White Matter Brain Structure Predicts Language Performance and Learning Success

Individual differences in the ability to deal with language have long been discussed. The neural basis of these, however, is yet unknown. Here we investigated the relationship between long-range white matter connectivity of the brain, as revealed by diffusion tractography, and the ability to process syntactically complex sentences in the participants' native language as well as the improvement thereof by multi-day training. We identified specific network motifs that indeed related white matter tractography to individual language processing performance. First, for two such motifs, one in the left and one in the right hemisphere, their individual prevalence significantly predicted the individual language performance suggesting a predisposition for the individual ability to process syntactically complex sentences, which manifests itself in the white matter brain structure. Both motifs comprise a number of cortical regions, but seem to be dominated by areas known for the involvement in working memory rather than the classical language network itself. Second, we identified another left hemispheric network motif, whose change of prevalence over the training period significantly correlated with the individual change in performance, thus reflecting training induced white matter plasticity. This motif comprises diverse cortical areas including regions known for their involvement in language processing, working memory and motor functions. The present findings suggest that individual differences in language processing and learning can be explained, in part, by individual differences in the brain's white matter structure. Brain structure may be a crucial factor to be considered when discussing variations in human cognitive performance, more generally.

Does the Use of Complex Sentences Differentiate Between Bilinguals With and Without DLD? Evidence From Conversation and Narrative Tasks

Over-identification of language disorder among bilingual children with typical development (TD) is a risk factor in assessment. One strategy for improving assessment accuracy with bilingual children is to determine which linguistic sub-domains differentiate bilingual children with TD from bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD). To date, little research on sequential bilinguals with TD and DLD has focussed on complex (multi-clausal) sentences in naturalistic production, even though this is a noted domain of weakness for school-age monolinguals with DLD. Accordingly, we sought to determine if there were differences in the use of complex sentences in conversational and narrative tasks between school-age sequential bilinguals with TD and with DLD at the early stages of L2 acquisition. We administered a conversation and a narrative task to 63 English L2 children with TD and DLD, aged 5–7 years with 2 years of exposure to the L2. Children had diverse first language backgrounds. The L2-TD and L2-DLD groups were matched for age, length of L2 exposure and general L2 proficiency (receptive vocabulary size). Language samples from both tasks were coded and analyzed for the use of complex versus simple sentences, for the distribution of complex sentence types, for clausal density and mean length of utterance (MLU). Complex sentences included coordinated clauses, sentential complement clauses, adverbial clauses and relative clauses. Using regression modelling and PERMANOVA, we found that the L2-TD group produced more complex sentences than the L2-DLD group, with coordinated clauses, adverbial clauses and relative clauses differing the most between the groups. Furthermore, the two groups differed for mean clausal density, but not for MLU, indicating that clausal density and MLU did not estimate identical morphosyntactic abilities. Individual variation in complex sentence production for L2-TD was predicted by longer L2 exposure and task; by contrast, for L2-DLD, it was predicted by older age. This study indicates that complex sentence production is an area of weakness for bilingual children with DLD, as it is for monolinguals with DLD. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

On introducing free indirect speech in Russian translation despite the absence of corresponding structures in the English original

The article analyzes the most typical cases of introducing free indirect speech in the Russian translation where there are no corresponding structures in the English original. Typical non-free-indirectspeech structures and contexts in the source text are explored, such as may materialize as free indirect speech in the target text. The study employs qualitative methods including lexical-semantic, contextual and comparative analysis of the source text and the target text. As for the structure, this paper has been divided into two parts. First, a theoretical background for the problem is established, involving the theories by Ia. I. Retsker and D. V. Psurtsev. The paper then goes on to examine translators’ choices to generate new interference of the narrator’s text and the character’s text. The cases when free indirect speech may arise in the Russian translation are typically based on kindred forms of the character’s speech representation in the English original, long descriptions of a situation where the character acts, complex sentences with content clauses, containing the character’s thoughts and emotions. The analysis suggests that the decision to introduce free indirect speech patterns into translation can be based on the typological differences between the languages in question, or on logical and stylistic “inclinations” of a given fragment. Therefore, the decisions to introduce free indirect speech fall into two groups, obligatory and possible respectively. If such choices by Russian translators constitute a tendency, a certain correlation of syntactic patterns and contexts may be established. The results obtained in the study may be used by translators of literary texts.

