Word Utterances Research Articles

Hashtag Black Lives Matter’s Tweets as Education Media Messages

TThe objectives of this study are to discover the various types of and the most frequently presuppositions used in the hashtag black lives matter's tweets as the education media messages on Twitter anchoring in Yule's theory of presupposition. This research employs a descriptive qualitative approach to elucidate and comprehend the meaning of utterance words in individuals or groups associated with a social or human problem. The analysis of the data used both qualitative and quantitative methods. The researcher discovered that existential presuppositions are the most frequently used type of presupposition in hashtag black lives matter's tweets, accounting for 41%. The factive presupposition is the second most frequently used type, accounting for 26 %. The lexical presupposition is the third most frequently used type of presupposition, accounting for 24%. The fourth position is occupied by the structural presupposition, which contains 11 data points out of 100 (8%), and the final position is occupied by the counterfactual presupposition, which contains one data 0,75%. This hashtag teaches law enforcement officers to investigate legal cases before imposing punishment.

Mexican Emotional Speech Database Based on Semantic, Frequency, Familiarity, Concreteness, and Cultural Shaping of Affective Prosody

In this paper, the Mexican Emotional Speech Database (MESD) that contains single-word emotional utterances for anger, disgust, fear, happiness, neutral and sadness with adult (male and female) and child voices is described. To validate the emotional prosody of the uttered words, a cubic Support Vector Machines classifier was trained on the basis of prosodic, spectral and voice quality features for each case study: (1) male adult, (2) female adult and (3) child. In addition, cultural, semantic, and linguistic shaping of emotional expression was assessed by statistical analysis. This study was registered at BioMed Central and is part of the implementation of a published study protocol. Mean emotional classification accuracies yielded 93.3%, 89.4% and 83.3% for male, female and child utterances respectively. Statistical analysis emphasized the shaping of emotional prosodies by semantic and linguistic features. A cultural variation in emotional expression was highlighted by comparing the MESD with the INTERFACE for Castilian Spanish database. The MESD provides reliable content for linguistic emotional prosody shaped by the Mexican cultural environment. In order to facilitate further investigations, a corpus controlled for linguistic features and emotional semantics, as well as one containing words repeated across voices and emotions are provided. The MESD is made freely available.

Estrada, Jorge. Experiencing Ethics with Sterne and Musil: A Relentless Character Construction.

Estrada, Jorge. <i>Experiencing Ethics with Sterne and Musil: A Relentless Character Construction</i>.

Swear Words in French : Analysis of Social Class and Gender

Swear words utterances in French are used as a mean to express emotion that have various functions, both personal or social. The swear words represent social group and gender. This research uses descriptive-interpretative method which data taken from two French novels with different social class background. The research results show that in upper social group, the swear words deliver indirectly, meanwhile in lower social group, the swear words express directly to the party that being cursed. Both social groups use professions as verbal abuse, however the upper social group also uses ethnicity as swear words. Through the swear words, the upper class group preserve their social status from generation to generation. From the gender perspective, men and women both use swear words refer to genitals. Men have more variation of swear words usage.

Spoken and Inner Speech-related EEG Connectivity in Different Spatial Direction

Although a significant number of studies have been devoted to the investigation of the electrographic correlates and neurophysiological mechanisms of spoken and inner (imagined) speech, there is a question on which EEG characteristics reflect its content. Considering that speech is a complex cognitive process which requires coordinated activity of a number of cortical structures of the large hemispheres, the EEG coherence values were studied. The values were recorded from 14 channels of 10 young men in the process of real verbalization (spoken speech) and during pronunciation of imagined words designating directions in space (up, down, right, left, forward, backward). It was shown that the level of EEG coherence is generally higher for real verbalization, most significantly at gamma-2-rhythm frequencies (55–70 Hz). Spatial coherence patterns specific to a number of words are formed in the left cerebral hemisphere during imagined utterance of words at gamma-2 frequencies. The application of machine learning and neural network classification has demonstrated a significant similarity of the generated spatial coherent patterns of spoken and inner (imagined) speech. The Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP) neural network classification method has shown the accuracy of word detection in the imagined speech according to brain activity patterns up to 49–61% for 3 classes and 33–40% for 7 classes, with a random recognition rate of 33,3 and 14,2% respectively. The latter indicates a promising application of coherence values and imagined speech denoting directions in space for the development of Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

