Nasometric values for european portuguese: preliminary results

Nasal sounds frequencies in European Portuguese represent 21% of Português Fundamental corpus sounds (Nascimento et al. 1987), revealing how nasality plays an important role in this language and how a speech problem affecting nasality can interfere severely in one’s speech intelligibility. In order to obtain the first standard nasometric values for European Portuguese we developed two tests (syllable repetition and text reading) and collected data from 25 adults. Preliminary results showed that: oral stimuli achieved an average nasalance score of 10%; syllables with nasal consonant and nasal vowel achieved 77% and the reading passages with nasal saturation presented an average score of 44%. Considering these results, we acknowledge the existence of three different levels of normal nasality

Representation of movement in European Portuguese: a study of children’s narrative

In crosslinguistic space studies it is considered (Hickmann, 1995: 201) to be easier for children to interpret sentences when their language has a rich and transparent morphology (e.g. Polish) than when it depends more on word order to express grammatical relations (e.g. English). Studies of sentence comprehension across languages show that regardless of their age native speakers use the cues that are the most available and reliable in their language, e.g. for instance word order in English and lexical or morphological cues in Polish, suggesting a model in which children must learn how functions complete and fuse in relation to available forms. Following these claims we can hypothesise that the Portuguese speakers will behave in the process of acquisition of their native language according to the "Polish model" mentioned above, i.e., following lexical and morphological cues the most available and reliable in their language. Our research (developed in Batoréo, 1996 / 2000) set in the theoretical parameters referred to above examines spatial reference and spatial expression in narratives produced by European Portuguese native speakers, children and adults, in a situation of absence of mutual situational knowledge. Narrative productions were elicited with two picture stories: Horse Story and Cat Story. The final results of the research show the relevance of all the variables proposed previously and give answers to the questions formerly made. While acquiring their native language, Portuguese children learn the following cognitive and linguistic tasks: (a) they realise the existence of spatial anchoring, and especially setting of the spatial frame, i.e. they learn to refer to all the types of the Locales, even the rarest ones, and to express them as thoroughly as possible; (b) they learn to situate their expressions in all the sentence positions used by adults, especially at the very beginning of the utterance; (c) they learn syntactic pre-position of the verbs, especially the existential ones as well as their contextual synonyms. These conclusions only partially meet our initial hypothesis according to which the Portuguese speakers acquiring their native language will behave according to the lexical and morphological cues model. In fact we can observe both the models - the one based on lexical/ morphological cues (as in Polish) and the one based on word order (as in English) - integrated in the process of language acquisition. Portuguese children select lexical items according to the event conflation type their language represents, i.e. fusing Motion and Path, and they choose all the types of cues - lexical, morphological and syntactic - as available, reliable and obligatory in this process. Our results corroborate recent research on the linguistic marking on local and on global levels as a result of crosslinguistic differences in the acquisition of spatial expression. Recent research has begun to examine children's uses of spatial devices in discourse across languages, showing (Berman and Slobin, 1994), e.g. that "typological differences such as those suggested by Talmy affect what spatial information is focused upon and how the flow of information in discourse is organised both on the local and on the global level" (Hickmann, 1995:210). Other analyses (Hendriks, 1993) focus more specifically on how children mark status of spatial information in discourse across languages. According to Hickmann (1995: 207-208) the results show a general development progression: with increasing age children become gradually able to set spatial frames and to maintain reference to them by means of appropriate devices.JNICT, no âmbito da investigação desenvolvida no programa doutoral (1991- 1996) no CLUL - Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa e na FLUL - Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Contexto universitário : Que prática interaccional? A propósito do ensino da linguística na Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Inexistent

Linguística e psicopatologia cognitiva: Contribuição para uma abordagem interdisciplinar da esquizofrenia paranóide

Inexistent

Analisando os comportamentos oculares durante a leitura

Retomaremos o trabalho de Luegi (2006) para descrever e comentar a técnica de registo dos comportamentos oculares (eye-tracking) como uma das várias metodologias que permitem estudar os mecanismos cognitivos envolvidos no processamento da linguagem. Neste artigo, descrevemos as principais características dos comportamentos oculares durante a leitura e referimos, quer com base na literatura consultada quer, também, na nossa experiência, as vantagens e desvantagens desta metodologia.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Reading hybrid texts: Remarks on text/image transitions

The reading of printed materials implies the visual processing of information originated in two distinct semiotic systems. The rapid identification of redundancy, complementation or contradiction rhetoric strategies between the two information types may be crucial for an adequate interpretation of bimodal materials. Hybrid texts (verbal and visual) are particular instances of bimodal materials, where the redundant information is often neglected while the complementary and the contradictory ones are essential.Studies using the 504 ASL eye-tracking system while reading either additive or exhibiting captions (Baptista, 2009) revealed fixations on the verbal material and transitions between the written and the pictorial in a much higher number and duration than the initially foreseen as necessary to read the verbal text. We therefore hypothesized that confirmation strategies of the written information are taking place, by using information available in the other semiotic system.Such eye-gaze patterns obtained from denotative texts and pictures seem to contradict some of the scarce existing data on visual processing of texts and images, namely cartoons (Carroll, Young and Guertain, 1992), descriptive captions (Hegarty, 1992 a and b), and advertising images with descriptive and explanatory texts (cf. Rayner and Rotello, 2001, who refer to a previous reading of the whole text before looking at the image, or even Rayner, Miller and Rotello, 2008 who refer to an earlier and longer look at the picture) and seem to consolidate findings of Radach et al. (2003) on systematic transitions between text and image.By framing interest areas in the printed pictorial material of non redundant hybrid texts, we have identified the specific areas where transitions take place after fixations in the verbal text. The way those transitions are processed brings a new interest to further research.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Using eye-tracking to detect reading difficulties

Taking into account the study of Luegi (2006), where eye movements of 20 Portuguese university students while reading text passages were analyzed, in this article we discuss some methodological issues concerning eye tracking measures to evaluate reading difficulties. Relating syntactic complexity, grammaticality and ambiguity to eye movements, we will discuss the use of many different dependent variables that indicate the immediate and delayed processes in text processing. We propose a new measure that we called Progression-Path which permits analyzing, in the critical region, what happens when the reader proceeds on the sentence instead of going backwards to solve a problem that s/he found (which is the most common expected behavior but not the only one, as is illustrated by some of our examples).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Eye movements during reading

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mover para ler: o movimento dos olhos durante a leitura de textos

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio