Transitioning between school- and university-level Latin learning : a Scottish perspective

This project was funded by the University of St Andrews’ Strategic Enhancement of Learning Fund (SELF). It was also generously supported by the School of Classics at St Andrews, with active involvement from many St Andrews colleagues.Students are arriving to study Latin at university with an increasingly diverse range of qualifications (including no Latin at all). This is something to celebrate. University Classics departments want students from different educational backgrounds; and we want a wide range of qualification authorities to continue to offer students the chance to start learning Latin at school. This diversity is being exacerbated, however, by an increasingly stark differential in the content and rigour of these various qualifications; and that presents challenges for universities aiming to integrate students quickly and acclimatise them to university-style learning. Classes in all subjects have more and less knowledgeable students learning side-by-side; but the dynamics of a Latin language class mean that gaps in knowledge and differences in experience become publicly visible very quickly. This is thus a social problem as much as it is an academic one, and it is particularly acute during that important period of transition, the first year of university study. This trend is not exclusive to the teaching of Latin but has also been a recurring theme of discussion within Modern Languages too, particularly in Scottish universities where the percentage of non-A Level students is higher than is generally the case south of the border.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Human-in-the-Loop Hate Speech Classification in a Multilingual Context

The shift of public debate to the digital sphere has been accompanied by a rise in online hate speech. While many promising approaches for hate speech classification have been pro- posed, studies often focus only on a single language, usually English, and do not address three key concerns: post-deployment perfor- mance, classifier maintenance and infrastruc- tural limitations. In this paper, we introduce a new human-in-the-loop BERT-based hate speech classification pipeline and trace its de- velopment from initial data collection and an- notation all the way to post-deployment. Our classifier, trained using data from our original corpus of over 422k examples, is specifically developed for the inherently multilingual set- ting of Switzerland and outperforms with its F1 score of 80.5 the currently best-performing BERT-based multilingual classifier by 5.8 F1 points in German and 3.6 F1 points in French. Our systematic evaluations over a 12-month period further highlight the vital importance of continuous, human-in-the-loop classifier main- tenance to ensure robust hate speech classifica- tion post-deployment

Overlapping connectivity patterns during semantic processing of abstract and concrete words revealed with multivariate Granger Causality analysis

Unlike concrete, nouns refer to notions beyond our perception. Even though there is no consensus among linguists as to what exactly constitutes a concrete or abstract word, neuroscientists found clear evidence of a "concreteness" effect. This can, for instance, be seen in patients with language impairments due to brain injury or developmental disorder who are capable of perceiving one category better than another. Even though the results are inconclusive, neuroimaging studies on healthy subjects also provide a spatial and temporal account of differences in the processing of abstract versus concrete words. A description of the neural pathways during abstract word reading, the manner in which the connectivity patterns develop over the different stages of lexical and semantic processing compared to that of concrete word processing are still debated. We conducted a high-density EEG study on 24 healthy young volunteers using an implicit categorization task. From this, we obtained high spatio-temporal resolution data and, by means of source reconstruction, reduced the effect of signal mixing observed on scalp level. A multivariate, time-varying and directional method of analyzing connectivity based on the concept of Granger Causality (Partial Directed Coherence) revealed a dynamic network that transfers information from the right superior occipital lobe along the ventral and dorsal streams towards the anterior temporal and orbitofrontal lobes of both hemispheres. Some regions along these pathways appear to be primarily involved in either receiving or sending information. A clear difference in information transfer of abstract and concrete words was observed during the time window of semantic processing, specifically for information transferred towards the left anterior temporal lobe. Further exploratory analysis confirmed a generally stronger connectivity pattern for processing concrete words. We believe our study could guide future research towards a more refined theory of abstract word processing in the brain

Life and works of Aristotle

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Entre son et esprit : la métaphore chez Aristote

