scholarly journals The Complex Adaptive System Principles model for bilingualism: Language interactions within and across bilingual minds

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 1223-1248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luna Filipović ◽  
John A Hawkins

Aims and objectives/purpose/research question: We propose a model that captures general patterns in bilingual language processing, based on empirical evidence elicited in a variety of experimental studies. We begin by considering what linguistic outputs are logically possible when bilingual speakers communicate based on the typological features of two languages in the bilingual mind. Our aim is to explain why some outputs are more frequent or more likely than others in bilingual language use. Design/methodology/approach: Our empirically derived multi-factor model combines insights from various empirical studies of different bilingual populations and it includes a variety of methodologies and approaches, such as lexical categorisation, lexical priming, syntactic priming, event verbalisation and memory, historical language change, grammaticality judgments and observational reports. Data and analysis: We critically discuss both lexical and syntactic processing data, as well as data that reflect bilingual type differences and different communicative situations (i.e. who the bilingual speakers are talking to and for what purpose). Crucially, we explain when the relevant factors collaborate and when they compete. Originality: There are three main reasons why this paper can be deemed original: 1) it offers a unified model for understanding bilingual language processing that is not focused on a single factor or a single linguistic level, as has most often been the case in the past; 2) it brings together the study of bilingualism from both psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives and in a unifying fashion, which is rare in the literature; and 3) it creates a platform for testing numerous predictions that are not dependent on any one theory. Significance/implications: This new model opens up new avenues for research into bilingual language processing for all types of bilingual speakers and in different communicative situations. It captures and explains the variety of outputs in bilingual communication and enables us to make predictions about communicative outcomes.

Glottotheory ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Csaba Földes

AbstractThis paper deals with constellations in which, as consequences of linguistic interculturality, elements of two or more languages encounter each other and result in something partially or completely new, an – occasionally temporary – “third quality”, namely hybridity. The paper contributes to the meta-discourse and theory formation by questioning the concept, term and content of “linguistic hybridity”. It also submits a proposal for a typology of linguistic-communicative hybridity that consists of the following prototypical main groups, each with several subtypes: (1) language-cultural, (2) semiotic, (3) medial, (4) communicative, (5) systematic, (6) paraverbal and (7) nonverbal hybridity. At last, the paper examines hybridity as an explanatory variable for language change. In conclusion, hybridity is generally a place of cultural production, with special regard to communication and language it is potentially considered as an incubator of linguistic innovation. Hybridity can be seen as the engine and as the result of language change, or language development. It represents an essential factor by which language functions and develops as a complex adaptive system. Hybridity operates as a continuous cycle. By generating innovation, it triggers language change, which in turn, leads to further and new hybridizations. The processuality of hybridity creates diversity, while at the same time it can cause the vanishing of diversity.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ye-Qing Zhao

A novel supernetworks framework of knowledge system based on complex networks is proposed for presenting the multidimensional, multilevel, dynamic complexity characteristics and initiative, adaptability, and purposefulness of knowledge mainbody in the university. This model differs from the existing knowledge diffusion method. In order to make good use of abundant information of the mainbody and improve the performance of knowledge diffusion, agent-based model and supernetworks method are adopted to exploit the complex correlation among the knowledge mainbody, knowledge carrier, and knowledge element. Firstly, the agent-based supernetworks model of knowledge diffusion was established by use of complex adaptive system theory and supernetworks analysis method. Secondly, the multilevel structure definition of supernetworks and knowledge networks of mainbody, element, and carrier in the knowledge system were described in detail. Thirdly, for verifying the validity of the model, a local search operator was designed, which can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge diffusion. Experimental studies based on synthetic datasets show that the proposed method can exhibit good performance, especially providing theoretical and practical guidance for establishing harmonious relationship between students and teachers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (16) ◽  
pp. 7784-7792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas R. Magliocca ◽  
Kendra McSweeney ◽  
Steven E. Sesnie ◽  
Elizabeth Tellman ◽  
Jennifer A. Devine ◽  
...  

