Contact Situations Research Articles

Language Use and Attitude among the Sherpa Speaking Community in the Kathmandu Valley

This paper aims to explore the status of language use and attitude among the Sherpa speaking community in the Kathmandu valley, the multilingual capital city of Nepal. It focuses on language contact situations in different domains viz. social, cultural, personal, and official as well as media related activities where the Sherpas make use of different languages along with the use of their own mother tongue. Based on 45 questionnaires from different informants, this paper presents interesting patterns of language use and attitudes among the Sherpa speaking community in Kathmandu.

Vocatives in the Balkans

This paper argues that: (i) vocative nouns project beyond DP, to a VocP level that maps the basic pragmatic features involved in the derivation of nominal expressions conveying a direct address; (ii) this pattern can be generalized cross-linguistically; (iii) variations within this pattern are predictable in a principled way, and one particular example arises in the case of reverse vocatives; (iv) reverse vocatives are areally restricted in a way that indicates a particular language contact situation.

The Analysis of Three-Body Contact Temperature under the Different Third Particle Size, Density, and Value of Friction.

Recently, many studies have investigated the friction, wear, and temperature characteristics of the interface between two relative movements. Such analyses often set the coefficient of friction as a fixed value and are analyzed in cases of two-body contact; however, the interface is often a three-body contact and the coefficient of friction varies depending on the operating conditions. This is a significant error in the analysis of contact characteristics, therefore, in this study, the actual interface and the change of the coefficient of friction were analyzed based on three-body micro-contact theory where the contact temperature was also analyzed and the difference between the generally assumed values were compared. The results showed that under three-body contact, the coefficient of total friction increased with an increase in particle size; and at a different particle size and area density of particles, the surface contact temperature increased with the plasticity index and load increases, and the particle contact temperature increased with the increasing particle size. The surface temperature rise was mainly affected by the ratio of the average temperature between surface 1 and surface 2 to the multiplication between the 100th root of the area density of particles and the square root of the equivalent surface roughness (Ts1s2_ave*/ηa0.01σ0.5) and the ratio of the 10th root of the mean particle diameter to the 100th root of the equivalent surface roughness (xa0.1/σ0.001). Particle temperature was mainly affected by the ratio of the 10th root of the mean particle diameter to the 100th root of the equivalent surface roughness (xa0.1/σ0.001) and the area density of particles ηa. Our study indicated that when the contact of surface with surface and the contact of the particles with the surface, the resulting heat balance was assigned to the particles and the surface in a three-body contact situation. Under this contact behavior, it could avoid a too high a rise in micro-contact temperature to achieve the material failure temperature.

Sport Injuries and Preventive Measures in Handball / Rankininkų patiriamos traumos ir naudojamos prevencinės priemonės

The aim of the study is to define the opinion of handball coaches, team players and physiotherapists on the most common injuries and their causes in handball. Research object: sport injuries and their risk factors. Research methods: analysis of literature, questionnaire “Injury prevention in handball”, quantitative data analysis chi-square (χ2) p < 0.005. The study used an international questionnaire on “Injury Prevention in the Handball” (www.safetysport.eu). The questionnaire was translated into Lithuanian, a pilot study was carried out and a questionnaire adjusted. The questionnaire is for handball coaches, athletes and physiotherapists. A total of 348 questionnaires were sent to team players, 112 of them answered (men/women). 38 handball coaches were asked to fill out their questionnaire, 21 coaches answered and 7 physiotherapists. Respondents (athletes and coaches) are playing in the highest and student leagues. Injuries in handball are associated with poor physical preparation, and it‘s noted that the lower limb injuries mainly related to non-contact situations. The head, hands, knees, ankle injuries identified as the most common injuries in handball. Incidence rate of injuries by men 50% and women 60% among handball players, but mostly there were affected lower limbs. By playing positions, the wing players affected ankle, knee and hand injuries, which is caused by jumping, landing or contact situation. Most injuries affect knees and ankle of the backcourt players, which happens in jumping, deceptive movements, running, and contact situations. The pivot players get head and knees injuries when they rotating or in contact situations with other players, as goalkeepers get lower limbs injuries after jumping, landing movements. The study of various sports athletes has shown that taller athletes are more likely to be injured than shorter athletes. Physical fatigue may be associated with decreased neuromuscular and sensory control, which may result in lower limb injury. The analysis of literature and questionnaire data of handball coaches and athletes experience showed that the most sensitive part of the body for injury in handball are lower limbs. Mostly affected parts are knees, ankles, fingers. Respondents indicated the most important causes of injuries are inappropriate warm-up, contact situations, poor physical condition, previous and accidental injuries. Keywords: injury, preventative measures, handball. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15823/sm.2017.29

