Reading Passages Research Articles

“Trace your grave”: On the poetry of The Communist Manifesto’s grave-digger thesis

The Communist Manifesto (1848) was written by two erstwhile poets, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who dedicated themselves to working-class self-emancipation, which requires the forcible overthrow of capitalist society. Poetry vitalised their revolutionary politics and impelled them beyond poetry to critico-practical class struggle against the bourgeoisie. Using Samuel Moore’s 1888 English translation, which Engels assisted and authorised, this paper presents new readings of famous images and passages in the Manifesto by demonstrating the significance of poetry to its representation of working life and living-dead extremity in bourgeois society. It focuses on the poetry of the Manifesto’s thesis that the bourgeoisie produces its own grave-diggers. Marx and Engels wove poetry into their thesis, including blank verse by Shakespeare and works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Thomas Hood and Heinrich Heine. The paper addresses Marx and Engels’s critical assimilation of one poem in particular: Shelley’s “Song to the Men of England” (1819). It also regards, through poetry, their critique of the extremity of capital – its infinity – which necessitates proletarian revolution for human liberation. The coda posits the Manifesto as a “barricade-poem” in prose form.

Automated Vowel Articulation Analysis in Connected Speech Among Progressive Neurological Diseases, Dysarthria Types, and Dysarthria Severities.

Although articulatory impairment represents distinct speech characteristics in most neurological diseases affecting movement, methods allowing automated assessments of articulation deficits from the connected speech are scarce. This study aimed to design a fully automated method for analyzing dysarthria-related vowel articulation impairment and estimate its sensitivity in a broad range of neurological diseases and various types and severities of dysarthria. Unconstrained monologue and reading passages were acquired from 459 speakers, including 306 healthy controls and 153 neurological patients. The algorithm utilized a formant tracker in combination with a phoneme recognizer and subsequent signal processing analysis. Articulatory undershoot of vowels was presented in a broad spectrum of progressive neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's disease, progressive supranuclear palsy, multiple-system atrophy, Huntington's disease, essential tremor, cerebellar ataxia, multiple sclerosis, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, as well as in related dysarthria subtypes including hypokinetic, hyperkinetic, ataxic, spastic, flaccid, and their mixed variants. Formant ratios showed a higher sensitivity to vowel deficits than vowel space area. First formants of corner vowels were significantly lower for multiple-system atrophy than cerebellar ataxia. Second formants of vowels /a/ and /i/ were lower in ataxic compared to spastic dysarthria. Discriminant analysis showed a classification score of up to 41.0% for disease type, 39.3% for dysarthria type, and 49.2% for dysarthria severity. Algorithm accuracy reached an F-score of 0.77. Distinctive vowel articulation alterations reflect underlying pathophysiology in neurological diseases. Objective acoustic analysis of vowel articulation has the potential to provide a universal method to screen motor speech disorders. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23681529.

Reading passages and conversation text in EFL textbook for junior high school: Analysis on the process of transitivity system

This research aims to identify the process types of the transitivity system from the reading passages and conversational texts of the EFL textbook entitled Modul Pengayaan for seventh-grade junior high school students, which is composed based on the implementation of Kurikulum 2013. The present study employed a descriptive qualitative research design. The data of this study are obtained from reading texts and conversational texts (text dialogues). The collected data of the transitivity process presented in sentences and clauses were analyzed using Halliday's transitivity system. The results show that all the process types of transitivity system with 35 processes were found in the reading passages and conversational texts of the textbook, namely: material process with 5 data (14.28%), mental process with 12 data (34.28%), verbal process with 3 data (8.57%), relational process with 13 data (37.14%), behavioral process with 1 data (2.85%), and existential process also with 1 data (2.85%). All the types of transitivity processes have been presented adequately based on Halliday's theory, although the two types of transitivity process (behavioral and existential process) almost have come from ignorance. Therefore, this study suggests that the textbook designer and material developer produce diverse clauses and sentences by using the six process types of transitivity in English written texts, especially in the reading passages and conversational texts.

Staging enmity: reading populist productions of shame with Jelinek's On the Royal Road.

