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That a certain class of verb commonly known as 'statives' is undergoing change in terms of the way in which certain verbs of this type are being used in everyday speech is nothing new to the field of linguistics. Much has been written about it, and the author of this paper alone has been preoccupied with the subject for many years now. However, notwithstanding that this change has been fairly widely documented for well over half a century, the present paper has been motivated by the desire to capture the root cause of this change in writing and to establish the linguistic conditions that have enabled it to occur. This is not so much a reductionist venture, negatively conceived, as a quest to determine the primary factors involved in what can seem at times to be a most peculiar phenomenon. The method employed to delimit these causal factors proceeds by a process of elimination, while the provision of evidence adopts the traditional, tried-and-tested method of 'observation and collection'. The stative-specific research papers that examine the current variation constituting the focus of this paper are all from the present century.

The present paper investigates one aspect of questionable research practices relating to Arabic L1 learners of foreign languages, namely the use of statistics. The objective of the paper is to argue that reproducible research requires adopting wise practices in linguistics and that the excessive focus on quantification does not seem to serve this purpose. Statistical significance tests in quantitative research are routinely used in linguistic inquiry as well as language teaching and learning studies with a view to supporting the relevant explanatory insights in linguistics. In this article, I will expose the misuse of statistics by doctoral students in English departments of Morocco working on Arabic L1 learners' data, by highlighting some practices that are at odds with international good practices in academic research in linguistics. I will take stock of the current questionable practices in this regard to dispel some of the misunderstanding about the use of statistics which is now gaining grounds lest this becomes an orthodoxy. I will argue that research on Arabic L1 learners' data should be focused more on exploration and discovery, as well as the validation of epistemological insights than on mere descriptive quantification geared to hypothesis verification. These areas of focus constitute the crux of academic research in linguistics, but they seem to be lost in statistics in doctoral students' theses. Recommendations and solutions are provided for enhancing transparency and improving reproducibility of doctoral research outcomes to advance theory building and the delivery of new research lines in linguistics as well as to avoid the risk of research waste, in line with the requirements of open science.

Apparent parallels between natural language and antibody sequences have led to a surge in deep language models applied to antibody sequences for predicting cognate antigen recognition. However, a linguistic formal definition of antibody language does not exist, and insight into how antibody language models capture antibody-specific binding features remains largely uninterpretable. Here we describe how a linguistic formalization of the antibody language, by characterizing its tokens and grammar, could address current challenges in antibody language model rule mining., (© 2024. Springer Nature America, Inc.)

Currently, self-report measures are the primary assessment tool for anxiety disorders. Since they have some limitations, alternative measurements, such as language-based measures, are worth investigating. This paper explores which language markers signal anxiety in fictitious stories written in response to four Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) cards. Participants (n = 492) from a non-probabilistic convenience sample were asked to write a short story next to each TAT card after completing the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7. We used RoLIWC2015 to conduct the text analysis and applied the LASSO method to identify which language markers predict anxiety. The results showed that the respondents scoring high on anxiety also tend to use more words expressing negative emotions, and fewer words expressing positive emotions. Moreover, their language contained a higher frequency of words that implied semantic differentiation (i.e., but, else) and a lower frequency of words indicating leisure. In conclusion, this paper aims to shed new light on the multimethod assessment of anxiety, mainly focused on specific language signatures as reliable predictors of anxiety symptoms. Further research using more extensive text data is recommended to discover more linguistic markers and improve prediction accuracy.

This research employs critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine a news article titled "KPU Chief Rebuffs Allegations of Bias during VP Debate" from the Jakarta Post, focusing on the transition from print to online media or E-Paper. In this research, the two main methods used to collect data are documentation via the Jakarta Post e-paper news page and content review. This approach provides the advantage of exploring information in depth and comprehensively related to the phenomenon or event that is the focus of the research. Utilizing Teun A. van Dijk's CDA framework, the analysis encompasses macro, superstructure, and micro structures. The macro-structural analysis reveals the social and political context, identifying social groups and emphasizing narrative importance. The critical discourse superstructure analysis delves into linguistic patterns, representations of power, and strategic language use. Finally, the micro-structural analysis explores word choice, grammar, writing style, and sentence structure to understand how language constructs arguments and responds to accusations. Through these lenses, the study provides a comprehensive understanding of how the news shapes and reflects social and political dynamics, contributing valuable insights into media discourse surrounding political events in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing foreign language students with opportunities to engage in meaningful and purposeful communication and culturally authentic interaction with peers and native speakers is critical to successful second language acquisition and the development of intercultural competence . This paper describes research that investigated how selected native speaker mentors supported foreign language university students as they completed authentic collaborative tasks in an online community of learners. Intermediate and advanced level students of Italian at an Australian university collaborated with each other and with their assigned mentors through online resources provided in the course website. Data were collected and analysed through multi-data sources including online interactions, forum posts and individual and focus group interviews with mentors and students. Findings suggest that native speaker mentors actively supported students' learning and provided effective scaffolding across a number of domains. The paper concludes with specific recommendations to guide mentors and language educators in the process of assisting student collaborative learning.

