Speaker Task Research Articles

Translatory sequences as collaborative achievements in bilingual workshops for primary school children

Using conversation analysis, we explore workshop leaders' collaboratively coordinated translations in bilingual workshops for primary school children of a Finnish- and Swedish-speaking school. We focus on cases in which a turn transition occurs between the original and translatory turn. We show that to proceed in parallel in both languages, the participants need a locally negotiated mutual agreement regarding translation. The first speaker's task is to package the translatable items into translatable chunks. The second speaker needs to grasp the translatable content and the relevant timing of the translatory turn. In some cases, the translation process halts. We argue that the problems that arose were related to the timing of the local agreement, the chunking of the translatable items, and the lack of access to the ongoing embodied activity. We show how potential access problems can be overcome in a complex multimodal interactional sequence in which the second speaker moves bodily to enhance their visual access to the embodied activity, and the first speaker collaborates with proper, temporally fitted manipulation of artifacts. We show that non-professional translating in educational settings requires a great amount of intersubjective work in respect to timing, sequencing, and providing and gaining access to the ongoing embodied activities.

On the guiding principles in the choice of methods for restoring the broken integrity of the pelvic floor and abdominal wall

Mm. Yy! In embarking on the flattering and at the same time responsible duty of delivering a speech at the annual meeting, which is imputed by society to its elected representatives, I believe that the most appropriate topic for such speeches should be considered questions of principle, widely affecting one or another department of our specialty. Having outlined it comprehensively, the speaker's task is mainly reduced to comparing what is already firmly in the sense of scientific and practical with the side of the matter that, while still being controversial and open, awaits resolution and needs development or reform. Naturally, the broader the theme is, the more difficult it is to give it perfect lighting. Being fully aware of this position, I nevertheless outlined in my today's speech the question of "the guiding principles in the choice of methods for restoring the broken integrity of the pelvic floor and abdominal wall." Choosing such a question as a topic for my speech, I was guided by the following considerations: firstly, in essence, being, so to speak, general, it should be of interest to all those taking part in the meeting, especially since this issue is important not only for its purely scientific interest , but it also affects the practical aspects of life, with which the gynecologist has to meet at every step; in 2, those purely scientific foundations, not only clinical, but anatomical and physiological, which must inevitably be taken as the basis of practical conclusions and conclusions, are too ignored and the whole issue from the principled side is not covered to the extent that it is absolutely necessary for the success of practical conclusions: positions and conclusions based on hasty empirical conclusions are accepted too easily and are not sufficiently supported not only by scientific data, but represent large gaps in the sense of further clinical observations. In 3, I was guided by the desire to present in the system the rich material that is at my disposal in the Imperial Clinical Institutes, Midwife and V. Kn. Elena Pavlovna, mainly in the sense of the results achieved, especially since at different times I myself, as well as my assistants in clinical activities, have had occasion in recent years to speak to you with reports on individual particulars of the issue I have raised today.

The Hundred-Year-Old Question: Can American Cinema Be Saved?

The Art House Convergence conference annually brings together hundreds of independent theater owners and supporters of arthouse cinema during the days preceding the Sundance Film Festival. When the organizers invited James Schamus to deliver the keynote address at their 2016 gathering, it was a commission he did not relish. The expected argument of such speeches is pretty much set in stone these days: cinema, understood primarily as feature films meant initially for theatrical exhibition, is under attack, and the keynote speaker's task is to rally the troops in its defense, soliciting applause for recent victories on the battlefield, and railing against the encroachments of the enemies of film, in particular the digital streaming services whose assaults on the sanctity of the theatrical viewing experience, and thus on the aesthetic object known as the theatrical film, grow ever more ferocious with each passing year. Schamus took on the task of delivering that speech, and then transforming it into this article for FQ. He concludes with a rousing plea to all regarding what he terms, “This vicious spiral of longer movies, higher costs and higher ticket prices,” that can only spell disaster for the supporter of truly independent American cinema. Schamus urges readers to stand with him (and all who love the genuine American film experience), to advocate for vibrant, varied, open-ended, hybrid, serial and ongoing open storytelling and entertainment.

Speaker Recognition in Uncontrolled Environment: A Review

Abstract.Speaker recognition has been an active research area for many years. Methods to represent and quantify information embedded in speech signal are termed as features of the signal. The features are obtained, modeled and stored for further reference when the system is to be tested. Decision whether to accept or reject speakers are taken based on parameters of the data modeling techniques. Real world offers various degradations to the signal that hamper the signal quality. The degradations may be due to ambient background noise, reverberation or multispeaker scenario. This paper presents a survey of various feature extraction, data modeling methods, metrics that are used to take the decisions and methods that can be used to preprocess the degraded data that have been used to perform the task of speaker recognition.

