Context Of Discussion Research Articles

NOMINALIZED CLAUSES AND DISCOURSE‐GIVENNESS: EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE FROM RUSSIAN*

AbstractIn a seminal paper, Kiparsky & Kiparsky (1970) proposed a two‐way correspondence between presuppositionality of clauses and nominal structure. The proposal remains highly relevant to current research (a.o. Kastner 2015, Bochnak & Hanink 2022), despite the existence of counterexamples in both directions. In this paper, we examine Russian nominalized clauses to show that presuppositionality is indeed neither necessary nor sufficient for nominalization. However, instead of completely discarding the correspondence between presuppositionality and nominalization, we argue for a weaker “preference” hypothesis, whereby presuppositional, or discourse‐given, contexts are associated with a higher likelihood of nominalization compared to discourse‐new contexts. We provide support for the preference hypothesis based on four experimental studies, a forced‐choice and a givenness‐rating study using matrix negation as a proxy for givenness and a forced‐choice and a sentence completion study directly manipulating the discourse context. We suggest a tentative explanation for the preference hypothesis in terms of definiteness/familiarity marking.

Focus effect unveils children’s local processing of pronouns and reflexives

Focus effect unveils children’s local processing of pronouns and reflexives

Asymmetry in temporal specification between affirmation and negation

Abstract One cross-linguistically recurrent asymmetry between affirmation and negation is the neutralization of tense-aspect distinctions in negatives. A functional explanation proposed for this is that in their typical discourse context negatives have less need for temporal specification than affirmatives and in some languages this discourse preference is reflected as fewer tense-aspect distinctions in grammar. To examine whether such a discourse preference exists, we compare the use of temporal adverbials in affirmatives and negatives in English, Finnish and Korean corpus data. The results provide qualified support for the hypothesized discourse preference: in English and Korean, affirmatives are likelier to have temporal adverbials than negatives, but Finnish shows no statistically significant difference. In English and Finnish, affirmatives are likelier than negatives to contain adjuncts indicating temporal position. Verb semantics is found to interact with temporal specifications. The study also uncovers further differences between affirmatives and negatives in the use of adverbials.

Роль концепта «непроизводительные деньги» в производстве антропоморфных метафор англоязычного финансового дискурса

The article analyses the role of anthropomorphic monetary metaphors (AMMs) in interpreting professional English-language financial information by recipients (in our case, university students). The priority direction – English-language AMMs of unproductive capital – is but sparingly represented in modern Russian and foreign linguistic papers. The article aims to study the role of AMMs in qualifying financial concepts. The subject of the study is the functioning and implementation of figurative language units exposing the concept of the category of money in the semantics of idle funds. The object of the study is the adjective + money model, where the modifier (adjective) of unproductivity imparts a pejorative meaning to the figurative expression. The new epistemological strategy of humanitarian anthropomorphism places emphasis on the relevance of studying AMMs in the linguocultural context of English-language financial discourse due to their linguistic and cultural asymmetry in Russian and English, which reduces the level of learning intuitiveness. The research method applied here is a linguistic semiological analysis of the adjective + money model with an unproductivity modifier. The material included a corpus of periodicals, archives, financial encyclopaedias and dictionaries, as well as online media. The author draws an inference that an interweaving of the conceptual domains of idleness and finance generates a metaphorical transfer from human characteristics to monetary entities with an expressive negative connotation of cognitive models that metaphorically reflect the attitude towards idle capital. Moreover, finding their way into the lexical equipment of the professional continuum, AMMs activate students’ rhetorical thinking, simplifying concepts that are difficult for them to understand and increasing their level of learning intuitiveness. The results can be of interest to linguists and experts in cultural studies and be used in the field of discourse analysis.

