In this volume Nick C. Ellis, Ute Römer, and Matthew Brook O’Donnell present a view of language as a complex adaptive system that is learned, both in first and second language contexts, through usage. In a series of research studies, they analyze Verb-Argument Constructions (VACs) in language learning, processing, and use. Drawing on diverse epistemological and methodological perspectives, they convincingly demonstrate that language emerges in the development of both mother tongue and additional languages out of multiple experiences of meaning-making following (...) general principles of learning relating to frequency, contingency, and semantic prototypicality. They draw implications from this work that will be of value to students and scholars from a wide range of disciplinary interests in language and learning. (shrink)

Usage-based approaches to language hold that we learn multiword expressions as patterns of language from language usage, and that knowledge of these patterns underlies fluent language processing. This paper explores these claims by focusing upon verb–argument constructions such as “V about n.” These are productive constructions that bind syntax, lexis, and semantics. It presents analyses of usage patterns of English VACs in terms of their grammatical form, semantics, lexical constituency, and distribution patterns in large corpora; patterns of VAC usage (...) in child-directed speech and child language acquisition; and investigations of VAC free-association and psycholinguistic studies of online processing. We conclude that VACs are highly patterned in usage, that this patterning drives language acquisition, and that language processing is sensitive to the forms of the syntagmatic construction and their distributional statistics, the contingency of their association with meaning, and spreading activation and prototypicality effects in semantic reference. Language users have rich implicit knowledge of the statistics of multiword sequences. (shrink)

Two of the main theoretical approaches to the evolution of language are biolinguistics and usage-based approaches. Both are often conceptualized as belonging to seemingly irreconcilable ‘camps.’ Biolinguistic approaches assume that the ability to acquire language is based on a language-specific genetic foundation. Usage-based approaches, on the other hand, stress the importance of domain-general cognitive capacities, social cognition, and interaction. However, there have been a number of recent developments in both paradigms which suggest that biolinguistic and usage-based (...) approaches are actually moving closing together. For example, theoretical advancements such as evo-devo and complex adaptive systems theory have gained traction in the language sciences, leading to changed conceptions of issues like the relative influence of “nature” and “nurture.” In this paper, we outline points of convergence between current minimalist biolinguistic and usage-based approaches regarding four contentious issues: a) modularity and domain-specificity, b) innateness and development, c) cultural and biological evolution, d) knowledge of language and its description. We show that across both paradigms, researchers have come to increasingly embrace more complex views of these issues. They also have come to appreciate the view that biological and cultural evolution are closely intertwined, which leads to an increased amount of common ground between minimalist biolinguistics and usage-based approaches. (shrink)

This paper presents a case study conducted on 17th and 18th century German corpora, confirming that both attraction and differentiation are important mechanisms of change, which interact with socio-symbolic properties of constructions. The paper looks at the frequencies and semantics of wo ‘where’ clauses at the beginning of the New High German period, which are compared to the frequencies and semantics of the connector da ‘there, since’ in the same period. The study reveals that the subordinating connectors wo and da (...) overlapped in their functions and were highly polysemous, establishing spatial, temporal, causal, conditional, and contrast links between clauses. This suggests that the connectors had become functionally similar by means of mutual attraction; however, they differed in that they belonged to different registers. Over the course of the 18th century, the polysemy of wo and da clauses reduced. Being gradually confined to one single meaning, the connectors became less similar. This differentiation occurs because the connectors aligned to distinct high-level schemas in the associative network. The study confirms that analogy is crucial to both attraction and differentiation of functionally overlapping constructions. While attraction involves analogy of specific instances of constructions, differentiation occurs in analogy to high-level abstract constructions in the associative network. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

This chapter attempts to unravel the differences, whether real or merely apparent, between Chomsky's linguistics and usage‐based linguistics (UBL). The principal alternative to generative grammar in the world today is a broad umbrella of approaches that fall under the general heading of UBL. UBL is the successor to a Piagetian approach to language acquisition, where experience and general learning principles shape the acquisition process. Functionalism takes the position that properties of grammatical systems are explicable in terms of properties (...) of systems that lie outside of grammar per se. The chapter discusses that the few direct references Chomsky has made to usage‐based linguistics. It presents the most important issues, one‐by‐one, that separate Chomsky's views from those of UBLists. They are the explananda of linguistic theory, grammar design and architecture, semantics, language acquisition and innately‐provided linguistic constructs, functional explanation, and the sources of data on which a linguistic theory might be constructed. (shrink)

Languages are complex systems that allow speakers to produce novel grammatical utterances. Yet, linguists differ as to how general and abstract they think the mental representation of speakers have to be to give rise to this grammatical creativity. In order to shed light on these questions, the present study looks at one specific construction type, English comparative correlatives, that turns out to be particularly interesting in this context: on the one hand it has been described in terms of one of (...) the most abstract and general syntactic rules, on the other hand it shows specific idiomatic structures that are often produced without any variation. While the syntax and semantics of the English Comparative Correlative construction have received considerable attention in the literature, so far only a small number of usage-based analyses have been published on the topic. These either only relied on small databases or focussed only on the productivity of one slot in the construction. In contrast to this, the present study analyses more than 1,400 CC tokens sampled from COCA. The results of the present study yield important results concerning English CC constructions, including the schematicity and generality of their mental representations. (shrink)

