Rethinking avoidance of English phrasal verbs by Arab learners

2010 Summer.Includes bibliographic references (pages 209-227).Covers not scanned.Print version deaccessioned 2022.There is a long-standing controversy about the causes of underproduction (avoidance) of structures in second language learning/acquisition. A significant field of research has focused on one lexicalized phrase, the English phrasal verb. The present study explores the cultural dimensions of the avoidance of English phrasal verbs among 160 Arab learners of English. It examines the impact of educational background (EFL, ESL), levels of proficiency (advanced, intermediate), and the inherent semantic complexity of phrasal verb (literal, semi-transparent, figurative) on the avoidance of phrasal verbs. It also explores the role the environmental background plays in comprehending phrasal verbs. Although Arab learners in the study tended to under-use English phrasal verbs, there were significant developmental differences ranging from avoidance to nonavoidance based on participants’ educational background and level of proficiency and the semantic properties of phrasal verbs. This study calls into question straightforward interpretation of the avoidance phenomenon. Although these findings support previous studies’ results, they do not support previous studies that show that L1-L2 differences might motivate learners to develop a genuine avoidance; Arab learners in this study did not avoid literal phrasal verbs. The study offers interesting clues to the success of advanced ESL students in learning and mastering phrasal verbs

The Semantics of Metaphor

Originally published in 1977. The Semantics of Metaphor presents a theory for the metaphoric construal of deviant sentences. The theory has two aspects. The first relates to metaphor considered as a productive process of language and describes the mechanisms that operate in its semantic interpretation .This part of the theory is presented in chapters III and IV. The second aspect bears on metaphor considered in the context of poetry and develops a conception of metaphoric truth. This part of the theory is presented in chapters VI and VII. The study is semantic in the sense of dealing with both meaning and truth as these properties pertain to metaphor. Of the remaining chapters, the first isolates certain problems of a pragmatic nature from the central semantic concern, chapter II follows with a survey of recent scholarship on the question of semantic deviance, and chapter V compares the theory expounded in chapters III and IV with three other accounts of metaphor

Time and tense in English

It has not been my aim to provide conclusive evidence for or against anyone hypothesis regarding Time and Tense. I have simply attempted to collect together and collate much of what has been written on the topic of tense in English, in order to show what the current trends of thought are. In Chapter One I presented a brief survey of some of the more basic notions associated with time and tense, in order to provide a background for the more linguistic approach to follow. I therefore examined such issues as the difference between time and tense, the problem of the passage and directionality of time, of the present moment, time and space , tense as a universal, "and various features of tense systems. I sketched Bull's system of scalars, vectors and axes as representative of our English tense system. Chapter Two dealt with time and logic, but as I am a mere layman in matters logical, I refrained from discussing any individual logical system in depth, and rather discussed various problems which appear to confront the logician in formulating a tensed or tenseless logic. This chapter aimed at providing a better understanding of the linguistic issues to follow, for time and logic are intimately connected with language. Chapter Three was more linguistically oriented, and in it I attempted to provide a broad outline of the development of thoughts about tense before the Transformationalist period (pre 1960). Because of the vast scope involved, I had, perforce, to be brief at times. I gave attention to tense in classical grammatical studies, and summarized how it was seen from about 1500 to 1800. I gave more detailed treatment to the twentieth century, focussing specifically on grammarians like Jespersen (1933), Twaddell (1960), Ota (1963), Palmer (1965) and others - all, writers typical of the structuralist era. At the end of Chapter Three I provided an overall summary of ideas on the main tenses by the end of the structuralist period - ideas which were to change radically within the next few years. In Chapter Four I discussed the ideas of tense of some of the main transformationalist/generativists - Diver (1964), Crystal (1966), Huddlestone (1968), Gallagher (1970), McCawley (1971) and Seuren (1974), in an attempt to show how theories on tense were becoming increasingly abstract, and how most data indicated that it is highly probable that tense is an abstract higher predicate of the sentence in which it appears in surface structure, closely related to temporal adverbs. Chapter Five continued in the same vein. I tried to show, using syntactic tests, that tense is a higher predicate, and used arguments involving Conjunction Reduction (based on Kiparsky (1968)), VP Constituency, Sequence of Tense, Pronominalization, and Quantification. In Chapter Six I focussed more closely on tense-time adverbials, in order to show that they have the same syntactic properties as tense, are also probably deep superordinate predicates, and are closely related to tense. My suggestion was that either tense is derived from temporal adverbs or vice versa, as this would simplify the grammar. The derivation procedures at the end of the chapter (6.8) were largely based on Hausmann (1971). I made no detailed reference to extralinguistic matters which affect tenses, in this study - such factors as are diScussed by G. Lakoff (1971) (presuppositions and relative well-formedness) and by R. Lakoff (1975). Tense is not a matter of pure Structuralism, just as language is not - extralinguistic factors ought to be accounted for before any study can claim to be conclusive. For this reason I do not in any way claim to have made an exhaustive study of time and tense - I have simply attempted to summarize and coordinate thoughts on the subject, and to suggest tentatively that the most adequate grammar of English would probably derive tense from underlying temporal adverbs

