How verbs and non-verbal categories navigate the syntax/semantics interface: Insights from cognitive neuropsychology

We report on two individuals with acquired language impairment who made thematic role confusion errors in both comprehension and production. Their confusions were remarkably specific, affecting the roles associated with spatial prepositions (“The box is in the bag” confused with The bag is in the box) and adjectival comparatives (“The glove is darker than the hat” confused with The hat is darker than the glove) but not the roles associated with verbs (e.g., in The woman helps the man). Additional results showed that the confusions did not arise from spatial deficits, deficits affecting the semantics of spatial terms and adjectives, or difficulties with spatial and comparative relationships. Interestingly, the selective deficits are well-explained by linguistic theories that propose that non-verbal lexical categories, when used as predicates, depend on special mechanisms and structures for linking their thematic roles to syntactic argument structures. These are the first neuropsychological results to show that thematic role assignment is supported by distinct brain mechanisms for verbal and non-verbal lexical categories. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the linguistic knowledge associated with verbal vs. non-verbal word classes and of the conditions under which these forms of knowledge support sentence processing.     

High second‐language proficiency protects against the effects of reverberation on listening comprehension

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate whether classroom reverberation influences second‐language (L2) listening comprehension. Moreover, we investigated whether individual differences in baseline L2 proficiency and in working memory capacity (WMC) modulate the effect of reverberation time on L2 listening comprehension. The results showed that L2 listening comprehension decreased as reverberation time increased. Participants with higher baseline L2 proficiency were less susceptible to this effect. WMC was also related to the effect of reverberation (although just barely significant), but the effect of WMC was eliminated when baseline L2 proficiency was statistically controlled. Taken together, the results suggest that top‐down cognitive capabilities support listening in adverse conditions. Potential implications for the Swedish national tests in English are discussed.     

Generativity,Transdisciplinarity, and Integral Leadership

Generativity involves supporting the thriving of present and future generations. The use of integral maps and transdisciplinary methods increases the potential for effectiveness in our projects and strategies. Using distinctions to conceptualize what is required for the leadership of these generative and transdisciplinary efforts is proposed as a precursor to defining leadership within contexts.     

Investigating Constituent Order Change With Elicited Pantomime: A Functional Account of SVO Emergence

One of the most basic functions of human language is to convey who did what to whom. In the world's languages, the order of these three constituents (subject [S], verb [V], and object [O]) is uneven, with SOV and SVO being most common. Recent experiments using experimentally elicited pantomime provide a possible explanation of the prevalence of SOV, but extant explanations for the prevalence of SVO could benefit from further empirical support. Here, we test whether SVO might emerge because (a) SOV is not well suited for describing reversible events (a woman pushing a boy) and (b) pressures to be efficient and mention subjects before objects conspire to rule out many other alternatives. We tested this by asking participants to describe reversible and non‐reversible events in pantomime, and we instructed some participants to be consistent in the form of their gestures and to teach them to the experimenter. These manipulations led to the emergence of SVO in speakers of both English (SVO) and Turkish (SOV).     

中国当代医疗语言学研究综述

中国当代医疗语言学研究可分为两大方面,一是理论构建,二是具体研究。对于前者,学者初步建立了理论框架,但未能充分融合沟通学和语言学的理论,较少客观分析患者的语言特点和贡献,未能深入讨论相关的语用、社会、心理、认知等因素。从研究路径来说,具体研究又可分为语言学方法、医学视角和人文视角三个方面,各自有不同的特点和优势。中国当代医疗语言学研究在医疗语言互动的语旨、语场、语式以及理论基础等方面还存在较多值得开拓的空白和课题。     

临床医学新趋势：语言作为一种治疗工具的复兴

在履践生物心理社会医学模式中,语言具有不可替代的重要作用。现代医疗设备和仪器的高度发达使医生逐渐脱离了患者;技术主体化倾向使医生的语言功能逐渐地退化,语言能力的欠缺不仅影响医患关系,也直接影响疾病的治疗效果。因此,履践语言的临床复兴,务必掌握语言的艺术、沟通的技巧,以建立和谐稳固的医疗环境和医患关系,良好的语言是缓解患者痛苦的有效良方,在当今诸多医学及复杂社会因素的影响下,语言作为一种治疗工具必将成为临床医疗的新趋势。     

教师的语言形式对儿童语言理解的影响

为考察教师的不同语言形式对儿童语言理解的影响,采用独白、半对话和全对话三种语言形式材料,要求不同年级儿童在不同的语言形式条件下完成七巧板图形的识别任务。结果显示,一年级儿童在全对话和半对话语言条件下的正确识别率均显著高于独白语言条件;三年级儿童在全对话语言条件下的正确识别率显著高于独白语言条件;五年级儿童在全对话语言条件下的正确识别率显著高于独白和半对话语言条件。结果说明,在不同年级儿童中,教师的对话语言以不同的内在过程影响儿童的语言理解,这为了解“对话语言易于理解”的发展性机制提供了依据。     

Augmented language model with deep learning adaptation on sentiment analysis for E-learning recommendation

Sentiment Analysis is considered as an important research field in text mining, and is significant in recommendation systems and e-learning environments. This research proposes a new methodology of e-learning hybrid Recommendation System Based on Sentiment Analysis (RSBSA) by leveraging tailored Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) techniques, to recommend appropriate e-learning materials based on learner’s preferences. Integration is done on fine-grained sentiment analysis models, to classify text reviews of e-content posted on e-learning platform. Two enhanced language models based on ‘Continuous Bag of Word’ and ‘Skip-Gram’ are introduced. Moreover, three resilient language models based on the hybrid language techniques are developed to produce a superior vocabulary representation. These models were trained using various CNN models to predict ratings of resources from online reviews provided by learners. To accomplish this, a customizable dataset ‘ABHR-1′ is used, which is derived from e-content' reviews with corresponding ratings labeled [1–5]. The proposed models are evaluated and tested using ABHR-1 and two public datasets. According to the simulation results, Multiplication-Several-Channels-CNN model outperformed other models with an accuracy of 90.37 % for fine-grained sentiment classification on 5 discrete classes and the empirical results are compared.     

Pre-schoolers use head gestures rather than prosodic cues to highlight important information in speech

Previous evidence suggests that children's mastery of prosodic modulations to signal the informational status of discourse referents emerges quite late in development. In the present study, we investigate the children's use of head gestures as it compares to prosodic cues to signal a referent as being contrastive relative to a set of possible alternatives. A group of French-speaking pre-schoolers were audio-visually recorded while playing in a semi-spontaneous but controlled production task, to elicit target words in the context of broad focus, contrastive focus, or corrective focus utterances. We analysed the acoustic features of the target words (syllable duration and word-level pitch range), as well as the head gesture features accompanying these target words (head gesture type, alignment patterns with speech). We found that children's production of head gestures, but not their use of either syllable duration or word-level pitch range, was affected by focus condition. Children mostly aligned head gestures with relevant speech units, especially when the target word was in phrase-final position. Moreover, the presence of a head gesture was linked to greater syllable duration patterns in all focus conditions. Our results show that (a) 4- and 5-year-old French-speaking children use head gestures rather than prosodic cues to mark the informational status of discourse referents, (b) the use of head gestures may gradually entrain the production of adult-like prosodic features, and that (c) head gestures with no referential relation with speech may serve a linguistic structuring function in communication, at least during language development.