Linguistic Artifacts Research Articles

Diglossia and Local Identity: Swiss German in the Linguistic Landscape of Kleinbasel (Asian Perspectives)

The city of Basel is situated in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, in the geographic triangle of three countries: France, Germany and Switzerland. Everyday urban life is characterised by the presence of Standard German and Swiss German as well as diverse migrant languages. Swiss German is ‘an umbrella term for several Alemannic dialects’ (Stepkowska 2012, 202) which differ from Standard German in terms of phonetics, semantics, lexis, and grammar and has no standard written form. Swiss German is predominantly used in oral forms, and Standard German in written communication. Furthermore, an amalgamation of bilingualism and diglossia (Stepkowska 2012, 208) distinguishes the specific linguistic situation, which indicates amongst other things the high prestige of Swiss German in everyday life. To explore the visibility and vitality of Swiss German in the public display of written language, we examined the linguistic landscape of a superdiverse neighbourhood of Basel, and investigated language power and the story beyond the sign – ‘stories about the cultural, historical, political and social backgrounds of a certain space’ (Blommaert 2013, 41). Our exploration was guided by the question: How do linguistic artefacts – such as official, commercial, and private signs – represent the diglossic situation and the relation between language and identity in Kleinbasel? Based on a longitudinal ethnographic study, a corpus was compiled comprising 300 digital images of written artefacts in Kleinbasel. Participant observation and focus group discussions about particular images were conducted and analysed using grounded theory (Charmaz 2006) and visual ethnography (Pink 2006). In our paper, we focus on signs in Swiss German and focus group discussions on these images. Initial analyses have produced two surprising findings; firstly, the visibility and the perception of Swiss German as a marker of local identity; secondly, the specific context of their display.

Validation and the further disclosures of language test design

The subjective validation of language tests and their objective validity remain contested. The debate is clouded by a lack of conceptual clarity: every measure of the adequacy of a test is either subsumed under validity, or other test features are promoted to prime consideration. An alternative is to recognize the technical dimension of experience as the leading function of applied linguistic artefacts such as language tests. In its coherence with other dimensions of reality, the technical aspect generates echoes of those others. These references to other facets are the basis of technically stamped, applied linguistic concepts. While a previous analysis referred to a number of foundational concepts in test design, this paper examines the traces of the lingual, social, economic and ethical aspects within the technical. These are all regulative technical ideas, acting as lodestars in the design of language tests. They are disclosures of the technical meaning of test design. Moreover, they allow applied linguistics to conceive of them as design principles, which must be given concrete shape and form in the actual development of language tests. Acknowledging this state of affairs enables the applied linguist to develop a robust and non-reductionist theory of applied linguistics. Opsomming Daar is geen eenstemmigheid oor wat die subjektiewe validering van taaltoetse asook hul objektiewe geldigheid behels nie. Die debat word vertroebel deur 'n gebrek aan konseptuele duidelikheid: elke maatstaf vir die effektiwiteit van 'n toets word óf ingetrek onder geldigheid, óf verhef tot belangrikste oorweging. Die alternatief is om die tegniese dimensie van ons ervaring as die leidende funksie van toegepaste taalkundige artefakte te erken. In sy samehang met ander dimensies genereer die tegniese aspek analogieë van die ander. Daardie verwysings na ander aspekte vorm die basis van tegnies gekwalifiseerde toegepaste taalkundige begrippe. Waar 'n vorige analise na 'n aantal funderende begrippe verwys het, ondersoek hierdie bydrae die linguale, sosiale, ekonomiese en etiese spore in die tegniese aspek. Hierdie analogieë is almal regulatiewe tegniese idees, wat optree as rigtingwysers in die ontwerp van taaltoetse. Hulle is ook ontsluitings van die tegniese betekenis van toetsontwerp. Terselfdertyd maak hulle dit vir die toegepaste taalkunde moontlik om hulle as ontwerpbeginsels te beskou wat in die ontwikkeling van taaltoetse konkrete beslag en vorm te kry. Om hierdie stand van sake ernstig op te neem is vir die toepgepaste taalkundige die beginpunt van die ontwikkeling van 'n robuuste en nie-reduksionistiese teorie van die toegepaste taalkunde.

