FORMATION OF PHONETIC COMPETENCE AT CLASSES IN DISCIPLINE OF “MODERN POLISH”

The article analyzes the concept of phonetic competence. It is noted that in the formation of foreign language communicative competence, one of the components is phonetic competence. It is determined that there is no consensus among researchers on the definition of “phonetic competence”. After all, some scientists understand phonetic competence as the correct pronunciation of sounds and sound combinations, correct stress and mastery of intonation language models. Others – as the ability to normative phonetic design of personal foreign speech and understanding the speech of others. It is emphasized that phonetic competence is directly related to speech technique, the elements of which are breathing, voice, diction, orthoepy. Phonetic skills are distinguished: to pronounce the sounds of the Polish language correctly, to have a clear diction, to emphasize words according to norms, to modulate the voice, to change its intonation, to adjust the tempo of speech in accordance with the situation, listeners, the purpose of the statement, to breathe correctly. It is indicated that the effectiveness of the phonetic competence formation depends on the use of effective methods. Among the methods, the following have been highlighted: explanatory-illustrative method of learning, observation of text and speech, problem method, role playing, exercises and so forth. There have been suggested exercises aimed at formation of phonetic competence. It is noted that role playing should be used in addition to exercises. It is emphasized that conduction of Polish language classes with the use of game material activates students, contributes to high performance in knowledge and motivates to learn Polish. Rhetorical games have been highlighted – conversational games that develop skills of interpersonal and collective effective communication. The article describes the articulatory rhetorical game “Phonetic warm-up”, the purpose of which is to form the skills of clear, quick and error-free speech, the development of students' creative skills. An example of an intonation rhetorical game has been also given. The article emphasizes that when learning the Polish language, it is important to use the authentic text as often as possible and constantly work on improving of phonetic competence of future philologists.

Modal Verbs in the Modern Chinese Language

The article presents a new view on Chinese modal verbs as a part of speech. Based on the typology of the Chinese language, the authors analyzed modal verbs according to their functional-syntactic, formal-morphological, and semantic features in order of importance. The article discusses the position of modal operators in the sentence and other characteristics. For instance, Chinese modal verbs have no impact on the object and cannot independently form sentences or combine with grammemes. Therefore, the authors believe that Chinese modal verbs (modal operators) belong to the lexical-grammatical group of adverbs as a special category of intentional adverbs. Their intentionality reflects the outward focus of linguistic consciousness, based on the internal reference point of the speaker. The group includes such meanings as "wish", "obligation", "opportunity", "permission", and "will". The research owes its theoretical significance to the fact that it contributes to a better understanding of the essence and nature of modal operators and modality meanings, identifying them as a separate group of adverbs. The obtained results are applicable in the field of theoretical grammar of the Chinese language and can be used in researches related to further analysis of parts of speech problem in the Chinese language.

Academic writing skills in Russian of foreign students

The article analyzes the types of exercises for foreign students in order to develop academic skills. In particular, we are talking about foreign medical students. Speaking about the current trends towards updating the content of foreign language teaching and the new requirements of individual universities for the implementation of professional training in foreign languages, we have to state that due to the novelty and multidimensional nature of the phenomenon, this problem in the conditions of domestic higher combined education has been developed only to a small extent. In the context of distance learning, it is quite difficult for foreign students of medical faculties to read the text in their specialty and extract the information necessary to solve a specific speech problem. The article deals with the peculiarities of teaching academic writing in Russian as one of the types of speech activity. Special attention is paid to the distinctive features of the written speech by students of medical specialties; several stages of work based on structural and semantic analysis of the text material are highlighted and described. The development and implementation of adapted special texts and exercises in the educational process allow foreign students to understand the content of articles, accurately determine the main and secondary information in the material, reproduce its main content using the skills of summarizing, annotating, note-taking.

Neuropsychiatric manifestations of COVID-19 can be clustered in three distinct symptom categories

Several studies have reported clinical manifestations of the new coronavirus disease. However, few studies have systematically evaluated the neuropsychiatric complications of COVID-19. We reviewed the medical records of 201 patients with confirmed COVID-19 (52 outpatients and 149 inpatients) that were treated in a large referral center in Tehran, Iran from March 2019 to May 2020. We used clustering approach to categorize clinical symptoms. One hundred and fifty-one patients showed at least one neuropsychiatric symptom. Limb force reductions, headache followed by anosmia, hypogeusia were among the most common neuropsychiatric symptoms in COVID-19 patients. Hierarchical clustering analysis showed that neuropsychiatric symptoms group together in three distinct groups: anosmia and hypogeusia; dizziness, headache, and limb force reduction; photophobia, mental state change, hallucination, vision and speech problem, seizure, stroke, and balance disturbance. Three non-neuropsychiatric cluster of symptoms included diarrhea and nausea; cough and dyspnea; and fever and weakness. Neuropsychiatric presentations are very prevalent and heterogeneous in patients with coronavirus 2 infection and these heterogeneous presentations may be originating from different underlying mechanisms. Anosmia and hypogeusia seem to be distinct from more general constitutional-like and more specific neuropsychiatric symptoms. Skeletal muscular manifestations might be a constitutional or a neuropsychiatric symptom.

