scholarly journals Eleventh Graders’ Increasingly Elaborate Language Use for Disentangling Amount and Change: A Case Study on the Epistemic Role of Syntactic Language Complexity

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Prediger ◽  
Dilan Şahin-Gür
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Language Complexity ◽  
Test Items ◽  
Challenging Tasks ◽  
Eleventh Graders ◽  
Epistemic Role ◽  
Communicative Role

AbstractThe syntactic dimension of academic language has often been studied with respect to students’ difficulties with syntactic features in mathematical textbooks and test items, and these studies have contributed to understanding the communicative role of language. In contrast, the epistemic role of students’ language use has mainly been explored in lexical and discourse dimensions. This research has shown that higher order cognitive demands require more elaborate language means. The aim of this article is to contribute to theorizing the epistemic role of syntactic language complexity by means of a topic-specific investigation using the mathematical topic of qualitative calculus, i.e., the informal meanings of amount and change. In order to do this, the learning process study presented in this article investigates 18 eleventh graders’ conceptual pathways while dealing with challenging tasks on amount and change. The identification of different syntactic complexities in students’ utterances provides an overview of the variance of possible phrase structures. Further, it shows that successive conceptual conciseness requires either increasing syntactic complexity or conceptual condensation. So increasing elaborateness in the lexical and syntactic dimensions seem to compensate each other.

Information Requirements and the Characteristics of Sales Situations

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Mooradian
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Information Requirements ◽  
Adequate Model ◽  
Information Giving ◽  
Broad Framework ◽  
Sales Agents ◽  
Epistemic Role

Abstract:The focus of this paper is the ethics of information giving in the context of complex sales. It is argued that, while current theories provide a broad framework for describing the responsibilities of sales agents, they lack adequate descriptions of the conditions characteristic of complex sales situations. Without an adequate model of complex sales, ethical theories will fail to provide guidance to sales agents facing issues that arise from features of sales situations not accounted for in the theories. To motivate this claim, I develop a brief case study in the area of information system sales. The problem can be remedied, however, if the theories take into account the features of complex sales. A tentative list of such features is presented and their relevance to the case is discussed. One of the most important to emerge is the epistemic role of the buyer as the judge of competing information.

scholarly journals DYSFUNCTIONAL SEMANTIC ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN LITERARY TEXTS: A CASE STUDY ON HAROLD PINTER’S MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-138
Author(s):  
Yadgar Faeq Saeed ◽  
Areen Ahmed Muhammed
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Social Violence ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
Gricean Maxims ◽  
Class Status ◽  
Modern Era

Language and literature are two inseparable subjects, one of which cannot be fully functional with the absence of the second part. This article shows the dysfunction of semantics in Harold Pinter’s Mountain Language. For many years, scholars and linguists work separately on different cases regarding literary texts or linguistics obstacles. From this paper, a new path will be saved for future references and works to bring both cases together and show their roles on one another. Moreover, literary works pay less attention to grammatical rules and plenty of dysfunctional languages can be examined and seen. In addition, several external factors can be the obstacle of using functional and accurate language use semantically and systematically. Moreover, political or social violence have become major points in many literary topics in the modern era. This study deals with theoretical aspects of society starting from family up to community and government. Additionally, the absence of semantics in the language of this drama is not neglected arbitrarily; whilst, there is a loop of violence. There are some basic theories related to the topic that this paper will examine. It includes the theory of Grice’s maxims (Gricean maxims) and the role of semantics when it comes to politics and power.  Finally, the paper alienates all the curtains and shows the role of power, gender differences, class status, and diversity on language use in many areas.

CHOOSING EXPERT STATISTICAL ADVICE: PRACTICAL COSTS AND EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION

Episteme ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier González De Prado Salas ◽  
David Teira
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Expert Advice ◽  
Institutional Setting ◽  
Advice Taking ◽  
Sociological Explanation ◽  
Epistemic Role

AbstractWe discuss the role of practical costs in the epistemic justification of a novice choosing expert advice, taking as a case study the choice of an expert statistician by a lay politician. First, we refine Goldman's criteria for the assessment of this choice, showing how the costs of not being impartial impinge on the epistemic justification of the different actors involved in the choice. Then, drawing on two case studies, we discuss in which institutional setting the costs of partiality can play an epistemic role. This way we intend to show how the sociological explanation of the choice of experts can incorporate its epistemic justification.

scholarly journals Efficient trade-offs as explanations in functional linguistics: some problems and an alternative proposal

2020 ◽  
pp. 50-78
Author(s):  
Natalia Levshina
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Causal Model ◽  
Online News ◽  
Functional Linguistics ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Alternative Proposal ◽  
Zero Sum ◽  
Theoretical Issues

The notion of efficient trade-offs is frequently used in functional linguistics in order to explain language use and structure. In this paper I argue that this notion is more confusing than enlightening. Not every negative correlation between parameters represents a real trade-off. Moreover, trade-offs are usually reported between pairs of variables, without taking into account the role of other factors. These and other theoretical issues are illustrated in a case study of linguistic cues used in expressing “who did what to whom”: case marking, rigid word order and medial verb position. The data are taken from the Universal Dependencies corpora in 30 languages and annotated corpora of online news from the Leipzig Corpora collection. We find that not all cues are correlated negatively, which questions the assumption of language as a zero-sum game. Moreover, the correlations between pairs of variables change when we incorporate the third variable. Finally, the relationships between the variables are not always bidirectional. The study also presents a causal model, which can serve as a more appropriate alternative to trade-offs.

The role of multiplicity in a cult: A case study

1987 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Worrall ◽  
Ann W. Stockman

The Inherited Past of the Broch: On Antiquarian Discourse and Contemporary Archaeology

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW BAINES
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Contemporary Archaeology ◽  
The North

In reading archaeological texts, we expect to be engaged in a characteristically archaeological discourse, with a specific and recognisable structure and vocabulary. In evaluating the published work of 19th Century antiquarians, we will inevitably look for points of contact between their academic language and our own; success or failure in the identification of such points of contact may prompt us to recognise a nascent archaeology in some writings, while dismissing others as naïve or absurd. With this point in mind, this paper discusses the written and material legacies of three 19th Century antiquarians in the north of Scotland who worked on a particular monument type, the broch. The paper explores the degree to which each has been admitted as an influence on the development of the broch as a type. It then proceeds to compare this established typology with the author's experiences, in the field, of the sites it describes. In doing so, the paper addresses wider issues concerning the role of earlier forms of archaeological discourse in the development of present day archaeological classifications of, and of the problems of reconciling such classifications with our experiences of material culture.

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