Population Of Speakers Research Articles

Philosophical reflections on the future of construction grammar (or, confessions of a Radical Construction Grammarian)

Abstract Many issues face construction grammar today. I start with the role of usage in construction grammar, and trace the changes in the usage-based model from mental storage to social interaction to evolution of populations of speakers and utterances. Just as speech communities and linguistic categories can be described as evolving populations, so can the construction grammar community and the theoretical concepts and formalisms that have evolved in it. Meaning remains the most challenging question for the future. Meaning is human experience, incredibly rich, and I suggest that construction grammar move away from mental representations to radical embodiment (existential phenomenology).

Generalized multiscale finite element method for language competition modeling II: Online approach

In this paper, we consider language competition in a heterogeneous medium. The mathematical model considers bilingualism, population growth, and social pressure to use specific languages (diglossia). The transition from one language group to another is determined by probabilities that depend on status, group size, and spatial location. The model considers not only diffusive spread but also convective spread, which models seasonal migrations of speaker populations. We develop multiscale approaches for coarse grid modeling while maintaining reasonable accuracy. We present offline and online approaches based on the Generalized Multiscale Finite Element Method. We consider a model problem in a heterogeneous environment to test these approaches. The results show that both approaches can significantly reduce the discrete problem’s size. However, the online approach achieves better accuracy.

Assessing vocabulary and grammar development in New Zealand Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking children: a validation study

ABSTRACT New Zealand has a growing population of Mandarin and Cantonese speakers, including children with speech, language, and communication disorders. However, the absence of language development profiles poses challenges in effectively identifying and addressing these concerns. This study aimed to capture the current state of monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking children living in New Zealand. Over 200 mothers in the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal cohort study identified their children as understanding Mandarin and/or Cantonese. Mothers completed newly adapted vocabulary and grammar checklists for New Zealand Mandarin and Cantonese speakers at the Age 2 data wave. Both of the adapted New Zealand Mandarin and Cantonese versions showed high reliabilities and validities. Unique demographic predictors of children’s vocabulary and grammar were mothers’ education, household deprivation level, and children’s birth order. Language status and maternal concerns were also unique predictors of children’s vocabulary development in Mandarin and Cantonese, with monolingual children whose mothers reported no concerns having higher Mandarin and Cantonese vocabularies. These results have rich implications for researchers, clinicians, and practitioners working with Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking children in New Zealand and worldwide.

Navigating language maintenance challenges with health professionals: Reflections from Spanish speaking families in Australia

ABSTRACT Parents often worry children will lose their heritage language when their spoken language develops and they transition to majority language environments. With a growing population of Spanish speakers in Australia, increased attendance at childcare and earlier and more frequent exposure to English, there is a need to understand what advice health professionals are imparting to support language maintenance amongst the Spanish speaking community. In this study, I interviewed 13 Chilean and Colombian mothers about the language maintenance challenges they encountered when their children transitioned to majority language environments. I also investigated if they had sought advice from health professionals, what advice they had been provided, and what impact that had on their family language policy. This study showed that parents often adopted different family language policies in spite of, rather than because of, advice from health professionals. The need for more nuanced and informed advice to support language maintenance in the early years warrants further research into professional development and training in multilingual development.

Replication of population-level differences in auditory-motor synchronization ability in a Norwegian-speaking population

The Speech-to-Speech Synchronization test is a powerful tool in assessing individuals’ auditory-motor synchronization ability, namely the ability to synchronize one’s own utterances to the rhythm of an external speech signal. Recent studies using the test have revealed that participants fall into two distinct groups—high synchronizers and low synchronizers—with significant differences in their neural (structural and functional) underpinnings and outcomes on several behavioral tasks. Therefore, it is critical to assess the universality of the population-level distribution (indicating two groups rather than a normal distribution) across populations of speakers. Here we demonstrate that the previous results replicate with a Norwegian-speaking population, indicating that the test is generalizable beyond previously tested populations of native English- and German-speakers.

