Our words matter: acceptability, grammaticality, and ethics of research on singular 'they'-type pronouns

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Marie Ackerman
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Experimental Work ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Singular Form ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Ethics Of Research ◽  
Formal Properties

Until now, there has been little experimental work investigating the processing and formal properties of the singular they suite of pronouns. As scientific and popular attention to singular they increases, it will be critical for research to acknowledge theoretical and ethical issues regarding discussion of this phenomenon. This commentary uses the recent paper by Doherty & Conklin (2017) as a starting point to discuss issues surrounding work on the various forms of singular they. It concludes that there is sufficient theoretical and empirical evidence to claim they has a grammatically singular form (at least in colloquial English). It also recommends care be taken in academic discussions of the grammaticality and acceptability of terms which are associated with marginalised communities.

The Aftermath of Suicide: A Review of Empirical Evidence

1990 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan van der Wal
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Causes Of Death ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Prolonged Grief ◽  
Unnatural Death ◽  
Survivors Of Suicide ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Grief Process ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Theoretical Considerations

The empirical studies on mourning after suicide were evaluated systematically with the aid of a descriptive model of grief. The starting point in the formulation of this model is the assumption that the bereaved are active in their processing of the loss. The current stages and component theories are rejected on the grounds of empirical contra-evidence and theoretical considerations. Instead, a framework of tasks of bereavement is presented in which the essential tasks confronting survivors in their adaption to the loss are formulated: detachment of the deceased, preserving a satisfactory self-image, and keeping in contact with people who can be of support during the grief process. An examination is made of what is known about the situation of survivors of suicide in this respect. Grief after suicide appears to differ on a number of qualitative aspects from grief after other causes of death. These differences probably do not, however, lead to an atypical mourning process. Generally speaking, the grief process seems to show the same course and main features as those occurring after other types of death, especially after sudden unnatural death. It can be concluded from the literature reviewed that there is no empirical evidence to support the popular notion that survivors of suicide show more pathological reactions, a more complicated and prolonged grief process, than other survivor groups.

Through the prototypes of through: A corpus-based cognitive analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-70
Author(s):  
Gaëtanelle Gilquin ◽  
Andrew McMichael
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Cognitive Analysis ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Historical Origin ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
L1 Acquisition

Abstract This paper empirically tests a number of criteria proposed in the literature to identify the prototype of a linguistic category in order to see how they compare with each other - and what this can tell us about the concept of prototypicality. The item under investigation is through, and the starting point is an intuition-based definition of prototypical through. The different criteria are frequency of use, ease of elicitation, historical origin, patterns in L1 acquisition and patterns in L2 use. All instances of through retrieved for testing each of these criteria are classified according to a taxonomy couched in Construction Grammar terms. The findings confirm the special status of the intuition-based prototype of through (the [X moves through Y] construction) according to some of the criteria, but also reveal divergent results, in particular a central use of the instrumental prepositional phrase with through. Conclusions are drawn about the theoretical concept of prototypicality and its possible multi-faceted nature, and more generally about the place of empirical evidence in Cognitive Linguistics.

scholarly journals The socialisation of scientific and technological research

2009 ◽  
Vol 08 (03) ◽  
pp. C01
Author(s):  
Yuri Castelfranchi ◽  
Nico Pitrelli
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Development Economic ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
Research Production ◽  
Science Society ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Social Interests

In the last decades, production of science and technology as well as science-society relationships started changing rapidly. Research is asked to be more effective, fast, accountable, trans-disciplinary, result-oriented, policy-driven and able to generate benefits for people and firms in the short and middle run. While a strong intensification of science-society relationships is occurring, an increasing number of actors and stakeholders are involved in research production. At the same time, pervasiveness of technology is rendering users an active part in technological development; economic and social interests on science and technology are growing on a global scale; new democratic and ethical issues emerge. Despite the European institutions’ efforts, all those trends and phenomena are occurring in an extremely fragmented way. In this scenario, a fairly balanced and consistent co-evolution between science and society can no longer be taken for granted. This is just the starting point of the following comment section that, through the  Luciano d’Andrea, Sally Wyatt, Erik Aarden, Jos Lejten and Peter Sekloča’s writings, aims to analyse the different aspects and questions around the socialisation of science and technology’s matter.

scholarly journals Responsible leadership in management education: A design-based research study

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Saskia Raatz ◽  
Dieter Euler
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Management Education ◽  
Educational Practice ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Structured Learning ◽  
Responsible Leadership ◽  
Mba Programs ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Executive Mba

In recent years, the quality of management education in general, and particularly of MBA and Executive MBA programs, has been called into question. There are serious doubts about universities’ ability to give students the competencies they need to deal with complex problems in modern society. One part of the discussion focuses on ethical issues and the process through which students develop values and attitudes. In line with the economic crisis, there has been increasing interest in the development of learners’ attitudes to responsibility. We report the results of a study that starts with an ambitious and yet ill-structured learning goal in a demanding educational practice area: How can pedagogical interventions in management education be designed to promote learners' attitudes to responsible leadership? As a starting point, there are neither consensual definitions of responsible leadership nor substantial theories available to design promising interventions. De-sign-based research (DBR) provides a structured process to deal with research problems, starting with innovative but imprecisely defined objectives and unknown ways to reach them. We introduce the DBR design and describe the research process and results from a project conducted at St.Gallen University’s Executive MBA program. In close collaboration with practitioners, interventions evolved through multiple cycles of development, testing and refinement with the pursuit of theory-building and practical innovation.

scholarly journals A method of constructing syllable level Tibetan text classification corpus

2021 ◽  
Vol 336 ◽  
pp. 06013
Author(s):  
Jizhaxi Dao ◽  
Zhijie Cai ◽  
Rangzhuoma Cai ◽  
Maocuo San ◽  
Mabao Ban
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Text Classification ◽  
Real World ◽  
Processing Technique ◽  
Construction Method ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
Corpus Construction ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Real World Applications ◽  
The Future

Corpus serves as an indispensable ingredient for statistical NLP research and real-world applications, therefore corpus construction method has a direct impact on various downstream tasks. This paper proposes a method to construct Tibetan text classification corpus based on a syllable-level processing technique which we refer as TC_TCCNL. Empirical evidence indicates that the algorithm is able to produce a promising performance, which may lay a starting point for research on Tibetan text classification in the future.

History Undone: Towards a Deleuzo-Guattarian Philosophy of History

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-119
Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Work ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
First Line ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Antonio Negri ◽  
The Way

For those familiar with the work of Deleuze, and Deleuze and Guattari, it might at first seem unwise to pursue a Deleuze and Guattarian philosophy of history. After all, is it not Deleuze who, in an interview with Antonio Negri, argues that ‘What history grasps in an event is the way it’s actualized in particular circumstances; the event's becoming is beyond the scope of history'? (Deleuze 1995 : 170). And more damningly, Deleuze adds, ‘History isn’t experimental, it's just the set of more or less negative preconditions that make it possible to experiment with something beyond history' (Deleuze 1995 : 170). History, in short, is a starting point for experimental work, but it is precisely history ‘that one leaves behind in order to “become,” that is, to create something new’ (1995: 171). Similarly in A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari argue that ‘History is made by those who oppose history (not by those who insert themselves into it, or even reshape it)’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1987 : 295). In the very first line of his book, Lampert recognizes the possible conclusion these citations might lead one to, namely, ‘Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy of becoming seems at times opposed to the very idea of historical succession' (1); and yet, as Lampert adeptly demonstrates, it would be a mistake to conclude that opposing history to ‘create something new’, ‘something beyond history’, necessarily entails being hostile to history, to the ‘idea of historical succession’, and thus to a philosophy of history.

Ethical Theories and Teaching Engineering Ethics

2015 ◽  
pp. 111-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Pritchard ◽  
Elaine E. Englehardt
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Engineering Ethics ◽  
Engineering Practice ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Ethical Decisions ◽  
Theory To Practice ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Comprehensive Picture

As an area of academic study, engineering ethics focuses primarily on practical ethical issues. A primary aim of the study of practical ethics is to help students make good ethical decisions in whatever practical endeavors they may undertake, including in their chosen careers. The authors argue that reflection on the sorts of ethical problems that arise in engineering practice should be the starting point, with ethical theory coming into view primarily in this context. This is in contrast to a more “top-down” approach that tries to “apply” theory to practice only after laying out a spectrum of philosophically grounded theories, each of which attempts to give us a comprehensive picture of ethics, as such.

