The integration of language and society

Language and society are closely integrated and mutually supportive (rather than one being dependant on the other). An unusual (non-universal) facet of a language can relate to a specific trait of social organisation, or life-style, etc., evidenced among the society of language users. On the basis of detailed individual studies, we put forward inductive generalisations concerning recurrent correlations underlying the congruence, or mutual integration, of language and society, and outline dependencies between the established correlations. We identify the following linguistic parameters demonstrably sensitive to societal traits: reference classification: the composition and use of genders and classifiers, types of possession, directing and addressing, information source, transmission of information, interaction patterns, and special speech styles. The focal clusters of the following non-linguistic traits can be shown to be integrated with these linguistic features: A. Relations within a community, social hierarchies, and kinship categorisation; B. Social constraints (taboo and avoidance); C. Principles of interaction and attitudes to information and its sources; D. Beliefs, religion, spirits, and dreams; E. Means of subsistence and physical environment; and F. Language awareness, language engineering, and sensitivity to societal changes. Grammatical categories which show a degree of integration with the society constitute integration points. These may change if social conditions change. A combination of synchronic and diachronic approaches to the integration of language and society brings us a step further towards answering the crucial question: why language are the way they are.

Prediction as a Basis for Skilled Reading: Insights from Natural Language Engineering Models

Reading is not an inborn human capability, and yet, English-speaking adults read with impressive speed. This study considered how predictions of upcoming words impact on this skilled behaviour. We used a powerful computer model from natural language engineering (GPT-2) to derive predictions of upcoming words in text passages. These predictions were highly accurate, and showed a tight relationship to fine-grained aspects of eye-movement behaviour when adults read those same passages, including whether to skip the next word and how long to spend on it. Strong predictions that did not materialise resulted in a prediction error cost on fixation durations. Our findings suggest that predictions for upcoming words can be made based on relatively superficial statistical information in reading, and that these predictions guide how our eyes interrogate text. This study is the first to demonstrate a relationship between the internal state of a modern natural language engineering model and eye-movement behaviour in reading, opening substantial new opportunities for language research and application.

Examining the Effectiveness of Think-Aloud Procedure and Reading Strategy Inventory: Insights From Reading Process Research

A study was conducted to explore the reading strategies of ESL (English as a Second Language) engineering students. The subjects of the study were 52 B.Tech students. The research focused on investigating the reading process of ESL students. The think-aloud procedure and reading strategy inventory were used to collect the data. Three pilot studies were conducted to validate quantitative and qualitative research procedures. A 40-item reading strategy inventory was administered to identify the engineering students' reading strategy use. The scores obtained in the reading strategy inventory has been compared to the verbal reports elicited through the think-aloud procedure. Data analysis presents an overview of the frequency of strategy use while reading an academic-related text. The paper examines the effectiveness of reading strategy inventory and think-aloud procedure for reading process research. The findings of the study discuss the data collection procedure relevant to reading process research. The study highlights challenges in validating quantitative and qualitative research procedures and suggests ways to overcome them.

Emerging trends: A gentle introduction to fine-tuning

The previous Emerging Trends article (Church et al., 2021. Natural Language Engineering27(5), 631–645.) introduced deep nets to poets. Poets is an imperfect metaphor, intended as a gesture toward inclusion. The future for deep nets will benefit by reaching out to a broad audience of potential users, including people with little or no programming skills, and little interest in training models. That paper focused on inference, the use of pre-trained models, as is, without fine-tuning. The goal of this paper is to make fine-tuning more accessible to a broader audience. Since fine-tuning is more challenging than inference, the examples in this paper will require modest programming skills, as well as access to a GPU. Fine-tuning starts with a general purpose base (foundation) model and uses a small training set of labeled data to produce a model for a specific downstream application. There are many examples of fine-tuning in natural language processing (question answering (SQuAD) and GLUE benchmark), as well as vision and speech.

MORAL VALUES IN THE 'KE MAKAM BONDA’ BY USMAN AWANG: AN ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE, VALUES AND STRUCTURES AND RELATED TO DA'WAH CONCEPT

Language engineering in grammar is very high in value. Sometimes the language that is written in the bytes of the grammar refers to its expressed and implied meanings. The processing of meaning and meaning of the language depends on the understanding of the author of the narration and the appreciation by the listener. Language in grammar has a moral value that is useful for the audience of readers as well as driving towards the application of da'wah value in life. Thus, this study aims to see the moral value in the "Ke Makam Bonda" in terms of language, value, and structure through relevance theory. In addition, the reviewer also saw the relationship between language, value, and structure in the bytes of the narration is associated with the elements of da'wah until it generates awareness to the listener. The results of the study found that the use of language, value application, and systematic structure arrangement especially implemented the rhyme to the genre of traditional nasyid song adds to the listener's appreciation of the message delivered. The impact of the adaptation has had a positive impact on the community so that it becomes a calm rhythm heard and leaves a very useful advisory effect and da'wah message. This clearly indicates that the permeation of the language style in Usman Awang's slang was very suitable to the society's appreciation until now until it was successfully translated by anyone.

A technique for evaluating and improving the semantic transparency of modeling language notations

The notation of a modeling language is of paramount importance for its efficient use and the correct comprehension of created models. A graphical notation, especially for domain-specific modeling languages, should therefore be aligned to the knowledge, beliefs, and expectations of the targeted model users. One quality attributed to notations is their semantic transparency, indicating the extent to which a notation intuitively suggests its meaning to untrained users. Method engineers should thus aim at semantic transparency for realizing intuitively understandable notations. However, notation design is often treated poorly—if at all—in method engineering methodologies. This paper proposes a technique that, based on iterative evaluation and improvement tasks, steers the notation toward semantic transparency. The approach can be efficiently applied to arbitrary modeling languages and allows easy integration into existing modeling language engineering methodologies. We show the feasibility of the technique by reporting on two cycles of Action Design Research including the evaluation and improvement of the semantic transparency of the Process-Goal Alignment modeling language notation. An empirical evaluation comparing the new notation against the initial one shows the effectiveness of the technique.

La traduction et l’interprétation en Afrique subsaharienne : les nouveaux défis d’un espace multilingue

Cet ouvrage collectif rassemble quatorze contributions scientifiques consacrées à La traduction et l’interprétation en Afrique subsaharienne. Le sous-titre Les nouveaux défis d’un espace multilingue se situe au cœur des préoccupations des auteurs, qui allient souvent une expérience professionnelle indéniable à leur statut universitaire. Rédigées en français et en anglais, leurs analyses couvrent au moins sept pays différents, lorsqu’elles ne décrivent pas des réalités et des défis qui transcendent largement les frontières. Les problématiques abordées sont nombreuses et étroitement imbriquées : enseignement multilingue, formation professionnelle des interprètes et des traducteurs, interprétation communautaire, besoins des administrations et des organisations internationales, création de ressources lexicales, ingénierie linguistique… This collective work contains fourteen scientific contributions related to Translation and Interpretation in Sub-Saharan Africa. The subtitle ‘The New Challenges in a Multilingual Space’ is at the heart of the concerns of the authors, who often blend their undeniable professional experience with their university status. Their analyses, written in French and English, cover at least seven different countries, and sometimes describe realities and challenges that largely transcend borders. Numerous issues that are closely intertwined are addressed including multilingual education, professional training of interpreters and translators, community interpreting, the needs of governments and international organizations, the development of lexical resources, language engineering, etc.