Sociolinguistic Survey of the Chin Speech Varieties Spoken along the Dalet Stream, Ann Township, Rakhine State, Myanmar

This report presents the results of a sociolinguistic survey fieldwork trip to the language groups along the Dalet Stream in Ann Township, Rakhine State, Myanmar. The primary purpose of this survey was to determine the need for additional language development among these speakers. A secondary purpose was to investigate how ready these groups are for language development and how unified they are. The third purpose was to determine how many and which varieties might best be selected for additional literature development among these groups. The survey team investigated these questions through wordlists, questionnaires, participatory tools, and recorded text testing (RTT). The team learned that the Dalet Stream people are not adequately served by Burmese literature. There is a need and desire for additional vernacular language development. The Dalet Stream people are interested in literature development; however, promotion is needed. Language vitality is robust among most speech varieties, and there is a sizable population of speakers. Some educated people are interested in helping develop literature to maintain their people group’s culture and language. However, interest in language development and literacy must still be built in the broader community.

Whole genomes from Angola and Mozambique inform about the origins and dispersals of major African migrations

As the continent of origin for our species, Africa harbours the highest levels of diversity anywhere on Earth. However, many regions of Africa remain under-sampled genetically. Here we present 350 whole genomes from Angola and Mozambique belonging to ten Bantu ethnolinguistic groups, enabling the construction of a reference variation catalogue including 2.9 million novel SNPs. We investigate the emergence of Bantu speaker population structure, admixture involving migrations across sub-Saharan Africa and model the demographic histories of Angolan and Mozambican Bantu speakers. Our results bring together concordant views from genomics, archaeology, and linguistics to paint an updated view of the complexity of the Bantu Expansion. Moreover, we generate reference panels that better represents the diversity of African populations involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, improving imputation accuracy in African Americans and Brazilians. We anticipate that our collection of genomes will form the foundation for future African genomic healthcare initiatives.

Exploring the role of first language in ecological awareness and communication across Pakistan: A mixed method study

The present study proposes a linguistic habitat that may evoke people's first language (L1) to support a better understanding of current environmental catastrophes and address one pathway to support solution finding. A purposive participant sample consisted of 25 undergraduate students majoring in linguistics was selected to provide input regarding how their first language (Balochi, Balti, Pashto, Punjabi, and Sindhi) might approach ecological problems and consider its role in promoting ecosolidarity. While considering the epistemological perspectives offered by ecolinguistics, the qualitative data were analyzed to determine linguistic resources (words and structures) employed by the participants to describe aspects of the environmental crisis. As an element of the analysis, findings were also explored through quantitative percentages of representation. Findings revealed that while describing the natural environment in Urdu and English, the two official, and dominant languages of Pakistan, the participants often borrowed words and used structures that did not connect directly to first language terminology. This situation not only may result in misunderstandings and misinterpretation of subsequent actions for change, but it also suggests that multiple world voices as native speaker tongues may not have played an integral role in messaging to a broad population of speakers across Pakistan. The study suggests that purposeful, ecological language planning and the application of ecological content to local languages should be part of the ecological dialogue because they have the potential to promote deeper understanding at individual and collective societal levels.

Languages with more speakers tend to be harder to (machine-)learn

Computational language models (LMs), most notably exemplified by the widespread success of OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot, show impressive performance on a wide range of linguistic tasks, thus providing cognitive science and linguistics with a computational working model to empirically study different aspects of human language. Here, we use LMs to test the hypothesis that languages with more speakers tend to be easier to learn. In two experiments, we train several LMs—ranging from very simple n-gram models to state-of-the-art deep neural networks—on written cross-linguistic corpus data covering 1293 different languages and statistically estimate learning difficulty. Using a variety of quantitative methods and machine learning techniques to account for phylogenetic relatedness and geographical proximity of languages, we show that there is robust evidence for a relationship between learning difficulty and speaker population size. However, contrary to expectations derived from previous research, our results suggest that languages with more speakers tend to be harder to learn.

The Brigands’ Song among the Ngạn People in Northern Vietnam

Abstract The Ngạn people are a small local population of Tai-language speakers now living in the eastern districts of Cao Bằng province in northern Vietnam. They are said to be descendants of mercenary soldiers hired by the Mạc royal court during the 17th century. It is the aim of this article to investigate where they came from, using Vietnamese and Chinese ethnological studies, on-site fieldwork and analysis of song texts, supplemented by information from a ritual text and a family register. My conclusion is that the original homeland of the Ngạn was in the Youjiang River valley in west-central Guangxi. Numerous strands of evidence point to a strong connection with the native chieftaincy of Tianzhou and the neighbouring chieftaincy of Si’en.

