Linguistic Behavior Research Articles

Taboo language across the globe: A multi-lab study.

The use of taboo words represents one of the most common and arguably universal linguistic behaviors, fulfilling a wide range of psychological and social functions. However, in the scientific literature, taboo language is poorly characterized, and how it is realized in different languages and populations remains largely unexplored. Here we provide a database of taboo words, collected from different linguistic communities (Study 1, N = 1046), along with their speaker-centered semantic characterization (Study 2, N = 455 for each of six rating dimensions), covering 13 languages and 17 countries from all five permanently inhabited continents. Our results show that, in all languages, taboo words are mainly characterized by extremely low valence and high arousal, and very low written frequency. However, a significant amount of cross-country variability in words' tabooness and offensiveness proves the importance of community-specific sociocultural knowledge in the study of taboo language.

Actitudes lingüísticas de guanacastecos hacia la variedad lingüística del español del Valle Central

In this research paper, a study based on linguistic behaviors present in Guanacaste speakers has been performed. The study addresses the linguistic varieties of Spanish in the Central Valle of a student sample from the National University of Costa Rica.The main objective is to analyze the linguistic behaviors of a group of Guanacaste speakers towards the linguistic varieties of Spanish within Central Valle. To accomplish this objective, a five-level Likert scale questionnaire is being proposed as the instrument to collect data on linguistic behaviors from Spanish from Central Valle. Moreover, in the same questionnaire, there have been included three open questions. This qualitative approach is being used to collect valuable information to complement the statistical data. Subsequently, the information obtained from the questionnaires is analyzed using statistical tools such as comparative charts and graphs. The objective would be to determine the linguistic behaviors of Guanacaste students from Chorotega and Omar Dengo’s National University sites. Regarding the results, the majority of the students interviewed (migrated and non-migrated) are aware of the linguistic differences between Guanacaste and Vallecentraleños speakers, linguistic prejudices still persist in the popular belief of some Costa Rican speakers; and finally, related with the linguistic variety under study, the Spanish from the Central Valley, there co-occur accommodation processes or linguistic adaptations, linguistic insecurity, linguistic change (manifested with the phenomenon of migration), attitudes of loyalty and linguistic identity reinforced with attitudes of greater awareness and acceptance of the linguistic and cultural diversity of Costa Rica. It may be concluded that in regard to the perception of the interviewed speakers, the historical division between the varieties of Spanish from Guanacaste and the Central Valley has been kept. However, the study of such linguistic varieties shows a leveling and progressive approach of both linguistic varieties, it is especially notable in those students who have lived abroad. The present study has five sections: the introduction; the theoretical frame; the methodological framework; the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the linguistic behaviors within the areas of the present study (Guanacaste and Central Valley) and finally, conclusions.

Conversational Speech Behaviors Are Context Dependent.

According to the interpersonal synergy model of spoken dialogue, interlocutors modify their communicative behaviors to meet the contextual demands of a given conversation. Although a growing body of research supports this postulation for linguistic behaviors (e.g., semantics, syntax), little is understood about how this model applies to speech behaviors (e.g., speech rate, pitch). The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that interlocutors adjust their speech behaviors across different conversational tasks with different conversational goals. In this study, 28 participants each engaged in two different types of conversations (i.e., relational and informational) with two partners (i.e., Partner 1 and Partner 2), yielding a total of 112 conversations. We compared six acoustic measures of participant speech behavior across conversational task and partner. Linear mixed-effects models demonstrated significant differences between speech feature measures in informational and relational conversations. Furthermore, these findings were generally robust across conversations with different partners. Results suggest that contextual demands influence speech behaviors. These findings provide empirical support for the interpersonal synergy model and highlight important considerations for assessing speech behaviors in individuals with communication disorders.

Discourse-related code-switching in conversations with a bilingual autistic adult

Background: Although studies on language alternation among non-autistic bilinguals have increased in the last decades, we know little about this linguistic behavior among autistic bilinguals. Research on this topic is particularly relevant, given its potential to further our understanding of the ability of autistic bilinguals to deploy language alternation discursively and orient to different aspects of ongoing conversation. Method: We used multimodal conversation analysis to analyze 237 instances of language alternation embedded in naturalistic conversations between a bilingual autistic adult with severe language impairment and his frequent co-interactants. Specifically, 157 of those language alternative instances served conversational functions (e.g., setting off quotes, contextualizing addressee change, highlighting repair execution, adding emphasis) and were therefore associated with discourse-related code-switching. Discussion/conclusion: The study’s findings highlight the need for the different stakeholders to critically ponder their assumptions about the ability of autistic individuals to become bilingual; to resist a tendency to default to monolingualism in the presence of an autism diagnosis; and to (re)consider their beliefs about the nature of language alternation.

