Contemporary realities of global population movement increasingly bring to the fore the challenge of quality and equitable health provision across language barriers. While this linguistic challenge is not unique to immigration contexts and is likewise shared by health systems responding to the needs of aboriginal peoples and other historical linguistic minorities, the expanding multilingual landscape of receiving societies renders this challenge even more critical, owing to limited or even non‐existing familiarity of modern and often monolingual health systems with (...) the particular needs of new linguistic minorities. The centrality of language to health beliefs, attitudes, practices, cultural scripts, and conceptual frameworks emphasizes its pivotal role in the healthcare process, and consequently in the adverse effects of treatment that is language‐insensitive and unaware. Such an attitude on the part of medical authorities risks considerable epistemic injustice in the form of a (mis)judgement of patients’ intelligence, credibility, and rationality based on the language that they speak and the manner in which they speak it, consequently impacting the quality and equity of care provided. This danger, I argue, may be effectively countered by fostering among the participants in the healthcare process a sense of epistemic humility through greater metalinguistic awareness. Outlining a range of operative steps that can be used to facilitate this. I argue that the reality of language barriers in the healthcare process, while not entirely eliminable, may nevertheless be successfully addressed, in order to mitigate the challenge of quality and equitable healthcare provision in multilingual societies. (shrink)

Some students who possess the same cognitive skill set as their counterparts but who neither speak nor write English fluently have to contend with an unnecessary barrier to academic success. While an administrative top-down approach has been in progress for many years to address this issue, enhancement of student performance begins in the classroom. Thus, we argue that instructors ought to implement a more organic bottom-up approach. If it is possible for instructors to make class content available in other languages, (...) such as Spanish, without thereby compromising something of comparable pedagogical value, then they ought to do so. In fact, we provide here Anselm’s Ontological Argument rendered in Spanish to show how, when translated, it provides native Spanish speakers with greater accessibility to difficult material. Then, we consider the possible beneficial implications of doing so for university students. (shrink)

Words not only define our reality, they reveal and direct our attitudes toward that reality. This feature of language is especially problematic when it comes to our treatment of animals. In this supple, thoughtful, and closely argued work, Vietnamese-American scholar Hanh Nguyen examines the words we use in English and other languages to justify our abuse of other-than-human world. Reframing our metaphors, categories, and descriptions of animals we love, hate, and eat allows us to break long-standing habits and see (...) our obligations and connections to non-human animals more clearly. (shrink)

An important part of the explanatory role of concepts is that they enable us to combine a wide variety of objects, properties and relations in thought, with contents spanning diverse domains. I discuss an argument that appears to show that paradigmatic non-linguistic representational formats are unsuited to play this role, and thus conceptual representation could not occur in these formats. I show that this argument fails, because it overlooks the possibility of individual concepts being shared between a number of special (...) purpose representational systems. Demonstrating this requires defending the possibility of cross-format redeployment of concepts. (shrink)

Wexler and Specker Sullivan (2023) reflect on the field of neuroethics by highlighting criticisms from both scholars within and outside the field. Among these criticisms, are claims that neuroethic...

Does language limit the moral thoughts we can have? To answer that, I distinguish between two kinds of limits: Boundaries or barriers fence things out. Identification and erection of linguistic barriers, defines, diagnoses, or places restrictions on what language can in principle grasp or be, and often involves abstraction from actual linguistic behavior. This is typically preformed by remarks I call ‘theses’; Contours or outlines give real-life portrayals. Drawing the contours of a linguistic activity involves a (...) certain attention to reality: to detail and particularity, and we typically draw contours by using remarks I call ‘helpers’. I examine the possibility that confusion can be diagnosed in Sabina Lovibond's attempt to apply the idea that moral language has necessary boundaries, and explain the alternative of drawing linguistic contours. I then examine Richard Rorty's position according to which the fact that we can shape our language indicates that the boundaries of language do not encompass all possible sense, and compare Rorty's discussion with Sarah Bachelard's discussion of euthanasia. My claim here is that trying to improve on the language we have might be part of drawing its contours, rather than redefining its boundaries. The discussion reveals a difference between two kinds of contour drawing, and thus between two kinds of helpers: ones that help to draw the contours of the actuality of linguistic activities, and ones that help to draw the contours of their potentiality. Finally, I argue that the value of drawing contours instead of barriers is that the former better reveal the fact that we care about our ways of making sense. (shrink)

I explore the idea of language reaching its limits by distinguishing two kinds of limits language may have: The first are “Boundaries” which lie on the edges of language, and distinguish what makes sense from what does not. These, I claim, are suitable in making theoretical generalizations. The second are “Contours,” which lie within language, and allow for contrasting and comparing meanings and shades of meanings that we capture in language. These are more suitable for (...) characterizations of particulars, and for literary use. I claim that failure to draw this distinction is responsible for confusions in Sabina Lovibond’s and Richard Rorty’s views of moral thought and language. (shrink)

Barriers to mental health interventions globally remain a health concern; however, these are more prominent in low- and middle-income countries. The barriers to accessibility include stigmatization, financial strain, acceptability, poor awareness, and sociocultural and religious influences. Exploring the barriers to the utilization of mental health services might contribute to mitigating them. Hence, this research aims to investigate these barriers to mental health service utilization in depth at the Kabutare District Hospital of the Southern Province of Rwanda. (...) The qualitative approach was adopted with a cross-sectional study design. The participants were patients with mental illnesses seeking mental health services at the hospital. Ten interviews were conducted in the local language, recorded, and transcribed verbatim and translated by the researchers. Thematic analysis was applied to analyze the data collected. The results revealed that the most common barriers are fear of stigmatization, lack of awareness of mental health services, sociocultural scarcity, scarcity of financial support, and lack of geographical accessibility, which limit the patients to utilize mental health services. Furthermore, it was revealed that rural gossip networks and social visibility within the communities compounded the stigma and social exclusion for patients with mental health conditions. Stigmatization should be reduced among the community members for increasing their empathy. Then, the awareness of mental disorders needs to be improved. Further research in Rwanda on the factors associated with low compliance to mental health services with greater focus on the community level is recommended. (shrink)

A barrier to entailment exists if you can't get conclusions of a certain kind from premises of another. One of the most famous barriers in philosophy is Hume's Law, which says that you can't get normative conclusions from descriptive premises, or in slogan form: you can't get an ought from an is. This barrier is highly controversial, and many famous counterexamples were proposed in the last century. But there are other barriers which function almost as philosophical platitudes: no (...) Universal conclusions from Particular premises, no Future conclusions from premises about the Past, and no claims that attribute Necessity from premises that merely tell us how things happen to be in the Actual world. Barriers to Entailment proposes a unified logical account of five barriers that have played important roles in philosophy, in the process showing how to diagnose proposed counterexamples and arguing that the case for Hume's Law is as strong as that for the platitudinous barriers. -/- The first two parts of the book employ techniques from formal logic, but present them in an accessible way, suitable for any reader with some background in first-order model theory (of the kind that might be taught in a first class in logic). Gillian Russell introduces tense, modal, indexical, and deontic formal logics, but always avoids unneeded complexity. Each barrier is connected to broader philosophical topics: universality, time, necessity, context-sensitivity, and normativity. Russell brings out under-recognised connections between the domains and lays the groundwork for further work at the intersections. -/- The last part of the book transposes the formal work to informal barrier theses in the philosophy of language, in the process doing new work on the concept of logical consequence, and providing new responses to proposed informal counterexamples to Hume's Law which employ hard-to-formalise tools from natural language, such as speech acts and thick normative expressions. (shrink)

Bilingualism is a valuable tool that enriches and facilitates cultural, social and lived experiences for autistic and non-autistic people alike. Research consistently finds no negative effects of bilingualism and highlights the potential for positive effects across cognitive and socio-cultural domains for autistic and non-autistic children. Yet parents of autistic children remain concerned that bilingualism will cause delays in both cognitive and language development and are still frequently advised by practitioners to raise their child monolingually. Evidently, findings from research are (...) not reflected in practice or subsequent advice, and it is essential to identify ways to ensure equal access to additional language learning. We briefly summarise the existing literature on bilingualism and autism, considering perspectives from the bilingual autistic community, and experimental research. We identify the most pertinent barriers to participation for autistic bilingual children in terms of familial, clinical and educational perspectives. We propose novel solutions to promote additional language learning and suggest changes to practice that will contribute to an evidence base for families and practitioners. This commentary makes innovative recommendations at both the individual and societal level to ensure that autistic bilingual people have equal rights and opportunities to language learning and are optimally supported in accessing them. (shrink)

Work of Eagle, Farah, Goldbring, Kirchberg, and Vignati shows that the only separable C*‐algebras that admit quantifier elimination in continuous logic are,,, and the continuous functions on the Cantor set. We show that, among finite dimensional C*‐algebras, quantifier elimination does hold if the language is expanded to include two new predicate symbols: One for minimal projections, and one for pairs of unitarily conjugate elements. Both of these predicates are definable, but not quantifier‐free definable, in the usual language of (...) C*‐algebras. We also show that adding just the predicate for minimal projections is sufficient in the case of full matrix algebras, but that in general both new predicate symbols are required. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to assess the usage pattern of telecentres, how rural women frame telecentres and barriers that limit use of telecentres. Further, the study examined the effects of demographic characteristics and location on telecentre usage. Design/methodology/approach The study used a sequential mixed research design in three rural districts surrounding telecentres: Kongwa, Sengerema and Kilosa districts. The study population comprised rural women who were users and non-users of telecentres. The study conducted six focus group discussions with 37 users (...) and six FGDs with 36 non-users in the first phase of the study in 2014; questionnaires were administered to 90 users and 90 non-users in the second phase of the study in 2015. Findings The primary use of telecentres among users was to access internet, followed by information and communication technology training courses and secretarial purposes. Rural women used internet for educational purposes, followed by news, information on health issues, job opportunities, social and entertainment issues. Rural women currently using internet were more likely to be better educated and have higher incomes at both bivariate and multivariate analysis. Users indicated that they faced the following barriers towards using telecentre: short duration of ICT training, frequent power outages, low speed of internet and few computers at the telecentres. Non-users were not using telecentres because of lack of ICT skills and language barriers. Originality/value This study provides empirical evidence to telecentres, libraries and other rural ICT initiatives to design rural ICT services that are gender-sensitive and demand-driven. (shrink)

College English teaching aims to cultivate students' comprehensive ability to use English. The study of spoken English barriers is a hot topic in this subject area. Based on a survey of non-English primary college students' spoken language impairments, this paper analyzes the research status of spoken language impairments at home and abroad. It relies upon the theoretical basis of Swain's output and Krashen's input hypotheses. With extensive data mining in colleges and universities as the entry point, this (...) paper's content, object, and method are determined by combining qualitative and quantitative research with empirical research. Through the combination of classroom observations, questionnaires, interviews, and other research forms, this paper concludes that the spoken language barriers of non-English primary college students include language and non-language barriers. The influencing factors of the spoken language output barriers include subjective and objective aspects. The questionnaires are analyzed from the three dimensions of the students, schools, and education departments. This paper proposes some ways to overcome the spoken English barriers of non-English college students. It also suggests that non-English college teachers should pay more attention to the cultural transmission of English-speaking countries in English classes, cultivate students' cross-cultural awareness, and enhance students' enthusiasm in English learning. These actions are more conducive to overcoming the psychological barriers in spoken English output. (shrink)

We discuss potential biorisks from large language models (LLMs). AI assistants based on LLMs such as ChatGPT have been shown to significantly reduce barriers to entry for actors wishing to synthesize dangerous, potentially novel pathogens and chemical weapons. The harms from deploying such bioagents could be further magnified by AI-assisted misinformation. We endorse several policy responses to these dangers, including prerelease evaluations of biomedical AIs by subject-matter experts, enhanced surveillance and lab screening procedures, restrictions on AI training data, (...) and access controls on biomedical AI. We conclude with a suggestion about future research directions in bioethics. (shrink)

Providing high-quality education for students with emergent proficiency in the language of instruction (referred to here as multilingual students) presents a challenge to inclusion for educational systems the world over. In Austria, a new German language support model was implemented in the school year 2018/19 which provides language support in separate classrooms up to 20 h a week. Since its implementation, the model has been strongly criticized for excluding multilingual students from the mainstream classroom, which is argued (...) to reinforce the educational disadvantages that they face. The study presented here provides unprecedented qualitative insight into how schooling for students within the so-called German language support classes (GLSC) was organized during the COVID-19 pandemic. It builds on results of a previous large-scale quantitative study (n= 3,400 teachers), which was conducted during the first lockdown (spring 2020) and indicated a high risk of exclusion for marginalized students, especially for multilingual students in GLSC. To gain deeper insights into the situation of these students during school closures, 37 teachers who work in these classes at both primary and lower-secondary schools in Vienna were interviewed, of which 18 interviews were considered for analysis. The interviews focus on the situation during the first and second school closures in the city of Vienna. A thematic analysis of the interview data reveals teachers’ perceptions of aspects which harmed or promoted inclusion for students in GLSC during these periods of school closure. Teachers’ perceptions of the most harming factors for students included strong language barriers between teachers and students, restricted access to technical equipment and supportive learning spaces, and low parental engagement. A development that promoted inclusion of these students was the option to allow them to come to school during the second school closure. Since existing studies on the schooling of students during school closures have hardly addressed the situation of students in GLSC, this study contributes to closing this research gap. (shrink)

There are barriers that translation must scale through to be effective, some of which are social and cultural. Social and cultural differences exist between and amongst nations. In most cases too, we find a country having several social/cultural diversities. These differences impede, in one way or the other, effective translation because of varying conceptions of reality occasioned by languages. This article examines some of the barriers that arise in the course of translation as a result of social/cultural factors. (...) Bringing these barriers into the foray of discussion will also serve as a way of avoiding them. (shrink)

Tracing the origin and circulation of the “jargon” spoken at Canton, the paper examines how “jargon” became an issue of Sino-foreign communication conflicts in the early 19th century, and how Westerners responded to it. As a lingua franca spread extensively in the Canton trade, the so-called “jargon” (a pidgin form of patois) played an essential role as communication tool between Chinese and foreign traders. However, in the eyes of missionaries in early 19th century China, the normal Sino-foreign contact process was (...) interrupted and distorted by both parties’ overusing of the jargon. In this regard, early Protestant missionaries’ support of Chinese language study reveals an initial effort to break through the “jargon” barrier. (shrink)

