Evidence from numerous studies using the visual world paradigm has revealed both that spoken language can rapidly guide attention in a related visual scene and that scene information can immediately influence comprehension processes. These findings motivated the coordinated interplay account (Knoeferle & Crocker, 2006) of situated comprehension, which claims that utterance‐mediated attention crucially underlies this closely coordinated interaction of language and scene processing. We present a recurrent sigma‐pi neural network that models the rapid use of (...) scene information, exploiting an utterance‐mediated attentional mechanism that directly instantiates the CIA. The model is shown to achieve high levels of performance (both with and without scene contexts), while also exhibiting hallmark behaviors of situated comprehension, such as incremental processing, anticipation of appropriate role fillers, as well as the immediate use, and priority, of depicted event information through the coordinated use of utterance‐mediated attention to the scene. (shrink)

According to Chomsky, creativity is a critical property of human language, particularly the aspect of ?the creative use of language? concerning the appropriateness to a situation. How language can be creative but appropriate to a situation is an unsolvable mystery from the Chomskyan point of view. We propose that language appropriateness can be explained by considering the role of the human capacity for Mental Time Travel at its foundation, together with social and ecological intelligences within a (...) triadic language-grounding system. Our proposal is based on the change of perspective from the analysis of individual sentences to the flux of speech in which the temporal dimension of language is much more relevant. (shrink)

Reporting systems based on mobile technologies and feedback from regular citizens are becoming increasingly popular, especially as far as protection of environmental and cultural heritage is concerned. Reporting life-threatening situations, such as sudden natural disasters or traffic accidents, belongs to the same class of problems and could be aided by IT systems of a similar architecture. Designing and developing systems for reporting life-threatening situations is not a trivial task, requiring close cooperation between software developers and experts in different domains, who (...) could possibly find industrially recognized languages and notations difficult. Thus, the question is whether using simplified graphical domain-specific languages (SGDSLs) could help in creating a common communication platform. It has been revealed that domain experts have a preference for such languages as they offer good learnability, readability and ability to focus on the idea of application. The perspective of developers (technical persons) is introduced on the basis of feedback obtained from 84 students of Computer Science at the Lublin University of Technology, who attended comprehensive workshops followed by an anonymous survey. All participants received theoretical and practical training in modeling mobile software using the same set of languages as domain experts. An analysis of the results revealed that opinions expressed by technical and nontechnical persons concerning SGDSLs oriented on defining a flow of actions is consistent. Most respondents claimed that such languages might be valuable as tools for creating a common communication platform. (shrink)

A new comprehensive framework for narrative understanding has been developed. Its centerpiece is a new situational logic calledEpisodic Logic, a knowledge and semantic representation well-adapted to the interpretive and inferential needs of general NLU. The most distinctive features of EL is its natural language-like expressiveness. It allows for generalized quantifiers, lambda abstraction, sentence and predicate modifiers, sentence and predicate reification, intensional predicates, unreliable generalizations, and perhaps most importantly, explicit situational variables linked to arbitrary formulas that describe them. These allow (...) episodes to be explicitly related in terms of part-whole, temporal and causal relations. Episodic logical form is easily computed from surface syntax and lends itself to effective inference. (shrink)

We examined whether the N400 Event-Related Potential component would be modulated by dispositional affect during sentence processing. In this study, 33 participants read sentences manipulated by direct object type and object determiner type. We were particularly interested in sentences of the form: The connoisseur tasted thewineon the tour vs. The connoisseur tasted the #roof… We expected that processing incongruent direct objects vs. congruent objects would elicit N400 effects. Previous ERP language experiments have shown that participants in positive and negative (...) moods were differentially sensitive to semantic anomaly, resulting in different N400 effects. Presently, we ask whether individual dispositional affect scores would modulate N400 effects as shown previously. Namely, previous results showed larger N400 effects associated with happy moods and attenuated amplitudes associated with sad moods. Results revealed significant N400 effects, driven by the #roof vs. the wine, where larger amplitude differences were found for individuals showing smaller negative affect scores, thus partially replicating previous findings. We discuss our results in terms of theories of local inhibition, such that low NA promotes stronger lexico-semantic links in sentences. Finally, our results support accounts of language processing that include social and biological characteristics of individuals during real-time sentence comprehension. (shrink)

