Grammar and Lexicon in Individuals With Autism: A Quantitative Analysis of a Large Italian Corpus

2009 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 373-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arjuna Tuzzi
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Written Production ◽  
Statistical Procedures ◽  
Grammatical Categories ◽  
Distributional Patterns ◽  
Large Corpus

Abstract Statistical and linguistic procedures were implemented to analyze a large corpus of texts written by 37 individuals with autism and 92 facilitators (without disabilities), producing written conversations by means of PCs. Such texts were compared and contrasted to identify the specific traits of the lexis of the group of individuals with autism and assess to what extent it differed from the lexis of the facilitators. The purpose of this research was to identify specific language features using statistical procedures to analyze contingency lexical tables that reported on the frequencies of words and grammatical categories in different subcorpora and among different writers. The results support the existence of lexis and distributional patterns of grammatical categories that are characteristic of the written production of individuals with autism and that are different from those of facilitators.

scholarly journals The generalizability crisis

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Tal Yarkoni
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Statistical Inference ◽  
Random Effects ◽  
False Positive ◽  
Mixed Model ◽  
Linear Mixed Model ◽  
Random Effect ◽  
Statistical Procedures ◽  
Subject Variability ◽  
Replication Crisis

Abstract Most theories and hypotheses in psychology are verbal in nature, yet their evaluation overwhelmingly relies on inferential statistical procedures. The validity of the move from qualitative to quantitative analysis depends on the verbal and statistical expressions of a hypothesis being closely aligned—that is, that the two must refer to roughly the same set of hypothetical observations. Here I argue that many applications of statistical inference in psychology fail to meet this basic condition. Focusing on the most widely used class of model in psychology—the linear mixed model—I explore the consequences of failing to statistically operationalize verbal hypotheses in a way that respects researchers' actual generalization intentions. I demonstrate that whereas the "random effect" formalism is used pervasively in psychology to model inter-subject variability, few researchers accord the same treatment to other variables they clearly intend to generalize over (e.g., stimuli, tasks, or research sites). The under-specification of random effects imposes far stronger constraints on the generalizability of results than most researchers appreciate. Ignoring these constraints can dramatically inflate false positive rates, and often leads researchers to draw sweeping verbal generalizations that lack a meaningful connection to the statistical quantities they are putatively based on. I argue that failure to take the alignment between verbal and statistical expressions seriously lies at the heart of many of psychology's ongoing problems (e.g., the replication crisis), and conclude with a discussion of several potential avenues for improvement.

Linguistic markers of sexism in the Italian media: a case study of ministra and ministro

Corpora ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federica Formato
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Language Reform ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
Job Titles ◽  
Sexist Language ◽  
Gender Specific

This paper examines the way that the Italian media use language to refer to female ministers in the last three governments. While Italian is a gender-specific language (e.g., a root of the job titles can be followed by either feminine or masculine morphemes, singular and plural), it is common to use masculine forms to refer to and address women. Ministro is one of those cases where masculine forms replace feminine ones – a practice which could be construed as sexist, is only rarely challenged in institutions, and to which attention has only recently been paid in academia ( Fusco, 2012 ; and Robustelli, 2012a , 2012b ). The investigation presented here focusses on how grammar is translated in a way that reproduces women's invisibility in a sexist society. A corpus-based quantitative analysis of feminine and masculine forms of ministr– used in three widely read printed Italian newspapers (Corriere della Sera, Il Resto del Carlino and La Stampa) is undertaken. Newspaper articles were collected in the period 2012–14 to cover the Monti technocratic government (three female ministers), and left-winged Letta (seven female ministers) and part of the Renzi (seven female ministers) political governments. This paper contributes to the literature on language reform and sexist language in traditionally male-inhabited physical and metaphysical (stereotypes, prototypes) spaces such as the institutional public sphere.

scholarly journals "Bei Tische halte ich mich unter". Language play in literary texts and using it in teaching German as a foreign language

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Merle Jung
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Foreign Language Teaching ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Language Play ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Written Production ◽  
Language Areas

Language is not only a vehicle for transporting information, emotions or opinions, it is also a source for discoveries and experiments. Using literary texts including language play in foreign language teaching we can reach different goals: it develops the sensibility of the learners to the foreign language they are learning, it encourages them to use their creativity and fantasy in their own oral and written production, it helps them when learning specific language areas, e. g. phonetics, grammar, orthography; and it also brings fun and variety into the lesson. The most important function of using language play is to make the learners think about the language they speak as the material they can also play with, it means, to accustom them to conscious analyses. Literature is full of language play; several lyrical, epic and dramatic texts build a varied assortment where every teacher can find something suitable for his/her lesson. Playing with language arouses interest in the foreign language and it is the best prerequisite for learning it well.

