Children's perception of dialect variation

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 1062-1084 ◽  
Author(s):  
LAURA WAGNER ◽  
CYNTHIA G. CLOPPER ◽  
JOHN K. PATE
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Rich Source ◽  
Social Connections ◽  
Gradient Representation ◽  
Dialect Variation ◽  
Regional Dialect ◽  
Perceptual Skill ◽  
Source Of Information

ABSTRACTA speaker's regional dialect is a rich source of information about that person. Two studies examined five- to six-year-old children's perception of regional dialect: Can they perceive differences among dialects? Have they made meaningful social connections to specific dialects? Experiment 1 asked children to categorize speakers into groups based on their accent; Experiment 2 asked them to match speakers to (un)familiar cultural items. Each child was tested with two of the following: the child's Home dialect, a Regional variant of that dialect, and a Second-Language variant. Results showed that children could successfully categorize only with a Home vs. Second-Language dialect contrast, but could reliably link cultural items with either a Home vs. Second-Language or a Regional vs. Second-Language dialect contrast. These results demonstrate five- to six-year-old children's developing perceptual skill with dialect, and suggest that they have a gradient representation of dialect variation.

Coral-crinoid biocoenosis and resulting trace fossils from the Middle Devonian of the Eifel Synclines (Rhenish Massif, Germany)

2012 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 282-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Bohatý ◽  
William I. Ausich ◽  
Elise Nardin ◽  
Christian Nyhuis ◽  
Stefan Schröder
Keyword(s):  
Middle Devonian ◽  
Biotic Interactions ◽  
Trace Fossils ◽  
Rich Source ◽  
Rhenish Massif ◽  
Rugose Corals ◽  
Source Of Information

Fossil echinoderms are a rich source of information concerning biotic interactions. In this study we analyzed the premortem encrustation of the highly specialized Middle Devonian rugose coralsAspasmophyllum crinophilumand ?“Adradosia” sp. on camerate crinoid stems.Aspasmophylluminfested living crinoid stems by sclerenchymal outgrowth that formed a skeletal ring but ?“Adradosia” sp. encrusted the stems rapidly, without building a ring. These coral-crinoid biocoenoses indicate a settlement advantage for the rugose corals within densely populated communities of the lower Givetian. The corals could be interpreted as large epizoozoans that benefited as secondary tierers reaching relatively high tiering levels. It also suggests the ability for the affected crinoids to repel the coral by overgrowing the corallite with a local increased stereomic growth. Because the crinoid axial canals are not penetrated, the corals cannot be considered as predators or parasites of crinoids. Therefore, the described biocoenosis is interpreted as commensalism. The speciesA. crinophilumis redescribed, and a neotype is defined, because of the loss of the initial types. Two types of ichnofossils can be attributed to the premortem encrustation of both corals. They are described asOstiocavichnusn. ichnogen. and are attributed to the stereomic response of the infested hosts. These swellings are characterized as either elliptical (Ostiocavichnus ovalisn. ichnogen. n. ichnosp. due to the assumed reaction ofA. crinophilum) or subcircular concavities (O. rotundatusn. ichnogen. n. ichnosp. due to the reaction of ?“Adradosiasp.”).

Hands off the metadata!: Comparing the use of explicit and background metadata in crowdsourced dialectology

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (s1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamsin Blaxter ◽  
David Britain
Keyword(s):  
Language Variation ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Smartphone Application ◽  
Background Information ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
The Social ◽  
Dialect Variation ◽  
Regional Dialect

Abstract In this article we assess the extent to which we can collect plausible data about regional dialect variation using crowdsourcing techniques – the BBC Future Survey – without explicitly gathering any user metadata, but relying instead on background information collected by Google Analytics. In order to do this, we compare this approach with another crowdsourced survey, operated from a smartphone application, which examines the same site – the British Isles – but which explicitly asks users to submit detailed social background information – the English Dialects App (EDA) (Leemann et al. 2018). The EDA has the disadvantage that there is a considerable user drop-off between completing the dialect survey and completing the social metadata questionnaire. The BBC Future Survey, however, only collects information on where users are physically located when they complete the survey – not where they are from or even where they live. Results show that the BBC Future Survey produces a plausible snapshot of regional dialect variability that can complement other more sophisticated (expensive, time-consuming) approaches to investigating language variation and change. We suggest the approach constitutes a digital-era rapid anonymous survey along the lines of Labov (1972), serving similar aims, with similar success, but on a much much larger scale.