Background: Populism is often perceived as a shamelessly loud segment of political discourse. However, Jelinek's play On the Royal Road, written on the occasion of Trump's 2016 election as US president, suggests that populism leads to societal silencing. Jelinek's text expounds that when a society's public sphere is marked by ubiquitous enmity against an imagined "we", grounded in antagonism, then the possibility of speaking to one another disappears, because speaking to one another is based on the willingness to give one's counterpart space and listen to them. In a public discourse that stages enmity, the counterpart vanishes. Therefore, populism, loud as it is, leads to the silencing of whole communities insofar as they are left with nothing in common but enmity. Method: Critical discourse analysis is used to contextualise close readings of select passages of Jelinek's play with recent social sciences and humanities research on global populisms to highlight what literary language and the dramatic form can contribute to understanding populism. Results: The silencing populisms entail is fed, in large part, by a dynamics linking the interpersonal emotion of shame to its discursive exploitation in shamelessness and shaming: populist voices transgress rules of democratic debate in the public sphere to elicit outrage by mainstream politics, media, and civil society, which often retort populist shamelessness by shaming populist actors. The audience excitement populist leaders and supporters generate is an important factor in normalizing the emotional, moralizing populist polarization of "us" versus "them" that undermines differentiated discussion and a dispute of arguments. Conclusion: While media and research commonly suggest that with the populist reduction of politics to a spectacle, citizens become a passive audience, the article expounds that audiences play a key role in the production of populist enmity. This insight offers an alley to counteract populism.

Eye movements are stable predictors of word reading ability in young readers

During the first years of formal instruction in reading, there are developmental changes to the characteristics of children’s eye movements that correspond to their progress. Generally, these changes are driven by improved text processing and a shift from reliance on sub-lexical to lexical processes. Currently, however, little is known about to what extent early eye movements during reading in ecological contexts account for variations in later word reading ability. In this paper we investigate this association in 164 children in first grade and 206 children in second grade. We recorded their eye movements during normal text passage reading in an unrestricted eye tracking set-up. We analyzed to what extent they account for variation in word reading ability 1 year post-recording, and make comparisons to concurrent predictions. Regression analysis revealed that eye movements accounted for approximately 60% of the variance in concurrent word reading ability and approximately 48% 1 year later. Mean fixation duration explained unique variance in reading ability and largely drives the correlation. Proportion of regressions was not a significant longitudinal predictor among the youngest readers. The difference between the concurrent and longitudinal predictions was greatest in the younger children, which was in line with our expectation. Findings are discussed in relation to current models of word reading. Our results suggest that eye movements are stable predictors of word reading ability. Ultimately, knowledge of what can be gleaned from early readers’ natural eye movements about later word reading ability could help inform assessments of reading development in the educational setting, where the presence of digital assessment tools is growing.

An Analysis of Global Englishes Aspects in English Textbooks at the Lower Secondary Level in Thai EFL Context

The spread of English as a global language has resulted in several changes, which challenge the foundations of how language should be taught and learned. To match today‘s sociolinguistic realities, researchers have called for a paradigm shift from the traditional pedagogy to a new pedagogy that can prepare students to use English in international communication involving different varieties of English and its cultures. The purposes of this study are (1) to investigate the aspects of target interlocutors, and (2) to investigate cultural depictions as reflected in three selected English textbooks, which are currently used in lower secondary level (Grade 7) in Thailand. Three English textbooks are purposively selected as the samples of this study. Data is collected from the communication practice tasks (e.g., conversation dialogues, emails, and letters) and the contents of the reading passages, and articles in the textbooks. The Galloway's and Rose's (2018) GELT framework and Kachru's (1992) Three Circles Model are used to analyse data. The findings reveal that the textbooks mostly represent the target interlocutors from Native English users. With regards to the aspect of cultural depiction, the findings reveal that various cultures from all three circles are represented in these textbooks. The findings suggest that the English textbooks that which are currently used in Thai EFL context are likely to rely on the traditional ELT in the aspect of the target interlocutors. However, the depiction of cultural aspects in the textbooks corresponds more to the GELT concept with regards to the promotion of learners from different cultures across circles.

