Semantic Competence Research Articles

Elements of the Linguistic Worldview in teaching French as a foreign language in the philological context

In teaching French as a foreign language in the philological context, insufficient attention is paid to the development of lexical and semantic competences, especially in relation to culture. The linguistic worldview is an ethnolinguistic concept that integrates many different lexical phenomena such as polysemy, derivation, connotation and word structures in order to show the close relationship between lexis and culture. Showing a word in a complex network of lexical-semantic-compositional relations is a tool with strong didactic potential. The aim of this study is to identify this potential in the context of teaching French vocabulary. We focus on the theoretical background of lexical and semantic competences and on the analysis of the relationship between language, culture and meaning in ethnolinguistic and cognitive terms. The empirical part explores, in a quantitative and qualitative way, the methodology of teaching lexis as it is implemented in French language textbooks. The result of our study shows that this methodology, in terms of the presentation of vocabulary and the number and types of lexical exercises, is not sufficient for learning the real meaning of words. The linguistic worldview is a tool that may meet this challenge.

An Update Summary on the Learning Sciences Within an Ophthalmic Context.

Clinical reasoning, specifically diagnostic decision-making, has been a subject of fragmented literature since the 1970s, marked by diverse theories and conflicting perspectives. This article reviews the latest evidence in medical education, drawing from scientific literature, to offer ophthalmologists insights into optimal strategies for personal learning and the education of others. It explores the historical development of clinical reasoning theories, emphasising the challenges in understanding how doctors formulate diagnoses. The importance of clinical reasoning is underscored by its role in making accurate diagnoses and preventing diagnostic errors. The article delves into the dual process theory, distinguishing between type 1 and type 2 thinking and their implications for clinical decision-making. Cognitive load theory is introduced as a crucial aspect, highlighting the limited capacity of working memory and its impact on the diagnostic process. The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is explored as a framework for optimal learning environments, emphasising the importance of scaffolding and deliberate practice in skill development. The article discusses semantic competence, mental representation, and the interplay of different memory stores-semantic, episodic, and procedural-in enhancing diagnostic proficiency. Self-regulated learning (SRL) is introduced as a student-centric approach, emphasising goal setting, metacognition, and continuous improvement. Practical advice is provided for minimising cognitive errors in clinical reasoning, applying dual process theory, and considering cognitive load theory in teaching. The relevance of deliberate practice in ophthalmology, especially in a rapidly evolving field, is emphasised for continuous learning and staying updated with advancements. The article concludes by highlighting the importance of clinical supervisors in recognising and supporting trainees' self-regulated learning and understanding the principles of various teaching and learning theories. Ultimately, a profound comprehension of the science behind clinical reasoning is deemed fundamental for ophthalmologists to deliver high-quality, evidence-based care and foster critical thinking skills in the dynamic landscape of ophthalmology.

КОГНИТИВНЫЕ ПАРАМЕТРЫ СЕМАНТИКИ И СЛОВООБРАЗОВАНИЯ ЯЗЫКОВЫХ ЕДИНИЦ

The paper intends to give an up-to-date survey of the field of cognitive semantics and word formation. It does not aim at giving a full and exhaustive account of research, but at giving a short review of its main foundations and perspectives concentrating on significant aspects of recent research. Despite the diversity of approaches, some global tendencies can be recognized in cognitive semantics and word formation research. Cognitive semantics is described as a mentalistic theory of meaning which focusses on the relationship between semantic knowledge and other cognitive systems on the one hand, and the relationship between representational and procedural aspects of semantic competence on the other hand. It is closely related to cognitive word formation. Perspectives of further research are discussed with respect to the general development of cognitive science.

Teaching Clinical Reasoning inthe Preclinical Period.

