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INTRODUCTION: Latinas in the United States have higher mortality from breast cancer, but longitudinal studies of mammography ordering (a crucial initial step towards screening) in primary care are lacking. METHODS: We conducted an analysis of mammography order rates in Latinas (by language preference) and non-Latina white women (N = 181,755) over a > 10 year period in a multi-state network of community health centers (CHCs). We evaluated two outcomes (ever having a mammogram order and annual rate of mammography orders) using generalized estimating equation modeling. RESULTS: Approximately one-third of all patients had ever had a mammogram order. Among those receiving mammogram orders, English-preferring Latinas had lower mammogram order rates than non-Hispanic white women (RR = 0.92, 95% CI = 0.89-0.95). Spanish-preferring Latinas had higher odds of ever having a mammogram ordered than non-Hispanic whites (odds ratio = 2.12, 95% CI = 2.06-2.18) and, if ever ordered, had a higher rate of annual mammogram orders (rate ratio = 1.53, 95% CI = 1.50-1.56). CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that breast cancer detection barriers in low-income Latinas may not stem from a lack of orders in primary care, but in the subsequent accessibility of receiving ordered services.

This study examines the internationalization and globalization of Spanish sports, particularly football in Asia and its cultural and linguistic influences. It aims to analyze the role of the Spanish language in advancing Spanish sports in Asian markets, focusing on the cultural impact of football and the use of linguistic products in education. Employing a descriptive approach, the research involves a bibliographic review and a systematic examination of institutional sources to gather data on the expansion of Spanish sport in Asia. The findings indicate that the globalization of sport has been propelled by technological progress and digital platforms, with English acting as the common language. Documented linguistic products include academic research, multilingual guides by the Instituto Cervantes and LaLiga, and the strategic application of Spanish in elite sports communication. These efforts showcase the global sports globalization process, emphasizing linguistic adaptation and promoting Spanish culture. In conclusion, the paper highlights sport as a vibrant arena for linguistic challenges and opportunities, aiding in the worldwide dissemination of the Spanish language. It points out the significance of linguistic products in overcoming cultural barriers and enhancing international relationships, with English as a pivotal lingua franca. The study offers valuable insights for further research and understanding of language and sports studies.

Purpose: This study examines immigrant Latinas' (ILs') help-seeking behaviors, types of support systems, and access to intimate partner violence (IPV) services during a global health crisis (COVID-19) at a community-based agency in a Northeastern state. Method: Nineteen immigrant Latinas who had prior IPV-related services such as legal aid, advocacy, and support within 1–3 years were recruited for the study. Spanish-speaking telephone interviews averaging between 30 and 45 min were conducted with each participant. Content analysis was the method employed to review the data and generate themes of the participants' experiences. Results: Participants' qualitative responses included an increase of intimate partner violence during the pandemic. Types of support systems included reaching out to police departments, hospitals and health-care settings, and community-based agencies. Findings indicated a 47% positive response rate when working with police officers (e.g., bilingual Spanish-English speaking police officers), and the participants reported being supported by the agency staff where they received services. Conclusion: Recommendations are provided to the community-based agency and other service providers regarding ongoing delivery of services and best practices for ILs throughout the pandemic transitions and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The valid assessment of vocabulary development in dual‐language‐learning infants is critical to developmental science. We developed the Dual Language Learners English‐Spanish (DLL‐ES) Inventories to measure vocabularies of U.S. English‐Spanish DLLs. The inventories provide translation equivalents for all Spanish and English items on Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) short forms; extended inventories based on CDI long forms; and Spanish language‐variety options. Item‐Response Theory analyses applied to Wordbank and Web‐CDI data (n = 2603, 12–18 months; n = 6722, 16–36 months; half female; 1% Asian, 3% Black, 2% Hispanic, 30% White, 64% unknown) showed near‐perfect associations between DLL‐ES and CDI long‐form scores. Interviews with 10 Hispanic mothers of 18‐ to 24‐month‐olds (2 White, 1 Black, 7 multi‐racial; 6 female) provide a proof of concept for the value of the DLL‐ES for assessing the vocabularies of DLLs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do Latinos who consume more Spanish language media relative to English language media express greater political trust and efficacy? While research produces increasing evidence that variations in English language media content shape core democratic attitudes like political trust, and that Spanish language media shapes acculturation and issue attitudes among Latinos, research has not explored whether broader linguistic media environments shape attitudes fundamental to democracy. Given revolutionary changes the English language media environment, and stark contrasts between English and Spanish language media environments in terms of fragmentation, ideological and partisan news reporting, narratives portraying Latinos as a "threat," and Latino-oriented and affirming content, relative consumption of Spanish or English language news may come with important implications. Bilingual Latinos who consume varying mixtures of media from these environments offer a unique population for exploring these relationships. Building off studies relating patterns of Latino acculturation and Spanish language media to a variety of attitudinal effects, we explore the relationship between linguistic media consumption and political trust and efficacy using three unique datasets: the 2008 CMPS, 2016 CMPS, and our own survey conducted in 2021. We then leverage unique variables in the 2016 CMPS to explore whether Latino trust and efficacy relate directly to relative consumption of Spanish language media or indirectly to Spanish language media through recall of Latino-oriented content and induced emotional reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence methods based on deep learning (DL) have recently made significant progress in many different areas including free text classification and sentiment analysis. We believe that corporate governance is one of these areas, where DL can generate very valuable and differential knowledge, for example, by analyzing the biographies of independent directors, which allows for qualitative modeling of their profile in an automatic way. For this technology to be accepted it is important to be able to explain how it generates its results. In this work we have developed a six-dimensional labeled dataset of independent director biographies, implemented three recurrent DL models based on LSTM and transformers along with four ensembles, one of which is an innovative proposal based on a multi-layer perceptron (MLP), trained them using Spanish language and economics and finance terminology and performed a comprehensive test study that demonstrates the accuracy of the results. We have also performed a complete study of explainability using the SHAP methodology by comparatively analyzing the developed models. We have achieved a mean error (MAE) of 8% in the modeling of the open text biographies, which has allowed us to perform a case study of time analysis that has detected significant variations in the composition of the Standard Expertise Profile (SEP) of the boards of directors, related to the crisis of the period 2008–2013. This work shows that DL technology can be accurately applied to free text analysis in the finance and economic domain, by automatically analyzing large volumes of data to generate knowledge that would have been unattainable by other means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applied a reliable change methodology to the test-retest data from the Spanish-language NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery (NIHTB-CB) normative sample. Participants included Spanish-speaking adults (n = 48; 54.2% women, 100% Latinx) evaluated twice within one to two weeks on the Spanish-language NIHTB-CB, consisting of two crystallized and five fluid cognitive tests. Test-retest means, standard deviations, and intraclass correlations were used to calculate upper and lower bounds of 70, 80, and 90% confidence intervals (CIs) around change scores, with these bounds used as cutoffs for inferring reliable change. Cutoffs were calculated for raw scores, age-adjusted standard scores (SS; M = 100, SD = 15), and demographic-adjusted T-scores (T; M = 50, SD = 10), adjusting for age, gender, and education. Test-retest change scores on the Spanish-language NIHTB-CB exceeding the following cutoffs indicate reliable change based on an 80% CI (i.e., values exceeding these cutoffs indicate greater decline or greater improvement than 90% of the sample): Dimensional Change Card Sort (SS ≥ 15/T ≥ 11), Flanker (SS ≥ 13/T ≥ 10), List Sorting (SS ≥ 13/T ≥ 9), Picture Sequence Memory (SS ≥ 14/T ≥ 9), Pattern Comparison (SS ≥ 14/T ≥ 10), Picture Vocabulary (SS ≥ 8/T ≥ 6), Oral Reading (SS ≥ 7/T ≥ 5), Fluid Cognition Composite (SS ≥ 12/T ≥ 9), Crystallized Cognition Composite (SS ≥ 6/T ≥ 5), and Total Cognition Composite (SS ≥ 8/T ≥ 7). These cutoffs are one of few resources to interpret cognitive change at retest among Spanish-speaking patients and participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyses of the migrations from Morocco in the second half of the twentieth century tend to view them as part of a larger pattern of South-to-North postcolonial circular migration, while Jewish Moroccan migration is deemed an exceptional national phenomenon, unrelated to the study of these global developments. Yet, Jewish migration from northern Morocco to Venezuela was characterised and influenced by a number of sub-regional, ethno-religious, linguistic, and even racial peculiarities, whose analyses may broaden our perspective on the global dynamics of Moroccan postcolonial migration: for example, the status of northern Morocco and Venezuela as a hub for Spanish settlers, Venezuela's post-1945 open-door policy toward European immigration, and the Judeo-Spanish backgrounds of immigrants from Morocco. In the absence of bilateral migration agreements between Morocco and Venezuela, examining Moroccan Jewish migration to the latter can also shed light on the prominent role of informal networks in shaping global migration from North Africa, and explain why Muslim Moroccans did not immigrate to Venezuela even as many were migrating elsewhere. A focus on grassroots histories of this sort may help advance the scholarship beyond the narratives of mass minority departure, labour migration, and integration that usually treat Morocco and other countries of emigration as homogeneous national units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fraction of Hispanic people in the U.S. uses Spanish-language news because a language barrier prevents them using English-language news. Functional theory suggests ethnic media serve ethnic community needs ignored by mainstream media. Research on how Spanish-language news serves U.S. Hispanic communities and differs from English-language news typically studies large, politically liberal cities with large Hispanic populations, neglecting Hispanic people living elsewhere. Content analysis of local newscasts to assess differences between network-affiliated, English-language television stations and the Telemundo affiliate serving a mid-sized, midwestern, politically conservative market addresses these limitations. An analytic framework derived from functional theory categorizes community needs as informational and representational. Results show significantly different agendas between Spanish- and English-language news. Spanish-language news airs more human interest and government stories and fewer crime stories. It addresses unique informational needs, helping orient newcomers and airing government stories that sustain ties to Spanish-speaking countries. Regarding representation, results show Hispanic people are invisible to a greater extent than they are negatively portrayed in English-language news. Thus, Spanish-language local television news serves the Hispanic community by making it visible to itself. However, Spanish-language news focuses on the Hispanic community rather than being a general news source, supplementing rather than substituting for English-language news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the importance of recognizing and supporting community health workers (CHWs), particularly promotoras, in South Texas. It emphasizes the vital role of bridging healthcare gaps in Hispanic and Latino communities. It reports the significant number of Hispanic and Latino CHWs in Texas, and it highlights the need for culturally competent interventions to address health disparities. It discusses the development of the Red de Promotoras del Sur de Tejas Program.

