Networking Phylogeny for Indo-European and Austronesian Languages

Harnessing cognitive abilities of many individuals, a language evolves upon their mutual interactions establishing a persistent social environment to which language is closely attuned. Human history is encoded in the rich sets of linguistic data by means of symmetry patterns that are not always feasibly represented by trees. Here we use the methods developed in the study of complex networks to decipher accurately symmetry records on the language phylogeny of the Indo-European and the Austronesian language families, considering, in both cases, the samples of fifty different languages. In particular, we support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin and the ‘express train’ model of Austronesian expansion from South-East Asia, with an essential role for the Batanes islands located between the Philippines and Taiwan

Conversational affective social robots for ageing and dementia support

Socially assistive robots (SAR) hold significant potential to assist older adults and people with dementia in human engagement and clinical contexts by supporting mental health and independence at home. While SAR research has recently experienced prolific growth, long-term trust, clinical translation and patient benefit remain immature. Affective human-robot interactions are unresolved and the deployment of robots with conversational abilities is fundamental for robustness and humanrobot engagement. In this paper, we review the state of the art within the past two decades, design trends, and current applications of conversational affective SAR for ageing and dementia support. A horizon scanning of AI voice technology for healthcare, including ubiquitous smart speakers, is further introduced to address current gaps inhibiting home use. We discuss the role of user-centred approaches in the design of voice systems, including the capacity to handle communication breakdowns for effective use by target populations. We summarise the state of development in interactions using speech and natural language processing, which forms a baseline for longitudinal health monitoring and cognitive assessment. Drawing from this foundation, we identify open challenges and propose future directions to advance conversational affective social robots for: 1) user engagement, 2) deployment in real-world settings, and 3) clinical translation

New Deal Navajo Linguistics and Language Documentation

This dissertation explores how with the New Deal, the US government committed itself to the construction of a Navajo ethnonation or a democratic polity that could interface with the US federal government. For my research methodology I used archival research and examined the papers of linguist Robert Young, a linguist and BIA employee who throughout his decades of work with the Navajo Tribe compiled some of the most extensive documentary material on the Navajo language, as well as his published works. I examined documents including correspondence between linguists Robert W Young and J.P. Harrington, dictionaries and other linguistic materials for evidence of the US governments efforts. In looking at Young\u27s work with the Navajo I show how he endeavored to create a standard register of Navajo for use in political and educational institutions, helped to develop democratic political institutions on the reservation and worked to model a modern ethnic Navajo who was integrated into the United State\u27s wage labor and market economy. In this dissertation I look at some of the early ethnographic work that has been done on the Navajo tribe. I then discuss language documentation projects and some of the critiques that have been made as well as strides that have been made to improve such projects and consider what a change from an ethnolinguistic paradigm to a historical dialectic paradigm could offer. I then give a little background discussion about the New Deal to provide some historical background for my discussion of Young\u27s linguistic work with the Navajo. I then reflect a little more on the two paradigms, exploring their intellectual roots. I then conclude by looking at the ethnonational paradigm in larger, historic nation building projects in Europe and how these ideologies have been mapped onto new nations.\u2

Floral foregrounding

The study reported here combines quantitative and qualitative methods from both cognitive stylistics and corpus stylistics to analyse the flower-motif in Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway. The quantitative analysis compares the frequency of flower lemmas in the novel to both a reference corpus consisting of Woolf’s other works as well as a general corpus (the British National Corpus). The analysis found significant differences between the frequencies in the novel and both corpora. The qualitative analysis is based on the statistically significant results and considers cognitive entrenchment and salience in relation to these. Furthermore, the analysis also links these two notions to different types of foregrounding as conceptualised in stylistics proper. Finally, aspects of repetition, parallelism and symbolism in relation to the flower-motif are considered. In conclusion, it is found that the flower-motif consists of more variables than sheer frequency and that it is the combination of these varied stylistic tools which result in the foregrounding of the flower-motif. Combining both quantitative and qualitative approaches in stylistic analyses proved beneficial in demonstrating the functions of foregrounding and the presence of the flower-motif in Mrs Dalloway, but also highlighted the potential of combining insights from cognitive linguistics with more traditional stylistic features

