Local Language Research Articles

Determinants of consumer adoption of multilingual self-service ordering systems in fast food restaurants

Due to the increasing number of international exchanges, foreign users have gradually become a significant consumer segment. Many of them are not proficient in the local language. Providing them with native language services will be an important trend, both from a business and a humanistic perspective. The purpose of this study is to investigate the fast-food restaurant ordering system that can provide multilingual services for foreigners, and to investigate factors that influence fast food restaurant consumers to adopt multilingual self-service ordering systems. Based on the characteristics of foreign users, we have proposed experience factors such as convenience, translation quality, social anxiety, and the Flow. According to research, the convenience of the service has a strong direct impact on consumers' intention to use, social anxiety has a weak direct impact on consumers' intention to use, and translation quality has a weak direct impact on consumers' intention to use through the intermediate variable of social anxiety. Particularly, Flow experience is not associated with intention to use. The Flow state is one in which users are completely immersed and do not notice time or the surroundings when the perceived difficulty of a task matches their abilities. The purpose of this study is to improve our understanding of the customer evaluation criteria for multilingual self-service systems, as well as to establish the MSSS model for future research on multilingual self-service systems.

Local large language models for privacy-preserving accelerated review of historic echocardiogram reports.

The study developed framework that leverages an open-source Large Language Model (LLM) to enable clinicians to ask plain-language questions about a patient's entire echocardiogram report history. This approach is intended to streamline the extraction of clinical insights from multiple echocardiogram reports, particularly in patients with complex cardiac diseases, thereby enhancing both patient care and research efficiency. Data from over 10 years were collected, comprising echocardiogram reports from patients with more than 10 echocardiograms on file at the Mount Sinai Health System. These reports were converted into a single document per patient for analysis, broken down into snippets and relevant snippets were retrieved using text similarity measures. The LLaMA-2 70B model was employed for analyzing the text using a specially crafted prompt. The model's performance was evaluated against ground-truth answers created by faculty cardiologists. The study analyzed 432 reports from 37 patients for a total of 100 question-answer pairs. The LLM correctly answered 90% questions, with accuracies of 83% for temporality, 93% for severity assessment, 84% for intervention identification, and 100% for diagnosis retrieval. Errors mainly stemmed from the LLM's inherent limitations, such as misinterpreting numbers or hallucinations. The study demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of using a local, open-source LLM for querying and interpreting echocardiogram report data. This approach offers a significant improvement over traditional keyword-based searches, enabling more contextually relevant and semantically accurate responses; in turn showing promise in enhancing clinical decision-making and research by facilitating more efficient access to complex patient data.

Animations and Food Science: A New and Effective Approach to Communicate Cheese Processing Safety

The communication of food safety principles to actors in the informal sector has traditionally been carried out through formal training or demonstrations with human resources. Using a novel approach, an animation was developed to introduce best practices of cheese processing safety and hygiene to processors in the informal sector. The approach used the social cognitive theory (SCT) by engaging principles of visual learning for low literates by developing animations in motion, cell phone technologies and local languages to bridge communication gaps. Twenty-five cheese processors in Ghana were trained using the developed animation with a learner-paced approach. There were significant insights from the processors regarding cheese processing hygiene. The animation provided insight into acceptable modes of introducing important food processing concepts to low literate processors.

Chesterman’s Pragmatic Strategies in Translating Sundanese Folklore Into English

English scholar and translator Andrew Chesterman offers three major strategies of translation when dealing with any kind of source texts: syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic. Moreover, these three strategies can be applied either separately or with two or all three of them used together depending on the need to get a natural equivalent in the target text. This article is about the emergence of one of Chesterman’s strategies – the pragmatic strategies - in the translation of Sundanese folklore from the Sundanese language into the English target text. The Sundanese language is a local language spoken by Sundanese people mostly living in West Java, Indonesia. Its existence is in such a critical situation that if there are no efforts from any communities, institutions, or government to preserve it, this local language will gradually go extinct. This research is one of the ways to participate in preserving the language. Using Chesterman’s concept of pragmatic strategies, this research aims to reveal the emergence of each type of pragmatic strategy in the English target text and identify the most dominant strategy used. The method used is a descriptive qualitative method focusing on the use of words either in the linguistic unit of the clause, the phrase or the word itself. The efforts made by the translator in giving the closest natural equivalent in the target text can be observed in the results of this research. The results show that all types of pragmatic strategies were used, but the strategy used most frequently was the explicitness change strategy.

