Language System Research Articles

Лингвокультурные аспекты семантики диалектной лексики (на материале островных немецких говоров в Сибири)

Island German dialects that exist in certain regions of Russia and partially retain the status of the everyday family language in Russian German families are a unique linguistic phenomenon from the point of view of the history of the development of the German language and its regional variants and language contacts as factors of influence on the language system. Island German dialects develop in a foreign language environment, preserving many archaic language elements. The aim of the study is to present aspects of the study of dialectal vocabulary in a new perspective, from the standpoint of linguoculturology and historical semantics, based on the accumulated scientific experience in German studies and dialectology of various languages. As the linguocultural aspects based on the material of German dialects outside the main language area have been developed in German studies fragmentarily, the scientific novelty lies in the approaches to the consideration of the semantics of vocabulary of island German dialects in terms of its significance as a representative of the linguoculture of Russian Germans and substantiates the need to consider island variants of the German language in an interdisciplinary aspect. As a result of the analysis of theoretical aspects of cultural linguistics and dialectology, an attempt is made to show what ethnoculturally significant information is reflected in the semantics of dialect units, and to determine the perspective of further dialectological research in the field of island German dialectology.

The Ecology of English Loanwords in Chinese: A Case Study of Cement

From an ecolinguistic perspective, this study focuses on five English loanwords in Chinese related to the field of cement, as defined in the Modern Chinese Dictionary. The research quantitatively examines the ecological dynamics of these loanwords using two indicators: lexical niche breadth and overlap. The goal is to uncover the evolutionary mechanism governing their adaptation. The findings show: (1) The emergence of English loanwords is intricately linked to specific social environments. As new concepts and items are introduced from abroad, the masses initially make new loanwords, which are later standardized by authoritative bodies. (2) The vitality of loanwords correlates with their niche breadth. The competition among lexical variants is influenced by niche overlap. The loanwords for cement, ranked by vitality in descending order, are ShuiNi (3.221), YangHui (2.350), ShuiMenTing (1.385), HongMaoNi (1.202), and ShiMinTu (0.879). (3) The endangerment of loanwords results from a combination of external (social environment) and internal (language system) factors. Intense competition arises due to the presence of multiple synonyms for the same entity, and localization challenges occur when the loanwords do not precisely fit the entity. Among the five loanwords for cement, the first two exhibit higher vitality and continue to develop sustainably, while the last three show lower vitality and are gradually becoming endangered. As these loanwords undergo continuous evolution, a lexical ecocontinuum emerges: extinct in the wild—ShiMinTu; critically endangered—HongMaoNi; endangered—ShuiMenTing; vulnerable—YangHui; least concerned—ShuiNi.

Comparative Analysis of CNN Architectures for SIBI Image Classification

The classification of images from the Indonesian Sign Language System (SIBI) using VGG16, ResNet50, Inception, Xception, and MobileNetV2 Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architectures is evaluated in this paper. With Google Colab Pro, a 224 × 224-pixel picture dataset was used for the study. A five-stage technique consisting of Dataset Collection, Dataset Preprocessing, Model Design, Model Training, and Model Testing was applied. Performance evaluation focused on accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-Score. The results identified VGG16 as the top-performing model with an accuracy of 99.60% and an equivalent F1-Score, followed closely by ResNet50 with nearly similar performance. Inception, XCeption, and MobileNetV2 demonstrated balanced performance but with lower accuracy. This study sheds light on the best CNN models to choose for SIBI image classification, and it makes recommendations for further research that include using sophisticated data augmentation methods, investigating novel CNN architectures, and putting the models to practical use.