A Comparative Study of English and Chinese Proverbs Using Natural Semantic Metalanguage Approach

The current study investigates the similarities and differences between ‘equivalent’ proverbs in English and Chinese. It integrates natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) into a semantic and pragmatic analysis to explain differences in proverbs as cultural linguistic artifacts. In this study, NSM has enabled the cultural meanings behind the artifacts to be brought into stark contrast for careful qualitative discourse analysis. The findings of the study indicate that it is not only worthwhile but also practical to carefully examine English and Chinese proverb pairs, as their respective meanings may differ, offering unique insight into certain cultural factors. There is much potential for further research on linguistic cultural indicators such as proverbs, song lyrics, and idioms.

Memorias instantáneas a prueba de archivo

En este trabajo deseamos recuperar y excavar en las representaciones de archivo que se desprenden de las voces que frecuentan e invocan modos de nombrar y de resistir las prácticas de documentación de los cuerpos movilizados en acciones poéticas y políticas subterráneas durante la posdictadura. La primera parte revisa y releva la teoría anglófona que reconoce a los estudios sobre performance como campo de acción, mientras que el segundo segmento de este trabajo recupera las voces que protagonistas y testigos oculares del under vuelcan sobre la condición de la práctica indocumentada, las memorias descartadas y otros artefactos lingüísticos a prueba de archivo.

A Dutchman Views the World – Ankersmit as a Reader

AbstractThroughout his extensive work, Frank Ankersmit presents a mode of reading that informs his philosophy of history. He has commented in passing that the visuality of his approach is a Dutch trait, and that historical works succeed when they serve as a “belvedere,” offering a panoramic view. His discussions of Erich Auerbach and Hayden White reveal his own reading protocols, which differ from those of the great readers Auerbach and White, however, in that Ankersmit does not read his texts “proximally,” as linguistic artefacts. Instead, he favors a “distal” stance from his texts in order to see the work as a whole, as a pictorial narratio. In this way, the reader-viewer may experience an aesthetic mood like the one Ankersmit feels, for example, when confronted by a Guardi painting. Further, in his discussion of Gibbon and Ovid, he shows that the myth of Narcissus, in which admiration of an image is replaced by a mere echo, reveals a danger of historical representation and the need for a metamorphic picture, blurring the contours. If we consider Ankersmit as a reader with a pictorial sense, whether “Dutch” or not, his position as a philosopher of experience will come into better focus.

Exploring the Potential of Concept Associations for the Creative Generation of Linguistic Artifacts: A Case Study With Riddles and Rhetorical Figures.

Automatic generation of linguistic artifacts is a problem that has been sporadically tackled over the years. The main goal of this paper is to explore how concept associations can be useful from a computational creativity point of view to generate some of these artifacts. We present an approach where finding associations between concepts that would not usually be considered as related (for example life and politics or diamond and concrete) could be the seed for the generation of creative and surprising linguistic artifacts such as rhetorical figures (life is like politics) and riddles (what is as hard as concrete?). Human volunteers evaluated the quality and appropriateness of the generated figures and riddles, and the results show that the concept associations obtained are useful for producing these kinds of creative artifacts.

Towards a cognitive media genetics

The cognitive sciences have provided crucial insights into several fields of cultural sciences. In particular, the faculty of language has been the area of spectacular advances which have produced arguments in favor of a naturalized vision of linguistic artifacts. It is now the turn of writing, the first complex medium of the human being to seal the union of verbal language with a system of graphic signs, to be subjected to the application of biological epistemology and thereby to confirm the existence of bridges between the genetics of the brain substrate, epigenetics, behavioral mimicry and finally cultural learning. The cerebral localization of the scriptural abilities, recently discovered in the area known as the Exner area, argues for this body/culture circularity and makes it possible to imagine new research programs covering all the media. The diffusion of digital multisensory media brings a new element to this perspective. Indeed, the intensive use of these media causes an ultrafast impact on the functional architecture of the human brain. This new situation, in which the learning of a new medium and the cognitive impact that its use arouses, coincides with the process of its conception and circulation, confers on designers the role pro-geneticists.

Bases de un modelo conceptual para decidir hechos

El presente texto se ocupa de algunos problemas que afectan la gestión de las pruebas y de los argumentos probatorios en sede judicial. Al respecto se proponen las bases de un modelo conceptual, en cuanto recurso que estandariza las posibilidades de ejecución de las tareas propias de un campo de trabajo. En el mundo de los jueces y de los abogados, los modelos conceptuales simplifican los problemas por la vía de declarar irrelevantes asuntos de detalle y, coetáneamente, de organizar eficientemente los distintos componentes implicados en la toma de decisiones. El concepto básico desde el cual se sugiere construir un modelo para gestionar los problemas probatorios es el de «hecho (probado)», entendido como un artefacto lingüístico que adscribe conductas jurídicamente relevantes y que supera un proceso de validación institucional.

