This study delves into the transferability of aesthetic judgment influences from analog art viewing to a Virtual Reality (VR) setting, recognizing that art expertise typically enhances aesthetic judgement through increased positive affect. Additionally, it was anticipated that the relationship between art expertise and positive affect would be moderated by the type of textual information provided, positing that different types of texts (affective vs. stylistic) would activate different processing routes in novices versus art experts. Our findings reveal that while expertise continues to play a crucial role in shaping aesthetic judgment through positive affect, the anticipated moderation by textual information type did not materialize. The VR context might amplify the impact of affective texts on positive affect, or likewise decrease the impact of stylistic information, irrespective of expertise levels. These results underline how virtual art could leverage human emotions to enhance the viewer's experience.

Interlocutors frequently use discourse-pragmatic markers such as like, sure, or well in everyday conversations, and the latter has been studied extensively in the English language. In Irish English, however, this feature has received limited attention, particularly in written discourse. This paper investigates the use of well among two generations of a late nineteenth-century Northern Irish family. The analysis is based on letters included in the Corpus of Irish English Correspondence (CORIECOR) and uses a mixed-methods approach. The qualitative analysis examines the communicative functions attributed to well. Quantitative analysis of these results allows for an assessment of the frequencies with which individual writers used this feature, its variation across age groups, and the differences between family members who migrated and those who remained in Ireland. The results show the presence of traditionally oral functions of well in the correspondence of all writers and corroborate earlier research on the orality and informality of these text types. The youngest writer, Mary, even demonstrates a rise in her usage of well during her time in Canada, which decreases again upon her return to Ireland. Particularly her use of interpersonal functions of well suggests that she uses this feature to maintain social relationships and solidarity with her family at home. This study thus advances our understanding of written personal communication, particularly concerning the discourse-pragmatic marker well. However, it also calls for further investigations into the discourse functions of this marker, especially in speech-like texts such as letters and in the context of Irish English.

The objective of this update to a previously published scoping review was to map how music therapists used virtual music therapy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual music therapy underwent significant development during the COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, the number of publications increased dramatically compared to early 2021, when only 10 records were available. An update to the previous scoping review was necessary to explore the current state of this emerging music therapy discipline and provide essential information for health care practitioners, scholars, and researchers. This scoping review included studies examining how music therapists (population) delivered virtual, remote, or online music therapy (concept) across all client groups during the COVID-19 pandemic (context). All types of evidence were included, except for literature reviews, newspaper articles, essays, editorials, letters to the editor, and bachelor's theses. The search strategy was conducted in English across relevant databases and journals. Following the JBI methodology for scoping reviews, we updated a scoping review published in 2021. Available evidence was searched in databases, including searches for unpublished studies, gray literature, and relevant journal archives, along with manual searches of reference lists. The search was limited from October 2020 (the date of the previous search) until December 2024. Two independent reviewers screened all reports against the eligibility criteria and performed the data extraction. The global music therapy community adapted to the restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic through a significant expansion of virtual music therapy. A total of 145 new records, along with 5 records from the original review, were included in this scoping review. The papers were from North America (n=63), Europe (n=34), Asia (n=19), Oceania (n=16) and the rest created in international cooperation (n=18). Most texts described virtual music therapy in the form of synchronous video calls. We reported the characteristics of the records, the types of texts, the client groups to which virtual music therapy was delivered, and the platforms and equipment used. We identified research papers (n=103), other texts (n=44), study protocols and an evidence implementation report. We also described the challenges, facilitators, and barriers along with the music therapy methods. Most frequently, a combination of active and receptive methods was used, with an emphasis on listening, singing, and music-based relaxation or imagery methods. Virtual music therapy was delivered to a wide variety of clients, including those with various medical diagnoses, and mental health issues; caregivers; and health care workers. Virtual music therapy took place in clients' homes, hospitals, or educational settings. The virtual music therapy field experienced significant growth during the COVID-19 pandemic and developed into a distinct area of music therapy. This scoping review reports on a substantial body of relevant evidence, providing detailed insights into the nuances of virtual music therapy practice, which may remain useful even beyond pandemic restrictions. Future research is needed to examine the impact of virtual music therapy in the post-COVID-19 era and its potential as a complementary approach to face-to-face therapy. OSF https://osf.io/tnw3c/.

