Relativism and the Interpretation of Texts

This article examines the relativistic view according to which the interpretation of texts is a matter of opinion and one interpretation is as good as any other. It clarifies the question by establishing precise understandings of texts and interpretations and by introducing various distinctions between different kinds of interpretations based on their function. It argues that not all kinds of interpretations are relativistic, although all interpretations are relative, and that even those interpretations that are relativistic are not so in the same ways.     

大学生阅读插图文章的眼动研究

选择33名视力正常的二年级大学生,用眼动仪记录他们阅读不同难度的无插图、黑白插图、彩色插图的文章时的眼动过程。结果发现:1、对于不同呈现方式文章的阅读,从阅读指标看:彩色插图组显著优于无插图组;从眼动指标看:在本研究中表现为彩色插图组的注视次数明显低于无插图组,而眼跳距离小于无插图组。2、材料难度对大学生的眼动模式有一定的影响,在本研究中主要表现为注视次数、回视次数有显著差异,阅读指标也表现出显著差异,都是易材料组优于难材料组。3、无论阅读指标还是眼动指标,在本研究中黑白插图的效果都不好。     

Predicting performance on text: Delayed versus immediate predictions and tests

North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota Delayed judgments of learning for word pairs are more accurate than immediate judgments of learning when the memory test is delayed. In the present experiment, I investigated a similar paradigm with text. Participants predicted performance on texts either immediately after reading the texts or after a delay following the reading of other texts, and tests were given either immediately or after a delay. Immediate ratings with an immediate test produced the most accurate predictions, and immediate ratings with a delayed test produced less accurate predictions. Delaying both the ratings and the test did not produce more accurate predictions than immediate predictions and a delayed test. The results for delayed judgments of learning with text were different from those with word pairs.     

初中生有无插图课文的眼动过程研究

本研究使用美国应用科学实验室(ASL)生产的4200R型眼动仪,采用2×2的二因素混合设计,对30名初中二年级学生阅读有无插图且难易不同的课文的阅读理解指标和眼动指标进行考察,结果表明(1)初中生阅读有无插图课文的成绩、时间和速度等阅读理解指标,插图课文显著优于无图课文,插图对课文的阅读理解整合具有明显地促进作用;而且注视次数和回视次数等眼动指标插图课文亦显著优于无图课文.(2)初中生阅读易课文的成绩、时间和速度等阅读理解指标不仅显著优于难课文,而且注视次数、眼跳距离和回视次数等眼动指标易课文亦显著优于难课文.     

Including Early Modern Women Writers in Survey Courses

There are many reasons to include texts written by women in early modern philosophy courses. The most obvious one is accuracy: women helped to shape the philosophical landscape of the time. Thus, to craft a syllabus that wholly excludes women is to give students an inaccurate picture of the early modern period. Since it seems safe to assume that we all aim for accuracy, this should be reason enough to include women writers in our courses. This article nonetheless offers an additional reason: when students are exposed to philosophical texts written by women, they learn that women have been, are, and can be philosophers. Given how underrepresented women are in philosophy, this finding is significant. If we aim to change the face of philosophy—so that it includes more women—we must include texts written by women in our syllabi. The article considers various obstacles faced by those who work to respond to this call to action.     

WELCOMING (AUTO)BIOGRAPHY WITHOUT WAVING AWAY FICTION

Abstract: This article is a response to Ole Martin Skilleås's “Knowledge and Imagination in Fiction and Biography.” The first section of the article summarizes the line of the argument in four theses: (1) What is real is more influential than what is made up; (2) there is no metaphysical chasm between autobiographers and us; (3) (auto)biographies are not just empirical; and (4) the moral lesson of a fiction need not be accepted. In the second section each of these theses is criticized. This criticism leads to the conclusion that we should welcome (auto)biographical texts in our moral investigations, but not at the cost of fictional texts. This conclusion is coupled with a proposal to formulate criteria to distinguish texts that matter from those that do not.     

Listening to the Language,Listening to the Words and Listening to the Spaces between the Words: Rhetoric and Pragmatics in the Performance of Christian–Muslim Relations

The article argues for the need to look beyond the texts used within the context of interreligious dialogue, and to focus just as much on the context and the way in which the texts are expected to be heard. It focuses specifically on Christian–Muslim dialogue at an event in Iran where the author was present. By looking at the use of rhetoric and pragmatics within his own contribution to this event, he raises questions about the way in which those contributing to dialogue communicate with the many different audiences involved, and the way in which their messages are received by those audiences. By focussing on this one event, the aim is to show what might be achieved through this kind of analysis and to call for more work to be done in this kind of way.     

阅读中的元理解监测与元理解调控

采用“阅读－关键词处理－元理解监测－测验1－选择文章重读－测验2”的流程, 探讨元理解监测对元理解调控与阅读理解成绩的影响。结果显示, 延迟写关键词相对于即时写和不写关键词更利于监测精 确性的提高; 延迟关键词组借助精确的监测能做出有效的元理解调控, 选出测验1中得分低的文章重读, 并在测验2中有较好表现, 而其他两组只能选出其认为难的、而非得分低的文章重读, 在测验2中表现不 佳。元理解监测的精确性影响元理解调控的有效性, 进而影响阅读理解成绩。     

Scripts we live by: on inheriting canonical texts

ABSTRACT

In this article, I theorize the interpretation of harmful canonical texts with special reference to John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. As a result of the actions and rhetoric of some of its North American evangelical readers, the Institutes has come to function as an intellectual foundation for certain expressions of modern homophobia. In conversation with Jacques Derrida on inheritance and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick on reparativity, I thus consider how queer evangelicals (especially those who wish to continue identifying themselves as such) ought to engage both Calvin’s text, particularly, as well as, more generally, those other canonical texts that are sources of trauma. In so doing, I proffer a capacious view of interpretation as not only what one says but also how one lives.     

