scholarly journals A cognitive account of subjectivity put to the test: using an insertion task to investigate Mandarin result connectives

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongling Xiao ◽  
Roeland W. N. M. van Hout ◽  
Ted J. M. Sanders ◽  
Wilbert P. M. S. Spooren
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Comprehensive Model ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Causal Relations ◽  
Test Items ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Causal Coherence ◽  
Epistemic Dimension

Abstract This article aims to further test the cognitive claims of the so-called subjectivity account of causal events and their linguistic markers, causal connectives. We took Mandarin Chinese, a language that is typologically completely different from the usual western languages, as a case to provide evidence for this subjectivity account. Complementary to the commonly used corpora analyses, we employed crowdsourcing to tap native speakers’ intuitions about causal coherence, focusing on four result connectives kějiàn ‘therefore’, suǒyǐ ‘so’, yīncǐ ‘so/for this reason’ and yúshì ‘thereupon/as a result’. The analysis shows systematic differences regarding the use of connectives in relations that differ in terms of subjectivity, demonstrating that native speakers make use of subjectivity to encode and decode different types of causal relations in discourse. Moreover, our study evidences that a comprehensive model of subjectivity should include the epistemic dimension of certainty about the subjectivity scale that might be indicated by other linguistic elements. In-depth analyses of the test items revealed that the presence/absence of modality words in the result segments are related to different preferential patterns for the connectives. There is a trade-off between the epistemic dimension of certainty and the expression of subjectivity in the four connectives involved.

Challenges in the Empirical Study of Global Governance Legitimacy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Political Communities

This commentary discusses three challenges for the promising and ambitious research agenda outlined in the volume. First, it interrogates the volume’s attempts to differentiate political communities of legitimation, which may vary widely in composition, power, and relevance across institutions and geographies, with important implications not only for who matters, but also for what gets legitimated, and with what consequences. Second, it examines avenues to overcome possible trade-offs from gains in empirical tractability achieved through the volume’s focus on actor beliefs and strategies. One such trade-off is less attention to evolving norms and cultural factors that may underpin actors’ expectations about what legitimacy requires. Third, it addresses the challenge of theory building that can link legitimacy sources, (de)legitimation practices, audiences, and consequences of legitimacy across different types of institutions.

scholarly journals Directive Speech Acts in English and Spanish Filmspeak

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-125
Author(s):  
Carlos de Pablos-Ortega
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Valuable Contribution ◽  
Spanish Film ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Directive Speech Acts ◽  
Film Scripts ◽  
Directive Speech ◽  
Local Grammar

AbstractThe main aim of the study is to ascertain contrastively, in English and Spanish, how directive speech acts are represented in film discourse. For the purpose of the investigation, the directive speech acts of 24 films, 12 in English and 12 in Spanish, were extracted and analysed. A classification taxonomy, inspired by previous research, was created in order to categorize the different types of directive speech acts and determine their level of (in)directness. The results show that indirectness is more widely represented in the English than in the Spanish film scripts, thus confirming the assertion that being indirect is a distinctive feature of English native speakers (Grundy, 2008). This research makes a valuable contribution to the exploration of speech acts in filmspeak and informs the existing local grammar descriptions of the linguistic patterns of directive speech acts.

scholarly journals Do Spanish causal connectives vary in subjectivity? What crowdsourcing data reveal about native speakers’ preferences

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-237
Author(s):  
Andrea Santana ◽  
Wilbert Spooren ◽  
Dorien Nieuwenhuijsen ◽  
Ted J.M. Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Similar Pattern ◽  
Reliable Method ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Systematic Variation ◽  
Causal Relations ◽  
Methods Of Analysis ◽  
Significant Difference

Abstract Language users have preferences for the connectives they choose to express causal relations. These choices may depend on the subjectivity involved in the relation. Dutch connectives illustrate this situation clearly: want (‘since/for’) is preferred typically for expressing subjective relations and omdat (‘because’) for objective ones. While various corpus-based studies have revealed a similar pattern in other languages, little attention has been paid to Spanish from this perspective. Recent corpus-based studies analyzed the connectives porque (‘because’), ya que (‘since’) and puesto que (‘given that’) using two different methods of analysis. Surprisingly, the findings did not coincide with the previous literature on Spanish connectives, and the semantic profile of such connectives in terms of subjectivity remained unclear. The current study again aims to investigate whether these connectives show systematic variation in terms of subjectivity, using crowdsourcing experimentation. Results show that Spanish native speakers prefer puesto que over porque to express subjective relations. However, no statistically significant difference was observed between porque and ya que. This study offers a better understanding of Spanish connectives in terms of subjectivity. Furthermore, it contributes to the assessment of the use of crowdsourcing as a useful and reliable method to elucidate the meaning and use of connectives.

iCALL corpus: Mandarin Chinese spoken by non-native speakers of European descent

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy F. Chen ◽  
Rong Tong ◽  
Darren Wee ◽  
Peixuan Lee ◽  
Bin Ma ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
European Descent

Construction of online practice tests to check the acquisition of idiomatic expressions with colours

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanya Ivanova ◽  
◽  
Gergana Petkova
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Test Construction ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Test Items ◽  
Practice Tests ◽  
Idiomatic Expressions ◽  
Long Term Retention ◽  
Knowledge Of Learners ◽  
Selection Of

