Weak Language Research Articles

مكانة اللغة العربية: تحديات التراجع وآفاق الارتقاء من منظور سياسي

This study addresses the issue of the declining status of the Arabic language from a political perspective, focusing on the role of political factors in this regression. These factors are examined on two levels: externally, the analysis explores the impact of foreign influence policies and the resulting cultural infiltration in the Arab world; internally, it investigates the political frameworks of Arab regimes that often lack serious political will for cultural and linguistic revitalization, alongside the fragility of the Arab regional system and the shortcomings of educational policies that have contributed to weak language usage. The study concludes that the decline in the status of the Arabic language is attributable to both internal and external political factors. Chief among these are the absence of genuine political will for cultural and linguistic advancement, the lack of cohesion and strength within the Arab regional system, the prevalence of unilateral agreements over integrative diplomacy in Arab relations, and the inadequacy of legislation and laws necessary to regulate language usage effectively.

Linguistic Harmonization: Dissecting Alfiyah Ibn Malik with Chomsky's Transformational Generative Theory

This study is motivated by the need to update and deepen the understanding of Alfiyah Ibnu Malik through a modern linguistic perspective, given the complexity of the 1,002 stanzas that are difficult for students with a weak language foundation to comprehend, and the existing gap in the literature regarding the application of Transformational Generative Theory (TGT) in Arabic grammar, which can help elucidate language structure and enhance understanding and interest in learning. This research aims to examine Alfiyah Ibnu Malik using the modern linguistic approach of Transformational Generative Theory (TGT). The research method applied is library research with a descriptive qualitative approach. The findings indicate that Transformational Generative Theory has specific characteristics in linguistic studies, including deep and surface structures, the concepts of competence and performance, as well as specific and general transformations. Additionally, TGT includes a universal grammar that can be applied to Alfiyah Ibnu Malik. The application of TGT to Alfiyah Ibnu Malik reveals that specific transformations occur in various aspects of Arabic grammar, including optional and obligatory deletion, optional substitution, optional replacement, optional expansion, optional addition, and optional and obligatory permutation.

Perceptions of Digital Academic Dishonesty in English Writing at Applied Colleges

Since the last decade, English instructors have often found digital academic English writing dishonesty (Tayan, 2017) among Saudi EFL graduating students due to the serious issues of adapting the online ghostwrites and tools, fabricating the English writing practices (Al-Khairy, 2013), plagiarism (Madkhali, 2017; Jenkins, 2018), neglecting proper citation and referencing, a lack of critical thinking and analysis, limited vocabulary and weak language proficiency (Fareed et al., 2016, Alsowat, 2017), and inadequate grammar and syntax, all of which affect their English writing skills ethically. However, such serious issues and digital factors devalue the hard work of honest students and negatively impact the integrity of the educational system. Therefore, this research attempt investigated critically the perceptions of digital academic dishonesty by Saudi EFL students in English writing at the Applied Colleges of King Khalid University. The objective of this study was to examine the awareness and understanding of digital academic dishonesty among diploma students enrolled in applied colleges. A descriptive quantitative analysis of 134 students' questionnaires was conducted, and data was gathered regarding their perceptions of academic dishonesty and such mediums by which students take part in academically dishonest activities. Also, the study explored the prevalent types of digital academic dishonesty that Saudi students engage in and the causes behind such behaviors. The investigation identified such common types of digital academic dishonesty as plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, utilizing essay mills, and falsification of sources, among others. By investigating the motivations behind such behaviors, the study, therefore, aimed to shed light on suggestions to reduce digital academic dishonesty in the context of English writing assignments.