Statistical language learning

Theoretical arguments based on the "poverty of the stimulus" have denied a priori the possibility that abstract linguistic representations can be learned inductively from exposure to the environment, given that the linguistic input available to the child is both underdetermined and degenerate. I reassess such learnability arguments by exploring a) the type and amount of statistical information implicitly available in the input in the form of distributional and phonological cues; b) psychologically plausible inductive mechanisms for constraining the search space; c) the nature of linguistic representations, algebraic or statistical. To do so I use three methodologies: experimental procedures, linguistic analyses based on large corpora of naturally occurring speech and text, and computational models implemented in computer simulations. In Chapters 1,2, and 5, I argue that long-distance structural dependencies - traditionally hard to explain with simple distributional analyses based on ngram statistics - can indeed be learned associatively provided the amount of intervening material is highly variable or invariant (the Variability effect). In Chapter 3, I show that simple associative mechanisms instantiated in Simple Recurrent Networks can replicate the experimental findings under the same conditions of variability. Chapter 4 presents successes and limits of such results across perceptual modalities (visual vs. auditory) and perceptual presentation (temporal vs. sequential), as well as the impact of long and short training procedures. In Chapter 5, I show that generalisation to abstract categories from stimuli framed in non-adjacent dependencies is also modulated by the Variability effect. In Chapter 6, I show that the putative separation of algebraic and statistical styles of computation based on successful speech segmentation versus unsuccessful generalisation experiments (as published in a recent Science paper) is premature and is the effect of a preference for phonological properties of the input. In chapter 7 computer simulations of learning irregular constructions suggest that it is possible to learn from positive evidence alone, despite Gold's celebrated arguments on the unlearnability of natural languages. Evolutionary simulations in Chapter 8 show that irregularities in natural languages can emerge from full regularity and remain stable across generations of simulated agents. In Chapter 9 I conclude that the brain may endowed with a powerful statistical device for detecting structure, generalising, segmenting speech, and recovering from overgeneralisations. The experimental and computational evidence gathered here suggests that statistical language learning is more powerful than heretofore acknowledged by the current literature

Tactile Interfaces: Epistemic Techne in Information Design

This dissertation is a study of the rhetorical concept of techne and how it might inform the field of Information Design, specifically in an Instructional Design space. I argue that current models of Information Design draw insights from (a) the scientistic models that emphasize rational and universal reach (b) the craft tradition that places emphasis on mechanistic acquisition of the right skills and (c) an interpretive rhetorical model. These perspectives dominate the Instructional Design paradigm, rendering systems-based design processes that at times eschew designing in favor of organizing. I suggest that the discipline requires a remediated epistemic techne shaped by models proper to the crafts and broadened to physical embodiment and sculpting physical knowledge. This enhanced model emerging from practices in sculpture and enhanced by participatory/meta form of design is epistemic techne, given that the philosophy of techne is a high form of practical reasoning whose adaptation to Instructional Design is knowledge in making. Because the literature of Information Design is vast and still emerging, my analysis emphasizes the dominant perspectives. The challenge posed by both the histories of techne and of Information Design is that of a series of rhetorical paradigms that have at once prescribed and defined these concepts. What we see emerging, and certainly, what I wish to put forth, is a genuine ethos of expertise amenable to changing strategies of Information Design demonstrative of an epistemic techne