407 research outputs found
Book Review: Ecolinguistics: Language, Ecology and the Stories We Live By
No full textBook Title: Ecolinguistics: Language, Ecology and the Stories We Live ByBook Author: Arran Stibbe2015, Routledge, London and New York. ISBN 978-0-415-83781-1. viii+210 pages. Price: £34.9
To expel the Rong: Alien population transfer proposals during the Wei and Western Jin
No full textThroughout the first three centuries of the Common Era large numbers of non-Chinese peoples from Inner Asia migrated into the territories ruled over and administered by the Eastern Han (25-220 AD), Wei (220-65 AD) and Western Jin (265-316 AD) Dynasties. During the Third Century, a number of these immigrants and their descendants engaged in destructive revolts against the Chinese regimes ruling over them. Ultimately, many of their descendants would play important rôles in the overthrow of the Western Jin and the establishment of the “Sixteen Kingdoms,” which dominated the Central Plain in the Fourth and early Fifth Centuries. In the second half of the Third Century, three officials of the Wei and Western Jin Dynasties separately presented memoranda proposing a variety of measures designed to alleviate problems seen as arising from the settlement of these alien peoples in Chinese territory. These individuals were Deng Ai 鄧艾 in 251 AD, Guo Qin 郭欽 in 280 AD and Jiang Tong 江統 in 299 (or 300) AD. Amongst the policies proposed in their memoranda, these three statesmen proposed that large numbers of these non-Chinese populations be forcibly moved to the frontier or expelled from Wei or Jin territory. The proposals contained in the latter two memoranda were rejected in their entirety, while those in the first memorandum were only implemented in part. Since at least the Tang Dynasty, both pre-Modern and Twentieth Century Chinese scholars have tended to identify the reasons for the rejections of such policies as being their alleged impracticality, whilst commending the supposed farsightedness of their authors in identifying the threat posed by the alien peoples dwelling within the Wei and Jin’s territories. The author of the most comprehensive expulsion proposal, Jiang Tong, has even been held by one highly regarded modern scholar to have been engaged in a mere hypothetical exercise. However, such views are mistaken and anachronistic. The first two of the proposed population transfers were certainly within the administrative capacity of the Wei and Western Jin states. Moreover, even Jiang Tong’s much more comprehensive plan was likely capable of implementation in its entirety. Rather, the proposals contained in the three memoranda were rejected not due to impracticality, but because of the clear preference amongst sections of the Wei and Western Jin elite for the advantages offered by the presence of such unassimilated alien peoples within Chinese territory and because they conflicted too strongly with the priorities of those regimes’ rulers. Despite their non-implementation (and despite only rarely having been subjected to detailed scholarly analysis), the three memoranda are historically significant for their provision of a highly informative snapshot of attitudes to the non-Chinese peoples held by sections of the Chinese elite in the Third Century. They enable us to trace the contours of a continuing and influential debate, inherited from the Han, setting adherents of “Exclusivist” approaches, stressing the existence of fundamental differences between Chinese and aliens against their ideological opponents who favoured “Transformationalist” traditions upholding the ability of Chinese civilisation to positively transform non-Chinese peoples. In particular, the three memoranda themselves contain a consistent and coherent Exclusivist characterisation of non-Chinese Inner Asian peoples and indicate the increasing prominence of Exclusivist approaches amongst elite Chinese during the Third Century AD. Simultaneously, they also demonstrate the inherent ambiguities and consequent weakness of Exclusivism during the Third Century, which was often forced to rely for its arguments upon the authority of classical texts, which contained implicit Transformationalist assumptions
Distinct myeloid population phenotypes dependent on TREM2 expression levels shape the pathology of traumatic versus demyelinating CNS disorders
No full text(Cell Reports 42, 112629; June 27, 2023) In the originally published version of this article, Han Gao, the first author of this paper, was given the position of corresponding author as well as lead contact due to a misunderstanding regarding these roles. After an explanation of the roles were given, the three original corresponding authors (Han Gao, Roberta Brambilla, and Limin Rong) agreed that corresponding author duties should be limited to Brambilla and Rong. Furthermore, the position of lead contact should be given to Limin Rong, who is designated as corresponding author and has accepted responsibility of handling communications about the paper from readers. The article has since been updated to reflect the accurate responsibilities of each author. The authors regret this error and any confusion that it may have caused
