Self-Ratings of Spoken Language Dominance: A Multilingual Naming Test (MINT) and Preliminary Norms for Young and Aging Spanish-English Bilinguals

Science.gov (United States)

Gollan, Tamar H.; Weissberger, Gali H.; Runnqvist, Elin; Montoya, Rosa I.; Cera, Cynthia M.

2012-01-01

This study investigated correspondence between different measures of bilingual language proficiency contrasting self-report, proficiency interview, and picture naming skills. Fifty-two young (Experiment 1) and 20 aging (Experiment 2) Spanish-English bilinguals provided self-ratings of proficiency level, were interviewed for spoken proficiency, and…

INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN COOPERATIVE LEARNING: MORE OPPORTUNITIES TO PRODUCE SPOKEN ENGLISH

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Puji Astuti

2017-05-01

Full Text Available The contribution of cooperative learning (CL in promoting second and foreign language learning has been widely acknowledged. Little scholarly attention, however, has been given to revealing how this teaching method works and promotes learners’ improved communicative competence. This qualitative case study explores the important role that individual accountability in CL plays in giving English as a Foreign Language (EFL learners in Indonesia the opportunity to use the target language of English. While individual accountability is a principle of and one of the activities in CL, it is currently under studied, thus little is known about how it enhances EFL learning. This study aims to address this gap by conducting a constructivist grounded theory analysis on participant observation, in-depth interview, and document analysis data drawn from two secondary school EFL teachers, 77 students in the observed classrooms, and four focal students. The analysis shows that through individual accountability in CL, the EFL learners had opportunities to use the target language, which may have contributed to the attainment of communicative competence—the goal of the EFL instruction. More specifically, compared to the use of conventional group work in the observed classrooms, through the activities of individual accountability in CL, i.e., performances and peer interaction, the EFL learners had more opportunities to use spoken English. The present study recommends that teachers, especially those new to CL, follow the preset procedure of selected CL instructional strategies or structures in order to recognize the activities within individual accountability in CL and understand how these activities benefit students.

Computer Assisted Testing of Spoken English: A Study of the SFLEP College English Oral Test System in China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

John Lowe

2009-06-01

Full Text Available This paper reports on the on-going evaluation of a computer-assisted system (CEOTS for the assessing of spoken English skills among Chinese university students. This system is being developed to deal with the negative backwash effects of the present system of assessment of speaking skills which is only available to a tiny minority. We present data from a survey of students at the developing institution (USTC, with follow-up interviews and further interviews with English language teachers, to gauge the reactions to the test and its impact on language learning. We identify the key issue as being one of validity, with a tension existing between construct and consequential validities of the existing system and of CEOTS. We argue that a computer-based system seems to offer the only solution to the negative backwash problem but the development of the technology required to meet current construct validity demands makes this a very long term prospect. We suggest that a compromise between the competing forms of validity must therefore be accepted, probably well before a computer-based system can deliver the level of interaction with the examinees that would emulate the present face-to-face mode.

Phonological Analysis of University Students’ Spoken Discourse

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Clara Herlina

2011-04-01

Full Text Available The study of discourse is the study of using language in actual use. In this article, the writer is trying to investigate the phonological features, either segmental or supra-segmental, in the spoken discourse of Indonesian university students. The data were taken from the recordings of 15 conversations by 30 students of Bina Nusantara University who are taking English Entrant subject (TOEFL –IBT. Finally, the writer is in opinion that the students are still influenced by their first language in their spoken discourse. This results in English with Indonesian accent. Even though it does not cause misunderstanding at the moment, this may become problematic if they have to communicate in the real world.  

The effect of written text on comprehension of spoken English as a foreign language.

Science.gov (United States)

Diao, Yali; Chandler, Paul; Sweller, John

2007-01-01

Based on cognitive load theory, this study investigated the effect of simultaneous written presentations on comprehension of spoken English as a foreign language. Learners' language comprehension was compared while they used 3 instructional formats: listening with auditory materials only, listening with a full, written script, and listening with simultaneous subtitled text. Listening with the presence of a script and subtitles led to better understanding of the scripted and subtitled passage but poorer performance on a subsequent auditory passage than listening with the auditory materials only. These findings indicated that where the intention was learning to listen, the use of a full script or subtitles had detrimental effects on the construction and automation of listening comprehension schemas.

RECEPTION OF SPOKEN ENGLISH. MISHEARINGS IN THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS AND LAW

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

HOREA Ioana-Claudia

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Spoken English may sometimes cause us to face a peculiar problem in respect of the reception and the decoding of auditive signals, which might lead to mishearings. Risen from erroneous perception, from a lack in understanding the communication and an involuntary mental replacement of a certain element or structure by a more familiar one, these mistakes are most frequently encountered in the case of listening to songs, where the melodic line can facilitate the development of confusion by its somewhat altered intonation, which produces the so called mondegreens. Still, instances can be met in all domains of verbal communication, as proven in several examples noticed during classes of English as a foreign language (EFL taught to non-philological subjects. Production and perceptions of language depend on a series of elements that influence the encoding and the decoding of the message. These filters belong to both psychological and semantic categories which can either interfere with the accuracy of emission and reception. Poor understanding of a notion or concept combined with a more familiar relation with a similarly sounding one will result in unconsciously picking the structure which is better known. This means ‘hearing’ something else than it had been said, something closer to the receiver’s preoccupations and baggage of knowledge than the original structure or word. Some mishearings become particularly relevant as they concern teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP. Such are those encountered during classes of Business English or in English for Law. Though not very likely to occur too often, given an intuitively felt inaccuracy - as the terms are known by the users to need to be more specialised -, such examples are still not ignorable. Thus, we consider they deserve a higher degree of attention, as they might become quite relevant in the global context of an increasing work force migration and a spread of multinational companies.

Structural insights into the T6SS effector protein Tse3 and the Tse3-Tsi3 complex from Pseudomonas aeruginosa reveal a calcium-dependent membrane-binding mechanism.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Defen; Shang, Guijun; Zhang, Heqiao; Yu, Qian; Cong, Xiaoyan; Yuan, Jupeng; He, Fengjuan; Zhu, Chunyuan; Zhao, Yanyu; Yin, Kun; Chen, Yuanyuan; Hu, Junqiang; Zhang, Xiaodan; Yuan, Zenglin; Xu, Sujuan; Hu, Wei; Cang, Huaixing; Gu, Lichuan

2014-06-01

The opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa uses the type VI secretion system (T6SS) to deliver the muramidase Tse3 into the periplasm of rival bacteria to degrade their peptidoglycan (PG). Concomitantly, P. aeruginosa uses the periplasm-localized immunity protein Tsi3 to prevent potential self-intoxication caused by Tse3, and thus gains an edge over rival bacteria in fierce niche competition. Here, we report the crystal structures of Tse3 and the Tse3-Tsi3 complex. Tse3 contains an annexin repeat-like fold at the N-terminus and a G-type lysozyme fold at the C-terminus. One loop in the N-terminal domain (Loop 12) and one helix (α9) from the C-terminal domain together anchor Tse3 and the Tse3-Tsi3 complex to membrane in a calcium-dependent manner in vitro, and this membrane-binding ability is essential for Tse3's activity. In the C-terminal domain, a Y-shaped groove present on the surface likely serves as the PG binding site. Two calcium-binding motifs are also observed in the groove and these are necessary for Tse3 activity. In the Tse3-Tsi3 structure, three loops of Tsi3 insert into the substrate-binding groove of Tse3, and three calcium ions present at the interface of the complex are indispensable for the formation of the Tse3-Tsi3 complex. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

8 CFR 1212.15 - Certificates for foreign health care workers.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... Language (TOEFL), Paper-Based 560, Computer-Based 220; Test of Written English (TWE): 4.5; Test of Spoken... as a registered nurse must obtain the following scores to obtain a certificate: ETS: TOEFL: Paper... issued a certificate: ETS: TOEFL: Paper-Based 530, Computer-Based 197; TWE: 4.0; TSE: 50; MELAB: Final...

ON IF AND WHETHER COMPLEMENT CLAUSES OF SEE, WONDER, AND KNOW IN CONTEMPORARY SPOKEN ACADEMIC AMERICAN ENGLISH: A CORPUS-BASED STUDY

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http://www.rephi.knf.vu.lt/images/24_29/2_6%20Respectus%202013%2024(29%20%20Online%20Issn%20Kazimianec.pdf

2013-10-01

Full Text Available The main goal of this article is to investigate the distribution of two apparently vying finite complementation patterns—if and whether clauses—accompanying three mental verbs (see, wonder, and know in the MICASE corpus of spoken academic American English. The default introspective theoretical assumption that the two investigated complementizers are in a free distribution was not corroborated by the empiricical inquiry. The three verbs do evince linguistic preferences regarding complementation, preferences which depend on a number of factors: the valency pattern of a given verb, co(ntext, sub-genre, and the like. Moreover, the investigation also appears to have demonstrated that, in respect to the complementation of see, wonder, and know, spoken academic English bears a greater resemblance to everyday conversation than to written academic English, thus corroborating the contention that field prevails over mode (to employ Hallidayan parlance. Furthermore, the inquiry into the semantics of the three mental verbs investigated indicates that their meanings are affected by the genre, inasmuch as the verbs investigated tend to depart from their default dictionary definitions by conveying less-prototypical meanings. This finding, in turn, provides a rationale for probing into the pragmatics and functions of the three verbs. It must be stressed that the results should not be generalised due to the relatively small corpus size, which implies that further research is indicated.

Meeting Report: 2013 PDA Virus & TSE Safety Forum.

Science.gov (United States)

Willkommen, Hannelore; Blümel, Johannes; Brorson, Kurt; Chen, Dayue; Chen, Qi; Gröner, Albrecht; Hubbard, Brian R; Kreil, Thomas R; Ruffing, Michel; Ruiz, Sol; Scott, Dorothy; Silvester, Glenda

2014-01-01

The report provides a summary of the presentations and discussions at the Virus & TSE Safety Forum 2013 organized by the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA) and held in Berlin, Germany, from June 4 to 6, 2013. The conference was accompanied by a workshop, "Virus Spike Preparations and Virus Removal by Filtration: New Trends and Developments". The presentations and the discussion at the workshop are summarized in a separate report that will be published in this issue of the journal as well. As with previous conferences of this series, the PDA Virus & TSE Safety Forum 2013 provided again an excellent opportunity to exchange information and opinions between the industry, research organizations, and regulatory bodies. Updates on regulatory considerations related to virus and transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) safety of biopharmaceuticals were provided by agencies of the European Union (EU), the United States (US), and Singapore. The epidemiology and detection methods of new emerging pathogens like hepatitis E virus and parvovirus (PARV 4) were exemplified, and the risk of contamination of animal-derived raw materials like trypsin was considered in particular. The benefit of using new sequence-based virus detection methods was discussed. Events of bioreactor contaminations in the past drew the attention to root cause investigations and preventive actions, which were illustrated by several examples. Virus clearance data of specific unit operations were provided; the discussion focused on the mechanism of virus clearance and on the strategic concept of viral clearance integration. As in previous years, the virus safety section was followed by a TSE section that covered recent scientific findings that may influence the risk assessment of blood and cell substrates. These included the realization that interspecies transmission of TSE by blood components in sheep is greater than predicted by assays in transgenic mice. Also, the pathogenesis and possibility of

ELSIE: The Quick Reaction Spoken Language Translation (QRSLT)

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Montgomery, Christine

2000-01-01

The objective of this effort was to develop a prototype, hand-held or body-mounted spoken language translator to assist military and law enforcement personnel in interacting with non-English-speaking people...

Biomechanically Preferred Consonant-Vowel Combinations Fail to Appear in Adult Spoken Corpora

Science.gov (United States)

Whalen, D. H.; Giulivi, Sara; Nam, Hosung; Levitt, Andrea G.; Hallé, Pierre; Goldstein, Louis M.

2012-01-01

Certain consonant/vowel (CV) combinations are more frequent than would be expected from the individual C and V frequencies alone, both in babbling and, to a lesser extent, in adult language, based on dictionary counts: Labial consonants co-occur with central vowels more often than chance would dictate; coronals co-occur with front vowels, and velars with back vowels (Davis & MacNeilage, 1994). Plausible biomechanical explanations have been proposed, but it is also possible that infants are mirroring the frequency of the CVs that they hear. As noted, previous assessments of adult language were based on dictionaries; these “type” counts are incommensurate with the babbling measures, which are necessarily “token” counts. We analyzed the tokens in two spoken corpora for English, two for French and one for Mandarin. We found that the adult spoken CV preferences correlated with the type counts for Mandarin and French, not for English. Correlations between the adult spoken corpora and the babbling results had all three possible outcomes: significantly positive (French), uncorrelated (Mandarin), and significantly negative (English). There were no correlations of the dictionary data with the babbling results when we consider all nine combinations of consonants and vowels. The results indicate that spoken frequencies of CV combinations can differ from dictionary (type) counts and that the CV preferences apparent in babbling are biomechanically driven and can ignore the frequencies of CVs in the ambient spoken language. PMID:23420980

Making out in English (English phrasebook)

CERN Document Server

Crownover, Richard

2011-01-01

Making Out in English is a fun, accessible and thorough English phrase book and guide to the English language as it's really spoken. If you are a student, businessman or tourist traveling to the English speaking world and would like to have an authentic and meaningful experience, the key is being able to speak like a local. This friendly and easy-to-use English phrasebook makes this possible. Making Out in English has been revised and redesigned to act as a guide to modern colloquial English for use in everyday informal interactions—giving access to the sort of catchy English expressions that

Earphone English.

Science.gov (United States)

Goldsmith, Francisca

2002-01-01

Describes Earphone English, a student club sponsored through a partnership between Berkeley High School and the Berkeley Public Library that offers students whose primary language is not English to practice their spoken and aural English skills. Discusses the audiobooks used in the program and the importance of multicultural content and age…

Comparison of Word Intelligibility in Spoken and Sung Phrases

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lauren B. Collister

2008-09-01

Full Text Available Twenty listeners were exposed to spoken and sung passages in English produced by three trained vocalists. Passages included representative words extracted from a large database of vocal lyrics, including both popular and classical repertoires. Target words were set within spoken or sung carrier phrases. Sung carrier phrases were selected from classical vocal melodies. Roughly a quarter of all words sung by an unaccompanied soloist were misheard. Sung passages showed a seven-fold decrease in intelligibility compared with their spoken counterparts. The perceptual mistakes occurring with vowels replicate previous studies showing the centralization of vowels. Significant confusions are also evident for consonants, especially voiced stops and nasals.

SPOKEN CUZCO QUECHUA, UNITS 7-12.

Science.gov (United States)

SOLA, DONALD F.; AND OTHERS

THIS SECOND VOLUME OF AN INTRODUCTORY COURSE IN SPOKEN CUZCO QUECHUA ALSO COMPRISES ENOUGH MATERIAL FOR ONE INTENSIVE SUMMER SESSION COURSE OR ONE SEMESTER OF SEMI-INTENSIVE INSTRUCTION (120 CLASS HOURS). THE METHOD OF PRESENTATION IS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME AS IN THE FIRST VOLUME WITH FURTHER CONTRASTIVE, LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH-QUECHUA…

The Differences between Spoken and Written Grammar in English, in Comparison with Vietnamese (Las Diferencias entre la Gramática Oral y Escrita del Idioma Inglés en Comparación con el Idioma Vietnamita)

Science.gov (United States)

Thanh, Nguyen Cao

2015-01-01

The fundamental point of this paper is to describe and evaluate some differences between spoken and written grammar in English, and compare some of the points with Vietnamese. This paper illustrates that spoken grammar is less rigid than written grammar. Moreover, it highlights the distinction between speaking and writing in terms of subordination…

Chinese College Students' Views on Native English and Non-Native English in EFL Classrooms

Science.gov (United States)

Qian, Yang; Jingxia, Liu

2016-01-01

With the development of globalization, English is clearly spoken by many more non-native than native speakers, which raises the discussion of English varieties and the debate regarding the conformity to Standard English. Although a large number of studies have shown scholars' attitudes towards native English and non-native English, little research…

Lao Tse y el Tao te Ching

OpenAIRE

Román López, María Teresa

2008-01-01

En este artículo describiremos algunos de los aspectos más reveladores de la obra y del pensamiento de Lao tse que, en cierta medida, pueden ayudarnos a entender algunas de las razones que justifican la gran influencia que el taoísmo ha tenido en el mundo oriental antiguo y, en particular, en el pensamiento de ChinaIn this article we will describe some of the most developing aspects in the book and of the thought of Lao tse that, in certain measure, they can help us to understand some of th...

The emergence and development of a spoken standard in England (1400-1926)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Hans Frede

2017-01-01

The beginnings of a spoken standard in England go back to late Middle English and early Modern English times, where southern speech and especially the idiom of the Court, London and the Home Counties acquired prestige beyond that of other regional dialects. With the increasing stabilization...

SPOKEN AYACUCHO QUECHUA. UNITS 1-10.

Science.gov (United States)

PARKER, GARY J.; SOLA, DONALD F.

THIS BEGINNING COURSE IN AYACUCHO QUECHUA, SPOKEN BY ABOUT A MILLION PEOPLE IN SOUTH-CENTRAL PERU, WAS PREPARED TO INTRODUCE THE PHONOLOGY AND GRAMMAR OF THIS DIALECT TO SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH. THE FIRST OF TWO VOLUMES, IT SERVES AS A TEXT FOR A 6-WEEK INTENSIVE COURSE OF 20 CLASS HOURS A WEEK. THE AUTHORS COMPARE AND CONTRAST SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF…

A Positivity Bias in Written and Spoken English and Its Moderation by Personality and Gender.

Science.gov (United States)

Augustine, Adam A; Mehl, Matthias R; Larsen, Randy J

2011-09-01

The human tendency to use positive words ("adorable") more often than negative words ("dreadful") is called the linguistic positivity bias. We find evidence for this bias in two studies of word use, one based on written corpora and another based on naturalistic speech samples. In addition, we demonstrate that the positivity bias applies to nouns and verbs as well as adjectives. We also show that it is found to the same degree in written as well as spoken English. Moreover, personality traits and gender moderate the effect, such that persons high on extraversion and agreeableness and women display a larger positivity bias in naturalistic speech. Results are discussed in terms of how the linguistic positivity bias may serve as a mechanism for social facilitation. People, in general, and some people more than others, tend to talk about the brighter side of life.

RiTSE/KCGE: Application of artificial intelligence to improve plant availability

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Frank, M.V.; Epstein, S.A.

1986-01-01

Maintenance and other personnel related errors are a major cause of reactor trips in some U.S. plants. Software called RiTSE and KCGE, that can operate on a mini-computer work station, has been developed to dramatically reduce trips caused by clearance coordination problems. Such problems arise because of the enormous number of components that interrelate in ways that cannot always be anticipated during plant operation. Concurrent maintenance, test, surveillance and other operations activities contribute to the unanticipated interactions. RiTSE allows the appropriate plant personnel (i.e., those responsible for authorizing work during start-up and operation) to predict if their next authorizations would cause a reactor trip. With KCGE, RiTSE can warn these personnel of a condition of significantly reduced margin to trip. RiTSE also aids post-trip cause analysis by pointing out those components that could have contributed to the trip. It is believable that use of RiTSE is a quicker and more reliable way to authorize work during operation than reliance on memory and drawings. The software provides maximum benefit when used in conjunction with a configuration management program that assures accurate plant presentation and accurate updating of component status during operation. Application of RiTSE and KCGE to a client's PWR demonstrated part of their potential benefits. (Nogami, K.)

English and Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin English) in Papua New Guinea.

Science.gov (United States)

Romaine, Suzanne

1989-01-01

Tok Pisin, New Guinea Pidgin English, is becoming increasingly important as a "lingua franca" in Papua New Guinea, even though English is the country's official language. Urban versus rural and spoken versus written varieties of the pidgin are examined, and the influence of English on Tok Pisin is investigated. 73 references. (Author/CB)

SPOKEN-LANGUAGE FEATURES IN CASUAL CONVERSATION A Case of EFL Learners‘ Casual Conversation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aris Novi

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Spoken text differs from written one in its features of context dependency, turn-taking organization, and dynamic structure. EFL learners; however, sometime find it difficult to produce typical characteristics of spoken language, particularly in casual talk. When they are asked to conduct a conversation, some of them tend to be script-based which is considered unnatural. Using the theory of Thornburry (2005, this paper aims to analyze characteristics of spoken language in casual conversation which cover spontaneity, interactivity, interpersonality, and coherence. This study used discourse analysis to reveal four features in turns and moves of three casual conversations. The findings indicate that not all sub-features used in the conversation. In this case, the spontaneity features were used 132 times; the interactivity features were used 1081 times; the interpersonality features were used 257 times; while the coherence features (negotiation features were used 526 times. Besides, the results also present that some participants seem to dominantly produce some sub-features naturally and vice versa. Therefore, this finding is expected to be beneficial to provide a model of how spoken interaction should be carried out. More importantly, it could raise English teachers or lecturers‘ awareness in teaching features of spoken language, so that, the students could develop their communicative competence as the native speakers of English do.

Prospective Freshman English Teachers’ Knowledge of the English Sound System

OpenAIRE

TEZEL, Kadir Vefa

2016-01-01

Foreign language teachers use the spoken form of the target language when they teach. One of their professional responsibilities while teaching is to form a good model of pronunciation for their students. In Turkey, English is the primary foreign language taught in all educational institutions. Prospective English teachers in the English Teacher Education departments in Faculties of Education are the products of that system, and they come to their universities having been taught English for y...

Architecture and data processing alternatives for the TSE computer. Volume 2: Extraction of topological information from an image by the Tse computer

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, J. R.; Bodenheimer, R. E.

1976-01-01

A simple programmable Tse processor organization and arithmetic operations necessary for extraction of the desired topological information are described. Hardware additions to this organization are discussed along with trade-offs peculiar to the tse computing concept. An improved organization is presented along with the complementary software for the various arithmetic operations. The performance of the two organizations is compared in terms of speed, power, and cost. Software routines developed to extract the desired information from an image are included.

Bilinguals Show Weaker Lexical Access during Spoken Sentence Comprehension

Science.gov (United States)

Shook, Anthony; Goldrick, Matthew; Engstler, Caroline; Marian, Viorica

2015-01-01

When bilinguals process written language, they show delays in accessing lexical items relative to monolinguals. The present study investigated whether this effect extended to spoken language comprehension, examining the processing of sentences with either low or high semantic constraint in both first and second languages. English-German…

Spoken English in the classroom - A Study of attitudes and experiences of spoken varieties of English in English teaching in Norway

OpenAIRE

Hopland, Amalie Alsaker

2016-01-01

To be able to express oneself orally is one of the five basic skills that is considered necessary for learning and development in school, work, and in society, and therefore deserves attention. The English language has developed from mainly being a language belonging to the native speakers to becoming a world language. Today, speakers of English use the language mainly to communicate internationally. With this development, the native speaker norm has been questioned by many academics. This is...

Spoken Indian language identification: a review of features and ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

BAKSHI AARTI

2018-04-12

Apr 12, 2018 ... languages and can be used for the purposes of spoken language identification. Keywords. SLID .... branch of linguistics to study the sound structure of human language. ... countries, work in the area of Indian language identification has not ...... English and speech database has been collected over tele-.

Talker and background noise specificity in spoken word recognition memory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Angela Cooper

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Prior research has demonstrated that listeners are sensitive to changes in the indexical (talker-specific characteristics of speech input, suggesting that these signal-intrinsic features are integrally encoded in memory for spoken words. Given that listeners frequently must contend with concurrent environmental noise, to what extent do they also encode signal-extrinsic details? Native English listeners’ explicit memory for spoken English monosyllabic and disyllabic words was assessed as a function of consistency versus variation in the talker’s voice (talker condition and background noise (noise condition using a delayed recognition memory paradigm. The speech and noise signals were spectrally-separated, such that changes in a simultaneously presented non-speech signal (background noise from exposure to test would not be accompanied by concomitant changes in the target speech signal. The results revealed that listeners can encode both signal-intrinsic talker and signal-extrinsic noise information into integrated cognitive representations, critically even when the two auditory streams are spectrally non-overlapping. However, the extent to which extra-linguistic episodic information is encoded alongside linguistic information appears to be modulated by syllabic characteristics, with specificity effects found only for monosyllabic items. These findings suggest that encoding and retrieval of episodic information during spoken word processing may be modulated by lexical characteristics.

Lao Tse y el Tao te Ching

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

María Teresa Román López

2008-01-01

Full Text Available En este artículo describiremos algunos de los aspectos más reveladores de la obra y del pensamiento de Lao tse que, en cierta medida, pueden ayudarnos a entender algunas de las razones que justifican la gran influencia que el taoísmo ha tenido en el mundo oriental antiguo y, en particular, en el pensamiento de ChinaIn this article we will describe some of the most developing aspects in the book and of the thought of Lao tse that, in certain measure, they can help us to understand some of the reasons that justify the great influence that the Taoism has had in the old oriental world and, in particular, in the thought of China.

ASSESSING THE SO CALLED MARKED INFLECTIONAL FEATURES OF NIGERIAN ENGLISH: A SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY ACCOUNT

OpenAIRE

Boluwaji Oshodi

2014-01-01

There are conflicting claims among scholars on whether the structural outputs of the types of English spoken in countries where English is used as a second language gives such speech forms the status of varieties of English. This study examined those morphological features considered to be marked features of the variety spoken in Nigeria according to Kirkpatrick (2011) and the variety spoken in Malaysia by considering the claims of the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH) a Second Lan...

How appropriate are the English language test requirements for non-UK-trained nurses? A qualitative study of spoken communication in UK hospitals.

Science.gov (United States)

Sedgwick, Carole; Garner, Mark

2017-06-01

Non-native speakers of English who hold nursing qualifications from outside the UK are required to provide evidence of English language competence by achieving a minimum overall score of Band 7 on the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) academic test. To describe the English language required to deal with the daily demands of nursing in the UK. To compare these abilities with the stipulated levels on the language test. A tracking study was conducted with 4 nurses, and focus groups with 11 further nurses. The transcripts of the interviews and focus groups were analysed thematically for recurrent themes. These findings were then compared with the requirements of the IELTS spoken test. The study was conducted outside the participants' working shifts in busy London hospitals. The participants in the tracking study were selected opportunistically;all were trained in non-English speaking countries. Snowball sampling was used for the focus groups, of whom 4 were non-native and 7 native speakers of English. In the tracking study, each of the 4 nurses was interviewed on four occasions, outside the workplace, and as close to the end of a shift as possible. They were asked to recount their spoken interactions during the course of their shift. The participants in the focus groups were asked to describe their typical interactions with patients, family members, doctors, and nursing colleagues. They were prompted to recall specific instances of frequently-occurring communication problems. All interactions were audio-recorded, with the participants' permission,and transcribed. Nurses are at the centre of communication for patient care. They have to use appropriate registers to communicate with a range of health professionals, patients and their families. They must elicit information, calm and reassure, instruct, check procedures, ask for and give opinions,agree and disagree. Politeness strategies are needed to avoid threats to face. They participate in medical

Hong Kong English: phonological features

OpenAIRE

Irina-Ana Drobot

2008-01-01

The aim of the paper is to present phonological features of Hong Kong English, which is a variety of New English. I examine features of the sound system (vowel and consonantal systems), characteristics of stress, rhythm, intonation, and phonological processes of the English spoken by Hongkongers. The way in which the accent and characteristics of the Hong Kong variety of English differs from standard, RP English is pointed out. Influences of Chinese and Cantonese on the phonological features ...

Hong Kong English: phonological features

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Irina-Ana Drobot

2008-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of the paper is to present phonological features of Hong Kong English, which is a variety of New English. I examine features of the sound system (vowel and consonantal systems, characteristics of stress, rhythm, intonation, and phonological processes of the English spoken by Hongkongers. The way in which the accent and characteristics of the Hong Kong variety of English differs from standard, RP English is pointed out. Influences of Chinese and Cantonese on the phonological features of Hong Kong English are noticeable

Japanese Attitudes toward English Accents.

Science.gov (United States)

Chiba, Reiko; And Others

1995-01-01

Examined the attitudes of 169 Japanese university students toward varieties of spoken English. Results found that the students with more instrumental motivation were more positive toward nonnative English accents than those with less instrumental motivation, and that the students' familiarity with accents had an influence on their acceptance of…

The Temporal Dynamics of Spoken Word Recognition in Adverse Listening Conditions

Science.gov (United States)

Brouwer, Susanne; Bradlow, Ann R.

2016-01-01

This study examined the temporal dynamics of spoken word recognition in noise and background speech. In two visual-world experiments, English participants listened to target words while looking at four pictures on the screen: a target (e.g. "candle"), an onset competitor (e.g. "candy"), a rhyme competitor (e.g.…

IMPROVING SPOKEN COMPETENCE BY MEANS OF MULTIMODAL ENVIRONMENTS IN A DISTANCE CONTEXT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

María Jordano de la Torre

2011-10-01

Full Text Available The outline below describes the implementation of a task-based project based on the collaborative work of students and teachers in four different countries with others studying tourism in an international distance university. By means of a mainly qualitative study, we will attempt to show if occasional written and spoken encounters with people with different L1 (either English or any other and different culture can help learners to improve different aspects of their spoken competence, such as fluency, pronunciation accuracy and cultural awareness, in the context of the European Space for Higher Education (ESHE.

TSE strain differentiation in mice by immunohistochemical PrP(Sc) profiles and triplex Western blot.

Science.gov (United States)

van Keulen, Lucien J M; Langeveld, Jan P M; Dolstra, Corry H; Jacobs, Jorg; Bossers, Alex; van Zijderveld, Fred G

2015-10-01

TSE strains are routinely identified by their incubation period and vacuolation profile in the brain after intracerebral inoculation and serial passaging in inbred mouse lines. There are some major drawbacks to this method that are related to the variation in vacuolation that exists in the brains of mice infected with the same TSE strain and to variation between observers and laboratories in scoring vacuolation and determining the final incubation period. We investigated the potential of PrP(Sc) immunohistochemistry and triplex Western blotting as possible alternative methods to differentiate between TSE strains. TSE reference strains ME7, 87A/87V, 22A/22C, 79A/79V and 301C/301V were intracerebrally inoculated in RIII or VM inbred mice that differ in their PrP genotype. Immunohistochemical PrP(Sc) profiles were drawn up by scanning light microscopy both on coronal and sagittal sections. On the basis of the localization of PrP(Sc) in the cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and cerebellar cortex and the overall type of PrP(Sc) staining, all TSE strains could be well differentiated from each other through their typical strain dependent characteristics. In addition, Western blot showed that the combination of glycosylation profile and 12B2 epitope content of PrP(Sc) allowed to distinguish between all reference strains except for ME7 and 22A in VM mice. TSE strains in mice can be identified on the basis of their PrP(Sc) profile alone. The potential to identify TSE strains in ruminants with these PrP(Sc) profiles after a single primary passage in mice will be the topic of future studies. © 2014 British Neuropathological Society.

Rethinking spoken fluency

OpenAIRE

McCarthy, Michael

2009-01-01

This article re-examines the notion of spoken fluency. Fluent and fluency are terms commonly used in everyday, lay language, and fluency, or lack of it, has social consequences. The article reviews the main approaches to understanding and measuring spoken fluency and suggest that spoken fluency is best understood as an interactive achievement, and offers the metaphor of ‘confluence’ to replace the term fluency. Many measures of spoken fluency are internal and monologue-based, whereas evidence...

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students' Through-the-Air English Skills: A Review of Formal Assessments

Science.gov (United States)

Bennett, Jessica G.; Gardner, Ralph, III; Rizzi, Gleides Lopes

2013-01-01

Strong correlations exist between signed and/or spoken English and the literacy skills of deaf and hard of hearing students. Assessments that are both valid and reliable are key for researchers and practitioners investigating the signed and/or spoken English skills of signing populations. The authors conducted a literature review to explore which…

Detection of Prion Proteins and TSE Infectivity in the Rendering and Biodiesel Manufacture Processes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brown, R.; Keller, B.; Oleschuk, R. [Queen' s University, Kingston, Ontario (Canada)

2007-03-15

This paper addresses emerging issues related to monitoring prion proteins and TSE infectivity in the products and waste streams of rendering and biodiesel manufacture processes. Monitoring is critical to addressing the knowledge gaps identified in 'Biodiesel from Specified Risk Material Tallow: An Appraisal of TSE Risks and their Reduction' (IEA's AMF Annex XXX, 2006) that prevent comprehensive risk assessment of TSE infectivity in products and waste. The most important challenge for monitoring TSE risk is the wide variety of sample types, which are generated at different points in the rendering/biodiesel production continuum. Conventional transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) assays were developed for specified risk material (SRM) and other biological tissues. These, however, are insufficient to address the diverse sample matrices produced in rendering and biodiesel manufacture. This paper examines the sample types expected in rendering and biodiesel manufacture and the implications of applying TSE assay methods to them. The authors then discuss a sample preparation filtration, which has not yet been applied to these sample types, but which has the potential to provide or significantly improve TSE monitoring. The main improvement will come from transfer of the prion proteins from the sample matrix to a matrix compatible with conventional and emerging bioassays. A second improvement will come from preconcentrating the prion proteins, which means transferring proteins from a larger sample volume into a smaller volume for analysis to provide greater detection sensitivity. This filtration method may also be useful for monitoring other samples, including wash waters and other waste streams, which may contain SRM, including those from abattoirs and on-farm operations. Finally, there is a discussion of emerging mass spectrometric methods, which Prusiner and others have shown to be suitable for detection and characterisation of prion proteins (Stahl

Tonal Language Background and Detecting Pitch Contour in Spoken and Musical Items

Science.gov (United States)

Stevens, Catherine J.; Keller, Peter E.; Tyler, Michael D.

2013-01-01

An experiment investigated the effect of tonal language background on discrimination of pitch contour in short spoken and musical items. It was hypothesized that extensive exposure to a tonal language attunes perception of pitch contour. Accuracy and reaction times of adult participants from tonal (Thai) and non-tonal (Australian English) language…

A communicative grammar of English

CERN Document Server

Leech, Geoffrey

2013-01-01

A Communicative Grammar of English has long been established as a grammar innovative in approach, reliable in coverage, and clear in its explanations. This fully revised and redesigned third edition provides up-to-date and accessible help to teachers, advanced learners and undergraduate students of English. Part One looks at the way English grammar varies in different types of English, such as 'formal' and 'informal', 'spoken' and 'written'; Part Two focuses on the uses of grammar rather than on grammatical structure and Part Three provides a handy alphabetically arranged guide to

Ragnar Rommetveit's Approach to Everyday Spoken Dialogue from Within.

Science.gov (United States)

Kowal, Sabine; O'Connell, Daniel C

2016-04-01

The following article presents basic concepts and methods of Ragnar Rommetveit's (born 1924) hermeneutic-dialogical approach to everyday spoken dialogue with a focus on both shared consciousness and linguistically mediated meaning. He developed this approach originally in his engagement of mainstream linguistic and psycholinguistic research of the 1960s and 1970s. He criticized this research tradition for its individualistic orientation and its adherence to experimental methodology which did not allow the engagement of interactively established meaning and understanding in everyday spoken dialogue. As a social psychologist influenced by phenomenological philosophy, Rommetveit opted for an alternative conceptualization of such dialogue as a contextualized, partially private world, temporarily co-established by interlocutors on the basis of shared consciousness. He argued that everyday spoken dialogue should be investigated from within, i.e., from the perspectives of the interlocutors and from a psychology of the second person. Hence, he developed his approach with an emphasis on intersubjectivity, perspectivity and perspectival relativity, meaning potential of utterances, and epistemic responsibility of interlocutors. In his methods, he limited himself for the most part to casuistic analyses, i.e., logical analyses of fictitious examples to argue for the plausibility of his approach. After many years of experimental research on language, he pursued his phenomenologically oriented research on dialogue in English-language publications from the late 1980s up to 2003. During that period, he engaged psycholinguistic research on spoken dialogue carried out by Anglo-American colleagues only occasionally. Although his work remained unfinished and open to development, it provides both a challenging alternative and supplement to current Anglo-American research on spoken dialogue and some overlap therewith.

Native Language Spoken as a Risk Marker for Tooth Decay.

Science.gov (United States)

Carson, J; Walker, L A; Sanders, B J; Jones, J E; Weddell, J A; Tomlin, A M

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study was to assess dmft, the number of decayed, missing (due to caries), and/ or filled primary teeth, of English-speaking and non-English speaking patients of a hospital based pediatric dental clinic under the age of 72 months to determine if native language is a risk marker for tooth decay. Records from an outpatient dental clinic which met the inclusion criteria were reviewed. Patient demographics and dmft score were recorded, and the patients were separated into three groups by the native language spoken by their parents: English, Spanish and all other languages. A total of 419 charts were assessed: 253 English-speaking, 126 Spanish-speaking, and 40 other native languages. After accounting for patient characteristics, dmft was significantly higher for the other language group than for the English-speaking (p0.05). Those patients under 72 months of age whose parents' native language is not English or Spanish, have the highest risk for increased dmft when compared to English and Spanish speaking patients. Providers should consider taking additional time to educate patients and their parents, in their native language, on the importance of routine dental care and oral hygiene.

Altering Practices to Include Bimodal-bilingual (ASL-Spoken English) Programming at a Small School for the Deaf in Canada.

Science.gov (United States)

Priestley, Karen; Enns, Charlotte; Arbuckle, Shauna

2018-01-01

Bimodal-bilingual programs are emerging as one way to meet broader needs and provide expanded language, educational and social-emotional opportunities for students who are deaf and hard of hearing (Marschark, M., Tang, G. & Knoors, H. (Eds). (2014). Bilingualism and bilingual Deaf education. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; Paludneviciene & Harris, R. (2011). Impact of cochlear implants on the deaf community. In Paludneviciene, R. & Leigh, I. (Eds.), Cochlear implants evolving perspectives (pp. 3-19). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press). However, there is limited research on students' spoken language development, signed language growth, academic outcomes or the social-emotional factors associated with these programs (Marschark, M., Tang, G. & Knoors, H. (Eds). (2014). Bilingualism and bilingual Deaf education. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; Nussbaum, D & Scott, S. (2011). The cochlear implant education center: Perspectives on effective educational practices. In Paludneviciene, R. & Leigh, I. (Eds.) Cochlear implants evolving perspectives (pp. 175-205). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. The cochlear implant education center: Perspectives on effective educational practices. In Paludnevicience & Leigh (Eds). Cochlear implants evolving perspectives (pp. 175-205). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press; Spencer, P. & Marschark, M. (Eds.) (2010). Evidence-based practice in educating deaf and hard-of-hearing students. New York, NY: Oxford University Press). The purpose of this case study was to look at formal and informal student outcomes as well as staff and parent perceptions during the first 3 years of implementing a bimodal-bilingual (ASL and spoken English) program within an ASL milieu at a small school for the deaf. Speech and language assessment results for five students were analyzed over a 3-year period and indicated that the students made significant positive gains in all areas, although results were variable. Staff and parent

English for Tourism and Hospitality Purposes (ETP)

Science.gov (United States)

Zahedpisheh, Nahid; Abu Bakar, Zulqarnain B.; Saffari, Narges

2017-01-01

The quick development of the tourism and hospitality industry can straightly influence the English language which is the most widely used and spoken language in international tourism in the twenty-first century. English for tourism has a major role in the delivery of quality service. Employees who work in the tourism and hospitality industry are…

Word Frequencies in Written and Spoken English

African Journals Online (AJOL)

R.B. Ruthven

gogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cowie, A.P. 1998. Phraseology: Theory, Analysis, Applications. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Cowie, A.P. 1999. English Dictionaries for Foreign Learners. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Read, J. and M. Ambrose, M. 1998. Towards a Multilingual Dictionary of Academic Words.

Structural Analysis of Lexical Bundles in EFL English Majors’ Theses of an Ordinary Normal University in China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xixiang LOU

2012-11-01

Full Text Available A quantitative analysis has been made of 330 Chinese EFL learners’ theses the distribution of the three- to eight-word lexical bundles in them and a comparison has been made of the percentages of the four-word lexical bundles of different structural categories in Chinese EFL learners’ theses and the native English speakers’ spoken or written academic language. It is found that the three-to eight-word lexical bundles in Chinese EFL learners’ theses are on the decrease with the increase of the number of their component words. Chinese students’ English language data share with native English speakers’ spoken academic language data the ‘personal pronoun + lexical verb phrase (+complement clause’ lexical bundles and the ‘(auxiliary + active verb (+’ bundles, and  also share with native English speakers’ academic spoken language data the ‘adverbial clause fragment’ bundles, the ‘noun phrase with other post-modifier fragment’ bundles, the ‘anticipatory it + VP/adjective P (+ complement clause’ bundles, the ‘passive verb + PP fragment’ bundles and the ‘copula be + NP/adjective P’ bundles. A further analysis shows that the EFL learners’ English language in their theses is of more characteristics of written language and fewer characteristics of spoken language.

Expression, purification and preliminary crystallographic analysis of the T6SS effector protein Tse3 from Pseudomonas aeruginosa

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lu, Defen; Shang, Guijun; Yu, Qian; Zhang, Heqiao; Zhao, Yanyu; Cang, Huaixing; Gu, Lichuan; Xu, Sujuan; Huang, Yan

2013-01-01

Tse3, one of the effectors of the type VI secretion system in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, has been crystallized and diffracted to 1.5 Å resolution. Pseudomonas aeruginosa uses the type VI secretion system (T6SS) to inject effector proteins into rival cells in niche competition. Tse3, one of the effectors of T6SS, is delivered into the periplasm of recipient cells. Tse3 functions as a muramidase that degrades the β-1,4-linkage between N-acetylmuramic acid (MurNAc) and N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) in peptidoglycan, thus leading to lysis of the recipient cells and providing a competitive advantage to the donor cells. Here, the preliminary crystallographic study of Tse3 is reported. A crystal of Tse3 diffracted to 1.5 Å resolution. It belonged to space group C121, with unit-cell parameters a = 166.99, b = 70.13, c = 41.94 Å, α = 90.00, β = 90.52, γ = 90.00° and one molecule per asymmetric unit

Mobility limitations and fear of falling in non-English speaking older Mexican-Americans.

Science.gov (United States)

James, Eric G; Conatser, Phillip; Karabulut, Murat; Leveille, Suzanne G; Hausdorff, Jeffrey M; Cote, Sarah; Tucker, Katherine L; Barton, Bruce; Bean, Jonathan F; Al Snih, Soham; Markides, Kyriakos S

2017-10-01

To determine whether older Mexican-Americans who cannot speak and/or understand spoken English have higher rates of mobility limitations or fear of falling than their English-speaking counterparts. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of 1169 community-dwelling Mexican-Americans aged 72-96 years from the 2000-2001 wave of the Hispanic Established Population for the Epidemiological Study of the Elderly. Mobility limitations were defined as having a Short Physical Performance Battery score ≤9, and fear of falling by participant report of being somewhat, fairly, or very afraid of falling. We determined the rates and odds ratios, for having mobility limitations and fear of falling as a function of English ability in those who were 72-96, English 85.7% had mobility limitations and 61.6% were afraid of falling, compared to 77.6% and 57.5%, respectively, of English speakers. Before adjusting for covariates, participants who did not speak and/or understand spoken English were more likely to have mobility limitations (odds ratio: 1.7; 95% CI: 1.3-2.4) but not fear of falling, compared to English speakers. Among those aged ≥80 years, but not those English were more likely to have mobility limitations (odds ratio: 4.8; 95% CI:2.0-11.5) and fear of falling (odds ratio: 2.0; 95% CI:1.3-3.1). Older Mexican-Americans who do not speak or understand spoken English have a higher rate of mobility limitations and fear of falling than their English-speaking counterparts.

The Philippine Variety of English and the Problem of Standardization.

Science.gov (United States)

Gonzalez, Andrew

The variety of English spoken and written by Filipino natives is examined, and its particular usages or "perduring features" are reviewed. Filipino English is shown to be influenced by the structures of native Filipino language(s), and by the historical and cultural contexts in which it is learned. It is argued that Philippine English,…

Spoken Grammar for Chinese Learners

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

徐晓敏

2013-01-01

Currently, the concept of spoken grammar has been mentioned among Chinese teachers. However, teach-ers in China still have a vague idea of spoken grammar. Therefore this dissertation examines what spoken grammar is and argues that native speakers’ model of spoken grammar needs to be highlighted in the classroom teaching.

The English of Gustavia, St. Barthélemy

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Decker, Ken; Williams, Jeffrey P.; Schneider, Edgar W.; Trudgill, Peter; Schreier, Daniel

2015-01-01

Introduction There is a variety of English spoken in the port city of Gustavia on the French island of St. Barthélemy in the Leeward Islands in the northeastern corner of the Caribbean. It has the smallest population of speakers of English in the Caribbean and is probably the most endangered

English Proficiency and Participation in Online Discussion for Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Leung, Steve

2013-01-01

Does English proficiency affect participation in online discussion? This study polled 14 students from a postgraduate online course that require online discussion. The students are divided into groups according to their home language spoken and self-assessed English proficiency, and measure against their participation level in the required…

Spoken Dialogue Systems

CERN Document Server

Jokinen, Kristiina

2009-01-01

Considerable progress has been made in recent years in the development of dialogue systems that support robust and efficient human-machine interaction using spoken language. Spoken dialogue technology allows various interactive applications to be built and used for practical purposes, and research focuses on issues that aim to increase the system's communicative competence by including aspects of error correction, cooperation, multimodality, and adaptation in context. This book gives a comprehensive view of state-of-the-art techniques that are used to build spoken dialogue systems. It provides

Development of Mandarin spoken language after pediatric cochlear implantation.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Bei; Soli, Sigfrid D; Zheng, Yun; Li, Gang; Meng, Zhaoli

2014-07-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate early spoken language development in young Mandarin-speaking children during the first 24 months after cochlear implantation, as measured by receptive and expressive vocabulary growth rates. Growth rates were compared with those of normally hearing children and with growth rates for English-speaking children with cochlear implants. Receptive and expressive vocabularies were measured with the simplified short form (SSF) version of the Mandarin Communicative Development Inventory (MCDI) in a sample of 112 pediatric implant recipients at baseline, 3, 6, 12, and 24 months after implantation. Implant ages ranged from 1 to 5 years. Scores were expressed in terms of normal equivalent ages, allowing normalized vocabulary growth rates to be determined. Scores for English-speaking children were re-expressed in these terms, allowing direct comparisons of Mandarin and English early spoken language development. Vocabulary growth rates during the first 12 months after implantation were similar to those for normally hearing children less than 16 months of age. Comparisons with growth rates for normally hearing children 16-30 months of age showed that the youngest implant age group (1-2 years) had an average growth rate of 0.68 that of normally hearing children; while the middle implant age group (2-3 years) had an average growth rate of 0.65; and the oldest implant age group (>3 years) had an average growth rate of 0.56, significantly less than the other two rates. Growth rates for English-speaking children with cochlear implants were 0.68 in the youngest group, 0.54 in the middle group, and 0.57 in the oldest group. Growth rates in the middle implant age groups for the two languages differed significantly. The SSF version of the MCDI is suitable for assessment of Mandarin language development during the first 24 months after cochlear implantation. Effects of implant age and duration of implantation can be compared directly across

MR Cholangiography: Axial TSE-T2 Sequence Evaluation in the Diagnosis of Choledocholithiasis; Colangiografia RM: evaluacion de la secuencia TSE-T2 axial en la deteccion de coledocolitiasis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Alustiza, J M; Gervas, C; Garcia, E; Recondo, J A [Hospital Donostia. San Sebastian (Spain)

2003-07-01

To evaluate diagnostic precision of the axial TSE-T2 sequence in the diagnosis of choledocholithiasis. Retrospective analysis of all those MR cholangiography studies performed in our center between January 1998 and June 1999 which were later subjected to conventional cholangiography (intraoperative) as a golden standard. A total of 39 patients was studied. Imaging parameters of the sequence evaluated, fat-suppressed TSE-T2 in the axial plane, were as follows: TE 100 ms, TR 1.800 ms, turbo factor 23 FOV 375 mm, NSA 4, 228 x 256 matrix, respiratory compensation, number of slices 35, slice thickness 3 mm, contiguous slices, scan duration 5'4''. Without having been informed as to the cholangiography result, two radiologists independently analyzed this sequence in order to determine the presence of choledocholithiasis. Their results were latter compared with those of the conventional cholangiography. The sensitivity, specificity and agreement between results were all calculated. 21 patients had choledocholithiasis. The analyzed sequence presented sensitivity 81%, specificity 89%, and agreement between radiologists 98%, Kappa index 0.949. The axial sequence TSE-T2 is reliable for choledocholithiasis diagnosis. (Author) 9 refs.

Measuring the Comprehensibility of Englishes within ASEAN among Aseans

Science.gov (United States)

Wilang, Jeffrey Dawala; Teo, Adisa

2012-01-01

This paper focuses on designing a comprehensibility test and a questionnaire for spoken world Englishes in Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, and utilizing the test to investigate the comprehension of Burmese, Cambodians, Indonesians, Laotians, Thais and Vietnamese. We reviewed the demarcation of users of English based on Kachru's…

The Role of Secondary-Stressed and Unstressed-Unreduced Syllables in Word Recognition: Acoustic and Perceptual Studies with Russian Learners of English

Science.gov (United States)

Banzina, Elina; Dilley, Laura C.; Hewitt, Lynne E.

2016-01-01

The importance of secondary-stressed (SS) and unstressed-unreduced (UU) syllable accuracy for spoken word recognition in English is as yet unclear. An acoustic study first investigated Russian learners' of English production of SS and UU syllables. Significant vowel quality and duration reductions in Russian-spoken SS and UU vowels were found,…

An Assessment of Hispanic Recruits Who Speak English as a Second Language

Science.gov (United States)

1980-06-01

PREDOMINANTLY IN A SOCIAL SITUATION, SPANISH OR ENGLISH? (Que idioma habla Ud. predominantemente, esparfol o ingles?) TOTAL SPANISH: 36/102 (35.3%) ENGLISH...SPANISH: 23/26 (88.5%) ENGLISH: 0 EQUAL: 3/26 (11.5%) LANGUAGE SPOKEN AT HOME: ( Idioma que habla Ud. en el Hogar) SPANISH: 57/102 (55.9

Evaluation of iron colloid-enhanced T{sub 2}-weighted fast MR imaging of hepatocellular carcinoma. Comparison of SE, TSE and TGSE sequences

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sugihara, Shuji; Suto, Yuji; Kamba, Masayuki; Yoshida, Kotarou; Ohta, Yoshio [Tottori Univ., Yonago (Japan). Faculty of Medicine

1996-06-01

We have applied chondroitin sulfate iron colloid (CSIC) as a contrast agent for MRI in detecting hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) on conventional spin-echo sequences (SE). In this report, we evaluated CSIC-enhanced T{sub 2}-weighted fast MR imaging of HCC. MR imaging were performed before and after i.v. administration of CSIC in 15 patients with 46 HCCs. T{sub 2}-weighted SE (1800/80/2, 210 x 256 matrix), T{sub 2}-weighted turbo spin-echo (TSE1800) (1800/90/5, echo train length=7, 252 x 256 matrix), TSE (3500/90/5, echo train length=7, 252 x 256 matrix) (TSE7), TSE (3500/99/5, echo train length=11, 242 x 256 matrix) (TSE11) and T{sub 2}-weighted turbo-gradient spine-echo (TGSE) (4500/108/4, echo train length=33, 252 x 256 matrix) images were compared quantitatively and qualitatively. In all sequences, liver signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was significantly decreased and lesion-to-liver contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) was significantly increased after CSIC administration. Although decreased ratio in liver and tumor SNR caused by CSIC was smaller on TSE sequences compared with SE and TGSE, increased ratio in lesion-to-liver CNR was largest on TSE7. Either before or after i.v. administration of CSIC, the number of detectable lesions was largest on TSE7. TSE with used longer TR, TE and decreased echo factor was useful method for CSIC-enhanced abdominal MR imaging. (author)

Marking of verb tense in the English of preschool English-Mandarin bilingual children: evidence from language development profiles within subgroups on the Singapore English Action Picture Test.