Research Ethics in Criminology

2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 60-66
Author(s):  
Gerry Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Medical Research ◽  
Research Ethics ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Medical Model ◽  
Codes Of Ethics ◽  
Criminological Research ◽  
Current Thinking ◽  
Ethics Of Research

This paper provides a brief but critical review of current thinking and debate about research ethics in criminology; it falls into two parts. The first part of the paper describes the sorts of ethical issues that tend to be flagged up in ‘textbook’ accounts of ethics in criminological research; some recent efforts to devise codes of ethics for researchers in criminology; and developments in what might be termed the ‘ethical policing’ of social research. The second part briefly sketches some deeper issues to do with the ethics of research with ‘deviant subjects’. It suggests, in particular, that the ethical issues faced by criminological researchers cannot be ‘read off’ from a medical model of research. This, however, is not due simply to the greater use of qualitative methods of research in criminology. Rather, it is due to the distinctive political and ethical terrain occupied by criminology, which is significantly different to that occupied by medical research.

scholarly journals A.2. The book-bound scholar

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Mary Beagon
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Practical Investigations ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Cultural Elite ◽  
Starting Point

This paper takes as its starting point Geoffrey Lloyd's comment that the sources for Pliny's Natural History are 'overwhelmingly literary'. While the encyclopaedic nature of his project might seem to make this inevitable, it is suggested that there are deeper‐seated reasons for Pliny's approach to be found in the attitudes of Rome's cultural élite in the late Republic and early Empire. For this élite, literary culture reflected the socio‐political dynamics of their society, while practical investigations of nature, on the other hand, may for the most part have been associated with the negation of these values. The contrast should not be over‐emphasised: texts on practical subjects could use and exploit empirical evidence and one or two individual enthusiasts may be tentatively posited. However, the breadth and depth of the literary tradition gave the text an authority denied to the particularities of personal experience.

scholarly journals Ethics in Telehealth: Comparison between Guidelines and Practice-based Experience -the Case for Learning Health Systems

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (01) ◽  
pp. 044-050
Author(s):  
Craig E. Kuziemsky ◽  
Inga Hunter ◽  
Shashi B. Gogia ◽  
Sriram lyenger ◽  
Gumindu Kulatunga ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Medical Association ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Models Of Care ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Example Variability ◽  
Ethics Guidelines

Summary Objectives: To understand ethical issues within the tele-health domain, specifically how well established macro level telehealth guidelines map with micro level practitioner perspectives. Methods: We developed four overarching issues to use as a starting point for developing an ethical framework for telehealth. We then reviewed telemedicine ethics guidelines elaborated by the American Medical Association (AMA), the World Medical Association (WMA), and the telehealth component of the Health Professions council of South Africa (HPCSA). We then compared these guidelines with practitioner perspectives to identify the similarities and differences between them. Finally, we generated suggestions to bridge the gap between ethics guidelines and the micro level use of telehealth. Results: Clear differences emerged between the ethics guidelines and the practitioner perspectives. The main reason for the differences were the different contexts where telehealth was used, for example, variability in international practice and variations in the complexity of patient-provider interactions. Overall, published guidelines largely focus on macro level issues related to technology and maintaining data security in patient-provider interactions while practitioner concern is focused on applying the guidelines to specific micro level contexts. Conclusions: Ethics guidelines on telehealth have a macro level focus in contrast to the micro level needs of practitioners. Work is needed to close this gap. We recommend that both telehealth practitioners and ethics guideline developers better understand healthcare systems and adopt a learning health system approach that draws upon different contexts of clinical practice, innovative models of care delivery, emergent data and evidence-based outcomes. This would help develop a clearer set of priorities and guidelines for the ethical conduct of telehealth.

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