The Arts,Midrash, and Biblical Teaching

Abstract. Biblical texts have been handed on to us through a long history of interpretation. Awareness of this rich but complex process is one of the goals of biblical teaching. Since the earliest centuries of the church there has been a parallel history of artistic interaction with the biblical text. These artistic treatments of biblical subjects have had a great cultural impact and have deeply influenced public perceptions and understandings of the Bible. Unfortunately, seldom does this history of artistic interpretation become a part of Bible courses. In this paper, I reflect on learnings from a serious effort to take artistic resources and methodologies into account in teaching Hebrew Bible in a theological school. My most successful efforts have employed the ancient Jewish interpretive method of midrash. Use of midrash opens new, imaginative possibilities that can enliven and extend our usual exegesis of texts. More specifically, midrash provides the ideal category for understanding artistic interactions with biblical texts. Through midrash students can understand artists to be both profound respecters of the power and integrity of biblical texts, while at the same time extending and entering into imaginative encounter with those texts. This article will appear as a chapter in the forthcoming book Arts, Theology, and the Church: New Intersections.     

组织结构图标记对文章整体信息理解与保持的影响

本研究采用实验的方法,研究了组织结构图标记对被试文章整体信息理解与保持的影响。结果表明:(1)用组织结构图进行标记能有效提高被试对文章整体信息的通达;(2)组织结构图标记类型与文章难度之间存在显著的交互作用,即在文章容易时,标记效应不显著;在文章较难时,标记效应极显著;(3)当阅读材料较难时,在半标记条件下,被试得分最高;全标记次之;无标记最低。     

Validating an interlingual metanorm for emotional analysis of texts

In this article, we present a set of 12 norms that characterize emotional terms in French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, and Finnish. The high correlation between the norm values in the two emotional dimensions of valence and arousal suggests an interlingual homogeneity of emotional representations and allows a significant metanorm??EMONORM??to be established with 6,383 terms characterized in valence and 4,345 terms characterized in arousal. This metanorm is a resource for creating experimental materials in studies on language and emotions. Furthermore, we perform three tests using EMONORM, with the objectives of (1) identifying basic emotions from their valence and arousal values, (2) determining the orientation of texts referring to positive and negative emotions, and (3) evaluating the intensity of emotions expressed in texts. The results are highly similar to those for human judgments. Finally, we present EMOVAL/SEMOTEX, a Web application for static and dynamic valence and arousal emotional analysis of texts using EMONORM (http://www.semotex.fr).     

Structural differences in the production of written arguments

The purpose of this study is to analyse the structure of written argumentative texts produced by pupils in grades 3, 5, 7 and 11 in relation to three different tasks: Group A — subjects are assigned a topic question consisting of a single statement (open question); Group B — subjects are given a topic question consisting of both a statement and its opposite (opposite opinions); Group C — subjects are given an initial and a final sentence of a text, which they have to complete, and which refers to opposite opinions (oriented task). Six different types of text organization were evidenced on the basis of the argumentative moves presented in the texts, the linguistic indexes used to express the relationships between the moves, the presence or absence of counter-arguments and the type of argumentation or reasoning used. The organization of the texts range from a simple affirmation of a position (repitition of the proposition or its opposition without any support) to a use of data or reasons to support a position, to others still in which two positions are presented in the body of a unitary structure, developed in parallel and interconnected regularly. Our analysis found a well-defined tendency corresponding to the age levels in the types of texts produced by the subjects. The texts produced by the younger group, the pupils in elementary school, contained a fairly simple structural organization, characterized by very few argumentations or a lack of explicitness of the essential moves and a juxtaposing of arguments. The older subjects, in particular those attending secondary school, were able to produce texts which were more complex with regard to the presence and the organization of the argumentative moves, and more coherent and cohesive with respect to their articulation of opinions and use of adequate linguistic indices to analyze t topic. As regards the different types of tasks, when the subjects were presented explicitly with two opposite opinions (though in different terms), they developed both positions in their responses, contrary to the situation in which they produced one position when only one of two opinions was presented.     

高二学生阅读插图课文的即时加工研究

采用ASL4200R型眼动仪,对28名高二年级学生阅读插图课文的阅读理解特点进行研究,结果表明:(1)高二学生阅读不同呈现方式课文的阅读成绩和阅读时间,以及注视次数、注视点持续时间和回视次数,插图课文显著优于无图课文.插图对课文的阅读理解具有明显的促进作用;(2)高二学生阅读不同难度课文的阅读成绩和阅读时间,以及注视次数和回视次数,易课文显著优于难课文.     

Contextual constraint: a Danish language replication of Miller-Selfridge with methodological improvements

Previous studies in the English language have demonstrated the relevance of context and redundancy in assessing the impairment of information processing functions in psychopathology. In the present investigation, Danish language texts, varying in their degree of contextual constraint, were presented orally to 32 normal subjects, following the procedure of Miller & Selfridge (1950). Zero-order texts were created with and without matching for word frequencies, a control that was not employed by Miller & Selfridge. Immediate recall was measured and analysed as a function of degree of contextual constraint. Context effects upon accuracy of recall were obtained. The results essentially replicated the findings of Miller & Selfridge, and those of similar studies in other languages. Word frequency affected accuracy of recall at the zero-order point. The potential value of these texts as research tools in psychopathology is discussed.