This study puts the usage-based assumption that our linguistic knowledge is based on usage to the test. To do so, we explore individual variation in speakers’ language use as established based on corpus data – both in terms of frequency of use and productivity of use – and link this variation to the same participants’ responses in an experimental judgment task. The empirical focus is on transfer by native German speakers living in the Netherlands, who oftentimes experience transfer from their (...) second language Dutch to their native language German regarding the placement of prepositional phrases. The analyses show a large amount of variation in both the corpus and experimental data with a strong link across data types: individual speakers’ usage – but not the usage by other speakers – is a significant predictor for the speakers’ judgments. These results strongly suggest that, in line with a usage-based approach, variation between speakers in experimental tasks is linked to their variation in usage. At the same time, such usage-based predictions do not explain all of the variation, suggesting that other individual factors are also at play in such experimental tasks. (shrink)

Multiple constraints, including semantic, lexical, and usage-based factors, have been shown to influence dative alternation across different languages. This work explores whether fine-grained statistics and semantic properties of the verb affect the acceptability of dative constructions in Spanish. First, a corpus analysis reveals that verbs of different semantic classes occur naturally in alternative dative constructions, a pattern quite different from English. The fact that dative alternation appears independent of semantic classes challenges traditional semantic-based approaches. Second, acceptability rating tasks reveal (...) that dative constructions containing highly entrenched word combinations and frequent word order are judged more acceptable regardless of the verbs' semantics. The results are interpreted in favor of usage-based accounts: Acceptability of dative constructions may be language-specific and depend on patterns of use and conventionalization. (shrink)

Source: Author: Natalia Kabus The article shows the relevance of activity-based approach usage as methodological basis of prospective social workers’ training to sustainable development of social groups. It is proved that future experts’ training in this direction is important both for Ukraine and other countries. There have been revealed the types of activities, which provide the development of personality and social groups’ subjectivity, their formation as the subjects of life and responsible social subjects that is essentail condition and indicator of (...) their sustainable development. It has been emphasized that activity-based approach is the basis for the development of the technology of prospective social workers’ training to sustainable development of social groups, which provides organization and management of this process as well as ensures gradual moving of prospective social workers to the level of self-management. There also has been substantiated necessity of the subjective and action approach usage which implementation ensures the development of subjective readiness of various social groups’ representatives to individual and joint socially valuable actions that is essentail indicator of their sustainable development. ]]>. (shrink)

What is the nature and function of mental representations in cognitive science, and in human language in particular? How do they come into existence and interact, and how is the information attributed to them stored in and retrieved from the human mind? Some theories treat constructions as primitive entities used for structure-building, central in both production and comprehension, while other theories only admit construction-like entities as devices to map the structure into semantics or to relate them to specific morphophonological exponents. (...) In this positional piece, we seek to elucidate areas of commonality across what have traditionally been divergent approaches to the role of constructions in language. Here we outline a robust specification of the differences in how chunks of structure containing information are treated in the two main approaches, and we seek to offer a path toward a more unified theoretical stance. (shrink)

Emotive Interjections in British English: A corpus-based study on variation in acquisition, function and usage constitutes the first in-depth corpus-based study on the use of emotive interjections in Present Day British English. In a novel approach, it systematically distinguishes between child and adult speakers, providing new insights into how they use Ow!, Ouch!, Ugh!, Yuck!, Whoops!, Whoopsadaisy! and Wow! in everyday spoken language. It studies in detail their acquisition by children and pinpoints changes and developments in their use throughout early (...) childhood. The study highlights particularities displayed by child and adult speakers in general and identifies crucial differences regarding how adults use emotive interjections depending on whether they are interacting with children or other adults. This book thus offers an exhaustive overview on the functions of emotive interjections based on thorough empirical research and will appeal to linguists concerned with pragmatics, child language acquisition, the expression of emotion and interjections. (shrink)

I argue for an intentional conception of representation in science that requires bringing scientific agents and their intentions into the picture. So the formula is: Agents (1) intend; (2) to use model, M; (3) to represent a part of the world, W; (4) for some purpose, P. This conception legitimates using similarity as the basic relationship between models and the world. Moreover, since just about anything can be used to represent anything else, there can be no unified ontology of models. (...) This whole approach is further supported by a brief exposition of some recent work in cognitive, or usage-based, linguistics. Finally, with all the above as background, I criticize the recently much discussed idea that claims involving scientific models are really fictions. (shrink)