Articulatory–acoustic relationships during vocal tract growth for French vowels: Analysis of real data and simulations with an articulatory model

This paper reports on the articulatory–acoustic relationships involved during vocal tract growth. Data were taken from a database of ten French vowels uttered by 15 speakers ranging in age from 3 years old to adulthood. Despite the important acoustic variation encountered, one feature is displayed by all the speakers: the production of extreme focal vowels /i/, /u/, /a/, and /y/, realized with a strong concentration of spectral energy related to the proximity of two formant peaks. This feature represents an acoustic goal guiding the speaker's task. Our simulations using an articulatory model demonstrate that the realization of the focalization feature may require different articulatory gestures for young children compared to adults, consisting of adaptive articulatory strategies exploited to compensate for the small pharynx of the former. Perceptual tests show that achieving focalization results in a lower intelligibility for the children than for the adults. Due to the relatively shorter pharyngeal cavity of the child compared to the adult, focalization cannot be achieved together with the perceptual objective related to rounded vowels /y/ in French. Results are discussed in light of the dispersion-focalization theory and the perception for action control theory (PACT).

Membership in Speaker's Task Forces

Recent research on leadership in the U. S. House of Representatives has emphasized the development of a new "strategy of inclusion," by which party rank-and-file members are included to a much larger extent in the party decision-making process, and hence become more responsive to leadership pressures. This article explores the use of one such mechanism of inclusion, the Speaker's task force, utilized in the House during the late 1970s. A model is developed to test the process by which House members are selected to serve on task forces. Two major sets of motivations are seen as underlying the selection process: (1) the short-term goal by House leaders to maximize the probability that important legislation for which task forces are created will pass the House; and (2) the long-term goal of inclusion and the associated socialization of rank-and-file party members into partisanship and/or followership roles. Based on the analysis of task force membership lists, substantial empirical evidence is found for both motivations during the period under study, although variables representing the short-term goals of House leaders tend to dominate the task force selection process.

The Socialization To Partisan Legislative Behavior: an Extension of Sinclair's Task Force Socialization Thesis

IN recent years numerous scholars and political analysts have noted the decline since the turn of the century in the ability of House leaders to fashion legislative majorities on issues of importance to the majority party. The most recent explanations of such patterns have focused on the changing institutional environment facing House leaders, the result of which has been a shift from hierarchial patterns of leadership style to a bargaining pattern more appropriate to the current decentralized House of Representatives (Cooper and Brady 1981). One strategy developed as part of the shift toward a bargaining leadership style has been referred to as the strategy of inclusion (Sinclair 1981; Loomis 1984). Such a strategy has emphasized the importance of including rank-and-file party members in the decision-making processes previously left only to party leaders, committee and subcommittee chairs, and senior members. During the late 1970s, one manifestation of the strategy of inclusion used systematically by Speaker Thomas O'Neill was the Speaker's task force, described in detail by Sinclair (1981, 1983). A Speaker's task force is defined as an ad hoc group appointed by the Speaker and charged with passage of a specific bill (Sinclair 1981: 397). According to Sinclair, task forces have two primary goals: (1) the shortterm goal of building a majority coalition on specific bills deemed by the leadership as central to the majority party's legislative agenda, and (2) socialization of rank-and-file party members to partisan and norms. Focusing on the short-term goal of coalition building, Sinclair found that the limited use of the task force mechanism has paid handsome dividends: on the 14 major (controversial) issues for which a task force was created from 1977 to 1979, the legislation passed with both House chamber and Democratic party majorities. The impact of Speaker's task forces on the socialization of rank-andfile Democratic House members to partisan and/or followership norms has received less attention. Sinclair (1983) found that task force members exhibit higher mean levels of party support than non-members,

Socialization to Partisanship in the U. S. House: The Speaker's Task Force

In recent years, Democratic leaders in the House have adopted a strategy of inclusion-including rank-and-file members as active participants in the legislative process. In this paper we examine whether one such mechanism, the Speaker's task force, socialized House Democrats to the norm of support for their party's positions between 1977 and 1979. As is consistent with a socialization explanation, our findings suggest that (1) task force members have higher levels of party support than do similarly situated nonmembers and (2) for senior legislators, membership on a task force does not increase the party support level as much as it does for more junior members.

The Speaker's Task Force in the Post-Reform House of Representatives

Because of changes in the issues at the center of controversy, changes in rules and norms and high membership turnover, the current House majority party leaders operate in a much less predictable environment than their predecessors did. In response to the changed environment, Speaker O'Neill has developed the strategy of leadership by inclusion, a central element of which is the Speaker's task force, an ad hoc group appointed by the Speaker and charged with passage of a specific bill. The leaders believe task forces help them perform both of their primary functions—building winning coalitions and “keeping peace in the family.” By increasing the number of people working in an organized way to pass the bill at issue, the task force increases the probability of a bill's success on the floor. Work on a task force satisfies junior members' expectations of participation and fosters cooperative patterns of behavior among party members.

Meetings of medical societies. Society of Physicians at Kazan University

Session 4/IV.Dr. M.V. Sergievsky: To a question on inhibition of salivary glands secretion. The speaker's task was to analyze in detail the conditions of inhibition and to establish the relation of inhibitory nerves to some pharmacological substances. It turned out that the sympathetic nerve when irritated by a strong current causes, in parallel with stopping saliva secretion, obtained by chord irritation, also changes in the blood circulation of the gland, and possibly in the chemistry of the blood.