Standardization of quality of diagnoses, interventions, and outcomes (Q-DIO) measurement instrument for use in Slovenia

Purpose To describe the cross-cultural adaptation of the Quality of Diagnoses, Interventions and Outcomes (Q-DIO) Instrument into the Slovene language. Methods Based on general international guidelines, a six-step process of localization to translate and adjust the instrument from English into the Slovene language was used. Content validity was quantified based on an agreement of eight experts. The instrument was tested using a sample of 140 nursing documentations from two Slovenian tertiary hospitals. Results 26 of 29 items showed an excellent content validity index ranging from 0.857 to 1.000, and a modified kappa index above 0.856. The content validity indexes of the three remaining items adjusted based on experts’ comments were subsequently estimated at 1.000. Construct validity was significantly different between the two groups of documentations. The Cronbach coefficient for the whole questionnaire was 0.860. Cronbach’s alpha if item deleted reamins above 0.80 for all items. The criteria for the difficulty grades of items and discrimination validity were acceptably met for more than 75% of items. Conclusion Based on the results of the study, it may be concluded that Q-DIO is a reliable instrument for measuring the quality of nursing documentation. The deviations in the results of some items are due to poor nursing documentation quality, and indicate that nursing classifications have not yet been fully implemented into practice in the study setting. Additional testing of the instrument is recommended.

Slovene Musical Stage Works

This second installment of a two-part article on Slovene music literature and lyric diction surveys musical stage works in the Slovene language, with a large chart of composers and works, along with sample music examples and further commentary on Slovene composers.

The Opinion of Slovene (Mother Tongue) Teachers on Distance Learning in Primary Schools

The Slovene language has several roles in the educational process in the Republic of Slovenia, including its role as a subject in the curriculum in its own right. It is a basic general education subject in public primary schools and has the most hours of all of the subjects. All teachers were forced to teach remotely for the first time in the history of education (first during the 2019/20 school year and then in the 2020/21 school year) during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. The results of a survey comprising 348 teachers with the ability to teach the mother tongue at primary school level (grades 1–9 of primary school; 59% were class curriculum teachers and 41% were Slovene language teachers) show, among other things, that teachers mostly have a good attitude towards distance teaching and feel empowered for this type of teaching, although they feel that this method makes them mentally and physically more tired than teaching in the classroom. Among the advantages of distance teaching, teachers mention the greater use of modern information and communication technology, more use of e-material and the opportunity for formal monitoring of students. In their opinion, the biggest problems of distance teaching (of the Slovene language) include: lack of student participation; lack of non-verbal communication, thus creating difficulties in understanding; and technical issues. Most teachers believe that students acquire less knowledge or far less knowledge by distance education than they would from education in the classroom. Teachers who feel more empowered to teach remotely also have a better attitude towards teaching their mother tongue and are more satisfied with the communication aspect with students in distant teaching. Teachers who have received the necessary training for distance teaching as part of their work feel more empowered to teach this way than teachers who have not had such training.

Transformer-based Sarcasm Detection in English and Slovene Language

Sarcasm detection is an important problem in the field of natural language processing. In this pa-per, we compare performances of the three neural networks for sarcasm detection on English and Slovene datasets. Each network is based on a di˙erent transformer model: RoBERTa, Distil-Bert, and DistilBert – multilingual. In addition to the existing Twitter-based English dataset, we also created the Slovene dataset using the same approach. An F1 score of 0.72 and 0.88 was achieved in the English and Slovene dataset, re-spectively.

Short and long forms of the adjectives in translations of the New Testament into the Old Slavonic and the language of Slovene booklore of the XVI century

This article analyzes the instances of using short and long forms of the adjectives the Old Slavonic language, as well as the analytical method of expressing the category of certainty / uncertainty in the Slovene language of the XVI century based on the example of translations of the fragments from the New Testament. The comparison of short and long forms of the adjectives is one of the ways of conveying the category of certainty / uncertainty in the Slavonic language without articles. A similar comparison of short and long forms of the adjectives can be observed in both Old Slavonic and Old Slovene languages. However, in the Slovene language, such juxtaposition ceased to exists as a result of the early contraction in pronominal forms of the adjectives; the XVI century marks the formation of the analytical method of conveying the category certainty / uncertainty using the article “ta” and “en”. The following conclusions were made: the original language could affect the translation strategy and the choice of forms, while in the Slovene language it also pertained to articles; the examples of Slovene translations that preserved the correlation of short and long forms without the presence of the part or article in the originals, testify to the development of special ways of expressing the category of certainty / uncertainty, which replaced the juxtaposition of short and long forms of the adjectives; the analytical forms in the Slovene corresponded with short and long forms of the adjectives in the Old Slavonic language, which emphasizes the similar functional yield of analytical forms with the previous juxtaposition of short and long forms of the adjectives in the Slovene language.

Jezik kot posoda Duha pri Luthru in Trubarju ▪︎ Luther and Trubar’s View on Language as the Vessel of the Spirit

The discussion sheds light on the conception or understanding of the national language of two prominent personalities of the 16th-century Reformation: the German reformer Martin Luther and the Slovene Protestant and most important reformer Primož Trubar. For both authors, language serves as a basic tool for preaching the gospel in their mother tongues. They accomplish this by translating the Bible, and they each in their own way justify the use of the mother tongue as the means through which the Spirit of God is embodied. Both Luther and Trubar consolidate the biblical text in early modern European languages: Luther in the New High German and Trubar in the Slovene language, which had not appeared in books until the publication of his printed texts. Both authors developed their own language programme that can be compared and from which both Protestants’ view on language can be discerned, which was based on the realization that God used languages when he wanted the gospel to spread among all people.