Language loss in bilingual speakers with Alzheimer's disease

PhD ThesisThis study investigated the changes in language and cognition in five bilingual speakers with Alzheimer's Disease over a period of twelve months. The pattern and rate of loss in English was compared to that of Afrikaans. The bilingual behaviour of language mixing was also investigated, as was the interaction between deteriorating cognitive skills and language functions. Data was collected at three time points (0 - 6 - 12 months) employing a battery of neuropsychological and language tests, and conversation analysis. It was predicted that where both languages were automatised to a similar extent, a similar pattern, severity and rate of loss would be evident across languages. This hypothesis was supported by results. It was also predicted that in cases where one language was less automatised than the other, the less automatised language (i.e. the language learnt later in life (L2) anchor the less proficient language) would be more severely impaired and would deteriorate at a faster rate than the fully automatised language (Li). Results revealed that while L2 was more impaired than Li for some speakers, for others, languages were similarly impaired/spared. These discrepancies were attributed to the fact that tests were not sensitive to inter-language differences near floor or ceiling. Results did not strongly support the second prediction that L2 would deteriorate at a faster rate. Ambiguous findings could be artefacts of the time window of examination, insensitive assessment tasks, and the heterogeneous nature of the population. With regards to language mixing behaviour, code switching mainly affected L2 interactions even though the extent of switching varied across speakers. The amount of language mixing increased for two participants over the year. With regards to a possible interaction between language and cognition, complex language tasks appeared to be more compromised by deteriorating neuropsychological support than less complex tasks, but the extent of this interaction varied across languages and across speakers. Finally, the overall profile of results suggested that a language learnt later in life will never become fully automatised, even if high levels of L2 proficiency had been attained in adulthood.Overseas Research Students Awar

From language learners to dynamic meaning makers: a longitudinal investigation of Malaysian secondary school students’ development of English from text and corpus perspectives

This thesis considers how language development takes place over time by a group of 124 secondary school students of English. A series of five studies were conducted for this purpose using the tools and methods from corpus linguistics and written discourse analysis. Specifically, the thesis presents a detailed analysis of (1) how a set of function words (that, to and of) were used by these students over a 24-month period, and (2) how narrating practices concerning the structure of selected individual texts changed over time. The two distinct strands of investigation, both of which based on an inductive methodology, highlight, on the one hand, the extent to which there are common as well as unique aspects of language use observed across time and space (Francis et al., 1996, 1998) and, on the other, the role of human agency and meaning making practices in using linguistic resources over time and in shaping and constructing texts within and across individuals. Taken together, the overall inductive methodology and an emphasis on treating all instances of the conventionally labelled ‘learner language’ as equally valid features of natural human language use, show clear advantages over alternative approaches based on a deficit model

American legal discourse on child trafficking: the re/production of inequalities and persistence of child criminalization

The criminalization of children commercially-sexually exploited through prostitution persists despite trafficking laws recognizing this as one of the worst forms of exploitation committed against the most vulnerable social group. This thesis examines the re/production of inequalities in American legal discourse on child trafficking, and why child criminalization persists in this context. Employing a child-centered framework built from multi-conscious feminism and the sociologies of law and childhood, it examines mechanisms of othering and criminalization in key legislative debates, statutes and cases of the United States generally as well as two states exemplifying the retributive and child-protective modes of handling child trafficking. It identifies three themes or issues often presented as binaries that structure child trafficking discourse—adult/child, victim/offender and consent/non-consent—and examines how these are deployed to penalize children in general, and minority and immigrant children in particular. First, processes of marginalization related to race, class, gender and immigration have been vital to the construction of childhood (as normative/deviant) in and through trafficking and prostitution laws, which are reproduced through different types of discourses in both states. Second, both retributive and child-protective modes of response preserve child criminalization by maintaining the tension between prostitution and trafficking, and the female culpability associated with prostitution, including through the denial of the victimization of “repeat offenders.” Finally, despite its prohibition, prostitution is conceptualized in contractual terms, which imputes consent to identities constructed through this discourse and renders commercial-sexual exploitation as merely or primarily involving acts of sale, purchase and consumption

American legal discourse on child trafficking: the re/production of inequalities and persistence of child criminalization

The criminalization of children commercially-sexually exploited through prostitution persists despite trafficking laws recognizing this as one of the worst forms of exploitation committed against the most vulnerable social group. This thesis examines the re/production of inequalities in American legal discourse on child trafficking, and why child criminalization persists in this context. Employing a child-centered framework built from multi-conscious feminism and the sociologies of law and childhood, it examines mechanisms of othering and criminalization in key legislative debates, statutes and cases of the United States generally as well as two states exemplifying the retributive and child-protective modes of handling child trafficking. It identifies three themes or issues often presented as binaries that structure child trafficking discourse—adult/child, victim/offender and consent/non-consent—and examines how these are deployed to penalize children in general, and minority and immigrant children in particular. First, processes of marginalization related to race, class, gender and immigration have been vital to the construction of childhood (as normative/deviant) in and through trafficking and prostitution laws, which are reproduced through different types of discourses in both states. Second, both retributive and child-protective modes of response preserve child criminalization by maintaining the tension between prostitution and trafficking, and the female culpability associated with prostitution, including through the denial of the victimization of “repeat offenders.” Finally, despite its prohibition, prostitution is conceptualized in contractual terms, which imputes consent to identities constructed through this discourse and renders commercial-sexual exploitation as merely or primarily involving acts of sale, purchase and consumption