Testing mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in an oral society

This paper describes a new methodology for testing intelligibility across closely related languages and dialects in a traditional oral society in Vanuatu. There are many reasons why it could be useful to establish how well speakers of related varieties can understand one another: such knowledge is relevant to language planning and policy making, and it can shed light on the dynamics of language contact. However, conventional approaches to intelligibility testing, such as ‘recorded text testing’ (Hickerton et al. 1952; Pierce 1952; Voegelin & Harris 1951), are time consuming to score, and difficult to implement consistently. In Europe, fast and efficient intelligibility testing has been successfully carried out across closely related varieties (cf. Vanhove 2014; Gooskens forthcoming; Schüppert & Gooskens 2011a, 2011b, inter alia). However, these methods assume that test subjects are literate and computer-savvy. The methodology discussed in the present paper adapts European methods to conventional ‘fieldwork’ conditions. In Vanuatu we piloted a picture task and a translation task. Although some words had to be removed from the final analysis, the experiment was successful overall and we anticipate that this method can be fruitfully applied in other oral language communities.National Foreign Language Resource Cente

Extensive writing: A way to foster metalinguistic awareness and literacy development

In a small community in Vanuatu, speakers of an endangered dialect have expressed concern about code-switching to other varieties, sensing it to be a sign of dialect decline. In an effort to promote a dialectal standard, a visiting linguist convened an orthography workshop. An alphabet and writing conventions were agreed upon. Yet the post-workshop writing session revealed massive orthographic variation across writing samples. In retrospect, this is unsurprising: most community members do not regularly read or write in any language. Inexperienced writers tend to write not by convention, but by the sounds they perceive. It was therefore unrealistic to assume that participants would, after one workshop, internalise and reliably reproduce standardised letter-phoneme correspondences in a language they have no previous experience with writing. This begs the question, then, as to whether it is necessary or even desirable to force a standard orthography on small indigenous languages for which writing has no history, and holds few prospects. An alternative model would be to teach a baseline orthography and then encourage students to write extensive texts, without fixating on spelling standardisation or uniform representation of word boundaries. Extensive writing helps the writer to develop fluency and self-confidence (Rorschach & MacGowan-Gilhooly 1993 :4; Herder & King 2012: 128). It builds a corpus that others can read to improve their own literacy competence. Moving beyond self-initiated writing activities, Heath and Mangiola (1991) encourage ESL learners to record and analyse the natural spoken language of others. This activity could be reconceptualised in the context of an indigenous language classroom, where students are asked to record and transcribe discourse in various domains. By transcribing large volumes of data, (1) their technical writing skills improve by dint of sheer practice; and (2) they become consciously aware of the code-switching that occurs in natural speech. This then provides fodder for community discussion about code-switching. By then editing these texts to transform them to the ‘true’ dialect, students’ metalinguistic skills are further enhanced. Furthermore, this approach provides a way for linguists lacking a strong pedagogical background to engage with local teachers in a meaningful way in the compilation of literacy resources. Also, by examining the data from native speaker perspectives and analysing speaker-produced representations of spoken language, they enrich their own understanding of native speaker intuitions. Citations Heath, Shirley Brice & Leslie Mangiola. 1991. Children of Promise: Literate Activity in Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Classrooms. Washington, DC: National Education Association/Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy/American Educational Research Association. Herder, Steven & Rebecca King. 2012. Extensive Writing: Another fluency approach for ESL learners. Extensive Reading World Congress Proceedings 1, 128-130. Rorschach, Elizabeth & Adele MacGowan-Gilhooly. 1993. Fluency First in ESL. Report for the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, Washington DC. 209 pages. , accessed 26th August 2014

Talking around the texts: Literacy in a multilingual Papua New Guinean community

This paper examines the role of literacy as it is practiced in a multilingual community on the Gazelle Peninsula in East New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea. Ethnographic observational fieldwork and semi-structured interviews reveal how literacy plays out in six common domains of everyday life: public discourse, home, school, church, health care, and government. Following Street (1984, 1995), an ideological framework is used to explore the unique cultural context of literacy in this community. It is found that: (a) the community venerates external standards of literacy, at the expense of local practices; nevertheless, (b) literacy practices reflect the multilingual skills of the general population; and (c) literacy events provide an opportunity for oral discourse and social bonding. It is also argued that the community would benefit if local literacy practices were recognised and validated on their own merit

A Follow-up Analysis of Listener (Mis)comprehension across Language Varieties in Pentecost, Vanuatu

Intelligibility testing in Vanuatu in 2015 investigated how well speakers of three closely related varieties could understand each other. But the research also generated questions about (1) anomalous results; (2) which linguistic factors influenced comprehension; and (3) the relative intelligibility of varieties. This paper interrogates these questions and finds that, first, while most anomalous results are difficult to account for, others are easily explained; the insights gained will help to refine the design of future intelligibility tests. Second, some variables appear to be more important than others in terms of the degree to which they impede intelligibility. Third, test participants' higher comprehension of a relatively distantly related variety over a more closely related variety leads to explanations that draw on both linguistic and social factors. The insights gained in this study contribute to existing research on the same topic in European languages and establish a starting point for similar research on Pacific languages

Vergleich unterschiedlicher Ablationsstrategien in der Behandlung von linksatrialen Makroreentrytachykardien

