Substitution as a Means of Producing Context-Specific Meaning of an Idiom

The point of departure of this article is contemporary changes in the relationship between national and local decision making in the Norwegian political system. The last decades’ centralization tendencies seem to be challenged by a “new” emphasis on local discretion, and the article discusses how this will affect social work in municipalities. The changes are contested and controversial and allude to questions such as how much discretion should be given to local decision makers in the name of local democracy, and how much difference should be accepted in the name of diversity? The article argues that professional social work must be context-specific, meaning that in a wide sense local knowledge is a prerequisite for good social work. Devolution and local political and professional discretion are necessary in many cases, but not sufficient in themselves as conditions for success. Professional social workers will encounter a lot of difficult dilemmas arousing from issues related to the equality/liberty debate and the diversity/difference/equality debate in social work discourses. In order to approach these dilemmas, more of a focus on local deliberation and place shaping, in combination with a social work focus on democratic professionalism, is necessary. If this is done successfully, devolution and a recapturing of local discretion and decision-making power will empower clients as well as professionals. Thus, current changes in the relationship between different levels of decision making will enlarge the possibilities for professional social work in the municipalities.

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Thinking ahead: prediction in context as a keystone of language in humans and machines

10.1101/2020.12.02.403477 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ariel Goldstein ◽

Zaid Zada ◽

Eliav Buchnik ◽

Mariano Schain ◽

Amy Price ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Real Life ◽

Language Models ◽

Language Faculty ◽

Computational Framework ◽

New Family ◽

Neural Representations ◽

Semantics And Pragmatics ◽

Generative Language ◽

Specific Meaning ◽

Context Specific

Departing from classical rule-based linguistic models, advances in deep learning have led to the development of a new family of self-supervised deep language models (DLMs). These models are trained using a simple self-supervised autoregressive objective, which aims to predict the next word in the context of preceding words in real-life corpora. After training, autoregressive DLMs are able to generate new 'context-aware' sentences with appropriate syntax and convincing semantics and pragmatics. Here we provide empirical evidence for the deep connection between autoregressive DLMs and the human language faculty using a 30-min spoken narrative and electrocorticographic (ECoG) recordings. Behaviorally, we demonstrate that humans have a remarkable capacity for word prediction in natural contexts, and that, given a sufficient context window, DLMs can attain human-level prediction performance. Next, we leverage DLM embeddings to demonstrate that many electrodes spontaneously predict the meaning of upcoming words, even hundreds of milliseconds before they are perceived. Finally, we demonstrate that contextual embeddings derived from autoregressive DLMs capture neural representations of the unique, context-specific meaning of words in the narrative. Our findings suggest that deep language models provide an important step toward creating a biologically feasible computational framework for generative language.

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Kennis van Collocaties Bij NT2-Verwervers

Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen ◽

10.1075/ttwia.53.10ang ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 53 ◽

pp. 109-119

Author(s):

Aline De Angelis

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Adult Learners ◽

Language Learners ◽

Second Language Learners ◽

Heavy Drinker ◽

Educational Methods ◽

Specific Meaning ◽

Lexical Items ◽

The One ◽

Context Specific

The research which is reported in this paper concerns the knowledge of certain 'collocations' of adult learners of Dutch as a second language. The term collocation refers to a sequence of lexical items which habitually co-occur and which have a kind of semantic cohesion (Cruse, 1986). In my research I look at one specific collocation, that is the one between an article, an adjective and a substantive. Moreover, the adjective must have a context-specific meaning. This type of collocation is called a strong collocation. An example is a heavy drinker. I believe that the knowledge of strong collocations is important for second language learners in the process of fully acquiring the second language and of acquiring a native-speakerlike competence. I developed a receptive and a productive test to measure the knowledge of collocations of learners of Dutch as a second language. Furthermore I examined educational methods on the appearance and use of collocations. It turns out that Newmarks (1982) statement that "A foreigner appears to go on making collocational mistakes however long he lives in his adopted country" can be affirmed.

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Knowledge About Sounds—Context-Specific Meaning Differently Activates Cortical Hemispheres, Auditory Cortical Fields, and Layers in House Mice

Frontiers in Neuroscience ◽

10.3389/fnins.2016.00098 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 10 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Diana B. Geissler ◽

H. Sabine Schmidt ◽

Günter Ehret

Keyword(s):

House Mice ◽

Specific Meaning ◽

Context Specific

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Validation of the Procrastination at Work Scale

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027/1015-5759/a000554 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 36 (5) ◽

pp. 767-776

Author(s):

U. Baran Metin ◽

Toon W. Taris ◽

Maria C. W. Peeters ◽

Max Korpinen ◽

Urška Smrke ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Work Engagement ◽

Discriminant Validity ◽

Psychometric Characteristics ◽

The Czech Republic ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Confirmatory Factor ◽

And Performance ◽

Context Specific ◽

Negative Links ◽

Office Employees

Abstract. Procrastination at work has been examined relatively scarcely, partly due to the lack of a globally validated and context-specific workplace procrastination scale. This study investigates the psychometric characteristics of the Procrastination at Work Scale (PAWS) among 1,028 office employees from seven countries, namely, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. Specifically, it was aimed to test the measurement invariance of the PAWS and explore its discriminant validity by examining its relationships with work engagement and performance. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis shows that the basic factor structure and item loadings of the PAWS are invariant across countries. Furthermore, the two subdimensions of procrastination at work exhibited different patterns of relationships with work engagement and performance. Whereas soldiering was negatively related to work engagement and task performance, cyberslacking was unrelated to engagement and performance. These results indicate further validity evidence for the PAWS and the psychometric characteristics show invariance across various countries/languages. Moreover, workplace procrastination, especially soldiering, is a problematic behavior that shows negative links with work engagement and performance.

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Ambulatory Assessment

European Psychologist ◽

10.1027/1016-9040.14.2.109 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 109-119 ◽

Cited By ~ 66

Author(s):

Ulrich W. Ebner-Priemer ◽

Timothy J. Trull

Keyword(s):

Real Time ◽

Clinical Psychology ◽

Real Life ◽

Ambulatory Assessment ◽

Computer Assisted ◽

Affective Valence ◽

Time Data ◽

Physiological Processes ◽

Context Specific ◽

Questionnaire Studies

Convergent experimental data, autobiographical studies, and investigations on daily life have all demonstrated that gathering information retrospectively is a highly dubious methodology. Retrospection is subject to multiple systematic distortions (i.e., affective valence effect, mood congruent memory effect, duration neglect; peak end rule) as it is based on (often biased) storage and recollection of memories of the original experience or the behavior that are of interest. The method of choice to circumvent these biases is the use of electronic diaries to collect self-reported symptoms, behaviors, or physiological processes in real time. Different terms have been used for this kind of methodology: ambulatory assessment, ecological momentary assessment, experience sampling method, and real-time data capture. Even though the terms differ, they have in common the use of computer-assisted methodology to assess self-reported symptoms, behaviors, or physiological processes, while the participant undergoes normal daily activities. In this review we discuss the main features and advantages of ambulatory assessment regarding clinical psychology and psychiatry: (a) the use of realtime assessment to circumvent biased recollection, (b) assessment in real life to enhance generalizability, (c) repeated assessment to investigate within person processes, (d) multimodal assessment, including psychological, physiological and behavioral data, (e) the opportunity to assess and investigate context-specific relationships, and (f) the possibility of giving feedback in real time. Using prototypic examples from the literature of clinical psychology and psychiatry, we demonstrate that ambulatory assessment can answer specific research questions better than laboratory or questionnaire studies.

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