Zero‐shot insect detection via weak language supervision

AbstractCheap and ubiquitous sensing has made collecting large agricultural datasets relatively straightforward. These large datasets (for instance, citizen science data curation platforms like iNaturalist) can pave the way for developing powerful artificial intelligence (AI) models for detection and counting. However, traditional supervised learning methods require labeled data, and manual annotation of these raw datasets with useful labels (such as bounding boxes or segmentation masks) can be extremely laborious, expensive, and error‐prone. In this paper, we demonstrate the power of zero‐shot computer vision methods—a new family of approaches that require (almost) no manual supervision—for plant phenomics applications. Focusing on insect detection as the primary use case, we show that our models enable highly accurate detection of insects in a variety of challenging imaging environments. Our technical contributions are two‐fold: (a) We curate the Insecta rank class of iNaturalist to form a new benchmark dataset of approximately 6 million images consisting of 2526 agriculturally and ecologically important species, including pests and beneficial insects. (b) Using a vision‐language object detection method coupled with weak language supervision, we are able to automatically annotate images in this dataset with bounding box information localizing the insect within each image. Our method succeeds in detecting diverse insect species present in a wide variety of backgrounds, producing high‐quality bounding boxes in a zero‐shot manner with no additional training cost. This open dataset can serve as a use‐inspired benchmark for the AI community. We demonstrate that our method can also be used for other applications in plant phenomics, such as fruit detection in images of strawberry and apple trees. Overall, our framework highlights the promise of zero‐shot approaches to make high‐throughput plant phenotyping more affordable.

Do bilingual adults gesture when they are disfluent?: Understanding gesture-speech interaction across first and second languages

ABSTRACT People are more disfluent in their second language (L2) than their first language (L1). Gesturing facilitates cognitive processes, including speech production. This study investigates speech disfluency and representational gesture production across Turkish-English bilinguals’ L1 (Turkish) and L2 (English) through a narrative retelling task (N = 27). Results showed that people were more disfluent and used more representational gestures in English. Controlling for L2 proficiency, people were still more disfluent in English. The more people were proficient in L2, the more they used gestures in that language. Similarly, disfluency-gesture co-occurrences were more common in English. L2 proficiency was positively correlated with the likelihood of a disfluency being accompanied by a gesture. These findings suggest that gestures may not necessarily compensate for weak language skills. Rather, people might gesture during disfluent moments if they can detect their errors, suggesting a close link between representational gestures and language competency in benefiting from gestures when disfluent.

Observing Schrödinger’s cat with artificial intelligence: emergent classicality from information bottleneck

We train a generative language model on the randomized local measurement data collected from Schrödinger’s cat quantum state. We demonstrate that the classical reality emerges in the language model due to the information bottleneck: although our training data contains the full quantum information about Schrödinger’s cat, a weak language model can only learn to capture the classical reality of the cat from the data. We identify the quantum–classical boundary in terms of both the size of the quantum system and the information processing power of the classical intelligent agent, which indicates that a stronger agent can realize more quantum nature in the environmental noise surrounding the quantum system. Our approach opens up a new avenue for using the big data generated on noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices to train generative models for representation learning of quantum operators, which might be a step toward our ultimate goal of creating an artificial intelligence quantum physicist.

Language profiles in Noonan Syndrome – A multiple case study

ABSTRACT Noonan Syndrome (NS) is a genetic disorder associated with a diverse range of symptoms. This study aims to provide a comprehensive description of the linguistic profiles of children and adolescents with NS, focusing on vocabulary, grammar skills, phonological memory skills, working memory skills, and visuospatial skills. Sixteen participants aged 6–16 took part in the study. The findings reveal substantial variation in the affected linguistic areas, with some participants demonstrated normal findings, while inconsistent and overall weak language skills were observed in a large subgroup of participants.

