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

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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,…

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...

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

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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.

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

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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

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.

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

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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

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

Science.gov (United States)

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.

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

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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.

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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.

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.

Deep bottleneck features for spoken language identification.

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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.

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

Science.gov (United States)

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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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.

Science.gov (United States)

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.

Students who are deaf and hard of hearing and use sign language: considerations and strategies for developing spoken language and literacy skills.

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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.

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

Iconicity as a general property of language: evidence from spoken and signed languages

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Pamela Perniss

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Current views about language are dominated by the idea of arbitrary connections between linguistic form and meaning. However, if we look beyond the more familiar Indo-European languages and also include both spoken and signed language modalities, we find that motivated, iconic form-meaning mappings are, in fact, pervasive in language. In this paper, we review the different types of iconic mappings that characterize languages in both modalities, including the predominantly visually iconic mappings in signed languages. Having shown that iconic mapping are present across languages, we then proceed to review evidence showing that language users (signers and speakers exploit iconicity in language processing and language acquisition. While not discounting the presence and importance of arbitrariness in language, we put forward the idea that iconicity need also be recognized as a general property of language, which may serve the function of reducing the gap between linguistic form and conceptual representation to allow the language system to hook up to motor and perceptual experience.

Sign language recognition and translation: a multidisciplined approach from the field of artificial intelligence.

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Parton, Becky Sue

2006-01-01

In recent years, research has progressed steadily in regard to the use of computers to recognize and render sign language. This paper reviews significant projects in the field beginning with finger-spelling hands such as "Ralph" (robotics), CyberGloves (virtual reality sensors to capture isolated and continuous signs), camera-based projects such as the CopyCat interactive American Sign Language game (computer vision), and sign recognition software (Hidden Markov Modeling and neural network systems). Avatars such as "Tessa" (Text and Sign Support Assistant; three-dimensional imaging) and spoken language to sign language translation systems such as Poland's project entitled "THETOS" (Text into Sign Language Automatic Translator, which operates in Polish; natural language processing) are addressed. The application of this research to education is also explored. The "ICICLE" (Interactive Computer Identification and Correction of Language Errors) project, for example, uses intelligent computer-aided instruction to build a tutorial system for deaf or hard-of-hearing children that analyzes their English writing and makes tailored lessons and recommendations. Finally, the article considers synthesized sign, which is being added to educational material and has the potential to be developed by students themselves.

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…

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

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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.

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

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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…

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

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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.

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.

Spoken Language Understanding Systems for Extracting Semantic Information from Speech

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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

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

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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, ...

V2S: Voice to Sign Language Translation System for Malaysian Deaf People

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Mean Foong, Oi; Low, Tang Jung; La, Wai Wan

The process of learning and understand the sign language may be cumbersome to some, and therefore, this paper proposes a solution to this problem by providing a voice (English Language) to sign language translation system using Speech and Image processing technique. Speech processing which includes Speech Recognition is the study of recognizing the words being spoken, regardless of whom the speaker is. This project uses template-based recognition as the main approach in which the V2S system first needs to be trained with speech pattern based on some generic spectral parameter set. These spectral parameter set will then be stored as template in a database. The system will perform the recognition process through matching the parameter set of the input speech with the stored templates to finally display the sign language in video format. Empirical results show that the system has 80.3% recognition rate.

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...

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

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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

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

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

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...

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.

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

Science.gov (United States)

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…

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

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…

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

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...

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.

The missing foundation in teacher education: Knowledge of the structure of spoken and written language.

Science.gov (United States)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Beneficial Role of L1 Spoken Language Skills on Initial L2 Sign Language Learning: Cognitive and Linguistic Predictors of M2L2 Acquisition

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, Joshua T.; Darcy, Isabelle; Newman, Sharlene D.

2017-01-01

Understanding how language modality (i.e., signed vs. spoken) affects second language outcomes in hearing adults is important both theoretically and pedagogically, as it can determine the specificity of second language (L2) theory and inform how best to teach a language that uses a new modality. The present study investigated which…

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.

Spoken language development in oral preschool children with permanent childhood deafness.

Science.gov (United States)

Sarant, Julia Z; Holt, Colleen M; Dowell, Richard C; Rickards, Field W; Blamey, Peter J

2009-01-01

This article documented spoken language outcomes for preschool children with hearing loss and examined the relationships between language abilities and characteristics of children such as degree of hearing loss, cognitive abilities, age at entry to early intervention, and parent involvement in children's intervention programs. Participants were evaluated using a combination of the Child Development Inventory, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and the Preschool Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals depending on their age at the time of assessment. Maternal education, cognitive ability, and family involvement were also measured. Over half of the children who participated in this study had poor language outcomes overall. No significant differences were found in language outcomes on any of the measures for children who were diagnosed early and those diagnosed later. Multiple regression analyses showed that family participation, degree of hearing loss, and cognitive ability significantly predicted language outcomes and together accounted for almost 60% of the variance in scores. This article highlights the importance of family participation in intervention programs to enable children to achieve optimal language outcomes. Further work may clarify the effects of early diagnosis on language outcomes for preschool children.

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…

Timing of translation in cross-language qualitative research.

Science.gov (United States)

Santos, Hudson P O; Black, Amanda M; Sandelowski, Margarete

2015-01-01

Although there is increased understanding of language barriers in cross-language studies, the point at which language transformation processes are applied in research is inconsistently reported, or treated as a minor issue. Differences in translation timeframes raise methodological issues related to the material to be translated, as well as for the process of data analysis and interpretation. In this article we address methodological issues related to the timing of translation from Portuguese to English in two international cross-language collaborative research studies involving researchers from Brazil, Canada, and the United States. One study entailed late-phase translation of a research report, whereas the other study involved early phase translation of interview data. The timing of translation in interaction with the object of translation should be considered, in addition to the language, cultural, subject matter, and methodological competencies of research team members. © The Author(s) 2014.

The Attitudes and Motivation of Children towards Learning Rarely Spoken Foreign Languages: A Case Study from Saudi Arabia

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Nofaie, Haifa

2018-01-01

This article discusses the attitudes and motivations of two Saudi children learning Japanese as a foreign language (hence JFL), a language which is rarely spoken in the country. Studies regarding children's motivation for learning foreign languages that are not widely spread in their contexts in informal settings are scarce. The aim of the study…

Advances in natural language processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Hirschberg, Julia; Manning, Christopher D

2015-07-17

Natural language processing employs computational techniques for the purpose of learning, understanding, and producing human language content. Early computational approaches to language research focused on automating the analysis of the linguistic structure of language and developing basic technologies such as machine translation, speech recognition, and speech synthesis. Today's researchers refine and make use of such tools in real-world applications, creating spoken dialogue systems and speech-to-speech translation engines, mining social media for information about health or finance, and identifying sentiment and emotion toward products and services. We describe successes and challenges in this rapidly advancing area. Copyright © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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

Language policy, translation and language development in Zimbabwe

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The language policy is usually inferred from the language practices that characterise various spheres of life. This article attempts to show how the language policy, which primarily influences text production in the country, has nurtured translation practice. The dominating role of English sees many texts, particularly technical ...

La langue aymara: Des cimes andines a l'intelligence des ordinateurs (The Aymara Language: Andean Peaks for the Intelligence of Computers).

Science.gov (United States)

Barbin, Christina

1987-01-01

Research suggests that Aymara, an ancient language still spoken in parts of South America, may be well suited for use as a "bridge" language in translation because of its extremely regular and coherent grammar. A machine translation program using the language has already been developed. (MSE)

Language policies and sign language translation and interpreting: connections between Brazil and Mozambique

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Silvana Aguiar dos Santos

2015-12-01

Full Text Available http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1984-8420.2015v16n2p101 This paper is the result of an initial attempt to establish a connection between Brazil and Mozambique regarding sign language translation and interpreting. It reviews some important landmarks in language policies aimed at sign languages in these countries and discusses how certain actions directly impact political decisions related to sign lan­guage translation and interpreting. In this context, two lines of argument are developed. The first one addresses the role of sign language translation and interpreting in the Por­tuguese-speaking context, since Portuguese is the official language in both countries; the other offers some reflections about the Deaf movements and the movements of sign lan­guage translators and interpreters, the legal recognition of sign languages, the develop­ment of undergraduate courses and the contemporary challenges in the work of transla­tion professionals. Finally, it is suggested that sign language translators and interpreters in both Brazil and Mozambique undertake efforts to press government bodies to invest in: (i area-specific training for translators and interpreters, (ii qualification of the ser­vices provided by such professionals, and (iii development of human resources at mas­ter’s and doctoral levels in order to strengthen research on sign language translation and interpreting in the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries.

Translation in Language Teaching: Insights from Professional Translator Training

Science.gov (United States)

Carreres, Angeles; Noriega-Sanchez, Maria

2011-01-01

The past three decades have seen vast changes in attitudes towards translation, both as an academic discipline and as a profession. The insights we have gained in recent years, in particular in the area of professional translator training, call for a reassessment of the role of translation in language teaching. Drawing on research and practices in…

International Test Comparisons: Reviewing Translation Error in Different Source Language-Target Language Combinations

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Xueyu; Solano-Flores, Guillermo; Qian, Ming

2018-01-01

This article addresses test translation review in international test comparisons. We investigated the applicability of the theory of test translation error--a theory of the multidimensionality and inevitability of test translation error--across source language-target language combinations in the translation of PISA (Programme of International…

Resting-state low-frequency fluctuations reflect individual differences in spoken language learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Deng, Zhizhou; Chandrasekaran, Bharath; Wang, Suiping; Wong, Patrick C M

2016-03-01

A major challenge in language learning studies is to identify objective, pre-training predictors of success. Variation in the low-frequency fluctuations (LFFs) of spontaneous brain activity measured by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI) has been found to reflect individual differences in cognitive measures. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the extent to which initial spontaneous brain activity is related to individual differences in spoken language learning. We acquired RS-fMRI data and subsequently trained participants on a sound-to-word learning paradigm in which they learned to use foreign pitch patterns (from Mandarin Chinese) to signal word meaning. We performed amplitude of spontaneous low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) analysis, graph theory-based analysis, and independent component analysis (ICA) to identify functional components of the LFFs in the resting-state. First, we examined the ALFF as a regional measure and showed that regional ALFFs in the left superior temporal gyrus were positively correlated with learning performance, whereas ALFFs in the default mode network (DMN) regions were negatively correlated with learning performance. Furthermore, the graph theory-based analysis indicated that the degree and local efficiency of the left superior temporal gyrus were positively correlated with learning performance. Finally, the default mode network and several task-positive resting-state networks (RSNs) were identified via the ICA. The "competition" (i.e., negative correlation) between the DMN and the dorsal attention network was negatively correlated with learning performance. Our results demonstrate that a) spontaneous brain activity can predict future language learning outcome without prior hypotheses (e.g., selection of regions of interest--ROIs) and b) both regional dynamics and network-level interactions in the resting brain can account for individual differences in future spoken language learning success

Resting-state low-frequency fluctuations reflect individual differences in spoken language learning

Science.gov (United States)

Deng, Zhizhou; Chandrasekaran, Bharath; Wang, Suiping; Wong, Patrick C.M.

2016-01-01

A major challenge in language learning studies is to identify objective, pre-training predictors of success. Variation in the low-frequency fluctuations (LFFs) of spontaneous brain activity measured by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI) has been found to reflect individual differences in cognitive measures. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the extent to which initial spontaneous brain activity is related to individual differences in spoken language learning. We acquired RS-fMRI data and subsequently trained participants on a sound-to-word learning paradigm in which they learned to use foreign pitch patterns (from Mandarin Chinese) to signal word meaning. We performed amplitude of spontaneous low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) analysis, graph theory-based analysis, and independent component analysis (ICA) to identify functional components of the LFFs in the resting-state. First, we examined the ALFF as a regional measure and showed that regional ALFFs in the left superior temporal gyrus were positively correlated with learning performance, whereas ALFFs in the default mode network (DMN) regions were negatively correlated with learning performance. Furthermore, the graph theory-based analysis indicated that the degree and local efficiency of the left superior temporal gyrus were positively correlated with learning performance. Finally, the default mode network and several task-positive resting-state networks (RSNs) were identified via the ICA. The “competition” (i.e., negative correlation) between the DMN and the dorsal attention network was negatively correlated with learning performance. Our results demonstrate that a) spontaneous brain activity can predict future language learning outcome without prior hypotheses (e.g., selection of regions of interest – ROIs) and b) both regional dynamics and network-level interactions in the resting brain can account for individual differences in future spoken language learning success

Spoken language achieves robustness and evolvability by exploiting degeneracy and neutrality.

Science.gov (United States)

Winter, Bodo

2014-10-01

As with biological systems, spoken languages are strikingly robust against perturbations. This paper shows that languages achieve robustness in a way that is highly similar to many biological systems. For example, speech sounds are encoded via multiple acoustically diverse, temporally distributed and functionally redundant cues, characteristics that bear similarities to what biologists call "degeneracy". Speech is furthermore adequately characterized by neutrality, with many different tongue configurations leading to similar acoustic outputs, and different acoustic variants understood as the same by recipients. This highlights the presence of a large neutral network of acoustic neighbors for every speech sound. Such neutrality ensures that a steady backdrop of variation can be maintained without impeding communication, assuring that there is "fodder" for subsequent evolution. Thus, studying linguistic robustness is not only important for understanding how linguistic systems maintain their functioning upon the background of noise, but also for understanding the preconditions for language evolution. © 2014 WILEY Periodicals, Inc.

Code-switched English pronunciation modeling for Swahili spoken term detection

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Kleynhans, N

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Computer Science 81 ( 2016 ) 128 – 135 5th Workshop on Spoken Language Technology for Under-resourced Languages, SLTU 2016, 9-12 May 2016, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Code-switched English Pronunciation Modeling for Swahili Spoken Term Detection Neil...

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

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

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.

The Simpsons: Translation and language teaching in an EFL class

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elisabetta Pavan

2013-10-01

Full Text Available My point of departure for this paper is that translation, so long neglected in foreign language teaching, can not only improve students’ linguistic competences in both a foreign language and their mother tongue, but also their awareness of cultural and intercultural elements. It is a widespread popular assumption, among those not involved in language teaching, that linguistic competences are the key to learning a language and to communicating in a foreign language; consequently, they assume that translation ought to play a major role in the study of a foreign language. Indeed, late 20th century theories of language teaching, apart from the grammar-translation method, have largely ignored or criticized the role of translation. I will focus on a translation course I taught to a class of a year three Italian undergraduate students studying foreign languages, and discuss the advantages of using translation to improve students’ linguistic competences, in their mother tongue and in the foreign language, and to develop their intercultural communicative competences and their cultural (Bassnett, 2002, 2007 and intercultural awareness (Kramsch, 1993, 1998. The translated text was taken from The Simpsons, season 21, episode 16.

Translation Methods Used In Writing Indonesian Subtitles Of “Kung Fu Panda Holiday”

OpenAIRE

NURMALLAH, HERDIANTI

2013-01-01

In Indonesia, western movies that are spoken in English make the need for Indonesian subtitles increase. To make subtitles in different language, translation has an important role. The translator must use appropriate methods to produce good translation. This study aims to find out the kinds of translation methods used in writing Indonesian subtitles of the movie “Kung Fu Panda Holiday” by using Newmark's theory (1988). This study uses descriptive qualitative approach with document analysis. T...

Orthographic effects in spoken word recognition: Evidence from Chinese.

Science.gov (United States)

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.

Problems Related to the Translation of Political Texts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sárosi-Márdirosz Krisztina

2015-03-01

Full Text Available This study deals with the problems related to the translation of political texts in the theoretical framework elaborated by the researchers working in the field of translation studies and reflects on the terminological peculiarities of the special language used for this text type. Consideration of the theoretical framework is followed by the analysis of a specific text spoken then written in English and translated into Hungarian and Romanian. The conclusions are intended to highlight the fact that there are no recipes for translating a political speech, because translation is not only a technical process that uses translation procedures and applies transfer operations, but also a matter of understanding cultural, historical and political situations and their significance.

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.

Sign Language Interpreting in Theatre: Using the Human Body to Create Pictures of the Human Soul

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Michael Richardson

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This paper explores theatrical interpreting for Deaf spectators, a specialism that both blurs the separation between translation and interpreting, and replaces these potentials with a paradigm in which the translator's body is central to the production of the target text. Meaningful written translations of dramatic texts into sign language are not currently possible. For Deaf people to access Shakespeare or Moliere in their own language usually means attending a sign language interpreted performance, a typically disappointing experience that fails to provide accessibility or to fulfil the potential of a dynamically equivalent theatrical translation. I argue that when such interpreting events fail, significant contributory factors are the challenges involved in producing such a target text and the insufficient embodiment of that text. The second of these factors suggests that the existing conference and community models of interpreting are insufficient in describing theatrical interpreting. I propose that a model drawn from Theatre Studies, namely psychophysical acting, might be more effective for conceptualising theatrical interpreting. I also draw on theories from neurological research into the Mirror Neuron System to suggest that a highly visual and physical approach to performance (be that by actors or interpreters is more effective in building a strong actor-spectator interaction than a performance in which meaning is conveyed by spoken words. Arguably this difference in language impact between signed and spoken is irrelevant to hearing audiences attending spoken language plays, but I suggest that for all theatre translators the implications are significant: it is not enough to create a literary translation as the target text; it is also essential to produce a text that suggests physicality. The aim should be the creation of a text which demands full expression through the body, the best picture of the human soul and the fundamental medium

Clean translation of an imperative reversible programming language

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Axelsen, Holger Bock

2011-01-01

We describe the translation techniques used for the code generation in a compiler from the high-level reversible imperative programming language Janus to the low-level reversible assembly language PISA. Our translation is both semantics preserving (correct), in that target programs compute exactly...... the same functions as their source programs (cleanly, with no extraneous garbage output), and efficient, in that target programs conserve the complexities of source programs. In particular, target programs only require a constant amount of temporary garbage space. The given translation methods are generic......, and should be applicable to any (imperative) reversible source language described with reversible flowcharts and reversible updates. To our knowledge, this is the first compiler between reversible languages where the source and target languages were independently developed; the first exhibiting both...

Typologically robust statistical machine translation : Understanding and exploiting differences and similarities between languages in machine translation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Daiber, J.

2018-01-01

Machine translation systems often incorporate modeling assumptions motivated by properties of the language pairs they initially target. When such systems are applied to language families with considerably different properties, translation quality can deteriorate. Phrase-based machine translation

Developing and Testing EVALOE: A Tool for Assessing Spoken Language Teaching and Learning in the Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

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…

The Usefulness of Translation in Foreign Language Learning: Students’ Attitudes

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Ana B. Fernández-Guerra

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Several scholars have argued that translation is not a useful tool when acquiring a second or foreign language; since it provides a simplistic one-to-one relationship between the native and the foreign language, it can cause interference between them, and it is an artificial exercise that has nothing to do in a communicative approach to language teaching. Recent studies, however, show that, far from being useless, translation can be a great aid to foreign language learning. The aim of the present paper is twofold: (1 to summarize and assess the arguments that encourage the use of translation in the foreign language classroom, supporting the integration of several forms of translating; and (2 to present the results of a survey that focused on students’ perceptions and responses towards translation tasks and their effectiveness in foreign language acquisition. Results show that students’ attitudes were surprisingly positive for several reasons: translation is one of their preferred language learning tasks, it is motivating, it facilitates a deeper understanding of the form and content of the source language text, it increases learners’ awareness of the differences between both linguistic systems, it allows them to re-express their thoughts faster and easier, and it helps them acquire linguistic and cultural knowledge.

Translation in language learning: a ‘what for’ approach

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Paolo E. Balboni

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Literature about translation in language learning and teaching shows the prominence of the ‘for and against’ approach, while a ‘what for’ approach would be more profitable. In order to prevent the latter approach from becoming a random list of the potential benefits of the use of translation in language teaching, this essay suggests the use of a formal model of communicative competence, to see which of its components can profit of translation activities. The result is a map of the effects of translation in the wide range of competences and abilities which constitute language learning.

On Language Characteristics and Translation Skills of Advertising Text

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

陈迎亚

2012-01-01

Under the situation of economic globalization today, the internationalization of advertising is becoming more and more obvious. All enterprises in all countries are meeting the same international, global problem, the problem of advertising translation. When dealing with advertising translation, we should take full account of language habits and cultural background of target customers. Therefore, it turns out to be important that we should be familiar with the language characteristics and translation skills of English advertisements. In this paper, I will introduce the language characteristics of English advertisements from three aspects of words, syntax and rhetorical devices, and introduce skills of advertising translation.

How Does the Linguistic Distance between Spoken and Standard Language in Arabic Affect Recall and Recognition Performances during Verbal Memory Examination

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Taha, Haitham

2017-01-01

The current research examined how Arabic diglossia affects verbal learning memory. Thirty native Arab college students were tested using auditory verbal memory test that was adapted according to the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test and developed in three versions: Pure spoken language version (SL), pure standard language version (SA), and…

Literary translation into indigenous languages in Nigeria and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This study makes out a case for the thorny problem of literary translation into Nigeria's indigenous languages and its role in national development. In this paper, we outline the way forward given the fact that literary translation into Nigerian languages had gone through a sticky patch. Federal, State and Local governments in ...

Harry Potter in Translation: Making Language Learning Magical

Science.gov (United States)

Eaton, Sarah Elaine

2012-01-01

This guidebook for teachers documents the "Harry Potter in Translation" project undertaken at the Language Research Centre at the University of Calgary. The guide also offers 5 sample lesson plans for teachers of grades three to twelve for teaching world languages using the Harry Potter books in translation to engage students. (Contains…

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.

The third language: A recurrent textual restriction that translators come across in audiovisual translation.

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Montse Corrius Gimbert

2005-01-01

Full Text Available If the process of translating is not at all simple, the process of translating an audiovisual text is still more complex. Apart rom technical problems such as lip synchronisation, there are other factors to be considered such as the use of the language and textual structures deemed appropriate to the channel of communication. Bearing in mind that most of the films we are continually seeing on our screens were and are produced in the United States, there is an increasing need to translate them into the different languages of the world. But sometimes the source audiovisual text contains more than one language, and, thus, a new problem arises: the ranslators face additional difficulties in translating this “third language” (language or dialect into the corresponding target culture. There are many films containing two languages in the original version but in this paper we will focus mainly on three films: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969, Raid on Rommel (1999 and Blade Runner (1982. This paper aims at briefly illustrating different solutions which may be applied when we come across a “third language”.

Word frequencies in written and spoken English based on the British National Corpus

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Leech, Geoffrey; Wilson, Andrew (All Of Lancaster University)

2014-01-01

Word Frequencies in Written and Spoken English is a landmark volume in the development of vocabulary frequency studies. Whereas previous books have in general given frequency information about the written language only, this book provides information on both speech and writing. It not only gives information about the language as a whole, but also about the differences between spoken and written English, and between different spoken and written varieties of the language. The frequencies are derived from a wide ranging and up-to-date corpus of English: the British Na

Emergent Literacy Skills in Preschool Children with Hearing Loss Who Use Spoken Language: Initial Findings from the Early Language and Literacy Acquisition (ELLA) Study

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Werfel, Krystal L.

2017-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare change in emergent literacy skills of preschool children with and without hearing loss over a 6-month period. Method: Participants included 19 children with hearing loss and 14 children with normal hearing. Children with hearing loss used amplification and spoken language. Participants completed…

Attentional Capture of Objects Referred to by Spoken Language

Science.gov (United States)

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…

Gender Alternatives in the French Translation of MMORPG World of Warcraft in relation to the English Original

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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.

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,

Combination of verbs in Russian language and their translation in Persian language

OpenAIRE

احمدی ، شیخی احمدی ، شیخی

2009-01-01

Like sentences, combination of words is the main part of syntax in Persian language as well as in Russian language and plays an important role in sentence structures of these languages. Combination of words in Russian language is divided into three categories: verbal combinations, nominal and adverbial combinations. The writers of this article have studied combination of verbs in Russian language and their translation in Persian language.

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…

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

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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…

Language Model Adaptation Using Machine-Translated Text for Resource-Deficient Languages

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Sadaoki Furui

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Text corpus size is an important issue when building a language model (LM. This is a particularly important issue for languages where little data is available. This paper introduces an LM adaptation technique to improve an LM built using a small amount of task-dependent text with the help of a machine-translated text corpus. Icelandic speech recognition experiments were performed using data, machine translated (MT from English to Icelandic on a word-by-word and sentence-by-sentence basis. LM interpolation using the baseline LM and an LM built from either word-by-word or sentence-by-sentence translated text reduced the word error rate significantly when manually obtained utterances used as a baseline were very sparse.

Cochlear implants and spoken language processing abilities: review and assessment of the literature.

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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). However, there is wide variation in individual outcomes following cochlear implantation, and some CI recipients never develop useable speech and oral language skills. The causes of this enormous variation in outcomes are only partly understood at the present time. The variables most strongly associated with language outcomes are age at implantation and mode of communication in rehabilitation. Thus, some of the more important factors determining success of cochlear implantation are broadly related to neural plasticity that appears to be transiently present in deaf individuals. In this article we review the expected outcomes of cochlear implantation, potential predictors of those outcomes, the basic science regarding critical and sensitive periods, and several new research directions in the field of cochlear implantation.

Literary Translation as a Tool for Critical Language Planning

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Mooneeram, Roshni

2013-01-01

This paper argues that Dev Virahsawmy, an author who manipulates literary translation for the purposes of linguistic prestige formation and re-negotiation, is a critical language-policy practitioner, as his work fills an important gap in language planning scholarship. A micro-analysis of the translation of a Shakespearean sonnet into Mauritian…

A step beyond local observations with a dialog aware bidirectional GRU network for Spoken Language Understanding

OpenAIRE

Vukotic , Vedran; Raymond , Christian; Gravier , Guillaume

2016-01-01

International audience; Architectures of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) recently become a very popular choice for Spoken Language Understanding (SLU) problems; however, they represent a big family of different architectures that can furthermore be combined to form more complex neural networks. In this work, we compare different recurrent networks, such as simple Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, Gated Memory Units (GRU) and their bidirectional versions,...

DEPOT system for the creation of a translator from the COC language

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kehnig, Kh.; Lehttsch, Yu.; Nefed'eva, L.S.; Shtiller, G.

1976-01-01

Approaches to the creation of specialized languages and their translators are given. The DENOT system for developing translators from various specialized languages is described. Use of the system was made to translate the STS (spectra treatment system) language into the FORTRAN language.The language of STS was realized with help of DEPOT on the BESM-6 computer. The DEROT system installed at various computer provides for simple and rapid transition from one computer to the other

A randomized trial comparison of the effects of verbal and pictorial naturalistic communication strategies on spoken language for young children with autism.

Science.gov (United States)

Schreibman, Laura; Stahmer, Aubyn C

2014-05-01

Presently there is no consensus on the specific behavioral treatment of choice for targeting language in young nonverbal children with autism. This randomized clinical trial compared the effectiveness of a verbally-based intervention, Pivotal Response Training (PRT) to a pictorially-based behavioral intervention, the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) on the acquisition of spoken language by young (2-4 years), nonverbal or minimally verbal (≤9 words) children with autism. Thirty-nine children were randomly assigned to either the PRT or PECS condition. Participants received on average 247 h of intervention across 23 weeks. Dependent measures included overall communication, expressive vocabulary, pictorial communication and parent satisfaction. Children in both intervention groups demonstrated increases in spoken language skills, with no significant difference between the two conditions. Seventy-eight percent of all children exited the program with more than 10 functional words. Parents were very satisfied with both programs but indicated PECS was more difficult to implement.

Data extraction from machine-translated versus original language randomized trial reports: a comparative study.

Science.gov (United States)

Balk, Ethan M; Chung, Mei; Chen, Minghua L; Chang, Lina Kong Win; Trikalinos, Thomas A

2013-11-07

Google Translate offers free Web-based translation, but it is unknown whether its translation accuracy is sufficient to use in systematic reviews to mitigate concerns about language bias. We compared data extraction from non-English language studies with extraction from translations by Google Translate of 10 studies in each of five languages (Chinese, French, German, Japanese and Spanish). Fluent speakers double-extracted original-language articles. Researchers who did not speak the given language double-extracted translated articles along with 10 additional English language trials. Using the original language extractions as a gold standard, we estimated the probability and odds ratio of correctly extracting items from translated articles compared with English, adjusting for reviewer and language. Translation required about 30 minutes per article and extraction of translated articles required additional extraction time. The likelihood of correct extractions was greater for study design and intervention domain items than for outcome descriptions and, particularly, study results. Translated Spanish articles yielded the highest percentage of items (93%) that were correctly extracted more than half the time (followed by German and Japanese 89%, French 85%, and Chinese 78%) but Chinese articles yielded the highest percentage of items (41%) that were correctly extracted >98% of the time (followed by Spanish 30%, French 26%, German 22%, and Japanese 19%). In general, extractors' confidence in translations was not associated with their accuracy. Translation by Google Translate generally required few resources. Based on our analysis of translations from five languages, using machine translation has the potential to reduce language bias in systematic reviews; however, pending additional empirical data, reviewers should be cautious about using translated data. There remains a trade-off between completeness of systematic reviews (including all available studies) and risk of

International Meeting on Languages, Applied Linguistics and Translation

OpenAIRE

Guerra, Luis

2012-01-01

This meeting aims at providing an overview of the current theory and practice, exploring new directions and emerging trends, sharing good practice, and exchanging information regarding foreign languages, applied linguistics and translation. The meeting is an excellent opportunity for the presentation of current or previous language learning and translation projects funded by the European Commission or by other sources. Proposals are invited for one or more of the following topics, in any of t...

TRANSLATION OF ORALITY TRAITS IN LITERARY DIALOGUES

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Lorea Ajanić

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates traits of fictive orality and their translations by studying dialogues from Bernhard Schlink’s novel Der Vorleser and their translations into the Croatian and English language. In the first part of the paper the term fictive orality is explained in the context of classification given by Koch and Oesterreicher (1985, which distinguishes between „the language of immediacy” (“Sprache der Nähe” which refers to speech, and “the language of distance” (“Sprache der Distanz” which refers to writing. The ways in which writers create orality in their works, as well as the ways in which it can be recognized in texts, are also represented. In the second part of the paper, selected dialogues from the novel Der Vorleser are analyzed in the source text and in translations. The analysis of dialogues indicates the presence of the following means for expressing fictive orality: punctuation, exclamations, repetition, and descriptions of nonverbal behaviour. These means refer to spoken communication and characters’ emotions – e.g. punctuation is used to express confusion, insecurity, or hesitation in conversations; exclamations are used to express emotions, tone and mood in the analyzed conversations. Additionally, the analysis of translation strategies reveals that the most frequently utilised translation strategies (as proposed by Baker are cultural substitution and paraphrase.

Language and reading development in the brain today: neuromarkers and the case for prediction.

Science.gov (United States)

Buchweitz, Augusto

2016-01-01

The goal of this article is to provide an account of language development in the brain using the new information about brain function gleaned from cognitive neuroscience. This account goes beyond describing the association between language and specific brain areas to advocate the possibility of predicting language outcomes using brain-imaging data. The goal is to address the current evidence about language development in the brain and prediction of language outcomes. Recent studies will be discussed in the light of the evidence generated for predicting language outcomes and using new methods of analysis of brain data. The present account of brain behavior will address: (1) the development of a hardwired brain circuit for spoken language; (2) the neural adaptation that follows reading instruction and fosters the "grafting" of visual processing areas of the brain onto the hardwired circuit of spoken language; and (3) the prediction of language development and the possibility of translational neuroscience. Brain imaging has allowed for the identification of neural indices (neuromarkers) that reflect typical and atypical language development; the possibility of predicting risk for language disorders has emerged. A mandate to develop a bridge between neuroscience and health and cognition-related outcomes may pave the way for translational neuroscience. Copyright © 2016 Sociedade Brasileira de Pediatria. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. All rights reserved.

Social inclusion for children with hearing loss in listening and spoken Language early intervention: an exploratory study.

Science.gov (United States)

Constantinescu-Sharpe, Gabriella; Phillips, Rebecca L; Davis, Aleisha; Dornan, Dimity; Hogan, Anthony

2017-03-14

Social inclusion is a common focus of listening and spoken language (LSL) early intervention for children with hearing loss. This exploratory study compared the social inclusion of young children with hearing loss educated using a listening and spoken language approach with population data. A framework for understanding the scope of social inclusion is presented in the Background. This framework guided the use of a shortened, modified version of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) to measure two of the five facets of social inclusion ('education' and 'interacting with society and fulfilling social goals'). The survey was completed by parents of children with hearing loss aged 4-5 years who were educated using a LSL approach (n = 78; 37% who responded). These responses were compared to those obtained for typical hearing children in the LSAC dataset (n = 3265). Analyses revealed that most children with hearing loss had comparable outcomes to those with typical hearing on the 'education' and 'interacting with society and fulfilling social roles' facets of social inclusion. These exploratory findings are positive and warrant further investigation across all five facets of the framework to identify which factors influence social inclusion.

Orthographic Facilitation in Chinese Spoken Word Recognition: An ERP Study

Science.gov (United States)

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…

Novel Spoken Word Learning in Adults with Developmental Dyslexia

Science.gov (United States)

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…

Evaluating the spoken English proficiency of graduates of foreign medical schools.

Science.gov (United States)

Boulet, J R; van Zanten, M; McKinley, D W; Gary, N E

2001-08-01

The purpose of this study was to gather additional evidence for the validity and reliability of spoken English proficiency ratings provided by trained standardized patients (SPs) in high-stakes clinical skills examination. Over 2500 candidates who took the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates' (ECFMG) Clinical Skills Assessment (CSA) were studied. The CSA consists of 10 or 11 timed clinical encounters. Standardized patients evaluate spoken English proficiency and interpersonal skills in every encounter. Generalizability theory was used to estimate the consistency of spoken English ratings. Validity coefficients were calculated by correlating summary English ratings with CSA scores and other external criterion measures. Mean spoken English ratings were also compared by various candidate background variables. The reliability of the spoken English ratings, based on 10 independent evaluations, was high. The magnitudes of the associated variance components indicated that the evaluation of a candidate's spoken English proficiency is unlikely to be affected by the choice of cases or SPs used in a given assessment. Proficiency in spoken English was related to native language (English versus other) and scores from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The pattern of the relationships, both within assessment components and with external criterion measures, suggests that valid measures of spoken English proficiency are obtained. This result, combined with the high reproducibility of the ratings over encounters and SPs, supports the use of trained SPs to measure spoken English skills in a simulated medical environment.

Phonological Analysis of University Students’ Spoken Discourse

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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.  

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.

Sequoyah Foreign Language Translation System - Business Case Analysis

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Ong, Wing S. S

2007-01-01

Sequoyah, which is the Department of Defense (DoD)'s Program of Record for automated foreign language translation, is to identify current and developing technologies to meet warfighter requirements for foreign language support...

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…

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

Science.gov (United States)

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.

INDIVIDUAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES OF TRANSLATING AS A LANGUAGE ABILITIES COMPONENT

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Natalia Ya Bolshunova

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The article addresses the differential-psychological aspect of translating abilities as a component of language abilities. The peculiarity of translation is described including both linguistic and paralinguistic aspects of translating a content and a sense from one language into another accompanied by linguistic and cognitive actions. A variety of individual and psychological peculiarities of translation based on the translation dominant were revealed. It was demonstrated that these peculiarities are relevant to communicative and linguistic types of language abilities discovered byM.K. Kabardov. Valid assessment methods such as M.N. Borisova’s test for investigation “artistic” and “thinking” types of Higher Nervous Activity (HNA, D. Wechsler’ test of verbal and nonverbal intelligence, and a test developed by the authors of the article for individual specificity of interpreter’s activity as communicative and linguistic types of translating abilities assessment were used. The results suggest that all the typological differences are based on special human types of HNA. Subjects displaying the “thinking” type use linguistic methods when translating, whereas subjects displaying the “artistic” type try to use their own subjective life experience and extralinguistic methods when translating foreign language constructions. Extreme subjects of both types try to use the most developed components of their special abilities in order to compensate the components of the other type which are not well developed to accomplish some language tasks. In this case subjects of both types can fulfill these tasks rather successfully.

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

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

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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…

Semantic Richness and Word Learning in Children with Hearing Loss Who Are Developing Spoken Language: A Single Case Design Study

Science.gov (United States)

Lund, Emily; Douglas, W. Michael; Schuele, C. Melanie

2015-01-01

Children with hearing loss who are developing spoken language tend to lag behind children with normal hearing in vocabulary knowledge. Thus, researchers must validate instructional practices that lead to improved vocabulary outcomes for children with hearing loss. The purpose of this study was to investigate how semantic richness of instruction…

How and When Accentuation Influences Temporally Selective Attention and Subsequent Semantic Processing during On-Line Spoken Language Comprehension: An ERP Study

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Li, Xiao-qing; Ren, Gui-qin

2012-01-01

An event-related brain potentials (ERP) experiment was carried out to investigate how and when accentuation influences temporally selective attention and subsequent semantic processing during on-line spoken language comprehension, and how the effect of accentuation on attention allocation and semantic processing changed with the degree of…

The translation of biblical texts into South African Sign Language ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The translation of biblical texts into South African Sign Language. ... Native signers were used as translators with the assistance of hearing specialists in the fields of religion and translation studies. ... AJOL African Journals Online. HOW TO ...

Audiovisual spoken word recognition as a clinical criterion for sensory aids efficiency in Persian-language children with hearing loss.

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Oryadi-Zanjani, Mohammad Majid; Vahab, Maryam; Bazrafkan, Mozhdeh; Haghjoo, Asghar

2015-12-01

The aim of this study was to examine the role of audiovisual speech recognition as a clinical criterion of cochlear implant or hearing aid efficiency in Persian-language children with severe-to-profound hearing loss. This research was administered as a cross-sectional study. The sample size was 60 Persian 5-7 year old children. The assessment tool was one of subtests of Persian version of the Test of Language Development-Primary 3. The study included two experiments: auditory-only and audiovisual presentation conditions. The test was a closed-set including 30 words which were orally presented by a speech-language pathologist. The scores of audiovisual word perception were significantly higher than auditory-only condition in the children with normal hearing (Paudiovisual presentation conditions (P>0.05). The audiovisual spoken word recognition can be applied as a clinical criterion to assess the children with severe to profound hearing loss in order to find whether cochlear implant or hearing aid has been efficient for them or not; i.e. if a child with hearing impairment who using CI or HA can obtain higher scores in audiovisual spoken word recognition than auditory-only condition, his/her auditory skills have appropriately developed due to effective CI or HA as one of the main factors of auditory habilitation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sign language: an international handbook

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Pfau, R.; Steinbach, M.; Woll, B.

2012-01-01

Sign language linguists show here that all the questions relevant to the linguistic investigation of spoken languages can be asked about sign languages. Conversely, questions that sign language linguists consider - even if spoken language researchers have not asked them yet - should also be asked of

Activating gender stereotypes during online spoken language processing: evidence from Visual World Eye Tracking.

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Pyykkönen, Pirita; Hyönä, Jukka; van Gompel, Roger P G

2010-01-01

This study used the visual world eye-tracking method to investigate activation of general world knowledge related to gender-stereotypical role names in online spoken language comprehension in Finnish. The results showed that listeners activated gender stereotypes elaboratively in story contexts where this information was not needed to build coherence. Furthermore, listeners made additional inferences based on gender stereotypes to revise an already established coherence relation. Both results are consistent with mental models theory (e.g., Garnham, 2001). They are harder to explain by the minimalist account (McKoon & Ratcliff, 1992) which suggests that people limit inferences to those needed to establish coherence in discourse.

User-Centred Design for Chinese-Oriented Spoken English Learning System

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Yu, Ping; Pan, Yingxin; Li, Chen; Zhang, Zengxiu; Shi, Qin; Chu, Wenpei; Liu, Mingzhuo; Zhu, Zhiting

2016-01-01

Oral production is an important part in English learning. Lack of a language environment with efficient instruction and feedback is a big issue for non-native speakers' English spoken skill improvement. A computer-assisted language learning system can provide many potential benefits to language learners. It allows adequate instructions and instant…

Language Outcomes in Deaf or Hard of Hearing Teenagers Who Are Spoken Language Users: Effects of Universal Newborn Hearing Screening and Early Confirmation.

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Pimperton, Hannah; Kreppner, Jana; Mahon, Merle; Stevenson, Jim; Terlektsi, Emmanouela; Worsfold, Sarah; Yuen, Ho Ming; Kennedy, Colin R

This study aimed to examine whether (a) exposure to universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) and b) early confirmation of hearing loss were associated with benefits to expressive and receptive language outcomes in the teenage years for a cohort of spoken language users. It also aimed to determine whether either of these two variables was associated with benefits to relative language gain from middle childhood to adolescence within this cohort. The participants were drawn from a prospective cohort study of a population sample of children with bilateral permanent childhood hearing loss, who varied in their exposure to UNHS and who had previously had their language skills assessed at 6-10 years. Sixty deaf or hard of hearing teenagers who were spoken language users and a comparison group of 38 teenagers with normal hearing completed standardized measures of their receptive and expressive language ability at 13-19 years. Teenagers exposed to UNHS did not show significantly better expressive (adjusted mean difference, 0.40; 95% confidence interval [CI], -0.26 to 1.05; d = 0.32) or receptive (adjusted mean difference, 0.68; 95% CI, -0.56 to 1.93; d = 0.28) language skills than those who were not. Those who had their hearing loss confirmed by 9 months of age did not show significantly better expressive (adjusted mean difference, 0.43; 95% CI, -0.20 to 1.05; d = 0.35) or receptive (adjusted mean difference, 0.95; 95% CI, -0.22 to 2.11; d = 0.42) language skills than those who had it confirmed later. In all cases, effect sizes were of small size and in favor of those exposed to UNHS or confirmed by 9 months. Subgroup analysis indicated larger beneficial effects of early confirmation for those deaf or hard of hearing teenagers without cochlear implants (N = 48; 80% of the sample), and these benefits were significant in the case of receptive language outcomes (adjusted mean difference, 1.55; 95% CI, 0.38 to 2.71; d = 0.78). Exposure to UNHS did not account for significant

Tense, Aspect and Case in Bantu and significance in Translation- The Case of Lulogooli Bible

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Joyce Imali Wangia

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Tense and Aspect are morphological features and in some languages like English, they are marked mainly by inflection on the verb. In Bantu languages, the verbal element is characteristically conflated to mark tense and aspect and more often than not, the morphemes marking tense and aspect cannot be isolated. In many instances, they are tonally marked. Thus, a lexical verb may mark three or even more distinctions whose semantic realization is only through tonal variation. Similarly, Case realization is unique compared to for example English that marks possession on the noun and gender distinction on pronouns. This study will examine these features in Lulogooli, a Bantu language spoken in Western Kenya. Lulogooli has only two gender distinctions; male and female but does not use pronouns to mark them. This study proposes to sample data from the Lulogooli bible translation to show why and how improper use of these three grammatical categories leads to mistranslation. The analysis will also contribute to the significance of understanding language typology to translators so as to aid accuracy and effectiveness in translation. The study posits the significance of aspects of linguistic analysis to translation.

CULTURAL ASPECTS IN TRANSLATION (A MULTICULTURAL PERSPECTIVE BASED ON ENGLISH, INDONESIAN, AND LOCAL LANGUAGES CONTEXTS

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Rudi Hartono

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Translation is an activity of transferring information from one language into another. In transferring the message, a translator not only renders a language form but also replaces a cultural content. Practically it is because translation itself an activity that involves at least two languages and two cultures (Toury in James: 2000. Translating the text that contains a cultural content and message is more difficult than translating an ordinary text that only has literal meanings. Cultural aspects that include in stereotypes, speech levels, pronouns, idioms, even in proverbs are things that can lead difficulties for translators to translate. He or she sometimes should look for the closest meaning in order the translation products can be accepted in the target language culture.

Beyond Literal Translation | Nginye | Journal of Language ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa ... This article reviews some of the challenges and options that translators have to contend with in the dicey game of reconstructing intended ... AJOL African Journals Online.

Figurative Language in Malay to English Translation: An Analysis of the 2015 UniMAP VC's Keynote Speech

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Sharmini A.

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Translating figurative language involves more than just replacing the figurative language with its equivalent in the target language. Therefore, it is not surprising for the translation of figurative language to have its own set of challenges. Problems the translator faces in translating the Malay Figurative Language into English include complexities in understanding, interpreting and recreating the Figurative language that are unique in the Source Language (SL culture; which have to be explained and described in Target Language (TL where such practices and customs are non - existent. Secondly, the Source Text (ST figurative language may appear in a variety of types and have a distinct denotative and connotative meaning and reference; most often, it is difficult to find an equivalent which totally matches the original meaning or concept. This particular paper analyses the translation of figurative language extracted from UniMAP's Vice Chancellor Keynote Speech in 2015. Findings reveal that the three categories of figurative language identified were namely idioms, metaphors and similes. Translation strategies used are either not translated, paraphrased or translated with a similar meaning but in different form.

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

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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

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

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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.

OCCULT-ORSER complete conversational user-language translator

Science.gov (United States)

Ramapriyan, H. K.; Young, K.

1981-01-01

Translator program (OCCULT) assists non-computer-oriented users in setting up and submitting jobs for complex ORSER system. ORSER is collection of image processing programs for analyzing remotely sensed data. OCCULT is designed for those who would like to use ORSER but cannot justify acquiring and maintaining necessary proficiency in Remote Job Entry Language, Job Control Language, and control-card formats. OCCULT is written in FORTRAN IV and OS Assembler for interactive execution.

MANAGING THE TRANSLATION OF ECONOMIC TEXTS

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Pop Anamaria Mirabela

2012-12-01

issues, a successful business person should not neglect the language aspects, be it spoken or translated. These are some of the main reasons why we consider that our students as future graduates should be well-equipped with some of the skills necessary when reading and translating technical texts, be it for personal progress and development or for the job requirements.

Negotiating Languages and Cultures: Enacting Translingualism through a Translation Assignment

Science.gov (United States)

Kiernan, Julia; Meier, Joyce; Wang, Xiqiao

2016-01-01

This collaborative project explores the affordances of a translation assignment in the context of a learner-centered pedagogy that places composition students' movement among languages and cultures as both a site for inquiry and subject of analysis. The translation assignment asks students to translate scholarly articles or culture stories from…

Sociolinguistic Aspects of the First Translations of the Bible into the Russian Language

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Alexander G. Kravetsky

2015-08-01

Full Text Available The first translations of the New Testament into the Russian language, which were carried out at the beginning of the 19th century, are usually regarded as a missionary project. But the language of these translations may prove that they were addressed to a rather narrow audience. As is known, the Russian Bible Society established in 1812 began its activities not with translations into Russian but with the mass edition of the Church Slavonic text of the Bible. In other words, it was the Church Slavonic Bible that was initially taken as the “Russian” Bible. Such a perception correlated with the sociolinguistic situation of that period, when, among the literate country and town dwellers, people learned grammar according to practices dating back to Medieval Rus’, which meant learning by heart the Church Slavonic alphabet, the Book of Hours, and the Book of Psalms; these readers were in the majority, and they could understand the Church Slavonic Bible much better than they could a Russian-language version. That is why the main audience for the “Russian” Bible was the educated classes who read the Bible in European languages, not in Russian. The numbers of targeted readers for the Russian-language translation of the Bible were significantly lower than those for the Church Slavonic version. The ideas of the “language innovators” (who favored using Russian as a basis for a new national language thus appeared to be closer to the approach taken by the Bible translators than the ideas of “the upholders of the archaic tradition” (who favored using the vocabulary and forms of Church Slavonic as their basis. The language into which the New Testament was translated moved ahead of the literary standard of that period, and that was one of the reasons why the work on the translation of the Bible into the Russian language was halted.

Potential Ambiguity Translation Performances within Legal Language Institutional Nomenclature

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Oţăt Diana

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Motivated by a paradoxical corollary of ambiguities in legal documents and especially in contract texts, the current paper underpins a dichotomy approach to unintended ambiguities aiming to establish a referential framework for the occurrence rate of translation ambiguities within the legal language nomenclature. The research focus is on a twofold situation since ambiguities may. on the one hand, arise dining the translation process, generated by the translator’s lack of competence, i.e. inadequate use of English regarding the special nature of legal language, or. on the other hand, they may be simply transferred from the source language into the target language without even noticing the potential ambiguous situation, i.e. culture-bound ambiguities. Hence, the paper proposes a contrastive analysis in order to localize the occurrence of lexical, structural, and socio-cultural ambiguities triggered by the use of the term performance and its Romanian equivalents in a number of sales contracts.

Pragmatic functions of fuzzy language and translation in English advertisements

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

曾美林

2017-01-01

the application of fuzzy language in English advertisement is very broad, the application of fuzzy language can make advertising more attractive, so as to achieve the goal of advertising design companies.Paper discusses the application of fuzzy language and its translation, for the development of English advertising, creating a better path.

Handbook of natural language processing and machine translation DARPA global autonomous language exploitation

CERN Document Server

Olive, Joseph P; McCary, John

2011-01-01

This comprehensive handbook, written by leading experts in the field, details the groundbreaking research conducted under the breakthrough GALE program - The Global Autonomous Language Exploitation within the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), while placing it in the context of previous research in the fields of natural language and signal processing, artificial intelligence and machine translation. The most fundamental contrast between GALE and its predecessor programs was its holistic integration of previously separate or sequential processes. In earlier language research pro

LANGUAGE POLICIES PURSUED IN THE AXIS OF OTHERING AND IN THE PROCESS OF CONVERTING SPOKEN LANGUAGE OF TURKS LIVING IN RUSSIA INTO THEIR WRITTEN LANGUAGE / RUSYA'DA YASAYAN TÜRKLERİN KONUSMA DİLLERİNİN YAZI DİLİNE DÖNÜSTÜRÜLME SÜRECİ VE ÖTEKİLESTİRME EKSENİNDE İZLENEN DİL POLİTİKALARI

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Süleyman Kaan YALÇIN (M.A.H.

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Language is an object realized in two ways; spokenlanguage and written language. Each language can havethe characteristics of a spoken language, however, everylanguage can not have the characteristics of a writtenlanguage since there are some requirements for alanguage to be deemed as a written language. Theserequirements are selection, coding, standardization andbecoming widespread. It is necessary for a language tomeet these requirements in either natural or artificial wayso to be deemed as a written language (standardlanguage.Turkish language, which developed as a singlewritten language till 13th century, was divided intolanguages as West Turkish and North-East Turkish bymeeting the requirements of a written language in anatural way. Following this separation and through anatural process, it showed some differences in itself;however, the policy of converting the spoken language ofeach Turkish clan into their written language -the policypursued by Russia in a planned way- turned Turkish,which came to 20th century as a few written languagesinto20 different written languages. Implementation ofdiscriminatory language policies suggested by missionerssuch as Slinky and Ostramov to Russian Government,imposing of Cyrillic alphabet full of different andunnecessary signs on each Turkish clan by force andothering activities of Soviet boarding schools opened hadconsiderable effects on the said process.This study aims at explaining that the conversionof spoken languages of Turkish societies in Russia intotheir written languages did not result from a naturalprocess; the historical development of Turkish languagewhich is shaped as 20 separate written languages onlybecause of the pressure exerted by political will; and how the Russian subjected language concept -which is thememory of a nation- to an artificial process.

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.

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,

Finding Translation Examples for Under-Resourced Language Pairs or for Narrow Domains; the Case for Machine Translation

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Dan Tufis

2012-07-01

Full Text Available The cyberspace is populated with valuable information sources, expressed in about 1500 different languages and dialects. Yet, for the vast majority of WEB surfers this wealth of information is practically inaccessible or meaningless. Recent advancements in cross-lingual information retrieval, multilingual summarization, cross-lingual question answering and machine translation promise to narrow the linguistic gaps and lower the communication barriers between humans and/or software agents. Most of these language technologies are based on statistical machine learning techniques which require large volumes of cross lingual data. The most adequate type of cross-lingual data is represented by parallel corpora, collection of reciprocal translations. However, it is not easy to find enough parallel data for any language pair might be of interest. When required parallel data refers to specialized (narrow domains, the scarcity of data becomes even more acute. Intelligent information extraction techniques from comparable corpora provide one of the possible answers to this lack of translation data.

Efficient Embedded Decoding of Neural Network Language Models in a Machine Translation System.

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Zamora-Martinez, Francisco; Castro-Bleda, Maria Jose

2018-02-22

Neural Network Language Models (NNLMs) are a successful approach to Natural Language Processing tasks, such as Machine Translation. We introduce in this work a Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) system which fully integrates NNLMs in the decoding stage, breaking the traditional approach based on [Formula: see text]-best list rescoring. The neural net models (both language models (LMs) and translation models) are fully coupled in the decoding stage, allowing to more strongly influence the translation quality. Computational issues were solved by using a novel idea based on memorization and smoothing of the softmax constants to avoid their computation, which introduces a trade-off between LM quality and computational cost. These ideas were studied in a machine translation task with different combinations of neural networks used both as translation models and as target LMs, comparing phrase-based and [Formula: see text]-gram-based systems, showing that the integrated approach seems more promising for [Formula: see text]-gram-based systems, even with nonfull-quality NNLMs.

Language Development in Children with Language Disorders: An Introduction to Skinner's Verbal Behavior and the Techniques for Initial Language Acquisition

Science.gov (United States)

Casey, Laura Baylot; Bicard, David F.

2009-01-01

Language development in typically developing children has a very predictable pattern beginning with crying, cooing, babbling, and gestures along with the recognition of spoken words, comprehension of spoken words, and then one word utterances. This predictable pattern breaks down for children with language disorders. This article will discuss…

Translation of interviews from a source language to a target language: examining issues in cross-cultural health care research.

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Al-Amer, Rasmieh; Ramjan, Lucie; Glew, Paul; Darwish, Maram; Salamonson, Yenna

2015-05-01

To illuminate translation practice in cross-language interview in health care research and its impact on the construction of the data. Globalisation and changing patterns of migration have created changes to the world's demography; this has presented challenges for overarching social domains, specifically, in the health sector. Providing ethno-cultural health services is a timely and central facet in an ever-increasingly diverse world. Nursing and other health sectors employ cross-language research to provide knowledge and understanding of the needs of minority groups, which underpins cultural-sensitive care services. However, when cultural and linguistic differences exist, they pose unique complexities for cross-cultural health care research; particularly in qualitative research where narrative data are central for communication as most participants prefer to tell their story in their native language. Consequently, translation is often unavoidable in order to make a respondent's narrative vivid and comprehensible, yet, there is no consensus about how researchers should address this vital issue. An integrative literature review. PubMed and CINAHL databases were searched for relevant studies published before January 2014, and hand searched reference lists of studies were selected. This review of cross-language health care studies highlighted three major themes, which identify factors often reported to affect the translation and production of data in cross-language research: (1) translation style; (2) translators; and (3) trustworthiness of the data. A plan detailing the translation process and analysis of health care data must be determined from the study outset to ensure credibility is maintained. A transparent and systematic approach in reporting the translation process not only enhances the integrity of the findings but also provides overall rigour and auditability. It is important that minority groups have a voice in health care research which, if accurately

Integrating source-language context into phrase-based statistical machine translation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Haque, R.; Kumar Naskar, S.; Bosch, A.P.J. van den; Way, A.

2011-01-01

The translation features typically used in Phrase-Based Statistical Machine Translation (PB-SMT) model dependencies between the source and target phrases, but not among the phrases in the source language themselves. A swathe of research has demonstrated that integrating source context modelling

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.

Translation and interpretation of sign language in the postgraduate context: problematizing positions

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Luiz Daniel Rodrigues Dinarte

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This article aims, based in sign language translation researches, and at the same time entering discussions with inspiration in contemporary theories on the concept of "deconstruction" (DERRIDA, 2004 DERRIDA e ROUDINESCO, 2004 ARROJO, 1993, to reflect on some aspects concerning to the definition of the role and duties of translators and interpreters. We conceive that deconstruction does not consist in a method to be applied on the linguistic and social phenomena, but a set of political strategies that comes from a speech community which translate texts, and thus put themselves in a translational task performing an act of reading that inserts sign language in the academic linguistic multiplicity.

Time course of Chinese monosyllabic spoken word recognition: evidence from ERP analyses.

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Zhao, Jingjing; Guo, Jingjing; Zhou, Fengying; Shu, Hua

2011-06-01

Evidence from event-related potential (ERP) analyses of English spoken words suggests that the time course of English word recognition in monosyllables is cumulative. Different types of phonological competitors (i.e., rhymes and cohorts) modulate the temporal grain of ERP components differentially (Desroches, Newman, & Joanisse, 2009). The time course of Chinese monosyllabic spoken word recognition could be different from that of English due to the differences in syllable structure between the two languages (e.g., lexical tones). The present study investigated the time course of Chinese monosyllabic spoken word recognition using ERPs to record brain responses online while subjects listened to spoken words. During the experiment, participants were asked to compare a target picture with a subsequent picture by judging whether or not these two pictures belonged to the same semantic category. The spoken word was presented between the two pictures, and participants were not required to respond during its presentation. We manipulated phonological competition by presenting spoken words that either matched or mismatched the target picture in one of the following four ways: onset mismatch, rime mismatch, tone mismatch, or syllable mismatch. In contrast to the English findings, our findings showed that the three partial mismatches (onset, rime, and tone mismatches) equally modulated the amplitudes and time courses of the N400 (a negative component that peaks about 400ms after the spoken word), whereas, the syllable mismatched words elicited an earlier and stronger N400 than the three partial mismatched words. The results shed light on the important role of syllable-level awareness in Chinese spoken word recognition and also imply that the recognition of Chinese monosyllabic words might rely more on global similarity of the whole syllable structure or syllable-based holistic processing rather than phonemic segment-based processing. We interpret the differences in spoken word

Functional translation and linguistic variation: the use of didactic sequence in teaching languages

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Valdecy Oliveira Pontes

2017-12-01

Full Text Available In the context of the approach of the linguistic variation of Spanish and the use of Functionalist Translation in Foreign Language classes, this article aims to report the results of the application of a Didactic Sequence (SD, in the style of the Geneva School, Hispanic plays for the teaching of linguistic variation in the pronominal treatment forms of the Spanish-Portuguese Brazilian language pair. SD was applied in the subject "Introduction to Translation Studies in Spanish Language" (2nd semester, offered by the course in Letters - Spanish Language and its Literatures, of the Federal University of Ceará. This article was based on the theoretical foundations of Functionalist Translation (NORD, 1994, 1996, 2009, 2012, Translation and Sociolinguistics (BOLAÑOS-CUELLAR, 2000; MAYORAL, 1998, elaboration of SD (DOLZ; NOVERRAZ; SCHNEUWLY, 2004; CRISTÓVÃO, 2010; BARROS, 2012 and research on the variation in the forms of treatment of Spanish and Portuguese (FONTANELLA DE WEINBER, 1999; SCHERRE et al, 2015.

Impact of cognitive function and dysarthria on spoken language and perceived speech severity in multiple sclerosis

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Feenaughty, Lynda

Purpose: The current study sought to investigate the separate effects of dysarthria and cognitive status on global speech timing, speech hesitation, and linguistic complexity characteristics and how these speech behaviors impose on listener impressions for three connected speech tasks presumed to differ in cognitive-linguistic demand for four carefully defined speaker groups; 1) MS with cognitive deficits (MSCI), 2) MS with clinically diagnosed dysarthria and intact cognition (MSDYS), 3) MS without dysarthria or cognitive deficits (MS), and 4) healthy talkers (CON). The relationship between neuropsychological test scores and speech-language production and perceptual variables for speakers with cognitive deficits was also explored. Methods: 48 speakers, including 36 individuals reporting a neurological diagnosis of MS and 12 healthy talkers participated. The three MS groups and control group each contained 12 speakers (8 women and 4 men). Cognitive function was quantified using standard clinical tests of memory, information processing speed, and executive function. A standard z-score of ≤ -1.50 indicated deficits in a given cognitive domain. Three certified speech-language pathologists determined the clinical diagnosis of dysarthria for speakers with MS. Experimental speech tasks of interest included audio-recordings of an oral reading of the Grandfather passage and two spontaneous speech samples in the form of Familiar and Unfamiliar descriptive discourse. Various measures of spoken language were of interest. Suprasegmental acoustic measures included speech and articulatory rate. Linguistic speech hesitation measures included pause frequency (i.e., silent and filled pauses), mean silent pause duration, grammatical appropriateness of pauses, and interjection frequency. For the two discourse samples, three standard measures of language complexity were obtained including subordination index, inter-sentence cohesion adequacy, and lexical diversity. Ten listeners

A Multilingual Approach to Analysing Standardized Test Results: Immigrant Primary School Children and the Role of Languages Spoken in a Bi-/Multilingual Community

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De Angelis, Gessica

2014-01-01

The present study adopts a multilingual approach to analysing the standardized test results of primary school immigrant children living in the bi-/multilingual context of South Tyrol, Italy. The standardized test results are from the Invalsi test administered across Italy in 2009/2010. In South Tyrol, several languages are spoken on a daily basis…

Sign Language Translation in State Administration in Germany: Barrier Free Web Accessibility

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Lišková, Kateřina

2014-01-01

The aim of this thesis is to describe Web accessibility in state administration in the Federal Republic of Germany in relation to the socio-demographic group of deaf sign language users who did not have the opportunity to gain proper knowledge of a written form of the German language. The demand of the Deaf to information in an accessible form as based on legal documents is presented in relation to the theory of translation. How translating from written texts into sign language works in pract...

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.

Using Online Translators in the Second Language Classroom: Ideas for Advanced-Level Spanish

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Enkin, Elizabeth; Mejias-Bikani, Errapel

2016-01-01

In this paper, we discuss the benefits of using online translators in the foreign language classroom. Specifically, we discuss how faulty online translator output can be used to create activities that help raise metalinguistic awareness of second language grammar and of the differences between grammatical constructions in the first and second…

Fourth International Workshop on Spoken Dialog Systems

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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.

TRANSLATION ACQUISITION, TRANSLATION COMPERISON AND IST USAGE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE COURSES UBERSETZUNGSFERTIGKEIT, UBERSETZUNGSVERGLEICH UND IHRE ANWENDUNG IM FREMDSPRACHENUNTERRICHT

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Prof. Dr. Zeki KARAKAYA

2009-05-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to enlighten the definition of translation acquisition, the differentiation from language acquisition by comparing translations of two authors having translation acquisition in different levels and through using these differences how can it be used in language teaching.In the first section, translation acquisition issue has been accentuated; by giving place to the definitions of different Scientifics a general survey about translation acquisition has been elicited. Moreover, in this section, in order to see how translation acquisition will be differentiated from language acquisition and bring out the difference; an application has been conducted on Students and the results have been ascertained.As it is known, translation comparison is a appliance for bringing in language teaching, comparative linguistics, comparative graphology, translation criticism and translation acquisition. However, in this study it has been tried out representing some suggestions and examples about translation on the subject of how can be benefited only in language teaching with translation comparison which is one of the medium of methodology. In the study comparative translation method has been applied and examples and suggestions about its functions on language teaching have been presented. Bu çalışmanın amacı çeviri edincinin tanımına, dil edincinden ayrışımına, farklı düzeylerde çeviri edincine sahip iki yazarın çevirilerinin karşılaştırılmasıyla bu farklılıklardan yararlanarak nasıl dil öğretiminde kullanılabileceğine ışık tutmaktır.İlk bölümde çeviri edinci konusu üzerine durulmuş, farklı bilim adamlarının tanımlarını yer vererek, çeviri edincine yönelik genel bir bakış sağlanmıştır. Ayrıca bu bölümde çeviri edincinin dil edincinden nasıl ayırt edileceğini görmek, aradaki farkı göz önüne sermek için öğrencilerle uygulama yapılmış ve sonuçları tespit edilmi

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

"The Simpsons": Translation and Language Teaching in an EFL Class

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Pavan, Elisabetta

2013-01-01

My point of departure for this paper is that translation, so long neglected in foreign language teaching, can not only improve students' linguistic competences in both a foreign language and their mother tongue, but also their awareness of cultural and intercultural elements. It is a widespread popular assumption, among those not involved in…

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.

Between-language repetition priming in antonym generation: evidence that translation-equivalent adjectives have shared conceptual representations across languages.

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Taylor, Randolph S; Francis, Wendy S

2017-03-01

Previous literature has demonstrated conceptual repetition priming across languages in bilinguals. This between-language priming effect is taken as evidence that translation equivalents have shared conceptual representations across languages. However, the vast majority of this research has been conducted using only concrete nouns as stimuli. The present experiment examined conceptual repetition priming within and between languages in adjectives, a part of speech not previously investigated in studies of bilingual conceptual representation. The participants were 100 Spanish-English bilinguals who had regular exposure to both languages. At encoding, participants performed a shallow processing task and a deep-processing task on English and Spanish adjectives. At test, they performed an antonym-generation task in English, in which the target responses were either adjectives presented at encoding or control adjectives not previously presented. The measure of priming was the response time advantage for producing repeated adjectives relative to control adjectives. Significant repetition priming was observed both within and between languages under deep, but not shallow, encoding conditions. The results indicate that the conceptual representations of adjective translation equivalents are shared across languages.

Early Sign Language Exposure and Cochlear Implantation Benefits.

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Geers, Ann E; Mitchell, Christine M; Warner-Czyz, Andrea; Wang, Nae-Yuh; Eisenberg, Laurie S

2017-07-01

Most children with hearing loss who receive cochlear implants (CI) learn spoken language, and parents must choose early on whether to use sign language to accompany speech at home. We address whether parents' use of sign language before and after CI positively influences auditory-only speech recognition, speech intelligibility, spoken language, and reading outcomes. Three groups of children with CIs from a nationwide database who differed in the duration of early sign language exposure provided in their homes were compared in their progress through elementary grades. The groups did not differ in demographic, auditory, or linguistic characteristics before implantation. Children without early sign language exposure achieved better speech recognition skills over the first 3 years postimplant and exhibited a statistically significant advantage in spoken language and reading near the end of elementary grades over children exposed to sign language. Over 70% of children without sign language exposure achieved age-appropriate spoken language compared with only 39% of those exposed for 3 or more years. Early speech perception predicted speech intelligibility in middle elementary grades. Children without sign language exposure produced speech that was more intelligible (mean = 70%) than those exposed to sign language (mean = 51%). This study provides the most compelling support yet available in CI literature for the benefits of spoken language input for promoting verbal development in children implanted by 3 years of age. Contrary to earlier published assertions, there was no advantage to parents' use of sign language either before or after CI. Copyright © 2017 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Broca Pars Triangularis Constitutes a “Hub” of the Language-Control Network during Simultaneous Language Translation

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Stefan Elmer

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Until now, several branches of research have fundamentally contributed to a better understanding of the ramifications of bilingualism, multilingualism, and language expertise on psycholinguistic-, cognitive-, and neural implications. In this context, it is noteworthy to mention that from a cognitive perspective, there is a strong convergence of data pointing to an influence of multilingual speech competence on a variety of cognitive functions, including attention, short-term- and working memory, set shifting, switching, and inhibition. In addition, complementary neuroimaging findings have highlighted a specific set of cortical and subcortical brain regions which fundamentally contribute to administrate cognitive control in the multilingual brain, namely Broca’s area, the middle-anterior cingulate cortex, the inferior parietal lobe, and the basal ganglia. However, a disadvantage of focusing on group analyses is that this procedure only enables an approximation of the neural networks shared within a population while at the same time smoothing inter-individual differences. In order to address both commonalities (i.e., within group analyses and inter-individual variability (i.e., single-subject analyses in language control mechanisms, here I measured five professional simultaneous interpreters while the participants overtly translated or repeated sentences with a simple subject-verb-object structure. Results demonstrated that pars triangularis was commonly activated across participants during backward translation (i.e., from L2 to L1, whereas the other brain regions of the control network showed a strong inter-individual variability during both backward and forward (i.e., from L1 to L2 translation. Thus, I propose that pars triangularis plays a crucial role within the language-control network and behaves as a fundamental processing entity supporting simultaneous language translation.

Birds, primates, and spoken language origins: behavioral phenotypes and neurobiological substrates.

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Petkov, Christopher I; Jarvis, Erich D

2012-01-01

Vocal learners such as humans and songbirds can learn to produce elaborate patterns of structurally organized vocalizations, whereas many other vertebrates such as non-human primates and most other bird groups either cannot or do so to a very limited degree. To explain the similarities among humans and vocal-learning birds and the differences with other species, various theories have been proposed. One set of theories are motor theories, which underscore the role of the motor system as an evolutionary substrate for vocal production learning. For instance, the motor theory of speech and song perception proposes enhanced auditory perceptual learning of speech in humans and song in birds, which suggests a considerable level of neurobiological specialization. Another, a motor theory of vocal learning origin, proposes that the brain pathways that control the learning and production of song and speech were derived from adjacent motor brain pathways. Another set of theories are cognitive theories, which address the interface between cognition and the auditory-vocal domains to support language learning in humans. Here we critically review the behavioral and neurobiological evidence for parallels and differences between the so-called vocal learners and vocal non-learners in the context of motor and cognitive theories. In doing so, we note that behaviorally vocal-production learning abilities are more distributed than categorical, as are the auditory-learning abilities of animals. We propose testable hypotheses on the extent of the specializations and cross-species correspondences suggested by motor and cognitive theories. We believe that determining how spoken language evolved is likely to become clearer with concerted efforts in testing comparative data from many non-human animal species.

The Road to Language Learning Is Not Entirely Iconic: Iconicity, Neighborhood Density, and Frequency Facilitate Acquisition of Sign Language.

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Caselli, Naomi K; Pyers, Jennie E

2017-07-01

Iconic mappings between words and their meanings are far more prevalent than once estimated and seem to support children's acquisition of new words, spoken or signed. We asked whether iconicity's prevalence in sign language overshadows two other factors known to support the acquisition of spoken vocabulary: neighborhood density (the number of lexical items phonologically similar to the target) and lexical frequency. Using mixed-effects logistic regressions, we reanalyzed 58 parental reports of native-signing deaf children's productive acquisition of 332 signs in American Sign Language (ASL; Anderson & Reilly, 2002) and found that iconicity, neighborhood density, and lexical frequency independently facilitated vocabulary acquisition. Despite differences in iconicity and phonological structure between signed and spoken language, signing children, like children learning a spoken language, track statistical information about lexical items and their phonological properties and leverage this information to expand their vocabulary.

SHAKESPEARE IN THREE LANGUAGES READING AND ANALYZING SONNET 130 AND ITS TRANSLATIONS IN LIGHT OF SEMIOTICS

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Sündüz ÖZTÜRK KASAR

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Among the literary genres, poetry is the one that resists translation the most. Creating a new and innovative language that breaks the usual rules of the standard language with brand-new uses and meanings is probably one of the most important goals of the poet. Poetry challenges the translator to capture not only original images, exceptional symbolism, and subjective connotations but also its musicality, rhythm, and measure. Faced with this revolutionary use of language, the translator needs a guide so as to not get lost in the labyrinths of the poetic universe. The universe of sound and meaning unique to each language and the incompatibility of these languages with each other makes the duty of the translator seem impossible. At this point, semiotics may function as a guide, opening up the mysteries of the universe built by the poet and giving clues as to how it can be conveyed in the target language. This allows us to suggest the cooperation of semiotics and translation. From this perspective, we aim to present a case study that exemplifies this cooperation. Our corpus comprises Shakespeare’s sonnet 130 and its Turkish and French translations. The study treats the translator as the receiver of the source text and the producer of the target text in the light of the Theory of Instances of Enunciation propounded by Jean-Claude Coquet. Further, through the Systematics of Designificative Tendencies propounded by Sündüz Öztürk Kasar, the study compares the translators’ creations to the original sonnet to see the extent to which the balance of the original text’s meaning and form is preserved in the translations and how skillfully and competently the signs that constitute the universe of meaning are transmitted in the target languages.

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

Crawl and crowd to bring machine translation to under-resourced languages

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Toral Ruiz, Antonio

2017-01-01

We present a widely applicable methodology to bring machine translation (MT) to under-resourced languages in a cost-effective and rapid manner. Our proposal relies on web crawling to automatically acquire parallel data to train statistical MT systems if any such data can be found for the language

Serbian heritage language schools in the Netherlands through the eyes of the parents

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Palmen, Andrej

It is difficult to find the exact number of other languages spoken besides Dutch in the Netherlands. A study showed that a total of 96 other languages are spoken by students attending Dutch primary and secondary schools. The variety of languages spoken shows the growth of linguistic diversity in the

Cross-cultural adaptation of Preschool Language Assessment Instrument: Second Edition.

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Lindau, Tâmara Andrade; Rossi, Natalia Freitas; Giacheti, Célia Maria

2014-01-01

In Brazil, formal tools for the evaluation of spoken language are scarce. Therefore, this study aimed to translate and adapt to Brazilian Portuguese the Preschool Language Assessment Instrument: Second Edition (PLAI-2). The process of translation and adaptation of this instrument was conducted in two stages - Stage 1: (1a) translation of the original version to Brazilian Portuguese, (1b) comparison of the translated versions and synthesis into a single Portuguese version, (1c) back-translation, (1d) revision of the translated version; and Step 2: (2a) application of the Portuguese version in a pilot project with 30 subjects, and (2b) statistical comparison of three age groups. In the Brazilian version, all items of the original version were kept. However, it was necessary to modify the application order of one item, and the change of one picture was suggested in another. The results obtained after application indicated that the Brazilian version of the PLAI-2 allows us to distinguish the performance of participants belonging to different age groups, and that the raw score tends to increase with age. Semantic and syntactic adjustments were required and made to ensure that PLAI-2 would be used with the same methodological rigor of the original instrument. The adaptation process observed the theoretical, semantic, and cultural equivalences.

Dubbing Projects for the Language Learner: A Framework for Integrating Audiovisual Translation into Task-Based Instruction

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Danan, Martine

2010-01-01

This article describes a series of exploratory L1 to L2 dubbing projects for which students translated and used editing software to dub short American film and TV clips into their target language. Translating and dubbing into the target language involve students in multifaceted, high-level language production tasks that lead to enhanced vocabulary…

Incidental acquisition of foreign language vocabulary through brief multi-modal exposure.

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Bisson, Marie-Josée; van Heuven, Walter J B; Conklin, Kathy; Tunney, Richard J

2013-01-01

First language acquisition requires relatively little effort compared to foreign language acquisition and happens more naturally through informal learning. Informal exposure can also benefit foreign language learning, although evidence for this has been limited to speech perception and production. An important question is whether informal exposure to spoken foreign language also leads to vocabulary learning through the creation of form-meaning links. Here we tested the impact of exposure to foreign language words presented with pictures in an incidental learning phase on subsequent explicit foreign language learning. In the explicit learning phase, we asked adults to learn translation equivalents of foreign language words, some of which had appeared in the incidental learning phase. Results revealed rapid learning of the foreign language words in the incidental learning phase showing that informal exposure to multi-modal foreign language leads to foreign language vocabulary acquisition. The creation of form-meaning links during the incidental learning phase is discussed.

“Wit larded with malice” – Translating Shakespeare’s culinary language

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Federica Scarpa

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract - Evidence of Shakespeare’s interest in food preparation and cooking is recurrent throughout his works, though the difficulties provided by the translation of such figurative language have attracted much less interest among scholars. Building on some earlier research (Scarpa 1995a, 1995b and some more recent publications (Fitzpatrick 2007, 2011 on the language of food, taste and cooking in Shakespeare’s plays, the paper discusses some instances of the translation into Italian by different translators of this often very culture-specific knowledge and terminology in terms of the difficulty of translating such imagery in the target language when trying to maintain the language of food. This specialized language may in fact be considered to fall into the Bard’s language of “things” and, as such, stands most in danger of becoming archaic and posing a problem for translators with a different historical and cultural background. The examples will mainly be drawn from the two practical operations of the baking of bread, cakes and pastry, and the preparation and cooking of meat. It will be argued that the translation approach most suited to all food references in Shakespeare’s plays is a reader-centred approach and in the conclusion some remarks will also be made on other reader-centred approaches to Shakespeare’s language outside the boundaries of Translation Studies which can have a positive impact on revitalizing Shakespeare for a contemporary audience. Riassunto - Sebbene l’interesse di Shakespeare nei confronti delle diverse modalità di preparazione e cottura del cibo sia ben documentato in tutta la sua produzione, la difficoltà di tradurre le immagini legate al linguaggio culinario – figurato e non – nelle sue opere è una tematica che ha tuttavia attratto relativamente poco interesse da parte degli studiosi di traduzione. Traendo spunto da una ricerca intrapresa molti anni fa (Scarpa 1995a, 1995b e da alcune

What language is your doctor speaking? Facing the problems of translating medical documents into English

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Mićović Dragoslava

2013-01-01

Full Text Available What is translation - a craft, an art, a profession or a job? Although one of the oldest human activities, translation has not still been fully defined, and it is still young in terms of an academic discipline. The paper defines the difference between translation and interpreting and then attempts to find the answer to the question what characteristics, knowledge and skills a translator must have, particularly the one involved in court translation, and where his/her place in the communication process (both written and oral communication is. When translating medical documentation, a translator is set within a medical language environment as an intermediary between two doctors (in other words, two professionals in the process of communication which would be impossible without him, since it is conducted in two different languages. The paper also gives an insight into types of medical documentation and who they are intended for. It gives practical examples of the problems faced in the course of translation of certain types of medical documentation (hospital discharge papers, diagnoses, case reports,.... Is it possible to make this kind of communication between professionals (doctors standardized, which would subsequently make their translation easier? Although great efforts are made in Serbia regarding medical language and medical terminology, the conclusion is that specific problems encountered by translators can hardly be overcome using only dictionaries and translation manuals.

Topical Review: Mind Your Language-Translation Matters (A Narrative Review of Translation Challenges).

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Kiing, Jennifer S H; Rajgor, Dimple; Toh, Teck-Hock

2016-11-01

Translation of developmental-behavioral screening tools for use worldwide can be daunting. We summarize issues in translating these tools.  METHODS:  Instead of a theoretical framework of "equivalence" by Pena and International Test Commission guidelines, we decided upon a practical approach used by the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS). We derived vignettes from the Parents' Evaluation of Developmental Status manual and published literature and mapped them to AAOS.  RESULTS:  We found that a systematic approach to planning and translating developmental-behavioral screeners is essential to ensure "equivalence" and encourage wide consultation with experts.  CONCLUSION:  Our narrative highlights how translations can result in many challenges and needed revisions to achieve "equivalence" such that the items remain consistent, valid, and meaningful in the new language for use in different cultures. Information sharing across the community of researchers is encouraged. This narrative may be helpful to novice researchers. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Pediatric Psychology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE (ASL AND BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE (BSL

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Zora JACHOVA

2008-06-01

Full Text Available In the communication of deaf people between them­selves and hearing people there are three ba­sic as­pects of interaction: gesture, finger signs and writing. The gesture is a conditionally agreed manner of communication with the help of the hands followed by face and body mimic. The ges­ture and the move­ments pre-exist the speech and they had the purpose to mark something, and later to emphasize the speech expression.Stokoe was the first linguist that realised that the signs are not a whole that can not be analysed. He analysed signs in insignificant parts that he called “chemeres”, and many linguists today call them pho­nemes. He created three main phoneme catego­ries: hand position, location and movement.Sign languages as spoken languages have back­ground from the distant past. They developed par­allel with the development of spoken language and undertook many historical changes. Therefore, to­day they do not represent a replacement of the spoken language, but are languages themselves in the real sense of the word.Although the structures of the English language used in USA and in Great Britain is the same, still their sign languages-ASL and BSL are different.

Syntactic discriminative language model rerankers for statistical machine translation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Carter, S.; Monz, C.

2011-01-01

This article describes a method that successfully exploits syntactic features for n-best translation candidate reranking using perceptrons. We motivate the utility of syntax by demonstrating the superior performance of parsers over n-gram language models in differentiating between Statistical

Unsupervised Language Acquisition

Science.gov (United States)

de Marcken, Carl

1996-11-01

This thesis presents a computational theory of unsupervised language acquisition, precisely defining procedures for learning language from ordinary spoken or written utterances, with no explicit help from a teacher. The theory is based heavily on concepts borrowed from machine learning and statistical estimation. In particular, learning takes place by fitting a stochastic, generative model of language to the evidence. Much of the thesis is devoted to explaining conditions that must hold for this general learning strategy to arrive at linguistically desirable grammars. The thesis introduces a variety of technical innovations, among them a common representation for evidence and grammars, and a learning strategy that separates the ``content'' of linguistic parameters from their representation. Algorithms based on it suffer from few of the search problems that have plagued other computational approaches to language acquisition. The theory has been tested on problems of learning vocabularies and grammars from unsegmented text and continuous speech, and mappings between sound and representations of meaning. It performs extremely well on various objective criteria, acquiring knowledge that causes it to assign almost exactly the same structure to utterances as humans do. This work has application to data compression, language modeling, speech recognition, machine translation, information retrieval, and other tasks that rely on either structural or stochastic descriptions of language.

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.

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

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

ACOUSTIC SPEECH RECOGNITION FOR MARATHI LANGUAGE USING SPHINX

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Aman Ankit

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Speech recognition or speech to text processing, is a process of recognizing human speech by the computer and converting into text. In speech recognition, transcripts are created by taking recordings of speech as audio and their text transcriptions. Speech based applications which include Natural Language Processing (NLP techniques are popular and an active area of research. Input to such applications is in natural language and output is obtained in natural language. Speech recognition mostly revolves around three approaches namely Acoustic phonetic approach, Pattern recognition approach and Artificial intelligence approach. Creation of acoustic model requires a large database of speech and training algorithms. The output of an ASR system is recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers and computerized devices. ASR today finds enormous application in tasks that require human machine interfaces like, voice dialing, and etc. Our key contribution in this paper is to create corpora for Marathi language and explore the use of Sphinx engine for automatic speech recognition

L[subscript 1] and L[subscript 2] Spoken Word Processing: Evidence from Divided Attention Paradigm

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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…

Inuit Sign Language: a contribution to sign language typology

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schuit, J.; Baker, A.; Pfau, R.

2011-01-01

Sign language typology is a fairly new research field and typological classifications have yet to be established. For spoken languages, these classifications are generally based on typological parameters; it would thus be desirable to establish these for sign languages. In this paper, different

Prepositional phrases with verba dicendi from Dalmatin's translation of the Bible (1584 in relation to foreign language translations

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Irena Orel

2006-12-01

Full Text Available In a diachronic perspective from the 16th century to the present, this article inves­ tigates translated interlinguistic agreement and difference in the use of the temporally marked Slovenian prepositional phrases that appeared in the semantic group of verba dicendi in the first two books of the Old Testament and the New Testament of the old­ est Slovenian translation of the Bible, from 1584, and that were replaced in the mod­ em literary language in the 19th century by the introduction of prepositionless or other prepositional patterns. A comparison is made on the basis of Internet publications of parallel sections of six foreign language translations (Latin, German, two English [17th century and modem], French and Russian, and the extent to which these preposition­ al phrases are covered by older or modem literary Slovenian syntactic patterns is deter­ mined .

Discovery learning in the language-for-translation classroom: corpora as learning aids

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Silvia Bernardini

2016-06-01

Full Text Available This contribution reviews the idea of discovery learning with corpora, proposed in the 1990s, evaluating its potential and its implications with reference to the education of translators today. The rationale behind this approach to data-driven learning, combining project-based and form-focused instruction within a socio-constructivistically inspired environment, is discussed. Examples are also provided of authentic, open-ended learning experiences, thanks to which students of translation share responsibility over the development of corpora and their consultation, and teachers can abandon the challenging role of omniscient knowledge providers and wear the more honest hat of "learning experts". Adding to the more straightforward uses of corpora in courses that aim to develop thematic, technological and information mining competences – i.e., in which training is offered in the use of corpora as professional aids –, attention is focused on foreign language teaching for translators and on corpora as learning aids, highlighting their potential for the development of the three other European Master's in Translation (EMT competences (translation service provision, language and intercultural ones.

Discovery learning in the language-for-translation classroom: corpora as learning aids

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Silvia Bernardini

2016-04-01

This contribution reviews the idea of discovery learning with corpora, proposed in the 1990s, evaluating its potential and its implications with reference to the education of translators today. The rationale behind this approach to data-driven learning, combining project-based and form-focused instruction within a socio-constructivistically inspired environment, is discussed. Examples are also provided of authentic, open-ended learning experiences, thanks to which students of translation share responsibility over the development of corpora and their consultation, and teachers can abandon the challenging role of omniscient knowledge providers and wear the more honest hat of "learning experts". Adding to the more straightforward uses of corpora in courses that aim to develop thematic, technological and information mining competences – i.e., in which training is offered in the use of corpora as professional aids –, attention is focused on foreign language teaching for translators and on corpora as learning aids, highlighting their potential for the development of the three other European Master's in Translation (EMT competences (translation service provision, language and intercultural ones.

Selected Translated Abstracts of Chinese-Language Climate Change Publications

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cushman, R.M.; Burtis, M.D.

1999-05-01

This report contains English-translated abstracts of important Chinese-language literature concerning global climate change for the years 1995-1998. This body of literature includes the topics of adaptation, ancient climate change, climate variation, the East Asia monsoon, historical climate change, impacts, modeling, and radiation and trace-gas emissions. In addition to the biological citations and abstracts translated into English, this report presents the original citations and abstracts in Chinese. Author and title indexes are included to assist the reader in locating abstracts of particular interest.

Selected Translated Abstracts of Russian-Language Climate-Change Publications, II. Clouds

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ravina, C.B.

1994-01-01

This report presents abstracts (translated into English) of important Russian-language literature concerning clouds as they relate to climate change. In addition to the bibliographic citations and abstracts translated into English, this report presents the original citations and abstracts in Russian. Author and title indexes are included, to assist the reader in locating abstracts of particular interest.

Spoken language identification based on the enhanced self-adjusting extreme learning machine approach

Science.gov (United States)

Tiun, Sabrina; AL-Dhief, Fahad Taha; Sammour, Mahmoud A. M.

2018-01-01

Spoken Language Identification (LID) is the process of determining and classifying natural language from a given content and dataset. Typically, data must be processed to extract useful features to perform LID. The extracting features for LID, based on literature, is a mature process where the standard features for LID have already been developed using Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC), Shifted Delta Cepstral (SDC), the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) and ending with the i-vector based framework. However, the process of learning based on extract features remains to be improved (i.e. optimised) to capture all embedded knowledge on the extracted features. The Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) is an effective learning model used to perform classification and regression analysis and is extremely useful to train a single hidden layer neural network. Nevertheless, the learning process of this model is not entirely effective (i.e. optimised) due to the random selection of weights within the input hidden layer. In this study, the ELM is selected as a learning model for LID based on standard feature extraction. One of the optimisation approaches of ELM, the Self-Adjusting Extreme Learning Machine (SA-ELM) is selected as the benchmark and improved by altering the selection phase of the optimisation process. The selection process is performed incorporating both the Split-Ratio and K-Tournament methods, the improved SA-ELM is named Enhanced Self-Adjusting Extreme Learning Machine (ESA-ELM). The results are generated based on LID with the datasets created from eight different languages. The results of the study showed excellent superiority relating to the performance of the Enhanced Self-Adjusting Extreme Learning Machine LID (ESA-ELM LID) compared with the SA-ELM LID, with ESA-ELM LID achieving an accuracy of 96.25%, as compared to the accuracy of SA-ELM LID of only 95.00%. PMID:29672546

Spoken language identification based on the enhanced self-adjusting extreme learning machine approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Albadr, Musatafa Abbas Abbood; Tiun, Sabrina; Al-Dhief, Fahad Taha; Sammour, Mahmoud A M

2018-01-01

Spoken Language Identification (LID) is the process of determining and classifying natural language from a given content and dataset. Typically, data must be processed to extract useful features to perform LID. The extracting features for LID, based on literature, is a mature process where the standard features for LID have already been developed using Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC), Shifted Delta Cepstral (SDC), the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) and ending with the i-vector based framework. However, the process of learning based on extract features remains to be improved (i.e. optimised) to capture all embedded knowledge on the extracted features. The Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) is an effective learning model used to perform classification and regression analysis and is extremely useful to train a single hidden layer neural network. Nevertheless, the learning process of this model is not entirely effective (i.e. optimised) due to the random selection of weights within the input hidden layer. In this study, the ELM is selected as a learning model for LID based on standard feature extraction. One of the optimisation approaches of ELM, the Self-Adjusting Extreme Learning Machine (SA-ELM) is selected as the benchmark and improved by altering the selection phase of the optimisation process. The selection process is performed incorporating both the Split-Ratio and K-Tournament methods, the improved SA-ELM is named Enhanced Self-Adjusting Extreme Learning Machine (ESA-ELM). The results are generated based on LID with the datasets created from eight different languages. The results of the study showed excellent superiority relating to the performance of the Enhanced Self-Adjusting Extreme Learning Machine LID (ESA-ELM LID) compared with the SA-ELM LID, with ESA-ELM LID achieving an accuracy of 96.25%, as compared to the accuracy of SA-ELM LID of only 95.00%.

Word translation at three levels of proficiency in a second language: the ubiquitous involvement of conceptual memory

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Groot, A.M.B.; Poot, R.

1997-01-01

Three groups of 20 unbalanced bilinguals, different from one another in second language (L2) fluency, translated one set of words from L1, Dutch, to L2, English (forward translation), and a second set of matched words from L2 to L1 (backward translation). In both language sets we orthogonally

Approaches for Language Identification in Mismatched Environments

Science.gov (United States)

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

A responsabilidade de traduzir o in-traduzível: Jacques Derrida e o desejo de [la] tradução The responsibility of translating the un-translatable: Jacques Derrida and the desire for [la] translation

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Paulo Ottoni

2003-01-01

Full Text Available Como pensar a responsabilidade do tradutor/a que se encontra "entre" a diferença de dois sistemas lingüísticos e no "meio" das várias línguas que compõem as línguas envolvidas na tradução? (P. Ottoni. Qual o papel do tradutor ao ter que (conviver com sua língua materna e o idioma do outro? Procurarei discutir estas duas questões para pensar a responsabilidade de traduzir o in-traduzível. Parto de duas hipóteses: 1- falar idiomaticamente seu idioma é o que se chama língua materna, o que não se apropria; e, acolher o outro na sua língua é levar em conta naturalmente seu idioma (J. Derrida; 2 - O tradutor, neste corpo-a-corpo com a língua e o idiomático, está preso numa dupla responsabilidade na operação de tradução: frente ao in-traduzível do idioma, e tendo que apreender de outro modo esta intraduzibilidade. Em resumo, como refletir sobre a responsabilidade de traduzir o in-traduzível Jacques Derrida?How should one consider the responsibility of the translator, who is located "between" the differences of two linguistic systems and "in the middle" of the various idioms constitute each of the languages involved in the translation? (P. Ottoni. What is the role of the translator in inter-acting with both his/her mother tongue and the idiom of the other? These two questions will be discussed in order to reflect on the responsibility of translating the un-translatable. Two hypotheses orient the paper: 1 - an idiom spoken idiomatically is known as the mother tongue and is not appropriated, so that accommodating the other in one's own language automatically considers his/her idiom (J. Derrida and 2 - face-to-face with language and its idioms, the translator is trapped in a double (responsibility bind; faced with something which cannot be translated, he/she is forced to perceive it in another way. In conclusion, how should one consider the responsibility of translating the un-translatable Jacques Derrida?

Depictions and minifiction: a reflection on translation of micro-story as didactics of sign language interpreters training in colombia.

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Alex Giovanny Barreto

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The article presents reflections on methodological translation-practice approach to sign language interpreter’s education focus in communicative competence. Implementing translation-practice approach experience started in several workshops of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Sign Language of Colombia (ANISCOL and have now formalized in the bachelor in education degree project in signed languages, develop within Research Group UMBRAL from National Open University and Distance of Colombia-UNAD. The didactic proposal focus on the model of the efforts (Gile, specifically in the production and listen efforts. A criticism about translating competence is presented. Minifiction is literary genre with multiple semiotic and philosophical translation possibilities. These literary texts have elements with great potential to render on visual, gestural and spatial depictions of Colombian sign language which is profitable to interpreter training and education. Through El Dinosaurio sign language translation, we concludes with an outline and reflections on the pedagogical and didactic potential of minifiction and depictions in the design of training activities in sign language interpreters.

Emergent Literacy Skills in Preschool Children With Hearing Loss Who Use Spoken Language: Initial Findings From the Early Language and Literacy Acquisition (ELLA) Study.

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Werfel, Krystal L

2017-10-05

The purpose of this study was to compare change in emergent literacy skills of preschool children with and without hearing loss over a 6-month period. Participants included 19 children with hearing loss and 14 children with normal hearing. Children with hearing loss used amplification and spoken language. Participants completed measures of oral language, phonological processing, and print knowledge twice at a 6-month interval. A series of repeated-measures analyses of variance were used to compare change across groups. Main effects of time were observed for all variables except phonological recoding. Main effects of group were observed for vocabulary, morphosyntax, phonological memory, and concepts of print. Interaction effects were observed for phonological awareness and concepts of print. Children with hearing loss performed more poorly than children with normal hearing on measures of oral language, phonological memory, and conceptual print knowledge. Two interaction effects were present. For phonological awareness and concepts of print, children with hearing loss demonstrated less positive change than children with normal hearing. Although children with hearing loss generally demonstrated a positive growth in emergent literacy skills, their initial performance was lower than that of children with normal hearing, and rates of change were not sufficient to catch up to the peers over time.

Visual Sonority Modulates Infants' Attraction to Sign Language

Science.gov (United States)

Stone, Adam; Petitto, Laura-Ann; Bosworth, Rain

2018-01-01

The infant brain may be predisposed to identify perceptually salient cues that are common to both signed and spoken languages. Recent theory based on spoken languages has advanced sonority as one of these potential language acquisition cues. Using a preferential looking paradigm with an infrared eye tracker, we explored visual attention of hearing…

"We communicated that way for a reason": language practices and language ideologies among hearing adults whose parents are deaf.

Science.gov (United States)

Pizer, Ginger; Walters, Keith; Meier, Richard P

2013-01-01

Families with deaf parents and hearing children are often bilingual and bimodal, with both a spoken language and a signed one in regular use among family members. When interviewed, 13 American hearing adults with deaf parents reported widely varying language practices, sign language abilities, and social affiliations with Deaf and Hearing communities. Despite this variation, the interviewees' moral judgments of their own and others' communicative behavior suggest that these adults share a language ideology concerning the obligation of all family members to expend effort to overcome potential communication barriers. To our knowledge, such a language ideology is not similarly pervasive among spoken-language bilingual families, raising the question of whether there is something unique about family bimodal bilingualism that imposes different rights and responsibilities on family members than spoken-language family bilingualism does. This ideology unites an otherwise diverse group of interviewees, where each one preemptively denied being a "typical CODA [children of deaf adult]."

What You Don't Know Can Hurt You: The Risk of Language Deprivation by Impairing Sign Language Development in Deaf Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Hall, Wyatte C

2017-05-01

A long-standing belief is that sign language interferes with spoken language development in deaf children, despite a chronic lack of evidence supporting this belief. This deserves discussion as poor life outcomes continue to be seen in the deaf population. This commentary synthesizes research outcomes with signing and non-signing children and highlights fully accessible language as a protective factor for healthy development. Brain changes associated with language deprivation may be misrepresented as sign language interfering with spoken language outcomes of cochlear implants. This may lead to professionals and organizations advocating for preventing sign language exposure before implantation and spreading misinformation. The existence of one-time-sensitive-language acquisition window means a strong possibility of permanent brain changes when spoken language is not fully accessible to the deaf child and sign language exposure is delayed, as is often standard practice. There is no empirical evidence for the harm of sign language exposure but there is some evidence for its benefits, and there is growing evidence that lack of language access has negative implications. This includes cognitive delays, mental health difficulties, lower quality of life, higher trauma, and limited health literacy. Claims of cochlear implant- and spoken language-only approaches being more effective than sign language-inclusive approaches are not empirically supported. Cochlear implants are an unreliable standalone first-language intervention for deaf children. Priorities of deaf child development should focus on healthy growth of all developmental domains through a fully-accessible first language foundation such as sign language, rather than auditory deprivation and speech skills.

METAFUNCTION ANALYSIS OF DONAL DUCK‘S COMIC AND ITS 208 TRANSLATION

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Gilang Fadhilia Arvianti

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Translating comic is different from other different text. Most of the text that is used in the comic is dialogue or spoken language that usually can be found in the subtitle of the film. Analyzing the accurateness of the translation text can be analyzed by using Metafunction approach. In translating text into target text, not all meaning is transferring into target text. It can influence the message that is brought by the source text into target text. Although explicitly the meaning is transferring to target language, in Metafunction approach it can be analyzed that not all the meaning is transferred into target text. This becomes the reason of taking this case as an object of this research. The aims of this research are to know the meaning realization in ideational analysis approach. The method of this research uses descriptive qualitative since the data and the analysis are in the form of sentence and description. The data will be taken from Donald Duck‘s Comic and its translation version. The techniques that will be used in this research is content analysis. This research also applies crieterion-based sampling that is used only to get theoretically generalization. Since this research is hoped to give significant contribution to student of English Teaching and Learning in learning metafunction analysis, the function of this research is to explain impact of Metafunction shifting toward the equivalence of translation in target text. Thus this research not only can be learning material for analyzing metafunction in specific text, but also in learning translation.

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

Science.gov (United States)

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.

WTF! Taboo Language in TV Series: An Analysis of Professional and Amateur Translation

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Micòl Beseghi

2016-02-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on the topic of censorship associated with the use of strong language and swear words in the translation of contemporary American TV series. In AVT, more specifically in Italian dubbing, the practice of censorship, in the form of suppression or toning down of what might be perceived as offensive, disturbing, too explicit or inconvenient, still remains a problematic issue. By focusing on two recent successful TV series - Girls and Orange is the New Black – which are characterized by the use of strong language (swear words, politically incorrect references and the presence of taboo subjects (homosexuality, sex, drugs, violence – this study will consider the different translation choices applied in dubbing and fansubbing. Previous academic studies have underlined the fact that professional translators tend to remove, more or less consciously, the disturbing elements from the source text, while fansubbers try to adhere as much as possible to the original text, not only in terms of linguistic contents but also in terms of register and style. The results of this analysis seem on the one hand to confirm that there is still not a systematic set of rules that govern the translation of strong language in dubbing, and on the other to indicate that the gap between professional and amateur translation is perhaps becoming less pronounced.

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…

TEACHING TURKISH AS SPOKEN IN TURKEY TO TURKIC SPEAKERS - TÜRK DİLLİLERE TÜRKİYE TÜRKÇESİ ÖĞRETİMİ NASIL OLMALIDIR?

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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

Voice disorder outcome profile (V-DOP)-translation and validation in Tamil language.

Science.gov (United States)

Mahalingam, Shenbagavalli; Boominathan, Prakash; Subramaniyan, Balasubramaniyan

2014-11-01

This study sought to translate and validate the voice disorder outcome profile (V-DOP) for Tamil-speaking populations. It was implemented in two phases: the English language V-DOP developed for an Indian population was first translated into Tamil, a south Indian Dravidian language. Five Tamil language experts verified the translated version for exactness of meaning and usage. The expert's comments and suggestions were used to select the questions for the final V-DOP, thus establishing content validity. Then the translated V-DOP was administered to 95 subjects (75 in clinical and 20 in nonclinical group) for reliability (item-total correlation) and validity (construct) measures. The overall Cronbach coefficient α for V-DOP was 0.89 whereas the mean total V-DOP score was zero for the nonclinical group and 104.28 for the clinical group (standard deviation = 64.71). The emotional and functional domains indicated a statistically significant correlation (r = 0.91 and r = 0.90 respectively), followed by the physical domain (r = 0.82) with the total scores. A significant, but moderate correlation was obtained across V-DOP domains (r = 0.50 to 0.60; P Tamil is a valid and reliable tool for evaluating the impact of voice disorders in Tamil-speaking population. Copyright © 2014 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[Authorization, translation, back translation and language modification of the simplified Chinese adult comorbidity-27 index].

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, L; Mao, C; Yu, G Y; Peng, X

2016-10-09

Objective: To translate the adult comorbidity evaluation-27(ACE-27) index authored by professor JF Piccirillo into Chinese and for the purpose of assessing the possible impact of comorbidity on survival of oral cancer patients and improving cancer staging. Methods: The translation included the following steps, obtaining permission from professor Piccirillo, translation, back translation, language modification, adjusted by the advice from the professors of oral and maxillofacial surgery. The test population included 154 patients who were admitted to Peking University of Stomatology during March 2011. Questionnaire survey was conducted on these patients. Retest of reliability, internal consistency reliability, content validity, and structure validity were performed. Results: The simplified Chinese ACE-27 index was established. The Cronbach's α was 0.821 in the internal consistency reliability test. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value of 8 items was 0.859 in the structure validity test. Conclusions: The simplified Chinese ACE-27 index has good feasibility and reliability. It is useful to assess the comorbidity of oral cancer patients.

The Effect of Data-Based Translation Program Used in Foreign Language Education on the Correct Use of Language

Science.gov (United States)

Darancik, Yasemin

2016-01-01

It has been observed that data-based translation programs are often used both in and outside the class unconsciously and thus there occurs many problems in foreign language learning and teaching. To draw attention to this problem, with this study, whether the program has satisfactory results or not has been revealed by making translations from…

The road to language learning is iconic: evidence from British Sign Language.

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, Robin L; Vinson, David P; Woll, Bencie; Vigliocco, Gabriella

2012-12-01

An arbitrary link between linguistic form and meaning is generally considered a universal feature of language. However, iconic (i.e., nonarbitrary) mappings between properties of meaning and features of linguistic form are also widely present across languages, especially signed languages. Although recent research has shown a role for sign iconicity in language processing, research on the role of iconicity in sign-language development has been mixed. In this article, we present clear evidence that iconicity plays a role in sign-language acquisition for both the comprehension and production of signs. Signed languages were taken as a starting point because they tend to encode a higher degree of iconic form-meaning mappings in their lexicons than spoken languages do, but our findings are more broadly applicable: Specifically, we hypothesize that iconicity is fundamental to all languages (signed and spoken) and that it serves to bridge the gap between linguistic form and human experience.

On the Conventionalization of Mouth Actions in Australian Sign Language.

Science.gov (United States)

Johnston, Trevor; van Roekel, Jane; Schembri, Adam

2016-03-01

This study investigates the conventionalization of mouth actions in Australian Sign Language. Signed languages were once thought of as simply manual languages because the hands produce the signs which individually and in groups are the symbolic units most easily equated with the words, phrases and clauses of spoken languages. However, it has long been acknowledged that non-manual activity, such as movements of the body, head and the face play a very important role. In this context, mouth actions that occur while communicating in signed languages have posed a number of questions for linguists: are the silent mouthings of spoken language words simply borrowings from the respective majority community spoken language(s)? Are those mouth actions that are not silent mouthings of spoken words conventionalized linguistic units proper to each signed language, culturally linked semi-conventional gestural units shared by signers with members of the majority speaking community, or even gestures and expressions common to all humans? We use a corpus-based approach to gather evidence of the extent of the use of mouth actions in naturalistic Australian Sign Language-making comparisons with other signed languages where data is available--and the form/meaning pairings that these mouth actions instantiate.

Semantic and translation priming from a first language to a second and back: Making sense of the findings

OpenAIRE

Schoonbaert, Sofie; Duyck, Wouter; Brysbaert, Marc; Hartsuiker, Robert

2009-01-01

The present study investigated cross-language priming effects with unique noncognate translation pairs. Unbalanced Dutch (first language [L1])-English (second language [L2]) bilinguals performed a lexical decision task in a masked priming paradigm. The results of two experiments showed significant translation priming from L I to L2 (meisje-GIRL) and from L2 to L I (girl-MEISJE), using two different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) (250 and 100 msec). Although translation priming from L I to...

MINORITY LANGUAGES IN ESTONIAN SEGREGATIVE LANGUAGE ENVIRONMENTS

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Elvira Küün

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The goal of this project in Estonia was to determine what languages are spoken by students from the 2nd to the 5th year of basic school at their homes in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. At the same time, this problem was also studied in other segregated regions of Estonia: Kohtla-Järve and Maardu. According to the database of the population census from the year 2000 (Estonian Statistics Executive Office's census 2000, there are representatives of 142 ethnic groups living in Estonia, speaking a total of 109 native languages. At the same time, the database doesn’t state which languages are spoken at homes. The material presented in this article belongs to the research topic “Home Language of Basic School Students in Tallinn” from years 2007–2008, specifically financed and ordered by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (grant No. ETF 7065 in the framework of an international study called “Multilingual Project”. It was determined what language is dominating in everyday use, what are the factors for choosing the language for communication, what are the preferred languages and language skills. This study reflects the actual trends of the language situation in these cities.

