Linguistic Items Research Articles

Speaker Adaptation Experiments with Limited Data for End-to-End Text-To-Speech Synthesis using Tacotron2

Speech synthesis has the aim of generating humanlike speech from text. Nowadays, with end-to-end systems, highly natural synthesized speech can be achieved if a large enough dataset is available from the target speaker. However, often it would be necessary to adapt to a target speaker for whom only a few training samples are available. Limited data speaker adaptation might be a difficult problem due to the overly few training samples. Issues might appear with a limited speaker dataset, such as the irregular allocation of linguistic tokens (i.e., some speech sounds are left out from the synthesized speech). To build lightweight systems, measuring the number of minimum data samples and training epochs is crucial to acquire a reasonable quality. We conducted detailed experiments with four target speakers for adaptive speaker text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis to show the performance of the end-to-end Tacotron2 model and the WaveGlow neural vocoder with an English dataset at several training data samples and training lengths. According to our investigation of objective and subjective evaluations, the Tacotron2 model exhibits good performance in terms of speech quality and similarity for unseen target speakers at 100 sentences of data (pair of text and audio) with a relatively low training time.

Identification of ideologically loaded linguistic items in the debates of Lithuanian Seimas on the topic of the migrant crisis

Identification of ideologically loaded linguistic items in the debates of Lithuanian Seimas on the topic of the migrant crisis

Functional Aspects of Language Games in Political Discourse

The article analyzes various aspects of communication in political discourse. One of its major arguments says that politicians who disrespect major rules of communication violate the basic principles of interaction, namely in that they introduce their own new patterns of language games. Adequate principles of interaction are an indispensable requirement for political discourse as such in that they guarantee efficient communication and help avoid conflicts. Such principles are based on general rules of communication. The article underlines the importance of a structual logical chain of political communiction along the following lines: intention – strategy – tactic – means of realization. In general, human beings acquire languages according to basic linguistic forms and models. Тhe Austrian philosopher L. Wittgenstein introduced the term “language game”. In a similar vein, the Swiss linguist F. de Saussure established a link between language and the sphere of games in that he compared the systems of natural languages to the rules of chess. The language games of political discourse are represented by imperative intentions, emotive senses and various means of the manipulative use of linguistic units; they usually focus on factors of impact. The article discusses the intentions of language games as a point of activization of cognitive and communicative activities for the achievement of goals related to strategies and tactics of politicians. The nature of these intentions exerts impact on the realization of the linguo-pragmatic potential of the functions of perlocutionary linguistic acts (requests, orders, etc.). The perlocutionary functions of language are the basis of political manipulation which manifests itself as a systematic combination of traditional political instruments with contemporary communicative approaches to various aspects of the manipulative impact on political consciousness and behavior. Average citizens who react to political discourse automatically take part in broader intellectual and communivative activities; they also demonstrate their own participation in political processes. Therefore political discourse has an impact on the formation and development of civic society and its relations to the state. As a rule, politicians develop their communicative strategies along programs and platforms that are designed for central subjects of the political process (the government, political parties and leaders). This limited circle of addressees causes a certain lack of efficiency that should be corrected inasmuch as the ultimate goal of any communicative strategy should be a certain change of the addressee’s worldviews. Political tactic is an important component of political communicative technologies. Political communicative activities include various aspects of tactical measures and methods that start on a local level and go viral according to strategically devised lines. In this setting, specific political texts with their particular pragmatic implications appear to be units of political discourse with their own semiotic structure. Politicians create messages based on their world views and ideologies. The role of the addressee should be understood as a priority in political communicative acts that are usually characterized by polemics, a high degree of axiology and persuasiveness. The article focusses on linguistic tools that politicians use in order to manipulate the electorate. To influence the electorate, politicians use manipulative linguistic items on the lexical, idiomatic and metaphorical level. In political discourse, such linguistic items often turn into stereotypical linguistic tools of particular politicians that leave their mark on the electorate’s ideas of their values and beliefs. The article emphasizes the importance of the use of “strong” linguistic items that help create, in the best case, an image of the politician that includes humoristic associations with his or her individual professional language.