“My Goal Is to Talk Like a Native”: Emergent Bilingual Students’ Use of Language Learning Strategies

This paper investigates emergent bilingual students’ (Finnish and Swedish) use of language learning strategies (LLS). The focus is on the frequency of LLS use, the difference between Swedish and Finnish speaking students’ use of LLS and the effect on use of LLS to improve the students’ weaker language. The data consisted of students’ self-reports concerning the use of LLS and their proficiency in their L2 on a seven-point Likert scale online survey. The survey also included an opportunity to comment on the answers. The data were gathered in 2019/2020. The instrument was influenced by the SILL (Strategy Inventory for Language Learning) (Oxford 1990) but adapted to the current research context on the basis of the researchers’ expertise and previous interviews with students. The measured and analysed LLS were metacognitive, social, cognitive and compensation strategies. The response rate was approximately 30% (N=184). The results indicated clear differences between Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking students regarding the use of different types of LLS. Finnish speaking students made significantly more use of metacognitive strategies while Swedish-speaking students made significantly more use of compensation strategies. Regarding the students’ use of social strategies, it was obvious that some Finnish-speaking students associate the use of Swedish in real-life communication situations with stress and anxiety. Moreover, the students’ use of LLS significantly predicts their progress in the weaker language. We suggest that the students should be offered language strategy instruction for them to understand and more effectively apply language learning strategies, to improve their weaker language at all levels.

Syntactic and Pragmatic Functions of Chinese-English Bilingual Children’s Code-Switching

Based on the bilingual children’s and adults’ code-switching (CS) dependency treebanks, this paper investigates the syntactic features and pragmatic functions of the Chinese-English bilingual children’s CS and compares them with bilingual adults’. It is mainly found that (1) As to the bilingual children, the mixed sentences present the longest mean sentence length (MSL), followed by those of the dominant language and the weak language. Similarly, Chinese-English adults’ mixed sentences present longer MSL than monolingual Chinese and English; (2) Subjects, objects, adverbials, and attributives are four major syntactic functions. Regarding bilingual children’s CS, objects are the most frequently switched dependency relations and subjects are the least. Differently, as to bilingual adults, attributives are most frequently switched, and subjects are the least. (3) Nouns, pronouns, determiners, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions are the top word classes involved in four major syntactic relations; (4) The adverbial dependency relations present the longest mean dependency distance (MDD), and the attributives present the shortest for both bilingual children and adults; (5) The major causes that make different MDDs are the CS peripherality, the distributions of top word classes and adjacent dependency relations; (6) Six major pragmatic functions are performed by bilingual children and adults: filling lexical gaps, emphasis or expressing the intense feelings, explaining, giving “orders” or requirements, quotation, reiteration. The results syntactically and pragmatically suggest that there exist great similarities between bilingual children’s and adults’ code-switching.

Nutrition environments in early childhood education: do they align with best practice?

To assess the comprehensiveness (scope of nutrition guidance) and strength (clarity of written language) of centre-based nutrition policies (CBNP) within early childhood education (ECE) centres. To also consider the applicability of an existing CBNP assessment tool and policy alignment with best practice food provision and feeding practices. Cross-sectional online study to assess written ECE CNBP using the Wellness Child Care Assessment Tool. Licenced ECE centres in the state of Victoria, Australia. ECE centres (operating at least 8 h per d, 48 weeks per annum), stratified by location (rural and metropolitan), centre management type (profit and not-for-profit) and socio-economic area (low, middle, high). Included individual CBNP (n 118), predominantly from metropolitan centres (56 %) and low-medium socio-economic areas (78 %). Policies had low overall Wellness Child Care Assessment Tool scores, particularly strength scores which were low across all four domains (i.e. nutrition education, nutrition standards, health promotion and communication/evaluation). The nutrition standards domain had the lowest strength score. The communication/evaluation domain had the lowest comprehensiveness score. Content analysis indicated low scores may relate to the Wellness Child Care Assessment Tool applicability for the Australian context due to differences in best practice guidance. Despite the presence of written nutrition policies in ECE centres, many showed weak language and lacked comprehensiveness and strength. This may relate to poor implementation of best practice food provision or feeding practices. Low scores, however, may partly stem from using an assessment tool that is not country-specific. The redevelopment of country-specific tools to assess ECE CNBP may be warranted.