Science.gov (United States)

Brebner, Chris; McCormack, Paul; Liow, Susan Rickard

2016-01-01

The phonological and morphosyntactic structures of English and Mandarin contrast maximally and an increasing number of bilinguals speak these two languages. Speech and language therapists need to understand bilingual development for children speaking these languages in order reliably to assess and provide intervention for this population. To examine the marking of verb tense in the English of two groups of bilingual pre-schoolers learning these languages in a multilingual setting where the main educational language is English. The main research question addressed was: are there differences in the rate and pattern of acquisition of verb-tense marking for English-language 1 children compared with Mandarin-language 1 children? Spoken language samples in English from 481 English-Mandarin bilingual children were elicited using a 10-item action picture test and analysed for each child's use of verb tense markers: present progressive '-ing', regular past tense '-ed', third-person singular '-s', and irregular past tense and irregular past-participle forms. For 4-6 year olds the use of inflectional markers by the different language dominance groups was compared statistically using non-parametric tests. This study provides further evidence that bilingual language development is not the same as monolingual language development. The results show that there are very different rates and patterns of verb-tense marking in English for English-language 1 and Mandarin-language 1 children. Furthermore, they show that bilingual language development in English in Singapore is not the same as monolingual language development in English, and that there are differences in development depending on language dominance. Valid and reliable assessment of bilingual children's language skills needs to consider the characteristics of all languages spoken, obtaining accurate information on language use over time and accurately establishing language dominance is essential in order to make a

Biodiesel from Specified Risk Material Tallow: An Appraisal of TSE Risks and their Reduction

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Baribeau, A; Bradley, R; Brown, P; Goodwin, J; Kihm, U; Lotero, E; O' Connor, D; Schuppers, M; Taylor, D

2007-03-15

This document presents a systematic survey of current knowledge about the risk to human and animal health posed by the processing of tissues from animals potentially infected with transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE, or 'prion disease') into biodiesel. It is organised into an introductory background section on TSE, followed by chapters treating the sequential stages of biodiesel production. The principal conclusions are: Animal tissue sources. The choice of geographic origin, based on published scientific evaluations of the risk of TSE to be present in a given country, can largely reduce or even eliminate the entry of contaminated tissue into the biodiesel feedstock. Further safeguards can be provided by selection of animal species not susceptible to TSE, and of tissues without any detectable infectivity even in susceptible species. None of these measures, however, would be applied to the biodiesel projects under consideration, which have the specific aim of using animals and tissues (including specified risk material, or SRM) considered to have sufficient potential risk to be unacceptable for use in food, feed, fertilisers, or pharmaceuticals (including biologicals and medical devices) and therefore are designated for other approved uses, or destruction. Tissue rendering to produce tallow. Experiments to test the survival of TSE infectivity in the products of rendering failed to detect any infectivity in the crude tallow fraction, even following processing methods that allowed survival of infectivity in the co-produced meat and bone meal fraction. It is therefore extremely unlikely that pure tallow originating from diseased animals would be infectious; however, lower grade tallow might contain infectious impurities. A requirement that tallow derived from SRM for use in biodiesel contain no detectable protein would reduce this possibility. Transesterification of tallow to biodiesel. Several steps in the manufacturing process have at least the potential to

Biodiesel from Specified Risk Material Tallow: An Appraisal of TSE Risks and their Reduction

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Baribeau, A.; Bradley, R.; Brown, P.; Goodwin, J.; Kihm, U.; Lotero, E.; O' Connor, D.; Schuppers, M.; Taylor, D.

2007-03-15

This document presents a systematic survey of current knowledge about the risk to human and animal health posed by the processing of tissues from animals potentially infected with transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE, or 'prion disease') into biodiesel. It is organised into an introductory background section on TSE, followed by chapters treating the sequential stages of biodiesel production. The principal conclusions are: Animal tissue sources. The choice of geographic origin, based on published scientific evaluations of the risk of TSE to be present in a given country, can largely reduce or even eliminate the entry of contaminated tissue into the biodiesel feedstock. Further safeguards can be provided by selection of animal species not susceptible to TSE, and of tissues without any detectable infectivity even in susceptible species. None of these measures, however, would be applied to the biodiesel projects under consideration, which have the specific aim of using animals and tissues (including specified risk material, or SRM) considered to have sufficient potential risk to be unacceptable for use in food, feed, fertilisers, or pharmaceuticals (including biologicals and medical devices) and therefore are designated for other approved uses, or destruction. Tissue rendering to produce tallow. Experiments to test the survival of TSE infectivity in the products of rendering failed to detect any infectivity in the crude tallow fraction, even following processing methods that allowed survival of infectivity in the co-produced meat and bone meal fraction. It is therefore extremely unlikely that pure tallow originating from diseased animals would be infectious; however, lower grade tallow might contain infectious impurities. A requirement that tallow derived from SRM for use in biodiesel contain no detectable protein would reduce this possibility. Transesterification of tallow to biodiesel. Several steps in the manufacturing process have at least the

Reasoning and representation in RiTSE

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Epstein, S.A.

1987-01-01

RiTSE, the Reactor Trip Simulation Environment, is a frame and rule-base artificial intelligence (AI) application which aids nuclear power plant operators in determining if a proposed change in a state of a component or process causes safety systems to automatically shut the plant down. This paper stresses the software techniques used to implement the system. The authors demonstrate that prototypes and industrial strength systems can be built quickly and economically without expert system shells, and that integration of AI and database techniques create a novel programming paradigm

English as a "Lingua Franca" in International Business Contexts

Science.gov (United States)

Nickerson, Catherine

2005-01-01

This article will provide an overview of current research focussing on the use of English as a "lingua franca" in international business contexts. It selectively reviews research investigating the role of written and spoken communication in English and the work that has been done on specific text genres used by the international business…

Comprehending Implied Meaning in English as a Foreign Language

Science.gov (United States)

Taguchi, Naoko

2005-01-01

This study investigated whether second language (L2) proficiency affects pragmatic comprehension, namely the ability to comprehend implied meaning in spoken dialogues, in terms of accuracy and speed of comprehension. Participants included 46 native English speakers at a U.S. university and 160 Japanese students of English in a college in Japan who…

Contrast-enhanced turbo spin-echo(TSE) T1-weighted imaging: improved contrast of enhancing lesions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Choi, Sung Wook; Lee, Ghi Jai; Shim, Jae Chan; Lee, Young Ju; Jeong, Se Hyung; Kim, Ho kyun

1997-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of contrast improvement of enhancing brain lesions by inherent magnetization transfer effect in turbo spin-echo(TSE)T1-weighted MR imaging. Twenty-six enhancing lesions of 19 patients were included in this study. Using a 1.0T superconductive MR unit, contrast-enhanced SE T1-weighted images(TR=3D600 msec, TE=3D12 msec, NEX=3D2, acquistition time=3D4min 27sec) and contrast-enhanced TSE T1-weighted images(TR=3D600 msec, TE=3D12, acquistition time=3D1min 44sec) were obtained. Signal intensities at enhancing lesions and adjacent white matter were measured in the same regions of both images. Signal-to-noise ratio(SNR) of enhancing lesions and adjacent white matter, and con-trast-to-noise ratio(CNR) and lesion-to-background contrast (LBC) of enhancing lesions were calculated and statistically analysed using the paired t-test. On contrast-enhanced TSE T1-weighted images, SNR of enhancing lesions and adjacent white matter decreased by 18%(p<0.01) and 32%(p<0.01), respectively, compared to contrast-enhanced SE T1-weighted images. CNR and LBC of enhancing lesions increased by 16%(p<0.05) and 66%(p<0.01), respectively. Due to the proposed inherent magnetization transfer effects in TSE imaging, con-trast-enhanced T1-weighted TSE images demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in CNR and LBC, compared to conventional contrast-enhanced T1-weighted SE images, and scan time was much shorter

A Prerequisite to L1 Homophone Effects in L2 Spoken-Word Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Nakai, Satsuki; Lindsay, Shane; Ota, Mitsuhiko

2015-01-01

When both members of a phonemic contrast in L2 (second language) are perceptually mapped to a single phoneme in one's L1 (first language), L2 words containing a member of that contrast can spuriously activate L2 words in spoken-word recognition. For example, upon hearing cattle, Dutch speakers of English are reported to experience activation…

Telephoning in English

CERN Document Server

Naterop, B Jean

1994-01-01

Many people have to use English on the telephone in the course of their work, either at the level of taking a simple message or involving more complex tasks such as requesting information. Telephoning in English provides an up-to-date and relevant context in which students from lower-intermediate level upwards can develop practical telephone skills. The course principally develops spoken interactive skills, but also includes reading material on telephone systems and techniques. As the material is not restricted to particular job functions, it is suitable for students in a wide range of business and administration fields.

Plasminogen-based capture combined with amplification technology for the detection of PrP(TSE in the pre-clinical phase of infection.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christiane Segarra

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD is a neurodegenerative infectious disorder, characterized by a prominent accumulation of pathological isoforms of the prion protein (PrP(TSE in the brain and lymphoid tissues. Since the publication in the United Kingdom of four apparent vCJD cases following transfusion of red blood cells and one apparent case following treatment with factor VIII, the presence of vCJD infectivity in the blood seems highly probable. For effective blood testing of vCJD individuals in the preclinical or clinical phase of infection, it is considered necessary that assays detect PrP(TSE concentrations in the femtomolar range. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We have developed a three-step assay that firstly captures PrP(TSE from infected blood using a plasminogen-coated magnetic-nanobead method prior to its serial amplification via protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA and specific PrP(TSE detection by western blot. We achieved a PrP(TSE capture yield of 95% from scrapie-infected material. We demonstrated the possibility of detecting PrP(TSE in white blood cells, in buffy coat and in plasma isolated from the blood of scrapie-infected sheep collected at the pre-clinical stage of the disease. The test also allowed the detection of PrP(TSE in human plasma spiked with a 10(-8 dilution of vCJD-infected brain homogenate corresponding to the level of sensitivity (femtogram required for the detection of the PrP(TSE in asymptomatic carriers. The 100% specificity of the test was revealed using a blinded panel comprising 96 human plasma samples. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: We have developed a sensitive and specific amplification assay allowing the detection of PrP(TSE in the plasma and buffy coat fractions of blood collected at the pre-clinical phase of the disease. This assay represents a good candidate as a confirmatory assay for the presence of PrP(TSE in blood of patients displaying positivity in large scale screening

English Training

CERN Multimedia

2003-01-01

General and Professional English Courses The next session will take place: from 03 March to 28 June 2003 (2 weeks break at Easter). These courses are open to all persons working on the Cern site, and to their spouses. For registration and further information on the courses, please consult our Web pages: http://cern.ch/Training or contact Mrs. Benz: tel.73127 or Mr. Liptow: tel.72957. Writing Professional Documents in English This course is designed for people with a good level of spoken English. Duration: 20 hours (2 hours a week) Price: 440 CHF (for 8 students) For registration and further information, please consult our Web pages: http://cern.ch/Training or contact Mrs. Tessa Osborne: Tessa.Osborne@cern. Oral Expression This course is intended for people with a good knowledge of English who want to practise and maintain their speaking skills while extending their vocabulary. There will be approximately 8 participants in a class. Speaking activities will include discussions, meeting simulations, rol...

English Training

CERN Multimedia

2003-01-01

General and Professional English Courses The next session will take place: from 03 March to 28 June 2003 (2 weeks break at Easter). These courses are open to all persons working on the Cern site, and to their spouses. For registration and further information on the courses, please consult our Web pages: http://cern.ch/Training or contact Mrs. Benz: tel.73127 or Mr. Liptow: tel.72957. Writing Professional Documents in English This course is designed for people with a good level of spoken English. Duration: 20 hours (2 hours a week) Price: 440 CHF (for 8 students) For registration and further information, please consult our Web pages: http://cern.ch/Training or contact Mrs. Tessa Osborne: Tessa.Osborne@cern. Oral Expression This course is intended for people with a good knowledge of English who want to practise and maintain their speaking skills while extending their vocabulary. There will be approximately 8 participants in a class. Speaking activities will include discussions, meeting simulations, role-p...

The Corpus of English as Lingua Franca in Academic Settings.

Science.gov (United States)

Mauranen, Anna

2003-01-01

Describes a project to make a corpus of English spoken as a lingua franca in university settings in Finland. This corpus is one of the first to address the need for corpora that show the target for English-as-a-Foreign-Language learners whose goal is not to speak with native speakers but to interact in communities where English is a lingua franca.…

ASSESSING THE SO CALLED MARKED INFLECTIONAL FEATURES OF NIGERIAN ENGLISH: A SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY ACCOUNT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Boluwaji Oshodi

2014-04-01

Full Text Available There are conflicting claims among scholars on whether the structural outputs of the types of English spoken in countries where English is used as a second language gives such speech forms the status of varieties of English. This study examined those morphological features considered to be marked features of the variety spoken in Nigeria according to Kirkpatrick (2011 and the variety spoken in Malaysia by considering the claims of the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH a Second Language Acquisition theory which accounts for the cause of the variable use of such inflections among L2 learners. Results from oral and written composition tasks administered on selected undergraduate students of Nigerian and Malaysian universities revealed that what is regarded as morphological features are actually a deviation from the L2 target forms. According to the MSIH the variability in the use of such inflections is due to problems of lexical retrieval a psycholinguistic problem which manifests among L2 learners of English generally which results in wrong surface representations.

Colloquial English the complete course for beginners

CERN Document Server

King, Gareth

2015-01-01

Colloquial English provides a step-by-step course in English as it is written and spoken today. Combining a user-friendly approach with a thorough treatment of the language, it equips learners with the essential skills needed to communicate confidently and effectively in English in a broad range of situations. Key features include:progressive coverage of speaking, listening, reading and writing skillsstructured, jargon-free explanations of grammaran extensive range of focused and stimulating exercisesrealistic and entertaining dialogues covering a broad variety of scenariosuseful explanations

Revision of IMO Model Course 3.17 Maritime English. Focus on Maritime English to Auxiliary Personnel

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L. Martes

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Under the Manila 2010 amendments to the STCW , all crew members on board cruise vessels, mainly those assisting passengers during emergency situations and not only, “should be able to communicate safety-related issues in English or in the language spoken by the passengers and other personnel on board.” Having in view that navigational and safety communications from ship to shore and vice versa, ship to ship, and on board ships must be precise, simple and unambiguous, so as to avoid confusion and error, besides the need to standardize the language used, there is a growing demand of developing communication skills in English, especially for personnel working on cruise vessels, but also on RORO vessels, yachts and small passenger vessels. This is the reason why we have designed, developed and are already delivering the “Maritime English for Auxiliary Personnel" course in Specialized Maritime English to auxiliary personnel working on board cruise vessels to develop their ability to communicate with passengers, mainly during an emergency. The course covers the specific language used to describe the parts of ships, organisation on board ships, all essential safety-related matters and work-specific topics. It also reflects the situations in which auxiliary personnel need to communicate, with each other, with other crew members and with shore side authorities. The final goal of this course is to improve fluency in spoken English in real life situations which, of course, can be both routine and non-routine.

Enhancing the Pronunciation of English Suprasegmental Features through Reflective Learning Method

Science.gov (United States)

Suwartono

2014-01-01

Suprasegmental features are of paramount importance in spoken English. Yet, these pronunciation features are marginalised in EFL/ESL teaching-learning. This article reported a study that was aimed at improving the students' mastery of English suprasegmental features through the use of reflective learning method. The study adopted Kemmis and…

English grammar a university course

CERN Document Server

Downing, Angela

2014-01-01

This best-selling comprehensive descriptive grammar forms a complete course, ideal for all students studying English Language ,whether on a course or for self-study. Broadly based on Hallidayan systemic-functional grammar but also drawing on cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis, English Grammar is accessible, avoiding overly theoretical or technical explanations.Divided into 12 self-contained chapters based around language functions, each chapter is divided into units of class-length material. Key features include:Numerous authentic texts from a wide range of sources, both spoken and w

“Is it English what we speak?” Irish English and Postcolonial Identity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mariavita Cambria

2014-07-01

Full Text Available This paper explores the case of Ireland as an anti-litteram postcolonial context. Within this context, a main concern is that of the relationship between language and identity. Irish English (the variety of English spoken in Ireland enjoys a unique position within the constellation of world-wide English varieties. Various factors led to the emergence of Irish English, it may well have developed as a resistance to the (contrasting forces of colonialism and has been perceived as a different vehicle for communication when compared to received colonial English. Scholars now generally believe that Irish people, at a certain moment in time, decided to use a language which offered better possibilities for work. Via the analysis of some postcolonial issues, such as the linguistic crisis of the colonial subject, the paper will first illustrate the circumstances that led to the emergence of Irish English and then list the main features of this variety.

Limited-Domain Speech-to-Speech Translation between English and Pashto

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Precoda, Kristin; Franco, Horacio; Dost, Ascander; Frandsen, Michael; Fry, John; Kathol, Andreas; Richey, Colleen; Riehemann, Susanne; Vergyri, Dimitra; Zheng, Jing

2004-01-01

This paper describes a prototype system for near-real-time spontaneous, bidirectional translation between spoken English and Pashto, a language presenting many technological challenges because of its lack...

CAIPIRINHA accelerated SPACE enables 10-min isotropic 3D TSE MRI of the ankle for optimized visualization of curved and oblique ligaments and tendons.

Science.gov (United States)

Kalia, Vivek; Fritz, Benjamin; Johnson, Rory; Gilson, Wesley D; Raithel, Esther; Fritz, Jan

2017-09-01

To test the hypothesis that a fourfold CAIPIRINHA accelerated, 10-min, high-resolution, isotropic 3D TSE MRI prototype protocol of the ankle derives equal or better quality than a 20-min 2D TSE standard protocol. Following internal review board approval and informed consent, 3-Tesla MRI of the ankle was obtained in 24 asymptomatic subjects including 10-min 3D CAIPIRINHA SPACE TSE prototype and 20-min 2D TSE standard protocols. Outcome variables included image quality and visibility of anatomical structures using 5-point Likert scales. Non-parametric statistical testing was used. P values ≤0.001 were considered significant. Edge sharpness, contrast resolution, uniformity, noise, fat suppression and magic angle effects were without statistical difference on 2D and 3D TSE images (p > 0.035). Fluid was mildly brighter on intermediate-weighted 2D images (p acceleration enables high-spatial resolution oblique and curved planar MRI of the ankle and visualization of ligaments, tendons and joints equally well or better than a more time-consuming anisotropic 2D TSE MRI. • High-resolution 3D TSE MRI improves visualization of ankle structures. • Limitations of current 3D TSE MRI include long scan times. • 3D CAIPIRINHA SPACE allows now a fourfold-accelerated data acquisition. • 3D CAIPIRINHA SPACE enables high-spatial-resolution ankle MRI within 10 min. • 10-min 3D CAIPIRINHA SPACE produces equal-or-better quality than 20-min 2D TSE.

The Typical Different Features of Grammar of the British English (BrE and American English (AmE

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I Wayan Dirgeyasa

2016-08-01

Full Text Available There are a number of varieties of English all over the world such as American, British, Australian, Indian, Singaporean, Philippine English, etc. However, there are only two varieties of English which are most widely and dominantly taught, learned, and used both spoken and printed around the world namely British English (BrE and American English (AmE. In real sense, the two are often confusing for the non-native learners because they have some differences and uniqueness in some aspects such as spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Therefore, it is really important for students, teachers and speakers as well to be aware of the major differences between the two. This paper is trying to review some striking unique and different features of grammar of British English (BrE and American English (AmE.

Tag Questions across Irish English and British English: A Corpus Analysis of Form and Function

Science.gov (United States)

Barron, Anne; Pandarova, Irina; Muderack, Karoline

2015-01-01

The present study, situated in the area of variational pragmatics, contrasts tag question (TQ) use in Ireland and Great Britain using spoken data from the Irish and British components of the International Corpus of English (ICE). Analysis is on the formal and functional level and also investigates form-functional relationships. Findings reveal…

MR Cholangiography: Axial TSE-T2 Sequence Evaluation in the Diagnosis of Choledocholithiasis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alustiza, J. M.; Gervas, C.; Garcia, E.; Recondo, J. A.

2003-01-01

To evaluate diagnostic precision of the axial TSE-T2 sequence in the diagnosis of choledocholithiasis. Retrospective analysis of all those MR cholangiography studies performed in our center between January 1998 and June 1999 which were later subjected to conventional cholangiography (intraoperative) as a golden standard. A total of 39 patients was studied. Imaging parameters of the sequence evaluated, fat-suppressed TSE-T2 in the axial plane, were as follows: TE 100 ms, TR 1.800 ms, turbo factor 23 FOV 375 mm, NSA 4, 228 x 256 matrix, respiratory compensation, number of slices 35, slice thickness 3 mm, contiguous slices, scan duration 5'4''. Without having been informed as to the cholangiography result, two radiologists independently analyzed this sequence in order to determine the presence of choledocholithiasis. Their results were latter compared with those of the conventional cholangiography. The sensitivity, specificity and agreement between results were all calculated. 21 patients had choledocholithiasis. The analyzed sequence presented sensitivity 81%, specificity 89%, and agreement between radiologists 98%, Kappa index 0.949. The axial sequence TSE-T2 is reliable for choledocholithiasis diagnosis. (Author) 9 refs

Presence and seeding activity of pathological prion protein (PrP(TSE in skeletal muscles of white-tailed deer infected with chronic wasting disease.

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Martin L Daus

Full Text Available Chronic wasting disease (CWD is a contagious, rapidly spreading transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE, or prion disease, occurring in cervids such as white tailed-deer (WTD, mule deer or elk in North America. Despite efficient horizontal transmission of CWD among cervids natural transmission of the disease to other species has not yet been observed. Here, we report for the first time a direct biochemical demonstration of pathological prion protein PrP(TSE and of PrP(TSE-associated seeding activity, the static and dynamic biochemical markers for biological prion infectivity, respectively, in skeletal muscles of CWD-infected cervids, i. e. WTD for which no clinical signs of CWD had been recognized. The presence of PrP(TSE was detected by Western- and postfixed frozen tissue blotting, while the seeding activity of PrP(TSE was revealed by protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA. Semi-quantitative Western blotting indicated that the concentration of PrP(TSE in skeletal muscles of CWD-infected WTD was approximately 2000-10,000-fold lower than in brain tissue. Tissue-blot-analyses revealed that PrP(TSE was located in muscle-associated nerve fascicles but not, in detectable amounts, in myocytes. The presence and seeding activity of PrP(TSE in skeletal muscle from CWD-infected cervids suggests prevention of such tissue in the human diet as a precautionary measure for food safety, pending on further clarification of whether CWD may be transmissible to humans.

Is spoken Danish less intelligible than Swedish?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gooskens, Charlotte; van Heuven, Vincent J.; van Bezooijen, Renee; Pacilly, Jos J. A.

2010-01-01

The most straightforward way to explain why Danes understand spoken Swedish relatively better than Swedes understand spoken Danish would be that spoken Danish is intrinsically a more difficult language to understand than spoken Swedish. We discuss circumstantial evidence suggesting that Danish is

The Influence of Teacher Power on English Language Learners' Self-Perceptions of Learner Empowerment

Science.gov (United States)

Diaz, Abel; Cochran, Kathryn; Karlin, Nancy

2016-01-01

English language learners (ELL) are students with a primary language spoken other than English enrolled in U.S. educational settings. As ELL students take on the challenges of learning English and U.S. culture, they must also learn academic content. The expectation to succeed academically in a foreign culture and language, while learning to speak…

The sounds of sarcasm in English and Cantonese: A cross-linguistic production and perception study

Science.gov (United States)

Cheang, Henry S.

Three studies were conducted to examine the acoustic markers of sarcasm in English and in Cantonese, and the manner in which such markers are perceived across these languages. The first study consisted of acoustic analyses of sarcastic utterances spoken in English to verify whether particular prosodic cues correspond to English sarcastic speech. Native English speakers produced utterances expressing sarcasm, sincerity, humour, or neutrality. Measures taken from each utterance included fundamental frequency (F0), amplitude, speech rate, harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR, to probe voice quality), and one-third octave spectral values (to probe resonance). The second study was conducted to ascertain whether specific acoustic features marked sarcasm in Cantonese and how such features compare with English sarcastic prosody. The elicitation and acoustic analysis methods from the first study were applied to similarly-constructed Cantonese utterances spoken by native Cantonese speakers. Direct acoustic comparisons between Cantonese and English sarcasm exemplars were also made. To further test for cross-linguistic prosodic cues of sarcasm and to assess whether sarcasm could be conveyed across languages, a cross-linguistic perceptual study was then performed. A subset of utterances from the first two studies was presented to naive listeners fluent in either Cantonese or English. Listeners had to identify the attitude in each utterance regardless of language of presentation. Sarcastic utterances in English (regardless of text) were marked by lower mean F0 and reductions in HNR and F0 standard deviation (relative to comparison attitudes). Resonance changes, reductions in both speech rate and F0 range signalled sarcasm in conjunction with some vocabulary terms. By contrast, higher mean F0, amplitude range reductions, and F0 range restrictions corresponded with sarcastic utterances spoken in Cantonese regardless of text. For Cantonese, reduced speech rate and higher HNR interacted

ENGLISH TRAINING

CERN Multimedia

2003-01-01

If you wish to participate in one of the following courses, please discuss with your supervisor and apply electronically directly from the course description pages that can be found on the Web at: http://www.cern.ch/Training/ or fill in an "application for training" form available from your Divisional Secretariat or from your DTO (Divisional Training Officer). Applications will be accepted in the order of their receipt. LANGUAGE TRAINING Françoise Benz tel. 73127 language.training@cern.ch PLACES AVAILABLE Writing Professional Documents in English This course is designed for people with a good level of spoken English who need to improve their professional writing (administrative, scientific, technical). Duration: 20 hours (2 hours a week) Price: 440 CHF (for 8 students) Date and timetable will be fixed when there are sufficient participants enrolled. Oral Expression This course is intended for people with a good knowledge of English who want to practise and maintain their sp...

GLOBALIZATION AND TEACHER DEVELOPMENT FOR SPOKEN ENGLISH INSTRUCTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christine C.M. Goh

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract: The impact of globalization is experienced most strongly in business and commerce but also increasingly in education. As a result, some scholars have called for a re-envisioning of the role of teachers to model what it means to be a global citizen. In this paper, I acknowledge the need for ESL/EFL teachers to re-examine their identity and roles in light of these global developments. At the same time, I argue that teachers should not lose sight of the importance of honing the craft of teaching English so as to increase their professional capital to mediate the impact of globalization for their students. This article first discusses the changing roles of teachers in a globalized world and highlights the implications for English language teaching and learning.  The ideas are further related to teaching second language oracy (speaking and listening because of its centrality in developing important 21st Century skills in the globalized world. The article also offers ways in which teacher education that takes cognizance of globalization forces can develop ESL/ EFL teachers’ knowledge and beliefs to play their new roles more effectively.

ENGLISH-QUECHUA DICTIONARY--CUZCO, AYACUCHO, COCHABAMBA.

Science.gov (United States)

PARKER, GARY; AND OTHERS

WRITTEN TO SUPPLEMENT THE AUTHORS' SPOKEN QUECHUA MATERIALS, THIS TRIDIALECTAL DICTIONARY PROVIDES THE SPEAKER OF ENGLISH WHO HAS HAD SOME TRAINING IN QUECHUA GRAMMAR WITH A MEANS OF ACCESS TO ADDITIONAL VOCABULARY IN THE CUZCO, AYACUCHO, AND COCHABAMBA DIALECTS. ALL THE QUECHUA WORDS AND PHRASES INCLUDED ARE IN ACTUAL USE AND WERE GATHERED FROM…

A comparative analysis of double inversion recovery TFE and TSE sequences on carotid artery wall imaging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen Jun; Di Yujin; Bu Chunqing; Zhang Yanfeng; Li Shuhua

2012-01-01

Objective: To analyze the characteristics of double inversion recovery (DIR) turbo field echo (TFE) and turbo spin echo (TSE) sequences and explore the value of double inversion recovery TFE sequence on carotid artery wall imaging. Patients and methods: 56 patients (32 males and 24 females, aged 31–76 years with a mean age of 53 years) were performed with DIR TFE and DIR TSE T1 weighted imaging (T1WI) sequences on carotid artery bifurcations. Image quality acquired by different techniques were evaluated and scored by two physicians. Whether there is significant difference is determined by SPSS 11.0 software. Paired-samples t test was used for statistics. Results: There was no significant difference in the image quality scores between two sequences (t = 0.880, P = 0.383 > 0.05). Conclusions: DIR TFE sequence has short scanning time and high spatial resolution. DIR TFE sequence can be used as the preferred sequence for screening carotid atherosclerotic plaque compared with DIR TSE sequence.

College Oral English teaching from the perspective of input and output theory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiangxiang Yuan

2017-11-01

Full Text Available With the development of society and the deepening of economic globalization, the communicative competence of spoken English has become an important indicator of the talent. Therefore, how to improve college students’ oral English proficiency has become the focus of college English teaching. The phenomenon of “heavy input and light output” in college English teaching in China for a long period of time has led to the emergence of “dumb English, low efficiency”. Aiming at these problems, this paper discusses the functions of input and output and their relationship, and puts forward some views on oral English teaching.

Developing speech resources from parliamentary data for South African english

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

De Wet, Febe

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Workshop on Spoken Language Technology for Under-resourced Languages, SLTU 2016, 9-12 May 2016, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Developing Speech Resources from Parliamentary Data for South African English Febe de Wet*, Jaco Badenhorst, Thipe Modipa Human...

International Students' Attitudes Towards Malaysian English Ethnolects

Science.gov (United States)

Khojastehrad, Shadi; Rafik-Galea, Shameem; Abdullah, Ain Nadzimah

2015-01-01

Language attitudes are learned and formed in our social environment through hearing others referring to certain groups or people's languages and cultures, and also by exposure to particular varieties spoken in the context. This might lead to stereotyping English and its native speakers (McKenzie, 2008). In this sense, it is pedagogically…

CAIPIRINHA accelerated SPACE enables 10-min isotropic 3D TSE MRI of the ankle for optimized visualization of curved and oblique ligaments and tendons

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kalia, Vivek [University of Vermont Medical Center, Department of Radiology, Burlington, VT (United States); Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Section of Musculoskeletal Radiology, Baltimore, MD (United States); Fritz, Benjamin [University Medical Center Freiburg, Department of Radiology, Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany); Johnson, Rory [Siemens Healthcare USA, Inc, Cary, NC (United States); Gilson, Wesley D. [Siemens Healthcare USA, Inc, Baltimore, MD (United States); Raithel, Esther [Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Erlangen (Germany); Fritz, Jan [Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Section of Musculoskeletal Radiology, Baltimore, MD (United States)

2017-09-15

To test the hypothesis that a fourfold CAIPIRINHA accelerated, 10-min, high-resolution, isotropic 3D TSE MRI prototype protocol of the ankle derives equal or better quality than a 20-min 2D TSE standard protocol. Following internal review board approval and informed consent, 3-Tesla MRI of the ankle was obtained in 24 asymptomatic subjects including 10-min 3D CAIPIRINHA SPACE TSE prototype and 20-min 2D TSE standard protocols. Outcome variables included image quality and visibility of anatomical structures using 5-point Likert scales. Non-parametric statistical testing was used. P values ≤0.001 were considered significant. Edge sharpness, contrast resolution, uniformity, noise, fat suppression and magic angle effects were without statistical difference on 2D and 3D TSE images (p > 0.035). Fluid was mildly brighter on intermediate-weighted 2D images (p < 0.001), whereas 3D images had substantially less partial volume, chemical shift and no pulsatile-flow artifacts (p < 0.001). Oblique and curved planar 3D images resulted in mildly-to-substantially improved visualization of joints, spring, bifurcate, syndesmotic, collateral and sinus tarsi ligaments, and tendons (p < 0.001, respectively). 3D TSE MRI with CAIPIRINHA acceleration enables high-spatial resolution oblique and curved planar MRI of the ankle and visualization of ligaments, tendons and joints equally well or better than a more time-consuming anisotropic 2D TSE MRI. (orig.)

CAIPIRINHA accelerated SPACE enables 10-min isotropic 3D TSE MRI of the ankle for optimized visualization of curved and oblique ligaments and tendons

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kalia, Vivek; Fritz, Benjamin; Johnson, Rory; Gilson, Wesley D.; Raithel, Esther; Fritz, Jan

2017-01-01

To test the hypothesis that a fourfold CAIPIRINHA accelerated, 10-min, high-resolution, isotropic 3D TSE MRI prototype protocol of the ankle derives equal or better quality than a 20-min 2D TSE standard protocol. Following internal review board approval and informed consent, 3-Tesla MRI of the ankle was obtained in 24 asymptomatic subjects including 10-min 3D CAIPIRINHA SPACE TSE prototype and 20-min 2D TSE standard protocols. Outcome variables included image quality and visibility of anatomical structures using 5-point Likert scales. Non-parametric statistical testing was used. P values ≤0.001 were considered significant. Edge sharpness, contrast resolution, uniformity, noise, fat suppression and magic angle effects were without statistical difference on 2D and 3D TSE images (p > 0.035). Fluid was mildly brighter on intermediate-weighted 2D images (p < 0.001), whereas 3D images had substantially less partial volume, chemical shift and no pulsatile-flow artifacts (p < 0.001). Oblique and curved planar 3D images resulted in mildly-to-substantially improved visualization of joints, spring, bifurcate, syndesmotic, collateral and sinus tarsi ligaments, and tendons (p < 0.001, respectively). 3D TSE MRI with CAIPIRINHA acceleration enables high-spatial resolution oblique and curved planar MRI of the ankle and visualization of ligaments, tendons and joints equally well or better than a more time-consuming anisotropic 2D TSE MRI. (orig.)

Syllable frequency and word frequency effects in spoken and written word production in a non-alphabetic script

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qingfang eZhang

2014-02-01

Full Text Available The effects of word frequency and syllable frequency are well-established phenomena in domain such as spoken production in alphabetic languages. Chinese, as a non-alphabetic language, presents unique lexical and phonological properties in speech production. For example, the proximate unit of phonological encoding is syllable in Chinese but segments in Dutch, French or English. The present study investigated the effects of word frequency and syllable frequency, and their interaction in Chinese written and spoken production. Significant facilitatory word frequency and syllable frequency effects were observed in spoken as well as in written production. The syllable frequency effect in writing indicated that phonological properties (i.e., syllabic frequency constrain orthographic output via a lexical route, at least, in Chinese written production. However, the syllable frequency effect over repetitions was divergent in both modalities: it was significant in the former two repetitions in spoken whereas it was significant in the second repetition only in written. Due to the fragility of the syllable frequency effect in writing, we suggest that the phonological influence in handwritten production is not mandatory and universal, and it is modulated by experimental manipulations. This provides evidence for the orthographic autonomy hypothesis, rather than the phonological mediation hypothesis. The absence of an interaction between word frequency and syllable frequency showed that the syllable frequency effect is independent of the word frequency effect in spoken and written output modalities. The implications of these results on written production models are discussed.

Introducing Spoken Dialogue Systems into Intelligent Environments

CERN Document Server

Heinroth, Tobias

2013-01-01

Introducing Spoken Dialogue Systems into Intelligent Environments outlines the formalisms of a novel knowledge-driven framework for spoken dialogue management and presents the implementation of a model-based Adaptive Spoken Dialogue Manager(ASDM) called OwlSpeak. The authors have identified three stakeholders that potentially influence the behavior of the ASDM: the user, the SDS, and a complex Intelligent Environment (IE) consisting of various devices, services, and task descriptions. The theoretical foundation of a working ontology-based spoken dialogue description framework, the prototype implementation of the ASDM, and the evaluation activities that are presented as part of this book contribute to the ongoing spoken dialogue research by establishing the fertile ground of model-based adaptive spoken dialogue management. This monograph is ideal for advanced undergraduate students, PhD students, and postdocs as well as academic and industrial researchers and developers in speech and multimodal interactive ...

UNDERSTANDING TENOR IN SPOKEN TEXTS IN YEAR XII ENGLISH TEXTBOOK TO IMPROVE THE APPROPRIACY OF THE TEXTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Noeris Meristiani

2011-07-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACT: The goal of English Language Teaching is communicative competence. To reach this goal students should be supplied with good model texts. These texts should consider the appropriacy of language use. By analyzing the context of situation which is focused on tenor the meanings constructed to build the relationships among the interactants in spoken texts can be unfolded. This study aims at investigating the interpersonal relations (tenor of the interactants in the conversation texts as well as the appropriacy of their realization in the given contexts. The study was conducted under discourse analysis by applying a descriptive qualitative method. There were eight conversation texts which function as examples in five chapters of a textbook. The data were analyzed by using lexicogrammatical analysis, described, and interpreted contextually. Then, the realization of the tenor of the texts was further analyzed in terms of appropriacy to suggest improvement. The results of the study show that the tenor indicates relationships between friend-friend, student-student, questioners-respondents, mother-son, and teacher-student; the power is equal and unequal; the social distances show frequent contact, relatively frequent contact, relatively low contact, high and low affective involvement, using informal, relatively informal, relatively formal, and formal language. There are also some indications of inappropriacy of tenor realization in all texts. It should be improved in the use of degree of formality, the realization of societal roles, status, and affective involvement. Keywords: context of situation, tenor, appropriacy.

Automatically identifying characteristic features of non-native English accents

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bloem, Jelke; Wieling, Martijn; Nerbonne, John; Côté, Marie-Hélène; Knooihuizen, Remco; Nerbonne, John

2016-01-01

In this work, we demonstrate the application of statistical measures from dialectometry to the study of accented English speech. This new methodology enables a more quantitative approach to the study of accents. Studies on spoken dialect data have shown that a combination of representativeness (the

Language Training: English

CERN Document Server

Françoise Benz

2005-01-01

Oral Expression The next session will take place from January to March 2005. This course is intended for people with a good knowledge of English who want to practise and maintain their speaking skills while extending their vocabulary. There will be a maximum of 10 participants in a class. Speaking activities will include discussions, meeting simulations, role-plays etc. depending on the needs of the students. Timetable: Tuesday 11.30 to 13.30 Duration: 20 hours Price: 440 CHF (for a minimum of 8 students) Writing Professional Documents in English The next session will take place from January to March 2005. This course is designed for people with a good level of spoken English. Duration: 20 hours Price: 440 CHF (for 8 students) Timetable will be fixed after discussion with the students. For registration and further information on these courses, please consult our Web pages: http://cern.ch/Training or contact Mrs. Benz: Tel. 73127. FORMATION EN LANGUES LANGUAGE TRAINING Françoise Benz 73127 langu...

Language Training: English

CERN Multimedia

Françoise Benz

2004-01-01

Oral Expression The next session will take place from January to March 2005. This course is intended for people with a good knowledge of English who want to practise and maintain their speaking skills while extending their vocabulary. There will be a maximum of 10 participants in a class. Speaking activities will include discussions, meeting simulations, role-plays etc. depending on the needs of the students. Timetable: Tuesday 11.30 to 13.30 Duration: 20 hours Price: 440 CHF (for a minimum of 8 students) Writing Professional Documents in English The next session will take place from January to March 2005. This course is designed for people with a good level of spoken English. Duration: 20 hours Price: 440 CHF (for 8 students) Timetable will be fixed after discussion with the students. For registration and further information on these courses, please consult our Web pages: http://cern.ch/Training or contact Mrs. Benz: Tel. 73127. FORMATION EN LANGUES LANGUAGE TRAINING Françoise Benz 73127 langua...

A Case Study： Syllabus, Methodology and Assessment with Oral EL Classes for Non-English Majors

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

FengLianyi

2004-01-01

In response to the school curriculum reform,approximately 1200 out of the 3000 sophomores of non-English major in our university selected oral English as the optional course for the autumn semester study of 2003. The high demand for the spoken English classes is a challenge to the English teachers concerned. However how to conduct oral English lessons effectively in a considerably big-sized class of 35 plus with varied language aptitudes and personality traits calls forth a good topic for research studies.

Code-switched English Pronunciation Modeling for Swahili Spoken Term Detection (Pub Version, Open Access)

Science.gov (United States)

2016-05-03

model (JSM), developed using Sequitur16,17 and trained on the CMUDict0.7b18 Amer- ican English dictionary (over 134k words), was used to detect English ...modeled using the closest Swahili vowel or vowel combination. In both cases these English L2P predictions were added to a dictionary as variants to swa... English queries as a function of overlap/correspondence with an existing reference English pronunciation dictionary . As the reference dictionary , we

English Syllabic Consonants and Quantity Factor in Educated ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Nekky Umera

Therefore // and syllabic /, , / occur typically in unstressed syllables. It is established in the literature reviewed on Standard Spoken. English that a vowel occurring in an unstressed position is more often than not reduced to the schwa sound // or totally elided. In some instances, especially at word boundaries, the elided vowel ...

Non-contrast-enhanced MR angiography in critical limb ischemia: performance of quiescent-interval single-shot (QISS) and TSE-based subtraction techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Altaha, Mustafa A.; Jaskolka, Jeffrey D.; Tan, Kongteng; Menezes, Ravi J.; Rick, Manuela; Schmitt, Peter; Wintersperger, Bernd J.

2017-01-01

The aim of this study was to evaluate diagnostic performance of non-contrast-enhanced 2D quiescent-interval single-shot (QISS) and 3D turbo spin-echo (TSE)-based subtraction magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) in the assessment of peripheral arteries in patients with critical limb ischemia (CLI). Nineteen consecutive patients (74 % male, 72.8 ± 9.9 years) with CLI underwent 2D QISS and 3D TSE-based subtraction MRA at 1.5 T. Axial-overlapping QISS MRA (3 mm/2 mm; 1 x 1 mm 2 ) covered from the toes to the aortic bifurcation while coronal 3D TSE-based subtraction MRA (1.3 x 1.2 x 1.3 mm 3 ) was restricted to the calf only. MRA data sets (two readers) were evaluated for stenosis (≥50 %) and image quality. Results were compared with digital subtraction angiography (DSA). Two hundred and sixty-seven (267) segments were available for MRA-DSA comparison, with a prevalence of stenosis ≥50 % of 41.9 %. QISS MRA was rated as good to excellent in 79.5-96.0 % of segments without any nondiagnostic segments; 89.8-96.1 % of segments in 3D TSE-based subtraction MRA were rated as nondiagnostic or poor. QISS MRA sensitivities and specificities (segmental) were 92 % and 95 %, respectively, for reader one and 81-97 % for reader two. Due to poor image quality of 3D TSE-based subtraction MRA, diagnostic performance measures were not calculated. QISS MRA demonstrates excellent diagnostic performance and higher robustness than 3D TSE-based subtraction MRA in the challenging patient population with CLI. (orig.)

Non-contrast-enhanced MR angiography in critical limb ischemia: performance of quiescent-interval single-shot (QISS) and TSE-based subtraction techniques

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Altaha, Mustafa A. [University Health Network, Department of Medical Imaging, Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, Toronto, Ontario (Canada); Jaskolka, Jeffrey D.; Tan, Kongteng; Menezes, Ravi J. [University Health Network, Department of Medical Imaging, Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, Toronto, Ontario (Canada); University of Toronto, Department of Medical Imaging, Toronto, Ontario (Canada); Rick, Manuela; Schmitt, Peter [Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen (Germany); Wintersperger, Bernd J. [University Health Network, Department of Medical Imaging, Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, Toronto, Ontario (Canada); University of Toronto, Department of Medical Imaging, Toronto, Ontario (Canada); Toronto General Hospital, Department of Medical Imaging, Toronto, Ontario (Canada)

2017-03-15

The aim of this study was to evaluate diagnostic performance of non-contrast-enhanced 2D quiescent-interval single-shot (QISS) and 3D turbo spin-echo (TSE)-based subtraction magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) in the assessment of peripheral arteries in patients with critical limb ischemia (CLI). Nineteen consecutive patients (74 % male, 72.8 ± 9.9 years) with CLI underwent 2D QISS and 3D TSE-based subtraction MRA at 1.5 T. Axial-overlapping QISS MRA (3 mm/2 mm; 1 x 1 mm{sup 2}) covered from the toes to the aortic bifurcation while coronal 3D TSE-based subtraction MRA (1.3 x 1.2 x 1.3 mm{sup 3}) was restricted to the calf only. MRA data sets (two readers) were evaluated for stenosis (≥50 %) and image quality. Results were compared with digital subtraction angiography (DSA). Two hundred and sixty-seven (267) segments were available for MRA-DSA comparison, with a prevalence of stenosis ≥50 % of 41.9 %. QISS MRA was rated as good to excellent in 79.5-96.0 % of segments without any nondiagnostic segments; 89.8-96.1 % of segments in 3D TSE-based subtraction MRA were rated as nondiagnostic or poor. QISS MRA sensitivities and specificities (segmental) were 92 % and 95 %, respectively, for reader one and 81-97 % for reader two. Due to poor image quality of 3D TSE-based subtraction MRA, diagnostic performance measures were not calculated. QISS MRA demonstrates excellent diagnostic performance and higher robustness than 3D TSE-based subtraction MRA in the challenging patient population with CLI. (orig.)

Composite depth dose measurement for total skin electron (TSE) treatments using radiochromic film

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gamble, Lisa M; Farrell, Thomas J; Jones, Glenn W; Hayward, Joseph E

2003-01-01

Total skin electron (TSE) radiotherapy is routinely used to treat cutaneous T-cell lymphomas and can be implemented using a modified Stanford technique. In our centre, the composite depth dose for this technique is achieved by a combination of two patient positions per day over a three-day cycle, and two gantry angles per patient position. Due to patient morphology, underdosed regions typically occur and have historically been measured using multiple thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs). We show that radiochromic film can be used as a two-dimensional relative dosimeter to measure the percent depth dose in TSE radiotherapy. Composite depth dose curves were measured in a cylindrical, polystyrene phantom and compared with TLD data. Both multiple films (1 film per day) and a single film were used in order to reproduce a realistic clinical scenario. First, three individual films were used to measure the depth dose, one per treatment day, and then compared with TLD data; this comparison showed a reasonable agreement. Secondly, a single film was used to measure the dose delivered over three daily treatments and then compared with TLD data; this comparison showed good agreement throughout the depth dose, which includes doses well below 1 Gy. It will be shown that one piece of radiochromic film is sufficient to measure the composite percent depth dose for a TSE beam, hence making radiochromic film a suitable candidate for monitoring underdosed patient regions

Value of fat-suppressed PD-weighted TSE-sequences for detection of anterior and posterior cruciate ligament lesions-Comparison to arthroscopy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schaefer, Fritz K.W.; Schaefer, Philipp J.; Brossmann, Joachim; Frahm, Christian; Muhle, Claus; Hilgert, Ralf Erik; Heller, Martin; Jahnke, Thomas

2006-01-01

Objective: To evaluate fat-suppressed (FS) proton-density-weighted (PDw) turbo spin-echo (TSE) magnetic resonance imaging for the detection of anterior and posterior cruciate ligament lesions in comparison to arthroscopy. Materials and methods: In a prospective study 31 knee joints were imaged on a 1.5 T MR scanner (Vision[reg], Siemens, Erlangen) prior to arthroscopy using following sequences: (a) sagittal FS-PDw/T2w TSE (TR/TE: 4009/15/105 ms); (b) sagittal PDw/T2w TSE (TR/TE:3800/15/105 ms). Further imaging parameters: slice thickness 3 mm, FOV 160 mm, matrix 256 x 256. A total of 62 anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments (ACL/PCL) were evaluated, standard of reference was arthroscopy. Sensitivity, specificity, positive (ppv) and negative predictive value (npv) and accuracy were calculated. Results: Twenty-one cruciate ligament ruptures were detected in arthroscopy, 19 ACL- and 2 PCL-ruptures (on MRI 34/124, 25/62 ACL, 9/62 PCL lesions). For all four sequences in the 31 patients with arthroscopic correlation sensitivity, specificity, ppv, npv and accuracy were 86%, 98%, 95%, 93% and 94% for detection of tears, and 84%, 100%, 100%, 80% and 90% for ACL-ruptures respectively. The two PCL-ruptures were true positive in all sequences, one intact PCL was diagnosed as torn (false positive). Conclusions: Fat-suppressed PDw/T2w TSE-MR sequences are comparable to PDw TSE sequences for the detection of ACL/PCL-lesions

Second Language Learners' Attitudes towards English Varieties

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Weimin; Hu, Guiling

2008-01-01

This pilot project investigates second language (L2) learners' attitudes towards three varieties of English: American (AmE), British (BrE) and Australian (AuE). A 69-word passage spoken by a female speaker of each variety was used. Participants were 30 Chinese students pursuing Masters or Doctoral degrees in the United States, who listened to each…

The English Language of the Nigeria Police

Science.gov (United States)

Chinwe, Udo Victoria

2015-01-01

In the present day Nigeria, the quality of the English language spoken by Nigerians, is perceived to have been deteriorating and needs urgent attention. The proliferation of books and articles in the recent years can be seen as the native outcrop of its received attention and recognition as a matter of discourse. Evidently, every profession,…

The English-Language and Reading Achievement of a Cohort of Deaf Students Speaking and Signing Standard English: A Preliminary Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Nielsen, Diane Corcoran; Luetke, Barbara; McLean, Meigan; Stryker, Deborah

2016-01-01

Research suggests that English-language proficiency is critical if students who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) are to read as their hearing peers. One explanation for the traditionally reported reading achievement plateau when students are D/HH is the inability to hear insalient English morphology. Signing Exact English can provide visual access to these features. The authors investigated the English morphological and syntactic abilities and reading achievement of elementary and middle school students at a school using simultaneously spoken and signed Standard American English facilitated by intentional listening, speech, and language strategies. A developmental trend (and no plateau) in language and reading achievement was detected; most participants demonstrated average or above-average English. Morphological awareness was prerequisite to high test scores; speech was not significantly correlated with achievement; language proficiency, measured by the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-4 (Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 2003), predicted reading achievement.

