Out of the Lab and Into the World: Analyses of Social Roles and Gender in Profiles of Scientists in The New York Times and The Scientist

Although representations of female scientists in the media have increased over time, stereotypical portrayals of science persist. In-depth, contemporary profiles of scientists’ roles have an opportunity to reflect or to challenge stereotypes of science and of gender. We employed content and linguistic analyses to examine whether publicly available profiles of scientists from New York Times and The Scientist Magazine support or challenge pervasive beliefs about science. Consistent with broader stereotypes of STEM fields, these portrayals focused more on agency than communality. However, profiles also challenged stereotypes through integrating communality, purpose, and growth. This analysis also found similar presence of communal and agentic constructs for both female and male scientists. The current findings highlight the importance of considering counterstereotypic representations of science in the media: Communicating messages to the public that challenge existing beliefs about the culture of science may be one path toward disrupting stereotypes that dissuade talented individuals from choosing science pathways.

PRODUCTION OF AFFIRMATIVE, NEGATIVE AND INTERROGATIVE SENTENCES IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

Language disorder is one of the most significant symptom domains which characterize Schizophrenia Disorder. The aim of the present study considering these language problems is to find out the number of the affirmative, negative and interrogative sentences on schizophrenia patients’ spontaneous speech and reveal whether their depression, doubts and sceptical behaviours affect their speech. Fifty patients with schizophrenia diagnosed according to DSM-IV criteria were included into the study and compared to fifty healthy subjects matched for age, sex and education level with the patients participated in the study. The subjects’ speech was evaluated by using subject-based narration and free verbal narration tests. As a result of the statistical and linguistic analyses, significant differences were found between schizophrenic patients’ and healthy subjects’ speech in terms of between affirmative, negative and interrogative sentence use. The results indicate that the patients' excessive use of negative and interrogative sentences is related to their feature of attributing negatively to the events and emotions they experience.

Comparing languages and cultures: Parametrization of analytic criteria

The focus of the paper is to present arguments in favour of a complex set of areas of reference in cross-linguistic analyses of meanings, aimed in particular at the identification of a set of relevant analytic criteria to perform such a comparison. The arguments are based on lexicographic and corpus linguistic data and specifically on the polysemic concept of integrity in English and its lexical counterparts in Polish. It is generally assumed in Cognitive Linguistics, which is taken as the basic framework of the present study, that meanings, which are defined as convention-based conceptualizations, are not discrete entities, fully determined, even in fuller context but rather they are dynamic conventional conceptualizations[13]. Therefore, it is considered essential to identify first their basic, prototypical senses and then their broad meanings , which include, apart from the core part, their contextual, culture-specific, and connotational properties, defined in terms of a parametrized set of semasiological as well as onomasiological properties. The study methodology has also been adjusted towards this multifocused analysis of linguistic forms and considers the interdisciplinary - linguistic, psychological, cultural and social domains to identify the cultural conceptualizations of the analysed forms. In the present case a cognitive corpus-based analysis in monolinguistic English contexts and in the English-to-Polish and Polish-to-English translation data of lexicographic and parallel corpus materials, as well as cultural dimensions will be exemplified to conclude with a parametrized system of cognitive cross-linguistic tertia comparationis to more fully determine their broad linguistic meanings.

Evoke

This article provides an introduction to the web application Evoke. This application offers functionality to navigate, view, extend, and analyse thesaurus content. The thesauri that can be navigated in Evoke are expressed in Linguistic Linked Data, an interoperable data form that enables the extension of thesaurus content with custom labels and allows for the linking of thesaurus content to other digital resources. As such, Evoke is a powerful research tool that facilitates its users to perform novel cultural linguistic analyses over multiple sources. This article further demonstrates the potential of Evoke by discussing how A Thesaurus of Old English was made available in the application and how this has already been adopted in the field of Old English studies. Lastly, the author situates Evoke within a number of recent developments in the field of Digital Humanities and its applications for onomasiological research.

Difficulty-as-improvement: The courage to keep going in the face of life’s difficulties

Cultures often provide deservingness and authority-based narratives to explain the difficulties people experience in life. Accepting these narratives is culturally fluent but can be depleting. We predicted and showed that people often also interpret their life difficulties as opportunities for self-growth— a difficulty-as-improvement mindset. Our computational linguistic analyses of the “Common Crawl” corpus suggest that when people talk about difficulty they also talk about importance, impossibility, and improvement (Study 1). Studies 2-14 (total N = 2,378) use our brief difficulty-as-improvement measure to reveal that difficulty-as-improvement is both culture-general and culture-specific (endorsed more strongly in non-Western samples). Westerners (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, USA) and non-Westerners (China, India, Iran, Turkey) who endorse difficulty-as-improvement tend to experience themselves positively, as people who are optimistic, conscientious, virtuous, and whose lives have meaning. People who endorse difficulty-as-improvement tend to believe in deservingness (karma, a just world) and authority (spirituality, religiosity, conservatism).

Linguistic Analysis, Ethical Practice, and Quality Assurance in Anonymizing Recordings of Spoken Language for Deposit in Digital Archives

This report considers linguistic analyses as matters of ethical practice and quality assurance in the anonymization of recordings of spoken language for deposit in a digital language archive. Ethically, researchers must be committed to protecting the identities of primary data providers. Accordingly, conducting pragmatic analyses before initiating technical anonymization procedures can aid in determining exactly what discourse, in what contexts, might constitute identifying information in need of anonymization. Qualitatively, one of the main goals of language documentation is to preserve as much primary data as possible for future research. Accordingly, conducting phonotactic analyses with the help of computer software can aid in determining precise chronometer readings for each tonal insertion to excise as little primary data as possible during anonymizations. These findings warrant further research on anonymization protocols in digital language archive projects.

How Software Features and Linguistic Analyses Add Value to Orthographic Markup in Transcription of Multilingual Recordings for Digital Archives

This report discusses the importance of accounting for language contact and discourse circumstance in orthographic transcriptions of multilingual recordings of spoken language for deposit in digital language archives (DLAs). Our account provides a linguistically informed approach to the multilingual representation of spontaneous speech patterns, taking steps toward documenting ancestral and emergent codes. Our findings lead to portable lessons learned including (a) the conclusion that transcriptions can benefit from a bottom-up approach targeting particular linguistic features of sociocultural relevance to the community documented and (b) the implication (for researchers developing transcriptions for other DLAs) that the principled implementation of particular software features in tandem with systematic linguistic analysis can be helpful in finding and classifying such features, especially in multilingual recordings.

Prawnie istotne aspekty interpretacji językoznawczej – przykład 2: zakres znaczeniowy leksemu zboczeniec (i czy jest nim homoseksualista?)

In the article, I discuss the legal aspects of language: using linguistic analyses for the benefit of the courts. I discuss linguists’ court communication situation and the expectations towards them. The starting point is one exemplary court case in which an expert linguist was appointed to issue an opinion on the evidence. The conclusions fall into two categories: linguistics and forensic science. Linguistic conclusions, developed in accordance with traditional methods of lexicographic analysis and lexicological and semantic analysis, are not necessarily (because they would not have to be) innovative for linguists. It was more important to show the situation of a linguist in court, the structure of judicial opinion and the procedures for building the linguistic response to a process inquiry as seen from the forensic perspective.

Compassion vs. empathy. Necessary distinctions in approaching medical care

The incidence of the fatigue caused by medical care brings to attention the emotional reactions to suffering and their possible effects on caregivers. In this study, we shall discuss empathy and compassion. Linguistic analyses and psychological evaluations fail to differentiate between empathy and compassion. We shall therefore make an inventory of the contribution of neuroscientific studies that we consider important. We shall present some research and clinical studies that support the discrimination between compassion and empathy, at the psycho-behavioral level, in terms of vagal and cerebral patterns and in terms of the effects that these emotional states have at the psycho-emotional level. Unlike the interventions aimed at empathic training, cultivating compassion among caregivers produces beneficial effects, decreasing fatigue and increasing resilience. We believe that the differences found between compassion and empathy support the replacement of the phrase “compassion fatigue”, widely used today, with “empathic distress”. We consider the prophylactic and therapeutic capitalization of compassion in health care, by developing training programs to cultivate compassion for specialized staff for patients, to avoid fatigue (empathic distress) and to improve the emotional, humanistic dimension of the doctor-patient relationship, both urgent and necessary.

The features of the formation of ethno-value consciousness in the modern Kazakh Pedagogical University

The specifics of the conditions for the formation of the ethno-value consciousness of future teachers based on a comprehensive approach to mastering their ethnic knowledge and skills in the process of competence and activity approaches is the goal of study. The authors used a synergistic approach based on competence-based and activity-based approaches. These approaches include the following methods: interiorization of internal cognitive activity with cross-cultural, cross-competent, cross-linguistic analyses, the method of emotional experience; frame modeling method, competence approach, psycholinguistic and pedagogical experiments. The results the essence of the ethno-value consciousness of the individual is determined; the types of values reflected in the ethno-value consciousness of the individual in the mental form are described, its specificity is revealed; the definition of the ethno-value competence is given and its components are clarified; it is proved that the main methods of forming the ethno-value consciousness of the individual is the event-activity method of reproducing the cultural scenario in order to actualize the cultural space. The results of the study can make a certain contribution to the theory and practice of ethnopedagogical education of students.