423 research outputs found

    A computer-assisted pproach to the comparison of mainland southeast Asian languages

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    This cumulative thesis is based on three separate projects based on a computer-assisted language comparison (CALC) framework to address common obstacles to studying the history of Mainland Southeast Asian (MSEA) languages, such as sparse and non-standardized lexical data, as well as an inadequate method of cognate judgments, and to provide caveats to scholars who will use Bayesian phylogenetic analysis. The first project provides a format that standardizes the sound inventories, regulates language labels, and clarifies lexical items. This standardized format allows us to merge various forms of raw data. The format also summarizes information to assist linguists in researching the relatedness among words and inferring relationships among languages. The second project focuses on increasing the transparency of lexical data and cognate judg- ments with regard to compound words. The method enables the annotation of each part of a word with semantic meanings and syntactic features. In addition, four different conversion methods were developed to convert morpheme cognates into word cognates for input into the Bayesian phylogenetic analysis. The third project applies the methods used in the first project to create a workflow by merging linguistic data sets and inferring a language tree using a Bayesian phylogenetic algorithm. Further- more, the project addresses the importance of integrating cross-disciplinary studies into historical linguistic research. Finally, the methods we proposed for managing lexical data for MSEA languages are discussed and summarized in six perspectives. The work can be seen as a milestone in reconstructing human prehistory in an area that has high linguistic and cultural diversity

    Communicating linguistics: language, community and public engagement

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    Increasingly, academics are called upon to demonstrate the value of linguistics and explain their research to the wider public. In support of this agenda, Communicating Linguistics: Language, Community and Public Engagement provides an overview of the wide range of public engagement activities currently being undertaken in linguistics, as well as practically focused advice aimed at helping linguists to do public engagement well. From podcasts to popular writing, from competitions to consultancy, from language creation to community projects, there are many ways in which linguists can share their research with the public. Bringing together insights from leading linguists working in academia as well as non-university professions, this unique collection:- Provides a forum for the discussion of challenges and opportunities of public engagement in linguistics in order to shape best practice- Documents best practice through a summary of some of the many excellent public engagement projects currently taking place internationally- Celebrates the long tradition of public engagement in linguistics, a discipline which is often misunderstood despite its direct and fundamental importance to everyday lifeBreaking down long-standing divisions between universities and the wider community, this book will be of significant value to academics in linguistics but also teachers, policy makers and anyone interested in better understanding the nature and use of language in society

    Aspect and Meaning in the Russian Future Tense: Corpus and Experimental Investigations

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    This dissertation is a study of the Russian future tense within the framework of cognitive linguistics. In this dissertation I focus on the distribution of the perfective and imperfective future forms, their future and non-future meanings, and the use of the future tense verb forms by both native and non-native speakers. In the Russian tense-aspect system, it is reasonable to operate with markedness on a local level of tense, rather than the level of the verb. Via local markedness it is possible to see that the perfective future is the unmarked member of the opposition, and the imperfective future is the marked one. The perfective future tense forms are approximately fourteen times more frequent than imperfective future tense forms in the Russian National Corpus. Both perfective and imperfective future tense forms express not only future meanings but also gnomic, directive etc. The (non-)future meanings form a radial category with the future meaning as a prototype and other meanings as extensions. Native speakers operate with frequency when they use future tense forms. Non-native speakers are not sensitive to frequency, and instruction in the use of the future tense forms in Russian could be improved

    Language contact: Briding the gap between individual interactions and areal patterns

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    Contact linguistics is the overarching term for a highly diversified field with branches that connect to such widely divergent areas as historical linguistics, typology, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and grammatical theory. Because of this diversification, there is a risk of fragmentation and lack of interaction between the different subbranches of contact linguistics. Nevertheless, the different approaches share the general goal of accounting for the results of interacting linguistic systems. This common goal opens up possibilities for active communication, cooperation, and coordination between the different branches of contact linguistics. This book, therefore, explores the extent to which contact linguistics can be viewed as a coherent field, and whether the advances achieved in a particular subfield can be translated to others. In this way our aim is to encourage a boundary-free discussion between different types of specialists of contact linguistics, and to stimulate cross-pollination between them

    XIX. Magyar Számítógépes Nyelvészeti Konferencia

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    Tourism and heritage in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone

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    Tourism and Heritage in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) uses an ethnographic lens to explore the dissonances associated with the commodification of Chornobyl's heritage. The book considers the role of the guides as experience brokers, focusing on the synergy between tourists and guides in the performance of heritage interpretation. Banaszkiewicz proposes to perceive tour guides as important actors in the bottom-up construction of heritage discourse contributing to more inclusive and participatory approach to heritage management. Demonstrating that the CEZ has been going through a dynamic transformation into a mass tourism attraction, the book offers a critical reflection on heritagisation as a meaning-making process in which the resources of the past are interpreted, negotiated, and recognised as a valuable legacy. Applying the concepts of dissonant heritage to describe the heterogeneous character of the CEZ, the book broadens the interpretative scope of dark tourism which takes on a new dimension in the context of the war in Ukraine. Tourism and Heritage in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone argues that post-disaster sites such as Chornobyl can teach us a great deal about the importance of preserving cultural and natural heritage for future generations. The book will be of interest to academics and students who are engaged in the study of heritage, tourism, memory, disasters and Eastern Europe
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