Non-linguistic Context Research Articles

The interpretation of animate nouns in child and adult Mandarin: from the Universal Grinder to syntactic structure

Abstract Using animate nouns to refer to entities in the world involves a complex interaction of ontology, cognition and language. The present study evaluates two accounts of the use of animate nouns, with Mandarin Chinese as the vehicle for testing between the competing accounts. One account was proposed by Cheng et al. (2008. How universal is the Universal Grinder? In Marjo van Koppen & Bert Botma (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands, 50–62. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins). These researchers contend that the count interpretation is basic for Mandarin animate nouns, due to a lexical blocking effect. To access the alternative, mass interpretation requires some kind of pragmatic coercion. A second account was proposed by Pelletier, based on English (1975. Non-Singular reference: Some preliminaries. Philosophia 5(4). 451–465; 2012. Lexical nouns are both +MASS and +COUNT, but they are neither +MASS nor + COUNT. In Diane Massam (ed.), Count and mass across languages, 9–26. Oxford: Oxford University Press). We extend this account to Mandarin animate nouns, proposing that they are encoded in the mental lexicon with both a count sense and a mass sense. To adjudicate between the accounts, we conducted four experiments that were designed to assess the interpretation assigned to animate nouns by Mandarin-speaking children and adults. The experimental conditions manipulated both the syntactic structures of the sentences and the non-linguistic contexts in which those sentences were presented. The experimental findings support our proposal that both mass and count interpretations of animate nouns are available to children and adults when sentences are presented in contexts that are congruent with these interpretations. The findings also suggest that syntactic structure is an even more critical factor in determining the interpretation that is assigned to animate nouns in Mandarin.

Bidirectional interaction between language control and domain-general executive control in unbalanced Chinese-English bilinguals

Recent research has shown that bilinguals outperform monolinguals on tasks requiring non-linguistic executive control skills, thereby generating an interest in the relationship between bilingual language processing and non-linguistic control abilities. Based on this, the present study further examined the bidirectional interaction between language control and non-linguistic control in unbalanced Chinese-English bilinguals. These bilinguals completed a Flanker task in three types of language control contexts (i.e., L1, L2, and Mixed language contexts) in the interleaved word-comprehension-to-Flanker sequence and performed a picture-word matching task in three types of non-linguistic executive control contexts (i.e., color, shape and color-shape mixed contexts) in the interleaved color-shape-switching-to-word-comprehension sequence. The results showed that the Flanker effect in mixed language context was smaller than in single (L1 and L2) context, suggesting language control leads to a better non-linguistic control ability. Additionally, the language switching cost was found smaller in the mixed task context (color/shape switching), indicating that non-linguistic control can enhance the language control ability. Therefore, we conclude that there is a bidirectional interaction between language control and non-linguistic control even in unbalanced bilinguals.

Non-linguistic context in lexical words

الغاية من هذا البحث هو دراسة السياق غير اللغوي في معجمات الألفاظ , وذلك بذكر أمثلة وافية تؤكّد الظاهرة وتبيّن أنماطها وأركانها المختلفة , وقد حاولت أن أعرض هذه الظاهرة في معجمات الألفاظ القديمة كلّها من العين(175ه) حتى تاج العروس(1205).
 وقد انتظم البحث بمقدمة, وتمهيد لتعريف مفهوم السياق لغةً واصطلاحاً والسياق غير اللغوي , وخاتمة لأهم النتائج المستخلصة منه.
 وقد توصل البحث إلى نتائج مهمة منها: إن عناصر السياق غير اللغوي في المعجمات قائم في الغالب على العناصر اللغوية المقامية التي تعتمد على معرفة المقام وقضايا التأريخ والجغرافية والمحيطات النصية الأخرى.