The usage of new and progressive technologies brings with it new types of security threats and security incidents. Their number is constantly growing.The current trend is to move from reactive to proactive activities. For this reason, the organization should be aware of the current security situation, including the forecasting of the future state. The main goal of organizations, especially their security operation centres, is to handle events, identify potential security incidents, and effectively forecast the network security situation awareness (NSSA). In (...) this paper, we focus on increasing the efficiency of utilization of this part of cybersecurity. The paper’s main aim is to compare selected statistical models and models based on neural networks to find out which models are more suitable for NSSA forecasting. Based on the analysis provided in this paper, neural network methods prove a more accurate alternative than classical statistical prediction models in NSSA forecasting. In addition, the paper analyses the selection criteria and suitability of time series, which do not only reflect information about the total number of security events but represent a category of security event (e.g. recon scanning), port or protocol. (shrink)

This paper employs a usage-based approach to grammar, the theory of frame semantics, and the corpus-based method referred to as the attraction-reliance measure, for the purpose of examining the mutual association between a noun and the be of N-pattern: in other words, to determine nouns that are strongly associated with this construction. On the basis of the data gleaned from the Corpus of Contemporary American English, the paper aims to indicate that there are specific categories of nouns occurring in the (...) construction under scrutiny, and that this construction performs specific functions in discourse. (shrink)

BackgroundNarrative medicine is a well-recognized and respected approach to care. It is now found in medical school curricula and widely implemented in practice. However, there has been no analysis of the perception and usage of narrative medicine across different medical specialties and whether there may be unique recommendations for implementation based upon specialty. The aims of this study were to explore these gaps in research.MethodsFifteen senior physicians who specialize in internal medicine, pediatrics, or surgery (5 physicians from each specialty) were (...) interviewed in a semi-structured format about the utilization, benefits, drawbacks (i.e., negative consequences), and roles pertaining to narrative medicine. Qualitative content analysis of each interview was then performed.ResultsThree themes emerged from our analysis: roles, practice, and outcomes. Through these themes we examined the importance, utilization, barriers, benefits, and drawbacks of narrative medicine. There was consensus that narrative medicine is an important tool in primary care. Primary care physicians (general internists and general pediatricians) also believed that narrative medicine is not as important for non-primary care providers. However, non-primary care providers (surgeons) generally believed narrative medicine is valuable in their practice as well. Within specialties, providers’ choice of language varied when trying to obtain patients’ narratives, but choice in when to practice narrative medicine did not differ greatly. Among specialties, there was more variability regarding when to practice narrative medicine and what barriers were present. Primary care physicians primarily described barriers to eliciting a patient’s narrative to involve trust and emotional readiness, while surgeons primarily described factors involving logistics and patient data as barriers to obtaining patients’ narratives. There was broad agreement among specialties regarding the benefits and drawbacks of narrative medicine.ConclusionsThis study sheds light on the shared and unique beliefs in different specialties about narrative medicine. It prompts important discussion around topics such as the stereotypes physicians may hold about their peers and concerns about time management. These data provide some possible ideas for crafting narrative medicine education specific to specialties as well as future directions of study. (shrink)

According to usage‐based approaches to language acquisition, linguistic knowledge is represented in the form of constructions—form‐meaning pairings—at multiple levels of abstraction and complexity. The emergence of syntactic knowledge is assumed to be a result of the gradual abstraction of lexically specific and item‐based linguistic knowledge. In this article, we explore how the gradual emergence of a network consisting of constructions at varying degrees of complexity can be modeled computationally. Linguistic knowledge is learned by observing natural language utterances in (...) an ambiguous context. To determine meanings of constructions starting from ambiguous contexts, we rely on the principle of cross‐situational learning. While this mechanism has been implemented in several computational models, these models typically focus on learning mappings between words and referents. In contrast, in our model, we show how cross‐situational learning can be applied consistently to learn correspondences between form and meaning beyond such simple correspondences. (shrink)

Usage-based linguists and psychologists have produced a large body of empirical results suggesting that linguistic structure is derived from language use. However, while researchers agree that these results characterize grammar as an emergent phenomenon, there is no consensus among usage-based scholars as to how the various results can be explained and integrated into an explicit theory or model. Building on network theory, the current paper outlines a structured network approach to the study of grammar in which the core concepts of (...) syntax are analyzed by a set of relations that specify associations between different aspects of a speaker’s linguistic knowledge. These associations are shaped by domain-general processes that can give rise to new structures and meanings in language acquisition and language change. Combining research from linguistics and psychology, the paper proposes specific network analyses for the following phenomena: argument structure, word classes, constituent structure, constructions and construction families, and grammatical categories such as voice, case and number. The article builds on data and analyses presented inDiessel but approaches the topic from a different perspective. (shrink)