Between Truth and Meaning. A Novel Interpretation of theSymplokein Plato’sSophist

AbstractIn this paper, I provide an interpretation of thesymploke ton eidonatSoph. 259e. My goal is to show that the specific metaphysical view expressed by the interweaving of forms best accounts for Plato’s explanation of truth and falsehood. In the first section, I introduce the fundamentals of the interpretation of the greatest kinds and their functions. After that, I propose an interpretation of the assertion at 259e, the upshot of which is that the interweaving of forms only deals with extra-linguistic items, that it is related to both truth and meaning of linguistic items, in a very complex way which I aim to explain throughout the paper, and that it never involves sensible particulars. In the second section, I put forward my reading of the Stranger’s description of howlogoiare structured and how they work. I pay particular attention to the view that words reveal being when they intertwine to form a statement. In the third section, I interpret the statements concerning Theaetetus. My goal is to advance a new reading of the specific role that kinds and their interweaving play with regard to the truth and falsehood of the statements concerning Theaetetus. The result is the very specific view that the kinds, which are the separated ontological cause of what happens in space and time, are the grounds of both the truth and the meaning of statements.

English Language Borrowing in Sasak Language Performed by Teachers on What’s App Group

This research purposed to identify English words borrowing in Sasak language and classified their phonological processes. This research implied documentary research method. In which, the researcher only captured, observed, collected, copied, and gave codes to the gained data thence analyzed them using descriptive qualitative research method, the technique used was in accordance to Fasold, Hoffer, and Katamba theories in keeping with the four categories of words borrowing such as loanword, loanshift, calque, and loanblend. He further adopted the claimed concepts by Fromkin, Crystal, Aor in relation with the phonological processes particularly in terms of supra-segmental phonology. They classified the processes of supra-segmental phonology into assimilation, dissimilation, elision, epenthesis, metathesis, spoonerism, nasalization, palatilisation. To respond the first focus of this research, the researcher found that thirty words belonged to loanwords, only one judged as loanshift, three words claimed as calque, and the rest one of the whole found words was distinguished as loanblend. The further analysis result was responding the second focus of this research. In which, the researcher classified the phonological processes of English words borrowing in Sasak language. He gained seven borrowed words which distinguished by way of assimilation process, four borrowed words were included to dissimilation, six were implied to elision, eleven of them grouped to epenthesis, he further found only one belonged to metathesis, and he greatly obtained updated process of supra-segmental phonology due to the rest quantity of the borrowed words were not included to any processes of supra-segmental phonology. Those findings were significantly clarified valuable contribution in relation to provide updated knowledge of borrowing linguistic items from one language into another language particularly, English words in Sasak language performed by teachers on what’s app group namely, YPP. NURUL ISLAH BELEKA.

Networked discourses of bereavement in online COVID-19 memorials

Abstract This paper reports on study of online COVID-19 memorials posted during 2020 to the Church of England website https://www.rememberme2020.uk/. The paper employs a Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS) approach to analyse networks of co-occurring linguistic items (types and lemmata) and patterns (ngrams) within online memorials, and examines how these frequent items/patterns exist within networked discourses that underpin an overarching bereavement discourse. The analysis finds that bereavement discourse is underpinned by frequent reference to love, relationships and relational identification, time and temporality, loss/absence, and memory, as well as metaphors based on container and journey image schema. An analysis of these metaphorical representations of death and bereavement suggest that online memorials serve as a space for the social practice of bereavement and shows how the language used to grieve attempts to ideologically (re)present the relationships between the bereaved and decedent. All code used in this paper can be found at https://osf.io/khcj2/.

Subjektive und objektive Daten in der Sprachwandelforschung.

