Lexical Dimensions Research Articles

The contribution of vocabulary breadth and depth to narrative writing ability: A partial least squares structural equation modelling approach

Despite the well-established role of lexis in proficiency in the four skills, a great deal of research has focused on the importance of vocabulary breadth and depth in reading. Therefore, the neglect of productive skills has motivated recent calls to inspect the impact of lexical dimensions on writing ability. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS SEM), this study examines the contributions of vocabulary breadth and depth aspects to EFL learners’ narrative writing ability. For this purpose, the researchers administered the Updated Vocabulary Levels Test (the UVLT), the Productive Vocabulary Levels Test (the PVLT), the Word Associates Test (the WAT), and a narrative writing task to 77 EFL undergraduate students. The participants’ scripts were scored, following IELTS analytical band descriptors. Results of the PLS SEM disclosed that vocabulary size and depth explained around 45% of the variance in the writing scores of the subjects. They also revealed that, among the variables examined, receptive vocabulary size was the only statistically significant factor that contributed the most to writing ability. The implications for writing assessment and instruction are discussed.

L’integrazione tra grammatica e repertorî lessicografici ladini

In Val Gardena, the first hesitant approaches to writing date back to the beginning of the 19th century with Mathias Ploner. The first printed descriptive grammar of a Dolomite-Ladin language was produced by Josef Anton Vian from Val di Fassa: Gröden, der Grödner und seine Sprache (1864). The most recent projects related to lexicography and grammar of the Istitut Ladin Micurá de Rü are a concrete expression of the close connection between grammar and dictionary. The publication of the grammar a few years after the dictionary (both available in online format) facilitates the integration of the two dimensions. This can be achieved by a system of hypertext references, thanks to which each term in the grammar opens a corresponding tab in the dictionary by means of a simple click. The dictionary is the tool most often and immediately used not only to understand the meaning of words, but also to solve grammatical uncertainties. The speaker’s competence is not reduced to lists of memorised words. The learning of a language is subject to stimulation through elements linked by relationships, grammatical and syntactic connections. The plug-in programme, adapted to our needs by Smallcodes in Florence, focuses on the textual rather than only the lexical dimension of the Ladin language and interacts effectively with Italian and German. For each lemma and each conjugated form, full integration with the online dictionary is achieved, as well as with the verb conjugator, the spell-checker, the phraseology database and the word’s pronunciation.

Differential Analysis of Stylistic Features in Chinese-English Interpretation Based on Natural Language Processing

Abstract In this paper, after researching the natural language processing model, we use the knowledge representation technology to construct a knowledge base and use the sequence comparison algorithm to compare the sequences of Chinese and English translations, analyze the similarities and differences between the two sequences, and analyze the entropy of information between English and Chinese translations through the probabilistic theory and mathematical statistics method. On this basis, we analyze the differences between Chinese and English translations in terms of lexical dimension, syntactic dimension and articulation dimension and explore the differences in lexical richness and thematic concentration between Chinese and English based on “entropy”. The results show that Chinese is significantly higher than English translations in terms of language output length, sentence complexity, subordinate structure and phrase structure (p<0.001), and Chinese is significantly higher than English translations in terms of articulation (p<0.05). This paper provides an important reference value for studying the differences in stylistic features in Chinese-English translation.

The miraculous in Islamic prose fairy tale talk by choice

The text you sent is a summary of a research paper that deals with the topic of the marvelous in Islamic prose, especially the narrative genre of the fable, which involves transformation and metamorphosis. The paper examines the main features of this genre, and studies the conceptual variation of the marvelous in light of the Islamic culture. The paper also explores the cultural sources that nourish the concept by reviewing the Arabic heritage in this regard, and relates it to the technique of imagination that the Arab creative used in his texts, which was evident in its reliance on the lexical dimension, as the old Arabic dictionaries did not lack words, such as the marvelous, the wonder, and the awe. The paper studies the character, the time, and the place, and tries to shed light on the effectiveness of the narration by referring to the main character and the secondary character, whether human or animal, and the paper aims to clarify the marvelous time, dealing with it in terms of retrieval and deletion, as well as the paper studies the place and its patterns in the text, analyzing the overall view in the narrative fabric and monitoring the most important variables on the sentence of transformation in it.

