L’apprendimento linguistico cooperativo in contesti plurilingui Strategie dell’apprendente e dell’insegnante

This article takes into account results from two classroom research projects and analyses validity and effectiveness of dialogical cooperative techniques for plurilingual education. The first experimental study focuses on language learning strategies developed by pupils in plurilingual classrooms, such as translanguaging, repetition, avoidance and metalinguistic strategies, whereas the second study concerns teachers’ strategies in modifying and adapting their talk to support the language learning process of students.

Talking to the Dead in the Classroom: How a Supposedly Psychic Event Impacts Beliefs and Feelings

Paranormal beliefs (PBs) are common in adults. There are numerous psychological correlates of PBs and associated theories, yet, we do not know whether such correlates reinforce or result from PBs. To understand causality, we developed an experimental design in which participants experience supposedly paranormal events. Thus, we can test an event’s impact on PBs and PB-associated correlates. Here, 419 naïve students saw a performer making contact with a confederate’s deceased kin. We tested participants’ opinions and feelings about this performance, and whether these predicted how participants explain the performance. We assessed participants’ PBs and repetition avoidance (PB related cognitive correlate) before and after the performance. Afterwards, participants rated explanations of the event and described their opinions and feelings (open-ended question). Overall, 65% of participants reported having witnessed a genuine paranormal event. The open-ended question revealed distinct opinion and affect groups, with reactions commonly characterized by doubt and mixed feelings. Importantly, paranormal explanations were more likely when participants reported their feelings than when not reported. Beyond these results, we replicated that 1) higher pre-existing PBs were associated with more psychic explanations (confirmation bias), and 2) PBs and repetition avoidance did not change from before to after the performance. Yet, PBs reminiscent of the actual performance (spiritualism) increased. Results showed that young adults easily endorse PBs and paranormal explanations for events, and that their affective reactions matter. Future studies should use participants’ subjective experiences to target PBs in causal designs (e.g., adding control conditions).

People also avoid repetition in sentence comprehension: Evidence from multiple postposition constructions in Korean

Repetition avoidance, one characteristic of human cognition, affects human behaviour to a great extent. The present study aims to extend the understanding of repetition avoidance to sentence comprehension in Korean, a language typologically different from the major languages that have been investigated for this issue. I measured the degree of acceptability and reaction times for two types of multiple postposition constructions in Korean, each of which has two grammatical patterns involving postposition alternations (dative-accusative and accusative-accusative for the dative construction; topic-nominative and nominative-nominative for the double subject construction). Results showed that the patterns involving repetition of postpositions were dispreferred over those without the repetition, and that by-pattern reaction times within each construction type were modulated by the postposition types repeated in the patterns. The findings of this study support the role of repetition avoidance for sentence comprehension in Korean (and perhaps beyond), and suggest an interplay between a domain-general factor (repetition avoidance) and language-specific knowledge (postpositions).

Referential cohesion and news content

This study explores the (re)creation of referential cohesion in Hungarian-English translation and examines the extent to which shifts of reference are motivated by the differences between the languages, the characteristics of the translation type (news translation) and the genre (news story). As referential cohesion is hypothesized to be affected by certain universals of translation, the explicitation and the repetition avoidance hypotheses are also tested. Analyses show considerable shifts of reference in translations, but these are not statistically significant. The corpus also fails to provide evidence for the universals of translation investigated; however, the in-depth analysis of optional shifts suggests that they are conditioned by the discursive features of the genre and contribute to a more explicit presentation of news content.

Semantic and phonemic sequence effects in random word generation: A dissociation between Alzheimer's and Huntington's disease patients

Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients perform worse on category than letter fluency tasks, while Huntington's disease (HD) patients show the reverse pattern or comparable impairment on both tasks. We developed a random word generation task to further investigate these deficits. Twenty AD and 16 HD patients and 20 elderly and 16 middle-aged controls guessed which of three pictures (hat, cat, or dog) landed on a die's top face sixty times. Three consecutive response pairings were possible: semantic (cat–dog), phonemic (hat–cat), and neutral (hat–dog). Since healthy individuals avoid repeating meaningful associates (“repetition avoidance”), an increased pairing frequency reflects processing deficits. AD patients produced more semantic and HD patients more phonemic pairings compared to their respective control groups, indicating selective semantic and phonemic processing deficits in AD and HD patients, respectively. (JINS, 2005,11, 303–310.)

Effects of Regular Switching between Languages during Random Number Generation

Random number generation is a task that engages working memory and executive processes within the domain of number representation. In the present study we address the role of language in number processing by switching languages during random number generation (numbers 1–9), using German (L1) and English (L2), and alternating L1/L2. Results indicate large correspondence between performance in L1 and L2. In contrast to nonswitching performance, randomization with alternating languages showed a significant increase of omitted responses, whereas the random sequences were less stereotyped, showing significantly less repetition avoidance and cycling behavior. During an intentional switch between languages, errors in language sequence appeared in 23% of responses on the average, independently of the quality of randomization but associated with a clear persistence of L2. These results indicate that random number generation is more closely linked to auditory-phonological representation of numerals than to visual arabic notation.

Temporal and Spatial Repetition Avoidance

An experiment is introduced in which subjects had to mark with either an “X” or a point 100 squares arranged in a 10 by 10 matrix randomly. One group of subjects had to proceed horizontally (starting with the top row, left to right), another group vertically (starring with the left-most column, top to bottom). Two forms of repetition avoidance were found, temporal (avoidance of preceding choice) and spatial (avoidance of the mark contained by the neighboring cell, i.e., the one above or the one to the left for the horizontal and vertical procedures, respectively). Selection of a “random” choice in a two-dimensional array is thus affected by internal (self-generated) as well as external stimuli. The two forms of avoidance were negatively intercorrelated, indicating that suppression of internal and external cues are separate and mutually competing functions. Random matrix tasks may provide a simple means to assess a person's relative susceptibility to either form of repetition avoidance.