교실 담화에서 교사의 청유문 분석

This study explores the functions of grammatical forms in specific discourse contexts by analyzing propositional sentences based on sentence-ending types. Propositional sentences, similar to imperative sentences, are identified as having a notably directive attribute. Particularly, classroom discourse, which is grounded in a clear hierarchical structure between teachers and students, may highlight the use of propositional sentences more than in other discourse situations. Therefore, this research utilized a spoken corpus to investigate propositional sentences through an inductive method. Initially, propositional sentences and their functions were defined within the spoken corpus from a grammatical perspective. The sentences were then analyzed and categorized according to their functions. The findings suggest that propositional sentences in classroom discourse primarily exhibit directive functions. Moreover, new functions of propositional sentences, previously undiscussed, were discovered. These newly identified functions are closely associated with the type of discourse. The results of this study allow for the differentiation of unique features of propositional sentences in classroom discourse, potentially aiding learners in enhancing their intuitive understanding of the Korean language.

Linguistic patterning of laughter in human-socialbot interactions

Laughter is a social behavior that conveys a variety of emotional states and is also intricately intertwined with linguistic communication. As people increasingly engage with voice-activated artificially intelligent (voice-AI) systems, an open question is how laughter patterns during spoken language interactions with technology. In Experiment 1, we collected a corpus of recorded short conversations (~10 min in length) between users (n = 76) and Amazon Alexa socialbots (a voice-AI interface designed to mimic human conversational interactions) and analyzed the interactional and pragmatic contexts in which laughter occurred. Laughter was coded for placement in the interaction relative to various speech acts, as well as for phonetic patterning such as duration and voicing. Our analyses reveal that laughter is most commonly found when the content of Alexa’s speech is considered inappropriate for the discourse context. Laughter in the corpus was also largely short in length and unvoiced– characteristics which are commonly associated with negative social valence. In Experiment 2, we found that a separate group of listeners did not distinguish between positive and negative laughter from our dataset, though we find that laughs rated as more positive are also rated as more excited and authentic. Overall, we discuss our findings for models of human-computer interaction and applications for the use of laughter in socialbot conversations.

Gesture's Role in the Communication of Adults With Different Types of Aphasia.

Adults with aphasia gesture more than adults without aphasia. However, less is known about the role of gesture in different discourse contexts for individuals with different types of aphasia. In this study, we asked whether patterns of speech and gesture production of individuals with aphasia vary by aphasia and discourse type and also differ from the speech and gestures produced by adults without aphasia. We compared the amount, diversity, and complexity of speech and gesture production in adults with anomic or Broca's aphasia and adults with no aphasia (n = 20/group) in their first- versus third-person narratives. Adults with Broca's aphasia showed the lowest performance in their amount, diversity, and complexity of speech production, followed by adults with anomic aphasia and adults without aphasia. This pattern was reversed for gesture production. Speech and gesture production also varied by discourse context. Adults with either type of aphasia used a lower amount of and less diverse speech in third-person than in first-person narratives; this pattern was also reversed for gesture production. Overall, our results provide evidence for a compensatory role of gesture in aphasia communication. Adults with Broca's aphasia, who showed the greatest speech production difficulties, also relied most on gesture, and this pattern was particularly pronounced in the third-person narrative context.

Irish autonomous verbs in a semantic-pragmatic interface: Some reflections on information structure-driven valency reduction

Autonomous verbs in Irish are special verb forms incompatible with the surface realization of a subject. Previous studies have suggested to postulate empty categories such as pro, PRO or expletive pro to fill the subject position (cf. Stenson 1989; McCloskey 2007; Bondaruk/ Charzyńska-Wóicjk 2003), thus rejecting the idea that these verbs might be classified as completely subjectless. A series of syntactic tests bear out the hypothesis that, at least for Irish, these verbs behave as actually lacking a subject. I first suggest correlating this state of affairs to the fact that, with autonomous verbs, no argument role to be promoted to subject position is selected at the valency level, although it is “implied” in the unfolding of the event. Secondly, I argue that both valency reduction and syntactic non-realization of an argument role is driven by information structural constraints; notably, the focal nature of autonomous verbs (as advocated elsewhere, cf. Nolan 2012) causes the subject (together with the argument role it is associated with) to be informationally downgraded, thereby leading to its suppression in the sentence. The position held in this paper is that autonomous verbs of the Irish type epitomize an interesting phenomenon of semantic-pragmatic interface, with the pragmatic level of the utterance “mediating” between the semantic and the syntactic level; in such a perspective, the pragmatic (information structural) level of an utterance would determine either the number and type of argument roles a verb can take in a particular discourse context (cf. DuBois 1987; Goldberg 2006) and their syntactic encoding.