Generation Z Linguistic Behavior in the UAE: A Threat to Emirati Arabic?

This research analyzes the characteristics of Emirati Generation Z, millennials, and baby boomers, and the influence of social media to explain linguistic changes in the UAE. To do so, we administered a questionnaire containing 100 English words commonly used in Emirati Arabic; We have classified the types of English words and expressions used by the three generation cohorts. Participants also responded to a qualitative questionnaire, concerning the role that English played during the pandemic, Emiratis’ behavior towards social media, and their viewpoint regarding the influence of English in Emirati Arabic. Results showed that Generation Z uses more English words and expressions than the other two generations. Generation Z attended bilingual education in English and Arabic since primary school whereas most millennials and all baby boomers attended school exclusively in Arabic. We have examined that social media contributed to more English words in Emirati Arabic and determined the reasons why Generation G prefers to use English on social media and in their daily lives. We could conclude that Generation Z and most millennials see English positively and as inevitable progress in a globalized world while baby boomers see it as a threat to their language and culture. Generation Z also outperformed the other two generations regarding the pronunciation of words in English when speaking Emirati Arabic.

Family members at the epicentre of policy discourses

The articles in this thematic issue of Sociolinguistic Studies, ‘Family as a language policy regime: Agency, negotiation and local practices’, are concerned with the impact of family (language policy) among the minority population, whether indigenous or otherwise, on the sociolinguistic makeup of the contemporary policy regimes worldwide. Although family language policy is already a well-established domain of inquiry, this issue points to the wide range of cases from around the world, including Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Iran, Lithuania, Northern Ireland, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe, to understand how (individual) pathways are formed and choices made in favour of language and cultural maintenance. While covering a wide range of factors and perspectives that contribute to our understanding of families’ linguistic behaviour and the broader social implications of the discipline, these papers emphasise the complex relationships between language, culture, politics, and socioeconomic factors in today’s global multilingual and multicultural mosaic. This edition further underlines a number of present-day requirements in the field, such as being able to examine children’s or extended family members’ agency, use of digital technologies for language maintenance, different forms of parental language planning and activism to mention a few. The collection has emerged in the wake of a symposium ‘Family as a language policy regime: Agency, practices and negotiation’ at the 20th AILA World Congress (19–20 July, 2023, Lyon, France) and a closed call for papers.

Characterizing Developers' Linguistic Behaviors in Open Source Development across Their Social Statuses

Open Source Software (OSS) development has attracted numerous developers. As a typical complex sociotechnical system, an OSS project often forms a hierarchical social structure where a few developers are elite while the rest are non-elite. Differences in social status may result in distinct language use behaviors in interpersonal communication. Characterizing such behaviors is critical for supporting efficient and effective communication among developers with different social statuses. This study empirically compared elite and non-elite developers' language behaviors in their communication. We compiled a corpus of - 216,000 discourses collected from 20 large projects on GitHub. We investigated the linguistic differences in three aspects, namely, linguistic styles and characters, main concerns, and sentence patterns. Our findings reveal that elite and non-elite developers showed different linguistic patterns and had different concerns in their discourses. Their discourses also reflect the variation of the main focuses in the development process. Furthermore, elite and non-elite developers exhibited noticeable patterns in their linguistic behaviors in accordance with their roles and corresponding divisions of labor in the production process, no matter which semantic contexts. These findings provide implications for supporting communication that crosses social statuses in OSS development.

