Concrete Language Research Articles

From Traumatic Language to Posttraumatic Language: The Development of Language in Therapy According to the “Phenomenon of Hope” Model

ABSTRACTHope and language are part of the human development process starting from birth and continuing through all the stages of development. They are tools that help us to cope in complex situations. Environmental failure produces trauma, which damages the “self” and impairs the development of hope and language. The individual experiences “pessimistic hope” and “drained hope” and begins using “concrete language” and “pseudo-language.” Such profiles and languages indicate functional difficulties, including the inability to establish mature intimate personal relationships. When traumatic events such as those experienced in military combat compound childhood trauma (environmental failure), mental and functional difficulties buried by our defense systems may rise to the surface and worsen and chronic complex trauma may ensue. Psychotherapy for chronic complex trauma is complex. The therapeutic approach that is used in the “hope phenomenon” model includes five therapy stages that allow us to examine the effect of a trauma on personality and function. Here we examine the link between the five stages of therapy and the use of language. According to my experience, patients use concrete language and pseudo-language in the beginning of the therapeutic connection. As this connection and therapist-patient alliance evolves and deepens and the client and therapist move through the various stages, the patient then starts to use “plural language.” Concrete language and pseudo-language are used in the pessimistic hope and drawn hope stages, respectively, until a profile characterized by a realistic and mature hope emerges. This profile goes hand in hand with an ability to use plural language. This article examines the development of hope and language in a complex posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patient who was treated using the hope phenomenon model. Consent for the therapy details to be used in this article was given by the patient.

How language abstractness affects service referral persuasiveness

Due to the inherent risk and uncertainty characterizing pre-purchase service evaluation, consumers tend to rely on referrals from other consumers who already have experiences with that service. Thus, companies are eager to stimulate such referrals and improve their effectiveness. To this end, this research investigates how consumers' linguistic framing of service recommendations influences recipients' attitudes and behavioral intentions. Specifically, this study focuses on one key dimension of language—its abstractness (vs. concreteness)—and hypothesizes that the effect of language abstractness on referral persuasiveness depends on recipients' prior knowledge about the service in question. The results of two experiments in the context of financial and medical services demonstrate that abstract language is more effective than concrete language for recipients with high prior knowledge. Moreover, this research shows that recipients' engagement in mental imagery processing is that makes abstract language more effective for those with high prior knowledge. This articles ends with a discussion of the study's implications for academic research, social communication and service management, along with its limitations and future research directions.

Software Learning System Based on Invariants in Computer Programming

The paper considers the idea about invariant teaching and learning of computer programming, independent of concrete programming language and version. Software system, built on the base of template algorithms (called invariants), is presented. 98 invariants are proposed for the course “Programming” from the bachelor degree programs at Plovdiv University, Bulgaria, and 44 invariants – for the course “Algorithms and Data Structures”. The proposed invariants are made till now with template codes on two programming languages (С# and Visual Basic) with more than 170 realizations in one language. The invariants are classified in 13 groups on the base of kinds of basic assignments (algorithms), which are solved during learning computer programming. The invariants have parameters of 5 types – variable, data type, random invariant, invariant from given list and invariant from given kind. Several levels of difficulty for solving of assignments are proposed. The system can be used as main learning resource in self-learning during resource in traditional learning.

Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice Across Andean Worlds by Marisol de la Cadena (review)