English derived word recognition by Chinese‐English bilinguals: Testing the nature and time course of the component processes

ABSTRACT Research utilizing morphological priming has found that L2 speakers show facilitation from derived L2 primes, which could suggest morphological processing during derived L2 word recognition. However, the process of L2 derived word recognition is still poorly understood, with some arguing that the observed priming effects may not be morphological in nature. The present study is a partial replication of Rastle et al. and its extension to L2 English processing. Its purpose is to contribute to our understanding of the nature and time course of L2 derived word recognition. Following Rastle et al., I employed visual priming methodology to explore the activation of morphological, pseudomorphological, orthographic, and semantic processes during a later, central-lexical stage of L2 English derived word recognition by Mandarin Chinese-English bilinguals. The results replicated Rastle et al.’s findings with L1 English speakers. The L2 speakers exhibited morphological effects distinguishable from effects of form overlap, suggesting that surface form overlap cannot explain L2 facilitation from derived primes. These same L2 speakers further showed pseudomorphological facilitation distinguishable from surface form effects, indicative of the operation of a purely morpho-orthographic process at the later stage of L2 English word recognition and further suggesting L2 sensitivity to morphemic structure that cannot be explained by semantic effects. Results further showed a similar graded pattern of activation of morphological, pseudomorphological, and form mechanisms in L2 and L1 speakers of English that appears to be temporally shifted between the two speaker populations. Implications for L2 word recognition theory are discussed.

Scale in Language.

A central concern of the cognitive science of language since its origins has been the concept of the linguistic system. Recent approaches to the system concept in language point to the exceedingly complex relations that hold between many kinds of interdependent systems, but it can be difficult to know how to proceed when "everything is connected." This paper offers a framework for tackling that challenge by identifying *scale* as a conceptual mooring for the interdisciplinary study of language systems. The paper begins by defining the scale concept-simply, the possibility for a measure to be larger or smaller in different instances of a system, such as a phonemic inventory, a word's frequency value in a corpus, or a speaker population. We review sites of scale difference in and across linguistic subsystems, drawing on findings from linguistic typology, grammatical description, morphosyntactic theory, psycholinguistics, computational corpus work, and social network demography. We consider possible explanations for scaling differences and constraints in language. We then turn to the question of *dependencies between* sites of scale difference in language, reviewing four sample domains of scale dependency: in phonological systems, across levels of grammatical structure (Menzerath's Law), in corpora (Zipf's Law and related issues), and in speaker population size. Finally, we consider the implications of the review, including the utility of a scale framework for generating new questions and inspiring methodological innovations and interdisciplinary collaborations in cognitive-scientific research on language.

Syntactic variation across the grammar: modelling a complex adaptive system

While language is a complex adaptive system, most work on syntactic variation observes a few individual constructions in isolation from the rest of the grammar. This means that the grammar, a network which connects thousands of structures at different levels of abstraction, is reduced to a few disconnected variables. This paper quantifies the impact of such reductions by systematically modelling dialectal variation across 49 local populations of English speakers in 16 countries. We perform dialect classification with both an entire grammar as well as with isolated nodes within the grammar in order to characterize the syntactic differences between these dialects. The results show, first, that many individual nodes within the grammar are subject to variation but, in isolation, none perform as well as the grammar as a whole. This indicates that an important part of syntactic variation consists of interactions between different parts of the grammar. Second, the results show that the similarity between dialects depends heavily on the sub-set of the grammar being observed: for example, New Zealand English could be more similar to Australian English in phrasal verbs but at the same time more similar to UK English in dative phrases.

A large quantitative analysis of written language challenges the idea that all languages are equally complex

One of the fundamental questions about human language is whether all languages are equally complex. Here, we approach this question from an information-theoretic perspective. We present a large scale quantitative cross-linguistic analysis of written language by training a language model on more than 6500 different documents as represented in 41 multilingual text collections consisting of ~ 3.5 billion words or ~ 9.0 billion characters and covering 2069 different languages that are spoken as a native language by more than 90% of the world population. We statistically infer the entropy of each language model as an index of what we call average prediction complexity. We compare complexity rankings across corpora and show that a language that tends to be more complex than another language in one corpus also tends to be more complex in another corpus. In addition, we show that speaker population size predicts entropy. We argue that both results constitute evidence against the equi-complexity hypothesis from an information-theoretic perspective.