This study aims to explore the current situation and strategy formulation of sports psychology teaching in colleges and universities following adaptive learning and deep learning under information education. The informatization in physical education, teaching methods, and teaching processes make psychological education more scientific and efficient. First, the relevant theories of adaptive learning and deep learning are introduced, and an adaptive learning analysis model is implemented. Second, based on the deep learning automatic encoder, college students’ sports psychology is investigated and the (...) test results are predicted. Finally, the current situation and development strategy of physical education in colleges and universities are analyzed. The results show that when the learning rate is 1, 0.1, and 0.01, there is no significant change in the analysis factors of recall, ndcg, item_coverage, and sps. When the learning rate is 1, their analysis factors change obviously, and it is calculated that the optimal learning rate of the model is 1. And the difficulty of the recommended test questions by using the sports psychology teaching method based on adaptive learning and deep learning is relatively stable. The test questions include various language points of sports psychology. Compared with others methods, adaptive learning and deep learning can provide comprehensive test questions for sports psychology teaching. This study provides technical support for the reform of sports psychology teaching in colleges and universities and contributes to optimizing the information-based teaching mode. (shrink)

Mostly learners and even teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) are still not able to speak grammatically and fluently just because they lack of the Indonesian language proficiency and comprehension. This research was done to investigate how the Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) can assist the teachers and learners of EFL in improving their English proficiency and comprehension. The data were analyzed by applying Miles’ and Huberman’s framework; data reduction, data display, and drawing then verifying conclusion. (...) The findings showed some positive and negative representative perceptions of the teachers dealing with the roles of the Indonesian in the teaching and learning EFL. The second findings showed and explored the roles of the Indonesian in the teaching and learning EFL. There were five roles by which the Indonesian contribute to such as Functional Equation, Competence Indicator, Linguistic Mediator, Communicative Language Paradigm, and Situational Language Use. The third findings explored the aspects in which the Indonesian had the roles to play in assisting the teaching and learning the EFL such as aspect of the Linguistic Item, aspect of Semantics, and aspect of Pragmatics. There were three other findings in this research that were explored and labeled as Linguistic Competence vs Linguistic Cognition, Cultural Behavior-Based Language, and First Language Interest. (shrink)

This article focuses on cultural misunderstanding in care relations, starting from the analysis of the effects misunderstanding causes in the relation between doctor and migrant patient. The Western medical model tends to be based on objective data, which can be diagnosed through more and more precise and detailed techniques, but it excludes human and cultural aspects of subjectivity and relation from care. This exclusion creates distance, which increases when doctor and patient do not share a cultural homogeneity but differ for (...) their language and the way they conceive their body, health, and disease. By showing some clinical examples, this contribution points out how specialized competence can cause dark areas of obscurity, disagreement, and misunderstanding, although being successful in many distressing situations. The interpretation of misunderstanding in the field of healthcare delimits our observation to disease, treatment, and the relation between doctor and patient, but the identification and comprehension of misunderstanding are possible also, focusing our attention on the organizational and institutional environment where misunderstanding takes place. (shrink)

This series will include monographs and collections of studies devoted to the investigation and exploration of knowledge, information and data-processing systems of all kinds, no matter whether human, (other) animal or machine. Its scope is intended to span the full range of interests from classical problems in the philosophy of mind and phi losophical psychology through issues in cognitive psychology and socio biology (concerning the mental capabilities of other species) to ideas related to artificial intelligence and computer science. While primary (...) emphasis will be placed upon theoretical, conceptual and epistemologi cal aspects of these problems and domains, empirical, experimental and methodological studies will also appear from time to time. Among the most challenging and difficult projects within the scope of artificial intelligence is the development and implementation of com puter programs suitable for processing natural language. Our purpose in compiling the present volume has been to contribute to the foundations of this enterprise by bringing together classic papers devoted to crucial problems involved in understanding natural language, which range from issues of formal syntax and logical form to those of possible-worlds and situation semantics. The book begins with a comprehensive introduc tion composed by Jack Kulas, the senior editor of this work, which pro vides a systematic orientation to this complex field, and ends with a selected bibliography intended to promote further research. If our efforts assist others in dealing with these problems, they will have been worthwhile. J. H. F. (shrink)

Inspired by a postgraduate French studies conference (University of Nottingham, 10 September 2008), this volume explores linguistic form and content in relation to a variety of contexts, considering language alongside music, images, theatre, human experience of the world, and another language. Each essay asks what it is to understand language in a given context, and how, in spite of divergent expressive possibilities, a linguistic situation interacts with other contexts, renegotiating boundaries and redefining understanding. The book lies at (...) the intersection of linguistics and hermeneutics, seeking to (a) contextualise philosophical and linguistic discussions of communication across a range of media and (b) illustrate their intimate relations, despite differing strategies or emphases. Puisant son inspiration dans un colloque de French studies pour doctorants (Université de Nottingham, 10 septembre 2008), cet ouvrage étudie forme et contenu linguistiques en relation avec différents contextes, considérant le langage conjointement avec la musique, les images, le théâtre, l'expérience du monde et un autre langage. Chaque chapitre dissèque la compréhension du langage dans un contexte donné, et se demande comment, en dépit de possibilités expressives divergentes, une situation linguistique interagit avec d'autres contextes, redessinant leurs frontières et redéfinissant la compréhension. Ce livre, situé à l'intersection entre la linguistique et l'herméneutique, a pour but de (a) contextualiser les discussions philosophiques et linguistiques sur la communication dans une gamme de médias et (b) démontrer leur relation intime, malgré des stratégies ou intentions différentes. (shrink)

