Competing creole transcripts on trial

A criminal prosecution of Jamaican Creole (JC) speaking ‘posse’(=gang) members in New York included evidence of recorded speech in JC. Clandestinerecordings (discussions of criminal events, including narration of a homicide) wereintroduced at trial. Taped data were translated for prosecution by a non-linguist nativespeaker of JC. Defense disputed these texts and commissioned alternative transcriptionsfrom a creolist linguist, who was a non-speaker of JC. Prosecution in turn hired anothercreolist, a near-native speaker of and specialist in JC, to testify on the relative accuracyof both sets of earlier texts. Differing representations of key conversations weresubmitted to a non-creole speaking judge/jury, both linguists testified, and defendantswere convicted. The role of linguistic testimony and practice (especially transcription)in the trial is analysed. A typology of linguistic expertise is given, and effects of thelanguage’s Creole status and lack of instrumentalization on the trial are discussed

Benefactive microscenes in the context of news reports

Dissertação (Mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês e Literatura CorrespondenteEste estudo tem como objetivo analisar as microcenas que emergem em notícias. As microcenas Benefactivas podem estar representadas por predicatores benefactivos básicos ou por predicadores de outros domínios semânticos que têm o Benefactivo perspectivizado naquela microcena. A análise foi realizada em 164 microcenas de texto jornalístico, retiradas do The Washington Post, em sua versão online # www.washingtonpost.com # durante quinze dias seguidos, numa tentativa de abarcar e destacar a noção benefactiva no contexto da língua em uso, aqui representada por notícias políticas. Fillmore (1968), Chafe (1970), Cruse (1973), Cook (1979, 1989), Nicolacópulos (1992,1995), Nicolacópulos & Conceição (1984), Oliveira (1999), Rocha (2003) e Weickert & Nicolacópulos (2005) têm estudado a multiplicidade de sentidos dentro da Gramática de Casos, incorporada à Semântica Relacional, a fim de compreender os novos significados e seus efeitos construídos no dinamismo da língua em uso. Nesta perspectiva, eles abordaram o significado da língua de diferentes formas, expressando agência, experiência, benfeciário, objeto, lugar, companhia, tempo e holismo. No entanto, ainda há muita pesquisa a ser desenvolvida nesta área, principalmente em relação ao Benefactivo, que expressa as noções de posse, ganho ou perda e transferência de propriedade, e como ele aparece de forma viva na língua Inglesa. Esta pesquisa considera uma microcena uma #oração extendida# que incorpora noções que não estão necessariamente expressas na superfície das microcenas, mas podem ser apreendidas pela macrocena, o contexto maior do texto e pelas associações que o verbo ou predicador mantém com os outros elementos nas microcenas Benefactivas. É possível de perceber que (i) este gênero textual favorece a presença de microcenas Benefactivas, (ii) a maioria delas são compostas por predicadores Benefactivos em seu sentido básico (87.80%), e (iii) algumas vêm de predicadores de outros domínios semânticos, mas que têm seu sentido Benefactivo perspectivizado (12.19%). Ao mesmo tempo, observou-se que muitos predicadores Benefactivos fazem um movimento metafórico (i) em direção a outros campos semânticos (Experiential, Comitativo, Tempo) ou (ii) em direção ao subdomínio Benefactivo chamado de Benefactive power. The present study aims at analyzing the Benefactive microscenes that emerge from news reports. The Benefactive microscenes may be represented by basically Benefactive predicators or by predicators form other semantic domains which have the Benefactive foregrounded. The analysis is carried out on a corpus of 164 microscenes from journalistic texts taken from The Washington Post online version # ww.washingtonpost.com # during a period of fifteen days in a row, in an attempt to encompass and enhance the Benefactive notion in the context of language in use, here represented by the political news reports. Fillmore (1968), Chafe (1970), Cruse (1973), Cook (1979, 1989), Nicolacópulos (1992,1995), Nicolacópulos & Conceição (1984), Oliveira (1999), Rocha (2003) and Weickert & Nicolacópulos (2005) have tried to tackle the multiplicity of meanings within Case Grammar, incorporated into Relational Semantics, in order to comprise the new senses and their effects constructed in the dynamism of language in use. Within this perspective, they have approached language meaning in different ways, be it expressing agency, experience, beneficiary, object, location, company, time, holism. However, there is still a lot to be researched in this area, mainly in the distinct notion of the beneficiary, which expresses the notions of possession, gain or loss, and transfer of property, and how it is lively represented in the modern English language. This work considers a microscene an #extended clause# which incorporates notions that are not necessarily expressed in the surface of the microscenes, but can be apprehended by the macroscene, the broader context of the text and by the associations the verb or predicator keeps with the other elements within the Benefactive microscenes. It was noticed that (i) this genre favors the presence of Benefactive microscenes, (ii) most of them emerge from basically Benefactive predicators (87.80%), and (iii) some from predicators from other semantic domains that in specific microscenes have the Benefactive sense foregrounded (12.19%). At the same time, it was observed that many basically Benefactive predicators make a metaphorical move (i) towards other semantic domains (Experiential, Comitative, Time) or (ii) towards a Benefactive subdomain, namely power-Benefactive

The Rise of iWar: Identity, Information, and the Individualization of Modern Warfare

During a decade of global counterterrorism operations and two extended counterinsurgency campaigns, the United States was confronted with a new kind of adversary. Without uniforms, flags, and formations, the task of identifying and targeting these combatants represented an unprecedented operational challenge for which Cold War era doctrinal methods were largely unsuited. This monograph examines the doctrinal, technical, and bureaucratic innovations that evolved in response to these new operational challenges. It discusses the transition from a conventionally focused, Cold War-era targeting process to one optimized for combating networks and conducting identity-based targeting. It analyzes the policy decisions and strategic choices that were the catalysts of this change and concludes with an in depth examination of emerging technologies that are likely to shape how this mode of warfare will be waged in the future.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1436/thumbnail.jp

The Interdisciplinary Impacts of Technology Semantics and Communicational Bypassing in the Cybersecurity Field

In 2012, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Robert Mueller shocked many when he warned, “[t]here are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked and those that will be.” As technology and information systems develop rapidly, security has become a topic of increasing interest and concern. In 2018, it was noted that the total cost to account for cybercrime on a global scale surpassed US$1 billion (Milkovich, 2020). In the United States, a hacker attack occurs every 39 seconds, and each year, 1 in 3 Americans are personally impacted by a form of hacking (Cukier, 2007). Given more than 77% of organizations do not have a cyber incident response plan in place to respond to such attacks, these statistics are perhaps unsurprising; yet, they speak to the desperate need for consistent, reliable, and thoughtful cybersecurity now more than ever