scholarly journals A crosslinguistic study of the acquisition of time words in English- and German-speaking children

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Williams ◽  
Anna Bánki ◽  
Gabriela Markova ◽  
Stefanie Hoehl ◽  
Katharine A Tillman

Unlike English, German contains single words for “the day after tomorrow” (übermorgen) and “the day before yesterday” (vorgestern). How might these cross-linguistic differences influence children’s acquisition of time words? Prior work shows that English-speaking preschoolers learn the deictic status of time words (e.g., yesterday was in the past) long before learning their precise temporal locations (e.g., yesterday was exactly one day ago). Here we ask whether the set of time words influences children’s understanding of proximal (yesterday/tomorrow) and distal (day before yesterday/day after tomorrow) terms. English- and German-speaking 3- to 7-year-olds (N = 253) marked the temporal location of each term relative to today on a calendar template. While children in both language groups demonstrated equal knowledge of deictic status, German speakers were more likely to have precise meanings for proximal and distal items, suggesting that having more alternative time words available may help narrow the scope of children’s meanings.

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 299-320
Author(s):  
Peter Barrer

Over the past two decades, Prague has cemented itself as a tourist hotspot in the popular imagination. But what of Bratislava, long considered a “poor cousin” to Prague? What images of Bratislava have foreign publics been presented with since the fall of communism in East-Central Europe and the establishment of the Slovak Republic? Building on previous research which has examined visitors’ historical perceptions of Bratislava primarily from a German-speaking perspective, this paper seeks to map the development of Bratislava’s image in media texts from English-speaking countries since 1989 by focusing on two central motifs: Bratislava as a post-communist space and Bratislava as a locus of touristic pleasures (“Partyslava”). The images presented herein will be evaluated and contrasted with local descriptions of Bratislava, thus offering a cross-cultural perspective which will contribute to the wider discussion of popular perceptions of post-communist urban spaces in East-Central Europe.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-313
Author(s):  
Sarah Dolscheid ◽  
Franziska Schleussinger ◽  
Martina Penke

In English, a lexical distinction is drawn between the indefinite determiner “a” and the numeral “one”. English-speaking children also interpret the two terms differently, with an exact, upper bounded interpretation of the numeral “one”, but no upper bounded interpretation of the indefinite determiner “a”. Unlike English, however, German does not draw a distinction between the indefinite determiner and the numeral one but instead uses the same term “ein/e” to express both functions. To find out whether this cross-linguistic difference affects children’s upper bounded interpretation of “ein/e”, we tested German-speaking children and adults in a truth-value-judgment task and compared their performance to English-speaking children. Our results revealed that German-speaking children differed from both English children and German adults. Whereas the majority of German adults interpreted “ein/e” in an upper bounded way (i.e. as exactly one, not two), the majority of German-speaking children favored a non-upper bounded interpretation (thus accepting two as a valid response to “ein/e”). German-speaking children’s proportion of upper bounded responses to “ein/e” was also significantly lower than English children’s upper bounded responses to “one”. However, German children’s rate of upper bounded responses increased once a number-biasing context was provided. These findings suggest that German-speaking children can interpret “ein/e” in an upper bounded way but that they need additional cues in order to do so. When no such cues are present, German-speaking children differ from both German-speaking adults and from their English-speaking peers, demonstrating that cross-linguistic differences can affect the way speakers interpret numbers.


2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Becker ◽  
Stefan Höft ◽  
Marcus Holzenkamp ◽  
Frank M. Spinath

As previous meta-analyses have focused almost solely on English-speaking regions, this study presents the first systematic meta-analytical examination of the predictive validity of assessment centers (ACs) conducted in German-speaking regions. It summarizes 24 validity coefficients taken from 19 studies (N = 3,556), yielding a mean corrected validity of ρ = .396 (80% credibility interval .235 ≤ ρ ≤ .558). ACs with different purposes and different kinds of criterion measures were analyzed separately. Furthermore, target group (internal vs. external candidates), average age of the assessees, inclusion of intelligence measures, number of instruments used, AC duration, as well as time elapsed between AC and criterion assessment were found to moderate the validity.


1996 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 31-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksander Bursche

The concept of Central Europe is understood here to cover the geographical centre of the European continent (i.e. the territory between the Elbe, Bug and Neman rivers, that is, eastern Germany, Poland, Bohemia, Slovakia and Lithuania), formerly treated in much of the English-speaking world as ‘Eastern Europe’. In the past six years, however, this area has been moving closer to the West. This paper shall concentrate on the region north of the Carpathian mountains, particularly the Vistula river-basin and Scandinavia (without Norway), in other words the territory round the Baltic Sea.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 318-338
Author(s):  
Anthony Edwards

Abstract This article recovers a dissonant voice from the nineteenth-century nahḍa. Antonius Ameuney (1821–1881) was a fervent Protestant and staunch Anglophile. Unlike his Ottoman Syrian contemporaries, who argued for religious diversity and the formation of a civil society based on a shared Arab past, he believed that the only geopolitical Syria viable in the future was one grounded in Protestant virtues and English values. This article examines Ameuney’s complicated journey to become a Protestant Englishman and his inescapable characterization as a son of Syria. It charts his personal life and intellectual career and explores how he interpreted the religious, cultural, political, and linguistic landscape of his birthplace to British audiences. As an English-speaking Ottoman Syrian intellectual residing permanently in London, the case of Antonius Ameuney illustrates England to have been a constitutive site of the nahḍa and underscores the role played by the British public in shaping nahḍa discourses.