One less obvious impact of legal bilingualism in a postcolonial jurisdiction like Hong Kong is an increasing trend of unrepresented litigants. Since their lack of legal knowledge often places them at a disadvantage and poses numerous problems in court, the government has established the resource centre for unrepresented litigants to offer them information about legal procedure. This paper evaluates the usefulness of the Chinese official reference materials at the centre in equipping laymen for civil litigation. As a first point of (...) contact between unrepresented litigants and the law, these leaflets have a direct impact on the users’ understanding of litigation procedures and their courtroom performance. This paper argues that the leaflets suffer from two major problems: incomprehensibility of language and lack of structure. Problems involved in include inconsistency in terminology, problematic translation, and language complexity arising from the use of odd collocation, unusual words, difficult legal terminology and confusing parts of speech; whereas in , information is found to be scattered and disorganised. To improve readability, the paper suggests using plain language, and providing checklists of documents, and a legal glossary. Cross-jurisdiction practices will be examined to show how unrepresented litigants’ access to justice may be facilitated. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a restriction on certain types of LF movement, which I call ‘wh-related LF movement’. Evidence comes from a number of wh-in-situ constructions in German, such as the scope-marking construction and multiple questions. For semantic reasons, the in situ element in those constructions has to move at LF to either a position reserved for wh-phrases, or even higher up in the structure. The restriction (the Minimal Quantified Structure Constraint, MQSC) is that an intervening quantified expression (...) blocks this movement. In the case of every, the MQSC leads to an unambiguously distributive interpretation of the question. In the case of all other intervening operators, including negation, it leads to ungrammaticality. (shrink)

Using current terms, translation turns out to be one of the oldest manifestations of globalization in the world. It has also played a leading role in the civilizational development of Arab countries by filling gaps in law, philosophy and medicine. It would then be interesting to demonstrate how the interaction of Morocco and France, before and during the French Protectorate, contributed to the construction of a literature and the transmission of knowledge through translation. To do this, it would be wise (...) to reveal, first, the development of translation in Morocco before and during the French Protectorate, then to elucidate its role in the birth of a literary consciousness. As an extension, we will finally discuss the impact of the French heritage in general, in terms of language on Moroccan Arabic, in our time when the boundaries between the local and the global are blurred. (shrink)

The modern world is multicultural and multilingual, it creates difficulties for the mutual contacts of the nations with different languages. The problem of overcoming the language barrier in a multilingual world is urgent. One of the best ways to solve this problem is bilingualism: possession of two languages, a native and a second one, generally intermediate language. The choice of the intermediate language is determined by socio-political and socio-economic conditions of contacting people. In a multinational state official (...) language of the country serves as an intermediate language. In the multi-ethnic Russian Federation, Russian language chosen as the intermediate language, by which representatives of different nationalities come into contact with each other. National-Russian bilingualism in the Russian Federation has become a mass phenomenon: all non-Russian population in varying degrees is fluent in Russian language. Further improvement of bilingualism at the present stage is solved in the new format - as an active bilingualism. In an active and harmonious bilingualism, languages distribute responsibilities among themselves: native language and intermediate language perform different public functions and the number of functions is usually not equal, one language performs more functions than the other does. It depends on the status of the language: the higher the status of the language, the more reason a speaker has for its extensive use in different areas of communication. Harmonious bilingualism helps to keep the national identity of each language and makes it possible to operate each of them on an equal footing in a multicultural space. Among the many politically and legally equal languages of the Russian Federation, a special place belongs to the Russian language: it performs a consolidating function, combines the languages of the nations of Great Russia into one united family. Multilingual Russia can be compared with a starry firmament. The more bright stars we can see, the more beautiful the starry sky is. The star of the Russian language in the sky shines especially bright. (shrink)

The present paper reports a study of conversational acts in dialogical interaction. Conversation in which the use of a vulgar term [à la bieb żobbi] in the Maltese language was used was recorded and analysed for the present purpose. The term is demonstrated to serve social psychological functions. We documented three modes governing its use in conversation, that is, (a) as a personality descriptor, (b) as a strategy for shutting down an alternative view, and (c) as a strategy for (...) shifting dialogue to more neutral and less threatening grounds for the subject. We further document a number of modalities that govern justifications for using the vulgar term in conversation. We argue that the use of vulgarity can serve to achieve semantic barriers in dialogue and that these apply to internal conversations as much as they do to dialogical engagement with another. We further argue that semantic barriers can be overcome in ways that shift conversation to less threatening grounds. (shrink)

