La despolitización del compromiso público de los intelectuales alemanes.

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Sobre algunas diferencias entre modernos y postmodernos.

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Investigating the Effects of Speaker Variability on Arabic children’s Acquisition of English Vowels

This study investigated whether speaker variability in phonetic training benefits vowel learnability by Arabic learners of English. Perception training using High-Variability stimuli in laboratory studies has been shown to improve both the perception and production of Second Language sounds in adults and children and has become the dominant methodology for investigating issues in Second Language acquisition. Less consideration is given to production training, in which Second Language learners focus on the role of the articulators in producing second language sounds. This study aimed to assess the role of speaker variability by comparing the effect of using HighVariability and Low-Variability stimuli for production training in a classroom setting. Forty-six Arabic children aged 9-12 years were trained on 18 Standard Southern British English vowels in five training sessions over two weeks and were tested before and after training on their vowel production and category discrimination. The results indicate that Low-Variability stimuli may be more beneficial for children, however, High-Variability stimuli may alter some phonetic cues. Furthermore, the results suggest that production training may be used to improve the perception and production of Second Language sounds, but also to inform the design of Second Language pronunciation learning programmes and theories of Second Language acquisition

Learning to speak in a second language: Does multiple talker production training benefit production of English vowels in Arabic children?

High-variability phonetic training (HVPT) has been shown to be highly effective in improving secondlanguage (L2) perception in adults, and to also benefit production. In contrast, recent studies have suggested that children may benefit more from low-variability phonetic training (LVPT), in particular for production. The present study compares HVPT and LVPT articulatory training for production and perception of Standard Southern British English (SSBE) vowels in children in a non-immersion context. Forty-six monolingual Arabic children aged 8-12 years were randomly assigned to single- (LVPT) or multi-talker (HVPT) training. Both groups completed five articulatory training sessions on 18 vowels and a battery of perception and production tests evaluated improvement. The results showed that the LVPT group performed better not only in production, but also in category discrimination. The results support previous studies that have suggested that LVPT training might be more successful with children

Formulaic Language in People with Probable Alzheimer's Disease: A Frequency-Based Approach

BACKGROUND: Language change can be a valuable biological marker of overall cognitive change in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other forms of dementia. Previous reports have described increased use of language formulas in AD, i.e., combinations likely processed in a holistic manner. Words that commonly occur together are more likely to become a formula. OBJECTIVE: To determine if frequency of co-occurrence as one indicator for formulaic language can distinguish people with probable AD from controls and if variables are sensitive to time post-symptom onset. METHODS: We developed the Frequency in Language Analysis Tool (FLAT), which indicates degrees of formulaicity in an individual language sample. The FLAT accomplishes this by comparing individual language samples to co-occurrence data from the British National Corpus (BNC). Our analysis also contained more conventional language variables in order to assess novel contributions of the FLAT. We analyzed data from the Pitt Corpus, which is part of DementiaBank. RESULTS: Both conventional and co-occurrence variables were able to distinguish AD and control groups. According to co-occurrence data, people with probable AD produced more formulaic language than controls. Only co-occurrence variables correlated with disease progression. DISCUSSION: Frequency of word co-occurrences is one indicator for formulaicity and a valuable contribution to characterizing language change in AD

Beyond speech intelligibility and speech quality: measuring listening effort with an auditory flanker task

If listening to speech against a background of noise increases listening effort, then the effectiveness of a speech technology designed to reduce background noise could be measured by the reduction in listening effort it provides. Reports of increased listening effort in environments with greater background noise have been linked to accompanying decreases in performance (e.g., slower responses and more errors) which are commonly attributed to the increased demands placed on limited cognitive resources in these challenging listening environments, particularly when performing more than one task. As these cognitive resources are also implicated in maintaining attention and reducing distraction, the work reported here proposes to measure listening effort by measuring changes in distraction while listening to noisy and digitally-noise-reduced speech using an auditory flanker task designed to simulate an everyday situation: listening on the telephone. Over a series of experiments this novel listening effort measure is enhanced by the inclusion of a simultaneous memory task and contrasted with listening effort ratings and conventional speech technology evaluation measures (intelligibility and speech quality). However, while there are indications that increased background noise can increase listening effort and digital noise reduction fails to reverse this effect, the results are not consistent. These equivocal results are discussed in light of the recent surge of interest in listening effort research

Configuración de la memoria en "Soldados de Salamina"

 El prestigio de esta novela se deriva fundamentalmente de su autoescenificación metaficcional como operación de rescate de una memoria condenada al olvido y al ostracismo (la de los vencidos en la Guerra Civil). En el presente artículo se analizan las estrategias mediante las cuales se da visibilidad a dicho olvido, atendiendo sobre todo a la mayor o menor relevancia concedida a la memoria comunicativa rescatada a través de los testimonios. En último término se trata de comprobar si el texto cumple finalmente lo que promete: Si efectivamente contribuye a que los recuerdos reprimidos, confinados en la memoria comunicativa, accedan a la memoria cultural conformadora del espacio público, en cuyo caso estaría sacando a relucir una de las carencias más importantes de la memoria cultural construida en España a partir del 75, o si, por el contrario, potencia una visión más nostálgica que crítica del pasado.   Mit dem Pathos einer gegen vielfältige Widerstände durchgesetzten und immer wieder durchzusetzenden literarischen Gedächtnisbildung werden in Javier Cercas´ Roman Soldados de Salamina (2001) geschichtliche Ereignisse aufgegriffen, die zu einer Vergangenheit gehören, die in Spanien lange Zeit verdrängt wurde. Im Rahmen dieses Artikels sollen die Strategien untersucht werden, die bei der Darstellung dieses Vergessens eingesetzt werden, wobei vor allem auf den Stellenwert, der dabei dem Kommunikativen Gedächtnis eingeräumt wird, eingegangen werden soll. Letztendlich geht es um die Frage, ob die Erinnerungen, die hier aufgegriffen und literarisiert werden, als rekonstruierte Gegengeschichten den dominanten Vergangenheitsdiskurs durchbrechen, oder ob sie vielmehr dazu beitragen, diesen zu legitimieren, indem sie die Versöhnungsrhetorik bekräftigen, die in Spanien seit 1975 betrieben wurde.&nbsp