Repetition Of Phrases Research Articles

Hindi Poetry in a Musical Genre: Thumri Lyrics (review)

Reviewed by: Hindi Poetry in a Musical Genre: Thumri Lyrics Amanda Weidman (bio) Hindi Poetry in a Musical Genre: Thumri Lyrics. Lalita du Perron. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. 234 pp. (127 pp. of text; 77 pp. of lyrics with transliteration and translation) with photographic plates, glossary. The classical music traditions of India, as we know them today, are the result of a process of selection from and redefinition of a variety of musical traditions from the subcontinent, often practiced by and identified with different communities. Prior to the 20th century, much musical tradition and knowledge was located in communities of hereditary women artists—the tawaifs [courtesans] associated with the courts of Lucknow and other North Indian courts, or the devadasis, associated with Hindu temples in South India. Despite the rather different milieus they occupied, tawaifs and devadasis had in common the fact that they were highly educated musicians and dancers who did not marry, but had relationships with men who acted as their patrons. As is now well-known, the lives these women lived came under attack in the late 19th century, under pressure from social reform movements that identified them as "prostitutes" and promoted a morality based on the ideal of the respectable "family" woman. Elite nationalism, meanwhile, encouraged the revival and purification of music and dance by such respectable women in the early 20th century. Those musical genres that had been associated with male musicians, such as dhrupad and khyal in North India, have become the main repertoire of what is now called Hindustani classical music, while genres associated more strongly with courtesan culture—ghazals and thumri—occupy the lesser status of the "semi-classical." Both ghazal and thumri concern the topic of romantic love and the longing that accompanies separation from one's beloved. While ghazal is in Urdu and is written from a male perspective, thumri, in Hindi, is written from a female perspective, although thumris have been mostly composed by men and are also sung by men. Unlike the unambiguously "classical" genres in which words are considered less important than "the music itself," ghazal and thumri both require a knowledge of the meaning and sensitivity to the poetic structure of the composition to be sung effectively. As Lalita du Perron points out in this informative book, ghazal and thumri have had different trajectories in the 20th century: "Whereas ghazal could distance itself from the courtesan tradition by [End Page 186] virtue of its male perspective and its independent role as poetry outside of a musical context, thumri had 'performance' as well as 'femaleness' woven into its basic structure, and could not escape the stigma that came to be attached to women performers" (27). Du Perron's book focuses on the lyrics of thumri, in an attempt to redress the neglect of the poetic aspects of these compositions. A large part of the book consists of what she calls the "main corpus" of thumri compositions—a group of 138 texts and their variants that she has collected from various performances and anthologies. For each text, the original Hindi, a transliteration, and translation are given, in addition to notes on the translation and identification of the recording in which it can be heard performed. The translations of these thumri texts, as well as the chapters that focus on their poetic devices and tropes and the construction of the female voice in them, are the main contribution of the book and should be of interest to scholars of Indian classical music and Indian literary history generally. Although the book claims to focus on the literary analysis of thumri texts apart from performance, du Perron, a student of the renowned vocalist Girija Devi, has extensive knowledge of the musical and performance context of thumri, and she does include an analysis of the way in which the poetic aspects of thumri are enhanced by musical performance, especially repetition, emphasis, and variation of particular words and phrases. The recordings to which du Perron refers are carefully identified, but it is unfortunate that at least a few recordings, which she analyzes in detail, could not be included with the book. Interspersed with these parts of the book that take a...