Language change is generally regarded as change of linguistic items or of the language system. In this sense it might be described and explained by the observation of varying use and evaluation of language. Developments concerning the conditions of use and the characteristics of evaluation are rarely regarded as cases of language change itself. Recently, however, there seems to be a shift towards a wider understanding of language change, distinguishing change of structure, use and evaluation. This shift is accompanied by the distinction of subjective and objective language data. Studies that combine objective and subjective data enable a comprehensive view of the characteristics and causes of language change. The present paper uses data from speakers of two different age groups from the Grafschaft Bentheim district on the German-Dutch border to illustrate the mutual dependency of structural and evaluative language change. The investigation will be carried out in an apparent-time-analysis based on a translation tasks (as a type of objective data) and semantic differentials (subjective data). Although the attested differences between the age groups turned out to be comparatively small, there are correlations between the results regarding subjective and objective data to be stated.

A Comparative Study Between China and Malaysia: Investigating the Influence of First Language (L1) Syntax in Speaking English (L2) among Primary School Students

For Malaysian students, speaking in English is one of the most challenging skills to master, especially if they do not have a strong command of the language. Meanwhile in China, the English language is primarily employed as a means of academic communication and teaching. This paper aims to identify which linguistic items have been transferred positively and negatively from L1 (Bahasa Melayu and Mandarin) in speaking English (L2) among primary school students. A qualitative study among primary school students from China and Malaysia was carried out using purposive sampling. Based on the findings, four types of syntactic errors from the Malaysian students' speech were identified. It was evident that the students had difficulties to speak correctly in terms of sentence structure. The four syntactic errors found are simple past, simple present, verb ‘to be’ and subject-verb-agreement. Meanwhile, it has been found that Chinese students frequently produce linguistic mistakes during their utterances of L2 speech as a result of L1 interference. This research also exposed that the students are still unconsciously relying on their mother tongue to translate their sentence into L2. The study is expected to help ESL teachers to draw the analogies between corresponding L1 and L2 syntax constructions. The findings will contribute and direct the learners’ attention to cross-language syntactic similarities and differences and thus guide them to a deeper understanding of underlying linguistic structure.

Sensory Chunking and the Like: Testing a Pedagogical Treatment Applied to the Strengthening of the Third-Person Singular-s

Research into foreign language acquisition reports that learners of English as a foreign language are inconsistent with the suppliance of verbal morphology and tend to omit morphemes such as the third-person singular -s even at advanced instructional stages. Researchers rely on Generative linguistics and models such as the Minimalist Programme (Chomsky, 2000, 2015/1995) and the Feature Assembly Hypothesis (Lardiere, 2005, 2007, 2009) to account for such variability. The present study attempted to increase the accuracy rates of the -s. The author designed a treatment (©2018, 2019, Verónica Mendoza Fernández) that centered around sensory chunking (teaching with chunked sentences). Sixty-four learners of English as a foreign language from three different rural schools of primary education in Northern Spain participated in a classroom experiment that followed a pretest-postest procedure. Participants from school 1 constituted the control group and participants from schools 2 and 3, the experimental groups. The results of a grammaticality judgement task indicated a statistically significant increase in the accuracy rates of the -s for one of the experimental groups and a trend towards significance for the other experimental group. The treatment could promote the learning of linguistic items contained within blocks of language, as well as the learning of such blocks, and thus foster language automatisation.

Mapping the Use of Boosters in Academic Writing by Malaysian First-Year Doctoral Students

This article details an attempt to understand better how first-year doctoral students construct persuasive arguments in academic writing by exploring the patterns of boosters in drafts of doctoral research proposals. Eight Malaysian first-year ESL doctoral students produced 43 drafts of doctoral research proposals across four areas of study in education during their first year of doctoral studies. These drafts were analysed by coding the various linguistic items used to persuade readers of a text, and the analysis was based on Hyland’s (2005) model of metadiscourse. Results show that the (i) overall frequency of booster markers used is relatively low (n=158), reinforcing the argument that first-year doctoral students lack understanding about the interaction between booster markers and the context in a more complicated discussion in academic writing such as the doctoral research proposal. Then, the (ii) further analysis of booster marker sub-categories indicates that Malaysian first-year doctoral students struggle to make appropriate booster markers with different meanings and strengths in academic writing when used in context. Therefore, our study suggests that direct and explicit teaching of using various booster markers categories should be implemented in postgraduate writing courses to heightened the students’ perceptiveness regarding semantic features associated with creating convincing arguments in academic writing.