Social work ethics provide practitioners with guidance on how to promote social work values such as respect, social justice, human relationships, service, competence, and integrity. Students entering the profession need to develop a real-world understanding of how to apply these values in practice while also managing the dilemmas that arise when social workers, clients, and others encounter conflicting values and ethical obligations. Ethics and Values in Social Work offers a comprehensive set of teaching and learning materials to help students develop (...) the knowledge, self-awareness, and critical thinking skills required to handle values and ethical issues in all levels of practice--individual, family, group, organization, community, and social policy. BSW and MSW students will particularly appreciate how complex ethical obligations and theories have been translated into plain language. Additionally, the comprehensive set of case examples and exercises provides realistic scenarios to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills across a range of practice situations. (shrink)

We investigated the coupling between a speaker's and a listener's eye movements. Some participants talked extemporaneously about a television show whose cast members they were viewing on a screen in front of them. Later, other participants listened to these monologues while viewing the same screen. Eye movements were recorded for all speakers and listeners. According to cross-recurrence analysis, a listener's eye movements most closely matched a speaker's eye movements at a delay of 2 sec. Indeed, the more closely a listener's (...) eye movements were coupled with a speaker's, the better the listener did on a comprehension test. In a second experiment, low-level visual cues were used to manipulate the listeners' eye movements, and these, in turn, influenced their latencies to comprehension questions. Just as eye movements reflect the mental state of an individual, the coupling between a speaker's and a listener's eye movements reflects the success of their communication. (shrink)

What do ‘meaning’ and ‘truth’ mean? And how are they situated in the concrete practices of linguistic communication? What is the relationship between words and the world? How—with words—can people do such varied things as marry, inaugurate a president, and declare a country’s independence? How is language able to express knowledge, belief, and other mental states? What are metaphors and how do they work? Is a mathematically rigorous account of language possible? Does language make women invisible (...) and encode a male worldview? These are the kind of questions that have been addressed by philosophers of language since ancient times. Interest in the subject stretches back to the beginnings of western philosophy . Interest in the philosophy of language has also been enduring—and has blossomed anew in the past century. This new title in the Routledge series, Critical Concepts in Philosophy, meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of the subject’s vast literature and the continuing explosion in research output. Edited by A. P. Martinich, one of the subdiscipline’s leading scholars, this collection brings together in four volumes the canonical and the very best cutting-edge scholarship in the field to provide a synoptic view of all the key issues, figures, concepts, and current debates. With comprehensive introductions to each volume, newly written by the editor, which place the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Philosophy of Language is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by philosophers and linguists—as well as psychologists and cognitive scientists working on language—as a vital research resource. (shrink)

Many social situations require a mental model of the knowledge, beliefs, goals, and intentions of others: a Theory of Mind (ToM). If a person can reason about other people’s beliefs about his own beliefs or intentions, he is demonstrating second-order ToM reasoning. A standard task to test second-order ToM reasoning is the second-order false belief task. A different approach to investigating ToM reasoning is through its application in a strategic game. Another task that is believed to involve the application of (...) second-order ToM is the comprehension of sentences that the hearer can only understand by considering the speaker’s alternatives. In this study we tested 40 children between 8 and 10 years old and 27 adult controls on (adaptations of) the three tasks mentioned above: the false belief task, a strategic game, and a sentence comprehension task. The results show interesting differences between adults and children, between the three tasks, and between this study and previous research. (shrink)