An Analysis of the Topical Structure of Paragraphs Written by Filipino Students

This study investigates the topical progression in paragraphs written by Filipino ESL students. Data consists of 60 paragraphs lifted from the definition essays that were part of the studentsi portfolios. The paragraphs were analyzed using Lautamattiis topical structure analysis (TSA), which examines the internal topical structure by looking at the repetition of key words and phrases and provides insights into the internal coherence in paragraphs. It was found that parallel progression was most frequently used in the paragraphs, followed by extended and sequential progressions. The extended sequential progression was least used. Writing is a highly complex process for novice and nonnovice writers alike since it involves a host of advanced skills that include critical thinking, logical development, and coherence of ideas. Realizing coherence in written discourse is one major challenge confronting writers, since it is not just a desirable character of a text but a crucial aspect that establishes the oneness of a collection of abstract thoughts. Both novice and non-novice writers can only claim a written text is successful if it is able to found a relation between the writer and reader, and between clauses, sentences, and paragraphs. Coherence is defined by Moore (1971) as ithe rhetorical quality by which all of the parts are clearly and smoothly joined to each otheri (p. 115). Good writing requires logically consistent ideas in order for the writer to compose a coherent piece of discourse that is readable and understandable to whoever the intended audience may be or whatever the writeris purpose may be. According to

The Impact of Social Scripts and Visual Cues on Verbal Communication in Three Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Social script and visual cue use with students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) were examined. A multiple baseline design across activities with embedded withdrawal was used to measure student acquisition of verbal communication skills. Three children with ASD, two boys and one girl, were taught a series of scripts and were shown a “quiet” picture when they engaged in perseverative speech (e.g., repetitive phrases or words). The number of scripted statements increased during treatment, with reductions in perseverative speech for all three students. One student's unscripted statements increased during intervention. Analysis of percentage of nonoverlapping data indicated that the intervention was highly effective for scripted statements, ineffective for unscripted statements, and produced variable results for total communicative statements.

Dissociation between singing and speaking in expressive aphasia: The role of song familiarity

There are several reports on the ability aphasic patients have to sing familiar songs, despite having severe speech impairments. Based on these observations it was also suggested that singing might improve speech production. However, recent experimental studies with aphasic patients found no evidence to illustrate that singing improves word production under controlled experimental conditions. This study investigated the role of singing during repetition of word phrases in a patient severely affected with non-fluent aphasia (GS) who had an almost complete lesion of the left hemisphere. GS showed a pronounced increase in the number of correctly reproduced words during singing as compared to speaking excerpts of familiar lyrics. This dissociation between singing and speaking was not seen for novel song lyrics, regardless of whether these were coupled with an unfamiliar, a familiar, or a spontaneously generated melody during the singing conditions. These findings propose that singing might help word phrase production in at least some cases of severe expressive aphasia. However, the association of melody and text in long-term memory seems to be responsible for this effect.

Brief Report: Autistic Symptoms, Developmental Regression, Mental Retardation, Epilepsy, and Dyskinesias in CNS Folate Deficiency

We studied seven children with CNS folate deficiency (CFD). All cases exhibited psychomotor retardation, regression, cognitive delay, and dyskinesia; six had seizures; four demonstrated neurological abnormalities in the neonatal period. Two subjects had profound neurological abnormalities that precluded formal behavioral testing. Five subjects received ADOS and ADI-R testing and met diagnostic criteria for autism or autism spectrum disorders. They exhibited difficulties with transitions, insistence on sameness, unusual sensory interests, and repetitive behaviors. Those with the best language skills largely used repetitive phrases. No mutations were found in folate transporter or folate enzyme genes. These findings demonstrate that autistic features are salient in CFD and suggest that a subset of children with developmental regression, mental retardation, seizures, dyskinesia, and autism may have CNS folate abnormalities.

CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS, Tradition and change in legal English: Verbal constructions in prescriptive texts

Christopher Williams, Tradition and change in legal English: Verbal constructions in prescriptive texts. Bern: Peter Lang, 2005. pp. 216. $46.95.Christopher Williams analyzes the use of constructions such as modals and semi-modals such as shall and may and the use of the present simple as these constructions appear in English prescriptive legal texts. Using a large corpus of texts from a variety of English-speaking countries and international organizations, Williams focuses primarily on legislative texts, which are often characterized as including archaic or rarely used words and foreign words, the repetition of particular words and phrases, the use of long, complex sentences, and the passive voice (p. 31). Williams's analysis, thoughtfully designed and carried out, is an informative examination of how and why legal language has resisted change. The book also provides an engaging look at the Plain Language Movement and the impact this movement has had on legal texts.

