scholarly journals Sound–meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (39) ◽  
pp. 10818-10823 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damián E. Blasi ◽  
Søren Wichmann ◽  
Harald Hammarström ◽  
Peter F. Stadler ◽  
Morten H. Christiansen

It is widely assumed that one of the fundamental properties of spoken language is the arbitrary relation between sound and meaning. Some exceptions in the form of nonarbitrary associations have been documented in linguistics, cognitive science, and anthropology, but these studies only involved small subsets of the 6,000+ languages spoken in the world today. By analyzing word lists covering nearly two-thirds of the world’s languages, we demonstrate that a considerable proportion of 100 basic vocabulary items carry strong associations with specific kinds of human speech sounds, occurring persistently across continents and linguistic lineages (linguistic families or isolates). Prominently among these relations, we find property words (“small” andi, “full” andporb) and body part terms (“tongue” andl, “nose” andn). The areal and historical distribution of these associations suggests that they often emerge independently rather than being inherited or borrowed. Our results therefore have important implications for the language sciences, given that nonarbitrary associations have been proposed to play a critical role in the emergence of cross-modal mappings, the acquisition of language, and the evolution of our species’ unique communication system.

Author(s):  
Ekta Y

As IT sector is ruling the world now,confidentiality and security of information has become the most important inseparable aspect in information communication system. Keeping in view the same, a new approach called Visual Cryptography (VC) has been suggested by many researchers but there are some limitations with this scheme and cheating is one of the main problem among them. This paper intends to show the basis of cheating in VC in terms of cheating process, its detection methods and its prevention methods suggested by various researchers along with their merits and demerits. Finally, a good Cheating Immune Visual Cryptography Scheme (CIVCS) has been discussed which states the properties to be adopted by every Visual Cryptography scheme to make it immune to cheating attacks.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Robert Rowe

The history of algorithmic composition using a digital computer has undergone many representations—data structures that encode some aspects of the outside world, or processes and entities within the program itself. Parallel histories in cognitive science and artificial intelligence have (of necessity) confronted their own notions of representations, including the ecological perception view of J.J. Gibson, who claims that mental representations are redundant to the affordances apparent in the world, its objects, and their relations. This review tracks these parallel histories and how the orientations and designs of multimodal interactive systems give rise to their own affordances: the representations and models used expose parameters and controls to a creator that determine how a system can be used and, thus, what it can mean.


Multilingua ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenanne Ferguson

Abstract This article investigates contemporary uses of the Sakha language algys (blessing poems) and reveals the “old” and “new” types of language materiality present in this genre of ritual poetry. Focusing primarily on one example of algys shared online in 2018, I discuss how performing algys has always involved close interconnection between language and the material world and present the changing contexts and forms of algys transmission that highlight both fixity and fluidity in the way speakers conceive of language and materiality. Despite the new mobilities and technologies that build upon the previously established written textual forms of this poetry—and contribute to its continued circulation and transmission—certain elements of traditional algys remains salient for speakers, reinforced by ideologies or ontologies of language that foreground the power of the (spoken) word. This is connected to the production of qualia and the invocation of chronotopes. Thus, while textual forms further enable processes of citationality as they are circulated online; the written words alone do not constitute an algys. Rather, here the importance of embodied, spoken language materiality is at the fore.


2021 ◽  
Vol 03 (01) ◽  
pp. 40-47
Author(s):  
Mukhtyar Nabi ◽  
◽  
Saddam Hussain ◽  
Muhammad Kamran ◽  
◽  
...  

Prison is a place for rehabilitation of offenders in every country of the world. The present study has tried to explore the present-day situation of the prison system of Pakistan and discuss its overcrowding condition in all four provinces. There are total 120 prisons in the country which hold authorized space for not more than 57,712 prisoners, but the number of inmates is 77,275, which is far away from the authorized space. This congested prison system not only creates hurdles in rehabilitation of prisoners but makes them more criminal by mixing of low and high frequency offenders. It also leads to various health and behavioral problems. Rehabilitation is only possible if there is balance in authorized and available prisoners in the prisons. The present article has come up with some viable suggestion for concerned authorities that can better perform their duty in eradication of this problem. The authors discussed the role of parole and probation officers in the elimination of these numbers in prison. The majority of the prisoners in our prisons are under-trail, thus the role of the judiciary has also been explored in balancing the incarceration ratio in prisons. Keywords: Prison System, Overcrowded Prisons, Parole and Probation, Judiciary, Courts, Pakistan


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Heather Joseph

This paper is based upon the 2021 Miles Conrad Award Lecture that was given by Heather Joseph at the second annual NISO Plus conference held virtually from February 22–25, 2021. The lecture provided a brief look back at the emergence of the Open Access (OA) movement in scholarly communication beginning with the E-biomed proposal in 1999 that was shortly followed by the Budapest Declaration released on February 14, 2002, through how far it has come in almost two decades. The author notes that the initial reaction to OA was often just a quick dismissal of it as an idealistic pipe dream and as the idea began to grow in popularity, skepticism changed into hostility. OA was criticized as being too disruptive to the then-existent publishing paradigm. Yet, far from disappearing, the movement towards the open sharing of knowledge steadily advanced. Today conversations about “why” or “whether” to open up the scholarly communication system have evolved into conversations about how best to do it. The author notes that the Budapest Declaration underscored that the end goal of OA is to empower individuals and communities around the world with the ability to share their knowledge as well as to share in accessing the knowledge of others. She warns that members of the global scholarly communication community must look critically at who currently can participate in the production of knowledge, and whose voices are represented in the “global intellectual conversation” that need to be facilitated. Whose voices are still are left out because structural barriers – be they technical, financial, legal, cultural, or linguistic – prevent them from joining?


2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (76) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Stein Larsen

Peter Stein Larsen: “Danish Identity in Modern Poetry”The article examines how Danish identity has been expressed in poetry. Since the 1960s, Danish poetry has had a tradition of a critical focus on national identity. This tradition of ‘interaction poetry’ has a polyphonic enunciation, a style influenced by spoken language and an ironic perspective on Danish identity. The tradition is distinct from the dominant symbolist and modernist tradition, where one can observe a monological enunciation, a high poetic style and an international perspective. Aspecial feature of the tradition of a critical focus on national identity is its ability to express an implied utopia of openness, empathy, equality and solidarity, despite the fact that the poems are ironic about Danish xenophobia, narrowness, pettiness, bureaucracy and lack of engagement in the world. The article investigates a number of poetry collections by Klaus Rifbjerg, Benny Andersen, Marianne Larsen, Henrik Nordbrandt, Maja Lee Langvad and Eva Tind Kristensen.


2017 ◽  
pp. 42-52
Author(s):  
Debasis Poddar

Hindu Kush Himalayan region (hereafter the HKH) - with 3500 odd kilometres stretched in eight countries- is default resource generation hub for about one-fifth population of the world. The ecosystem-growing delicate these days- seems to play a critical role for the survival of flora and fauna along with the maintenance of all its life-sustaining mountain glaciers. Ten major rivers to carry forward hitherto sustainable development of these peoples fall into question now. Further, in the wake of global climate change today, the delicate HKH ecosystem becomes increasingly fragile to unfold manifold consequences and thereby take its toll on the population. And the same might turn apocalyptic in its magnanimity of irreversibledamage. Like time-bomb, thus, climate ticks to get blown off. As it is getting already too delayed for timely resort to safeguards, if still not taken care of in time, lawmakers ought to find the aftermath too late to lament for. Besides being conscious for climate discipline across the world, collective efforts on the part of all regional states together are imperative to minimize the damage. Therefore, each one has put hands together to be saved from the doomsday that appears to stand ahead to accelerate a catastrophicend, in the given speed of global climate change. As the largest Himalayan state and its central positioning at the top of the HKH, Nepal has had potential to play a criticalrole to engage regional climate change regime and thereby spearhead climate diplomacy worldwide to play regional capital of the HKH ecosystem. As regional superpower, India has had potential to usurp leadership avatar to this end. With reasoningof his own, the author pleads for better jurisprudence to attain regional environmental integrity inter se- rather than regional environmental integration alone- to defendthe vulnerable HKH ecosystem since the same constitutes common concern of humankind and much more so for themselves. Hence, to quote from Shakespeare, “To be or not to be, that is the question” is reasonable here. While states are engaged in the spree to cause mutually agreed destruction, global climate change- with deadly aftermath- poses the last and final unifier for them to turn United Nations in rhetoric sense o f the term.


The electromagnetic waves have developed the communication system today. They are around the world completely and our environment remains under the influence of radio waves radiating from mobile phone towers and cellphones. The adverse effects of e-pollution are not subject to some form of surroundings. Radioactive radiation directly affects biomolecules such as DNA and produces genetic toxicity. In addition to neuron damage, character disorder has seen in flying birds and mammals. The radiation can have an impact on the reproduction of animals and mammals and is therefore a major cause of concern in the present.


2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos

Previous theoretical reviews about the development of Psychology in Latin America suggest that Latin American psychology has a promising future. This paper empirically checks whether that status remains justified. In so doing, the frequency of programs/research domains in three salient psychological areas is assessed in Latin America and in two other regions of the world. A chi-square statistic is used to analyse the collected data. Programs/research domains and regions of the world are the independent variables and frequency of programs/research domains per world region is the dependent variable. Results suggest that whereas in Latin America the work on Social/Organizational Psychology is moving within expected parameters, there is a rather strong focus on Clinical/Psychoanalytical Psychology. Results also show that Experimental/Cognitive Psychology is much underestimated. In Asia, however, the focus on all areas of psychology seems to be distributed within expected parameters, whereas Europe outperforms regarding Experimental/Cognitive Psychology research. Potential reasons that contribute to Latin Americas situation are discussed and specific solutions are proposed. It is concluded that the scope of Experimental/Cognitive Psychology in Latin America should be broadened into a Cognitive Science research program.


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-86
Author(s):  
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr.

Most everyone agrees that context is critical to the pragmatic interpretation of speakers’ utterances. But the enduring debate within cognitive science concerns when context has its influence in shaping people’s interpretations of what speakers imply by what they say. Some scholars maintain that context is only referred to after some initial linguistic analysis of an utterance has been performed, with other scholars arguing that context is present at all stages of immediate linguistic processing. Empirical research on this debate is, in my view, hopelessly deadlocked. My goal in this article is to advance a framework for thinking about the context for linguistic performance that conceives of human cognition and language use in terms of dynamical, self-organized processes. A self-organizational view of the context for linguistic performance demands that we acknowledge the multiple, interacting constraints which create, or soft-assemble, any specific moment of pragmatic experience. Pragmatic action and understanding is not producing or recovering a “meaning” but a continuously unfolding temporal process of the person adapting and orienting to the world. I discuss the implications of this view for the study of pragmatic meaning in discourse.


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