Taking the Time. Studying language effects in the translation class

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Paola Brusasco

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract – The current translation market places growing emphasis on technological tools that assist or even replace the translator in quickly producing adequate target texts. As a person involved in cultural processes that affect public discourse and society at large, both as a practising literary translator and as a teacher of translation, I feel that academia should not only pursue market-oriented translation skills, such as procedural knowledge of computer-assisted translation (CAT-tools and machine translation (MT, but also aim at strengthening would-be translators' processes of interpretation and making them autonomous language experts, aware of both the effects generated by language and their responsibility in using it. To support my position, I will draw on cognitive linguistics and critical discourse analysis (CDA. Adopting a constructivist approach, I will then refer to works by Kiraly (2000, Venuti (2013 and Laviosa (2014, and add some methodological proposals. Students will initially work individually and in groups, focusing on source texts, their translations and comparable texts in order to identify key language items and work toward meaning. By deploying CDA analytical tools, they will discuss the role played by individual items as well as the overall effect of both STs and TTs. New source texts will then be analysed in preparation for translation. The actual translation, effect analysis and final editing, carried out as team work, will complete a cycle aimed at 1 helping students to build knowledge through experience; 2 sensitising them to the complexity of the translation process and the paramount value of meaning-making within every single context.Riassunto – Il settore della traduzione attribuisce crescente importanza a strumenti tecnologici che aiutano o sostituiscono il traduttore nella rapida produzione di testi adeguati. In qualità di traduttrice letteraria e docente, coinvolta quindi in processi culturali che possono

The benefits of sign language for deaf learners with language challenges

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Van Staden, Annalene

2009-12-01

Full Text Available This article argues the importance of allowing deaf children to acquire sign language from an early age. It demonstrates firstly that the critical/sensitive period hypothesis for language acquisition can be applied to specific language aspects of spoken language as well as sign languages (i.e. phonology, grammatical processing and syntax. This makes early diagnosis and early intervention of crucial importance. Moreover, research findings presented in this article demonstrate the advantage that sign language offers in the early years of a deaf child’s life by comparing the language development milestones of deaf learners exposed to sign language from birth to those of late-signers, orally trained deaf learners and hearing learners exposed to spoken language. The controversy over the best medium of instruction for deaf learners is briefly discussed, with emphasis placed on the possible value of bilingual-bicultural programmes to facilitate the development of deaf learners’ literacy skills. Finally, this paper concludes with a discussion of the implications/recommendations of sign language teaching and Deaf education in South Africa.

Literal Translation using Google Translate in Translating the Text from French to English in Digital Tourism Brochure “Bienvenue À Paris”

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Rila Hilma

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Translation is basically change of form. The form from which the translation is made will be called the source language and the form into which it is to be changed will be called the receptor language. Translation consists of transferring the meaning of the source language into the receptor language. Translating is not an easy job to do because many things to be considered to do this activity because translation means determining the meaning of a text, then reconstructing this same meaning using the appropriate structure and form in the receptor language. Translation is basically divided by two types of translation, one is literal and the other is idiomatic. Literal translation is really strict to the structure and form then often can not well express the true meaning of source language. Idiomatic translation makes every effort to communicate the meaning of the source language text in the natural forms of the receptor language. Then the most popular translation machine, Google Translate, in this study shows the results of translation which remain odd, unnatural, and nonsensical because the unsuccessful of message delivery, which is notably the typically error of literal translation.

Where do borders lie in translated literature? The case of the changing English-language market

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Richard Michael Mansell

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Anecdotal accounts suggest that one reason for the perceived resistance to translated literature in English-language markets is that commissioning editors are averse to considering texts that they cannot read. In an attempt to overcome this barrier, English translations are increasingly commissioned by publishers of source texts and agents of source authors and used to stimulate interest in a book (not just in English-language markets, a phenomenon this article terms ‘source-commissioned translations’. This article considers how this phenomenon indicates a shift in the borders between literatures, how it disrupts accepted commercial practices, and the consequences of this for the industry and the role of English in the global book trade. In particular, it considers consequences for the quality of translations, questions regarding copyright, and the uncertain position for the translator when, at the time of translating, a contract is not in place between the translator and the publisher of the translation.

Bean Soup Translation: Flexible, Linguistically-Motivated Syntax for Machine Translation

Science.gov (United States)

Mehay, Dennis Nolan

2012-01-01

Machine translation (MT) systems attempt to translate texts from one language into another by translating words from a "source language" and rearranging them into fluent utterances in a "target language." When the two languages organize concepts in very different ways, knowledge of their general sentence structure, or…

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…

Phonological Sketch of the Sida Language of Luang Namtha, Laos

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Nathan Badenoch

2017-07-01

Full Text Available This paper describes the phonology of the Sida language, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by approximately 3,900 people in Laos and Vietnam. The data presented here are the variety spoken in Luang Namtha province of northwestern Laos, and focuses on a synchronic description of the fundamentals of the Sida phonological systems. Several issues of diachronic interest are also discussed in the context of the diversity of the Southern Loloish group of languages, many of which are spoken in Laos and have not yet been described in detail.

Spoken word recognition without a TRACE

Science.gov (United States)

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

Narrative skills in deaf children who use spoken English: Dissociations between macro and microstructural devices.

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, -A C; Toscano, E; Botting, N; Marshall, C-R; Atkinson, J R; Denmark, T; Herman, -R; Morgan, G

2016-12-01

Previous research has highlighted that deaf children acquiring spoken English have difficulties in narrative development relative to their hearing peers both in terms of macro-structure and with micro-structural devices. The majority of previous research focused on narrative tasks designed for hearing children that depend on good receptive language skills. The current study compared narratives of 6 to 11-year-old deaf children who use spoken English (N=59) with matched for age and non-verbal intelligence hearing peers. To examine the role of general language abilities, single word vocabulary was also assessed. Narratives were elicited by the retelling of a story presented non-verbally in video format. Results showed that deaf and hearing children had equivalent macro-structure skills, but the deaf group showed poorer performance on micro-structural components. Furthermore, the deaf group gave less detailed responses to inferencing probe questions indicating poorer understanding of the story's underlying message. For deaf children, micro-level devices most strongly correlated with the vocabulary measure. These findings suggest that deaf children, despite spoken language delays, are able to convey the main elements of content and structure in narrative but have greater difficulty in using grammatical devices more dependent on finer linguistic and pragmatic skills. Crown Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Long-term memory traces for familiar spoken words in tonal languages as revealed by the Mismatch Negativity

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Naiphinich Kotchabhakdi

2004-11-01

Full Text Available Mismatch negativity (MMN, a primary response to an acoustic change and an index of sensory memory, was used to investigate the processing of the discrimination between familiar and unfamiliar Consonant-Vowel (CV speech contrasts. The MMN was elicited by rare familiar words presented among repetitive unfamiliar words. Phonetic and phonological contrasts were identical in all conditions. MMN elicited by the familiar word deviant was larger than that elicited by the unfamiliar word deviant. The presence of syllable contrast did significantly alter the word-elicited MMN in amplitude and scalp voltage field distribution. Thus, our results indicate the existence of word-related MMN enhancement largely independent of the word status of the standard stimulus. This enhancement may reflect the presence of a longterm memory trace for familiar spoken words in tonal languages.

How Does the Linguistic Distance Between Spoken and Standard Language in Arabic Affect Recall and Recognition Performances During Verbal Memory Examination.

Science.gov (United States)

Taha, Haitham

2017-06-01

The current research examined how Arabic diglossia affects verbal learning memory. Thirty native Arab college students were tested using auditory verbal memory test that was adapted according to the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test and developed in three versions: Pure spoken language version (SL), pure standard language version (SA), and phonologically similar version (PS). The result showed that for immediate free-recall, the performances were better for the SL and the PS conditions compared to the SA one. However, for the parts of delayed recall and recognition, the results did not reveal any significant consistent effect of diglossia. Accordingly, it was suggested that diglossia has a significant effect on the storage and short term memory functions but not on long term memory functions. The results were discussed in light of different approaches in the field of bilingual memory.

Selected Translated Abstracts of Chinese-Language Climate Change Publications; TOPICAL

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cushman, R.M.; Burtis, M.D.

1999-01-01

This report contains English-translated abstracts of important Chinese-language literature concerning global climate change for the years 1995-1998. This body of literature includes the topics of adaptation, ancient climate change, climate variation, the East Asia monsoon, historical climate change, impacts, modeling, and radiation and trace-gas emissions. In addition to the biological citations and abstracts translated into English, this report presents the original citations and abstracts in Chinese. Author and title indexes are included to assist the reader in locating abstracts of particular interest

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.

Translating textbooks: Russian, German, and the language of chemistry.

Science.gov (United States)

Gordin, Michael D

2012-03-01

Using the cases of three Russian chemistry textbooks from the 1860s--authored by Freidrich Beilstein, A. M. Butlerov, and D. I. Mendeleev--this essay analyzes their contemporary translation into German and the implications of their divergent histories for scholars' understanding of the processes of credit accrual and the choices of languages of science.

Translation, Validation, and Adaptation of the Time Use Diary from English into the Malay Language for Use in Malaysia.

Science.gov (United States)

Asmuri, Siti Noraini; Brown, Ted; Broom, Lisa J

2016-07-01

Valid translations of time use scales are needed by occupational therapists for use in different cross-cultural contexts to gather relevant data to inform practice and research. The purpose of this study was to describe the process of translating, adapting, and validating the Time Use Diary from its current English language edition into a Malay language version. Five steps of the cross-cultural adaptation process were completed: (i) translation from English into the Malay language by a qualified translator, (ii) synthesis of the translated Malay version, (iii) backtranslation from Malay to English by three bilingual speakers, (iv) expert committee review and discussion, and (v) pilot testing of the Malay language version with two participant groups. The translated version was found to be a reliable and valid tool identifying changes and potential challenges in the time use of older adults. This provides Malaysian occupational therapists with a useful tool for gathering time use data in practice settings and for research purposes.

Moving conceptualizations of language and literacy in SLA

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Laursen, Helle Pia

in various technological environments, we see an increase in scholarship that highlights the mixing and chaining of spoken, written and visual modalities and how written and visual often precede or overrule spoken language. There seems to be a mismatch between current day language practices......, in language education and in language practices. As a consequence of this and in the light of the increasing mobility and linguistic diversity in Europe, in this colloquium, we address the need for a (re)conceptualization of the relation between language and literacy. Drawing on data from different settings...

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.

Emotion and the humors: scoring and classifying major characters from Shakespeare's comedies on the basis of their language.

Science.gov (United States)

Whissell, Cynthia

2010-06-01

The theory of humors, which was the prevalent theory of affect in Shakespeare's day, was used to explain both states (moods, emotions) and traits (personalities). This article reports humoral scores appropriate to the major characters of Shakespeare's comedies. The Dictionary of Affect in Language was used to score all words (N = 180,243) spoken by 105 major characters in 13 comedies in terms of their emotional undertones. These were translated into humoral scores. Translation was possible because emotional undertones, humor, and personality (e.g., Eysenck's model) are defined by various axes in the same two-dimensional space. Humoral scores differed for different types of characters, e.g., Shakespeare's lovers used more Sanguine language and his clowns more Melancholy language than other characters. A study of Kate and Petruchio from The Taming of the Shrew demonstrated state-like changes in humor for characters as the play unfolded.

Automated Scoring of L2 Spoken English with Random Forests

Science.gov (United States)

Kobayashi, Yuichiro; Abe, Mariko

2016-01-01

The purpose of the present study is to assess second language (L2) spoken English using automated scoring techniques. Automated scoring aims to classify a large set of learners' oral performance data into a small number of discrete oral proficiency levels. In automated scoring, objectively measurable features such as the frequencies of lexical and…

Shakespeare in Three Languages Reading and Analyzing Sonnet 130 and Its Translations in Light of Semiotics

Science.gov (United States)

Kasar, Sündüz; Tuna, Didem

2017-01-01

Among the literary genres, poetry is the one that resists translation the most. Creating a new and innovative language that breaks the usual rules of the standard language with brand-new uses and meanings is probably one of the most important goals of the poet. Poetry challenges the translator to capture not only original images, exceptional…

A descriptive study of culture related terms in translation of Harry Potter Novel from English to Urdu language

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Sana Mansoor

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Translation of children fantasy novels and problems faced by translators in translating these novels into different languages is one of the core issues in the field of translation studies. This issue has got attention of many researchers and an extensive study has been carried out on various novels. The Harry Potter series of novels written by British author J.K. Rowling is one of the famous children fantasy novels that gained popularity worldwide and was translated into 73 languages. The use of various cultural terms and made up words in the novel has posed a great challenge for the translators. The purpose of the present study is to identify these cultural related terms and made up words in the novel “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” and to investigate the strategies used by the translator in translating them into Urdu language. A descriptive analysis of the translation of culture related items and made up words was made using the strategies proposed by Davies (2003. The findings of this research showed that translator mostly emphasized and predominantly used localization and transformation strategies for food items, magical objects and imaginative words.

Machine translation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nagao, M

1982-04-01

Each language has its own structure. In translating one language into another one, language attributes and grammatical interpretation must be defined in an unambiguous form. In order to parse a sentence, it is necessary to recognize its structure. A so-called context-free grammar can help in this respect for machine translation and machine-aided translation. Problems to be solved in studying machine translation are taken up in the paper, which discusses subjects for semantics and for syntactic analysis and translation software. 14 references.

ADAPTING HYBRID MACHINE TRANSLATION TECHNIQUES FOR CROSS-LANGUAGE TEXT RETRIEVAL SYSTEM

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P. ISWARYA

2017-03-01

Full Text Available This research work aims in developing Tamil to English Cross - language text retrieval system using hybrid machine translation approach. The hybrid machine translation system is a combination of rule based and statistical based approaches. In an existing word by word translation system there are lot of issues and some of them are ambiguity, Out-of-Vocabulary words, word inflections, and improper sentence structure. To handle these issues, proposed architecture is designed in such a way that, it contains Improved Part-of-Speech tagger, machine learning based morphological analyser, collocation based word sense disambiguation procedure, semantic dictionary, and tense markers with gerund ending rules, and two pass transliteration algorithm. From the experimental results it is clear that the proposed Tamil Query based translation system achieves significantly better translation quality over existing system, and reaches 95.88% of monolingual performance.

Translation Accommodations Framework for Testing English Language Learners in Mathematics

Science.gov (United States)

Solano-Flores, Guillermo

2012-01-01

The present framework is developed under contract with the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) as a conceptual and methodological tool for guiding the reasonings and actions of contractors in charge of developing and providing test translation accommodations for English language learners. The framework addresses important challenges in…

Monitoring the Performance of Human and Automated Scores for Spoken Responses

Science.gov (United States)

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…

Bimodal Bilingual Language Development of Hearing Children of Deaf Parents

Science.gov (United States)

Hofmann, Kristin; Chilla, Solveig

2015-01-01

Adopting a bimodal bilingual language acquisition model, this qualitative case study is the first in Germany to investigate the spoken and sign language development of hearing children of deaf adults (codas). The spoken language competence of six codas within the age range of 3;10 to 6;4 is assessed by a series of standardised tests (SETK 3-5,…

Directionality effects in simultaneous language interpreting: the case of sign language interpreters in The Netherlands.

Science.gov (United States)

Van Dijk, Rick; Boers, Eveline; Christoffels, Ingrid; Hermans, Daan

2011-01-01

The quality of interpretations produced by sign language interpreters was investigated. Twenty-five experienced interpreters were instructed to interpret narratives from (a) spoken Dutch to Sign Language of The Netherlands (SLN), (b) spoken Dutch to Sign Supported Dutch (SSD), and (c) SLN to spoken Dutch. The quality of the interpreted narratives was assessed by 5 certified sign language interpreters who did not participate in the study. Two measures were used to assess interpreting quality: the propositional accuracy of the interpreters' interpretations and a subjective quality measure. The results showed that the interpreted narratives in the SLN-to-Dutch interpreting direction were of lower quality (on both measures) than the interpreted narratives in the Dutch-to-SLN and Dutch-to-SSD directions. Furthermore, interpreters who had begun acquiring SLN when they entered the interpreter training program performed as well in all 3 interpreting directions as interpreters who had acquired SLN from birth.

Translation and foreign language teaching, a theoretical and practical point of view: the italian scenario

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Bruna Di Sabato

2017-12-01

Full Text Available In the course of the last century, translation employed as a tool for foreign language acquisition has suffered alternate fates. From being the approach, par excellence, employed in rote learning in the days of lexicogrammatical-translation methodology, it soon slipped into disuse (and disgrace with the advent of progressive communicative educational theories. Though never wholly absent in actual classroom practice and always present in the work of some bold scholars, it has recently been rehabilitated on the wave of studies regarding the use of the learners’ own language within the classroom, against the theoretical backdrop of research in the field of cross-lingual teaching, translanguaging and intercomprehension; all activities which recognize the fundamental role of the interlinguistic and intercultural component in language learning. This paper focuses on the Italian scenario, it traces the role translation has played and currently plays in the Italian foreign language university curricula and outlines the many benefits which can derive from its inclusive use as a learning technique in the light of contemporary didactic methodologies.

Translational Creativity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Sandro

2010-01-01

A long-established approach to legal translation focuses on terminological equivalence making translators strictly follow the words of source texts. Recent research suggests that there is room for some creativity allowing translators to deviate from the source texts. However, little attention...... is given to genre conventions in source texts and the ways in which they can best be translated. I propose that translators of statutes with an informative function in expert-to-expert communication may be allowed limited translational creativity when translating specific types of genre convention....... This creativity is a result of translators adopting either a source-language or a target-language oriented strategy and is limited by the pragmatic principle of co-operation. Examples of translation options are provided illustrating the different results in target texts. The use of a target-language oriented...

Our Policies, Their Text: German Language Students' Strategies with and Beliefs about Web-Based Machine Translation

Science.gov (United States)

White, Kelsey D.; Heidrich, Emily

2013-01-01

Most educators are aware that some students utilize web-based machine translators for foreign language assignments, however, little research has been done to determine how and why students utilize these programs, or what the implications are for language learning and teaching. In this mixed-methods study we utilized surveys, a translation task,…

Teaching and Learning Sign Language as a “Foreign” Language ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

In recent years, there has been a growing debate in the United States, Europe, and Australia about the nature of the Deaf community as a cultural community,1 and the recognition of signed languages as “real” or “legitimate” languages comparable in all meaningful ways to spoken languages. An important element of this ...

Implications of Hegel's Theories of Language on Second Language Teaching

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Manfred

2016-01-01

This article explores the implications of Hegel's theories of language on second language (L2) teaching. Three among the various concepts in Hegel's theories of language are selected. They are the crucial role of intersubjectivity; the primacy of the spoken over the written form; and the importance of the training of form or grammar. Applying…

Webster's word power better English grammar improve your written and spoken English

CERN Document Server

Kirkpatrick, Betty

2014-01-01

With questions and answer sections throughout, this book helps you to improve your written and spoken English through understanding the structure of the English language. This is a thorough and useful book with all parts of speech and grammar explained. Used by ELT self-study students.

Translation and cultural adaptation of the Hip Outcome Score to the Portuguese language,

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Liszt Palmeira de Oliveira

2014-06-01

Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: to translate the Hip Outcome Score clinical evaluation questionnaire into Portuguese and culturally adapt it for Brazil.METHODS: the Hip Outcome Score questionnaire was translated into Portuguese following the methodology consisting of the steps of translation, back-translation, pretesting and final translation.RESULTS: the pretesting was applied to 30 patients with hip pain without arthrosis. In the domain relating to activities of daily living, there were no difficulties in comprehending the translated questionnaire. In presenting the final translation of the questionnaire, all the questions were understood by more than 85% of the individuals.CONCLUSION: the Hip Outcome Score questionnaire was translated and adapted to the Portuguese language and can be used in clinical evaluation on the hip. Additional studies are underway with the objective of evaluating the reproducibility and validity of the Brazilian translation.

Language Mediated Concept Activation in Bilingual Memory Facilitates Cognitive Flexibility

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Anatoliy V. Kharkhurin

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This is the first attempt of empirical investigation of language mediated concept activation (LMCA in bilingual memory as a cognitive mechanism facilitating divergent thinking. Russian–English bilingual and Russian monolingual college students were tested on a battery of tests including among others Abbreviated Torrance Tests for Adults assessing divergent thinking traits and translingual priming (TLP test assessing the LMCA. The latter was designed as a lexical decision priming test, in which a prime and a target were not related in Russian (language of testing, but were related through their translation equivalents in English (spoken only by bilinguals. Bilinguals outperformed their monolingual counterparts on divergent thinking trait of cognitive flexibility, and bilinguals’ performance on this trait could be explained by their TLP effect. Age of second language acquisition and proficiency in this language were found to relate to the TLP effect, and therefore were proposed to influence the directionality and strength of connections in bilingual memory.

From English to Chinese, Japanese, and Russian: extending research visibility with language translations of a conference slide presentation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lilian Hoffecker, PhD, MLS

2017-01-01

Conclusions: Language translation can be a difficult and time-consuming task. However, translation of a conference slide presentation with limited text is an achievable activity and engages an international audience for information that is often not noticed or lost. Although English is by far the primary language of science and other disciplines, it is not necessarily the first or preferred language of global researchers. By offering appropriate language versions, the authors of presentations can expand the reach of their work.

Gendered Language in Recent Short Stories by Japanese Women, and in English Translation

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Lucy Fraser

2008-12-01

Full Text Available This article analyses five recent Japanese short stories written by women, with female first person narrators, and the English translations of these stories. I examine how the writers interact with the culturally loaded concept of gendered language to develop characters and themes. The strategies used by translators to render gendered styles into English are also discussed: case-by-case creative solutions appear most effective. ‘Feminine’ and other gendered styles are used to index social identity, to highlight the difference between the social and inner self, and different styles are mixed together for impact. Gendered styles, therefore, are of central importance and translators wishing to adhere closely to the source text should pay close attention to them. All the narrators of the stories demonstrate an understanding of ‘social sanction and taboo’. Two accustom themselves to a socially acceptable future, another displays an uneasy attitude to language and convention, while others fall into stereotypes imposed on them or chastise themselves for inappropriate behaviour. The stories illustrate the way in which gendered language styles in Japanese can be manipulated, as both the writers and the characters they create deliberately use different styles for effect.

Models of kulture in Nabokov's memoirs and translation memoirs in Serbian and Croatian language

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Razdobudko-Čović Larisa I.

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The paper presents an analysis of two Serbian translations of V. Nabokov's memoirs, that is the translation of the novel 'Drugie berega' ('The Other Shores' published in Russian as an authorized translation from the original English version 'Conclusive Evidence', and the translation of Nabokov's authorized translation from Russian to English entitled 'Speak, Memory'. Creolization of three models of culture in translation from the two originals - Russian and English - Is presented. Specific features of the two Serbian translations are analyzed, and a survey of characteristic mistakes caused by some specific characteristics of the source language is given. Also, Nabokov's very original approach to translation which is quite interpretative is highlighted.

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

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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.

Sentence Repetition in Deaf Children with Specific Language Impairment in British Sign Language

Science.gov (United States)

Marshall, Chloë; Mason, Kathryn; Rowley, Katherine; Herman, Rosalind; Atkinson, Joanna; Woll, Bencie; Morgan, Gary

2015-01-01

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) perform poorly on sentence repetition tasks across different spoken languages, but until now, this methodology has not been investigated in children who have SLI in a signed language. Users of a natural sign language encode different sentence meanings through their choice of signs and by altering…

Componential Skills in Second Language Development of Bilingual Children with Specific Language Impairment

Science.gov (United States)

Verhoeven, Ludo; Steenge, Judit; van Leeuwe, Jan; van Balkom, Hans

2017-01-01

In this study, we investigated which componential skills can be distinguished in the second language (L2) development of 140 bilingual children with specific language impairment in the Netherlands, aged 6-11 years, divided into 3 age groups. L2 development was assessed by means of spoken language tasks representing different language skills…

Query2Question: Translating Visualization Interaction into Natural Language.

Science.gov (United States)

Nafari, Maryam; Weaver, Chris

2015-06-01

Richly interactive visualization tools are increasingly popular for data exploration and analysis in a wide variety of domains. Existing systems and techniques for recording provenance of interaction focus either on comprehensive automated recording of low-level interaction events or on idiosyncratic manual transcription of high-level analysis activities. In this paper, we present the architecture and translation design of a query-to-question (Q2Q) system that automatically records user interactions and presents them semantically using natural language (written English). Q2Q takes advantage of domain knowledge and uses natural language generation (NLG) techniques to translate and transcribe a progression of interactive visualization states into a visual log of styled text that complements and effectively extends the functionality of visualization tools. We present Q2Q as a means to support a cross-examination process in which questions rather than interactions are the focus of analytic reasoning and action. We describe the architecture and implementation of the Q2Q system, discuss key design factors and variations that effect question generation, and present several visualizations that incorporate Q2Q for analysis in a variety of knowledge domains.

Selected translated abstracts of Russian-language climate-change publications. 4: General circulation models

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Burtis, M.D. [comp.] [Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States). Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center; Razuvaev, V.N.; Sivachok, S.G. [All-Russian Research Inst. of Hydrometeorological Information--World Data Center, Obninsk (Russian Federation)

1996-10-01

This report presents English-translated abstracts of important Russian-language literature concerning general circulation models as they relate to climate change. Into addition to the bibliographic citations and abstracts translated into English, this report presents the original citations and abstracts in Russian. Author and title indexes are included to assist the reader in locating abstracts of particular interest.

Selected translated abstracts of Russian-language climate-change publications: II, Clouds. Issue 159

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Burtis, M.D. [comp.

1994-01-01

This report presents abstracts (translated into English) of important Russian-language literature concerning clouds as they relate to climate change. In addition to the bibliographic citations and abstracts translated into English, this report presents the original citations and abstracts in Russian. Author and title indexes are included to assist the reader in locating abstracts of particular interest.

Setting Learning Objectives in Translation at the Department of Foreign Language Teaching through the Concept of Competence

Science.gov (United States)

Eser, Oktay

2014-01-01

At the department of foreign language teaching, a variety of courses are offered in order for students to acquire translation competence. The courses are often carried out by translating a text from one language into the other. Learning by experience is an effective approach. However, it is inevitable that there are some aspects that we need to…

How to Verify Plagiarism of the Paper Written in Macedonian and Translated in Foreign Language?