This paper shows the relevance of an evolutionary model for the study of language change. We focus on a cognitive and usage-based approach to language change, namely the Theory of Utterance Selection developed by Croft (2000). Croft's evolutionary approach takes its inspiration from neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, particularly the Generalized Theory of Selection developed by Hull (1988), a philosopher of science. Language is viewed as a system of use governed by convention, and language change results from breaking with convention and propagating (...) this innovation through the linguistic community until it becomes a new convention. Crucially, altered replication can be equated with language innovation, and propagation of individual changes is the linguistic counterpart of the differential perpetuation or selection of replicators. We will argue within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics (Geeraerts & Cuyckens, 2007) for a more systematic integration of cognitive and social factors in the explanation of language change. The mechanisms for language innovation are cognitive, as the pnnciples of cognitive efficiency like prototypicality constitute the main motivations for language change and metaphor and metonymy the main cognitive mechanisms of semantic change. The mechanisms for propagation are essentially social, including processes such as accommodation, identity and prestige. All of these mechanisms occur in individual communicative acts and operate like an "invisible hand" (Keller, 1994). We illustrate the sociocognitive evolutionary model of language change with some case studies on semantic change in Portuguese. (shrink)

Internet based process control usage has grown in the past years. Industry field demands were behind this, and it ranges from factory, office and home automation to tasks simplifications and cost reduction. In this book a hardware interface circuit and a software system used to control the temperature and level of a liquid tank is described. The advantage of the designed interface circuit is its simplicity and low cost. The same can be true for the software system in which we (...) used C and Java programs to accomplish the communication. Both C and Java can be obtained freely and the development cost could be small. C language has been used to communicate with the designed interface circuit due to its strength in low level operations and communication with ports and hardware. In Java we have used mainly the Servlet for communication between the Client and the Server, which is a new approach and more reliable approach than the CGI based method that has common problems of speed and data persistence. This book is useful for people and researchers working in the field of control, remote access and computer based control. (shrink)

We examined how language supports the expression of temporality within sentence boundaries in English, which has a rich inventory of grammatical means to express temporality. Using a computational model that mimics how humans learn from exposure we explored what the use of different tense and aspect combinations reveals about the interaction between our experience of time and the cognitive demands that talking about time puts on the language user. Our model was trained on n-grams extracted from the BNC to select (...) the TA combination that fits the context best. It revealed the existence of two different sub-systems within the set of TA combinations, a “simplex” one that is supported lexically and is easy to learn, and a “complex” one that is supported contextually and is hard to learn. The finding that some TA combinations are essentially lexical in nature necessitates a rethink of tense and aspect as grammatical categories that form the axes of the temporal system. We argue that the system of temporal reference may be more fruitfully thought of as the result of learning a system that is steeped in experience and organised along a number of functional principles. (shrink)

There are two main sources of compensation liability in Islamic Law of Obligations. These; contract and tort. Harming someone else is prohibited by any means. However, in social life, we witness that people harm others. Here, too, the legal order tries to ensure that the said damage is remedied. However, it is not a legal way to harm the other party for this. Are there other obligations at the same time as the liability for compensation? In this regard, Article 86 (...) of Mecelle regulates that compensation liability and usage benefit cannot be combined in accordance with the Hanafi sect. There are some theoretical reasons for this within the sect. However, other sects have opposing views to the Hanafi sect on this issue. In particular, they approached positively to the compensation of the usage benefit of the usurped property separately. The basis of this difference is based on whether the benefit is legally accepted as property. However, in the later periods, some exceptions were made to the first view within the Hanafi sect. These; foundation, orphan and commercial property. In addition, it has been accepted that in the Majalla amendments, the benefit can be accepted as property and may be the subject of compensation. (shrink)