Sanskritization in Pāli

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan G. Levman
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Early Language ◽  
Phonological Constraints ◽  
Dialect Variation ◽  
Major Factors ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
Over Time

Abstract This article continues the discussion on the nature of the early language of Buddhism and the language that the Buddha spoke, arguing that the received Pāli transmission evolved out of an earlier Middle Indic idiom, which is identified as a koine. Evidence for this koine can be found by examining correspondence sets within Pāli and its various varieties and by examining parallel, cognate correspondence sets between Pāli and other Prakrits which have survived. This article compares 30 correspondence sets transmitted in the Dhammapada recensions: the Gāndhārī Prakrit verses, the partially Sanskritized Pāli and Patna Dhammapada Prakrit verses, and the fully Sanskritized verses of the Udānavarga. By comparing cognate words, it demonstrates the existence of an underlying inter-language which in many cases can be shown to be the source of the phonological differences in the transmission. The paper includes a discussion on the two major factors of dialect change, evolution with variation over time, and the diffusionary, synchronic influence of dialect variation; it concludes that both are important, with dialect variation – and the phonological constraints of indigenous speakers who adopted MI as a second language – providing the pathways on which the natural evolutionary process was channeled.

scholarly journals Compiling and analyzing a tagged learner corpus: a corpus-based study of adjective uses

2020 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 115-136
Author(s):  
Cristina Castillo Rodríguez ◽  
José María Díaz Lage ◽  
Beatriz Rubio Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Rich Source ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
Whole Process ◽  
Five Phases ◽  
Source Of Information

A learner corpus (LC) is widely known as a rich source of information regarding the use of expressions and the errors made by students in their productions. In fact, we, as teachers, can profit from the compilation of their tasks so as to analyze in detail their way of writing. However, the mere compilation of texts does not guarantee a successful exploitation, as more steps than saving texts must be involved in the whole process. Therefore, it seems essential to follow a protocolized methodology of compilation. In this paper we propose five phases for compiling a LC containing texts from the spontaneous written productions from undergraduate and postgraduate students. The outcomes thrown with the LC exploitation will reveal the errors in students’ productions regarding the use of plural, comparative and superlative in adjectives and also other fails detected in the tagging phase, most of which are due to students’ misuses.

John James Audubon's overlooked “Great Work”: his Ornithological biography

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-174
Author(s):  
Peter B. Logan ◽  
Martin A. Sidor
Keyword(s):  
Rich Source ◽  
Field Observations ◽  
Great Work ◽  
The Us ◽  
Complete Sets ◽  
Source Of Information

John James Audubon's five-volume Ornithological biography (1831–1839), published as the textual companion to The birds of America (1827–1838), remains a rich source of information about North America's avifauna. Issued separately from the prints for both practical and economic reasons, this classic but often forgotten work contained individual biographical accounts of each species shown in the illustrations, based upon the naturalist's decades of field observations. The demands associated with the publication and marketing of the prints compelled Audubon to wait until the end of 1830 before he began to write it, just as the first volume of 100 plates was being completed. Assisted throughout the endeavour by Scottish ornithologist William MacGillivray, who edited Audubon's manuscripts and provided scientific descriptions of each species, the naturalist published the first volume in 1831 in both Edinburgh and Philadelphia, the latter to secure the US copyright. A second Philadelphia edition appeared in 1832. Succeeding volumes were published in Edinburgh in 1834, 1835, 1838, and 1839, following the completion of each of the remaining three volumes of plates. An American edition of the second volume was published in 1835, but almost three-quarters of the copies were destroyed in a Boston fire. With sales of the last three volumes lagging, significantly fewer than 750 complete sets were ever sold.

