Competition as a unifying concept for the study of language

With linguistics suffering from increasing fractionalization, it is necessary not to lose sight of the overall picture. It seems uncontroversial that the study of language consists of the following five components: processing, use, structure, variation, and change. While some of the relationships between these concepts have been investigated, a systematic integration of these components into a coherent framework is conspicuously missing. A modest attempt is made here to outline such a framework which makes the interrelationships of the components transparent. In all of these components, competition is found to play a key role. At its core, competition is a psycholinguistic effect which arises in the task of selecting an intended unit from among a number of elements concurrently activated in the processing network. The audible and visible outcome of the selection process is language use. Language structure is the prerequisite for competition in that it provides the set of competitors. When competition is low, consistent (i.e., invariant) language use emerges. When competition is high, language use is variable, i.e., synchronic variation occurs. When competition changes over time, language change takes place. Thus, it is language processing in general and competition in particular that constrains and binds together many phenomena of language use, structure, variation, and change.

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What is special about L3 processing?

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728913000448 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 18 (2) ◽

pp. 130-144 ◽

Cited By ~ 36

Author(s):

KEES DE BOT ◽

CAROL JAENSCH

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Language Processing ◽

Language Use ◽

Fundamental Question ◽

Third Language ◽

The Core ◽

Dynamic Perspective ◽

Core Issue ◽

The Brain ◽

Over Time

While research on third language (L3) and multilingualism has recently shown remarkable growth, the fundamental question of what makes trilingualism special compared to bilingualism, and indeed monolingualism, continues to be evaded. In this contribution we consider whether there is such a thing as a true monolingual, and if there is a difference between dialects, styles, registers and languages. While linguistic and psycholinguistic studies suggest differences in the processing of a third, compared to the first or second language, neurolinguistic research has shown that generally the same areas of the brain are activated during language use in proficient multilinguals. It is concluded that while from traditional linguistic and psycholinguistic perspectives there are grounds to differentiate monolingual, bilingual and multilingual processing, a more dynamic perspective on language processing in which development over time is the core issue, leads to a questioning of the notion of languages as separate entities in the brain.

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From catching up to industrial leadership: towards an integrated market-technology perspective. An application of semantic patent-to-patent similarity in the wind and EV sector

Industrial and Corporate Change ◽

10.1093/icc/dtaa021 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Daniel S Hain ◽

Roman Jurowetzki ◽

Primoz Konda ◽

Lars Oehler

Keyword(s):

Language Processing ◽

Electric Vehicles ◽

Technological Changes ◽

Catching Up ◽

Industrial Leadership ◽

Catch Up ◽

Processing Techniques ◽

Changes Over Time ◽

Empirical Case Studies ◽

Over Time

Abstract Studies on catching up and industrial leadership have often used market-related variables to evaluate the catch-up trajectories of latecomer countries and firms. In this study, we aim to enhance our understanding of these concepts by presenting an integrated market-technology framework. Using natural language processing techniques allows us to go beyond patent numbers and analyze patent novelty and impact as well as technological changes over time. In empirical case studies on wind energy and electric vehicles in China, Japan, and South Korea, we compare and identify country and sector-specific catch-up trajectories and potential catch-up traps.

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USING GRAPHEME n-GRAMS IN SPELLING CORRECTION AND AUGMENTATIVE TYPING SYSTEMS

New Mathematics and Natural Computation ◽

10.1142/s1793005708000970 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 04 (01) ◽

pp. 87-106

Author(s):

ALKET MEMUSHAJ ◽

TAREK M. SOBH

Keyword(s):