The current study investigates how native speakers of a morphologically complex language handle uncertainty related to linguistic forms that have gaps in their inflectional paradigms. We analyze their strategies of dealing with paradigmatic defectivity and how these strategies are motivated by subjective contemporaneousness, frequency, acceptability, and other lexical and structural characteristics of words. We administered a verb production task with Finnish native speakers using verbs from a small non-productive inflectional type that has many paradigmatic gaps and asked participants to inflect (...) the verbs in a given context. Inflectional uncertainty was measured by the number of different forms the participants produced for each verb. We classified produced forms that were not expected as either synonymous or novel and measured their optimal string alignment distance to expected forms. Our analyses revealed that a usage-based approach to paradigmatic defectivity fits better with the obtained results than a classical approach typically met in dictionaries and descriptive grammars. Thus, we argue, that paradigmatic defectivity can be better described as a dynamic rather than a static system, where gaps represent a continuum of possible inflectional choices rather than a lack of an inflectional variant. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Medicine-Based Values?Åge Wifstad (bio)KeywordsEthics committees, judgment, common moralityToulmin's DiagnosisIn his classical article with the unforgettable title "How medicine saved the life of ethics" (Toulmin 1982), Stephen Toulmin claims that medicine saved ethics by giving the philosophers a positive reality check through medical challenges: (1) Ethics in medicine is a serious topic, not just something to discuss at seminars. If, for example, both A and B need treatment and there (...) are only enough resources for one, the fundamental interests of these two people compete against each other. (2) In clinical medicine, the individual case might demand a different approach than that suggested by theory. Similarly, an ethicist who is confronted by a diversity of medical cases becomes aware of the fact that solutions drawn from ethical theory can be irrelevant in practice. (3) The moral philosopher has often focused on the individual and his or her universal commitments. The fact that ethical dilemmas can have deep roots in practical challenges and must be understood within a certain context has been "forgotten." (4) In clinically relevant ethics, it is important to find solutions that all involved parties find reasonable. This revitalizes central Aristotelian schools of thought on, for example, ethical judgment and situational understanding.Today, there is a common understanding that in both the education of doctors and in the implementation of medical knowledge and technology there needs to be ethical guidelines and control. Toulmin wants us to see that the background for this agreement is multifaceted. It was not just the ethicists who saved the doctors. The doctors helped the ethicists to escape their academic isolation.Ethics CommitteesThe establishment of ethics committees is perhaps the most interesting example of this. Here it is especially clear how ethical judgment establishes a basis for decision making: Each case presented to an ethics committee is special because one cannot reference decisions made in similar cases. At the same time, we are expected to handle similar cases equally. Consideration of the concrete, individual case must be balanced with the principle of similar treatment. Second, as a committee member, one must interpret and respect ethical principles that cannot be easily defined. Every principle must be interpreted and implemented within a specific and concrete context. Third, one must consider the law, but seen isolated, the implications of relevant rules can be difficult to determine. Fourth, the status of principles and rules are open for interpretation. The most important example of this is the Declaration of Helsinki, which was established through cooperation between the worlds' doctors unions. The strength and end result of such a document can be discussed. Fifth, multiple but partly conflicting juridical and ethical considerations can be [End Page 179] relevant at the same time. An example: Decisions about confidentiality can prevent data gathering that is crucial in ensuring that a research project is scientifically acceptable. Two important ethical considerations are then put up against one another. As a sixth and final point, it can be mentioned that the ethics committee is expected to make a qualitative, scientific judgment. But what kind of quality judgment and how detailed it should be is up for discussion.Two Definitions of Ethical JudgmentThe fact that the committee must base their holistic decision on ethical judgment means that the committee, in an important sense of the word, stands freely: It can be difficult to refer to specific ethical rules or laws when making an external review of the committee's decision. Unless the committee has clearly not followed known principles and rules, then the committee is able to confront criticism by replying that the decision is based on holistic considerations, where many views have been taken into account. In this way, the usage of ethical judgment makes sure that the committee has freedom to act. The catch here is that the committee's responsibility becomes even more obvious. One cannot simply say that the decision is made based on rules and principles formulated by others, such as the state. The committee must, as a unit, be able to defend their decision.The complexity of the work of the committee can, however, make it more tempting to think about ethics in... (shrink)

Crop cultivation is one of the oldest activities of civilization. For a long time, crop production was carried out based on knowledge passed from generation to generation. However, due to the rapid growth in the human population of the world, human knowledge-based cultivation is not enough to meet the demanding need. To address this issue, the usage of machine learning-based tools has been studied in this paper. An experiment has been carried out over 0.3 million data. This dataset identifies 46 (...) prominent parameters for cultivation, which is collected from the Department of Agriculture Extension, Bangladesh. Comparison between neural networks and numbers of machine learning algorithms has been carried out in this research. It is observed that the neural network outperforms the other methods by maintaining an average prediction accuracy of 96.06% for six different crops. Other contemporary machine learning algorithms, namely, support vector machine, random forest, and logistic regression, have average prediction accuracy of around 68.9%, 91.2%, and 62.39%, respectively. (shrink)

I will argue that the cognitive-linguistic enterprise should step up its efforts to embrace the social and pragmatic dimensions of language. This claim will be derived from a survey of the premises and promise of the cognitive-linguistic approach to the study of language and be defended in more detail on logical and empirical grounds. Key elements of a usage-based emergentist socio-cognitive approach known as Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model (Schmid 2014, 2015) will be presented in order to demonstrate how social and pragmatic aspects (...) can be integrated and operationalized in a cognitive-linguistic framework. (shrink)

Some recent studies in computational linguistics have aimed to take advantage of various cues presented by punctuation marks. This short survey is intended to summarise these research efforts and additionally, to outline a current perspective for the usage and functions of punctuation marks. We conclude by presenting an information-based framework for punctuation, influenced by treatments of several related phenomena in computational linguistics.

This paper focuses on English yes-no interrogatives of the type Would you like/Do you want [NP]? and their elliptical variants You like/You want [NP]?, Like/Want [NP]? and [NP]?. The central question is what type of theoretical relationship can be assumed between the different forms. A theoretical discussion of different traditional approaches and their limitations is followed by the presentation of an explorative corpus search in the BNC, which can reveal interesting differences between the different stages of initial reduction, in (...) particular regarding the semantic class of the NP head nouns: While the possible lexemes found in the full forms and intermediate reductions seem only restricted by pragmatic constraints, the highly reduced [NP]? question displays only lexemes related to the semantic class of consumption goods. Construction Grammar (CxG) is suggested as a useful approach to explain the internal relationships between the different forms, especially because it offers the option of lexically open idiomatic structures, assumes a usage-based, hierarchical network with different degrees of independence between single constructions, and allows for an integration of pragmatic features into a grammatical model. (shrink)