As a sort of intellectual provocation and as a lateral thinking strategy for creativity, this chapter seeks to determine what the study of the dynamics of biodiversity can offer linguists. In recent years, the analogical equation "language = biological species" has become more widespread as a metaphorical source for conceptual renovation, and, at the same time, as a justification for the defense of language diversity. Language diversity would be protected in a way similar to the mobilization that (...) has taken place to protect endangered species. Nevertheless, one must be careful when uncritically transferring conceptualizations and theoretical frameworks from one field to another, since obviously, these two phenomena are quite different in the real world. The dialogue with bioecologists starts by asking about the formation of diversity, i.e., about specialization. Here, one can observe the similarity between the processes of linguistic and genetic fragmentation, in the sense that both phenomena have a (socio)geographical basis for dispersion and consequently, for the loss of their original compact nature and their intercommunication. The self-organizing and creative properties of human beings favor the development of specific varieties for each subset, varieties that continue to evolve constantly, through the unceasing "languaging" of humanity. Regarding the continuity of species or languages, one can also observe the decisive role of intragroup relations. The staying power of linguistic varieties will increase in direct proportion to the intensity of the relationship among the components of the subset. On the other hand, if exotic elements are introduced, especially if these elements are aggressive in nature, the alteration of the ecological niche may turn out to be fatal for the continuity of the previously existing forms. This suggests to us the need to make an in-depth study of what the minimal contextual conditions would be so that a set linguistic group could be assured a sustainable continuity within a framework of linguistic contact. What type of minimum (socio-)ecological niche would a language have to have if we wished to ensure its habitual reproduction? A proposal is made here to explore the ideas of "exclusive functions" and "non-hierarchical functional distribution" for codes in situations where there is high contact and a danger of disuse. As regards change, this phenomenon is seen as an inherent element in the tendency of life to create new developments, which may or not be accompanied by an adaptation to changing environmental conditions. It is pointed out that, similar to what happens in biology, much of linguistic innovation stems from a systemically reorganized mixture of solutions from different codes. An important research question would be, however, to determine why some of these innovations disappear and others survive and extend throughout the community. The big question mark, as Mufwene points out, is, then how to manage to understand how "the evolution of language proceeds by naturally selecting from among the competing alternatives available through the idiolects of individual speakers". Extinction, whether it be of languages or of species, is caused in most cases "by a combination of demographic processes and environmental changes", as Brown points out. Thus, the environment plays a fundamental role in the direction of evolution, since the "the survival of the fittest is, in actuality, the survival of those who fit into the context (Allen and Hoekstra)". This allows us to see the great degree of importance of political-economic contexts in the case of languages. In the same way, migratory movements are also one of the major variables determining the extinction of biodiversity and language diversity. Species and habitat form the basic unit of existence, and this is the major point of departure for understanding the problem of the preservation and recovery of species or languages. Given the increase in the degree of linguistic contact, the continuity of language diversity depends on determining, as exactly as possible, as Prigogine, the physicist, would say, what precise conditions of imbalance may prove to be stable. The great challenge is not so much avoiding contact but managing it. And "restorative ecology" can also be of help to us here. Being able to reach sustainable solutions for language diversity implies a profound knowledge of the dynamics for determining the ways in which language is used in contact situations. The general conclusion is that linguistics is still terminologically and conceptually ill prepared to deal with the dynamic character of human languages. The world and our objects must be conceived of as elements in a state of flux, as changing systems in an unstable equilibrium. With respect to language policy, it would be necessary to make an effort to manage to establish some general principles regarding the linguistic organization of the human species that would make it possible for local linguistic diversity and communication on a planetary scale, which must necessarily take place, to be compatible with each other. To succeed, it will be necessary to continue promoting an autonomous socio-ecological perspective devoted to the comprehension of language phenomena. Such a perspective would be based on a paradigm of complexity, and would, at the same time, place human beings at the center of its theoretical underpinnings. (shrink)

We introduce a computational theory of situated language understanding in which the meaning of words and utterances depends on the physical environment and the goals and plans of communication partners. According to the theory, concepts that ground linguistic meaning are neither internal nor external to language users, but instead span the objective‐subjective boundary. To model the possible interactions between subject and object, the theory relies on the notion of perceived affordances: structured units of interaction that can be (...) used for prediction at multiple levels of abstraction. Language understanding is treated as a process of filtering perceived affordances. The theory accounts for many aspects of the situated nature of human language use and provides a unified solution to a number of demands on any theory of language understanding including conceptual combination, prototypicality effects, and the generative nature of lexical items.To support the theory, we describe an implemented system that understands verbal commands situated in a virtual gaming environment. The implementation uses probabilistic hierarchical plan recognition to generate perceived affordances. The system has been evaluated on its ability to correctly interpret free‐form spontaneous verbal commands recorded from unrehearsed game play between human players. The system is able to “step into the shoes” of human players and correctly respond to a broad range of verbal commands in which linguistic meaning depends on social and physical context. We quantitatively compare the system's predictions in response to direct player commands with the actions taken by human players and show generalization to unseen data across a range of situations and verbal constructions. (shrink)

