Linguistic repercussions of COVID-19 : A corpus study on four languages

The global reach of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing localized policy reactions provides a case to uncover how a global crisis translates into linguistic discourse. Based on the JSI Timestamped Web Corpora that are automatically POS-tagged and accessible via SketchEngine, this study compares French, German, Dutch, and English. After identifying the main names used to denote the virus and its disease, we extracted a total of 1,697 associated terms (according to logDice values) retrieved from news media data from January through October 2020. These associated words were then organized into categories describing the properties of the virus and the disease, their spatio-temporal features and their cause–effect dependencies. Analyzing the output cross-linguistically and across the first 10 months of the pandemic, a fairly stable semantic discourse space is found within and across each of the four languages, with an overall clear preference for visual and biomedical features as associated terms, though significant diatopic and diachronic shifts in the discourse space are also attested.Peer reviewe

Yuxtaposición oracional: ¿sintaxis o discurso?

El concepto de yuxtaposición no ha planteado hasta ahora grandes problemas teóricos. En general, se ha estudiado su presencia en función de los parámetros cronológico, sociocultural y situacional, para concluir con su adscripción a la oralidad, o situaciones de inmediatez o cercanía comunicativa, y a fases “primitivas” de la evolución lingüística. Sigue sin resolverse en qué plano del funcionamiento lingüístico se sitúa, y desde qué perspectiva, sintáctica estricta o sintáctico-discursiva, debería analizarse; no constituye una forma claramente segmentable que corresponda con regularidad a contenidos específicos, ni parece disponer de rasgos formales recurrentes. De ahí que quizá lo mejor sea partir del análisis de enunciados con secuencias intuitivamente “yuxtapuestas”, y establecer sobre ellos una cierta tipología. Al mismo tiempo, se determinará en qué tipos de textos y ámbitos de discurso se dan preferentemente estas secuencias. En este trabajo se ha realizado el análisis sobre un tipo textual muy interesante: la comedia humanística del siglo XVI, heredera en buena parte de la Celestina, y que, como esta, combinaba formas de lengua de la distancia con intentos de mímesis de la interacción dialogada coloquial. A este conjunto se añaden los pasos de Lope de Rueda, plasmación del lenguaje coloquial y popular de su tiemp

Quark Potential in a Quark-Meson Plasma

We investigate quark potential by considering meson exchanges in the two flavor Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model at finite temperature and density. There are two kinds of oscillations in the chiral restoration phase, one is the Friedel oscillation due to the sharp quark Fermi surface at high density, and the other is the Yukawa oscillation driven by the complex meson poles at high temperature. The quark-meson plasma is strongly coupled in the temperature region $1\le T/T_c \lesssim 3$ with $T_c$ being the critical temperature of chiral phase transition. The maximum coupling in this region is located at the critical point.Comment: 8 pages and 8 figure

Romance and Latin in Medieval discourse traditions: the elaboration of vernacular writing between inscriptions and in-scripturation

Frank-Job B. Romance and Latin in Medieval discourse traditions: the elaboration of vernacular writing between inscriptions and in-scripturation. In: Winter-Froemel E, de Toledo y Huerta ÁSO, eds. Manual of Discourse Traditions in Romance. Manuals of Romance Linguistics. Vol 30. 1st ed. Berlin: De Gruyter; In Press.This chapter situates the first phases of Romance written documents within the tensions and transitions between Latin writing and vernacular orality. Examining the progressive expansion of written discourse traditions in the light of examples taken from various regions of Medieval Romania, it becomes apparent how each domain of discourse traditions contributes in a specific way to the development of the Romance varieties into literary cultures

Diskurstraditionelles und Einzelsprachliches im Sprachwandel: Zur Einleitung / Tradiciones discursivas, tradicionalidad discursiva e idiomaticidad en los procesos de cambio lingüístico, Introducción

Job B, Winter-Froemel E, López Serena A, de Toledo y Huerta ÁO. Diskurstraditionelles und Einzelsprachliches im Sprachwandel: Zur Einleitung / Tradiciones discursivas, tradicionalidad discursiva e idiomaticidad en los procesos de cambio lingüístico, Introducción. In: Winter-Froemel E, López Serena A, de Toledo y Huerta ÁO, Frank-Job B, eds. Diskurstraditionelles und Einzelsprachliches im Sprachwandel. Tradicionalidad discursiva e idiomaticidad en los procesos de cambio lingüísticon,. ScriptOralia. Vol 141. Tübingen: narr\francke\attempto; 2015: 1-12

Diskurstraditionelles im Sprachwandel: Korpuslinguistische Untersuchungen zum Spätlatein

Job B, Henrichfreise B. Diskurstraditionelles im Sprachwandel: Korpuslinguistische Untersuchungen zum Spätlatein. In: Winter-Froemel E, López Serena A, de Toledo y Huerta ÁO, Frank-Job B, eds. Diskurstraditionelles und Einzelsprachliches im Sprachwandel. Tradicionalidad discursiva e idiomaticidad en los procesos de cambio lingüístico. ScriptOralia. Vol 141. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto; 2015: 159-181

Linguistic repercussions of COVID-19: A corpus study on four languages

Abstract The global reach of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing localized policy reactions provides a case to uncover how a global crisis translates into linguistic discourse. Based on the JSI Timestamped Web Corpora that are automatically POS-tagged and accessible via SketchEngine, this study compares French, German, Dutch, and English. After identifying the main names used to denote the virus and its disease, we extracted a total of 1,697 associated terms (according to logDice values) retrieved from news media data from January through October 2020. These associated words were then organized into categories describing the properties of the virus and the disease, their spatio-temporal features and their cause–effect dependencies. Analyzing the output cross-linguistically and across the first 10 months of the pandemic, a fairly stable semantic discourse space is found within and across each of the four languages, with an overall clear preference for visual and biomedical features as associated terms, though significant diatopic and diachronic shifts in the discourse space are also attested

Calpain inhibition stabilizes the platelet proteome and reactivity in diabetes

Abstract Platelets from patients with diabetes are hyperreactive and demonstrate increased adhesiveness, aggregation, degranulation, and thrombus formation, processes that contribute to the accelerated development of vascular disease. Part of the problem seems to be dysregulated platelet Ca2+ signaling and the activation of calpains, which are Ca2+-activated proteases that result in the limited proteolysis of substrate proteins and subsequent alterations in signaling. In the present study, we report that the activation of μ- and m-calpain in patients with type 2 diabetes has profound effects on the platelet proteome and have identified septin-5 and the integrin-linked kinase (ILK) as novel calpain substrates. The calpain-dependent cleavage of septin-5 disturbed its association with syntaxin-4 and promoted the secretion of α-granule contents, including TGF-β and CCL5. Calpain was also released by platelets and cleaved CCL5 to generate a variant with enhanced activity. Calpain activation also disrupted the ILK-PINCH-Parvin complex and altered platelet adhesion and spreading. In diabetic mice, calpain inhibition reversed the effects of diabetes on platelet protein cleavage, decreased circulating CCL5 levels, reduced platelet-leukocyte aggregate formation, and improved platelet function. The results of the present study indicate that diabetes-induced platelet dysfunction is mediated largely by calpain activation and suggest that calpain inhibition may be an effective way of preserving platelet function and eventually decelerating atherothrombosis development.</jats:p