Corpus-based unit selection for natural-sounding speech synthesis
No full textThesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-196).This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Speech synthesis is an automatic encoding process carried out by machine through which symbols conveying linguistic information are converted into an acoustic waveform. In the past decade or so, a recent trend toward a non-parametric, corpus-based approach has focused on using real human speech as source material for producing novel natural-sounding speech. This work proposes a communication-theoretic formulation in which unit selection is a noisy channel through which an input sequence of symbols passes and an output sequence, possibly corrupted due to the coverage limits of the corpus, emerges. The penalty of approximation is quantified by substitution and concatenation costs which grade what unit contexts are interchangeable and where concatenations are not perceivable. These costs are semi-automatically derived from data and are found to agree with acoustic-phonetic knowledge. The implementation is based on a finite-state transducer (FST) representation that has been successfully used in speech and language processing applications including speech recognition. A proposed constraint kernel topology connects all units in the corpus with associated substitution and concatenation costs and enables an efficient Viterbi search that operates with low latency and scales to large corpora. An A* search can be applied in a second, rescoring pass to incorporate finer acoustic modelling. Extensions to this FST-based search include hierarchical and paralinguistic modelling. The search can also be used in an iterative feedback loop to record new utterances to enhance corpus coverage. This speech synthesis framework has been deployed across various domains and languages in many voices, a testament to its flexibility and rapid prototyping capability.(cont.) Experimental subjects completing tasks in a given air travel planning scenario by interacting in real time with a spoken dialogue system over the telephone have found the system "easiest to understand" out of eight competing systems. In more detailed listening evaluations, subjective opinions garnered from human participants are found to be correlated with objective measures calculable by machine.by Jon Rong-Wei Yi.Ph.D
Framing COVID-19 at the early stage: a corpus-based discourse study of the Chinese English-language press
No full textAbstract The news media play an important role in effectively communicating public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic in that the framing of news stories can greatly influence public attitudes, behaviors, and their response to such crises. Underpinned by a deductive corpus-based analysis of frames, this study combines quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate COVID-19 news framing by China Daily in the initial 3 months. It demonstrates the integration of keywords and collocations to examine how China Daily frames COVID-19 at the early stage of the pandemic. It is achieved by drawing on the four functions of communication and categorizing the keywords into semantic sets to identify the framing patterns in a deductive way. The analysis reveals that Severity frame and Action frame are identified as the most dominant, followed by Economic frame and Blaming frame. These framing patterns shows how China Daily uses news discourse to construct a positive China’s image by prioritizing the crisis severity and action response over the economic consequences, and employing blaming discourse for self-clarification in the face of stigma. The analysis helps to demonstrate the effectiveness of corpus linguistics in exploring media framing and illuminates the specific understanding of the news environment and ideological consolidation within the context of China
The Norm & Practice of Gender Equality Education Act
No full textIt has been fifteen years since Gender Equity Education Act had been made. However, there are a lot of aspects should be deliberated. Along with the #Me Too issue has been concerned around the world, the author paid attentions to research into gender equality in education. The author analyzed previous researches to discuss from international point of view on the issue. Then author focused on domestic issues of act gradually.
\ue3\ue3In this article the author review the findings of past gender equality researches in the following manner. First, studied the oughtness from the meaning of \ue2gender equality\ue2. Second, studied the practice from gender equality in law form, and reviewed the practice in domestic act.
\ue3\ue3The meaning of the gender equality in education in oughtness could be divided into two aspects: the deconstruction of law and the integration beyond the law. The meaning of gender equality could be consolidated by analyzing of law and coordinating with history, cultural, economic and internet society. In addition, the operation of gender equality in education of practice could also be divided into two aspects: to focus on the practice of domestic gender equality from the beginning of international law form, then to review the improvable issues.