Constraints Faced by Farmers in Information Seeking in Bundelkhand Region of Uttar Pradesh

This research was conducted with the objective of studying the constraints faced in information seeking by farmers in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. A sample of 210 respondents was randomly selected, and data were collected through a structured and pre-tested interview schedule. The gathered data were analyzed and tabulated to identify constraints related to information seeking in the study area. The findings highlighted various challenges faced by farmers, including issues such as the absence of information in the local language, lack of training, financial constraints, limited educational qualifications, restricted access to computers and information sources, insufficient electricity and internet availability, infrastructure deficiencies, inadequate community facilities, disorganized social structures, and the presence of an inferiority feeling. The study underscores the multifaceted nature of status of constraints faced by the farmers of Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh regarding accessing sources of information

Experiences and impacts of out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure on remote Aboriginal families.

Aboriginal Australians face significant health disparities, with hospitalisation rates 2.3 times greater, and longer hospital length of stay, than non-Indigenous Australians. This additional burden impacts families further through out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure (OOPHE), which includes additional healthcare expenses not covered by universal taxpayer insurance. Aboriginal patients traveling from remote locations are likely to be impacted further by OOPHE. The objective of this study was to examine the impacts and burden of OOPHE for rurally based Aboriginal individuals. Participants were recruited through South Australian community networks to participate in this study. Decolonising methods of yarning and deep listening were used to centralise local narratives and language of OOPHE. Qualitative analysis software was used to thematically code transcripts and organise data. A total of seven yarning sessions were conducted with 10 participants. Seven themes were identified: travel, barriers to health care, personal and social loss, restricted autonomy, financial strain, support initiatives and protective factors. Sleeping rough, selling assets and not attending appointments were used to mitigate or avoid OOPHE. Government initiatives, such as the patient assistance transport scheme, did little to decrease OOPHE burden on participants. Family connections, Indigenous knowledges and engagement with cultural practices were protective against OOPHE burden. Aboriginal families are significantly burdened by OOPHE when needing to travel for health care. Radical change of government initiative and policies through to health professional awareness is needed to ensure equitable healthcare access that does not create additional financial hardship in communities already experiencing economic disadvantage.

From words to pictures: Row-column combinations and Chomsky-Schützenberger theorem

The row-column combination RCC maps two (word) languages over the same alphabet onto the set of rectangular arrays, i.e., pictures, such that each row/column is a word of the first/second language. The resulting array is thus a crossword of the component words. Depending on the family of the components, different picture (2D) language families are obtained: e.g., the well-known tiling-system recognizable languages are the alphabetic projection of the crossword of local (regular) languages. We investigate the effect of the RCC operation especially when the components are context-free, also with application of an alphabetic projection. The resulting 2D families are compared with others defined in the past. The classical characterization of context-free languages, known as Chomsky-Schützenberger theorem, is extended to the crosswords in this way: the projection of a context-free crossword is equivalent to the projection of the intersection of a 2D Dyck language and the crossword of strictly locally testable language. The definition of 2D Dyck language relies on a new more flexible so-called Cartesian RCC operation on Dyck languages. The proof involves the version of the Chomsky-Schützenberger theorem that is non-erasing and uses a grammar-independent alphabet.

Exploring Student Agency in Narratives of English Literacy Events across School Subjects

In contemporary academia, English-language reading assignments are prevalent, even in contexts where English is not the primary medium of instruction nor the local language. This presents a challenge for students with English as a foreign language (EFL) who seek to pursue a university education in their home country. This study investigates the presence of English literacy events in Swedish upper secondary schools outside of English classes and explores their implications for university readiness and educational equity. Using survey data from 163 EFL students and qualitative content analysis, students’ written comments revealed a notable absence of English literacy events in non-English subjects, with limited exposure to written English texts and occasional use of multimodal English activities. The findings underscore disparities in students’ opportunities to engage with academic English literacy practices, primarily influenced by individual factors. This paper delves into the interplay between individual dimensions, and institutional and social practices, in shaping student agency in English academic literacy practices.