The research aims to identify effective translation strategies for rendering or neutralizing the linguistic conflictogenicity of negative evaluative means in film reviews within the Russian-English, Russian-French, and English-French language pairs. The article examines the film review as a genre of media discourse, using examples of harsh cinematic criticism in Russian, English, and French. The work describes the linguistic tools employed by film critics to express negative evaluation and determines the degree of their conflict-triggering potential in both the original reviews and through cross-linguistic comparison. Special attention is paid not only to the theoretical justification of the conflictogenicity of linguistic means (by categorizing them as conflictogens or conflictemes) but also to the translation of excerpts from the analyzed reviews, applying specific translation strategies and justifying the decisions made. The scientific novelty of the study lies in describing the conflictogenic potential of film reviews across three linguistic cultures and in systematizing translation strategies for this specific type of text. As a result, the study formulates acceptable translation strategies for rendering or omitting the linguistic conflictogenicity of negative evaluative means within the Russian-English-French triad. Thus, the research demonstrates the significance and diversity of translation activities related to media and film discourse and emphasizes the necessity for further investigation in this field.

"The Analects" as the most important monument of Confucian culture contains principles that regulate the behavioral norms of the Chinese people. The concept of "xiao" (孝), which is one of the key ideological dominants of "The Analects" and a specific value category of the Chinese nation, due to the uniqueness of its semantic content, has a pronounced untranslatability and represents a typical example of a lacuna. The subject of this study is the analysis of ways to overcome the lacuna employed by Russian sinologists from various historical periods when translating the concept of "xiao" in "The Analects". The main goal of the work is to identify the translation methods and characteristic features inherent to sinologists of different eras based on the analysis of translations, and to offer recommendations and formulate conclusions relevant for conveying lacunae in the process of Sino-Russian cultural exchange in the modern context. The article primarily employs a comparative method for researching Russian translations of "The Analects" made in different historical periods, complemented by quantitative and qualitative analysis methods. The logic behind the formation of various translation options for the concept of "xiao" is examined, as well as the translation methods and features characteristic of different translators in conveying this concept. Based on this, the conclusion is drawn that in translating "xiao," Russian sinologists of various periods predominantly utilized substitution techniques and semantic translations, supplemented by literal translations. The translations show both common features—epoch-related influence, continuity, and a gradual increase in variability—and distinct individual stylistic features. In the context of the intensification of modern Sino-Russian cultural dialogue, it is advisable to flexibly apply differentiated methods for conveying lacunae in translating various types of texts. For instance, in translating artistic prose, the unification of the translated equivalent is permissible to facilitate reader comprehension; in everyday intercultural communication, a variety of translation options helps to more fully reveal cultural semantics; in the translation of fundamental works, it is justified to use transliteration and descriptive translation with notes simultaneously. Such an approach fosters clearer mutual understanding between cultures and consequently deepens cultural exchange and the dissemination of cultural values between the two countries.

Toponym resolution is essential for extracting geographic information from unstructured texts. Although recent deep learning and large language model (LLM)–based methods achieve strong performance, they typically require substantial computational resources and have slow inference speeds, limiting their practicality for resource-constrained, large-scale or time-sensitive applications. Moreover, most existing approaches are developed for English or a limited set of languages, restricting their cross-lingual applicability. To fill the gaps, we propose UniTopRank, a universal, scalable, and language-independent method based on rule-driven ranking. It operates in two steps: first, candidate locations for all toponyms in a text are retrieved from gazetteers; second, the candidates are ranked using name similarity, population, administrative level, and spatial relationships among toponyms through beam search. We evaluate UniTopRank on 25 datasets in 14 languages and 7 text types, covering 186,100 toponyms worldwide. For 11 English datasets, we compare it with 21 existing methods, including deep learning– and LLM-based models, and for non-English datasets, with 12 representative approaches. Results show that UniTopRank attains accuracy comparable to state-of-the-art methods—though not the best—and generalizes well across different languages, while being significantly faster and much more resource-efficient. Running entirely on standard CPUs, it is well-suited for large-scale, multilingual, or resource-constrained applications.