从语法学与《古兰经》注释学角度上的跨学研究， 浅谈汉阿中的强调方式

专业化一直是科学的研究趋向，但由于信息革命爆发和全球化机制造成的不同科学和文化互动之后，最近为了讨论某种现象就会把所有专业科学相互联系起来，并将其与人类社会学联系起来了，提出这种现象的介绍和难点及其处理的办法。本人选择谈谈“强调方式” ，并通过语法学与《古兰经》注释学的关系详细地说明这种语言现象。 “强调”是汉语与阿拉伯语中的一种语言现象，其基本目的为解除听话人可能受到的任何怀疑，对某重要的信息或强烈的情绪表示强调。它有语法作用，也有修辞作用，并可能与其它词汇有相似的结构形式，就会发生误解。因此本人看到需要指出这种语言现象。 研究此现象不仅论述强调的类型及其不同句型，而且也涉及到《古兰经》注释学如何解释强调方式的真正意义及其翻译技巧。本文所提到的《古兰经》中的例子以（谢赫.穆罕穆德.麦肯马坚译和林松译）为例。并对此进行简明分析研究，主要看译者能否保留强调句中的结构形式及其意义, 试图准确达到强调句译成中文所有的手段。可是,根据古兰经章节的不同注释,译者在翻译过程中犯错误是难免的。本文对此错误进行分析，并指出难点。 本文不仅推进跨学科研究将(语法学与《古兰经》注释学) 实现融合性研究 ，而且推进两种语言的对比研究和汉阿- 阿汉翻译工作的开展。 Mostly all the studies are directed to specific field,but after the explosion of information revolution and the tools of globalization which interfere in different sciences and culture.recently It becomes necessary to connect all the scientific fields of studies together, and connect them with others as social and humanities studies,thus for explaining certain phenomena or theory ,showing the problems and their solution. Cause I am interested in linguistic studies, I choose talking about one of linguistic item “Ways of emphasize in Chinese and Arabic” , aim to remove any doubt from the listener by such different methods to confirm certain ideas or certain feelings. These methods or ways of emphasize may be common or differ from one language to another. The researcher use analysis study wether in quranic sentences”sheikh:Mohamed makin”translation or other sentences which include “emphasize words” and compare it by its translation in the other language, to explain the phenomena in different ways supported by many examples. So the researcher can reach to how we can translate Ways of emphasize and its structure in Chinese correctly ,especial there are certain words may be have same meaning to other linguistics phenomena may leads to miss understanding and confusion for non- Chinese speaking students . The researcher recommend to do many progressing studies in field of interdiscipline and comparative studies in such linguistic phenomenas to widen our scopes as to increase cultural exchange through different translation process.

An algorithm to identify periods of establishment and obsolescence of linguistic items in a diachronic corpus

When exploring diachronic corpora, it is often beneficial for linguists to pinpoint not only the first or the last attestation dates of certain linguistic items, but also the moments in which they become more strongly established in the corpus or, conversely, the moments in which they, despite still being part of the language, become obsolete. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to assist the identification of such periods based on the frequency of items in a corpus. Our simple and generalisable algorithm can be used for the investigation of any linguistic item in any corpus which is divided into time-frames. We also demonstrate the applicability of our method using lexical data from the Corpus of Historical American English (coha), providing case studies on the statistics and characteristics of words that appear in or disappear from this corpus in different periods.