Science.gov (United States)

Spiroski, Mirko

2016-03-15

The aim of this study was to show how to verify plagiarism of the paper written in Macedonian and translated in foreign language. Original article "Ethics in Medical Research Involving Human Subjects", written in Macedonian, was submitted as an assay-2 for the subject Ethics and published by Ilina Stefanovska, PhD candidate from the Iustinianus Primus Faculty of Law, Ss Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje (UKIM), Skopje, Republic of Macedonia in Fabruary, 2013. Suspected article for plagiarism was published by Prof. Dr. Gordana Panova from the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University Goce Delchev, Shtip, Republic of Macedonia in English with the identical title and identical content in International scientific on-line journal "SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGIES", Publisher "Union of Scientists - Stara Zagora". Original document (written in Macedonian) was translated with Google Translator; suspected article (published in English pdf file) was converted into Word document, and compared both documents with several programs for plagiarism detection. It was found that both documents are identical in 71%, 78% and 82%, respectively, depending on the computer program used for plagiarism detection. It was obvious that original paper was entirely plagiarised by Prof. Dr. Gordana Panova, including six references from the original paper. Plagiarism of the original papers written in Macedonian and translated in other languages can be verified after computerised translation in other languages. Later on, original and translated documents can be compared with available software for plagiarism detection.

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

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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.

Translation as a Site of Language Policy Negotiation in Jewish Day School Education

Science.gov (United States)

Avni, Sharon

2012-01-01

This article examines how students and teachers at a non-Orthodox Jewish day school in New York City negotiate the use of translation within the context of an institutionalized language policy that stresses the use of a sacred language over that of the vernacular. Specifically, this paper analyzes the negotiation of a Hebrew-only policy through…

Identification of four class emotion from Indonesian spoken language using acoustic and lexical features

Science.gov (United States)

Kasyidi, Fatan; Puji Lestari, Dessi

2018-03-01

One of the important aspects in human to human communication is to understand emotion of each party. Recently, interactions between human and computer continues to develop, especially affective interaction where emotion recognition is one of its important components. This paper presents our extended works on emotion recognition of Indonesian spoken language to identify four main class of emotions: Happy, Sad, Angry, and Contentment using combination of acoustic/prosodic features and lexical features. We construct emotion speech corpus from Indonesia television talk show where the situations are as close as possible to the natural situation. After constructing the emotion speech corpus, the acoustic/prosodic and lexical features are extracted to train the emotion model. We employ some machine learning algorithms such as Support Vector Machine (SVM), Naive Bayes, and Random Forest to get the best model. The experiment result of testing data shows that the best model has an F-measure score of 0.447 by using only the acoustic/prosodic feature and F-measure score of 0.488 by using both acoustic/prosodic and lexical features to recognize four class emotion using the SVM RBF Kernel.

Auditory-cognitive training improves language performance in prelingually deafened cochlear implant recipients.

Science.gov (United States)

Ingvalson, Erin M; Young, Nancy M; Wong, Patrick C M

2014-10-01

Phonological and working memory skills have been shown to be important for the development of spoken language. Children who use a cochlear implant (CI) show performance deficits relative to normal hearing (NH) children on all constructs: phonological skills, working memory, and spoken language. Given that phonological skills and working memory have been shown to be important for spoken language development in NH children, we hypothesized that training these foundational skills would result in improved spoken language performance in CI-using children. Nineteen prelingually deafened CI-using children aged 4- to 7-years-old participated. All children had been using their implants for at least one year and were matched on pre-implant hearing thresholds, hearing thresholds at study enrollment, and non-verbal IQ. Children were assessed on expressive vocabulary, listening language, spoken language, and composite language. Ten children received four weeks of training on phonological skills including rhyme, sound blending, and sound discrimination and auditory working memory. The remaining nine children continued with their normal classroom activities for four weeks. Language assessments were repeated following the training/control period. Children who received combined phonological-working memory training showed significant gains on expressive and composite language scores. Children who did not receive training showed no significant improvements at post-test. On average, trained children had gain scores of 6.35 points on expressive language and gain scores of 6.15 points whereas the untrained children had test-retest gain scores of 2.89 points for expressive language and 2.56 for composite language. Our results suggest that training to improve the phonological and working memory skills in CI-using children may lead to improved language performance. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Selected translated abstracts of Russian-language climate-change publications, III aerosols: Issue 164

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Razuvaev, V.N.; Ssivachok, S.G. [All-Russian Research Inst. of Hydrometeorological Information-World Data Center, Obninsk (Russian Federation)

1995-10-01

This report presents abstracts in Russian and translated into English of important Russian-language literature concerning aerosols as they relate to climate change. In addition to the bibliographic citations and abstracts translated into English, this report presents the original citations and abstracts in Russian. Author and title indexes are included to assist the reader in locating abstracts of particular interest.

Understanding Translation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schjoldager, Anne Gram; Gottlieb, Henrik; Klitgård, Ida

Understanding Translation is designed as a textbook for courses on the theory and practice of translation in general and of particular types of translation - such as interpreting, screen translation and literary translation. The aim of the book is to help you gain an in-depth understanding...... of the phenomenon of translation and to provide you with a conceptual framework for the analysis of various aspects of professional translation. Intended readers are students of translation and languages, but the book will also be relevant for others who are interested in the theory and practice of translation...... - translators, language teachers, translation users and literary, TV and film critics, for instance. Discussions focus on translation between Danish and English....

First languages and las technologies for education

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Julio VERA VILA

2013-12-01

Full Text Available This article is a reflection on how each human being’s learning process and the cultural development of our species are connected to the possibility of translating reality –what we think, what we feel, our interaction- a system of signs that, having shared meanings, enrich our intrapersonal and interpersonal communication. Spoken language was the first technology but being well prepared genetically for it, we learn it through immersion; the rest of them, from written language to hypermedia, have to be well taught and even better learned.We conclude by highlighting the necessity of taking advantage of the benefits provided by the new technologies available nowadays in order to overcome the digital divide, without forgetting others such as literacy acquisition, which are the base of new technologies. Therefore we need a theory and practice of education which comprises its complexity and avoids simplistic reductionism.  

Machine Translation and Other Translation Technologies.

Science.gov (United States)

Melby, Alan

1996-01-01

Examines the application of linguistic theory to machine translation and translator tools, discusses the use of machine translation and translator tools in the real world of translation, and addresses the impact of translation technology on conceptions of language and other issues. Findings indicate that the human mind is flexible and linguistic…

Analysis and research of influence factors ranking of fuzzy language translation accuracy in literary works based on catastrophe progression method

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Wei Dong

2017-02-01

Full Text Available This paper researches the problem of decline in translation accuracy caused by language “vagueness” in literary translation, and proposes to use the catastrophe model for importance ranking of various factors affecting the fuzzy language translation accuracy in literary works, and finally gives out the order of factors to be considered before translation. The multi-level evaluation system can be used to construct the relevant catastrophe progression model, and the normalization formula can be used to calculate the relative membership degree of each system and evaluation index, and make evaluation combined with the evaluation criteria table. The results show that, in the fuzzy language translation, in order to improve the translation accuracy, there is a need to consider the indicators ranking: A2 fuzzy language context → A1 words attribute → A3 specific meaning of digital words; B2 fuzzy semantics, B3 blur color words → B1 multiple meanings of words → B4 fuzzy digital words; C3 combination with context and cultural background, C4 specific connotation of color words → C1 combination with words emotion, C2 selection of words meaning → C5 combination with digits and language background.

Let's all speak together! Exploring the masking effects of various languages on spoken word identification in multi-linguistic babble.

Science.gov (United States)

Gautreau, Aurore; Hoen, Michel; Meunier, Fanny

2013-01-01

This study aimed to characterize the linguistic interference that occurs during speech-in-speech comprehension by combining offline and online measures, which included an intelligibility task (at a -5 dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio) and 2 lexical decision tasks (at a -5 dB and 0 dB SNR) that were performed with French spoken target words. In these 3 experiments we always compared the masking effects of speech backgrounds (i.e., 4-talker babble) that were produced in the same language as the target language (i.e., French) or in unknown foreign languages (i.e., Irish and Italian) to the masking effects of corresponding non-speech backgrounds (i.e., speech-derived fluctuating noise). The fluctuating noise contained similar spectro-temporal information as babble but lacked linguistic information. At -5 dB SNR, both tasks revealed significantly divergent results between the unknown languages (i.e., Irish and Italian) with Italian and French hindering French target word identification to a similar extent, whereas Irish led to significantly better performances on these tasks. By comparing the performances obtained with speech and fluctuating noise backgrounds, we were able to evaluate the effect of each language. The intelligibility task showed a significant difference between babble and fluctuating noise for French, Irish and Italian, suggesting acoustic and linguistic effects for each language. However, the lexical decision task, which reduces the effect of post-lexical interference, appeared to be more accurate, as it only revealed a linguistic effect for French. Thus, although French and Italian had equivalent masking effects on French word identification, the nature of their interference was different. This finding suggests that the differences observed between the masking effects of Italian and Irish can be explained at an acoustic level but not at a linguistic level.

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.

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.

CloudLM: a Cloud-based Language Model for Machine Translation

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Ferrández-Tordera Jorge

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Language models (LMs are an essential element in statistical approaches to natural language processing for tasks such as speech recognition and machine translation (MT. The advent of big data leads to the availability of massive amounts of data to build LMs, and in fact, for the most prominent languages, using current techniques and hardware, it is not feasible to train LMs with all the data available nowadays. At the same time, it has been shown that the more data is used for a LM the better the performance, e.g. for MT, without any indication yet of reaching a plateau. This paper presents CloudLM, an open-source cloud-based LM intended for MT, which allows to query distributed LMs. CloudLM relies on Apache Solr and provides the functionality of state-of-the-art language modelling (it builds upon KenLM, while allowing to query massive LMs (as the use of local memory is drastically reduced, at the expense of slower decoding speed.

Translator from the symbol coding language for the BUTs-20 processor of the in-core reactor control system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vorob'ev, D.M.; Golovanov, M.N.; Levin, G.L.; Parfenova, T.K.; Filatov, V.P.

1978-01-01

A symbolic-language code translator is described; it has been developed for automation of making up programs for in-core control systems. The translator is written in the ASSEMBLER language which is included in the software of the M-6000 computer. Two scannings of the source program are required for making up the operating program in the internal language of the BUTs-2O processor. The flowsheet and listing of the interrogation program of an analog-to-digital converter are presented. It is emphasized that the translator proposed allows a time reduction for constructing programs for the in-core control systems by a factor of 10-15 and an improvement of their quality

The Relationship between Intrinsic Couplings of the Visual Word Form Area with Spoken Language Network and Reading Ability in Children and Adults

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Yu Li

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Reading plays a key role in education and communication in modern society. Learning to read establishes the connections between the visual word form area (VWFA and language areas responsible for speech processing. Using resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC and Granger Causality Analysis (GCA methods, the current developmental study aimed to identify the difference in the relationship between the connections of VWFA-language areas and reading performance in both adults and children. The results showed that: (1 the spontaneous connectivity between VWFA and the spoken language areas, i.e., the left inferior frontal gyrus/supramarginal gyrus (LIFG/LSMG, was stronger in adults compared with children; (2 the spontaneous functional patterns of connectivity between VWFA and language network were negatively correlated with reading ability in adults but not in children; (3 the causal influence from LIFG to VWFA was negatively correlated with reading ability only in adults but not in children; (4 the RSFCs between left posterior middle frontal gyrus (LpMFG and VWFA/LIFG were positively correlated with reading ability in both adults and children; and (5 the causal influence from LIFG to LSMG was positively correlated with reading ability in both groups. These findings provide insights into the relationship between VWFA and the language network for reading, and the role of the unique features of Chinese in the neural circuits of reading.

Using Edit Distance to Analyse Errors in a Natural Language to Logic Translation Corpus

Science.gov (United States)

Barker-Plummer, Dave; Dale, Robert; Cox, Richard; Romanczuk, Alex

2012-01-01

We have assembled a large corpus of student submissions to an automatic grading system, where the subject matter involves the translation of natural language sentences into propositional logic. Of the 2.3 million translation instances in the corpus, 286,000 (approximately 12%) are categorized as being in error. We want to understand the nature of…

Digital Language Death

Science.gov (United States)

Kornai, András

2013-01-01

Of the approximately 7,000 languages spoken today, some 2,500 are generally considered endangered. Here we argue that this consensus figure vastly underestimates the danger of digital language death, in that less than 5% of all languages can still ascend to the digital realm. We present evidence of a massive die-off caused by the digital divide. PMID:24167559

Digital language death.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

András Kornai

Full Text Available Of the approximately 7,000 languages spoken today, some 2,500 are generally considered endangered. Here we argue that this consensus figure vastly underestimates the danger of digital language death, in that less than 5% of all languages can still ascend to the digital realm. We present evidence of a massive die-off caused by the digital divide.

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

Spanish as a Second Language when L1 Is Quechua: Endangered Languages and the SLA Researcher

Science.gov (United States)

Kalt, Susan E.

2012-01-01

Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Quechua is the largest indigenous language family to constitute the first language (L1) of second language (L2) Spanish speakers. Despite sheer number of speakers and typologically interesting contrasts, Quechua-Spanish second language acquisition is a nearly untapped research area,…

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

Translation Methods Applied in Translating Quotations in “the Secret” by Rhonda

OpenAIRE

FEBRIANTI, VICKY

2014-01-01

Keywords: Translation Methods, The Secret, Quotations.Translation helps human to get information written in any language evenwhen it is written in foreign languages. Therefore translation happens in printed media. Books have been popular printed media. The Secret written by Rhonda Byrne is a popular self-help book which has been translated into 50 languages including Indonesian (“The Secret”, n.d., para.5-6).This study is meant to find out the translation methods applied in The Secret. The wr...

Translation and Psychometric Validation of Women Health Questionnaire (WHQ in Persian Language

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Sevil Hakimi

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Menopause is not a disease; however the somatic and psychological symptoms that accompany it affect the life of women. Women health questionnaire (WHQ is a self-administered questionnaire that measures the physical and mental health of women ages 40 to 65 years. The purpose of this study is to provide psychometric documentation details of the translation of WHQ into the Persian language. A total of 350 peri and postmenopausal women were recruited from urban health centers in the city of Tabriz, between March and October 2015. The validity of WHQ was assessed using construct and discriminate validity. The reliability of questionnaire was assessed by test retest reliability and measuring internal consistency. The KMO was 0.791, and the Bartlett’s test of Sphericity was significant. Principle component analysis (PCA resulted in 9 factors which explained up to 55.4% of the total variance. Cronbach's coefficient was 0.799 and the Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC of the Persian translation scale was 0.712. Evaluation of the psychometric properties showed that the Persian language translation of the 36-item version of the WHQ was appropriate when applied to middle aged women

Bagatelle about translated theatre

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Paolo Puppa

2017-07-01

Full Text Available In Italy, there is nothing in common, no harmony, between audience and stage, in particular, between language spoken out of the theatre and language pronounced on stage, in a way that playwrights often are compelled to invent their own language. In fact, Italian theater lacks a precise code of traditions able to shape the organic ground of recitation itself. These questions allow the author to reflect about theatrical language as in, for example, the case of a Venetian company that performs Danilo Kiš’ play, Consigli a un giovane scrittori, or the revision, among others, of the syncretic Esperanto used by Eugenio Barba.

From English to Chinese, Japanese, and Russian: extending research visibility with language translations of a conference slide presentation.

Science.gov (United States)

Hoffecker, Lilian; Abbey, Dana

2017-01-01

The research demonstrates that a conference slide presentation translated into non-English languages reaches significantly larger and different audiences than an English presentation alone. The slides of a presentation from the Medical Library Association annual meeting were translated from English to Chinese, Japanese, and Russian and posted along with the English version to SlideShare, an open slide-hosting website. View counts, traffic sources, and geographic origins of the traffic for each language version were tracked over a twenty-two-month period. Total view counts for all 4 language versions amounted to 3,357 views, with the Chinese version accounting for 71% of the total views. The trends in view counts over time for the Japanese, Russian, and English versions were similar, with high interest at the beginning and a rapid drop and low level of viewing activity thereafter. The pattern of view counts for the Chinese version departed considerably from the other language versions, with very low activity at the beginning but a sharp rise 10 months later. This increase in activity was related to access to the presentations via a Taiwanese website that embedded the SlideShare website code. Language translation can be a difficult and time-consuming task. However, translation of a conference slide presentation with limited text is an achievable activity and engages an international audience for information that is often not noticed or lost. Although English is by far the primary language of science and other disciplines, it is not necessarily the first or preferred language of global researchers. By offering appropriate language versions, the authors of presentations can expand the reach of their work.

Translation from the Classical Languages in the Second Half of the 19th Century

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Matej Hriberšek

2007-07-01

Full Text Available In addition to affecting the Slovene education system, the Austrian denationalising policy in the second half of the 19th century had a direct impact on translation. Most of the already scarce Slovene philologists were appointed to posts outside the Slovene national territory. The conditions only began to improve in the 1860s, with the translation activity taken up by the first students of the newly established philology courses at the University of Vienna (Ladislav Hrovat, Matija Valjavec, etc.. More often than not, however, the translators were not philologists. The first longer classical texts published in Slovene were individual books of the Homeric epics, Xenophon’s Memorabilia, Plato’s dialogues Apology and Crito, Virgil's Georgics, and Sophocles' Ajax (the complete Bible, of course, had been translated much earlier, but it holds a special place in the history of translation. The translations published as books represent the first Slovene book-format editions of the ancient classics, but most appeared in magazines and newspapers . Many translations met with the same fate as a number of contemporary Slovene classical-language textbooks: they remained in manuscript because of insufficient funds (the publishers were unwilling to run the risk of such enterprises, for fear that their investment would not pay, and also because of the national-awakening emphasis on Slovene, which was accompanied by a preference for translating from other modern languages, particularly Slavic ones. A noteworthy example of these unpublished translations is Caesar’s De Bello Gallico as prepared by the Franciscan Ladislav Hrovat. From the beginnings to the present, Slovene translations of the Greek and Latin classics have displayed a marked predominance of poetry, with prose works remaining in the minority.

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

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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

Verbal short-term memory development and spoken language outcomes in deaf children with cochlear implants.

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Harris, Michael S; Kronenberger, William G; Gao, Sujuan; Hoen, Helena M; Miyamoto, Richard T; Pisoni, David B

2013-01-01

Cochlear implants (CIs) help many deaf children achieve near-normal speech and language (S/L) milestones. Nevertheless, high levels of unexplained variability in S/L outcomes are limiting factors in improving the effectiveness of CIs in deaf children. The objective of this study was to longitudinally assess the role of verbal short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM) capacity as a progress-limiting source of variability in S/L outcomes after CI in children. Longitudinal study of 66 children with CIs for prelingual severe-to-profound hearing loss. Outcome measures included performance on digit span forward (DSF), digit span backward (DSB), and four conventional S/L measures that examined spoken-word recognition (Phonetically Balanced Kindergarten word test), receptive vocabulary (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test ), sentence-recognition skills (Hearing in Noise Test), and receptive and expressive language functioning (Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Fourth Edition Core Language Score; CELF). Growth curves for DSF and DSB in the CI sample over time were comparable in slope, but consistently lagged in magnitude relative to norms for normal-hearing peers of the same age. For DSF and DSB, 50.5% and 44.0%, respectively, of the CI sample scored more than 1 SD below the normative mean for raw scores across all ages. The first (baseline) DSF score significantly predicted all endpoint scores for the four S/L measures, and DSF slope (growth) over time predicted CELF scores. DSF baseline and slope accounted for an additional 13 to 31% of variance in S/L scores after controlling for conventional predictor variables such as: chronological age at time of testing, age at time of implantation, communication mode (auditory-oral communication versus total communication), and maternal education. Only DSB baseline scores predicted endpoint language scores on Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and CELF. DSB slopes were not significantly related to any endpoint S/L measures

Integrating Automatic Speech Recognition and Machine Translation for Better Translation Outputs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liyanapathirana, Jeevanthi

translations, combining machine translation with computer assisted translation has drawn attention in current research. This combines two prospects: the opportunity of ensuring high quality translation along with a significant performance gain. Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) is another important area......, which caters important functionalities in language processing and natural language understanding tasks. In this work we integrate automatic speech recognition and machine translation in parallel. We aim to avoid manual typing of possible translations as dictating the translation would take less time...... to the n-best list rescoring, we also use word graphs with the expectation of arriving at a tighter integration of ASR and MT models. Integration methods include constraining ASR models using language and translation models of MT, and vice versa. We currently develop and experiment different methods...

Multi-language translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the OARSI/OMERACT measure of intermittent and constant osteoarthritis pain (ICOAP).

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Maillefert, J F; Kloppenburg, M; Fernandes, L; Punzi, L; Günther, K-P; Martin Mola, E; Lohmander, L S; Pavelka, K; Lopez-Olivo, M A; Dougados, M; Hawker, G A

2009-10-01

To conduct a multi-language translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the Intermittent and Constant OsteoArthritis Pain (ICOAP) questionnaire for hip and knee osteoarthritis (OA). The questionnaires were translated and cross-culturally adapted in parallel, using a common protocol, into the following languages: Czech, Dutch, French (France), German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish (Castillan), North and Central American Spanish, Swedish. The process was conducted following five steps: (1)--independent translation into the target language by two or three persons; (2)--consensus meeting to obtain a single preliminary translated version; (3)--backward translation by an independent bilingual native English speaker, blinded to the English original version; (4)--final version produced by a multidisciplinary consensus committee; (5)--pre-testing of the final version with 10-20 target-language-native hip and knee OA patients. The process could be followed and completed in all countries. Only slight differences were identified in the structure of the sentences between the original and the translated versions. A large majority of the patients felt that the questionnaire was easy to understand and complete. Only a few minor criticisms were expressed. Moreover, a majority of patients found the concepts of constant pain and pain that comes and goes to be of a great pertinence and were very happy with the distinction. The ICOAP questionnaire is now available for multi-center international studies.

Translation and validation of chronic liver disease questionnaire (CLDQ) in Tamil language.

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Goel, Amit; Arivazhagan, Karunanithi; Sasi, Avani; Shanmugam, Vanathy; Koshi, Seleena; Pottakkat, Biju; Lakshmi, C P; Awasthi, Ashish

2017-05-01

Chronic liver disease questionnaire (CLDQ), a self-administered quality-of-life (QOL) instrument for chronic liver disease (CLD) patients, was originally developed in English language. We aimed to translate and validate CLDQ in Tamil language (CLDQ-T). CLDQ-T, prepared by two forward and two backward independent translations by four bilingual (Tamil and English) persons, and repeated iterative modifications, was validated in adult, native-Tamil patients with CLD. CLDQ-T was re-tested in some patients 2 weeks later. Convergent validity was assessed using Spearman's correlation, and discriminant validity by comparison with World Health Organization's brief QOL tool (WHOQOL-BREF). Reliability was assessed through internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) and test-retest reliability (intra-class correlation). Cutoff used for statistical significance was p0.700 for individual domains. CLDQ-T was easily understood and showed good performance characteristics in assessing QOL in Tamil-speaking patients with CLD.

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

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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.

Parental mode of communication is essential for speech and language outcomes in cochlear implanted children

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Percy-Smith, Lone; Cayé-Thomasen, Per; Breinegaard, Nina

2010-01-01

The present study demonstrates a very strong effect of the parental communication mode on the auditory capabilities and speech/language outcome for cochlear implanted children. The children exposed to spoken language had higher odds of scoring high in all tests applied and the findings suggest...... a very clear benefit of spoken language communication with a cochlear implanted child....

Heinrich Stahli ja Johannes Gutslaffi Uue Testamendi tõlke kõrvutus / An Attempt at the Comparison of the Translations of the New Testament by Heinrich Stahl und Johannes Gutslaff

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Kristiina Ross

2012-06-01

Full Text Available The aim of the article is to compare two 17th century translations of the New Testament: the translation by Heinrich Stahl (1638 and the translation by Johannes Gutslaff (1641–1656. Relying on the model of description presented by Torop (1989 and Torop and Osimo (2010, the translations are described by three aspects (1 linguistic, (2 functional, (3 that of the translator`s position within three different time perspectives: achronic, synchronic and diachronic. Within the achronic perspective, the two translations seem to be quite different in all three aspects. In the case of Stahl´s translation, the original text was Luther´s German translation and the target language was the North-Estonian vernacular. Different parts of the Bible had probably been translated by different persons and Stahl collected them, publishing them in a volume of his church manual. Gutslaff, on the other hand, translated the text himself using the original Greek version. His target language was the South-Estonian vernacular but his work was never published. Within the diachronic perspective, the differences disappear and the two translations seem to be quite similar. From today`s point of view both tr anslations are linguistically archaic and have no functional value except as object s of scientific research. Synchronic description is the most complicated one. The article tries to put to the test the possibilities of describing old translations from the point of view of their translation method. Very few examples of the Estonian language of the 17th century have been preserved, most are translations from German written down by German pastors. In addition to that, researchers know almost nothing about the Estonian language spoken by native speaker s of the time. As a re sult of this, it is hard to evaluate the linguistic status of many constructions and idioms used by the translators. This in turn makes it difficult to evaluate the stylistic intentions of the translator

Neural correlates of British sign language comprehension: spatial processing demands of topographic language.

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MacSweeney, Mairéad; Woll, Bencie; Campbell, Ruth; Calvert, Gemma A; McGuire, Philip K; David, Anthony S; Simmons, Andrew; Brammer, Michael J

2002-10-01

In all signed languages used by deaf people, signs are executed in "sign space" in front of the body. Some signed sentences use this space to map detailed "real-world" spatial relationships directly. Such sentences can be considered to exploit sign space "topographically." Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we explored the extent to which increasing the topographic processing demands of signed sentences was reflected in the differential recruitment of brain regions in deaf and hearing native signers of the British Sign Language. When BSL signers performed a sentence anomaly judgement task, the occipito-temporal junction was activated bilaterally to a greater extent for topographic than nontopographic processing. The differential role of movement in the processing of the two sentence types may account for this finding. In addition, enhanced activation was observed in the left inferior and superior parietal lobules during processing of topographic BSL sentences. We argue that the left parietal lobe is specifically involved in processing the precise configuration and location of hands in space to represent objects, agents, and actions. Importantly, no differences in these regions were observed when hearing people heard and saw English translations of these sentences. Despite the high degree of similarity in the neural systems underlying signed and spoken languages, exploring the linguistic features which are unique to each of these broadens our understanding of the systems involved in language comprehension.