Contributions from an international team of experts revisit and update the concept of linguistic ecology in order to critically examine current theoretical approaches to language contact. Language is understood as a part of complex socio-historical-cultural systems, and interaction between the different dimensions and levels of these systems is considered to be essential for specific language forms. This book presents a uniform, abstract model of linguistic ecology based on, among other things, two concepts of Edmund Husserl's philosophy. It (...) considers the individual speaker in the specific communication situation to be the essential heuristic basis of linguistic analysis. The chapters present and employ a new, transparent and accessible contact linguistic vocabulary to aid reader comprehension, and explore a wide range of language contact situations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific. This book will be fascinating reading for students and researchers across contact linguistics and cultural studies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:How to Inherit a Kingdom:Reflections on the Situation of Catholic Political Thought*Russell Hittinger and Scott RonigerPrudenceIn 1890, in his Sapientiae Christianae, Pope Leo XIII wrote: "The political prudence of the Pontiff embraces diverse and multiform things, for it is his charge not only to rule the Church, but generally so to regulate the actions of Christian citizens that these may be in apt conformity to their hope of gaining (...) eternal salvation" (§37). The title of the encyclical means on principles of Christian practical wisdom, the truths concerning the pursuit in this life of our supernatural end. Leo was also referring to the regnative prudence of the pontifical office, directing citizens qua baptized. Even if the direction is about political morality, the prudential directives presuppose sanctifying grace and a supernatural end. In other words, such prudence is here proffered under the formality of the New Law.1In the concrete, directing those who have sanctifying grace to right [End Page 971] judgment and action regarding what belongs or does not belong to Caesar is not easily given or received. The lines and entanglements are contingent and fluid. At a consistory immediately after World War II, Pope Pius XII remarked that the triumph of democratic forms of government has at least one advantage: "The distinction between the Church and even the democratic State becomes increasingly clear."2 Divine providence includes two comprehensive communities, polity and ecclesia, which differ in their respective origin and end. In the thick of events, they are not always so clear. For the better part of two millennia, ecclesial and civil governments look very much alike from an institutional and sociological point of view. They share families, languages, costumes, arts and sciences, banks, moral principles, the same contemporary media—indeed, even sharing the same laws and international protocols. More than half of the European Union countries are under at least one concordat with the Holy See. Yet when we casually speak of "Church and state," it is easy to imagine two teams in the same order of things. Even so, Pius XII acknowledged that democratic government makes clear(er) that the first subject of the polity is the populus, the people, whereas the first subject of the ecclesia is the Holy Spirit.Beginning with Leo (1878–1903), pontifical prudence had to reckon with the benefits and challenges of representative governments. Whenever public responsibility is vested in the citizens, the baptized citizens bear a greater burden of distinguishing what properly belongs to the Church and to civil government. For in representative governments the citizens are not vassals or retainers of the king and his court. Therefore it falls more directly upon the people to understand the difference between Church and civil government.3Leo understood the world he inhabited. In Rerum Novarum (1891), he mused, "Nothing is more useful than to look upon the world as it really is" (§18). This marks an important change in papal letters after 1789. Christian wisdom has to be communicated not merely to Catholics who are subjects but also to Catholics who are citizens: in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, [End Page 972] and so on. Thus, Leo observed in an allocution two years after Sapientiae Christianae: "Faith embodied in the conscience of peoples rather than restoration of medieval institutions is the way to final victory."4As it turned out, Leo's greatest problem was the French Church and the Third Republic, which became more aggressively laicist with every passing decade, even though it was still under the 1801 concordat signed by Napoleon and Pius VII. For Leo, much was at stake, chiefly the law of divorce, which had been excised from the Napoleonic Code. Born in 1810, Leo had seen the historical events: the captivity of Pope Pius VII and then his release by the French, the demise of Napoleon, the loss of the papal states (the longest continuous temporal government in western Europe, until the summer of 1870), and Otto von Bismarck's Kulturkampf. He possessed those chief parts of prudence: memory, foresight, circumspection, and above all caution!Writing to the French Church in 1892, he observed that:Founded by Him who was, who is, and who... (shrink)