Teaching English Speaking Skills to the Arab Students in the Saudi School in Kuala Lumpur: Problems and Solutions

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Sobhi, Bandar Mohammad Saeed; Preece, Abdul Shakour

2018-01-01

Of the four English language skills, speaking enjoys a superior status. Accordingly, it should be given high priority while teaching. In spite of its importance, teaching English speaking skill to Arab EFL learners has always been an exacting task for Arab teachers of English because it is considered a foreign language, i.e. not widely spoken or…

Professionals' Guidance about Spoken Language Multilingualism and Spoken Language Choice for Children with Hearing Loss

Science.gov (United States)

Crowe, Kathryn; McLeod, Sharynne

2016-01-01

The purpose of this research was to investigate factors that influence professionals' guidance of parents of children with hearing loss regarding spoken language multilingualism and spoken language choice. Sixteen professionals who provide services to children and young people with hearing loss completed an online survey, rating the importance of…

An analysis of rhythm in Japanese and English popular music

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sadakata, M.; Desain, P.W.M.; Honing, H.J.; Patel, A.D.; Iversen, J.R.

2003-01-01

Recently, there has been evidence that the rhythm in English and French non-vocal musical themes are significantly different in their contrastiveness of successive durations in the same manner as those of spoken language, suggesting that acomposer's native language exerts an influence on the music

Evaluation of TSE- and T1-3D-GRE-sequences for focal cartilage lesions in vitro in comparison to ultrahigh resolution multi-slice CT

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stork, A.; Schulze, D.; Koops, A.; Kemper, J.; Adam, G.

2002-01-01

Purpose: Evaluation of TSE- and T 1 -3D-GRE-sequences for focal cartilage lesions in vitro in comparison to ultrahigh resolution multi-slice CT. Materials and methods: Forty artificial cartilage lesions in ten bovine patellae were immersed in a solution of iodinated contrast medium and assessed with ultrahigh resolution multi-slice CT. Fat-suppressed TSE images with intermediate- and T 2 -weighting at a slice thickness of 2, 3 and 4 mm as well as fat-suppressed T 1 -weighted 3D-FLASH images with an effective slice thickness of 1, 2 and 3 mm were acquired at 1.5 T. After adding Gd-DTPA to the saline solution containing the patellae, the T 1 -weighted 3D-FLASH imaging was repeated. Results: All cartilage lesions were visualised and graded with ultrahigh resolution multi-slice CT. The TSE images had a higher sensitivity and a higher inter- and intraobserver kappa compared to the FLASH-sequences (TSE: 70-95%; 0.82-0.83; 0.85-0.9; FLASH: 57.5-85%; 0.53-0.72; 0.73-0.82, respectively). An increase in slice thickness decreased the sensitivity, whereby deep lesions were even reliably depicted on TSE images at a slice thickness of 3 and 4 mm. Adding Gd-DTPA to the saline solution increased the sensitivity by 10% with no detectable advantage over the T 2 -weighted TSE images. Conclusion: TSE sequences and application of Gd-DTPA seemed to be superior to T 1 -weighted 3D-FLASH sequences without Gd-DTPA in the detection of focal cartilage lesions. The ultrahigh resolution multi-slice CT can serve as in vitro reference standard for focal cartilage lesions. (orig.) [de

Cardiac MRI. T2-mapping versus T2-weighted dark-blood TSE imaging for myocardial edema visualization in acute myocardial infarction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nassenstein, K.; Nensa, F.; Schlosser, T.; Umutlu, L.; Lauenstein, T.; Bruder, O.; Maderwald, S.; Ladd, M.E.

2014-01-01

Purpose: To assess the diagnostic accuracy of T2 mapping for the detection of myocardial edema in acute myocardial infarction (AMI), and to compare this diagnostic accuracy with that of the current standard for myocardial edema imaging, which is T2w dark-blood TSE imaging. Materials and Methods: 29 patients with AMI were examined at 1.5 T. For the visualization of myocardial edema, T2 maps, calculated from three T2w SSFP images, and T2w dark-blood TSE images were acquired in standard short- and long-axis views. Cine SSFP images were acquired for the analysis of left ventricular (LV) function and late gadolinium enhancement images (LGE) for the visualization of myocardial necrosis. The T2 maps as well as the T2w dark-blood TSE images were evaluated twice independently from the cine SSFP and LGE images. The presence or absence of myocardial edema was rated visually for each LV segment. As the standard of reference, the infarct zone was defined based on the cine SSFP and the LGE images. Results: In this segment-based analysis, T2 mapping showed a sensitivity of 82 % and a specificity of 94 % for the detection of edema in the infarct zone. T2w dark-blood TSE imaging revealed a sensitivity of 50 % and a specificity of 98 %. T2 mapping showed a higher intra-rater agreement compared to T2w dark-blood TSE imaging (κ: 0.87 vs. 0.76). Conclusions: T2 mapping allows for the visualization of myocardial edema in AMI with a high sensitivity and specificity, and features better diagnostic accuracy in terms of a higher sensitivity compared to T2w dark-blood TSE imaging. (orig.)

The Effects of Phonological Awareness of Zulu-Speaking Children Learning to Spell in English: A Study of Cross-Language Transfer

Science.gov (United States)

De Sousa, Diana Soares; Greenop, Kirston; Fry, Jessica

2010-01-01

Background: Emergent bilingual Zulu-English speaking children in South Africa have spoken but no written proficiency in Zulu (L1), yet are required to learn to spell English (L2) via English-only literacy instruction. Little research exists on emergent bilingual's phonological awareness (PA) and spelling development, with no L1 formal literacy…

Spoken Narrative Assessment: A Supplementary Measure of Children's Creativity

Science.gov (United States)

Wong, Miranda Kit-Yi; So, Wing Chee

2016-01-01

This study developed a spoken narrative (i.e., storytelling) assessment as a supplementary measure of children's creativity. Both spoken and gestural contents of children's spoken narratives were coded to assess their verbal and nonverbal creativity. The psychometric properties of the coding system for the spoken narrative assessment were…

Foreign body aspiration and language spoken at home: 10-year review.

Science.gov (United States)

Choroomi, S; Curotta, J

2011-07-01

To review foreign body aspiration cases encountered over a 10-year period in a tertiary paediatric hospital, and to assess correlation between foreign body type and language spoken at home. Retrospective chart review of all children undergoing direct laryngobronchoscopy for foreign body aspiration over a 10-year period. Age, sex, foreign body type, complications, hospital stay and home language were analysed. At direct laryngobronchoscopy, 132 children had foreign body aspiration (male:female ratio 1.31:1; mean age 32 months (2.67 years)). Mean hospital stay was 2.0 days. Foreign bodies most commonly comprised food matter (53/132; 40.1 per cent), followed by non-food matter (44/132; 33.33 per cent), a negative endoscopy (11/132; 8.33 per cent) and unknown composition (24/132; 18.2 per cent). Most parents spoke English (92/132, 69.7 per cent; vs non-English-speaking 40/132, 30.3 per cent), but non-English-speaking patients had disproportionately more food foreign bodies, and significantly more nut aspirations (p = 0.0065). Results constitute level 2b evidence. Patients from non-English speaking backgrounds had a significantly higher incidence of food (particularly nut) aspiration. Awareness-raising and public education is needed in relevant communities to prevent certain foods, particularly nuts, being given to children too young to chew and swallow them adequately.

English-learning infants' perception of word stress patterns.

Science.gov (United States)

Skoruppa, Katrin; Cristià, Alejandrina; Peperkamp, Sharon; Seidl, Amanda

2011-07-01

Adult speakers of different free stress languages (e.g., English, Spanish) differ both in their sensitivity to lexical stress and in their processing of suprasegmental and vowel quality cues to stress. In a head-turn preference experiment with a familiarization phase, both 8-month-old and 12-month-old English-learning infants discriminated between initial stress and final stress among lists of Spanish-spoken disyllabic nonwords that were segmentally varied (e.g. ['nila, 'tuli] vs [lu'ta, pu'ki]). This is evidence that English-learning infants are sensitive to lexical stress patterns, instantiated primarily by suprasegmental cues, during the second half of the first year of life. © 2011 Acoustical Society of America

Teaching English as a "Second Language" in Kenya and the United States: Convergences and Divergences

Science.gov (United States)

Roy-Campbell, Zaline M.

2015-01-01

English is spoken in five countries as the native language and in numerous other countries as an official language and the language of instruction. In countries where English is the native language, it is taught to speakers of other languages as an additional language to enable them to participate in all domains of life of that country. In many…

Medical Terminology: A Phonological Analysis for Teaching English Pronunciation.

Science.gov (United States)

Jabbour-Lagocki, Judith

1992-01-01

A phonological analysis of medical terminology was developed as an answer to pleas from students in medical English courses in Austria. The analysis can serve as a model for other sciences in which a comparable predicament exists: Graeco-Latinate terms are readily understood when written, but not easily recognized when spoken. (JL)

Limited english proficiency, primary language at home, and disparities in children's health care: how language barriers are measured matters.

Science.gov (United States)

Flores, Glenn; Abreu, Milagros; Tomany-Korman, Sandra C

2005-01-01

Approximately 3.5 million U.S. schoolchildren are limited in English proficiency (LEP). Disparities in children's health and health care are associated with both LEP and speaking a language other than English at home, but prior research has not examined which of these two measures of language barriers is most useful in examining health care disparities. Our objectives were to compare primary language spoken at home vs. parental LEP and their associations with health status, access to care, and use of health services in children. We surveyed parents at urban community sites in Boston, asking 74 questions on children's health status, access to health care, and use of health services. Some 98% of the 1,100 participating children and families were of non-white race/ethnicity, 72% of parents were LEP, and 13 different primary languages were spoken at home. "Dose-response" relationships were observed between parental English proficiency and several child and parental sociodemographic features, including children's insurance coverage, parental educational attainment, citizenship and employment, and family income. Similar "dose-response" relationships were noted between the primary language spoken at home and many but not all of the same sociodemographic features. In multivariate analyses, LEP parents were associated with triple the odds of a child having fair/poor health status, double the odds of the child spending at least one day in bed for illness in the past year, and significantly greater odds of children not being brought in for needed medical care for six of nine access barriers to care. None of these findings were observed in analyses of the primary language spoken at home. Individual parental LEP categories were associated with different risks of adverse health status and outcomes. Parental LEP is superior to the primary language spoken at home as a measure of the impact of language barriers on children's health and health care. Individual parental LEP

The comprehension skills of children learning English as an additional language.

Science.gov (United States)

Burgoyne, K; Kelly, J M; Whiteley, H E; Spooner, A

2009-12-01

Data from national test results suggests that children who are learning English as an additional language (EAL) experience relatively lower levels of educational attainment in comparison to their monolingual, English-speaking peers. The relative underachievement of children who are learning EAL demands that the literacy needs of this group are identified. To this end, this study aimed to explore the reading- and comprehension-related skills of a group of EAL learners. Data are reported from 92 Year 3 pupils, of whom 46 children are learning EAL. Children completed standardized measures of reading accuracy and comprehension, listening comprehension, and receptive and expressive vocabulary. Results indicate that many EAL learners experience difficulties in understanding written and spoken text. These comprehension difficulties are not related to decoding problems but are related to significantly lower levels of vocabulary knowledge experienced by this group. Many EAL learners experience significantly lower levels of English vocabulary knowledge which has a significant impact on their ability to understand written and spoken text. Greater emphasis on language development is therefore needed in the school curriculum to attempt to address the limited language skills of children learning EAL.

English Loan Words in the Speech of Six-Year-Old Navajo Children, with Supplement-Concordance.

Science.gov (United States)

Holm, Agnes; And Others

As part of a study of the feasibility and effect of teaching Navajo children to read their own language first, preliminary data on English loan words in the speech of 6-year-old Navajos were gathered in this study of the language of over 200 children. Taped interviews with these children were analyzed, and a spoken word count of all English words…

Modality differences between written and spoken story retelling in healthy older adults

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jessica Ann Obermeyer

2015-04-01

Methods: Ten native English speaking healthy elderly participants between the ages of 50 and 80 were recruited. Exclusionary criteria included neurological disease/injury, history of learning disability, uncorrected hearing or vision impairment, history of drug/alcohol abuse and presence of cognitive decline (based on Cognitive Linguistic Quick Test. Spoken and written discourse was analyzed for micro linguistic measures including total words, percent correct information units (CIUs; Nicholas & Brookshire, 1993 and percent complete utterances (CUs; Edmonds, et al. 2009. CIUs measure relevant and informative words while CUs focus at the sentence level and measure whether a relevant subject and verb and object (if appropriate are present. Results: Analysis was completed using Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test due to small sample size. Preliminary results revealed that healthy elderly people produced significantly more words in spoken retellings than written retellings (p=.000; however, this measure contrasted with %CIUs and %CUs with participants producing significantly higher %CIUs (p=.000 and %CUs (p=.000 in written story retellings than in spoken story retellings. Conclusion: These findings indicate that written retellings, while shorter, contained higher accuracy at both a word (CIU and sentence (CU level. This observation could be related to the ability to revise written text and therefore make it more concise, whereas the nature of speech results in more embellishment and “thinking out loud,” such as comments about the task, associated observations about the story, etc. We plan to run more participants and conduct a main concepts analysis (before conference time to gain more insight into modality differences and implications.

Cohesion as interaction in ELF spoken discourse

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. Christiansen

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Hitherto, most research into cohesion has concentrated on texts (usually written only in standard Native Speaker English – e.g. Halliday and Hasan (1976. By contrast, following on the work in anaphora of such scholars as Reinhart (1983 and Cornish (1999, Christiansen (2011 describes cohesion as an interac­tive process focusing on the link between text cohesion and discourse coherence. Such a consideration of cohesion from the perspective of discourse (i.e. the process of which text is the product -- Widdowson 1984, p. 100 is especially relevant within a lingua franca context as the issue of different variations of ELF and inter-cultural concerns (Guido 2008 add extra dimensions to the complex multi-code interaction. In this case study, six extracts of transcripts (approximately 1000 words each, taken from the VOICE corpus (2011 of conference question and answer sessions (spoken interaction set in multicultural university con­texts are analysed in depth by means of a qualitative method.

From ‘English-only’ to translanguaging strategies: Exploring possibilities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mwinda, Nangura

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This article investigates English language proficiency development in a rural primary school in the Kavango region of Namibia. English is the language of instruction in most schools in Namibia from fourth grade onwards. In addition to other challenges, lack of adequate proficiency in English has been identified as one of the major barriers to learning. Current research on translanguaging demonstrates that purposeful use of translanguaging supports learning. The aim of this article is to argue that a contextual analysis and a test of learners’ proficiency in their dominant language and in English are essential when deciding on translanguaging strategies. This may lead to possible ways in which translanguaging can improve the English language proficiency of rural primary learners in an environment where the language is hardly heard or spoken outside the classroom. The paper argues that translation, and preview – view – review strategies are some of the translanguaging teaching strategies that could be used as resources for building English vocabulary.

Lamjung Yolmo - Nepali - English Dictionary

OpenAIRE

Gawne, Lauren

2011-01-01

pdf of book Lamjung Yolmo is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Nepal. It is closely related to Helambu Sherpa and Kyirong. This small dictionary is part of an ongoing project to document the language of Lamjung Yolmo. This is the first time that Lamjung Yolmo has appeared in print, and is accessible to Lamjung Yolmo, Nepali and English speakers alike. The hardcopy is retailing at the Uni Bookshop: http://www.bookshop.unimelb.edu.au/cbc/?IS.9781921775697 (accessed week of 21...

Metallic and superconducting salts based on an unsymmetrical π-donor dimethyl(ethylenedithio)tetraselenafulvalene (DMET-TSeF)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kato, Reizo; Aonuma, Shuji; Okano, Yoshinori; Sawa, Hiroshi; Tamura, Masafumi; Kinoshita, Minoru; Oshima, Kokichi; Kobayashi, Akiko; Bun, Kozo; Kobayashi, Hayao

1993-01-01

A series of radical cation salts (DMET-TSeF) 2 X (X=I 3 , AuI 2 , AuBr 2 , AuCl 2 , Au(CN) 2 ) crystallize in the triclinic P anti 1 group. The DMET-TSeF molecules form zigzag columnar stacks. Short intermolecular chalcogen..chalcogen contacts are observed within and between stacks. The AuI 2 salt exhibits a sample-dependent resistivity minimum around 25 K. The AuI 2 salt without the resistivity minimum shows superconductivity with Tc = 0.58 K at ambient pressure. The AuBr 2 salt exhibits a resistivity minimum around 35 K. Other salts remain metallic down to 4.2 K. These salts should be classified into a quasi one-dimensional system. (orig.)

Changing College Students’ Stereotypes of Standard English: The Pedagogical Process of an English Course

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James H. Yang

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The use of English as a lingua franca for international communication has made the primacy of Standard English (SE become ideologically undesirable, not only because distinct varieties of English have evolved with their own standards, but also because nonnative speakers tremendously outnumber native speakers and their interaction has soared in intercultural exchange. Accordingly, a curriculum was devised to guide students to explore worldwide English variations in response to the paradigm shift from SE to a pluralistic model of English language teaching. This pedagogical research aims to examine how students transformed their stereotypes of SE into the understanding of world Englishes. This curriculum was implemented in English with 77 undergraduates enrolled in the ‘Language and Culture’ class at a national university in central Taiwan. With the focus on English spoken in New Zealand (NZ, they began with their impressions followed by their revisions. Then, they were guided to discover stories connecting themselves with the country. They proceeded to promote NZ tourism, understand local slang and accent, and take part in an optional semester-final volunteer teaching workshop. Their learning portfolios indicate that they modified their initial stereotypes, generalizations, misconceptions, and prejudices, becoming aware of the cultural diversity in NZ and linguistic differences between NZE and GAE. Overall, 86% of the students found the given instruction helpful for communication with New Zealanders, particularly so among high achievers and those who participated in the teaching service project.

Driven equilibrium (drive) MR imaging of the cranial nerves V-VIII: comparison with the T2-weighted 3D TSE sequence

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ciftci, E. E-mail: eciftcis7@hotmail.com; Anik, Yonca; Arslan, Arzu; Akansel, Gur; Sarisoy, Tahsin; Demirci, Ali

2004-09-01

Purpose: The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of the driven equilibrium radio frequency reset pulse (DRIVE) on image quality and nerve detection when used in adjunction with T2-weighted 3D turbo spin-echo (TSE) sequence. Materials and methods: Forty-five patients with cranial nerve symptoms referable to the cerebellopontine angle (CPA) were examined using a T2-weighted 3D TSE pulse sequence with and without DRIVE. MR imaging was performed on a 1.5-T MRI scanner. In addition to the axial resource images, reformatted oblique sagittal, oblique coronal and maximum intensity projection (MIP) images of the inner ear were evaluated. The nerve identification and image quality were graded for the cranial nerves V-VIII as well as inner ear structures. These structures were chosen because fluid-solid interfaces existed due to the CSF around (the cranial nerves V-VIII) or the endolymph within (the inner ear structures). Statistical analysis was performed using the Wilcoxon test. P<0.05 was considered significant. Results: The addition of the DRIVE pulse shortens the scan time by 25%. T2-weighted 3D TSE sequence with DRIVE performed slightly better than the T2-weighted 3D TSE sequence without DRIVE in identifying the individual nerves. The image quality was also slightly better with DRIVE. Conclusion: The addition of the DRIVE pulse to the T2-weighted 3D TSE sequence is preferable when imaging the cranial nerves surrounded by the CSF, or fluid-filled structures because of shorter scan time and better image quality due to reduced flow artifacts.

Driven equilibrium (drive) MR imaging of the cranial nerves V-VIII: comparison with the T2-weighted 3D TSE sequence

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ciftci, E.; Anik, Yonca; Arslan, Arzu; Akansel, Gur; Sarisoy, Tahsin; Demirci, Ali

2004-01-01

Purpose: The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of the driven equilibrium radio frequency reset pulse (DRIVE) on image quality and nerve detection when used in adjunction with T2-weighted 3D turbo spin-echo (TSE) sequence. Materials and methods: Forty-five patients with cranial nerve symptoms referable to the cerebellopontine angle (CPA) were examined using a T2-weighted 3D TSE pulse sequence with and without DRIVE. MR imaging was performed on a 1.5-T MRI scanner. In addition to the axial resource images, reformatted oblique sagittal, oblique coronal and maximum intensity projection (MIP) images of the inner ear were evaluated. The nerve identification and image quality were graded for the cranial nerves V-VIII as well as inner ear structures. These structures were chosen because fluid-solid interfaces existed due to the CSF around (the cranial nerves V-VIII) or the endolymph within (the inner ear structures). Statistical analysis was performed using the Wilcoxon test. P<0.05 was considered significant. Results: The addition of the DRIVE pulse shortens the scan time by 25%. T2-weighted 3D TSE sequence with DRIVE performed slightly better than the T2-weighted 3D TSE sequence without DRIVE in identifying the individual nerves. The image quality was also slightly better with DRIVE. Conclusion: The addition of the DRIVE pulse to the T2-weighted 3D TSE sequence is preferable when imaging the cranial nerves surrounded by the CSF, or fluid-filled structures because of shorter scan time and better image quality due to reduced flow artifacts

An Action Research Study into the Role of Student Negotiation in Enhancing Perceived Student Engagement during English Speaking Classes at University Level in Turkey

Science.gov (United States)

Uztosun, Mehmet Sercan; Skinner, Nigel; Cadorath, Jill

2018-01-01

A major issue in English language teaching in Turkey and other monolingual countries is the teaching of spoken English. This article reports the initial and final stages of an action research study which used student negotiation to enhance student engagement in speaking classes. The research was conducted in the English Language Teaching…

A LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT PROFILE OF A VIETNAMESE LEARNER OF ENGLISH

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Rohani Rohani

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This paper is a case study to a Vietnamese English learner. The main objective of the study was to describe how the English of a Vietnamese student developed. Interviews were conducted in order to collect the data. The interviews were tape recorded. The recorded data provided information about the learner’s background. Additionally the data served as a sample of the learner’s spoken English. The analysis of the sample revealed that the learner made several grammatical, syntactical, and phonological errors. With a contrastive analysis theory it could be concluded that one of the factors that might have triggered the errors were the difference between English and Vietnamese language. From a personality point of view, the subject of the study showed several positive personalities that supported the development of his English as a second language.

Towards Adaptive Spoken Dialog Systems

CERN Document Server

Schmitt, Alexander

2013-01-01

In Monitoring Adaptive Spoken Dialog Systems, authors Alexander Schmitt and Wolfgang Minker investigate statistical approaches that allow for recognition of negative dialog patterns in Spoken Dialog Systems (SDS). The presented stochastic methods allow a flexible, portable and  accurate use.  Beginning with the foundations of machine learning and pattern recognition, this monograph examines how frequently users show negative emotions in spoken dialog systems and develop novel approaches to speech-based emotion recognition using hybrid approach to model emotions. The authors make use of statistical methods based on acoustic, linguistic and contextual features to examine the relationship between the interaction flow and the occurrence of emotions using non-acted  recordings several thousand real users from commercial and non-commercial SDS. Additionally, the authors present novel statistical methods that spot problems within a dialog based on interaction patterns. The approaches enable future SDS to offer m...

Unenhanced breast MRI (STIR, T2-weighted TSE, DWIBS): An accurate and alternative strategy for detecting and differentiating breast lesions.

Science.gov (United States)

Telegrafo, Michele; Rella, Leonarda; Stabile Ianora, Amato Antonio; Angelelli, Giuseppe; Moschetta, Marco

2015-10-01

To assess the role of STIR, T2-weighted TSE and DWIBS sequences for detecting and characterizing breast lesions and to compare unenhanced (UE)-MRI results with contrast-enhanced (CE)-MRI and histological findings, having the latter as the reference standard. Two hundred eighty consecutive patients (age range, 27-73 years; mean age±standard deviation (SD), 48.8±9.8years) underwent MR examination with a diagnostic protocol including STIR, T2-weighted TSE, THRIVE and DWIBS sequences. Two radiologists blinded to both dynamic sequences and histological findings evaluated in consensus STIR, T2-weighted TSE and DWIBS sequences and after two weeks CE-MRI images searching for breast lesions. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and diagnostic accuracy for UE-MRI and CE-MRI were calculated. UE-MRI results were also compared with CE- MRI. UE-MRI sequences obtained sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic accuracy, PPV and NPV values of 94%, 79%, 86%, 79% and 94%, respectively. CE-MRI sequences obtained sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic accuracy, PPV and NPV values of 98%, 83%, 90%, 84% and 98%, respectively. No statistically significant difference between UE-MRI and CE-MRI was found. Breast UE-MRI could represent an accurate diagnostic tool and a valid alternative to CE-MRI for evaluating breast lesions. STIR and DWIBS sequences allow to detect breast lesions while T2-weighted TSE sequences and ADC values could be useful for lesion characterization. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Neural organization of linguistic short-term memory is sensory modality-dependent: evidence from signed and spoken language.

Science.gov (United States)

Pa, Judy; Wilson, Stephen M; Pickell, Herbert; Bellugi, Ursula; Hickok, Gregory

2008-12-01

Despite decades of research, there is still disagreement regarding the nature of the information that is maintained in linguistic short-term memory (STM). Some authors argue for abstract phonological codes, whereas others argue for more general sensory traces. We assess these possibilities by investigating linguistic STM in two distinct sensory-motor modalities, spoken and signed language. Hearing bilingual participants (native in English and American Sign Language) performed equivalent STM tasks in both languages during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Distinct, sensory-specific activations were seen during the maintenance phase of the task for spoken versus signed language. These regions have been previously shown to respond to nonlinguistic sensory stimulation, suggesting that linguistic STM tasks recruit sensory-specific networks. However, maintenance-phase activations common to the two languages were also observed, implying some form of common process. We conclude that linguistic STM involves sensory-dependent neural networks, but suggest that sensory-independent neural networks may also exist.

Tetracycline hypersensitivity of an ezrA mutant links GalE and TseB (YpmB to cell division

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Pamela eGamba

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Cell division in bacteria is initiated by the polymerization of FtsZ into a ring-like structure at midcell that functions as a scaffold for the other cell division proteins. In Bacillus subtilis, the conserved cell division protein EzrA is involved in modulation of Z-ring formation and coordination of septal peptidoglycan synthesis. Here, we show that an ezrA mutant is hypersensitive to tetracycline, even when the tetracycline efflux pump TetA is present. This effect is not related to the protein translation inhibiting activity of tetracycline. Overexpression of FtsL suppresses this phenotype, which appears to be related to the intrinsic low FtsL levels in an ezrA mutant background. A transposon screen indicated that the tetracycline effect can also be suppressed by overproduction of the cell division protein ZapA. In addition, tetracycline sensitivity could be suppressed by transposon insertions in galE and the unknown gene ypmB, which was renamed tseB (tetracycline sensitivity suppressor of ezrA. GalE is an epimerase using UDP-glucose and UDP-N-acetylglucosamine as substrate. Deletion of this protein bypasses the synthetic lethality of zapA ezrA and sepF ezrA double mutations, indicating that GalE influences cell division. The transmembrane protein TseB contains an extracytoplasmic peptidase domain, and a GFP fusion shows that the protein is enriched at cell division sites. A tseB deletion causes a shorter cell phenotype, indicating that TseB plays a role in cell division. Why a deletion of ezrA renders B. subtilis cells hypersensitive for tetracycline remains unclear. We speculate that this phenomenon is related to the tendency of tetracycline analogues to accumulate into the lipid bilayer, which may destabilize certain membrane proteins.

Value of selective MIP reconstructions of respiratory triggered 3D-TSE-MR cholangiography on a workstation versus standard MIP reconstructions and single-shot MRCP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schaible, R.; Textor, J.; Kreft, B.; Schild, H.; Neubrand, M.

2001-01-01

Comparison of anatomical visualisation and diagnostic value of selective MIP reconstructions of respiratory triggered 3D-TSE-MRCP versus standard MIP reconstructions and single-shot MRCP. Material and Methods: 50 patients with pancreaticobiliary disease were examined at 1.5 Tesla (ACS NT II, Philips Medical Systems) using a breath-hold single-shot (SS) and a respiratory triggered 3D-TSE-MRCP technique in 12 standard MIP projections. Additional selective MIP reconstructions with different slice thickness (2, 4, 10 cm) and projections were performed on a workstation. Visualization of the pancreaticobiliary system and the diagnostic value of the examinations were analysed. Results: Single-shot and 3D-TSE in standard projections showed comparable anatomical visualisation. On selective MIP reconstructions the biliary system (SS p [de

Intelligibility in Context Scale: Normative and Validation Data for English-Speaking Preschoolers.

Science.gov (United States)

McLeod, Sharynne; Crowe, Kathryn; Shahaeian, Ameneh

2015-07-01

The purpose of this study was to describe normative and validation data on the Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS; McLeod, Harrison, & McCormack, 2012c) for English-speaking children. The ICS is a 7-item, parent-report measure of children's speech intelligibility with a range of communicative partners. Data were collected from the parents of 803 Australian English-speaking children ranging in age from 4;0 (years;months) to 5;5 (37.0% were multilingual). The mean ICS score was 4.4 (SD = 0.7) out of a possible total score of 5. Children's speech was reported to be most intelligible to their parents, followed by their immediate family, friends, and teachers; children's speech was least intelligible to strangers. The ICS had high internal consistency (α = .94). Significant differences in scores were identified on the basis of sex and age but not on the basis of socioeconomic status or the number of languages spoken. There were significant differences in scores between children whose parents had concerns about their child's speech (M = 3.9) and those who did not (M = 4.6). A sensitivity of .82 and a specificity of .58 were established as the optimal cutoff. Test-retest reliability and criterion validity were established for 184 children with a speech sound disorder. There was a significant low correlation between the ICS mean score and percentage of phonemes correct (r = .30), percentage of consonants correct (r = .24), and percentage of vowels correct (r = .30) on the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (Dodd, Hua, Crosbie, Holm, & Ozanne, 2002). Thirty-one parents completed the ICS related to English and another language spoken by their child with a speech sound disorder. The significant correlations between the scores suggest that the ICS may be robust between languages. This article provides normative ICS data for English-speaking children and additional validation of the psychometric properties of the ICS. The robustness of the ICS was suggested

Podcasts for Learning English Pronunciation in Igboland: Students' Experiences and Expectations

Science.gov (United States)

Mbah, Evelyn E.; Mbah, Boniface M.; Iloene, Modesta I.; Iloene, George O.

2013-01-01

This paper studies students' experiences and expectations on the use of podcasts in learning English pronunciation in Igboland. The Igboland is made up of five states in Southeastern Nigeria where Igbo is spoken as a mother tongue. The states are Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo. The study is a survey research where two universities were…

Writing Professional Documents in English

CERN Multimedia

2003-01-01

This course is designed for people with a good level of spoken English who need to improve their professional writing (administrative, scientific, technical). Duration: 20 hours (2 hours a week) Price: 440 CHF (for 8 students) Date and timetable will be fixed when there are sufficient participants enrolled. Oral Expression This course is intended for people with a good knowledge of English who want to practise and maintain their speaking skills while extending their vocabulary. There will be approximately 8 participants in a class. Speaking activities will include discussions, meeting simulations, role-plays etc. depending on the needs of the students. Duration: 20 hours (2 hours a week) Timetable: Thursdays from 12.00 to 14.00 Price: 440 CHF (for 8 students) For registration and further information on these two courses, please contact Mr. Liptow: tel. 72957.

General and Professional English Courses

CERN Multimedia

HR Department

2009-01-01

The next session will take place: From 5th October 2009 to 5th February 2010 (2 weeks break at Christmas). These courses are open to all persons working on the CERN site, and to their spouses. For registration and further information on the courses, please consult our Web pages or contact Nathalie Dumeaux, tel. 78144. Oral Expression The next session will take place from 5th October 2009 to 5th February 2010 (2 weeks break at Christmas). This course is intended for people with a good knowledge of English who want to enhance their speaking skills. There will be an average of 8 participants in a class. Speaking activities will include discussions, meeting simulations, role-plays etc., depending on the needs of the students. Writing Professional Documents in English The next session will take place from end of $eptember to end of January 2010 (2 weeks break at Christmas). This course is designed for people with a good level of spoken English who wish to improve their writin...

General and Professional English Courses

CERN Multimedia

HR Department

2009-01-01

The next session will take place: From 5th October 2009 to 5th February 2010 (2 weeks break at Christmas). These courses are open to all persons working on the CERN site, and to their spouses. For registration and further information on the courses, please consult our Web pages: http://cern.ch/Training or contact Nathalie Dumeaux, tel. 78144. Oral Expression The next session will take place from 5th October 2009 to 5th February 2010 (2 weeks break at Christmas). This course is intended for people with a good knowledge of English who want to enhance their speaking skills. There will be on average of 8 participants in a class. Speaking activities will include discussions, meeting simulations, role-plays etc. depending on the needs of the students. Writing Professional Documents in English The next session will take place from end of $eptember to end of January 2010 (2 weeks break at Christmas). This course is designed for people with a good level of spoken English who wish to improve their writing skills. ...

General and Professional English Courses

CERN Multimedia

HR Department

2009-01-01

The next session will take place: From 5th October 2009 to 5th February 2010 (2 weeks break at Christmas). These courses are open to all persons working on the CERN site, and to their spouses. For registration and further information on the courses, please consult our Web pages: http://cern.ch/Training or contact Nathalie Dumeaux, tel. 78144. Oral Expression The next session will take place from 5th October 2009 to 5th February 2010 (2 weeks break at Christmas). This course is intended for people with a good knowledge of English who want to enhance their speaking skills. There will be an average of 8 participants in a class. Speaking activities will include discussions, meeting simulations, role-plays etc., depending on the needs of the students. Writing Professional Documents in English The next session will take place from end of $eptember to end of January 2010 (2 weeks break at Christmas). This course is designed for people with a good level of spoken English who wish to improve their writing skills....

On Mao Tse-tung: A Bibliographic Guide. East Asia Series, Occasional Paper No. 2.

Science.gov (United States)

Shu, Austin C. W.

This bibliography is a selected reference source on the life, politics, philosophy, and works of Mao Tse-tung. It contains 800 documents in Chinese, Japanese, and Western languages that were selected from monographs and journal articles. Most of the entries pertain to Mao's role after 1949 when he emerged as the new leader in Mainland China. The…

Genetic, histochemical and biochemical studies on goat TSE cases from Cyprus.

Science.gov (United States)

Niedermeyer, Susanne; Eiden, Martin; Toumazos, Pavlos; Papasavva-Stylianou, Penelope; Ioannou, Ioannis; Sklaviadis, Theodoros; Panagiotidis, Cynthia; Langeveld, Jan; Bossers, Alex; Kuczius, Thorsten; Kaatz, Martin; Groschup, Martin H; Fast, Christine

2016-10-06

Scrapie and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) are transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE's) affecting sheep and goats. Susceptibility of goats to scrapie is influenced by polymorphisms of the prion protein gene (PRNP) of the host. Five polymorphisms are associated with reduced susceptibility to TSE's. In the study presented here caprine samples from a scrapie eradication program on Cyprus were genotyped and further characterized using BioRad TeSeE rapid test, histological, immunohistochemical and biochemical methods. In total 42 goats from 20 flocks were necropsied from which 25 goats showed a positive result in the rapid test, a spongiform encephalopathy and an accumulation of pathological prion protein (PrP Sc ) in the obex. PrP Sc deposits were demonstrated in the placenta, peripheral nervous and lymphoreticular system. Two animals showed PrP Sc -accumulations in peripheral tissues only. By discriminatory immunoblots a scrapie infection could be confirmed for all cases. Nevertheless, slight deviations in the glycosylation pattern might indicate the presence of different scrapie strains. Furthermore scrapie samples from goats in the current study demonstrated less long term resistance to proteinase K than ovine or caprine BSE control samples. Reduced scrapie susceptibility according to the PRNP genotype was demonstrated (Fishers Exact test, p goats with at least one polymorphism (p = 0.023) at the six codons examined and in particular for those with polymorphisms at codon 146 (p = 0.016). This work characterizes scrapie in goats having implications for breeding and surveillance strategies.

The Effects of Captions on EFL Learners' Comprehension of English-Language Television Programs

Science.gov (United States)

Rodgers, Michael P. H.; Webb, Stuart

2017-01-01

The Multimedia Principle (Fletcher & Tobias, 2005) states that people learn better and comprehend more when words and pictures are presented together. The potential for English language learners to increase their comprehension of video through the use of captions, which graphically display the same language as the spoken dialogue, has been…

Factors that enhance English-speaking speech-language pathologists' transcription of Cantonese-speaking children's consonants.

Science.gov (United States)

Lockart, Rebekah; McLeod, Sharynne

2013-08-01

To investigate speech-language pathology students' ability to identify errors and transcribe typical and atypical speech in Cantonese, a nonnative language. Thirty-three English-speaking speech-language pathology students completed 3 tasks in an experimental within-subjects design. Task 1 (baseline) involved transcribing English words. In Task 2, students transcribed 25 words spoken by a Cantonese adult. An average of 59.1% consonants was transcribed correctly (72.9% when Cantonese-English transfer patterns were allowed). There was higher accuracy on shared English and Cantonese syllable-initial consonants /m,n,f,s,h,j,w,l/ and syllable-final consonants. In Task 3, students identified consonant errors and transcribed 100 words spoken by Cantonese-speaking children under 4 additive conditions: (1) baseline, (2) +adult model, (3) +information about Cantonese phonology, and (4) all variables (2 and 3 were counterbalanced). There was a significant improvement in the students' identification and transcription scores for conditions 2, 3, and 4, with a moderate effect size. Increased skill was not based on listeners' proficiency in speaking another language, perceived transcription skill, musicality, or confidence with multilingual clients. Speech-language pathology students, with no exposure to or specific training in Cantonese, have some skills to identify errors and transcribe Cantonese. Provision of a Cantonese-adult model and information about Cantonese phonology increased students' accuracy in transcribing Cantonese speech.

Foreign Language Tutoring in Oral Conversations Using Spoken Dialog Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Sungjin; Noh, Hyungjong; Lee, Jonghoon; Lee, Kyusong; Lee, Gary Geunbae

Although there have been enormous investments into English education all around the world, not many differences have been made to change the English instruction style. Considering the shortcomings for the current teaching-learning methodology, we have been investigating advanced computer-assisted language learning (CALL) systems. This paper aims at summarizing a set of POSTECH approaches including theories, technologies, systems, and field studies and providing relevant pointers. On top of the state-of-the-art technologies of spoken dialog system, a variety of adaptations have been applied to overcome some problems caused by numerous errors and variations naturally produced by non-native speakers. Furthermore, a number of methods have been developed for generating educational feedback that help learners develop to be proficient. Integrating these efforts resulted in intelligent educational robots — Mero and Engkey — and virtual 3D language learning games, Pomy. To verify the effects of our approaches on students' communicative abilities, we have conducted a field study at an elementary school in Korea. The results showed that our CALL approaches can be enjoyable and fruitful activities for students. Although the results of this study bring us a step closer to understanding computer-based education, more studies are needed to consolidate the findings.

Maximising Asian ESL Learners’ Communicative Oral English via Drama

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chamkaur Gill

2016-10-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes that activities based on a variety of drama-based techniques could be valuable in giving Asian ESL learners opportunities to use communicative spoken English confidently and without restraint during their time in English-language-speaking countries. These learners often get anxious when in situations where they are required to speak in English. Fears about making errors related to grammar, fluency and clarity that might cause them to be embarrassed stand in the way of unencumbered speech output. In addition, cultural issues linked to voice-projection and body language can hinder oral interaction in English and hamper their motivation to speak. They are, therefore, deprived of much-needed speaking practice. I find that drama lets my students speak communicatively, free of the dread of constant correction, in a relaxed and enjoyable learner-centred environment that appears to help diminish their anxiety and inhibitions. As a result, their motivation to speak increases, leading to extended speech production. Keywords: ESL, Asian students’ traits, communicative oral English, drama variations

Sign-Supported English: is it effective at teaching vocabulary to young children with English as an Additional Language?

Science.gov (United States)

Marshall, Chloë R; Hobsbaum, Angela

2015-01-01

Children who are learning English as an Additional Language (EAL) may start school with smaller vocabularies than their monolingual peers. Given the links between vocabulary and academic achievement, it is important to evaluate interventions that are designed to support vocabulary learning in this group of children. To evaluate an intervention, namely Sign-Supported English (SSE), which uses conventionalized manual gestures alongside spoken words to support the learning of English vocabulary by children with EAL. Specifically, the paper investigates whether SSE has a positive impact on Reception class children's vocabulary development over and above English-only input, as measured over a 6-month period. A total of 104 children aged 4-5 years were recruited from two neighbouring schools in a borough of Outer London. A subset of 66 had EAL. In one school, the teachers used SSE, and in the other school they did not. Pupils in each school were tested at two time points (the beginning of terms 1 and 3) using three different assessments of vocabulary. Classroom-based observations of the teachers' and pupils' manual communication were also carried out. Results of the vocabulary assessments revealed that using SSE had no effect on how well children with EAL learnt English vocabulary: EAL pupils from the SSE school did not learn more words than EAL pupils at the comparison school. SSE was used in almost half of the teachers' observations in the SSE school, while spontaneous gestures were used with similar frequency by teachers in the comparison school. There are alternative explanations for the results. The first is that the use of signs alongside spoken English does not help EAL children of this age to learn words. Alternatively, SSE does have an effect, but we were unable to detect it because (1) teachers in the comparison school used very rich natural gesture and/or (2) teachers in the SSE school did not know enough BSL and this inhibited their use of spontaneous gesture

English and Mauritian Creole: A Reflection on How the Vocabulary, Grammar and Syntax of the Two Languages Create Difficulties for Learners

OpenAIRE

Kobita Kumari Jugnauth

2018-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the various linguistic reasons that cause Mauritian students to experience difficulties while learning English. As Mauritius is a former British and French colony, most Mauritians are bilinguals. Both English and French are compulsory subjects up to Cambridge O’Level. English is the official language and also the language of instruction but French is much more widely used and spoken. Also Mauritian Creole is the mothertongue of the majority of Maurit...

American or British? L2 Speakers' Recognition and Evaluations of Accent Features in English

Science.gov (United States)

Carrie, Erin; McKenzie, Robert M.

2018-01-01

Recent language attitude research has attended to the processes involved in identifying and evaluating spoken language varieties. This article investigates the ability of second-language learners of English in Spain (N = 71) to identify Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GenAm) speech and their perceptions of linguistic variation…

Postposing and Information Structure in English and Farsi/Persian

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shafiei Soheila

2014-03-01

Full Text Available The term postposing denotes any construction in which a phrasal constituent appears to the right of its canonical position, leaving its initial position either empty or occupied by an expletive. Ward and Birner (2004 argue that postposed constructions preserve the old-before-new information structure paradigm in English. The present paper investigates postposed constituents in Persian to find out the information structure paradigm of such constructions. The data have been taken from 34 interviews. The findings show that various constituents might undergo postposing in spoken Farsi (known as Tehrani dialect, and, in contrast to English, NPs were found to be triggered in postposed position when the referent was hearer-old.

How sensory-motor systems impact the neural organization for language: direct contrasts between spoken and signed language

Science.gov (United States)

Emmorey, Karen; McCullough, Stephen; Mehta, Sonya; Grabowski, Thomas J.

2014-01-01

To investigate the impact of sensory-motor systems on the neural organization for language, we conducted an H215O-PET study of sign and spoken word production (picture-naming) and an fMRI study of sign and audio-visual spoken language comprehension (detection of a semantically anomalous sentence) with hearing bilinguals who are native users of American Sign Language (ASL) and English. Directly contrasting speech and sign production revealed greater activation in bilateral parietal cortex for signing, while speaking resulted in greater activation in bilateral superior temporal cortex (STC) and right frontal cortex, likely reflecting auditory feedback control. Surprisingly, the language production contrast revealed a relative increase in activation in bilateral occipital cortex for speaking. We speculate that greater activation in visual cortex for speaking may actually reflect cortical attenuation when signing, which functions to distinguish self-produced from externally generated visual input. Directly contrasting speech and sign comprehension revealed greater activation in bilateral STC for speech and greater activation in bilateral occipital-temporal cortex for sign. Sign comprehension, like sign production, engaged bilateral parietal cortex to a greater extent than spoken language. We hypothesize that posterior parietal activation in part reflects processing related to spatial classifier constructions in ASL and that anterior parietal activation may reflect covert imitation that functions as a predictive model during sign comprehension. The conjunction analysis for comprehension revealed that both speech and sign bilaterally engaged the inferior frontal gyrus (with more extensive activation on the left) and the superior temporal sulcus, suggesting an invariant bilateral perisylvian language system. We conclude that surface level differences between sign and spoken languages should not be dismissed and are critical for understanding the neurobiology of language

Spectrotemporal processing drives fast access to memory traces for spoken words.

Science.gov (United States)

Tavano, A; Grimm, S; Costa-Faidella, J; Slabu, L; Schröger, E; Escera, C

2012-05-01

The Mismatch Negativity (MMN) component of the event-related potentials is generated when a detectable spectrotemporal feature of the incoming sound does not match the sensory model set up by preceding repeated stimuli. MMN is enhanced at frontocentral scalp sites for deviant words when compared to acoustically similar deviant pseudowords, suggesting that automatic access to long-term memory traces for spoken words contributes to MMN generation. Does spectrotemporal feature matching also drive automatic lexical access? To test this, we recorded human auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) to disyllabic spoken words and pseudowords within a passive oddball paradigm. We first aimed at replicating the word-related MMN enhancement effect for Spanish, thereby adding to the available cross-linguistic evidence (e.g., Finnish, English). We then probed its resilience to spectrotemporal perturbation by inserting short (20 ms) and long (120 ms) silent gaps between first and second syllables of deviant and standard stimuli. A significantly enhanced, frontocentrally distributed MMN to deviant words was found for stimuli with no gap. The long gap yielded no deviant word MMN, showing that prior expectations of word form limits in a given language influence deviance detection processes. Crucially, the insertion of a short gap suppressed deviant word MMN enhancement at frontocentral sites. We propose that spectrotemporal point-wise matching constitutes a core mechanism for fast serial computations in audition and language, bridging sensory and long-term memory systems. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

English in the nursing degree: a pending subject.

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Camacho-Bejarano, Rafaela; Barquero-González, Ana; Mariscal-Crespo, María Isabel; Merino-Navarro, Dolores

2013-01-01

The new competence profile of nursing professionals, scientific and medical development, the free circulation of health professionals worldwide, and the increasing social and cultural diversity requires that nurses have specific abilities in spoken and written English. The objective of this research is to describe the characteristics of the English language training required for a Bachelors of Nursing in Spain. A descriptive cross-sectional observational study has been performed in forty-six Spanish universities that offer the Bachelor in nursing degree. In line with the directives of the European Higher Education Area, all universities contemplate the mandatory credit of a second language emphasizing English, although there is considerable variability in the emphasis: 39.4% do not include any English subject, and of the remaining 60.6% who do include it, 60% considered it an elective subject, 32.5% basic education, and 7.5% mandatory. The English training has different characteristics in each university, which implies a different commitment from each center for this learning. This fact questions the adequacy of the education in relation to the new competence profile required by the European Higher Education Area, which may adversely affect future professional development.

Conversational routines in English convention and creativity

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Aijmer, Karin

2014-01-01

It is surprising how much of everyday conversation consists of repetitive expressions such as 'thank you', 'sorry', would you mind?' and their many variants. However commonplace they may be, they do have important functions in communication.This thorough study draws upon original data from the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English to provide a discoursal and pragmatic account of the more common expressions found in conversational routines, such as apologising, thanking, requesting and offering.The routines studied in this book range from conventionalized or idiomatized phrases t

A Bibliography of English as a Second Language Materials: Grades K-3.

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National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education, Arlington, VA.

This annotated bibliography of English as a second language (ESL) materials for grades K-3 is divided into four parts. The first part, ESL texts, lists a number of series or single texts that are designed to teach the spoken language and reading to the elementary school child. The second part is a list of readers that, although were mostly…

A judicialização da competição política: o TSE e as coligações eleitorais

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Vitor Marchetti

2009-11-01

Full Text Available Há uma extensa literatura que se debruça sobre os efeitos do poder judiciário no funcionamento dos sistemas políticos. Estaríamos assistindo à judicialização da política? O argumento apresentado é que o entendimento acerca da influência do direito na dinâmica dos sistemas políticos supõe uma noção mais ampla sobre o lócus e o momento em que ocorre sua interferência no funcionamento das democracias contemporâneas. A proposta é discutir a judicialização no que diz respeito à definição das regras da competição político-eleitoral. Para isso, analisaremos a decisão do TSE (Tribunal Superior Eleitoral referente à verticalização das coligações. O argumento é que o TSE não apenas interpretou uma legislação, mas também estabeleceu um novo regulamento no lugar do poder legislativo. Nossa análise demonstra que a regulamentação das coligações eleitorais é fruto de interação estratégica entre o TSE e o poder legislativo.There is an extensive literature to study the effects of the judiciary power on how political systems work. Is there a judicialization of politics? Our point is that the answer to that question is connected to theoretical questions about the ways to prove and where scholars should look in order to detect the effect of judiciary in democratic systems. In this work we analyze the judicialization of politics under the perspective of the definition of the rules of electoral competition. In order to prove our argument, this article studies how TSE (brazilian judiciary court rules coalitions in Brazil's political system, known as "verticalização" _the uniformity of party coalitions at state and federal levels. Our case study shows that TSE, in fact, not only interprets the law but, actually, establishes rules, taking the place of the legislative body _which, in turn, made another move. The analysis suggests that the question of judiciary of politics should be seen as an strategic interaction between

Instructional Benefits of Spoken Words: A Review of Cognitive Load Factors

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Kalyuga, Slava

2012-01-01

Spoken words have always been an important component of traditional instruction. With the development of modern educational technology tools, spoken text more often replaces or supplements written or on-screen textual representations. However, there could be a cognitive load cost involved in this trend, as spoken words can have both benefits and…

PROFICIENCY IN ENGLISH AND CAREER OPPORTUNITIES IN THE LABOUR MARKET

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SIMION MINODORA OTILIA

2013-08-01

Full Text Available The technological development, the growing economic globalization and the majordemographic shifts have brought about the need for a global language. In international business, travel, scienceand technology, education, immigration, academia, diplomacy and entertainment, English is the dominantlanguage, being spoken by over one billion people. English is used inside and outside the professionalenvironment, both for communication in global business and for communication in social networks, butproficiency in English can definitely enhance people’s career opportunities both if they look for a job in thecountry or plan to go abroad to find employment. It may determine a division among those who have access toinformation and prosperity and those who don’t. In the future not just wealth but also the way it is created willhave a great impact on people’s increasing communicative needs of international languages. It is obvious thenthat more and more people will need proficiency in English ,both as a language for international communicationand as the basis for constructing cultural identities .

Improved fat-suppression homogeneity with mDIXON turbo spin echo (TSE) in pediatric spine imaging at 3.0 T.