Developing a Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) Chatbot App Using Adaptive Large Language Models (LLM) and LangChain Framework

CARA BURGAN, Dept of Computer Sciences, Mathematics, and Engineering, Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, WV, 25443, JOSIAH KOWALSKI, Dept of Computer Sciences, Mathematics, and Engineering, Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, WV, 25443, and WEIDONG LIAO (Faculty Advisor), Dept of Computer Sciences, Mathematics, and Engineering, Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, WV, 25443.  Developing a Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) Chatbot App Using Adaptive Large Language Models (LLM) and LangChain Framework   RamChat is an AI chatbot designed to assist Shepherd University students in navigating the student handbook. Developed in Python, it utilizes both API-based and local Large Language Models (LLMs) for natural language processing (NLP), alongside a vector store system. Our aim is to create a high-quality chatbot app tailored for student use. We began by researching existing chatbot platforms and created a vector store with embeddings from OpenAI's text-embedding-3-small model, trained on the Shepherd University handbook. Testing each LLM helped assess answer types and accuracy. Development involved debugging and optimizing RamChat's code, including replacing OpenAI's davinci-002 model with gemma, a local LLM based on Google's Gemini model. Ollama framework aids in automatic LLM selection based on user prompts. Our conference presentation will detail RamChat's development, methodology, challenges, and insights. RamChat represents an innovative application of AI to enhance the Shepherd University student experience.

Transliterated multilingualism/globalisation: English disguised in non‐Latin linguistic landscapes as new type of world Englishes?

AbstractEnglish has, for historical reasons, risen to global prominence as the unchallenged lingua franca internationally. World Englishes (WE) has, as a result, established itself as a visible line of research, exploring localised/indigenised varieties of English from around the world (e.g. India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Nigeria). However, most of the discussions so far concern English written in the Latin script as people would normally expect. Against a backdrop of globalisation and the juggernaut of English, this article points to an increasingly salient phenomenon that English especially in superdiverse and/or (post)colonial societies (e.g. India and Pakistan) may disguise in seemingly inscrutable and ‘mysterious’ local scripts (e.g. Perso‐Arabic script and Devanagari script) and even ‘pass off’ as local languages in these countries’ linguistic landscapes through phonetic transliteration. This emerging trend begs the question whether these should be understood as new varieties of local languages or new kinds of world Englishes disguised in non‐Roman scripts. This phenomenon is theorised in this paper conceptually. To illustrate our point, examples of authentic signs taken from the linguistic landscapes relating to South Asia and South Asian communities are discussed. As English is increasingly glocalised and becomes part of other less dominant languages, this article calls on researchers in World Englishes (WE) and (socio)linguistics in general to look beyond English written in the Latin script in a conventional/traditional sense and to expand the scope and remit of WE research to explore how English, as a dominant code, becomes indigenised using local scripts and morphs into and even ‘passes off’ as ‘local’ surreptitiously. This fundamentally calls for the crucial need for researchers from diverse and multilingual backgrounds to work together to better understand English and other non‐dominant languages’ role in the 21st century.

COMMON PRONUNCIATION PROBLEMS IN INCLUSIVE EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS

This study focuses on pronunciation difficulties of certain segmental features related to Oman’s local English language teaching environment that includes language learners of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. The paper draws its conclusions from research findings, looks into some commonly mispronounced words, in and outside English language classrooms, explains the reasons behind such challenges and suggests some practical ideas to avoid common pronunciation problems in the context of the inclusive English language classroom.

Bridging the Divide: Indigenous Language Integration in Open Educational Resource Accessibility

The use of information resources is dependent on their accessibility by users. The accessibility of information has attracted the attention of researchers from different parts of the world. However, Open Educational Resources (OERs) accessibility issues have not been adequately addressed in South Africa. This article explores the use of indigenous languages in the development and adaptation of OERs for accessibility at the University of South Africa. A total of 108 OERs were available for selection on UnisaIR. Ten of the 108 OERs were purposefully selected. Exploring and analysing OER development at Unisa took a qualitative and exploratory approach. This article presents the findings of a thematic analysis that was used to identify dominant themes in OER. The findings highlight two main concerns that underpin OER operations at Unisa: 1) translation as a method of OER creation and/or adaptation; and 2) deficiency of OER creation in indigenous languages. Though using indigenous languages in the construction of OERs can help to address the accessibility gap in the supply of teaching and learning resources, this aspect of accessibility as a discourse in the OER space has yet to be explored extensively. It is a matter of concern that many OERs at Unisa are written only in English. To address the gap in accessibility of OERs in the South African context, the following three language-related factors should support the creation of OERs: development in local languages, linguistic pluralism, and translation into indigenous languages.