Reduced duration of stuttering-like disfluencies and consistent anticipatory slowing during an adaptation task.

The adaptation effect in stuttering, traditionally described as the reduction of stuttering moments over repeated readings, provides a context to investigate fluency facilitation as well as a relatively controlled means of comparing fluent speech in the immediate vicinity of words that were stuttered versus fluently produced. Acoustic studies have documented decreased duration of fluent speech during adaptation but rarely address changes in disfluencies or the speech preceding or following the disfluencies. This study addresses this gap in the research by documenting frequency and duration changes in both fluent and stuttered syllables. Fifteen people who stutter read passages aloud five times in succession. Frequency and duration of fluent syllables, pauses, stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs) and other disfluencies (ODs) were compared across the five readings. In addition, durations for syllables before and after pauses and SLDs were compared to determine if there were anticipation or carryover effects of SLDs on surrounding syllables. Durations measured for more than 22000 fluent syllables, 1531 pauses, 128 ODs and 1752 SLDs. For most of the 15 participants, significant decreases in both frequency and duration of SLDs over the five readings were observed. In addition, lengthening of fluent syllables immediately preceding the disfluent syllables was observed: this pre-SLD lengthening did not change over the five readings. Decreased duration of SLDs across readings supports the motor practice hypothesis, which assumes that successive reading of the same text increases the efficiency of the speech motor plans resulting in less stuttering and decreased durations of the stuttering that persists. Pre-SLD lengthening merits further study, because it informs our knowledge of the time course of stuttered events and may be associated with conscious or unconscious anticipation of upcoming SLDs that does not decrease with motor practice. What is already known on this subject The frequency of stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs) can be reduced using a variety of fluency-enhancing strategies. For example, the adaptation effect, in which a reduction of stuttered events occurs over repeated readings of the same material, has been widely studied. Previous studies have shown that durations of fluent syllables decrease during adaptation, supporting the hypothesis that repeated practice of the motor plan leads to increased fluency. However, temporal changes in disfluent syllables and syllables preceding and following SLDs have rarely been studied, so our understanding of the effect of motor practice on stuttering reduction is incomplete. What this study adds This study has two significant findings. First, stuttered disfluencies that persisted after the initial reading of the adaptation task tended to become shorter in duration. Fluently produced syllables and those that were stuttered, both of which are speech events related to motor control of articulators, were affected in a similar manner by the motor practice associated with adaptation. Second, lengthening of fluent syllables immediately preceding stuttered syllables was observed. This pre-stuttering lengthening, however, did not decrease in duration over the five readings: the mechanism that drives this anticipatory behaviour is not affected by repeated practice. What are the clinical implications of this work? People who stutter have neural differences that lead to speech motor planning and/or execution that is less efficient than that of typical speakers. The finding that stuttering is reduced and that persisting SLDs become shorter in duration over repeated readings provides evidence that motor practice can influence the manifestation of stuttering by temporarily making those specific motor plans more efficient. This may inform treatments for stuttering. The observation that fluent syllables immediately before SLDs were lengthened, and that this lengthening was not influenced by repeated practice, extends our understanding of the time course of stuttering events and may be useful in understanding anticipation and listener reactions to stuttering.

Automated voice pathology discrimination from audio recordings benefits from phonetic analysis of continuous speech