"Reading" Homer through Oral Tradition

Twentieth-century research demonstrated that Homer's Iliad and Odyssey began as part of an ancient Greek oral tradition, and were passed down by word of mouth through generations of oral poets before and for some time after the invention of the alphabet. As the twenty-first century dawns, the modern (re)discovery of these unwritten origins is exerting an enormous influence on how we understand and teach the poems, presenting new answers to the ages-old "Homeric Question"–Who was Homer?–and suggesting comparisons with living oral epic traditions on five continents. By paying attention to the trademark structures and idiomatic values of Homer's language, the bequest of oral tradition, we can "read" the poems more faithfully. The perspective from oral tradition solves such stubborn and longstanding challenges as the heavy repetition of phrases and scenes, as well as the non-chronological order and anti-climactic ending of the Odyssey. Oral tradition can also show how Penelope emerges as a full-fledged hero–in some ways even more central a figure than her husband Odysseus.

Gender differences in repetitive language in fragile X syndrome

Verbal perseveration (i.e. excessive self-repetition) is a characteristic of male individuals with fragile X syndrome; however, little is known about its occurrence among females or its underlying causes. This project examined the relationship between perseveration and (1) gender, (2) cognitive and linguistic ability, and (3) language sampling context, among youth with fragile X syndrome. Language transcripts were obtained from adolescent male (n = 16) and female participants (n = 8) with fragile X syndrome in two language contexts (i.e. narration and conversation) designed to elicit spontaneous language samples. Transcripts were coded for utterance-level repetition (i.e. repetition of words, phrases, dependent clauses or whole utterances), topic repetition and conversational device repetition (i.e. repetition of rote phrases or expressions). Male participants produced more conversational device repetition than did female participants. Gender differences in conversational device repetition were not explained by differences in non-verbal cognitive or expressive language ability. Context influenced the type of repetition observed; for example, more topic repetition occurred in conversation than in narration regardless of gender. The observed gender differences in conversational device repetition among adolescents with fragile X syndrome suggest that, relative to females, male participants may rely more heavily on rote phrases or expressions in their expressive language. Further, results suggest that this gender difference is not simply the result of the correlation between gender and cognitive or linguistic ability in fragile X syndrome; rather, gender may make an independent contribution to conversational device repetition. Repetition type also varied as a function of expressive language context, suggesting the importance of assessing language characteristics in multiple contexts.

An Association of Intrusive, Repetitive Phrases with Lamotrigine Treatment in Bipolar II Disorder

Bipolar disorder is frequently associated with obsessional symptoms. However, no reports have identified a pattern of obsessionality that is associated with a specific mood stabilizer treatment. A chart review was conducted on five patients with bipolar II disorder who spontaneously reported a form of obsessionality characterized by intrusive, recurrent phrases after taking lamotrigine. Development of the phrases occurred from 7-42 years after mood disorder onset and occurred only after initiation of lamotrigine treatment. The phrases improved with lamotrigine discontinuation or dose reduction and recurred with lamotrigine re-challenge or upon dose escalation. A possible mechanism for the development of the intrusive phrases involves the influence of lamotrigine on glutamatergic regulation in a bipolar II disorder population vulnerable to the expression of obsessionality. Limitations of this report include its observational nature, small number of cases reported, and confound of concomitant medication use.

The principle of Reformed intertextual interpretation

There has been a growing interest in intertextuality as a hermeneutical category in contemporary current biblical studies. The texture of a particular text is thickened and its meaning extended by its interplay with other texts, especially when the reader recognizes that the repetition of similar phrases and subject matter form part of an integral whole. The concept of intertextuality in this article firstly challenges the traditional approach that assumes that there is one meaning in a text that can be deduced when the author's intention is determined. Secondly, it disagrees with the New Criticism in which only the autonomous text plays the dominant interpretive role. The reader is considered to be merely a passive consumer of the text. Thirdly, it differs from the post-structural/deconstructional way which declares “the death of the author”.