Acoustic and perceptual impact of face masks on speech: A scoping review.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, personal protective equipment such as facial masks and coverings were mandated all over the globe to protect against the virus. Although the primary aim of wearing face masks is to protect against viral transmission, they pose a potential burden on communication. The purpose of this scoping review was to identify the state of the evidence of the effect of facial coverings on acoustic and perceptual speech outcomes. The scoping review followed the framework created by Arksey & O'Malley (2005) and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines (PRISMA-ScR; Tricco et al., 2018). The search was completed in May 2021 across the following databases: PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. A total of 3,846 records were retrieved from the database search. Following the removal of duplicates, 3,479 remained for the title/abstract screen and 149 were selected for the full-text review. Of these, 52 were included in the final review and relevant data were extracted. The 52 articles included in the final review consisted of; 11 studied perceptual outcomes only, 16 studied acoustic outcomes only, and 14 studied both perceptual and acoustic outcomes. 13 of these investigated acoustic features that could be used for mask classification. Although the findings varied from article to article, many trends stood out. Many articles revealed that face masks act as a low pass filter, dampening sounds at higher frequencies; however, the frequency range and the degree of attenuation varied based on face mask type. All but five articles that reported on perceptual outcomes showed a common trend that wearing a face mask was associated with poorer speech intelligibility. The findings of the scoping review provided evidence that facial coverings negatively impacted speech intelligibility, which is likely due to a combination of auditory and visual cue degradation. Due to the continued prevalence of mask use, how facial coverings affect a wider variety of speaker populations, such as those with communication impairments, and strategies for overcoming communication challenges should be explored.

Waiwaye A Kan Rabe-Raben Kare-Karen Harshen Hausa Na Yamma

Scholars have divergent views on the classifications of Hausa dialects. Their classifications were based on the Hausa dialects' linguistic features and the geographical locations of the dialects in the Hausa land. Bargery (1934) was the first scholar who classifies the Hausa dialects into two broad divisions of Eastern and Western Hausa dialects in the introduction of his famous dictionary. He made the classification based on their common linguistic features and their regional or geographical locations. Most of the subsequent research of scholars conducted after Bargery’s 1934 dictionary followed the same footsteps of the Eastern and Western dialects classifications, though some scholars had different views on the individual dialects constituting the earlier two broad divisions. Some of the works of these scholars include; Jaggar (1945), Muhammad (1978), Abubakar (1982), Amfani (1993), Bello (1992), Musa (1995), Fagge (2002), Sani (2003), Yakasai (2006), Muhammad (2010), Bello (2015), Musa (2015) and Bello (2016). However, the research works of Ahmed and Daura (1970), Malka (1978), Wurma (2005), and Zulyadaini (2005) on the other hand classified Hausa dialects on the basis of major and minor dialects. They argued that the dialects are supposed to be classified and studied based on popularity and populations of speakers. In essence, the population of speakers of a dialect determines its status of being either a major or a minor Hausa dialect. This paper attempts to make a critical review of the scholars' classifications of Hausa regional dialects of Eastern and Western Hausa dialect divisions with a view to highlighting some of the neglected Western Hausa dialects found in Nigeria today that were not earlier considered in the scholars' two broad divisions. The data of this research was sourced mostly from the Hausa dialect works conducted by scholars and researchers. The research discovered that the earlier classification of individual Western Hausa dialects made by scholars was too narrow, which resulted in merging a number of independent Hausa Western dialects into one, instead of classifying the dialects and studying each dialect independently and broadly.

