Getting the picture : iconicity does not affect representation-referent confusion

Three experiments examined 3- to 5-year-olds' (N = 428) understanding of the relationship between pictorial iconicity (photograph, colored drawing, schematic drawing) and the real world referent. Experiments 1 and 2 explored pictorial iconicity in picture-referent confusion after the picture-object relationship has been established. Pictorial iconicity had no effect on referential confusion when the referent changed after the picture had been taken/drawn (Experiment 1) and when the referent and the picture were different from the outset (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 investigated whether children are sensitive to iconicity to begin with. Children deemed photographs from a choice of varying iconicity representations as best representations for object reference. Together, findings suggest that iconicity plays a role in establishing a picture-object relation per se but is irrelevant once children have accepted that a picture represents an object. The latter finding may reflect domain general representational abilities

Internal classification of the Alor-Pantar language family using computational methods applied to the lexicon

The non-Austronesian languages of Alor and Pantar in eastern Indonesia have been shown to be genetically related using the comparative method, but the identified phonological innovations are typologically common and do not delineate neat subgroups. We apply computational methods to recently-collected lexical data and are able to identify subgroups based on the lexicon. Crucially, the lexical data are coded for cognacy based on identified phonological innovations. This methodology can succeed even where phonological innovations themselves fail to identify subgroups, showing that computational methods using lexical data can be a powerful tool supplementing the comparative method.peer reviewed by journal Language Dynamics and Chang

Saving lives or raising revenue: Analysing media coverage of the alcopops tax in light of the evidence on its effects

The Australian Government increased the tax on ready-to-drink (RTD) alcohol beverages in 2008, in order to address concerns about increasing alcohol consumption among young people. This decision resulted in significant debate and discussion in the media, and in academic circles. The aim of the current study was to examine media coverage of the debate – and particularly the arguments posed in favour of and against the tax – now that we have objective evidence of its impact. We find that business owners and industry groups were vocal in the media, raising a number of arguments in opposition to the tax; and that this opposition dominated media coverage, potentially misleading consumers as to the rationale for, and effectiveness of, the „alcopop tax‟

In Defense of the Lone Wolf: Collaboration in Language Documentation

Collaboration has become a hot topic in the field of language documentation, with many authors insisting that lone wolf research is unethical research. We take issue with the viewpoints that documentary linguists must collaborate with the community, that the linguist’s goals should be subordinate to the goals of community members, and that solo research is necessarily unethical research. Collaborating with community members in language documentation projects is not the only method of treating the community fairly and reciprocating their generosity. There will not always be community members interested in language documentation, nor will there always be community members capable of participation. Even in cases where community members are interested, capable, and willing, both the researcher and the community should be allowed to decide when, where, how, and whether to collaborate. Moreover, we suggest that the insistence on collaboration can cause guilt when collaboration is difficult, or can lead researchers into unproductive or even dangerous situations. On the other hand, we welcome collaboration if both parties retain autonomy in decision-making and both truly want to work collaboratively. There is nothing unethical about setting one’s own research agenda and conducting linguistic fieldwork alone. Lone wolf linguistics isn’t necessarily unethical linguistics.National Foreign Language Resource Cente

Who do parents perceive is pressuring them to buy unhealthy (and healthy) foods?

Increasingly, academic and lay discussion of children’s nutrition has focused on the role of the media, and marketing more generally, in influencing children’s food choices. While numerous studies have focused on the direct effects of chidlren’s exposure to advertisng on their food preferences and choices, there have been fewer studies on the role of marketing in influencing parent’s decisions about what foods they give to their child. We surveyed parents about their children’s food requests and the perceived influences on their food choices; and found that parents experience, or perceive, a number of external pressures on them in making food choices for their children

Native speakers as documenters: a student initiative at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

The Language Documentation Training Center (LDTC), a student-run initiative in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Hawai'i at Miinoa, is an innovative program which brings native speakers into the field of documentary linguistics and elevates their roles to central participants in the documentary process. At LDTC, graduate students in linguistics partner up with native speakers of underdocumented languages during a series of workshops where native speakers learn best practices in documentary linguistics. While the linguistic training is pared down to the skills and knowledge relevant to the native speakers' languages, the documentary training empowers the speakers to undertake further documentation efforts in their own communities. This paper details the methods and practices of the LDTC

Living and Learning With New Media: Summary of Findings From the Digital Youth Project