Idioms are metaphorical expressions that cannot be translated literally. They are widely used in English because they make everyday speech more interesting and entertaining for native speakers. It is assumed that there are about twenty-five thousand idiomatic expressions in English and one of the most common thematic areas for idioms is colour. Idiomatic expressions are a fun way to enhance the vocabulary and cultural knowledge of learners of English. However, mastering these expressions cause difficulties for students not only because their meaning is not deductible from the meanings of the words comprising it, but also due to the different meaning of colours in the cultures around the world. For instance, purple is usually connected with aristocracy, affluence, and piousness across the globe but in Thailand and Brazil it is the colour of bereavement. In this article we have described an approach to check the acquisition of idiomatic expressions and facilitate their long-term retention by using online practice tests. These tests are designed by the teacher and taken by students on their personal computers or mobile phones at their own convenience. Furthermore, specifically developed criteria for test construction are listed together with typical test questions based on them. Examples of test items are presented to illustrate the process of test creation. Finally, an appendix of a selection of the most widely used idiomatic expressions with colours is compiled.

scholarly journals Design and Implementation on Auto Test Set of an Airborne Radar

2013 ◽  
Vol 756-759 ◽  
pp. 489-492
Author(s):  
Fu Lu Jin ◽  
Yun Peng Li ◽  
Hong Rui Wang
Keyword(s):  
Software Design ◽  
Resource Sharing ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Airborne Radar ◽  
Automatic Test ◽  
Test Set ◽  
Test Items ◽  
Different Types ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Test Process

To automatic test the function and performance of an airborne radar, changeable test adapter is adopted to implement the hardware and software design of the automatic test set of the antenna, transceiver and indicator of the radar based on AT89C52. Problems such as t the different types of interfaces, the various kinds of signals and the test of microwave signal are solved successfully and the objectives of resource sharing and automatic test are realized. The test software is designed by modular structure, and with the help of automatic test set hardware, the required test items of the radar system are experimented and the test process control succeeded. Experiment results show that the automatic test set performs steadily and the results meet the requirements of the airborne radar. The set has the advantages of intelligent, manageable and reducing artificial errors. It provides effective guarantees for radars maintenance, fault diagnosis and fault detection, and has a wide application prospect with low cost.

scholarly journals Influence of misalignments on the performance of externally occulted solar coronagraphs

2018 ◽  
Vol 612 ◽  
pp. A82 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. V. Shestov ◽  
A. N. Zhukov
Keyword(s):  
European Space Agency ◽  
Numerical Approach ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
Optical Elements ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Minimal Height ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Quantitative Influence

Context. The ASPIICS instrument is a novel externally occulted coronagraph that will be launched on board the PROBA-3 mission of the European Space Agency. The external occulter will be placed on one satellite ~150 m ahead of the second satellite that will carry an optical instrument. During 6 h out of 19.38 h of orbit, the satellites will fly in a precise (accuracy around a few millimeters) formation, constituting a giant externally occulted coronagraph. The large distance between the external occulter and the primary objective will allow observations of the white-light solar corona starting from extremely low heights ~ 1.1R⊙. Aims. We intend to analyze influence of shifts of the satellites and misalignments of optical elements on the ASPIICS performance in terms of diffracted light. Based on the quantitative influence of misalignments on diffracted light, we provide a recipe for choosing the size of the internal occulter (IO) to achieve a trade-off between the minimal height of observations and sustainability to possible misalignments. Methods. We considered different types of misalignments and analyzed their influence from optical and computational points of view. We implemented a numerical model of the diffracted light and its propagation through the optical system and computed intensities of diffracted light throughout the instrument. Our numerical approach is based on a model from the literature that considered the axisymmetrical case. Here we extend the model to include nonsymmetrical cases and possible misalignments. Results. The numerical computations fully confirm the main properties of the diffracted light that we obtained from semi-analytical consideration. We obtain that relative influences of various misalignments are significantly different. We show that the internal occulter with RIO = 1.694 mm = 1.1R⊙ is large enough to compensate possible misalignments expected to occur in PROBA-3/ASPIICS. Besides that we show that apodizing the edge of the internal occulter leads to additional suppression of the diffracted light. Conclusions. We conclude that the most important misalignment is the tilt of the telescope with respect to the line connecting the center of the external occulter and the entrance aperture. Special care should be taken to co-align the external occulter and the coronagraph, which means co-aligning the diffraction fringe from the external occulter and the internal occulter. We suggest that the best orientation strategy is to point the coronagraph to the center of the external occulter.

scholarly journals The use of discourse markers but and so by native English speakers and Chinese speakers of English

Pragmatics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Binmei Liu
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Oral Proficiency ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Oral Discourse ◽  
Chinese Speakers ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

Abstract Previous studies have found that but and so occur frequently in native and non-native English speakers’ speech and that they are easy to acquire by non-native English speakers. The current study compared ideational and pragmatic functions of but and so by native and non-native speakers of English. Data for the study were gathered using individual sociolinguistic interviews with five native English speakers and ten L1 Chinese speakers. The results suggest that even though the Chinese speakers of English acquired the ideational functions of but and so as well as the native English speakers, they underused the pragmatic functions of them. The findings indicate that there is still a gap between native and non-native English speakers in communicative competence in the use of but and so. The present study also suggests that speakers’ L1 (Mandarin Chinese) and overall oral proficiency in oral discourse affect their use of but and so.

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