Verbal Level Research Articles

Between Connotation and Denotation. Posters Announcing the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music in 1956-2015

Abstract The posters that accompany the successive Warsaw Autumn Festival editions are a unique collection of works, mostly of outstanding quality. One might venture the thesis that their artistic value – living up to the high demands of the topic – exceeds the typical standards of representation characteristic of popular art. Formally speaking, they abandon the conventions of egalitarian iconographic art in favour of a more elite-oriented visual formula, addressed to a competent audience knowledgeable about contemporary music and its qualities. The authors of these WA posters include many artists associated with the Polish school, such as Jan Lenica, Jan Młodożeniec, Julian Pałka, Waldemar Świerzy, Henryk Tomaszewski, and Wojciech Zamecznik. Their graphic representations of the achievements of the musical avant-garde do not, however, situate this poster series within the well-sanctioned canon of the “Polish poster school”, mostly associated with the film and theatre – generally considered as more “democratic” and entertainment-oriented disciplines of art. The WA posters point to an evident polarisation of visual culture, corresponding to the division between high and low culture and between two types of audiences, differing in expectations. These posters form a largely autonomous collection and may be viewed as supplementary to the music they refer to, which determined the choice of expressive means appropriate to this topic. The whole collection is a display of its authors’ evident skills and their ability to live up to the high demands placed on these works. The task of translating one medium into another (in this case – a visual one) requires intellectual discipline. Some kind of (at least formal) similarity between the two media needs to be discovered, and shared semantic elements ought to be traced. On the verbal level, such similarities are presented in terms of related distinctive features, ways of describing phenomena, and intuitions. The 19th-century Romantic concept of the correspondance des arts was based on similar assumptions. The Romantics attempted to systematise the emotions accompanying the experience of different arts, looking for affinities and similar form-building strategies.

The issue of methods for language representation of the concept in diachrony (based on the material of the german language)

The purpose of the article is to represent complex analysis of language representation of the concept “space” in diachrony from the perspective of Linguistics and Cultural Linguistics. The object of the research is the change of a mental image of space under the infl uence of extra-linguistic factors; the change is represented on verbal level in lexicosemantic paradigm of language units, represents of the concept. The subject of the research is the semantic structure of verbalisators of the concept “space”; elements of this structure are viewed as cognitive features formulating the content of the concept and structured in hierarchic relationship with each other (distinctive and qualifi cation features). The following theoretical results are achieved: inventory of language units of OHG, MHG and ENHG1, whose semantic components represent cognitive features refl ecting the content of the concept; analysis of changes in the system of these features, revealing of the least and the most evident ones, and a conclusion about communicative relevancy and signifi cance of the conceptualized fragment / the extension for the representative of a certain nation in the viewed period of history. The theoretical results can be applied in training as a part of a special course or of a scientifi c-research seminar in Cultural Linguistics and Cognitive Linguistics (Part “Methods and techniques for concept description”), and while working on the topic “Development of German lexis” in Lexicology and History of German. The major scientifi c and practical methods of analysis are continuous sampling (→ inventory of lexical units), semantic-etymological analysis / componential analysis combined with a method of analysis of lexical defi nitions (→ revealing a pattern of semantic components of units representing the concept), a method of semantic-cognitive description of the concept (→ interpretation of the results of semantic analysis and of received data on cognitive level).

Emotion regulation, teaching beliefs and child–teacher relationships from the perspectives of pre-school teachers

ABSTRACTThe way how pre-school teachers perceive their relationships they formed with their students, teaching beliefs regarding the profession and teachers’ competencies to regulate their emotions are effective issues in order to enhance teacher–child relationships. The participants of this research were 94 Turkish pre-school teachers and 282 children, 142 of whom were boys and 140 of whom were girls. It has been found out the cognitive reappraisal strategy used by teachers for emotion regulation increased with positive relationship perception of teachers. A positive relationship was revealed between the scores of sensitivity and verbal participation and level of closeness perceived within the child–teacher relationship. Moreover, there were meaningful and positive relationships between the level of sensitivity and suppression of the expression and cognitive reappraisal strategies considering emotion regulation. It has been understood that teachers perceived the relationships with girls closer though, when it comes to boys, the perception of conflict was prominently much higher.