The present paper—taking the example of the English translation of the Hungarian Civil Code of 2013—aims to give an overview on the legal and terminology-related challenges and pitfalls that might occur during the process of translating a civil code with civil law traditions into the language of the common law world. An attempt is made to categorise terminology-related conceptual problems and elaborate how the different types of translation methods could be applied; moreover, how a kind of legal-linguistic checks-and-balances can (...) be achieved through the well-dosed combination, having also the ratio of similarities to differences of legal concepts behind the respective terms in mind. Legal translators must act beyond the role of a simple translator: they must be comparatists, being aware of the legal origin of the relevant concepts and using the methods of comparative private law and translation studies at the same time, since both law and language are system-bound and are heavily influenced by the cultural and social environment. The authors strive to identify the significance of those problems from the perspective of how language-related aspects can perform some fine-tuning on the comparative methodology and findings, whether they are barriers only or provide also an opportunity to verify or refute prima facie comparative results. Comparative law—no doubt—supports legal translation, but their relationship is reciprocal: legal-linguistic subjects and problems emerging in the course of legal translation supply valuable feedback and further sources of inspiration. (shrink)

Here we present what we believe is a novel account of what languages are, along with an axiomatically rich representation of languages and language-related data that is based on this account. We propose an account of languages as aggregates of dispositions distributed across aggregates of persons, and in doing so we address linguistic competences and the processes that realize them. This paves the way for representing additional types of language-related entities. Like demographic data of other sorts, data about (...) languages may be of use to researchers in a number of areas, including biomedical research. Data on the languages used in clinical encounters are typically included in medical records, and capture an important factor in patient-provider interactions. Like many types of patient and demographic data, data on a person’s preferred and primary languages are organized in different ways by different systems. This can be a barrier to data integration. We believe that a robust framework for representing language in general and preferred and primary language in particular – which has been lacking in ontologies thus far – can promote more successful integration of language-related data from disparate data sources. (shrink)

In my paper I will discuss both the processes of interlingual and intralingual translation of laws. The objective is to establish how the intralingual and the interlingual translation process influence or even shape a particular language of the law affecting thus the laws and the communication in a given legal system. In order to achieve this, I will initially research into the historical process that produced a series of intralingual translations of major laws in Greece and both interlingual and (...) intralingual translations of laws in Cyprus, investigate the main principles used in interlingual and intralingual translation, examine how the languages of the law in Greece and Cyprus were affected by these translations, and show how intralingual and interlingual translation influenced the law both in Greece and Cyprus. (shrink)

One of the significant courses in Chinese universities is English. This course is usually taught by a foreign language instructor. There will, however, necessarily be some communication hurdles between “foreign language teachers” and “native students.” This research presents an emotion recognition method for foreign language teachers in order to eliminate communication barriers between teachers and students and improve student learning efficiency. We discovered four factors of emotion recognition through literature analysis: smile, eye contact, gesture, and tone. (...) We believe that differences in foreign language teachers’ performance in these four areas will have an impact on students’ emotion recognition and, as a result, on their learning efficiency. The influence of the foreign language teacher’s eye contact and gestures is larger in the decision whether can improve the students’ classroom learning efficiency, according to 43 of the questionnaire data analysis. The second is the tone and smile. Our research contributes to the body of knowledge on emotion recognition in university foreign language teachers by presenting a practical method for recognizing emotion in foreign language teachers. We recommend that college foreign language teachers pay attention to eye and gesture communication with students in English classrooms based on the findings. By enriching the style of emotional expression in class, college language teachers, particularly foreign language teachers, can improve communication, and connection with students. (shrink)

The barrier to global health most often noted in Western discourse is the enduring disparity of access to medical technologies. This assessment of the circumstances in global health fits well within a bioethic centered on the equitable distribution of access to medical goods. Yet through an interrogative consideration of two episodes in the marketing of progress, namely the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago (1933–1934) and one post-war spin on atomic development in the National Geographic, I suggest that the (...) class='Hi'>language of medical advancement continues to trade on a division between civilized, rational, scientifically developed peoples and the atavism of peoples by whom Western science gauges its progress. I recommend unremittingly self-critical attention to the dynamics of language and legitimization used within the Western academy by those who seek ostensibly to be of use in regions (powerfully) labeled as “developing.”. (shrink)

Constitutions serve (at least) two central functions. One is to settle certain controversies by offering a definitive solution, such as adoption of a presidential or parliamentary system, a one-house or two-house legislature, or guaranteeing a certain term of years to judicial appointees. Not surprisingly, there is rarely litigation about such solutions, even if one finds them troublesome; instead, one can suggest amending the constitution or even replacing it. A second function is precisely to engender litigation by addressing certain issues—very often (...) involving rights—that don't lend themselves to the kinds of definitive textual solutions similar to those involving structural features of a polity. If the first constitution can be described as a “constitution of settlement,” this second constitution is a “constitution of legal conversation” inasmuch as lawyers constantly dispute the meanings to be assigned such terms as “equal protection,” “human dignity,” and the like. But how does this apply to the preambles commonly, though not always, found in constitutions? Preambles often claim to evoke what binds together the society for whom the constitution is being drafted—religion, ethnicity, histories, languages, or commitments to norms, including universalistic ones. But to what extent are such claims of unity attempts by political elites to marginalize sectors of the society that do not in fact share the attributes in question? In any event, there is nothing “innocent” about constitutional preambles, and they are well worth taking seriously whether or not they are useful to lawyers engaged in litigation. (shrink)

