Trece años aparte... las guerras de Irak. Un análisis crítico-cognitivo del uso de las metáforas en la representación de las dos guerras

Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Filología, leída el 10/10/2019This study is a multidisciplinary approach toward examining the conceptualization of critical political events in the language of people in power. The topic of investigation tackles two major wars; the First Iraq War 1990-1991, as well as the Second Iraq War 2003. This study is particularity interested in the choice and dependency on certain conceptual metaphors by the two Presidents as well as the newspapers journalists in the conceptualization of the two wars as well as in the depiction of the major war actors. The theoretical framework for the dissertation includes Cognitive Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics. The aim is to determine how the choice of certain conceptual metaphors by the two Presidents may have ideologically constructed a particular image of the two wars and their actors that is favorable to the two Presidents. Consequently, influencing others, here mainly journalists, to adopt the same image and eventually enabling themselves to achieve higher approval rates...Este estudio es una aproximación multidisciplinar para examinar cómo se conceptualizan los sucesos políticos críticos en el lenguaje de quienes están en el poder. El tema de la investigación se centra en dos guerras, la primera guerra de Irak de 1990 a 1991 y a segunda guerra de Irak de 2003. Para este estudio resultan de especial interés la elección y la dependencia de ciertas metáforas conceptuales de los dos presidentes, además de cómo los periodistas conceptualizan las dos guerras y reflejan a los principales contendientes en los conflictos. El marco teórico de la tesis comprende la Lingüística Cognitiva, el Análisis Crítico del Discurso y la Lingüística de Corpus. Su objetivo es determinar cómo la elección de ciertas metáforas conceptuales de los dos presidentes puede haber construido, ideológicamente, una imagen particular de las dos guerras y de sus contendientes que es favorable a los dos presidentes. En consecuencia, influye en que los demás, sobre todo los periodistas, adopten las mismas imágenes y den a los presidentes altas cuotas de aceptación...Fac. de FilologíaTRUEunpu

A robust consistency model of crowd workers in text labeling tasks

Crowdsourcing is a popular human-based model to acquire labeled data. Despite its ability to generate huge amounts of labelled data at moderate costs, it is susceptible to low quality labels. This can happen through unintentional or intentional errors by the crowd workers. Consistency is an important attribute of reliability. It is a practical metric that evaluates a crowd workers' reliability based on their ability to conform to themselves by yielding the same output when repeatedly given a particular input. Consistency has not yet been sufficiently explored in the literature. In this work, we propose a novel consistency model based on the pairwise comparisons method. We apply this model on unpaid workers. We measure the workers' consistency on tasks of labeling political text-based claims and study the effects of different duplicate task characteristics on their consistency. Our results show that the proposed model outperforms the current state-of-the-art models in terms of accuracy. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Facial Expression Recognition Utilizing Local Direction-Based Robust Features and Deep Belief Network

Emotional health plays very vital role to improve people's quality of lives, especially for the elderly. Negative emotional states can lead to social or mental health problems. To cope with emotional health problems caused by negative emotions in daily life, we propose efficient facial expression recognition system to contribute in emotional healthcare system. Thus, facial expressions play a key role in our daily communications, and recent years have witnessed a great amount of research works for reliable facial expressions recognition (FER) systems. Therefore, facial expression evaluation or analysis from video information is very challenging and its accuracy depends on the extraction of robust features. In this paper, a unique feature extraction method is presented to extract distinguished features from the human face. For person independent expression recognition, depth video data is used as input to the system where in each frame, pixel intensities are distributed based on the distances to the camera. A novel robust feature extraction process is applied in this work which is named as local directional position pattern (LDPP). In LDPP, after extracting local directional strengths for each pixel such as applied in typical local directional pattern (LDP), top directional strength positions are considered in binary along with their strength sign bits. Considering top directional strength positions with strength signs in LDPP can differentiate edge pixels with bright as well as dark regions on their opposite sides by generating different patterns whereas typical LDP only considers directions representing the top strengths irrespective of their signs as well as position orders (i.e., directions with top strengths represent 1 and rest of them 0), which can generate the same patterns in this regard sometimes. Hence, LDP fails to distinguish edge pixels with opposite bright and dark regions in some cases which can be overcome by LDPP. Moreover, the LDPP capabilities are extended through principal component analysis (PCA) and generalized discriminant analysis (GDA) for better face characteristic illustration in expression. The proposed features are finally applied with deep belief network (DBN) for expression training and recognition

Credibility in Online Social Networks: A Survey

The importance of information credibility in society cannot be underestimated given that it is at the heart of all decision-making. Generally, more information is better; however, knowing the value of this information is essential for the decision-making processes. Information credibility defines a measure of the fitness of the information for consumption. It can also be defined in terms of reliability, which denotes the probability that a data source will appear credible to the users. A challenge in this topic is that there is a great deal of literature that has developed different credibility dimensions. In addition, information science dealing with online social networks has grown in complexity, attracting interest from researchers in information science, psychology, human–computer interaction, communication studies, and management studies, all of whom have studied the topic from different perspectives. This work will attempt to provide an overall review of the credibility assessment literature over the period 2006–2017 as applied to the context of the microblogging platform, Twitter. The known interpretations of credibility will be examined, particularly as they relate to the Twitter environment. In addition, we investigate levels of credibility assessment features. We then discuss recent works, addressing a new taxonomy of credibility analysis and assessment techniques. At last, a cross-referencing of literature is performed while suggesting new topics for future studies of credibility assessment in a social media context

