language in Arabic Tweets

The The potential of words to become swearing: An ethno semantic study

This research aims to describe the potential of words as swear words through an ethno semantic study. This research differs from other swearing studies examining the form and meaning of swear words. This study presents the potential of words to become swear words. This research employs a phenomenological approach. Swear words are expressive words that convey emotions and are easily found in both oral and written forms, whether directly or on social media. The data collection technique for swear words is documentation. The steps in documentation include recording sentences that contain swear words and classifying them based on the characteristics of swear words. The analysis technique for swear words uses conceptual meaning analysis. Based on the classification of the data, the words are analyzed for their components of meaning, both lexically and in terms of meaning derived from cultural associations and societal thought. Thus, the findings reveal the potential of each lexical word to become a curse word using an ethno semantic approach. Through an ethno semantic study, two potentials exist for words to become swear words. First, conceptual meaning is added due to the speakers' ideas, thoughts, knowledge, and culture. Second, there is a loss of conceptual meaning in the form of functional components in the lexical meaning of a word.

Reading Comprehension Activities in the Ugandan English as a Foreign Language Classroom

The study examines the reading comprehension activities in the Ugandan English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. It particularly analyses the activities that the learners of EFL participate in as part of their reading comprehension lessons. The study focusses on EFL learners from countries such as Congo, Eritrea, South Sudan, and Ethiopia, among others studying in Ugandan adult language schools. The specific objectives of the study were to identify the reading comprehension activities in the Ugandan EFL classroom and to establish the learners’ response to the reading comprehension activities used in the EFL class. Drawing on the transactional theory, the study analyses the reading comprehension activities and the learners’ response to them. The findings indicate that the most profound activities in the classes were pre-reading activities. In their order of frequency, pre-reading activities were the most profound in the classes observed, followed by while-reading and the post-reading activities, which were the least used. In the classes where reading activities were used, they excited the majority of the EFL learners and they paid attention to the lesson. The learners’ response to the activities was diverse with the majority expressing interest in the activities as others chose not to participate at all. The study recommends the use of more reading comprehension activities especially at the while- and post-reading comprehension stages of the lessons which were lacking in most of the classes observed. It further recommends involving the learners and putting into consideration their views during the identification and selection of reading comprehension activities to ensure their maximum participation in the reading comprehension activities

Drivers of hate speech in political conversations on Twitter: the case of the 2022 Italian general election

We study the prevalence and characteristics of toxic speech on Twitter in the run-up to the 2022 Italian General election. We analyzed over 8.5 M tweets shared by 450k unique users and employed a machine learning classifier to estimate the toxicity score of their messages. We found that supporters of different political coalitions exhibit varying levels of toxic speech, sending between 6-8% of toxic messages overall. Notably, Centre-Left politicians received more toxic messages on average, with the largest target of hate receiving over 15,000 toxic replies. We employed Generalized Linear Models to study factors that drive hate speech to political targets, finding that, importantly, politicians employing more abusive and harmful language are also more likely to attract more inflammatory speech. Our findings underscore the critical need for targeted interventions to address hate speech online, fostering healthier dialogue and safeguarding democratic discourse.

Sentiment Analysis of Arabic Tweets: Detecting Revilement

Social media systems play an necessary function in shaping public opinion and reflecting societal sentiments. This study focuses on sentiment analysis in Arabic tweets with a particular focus on offensive or offensive content. The aim of this research is to boost a dependable sentiment evaluation model that can accurately classify Arabic tweets as positive or negative, with a particular focus on identifying offensive language. A multinomial Naive Bayes classifier is trained on pre-processed data to perform sentiment classification. The classifier is fine-tuned to differentiate between positive and negative emotions, with a particular focus on identifying offensive or swearing language. The model is evaluated the usage of a complete set of metrics along with precision, precision, recall, and F1score. Experimental consequences point out promising overall performance of the developed sentiment evaluation model. The model achieved an accuracy of 93%, effectively classifying Arabic tweets into effective and bad sentiments. The precision, recall, and F1-score metrics similarly validate the model's capacity to precisely become aware of revilement and offensive language. These outcomes spotlight the conceivable of the proposed strategy in successfully examining Arabic tweets for sentiment and offensive content, contributing to higher grasp on line behaviors and sentiments in the context of revilement.