From personalized advertising to economic forecasting, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an increasingly important element of our daily lives. These advancements raise concerns regarding the transhumanist perspective and associated discussions in the context of technology-human interaction, as well as the influence of artificial intelligence (AI) on education and critical pedagogy. In this regard, the purpose of this research paper was to investigate the intersection of AI and critical pedagogy by critically assessing the potential of AI to promote or hamper critical pedagogical practices in the context of transhumanism. The article provides an overview of the concepts of transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and critical pedagogy. In order to seek answers to research questions, qualitative research design was adopted, and GPT-3 was used as a data collection resource. Noteworthy findings include the similarity of the dialogue with the GPT-3 davinci model to a conversation between two human beings, as well as its difficulty in understanding some of the questions presented from a critical pedagogy perspective. GPT-3 draws attention to the importance of the relationship between humans in education and emphasizes that AI applications can be an opportunity to ensure equality in education. The research provides suggestions indicating the relationship between AI applications and critical pedagogy.

From a linguistic perspective it seems intuitive that a strong link would exist between the study of linguistics and critical thinking (CT). After all, linguistics is about making sense of language analysis, which contributes to the enhancement of CT while CT, in reciprocation, enables meaningful analysis. Yet this link has virtually never been clearly defined or made explicit either in studies on linguistics teaching and learning or in those on CT development. This paper explores the relationship between linguistics study and CT in the Vietnamese context from the perspectives of undergraduate English Linguistics students and their lecturers, with a view to improving both students' linguistics study and their CT. Drawing on data collected in questionnaires and interviews at a public university in Vietnam, the findings of the study reveal a variety of aspects of linguistics tasks and classroom activities where the link is significant as well as a range of specific CT skills and dispositions that are related to linguistics teaching and learning. In general, the students and the lecturers showed a positive attitude towards the integration of CT into linguistics teaching and learning, but challenges and barriers to this integration were identified. The study suggests the use of problem-solving tasks and open-ended questions for fostering the reciprocal relationship between linguistics study and CT.

Language development is both remarkable and unremarkable. It is remarkable because children learn the language(s) around them, signed or spoken, without explicit instruction or correction. It is unremarkable because children have done this for thousands of years without worldwide incident or catastrophe. Yet, much research on this organic developmental phenomenon relies on an empirical falsehood: "quality" linguistic input is necessary to facilitate language development. "Quality" is a value judgment, not a structural feature of any human language. I argue selectively legitimizing some linguistic input as "quality" is possible only through mischaracterizing what language is. This falsehood is also linguistic racism because it is based on a deficit perspective of the early linguistic experiences of a subset of children, specifically racialized children. I explore how linguistic racism stalls our collective understanding of language development and promotes an environment of bad science. This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Language Acquisition Psychology > Language Neuroscience > Development., (© 2024 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

This paper aims to show that properties of cognitive/conceptual representations and formal-logical structures of linguistic meaning can be inter-translated, recast, transformed into one another, and so united together, even though cognitive/conceptual representations and formal-logical structures of linguistic meaning are apparently distinct in ontology and divergent in their form or character. While cognitive/conceptual representations are ultimately rooted in sensory-motor systems, formal-logical structures of linguistic meaning are abstractions detached from and independent of the actualized world. This paper sketches out the foundations of how representations of linguistic meaning in terms of cognitive/conceptual structures in Cognitive/Conceptual Semantics can be unified with those in terms of formal-logical structures in Formal Semantics. This is done by recasting cognitive/conceptual representations in terms of formal-logical structures of linguistic meaning and re-encoding formal-logical structures of linguistic meaning in terms of cognitive/conceptual representations. Then, these two types of semantic representations, thus shown representationally equivalent, will be related to a series of derivations across levels in neuronal networks and dynamics. The general discussion on unifying cognitive/conceptual representations of linguistic meaning with formal-logical structures is contextualized within the broader context of theorizing in cognitive science., (© 2024 Cognitive Science Society LLC.)

Linguistics is conspicuously absent from language teaching in UK schools. A-level cultural topics cover a range of themes such as cyber-society, cultural heritage and multiculturalism, but the approach taken to these topics is not informed by linguistics. In previous work, we have argued that this is an unfortunate omission not only because linguistics is appealing to many language students and perceived by them to be useful, but also because the existing cultural topics could be significantly enriched by the inclusion of the critical/analytical study of language itself. In this paper, we provide concrete examples of how linguistics can be integrated into the existing A-level curriculum for Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) in England and Wales. Reporting on a project in which teachers trialled linguistics materials co-created by us (a group of academics) and experienced languages teachers, we present evidence that linguistics materials are perceived to be both highly novel and nonetheless compatible with the existing A-level curriculum. Data from questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with participating teachers also show that: (i) these new materials can be taught with little or no prior experience of linguistics; and (ii) adding linguistics materials to the curriculum leads to significant impacts on teacher and pupil attitudes towards language(s). Despite some challenges, which we also discuss, the results highlight again the great potential of linguistics as a component of language teaching and the contribution that it can make to the enrichment of the discipline.