Introduction: Receptive multilingualism

This special issue of the Nordic Journal of Linguistics is devoted to receptive multilingualism (RM), and includes papers presented in the conference Receptive Multilingualism: Multilingual Resources in the Service of Mutual Understanding, held at the University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, in 2015. RM refers to a language contact situation in which hearers’ or readers’ understanding of a non-native language is based on their skills in either their first language or languages that they have learned later in life. In such situations comprehension can be based on linguistic similarity of the languages, on acquired knowledge of the languages, or both. A particular characteristic of RM is its emphasis on receptive language skills: the hearer or the reader does not necessarily actively command the language they are able to understand. In its most interactive form RM refers to a situation in which every conversation participant can use their native language and be understood by the others.

Phonetic transfer in language contact: Evidence for equivalence classification in the mid-vowels of Occitan–French bilinguals

This article examines first to second language (L1-to-L2) phonetic transfer in the speech of ten Occitan–French bilinguals, focusing on the mid-vowels in each of their languages. Investigating transfer in a situation of long-term societal language contact aims to shed light on the emergence of regional French phonological features from contact with Occitan. Using a sociophonetic methodology, the concept of equivalence classification (Flege 1988) is investigated, that is, that L2 words will be (initially) decomposed into familiar L2 sound categories, causing L1 and L2 sounds to resemble each other phonetically. The consequences of language contact are modelled statistically using an original corpus of over 1200 vowel tokens. The findings show that equivalence classification may not lead to equated sounds coming to resemble each other phonetically, suggesting necessary revisions to the speech learning model (SLM) hypothesis, and the need to consider the influence of sociolinguistic factors in situations of long-term language contact is emphasised.

A linear complementarity method for the solution of vertical vehicle–track interaction

ABSTRACTA new method is proposed for the solution of the vertical vehicle–track interaction including a separation between wheel and rail. The vehicle is modelled as a multi-body system using rigid bodies, and the track is treated as a three-layer beam model in which the rail is considered as an Euler-Bernoulli beam and both the sleepers and the ballast are represented by lumped masses. A linear complementarity formulation is directly established using a combination of the wheel–rail normal contact condition and the generalised-α method. This linear complementarity problem is solved using the Lemke algorithm, and the wheel–rail contact force can be obtained. Then the dynamic responses of the vehicle and the track are solved without iteration based on the generalised-α method. The same equations of motion for the vehicle and track are adopted at the different wheel–rail contact situations. This method can remove some restrictions, that is, time-dependent mass, damping and stiffness matrices of the coupled system, multiple equations of motion for the different contact situations and the effect of the contact stiffness. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method is effective for simulating the vehicle–track interaction including a separation between wheel and rail.