Juan Pérez de Pineda (ca. 1500–1567) was one of Spain's most prolific reformers, and yet theological analysis of his work often dismisses the originality of his corpus. This article returns to Pérez's two primary theological treatises to reconsider Pérez's relationship to Neoplatonism by examining Pérez's vision of mystical union in the context of consolation narratives. Pérez published his Brief Treatise of Doctrine and Consolatory Epistle from exile in Geneva, in the same year his colleagues were executed in the notorious autos-de-fe often credited with eradicating Protestantism from Spain. Taken together, these works reveal Pérez's ambivalence towards Neoplatonic imagery, adapting and rejecting language of ascent in his description of mystical union as a present reality, unimpeded by the flesh. Noting a curious absence of Neoplatonic strategies common across humanist, mystical, and Reformed traditions, Pérez's unique rejection of language of purification of the soul is poised to grant insight, with future study, into the intersections and transformations of Reformation theology in the Spanish milieux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the diagnostic accuracy of two measures derived from spontaneous language samples, mean length of utterance in words (MLUw) and percentage of grammatical utterances (PGU), in identifying developmental language disorder (DLD) in Spanish-English bilingual children. We examined two approaches: best language and total language. Method: The participants in this study included 74 Spanish-English bilingual children with (n = 36) and without (n = 38) DLD. Language samples were elicited through a story retell and story generation task using Frog wordless picture books in English and Spanish. Stories were transcribed and coded using the Systematic Analysis of Language Samples (Miller & Iglesias, 2020) to extract MLUw and PGU in both languages. Results: Logistic regression analyses suggested that a model that included PGU, MLUw, and age achieved the best diagnostic accuracy in predicting group membership. Both approaches, best language and total language, had fair diagnostic accuracy. Conclusions: In combination, PGU and MLUw seem to be useful diagnostic tools to differentiate bilingual children with and without DLD. Clinical implications and usability are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish verb-complement (VC) compounds, one of the most common compound types in Spanish, raise interesting questions, because they are inflected, prototypically containing a verb in the third-person singular of the present indicative. This complexity seems paradoxical, given the strong restrictions of Romance languages on word compounding. Based on a self-compiled corpus of over 1,400 VC compounds, we show that the compound's verb may display different persons and illocutionary forces. We claim that all Spanish VC compounds can be parsimoniously accounted for as involving a grammaticalized perspective-indexing structure, setting up a non-actual enunciation. We identify three subtypes of nominal VC compounds according to whether they refer to: (i) the fictive addresser of the non-actual enunciation it is composed of (e.g. metomentodo [I+put+myself+into+everything], 'meddler'), (ii) the fictive addressee (e.g. tentetieso [hold+yourself+upright], 'tilting doll'), or (iii) the fictive conversational topic (e.g. pintalabios [paints+lips], 'lipstick'). We further argue that, despite undeniable morphological constraints, Spanish VC compounds involve a similarly complex semantic and morphological structure as English multi-word compounds like ' wanna-be (s)', ' forget-me-not (s)', or ' bring-and-buy sale'. This reveals that intersubjectivity can be central to word formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aimed to develop a valid and reliable bilingual version of the Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V) for the auditory-perceptual evaluation of voice in Catalan and Spanish speakers. Method: The development of this CAPE-V adaptation included Delphi methodology with 20 voice and speech experts reaching consensus on the optimal adapted terminology of the perceptual vocal attributes, considering also input from the original instrument authors. The adaptation and validation of vocal tasks followed a sequential validation procedure, with input from phoneticians and speech-language pathologists. Following pilot testing with a large sample of speech-language pathology students, a refined adapted version was empirically tested for validity and reliability. Concurrent validity was assessed by comparing the adapted CAPE-V with the reference Grade, Roughness, Breathiness, Asthenia, Strain scale. Construct validity was assessed through convergent and discriminant validity analysis. Intrarater and interrater reliability were assessed via intraclass correlation coefficient calculations. User experience was evaluated through a questionnaire. Scale properties were validated using a confusion matrix, and cutoff values were calculated to achieve the optimal balance between sensitivity and specificity. Results: Through a formalized consensus process, optimal Catalan/Spanish terminology was determined for the perceptual attributes of voice present in the CAPE-V. An adapted protocol of tasks was obtained that preserves the objectives of the original instrument and the relevance of the phonetic criteria in the target languages. The results demonstrated concurrent validity, construct validity, and intrarater reliability. Interrater reliability was found to depend on the extent to which evaluators shared their internal standards. The raters identified CAPE-V as an effective and preferred instrument. Conclusion: An adapted, validated version of the CAPE-V is made available to clinical professionals for the evaluation of voice in Catalan and Spanish speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence of geographic variation in child maltreatment report rates among Latine families is growing. This study investigates whether structural community characteristics, namely rurality and Latine ethnic density, associate with variation in Latine child maltreatment rates across 925 US counties. Using ten years of cross-sectional data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), ACS and USDA, OLS regression models examined rurality and Latine density's association with child maltreatment report and substantiation rates. Rurality associated with increased maltreatment rates; however, Latine ethnic density buffered this across most maltreatment subtypes. Results highlight a complex interaction between ethnicity, rurality, and maltreatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and Objectives: Spanish subject pronoun expression (SPE) among Bube speakers in Equatorial Guinea has hardly been examined. Thus, the paper aims to (a) examine the SPE rate (b) and the linguistic and social predictors of SPE in this variety. Methodology: The data for the present study were collected using sociolinguistic interviews. These interviews lasted between 45 minutes and an hour. Data and analysis: The audio recordings of 18 bilinguals of Bube and Spanish in Equatorial Guinea were transcribed and analyzed using the Rbrul mixed-effects statistical software. Findings: The overt SPE rate of these bilingual speakers is 17.9%. This pronoun rate is one of the lowest ever found among bilinguals. The significant factors are grammatical person and number, ambiguity, the lexical content, and gender. The insignificant predictors were reference, reflexivity, and education. Originality: This is the first variationist study on Spanish SPE among Bube speakers in Equatorial Guinea. In this study, switch reference, a usually robust predictor, is insignificant among bilingual speakers. Significance: This study expands on the scarce research conducted on Equatoguinean Spanish and opens new avenues for exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous literature on Yucatec Maya (YM) locates the most prominent constituent of an utterance at the beginning of the Intonational Phrase (IP) that contains the predicate. Similar results have been reported for Yucatecan Spanish (YS). However, since constituents vary in syllabic makeup, the exact position of prominence cues in YM remains to be determined. We present results from a production and a perception experiment. In our production experiment, YM speakers mostly produced prominence cues on the two initial heavy syllables of an IP. Our perception experiment shows that both bilingual YM–YS and monolingual YS speakers perceive main prominence on the head nouns of fronted object constituents. We argue for the existence of two competing strategies: speakers mark either the left IP-boundary or the focused lexical element of the fronted constituent. The perception of