Family Language Policy and School Language Choice: Pathways to Bilingualism and Multilingualism in a Canadian Context

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Slavkov, Nikolay

2017-01-01

This article reports on a survey with 170 school-age children growing up with two or more languages in the Canadian province of Ontario where English is the majority language, French is a minority language, and numerous other minority languages may be spoken by immigrant or Indigenous residents. Within this context the study focuses on minority…

Manipulation in Dubbing: The Translation of English-language Films into Persian

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Mohammad Sadegh Kenevisi

2016-02-01

Full Text Available As the result of the decline in linguistic oriented approaches, Translation Studies witnessed a move towards a more descriptive and cultural direction in the 1990s. Accordingly, translation was no longer confined solitary to an isolated linguistic context and the socio-cultural aspects of translation were emphasized. It was during this turn that Andrew Lefevere (1992 set forth the notion of “rewriting” and asserted the pressures that the prevailing cultural environment and the three factors of ideology, poetics and patronage have on translation. This present study looks at the impact of ideology and patronage in dubbing of eight English-language films into Persian. This was carried out through an analysis of the social context of the receptor language and community. In view of the rules and regulations in the area of media distribution, we attempted to trace the reflection of these social laws in the form of manipulative operations in the Persian dubbed version of the films. The analysis of the corpus revealed that manipulation of the source soundtracks occurred when there was a disconformity with the ideology of the prevailing culture and the source soundtracks. The areas of manipulation were assorted into four groups of religion, politics, sexually forbidden content, and profanity. The result of the study confirmed that manipulations were generally in line with the ideology and values which are rooted in the socio-cultural context of the Iranian community. Nonetheless, there were rare exceptions which could be ascribed to the function of dissimilar agencies as cultural innovators. These agencies have apparently attempted to familiarize the receptor community with a new culture by rendering the ideologically taboo content of the source text intact.

Rhythm in language acquisition.

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Langus, Alan; Mehler, Jacques; Nespor, Marina

2017-10-01

Spoken language is governed by rhythm. Linguistic rhythm is hierarchical and the rhythmic hierarchy partially mimics the prosodic as well as the morpho-syntactic hierarchy of spoken language. It can thus provide learners with cues about the structure of the language they are acquiring. We identify three universal levels of linguistic rhythm - the segmental level, the level of the metrical feet and the phonological phrase level - and discuss why primary lexical stress is not rhythmic. We survey experimental evidence on rhythm perception in young infants and native speakers of various languages to determine the properties of linguistic rhythm that are present at birth, those that mature during the first year of life and those that are shaped by the linguistic environment of language learners. We conclude with a discussion of the major gaps in current knowledge on linguistic rhythm and highlight areas of interest for future research that are most likely to yield significant insights into the nature, the perception, and the usefulness of linguistic rhythm. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A translator writing system for microcomputer high-level languages and assemblers

Science.gov (United States)

Collins, W. R.; Knight, J. C.; Noonan, R. E.

1980-01-01

In order to implement high level languages whenever possible, a translator writing system of advanced design was developed. It is intended for routine production use by many programmers working on different projects. As well as a fairly conventional parser generator, it includes a system for the rapid generation of table driven code generators. The parser generator was developed from a prototype version. The translator writing system includes various tools for the management of the source text of a compiler under construction. In addition, it supplies various default source code sections so that its output is always compilable and executable. The system thereby encourages iterative enhancement as a development methodology by ensuring an executable program from the earliest stages of a compiler development project. The translator writing system includes PASCAL/48 compiler, three assemblers, and two compilers for a subset of HAL/S.

Writing Through: Practising Translation

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Joel Scott

2010-05-01

Full Text Available This essay exists as a segment in a line of study and writing practice that moves between a critical theory analysis of translation studies conceptions of language, and the practical questions of what those ideas might mean for contemporary translation and writing practice. Although the underlying preoccupation of this essay, and my more general line of inquiry, is translation studies and practice, in many ways translation is merely a way into a discussion on language. For this essay, translation is the threshold of language. But the two trails of the discussion never manage to elude each other, and these concatenations have informed two experimental translation methods, referred to here as Live Translations and Series Translations. Following the essay are a number of poems in translation, all of which come from Blanco Nuclear by the contemporary Spanish poet, Esteban Pujals Gesalí. The first group, the Live Translations consist of transcriptions I made from audio recordings read in a public setting, in which the texts were translated in situ, either off the page of original Spanish-language poems, or through a process very much like that carried out by simultaneous translators, for which readings of the poems were played back to me through headphones at varying speeds to be translated before the audience. The translations collected are imperfect renderings, attesting to a moment in language practice rather than language objects. The second method involves an iterative translation process, by which three versions of any one poem are rendered, with varying levels of fluency, fidelity and servility. All three translations are presented one after the other as a series, with no version asserting itself as the primary translation. These examples, as well as the translation methods themselves, are intended as preliminary experiments within an endlessly divergent continuum of potential methods and translations, and not as a complete representation of

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…

Translating medical documents into plain language enhances communication skills in medical students--A pilot study.

Science.gov (United States)

Bittner, Anja; Jonietz, Ansgar; Bittner, Johannes; Beickert, Luise; Harendza, Sigrid

2015-09-01

To train and assess undergraduate medical students' written communication skills by exercises in translating medical reports into plain language for real patients. 27 medical students participated in a newly developed communication course. They attended a 3-h seminar including a briefing on patient-centered communication and an introduction to working with the internet platform http://washabich.de. In the following ten weeks, participants "translated" one medical report every fortnight on this platform receiving feedback by a near-peer supervisor. A pre- and post-course assignment consisted of a self-assessment questionnaire on communication skills, analysis of a medical text with respect to medical jargon, and the translation of a medical report into plain language. In the self-assessment, students rated themselves in most aspects of patient-centered communication significantly higher after attending the course. After the course they marked significantly more medical jargon terms correctly than before (pcommunicative aspects (pcommunication skills and medical knowledge in undergraduate medical students. To include translation exercises in the undergraduate medical curriculum. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Reading Parallel Texts in the Target Language: A Way to Improve Literary Translation Quality

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Nazanin Shadman

2013-10-01

Full Text Available The present study was an attempt to investigate the effect of reading Persian literary texts on the quality of literary translations. To this end, 52 students majoring in English translation were randomly assigned to two groups. A Comprehensive English Language Test (CELT was administered to check the homogeneity of the participants. The treatment for the experimental group consisted of reading 60 Persian short stories and poems. In the meantime, the control group went through their ordinary course curriculum. Both groups were asked to translate extracts of two short stories. The translations were then rated. Through statistical analysis, it was revealed that reading Persian literary works, indeed, improves the quality of literary translations. Therefore, to promote a more fruitful instruction on literary translation, it is suggested that translation teachers attempt to consider reading Persian literary works as part of the curriculum and ask students to read Persian texts to the extent possible, so that more qualified translations would be rendered in the area of literature.

Spanish translation and cross-language validation of a sleep habits questionnaire for use in clinical and research settings.

Science.gov (United States)

Baldwin, Carol M; Choi, Myunghan; McClain, Darya Bonds; Celaya, Alma; Quan, Stuart F

2012-04-15

To translate, back-translate and cross-language validate (English/Spanish) the Sleep Heart Health Study Sleep Habits Questionnaire for use with Spanish-speakers in clinical and research settings. Following rigorous translation and back-translation, this cross-sectional cross-language validation study recruited bilingual participants from academic, clinic, and community-based settings (N = 50; 52% women; mean age 38.8 ± 12 years; 90% of Mexican heritage). Participants completed English and Spanish versions of the Sleep Habits Questionnaire, the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, and the Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans II one week apart in randomized order. Psychometric properties were assessed, including internal consistency, convergent validity, scale equivalence, language version intercorrelations, and exploratory factor analysis using PASW (Version18) software. Grade level readability of the sleep measure was evaluated. All sleep categories (duration, snoring, apnea, insomnia symptoms, other sleep symptoms, sleep disruptors, restless legs syndrome) showed Cronbach α, Spearman-Brown coefficients and intercorrelations ≥ 0.700, suggesting robust internal consistency, correlation, and agreement between language versions. The Epworth correlated significantly with snoring, apnea, sleep symptoms, restless legs, and sleep disruptors) on both versions, supporting convergent validity. Items loaded on 4 factors accounted for 68% and 67% of the variance on the English and Spanish versions, respectively. The Spanish-language Sleep Habits Questionnaire demonstrates conceptual and content equivalency. It has appropriate measurement properties and should be useful for assessing sleep health in community-based clinics and intervention studies among Spanish-speaking Mexican Americans. Both language versions showed readability at the fifth grade level. Further testing is needed with larger samples.

Dirty pretty language: translation and the borders of English

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Alida Payson

2017-11-01

Full Text Available This article analyses the politics of English, and translation into Englishness, in the film Dirty Pretty Things (Frears. With a celebrated multilingual cast, some of whom did not speak much English, the film nevertheless unfolds in English as it follows migrant characters living illegally and on the margins in London. We take up the filmic representation of migrants in the “compromised, impure and internally divided” border spaces of Britain (Gibson 694 as one of translation into the imagined nation (Anderson. Dirty Pretty Things might seem in its style to be a kind of multicultural “foreignized translation” which reflects a heteropoetics of difference (Venuti; instead, we argue that Dirty Pretty Things, through its performance of the labour of learning and speaking English, strong accents, and cultural allusions, is a kind of domesticated translation (Venuti that homogenises cultural difference into a literary, mythological English and Englishness. Prompted by new moral panics over immigration and recent UK policies that heap further requirements on migrants to speak English in order to belong to “One Nation Britain” (Cameron, we argue that the film offers insights into how the politics of British national belonging continue to be defined by conformity to a type of deserving subject, one who labours to learn English and to translate herself into narrow, recognizably English cultural forms. By attending to the subtleties of language in the film, we trace the pressure on migrants to translate themselves into the linguistic and mythological moulds of their new host society.

SPOKEN BAHASA INDONESIA BY GERMAN STUDENTS

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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.

Translation in ESL Classes

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Nagy Imola Katalin

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The problem of translation in foreign language classes cannot be dealt with unless we attempt to make an overview of what translation meant for language teaching in different periods of language pedagogy. From the translation-oriented grammar-translation method through the complete ban on translation and mother tongue during the times of the audio-lingual approaches, we have come today to reconsider the role and status of translation in ESL classes. This article attempts to advocate for translation as a useful ESL class activity, which can completely fulfil the requirements of communicativeness. We also attempt to identify some activities and games, which rely on translation in some books published in the 1990s and the 2000s.

Textese and use of texting by children with typical language development and Specific Language Impairment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Blom, E.; van Dijk, C.; Vasić, N.; van Witteloostuijn, M.; Avrutin, S.

The purpose of this study was to investigate texting and textese, which is the special register used for sending brief text messages, across children with typical development (TD) and children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Using elicitation techniques, texting and spoken language messages

Textese and use of texting by children with typical language development and Specific Language Impairment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Blom, W.B.T.; van Dijk, Chantal; Vasic, Nada; van Witteloostuijn, Merel; Avrutin, S.

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate texting and textese, which is the special register used for sending brief text messages, across children with typical development (TD) and children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Using elicitation techniques, texting and spoken language messages

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

Germanic heritage languages in North America: Acquisition, attrition and change

OpenAIRE

Johannessen, Janne Bondi; Salmons, Joseph C.; Westergaard, Marit; Anderssen, Merete; Arnbjörnsdóttir, Birna; Allen, Brent; Pierce, Marc; Boas, Hans C.; Roesch, Karen; Brown, Joshua R.; Putnam, Michael; Åfarli, Tor A.; Newman, Zelda Kahan; Annear, Lucas; Speth, Kristin

2015-01-01

This book presents new empirical findings about Germanic heritage varieties spoken in North America: Dutch, German, Pennsylvania Dutch, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, West Frisian and Yiddish, and varieties of English spoken both by heritage speakers and in communities after language shift. The volume focuses on three critical issues underlying the notion of ‘heritage language’: acquisition, attrition and change. The book offers theoretically-informed discussions of heritage language processe...

First Steps to Endangered Language Documentation: The Kalasha Language, a Case Study

Science.gov (United States)

Mela-Athanasopoulou, Elizabeth

2011-01-01

The present paper based on extensive fieldwork D conducted on Kalasha, an endangered language spoken in the three small valleys in Chitral District of Northwestern Pakistan, exposes a spontaneous dialogue-based elicitation of linguistic material used for the description and documentation of the language. After a brief display of the basic typology…

Notes from the Field: Lolak--Another Moribund Language of Indonesia, with Supporting Audio

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Lobel, Jason William; Paputungan, Ade Tatak

2017-01-01

This paper consists of a short multimedia introduction to Lolak, a near-extinct Greater Central Philippine language traditionally spoken in three small communities on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. In addition to being one of the most underdocumented languages in the area, it is also spoken by one of the smallest native speaker populations…

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

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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

Word level language identification in online multilingual communication

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nguyen, Dong-Phuong; Dogruoz, A. Seza

2013-01-01

Multilingual speakers switch between languages in online and spoken communication. Analyses of large scale multilingual data require automatic language identification at the word level. For our experiments with multilingual online discussions, we first tag the language of individual words using

Cultural Context and Translation

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

张敏

2009-01-01

cultural context plays an important role in translation. Because translation is a cross-culture activity, the culture context that influ-ences translating is consisted of both the culture contexts of source language and target language. This article firstly analyzes the concept of context and cultural context, then according to the procedure of translating classifies cultural context into two stages and talks about how they respectively influence translating.

Using Cognitive Interviews to Evaluate the Spanish-Language Translation of Dietary Questionnaire

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Kerry Levin

2009-03-01

Full Text Available We present results from a qualitative evaluation of the Spanish-language version of a dietary intake questionnaire and characterize the types of findings which emerged from several rounds of cognitive testing. Cognitive interviews were used to test the Spanish translation of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS Cancer Control Supplement dietary questions, with 36 Spanish-speaking and 9 English-speaking participants. Analyses of the results identified (a translation issues, (b culture-specific issues, and (c general design issues that affected both English and Spanish speakers. Results indicated that general design-oriented difficulties were particularly frequent. Our findings suggest that when appropriately structured, cognitive interviews that feature flexible probing can be useful for identifying a range of problems in survey translations, even after translations have been developed using currently accepted methods. We make several recommendations concerning practices that may be optimal in the conduct of empirical cross-cultural questionnaire evaluations.

Language and Literacy: The Case of India.

Science.gov (United States)

Sridhar, Kamal K.

Language and literacy issues in India are reviewed in terms of background, steps taken to combat illiteracy, and some problems associated with literacy. The following facts are noted: India has 106 languages spoken by more than 685 million people, there are several minor script systems, a major language has different dialects, a language may use…

Gesture, sign, and language: The coming of age of sign language and gesture studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Goldin-Meadow, Susan; Brentari, Diane

2017-01-01

How does sign language compare with gesture, on the one hand, and spoken language on the other? Sign was once viewed as nothing more than a system of pictorial gestures without linguistic structure. More recently, researchers have argued that sign is no different from spoken language, with all of the same linguistic structures. The pendulum is currently swinging back toward the view that sign is gestural, or at least has gestural components. The goal of this review is to elucidate the relationships among sign language, gesture, and spoken language. We do so by taking a close look not only at how sign has been studied over the past 50 years, but also at how the spontaneous gestures that accompany speech have been studied. We conclude that signers gesture just as speakers do. Both produce imagistic gestures along with more categorical signs or words. Because at present it is difficult to tell where sign stops and gesture begins, we suggest that sign should not be compared with speech alone but should be compared with speech-plus-gesture. Although it might be easier (and, in some cases, preferable) to blur the distinction between sign and gesture, we argue that distinguishing between sign (or speech) and gesture is essential to predict certain types of learning and allows us to understand the conditions under which gesture takes on properties of sign, and speech takes on properties of gesture. We end by calling for new technology that may help us better calibrate the borders between sign and gesture.

Micro Language Planning and Cultural Renaissance in Botswana

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Alimi, Modupe M.

2016-01-01

Many African countries exhibit complex patterns of language use because of linguistic pluralism. The situation is often compounded by the presence of at least one foreign language that is either the official or second language. The language situation in Botswana depicts this complex pattern. Out of the 26 languages spoken in the country, including…

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...

Phonotactic spoken language identification with limited training data

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Peche, M

2007-08-01

Full Text Available The authors investigate the addition of a new language, for which limited resources are available, to a phonotactic language identification system. Two classes of approaches are studied: in the first class, only existing phonetic recognizers...

Iconic Factors and Language Word Order

Science.gov (United States)

Moeser, Shannon Dawn

1975-01-01

College students were presented with an artificial language in which spoken nonsense words were correlated with visual references. Inferences regarding vocabulary acquisition were drawn, and it was suggested that the processing of the language was mediated through a semantic memory system. (CK)

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 ...

Predictors of spoken language development following pediatric cochlear implantation.

Science.gov (United States)

Boons, Tinne; Brokx, Jan P L; Dhooge, Ingeborg; Frijns, Johan H M; Peeraer, Louis; Vermeulen, Anneke; Wouters, Jan; van Wieringen, Astrid

2012-01-01

Although deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs) are able to develop good language skills, the large variability in outcomes remains a significant concern. The first aim of this study was to evaluate language skills in children with CIs to establish benchmarks. The second aim was to make an estimation of the optimal age at implantation to provide maximal opportunities for the child to achieve good language skills afterward. The third aim was to gain more insight into the causes of variability to set recommendations for optimizing the rehabilitation process of prelingually deaf children with CIs. Receptive and expressive language development of 288 children who received CIs by age five was analyzed in a retrospective multicenter study. Outcome measures were language quotients (LQs) on the Reynell Developmental Language Scales and Schlichting Expressive Language Test at 1, 2, and 3 years after implantation. Independent predictive variables were nine child-related, environmental, and auditory factors. A series of multiple regression analyses determined the amount of variance in expressive and receptive language outcomes attributable to each predictor when controlling for the other variables. Simple linear regressions with age at first fitting and independent samples t tests demonstrated that children implanted before the age of two performed significantly better on all tests than children who were implanted at an older age. The mean LQ was 0.78 with an SD of 0.18. A child with an LQ lower than 0.60 (= 0.78-0.18) within 3 years after implantation was labeled as a weak performer compared with other deaf children implanted before the age of two. Contralateral stimulation with a second CI or a hearing aid and the absence of additional disabilities were related to better language outcomes. The effect of environmental factors, comprising multilingualism, parental involvement, and communication mode increased over time. Three years after implantation, the total multiple

Beitrag Der Überzetzung Zu Den Rezeptiven Srachfertigkeiten The contribution of translation to perceptual language skills

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Ayşe UYANIK

2013-09-01

Full Text Available The aim of foreign language teaching is to make students gain thebasic language skills such as reading, speaking, writing and listeningcomprehension. The preparation of subject content and configuration ofmaterials are formed in line with this purpose. Translation contributesto these developments of skills significantly. But this translation’scontribution has been ignored all the time in teaching process of foreignlanguage. But being made in support of teaching methods are thetalents translations in the native language as well as the targetlanguage. Besides, thanks to translation events, simplify the transferfrom gain grammatical instructions. Next to it is the transmission ofgrammatical structures, which is also supported by the EuropeanFramework, facilitates. The aim of this study is to point out the positivecontributions to the development of translation event so perceptualskills that including listening and reading comprehension in teaching offoreign language. How to improve both types of skills has been showedwith applicable examples in the class environment. It’s beenexperienced that translation events improve reading and listeningcomprehension skills in main language as well as target language andalso enriches foreign language student’s vocabulary. And it has beenseen that translation makes them gain grammatical instructions moreconsciously. It was determined that translation exercises from readingand listening texts expand the perception fortune, of learners andfacilitate sense-from the text context. Also be obtained by reading andlistening to their language skills in both languages continued visuallearners, using these assets, rather than memorized expressions canmake personal remarks. The enrichment of the vocabulary of learnersin the reciprocal languages is another contribution of the translation. Yabancı dil öğretiminde amaç, öğrenciye duyduğunu anlama, okuduğunu anlama, konuşma ve yazma gibi temel dil becerilerini

From community training to university training (and vice-versa: new sign language translator and interpreter profile in the brazilian context

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Vanessa Regina de Oliveira Martins

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to discuss the new profile of sign language translators/interpreters that is taking shape in Brazil since the implementation of policies stimulating the training of these professionals. We qualitatively analyzed answers to a semi-open questionary given by undergraduate students from a BA course in translation and interpretation in Brazilian sign language/Portuguese. Our results show that the ones to seek for this area are not, as it used to be, the ones who have some relation with the deaf community and/or need some kind of certification for their activity as a sign language interpreter. Actually, the students’ choice for the course in discussion had to do with their score in a unified profession selection system (SISU. This contrasts with the 1980, 1990, 2000 sign language interpreter’s profile. As Brazilian Sign Language has become more popular, people search for a university degree have started to see sign language translation/interpreting as an interesting option for their career. So, we discuss here the need to take into account the need to provide students who cannot sign with the necessary pedagogical means to learn the language, which will promote the accessibility of Brazilian deaf communities.

From community training to university training (and vice-versa: new sign language translator and interpreter profile in the brazilian context

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vanessa Regina de Oliveira Martins

2015-10-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to discuss the new profile of sign language translators/interpreters that is taking shape in Brazil since the implementation of policies stimulating the training of these professionals. We qualitatively analyzed answers to a semi-open questionary given by undergraduate students from a BA course in translation and interpretation in Brazilian sign language/Portuguese. Our results show that the ones to seek for this area are not, as it used to be, the ones who have some relation with the deaf community and/or need some kind of certification for their activity as a sign language interpreter. Actually, the students’ choice for the course in discussion had to do with their score in a unified profession selection system (SISU. This contrasts with the 1980, 1990, 2000 sign language interpreter’s profile. As Brazilian Sign Language has become more popular, people search for a university degree have started to see sign language translation/interpreting as an interesting option for their career. So, we discuss here the need to take into account the need to provide students who cannot sign with the necessary pedagogical means to learn the language, which will promote the accessibility of Brazilian deaf communities.

The Functional Organisation of the Fronto-Temporal Language System: Evidence from Syntactic and Semantic Ambiguity

Science.gov (United States)

Rodd, Jennifer M.; Longe, Olivia A.; Randall, Billi; Tyler, Lorraine K.

2010-01-01

Spoken language comprehension is known to involve a large left-dominant network of fronto-temporal brain regions, but there is still little consensus about how the syntactic and semantic aspects of language are processed within this network. In an fMRI study, volunteers heard spoken sentences that contained either syntactic or semantic ambiguities…

Translation Ambiguity but Not Word Class Predicts Translation Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Prior, Anat; Kroll, Judith F.; Macwhinney, Brian

2013-01-01

We investigated the influence of word class and translation ambiguity on cross-linguistic representation and processing. Bilingual speakers of English and Spanish performed translation production and translation recognition tasks on nouns and verbs in both languages. Words either had a single translation or more than one translation. Translation…

Examining English-German Translation Ambiguity Using Primed Translation Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Eddington, Chelsea M.; Tokowicz, Natasha

2013-01-01

Many words have more than one translation across languages. Such "translation-ambiguous" words are translated more slowly and less accurately than their unambiguous counterparts. We examine the extent to which word context and translation dominance influence the processing of translation-ambiguous words. We further examine how these factors…

Defining Behavior–Environment Interactions: Translating and Developing an Experimental and Applied Behavior-Analytic Vocabulary in and to the National Language

Science.gov (United States)

Tuomisto, Martti T; Parkkinen, Lauri

2012-01-01

Verbal behavior, as in the use of terms, is an important part of scientific activity in general and behavior analysis in particular. Many glossaries and dictionaries of behavior analysis have been published in English, but few in any other language. Here we review the area of behavior analytic terminology, its translations, and development in languages other than English. As an example, we use our own mother tongue, Finnish, which provides a suitable example of the process of translation and development of behavior analytic terminology, because it differs from Indo-European languages and entails specific advantages and challenges in the translation process. We have published three editions of a general dictionary of behavior analysis including 801 terms relevant to the experimental analysis of behavior and applied behavior analysis and one edition of a dictionary of applied and clinical behavior analysis containing 280 terms. Because this work has been important to us, we hope this review will encourage similar work by behavior analysts in other countries whose native language is not English. Behavior analysis as an advanced science deserves widespread international dissemination and proper translations are essential to that goal. PMID:22693363

Idiomatic Expressions of the Sewing Frame in English and Their Persian Counterparts: Nida's Dynamic Equivalence Theory in Focus

Science.gov (United States)

Ghafel, Banafsheh; Rasekh, Abbass Eslami; Pazhakh, Abdolreza

2011-01-01

Translation is an act of communication across dissimilar cultures. In as such, cultural expressions or idioms are a particularly salient translation challenge, especially when translating between two distinct languages spoken by two different nations. Idioms convey rich cultural connotations, and so require consideration of both cultural and…

A grammar of Abui : A Papuan language of Alor

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kratochvil, František

2007-01-01

This work contains the first comprehensive description of Abui, a language of the Trans New Guinea family spoken approximately by 16,000 speakers in the central part of the Alor Island in Eastern Indonesia. The description focuses on the northern dialect of Abui as spoken in the village

Semantic and translation priming from a first language to a second and back: Making sense of the findings.

Science.gov (United States)

Schoonbaert, Sofie; Duyck, Wouter; Brysbaert, Marc; Hartsuiker, Robert J

2009-07-01

The present study investigated cross-language priming effects with unique noncognate translation pairs. Unbalanced Dutch (first language [L1])-English (second language [L2]) bilinguals performed a lexical decision task in a masked priming paradigm. The results of two experiments showed significant translation priming from L1 to L2 (meisje-girl) and from L2 to L1 (girl-meisje), using two different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) (250 and 100 msec). Although translation priming from L1 to L2 was significantly stronger than priming from L2 to L1, the latter was significant as well. Two further experiments with the same word targets showed significant cross-language semantic priming in both directions (jongen [boy]-girl; boy-meisje [girl]) and for both SOAs. These data suggest that L1 and L2 are represented by means of a similar lexico-semantic architecture in which L2 words are also able to rapidly activate semantic information, although to a lesser extent than L1 words are able to. This is consistent with models assuming quantitative rather than qualitative differences between L1 and L2 representations.