Corpus linguistics and historiography

This study identified and tracked the major discourses present in the first 50 years of TESOL Quarterly. A corpus of articles published in the journal was collected, tagged, and analyzed for lexical dimensions of variation (the lexical parameters underlyingvariation across texts in the journal). A factor analysis detected the sets of lexical words cooccurring in the texts. The factors were interpreted into five dimensions: (1) critical, social, cultural, discourse or identity versus language assessment and testing; (2) applications of linguistic theory versus language policy, education and planning; (3) quantitative research methods versus positivist teaching materials and techniques; (4) language teaching and learning versus word-based investigations; and (5) reading and writing versus listening and speaking. The dimension scores were entered in a cluster analysis that identified the two principal eras of the journal: the first from 1967 to the early 1990s, and the second from the early 1990s to 2016.

The language of wine reviews

ABSTRACT Expert wine reviewers have a niche skill set, with a particular lexicon, that facilitates their evaluation of wines. Novice consumers may find wine reviews intimidating and confusing. In this paper, we use a dataset of nearly 130,000 reviews from expert reviewers at Wine Enthusiast to explore the lexical dimension of wine reviews and determine to what extent reviewers systematically use language differently across various wine price points. Trends reveal that the information needed to make informed wine purchases are provided through the language of wine reviews. Our analysis shows that wine selection does not require a technical understanding of the wine-specific vocabulary of wine experts. We present a review of the literature on wine reviews and form four hypotheses under the theoretical framework of Kahneman’s two systems of thought—suggesting the linguistic properties of wine reviews reveal the price of wine. We examine how the lexical categories; emotional and logical linguistic content; social; and somatic experiences used in wine reviews relate to price. We then suggest the applicability of this analysis to other commodity domains in future research.

How Symbols Influence Social Media Discourse: An Embedding Regression Analysis of Trump’s Return to Twitter

How does social media content affect users’ online discourse? Existing scholarship sheds light on how several social media features involving content can influence users’ speech. However, this research often conflates content’s lexical dimension with its symbolic dimension. The authors analyze how the symbolic properties of online content can distinctly affect discourse on social media. Specifically, they examine how the symbolic meanings conveyed by Twitter’s reinstatement of Donald Trump’s account influenced Twitter users’ discourse. The results of embedding regressions indicate that Trump’s reinstatement immediately shifted users’ discourse about social and political identity-based groups, but only when they discussed Black and Jewish people. Additional results suggest that the discourse became more politicized and that the discursive shift was short lived. The authors’ findings contribute conceptual and analytical clarity to the sociosemantic dynamics of online discourse, encouraging future research to distinguish and compare the lexical and symbolic dimensions of online content.

A comprehensive analysis of the readability of consent forms for blood transfusion in Spain.

This study aimed to evaluate the readability of consent forms for blood transfusion in public hospitals in Spain. This was a cross-sectional, national study conducted within the Spanish healthcare system. Data were collected through the online retrieval of consent documents and direct consultation with 223 public hospitals. Consent forms were subjected to readability assessment including typographical, grammatical and lexical dimensions. The INFLESZ scale, a well-validated instrument adapted to the reading habits of Spaniards, was applied to determine the grammatical readability of the documents. The Spanish Mosby's Dictionary and the Dictionary of Spanish were used together to systematically identify the number of medical terms contained in the text. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Forty-five written consent forms for blood transfusion, in use in 126 general public hospitals were evaluated for various parameters, including font size (=10.41), abbreviations (=10.58), word count (=595, 209 min-1,499 max) and length (1 to 7 pages). The overall readability score (=50.66) was indicative that consent forms are somewhat difficult to read. A heterogeneity of 116 different healthcare terminology words was identified. Word count was statistically and moderately positively related to the number of medical terms identified in the text (rho=0.496, p=0.001) and the INFLESZ score (rho=0.34, p=0.023). In this first national study to assess the ease of reading written information on blood transfusion given to patients, deficiencies were found in the three dimensions of readability (typographical, grammatical and lexical) and a lack of uniformity among the written consent forms is pronounced. Further research is needed to develop more person-centered tools to support patients in the process of consenting for blood transfusion.

