K-vec: A New Approach for Aligning Parallel Texts

Various methods have been proposed for aligning texts in two or more languages such as the Canadian Parliamentary Debates(Hansards). Some of these methods generate a bilingual lexicon as a by-product. We present an alternative alignment strategy which we call K-vec, that starts by estimating the lexicon. For example, it discovers that the English word "fisheries" is similar to the French "pe^ches" by noting that the distribution of "fisheries" in the English text is similar to the distribution of "pe^ches" in the French. K-vec does not depend on sentence boundaries.Comment: 7 pages, uuencoded, compressed PostScript; Proc. COLING-9

Associations between selected demographic, biological, school environmental and physical education based correlates, and adolescent physical activity

The study investigated associations between selected physical activity correlates among 299 adolescents (90 boys, age 12-14 years) from 3 English schools. Physical activity was assessed by self-report and accelerometry. Correlates represented biological, predisposing, and demographic factors as described in the Youth Physical Activity Promotion Model. Boys engaged in more self-reported (p < .01) and accelerometer assessed physical activity than girls (p = .02). Positive associations between sex (male), BMI, Perceived PE Ability, Perceived PE Worth, number of enrolled students, and physical activity outcomes were evident (p < .05). Schoolbased physical activity promotion should emphasize sex-specific enhancement of students' perceived PE competence and enjoyment

Sociophonetic Markers Facilitate Translation Priming: Maori English GOAT – A Different Kind of Animal

This study investigates whether socio-indexical labelling operates under a shared or a separate system across the two languages of a bilingual talker-listener. We argue for a shared system, showing that L1 indexical labels interact with L2 indexical labels during speech perception. In particular, we investigate the effect of ethnic dialect on bilingual speech processing by using a novel cross-language/cross-dialect auditory priming paradigm in the New Zealand context, where Maori (TR) and English are both official languages, and English has two main ethnic varieties: Maori English (ME) and Pakeha English (PE). Fifty-four English-Maori bilinguals participated in a short-term auditory primed lexical decision task, where bilingual prime and target pairs were made up of English-to-Maori and Maori-to-English translation equivalents. Half of the English words were pronounced by a PE speaker, and half by a ME speaker, creating four test conditions: TR-ME, TR-PE, ME-TR, PE-TR. The results reveal a significantly larger priming effect between ME and TR than between PE and TR. We argue for a direct activation link between the Maori indexical labels within the English language set of representations and the Maori indexical labels within the Maori language set of representations. The results suggest that socio-indexical labels can facilitate translation priming. In particular, recent, more innovative variants appear to be processed as special in short-term memory

Comparing post-editing difficulty of different machine translation errors in Spanish and German translations from English

Post-editing (PE) of Machine Translation (MT) is an increasingly popular way to integrate MT in the professional translation workflow, as it increases productivity and income. However, the quality of MT is not always good enough to blindly choose PE over translation from scratch. This article studies the PE of different error types and compares indicators of PE difficulty in English-to-Spanish and English-to-German translations. The results show that the indicators in question 1) do not correlate between each other for all error types, and 2) differ between languages

MT Post-editing into the mother tongue or into a foreign language? : Spanish-to-English MT translation output post-edited by translation trainees

The aim of this study is to analyse whether translation trainees who are not native speakers of the target language are able to perform as well as those who are native speakers, and whether they achieve the expected quality in a "good enough" post-editing (PE) job. In particular the study focuses on the performance of two groups of students doing PE from Spanish into English: native English speakers and native Spanish speakers. A pilot study was set up to collect evidence to compare and contrast the two groups' performances. Trainees from both groups had been given the same training in PE and were asked to post-edit 30 sentences translated from Spanish to English. The PE output was analyzed taking into account accuracy errors (mistranslations and omissions) as well as language errors (grammatical errors and syntax errors). The results show that some native Spanish speakers corrected just as many errors as the native English speakers. Furthermore, the Spanish-speaking trainees outperformed their English-speaking counterparts when identifying mistranslations and omissions. Moreover, the performances of the best English-speaking and Spanish-speaking trainees at identifying grammar and syntax errors were very similar