This paper reports a systematic narrative synthesis review conducted on the educational effectiveness of genre theory/systemic functional linguistics pedagogies for improving reading and writing outcomes in K-10 education within mainstream classrooms in Australia, the UK, the USA, New Zealand, and Canada. This framework has significant influence on reading and writing curriculum, teacher training, and literacy practices. However, its evidence base has never been systematically reviewed. An exhaustive database search sourced 7846 potentially relevant studies, which were screened according to guidelines for evaluating evidence through systematic narrative synthesis reviews and standardly applied criteria for educational evidence (e.g., The Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation, What Works Clearinghouse). Very few peer-reviewed intervention studies with control groups and quantitatively measured outcomes were found. A surprising result. Those studies showing positive effects had flaws in research design and quality that preclude their use as educational evidence. This systematic review indicates that there is insufficient rigorous evidence of the benefits, or lack thereof, of genre theory/systemic functional linguistics--based approaches to teaching reading and writing within K-10 education, at least in terms of measurable outcomes for students. More high-quality research needs to be undertaken as the current research record is not sufficient to prove or disprove the value of this approach.

Recent approaches to text analysis from social media and other corpora rely on word lists to detect topics, measure meaning, or to select relevant documents. These lists are often generated by applying computational lexicon expansion methods to small, manually curated sets of seed words. Despite the wide use of this approach, we still lack an exhaustive comparative analysis of the performance of lexicon expansion methods and how they can be improved with additional linguistic data. In this work, we present LEXpander, a method for lexicon expansion that leverages novel data on colexification, i.e., semantic networks connecting words with multiple meanings according to shared senses. We evaluate LEXpander in a benchmark including widely used methods for lexicon expansion based on word embedding models and synonym networks. We find that LEXpander outperforms existing approaches in terms of both precision and the trade-off between precision and recall of generated word lists in a variety of tests. Our benchmark includes several linguistic categories, as words relating to the financial area or to the concept of friendship, and sentiment variables in English and German. We also show that the expanded word lists constitute a high-performing text analysis method in application cases to various English corpora. This way, LEXpander poses a systematic automated solution to expand short lists of words into exhaustive and accurate word lists that can closely approximate word lists generated by experts in psychology and linguistics., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

The relevance of the research lies in the fact that in the modern Kazakh and English languages there are a huge number of expressive techniques of phraseological expressions, which are actively used in one way or another. The aim of the study is to conduct a cognitive linguistic analysis of the features of phraseological expressions based on hyperbole in the Kazakh and English languages. The study employs an integrated methodology encompassing cognitive, descriptive, and linguistic approaches to analyze hyperbole-based phraseological units in Kazakh and English, aiming to uncover their figurative basis, structural characteristics, and cognitive underpinnings. The study explores hyperbole-based phraseological units, particularly in Kazakh and English, categorizing them based on figurative aspects and formal structure. It reveals that seemingly similar phrases often have unique conceptual differences, emphasizing the role of culture and context in interpretation. This interdisciplinary research underscores the complexities of understanding these linguistic expressions. In conclusion, this study underscores the significance of cognitive linguistic analysis in understanding hyperbole-based phraseological units, revealing idiosyncratic conceptual differences across languages and emphasizing the importance of refining methodological approaches in this field of research., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Distinctive aspects of a culture are often reflected in the meaning and usage of words in the language spoken by bearers of that culture. Keywords such as душа (soul) in Russian, hati (heart) in Indonesian and Malay, and gezellig (convivial/cosy/fun) in Dutch are held to be especially culturally revealing, and scholars have identified a number of such keywords using careful linguistic analyses (Peeters, 2020b; Wierzbicka, 1990). Because keywords are expected to have different statistical properties than related words in other languages, we argue that a quantitative comparison of word usage across languages can help to identify cultural keywords. To support this claim, we describe a computational method that compares word frequencies across languages, and apply it to both linguistic corpora and word association data. The method identifies culturally specific words that range from "obvious" examples, such as Amsterdam in Dutch, to non-obvious yet independently proposed examples, such as hati (heart) in Indonesian. We show in addition that linguistic corpora and word association data provide converging evidence about culturally specific words. Our results therefore show how computational analyses and behavioral experiments can supplement the methods previously used by linguists to identify culturally salient words across languages., (© 2024 The Authors. Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Cognitive Science Society (CSS).)

Theories of categorization have historically focused on the stimulus characteristics to which people are sensitive. Artificial grammar learning (AGL) provides a clear example of this phenomenon, with theorists debating between knowledge of rules, fragments, whole strings, and so on as the basis of categorization decisions (i.e., stimulus-driven explanations). We argue that this focus loses sight of the more important question of how participants make categorization decisions on a mechanistic level (i.e., process-driven explanations). To address the problem, we derived predictions from an instance-based model of human memory in a pseudo-AGL task in which all study and test strings were generated randomly, a task that stimulus-driven explanations of AGL would have difficulty accommodating. We conducted a standard AGL experiment with human participants using the same strings. The model's predictions corresponded to participants' decisions well, even in the absence of any experimenter-generated structure and regardless of whether test stimuli contained any incidental structure. We argue that theories of categorization ought to continue shifting towards the goal of modeling categorization at the level of cognitive processes rather than primarily attempting to identify the stimulus characteristics to which participants are drawn., (© 2023. The Psychonomic Society, Inc.)