"Death Is Not a Dirty Word:" A Qualitative Study of Emergency Clinician End-of-Life Communication.

Pediatric patients with life-limiting diagnoses frequently seek care in the pediatric emergency department (PED) during times of acute illness, or at end-of-life (EOL) . Although the population of patients with life-limiting diagnoses is heterogenous, clinician expertise in EOL communication is essential to providing family-centered care. In this study, we explored PED physician and nurse experiences with communication when eliciting EOL values, including factors specified to the PED environment, clinician perceptions of family supports and preferences, and clinicians' self-reflection of their skills and challenges in this sphere. We performed a prospective qualitative study using semistructured interviews of PED physicians and nurses recruited from a quaternary care center. Thematic content analysis was performed on the transcribed interviews to identify codes and, ultimately, themes. We interviewed 17 emergency department clinicians, including 10 physicians and 7 nurses. Thematic content analysis revealed 6 salient themes. The first theme related to contextual factors of the emergency department environment. Two additional themes related to patient and family characteristics, including unique patient and family factors and clinician interpretation of parental/family needs. Lastly, we found 3 clinician-focused themes including knowledge gaps in EOL communication, communication styles and priorities in EOL conversations with families, and coping with ethical challenges. PED clinicians report communication-related challenges to providing optimal care for families and patients with life-limiting diagnoses. Participants self-identified gaps in communication skills in this area. Future studies should focus on clinician educational interventions on the basis of this needs assessment and include family perspectives to develop best practice.

Swedish L2 teacher cognitions of the initial assessment of students' L1 literacy resources

In this paper, we explore second language (L2) teachers’ cognitions regarding the initial assessment of adult learner literacy in their strongest language. Instruction can thus be adapted according to what is stipulated in the curriculum and syllabus. The literacy assessment is conducted in the student’s strongest language with assistance from an interpreter, translated decoding and reading comprehension tasks and concerns assessment of learners with little or no prior education. Questionnaires and interviews with L2 teachers reveal great variation based on four categories of teacher knowledge, namely, Subject matter knowledge, Knowledge of students, Pedagogical knowledge, and Knowledge of educational contexts. These four categories were partly intertwined with each other and both a resource and a deficit perspective emerged. The teachers’ cognitions regarding the concept of literacy, the value of initial L1 literacy assessment and students’ prior literacy and multilingual resources, as well as its potential for instruction planning were diverse. This may have significant implications for what emerges in initial assessments of a student's L1 literacy. In turn, this affects the validity of the assessment and, ultimately, the quality of education.

Usage Sphere and Recognition Rate of Vulgarisms

The article scrutinizes vulgarisms used in swear words, slangs, jargons, proverbs, sayings and idioms. Besides, the study made a survey on vulgarisms used in these lexical units by different age group respondents. While analyzing the article, it turned out that vulgarisms do not emerge as a result of anger or fury, so they can appear as a result of pampering or cuddling, too. After a rigid analysis, it became known that elderly respondents know more proverbs and sayings rich in vulgarity due to longer life experience while middle-aged people know more sexual slangs due to access to porn sites and adult videos. Teenagers do not know any proverbs or sayings containing vulgar words because of lack of life experience. After a profound investigation, it turned out that swear words host the most vulgarity while it is followed by slangs and jargons. Sexual slangs contain the second biggest vulgarity. Vulgarisms are sometimes euphemized in slangs or jargons while it is impossible in swear words.