Task engagement: a potential criterion for quality assessment of language learning tasks

Maximizing learning opportunities has long been the focus of research in teaching English as a foreign language. Besides the degree to which learners are engaged with the linguistic aspects, investigating other potential of the tasks is of prime importance for maximizing learning opportunities. The present research investigates the potential of four different task types (translation, dictogloss, text reconstruction and jigsaw) performed by 80 Iranian English as foreign language (EFL) intermediate students in promoting learner engagement. Learner's movement from limited to elaborate behavioral, affective and cognitive engagement at verbal, paralinguistic and functional levels while performing the tasks was studied using conversation analysis techniques. The conversation and episodes were coded using a predetermined template of coding. The conversation and ANOVA (analysis of variance) results show that as mind goes through transformation, it is indicated in the transformation in dialogic discourse (speech). The results also indicated that although task engagement patterns were the same across all tasks, the tasks have different potential in promoting task engagement. The results imply that besides other task characteristics including task utility, naturalness and essentiality which focus on linguistic aspects, task engagement is an equally important criterion for the quality assessment of the tasks and should be taken into account since it not only creates sustained attention on linguistic aspects but also mediates learning as it engages learners behaviorally, affectively and cognitively. The results also shed lights on the concept of interactional authenticity and how it can be operationalized in practice.

Communicative behavior of an idealized man in novels by the British writers: major diachronic changes

The article is devoted to presenting the results of the study of the major changes that the verbal behavior of an idealized man underwent in the novels written by the British authors Jane Austen and Helen Fielding. The ideal person as a linguistic personality is a representative of the British society of the corresponding historic period, the beginning of the 19th century and the end of the 20th century, whose positive qualities and benefits are consciously deliberately by the authors and are perceived by readers as perfect. The analysis of the verbal level of the given language identity, i.e. the positive and negative politeness strategies available in his discourse, is carried out. It is established that the leading for the hero of the nineteenth century novels is the strategy of hedging, while the ideal hero of the twentieth century mainly employs the strategy of attending to the interests, desires and needs of his female communication partner. Thus, the study of changes in the communicative behavior priorities makes it possible to reveal the dynamics of the general tendency of perception of the idealized man by the female representatives of the British linguistic and cultural community. The prospect of further research is analyzing all of the politeness strategies available in the discourse of the ideal man which will facilitate creating the most accurate diachronic portrait of the idealized linguistic identity under study.

The capacity to tell a joke: Reflections from work with Asperger children

The capacity to tell a joke is a highly complex interpersonal event that depends upon the maturation of certain developmental achievements which are absent or stunted in children with Asperger's Syndrome. These include the ability to know another's mind, a sense of interpersonal timing and, most notably, a capacity for abstract thinking. The author discusses Freud's (1905) notion of joke‐work, which is akin to dream‐work, both of which are pathways to forming mental representations. Freud considered joke‐work as a mental activity that operated on the verbal level and the author examines the preverbal dimensions that are rooted in the earliest mother/infant interactions. An extended case discussion of the psychoanalytic treatment of an Asperger boy is offered to illustrate these points and to demonstrate the activity of joke‐work as a means of building mental representations.

Suivi longitudinal (3 ans) et développement de 4 enfants avec autisme sans retard mental après 90 séances d’entraînement aux habiletés sociales