MEANS OF SYNTACTIC COMPRESSION IN ENGLISH TEXTS ON MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AND METHODS OF THEIR TRANSLATION INTO UKRAINIAN

The article is devoted to the analysis of syntactic compression means and methods of their translation; study of frequency of syntactic compression means use and frequency of their translation methods application on the material of mechanical engineering texts. The research material is syntactic units of language selected from the mechanical engineering texts, demonstrating the use of syntactic compression, and their translation into Ukrainian. Examples were selected from the manuals on mechanical engineering, operating instructions for various devices, bilingual sites of international engineering companies such as SKF and DENSO. The results of our study showed that the most productive means of syntactic compression in the mechanical engineering texts are the infinitive (27%), gerund (18%), and adjective (16%). Less productive means of syntactic compression are ellipsis (11%), replacement (10%), syntactic reduction (9%) and nominalization (9%). A study of ways to translate English compressed structures in the mechanical engineering texts, depending on the syntactic compression means used, showed that most often the infinitive is translated by a complex sentence of the goal (65.4%), and least often – a complex sentence of cause and effect); the most frequent way of translating an adjective is a complex sentence with attribute (72.8%), the least frequent – unfolding (1.2%); gerund in these texts is most often translated by replacing parts of speech (78.7%), least often – a complex sentence of mode of action (1.1%); the most typical way of translating an ellipse is unfolding (80%), the least frequent ways of an ellipse translating are complex sentences of purpose (1.7%), time (1.7%) and admission (1.7%); nominalization is most often translated by a complex sentence of the goal (40.7%), least often – a complex sentence with attribute (1.9%); the most frequent way of translating syntactic reduction in the texts of mechanical engineering is unfolding (89.4%), the least frequent – explanatory translation (10.6%); replacement is most often translated by unfolding (75.5%), and the least often – explanatory translation (24.5%). Keywords: speech compression; syntactic compression; syntactic compression means; compressed structures; translation methods; mechanical engineering texts.

Jazyková krajina Banskej Bystrice (Kontinuita textov a križovatka etník)

Language Landscape of Banská Bystric (Continuity of Texts and Intersection of Ethnic Groups)The language landscape of Banská Bystrica is made up of visible language, which means written language in the form of contextually fixed words, sentences and complex sentences of a commercial and non-commercial nature. Non-commercial language fulfills a communicative function in terms of presenting basic orientation information in and around Banská Bystrica town, and about the town’s activities, the church and cemetery buildings, and monuments. Commercial language has a business function because it becomes part of the process of business transactions: first in the form of advertising texts offering commercial products; later in the form of information concerning goods offered directly by business facilities. The language landscape of Banská Bystrica is a collection of texts in Slovak, German and Hungarian and is a manifestation of the ethnolinguistic activities of Slovaks, Germans and Hungarians. Some texts in English, German, Latin, Russian and Romanian are evidence of the vitality of these languages in presenting facts about the present day and the history of this town. Krajobraz językowy Bańskiej Bystrzycy (kontinuum tekstów a krzyżowanie się grup etnicznych)Na krajobraz językowy Bańskiej Bystrzycy składają się teksty o charakterze komercyjnym i niekomercyjnym, dostępne w wersji wizualnej, powstałe w języku pisanym, w formie kontekstowo uwarunkowanych słów, zdań prostych i zdań złożonych. Język o charakterze niekomercyjnym pełni funkcję komunikacyjną w zakresie przekazywania podstawowych informacji orientacyjnych w mieście Bańska Bystrzyca i w jego okolicach, a także informacji o działalności związanej z miastem, o budynkach kościelnych i cmentarnych oraz o zabytkach. Język o charakterze komercyjnym pełni funkcję biznesową, ponieważ staje się częścią procesu obrotu gospodarczego: najpierw w postaci tekstów reklamowych oferujących produkty handlowe, później w formie informacji o produktach oferowanych bezpośrednio przez placówki handlowe i usługowe. Krajobraz językowy Bańskiej Bystrzycy tworzą teksty w językach słowackim, niemieckim i węgierskim, będące przejawem działalności etnolingwistycznej Słowaków, Niemców i Węgrów. Teksty w językach angielskim, niemieckim, rosyjskim, rumuńskim i po łacinie świadczą o istotnej roli tych języków w przedstawianiu faktów dotyczących współczesności i historii tego miasta.

Metonymy and Croatian adverbial clauses

In this article I examine some metonymic aspects of the semantics of Croatian connectives introducing adverbial clauses of cause, condition, purpose, and concession. The analysis leans on the theory of conceptual metaphor and metonymy and, to a lesser extent, on cognitive grammar. It is also informed by grammaticalization scholarship within typological functionalism. I explore metonymic mappings between the categories of time and cause, manner and cause, cause and condition, purpose, cause and concession, condition and concession, time and condition, and metonymic mappings operating at the level of speech acts. The goal is to contribute to the growing, though still arguably small, body of cognitive linguistic research into the relevance of metonymy for the semantics of complex sentences, specifically the role it plays in subordination, and to expand this analysis to subordinate constructions in Croatian. Some attention is given to grammaticalization studies, where metaphor and metonymy are seen as two types of pragmatic inferencing facilitating interactions between the mentioned semantic categories in complex sentences.

