Linguistic Composition Research Articles

Language competition modeling and language policy evaluation

Abstract In this paper, we present a framework for the analysis of effects of language policies on the competition between languages. At the core of this framework is a language competition model that takes into account four pivotal factors for the evolution of the linguistic composition of a society: intergenerational language transmission, formal language education, adult language learning and migration. In contrast to the majority of models available in the literature, our model operates with parameters that can be estimated from empirical socio-linguistic data. It allows the reconstruction of past and simulate future dynamics. Language policies can be modeled as changes in model parameters. Therefore, projections derived from the model can be utilized to compare the effects of different policy options. We use Basque and Spanish within the Basque Autonomous Community in Spain to illustrate the application of the model.

SWITZERLAND AND INDIA AS DIFFERENT MODELS OF ETHNIC FEDERALISM

The ethnic factor is important in the development of federalism. ethno-linguistic architecture and cultural-religious structure are the main elements. Switzerland and India are diff erent models of ethnic federalism. The Swiss model of federalism is cantonal-communal. Switzerland consists of 26 cantons; there is a multi-ethnic composition of the population. Switzerland escaped ethnic separatism. The state has centuries of experience in reconciling linguistic and cultural diff erences. The Indian model is postcolonial. The state is multi-ethnic. Indian federalism is highly centralized. India has a unique ethnic, linguistic and religious composition.

School Funding Inequalities in the Texas Panhandle Related to the Racial, Socio-economic, and Linguistic Composition of School Districts

School Funding Inequalities in the Texas Panhandle Related to the Racial, Socio-economic, and Linguistic Composition of School Districts

Cortical encoding of linguistic constituent with and without morphosyntactic cues

This study examined the brain areas involved in combining words into larger units when there are few or no morphosyntactic cues. We manipulated constituent length in word strings of the same length under two conditions: Mandarin sentence, which had sparse morphosyntactic cues, and nominal phrase that had no morphosyntactic cues [e.g., ((honey mustard) (chicken burger))]. Contrasting sentences to word lists revealed a network that largely overlapped with the one reported in languages with rich morphosyntactic cues, including left IFGorb/IFGtri and areas along left STG/STS. Both conditions showed increased activation in left IFGtri/IFGorb in functional ROIs defined based on previous study in sentence processing, while the nominal phrases additionally revealed a constituent length effect in bilateral dorsal IFGtri, left IFGoper, left pMTG/pSTG, left IPL, and several subcortical areas, which might reflect an increased reliance on semantic and pragmatic information. Moreover, in upper left IFGtri/IFGoper and left thalamus/caudate, this effect increased with the participants' tendency to combine nouns into phrases. The absence of syntactic constraints on linguistic composition might highlight individual differences in cognitive control, which helps to integrate non-syntactic information.

Effective support and electoral dynamics in Quebec

In this article, we explore the impact of electoral participation on electoral dynamics in Quebec. We propose a parsimonious model that considers the linguistic composition of districts and the effective electoral support for parties to explain electoral politics. In modeling these dynamics, we introduce three new concepts, namely leverage effect, push effect, and differentiation effect. Our findings show that the 2018 election represents an extension of dynamics established in 2012 and played a corrective role to those of the 2014 election. They also demonstrate that leverage effects are not effective mechanisms for ensuring electoral success.

The Experimentation of Strategy in Samyah’s Short Story

Experimentation is one of the important signs of the development of Arabic literature. This study attempts to trace its features in a pioneering narrative experience, namely the experience of Jordanian fiction writer Samia Elatout who has always experimented with creative experience in different areas in terms of subjects, language and narrative techniques, the serenity of the traditional recipient altogether, the most prominent of its manifestations at the level of the linguistic composition of the poetic language, aligned, densification, bias and the language of irony. This reading is based on the formative structure, which depend to drop down the social and political transformations on cultural and literary phenomena, based on the fact that the fate of narration is closely linked to its social and environment, thus creating an organic relationship between renewal of the reality society and the renewal of the narrative form.