scholarly journals Seismology of the ZZ Ceti Stars

1998 ◽  
Vol 185 ◽  
pp. 253-260
Author(s):  
J. Christopher Clemens
Keyword(s):  
Power Spectrum ◽  
Structural Properties ◽  
White Dwarf ◽  
Rich Source ◽  
Dwarf Stars ◽  
White Dwarf Stars ◽  
Complex Power ◽  
Source Of Information

The pulsations of white dwarf stars are potentially a rich source of information about white dwarf structural properties. Extracting and applying this information to improve our knowledge of white dwarf interiors requires measuring individual eigenperiods in a complex power spectrum, and identifying the character of the eigenmodes they represent. This review will summarize observational progress in these areas for the ZZ Ceti pulsators.

LEARNERS’ PROCESSING, UPTAKE, AND RETENTION OF CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ON WRITING

2010 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neomy Storch ◽  
Gillian Wigglesworth
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Corrective Feedback ◽  
Rich Source ◽  
Affective Factors ◽  
Indirect Feedback ◽  
Lexical Errors ◽  
Direct Feedback

The literature on corrective feedback (CF) that second language writers receive in response to their grammatical and lexical errors is plagued by controversies and conflicting findings about the merits of feedback. Although more recent studies suggest that CF is valuable (e.g., Bitchener, 2008; Sheen, 2007), it is still not clear whether direct or indirect feedback is the most effective, or why. This study explored the efficacy of two different forms of CF. The investigation focused on the nature of the learners’ engagement with the feedback received to gain a better understanding of why some feedback is taken up and retained and some is not. The study was composed of three sessions. In session 1, learners worked in pairs to compose a text based on a graphic prompt. Feedback was provided either in the form of reformulations (direct feedback) or editing symbols (indirect feedback). In session 2 (day 5), the learners reviewed the feedback they received and rewrote their text. All pair talk was audio-recorded. In session 3 (day 28), each of the learners composed a text individually using the same prompt as in session 1. The texts produced by the pairs after feedback were analyzed for evidence of uptake of the feedback given and texts produced individually in session 3 for evidence of retention. The learners’ transcribed pair talk proved a very rich source of data that showed not only how learners processed the feedback received but also their attitudes toward the feedback and their beliefs about language conventions and use. Closer analysis of four case study pairs suggests that uptake and retention may be affected by a host of linguistic and affective factors, including the type of errors the learners make in their writing and, more importantly, learners’ attitudes, beliefs, and goals. The findings suggest that, although often ignored in research on CF, these affective factors play an important role in uptake and retention of feedback.

Evaluating dialect in discourse: Teachers' and teenagers' responses to young English speakers in Wales

1999 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER GARRETT ◽  
NIKOLAS COUPLAND ◽  
ANGIE WILLIAMS
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Multidimensional Scaling ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Additive Effects ◽  
School Students ◽  
Dialect Variation ◽  
Regional Dialect ◽  
English Dialect

School students (15–16 years) in six regions of Wales were recorded telling stories in their local English dialects. Some of these narratives were used as samples representing the main English dialect regions in Wales. Comparable groups of students (n = 169) and a group of teachers (n = 47) rated the audio-recorded speakers on a number of scales of affiliation, status, and Welshness. Statistical analysis of their ratings, employing cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling, made it possible to detect some of the competing or additive effects of dialect and narrative features. Judgments of “Welshness” of the speaker/narratives were grounded in the regional dialect properties; but other judgments, such as the likability of the speakers, tended to draw on features of both dialect and narrative. In addition, comparison of students and teachers revealed differences in their evaluations of particular dialect communities and the characteristics of the narratives. The findings illustrate the importance of approaching the analysis of dialect variation within the broader context of speech and discourse performance.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document