Linksatriale Makroreentrytachykardien sind eine seltene Form von Vorhofarrhythmien. Bisher existieren unterschiedliche Behandlungsstrategien. Wir untersuchten drei verschiedene interventionelle Ablationskonzepte hinsichtlich dauerhafter Arrhythmiefreiheit. Dabei zeigte sich, dass keines der Ablationskonzepte überlegen war. Allerdings ist die Rezidivrate von Makroreentrytachykardien nach ausgedehnten linksatrialen Ablationen deutlich höher als bei anderen Ablationsstrategien

Sindhī Multiscriptality, Past and Present: A Sociolinguistic Investigation into Community Acceptance

This thesis is on the sociolinguistics of writing. It investigates the use of scripts for the Sindhī language of South Asia, both from a diachronic and synchronic perspective. The thesis first analyses the rich but understudied script history of the Sindhī language from the tenth century to modern times. In doing so, it investigates the domains in which certain scripts were used, and identifies definite patterns in their distribution. Particular attention is paid to Perso-Arabic and Devanāgarī, which emerged as the two most widely used scripts for the language in the twentieth century. The diachronic analysis draws on several linguistic, literary and other academic works on the Sindhī language and brings to the fore hitherto neglected data on historical script use for the language. The thesis then presents and analyses oral interview data on community opinion on the recent proposal to use the Roman script to read and write Sindhī. The synchronic analysis is based on original fieldwork data, comprising in-depth qualitative interviews with fifty members of the Indian Sindhī community of diverse backgrounds and ages from various geographical locations. Empirically, this work is one of the first to provide a comprehensive diachronic and synchronic review and analysis of script practices in the Sindhī community specifically from a sociolinguistic perspective. It also provides revealing insights into the kinds of expectations an urbanised, highly educated and socioeconomically successful minority has of a writing system for its language. In doing so, the study challenges the prevalent simplistic claim in the literature that minority communities are desirous of seeing their language in writing. Most importantly, this work indicates the emergence of a so-called new variety of Sindhī phonology in India, which differs subtly from the old variety phonology. The implications of this subtle shift in phonology for Sindhī pedagogical material form a key part of the findings of this study. Theoretically, this work contributes to the concept of orthographic transfer, which is the phenomenon of phoneme-grapheme correspondences in a particular orthography being inadvertently applied to another orthography. The study also affirms the presence of a scriptal diglossia, or digraphia, in script use for the Sindhī language, where the use of particular scripts for the language is implicitly determined by domain and context. The potential impact of orthographic transfer and digraphia on the pedagogy of lesser-learnt languages is a key part of the study’s findings. Methodologically, the juxtaposition of historical and present-day sociolinguistic factors at play offers a fresh and nuanced look at the rise and fall of scripts in the context of a language with a centuries-old written tradition. The study concludes that usage of a particular script for a language is not the result of a simplistic binary opposition between authoritarian imposition and voluntary choice. Rather, it is a reflection of several pragmatic and symbolic considerations by the community in question. The thesis puts into perspective the various psychological, socioeconomic and cultural forces at work in determining script use for the Sindhī language. In doing so, the thesis makes several additions not just to the existing body of knowledge on the Sindhī language, but also to the fledgling field of inquiry that is the sociolinguistics of writing. These varied and unique contributions set the study apart from previous research on the subject

Paclitaxel Exposure and Dosage of Drug-coated Devices for the Treatment of Femoropopliteal Peripheral Artery Disease

The role of paclitaxel in the treatment of femoropopliteal peripheral arterial disease is currently ambiguous. A summary-level meta-analysis of randomised trials published in 2018 demonstrated that paclitaxel-coated devices were associated with an increased all-cause mortality in those who underwent treatment at 2 years and 5 years. Further evaluation has been undertaken to establish whether there is a specific dose response, mechanism or reproducible signal. At this time, there has been no confirmation of dose response, as was initially asserted by the summary-level meta-analysis. No mechanism of harm has been identified. Although an association with increased mortality has been confirmed by patient-level meta-analysis, the strength of the signal has been inconsistent. The information suggests there is only an association between paclitaxel-coated devices and increased all-cause mortality, not causation. The authors encourage additional studies designed to follow long-term results after treatment with paclitaxel-coated devices, using real patient data, before a conclusion can be made

Thalamic volume and functional connectivity are associated with nicotine dependence severity and craving

Tobacco smoking is associated with deleterious health outcomes. Most smokers want to quit smoking, yet relapse rates are high. Understanding neural differences associated with tobacco use may help generate novel treatment options. Several animal studies have recently highlighted the central role of the thalamus in substance use disorders, but this research focus has been understudied in human smokers. Here, we investigated associations between structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging measures of the thalamus and its subnuclei to distinct smoking characteristics. We acquired anatomical scans of 32 smokers as well as functional resting‐state scans before and after a cue‐reactivity task. Thalamic functional connectivity was associated with craving and dependence severity, whereas the volume of the thalamus was associated with dependence severity only. Craving, which fluctuates rapidly, was best characterized by differences in brain function, whereas the rather persistent syndrome of dependence severity was associated with both brain structural differences and function. Our study supports the notion that functional versus structural measures tend to be associated with behavioural measures that evolve at faster versus slower temporal scales, respectively. It confirms the importance of the thalamus to understand mechanisms of addiction and highlights it as a potential target for brain‐based interventions to support smoking cessation, such as brain stimulation and neurofeedback