THE ANALYSIS OF DEIXIS IN STUDENTS’ TALK IN LEARNING ENGLISH SPEAKING

This research reports the types and the dominant types of deixis found in students’ talk in learning English speaking. The design of this study used a descriptive qualitative. The present study was carried out at one of Senior High School of the tenth grade, as participants, in Sodonghilir. The data were collected from the classroom observation. The result indicated that the total of deixis used in English speaking was 201 data types of deixis from 114 data in utterances. The most type of deixis obtained was person deixis with 183 words in data utterances, the second type was temporal deixis with 11 words in utterances and the least types of deixis was spatial deixis with 7 words in utterances. While the most frequent used of person deixis types during classroom activities were the word "I" and "my". In conclusion, person deixis purposed by Yule (1996) was mostly found and it was the dominant one in students’talks. Thus, it is expected to the next writers who are interested in deixis pragmatics and students’ talk to carry out another research in online class. Keywords: pragmatic, deixis, students' talk, speaking, yule’s theory

Multilingual speech annotation of landmarks and other acoustic cues to distinctive features

A speech annotation system developed for English that identifies landmarks and other acoustic cues to distinctive features (Stevens, 2002; Huilgol et al., 2019) has been extended to Spanish and Korean. This process includes retrieving the (allo)phone sequence for the words of a target utterance from a standard lexicon, converting this sequence into an underlying phoneme sequence, and then generating citation-form landmark and other acoustic cue sequences from the phoneme sequence and its features. This standard set is presented to labelers who examine the waveform of the target utterance and mark which of the predicted cues have been realized, or deleted, and where unpredicted cues have been inserted. For each language, we draw from a superset of acoustic cues that function in all three languages, but each language also makes use of an additional set of acoustic cues specific to that language.

Discourse Phases, Schemas, Speech Acts &amp; Implicature of Bribery in English and Arabic

Verbal offences are language crimes that are committed by uttering utterances of certain words or expressions. One of those offences is bribery. Bribery has extensively been studied and compared in different legal systems and legislations, yet, the linguistic aspects of this crime has not been given due interest. The present study attempts to bridge this gap by studying this offence from a pragmatic perspective in terms of discourse phases, schemas, speech acts and implicature in English and Arabic. This study tries to achieve the following aims: Shedding light on the similarities and differences in bribery between English and Arabic in terms of discourse phases, schemas, speech acts and implicature and showing in which community bribery is more common than the other: English or Iraqi-Arabic. The data of this study consisting of 10 complaints in English and Arabic were collected from Courts of Appeal in Iraq, Britain and the United States. They are analyzed in terms of an eclectic model constructed from Shuy (2013), Searle (1975) and Grice (1967). The results indicate that the bribery cases have the same phases and schemas in both languages. The locutionary acts, in both English and Arabic bribery, are expressed by verbs. But in terms of illocutionary acts, bribery is different between English and Arabic. As far as implicature is concerned, bribery is expressed by different linguistic structures in English and Arabic.

The Pragmatics of Blackmail in English and Iraqi-Arabic

Verbal offences are language crimes that are committed by mere utterances of certain words or expressions whether they are accompanied by physical acts or not. One of those crimes is blackmail. This crime has been studied and compared legally but its linguistic aspect has not been given much attention. This study tries to emphasize this crime pragmatically and contrastively in English and Arabic. No study has shed light on such aspects concerning the study under investigation. The researcher has not found any previous related study to get a benefit from about this topic. There is an attempt to achieve the following aim which is shedding light on the similarities and differences in strategies of blackmail between English and Arabic in terms of speech act, implicature and impoliteness theories. The present study hypothesizes the following: English and Arabic are different from each other in expressing blackmail in terms of speech act theory, implicature and impoliteness. To support or refute the hypothesis of the study, data consisting of 20 complaints in English and Arabic were collected from Courts of Appeal in Iraq, Britain and the United States. They are analyzed in terms of an eclectic model. The results arrived at are: English and Arabic are different in blackmail in terms of the locutionary acts and illocutionary acts. Concerning impoliteness, the same strategies are applied to the verbal offence in both languages. As far as implicature is concerned, the two languages are different in blackmail.