such prominence marking may have stimulated the use of the parallel pattern by speakers of YS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how three recently arrived Indigenous male migrant youth from Guatemala and Mexico in an urban high school in the Pacific Northwest understood and employed Spanish and English to navigate racialized and languaged interactions. Utilizing a Critical Latinx Indigeneities framework, findings from this study show that Spanish is a racialized and languaged system of power that traveled with youth. In the U.S., Spanish interacts with English as a new system of power resulting in the diminishing of Indigenous languages. This study provides urban educators with understandings of the complex systems of race, language, and power Indigenous migrants navigate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The primary aim of this study was to evaluate if children's oral health and oral health‐related quality of life (OHRQoL) were associated with school performance. Moreover, the study aimed to examine whether school environment factors influenced this association. Methods: This cross‐sectional study was based on a population‐based sample of 998 12‐year‐old schoolchildren from 31 public schools in Quito, Ecuador. Trained and calibrated examiners conducted clinical exams for dental caries, dental trauma and malocclusion. Furthermore, children completed the Spanish version of the Child Perception Questionnaire (CPQ11‐14), and their parents answered questions about socio‐economic status. School coordinators provided information on the physical environment, promotion of health practices and the occurrence of negative episodes in the school. There were three outcomes: grades obtained in Spanish language and mathematics and the number of missed school days. Multilevel linear and Poisson regression models were conducted using a hierarchical approach to include the variables guided by a previously created direct acyclic graph. Results: Children with dental trauma and higher CPQ11‐14 scores showed lower grades and school attendance. Schoolchildren from schools with episodes of vandalism had more school days missed. Conclusion: The school performance of 12‐year‐old children is affected by dental trauma and by a worse OHRQoL, as well as a negative school environment. Therefore, supportive environments and promoting health measures in schools could overcome this worse academic performance in children with oral health problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrants' children face challenges when returning to their parent's home country, which is usually unfamiliar to them. This qualitative study explores this phenomenon to understand more about the experiences of returnee children regarding their social-educational (re)integration and adaptation, the challenges they faced, and the mechanisms they have developed to overcome them. Results are discussed from the perspective of acculturative stress and social networks, identifying the struggle that returnees have to adapt and acculturate to their new home because of the lack of competence in the Spanish language and the consequences of the discrimination they suffer in the social environment, namely school and in their parents' hometowns. However, results also shed light on how returnees create social networks with classmates and family members who help them overcome these challenges, fears, and feelings of alienation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sheds light on the linguistic and extralinguistic conditions that determine the likelihood of L1 grammatical attrition in late sequential bilinguals. We explore whether aspectual interpretations associated with the present tense may be a vulnerable area for the native grammar of 30 late Spanish-English bilinguals who have settled in the UK for over 15 years. Attrition of this property in L1 Spanish grammars has been reported by Cuza (2010. On the L1 attrition of the Spanish present tense. Hispania 93, no. 2: 256–272. doi:) for Spanish-English bilinguals in the USA and Canada. Our finding of no attrition for UK-based Spanish bilinguals suggests that in Cuza's study, attrition may be mediated by dialectal variation in the L1 in the North American context, where Spanish is a widespread and visible community language. Further, we ascribe the absence of attrition to a specific characteristic of the grammatical distinction between the L1 and L2: where the L2 grammar provides options representing only a subset of the options available to the L1 for the corresponding grammatical property, attrition may be disfavoured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lemmatization is a natural language processing (NLP) task that consists of producing, from a given inflected word, its canonical form or lemma. Lemmatization is one of the basic tasks that facilitate downstream NLP applications, and is of particular importance for high-inflected languages. Given that the process to obtain a lemma from an inflected word can be explained by looking at its morphosyntactic category, including fine-grained morphosyntactic information to train contextual lemmatizers has become common practice, without considering whether that is the optimum in terms of downstream performance. In order to address this issue, in this article we empirically investigate the role of morphological information to develop contextual lemmatizers in six languages within a varied spectrum of morphological complexity: Basque, Turkish, Russian, Czech, Spanish, and English. Furthermore, and unlike the vast majority of previous work, we also evaluate lemmatizers in out-of-domain settings, which constitutes, after all, their most common application use. The results of our study are rather surprising. It turns out that providing lemmatizers with fine-grained morphological features during training is not that beneficial, not even for agglutinative languages. In fact, modern contextual word representations seem to implicitly encode enough morphological information to obtain competitive contextual lemmatizers without seeing any explicit morphological signal. Moreover, our experiments suggest that the best lemmatizers out-of-domain are those using simple UPOS tags or those trained without morphology and, lastly, that current evaluation practices for lemmatization are not adequate to clearly discriminate between models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qualified language service providers (QLSPs)—professional interpreters or multilingual clinicians certified to provide care in another language—are critical to ensuring meaningful language access for patients. Designing patient-centered systems for language access could improve quality of pregnancy care. We synthesized and identified gaps in knowledge about communication preferences during pregnancy care among patients with Spanish primary language. We performed a scoping review of original research studies published between 2000 and 2022 that assessed communication preferences in Spanish-speaking populations during pregnancy care. Studies underwent title, abstract, and full-text review by three investigators. Data were extracted for synthesis and thematic analysis. We retrieved 1,539 studies. After title/abstract screening, 36 studies underwent full-text review, and 13 of them met inclusion criteria. Two additional studies were included after reference tracing. This yielded a total of 15 studies comprising qualitative (n = 7), quantitative (n = 4), and mixed-methods (n = 4) studies. Three communication preference themes were identified: language access through QLSPs (n = 7); interpersonal dynamics and perceptions of quality of care (n = 9); and information provision and shared decision-making (n = 8). Although seven studies reported a strong patient preference to receive prenatal care from Spanish-speaking clinicians, none of the included studies assessed clinician Spanish language proficiency or QLSP categorization. Few studies have assessed communication preferences during pregnancy care among patients with primary Spanish language. Future studies to improve communication during pregnancy care for patients with primary Spanish language require intentional analysis of their communication preferences, including precision regarding language proficiency among clinicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Efficacy and validity of the MoCA for cognitive screening in ethnoculturally and linguistically diverse settings is unclear. We sought to examine the utility and discriminative validity of the Spanish and English MoCA versions to identify cognitive impairment among diverse community‐dwelling older adults. Methods: Participants aged ≥65 with cognitive concerns attending outpatient primary care in Bronx, NY, were recruited. MoCA and neuropsychological measures were