Topic Prominence Research Articles

A Bibliometric Model to Analyze Country Research Performance: SciVal Topic Prominence Approach in Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality

This paper aimed to evaluate the Portuguese scientific production within Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management (TLHM). To this end, 572 papers from 51 peer-reviewed Scopus journals were mapped through a mixed bibliometric analysis method. The results indicated that Portugal has a significant TLHM research production, with an outstanding performance in terms of topic prominence percentile. Additionally, Portuguese TLHM research collaboration has increased significantly in recent years. It should be pointed out, however, that this production is significantly skewed towards tourism-specific studies rather than hospitality. This study presents a new bibliometric contribution by bringing the SciVal topic prominence and prominence percentile to the TLHM field and presenting a new country research performance model, indicating a new way to evaluate a country’s research performance. Additionally, this investigation featuring the overall structure of Portuguese TLHM research provides clear outlines to concerned bodies regarding researcher and institution performance and gives helpful and timely information to researchers, scholars, government managers, industry managers, and tourism and hospitality consultants.

Sustainability Perceptions in Tourism and Hospitality: A Mixed-Method Bibliometric Approach

In the post-Covid-19 era, tourism impacts and the role played by sustainable planning on the long-term success of destinations have gained renewed importance. Understanding the image and perceptions tourists hold of a destination is vital for tourism planning, as they play a key role in tourists’ decisions. Considering the importance of these two key concepts (perceptions and sustainability), the present paper contributes to the advancement of knowledge on sustainable tourism by characterizing the state of the art of Sustainability Perceptions in Tourism and Hospitality (SPTH). To this end, the scientific literature on the topic was mapped through a combination of three bibliometric analysis techniques, namely: evaluative, relational, and systematic bibliometric analysis. These were based on productivity and impact indicators, including SciVal topic prominence. The results reveal that sustainability perceptions in SPTH focus on tourists’, stakeholders’, and residents’ perceptions. These findings highlight the need for involving local communities in the destination planning process to align the outcomes of tourism development with their expectations. Finally, this paper presents an original methodological contribution, as it is the first to apply the SciVal topic prominence analysis to SPTH.

Content Analysis of Textbooks via Natural Language Processing: Findings on Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in Texas U.S. History Textbooks

Cutting-edge data science techniques can shed new light on fundamental questions in educational research. We apply techniques from natural language processing (lexicons, word embeddings, topic models) to 15 U.S. history textbooks widely used in Texas between 2015 and 2017, studying their depiction of historically marginalized groups. We find that Latinx people are rarely discussed, and the most common famous figures are nearly all White men. Lexicon-based approaches show that Black people are described as performing actions associated with low agency and power. Word embeddings reveal that women tend to be discussed in the contexts of work and the home. Topic modeling highlights the higher prominence of political topics compared with social ones. We also find that more conservative counties tend to purchase textbooks with less representation of women and Black people. Building on a rich tradition of textbook analysis, we release our computational toolkit to support new research directions.

ErLinkTopic: A generative probabilistic framework for analyzing regional communities in social networks

Understanding how communities evolve over time have become a hot topic in the field of social network analysis due to the wide range of its applications. In this context, several approaches have been introduced to capture changes in the community members. Our claim is that a community is characterized by not only the identity of users but complex features such as the topics of interest, and the regional and geographic characteristics. Studying changes in such features of communities also provides informative findings for related applications. This leads to the main goal of the study in this paper, which is to capture the evolution of complex features describing communities. Particularly, we introduce a probabilistic framework called ErLinkT opic model. The model is able to extract regional LinkT opic [1] communities and to capture gradual changes in three features describing each community, i.e., community members, the prominence of topics describing communities, and terms describing such topics. It further supports the study of regional and geographic characteristics of communities as well as changes in such features. Experimental evaluations have been conducted using Twitter data to evaluate the model in terms of its effectiveness and efficiency in extracting communities and capturing changes in the features describing each community