scholarly journals A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF FORESTRY SECTOR CONTRIBUTION FOR THE INCREASE OF MINAS GERAIS MUNICIPALITIES REVENUES

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Browne de Deus Ribeiro ◽  
Crismeire Isbaex ◽  
Sebastião Renato Valverde
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Minas Gerais ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Forest Plantations ◽  
Statistical Procedures ◽  
Forestry Sector ◽  
Minas Gerais State ◽  
Production Value

ABSTRACT The main objective of this study was to analyze the contribution of forestry sector for the increase of revenues of Minas Gerais state municipalities during the period 2008-2013, using appropriate statistical analysis. Forestry is an important economic activity of this state, mainly through reforestation of Eucalyptus and Pinus genres. According to the work’s hypotheses, statistical procedures were performed comparing groups of municipalities with 5% and 10% or more of their area destined to forest plantations. The main results showed that: for 134 municipalities with 5% or more of forestry area, a linear relationship was observed between the Production Value of Silviculture and the collection of Tax on Rural Territorial Property (ITR), with the Gross Added Value of Agriculture in the period 2008-2013. Greater participation of forestry revenues on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of those municipalities was also observed. For 57 municipalities with 10% or more of forestry area, there was an improvement in the Tax and Economic Development Index (IDTE). Therefore, it can be affirmed that silviculture caused positive impacts for taxes collection and revenues related to the productive sector for the municipalities with larger area of forest plantations.

Quantitative analysis of ontogenetic changes of cell-reflecting sculptures in Ostracoda (Crustacea)

1994 ◽  
Vol 68 (5) ◽  
pp. 1067-1073 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toshiaki Irizuki
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Adult Stage ◽  
Epidermal Cells ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Ontogenetic Changes ◽  
Convex Polygons ◽  
Stable Pattern ◽  
Distributional Patterns

The distributional patterns of reticulate sculptures, corresponding to those of the underlying epidermal cells, of two Baffinicythere species (Ostracoda, Crustacea) are discussed from a geometrical point of view to understand whether they are under some rule or not. Reticulation geometry has been quantified by applying the method of Dirichlet domains defined as convex polygons, each being demarcated by bisectors normal to the lines connecting neighboring pairs of points. Studies of the distributional patterns of reticulation during growth reveal that these polygons become closer to Dirichlet domains and are dominated by hexagonal or subcircular fossa outlines toward the adult stage, and ultimately reach an equilibrium and stable pattern at maturity.

Beyond Aristotle and gradience

2007 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 409-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Croft
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Category Member ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
The Other ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Grammatical Categories ◽  
Distributional Patterns ◽  
The One ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Radical Construction

Aarts (2004) argues that the best way to model grammatical categories is a compromise preserving Aristotelian form classes with sharp boundaries on the one hand, and allowing gradience in terms of the number of syntactic properties that a category member possesses on the other. But the assumption of form classes causes serious theoretical and empirical problems. Constructions differ in their distributional patterns, but no a priori principles exist to decide which constructions should be used to define form classes. Grammatical categories must be defined relative to specific constructions; this is the position advocated in Radical Construction Grammar (Croft 2001). Constructionally defined categories may have sharp boundaries, but they do not divide words into form classes. Nevertheless, the most important traditional intuitions for parts of speech (Aarts’ chief examples) are reinterpretable in terms of crosslinguistic universals that constrain distributional variation but do not impose Aristotelian form classes, gradable or not, on the grammars of particular languages.

scholarly journals The Generalizability Crisis

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tal Yarkoni
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Statistical Inference ◽  
Random Effects ◽  
False Positive ◽  
Mixed Model ◽  
Linear Mixed Model ◽  
Random Effect ◽  
Statistical Procedures ◽  
Subject Variability ◽  
Replication Crisis