Developing the clinical reasoning skills necessary to becoming an astute diagnostician is essential for medical students. While some medical schools offer longitudinal opportunities for students to practice clinical reasoning during the preclinical curriculum, there remains a paucity of literature fully describing what that curriculum looks like. As a result, medical educators struggle to know what an effective clinical reasoning curriculum should look like, how it should be delivered, how it should be assessed, or what faculty development is necessary to be successful. We present our Introduction to Clinical Reasoning course that is offered throughout the preclinical curriculum of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. The course introduces clinical reasoning through interactive lectures and 28 case-based small group activities over 15 months.The curriculum is grounded in script theory with a focus on diagnostic reasoning. Specific emphasis is placed on building the student's semantic competence, constructing problem lists, comparing and contrasting similar diagnoses, constructing a summary statement, and formulating a prioritized differential diagnosis the student can defend. Several complementary methods of assessment are utilized across the curriculum. These include assessments of participation, knowledge, and application. The course leverages clinical faculty, graduate medical education trainees, and senior medical students as small group facilitators. Feedback from students and faculty consistently identifies the course as a highly effective and engaging way to teach clinical reasoning. Our Introduction to Clinical Reasoning course offers students repeated exposure to well-selected cases to promote their development of clinical reasoning. The course is an example of how clinical reasoning can be taught across the preclinical curriculum without extensive faculty training in medical education or clinical reasoning theory. The course can be adapted into different instructional formats to cover a variety of topics to provide the early learner with sequential exposure and practice in diagnostic reasoning.

Teaching Students How to Think: A Longitudinal Qualitative Study of Preclerkship Clinical Reasoning Instruction

ABSTRACT Introduction An objective of undergraduate medical education is to teach students how to think like physicians through a process called clinical reasoning. Currently, clerkship directors often feel that students enter their clinical years with a marginal comprehension of clinical reasoning concepts; instruction in this area could be improved. Although there have been previous educational studies assessing curricular interventions to improve the instruction of clinical reasoning, it is not yet known what happens at an individual level between an instructor and a small group of students in the teaching of clinical reasoning. This research will identify how clinical reasoning is being taught in a longitudinal clinical reasoning course. Methods The Introduction to Clinical Reasoning course is a 15-month-long case-based course held in the preclinical curriculum of the USU. Individual sessions involve small-group learning with approximately seven students per group. Throughout the academic year of 2018-2019, 10 of these sessions were videotaped and transcribed. All participants provided informed consent. A thematic analysis was performed using a constant comparative approach. Transcripts were analyzed until thematic sufficiency was reached. Results Over 300 pages of text were analyzed; new themes ceased to be identified after the eighth session. Topics included obstetrics, general pediatric issues, jaundice, and chest pain; these sessions were taught either by attendings, fellows, or fourth-year medical students with attending supervision. The thematic analysis revealed themes associated with clinical reasoning processes, themes associated with knowledge organization, and a theme associated with clinical reasoning in the military. The clinical reasoning process themes included problem list construction and refinement, differential diagnosis, naming and defending a leading diagnosis, and clinical reasoning heuristics. The knowledge organization themes included illness script development and refinement and semantic competence. The final theme was military relevant care. Conclusions In individual teaching sessions, preceptors emphasized problem lists, differential diagnoses, and leading diagnoses in a course designed to strengthen diagnostic reasoning in preclerkship medical students. The use of illness scripts was more often implicitly used rather than explicitly stated, and students used these sessions to use and apply new vocabularies related to a clinical presentation. Instruction in clinical reasoning could be improved by encouraging faculty to provide further context to their thinking, by encouraging the comparing and contrasting of illness scripts, and by using a shared vocabulary for clinical reasoning. Limitations of this study include that it was done in the context of a clinical reasoning course and that it was done at a military medical school, which may limit generalizability. Future studies could determine if faculty development could improve the frequency of references to the clinical reasoning processes that could improve student readiness for clerkship.

Semantic competence and prototypical verbalizations are associated with higher OSCE and global medical degree scores: a multi-theory pilot study on year 6 medical student verbalizations.

