Linguistic Dimensions Research Articles

Kultura strachu

The ‘culture of fear’ constitutes an important environment for mankind. It is an interplay of biological, socio-cultural and linguistic dimensions which, in fact, underlie human existence. The dominance of one subtype of culture with respect to fear, the dystopian culture, pulls mankind into a culture of aggression, competitiveness and intolerance (or into the win-lose perspective). On the other hand, eutopian culture pulls mankind into a culture of non-aggression, cooperation, tolerance and inclusiveness (or into the win-win perspective). In fact, one may easily envisage that a well-functioning human society should remain in a state of balance between the two types of culture and it is the dystopian type of culture that should be kept in check, while the eutopian culture should be favoured if the earth as the carrier of all life, the existing biodiversity, and humanity, are to be sustained.

Linguistic Dimensions of Accentedness, Comprehensibility and Intelligibility: Exploring Listener Effects in American, Moroccan, Turkmen and Chinese Varieties of English

AbstractThe present study examines accentedness, comprehensibility, and intelligibility of American English, Moroccan English, Turkmen English, and Chinese English, from the perspectives of three groups of listeners: native speakers of English and Chinese speakers of English with or without international experiences. Of the 145 listeners, 38 had face-to-face interviews. These listener groups were asked to listen to the recordings of the four English varieties and fill in a cloze test. Results indicated that the three listener groups differed significantly in rating comprehensibility of American English, Moroccan English and Chinese English but they did not give Turkmen English statistically different ratings; there were no significant differences in accentedness ratings except for Chinese English; and there were significant differences in the intelligibility scores of the four English varieties. In addition, with respect to seven linguistic variables—speed, clarity, intonation, smoothness and fluency, vocal intensity, pause, vocabulary and grammar, there were significant differences in three listener groups’ rating of six variables in American English except the one of “speed”. By contrast, Chinese English received significantly different ratings only in “proper speed”. No differences were found in the ratings for Moroccan English and Turkmen English. Finally, unlike Chinese listeners without international experiences, native listeners and Chinese listeners with international experiences shared some similarities in correlations between the ratings of accentedness and comprehensibility and those of linguistic variables on Moroccan English, Turkmen English, and Chinese English. However, the results for American English from Chinese listeners without international experiences and native listeners seemed to be more alike. Linguistic variables correlating with accentedness and comprehensibility of American English showed a mixed profile. Qualitative data provided more variant elaborations on the pronunciations and language uses of the speakers.

The Renaissance Reception of Nahua Paideia in the Writings of Bernardino de Sahagún: An Aesthetic Approach to Religion

In this article, I propose that books I–VI of Bernardino Sahagún’s Códice florentino, which discuss the moral and religious philosophies of indigenous Mexicans, should be interpreted through the lens of Renaissance humanist linguistic and philosophical theories. I demonstrate that, utilizing Franciscan–Bonaventurean epistemology, Sahagún put forward a method of evangelizing that intended to separate “the good from the bad” in indigenous cultures. In an effort to defend my claim, I first lay out some of the problems surrounding the Códice florentino. Second, I describe the general theological and cosmological views held by the Aztecs, so that, third, I may develop the main principles of the philosophy of flor y canto (in xochitl in cuicatl). Against a political interpretation that is often defended by appealing to the traditional rituals performed in the Aztec empire, I contend that their philosophy should be interpreted from the perspective of Nahua religion and aesthetics. I also discuss Sahagún’s reception of Aztec philosophy in the Códice with a focus on his interest in the linguistic and empirical dimensions of Nahua religion.

Cultural and Linguistic Dimensions in Translation of The Economic Terminologies

Cultural and Linguistic Dimensions in Translation of The Economic Terminologies

Linguistic Competence in Early Childhood Education as a Predictor of Verbal Naming Speed.