The European Corporate Sustainability Framework (ECSF) is, among other concepts, based on a phase-wise development approach as described by Clare Graves' Levels of Existence Theory. As much as corporate sustainability has a sequence of adequate interpretations, aligned with each development level, also the notion of business excellence can be defined at multiple levels, as this paper demonstrates. Furthermore, the authors analyze the current EFQM Excellence Model for particular biases towards various development levels and suggest a new and innovative two-step approach (...) to assessing organizational performance with respect to organizational excellence (OE) and corporate sustainability. According to the organization's ambition, the assessment is either limited to a shareholder approach, mainly focusing at optimal usage of resources, or it also includes an additional assessment format based on the stakeholder approach, with specific reference to the organization's performance on the financial, social and ecological bottom line. This paper demonstrates the need and feasibility of an EFQM-Based assessment tool with a combined focus on corporate sustainability and OE. (shrink)

Following a usage-based approach to language acquisition, lexically specific patterns are considered to be important building blocks for language productivity and feature heavily both in child-directed speech and in the early speech of children (Arnon, Inbal & Morten H. Christiansen. 2017. The role of multiword building blocks in explaining L1-L2 differences. Topics in Cognitive Science 9(3). 621–636; Tomasello, Michael. 2003. Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press). In order to account for patterns, the traceback (...) method has been widely applied in research on first language acquisition to test the hypothesis that children’s utterances can be accounted for on the basis of a limited inventory of chunks and partially schematic units (Lieven, Elena, Dorothé Salomo & Michael Tomasello. 2009. Two-year-old children’s production of multiword utterances: A usage-based analysis. Cognitive Linguistics 20(3). 481–508). In the current study, we applied the method to code-mixed utterances (n = 1,506) of three German-English bilingual children between 2 and 4 years of age to investigate individual differences in each child’s own inventory of patterns in relation to their input settings. It was shown that units such as I see X as in I see a Kelle ‘I see a trowel’ could be traced back to the child’s own previous productions. More importantly, we see that each child’s inventory of constructions draws heavily on multiword chunks that are strongly dependent on the children’s language input situations. (shrink)

A recent advent has been seen in the usage of Internet of things (IoT) for autonomous devices for exchange of data. A large number of transformers are required to distribute the power over a wide area. To ensure the normal operation of transformer, live detection and fault diagnosis methods of power transformers are studied. This article presents an IoT-based approach for condition monitoring and controlling a large number of distribution transformers utilized in a power distribution network. In this article, the (...) vibration analysis method is used to carry out the research. The results show that the accuracy of the improved diagnosis algorithm is 99.01, 100, and 100% for normal, aging, and fault transformers. The system designed in this article can effectively monitor the healthy operation of power transformers in remote and real-time. The safety, stability, and reliability of transformer operation are improved. (shrink)

This project was undertaken to develop a telelearning knowledge base aimed at making specialized telelearning knowledge accessible to non-specialized practitioners in the field. The challenge stems from a rationale related to a user-centered approach for the software design process, which is focused on learning in the context of professional practice, the bridge to be built between expert and practitioner knowledge, as well as the knowledge valorization of the latter. In order to take into account users and their situated actions, a (...) usage study was integrated in the analysis phase. This study allows the creation of procedural and contextual telelearning models, and also lists of needs. These results serve as a basis for formulating guidelines for the development of ontologies, for the design of the telelearning knowledge base user interface and telelearning knowledge base environmental description. This paper presents the guidelines and orientations derived from these models. (shrink)

Over the last decade or so, the rate of growth of academic publications involving discussion of ‘citizen science’ and ‘community science’, and similar variants, has risen exponentially. These fluid terms, with no fixed definition, cover a continuum of public participation within a range of scientific activities. It is, therefore, apposite and timely to examine the evolving typologies of citizen science and community science and to ask how particular disciplinary actors are shaping content and usage. Do certain approaches to citizen (...) science and community science activity remain siloed within specific disciplines or do some approaches resonate more widely? In this study, we use mixed methods—bibliometric and textual analysis—to chart the changing academic interpretations of this scientific activity over time. We then ask what these analyses mean for the future direction of academic research into citizen science and community science. The results suggest that, while certain disciplinary-based interpretations have been particularly influential in the past, a more epistemically mixed array of academic interests than was previously evident are currently determining expectations of what citizen science and community science should look like and what they can be expected to deliver. (shrink)

The subjective impression that statements are true increases when statements are presented repeatedly. There are two sources for this truth effect: An increase in validity based on recollection and increase in processing fluency due to repeated exposure . Using multinomial processing trees , we present a comprehensive model of the truth effect. Furthermore, we show that whilst the increase in processing fluency is indeed automatic, the interpretation and use of that experience is not. Experiment 1 demonstrates the standard use of (...) the fluency experience and Experiment 2 demonstrates that people can change the interpretation of the experience according to its ecological validity. By implication, the truth effect represents the adaptive usage of feedback received from internal processes. (shrink)