administered in Spanish or English, and a neuropsychologist determined cognitive status (normal with subjective cognitive concerns [SCC], mild cognitive impairment [MCI], and dementia). One‐way ANOVA compared cognitive statuses. ROC analyses identified optimal MoCA cutpoints for discriminating possible cognitive impairment. Results: There were 231 participants, with mean age 73, 72% women, 43% Hispanic; 39% Black/African American; 113 (49%) completed testing in English and 118 (51%) in Spanish. Overall MoCA mean was 17.7 (SD = 4.3). Neuropsychological assessment identified 90 as cognitively normal/SCC, average MoCA 19.9 (SD = 4.1), 133 with MCI, average MoCA 16.6 (SD = 3.7), and 8 with dementia, average MoCA 10.6 (SD = 3.1). Mean English MoCA average was 18.6 (SD = 4.1) versus Spanish 16.7 (SD = 4.3). The published cutpoint ≤23 for MCI yielded a high false‐positive rate (79%). ROC analyses identified ≤18.5 as the score to identify MCI or dementia using the English MoCA (65% sensitivity; 77% specificity) and ≤16.5 for the Spanish MoCA (64% sensitivity;73% specificity) in this sample of older adults with cognitive concerns. Conclusions: Current MoCA cutpoints were inappropriately high in a culturally/linguistically diverse urban setting, leading to a high false‐positive rate. Lower Spanish and English MoCA cutpoints may improve diagnostic accuracy for identifying cognitive impairment in this group, highlighting the need for the creation and validation of accurate cognitive screeners for ethnoculturally and linguistically diverse older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay recovers bombast as an aesthetic category with singular importance to early modern tragedy. Its argument is that bombast, as language which feels irremediably wrong to its occasion, discloses the secret subject of the genre, which is the challenge—if not the impossibility—of finding language that will be judged right to the occasion of suffering. By attending to moments of bombast in Tamburlaine, The Spanish Tragedy , and Othello , this essay shows how early modern tragedies drive a wedge between linguistic creativity and aesthetic judgment, cultivating language that feels aesthetically and ethically off, as a way of turning tragedy itself into a genre in which language will not fit with its genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sign language serves as the primary mode of communication for the deaf community. With technological advancements, it is crucial to develop systems capable of enhancing communication between deaf and hearing individuals. This paper reviews recent state-of-the-art methods in sign language recognition, translation, and production. Additionally, we introduce a rule-based system, called ruLSE, for generating synthetic datasets in Spanish Sign Language. To check the usefulness of these datasets, we conduct experiments with two state-of-the-art models based on Transformers, MarianMT and Transformer-STMC. In general, we observe that the former achieves better results (+3.7 points in the BLEU-4 metric) although the latter is up to four times faster. Furthermore, the use of pre-trained word embeddings in Spanish enhances results. The rule-based system demonstrates superior performance and efficiency compared to Transformer models in Sign Language Production tasks. Lastly, we contribute to the state of the art by releasing the generated synthetic dataset in Spanish named synLSE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This exploratory study evaluates how bilingual first graders' vocabulary use in narrative changed after a Spanish-language intervention that focuses on connection between language and literacy. Method: Ten Spanish--English bilingual first graders produced three English and three Spanish narratives based on the Test of Narrative Language protocol pre-and postintervention. All samples were transcribed. Based on comprehensive word inventories, all words produced by the children were identified as being core words; Tiers 1, 2, and 3 words; and/or cognates in both languages. We also coded all utterances for use of internal state terms (ISTs). We evaluated total and unique production of these kinds of words. Results: Postintervention children increased their total number of cognates and ISTs across languages. They also increased the unique core words, Tier 1 words, and cognates postintervention. They also used more of each of these kinds of words in Spanish--the language of intervention--than in English. Conclusions: Children make qualitative changes to their vocabulary postintervention. There is greater change in the use of core words and Tier 1 words in Spanish. These increases in productivity and variability were indicated by the number of unique words added to the children's repertoires in ways that supported narrative production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, the Spanish Theatre Company (STC) opened the doors of its Cervantes Theatre (CT), the first British (and European) venue devoted to showcasing productions of Spanish and Latin American plays in a bilingual format. Four years on – and at a critical juncture given Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic – this article reflects on the current state and future prospects of this nascent migrant theatre initiative based in Southwark. This, I hope, will serve as a first step to re-think the Arts Council England's diversity strategies in relation to multilingual initiatives. Drawing on in-depth interviews and critical analysis of archival and online documents, I focus on four interrelated factors crucial for understanding how and why this unique project sprung into life in a London hotspot for real estate speculation just as the UK split from the EU, with the aim of exploring if the STC case could be used as a model for future endeavours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Standard clinical audiologic assessment is limited in its ability to capture variance in self-reported hearing difficulty. Additionally, the costs associated with clinical testing in audiology create financial barriers for hearing health care in developing countries like Mexico. This study used an open-source Spanish-language tool called PART (Portable Automated Rapid Testing) to test the hypothesis that a battery of assessments of auditory processing can complement standard clinical audiological assessment to better capture the variance of self-reported hearing difficulty. Method: Forty-three adults between 40 and 69 years of age were tested in Mexico City using a traditional clinical pure-tone audiogram, cognitive screening, and a battery of PART-based auditory processing assessments including a speechon- speech competition spatial release from masking task. Results were compared to self-reported hearing difficulty, assessed with a Spanish-language adaptation of the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly--Screening Version (HHIE-S). Results: Several measures from the PART battery exhibited stronger correlations with self-reported hearing difficulties than the pure-tone audiogram. The spatial release from masking task best captured variance in HHIE-S scores and remained significant after controlling for the effects of age, audibility, and cognitive score. Conclusions: The spatial release from masking task can complement traditional clinical measures to better account for patient's self-reported hearing difficulty. Open-source access to this test in PART supports its implementation for Spanish speakers in clinical settings around the world at low cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study counters the popular assumption that Spanish Heritage Language Learners (SHLLs) on study abroad (SA) in a place of cultural origin can easily adapt and find acceptance due to the linguistic and cultural resources they bring with them. Our study builds on previous work to illustrate a more nuanced and complex story of desires for belonging. The study investigated students' language desire and student cultural and ethnic identities to determine how these factors informed SHLLs' relationships with community stakeholders while on short-term SA in Oaxaca, Mexico. The study relies on pre-, mid-, and post-SA interviews. Interviewees included six students of Mexican heritage and 12 community stakeholders (five Spanish teachers, two programme administrators, two educational tour operators, and three host parents). Reflexive thematic analysis clarified differences between language desires of students with distant-Mexican ancestry and those with close-ancestry. The former sought missing family connections and 'real' family interactions with host families. The latter desired wholeness in their identity and a corresponding confidence in language skills. Community stakeholders expressed complex responses to participants