2021 ◽  
pp. OP.20.01093
Author(s):  
Mohana Roy ◽  
Natasha Purington ◽  
Mina Liu ◽  
Douglas W. Blayney ◽  
Allison W. Kurian ◽  
...  

PURPOSE: Race and ethnicity have been shown to affect quality of cancer care, and patients with low English proficiency (LEP) have increased risk for serious adverse events. We sought to assess the impact of primary language on health care engagement as indicated by clinical trial screening and engagement, use of genetic counseling, and communication via an electronic patient portal. METHODS: Clinical and demographic data on patients with breast cancer diagnosed and treated from 2013 to 2018 within the Stanford University Health Care system were compiled via linkage of electronic health records, an internal clinical trial database, and the California Cancer Registry. Logistic and linear regression models were used to evaluate for association of clinical trial engagement and patient portal message rates with primary language group. RESULTS: Patients with LEP had significantly lower rates of clinical trial engagement compared with their English-speaking counterparts (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 0.29; 95% CI, 0.16 to 0.51). Use of genetic counseling was similar between language groups. Rates of patient portal messaging did not differ between English-speaking and LEP groups on multivariable analysis; however, patients with LEP were less likely to have a portal account (adjusted OR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.83 to 0.96). Among LEP subgroups, Spanish speakers were significantly less likely to engage with the patient portal compared with English speakers (estimated difference in monthly rate: OR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.24 to 0.77). CONCLUSION: We found that patients with LEP had lower rates of clinical trial engagement and odds of electronic patient portal enrollment. Interventions designed to overcome language and cultural barriers are essential to optimize the experience of patients with LEP.


2007 ◽  
Vol 215 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl-Heinz Bäuml

Abstract. Research from the past decades has shown that cuing and retrieval are not always beneficial for episodic memory and can also be detrimental. Prior work assumed that these detrimental effects are caused by retrieval blocking, in which cuing and retrieval strengthen material and the repeated involuntary sampling of the strengthened material hinders subsequent recall of nonstrengthened targets. Using a new experimental paradigm and an extended range of memory tests, recent research indicates that the detrimental effects of retrieval and cuing occur across a wide range of memory tests and are likely to be the result of inhibitory processes. These inhibitory processes impair the nonretrieved and noncue items' memory representation and make these items unavailable in memory. The recent results and the new theory are reviewed and discussed.


Tempo ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 57 (224) ◽  
pp. 22-38
Author(s):  
John Warnaby

There is a school of thought in Britain which suggests that the rigours of modernist composition resulted in sterility and uniformity. Yet in the German-speaking world, composers have explored a wide range of expressive possibilities within a modernist sensibility. They have proved that the discipline of modernism is capable of stimulating genuine individuality, and over the past 30 years, Nicolaus A. Huber has emerged as one of the most distinctively radical, yet equally recognizable personalities on the German contemporary music scene. In contrast to Lachenmann, Rihm, or Höller, Huber has not attempted anything on the largest scale, but in the spheres of orchestral, chamber and instrumental music, he has produced a substantial body of work of considerable originality and dramatic power, frequently involving theatrical elements.


2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy MacKinnon

Papua New Guinea (PNG) occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and still boasts 33 million hectares of closed natural forest (77% of the country), home to numerous endemic species. Overall PNG is sparsely populated with some 700 distinct cultural/ language groups. Economic growth over the past two decades has been spurred by large-scale mining, petroleum and logging operations though the majority of the population continues to rely upon subsistence agriculture (swidden) and collection and utilization of forest products. Some 15 million hectares of forests are accessible for logging, of which 1.5 million hectares have already been logged, generally in an unsustainable manner. Of the over 6 million ha of approved timber blocks more than 1.5 million hectares have been located in areas of high biological value. Forest loss and degradation is now becoming a serious problem.


Author(s):  
Michele Fugiel Gartner

Nonprofit management education (NME) has received attention from scholars and practitioners over the past thirty years. Much of the research on NME focuses on credit-based university courses, primarily reflecting a U.S. context. Left out of analyses are non-credit NME offerings. This article relocates to an English-speaking Canadian landscape where a substantial number of non-credit NME courses are found. Mapping methodologies, favoured to showcase the breadth of NME, cannot offer deeper insight into questions and critiques of non-credit NME curriculum and instruction. This article shows how syllabi review and critical qualitative inquiry can deepen knowledge of non-credit offerings. A new research agenda for non-credit NME is required to support nonprofit managers to achieve their social goals. RÉSUMÉDepuis une trentaine d’années, la formation en gestion des organismes sans but lucratif (OSBL) a retenu l’attention d’universitaires et de praticiens. Cependant, une grande partie de leurs recherches sur la gestion des OSBL se concentre sur des cours universitaires offrant des crédits, et reflète un contexte principalement américain. Les cours sans crédit sur la gestion des OSBL sont omis des analyses. Cet article se focalise sur un paysage canadien anglophone où l’on retrouve un nombre important de cours sans crédit sur la gestion des OSBL. Certaines méthodologies de schématisation, privilégiées pour mettre en valeur la portée de tels cours, sont inefficaces pour offrir un aperçu plus approfondi des questions et critiques concernant le curriculum et l’enseignement de cours sans crédit sur la gestion des OSBL. Cet article montre comment la revue de plans de cours et l’enquête qualitative critique peuvent en revanche servir à approfondir la connaissance de ces cours sans crédit. Ainsi, un nouveau programme de recherche pour les cours sans crédit sur la gestion des OSBL s’avère nécessaire pour aider les gestionnaires d’OSBL à atteindre leurs objectifs sociaux.


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