The organization of medical knowledge is reflected in language and can be studied from the viewpoints of semantics and prototype theory. The purpose of this study is to analyze student verbalizations during an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) and correlate themwith test scores and final medical degree (MD) scores. Wehypothesize that students whose verbalizations are semantically richer and closer to the disease prototype will show better academic performance. We conducted a single-center study during a year 6 (Y6) high-stakes OSCE where one probing intervention wasincluded at the end of the exam to capture students' reasoning about one of the clinical cases. Verbalizations were transcribed and coded. An assessment panel categorized verbalizations regarding their semantic value (Weak, Good, Strong). Semantic categories and prototypical elements were compared with OSCE, case-based exam and global MD scores. Students with Semantic 'Strong' verbalizations displayed higher OSCE, case-based exam and MD scores, while the use of prototypical elements was associated with higher OSCE and MD scores. Semantic competence and verbalizations matching the disease prototype may identify students withbetter organization of medical knowledge. This work provides empirical groundwork for future research on language analysis to support assessment decisions.

Meaning change

AbstractThe linguistic meaning of a word in a language is what fully competent speakers of the language have a grasp of merely in virtue of their semantic competence. The meanings of words sometimes change over time. ‘Meat’ used to mean ‘solid food’, but now means ‘animal flesh eaten as food’. This type of meaning change comes with change of topic, what we are talking about. Many people interested in conceptual engineering have claimed that there is also meaning change where topic is retained. For example, they claim that the meanings of ‘fish’ and ‘pasta’ have undergone such change, and that the meaning of ‘marriage’ would change this way after gay marriages become legal and widely accepted. In this paper, I relate two sets of relatively independent literatures: mainstream philosophy of language and conceptual engineering to argue that on a plausible and widely accepted Minimalist view of meaning that is part and parcel of anti‐descriptivism, none of the above sorts of cases involve meaning change with topic retention. I do this by showing how to distinguish minimalism about meaning from the related theses of externalism and anti‐individualism about intension and how to separate meaning from intension in a way that allows meaning and topic to remain the same despite changes in intension. The larger lesson is that much like we should not disregard the boundary between the narrowly meaning‐related (‘semantics’) and the more broadly communication‐related (‘pragmatics’), and we should not disregard the boundary between the former and the more broadly thought‐related, conceptual or cognitive (‘cognition’).

The Different Bases of the Meaning and of the Seeing-in Experiences

There are some complex experiences, such as the experiences that allow us to understand linguistic expressions and pictures respectively, which seem to be very similar. For they are stratified experiences in which, on top of grasping certain low-level properties, one also grasps some high-level semantic-like properties. Yet first of all, those similarities notwithstanding, a phenomenologically-based reflection shows that such experiences are different. For a meaning experience has a high-level fold, in which one grasps the relevant expression’s meaning, which is not perceptual, but is only based on a low-level perceptual fold that merely grasps that expression in its acoustically relevant properties. While a pictorial experience, a seeing-in experience, has two folds, the configurational and the recognitional fold, in which one respectively grasps the physical basis of a picture, its vehicle, and what the picture presents, its subject, that are both perceptual, insofar as they are intimately connected. For unlike a meaning experience, in a seeing-in experience one can perceptually read off the picture’s subject from the picture’s vehicle. Moreover, this phenomenological difference is neurologically implemented. For not only the cerebral areas that respectively implement such experiences are different, at least as far as the access to those experiences’ respective high-level content is concerned. As is shown by the fact that one can selectively be impaired in the area respectively implementing the meaning vs. the seeing-in experience without losing one’s pictorial vs. semantic competence respectively. But also, unlike meaning experiences, the area implementing the seeing-in experiential folds is perceptual as a whole. For not only a picture’s subject can be accessed earlier than an expression’s meaning, but also the neural underpinnings of such folds are located in the perceptual areas of the brain.