The Cliché of the Official Business Style and its Transfer from Russian into the Yakut Language

At present, the official business style of the Yakut language is more developed in comparison with the translations of the twentieth century, when this style was just beginning to be practiced. Along with this, the translation of official-business style texts is also developing. As state and municipal services are an integral part of our life and understanding the strengths and merits, which adds the translation to society, it is very important to translate the Yakut language information, regulatory documents of the population of our Republic and members of the institutions, namely the Standard of applicants to the State autonomous institution Multifunctional center for the provision of state and municipal services in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) Rules of applicants. The aim of this work is to analyze the difficulties of transmission clich official-business style of Russian into Yakut language and the search approach solutions to these difficulties. The methodological basis of this study is the comparative and descriptive methods based on the data obtained by the continuous sampling method. As a result of the analysis, we identified lexical and grammatical difficulties in translating official-business style cliches from Russian into Yakut. Lexical words include borrowing words, words without equivalent correspondence and abbreviations in the cliche, where the first ones are most often transmitted to the Yakut language by transcription or remain by themselves, the second ones are translated by an adequate replacement, paraphrasing or description, and the third ones with the Russian version in a bracket. Grammatical difficulties include complex sentences with passive constructions and participial turns, which directly affect how the cliche will be translated into them. Cliches in complex sentences occur frequently, sometimes several times in the same sentence.

Verbalization of indirect speech in the epistolary discourse of Lesya Ukrainka

The article deals with the specifics of constructions with indirect speech in the epistolary of Lesya Ukrainka in terms of the structure of syntactic units and semantics of introductory verb tokens. In addition, attention is drawn to the syncretism of constructions with indirect speech, due to the peculiarities of the epistolary style. In the process of expressing opinions, Lesia Ukrainka used various forms of transmission of another’s speech, including indirect speech and its peripheral version – free indirect speech, the design and structure of which differs from indirect. Compound sentences with an explanatory part and complex sentences with several subordinate clauses, representing homogeneous subordination or consecutive subordination, are quantitatively predominant in constructions with indirect speech. Sentences-microtexts, built on the schemes «text – the author’s words – indirect speech», «text – the author’s words – indirect speech – text», «author’s words – indirect speech – text» are the next group. Sentences with double indirect speech, where the thoughts of one speaker, which testified by introductory verbs, or two speakers, or sometimes several, are highlighted separately. Indirect speech in letters is introduced using verbs of speech and thinking or their equivalents. Among the neutral verbatives-introductory words that represent live speech, the most productive are the tokens to speak, to think, to write, and among the implicit introductions – to be afraid and to hear. In addition, a number of implicit tokens that introduce indirect speech into the epistolary are highlighted. Thus, the epistolary style, although it has a number of common features with colloquial and artistic speech, but in the field of representation stands out among others with a bright set of linguistic means.

On the impact of clause order on pronoun resolution: evidence from Spanish

In research on intra-sentential pronominal anaphora resolution in null subject languages, it has been argued that null pronouns tend to be biased towards subject antecedents, whereas overt pronouns tend to prefer object antecedents, as predicted by Carminati’s ‘Position of the Antecedent Hypothesis’. However, these studies have mainly focused on only one of the two possible clause orders (main-subordinate or subordinate-main), which have not been overtly contrasted. This paper investigates the effects of clause order on the interpretation of third-person subject pronouns in globally ambiguous intra-sentential contexts by 49 native speakers of Spanish. The results of an acceptability judgment task explicitly comparing both clause orders indicate that relative clause order is a key factor affecting the interpretation of pronouns: while a preference of overt pronouns for object antecedents holds across clause orders, null pronouns show a bias towards subject antecedents only in subordinate-main sequences. These findings refine the Position of the Antecedent Hypothesis predictions by restricting them to subordinate-main complex sentences.

Multitask Learning for Aspect-Based Sentiment Classification

Aspect-level sentiment analysis identifies the sentiment polarity of aspect terms in complex sentences, which is useful in a wide range of applications. It is a highly challenging task and attracts the attention of many researchers in the natural language processing field. In order to obtain a better aspect representation, a wide range of existing methods design complex attention mechanisms to establish the connection between entity words and their context. With the limited size of data collections in aspect-level sentiment analysis, mainly because of the high annotation workload, the risk of overfitting is greatly increased. In this paper, we propose a Shared Multitask Learning Network (SMLN), which jointly trains auxiliary tasks that are highly related to aspect-level sentiment analysis. Specifically, we use opinion term extraction due to its high correlation with the main task. Through a custom-designed Cross Interaction Unit (CIU), effective information of the opinion term extraction task is passed to the main task, with performance improvement in both directions. Experimental results on SemEval-2014 and SemEval-2015 datasets demonstrate the competitive performance of SMLN in comparison to baseline methods.