\ue3\ue3Finally, interacting with the oughtness in literature, practice in Gender Equity Education Act, constitutional interpretation and the researches on the act pointed out the current pros and cons which provided suggestions for improvement
Beijing lu you jing qu de Ying yu shang pin hua: yi Gu gong wei li
No full textPh.D.Following the neoliberal turn in today’s world which is characterized by promotional and consumer culture, this study explores the commodification of the English language in the tourism marketplace of the Palace Museum in Beijing, China. Informed by political economy of language, linguistic landscape studies, discourse in place, and in particular theories of language commodification, and culture commodification, this study adopts a mixed methods case study research design.With the Palace Museum as the case study site, research data of this study were collected from a wide range of sources including digital photographs of linguistic signs, questionnaire survey, interviews, tourism brochures, and other fieldnotes taken during one-month long fieldwork in August 2016. To better understand the process of English language commodification at the research site from a multitude of perspectives, the questionnaires and interviews were conducted with three groups of participants who were directly engaged in the use of English at the research site. They were respectively the international tourists, tourism service workers, and English-speaking tour guides. This study is therefore primarily a context-driven case study of originally collected discursive materials from the Palace Museum, combining triangulations of both research data and research participants.The findings indicate that in Chinese tourism marketplace, English is favored as the international “default” language, actively engaged in the symbolic economy of Chinese tourism market. On the one hand, English language services have become commodities with Market Values that are directly exchangeable for commercial benefits in the Palace Museum. On the other hand, the English language, with its Non-Market Values, facilitates commodity exchange experiences in the tourism market of the Palace Museum. Together, the market value and the non-market value constitute the economic value of the English language as adopted and consumed in the tourism context of the Palace Museum, contributing to the perception of English language commodification as a dynamic social process, rather than a static economic product.Considering English language commodification as discursive practice, I advocate that a linguistic investigation into language commodification needs to consider the commodification of English both from a text-internal perspective as discourse practices, and from a text-external perspective as social practices, taking into account the specific time-space frames whereby the commodification process occurs. English language commodification in the tourism context of the Palace Museum then leads to the commodification of the Chinese culture. It is found that with the Palace Museum representing the broad spectrum of 5,000 years of Chinese civilization and the 600-year history of the Forbidden City in Ming and Qing dynasties, the English materials therein mainly promote and commodify an exotic Chinese culture that is embedded in the long history