1,720,954 research outputs found
Non-verbal strategies, adequate settings and empathy as the real promoters of Spoken Easy Language in asymmetric communication
No full textThe project SELSI (Spoken Easy Language for Social Inclusion), launched in 2022, focuses on simplifying language in oral contexts. Its objective is to develop adaptable recommendations for professionals to produce comprehensible content for co-participants requiring linguistic support. This paper presents findings from a SELSI survey assessing the needs and preferences of speakers across proficiency levels in oral contexts. The results highlight the necessity of non-linguistic elements in effective oral communication, including factors like a quiet setting, empathetic environments, a close rapport between interlocutors, and the strategic use of repetition to elicit of accurate comprehension judgements
Spoken Easy Language for Social Inclusion: Needs & Resource Mapping
No full textCommunication is known to be the utmost important and most effective skill for human survival: we need it to maintain contact with the world on an everyday basis, and to do so we rely considerably on oral communication (Ali 2018). In the framework of accessible communication, Easy Language has proliferated in the last few years as a phenomenon to fulfil different functions in society (Maaß 2020; Lindholm and Vanhatalo 2021; Perego 2020; Peruzzo and Rocco 2022). However, until recently, the field has majorly consisted of national initiatives, still lacks an established research tradition (Lindholm and Vanhatalo, 2021), and has mainly focused on written Plain or Easy Language. In fact, thus far, Easy Language in its spoken mode has largely remained unaddressed irrespective of its paramount importance in the everyday life of a large sector of the population, including people with cognitive difficulties, as well as second language learners and people who are poorly literate (Ali 2018; Bernabé and Orero 2021; Rubin 2012; Rubin et al. 2000) .
Up to date, there are no European standards for spoken Easy language available. One of the main challenges in the field is the development of a regulated speaking methodology and means of linguistic support that can be followed by speakers who must deliver clear information to interlocutors who need linguistic assistance. These speakers include adult educators communicating directly with target groups and primarily facilitating the education of adult learners (e.g. in adult education organizations); professional working with users in contexts where two-way communication with target groups occurs, like in educational or health care settings; and professional producing oral content (e.g. broadcaster, media producer, voice talent, audio narrator, journalist, etc.).
Recommendations and guidelines for speakers are therefore a prerequisite for inclusion and participation in all fields of life, education and training, as well as in many other oral-based environments, such as counselling, health or social services, and the media. In these contexts, where either one-way or two-way oral communication is used, the ''more competent speakers'' must adapt their speech to a level that is understandable for their co-participant or listener who need linguistic support.
The European project SELSI (Spoken Easy Language for Social Inclusion, 2022-2024) aims to fill this gap, and to develop flexible and effective recommendations for spoken Easy language to primarily support adult people with additional needs in gaining important skills in most oral-based environments.
In November 2022, the SELSI team started mapping the needs of both professionals and end-users who have to resort to spoken Easy Language in everyday communication. The results of this mapping activity carried out in Europe will constitute the starting point for the future research activities of SELSI, whose final aim is to develop new innovative recommendations for oral communication in spoken Easy Language in the form of an open-access online tool.
The mapping activity has been the main objective of Work Package (WP) 2, led by Elisa Perego and Piergiorgio Trevisan from the University of Trieste. As part of the WP2 activities, a multilingual (English, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Slovene, Spanish and Swedish) questionnaire in Plain and Easy language has been prepared and administered online (via the Web Survey Creator platform) and on paper to European professionals and end-users. The questionnaire included several open and closed questions exploring 1) textual and conversation-enhancing strategies; 2) linguistic strategies; 3) listener-engaging strategies; 4) non-linguistic strategies; 5) use of supporting materials.
The results of the survey, which reached overall 446 respondents from 15 European countries, will be made available in the form of a standard language and an Easy Language project report, and they will be thoroughly detailed during the KLAARA 2023 conference. Although they mainly reflect the state of the art in project partner countries (Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Sweden), these results offer a first research-based contribution to a subject that needs to be explored further
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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