In this paper, we critically discuss the impact of policy documents on the construction of national narratives on the provision of support for cultural-linguistic diversity in education systems in two European countries. The analysis focuses upon a selection of national policy documents that deal with the planning and provision of HLE since the 1990s. We take critical pedagogy and sociomateriality as theoretical lenses to investigate educational policies on HLE. Thus, this study critically traces the ways in which language ideologies are enmeshed with legislative, political and educational discourses by following an inductive and retroductive process, wherein key-concepts, themes and critical configurations of HLE are mapped, compared, re-assembled and discussed in terms of a complex system. The analysis shows that the (non-)provision of HLE shapes the educational space and the value references and world views that prevail and are (re)produced in it. Emerging deficit perspectives, linguistic assimilation and marginalisation processes limit the path towards more inclusive and equitable educational institutions and practices.

From November 2015 to October 2020, Canada had welcomed 44,620 Syrian refugees to more than 350 communities across the country. In 2019, it further surpassed the United States and Australia in the number of refugees settled. Lacking the necessary language skills for living and working in a new country is one of the most critical barriers refugees face. This paper aims to inform language-teaching professionals about pertinent linguistic and nonlinguistic issues as well as pedagogical implications associated with supporting adult Syrian refugee learners, drawing both on the literature more broadly and on the author's research in the Canadian context.

In an increasingly globalised and multilingual world, the use of different scripts in the same semiotic landscape is an increasingly frequent and widespread phenomenon. For this reason, it is vital to conduct research focusing on multiscriptality in order to better understand the linguistic and semiotic functions of the use of multiple scripts that have become more or less officialised by the political-administrative power. This study examines the use of Latin characters in Greece and Bulgaria, the only two European Union member societies that formally adopt different scripts. Using both a qualitative and a quantitative approach, we analyse the coexistence of the national and Latin alphabets in the graphic texts of commercial signs in two urban areas: the Ladadika district in Thessaloniki, Greece and the Kapana district in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The results show that the advancement of the Latin alphabet is not homogeneous; sometimes unconventionally represents the national language; is not completely preferred to the recessive national script, but creates with it new orthographic-communicative forms; and can take place regardless of the overwhelming prestige of Global English. This paper demonstrates the importance of studying multiscriptality and the Romanisation process in the context of contemporary multilingualism.

This paper examines the potential uses of ChatGPT in generating assessment tasks that can be used across different disciplines in higher education. To illustrate this, we provide examples from three courses in the disciplines of industrial engineering and applied linguistics: Project Analysis and Control, Manufacturing Processes, and Introduction to Linguistics. Our examination of ChatGPT focuses on how some of the common, but time-consuming, tasks can be generated by using ChatGPT as a supportive instructional tool. We observed in our analysis that ChatGPT demonstrates a high level of performance in generating assessment questions and tasks that are accurate and on-topic, and a level of creativity and flexibility in its question generation capabilities. However, it is important to note that ChatGPT is not designed to replace human expertise or judgment. It is crucial that instructors carefully evaluate the reliability and accuracy of the assessments or information generated by ChatGPT.

How might teachers and students deepen dialogic space in online discussions centered on race? This paper explores challenges of creating shared spaces of collective inquiry online across audio/visual/written modes. We explore why participants switch modes--e.g. from oral/visual participation to written chat--while participating in a synchronous video call. We use examples from an online teacher-preparation course at a Southern US university to demonstrate how primarily White prospective/practicing teachers mode-switched during dialogue about Black language and linguistic justice. We identify common types of mode-switching whereby participants resist, revise, and renegotiate dialogic space in online coursework. Across examples, dialogic space emerged or deepened when writing "in the background"--before and/or during class--was foregrounded, bringing prior assumptions and present perspectives into creative tension with emerging understandings. Teachers might consider how relationships among modes like writing and talk, across activities and platforms, can support or inhibit dialogue in face-to-face or online spaces. (150)

This document is an introduction to a special issue on grammaticalization across languages, levels, and frameworks. It discusses the definitions of grammaticalization, lexicalization, and constructionalization, which are all phenomena of language change. The special issue features a diverse collection of studies covering various topics, methodologies, datasets, and languages, including sign languages. The document also highlights the incorporation of new insights from theoretical frameworks such as cognitive and functional linguistics and construction grammar. It provides summaries of three specific papers on grammaticalization in Romance languages, German Sign Language, and Spanish verbal periphrases, which contribute to the understanding of language change. [Extracted from the article]