Disfemisme Ungkapan Umpatan pada Terjemahan Arab-Indonesia Cerpen “طبلية من السماء” Karya Yusuf Idris

This article examines the use of dysphemism in swear words in the translation of Yusuf Idris's short story “Thobaliyyah Min As-Sama'” into Herpin Nopiandi Khurosan's short story “Tray from Heaven”. Dysfeminism refers to the use of language that is designed to emphasize negative connotations and make a statement sound worse or harsher. This study aims to determine the form of swear word dysphemism in the Arabic-Indonesian translation of the short story “Thobaliyyah Min As-Sama'”, knowing the function of swear word dysphemism in the Arabic-Indonesian translation of the short story “Thobaliyyah Min As-Sama”. The theory used in this research is Allan and Burridge's theory of dysphemism. The method of this research is descriptive qualitative, with 2 data collection techniques, namely reading the entire contents of the short story and recording the data in accordance with the theory. Then the data were analyzed using the Miles and Huberman method, namely by collecting data, reducing data, presenting data, and conclusions. The results of this study show that there are some data that show the existence of dysphemism in swear words. Among them have functions, namely, to vent the speaker's emotions, to joke, to demean the listener, and to swear. This research makes an important contribution to the understanding of how dysphemisms are translated and how shifts in language can affect the meaning and emotional impact of literary texts. For future research, it is hoped that other researchers can explore the comparison of dysphemisms in various literary genres or in the context of translation between different languages.

Understanding hate speech: the HateInsights dataset and model interpretability

The persistence of hate speech continues to pose an obstacle in the realm of online social media. Despite the continuous evolution of advanced models for identifying hate speech, the critical dimensions of interpretability and explainability have not received proportional scholarly attention. In this article, we introduce the HateInsights dataset, a groundbreaking benchmark in the field of hate speech datasets, encompassing diverse aspects of this widespread issue. Within our dataset, each individual post undergoes thorough annotation from dual perspectives: firstly, conforming to the established 3-class classification paradigm that includes hate speech, offensive language, and normal discourse; secondly, incorporating rationales that outline specific segments of a post supporting the assigned label (categorized as hate speech, offensive language, or normal discourse). Our exploration yields a significant finding by harnessing cutting-edge state-of-the-art models: even models demonstrating exceptional proficiency in classification tasks yield suboptimal outcomes in crucial explainability metrics, such as model plausibility and faithfulness. Furthermore, our analysis underscores a promising revelation concerning models trained using human-annotated rationales. To facilitate scholarly progress in this realm, we have made both our dataset and codebase accessible to fellow researchers. This initiative aims to encourage collaborative involvement and inspire the advancement of the hate speech detection approach characterized by increased transparency, clarity, and fairness.

Voice of Empowerment: Debunking Gendered Language in Emma Watson’s Advocacy

For nearly five decades, Robin Lakoff’s women’s language features have been well examined. These features such as hedges, intensifiers, and rising intonation have traditionally positioned women as powerless language users due to their less-assertive nature. However, few have highlighted how these features can serve as rhetorical strategies that can effectively utilized to argue confidently without appearing overly assertive, in line with social expectations. This study examines women’s language features used by Emma Watson at the HeForShe Campaign 2014. By using a descriptive qualitative method, we collected data from Emma’s speech to identify the features of the women’s language that she used to address gender equality issues. The study found six of Lakoff’s (1975) women’s language features, with lexical hedges being the most frequently used to represent politeness and caution in speaking as well as expressing respect for the interlocutor. Notably, tag questions, precise color terms, hypercorrect grammar, and avoiding strong swear words were not found, likely due to their irrelevance to the feminism-focused topic in the campaign. Instead of highlighting the perceived weaknesses of women’s language, this study emphasizes that women’s language can be a means to empower women’s voices. Emma effectively and persuasively delivered her campaign by using her mastery of language, storytelling techniques, and rhetoric to engage the audience. Overall, Emma strategically utilized women’s language to demonstrate her linguistic capability and even persuade the audience effectively rather than showing the weakness of women’s language as commonly perceived by previous studies.

Solidarity is not a dirty word: exploring and locating solidarity as a theory and model for a radical community social work practice

Within this article we highlight that social work is both a political as well as a professional practice. Despite years of technical specialisation and a policy context that has focused social work on risk management and resource allocation, there remains a deep commitment to care, compassion, and solidarity within contemporary social work practice. The article and its analysis make the case for a more politically informed social work practice, one that is based on solidarity; in opposition to a system that isolates individuals and internalises complex social problems. We posit that the application of solidarity within social work delivers a practice that promotes social inclusion and is based on the provision of practical social support. It is from this perspective that we will present evidence from ethnographic research, drawn from community social work practice, to highlight the importance of social solidarity and provide an insight into different ways of working.