As Macnamara (1978) once asked, how can we talk about what we see? We report on a study manipulating realistic dynamic scenes and sentences aiming to understand the interaction between linguistic and visual representations in real-world situations. Specifically, we monitored participants’ eye movements as they watched video clips of everyday scenes while listening to sentences describing these scenes. We manipulated two main variables. The first was the semantic class of the verb in the sentence and the second was the action/motion (...) of the agent in the unfolding event. The sentences employed two verb classes—causatives (e.g., break) and perception/psychological (e.g., notice)—which impose different constraints on the nouns that serve as their grammatical complements. The scenes depicted events in which agents either moved towards a target object (always the referent of the verb-complement noun), away from it, or remained neutral performing a given activity (such as cooking). Scenes and sentences were synchronized such that the verb onset corresponded to the first video frame of the agent motion towards or away from the object. Results show effects of agent motion but weak verb-semantic restrictions: causatives draw more attention to potential referents of their grammatical complements than perception verbs only when the agent moves towards the target object. Crucially, we found no anticipatory verb-driven eye movements toward the target object, contrary to studies using non-naturalistic and static scenes. We propose a model in which linguistic and visual computations in real-world situations occur largely independent of each other during the early moments of perceptual input, but rapidly interact at a central, conceptual system using a common, propositional code. Implications for language use in real world contexts are discussed. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to discuss the effects of audiovisual input on second language acquisition and the factors that influence the difficulty of audiovisual learning through a systematic literature review. Prior to this systematic review, in this paper, we searched papers on related topics for the past 10 years from 2012 to 2022, and found 46 journal papers that met the research criteria. They can basically represent the scholarly work in this field. The 46 studies were published (...) in journals indexed in Google Scholar, Eric, Scopus, and Wiley Library. Databases were selected according to a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria. The following conclusions are drawn from the literature review: Audiovisual input can provide more authentic language input and more adequate and richer multimodal cultural and situational contexts, which can better promote learners' understanding of the content and stimulate learners' interest in participating in listening comprehension tasks. The influencing factors of multimodal input on listening difficulty include subtitles, video type, and the relationship between the audio and visual input. (shrink)

Empirical evidence suggests that perceptual‐motor simulations are often constitutively involved in language comprehension. Call this “the simulation view of language comprehension”. This article applies the simulation view to illuminate the much‐discussed phenomenon of copredication, where a noun permits multiple predications which seem to select different senses of the noun simultaneously. On the proposed account, the (in)felicitousness of a copredicational sentence is closely associated with the perceptual simulations that the language user deploys in comprehending the sentence.

Units, rules, codes, systems: this is how most linguists study language. Integrationalists such as Michael Toolan, however, focus instead on how language functions in seamless tandem with the rest of human activity. In Total Speech, Toolan provides a clear and comprehensive account of integrationalism, a major new theory of language that declines to accept that text and context, language and world, are distinct and stable categories. At the same time, Toolan extends the integrationalist argument and calls (...) for a radical change in contemporary theorizing about language and communication. In every foundational area of linguistics--from literal meaning and metaphor to the nature of repetition to the status of linguistic rules--Toolan advances fascinating and provocative criticisms of received linguistic assumptions. Drawing inspiration from the writings of language theorist Roy Harris, Toolan brings the integrationalist perspective to bear on legal cases, the reception of Salman Rushdie, poetry, and the language of children. Toolan demonstrates that the embeddedness of language and the situation-sensitive mutability of meaning reveal language as a tool for re-fashioning and renewal. Total Speech breaks free of standard linguistics' fascinated attraction with "cognitive blueprints" and quasi-algorithmic processing to characterize language anew. Toolan's reflections on the essence of language, including his important discussion of intention, have strong implications for students and scholars of discourse analysis, literature, the law, anthropology, philosophy of language, communication theory, and cognitive science, as well as linguistics. (shrink)

It has been shown that when participants are asked to make sensibility judgments on sentences that describe a transfer of an object toward or away from their body, they are faster to respond when the response requires a movement in the same direction as the transfer described in the sentence. This phenomenon is known as the action compatibility effect. This study investigates whether the ACE exists for volunteers with Alzheimer's disease, whether the ACE can facilitate language comprehension, and (...) also whether the ACE can still be produced if the order of the two events is inverted, that is, whether overt movement can prime comprehension of transfer sentences. In Study 1, participants with AD, younger, and older adults were tested on an adaptation of the ACE Paradigm. In Study 2, the same paradigm was modified to include an arm movement that participants had to perform prior to sentence exposure on screen. In Study 1, young, older adults, and individuals with AD were faster to respond when the direction of the response movement matched the directionality implied by the sentence. In Study 2, no traditional ACE was found; participants were faster when the direction of the movement immediately preceding the sentence matched the directionality of the sentence. It was found that compatibility effects generated a relative advantage, that transfer schemata are easier to process, and that an ACE-like effect can be the result of mutual priming between language and movement. Results suggested preservation in AD of the neural systems for action engaged during language comprehension, and conditions under which comprehension in AD can be facilitated in real life may be identified. (shrink)

