Indonesian Students’ Comprehension Of The French Articles (Les Articles): The Case Of Manado State University French Language Education Program

In French language, articles play an important role and one of the basic French skills is mastery of article usage. The objective of this study is to describe students’ performance and mastery of French articles. The research used descriptive research method. Data of the study were obtained by giving written tests of French language articles to French Language Education Program students enrolled in the 2018/2019 school year. The research instrument consisted of questions in the form of loose questions and questions in the form of text / short discourse. Data analysis used descriptive statistics analysis. Study result shows that students’ mastery of French article is quite low (Mean=48.28). However, there is difference in performance of each article type. Mastery of definite article is the highest (Mean=60.78)Keywords: definite article; indefinite article; partitive article; performance; mastery

The role of first language transfer in the acquisition of definiteness in specific and generic contexts by Saudi-Arabic learners of English

Studies on the acquisition of definiteness in English by Arabic learners have largely focused on the errors made using articles. The present study investigates the accuracy of Saudi-Arabic learners with regard to the different features associated with definiteness: specificity and genericity. Arabic, like English, contains a definite article and an indefinite article; however, article usage differs between the languages in that Saudi-Arabic tends to drop the indefinite article as it is not obligatory, as it is in English. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine the accuracy with which learners employ specificity and genericity and the effect of the first language on learners’ accuracy. The thesis examines the effects of proficiency level and vocabulary level (receptive and productive). Two experimental studies were carried out, the first focusing on specificity by testing the Bottleneck Hypothesis (Slabakova, 2008) and the Fluctuation Hypothesis (Ionin et al., 2004). The former posits that learners are able to map features between L1 and L2 and that similarities and differences between languages affects acquisition. The latter hypothesis relates to definiteness and specificity, postulating that learners fluctuate between article settings until they acquire the Article Choice Parameter in English. The second experiment focused on genericity with singular and plural contexts, testing the Bottleneck Hypothesis (Slabakova, 2008) and the Representational Deficit Hypothesis (Hawkins & Chan, 1997), which argues that learners cannot acquire a new uninterpretable feature if it is already set in their L1. These experiments demonstrated that the accuracy of Saudi-Arabic learners of English varies according to definiteness features, as the participants performed more accurately with specificity than with genericity. First language transfer affected uses involving genericity more than those involving specificity. The other factors – proficiency level and receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge – affected the learners’ accuracy with respect to both specificity and genericity.

An Experimental Investigation of Mass Noun Types and Article Usage

Speakers of languages with article systems have to make different article choices in the case of mass versus countable nouns. This study addressed article use with different types of mass nouns (liquid, solid and abstract). It investigated: a) whether first language (L1) Arabic speakers used English articles accurately with mass nouns; and b) whether they were sensitive to different types of mass noun. To address these issues, the study recruited twenty-seven English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Saudi-Arabic speaking participants and five native speakers of English, who formed a control group. Members of the experimental group were proficient to the elementary level, according to the Oxford Quick Placement Test. A written forced-choice elicitation task was administered to test their article use. The findings showed that: a) the Arabic speakers performed similarly to the native speakers of English in liquid contexts, but differently in solid and abstract contexts; b) the Arabic speakers did not perform similarly across all types of mass nouns, as they were sensitive towards mass noun types; c) their article use was more accurate in liquid contexts than in solid and abstract contexts; and d) they faced difficulties using articles with mass nouns that can be pluralised in Arabic. These findings indicate that the use of articles with mass nouns should be examined in the light of their subtypes, as well as whether second language (L2) learners’ L1 pluralise them or not.

Errata

Errata for Rowland Lorimer's "Article usage analytics for the Canadian Journal of Communication 2015–2018: A guide for authors, publishers, and readers" and for Anthony M. Levenda, Dillon Mahmoudi, & Gerald Sussman's "The neoliberal politics of 'smart': Electricity consumption, household monitoring, and the enterprise form."

OP0339 ALTMETRIC - DOES SOCIAL MEDIA IMPACT CITATION RATE IN RHEUMATOLOGY JOURNALS?