In this paper, Aristotle’ s conception of metaphor is examined by focusing on the relation between sounds and the referential mechanism which lies at the heart of the linguistic sign. To this end, this article is divided into three parts : the first briefly explores the nature of sound ; the second discusses sound as a linguistic sign ; and the third shows how the interaction of these two elements constitutes the exceptional character which Aristotle attributes to metaphor.Cet article propose un examen de la métaphore telle qu’elle s’articule chez Aristote par l’analyse du rapport entre le son émis et le mécanisme référentiel du signe linguistique. L’article est divisé en trois parties : la première détermine la nature du son à l’origine de la métaphore ; la deuxième se concentre sur le son comme signe linguistique ; et la troisième démontre comment ces deux éléments de la métaphore interagissent pour conférer à ce phénomène linguistique son caractère exceptionnel.Kotarcic Ana. Entre son et esprit : la métaphore chez Aristote. In: Sonus in metaphora. La rhétorique sonore et musicale dans l’Antiquité. Besançon : Institut des Sciences et Techniques de l'Antiquité, 2021. pp. 171-197. (Collection « ISTA », 1528

Aristotle's concept of lexis : a theory of language and style

Aristotle’s concept of lexis has been discussed by numerous scholars, yet no comprehensive account of lexis has been produced so far. To fill this gap in scholarship, this thesis offers a systematic analysis of Aristotle’s concept of lexis by dividing it into three levels, which allow a step-by-step approach to understanding this multi-layered concept. By considering Plato’s and Isocrates’ thoughts on lexis, Chapter 1 outlines the intellectual context in which Aristotle’s ideas on the concept of lexis developed. Chapters 2-5 focus on the three levels of lexis and Chapter 6 brings a concluding discussion of metaphor. In Chapter 2 the linguistic elements treated under the notion of lexis and Aristotle’s theory of language are delineated. These not only present Aristotle’s thoughts on language as an abstract system, but they also form the most fundamental level upon which the remainder of Aristotle’s thoughts on the concept of lexis are based. Chapter 3 explores Aristotle’s remarks regarding individuals’ use of linguistic elements as determined by sociolinguistic factors. Aristotle’s occasional statements about language usage within the concept of lexis provide valuable pieces of evidence for studies in sociolinguistics and for his ideas on lexis on its third level as discussed in Chapters 4 and 5. In Chapter 4 the intra-textual aspect of Aristotle’s remarks on lexis as a means for the creation of different kinds of poetry and rhetoric, i.e. lexis as technē, is examined. In Chapter 5 extra-textual factors are considered and are followed by a discussion of the purpose and function of lexis on its third level. Chapter 6 concludes the discussion of lexis by focusing on metaphor, the linguistic and stylistic element par excellence treated under the notion of lexis, which further highlights the benefits of a three-level approach to Aristotle’s concept of lexis

Overlapping connectivity patterns during semantic processing of abstract and concrete words revealed with multivariate Granger Causality analysis

Abstract, unlike concrete, nouns refer to notions beyond our perception. Even though there is no consensus among linguists as to what exactly constitutes a concrete or abstract word, neuroscientists found clear evidence of a “concreteness” effect. This can, for instance, be seen in patients with language impairments due to brain injury or developmental disorder who are capable of perceiving one category better than another. Even though the results are inconclusive, neuroimaging studies on healthy subjects also provide a spatial and temporal account of differences in the processing of abstract versus concrete words. A description of the neural pathways during abstract word reading, the manner in which the connectivity patterns develop over the different stages of lexical and semantic processing compared to that of concrete word processing are still debated. We conducted a high-density EEG study on 24 healthy young volunteers using an implicit categorization task. From this, we obtained high spatio-temporal resolution data and, by means of source reconstruction, reduced the effect of signal mixing observed on scalp level. A multivariate, time-varying and directional method of analyzing connectivity based on the concept of Granger Causality (Partial Directed Coherence) revealed a dynamic network that transfers information from the right superior occipital lobe along the ventral and dorsal streams towards the anterior temporal and orbitofrontal lobes of both hemispheres. Some regions along these pathways appear to be primarily involved in either receiving or sending information. A clear difference in information transfer of abstract and concrete words was observed during the time window of semantic processing, specifically for information transferred towards the left anterior temporal lobe. Further exploratory analysis confirmed a generally stronger connectivity pattern for processing concrete words. We believe our study could guide future research towards a more refined theory of abstract word processing in the brain.status: publishe