“SERVING GOD,FATHERLAND, AND LANGUAGE”: ALCOVER,CATALAN, AND SCIENCE

This article intends to contribute to the science–religion historiography with two topics—philology and the construction of national identities—that can help provide a more complex picture of the relations between science and religion. We use the life and work of the Mallorcan Catholic priest Antoni Maria Alcover (1862–1932) as a case study that puts language, linguistics, and nationalism on the board of science and religion studies. Alcover was the main driving force of the Catalan Dictionary, a collective enterprise that set out to inventory the complete oral and literary lexicon of this language, and which mobilized thousands of people, many of which were clergymen, from all over the Catalan‐speaking territories. In the article, we will explore Alcover's education; the way he established a link between language, religion, and fatherland; the shaping of his identity as a philologist in the image mainly of new German notions and practices; as well as his role in the institutionalization process of the Catalan language as a scientific language, as a language for science and for religion.     

Time Reading in Middle and Secondary School Students: The Influence of Basic-Numerical Abilities

Abstract

Time reading skills are central for the management of personal and professional life. However, little is known about the differential influence of basic numerical abilities on analog and digital time reading in general and in middle and secondary school students in particular. The present study investigated the influence of basic numerical skills separately for analog and digital time reading in N?=?709 students from 5th to 8th grade. The present findings suggest that the development of time reading skills is not completed by the end of primary school. Results indicated that aspects of magnitude manipulation and arithmetic fact knowledge predicted analog time reading significantly over and above the influence of age. Furthermore, results showed that spatial representations of number magnitude, magnitude manipulation, arithmetic fact knowledge, and conceptual knowledge were significant predictors of digital time reading beyond general cognitive ability and sex. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to show differential effects of basic numerical abilities on analog and digital time reading skills in middle and secondary school students. As time readings skills are crucial for everyday life, these results are highly relevant to better understand basic numerical processes underlying time reading.     

Differences in personality characteristics between body-modified and non-modified individuals: associations with individual personality traits and their possible evolutionary implications

After a long history of negative stigmatisation, the practices of tattooing and body piercing have become fashionable in the last decade. Today, 10% of the population in modern western societies have some form of body modification. The aim of this study was to quantify the demographic and personality traits of tattooed and pierced individuals and to compare them with a control group of individuals without body modifications. These comparisons are based on questionnaires completed by 359 individuals that investigate the details of body modification, and which incorporate five personality scales. We describe several sex differences in ornament style and location. We found no relevant differences between modified and non-modified individuals in relation to demographic variables. This indicates that some of the traditional attitudes towards tattoos and piercings appear to be outdated. However, we found striking differences in personality traits which suggest that body-modified individuals are greater sensation seekers and follow a more unrestricted mating strategy than their non-modified contemporaries. We discuss these differences in light of a potential signalling function of tattoos and piercings in the mating context. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.