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Pokorney, Amber L; Chia, Jonathan M; Pfeifer, Cory M; Miller, Jeffrey H; Hu, Houchun H

2017-11-01

Background Robust fat suppression remains essential in clinical MRI to improve tissue signal contrast, minimize fat-related artifacts, and enhance image quality. Purpose To compare fat suppression between mDIXON turbo spin echo (TSE) and conventional frequency-selective and inversion-recovery methods in pediatric spine MRI. Material and Methods Images from T1-weighted (T1W) and T2-weighted (T2W) TSE sequences coupled with conventional methods and the mDIXON technique were compared in 36 patients (5.8 ± 5.4 years) at 3.0 T. Images from 42 pairs of T1W (n = 16) and T2W (n = 26) scans were acquired. Two radiologists reviewed the data and rated images using a three-point scale in two categories, including the uniformity of fat suppression and overall diagnostic image quality. The Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used to compare the scores. Results The Cohen's kappa coefficient for inter-rater agreement was 0.69 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.56-0.83). Images from mDIXON TSE were considered superior in fat suppression ( P 3.0 T and should be considered as a permanent replacement of traditional methods, in particular frequency-selective techniques.

Pedagogical Challenges of Spoken English Learning in the Second Life Virtual World: A Case Study

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Zhang, Haisen

2013-01-01

As one of the emerging technologies, the Second Life virtual world provides learners of English as a Foreign Language with a unique opportunity of learning authentic language with native and non-native speakers of English in a virtual environment. It enables them to learn the target language in a real-life-like social communication environment. To…

Attention to spoken word planning: Chronometric and neuroimaging evidence

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Roelofs, A.P.A.

2008-01-01

This article reviews chronometric and neuroimaging evidence on attention to spoken word planning, using the WEAVER++ model as theoretical framework. First, chronometric studies on the time to initiate vocal responding and gaze shifting suggest that spoken word planning may require some attention,

Orthographic effects in spoken word recognition: Evidence from Chinese.

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Qu, Qingqing; Damian, Markus F

2017-06-01

Extensive evidence from alphabetic languages demonstrates a role of orthography in the processing of spoken words. Because alphabetic systems explicitly code speech sounds, such effects are perhaps not surprising. However, it is less clear whether orthographic codes are involuntarily accessed from spoken words in languages with non-alphabetic systems, in which the sound-spelling correspondence is largely arbitrary. We investigated the role of orthography via a semantic relatedness judgment task: native Mandarin speakers judged whether or not spoken word pairs were related in meaning. Word pairs were either semantically related, orthographically related, or unrelated. Results showed that relatedness judgments were made faster for word pairs that were semantically related than for unrelated word pairs. Critically, orthographic overlap on semantically unrelated word pairs induced a significant increase in response latencies. These findings indicate that orthographic information is involuntarily accessed in spoken-word recognition, even in a non-alphabetic language such as Chinese.

Development of Health Education Learning Module in Bac.TSE-LDPE Programme in TTI: Needs Analysis Study

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Ujang, Alijah; Alias, Norlidah; Siraj, Saedah

2015-01-01

This study is to explore the need to develop learning modules of health education for trainee teachers in the Bachelor Of Teaching (Hons)(Special Education-Learning Disabilities For Primary Education) Programme (Bac.TSE-LDPE) in the Teacher Training Institute (TTI). The questionnaire uses the Likert scale with the close ended questions analysed by…

CROATIAN ADULT SPOKEN LANGUAGE CORPUS (HrAL

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Jelena Kuvač Kraljević

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Interest in spoken-language corpora has increased over the past two decades leading to the development of new corpora and the discovery of new facets of spoken language. These types of corpora represent the most comprehensive data source about the language of ordinary speakers. Such corpora are based on spontaneous, unscripted speech defined by a variety of styles, registers and dialects. The aim of this paper is to present the Croatian Adult Spoken Language Corpus (HrAL, its structure and its possible applications in different linguistic subfields. HrAL was built by sampling spontaneous conversations among 617 speakers from all Croatian counties, and it comprises more than 250,000 tokens and more than 100,000 types. Data were collected during three time slots: from 2010 to 2012, from 2014 to 2015 and during 2016. HrAL is today available within TalkBank, a large database of spoken-language corpora covering different languages (https://talkbank.org, in the Conversational Analyses corpora within the subsection titled Conversational Banks. Data were transcribed, coded and segmented using the transcription format Codes for Human Analysis of Transcripts (CHAT and the Computerised Language Analysis (CLAN suite of programmes within the TalkBank toolkit. Speech streams were segmented into communication units (C-units based on syntactic criteria. Most transcripts were linked to their source audios. The TalkBank is public free, i.e. all data stored in it can be shared by the wider community in accordance with the basic rules of the TalkBank. HrAL provides information about spoken grammar and lexicon, discourse skills, error production and productivity in general. It may be useful for sociolinguistic research and studies of synchronic language changes in Croatian.

Communicative Needs in the Workplace and Curriculum Development of Business English Courses in Hong Kong

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Chan, Mable

2014-01-01

The pressing need to bridge the gap between workplace communicative needs and curriculum development of business English courses has been documented in the literature. Through a questionnaire survey of 215 working adults, this study examines (a) the spoken and written needs of professionals in the local Hong Kong workplace, (b) the challenges they…

The Impact of Biculturalism on Language and Literacy Development: Teaching Chinese English Language Learners

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Palmer, Barbara C.; Chen, Chia-I; Chang, Sara; Leclere, Judith T.

2006-01-01

According to the 2000 United States Census, Americans age five and older who speak a language other than English at home grew 47 percent over the preceding decade. This group accounts for slightly less than one in five Americans (17.9%). Among the minority languages spoken in the United States, Asian-language speakers, including Chinese and other…

Prosodic Parallelism – comparing spoken and written language

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Richard Wiese

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The Prosodic Parallelism hypothesis claims adjacent prosodic categories to prefer identical branching of internal adjacent constituents. According to Wiese and Speyer (2015, this preference implies feet contained in the same phonological phrase to display either binary or unary branching, but not different types of branching. The seemingly free schwa-zero alternations at the end of some words in German make it possible to test this hypothesis. The hypothesis was successfully tested by conducting a corpus study which used large-scale bodies of written German. As some open questions remain, and as it is unclear whether Prosodic Parallelism is valid for the spoken modality as well, the present study extends this inquiry to spoken German. As in the previous study, the results of a corpus analysis recruiting a variety of linguistic constructions are presented. The Prosodic Parallelism hypothesis can be demonstrated to be valid for spoken German as well as for written German. The paper thus contributes to the question whether prosodic preferences are similar between the spoken and written modes of a language. Some consequences of the results for the production of language are discussed.

A Model of Communicative Teaching and Learning of English Vocabulary Through Interactive Actin vities

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Sahraini Sahraini

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Teaching English vocabulary is very important, and it is more than just presenting and introducing new vocabulary to the students. Knowing words is not only memorizing them, but the students need to understand the meaning of the word in context and how the words are used. This can be achieved through correct vocabulary instruction which should involve vocabulary selection, word knowledge, and techniques. The needs of prospective teachers in mastering English both spoken and written, and the ability to teach using English as the language of instruction in the teaching and learning process in the classroom is very important. They also need the skills to teach English effectively and enjoyable to make the students have confident to use English communicatively. Deciding an interesting method for students is also an English teachers’ job to do. In this paper the writer tries to design a model of teaching and learning of English vocabulary through interactive activities. By using a lot of interactive activities, hopefully the students are able to practice to communicate by using English in oral and written.

Novel Spoken Word Learning in Adults with Developmental Dyslexia

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Conner, Peggy S.

2013-01-01

A high percentage of individuals with dyslexia struggle to learn unfamiliar spoken words, creating a significant obstacle to foreign language learning after early childhood. The origin of spoken-word learning difficulties in this population, generally thought to be related to the underlying literacy deficit, is not well defined (e.g., Di Betta…

Students’ Perceived Level of English Proficiency in Secondary Schools in Dodoma, Tanzania

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Lazarus Ndiku Makewa

2013-07-01

Full Text Available This paper looked at students’ perceived level of English proficiency among Dodoma secondary schools in Tanzania. Factors like attitude, anxiety, classroom activities, motivation, and learning resources were considered as influencing English learning. The study was guided by three theories: Input Hypothesis, Inter-language and Vygotsky’s theory of value. Correlation design was used to describe the association between the student and teacher-related factors and students’ perceived level of English proficiency. Purposive sampling was used to select 300 form three students. Questionnaires were used to collect data from the participants. Reliability of the research instrument was determined by conducting a pilot study. Pearson Descriptive statistics and Kendall’s Tau-b were used to analyze the data. The study revealed that the students’ perceived level of proficiency in spoken English was average. The findings indicated a significant positive correlation between perceived English proficiency and attitude toward the English language, classroom activities, teacher motivation, and classroom environment. It is suggested that further studies integrate qualitative research methods to the research design in order to get an in-depth understanding of students’ perception on English proficiency.

Language Preference among Nigerian Undergraduates and the Future of English

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Gabriel B. Egbe

2014-12-01

Full Text Available What will be the future of English in Nigeria? Put more apprehensively, will the English language die in Nigeria in the near future? These questions are answered by reporting on the language preference at home of some Nigerian undergraduates in order to gauge the future of English in Nigeria. The investigation sought to determine the language(s most preferred for communication at home among Nigerian undergraduates. From a sample drawn from students in a private Nigerian university, 66.7% identified English as the most frequently used language at home while 64.1% indicated fluency in English against other languages spoken in Nigeria including the indigenous major Nigerian languages (Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. On order of fluency among the languages sampled, 18.5% indicated an English-only fluency, which reveals that some section of young Nigerians are moving towards a monolingual English-only proficiency. This discovery has implications for the future of English in Nigeria. Several factors may account for this emerging trend. However, the premier position occupied by English in Nigeria and the expanding use of English world-wide clearly support the continuous growth and visibility of English as the language of choice among Nigerian undergraduates at home. This is without prejudice to several declarations and policy statements in favour of Mother Tongue education and usage in Nigeria. The paper concludes that the emergence of a new generation of Nigerians who use English as a first language in a non-host second language context is sowing the seed for further nativization and entrenchment of English in Nigeria.

Spoken word recognition without a TRACE

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Hannagan, Thomas; Magnuson, James S.; Grainger, Jonathan

2013-01-01

How do we map the rapid input of spoken language onto phonological and lexical representations over time? Attempts at psychologically-tractable computational models of spoken word recognition tend either to ignore time or to transform the temporal input into a spatial representation. TRACE, a connectionist model with broad and deep coverage of speech perception and spoken word recognition phenomena, takes the latter approach, using exclusively time-specific units at every level of representation. TRACE reduplicates featural, phonemic, and lexical inputs at every time step in a large memory trace, with rich interconnections (excitatory forward and backward connections between levels and inhibitory links within levels). As the length of the memory trace is increased, or as the phoneme and lexical inventory of the model is increased to a realistic size, this reduplication of time- (temporal position) specific units leads to a dramatic proliferation of units and connections, begging the question of whether a more efficient approach is possible. Our starting point is the observation that models of visual object recognition—including visual word recognition—have grappled with the problem of spatial invariance, and arrived at solutions other than a fully-reduplicative strategy like that of TRACE. This inspires a new model of spoken word recognition that combines time-specific phoneme representations similar to those in TRACE with higher-level representations based on string kernels: temporally independent (time invariant) diphone and lexical units. This reduces the number of necessary units and connections by several orders of magnitude relative to TRACE. Critically, we compare the new model to TRACE on a set of key phenomena, demonstrating that the new model inherits much of the behavior of TRACE and that the drastic computational savings do not come at the cost of explanatory power. PMID:24058349

Attentional Capture of Objects Referred to by Spoken Language

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Salverda, Anne Pier; Altmann, Gerry T. M.

2011-01-01

Participants saw a small number of objects in a visual display and performed a visual detection or visual-discrimination task in the context of task-irrelevant spoken distractors. In each experiment, a visual cue was presented 400 ms after the onset of a spoken word. In experiments 1 and 2, the cue was an isoluminant color change and participants…

Orthographic Facilitation in Chinese Spoken Word Recognition: An ERP Study

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Zou, Lijuan; Desroches, Amy S.; Liu, Youyi; Xia, Zhichao; Shu, Hua

2012-01-01

Orthographic influences in spoken word recognition have been previously examined in alphabetic languages. However, it is unknown whether orthographic information affects spoken word recognition in Chinese, which has a clean dissociation between orthography (O) and phonology (P). The present study investigated orthographic effects using event…

Lecturing in one’s first language or in English as a lingua franca

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Preisler, Bent

2014-01-01

The demand for internationalization puts pressure on Danish universities to use English as the language of instruction instead of or in addition to the local language(s). The purpose of this study – though proceeding from the belief that true internationalization seeks to exploit all linguistic...... and multilingual classroom. This case study concerns Danish university teachers' spoken discourse and interaction with students in a Danish-language versus English-language classroom. The data are video recordings of classroom interaction at the University of Roskilde, Denmark. The focus is on the relationship...... between linguistic-pragmatic performance and academic authenticity for university teachers teaching courses in both English and Danish, based on recent sociolinguistic concepts such as “persona,” “stylization,” and “authenticity.” The analysis suggests that it is crucial for teachers' ability...

"Now We Have Spoken."

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Zimmer, Patricia Moore

2001-01-01

Describes the author's experiences directing a play translated and acted in Korean. Notes that she had to get familiar with the sound of the language spoken fluently, to see how an actor's thought is discerned when the verbal language is not understood. Concludes that so much of understanding and communication unfolds in ways other than with…

Pre-aspiration in Welsh English: a case study of Aberystwyth

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hejná, Michaela

-aspiration would be manifested as a h sound inserted in the following words as indicated: paht, peht, piht, poht, puht, mahp, mahtt, mahck, ohff, mohth, mahss, mahsh. Because the sound is understudied in English, the work focuses on what other sounds condition the presence of the phenomenon and its duration......Lay abstract This thesis examines pre-aspiration in English spoken in Aberystwyth, mid Wales. Pre-aspiration is a sound very similar to h (as in honey), and it can be found mainly in the sequences of vowels (a, e, i, o, u, etc.) and certain consonants (p, t, k, f, th, s, sh). In English, pre......, if it is sensitive to social factors such as age or gender as well, and it suggests some implications for sound changes including pre-aspiration. Chapter 1 summarises the questions addressed in this thesis and outlines where this work is positioned with respect to our current knowledge of the phenomenon...

The Elements of Nonsexist Usage: A Guide to Inclusive Spoken and Written English.

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Dumond, Val

This handbook is intended for students, teachers, journalists, executives, and court and government workers who want to eliminate sexism from their English. It offers sound advice on gender-inclusive or gender-neutral language. Among its topics of interest are: the reasons to avoid sexist language; sensible alternatives to offensive terminology;…

Neural dynamics of morphological processing in spoken word comprehension: Laterality and automaticity

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Caroline M. Whiting

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Rapid and automatic processing of grammatical complexity is argued to take place during speech comprehension, engaging a left-lateralised fronto-temporal language network. Here we address how neural activity in these regions is modulated by the grammatical properties of spoken words. We used combined magneto- and electroencephalography (MEG, EEG to delineate the spatiotemporal patterns of activity that support the recognition of morphologically complex words in English with inflectional (-s and derivational (-er affixes (e.g. bakes, baker. The mismatch negativity (MMN, an index of linguistic memory traces elicited in a passive listening paradigm, was used to examine the neural dynamics elicited by morphologically complex words. Results revealed an initial peak 130-180 ms after the deviation point with a major source in left superior temporal cortex. The localisation of this early activation showed a sensitivity to two grammatical properties of the stimuli: 1 the presence of morphological complexity, with affixed words showing increased left-laterality compared to non-affixed words; and 2 the grammatical category, with affixed verbs showing greater left-lateralisation in inferior frontal gyrus compared to affixed nouns (bakes vs. beaks. This automatic brain response was additionally sensitive to semantic coherence (the meaning of the stem vs. the meaning of the whole form in fronto-temporal regions. These results demonstrate that the spatiotemporal pattern of neural activity in spoken word processing is modulated by the presence of morphological structure, predominantly engaging the left-hemisphere’s fronto-temporal language network, and does not require focused attention on the linguistic input.

The Role of English in Present Day Higher Education

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Eman Abdulsalam AL-Khalil

2017-10-01

Full Text Available In today’s global world and with the help of modern technology, English has become the most common and dominant language spoken and used both at the national and international levels. It has been playing a major role in many sectors as medicine, engineering, politics, economics, international relations, and higher education in particular, the most important area where English is needed. It has also become a medium of instruction at universities in a large number of countries, a basic means of second language learning / teaching, an accessing source of modern knowledge and scientific research, and a means of global communication and earn living. It is realized nowadays at the level of Higher Education in many countries around the world, in addition to EU countries as Germany, Turkey, China, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Australian, India …, the significance of providing education in English side by side with their natives. Hence, serious steps have taken to improve the quality of instruction in English at the administrative, academic, students’, publications and research levels. And in order to prove English language international power, it goes beyond its tertiary. Many English language proficiency, training and degree programs are managed not only inside but also abroad for internationalization of higher education to keep it up to date. However, this paper signifies the role of English in modern education, particularly in higher education sector and the role of modern technology in promoting English language learning / teaching quality to meet the standards, communication needs and cultural exchange across the world.

Is English the key to access the wonders of the modern world? A Critical Discourse Analysis

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Carmen Helena Guerrero

2010-01-01

Full Text Available The spread of English in the world today is not only the result of colonizing campaigns (Canagarajah, 1999, 2005; Pennycook, 1994a, 1998a, 2000; Phillipson, 1992, 2000 but also of the compliance of the governments associated with the "expanding circle" (Kachru, 1986. Colombia is a good example of this phenomenon, because its national government is implementing a National Bilingualism Project (pnb where there is an explicit interest in the promotion of English over all other languages spoken in the country. This article is a critical discourse analysis of the handbook that sets the standards for competences in English. The analysis of data follows Fairclough¿s textual analysis and shows that the authors of the handbook perpetuate mainstream concepts about the symbolic power of English as the one and only necessary tool for academic and economic success.

Spoken grammar awareness raising: Does it affect the listening ability of Iranian EFL learners?

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Mojgan Rashtchi

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Advances in spoken corpora analysis have brought about new insights into language pedagogy and have led to an awareness of the characteristics of spoken language. Current findings have shown that grammar of spoken language is different from written language. However, most listening and speaking materials are concocted based on written grammar and lack core spoken language features. The aim of the present study was to explore the question whether awareness of spoken grammar features could affect learners’ comprehension of real-life conversations. To this end, 45 university students in two intact classes participated in a listening course employing corpus-based materials. The instruction of the spoken grammar features to the experimental group was done overtly through awareness raising tasks, whereas the control group, though exposed to the same materials, was not provided with such tasks for learning the features. The results of the independent samples t tests revealed that the learners in the experimental group comprehended everyday conversations much better than those in the control group. Additionally, the highly positive views of spoken grammar held by the learners, which was elicited by means of a retrospective questionnaire, were generally comparable to those reported in the literature.

Spoken Grammar: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?

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Carter, Ronald; McCarthy, Michael

2017-01-01

This article synthesises progress made in the description of spoken (especially conversational) grammar over the 20 years since the authors published a paper in this journal arguing for a re-thinking of grammatical description and pedagogy based on spoken corpus evidence. We begin with a glance back at the 16th century and the teaching of Latin…

"Nobody Told Me They Didn't Speak English!": Teacher Language Views and Student Linguistic Repertoires in Hutterite Colony Schools in Canada

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Sterzuk, Andrea; Nelson, Cynthia A.

2016-01-01

This article presents a qualitative study of five monolingual teachers' understandings of the linguistic repertoires of their multilingual students. These teachers deliver the Saskatchewan provincial curricula in English to Hutterite colony students who are users of three languages: (a) spoken Hutterisch as a home and community language, (b)…

Basic speech recognition for spoken dialogues

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Van Heerden, C

2009-09-01

Full Text Available Spoken dialogue systems (SDSs) have great potential for information access in the developing world. However, the realisation of that potential requires the solution of several challenging problems, including the development of sufficiently accurate...

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ FREQUENCY OF LISTENING TO ENGLISH SONGS AND THEIR LISTENING ACHIEVEMENT

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Elvira Rosyida M. R.

2016-04-01

Full Text Available This study is aimed at investigating whether there is a significant correlation between students’ frequency of listening to English songs and their listening achievement This study was conducted at the first year students of State Senior High School 9 Bandarlampung, Lampung. A descriptive quantitative was employed in this study which used ex-post facto design and the data were taken from questionnaire, semi-structured interview, and listening test. The data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS version 16.0. The hypothesis was tested by using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. The test result showed that there is a significant correlation between students’ frequency of listening to English songs and their listening achievement. From the result of interview, it showed that most of the students believe that by having high frequency of listening to English songs, it helps them in recognizing the spoken language and get high score in listening ability.Keywords: listening to English song, listening ability, frequency of listening

Sign Language and Spoken Language for Children With Hearing Loss: A Systematic Review.

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Fitzpatrick, Elizabeth M; Hamel, Candyce; Stevens, Adrienne; Pratt, Misty; Moher, David; Doucet, Suzanne P; Neuss, Deirdre; Bernstein, Anita; Na, Eunjung

2016-01-01

Permanent hearing loss affects 1 to 3 per 1000 children and interferes with typical communication development. Early detection through newborn hearing screening and hearing technology provide most children with the option of spoken language acquisition. However, no consensus exists on optimal interventions for spoken language development. To conduct a systematic review of the effectiveness of early sign and oral language intervention compared with oral language intervention only for children with permanent hearing loss. An a priori protocol was developed. Electronic databases (eg, Medline, Embase, CINAHL) from 1995 to June 2013 and gray literature sources were searched. Studies in English and French were included. Two reviewers screened potentially relevant articles. Outcomes of interest were measures of auditory, vocabulary, language, and speech production skills. All data collection and risk of bias assessments were completed and then verified by a second person. Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) was used to judge the strength of evidence. Eleven cohort studies met inclusion criteria, of which 8 included only children with severe to profound hearing loss with cochlear implants. Language development was the most frequently reported outcome. Other reported outcomes included speech and speech perception. Several measures and metrics were reported across studies, and descriptions of interventions were sometimes unclear. Very limited, and hence insufficient, high-quality evidence exists to determine whether sign language in combination with oral language is more effective than oral language therapy alone. More research is needed to supplement the evidence base. Copyright © 2016 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Spoken language outcomes after hemispherectomy: factoring in etiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Curtiss, S; de Bode, S; Mathern, G W

2001-12-01

We analyzed postsurgery linguistic outcomes of 43 hemispherectomy patients operated on at UCLA. We rated spoken language (Spoken Language Rank, SLR) on a scale from 0 (no language) to 6 (mature grammar) and examined the effects of side of resection/damage, age at surgery/seizure onset, seizure control postsurgery, and etiology on language development. Etiology was defined as developmental (cortical dysplasia and prenatal stroke) and acquired pathology (Rasmussen's encephalitis and postnatal stroke). We found that clinical variables were predictive of language outcomes only when they were considered within distinct etiology groups. Specifically, children with developmental etiologies had lower SLRs than those with acquired pathologies (p =.0006); age factors correlated positively with higher SLRs only for children with acquired etiologies (p =.0006); right-sided resections led to higher SLRs only for the acquired group (p =.0008); and postsurgery seizure control correlated positively with SLR only for those with developmental etiologies (p =.0047). We argue that the variables considered are not independent predictors of spoken language outcome posthemispherectomy but should be viewed instead as characteristics of etiology. Copyright 2001 Elsevier Science.

A Study on the Ability in Listening Comprehension on Descriptive Text by the 2nd Semester Students of English Study Program Fkip-ur

OpenAIRE

Ristanti, Septia Ristanti Septiana; ', Eliwarti Eliwarti; Sumbayak, Desri Maria Sumbayak Maria

2016-01-01

English is the most popular and most spoken language in the world which has been used effectively in many developing countries. One of the first skills that students should be learnt in English is listening. In learning language, students use listening to began the process of learning to comprehend and produce language. The problems that usually faced by students while listening are lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak, inability to concentrate (topic, effort, technical prob...

Recognizing Young Readers' Spoken Questions

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Wei; Mostow, Jack; Aist, Gregory

2013-01-01

Free-form spoken input would be the easiest and most natural way for young children to communicate to an intelligent tutoring system. However, achieving such a capability poses a challenge both to instruction design and to automatic speech recognition. To address the difficulties of accepting such input, we adopt the framework of predictable…

Parent-child reading interactions among English and English as a second language speakers in an underserved pediatric clinic in Hawai'i.

Science.gov (United States)

Kitabayashi, Kristyn M; Huang, Gary Y; Linskey, Katy R; Pirga, Jason; Bane-Terakubo, Teresa; Lee, Meta T

2008-10-01

The purpose of this study was to compare reading patterns between English-speaking and English as a Second Language (ESL) families in a health care setting in Hawai'i. A cross-sectional study was performed at an underserved pediatric primary care clinic in Hawai'i. Caregivers of patients between the ages of 6 months to 5 years were asked questions regarding demographics and parent-child reading interactions. Respondents were categorized into English-speaking or ESL groups based on primary language spoken at home. Pearson chi2 tests and Fisher exact tests were performed to compare demographic differences, reading frequency, and reading attitudes between groups. One-hundred three respondents completed the survey Fifty percent were ESL. All ESL respondents were of Asian-Pacific Islander (API) or mixed Asian ethnicity. All Caucasians in the study (n = 9) were in the English-speaking group. Between the English-speaking (n = 52) and ESL (n = 51) groups, there were no significant statistical differences in age or gender of the child, reading attitudes, or parent's educational status. Parents in the ESL group read to their children significantly fewer days per week than their English-speaking counterparts, had significantly fewer books in the home, and lived significantly fewer years in the United States. The findings suggest that API immigrant families share similar attitudes about reading as English-speaking families in Hawai'i but have significantly fewer books in their household and read significantly less frequently Physicians working with API populations should be aware that immigrant children may have fewer reading interactions and should counsel parents on the importance of reading daily.

English as a lingua franca in higher education

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Björkman, Beyza

2011-01-01

The last decade has brought a number of changes for higher education in continental Europe and elsewhere, a major one being the increasing use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) as the medium of instruction. With this change, EAP is faced with a new group of learners who will need to use...... it predominantly in ELF settings to communicate with speakers from other first language backgrounds. This overview paper first discusses the changes that have taken place in the field of EAP in terms of student body, followed by an outline of the main findings of research carried out on ELF. These changes...... and the results of recent ELF research have important implications for EAP instruction and testing. It is argued here that EAP needs to be modified accordingly to cater for the needs of this group. These revolve around the two major issues: norms and standards for spoken English and target use. If the aim of EAP...

Rapid modulation of spoken word recognition by visual primes.

Science.gov (United States)

Okano, Kana; Grainger, Jonathan; Holcomb, Phillip J

2016-02-01

In a masked cross-modal priming experiment with ERP recordings, spoken Japanese words were primed with words written in one of the two syllabary scripts of Japanese. An early priming effect, peaking at around 200ms after onset of the spoken word target, was seen in left lateral electrode sites for Katakana primes, and later effects were seen for both Hiragana and Katakana primes on the N400 ERP component. The early effect is thought to reflect the efficiency with which words in Katakana script make contact with sublexical phonological representations involved in spoken language comprehension, due to the particular way this script is used by Japanese readers. This demonstrates fast-acting influences of visual primes on the processing of auditory target words, and suggests that briefly presented visual primes can influence sublexical processing of auditory target words. The later N400 priming effects, on the other hand, most likely reflect cross-modal influences on activity at the level of whole-word phonology and semantics.

Development and preliminary evaluation of a pediatric Spanish-English speech perception task.

Science.gov (United States)

Calandruccio, Lauren; Gomez, Bianca; Buss, Emily; Leibold, Lori J

2014-06-01

The purpose of this study was to develop a task to evaluate children's English and Spanish speech perception abilities in either noise or competing speech maskers. Eight bilingual Spanish-English and 8 age-matched monolingual English children (ages 4.9-16.4 years) were tested. A forced-choice, picture-pointing paradigm was selected for adaptively estimating masked speech reception thresholds. Speech stimuli were spoken by simultaneous bilingual Spanish-English talkers. The target stimuli were 30 disyllabic English and Spanish words, familiar to 5-year-olds and easily illustrated. Competing stimuli included either 2-talker English or 2-talker Spanish speech (corresponding to target language) and spectrally matched noise. For both groups of children, regardless of test language, performance was significantly worse for the 2-talker than for the noise masker condition. No difference in performance was found between bilingual and monolingual children. Bilingual children performed significantly better in English than in Spanish in competing speech. For all listening conditions, performance improved with increasing age. Results indicated that the stimuli and task were appropriate for speech recognition testing in both languages, providing a more conventional measure of speech-in-noise perception as well as a measure of complex listening. Further research is needed to determine performance for Spanish-dominant listeners and to evaluate the feasibility of implementation into routine clinical use.

Comparison of T1-weighted 2D TSE, 3D SPGR, and two-point 3D Dixon MRI for automated segmentation of visceral adipose tissue at 3 Tesla.

Science.gov (United States)

Fallah, Faezeh; Machann, Jürgen; Martirosian, Petros; Bamberg, Fabian; Schick, Fritz; Yang, Bin

2017-04-01

To evaluate and compare conventional T1-weighted 2D turbo spin echo (TSE), T1-weighted 3D volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination (VIBE), and two-point 3D Dixon-VIBE sequences for automatic segmentation of visceral adipose tissue (VAT) volume at 3 Tesla by measuring and compensating for errors arising from intensity nonuniformity (INU) and partial volume effects (PVE). The body trunks of 28 volunteers with body mass index values ranging from 18 to 41.2 kg/m 2 (30.02 ± 6.63 kg/m 2 ) were scanned at 3 Tesla using three imaging techniques. Automatic methods were applied to reduce INU and PVE and to segment VAT. The automatically segmented VAT volumes obtained from all acquisitions were then statistically and objectively evaluated against the manually segmented (reference) VAT volumes. Comparing the reference volumes with the VAT volumes automatically segmented over the uncorrected images showed that INU led to an average relative volume difference of -59.22 ± 11.59, 2.21 ± 47.04, and -43.05 ± 5.01 % for the TSE, VIBE, and Dixon images, respectively, while PVE led to average differences of -34.85 ± 19.85, -15.13 ± 11.04, and -33.79 ± 20.38 %. After signal correction, differences of -2.72 ± 6.60, 34.02 ± 36.99, and -2.23 ± 7.58 % were obtained between the reference and the automatically segmented volumes. A paired-sample two-tailed t test revealed no significant difference between the reference and automatically segmented VAT volumes of the corrected TSE (p = 0.614) and Dixon (p = 0.969) images, but showed a significant VAT overestimation using the corrected VIBE images. Under similar imaging conditions and spatial resolution, automatically segmented VAT volumes obtained from the corrected TSE and Dixon images agreed with each other and with the reference volumes. These results demonstrate the efficacy of the signal correction methods and the similar accuracy of TSE and Dixon imaging for automatic volumetry of VAT at 3 Tesla.

The Listening and Spoken Language Data Repository: Design and Project Overview

Science.gov (United States)

Bradham, Tamala S.; Fonnesbeck, Christopher; Toll, Alice; Hecht, Barbara F.

2018-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of the Listening and Spoken Language Data Repository (LSL-DR) was to address a critical need for a systemwide outcome data-monitoring program for the development of listening and spoken language skills in highly specialized educational programs for children with hearing loss highlighted in Goal 3b of the 2007 Joint Committee…

Reading, syntactic, orthographic, and working memory skills of bilingual Arabic-English speaking Canadian children.

Science.gov (United States)

Abu-Rabia, Salim; Siegel, Linda S

2002-11-01

This study assessed the reading, language, and memory skills of 56 bilingual Arab-Canadian children age's 9-14. English was their main instructional language, and Arabic was the language spoken at home. All children attended a Heritage Language Program in Toronto where they were taught to read and write Arabic. The children were administered word and pseudo-word reading, language, and working memory tests in English and Arabic. The majority of the children showed at least adequate proficiency in both languages. There was a significant relationship between the acquisition of word and pseudo-word reading working memory, and syntactic awareness skills in the two languages. The poor readers in Arabic had lower scores on all linguistic tasks, except the visual task. There were no significant differences between bilingual English Arabic children and monolingual English-speaking children on the reading, language, and memory tasks. However, bilingual English Arabic children who had reading problems in English had higher scores on English pseudo-word reading and spelling tasks than monolingual English-speaking children with reading disabilities, probably because of positive transfer from the regular nature of Arabic orthography. In this case, bilingualism does not appear to have negative consequences for the development of language reading skills in both languages--Arabic and English--despite the different nature of the two orthographies.

The determinants of spoken and written picture naming latencies.

Science.gov (United States)

Bonin, Patrick; Chalard, Marylène; Méot, Alain; Fayol, Michel

2002-02-01

The influence of nine variables on the latencies to write down or to speak aloud the names of pictures taken from Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) was investigated in French adults. The major determinants of both written and spoken picture naming latencies were image variability, image agreement and age of acquisition. To a lesser extent, name agreement was also found to have an impact in both production modes. The implications of the findings for theoretical views of both spoken and written picture naming are discussed.

Processing spoken lectures in resource-scarce environments

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Van Heerden, CJ

2011-11-01

Full Text Available and then adapting or training new models using the segmented spoken lectures. The eventual systems perform quite well, aligning more than 90% of a selected set of target words successfully....

Mapping Students' Spoken Conceptions of Equality

Science.gov (United States)

Anakin, Megan

2013-01-01

This study expands contemporary theorising about students' conceptions of equality. A nationally representative sample of New Zealand students' were asked to provide a spoken numerical response and an explanation as they solved an arithmetic additive missing number problem. Students' responses were conceptualised as acts of communication and…

Grammatical number processing and anticipatory eye movements are not tightly coordinated in English spoken language comprehension

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brian eRiordan

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Recent studies of eye movements in world-situated language comprehension have demonstrated that rapid processing of morphosyntactic information – e.g., grammatical gender and number marking – can produce anticipatory eye movements to referents in the visual scene. We investigated how type of morphosyntactic information and the goals of language users in comprehension affected eye movements, focusing on the processing of grammatical number morphology in English-speaking adults. Participants’ eye movements were recorded as they listened to simple English declarative (There are the lions. and interrogative (Where are the lions? sentences. In Experiment 1, no differences were observed in speed to fixate target referents when grammatical number information was informative relative to when it was not. The same result was obtained in a speeded task (Experiment 2 and in a task using mixed sentence types (Experiment 3. We conclude that grammatical number processing in English and eye movements to potential referents are not tightly coordinated. These results suggest limits on the role of predictive eye movements in concurrent linguistic and scene processing. We discuss how these results can inform and constrain predictive approaches to language processing.

Value of Web-based learning activities for nursing students who speak English as a second language.

Science.gov (United States)

Koch, Jane; Salamonson, Yenna; Du, Hui Yun; Andrew, Sharon; Frost, Steven A; Dunncliff, Kirstin; Davidson, Patricia M

2011-07-01

There is an increasing need to address the educational needs of students with English as a second language. The authors assessed the value of a Web-based activity to meet the needs of students with English as a second language in a bioscience subject. Using telephone contact, we interviewed 21 Chinese students, 24 non-Chinese students with English as a second language, and 7 native English-speaking students to identify the perception of the value of the intervention. Four themes emerged from the qualitative data: (1) Language is a barrier to achievement and affects self-confidence; (2) Enhancement intervention promoted autonomous learning; (3) Focusing on the spoken word increases interaction capacity and self-confidence; (4) Assessment and examination drive receptivity and sense of importance. Targeted strategies to promote language acculturation and acquisition are valued by students. Linking language acquisition skills to assessment tasks is likely to leverage improvements in competence. Copyright 2011, SLACK Incorporated.

Czech spoken in Bohemia and Moravia

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Šimáčková, Š.; Podlipský, V.J.; Chládková, K.

2012-01-01

As a western Slavic language of the Indo-European family, Czech is closest to Slovak and Polish. It is spoken as a native language by nearly 10 million people in the Czech Republic (Czech Statistical Office n.d.). About two million people living abroad, mostly in the USA, Canada, Austria, Germany,

Indic Lexicon in the English/Creole of Trinidad

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lise Winer

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Examines the contemporary lexical component of the English/Creole of Trinidad (TEC that is derived from languages of India. Author focuses on the TEC as spoken among Indo-Trinidadians, but also pays attention to Indic words used in the TEC of Afro-Trinidadians and other groups. Author sketches the history of Indian immigration into Trinidad, explaining how most came from the Bihar province in northern India and spoke Bhojpuri, rather than (closely related Hindi, and how in the 20th c. Indian languages were replaced by English with education. She further focuses on retained Indic words incorporated in current-day TEC, and found 1844 of such words in usage. She discusses words misassigned locally as Indian-derived, but actually from other (European or African languages. Then, she describes most of the Indo-TEC lexicon, categorizing items by their semantic-cultural domain, with major domains for Indian-derived words: religious practice, music, dance and stickfighting, food preparation, agriculture, kinship, and behaviour or appearance. Further, the author discusses to what degree Indic words have been mainstreamed within the non-Indian population of Trinidad, sometimes via standard English, sometimes directly assimilated into TEC, and made salient through the press or street food selling.

3D CISS, 3D MP-PAGE and 2D TSE for MRI prior to Cochlear implantation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seitz, J.; Held, P.; Voelk, M.; Lenhart, M.; Strotzer, M.; Waldeck, A.

2000-01-01

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine the presurgical predictive value of high resolution MRI in patients scheduled for chochlear implantation. Method and material: The presurgical MRI (3D CISS, 3D MP-RAGE with and without i.v. contrast medium, 2D TSE) findings of 54 patients and the intraoperative situation reported by the surgeon were compared retrospectively. The surgical and functional success of the cochlear implantation was evaluated. Results: We found a high degree of correlation between MRI and intraoperative findings concerning the patency of the whole cochlea and anomalies as well as in the diagnosis of pathology of the cochlear, vestibular and facial nerves and in anomalies of the internal auditory canal. However, in four out of 54 patients there was a false negative prediction regarding the patency of the cochlea. The sensitivity was 50% (4/8), the specificity 100% (46/46). Concerning the surgical success the accuracy was 100%. In all patients MRI gave sufficient anatomical information to the surgeon concerning the jugular bulb and the facial nerve. Conclusion: A high-resolution MRI protocol consisting of coronal 2D T2w TSE, 3D T2*w transverse CISS; plain and contrast enhanced sagittal T1w 3D MP-RAGE is recommended for the evaluation of candidates scheduled for cochlear implantation. (orig.) [de

SPOKEN COCHABAMBA QUECHUA, UNITS 13-24.

Science.gov (United States)

LASTRA, YOLANDA; SOLA, DONALD F.

UNITS 13-24 OF THE SPOKEN COCHABAMBA QUECHUA COURSE FOLLOW THE GENERAL FORMAT OF THE FIRST VOLUME (UNITS 1-12). THIS SECOND VOLUME IS INTENDED FOR USE IN AN INTERMEDIATE OR ADVANCED COURSE AND INCLUDES MORE COMPLEX DIALOGS, CONVERSATIONS, "LISTENING-INS," AND DICTATIONS, AS WELL AS GRAMMAR AND EXERCISE SECTIONS COVERING ADDITIONAL…

Allophones, not phonemes in spoken-word recognition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mitterer, H.A.; Reinisch, E.; McQueen, J.M.

2018-01-01

What are the phonological representations that listeners use to map information about the segmental content of speech onto the mental lexicon during spoken-word recognition? Recent evidence from perceptual-learning paradigms seems to support (context-dependent) allophones as the basic

Spoken Spanish Language Development at the High School Level: A Mixed-Methods Study

Science.gov (United States)

Moeller, Aleidine J.; Theiler, Janine

2014-01-01

Communicative approaches to teaching language have emphasized the centrality of oral proficiency in the language acquisition process, but research investigating oral proficiency has been surprisingly limited, yielding an incomplete understanding of spoken language development. This study investigated the development of spoken language at the high…

Influences on preschool children's oral health-related quality of life as reported by English and Spanish-speaking parents and caregivers.

Science.gov (United States)

Born, Catherine D; Divaris, Kimon; Zeldin, Leslie P; Rozier, R Gary

2016-09-01

This study examined young, preschool children's oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) among a community-based cohort of English and Spanish-speaking parent-child dyads in North Carolina, and sought to quantify the association of parent/caregiver characteristics, including spoken language, with OHRQoL impacts. Data from structured interviews with 1,111 parents of children aged 6-23 months enrolled in the Zero-Out Early Childhood Caries study in 2010-2012 were used. OHRQoL was measured using the overall score (range: 0-52) of the Early Childhood Oral Health Impact Scale (ECOHIS). We examined associations with parents' sociodemographic characteristics, spoken language, self-reported oral and general health, oral health knowledge, children's dental attendance, and dental care needs. Analyses included descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate methods based upon zero-inflated negative binomial regression. To determine differences between English and Spanish speakers, language-stratified model estimates were contrasted using homogeneity χ 2 tests. The mean overall ECOHIS score was 3.9 [95% confidence interval (CI) = 3.6-4.2]; 4.7 among English-speakers and 1.5 among Spanish speakers. In multivariate analyses, caregivers' education showed a positive association with OHRQoL impacts among Spanish speakers [prevalence ratio (PR) = 1.12 (95% CI = 1.03-1.22), for every added year of schooling], whereas caregivers' fair/poor oral health showed a positive association among English speakers (PR = 1.20; 95% CI = 1.02-1.41). The overall severity of ECOHIS impacts was low among this population-based sample of young, preschool children, and substantially lower among Spanish versus English speakers. Further studies are warranted to identify sources of these differences in - actual or reported - OHRQoL impacts. © 2016 American Association of Public Health Dentistry.

"Poetry Does Really Educate": An Interview with Spoken Word Poet Luka Lesson

Science.gov (United States)

Xerri, Daniel

2016-01-01

Spoken word poetry is a means of engaging young people with a genre that has often been much maligned in classrooms all over the world. This interview with the Australian spoken word poet Luka Lesson explores issues that are of pressing concern to poetry education. These include the idea that engagement with poetry in schools can be enhanced by…

SPOKEN AYACUCHO QUECHUA, UNITS 11-20.

Science.gov (United States)

PARKER, GARY J.; SOLA, DONALD F.

THE ESSENTIALS OF AYACUCHO GRAMMAR WERE PRESENTED IN THE FIRST VOLUME OF THIS SERIES, SPOKEN AYACUCHO QUECHUA, UNITS 1-10. THE 10 UNITS IN THIS VOLUME (11-20) ARE INTENDED FOR USE IN AN INTERMEDIATE OR ADVANCED COURSE, AND PRESENT THE STUDENT WITH LENGTHIER AND MORE COMPLEX DIALOGS, CONVERSATIONS, "LISTENING-INS," AND DICTATIONS AS WELL…

Spoken Sentence Production in College Students with Dyslexia: Working Memory and Vocabulary Effects

Science.gov (United States)

Wiseheart, Rebecca; Altmann, Lori J. P.

2018-01-01

Background: Individuals with dyslexia demonstrate syntactic difficulties on tasks of language comprehension, yet little is known about spoken language production in this population. Aims: To investigate whether spoken sentence production in college students with dyslexia is less proficient than in typical readers, and to determine whether group…

A comparative study between MFCC and LSF coefficients in automatic recognition of isolated digits pronounced in Portuguese and English - doi: 10.4025/actascitechnol.v35i4.19825

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Diego Furtado Silva

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Recognition of isolated spoken digits is the core procedure for a large number of applications which rely solely on speech for data exchange, as in telephone-based services, such as dialing, airline reservation, bank transaction and price quotation. Spoken digit recognition is generally a challenging task since the signals last for a short period of time and often some digits are acoustically very similar to other digits. The objective of this paper is to investigate the use of machine learning algorithms for spoken digit recognition and disclose the free availability of a database with digits pronounced in English and Portuguese to the scientific community. Since machine learning algorithms are fully dependent on predictive attributes to build precise classifiers, we believe that the most important task for successfully recognizing spoken digits is feature extraction. In this work, we show that Line Spectral Frequencies (LSF provide a set of highly predictive coefficients. We evaluated our classifiers in different settings by altering the sampling rate to simulate low quality channels and varying the number of coefficients.  

Using Spoken Language to Facilitate Military Transportation Planning

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Bates, Madeleine; Ellard, Dan; Peterson, Pat; Shaked, Varda

1991-01-01

.... In an effort to demonstrate the relevance of SIS technology to real-world military applications, BBN has undertaken the task of providing a spoken language interface to DART, a system for military...

A Grammar of Spoken Brazilian Portuguese.

Science.gov (United States)

Thomas, Earl W.

This is a first-year text of Portuguese grammar based on the Portuguese of moderately educated Brazilians from the area around Rio de Janeiro. Spoken idiomatic usage is emphasized. An important innovation is found in the presentation of verb tenses; they are presented in the order in which the native speaker learns them. The text is intended to…

Cognitive Predictors of Spoken Word Recognition in Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Evans, Julia L; Gillam, Ronald B; Montgomery, James W

2018-05-10

This study examined the influence of cognitive factors on spoken word recognition in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and typically developing (TD) children. Participants included 234 children (aged 7;0-11;11 years;months), 117 with DLD and 117 TD children, propensity matched for age, gender, socioeconomic status, and maternal education. Children completed a series of standardized assessment measures, a forward gating task, a rapid automatic naming task, and a series of tasks designed to examine cognitive factors hypothesized to influence spoken word recognition including phonological working memory, updating, attention shifting, and interference inhibition. Spoken word recognition for both initial and final accept gate points did not differ for children with DLD and TD controls after controlling target word knowledge in both groups. The 2 groups also did not differ on measures of updating, attention switching, and interference inhibition. Despite the lack of difference on these measures, for children with DLD, attention shifting and interference inhibition were significant predictors of spoken word recognition, whereas updating and receptive vocabulary were significant predictors of speed of spoken word recognition for the children in the TD group. Contrary to expectations, after controlling for target word knowledge, spoken word recognition did not differ for children with DLD and TD controls; however, the cognitive processing factors that influenced children's ability to recognize the target word in a stream of speech differed qualitatively for children with and without DLDs.

Word reading skill predicts anticipation of upcoming spoken language input: a study of children developing proficiency in reading.

Science.gov (United States)

Mani, Nivedita; Huettig, Falk

2014-10-01

Despite the efficiency with which language users typically process spoken language, a growing body of research finds substantial individual differences in both the speed and accuracy of spoken language processing potentially attributable to participants' literacy skills. Against this background, the current study took a look at the role of word reading skill in listeners' anticipation of upcoming spoken language input in children at the cusp of learning to read; if reading skills affect predictive language processing, then children at this stage of literacy acquisition should be most susceptible to the effects of reading skills on spoken language processing. We tested 8-year-olds on their prediction of upcoming spoken language input in an eye-tracking task. Although children, like in previous studies to date, were successfully able to anticipate upcoming spoken language input, there was a strong positive correlation between children's word reading skills (but not their pseudo-word reading and meta-phonological awareness or their spoken word recognition skills) and their prediction skills. We suggest that these findings are most compatible with the notion that the process of learning orthographic representations during reading acquisition sharpens pre-existing lexical representations, which in turn also supports anticipation of upcoming spoken words. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

ACOUSTIC MEASUREMENT ON VOWEL PRODUCTION OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE BY INDONESIAN EFL LEARNERS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rudha Widagsa

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Indonesian is the most widely spoken language in Indonesia. More than 200 million people speak the language as a first language. However, acoustic study on Indonesian learners of English (ILE production remains untouched. The purpose of this measurement is to examine the influence of first language (L1 on English vowels production as a second language (L2. Based on perceptual magnet hypothesis (PMH, ILE were predicted to produce close sounds to L1 English where the vowels are similar to Indonesian vowels. Acoustic analysis was conducted to measure the formant frequencies. This study involved five males of Indonesian speakers aged between 20-25 years old. The data of British English native speakers were taken from previous study by Hawkins & Midgley (2005. The result illustrates that the first formant frequencies (F1 which correlates to the vowel hight of Indonesian Learners of English were significantly different from the corresponding frequencies of British English vowels. Surprisingly, the significant differences in second formant (F2 of ILE were only in the production of /ɑ, ɒ, ɔ/ in which /ɑ/=p 0.002, /ɒ/ =p 0,001, /ɔ/ =p 0,03. The vowel space area of ILE was slightly less spacious than the native speakers. This study is expected to shed light in English language teaching particularly as a foreign language.

A comparison of Danish listeners’ processing cost in judging the truth value of Norwegian, Swedish, and English sentences

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bohn, Ocke-Schwen; Askjær-Jørgensen, Trine

2017-01-01

that the processing cost for native Danish listeners in comprehending Danish and English statements is equivalent, whereas Norwegian and Swedish statements incur a much higher cost, both in terms of response time and correct assessments. The results are discussed with regard to the costs of inter......The present study used a sentence verification task to assess the processing cost involved in native Danish listeners’ attempts to comprehend true/false statements spoken in Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and English. Three groups of native Danish listeners heard 40 sentences each which were...... translation equivalents, and assessed the truth value of these statements. Group 1 heard sentences in Danish and Norwegian, Group 2 in Danish and Swedish, and Group 3 in Danish and English. Response time and proportion of correct responses were used as indices of processing cost. Both measures indicate...

Measuring social desirability across language and sex: A comparison of Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale factor structures in English and Mandarin Chinese in Malaysia.

Science.gov (United States)

Kurz, A Solomon; Drescher, Christopher F; Chin, Eu Gene; Johnson, Laura R

2016-06-01

Malaysia is a Southeast Asian country in which multiple languages are prominently spoken, including English and Mandarin Chinese. As psychological science continues to develop within Malaysia, there is a need for psychometrically sound instruments that measure psychological phenomena in multiple languages. For example, assessment tools for measuring social desirability could be a useful addition in psychological assessments and research studies in a Malaysian context. This study examined the psychometric performance of the English and Mandarin Chinese versions of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale when used in Malaysia. Two hundred and eighty-three students (64% female; 83% Chinese, 9% Indian) from two college campuses completed the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale in their language of choice (i.e., English or Mandarin Chinese). Proposed factor structures were compared with confirmatory factor analysis, and multiple indicators-multiple causes models were used to examine measurement invariance across language and sex. Factor analyses supported a two-factor structure (i.e., Attribution and Denial) for the measure. Invariance tests revealed the scale was invariant by sex, indicating that social desirability can be interpreted similarly across sex. The scale was partially invariant by language version, with some non-invariance observed within the Denial factor. Non-invariance may be related to differences in the English and Mandarin Chinese languages, as well as cultural differences. Directions for further research include examining the measurement of social desirability in other contexts where both English and Mandarin Chinese are spoken (i.e., China) and further examining the causes of non-invariance on specific items. © 2016 The Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Towards Affordable Disclosure of Spoken Word Archives

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ordelman, Roeland J.F.; Heeren, W.F.L.; Huijbregts, M.A.H.; Hiemstra, Djoerd; de Jong, Franciska M.G.; Larson, M; Fernie, K; Oomen, J; Cigarran, J.