This study determined the predictive value of linguistic competence in children in Early Childhood Education for verbal naming speed. The participants were 86 pupils in the second Early Childhood Education cycle. They were evaluated with WPPSI-IV Wechsler Preschool & Primary Scale of Intelligence (Verbal Comprehension, VC) and Vocabulary Acquisition, VA; Childish Vocabulary Test (Vavel) and the Rapid and Automatic Naming Test. Children who had high scores in the Verbal Comprehension Index and Vocabulary Acquisition spent less time doing the verbal naming task. Linguistic competence predicted verbal naming speed, with Vavel having the strongest correlation. Linguistic competence of children in Early Childhood Education allows us to predict their aptitude for verbal naming. Lexical-semantic knowledge was linguistic competence dimension with the highest predictive value for the Verbal Naming Task. Automatic Naming and Verbal Comprehension depend on the same cerebral area, Wernicke's area.

Use of open-ended questionnaires to examine the effects of tinnitus and its relation to patient-reported outcome measures

Objective The primary aim of the study was to examine the automated linguistic analysis of the open-ended problem (PQ) and life-effects (LEQ) questionnaires to understand the psychological effects of tinnitus. Design The study used a cross-sectional design. Participants completed online questionnaires which included demographic questions, several standardised patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), and two open-ended questions focussing on PQ and LEQ related to tinnitus. The response to open-ended questions was analysed using the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) software to identify the frequency of text on various linguistic dimensions relevant to tinnitus. Study sample 336 individuals with tinnitus. Results The study results point to two broad findings. First, although PQ and LEQ have some similarities with PROMs (e.g. the linguistic dimension negative emotions having a weak positive correlation with anxiety and depression), no correlation with the number of dimensions suggests that the open-ended questions identify additional elements that are not captured in PROMs. Second, more linguistic dimensions from the PQ correlate with PROMs compared to LEQ suggesting that the current PROMs are problem-oriented. Conclusions The study results support the idea that the use of open-ended questions in addition to PROMs may help optimise the efforts in examining the effects of chronic conditions such as tinnitus.

Tips for Cochlear Implant Recipients to Enjoy Music

The conventional wisdom used to be that cochlear implant recipients didn’t enjoy music. Since we called the external device a speech processor, candidates were routinely counseled to expect good access to speech sounds—but not to expect much in the musical realm. Pitch is not handled well by cochlear implants (CIs) and since pitch determines melody, the guidance was “it’s best not to spend time on music.” Expectations for children were even worse since they typically had no memory of music prior to cochlear implantation.Music Rehabilitation Resources for Adults with Cochlear ImplantsThe new conventional wisdom is different. Teenagers with cochlear implants may ignore what adults say they are supposed to like (or not like). Most CI recipients implanted during childhood had no preconceived notions of what music should sound like and many decided they liked what they heard! Similarly, despite guidance from professionals, many adults decided they wanted to try listening to music with their CIs. Some who had a musical background before losing their hearing pushed forward despite the fact that the sound was different. Musicians who use CIs provided guidance. Listening to music isn’t a competition. It’s about enjoyment and benefits people with CIs can derive from music, which can be enormous. Music is arguably the most complex and sophisticated form of sound possible. Music is a form of patterned sound that uses elements of pitch, melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre to convey meaning. Lyrics are often part of music, adding a linguistic dimension to the musical experience. It is helpful to break down music into these components, and evaluate the way CI devices transmit information by category. MUSIC PERCEPTION FUNDAMENTALS Cochlear implant recipients have a range of pitch discrimination outcomes but in general, it is poor. However, many CI users can perceive melodic contour correctly, a crucial element of melody identification. Rhythm perception may be near normal. This aspect of music is very helpful for many CI users for listening to music with strong rhythmic content. Timbre perception is often poor, but nonetheless, most CI listeners can identify some musical instruments in a closed set and may be able to improve this ability with practice. Timbre discrimination (rather than identification) is intact for many CI users. Understanding lyrics for new songs is difficult. The presence of lyrics can help CI users appreciate music. The following tips may help CI recipients enjoy music. CHOOSE SELECTIONS WITH CARE INITIALLY Certain types of music may sound better than others—start with those. Familiar songs or music selections that people recall from before their hearing declined may be easier to follow. Music with a strong beat (e.g., rock, rap, hip hop, country) may be easier to perceive. Selections that are not overly “complicated” or noisy may sound better. Fewer instruments may help. MAKE THE SOUND AS CLEAR AS POSSIBLE Listen in a quiet environment with limited reverberation. Avoid competing background sounds or noise. Try connecting with streaming, telecoil, direct connect, or headphones. Cars often have high-quality speakers and provide a contained space that may provide a good listening experience. Keep the volume down, at least initially. OBTAIN THE WORDS TO SONGS Most CI (and hearing aid) users have difficulty understanding lyrics in unfamiliar music. Download lyrics and listen initially with the words. After a few sessions, one may be able to understand words in songs. Visual clues such as watching a singer’s face may help. Listening repeatedly to songs may make the words more accessible. TRY DIFFERENT SETTINGS ON THE SOUND PROCESSOR Try the setting designed for noise. Compare the noise setting to your usual setting (if different). If using a hearing aid on the contralateral ear, wearing it while listening to music may help with melody. PRACTICE Like other auditory training, repetition helps “train your brain.” Use auditory training programs for music from Angel Soundhttp://angelsound.tigerspeech.com and from CI manufacturers. Listen repeatedly to music you were familiar with before. Use above tips in combination with practice. Use a piano keyboard to pitch train and identify areas of poor performance. If there is interest in learning a musical instrument, consider starting with instruments with discrete pitch steps (piano, guitar) rather than instruments that require intonation by ear (violin, trombone). MAINTAIN REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS Music will not sound the same. Music is subjective for everyone—whether or not someone has hearing loss. Music is part of a larger experience. Most CI recipients listen to, and enjoy, music.