Tamed Mobilization. Marian Messages, Pilgrim Masses and Papal Moderateness in Fatima since Paul VI

Marian apparitions attract modern masses since the 19th century. The radical message of the apparition asking for penitence and the return of public and politics to God resonated well within major parts of Catholicism. While popes kept promoting Marian pilgrimages in order to secure their public and political standing throughout the 20th and 21st century, they tried to control the masses and to attenuate the messages. Particularly since the Second Vatican Council, the popes tamed mobilization. Instead of stirring up the masses, popes kept modest at Marian apparitions sites. A quantitative analysis of the papal documents issued during papal journeys to Fatima, the most political apparition of the 20th century, shows that a modest religious discourse about God and world had been presented instead of promoting the critical messages of the apparition. Following the methodological ideal of parsimony, the analysis concentrates on the most uttered words during the journeys and compares the four pontificates since Paul VI. Instead of stressing the radical message of Fatima, which is introduced in the discussion of the findings, the pontificates share a modest Catholic discourse.

Analysis of Voice Cues in Recognition of Sarcasm

Background: The voice recognition system is about cognizing the signals, by feature extraction and identification of related parameters. The entire process is referred to as voice analytics. Objective: The paper aims at analyzing and synthesizing the phonetics of voice. The work focuses on the facts of voice analytics i.e. basic blocks of ‘Glottal signature’. The glottal signature and unique voice cues are evaluated to derive the relationship for utterance of emotional words which leads to sentimental expression cues. An effort is made to map further to understand sarcasm behavior in the sounds made by human speech. Methods: The basic blocks of unique features identified in the work are Intensity, Pitch, Formants related to speak, read, interactive and declarative sentences solely on voice cues not on linguistic theory. It is also tested to identify derived features that maps to fine-grained details of voice cues to drill up usage in sarcasm detection. Results: Different unique features identified in the work are, intensity, pitch, formants related to read, speak, interactive and declarative sentences and derived parameters. Conclusion: The work carried out in the paper also supports the analysis of voice segmentation labelling, analyzes the unique features of voice cues, understanding physics of voice, the process is further carried out to recognize sarcasm.

Prosody facilitates learning the word order in a new language

One of the prominent ideas developed by Jacques Mehler and his colleagues was that perceptual tuning, present from birth on, enables infants, and language learners in general, to extract regularities from speech input. Here we discuss language learners’' ability to extract basic word order (VO or OV) structure from prosodic regularities in a language. The two are closely related: in phonological phrases of VO languages, the most prominent word is the rightmost one, and in OV languages, it is the leftmost one. In speech, this prominence is realized as extended duration, or as elevated pitch, sometimes combined with changes in intensity. When learning the first (L1) or the second language (L2), exposure to relevant rhythmic structure elicits implicit learning about syntactic structure, including the basic word order. However, it remains unclear whether triggering the learning process requires a certain level of familiarity with the relevant rhythm. It is moreover unknown whether prosodic information can help L2 learners to extract and learn the vocabulary of a new language. We tested Spanish- and Italian-speaking adults' ability to learn words from an artificial language with either non-native OV or native VO word order. The results show that learners used prosodic information to identify the most prominent words in short utterances when the artificial language was similar to the native language, with duration-based prominence in prosody and a VO word order. In contrast, when the artificial language had a non-native prominence marked by pitch alternations and an OV word order, prominent words were learned only after a three-day exposure to the relevant rhythmic structure. Thus, for adult L2 learners, only repeated exposure to the relevant prosody elicited learning new words from an unknown language with non-native prosodic marking, indicating that, with familiarity, prosodic cues can facilitate learning in L2.