Reference in Editing and Enlightenment: Case of Surah Al-Isra

Textual analysis is a fundamental topic in modern linguistics that focuses more on the text than on individual sentences. It necessitates a transition from studying the sentence as a major linguistic unit upon which language theories, schools, and trends are built, to studying the text. Reference is a semantic process governed by meaning and created by the speaker in the mind of the addressee through the use of words, sometimes ambiguous in their own meaning, such as pronouns that refer to objects or individuals, chains of sentences, or even entire texts outside or within the linguistic or non-linguistic context, whether preceding or following it. It serves various purposes, including linguistic economy by substituting for previously mentioned speech and connecting the elements of the text to achieve textual continuity and cohesion.

Emoji use validates the potential for meaning standardization among ideographic symbols.

Technological innovations for online communication reduce the impact of signal transience on meaning standardization while boosting access to reliable patterning across multiple linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts - both asynchronous and synchronous. We classify emojis as ideographic symbols, examine their interdependence with surrounding words when reading/writing, and argue that emoji use validates the potential for meaning standardization in ideographs.

Modality-Specificity of the Neural Correlates of Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Demand.

Imaging studies of language processing in clinical populations can be complicated to interpret for several reasons, one being the difficulty of matching the effortfulness of processing across individuals or tasks. To better understand how effortful linguistic processing is reflected in functional activity, we investigated the neural correlates of task difficulty in linguistic and non-linguistic contexts in the auditory modality and then compared our findings to a recent analogous experiment in the visual modality in a different cohort. Nineteen neurologically normal individuals were scanned with fMRI as they performed a linguistic task (semantic matching) and a non-linguistic task (melodic matching), each with two levels of difficulty. We found that left hemisphere frontal and temporal language regions, as well as the right inferior frontal gyrus, were modulated by linguistic demand and not by non-linguistic demand. This was broadly similar to what was previously observed in the visual modality. In contrast, the multiple demand (MD) network, a set of brain regions thought to support cognitive flexibility in many contexts, was modulated neither by linguistic demand nor by non-linguistic demand in the auditory modality. This finding was in striking contradistinction to what was previously observed in the visual modality, where the MD network was robustly modulated by both linguistic and non-linguistic demand. Our findings suggest that while the language network is modulated by linguistic demand irrespective of modality, modulation of the MD network by linguistic demand is not inherent to linguistic processing, but rather depends on specific task factors.

On truth and polarity in negation processing: language-specific effects in non-linguistic contexts.

This study examines how negation is processed in a nonverbal context (e.g., when assessing ▲ ≠ ▲) by speakers of a truth-based system like Mandarin and a polarity-based system like English. In a truth-based system, negation may take longer to process because it is typically attached to the negation as a whole (it is not true that triangle does not equal triangle), whereas in polarity-based systems, negation is processed relatively faster because it is attached to just the equation symbol (triangle does not equal triangle), which is processed relatively faster. Our hypothesis was that negation processing routines previously observed for verbal contexts, namely that speakers of Mandarin get slowed down more when processing negative stimuli than positive stimuli compared to speakers of English, also extend to contexts when language use is not obligatory. To test this, we asked participants to agree/disagree with equations comprising simple shapes and positive '=' or negative '≠' equation symbols. English speakers showed a response-time advantage over Mandarin speakers in negation conditions. In a separate experiment, we also tested the contribution of equation symbols '≠'/'=' to the cognitive demands by asking participants to judge shape sameness in symbol-free trials, such as ▲ ■. This comparison allowed us to test whether crosslinguistic differences arise not because of shape congruence judgement but arguably due to negation attachment. The effect of the '≠' symbol on shape congruence was language-specific, speeding up English speakers but slowing down Mandarin speakers when the two shapes differed. These findings suggest language-specific processing of negation in negative equations, interpreted as novel support for linguistic relativity.

Лингвистическая терминология глазами наивного лингвиста (на материале языка кроссвордов)

The study aims to identify and describe the content features of linguistic terms reflected “in the mirror” of naive language perception. The study identified groups of terms characterised by high frequency of use in non-linguistic metalanguage contexts; determined the typical semantisation methods for linguistic terms peculiar to the carriers of everyday metalanguage consciousness; described the main content features of the understanding of linguistic terms by naive linguists. The study is novel in that it is the first to examine the functioning of linguistic terms in everyday metalanguage consciousness using the material of crosswords. It is the first time that the basic semantisation methods for terms in crosswords have been identified. The analysis of crossword definitions of terms made it possible to establish differences between scientific and naive views on the semantics and functioning of the terms. Basic semantisation strategies and semantisation methods for terms in crosswords were identified in the course of the study. The paper describes three types of relations between an everyday and a professional reflection on terms: coincidence relations, contradiction relations, deviation relations.