Marisol de la Cadena, Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice Across Andean Worlds. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015. 315 pp.South American indigenous peoples and their relationships with the environment have become increasingly salient to regional politics and anthropological theory. While several states in the region have recently recognized indigenous concepts of the natural world like Pachamama (the Earth Mother) in their constitutions, anthropological theorists including Marisol de la Cadena (2010) have argued these nods only skim the surface of a deeper, and ontological, difference. To truly understand indigenous-environmental relations, she argued in this earlier work, requires abandoning closely held modern notions and acknowledging a different kind of world altogether. Does understanding indigenous peoples and their politics require a fundamental rethinking of reality? Such a question is difficult to approach a clear illustration of what such an ontological interpretation might contribute to a tangible situation.In the high-altitude community of Pacchanta, de la Cadena has found a place where conventional power politics and unconventional environmental entities alike influence history, from the mid-century struggle for agrarian reform to the contemporary multicultural remaking of Peru. In recounting these events, the author argues we must acknowledge the fundamental alterity of the indigenous world. In the process, she produces an ethnography and a rich theoretical intervention that fundamentally revises earlier accounts of peasant politics and indigenous religion among Quechua-speaking Andeans in the Cuzco region of Peru. The text is nonlinear and multilayered, arranged into a Preface, seven Stories, two Interludes, and an Epilogue. While theoretically sophisticated, the book's concrete language and brief introductory asides make it suitable for advanced undergraduates unfamiliar with its core concepts.The carefully considered portrait offered by Marisol de la Cadena invites us to see another layer of existence, as known and practiced by the runakuna (Quechua people who take part in rural collectivities). The titular earth-beings the tirakuna, which willful, ceremonially accessible entities embodied in natural features. Locally principal among these is Ausangate, an entity that is at once a mountain and its more-than-natural (that is, animate but still material) self. While the ontological turn envisions multiple worlds, de la Cadena foregrounds just two: the ayllu (community) of runakuna engaged with earth-beings, and the world of the modern Peruvian state that privileges landlords' economic power and the nonindigenous, modern experience of reality.As a Peruvian and a historical anthropologist, de la Cadena is also reencountering her own political history, joining modern public stories to others that had remained outside conceptual reach: My world cannot fathom that what it deems to be its 'other' already inhabits, participates, and influences the nation-state that we all share (62). The strange and the familiar interpenetrate because Peruvian and indigenous worlds are circuited together in symbiotic connection, interchanging practices and ideas without consuming the difference between them (4). Her informants used to living within this duality, from so-called syncretic religion to political ceremonies marked by indigenous folkloric performance. Peru's dominant culture, however, often fails to see the alterity of indigenous experience. Drawing on theories of plural but interconnected realities by Donna Haraway (1991), Marilyn Strathern (1991), and Annemarie Mol (2002), de la Cadena leads us to understand the indigenous world and its links with her own.Two biographical Interludes introduce us to Mariano and Nazario Turpo, each of them a yachaq, literally a knower, a practitioner who implores local earth-beings for knowledge and support. Mariano was also the key mover in his community's mid-century struggle to end the control of the local hacendado, or landlord. …

Dante’s Legacy: Kinship between Languages in Seamus Heaney’s Poetics

Seamus Heaney's early poetry evoked Irish pastoral landscapes and traditions. After eruption of Troubles in 1969, his verse began to be pervaded by complex situation in Northern Ireland. This change, together with poet's increasing focussing on his symbolic relationship with Irish land and his preoccupation with sense of lost language, caused his poems to be perceived as symbols of national struggle. However, although Irish history and language are embraced and celebrated by poet, at same time, rather than articulating political idea of literature, Heaney tried to find middle voice that would express both halves of his culture, English and Irish. The poems Broagh and Anahorish, in Wintering Out, originate in Irish language placenames, and more than any other poem in that collection, display Heaney's willingness for reconciliation of two traditions through profound meditation on cultural and linguistic elements of each one. Dante and his belief in attainment of sense of national solidarity through creation of unitary poetic language were fundamental to Heaney's realization of this project. The Irish poet admired Dante's profound attachment to his local culture and to vernacular language, but principally, he praised his ability to transcend those aspects by positioning them in universal framework. In Divine Comedy, medieval poet had imagined the cosmological in provincial by placing constant emphasis on epistemological function of mutually enriching confrontation with other cultures and languages, which is ultimately synonymous with an enrichment and not an adulteration of one's own national (Copley 2005: 12). Heaney shared these same aims, and through allusions to Dante, he could transcend ethnic boundaries and create an increasingly cosmopolitan poetry, as displayed in his collection Electric Light, in which specifics of public and personal history are considered alongside those of world culture. Heaney's all-inclusive poetic development was mainly realized through his several translations of various international authors, including Dante. Through translation Heaney comes into contact with other cultures, and this allows him to better understand his time and himself. In his rendering of Ugolino episode, from Inferno XXXII-XXXIII, Irish poet found metaphors and emblems that he needed for poetic message he wanted to convey (Heaney 1980: 56). Dante's experience is translated into Heaney's own personal and cultural experience, and this enables him to address his local concerns through global framework, extending universal into personal and vice versa. Between two Traditions Both Dante's and Heaney's poetics must be understood within socio-political context in which they originated. Throughout his life, Dante felt sense of in-betweenness with respect to his culture and his language. As poet, he used Latin, which was language of education system. As man, he spoke Tuscan vernacular, which was his natural mother tongue. In his treatise, De Vulgari Eloquentia, Dante championed development of vernacular in literature. As he affirmed, since nothing provides as splendid an ornament as does illustrious vernacular, seems that any writer of poetry should use it (DVE II: i, 2). (1) Being tongue spoken by everyone, vernacular was more suitable language for literature, as made literature available to all. It was maternam locutionem (mother tongue) (DVE I: vi, (2) [1960]), the concrete language of all (Chandler 1966: 17), in contrast to Latin, which was secondary speech, locutio secundaria (DVE I: i, 3 [1960]). Furthermore, Dante believed that common tongue could be a pledge of national unity (Cambon 1969: 28). In thirteenth century, Italy was divided into several states, with each speaking different dialect, and in this fragmentation peoples could not feel strong sense of national identity based on cultural, linguistic, or racial bonds (Pullan 1973: 25). …