The Speech Acts in Nali and Salim’s Two Poems

This study is under the title of “The Speech Acts in Nali and Salim’s Two Poems”. It is an attempt to analyze these two poems in a pragmatic point of view, particularly in terms of speech acts. The significance of speech acts is not to recognize linguistic meaning of words in sentences and utterances, but it is according to the sender’s purpose in the context that they occur. Thus, the language of poetry as a way of using language, especially classical poetry, is not an ordinary language. Consequently, the paper hypothesizes that the speech acts have to be embodied in the poems accurately because there is supposed to be a hidden and invisible meaning in every verse behind its expression and form. The scope of the study is to examine the two poems, and it is benefited from their investigation that has been done in their anthology. In addition, whenever needed, the speech acts are identified in short because much has been mentioned about them in the scientific research institutions.

Study on Phonologycal Process: A Case on Indonesian EFL Students' Pronunciations

The present article seeks to discuss the phonological process concerning the alterations in English sounds produced by Indonesian EFL students. This study drew on generative phonology and utilized Schane’s (1973) categories of the phonological process to highlight the changes in English sounds. This study applied a qualitative method with a descriptive research design. All data of this study were gathered through digitally recording eight EFL students’ oral presentations in the research proposal seminars. According to the results of this study, the transformations in the English sounds arose in both the consonant and vowel sounds of the English, where these changes attributed to the four categories of phonological process, including assimilation, dissimilation, deletion, and insertion. The present study also found the occurrences of a double and triple different phonological process in single word utterance produced by participants of this study. This study signified that such changes in English sounds occurred owing to the mother tongue influence. The results of this study offer a significant contribution to the insights into both linguistics and EFL instruction.

A Study on Phonological Process: A Case on Indonesian EFL Students’ Pronunciations

The present article seeks to discuss the phonological process concerning the alterations in English sounds produced by Indonesian EFL students. This study drew on generative phonology and utilized Schane’s (1973) categories of the phonological process to highlight the changes in English sounds. This study applied a qualitative method with a descriptive research design. All data of this study were gathered through digitally recording eight EFL students’ oral presentations in the research proposal seminars. According to the results of this study, the transformations in the English sounds arose in both the consonant and vowel sounds of the English, where these changes attributed to the four categories of phonological process, including assimilation, dissimilation, deletion, and insertion. The present study also found the occurrences of a double and triple different phonological process in single word utterance produced by participants of this study. This study signified that such changes in English sounds occurred owing to the mother tongue influence. The results of this study offer a significant contribution to the insights into both linguistics and EFL instruction.

Evaluating the Effect of Listeners' Response on Speakers' Later Recollection and Impression of the Story

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to investigate a listener's role in a speaker's later recollection and impression of the story through a story‐retelling method. Two experiments were conducted, and listener responses were manipulated in each experiment in different ways. Experiment 1 examined the effect of a listener's attitude toward story retelling, and Experiment 2 studied the effect of a listener's subtle nonverbal reaction to a specific part of the story's retelling on a speaker's later recollection and impression of that story. Results showed that the listener's verbal empathetic attitude encouraged more word utterances from the speaker, changed the narrative content more positively, and reinforced the speaker's recollection, especially with positive ideas. It also amplified the speaker's emotions more than the non‐empathetic attitude (Experiment 1). However, the listener's nonverbal reaction to the specific part of the speaker's story did not appear to have a direct effect upon later recollection nor on the impression of the story (Experiment 2).

Filling the Gap of Utterance-aware and Speaker-aware Representation for Multi-turn Dialogue

A multi-turn dialogue is composed of multiple utterances from two or more different speaker roles. Thus utterance- and speaker-aware clues are supposed to be well captured in models. However, in the existing retrieval-based multi-turn dialogue modeling, the pre-trained language models (PrLMs) as encoder represent the dialogues coarsely by taking the pairwise dialogue history and candidate response as a whole, the hierarchical information on either utterance interrelation or speaker roles coupled in such representations is not well addressed. In this work, we propose a novel model to fill such a gap by modeling the effective utterance-aware and speaker-aware representations entailed in a dialogue history. In detail, we decouple the contextualized word representations by masking mechanisms in Transformer-based PrLM, making each word only focus on the words in current utterance, other utterances, two speaker roles (i.e., utterances of sender and utterances of receiver), respectively. Experimental results show that our method boosts the strong ELECTRA baseline substantially in four public benchmark datasets, and achieves various new state-of-the-art performance over previous methods. A series of ablation studies are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.