Semantic gender: Norms for 24,000 Dutch words and its role in word meaning.

Semantic gender norms are presented for 24,037 Dutch words. Eighty participants rated 6017 words each on a five-point Likert scale ranging from feminine to masculine. Each word was rated by ten male and ten female participants. The collected norms show high reliability and correlate well with similar norms in English. We show that semantic gender is distinct from other lexical dimensions such as valence, arousal, dominance, concreteness, and age of acquisition. Semantic gender is not the same as the grammatical gender of words, either. The collected norms can be predicted accurately using a semantic space based on word association data. A dimension explaining a good amount of variance is present in this space, indicating that semantic gender is an important component of the human meaning system.

Age effects in spoken second language vocabulary attainment beyond the critical period

AbstractThe current study set out to examine to what degree age of acquisition (AOA), defined as a learner’s first intensive exposure to a second language (L2) environment, mediates the final state of postpubertal, spoken vocabulary attainment. In Study 1, spontaneous speech samples were elicited from experienced Japanese users of English (n = 41) using storytelling and interview tasks. The samples were analyzed using a range of corpus- and rater-based lexical measures and compared to the speech of inexperienced Japanese speakers (n = 40) and native speakers of English (n = 10). The results showed that most experienced L2 learners tended to demonstrate nativelike proficiency for relatively easy lexical dimensions of speech (i.e., richness), but that AOA appeared to play a key role in predicting the ultimate attainment of relatively difficult lexical dimensions (i.e., appropriateness). In Study 2, the findings were successfully replicated with experienced L1 Polish users of English (n = 50).

A Corpus-based Comparative Study of Literary Translation Styles: Taking the C-E Translations of the 11th “The World of English Cup” Translation Contest as an Example

The paper makes a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the translation style differences between the reference translation (Lin’s Version) and the first prize-winning translation (Liu’s Version) of The Original Mission of Culture in the “11th Hangzhou Normal University-English World Cup Translation Contest” from lexical, syntactic and discourse features. The translation styles of the two translators are found to show similarities and differences. The differences are mainly reflected in the lexical and sentence dimensions. Lin’s Version shows higher lexical richness and complexity and sophisticated sentence patterns, while Liu’s Version is more reader-friendly, featured by changing narrative perspectives, adopting the explicit translation method, and reflecting the explanatory trend. The similarities are mainly embodied in discourse features. Both translation versions use conjunctions to achieve discourse cohesion with similar effects. But given lexicon, syntax, and other factors, Liu’s Version is better in readability. The main causes for the different translation styles of the two versions are related to the translator’s identity and professional background, as well as the translator’s emotional orientation towards the contest.

Use of Linguistic Complexity in Writing Among Chinese EFL Learners in High-Stakes Tests: Insights From a Corpus of TOEFL iBT.

In studies on second language writing, linguistic complexity exhibited by learners has long been regarded as being indicative of writing proficiency. However, there are relatively scant studies focusing on the diversity and structural elaboration of complexity in L2 production data that are extracted from high-stakes tests [such as Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and International English Language Testing System (IELTS)]. Using a large-scale learner corpus collected from a TOEFL (internet-based test (iBT), this study aims to explore the extent to which the three dimensions of linguistic complexity, syntactic, lexical, and morphological complexity, are associated with human scoring in high-stakes tests. In addition, we also tend to tap into within-genre topic effects on the production of complexity measures by learners. To this end, a total of 1,002 writing samples were collected from a TOEFL11 corpus, and six automated-coding instruments were used to investigate the variations of complexity among Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. The results from the correlation analysis, multiple linear regression, and independent sample t-tests indicated that there was not a linear correlation between the majority of linguistic complexity and human-rated score levels and that proficiency among Chinese EFL learners did not signal a discriminative power in their language production. In the meantime, strong within-proficiency topic effects were found on the majority of measures in the syntactic, lexical, and morphological dimensions.