To assist in the evaluation process when determining architectures for new robots and intelligent systems equipped with artificial emotions, it is beneficial to understand the systems that have been built previously. Other surveys have classified these systems on the basis of their technological features. In this survey paper, we present a classification system based on a model similar to that used in psychology and philosophy for theories of emotion. This makes possible a connection to thousands of years of discourse on (...) the topic of emotion. Five theories of emotion are described based on an emotion theory model proposed by Power and Dalgleish. The paper provides classifications using a model of 10 new questions, for 14 major research projects that describe implementations or designs for systems that use artificial emotions for either robotics or general artificial intelligence. We also analyze the trends in the usage of various theories and complexity changes over time. (shrink)

Since the bilateral commerce between the USA and China changes greatly and Chinese government continues to reform and delegate power in the economic field, it is of importance to study the Uniform Commercial Code of the USA. The study specifically studies the features of modal verbs in the UCC through the comparison with the United States Code and Frown. With the help of Antconc, the distribution of modal verbs, the modal value of the three sets of corpora are examined and (...) analyzed based on the theory of Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar. The results show that there are significant differences between the three sets of corpora and the three main features of modal verbs in the UCC are: the high frequency use of may, the relatively lower frequency use of legal modal verb shall, and the much higher frequency of must and may not. The seemingly contrary usages within the UCC are discussed and explained with the background of the legislation and the legal thoughts of the major legislator in a sociosemiotic approach. With both the quantitative and qualitative analysis combining the examples, the study hopes to shed light on the related legal translation and further enhance the understanding of the modal verbs in the UCC as well as legal discourse in a more general context. (shrink)

All human languages are characterised by inherent synchronic variability (Hudson, Cognitive Linguistics 8: 73–108, 1997, English Language and Linguistics 11: 383–405, 2007a) and are subject to change over time. Consequently, due to this central role of variation and change, any explanatorily adequate cognitive theory of language should aim to account for both of these phenomena. The present special issue explores how usage-based Construction Grammars can address issues of linguistic variation and change. In particular, focusing on English, we will show how (...) constructionist approaches provide new insights for the study of variation and change in the English language as well as how data from English can help to refine construction grammar theories. This introduction will give a short overview of aspects of constructionist approaches to language which are of relevance to the modelling of linguistic variation and change. In addition to our discussion of the modelling of synchronic and diachronic variation in construction grammar, we provide an overview of the topics addressed by the seven articles in this special issue. (shrink)

The issue of textual criticism/matn criticism in the Islamic world has started to be discussed, especially in modern times, when the issue of criticism of the holy books came to the fore in the West. However, when the history of Islamic sciences literature is examined, it is seen that the subject of criticism of hadith texts has been on the agenda of Muslims, even though it is not as central as isnad. One of the important pillars of the text-centered approach (...) as a method of hadith criticism is the Arabic language. In our study, it is aimed to determine the effect and the limits of the Arabic language in hadith criticism based on the text. While doing this, first of all, the discussions about the link between the language and criticism of the holy scriptures in the West will be discussed, and then the relationship between the hadith and the Arabic language will be revealed, especially in the context of istishhād and literature. Then, the place where the Arabic language stands as a method in the criticism of hadith texts will be determined and an evaluation will be made about its limits and possibilities. The evaluations about the limits and possibilities of the Arabic language will be discussed in terms of the narration of hadiths with meaning, the different approaches of linguists and schools, the conflicts between tribes, and the reliability of poetry as an istishhād method. In this study, particular examples obtained by examining Ibn Dureyd’s (d. 321/933) Jamhara al-luga ve Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Azherī’s (d. 370/980) Tahzīb al-Luga Abū Aḥmad al-ʿAskarī’s (d. 382/992) Taṣḥīfāt al-muḥaddiṯīn and al-Ḫaṭṭābī's (d. 388/998) Iṣlāḥ ġalaṭ al-muḥaddiṯīn and Ṣafadī’s (d. 764/1363) Taṣḥīḥ al-taṣḥīf wa-taḥrīr al-taḥrīf. In addition, the subject has been examined by taking into account other linguistic sources, basic hadith texts and hadith commenta-ries. In this way, the reflection of the subject in the hadith literature will be revealed and it will be tried to determine the place where the Arabic language stands in hadith criticism, taking into account the problems of the language itself. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

