1,514 research outputs found
Do bilinguals have different concepts? The case of shape and material in Japanese L2 users of English
An experiment investigated whether Japanese speakersâ categorisation of objects and substances as shape or material is influenced by acquiring English, based on Imai and Gentner (1997). Subjects were presented with an item such as a cork pyramid and asked to choose between two other items that matched it for shape (plastic pyramid) or for material (piece of cork). The hypotheses were that for simple objects the number of shape-based categorisations would increase according to experience of English and that the preference for shape and material-based categorisations of Japanese speakers of English would differ from monoÂŹlingual speakers of both languages. Subjects were 18 adult Japanese users of English who had lived in English-speaking countries between 6 months and 3 years (short-stay group), and 18 who had lived in English-speaking countries for 3 years or more (long-stay group). Both groups achieved above criterion on an English vocabulary test. Results were: both groups preferred material responses for simple objects and substances but not for complex objects, in line with Japanese monoÂŹlinguals, but the long-stay group showed more shape preference than the short-stay group and also were less different from Americans. These effects of acquiring a second language on categorisation have implications for conceptual representation and methodology
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Reihe Begriffe des digitalen Bildes
Das DFG-Schwerpunktprogramm âDas digitale Bildâ untersucht von einem multiperspektivischen Standpunkt aus die zentrale Rolle, die dem Bild im komplexen Prozess der Digitalisierung des Wissens zukommt. In einem deutschlandweiten Verbund soll dabei eine neue Theorie und Praxis computerbasierter Bildwelten erarbeitet werden
Comparative Philosophy of Comparative Law
Cultural anthropology and sociological jurisprudence have shown thatthere is no culture or society without normative legal procedures forsettling the disputes of its people. Moreover, these legal proceduresvary in their normative ethical content. So different is this content fromculture to culture that the anthropologist Professor E. A. Hoebel hasfound it necessary to introduce seven normatively different sets of postulatesin order to describe the legal norms of seven so-called primitivepeoples. Such facts remind us that in comparative law and philosophyit is very dangerous to use the words good or just unless we specifyboth the culture to which we are referring and its specific set of normativeassumptions
Discovering Beaten Paths in Collaborative Ontology-Engineering Projects using Markov Chains
Biomedical taxonomies, thesauri and ontologies in the form of the
International Classification of Diseases (ICD) as a taxonomy or the National
Cancer Institute Thesaurus as an OWL-based ontology, play a critical role in
acquiring, representing and processing information about human health. With
increasing adoption and relevance, biomedical ontologies have also
significantly increased in size. For example, the 11th revision of the ICD,
which is currently under active development by the WHO contains nearly 50,000
classes representing a vast variety of different diseases and causes of death.
This evolution in terms of size was accompanied by an evolution in the way
ontologies are engineered. Because no single individual has the expertise to
develop such large-scale ontologies, ontology-engineering projects have evolved
from small-scale efforts involving just a few domain experts to large-scale
projects that require effective collaboration between dozens or even hundreds
of experts, practitioners and other stakeholders. Understanding how these
stakeholders collaborate will enable us to improve editing environments that
support such collaborations. We uncover how large ontology-engineering
projects, such as the ICD in its 11th revision, unfold by analyzing usage logs
of five different biomedical ontology-engineering projects of varying sizes and
scopes using Markov chains. We discover intriguing interaction patterns (e.g.,
which properties users subsequently change) that suggest that large
collaborative ontology-engineering projects are governed by a few general
principles that determine and drive development. From our analysis, we identify
commonalities and differences between different projects that have implications
for project managers, ontology editors, developers and contributors working on
collaborative ontology-engineering projects and tools in the biomedical domain.Comment: Published in the Journal of Biomedical Informatic
Directional adposition use in English, Swedish and Finnish
Directional adpositions such as to the left of describe where a Figure is in relation to a Ground. English and Swedish directional adpositions refer to the location of a Figure in relation to a Ground, whether both are static or in motion. In contrast, the Finnish directional adpositions edellÀ (in front of) and jÀljessÀ (behind) solely describe the location of a moving Figure in relation to a moving Ground (Nikanne, 2003).
When using directional adpositions, a frame of reference must be assumed for interpreting the meaning of directional adpositions. For example, the meaning of to the left of in English can be based on a relative (speaker or listener based) reference frame or an intrinsic (object based) reference frame (Levinson, 1996). When a Figure and a Ground are both in motion, it is possible for a Figure to be described as being behind or in front of the Ground, even if neither have intrinsic features. As shown by Walker (in preparation), there are good reasons to assume that in the latter case a motion based reference frame is involved. This means that if Finnish speakers would use edellÀ (in front of) and jÀljessÀ (behind) more frequently in situations where both the Figure and Ground are in motion, a difference in reference frame use between Finnish on one hand and English and Swedish on the other could be expected.
We asked native English, Swedish and Finnish speakersâ to select adpositions from a language specific list to describe the location of a Figure relative to a Ground when both were shown to be moving on a computer screen. We were interested in any differences between Finnish, English and Swedish speakers.
All languages showed a predominant use of directional spatial adpositions referring to the lexical concepts TO THE LEFT OF, TO THE RIGHT OF, ABOVE and BELOW. There were no differences between the languages in directional adpositions use or reference frame use, including reference frame use based on motion.
We conclude that despite differences in the grammars of the languages involved, and potential differences in reference frame system use, the three languages investigated encode Figure location in relation to Ground location in a similar way when both are in motion.
Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneuxâs question: Crosslingiuistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M.A. Peterson, L. Nadel & M.F. Garrett (Eds.) Language and Space (pp.109-170). Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Nikanne, U. (2003). How Finnish postpositions see the axis system. In E. van der Zee & J. Slack (Eds.), Representing direction in language and space. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Walker, C. (in preparation). Motion encoding in language, the use of spatial locatives in a motion context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln, Lincoln. United Kingdo
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