LexFindR: A fast, simple, and extensible R package for finding similar words in a lexicon

Language scientists often need to generate lists of related words, such as potential competitors. They may do this for purposes of experimental control (e.g., selecting items matched on lexical neighborhood but varying in word frequency), or to test theoretical predictions (e.g., hypothesizing that a novel type of competitor may impact word recognition). Several online tools are available, but most are constrained to a fixed lexicon and fixed sets of competitor definitions, and may not give the user full access to or control of source data. We present LexFindR, an open-source R package that can be easily modified to include additional, novel competitor types. LexFindR is easy to use. Because it can leverage multiple CPU cores and uses vectorized code when possible, it is also extremely fast. In this article, we present an overview of LexFindR usage, illustrated with examples. We also explain the details of how we implemented several standard lexical competitor types used in spoken word recognition research (e.g., cohorts, neighbors, embeddings, rhymes), and show how "lexical dimensions" (e.g., word frequency, word length, uniqueness point) can be integrated into LexFindR workflows (for example, to calculate "frequency-weighted competitor probabilities"), for both spoken and visual word recognition research.

Means and Mechanism of the Realization of Linguistic Subjectivity from the Perspective of Philosophical Cognition

This study discusses the linguistic subjectivity (LS) phenomenon from the perspective of philosophical cognition. The purpose of this study is to explore the human’s cognitive styles and ways of existence in language and to deepen the understanding of communicative functions of language. An interactive geometric research framework of LS was constructed and the means and mechanism of its realization were explored at six levels: language system level, language use level, propositional meaning level, non-propositional meaning level, speaker’s encoded meaning level and hearer’s decoded meaning level. Also, three dimensions were covered: lexical dimension, syntactic dimension, and discourse dimension. Results show that humans’ cognitive styles and ways of existence encoded in language can be more profoundly dug by exploring LS from the perspective of philosophical cognition. The study can provide a feasible analytical framework for systematically and comprehensively probing of LS phenomenon. Thus, the study facilitates a deeper understanding of LS and communicative functions of language. The study also thoroughly mines subjective factors behind the speaker’s words, utterances or discourse, such as attitudes, emotions and feelings, which also belong to the cognition category, indicating the speaker’s existence in language.

Vocabulary size and depth as predictors of second language speaking ability

This article investigates the contribution of vocabulary size and depth to second language (L2) speaking proficiency as well as its two dimensions of fluency and lexical resource. To this end, 46 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners took the Word Associates Test (WAT), Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT), Lex30, and the speaking tasks of International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Results of multivariate and ridge regression analyses indicated that (a) the three measures of vocabulary could jointly have a significant contribution to the prediction of the overall speaking ability as well as its two aspects of fluency and lexical resource; (b) receptive vocabulary size, as measured through the VLT, had a unique prediction of the overall L2 speaking proficiency; (c) receptive vocabulary depth could not predict any of the dependent variables; (d) productive vocabulary knowledge was predictive of the fluency and coherence dimension of L2 speaking; and (e) receptive vocabulary size could uniquely predict the lexical dimension of L2 speaking. The results are interpreted in order to provide a range of pedagogical implications.

Fach- und sprachintegrierter Mathematikunterricht am Sprachanfang:

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approaches are not only relevant for foreign language learning, but also for newly arrived immigrants. The integration of subject matter and explicit language learning can be beneficial for beginners if language learning opportunities are chosen according to the subject matter learning goals with rich and relevant discourse practices. Their realization requires adaptations in the lexical dimension (focused vocabulary) and the grammatical dimension (concerning the degree of grammatical difficulty). We have developed and investigated a CLIL arrangement for developing conceptual understanding of the mathematical concept of functions. By trace analysis, we have investigated how five newly arrived adolescents deal with grammatically challenging multi-word units (chunks) while developing a conceptual understanding. The analysis shows that challenging chunks can be acquired when they are carefully unfolded in mathematically coherent ways.