In this paper we evaluate the hypothesis that automated methods for diagnosis of voice disorders from speech recordings would benefit from contextual information found in continuous speech. Rather than basing a diagnosis on how disorders affect the average acoustic properties of the speech signal, the idea is to exploit the possibility that different disorders will cause different acoustic changes within different phonetic contexts. Any differences in the pattern of effects across contexts would then provide additional information for discrimination of pathologies. We evaluate this approach using two complementary studies: the first uses a short phrase which is automatically annotated using a phonetic transcription, the second uses a long reading passage which is automatically annotated from text. The first study uses a single sentence recorded from 597 speakers in the Saarbrucken Voice Database to discriminate structural from neurogenic disorders. The results show that discrimination performance for these broad pathology classes improves from 59% to 67% unweighted average recall when classifiers are trained for each phone-label and the results fused. Although the phonetic contexts improved discrimination, the overall sensitivity and specificity of the method seems insufficient for clinical application. We hypothesise that this is because of the limited contexts in the speech audio and the heterogeneous nature of the disorders. In the second study we address these issues by processing recordings of a long reading passage obtained from clinical recordings of 60 speakers with either Spasmodic Dysphonia or Vocal fold Paralysis. We show that discrimination performance increases from 80% to 87% unweighted average recall if classifiers are trained for each phone-labelled region and predictions fused. We also show that the sensitivity and specificity of a diagnostic test with this performance is similar to other diagnostic procedures in clinical use. In conclusion, the studies confirm that the exploitation of contextual differences in the way disorders affect speech improves automated diagnostic performance, and that automated methods for phonetic annotation of reading passages are robust enough to extract useful diagnostic information.

‘I could have slapped myself’: The Ethics of the Bystander Perspective in Sebastian Haffner’s Memoir

The second half of Sebastian Haffner’s posthumously published memoir, Geschichte eines Deutschen, describes Haffner’s experiences of the first years of Nazi rule. In my reading of key passages, I consider how the text works to highlight the discrepancy between Haffner’s thoughts and actions as he is increasingly compelled to accept and even participate in Nazi activities, despite his hatred of Nazism. By presenting his case as typical, and drawing the reader into a sense of intimacy and trust with Haffner, his text elicits empathy for the ‘ordinary Germans’ who unwillingly became part of what Fulbrook calls the ‘bystander society’ under Nazism. After analysing the memoir, I consider its reception in the German and English-speaking worlds at the time of publication, and reflect on the ethical implications of empathising with Haffner’s bystander perspective.

Translation and Transmission

Translation and Transmission

A Corpus-based Analysis of the Linguistic Complexity Levels of the Reading Passages in Three Asian EFL Countries’ College Entrance English Exams

This study investigates the linguistic complexity levels of the reading passages of the foreign language (English) domain of the College Scholastic Aptitude Test (CSAT) in Korea and compares them with those in two other Asian EFL countries. For the study, the reading passages of the Korean, Chinese, and Japanese college entrance English exams from the 2018 to 2020 academic year were collected and analyzed based on the length, propositional content and organizational characteristics by using a variety of corpus linguistic tools. The Kruskal-Wallis test was administered in order to see if there was a statistically significant difference among the tests. Also, when between-group differences were detected, the Mann-Whitney U post hoc test was conducted to further look into significant differences between the CSAT and the other tests. Overall findings suggest that the reading passages of the CSAT English exam maintained the highest difficulty level among the three Asian EFL countries’ college entrance English exams, with cognitively demanding academically-oriented items, highly advanced vocabulary, complex syntactic structure and low readability. Based on the findings, this research is expected to shed light on the intention of incorporating criterion-referenced English assessment into the CSAT as well as provide pedagogical implications for test developers and education policy makers in Korea.

Academic word coverage and language difficulty of reading passages in College English Test and Test of English for Academic Purposes in China.

The field of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has gained considerable attention, mainly due to the growing importance of English teaching and the need for preparing international professionals. The primary academic emphasis of this field is largely centered on the study of English for Academic Purposes (EAP). It has become increasingly important for China to provide EAP education to its vast population of college students, who represent a significant proportion of global tertiary-level English learners. By doing so, they can improve their academic literacy and participate more effectively in international academic communication. In 2016, China's College English Test Examination Board issued the National College English Test Syllabus which emphasized the importance of academic English literacy in the test design. This syllabus was released during a contentious debate among Chinese academics about the role of EAP in college English teaching and testing. Despite this heated discussion, there are currently few studies that have analyzed the linguistic nature of academic English tests in a quantitative manner. This paper calculates the academic word coverage of the reading passages in two crucial English proficiency tests designed for college students in China, the College English Test (CET) and the Test of English for Academic Purposes (TEAP). It is found that the academic word coverage of CET is increasing from the year 2013 to 2021 and that the academic word coverage of TEAP is slightly higher than that of CET. In this sense, these English tests can meet the requirements for measuring Chinese college students' academic literacy. It is also found that there is a positive correlation between academic word coverage and language difficulty as is indicated by Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. These findings provide an empirical reference for the study of academic English tests in China, and other parts of the world, and contribute to EAP teaching and testing reform for the development of students' academic literacy.