This study explores linguistic variation in research papers published by Saudi and British researchers in Linguistics and English language teaching (ELT). The main aim is to identify and compare interdisciplinary lexico-grammatical patterns between and within the sub-disciplines of these research articles, exploring the extent to which Saudi research articles align with or diverge from their British counterparts. Utilizing Biber's (1988) multidimensional model, this research developed a specialized corpus of academic research articles, which was analyzed using multivariate statistical techniques to investigate linguistic variation. The corpus included tagging of 67 linguistic features, and factor analysis was employed to identify patterns of linguistic cooccurrence. Significant findings indicate that Saudi research papers distinctly differ from British papers in their preference for informational, explicit, non-argumentative, and abstract discourse. Notably, while most sections of the research papers showed variations in non-argumentative discourse, the ELT conclusion sections from both regions demonstrated a tendency towards mixedpurpose discourse. The significance of the study lies in its detailed analysis of how regional differences affect lexico-grammatical choices within academic writing, offering a deeper understanding of linguistic strategies in scholarly communication. The study concludes with recommendations for further research to explore underlying factors contributing to these differences and suggests the development of targeted academic writing aids to support researchers in achieving greater international coherence in their discourse. This could potentially enhance the clarity and impact of scholarly communication across diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focused on how lecturers in linguistics can leverage GenAI to enhance their teaching proficiency and student engagement. The paper used a quantitative approach, including 293 university lecturers teaching linguistics. The TPACK theoretical model was adopted, wherein two main segments of the theory, namely technological knowledge (TK) and technological content knowledge (TCK), were used to explore the importance of leveraging GenAI to enhance teaching proficiency. The results indicated that these tools greatly enhanced the linguistics lecturers' teaching proficiency. The study revealed that a significant majority of lecturers acknowledged using Quizizz for test and exercise generation in linguistics, followed by a substantial portion who utilized the ChatGPT series for teaching and learning enhancement without compromising academic integrity. Additionally, many lecturers reported frequent usage of Education Copilot for lesson planning and student record tracking, as well as Google Bard (now Geminin) for teaching enhancement and increased student engagement. The study also found high acceptance rates among lecturers for the effectiveness of ChatGPT, Bard, Quizizz, and Educational Copilot in translation courses, with similarly positive responses for discourse analysis courses, teaching proficiency enhancement, and student engagement across various pedagogical areas. Thus, these tools can enhance teaching and learning at the university level and students' engagement when the lecturers have the Tk and the TCK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the importance of discourse markers in promoting effective communication and discourse coherence in academic writing by describing their role. Through corpus-based research, different discourse markers are analyzed in various contexts by using AntConc (4.3.1). This corpus-based research revealed their role in organizing information, signaling the relationship between their ideas and describing the flow of conversation. This research examines the impact of discourse markers in communication, discourse comprehension and interpretation in academic writing by using a corpus-based approach. The findings of this research paper provide insights into how discourse markers contribute to developing linguistic coherence and discourse cohesion by highlighting their significance in academic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two major research issues for longitudinal investigations are the 'naturalness' of the learner language being studied, and the extent to which the research design is truly longitudinal. Regarding the first issue, data for longitudinal studies are usually collected in language classrooms or exams, with the writing tasks/topics being tightly controlled. A major disadvantage is that tasks can be unrepresentative of the writing required in disciplinary content courses. The present study analyzes writing development as it occurs 'naturally' in university disciplinary content courses, using four complexity features (i.e., finite adverbial clauses, finite relative clauses, attributive adjectives, and nouns as pre-modifiers) with the goal of comparing the kinds of findings in a True-longitudinal approach, a Quasi-longitudinal approach, and a Case study approach. This close examination of writing development that controlled for discipline and task showed an increase in development as measured by these linguistic indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critical examination of the classification of Denial within Speech Act Theory, advocating for its redefinition from an assertive to a directive speech act. Drawing upon the foundational principles established by J.L. Austin (1962) and further developed by John Searle (1969, 1979), the study applies Searle's twelve dimensions of illocutionary acts to Denial. Through this analytical framework, the paper demonstrates that Denial transcends the mere negation of propositions, actively engaging in modifying the hearer's beliefs or actions, a characteristic inherent to directive acts. The analysis highlights the dual nature of Denial, which not only contests a given proposition but also, and more importantly, endeavours to influence the listener's perspective or behaviour. This re-evaluation challenges traditional views and enriches the discourse on linguistic pragmatics by advocating for a more nuanced and context-sensitive approach to speech act classification. By reclassifying Denial as a directive, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of communicative practices, emphasising the strategic use of language in social interactions and the complex dynamics of speech acts in communication. This reassessment calls for a broader reconsideration of speech act classifications, marking a step towards a more comprehensive representation of language functions within linguistic pragmatics and opening avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistical approaches in linguistics seem to have gained in importance in recent times, especially in the field of Corpus Linguistics. In particular, the last ten years have seen an upsurge of linguists being dedicated to statistical methods and the improvement of statistical knowledge. This has repeatedly been described as 'the quantitative turn' in linguistics. In the present paper, we assess how real this quantitative turn actually is and whether statistics can be considered the 'new normal' in (corpus) linguistics. To this end, we have