A ‘NEW NORMAL’ OF CODE-SWITCHING: COVID-19, THE INDONESIAN MEDIA AND LANGUAGE CHANGE

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed behavioural norms and how people conceptualise everyday life. It has led to prolific use of specific terminology that is new or was previously outside the lexical boundaries of common use. Terms like ‘social distancing’, ‘lockdown’ and ‘new normal' were previously jargon limited to specialist fields. The COVID-19 pandemic which spread globally in 2020 has led to great social change and an associated lexical influence. To study this phenomenon, we examine the lexical effects of COVID-19 on the Indonesian language, through analysis of two well-known Indonesian national newspapers – Kompas and Suara Pembaruan, for the month of May 2020. This was at a time of growing awareness of COVID-19 in Indonesia, that included a partial lockdown in Jakarta. As such, there was a great deal of attention to COVID-19 in the mass media. To study this, we apply quantitative content analysis to the sample data to identify the range and frequency of words borrowed from English. We examine this use of code-switching to also undertake qualitative analysis, exploring the various socio-linguistic dimensions of those borrowed terms. Some usage was found to address lexical gaps in Indonesian language, where other usage appeared more for stylistic, emphatic purposes, drawing on the semiotic power of English in the Indonesian context. Code-switching reiteration was particularly prominent in the sample data. We argue that through code-switching reiteration, the print media can introduce new foreign vocabulary to Indonesian readers, which subsequently generates opportunities for language change. COVID-19 has expedited this process, meaning that there has been an increased likelihood of Indonesian language change during 2020.

Ideas Buenas o Buenas Ideas: Phonological, Semantic, and Frequency Effects on Variable Adjective Ordering in Rioplatense Spanish

Although linguistic research has often focused on one domain (e.g., as influenced by generative prioritization of the Autonomy of Syntax), critical findings have been uncovered by exploring the interaction of multiple domains (e.g., the link between morphological status and lateralization of /ɾ/; the syntactic–pragmatic interface’s constraints on subject expression). The position of adjectives relative to the nouns they modify is a good test case in this discussion because multiple areas of the grammar are implicated, including syntax, phonology, and semantics. Moreover, research on this structure has yielded small cells, which prevented the use of statistical tests to convey the relative importance of multiple factors. Consequently, our study used a controlled, 24-item contextualized preference task to assess the roles of semantics (i.e., adjective class), phonology (i.e., noun–adjective syllable length differences), and lexical frequency on variable adjective ordering for 100 speakers of rioplatense Argentinean Spanish. Mixed-effects regression revealed that each factor was significant, with shorter, high-frequency, evaluative adjectives most favoring pre-position. Individual adjective analysis confirmed the greater effect of lexical frequency than semantic class, with additional corpora analyses further elucidating these trends. The study adds to the growing body of research on the role of factors across linguistic domains, while arguing for the importance of the relative frequency of adjective–noun collocations and complementing recent research on lexical effects.

Can the maze task be even more amazing?

The maze task (Forster, Guererra & Elliot, 2009; Forster, 2010) is designed to measure focal lexical and sentence processing effects in a highly controlled manner. We discuss how this task can be modified and extended to provide a unique opportunity for the investigation of lexical effects in sentence context. We present results that demonstrate how the maze task can be used to examine both facilitation and inhibition effects. Most importantly, it can do this while leaving the target sentence unchanged across conditions. This is an advantage that is not available with other paradigms. We also present new versions of the maze task that allow for the isolation of specific lexical effects and that enhance the measurement of lexical recognition through visual animation. Finally, we discuss how the maze task brings to the foreground the extent to which complex multi-layered priming and inhibition are intrinsic to sentence reading and how the maze task can tap this complexity.

A New Tool for Equating Lexical Stimuli Across Experimental Conditions

Extensive work in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics has demonstrated that lexical characteristics are capable of driving large effects, however when word lists serve a utility function and are intended to be unrelated to the effect of interest such as in most working memory or long-term memory paradigms, it is critical to control for these potentially confounding lexical effects. As an alternative to randomly assigning word bank items to stimulus lists, we present LIBRA, a MATLAB-based toolbox for quickly generating stimulus word lists of user-determined length and number, which can be closely equated on an arbitrary number of lexical properties. The toolbox comprises two scripts; one is the main genetic algorithm that performs the inter-list balancing, and the other provides functionality for filtering/trimming long omnibus word lists based on several simple criteria, prior to balancing. We demonstrate that relying on purely randomized procedures often results in substantially unbalanced experimental conditions. In contrast, our method guarantees that the lists used for each experimental condition contain no meaningful differences, and thus that the lexical characteristics of the specific words used will add an absolute minimum of bias/noise to the experiment in which they are applied.

Electrophysiological signatures of English onomatopoeia

abstractOnomatopoeia is widespread across the world’s languages. They represent a relatively simple iconic mapping: the phonological/phonetic properties of the word evokes acoustic related features of referents. Here, we explore the EEG correlates of processing onomatopoeia in English. Participants were presented with a written cue-word (e.g., leash) and then with a spoken target-word. The target-word was either an onomatopoeia (e.g., bark), a sound-related but arbitrary word (e.g., melody), or another arbitrary word (e.g., bike). Participants judged whether the cue- and the target-word were similar in meaning. We analysed Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) in different time-windows: (i) early (100–200 and 200–250 ms) to assess differences in processing at the form-level; (ii) the N400 time-window (300–500 ms) in order to establish if there are differences in semantic processing across our word-types; and (iii) late (600–900 ms) to assess post-lexical effects. We found that onomatopoeia differed from the other words in the N400 time-window: when cue and target were unrelated, onomatopoeic words led to greater negativity which can be accounted for in terms of enhanced semantic activation of onomatopoeia which leads to greater salience of the mismatch. We discuss results in the context of a growing body of literature investigating iconicity in language processing and development.

Relationship Between F2 Slope and Intelligibility in Parkinson's Disease: Lexical Effects and Listening Environment

Purpose There is a complex relationship between speech production and intelligibility of speech. The current study sought to evaluate the interaction of the factors of lexical characteristics, listening environment, and the 2nd formant transition (F2 slope) on intelligibility of speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD). Method Twelve speakers with PD and 12 healthy controls read sentences that included words with the diphthongs /aɪ/, /ɔɪ/, and /aʊ/. The F2 slope of the diphthong transition was measured and averaged across the 3 diphthongs for each speaker. Young adult listeners transcribed the sentences to assess intelligibility of words with high and low word frequency and high and low neighborhood density in quiet and noisy listening conditions. The average F2 slope and intelligibility scores were entered into regression models to examine their relationship. Results F2 slope was positively related to intelligibility in speakers with PD in both listening conditions with a stronger relationship in noise than in quiet. There was no significant relationship between F2 slope and intelligibility of healthy speakers. In the quiet condition, F2 slope was only correlated with intelligibility in less-frequent words produced by the PD group. In the noise condition, F2 slope was related to intelligibility in high- and low-frequency words and high-density words in PD. Conclusions The relationship between F2 slope and intelligibility in PD was affected by lexical factors and listening conditions. F2 slope was more strongly related to intelligibility in noise than in quiet for speakers with PD. This relationship was absent in highly frequent words presented in quiet and those with fewer lexical neighbors.