Language Use in Females with Fragile X or Turner Syndrome During Brief Initial Social Interactions

Fragile X and Turner syndromes are associated with risk of atypical social function. We examined language use, including normal and atypical speech, during initial social interactions among participants engaged in a brief social role play with an unfamiliar adult. There were 27 participants with Turner syndrome, 20 with fragile X syndrome and 28 in an age-matched comparison group. Females with fragile X did not exhibit more abnormal language, but exhibited less of what is typical during initial interactions. Overall rates of dysfluencies did not differ, although females with fragile X made more phrase repetitions. Females with Turner syndrome had no language use abnormalities. Our findings suggest that language use may influence social function in females with fragile X syndrome and that such language characteristics may be observed in the context of brief encounters with an unfamiliar adult.

The Authorship of "Jicoténcal"

Since its publication in 1826 by the William Stavely Press, the authorship of Jicotencal, a historical novel centered on the defeat of a Tlaxcalan military hero by Cortes, has continued to intrigue and elude scholars.This study offers additional evidence to support the hypothesis that Felix Varela is indeed the author of Jicotencal. More specifically, a comparison of the formal aspects of the novel with those of Varela's other works reveals that there are multiple stylistic and linguistic similarities among the texts, such as the repetition of certain phrases and aphorisms. This study also establishes the consistency of the ideas presented in the texts and concludes that while the Cuban priest supported concepts closely associated with Enlightenment thought, his perspective on issues such as sovereignty, government, religion, and humanity was very much his own and provides further evidence of his authorship of the novel.

Reducing Palilalia by Presenting Tact Corrections to Young Children with Autism

Palilalia, the delayed repetition of words or phrases, occurs frequently among individuals with autism and developmental disabilities. The current study used a combined multiple baseline and reversal design to investigate the effectiveness of presenting tacts as corrections for palilalia. During baseline, five preschoolers with autism emitted high rates of palilalia and low rates of mands and tacts during play and instructional activities. During treatment, when experimenters presented opportunities to echoically tact actions and objects following the emission of palilalia, its frequency decreased to low and stable levels and mands and tacts increased. Functional relationships between the tact corrections and emissions of palilalia, mands, and tacts were established during reversals to baseline and treatment conditions. Similar trends in responding were found for frequency of palilalia, mands, and tacts in non-treatment settings.

Perseveration and Other Repetitive Verbal Behaviors: Functional Dissociations

This article will review types of perseveration from a neurolinguistic perspective. During the course of the article, continuous, stuck-in-set, and recurrent perseveration will be placed in contradistinction to several other types of repetitive behaviors commonly associated with neurogenic communication disorders. These include echolalia in mixed transcortical aphasia; conduite d'approche and conduite d'ecart in fluent aphasias; lexical and nonlexical automatisms in nonfluent aphasias; palilalia in neuromotor disorders, such as Parkinson's disease (PD); and sound, syllable, word, and phrase repetitions in neurogenic stuttering. When differentiating these phenomena from perseveration, it is helpful to consider the salient factors that condition observed behaviors in individual patients, such as overall speech fluency, inventory of available utterances, nature of eliciting tasks, and propositionality of responses. Information such as communication disorder diagnosis, underlying etiology, and known sites of lesion from each patient's total clinical profile may also assist with differentiation.