A Longitudinal Study of Spanish Language Growth and Loss in Young Spanish-English Bilingual Children

This longitudinal study examined trajectories of Spanish language growth and loss in 34 Spanish-English bilingual children attending an English immersion school. Narrative retell language samples were collected in Spanish across 3 years using wordless, picture storybooks. Digital audio recordings were transcribed, coded, and analyzed for mean length of utterance in words, proportion of grammatical utterances, and moving-average type-token ratio. Code switching into English was also coded at the word level to determine its potential impact on moving-average type-token ratio. Growth curve models were used to estimate the change over time for each outcome measure. The findings indicated that the Spanish-English bilingual participants who attended an English immersion school demonstrated loss of Spanish grammatical and lexical production (as defined by encompassing maintenance and or significant deceleration) from preschool through kindergarten, and that the degree of loss in lexical production was impacted by whether code switching was included or excluded. The findings are discussed in the context of clinical decision-making when assessing the Spanish expressive language abilities of this specific population.

Elsa Speak App: Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) for Supplementing English Pronunciation Skills

Nowadays, artificial intelligence (AI) became a special concern in language teaching for the reason that it can assist and enhance language learning for all levels of education. Again, it had beneficial roles for supplementing language teaching like ELSA Speak App one of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) used for teaching pronunciation. It studied how students heard, voiced, uttered, vocalized, and asserted the English words in the oral language, but the students often pronounced incorrect words with the result that the uttered words had faulty meaning. This study aimed to carry out English Language Speech Assistant (ELSA) Speak App to improve English language pronunciation skills to higher education learners that were the English Department Students of Nahdlatul Ulama University of Yogyakarta (UNU). The data were collected using a test of pronunciation and interview. The researcher also taught in the classroom. The results showed that ELSA Speak can increase the students’ pronunciation skills. It can be seen from the average scores obtained from the teaching cycles from two to four in grade. Clearly, ELSA Speak helped the students pronounce diverse words more easily and comprehensively. Also, the available features offered by this app like instant feedback enabled the students to pronounce precisely. In conclusion, ELSA Speak can improve the students’ pronunciation skills well and effectively. Indeed, it can motivate the students to engage in learning to pronounce.

A comparison of formal and informal methods for assessing language and cognition in children with Rett syndrome

BackgroundOpinions about the cognitive and receptive language skills of people with Rett syndrome (RTT) range from severe intellectual impairment to near-normal development. Assessment is challenging because most are non-verbal, with no purposeful hand use. Clarkson et al. (2017) adapted the Mullen Scales of Early Learning for use with eye gaze technology (MSEL-A/ET) for people with RTT. AimsTo investigate and compare the performance of children with RTT on formal and newly-designed informal assessments of language and cognition using eye gaze/tracking technology. Methods and proceduresTen children with RTT aged 4:0–6:8 were assessed on the MSEL-A/ET for Visual Reception (VR) and Receptive Language (RL), and standard MSEL for Expressive Language (EL). Informal assessments of the same skills were embedded in activities such as reading and cake-decorating. Outcomes and resultsStandard scores on MSEL-A/ET VR and RL subtests ranged from ‘very low’ to ‘above average’. All children scored ‘very low’ on standard EL assessment. Informal assessments added information about EL, with children producing 1–3 word utterances and a range of communicative functions through an eye gaze device. Conclusions and implicationsCombining low-tech augmentative and alternative communication, eye gaze technology, informal activities and formal assessment, yields greater insight into children’s abilities. This is important in informing suitable support and education for the individual.