Early audiovisual language discrimination: Monolingual and bilingual infants’ differences in language switch detection

Successful language learning in bilinguals requires the differentiation of two language systems. The capacity to discriminate rhythmically close languages has been reported in 4-month-olds using auditory-only stimuli. This research offers a novel perspective on early language discrimination using audiovisual material. Monolingual and bilingual infants were first habituated to a face talking in the participants’ native language (or the more frequent language in bilingual contexts) and then tested on two successive language switches by the same speaker, with a close and a distant language. Code-switching exposure was indexed from parental questionnaires. Results revealed that while monolinguals could detect both the close- and distant-language switch, bilinguals only reacted to the distant language, regardless of home code-switching experience. In the temporal dimension, the analyses showed that language switch detection required at least 10 s, suggesting that the audiovisual presentation (here the same speaker switching languages) slowed down or even hindered the language switch detection. These results suggest that the detection of a multimodal close-language switch is a challenging task, especially for bilingual infants exposed to phonologically and rhythmically close languages. The current research sets the ground for further studies exploring the role of indexical cues and selective attention processes on language switch detection.

Examining the Linguistic Tapestry of Globalization: Structural Borrowings

Purpose: Redefining economies, cultures, language dynamics, and societies worldwide, globalization has become one of the hallmarks of the contemporary era. The impact of this phenomenon in language is examined in this article, with a particular emphasis on structural borrowings from English into Albanian. Theoretical Framework: Scientific criteria have been chosen to determine whether the linguistic data are internal constructions of the language or structural borrowings from English, and to examine the extent to which a global language like that has influenced the structure of 'small' languages like Albanian. Methodology: Thirty-three new constructions were chosen from Albanian textual media, which were then split into groups examined in detail according to their semantic and syntactic features. Findings: Fifty-five percent of native speakers accept semantic-syntactic borrowings from English, which exhibit synonymy and compete with existing normative constructions. Borrowings enhancing the semantics of Albanian are welcome, while those affecting syntactic structure and leading to ambiguity, meaninglessness, and ungrammaticality are not. Research Practical and Social Implication: The knowledge of how syntactic-semantic systems can be modified and impacted by interaction with other language systems is increased by this work. Simultaneously, it advances our understanding of the social dimensions of language use, including language planning and identity maintenance in the area of globalization. Originality/Value: The connections between ‘small’ languages like Albanian and world culture have not received adequate consideration. This study advances our understanding of how globalization impacts communication between speakers of diverse languages and cultural backgrounds by shedding light on the process of structural borrowings.

Portable American Sign Language System using RF Signals and IoT Technology for Deaf-Blind People

The Internet of Things (IoT) has revolutionized connectivity, enhancing accessibility to devices and information. This advancement addresses challenges faced by deaf-blind individuals, such as slow learning and memory issues. A new ASL learning kit has been developed to address these challenges, featuring physical and interactive elements for an engaging experience. Two learning methods are available: one involves RFID sign language cards tapped on an RFID reader, triggering an LCD visualizer with ASL alphabets and videos; the other method uses a Braille-embedded keyboard to provide audio feedback through ESpeak for ASL gestures. This ASL learning kit aims to boost the interest and effectiveness of deaf-blind students in learning ASL and Braille.

Albanian Handwritten Text Recognition using Synthetic Datasets and Pre-Trained Models

Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) has continuously attracted the focus of researchers to enable the integration of technology into our daily lives. Handwritten text recognition (HTR), a technology of considerable importance, takes a leading role in the analysis and digitization of various documents. This technology is important in facilitating the efficient use of handwritten documents, especially within academic, historical, and cultural contexts. The use of artificial intelligence in handwriting recognition offers a very good opportunity to achieve satisfactory results in this field, but to achieve good results a large dataset is needed. Creating a large dataset to train different AI models is a challenge for languages with limited resources such as the Albanian language. This paper aims to present a novel approach to the development of an HTR system for the Albanian language using an attention-based encoder-decoder architecture. The dataset used in the experiments is a synthetic dataset generated using deep learning techniques based on the English language dataset as they are both variants of the Latin alphabet. We enhanced the dataset with two letters specific to Albanian, (“ë” and “ç”). The usage of pre-trained English models for handwriting recognition improved our model’s performance. The results of the experiments are very promising and prove that our approach is efficient in recognizing handwriting in the Albanian language. This shows that the attention-based encoder-decoder architecture can be adopted for different languages with limited resources.