The experienced quality of urban environments has not traditionally been at the forefront of understanding how cities evolve through time. Within the humanistic tradition, the temporal dimension of cities has been dealt with through tracing urban or architectural histories or interpreting science-fiction scenarios, for example. However, attempts at understanding the relation between currently existing components of cities and planning based on them, towards the future, has not captured the experience of the temporal layers of cities to a satisfying degree. Contemporary (...) urban environments comprise both lasting and fairly stable elements as well as those that change continuously: change is an inevitable part of urban life. Different aspects of city life evolve with a different tempo: urban nature has its cycles, inhabitants their rhythms, and building materials and styles different lifespans, for example. Recognizing them becomes an especially important issue when future imaginaries are projected onto existing urban structures and when decisions about the details of urban futures are made. This paper aims at bringing environmental and urban aesthetics into the discussion about the possible directions of urban futures. The focus is on introducing the notion of aesthetic sustainability as a tool to better understand how urban futures unfold experientially and how aesthetic values of urban environments develop with time. This concept has some background in the field of design theory, more specifically in sustainable usage and product design, but it has not so far been used in order to study large scale living environments. The concept can prove to be a valuable supporting tool in urban sustainability transformations based on how it captures the experiential side of the physical and temporal dimensions of cities. (shrink)

This paper is a qualitative usage-based treatment of merism from a cognitive-linguistic perspective. Considered a minor or non-basic figure of speech, especially if compared to the master tropes, m...

We present a novel methodology for calculating the improvements obtained in successive versions of biomedical ontologies. The theory takes into account changes both in reality itself and in our understanding of this reality. The successful application of the theory rests on the willingness of ontology authors to document changes they make by following a number of simple rules. The theory provides a pathway by which ontology authoring can become a science rather than an art, following principles analogous to those that (...) have fostered the growth of modern evidence-based medicine. Although in this paper we focus on ontologies, the methodology can be generalized to other sorts of terminology-based artifacts, including Electronic Patient Records. (shrink)

With the continual development of artificial intelligence and smart computing in recent years, quantitative approaches have become increasingly popular as an efficient modeling tool as they do not necessitate complicated mathematical models. Many nations have taken steps, such as transitioning to online schooling, to decrease the harm caused by coronaviruses. Inspired by the demand for technology in early education, the present research uses a radial basis function neural network modeling technique to predict preschool instructors’ technology usage in classes based (...) on recognized determinant characteristics of technology acceptance. In this regard, this study utilized the RBFNN approach to predict preschool teachers’ technology acceptance behavior, based on the theory of planned behavior, which states that behavioral achievement, in our case the actual technology use in class, depends on motivation, intention and ability, and behavioral control. Thus, this research design is based on an adapted version of the technology acceptance model with eight dimensions: D1. Perceived usefulness, D2. Perceived ease of use, D3. Perceived enjoyment, D4. Intention to use, D5. Actual use, D6. Compatibility, D7. Attitude, and D8. Self-efficacy. According to the TAM, actual usage is significantly predicted by the other seven dimensions used in this research. Instead of using the classical multiple linear regression statistical processing of data, we opted for a NN based on the RBF approach to predict the actual usage behavior. This study included 182 preschool teachers who were randomly chosen from a project-based national preschool teacher training program and who responded to our online questionnaire. After designing the RBF function with the actual usage as an output variable and the other seven dimensions as input variables, in the model summary, we obtained in the training sample a sum of squares error of 37.5 and a percent of incorrect predictions of 43.3%. In the testing sample, we obtained a sum of squares error of 14.88 and a percent of incorrect predictions of 37%. Thus, we can conclude that 63% of the classified data are correctly assigned to the models’ dependent variable, i.e., actual technology use, which is a significant rate of correct predictions in the testing sample. This high significant percentage of correct classification represents an important result, mainly because this is the first study to apply RBFNN’s prediction on psychological data, opening up a new interdisciplinary field of research. (shrink)

For a long time, linguists more or less denied the existence of individual differences in grammatical knowledge. While recent years have seen an explosion of research on individual differences, most usage-based research has failed to address this issue and has remained reluctant to study the synergy between individual and community grammars. This paper focuses on individual differences in linguistic knowledge and processing, and examines how these differences can be integrated into a more comprehensive constructionist theory of grammar. The examination is (...) guided by the various challenges and opportunities that may be extracted from scattered research that exists across disciplines touching on these matters, while also presenting some new data that illustrate how differentiation between individuals can improve models of long-term language change. The paper also serves as the introduction to this special issue of Cognitive Linguistics, which collects seven contributions from various linguistic disciplines focusing on key aspects of individuals’ grammars. (shrink)

Philosophers of logic are particularly interested in understanding the aims, epistemology, and methodology of logic. This raises the question of how the philosophy of logic should go about these enquires. According to the practice-based approach, the most reliable method we have to investigate the methodology and epistemology of a research field is by considering in detail the activities of its practitioners. This holds just as true for logic as it does for the recognised empirical and abstract sciences. If we wish (...) to systematically understand the aims and epistemology of logic, we are best placed achieving this by looking at what logicians do, rather than reflecting upon the nature of logic itself. In this entry, we outline the motivations for a practice-based approach towards the philosophy of logic and highlight its advantages over more “top-down” approaches, which attempt to infer conclusions about the nature of logic and its methodology on the basis of traditional assumptions about knowledge, metaphysics, or logic itself. We end by addressing several prominent concerns raised against the practice-based approach. (shrink)