IntroductionFew studies on social skills training essentially based on ABA techniques are dedicated to children with autism aged 5 to 10 years whereas autistic disorders can be diagnosed in very early childhood. Generally, the main criticisms about these social skills training are: shortness of programs (around 20 sessions), no manual with precise descriptions of sessions and used techniques, and a lack of generalization of the learned skills in everyday life. ObjectivesTo describe the evolution (before/after) of symptoms and sociocommunicative skills of 7 children with autism and no mental retardation (mean age=7.08) who participated in 90 sessions (during 3 years) in a learning group of communication and socialization (or LGCS). MethodTo develop these sessions, we referred to intellectual and verbal levels obtained by the children on The Wechsler Intelligence Scales. We proposed activities such as open discussion, telling about events or vacations, learning of and communicative social rules, social games, outdoor exercises at home or in parks/shops/supermarkets/restaurants with known/unknown children/adults/sellers. To target the social and communicative skills, we also referred to their intellectual level and to Assessment of basic language and learning skills (ABBLS). To practice these sessions, we referred to: (1) TEACCH cognitive ergonomics principles (Treatment and education of autistic and related communication handicapped children developed by Schopler); and especially (2) ABA techniques (Applied behavior analysis) which are rarely mentioned as such. In particular, we used techniques such as: (a) concrete reinforcements which were frequently evaluated; (b) precise levels of verbal incentives and (c) error corrections. To measure the changes, we assessed children with psychometric tests before and after 90 sessions (ADOS and VABS). ResultsThe scores show significant improvements in autistic symptoms related to communication (ADOS, P=0.03) and significant improvements in both socialization and communication domains (VABS, P=0.00). From a symptomatic point of view (ADOS), we clinically observe better conversation skills and more social initiatives. About socialization and communication behaviors, parents reported (VABS): better listening, better verbal expression, more social relationships and a start of friendship for most of the children. ConclusionThis three-year longitudinal follow-up is the first known study about the evolution of children with autistic disorders after a great number of sessions of social skills training. It shows that it is possible to adapt social skills training to young children. In addition, our program and our results (VABS) show clear examples of generalization which is targeted as a weakness in the specialized studies. However, the absence of a control group and of a base line strongly limit our results in terms of effectiveness.

The seven deadly sins of world university ranking: a summary from several papers

ABSTRACTWorld university rankings use the weight-and-sum approach to process data. Although this seems to pass the common sense test, it has statistical problems. In recent years, seven such problems have been uncovered: spurious precision, weight discrepancies, assumed mutual compensation, indictor redundancy, inter-system discrepancy, negligence of indicator scores and inconsistency between changes in ranking and ‘Overall’. These issues render the validity of ranking results suspect. Moreover, discussion on problems in world university ranking has been conducted mostly at the verbal level with little substantiation of supporting statistics. It is argued that discussion on ranking issues needs statistical evidential support. Modifications to the approach of processing ranking data are suggested.

Self- and other-descriptions by individuals with autism spectrum disorder in Los Angeles and New Delhi: Bridging cross-cultural psychology and neurodiversity

Decades of cross-cultural research have shown that self-concepts vary across cultural contexts. However, it is unclear whether individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who have impairments in self- and other-understanding, will acquire the relevant cultural patterns regarding self- and other-concepts; or whether their social impairments will extend to broader cultural impairments. Here we present the first examination, to our knowledge, of self- and other-concepts in a cross-cultural sample of individuals with ASD in Los Angeles, USA, and New Delhi, India, compared with matched control groups in each culture. We used a modification of the well-known 20 statements description task, and coded participants’ responses according to 28 sub-categories, along the axes of autonomous/social and abstract/specific. When describing themselves and their favorite fictional characters, participants in Los Angeles provided significantly more autonomous and abstract descriptions than participants in New Delhi, as expected from their different locations. Surprisingly, we found no effect of diagnostic group on the content of participants’ responses, suggesting that individuals with ASD are indeed capable of acquiring the cultural scripts that surround them—at least on a cognitive, verbal level—despite their neurocognitive impairments. These results provide an important step towards bridging the study of cross-cultural psychology and global autism research; while simultaneously highlighting the ways in which individuals with ASD can become a part of their local cultures, serving as an important impetus of acceptance for caregivers and policy-makers worldwide.

Embodied participation: What multimodal analysis can tell us about interpreter-mediated encounters in pedagogical settings

In the last two decades, Dialogue Interpreting (DI) has been studied extensively through the lenses of discourse analysis and conversation analysis. As a result, DI has been recognised as an interactional communicative event, in which all the participants jointly and actively collaborate. Nevertheless, most of these studies focused merely on the verbal level of interaction, whereas its multimodal dimension has not received much attention so far, and the literature on this subject is still scarce and dispersed. By analysing and comparing two sequences, taken from a corpus of face-to-face interpreter-mediated encounters in pedagogical settings, this study aims at showing how multimodal analysis can contribute to a deeper understanding of the interactional dynamics of DI. In particular, the paper sheds light on how participants employ multimodal resources (gaze, gesture, body position, proxemics, object manipulation) to co-construct different participation frameworks throughout the encounters, and how the “ecology of action” (i.e., the relationships between the participants and the surrounding environment) influences the development of interaction.