Equality Revisited: A Cultural Meta-Analysis of Intergroup Contact and Prejudice

Across cultures, intergroup contact—interpersonal interaction with out-group members—is associated with less prejudice. Contact research was criticized, however, for bypassing intergroup inequality in the wider society. We propose a cultural psychology approach grounding people’s contact experiences in culturally afforded ways of relating to out-groups. Extending Allport’s equal-status hypothesis to the culture level, we hypothesized that the contact–prejudice association would be stronger in egalitarian cultures and weaker in more hierarchical cultures. To test this hypothesis, we revisited Pettigrew and Tropp’s influential meta-analysis and augmented it with culture-level measures of equality and hierarchy values. Our meta-analysis of intergroup contact and prejudice in 660 samples across 36 cultures suggested that egalitarianism was related to stronger contact–prejudice associations. Cultural hierarchy values and social dominance orientation corresponded with weaker contact–prejudice associations. Cultures of equality made a difference over and above equal status in the contact situation.

Diversity of users, settings, and practices: how are features selected into ELF practice?

AbstractThis article describes naturally occurring interactions drawn from three disparate English as a lingua franca (ELF) settings, all in Japan but involving diverse multinational groups of users, each bringing with them repertoires of experiences, skills, strategies, and linguistic features. Adaptations were observed in the language practices, including well-attested strategies and non-selections, but also distinct and hybridised patterns (e.g. question–response exchanges, address-reference forms). Although these features can be explained in terms of the improvisational stances of the users, in light of the wide disparities in proficiency, strategies, degrees of success, and of the hybrid forms that came to be locally preferred, a more satisfactory explanatory framework was sought in the broader study of historical language contact and change, especially in Mufwene’s recent re-interpretation of creoles as situated cases of language restructuring. The observed ELF practices are explained as the result of cooperative restructuring, by means of fitness-based selections from the feature pool, or virtual capacity, fed by the diverse repertoires of the participants. Such an approach foregrounds functional interpretations of ELF, and creates an inclusive framework wherein the variables that define different contact situations can be discerned.

Hebrew Loanwords in the Palestinian Israeli Variety of Arabic (Facebook Data)

This research examines borrowings from Hebrew into Arabic as used by Nazarene and Iksali 1 Palestinian Israelis in the context of Arabic computer-mediated communication (cmc), specifically the written colloquial Palestinian Israeli dialect of Arabic in Facebook. The study focuses on the frequency of the borrowed items, phonological adaptation, and the reasons for borrowing from Hebrew. Three hypotheses are investigated: First, the most frequent borrowed items are nouns. Second, borrowed items are adapted to the Arabic phonological system. Finally, the main reasons for borrowing are to introduce culturally or technologically new concepts, as well as new ways to refer to preexisting notions. Most of these hypotheses are shown to be correct. However, the frequency of borrowing in the corpus does not reflect the intensity of the language contact between Hebrew and the Palestinian Israeli dialect. I describe the language contact situation between Hebrew and Arabic and demonstrate how intense it is, classifying it as falling between the third and fourth level of intensity according to Thomason and Kaufman’s (1988) borrowing scale. However, borrowing is restricted to lexical borrowing, particularly of nouns. I provide explanations that refer to the political and cultural situation (including identity issues) of Palestinian Israelis.

N dependent tribochemistry: Achieving superhard wear-resistant low-friction TaCxNy films

Wear-resistant low-friction films have been widely applied to various engineered components to prolong their service lifetime, in which the mechanical properties of films need to be optimized for their intended applications and contact situations. The design and fabrication of superhard wear-resistant low-friction films can broaden the work situations of machine parts to some harsh conditions, i.e. subjecting to the attack of hard particles. Here, superhard wear-resistant low-friction TaCxNy films were deposited by sputtering a TaC composite target in the mixed discharge gases of N2 and Ar. The N content in solid solution TaCxNy films can tailor the valence-electron concentration (VEC) and surface chemistry forming graphitic clusters, achieving the maximum hardness of 41.5GPa and lowest wear rate of 0.6×10−6mm3/Nm, coupled with low friction coefficient (μ) of 0.18 in TaC0.60N0.33 film, simultaneously. The results show that the wear rate of solid solution TaCxNy films is mainly governed by hardness and the ratio of hardness (H) and elastic modulus (E). The tribochemistry could be identified as TaCxNy+O2→TaOx+C+N2/NOx by the combined results of Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and transmission electron microscope. The reduction of the μ is shown to depend on the amount of the graphitic clusters generated in tribochemical reaction caused by shear stress, which can be tailored by N content.