Disability and Islamic Law in Indonesia: Beyond the Rukhṣah

In the past decade, Indonesia has witnessed a surge in interest in exploring the intersection of Islam and disabilities. This trend began with a seminar at UIN Sunan Kalijaga in 2011, leading to numerous research initiatives and publications, culminating in the publication of separate Fikih Difabel by three prominent Islamic institutions. However, these works often treat disabilities as exceptions, relying heavily on exceptions (rukhṣah) rather than developing comprehensive solutions that integrate people with disabilities as full and equal members of the community. This article examines the approaches and limitations of those three Fikih Difabel and proposes a more inclusive Fikih Difabel. It advocates adoption a holistic paradigm encompassing approach, definitions, methods, and accessibility, emphasizing the need to move beyond the rukhṣah. Employing a contextual discussion on ṭahārah to illustrate my proposed approach, this article aims to encourage a more practical and comprehensive framework for addressing disabilities within fiqh in Indonesia.

Avant-Garde Inspirations in the Art of Ukrainian Monumentalists of the 1960-70s:

The purpose of the research is to introduce into scientific circulation the results of documentary reconstruction and art analysis of the lost monumental panel, which was created by a tandem of talented artists in the Palace of Culture of the BilotserkivMAZ plant in Bila Tserkva. The research methods involve a combination of art analysis with methods of documentary reconstruction and interviews with the author of the studied artifacts. Scientific novelty consists in the introduction into scientific circulation of a previously undescribed and destroyed monument of monumental art – a panel in the Palace of Culture of the BilotserkivMAZ plant in Bila Tserkva. For the first time, the stylistics of the execution of an unexplored object of monumental and decorative art were analyzed. Through a personal interview with Oleg Yerzhikivskyi, a direct participant in the process, the circumstances of the order and execution of the work were recorded. For the first time, a photo from a private family archive was made public, and an attempt was made to reconstruct the panels based on individual photos. Conclusions. As a result of the artistic analysis of the work, the ideological inspirations that manifested themselves during the execution of the large-scale panel were established. Despite the isolation of the Soviet artistic environment from world artistic currents, the dosage of information coming from the West was enough for Ukrainian artists to create their own interpretations of seen foreign or banned domestic samples. Sensing this on an intuitive level rather than being in the full context of theoretical and art history discourse, the best representatives of the process managed to create a work of decent quality, the execution of which was financed by the state of that time. Despite the presence of Soviet symbols in the work (as a tribute to the totalitarian system for the opportunity to work in the field of art at all), the monumental panel is made at a high artistic level and is valuable for its innovative approach. As it follows from the results of the research, the effort to adapt samples of Western European art to the realities of the orders of the Art Fund of the Ukrainian SSR was not the least important in this process. This became possible thanks to the high level of specialized art education in higher educational institutions, as well as the personal self-improvement of each author-performer and his personal giftedness. In addition, the mentioned works were created by Ukrainian artists on Ukrainian territory and they are far from glorifying the regime.

