CLICS² An Improved Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications : Assembling Lexical Data with the Help of Cross-Linguistic Data Formats

International audienceThe Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications (CLICS), has established a computer-assisted framework for the interactive representation of cross-linguistic colexification patterns. In its current form, it has proven to be a useful tool for various kinds of investigation into cross-linguistic semantic associations , ranging from studies on semantic change, patterns of conceptualization, and linguistic pale-ontology. But CLICS has also been criticized for obvious shortcomings, ranging from the underlying dataset, which still contains many errors, up to the limits of cross-linguistic colexification studies in general. Building on recent standardization efforts reflected in the Cross-Linguistic Data Formats initiative (CLDF) and novel approaches for fast, efficient, and reliable data aggregation, we have created a new database for cross-linguistic colexifications, which not only supersedes the original CLICS database in terms of coverage but also offers a much more principled procedure for the creation, curation and aggregation of datasets. The paper presents the new database and discusses its major features

Visualizing Evaluative Language in Relation to Constructing Identity in English Editorials and Op-Eds

This thesis is concerned with the problem of managing complexity in Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) analyses of language, particularly at the discourse semantics level. To deal with this complexity, the thesis develops AppAnn, a suite of linguistic visualization techniques that are specifically designed to provide both synoptic and dynamic views on discourse semantic patterns in text and corpus. Moreover, AppAnn visualizations are illustrated in a series of explorations of identity in a corpus of editorials and op-eds about the bin Laden killing. The findings suggest that the intriguing intricacies of discourse semantic meanings can be successfully discerned and more readily understood through linguistic visualization. The findings also provide insightful implications for discourse analysis by contributing to our understanding of a number of underdeveloped concepts of SFL, including coupling, commitment, instantiation, affiliation and individuation

Analysis of conversation: politeness, sequence and topic with special reference to troubles-talk in Turkish

This thesis is concerned with the investigation of politeness in stretches of talk. and covers conversational components like adjacency pairs, sequences, topic, as well as turn internal features such as dispreference markers, and to some extent, mitigation techniques. Troubles-talk in naturally occurring Turkish conversations provides the necessary data. Politeness has so far been studied methodically in single utterances, but its presence in longer stretches of talk has not received a similar interest, nor, to the best of our knowledge, has any methodical work in this area been carried out. To provide a systematic approach to lengthy pieces of conversation, a new framework is developed in Chapter 1 from the well-known notions of politeness like 'face' (Goffman, 1971, 1972) and 'Face Threatening Acts' (FFAs - Brown and Levinson, 1978, 1987), while a combination of extracts from the literature of Conversational Analysis is used to flesh out the discussion. 'With the inclusion of Face Boosting Acts, which are thought to be the opposite of FTAs, the framework shows that in situations where 'positive face' is threatened or boosted, the change in the face values creates Interactional Imbalance, always to the disadvantage of one speaker, and the subsequent turn is commonly designed to put the balance right. Where imbalance is created unwillingly to the disadvantage of the recipient, or has to be ignored, speech is marked with dispreferred turn markers. Before looking for evidence of these points in responses to troubles-telling - a considerable threat to the teller's face - procedures of collection, selection and presentation of data are discussed in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 starts with the topic initiating characteristics of troubles-telling and goes on to explore the acknowledgement types that it gets, differentiated in terms of their capacity to encourage or discourage further talk. Despite different consequences for topic, all acknowledgements are found to be face boosters, and preferred turns. In comparison, Advice is explored in Chapter 4 as a dispreferred turn with further face damage for the teller. It is also found to extend the sequence on the one hand, but minimize the chances of having a proper closure for the talk, on the other. Troubles-telling responses, incorporating a varying degree of' disagreement, are examined in Chapter 5, where it is decided that disagreement is a face booster as long as it follows the recognizable patterns in the culture. The summary of these points in the Conclusion opens up the way to further theoretical issues like the relation of Interactional Imbalance to sequence types, Conditional Relevance, and topic, apart from pinpointing the predominance of face considerations in conversational practice in general

A Corpus-driven Approach toward Teaching Vocabulary and Reading to English Language Learners in U.S.-based K-12 Context through a Mobile App