Natural Language Processing ◽

Language Processing ◽

Computational Efficiency ◽

Probabilistic Models ◽

Language Modeling ◽

Language Models ◽

Text Corpora ◽

N Gram ◽

Changes Over Time ◽

Over Time

Probabilistic language models have gained popularity in Natural Language Processing due to their ability to successfully capture language structures and constraints with computational efficiency. Probabilistic language models are flexible and easily adapted to language changes over time as well as to some new languages. Probabilistic language models can be trained and their accuracy strongly related to the availability of large text corpora. In this paper, we investigate the usability of grapheme probabilistic models, specifically grapheme n-grams models in spellchecking as well as augmentative typing systems. Grapheme n-gram models require substantially smaller training corpora and that is one of the main drivers for this thesis in which we build grapheme n-gram language models for the Albanian language. There are presently no available Albanian language corpora to be used for probabilistic language modeling. Our technique attempts to augment spellchecking and typing systems by utilizing grapheme n-gram language models in improving suggestion accuracy in spellchecking and augmentative typing systems. Our technique can be implemented in a standalone tool or incorporated in another tool to offer additional selection/scoring criteria.

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Contemporary linguistics of English language

Univerzitetska misao - casopis za nauku kulturu i umjetnost Novi Pazar ◽

10.5937/univmis2019023f ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 23-30

Author(s):

Fahreta Fijuljanin ◽

Samina Dazdarević ◽

Amela Lukač-Zoranić

Keyword(s):

Comparative Analysis ◽

English Language ◽

Turning Point ◽

Language Change ◽

Common View ◽

The Future ◽

English Speaking ◽

Changes Over Time ◽

The Impact ◽

Over Time

The paper examines the influence of modern linguistics and the consequences of language reflection on both English language and global philology. A comparative analysis of preferences and lacks of traditional and modern linguistics represent a common view of the progress and the needs of the language. The paper aims to highlight several recent studies of modern linguists in the field of English linguistics such as Chomsky, Sapir, Halliday and Bloomfield as the representative of English speaking grammarians. Modern linguistics, as a set of different variations, raises the question of how and why language changes over time. It possibly may represent the basis for research on contemporary linguistics as a turning point for language change in the future, as well as the impact of society on language, change and universals.

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Multilingualism and Ageing

Brill Research Perspectives in Multilingualism and Second Language Acquisition ◽

10.1163/2352877x-12340003 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (4) ◽

pp. 1-98

Author(s):

Kees de Bot ◽

Charlotta Plejert ◽

Hanne Gram Simonsen ◽

Valantis Fyndanis ◽

Pernille Hansen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Life Span ◽

Language Processing ◽

Language Use ◽

Large Range ◽

Change Over Time ◽

Language And Communication ◽

The Media ◽

University Of Oslo ◽

The University ◽

Over Time

Abstract This publication provides an overview of research on a large range of topics relating to language processing and language use from a life-span perspective. It is unique in covering and combining psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic approaches, discussing questions such as: Is it beneficial to speak more than one language when growing old? How are languages processed in multilingual persons, and how does this change over time? What happens to language and communication in multilingual aphasia or dementia? How is multilingual ageing portrayed in the media? It is a joint, cross-disciplinary venture of researchers from the Centre for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan at The University of Oslo and the editors of this publication.

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Language change and convergence in multilingual Malaysian Chinese

Global Chinese ◽

10.1515/glochi-2020-0002 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 49-67

Author(s):

Ralf Vollmann ◽

Tek Wooi Soon

Keyword(s):

Language Use ◽

Language Change ◽

Language Loss ◽

Communicative Practices ◽

Spoken English ◽

The Family ◽

Chinese Dialects ◽

Standard Chinese ◽

Malaysian Chinese ◽

Over Time

AbstractBackgroundIn the multilingual situation of Malaysia, standard languages and spoken vernaculars are interacting in intricate ways whereby various spoken languages share a pool of words from Malay, English and Mandarin. Structurally, all languages converge and influence the spoken varieties of the standard languages.Material and methodThis contribution observes the situation from the viewpoint of Hakka speakers. In an analysis of the communicative practices in an extended Hakka family and their non-Hakka friends, the interactions of the various languages in borrowing and code-switching have been analysed and later discussed with speakers. It is expected that standard languages influence language use over time.AnalysisThe adult generations of the family speak Hakka and effortlessly mix with other languages. Intergenerationally, language change (and possibly language loss) can be observed for Hakka. Mandarin is gaining importance for all speakers. At the same time, loanwords and loan translations from Malaysian, English and Mandarin are frequent. This Malaysian vocabulary is shared by all spoken languages, with only few differences in usage. Standard Chinese is gradually replacing old Hakka words in Hakka.ConclusionsAs can be expected, the spoken languages such as Hakka are quickly losing traditional lexemes and phrases, while Mandarin Chinese as well as English and Malaysian words are used in Hakka; at the same time, spoken Mandarin and spoken English converges structurally with the substratic Chinese dialects.