Croatian in the Mediterranean context: language contacts in the Early Modern Croatian lexicography

Abstract This paper offers an insight into the way language contacts in the Mediterranean context were dealt with in the Croatian lexicography of the 16th and 17th centuries. The first part provides the historical background of the contact situations from the 7th century up to the end of the 17th century, focusing on Dalmatia. The second part represents an analysis of Dalmatian-Romance, Italo-Romance and Turkish loanwords in five dictionaries (Vrančić, Kašić, Mikalja, Tanzlingher-Zanotti, and Ritter Vitezović), reflecting the results of the language contacts on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea and in its immediate hinterland. Positive and negative attitudes of the five authors towards language-borrowing are discussed, as some important differences can be observed, particularly with regard to Italo-Romance loanwords.

Turkish as a Mediterranean language

Abstract This paper focuses on linguistic contacts between Turkish as the receiving language and other languages of the Mediterranean area (Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, French, Greek, Ibero-Romance varieties, Italian, Serbo-Croatian). In the first part, a general overview is given of the contact situation and historical background; in the second, the treatment of loanwords from the above-mentioned languages in Turkish lexicography is sketched and briefly discussed.

„Da pendelt sich die Sprache automatisch so ein“: Sprachliche Identität, Akkommodation und Management von innerer und äußerer Mehrsprachigkeit bei Tiroler Privatvermietern

Abstract Tourism is one of the most important sectors of the Tyrolean economy, one based on intensive contact between tourists and hosts. In the SPIRIT Tirol research project (Sprachen und Varietäten in Regionen mit intensivem Tourismus am Beispiel Tirols) [Languages and varieties in regions with intensive tourism using the example of Tyrol], we deal with situations involving language contact in tourism. By analysing interviews with individuals from different age groups, both service providers and hosts renting different types of accommodation in different Tyrolean locations, we try to identify the linguistic strategies and attitudes toward language that these tourism professionals adopt. In this article, we concentrate on one group: hosts who rent private accommodations. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the rental market for private accommodations expanded enormously, bringing with it an intrusion of tourists into private living space that quickly exerted a noticeable influence on the personal language use of tourism professionals. While interaction with renters requires multilingual competence, varieties of German are especially important: by far the largest percentage of tourists are from Germany. Our research questions concern the handling of the following situation: How do hosts who rent private accommodations deal with the complex relationships between standard and regional varieties of German? How do they manage lexical differences? Which parameters influence the way hosts accommodate (or not) to their guests? How do hosts appraise their multilingual competence? Have there been considerable changes over the course of three generations? First, we establish a theoretical framework by discussing tourism as an object of linguistic research, the general conditions of tourism in Tyrol, the context and the design of the study presented in this article, and the sociolinguistic situation with respect to multilingualism and the many varieties of German, an aspect in which accommodation theory plays a prominent role. The answers to our research questions are grouped into three thematic blocks: 1) clarity and mutual understanding as the central goal of communication with tourists, 2) the management of identities, and 3) the establishment of proximity and distance by language. Our results show a professional, but nonetheless natural handling of situations of language contact, a high awareness of regional varieties, and a hands-on approach to multiple languages. Several strategies for managing lexical differences are employed, such as explanation, paraphrasing, and a borrowing of lexical variants from tourists that not only facilitate understanding but also mark linguistic identity. One’s linguistic identity is not protected by joking about tourists and out-grouping them. Attitudes towards local dialects and their self-defining function are strongly positive. However, the awareness that language is a marketing tool coupled with a desire to protect one’s linguistic identity have become more important for the middle and younger generations.

From breathing difficulty to dyspnea: The translation process from the patient's story to the doctor's report in interactive medical case reports.

