PersoNER: Persian named-entity recognition

© 1963-2018 ACL. Named-Entity Recognition (NER) is still a challenging task for languages with low digital resources. The main difficulties arise from the scarcity of annotated corpora and the consequent problematic training of an effective NER pipeline. To abridge this gap, in this paper we target the Persian language that is spoken by a population of over a hundred million people world-wide. We first present and provide ArmanPerosNERCorpus, the first manually-annotated Persian NER corpus. Then, we introduce PersoNER, an NER pipeline for Persian that leverages a word embedding and a sequential max-margin classifier. The experimental results show that the proposed approach is capable of achieving interesting MUC7 and CoNNL scores while outperforming two alternatives based on a CRF and a recurrent neural network

The Persian Translation of Arabic Aesthetics: Rādūyānī’s Rhetorical Renaissance

Notwithstanding its value as the earliest extant New Persian treatment of the art of rhetoric, Rādūyānī’s Interpreter of Rhetoric (Tarjumān al-Balāgha) has yet to be read from the vantage point of comparative poetics. Composed in the Ferghana region of modern Central Asia between the end of the eleventh century and the beginning of the twelfth century, Rādūyānī’s vernacularization of classical Arabic norms inaugurated literary theory in the New Persian language. I argue here that Rādūyānī’s vernacularization is most consequential with respect to its transformation of the classical Arabic tropes of metaphor (istiʿāra) and comparison (tashbīh) to suit the new exigencies of a New Persian literary culture. In reversing the relation between metaphor and comparison enshrined in Arabic aesthetics, Rādūyānī concretized the Persian contribution to the global study of literary form

Of productive germs and the immortal soul : Friedrich Schlegel’s writings on language and early biological theory

Friedrich Schlegel's lasting contribution to linguistics is usually seen in the impact that his book "Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier" from 1808 left on comparative linguistics and on the study of Sanskrit. Schlegel was one of the first European scholars to have studied Sanskrit extensively and he made a number of translations of Sanskrit literature into German which make up one third of "Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier". Schlegel's book is widely regarded as a founding document both of comparative linguistics and of indology, a fact which is quite remarkable in light of the development of Schlegel's thought after this text. His interest in Indian studies ceased more or less directly with the publication of this work, while his thoughts on language became more and more suffused by transcendental philosophy

An Interpretation of the Significance of ‘Time’: The Case of English and Persian Proverbs

This study aimed at investigating how people conceptualize time as an essential capacity of human cognitive processes and how such conceptualizations are reflected in a given language. Accordingly, English and Persian cross-culturally equivalent proverbs which reflect deeply rooted perspectives of the two languages were analyzed. After the classification of proverbs in four functions, Evan's (2007) model of temporal conception was utilized to analyze them. To understand the process of verb(s) and the role given to the word ‘time’ in those proverbs, Halliday’s (1994) System of Transitivity was applied. Also, the frequency of senses and roles given to the word ‘time’ were calculated and compared to find out the dominant sense and roles, respectively and the probable cause(s) underlying their similarities and/or differences. Our findings indicated that English proverbs made use of more influential words and concepts about the significance of time. The overall results are discussed and implications are mentioned.

A cross-cultural study of semantic ties in the abstracts of conference proceedings

Connectedness in research article abstracts plays a vital role for them to be able to attract a broader readership. It also enhances abstracts' potential for acceptance at local and international conferences. In view of this, the study investigates variations in the strategies that writers from Anglophone and Francophone settings use to create connectedness in their conference paper abstracts. The data for this study comprise 50 abstracts submitted by these two groups of writers to the 30th West African Languages Congress and the 10th Linguistics Association of Ghana (LAG) Conference. For analytical methodology, it employs Halliday and Hasan's (1976) Cohesive Theory, which is complemented by Kaplan's (1966) Contrastive Rhetoric Theory. The findings reveal that the writers from the two cultural backgrounds employ similar strategies such as references, conjunctions, substitution, ellipsis, synonyms and repetition in maintaining connectedness in their abstracts. The differences between these two categories of writers are linked to the frequency with which these connectives are deployed in their respective abstracts. The study has implications for Contrastive Rhetoric Theory, by proving that people who belong to the same discourse community to a large extent demonstrate similar writing styles irrespective of their different cultural backgrounds

Diferentes maneiras de observar eventos: o aprendizado de língua estrangeira e a aquisição de padrões de perspectivação conceitual de ações na L2

