Compiling a cognition-based thematic monolingual lexicon

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esra’ Moustafa Abdelzaher

Abstract This study falls within the scope of cognitive lexicography which uses cognitive linguistic theories in lexicographic practice. The main objective of the study is to create a cognition-based monolingual thematic lexicon. The lexicon tests the validity of using cognitive linguistics, which uses language to reveal the human perception of a concept, in defining controversial multidisciplinary concepts. To that end, violence is selected as a case study and FrameNet is recruited as a cognitive linguistic resource. Cambridge Smart Thesaurus and WordNet are used as secondary resources to FrameNet. English TenTen corpus is employed to authenticate the findings before placing them in the lexicon. A twelve-frame lexicon is the result of the study. The constructed lexicon linguistically includes more than 250 violence-expressing word senses, defined and placed within their violence-associated frames. Some frames are cited from FrameNet without modification, while others are conceptually and linguistically modified. More important, some violence-specific frames are newly-reported. Evidently, studying how physical violence is linguistically expressed displays how the concept is structured in the human cognition. Thus, an empirical cognition-based definition of violence is suggested. This meets the challenge of the multiple sociological, psychological, political and criminological definitions. Moreover, a comprehensive definition of violence is recommended to include both its associated frames and expressing words.

2021 ◽  
pp. arabic cover-english cover
Author(s):  
لعبيدي بو عبد الله ◽  
شيماء عبد الله عبد الغفور

تُعَدُّ ظاهرةُ الاشتراكِ الدلاليّ ظاهرة مركزية في جميع اللغاتِ الإنسانيّةِ، فهي تستمدُ كينونتها من الهيكل المفاهيمي للإنسان، ومن تفاعل إدراكه مع العالم الخارجي. وقد جاءَتْ هذه الورقة لتقارب ظــاهرة الاشتراك الدلاليّ إدراكيًّا في المعجم العربي -وفق منهج وصفي تحليلي-، متخذةً من كلمة (الرأس) أنموذجًا. وتهدفُ هذه الدراسة للإجابة عن التساؤلات الآتية: ما البنية الإدراكية الكامنة وراء حدوث ظاهرة الاشتراك الدلاليّ في ألفاظ أجزاء الجسد عامة وكلمة (رَأْس) خاصةً؟ وما الحقول الدلاليّة التي امتد إليها واتساعاتها الاستعارية والكنائية؟ كما تعمل الدراسة على الكشف عن البنية الإدراكية التي تجمع المعاني المتعددة للفظ (الرأس) بالإضافة إلى الكشف عن شبكة العلاقات الدلاليّة بين المعاني المتعددة التي يضمها. وقد خَلُصَتْ هذه الورقة البحثية إلى كون التوسعاتِ الدلاليّةِ، والاستعمالاتِ الاستعاريّةِ، والكنائيّةِ لكلمة (رَأْس) تتصلُ بنسقنا التصوّري، وبالتفاعل الدائم بين تجاربنا اليوميّة مع رؤوسنا والعالم الخارجي. الكلمات المفتاحية: (الاشتراك الدلاليّ، اللسانيات الإدراكية، تاريخ اللسانيات الإدراكية، الجسد، رأس) Abstract Polysemy is a central phenomenon in all languages. It shows the interaction between human cognition and human environment. This paper aims to answer the following questions: what is the language mechanisms that is used among Arabs and makes sense of body part terms extend to a new semantic domain? And What are the semantic domains that the word ‘head’ extended to? To achieve the objectives this paper, the researchers adopted the cognitive approach. As well as the descriptive and analytical approaches using the word ‘head’ as a case study and traced its meaning as it developed through metaphor and metonymy. Also, it crossed over from one semantic field to another. It will show that demonstrate of ‘head’ and its semantic extensions derive directly from conceptual patterns that were created as a result of experiences and interaction between our heads, and the outside world. Key words: (polysemy, cognitive linguistics, the history of cognitive linguistics, body, head).