The Concise Language Paradigm (CLaP), a framework for studying the intersection of comprehension and production: electrophysiological properties.

Studies investigating language commonly isolate one modality or process, focusing on comprehension or production. Here, we present a framework for a paradigm that combines both: the Concise Language Paradigm (CLaP), tapping into comprehension and production within one trial. The trial structure is identical across conditions, presenting a sentence followed by a picture to be named. We tested 21 healthy speakers with EEG to examine three time periods during a trial (sentence, pre-picture interval, picture onset), yielding contrasts of sentence comprehension, contextually and visually guided word retrieval, object recognition, and naming. In the CLaP, sentences are presented auditorily (constrained, unconstrained, reversed), and pictures appear as normal (constrained, unconstrained, bare) or scrambled objects. Imaging results revealed different evoked responses after sentence onset for normal and time-reversed speech. Further, we replicated the context effect of alpha-beta power decreases before picture onset for constrained relative to unconstrained sentences, and could clarify that this effect arises from power decreases following constrained sentences. Brain responses locked to picture-onset differed as a function of sentence context and picture type (normal vs. scrambled), and naming times were fastest for pictures in constrained sentences, followed by scrambled picture naming, and equally fast for bare and unconstrained picture naming. Finally, we also discuss the potential of the CLaP to be adapted to different focuses, using different versions of the linguistic content and tasks, in combination with electrophysiology or other imaging methods. These first results of the CLaP indicate that this paradigm offers a promising framework to investigate the language system.

Explicitation and honorifics in the Buddhist scripture translation

In translation, explicitation refers to something that is overtly expressed and redundant in the target text. The purpose of this research is to investigate explicitation in the Buddhist scripture translation and propose the inclusion of honorific forms as a type of explicitation. The sample in the research targets the Chinese-Korean translation of the Diamond Sutra. A literature review and a descriptive approach are applied to analyze the sample. The findings indicate that explicitation primarily occurs in the domains of amplification, connectives and honorifics by transferring explicit meanings. The Korean language is more developed than the languages of any other countries across the world. Although honorific forms of any language are less developed or do not exist in source texts, they are added in the target text of the developed language. Explicitation by honorific forms is related to the disparateness of language systems and features but can be attributed to external variables, such as social status, hierarchical relations of interlocutors, and kinship. This research suggests the inclusion of explicitation by honorific forms and highlights the need to investigate explicitation based on the specificity of individual languages.

Преобразования заимствований: основной понятийно-терминологический аппарат

At the present stage of development of Russian linguistics, the number of works devoted to the study of various aspects of borrowing of lexical units has increased. However, there is a lack of stable, generally accepted terminology to describe the processes of borrowing linguistic units and their transformations. The aim of the research is to clarify the conceptual and terminological apparatus which is used to describe the processes of transformation of borrowed units in the recipient language. The generally accepted paradigm of the terms “assimilation”, “naturalization”, “integration” and “adaptation” is taken as a basis in this work. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the etymology of the presented terminological units is used to clarify the terminological apparatus, the semantics of these terms in other areas of scientific knowledge is specified, and the possibilities of their application in linguistics are considered. The results of the analysis carried out allow us to justify the use of the term “assimilation” as the most optimal one, denoting various changes occurring in the process of integration or naturalization of borrowed words into the system of the recipient language. The article examines the main types of quantitative and qualitative assimilation. The terminological aspects of the description of each type are specified. As a result of the conducted research, the basic conceptual and terminological apparatus for describing the process of borrowing lexical units and their transformations in the recipient language has been formulated.

Europe's Largest Research Infrastructure for Curated Medical Data Models with Semantic Annotations.