with Mexican heritage, viewing distant-ancestry students as problematic for lacking Spanish and close-ancestry students difficult due to their Spanish knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive impairments in text reading and understanding not only affect individuals with intellectual disabilities but also deaf and deaf-blind ones, the illiterate, and immigrants whose native language is different, among others. Technology to support accessibility to texts is required to help people to understand information. This article addresses an evaluation of the EASIER tool conducted with intellectual disabilities and older people for the identification of complex and unusual words in Spanish texts and proposes them simpler synonyms for the complex word detected. Fifty participants were recruited in collaboration with an organization that works with people with intellectual disabilities. The participants were divided into two groups: Group 1 represented 25 older people, and Group 2 represented 25 people with intellectual disabilities. The evaluation showed that, for complex word identification, the selected texts were more complex in content for people with intellectual disabilities than for older people, which consequently suggests that the proposal had a greater benefit for the intellectually disabled group. Related to the proposal of substitutes for complex words, there is a high number of substitutions accepted in participants with a high school level of education for Group 1 and primary level of education for Group 2. Additional multivariate analysis shows that the system is adequate for people of advanced age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study design: Translation and psychometric testing of a questionnaire. Objective: Translation, adaptation, and validation of the Japanese Orthopaedic Association Cervical Myelopathy Evaluation Questionnaire (JOACMEQ) to the Spanish language. Summary of background data: Degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) has a clear impact on quality of life (QoL). The JOACMEQ is a self-administered questionnaire used to assess DCM-related disability and its impact on QoL. It is compound of five domains: Cervical Function, Upper Extremity Function, Lower Extremity Function, Blader Function, and QoL. Despite its increasing use, the JOACMEQ has not yet been translated and validated for Spanish-speaking patients. Methods: A total of 180 patients completed the Spanish version. Of these, 145 (80%) had DCM (mean age: 62.53; SD: 9.92), while 35 had neck pain without DCM (age: 52.71; SD: 10.29). The psychometric properties measured were construct validity, internal consistency, reproducibility, concurrent validity, and discriminatory ability. Results: We recruited 145 patients with DCM (mean age: 62.5) and 35 with cervical pain (mean age: 52.7). After factor analysis, our data showed very strong construct validity, with questions strongly loaded and clustered for five factors. Internal consistency proved high (Cronbach's α coefficient of 0.912). The intraclass correlation coefficient showed very good reproducibility for all domain (intraclass correlation coefficient range between 0.85 and 0.95). A high correlation between the JOACMEQ QoL domain and neck disability index was also found (Spearman's ρ=-0.847, P <0.01) confirming concurrent validity. The receiver operating characteristic curves proved to be significant in the upper (area under the curve=0.65, P =0.006) and lower (area under the curve=0.661, P =0.003) extremities, confirming discriminatory ability. Conclusions: Our proposed Spanish version of the JOACMEQ retains the psychometric characteristics of the original JOACMEQ and could prove useful for the evaluation of patients with DCM in Spanish-speaking countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the bilingual Spanish-speaking population in the United States (U.S.) steadily rises (U.S. Census Bureau in Language spoken at home, https://data.census.gov/cedsci/profile?q=United%20States&g=0100000US, 2020), the need for systemic therapists who are competent in working with Spanish-speaking clients also increases. While it is unrealistic to require all mental health practitioners to be bilingual English and Spanish speakers, systemic therapists can improve their understanding of the impact that clients' native language can have on the therapeutic process. In this paper, we synthesize concepts from narrative therapy and linguistic relativity to provide non-Spanish-speaking clinicians with a unique perspective of case conceptualizations and therapeutic interventions for clients who natively speak Spanish. A clinical vignette is presented to illustrate the practical application of linguistic relativity informed systemic therapy. Potential theoretical and clinical implications of this treatment suggestion are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish language media is linked to multiple forms of Latino political mobilization, including protest, naturalization, and voting. However, recent research associates geographic access to Spanish language broadcasts with significantly lower rates of Latino voter participation. We engage this controversy by exploring whether relative consumption of Spanish and English language media shapes rates of civic and voter participation among Latinos using data from the 2016 Cooperative Multiracial Postelection Survey and our own 2021 survey. 1 Next, we test the hypothesis that Spanish language media acts through politicized identities to shape Latino civic engagement, as some theorize. We find strong association between Spanish language media consumption and politicized identities among Latinos but no evidence that these identities constitute a conduit through which Spanish language media mobilizes. Instead, our results show that the mobilizing effect of Spanish language media consumption on civic engagement is direct and independent of politicized identity. These findings indicate a need to explore whether Spanish language media consumption influences Latino participation through differences with English language media in terms of content and/or fragmentation that better educate Latinos to participate, reduce political alienation, or accomplish both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Modelling academic self‐concept through second‐order factors or bifactor structures is an important issue with substantive and practical implications; besides, the bifactor model has not been analysed with a Chinese sample and cross‐cultural studies in the academic self‐concept are scarce. Likewise, latent structure validity evidence using network psychometrics has not been carried out. Aims: The aim of this study is twofold: to analyse (1) the internal structure of ASC through the Self‐Description Questionnaire II‐Short (SDQII‐S) in Chinese and Spanish samples using two approaches, structural equation modelling and network psychometrics conducting an exploratory graph analysis; and (2) the measurement invariance of the best model across countries and investigate the cross‐cultural differences in ASC. Sample: The sample was composed by 651 adolescents. Seven models of ASC were tested. Results: Results supported the multi‐dimensional nature of the data as well as the reliability. The best‐fitted model for the two subsamples was the three‐factor ESEM model, but only the configural invariance of this model was supported across countries. The graph function shows that the school dimension appears more related to the verbal factor in the Spanish subsample and to the math dimension in the Chinese subsample. Likewise, the relationship between verbal and math factors in Spanish students is non‐existent, but this connection is more relevant for Chinese students. Conclusion: These two differences may be behind the difficulty in finding invariance using SEM models. It is a question of the construct's nature, less related to analytical phenomena, and deserves deeper discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses natural language processing (NLP) tools to analyze how politicians recreate the stereotype of immigrants in the Spanish Parliament. An interdisciplinary approach from computational linguistics and social psychology has been used to construct a variety of indices about content and linguistic styles. The analysis of 2,516 parliamentary interventions about immigration delivered between 1996 and 2016 by representatives of the two political parties that alternated in power during that period (conservative Popular Party and Spanish Socialist Party) shows that both the rhetorical strategy to present immigrants as "victims" or as a "threat" and the language style that politicians use reveal an interaction between the ideology of the party and the party's political position in government or in the opposition. Results