Use of adjectives in Catalan: A morphological characterization in different genres and modes of production through school-age development

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laia Cutillas ◽  
Liliana Tolchinsky
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Morphological Characterization ◽  
Expository Texts ◽  
School Age ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Written Narratives ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Mode Of Production ◽  
Sixth Form

Adjectives, like nouns and verbs, are one of the three major classes of lexical words. But, unlike nouns and verbs, they emerge late in acquisition. In Catalan, as in many other languages, their use is closely linked to the literate lexicon learned at school-age. Thus, the use of adjectives can be a good indicator of later language development. The goal of this study is twofold: to characterize the use of adjectives from age 9 to adulthood and to examine the effect of discourse genre (expository and narrative) and mode of production (spoken and written) on frequency of use and word-internal morphological structure. The study takes a corpus-based approach and uses the GRERLI-CAT1 corpus, which contains 316 expository and narrative spoken and written texts produced by 79 Spanish/Catalan bilinguals whose home language is Catalan, at four age and schooling levels: primary school (9- to 10-year-olds), secondary school (12- to 13-year-olds), sixth form (16- to 18-year-olds) and university (adults). Results show that the use of adjectives expands through school-age and especially from sixth form onwards, presenting an increasing pattern. An effect of genre and mode of production on the target features was also detected. Expository texts contain significantly more adjectives per text and clause and lower-frequency adjectives than narrative texts. Written texts contain significantly more adjectives, and lower-frequency and longer adjectives, than spoken texts. Age interacts with mode of production in the use and morphological complexity of adjectives. The four text types analysed (spoken expository, written expository, spoken narrative and written narrative) present a complexity cline, from written expository texts to spoken narratives through spoken expository texts and written narratives.

Sharing Expository Texts with Preschool Children in Special Education

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 93-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Breit-Smith ◽  
Jamie Busch ◽  
Ying Guo
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Preschool Children ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Listening Comprehension ◽  
Expository Texts ◽  
Speech Language Pathologists ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Preschool Special Education ◽  
Limited Availability

Although a general limited availability of expository texts currently exists in preschool special education classrooms, expository texts offer speech-language pathologists (SLPs) a rich context for addressing the language goals of preschool children with language impairment on their caseloads. Thus, this article highlights the differences between expository and narrative texts and describes how SLPs might use expository texts for targeting preschool children's goals related to listening comprehension, vocabulary, and syntactic relationships.

Development of Listening Comprehension Tests with Narrative and Expository Texts for Portuguese Students

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Santos ◽  
Fernanda Leopoldina Viana ◽  
Iolanda Ribeiro ◽  
Gerardo Prieto ◽  
Sara Brandão ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Psychometric Properties ◽  
Listening Comprehension ◽  
Fourth Graders ◽  
Expository Texts ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Test Form ◽  
Psychometric Data ◽  
Fourth Grade Students ◽  
Comprehension Tests

AbstractThis investigation aimed to develop and collect psychometric data for two tests assessing listening comprehension of Portuguese students in primary school: the Test of Listening Comprehension of Narrative Texts (TLC-n) and the Test of Listening Comprehension of Expository Texts (TLC-e). Two studies were conducted. The purpose of study 1 was to construct four test forms for each of the two tests to assess first, second, third and fourth grade students of the primary school. The TLC-n was administered to 1042 students, and the TLC-e was administered to 848 students. The purpose of study 2 was to test the psychometric properties of new items for the TLC-n form for fourth graders, given that the results in study 1 indicated a severe lack of difficult items. The participants were 260 fourth graders. The data were analysed using the Rasch model. Thirty items were selected for each test form. The results provided support for the model assumptions: Unidimensionality and local independence of the items. The reliability coefficients were higher than .70 for all test forms. The TLC-n and the TLC-e present good psychometric properties and represent an important contribution to the learning disabilities assessment field.