of China, highlighting the Ming and Qing dynasty imperial culture, and an exotic yet friendly and attractive landscape that is peculiar to Chinese localities.This study adds to the current literature on language commodification and tourism studies in general. Hopefully, it could offer insights for linguists and tourism practitioners into the economic value of the English language as a commercial resource in tourism context, and would offer a contextualized approach to understand the process of English language commodification in the symbolic tourism market of today. This case study of the English language in the Palace Museum, I hope, will shed light on the commodification of other languages, in different localities, and under various situations. The findings also have implications for English for Specific Purposes (Tourism English) educators in China.隨著現代社會新自由主義（neoliberalism）的流行，促銷文化(promotional culture) 和消費文化(consumer culture)已經成為當今文化的特點。本研究探討了英語語言商品化在故宮博物院（中國北京）這一旅遊景區的體現。在語言經濟（language economics），語言景觀研究（linguistic landscape studies），場所中的話語（discourse in place），尤其是語言商品化（language commodification）和文化商品化（culture commodification）等理論的指導下，本論文採用混合研究的方法對故宮進行案例分析。本研究的資料來源於多個渠道，其中包括語言標識的數碼照片；問卷調查；採訪；旅遊手冊；以及在 2016 年 8 月田野調查期間記錄的各種現場筆記。為更好地從多個角度對英語商品化這一過程進行分析，問卷調查和採訪涉及到三個群體，分別是：國際遊客；景區工作人員；以及英語導遊。這三組研究對象在故宮會經常使用到英語。就此而言，本研究主要是一個情景驅動的、對在故宮收集的各種資料進行話語分析的個案研究研究結果表明，在中國旅遊市場，英語作為一种國際 “預設” 語言，在中國旅遊這一象徵經濟 (symbolic economy)中積極扮演著自己的角色。一方面，英文服務在故宮已經成為了一種具有“市場價值（Market Value）”的商品，可以直接轉換成為經濟效益；另一方面，英語還具備“非市場價值（Non-Market Value）”促進故宮這一旅遊市場中的商品流通。市場價值和非市場價值共同構成英語在故宮使用和消費的整體經濟價值，有助於我們對英語商品化作為一個動態的過程而非靜態的商品的理解。把英語商品化看作話語實踐（discursive practices），本研究認為對語言商品化的語言學研究應該既從文本的內部視角把語言商品化視為一種語篇實踐，又要從文本的外部視角把語言商品化視為一種社會實踐，同時還要考慮到語言商品化所處的具體時空因素。故宮的英語商品化引發我們對文化商品化的思考。作為中華民族上下 5,000 年文化的代表，以及擁有 600 年歷史的明清兩朝之都 –紫禁城，故宮中的英文資料主要宣揚和推廣其獨特的中國文化，強調其歷史性的一面，尤其是明清時期的皇家文化，以及一種充滿異域風情而又不失友好和迷人景觀的中國地方文化。本論文補充了現有文獻對語言商品化和旅遊英語的研究，為語言學和旅遊實踐人員對英語在旅遊環境下的經濟價值提供新的見解。同時，本論文提出的以情境為導向的研究框架為理解旅遊中的英語商品化提供了建設性的意見。以故宮博物院作為案例對英語商品化進行研究，本論文有望對其他語言，在其他地區，以及在不同情境下的語言商品化研究起到抛磚引玉的作用。研究結論對特殊用途英語（English for Specific Purposes）尤其是旅遊英語（Tourism English）在中國的教學也有一定的啟示。Xiao, Rong.Thesis Ph.D. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2018.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 396-425).Abstract also in Chinese; some appendices in Chinese.Title from PDF title page (viewed on 26, May, 2021).Xiao, Rong
專家系統在加減運算學習層次之應用研究
No full text[[abstract]]本研究主要目的旨在應用專家系統的理念及技術，並結合學習層次專家之知識與軟體
工程技術，針對發展一套智慧型加減運算學習層次控制系統之有關架構技術進行研究
與設計，以建構一套智慧加減運算教學及研究之工具；系統發展之經驗可作為發展智
慧型電腦輔助教學教材軟體技術之參考。
為達到上述之研究目的，本研究首先分析加減運算學習層次控制系統之需求，並進行
本系統之架構規劃與設計，提出加減運算學習層次控制系統之資料流程，以及ICAI控
制卡結構之觀念；繼而進行相關技術研究包括題庫之設計、試題剖析、知識表示法、
推論技巧、裝置獨立技術，CAI 中文字型處理技巧、人機交談模式、回饋設計技巧等
，並提出"CAI軟體製作工具整合"、"增強學習模組" 及ICAI推理機之觀念與技術。本
研究開發完成之智慧型教學工具，有下列五項子系統可供應用：一、專家知識庫建構
子系統，二、學習資料庫管理子系統，三、學習層次控制教學子系統，四、學習記錄
理子系統，五、加減運算教學子系統。
最後歸納研究結論與建議如后：一、研究結論：（1 ）ICAI控制卡、推理機及知識庫
之觀念與技巧，可提高ICAI軟體製作及使用之彈性。（2 ）裝置獨立的觀念與技巧，
將可提昇軟體之實用性，以及減少更新裝置時，所需修改程式之困擾。（3 ）ICAI軟
體製作工具整合觀念與架構,將有助於提昇ICAI 軟體之製作品質。（4 ）增強學習模
組的設計觀念，有助於提高學習者的學習興趣及成效，及教學者選用增強學習模組的
便利性。二、研究建議：（1 ）建立整數四則運算學習層資完整體系，以為發展智慧
型數學科整數四則運算及應用題學習層次控制系統之基礎。（2 ）評估數學科其它教
材發展智慧型學習層次控制系統的可行性，進而建立完善的智慧型數學科電腦輔助教
學環境。（3 ）本研究完成之系統可做為控制學習變項的工具。學者可據此進行有關
的教學實驗，增進特殊兒童的學習效果。（4 ）建立領域專家與軟體工程專家之溝通
模式，有助於ICAI教材軟體之發展。（5 ）建立推理機資料傳輸之介面標準，以為有
志發展推理機者之參考依據。
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