A Collective-Distributive Pragmatic Scale and the Developing Lexicon

ABSTRACT A locus of the difference in meaning between distributive and collective sentences can be the quantifiers that modify their subjects. A current theoretical account of distributive and collective sentences claims that sentences with quantifiers such as the in English, or los in Spanish, in subject position and an indefinite direct object, modified by a in English, or una in Spanish, are ambiguous as to whether they are distributive or collective, all things being equal. In contrast, the same sentences with each/cada in subject position are unambiguously distributive. This account claims that sentences with quantifiers such as the/los in subject position come to be interpreted collectively, and not distributively, because the distributive meaning could more informatively be constructed using the unambiguous each/cada quantifier. This is the same neo-Gricean reasoning that accounts for the Quantity Implicature that arises for some, given the informativeness of all. On this account, collective and distributive interpretations are intrinsically linked, which predicts that even children’s non-adult-like collective and distributive interpretations should nonetheless be statistically associated, which we confirm in a sample of Puerto Rican Spanish-speaking children. We further propose that growth occurs both internal to lexical items, in terms of denotative content, as well as externally, within the lexicon in quantifier networks. Such networks have traditionally been expressed in formal semantics as pragmatic scales. We claim that the growth of both of these lexical dimensions are indexed by general lexical growth and show that a statistical association obtains between them in our sample.

Legal Translation Instruction at Discourse Level and the Problem of Equivalence

Legal translation is often claimed to be one of the most difficult types of technical translation. The difficulty may partly be due to the characteristic features of legal discourse which is typically archaic, obscure, complex, and culturally-bound, different linguistic systems, and the type of equivalence the legal translator seeks to achieve; and partly be due to the item-centered approach commonly used in teaching legal translation which emphasizes word-for-word equivalence. The present paper introduces a discourse-oriented approach as an alternative to the currently-used method of teaching legal translation in Iraqi universities. The major argument is that teaching legal translation at discourse level helps the students of translation to recognize the lexical, grammatical, pragmatic, and stylistic dimensions of the legal text which are essential for providing appropriate legal equivalence. Keywords: legal translation, legal equivalence, translation instruction, discourse-oriented approach, characteristics of legal discourse DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-17-03 Publication date: June 30th 2020

Assessing the Quality of Paraphrases Written by Third Year Costa Rican EFL Students


 
 
 The aim of this study was to assess factors affecting the quality of paraphrases written by college level EFL learners. A three-dimensional paraphrasing competence model by McCarthy, Guess, and McNamara (2009) was followed to assess the texts for seman- tic completeness, lexical difference, and syntactic difference. The selected method was a mixed method approach. The quantitative analysis was used to measure the rate of success of each paraphrasing competence whereas the qualitative analysis aimed to de- scribe the perceived difficulty of the competences and the reasons behind it. The subjects were 17 EFL students enrolled in a third year English composition course at the Univer- sity of Costa Rica. The corpus of the study consisted of 51 paraphrases. Following three rounds of examinations and the analysis of students’ perceptions, the lexical dimension emerged as the most challenging area interfering with paraphrase quality, with seman- tic completeness also emerging as difficult. Other factors affecting paraphrase quality were inappropriate use of passive voice, style and register, and inaccurate lexical substi- tutions. The study concluded with recommendations to improve instructional cycles by reinforcing reading comprehension and lexical development, and by assessing the differ- ent dimensions of paraphrasing separately. 
 
 

Eleventh Graders\u2019 Increasingly Elaborate Language Use for Disentangling Amount and Change: A\xa0Case Study on the Epistemic Role of Syntactic Language Complexity

The syntactic dimension of academic language has often been studied with respect to students’ difficulties with syntactic features in mathematical textbooks and test items, and these studies have contributed to understanding the communicative role of language. In contrast, the epistemic role of students’ language use has mainly been explored in lexical and discourse dimensions. This research has shown that higher order cognitive demands require more elaborate language means. The aim of this article is to contribute to theorizing the epistemic role of syntactic language complexity by means of a topic-specific investigation using the mathematical topic of qualitative calculus, i.e., the informal meanings of amount and change. In order to do this, the learning process study presented in this article investigates 18 eleventh graders’ conceptual pathways while dealing with challenging tasks on amount and change. The identification of different syntactic complexities in students’ utterances provides an overview of the variance of possible phrase structures. Further, it shows that successive conceptual conciseness requires either increasing syntactic complexity or conceptual condensation. So increasing elaborateness in the lexical and syntactic dimensions seem to compensate each other.