also suggest some changes over time in the polarization and politicization of the debate about immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering that the syllable is a well-defined unit in the Spanish language, we assume that it could be analyzed at the core of phonological paraphasias. Identify if the characteristics of the Spanish syllable system are reflected in the production of phonological errors among Spanish-speaking aphasic patients. Twenty-four Spanish-speaking aphasic patients with different aetiology, severity, and type of aphasia participated in the study. We designed Word and Pseudoword Repetition Tasks controlling for stimuli length, syllable structure frequency, and syllable position. The production of paraphasias evidences an effect of syllable complexity and syllable frequency, since the CV syllable structure which is the simplest but also the most common one in Spanish, was more resistant to errors. Stimulus length and stimuli lexicality effects were evident since monosyllabic stimuli and words (opposed to pseudowords) triggered fewer errors, respectively. Also, we observed an interaction of length/lexicality, where polysyllabic pseudowords were related to a higher number of errors. Finally, results revealed a strong correlation between the relative frequency of syllable structures in Spanish and the percentage of syllable structures in phonemic paraphasias. The repetition of words and pseudowords by these Spanish-speaking aphasic patients confirm that their phonological errors are related to the syllabic system of the Spanish language. This finding has implications when assessing Spanish-speaking aphasic patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study is to establish significance of graphic symbols - semiotic, cognitive and functional characteristics of emoticons and emoji as paralinguistic means of written communication in Spanish political Internet communication. The materials of the study are the publications of Spanish government bodies, political parties and politicians in the official Twitter accounts. The relevance of the study stems from the need to analyze the functional and impact potential of emoticons and emoji as an integral part of modern Spanish political discourse in the Internet and determine their characteristics from the standpoint of theoretical linguistics, discourse theory, semiotics and pragmalinguistics. The paper concludes that the semiotic characteristics of emoji and emoticons as iconic signs and symbols allow them to perform a number of important functions in the discursive Internet communication, for instance, nominative - identifying referents, due to the fact that they are associated with them by physical similarity; syntactic - structuring the punctuation and intonation contour of the message; cognitive - conveying additional conventional meanings implied by the interpretation of the represented objects; communicative - creating an intonation contour and emotional background of the message; influencing - setting the vector of pragmatic interpretation of the message and its empathic component. At the same time, the verbal and non-verbal components of polycode Internet messages are not opposed to each other, but mutually determine the integral perception, representation and interpretation of reality.

Although there is evidence that recognizing pseudowords is more difficult than recognizing words during childhood, adulthood, and early old age (60–75 years), it is not yet clear what happens during advanced aging or the fourth age, a stage when the decline of fluid intelligence strongly affects processing speed, but a good performance of crystallized intelligence is described through an increase in vocabulary and knowledge. The objective of this study was to determine the lexicality effect in advanced aging, specifically exploring how the ability to recognize words and pseudowords (ortho-phonologically plausible for Spanish) is affected during the third and fourth-ages. The lexicality effect was measured using naming and lexical decision tasks. Response time and accuracy were compared between a fourth-age group (80+ years) and two third-age groups (60–69 and 70–79 years) through linear regression models. The results showed that, in general, the fourth-age group had longer response times and reduced accuracy when recognizing words and pseudowords. Moreover, they showed a significant lexicality effect (which increases from the third- age onwards), reflected in higher costs during pseudoword recognition, especially when the task required more cognitive effort (lexical decision task). These results were consistent with the impact of the deterioration of fluid intelligence on the speed of lexical recognition and with the better performance that crystallized intelligence can generate on accuracy, especially in the early stages of old age. Additionally, this study supports the fact that pseudoword recognition resists cognitive decline, as accentuated deterioration is visualized only after 80 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-linguistic perception is known to be molded by native and second language (L2) experiences. Yet, the role of prosodic patterns and individual characteristics on how speakers of tonal languages perceive L2 Spanish sentence modalities remains relatively underexplored. This study addresses the gap by analyzing the auditory performance of 75 Mandarin speakers with varying levels of Spanish proficiency. The experiment consisted of four parts: the first three collected sociolinguistic profiles and assessed participants' pragmatic competence and musical abilities. The last part involved an auditory gating task, where participants were asked to identify Spanish broad focus statements and information-seeking yes/no questions with different stress patterns. Results indicated that the shape of intonation contours and the position of the final stressed syllable significantly impact learners' perceptual accuracy, with effects modulated by utterance length and L2 proficiency. Moreover, individual differences in pragmatic and musical competence were found to refine auditory and cognitive processing in Mandarin learners, thereby influencing their ability to discriminate question-statement contrasts. These findings reveal the complex interplay between prosodic and individual variations in L2 speech perception, providing novel insights into how speakers of tonal languages process intonation in a non-native Romance language like Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to adapt and validate a Spanish version of the Maryland Assessment of Recovery Scale (MARS-12). It was carried out in strict accordance with internationally recognized guidelines for test adaptation. A preliminary Spanish version of the MARS-12 was first produced through a standardized translation/back-translation process, ensuring semantic, linguistic, and contextual equivalence with respect to the original scale. Its psychometric properties were then examined in a sample of 325 people with serious mental illness recruited from six different provinces in the Basque Country (northern Spain) and Catalonia (north-eastern Spain). They were users of a total of 20 community rehabilitation and psychiatry services. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a unidimensional structure, consistent with the original scale. Scores on the MARS-12 were positively correlated (.83) with scores on the Questionnaire about the Process of Recovery, supporting convergent validity, while validity evidence based on relationships with other variables was provided by positive correlations between MARS-12 scores and scores on the Dispositional Hope Scale (.82) and on the three dimensions of the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (range.30 to.41). Reliability of MARS-12 scores was high (McDonald's ω =.97), as was temporal stability across a one-week interval (.89). The Spanish version of the MARS-12 is a valid and reliable scale that may be used by mental health professionals to assess recovery among Spanish people with serious mental illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: This study aimed to understand the language challenges faced by English-speaking animal professionals when communicating with Hispanic/Spanish-speaking animal caretakers. A survey was conducted among bilingual and non-Spanish-speaking professionals, revealing that non-Spanish-speaking individuals struggled with both written and oral communication compared to bilingual counterparts. Female professionals exhibited differences in their responses, particularly regarding the importance of certain aspects of the Spanish language while interacting with Hispanic caretakers. These findings highlight communication gaps that need to be addressed to improve interactions with on-farm