A new insight into implementing Mamdani fuzzy inference system for dynamic process modeling: Application on flash separator fuzzy dynamic modeling

In this work, a novel approach to model the dynamic behavior of the flash separation process (as a main building block of non-reacting stage-wise operations) based on Mamdani Fuzzy Inference Systems is proposed. This model surmounts the need to solve various types of mathematical equations governing the system and does not require thermodynamic properties which are either not available or computationally demanding. Hence it can be easily used in dynamic simulation of multi-phase flow in distributed systems. In the proposed approach the overall model is broken into several simple sub-models based on intuitive analysis of an expert. Moreover, a new fuzzy concept, named “Linguistic Composition Variable” is introduced to represent components mole fractions of each phase as a fuzzy variable. Accordingly, large number of rules which is the main shortcoming of the Mamdani Fuzzy system is significantly reduced.The performance of the proposed dynamic model is evaluated through comparing its results against their corresponding counterparts for a flash separator of crude oil. Overall MAPE (Mean Absolute Percentage Error) values of 7.17% for the gas molar fractions, 3.06% for liquid molar fractions, 10.16% for the temperature, 0.63% for the pressure and 16.44% for the liquid level of the separator have been achieved showing that the proposed fuzzy model can effectively capture the general trends of process data of the dynamic process.

Speaking Surfaces in James’s Siena

This essay examines anthropomorphised sites and buildings in “Siena Early and Late,” which convey a spectral quality that shines through apparently resistant surfaces. The challenge to penetration is welcomed more than deplored by James. He side-steps opportunities for in-depth probing, deriving profit from submission to an overpowering sense of historical significance and aesthetic meaning. That sense is sustained by the rhetorical power of the linguistic composition that takes place in James’s figurally excessive travel-writing.

Classroom Language Contexts as Predictors of Latinx Preschool Dual Language Learners’ School Readiness

The present study examined the relations between teacher-child interactions, teachers’ Spanish use, classroom linguistic composition, and the school readiness skills of low-income, Latinx, Spanish-speaking dual language learners (DLLs), controlling for home and teacher background characteristics, with a national probability sample of Head Start children (i.e., from the Family and Child Experiences Survey [FACES, 2009]). Findings revealed that Head Start classrooms with higher concentrations of DLLs had teachers who reported lower average levels of children’s cooperative behavior. In addition, DLL students in classrooms where teachers used more Spanish for instruction and demonstrated more emotionally supportive teacher-child interactions were found to have higher average scores on measures of approaches to learning. Implications and directions for future research related to classroom language contexts are discussed.

Выборочный специальный перевод сквозь призму коммуникативно-функционального подхода

The research is topical due to the need to shape an attitude towards various kinds of translation the linguistic composition of which differs from that of a traditional full translation as to fully-fledged and satisfactory translations, the emergence of which is determined by the characteristics of a given communicative situation. One of these kinds of translation is selective translation. The article highlights the peculiarities of a communicative situation in which selective translation of a specialised text is to be made. The pages from a personal medical cards of children are used for analysis and as an object of selective translation. The author argues that it is important to take into consideration the needs and expectancies of an agent and/or target text user as well as the translation goal in a given communicative situation since, in the aggregate, they predetermine the reproduction of the content of a specialised text in translation selectively in the volume which is sufficient for the agent and/or target text user to fulfill their substantive activity. The research is innovative due to the fact that the selective translation is being analyzed for the first time in terms of the communicative and functional approach to translation.

Documenting Feature Pools in Language Expansion Situations: Sibilants in Early Colonial Latin American Spanish

AbstractThis paper proposes a reconstruction of the demographic and linguistic composition of the Spanish settling contingent in the American colonies as one of several key factors determining the evolution of Spanish in the early colonial period (sixteenth century). It focuses on the evidence for contact among several sibilant systems, including seseo, i.e. the reduction of four medieval sibilants to /s/. In the standard narrative of the history of Latin American Spanish, this reduction is seen as the consequence of the demographic primacy of seseo in the early metropolitan colonial mix and the inherent phonological simplicity of the merger (Catalán 1958; Granda 1994; Parodi 1995; Hidalgo 2016). This study calls for a reassessment of several of these previous assumptions. The bulk of the data in this study come from a corpus of private letters by early colonial settlers from Spain, analysed quantitatively and contextualized on the basis of additional demographic and linguistic evidence. The sociolinguistic reconstruction that emerges from this data contradicts the canonical presentation of the internal and external ecology of early colonial Latin American Spanish, and calls for the incorporation of a variety of cognitive and sociodemographic triggers beyond the action of the metropolitan input.