Counterdrug interdiction efforts designed to seize or disrupt cocaine shipments between South American source zones and US markets remain a core US “supply side” drug policy and national security strategy. However, despite a long history of US-led interdiction efforts in the Western Hemisphere, cocaine movements to the United States through Central America, or “narco-trafficking,” continue to rise. Here, we developed a spatially explicit agent-based model (ABM), called “NarcoLogic,” of narco-trafficker operational decision making in response to interdiction forces to investigate the root causes of interdiction ineffectiveness across space and time. The central premise tested was that spatial proliferation and resiliency of narco-trafficking are not a consequence of ineffective interdiction, but rather part and natural consequence of interdiction itself. Model development relied on multiple theoretical perspectives, empirical studies, media reports, and the authors’ own years of field research in the region. Parameterization and validation used the best available, authoritative data source for illicit cocaine flows. Despite inherently biased, unreliable, and/or incomplete data of a clandestine phenomenon, the model compellingly reproduced the “cat-and-mouse” dynamic between narco-traffickers and interdiction forces others have qualitatively described. The model produced qualitatively accurate and quantitatively realistic spatial and temporal patterns of cocaine trafficking in response to interdiction events. The NarcoLogic model offers a much-needed, evidence-based tool for the robust assessment of different drug policy scenarios, and their likely impact on trafficker behavior and the many collateral damages associated with the militarized war on drugs.


1979 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olav A. Rees

Two experimental studies with bilingual speakers examined the influence of (I) semantic organization across language, (2) input language change and (3) output language change on speech encoding during a sentence completion task. The first study used fluent Welsh-English bilinguals while the second used fluent French-English bilinguals; all subjects were at school in the U.K. A model proposed how subjects with different degree of overlap in bilingual semantic organization achieved functional separation of the two languages. Predictions derived from this were tested and were substantially confirmed for both groups of bilinguals. It was concluded that subjects have different degrees of overlap in semantic organization of their two languages and that this influences speech encoding where input or output language changes are present.


2012 ◽  
pp. 82-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Foley

Mathematical methods are only one moment in a layered process of theory generation in political economy, which starts from Schumpeterian vision, progresses to the identification of relevant abstractions, the development of mathematical and quantitative models, and the confrontation of theories with empirical data through statistical methods. But today the relevant abstract problems of political economy are modified to fit available mathematical tools. The role of empirical research in disciplining theoretical speculation, on which the scientific traditions integrity rests, was undermined by specific limitations of nascent econometric methods, and usurped by ex cathedra methodological fiats of theorists. These developmentssystematically favored certain ideological predispositions of economicsas a discipline. There is abundant room for New Thinking in political economy starting from the vision of the capitalist economy as a complex, adaptive system far from equilibrium, including the development of the theory of statistical fluctuations for economic interactions, redirection of macroeconomics and financial economics from path prediction toward an understanding of the qualitative properties of the system, introduction of constructive and computable methods into economic modeling, and the critical reconstruction of econometric statistical methods.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 359
Author(s):  
Katharina Hogrefe ◽  
Georg Goldenberg ◽  
Ralf Glindemann ◽  
Madleen Klonowski ◽  
Wolfram Ziegler

Assessment of semantic processing capacities often relies on verbal tasks which are, however, sensitive to impairments at several language processing levels. Especially for persons with aphasia there is a strong need for a tool that measures semantic processing skills independent of verbal abilities. Furthermore, in order to assess a patient’s potential for using alternative means of communication in cases of severe aphasia, semantic processing should be assessed in different nonverbal conditions. The Nonverbal Semantics Test (NVST) is a tool that captures semantic processing capacities through three tasks—Semantic Sorting, Drawing, and Pantomime. The main aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship between the NVST and measures of standard neurolinguistic assessment. Fifty-one persons with aphasia caused by left hemisphere brain damage were administered the NVST as well as the Aachen Aphasia Test (AAT). A principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted across all AAT and NVST subtests. The analysis resulted in a two-factor model that captured 69% of the variance of the original data, with all linguistic tasks loading high on one factor and the NVST subtests loading high on the other. These findings suggest that nonverbal tasks assessing semantic processing capacities should be administered alongside standard neurolinguistic aphasia tests.


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