Functional characteristics of distributive repetition verbs in the work “Dark Alleys” by Ivan Bunin

The article describes function specifics of distributive repetition verbs in the work “Dark Alleys” by Ivan Bunin. The author analyzes both the paradigmatic and syntagmatic characteristics of verbs in a certain context, which makes it possible to identify both the vocabulary changes under the influence of context, various kinds of meaning increments and the idiosyncrasies of the writer. The purpose of the work is to investigate the functions of distributive repetition verbs with the prefixes rac/ras-, pere-, s- taking into account both individual characteristics and the specifics of the verb class to establish the specifics of the author’s idiosyncrasy. The article concludes that the semantics of the verbs with the considered prefixes determines their linguistic behavior in a particular text. We have established that the verb word multiplicity is motivated both by the type of the verb and its communicative rank and taxonomic class. The major feature of our research is that we consider distributive repetition verbs in a certain context, revealing their textual characteristics and their role in revealing the author’s intention. We use the descriptive method in our research, focusing on the contextual analysis of distributive repetition verbs. In addition, in the process of our research into the functional-semantic field of distributive repetition, we used the functional-semantic and stylistic methods of analysis, considering the functions of plurality verbs at different language levels.

Sociolinguistic Study of Language, Social Identity and Behavioural Patterns of Keke Operators in Lafia Metropolis

It is safe to state that sociolinguistics is the study of the language identity and behaviour of a speaker. Such a study of sociolinguistics will normally and apparently rely on the individual’s considerable conscious or unconscious degree of choice of the linguistic variables or forms they use in their daily speech. These choices could make essential contribution to the indexing of personal stance, identity, and communicative function of language use since the belief is that language(s) do not exist outside the societies in which they are used. ‘Sociolinguistic study of language, social identity, and behavioural patterns of keke operators in Lafia metropolis is a study of how tricycle operators, called ‘keke napep’ construct their social identity through their linguistic patterns to suit their job. The study also identified the linguistic behaviours and peculiarities of the group. Being a qualitative study, a primary approach was employed with the deployment of a participant observatory method. The ethnography of communication was applied as the basis of the framework of the study, which relied on first-hand observations of the behaviour of the keke operators. The framework itself was an adaptation of the Sapir-Whorf theory of relativity hypothesis concerned with social problems that invade the field of language. The findings showed that language served the function of social identity and aspiration, while the environment in which the group operate does influence their speech, behaviour, and attitude.

EUROPEAN POLICY OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: GUIDELINES AND EXPERIENCE FOR UKRAINE

The article examines the phenomenon of political correctness in European Union countries, which is rooted in principles such as unity, tolerance, and cultural diversity. Originating in the United States as a response to discrimination, political correctness has permeated university environments as a tool to combat discriminatory behavior.
 The ideology of political correctness encompasses views on the treatment of discriminatory groups and addresses issues such as feminism, sexism, racism, and homophobia. It has significantly influenced the ideological landscape of the United States and Western Europe, becoming a code of social linguistic behaviour aimed at preventing and mitigating social conflicts while improving political and legal culture.
 It is shown that in Western European countries, representatives of social movements who proposed norms of linguistic behaviour and the use of euphemisms began to actively use the ideology of "political correctness" to obscure and veil phenomena that have a negative assessment in public consciousness and to prohibit manifestations of contemptuous, offensive, or discriminatory attitudes towards representatives of various minorities.
 In Western European countries, proponents of social movements have adopted the ideology of political correctness to obscure negative phenomena in public consciousness and prohibit discriminatory behaviour towards minorities. This ideology not only reflects reality but also actively changes it, serving as an effective tool for preventing social conflicts and promoting respect for cultural diversity.
 For Ukraine, aspiring to integrate into the European community, studying the European experience of political correctness offers insights into the political behaviour of modern European society. Political correctness serves as a communication tool aimed at fostering a conflict-free atmosphere and preventing social tensions.

Regelfolgen und Normativität: Ansätze einer transzendentalen Semantik

Wittgenstein's discussion of rule-following can be considered as a part of his criticism of metaphysics: Naturalistic as well as non-naturalistic ontologies fail to present us an adequate explanation of the normative dimension of linguistic behavior. In this paper, we will reconstruct this criticism of metaphysics and show that thereby we gain an important philosophical insight: Wittgenstein's criticism implies that the normativity of language is not a phenomenon that stands in need for an explanation but rather – to the contrary – has to be considered as a primitive, non-reducible condition that we have to presuppose in order to show how linguistic meaning is possible at all. In this sense, the notion of rule-following gives rise to a transcendental semantics.

Prosocial speech acts: Links to pragmatics and aging.