The Keyboard Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti and Eighteenth-Century Musical Style (review)

INSTRUMENTS AND INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC The Keyboard Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti and Eighteenth-Century Musical Style. By W. Dean Sutcliffe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. [xi, 400 p. ISBN 0-521-48140-6. $75.] Music examples, bibliography, index. Domenico Scarlatti is the greatest Spanish composer Italy has ever produced. He often inspires such curious contradictions, and aspects of his life and works remain controversial and elusive. Performers and scholars will therefore always welcome any new information and insight on this unique figure. W. Dean Sutcliffe's book represents substantial contribution to the field. The author offers comprehensive survey of the literature, an excellent account of the problems posed by the lack of sources (especially autographs), and an unflinching confrontation with the question of placing the sonatas in pairs (he is clearly not an advocate). Sutcliffe addresses issues of performance practice, explores the influence of Spanish folk music, and examines other factors that, taken together, determine how we hear and play Scarlatti's music. He justly questions the existence of four separate numbering systems for the sonatas (Longo, Kirkpatrick, Fadini, and Pestelli), and he accurately describes the extent to which the Austro-German focus of musicology has distorted the analysis and reception of Scarlatti. This problem, I might add, has also been true for other latinate composers, such as Francois Couperin and the French clavecinistes. Sutcliffe therefore covers considerable ground with the skill of an experienced scholar, but several aspects of this book diminish the impact of this otherwise valuable study. The most troubling is the uncomfortable impression that Sulcliffe has deep suspicions, if not downright antipathy, about characteristics of Scarlatti's essential compositional style. This includes the hallmark use of repeated chords, his unconventional voice leading, the rapid tempos of the majority of the sonatas, and the composer's predilection for phrase repetition and unusual formal structures. Sutcliffe's tendency to express his reservations in what I consider to be overly harsh terms exacerbates the problem. To cite few instances, he complains that the voice leading of K. 277 is crude (p. 14), and the consecutive fourths [in K. 254, have] an obviously ugly effect (p. 16). Scarlatti's gigantic sequences can be . . . infuriating and upsetting (p. 121), and his repeated chords and passages are described as idiot repetitions (p. 283) that lest our tolerance levels. My tolerance level was cerlainly tested when he hinted at some dark psychological disturbance lurking beneath these musical gestures. Writing that many forms of irrational conduct or mental illness involve repetitive behavior (p. 158), Sutcliffe suggests that were we to speculate on Scarlatti's character from the evidence of the music, we might imagine it to have been unstable or even schizophrenic (p. 35). Although I am sure this was not the author's intention, the conclusion one draws from such inflammatory statements is that he considers Scarlalli's music to be crude, ugly, compulsive, and perhaps even menially unbalanced. Sutcliffe's harsh tone often extends to his criticism of number of eminent scholars and performers, especially Ralph Kirkpatrick. Is it really appropriate, or accurate, to describe the work of this distinguished Scarlattian as incredible, if not absurd (p. 43), or to accuse him of being guilty of a fabrication? (p. vii n. 1). In an amusing twist, the author unwittingly echoes Kirkpatrick on several occasions, such as the comparison of Scarlatti's harmonic practices to those of Igor Stravinsky. Kirkpatrick once shared conversation with me that he had had with Stravinsky during rehearsals for the premiere of The Rake's Progress, in which the great Russian composer personally acknowledged the similarities between his compositional style and that of Scarlatti. …

A Look at Early Childhood Writing in English and Spanish in a Bilingual School in Ecuador

The present study examines 20 writing samples in English and Spanish selected from portfolios of first grade children at a bilingual school in Ecuador. Based on earlier findings that paragraphs composed in English and Spanish by children, adolescents and adults are different (Lux & Grabe, 1991; Monta ~ n no-Harmon, 1991; Reid, 1990; Reppen & Grabe, 1993; Simpson, 2000), an analysis was conducted of 20 written samples from first grade children, focusing on the physical structure and the topical structure of those writings. The physical characteristics of the paragraphs included the number of T-units, words, errors, error types, sentence types and connectors. Results of this quantitative analysis do not reflect findings from earlier studies describing English–Spanish differences, which may be due to the very young age of these writers or the influence of English instruction. The topical structure analysis, an analysis of coherence derived by examining the internal topical structure of each paragraph as reflected by the repetition of key words and phrases, provides insights into the organisational patterns used by these children. The results of the topical structure analysis show that these children use similar amounts of topical repetition in the two languages. Additionally, this analysis reveals developmental stages in narrative strategies.