Openings and Closings in Workplace Emails

Languages vary when it comes to linguistic manifestations of formal politeness, but what particularly marks professional email communication is the flexibility of the genre compared to traditional, formal business letters. This poses the question of how individual email writers navigate without clear standards and clearly prescribed formulae. This study focuses on the individual email writer and, specifically, opening salutations and closing valedictions in 927Norwegian workplace emails, followed by metapragmatic interviews with their senders. In an egalitarian society with few explicit linguistic manifestations of formal politeness, individual choices of formulations provide a rich source of data. Linguistic content analysis reveals a significant degree of consistency in each person’s individual use, which indicates that when there are no commonly held norms, people make their own rules. The interviewees are aware ofwhich openings and closings they prefer, but often not why. Further analysis of the data reveals that hierarchical social distance is not a motivational factor, but the intentions to be either personally close or professionally distant are. Both are regarded as viable options in formal workplace emails by their users. However, the informants’ perception of which linguistic items represent these motivations depends on individual preferences rather than on any establishedor institutionalised practises. The latter is not a uniquely Norwegian problem, but concerns email correspondents in general because of the flexibility innate to the email genre.

Predicting the Item Difficulty of a Simulated CSAT English Test Based on Corpus Analysis

This study investigates the relationship between linguistic features and item difficulty of a simulated College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) English test, based on a corpus analysis. The test used for the present study was a simulated CSAT English test administered in June 2020. Item difficulty data was collected from 101,386 students who took the test. For the corpus analysis, lexical and syntactic variables were measured by the Lexical Complexity Analyzer (LCA) and the L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (L2SCA), the computational tool and were correlated with item difficulty (dependent variable) for 41 test items. According to the correlation analysis, one lexical variable and all syntactic variables were found to be significantly correlated with item difficulty. Also, the results of the multiple regression indicate that lexical sophistication and particular structures are related to item difficulty, explaining for approximately 55.1% of the variance in item difficulty. The results showed that the variables identified in the current study were explanatory in terms of predicting item difficulty of the CSAT English test. Therefore, the findings of this study have pedagogical implications for test developers and education policy makers in Korea, with regard to text characteristics and test difficulty.

STORIES VERSUS THEORIES: A MULTIDIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS OF FICTION AND NON-FICTION PHILOSOPHICAL PROSE WRITING

Using the multidimensional analysis conducted on a corpus of 40 texts, this positivist study investigates the linguistic variation between philosophical fiction and non-fiction prose writings based on the scores of five dimensions calculated by MAT software. It uses the functional mapping of linguistic items to justify the differences in the dimension scores of both categories. The study finds that score difference on dimension three named explicit versus situation-dependent is quite significant because philosophical non-fiction is highly explicit in references. It hints at the independent status of the two types of writing as sub-genres of the philosophical prose.

Psycholinguistic mechanisms of classifier processing in sign language.

Nonsigners viewing sign language are sometimes able to guess the meaning of signs by relying on the overt connection between form and meaning, or iconicity (cf. Ortega, Özyürek, & Peeters, 2020; Strickland et al., 2015). One word class in sign languages that appears to be highly iconic is classifiers: verb-like signs that can refer to location change or handling. Classifier use and meaning are governed by linguistic rules, yet in comparison with lexical verb signs, classifiers are highly variable in their morpho-phonology (variety of potential handshapes and motion direction within the sign). These open-class linguistic items in sign languages prompt a question about the mechanisms of their processing: Are they part of a gestural-semiotic system (processed like the gestures of nonsigners), or are they processed as linguistic verbs? To examine the psychological mechanisms of classifier comprehension, we recorded the electroencephalogram (EEG) activity of signers who watched videos of signed sentences with classifiers. We manipulated the sentence word order of the stimuli (subject-object-verb [SOV] vs. object-subject-verb [OSV]), contrasting the two conditions, which, according to different processing hypotheses, should incur increased processing costs for OSV orders. As previously reported for lexical signs, we observed an N400 effect for OSV compared with SOV, reflecting increased cognitive load for linguistic processing. These findings support the hypothesis that classifiers are a linguistic part of speech in sign language, extending the current understanding of processing mechanisms at the interface of linguistic form and meaning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