In meetings between people in school our values are shown through, for example, our actions, our speech and body language. These meetings can be regarded as ethical situations, which can arouse strong emotional reactions that ordinary, everyday situations usually do not do. The aim of this paper is to illuminate, interpret and discuss students' lived experiences of ethical situations in their school. The participants in the study were students in a Swedish secondary school, and the empirical data consisted of (...) written reflections and interviews. The study is based on the lived experiences of students. The analysis of the empirical data resulted in two themes: response in speech and action , and power relations . The comprehensive understanding of the results is that healthy relationships play an important ethical role in the school. Finally, we discuss how ways of listening to students' voices and appreciating practice can develop an ethical school. (shrink)

Objective: The establishment of patient-centered measures capable of empirically determining meaningful cognitive change after surgery can significantly improve the medical care of epilepsy patients. Thus, this study aimed to develop reliable change indices (RCIs) and standardized regression-based (SRB) change norms for a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery in the German language. Methods: Forty-seven consecutive patients with temporal lobe epilepsy underwent neuropsychological assessments, both before and 12 months after surgery. Practice-effect-adjusted RCIs and SRB change norms for each test score were computed. (...) To assess their usefulness, the presented methods were applied to a clinical sample, and binary logistic regression analyses were conducted to model the odds of achieving improvement in quality of life (QOL) after surgery. Results: The determined RCIs at 90% confidence intervals, and the SRB equations for each test score included in the test battery are provided. Cohen’s kappa analyses revealed a moderate mean agreement between the two measures, varying from slight to almost perfect agreement across test scores. Using these measures, a negative association between improvement in QOL and decline in verbal memory functions after surgery was detected. Significance: To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to provide RCIs and SRB change norms necessary for the objective determination of neuropsychological change in a comprehensive test battery in the German language, facilitating the individual monitoring of improvement and decline in each patients’ cognitive functioning and psychosocial situations after epilepsy surgery. The application of the described measures revealed a strong negative association between improvement in QOL and decline in verbal memory functions after surgery. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that public linguistic norms are implicated in the epistemology of testimony by way of underwriting the reliability of language comprehension. This paper argues that linguistic normativity, as such, makes no explanatory contribution to the epistemology of testimony, but instead emerges naturally out of a collective effort to maintain language as a reliable medium for the dissemination of knowledge. Consequently, the epistemologies of testimony and language comprehension are deeply intertwined from the (...) start, and there is no room for grounding the one in terms of the other. (shrink)

Access to legal information is fundamental to access to justice. Yet accessibility refers not only to making legal documents available to the public, but also rendering legal information comprehensible to them. A vexing problem in bringing legal information to the public is how to turn formal legal documents such as legislation and judgments, which are often highly technical, to easily navigable and comprehensible knowledge to those without legal education. In this study, we formulate a three-step approach for bringing legal knowledge (...) to laypersons, tackling the issues of navigability and comprehensibility. First, we translate selected sections of the law into snippets (called CLIC-pages), each being a small piece of article that focuses on explaining certain technical legal concept in layperson’s terms. Second, we construct a Legal Question Bank, which is a collection of legal questions whose answers can be found in the CLIC-pages. Third, we design an interactive CLIC Recommender. Given a user’s verbal description of a legal situation that requires a legal solution, CRec interprets the user’s input and shortlists questions from the question bank that are most likely relevant to the given legal situation and recommends their corresponding CLIC pages where relevant legal knowledge can be found. In this paper we focus on the technical aspects of creating an LQB. We show how large-scale pre-trained language models, such as GPT-3, can be used to generate legal questions. We compare machine-generated questions against human-composed questions and find that MGQs are more scalable, cost-effective, and more diversified, while HCQs are more precise. We also show a prototype of CRec and illustrate through an example how our 3-step approach effectively brings relevant legal knowledge to the public. (shrink)

It is often suggested that we are equipped with a set of cognitive tools that help us to filter out unreliable testimony. But are these tools effective? I answer this question in two steps. Firstly, I argue that they are not real-time effective. The process of filtering, which takes place simultaneously with or right after language comprehension, does not prevent a particular hearer on a particular occasion from forming beliefs based on false testimony. Secondly, I argue that they (...) are long-term effective. Some hearers sometimes detect false testimony, which increases speakers’ incentives for honesty and stabilizes the practice of human communication in which deception is risky and costly. In short, filtering prevents us from forming a large number of beliefs based on false testimony, not by turning each of us into a high-functioning polygraph but by turning the social environment of human communication into one in which such polygraphs are not required. Finally, I argue that these considerations support strong anti-reductionism about testimonial entitlement. (shrink)