The Association between Linguistic Competence Components and Listening Comprehension of Thai EFL Learners

This study aimed to investigate the extent to which there is an association between components of linguistic competence and listening comprehension and to examine whether one component of linguistic competence is a stronger predictor of listening comprehension than another. Participants included 107 Thai EFL learners whose major is English, and they were asked to complete a linguistic competence test and a listening comprehension test. Correlation and multiple regression were used to determine the statistical relationship between linguistic competence components and listening comprehension. Results indicated that all components except syntactic competence significantly correlated with listening comprehension albeit mostly in small correlations. Listening comprehension significantly correlated with phonological competence (r = 0.296, p = 0.002), morphological competence (r = 0.292, p = 0.002), and the strongest predictor was semantic competence (r = 0.326, p = 0.001). Although linguistic competence significantly correlated with listening comprehension in EFL learners, it had only a small influence on listening comprehension due to the covariance of 16.4 per cent out of all factors involved in listening success.

Are machines radically contextualist?

In this article, I describe a novel position on the semantics of artificial intelligence. I present a problem for the current artificial neural networks used in machine learning, specifically with relation to natural language tasks. I then propose that from a metasemantic level, meaning in machines can best be interpreted as radically contextualist. Finally, I consider what this might mean for human‐level semantic competence from a comparative perspective.

Psychometric and Logometric Properties of the Armenian Version of Augmentative and Alternative Communication Assessment Questionnaire: Assessing Reliability and Validity.

The study describes the development of the AAC-Arm questionnaire and its initial psychometric and logometric testing for reliability and validity. Psychometric and logometric principles were used to develop an assessment questionnaire capable of evaluating the communication state domains important to patients with neurological disorders. The hypothesized domains were to include (1) auditory function, (2) speech function (3) cognitive functions (4) sensorimotor function, and (5) activities of daily living (ADL). An initial pool of 78 questions was pilot-tested for clarity in 10 patients; following factor analysis, the number of questions was reduced to 39-items. Then the questionnaire was subjected to reliability and validity testing. Factor analysis supported the 5 hypothesized domains. Test-retest reliability using Spearman's correlation demonstrated substantial agreement, ranging from 0.72 for the ADL domain to 0.92 for the auditory function domain. In testing for internal consistency, Cronbach's alphas ranged from 0.86 for-the ADL domain to 0.96 for the cognitive function domain. Correlation between domains gave evidence of construct validity. In comparing similar domains in the AAC questionnaire, a moderate correlation (range 0.33-0.83) for the ADL and sensorimotor function scales were found. The correlation was more positive between the other domains. Testing of reliability for the phraseological, syntactic and semantic competence indices showed good positive correlation between initial and retest scores. The questions in the AAC questionnaire have undergone rigorous psychometric and logometric testing, and the tool is an appropriate instrument for the assessment of neurological patients with communication deficit. The psycholinguistic assessment provides with the main weight of data for successful communication therapy.

Semantic competency as a marker of clinical reasoning performance

Background: This study sought to explore the relationship between semantic competence (or dyscompetence) displayed during “think-alouds” performed by resident and attending physicians and clinical reasoning performance. Methods: Internal medicine resident physicians and practicing internists participated in think-alouds performed after watching videos of typical presentations of common diseases in internal medicine. The think-alouds were evaluated for the presence of semantic competence and dyscompetence and these results were correlated with clinical reasoning performance. Results: We found that the length of think-aloud was negatively correlated with clinical reasoning performance. Beyond this finding, however, we did not find any other significant correlations between semantic competence or dyscompetence and clinical reasoning performance. Conclusions: While this study did not produce the previously hypothesized findings of correlation between semantic competence and clinical reasoning performance, we discuss the possible implications and areas of future study regarding the relationship between semantic competency and clinical reasoning performance.