2008-01-01

This paper presents and discusses ongoing work aiming at affordable disclosure of real-world spoken word archives in general, and in particular of a collection of recorded interviews with Dutch survivors of World War II concentration camp Buchenwald. Given such collections, the least we want to be

Towards Affordable Disclosure of Spoken Heritage Archives

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Larson, M; Ordelman, Roeland J.F.; Heeren, W.F.L.; Fernie, K; de Jong, Franciska M.G.; Huijbregts, M.A.H.; Oomen, J; Hiemstra, Djoerd

2009-01-01

This paper presents and discusses ongoing work aiming at affordable disclosure of real-world spoken heritage archives in general, and in particular of a collection of recorded interviews with Dutch survivors of World War II concentration camp Buchenwald. Given such collections, we at least want to

Autosegmental Representation of Epenthesis in the Spoken French ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Nneka Umera-Okeke

... spoken French of IUFLs. Key words: IUFLs, Epenthensis, Ijebu dialect, Autosegmental phonology .... Ambiguities may result: salmi "strait" vs. salami. (An exception is that in .... tiers of segments. In the picture given us by classical generative.

Improving Spoken Language Outcomes for Children With Hearing Loss: Data-driven Instruction.

Science.gov (United States)

Douglas, Michael

2016-02-01

To assess the effects of data-driven instruction (DDI) on spoken language outcomes of children with cochlear implants and hearing aids. Retrospective, matched-pairs comparison of post-treatment speech/language data of children who did and did not receive DDI. Private, spoken-language preschool for children with hearing loss. Eleven matched pairs of children with cochlear implants who attended the same spoken language preschool. Groups were matched for age of hearing device fitting, time in the program, degree of predevice fitting hearing loss, sex, and age at testing. Daily informal language samples were collected and analyzed over a 2-year period, per preschool protocol. Annual informal and formal spoken language assessments in articulation, vocabulary, and omnibus language were administered at the end of three time intervals: baseline, end of year one, and end of year two. The primary outcome measures were total raw score performance of spontaneous utterance sentence types and syntax element use as measured by the Teacher Assessment of Spoken Language (TASL). In addition, standardized assessments (the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals--Preschool Version 2 (CELF-P2), the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (EOWPVT), the Receptive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (ROWPVT), and the Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation 2 (GFTA2)) were also administered and compared with the control group. The DDI group demonstrated significantly higher raw scores on the TASL each year of the study. The DDI group also achieved statistically significant higher scores for total language on the CELF-P and expressive vocabulary on the EOWPVT, but not for articulation nor receptive vocabulary. Post-hoc assessment revealed that 78% of the students in the DDI group achieved scores in the average range compared with 59% in the control group. The preliminary results of this study support further investigation regarding DDI to investigate whether this method can consistently

Auditory and verbal memory predictors of spoken language skills in children with cochlear implants

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoog, B.E. de; Langereis, M.C.; Weerdenburg, M. van; Keuning, J.; Knoors, H.; Verhoeven, L.

2016-01-01

BACKGROUND: Large variability in individual spoken language outcomes remains a persistent finding in the group of children with cochlear implants (CIs), particularly in their grammatical development. AIMS: In the present study, we examined the extent of delay in lexical and morphosyntactic spoken

Auditory and verbal memory predictors of spoken language skills in children with cochlear implants

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoog, B.E. de; Langereis, M.C.; Weerdenburg, M.W.C. van; Keuning, J.; Knoors, H.E.T.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.

2016-01-01

Background: Large variability in individual spoken language outcomes remains a persistent finding in the group of children with cochlear implants (CIs), particularly in their grammatical development. Aims: In the present study, we examined the extent of delay in lexical and morphosyntactic spoken

The cerebral functional location in normal subjects during listening to a story in Chinese, English or Japanese

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sun Da; Zhan Hongwei; Xu Wei; Liu Hongbiao; Bao Chengkan

2004-01-01

Objectives: To compare the cerebral functional location in normal subjects during listening to a story in Chinese (native language), English (learned language) or Japanese (unfamiliar language). Methods: 9, 14,7 normal young students were asked to listen an emotional story in Chinese, the deeds of life of Aiyinsitan in English, and a dialogue in unfamiliar Japanese on a tap for 20 minters respectively. They were also asked to pay special attention to the name of the personage, time and site during listening Chinese or English story. 99mTc-ECD was administered in the first 3 minutes during they listened the story. The brain imaging was performed in 30 60 minutes after the tracer was administered. The results were compared with their brain imaging at rest respectively. Results: During listened to the story in Chinese, learned English, and unfamiliar Japanese, the auditory association cortex in the dual superior temporal and some midtemporal were activated. The inferior frontal and/or medial frontal lobes were activated too, special during listening to familiar language, and asked to remember the plot of the story, such as Chinese and English. But to compare with listening English, the activity in right frontal lobe was higher than in left during listened to the Chinese. During listened to unfamiliar Japanese, the frontal lobes were activated widely too. Conclusions: The results of our study shows that besides the auditory association cortex in the superior temporal and midtemporal, language can activates, the left inferior frontal (Broca s area), and in right and left frontal eye field, midtemporal, and superior frontal lobes were activated by language too. These regions in frontal have a crucial role in the decoding of familiar spoken language. And the attempt to decode unfamiliar spoken languages activates more auditory association areas. The left hemisphere is dominance hemisphere for language. But in our study, right temporal and frontal lobes were activated more

USING DIGITAL STORIES TO IMPROVE LISTENING COMPREHENSION WITH SPANISH YOUNG LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dolores Ramírez Verdugo

2007-02-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the effects that digital stories may have on the understanding of spoken English by a group of 6-year-old Spanish learners. To accomplish this aim, a quasi-experimental research study was launched in six state schools in Madrid. A pre-post test design was used to investigate whether internet-based technology could improve listening comprehension in English as a Foreign Language (henceforth, EFL. Findings indicate that the experimental group outperformed the control group in the final test administered. These results raise interesting issues related to the use of technology in the context of foreign language learning. Future research which includes other age groups and digital materials and which explores other linguistic areas could further substantiate the link between Information and Communication Technology (ICT rich environment and improved language learning.

[Transcultural self-efficacy and educational needs for cultural competence in nursing of Korean nurses].

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Sun-Hee

2013-02-01

This study was done to investigate the level of transcultural self-efficacy (TSE) and related factors and educational needs for cultural competence in nursing (CCN) of Korean hospital nurses. A self-assessment instrument was used to measure TSE and educational needs for CCN. Questionnaires were completed by 285 nurses working in four Korean hospitals. Descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficients, and multiple regression were used to analyze the data. Mean TSE score for all items was 4.54 and score for mean CCN educational needs, 5.77. Nurses with master's degrees or higher had significantly higher levels of TSE than nurses with bachelor's degrees. TSE positively correlated with English language proficiency, degrees of interest in multi-culture, degree of experience in caring for multi-cultural clients, and educational needs for CCN. The regression model explained 28% of TSE. Factors affecting TSE were degree of interest in multi-culture, degree of experience in caring for multi-cultural clients, and educational needs for CCN. The results of the study indicate a need for nurse educators to support nurses to strengthen TSE and provide educational program for TSE to provide nurses with strategies for raising interests in cultural diversity and successful experiences of cultural congruent care.

What does že jo (and že ne) mean in spoken dialogue

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Komrsková, Zuzana

2017-01-01

Roč. 68, č. 2 (2017), s. 229-237 ISSN 0021-5597 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA15-01116S Institutional support: RVO:68378092 Keywords : spoken languge * spoken corpus * tag question * responze word Subject RIV: AI - Linguistics OBOR OECD: Linguistics http://www.juls.savba.sk/ediela/jc/2017/2/jc17-02.pdf

What Comes First, What Comes Next: Information Packaging in Written and Spoken Language

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vladislav Smolka

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The paper explores similarities and differences in the strategies of structuring information at sentence level in spoken and written language, respectively. In particular, it is concerned with the position of the rheme in the sentence in the two different modalities of language, and with the application and correlation of the end-focus and the end-weight principles. The assumption is that while there is a general tendency in both written and spoken language to place the focus in or close to the final position, owing to the limitations imposed by short-term memory capacity (and possibly by other factors, for the sake of easy processibility, it may occasionally be more felicitous in spoken language to place the rhematic element in the initial position or at least close to the beginning of the sentence. The paper aims to identify differences in the function of selected grammatical structures in written and spoken language, respectively, and to point out circumstances under which initial focus is a convenient alternative to the usual end-focus principle.

Interference of spoken word recognition through phonological priming from visual objects and printed words

NARCIS (Netherlands)

McQueen, J.M.; Hüttig, F.

2014-01-01

Three cross-modal priming experiments examined the influence of preexposure to pictures and printed words on the speed of spoken word recognition. Targets for auditory lexical decision were spoken Dutch words and nonwords, presented in isolation (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a short phrase

Mobile Information Access with Spoken Query Answering

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brøndsted, Tom; Larsen, Henrik Legind; Larsen, Lars Bo

2006-01-01

window focused over the part which most likely contains an answer to the query. The two systems are integrated into a full spoken query answering system. The prototype can answer queries and questions within the chosen football (soccer) test domain, but the system has the flexibility for being ported...

Error detection in spoken human-machine interaction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Krahmer, E.J.; Swerts, M.G.J.; Theune, M.; Weegels, M.F.

2001-01-01

Given the state of the art of current language and speech technology, errors are unavoidable in present-day spoken dialogue systems. Therefore, one of the main concerns in dialogue design is how to decide whether or not the system has understood the user correctly. In human-human communication,

Error detection in spoken human-machine interaction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Krahmer, E.; Swerts, M.; Theune, Mariet; Weegels, M.

Given the state of the art of current language and speech technology, errors are unavoidable in present-day spoken dialogue systems. Therefore, one of the main concerns in dialogue design is how to decide whether or not the system has understood the user correctly. In human-human communication,

The Effect of Lexical Frequency on Spoken Word Recognition in Young and Older Listeners

Science.gov (United States)

Revill, Kathleen Pirog; Spieler, Daniel H.

2011-01-01

When identifying spoken words, older listeners may have difficulty resolving lexical competition or may place a greater weight on factors like lexical frequency. To obtain information about age differences in the time course of spoken word recognition, young and older adults’ eye movements were monitored as they followed spoken instructions to click on objects displayed on a computer screen. Older listeners were more likely than younger listeners to fixate high-frequency displayed phonological competitors. However, degradation of auditory quality in younger listeners does not reproduce this result. These data are most consistent with an increased role for lexical frequency with age. PMID:21707175

Inclusion of non-English-speaking patients in research: A single institution experience.

Science.gov (United States)

Bernier, Rachel; Halpin, Erin; Staffa, Steven J; Benson, Lindsey; DiNardo, James A; Nasr, Viviane G

2018-05-01

Considering the recent increase in medical care provided to patients from foreign countries and the diversity of languages spoken by families living within the United States, it is important to determine whether non-English-speaking patients have access to participate in clinical research from which they may benefit. We aimed to determine the number of non-English-speaking patients presenting to Boston Children's Hospital for medical care between 2011 and 2016, the number of clinical research protocols active within the Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Pain Medicine approved to enroll non-English-speaking patients, as well as the number of both non-English- and English-speaking patients approached and enrolled in these studies. Furthermore, we attempted to determine barriers that may have prevented non-English-speaking patients from inclusion in clinical research. We conducted a retrospective review of various data sources during a 5-year period. Data included the number of non-English-speaking patients presenting to Boston Children's Hospital for care as well as the number of English- and non-English-speaking patients approached for studies at the Department of Anesthesiology each year. Additionally, we reviewed data from the IRB which included the justification that research teams provided when opting to exclude non-English-speaking participants. In addition, we attempted to determine the barriers that may have prevented these patients from inclusion in research protocols. We found that the number of non-English-speaking patients presenting to Boston Children's Hospital increased over time. However, the number of studies approved to enroll non-English-speaking patients within the Department of Anesthesiology and the rate of enrollment of these patients did not increase at the same rate. In order to increase the number of non-English-speaking patients approached to participate in research, we must improve cultural awareness and provide investigators

Effects of Auditory and Visual Priming on the Identification of Spoken Words.

Science.gov (United States)

Shigeno, Sumi

2017-04-01

This study examined the effects of preceding contextual stimuli, either auditory or visual, on the identification of spoken target words. Fifty-one participants (29% males, 71% females; mean age = 24.5 years, SD = 8.5) were divided into three groups: no context, auditory context, and visual context. All target stimuli were spoken words masked with white noise. The relationships between the context and target stimuli were as follows: identical word, similar word, and unrelated word. Participants presented with context experienced a sequence of six context stimuli in the form of either spoken words or photographs. Auditory and visual context conditions produced similar results, but the auditory context aided word identification more than the visual context in the similar word relationship. We discuss these results in the light of top-down processing, motor theory, and the phonological system of language.

Effects of early auditory experience on the spoken language of deaf children at 3 years of age.

Science.gov (United States)

Nicholas, Johanna Grant; Geers, Ann E

2006-06-01

By age 3, typically developing children have achieved extensive vocabulary and syntax skills that facilitate both cognitive and social development. Substantial delays in spoken language acquisition have been documented for children with severe to profound deafness, even those with auditory oral training and early hearing aid use. This study documents the spoken language skills achieved by orally educated 3-yr-olds whose profound hearing loss was identified and hearing aids fitted between 1 and 30 mo of age and who received a cochlear implant between 12 and 38 mo of age. The purpose of the analysis was to examine the effects of age, duration, and type of early auditory experience on spoken language competence at age 3.5 yr. The spoken language skills of 76 children who had used a cochlear implant for at least 7 mo were evaluated via standardized 30-minute language sample analysis, a parent-completed vocabulary checklist, and a teacher language-rating scale. The children were recruited from and enrolled in oral education programs or therapy practices across the United States. Inclusion criteria included presumed deaf since birth, English the primary language of the home, no other known conditions that interfere with speech/language development, enrolled in programs using oral education methods, and no known problems with the cochlear implant lasting more than 30 days. Strong correlations were obtained among all language measures. Therefore, principal components analysis was used to derive a single Language Factor score for each child. A number of possible predictors of language outcome were examined, including age at identification and intervention with a hearing aid, duration of use of a hearing aid, pre-implant pure-tone average (PTA) threshold with a hearing aid, PTA threshold with a cochlear implant, and duration of use of a cochlear implant/age at implantation (the last two variables were practically identical because all children were tested between 40 and 44

Spoken sentence comprehension in aphasia: Event-related potential evidence for a lexical integration deficit

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Swaab, T.Y.; Brown, C.; Hagoort, P.

1997-01-01

In this study the N400 component of the event-related potential was used to investigate spoken sentence understanding in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics. The aim of the study was to determine whether spoken sentence comprehension problems in these patients might result from a deficit in the on-line

Pronunciation Issues and Varieties of English from an EIL Perspective: A Survey of Outer and Expanding Circle Learners’ Beliefs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abbas Monfared

2014-11-01

Full Text Available In a globalized era where English keeps the position of an international language, learnt and spoken by lots of people from diverse linguistic, cultural and national backgrounds, there is a need for a new perspective towards English as an international language which can bridge notions and cultures. The appearance of varieties of English is the consequence of the global dissemination of English. Based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative data using a semi-structured questionnaire (see Appendix A administered to 60 Iranian learners from expanding circle and 60 Indian learners from outer circle, this study surveyed the developing picture of EIL pronunciation and evaluation of different varieties of English from the perspective of learners from two circles which include the most users of English in the globalized world. The results of the questionnaires supplemented by interviews with leaners from expanding and outer circles revealed that expanding-circle learners like more to have a native-like identity with their preference towards nativism. The implications on the findings on the spread of native speaker norms and the status of ELF and its reflections in learning and teaching in expanding and outer circle countries are discussed.

Language configurations of degree-related denotations in the spoken production of a group of Colombian EFL university students: A corpus-based study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wilder Yesid Escobar

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Recognizing that developing the competences needed to appropriately use linguistic resources according to contextual characteristics (pragmatics is as important as the cultural-imbedded linguistic knowledge itself (semantics and that both are equally essential to form competent speakers of English in foreign language contexts, we feel this research relies on corpus linguistics to analyze both the scope and the limitations of the sociolinguistic knowledge and the communicative skills of English students at the university level. To such end, a linguistic corpus was assembled, compared to an existing corpus of native speakers, and analyzed in terms of the frequency, overuse, underuse, misuse, ambiguity, success, and failure of the linguistic parameters used in speech acts. The findings herein describe the linguistic configurations employed to modify levels and degrees of descriptions (salient sematic theme exhibited in the EFL learners´ corpus appealing to the sociolinguistic principles governing meaning making and language use which are constructed under the social conditions of the environments where the language is naturally spoken for sociocultural exchange.

Phonotactics, Neighborhood Activation, and Lexical Access for Spoken Words

Science.gov (United States)

Vitevitch, Michael S.; Luce, Paul A.; Pisoni, David B.; Auer, Edward T.

2012-01-01

Probabilistic phonotactics refers to the relative frequencies of segments and sequences of segments in spoken words. Neighborhood density refers to the number of words that are phonologically similar to a given word. Despite a positive correlation between phonotactic probability and neighborhood density, nonsense words with high probability segments and sequences are responded to more quickly than nonsense words with low probability segments and sequences, whereas real words occurring in dense similarity neighborhoods are responded to more slowly than real words occurring in sparse similarity neighborhoods. This contradiction may be resolved by hypothesizing that effects of probabilistic phonotactics have a sublexical focus and that effects of similarity neighborhood density have a lexical focus. The implications of this hypothesis for models of spoken word recognition are discussed. PMID:10433774

Production of Intonation Patterns of Non-English Major Student Teachers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emily Luib-Beltran

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The study described the production of intonation pattern of the Non-English major student teachers during their on-campus teaching. The qualitative research method was used to analyze the data and describe their intonation patterns. The utterances were investigated in distinction between falling and rising intonation of wh-questions and yes/no questions. In the conduct of analysis, an interview guide was used to gather data on the language profile of the student teachers. Data confirm that the student teachers’ mother tongue (Filipino was commonly used in most of their verbal exchanges activities. It is worthy to note that the utterances of the student teachers displayed evidence of intonation patterns variation on wh-questions and yes/no questions. The erratic production of intonation patterns of the student teachers was resulted from the common linguistic phenomenon in which they tended to carry the intonation and pronunciation rules from their mother tongue (Filipino into their English spoken discourse. This qualitative research study implies that there is an interference of Filipino language in the production of the student teachers’ intonation patterns which describes the Philippine English intonation pattern for wh- questions and yes/no questions. Forthcoming studies may obtain more valued insights by gathering geographically varied samples that would include student teachers across disciplines.

AFRREV IJAH, Vol.2 (4) September, 2013

African Journals Online (AJOL)

First Lady

2013-09-08

Sep 8, 2013 ... the teaching and learning of spoken English in selected private/public secondary schools in South ... benefit with ease from variety of data. Similarly, Esimaje, & ... Akindele: Availability & Utilization of ICT for Spoken English.

Working Memory Load Affects Processing Time in Spoken Word Recognition: Evidence from Eye-Movements

Science.gov (United States)

Hadar, Britt; Skrzypek, Joshua E.; Wingfield, Arthur; Ben-David, Boaz M.

2016-01-01

In daily life, speech perception is usually accompanied by other tasks that tap into working memory capacity. However, the role of working memory on speech processing is not clear. The goal of this study was to examine how working memory load affects the timeline for spoken word recognition in ideal listening conditions. We used the “visual world” eye-tracking paradigm. The task consisted of spoken instructions referring to one of four objects depicted on a computer monitor (e.g., “point at the candle”). Half of the trials presented a phonological competitor to the target word that either overlapped in the initial syllable (onset) or at the last syllable (offset). Eye movements captured listeners' ability to differentiate the target noun from its depicted phonological competitor (e.g., candy or sandal). We manipulated working memory load by using a digit pre-load task, where participants had to retain either one (low-load) or four (high-load) spoken digits for the duration of a spoken word recognition trial. The data show that the high-load condition delayed real-time target discrimination. Specifically, a four-digit load was sufficient to delay the point of discrimination between the spoken target word and its phonological competitor. Our results emphasize the important role working memory plays in speech perception, even when performed by young adults in ideal listening conditions. PMID:27242424

A Mother Tongue Spoken Mainly by Fathers.

Science.gov (United States)

Corsetti, Renato

1996-01-01

Reviews what is known about Esperanto as a home language and first language. Recorded cases of Esperanto-speaking families are known since 1919, and in nearly all of the approximately 350 families documented, the language is spoken to the children by the father. The data suggests that this "artificial bilingualism" can be as successful…

Clinically speaking: A communication skills program for students from non-English speaking backgrounds.

Science.gov (United States)

Miguel, Caroline San; Rogan, Fran; Kilstoff, Kathleen; Brown, Di

2006-09-01

This paper reports on the design, delivery and evaluation of an innovative oral communication skills program for first year students in a Bachelor of Nursing degree at an Australian university. This program was introduced in 2004 to meet the needs of first year undergraduate students from non-English speaking backgrounds who had experienced difficulties with spoken English while on clinical placement. The program consisted of early identification of students in need of communication development, a series of classes incorporated into the degree program to address students' needs, followed by a clinical placement block. This paper describes the structure of the program, discusses some of the major problems encountered by students in the clinical setting and presents some of the teaching strategies used to address these problems. Evaluations of the program suggest that students' communication skills and confidence improved, resulting in a more positive clinical experience for the majority of students.

Evaluation of the spoken knowledge in low literacy in diabetes scale for use with Mexican Americans.

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, Alexandra A; Zuniga, Julie; Reynolds, Raquel; Cairampoma, Laura; Sumlin, Lisa

2015-05-01

This article evaluates the Spoken Knowledge in Low Literacy in Diabetes (SKILLD) questionnaire, a measure of essential knowledge for type 2 diabetes self-management, after it was modified for English- and Spanish-speaking Mexican Americans. We collected surveys (SKILLD, demographic, acculturation) and blood for A1C analysis from 72 community-recruited participants to analyze the SKILLD's internal consistency, interrater reliability, item analysis, and construct validity. Clinical experts evaluated content validity. The SKILLD demonstrated low internal consistency but high interrater reliability and content and construct validity. There were significant correlations in expected directions between SKILLD scores and acculturation, education, and A1C and significant differences in SKILLD scores between and within groups after an educational intervention and between high- and low-acculturated participants. The SKILLD generates useful information about Mexican Americans' diabetes knowledge. Lower SKILLD scores suggest less diabetes knowledge, lower health literacy, and participants' difficulties understanding items. Further modifications should improve use with low-acculturated Mexican Americans. © The Author(s) 2014.

Extrinsic Cognitive Load Impairs Spoken Word Recognition in High- and Low-Predictability Sentences.

Science.gov (United States)

Hunter, Cynthia R; Pisoni, David B

Listening effort (LE) induced by speech degradation reduces performance on concurrent cognitive tasks. However, a converse effect of extrinsic cognitive load on recognition of spoken words in sentences has not been shown. The aims of the present study were to (a) examine the impact of extrinsic cognitive load on spoken word recognition in a sentence recognition task and (b) determine whether cognitive load and/or LE needed to understand spectrally degraded speech would differentially affect word recognition in high- and low-predictability sentences. Downstream effects of speech degradation and sentence predictability on the cognitive load task were also examined. One hundred twenty young adults identified sentence-final spoken words in high- and low-predictability Speech Perception in Noise sentences. Cognitive load consisted of a preload of short (low-load) or long (high-load) sequences of digits, presented visually before each spoken sentence and reported either before or after identification of the sentence-final word. LE was varied by spectrally degrading sentences with four-, six-, or eight-channel noise vocoding. Level of spectral degradation and order of report (digits first or words first) were between-participants variables. Effects of cognitive load, sentence predictability, and speech degradation on accuracy of sentence-final word identification as well as recall of preload digit sequences were examined. In addition to anticipated main effects of sentence predictability and spectral degradation on word recognition, we found an effect of cognitive load, such that words were identified more accurately under low load than high load. However, load differentially affected word identification in high- and low-predictability sentences depending on the level of sentence degradation. Under severe spectral degradation (four-channel vocoding), the effect of cognitive load on word identification was present for high-predictability sentences but not for low

Using features of a Creole language to reconstruct population history and cultural evolution: tracing the English origins of Sranan.

Science.gov (United States)

Sherriah, André C; Devonish, Hubert; Thomas, Ewart A C; Creanza, Nicole

2018-04-05

Creole languages are formed in conditions where speakers from distinct languages are brought together without a shared first language, typically under the domination of speakers from one of the languages and particularly in the context of the transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism. One such Creole in Suriname, Sranan, developed around the mid-seventeenth century, primarily out of contact between varieties of English from England, spoken by the dominant group, and multiple West African languages. The vast majority of the basic words in Sranan come from the language of the dominant group, English. Here, we compare linguistic features of modern-day Sranan with those of English as spoken in 313 localities across England. By way of testing proposed hypotheses for the origin of English words in Sranan, we find that 80% of the studied features of Sranan can be explained by similarity to regional dialect features at two distinct input locations within England, a cluster of locations near the port of Bristol and another cluster near Essex in eastern England. Our new hypothesis is supported by the geographical distribution of specific regional dialect features, such as post-vocalic rhoticity and word-initial 'h', and by phylogenetic analysis of these features, which shows evidence favouring input from at least two English dialects in the formation of Sranan. In addition to explicating the dialect features most prominent in the linguistic evolution of Sranan, our historical analyses also provide supporting evidence for two distinct hypotheses about the likely geographical origins of the English speakers whose language was an input to Sranan. The emergence as a likely input to Sranan of the speech forms of a cluster near Bristol is consistent with historical records, indicating that most of the indentured servants going to the Americas between 1654 and 1666 were from Bristol and nearby counties, and that of the cluster near Essex is consistent with documents

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT TO TEACH SPOKEN RECOUNTS IN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eri Rusnawati

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk menggambarkan penerapan metode Communicative Language Teaching/CLT untuk pembelajaran spoken recount. Penelitian ini menelaah data yang kualitatif. Penelitian ini mengambarkan fenomena yang terjadi di dalam kelas. Data studi ini adalah perilaku dan respon para siswa dalam pembelajaran spoken recount dengan menggunakan metode CLT. Subjek penelitian ini adalah para siswa kelas X SMA Negeri 1 Kuaro yang terdiri dari 34 siswa. Observasi dan wawancara dilakukan dalam rangka untuk mengumpulkan data dalam mengajarkan spoken recount melalui tiga aktivitas (presentasi, bermain-peran, serta melakukan prosedur. Dalam penelitian ini ditemukan beberapa hal antara lain bahwa CLT meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara siswa dalam pembelajaran recount. Berdasarkan pada grafik peningkatan, disimpulkan bahwa tata bahasa, kosakata, pengucapan, kefasihan, serta performa siswa mengalami peningkatan. Ini berarti bahwa performa spoken recount dari para siswa meningkat. Andaikata presentasi ditempatkan di bagian akhir dari langkah-langkah aktivitas, peforma spoken recount para siswa bahkan akan lebih baik lagi. Kesimpulannya adalah bahwa implementasi metode CLT beserta tiga praktiknya berkontribusi pada peningkatan kemampuan berbicara para siswa dalam pembelajaran recount dan bahkan metode CLT mengarahkan mereka untuk memiliki keberanian dalam mengonstruksi komunikasi yang bermakna dengan percaya diri. Kata kunci: Communicative Language Teaching (CLT, recount, berbicara, respon siswa

Producing complex spoken numerals for time and space

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Meeuwissen, M.H.W.

2004-01-01

This thesis addressed the spoken production of complex numerals for time and space. The production of complex numerical expressions like those involved in telling time (e.g., 'quarter to four') or producing house numbers (e.g., 'two hundred forty-five') has been almost completely ignored. Yet, adult

"A Unified Poet Alliance": The Personal and Social Outcomes of Youth Spoken Word Poetry Programming

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Weinstein, Susan

2010-01-01

This article places youth spoken word (YSW) poetry programming within the larger framework of arts education. Drawing primarily on transcripts of interviews with teen poets and adult teaching artists and program administrators, the article identifies specific benefits that participants ascribe to youth spoken word, including the development of…

Acquisition of graphic communication by a young girl without comprehension of spoken language.

Science.gov (United States)

von Tetzchner, S; Øvreeide, K D; Jørgensen, K K; Ormhaug, B M; Oxholm, B; Warme, R

To describe a graphic-mode communication intervention involving a girl with intellectual impairment and autism who did not develop comprehension of spoken language. The aim was to teach graphic-mode vocabulary that reflected her interests, preferences, and the activities and routines of her daily life, by providing sufficient cues to the meanings of the graphic representations so that she would not need to comprehend spoken instructions. An individual case study design was selected, including the use of written records, participant observation, and registration of the girl's graphic vocabulary and use of graphic signs and other communicative expressions. While the girl's comprehension (and hence use) of spoken language remained lacking over a 3-year period, she acquired an active use of over 80 photographs and pictograms. The girl was able to cope better with the cognitive and attentional requirements of graphic communication than those of spoken language and manual signs, which had been focused in earlier interventions. Her achievements demonstrate that it is possible for communication-impaired children to learn to use an augmentative and alternative communication system without speech comprehension, provided the intervention utilizes functional strategies and non-language cues to the meaning of the graphic representations that are taught.

Delayed Anticipatory Spoken Language Processing in Adults with Dyslexia—Evidence from Eye-tracking.

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Huettig, Falk; Brouwer, Susanne

2015-05-01

It is now well established that anticipation of upcoming input is a key characteristic of spoken language comprehension. It has also frequently been observed that literacy influences spoken language processing. Here, we investigated whether anticipatory spoken language processing is related to individuals' word reading abilities. Dutch adults with dyslexia and a control group participated in two eye-tracking experiments. Experiment 1 was conducted to assess whether adults with dyslexia show the typical language-mediated eye gaze patterns. Eye movements of both adults with and without dyslexia closely replicated earlier research: spoken language is used to direct attention to relevant objects in the environment in a closely time-locked manner. In Experiment 2, participants received instructions (e.g., 'Kijk naar de(COM) afgebeelde piano(COM)', look at the displayed piano) while viewing four objects. Articles (Dutch 'het' or 'de') were gender marked such that the article agreed in gender only with the target, and thus, participants could use gender information from the article to predict the target object. The adults with dyslexia anticipated the target objects but much later than the controls. Moreover, participants' word reading scores correlated positively with their anticipatory eye movements. We conclude by discussing the mechanisms by which reading abilities may influence predictive language processing. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

English and French courses

CERN Multimedia

2014-01-01

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to learn a language, there is no excuse anymore!   You can attend one of our English or French courses and you can practise the language with a tandem partner! General and Professional French Courses The next session will take place from 27 January to 4 April 2014. These courses are open to all persons working on the CERN site, and to their spouses. Oral Expression This course is aimed at students with a good knowledge of French who want to enhance their speaking skills. Speaking activities will include discussions, meeting simulations, role-plays etc. The next session will take place from 27 January to 4 April 2014. Writing professional documents in French These courses are designed for non-French speakers with a very good standard of spoken French. The next session will take place from 27 January to 4 April 2014. Cours d’anglais général et professionnel La prochaine session se déroulera du 3 mars a...

A Descriptive Study of Registers Found in Spoken and Written Communication (A Semantic Analysis

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Nurul Hidayah

2016-07-01

Full Text Available This research is descriptive study of registers found in spoken and written communication. The type of this research is Descriptive Qualitative Research. In this research, the data of the study is register in spoken and written communication that are found in a book entitled "Communicating! Theory and Practice" and from internet. The data can be in the forms of words, phrases and abbreviation. In relation with method of collection data, the writer uses the library method as her instrument. The writer relates it to the study of register in spoken and written communication. The technique of analyzing the data using descriptive method. The types of register in this term will be separated into formal register and informal register, and identify the meaning of register.

Prevalência de artefatos em exames de ressonância magnética do abdome utilizando a seqüência GRASE: comparável com as melhores seqüências rápidas? Prevalence of artifacts in abdominal magnetic resonance imaging using GRASE sequence: a comparison with TSE sequences

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Viviane Vieira Francisco

2005-09-01

Full Text Available OBJETIVO: Determinar a freqüência global de artefatos na seqüência "gradient and spin echo" (GRASE, por tipo e grau do artefato, em exames de ressonância magnética de abdome; realizar comparação entre as seqüências GRASE e duas seqüências TSE previamente selecionadas como aquelas com melhor relação sinal-ruído e menor incidência de artefatos. MATERIAIS E MÉTODOS: Foi realizado estudo prospectivo, autopareado, em 86 pacientes submetidos a ressonância magnética de abdome superior, sendo adquiridas a seqüência GRASE com sincronizador respiratório e supressão de gordura e seis seqüências TSE ponderadas em T2. Dentre as seis seqüências TSE, foram previamente selecionadas aquelas com melhor relação sinal-ruído e menor número de artefatos, que foram as realizadas com supressão de gordura e com sincronizador respiratório, sendo uma com bobina de corpo (seqüência 1 e outra com bobina de sinergia (seqüência 2. A análise das imagens foi realizada por dois observadores em consenso, quanto a presença, grau e tipo de artefato. Posteriormente os dados foram analisados estatisticamente, através do teste de Friedman e do qui-quadrado. RESULTADOS: A freqüência absoluta de artefatos nas seqüências utilizadas foi de 65,02%. Os artefatos mais encontrados nas três seqüências estudadas foram os de respiração (30% e de pulsação (33%. Apenas 3% dos casos apresentaram algum tipo de artefato que dificultava a análise das imagens. As freqüências de artefatos nas diversas seqüências foram: GRASE, 67,2%; seqüência TSE 1, 62,2%; seqüência TSE 2, 65,5%. Não houve diferença estatisticamente significante na freqüência de artefatos encontrados nas seqüências GRASE e nas seqüências TSE (p = 0,845; NS. CONCLUSÃO: As seqüências GRASE e TSE ponderadas em T2 com sincronizador respiratório e com supressão de gordura, independentemente da bobina utilizada, apresentam freqüentemente artefatos, porém com incid

A memory-based shallow parser for spoken Dutch

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Canisius, S.V.M.; van den Bosch, A.; Decadt, B.; Hoste, V.; De Pauw, G.

2004-01-01

We describe the development of a Dutch memory-based shallow parser. The availability of large treebanks for Dutch, such as the one provided by the Spoken Dutch Corpus, allows memory-based learners to be trained on examples of shallow parsing taken from the treebank, and act as a shallow parser after

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING IN ISLAMIC EDUCATION IN INDONESIA; CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

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Tuti Hidayati

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The dominant use of English in every field covering politic, economic, and sosial culture these days has manifested in its gaining a special position in many countries where it is not spoken. In Indonesia, it is a foreign language officially constituted as part of national education curriculum and becomes a requirement in a number of higher education and workforce entry. Yet, ELT in Indonesia faces various constraints including, but is not limited, the anxiousness to threat the purity of Bahasa Indonesia, the national language, and the worry about liberal western values embedded in English to corrupt the youngsters moral and attitudes. Interestingly, Islamic education that maintains a vital role among Indonesians has included English alongside other secular sciences and technology as part of its curriculum in its current advancement. In this regard, the paper will show how critical Islamic education role among Indonesians is, how ELT in Indonesia has developed, what challenges it experiences, and what opportunities it posseses in the context of Indonesian Islamic Education. The paper argues that Islamic education remains the choice of the Indonesian Muslim communities as long as it is able to meet the demands of living in the globalization era while keeping the Islamic values in all the learning process. It further suggests that ELT in Indonesia needs to incorporate Islamic values and show that English learning put no threats and negative influences to Indonesian culture in general and Islamic religious values in particular.

Fourth International Workshop on Spoken Dialog Systems

CERN Document Server

Rosset, Sophie; Garnier-Rizet, Martine; Devillers, Laurence; Natural Interaction with Robots, Knowbots and Smartphones : Putting Spoken Dialog Systems into Practice

2014-01-01

These proceedings presents the state-of-the-art in spoken dialog systems with applications in robotics, knowledge access and communication. It addresses specifically: 1. Dialog for interacting with smartphones; 2. Dialog for Open Domain knowledge access; 3. Dialog for robot interaction; 4. Mediated dialog (including crosslingual dialog involving Speech Translation); and, 5. Dialog quality evaluation. These articles were presented at the IWSDS 2012 workshop.

PRAGMATICS ANALYSIS OF ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS PRESENTED IN ‗ENGLISH TIVI‘ CHANNEL

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Amirudin Amirudin

2017-12-01

Full Text Available ‗English Tivi‘ channel is a learning medium on Youtube which provides materials for learning English through stories. This paper is aimed to analyze the use of illocutionary acts in the stories presented. Three different stories are chosen as the subject of this study, namely: A Police TV, The Dangerous Journey, and Rich man Poor man. The data of this paper are all the utterances conveyed by the characters in the stories that are assumed employing the principles of illocutionary acts. The data were taken by observing the whole stories and transcribing all the utterances produced which have characteristics of illocutionary acts. The data are analyzed and classified based on the functions of illocutionary acts. The functions are inferred based on the five kinds of illocutionary acts proposed by Searle (1969, namely: assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declaratives. This paper is expected to be beneficial for Teacher Language Awareness (TLA: how the principles of Pragmatics used in language learning process, in case of constructing and deconstructing text (spoken or written by language learners for communicating in real life contexts.

Cholangiopancreatography for magnetic resonance (CPRM), using T2 - TSE technique and reconstructions 3D - Experience with 38 patients

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Esguerra Espinosa, Monica

1997-01-01

Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) is a non-invasive diagnostic method for the study of the biliary system that does not require contrast media or exposure to ionising radiation. Thirty-eight patients were studied; five apparently healthy ones only with MRCP; and 33 with possible biliary tract pathology, most of which had both endoscopes retrograde cholangiopancreatogaphy (ERCP) and MRCP: All MRCP's were performed with a 3D - TSE sequence with T2 - weighting, using coronal thin contiguous slices and reconstructions with maximal intensity projections (MIP) on different planes. MRCP allows an excellent anatomic depiction of the biliary tree and pancreatic duct

THE PHRASEOLOGY OF PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH

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Peter Howarth

2006-06-01

Full Text Available In Howarth 2002 a limited amount of data was presented for preliminary analysis of the phraseology of international press conferences. Tliat study focused on the distinction between spontaneous and scripted spoken English and examined whether these styles of speech could be correlated with differences in phraseological performance. The current study broadens the scope of this research and aims to investigate in more detail the nature of the language used in public international settings between native- and non-native speakers. It will draw on a corpus of approximately 2.5 million words of transcribed press conferences, containing large numbers of exchanges between native and non-native spokespeople and journalists. 'The press conferences have been conducted during the last eight years in Former Yugoslavia and have the common subject matter of peace-keeping and security. In addition to using a variety of corpus analyses (e.g. keywords, recurrent word combinations, fixed phrases, the study will attempt to deepen our understanding of this genre.

The time course of morphological processing during spoken word recognition in Chinese.

Science.gov (United States)

Shen, Wei; Qu, Qingqing; Ni, Aiping; Zhou, Junyi; Li, Xingshan

2017-12-01

We investigated the time course of morphological processing during spoken word recognition using the printed-word paradigm. Chinese participants were asked to listen to a spoken disyllabic compound word while simultaneously viewing a printed-word display. Each visual display consisted of three printed words: a semantic associate of the first constituent of the compound word (morphemic competitor), a semantic associate of the whole compound word (whole-word competitor), and an unrelated word (distractor). Participants were directed to detect whether the spoken target word was on the visual display. Results indicated that both the morphemic and whole-word competitors attracted more fixations than the distractor. More importantly, the morphemic competitor began to diverge from the distractor immediately at the acoustic offset of the first constituent, which was earlier than the whole-word competitor. These results suggest that lexical access to the auditory word is incremental and morphological processing (i.e., semantic access to the first constituent) that occurs at an early processing stage before access to the representation of the whole word in Chinese.

Intervention Effects on Spoken-Language Outcomes for Children with Autism: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

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Hampton, L. H.; Kaiser, A. P.

2016-01-01

Background: Although spoken-language deficits are not core to an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis, many children with ASD do present with delays in this area. Previous meta-analyses have assessed the effects of intervention on reducing autism symptomatology, but have not determined if intervention improves spoken language. This analysis…

The employment of a spoken language computer applied to an air traffic control task.

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Laveson, J. I.; Silver, C. A.

1972-01-01

Assessment of the merits of a limited spoken language (56 words) computer in a simulated air traffic control (ATC) task. An airport zone approximately 60 miles in diameter with a traffic flow simulation ranging from single-engine to commercial jet aircraft provided the workload for the controllers. This research determined that, under the circumstances of the experiments carried out, the use of a spoken-language computer would not improve the controller performance.

The gender congruency effect during bilingual spoken-word recognition

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Morales, Luis; Paolieri, Daniela; Dussias, Paola E.; Valdés kroff, Jorge R.; Gerfen, Chip; Bajo, María Teresa

2016-01-01

We investigate the ‘gender-congruency’ effect during a spoken-word recognition task using the visual world paradigm. Eye movements of Italian–Spanish bilinguals and Spanish monolinguals were monitored while they viewed a pair of objects on a computer screen. Participants listened to instructions in Spanish (encuentra la bufanda / ‘find the scarf’) and clicked on the object named in the instruction. Grammatical gender of the objects’ name was manipulated so that pairs of objects had the same (congruent) or different (incongruent) gender in Italian, but gender in Spanish was always congruent. Results showed that bilinguals, but not monolinguals, looked at target objects less when they were incongruent in gender, suggesting a between-language gender competition effect. In addition, bilinguals looked at target objects more when the definite article in the spoken instructions provided a valid cue to anticipate its selection (different-gender condition). The temporal dynamics of gender processing and cross-language activation in bilinguals are discussed. PMID:28018132

Assessing spoken word recognition in children who are deaf or hard of hearing: a translational approach.

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Kirk, Karen Iler; Prusick, Lindsay; French, Brian; Gotch, Chad; Eisenberg, Laurie S; Young, Nancy

2012-06-01

Under natural conditions, listeners use both auditory and visual speech cues to extract meaning from speech signals containing many sources of variability. However, traditional clinical tests of spoken word recognition routinely employ isolated words or sentences produced by a single talker in an auditory-only presentation format. The more central cognitive processes used during multimodal integration, perceptual normalization, and lexical discrimination that may contribute to individual variation in spoken word recognition performance are not assessed in conventional tests of this kind. In this article, we review our past and current research activities aimed at developing a series of new assessment tools designed to evaluate spoken word recognition in children who are deaf or hard of hearing. These measures are theoretically motivated by a current model of spoken word recognition and also incorporate "real-world" stimulus variability in the form of multiple talkers and presentation formats. The goal of this research is to enhance our ability to estimate real-world listening skills and to predict benefit from sensory aid use in children with varying degrees of hearing loss. American Academy of Audiology.

Interference of spoken word recognition through phonological priming from visual objects and printed words

OpenAIRE

McQueen, J.; Huettig, F.

2014-01-01

Three cross-modal priming experiments examined the influence of pre-exposure to pictures and printed words on the speed of spoken word recognition. Targets for auditory lexical decision were spoken Dutch words and nonwords, presented in isolation (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a short phrase (Experiment 3). Auditory stimuli were preceded by primes which were pictures (Experiments 1 and 3) or those pictures’ printed names (Experiment 2). Prime-target pairs were phonologically onsetrelated (e.g...

Speech-Language Pathologists: Vital Listening and Spoken Language Professionals

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Houston, K. Todd; Perigoe, Christina B.

2010-01-01

Determining the most effective methods and techniques to facilitate the spoken language development of individuals with hearing loss has been a focus of practitioners for centuries. Due to modern advances in hearing technology, earlier identification of hearing loss, and immediate enrollment in early intervention, children with hearing loss are…

In vitro detection of prionemia in TSE-infected cervids and hamsters.

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Alan M Elder

Full Text Available Blood-borne transmission of infectious prions during the symptomatic and asymptomatic stages of disease occurs for both human and animal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs. The geographical distribution of the cervid TSE, chronic wasting disease (CWD, continues to spread across North America and the prospective number of individuals harboring an asymptomatic infection of human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD in the United Kingdom has been projected to be ~1 in 3000 residents. Thus, it is important to monitor cervid and human blood products to ensure herd health and human safety. Current methods for detecting blood-associated prions rely primarily upon bioassay in laboratory animals. While bioassay provides high sensitivity and specificity, it requires many months, animals, and it is costly. Here we report modification of the real time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC assay to detect blood-borne prions in whole blood from prion-infected preclinical white-tailed deer, muntjac deer, and Syrian hamsters, attaining sensitivity of >90% while maintaining 100% specificity. Our results indicate that RT-QuIC methodology as modified can provide consistent and reliable detection of blood-borne prions in preclinical and symptomatic stages of two animal TSEs, offering promise for prionemia detection in other species, including humans.

Sizing up the competition: quantifying the influence of the mental lexicon on auditory and visual spoken word recognition.

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Strand, Julia F; Sommers, Mitchell S

2011-09-01

Much research has explored how spoken word recognition is influenced by the architecture and dynamics of the mental lexicon (e.g., Luce and Pisoni, 1998; McClelland and Elman, 1986). A more recent question is whether the processes underlying word recognition are unique to the auditory domain, or whether visually perceived (lipread) speech may also be sensitive to the structure of the mental lexicon (Auer, 2002; Mattys, Bernstein, and Auer, 2002). The current research was designed to test the hypothesis that both aurally and visually perceived spoken words are isolated in the mental lexicon as a function of their modality-specific perceptual similarity to other words. Lexical competition (the extent to which perceptually similar words influence recognition of a stimulus word) was quantified using metrics that are well-established in the literature, as well as a statistical method for calculating perceptual confusability based on the phi-square statistic. Both auditory and visual spoken word recognition were influenced by modality-specific lexical competition as well as stimulus word frequency. These findings extend the scope of activation-competition models of spoken word recognition and reinforce the hypothesis (Auer, 2002; Mattys et al., 2002) that perceptual and cognitive properties underlying spoken word recognition are not specific to the auditory domain. In addition, the results support the use of the phi-square statistic as a better predictor of lexical competition than metrics currently used in models of spoken word recognition. © 2011 Acoustical Society of America

Auditory and verbal memory predictors of spoken language skills in children with cochlear implants.

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de Hoog, Brigitte E; Langereis, Margreet C; van Weerdenburg, Marjolijn; Keuning, Jos; Knoors, Harry; Verhoeven, Ludo

2016-10-01

Large variability in individual spoken language outcomes remains a persistent finding in the group of children with cochlear implants (CIs), particularly in their grammatical development. In the present study, we examined the extent of delay in lexical and morphosyntactic spoken language levels of children with CIs as compared to those of a normative sample of age-matched children with normal hearing. Furthermore, the predictive value of auditory and verbal memory factors in the spoken language performance of implanted children was analyzed. Thirty-nine profoundly deaf children with CIs were assessed using a test battery including measures of lexical, grammatical, auditory and verbal memory tests. Furthermore, child-related demographic characteristics were taken into account. The majority of the children with CIs did not reach age-equivalent lexical and morphosyntactic language skills. Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that lexical spoken language performance in children with CIs was best predicted by age at testing, phoneme perception, and auditory word closure. The morphosyntactic language outcomes of the CI group were best predicted by lexicon, auditory word closure, and auditory memory for words. Qualitatively good speech perception skills appear to be crucial for lexical and grammatical development in children with CIs. Furthermore, strongly developed vocabulary skills and verbal memory abilities predict morphosyntactic language skills. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN THE ROMANIAN ECONOMIC FIELD AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT: A NECESSITY OR A FAD?

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Monica Condruz-Bacescu

2016-03-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the present article is to analyse the influence of anglicisms in the Romanian economic field and business environment. English influence in Romanian, very pronounced in the current European languages, is accomplished both by taking massive lexical elements and by assigning meanings of English borrowings to Romanian words. The emergence of English words’ borrowings in our country is due to the current socio-political conditions and widening of economic-financial relations with the Western world, the English words being used by specialists for communication and information in all fields, as well as speakers who tend to practice English as the international language of communication. Major transformations in the international social-economic organization imposed the development of modern disciplines: finance, statistics, management, marketing, business administration, whose languages are subordinated to the economic field. The research is intended to provide examples of English borrowings used in the economic language. English terms, specialized or not, especially in the form of a borrowing, penetrate directly in all economic subdomains, by virtue of an interference trend (manifested internationally concerning terminologies and the relations of specialized vocabulary with the usual one. One way of English terms entering the Romanian language is the specialised texts. The article also points out terminology concerning conditions of delivery and international business transactions. The written or spoken media contributes greatly to the spread of anglicisms that inform the public on various issues and developments in the social, political, cultural and economic aspects, nationally and internationally, having an important role in English vocabulary’ modernization by borrowing from English. The conclusion of the article is that with all the difficulties of adapting to the linguistic system of the Romanian language, the English

Oral and Literate Strategies in Spoken and Written Narratives.

Science.gov (United States)

Tannen, Deborah

1982-01-01

Discusses comparative analysis of spoken and written versions of a narrative to demonstrate that features which have been identified as characterizing oral discourse are also found in written discourse and that the written short story combines syntactic complexity expected in writing with features which create involvement expected in speaking.…

Recognition Memory for Braille or Spoken Words: An fMRI study in Early Blind

OpenAIRE

Burton, Harold; Sinclair, Robert J.; Agato, Alvin

2011-01-01

We examined cortical activity in early blind during word recognition memory. Nine participants were blind at birth and one by 1.5 yrs. In an event-related design, we studied blood oxygen level-dependent responses to studied (“old”) compared to novel (“new”) words. Presentation mode was in Braille or spoken. Responses were larger for identified “new” words read with Braille in bilateral lower and higher tier visual areas and primary somatosensory cortex. Responses to spoken “new” words were la...

Spoken Word Recognition of Chinese Words in Continuous Speech

Science.gov (United States)

Yip, Michael C. W.

2015-01-01

The present study examined the role of positional probability of syllables played in recognition of spoken word in continuous Cantonese speech. Because some sounds occur more frequently at the beginning position or ending position of Cantonese syllables than the others, so these kinds of probabilistic information of syllables may cue the locations…

Orthographic consistency affects spoken word recognition at different grain-sizes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dich, Nadya

2014-01-01

A number of previous studies found that the consistency of sound-to-spelling mappings (feedback consistency) affects spoken word recognition. In auditory lexical decision experiments, words that can only be spelled one way are recognized faster than words with multiple potential spellings. Previo...