Program evaluation of English language learning for EYL curriculum development in Indonesia: teachers’ perception, challenges, and expectation

Program evaluation (henceforth PE) is a phase of curriculum development in the ELT context and is precious for improving curriculum reform. However, more research needs to be undertaken to investigate PE as a part of the English curriculum development for young learners’ context in Indonesian elementary schools. This case study research aims to scrutinize the teachers’ voices on PE centered on the challenges, perceptions, and expectations of the English to young learners (EYL) curriculum development. A semi-structured interview with three English teachers chosen by purposive sampling in Tasikmalaya, West Java, Indonesia, was employed to gather the data, and the collected data were examined thematically. The results showed that EYL teachers believe PE is vital to conduct since it can encourage curriculum development. They deal with challenges in designing and developing the curriculum related to lesson planning, materials development, instructional methods, and assessment practices. Teachers expected the EYL program to be adjusted with a suitable curriculum, such as contextualized, character-based, and school-based curricula. The study suggests that PE should be performed regularly to gain insightful reforms for the EYL curriculum, so teachers, schools, and stakeholders can advance the quality of the English program at Indonesian elementary schools

‘CHALE SUP’: MOTIVATIONS AND PERCEPTIONS OF PIDGIN ENGLISH USAGE IN A GHANAIAN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

The English language is used for official purposes and the language in education in Ghana. However, the continuous penetration of Pidgin English (PE) in Ghanaian Senior High Schools (SHS) has been evident in recent times. The paper focuses on the motivations and perceptions of students, in a Senior High School (SHS) in Ghana, on their use of PE in school. It adopts the various motivations and perceptions of students on the use of PE, as identified in the literature, in a questionnaire survey for the responses of the research participants. The study reveals that PE is used as a concealment strategy in students’ conversations against those outside their group, and as a means of solidarity. However, the participants exhibited mixed perceptions of the use of PE in schools. The paper provides insights into PE usage in Ghanaian SHSs

‘I dey trust you waa’: Pidgin English as a Current Spoken Communication Tool at University of Mines and Technology

Pidgin English (PE), though not that popular in Ghana in the past, seems to be gaining ground in the educational institutions today. Of particular interest is the observed increase in PE use among students of the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT), who are training to become professionals in the mining and allied fields. What has caused this? How do the students feel about PE use? And what are their own views about PE-speaking in Ghana? This study, the first to examine PE at UMaT, aimed at finding empirical answers to these questions. A questionnaire was administered to 457 undergraduates selected at random from First and Second Year students. Analysis of the responses shows that majority of the students consider PE use “beneficial/advantageous” and “comfortable” because “it gives them a sense of belonging to the student body”; it is “easy and fun to speak”; and “trendy/spoken by friends”. They recognise that PE is not Standard English (SE) but “feel unashamed” speaking it. However, they think it is not good enough to speak PE all the time as it will “distort [their] SE”, and also “attract wrong public perception [of them] as poor scholars”. Left to the students alone, “there should be restrictions on PE use in Ghana to informal occasions” and “insistence on SE use”. It is concluded that UMaT students feel comfortable speaking PE but admit that it can adversely affect their SE. It is recommended that more studies be conducted into PE as a topical issue in Ghana. Keywords: Pidgin English, Mining and Allied Engineering Fields, Professionals, UMaT Student

A Natural language interface to MS-DOS

The goal of this thesis was to design and implement a dialog facility to assist novice users of the MS-DOS operating system. A small natural language interface facility called PE-DOS (Plain English DOS) was built, which serves as a front end for a subset of simple MS-DOS commands. PE-DOS accepts English-like terminology and translates it into the appropriate MS-DOS command using a system of recursive transition networks (RTNs). The translated command then is presented to the user along with an English paraphrase of the user\u27s input sentence in an effort to provide confirmation for the intended command in both English and MS-DOS command language. PE-DOS was tested by presenting it to two classes of users. One group was made up of sophisticated users of other operating systems who had not used MS-DOS. The second group consisted of unsophisticated users of applications that run under MS-DOS who had not used any operating system commands. The feedback from these user indicates that PE-DOS is probably most useful as an educational device to teach new users a set of basic MS-DOS commands, rather than as a viable command interface