Topic prominence in L2 acquisition

AbstractThis study investigated the topic-prominent characteristics of the interlanguage development of native speakers of Chinese learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Two groups of Chinese EFL learners – an intermediate group and an advanced group – were recruited to complete two production tasks: a written Chinese-to-English translation task and an oral story-retelling task. The findings showed that Chinese EFL learners at each proficiency level transferred Chinese topic-prominent structures to their target language production at a varying degree. The topic-prominent constructions in the learners’ production, based on a hierarchy of difficulty, were placed on two slightly different Gradation Zones, one for written production and the other for oral production. Gradation Zones were a generalized reflection of how discourse and pragmatic relations in topic-prominent Chinese were gradually reanalyzed as syntactic relations with the development of learners’ English proficiency level. There was a tendency for topic-prominent features to decrease and subject-prominent features to increase as EFL learners’ proficiency level progressed. It was also argued that sources of these topic-prominent properties in interlanguage were an interaction of factors, including degree of markedness, perceptual saliency, second language (L2) input, and language production task type.

Topic Prominence in the Hawaiian Language

This study explores whether Hawaiian, a canonically VSO language, has the properties of topic-prominent (TopP) languages. Based on tests using the diagnostics for TopP and subjectprominent (SP) languages, this study concludes that Hawaiian is closer to TopP languages than SP languages. First, Hawaiian has a topic marker like other TopP languages. When Hawaiian 'o is followed by an NP in the sentence initial position, the NP becomes the center of attention in the sentence and is definite. In addition, the 'o-marked fronted NP can control co-referential constituent deletion. Second, there are sentences that can be viewed as double-subject constructions, which appear in TopP languages but not in SP languages. Third, Hawaiian has no constraint on what may be the topic, which again suggests that Hawaiian has the properties of TopP languages. Finally, lack of subject-verb agreement and dummy subject supports that Hawaiian is distant from SP languages.

The universal topic prominence stage hypothesis and L1 transfer

Abstract This paper tests the universal Topic Prominence (TP) stage hypothesis and L1 transfer hypothesis by analyzing attested TP features, namely zero pronouns, bare (i.e., article-less) nouns, and post-nominal topic marking found in Korean written narratives collected from L2 Korean (TP language) speakers whose L1 is English (SP language) and Mandarin Chinese (TP language), respectively. The results showed that L2 Korean speakers used zero pronouns as frequently as L1 Korean speakers did from the early stage of their acquisition, whereas the use of the topic marking lagged behind, regardless of their L1 backgrounds. We explain the results by appealing to the universal acquisition path based on pragmatic-lexical-morphosyntactic cline: while the concept of the topic is (arguably) universal, its morphological marking is influenced by L1 as well as learning experience.

Can pragmatic inference benefit from topic prominence? ERP evidence from Mandarin Chinese

Abstract This study investigated how pragmatic inference making is modulated by information structure in preceding text. We created three types of two-clause structures in which the interpretation of a critical word in the second clause was dependent on the engagement of pragmatic inference as well as a successful establishment of a referential relation between the target word and an intended antecedent in the preceding text. An enhanced P600 response was elicited by target words when the intended referent was in non-topic position compared to topic position or sub-topic position. Moreover, a reduced N400 was elicited by the target word when the intended referent in the preceding clause was in non-topic position, compared to topic position. These findings suggest that building inferential relations can benefit from information structural prominence of topicality.

Research portfolio analysis and topic prominence

Abstract Stakeholders in the science system need to decide where to place their bets. Example questions include: Which areas of research should get more funding? Who should we hire? Which projects should we abandon and which new projects should we start? Making informed choices requires knowledge about these research options. Unfortunately, to date research portfolio options have not been defined in a consistent, transparent and relevant manner. Furthermore, we don’t know how to define demand for these options. In this article, we address the issues of consistency, transparency, relevance and demand by using a model of science consisting of 91,726 topics (or research options) that contain over 58 million documents. We present a new indicator of topic prominence – a measure of visibility, momentum and, ultimately, demand. We assign over $203 billion of project-level funding data from STAR METRICS® to individual topics in science, and show that the indicator of topic prominence, explains over one-third of the variance in current (or future) funding by topic. We also show that highly prominent topics receive far more funding per researcher than topics that are not prominent. Implications of these results for research planning and portfolio analysis by institutions and researchers are emphasized.

日本人英語学習者の自由英作文に見られるThematicity Constraintについて : Topic Prominenceによる干渉に焦点をあてて

日本人英語学習者の自由英作文に見られるThematicity Constraintについて : Topic Prominenceによる干渉に焦点をあてて

Is Finnish topic prominent?

