142,328 research outputs found
That again: A multivariate analysis of the factors conditioning syntactic explicitness in translated English
No full textThis article aims to disentangle three explanations that have been proposed for the increased explicitness of translated English, as reflected in the more frequent use of the complementiser that in translated English texts compared to non-translated English texts. These three explanations are designated as the cognitive complexity (or processing strain) hypothesis, the pragmatic risk-aversion hypothesis and the source-language transfer hypothesis. Four comparable register-controlled corpora are used for the analysis: a corpus of English translated from Afrikaans, a corpus of written Afrikaans, and corpora of written British and native South African English. A multivariate analysis of the factors conditioning complementiser omission across the four corpora is used to test the three hypotheses proposed. The transfer hypothesis is tested by investigating whether the translation corpus demonstrates overall omission preferences that are more similar to the omission preferences of Afrikaans than of English. The cognitive complexity hypothesis is tested by investigating whether translated English is more sensitive to the complexity-related factors that are known to condition omission than non-translated English. The risk-aversion hypothesis is tested by investigating whether translations opt for the communicatively and normatively “safer” choice of including the complementiser in contexts where non-translated writing would typically omit it, and therefore demonstrate less sensitivity to register and frequency effects than non-translated English. The findings of the study provide strong evidence against the transfer hypothesis and find stronger support for the pragmatic risk-aversion hypothesis although the cognitive complexity hypothesis cannot be ruled out
Un ILS open source per l'automazione delle biblioteche: l'ipotesi Koha a Ca' Foscari.
Full text linkThe first part of the work is focused on the history and last trend on library automation and integrated library systems, with specific attention on the italian context. The second part introduce to open source, evaluates some possible use of open source software in library and open source diffusion in Italy. The third part analyze Koha, an open source ILS, and its possible application at the University of Ca' Foscari Library System
Register change in the British and Australian Hansard (1901-2015)
No full text“Colloquialization,” and anti-colloquial effects such as “densification,” have been shown to shape register change in English, with Australian English showing stronger effects of colloquiality than British English. Parliamentary Hansard records are at the intersection of writing and speech and are subject to various influencing factors possibly leading to change in this register, which we represent in a conceptual model. We apply Biber’s (1988) method of multidimensional analysis to examine the co-occurrence of linguistic features in the British and Australian Hansard over five consecutive time periods. The data provide evidence of shared as well as differentiated effects of colloquialization and densification across the two varieties. The evidence also points to a new type of anti-colloquial trend observed in the parliamentary register, whereby presentation of information appears to be taking the place of a more interactive and interpersonally oriented style, a trend we term “monologization.”
Navigating contextual constraints in discourse: design explications in institutional talk
No full textAlthough institutional discourse is subject to a vast ensemble of constraints, its design is not fixed beforehand. On the contrary, optimizing the satisfaction of these constraints requires considerable discourse design skills from institutional agents. In this article, we analyze how Dutch banks’ mortgage advisors navigate their way through the consultations context. We focus on what we call discourse design explications, that is, stretches of talk in which participants refer to conflicting constraints in the discourse context, at the same time proposing particular discourse designs for dealing with these conflicts. We start by discussing three forms of design explication. Then we will examine the various resolutions they propose for constraint conflicts and show how advisors seek customer consent or cooperation for the proposed designs. Thus our analysis reveals how institutional agents, while providing services, work on demonstrating how the design of these services is optimized and tailored to customers
Evaluating the language development of newly arrived migrant pupils: Go beyond words!
No full textIt is a widespread practice to assess Newly Arrived Migrant pupilS (NAMS) with diagnostic tests, even though most tests have only been standardized for monolingual speakers. Sometimes tests are informally translated bilingual clinicians from L2 to L1, without being adapted to the targeted structures in the L1. According to the literature, the problem with these tests is that NAMS may then be erroneously be diagnosed as children with a language disorder even though their L1, L2 development and cultural background are not taken into account (e.g. Paradis, 2005; Paradis et al, 2013). Nowadays, most scholars recommend oral narratives to assess bilingual children (e.g. Uccelli & Páez, 2007). MAIN (Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives, Gagarina et al. 2012) tests the narrative abilities of bilingual children in L1 and L2. According to the authors, MAIN is more appropriate than previous narrative elicitation materials, e.g. Test of Narrative Language (Gillam & Pearson, 2004) and Frog where are you? (Mayer, 1969) because it takes into account the cultural, linguistic and socio-economic backgrounds of bilinguals and includes options with comparable structure and complexity for eliciting narratives in a bilingual context. In order to investigate the vocabulary development of young NAMS, I recorded the MAIN narratives of 52 NAMS aged 4 to 6 (mean = 5;3 years) twice in their first year in the Netherlands within four months. Even though the pupils just started to learn the school language, most of them were willing to communicate and showed active use of communicative strategies such as ‘asking for assistance’ and ‘mime’. I compared the use of nine different strategies (adapted from Dörnyei & Scott, 1997 among others) to the amount of words and the complexity of the sentences that were elicited. The hypothesis is that the use of some strategies may be linked to more gain in L2 learning than others (Chamot, 2001). In this presentation, I present an inventory of these communication strategies and I link them to the receptive as well as productive language performances of the pupils. The goal is to discover the link between the use of metacognitive strategies and school language development in young multilingual pupils
Effecten van narrativiteit in educatieve teksten: Wat zeggen onderzoeksresultaten (nog niet)?
No full textThis study aims to gain more insight into narrativity in the educational domain. Based on earlier research, we define three prototypical narrative elements (i.e., the presence of particularized events, an experiencing character, and a landscape of consciousness), and present an analytic model that illustrates how varying combinations of these elements occur in Dutch educational materials for Social Studies and Science. Using this model, we then analyze experimental texts from previous studies on the effects of narrativity on text comprehension and recall. We demonstrate that experimental narrative texts nearly always exhibit all prototypical narrative elements, while their expository counterparts also contain some narrative elements and thus are not purely expository. In addition, we show that no consistent patterns can be found in the results of the selected experimental studies, and that the data at hand therefore do not allow for strong conclusions about the effects of narrativity in educational texts. Finally, we discuss the limitations of previous as well as the present research and the implications for future research
Édition en perspective 2012-2013 : rapport d\u27activité du Syndicat national de l\u27édition (L\u27)
Full text linkRapport annuel du Syndicat national de l\u27Édition
Developing communicative competence: A longitudinal study of the acquisition of mental state terms and indirect requests
Full text linkThis longitudinal study involving 101 Dutch four- and five-year-olds charts indirect request (IR) and mental state term (MST) understanding and investigates the role that Theory of Mind (ToM) and general linguistic ability (vocabulary, syntax, and spatial language) play in this development. The results showed basic understanding of IR and MST in four-year-olds, but full understanding had not been reached even at five years old. Furthermore, although ToM predicted both IR and MST when linguistic ability was not taken into account, this relationship was no longer significant once the language measures were added. Linguistic ability thus seems to play an important role in the development of both IR and MST. Additional analyses revealed that whereas syntactic ability was the primary predictor of IR, spatial language was the best predictor of MST, suggesting that IR relies primarily on general linguistic skills, but that more specific aspects of language may bootstrap MST
- …