From Discourse Relations to Network Edges: A Network Theory Approach to Discourse Analysis

In this paper, we argue that discourse representations can be mapped to networks and analyzed by tools provided in network theory so that deep properties of discourse structure are revealed. Two discourse-annotated corpora, C58 and STAC, that belong to different discourse types and languages were compared and analyzed. Various key network indices were used for the discourse representations of both corpora and show the different network profiles of the two discourse types. Moreover, both network motifs and antimotifs were discovered for the discourse networks in the two corpora that shed light on strong tendencies in building or avoiding to build discourse relations between utterances for permissible three-node discourse subgraphs. These results may lead to new types of discourse structure rules that draw on the properties of the networks that lie behind discourse representation. Another important aspect is that the second version of the STAC corpus, which includes nonlinguistic discourse units and their relations, exhibits similar trends in terms of network subgraphs compared to its first version. This suggests that the nonlinguistic context has a significant impact on discourse structure.

Speech Rate and Turn-Transition Pause Duration in Dutch and English Spontaneous Question-Answer Sequences

The duration of inter-speaker pauses is a pragmatically salient aspect of conversation that is affected by linguistic and non-linguistic context. Theories of conversational turn-taking imply that, due to listener entrainment to the flow of syllables, a higher speech rate will be associated with shorter turn-transition times (TTT). Previous studies have found conflicting evidence, however, some of which may be due to methodological differences. In order to test the relationship between speech rate and TTT, and how this may be modulated by other dialogue factors, we used question-answer sequences from spontaneous conversational corpora in Dutch and English. As utterance-final lengthening is a local cue to turn endings, we also examined the impact of utterance-final syllable rhyme duration on TTT. Using mixed-effect linear regression models, we observed evidence for a positive relationship between speech rate and TTT: thus, a higher speech rate is associated with longer TTT, contrary to most theoretical predictions. Moreover, for answers following a pause (“gaps”) there was a marginal interaction between speech rate and final rhyme duration, such that relatively long final rhymes are associated with shorter TTT when foregoing speech rate is high. We also found evidence that polar (yes/no) questions are responded to with shorter TTT than open questions, and that direct answers have shorter TTT than responses that do not directly answer the questions. Moreover, the effect of speech rate on TTT was modulated by question type. We found no predictors of the (negative) TTT for answers that overlap with the foregoing questions. Overall, these observations suggest that TTT is governed by multiple dialogue factors, potentially including the salience of utterance-final timing cues. Contrary to some theoretical accounts, there is no strong evidence that higher speech rates are consistently associated with shorter TTT.

Language-to-music transfer effects depend on the tone language: Akan vs. East Asian tone languages

Recent research suggests that speaking a tone language confers benefits in processing pitch in nonlinguistic contexts such as music. This research largely compares speakers of nontone European languages (English, French) with speakers of tone languages in East Asia (Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Thai). However, tone languages exist on multiple continents—notably, languages indigenous to Africa and the Americas. With one exception (Bradley, Psychomusicology, 26(4), 337–345, 2016), no research has assessed whether these tone languages also confer pitch processing advantages. Two studies presented a melody change detection task, using quasirandom note sequences drawn from Western major scale tone probabilities. Listeners were speakers of Akan, a tone language of Ghana, plus speakers from previously tested populations (nontone language speakers and East Asian tone language speakers). In both cases, East Asian tone language speakers showed the strongest musical pitch processing, but Akan speakers did not exceed nontone speakers, despite comparable or better instrument change detection. Results suggest more nuanced effects of tone languages on pitch processing. Greater numbers of tones, presence of contour tones in a language’s tone inventory, or possibly greater functional load of tone may be more likely to confer pitch processing benefits than mere presence of tone contrasts.