Resistance to Corruption of Strategic Argumentation

Strategic argumentation provides a simple model of disputation. We investigate it in the context of Dung's abstract argumentation. We show that strategic argumentation under the grounded semantics is resistant tocorruption -- specifically, collusion and espionage — in a sense similar to Bartholdi et al's notion of a voting scheme resistant to manipulation. Under the stable semantics, strategic argumentation is resistant to espionage, but its resistance to collusion varies according to the aims of the disputants. These results are extended to a variety of concrete languages for argumentation.

Leveraging Worker Safety Perceptions to Promote Safe Performance in Airports: Investigating the Framing of Safety Standards and Worker Safety Construal

Airports are complex systems characterized by unique and unpredictable safety challenges. Analyses of safety policies and practices focusing on organizational level (e.g., safety culture and climate) may overlook the importance of individual workers’ safety perceptions. The current research highlights two factors that play important roles in shaping these perceptions: the framing of safety standards and the level of abstraction with which workers conceptualize safety. From the perspective of the individual worker, operational safety is one of many workplace goals that must be balanced and prioritized. Workers are more likely to prioritize safety when safety standards are framed in negative (proscriptive) rather than positive (prescriptive) terms. Workers who tend to conceptualize safety in more abstract terms may prioritize safety appropriately when planning future behavior (i.e., during training) but give way to other considerations (e.g., schedule, cost) when faced with pressing decisions. Workers who view safety in very concrete terms, in contrast, are more attuned to the ethical implications of their choices (i.e., the potential for harm) and are therefore more likely to put safety considerations first. These arguments are supported by an empirical field study conducted in a large aviation services organization and shown to be robust to a variety of individual and organizational factors. Recommendations for airport managers indicate how these findings may be applied to enhance the efficacy of safety messages. Specifically, managers should present safety standards in negative terms; use vivid, concrete language when discussing safety; and continually reinforce the ethical implications of workplace safety.

Concurrent Kleene algebra with tests and branching automata

We introduce concurrent Kleene algebra with tests (CKAT) as a combination of Kleene algebra with tests (KAT) of Kozen and Smith with concurrent Kleene algebras (CKA), introduced by Hoare, Möller, Struth and Wehrman. CKAT provides a relatively simple algebraic model for reasoning about semantics of concurrent programs. We generalize guarded strings to guarded series-parallel strings, or gsp-strings, to give a concrete language model for CKAT. Combining nondeterministic guarded automata of Kozen with branching automata of Lodaya and Weil one obtains a model for processing gsp-strings in parallel. To ensure that the model satisfies the weak exchange law (x‖y)(z‖w)≤(xz)‖(yw) of CKA, we make use of the subsumption order of Gischer on the gsp-strings. We also define deterministic branching automata and investigate their relation to (nondeterministic) branching automata.To express basic concurrent algorithms, we define concurrent deterministic flowchart schemas and relate them to branching automata and to concurrent Kleene algebras with tests.

