Untapped principles of language-teaching

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.No claim is being made here that this principle is original with me, at least not ultimately. The psychological basis for it has been (in another connection) stated by G. Nickel (1972:13): "... da das zuerst Gelernte offensichtlich meistens und besonders stark haftet". ("... since what is learned first obviously sticks most often and especially strongly".). While the principle of teaching the easier before the more difficult is not impugned, the exceptional ought to be presented earlier than what is unexceptional. For it is clear that what we learn äs isolated items in a l ist has a different psychological Status from what we learn äs regularities: It is relatively easy to learn a l i st of exceptional items and then treat the residue, the "elsewhere" cases, by rule; it is difficult (sometimes never totally achieved) to learn a rule and then try to remember not only what the exceptions are but also that they are exempt from the rule. In the latter case, what one learns interferes with what one has learned;1 in the former case, this i s far from being likely

Fashions in English or a standard?

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Because ofthe inextricably authoritarian sense attached to 'Standardlanguage' in Europe, nonauthoritarian and, äs has proved to be the case, ultimately indefinable uses of 'Standard English' by Anglo-Saxon scholars cause untold confusion among non-Anglo-Saxons. This article discusses anomalies resulting from this confusion, including deleterious effects on the learning of English in Europe and elsewhere. Although the authoritarian attitude can probably never understand the wie of fashion and style in English (despite exact parallels with fashions in other kinds of social behavior), this paper Claims that it is precisely such an attitude that is necessary. Anecdotes and logical arguments are offered in support ofthe writer's thesis. The particularly baneful practice of equating some putative and indefinable formal 'Standard' English and normal English with, respectively, European Standard and diaiect by persons that have specialized in English for years illustrates the cultural gulf that will have to be crossed ifprogress is ever to be made. The article concludes with a list of some of the injunes to knguage-learning and scientific truth that eventuate from laying stress on formal language, which inevitably accompanies stress on a 'Standard

Two True/False Principles of Language Change

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively

Developmental Linguistics

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.For a decade or so, scattered groups of linguists, first in America and now even more so in Europe, have found that so far äs their own interests are concerned, there are insurmountable contradictions with the reigning view of the structuralists, transformationalists, etc., that the proper object of linguistic investigation is the idiolect. They have consequently looked in other directions for a more realistic approach. Among such scholars have been those whose goals require them to compare constructs, sounds, or meanings:sociolinguists,dialectologists,creolists,historical linguists, investigators of child language, foreign-language teachers, language-planners, therapists, and theoreticians of a sort to be discussed below. It is recreant to their goals to adopt models which were invented for idiolectal analysis, for these exclude comparative and temporal (developmental) analysis: Thus, the phoneme is defined äs a relational unit that is not comparable with a superficially similar unit in a different (relational) System, or idiolect.1 In what follows, minilect is used äs a theoretically neutral term for either the static idiolect or the comparative-developmental isolect (cf. BAILEY 1973)

Labov in sociolinguistics: An introduction

This theme issue marks fifty years since the publication of William Labov's Social Stratification of English in New York City, the foundation study of variationist sociolinguistics. This Introduction offers the editors' rationale for the shape of the issue. We briefly survey the innovations and impact of the New York study, together with the subsequent development of the field by Labov and others. We then touch on several strands of Labov's contribution to sociolinguistics: language change, linguistic evaluation, methodological innovation, African American English, language and the individual, and language style. We conclude with a reflection on Labov's commitment to the study of language in society

The Rule of Law is Dead! Long Live the Rule of Law!

Polls show that a significant proportion of the public considers judges to be political. This result holds whether Americans are asked about Supreme Court justices, federal judges, state judges, or judges in general. At the same time, a large majority of the public also believes that judges are fair and impartial arbiters, and this belief also applies across the board. In this paper, I consider what this half-law-half-politics understanding of the courts means for judicial legitimacy and the public confidence on which that legitimacy rests. Drawing on the Legal Realists, and particularly on the work of Thurman Arnold, I argue against the notion that the contradictory views must be resolved in order for judicial legitimacy to remain intact. A rule of law built on contending legal and political beliefs is not necessarily fair or just. But it can be stable. At least in the context of law and courts, a house divided may stand

Harmonization and standardization of nucleus pulposus cell extraction and culture methods

BACKGROUND: In vitro studies using nucleus pulposus (NP) cells are commonly used to investigate disc cell biology and pathogenesis, or to aid in the development of new therapies. However, lab-to-lab variability jeopardizes the much-needed progress in the field. Here, an international group of spine scientists collaborated to standardize extraction and expansion techniques for NP cells to reduce variability, improve comparability between labs and improve utilization of funding and resources. METHODS: The most commonly applied methods for NP cell extraction, expansion, and re-differentiation were identified using a questionnaire to research groups worldwide. NP cell extraction methods from rat, rabbit, pig, dog, cow, and human NP tissue were experimentally assessed. Expansion and re-differentiation media and techniques were also investigated. RESULTS: Recommended protocols are provided for extraction, expansion, and re-differentiation of NP cells from common species utilized for NP cell culture. CONCLUSIONS: This international, multilab and multispecies study identified cell extraction methods for greater cell yield and fewer gene expression changes by applying species-specific pronase usage, 60-100 U/ml collagenase for shorter durations. Recommendations for NP cell expansion, passage number, and many factors driving successful cell culture in different species are also addressed to support harmonization, rigor, and cross-lab comparisons on NP cells worldwide

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN