Investigation of L2/Ln Pragmatic Competence: Its Core and Route Map

How to use language properly and acquire the capacity for language use has become the focus of linguists and philosophers for centuries. Therefore, pragmatic competence underlying language use arouses enormous interests of language acquisition practitioners. This study reveals the core properties of various models or theories of pragmatic competence, such as the communicative componential models, the form-function mapping proposal of the functionalist, the tripartite cognitive model, and the current integrated model of pragmatic competence. The common core includes (but not limited to) integration of thought and communication, one uniform pragmatic mechanism, dynamic form-function mapping, and complementarity between grammatical and pragmatic competences. With the findings as a departure, a brief outline for further investigation of pragmatic competence is proposed finally, including pathological and neurobiological examination of pragmatic competence.

Emotional Models

Emotion modeling has gained attention for almost two decades now due to the rapid growth of affective computing (AC). AC aims to detect and respond to the end-user's emotions by devices and computers. Despite the hard efforts being directed to emotion modeling with numerous tries to build different models of emotions, emotion modeling remains an art with a lack of consistency and clarity regarding the exact meaning of emotion modeling. This review deconstructs the vagueness of the term ‘emotion modeling' by discussing the various types and categories of emotion modeling, including computational models and its categories—emotion generation and emotion effects—and emotion representation models and its categories—categorical, dimensional, and componential models. This review deals with applications associated with each type of emotion model including artificial intelligence and robotics architecture, computer-human interaction applications of the computational models, and emotion classification and affect-aware applications such as video games and tutoring systems applications of emotion representation models.

The Map to the Heart: An Analysis of Political Affectivity in Turkey

This study examines the complexity of citizens’ political affectivity in Turkey. Drawing from componential models of affect, we rely on situational (motive consistent versus inconsistent) and motivational state (gain or loss) appraisals to test hypotheses on systematic differences in the clusters of political affect that span beyond the traditionally measured discrete emotional reactions of anger, hope, pride and fear. Using qualitative interview data from 2012, we develop a topography of affect clusters and systems of associations between political concepts. We find citizens express their emotionality in rich terms. They are linked to appraisals of multiple political objects, they reflect aversive, anxious, loss and gain oriented emotional responses, and they are guided by citizens’ ideological orientations. This study is valuable as it addresses a significant gap in the study of political affect going beyond their discrete categorizations. It introduces a mapping methodology as an effective way of capturing the complexity of affect systems, and it reveals powerful insights into the depth and richness of emotions based on appraisal dimensions, enriching our understanding of political tensions and developments in Turkish politics and beyond.

Machine componential analysis of Bulgarian kinship terminology and more on the problem of multiple solutions

Machine componential analysis of Bulgarian kinship terminology and more on the problem of multiple solutionsThe Bulgarian kin terms of reference and address are subjected to componential analysis, using the sophisticated computer program KINSHIP. It is shown that an unconstrained and separate analysis of the two sets of terms yields an astronomical number of alternative componential models for each, threatening to compromise the componential method as a whole. However, after combining the set of reference and the set of address terms into a unitary kin term domain and applying the program to this new enlarged data set, further employing appropriate simplicity criteria on overall features (=dimensions) and components of kin term definitions, yields a unique componential model. This result is evaluated in the context of a famous debate on the problems of multiple solutions of kinship systems. It is concluded that componential analysis properly used is an indispensable tool for revealing the structuring of semantic domains.