Machine vs humans in a cursive script reading experiment without linguistic knowledge

Author(s):  
M. Parizeau ◽  
R. Plamondon
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mesian Tilmatine ◽  
Ferdy Hubers ◽  
Florian Hintz

Written language comprehension requires readers to integrate incoming information with stored mental knowledge to construct meaning. Literally plausible idiomatic expressions can activate both figurative and literal interpretations, which convey different meanings. Previous research has shown that contexts biasing the figurative or literal interpretation of an idiom can facilitate its processing. Moreover, there is evidence that processing of idiomatic expressions is subject to individual differences in linguistic knowledge and cognitive-linguistic skills. It is therefore conceivable that individuals vary in the extent to which they experience context-induced facilitation in processing idiomatic expressions. To explore the interplay between reader-related variables and contextual facilitation, we conducted a self-paced reading experiment. We recruited participants who had recently completed a battery of 33 behavioural tests measuring individual differences in linguistic knowledge, general cognitive skills and linguistic processing skills. In the present experiment, a subset of these participants read idiomatic expressions that were either presented in isolation or preceded by a figuratively or literally biasing context. We conducted analyses on the reading times of idiom-final nouns and the word thereafter (spill-over region) across the three conditions, including participants’ scores from the individual differences battery. Our results showed no main effect of the preceding context, but substantial variation in contextual facilitation between readers. We observed main effects of participants’ word reading ability and non-verbal intelligence on reading times as well as an interaction between condition and linguistic knowledge. We encourage interested researchers to exploit the present dataset for follow-up studies on individual differences in idiom processing.


1998 ◽  
Vol 37 (04/05) ◽  
pp. 327-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Buekens ◽  
G. De Moor ◽  
A. Waagmeester ◽  
W. Ceusters

AbstractNatural language understanding systems have to exploit various kinds of knowledge in order to represent the meaning behind texts. Getting this knowledge in place is often such a huge enterprise that it is tempting to look for systems that can discover such knowledge automatically. We describe how the distinction between conceptual and linguistic semantics may assist in reaching this objective, provided that distinguishing between them is not done too rigorously. We present several examples to support this view and argue that in a multilingual environment, linguistic ontologies should be designed as interfaces between domain conceptualizations and linguistic knowledge bases.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-125
Author(s):  
Gabriela Petrová ◽  
Nina Kozárová

Abstract The majority of people who have experienced institutionalized education have found it extremely laborious, slow and a necessarily repetitive process. The authors of this paper focus on and present possibilities for making the teaching of a foreign language more effective through mind mapping: the implementation of neuro-linguistic knowledge and mind maps into the learning process.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-282
Author(s):  
Maria-Miruna Ciocoi-Pop

AbstractIn an ever-increasing competitive academic setting, university students are striving for proficiency in their skills of foreign languages. This paper aims to highlight the significance of reading comprehension for students of English as a second language. Reading comprehension is a cognitive process, in other words, reading a text means processing and decoding it. Reading proficiency is linked to numerous aspects, such as age, cognitive processes, abilities, knowledge of the foreign language, etc. It goes without saying that the experience of reading a text, be it literary or non-literary, is more enjoyable without the need to constantly look up unknown words. This brief study also tries to show whether there is a direct connection between finding contentment in reading and comprehending the texts itself. Since reading is a key-skill verified in all major language exams, it is crucial for the ESL class, and not only, to include reading comprehension processes. Like any other skill, reading comprehension can be trained, as long as it is perceived as a procedure which requires the student’s commitment. Reading comprehension is a mechanism of phrase and concept identification, as well as of decoding meanings. Thus, this paper tries to emphasize the implications of reading comprehension and of teaching reading comprehension methods in the overall linguistic knowledge of ESL learners.


2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
H. H. Hardy

Biblical Hebrew lqr't is situated at the intersection of grammatical categories as a content item and a function word. The analysis of any given token is confounded by this diversity and its variously encoded denotations: the infinitive construct “to meet” and the polysemous prepositions, the directional TOWARD and the adversative AGAINST. The usage in Exodus 14:27 (wmsrym nsym lqr'tw) prompts a number of different analyses. Interpretations include: hoi de aigyptioi ephygon hypo to hydor (LXX); wmsry' -'rqyn lqwblh (Peshitta); fugientibusque Ægyptiis occurrerunt aquæ (Vulgate); “the Egyptians fled at its approach” (NJPS); “the Egyptians fled before it” (NRSV); and “the Egyptians were fleeing toward it” (NIV). This study examines lqr't by comparing a range of grammatical methods. These approaches centre evolutionary growth (philology), syntagmatic and paradigmatic features (structuralism), functional usage (eclectic linguistics), and cross-linguistic development (grammaticalisation) in order to explore questions of the origin, development, and usage of lqr't. The combined approaches help to situate and construct an archaeology of linguistic knowledge and a genealogy of philological change of language and text.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 150-169
Author(s):  
Svetlana N. Perevolochanskaya

The article considers the current state of the Russian language. Information technologies in the twenty first century present diverse forms of linguistic knowledge and modalities of knowledge quantisation in a linguistic sign. The Russian language develops from a standard, direct expression of thoughts to a nonstandard, psychologically complex, associative deep statement of thoughts. In the early nineteenth century, during the democratisation of the Russian language, a national genius, Alexander Pushkin, emerged. Thanks to him, the unique informational, cultural, and artistic evolution of the language took place. Nowadays, while democratisation and globalisation, processes which resemble the language evolution 200 years ago, are occurring. These processes suggest some patterns: overcoming stylistic disparity, changes in linguistic sign boundaries and semantic extension.


2020 ◽  
pp. 129-148
Author(s):  
Halyna Маtsyuk

The article is devoted to the formation of a linguistic interpretation of the interaction of language and culture of the Polish-Ukrainian border territories. The material for the analysis includes nomic systems of Ukrainian and Polish languages, which are considered as a cultural product of interpersonal and interethnic communication and an element of the language system, as well as invariant scientific theory created in the works of Polish onomastics (according to key theoretical concepts, tradition of analysis, and continuity in linguistic knowledge). The analysis performed in the article allows us to single out the linguistic indicators of the interaction of language and culture typical for the subject field of sociolinguistics. These are connections and concepts: language-territory, language-social strata, language-gender, language-ethnicity, social functions of the Polish language, and non-standardized spelling systems. Linguistic indicators reveal the peculiar mechanisms of the border in the historical memory and collective consciousness, marking the role of languages in these areas as a factor of space and cultural marker and bringing us closer to understanding the social relations of native speakers in the fifteenth-nineteenth centuries.


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