A deep hierarchy of predictions enables online meaning extraction in a computational model of human speech comprehension.

Understanding speech requires mapping fleeting and often ambiguous soundwaves to meaning. While humans are known to exploit their capacity to contextualize to facilitate this process, how internal knowledge is deployed online remains an open question. Here, we present a model that extracts multiple levels of information from continuous speech online. The model applies linguistic and nonlinguistic knowledge to speech processing, by periodically generating top-down predictions and incorporating bottom-up incoming evidence in a nested temporal hierarchy. We show that a nonlinguistic context level provides semantic predictions informed by sensory inputs, which are crucial for disambiguating among multiple meanings of the same word. The explicit knowledge hierarchy of the model enables a more holistic account of the neurophysiological responses to speech compared to using lexical predictions generated by a neural network language model (GPT-2). We also show that hierarchical predictions reduce peripheral processing via minimizing uncertainty and prediction error. With this proof-of-concept model, we demonstrate that the deployment of hierarchical predictions is a possible strategy for the brain to dynamically utilize structured knowledge and make sense of the speech input.

Philippine Children’s Stories as Protest: A Cognitive Stylistics Approach

Philippine Children’s Stories as Protest: A Cognitive Stylistics Approach Lalaine F. Yanilla Aquino (bio) Protest, as Cambridge Dictionary defines, is “a strong complaint expressing disagreement, disapproval, or opposition.” When protest is conveyed through children’s stories, how is the target reader made to recognize the complaint? What linguistic choices—structural patterns and deviations—make the protest content salient, accessible, and meaningful to the child reader? What other literary devices does the writer use to foreground the protest represented in the story? These are some questions addressed in this analysis of five Filipino children’s stories published in the Philippines from 2016 to 2022—the period when particular sociopolitical events, controversies, and issues gave rise to the publication of such stories. While the stories are published as picturebooks, this study opts to exclude the illustrations and focuses instead on the language of the original text (and not the translation). The reason is to discover how writers—not the translators—make the representation of protest accessible and comprehensible to the child, who may not have enough background knowledge on the matter. Four of the stories are written in Filipino and one is written in English. Being official languages in the Philippines, both English and Filipino are used as a medium of instruction in public and private schools. Both languages are taught as a subject at all educational levels. It is thus safe to assume that all five stories target Filipino children. With a focus on the language of the books—whether English or Filipino, cognitive stylistics is employed as the analytical tool of the study. Cognitive Stylistics The development of stylistics as a field of study has gradually turned toward contextualization; research in the field has shown that meaning is not fixed and stable (as the formalists claimed) but can be considered as a “potential which is actualized in a (real) reader’s mind, the product of a dialogic interaction between the author, the author’s context of production, the text, the reader and the reader’s context of reception—where context includes all sorts of sociohistorical, cultural and intertextual factors” (Weber 3). The reader’s initial engagement with the text is always on a linguistic level—a reader “is responding to the language choices and patterns as an integral part of how [s/he] make[s] meaning” (Giovanelli and Harrison 2). This is the reason for the focus on the original textual language of the stories in this study. [End Page 3] While several frameworks can be used in cognitive stylistics analysis, this study mainly uses cognitive grammar. Cognitive grammar asserts that “all language is embodied” and a stylistic analysis can “draw connections between textual patterns on the one hand and the interpretative and experiential responses of readers on the other” (Giovanelli and Harrison 6). This grammar is also guided by the central idea that “all uses of language are made up of symbolic units of form and meaning, called constructions” (7). In a way, the analysis of the writer’s constructions in the stories is also meant to discover the “construed reader” (Jakoola et al. qtd. in Giovanelli 184) of the narrative: the reader identified through the text analysis. The Stories as Protest: Sociopolitical Contexts In analyzing the texts, context is of utmost importance. As Verdonk asserts, “a text can be realized by any piece of language as long as it is found to record a meaningful discourse when it is related to a suitable context of use”; this context is both “an internal linguistic context built by the language patterns inside the text” and “an external non-linguistic context drawing [readers] to ideas and experiences in the world outside the text” (18). Thus, cognitive stylistics (like other stylistic approaches) requires that both the internal and external contexts of the text be considered for a more holistic analysis. What follows is a brief description—the external context—of each story to better understand the cognitive stylistic analysis later. The five stories analyzed in this study are Si Kian (2017) by Weng D. Cahiles, Water Lilies for Marawi (2018) by Heidi Emily Eusebio-Abad, Si Laleng at ang Lakbay-Paaralan (2020) by Mon Sy, Kakatok-Katok sa Bahay ni...