According to physicalism, everything is physical or metaphysically connected to the physical. If physicalism were true, it seems that we should – in principle – be able to reduce the descriptions and explanations of special sciences to physical ones, for example, explaining biological regularities, via chemistry, by the laws of particle physics. The multiple realization of the property types of the special sciences is often seen to be an obstacle to such epistemic reductions. Here, we introduce another, new argument against (...) epistemic reduction. Based on mathematical complexity, we show that, under certain conditions, there can be “complexity barriers” that make epistemic reduction – in principle – unachievable even if physicalism were true. (shrink)

Here I try to improve on the available answers to certain long-debated questions and set out some consequences for the answers. Are there limits to the extent to which we can understand the conceptual worlds of other human communities and of non-human creatures? How does this question relate to our ability to engage in other cultures’ practices and languages? What is meant by ‘the body’ and what is meant by ‘the brain’ and how do different meanings bear on the questions? (...) The central answer developed here is that it is possible, given the right circumstances, for a competent human from any human group to understand the culture of any other human group without engaging in their practices though there are barriers when it comes to communication across species. This answer has important social and political consequences and consequences for the debate about artificial intelligence. (shrink)

In the global economy, linguistic diversity influences economic and political development as well as public policies in positive and negative ways. It leads to financial costs, communication barriers, divisions in national unity, and, in some extreme cases, conflicts and war--but it also produces benefits related to group and individual identity. What are the specific advantages and disadvantages of linguistic diversity and how does it influence social and economic progress? This book examines linguistic diversity as a global social phenomenon and (...) considers what degree of linguistic variety might result in the greatest economic good.Victor Ginsburgh and Shlomo Weber look at linguistic proximity between groups and between languages. They describe and use simple economic, linguistic, and statistical tools to measure diversity's impact on growth, development, trade, the quality of institutions, translation issues, voting patterns in multinational competitions, and the likelihood and intensity of civil conflicts. They address the choosing of core languages in a multilingual community, such as the European Union, and argue that although too many official languages might harm cohesiveness, efficiency, and communication, reducing their number brings about alienation and disenfranchisement of groups.Demonstrating that the value and drawbacks of linguistic diversity are universal, How Many Languages Do We Need? suggests ways for designing appropriate linguistic policies for today's multilingual world. (shrink)

The paper analyses the use of the Romani language in the Slovak educational system. It focuses on the informal use of Romani in schools, as about 10% of all pupils speak Romani as their mother tongue but there are no schools that use Romani as the language of instruction. The theoretical framework draws mainly on the work of P. Bourdieu and S. May on the symbolic power of language. The empirical chapter is based on qualitative data collected (...) at ten primary schools in different parts of Slovakia, as well as interviews with decision makers and experts. On the basis of the empirical research, three questions are posed. (1) Is Romani used in schools and if so how? (2) What attitudes do school staff have on the use of Romani? (3) Is the theory of Stephen May applicable to Slovakia and is Romani perceived to have merely sentimental value while Slovak is considered to have instrumental value? The article concludes that the perceived value of Romani in Slovakia is very low. From the point of view of school staff, it has no instrumental value and is perceived as a barrier rather than a benefit. (shrink)

This contribution to design methodology reflects upon the barriers to effectiveness imposed by our tendency to gravitate towards the over-formal in human affairs. We see a correspondingly cleaned-up description of the process of design, a failure to consider its jagged elements and to take proper account of the non-formal in knowledge (e.g. tacit knowledge) and communication. Discipline in methodology is accordingly wrongly equated with formality. The failure of design to be effective is more likely for innovative design rather than (...) routine design.It is suggested by way of explanation that design methodology especially in the field of information technology is infused with the ghost of positivism, manifest in an unconditional belief in the value of rationality and an implied naive realist conviction about the fixed, singular and transparent nature of the environment for which design is undertaken.We need to be able to work with uncertainty rather than try for its entire elimination. A breadth of approach in carrying out the activity of design is threatened by lack of attention to the variety of forms which knowledge and corresponding forms of discourse can take.We undertake the disciplined reduction from the messy real work to metaphors tidy enough to work with, or models as they are usually misnamed.The notion of “language of struggle” is invoked as a suitable metaphor for the non-formal discourse particularly relevant to innovative design. A complementary exploration is offered of socio-linguistic space which is the common context for design.In view of the concern with social space necessary to effective design, it may be enlightening to consider the designer as applied anthropologist. (shrink)