Evaluating the effects of bilingual dominance and language mode on overall degree of foreign accent

This study evaluated the influence of bilingual dominance and language mode on overall degree of perceived foreign accent. Three groups of Italian–English bilinguals (n=12 each) were selected according to their ratio of self-rated English/Italian proficiency: English-dominant, balanced, or Italian-dominant. Language mode was manipulated by having participants repeat English phrases before and after similar Italian phrases (E1, E2) and then intermixed with Italian phrases (E3). Native English (NE) listeners rated four English phrases spoken by the bilinguals and 12 age-matched NE controls using a scale that ranged from 1 (strong foreign accent) to 9 (no foreign accent). We hypothesized that if switching into the native language (here, Italian) adversely affects pronunciation of the second language (English), the third repetitions of the English phrases (E3) should be more strongly foreign-accented than the first repetitions (E1). The foreign accent ratings decreased significantly in the following order: NE > English-dominant > balanced > Italian-dominant. That is, all three bilingual groups had detectable foreign accents, and strength of accent depended on bilingual dominance. The language mode effect was significant only for one of the four phrases examined, perhaps because it (mozzarella cheese) has distinctly different phonetic renditions in English and Italian. [Work supported by NIH.]

Comment on: Why the effect of prior odds should accompany the likelihood ratio when reporting DNA evidence

Meester and Sjerps tackle difficult issues, and many of their comments and suggestions have much to commend them. However, I do not think that they have resolved the difficulties fully satisfactorily. I first part company with them when they speak, in the third paragraph of the Introduction, of a ‘randomly selected member of the population’, with many subsequent repetitions of similar phrases. In crime investigations no-one, we hope, is selected randomly. The concept of ‘random man’ has captured the imagination of statisticians and the general public since Quetelet in the mid19th century, in some instances to good effect. In the forensic identification setting, however, I believe that the concept is unnecessary and dangerous. Consider perhaps the simplest setting of a single individual, the suspect S, whose DNA profile matches that obtained from a single crime stain and is presumed to be that of the culprit C . Here, the relevant version of Bayes’ theorem is

Pattern Discovery Techniques for Music Audio

Human listeners are able to recognize structure in music through the perception of repetition and other relationships within a piece of music. This work aims to automate the task of music analysis. Music is “explained” in terms of embedded relationships, especially repetition of segments or phrases. The steps in this process are the transcription of audio into a representation with a similarity or distance metric, the search for similar segments, forming clusters of similar segments, and explaining music in terms of these clusters. Several pre-existing signal analysis methods have been used: monophonic pitch estimation, chroma (spectral) representation, and polyphonic transcription followed by harmonic analysis. Also, several algorithms that search for similar segments are described. Experience with these various approaches suggests that there are many ways to recover structure from music audio. Examples are offered using classical, jazz, and rock music.

’Yonder lies the grave‐island, the silent island; yonder, too, are the graves of my youth’: A Commentary on Zarathustra's Grave‐Song

This article places Nietzsche's central work, Also sprach Zarathustra, in the context of his insistence on the importance of interpretation. In the form of a short commentary, the author attempts to explore the significance of the chapter entitled ‘Das Grablied’ (The Grave‐Song), in order to show how our understanding of Nietzsche's work can benefit from closer textual analysis. Situating the chapter within the rest of Zarathustra, the commentary examines the language, cultural references, and imagery of ‘Das Grablied’, arguing that the technique of repetition and slight variation of phrases creates a continuity across the text and a density of feeling. Zarathustra's logic, we learn, does not proceed in logical stages, but rather emerges from his pronouncements across the text. Thus an argument which, at first sight, appears jumbled and incoherent, is revealed, by close reading, to possess an intellectual logic amid an increaslingly ecstatic intensity of expression. Read in detail and in context, ‘Das Grablied’ is shown to represent a major step in the argument of Zarathustra, for it sings of how we, too, can learn to love the earth and obey the injunction: bleibt der Erde treu!