Shadows of Sentences

Propositions are defined by abstraction from an equivalence relation on sentences. The equivalence is synonymy. The resulting view, Propositional Abstractionism, has roots in Frege’s work, and considerable advantages over competitors. The key to the advantages is that Propositional Abstractionism puts language first. Consequently, in metaphysics, granularity debates benefit from linguistic evidence; in logic, abstraction is a safeguard against higher-order paradoxes; in epistemology, questions of knowledge of propositions can be approached as questions about semantic competence. These benefits form a package that make Propositional Abstractionism a compelling hypothesis.

Event parsing and the origins of grammar.

How did grammar evolve? Perhaps a better way to ask the question is what kind of cognition is needed to enable grammar. The present analysis departs from the observation that linguistic communication is structured in terms of agents and patients, a reflection of how humans see the world. One way to explore the origins of cognitive skills in humans is to compare them with primates. A first approach has been to teach great apes linguistic systems to study their production in subsequent conversations. This literature has revealed considerable semantic competences in great apes, but no evidence for a corresponding grammatical ability, at least in production. No ape has ever created a sentence with an underlying causal structure of agency and patienthood. A second approach has been to study natural communication in primates and other animals. Here, there is intermittent evidence of compositionality, for example, a capacity to perform operations on semantic units, but again no evidence for an ability to refer to the causal structure of events. Future research will have to decide whether primates and other animals are simply unable to see the world as casually structured the way humans do, or whether they are just unable to communicate causal structures to others.This article is categorized under:Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of CognitionComputer Science and Robotics > Artificial IntelligenceLinguistics > Evolution of Language

THE ROLE OF SEMANTICS IN LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE

In second language acquisition, semantics assumes a heightened position of importance in regards to achieving target levels of competence. Assuming that the target competence is equal to a native-speaker's, a non-native speaker will never fully reach a native level of semantic competence. The ways that L1 semantics can affect L2 semantics is an area of interest in both cognitive and generative linguistics. Research from both perspectives is valuable to evaluate semantics at the lexical and syntactic level.

Psychosemantic approach as the basis for the algorithmization technology of processing educational information

An ability to improve the professional level, need for self-development and self education is called to be one of the essential qualities of a modern specialist irrespective of the professional sphere. Such an activity requires intellectual and psychological mobility, wish to obtain and process huge amount of new and complex information, ability to apply new knowledge to correct and modify the existing system of experience and activity. In the evolution of the information society, self-development and self education are at the top of the soft skills list; therefore formation of a new thinking style is becoming the most important task of teaching. The aim of the paper is to present an argument for introducing some elements of algorithmization of work with student texts based on the psychosemantic approach. Semantic principles (matching of logical and linguistic categories, considering the text from the inner and outer speech, considering the text as cognitive and communicative essence; differentiation between the meaning and sense as between the semantics of the outer speech and the semantics of thinking; identification of semantic relationships between information elements, etc.), psychological and pedagogical principles (self-reflection support of learning activity; self-motivation due to determining usefulness and applicability of information; self-organization of students while creating their own algorithms of learning activity, etc.), and psycholinguistic principles (building logical supporting schemes, analogues of universal subject codes; semantic evaluation of the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of information, etc.)of work with scientific and educational profession-oriented information are described and correlated with the learning content and mechanisms of students verbal and cognitive activity. Psycholinguistic, semantic and organizational competences are identified, with a set of knowledge, skills and abilities for each of them being defined. The authors suggest a technology of algorithmization of students work with the professionally-oriented text information on the basis of a psychosemantic approach. The purpose of the algorithmization is to accelerate students work and improve the quality of information acquisition.

Ideal Words

In this theoretical paper, we consider the notion of semantic competence and its relation to general language understanding—one of the most sough-after goals of Artificial Intelligence. We come back to three main accounts of competence involving (a) lexical knowledge; (b) truth-theoretic reference; and (c) causal chains in language use. We argue that all three are needed to reach a notion of meaning in artificial agents and suggest that they can be combined in a single formalisation, where competence develops from exposure to observable performance data. We introduce a theoretical framework which translates set theory into vector-space semantics by applying distributional techniques to a corpus of utterances associated with truth values. The resulting meaning space naturally satisfies the requirements of a causal theory of competence, but it can also be regarded as some ‘ideal’ model of the world, allowing for extensions and standard lexical relations to be retrieved.