The aim of this paper is to study the 'translation process' (Fleischman 2001) from the patient's story into the doctor's report in interactive case reports from professional medical journals. Interactive case reports are a relatively new development in the genre, which has been postulated by, and adopted in, several publication outlets. The novelty of the variety is the possibility for readers to comment on a published case as well as the optional Patient's perspective section, in which the patient can share their experience of illness and treatment. In the present paper, a collection of interactive case reports derived from professional medical journals will be examined. The material under study can be seen as a contact situation between the lay discourse of a patient's narration and the professional discourse of medical description. The comparison and qualitative analysis of the two discourses referring to the same disease event will point to different communicative accents, different means and different effects. Drawing on the tradition of Rhetorical Genre Studies, the paper will also emphasise the many social practices in which the variety is, and can be, used.

Computational Investigation into the Interactions of Traditional Chinese Medicine Molecules of WenQingYin with GluR2.

Docking and molecular dynamics simulations have been carried out to investigate the interaction of a traditional Chinese medicine, WenQingYin, with the glutamate receptor 2 (GluR2) subunit of the α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) receptor. Four representative drug components of WenQingYin, namely 2-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)-5,6,7-trihydroxy-4H-chromen-4-one (PHF), 4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzoic acid (HMB), 4-(2,3-dihydroxy-3-methylbutoxy)-7H-furo[3,2-g]chromen-7-one (DHMBP) and methyl 7-formylcyclopenta[c]pyran-4-carboxylate (cerbinal), and their complexes with GluR2 were simulated. Our results show that PHF, HMB, and DHMBP formed a partial hydrogen bond with GluR2 in its ligand-binding domain. However, cerbinal was not stable in the ligand-binding domain of GluR2 and induced a significant change in the structure of GluR2. Three-dimensional plots represent the contact and movement situation of the traditional Chinese medicine molecules in the ligand-binding domain. The combined results of the docking and molecular dynamics simulations provide insight into the interaction between these traditional Chinese medicine molecules and proteins.

在韓日本人一世と二世の二言語習得と二言語接觸狀況 - 二言語倂用能力との關わりから -

在韓日本人一世と二世の二言語習得と二言語接觸狀況 - 二言語倂用能力との關わりから -

MASS POLL AS THE MAIN LANGUAGE SITUATION DIAGNOSING METHOD IN UKRAINIAN SCHOOLING

Introduction. The need to involve questions concerning quality and valuation parametersof linguistic situation in the material collection is caused by diglossic nature of bilingualismin schools in most parts of Ukraine, which is evident in the areas of the language use: Ukrainianin class, and Russian – during the breaks and after school activities. The language situationin a particular school, regardless of the status of language teaching, due to the configurationof the language situation in the region, which, however, is not included in statistical reports.That is shown in the survey carried out within the framework of Project No. 62700395 ofthe Volkswagen Foundation “Bi- and Multilingualism: between intensification and conflictresolution. Ethnolinguistic conflicts, linguistic politics and contact situations in post-SovietUkraine and Russia”, a system of questions was proposed concerning the real linguistic situation(perception of the linguistic environment, its assessment by the respondents) and its desirabledevelopment, that is, in the aspect of language policy in the field of education.Purpose. The paper focuses on the relevance of the language situation study in Ukrainianschooling using the mass poll methodology, due to mismatch of statistical data on the functioningof Ukrainian as the state language and the real facts of the language use in the secondaryschools. Methods. The research is grounded on the methods of sociolinguistics, that is quantitativeand qualitative analysis applying survey fieldwork and language boundary/difference perception.Results. The article specifies the sociolinguistic criteria on the basis of which theconclusion about changes in the linguistic situation in the field of school education in the periodfrom 2006 to 2017 is made, in particular the dynamics of the regional differences and quantitativedeformation inherited from the Soviet era in the “city – village” aspect are traced. In particular,questions aimed at data collection on the assessment of the society's linguistic situation inthe field of education were thoroughly analyzed. These questions made it possible to trace changesin linguistic behavior of respondents depending on the sphere of communication. Comparisonof responses in the regional dimension revealed the heterogeneity of the language situationin school education by region, and the analysis of the responses of different population centersresidents allowed to trace trends in overcoming the unevenness of linguistic developmentin the state in the “city – village” aspect. Providing respondents with questions that envisagedthe assessment of possible language policy in the field of school education, we sought to determinewhether this assessment depends on the peculiarities of the linguistic situation in the region, howcommon the stereotypical representations about the desired language education are, or whetherthe general political situation in the state affects perception and an assessment of the linguisticenvironment of educational institutions by the speakers. A separate question dealt with theprospects of bilingual education in Ukraine.Conclusions. The compulsory comparison of the results of several sociolinguistic pollswas emphasized to conclude on changes in the language guidelines for the desired perspectivesof language education and language policy measures in the field of school education.