African international students’ challenges, investment and identity development at a highly selective EMI university in Kazakhstan

This article documents the reflections of six African second-year master’s students on their international educational experiences in Kazakhstan with a special focus on their challenges, strategic learning efforts and identity development. It is guided by Norton’s conceptualisation of investment in identity, language learning, and social change. The qualitative data collected from a written narrative and two subsequent rounds of individual semi-structured interviews suggest that participants pursued their studies at an English-medium instruction university in Kazakhstan mainly because of the fully-funded scholarships. However, their expectations regarding the university and Kazakhstan were unclear, as they received no pre-departure orientation. Despite being satisfied with the high-quality education in the host institution, they faced challenges such as difficulty securing part-time work due to a lack of proficiency in local languages (Kazakh and Russian), enduring prolonged cold weather, and limited opportunities for socialising with other students. Most participants described Kazakhstan as ‘a peaceful and progressive country’; however, two participants experienced linguistic racism in the classroom. This study underlines the significance of addressing the issues of graduate employability and linguistic racism, along with implementing pedagogical interventions in all phases of study abroad and fostering a sense of intercultural citizenship among students.

Rating Patients in Different Languages: Reliability and Validity.

Research outcomes in mental health disciplines are usually assessed using rating instruments that were developed as English language versions. However, in countries such as India, English is not the native language, and patients at even a single research center may speak in different regional tongues. It is permissible to assess such patients using rater-administered English language instruments designed to be scored after an unstructured interview conducted in the patient's preferred language. For many reasons, related to reliability and validity, it is not permissible to assess such patients in their preferred language by translating, impromptu, from English language versions of instruments that were designed to be self-administered or administered as a structured interview. In such situations, standardized, local language versions of the instruments should be used; that is, local language versions with established reliability and validity.

Can English be a national language in Pakistan?

This article argues that English should be considered as a national language in Pakistan in order to make it accessible to ordinary people and remove the negative assumptions attached to it. Using language planning and policy perspective, it suggests that instead of seeing traditional language as a problem, language policy should adopt language as a resource, which should not only be limited to a local or indigenous language(s), but should also be extended to other modern languages, such as English in Pakistan. Such a shift will reduce some of the problems of language planning and policy; it will not only reduce the burden on ordinary students to acquire (a) different second language(s), but will also make knowledge accessible to them through the use of their mother tongue and English. It will also help in reducing social stratification, as currently society is divided into elite and lower classes, with the class structure being perpetuated with the help of varying school systems and differential use of and access to Urdu and English. This study can lead to new debates about the use of English in non-English-speaking societies.

Impact of English Language Proficiency on Local Language Use among Bangladeshi Graduates

This study aimed to identify the impact of English language proficiency on Bangladeshi graduates in terms of its influence on local languages and cultural integration. The study was conducted using a quantitative approach, and the random sampling technique was employed to select 370 respondents from English and Bengali medium-instructed Bangladeshi graduates. Data were analysed using SPSS version 27.0. The Pearson correlation, ANOVA, and multiple regression analyses were used in line with the research objectives. The Pearson correlation shows a significant correlation among the studied variables, such as cultural erosion (R2 = 047, p < 0.001), threat to local language (R2 = 048, p < 0.001), and polluting local language (R2 = 047, p < 0.001). The ANOVA test was performed to find the mean difference in cultural erosion (CE), threat to local language (TLL), and polluting local language (PLL) with respect to respondents’ qualifications (bachelor’s, master’s, or Ph.D. degree). The ANOVA result revealed no statistically significant difference in CE and TLL in terms of graduates’ qualifications, while PLL differs significantly based on their qualifications (bachelor’s, master’s, or Ph.D. degree.). Similarly, significant differences in CE, TLL, and PLL were found among the income groups and living places of graduates. Multiple regression analysis explained 13.6% variances in the social class context with ELP-linked challenges (R2 = 0.136, p = 0.001), while the lower class was found to have positive non-significant relationships with ELP-linked challenges (B = 0. 159, p = 0.382). This was almost double that of the result for the rich class (B = 0.085, p = 0.721). However, ELP-linked challenges contain a mixture of languages and cultural blending in society, as the rich class faces fewer challenges than the lower and middle classes. The study is influential in creating an awareness of language use whenever necessary.