analyzed the contributions to six high-impact journals (Corpora, Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, ICAME Journal, English World-Wide, Journal of English Linguistics, and Language Variation and Change) for a period of eleven years (January 2011 until December 2021). Our results suggest that, indeed, statistical methods seem to be on the rise in linguistic studies. However, their frequency strongly varies between the journals, and, in general, we have identified some room for improvement in the use of advanced statistical methods, in particular the discussion of true prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the translation of socio-cultural and rhetorical nuances of language between Bangla and English with a case of the translation of Jibanananda Das's 1973 novel Malloban by Rebecca Whittington in 2022. The act of translating such a rich and culturally nuanced text poses substantial challenges, as it involves the delicate balance of preserving the essence of the source text while making it accessible to a new linguistic and cultural context. In the process, the translator, whose native language is American English, is led to straddle domestication and exoticism, thus creating linguistic, semiotic, and syntactic variations in her rendition of the source language text. This paper attempts to assess the fidelity of the translation to the original work while scrutinizing the translator's choices in capturing the intricate wordplay, colloquial expressions, metaphors, and narrative subtleties that are hallmarks of Jibanananda Das's writing. This paper also examines the instances where the translation may inadvertently alter or dilute the original text's impact and the implications of such alterations for readers of the translated work. Furthermore, this study delves into the emotional and cognitive dimensions of bilingual reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost every lawyer has the intuition that, in order to get an initial idea of the meaning of a legal article, it is necessary to ascertain the meanings of the words adopted in it. This prompts the question: How do we determine these meanings? The paper focuses on a problem related to interpretation theory, namely the definition of the role of the semantic analysis of general language in normative analysis. The article opens with considerations which characterise semantic analysis and which demonstrate how it is inextricably linked to normative analysis. It then explores a concretisation of the notion of semantic analysis carried out with respect to general language. Finally, the paper demonstrates the necessity and value of adopting a semantic analysis of general language as a step in normative analysis. Arguments in favour of this include the primacy of general language in relation to legal language and the flexibility of the first. The findings of the study contribute to the discussion of the role of arguments from the meaning of general language in normative analysis, as well as the role of linguistic interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Textual data analysis has become a popular method for examining complex human behavior in various fields, including psychology, psychiatry, sociology, computer science, data mining, forensic sciences, and communication studies. However, identifying the most relevant textual parameters for analyzing complex behavior is still a challenge. Goal of Study: This paper aims to explore potential textual parameters that could be useful in analyzing behavior through complex textual data. Furthermore, we have examined the randomly generated text based on different textual parameters. Methods: To achieve this goal, we conducted a comprehensive review of the literature on textual data analysis and identified several potential topics that could be relevant, such as sentiment analysis, discourse analysis, lexical analysis, and syntactic analysis. We discuss the theoretical background and practical implications of each parameter and provide examples of how they have been used in previous research. Furthermore, we highlight the importance of considering the context in which these parameters are applied and the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to gain a deeper understanding of complex behavior through textual data analysis. Furthermore, we have provided Python code in the Supplementary Materials to facilitate a comprehensive analysis of such behaviors. In addition, to generate the text for analysis, we utilized ChatGPT 3.5 Turbo by requesting it to generate a random text of 1000 words divided into five paragraphs. Afterwards, we applied the provided Python code to analyze the randomly generated text. Conclusion: Overall, this paper provides a foundation for researchers to identify relevant textual parameters to analyze complex human behavior in their respective fields such as linguistics, sociology, psychiatry, and psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-directed study is a crucial need for learners to emphasize its central role in language education. Fostering and improving students’ ability to take initiative in their learning is considered crucial, for achieving success in both their present and future careers. In addition, recognizing the significance of being open to communication and willingness to communicate (WTC) works as a measure of learning, which can lead to attitudes, among students. This paper aims at finding out the relationship and the effect of learners’ self-directed motivation on WTC by answering the following questions. Is there any relationship between self-direction and WTC? Does self-direction have a positive impact on willingness? The paper examines WTC with 3rd grade students in the English Department, from the College of Basic Education at Salahaddin University-Erbil for the academic year 2022–2023. The participants are (60) students. The paper was conducted through a quantitative method. The data have been collected by a questionnaire and the tool adopted for analyzing the data is a Statistical Package for the Social Science. It is concluded that the most common factors that influence on students’ WTC are motivation, reliance, and anxiety about making mistakes and challenging situations. Another concluding point is that students were unwilling to utilize only English while expressing an idea or discussing a matter with classmates or teachers. Moreover, students referred to linguistic factors represented as indicative of their preference for taking more foreign courses and feeling comfortable in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper investigates the discursive strategies employed by Oduduwa secessionists to construct polarization and otherness on Twitter. Using the socio-cognitive approach to CDA combined with social media CDA, the study illustrates how socio-cultural and spatiotemporal contexts are embedded in digital performances of resistance. Findings show that the secessionists employ four main discursive strategies, namely: (1) vitriolic socio-cognitive labels and coinages; (2) generalization and ethnocentrism; (3) language of threat; and (4) use of Yoruba language to legitimize their resistance, accentuate their ideological stances, construct polarization and otherness, and do social