GENERAL EDUCATION TEACHERS' ATTITUDES, KNOWLEDGE, AND STRATEGIES RELATED TO TEACHING STUDENTS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES IN SAUDI ARABIA

Although Saudi Arabia has an inclusive classroom for students with learning disabilities (LDs) the general education teachers are not prepared to handle the special needs of the students with LDs. This study examined attitude, knowledge of evidence based practices, and perceived skills among the male general education teachers' teachers regarding LDs in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia using a mixed method study. Principals were also interviewed to corroborate data. Two-hundred and seventy-eight general education teachers participated on the online survey administered via Qualtrics and ten principals were interviewed in this study. The survey instrument was analyzed for validity and reliability. More than half the teachers currently had or previously had students with LDs. Teacher preparation, academic climate, teaching approaches, teaching strategies and teacher effectiveness were themes that emerged from factor analysis. The ANOVA test identified statistically significant relationships between-years of experience, degree field, and expertise in special education. The degree field, route of certification, expertise in special education, and having students with LDs in classroom was related to the teaching strategy employed by teachers. Teacher effectiveness was related to degree field, with expertise in special education and also with if they have had students with LDs. The academic climate in schools was enhanced by the presence of resource room. General education teachers had a positive attitude towards inclusion and provide multiple strategies for accommodating students with learning disabilities. Class size was considered critical by most general teachers when inclusion was being provided. Principals interviewed in this study reported that teachers had negative attitudes towards inclusion of students with LDs and believed that instructing students with LDs was no different from teaching regular students. Teachers desired smaller class sizes when they had students with LDs in their classrooms. Teachers who were currently were having students with LDs in the classroom requested more information on specialized teaching strategies, ways to individualize their instruction, and more information about accommodations to the curriculum. Teachers certified by traditional routes, requested more training regarding special education laws, asked for more information about accommodations to the curriculum, and sought more assistance in the classroom

Un examen Cross-Cultural de la utilización de la metáfora Multimodal en inglés y dibujos árabes de la "primavera árabe" en Egipto