Textual, Genre and Social Features of Spoken Grammar: A Corpus-Based Approach

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Carmen Pérez-Llantada

2009-02-01

Full Text Available This paper describes a corpus-based approach to teaching and learning spoken grammar for English for Academic Purposes with reference to Bhatia’s (2002 multi-perspective model for discourse analysis: a textual perspective, a genre perspective and a social perspective. From a textual perspective, corpus-informed instruction helps students identify grammar items through statistical frequencies, collocational patterns, context-sensitive meanings and discoursal uses of words. From a genre perspective, corpus observation provides students with exposure to recurrent lexico-grammatical patterns across different academic text types (genres. From a social perspective, corpus models can be used to raise learners’ awareness of how speakers’ different discourse roles, discourse privileges and power statuses are enacted in their grammar choices. The paper describes corpus-based instructional procedures, gives samples of learners’ linguistic output, and provides comments on the students’ response to this method of instruction. Data resulting from the assessment process and student production suggest that corpus-informed instruction grounded in Bhatia’s multi-perspective model can constitute a pedagogical approach in order to i obtain positive student responses from input and authentic samples of grammar use, ii help students identify and understand the textual, genre and social aspects of grammar in real contexts of use, and therefore iii help develop students’ ability to use grammar accurately and appropriately.

Monolingual versus multilingual acquisition of English morphology: what can we expect at age 3?

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Nicholls, Ruth J; Eadie, Patricia A; Reilly, Sheena

2011-01-01

At least two-thirds of the world's children grow up in environments where more than one language is spoken. Despite the global predominance of multilingualism, much remains unknown regarding the language acquisition of children acquiring multiple languages compared with monolingual children. A greater understanding of multilingualism is crucial for speech-language pathologists given the increasing number of children being raised in linguistically diverse environments. To investigate the expressive morphological abilities of multilingual children acquiring English, compared with monolingual children, at 3 years of age. Participants were 148 children (74 multilingual children; 74 matched monolingual children; mean age of 3 years 4 months) already participating in a larger prospective longitudinal cohort study of language development in Melbourne, Australia. Thirty-one languages in addition to English were represented within the embedded cohort. All participants completed a direct language assessment to measure their expressive abilities across a range of English morphemes. The parents of the multilingual participants completed an interview regarding the children's language backgrounds and experiences. The Multilingual Group typically performed below the Monolingual Group in terms of their accurate use and mastery of English morphemes at 3 years of age, although variable expressive abilities were indicated within each group. The same morphemes were shown to be mastered by relatively higher proportions of each group. Likewise, the same forms were mastered by relatively lower proportions of each group. The results indicated similarities between the children's acquisition of English morphology, regardless of whether they were acquiring English only or in combination with another language(s) at 3 years of age. This study found a range of similarities and differences between multilingual compared with monolingual children's acquisition of English morphology at 3 years of

Primary phonological planning units in spoken word production are language-specific: Evidence from an ERP study.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Jie; Wong, Andus Wing-Kuen; Wang, Suiping; Chen, Hsuan-Chih

2017-07-19

It is widely acknowledged in Germanic languages that segments are the primary planning units at the phonological encoding stage of spoken word production. Mixed results, however, have been found in Chinese, and it is still unclear what roles syllables and segments play in planning Chinese spoken word production. In the current study, participants were asked to first prepare and later produce disyllabic Mandarin words upon picture prompts and a response cue while electroencephalogram (EEG) signals were recorded. Each two consecutive pictures implicitly formed a pair of prime and target, whose names shared the same word-initial atonal syllable or the same word-initial segments, or were unrelated in the control conditions. Only syllable repetition induced significant effects on event-related brain potentials (ERPs) after target onset: a widely distributed positivity in the 200- to 400-ms interval and an anterior positivity in the 400- to 600-ms interval. We interpret these to reflect syllable-size representations at the phonological encoding and phonetic encoding stages. Our results provide the first electrophysiological evidence for the distinct role of syllables in producing Mandarin spoken words, supporting a language specificity hypothesis about the primary phonological units in spoken word production.

The iPad as a Research Tool for the Understanding of English Plurals by English, Chinese, and Other L1 Speaking 3- and 4-Year-Olds.

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Xu Rattanasone, Nan; Davies, Benjamin; Schembri, Tamara; Andronos, Fabia; Demuth, Katherine

2016-01-01

Learning about what young children with limited spoken language know about the grammar of their language is extremely challenging. Researchers have traditionally used looking behavior as a measure of language processing and to infer what overt choices children might make. However, these methods are expensive to setup, require specialized training, are time intensive for data analysis and can have considerable dropout rates. For these reasons, we have developed a forced choice task delivered on an iPad based on our eye-tracking studies with English monolinguals (Davies et al., 2016, under review). Using the iPad we investigated 3- and 4-year-olds' understanding of the English plural in preschool centers. The primary aim of the study was to provide evidence for the usefulness of the iPad as a language research tool. We evaluated the usefulness of the iPad with second language (L2) learning children who have limited L2 language skills. Studies with school aged Chinese-speaking children show below native performance on English inflectional morphology despite 5-6 years of immersion (Jia, 2003; Jia and Fuse, 2007; Paradis et al., 2016). However, it is unclear whether this is specific only to children who speak Chinese as their first language (L1) or if younger preschoolers will also show similar challenges. We tested three groups of preschoolers with different L1s (English, Chinese, and other languages). L1 Chinese children's performance was below both English monolinguals and children speaking Other L1 languages, providing evidence that English inflections are specifically challenging for Chinese-speaking children. The results provide further evidence to support previous eye-tracking findings with monolinguals and studies with older bilinguals. The study provides evidence for the usefulness of iPads as research tool for studying language acquisition. Implications for future application of the iPad as a teaching and intervention tool, and limitations for the method, are

Lexicon Optimization for Dutch Speech Recognition in Spoken Document Retrieval

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ordelman, Roeland J.F.; van Hessen, Adrianus J.; de Jong, Franciska M.G.

In this paper, ongoing work concerning the language modelling and lexicon optimization of a Dutch speech recognition system for Spoken Document Retrieval is described: the collection and normalization of a training data set and the optimization of our recognition lexicon. Effects on lexical coverage

Lexicon optimization for Dutch speech recognition in spoken document retrieval

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ordelman, Roeland J.F.; van Hessen, Adrianus J.; de Jong, Franciska M.G.; Dalsgaard, P.; Lindberg, B.; Benner, H.

2001-01-01

In this paper, ongoing work concerning the language modelling and lexicon optimization of a Dutch speech recognition system for Spoken Document Retrieval is described: the collection and normalization of a training data set and the optimization of our recognition lexicon. Effects on lexical coverage

Using the Corpus of Spoken Afrikaans to generate an Afrikaans ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This paper presents two chatbot systems, ALICE and. Elizabeth, illustrating the dialogue knowledge representation and pattern matching techniques of each. We discuss the problems which arise when using the. Corpus of Spoken Afrikaans (Korpus Gesproke Afrikaans) to retrain the ALICE chatbot system with human ...

Automated Metadata Extraction for Semantic Access to Spoken Word Archives

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Jong, Franciska M.G.; Heeren, W.F.L.; van Hessen, Adrianus J.; Ordelman, Roeland J.F.; Nijholt, Antinus; Ruiz Miyares, L.; Alvarez Silva, M.R.

2011-01-01

Archival practice is shifting from the analogue to the digital world. A specific subset of heritage collections that impose interesting challenges for the field of language and speech technology are spoken word archives. Given the enormous backlog at audiovisual archives of unannotated materials and

Recording voiceover the spoken word in media

CERN Document Server

Blakemore, Tom

2015-01-01

The only book on the market to specifically address its audience, Recording Voiceover is the comprehensive guide for engineers looking to understand the aspects of capturing the spoken word.Discussing all phases of the recording session, Recording Voiceover addresses everything from microphone recommendations for voice recording to pre-production considerations, including setting up the studio, working with and directing the voice talent, and strategies for reducing or eliminating distracting noise elements found in human speech.Recording Voiceover features in-depth, specific recommendations f

Working memory affects older adults' use of context in spoken-word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Janse, Esther; Jesse, Alexandra

2014-01-01

Many older listeners report difficulties in understanding speech in noisy situations. Working memory and other cognitive skills may modulate older listeners' ability to use context information to alleviate the effects of noise on spoken-word recognition. In the present study, we investigated whether verbal working memory predicts older adults' ability to immediately use context information in the recognition of words embedded in sentences, presented in different listening conditions. In a phoneme-monitoring task, older adults were asked to detect as fast and as accurately as possible target phonemes in sentences spoken by a target speaker. Target speech was presented without noise, with fluctuating speech-shaped noise, or with competing speech from a single distractor speaker. The gradient measure of contextual probability (derived from a separate offline rating study) affected the speed of recognition. Contextual facilitation was modulated by older listeners' verbal working memory (measured with a backward digit span task) and age across listening conditions. Working memory and age, as well as hearing loss, were also the most consistent predictors of overall listening performance. Older listeners' immediate benefit from context in spoken-word recognition thus relates to their ability to keep and update a semantic representation of the sentence content in working memory.

Use of spoken and written Japanese did not protect Japanese-American men from cognitive decline in late life.

Science.gov (United States)

Crane, Paul K; Gruhl, Jonathan C; Erosheva, Elena A; Gibbons, Laura E; McCurry, Susan M; Rhoads, Kristoffer; Nguyen, Viet; Arani, Keerthi; Masaki, Kamal; White, Lon

2010-11-01

Spoken bilingualism may be associated with cognitive reserve. Mastering a complicated written language may be associated with additional reserve. We sought to determine if midlife use of spoken and written Japanese was associated with lower rates of late life cognitive decline. Participants were second-generation Japanese-American men from the Hawaiian island of Oahu, born 1900-1919, free of dementia in 1991, and categorized based on midlife self-reported use of spoken and written Japanese (total n included in primary analysis = 2,520). Cognitive functioning was measured with the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument scored using item response theory. We used mixed effects models, controlling for age, income, education, smoking status, apolipoprotein E e4 alleles, and number of study visits. Rates of cognitive decline were not related to use of spoken or written Japanese. This finding was consistent across numerous sensitivity analyses. We did not find evidence to support the hypothesis that multilingualism is associated with cognitive reserve.

Use of Spoken and Written Japanese Did Not Protect Japanese-American Men From Cognitive Decline in Late Life

Science.gov (United States)

Gruhl, Jonathan C.; Erosheva, Elena A.; Gibbons, Laura E.; McCurry, Susan M.; Rhoads, Kristoffer; Nguyen, Viet; Arani, Keerthi; Masaki, Kamal; White, Lon

2010-01-01

Objectives. Spoken bilingualism may be associated with cognitive reserve. Mastering a complicated written language may be associated with additional reserve. We sought to determine if midlife use of spoken and written Japanese was associated with lower rates of late life cognitive decline. Methods. Participants were second-generation Japanese-American men from the Hawaiian island of Oahu, born 1900–1919, free of dementia in 1991, and categorized based on midlife self-reported use of spoken and written Japanese (total n included in primary analysis = 2,520). Cognitive functioning was measured with the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument scored using item response theory. We used mixed effects models, controlling for age, income, education, smoking status, apolipoprotein E e4 alleles, and number of study visits. Results. Rates of cognitive decline were not related to use of spoken or written Japanese. This finding was consistent across numerous sensitivity analyses. Discussion. We did not find evidence to support the hypothesis that multilingualism is associated with cognitive reserve. PMID:20639282

Semantic and pragmatic factors influencing deaf and hearing students' comprehension of english sentences containing numeral quantifiers.

Science.gov (United States)

Kelly, Ronald R; Berent, Gerald P

2011-01-01

This research contrasted deaf and hearing students' interpretive knowledge of English sentences containing numeral quantifier phrases and indefinite noun phrases. A multiple-interpretation picture task methodology was used to assess 305 participants' judgments of the compatibility of sentence meanings with depicted discourse contexts. Participants' performance was assessed on the basis of hearing level (deaf, hearing) and grade level (middle school, high school, college). The deaf students were predicted to have differential access to specific sentence interpretations in accordance with the relative derivational complexity of the targeted sentence types. Hypotheses based on the pressures of derivational economy on acquisition were largely supported. The results also revealed that the deaf participants tended to overactivate pragmatic processes that yielded principled, though non-target, sentence interpretations. Collectively, the results not only contribute to the understanding of English acquisition under conditions of restricted access to spoken language input, they also suggest that pragmatic factors may play a broad role in influencing, and compromising, deaf students' reading comprehension and written expression.

A Comparison between Written and Spoken Narratives in Aphasia

Science.gov (United States)

Behrns, Ingrid; Wengelin, Asa; Broberg, Malin; Hartelius, Lena

2009-01-01

The aim of the present study was to explore how a personal narrative told by a group of eight persons with aphasia differed between written and spoken language, and to compare this with findings from 10 participants in a reference group. The stories were analysed through holistic assessments made by 60 participants without experience of aphasia…

Phonologic-graphemic transcodifier for Portuguese Language spoken in Brazil (PLB)

Science.gov (United States)

Fragadasilva, Francisco Jose; Saotome, Osamu; Deoliveira, Carlos Alberto

An automatic speech-to-text transformer system, suited to unlimited vocabulary, is presented. The basic acoustic unit considered are the allophones of the phonemes corresponding to the Portuguese language spoken in Brazil (PLB). The input to the system is a phonetic sequence, from a former step of isolated word recognition of slowly spoken speech. In a first stage, the system eliminates phonetic elements that don't belong to PLB. Using knowledge sources such as phonetics, phonology, orthography, and PLB specific lexicon, the output is a sequence of written words, ordered by probabilistic criterion that constitutes the set of graphemic possibilities to that input sequence. Pronunciation differences of some regions of Brazil are considered, but only those that cause differences in phonological transcription, because those of phonetic level are absorbed, during the transformation to phonological level. In the final stage, all possible written words are analyzed for orthography and grammar point of view, to eliminate the incorrect ones.

Retinoic acid signaling: a new piece in the spoken language puzzle

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jon-Ruben eVan Rhijn

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Speech requires precise motor control and rapid sequencing of highly complex vocal musculature. Despite its complexity, most people produce spoken language effortlessly. This is due to activity in distributed neuronal circuitry including cortico-striato-thalamic loops that control speech-motor output. Understanding the neuro-genetic mechanisms that encode these pathways will shed light on how humans can effortlessly and innately use spoken language and could elucidate what goes wrong in speech-language disorders.FOXP2 was the first single gene identified to cause speech and language disorder. Individuals with FOXP2 mutations display a severe speech deficit that also includes receptive and expressive language impairments. The underlying neuro-molecular mechanisms controlled by FOXP2, which will give insight into our capacity for speech-motor control, are only beginning to be unraveled. Recently FOXP2 was found to regulate genes involved in retinoic acid signaling and to modify the cellular response to retinoic acid, a key regulator of brain development. Herein we explore the evidence that FOXP2 and retinoic acid signaling function in the same pathways. We present evidence at molecular, cellular and behavioral levels that suggest an interplay between FOXP2 and retinoic acid that may be important for fine motor control and speech-motor output. We propose that retinoic acid signaling is an exciting new angle from which to investigate how neurogenetic mechanisms can contribute to the (spoken language ready brain.

Factors Influencing Verbal Intelligence and Spoken Language in Children with Phenylketonuria.

Science.gov (United States)

Soleymani, Zahra; Keramati, Nasrin; Rohani, Farzaneh; Jalaei, Shohre

2015-05-01

To determine verbal intelligence and spoken language of children with phenylketonuria and to study the effect of age at diagnosis and phenylalanine plasma level on these abilities. Cross-sectional. Children with phenylketonuria were recruited from pediatric hospitals in 2012. Normal control subjects were recruited from kindergartens in Tehran. 30 phenylketonuria and 42 control subjects aged 4-6.5 years. Skills were compared between 3 phenylketonuria groups categorized by age at diagnosis/treatment, and between the phenylketonuria and control groups. Scores on Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence for verbal and total intelligence, and Test of Language Development-Primary, third edition for spoken language, listening, speaking, semantics, syntax, and organization. The performance of control subjects was significantly better than that of early-treated subjects for all composite quotients from Test of Language Development and verbal intelligence (Pphenylketonuria subjects.

The time course of spoken word recognition in Mandarin Chinese: a unimodal ERP study.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Xianjun; Yang, Jin-Chen; Zhang, Qin; Guo, Chunyan

2014-10-01

In the present study, two experiments were carried out to investigate the time course of spoken word recognition in Mandarin Chinese using both event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral measures. To address the hypothesis that there is an early phonological processing stage independent of semantics during spoken word recognition, a unimodal word-matching paradigm was employed, in which both prime and target words were presented auditorily. Experiment 1 manipulated the phonological relations between disyllabic primes and targets, and found an enhanced P2 (200-270 ms post-target onset) as well as a smaller early N400 to word-initial phonological mismatches over fronto-central scalp sites. Experiment 2 manipulated both phonological and semantic relations between monosyllabic primes and targets, and replicated the phonological mismatch-associated P2, which was not modulated by semantic relations. Overall, these results suggest that P2 is a sensitive electrophysiological index of early phonological processing independent of semantics in Mandarin Chinese spoken word recognition. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Interference of spoken word recognition through phonological priming from visual objects and printed words.

Science.gov (United States)

McQueen, James M; Huettig, Falk

2014-01-01

Three cross-modal priming experiments examined the influence of preexposure to pictures and printed words on the speed of spoken word recognition. Targets for auditory lexical decision were spoken Dutch words and nonwords, presented in isolation (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a short phrase (Experiment 3). Auditory stimuli were preceded by primes, which were pictures (Experiments 1 and 3) or those pictures' printed names (Experiment 2). Prime-target pairs were phonologically onset related (e.g., pijl-pijn, arrow-pain), were from the same semantic category (e.g., pijl-zwaard, arrow-sword), or were unrelated on both dimensions. Phonological interference and semantic facilitation were observed in all experiments. Priming magnitude was similar for pictures and printed words and did not vary with picture viewing time or number of pictures in the display (either one or four). These effects arose even though participants were not explicitly instructed to name the pictures and where strategic naming would interfere with lexical decision making. This suggests that, by default, processing of related pictures and printed words influences how quickly we recognize spoken words.

Individual Differences in Online Spoken Word Recognition: Implications for SLI

Science.gov (United States)

McMurray, Bob; Samelson, Vicki M.; Lee, Sung Hee; Tomblin, J. Bruce

2010-01-01

Thirty years of research has uncovered the broad principles that characterize spoken word processing across listeners. However, there have been few systematic investigations of individual differences. Such an investigation could help refine models of word recognition by indicating which processing parameters are likely to vary, and could also have…

Orthographic Consistency Affects Spoken Word Recognition at Different Grain-Sizes

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Dich, Nadya

2014-01-01

A number of previous studies found that the consistency of sound-to-spelling mappings (feedback consistency) affects spoken word recognition. In auditory lexical decision experiments, words that can only be spelled one way are recognized faster than words with multiple potential spellings. Previous studies demonstrated this by manipulating…

Pedagogy for Liberation: Spoken Word Poetry in Urban Schools

Science.gov (United States)

Fiore, Mia

2015-01-01

The Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, hip hop of the 1980s and early 1990s, and spoken word poetry have each attempted to initiate the dialogical process outlined by Paulo Freire as necessary in overturning oppression. Each art form has done this by critically engaging with the world and questioning dominant systems of power. However,…

Feature Statistics Modulate the Activation of Meaning during Spoken Word Processing

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Devereux, Barry J.; Taylor, Kirsten I.; Randall, Billi; Geertzen, Jeroen; Tyler, Lorraine K.

2016-01-01

Understanding spoken words involves a rapid mapping from speech to conceptual representations. One distributed feature-based conceptual account assumes that the statistical characteristics of concepts' features--the number of concepts they occur in ("distinctiveness/sharedness") and likelihood of co-occurrence ("correlational…

The relation of the number of languages spoken to performance in different cognitive abilities in old age.

Science.gov (United States)

Ihle, Andreas; Oris, Michel; Fagot, Delphine; Kliegel, Matthias

2016-12-01

Findings on the association of speaking different languages with cognitive functioning in old age are inconsistent and inconclusive so far. Therefore, the present study set out to investigate the relation of the number of languages spoken to cognitive performance and its interplay with several other markers of cognitive reserve in a large sample of older adults. Two thousand eight hundred and twelve older adults served as sample for the present study. Psychometric tests on verbal abilities, basic processing speed, and cognitive flexibility were administered. In addition, individuals were interviewed on their different languages spoken on a regular basis, educational attainment, occupation, and engaging in different activities throughout adulthood. Higher number of languages regularly spoken was significantly associated with better performance in verbal abilities and processing speed, but unrelated to cognitive flexibility. Regression analyses showed that the number of languages spoken predicted cognitive performance over and above leisure activities/physical demand of job/gainful activity as respective additional predictor, but not over and above educational attainment/cognitive level of job as respective additional predictor. There was no significant moderation of the association of the number of languages spoken with cognitive performance in any model. Present data suggest that speaking different languages on a regular basis may additionally contribute to the build-up of cognitive reserve in old age. Yet, this may not be universal, but linked to verbal abilities and basic cognitive processing speed. Moreover, it may be dependent on other types of cognitive stimulation that individuals also engaged in during their life course.

Grammatical Deviations in the Spoken and Written Language of Hebrew-Speaking Children With Hearing Impairments.

Science.gov (United States)

Tur-Kaspa, Hana; Dromi, Esther

2001-04-01

The present study reports a detailed analysis of written and spoken language samples of Hebrew-speaking children aged 11-13 years who are deaf. It focuses on the description of various grammatical deviations in the two modalities. Participants were 13 students with hearing impairments (HI) attending special classrooms integrated into two elementary schools in Tel Aviv, Israel, and 9 students with normal hearing (NH) in regular classes in these same schools. Spoken and written language samples were collected from all participants using the same five preplanned elicitation probes. Students with HI were found to display significantly more grammatical deviations than their NH peers in both their spoken and written language samples. Most importantly, between-modality differences were noted. The participants with HI exhibited significantly more grammatical deviations in their written language samples than in their spoken samples. However, the distribution of grammatical deviations across categories was similar in the two modalities. The most common grammatical deviations in order of their frequency were failure to supply obligatory morphological markers, failure to mark grammatical agreement, and the omission of a major syntactic constituent in a sentence. Word order violations were rarely recorded in the Hebrew samples. Performance differences in the two modalities encourage clinicians and teachers to facilitate target linguistic forms in diverse communication contexts. Furthermore, the identification of linguistic targets for intervention must be based on the unique grammatical structure of the target language.

The Impact of Orthographic Consistency on German Spoken Word Identification

Science.gov (United States)

Beyermann, Sandra; Penke, Martina

2014-01-01

An auditory lexical decision experiment was conducted to find out whether sound-to-spelling consistency has an impact on German spoken word processing, and whether such an impact is different at different stages of reading development. Four groups of readers (school children in the second, third and fifth grades, and university students)…

On-Line Syntax: Thoughts on the Temporality of Spoken Language

Science.gov (United States)

Auer, Peter

2009-01-01

One fundamental difference between spoken and written language has to do with the "linearity" of speaking in time, in that the temporal structure of speaking is inherently the outcome of an interactive process between speaker and listener. But despite the status of "linearity" as one of Saussure's fundamental principles, in practice little more…

Inferring Speaker Affect in Spoken Natural Language Communication

OpenAIRE

Pon-Barry, Heather Roberta

2012-01-01

The field of spoken language processing is concerned with creating computer programs that can understand human speech and produce human-like speech. Regarding the problem of understanding human speech, there is currently growing interest in moving beyond speech recognition (the task of transcribing the words in an audio stream) and towards machine listening—interpreting the full spectrum of information in an audio stream. One part of machine listening, the problem that this thesis focuses on, ...

SPOKEN BAHASA INDONESIA BY GERMAN STUDENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I Nengah Sudipa

2014-11-01

Full Text Available This article investigates the spoken ability for German students using Bahasa Indonesia (BI. They have studied it for six weeks in IBSN Program at Udayana University, Bali-Indonesia. The data was collected at the time the students sat for the mid-term oral test and was further analyzed with reference to the standard usage of BI. The result suggests that most students managed to express several concepts related to (1 LOCATION; (2 TIME; (3 TRANSPORT; (4 PURPOSE; (5 TRANSACTION; (6 IMPRESSION; (7 REASON; (8 FOOD AND BEVERAGE, and (9 NUMBER AND PERSON. The only problem few students might encounter is due to the influence from their own language system called interference, especially in word order.

Deep bottleneck features for spoken language identification.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bing Jiang

Full Text Available A key problem in spoken language identification (LID is to design effective representations which are specific to language information. For example, in recent years, representations based on both phonotactic and acoustic features have proven their effectiveness for LID. Although advances in machine learning have led to significant improvements, LID performance is still lacking, especially for short duration speech utterances. With the hypothesis that language information is weak and represented only latently in speech, and is largely dependent on the statistical properties of the speech content, existing representations may be insufficient. Furthermore they may be susceptible to the variations caused by different speakers, specific content of the speech segments, and background noise. To address this, we propose using Deep Bottleneck Features (DBF for spoken LID, motivated by the success of Deep Neural Networks (DNN in speech recognition. We show that DBFs can form a low-dimensional compact representation of the original inputs with a powerful descriptive and discriminative capability. To evaluate the effectiveness of this, we design two acoustic models, termed DBF-TV and parallel DBF-TV (PDBF-TV, using a DBF based i-vector representation for each speech utterance. Results on NIST language recognition evaluation 2009 (LRE09 show significant improvements over state-of-the-art systems. By fusing the output of phonotactic and acoustic approaches, we achieve an EER of 1.08%, 1.89% and 7.01% for 30 s, 10 s and 3 s test utterances respectively. Furthermore, various DBF configurations have been extensively evaluated, and an optimal system proposed.

Toddlers' sensitivity to within-word coarticulation during spoken word recognition: Developmental differences in lexical competition.

Science.gov (United States)

Zamuner, Tania S; Moore, Charlotte; Desmeules-Trudel, Félix

2016-12-01

To understand speech, listeners need to be able to decode the speech stream into meaningful units. However, coarticulation causes phonemes to differ based on their context. Because coarticulation is an ever-present component of the speech stream, it follows that listeners may exploit this source of information for cues to the identity of the words being spoken. This research investigates the development of listeners' sensitivity to coarticulation cues below the level of the phoneme in spoken word recognition. Using a looking-while-listening paradigm, adults and 2- and 3-year-old children were tested on coarticulation cues that either matched or mismatched the target. Both adults and children predicted upcoming phonemes based on anticipatory coarticulation to make decisions about word identity. The overall results demonstrate that coarticulation cues are a fundamental component of children's spoken word recognition system. However, children did not show the same resolution as adults of the mismatching coarticulation cues and competitor inhibition, indicating that children's processing systems are still developing. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Early use of orthographic information in spoken word recognition: Event-related potential evidence from the Korean language.

Science.gov (United States)

Kwon, Youan; Choi, Sungmook; Lee, Yoonhyoung

2016-04-01

This study examines whether orthographic information is used during prelexical processes in spoken word recognition by investigating ERPs during spoken word processing for Korean words. Differential effects due to orthographic syllable neighborhood size and sound-to-spelling consistency on P200 and N320 were evaluated by recording ERPs from 42 participants during a lexical decision task. The results indicate that P200 was smaller for words whose orthographic syllable neighbors are large in number rather than those that are small. In addition, a word with a large orthographic syllable neighborhood elicited a smaller N320 effect than a word with a small orthographic syllable neighborhood only when the word had inconsistent sound-to-spelling mapping. The results provide support for the assumption that orthographic information is used early during the prelexical spoken word recognition process. © 2015 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

"Context and Spoken Word Recognition in a Novel Lexicon": Correction

Science.gov (United States)

Revill, Kathleen Pirog; Tanenhaus, Michael K.; Aslin, Richard N.

2009-01-01

Reports an error in "Context and spoken word recognition in a novel lexicon" by Kathleen Pirog Revill, Michael K. Tanenhaus and Richard N. Aslin ("Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition," 2008[Sep], Vol 34[5], 1207-1223). Figure 9 was inadvertently duplicated as Figure 10. Figure 9 in the original article was correct.…

Semantic and phonological schema influence spoken word learning and overnight consolidation.

Science.gov (United States)

Havas, Viktória; Taylor, Jsh; Vaquero, Lucía; de Diego-Balaguer, Ruth; Rodríguez-Fornells, Antoni; Davis, Matthew H

2018-06-01

We studied the initial acquisition and overnight consolidation of new spoken words that resemble words in the native language (L1) or in an unfamiliar, non-native language (L2). Spanish-speaking participants learned the spoken forms of novel words in their native language (Spanish) or in a different language (Hungarian), which were paired with pictures of familiar or unfamiliar objects, or no picture. We thereby assessed, in a factorial way, the impact of existing knowledge (schema) on word learning by manipulating both semantic (familiar vs unfamiliar objects) and phonological (L1- vs L2-like novel words) familiarity. Participants were trained and tested with a 12-hr intervening period that included overnight sleep or daytime awake. Our results showed (1) benefits of sleep to recognition memory that were greater for words with L2-like phonology and (2) that learned associations with familiar but not unfamiliar pictures enhanced recognition memory for novel words. Implications for complementary systems accounts of word learning are discussed.

Applicability of the Spoken Knowledge in Low Literacy Patients with Diabetes in Brazilian elderly.

Science.gov (United States)

Souza, Jonas Gordilho; Apolinario, Daniel; Farfel, José Marcelo; Jaluul, Omar; Magaldi, Regina Miksian; Busse, Alexandre Leopold; Campora, Flávia; Jacob-Filho, Wilson

2016-01-01

To translate, adapt and evaluate the properties of a Brazilian Portuguese version of the Spoken Knowledge in Low Literacy Patients with Diabetes, which is a questionnaire that evaluate diabetes knowledge. A cross-sectional study with type 2 diabetes patients aged ≥60 years, seen at a public healthcare organization in the city of Sao Paulo (SP). After the development of the Portuguese version, we evaluated the psychometrics properties and the association with sociodemographic and clinical variables. The regression models were adjusted for sociodemographic data, functional health literacy, duration of disease, use of insulin, and glycemic control. We evaluated 129 type 2 diabetic patients, with mean age of 75.9 (±6.2) years, mean scholling of 5.2 (±4.4) years, mean glycosylated hemoglobin of 7.2% (±1.4), and mean score on Spoken Knowledge in Low Literacy Patients with Diabetes of 42.1% (±25.8). In the regression model, the variables independently associated to Spoken Knowledge in Low Literacy Patients with Diabetes were schooling (B=0.193; p=0.003), use of insulin (B=1.326; p=0.004), duration of diabetes (B=0.053; p=0.022) and health literacy (B=0.108; p=0.021). The determination coefficient was 0.273. The Cronbach a was 0.75, demonstrating appropriate internal consistency. This translated version of the Spoken Knowledge in Low Literacy Patients with Diabetes showed to be adequate to evaluate diabetes knowledge in elderly patients with low schooling levels. It presented normal distribution, adequate internal consistency, with no ceiling or floor effect. The tool is easy to be used, can be quickly applied and does not depend on reading skills. Traduzir, adaptar e avaliar as propriedades de uma versão, em português do Brasil, do Spoken Knowledge in Low Literacy Patients with Diabetes, um questionário que avalia conhecimento em diabetes. Estudo transversal, em diabéticos tipo 2, com idade ≥60 anos de uma instituição pública de saúde, em São Paulo (SP

The time course of lexical competition during spoken word recognition in Mandarin Chinese: an event-related potential study.

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Huang, Xianjun; Yang, Jin-Chen

2016-01-20

The present study investigated the effect of lexical competition on the time course of spoken word recognition in Mandarin Chinese using a unimodal auditory priming paradigm. Two kinds of competitive environments were designed. In one session (session 1), only the unrelated and the identical primes were presented before the target words. In the other session (session 2), besides the two conditions in session 1, the target words were also preceded by the cohort primes that have the same initial syllables as the targets. Behavioral results showed an inhibitory effect of the cohort competitors (primes) on target word recognition. The event-related potential results showed that the spoken word recognition processing in the middle and late latency windows is modulated by whether the phonologically related competitors are presented or not. Specifically, preceding activation of the competitors can induce direct competitions between multiple candidate words and lead to increased processing difficulties, primarily at the word disambiguation and selection stage during Mandarin Chinese spoken word recognition. The current study provided both behavioral and electrophysiological evidences for the lexical competition effect among the candidate words during spoken word recognition.

On the Usability of Spoken Dialogue Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Lars Bo

 This work is centred on the methods and problems associated with defining and measuring the usability of Spoken Dialogue Systems (SDS). The starting point is the fact that speech based interfaces has several times during the last 20 years fallen short of the high expectations and predictions held...... by industry, researchers and analysts. Several studies in the literature of SDS indicate that this can be ascribed to a lack of attention from the speech technology community towards the usability of such systems. The experimental results presented in this work are based on a field trial with the OVID home...

Authentic ESL Spoken Materials: Soap Opera and Sitcom versus Natural Conversation

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Surmi, Mansoor Ali

2012-01-01

TV shows, especially soap operas and sitcoms, are usually considered by ESL practitioners as a source of authentic spoken conversational materials presumably because they reflect the linguistic features of natural conversation. However, practitioners might be faced with the dilemma of how to evaluate whether such conversational materials reflect…

Learning and Consolidation of New Spoken Words in Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Henderson, Lisa; Powell, Anna; Gaskell, M. Gareth; Norbury, Courtenay

2014-01-01

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by rich heterogeneity in vocabulary knowledge and word knowledge that is not well accounted for by current cognitive theories. This study examines whether individual differences in vocabulary knowledge in ASD might be partly explained by a difficulty with consolidating newly learned spoken words…

Syllable Frequency and Spoken Word Recognition: An Inhibitory Effect.

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González-Alvarez, Julio; Palomar-García, María-Angeles

2016-08-01

Research has shown that syllables play a relevant role in lexical access in Spanish, a shallow language with a transparent syllabic structure. Syllable frequency has been shown to have an inhibitory effect on visual word recognition in Spanish. However, no study has examined the syllable frequency effect on spoken word recognition. The present study tested the effect of the frequency of the first syllable on recognition of spoken Spanish words. A sample of 45 young adults (33 women, 12 men; M = 20.4, SD = 2.8; college students) performed an auditory lexical decision on 128 Spanish disyllabic words and 128 disyllabic nonwords. Words were selected so that lexical and first syllable frequency were manipulated in a within-subject 2 × 2 design, and six additional independent variables were controlled: token positional frequency of the second syllable, number of phonemes, position of lexical stress, number of phonological neighbors, number of phonological neighbors that have higher frequencies than the word, and acoustical durations measured in milliseconds. Decision latencies and error rates were submitted to linear mixed models analysis. Results showed a typical facilitatory effect of the lexical frequency and, importantly, an inhibitory effect of the first syllable frequency on reaction times and error rates. © The Author(s) 2016.

Spoken sentence production in college students with dyslexia: working memory and vocabulary effects.

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Wiseheart, Rebecca; Altmann, Lori J P

2018-03-01

Individuals with dyslexia demonstrate syntactic difficulties on tasks of language comprehension, yet little is known about spoken language production in this population. To investigate whether spoken sentence production in college students with dyslexia is less proficient than in typical readers, and to determine whether group differences can be attributable to cognitive differences between groups. Fifty-one college students with and without dyslexia were asked to produce sentences from stimuli comprising a verb and two nouns. Verb types varied in argument structure and morphological form and nouns varied in animacy. Outcome measures were precision (measured by fluency, grammaticality and completeness) and efficiency (measured by response times). Vocabulary and working memory tests were also administered and used as predictors of sentence production performance. Relative to non-dyslexic peers, students with dyslexia responded significantly slower and produced sentences that were significantly less precise in terms of fluency, grammaticality and completeness. The primary predictors of precision and efficiency were working memory, which differed between groups, and vocabulary, which did not. College students with dyslexia were significantly less facile and flexible on this spoken sentence-production task than typical readers, which is consistent with previous studies of school-age children with dyslexia. Group differences in performance were traced primarily to limited working memory, and were somewhat mitigated by strong vocabulary. © 2017 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Development and Relationships Between Phonological Awareness, Morphological Awareness and Word Reading in Spoken and Standard Arabic

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Rachel Schiff

2018-04-01

Full Text Available This study addressed the development of and the relationship between foundational metalinguistic skills and word reading skills in Arabic. It compared Arabic-speaking children’s phonological awareness (PA, morphological awareness, and voweled and unvoweled word reading skills in spoken and standard language varieties separately in children across five grade levels from childhood to adolescence. Second, it investigated whether skills developed in the spoken variety of Arabic predict reading in the standard variety. Results indicate that although individual differences between students in PA are eliminated toward the end of elementary school in both spoken and standard language varieties, gaps in morphological awareness and in reading skills persisted through junior and high school years. The results also show that the gap in reading accuracy and fluency between Spoken Arabic (SpA and Standard Arabic (StA was evident in both voweled and unvoweled words. Finally, regression analyses showed that morphological awareness in SpA contributed to reading fluency in StA, i.e., children’s early morphological awareness in SpA explained variance in children’s gains in reading fluency in StA. These findings have important theoretical and practical contributions for Arabic reading theory in general and they extend the previous work regarding the cross-linguistic relevance of foundational metalinguistic skills in the first acquired language to reading in a second language, as in societal bilingualism contexts, or a second language variety, as in diglossic contexts.

Development and Relationships Between Phonological Awareness, Morphological Awareness and Word Reading in Spoken and Standard Arabic

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Schiff, Rachel; Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor

2018-01-01

This study addressed the development of and the relationship between foundational metalinguistic skills and word reading skills in Arabic. It compared Arabic-speaking children’s phonological awareness (PA), morphological awareness, and voweled and unvoweled word reading skills in spoken and standard language varieties separately in children across five grade levels from childhood to adolescence. Second, it investigated whether skills developed in the spoken variety of Arabic predict reading in the standard variety. Results indicate that although individual differences between students in PA are eliminated toward the end of elementary school in both spoken and standard language varieties, gaps in morphological awareness and in reading skills persisted through junior and high school years. The results also show that the gap in reading accuracy and fluency between Spoken Arabic (SpA) and Standard Arabic (StA) was evident in both voweled and unvoweled words. Finally, regression analyses showed that morphological awareness in SpA contributed to reading fluency in StA, i.e., children’s early morphological awareness in SpA explained variance in children’s gains in reading fluency in StA. These findings have important theoretical and practical contributions for Arabic reading theory in general and they extend the previous work regarding the cross-linguistic relevance of foundational metalinguistic skills in the first acquired language to reading in a second language, as in societal bilingualism contexts, or a second language variety, as in diglossic contexts. PMID:29686633

Adaptation and Assessment of a Public Speaking Rating Scale

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Iberri-Shea, Gina

2017-01-01

Prominent spoken language assessments such as the Oral Proficiency Interview and the Test of Spoken English have been primarily concerned with speaking ability as it relates to conversation. This paper looks at an additional aspect of spoken language ability, namely public speaking. This study used an adapted form of a public speaking rating scale…

China English and ELT for English Majors

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Zhang, Mingjuan

2008-01-01

This paper is a general study of one of varieties of English--China English and its influence on English Language Teaching (ELT) for English majors. The status of English as an International language breaks the situation in which British English or American English is the sole standard. English becomes World Englishes, taking on a plural form,…

Corrective Feedback, Spoken Accuracy and Fluency, and the Trade-Off Hypothesis

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Chehr Azad, Mohammad Hassan; Farrokhi, Farahman; Zohrabi, Mohammad

2018-01-01

The current study was an attempt to investigate the effects of different corrective feedback (CF) conditions on Iranian EFL learners' spoken accuracy and fluency (AF) and the trade-off between them. Consequently, four pre-intermediate intact classes were randomly selected as the control, delayed explicit metalinguistic CF, extensive recast, and…

Monitoring the Performance of Human and Automated Scores for Spoken Responses

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Wang, Zhen; Zechner, Klaus; Sun, Yu

2018-01-01

As automated scoring systems for spoken responses are increasingly used in language assessments, testing organizations need to analyze their performance, as compared to human raters, across several dimensions, for example, on individual items or based on subgroups of test takers. In addition, there is a need in testing organizations to establish…

Using the TED Talks to Evaluate Spoken Post-editing of Machine Translation

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Liyanapathirana, Jeevanthi; Popescu-Belis, Andrei

2016-01-01

This paper presents a solution to evaluate spoken post-editing of imperfect machine translation output by a human translator. We compare two approaches to the combination of machine translation (MT) and automatic speech recognition (ASR): a heuristic algorithm and a machine learning method...

The Slow Developmental Time Course of Real-Time Spoken Word Recognition

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Rigler, Hannah; Farris-Trimble, Ashley; Greiner, Lea; Walker, Jessica; Tomblin, J. Bruce; McMurray, Bob

2015-01-01

This study investigated the developmental time course of spoken word recognition in older children using eye tracking to assess how the real-time processing dynamics of word recognition change over development. We found that 9-year-olds were slower to activate the target words and showed more early competition from competitor words than…

Alpha and theta brain oscillations index dissociable processes in spoken word recognition.

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Strauß, Antje; Kotz, Sonja A; Scharinger, Mathias; Obleser, Jonas

2014-08-15

Slow neural oscillations (~1-15 Hz) are thought to orchestrate the neural processes of spoken language comprehension. However, functional subdivisions within this broad range of frequencies are disputed, with most studies hypothesizing only about single frequency bands. The present study utilizes an established paradigm of spoken word recognition (lexical decision) to test the hypothesis that within the slow neural oscillatory frequency range, distinct functional signatures and cortical networks can be identified at least for theta- (~3-7 Hz) and alpha-frequencies (~8-12 Hz). Listeners performed an auditory lexical decision task on a set of items that formed a word-pseudoword continuum: ranging from (1) real words over (2) ambiguous pseudowords (deviating from real words only in one vowel; comparable to natural mispronunciations in speech) to (3) pseudowords (clearly deviating from real words by randomized syllables). By means of time-frequency analysis and spatial filtering, we observed a dissociation into distinct but simultaneous patterns of alpha power suppression and theta power enhancement. Alpha exhibited a parametric suppression as items increasingly matched real words, in line with lowered functional inhibition in a left-dominant lexical processing network for more word-like input. Simultaneously, theta power in a bilateral fronto-temporal network was selectively enhanced for ambiguous pseudowords only. Thus, enhanced alpha power can neurally 'gate' lexical integration, while enhanced theta power might index functionally more specific ambiguity-resolution processes. To this end, a joint analysis of both frequency bands provides neural evidence for parallel processes in achieving spoken word recognition. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

I Feel You: The Design and Evaluation of a Domotic Affect-Sensitive Spoken Conversational Agent

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Juan Manuel Montero

2013-08-01

Full Text Available We describe the work on infusion of emotion into a limited-task autonomous spoken conversational agent situated in the domestic environment, using a need-inspired task-independent emotion model (NEMO. In order to demonstrate the generation of affect through the use of the model, we describe the work of integrating it with a natural-language mixed-initiative HiFi-control spoken conversational agent (SCA. NEMO and the host system communicate externally, removing the need for the Dialog Manager to be modified, as is done in most existing dialog systems, in order to be adaptive. The first part of the paper concerns the integration between NEMO and the host agent. The second part summarizes the work on automatic affect prediction, namely, frustration and contentment, from dialog features, a non-conventional source, in the attempt of moving towards a more user-centric approach. The final part reports the evaluation results obtained from a user study, in which both versions of the agent (non-adaptive and emotionally-adaptive were compared. The results provide substantial evidences with respect to the benefits of adding emotion in a spoken conversational agent, especially in mitigating users’ frustrations and, ultimately, improving their satisfaction.

Evaluating spoken dialogue systems according to de-facto standards: A case study

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Möller, S.; Smeele, P.; Boland, H.; Krebber, J.

2007-01-01

In the present paper, we investigate the validity and reliability of de-facto evaluation standards, defined for measuring or predicting the quality of the interaction with spoken dialogue systems. Two experiments have been carried out with a dialogue system for controlling domestic devices. During

A Spoken English Recognition Expert System.

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1983-09-01

34Speech Recognition by Computer," Scientific American. New York: Scientific American, April 1981: 64-76. 16. Marcus, Mitchell P. A Theo of Syntactic...prob)...) Pcssible words for voice decoder to choose from are: gents dishes issues itches ewes folks foes comunications units eunichs error * farce

Role of Working Memory in Children's Understanding Spoken Narrative: A Preliminary Investigation

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Montgomery, James W.; Polunenko, Anzhela; Marinellie, Sally A.

2009-01-01

The role of phonological short-term memory (PSTM), attentional resource capacity/allocation, and processing speed on children's spoken narrative comprehension was investigated. Sixty-seven children (6-11 years) completed a digit span task (PSTM), concurrent verbal processing and storage (CPS) task (resource capacity/allocation), auditory-visual…

A dual contribution to the involuntary semantic processing of unexpected spoken words.

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Parmentier, Fabrice B R; Turner, Jacqueline; Perez, Laura

2014-02-01

Sounds are a major cause of distraction. Unexpected to-be-ignored auditory stimuli presented in the context of an otherwise repetitive acoustic background ineluctably break through selective attention and distract people from an unrelated visual task (deviance distraction). This involuntary capture of attention by deviant sounds has been hypothesized to trigger their semantic appraisal and, in some circumstances, interfere with ongoing performance, but it remains unclear how such processing compares with the automatic processing of distractors in classic interference tasks (e.g., Stroop, flanker, Simon tasks). Using a cross-modal oddball task, we assessed the involuntary semantic processing of deviant sounds in the presence and absence of deviance distraction. The results revealed that some involuntary semantic analysis of spoken distractors occurs in the absence of deviance distraction but that this processing is significantly greater in its presence. We conclude that the automatic processing of spoken distractors reflects 2 contributions, one that is contingent upon deviance distraction and one that is independent from it.

Intervention for bilingual speech sound disorders: A case study of an isiXhosa-English-speaking child.

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Rossouw, Kate; Pascoe, Michelle

2018-03-19

 Bilingualism is common in South Africa, with many children acquiring isiXhosa as a home language and learning English from a young age in nursery or crèche. IsiXhosa is a local language, part of the Bantu language family, widely spoken in the country. Aims: To describe changes in a bilingual child's speech following intervention based on a theoretically motivated and tailored intervention plan. Methods and procedures: This study describes a female isiXhosa-English bilingual child, named Gcobisa (pseudonym) (chronological age 4 years and 2 months) with a speech sound disorder. Gcobisa's speech was assessed and her difficulties categorised according to Dodd's (2005) diagnostic framework. From this, intervention was planned and the language of intervention was selected. Following intervention, Gcobisa's speech was reassessed. Outcomes and results: Gcobisa's speech was categorised as a consistent phonological delay as she presented with gliding of/l/in both English and isiXhosa, cluster reduction in English and several other age appropriate phonological processes. She was provided with 16 sessions of intervention using a minimal pairs approach, targeting the phonological process of gliding of/l/, which was not considered age appropriate for Gcobisa in isiXhosa when compared to the small set of normative data regarding monolingual isiXhosa development. As a result, the targets and stimuli were in isiXhosa while the main language of instruction was English. This reflects the language mismatch often faced by speech language therapists in South Africa. Gcobisa showed evidence of generalising the target phoneme to English words. Conclusions and implications: The data have theoretical implications regarding bilingual development of isiXhosa-English, as it highlights the ways bilingual development may differ from the monolingual development of this language pair. It adds to the small set of intervention studies investigating the changes in the speech of bilingual

Intervention for bilingual speech sound disorders: A case study of an isiXhosa–English-speaking child

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Kate Rossouw

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Background: Bilingualism is common in South Africa, with many children acquiring isiXhosa as a home language and learning English from a young age in nursery or crèche. IsiXhosa is a local language, part of the Bantu language family, widely spoken in the country.   Aims: To describe changes in a bilingual child’s speech following intervention based on a theoretically motivated and tailored intervention plan.   Methods and procedures: This study describes a female isiXhosa–English bilingual child, named Gcobisa (pseudonym (chronological age 4 years and 2 months with a speech sound disorder. Gcobisa’s speech was assessed and her difficulties categorised according to Dodd’s (2005 diagnostic framework. From this, intervention was planned and the language of intervention was selected. Following intervention, Gcobisa’s speech was reassessed.   Outcomes and results: Gcobisa’s speech was categorised as a consistent phonological delay as she presented with gliding of/l/in both English and isiXhosa, cluster reduction in English and several other age appropriate phonological processes. She was provided with 16 sessions of intervention using a minimal pairs approach, targeting the phonological process of gliding of/l/, which was not considered age appropriate for Gcobisa in isiXhosa when compared to the small set of normative data regarding monolingual isiXhosa development. As a result, the targets and stimuli were in isiXhosa while the main language of instruction was English. This reflects the language mismatch often faced by speech language therapists in South Africa. Gcobisa showed evidence of generalising the target phoneme to English words.   Conclusions and implications: The data have theoretical implications regarding bilingual development of isiXhosa–English, as it highlights the ways bilingual development may differ from the monolingual development of this language pair. It adds to the small set of intervention studies

Attitudinal Dispositions of Students toward the English Language: Sociolinguistic and Sociocultural Considerations

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Ersoy Erdemir

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Problem Statement: The status, value, and importance of a language is often measured by the attitudes toward that language. Learning a second or foreign language and attaining proficiency in it is closely related to the attitudes of learners toward the language. A few studies have investigated language attitudes of Turkish students toward the English language in Turkey. However, the same issue has not been explored among Turkish students learning and using the English language in a country where English is spoken as the first language.Purpose: This exploratory study investigated the attitudes of Turkish students toward learning and using English language as they lived and pursued their university degrees in a northeastern city in the United States. The study examined students’ attitudinal dispositions toward English based on sociolinguistic and sociocultural considerations.Methods: The study included 8 student participants (4 male and 4 female who were born in Turkey and spoke Turkish as their native language. They were all enrolled in a state university studying different programs in Engineering Sciences and Social Sciences. Data were collected conducting in-depth interviews with students over a two-month period. Participants were interviewed twice individually, and 16 interviews were conducted in total. Each interview took 50 to 60 minutes and was transcribed by the researcher. Data analysis included (1 intensive (rereadings of interview transcripts and identifying attitudinal themes and patterns in the data through emergent coding; and (2 making qualitative connections among themes and patterns through identifying their consistency by applying axial coding. Coded dataset was then descriptively interpreted in its entirety.Findings: Participants displayed mostly positive dispositions toward learning and using the English language; however, their attitudinal patterns varied with regards to sociolinguistic and sociocultural considerations

The role of planum temporale in processing accent variation in spoken language comprehension.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Adank, P.M.; Noordzij, M.L.; Hagoort, P.