2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 573-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tore Nesset

AbstractOn the basis of a case study of the so-called jer shift in Slavic, I argue that the Cognitive Commitment is essential for an adequate analysis of language change. While the “social turn” and the “quantitative turn” open up important perspectives and provide new opportunities for cognitive historical linguistics, the Cognitive Commitment remains essential because it facilitates elegant and insightful analyses and paves the way for more general hypotheses about language change. The jer shift is a prosodic change that originated in Late Common Slavic and spread to Old East Slavic in the twelfth century. This sound change involved the lax vowels /ĭ, ŭ/ (often referred to as jers or yers), which either disappeared or merged with /e, o/ depending on the prosodic environment. Contrary to traditional practice, I argue that the jer shift should be analyzed in terms of trochaic feet, i. e., rhythmic groups of two syllables, where the leftmost syllable is prominent. This account is psychologically realistic, as dictated by the Cognitive Commitment, since rhythmic grouping is a fundamental property of human cognition (Nathan 2015. Phonology. In Ewa Dąbrowska & Dagmar Divjak (eds.), Handbook of cognitive linguistics, 253–273. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter Mouton and Ding et al. 2016. Cortical tracking of hierarchical linguistic structures in connected speech. Nature Neuroscience 19. 158–164). While the Cognitive Commitment is essential for historical linguistics, one important limitation deserves mention. Historical changes such as the jer shift can be represented as “sound laws”, i. e., statements that summarize changes that span over many generations. Such statements are not about processes in the minds of individual speakers or speech communities at any point in time. They are therefore not directly relevant for the Cognitive Commitment, but are nevertheless among the most valuable tools historical linguists have at their disposal.


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Povinelli ◽  
Gabrielle C. Glorioso ◽  
Shannon L. Kuznar ◽  
Mateja Pavlic

Abstract Hoerl and McCormack demonstrate that although animals possess a sophisticated temporal updating system, there is no evidence that they also possess a temporal reasoning system. This important case study is directly related to the broader claim that although animals are manifestly capable of first-order (perceptually-based) relational reasoning, they lack the capacity for higher-order, role-based relational reasoning. We argue this distinction applies to all domains of cognition.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Saida Parvin

Women’s empowerment has been at the centre of research focus for many decades. Extant literature examined the process, outcome and various challenges. Some claimed substantial success, while others contradicted with evidence of failure. But the success remains a matter of debate due to lack of empirical evidence of actual empowerment of women around the world. The current study aimed to address this gap by taking a case study method. The study critically evaluates 20 cases carefully sampled to include representatives from the entire country of Bangladesh. The study demonstrates popular beliefs about microfinance often misguide even the borrowers and they start living in a fabricated feeling of empowerment, facing real challenges to achieve true empowerment in their lives. The impact of this finding is twofold; firstly there is a theoretical contribution, where the definition of women’s empowerment is proposed to be revisited considering findings from these cases. And lastly, the policy makers at governmental and non-governmental organisations, and multinational donor agencies need to revise their assessment tools for funding.


Author(s):  
Michael C. Medlock

This chapter begins with a discussion of the philosophy and then definition of the RITE method. It then delves into the benefits of this method and provides practical notes on running RITE tests effectively. The chapter concludes with an overview of the original case study behind the 2002 article documenting this method.


Author(s):  
Emron Esplin

This essay explores Edgar Allan Poe’s extraordinary relationships with various literary traditions across the globe, posits that Poe is the most influential US writer on the global literary scene, and argues that Poe’s current global reputation relies at least as much on the radiance of the work of Poe’s literary advocates—many of whom are literary stars in their own right—as it does on the brilliance of Poe’s original works. The article briefly examines Poe’s most famous French advocates (Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Valéry); glosses the work of his advocates throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas; and offers a concise case study of Poe’s influence on and advocacy from three twentieth-century writers from the Río de la Plata region of South America (Quiroga, Borges, and Cortázar). The essay concludes by reading the relationships between Poe and his advocates through the ancient definition of astral or stellar influence.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4186
Author(s):  
Abdulhakeem Raji ◽  
Abeer Hassan