담화맥락을 고려한 발문 반성 활동이 예비과학교사의 발문 반성에 미치는 영향

Objectives In this study, the reflective activity of questioning considering the context of discourse was developed and the effects of the reflective activity on pre-service science teachers’ level of productive reflection were analyzed.
 Methods Two pre-service science teachers participated in this study. The level of productive reflection of pre-service science teachers’ reflections before and after participating the reflective activity were compared and analyzed.
 Results After participating the reflective activity, the number of integrated reflection and the level of productive reflection were increased. The reflection of areas difficult to identify through observation were increased. Reflections focused on students’ learning instead of focused on the teacher themselves were increased. Pre-service teachers began to consider different content knowledge areas and assessment aspect.
 Conclusions To enhance the pre-service science teachers’ expertise, providing education to improve their reflective thinking is essential. However, education to improve the reflective expertise of pre-service teachers is insufficient. In this study, the effect on the reflective expertise of pre-service science teachers participated in the reflective activities considering the context of discourse was analyzed. Based on the results, the practical implications to improve pre-service science teachers’ the reflective expertise were discussed.

Is Referent Reintroduction More Vulnerable to Crosslinguistic Influence? An Analysis of Referential Choice among Japanese–English Bilingual Children

This study aims to examine whether a crosslinguistic influence (CLI) is exerted on the referring expressions of the spoken narratives of Japanese–English bilingual children in different discourse contexts. Thirteen early bilingual (school-age) children separately presented Japanese and English narratives for a wordless picture book and a speechless video clip. Further, seven Japanese and nine English monolingual children participated as controls. The linguistic devices that the children adopted to introduce, reintroduce, and maintain the topic were compared with those of their monolingual controls to detect any CLI. As predicted, CLI for English on Japanese was observed but not vice versa. In Japanese, bilinguals utilize significantly more noun phrases (NPs) compared with their monolingual counterparts. More crucially, this was observed only in the referent reintroduction context, indicating that only discourse contexts that require the integration of much pragmatic information may be vulnerable to English influence. Null forms are barely utilized in English narratives; thus, no influence from Japanese was observed. We present the referential choice patterns in the elicited spoken narratives of bilingual school-age children acquiring an under-researched language pair. By controlling for the discourse context, we demonstrate that CLI is more likely to manifest in the reintroduction context. These findings offer additional evidence for the interface and structural overlap hypothesis, further highlighting the criticality of considering information structure as an influencing condition.

Effect of word order asymmetry on the cognitive load of English–Chinese sight translation

Abstract This article examines word order asymmetry as one prominent obstacle in the cognitive process of English–Chinese sight translation. A within-subject experiment was designed for 23 MA translation students who sight translated sentences with different degrees of structural asymmetry from English into Chinese in both single sentence and discourse contexts. To measure cognitive load, participants’ eye movements during translation were recorded using an eye tracker. Three major findings were generated: (1) The effect of word order asymmetry was confirmed on both sentence-based and word-based processing; (2) Contextual information did not contribute to less effortful processing in the discourse context (as indicated by more fixations and longer regressions); (3) Segmentation was used far more frequently than restructuring to address asymmetric structures. We expect these findings will enrich our understanding of the cognitive mechanisms involved in interpreting between languages that are structurally very different and help inform training practices.

"I can't escape my scars, even if I do get better": A qualitative exploration of how adolescents talk about their self-harm and self-harm scars during cognitive behavioural therapy for depression.

Emerging evidence indicates that perceptions of self-harm behaviours and self-harm scars may thwart recovery from depression, yet limited research has explored adolescent accounts of their self-harm and scars during therapy. This study sought to explore how adolescents describe their self-harm behaviours and scars during Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and explore the sociocultural discourses that may influence these descriptions. The participants were six female adolescents (aged 14-17years old) with clinical depression, who were engaging in self-harm. All participants accessed CBT as part of clinical trial evaluating three psychological treatments for major depressive disorder in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. Audio-taped CBT sessions were analyzed using discourse analysis. Within CBT sessions, adolescents drew upon stigma discourses in talking about their self-harm. Adolescent also described their self-harm scars as shameful and stigmatizing, and as "proof" of the legitimacy of their depression. It is important for CBT practitioners to understand the context of sociocultural discourses around self-harm behaviours and self-harm scars, which are reflected in how adolescents with depression describe these within therapy and may serve to maintain distress. The study indicates that awareness of use of language and intersecting sociocultural discourses can inform CBT practice.