EMPOWERING COMMUNITIES: ASSESSING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PROGRAMS AND LISTENERSHIP OF COMMUNITY RADIO

Community radio has long been recognized as a powerful tool for empowering marginalized communities by providing them with a platform to voice their concerns, share their stories, and access essential information. Community radio (CR) is a third-tier media, together with broadcasting on public and privately owned radio. This research paper throws light on the listenership pattern of listeners of community radio, their program preferences and CR programs' effectiveness on listeners. A survey was conducted among listeners of ‘Radio Varsha’ which is situated in the Gopalganj district of Bihar for the purpose of data collection and analysis. This study employs a mixed-method approach, combining quantitative survey data and extracts of discussions held with stakeholders and listeners. The research discovered that programs are effective in generating awareness on various topics among listeners. The broadcast content in local languages and dialects was liked by the listeners, thus, leading to the effectiveness of the programs.

Afghan EFL Learners’ Perceptions towards Factors Causing Demotivation in Learning English and Strategies to Make Them Motivated

Demotivation is a significant concern for foreign and second language researchers, as it has a direct impact on the academic success of students at various educational levels, including primary, high school, and university. This study aimed to explore the demotivation factors that affect English language learning among EFL students at Jawzjan University, as well as to identify strategies for re-motivating these learners. The study employed a qualitative approach, and an open-ended interview question was conducted to collect data. The findings revealed several demotivating factors that have a negative influence on learners, including a lack of information about the dominance of the English language, insufficient support from teachers and family, economic challenges, an excessive focus on nonprofessional courses, the use of local languages in English classes, and a lack of opportunities to practice English outside the classroom. Based on the findings, the study suggests that English teachers should pay attention to their feedback, incorporate audiovisual materials into their teaching, and consider the students' interests and proficiency levels when selecting teaching materials.

Risk of Zoonotic Transmission of COVID-19 during Eid-Ul-Fitr in Pakistan

Eid-ul-Fitr is an auspicious festival that is expected to celebrate by millions of Muslims across the world including Pakistan by the end of April. The Delta variant of COVID-19 is way more harmful than any other variants. The spread of virus still remains very high in large festival gatherings like Eid ul Fitr instead of strictly following SOPs. The mass migration of people across the country during festival is of main concern that leads to increase spread of virus. It is imperative that government officials along with community leaders, religious scholars and health authorities should take part in mitigating risks of virus transmission with serious measures. As general public is not much aware of the COVID-19 complications, it becomes significant to educate illiterate people through various approaches like to give them awareness about virus, its symptoms, preventive measures and significance of vaccination. Communication in their local language that is easily comprehendible and in persuasive way greatly impacts the public and empowers them to adapt healthy behavior that helps to mitigate the risk of virus transmission.

Language experts on a sinking island: critiquing language endangerment rhetorics through participation in and around a tabletop game

ABSTRACT The participatory study of language addresses the unequal relationships between the ‘researcher’ and the ‘researched’. As part of this undertaking, university-based researchers seek to develop more accessible ways of knowledge production to involve other participants in the creation of novel forms of representation at the levels relevant to them. The university-based participants of our research addressed this challenge by co-designing a language-centred tabletop game together with participants from a Romanian multilingual village. Bringing their language expertise into action, all participants collaboratively represented, analysed, and reflected on marginalised local language practices. The game was the culmination of several years of participatory research and aimed to explore interpretations of practices that are widely discussed as threatened, allowing for a critical approach to language endangerment rhetorics. Drawing on the ethnographic analysis of eight sessions in which players engaged with each other and the tabletop game’s creators, this article argues that developing innovative multimodal representations of language on the margins can make new knowledge more accessible, but in itself does not guarantee the subversion of language endangerment rhetorics. To have an impact on well-established discourses, the language experts’ participation throughout the research process is needed.