Cognitive Impairments in Subjects Exposed to Radiation during Prenatal Development

Objective. To evaluate cognitive status in subjects exposed to ionizing radiation during antenatal development. Materials and methods. A total of 77 subjects with antenatal exposure to radiation were studied, along with a reference group of 73 subjects living in radiologically unpolluted territories in the Chelyabinsk region. Clinical, clinical psychological (Mini Mental State Examination, MMSE), Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test (WAIS), and proverb interpretation) neurophysiological (EEG), and laboratory (cholesterol, high- and low-density lipoproteins triglycerides, cortisol, melatonin) methods were used. Results and discussion. These investigations showed that a significantly greater proportion of subjects exposed to radiation during antenatal development had nonpsychotic mental disorders with a predominance of organic mental impairments (cognitive and asthenic). Neurophysiological studies identified more profound abnormalities in brain bioelectrical activity with pathological rhythms and a predominance of the θ rhythm among those exposed to radiation. Clinical psychological study data identified a significant decrease in analytical-synthetic ability in irradiated subjects, along with lower general and verbal IQ levels. These changes were accompanied by higher cortisol and melatonin levels, supporting activation of and tension in the mechanisms of adaptation in subjects irradiated during antenatal development.

The effects of embodied rhythm and robotic interventions on the spontaneous and responsive verbal communication skills of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A further outcome of a pilot randomized controlled trial

The current manuscript is the second in a mini-series of manuscripts reporting the effects of alternative, movement-based, rhythm and robotic interventions on the social communication skills of 36 school-age children with ASD. This pilot randomized controlled trial compared the effects of 8-weeks of rhythm and robotic interventions to those of a standard-of-care, comparison intervention. The first manuscript reported intervention effects on the spontaneous and responsive social attention skills of children. In this manuscript, we report intervention effects on the spontaneous and responsive verbal communication skills of children. Communication skills were assessed within a standardized test of responsive communication during the pretest and posttest as well as using training-specific measures of social verbalization during early, mid, and late training sessions. The rhythm and comparison groups improved on the standardized test in the posttest compared to the pretest. The rhythm and robot groups increased levels of social verbalization across training sessions. Movement-based and stationary contexts afford different types and amounts of communication in children with ASD. Overall, movement-based interventions are a promising tool to enhance verbal and non-verbal communication skills in children with ASD.

МОВНА ОСОБИСТІСТЬ У МАС-МЕДІЙНОМУ ДИСКУРСІ: ВЕРБАЛЬНО-СЕМАНТИЧНИЙ РІВЕНЬ

МОВНА ОСОБИСТІСТЬ У МАС-МЕДІЙНОМУ ДИСКУРСІ: ВЕРБАЛЬНО-СЕМАНТИЧНИЙ РІВЕНЬ

Nearing world-class: Singapore’s two universities in QSWUR 2015/16

ABSTRACTMany universities strive to become world-class and two of Singapore’s universities are almost there, being ranked 12th and 13th in the QSWUR 2015/16. This study looked into the details of indicator rankings and found that the two universities are comparable to those in the top 10 universities in the same ranking in practically all indicators with the exception of Citations. Further analysis of the data of the 58 highest ranking universities with complete data revealed discrepancies in the assigned and attained indicator weights. Moreover, the Academic and Citations categories were not able to be used in stepwise regression calculations. These indicate that the computed Overall result is not what the ranker intended it to be and needs re-interpretation. If rankings are not anchored in statistical ground, discussions on rankings are at the abstract and verbal level, similar to discourses on alchemy (faith) vis-a-vis chemistry (facts).