This paper adopted a case study approach to investigate the sustainability practices of a Scottish university in order to understand if sustainability forms part of its central policy agenda. As such, the paper focuses on the levels of awareness and disclosure of their sustainable practices, measuring the impacts and effectiveness of those initiatives. This paper introduces signaling theory to explore the idea that appropriate communication via integrated thinking can close the gap between the organization and its stakeholders. We believe that the provision of this relevant information will lead to better communication between the organization and its stakeholders, supporting a signaling theory interpretation. Therefore, we are suggesting that integrated thinking is an internal process that organizations can follow to increase the level of disclosure as a communication tool with stakeholders. From the literature reviewed, four themes were identified (definition of university sustainability, sustainability awareness, disclosure framework within universities, and level of accountability). The research adopted a pragmatic view and conducted individual interviews with participants belonging to three stakeholder groups (members of the university’s senior management, the governing council, and the student union executive). Although this study focused on just one Scottish university, it should still provide some insight for the better understanding of the underpinning issues surrounding the sustainability accountability practices of Scottish universities in general. The research findings indicated that the university prioritized only two sustainability dimensions—economic and environmental—and that the university still perceived sustainability as a voluntary exercise. Additionally, it is evident that the university had no framework in place for measuring its sustainability delivery—and therefore had no established medium of communicating these activities to its stakeholders. Moreover, research findings showed that the social and educational context of sustainability was lacking at the university. The university has done little or nothing to educate its stakeholders on sustainability.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hoffmann

AbstractCreativity is an important evolutionary adaptation that allows humans to think original thoughts, to find solutions to problems that have never been encountered before and to fundamentally change the way we live. One particular domain of human cognition that has received considerable attention is linguistic creativity. The present paper discusses how the leading cognitive linguistic theory, Construction Grammar, can provide an explanatory account of creativity that goes beyond the issue of linguistic productivity. At the same time, it also outlines how Construction Grammar can benefit from insights from Conceptual Blending.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 713-722
Author(s):  
Vincent Boswijk ◽  
Matt Coler

AbstractA commonly used concept in linguistics is salience. Oftentimes it is used without definition, and the meaning of the concept is repeatedly assumed to be self-explanatory. The definitions that are provided may vary greatly from one operationalization of salience to the next. In order to find out whether it is possible to postulate an overarching working definition of linguistic salience that subsumes usage across linguistic subdomains, we review these different operationalizations of linguistic salience. This article focuses on salience in sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, second-language acquisition (SLA), and semantics. In this article, we give an overview of how these fields operationalize salience. Finally, we discuss correlations and contradictions between the different operationalizations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xu Zhang ◽  
Hoang Nguyen ◽  
Jeffrey T. Paci ◽  
Subramanian K. R. S. Sankaranarayanan ◽  
Jose L. Mendoza-Cortes ◽  
...  

AbstractThis investigation presents a generally applicable framework for parameterizing interatomic potentials to accurately capture large deformation pathways. It incorporates a multi-objective genetic algorithm, training and screening property sets, and correlation and principal component analyses. The framework enables iterative definition of properties in the training and screening sets, guided by correlation relationships between properties, aiming to achieve optimal parametrizations for properties of interest. Specifically, the performance of increasingly complex potentials, Buckingham, Stillinger-Weber, Tersoff, and modified reactive empirical bond-order potentials are compared. Using MoSe2 as a case study, we demonstrate good reproducibility of training/screening properties and superior transferability. For MoSe2, the best performance is achieved using the Tersoff potential, which is ascribed to its apparent higher flexibility embedded in its functional form. These results should facilitate the selection and parametrization of interatomic potentials for exploring mechanical and phononic properties of a large library of two-dimensional and bulk materials.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document