A Deep Learning Approach for Automatic Hate Speech Detection in the Saudi Twittersphere

With the rise of hate speech phenomena in the Twittersphere, significant research efforts have been undertaken in order to provide automatic solutions for detecting hate speech, varying from simple machine learning models to more complex deep neural network models. Despite this, research works investigating hate speech problem in Arabic are still limited. This paper, therefore, aimed to investigate several neural network models based on convolutional neural network (CNN) and recurrent neural network (RNN) to detect hate speech in Arabic tweets. It also evaluated the recent language representation model bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) on the task of Arabic hate speech detection. To conduct our experiments, we firstly built a new hate speech dataset that contained 9316 annotated tweets. Then, we conducted a set of experiments on two datasets to evaluate four models: CNN, gated recurrent units (GRU), CNN + GRU, and BERT. Our experimental results in our dataset and an out-domain dataset showed that the CNN model gave the best performance, with an F1-score of 0.79 and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.89.

Learning Difficulties in Listening Comprehension

This paper aims at describing the student’s listening skill and their learning difficulties in listening comprehension. The method used was a descriptive method. The instruments were pre-TOEFL test and questionnaire. The population was the second year students of State University of Makassar. The results of this research are: the students have poor score in their listening comprehension and the students' learning difficulties in listening comprehension are: problem in interpretation, the lack of vocabulary, difficulty to concentrate, problem with lecturer's accent, confusion in similar phonemes, the speed of the speech problem in accent, problem in reduction and there are no repetitions and in learning media, the noise from students themselves, unclear sound, air conditioner problems and seat position. Based on the result, the writer concludes that the students' ability in listening comprehension is still poor, the teacher should motivate them to develop the habit of writing daily listening so that they can improve their skill.

A Study to Assess the Quality of Life of Postoperative Patients With Oral Cancer in B.R.A I.R.C.H., AIIMS, New Delhi

Introduction: Cancer is a leading cause of death in both developed and underdeveloped countries in the world. The Indian subcontinent accounts for one-third of the world burden of head and neck cancer. Surgery is the standard treatment of choice for head and neck cancers. It is imperative to give supportive care to improve the quality of life. Aim: To assess the quality of life of postoperative patients with oral cancer in B.R.A I.R.C.H, AIIMS, New Delhi. Methodology: The study was conducted at B.R.A.I.R.C.H, AIIMS, New Delhi. The data were collected by convenience sampling from 50 adults who underwent surgery for oral during June 2017 to December 2017. Standardized self-structured EORTC QOL(H&N) was used to assess the perceived level of the quality of life of postoperative patients with oral cancer during hospital stay and at one month follow-up. Ethical clearance was obtained from institutional ethics committee. Results: 80% patients were male. Majority of the patients underwent mandibulectomy (66%) modified neck dissection (60%) and regional flap reconstruction (56%). The major symptoms perceived during hospital stay were pain (98%), speech problem (84%), problem in opening mouth (82%), felt ill (80%), weight loss (74%), etc. and at one month follow-up were problem in opening mouth (90.6%), pain (90.5%), speech problem (83.6%), weight loss (82%), among many others. There was a significant decrease in the perceived pain (11.2 ± 2.99) at one month follow-up (9.12 ± 3.42). Conclusion: Most of the patients experience pain, problem in opening mouth, sticky saliva, speech problem, trouble in social contact, weight loss, etc.

Known risk factors and co-morbidities in 100 cases of cerebral palsy in a neu­rology follow-up clinic

<p><strong>Background:</strong> Cerebral palsy (CP) is a major cause of crippling in children. Several antenatal, natal and post natal factors for CP like birth asphyxia and pretenn &amp; LBW deliveries were identified.</p><p><strong>Objective:</strong> To see the presence of known risk factors of CP and co-morbidities in our setting. <strong></strong></p><p><strong>Methods:</strong> ln this study 100 cases of cerebral palsy attending the child neurology out-patient department Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) were evaluated with special attention to risk factors of CP. Full evaluation was done to find out co-morbidities. <strong></strong></p><p><strong>Results:</strong> Birth asphyxia (49%) was the most common risk factor. Mental retardation; speech problem and seizure were common co-morbidities.<strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Conclusion:</strong> As birth asphyxia is common risk factor of cerebral palsy, it may be reduced by improving perinatal care.</p>