Structural metadata from the majority of clinical studies and routine health care systems is currently not yet available to the scientific community. To provide an overview of available contents in the Portal of Medical Data Models (MDM Portal). The MDM Portal is a registered European information infrastructure for research and health care, and its contents are curated and semantically annotated by medical experts. It enables users to search, view, discuss, and download existing medical data models. The most frequent keyword is "clinical trial" (n = 18,777), and the most frequent disease-specific keyword is "breast neoplasms" (n = 1,943). Most data items are available in English (n = 545,749) and German (n = 109,267). Manually curated semantic annotations are available for 805,308 elements (554,352 items, 58,101 item groups, and 192,855 code list items), which were derived from 25,257 data models. In total, 1,609,225 Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) codes have been assigned, with 66,373 unique UMLS codes. To our knowledge, the MDM Portal constitutes Europe's largest collection of medical data models with semantically annotated elements. As such, it can be used to increase compatibility of medical datasets and can be utilized as a large expert-annotated medical text corpus for natural language processing.

Streamlining social media information retrieval for public health research with deep learning.

Social media-based public health research is crucial for epidemic surveillance, but most studies identify relevant corpora with keyword-matching. This study develops a system to streamline the process of curating colloquial medical dictionaries. We demonstrate the pipeline by curating a Unified Medical Language System (UMLS)-colloquial symptom dictionary from COVID-19-related tweets as proof of concept. COVID-19-related tweets from February 1, 2020, to April 30, 2022 were used. The pipeline includes three modules: a named entity recognition module to detect symptoms in tweets; an entity normalization module to aggregate detected entities; and a mapping module that iteratively maps entities to Unified Medical Language System concepts. A random 500 entity samples were drawn from the final dictionary for accuracy validation. Additionally, we conducted a symptom frequency distribution analysis to compare our dictionary to a pre-defined lexicon from previous research. We identified 498480 unique symptom entity expressions from the tweets. Pre-processing reduces the number to 18226. The final dictionary contains 38175 unique expressions of symptoms that can be mapped to 966 UMLS concepts (accuracy = 95%). Symptom distribution analysis found that our dictionary detects more symptoms and is effective at identifying psychiatric disorders like anxiety and depression, often missed by pre-defined lexicons. This study advances public health research by implementing a novel, systematic pipeline for curating symptom lexicons from social media data. The final lexicon's high accuracy, validated by medical professionals, underscores the potential of this methodology to reliably interpret, and categorize vast amounts of unstructured social media data into actionable medical insights across diverse linguistic and regional landscapes.

Examining sources of language production switch costs amongst Tibetan-Chinese-English trilinguals

ABSTRACT The present study tested whether the switch costs of production-based language switching tasks by trilinguals are due to competition from outside language schemas or from within language systems. We recruited 90 Tibetan-Chinese-English trilinguals in 10th grade in a Tibetan middle school in China to name digits and number words using different stimuli valence. The study was divided into three experiments, one for each combination of two languages possible amongst Tibetan, Chinese and English. We observed the switch cost symmetrical patterns in the three experiments. The results suggest that the sources of switch cost are partially from outside competition between language schemas and partially from within language system. These results may contribute to our understanding of the language control mechanism between production-based and comprehension-based language switching tasks and language control mechanism of trilinguals with three orthographically different languages.

The Role of Artificial Intelligence in English Language and Literature Reading Management

Firstly, this paper analyzes the role of AI in the reading management of English language and literature, establishes the implicit knowledge base of neural network, designs the auxiliary reading system for learning English language and literature, and optimizes the English language and literature management model of AI. The experimental results show that its reading efficiency is increased by 0.48%, and the performance of the credibility model is improved by 0.53% compared with the original system, which greatly optimizes the running time of the system. To some extent, it helps users to manage their time in English language and literature reading, and greatly improves users' reading efficiency and quality. Based on this advantage of AI algorithm, this paper introduces that the algorithm optimizes the reading management model and the training process of neural grid, and constructs a model of English language and literature assisted reading system based on AI. The system can better meet the needs of users in English language and literature reading management.