2012-01-01

A repetitionsuppression functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm was used to explore the neuroanatomical substrates of processing two types of acoustic variationspeaker and accentduring spoken sentence comprehension. Recordings were made for two speakers and two accents: Standard Dutch and a

Subtlety of Ambient-Language Effects in Babbling: A Study of English- and Chinese-Learning Infants at 8, 10, and 12 Months

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Lee, Chia-Cheng; Jhang, Yuna; Chen, Li-mei; Relyea, George; Oller, D. Kimbrough

2016-01-01

Prior research on ambient-language effects in babbling has often suggested infants produce language-specific phonological features within the first year. These results have been questioned in research failing to find such effects and challenging the positive findings on methodological grounds. We studied English- and Chinese-learning infants at 8, 10, and 12 months and found listeners could not detect ambient-language effects in the vast majority of infant utterances, but only in items deemed to be words or to contain canonical syllables that may have made them sound like words with language-specific shapes. Thus, the present research suggests the earliest ambient-language effects may be found in emerging lexical items or in utterances influenced by language-specific features of lexical items. Even the ambient-language effects for infant canonical syllables and words were very small compared with ambient-language effects for meaningless but phonotactically well-formed syllable sequences spoken by adult native speakers of English and Chinese. PMID:28496393

Phonotactics Constraints and the Spoken Word Recognition of Chinese Words in Speech

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Yip, Michael C.

2016-01-01

Two word-spotting experiments were conducted to examine the question of whether native Cantonese listeners are constrained by phonotactics information in spoken word recognition of Chinese words in speech. Because no legal consonant clusters occurred within an individual Chinese word, this kind of categorical phonotactics information of Chinese…

United States Changing Demographics - English/Spanish Space Education

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Leon, R.

2002-01-01

Accordingly the United States Census Bureau, the ethnic group adding the largest number of people to the national population is the Hispanic exceeding 12 percent of the population and growing by almost 60 percent between 1990 and 2000. The status of the nation's educational system with respect to Hispanic students is perhaps one of the most influential issues facing the largest economy of the world. The low income, lack of language skills, highest drop-out rate in the nation, are some of the reasons why Hispanics are less likely to receive a university degree than any other ethical group. In short, the government requires to implement compensatory programs and bilingual education to ensure global leadership. Because of ongoing immigration, Spanish persists longer among Hispanics than it did among other immigrant groups. Spanish is the fourth most spoken language in the world after Mandarin, Hindustani and English. Although not all U.S. Hispanics speak Spanish, almost all U.S. Spanish speakers are Hispanics. This paper is intended to outline the challenging implementation of a bilingual education project affiliated to NASA Johnson Space Center encouraging greater academic success of Hispanics in engineering, math and science. The prospective project covers the overall role of space activities in the development of science and technology, socioeconomic issues and international cooperation. An existent JSC project is the starting stage to keep on developing an interactive video teleconference and web-media technology and produce stimulating learning products in English and Spanish for students and teachers across the nation and around the world.

The role of planum temporale in processing accent variation in spoken language comprehension

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Adank, P.M.; Noordzij, M.L.; Hagoort, P.

2012-01-01

A repetition–suppression functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm was used to explore the neuroanatomical substrates of processing two types of acoustic variation—speaker and accent—during spoken sentence comprehension. Recordings were made for two speakers and two accents: Standard Dutch and

Conducting spoken word recognition research online: Validation and a new timing method.

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Slote, Joseph; Strand, Julia F

2016-06-01

Models of spoken word recognition typically make predictions that are then tested in the laboratory against the word recognition scores of human subjects (e.g., Luce & Pisoni Ear and Hearing, 19, 1-36, 1998). Unfortunately, laboratory collection of large sets of word recognition data can be costly and time-consuming. Due to the numerous advantages of online research in speed, cost, and participant diversity, some labs have begun to explore the use of online platforms such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk (AMT) to source participation and collect data (Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 3-5, 2011). Many classic findings in cognitive psychology have been successfully replicated online, including the Stroop effect, task-switching costs, and Simon and flanker interference (Crump, McDonnell, & Gureckis PLoS ONE, 8, e57410, 2013). However, tasks requiring auditory stimulus delivery have not typically made use of AMT. In the present study, we evaluated the use of AMT for collecting spoken word identification and auditory lexical decision data. Although online users were faster and less accurate than participants in the lab, the results revealed strong correlations between the online and laboratory measures for both word identification accuracy and lexical decision speed. In addition, the scores obtained in the lab and online were equivalently correlated with factors that have been well established to predict word recognition, including word frequency and phonological neighborhood density. We also present and analyze a method for precise auditory reaction timing that is novel to behavioral research. Taken together, these findings suggest that AMT can be a viable alternative to the traditional laboratory setting as a source of participation for some spoken word recognition research.

Does Discourse Congruence Influence Spoken Language Comprehension before Lexical Association? Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

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Boudewyn, Megan A.; Gordon, Peter C.; Long, Debra; Polse, Lara; Swaab, Tamara Y.

2011-01-01

The goal of this study was to examine how lexical association and discourse congruence affect the time course of processing incoming words in spoken discourse. In an ERP norming study, we presented prime-target pairs in the absence of a sentence context to obtain a baseline measure of lexical priming. We observed a typical N400 effect when participants heard critical associated and unassociated target words in word pairs. In a subsequent experiment, we presented the same word pairs in spoken discourse contexts. Target words were always consistent with the local sentence context, but were congruent or not with the global discourse (e.g., “Luckily Ben had picked up some salt and pepper/basil”, preceded by a context in which Ben was preparing marinara sauce (congruent) or dealing with an icy walkway (incongruent). ERP effects of global discourse congruence preceded those of local lexical association, suggesting an early influence of the global discourse representation on lexical processing, even in locally congruent contexts. Furthermore, effects of lexical association occurred earlier in the congruent than incongruent condition. These results differ from those that have been obtained in studies of reading, suggesting that the effects may be unique to spoken word recognition. PMID:23002319

From spoken narratives to domain knowledge: mining linguistic data for medical image understanding.

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Guo, Xuan; Yu, Qi; Alm, Cecilia Ovesdotter; Calvelli, Cara; Pelz, Jeff B; Shi, Pengcheng; Haake, Anne R

2014-10-01

Extracting useful visual clues from medical images allowing accurate diagnoses requires physicians' domain knowledge acquired through years of systematic study and clinical training. This is especially true in the dermatology domain, a medical specialty that requires physicians to have image inspection experience. Automating or at least aiding such efforts requires understanding physicians' reasoning processes and their use of domain knowledge. Mining physicians' references to medical concepts in narratives during image-based diagnosis of a disease is an interesting research topic that can help reveal experts' reasoning processes. It can also be a useful resource to assist with design of information technologies for image use and for image case-based medical education systems. We collected data for analyzing physicians' diagnostic reasoning processes by conducting an experiment that recorded their spoken descriptions during inspection of dermatology images. In this paper we focus on the benefit of physicians' spoken descriptions and provide a general workflow for mining medical domain knowledge based on linguistic data from these narratives. The challenge of a medical image case can influence the accuracy of the diagnosis as well as how physicians pursue the diagnostic process. Accordingly, we define two lexical metrics for physicians' narratives--lexical consensus score and top N relatedness score--and evaluate their usefulness by assessing the diagnostic challenge levels of corresponding medical images. We also report on clustering medical images based on anchor concepts obtained from physicians' medical term usage. These analyses are based on physicians' spoken narratives that have been preprocessed by incorporating the Unified Medical Language System for detecting medical concepts. The image rankings based on lexical consensus score and on top 1 relatedness score are well correlated with those based on challenge levels (Spearman correlation>0.5 and Kendall

A Spoken-Language Intervention for School-Aged Boys with Fragile X Syndrome

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McDuffie, Andrea; Machalicek, Wendy; Bullard, Lauren; Nelson, Sarah; Mello, Melissa; Tempero-Feigles, Robyn; Castignetti, Nancy; Abbeduto, Leonard

2016-01-01

Using a single case design, a parent-mediated spoken-language intervention was delivered to three mothers and their school-aged sons with fragile X syndrome, the leading inherited cause of intellectual disability. The intervention was embedded in the context of shared storytelling using wordless picture books and targeted three empirically derived…

Modulating the Focus of Attention for Spoken Words at Encoding Affects Frontoparietal Activation for Incidental Verbal Memory

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Thomas A. Christensen

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Attention is crucial for encoding information into memory, and current dual-process models seek to explain the roles of attention in both recollection memory and incidental-perceptual memory processes. The present study combined an incidental memory paradigm with event-related functional MRI to examine the effect of attention at encoding on the subsequent neural activation associated with unintended perceptual memory for spoken words. At encoding, we systematically varied attention levels as listeners heard a list of single English nouns. We then presented these words again in the context of a recognition task and assessed the effect of modulating attention at encoding on the BOLD responses to words that were either attended strongly, weakly, or not heard previously. MRI revealed activity in right-lateralized inferior parietal and prefrontal regions, and positive BOLD signals varied with the relative level of attention present at encoding. Temporal analysis of hemodynamic responses further showed that the time course of BOLD activity was modulated differentially by unintentionally encoded words compared to novel items. Our findings largely support current models of memory consolidation and retrieval, but they also provide fresh evidence for hemispheric differences and functional subdivisions in right frontoparietal attention networks that help shape auditory episodic recall.

Modulating the focus of attention for spoken words at encoding affects frontoparietal activation for incidental verbal memory.

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Christensen, Thomas A; Almryde, Kyle R; Fidler, Lesley J; Lockwood, Julie L; Antonucci, Sharon M; Plante, Elena

2012-01-01

Attention is crucial for encoding information into memory, and current dual-process models seek to explain the roles of attention in both recollection memory and incidental-perceptual memory processes. The present study combined an incidental memory paradigm with event-related functional MRI to examine the effect of attention at encoding on the subsequent neural activation associated with unintended perceptual memory for spoken words. At encoding, we systematically varied attention levels as listeners heard a list of single English nouns. We then presented these words again in the context of a recognition task and assessed the effect of modulating attention at encoding on the BOLD responses to words that were either attended strongly, weakly, or not heard previously. MRI revealed activity in right-lateralized inferior parietal and prefrontal regions, and positive BOLD signals varied with the relative level of attention present at encoding. Temporal analysis of hemodynamic responses further showed that the time course of BOLD activity was modulated differentially by unintentionally encoded words compared to novel items. Our findings largely support current models of memory consolidation and retrieval, but they also provide fresh evidence for hemispheric differences and functional subdivisions in right frontoparietal attention networks that help shape auditory episodic recall.

The Effects of Listener's Familiarity about a Talker on the Free Recall Task of Spoken Words

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Chikako Oda

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Several recent studies have examined an interaction between talker's acoustic characteristics and spoken word recognition in speech perception and have shown that listener's familiarity about a talker influences an easiness of spoken word processing. The present study examined the effect of listener's familiarity about talkers on the free recall task of words spoken by two talkers. Subjects participated in three conditions of the task: the listener has (1 explicit knowledge, (2 implicit knowledge, and (3 no knowledge of the talker. In condition (1, subjects were familiar with talker's voices and were initially informed whose voices they would hear. In condition (2, subjects were familiar with talkers' voices but were not informed whose voices they would hear. In condition (3, subjects were entirely unfamiliar with talker's voices and were not informed whose voices they would hear. We analyzed the percentage of correct answers and compared these results across three conditions. We will discuss the possibility of whether a listener's knowledge about the individual talker's acoustic characteristics stored in long term memory could reduce the quantity of the cognitive resources required in the verbal information processing.

Statistical tools for analysis and modeling of cosmic populations and astronomical time series: CUDAHM and TSE

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Loredo, Thomas; Budavari, Tamas; Scargle, Jeffrey D.

2018-01-01

This presentation provides an overview of open-source software packages addressing two challenging classes of astrostatistics problems. (1) CUDAHM is a C++ framework for hierarchical Bayesian modeling of cosmic populations, leveraging graphics processing units (GPUs) to enable applying this computationally challenging paradigm to large datasets. CUDAHM is motivated by measurement error problems in astronomy, where density estimation and linear and nonlinear regression must be addressed for populations of thousands to millions of objects whose features are measured with possibly complex uncertainties, potentially including selection effects. An example calculation demonstrates accurate GPU-accelerated luminosity function estimation for simulated populations of $10^6$ objects in about two hours using a single NVIDIA Tesla K40c GPU. (2) Time Series Explorer (TSE) is a collection of software in Python and MATLAB for exploratory analysis and statistical modeling of astronomical time series. It comprises a library of stand-alone functions and classes, as well as an application environment for interactive exploration of times series data. The presentation will summarize key capabilities of this emerging project, including new algorithms for analysis of irregularly-sampled time series.

An fMRI study of concreteness effects during spoken word recognition in aging. Preservation or attenuation?

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Tracy eRoxbury

2016-01-01

Full Text Available It is unclear whether healthy aging influences concreteness effects (ie. the processing advantage seen for concrete over abstract words and its associated neural mechanisms. We conducted an fMRI study on young and older healthy adults performing auditory lexical decisions on concrete versus abstract words. We found that spoken comprehension of concrete and abstract words appears relatively preserved for healthy older individuals, including the concreteness effect. This preserved performance was supported by altered activity in left hemisphere regions including the inferior and middle frontal gyri, angular gyrus, and fusiform gyrus. This pattern is consistent with age-related compensatory mechanisms supporting spoken word processing.

A real-time spoken-language system for interactive problem-solving, combining linguistic and statistical technology for improved spoken language understanding

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, Robert C.; Cohen, Michael H.

1993-09-01

Under this effort, SRI has developed spoken-language technology for interactive problem solving, featuring real-time performance for up to several thousand word vocabularies, high semantic accuracy, habitability within the domain, and robustness to many sources of variability. Although the technology is suitable for many applications, efforts to date have focused on developing an Air Travel Information System (ATIS) prototype application. SRI's ATIS system has been evaluated in four ARPA benchmark evaluations, and has consistently been at or near the top in performance. These achievements are the result of SRI's technical progress in speech recognition, natural-language processing, and speech and natural-language integration.

Indian English Evolution and Focusing Visible Through Power Laws

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Vineeta Chand

2017-11-01

Full Text Available New dialect emergence and focusing in language contact settings is difficult to capture and date in terms of global structural dialect stabilization. This paper explores whether diachronic power law frequency distributions can provide evidence of dialect evolution and new dialect focusing, by considering the quantitative frequency characteristics of three diachronic Indian English (IE corpora (1970s–2008. The results demonstrate that IE consistently follows power law frequency distributions and the corpora are each best fit by Mandelbrot’s Law. Diachronic changes in the constants are interpreted as evidence of lexical and syntactic collocational focusing within the process of new dialect formation. Evidence of new dialect focusing is also visible through apparent time comparison of spoken and written data. Age and gender-separated sub-corpora of the most recent corpus show minimal deviation, providing apparent time evidence for emerging IE dialect stability. From these findings, we extend the interpretation of diachronic changes in the β coefficient—as indicative of changes in the degree of synthetic/analytic structure—so that β is also sensitive to grammaticalization and changes in collocational patterns.

Guide to Spoken-Word Recordings: Popular Literature. Reference Circular No. 95-01.

Science.gov (United States)

Library of Congress, Washington, DC. National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.

This reference circular contains selected sources for the purchase, rental, or loan of fiction and nonfiction spoken-word recordings. The sources in sections 1, 2, and 3 are commercial and, unless otherwise noted, offer abridged and unabridged titles on audio cassette. Sources in section 1 make available popular fiction; classics; poetry; drama;…

Pointing and Reference in Sign Language and Spoken Language: Anchoring vs. Identifying

Science.gov (United States)

Barberà, Gemma; Zwets, Martine

2013-01-01

In both signed and spoken languages, pointing serves to direct an addressee's attention to a particular entity. This entity may be either present or absent in the physical context of the conversation. In this article we focus on pointing directed to nonspeaker/nonaddressee referents in Sign Language of the Netherlands (Nederlandse Gebarentaal,…

Interference Effects on the Recall of Pictures, Printed Words, and Spoken Words.

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Burton, John K.; Bruning, Roger H.

1982-01-01

Nouns were presented in triads as pictures, printed words, or spoken words and followed by various types of interference. Measures of short- and long-term memory were obtained. In short-term memory, pictorial superiority occurred with acoustic, and visual and acoustic, but not visual interference. Long-term memory showed superior recall for…

Initial fieldwork for LWAZI: a telephone-based spoken dialog system for rural South Africa

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Gumede, T

2009-03-01

Full Text Available government information and services. Our interviews, focus group discussions and surveys revealed that Lwazi, a telephone-based spoken dialog system, could greatly support current South African government efforts to effectively connect citizens to available...

Phonological skills as predictor of reading success: An investigation of emergent bilingual Northern Sotho/English learners

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Wilsenach, Carien

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The relationship between phonological skills and reading has not been studied extensively in the African languages spoken in South Africa. This study focuses on phonological skills and reading in emergent bilingual Northern Sotho/English learners. Fifty Grade 3 learners (all native speakers of Northern Sotho were tested on non-word repetition skills, syllable awareness, phonological working memory and reading. The learners fell into two groups: group 1 attended a school where English was the medium of instruction from the first grade, while group 2 attended a school where literacy instruction took place in Northern Sotho for the first three years of schooling. The results indicate that there is a significant correlation between phonological skills and reading in Northern Sotho. Furthermore, group 2 performed significantly better on all of the phonological measures (with the exception of phonological working memory and reading measures. The findings suggest that a complete lack of mother tongue instruction can influence phonological and literacy development negatively. The study also suggests that the absence of mother tongue literacy instruction causes stagnation in the development of phonological processing skills in the mother tongue.

THE RECOGNITION OF SPOKEN MONO-MORPHEMIC COMPOUNDS IN CHINESE

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Yu-da Lai

2012-12-01

Full Text Available This paper explores the auditory lexical access of mono-morphemic compounds in Chinese as a way of understanding the role of orthography in the recognition of spoken words. In traditional Chinese linguistics, a compound is a word written with two or more characters whether or not they are morphemic. A monomorphemic compound may either be a binding word, written with characters that only appear in this one word, or a non-binding word, written with characters that are chosen for their pronunciation but that also appear in other words. Our goal was to determine if this purely orthographic difference affects auditory lexical access by conducting a series of four experiments with materials matched by whole-word frequency, syllable frequency, cross-syllable predictability, cohort size, and acoustic duration, but differing in binding. An auditory lexical decision task (LDT found an orthographic effect: binding words were recognized more quickly than non-binding words. However, this effect disappeared in an auditory repetition and in a visual LDT with the same materials, implying that the orthographic effect during auditory lexical access was localized to the decision component and involved the influence of cross-character predictability without the activation of orthographic representations. This claim was further confirmed by overall faster recognition of spoken binding words in a cross-modal LDT with different types of visual interference. The theoretical and practical consequences of these findings are discussed.

PRAGMATIC AND RHETORICAL STRATEGIES IN THE ENGLISH-WRITTEN JOKES

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Dyah Rochmawati

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Understanding verbal jokes in English is problematic for English as Foreign Language (EFL readers since understanding the jokes requires understanding their linguistic, cultural and social elements. Since a joke constitutes a complex and paradoxical phenomenon, it needs multiple approaches of analyses—such as pragmatic and rhetorical analyses—in order to investigate the multiple layers of meanings it carries. Recently there has been a shift in humor studies, emphasizing linguistic humors and involving the field of rhetoric. These studies, however, have mostly addressed the connection between rhetoric and spoken jokes in persuasion. The present study therefore applied Austin’s Speech Act Theory (1975 and Grice’s Cooperative Principles (1957, and Berger’s rhetorical techniques (1993 to crack the funniness of the written jokes. Specifically, the study aims at describing: how the (1 rhetorical and (2 pragmatic strategies are used in the jokes, and (3 how the pragmatic and rhetorical strategies complement to create humor. The study employed a qualitative research method. Some jokes were purposively selected from the Reader’s Digest and two online sources: http://jokes.cc.com/, and http://www.ajokeaday.com/. Document studies were the means of data collection. The collected data were then analyzed using a qualitative content analysis. The results showed that that there was a relationship between the two pragmatic theories, i.e., Speech Act Theory and Cooperative Principles, and Berger’s rhetorical techniques. The results offered an alternative reading and richer understanding of how written jokes employed pragmatic and rhetorical strategies to advance their rhetorical objectives and humor functions.

Interface for Barge-in Free Spoken Dialogue System Based on Sound Field Reproduction and Microphone Array

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Hinamoto Yoichi

2007-01-01

Full Text Available A barge-in free spoken dialogue interface using sound field control and microphone array is proposed. In the conventional spoken dialogue system using an acoustic echo canceller, it is indispensable to estimate a room transfer function, especially when the transfer function is changed by various interferences. However, the estimation is difficult when the user and the system speak simultaneously. To resolve the problem, we propose a sound field control technique to prevent the response sound from being observed. Combined with a microphone array, the proposed method can achieve high elimination performance with no adaptive process. The efficacy of the proposed interface is ascertained in the experiments on the basis of sound elimination and speech recognition.

Spoken Word Recognition in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Specific Language Impairment

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Loucas, Tom; Riches, Nick; Baird, Gillian; Pickles, Andrew; Simonoff, Emily; Chandler, Susie; Charman, Tony

2013-01-01

Spoken word recognition, during gating, appears intact in specific language impairment (SLI). This study used gating to investigate the process in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders plus language impairment (ALI). Adolescents with ALI, SLI, and typical language development (TLD), matched on nonverbal IQ listened to gated words that varied…

Children's Verbal Working Memory: Role of Processing Complexity in Predicting Spoken Sentence Comprehension

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Magimairaj, Beula M.; Montgomery, James W.

2012-01-01

Purpose: This study investigated the role of processing complexity of verbal working memory tasks in predicting spoken sentence comprehension in typically developing children. Of interest was whether simple and more complex working memory tasks have similar or different power in predicting sentence comprehension. Method: Sixty-five children (6- to…

Healthcare Communication Barriers and Self-Rated Health in Older Chinese American Immigrants.

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Tsoh, Janice Y; Sentell, Tetine; Gildengorin, Ginny; Le, Gem M; Chan, Elaine; Fung, Lei-Chun; Pasick, Rena J; Stewart, Susan; Wong, Ching; Woo, Kent; Burke, Adam; Wang, Jun; McPhee, Stephen J; Nguyen, Tung T

2016-08-01

Older Chinese immigrants are a growing population in the United States who experience multiple healthcare communication barriers such as limited English proficiency and low health literacy. Each of these obstacles has been associated with poor health outcomes but less is known about their effects in combination. This study examined the association between healthcare communication barriers and self-rated health among older Chinese immigrants. Cross-sectional survey data were obtained from 705 Chinese American immigrants ages 50-75 living in San Francisco, California. Communication barriers examined included spoken English proficiency, medical interpreter needs, and health literacy in written health information. The study sample (81 % females, mean age = 62) included 67 % who spoke English poorly or not at all, 34 % who reported needing a medical interpreter, and 37 % who reported "often" or "always" needing assistance to read health information. Two-thirds reported poor self-rated health; many reported having access to racial-concordant (74 %) and language-concordant (86 %) healthcare services. Both poor spoken English proficiency and low health literacy were associated with poor self-rated health, independent of other significant correlates (unemployment, chronic health conditions, and having a primary doctor who was ethnic Chinese). Results revealed that spoken English proficiency and print health literacy are independent communication barriers that are directly associated with health status among elderly Chinese American immigrants. Access to racial- or language-concordant health care services did not appear to resolve these barriers. These findings underscore the importance of addressing both spoken and written healthcare communication needs among older Chinese American immigrants.

Teaching and learning English through digital game projects

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Jonathan deHaan

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Digital games are receiving increasing attention by researchers and practitioners in education; however, most of the theory and pedagogy focus on general education or language and literacy development of native speakers. There are very few investigations of game play or game culture and second language development. Language teachers and institutions must know more about games to use the media effectively. Two completed extracurricular projects, based on constructionist learning and media literacy theories and practices, are described in this paper: game design and game magazine creation. The action research projects aimed to guide students towards a better understanding of games’ formal features and technologies through their active creation of games and game-related media, and to improve their spoken and written English language skills. In general, students learned and practised a variety of language and technology skills with the design projects. The projects motivated the students, challenged the students, and provided many opportunities for authentic discussions in the foreign language. Various suggestions, based on the teacher and student experiences of these projects, are made for other language teachers interested in conducting creative game-based projects with their students.

Criteria for the segmentation of spoken input into individual utterances

OpenAIRE

Mast, Marion; Maier, Elisabeth; Schmitz, Birte

1995-01-01

This report describes how spoken language turns are segmented into utterances in the framework of the verbmobil project. The problem of segmenting turns is directly related to the task of annotating a discourse with dialogue act information: an utterance can be characterized as a stretch of dialogue that is attributed one dialogue act. Unfortunately, this rule in many cases is insufficient and many doubtful cases remain. We tried to at least reduce the number of unclear cases by providing a n...

Spoken Language Understanding Systems for Extracting Semantic Information from Speech

CERN Document Server

Tur, Gokhan

2011-01-01

Spoken language understanding (SLU) is an emerging field in between speech and language processing, investigating human/ machine and human/ human communication by leveraging technologies from signal processing, pattern recognition, machine learning and artificial intelligence. SLU systems are designed to extract the meaning from speech utterances and its applications are vast, from voice search in mobile devices to meeting summarization, attracting interest from both commercial and academic sectors. Both human/machine and human/human communications can benefit from the application of SLU, usin

Development of lexical-semantic language system: N400 priming effect for spoken words in 18- and 24-month old children.

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Rämä, Pia; Sirri, Louah; Serres, Josette

2013-04-01

Our aim was to investigate whether developing language system, as measured by a priming task for spoken words, is organized by semantic categories. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a priming task for spoken words in 18- and 24-month-old monolingual French learning children. Spoken word pairs were either semantically related (e.g., train-bike) or unrelated (e.g., chicken-bike). The results showed that the N400-like priming effect occurred in 24-month-olds over the right parietal-occipital recording sites. In 18-month-olds the effect was observed similarly to 24-month-olds only in those children with higher word production ability. The results suggest that words are categorically organized in the mental lexicon of children at the age of 2 years and even earlier in children with a high vocabulary. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Acinetobacter phage genome is similar to Sphinx 2.36, the circular DNA copurified with TSE infected particles.

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Longkumer, Toshisangba; Kamireddy, Swetha; Muthyala, Venkateswar Reddy; Akbarpasha, Shaikh; Pitchika, Gopi Krishna; Kodetham, Gopinath; Ayaluru, Murali; Siddavattam, Dayananda

2013-01-01

While analyzing plasmids of Acinetobacter sp. DS002 we have detected a circular DNA molecule pTS236, which upon further investigation is identified as the genome of a phage. The phage genome has shown sequence similarity to the recently discovered Sphinx 2.36 DNA sequence co-purified with the Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) particles isolated from infected brain samples collected from diverse geographical regions. As in Sphinx 2.36, the phage genome also codes for three proteins. One of them codes for RepA and is shown to be involved in replication of pTS236 through rolling circle (RC) mode. The other two translationally coupled ORFs, orf106 and orf96, code for coat proteins of the phage. Although an orf96 homologue was not previously reported in Sphinx 2.36, a closer examination of DNA sequence of Sphinx 2.36 revealed its presence downstream of orf106 homologue. TEM images and infection assays revealed existence of phage AbDs1 in Acinetobacter sp. DS002.

Selected Topics from LVCSR Research for Asian Languages at Tokyo Tech

Science.gov (United States)

Furui, Sadaoki

This paper presents our recent work in regard to building Large Vocabulary Continuous Speech Recognition (LVCSR) systems for the Thai, Indonesian, and Chinese languages. For Thai, since there is no word boundary in the written form, we have proposed a new method for automatically creating word-like units from a text corpus, and applied topic and speaking style adaptation to the language model to recognize spoken-style utterances. For Indonesian, we have applied proper noun-specific adaptation to acoustic modeling, and rule-based English-to-Indonesian phoneme mapping to solve the problem of large variation in proper noun and English word pronunciation in a spoken-query information retrieval system. In spoken Chinese, long organization names are frequently abbreviated, and abbreviated utterances cannot be recognized if the abbreviations are not included in the dictionary. We have proposed a new method for automatically generating Chinese abbreviations, and by expanding the vocabulary using the generated abbreviations, we have significantly improved the performance of spoken query-based search.

Recognition memory for Braille or spoken words: an fMRI study in early blind.

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Burton, Harold; Sinclair, Robert J; Agato, Alvin

2012-02-15

We examined cortical activity in early blind during word recognition memory. Nine participants were blind at birth and one by 1.5years. In an event-related design, we studied blood oxygen level-dependent responses to studied ("old") compared to novel ("new") words. Presentation mode was in Braille or spoken. Responses were larger for identified "new" words read with Braille in bilateral lower and higher tier visual areas and primary somatosensory cortex. Responses to spoken "new" words were larger in bilateral primary and accessory auditory cortex. Auditory cortex was unresponsive to Braille words and occipital cortex responded to spoken words but not differentially with "old"/"new" recognition. Left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex had larger responses to "old" words only with Braille. Larger occipital cortex responses to "new" Braille words suggested verbal memory based on the mechanism of recollection. A previous report in sighted noted larger responses for "new" words studied in association with pictures that created a distinctiveness heuristic source factor which enhanced recollection during remembering. Prior behavioral studies in early blind noted an exceptional ability to recall words. Utilization of this skill by participants in the current study possibly engendered recollection that augmented remembering "old" words. A larger response when identifying "new" words possibly resulted from exhaustive recollecting the sensory properties of "old" words in modality appropriate sensory cortices. The uniqueness of a memory role for occipital cortex is in its cross-modal responses to coding tactile properties of Braille. The latter possibly reflects a "sensory echo" that aids recollection. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The socially-weighted encoding of spoken words: A dual-route approach to speech perception

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Meghan eSumner

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Spoken words are highly variable. A single word may never be uttered the same way twice. As listeners, we regularly encounter speakers of different ages, genders, and accents, increasing the amount of variation we face. How listeners understand spoken words as quickly and adeptly as they do despite this variation remains an issue central to linguistic theory. We propose that learned acoustic patterns are mapped simultaneously to linguistic representations and to social representations. In doing so, we illuminate a paradox that results in the literature from, we argue, the focus on representations and the peripheral treatment of word-level phonetic variation. We consider phonetic variation more fully and highlight a growing body of work that is problematic for current theory: Words with different pronunciation variants are recognized equally well in immediate processing tasks, while an atypical, infrequent, but socially-idealized form is remembered better in the long-term. We suggest that the perception of spoken words is socially-weighted, resulting in sparse, but high-resolution clusters of socially-idealized episodes that are robust in immediate processing and are more strongly encoded, predicting memory inequality. Our proposal includes a dual-route approach to speech perception in which listeners map acoustic patterns in speech to linguistic and social representations in tandem. This approach makes novel predictions about the extraction of information from the speech signal, and provides a framework with which we can ask new questions. We propose that language comprehension, broadly, results from the integration of both linguistic and social information.

The socially weighted encoding of spoken words: a dual-route approach to speech perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Sumner, Meghan; Kim, Seung Kyung; King, Ed; McGowan, Kevin B

2013-01-01

Spoken words are highly variable. A single word may never be uttered the same way twice. As listeners, we regularly encounter speakers of different ages, genders, and accents, increasing the amount of variation we face. How listeners understand spoken words as quickly and adeptly as they do despite this variation remains an issue central to linguistic theory. We propose that learned acoustic patterns are mapped simultaneously to linguistic representations and to social representations. In doing so, we illuminate a paradox that results in the literature from, we argue, the focus on representations and the peripheral treatment of word-level phonetic variation. We consider phonetic variation more fully and highlight a growing body of work that is problematic for current theory: words with different pronunciation variants are recognized equally well in immediate processing tasks, while an atypical, infrequent, but socially idealized form is remembered better in the long-term. We suggest that the perception of spoken words is socially weighted, resulting in sparse, but high-resolution clusters of socially idealized episodes that are robust in immediate processing and are more strongly encoded, predicting memory inequality. Our proposal includes a dual-route approach to speech perception in which listeners map acoustic patterns in speech to linguistic and social representations in tandem. This approach makes novel predictions about the extraction of information from the speech signal, and provides a framework with which we can ask new questions. We propose that language comprehension, broadly, results from the integration of both linguistic and social information.

EVALUATIVE LANGUAGE IN SPOKEN AND SIGNED STORIES TOLD BY A DEAF CHILD WITH A COCHLEAR IMPLANT: WORDS, SIGNS OR PARALINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS?

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Ritva Takkinen

2011-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper the use and quality of the evaluative language produced by a bilingual child in a story-telling situation is analysed. The subject, an 11-year-old Finnish boy, Jimmy, is bilingual in Finnish sign language (FinSL and spoken Finnish.He was born deaf but got a cochlear implant at the age of five.The data consist of a spoken and a signed version of “The Frog Story”. The analysis shows that evaluative devices and expressions differ in the spoken and signed stories told by the child. In his Finnish story he uses mostly lexical devices – comments on a character and the character’s actions as well as quoted speech occasionally combined with prosodic features. In his FinSL story he uses both lexical and paralinguistic devices in a balanced way.

Discourse context and the recognition of reduced and canonical spoken words

OpenAIRE

Brouwer, S.; Mitterer, H.; Huettig, F.

2013-01-01

In two eye-tracking experiments we examined whether wider discourse information helps the recognition of reduced pronunciations (e.g., 'puter') more than the recognition of canonical pronunciations of spoken words (e.g., 'computer'). Dutch participants listened to sentences from a casual speech corpus containing canonical and reduced target words. Target word recognition was assessed by measuring eye fixation proportions to four printed words on a visual display: the target, a "reduced form" ...

The influence of spelling on phonological encoding in word reading, object naming, and word generation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Roelofs, A.P.A.

2006-01-01

Does the spelling of a word mandatorily constrain spoken word production, or does it do so only when spelling is relevant for the production task at hand? Damian and Bowers (2003) reported spelling effects in spoken word production in English using a prompt–response word generation task. Preparation

The influence of talker and foreign-accent variability on spoken word identification.

Science.gov (United States)

Bent, Tessa; Holt, Rachael Frush

2013-03-01

In spoken word identification and memory tasks, stimulus variability from numerous sources impairs performance. In the current study, the influence of foreign-accent variability on spoken word identification was evaluated in two experiments. Experiment 1 used a between-subjects design to test word identification in noise in single-talker and two multiple-talker conditions: multiple talkers with the same accent and multiple talkers with different accents. Identification performance was highest in the single-talker condition, but there was no difference between the single-accent and multiple-accent conditions. Experiment 2 further explored word recognition for multiple talkers in single-accent versus multiple-accent conditions using a mixed design. A detriment to word recognition was observed in the multiple-accent condition compared to the single-accent condition, but the effect differed across the language backgrounds tested. These results demonstrate that the processing of foreign-accent variation may influence word recognition in ways similar to other sources of variability (e.g., speaking rate or style) in that the inclusion of multiple foreign accents can result in a small but significant performance decrement beyond the multiple-talker effect.

Expected Test Scores for Preschoolers with a Cochlear Implant Who Use Spoken Language

Science.gov (United States)

Nicholas, Johanna G.; Geers, Ann E.

2008-01-01

Purpose: The major purpose of this study was to provide information about expected spoken language skills of preschool-age children who are deaf and who use a cochlear implant. A goal was to provide "benchmarks" against which those skills could be compared, for a given age at implantation. We also examined whether parent-completed…

Guest Comment: Universal Language Requirement.

Science.gov (United States)

Sherwood, Bruce Arne

1979-01-01

Explains that reading English among Scientists is almost universal, however, there are enormous problems with spoken English. Advocates the use of Esperanto as a viable alternative, and as a language requirement for graduate work. (GA)

The effects of sign language on spoken language acquisition in children with hearing loss: a systematic review protocol.

Science.gov (United States)

Fitzpatrick, Elizabeth M; Stevens, Adrienne; Garritty, Chantelle; Moher, David

2013-12-06

Permanent childhood hearing loss affects 1 to 3 per 1000 children and frequently disrupts typical spoken language acquisition. Early identification of hearing loss through universal newborn hearing screening and the use of new hearing technologies including cochlear implants make spoken language an option for most children. However, there is no consensus on what constitutes optimal interventions for children when spoken language is the desired outcome. Intervention and educational approaches ranging from oral language only to oral language combined with various forms of sign language have evolved. Parents are therefore faced with important decisions in the first months of their child's life. This article presents the protocol for a systematic review of the effects of using sign language in combination with oral language intervention on spoken language acquisition. Studies addressing early intervention will be selected in which therapy involving oral language intervention and any form of sign language or sign support is used. Comparison groups will include children in early oral language intervention programs without sign support. The primary outcomes of interest to be examined include all measures of auditory, vocabulary, language, speech production, and speech intelligibility skills. We will include randomized controlled trials, controlled clinical trials, and other quasi-experimental designs that include comparator groups as well as prospective and retrospective cohort studies. Case-control, cross-sectional, case series, and case studies will be excluded. Several electronic databases will be searched (for example, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO) as well as grey literature and key websites. We anticipate that a narrative synthesis of the evidence will be required. We will carry out meta-analysis for outcomes if clinical similarity, quantity and quality permit quantitative pooling of data. We will conduct subgroup analyses if possible according to severity

English Lecturer’s Attitude Toward English Variety In English Learning

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Rahma Yanti

2018-04-01

Full Text Available This research investigates English lecturers’ attitude toward the variation of English in the process of English learning. The purpose of this study is to discuss the types of English variations uttered by English lecturers who are considered as respondents in this study and their attitudes toward the variations of language that appear to their own speech during the teaching-learning process. This research is descriptive by using qualitative approach. The data to be presented in this research is taken from several words of Indonesian lecturers at several universities in Padang West Sumatra by distributing some questionnaires and also interviews. The method of data analysis is divided into two types, first, methods which related to the correlation of external language objects with a non-linguistic element called correlation method or method of matching, and secondly, methods which related to surgical, processing or internal verbal tampering called the method of operation or distribution method.

al Comienzo del Siglo XXI

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Francisco Lizcano Fernández

2005-01-01

Full Text Available This article is based on the characterization, quantification and geografical distribution of the six ethnic groups in those that the Ibero-American population is divided: Latin or Iberian, Indigenous, Black, Creole, Garífuna and Asian. From this, it is possible to distinguish four types of countries in Iberoamérica (Indo-European, afrocriollo, afromestizo and criollo and the Ibero-American cultural area is confronted with the other cultural areas of the American continent (English and French spoken North America and English and French spoken Caribbean.

The Debate over Literary Tamil versus Standard Spoken Tamil: What Do Teachers Say?

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Saravanan, Vanithamani; Lakshmi, Seetha; Caleon, Imelda S.

2009-01-01

This study aims to determine the attitudes toward Standard Spoken Tamil (SST) and Literary Tamil (LT) of 46 Tamil teachers in Singapore. The teachers' attitudes were used as an indicator of the acceptance or nonacceptance of SST as a viable option in the teaching of Tamil in the classroom, in which the focus has been largely on LT. The…

Difference between Written and Spoken Czech: The Case of Verbal Nouns Denoting an Action

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Kolářová, V.; Kolář, Jan; Mikulová, M.

2017-01-01

Roč. 107, č. 1 (2017), s. 19-38 ISSN 0032-6585 Institutional support: RVO:67985840 Keywords : written Czech * spoken Czech * verbal nouns Subject RIV: AI - Linguistics OBOR OECD: Pure mathematics https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/pralin.2017.107.issue-1/pralin-2017-0002/pralin-2017-0002.xml

Intentional and Reactive Inhibition during Spoken-Word Stroop Task Performance in People with Aphasia

Science.gov (United States)

Pompon, Rebecca Hunting; McNeil, Malcolm R.; Spencer, Kristie A.; Kendall, Diane L.

2015-01-01

Purpose: The integrity of selective attention in people with aphasia (PWA) is currently unknown. Selective attention is essential for everyday communication, and inhibition is an important part of selective attention. This study explored components of inhibition--both intentional and reactive inhibition--during spoken-word production in PWA and in…

Difference between Written and Spoken Czech: The Case of Verbal Nouns Denoting an Action

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Kolářová, V.; Kolář, Jan; Mikulová, M.

2017-01-01

Roč. 107, č. 1 (2017), s. 19-38 ISSN 0032-6585 Institutional support: RVO:67985840 Keywords : written Czech * spoken Czech * verbal nouns Subject RIV: AI - Linguistics OBOR OECD: Pure mathematics https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/pralin.2017.107.issue-1/pralin-2017-0002/pralin-2017-0002. xml

Recognition Memory for Braille or Spoken Words: An fMRI study in Early Blind

Science.gov (United States)

Burton, Harold; Sinclair, Robert J.; Agato, Alvin

2012-01-01

We examined cortical activity in early blind during word recognition memory. Nine participants were blind at birth and one by 1.5 yrs. In an event-related design, we studied blood oxygen level-dependent responses to studied (“old”) compared to novel (“new”) words. Presentation mode was in Braille or spoken. Responses were larger for identified “new” words read with Braille in bilateral lower and higher tier visual areas and primary somatosensory cortex. Responses to spoken “new” words were larger in bilateral primary and accessory auditory cortex. Auditory cortex was unresponsive to Braille words and occipital cortex responded to spoken words but not differentially with “old”/“new” recognition. Left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex had larger responses to “old” words only with Braille. Larger occipital cortex responses to “new” Braille words suggested verbal memory based on the mechanism of recollection. A previous report in sighted noted larger responses for “new” words studied in association with pictures that created a distinctiveness heuristic source factor which enhanced recollection during remembering. Prior behavioral studies in early blind noted an exceptional ability to recall words. Utilization of this skill by participants in the current study possibly engendered recollection that augmented remembering “old” words. A larger response when identifying “new” words possibly resulted from exhaustive recollecting the sensory properties of “old” words in modality appropriate sensory cortices. The uniqueness of a memory role for occipital cortex is in its cross-modal responses to coding tactile properties of Braille. The latter possibly reflects a “sensory echo” that aids recollection. PMID:22251836

Development and validation of a smartphone-based digits-in-noise hearing test in South African English.

Science.gov (United States)

Potgieter, Jenni-Marí; Swanepoel, De Wet; Myburgh, Hermanus Carel; Hopper, Thomas Christopher; Smits, Cas

2015-07-01

The objective of this study was to develop and validate a smartphone-based digits-in-noise hearing test for South African English. Single digits (0-9) were recorded and spoken by a first language English female speaker. Level corrections were applied to create a set of homogeneous digits with steep speech recognition functions. A smartphone application was created to utilize 120 digit-triplets in noise as test material. An adaptive test procedure determined the speech reception threshold (SRT). Experiments were performed to determine headphones effects on the SRT and to establish normative data. Participants consisted of 40 normal-hearing subjects with thresholds ≤15 dB across the frequency spectrum (250-8000 Hz) and 186 subjects with normal-hearing in both ears, or normal-hearing in the better ear. The results show steep speech recognition functions with a slope of 20%/dB for digit-triplets presented in noise using the smartphone application. The results of five headphone types indicate that the smartphone-based hearing test is reliable and can be conducted using standard Android smartphone headphones or clinical headphones. A digits-in-noise hearing test was developed and validated for South Africa. The mean SRT and speech recognition functions correspond to previous developed telephone-based digits-in-noise tests.

A word by any other intonation: fMRI evidence for implicit memory traces for pitch contours of spoken words in adult brains.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael Inspector

Full Text Available OBJECTIVES: Intonation may serve as a cue for facilitated recognition and processing of spoken words and it has been suggested that the pitch contour of spoken words is implicitly remembered. Thus, using the repetition suppression (RS effect of BOLD-fMRI signals, we tested whether the same spoken words are differentially processed in language and auditory brain areas depending on whether or not they retain an arbitrary intonation pattern. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: Words were presented repeatedly in three blocks for passive and active listening tasks. There were three prosodic conditions in each of which a different set of words was used and specific task-irrelevant intonation changes were applied: (i All words presented in a set flat monotonous pitch contour (ii Each word had an arbitrary pitch contour that was set throughout the three repetitions. (iii Each word had a different arbitrary pitch contour in each of its repetition. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The repeated presentations of words with a set pitch contour, resulted in robust behavioral priming effects as well as in significant RS of the BOLD signals in primary auditory cortex (BA 41, temporal areas (BA 21 22 bilaterally and in Broca's area. However, changing the intonation of the same words on each successive repetition resulted in reduced behavioral priming and the abolition of RS effects. CONCLUSIONS: Intonation patterns are retained in memory even when the intonation is task-irrelevant. Implicit memory traces for the pitch contour of spoken words were reflected in facilitated neuronal processing in auditory and language associated areas. Thus, the results lend support for the notion that prosody and specifically pitch contour is strongly associated with the memory representation of spoken words.

Stimulus variability and the phonetic relevance hypothesis: effects of variability in speaking style, fundamental frequency, and speaking rate on spoken word identification.

Science.gov (United States)

Sommers, Mitchell S; Barcroft, Joe

2006-04-01

Three experiments were conducted to examine the effects of trial-to-trial variations in speaking style, fundamental frequency, and speaking rate on identification of spoken words. In addition, the experiments investigated whether any effects of stimulus variability would be modulated by phonetic confusability (i.e., lexical difficulty). In Experiment 1, trial-to-trial variations in speaking style reduced the overall identification performance compared with conditions containing no speaking-style variability. In addition, the effects of variability were greater for phonetically confusable words than for phonetically distinct words. In Experiment 2, variations in fundamental frequency were found to have no significant effects on spoken word identification and did not interact with lexical difficulty. In Experiment 3, two different methods for varying speaking rate were found to have equivalent negative effects on spoken word recognition and similar interactions with lexical difficulty. Overall, the findings are consistent with a phonetic-relevance hypothesis, in which accommodating sources of acoustic-phonetic variability that affect phonetically relevant properties of speech signals can impair spoken word identification. In contrast, variability in parameters of the speech signal that do not affect phonetically relevant properties are not expected to affect overall identification performance. Implications of these findings for the nature and development of lexical representations are discussed.

Word Frequencies in Written and Spoken English

African Journals Online (AJOL)

R.B. Ruthven

data of the corpus and includes more formal audio material (lectures, TV and ... meticulous word-class tagging of nouns, adjectives, verbs etc., this book is not limited to word ... Fréquences d'utilisation des mots en français écrit contemporain.

Personality Structure in the Trait Lexicon of Hindi, a Major Language Spoken in India

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Singh, Jitendra K.; Misra, Girishwar; De Raad, Boele

2013-01-01

The psycho-lexical approach is extended to Hindi, a major language spoken in India. From both the dictionary and from Hindi novels, a huge set of personality descriptors was put together, ultimately reduced to a manageable set of 295 trait terms. Both self and peer ratings were collected on those

Spoken commands control robot that handles radioactive materials

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Phelan, P.F.; Keddy, C.; Beugelsdojk, T.J.

1989-01-01

Several robotic systems have been developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory to handle radioactive material. Because of safety considerations, the robotic system must be under direct human supervision and interactive control continuously. In this paper, we describe the implementation of a voice-recognition system that permits this control, yet allows the robot to perform complex preprogrammed manipulations without the operator's intervention. To provide better interactive control, we connected to the robot's control computer, a speech synthesis unit, which provides audible feedback to the operator. Thus upon completion of a task or if an emergency arises, an appropriate spoken message can be reported by the control computer. The training programming and operation of this commercially available system are discussed, as are the practical problems encountered during operations

An fMRI study of concreteness effects in spoken word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Roxbury, Tracy; McMahon, Katie; Copland, David A

2014-09-30

Evidence for the brain mechanisms recruited when processing concrete versus abstract concepts has been largely derived from studies employing visual stimuli. The tasks and baseline contrasts used have also involved varying degrees of lexical processing. This study investigated the neural basis of the concreteness effect during spoken word recognition and employed a lexical decision task with a novel pseudoword condition. The participants were seventeen healthy young adults (9 females). The stimuli consisted of (a) concrete, high imageability nouns, (b) abstract, low imageability nouns and (c) opaque legal pseudowords presented in a pseudorandomised, event-related design. Activation for the concrete, abstract and pseudoword conditions was analysed using anatomical regions of interest derived from previous findings of concrete and abstract word processing. Behaviourally, lexical decision reaction times for the concrete condition were significantly faster than both abstract and pseudoword conditions and the abstract condition was significantly faster than the pseudoword condition (p word recognition. Significant activity was also elicited by concrete words relative to pseudowords in the left fusiform and left anterior middle temporal gyrus. These findings confirm the involvement of a widely distributed network of brain regions that are activated in response to the spoken recognition of concrete but not abstract words. Our findings are consistent with the proposal that distinct brain regions are engaged as convergence zones and enable the binding of supramodal input.

Reconsidering English Grammar Teaching for Improving Non-English Majors' English Writing Ability

Science.gov (United States)

Shen, Yuru

2012-01-01

With the globalization of world economy, English learners' writing ability has been attached less and less importance. As a result, many college students in China, especially the non-English majors, cannot express themselves effectively in written English. They make various kinds of mistakes, mostly grammar mistakes, such as writing sentence…

English in Economy World: an Overview of English Learning

OpenAIRE

Setyaningsih, Ani; Kurniasih, Siwi Karmadi

2007-01-01

English is not a language for the English-speaking countries anymore. English has spread worldwide to the countries in the five continents. One of the reasons is economy. People need to acquire English since it is one way to cope with the communication in economy trend. English is needed to process information, analyze, evaluate, experiment, negotiate and collaborate in economy. The awareness of English importance in the globalization era has made people learn this universal language consciou...

TEACHING TURKISH AS SPOKEN IN TURKEY TO TURKIC SPEAKERS - TÜRK DİLLİLERE TÜRKİYE TÜRKÇESİ ÖĞRETİMİ NASIL OLMALIDIR?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ali TAŞTEKİN

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Attributing different titles to the activity of teaching Turkish to non-native speakers is related to the perspective of those who conduct this activity. If Turkish Language teaching centres are sub-units of Schools of Foreign Languages and Departments of Foreign Languages of our Universities or teachers have a foreign language background, then the title “Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language” is adopted and claimed to be universal. In determining success at teaching and learning, the psychological perception of the educational activity and the associational power of the words used are far more important factors than the teacher, students, educational environment and educational tools. For this reason, avoiding the negative connotations of the adjective “foreign” in the activity of teaching foreigners Turkish as spoken in Turkey would be beneficial. In order for the activity of Teaching Turkish as Spoken in Turkey to Turkic Speakers to be successful, it is crucial to dwell on the formal and contextual quality of the books written for this purpose. Almost none of the course books and supplementary books in the field of teaching Turkish to non-native speakers has taken Teaching Turkish as Spoken in Turkey to Turkic Speakers into consideration. The books written for the purpose of teaching Turkish to non-speakers should be examined thoroughly in terms of content and method and should be organized in accordance with the purpose and level of readiness of the target audience. Activities of Teaching Turkish as Spoken in Turkey to Turkic Speakers are still conducted at public and private primary and secondary schools and colleges as well as private courses by self-educated teachers who are trained within a master-apprentice relationship. Turkic populations who had long been parted by necessity have found the opportunity to reunite and turn towards common objectives after the dissolution of The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This recent

Teaching English through English: Proficiency, Pedagogy and Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Richards, Jack C.