Lexical and cognitive development of children learning regional languages: Studies from the Netherlands

Regional language speakers are subject to negative social judgments. In this contribution, I provide an overview of research in the Netherlands with children who are regional language learners against the backdrop of this deficit perspective. Findings on the lexical and cognitive development of children from Fryslân, a northern Dutch province, and Limburg, a southern Dutch province, demonstrate that regional language acquisition is neither associated with language delays nor with any cognitive difficulties. Linguistic overlap between Frisian and Limburgish, on the one hand, and Dutch, on the other hand, results in ample opportunities to share linguistic resources, experiences, and knowledge. Especially unbalanced children benefit from this cross-linguistic overlap because they can make use of their stronger language to perform in the weaker language. Cross-linguistic regularities between the regional and national language are helpful and support performance in the regional language. Results on cognitive effects suggest that regional language learners have some selective attention advantages. Although significant, the effects are small, the advantages do not last long, and they require sufficient exposure to and proficiency in the regional language.

Bilingual problem size effect: an ERP study of multiplication verification and production in two languages.

The problem size effect (PSE) is defined by better performance solving small problems (e.g., 2x4) than large problems (e.g., 8x9). For monolinguals, the PSE is larger when problems are presented in unfamiliar formats (e.g., written words), reflecting increased processing difficulty. Bilinguals are typically faster and more accurate at retrieving multiplication facts in the language of learning (LA+) than in their other language (LA-). We hypothesized that the less familiar arithmetic language (i.e., LA-) would elicit larger PSEs than LA+. Here, fluent Spanish-English bilingual adults verified spoken multiplication problems presented in LA+ and LA- while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded (Experiment 1A). To further promote language differences, we increased task difficulty by presenting problems at a faster pace (Experiment 1B) and requiring bilinguals to verbally produce solutions (Experiment 2). Language differences in performance were only observed for Experiment 2, where solutions were produced more slowly in LA- than LA+. In the ERPs, a PSE was driven by larger P300s for small than large solutions. A language effect was only observed under time pressure where LA- elicited a PSE at the 2nd operand. Additionally, the PSE was smaller for LA- at the solution. This suggests that categorizing multiplication facts is more effortful in LA-. In sum, very subtle language differences arise in fluent bilinguals when problems are more difficult, such as larger problems presented under time pressure in a weaker language. Critically, the effect of LA+ is at the level of response production and not access to the facts from memory.

The Acquisition of English Adjective Placement on the Early Acquisition of Bilingual Indonesian Language - English Child

This paper investigates the development of adjective on the early acquisition of bilingual Indonesian language – English child in Indonesian environment. It was longitudinal study to investigate how the child developed his adjective on two languages simultaneously and to know whether the language dominance influences the acquisition of English which become the weak language. It also used descriptive qualitative by writing daily word production of the kid. The hypothesis of this research was Indonesian language would disturb the development of English adjective on participant’s early acquisition. In this context, the participant was exposed with English in very limited time while his friends and environment speak full Indonesian language. The participant was an Indonesian boy who was exposed with Indonesian language and English from birth. His mommy, and sister were bilingual people who speak Indonesian language and English at home. Meanwhile, his daddy was multilingual person who speak Indonesian language – Lampungese language – English. However, his daddy never taught Lampungese language at home. This study was designed for 17 months starting from respondent’s age 1;8 until 3;0. The result shows that the participant developed both languages very well although English adjective form affected the place of Indonesian adjective form in which its exposure was higher than English as foreign language.