El estudio de Lakoff y Johnson Metáforas de la vida cotidiana (1980) ha dotado al campo de la metáfora de un renovado interés, y a éste siguieron numerosas publicaciones abordándolo desde diversas perspectivas. Lakoff y Johnson (1980) aseguran que la metáfora es, de hecho, una característica del pensamiento y, por consiguiente, ya no es una propiedad exclusiva del lenguaje. La metáfora sería en realidad un reflejo de cómo concebimos e interpretamos el mundo en que vivimos, en la medida en que está conformada por nuestras experiencias corporales, un fenómeno al que Lakoff y Johnson se refieren como la “mente corpórea”. La metáfora cumple la función de “comprender” y facilitar la interpretación de un ámbito o experiencia en los términos de otro ámbito o experiencia (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 36). Los conceptos abstractos son difíciles de ser pensados per se; consecuentemente, las personas recurren a la metáfora para concebirlos en los términos de otras nociones más concretas que están, en cierto grado, vinculadas a nuestras experiencias somáticas. Si bien no escasean las investigaciones en el campo de las metáforas, parece haber, sin embargo, cierto vacío en lo tocante a la manifestación de la metáfora en modos distintos del modo verbal. Forceville (2009: 19) afirma que uno de los principios fundamentales de la Teoría de la Metáfora Conceptual es la idea de que el variado empleo de metáforas por parte del ser humano sugiere “que piensa en gran medida metafóricamente”. Esto lleva a la conclusión de que la manifestación de la metáfora debería estar presente en los diversos modos del pensamiento, y no únicamente en el verbal. Estos otros modos de pensamiento incluyen, entre otros, las imágenes, la música, los sonidos y los gestos. Asimismo, la mayoría de estudios que se han realizado en el área de las metáforas multimodales ha sido aplicada al terreno de la publicidad. Los anunciantes parecen advertir el ! 2! poder que se invierte en las metáforas, y las usan profusamente para transmitir mensajes a los consumidores. No obstante, recientemente existe un nuevo interés por investigar el uso de metáforas multimodales en las caricaturas (véase, por ejemplo, El Refaie 2003, 2009; Schilperoord y Maes 2009; Yus 2009; Bergen 2003; Marin Aresse 2008). Las tiras cómicas se distinguen de los anuncios principalmente por el hecho de que las caricaturas transmiten una postura negativa frente a un sujeto particular, mientras que los anuncios presentan una actitud positiva. Igualmente, les diferencia el hecho de que las tiras cómicas requieren un conocimiento social y político específico. El presente escrito examina y compara el uso de metáforas multimodales en caricaturas políticas – tanto inglesas como árabes – que retratan la Primavera Árabe en Egipto, con el fin de determinar: (1) si la mayoría de caricaturas son conceptualmente específicas o culturalmente específicas; (2) los principales dominios fuente empleados por los caricaturistas ingleses y árabes para interpretar la Primavera Árabe; (3) si hay semejanzas o diferencias entre las caricaturas inglesas y las árabes en su elección del dominio meta; y (4) observar también cómo los distintos modos (aquí esencialmente los modos verbal y pictórico) contribuyen a representar la Primavera Árabe. El corpus para este estudio se compone de un total de 50 tiras cómicas, 25 de ellas inglesas y las 25 restantes árabes. En cada una de estas tiras debe haber al menos una metáfora que representa la Primavera Árabe o alguno de sus subtemas. Las tiras han sido seleccionadas aleatoriamente a través de Internet. Para el análisis, la investigadora ha seguido el marco teórico propuesto por Bounegru y Forceville (2011) en cuanto a la determinación de metáforas en general, así como la determinación de metáforas multimodales de tipo verbovisual en particular. Por cada tira cómica se ha llevado a cabo un análisis independiente, determinando el dominio fuente y el dominio meta, las metáforas, las asignaciones, qué se está representando verbalmente y qué se representa pictóricamente. Además, la autora ha analizado ! 3! posteriormente si estas metáforas son culturalmente específicas o no, y/o si están relacionadas con metáforas más genéricas o universales. El análisis que comprende este trabajo se divide en dos secciones. La primera parte es un estudio detallado de los dos corpora, abordando los distintos escenarios de los dominios fuente empleados por los dibujantes según su similitud. Esta sección presenta a su vez un análisis de los diversos modos que se utilizan para revelar el dominio fuente así como el dominio meta. Del mismo modo, se incluyen las metáforas específicas manejadas en cada tira cómica y, cuando se da el caso, aquellas metáforas genéricas o universales a las que remite. La segunda sección del análisis presenta una comparativa entre ambos corpora basada en el análisis expuesto en la primera parte. Además, trata varios de los fenómenos lingüísticos a los que han recurrido frecuentemente los dibujantes ingleses y árabes. Estos fenómenos son principalmente la metonimia y la personificación. Igualmente, en esta sección la autora investiga en mayor profundidad las metáforas usadas por los dibujantes ingleses y los árabes, determinando si son ora conceptualmente específicas, ora culturalmente específicas, a partir del hecho de que las metáforas sirven como herramienta para reconocer la forma en que personas distintas, o bien culturas distintas, interpretan varias cuestiones. Por ejemplo, a la hora de conceptualizar el futuro, algunas culturas lo representan espacialmente como delante del hablante, mientras que otras se refieren al mismo como localizado detrás del sujeto (Lakoff y Johnson 1980: 14). Este trabajo ha permitido varios hallazgos. En cuanto a las metáforas empleadas para representar la Primavera Árabe, tanto las tiras inglesas como las árabes han recurrido a una cierta variedad de metáforas. Algunas de las tiras presentan más de una metáfora operando a la vez. Los dibujantes ingleses y árabes parecen haberse apoyado siempre en el modo pictórico para presentar el dominio fuente, así como en el modo verbal para mostrar el dominio meta. ! 4! Además, respecto a la naturaleza de las metáforas que figuran en sendos corpora, casi todas las metáforas son conceptuales en cuanto que se corresponden con nuestras experiencias corporales; no hay, por otro lado, ninguna metáfora culturalmente específica. Asimismo, la única diferencia a este respecto entre ambos corpora es una variación en lo que constituye el prototipo de una categoría particular – aquí concretamente la categoría “primavera” en cada una de las culturas –. En las tiras inglesas, una flor es empleada para representar la primavera, mientras que en las árabes el elemento natural más frecuente para simbolizar la primavera es un árbol.The realm of metaphors has been extensively studied, especially after the publication of Lakoff and Johnson’s monograph Metaphors we live by. Metaphor is designated as a property of thought and not a property of language as it has been regarded before. This means that metaphors are not ornaments or merely figures of speech, they actually shape the way we think and construe our everyday realities. This have been said, the field of multimodal metaphors is less extensively studied than its monomodal verbal counterpart. The present paper investigates and compares the use of multimodal metaphors of the verbo-pictorial type in English and Arabic political cartoons that deal with the Arab Spring revolution in Egypt. The method adopted for analysis is in accordance with the framework presented by Bounegru and Forceville (2011). The results of the study indicate that the almost all the metaphors used in the English and the Arabic cartoons are conceptual and no clear culturally specific metaphors has been detected. Also, there is a clear similarity in the source domains used in both corpora to construe the Arab Spring, as well as in the particular mode selected by the cartoonists to convey either the source or the target domains.Depto. de Estudios Ingleses: Lingüística y LiteraturaFac. de FilologíaTRUEsubmitte