Standard German vowel productions by monolingual and trilingual speakers

Aims and Objectives: Studies on vowel productions of speakers from bilingual communities report not only interactions between the first and second language, but also monolingual-like realizations. The present study expands a prior acoustic investigation of Saterland trilinguals by studying the substrate effect of Saterland Frisian and Low German on the trilinguals’ standard language Northern Standard German. The research aim is to test whether the Northern Standard German vowel productions of the Saterland trilinguals approach the productions of monolingual speakers in terms of durational and spectral features. Design: We elicited three repetitions per speaker of the complete inventory of stressed Northern Standard German monophthongs in /hVt/ context to compare the realizations of Northern Standard German vowels in trilingual speakers from Saterland and in monolingual speakers from Hanover, whose variety of Northern Standard German is representative of the larger speech community. Data and analysis: In an acoustic analysis, we compared the durational and spectral features using linear mixed effects models. The findings are interpreted with reference to the cross-linguistic vowel productions of the trilingual speakers. Findings: For the larger part, the Northern Standard German vowel productions of the trilinguals approach the productions of the monolingual speakers in terms of both durational and spectral features. In addition, the vowel productions of the trilingual speakers suggest a bidirectional interaction between the vowel systems of the trilinguals’ three languages. Originality: This investigation is the first to study phonetic interference in vowel production in a situation of long-term language contact involving regional trilingualism and an endangered minority language. Implications: Our findings show an orientation towards the larger speech community in the realization of vowel categories in the trilinguals’ standard language. Our study also suggests that the complete inventory needs to be studied to understand the functional constraints by which the multilingual vowel space is organized. It further suggests that a comparison of multilingual with monolingual speakers is necessary to draw conclusions on the mutual subphonemic influence of the individual vowel systems.

"It's important, but…": Perceived Barriers and Situational Dependencies to Social Contact Preferences of Nursing Home Residents.

U.S. Nursing homes (NH) are shifting toward a person-centered philosophy of care, where staff understand each residents preferences, goals and values, and seek to honor them throughout the care delivery process. Social interactions are a major component of life and while low rates of social interactions are typically found among NH residents, little research has examined resident preferences for specific types of social interactions. The purpose of this study is to explore, from the perspective of the NH resident, barriers to social contact preferences and situations when social preferences change. Two interviews were conducted with 255 NH residents 3 months apart, recruited from 32 NHs using 13 social-contact items from the Preferences for Everyday Living Inventory-NH. Content analysis of 1,461 spontaneous comments identified perceived barriers to preference fulfillment along with reasons why residents would change their mind about the importance of a preference (situational dependencies). Nearly 50% of social preferences for choosing a roommate, having regular contact with friends, giving gifts, and volunteering were associated with barriers. Social preferences were likely to change based upon the quality of the social interaction and the resident's level of interest. Knowledge of barriers regarding social preferences can inform care efforts vital to advancing the delivery of person-centered care. In addition, understanding the reasons why NH resident preferences change based upon context can help providers with staff training leading to individualized care and develop meaningful social programs that are in line with resident preferences.