Police Avoidance Among Black Youth

ObjectivesPolice violence is a public health crisis that disproportionately impacts youth of color, particularly Black youth. These disparities may also compel Black youth to engage in police avoidance (i.e., efforts to circumvent police contact and surveillance). Even so, research on Black youths’ engagement in police avoidance is lacking. The present study is the first to investigate factors that may underpin police avoidance among Black youth. MethodsData come from the Survey of Police-Adolescent Contact Experiences (SPACE), a recent, cross-sectional, non-probability survey of Black youth (~52% male) aged 12-21 in Baltimore City (n = 345). ResultsFindings indicate that youth 1) identifying as bisexual or queer, 2) perceiving lower safety at home and in their neighborhoods, 3) reporting more negative attitudes about police, and 4) engaging in delinquent behaviors reported significantly greater police avoidance. Furthermore, youth who reported a greater number of known persons stopped by the police (e.g., family members, friends, neighbors) and had personally experienced officer intrusion during direct or witnessed stops (e.g., harsh language, threats of force, use of force) also exhibited greater police avoidance. ConclusionsLGBQ identity, reduced perceptions of environmental safety, negative attitudes about police, delinquent behaviors, and multiple types of police exposure may shape police avoidance among Black youth. Findings have the potential to inform targeted strategies to mitigate racial and LGBQ disparities in adolescent well-being. Clinical Trial RegistrationNone.

БҮГІНГІ БҰҚАРАЛЫҚ АҚПАРАТ ҚҰРАЛДАРЫ КЕҢІСТІГІНДЕГІ ЛИНГВОЭКОЛОГИЯ МӘСЕЛЕЛЕРІ

The number of mass media outlets in the information space is growing every year, with a particular increase in TV channels, websites, and portals disseminating information in the Kazakh language. A key issue today is not only to expand the quantity of Kazakh-language media but also to enhance the quality of their content. The aim of this research is to analyze the language culture within Kazakh-language media, particularly in the social sphere, to identify shortcomings, and to develop examples that align with the norms of the literary language. This article provides a detailed analysis of the issues related to linguoecology as reflected in the media, offering a comprehensive review of linguistic and stylistic errors, the use of inappropriate language, and the creation of artificial proverbs and sayings. The analysis is grounded in the principles of language culture and literary norms. Examples frequently encountered in media publications and television broadcasts are examined. Furthermore, the article suggests ways to improve the linguistic environment by addressing the influence of extralinguistic factors and provides scientific recommendations for enhancing language use. The research methods employed include analysis, control, and review. The conclusions and insights are particularly relevant for authors, journalists, and broadcasters who produce content in the Kazakh language.

EXPERIENCE OF APPLYING NEUROSCIENCE IN TEACHING KAZAKH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

Teaching and learning the Kazakh language as a second language are one of the main state issues in Kazakhstan. In the modern realities we need very efficient and sufficient approaches and methods of teaching the Kazakh language to non-natives living in Kazakhstan. Teachers and educators are looking for different ways to teach Kazakhas a second language. Nowadays there are not many researches related to the application of the advanced methods of teaching it. This article aims to establish the connection between neuroscience and the teaching of Kazakh as a second language. The articlepresents the theoretical basis of neuroscience and its basic concepts. This article represents results of conducting an experiment of teaching Kazakh as a second language to adults. Based on these neuroscientific concepts and strategies for teaching Kazakh as a second language, we designed and applied a Kazakh language course as a second language for adults. At the end of the course adult learners passed a final test according to the Kaztest system. During and at the end of the experiment course there was not any special preparation for the final test. The results of the experiment showed that implementation of the neuroscientific concepts and strategies was efficient. According to the results of the experiment course we state that we can effectively construct the Kazakh language teaching course by having a thorough understanding of the brain function that neuroscience studies. Using the results of this experiment, educators and teachers of the Kazakh language can improve their methodology and contribute to the effective learning of the language by learners.