Coh-Metrix 시스템을 활용한 고등학교 영어 모의고사 읽기 지문의 학년 간 연계성 분석

The main objective of this study was to analyze the continuity of reading passages in high school English mock College Scholastic Ability Test (CAST) exams using Coh-Metrix, a multi-level text analysis tool. To achieve this, the study constructed a corpus of reading passages from the 2022 high school English mock exams and subjected them to a broad range of Coh-Metrix measures. These measures included basic measures (the number of words, the number of sentences, average word length, average sentence length), word frequencies (word frequencies for content words), word features (imageability, concreteness, age of acquisition, familiarity), lexical diversity measures (type-token ratios for content words), personal pronouns (first person pronouns, second person pronouns, third person pronouns), connectives, readability indices (Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level), syntactic complexity (noun density scores, the number of words before main verbs), coreference cohesion measures, and semantic cohesion measures. The main results revealed that the continuity of high school English mock tests was well established for average word and sentence length measures, the average number of words, word frequencies, word familiarity, second person pronouns, standard readability indices, and syntactic complexity measures. These findings have implications for the development of reading passages in high school English mock exams.

Meaningful Drills and Contextualized Reading Passages to Understand Relative Clauses

The current study tries to test the assumption that the use of meaningful drills and contextualized reading comprehension passages lead to better understanding of relative clauses. The study is based on the idea that meaning and contexts are necessary for learning to take place. It also aims to empirically test the effect of meaningful drills proposed by Christina Paulston on the acquisition of relative clauses. A sample of (30) first year undergraduate students of English took part in this study. The participants were divided equally into experimental and control group. The sample performances were matched based on their scores in the pre and posttest. After doing the pretest the experimental students received a short handout with relative clauses presented in short reading passages to read for themselves. Students of the experimental group had to identify and discover for themselves the occurrences of relative clauses in the reading passages. The reading passages are followed by meaningful drills on relative clauses. Three weeks later, the students in both groups took a posttest on relative clauses. Based on the tests results the authors have concluded that inserting context and meaning leads to better understanding of the grammar pattern being investigated.

English Reading Teaching in Senior High School based on the Cultivation of Cultural Awareness

The New Curriculum Standards regarded the cultivation of students’ cultural awareness as one of the important teaching objectives. And in this globalized world, trades and exchanges between countries are increasingly common, so it is necessary to understand western cultures, which is the basis of cross-cultural communication ability. Language is the carrier of culture, and culture is the support of language, thus teachers should strength students’ cultural awareness through English reading teaching. This paper just takes a reading passage in “understanding ideas” part of unit 1 in NSE Book 1 for grade nine as an example, which aims to illustrate the practical teaching for developing students’ cultural awareness.

Once Again on Aristotle and the Identity of the Athenian Nomothetai. A Response to Gertrud Dietze-Mager

This article is a short response to a recent contribution by Dietze-Mager in Erga-Logoi 10.2. There, within a larger discussion of the reliability of the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia as a historical source, Dietze-Mager argues against our proposed identification of the Athenian nomothetai with a special session of the Assembly. In response, we start with a concise summary of our interpretation of the constitutional stages in the Athenaion Politeia in light of the socio-economic methodology of Politics IV, and clarify the role of Aristotle’s political theory in our reconstruction. We then provide a close reading of some key evidence about the identity of the Athenian nomothetai (particularly Aeschin. III 38-40). We demonstrate that Dietze-Mager’s proposed reading of the relevant passage is linguistically and syntactically problematic, arguing that the only possible interpretation of the relevant procedure as described at Aeschin. III 38-40 involves identifying the nomothetai with a special lawmaking session of the Assembly.