Rethinking ‘errors’

All children produce non-adult-like grammatical forms (e.g., omissions, substitutions) in the process of acquiring the language(s) in their environment. Often, use of these forms is part of typical language development; in other cases, non-adult-like forms are indicative of developmental language disorder (DLD). For children acquiring multiple languages, additional variability in language use is expected, as their experiences with each language vary. For accurate assessment in speech-language pathology, measures must differentiate typical and atypical development within the variability of dual language learning. Recent research indicates that measuring productivity – or the diversity and flexibility of children’s morphosyntactic skills – may be helpful in meeting this need: across speaker populations, typical language development is characterised by relatively greater productivity. However, available work has largely prioritised productivity within accurate productions. Presently, we ask: what are patterns of productivity in the context of non-adult-like forms in the spontaneous language samples of preschool-aged Spanish-English bilinguals? Analyses were conducted in both languages, and, as predicted, typically developing bilinguals (n = 15; age range = 3;11-4;11 [years;months]) produced non-adult-like forms that demonstrated productivity, or the (over)use of grammatical markers (e.g., substitutions, overregularisations) in both Spanish and English. Conversely, non-adult-like forms produced by three bilingual peers with DLD (ages 3;10, 4;1 and 4;3) were primarily characterised by limited productivity (i.e., omissions). Patterns observed here align with previous research and with the profile of DLD, in which children demonstrate difficulty learning and using grammatical markers. Additionally, present findings revealed cross-linguistic differences in productivity across English and Spanish, likely stemming from differences in grammatical structures between languages and, relatedly, differences in grammatical forms prioritised in assessment for each language. Present findings motivate further work in descriptive analyses of language use (i.e., identifying productive vs. non-productive forms) to improve our understanding of bilingual language development and to support clinical decision-making.

An experimental investigation into scope rigidity in written Mandarin.

Mandarin Chinese is claimed to be a scope-rigid language, as its doubly-quantified simple transitive sentences are unambiguous with surface scope only and no inverse scope available. However, it has been debated whether Mandarin Chinese allows inverse scope in some syntactic environments other than simple transitives. This paper investigates whether scope rigidity as a property of the grammar of Mandarin prevents scope ambiguity in different syntactic environments and what factors influence scope interpretations. Using a Truth-Value Judgment task, we tested the judgments of 98 Mandarin Chinese native speakers on transitive sentences containing both a subject and object quantifier under adverbial clauses. The results show that inverse scope reading is considered available for doubly-quantified transitives under adverbial clauses, although there are intra-participant variances. The results challenge the well-established approaches to quantifier scope in Mandarin and call for rethinking the long-standing dichotomy view of quantifier scope in languages. We also found bimodal distribution on the acceptance of inverse scope readings, suggesting that there may be two different populations of native speakers with two different grammars. In addition, we also observed other factors that may affect scope behaviors, including clause type, presence of aspect marker, verb type, and numbers.

Agreement Asymmetries with Adjectives in Heritage Greek

Research on different populations of heritage speakers (HSs) has demonstrated that these speakers (i) frequently produce fewer adjectives, and (ii) produce more errors in nominal concord than in subject–verb agreement. The first point, (i), has been attributed in the literature to the optionality of adjectives and to the fact that adjectives characterize the literary language and HSs lack familiarity with this register. The second point, (ii), is viewed by other researchers as supporting theories that treat nominal concord as being different from subject–verb agreement. In this paper, we contribute data on production of adjectives and agreement asymmetries with adjectives from heritage Greek. We show that these cannot be viewed as supporting claims with respect to (i) but conclude that nominal concord and subject–verb agreement involve different mechanisms. We furthermore explore ways to account for a slight contrast we observe between prenominal and postnominal agreement.

Development of an algorithm for characterizing speech production patterns as context-based Cue Production Profiles

A given word or sound can take on a wide range of acoustic forms in conversational speech, and these patterns of variation are systematic with context. This substantial variability poses a problem for modeling human speech perception, but it can also be highly informative if it can be measured quantitatively; surface phonetic patterns can be used to characterize different speakers, dialects, speaking styles and speech disorders, as well as context-driven variation within a speaker. Adopting the view that individual acoustic cues provide a useful vocabulary for describing these variation patterns, we are developing an algorithm for tabulating the range of acoustic cue production patterns for each phoneme, in a corpus of recorded speech, with the potential for extension to words and phrases. This algorithm will enable the determination of key factors that govern systematic speech variation, including segmental, prosodic and lexical contexts, which can be used to create a profile for a speaker or defined population of speakers, i.e., a Cue Production Profile.