Shell nouns as register-specific discourse devices

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Chengyu Fang ◽  
Min Dong
Keyword(s):  
Past Research ◽  
Written Discourse ◽  
British English ◽  
Small Core ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Core Set ◽  
Mode Of Production ◽  
Shell Nouns

Abstract This article provides a corpus-based investigation into shell nouns. Shell nouns perform a variety of referential functions and express speaker stance. The investigation was motivated by the fact that past research in this area has been primarily based on written texts. Very little is known about the use of shell nouns in speech. The study used the ICE-GB corpus of contemporary British English and investigated cataphoric shell nouns complemented by appositive that-clauses across fine-grained spoken and written registers. It has revealed that the deployment of shell nouns is governed by the principle of register formality definable in terms of contextual configurations of the Field-Tenor-Mode complex rather than the mode of production. Additionally, the study has uncovered the frequent use of a small core set of shell nouns common across speech and writing. Hence it argues that shell nouns are part and parcel of spoken and written discourse and that they pertain more to grammar than to lexis.

Anaphoric devices in written and spoken narrative discourse

2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurora Bel ◽  
Joan Perera ◽  
Naymé Salas
Keyword(s):  
Age Groups ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Discourse Function ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
Pronominal Anaphora ◽  
Selection Of

In this study, we focus on pronominal anaphora and we investigate the referential properties of null and overt subject pronouns in Catalan, in the semi-spontaneous production of narrative spoken and written texts by three groups of speakers/writers (9–10, 12–13, and 15–16 year olds). We aimed at determining (1) pronoun preferences for a specific type of antecedent; (2) their specialization in a certain discourse function; and (3) whether the pattern is affected by text modality (spoken vs. written texts). We analyzed 30 spoken and 30 written narrative texts, produced by the same 30 subjects, divided into the age groups mentioned above. Results seem fairly consistent across age groups and modalities, showing that null pronouns tend to select antecedents in subject position and are well specialized in maintaining reference, while overt pronouns offer a less clear pattern both in their selection of antecedents and in the discourse function they perform. Our findings partially support those of previous research on other null-subject languages, in particular, the Position of Antecedent Hypothesis (PAH) formulated by Carminati (2002) for Italian.

Synthesis and Morphological Characterization of Gold Nanoparticles (AuNPs) Supported on Anodized Titanium Oxide (TiO2) Nanotubes

2015 ◽  
Vol 819 ◽  
pp. 405-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anisah Shafiqah Habiballah ◽  
Abdul Hadi Mahmud ◽  
Hanani Yazid ◽  
A.M.M. Jani
Keyword(s):  
Gold Nanoparticles ◽  
Titanium Oxide ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Ammonium Fluoride ◽  
Morphological Characterization ◽  
Precipitation Method ◽  
Precise Control ◽  
Edx Analysis ◽  
Metal Metal ◽  
Anodized Titanium

Increasing interest of attachment gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on titanium oxide (TiO2) nanotubes has been devoted to give tremendous properties suitable for catalysis application. Nevertheless, achieving precise control of attachment AuNPs on the TiO2 nanotubes substrate by conventional methods such as thermal evaporation and conservative heating are far from satisfactory. Herein, in this work a new approach has been developed to synthesize controlled and uniformed attachment of AuNPs onto electrochemically-anodized TiO2 nanotubes by deposition-precipitation method. The structural and elemental characterizations of the supported AuNPs are carried out by means of field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) analysis. The FESEM image showed the anodized TiO2 nanotube with good morphological structure is successfully fabricated at a voltage of 20 V and in a mixture electrolyte of ethylene glycol containing 0.5 wt% ammonium fluoride solutions with an average nanotubes diameter of 87 nm. Meanwhile, the attachment of AuNPs on the fabricated TiO2 nanotubes has been effectively achieved for both calcined and uncalcined samples. The EDX analysis has confirmed the deposition of AuNPs over the TiO2 nanotubes. The results showed that we had succeeded in synthesizing the AuNPs supported on the anodized TiO2 nanotubes, which provide superior metal-metal oxide synthetic devices for diverse applications.

scholarly journals Average One Year Change in Lexical Measures of Written Narratives for School Age Students

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 260-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla L. Wood ◽  
Christopher Schatschneider ◽  
Sara Hart
Keyword(s):  
School Age ◽  
Written Narratives ◽  
One Year