The article examines the system of multilingual metaphors in V. V. Nabokov's novel “Ada, or Ardor: a Family Chronicle” as a specific form of interlanguage poetics. The author analyzes three levels of functioning of the author′s metaphors – semantic, phonetic and psychosemantic. It is shown that the mixing of English, Russian, French, German, Latin, and Greek forms a unique type of literary text called “palimpsest” in which translation, distortion, and wordplay act as mechanisms of creative generation of meaning; linguistic hybridity is not just a stylistic decoration, but serves as a tool for constructing new artistic worlds.

The work is devoted to the analysis of infographics as a type of journalistic text and its use in regional online media. The aim is to identify the relationships in the use of infographics in Yekaterinburg online media publications, as well as to analyze audience reactions to various types of infographics. An empirical study conducted by the method of content analysis of publications in the telegram channel of the Yekaterinburg media E1.RU Published during 2023 (n = 160) revealed the specifics of using various types of infographics. A connection was found between the use of different types of infographics and certain topics for which they were prepared, differences in audience reactions to infographic publications were described, and the specifics of involving channel readers in infographic publications in terms of commenting activity were identified. Based on the analysis of the revealed patterns, recommendations on the use of infographics in online media are formulated. The results obtained will be useful in the development of regional online media in the telegram channel format.

This paper systematically reviews the existing research progress on the external publicity translation of Sichuan Baijiu culture. It focuses on three core issues: the chaos in translating core terminologies, deviations in the translation of culturally loaded terms, and systemic translation failures in practical texts, thereby deeply analyzing the current practical dilemmas in the external publicity translation of Sichuan Baijiu culture. Guided by the theoretical framework of Skopos Theory, this paper proposes new strategies centered on text type adaptation, standardization of professional terminologies, and in-depth translation of cultural keywords. Based on that, it further explores specific paths to enhance the effectiveness of external publicity translation through optimizing the construction of external publicity websites for Sichuan Baijiu enterprises and establishing a collaborative mechanism involving “translation experts, cultural consultants, and industry mentors.” These efforts aim to provide theoretical support and practical references for the deepening of subsequent research and the practical application of translation in Sichuan Baijiu culture.

Abstract The corpus of texts called “Rewritten Scripture” have long been subject to debate about their categorization. When differentiating between minimalist (form-oriented) and maximalist (process-oriented) schools of thought, distinctions must be made between elements like content, techniques, purpose, and function to determine where these texts belong. This article does not attempt to redefine or reclassify Rewritten Scripture as a phenomenon, but contends with arguments suggesting that Rewritten Scripture is basically equivalent to Greco-Roman imitation ( μίμησις / imitatio ). While imitation has its own categorization problems, I argue that Rewritten Scripture can be meaningfully distinguished from μίμησις / imitatio . Even with some overlaps, if we imagine a continuum of source reuse, these are at different points. I argue this with reference to 1) function, 2) limits, 3) writer, and 4) authority of source material. Both have different types of rewriting, resulting in distinguishable types of texts. There is something distinctive about the Jewish texts called Rewritten Scripture.

This article explores linguopragmatic approaches to the analysis of English texts, with particular attention to the interaction between linguistic form and pragmatic meaning in communicative contexts. The study aims to develop and refine a methodological framework that integrates principles of pragmatics, discourse analysis, and functional linguistics in order to provide a systematic approach to text interpretation. The research adopts a qualitative descriptive methodology, focusing on contextual and inferential aspects of meaning construction. As an empirical basis, a selected literary text is examined to illustrate how pragmatic factors such as speaker intention, contextual relevance, and linguistic choice contribute to the interpretation of discourse. The analysis demonstrates that linguopragmatic models offer effective tools for revealing implicit meaning and communicative functions that cannot be fully captured by purely formal or structural approaches. The findings suggest that the proposed framework is adaptable and applicable to different text types, supporting a more comprehensive understanding of textual meaning within contemporary linguistic research.