Unlocking Logical Fallacies: A Key to Building Critical Thinking Skills in Adolescents

Purpose: The purpose of this clinical focus article is to present an innovative language intervention program for adolescents that attempts to build critical thinking skills by addressing logical fallacies. Method: Fourteen logical fallacies that often occur in spoken and written discourse are defined and discussed. These include the hasty generalization , the false dichotomy , equivocation , circular reasoning , the anecdote , the appeal to hypocrisy , the slippery slope , the appeal to ridicule , the red herring , the bandwagon , the false cause , the omission of evidence , the appeal to authority , and ad hominem . The consequences of passively accepting biased, illogical, and inaccurate statements are highlighted, and ways to address these concerns are explained. Results: Given their expertise in spoken and written language development and disorders, speech-language pathologists, collaborating with classroom teachers, are well suited to teach adolescents with developmental language disorder or weak language skills how to unlock—or deconstruct—logical fallacies to reveal their hidden meaning. All of this can be achieved while addressing students' basic competencies in speaking, listening, reading, and writing—skills that are essential for well-informed and self-reliant thinking. Conclusion: In addition to helping students manage their own lives more successfully and to communicate more effectively, instruction in critical thinking by unlocking logical fallacies may help to increase levels of social justice in our institutions and daily interactions over time.

Strong and weak language styles from a cosmological point of view

This study entitled “Powerful and Powerless Language from a Sociolinguistics Perspective” aims to identify linguistic and non-linguistic criteria of powerful and powerless speech styles and to find methods of a suitable theoretical and practical framework for sociolinguistics research in Kurdish. The importance of the study is that: (a) it explains how to distinguish between strong and weak styles, which are related to both the concepts of “power language” (element, age, social status) and “language of power” (It covers all abilities of an individual in drafting and organizing expressions effectively and attractively), (b) According to the researcher’s knowledge, this method has not been implemented in Kurdish to distinguish between powerful and powerless styles of language. The research consists of two parts. The first part is devoted to introducing the concept of individual power in language, also the source of this power and its impact on persuading recipients is intensively discussed. The second part examines the linguistic strategies that are the main tools of contemporary research, on the one hand, these strategies appear as criteria for distinguishing and identifying strong and weak styles of language (all Kurdish language researchers rely on them). The study has also proved that these strategies alone cannot succeed criteria, unless the dimensions of environment, element, age and social status of speaker and recipient are taken into account.

Differential Object Marking and Diachronic Incrementation in Child Heritage Romanian

In contemporary Romanian, differential object marking is undergoing a change from a system allowing two marking patterns in optional contexts to a system which preserves only one of these patterns. In the present study we verify if child heritage speakers opt for the novel system at a level beyond the one in the input. The data come from 34 narratives by 7- and 10-year-old heritage speakers of Romanian living in France, compared to 34 narratives by monolingual children living in the homeland, 11 adult first generation immigrants from France and 10 Romanian adults from Romania. The findings suggest that language change is not advanced in a heritage language acquisition scenario when the change is found in the weaker language and targets a phenomenon at the syntax-discourse interface.

Global concerns related to water biology and security: The need for language and policies that safeguard living resources versus those that dilute scientific knowledge

Increasingly, scientists and non-scientists, especially employees of government agencies, tend to use weak or equivocal language when making statements related to science policy and governmental regulation. We use recent publications to provide examples of vague language versus examples of strong language when authors write about regulating anthropogenic pressures on natural resources. Lifeless language is common in agency reports, policy documents, and even scientific papers published by academics. Such language limits success in regulating anthropogenic pressures on natural resources. This challenge must be recognized and countered as a driver of the condition of water and associated resources. We also list sources of vague wording, provide global examples of how ambiguous language and political influences have contributed to water resource degradation, discuss the recent history of science censorship, and offer possible solutions for more direct scientific discourse. We found that: (1) equivocal language was especially common in concluding statements and not only by government employees; (2) authors discussed confusing language concerns in an agency publication; and (3) agency employees sometimes used active, strong language. Key drivers of weak language include: (1) holding on to old paradigms and resisting new knowledge; (2) scientific uncertainty; (3) institutional manuscript review policies; (4) employment and funding insecurity; and (5) avoiding the appearance of advocacy. Examples associated with euphemistic language included climate change, flow and physical habitat alteration, dams, agriculture, mining, forestry, and fisheries, as well as resistance towards monitoring, assessing, and reporting ecological conditions. Suggestions for mitigating equivocal language involve employment protections and greater focus on scientific ethics. We conclude that natural resource scientists should resist calls to employ imprecise language. Instead, they should be strong advocates for prescriptive and protective natural resource actions—based on their science—to halt and reverse the systemic degradation of those resources.