In order to decrease teachers’ decisions of which vocabulary the focus of the instruction should be upon, a recent line of research argues that pedagogically-prepared word lists may offer the most efficient order of learning vocabulary with an optimized context for instruction in each of four K-12 content areas (math, science, social studies, and language arts) through providing English Language Learners (ELLs) with the most frequent words in each area. Educators and school experts have acknowledged the need for developing new materials, including computerized enhanced texts and effective strategies aimed at improving ELLs’ mastery of academic and STEM-related lexicon. Not all words in a language are equal in their role in comprehending the language and expressing ideas or thoughts. For this study, I used a corpus-driven approach which is operationalized by applying a text analysis method. For the purpose of this research study, I made two corpora, Teacher’s U.S. Corpus (TUSC) and Science and Math Academic Corpus for Kids (SMACK) with a focus on word lemma rather than inflectional and derivational variants of word families. To create the corpora, I collected and analyzed a total of 122 textbooks used commonly in the states of Florida and California. Recruiting, scanning and converting of textbooks had been carried out over a period of more than two years from October 2014 to March 2017. In total, this school corpus contains 10,519,639 running words and 16,344 lemmas saved in 16,315 word document pages. From the corpora, I developed six word lists, namely three frequency-based word lists (high-, mid-, and low-frequency), academic and STEM-related word lists, and essential word list (EWL). I then applied the word lists as the database and developed a mobile app, Vocabulary in Reading Study – VIRS, (available on App Store, Android and Google Play) alongside a website (www.myvirs.com). Also, I developed a new K-12 dictionary which targets the vocabulary needs of ELLs in K-12 context. This is a frequency-based dictionary which categorizes words into three groups of high, medium and low frequency words as well as two separate sections for academic and STEM words. The dictionary has 16,500 lemmas with derivational and inflectional forms

The Fickle Pendulum: A Poetic Investigation of Belief and Doubt Through Three “Historical” Personages – Saint Thomas the Apostle, Galileo Galilei and Laura (Riding) Jackson

This Doctor of Arts dissertation combines a critical exegesis and a volume of poetry in a creative and scholarly inquiry into belief and doubt. In both detailed research and poetic reflection they examine and contemplate tests of faith experienced by three significant personages – Saint Thomas the Apostle, who is challenged by Jesus to touch His risen body after Thomas has expressed a need to do so before he can believe in the Resurrection; Galileo Galilei, who is examined by the Inquisition after advocating the heliocentrism of Copernicus despite the Church’s injunctions against it; and the modernist American poet Laura (Riding) Jackson, who ultimately rejects poetry as the language of truth after having been one of its most passionate advocates. Despite differences in eras and in the genera of belief and doubt the three represent, there are rich “concordances” between their respective fidelities and dubieties to be observed: the hunger for truth, the role of language and texts, the need for evidence, concepts of substantiality and how the quest for the absolute is ultimately a study in human variability. The tests of faith themselves, the issues and personalities in contention, and broader situational and literary contexts are appraised critically and decanted into the medium of poetry, deepening the dissertation’s meditation on “the Fickle Pendulum” of human spiritualty, thought and art

A PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIMETIC LEARNING AND MULTIMODAL COGNITION: INTEGRATING EXPERIENTIAL KNOWLEDGE INTO PROGRAMS IN RHETORIC, COMPOSITION, AND TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION

My dissertation emphasizes a cognitive account of multimodality that explicitly integrates experiential knowledge work into the rhetorical pedagogy that informs so many composition and technical communication programs. In these disciplines, multimodality is widely conceived in terms of what Gunther Kress calls “socialsemiotic” modes of communication shaped primarily by culture. In the cognitive and neurolinguistic theories of Vittorio Gallese and George Lakoff, however, multimodality is described as a key characteristic of our bodies’ sensory-motor systems which link perception to action and action to meaning, grounding all communicative acts in knowledge shaped through body-engaged experience. I argue that this “situated” account of cognition – which closely approximates Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception, a major framework for my study – has pedagogical precedence in the mimetic pedagogy that informed ancient Sophistic rhetorical training, and I reveal that training’s multimodal dimensions through a phenomenological exegesis of the concept mimesis. Plato’s denigration of the mimetic tradition and his elevation of conceptual contemplation through reason, out of which developed the classic Cartesian separation of mind from body, resulted in a general degradation of experiential knowledge in Western education. But with the recent introduction into college classrooms of digital technologies and multimedia communication tools, renewed emphasis is being placed on the “hands-on” nature of inventive and productive praxis, necessitating a revision of methods of instruction and assessment that have traditionally privileged the acquisition of conceptual over experiential knowledge. The model of multimodality I construct from Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, ancient Sophistic rhetorical pedagogy, and current neuroscientific accounts of situated cognition insists on recognizing the significant role knowledges we acquire experientially play in our reading and writing, speaking and listening, discerning and designing practices

Prose fiction preferences of lower secondary urban Aboriginal boys

The purpose of this study was to investigate the prose fiction preferences of lower secondary urban Aboriginal boys. The Likert scale scores from the 2 x 4 factorial design were analysed using an ANOVA test of significance. It was found that the research group significantly preferred action genres to non-action genres, Aboriginal characterisations to white Australian characterisations, and contemporary story extracts to traditional story extracts