5 research outputs found
Compensatory strategies in child first language attrition within an Atlantic Creole
No full textThis study investigates compensatory strategies in lexical attrition that are applicable to Creole contact. There is evidence of lexical borrowing from a second language (L2), which is paired with discourse strategies such as exemplification and paraphrasing. Word coinage, metonymy, conversion and semantic contiguity are also all strategies implemented in an aim to compensate for lexical retrieval difficulties brought on by language attrition. It is found that an L2 User whose first language (L1) has become susceptible to language change may not solely employ a single strategy in an act of discourse, but may rather incorporate varying strategies, some of which serve the purpose of complementing other types of strategies in enabling successful communication. In the implementation of these strategies, though there may be influence from an L2, this L2 may not be dominant in the L2 users’ repertoire and L2 features borrowed into the L1 may be imperfectly acquired.
Attrition of a creole : the syntactic effects of the L2 acquisition of papiamentu on Jamaican creole
No full textThis study investigates the attrition of Jamaican Creole (JC), in a Papiamentu (Pp)
dominant environment, to determine the syntactic features of JC first language
(L1) attrition, a projected timeline during which each feature may fall prey to
attrition and the degree to which features of the grammar may be affected. No
known research on the attrition of Creole languages has previously been done.
Five data types were collected from 20 informants, who shared a similar
sociolinguistic profile and who had been residing in Curaçao for periods between
1 and 21 years. These data were collected via natural use, clinical elicitation,
experimental elicitation, metalinguistic judgements and self-report data. The data
were analysed to determine recurring deviations that were common to informants
who were placed in three categories according to their years of residence in the
second language (L2) country: 1-5 years, 6-10 years and >10 years.
Recurring deviations were identified at the level of the Determiner Phrase (DP),
the Verb Phrase (VP) and the Sentence. Changes in the grammar were found to
result from cross-linguistic influence. In addition, there were ‘internally induced’
changes, that is, changes that could not be attributed to influence from an L2. It
was also found that changes in the affected L1 could become apparent after one
year of contact and that most changes in the attriting grammar occurred within the
first 5 years of migration.
Implications of this study include the following: in an effort to maintain native
speaker functionality in the L1, and in formal L1 instruction, emphasis should be
on features found to be susceptible to language attrition; priority ought to be given
to those features which have proven to be most susceptible to change; given that
the majority of stable changes take place within the first 5 years of contact, to
achieve optimum success, maintenance efforts should be most intense during
these early years; and finally, success at maintenance may be less likely after 10
years of contact as the majority of changes were found to have occurred by the
Effect of changes in testing parameters on the cost-effectiveness of two pooled test methods to classify infection status of animals in a herd
No full textMonte Carlo simulation was used to determine optimal fecal pool sizes for identification of all Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP)-infected cows in a dairy herd. Two pooling protocols were compared: a halving protocol involving a single retest of negative pools followed by halving of positive pools and a simple protocol involving single retest of negative pools but no halving of positive pools. For both protocols, all component samples in positive pools were then tested individually. In the simulations, the distributions of number of tests required to classify all individuals in an infected herd were generated for various combinations of prevalence (0.01, 0.05 and 0.1), herd size (300, 1000 and 3000), pool size (5, 10, 20 and 50) and test sensitivity (0.5–0.9). Test specificity was fixed at 1.0 because fecal culture for MAP yields no or rare false-positive results. Optimal performance was determined primarily on the basis of a comparison of the distributions of numbers of tests needed to detect MAP-infected cows using the Mann–Whitney U test statistic. Optimal pool size was independent of both herd size and test characteristics, regardless of protocol. When sensitivity was the same for each pool size, pool sizes of 20 and 10 performed best for both protocols for prevalences of 0.01 and 0.1, respectively, while for prevalences of 0.05, pool sizes of 10 and 20 were optimal for the simple and halving protocols, respectively. When sensitivity decreased with increasing pool size, the results changed for prevalences of 0.05 and 0.1 with pool sizes of 50 being optimal especially at a prevalence of 0.1. Overall, the halving protocol was more cost effective than the simple protocol especially at higher prevalences. For detection of MAP using fecal culture, we recommend use of the halving protocol and pool sizes of 10 or 20 when the prevalence is suspected to range from 0.01 to 0.1 and there is no expected loss of sensitivity with increasing pool size. If loss in sensitivity is expected and the prevalence is thought to be between 0.05 and 0.1, the halving protocol and a pool size of 50 is recommended. Our findings are broadly applicable to other infectious diseases under comparable testing conditions.ID: S0167587710000085; M3: Article; Accession Number: S0167587710000085; Author: Locksley L. McV. Messam (a, b); Author: Joshua M. O’Brien (c); Author: Sharon K. Hietala (d); Author: Ian A. Gardner (e, ⁎); Affiliation: St. Georges University, Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, P.O. Box 7, True Blue, St. Georges, Grenada, West Indies; Affiliation: St. Georges University, Office of the Dean, School of Veterinary Medicine, P.O. Box 7, True Blue, St. George's, Grenada, West Indies; Affiliation: Center for Animal Disease Modeling and Surveillance, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA; Affiliation: California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System, Davis, CA 95616, USA; Affiliation: Department of Medicine and Epidemiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA; Keyword: Cost-effectiveness; Keyword: Pooled testing; Keyword: Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis; Keyword: Retesting; Number of Pages: 11; Language: English
Confidence interval interpretation: Introducing the confidence interval function
No full textSVEPM 2022: The Society for Veterinary Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine (SVEPM) Annual Conference 2022, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 23-25 March 2022Confidence intervals are often used incorrectly to perform hypothesis tests in the biomedical sciences. In this paper, the confidence interval function is introduced. It is demonstrated that its use helps to prevent errors in inference caused by a reliance on null hypothesis significance testing, and in particular, on the dichotomisation of results into “significant”, and “nonsignificant” categories. By way of three examples of confidence interval function use, it is shown that dependence on p values for inference can lead to a) unfounded claims of conflicting results, b) overlooking effects of practical importance, and c) incomplete appraisal of study results. Authors of epidemiologic studies are encouraged to routinely report confidence
intervals and use sketches of confidence interval functions to interpret them.2024-02-13: AWAIT INSTRUCTIONS FROM AUTHOR [email protected] BEFORE MAKING LIVE -- may require embargo2025-05-15 JG: 6 months embargo added to account for abov
Social and structural aspects of language contact and change
No full textThis book brings together papers that discuss social and structural aspects of language contact and language change.
Several papers look at the relevance of historical documents to determine the linguistic nature of early contact varieties, while others investigate the specific processes of contact-induced change that were involved in the emergence and development of these languages. A third set of papers look at how new datasets and greater sensitivity to social issues can help to (re)assess persistent theoretical and empirical questions as well as help to open up new avenues of research. In particular they highlight the heterogeneity of contemporary language practices and attitudes often obscured in sociolinguistic research.
The contributions all focus on language variation and change but investigate it from a variety of disciplinary and empirical perspectives and cover a range of linguistic contexts
