Is a boat bigger than a ship? Null results in the investigation of vowel sound symbolism on size judgments in real language

Sound symbolism is the phenomenon by which certain kinds of phonemes are associated with perceptual and/or semantic properties. In this paper we explored size sound symbolism (i.e., the mil/mal effect) in which high-front vowels (e.g., /i/) show an association with smallness, while low-back vowels (e.g., /ɑ/) show an association with largeness. This has previously been demonstrated with nonwords, but its impact on the processing of real language is unknown. We investigated this using a size judgment task, in which participants classified words for small or large objects, containing a small- or large-associated vowel, based on their size. Words were presented auditorily in Experiment 1 and visually in Experiment 2. We did not observe an effect of vowel congruence (i.e., between object size and the size association of its vowel) in either of the experiments. This suggests that there are limits to the impact of sound symbolism on the processing of real language.

Modern Intentions in Lesia Ukrainka’s Drama Cassandra

In her drama Cassandra (1903–1907) Lesia Ukrainka pays considerable attention to language and demonstrates its two defi ning forms and functional paradigms. One of them is language that appeals to the essential components of being. It is language that refl ects human existence in all its acuity and fullness of appearance. This language is complex and diffi cult to understand, but is the only real language of the age of modernism. Another language is superfi cial, appealing not to the depths of life and universal categories, but to temporary human needs and aspirations. Its task is to identify the ways and means of achieving a desired goal. Such language is manipulative, because its speakers tend to hide their personal interests under claims of the common good. Also, in the drama, Lesia Ukrainka innovatively raises a number of questions related to the internal laws of world development, the processes of human cognition, the functioning of language, and the understanding and interpretation of the word. The formulation and presentation of these issues demonstrate the clear modern attitude that the writer professed and embodied in her drama.

Teaching Languages to Adolescent Learners

Teaching languages to adolescents can be a challenge. . . but one that is most rewarding! What works? What doesn't work? This book provides a reader friendly overview on teaching modern languages to adolescents (Years 7–13). Each chapter takes an aspect of language teaching and learning, and explains the underlying theory of instructed language acquisition and its application through examples from real language classrooms. The book explores teachers' practices and the reasoning behind their pedagogic choices through the voices of both the teachers themselves and their students. At the same time, it highlights the needs of the adolescent language learner and makes the case that adolescence is a prime time for language learning. Written in an accessible, engaging way, yet comprehensive in its scope, this will be essential reading for language teachers wishing to integrate cutting-edge research into their teaching. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core at 10.1017/9781108869812

Non-Verbal Communication of German Language in a German Film: A Coffee in Berlin

Non-verbal behaviour is very important in conversations, yet it is not given much attention. Foreign language learners who are not exposed to these pivotal non-verbal communications will find it difficult to recognise it during a conversation which consequently could lead to confusion. In addition, it will also affect the flow of the conversation especially among language learners that have less access to real language situations or native speakers. This article begins with analysing a German language conversation in a German film “A Coffee in Berlin” by Jan Ole Gerster, to detect the non-verbal turn-taking signals as well as to interpret the function and purpose of the signals based on the Stenstrom’s theory (1994) of turn-taking. This article uses Gesprächsanalytisches Transkriptionssystem 2 (discourse and conversation- analytic transcription 2) or also recognised as GAT 2 by Selting (2009) for the data transcription as it is highly adaptable in transcribing data of German language to detect the non-verbal turn-taking signals in the conversation. Qualitative descriptive is chosen as the method of this study as it is detailed, comprehensive and makes sense to the reader. Using the method and theories stated bring results of the non-verbal turn-taking signals such as gaze, gestures and facial expression which are used in German conversation when yielding, continuing and taking the floor of conversation. Keywords: Non-verbal behaviour, turn-taking, conversation analysis, German language, language learners.

Storytelling to Enhance Speaking and Listening Skills for English Young Learners: A Case Study at Language Centers in Binh Duong Province

With the availability of English teaching and learning facilities in most schools as well as in English language centers in Vietnam nowadays, storytelling is believed to be one of the most suitable techniques to improve young learners’ communicative competences; therefore, it should be further investigated and promoted. With the aim of fully exploiting storytelling in Vietnamese English language teaching contexts, the research is designed to discuss and evaluate its effectiveness as a teaching technique to enhance young learners’ speaking and listening skills - a well-matched couple of oral competences. Conducted with mixed research methods through the use of questionnaires, interview and observation, the outcomes, conclusions, theories as well as evaluations and recommendations put forward in the study are of great validity and reliability. Based on the rationale of this teaching technique, some models and activities for teaching demonstration are designed and carried out in real language environments in order to evaluate its advantages as well as disadvantages. From what have been discovered, the study can serve as a reference for teachers who wish to enhance their students’ listening and speaking skills by means of storytelling.