On the Epistemic Value of Students’ Conceptions in Science Education

In this article, I present an analysis of the epistemic value of the students' conceptions, as employed in the current constructivist research. I focus on the conceptions about natural kinds. Since natural kind terms are a crucial part of the discourse of the natural sciences, my conclusions are particularly relevant in science education. To perform my analysis, I use a thought experiment, adapted from Hilary Putnam’s famous Twin-Earth examples. I conclude that, to avoid some strong ontoepistemic implications, an externalist view of the learner’s thought must be adopted. In my approach, students’ conceptions are re-interpreted in terms of Hilary Putnam’s stereotypes, conventional representations of a natural kind that guarantee a semantic competence in a specific linguistic environment. As a conclusion, I argue that the role of students’ conceptions is not epistemic but pragmatic. They should not be understood as a partial or provisional representation of how a natural kind really is but as linguistic tools that permit the learner to engage in classroom discourse. Finally, I present a preliminary application of my ideas to the study of the usage of tautologies in science education.

Differences and Similarities in the Contributions of Phonological Awareness, Orthographic Knowledge and Semantic Competence to Reading Fluency in Chinese School-Age Children With and Without Hearing Loss.

Compared with the large number of studies on reading of children with hearing loss (HL) in alphabetic languages, there are only a very limited number of studies on reading of Chinese-speaking children with HL. It remains unclear how phonological, orthographic, and semantic skills contribute to reading fluency of Chinese school-age children with HL. The present study explored this issue by examining the performances of children with HL on reading fluency and three linguistic skills compared with matched controls with normal hearing (NH). Specifically, twenty-eight children with HL and 28 chronological-age-matched children with NH were tested on word/sentence reading fluency (WRF/SRF), phonological awareness (PA) which was composed of onset/vowel/lexical tone awareness, orthographic knowledge (OK), and semantic competence (SC) which comprised animal word identification, pseudo-homophone detection, and word segmentation. Results showed that children with HL lagged behind their peers with NH in WRF/SRF and most of the phonological, orthographic, and semantic subskills except onset awareness and pseudo-homophone detection. Furthermore, the significant contributors to WRF differed between the two groups with PA being the significant contributor in the children with NH while OK being the significant contributor in the children with HL. However, the significant contributor to SRF did not differ between the two groups with SC being the only significant contributor. These results revealed not only between-group differences but also similarities in the relative contributions of PA, OK, and SC to reading fluency at both word and sentence levels, which has practical implications for developing better training programs to improve reading for children with HL.

The Associations between Imageability of Positive and Negative Valence Words and Fear Reactivity

This study investigated the associations of imageability with fear reactivity. Imageability ratings of four word classes: positive and negative (i) emotional and (ii) propriosensitive, neutral and negative (iii) theoretical and (iv) neutral concrete filler, and fear reactivity scores—degree of fearfulness towards different situations (Total Fear (TF) score) and total number of extreme fears and phobias (Extreme Fear (EF) score), were obtained from 171 participants. Correlations between imageability, TF and EF scores were tested to analyze how word categories and their valence were associated with fear reactivity. Imageability ratings were submitted to recursive partitioning. Participants with high TF and EF scores had higher imageability for negative emotional and negative theoretical words. The correlations between imageability of negative emotional words and negative theoretical words for EF score were significant. Males showed stronger correlations for imageability of negative emotional words for EF and TF scores. High imageability for positive emotional words was associated with lower fear reactivity in females. These findings were discussed with regard to negative attentional bias theory of anxiety, influence on emotional systems, and gender-specific coping styles. This study provides insight into cognitive functions involved in mental imagery, semantic competence for mental imagery in relation to fear reactivity, and a potential psycholinguistic instrument assessing fear reactivity.