Finnish finite clause exhibits topic prominence in the sense that the preverbal subject position is occupied by the topic (for example, by the direct object topic), not necessarily by the grammatical subject. Three currently unexplained facts concerning the Finnish free word order phenomenon and topicalization are noted in this paper: subject-verb agreement interacts with word order; the preverbal “topic” position is not reserved exclusively for topics; and noun phrase (DP) arguments are also able to dislocate to the right edge of a (potentially very long) finite clause. A generalized morphosyntactic agreement mechanism that requires the presence of nominal phi-features inside the highest finite projection of a clause is posited to explain the link between agreement and word order. The problem with topicality is accounted for by assuming that the topic-focus mechanism operates outside of narrow syntax. Free word order and non-configurationality are argued to result from argument adjunction, not from movement. Finally, it is concluded that the Finnish EPP is connected neither to morphosyntax nor to discourse.

A Case of V2 in Chinese

Abstract As far as the left periphery is concerned, there is a conspiracy between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics to ensure the success of sentence formation. We would like to put forth the claim that peripheral features play an important role in this endeavor, which can be checked by either Merge or Move according to the parameter-settings of individual languages. Along this line, topic prominence can be regarded as the result of peripheral feature checking, and the null topic hypothesis à la Huang (1984) is reinvented as a null operator merger to fulfill interface economy in the left periphery. In this regard, Chinese provides substantial evidence from obligatory topicalization in outer affectives, evaluatives, and refutory wh-constructions, which applies only when the licensing from a D(efiniteness)-operator is blocked. The idea also extends naturally to the issues concerning pro-drop and bare nominals in general. In this light, we may well compare Chinese obligatory topicalization to those residual cases of verb-second (V2) in English, all being manifestation of the strong uniformity.

Topics and topic prominence in two sign languages

In this paper we describe topic marking in Russian Sign Language (RSL) and Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) and discuss whether these languages should be considered topic prominent. The formal markers of topics in RSL are sentence-initial position, a prosodic break following the topic, and non-manual markers, including eyebrow raise and backward head tilt. In NGT all these markers are used, too, but sometimes topics are also marked by clause-final pointing signs referring back to the topic of the sentence (sentence-final topic copying); this was not found in RSL. Topics in RSL and NGT are not marked obligatorily. Eyebrow raise and head tilt only mark shifted aboutness topics. In both RSL and NGT the VS order is used in thetic sentences. However, this strategy is optional, so the SV order is also accepted in thetic sentences. According to the criteria of topic prominence summarized by Sze (2008), RSL and NGT cannot be considered topic prominent. We argue that the notion of topic prominence should be considered gradual.

Topic prominence in Chinese EFL learners’ interlanguage

The present study aims to investigate the general characteristics of topicprominent typological interlanguage development of Chinese learners of English in terms of acquiring subject-prominent English structures from a discourse perspective. Topic structures mainly appear in Chinese discourse in the form of topic chains (Wang, 2002; 2004). The research target are the topic chain, which is the main topic-prominent structure in Chinese discourse, and zero anaphora, which is the most common topic anaphora in the topic chain. Two important findings emerged from the present study. First, the characteristics of Chinese topic chains are transferrable to the interlanguage of Chinese EFL learners, thus resulting in overgeneralization of the zero anaphora. Second, the interlanguage discourse of Chinese EFL learners reflects a change of the second language acquisition process from topic-prominence to subject-prominence, thus lending support to the discourse transfer hypothesis.

How Do Top Cable News Websites Portray Cognition as an Aging Issue?

We examined messages that the websites of the top cable news companies (MSNBC, FOX, and CNN) conveyed about cognition between January 2007 and March 2010. Drawing on agenda-setting theory, this work assessed the frequency, prominence, and attributes of cognitive topics in messages targeting an aging audience. We used quantitative content analysis to examine the frequency and prominence of cognitive topics and cognitive goals, as well as how the cognitive discussions were framed. Chi-square analyses were conducted to compare cognitive health information discussed in news items that did and did not target an "aging audience." Qualitative analysis of the aging audience subgroup was used to further examine age-associated cognitive messages. Within the 229 cognitive items identified, we found significantly more coverage of cognitive functioning and unspecified dementia and significantly less coverage of cognitive disease not dementia, specified dementia, and accidents or injury for the aging audience. Our qualitative analysis of news items aimed at an aging audience documented a focus on maintaining functioning and avoiding decline through various individual lifestyle behaviors. However, contextual information about level of cognition to be maintained, particular cognitive functions targeted, specific norms about cognitive aging, and how cognitive function is determined was lacking. Our research points to a communication gap in the delivery of academic research findings to a lay audience through online journalism. We suggest more clarity by researchers in defining cognitive concepts and measurement of cognitive function for journalistic translation and public consumption.