The linguistic dimensions of concrete and abstract concepts: lexical category, morphological structure, countability, and etymology

AbstractThe distinction between abstract and concrete concepts is fundamental to cognitive linguistics and cognitive science. This distinction is commonly operationalized through concreteness ratings based on the aggregated judgments of many people. What is often overlooked in experimental studies using this operationalization is that ratings are attributed towords, not to concepts directly. In this paper we explore the relationship between the linguistic properties of English words and conceptual abstractness/concreteness. Based on hypotheses stated in the existing linguistic literature we select a set of variables (part of speech, morphological structure, countability, etymology) and verify whether they are statistically associated with concreteness ratings. We show that English nouns are rated as more concrete compared to other parts of speech, but mass nouns are rated as less concrete than count nouns. Furthermore, a more complex morphological structure is associated with abstractness, and as for etymology, French- and Latin-derived words are more abstract than words of other origin. This shows that linguistic properties of words are indeed associated with the degree of concreteness that we attribute to the underlying concepts, and we discuss the implications that these findings have for linguistic theory and for empirical investigations in the cognitive sciences.

Inflection across Categories: Tracking Abstract Morphological Processing in Language Production with MEG

Coherent language production requires that speakers adapt words to their grammatical contexts. A fundamental challenge in establishing a functional delineation of this process in the brain is that each linguistic process tends to correlate with numerous others. Our work investigated the neural basis of morphological inflection by measuring magnetoencephalography during the planning of inflected and uninflected utterances that varied across several linguistic dimensions. Results reveal increased activity in the left lateral frontotemporal cortex when inflection is planned, irrespective of phonological specification, syntactic context, or semantic type. Additional findings from univariate and connectivity analyses suggest that the brain distinguishes between different types of inflection. Specifically, planning noun and verb utterances requiring the addition of the suffix -s elicited increased activity in the ventral prefrontal cortex. A broadly distributed effect of syntactic context (verb vs. noun) was also identified. Results from representational similarity analysis indicate that this effect cannot be explained in terms of word meaning. Together, these results 1) offer evidence for a neural representation of abstract inflection that separates from other stimulus properties and 2) challenge theories that emphasize semantic content as a source of verb/noun processing differences.