Given the growing body of evidence on the interaction between language and thought, the overall aim of the current study is to verify whether there is a developmental pattern in the cognitive behavior of Persian L2 learners of English as a foreign language with regard to action construal level. Specifically, this study investigates whether acquiring English as a foreign language would affect the construal level of Persian EFL learners with different levels of bilingualism. A group of 40 Persian monolinguals, a group of 40 low-level Persian EFL bilinguals (bilinguals with low L2 proficiency), and a group of 40 high-level Persian EFL bilinguals (bilinguals with high L2 proficiency) were recruited. Participants were divided into the above groups based on their performance on Oxford Quick Placement Test (QPT). The participants’ action construal level was measured using Behavior Identification Form (BIF) (Vallacher and Wegner, 1989). The results of a one way ANOVA and a post-hoc Tukey test indicated that while low-level participants behaved relatively similar to Persian monolinguals, the construal of high-level learners was significantly different from monolinguals and low-level bilinguals. These findings provide evidence of a developmental pattern regarding the acquisition of construal level, supporting the claim of previous research that learning an additional language can affect the construal of language learners. Keywords: language acquisition, foreign language, construal, action construal, construal level.Tendo em vista o crescente conjunto de evidências sobre a interação entre língua e pensamento, o objetivo geral deste estudo é verificar se há um padrão de desenvolvimento no comportamento cognitivo de aprendizes persas de inglês como língua estrangeira (ILE) no que diz respeito ao nível de perspectivação conceitual de ações. Especificamente, este estudo investiga se a aquisição do ILE afeta o nível de perspectivação conceitual de aprendizes persas de ILE com diferentes níveis de bilinguismo. Foram recrutados um grupo de 40 persas monolíngues, um grupo de 40 persas bilíngues com baixo nível em ILE (bilíngues com baixa proficiência na L2) e um grupo de 40 persas bilíngues com alto nível em ILE (bilíngues com alta proficiência na L2). Os participantes foram divididos em tais grupos com base em seu desempenho no teste de nivelamento Quick Placement Test (QPT), de Oxford. Mediu-se o nível de perspectivação conceitual de ações dos participantes por meio do formulário Behavior Identification Form (BIF), de Vallacher e Wegner. Os resultados do ANOVA de uma via e de um teste de Tukey post-hoc indicaram que os participantes com baixo nível tiveram comportamento relativamente semelhante ao dos monolíngues, ao passo que os aprendizes com alto nível demonstraram uma perspectivação conceitual significativamente diferente da dos outros grupos. Esses achados evidenciam um padrão de desenvolvimento na aquisição do nível de perspectivação conceitual, reforçando estudos anteriores que afirmam que o aprendizado de uma língua adicional pode afetar o nível de perspectivação conceitual de aprendizes de línguas. Palavras-chave: aquisição da linguagem, língua estrangeira, perspectivação conceitual, perspectivação conceitual de ações, nível da perspectivação conceitual

Introduction: Creating new worlds out of old texts

Despite initial expectations that globalization would eradicate the need for geographical space and distance, "maps matter" today in ways that were unimaginable a mere two decades ago. Technological advances have brought to the fore an entirely new set of methods for representing and interacting with spatial formations, while the ever-increasing mobility of ideas, capital, and people has created a world in which urban and regional inequalities are being heightened at an accelerating pace. As a result, the ability of any given place to reap the benefits of global socio-technical flows mainly hinges on the forging of connections that can transcend the limits of its material location. In contrast to the traditional "topographic" perspective, the territorial extent of economic and political realms is being increasingly conceived through a "topological" lens: as a set of overlapping reticulations in which the nature and frequency of links among different sites matter more than the physical distances between them. At the same time, a parallel stream of innovation has revolutionized the understanding of space in disciplines such as history, archaeology, classics, and linguistics. Much of this work has been concentrated in the burgeoning field of the "digital humanities", which has been persistently breaking new ground in the conceptualization of past and present places. When seen in the context of globalization-induced dynamics, such developments emphasize the need for developing cartographic approaches that can bring out the inherently networked structure of social space via a lens that is both theoretically integrative and heuristically sharp. We have decided to respond to these analytical and methodological challenges by focusing on ancient Greek literature: a corpus of work that has often been characterized as being free of the constraints imposed by post-Enlightenment cartography, despite setting the foundations of many contemporary map-making methods. In the 12 chapters that follow, we highlight the rich array of representational devices employed by authors from this era, whose narrative depictions of spatial relations defy the logic of images and surfaces that dominates contemporary cartographic thought. There is a particular focus on Herodotus' Histories - a text that is increasingly taken up by classicists as the example of how ancient perceptions of space may have been rather different to the cartographic view that we tend to assume. But this volume also considers the spatial imaginary through the lens of other authors (e.g. Aristotle), genres (e.g. hymns), cultural contexts (e.g. Babylon), and disciplines (e.g. archaeology), with a view to stimulating a broad-based discussion among readers and critics of Herodotus and ancient Greek literature and culture more generally. In fact, many of the disciplinary and conceptual perspectives explored here are at their inception, and have a more general relevance for the wider community of humanities and social science researchers interested in novel mapping techniques. The resulting juxtaposition of more "traditional", philological discussions of space with chapters dedicated to the exploration of new technologies may jar or appear uneven, especially since we have not set out to privilege one method over another. But it is through viewing these different approaches in the round and reading them alongside each other that, we maintain, we can best disrupt customary ways of thinking (and writing) about space and catch a glimpse of new possibilities

Do the suburbs exist? Discovering complexity and specificity in suburban built form

In human geography cities are routinely acknowledged as complex and dynamic built environments. This description is rarely extended to the suburbs, which are generally regarded as epiphenomena of the urbs and therefore of little intrinsic theoretical interest in themselves. This article presents a detailed critique of this widely held assumption by showing how the idea of 'the suburban' as an essentially non-problematic domain has been perpetuated from a range of contrasting disciplinary perspectives, including those that directly address suburban subject matter. The result has been that attempts to articulate the complex social possibilities of suburban space are easily caught between theories of urbanisation that are insensitive to suburban specificity and competing representations of the suburb that rarely move beyond the culturally specific to consider their generic significance. This article proposes that the development of a distinctively suburban theory would help to undermine one-dimensional approaches to the built environment by focusing on the relationship between social organisation and the dynamics of emergent built form