2017-01-01

Most of the world's English language teachers speak English as a second or third language rather than as their first language. For many, their level of proficiency in English may not reach benchmarks established by their employers, raising the issue that is the focus of this article, namely, what kind of proficiency in English is necessary to be…

Gender Alternatives in the French Translation of MMORPG World of Warcraft in relation to the English Original

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Petr Sádlo

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Native speakers of most widely spoken languages of the world who engage themselves in playing MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game often express a wish to have the game translated to their mother tongue. The intent of this article is to explore the way the original English names occurring in MMORPG World of Warcraft are translated into French in terms of their gender specifics. The theoretical part suggests growing trends in translations in general. Subsequently, it also explores contentious issues of translating from one language to another in relation to the translation specifics of computer games. In addition, the basic principle of the game is explained. The empirical part deals with most common names occurring throughout the whole game; thereafter, the names are interpreted regarding their gender specifics in relation to the original and target language.

Suprasegmental lexical stress cues in visual speech can guide spoken-word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Jesse, Alexandra; McQueen, James M

2014-01-01

Visual cues to the individual segments of speech and to sentence prosody guide speech recognition. The present study tested whether visual suprasegmental cues to the stress patterns of words can also constrain recognition. Dutch listeners use acoustic suprasegmental cues to lexical stress (changes in duration, amplitude, and pitch) in spoken-word recognition. We asked here whether they can also use visual suprasegmental cues. In two categorization experiments, Dutch participants saw a speaker say fragments of word pairs that were segmentally identical but differed in their stress realization (e.g., 'ca-vi from cavia "guinea pig" vs. 'ka-vi from kaviaar "caviar"). Participants were able to distinguish between these pairs from seeing a speaker alone. Only the presence of primary stress in the fragment, not its absence, was informative. Participants were able to distinguish visually primary from secondary stress on first syllables, but only when the fragment-bearing target word carried phrase-level emphasis. Furthermore, participants distinguished fragments with primary stress on their second syllable from those with secondary stress on their first syllable (e.g., pro-'jec from projector "projector" vs. 'pro-jec from projectiel "projectile"), independently of phrase-level emphasis. Seeing a speaker thus contributes to spoken-word recognition by providing suprasegmental information about the presence of primary lexical stress.

Brain-to-text: Decoding spoken phrases from phone representations in the brain

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christian eHerff

2015-06-01

Full Text Available It has long been speculated whether communication between humans and machines based on natural speech related cortical activity is possible. Over the past decade, studies have suggested that it is feasible to recognize isolated aspects of speech from neural signals, such as auditory features, phones or one of a few isolated words. However, until now it remained an unsolved challenge to decode continuously spoken speech from the neural substrate associated with speech and language processing. Here, we show for the first time that continuously spoken speech can be decoded into the expressed words from intracranial electrocorticographic (ECoG recordings. Specifically, we implemented a system, which we call Brain-To-Text that models single phones, employs techniques from automatic speech recognition (ASR, and thereby transforms brain activity while speaking into the corresponding textual representation. Our results demonstrate that our system achieved word error rates as low as 25% and phone error rates below 50%. Additionally, our approach contributes to the current understanding of the neural basis of continuous speech production by identifying those cortical regions that hold substantial information about individual phones. In conclusion, the Brain-To-Text system described in this paper represents an important step towards human-machine communication based on imagined speech.

Language Shift or Increased Bilingualism in South Africa: Evidence from Census Data

Science.gov (United States)

Posel, Dorrit; Zeller, Jochen

2016-01-01

In the post-apartheid era, South Africa has adopted a language policy that gives official status to 11 languages (English, Afrikaans, and nine Bantu languages). However, English has remained the dominant language of business, public office, and education, and some research suggests that English is increasingly being spoken in domestic settings.…

From language to society: An analysis of interpreting quality and the ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Since Zimbabwe was a British colony, colonial policies ensured the entrenchment of English as the language of sports, education, records and law. English is spoken mainly as a second or even third language by the majority of Zimbabweans. Even for those who speak English fluently, or with near fluency, the technical ...

Recurrent Word Combinations in EAP Test-Taker Writing: Differences between High- and Low-Proficiency Levels

Science.gov (United States)

Appel, Randy; Wood, David

2016-01-01

The correct use of frequently occurring word combinations represents an important part of language proficiency in spoken and written discourse. This study investigates the use of English-language recurrent word combinations in low-level and high-level L2 English academic essays sourced from the Canadian Academic English Language (CAEL) assessment.…

METONYMY BASED ON CULTURAL BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE AND PRAGMATIC INFERENCING: EVIDENCE FROM SPOKEN DISCOURSE

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Arijana Krišković

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Th e characterization of metonymy as a conceptual tool for guiding inferencing in language has opened a new fi eld of study in cognitive linguistics and pragmatics. To appreciate the value of metonymy for pragmatic inferencing, metonymy should not be viewed as performing only its prototypical referential function. Metonymic mappings are operative in speech acts at the level of reference, predication, proposition and illocution. Th e aim of this paper is to study the role of metonymy in pragmatic inferencing in spoken discourse in televison interviews. Case analyses of authentic utterances classifi ed as illocutionary metonymies following the pragmatic typology of metonymic functions are presented. Th e inferencing processes are facilitated by metonymic connections existing between domains or subdomains in the same functional domain. It has been widely accepted by cognitive linguists that universal human knowledge and embodiment are essential for the interpretation of metonymy. Th is analysis points to the role of cultural background knowledge in understanding target meanings. All these aspects of metonymic connections are exploited in complex inferential processes in spoken discourse. In most cases, metaphoric mappings are also a part of utterance interpretation.

L1 and L2 Spoken Word Processing: Evidence from Divided Attention Paradigm.

Science.gov (United States)

Shafiee Nahrkhalaji, Saeedeh; Lotfi, Ahmad Reza; Koosha, Mansour

2016-10-01

The present study aims to reveal some facts concerning first language (L 1 ) and second language (L 2 ) spoken-word processing in unbalanced proficient bilinguals using behavioral measures. The intention here is to examine the effects of auditory repetition word priming and semantic priming in first and second languages of these bilinguals. The other goal is to explore the effects of attention manipulation on implicit retrieval of perceptual and conceptual properties of spoken L 1 and L 2 words. In so doing, the participants performed auditory word priming and semantic priming as memory tests in their L 1 and L 2 . In a half of the trials of each experiment, they carried out the memory test while simultaneously performing a secondary task in visual modality. The results revealed that effects of auditory word priming and semantic priming were present when participants processed L 1 and L 2 words in full attention condition. Attention manipulation could reduce priming magnitude in both experiments in L 2 . Moreover, L 2 word retrieval increases the reaction times and reduces accuracy on the simultaneous secondary task to protect its own accuracy and speed.

Suprasegmental lexical stress cues in visual speech can guide spoken-word recognition

OpenAIRE

Jesse, A.; McQueen, J.

2014-01-01

Visual cues to the individual segments of speech and to sentence prosody guide speech recognition. The present study tested whether visual suprasegmental cues to the stress patterns of words can also constrain recognition. Dutch listeners use acoustic suprasegmental cues to lexical stress (changes in duration, amplitude, and pitch) in spoken-word recognition. We asked here whether they can also use visual suprasegmental cues. In two categorization experiments, Dutch participants saw a speaker...

Brain basis of phonological awareness for spoken language in children and its disruption in dyslexia.

Science.gov (United States)

Kovelman, Ioulia; Norton, Elizabeth S; Christodoulou, Joanna A; Gaab, Nadine; Lieberman, Daniel A; Triantafyllou, Christina; Wolf, Maryanne; Whitfield-Gabrieli, Susan; Gabrieli, John D E

2012-04-01

Phonological awareness, knowledge that speech is composed of syllables and phonemes, is critical for learning to read. Phonological awareness precedes and predicts successful transition from language to literacy, and weakness in phonological awareness is a leading cause of dyslexia, but the brain basis of phonological awareness for spoken language in children is unknown. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural correlates of phonological awareness using an auditory word-rhyming task in children who were typical readers or who had dyslexia (ages 7-13) and a younger group of kindergarteners (ages 5-6). Typically developing children, but not children with dyslexia, recruited left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) when making explicit phonological judgments. Kindergarteners, who were matched to the older children with dyslexia on standardized tests of phonological awareness, also recruited left DLPFC. Left DLPFC may play a critical role in the development of phonological awareness for spoken language critical for reading and in the etiology of dyslexia.

Carpet or Carcel: The Effect of Age of Acquisition and Language Mode on Bilingual Lexical Access

Science.gov (United States)

Canseco-Gonzalez, Enriqueta; Brehm, Laurel; Brick, Cameron A.; Brown-Schmidt, Sarah; Fischer, Kara; Wagner, Katie

2010-01-01

Lexical access was examined in English-Spanish bilinguals by monitoring eye fixations on target and lexical competitors as participants followed spoken instructions in English to click on one of the objects presented on a computer (e.g., "Click on the beans"). Within-language lexical competitors had a phoneme onset in English that was shared with…

Using Key Part-of-Speech Analysis to Examine Spoken Discourse by Taiwanese EFL Learners

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Yen-Liang

2015-01-01

This study reports on a corpus analysis of samples of spoken discourse between a group of British and Taiwanese adolescents, with the aim of exploring the statistically significant differences in the use of grammatical categories between the two groups of participants. The key word method extended to a part-of-speech level using the web-based…

HOW TO MOTIVATE NON-ENGLISH MAJORS TO MASTER ENGLISH

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

1999-01-01

This paper analyses the factors causing the lack of learning motivation of non-English majors,re-garded as one of the crucial reasons leading to the inefficiency of college English teaching in Chi-na.It also puts forward corresponding ways to motivate non-English majors to study English.

"Poetry Is Not a Special Club": How Has an Introduction to the Secondary Discourse of Spoken Word Made Poetry a Memorable Learning Experience for Young People?

Science.gov (United States)

Dymoke, Sue

2017-01-01

This paper explores the impact of a Spoken Word Education Programme (SWEP hereafter) on young people's engagement with poetry in a group of schools in London, UK. It does so with reference to the secondary Discourses of school-based learning and the Spoken Word community, an artistic "community of practice" into which they were being…

English Language Teaching Through Literature : An Application of English Poetry in the High School English Textbook to the Classroom

OpenAIRE

濵口, 脩

2004-01-01

The aim of this present paper is to review the present state of English poetry in the high school English textbooks in Japan and to propose some practical application of English poems to the English language classroom. Several cases in which English poems are found in actual English high school textbooks are discussed, and then, since there seems to be no explanation of teaching English poems, with some notes of them and of reading English poems in general, some practical suggetions for impro...

Students who are deaf and hard of hearing and use sign language: considerations and strategies for developing spoken language and literacy skills.

Science.gov (United States)

Nussbaum, Debra; Waddy-Smith, Bettie; Doyle, Jane

2012-11-01

There is a core body of knowledge, experience, and skills integral to facilitating auditory, speech, and spoken language development when working with the general population of students who are deaf and hard of hearing. There are additional issues, strategies, and challenges inherent in speech habilitation/rehabilitation practices essential to the population of deaf and hard of hearing students who also use sign language. This article will highlight philosophical and practical considerations related to practices used to facilitate spoken language development and associated literacy skills for children and adolescents who sign. It will discuss considerations for planning and implementing practices that acknowledge and utilize a student's abilities in sign language, and address how to link these skills to developing and using spoken language. Included will be considerations for children from early childhood through high school with a broad range of auditory access, language, and communication characteristics. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

English Learners: Reaching the Highest Level of English Literacy.

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, Gilbert C., Ed.

This collection of papers examines the critical literacy development of English learners, focusing on English reading instruction in an immersion setting, English language development, and cultural issues pertaining to English learners in and out of the classroom. The 16 papers include the following: (1) "Reading and the Bilingual Student: Fact…

Positive Emotional Language in the Final Words Spoken Directly Before Execution.

Science.gov (United States)

Hirschmüller, Sarah; Egloff, Boris

2015-01-01

How do individuals emotionally cope with the imminent real-world salience of mortality? DeWall and Baumeister as well as Kashdan and colleagues previously provided support that an increased use of positive emotion words serves as a way to protect and defend against mortality salience of one's own contemplated death. Although these studies provide important insights into the psychological dynamics of mortality salience, it remains an open question how individuals cope with the immense threat of mortality prior to their imminent actual death. In the present research, we therefore analyzed positivity in the final words spoken immediately before execution by 407 death row inmates in Texas. By using computerized quantitative text analysis as an objective measure of emotional language use, our results showed that the final words contained a significantly higher proportion of positive than negative emotion words. This emotional positivity was significantly higher than (a) positive emotion word usage base rates in spoken and written materials and (b) positive emotional language use with regard to contemplated death and attempted or actual suicide. Additional analyses showed that emotional positivity in final statements was associated with a greater frequency of language use that was indicative of self-references, social orientation, and present-oriented time focus as well as with fewer instances of cognitive-processing, past-oriented, and death-related word use. Taken together, our findings offer new insights into how individuals cope with the imminent real-world salience of mortality.

英語教育と文化 : 日本の英語教育における文化の位置づけ

OpenAIRE

足立, 匡行; Masayuki, Adachi; 桜美林大学人文学系; Obirin University

2008-01-01

Various forms of English are spoken in different parts of the world and English has become a means of intercultural communication. However, the notion of "English as International Language" (EIL) is not well known in Japan. Due to this lack of knowledge, Japanese university students tend to think that American and British English are the only "correct" forms of English. This paper argues that the aim of English study in Japan should not focus on mastering English like native speakers but rath...

Expressing Disagreement in ELF Business Negotiations: Theory and Practice

Science.gov (United States)

Bjorge, Anne Kari

2012-01-01

English spoken by those who do not share their first language is increasingly referred to as English lingua franca (ELF). For ELF speakers, it can be a challenge to express conflicting opinions, as a common language and/or cultural background cannot be taken for granted. This is recognized by writers of business English textbooks, who provide…

Distinct transmissibility features of TSE sources derived from ruminant prion diseases by the oral route in a transgenic mouse model (TgOvPrP4 overexpressing the ovine prion protein.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jean-Noël Arsac

Full Text Available Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs are a group of fatal neurodegenerative diseases associated with a misfolded form of host-encoded prion protein (PrP. Some of them, such as classical bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle (BSE, transmissible mink encephalopathy (TME, kuru and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, are acquired by the oral route exposure to infected tissues. We investigated the possible transmission by the oral route of a panel of strains derived from ruminant prion diseases in a transgenic mouse model (TgOvPrP4 overexpressing the ovine prion protein (A136R154Q171 under the control of the neuron-specific enolase promoter. Sources derived from Nor98, CH1641 or 87V scrapie sources, as well as sources derived from L-type BSE or cattle-passaged TME, failed to transmit by the oral route, whereas those derived from classical BSE and classical scrapie were successfully transmitted. Apart from a possible effect of passage history of the TSE agent in the inocula, this implied the occurrence of subtle molecular changes in the protease-resistant prion protein (PrPres following oral transmission that can raises concerns about our ability to correctly identify sheep that might be orally infected by the BSE agent in the field. Our results provide proof of principle that transgenic mouse models can be used to examine the transmissibility of TSE agents by the oral route, providing novel insights regarding the pathogenesis of prion diseases.

Reading books with young deaf children: strategies for mediating between American Sign Language and English.

Science.gov (United States)

Berke, Michele

2013-01-01

Research on shared reading has shown positive results on children's literacy development in general and for deaf children specifically; however, reading techniques might differ between these two populations. Families with deaf children, especially those with deaf parents, often capitalize on their children's visual attributes rather than primarily auditory cues. These techniques are believed to provide a foundation for their deaf children's literacy skills. This study examined 10 deaf mother/deaf child dyads with children between 3 and 5 years of age. Dyads were videotaped in their homes on at least two occasions reading books that were provided by the researcher. Descriptive analysis showed specifically how deaf mothers mediate between the two languages, American Sign Language (ASL) and English, while reading. These techniques can be replicated and taught to all parents of deaf children so that they can engage in more effective shared reading activities. Research has shown that shared reading, or the interaction of a parent and child with a book, is an effective way to promote language and literacy, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, and metalinguistic awareness (Snow, 1983), making it critical for educators to promote shared reading activities at home between parent and child. Not all parents read to their children in the same way. For example, parents of deaf children may present the information in the book differently due to the fact that signed languages are visual rather than spoken. In this vein, we can learn more about what specific connections deaf parents make to the English print. Exploring strategies deaf mothers may use to link the English print through the use of ASL will provide educators with additional tools when working with all parents of deaf children. This article will include a review of the literature on the benefits of shared reading activities for all children, the relationship between ASL and English skill development, and the techniques

L[subscript 1] and L[subscript 2] Spoken Word Processing: Evidence from Divided Attention Paradigm

Science.gov (United States)

Shafiee Nahrkhalaji, Saeedeh; Lotfi, Ahmad Reza; Koosha, Mansour

2016-01-01

The present study aims to reveal some facts concerning first language (L[subscript 1]) and second language (L[subscript 2]) spoken-word processing in unbalanced proficient bilinguals using behavioral measures. The intention here is to examine the effects of auditory repetition word priming and semantic priming in first and second languages of…

Between Syntax and Pragmatics: The Causal Conjunction Protože in Spoken and Written Czech

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Čermáková, Anna; Komrsková, Zuzana; Kopřivová, Marie; Poukarová, Petra

-, 25.04.2017 (2017), s. 393-414 ISSN 2509-9507 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA15-01116S Institutional support: RVO:68378092 Keywords : Causality * Discourse marker * Spoken language * Czech Subject RIV: AI - Linguistics OBOR OECD: Linguistics https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs41701-017-0014-y.pdf

Mental Imagery as Revealed by Eye Movements and Spoken Predicates: A Test of Neurolinguistic Programming.

Science.gov (United States)

Elich, Matthew; And Others

1985-01-01

Tested Bandler and Grinder's proposal that eye movement direction and spoken predicates are indicative of sensory modality of imagery. Subjects reported images in the three modes, but no relation between imagery and eye movements or predicates was found. Visual images were most vivid and often reported. Most subjects rated themselves as visual,…

The Anatomy of Singlish: Globalisation, Multiculturalism and the Construction of the "Local" in Singapore

Science.gov (United States)

Goh, Robbie B. H.

2016-01-01

Singlish -- "the name given to the colloquial variety of English spoken in Singapore" [Wee, Lionel. 2014. "Linguistic Chutzpah and the Speak Good Singlish Movement." "World Englishes" 33 (1): 85-99], incorporating Chinese dialect (particularly Hokkien) and Malay lexical and grammatical elements -- has for some time…

Radiological English

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ribes, R. [Hospital Reina Sofia, Cordoba (Spain). Servicio de Radiologia; Ros, P.R. [Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA (United States). Div. of Radiology

2007-07-01

The book is an introductory book to radiological English on the basis that there are a lot of radiologists, radiology residents, radiology nurses, radiology students, and radiographers worldwide whose English level is indeterminate because their reading skills are much higher than their fluency. It is intended to help those health care professionals who need English for their work but do not speak English on a day-to-day basis. (orig.)

Radiological English

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ribes, R.; Ros, P.R.

2007-01-01

The book is an introductory book to radiological English on the basis that there are a lot of radiologists, radiology residents, radiology nurses, radiology students, and radiographers worldwide whose English level is indeterminate because their reading skills are much higher than their fluency. It is intended to help those health care professionals who need English for their work but do not speak English on a day-to-day basis. (orig.)

Hip-Hop Hamlet: Hybrid Interpretive Discourse in a Suburban High School English Class

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Anglin, Joanna L.; Smagorinsky, Peter

2014-01-01

This study investigates the collaborative composing processes of a group of five high school seniors who constructed interpretations of each of the five acts of Shakespeare's Hamlet through the medium of spoken word performances. The group composing processes were analyzed to identify how the students drew on conventions from the spoken word…

Learning Strategies in Alleviating English Writing Anxiety for English Language Learners (ELLs) with Limited English Proficiency (LEP)

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Wu, Chia-Pei; Lin, Huey-Ju

2016-01-01

This study utilized the Oxford Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) and an English writing anxiety scale to examine the relationship between learning strategies and English writing anxiety in 102 university-level English language learners (ELLs) with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) in a university in Taiwan. Kruskal Wallis Test…

English in Africa

African Journals Online (AJOL)

English in Africa was founded in 1974 to provide a forum for the study of African literature and English as a language of Africa. The Editor invites contributions, including unsolicited reviews, on all aspects of English writing and the English language in Africa, including oral traditions. English in Africa is listed in the Journal of ...

Cochlear implants and spoken language processing abilities: Review and assessment of the literature

OpenAIRE

Peterson, Nathaniel R.; Pisoni, David B.; Miyamoto, Richard T.

2010-01-01

Cochlear implants (CIs) process sounds electronically and then transmit electric stimulation to the cochlea of individuals with sensorineural deafness, restoring some sensation of auditory perception. Many congenitally deaf CI recipients achieve a high degree of accuracy in speech perception and develop near-normal language skills. Post-lingually deafened implant recipients often regain the ability to understand and use spoken language with or without the aid of visual input (i.e. lip reading...

FROM STORYTELLING TO STORY WRITING: THE IMPLEMENTATION OF READING TO LEARN (R2L PEDAGOGY TO TEACH ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN INDONESIA

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Ika Lestari Damayanti

2017-01-01

Full Text Available It is widely acknowledged that the use of stories supports the development of literacy in the context of learning English as a first language. However, it seems that there are a few studies investigating this issue in the context of teaching and learning English as a foreign language.  This action-oriented case study aims to enhance students’ written narrative achievement through a pedagogical intervention that incorporates oral story sharing activities. In this paper, the intervention will be briefly described and the preliminary findings from the students’ written texts will be presented. This study which was conducted in a lower secondary school in Bandung Barat region, Indonesia implemented the intervention within eight learning periods. The intervention comprised the following stages: (1 preparing before reading (stories, (2 detailed reading, (3 joint rewriting, and (4 individual rewriting. Before and after the intervention, students’ narrative texts were collected and analysed in terms of how each text achieved its purpose, how it moved through stages and phases of meaning, the control of field, relationship with the reader and its coherence.  The preliminary findings indicate that there is a shift in students’ ability from writing fragmented and spoken-like language to more literate written narratives.   It is expected that this study which implemented R2L pedagogy in the Indonesian context will contribute to English language teaching in EFL contexts.

Effects of lexical competition on immediate memory span for spoken words.

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Goh, Winston D; Pisoni, David B

2003-08-01

Current theories and models of the structural organization of verbal short-term memory are primarily based on evidence obtained from manipulations of features inherent in the short-term traces of the presented stimuli, such as phonological similarity. In the present study, we investigated whether properties of the stimuli that are not inherent in the short-term traces of spoken words would affect performance in an immediate memory span task. We studied the lexical neighbourhood properties of the stimulus items, which are based on the structure and organization of words in the mental lexicon. The experiments manipulated lexical competition by varying the phonological neighbourhood structure (i.e., neighbourhood density and neighbourhood frequency) of the words on a test list while controlling for word frequency and intra-set phonological similarity (family size). Immediate memory span for spoken words was measured under repeated and nonrepeated sampling procedures. The results demonstrated that lexical competition only emerged when a nonrepeated sampling procedure was used and the participants had to access new words from their lexicons. These findings were not dependent on individual differences in short-term memory capacity. Additional results showed that the lexical competition effects did not interact with proactive interference. Analyses of error patterns indicated that item-type errors, but not positional errors, were influenced by the lexical attributes of the stimulus items. These results complement and extend previous findings that have argued for separate contributions of long-term knowledge and short-term memory rehearsal processes in immediate verbal serial recall tasks.

7 CFR 247.13 - Provisions for non-English or limited-English speakers.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Provisions for non-English or limited-English speakers... § 247.13 Provisions for non-English or limited-English speakers. (a) What must State and local agencies do to ensure that non-English or limited-English speaking persons are aware of their rights and...

The Dictionary and Vocabulary Behavior: A Single Word or a Handful?

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Baxter, James

1980-01-01

To provide a context for dictionary selection, the vocabulary behavior of students is examined. Distinguishing between written and spoken English, the relation between dictionary use, classroom vocabulary behavior, and students' success in meeting their communicative needs is discussed. The choice of a monolingual English learners' dictionary is…

Communicating Solar System as experienced on March 29 TSE

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Stavinschi, M.

The Earth becomes increasingly known as we explore the Solar System. The more answers we find on exoplanets, for instance, the better we know our planet. We discover many enigmas in the outer space and, surprisingly, solving them may lead to a higher perception of the land we are pacing. We must be aware of science news that means communicating valuable information to the public. As a consequence, a higher level of collaboration between scientists and science journalists is necessary. An informed and clever audience depends on their results. Our comment is focused on outreach of the last Total Solar Eclipse, from March 29 2006, an astronomical event that gathered around the same idea professional astronomers, and science journalists. Furthermore, even a cake shop has been involved and made for commercialization mini-eclipses cakes. If we cannot deliver the taste of the pastry, the free download soundtrack `Nobody Steals the Sun' may give the general public a sense of what is happening before, during, and after a solar eclipse. The Romanians witnessed different spectacular astronomical events such as the 1999 total solar eclipse and Venus transit. However, the latest TSE gives us a greater opportunity to find new ways of communicating the beauty of science to the public and to inform people about the Solar System. Even the eclipse doesn't happened on the Romanian territory, we managed to form mixed groups of professional and amateur astronomers, ordinary people and journalists, which traveled to Turkey for watching the eclipse. Most of them traveled by coach and had the opportunity to meet beautiful landscapes and know their history, and last but not in the least, to make friends. There were discussions from the scientific point of view that mixed with the curiosity of the participants. Moreover, sessions of popularizing the Sun and phenomenon among locals in different towns were such successful that the Turkish media - newspaper and TV - mentioned it. Scientists

What is English?

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Ulrikke Rindal

2014-10-01

Full Text Available This article considers the developing status of English in Norway, both as a language and as a school subject, making predictions about which ontological and epistemological perspectives will influence English language teaching (ELT in Norway towards 2030. Status quo and predictions for English in Norway is approached from two angles; the development of presiding language beliefs in linguistic science and in ELT practices from the 16th century to the present, and the more recent and rapid development of English as the foremost global language of communication. The article shows how English language beliefs and the status of English are made visible in the national subject curriculum and in the English language practices among Norwegian adolescent learners. The discussion suggests that English is increasingly characterised by those who use it as a second or later language, including Norwegians who negotiate the meanings of English in the ELT classroom. The article predicts that a logical development for Norwegian ELT is increased influence from social constructionist perspectives, in combination with the existing focus on communicative competence. The study shows that global circumstances related to the status of English are reciprocally related to local language beliefs among educational authorities, teachers and students, and that these have major implications for English as a discipline in lower and higher education.

Overview of “Splendid Speaking” Website (http://splendid-speaking.com

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Peter Travis

2011-03-01

Full Text Available It is natural for adult learners preparing for upper-intermediate and advanced speaking examinations like the Cambridge Certificate in Advanced English (CAE, the Business English Certificate (BEC or International English Language Teaching System (IELTS to feel daunted by the Speaking examination. Having their spoken English assessed ‘live’ in a high stakes situation can be quite stressful. To perform at their best in the exam learners need to be able to contribute fully to the various task formats within their spoken exam.Students preparing for these exams need to have regular practice in responding fully to questions, working cooperatively with a partner, and generally taking the opportunity to showcase their use of English. In our experience there was little in the way of freely-available structured materials for advanced speaking skills online. We decided we would like to help learners preparing for their respective exams as well as general upper intermediate to advanced students wishing to develop their speaking skills. We launched splendid-speaking.com in 2006.

The relation between working memory and language comprehension in signers and speakers.

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Emmorey, Karen; Giezen, Marcel R; Petrich, Jennifer A F; Spurgeon, Erin; O'Grady Farnady, Lucinda

2017-06-01

This study investigated the relation between linguistic and spatial working memory (WM) resources and language comprehension for signed compared to spoken language. Sign languages are both linguistic and visual-spatial, and therefore provide a unique window on modality-specific versus modality-independent contributions of WM resources to language processing. Deaf users of American Sign Language (ASL), hearing monolingual English speakers, and hearing ASL-English bilinguals completed several spatial and linguistic serial recall tasks. Additionally, their comprehension of spatial and non-spatial information in ASL and spoken English narratives was assessed. Results from the linguistic serial recall tasks revealed that the often reported advantage for speakers on linguistic short-term memory tasks does not extend to complex WM tasks with a serial recall component. For English, linguistic WM predicted retention of non-spatial information, and both linguistic and spatial WM predicted retention of spatial information. For ASL, spatial WM predicted retention of spatial (but not non-spatial) information, and linguistic WM did not predict retention of either spatial or non-spatial information. Overall, our findings argue against strong assumptions of independent domain-specific subsystems for the storage and processing of linguistic and spatial information and furthermore suggest a less important role for serial encoding in signed than spoken language comprehension. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Learner Views on English and English Language Teaching in China

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Liu, Na; Lin, Chih-Kai; Wiley, Terrence G.

2016-01-01

Since the 1980s, China has represented one of the major growth areas in the world for English language education, and studying English has been a priority among its foreign language educational policies. As English has gained more popularity in China, some have noted the potential value of English as a means to greater educational access and…

Introducing Business English

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Nickerson, C.; Planken, B.C.

2015-01-01

Introducing Business English provides a comprehensive overview of this topic, situating the concepts of Business English and English for Specific Business Purposes within the wider field of English for Special Purposes. This book draws on contemporary teaching and research contexts to demonstrate

Does it really matter whether students' contributions are spoken versus typed in an intelligent tutoring system with natural language?

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D'Mello, Sidney K; Dowell, Nia; Graesser, Arthur

2011-03-01

There is the question of whether learning differs when students speak versus type their responses when interacting with intelligent tutoring systems with natural language dialogues. Theoretical bases exist for three contrasting hypotheses. The speech facilitation hypothesis predicts that spoken input will increase learning, whereas the text facilitation hypothesis predicts typed input will be superior. The modality equivalence hypothesis claims that learning gains will be equivalent. Previous experiments that tested these hypotheses were confounded by automated speech recognition systems with substantial error rates that were detected by learners. We addressed this concern in two experiments via a Wizard of Oz procedure, where a human intercepted the learner's speech and transcribed the utterances before submitting them to the tutor. The overall pattern of the results supported the following conclusions: (1) learning gains associated with spoken and typed input were on par and quantitatively higher than a no-intervention control, (2) participants' evaluations of the session were not influenced by modality, and (3) there were no modality effects associated with differences in prior knowledge and typing proficiency. Although the results generally support the modality equivalence hypothesis, highly motivated learners reported lower cognitive load and demonstrated increased learning when typing compared with speaking. We discuss the implications of our findings for intelligent tutoring systems that can support typed and spoken input.

Three-dimensional grammar in the brain: Dissociating the neural correlates of natural sign language and manually coded spoken language.

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Jednoróg, Katarzyna; Bola, Łukasz; Mostowski, Piotr; Szwed, Marcin; Boguszewski, Paweł M; Marchewka, Artur; Rutkowski, Paweł

2015-05-01

In several countries natural sign languages were considered inadequate for education. Instead, new sign-supported systems were created, based on the belief that spoken/written language is grammatically superior. One such system called SJM (system językowo-migowy) preserves the grammatical and lexical structure of spoken Polish and since 1960s has been extensively employed in schools and on TV. Nevertheless, the Deaf community avoids using SJM for everyday communication, its preferred language being PJM (polski język migowy), a natural sign language, structurally and grammatically independent of spoken Polish and featuring classifier constructions (CCs). Here, for the first time, we compare, with fMRI method, the neural bases of natural vs. devised communication systems. Deaf signers were presented with three types of signed sentences (SJM and PJM with/without CCs). Consistent with previous findings, PJM with CCs compared to either SJM or PJM without CCs recruited the parietal lobes. The reverse comparison revealed activation in the anterior temporal lobes, suggesting increased semantic combinatory processes in lexical sign comprehension. Finally, PJM compared with SJM engaged left posterior superior temporal gyrus and anterior temporal lobe, areas crucial for sentence-level speech comprehension. We suggest that activity in these two areas reflects greater processing efficiency for naturally evolved sign language. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Constructing English as a Ugandan Language through an English Textbook

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Stranger-Johannessen, Espen

2015-01-01

English is a national language in Uganda and is widely used in elite areas such as politics and business, but most Ugandans master English to only a limited degree. In this situation, English can be seen as either a foreign language or a second language--influencing how English is taught. One goal of language teaching espoused in this article is…

Practices That Promote English Reading for English Learners (Els)

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Martínez, Rebecca S.; Harris, Bryn; McClain, Maryellen Brunson

2014-01-01

Schools are becoming increasingly diversified; however, training and professional development related to working with English language learners (ELs), especially in the area of English reading, is limited. In this article, we identify three "Big Ideas" of effective and collaborative practices that promote English reading achievement for…

Students’ attitudes to lecturers' English in English-medium higher education in Denmark

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Christian; Denver, Louise; Mees, Inger M.

2013-01-01

This study examines the evaluative reactions of university students to their non-native lecturers’ English skills in English-medium instruction, i.e. when English is used as a lingua franca in an academic context. In particular, we examine the relationship between perceptions of English language ....... This effect should be addressed when universities use student ratings to evaluate teaching in English-medium content courses.......This study examines the evaluative reactions of university students to their non-native lecturers’ English skills in English-medium instruction, i.e. when English is used as a lingua franca in an academic context. In particular, we examine the relationship between perceptions of English language...... proficiency and perceptions of general lecturing competence (defined here as knowledge of subject and teaching skills). Statistical analyses of 1,700 student responses to 31 non-native English-speaking lecturers at a major business school in Denmark revealed that the students’ perceptions of the lecturers...

Perception of English palatal codas by Korean speakers of English

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Yeon, Sang-Hee

2003-04-01

This study aimed at looking at perception of English palatal codas by Korean speakers of English to determine if perception problems are the source of production problems. In particular, first, this study looked at the possible first language effect on the perception of English palatal codas. Second, a possible perceptual source of vowel epenthesis after English palatal codas was investigated. In addition, individual factors, such as length of residence, TOEFL score, gender and academic status, were compared to determine if those affected the varying degree of the perception accuracy. Eleven adult Korean speakers of English as well as three native speakers of English participated in the study. Three sets of a perception test including identification of minimally different English pseudo- or real words were carried out. The results showed that, first, the Korean speakers perceived the English codas significantly worse than the Americans. Second, the study supported the idea that Koreans perceived an extra /i/ after the final affricates due to final release. Finally, none of the individual factors explained the varying degree of the perceptional accuracy. In particular, TOEFL scores and the perception test scores did not have any statistically significant association.

Approaches for Language Identification in Mismatched Environments

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2016-09-08

domain adaptation, unsupervised learning , deep neural networks, bottleneck features 1. Introduction and task Spoken language identification (LID) is...the process of identifying the language in a spoken speech utterance. In recent years, great improvements in LID system performance have been seen...be the case in practice. Lastly, we conduct an out-of-set experiment where VoA data from 9 other languages (Amharic, Creole, Croatian, English

Chinese Obstetrics & Gynecology journal club: a randomised controlled trial.

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Tsui, Ilene K; Dodson, William C; Kunselman, Allen R; Kuang, Hongying; Han, Feng-Juan; Legro, Richard S; Wu, Xiao-Ke

2016-01-28

To assess whether a journal club model could improve comprehension and written and spoken medical English in a population of Chinese medical professionals. The study population consisted of 52 medical professionals who were residents or postgraduate master or PhD students in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, China. After a three-part baseline examination to assess medical English comprehension, participants were randomised to either (1) an intensive journal club treatment arm or (2) a self-study group. At the conclusion of the 8-week intervention participants (n=52) were re-tested with new questions. The primary outcome was the change in score on a multiple choice examination. Secondary outcomes included change in scores on written and oral examinations which were modelled on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Both groups had improved scores on the multiple choice examination without a statistically significant difference between them (90% power). However, there was a statistically significant difference between the groups in mean improvement in scores for both written (95% CI 1.1 to 5.0; p=0.003) and spoken English (95% CI 0.06 to 3.7; p=0.04) favouring the journal club intervention. Interacting with colleagues and an English-speaking facilitator in a journal club improved both written and spoken medical English in Chinese medical professionals. Journal clubs may be suitable for use as a self-sustainable teaching model to improve fluency in medical English in foreign medical professionals. NCT01844609. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

Oscillatory Brain Responses Reflect Anticipation during Comprehension of Speech Acts in Spoken Dialog

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Rosa S. Gisladottir

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Everyday conversation requires listeners to quickly recognize verbal actions, so-called speech acts, from the underspecified linguistic code and prepare a relevant response within the tight time constraints of turn-taking. The goal of this study was to determine the time-course of speech act recognition by investigating oscillatory EEG activity during comprehension of spoken dialog. Participants listened to short, spoken dialogs with target utterances that delivered three distinct speech acts (Answers, Declinations, Pre-offers. The targets were identical across conditions at lexico-syntactic and phonetic/prosodic levels but differed in the pragmatic interpretation of the speech act performed. Speech act comprehension was associated with reduced power in the alpha/beta bands just prior to Declination speech acts, relative to Answers and Pre-offers. In addition, we observed reduced power in the theta band during the beginning of Declinations, relative to Answers. Based on the role of alpha and beta desynchronization in anticipatory processes, the results are taken to indicate that anticipation plays a role in speech act recognition. Anticipation of speech acts could be critical for efficient turn-taking, allowing interactants to quickly recognize speech acts and respond within the tight time frame characteristic of conversation. The results show that anticipatory processes can be triggered by the characteristics of the interaction, including the speech act type.

To Teach Standard English or World Englishes? A Balanced Approach to Instruction

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Farrell, Thomas S. C.; Martin, Sonia

2009-01-01

This article suggests that English language teachers should consider all varieties of English, not just British Standard English or American Standard English. In order to better prepare students for the global world, and to show them that their own English is valued, teachers can implement a balanced approach that incorporates the teaching and…

Cross-dialectal variation in formant dynamics of American English vowels

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Fox, Robert Allen; Jacewicz, Ewa

2009-01-01

This study aims to characterize the nature of the dynamic spectral change in vowels in three distinct regional varieties of American English spoken in the Western North Carolina, in Central Ohio, and in Southern Wisconsin. The vowels ∕ɪ, ε, e, æ, aɪ∕ were produced by 48 women for a total of 1920 utterances and were contained in words of the structure ∕bVts∕ and ∕bVdz∕ in sentences which elicited nonemphatic and emphatic vowels. Measurements made at the vowel target (i.e., the central 60% of the vowel) produced a set of acoustic parameters which included position and movement in the F1 by F2 space, vowel duration, amount of spectral change [measured as vector length (VL) and trajectory length (TL)], and spectral rate of change. Results revealed expected variation in formant dynamics as a function of phonetic factors (vowel emphasis and consonantal context). However, for each vowel and for each measure employed, dialect was a strong source of variation in vowel-inherent spectral change. In general, the dialect-specific nature and amount of spectral change can be characterized quite effectively by position and movement in the F1 by F2 space, vowel duration, TL (but not VL which underestimates formant movement), and spectral rate of change. PMID:19894839

The interaction of lexical semantics and cohort competition in spoken word recognition: an fMRI study.

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Zhuang, Jie; Randall, Billi; Stamatakis, Emmanuel A; Marslen-Wilson, William D; Tyler, Lorraine K

2011-12-01

Spoken word recognition involves the activation of multiple word candidates on the basis of the initial speech input--the "cohort"--and selection among these competitors. Selection may be driven primarily by bottom-up acoustic-phonetic inputs or it may be modulated by other aspects of lexical representation, such as a word's meaning [Marslen-Wilson, W. D. Functional parallelism in spoken word-recognition. Cognition, 25, 71-102, 1987]. We examined these potential interactions in an fMRI study by presenting participants with words and pseudowords for lexical decision. In a factorial design, we manipulated (a) cohort competition (high/low competitive cohorts which vary the number of competing word candidates) and (b) the word's semantic properties (high/low imageability). A previous behavioral study [Tyler, L. K., Voice, J. K., & Moss, H. E. The interaction of meaning and sound in spoken word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 7, 320-326, 2000] showed that imageability facilitated word recognition but only for words in high competition cohorts. Here we found greater activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 45, 47) and the right inferior frontal gyrus (BA 47) with increased cohort competition, an imageability effect in the left posterior middle temporal gyrus/angular gyrus (BA 39), and a significant interaction between imageability and cohort competition in the left posterior superior temporal gyrus/middle temporal gyrus (BA 21, 22). In words with high competition cohorts, high imageability words generated stronger activity than low imageability words, indicating a facilitatory role of imageability in a highly competitive cohort context. For words in low competition cohorts, there was no effect of imageability. These results support the behavioral data in showing that selection processes do not rely solely on bottom-up acoustic-phonetic cues but rather that the semantic properties of candidate words facilitate discrimination between competitors.

Developing and Testing EVALOE: A Tool for Assessing Spoken Language Teaching and Learning in the Classroom

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Gràcia, Marta; Vega, Fàtima; Galván-Bovaira, Maria José

2015-01-01

Broadly speaking, the teaching of spoken language in Spanish schools has not been approached in a systematic way. Changes in school practices are needed in order to allow all children to become competent speakers and to understand and construct oral texts that are appropriate in different contexts and for different audiences both inside and…

Task modulation of disyllabic spoken word recognition in Mandarin Chinese: a unimodal ERP study.

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Huang, Xianjun; Yang, Jin-Chen; Chang, Ruohan; Guo, Chunyan

2016-05-16

Using unimodal auditory tasks of word-matching and meaning-matching, this study investigated how the phonological and semantic processes in Chinese disyllabic spoken word recognition are modulated by top-down mechanism induced by experimental tasks. Both semantic similarity and word-initial phonological similarity between the primes and targets were manipulated. Results showed that at early stage of recognition (~150-250 ms), an enhanced P2 was elicited by the word-initial phonological mismatch in both tasks. In ~300-500 ms, a fronto-central negative component was elicited by word-initial phonological similarities in the word-matching task, while a parietal negativity was elicited by semantically unrelated primes in the meaning-matching task, indicating that both the semantic and phonological processes can be involved in this time window, depending on the task requirements. In the late stage (~500-700 ms), a centro-parietal Late N400 was elicited in both tasks, but with a larger effect in the meaning-matching task than in the word-matching task. This finding suggests that the semantic representation of the spoken words can be activated automatically in the late stage of recognition, even when semantic processing is not required. However, the magnitude of the semantic activation is modulated by task requirements.

Only English by the third generation? Loss and preservation of the mother tongue among the grandchildren of contemporary immigrants.

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Alba, Richard; Logan, John; Lutz, Amy; Stults, Brian

2002-08-01

We investigate whether a three-generation model of linguistic assimilation, known from previous waves of immigration, can be applied to the descendants of contemporary immigrant groups. Using the 5% Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample 1990 file, we examine the home languages of second- and third-generation children and compare the degree of their language shift against that among the descendants of European immigrants, as evidenced in the 1940 and 1970 censuses. Overall, the rates of speaking only English for a number of contemporary groups suggest that Anglicization is occurring at roughly the same pace for Asians as it did for Europeans, but is slower among the descendants of Spanish speakers. Multivariate models for three critical groups--Chinese, Cubans, and Mexicans--indicate that the home languages of third-generation children are most affected by factors, such as intermarriage, that determine the languages spoken by adults and by the communal context.

English Voices in "Text-to-Speech Tools": Representation of English Users and Their Varieties from a World Englishes Perspective

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Karakas, Ali

2017-01-01

English has experienced grave transformations recently in terms of socio-demographic and geographical characteristics. While such transformations have resulted in diverse types of English uses and various English users, the existing ELT materials still fail to represent the global varieties and dynamic uses and users of English. Moving from a…

The missing foundation in teacher education: Knowledge of the structure of spoken and written language.

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Moats, L C

1994-01-01

Reading research supports the necessity for directly teaching concepts about linguistic structure to beginning readers and to students with reading and spelling difficulties. In this study, experienced teachers of reading, language arts, and special education were tested to determine if they have the requisite awareness of language elements (e.g., phonemes, morphemes) and of how these elements are represented in writing (e.g., knowledge of sound-symbol correspondences). The results were surprisingly poor, indicating that even motivated and experienced teachers typically understand too little about spoken and written language structure to be able to provide sufficient instruction in these areas. The utility of language structure knowledge for instructional planning, for assessment of student progress, and for remediation of literacy problems is discussed.The teachers participating in the study subsequently took a course focusing on phonemic awareness training, spoken-written language relationships, and careful analysis of spelling and reading behavior in children. At the end of the course, the teachers judged this information to be essential for teaching and advised that it become a prerequisite for certification. Recommendations for requirements and content of teacher education programs are presented.

Psycholinguistic norms for action photographs in French and their relationships with spoken and written latencies.

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Bonin, Patrick; Boyer, Bruno; Méot, Alain; Fayol, Michel; Droit, Sylvie

2004-02-01

A set of 142 photographs of actions (taken from Fiez & Tranel, 1997) was standardized in French on name agreement, image agreement, conceptual familiarity, visual complexity, imageability, age of acquisition, and duration of the depicted actions. Objective word frequency measures were provided for the infinitive modal forms of the verbs and for the cumulative frequency of the verbal forms associated with the photographs. Statistics on the variables collected for action items were provided and compared with the statistics on the same variables collected for object items. The relationships between these variables were analyzed, and certain comparisons between the current database and other similar published databases of pictures of actions are reported. Spoken and written naming latencies were also collected for the photographs of actions, and multiple regression analyses revealed that name agreement, image agreement, and age of acquisition are the major determinants of action naming speed. Finally, certain analyses were performed to compare object and action naming times. The norms and the spoken and written naming latencies corresponding to the pictures are available on the Internet (http://www.psy.univ-bpclermont.fr/~pbonin/pbonin-eng.html) and should be of great use to researchers interested in the processing of actions.

Estimating Spoken Dialog System Quality with User Models

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Engelbrecht, Klaus-Peter

2013-01-01

Spoken dialog systems have the potential to offer highly intuitive user interfaces, as they allow systems to be controlled using natural language. However, the complexity inherent in natural language dialogs means that careful testing of the system must be carried out from the very beginning of the design process.   This book examines how user models can be used to support such early evaluations in two ways:  by running simulations of dialogs, and by estimating the quality judgments of users. First, a design environment supporting the creation of dialog flows, the simulation of dialogs, and the analysis of the simulated data is proposed.  How the quality of user simulations may be quantified with respect to their suitability for both formative and summative evaluation is then discussed. The remainder of the book is dedicated to the problem of predicting quality judgments of users based on interaction data. New modeling approaches are presented, which process the dialogs as sequences, and which allow knowl...

The Impact of Age, Background Noise, Semantic Ambiguity, and Hearing Loss on Recognition Memory for Spoken Sentences

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Koeritzer, Margaret A.; Rogers, Chad S.; Van Engen, Kristin J.; Peelle, Jonathan E.

2018-01-01

Purpose: The goal of this study was to determine how background noise, linguistic properties of spoken sentences, and listener abilities (hearing sensitivity and verbal working memory) affect cognitive demand during auditory sentence comprehension. Method: We tested 30 young adults and 30 older adults. Participants heard lists of sentences in…

Teaching English to Engineers: Between English Language Teaching and Psychology

OpenAIRE

Irina-Ana Drobot

2016-01-01

Teaching English to Engineers is part of English for Specific Purposes, a domain which is under the attention of English students especially under the current conditions of finding jobs and establishing partnerships outside Romania. The paper will analyse the existing textbooks together with the teaching strategies they adopt. Teaching English to Engineering students can intersect with domains such as psychology and cultural studies in order to teach them efficiently. Textbooks for students o...

Researching awareness and attitudes : a study of world Englishes and English teachers in South Korea

OpenAIRE

Ahn, Hyejeong

2017-01-01

This study explores the awareness and attitudes of English teachers in South Korea (ETSK) toward eight selected varieties of English: American English (AmE), British English (BrE), Canadian English (CaE), Singaporean English (SiE), Indian English (InE), Chinese English (ChE), Japanese English (JaE) and Korean English (KoE). Data, consisting of 204 questionnaires and 63 interviews, is collected from both Korean and non-Korean English teachers, from two major regions, Busan Gyeongnam and Seoul ...

Semantic Fluency in Deaf Children Who Use Spoken and Signed Language in Comparison with Hearing Peers

Science.gov (United States)

Marshall, C. R.; Jones, A.; Fastelli, A.; Atkinson, J.; Botting, N.; Morgan, G.

2018-01-01

Background: Deafness has an adverse impact on children's ability to acquire spoken languages. Signed languages offer a more accessible input for deaf children, but because the vast majority are born to hearing parents who do not sign, their early exposure to sign language is limited. Deaf children as a whole are therefore at high risk of language…

Extramural English

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Signe Hannibal

activities are more supportive of language learning than others, i.e. gaming, watching television, music, etc. Finally, a qualitative gaming study will be carried out to explore what goes on linguistically when very young children game in English together: type of interaction between players...... and with the game and if this interaction can be seen to support their English language learning. Preliminary results indicate that although children use / are exposed to English in a range of different contexts and through a variety of modalities (internet, console/PC games, music etc.), the one activity...... that seems to have the most impact on children’s English learning is gaming....

English Teaching Profile: Peru.

Science.gov (United States)

British Council, London (England). English Language and Literature Div.

The role and status of English in Peru are examined, with attention directed to: (1) English within the education system; (2) teachers of English; (3) educational administration of English teaching, (4) materials support, development, and planning, (5) English outside the education system; (6) British and American support for the teaching of…

Morphosyntactic constructs in the development of spoken and written Hebrew text production.

Science.gov (United States)

Ravid, Dorit; Zilberbuch, Shoshana

2003-05-01

This study examined the distribution of two Hebrew nominal structures-N-N compounds and denominal adjectives-in spoken and written texts of two genres produced by 90 native-speaking participants in three age groups: eleven/twelve-year-olds (6th graders), sixteen/seventeen-year-olds (11th graders), and adults. The two constructions are later linguistic acquisitions, part of the profound lexical and syntactic changes that occur in language development during the school years. They are investigated in the context of learning how modality (speech vs. writing) and genre (biographical vs. expository texts) affect the production of continuous discourse. Participants were asked to speak and write about two topics, one biographical, describing the life of a public figure or of a friend; and another, expository, discussing one of ten topics such as the cinema, cats, or higher academic studies. N-N compounding was found to be the main device of complex subcategorization in Hebrew discourse, unrelated to genre. Denominal adjectives are a secondary subcategorizing device emerging only during the late teen years, a linguistic resource untapped until very late, more restricted to specific text types than N-N compounding, and characteristic of expository writing. Written texts were found to be denser than spoken texts lexically and syntactically as measured by number of novel N-N compounds and denominal adjectives per clause, and in older age groups this difference was found to be more pronounced. The paper contributes to our understanding of how the syntax/lexicon interface changes with age, modality and genre in the context of later language acquisition.

An Introduction to Spoken Bolivian Quechua.

Science.gov (United States)

Bills, Garland D.; And Others

This text is intended for use in a college-level course in Bolivian Quechua for speakers of English. It is divided into thirty units and is specifically designed for a two-semester academic year of fifteen weeks a semester. The entire text is highly structured, carefully graded, and organized on the principles of the audiolingual approach to…