SymptomSpeak: Women’s Struggle for History and Health in Kosovo

What are the linguistic dimensions of pain, and what kind of articulations arise from these painful experiences? How does the language of pain circulate, connect, and reach across histories, gendered realities, and social politics? In what ways might the language of pain act on and transform the world by shaping and changing socio-political agendas? I explored these questions among women in Kosovo and discovered a unique symptomatic language which I call SymptomSpeak. SymptomSpeak is a powerful language evoked, shared, and exchanged by women to articulate political, social, and economic grievances, to challenge societal norms, and to demand justice. The language itself consists of a detailed symptom vocabulary which is variously assembled into meaning complexes. Such assemblages shift depending on the social context in which they are conveyed and are referred to as nervoz (nervousness), mërzitna (worried, sad), mzysh (evil eye), and t’bone (spell). I describe in detail how women variously combine and exchange components of SymptomSpeak and, thereby, question dominant framings of reality. Thereby, my intention is to contribute to a new understanding of pain as language which straddles the fine line between socio-political commentary and illness; produces gendered political realities; and challenges the status quo through its communicative power.

СОЦІОЛІНГВІСТИЧНЕ «ЗЧИТУВАННЯ» СВІТУ ПОВСЯКДЕННОСТІ: МОВНІ ПРАКТИКИ УКРАЇНЦІВ ХОЛМЩИНИ ТА ПІВДЕННОГО ПІДЛЯШШЯ В ПЕРШУ СВІТОВУ ВІЙНУ (1914–1918 рр.)

he article is devoted to one of the little-known periods of the language situation in which autochthonous Ukrainians from the far western ethnic Ukrainian lands lived. The relevance of the topic is stipulated by the need to develop a theory of historical sociolinguistics on language, power and identity. The revealed relations of language practices (microhistorical standard of living of an individual) to the geopolitics (as macrohistory) allow us to state that the linguistic dimension of the communicative everyday life of the Ukrainian speech community appears through a set of features realized before and during the war of 1914. Before the war, the colloquial form of the Ukrainian language as a means of interpersonal communication had a dialectal nature, which was layered with Polonization and Russification influences, and oral and written forms of the Russian language were a means of official communication. During the war of 1914–1918, there were changes in the language use of Ukrainians: the Russian language in the territories of Kholmshchyna and Pidlaschia curtailed its functions after the withdrawal of the tsarist troops together with the forcibly deported Ukrainians; Ukrainian-language practices in the Kholm region did not have a chance to develop due to the support of the Austrian occupation authorities for the functions of the German and Polish languages; in Polonized Pidlaschia, occupied by the German authorities, owing to the activities of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine and later representatives of the Ukrainian authorities, Ukrainian forces managed to partially develop the functions of the Ukrainian language in administration, primary education and periodicals. Ukrainian literary language began to slowly realize its communicative, informational and unifying social functions.

Automatic evaluation of discursive answers short based on three linguistic dimensions / Avaliação automática de respostas discursivas curtas com base em três dimensões linguísticas

As the use of virtual environments grows, there is a need for a system of automatic evaluation of discursive answers. This paper proposes a method for automatic evaluation of discursive short answers based on a machine learning architecture. The predictive method is based on the collection of features (140) of similarity between texts in a taxonomy of three linguistic dimensions: lexical, syntactic and semantic. As a result, we obtained quadratic kappa 0.72 human x system (SxH) against 0.94 human x human (HxH) for the proof of biology and an accuracy 0.76 SxH against 0.58 HxH for the proof of geography.