Inferring Identity From Language

The present research examined whether a communicator’s verbal, implicit message regarding a target is used as a cue for inferring that communicator’s social identity. Previous research has found linguistic intergroup bias (LIB) in individuals’ speech: They use abstract language to describe in-group targets’ desirable behaviors and concrete language to describe their undesirable behaviors (favorable LIB), but use concrete language for out-group targets’ desirable behaviors and abstract language for their undesirable behaviors (unfavorable LIB). Consequently, one can infer the type of language a communicator is likely to use to describe in-group and out-group targets. We hypothesized and found evidence for the reverse inference. Across four studies, individuals inferred a communicator’s social identity on the basis of the communicator’s use of an LIB. Specifically, participants more strongly believed that a communicator and target shared a social identity when the communicator used the favorable, rather than the unfavorable, LIB in describing that target.

Mental Number Line and Simple Addition Task: Experimental Study with Native Russian Speakers

This article presents the results of an experiment whose purpose was to investigate the mechanisms of simple addition among native speakers of Russian. The means of storage and retrieval of numerical data in and from the mind and the concrete mechanisms used to perform arithmetic operations are highly cultural specific, and to a great extent dependent on a concrete language, as has been shown in many works previously. The link between number concepts and some cultural features, like reading direction or educational methods, is now being researched intensively. Our experiment tested the hypothesis that the mechanism of simple addition is based on a mental number line, at least for Russian native speakers, so far as Russian is read from left to right and a number line is a widely used method to visualize number relationships in Russian schools. The results of the experiment showed that the proposed hypothesis was not correct, and that arithmetic processing is rather more complicated than linear. Many new questions have arisen because of this and possible directions for future investigations are discussed here.

The “bit-less” corpse or mannequin manqué: South African Great War poetic embodiment 1914-1918

ABSTRACTIn this article, I discuss South African Great War1 poetry within a psychoanalytical, postcolonial and poststructuralist framework. This body of poems has never been analysed and reveals the embodiment of blackness, whiteness, masculinity, colonialism and empire during the early twentieth-century South Africa. Essentially, it is the poetry that rhythmically murmurs about the relationship between life and death, object and abject, as well as suffering and loss in the nascent Union of South Africa. The war poets could only through concrete language “re-member(ed)” (Christie 2007: 237) or “mannequin” the decomposing corpse, the abject leftover thing of war experience. This was done bit by bit through words in order to flesh out the decomposing corpse: Kristeva's “word flesh” (Harrington 1998: 141). It was a “chance with meaning” (141) that had to be taken, but it was a leap of faith into the void of naming that is fear itself: words remain unstable euphemistic metaphors of unbecoming (Kristeva 1982). This very act by the war poets to dress the abject in metaphors and metonyms of wholeness reveals the loss inherent in wartime experience.

Systematic synthesis of delta modeling languages

Delta modeling is a modular, yet flexible approach to capture variability by explicitly representing differences between system variants or versions. The conceptual idea of delta modeling is language-independent. But, to apply delta modeling to a concrete language, either a generic transformation language has to be used or the corresponding delta language has to be manually developed for each considered base language. Generic languages and their tool support often lack readability and specific context condition checking, since they are unrelated to the base language. In this paper, we present a process that allows synthesizing a delta language from the grammar of a given base language. Our method relies on an automatically generated language extension that can be manually adapted to meet domain-specific needs. We illustrate our method using delta modeling on a textual variant of architecture diagrams. Furthermore, we evaluate our method using a comparative case study. This case study covers an architectural, a structural, and a behavioral language and compares the preexisting handwritten grammars to the generated grammars as well as the manually tailored grammars. This paper is an extension of Haber et al. (Proceedings of the 17th international software product line conference (SPLC'13), pp 22---31, 2013).