Most theories and hypotheses in psychology are verbal in nature, yet their evaluation overwhelmingly relies on inferential statistical procedures. The validity of the move from qualitative to quantitative analysis depends on the verbal and statistical expressions of a hypothesis being closely aligned—that is, that the two must refer to roughly the same set of hypothetical observations. Here I argue that many applications of statistical inference in psychology fail to meet this basic condition. Focusing on the most widely used class of model in psychology—the linear mixed model—I explore the consequences of failing to statistically operationalize verbal hypotheses in a way that respects researchers' actual generalization intentions. I demonstrate that whereas the "random effect" formalism is used pervasively in psychology to model inter-subject variability, few researchers accord the same treatment to other variables they clearly intend to generalize over (e.g., stimuli, tasks, or research sites). The under-specification of random effects imposes far stronger constraints on the generalizability of results than most researchers appreciate. Ignoring these constraints can dramatically inflate false positive rates, and often leads researchers to draw sweeping verbal generalizations that lack a meaningful connection to the statistical quantities they are putatively based on. I argue that the failure to problems many of psychology's ongoing problems (e.g., the replication crisis), and conclude with a discussion of several potential avenues for improvement.

Parliamentary impoliteness and the interpreter’s gender

Pragmatics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-484
Author(s):  
Magdalena Bartłomiejczyk
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Filtering Effect ◽  
Large Corpus

Abstract Impoliteness is a common phenomenon across various democratically elected parliaments. However, in multilingual legislative bodies such as the European Parliament speakers have to rely on interpreters to transfer pragmatic meaning, including face-threatening acts and impoliteness. The existing research in the field of Interpreting Studies offers much evidence of the filtering effect that interpreting may have on impoliteness, through facework strategies introduced by interpreters. The main question here is whether female interpreters tend to mitigate grave, intentional impoliteness to a greater degree than male interpreters. My analysis of a large corpus composed of English-Polish interpretations of speeches by Eurosceptic MEPs shows that mitigation of impoliteness by interpreters is a widespread phenomenon. The illocutionary force of original statements is often modified by means of diverse interpreting strategies. However, the quantitative analysis of interpreter facework does not reveal a statistically significant gender-based difference in the distribution of approaches towards impoliteness.

Generative metrics and Old French octosyllabic verse

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rolf Noyer
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Old French ◽  
Gradual Change ◽  
Constituent Structure ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Binary Constituent ◽  
Large Corpus

Both Old French meters and their Modern French descendants are usually thought to lack the internal binary constituent structure of, say, English or German iambic verse. In this article, however, an underlying iambic structure for the Old French octosyllable is established through quantitative analysis of a large corpus of texts written from c. 975 to 1180 (42 distinct works, including over 22,000 lines). Because no texts conform absolutely to the grammar of English iambic verse (Halle & Keyser, 1971; Kiparsky, 1977), certain measures are proposed for the degree to which a sample deviates from the iambic pattern; these values are then compared with the (chance) deviation of normal Old French prose. A significant correlation emerges between these measures and date of composition, author, and genre: early texts are almost perfectly iambic, and late 12th-century texts approach, but do not reach, chance levels. It is concluded that the grammar of meter used by Old French authors underwent a gradual change during the 12th century, a change comparable to more familiar phonological and syntactic changes.

scholarly journals The Interface between the TOEFL ITP and Internationalization and Language Assessment in Brazil

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 213
Author(s):  
Cláudia J. Kawachi-Furlan ◽  
Gabriel B. Amorim ◽  
Kyria Rebeca Finardi
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Language Assessment ◽  
Focused Attention ◽  
Listening Skills ◽  
Mixed Methods Design ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Test Taking ◽  
Level 1 ◽  
In The Beginning

<p><em>The aim of this study is to analyze the results of a pedagogic intervention to aid participants’ performance on the TOEFL ITP test. In order to do that, tutoring sessions on test taking skills and specific language skills were provided to university students from a federal university in the Southeast of Brazil. The pedagogic intervention was carried out over a period of 17 weeks. Participants were also enrolled in a regular course at the university’s Language Center. The TOEFL ITP (Level 1) test was administered in the beginning and at the end of the course to measure and compare their performance. The study used a mixed methods design (Dornyei, 2007) to analyze the effect of instruction on participants’ performance. Overall results of the quantitative analysis suggest that the treatment was effective for there were statistically significant differences in participants’ performance on the test after the pedagogic intervention. The qualitative analysis suggests that participants were aware of their main linguistic difficulties. Based on these results it is suggested that more focused attention in the form of instruction should be dedicated to the development of academic contents and listening skills to TOELF ITP test takers.</em><em></em></p>

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