The Context of Using Code Switching between Students and Lecturers at Islamic Education Management Study Program: A Sociolinguistic Study

In general, the use of code switching often occurs among the community. But in this case, the context of the use of code switching used by students and lecturers in the Islamic education management study program has characteristics and uniqueness that can attract someone's attention. This study aims to describe the form and context of the use of code switching between students and lecturers in the Islamic education management study program. The method used in this study is a descriptive qualitative research. The data in this study are sentences containing code-switching utterances, while the data source is the utterances of students and lecturers in the Islamic education management study program. The data were obtained from interviews with students and lecturers by voice recording and field note-taking. In addition, the researchers also used the reflective-introspective method. The collected data were then transcribed into a written form of orthographic transcription. The method applied for analyzing the data is equivalent and distributional method. Meanwhile, the methods used for displaying the results of data analysis are informal and formal steps. The results showed that there were 3 forms of code switching in speech between students and lecturers, namely 1) code switching from EL to IL ; 2) code switching from ML to IL; and 3) Code switching from AL to IL. The context of its use is motivated by multilingual factors, speakers, speech partners, topics of conversation, atmosphere of conversation, weak language, lack of vocabulary, just prestigious, and wanting to make it easier for the speech partner to understand the message conveyed.

Bilingual children acquiring Russian and German in Vienna: nonword repetition correlates with stronger but not with weaker language.

Nonword repetition tests (NWRT) can be useful tools together with other assessment procedures for diagnosing a developmental learning disorder in bilingual children. Concerning typically developing children, however, the link between NWRT performance and language development is still unclear. The present study contributes to this discussion by investigating the link between language-dependent NWRT performance, language development, and language exposure. A total of 20 simultaneously bilingual Russian-German children, aged 4-6 years, were tested with "The Russian language proficiency test for multilingual children (SRUK)" and "Patholinguistische Diagnostik bei Sprachentwicklungsstörungen (PDSS)" as well as language-specific nonwords for Russian and German. Most children scored within the mean range in SRUK. In PDSS they scored two standard deviations below the mean range in most of the subtests. NWRT in Russian significantly correlated with the NWRT in German and also positively correlated with both comprehension and production in Russian. In contrast, the German NWRT did not correlate with comprehension or with production in German. Moreover, the correlation between the German NWRT and the comprehension of grammatical structures in Russian was significant, and the correlations between the German NWRT and the two other Russian language development tests just failed to reach significance. High scores in both the Russian and the German NWRT offer evidence that the ability to repeat language-specific nonwords does not differ depending on language exposure. The aim to distinguish between typical and atypical language development based on NWRT can be reached only when NWRT and all possible influencing factors in typically developed children are analyzed.

Immigrant Labour Market Outcomes: New Insights from a Lack of Language Proficiency in Italy

In this paper, we examine how immigrants’ proficiency in the Italian language affects their labour market performance using hitherto unexploited immigration survey published by the Italian Institute of Statistics. With respect to immigrants with good proficiency in the Italian language, our empirical findings suggest that weak language proficiency reduces the probability to be employed by about 25–30 percentage points. Language proficiency in Italian also significantly affects the hourly wages of immigrants. The point estimates suggest an hourly wage gap of more than 30% between immigrants with good proficiency in the Italian language compared to those with weak proficiency, irrespective of gender. Robustness checks confirmed our estimates.