Moral Representation of Animals in Arabic and English Children’s Short Stories: A Cognitive Stylistic Approach

This paper investigates the moral representation of animals in two English and Arabic short stories from a cognitive stylistic (CS) perspective. Animal stories appear in a variety of forms, but all include one or more type of animals as the focus of the story. Authors of children literature use animal characters to convey moral ideas through analogy, ideas that would have greater impact than if child characters were presented. CS is the interface between linguistics, literary studies and cognitive science. It deals with the cognitive processes which influence text interpretation during the act of reading. It takes into account both the formal features of language and the nonlinguistic context of the readers in constructing meaning out of a text. The analysis in this paper is conducted through schema theory. The filling-in of textual gaps with one’s own cognitive knowledge is the basic premise behind schema theory. The hallmark of schema theory is that interpreting any kind of fiction relies on the reader’s background knowledge. When reading a text, readers interpret what is presented by supplying their own knowledge of the world. The analysis tackles the examination of both the thematic and technical tools that are employed by the writers of animal short stories to instill morals in the minds and cognitions of the child readers. The two short stories analyzed are; "Finding Nemo" by Andrew Stanton, and an Arabic one entitled "??????? ????? ?????" " kat?k?t? ????? mrt?n "(Katakito errs twice) by Nabil Farouk. The analysis yields the conclusion that the schema of any person, whether the writer or the child reader, is culturally and naturally affected.

Penggunaan Strategi Tindak Tutur Direktif Menyuruh dalam Bahasa Minangkabau di Nagari Bukik Batabuah Kabupaten Agam

Language in the point of view of communication is seen as a tool for transmitting data from the brain of the speaker to the brain of the speech partner. However, the speech strategies used by speakers when transmitting such data are often not quite right, so the data is not accurate. This study aims to describe what speech strategies are used by the Nagari Bukik Batabuah people in the directive speech acts in Minangkabau language, as well as describe the nonlinguistic context contained in the speech. This research was conducted qualitatively using descriptive methods. The research data is in the form of speech that contains directive speech acts commanding in minangkabau language which are spoken directly. The data were collected by using uninvolved conversation observation method with recording and note-taking techniques. The results of the data analysis showed that the people of Nagari Bukik Batabuah often used a bald-on-record strategy as many as 107 data from 152 data. The cultural context contained in the utterance is influenced by (1) habits that have been passed down for generations by the people, (2) accustomed to something that has happened in ancient times, (3) accustomed to the dominant behavior of the people, and (4) because the culture is formed by itself. Meanwhile, the direct context of the speech is expressed in informal language, but still uses the ethics of speaking Kato Nan Ampek which is the procedure for speaking of Minang people. The topic of speech is not far from the daily life of the people. Also, the function or purpose of the speech act also tends to be clear, namely to tell the speech partner to do something. Through this research, readers can see what factors can help them in conveying their intentions accurately.

Wykładnia komparatystyczna czy niekomparatystyczne odwołanie do prawa obcego? Studium przypadku Trybunału Konstytucyjnego

Comparative Interpretation or Non-comparative Reference to Foreign Law? (A case Study of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal) The aim of the article is a reconstruction of the Constitutional Tribunal’s understanding of references to foreign law and jurisprudence. The research sample consists of judgments concerning: (i) the Lisbon Treaty; (ii) shooting down a civil aircraft; (iii) control of the objectives of a political party; (iv) data retention. Other judgements are referred supplementary. The article focuses on the internal point of view of the Constitutional Tribunal. It analyses how the Tribunal describes and understands the references to foreign law and foreign case law. It also discusses how the Tribunal uses that references. The main argument is that the Tribunal does not perceive its practice (i.e. references to foreign law) as comparative constitutionalism or comparative thinking. Consequentially, maybe it is not justified for scholars to criticize this practice as comparatively flawed. The article ends with a call to view the Tribunal’s references differently since the references to foreign law are an element of the non-linguistic context of the interpretation of constitutional provisions. It is also closer to an argument from authority than a comparative one.