Storytelling to enhance speaking and listening skills for English young learners: A case study at language centers in Binh Duong province

With the availability of English teaching and learning facilities in most schools as well as in English language centers in Vietnam nowadays, storytelling is believed to be one of the most suitable techniques to improve young learners’ communicative competences; therefore, it should be further investigated and promoted. With the aim of fully exploiting storytelling in Vietnamese English language teaching contexts, the research is designed to discuss and evaluate its effectiveness as a teaching technique to enhance young learners’ speaking and listening skills - a well-matched couple of oral competences. Conducted with mixed research methods through the use of questionnaires, interview and observation, the outcomes, conclusions, theories as well as evaluations and recommendations put forward in the study are of great validity and reliability. Based on the rationale of this teaching technique, some models and activities for teaching demonstration are designed and carried out in real language environments in order to evaluate its advantages as well as disadvantages. From what have been discovered, the study can serve as a reference for teachers who wish to enhance their students’ listening and speaking skills by means of storytelling.

TASK-BASED LEARNING IN ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (EFL) CLASSROOM: WHAT, HOW AND WHY?

Task-based Learning is increasingly prevalent worldwide. It emphasizes on authentic language use and asks students to perform meaningful tasks. English teaching by tasks is considered useful in a language classroom because the students are expected to learn better the target language when tasks are used in language teaching. The tasks are designed to establish a real language use objectives and to create a natural language acquisition setting. Task-based Learning, often considered being the powerful Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) version, gradually becoming second-language learning. This article describes the Task-based Learning definition, to recognize the principles and characteristics of Task-based Learning, to examine how to implement Task-based Learning in the English classroom, and to clarify the advantages of this approach.

LINGUISTIC REPERTOIRE PROJECT BY ABDEL RAHMAN HAJJ SALAH

The linguistic repertoire project is one of the most prominent projects established by the linguistics scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Hajj Saleh who succeeded in convincing many Arabic language academies and research communities of its importance and feasibility. Despite the beginning of its concretization and its cultural importance, the exorbitant commissioning of this project and the death of this great scientist suspended its application. However, this project must be valued and resurrected. There should be also a political and civilized will to allocate sufficient funds to ensure its success, as planned by its founder, because his students and followers believe in it. What does this linguistic project consists in? How can we make it successful? and What is its civilizational and political impacts on the entire Islamic nation? This project aims at introducing a new automatic Arabic lexicon including all the vocabulary of the Arabic language as it was used in the ancient and contemporary Arab heritage, so that the researcher for the meaning of a word or phrase can know their various uses. In this context, heritage books should be edited, automatically stored and electronically processed, hence the importance of creating an automatic bank for the actually-used language, containing texts and not vocabulary. Those texts represent the real language utilization, which extends over time and includes countries, employing the Arabic language, as well as the various knowledge and sciences. Treating language in this way makes it a living, vital and practical material, which is not the case in the available dictionaries that represent the theoretical explanation of a word rather than its meaning in the context where it is used because they do not take into account the real use of language. However, such treating requires great effort and important coordination between a large number of researchers in various disciplines such as mathematics, computer sciences, automated media and software. It also necessitates huge funds and continuous and methodical work, which has already been initiated through many research centers and universities in the Arab countries, particularly Algeria. Nevertheless, this project began to fade away with the death of Abd al-Rahman al-Hajj Saleh and the absence of binding laws to continue its application. The aim of this intervention is to explain the importance of the project, its implementation plan and its great cultural and physical implications. This project is like an Arabic search engine or Arabic Google, as called by the late Hajj Saleh. So, will the dream of this man, which instilled it in the souls of many of his students who can supervise, follow up and embody this civilizational linguistic work, come true?.

Joint embedding VQA model based on dynamic word vector

The existing joint embedding Visual Question Answering models use different combinations of image characterization, text characterization and feature fusion method, but all the existing models use static word vectors for text characterization. However, in the real language environment, the same word may represent different meanings in different contexts, and may also be used as different grammatical components. These differences cannot be effectively expressed by static word vectors, so there may be semantic and grammatical deviations. In order to solve this problem, our article constructs a joint embedding model based on dynamic word vector—none KB-Specific network (N-KBSN) model which is different from commonly used Visual Question Answering models based on static word vectors. The N-KBSN model consists of three main parts: question text and image feature extraction module, self attention and guided attention module, feature fusion and classifier module. Among them, the key parts of N-KBSN model are: image characterization based on Faster R-CNN, text characterization based on ELMo and feature enhancement based on multi-head attention mechanism. The experimental results show that the N-KBSN constructed in our experiment is better than the other 2017—winner (glove) model and 2019—winner (glove) model. The introduction of dynamic word vector improves the accuracy of the overall results.