Whole System in the Room: Toward Systems Integration in Healthcare

ABSTRACTHow might systems integration be furthered in healthcare? The paper addresses this by exploring critically the potentials of appreciative inquiry for accelerating systems integration through a large group intervention. We analyze a one-day dialog workshop to get “the whole system in the room” to improve cancer care in a regional health authority in south west Sweden. Seeing systems integration as socialization and enhanced common understandings, we suggest that discourse may play a crucial role in bringing together the various stakeholders in the system. Our analysis of the group discussions of the event demonstrates however that the degree of shared understanding can vary considerably across the discussion themes of appreciative inquiry. We argue that the “patient,” as a linguistic artifact, can act as a boundary signifier that enables those present to interact in a meaningful and coherent way but that this stops short of systems integration.

Staking Claims and Cultivating Local Publics: The Billboards of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights

This article examines a sign campaign posted by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (2012–2014) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the Museum’s strategies for cultivating local publics at a time when its imposing exterior was under construction but its interior was not yet open to public view. Our study reveals that the Museum was more interested in constructing a façade of community goodwill than in responding to or engaging with particular publics and local concerns. Although our analysis concentrates on local details and contexts, it can inform other projects that examine the role of linguistic artifacts and discursive activities in place-forming and -making. We draw on rhetorical, visual, linguistic and critical museum studies to analyze this not-to-be-repeated formative time in a museum’s history, a discursive moment that is both ephemeral and enduring.

“Genuine Remains”: The Celtic Linguistic Artifact in Eighteenth-Century Britain

“Genuine Remains”: The Celtic Linguistic Artifact in Eighteenth-Century Britain

A multimodal discourse theory of visual narrative

There have been many attempts to provide accounts of visually expressed narratives by drawing on our understandings of linguistic discourse. Such approaches have however generally proceeded piecemeal — particular phenomena appearing similar to phenomena in verbal discourse are selected for discussion with insufficient consideration of just what it means to treat visual communication as discourse at all. This has limited discussions in several ways. Most importantly, analysis is deprived of effective methodologies for approaching visual artefacts so that it remains unclear what units of analysis should be selected and how they can be combined. In this paper, we articulate a model of discourse pragmatics that is sufficiently general to apply to the specifics of visually communicated information and show this at work with respect to several central aspects of visual narrative. We suggest that the framework provides an effective and general foundation for reengaging with visual communicative artefacts in a manner compatible with methods developed for verbal linguistic artefacts.

Academic literacy interventions: What are we not yet doing, or not yet doing right?

We now much more readily accept a skills-neutral rather than a skillsbaseddefinition of academic literacy, changing our conceptualisations of what academic literacy is. Yet two issues have evaded scrutiny: first, there is theuncritical acceptance that academic writing is what should be taught, andinstitutionalised. Second, there is a tendency to accept discipline specific academic literacy courses as necessarily superior to generic ones. There is a third, foundational level omission in our work. That is that there is little reciprocity in what we learn from applied linguistic artefacts in the realms of language testing, language course design, and language policy making. Why do we not check whether the design of a course should be done as responsibly as that of a test? What can test designers learn from course developers about specificity? There are many useful questions thatare right before us, but that we never seem to ask.Key words: academic literacy, academic writing, discipline specific, academicliteracy test, curriculum, course, design

Innovation and reciprocity in applied linguistics

Applied linguistics is a discipline of design: it solves language problems by suggesting a plan, or blueprint, to handle them. These designs are sometimes promoted as highly innovative. Yet, are innovative language courses and tests in all respects truly new? This article will argue that most historically significant turning points in applied linguistic design demonstrate continuity with previously designed solutions. This was so for communicative teaching as well as for audio-lingualism. In testing, both interactive designs and socially responsible concerns have built on the past. Like innovation, reciprocity in design in applied linguistics is a foundational issue. How much reciprocity is there in the realms of language testing, language course design and language policy making? Why do we not explicitly check whether the design of a course should be as responsibly and carefully done as a test? How can we learn more from language policy development about making tests more accessible and accountable? What can test designers learn from course developers about specificity? There are many useful questions that we never seem to ask. The article will look across different levels of applied linguistic artefacts (language courses, language tests and language policies) at how we can enrich the principles of responsible design. We can continue to be surprised by innovation in the designed solutions that our profession provides, but we should also work on our understanding of what constitutes a responsible design framework. That foundation enables us to evaluate both the fleeting and the enduring in the new.