Vloga reformacije v slovenski etnogenezi: Etnična kolektivna identiteta na premici zgodovine dolgega trajanja ▪︎ The Role of the Reformation in Slovene Ethnogenesis: Collective Ethnic Identity in Long-Term History

Although the Reformation in both Europe and Slovenia was primarily of a religious nature, its long-term impact on Slovenes is much more visible in their collective ethnic than religious identity. While the sovereign Counter-Reformation abolished Protestantism in the Inner Austrian lands between 1598 and 1628, the Catholic Revival used certain achievements of the movement in its own pursuits. For the further development of Slovenes as an ethnic community, especially four Reformation creations are important: 1) the linguistic norm, 2) the concept of the Slovene church, 3) the myth of the chosen ethnicity and 4) a topos about the great extent of the “Slavic”/Slovene language. In accordance with the ethnosymbolist paradigm, the discussion therefore estimates that in the second half of the 16th century Slovenes developed from an ethnic category into an ethnic network. The Slovene language, which was sporadically written from the end of the first millennium onwards, was finally consolidated as a literary language in 1550 with the first two books published by Primož Trubar. The Protestant literary work reached its peak in 1584, when a translation of the Bible by Jurij Dalmatin and a grammar by Adam Bohorič were published. The concept of the “Slovene church”, which is supposed to unite the entire Slovene-speaking Christian community, was also conceived by Trubar. He presented his idea for the first time in 1555 and completed it in his Cerkovna ordninga (“the Church Order”) from 1564. Although the conceptual programme was not established in the church administration, it significantly influenced the mindset of both Protestant and later Catholic writers in the 17th and 18th centuries. The emergence of the Slovene myth of the chosen ethnicity, which is based on a sentence from the Letter of Paul to the Romans: “and every tongue will praise God” (Romans 14:11), also dates back to the Reformation and as a maxim connects the key literary creations of this period. In addition, Protestant writers relied on the humanistic tradition of emphasizing the great extent of the “Slavic” language, which in fact served to increase the importance of Slovene. This topos was first introduced to Slovene grammars by Bohorič and represents a somewhat later entry of Slovenes into the “(inter)national competition for national honor”, which emerged in Europe during the humanism.

Strategija Univerze v Mariboru 2021–2030 / Strategy of the University of Maribor 2021–2030

The book can be read from both sides. One side is in Slovene language, other sides is in English language. The strategy of the University of Maribor pursues an inclusive, innovative and integrated higher education area that will train active, critically-thinking and responsible citizens, guarantee the quality of education and research, academic integrity, and cultivate concern for sustainable development of society. It stresses the importance of the freedom of research and institutional autonomy, development of lifelong learning, digitalisation and green infrastructure. It follows the orientations of the Rome Ministerial Communiqué of 2020 on the development of higher education in Europe, the Magna Charta Universitatum 2020 principles and the national strategic documents on higher education.

Language as a Trigger for Racism: Language Barriers at Healthcare Institutions in Slovenia

The article analyzes the impact of language barriers on the medical treatment of foreign-speaking patients and illustrates that the absence of systemic, institutional responses to language barriers in healthcare facilities exacerbates racist attitudes toward migrants and ethnic groups. The article is based on 201 interviews with healthcare workers, employees of public or non-governmental institutions as well as users of healthcare services that were conducted between 2018 and 2019 in twelve local communities in Slovenia. Following the methodological and conceptual framework, the first part of the article highlights the various negative consequences of language barriers experienced by healthcare workers and foreign-speaking patients. The second part shows that in the absence of an accessible network of professional intercultural mediators or interpreters, healthcare workers are left to their own devices with respect to overcoming language barriers. Finally, the last part of the article shows that many interlocutors are increasingly searching for the culprit for this situation. Some healthcare workers attribute the responsibility to the abstract concept of the “system”, while others attribute the responsibility exclusively to migrants, thus perpetuating key elements of the culture of racism present in Slovenia. In this culture of racism, knowledge of Slovene language becomes one of the most important criteria that distinguishes deserving from undeserving migrants. The latter are a privileged object of racist responses at the level of cultural, institutional and personal racism, which is proving to be mutually toxic.

O glasbeni terminologiji pri pouku glasbene teorije in kompozicije / Some Thoughts on Musical Terminology at Musical Theory, Composition and Counterpoint Teaching

Traditionally, music can be divided into musical theory, composition and musical performance. For an in-depth understanding, appropriate terminology is required, also in the Slovene language. Like all European nations, Slovenes based their musical terminology mainly and directly on the Greek and Latin languages, or otherwise indirectly, primarily through the German and Italian languages. The development of a relatively young Slovenian terminology is closely linked to music education. In his paper, the author briefly mentions some facts about musical terminology in general and some facts about Slovenian musical terminology. Today, it is quite comparable to foreign ones, but we face a number of translation and terminological challenges. Some of these challenges, found in the instruction of composition, musical theory and counterpoint, are also presented in the article. The success of musical theory and terminology is, after all, featured in musical practice.