mobilization. These strategies are achieved via discursive, linguistic, and stylo-orthographic resources made available by digital technology. The paper concludes that the discursive strategies employed by the secessionists do not directly reflect polarization but are simply constitutive of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores some of the commonalities between language and practical activity. It focuses on the normativity involved and presents an account on two different kinds of normativity which constrain both languaging and practical doings in general. In this connection, the paper engages with the first-order—second-order distinction central to the Distributed Language Perspective and shows that there is a way for proponents of this perspective to come to terms with linguistic normativity without presupposing a dualism between, on the one hand, first-order articulations and, on the other, the second-order normative constrains that condition them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computational typology has gained traction in the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP) in recent years, as evidenced by the increasing number of papers on the topic and the establishment of a Special Interest Group on the topic (SIGTYP), including the organization of successful workshops and shared tasks. A considerable amount of work in this sub-field is concerned with prediction of typological features, for example, for databases such as the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) or Grambank. Prediction is argued to be useful either because (1) it allows for obtaining feature values for relatively undocumented languages, alleviating the sparseness in WALS, in turn argued to be useful for both NLP and linguistics; and (2) it allows us to probe models to see whether or not these typological features are encapsulated in, for example, language representations. In this article, we present a critical stance concerning prediction of typological features, investigating to what extent this line of research is aligned with purported needs—both from the perspective of NLP practitioners, and perhaps more importantly, from the perspective of linguists specialized in typology and language documentation. We provide evidence that this line of research in its current state suffers from a lack of interdisciplinary alignment. Based on an extensive survey of the linguistic typology community, we present concrete recommendations for future research in order to improve this alignment between linguists and NLP researchers, beyond the scope of typological feature prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Individuals from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) are often offered English-only AAC systems that do not meet their language needs. The aim of this review article was to describe the research published on multilingual AAC, define any emerging best practices, and highlight gaps in the literature that exist to ensure equal language access for all learners. Method: The authors reviewed the literature by searching relevant databases using a variety of search terms. Following our inclusionary and exclusionary criteria, 15 articles were yielded for coding and then patterns were reported. Results: The authors found that more than half of the included articles were expert opinion papers on AAC delivery, barriers to AAC and multilingualism, and code-switching using AAC. The included qualitative studies aimed to summarize the perceptions on AAC services--their impact, facilitating and limiting factors in communication, and the importance or relevance of using an AAC device. Only two quantitative studies were included. Conclusions: Practitioners have an obligation to support multilingual clients who use AAC across all languages they speak at school, at home, and in the community. Much of the literature supports encouraging multiple languages, but limited access to multilingual AAC systems are available. There is also a dire need for empirically based studies and more perspectives by way of interviews or surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few decades, much work in corpus linguistics has attempted to discover, and then interpret, differences in the frequencies of use of linguistic elements (words, patterns, constructions, discourse features, etc.). It is probably fair to say that such studies were particularly frequent in (i) learner corpus research, (ii) corpus-based varieties research, and (iii) sociolinguistically motivated studies. For instance, many studies have discussed the differences in how often certain elements are used (i) in corpus data from native speakers vs. corpus data from learner from different L1 backgrounds, (ii) in corpora representing different inner- and outer-circle varieties, or (iii) by speakers in corpora representing people of different gender or sexual identities. This paper will make the admittedly bold claim that any such study can in fact by definition unable to 'prove' what is often their main points, namely that the distributional differences found are in fact due to the one hypothesized explanatory variable(s) of L1, VARIETY, or, e.g., GENDER even when the distributional differences are significant and come with a decent effect size. To substantiate this claim, I will discuss some terminology from the family of methods known as multi-level modeling, namely the distinction between level-1, level-2,... level-n variables and its relevance for many corpus studies. Second, I will then demonstrate how studies using only the above kinds of variables cannot distinguish the effect of their favored predictors from the effect of local/contextual level-1 variables. Third, in discussing this, I will exemplify how such effects need to be explored quantitatively instead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Perspectives on Culture / Perspektywy Kultury is the property of Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Most natural language models and tools are restricted to one language, typically English. For researchers in the behavioral sciences investigating languages other than English, and for those researchers who would like to make cross-linguistic comparisons, hardly any computational linguistic tools exist, particularly none for those researchers who lack deep computational linguistic knowledge or programming skills. Yet, for interdisciplinary researchers in a variety of fields, ranging from psycholinguistics, social psychology, cognitive psychology, education, to literary studies, there certainly is a need for such a cross-linguistic tool. In the current paper, we present Lingualyzer ( https://lingualyzer.com ), an easily accessible tool that analyzes text at three different text levels (sentence, paragraph, document), which includes 351 multidimensional linguistic measures that are available in 41 different languages. This paper gives an overview of Lingualyzer, categorizes its hundreds of measures, demonstrates how it distinguishes itself from other text quantification tools, explains how it can be used, and provides validations. Lingualyzer is freely accessible for scientific purposes using an intuitive and easy-to-use interface., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