A preliminary study on the composition of the early expressive lexicon in Egyptian infants and toddlers

ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to gain insight into early vocabulary size in Egyptian children aged between 12 and 30 months and to study the children’s lexicon composition at that young age while studying some demographic factors that might affect early vocabulary development.Participants and methodsParents of 150 children joining day care nurseries in Cairo were asked to fill in the Arabic vocabulary checklist designed in this study. The children were divided according to their age into three groups and then further subdivided according to their vocabulary size into low-vocabulary and high-vocabulary groups.ResultsRange and median and vocabulary percentages were estimated. Vocabulary size in older children is larger than younger children. More word types developed in the high-vocabulary group in younger age than in low-vocabulary group. All types of vocabulary continued to grow in older children in both low-vocabulary and high-vocabulary groups. There are differences between high-vocabulary and low-vocabulary groups in some demographic factors.ConclusionIn this study, the vocabulary size for Arabic infants and toddlers is less than some languages. There are delays and differences between low-vocabulary and high-vocabulary groups regarding the linguistic composition and some demographic factors.

«И СЛУШАЙ, НЕ ДЫША...» (СЛОВЕСНЫЙ РЯД СО ЗНАЧЕНИЕМ ЗВУКА В ЛИРИКЕ М. ВОЛОШИНА)

The article focuses on the problem of creating a verbal series with the semantics of sound in M. Voloshin’s lyrics. The study aims to prove the existence of such a fiction text category as a verbal series, which is considered as a component of linguistic composition. The originality of the research lies in the fact that M. Voloshin’s works have not been previously investigated from the viewpoint of text stylistics, which presupposes studying the text as a phenomenon of linguistic usage that includes the category of a verbal series. The research findings have indicated that a verbal series with the semantics of sound is an important element of the linguistic composition of analysed texts.

Digitally-supported language exchanges in primary school: The AlpConnectar project

This article presents the design, implementation and outcomes of AlpConnectar, a Swiss project that exploits technologies for digitally-supported language exchange (LE) in primary schools. Launched in 2013, the project involves three Swiss cantons where different languages are spoken (namely German, French and Italian) and respectively taught as foreign languages since the third grade of primary school. In the first section of the paper the linguistic composition of Switzerland is briefly presented and the current methodologies and approaches in foreign language teaching in the country are introduced. After a literature review of online LE practices, the AlpConnectar project is presented, along with a LE example to illustrate how it works. The final sections present the results of the project, based on data collected from both pupils and teachers. The results seem to suggest that while digital technologies offer significant benefits for LEs, they are no silver bullet, and their impact depends on a number of contextual variables.

A language competition model for new minorities

This article presents a new model describing a language competition situation between a local majority language and a migrant minority language. Migrants enter the society, form families, and produce offspring. Adults raise their children in either one of the two languages or both. Children then attend school, learn additional languages as adults, and produce a new cohort with its own linguistic repertoire. Families and adults are utility maximizing actors, who take into account instrumental aspects of languages, such as their communicative range, as well as identity-related aspects. A general macro-level model describes how the linguistic composition of a population facing migration changes over time. Furthermore, a specific functional form of the general model is proposed and steady states are analyzed. Finally, for illustrative purposes, the model is applied to the case of Spanish and English in the United States.

IDEATIONAL DISCOURSE AS TOOL OF STYLE IN OJAIDE’S “ENDLESS SONG” AND “THE DOGMA OF PATIENCE”

This study is an investigation into the genre of poetry, a highly rated genre of literature which has an intricate linguistic composition. Poetry often deploys carefully manipulated and intoned linguistic elements in its expression. Due to its complexity, a systematic approach of interpretation that would enable readers to predict and visualize the poet‟s thoughts is required. It is in the light of this that this paper examines the significant stylistics highlights in selected poems of Tanure Ojaide and how these attributes contribute to an understanding of the various struggles of the people of the Niger Delta . This study adopts the ideational discourse tool of stylistics as its theoretical framework. The data for this study are two poems; “Endless Song” and “The Dogma of Patience” drawn from Ojaide‟s volume of poetry under the title, The Endless Song. In the end, the paper lays bare an intensive comprehension and meaning conveying strategy of the selected poems, taking into consideration the intoned expressions, the linguistic choices made, and the envisaged language function alongside the communication effect, facilitating an easier comprehension of the Niger Delta struggle.

Migration Crisis Deepens in the Indian State of Assam: Is Another Myanmar Style 'Ethnic Cleansing' Imminent?

The present context of crisis in the Indian State of Assam, has been developed out of a fear of a possibility for development of an assimilated or integrated society with changes in linguistic and religious composition. The current ruling party has been supporting a rise in mono-cultural society-based purely on a religious ideology of Hinduism. They expect to see Assam as a pure Hindu state by expelling the entire Muslim population currently living in Assam - including the permanent Muslim residents. A new citizenship registry (NRC) threatens to evict over five million of Bengali Muslims who have always called the state of Assam home. In order to materialize their long standing plan, they are making various allegations against the Muslim population of Assam - based on grounds of false and misleading data and fabricated information. Most of the Bengali Muslim citizens, it is feared, would not be able to retain their citizenship in Assam and become stateless persons as that happened to the Rohingya minorities in Myanmar's Rakhine province and could end up in a similar humanitarian crisis. This research has deployed three fundamental questions in relation to residential status and religious ethnicity of the Muslim population of Assam. This article has proved that the estimated number of so called Bengali Muslims in Assam, as being claimed by the local political leaders and their agitated followers, is totally based on false and misleading data and information. The findings of this research have also unveiled the nature of conspiracy that associates with the planned evictions of the Muslim residents of Assam to neighbouring Bangladesh in near future. This research has also highlighted the possible consequences out of a massive 'ethnic cleansing' and its effects on the political stability in South Asia.

Geographic, Ethnic and Linguistic Composition of Afghanistan: Methodological rich points of Language Policy and Planning

Geographic, Ethnic and Linguistic Composition of Afghanistan: Methodological rich points of Language Policy and Planning

Geographic, Ethnic and Linguistic Composition of Afghanistan: Methodological rich points of Language Policy and Planning

This paper evaluates the Language Policy and Planning's (LPP) Methodological Rich Points (MRP) in the geographic, ethnic and linguistic composition of Afghanistan. The theoretical construct is taken from the work of Nancy H. Hornberger on MRP in LPP. The paper explores a range of primary and secondary sources, and finds that the presence of inequality, marginalization and oppression in intra-ethnic and intralanguage group relations, sharing of resources and power account for neglect of the MRP in Afghan LPP. The geographic details in conjunction with explanation of historical process of migrations and conquests explains that most of the minority language speakers are concentrated in the difficult to reach areas of Afghanistan for their safety. Further, the limiting factors of Afghan geography explains the preservation of minority languages from the effects of majority languages. The study concludes with the proposal that it would be helpful to avoid the pitfalls of the current LPP in future by giving due attention to MRP.

“Hindi Bayani/Not a Hero”: The Linguistic Landscape of Protest in Manila

This article examines the linguistic landscape of Manila during a protest march in November 2016 in response to the burial of deposed president Ferdinand Marcos at the <em>Libingan ng mga Bayani</em> (Heroes’ Cemetery). This article is situated among linguistic landscape of protest research (Kasanga, 2014; Seals, 2011; Shiri, 2015) where data is composed of mobile posters, placards, banners, and other ‘unfixed’ signs, including texts on bodies, t-shirts, umbrellas, and rocks. Following Sebba (2010), this article argues that both ‘fixed’ linguistic landscape and ‘mobile’ public texts are indices of the linguistic composition of cities, linguistic diversity, and ethnolinguistic vitality (Landry & Bourhis, 1997). Through a qualitative analysis of selected pictures produced during the protest march and uploaded onto social media, the multilingual nature of Manila is rendered salient and visible, albeit temporarily, and strategies of dissent are reflective of the language of the millennials who populated the protests.