This paper presents the workflow created for the corpus preparation and annotation by two projects of the DFG-funded research group Practices of Personal Reference. Both projects examine diachronic developments in the use of pronouns deployed for personal reference, with one project compiling a corpus of German dramas from the 17th–19th centuries and the other collecting a corpus of German medical texts from the 15th–17th centuries. Operating with the tools INCEpTION and ANNIS, the data will be annotated and analyzed following project-specific linguistic categories. The methodological approach will be illustrated by an exemplary study of so-called Heische-formulae which contain the impersonal pronoun man and contextualize various acts of request. The comparison of different text types, represented in the projects, allows to draw conclusions about functional and contextual differences in the pronoun usage across time and intends to show a way in which cross-project research aims can be realized successfully.

Whether it is a book or a media product, the title is the first parameter that catches the eye, attracts attention, or leads to an overlook due to dislike. In the same sense, the translation of titles plays a pivotal role in promoting products and revealing their content by appealing to the audience. Developed by Hans Vermeer, the skopos theory is a functionalist theory that moves from linguistic equivalency to the functional suitability of the target text. This study analyzes the translation of TV show titles from the perspective of skopos theory, focusing on how commercial imperatives influence the translation choices in the title translation process. A corpus of 50 English-language TV show titles and their officially recognized Turkish translations was gathered from two mainstream television channels (TLC and DMAX) in Turkiye. Each title was analyzed to identify its primary translation aim and categorized according to Reiss’s functional text types model, aligning with the overarching skopos theory. Then, an in-depth clarification of Vermeer’s skopos theory is put forward. In the following section, the TV show titles are handled in Newmark’s (1988) framework for translation methods. The study’s findings demonstrate a tendency to translate English titles that are more target culture-oriented and incorporate local language characteristics rather than to provide a conservative, direct translation. The reasons for these specific choices can be attributed to the commercial value of the TV shows, which is influenced by audience demand and cultural context, as the main aim of the title translation is to make the show appeal to the target audience. Overall, the results reveal that the translation of TV show titles, in terms of the translation methods applied, is directly affected by the translation task’s skopos.

Prior research has overlooked interdependent effect sizes and moderating factors between machine translation post-editing (MTPE) and the post-editor's cognition. To fill this void, the study employs a three-level meta-analysis. A total of 19 high-quality studies, with an average quality score of 8.158, were included in the analysis. These included studies encompass 193 effect sizes and 492 participants. The findings indicate a positive link between MTPE and the post-editor's cognition (r = 0.474), suggesting higher levels of cognitive engagement in post-editing tasks. Among the moderators examined, several study-level characteristics were associated with variability in effect sizes. These characteristics include whether PE attitudes were reported, text types, cognition measurement tools, and cognitive indicators. In contrast, studies that reported MTPE attitudes showed a different pattern of effect sizes. Overall, this study provides rigorous evidence on the multifaceted impacts of MTPE on translators' cognition. It also clarifies how dependent effect sizes should be modeled in translation cognition research.

In modern society, background music is often used as a tool to promote learning during the learning process, but in fact, there is still widespread controversy over the effect of music. The present study investigates how music is perceived to influence concentration, with a focus on influential factors and text types. Fifty-one participants completed an anonymous questionnaire assessing music-listening behaviors, music preferences, and perceived effects of music on concentration and task performance. By using composite indices, the data shows that music can facilitate individuals' concentration overall and are influenced by music elements and text types; in contrast, the interference caused by music on attention are mainly determined by individuals' differentiation. These findings suggest that music functions depend more on how it is used and the task context than on specific musical characteristics and provide adolescents referenceable data for the use of music.

This study is an investigation into the syntactic and structural aspects of complex clauses in six varied text types, namely literary texts, academically written texts, journalistic texts, conversations, technical texts, and poetic texts. Having a balanced number of sixty texts, the present study merges computational parsing with qualitative analysis of clausal function to determine the genre-dependent features of sentence complexity. Such quantitative-based measures as clausal density, sentence length, and readability indices have been tested statistically to show significant similarities and dissimilarities among text types. Furthermore, qualitative measures within a functional grammar approach have highlighted the rhetorical aspects of complex forms. The findings have demonstrated that complexity is more than a stylistic choice; indeed, it is genre-based communicative strategy affected by the expectations and cognitive requirements of readers. Implications for linguistic theory, pedagogy, and genre-sensitive text production have been taken into account.