Grammar intervention using graduated input type variation (GITV) for pre-primary children: A single-case experimental design study

Purpose This study examined the early efficacy of a new theory-driven principle of grammar intervention, graduated input type variation (GITV). Method Three Cantonese-speaking children, aged between 4;01 and 5;10, with oral language difficulties participated in this single baseline within-participant single case experimental study. The children received a total of 300 teaching episodes of the target serial verb construction via focused stimulation and recast over 10 30- to 45-minute sessions. The 30 exemplars of the target included low type variation of the verbs in each of the first five sessions, followed by high type variation in the remaining sessions. Result Visual analysis revealed that all children improved their performance in the target construction but not the control vocabulary in the probes, suggesting a treatment effect. Maintenance of treatment effects was also observed in all children. Positive results in across-behaviour generalisation to the untrained construction were observed in all children. Generalisation to other less structured linguistic contexts and to the narrative retell discourse context was minimal and observed in one child only. Conclusion Preliminary evidence suggested early efficacy of GITV as a principle for grammar intervention. Modifications in the research methodology are recommended for future studies involving children with developmental language disorder.

A photographic essay on socio-economic organisation – temporary shelters in Kelowna, British Columbia (Canada)

The essay considers socio-economic organisation from the perspective of monopoly capitalism analysis, a strand of heterodox economics. The centre-piece of the essay is a photographic study of two temporary overnight shelters in Kelowna, one of the principal cities in British Columbia, Canada. Monopoly capitalism analysis has not previously drawn on photographic practices as an approach to inquiry. A characteristic of monopoly capitalist economies is that market-oriented, large corporations influence socio-economic organisation more generally. The essential practices of those corporations thereby penetrate the nooks and crannies of market economies. The essay is especially concerned with practices such as control, constraints on freedom, exercise of voice, and dehumanisation. The photographs and accompanying text – contextual discussions of monopoly capitalism and temporary shelters, and a caption for each image in the sequence – work together to show that traits of temporary overnight shelters in Kelowna are consistent with monopoly capitalist practices. It is suggested that such traits will be fossilised in the forever future of socio-economic systems, unless people’s awareness and challenge lead to choice of a different development path. The case-study demonstrates how photographs may enrich analysis of socio-economic organisation more widely, beyond the particular circumstances that it addresses.

Source Domain Associations as Conceptual Assemblages in Trauma Talk – an Association Rule Mining Approach

ABSTRACT The qualitative nature of co-deployed or “associated” metaphorical source domains in discourse has been extensively researched, often in terms of whether they share common conceptual roots. There are however few empirical studies on the strength of these associations and their implications. In mental healthcare activities like psychological interviews and counseling, for example, strongly associated sources may suggest unique “conceptual assemblages” that highlight underexplored (dis)similarities between clients or client groups, beyond the typical focus on isolated sources and frequencies. Our case study compares source domain associations produced by two interviewee groups – one meeting the diagnostic threshold for acute stress disorder (ASD), the other not – relating their first-hand experiences of traumatic events during the 2019 Hong Kong social unrest. The machine learning method of association rule mining is used to extract and quantify the top association rules in both groups. Results show i) a shared rule suggesting a highly schematic construal of trauma that nevertheless varies in instantiating details, and ii) several distinct rules that corroborates and lends further insight into the “agentive vs. non-agentive” characteristics exhibited by ASD vs. non-ASD individuals. Implications and future directions, including potential extensions to other discourse contexts, are discussed.