Background:The coloured altmetrics donut has become a standard feature of online publications. The colours depict different online sources by which an article was mentioned, while the number in the donut, the Altmetric Score (AS), reflects the summarised attention an article has received. The Dimensions database joins citations from any kind of scientific or mainstream publication. Studies analysing the link between the AS and the citation rate of an article suggest that this connection is strongly dependent on the field of research, the type of article and the type of analysis used.Objectives:To analyse the connection between AS and citation rate in articles published in rheumatology journals.Methods:We retrieved data on article usage, AS and citations of articles published in ARD and RMD Open between January 2015 and November 2019. For time-dependent analyses on the influence of AS on citations, articles published in 2019 were excluded. Forward-stepwise regression models were used to explore factors influencing total citation rates. We performed subanalyses, dividing articles in categories of correspondence, original research and editorials/viewpoints. We dichotomised articles by reaching the top 25% in terms of citation count within the first, second, third and fourth year after publication according their category. We explored the risk of reaching these top 25% in dependency of AS using logistic regression (log transformed AS) and receiver operating curve analyses (ROC, reported cut-offs were identified coinciding with 80% specificity).Results:We used 1597 articles published in ARD and 409 articles of RMD Open with complete data on AS and article usage within the mentioned timeframe. AS are higher in more recently published articles (p=0.04, ß: 1.3 per year), but the number of Dimensions citations is lower in more recently published articles (ß: -8.5 per year, p≤0.001). Twitter shows by far the highest activity among the AS subcategories (highly correlating with AS r=0.8, p≤0.001). The total number of twitter mentions increased by 2.8/year from 2015 to 2019, indicating that more recently published articles were more often picked up on twitter. Changes in R2in the regression model indicated that besides time since publication and AS, also the type of article influences citation count. For original research and editorials, AS may significantly add to the variability of the citation count, which was not the case for correspondences. The influence of AS on citation count of editorials added 16% to the 12% variability explained by publication time. Both factors showed similar ß-coefficients (months: ß: 0.76; ß: AS: 0.83). This effect was smaller in original articles (month: ß=0.74; AS: ß=0.11, Total R2: 23.7%). AS significantly coincides with reaching the top 25% of citation counts according to time since publication. For the first year those articles with AS >15 showed a positive Likelihood Ratio (+LR; 95%CI) of 1.6 (1.4-1.9) to reach the top 25%, the second year AS>15: +LR: 1.9 (1.6-2.2), the third year AS>13: +LR 2.3 (1.9-2.7) and in the fourth year AS>12 +LR: 2.1 (1.7-2.7). This effect was again different between publication categories, with no effect of AS in correspondence articles. Figure 1 highlights that AS influences citations of editorials to a larger extent than of original articles, except within the first year of publication.Conclusion:We could show, that Altmetric scores are higher in more recent publications and seem to have an influence on the number of citations, particularly early citations in the first two years after publication. The early implementation of published articles in social media could help to increase overall citation.Acknowledgments:We thank Lindsey Fountain from BMJ for providing citation and usage data.Disclosure of Interests:Paul Studenic Grant/research support from: Abbvie, Caroline Ospelt Consultant of: Consultancy fees from Gilead Sciences.

Enlightenment of Global Advancement for Future: One Belt One Road

The Belt and Road project is a traditional activity that assembles countries of the globe and simplifies several chances to achieve single tranquillity. The research purpose drives to analyzing conjugation of strategy improvement globally in posterior. It also analyzes because of the greatest, plan, prospects, and challenges of initiatives in the principle of international trade, diplomatic, neighbourly, and situational perspectives. This article usage characteristic access and secondary data, especially journal papers, annual reports, different data of administrative, e-books, Presentation document, and many web pages, which broadly focus are to visualize intentions. This research elaborates on associate nations and delicacy that aims to develop and diplomatic advantages derived from these activities. It enhances transportation through road pathway, air, and sea, cooperating discretion of economical involvement through a rood border trade, creativity, and regional development. This study also purposes hazards and objection attached to the project implementation. It shows the potential collaboration between associates of the program which is essential to meet One Belt One Road care of effective policy, system and regulations, exact strategy implementation, earnest judgment on administrative and trading multiplier.

Exploring the Relation Between Psychotypologies and Article Acquisition

The aim of this study is to explore whether there may be any correlations between psychotypology (i.e. perceived linguistic distance) and the number of article-related errors in L1 Polish students of L3 Spanish. Following a survey on the participants’ assessment of linguistic distance between the languages of their dominant language constellations, article-related errors were compared by means of a battery of non-parametric Mann-Whitney U tests. The results do not suggest significant differences between groups B1 and B2 in terms of article-related errors. However, positive correlations were found, at an all-encompassing B1+B2 level, between grammatical psychotypology and article omission errors, and in group B2 with regard to general article use and, more especifically, wrong article use and article omission errors. On the other hand, negative correlations were found between lexical psychotypology and article usage in group B2; phonetic psychotypology and wrong article use in group B1 in group B1; and grammatical psychotypology and unnecessary article use in group B1. The results seem to suggest that perceived linguistic distance among more experienced learners may be linked to the development of successful cross-linguistic associations, whereas it may lead to ‘false assumptions’ at lower levels of instruction.

Feature-focusing constraints on implicit learning of function word and meaning associations

Recent research has begun to investigate implicit learning at the level of meaning. The general consensus is that implicitly linking a word with a meaning is constrained by existing linguistic knowledge. However, another factor to consider is the extent to which attention is drawn to the relevant meanings in implicit learning paradigms. We manipulated the presence of cue saliency during implicit rule learning for a grammatical form (i.e., articles) linked to meaning (i.e., animacy vs. varying notions of size). In a series of experiments, participants learned four novel words but did not know that article usage also depended on a hidden rule, creating an opportunity for implicit rule learning. We found implicit learning through the use of a highly salient meaning (Experiment 1) or if image size was made salient by being explicitly cued (Experiment 3), but not in a low salient paradigm for intrinsic object size (Experiment 2). The findings suggest that implicit learning of semantic information might not be as constrained as previously argued. Instead, implicit learning might be additionally influenced by feature-focusing cues that make the meaning contrasts more salient and thereby more readily available to learning.