Imię Stanisław w słowiańskiej tradycji onomastycznej

St. Stanislaus, bishop and martyr, is one of the few saints of the Church bearing a traditional Slavic name. It belongs to an Indo-European Anthroponomastic system as a compound name whose components represent a pattern inherited from the period of the Indo-European community. This is a fortune-telling name (a nomen-omen) given to a child on a wish of the parents, who wanted him to be famous (Polish ‘slawa’ means ‘fame’)- Today, in our Christian culture, in choosing a name for the child we considerthe following: 1) the child ‘brought’ his/her name (i.e. is given the name of the day’s patron; this is the gist of our ‘nameday’), 2) a family tradition, 3) respect for the grandfather or father (grandmother, mother), 4) fashion. Today’s anthroponomastic system in Slavic languages (except Bulgarian) has grown cold leaving us unable to acquire precise understanding of the meaning of the name. Besides, nowadays names only denote, theydo not mean anything. Compound Slavic names refer in their structure to names from other groups of the Indo-European community and are closely linked with a nation’s spiritual culture and appropriate ultimate and instrumental values. In Indo-European languages a different number of lexical components is used in names as their first or second part: in Old Indian - 865; in Old Persian and Median - 43; in Greek - 1015; in the Celtic group - 336; the German one - 1800 and in the Slavic group - 220. The most numerous in Old Polish anthroponomastics were names with the component slaw. As the first component - slaw appears in 4 names, and as the second, in 100. This component has appeared from times immemorial in Indian, Avestan, Greek and Illyrian names. Name Stanislaus is known in all Slavic countries, while its feminine form only in Polish, Bulgarian, Serb and Croatian. In Poland it has been in use since very old times up to now. Numerous surnames and names of places derive from it. The popularity of the name waned slightly in the 19th century, but it has never come into disuse as was the case with many Slavic names, which were ‘dug out’ in the 19th century, and not infrequently, erroneously read. A great number of Indo-European names with the component - ‘slaw’ testifies to the fact that people who bore that name always wanted to be the bearers offame, good fame that is, such as St. Stanislaus, bishop and martyr, has enjoyed.

Problems, Solutions, and Treatments Text Translation

If culture is the source and method of creativity and manifestations of civilized society, then translation is an effective way to convey these aspects. The same applies to the definition of this method and creativity in another civilization. This issue will only be achieved by accessing this culture and getting to know it well. Likewise, when transferred, that process must be subject to honesty and accuracy, so that its privacy and important features are preserved. For this, the translator must know the meanings and rationale of the translated text, and other technical matters related to it. The same applies to the linguistic and cultural background of the translated text. The core of the translator's duty is to transfer the meaning or idiom from one language to another. The language usually contains what is implied by the person speaking or speaking in two tongues, or rather in two or more languages, and this stems from or comes from the interference that occurs as a result of the mixing that occurs by using a morphological, grammatical or linguistic system for a particular language during the process of using the conversion to another language. This change usually takes place at several levels, such as the grammatical and syntactic level, as well as the semantic level, and this case is called linguistics (linguistic overlap). Translation as a whole is a complex process that only those who are doing this effort or work realize, and therefore, the suffering of translators can only be felt by their peers in this arduous field. Whoever undertakes this work must be fully aware of the risks of this task and how there are intended or unintended translation errors that lead to the loss of rights and property of people, entities, or countries. Therefore, we are certain that the translator's duty is no less important than the fighter's duty on the battlefield, as both of them fight with their front and title and bear heavy responsibility.