Discourse Effect on Children’s Interpretation of Pre-Subject Exclusive Zhiyou ‘Only’

ABSTRACT It has been reported for decades that preschool children (age 4-7) tend to assign non-adult-like interpretations for sentences with pre-subject exclusive only. This study reports findings from two experiments investigating (1) the effects of (in)congruent implicit questions in discourse contexts and (2) word order transformation on children’s interpretations of Mandarin pre-subject zhiyou ‘only’. Experiment 1 showed that children performed non-adult-like in the incongruent discourse condition, similar to the patterns found in previous studies, but adult-like in the congruent discourse condition. Experiment 2 showed that using sentences similar to English ‘Those who ate apples was only the boy’ where the VP precedes the subject NP with zhiyou ‘only’ was not sufficient to overcome the processing difficulty caused by the incongruent discourse for preschool children. The results demonstrate that a congruent context taking the VP as the background (i.e., given and salient information) in Experiment 1, but not the syntactic manipulation in Experiment 2, is sufficient for children to interpret sentences with pre-subject zhiyou ‘only’ at an adult-like level of accuracy. The findings demonstrate that children have the syntactic knowledge for sentences with exclusive zhiyou ‘only’, but the discourse incongruence hinders them from correctly interpreting sentences with exclusive zhiyou ‘only’ when it is in pre-subject position.It has been reported for decades that preschool children (age 4-7) tend to assign non-adult-like interpretations for sentences with pre-subject exclusive only. This study reports findings from two experiments investigating (1) the effects of (in)congruent implicit questions in discourse contexts and (2) word order transformation on children’s interpretations of Mandarin pre-subject zhiyou ‘only’. Experiment 1 showed that children performed non-adult-like in the incongruent discourse condition, similar to the patterns found in previous studies, but adult-like in the congruent discourse condition. Experiment 2 showed that using sentences similar to English ‘Those who ate apples was only the boy’ where the VP precedes the subject NP with zhiyou ‘only’ was not sufficient to overcome the processing difficulty caused by the incongruent discourse for preschool children. The results demonstrate that a congruent context taking the VP as the background (i.e., given and salient information) in Experiment 1, but not the syntactic manipulation in Experiment 2, is sufficient for children to interpret sentences with pre-subject zhiyou ‘only’ at an adult-like level of accuracy. The findings demonstrate that children have the syntactic knowledge for sentences with exclusive zhiyou ‘only’, but the discourse incongruence hinders them from correctly interpreting sentences with exclusive zhiyou ‘only’ when it is in pre-subject position.

Mapping words to the world: Adults, but not children, understand how mismatching descriptions refer.

How do children learn to connect expressions (e.g., "that red apple") to the real-world objects they refer to? The dominant view in developmental psychology is that children rely on descriptive information, "red" and "apple." In contrast, linguistic theories of the adult language attribute primacy to grammatical elements: words such as "that" or "another" first establish the status of potential referents within the discourse context (old or new) before descriptions can factor in. These theories predict that reference can succeed even when the description does not match the referent. We explored this novel prediction in adults and children. Over four experiments, we found that (a) adults relied on the articles to identify the referent, even when the description did not fit, consistent with grammar-first accounts; (b) consistent with description-first accounts, and unlike adults, 3- to 5-year-old children prioritized the descriptions provided by nouns and adjectives, despite being sensitive to grammatical information. This suggests that children connect expressions to referents differently from adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A socio-cognitive reinterpretation of Grice’s theory of conversation

Abstract Pragmatics research has been following two separate lines: the cognitive-philosophical line and the sociocultural-interactional line. Joining recent efforts of integration in pragmatics research, this paper reinterprets from a socio-cognitive perspective Grice’s theory of conversation (the Cooperative Principle with attendant maxims). The paper aims to incorporate social considerations into the theory, in the hope of enhancing its explanatory potential for information exchange in real-life discourse contexts. Focusing on cooperation as process, this paper examines Grice’s theory of conversation in connection with his theory of meaning and looks into the social-normative basis of the conversational behavior predicted by Grice. The conversational maxims can be characterized as socio-cognitive in the sense of being both cognitive and normative. They are normative expectations whose breach commits the speaker to interpretive and social consequences. The maxims used to be thought of in terms of a simple dichotomy: they are either observed or not observed, and non-observance has often been equated with non-cooperation. The paper draws attention to the fact that non-observance comes in different types (violating, opting out, flouting, and so on). It matters communicatively and extra-communicatively which type the non-observance falls into, as different types of non-observance have different interpretive and social consequences.