Recent evolution of learnability in American English from 1800 to 2000

Concreteness—the psycholinguistic property of referring to a perceptible entity—enhances processing speed, comprehension, and memory. These represent selective filters for cognition likely to influence language evolution in competitive language environments. Taking a culturomics approach, we use multiple language corpora representing more than 350 billion words combined with concreteness norms for over 40,000 English words and demonstrate a systematic rise in concrete language in American English over the last 200years, both within and across word classes (nouns, verbs, and prepositions). Comparisons between new and old concreteness norms indicate this is not explained by semantic bleaching, but we find some evidence that the rise is related to changes in population demographics and may be associated with increasing numbers of second language learners or attention economics in response to crowding in the language market. We also examine the influence of gender and literacy. In sum, we demonstrate evolution in the psycholinguistic structure of American English, with a well-established impact on cognitive processing, which is likely to permeate modern language use.

Language about God in Whitehead’s Philosophy

AbstractThe way Whitehead speaks of God in his ‘philosophy of organism,’ and the evaluation thereof, is the subject of this article. The background of this issue is the position - broadly shared in theology, and here represented by Aquinas - that one should not speak ‘carelessly’ about God. Does Whitehead violate this rule, or does his language for God express God’s otherness and relatedness to the world in a new intriguing way? In order to answer this question an introduction into Whitehead’s philosophy is given, and especially into his category of existence, the ‘actual entity.’ For Whitehead God is an actual entity, and so is the most trivial puff of existence. His perception of the similarity and greater dissimilarity between God and the worldly actual entities (and clusters thereof) is analyzed. In the main and final section of this article these insights are used as a tool to decrypt Whitehead’s God-language. Here the status of Whitehead’s and Aquinas’ statements about God are compared, Whitehead’s ideas concerning the analogical character of concrete language are discussed, and it is argued that in Whitehead’s philosophy too there is no discourse about God without a shift or breakdown of the ‘ordinary’ meaning of language.

Completeness of the Dynamics of the Attributes Values of Data in the Database DIM

This paper is devoted to justifying the possibility of DBMS DIM usage and its interaction mechanism as an algorithmically complete implementation of an objectdynamic model. An extension for a static OD-model by including sets of algorithmic procedures which modify values of object attributes and also create, remove and modify objects themselves is considered. To ensure the possibility of modifying DIM DB data in a way equivalent to OD-model modifications, interaction and history relations between DIM objects are considered. To minimize the dependence from concrete language constructions, which describe OD-model algorithmic procedures, the reduction to the universal form – Turing machine is performed. A way to create a Turing machine equivalent to OD.MT in terms of DIM, where a special set of PL/ODQL procedures is used as a control unit and a functional table is proposed. Later, a mechanism to form a memory tape of such DIM.MT by encoding information about DIM object, and their subsequent decoding back to DIM objects is described. The process of work of such a machine is modelled by using an endless cycle of executing some PL/ODQL procedures of reading and writing objects from / to the memory tape. Basing on the earlier proved theorem about the static completeness of data representation in DIM, at the end of the paper the proof on the completeness of representation of the Objects attributes values dynamics is considered. The article is published in the author’s wording.

How vertical hand movements impact brain activity elicited by literally and metaphorically related words: an ERP study of embodied metaphor.

Embodied metaphor theory suggests abstract concepts are metaphorically linked to more experientially basic ones and recruit sensorimotor cortex for their comprehension. To test whether words associated with spatial attributes reactivate traces in sensorimotor cortex, we recorded EEG from the scalp of healthy adults as they read words while performing a concurrent task involving either upward- or downward- directed arm movements. ERPs were time-locked to words associated with vertical space—either literally (ascend, descend) or metaphorically (inspire, defeat)—as participants made vertical movements that were either congruent or incongruent with the words. Congruency effects emerged 200–300 ms after word onset for literal words, but not until after 500 ms post-onset for metaphorically related words. Results argue against a strong version of embodied metaphor theory, but support a role for sensorimotor simulation in concrete language.

Does concrete language in disclosures increase willingness to invest?