Hispanic/Spanish-speaking animal caretakers and consequently contribute to enhancing animal health, welfare, and production. This study focused on assessing the language needs of English-speaking animal professionals in their interactions with Hispanic/Spanish-speaking animal caretakers. A survey was administered to a target audience of non-Spanish speaking and bilingual animal professionals to identify communication gaps while interacting with Hispanic/Spanish-speaking animal caretakers. The data was analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics, including ordinal regression analyses to examine the impact of demographic variables on respondents' answer choices. The results showed that English-speaking professionals struggled with written and oral communication, which differed compared to bilingual professionals (p < 0.05). Additionally, responses of female professionals varied regarding the aspects of Spanish necessary for interacting with Hispanic/Spanish-speaking animal caretakers, as well as the topics likely to be addressed when agriculture professionals communicate with animal caretakers (p < 0.05). Communication difficulties in the oral medium for both oral receptive skills (listening) and oral productive skills (speaking) were reported as the major barriers that animal professionals need to overcome in their attempt to communicate with the Hispanic/Spanish-speaking workforce in farm settings. This emphasizes the need to address oral communication barriers, and to a lesser degree, the development of reading and writing skills. The topics: typical clinical signs of illness, euthanasia, treatment—drugs, and identification of sick or injured animals were identified as the most likely to be addressed during on-farm interactions. These findings indicate that there are gaps in communication that need to be overcome to improve communication with on-farm Hispanic/Spanish-speaking animal caretakers and consequently contribute to enhancing animal health, welfare, and production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This present research paper explores the impact of minimizing the use of Spanish during the English-language teaching process, to generate a significant learning environment that enhances the language acquisition process and proficiency achievement. The literature review presents a deep analysis of communicative language teaching principles and the positive impact and benefits that immersion provides especially on cultural integration and language competencies. In addition, it also presents some worldwide-known strategies that are used by teachers to minimize the use of the native language in the classroom, such as Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), visual aids, and the integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Finally, the research provides some recommendations for future studies, encouraging further research on different educational levels, as well as the exploration of teacher training programs considering the significance of minimizing the use of the student's native language, in this specific case Spanish, lies in its enormous transforming potential to encourage dynamic English language learning environments, preparing students to succeed in a globalized world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implementation considerations should be integrated into the iterative development of educational innovations. The purpose of this design-based implementation research (DBIR) was to identify intervention components worthy of revision, examine the feasibility of a video manual and document barriers to the implementation of a multi-tiered dual-language instructional curriculum. Six teachers implemented the curriculum and provided feedback via structured interviews. Although four of the six teachers reported the intervention to be highly feasible, multi-tiered instruction did not align with the beliefs of two teachers. Teachers' feedback combined with child-level narrative and vocabulary outcomes led to curriculum revisions and to the creation of additional implementation supports. Findings suggest system-level barriers influence the sustainability of multi-tiered instruction in early childhood settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Talmy divided the world's languages according to how they express movement. Spanish, a verb-framed language, purportedly constrains the use of motion verbs expressing the manner of movement (such as roll) to contexts in which no spatial boundary is crossed. Previous research suggests that this constraint sometimes does not apply. We report the first large-scale investigation of the constraint and its modulating factors (movement direction, verb type, entering/exiting, Ground size, the preposition used) across different Spanish-speaking communities. A task with open-ended description of animated videos, a sentence interpretation task, and a rating task found that Spanish and Latin American speakers (n = 180 in total) often use manner verbs to describe boundary-crossing situations (especially entering a place), although this is modulated by the preposition following the verb (more with a than en). Better understanding of this constraint in verb-framed languages has applications in, for instance, L2 acquisition research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Verbal fluency tests are quick and easy to administer neuropsychological measures and are regularly used in neuropsychological assessment. Additionally, phonological fluency is a widely used paradigm that is sensitive to cognitive impairment. This paper offers normative data of phonological verbal fluency (letters P, M, R) for Spanish middle- and older-aged adults, considering sociodemographic factors, and different measures such as the total number of words, errors (perseveration and intrusions), and 15 sec-segmented scores. Method: A total of 1165 cognitively unimpaired participants aged between 50 and 89 years old, participated in the study. Data for P were obtained for all participants. Letters M and R were also administered to a subsample of participants (852) aged 60 to 89 years. In addition, errors and words produced every 15 seconds were collected in the subsample. To verify the effect of sociodemographic variables, linear regression was used. Adjustments were calculated for variables that explained at least 5% of the variance (R 2 ≥.05). Results: Means and standard deviations by age, scaled scores, and percentiles for all tests across different measures are shown. No determination coefficients equal to or greater than.05 were found for sex or age. The need to establish adjustments for the educational level was only found in some of the measures. Conclusions: The current norms provide clinically useful data to evaluate Spanish-speaking natives from Spain aged from 50 to 89 years. Specific patterns of cognitive impairment can be analyzed using these normative data and may be important in neuropsychological assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Jane Austen's novels conversation provides internal evidence of the nature of characters, both moral and social (Morini, 2009). Among the interplay of speech presentation forms (Bray, 2018; Page, 1972), Narrative Report of Speech Acts (Leech and Short, 2007) is still underresearched (Busse, 2020) as a characterisation resource. Research on speech reports in inquit formulae has focused on illocutionary features (Austin, 1962; Searle and Vanderveken, 1985). However, speech reports also introduce the intersubjective stances adopted by characters and by the narrator, i.e., their receptiveness to disagreeing positions. As engagement resources (Martin and White, 2005), they construct interpersonal styles and offer cues into the narrator's own stance toward the characters. Such meaning complexes are a challenge for literary translators. For this study, 55 instances of NRSA were sampled from three chapters of Mansfield Park and their correspondences in two Spanish and two German translations. The original text and the translations display remarkable lexical richness, with 36 instances overtly expressing illocutionary force. Characterisation cues appear at the character level of discourse, through the illocutionary features and engagement types attributed to characters (e.g. monoglossic, heteroglossic), and also on the narrator level of discourse, through linguistic co-textual choices weakening the endorsement of the character. All four translations contain shifts affecting the characterisation potential such as changes in a character's stance, the early disclosure of a character's attitude, and the insertion of explicit narratorial evaluation of a character. These findings are applicable in stylistics as well as in translation assessment and pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]