This study investigated how adults over the lifespan flexibly adapt their use of prosocial speech acts when conveying bad news to communicative partners. Experiment 1a (N = 100 Scottish adults aged 18-72 years) assessed whether participants' use of prosocial speech acts varied according to audience design considerations (i.e., whether or not the recipient of the news was directly affected). Experiment 1b (N = 100 Scottish adults aged 19-70 years) assessed whether participants adjusted for whether the bad news was more or less severe (an index of general knowledge). Younger adults displayed more flexible adaptation to the recipient manipulation, while no age differences were found for severity. These findings are consistent with prior work showing age-related decline in audience design but not in the use of general knowledge during language production. Experiment 2 further probed younger adults (N = 40, Scottish, aged 18-37 years) and older adults' (N = 40, Scottish, aged 70-89 years) prosocial linguistic behavior by investigating whether health (vs. nonhealth-related) matters would affect responses. While older adults used prosocial speech acts to a greater extent than younger adults, they did not distinguish between conditions. Our results suggest that prosocial linguistic behavior is likely influenced by a combination of differences in audience design and communicative styles at different ages. Collectively, these findings highlight the importance of situating prosocial speech acts within the pragmatics and aging literature, allowing us to uncover the factors modulating prosocial linguistic behavior at different developmental stages. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Exploring the correlation between the natural surroundings and the prevalence of offensive language in society: A case study on three (3) selected residential compounds in Lusaka District

A very important discovery has been made through the reviewed literature and theories showing existence of an intricate relationship between natural surroundings and the prevalence of offensive language, aiming to unravel the underlying dynamics that contribute to linguistic behavior in diverse environmental contexts. Through a multidisciplinary approach that integrates insights from psychology, sociology, and environmental science, the study established the impact of natural environments on the frequency, intensity, and contextual nuances of offensive language. Therefore, the purpose of this research paper was to explore the correlation between the natural surroundings and the prevalence of offensive language in society: a case study on three (3) selected communities in Lusaka district. The sample consisted of sixty (90) respondents. A representative sample of 60 adolescents and 30 parents: i.e., 20 adolescents from each named compound and 30 parents, that is, 10 from each compound were randomly selected from the three compounds in the district. Qualitative method was applied during data analysis. The results of the study indicated that environmental factors, including the natural surroundings do influence human behavior and emotions thereby adversely affecting language use in various contextual settings. It was equally revealed that exposure to nature or green spaces has a positive effect on the mental well-being, reducing stress and promoting positive mood amongst people living in low density residential compounds where the use of offensive language is less, as opposed to high density residential compounds where the use of offensive (profane) language is heavily influenced by numerous social, cultural, and personal factors among others.

The Sociopragmatic Aspects of Literary Discourse

This abstract is intended as an overview of the sociopragmatic aspects that influence artistic discourse. The paper examines the relationship between language, culture, and society in the context of literary creation. The literature review focuses on research in linguistics, literary studies, and sociology to identify the influence of sociopragmatic factors on artistic discourse. Various phenomena such as the use of different linguistic means to convey sociocultural norms, images, and stereotypes, the influence of characters’ social status on their linguistic behavior, and the specificity of the dialogic nature of a literary text are analyzed. The work also involves a review of methodological approaches to the analysis of sociopragmatics in fiction, as well as a critical reflection on the results obtained and possible directions for further research in this field. The abstract has been prepared with the aim of presenting the importance of studying sociopragmatic aspects in the context of fiction discourse and identifying.

Promoting Linguistically Based Health Literacy in Doctors for Better Cancer Healthcare in Cyprus.

This paper explores a novel approach in cancer healthcare, underscoring the significance of fostering health literacy among doctors by enhancing their ability to employ linguistically oriented strategies to extract and interpret the linguistic behavior of patients. The focus is on the Greek-Cypriot context, where research on health literacy is still in its nascent stages.