Several fields contributing to psychiatric advances, such as psychology, biology, and the humanities, have not yet met to produce a cohesive and integrated picture of human function and dysfunction, strength and vulnerability, etc., despite advances in their own areas. The failure may have its roots in a disagreement on what we mean by the human person and his or her relationship with the world, for which the incommensurate language of these disciplines may be partly to blame. Turns taken by (...) western philosophy over the past 400 years may help to explain this. Language is such an important tool for psychiatrists, that examination of it may afford an insight into the reasons for divisions in the field. This paper aims to examine and compare psychologies (and hence psychiatries) derived from modern western philosophy, with similar concepts in other cultures, through the study of developments in terminology, in terms of the simplest facts about what it means to be human. Terminology used in mental health in western cultures is examined, with particular consideration of the term “self” as it has come to be used in a technical sense. Analogous terms from non-English speaking European languages, and some non-western cultures are studied. Western philosophy and psychology have evolved a meaning for the term “self” which is quite different from equivalent terms in non-western cultures. It is a moot point whether or not the development in western psychiatry of what are now technical terms to describe normal human experience has become needlessly obscure and ambiguous. It is not evident that this “new” language represents a genuine advance in understanding; it distances mental health professionals from those who are not familiar with it; and it makes transcultural dialogue difficult. (shrink)

Refugees constitute one of the most serious international problems that the world faces today. The problem of guarantee of access to a language that is understood by the applicant in the procedure for granting refugee status, presented in this paper, is strongly associated with this matter. Due to the fact that this is an issue which affects a considerable number of states, both interna- tional and domestic regulations concerning the granting of refugee status were selected for examination in the (...) present paper. The provisions of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as well as of the Act of 13 June 2003 on granting protection to foreigners within the territory of the Republic of Poland were considered. The paper focuses on an analysis of the guarantee to make provision for communication in an understandable language, which does not create a barrier for the person applying for refugee status while communicating with administrative agencies that are decisive in granting the aforementioned status. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship plays an indispensable role in the economic development and poverty reduction of emerging economies like Vietnam. The rapid development of technologies during the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) has a significant impact on business in every field, especially in the innovation-focused area of entrepreneurship. However, the topic of entrepreneurial activities with technology applications in Vietnam is under-researched. In addition, the body of literature regarding entrepreneurial finance tends to focus on advanced economies, while mostly neglecting the contextual differences in developing (...) nations. Therefore, this research contributes to these topics by investigating the main characteristics of a high potential market for entrepreneurs in Vietnam, which is the English language training market (ELTM). It also aims at indicating the impacts of technology on the entrepreneurial firms within this market, with an emphasis on financing sources. To answer the research questions, this study employs a qualitative analysis and conducts 12 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs and researchers in the field. The key findings in our study highlight the main contributing factors to the growth of the market, both universally and context-specific for a developing nation like Vietnam. It also lists the leaders in each market segment and the industry’s potential profit margin. The results also show that most entrepreneurs in the ELTM utilized private sources of finance rather than external ones, such as bank loans. It again confirms the idea from previous works that even with the rapid development of the economic and technological landscape, entrepreneurial activities in general barely benefit from additional sources of funding. However, it also points out the distinct characteristics of the ELTM that may influence these financing issues; for example, English training services usually collect revenues from customers before delivering their classes. This is of advantage for entrepreneurs in this area and helps significantly reduce the financial barriers. These findings, which are among the first attempts to contribute to a better understanding of entrepreneurial opportunities in the Industry 4.0 in Vietnam, provide valuable insights for policymakers and entrepreneurs, as well as investors. (shrink)

In today’s knowledge economy, knowledge and knowledge sharing are fundamental for organizations to achieve competitiveness and for individuals to strengthen their innovation capabilities. Knowledge sharing is a complex language-based activity; language affects how individuals communicate and relate. The growth in international collaborations and the increasing number of diverse teams affect knowledge sharing because individuals engage in daily knowledge activities in a language they are not native speakers. Understanding the challenges they face, and how they manage the emerging (...) difficulties is the main aim of this manuscript. For this purpose, an explorative case study was conducted in an international university research project, namely the TED project. Both interviews and direct observations were employed to understand the phenomenon better and deliberately triangulate data and improve validity. Results show that non-native language use determines the emergence of different language proficiency, depending on the nature of the knowledge domain–job-related vs. non-job-related. Within non-job-related knowledge domains, the lack of linguistic abilities, summed to the perceived cultural diversities, mainly affects people’s propensity to engage in personal and more intense social relationships. Under such circumstances, tacit knowledge sharing is reduced with negative consequences on the project’s long-term innovative performance. Since the project is still running, detecting language challenges will allow the partners to design and apply effective measures to support cooperation with language and cultural barriers. Among them, code switching, adopted by “bridge” actors, already emerges as tool supporting communication and knowledge exchange. (shrink)