As part of its push for more plain English in disclosures, the SEC argues that firms should use more concrete language in order to make abstract concepts clearer to investors. In this study, we use an experiment to show that, when concrete language is highlighted in a prospectus, investors are significantly more willing to invest in a firm than when abstract language is highlighted. Further, the effect of concrete language is particularly important when a firm feels more psychologically distant to an investor, either because the firm is located geographically further from the investor, or because the investor is less familiar with the firm’s location. Drawing on psychology theory, we predict and find that the effect of concrete language operates by increasing investors’ subjective feelings of comfort in their ability to evaluate a prospective investment. Our study contributes to the growing literature on how linguistic choices in corporate disclosures affect investors’ judgments and decisions by demonstrating a simple, yet potentially powerful reporting tool of emphasizing concrete language in disclosures for attracting investors who may otherwise be reluctant to invest.

Development of Topographic Maps Symbols Library

Visual LISP language is favored by many people for its simple and practical. Because of most CAD teaching materials centre on introducing concrete languages’ use and single symbol making, lack of a comprehensive descriptionof the whole process of developing professional symbols library, it is very difficult for People having mastery of LISP languages to developing professional symbol library by this language. In this article, the authors develop a symbols library for common Topographic Maps and design an environment to transfer and input the symbols with the aid of Visual LISP language, including defining graphic coordinates systems, coordinates transformations, putting library files in order, calling user-defined file etc. This paper provides great help for people who Devote oneself to map symbol library system development.

Spatiotemporal dynamics during processing of abstract and concrete verbs: An ERP study

Different accounts have been proposed to explain the nature of concept representations. Embodied accounts claim a key involvement of sensory-motor systems during semantic processing while more traditional accounts posit that concepts are abstract mental entities independent of perceptual and motor brain systems. While the involvement of sensory-motor areas in concrete language processing is supported by a large number of studies, this involvement is far from being established when considering abstract language. The present study addressed abstract and concrete verb processing, by investigating the spatiotemporal dynamics of evoked responses by means of high density EEG while participants performed a semantic decision task. In addition, RTs to the same set of stimuli were collected. In both early and late time intervals, ERP scalp topography significantly differed according to word categories. Concrete verbs showed involvement of parieto-frontal networks for action, according to the implied body effector. In contrast, abstract verbs recruited mostly frontal regions outside the motor system, suggesting a non-motor semantic processing for this category. In addition, differently from what has been reported during action observation, the parietal recruitment related to concrete verbs presentation followed the frontal one. The present findings suggest that action word semantic is grounded in sensory-motor systems, provided a bodily effector is specified, while abstract concepts׳ representation cannot be easily explained by a motor embodiment.

How Copyright Affected the Musical Style and Critical Reception of Sample-Based Hip-Hop

In 1991, the first lawsuit regarding sample-based hip hop, Grand Upright Music Ltd. v. Warner Brothers Records, was decided in court, and this decision forever changed how artists and their record labels approached sample-based hip hop. Although several lawsuits had been filed before 1991, all of those were settled out of court. There was no established legal precedent until this particular case. After 1991, artists changed how they sampled, largely out of fear of copyright infringement lawsuits. Hip-hop artists adapted and modified their musical language to accommodate the reduced availability of samples. Considering the music of five hip-hop groups, all of whom released sample-based music before and after 1991, I have developed a typology to quantify how the sample-based music of the Beastie Boys, De La Soul, Public Enemy, Salt ’n’ Pepa, and A Tribe Called Quest changed after 1991. The typology, which is a classification system for every individual sample in a sample-based hip-hop track, is a concrete language for discussing the structural components in sample-based hip hop. As we will see, each group adapted their production styles in interesting and creative ways in order to accommodate fewer available samples. While some scholars such as Kembrew McLeod, Peter DiCola, Joanna Demers, and Siva Vaidhyanathan claim that the sample clearance system has only negative consequences for musicians, I would argue that these outcomes for the musicians are not necessarily positive or negative. The current scholarly conversation about sample-based music from this period is framed by rhetoric in which the hip-hop producers are the innocent bystanders who fall victim to the evil record labels, greedy copyright holders, and sneaky sample troll companies. A typological analysis of this music is a means of quantifying how the musicians adapted their production in light of fewer available samples. This is not to minimize the importance of copyright law and its effect on artistic and creative processes, of course. I agree wholeheartedly