Шекспир в отечественном кинематографе и на телевидении: национальное и глобальное

The paper covers a special role of Shakespeare as a constant of Russian culture on national screen and television. The author examines a number of phenomena of contemporary Russian screen culture that somehow adapt and/or reference W. Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and “Othello” in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The author analyzes black comedy “Playing the Victim” (dir. K.S. Serebrennikov) with some obvious and cryptic allusions to “Hamlet”, a modern adaptation of the great Shakespearean tragedy “Hamlet 21st Century” (dir. Yu.V. Kara), two episodes of children’s comedy TV show “Yeralash” which allude to “Othello”, episode 10 “Hamlet, Prince of Dacha” in comedy TV series “33 Square Meters” as well as an example of modern political satire — an episode of Russian TV show “Puppets” that depicts Boris Yeltsin in the ‘situation’ of Hamlet. The author considers some cultural tendencies and the correlation between the national and global in the context of the reception of Shakespeare and his works on contemporary Russian film and television. In his opinion, the national is represented more and more often only on the verbal level, and the global is reflected usually on the visual level. The examples presented give yet more proof that Shakespeare’s legacy is still a ‘mirror’ of Russian culture where we can see both problems it faces during unstable periods of changes and its specific traditions.

Communication breakdown: a cobertura do show de Robert Plant no festival Lollapalooza à luz do fait divers

Based on two articles published at the websites Portal Terra and G1, we propose a structural language study of the analytical corpus of the British singer Robert Plant’s concert with his “Sensational Space Shifters” band that happened at Lollapalooza Festival, Sao Paulo on March 2015. Therefore, we adopt as theoretical approach the Roland Barthes (1971) assumptions of semiotics, set in the production of meaning in the verbal level through the type of information. The research is also based on the notions of fait divers’ concept and will be conducted by the structuralist method.

Polyptoton in In Memoriam : Evolution, Speculation, Elegy

Alfred Tennyson’s In Memoriam (1850) uses polyptoton—the repetition of a word in different forms or grammatical cases—with extraordinary frequency and to extraordinary effect. The trope powerfully reinforces two of the poem’s central motifs. First, polyptoton embodies, at a verbal level, the constant evolutionary change that proves so crucial to the imagery and ideology of the poem. Second, polyptoton reflects the poem’s speculation, its tendency to offer varying ideas about a single theme. The trope carries important resonances not only for Tennyson’s poem but also for the genre of elegy, which depends on the ability and willingness to imagine alternatives.

Narrative Didacticism in Amelia Opie’s Adeline Mowbray

Alfred Tennyson’s In Memoriam (1850) uses polyptoton—the repetition of a word in different forms or grammatical cases—with extraordinary frequency and to extraordinary effect. The trope powerfully reinforces two of the poem’s central motifs. First, polyptoton embodies, at a verbal level, the constant evolutionary change that proves so crucial to the imagery and ideology of the poem. Second, polyptoton reflects the poem’s speculation, its tendency to offer varying ideas about a single theme. The trope carries important resonances not only for Tennyson’s poem but also for the genre of elegy, which depends on the ability and willingness to imagine alternatives.

Bridging Languages in Agriculture and Forestry Translation Studies Academic Courses

The growing demand for professional translation in translators’ training in universities requires a safe teaching model needed for a development of a successful professional translation course. Therefore educational institutions must accommodate a number of changes that would enable building student- and teacher-friendly learning environment crucial for an advanced translation academic course. The present paper discusses three domains where these changes are of critical importance: lexicon, thesaurus and pragmatics. The units of verbal level are separate words. For example: balance, birchbark, log. Ideas, concepts and notions are units of the thesaurus level. For example, the term cross-cutting is associated with a number of other notions as felling, assortment, sawcutetc. Pragmatic level requires a wide knowledge of the national and cultural peculiarities of communication. Methodological base of the research is language personality theory, as well as personal teaching and learning experience in translation study of texts in Agriculture and Forestry. The authors examine each of these domains and offer a range of recommendations for institutions developing a model of building professional competence in a foreign language, English in particular. Differences in learners’ languages and home cultures are taken into account and ways to respond to them in terms of teaching techniques are produced.

The Development of the Logical Operators in Students with Intellectual Disability

This particular research aims to develop micro-operations of thinking, called logical operators to students with intellectual disabilities through a program specifically designed to drive them in special education. Training program consisted of logical operators in learning activities at the acting, iconic and verbal level, based on formative side extension curriculum and finding the most appropriate training problems and exercises a certain micro-operations of thinking. Cognitive development programs have tried to expand the “zone of proximal development” of the child, in other words, to overcome the current level of development, trying to reach his full potential cognitively.