Using NLP to analyze authentic learner language helps to build automated assessment and feedback tools. It also offers new and extensive insights into the development of second language production. However, there is a lack of research explicitly combining these aspects. This study aimed to classify Estonian proficiency examination writings (levels A2–C1), assuming that careful feature selection can lead to more explainable and generalizable machine learning models for language testing. Various linguistic properties of the training data were analyzed to identify relevant proficiency predictors associated with increasing complexity and correctness, rather than the writing task. Such lexical, morphological, surface, and error features were used to train classification models, which were compared to models that also allowed for other features. The pre-selected features yielded a similar test accuracy but reduced variation in the classification of different text types. The best classifiers achieved an accuracy of around 0.9. Additional evaluation on an earlier exam sample revealed that the writings have become more complex over a 7–10-year period, while accuracy still reached 0.8 with some feature sets. The results have been implemented in the writing evaluation module of an Estonian open-source language learning environment.

Abstract The very notion of ‘reading in parallel’ presupposes an interpretive frame of reference which draws texts into relation in the first place. In the early church, second-century writers articulated a set of theological assumptions known as the rule of faith which served this purpose, insisting that the shared divine authorship and subject matter of the writings of the Old and New Testaments demands that they be read in concert. This study focuses on the case of Clement of Alexandria, who describes the interrelationships of the Law, Prophets, and Gospel as one of ‘concord and harmony,’ comparable to the unified voices that make up a divinely-conducted choir. In this study, I first briefly consider the core theological assumptions of the rule of faith that constitute Clement’s frame of reference. Second, I examine his claims about the origins of this frame of reference, in the tradition received from, and modeled by, Jesus and his apostles themselves. Third, I offer a case study of Clement’s own parallel reading, analyzing both his theoretical statements and some actual examples of his interpretation of the Mosaic Law in the Stromateis . Based on his description of the Law’s threefold mode of speaking through symbols, precepts, and prophecies, I observe how Clement’s prior assumptions regarding the concord and harmony of the Scriptures motivate him to read each type of text in parallel with a New Testament referent.

ABSTRACT Research on translation universals has traditionally focused on isolated linguistic features along paradigmatic dimensions due to ease of interpretation. However, syntagmatic approaches, which examine how linguistic elements combine sequentially, remain underexplored. This corpus-based study addresses this gap by analysing R-motifs, defined as recurring sequences of part-of-speech tags, across four genres in translated and native Chinese texts. We investigate both the rank-frequency distributions of R-motif types and motif lengths as potential indicators of translation universals. Our analysis shows that R-motif frequencies in both text types follow the right-truncated Zeta distribution, whereas motif length distributions conform to the Pólya model. Random Forests are used to establish the text classification model where texts are represented by the POS R-motif distribution parameters and attributes. The experiments show that the combination of features from distribution parameters and attributes can detect the translationese efficiently. Future research may extend this approach by exploring more granular features beyond part-of-speech sequences.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transitioned from a research milestone to a general-purpose technology with wide-ranging implications for organizations, labor markets, and information systems. Thanks to improvements in deep learning, generative adversarial networks (GANs), variational autoencoders (VAEs), diffusion models, transformer-based language models, and reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), generative AI can now create high-quality text, images, audio, code, and other types of content. This review synthesizes the core technical foundations and best practices for training, evaluation, and governance, with an emphasis on scalability and human oversight. The paper examines applications across customer service, marketing, software development, healthcare, finance, law, logistics, and the creative industries, and assesses the labor implications of generative AI using a sociotechnical lens. This study also develops a disruption index that integrates task exposure, adoption rates, time savings, and skill complementarity. The paper concludes with actionable recommendations for policymakers, organizations, and workers, emphasizing the importance of reskilling, algorithmic transparency, and inclusive innovation. Taken together, these contributions situate generative AI within broader debates about automation, augmentation, and the future of work.