Summarizes findings from a three-year study of how new media have been integrated into youth behaviors and have changed the dynamics of media literacy, learning, and authoritative knowledge. Outlines implications for educators, parents, and policy makers

Using social marketing to promote cold and flu prevention behaviors on an Australian university campus

Background: Cold and influenza transmission is a serious public health issue for universities. This case study describes a coordinated social marketing campaign that incorporated health messages and products. It was designed to motivate behavior change to prevent the spread of colds and influenza on a university campus. Methods: The aims of this multi-component intervention were to raise awareness of the importance of individual behavior in preventing the spread of colds and flu and to encourage staff and students to adopt three simple habits: hand washing, cough or sneeze in sleeve, and stay at home if sick. A repeated, cross-sectional survey design assessed the following pre- and post-campaign: salience of colds and flu; perceived severity of, and susceptibility to, colds and flu; beliefs about effective prevention strategies; and engagement in preventative behaviors. Campaign message and product recall were assessed post-campaign. Results: Campaign message recall was high (over 80% of staff and 70% of students); fewer staff (one-third) or students (one-quarter) recalled campaign products. Few pretest-posttest differences were observed in perceived susceptibility or severity. Recognition of cough or sneeze into your sleeve as an effective prevention strategy increased pre- to post-campaign (a percentage increase of 39.6% for staff and 25.1% for students); campaign exposed respondents were significantly more likely than unexposed to rate this strategy as effective post-campaign. Substantial pretest-posttest percentage increases in the top ranked prevention strategies were found for the three core messages: hand washing (51% for students); cough in sleeve (59.2%, staff; 71.1%, students); and stay at home if sick (120%, staff). Conclusions: This setting-based intervention clearly reached staff and students with the primary messages. Success can be attributed to using consumer insight to develop multiple marketing messages and strategies, rather than a single- strategy communication campaign

Sr/Ca and Mg/Ca vital effects correlated with skeletal architecture in a scleractinian deep-sea coral and the role of Rayleigh fractionation

Deep-sea corals are a new tool in paleoceanography with the potential to provide century long records of deep ocean change at sub-decadal resolution. Complicating the reconstruction of past deep-sea temperatures, Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca paleothermometers in corals are also influenced by non-environmental factors, termed vital effects. To determine the magnitude, pattern and mechanism of vital effects we measure detailed collocated Sr/Ca and Mg/Ca ratios, using a combination of micromilling and isotope-dilution ICP-MS across skeletal features in recent samples of Desmophyllum dianthus, a scleractinian coral that grows in the near constant environment of the deep-sea. Sr/Ca variability across skeletal features is less than 5% (2σ relative standard deviation) and variability of Sr/Ca within the optically dense central band, composed of small and irregular aragonite crystals, is significantly less than the surrounding skeleton. The mean Sr/Ca of the central band, 10.6 ± 0.1 mmol/mol (2σ standard error), and that of the surrounding skeleton, 10.58±0.09 mmol/mol, are statistically similar, and agree well with the inorganic aragonite Sr/Ca-temperature relationship at the temperature of coral growth. In the central band, Mg/Ca is greater than 3 mmol/mol, more than twice that of the surrounding skeleton, a general result observed in the relative Mg/Ca ratios of D. dianthus collected from separate oceanographic locations. This large vital effect corresponds to a ∼ 10 °C signal, when calibrated via surface coral Mg/Ca-temperature relationships, and has the potential to complicate paleoreconstructions. Outside the central band, Mg/Ca ratios increase with decreasing Sr/Ca. We explain the correlated behavior of Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca outside the central band by Rayleigh fractionation from a closed pool, an explanation that has been proposed elsewhere, but which is tested in this study by a simple and general relationship. We constrain the initial solution and effective partition coefficients for a Rayleigh process consistent with our accurate Metal/Ca measurements. A process other than Rayleigh fractionation influences Mg in the central band and our data constrain a number of possible mechanisms for the precipitation of this aragonite. Understanding the process affecting tracer behavior during coral biomineralization can help us better interpret paleoproxies in biogenic carbonates and lead to an improved deep-sea paleothermometer

Numeral words and arithmetic operations in the Alor-Pantar languages

The indigenous numerals of the AP languages, as well as the indigenous structures for arithmetic operations are currently under pressure from Indonesian, and will inevitably be replaced with Indonesian forms and structures. This chapter presents a documentary record of the forms and patterns currently in use to express numerals and arithmetic operations in the Alor-Pantar languages. We describe the structure of cardinal, ordinal and distributive numerals, and how operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and fractions are expressed