A Comparison of Spoken and Written Language Use in Traditional andTechnology‐MediatedLearning Environments

A key piece of a validity argument for a language assessment tool is clear overlap between assessment tasks and the target language use (TLU) domain (i.e., the domain description inference). The TOEFL 2000 Spoken and Written Academic Language (T2K‐SWAL) corpus, which represents a variety of academic registers and disciplines in traditional learning environments (e.g., lectures, office hours, textbooks, course packs), has served as an important foundation for theTOEFL iBT® test's domain description inference for more than 15 years. There are, however, signs that the characteristics of the registers that students encounter may be changing. Increasingly, typical university courses include technology‐mediated learning environments (TMLEs), such as those represented by course management software and other online educational tools. To ensure that the characteristics of TOEFL iBT test tasks continue to align with the TLU domain, it is important to analyze the registers that are typically encountered in TMLEs. In this study, we address this issue by collecting a relatively large (4.5 million words) corpus of spoken and written TMLE registers across the six primary disciplines represented in T2K‐SWAL. This corpus was subsequently tagged for a wide variety of linguistic features, and a multidimensional analysis was conducted to compare and contrast written and spoken language in TMLE and T2K‐SWAL. The results indicate that although some similarities exist across spoken and written texts in traditional learning environments and TMLEs, language use also differs across learning environments (and modes) with regard to key linguistic dimensions.

Multilingual International Students at a Canadian University: Portraits of Agency

This paper draws on the theoretical concepts of individual agency and academic buoyancy to explore the ways in which three multilingual international students responded to and overcame the challenges they encountered while studying at a university in Canada. This investigation is situated within and against the discourses of deficit and disruption that have traditionally surrounded the accounts of international students who use English as an additional language (EAL) in institutions of higher education. Methodologically conceptualized through the lens of portraiture, which focuses on identifying goodness in participants, this paper presents the portraits of the three students with an attention to the physical and sociocultural contexts where the students were embedded. Individual semi-structured interviews and observations of the host institution were conducted in order to gain an in-depth understanding of the students’ experiences. Findings indicate that the students’ challenges were complex, found primarily in the linguistic, academic, and social dimensions, and originating from both structural and individual factors. Simultaneously, the students strategized and employed agency by seeking support in conventional and alternative ways and by refusing to conform to institutional expectations. This paper is concluded with a discussion about the importance of considering the context when examining multilingual international student agency.

To be (different) or not to be: The role of gender in constructing diplomatic speeches

With an increasing number of female political leaders worldwide, there has been a debate as to whether female politicians could bring alternative voices into politics, which has long been dominated by males. Some scholars highlight the role of gender identity, while others stress the masculine traits of political leadership. To contribute to this debate, we propose the idea of gender authenticity and argue that female politicians can strategically highlight their feminine traits and femininist consciousness even in a highly masculine environment. We compare the diplomatic speeches delivered by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, who both served as secretary of state under former President Obama. Based on the framework of gender authenticity, we empirically examine how the remarks of these two top diplomatic officials differ in their topical, linguistic, and conceptual dimensions. While the political speeches of Clinton and Kerry behave similarly in terms of their linguistic styles, there are gendered differences in their topical and conceptual dimensions. The results suggest that Clinton pays closer attention to issues of women's rights and human rights, and that she also adopts a more feminine style in her interpretation of the concept of power.

Women Rights in the Glorious Qur'an : A Sociolinguistic Study

This research aims to study the concept of women's rights in the Holy Quran. The study will focus on how the concepts of language and gender are manifested, especially in the verses that talk about women's rights. In addition, the study attempts to answer the following question: Does the language of the Holy Qur’an reflect the physical and biological sex of males and females, or does it mainly emphasize their social and personal identity, i.e. gender? Do women's rights in the Holy Book reflect the man's authority over them? As the study is divided into two parts, the first chapter is an overview of three topics: gender, differences between males and females in the use of language and women's rights. The second chapter is devoted to women's rights in the Holy Qur'an. Important points were concluded in the Qur’anic text regarding the social dimension of women’s rights and their linguistic dimensions, the most important of which is that the Holy Book did not neglect the use of linguistic tools that refer to linguistic, grammatical and semantic femininity.

Characterizing the Richness of Maternal Input for Word Learning in Neurogenetic Disorders.