Evaluation of Narrative and Expository Text Summaries Using Latent Semantic Analysis

2012 ◽  
pp. 531-544
Author(s):  
René Venegas
Keyword(s):  
Latent Semantic Analysis ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Expository Text ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Expository Texts ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
High Positive Correlation ◽  
Positive Correlation ◽  
Computer Methods ◽  
Automatic Methods

In this chapter I approach three automatic methods for the evaluation of summaries from narrative and expository texts in Spanish. The task consisted of correlating the evaluation made by three raters for 373 summaries with results provided by latent semantic analysis. Scores assigned by latent semantic analysis were obtained by means of the following three methods: 1) Comparison of summaries with the source text, 2) Comparison of summaries with a summary approved by consensus, and 3) Comparison of summaries with three summaries constructed by three language teachers. The most relevant results are a) a high positive correlation between the evaluation made by the raters (r= 0.642); b) a high positive correlation between the computer methods (r= 0.810); and c) a moderate-high positive correlation between the evaluations of raters and the second and third LSA methods (r= 0.585 and 0,604), in summaries from narrative texts. Both methods did not differ significantly in statistical terms from the correlation among raters when the texts evaluated were predominantly narrative. These results allow us to assert that at least two holistic LSA-based methods are useful for assessing reading comprehension of narrative texts written in Spanish.

The Gramulator

2012 ◽  
pp. 312-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip M. McCarthy ◽  
Shinobu Watanabe ◽  
Travis A. Lamkin
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Expository Texts ◽  
Analysis Tool ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Lexical Diversity ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Text Types

Natural language processing tools, such as Coh-Metrix (see Chapter 11, this volume) and LIWC (see Chapter 12, this volume), have been tremendously successful in offering insight into quantifiable differences between text types. Such quantitative assessments have certainly been highly informative in terms of evaluating theoretical linguistic and psychological categories that distinguish text types (e.g., referential overlap, lexical diversity, positive emotion words, and so forth). Although these identifications are extremely important in revealing ability deficiencies, knowledge gaps, comprehension failures, and underlying psychological phenomena, such assessments can be difficult to interpret because they do not explicitly inform readers and researchers as to which specific linguistic features are driving the text type identification (i.e., the words and word clusters of the text). For example, a tool such as Coh-Metrix informs us that expository texts are more cohesive than narrative texts in terms of sentential referential overlap (McNamara, Louwerse, & Graesser, in press; McCarthy, 2010), but it does not tell us which words (or word clusters) are driving that cohesion. That is, we do not learn which actual words tend to be indicative of the text type differences. These actual words may tend to cluster around certain psychological, cultural, or generic differences, and, as a result, researchers and materials designers who might wish to create or modify text, so as to better meet the needs of readers, are left somewhat in the dark as to which specific language to use. What is needed is a textual analysis tool that offers qualitative output (in addition to quantitative output) that researchers and materials designers might use as a guide to the lexical characteristics of the texts under analysis. The Gramulator is such a tool.

scholarly journals Informative intervention programs to reading comprehension: Development and implementation

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-422
Author(s):  
Vera Lúcia Orlandi CUNHA ◽  
Simone Aparecida CAPELLINI
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Intervention Programs ◽  
Superior Performance ◽  
Expository Texts ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
School Students ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Comprehension Development

Abstract The objective of this study was to develop two intervention programs to promote reading comprehension, one for narrative texts and one for expository texts, to be used by 3rd-5th grade elementary school teachers in the classroom. The applicability of the programs was verified. A total of 143 elementary school students in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades participated in this study. The students were evaluated before and after the administration of the intervention programs. There were significant differences in the answers of inferential questions about the macrostructure of the narrative texts in the three groups of students evaluated. A significant difference was also observed in the expository texts for the group of 5th graders, indicating superior performance of the students submitted to the programs. The strategies of the informative programs were more effective in improving students’ reading performance on the narrative texts than on the expository texts. Therefore, the strategies used should be reviewed in future studies.

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