Disfluencies include editing terms such as uh and um as well as repeats and revisions. Little is known about how disfluencies are processed, and there has been next to no research focused on the way that disfluencies affect structure-building operations during comprehension. We review major findings from both computational linguistics and psycholinguistics, and then we summarize the results of our own work which centers on how the parser behaves when it encounters a disfluency. We describe some new research showing (...) that information associated with misarticulated verbs lingers, and which adds to the large body of data on the critical influence of verb argument structures on sentence comprehension. The paper also presents a model of disfluency processing. The parser uses a Tree Adjoining Grammar to build phrase structure. In this approach, filled and unfilled pauses affect the timing of Substitution operations. Repairs and corrections are handled by a mechanism we term “Overlay,” which allows the parser to overwrite an undesired tree with the appropriate, correct tree. This model of disfluency processing highlights the need for the parser to sometimes coordinate the mechanisms that perform garden-path reanalysis with those that do disfluency repair. The research program as a whole demonstrates that it is possible to study disfluencies systematically and to learn how the parser handles filler material and mistakes. It also showcases the power of Tree Adjoining Grammars, a formalism developed by Aravind Joshi which has yielded results in many different areas of linguistics and cognitive science. (shrink)

Because visual narratives demand complex inference abilities, they can potentially be used as a tool for developing inferential skills in other domains, like reading. The Inferential Language Comprehension (iLC) Framework proposes an approach to using visual narratives in educational settings to sponsor inference skills by building on cognitive, developmental, and language research.

Derrida, with the deconstruction philosophy, shook all movements, stances, remembering and forgetting, and changed the flow of the river of perception and thought with a deep and comprehensive operation of reasoning and perception. He has resurrected the understanding of fluidity, movement and process, which has been coming since Heraclitus and renewed in Nietzsche in its own way by formatting these concepts. It has changed the method of meaning and signification, redefining it as an event, an action. He used "writing" against (...) the upper philosophy movement that fiddled with his country. He displaced the language, the word from its place, and wreak havoc in response to the glances that do not spare his own language. He rejected domination, embracing the free meaning. He deciphered the "great game" within the tradition of European language and philosophy. The state and its philosophy that imposes its "structure" realizes its gradual dismantling. Here, the reality is that meaning appears as an action which is the deconstruction movement itself. His “writing” is the proof of the French language and way of thinking which he “he lived in”. The new crisis results from philosophy of life rather than the language of Europe. Deconstruction has been a letter which found the recipient of the philosophy of the new century. Therefore philosophy needs to reevaluate the situation in the field of language and writing. Deconstruction has deciphered the "great language game" of which it is a part, before the eyes of the world. (shrink)

At present, there are so many learners in online classroom that teachers cannot master the learning situation of each student comprehensively and in real time. Therefore, this paper first constructs a multimodal emotion recognition model based on CNN-BiGRU. Through the feature extraction of video and voice information, combined with temporal attention mechanism, the attention distribution of each modal information at different times is calculated in real time. In addition, based on the recognition of learners’ emotions, a prediction model of learners’ (...) achievement based on emotional state assessment is proposed. C4.5 algorithm is used to predict students’ academic achievement in the multi-polarized emotional state, and the relationship between confusion and academic achievement is further explored. The experimental results show that the proposed multi-scale self-attention layer and multi-modal fusion layer can improve the achievement of ER task; moreover, there is a strong correlation between students’ confusion and foreign language achievement. Finally, the model can accurately and continuously observe students’ learning emotion and state, which provides a new idea for the reform of education modernization. (shrink)

Linguistics. Artificial intelligence. Related fields. Computation.

Although several theories of online syntactic processing assume the parallel activation of multiple syntactic representations, evidence supporting simultaneous activation has been inconclusive. Here, the continuous and non‐ballistic properties of computer mouse movements are exploited, by recording their streaming x, y coordinates to procure evidence regarding parallel versus serial processing. Participants heard structurally ambiguous sentences while viewing scenes with properties either supporting or not supporting the difficult modifier interpretation. The curvatures of the elicited trajectories revealed both an effect of visual context (...) and graded competition between simultaneously active syntactic representations. The results are discussed in the context of 3 major groups of theories within the domain of sentence processing. (shrink)

Typical spatial descriptions, such as “The car is in front of the house,” describe the position of a located object (LO; e.g., the car) in space relative to a reference object (RO) whose location is known (e.g., the house). The orientation of the RO affects spatial language comprehension via the reference frame selection process. However, the effects of the LO's orientation on spatial language have not received great attention. This study explores whether the pure geometric information of (...) the LO (e.g., its orientation) affects spatial language comprehension using placing and production tasks. Our results suggest that the orientation of the LO influences spatial language comprehension even in the absence of functional relationships. (shrink)