Promoting language abilities, including early word learning, in children with neurogenetic disorders with associated language disorders, such as Down syndrome (DS) and fragile X syndrome (FXS), is a main concern for caregivers and clinicians. For typically developing children, the quality and quantity of maternal language input and maternal gesture use contributes to child word learning, and a similar relation is likely present in DS and FXS. However, few studies have examined the combined effect of maternal language input and maternal gesture use on child word learning. We present a multidimensional approach for coding word-referent transparency in naturally occurring input to children with neurogenetic disorders. We conceptualize high-quality input from a multidimensional perspective, considering features from linguistic, interactive, and conceptual dimensions simultaneously. Using case examples, we highlight how infrequent the moments of word-referent transparency are for three toddlers with DS during play with their mothers. We discuss the implications of this multidimensional framework for children with DS and FXS, including the clinical application of our approach to promote early word learning for these children.

The Identity Lies in the Words of Crowd-Funders: Help-Seekers’ Identity Construction in Chinese Online Medical Crowd-Funding Discourses

ABSTRACT Ineffective identity construction of crowd-funders for medical events is a major factor blocking donations from arriving in time to help patients in need. There is a dearth of report on the discursive veins of identity construction in a web-based crowd-funding scenario in Eastern setting, such as in China. This is the first Chinese study aimed to discursively observe, analyze and evaluate identity construction of crowd-funders in online fundraising setting. Content and discourse analyses were employed, with focus on linguistic and interactional dimensions of 500 pieces of online fundraisers’ personal statements (collected from https://www.qschou.com). Findings indicate that three different types of fundraisers’ identities (as a family member/ a patient/ the disadvantaged) were constructed through discursive strategies oriented toward ethos, expertise and emotion respectively. The findings are conducive to offering online help-seekers an array of identity-motivated discursive strategies to make more prospective backers engage in a medical donative event. Results highlight that crowd-funders need support and training to obtain the expected amount of donation, focusing on enhancing the rhetoric toward sincerity, honesty and morality.

Automatic linguistic reporting of customer activity patterns in open malls

In this work, we present a complete system to produce an automatic linguistic reporting about the customer activity patterns inside open malls, a mixed distribution of classical malls joined with the shops on the street. These reports can assist to design marketing campaigns by means of identifying the best places to catch the attention of customers. Activity patterns are estimated with process mining techniques and the key information of localization. Localization is obtained with a parallelized solution based on WiFi fingerprint system to speed up the solution. In agreement with the best practices for human evaluation of natural language generation systems, the linguistic quality of the generated report was evaluated by 41 experts who filled in an online questionnaire. Results are encouraging, since the average global score of the linguistic quality dimension is 6.17 (0.76 of standard deviation) in a 7-point Likert scale. This expresses a high degree of satisfaction of the generated reports and validates the adequacy of automatic natural language textual reports as a complementary tool to process model visualization.

Linguistic Indicators of Coercive Control: Evidenced in Sex Trafficking Narratives

Prior research on coercive control has focused on coercive behavioral tactics to better understand how coercion is exacted in abusive relationships. Furthering this body of research, this study extends coercive behavior to the linguistic domain, by examining the linguistic correlates of long-term coercive relationships. Using transcripts of wiretapped conversations, spanning a 2-year period, between two pimps and four women they sexually exploited, this study examined the distinct linguistic manifestation of asymmetric power in commercial sexual exploitation. Our findings suggest a complementary linguistic dimension to the commonly reported behavioral repertoire of coercive control tactics. Specifically, the victims consistently complied with the microregulation and surveillance presumed by their pimps by engaging in discursive overelaboration. This overelaboration often included details of their location, activity, and timing—and were designed to justify those as work-and profit-relevant. This pattern of pre-emptive, unsolicited overelaboration that the commercial sexually exploited women exhibited toward their pimps was almost nonexistent in their personal conversations with other individuals. These results open the opportunity for the indirect measurement of interpersonal abuse, making it less dependent on explicit physical abuse and more broadly situated within the coercive environment.