Constructional modeling in the formalism of cognitive-quantitative construction grammar

This paper discusses the findings of constructional modeling in the formalism of cognitive quantitative construction grammar, a newly developed research framework within a cognitive-quantitative grammar approach. Triangulating theoretical tenets, methodological principles and research tools of cognitivesemiotic frameworks with quantitative corpus studies, cognitive quantitative construction grammar provides a comprehensive qualitative-quantitative approach to examining cognitive foundations, general and idiosyncratic linguistic features, usage patterns and distribution of linguistic constructions. In this context, constructional modeling entails applying a computerized linguoquantitative procedure for a construction profile parametrization. This procedure yields operationalized and statistically verified data on the essential parameters that determine a construction’s linguistic behavior. The modeling uses the boxbracket notation, which integrates the box notation to represent holistic construction-level information and construction’s constituent-level information, and the bracket notation to detail specific linguistic properties and constructional constraints.The constructional modeling in the integrated box-bracket notational system applied to English ꞌdetached nonfinite/nonverbal with explicit subjectꞌ-constructions allows for a comprehensive representation of their external and internal linguistic properties and captures inheritance links betweenthe constructions at macro-, meso- and micro-levels of the constructional network. The research findings demonstrate the feasibility of applying the cognitive quantitative construction grammar formalism to model the linguistic properties and constraints of complex clause-level constructions and how these constructions are likely to be represented in the mental grammar of speakers.

The Role Of Arabic Language And Its Impact In Improving Education Among Children

The research dealt with an important topic that is related to humanity in general and children In particular, it is the role of knowing the Arabic language in increasing the linguistic perception of children because they are like a seed. In growing up, their tongues must be straightened in a way that increases their linguistic balance, because of the importance of acquiring wealth Linguistic makes him recognize all literary and non-literary texts, relie  in this study onThe effect of stories on linguistic behavior and the importance of children's knowledge of language in simplified and smooth ways Including stories and tales, and stories are considered a means of desire to increase linguistic wealth In addition to the growth of cognitive stimulation and the development of their knowledge of the originality of the Arabic language and literature in a way Special, and add to that also that the child becomes more familiar with the Arab culture and has a queen Artistic taste for intellectual output.

Deception and euphemisms as a linguistic strategy in the context of (political) discourse

The paper discusses lying as an ordinal function of language in the context of political discourse.To begin with, the phenomenon of lying is regarded as an ordinary linguistic behaviour with a specificfunction for the speaking individual. Based on a variety of empirical data, the aforementionedfunction is thought to be a certain evolutionary strategy that provides concrete advantages (to individuals).

Examining Pragmatic Knowledge in Speech Acts of Request, Compliment Response, and Apology among Moroccan EFL Students

This research delves into the pragmatic competencies in interlanguage of Moroccan EFL learners, focusing on the speech acts of requests, apologies, and compliment responses. Utilizing Discourse Completion Tasks (DCT) as the cornerstone of data collection, the study scrutinizes 16 diverse situations involving advanced-level EFL learners in Morocco. The study not only reinforces existing theories about the role of social and relational factors in shaping linguistic behavior but also uncovers the nuanced interplay of variables such as power dynamics, relational distance, and imposition in influencing these speech acts. Significantly, the research reveals that Moroccan EFL learners are not mere passive recipients of established linguistic norms; they actively adapt their language choices in response to a complex array of sociocultural and sociolinguistic variables. The study concludes with a call for more explicit and targeted instruction in interlanguage pragmatics within the Moroccan EFL educational setting to better prepare students for authentic interactions. These insights have far-reaching pedagogical implications, particularly for the crafting of EFL curricula that are attuned to the nuanced sociolinguistic variables that influence language use.

Multi-Level Linguistic Alignment in a Dynamic Collaborative Problem-Solving Task.

Cocreating meaning in collaboration is challenging. Success is often determined by people's abilities to coordinate their language to converge upon shared mental representations. Here we explore one set of low-level linguistic behaviors, linguistic alignment, that both emerges from, and facilitates, outcomes of high-level convergence. Linguistic alignment captures the ways people reuse, that is, "align to," the lexical, syntactic, and semantic forms of others' utterances. Our focus is on the temporal change of multi-level linguistic alignment, as well as how alignment is related to communicative outcomes within a unique collaborative problem-solving paradigm. The primary task, situated within a virtual educational video game, requires creative thinking between three people where the paths for possible solutions are highly variable. We find that over time interactions are marked by decreasing lexical and syntactic alignment, with a trade-off of increasing semantic alignment. However, greater semantic alignment does not translate into better team performance. Overall, these findings provide greater clarity on the role of linguistic coordination within complex and dynamic collaborative problem-solvingtasks.