Use of Motion Capture Technology to Study Extrinsic Laryngeal Muscle Tension and Hyperfunction.

Patients with primary muscle tension dysphonia (pMTD) commonly report paralaryngeal pain and discomfort, and extrinsic laryngeal muscle (ELM) tension and hyperfunction are commonly implicated. However, quantitative physiological metrics to study ELM movement patterns for the characterization of pMTD diagnosis and monitoring of treatment progress are lacking. The objectives of this study were to validate motion capture (MoCap) technology to study ELM kinematics, determine whether MoCap could distinguish ELM tension and hyperfunction between individuals with and without pMTD, and investigate relationships between common clinical voice metrics and ELM kinematics. Thirty subjects (15 with pMTD and 15 controls) were recruited for the study. Sixteen markers were placed on different anatomical landmarks on the chin and anterior neck. Movements across these regions were tracked during four voice and speech tasks using two three-dimensional cameras. Movement displacement and variability were determined based on 16 key-points and 53 edges. Intraclass correlation coefficients demonstrated high intra- and inter-rater reliability (p's < 0.001). Other than greater movement displacements around the thyrohyoid space during longer phrasing (reading passage, 30-s diadochokinetics) and more movement variability in patients with pMTD, kinematic patterns between groups were similar across the 53 edges for the four voice and speech tasks. There were also no significant correlations between ELM kinematics and standard voice metrics. Results demonstrate the feasibility and reliability of MoCap for the study of ELM kinematics. 3 Laryngoscope, 133:3472-3481, 2023.

Is a Phone‐Based Language and Literacy Assessment a Reliable and Valid Measure of Children's Reading Skills in Low‐Resource Settings?

AbstractTechnology‐based remote research methods are increasingly widespread, including learning assessments in child development and education research. However, little is known about whether technology‐based remote assessments remain as valid and reliable as in‐person assessments. We developed a low‐cost phone‐based language and literacy assessment for primary‐school children in low‐resource communities in rural Côte d'Ivoire using voice calls and SMS. We compared the reliability and validity of this phone‐based assessment to an established in‐person assessment. A total of 685 5th grade children completed language (phonological awareness, vocabulary, language comprehension) and literacy (letter, word, pseudoword, passage reading, and comprehension) tasks in‐person and by phone. Reliability (internal consistency) and predictive validity were high across in‐person and phone‐based tasks. Children's performance across in‐person and phone‐based assessments was moderately to strongly correlated. Phonological awareness and vocabulary skills measured in‐person and by phone significantly predicted in‐person and phone‐based letter, word, and pseudoword reading. Oral language and decoding skills measured in‐person and by phone significantly predicted in‐person and phone‐based passage reading and comprehension. Our phone‐based assessment was a reliable and valid measure of language and reading and feasible for low‐resource settings. Low‐cost technologies offer significant potential to measure children's learning remotely, increasing the inclusion of remote and low‐resource populations in education research.

Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process

Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process

The effects of background music on English reading comprehension for English foreign language learners: evidence from an eye movement study.

Based on previous literature, the present study examines the effects of background music on English reading comprehension using eye tracking techniques. All the participants, whose first language was Chinese, were selected from a foreign language college and all of them were sophomores who majored in English. The experiment in this study was a 2 (music tempo: fast and slow) × 2 (text difficulty: difficult and easy) × 2 (background music preference: high and low) mixed design. Both musical tempo and English reading passage were within-subjects factors, and the level of music listening preference was a between-subjects factor. The results showed that the main effect of the music tempo was statistically significant, which indicated that participants read texts more quickly in the fast-tempo music condition than in the slow-tempo music condition. Furthermore, the main effect of the text difficulty was statistically significant. Additionally, the interaction between the text difficulty and music tempo was statistically significant. The music tempo had a greater effect on easy texts than on difficult texts. The results of this study reveal that it is beneficial for people who have a stronger preference for music listening to conduct English reading tasks with fast-tempo music. It is detrimental for people who have little preference for background music listening to complete difficult English reading tasks with slow-tempo music.