Degree of incrementality is modulated by experimental context – ERP evidence from German quantifier restriction

ABSTRACT The current ERP study investigates the role of non-linguistic context in incremental semantic comprehension. Using picture-sentence verification, we examined the neurophysiological correlates of contextual adaptation effects. We manipulated experiment-inherent frequency and tested whether a relatively high ratio of experimental to filler sentences constrains the contextual restriction of the German quantifier alle (“all”). While previous results indicate that the truth evaluation may be postponed when the experimental setting is completely ambiguous with respect to a potentially following restriction, the current study used a higher ratio of non-restricted vs. restricted sentences than the previous one (4:1 vs. 1:1) and thereby tested whether a low restriction probability increases the likelihood of an immediate truth evaluation. Our results show that experiment-inherent frequency distributions immediately modulate the N400 amplitude, analogous to previous studies on speaker reliability.

Effects of English Proficiency on Caucasian Face Gender Perception by Chinese-English Bilinguals: Evidence from ERP

Chinese and English differ in the encoding of biological gender in the spoken forms of 3rd person singular pronouns. Linguistic relativity theories predict that structural differences across languages are accompanied with differences in non-linguistic cognition. However, the pronoun difference between the two languages seems so trivial that its influence on gender perception is unbelievable except with empirical support. The present study conducted an ERP experiment with native speakers of Chinese learning English as a foreign language and differing in English proficiency. The odd-ball paradigm was used to examine whether L2 proficiency would influence how these Chinese-English bilinguals perform on Caucasian face gender perception. The experiment yielded null effect of L2 proficiency on the vMMN that was elicited for the gender category, as well as the control age category. The results suggest that the difference in the pronoun encoding of biological gender between Chinese and English may not influence gender perception in the nonlinguistic context, although it is not surprising considering the triviality of such cross-linguistic difference and the widespread gender binary opposition in daily life.

Humor Analysis in Asterix at the Olympic Games Comic

Humor can be found in both spoken and written language, which is an imitation of spoken language. Comic books are one type of written source of humor. Asterix at the Olympic Games is one of comic which contains humor. The purpose of this paper is to determine how linguistic context and non-linguistic context produce humor in the comic Asterix at the Olympic Games. This study used a descriptive qualitative approach. The study's findings revealed that speech acts and maxims violations were linguistic contexts that contributed to the production of humor. Character expression and illustration, on the other hand, contributed to the production of humor in a non-linguistic context.

The Role of Language Switching During Cross-Talk Between Bilingual Language Control and Domain-General Conflict Monitoring.

The relationship between bilingual language control and executive control is debated. The present study investigated the effect of short-term language switching in a comprehension task on executive control performance in unbalanced bilinguals. Participants were required to perform a context task and an executive control task (i.e., flanker task) in sequence. A picture-word matching task created different language contexts in Experiment 1 (i.e., L1, L2, and dual-language contexts). By modifying the color-shape switching task, we created different contexts that do not involve language processing in Experiment 2 (i.e., color, shape, and dual context). Experiment 1 showed overall faster responses (in both congruent and incongruent trials) in the flanker task after a language switching context than after single (L1 or L2) contexts. This suggests that the language switching in a comprehension task affected general monitoring performance. By contrast, the nonlinguistic contexts in Experiment 2 did not affect flanker performance. This provides further evidence for the crucial role of language processing during switching to elicit short-term adaptions on domain-general conflict monitoring. Overall, our findings add to the previous studies by showing cross-talk between bilingual language control and domain-general conflict monitoring when language switching occurs in a comprehension task.