REGISTERIAL VARIATION IN HIP-HOP

Language functions as a means of communication and socialization. These tenets of language are very vital in the Nigerian Informal Business Sector. One aspect of the Informal Sector that is examined by this paper is Hip-hop (a subset of the Creative Industry). Register is a set of linguistic items associated with discrete, occupational and social groups. This paper looked at Nigerian Hip-hop songs (as a social group) and its informal language. Nigerian Hip-hop (a subset of the creative industry) in the last few years has started piling up register for itself and these registerial variations have taken the Nigerian Informal Business Sector to its next level. This paper examines the registerial variation of Nigerian Hip-hop. It employed the Beiber and Conrad (2009) model, a more recent and comprehensive registerial framework which is descriptive in its outlook. Three Hip-hop artistes with two songs each from the southern region of the country (SE, SW, and SS) were used to determine indexation of these registerial variations in their song. At the end, a register of Nigerian Hip-hop as an index of language use in Nigerian Informal Business Sector was drawn with the aim of identifying that there is a lect from the Nigerian Hip-hop and prospect of this variety in wider communication

Can filled pauses be represented as linguistic items? Investigating the effect of exposure on the perception and production of um.

The current paper presents three studies that investigated the effect of exposure on the mental representations of filled pauses (um/uh). In Study 1, a corpus analysis identified the frequency of co-occurrence of filled pauses with words located immediately before or after them in naturalistic spoken adult British English (BNC2014). Based on the collocations identified in Study 1, in Study 2, 22 native British English-speaking adults heard sentences in which the location of filled pauses and the co-occurring words were manipulated and the participants were asked to judge the acceptability of the sentences heard. Study 3 was a sentence recall experiment in which we asked 29 native British English adults to repeat a similar set of sentences as used in Study 2. We found that frequency-based distributional patterns of filled pauses (Study 1) affected the sentence judgments (Study 2) and repetition accuracy (Study 3), in particular when the filled pause followed its collocate. Thus, the current study provides converging evidence for the account maintaining that filled pauses are linguistic items. In addition, we suggest filled pauses in certain locations could be considered as grammatical items, such as suffixes.

Video-Conferencing English–Spanish eTandem Exchange

This study analyzed eTandem video-conferencing exchanges between five pairs of university students of English as a foreign language (EFL) and Spanish as a foreign language (SFL). The exchanges, which involved discussion of seven tasks, took place on a weekly basis. Drawing on an interactionist perspective (Ellis et al., 2001a; Loewen, 2005), the study explored the impact of incidental noticing on subsequent language learning. Data were collected from two sources: transcripts of all the video-conferencing sessions and immediate and delayed post-tests. Drawing on Loewen’s (2005) framework of analysis, the transcripts revealed that students generated a total of 915 focus-on-form episodes (FFEs). As measured by the post-tests, participants recalled over half of the targeted FFE linguistic items. In contrast to previous studies (Loewen, 2005; Shekary & Tahririan, 2006), where successful uptake was a predictor for L2 learning, the present study revealed that the only significant predictor was deferred timing. More generally, the present study supports the claim that eTandem video-conferencing is a useful activity for promoting L2 acquisition.

Validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the pressure injury knowledge assessment tool 2.0

AimThe aim of this study was to develop a Turkish version of the Pressure Ulcer Knowledge Assessment Tool 2.0 (PUKAT 2.0) and determine its validity and reliability. Materials and MethodsThis was a cross-cultural adaptation and validation study. The study sample included a total of 451 participants (232 nurses and 219 nursing students). The validity of the Turkish version of the PUKAT 2.0 was evaluated with linguistic validity, content validity, item validity (item difficulty, discriminating index), and construct validity (known-groups technique) analyses. The reliability of the tool was evaluated by conducting a test–retest analysis. ResultsContent validity index (CVI) for the items (Item-CVI) ranged from 0.83 to 1.00 and the CVI for the scale (Scale-CVI) was 0.95. The difficulty index for 21 items ranged from 0.10 to 0.63. Four items were found to be too difficult. Item discriminating index values ranged from 0.00 to 0.61. The overall intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was found to be 0.80. ConclusionThe Turkish version of the Pressure Injury Knowledge Assessment Tool 2.0 (PIKAT 2.0-Tr) is supported by acceptable psychometric properties and can be used to evaluate the knowledge of nurses and nursing students in Turkey about the prevention of PI.