Polyphony in Text and Discourse: A Cognitive Semantics Multimodal Case Study on Parenthesis and Quotation

Abstract Essentially grounded in Cognitive Semantics and conceived to capture fundamental compositional properties inscribed in (written) text and (spoken) discourse, this study proposes a unifying account of parenthesis and quotation in English. Understood as determinants of conceptual structure in language, these two categories, though ubiquitous in all forms of language use, but so far entirely missing from the Cognitive Semantics, research agenda, are (re-)conceptualized under the aegis of Bakhtin’s polyphony and voice, and Goffman’s decomposition of the speaker as ‘fictive’ polyphony. In achieving this goal, the paper explores via dense, multimodally informed micro-studies of authentic text and discourse how voices are made salient to readers and hearers, scrutinizing various categories of cuing devices. As a corollary, Cognitive Semantics is seen to be developed and enriched, opening it up to transcend the language system, thus paying respect to the ‘total linguistic fact’ in the sense of Silverstein.

The Impact of Writing Direction on Order-Picking Performance: Evidence on Diversity and Efficiency in Operations Management

Language system diversity is a source of individual differences. Research on human cognition has established that writing direction influences non-linguistic mental schemata such as spatial orientation. However, there is little empirical evidence of its impact on task performance. We examine whether task performance in manual order-picking is higher when the in-aisle travel direction follows the writing direction of order pickers. We conducted this study in cooperation with a German brick-and-mortar grocery retailer, allowing us to employ a unique real-world data set comprising 3,200,534 storage-location visits by 113 order pickers, 61 of whom had a left-to-right and 52 a right-to-left writing direction. Our statistical analyses suggest that order-picking task performance improves when the in-aisle travel direction follows individual writing direction. This creates a path to diversity-inspired operations management that treats efficiency and the diversity and inclusion of human workers as equally important for optimization.

Sistem Pendukung Keputusan Pemilihan Kepala Cabang SCO di JNE Menerapkan Kombinasi Metode Dematel dan Aras

The head of the SCO (Sales Counter Officer) branch is a person who has good experience, knowledge and skills to lead and process finances every day who offer products available from the goods delivery service at the JNE Ekpress company. The SCO branch head also plays a role in organizing and coordinating SCO workers on duty, starting from arranging shifts, taking work records, and minimizing losses caused by SCO input errors. Decision Support Systems are computer-based systems consisting of several components, namely language system components, knowledge system components and problem processing system components, which are interconnected with each other in making a decision. through the use of data and decision models in order to solve a problem. DEMATEL (Decision Making Trial And Evaluation Laboratory) aims to find direct (dependency) in a variable system. The Additive Ratio Assessment (ARAS) method is a method used for ranking criteria. In carrying out the ranking process, this method is very suitable for use in selecting candidates for SCO branch heads. Where the highest value is the best value of the final result. Based on the test results, it is known that Rahmad is a candidate who meets the criteria to become the new SCO branch head with a score of 0.957972 or 96%.

The yes–no reversal phenomenon in patients with primary progressive apraxia of speech

Patients who have a yes–no reversal respond “yes” when they mean no and vice versa. The unintentional response can be made both verbally and with gestures (e.g., head shake or nod, thumbs up or down). Preliminary reports associate this phenomenon with 4-repeat tauopathies including primary progressive apraxia of speech (PPAOS), nonfluent/agrammatic primary progressive aphasia, and corticobasal syndrome; however, the significance and timing of this symptom relative to others are not well understood. Whereas some accounts associate yes–no reversals with other binary reversals (e.g., up/down, hot/cold) and attribute the reversals to disturbances of selection within the language system, others implicate more general inhibitory control processes. Here, we compared clinical and neuroimaging findings across 30 patients with PPAOS (apraxia of speech in the absence of aphasia), 15 of whom had a yes–no reversal complaint and 15 who did not. The two groups did not differ on any of the language or motor speech measures; however, patients who had the yes–no reversal received lower scores on the Frontal Assessment Battery and motor assessments. They also had greater hypometabolism in the left supplementary motor area and bilateral caudate nuclei on [18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose PET, but only the right caudate nucleus cluster survived correction for multiple comparisons. We interpret these results to suggest that the yes–no reversal phenomenon is associated with cognitive abilities that are supported by the frontostriatal network; more specifically, impaired response inhibition.