Errors in the Written Production of Chinese Learners of English: A Typological Perspective

This study aimed to examine errors in the written production of Chinese learners of English from a typological perspective. The thirty-nine participants were native speakers of Chinese enrolled in an undergraduate English course in Taiwan. Data were collected from a translation-elicitation task which involved ten Chinese sentences with Chinese TP (Topic-Prominence) features described by Li and Thompson (1976; 1981): surface-coding, double subject, deletion of co-reference, null subject (topic chains), and null dummy subject. The data were analyzed by comparing with the Chinese TP features to decide if they exhibited the interlingual transfer. Further analysis was done to locate the causes related to overgeneralizing TP features, which were found causing grammatical errors. The results indicated that the learners’ L1 structures in inter-language development were especially prevalent in the early stages. The less proficient learners used more topic-prominent structures (as shown in Mandarin Chinese), while those with better proficiency tended to be able to use the structures closer to the target language (English, a subject-prominent language). This study thus called for attention to contrastive analysis as a diagnostic function for learners’ language development.

+/-Focus]/Subject Prominence, Feature Inheritance and the EPP

Miyagawa (2005, 2006, forthcoming) suggests that differences between languages and agreement-less languages stem from different parametric valuation of a super feature (F s ) on C either as Φ -feature agreement or as focus agreement. A language like Korean, however, constitutes an interesting example in that it employs not only Φ-feature agreement but also focus and topic agreement, as essential agreement features to derive the mixed properties of subject prominence, focus prominence, and topic prominence. Grounded on these Korean facts, I will argue that languages cannot be strictly divided into languages and agreement-less languages, and that the apparent differences in the aspects of agreement are due to the interplay of feature inheritance and EPP parametrization.

Telling stories: News media, health literacy and public policy in Canada

Mass media are very influential in shaping discourses about health but few studies have examined the extent to which newspaper coverage of such stories reflect issues embedded in health policy documents. We estimate the relative distribution of health stories using content analysis. Nine meta-topics are used to sort stories across a range of major influences shaping the health status of populations adapted from the document Toward a Healthy Future (Second Report on the Health of Canadians (1999)) ( TAHF). A total of 4732 stories were analyzed from 13 Canadian daily newspapers (10 English, 3 French language) using a constructed week per quarter method. Stories were sampled from each chosen newspaper for the years 1993, 1995, 1997 and 2001. 72% ( n=3405) of stories in this analysis were from English-language papers, 28% ( n=1327) were from French-language papers. Topics related to health care (dealing either with issues of service provision and delivery or management and regulation) dominated newspaper stories, accounting for 65% of all stories. Physical environment topics accounted for about 13% of all stories, the socio-economic environment about 6% of stories, personal health practices about 5% of stories, and scientific advances in health research about 4% of stories. Other influences upon health identified in TAHF were rarely mentioned. The overall prominence of topics in newspapers is not consistent with the relative importance assigned to health influences in TAHF. Canadian newspapers rarely report on socio-economic influences frequently cited in the research literature (and reflected in TAHF) as being most influential in shaping population health outcomes.

Systemic Transfer, Topic Prominence, and the Bare Conditional in Singapore English

Colloquial Singapore English has a novel conditional construction in which the conditional clause is not marked morphosyntactically, and must precede the consequent clause. We show that Singapore English, like Chinese, the main substrate language, is topic prominent, and the novel conditional construction is a direct consequence of this new typological status. We analyze the unmarked conditional clause as topic, a basic syntactic position in topic prominent languages. Our analysis shows that substrate influence is systemic: the entire cluster of properties associated with topic prominence is transferred from Chinese to Singapore English.

Cognition, Emotion, and Psychopathology: Theoretical, Empirical, and Clinical Directions

Cognition, Emotion, and Psychopathology: Theoretical, Empirical, and Clinical Directions