This paper discusses the discourse contrasts that arise in connection to direct evidentiality in Southern Aymara (henceforth, Aymara), an understudied Andean language. Aymara has two direct evidentials, the enclitic =wa and the covert morpheme -∅, which are used whenever the speaker has the best possible grounds for some proposition. I make the novel observation that a sentence with =wa can be felicitously uttered if the speaker attempts to update the common ground by addressing an issue on the table. In fact, the sentence with =wa that is uttered must be congruent with prior discourse; I tie this to the claim that =wa is a (presentational) focus marker (Proulx in Language Sciences 9(1):91–102, 1987). This paper thus claims that =wa is a marker that combines evidentiality and focus. In contrast, uttering a sentence with -∅ entails that the speaker's contribution is already in the common ground, which likens this evidential to common ground management operators—there is no congruence requirement in this case. I identify which construction can be used in different discourse settings (conversation openers and telling anecdotes). I implement a formal analysis based on Farkas and Bruce (Journal of Semantics 27:81–118, 2010) and Faller (Semantics and Pragmatics 12(8):1–53, 2019) that links evidentiality and discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sensitivity of focus to context has often been analyzed in terms of focus-based anaphoric relations between sentences and surrounding discourse. The literature, however, has also noted empirical difficulties for the anaphoric approach, and my goal in the present paper is to investigate what happens if we abandon the anaphoric view altogether. Instead of anaphoric felicity conditions, I propose that focus leads to infelicity only indirectly, when the semantic processes that it feeds—in particular, exhaustification and question formation—make an inappropriate contribution to discourse. I outline such an account, in line with Roberts (In Papers in semantics, Vol. 49 of Working papers in linguistics, 91–136, The Ohio State University, 1996) and incorporating recent insights from Büring (In Questions in discourse, Vol. 36 of Current research in the semantics/pragmatics interface, 6–44, Leiden: Brill, 2019) and Fox (In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 22, 403–434, 2019). This account, which I motivate on conceptual grounds, has no anaphoric conditions on focus placement and has only an economy condition as a potential felicity condition on focus. However, there are cases where the fine control offered by anaphoricity seems needed, either to block deaccenting that would be licensed by a question or to allow local deaccenting that is not warranted by a question. Such cases challenge non-anaphoric accounts such as the present one and appear to support recent anaphoric proposals such as Schwarzschild (In Making worlds accessible. Essays in honor of Angelika Kratzer, 167–192, 2020), Wagner (In The Wiley Blackwell companion to semantics, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2020), and Goodhue (Journal of Semantics 39: 117–158, 2022). I argue that this potential motivation for anaphoricity is only apparent and that to the extent that anaphoric conditions on focus from the literature are not inert, they are in fact harmful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores five borrowed discourse-pragmatic features—wena, mna/mina, yazi, phela, and ke—which are transferred from indigenous South African languages into South African English, with the objective of investigating their frequency, position, collocational patterns, and discourse-pragmatic functions. The data, which are taken from the South African component of the Global Web-based English corpus, are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively, from a postcolonial corpus pragmatic framework. The results show that the discourse-pragmatic features are generally infrequent, orthographically stable, and prefer the clause-initial position. The paper indicates that wena is used as an address term to call for the addressee's attention, mna/mina is used to emphasise personal identity, while yazi seeks confirmation of and signals shared knowledge. Phela is an emphasis marker, while ke indicates contrast, textual coherence, and emphasis. This study underscores the contributions of indigenous South African languages to the discourse-pragmatic features of South African English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Al-Andalus journal for Humanities & Social Sciences is the property of Alandalus University for Science & Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography of the Serbian Academy of Sciences & Arts / Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU is the property of Institute of Ethnography, SASA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores long standing demands of the Oromoo to make Afaan Oromoo, the most widely spoken language in the Horn of Africa as a mother tongue, one of the working Federal languages. The antagonism behind the linguistic policy of the consecutive Ethiopian regimes is the main reason for the exclusion from the Federal working languages during the last three decades. Although FDRE constitution of 1995 gives equal status to all languages, the status quo has still continued marginalizing Afaan Oromoo and other major languages considering the demography of the speakers and public demands. In spite of these facts, the struggles for inclusion of Afaan and its marginalization from the Federal working language from its historical root is overlooked. The paper argues that the use of Afaan Oromoo as a Federal working language has multifaceted importance in the country's unity and political stability. The paper considers the socio-political and historical background in relation to the promotion of Afaan Oromoo to the Federal working language. It also puts flashlights on the continuing use of the language as an expression of Oromoo identity, Oromummaa and Sabboonummaa. The main purpose of this research, therefore, is to identify the causes of exclusion, and to address the benefits of inclusion of Afaan Oromoo to the Federal working language. To achieve this objective, qualitative research design was used and qualitative data were collected using interviews and document analysis. In the interview, informants with good knowledge of linguistic history of the country were identified. The data reveled that Afaan Oromoo was excluded from politics, business, administrative, religious, media of instruction and other public services. The study also displayed that including Afaan Oromoo in the Federal working languages of the country develops and enriches the language, and gives job opportunity to many youths in the Federal Institutions. As the language is spoken by many nations as lingua franca, its inclusion plays significant roles in stabilizing the country and cementing the unity of the nations. The study, thus, recommends that the government should keep the freedom and inclusion of all languages to enhance the legitimacy of political processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]