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Unifying entrenched tokens and schematized types as routinized commonalities of linguistic experience

Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association ◽

10.1515/gcla-2018-0008 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 167-182 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Hans-Jörg Schmid

Keyword(s):

Language Acquisition ◽

Cognitive Process ◽

Language Use ◽

Language Change ◽

Learning Mechanism ◽

Cognitive Mechanism ◽

Language Structure ◽

Input And Output ◽

Linguistic Input ◽

Inherent Component

Abstract Proponents of usage-based models of language acquisition, language structure and language change widely agree that the repetition of specific tokens of words and strings in language use (e.g. give me a break) is conducive to their entrenchment and has a stabilizing and conserving effect, while the repetition of different instantiations of a variable type or pattern (give me a kiss, give me a smile, give me an amen) fosters schematicity and productivity (give me a(n) X). In this paper, I will argue that token-entrenchment and type-schematization are subserved by the same repetition-driven cognitive mechanism. Commonalities observed in linguistic input and output become routinized by repeated activation of patterns of associations. Token-entrenchment and type-schematization do not differ qualitatively but only quantitatively with regard to the variability of what is noticed as being similar. I argue that any form of routinization requires an abstraction over differences between episodes in terms of pronunciation, cotext and context. Therefore, schematization is an inherent component of routinization, but routinization is clearly the more fundamental cognitive process and learning mechanism. I argue that routinized patterns of associations can do the job of constructions in a more flexible, dynamic and parsimonious way and illustrate the potential of this idea with the help of data and insights gleaned from Schonefeld (2015).

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Comparison of two devices for measuring exercise transcutaneous oxygen pressures in patients with claudication

VASA ◽

10.1024/0301-1526/a000454 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 44 (5) ◽

pp. 355-362 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Marie Urban ◽

Alban Fouasson-Chailloux ◽

Isabelle Signolet ◽

Christophe Colas Ribas ◽

Mathieu Feuilloy ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Oxygen Pressure ◽

Optical Sensors ◽

Chemical Sensors ◽

Transcutaneous Oxygen ◽

Starting Values ◽

Two Systems ◽

Transcutaneous Oxygen Pressure ◽

New Sensors ◽

Changes Over Time ◽

Over Time

Abstract. Summary: Background: We aimed at estimating the agreement between the Medicap® (photo-optical) and Radiometer® (electro-chemical) sensors during exercise transcutaneous oxygen pressure (tcpO2) tests. Our hypothesis was that although absolute starting values (tcpO2rest: mean over 2 minutes) might be different, tcpO2-changes over time and the minimal value of the decrease from rest of oxygen pressure (DROPmin) results at exercise shall be concordant between the two systems. Patients and methods: Forty seven patients with arterial claudication (65 + / - 7 years) performed a treadmill test with 5 probes each of the electro-chemical and photo-optical devices simultaneously, one of each system on the chest, on each buttock and on each calf. Results: Seventeen Medicap® probes disconnected during the tests. tcpO2rest and DROPmin values were higher with Medicap® than with Radiometer®, by 13.7 + / - 17.1 mm Hg and 3.4 + / - 11.7 mm Hg, respectively. Despite the differences in absolute starting values, changes over time were similar between the two systems. The concordance between the two systems was approximately 70 % for classification of test results from DROPmin. Conclusions: Photo-optical sensors are promising alternatives to electro-chemical sensors for exercise oximetry, provided that miniaturisation and weight reduction of the new sensors are possible.

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