PrEP: A Framework for Malware and Cyber Weapons

The contemporary debate over cyber security rests on a set of linguistic artifacts that date from the Cold War. Attempting to glean a starting point for debate over use of terms like “cyber attack” or “cyber war” is difficult, largely because there is little agreement on what constitutes a weapon in cyberspace, be it “weaponized code” or black hats with root access. For information security professionals, this has led to a proliferation of different taxonomies tied to proprietary anti-virus systems. To social science researchers and the policy community, the result has been unclear definitions and vague terminology, which hinder academic progress and the development of effective policy. This paper proposes a new framework to classify malware and cyber weapons based on the different pieces of malicious code that constitute them, then evaluates competing definitions of cyber weapons, and concludes with implications for this approach. As developed in this paper, Cyber Weapons are any combination of three software components: a Propagation Method, one or several Exploits, and a Payload designed to create destructive physical or logical effects. Defining malware requires a difficult balance between technical specificity and conceptual breadth. The PrEP framework attempts to combine these, while building out a set of concepts useful to both research and policy communities.

Modelling Viking Migration to the Inner Hebrides

Until recently, the idea of large-scale Viking settlement in Scotland's Inner Hebrides was considered unlikely. Despite a conspicuous absence of documentary evidence, the area's long-standing Gaelic heritage was seen as proof of linguistic and cultural continuity from its Dalriadan heyday. By developing the narrative to consider other types of evidence, however, it is clear that the Norse impact on these islands was far from insignificant. This paper will review the historical record in the light of material evidence and linguistic artifacts such as place-names. After questioning aspects of currently popular approaches to “predatory” migration, it will then examine how reappraisal of the practicalities of Viking Age immigration might help to inform a revised model for Norse settlement in the region.

Challenging Messick: Proposing a theoretical framework for understanding fundamental concepts in language testing

As applied linguists, an important part of our work constitutes the design of language courses, language tests and sometimes even language policies. Clearly, these applied linguistic artefacts, especially language tests (which are the focus of this article) have far-reaching, sometimes negative, effects on our students. As applied linguists what is there in the literature on language testing to guide the work we do, to ensure that our designs have some positive effect? What have the experts in the field of language testing presented us with to ensure that important questions related to the social dimension in testing (issues related to transparency, integrity, accountability, fairness and ethics) are not ignored in the design and administration of language tests? What this article will attempt to do is to show that questions about the social dimension of language testing cannot be adequately answered by Messick (1980; 1989a; 1989b), a conventionally accepted expert in the field. Instead these questions can be answered in a “third idea, other than validity” (Weideman 2009: 239), as outlined by Weideman, an idea that does not foreground one concept but rather identifies a number of fundamental considerations for language testing. Key words : applied linguistics, language testing, social dimension, social defensibility, validity, construct validity, theoretical analysis, framework, constitutive, regulative

Models, Models, and Models

AbstractMichael Dummett famously maintained that analytic philosophy was simply philosophy that followed Frege in treating the philosophy of language as the basis for all other philosophy (1978, 441). But one important insight to emerge from computer science is how difficult it is to animate the linguistic artifacts that the analysis of thought produces. Yet, modeling the effects of thought requires a new skill that goes beyond analysis: procedural literacy. Some of the most promising research in philosophy makes use of a variety of modeling techniques that go beyond basic logic and elementary probability theory. What unifies this approach is a focus on what Alan Perlis called procedural literacy. This essay argues that the future spoils in philosophical research will disproportionally go to those who are procedurally literate.

History, a Literary Artifact? The Traveling Concept of Narrative in/on Historiographic Discourse

History, a Literary Artifact? The Traveling Concept of Narrative in/on Historiographic Discourse

Representing New Math: Genre Chains and Controversy in the Saskatchewan Media

The media's response to the release of "Math Instruction that Makes Sense" (2011), a research report by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (FCPP), helped spark a public controversy and spur the Saskatchewan government to reexamine the Ministry of Education’s math curriculum. The purpose of this article is to examine the CBC's depiction of the FCPP report and subsequent responses to it utilizing the tools of Critical Discourse Analysis and linguistic anthropology as a way of understanding the means by which concrete linguistic artifacts like research reports are recontextualized and disseminated with and for political means. By identifying the construction of voices, external resources and interview data in the CBC's reporting—the movement of resources across stable genre chains—my intent is to demonstrate how 'common sense' is established in the broader public discourse on matters of educational policy and the media's active role in creating it.