Cet article examine la question de l’attention dans son rapport à l’admiration, dont le traitement fait apparaître de profondes divergences entre les Passions de l’âme et l’ Éthique. Dans Les Passions de l’âme, Descartes propose une genèse passionnelle de l’attention, dont la destination gnoséologique est assurée par un acte de la volonté qui transcende les perceptions de l’âme. À l’inverse, dans l’ Éthique, la connaissance ne dépend pas de l’exercice d’une faculté autonome, elle est immanente à l’ordre des idées, ce (...) à quoi l’admiration fait irréductiblement obstacle. La critique spinoziste de l’admiration s’accompagne alors d’une refonte du statut de l’attention et repose sur la critique de la partition cartésienne des facultés de l’âme. Nous montrerons néanmoins que l’attention a une fonction positive sous la forme d’une présence à soi de l’esprit qui veille à l’enchaînement en lui des idées vraies. (shrink)

Ernst Cassirer’s focus on the expressive function of language should be read, not in the context of Carnap’s debate with Heidegger, but in the context of the earlier work of Chajim (Heymann) Steinthal. Steinthal distinguishes the expressive form of language, when language is studied as a natural phenomenon, from language as a logical, inferential system. Steinthal argues that language always can be expressed in terms of logical inference. Thus, he would disagree with Heidegger, just as (...) Carnap does. But, Steinthal insists, that is not to say that language, as a natural phenomenon, is exhausted by logic or by the place of terms or relations in inferential structures. Steinthal’s “form” of linguistic “expression” is an early version of Cassirer’s “expressive function” for language. The expressive function, then, should not be seen to place a barrier between Carnap and Cassirer. Rather, Steinthal and Cassirer deal with a question that, as far as I know, Carnap does not address directly: how should philosophers analyze human language as a natural phenomenon, as a part of our expression as animals? And how does that expression determine the semantic categories, kind terms, and other structures that develop within, and characterize, human language itself? (shrink)

Suivant le fil directeur du temps, cet ouvrage met au jour la manière dont l'admiration est devenue un problème philosophique central à l'âge classique et examine les différentes conceptions dont elle fait l'objet chez les principaux penseurs de la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle.

At the earliest break of ancient hominins from their primate relatives in vocal communication, we propose a selection pressure on vocal fitness signaling by hominin infants. Exploratory vocalizations, not tied to expression of distress or immediate need, could have helped persuade parents of the wellness and viability of the infants who produced them. We hypothesize that hominin parents invested more in infants who produced such signals of fitness plentifully, neglecting or abandoning them less often than infants who produced the sounds (...) less frequently. Selection for such exploratory vocalization provided a critically important inclination and capability relevant to language, we reason, because the system that encouraged spontaneous vocalization also made vocalization functionally flexible to an extent that has not been observed in any other animal. Although this vocal flexibility did not by itself create language, it provided an essential foundation upon which language would evolve through a variety of additional steps. In evaluating this speculation, we consider presumable barriers to evolving language that are thought to be implications of Darwinian Theory. It has been claimed that communication always involves sender self-interest and that self-interest leads to deceit, which is countered through clever detection by receivers. The constant battle of senders and receivers has been thought to pose an insuperable challenge to honest communication, which has been viewed as a requirement of language. To make communication honest, it has been proposed that stable signaling requires costly handicaps for the sender, and since language cannot entail high cost, the reasoning has suggested an insurmountable obstacle to the evolution of language. We think this presumed honesty barrier is an illusion that can be revealed by recognition of the fact that language is not inherently honest and in light of the distinction between illocutionary force and semantics. Our paper also considers barriers to the evolution of language (not having to do with honesty) that we think may have actually played important roles in preventing species other than humans from evolving language. (shrink)

Background: Studies have found that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are more likely to make errors in appropriately producing referring expressions (‘the dog’ vs. ‘the black dog’) than are controls but comprehend them with equal facility. We tested whether this anomaly arises because comprehension studies have focused on manipulating perspective-taking at a ‘generic speaker’ level. Method: We compared 24 autistic eight- to eleven-year-olds with 24 well-matched neuro-typical controls. Children interpreted requests (e.g. ‘Can I have that ball?’) in contexts which (...) would be ambiguous (i.e. because the child can see two balls) if perspective-taking were not utilized. In the interlocutor-specific perspective-taking condition, the target was the particular object which was new for the speaker. Children needed to take into account what the speaker had played with before and the fact that they were now expressing excitement about something new. In two control ‘speaker-generic’ conditions we tested children’s ability to take the visual perspective of the speaker (where any speaker who stood behind a particular barrier would have the same perspective). Results: The autistic group were significantly less likely to select the target and significantly more likely to request clarification in the ‘interlocutor-specific’ condition. Performance in the ‘interlocutor-generic’ (visual) perspective taking conditions did not differ between groups. Conclusion: Autistic children, even those who are not intellectually-impaired, tend to have more difficulty than neuro-typical peers in comprehending referring expressions when this requires understanding that people comment on what is new for them. (shrink)