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

THE INFLUENCE OF LANGUAGE USE AND LANGUAGE ATTITUDE ON THE MAINTENANCE OF COMMUNITY LANGUAGES SPOKEN BY MIGRANT STUDENTS

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Leni Amalia Suek

2014-05-01

Full Text Available The maintenance of community languages of migrant students is heavily determined by language use and language attitudes. The superiority of a dominant language over a community language contributes to attitudes of migrant students toward their native languages. When they perceive their native languages as unimportant language, they will reduce the frequency of using that language even though at home domain. Solutions provided for a problem of maintaining community languages should be related to language use and attitudes of community languages, which are developed mostly in two important domains, school and family. Hence, the valorization of community language should be promoted not only in family but also school domains. Several programs such as community language school and community language program can be used for migrant students to practice and use their native languages. Since educational resources such as class session, teachers and government support are limited; family plays significant roles to stimulate positive attitudes toward community language and also to develop the use of native languages.

Young children's communication and literacy: a qualitative study of language in the inclusive preschool.

Science.gov (United States)

Kliewer, C

1995-06-01

Interactive and literacy-based language use of young children within the context of an inclusive preschool classroom was explored. An interpretivist framework and qualitative research methods, including participant observation, were used to examine and analyze language in five preschool classes that were composed of children with and without disabilities. Children's language use included spoken, written, signed, and typed. Results showed complex communicative and literacy language use on the part of young children outside conventional adult perspectives. Also, children who used expressive methods other than speech were often left out of the contexts where spoken language was richest and most complex.

Teaching natural language to computers

OpenAIRE

Corneli, Joseph; Corneli, Miriam

2016-01-01

"Natural Language," whether spoken and attended to by humans, or processed and generated by computers, requires networked structures that reflect creative processes in semantic, syntactic, phonetic, linguistic, social, emotional, and cultural modules. Being able to produce novel and useful behavior following repeated practice gets to the root of both artificial intelligence and human language. This paper investigates the modalities involved in language-like applications that computers -- and ...

E-cigarette use and disparities by race, citizenship status and language among adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Alcalá, Héctor E; Albert, Stephanie L; Ortega, Alexander N

2016-06-01

E-cigarette use among adolescents is on the rise in the U.S. However, limited attention has been given to examining the role of race, citizenship status and language spoken at home in shaping e-cigarette use behavior. Data are from the 2014 Adolescent California Health Interview Survey, which interviewed 1052 adolescents ages 12-17. Lifetime e-cigarette use was examined by sociodemographic characteristics. Separate logistic regression models predicted odds of ever-smoking e-cigarettes from race, citizenship status and language spoken at home. Sociodemographic characteristics were then added to these models as control variables and a model with all three predictors and controls was run. Similar models were run with conventional smoking as an outcome. 10.3% of adolescents ever used e-cigarettes. E-cigarette use was higher among ever-smokers of conventional cigarettes, individuals above 200% of the Federal Poverty Level, US citizens and those who spoke English-only at home. Multivariate analyses demonstrated that citizenship status and language spoken at home were associated with lifetime e-cigarette use, after accounting for control variables. Only citizenship status was associated with e-cigarette use, when controls variables race and language spoken at home were all in the same model. Ever use of e-cigarettes in this study was higher than previously reported national estimates. Action is needed to curb the use of e-cigarettes among adolescents. Differences in lifetime e-cigarette use by citizenship status and language spoken at home suggest that less acculturated individuals use e-cigarettes at lower rates. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language structure is partly determined by social structure.

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Gary Lupyan

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Languages differ greatly both in their syntactic and morphological systems and in the social environments in which they exist. We challenge the view that language grammars are unrelated to social environments in which they are learned and used. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We conducted a statistical analysis of >2,000 languages using a combination of demographic sources and the World Atlas of Language Structures--a database of structural language properties. We found strong relationships between linguistic factors related to morphological complexity, and demographic/socio-historical factors such as the number of language users, geographic spread, and degree of language contact. The analyses suggest that languages spoken by large groups have simpler inflectional morphology than languages spoken by smaller groups as measured on a variety of factors such as case systems and complexity of conjugations. Additionally, languages spoken by large groups are much more likely to use lexical strategies in place of inflectional morphology to encode evidentiality, negation, aspect, and possession. Our findings indicate that just as biological organisms are shaped by ecological niches, language structures appear to adapt to the environment (niche in which they are being learned and used. As adults learn a language, features that are difficult for them to acquire, are less likely to be passed on to subsequent learners. Languages used for communication in large groups that include adult learners appear to have been subjected to such selection. Conversely, the morphological complexity common to languages used in small groups increases redundancy which may facilitate language learning by infants. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We hypothesize that language structures are subjected to different evolutionary pressures in different social environments. Just as biological organisms are shaped by ecological niches, language structures appear to adapt to the

Determinants of translation ambiguity

Science.gov (United States)

Degani, Tamar; Prior, Anat; Eddington, Chelsea M.; Arêas da Luz Fontes, Ana B.; Tokowicz, Natasha

2016-01-01

Ambiguity in translation is highly prevalent, and has consequences for second-language learning and for bilingual lexical processing. To better understand this phenomenon, the current study compared the determinants of translation ambiguity across four sets of translation norms from English to Spanish, Dutch, German and Hebrew. The number of translations an English word received was correlated across these different languages, and was also correlated with the number of senses the word has in English, demonstrating that translation ambiguity is partially determined by within-language semantic ambiguity. For semantically-ambiguous English words, the probability of the different translations in Spanish and Hebrew was predicted by the meaning-dominance structure in English, beyond the influence of other lexical and semantic factors, for bilinguals translating from their L1, and translating from their L2. These findings are consistent with models postulating direct access to meaning from L2 words for moderately-proficient bilinguals. PMID:27882188

Schools and Languages in India.

Science.gov (United States)

Harrison, Brian

1968-01-01

A brief review of Indian education focuses on special problems caused by overcrowded schools, insufficient funding, and the status of education itself in the Indian social structure. Language instruction in India, a complex issue due largely to the numerous official languages currently spoken, is commented on with special reference to the problem…

Australian Aboriginal Deaf People and Aboriginal Sign Language

Science.gov (United States)

Power, Des

2013-01-01

Many Australian Aboriginal people use a sign language ("hand talk") that mirrors their local spoken language and is used both in culturally appropriate settings when speech is taboo or counterindicated and for community communication. The characteristics of these languages are described, and early European settlers' reports of deaf…

Language Planning for Venezuela: The Role of English.

Science.gov (United States)

Kelsey, Irving; Serrano, Jose

A rationale for teaching foreign languages in Venezuelan schools is discussed. An included sociolinguistic profile of Venezuela indicates that Spanish is the sole language of internal communication needs. Other languages spoken in Venezuela serve primarily a group function among the immigrant and indigenous communities. However, the teaching of…

125 The Fading Phase of Igbo Language and Culture: Path to its ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Tracie1

favour of foreign language (and culture). They also ... native language, and children are unable to learn a language not spoken ... shielding them off their mother tongue”. ..... the effect endangered language has on the existence of the owners.

MORPOHOLOGICAL POS TAGGING IN ORAL LANGUAGE CORPUS: CHALLENGES FOR AELIUS

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Gabriel de Ávila Othero

2014-12-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we present the results of our work with automatic morphological annotation of excerpts from a corpus of spoken language – belonging to the VARSUL project – using the free morphosyntatic tagger Aelius. We present 20 texts containing 154,530 words, annotated automatically and corrected manually. This paper presents the tagger Aelius and our work of manual review of the texts, as well as our suggestions for improvements of the tool, concerning aspects of oral texts. We verify the performance of morphosyntactic tagging a spoken language corpus, an unprecedented challenge for the tagger. Based on the errors of the tagger, we try to infer certain patterns of annotation to overcome limitations presented by the program, and we propose suggestions for implementations in order to allow Aelius to tag spoken language corpora in a more effective way, specially treating cases such as interjections, apheresis, onomatopeia and conversational markers.

Investigating the Difficulties and Problems Faced by the English Language Students of Al Quds Open University in Legal Translation Process

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Ahmed Maher Mahmoud Al-Nakhalah

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Following experimental descriptive method, the paper explores the difficulties and problems faced by the English language students of Al Quds Open University in legal translation process; that is, while translating legal terms/documents from Arabic to English and from English to Arabic. A test was designed by the researcher in order to explore and investigate the difficulties and problems faced by the students. The test included four questions: 1 Translating English legal paragraph, 2 Translating Arabic legal paragraph, 3 Translating ten Arabic legal terms and 4 Translating ten English legal terms. The test was applied on the English language students of Al Quds Open University in Gaza Region in Palestine during the second course of the academic year 2010/2011. The samples of the study were chosen and selected randomly. Following suitable statistical methods, the paper offers the obtained results with critical discussion. Possible solutions, recommendations and suggestions to overcome these difficulties and problems also form important parts of the discussion in the paper.

The Role of Translation in EFL Writing

OpenAIRE

congmin zhao

2017-01-01

This paper explores the problem “thinking in the first language then translating into the target language” by examining the process of writing. It is suggested that it is natural to think in the first language and/or to translate and the first language to foreign language translation indirectly enhances the writing ability.

Estimating Spoken Dialog System Quality with User Models

CERN Document Server

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...

Lost in translation?: Comparing three Scandinavian translations of the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire.

Science.gov (United States)

Granas, Anne Gerd; Nørgaard, Lotte Stig; Sporrong, Sofia Kälvemark

2014-08-01

The "Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire" (BMQ) assess balance of necessity and concern of medicines. The BMQ has been translated from English to many languages. However, the original meaning of statements, such as "My medicine is a mystery to me", may be lost in translation. The aim of this study is to compare three Scandinavian translations of the BMQ. (1) How reliable are the translations? (2) Are they still valid after translation? Translated Norwegian, Swedish and Danish versions of the BMQ were scrutinized by three native Scandinavian researchers. Linguistic differences and ambiguities in the 5-point Likert scale and the BMQ statements were compared. In the Scandinavian translations, the Likert scale expanded beyond the original version at one endpoint (Swedish) or both endpoints (Danish). In the BMQ statements, discrepancies ranged from smaller inaccuracies toward completely different meaning. Some dissimilarities reflect different cultural beliefs about medicines. When translating questionnaires, bilingual researchers should scrutinize translations across similar languages to address content validity across different countries and languages. Our findings are of relevance to other BMQ translations in non-English countries, as direct comparisons between different translations might not be reliable or valid. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Structural borrowing: The case of Kenyan Sign Language (KSL) and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Kenyan Sign Language (KSL) is a visual gestural language used by members of the deaf community in Kenya. Kiswahili on the other hand is a Bantu language that is used as the national language of Kenya. The two are world's apart, one being a spoken language and the other a signed language and thus their “… basic ...

Translational Implications of Tamil "Hamlets."

Science.gov (United States)

Kanakaraj, S.

1994-01-01

Discusses the use of translation when teaching English as a Second Language in a Tamil context. Singles out the fencing episode in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" to illustrate the difficulties of translating cultural aspects. Concludes that successful translations of Shakespeare into Indian languages should involve collaboration between…

Syntactic priming in American Sign Language.

Science.gov (United States)

Hall, Matthew L; Ferreira, Victor S; Mayberry, Rachel I

2015-01-01

Psycholinguistic studies of sign language processing provide valuable opportunities to assess whether language phenomena, which are primarily studied in spoken language, are fundamentally shaped by peripheral biology. For example, we know that when given a choice between two syntactically permissible ways to express the same proposition, speakers tend to choose structures that were recently used, a phenomenon known as syntactic priming. Here, we report two experiments testing syntactic priming of a noun phrase construction in American Sign Language (ASL). Experiment 1 shows that second language (L2) signers with normal hearing exhibit syntactic priming in ASL and that priming is stronger when the head noun is repeated between prime and target (the lexical boost effect). Experiment 2 shows that syntactic priming is equally strong among deaf native L1 signers, deaf late L1 learners, and hearing L2 signers. Experiment 2 also tested for, but did not find evidence of, phonological or semantic boosts to syntactic priming in ASL. These results show that despite the profound differences between spoken and signed languages in terms of how they are produced and perceived, the psychological representation of sentence structure (as assessed by syntactic priming) operates similarly in sign and speech.

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…

Translating India

CERN Document Server

Kothari, Rita

2014-01-01

The cultural universe of urban, English-speaking middle class in India shows signs of growing inclusiveness as far as English is concerned. This phenomenon manifests itself in increasing forms of bilingualism (combination of English and one Indian language) in everyday forms of speech - advertisement jingles, bilingual movies, signboards, and of course conversations. It is also evident in the startling prominence of Indian Writing in English and somewhat less visibly, but steadily rising, activity of English translation from Indian languages. Since the eighties this has led to a frenetic activity around English translation in India's academic and literary circles. Kothari makes this very current phenomenon her chief concern in Translating India.   The study covers aspects such as the production, reception and marketability of English translation. Through an unusually multi-disciplinary approach, this study situates English translation in India amidst local and global debates on translation, representation an...

Fully automatic multi-language translation with a catalogue of phrases – successful employment for the Swiss avalanche bulletin

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Winkler, K.; Kuhn, T.

2016-01-01

The Swiss avalanche bulletin is produced twice a day in four languages. Due to the lack of time available for manual translation, a fully automated translation system is employed, based on a catalogue of predefined phrases and predetermined rules of how these phrases can be combined to produce

Stability in Chinese and Malay heritage languages as a source of divergence

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Aalberse, S.; Moro, F.; Braunmüller, K.; Höder, S.; Kühl, K.

2014-01-01

This article discusses Malay and Chinese heritage languages as spoken in the Netherlands. Heritage speakers are dominant in another language and use their heritage language less. Moreover, they have qualitatively and quantitatively different input from monolinguals. Heritage languages are often

Stability in Chinese and Malay heritage languages as a source of divergence

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Aalberse, S.; Moro, F.R.; Braunmüller, K.; Höder, S.; Kühl, K.

2015-01-01

This article discusses Malay and Chinese heritage languages as spoken in the Netherlands. Heritage speakers are dominant in another language and use their heritage language less. Moreover, they have qualitatively and quantitatively different input from monolinguals. Heritage languages are often

The Role of Translation in EFL Writing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

congmin zhao

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This paper explores the problem “thinking in the first language then translating into the target language” by examining the process of writing. It is suggested that it is natural to think in the first language and/or to translate and the first language to foreign language translation indirectly enhances the writing ability.

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.

Beyond Languages, beyond Modalities: Transforming the Study of Semiotic Repertoires

Science.gov (United States)

Kusters, Annelies; Spotti, Massimiliano; Swanwick, Ruth; Tapio, Elina

2017-01-01

This paper presents a critical examination of key concepts in the study of (signed and spoken) language and multimodality. It shows how shifts in conceptual understandings of language use, moving from bilingualism to multilingualism and (trans)languaging, have resulted in the revitalisation of the concept of language repertoires. We discuss key…

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

OpenAIRE

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

2012-01-01

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 varia...

Communicative Language Teaching in Second Language Class

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Xiao Juan

2010-01-01

IntroductionReturn the class to the students and let the students be the masters of the class.This is what I have changed during the last three years in my class.I have been using Communicative Language Teaching method instead of Grammar Translation method.In the Grammar Translation method, students only study grammar and learn lists of words and then translate what they have learned into Chinese.In the classroom,the teacher uses the students' first language to explain the grammar and vocabulary in the text and then helps the students to translate it.This method is based on the idea that language is made up of words and that language changes according to the grammar rules.

A Python Geospatial Language Toolkit

Science.gov (United States)

Fillmore, D.; Pletzer, A.; Galloy, M.

2012-12-01

The volume and scope of geospatial data archives, such as collections of satellite remote sensing or climate model products, has been rapidly increasing and will continue to do so in the near future. The recently launched (October 2011) Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite (NPP) for instance, is the first of a new generation of Earth observation platforms that will monitor the atmosphere, oceans, and ecosystems, and its suite of instruments will generate several terabytes each day in the form of multi-spectral images and derived datasets. Full exploitation of such data for scientific analysis and decision support applications has become a major computational challenge. Geophysical data exploration and knowledge discovery could benefit, in particular, from intelligent mechanisms for extracting and manipulating subsets of data relevant to the problem of interest. Potential developments include enhanced support for natural language queries and directives to geospatial datasets. The translation of natural language (that is, human spoken or written phrases) into complex but unambiguous objects and actions can be based on a context, or knowledge domain, that represents the underlying geospatial concepts. This poster describes a prototype Python module that maps English phrases onto basic geospatial objects and operations. This module, along with the associated computational geometry methods, enables the resolution of natural language directives that include geographic regions of arbitrary shape and complexity.

GOAL-to-HAL translation study

Science.gov (United States)

Flanders, J. H.; Helmers, C. T.; Stanten, S. F.

1973-01-01

This report deals with the feasibility, problems, solutions, and mapping of a GOAL language to HAL language translator. Ground Operations Aerospace Language, or GOAL, is a test-oriented higher order language developed by the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be used in checkout and launch of the space shuttle. HAL is a structured higher order language developed by the Johnson Space Center to be used in writing the flight software for the onboard shuttle computers. Since the onboard computers will extensively support ground checkout of the space shuttle, and since these computers and the software development facilities on the ground use the HAL language as baseline, the translation of GOAL to HAL becomes significant. The issue of feasibility was examined and it was found that a GOAL to HAL translator is feasible. Special problems are identified and solutions proposed. Finally, examples of translation are provided for each category of complete GOAL statement.

Learning a Minoritized Language in a Majority Language Context: Student Agency and the Creation of Micro-Immersion Contexts

Science.gov (United States)

DePalma, Renée

2015-01-01

This study investigates the self-reported experiences of students participating in a Galician language and culture course. Galician, a language historically spoken in northwestern Spain, has been losing ground with respect to Spanish, particularly in urban areas and among the younger generations. The research specifically focuses on informal…

Three Translators in Search of an Author: Linguistic Strategies and Language Models in the (Retranslation of Shakespeare’s Plays into Catalan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pujol Dídac

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This article shows how the language of Shakespeare’s plays has been rendered into Catalan in three especially significant periods: the late 19th century, the early 20th century, and the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The first section centres on the contrast between natural and unnatural language in Hamlet, and considers how this differentiation is carried out (by linguistic techniques that differ substantially from Shakespeare’s in a late 19th-century Catalan adaptation by Gaietà Soler. The second part of the article investigates the reasons why in an early 20th-century translation of King Lear the translator, Anfòs Par, resorts to medieval instead of present-time language. The last section of the article illustrates how and explores the motivations why Salvador Oliva’s first (1985 version of The Tempest is retranslated in 2006 using a different language model. The ultimate aim of the paper is to put forward the hypothesis that, in the case of Catalan, Shakespearean translations are both a reflection of the current state of the language and a major linguistic experimentation that shapes and creates (sometimes through a via negativa the Catalan literary language.

Translingualism and Second Language Acquisition: Language Ideologies of Gaelic Medium Education Teachers in a Linguistically Liminal Setting

Science.gov (United States)

Knipe, John

2017-01-01

Scottish Gaelic, among the nearly 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, is endangered. In the 1980s the Gaelic Medium Education (GME) movement emerged with an emphasis on teaching students all subjects via this ancient tongue with the hope of revitalizing the language. Concomitantly, many linguists have called for problematizing traditional…

Auditory Modeling for Noisy Speech Recognition

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

2000-01-01

... digital filtering for noise cancellation which interfaces to speech recognition software. It uses auditory features in speech recognition training, and provides applications to multilingual spoken language translation...

Variation of Zipf's exponent in one hundred live languages: A study of the Holy Bible translations

Science.gov (United States)

Mehri, Ali; Jamaati, Maryam

2017-08-01

Zipf's law, as a power-law regularity, confirms long-range correlations between the elements in natural and artificial systems. In this article, this law is evaluated for one hundred live languages. We calculate Zipf's exponent for translations of the holy Bible to several languages, for this purpose. The results show that, the average of Zipf's exponent in studied texts is slightly above unity. All studied languages in some families have Zipf's exponent lower/higher than unity. It seems that geographical distribution impresses the communication between speakers of different languages in a language family, and affect similarity between their Zipf's exponent. The Bible has unique concept regardless of its language, but the discrepancy in grammatical rules and syntactic regularities in applying stop words to make sentences and imply a certain concept, lead to difference in Zipf's exponent for various languages.

Finding words in a language that allows words without vowels.

Science.gov (United States)

El Aissati, Abder; McQueen, James M; Cutler, Anne

2012-07-01

Across many languages from unrelated families, spoken-word recognition is subject to a constraint whereby potential word candidates must contain a vowel. This constraint minimizes competition from embedded words (e.g., in English, disfavoring win in twin because t cannot be a word). However, the constraint would be counter-productive in certain languages that allow stand-alone vowelless open-class words. One such language is Berber (where t is indeed a word). Berber listeners here detected words affixed to nonsense contexts with or without vowels. Length effects seen in other languages replicated in Berber, but in contrast to prior findings, word detection was not hindered by vowelless contexts. When words can be vowelless, otherwise universal constraints disfavoring vowelless words do not feature in spoken-word recognition. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Speech, gesture and the origins of language

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Levelt, W.J.M.

2004-01-01

During the second half of the 19th century, the psychology of language was invented as a discipline for the sole purpose of explaining the evolution of spoken language. These efforts culminated in Wilhelm Wundt’s monumental Die Sprache of 1900, which outlined the psychological mechanisms involved in

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)

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.

El Espanol como Idioma Universal (Spanish as a Universal Language)

Science.gov (United States)

Mijares, Jose

1977-01-01

A proposal to transform Spanish into a universal language because it possesses the prerequisites: it is a living language, spoken in several countries; it is a natural language; and it uses the ordinary alphabet. Details on simplification and standardization are given. (Text is in Spanish.) (AMH)

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.

Snails in bottles and language cuckoos: an evaluation of patient information resources for South Asians with osteomalacia.

Science.gov (United States)

Samanta, A; Johnson, M R D; Guo, F; Adebajo, A

2009-03-01

To assess the acceptability for use of information on osteomalacia for South Asian patients. Ten focus groups of South Asian persons speaking Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu (one male and one female group for each language) were used to evaluate the written (leaflets) and spoken information (CD) on osteomalacia for South Asian patients produced by the Arthritis Research Campaign (ARC). Focus group discussion was facilitated by community-based workers using the Social Action Research Method. A subsidiary evaluation of the information was conducted by a questionnaire-based survey sent to British Society of Rheumatology/British Health Professionals in Rheumatology (BSR/BHPR) members and others who had requested such materials from ARC in the past. Evaluation by focus groups revealed that there were potential difficulties relating to the understanding of the information leaflets and CDs and problematic issues regarding the quality of translation and pronunciation. Evaluation by BSR/BHPR members and others who had requested such material was that although the information was culturally appropriate, there were some weak areas such as mispronunciation, the quality of translation and specific customs. Healthcare information resources for minority ethnic groups has traditionally been developed depending upon the needs of the community, the language spoken and cultural norms. Such information is regarded as 'culturally sensitive'. However, an additional dimension is required. Information should be evaluated by the community and also specific users in order to determine its acceptability. This test of 'cultural competence' can ensure that such information has real practical value. An iterative evaluation process with feedback and refinement of information resources for minority ethnic groups is essential.

Definition, translation and application of user-oriented languages as extensions of PL/1 in the CAD-systems REGENT

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Enderle, G.

1975-09-01

The integrated CAD-system REGENT serves for modular development of programs for different application areas, for management of data storage and data transfer and easy and safe application of programs by means of user-oriented languages. Programs, data and language for an application area form a REGENT-subsystem. The problem language system of REGENT, PLS (Problem Language System), provides facilities for the development of a problem oriented language for every subsystem as extensions of the base language PL/1. In this paper the translation of problem oriented languages by a precompiler into PL/1 and the definition of language extensions and datastructures for subsystems are described. Development and application of the language for a fluiddynamic-subsystem is shown. (orig.) [de

Language and Culture in the Multiethnic Community: Spoken Language Assessment.

Science.gov (United States)

Matluck, Joseph H.; Mace-Matluck, Betty J.

This paper discusses the sociolinguistic problems inherent in multilingual testing, and the accompanying dangers of cultural bias in either the visuals or the language used in a given test. The first section discusses English-speaking Americans' perception of foreign speakers in terms of: (1) physical features; (2) speech, specifically vocabulary,…

Translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and reproducibility of the Brazilian portuguese-language version of the Wisconsin Smoking Withdrawal Scale.

Science.gov (United States)

Oliveira Junior, Boanerges Lopes de; Jardim, José Roberto; Nascimento, Oliver Augusto; Souza, George Márcio da Costa e; Baker, Timothy B; Santoro, Ilka Lopes

2012-01-01

To cross-culturally adapt the Wisconsin Smoking Withdrawal Scale (WSWS) for use in Brazil and evaluate the reproducibility of the new (Brazilian Portuguese-language) version. The original English version of the WSWS was translated into Brazilian Portuguese. For cross-cultural adaptation, the Brazilian Portuguese-language version of the WSWS was administered to eight volunteers, all of whom were smokers. After adjustments had been made, the WSWS version was back-translated into English. The Brazilian Portuguese-language version was thereby found to be accurate. The final Brazilian Portuguese-language version of the WSWS was applied to 75 smokers at three distinct times. For the assessment of interobserver reproducibility, it was applied twice within a 30-min interval by two different interviewers. For the assessment of intraobserver reproducibility, it was applied again 15 days later by one of the interviewers. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were used in order to test the concordance of the answers. The significance level was set at p Portuguese-language version of the WSWS is reproducible, fast, and simple. It can therefore be used as a tool for assessing the severity of the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal syndrome.

Sign Language Translator Application Using OpenCV

Science.gov (United States)

Triyono, L.; Pratisto, E. H.; Bawono, S. A. T.; Purnomo, F. A.; Yudhanto, Y.; Raharjo, B.

2018-03-01

This research focuses on the development of sign language translator application using OpenCV Android based, this application is based on the difference in color. The author also utilizes Support Machine Learning to predict the label. Results of the research showed that the coordinates of the fingertip search methods can be used to recognize a hand gesture to the conditions contained open arms while to figure gesture with the hand clenched using search methods Hu Moments value. Fingertip methods more resilient in gesture recognition with a higher success rate is 95% on the distance variation is 35 cm and 55 cm and variations of light intensity of approximately 90 lux and 100 lux and light green background plain condition compared with the Hu Moments method with the same parameters and the percentage of success of 40%. While the background of outdoor environment applications still can not be used with a success rate of only 6 managed and the rest failed.

Beyond languages, beyond modalities: transforming the study of semiotic repertoires : Introduction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Spotti, Max

2017-01-01

This paper presents a critical examination of key concepts in the study of (signed and spoken) language and multimodality. It shows how shifts in conceptual understandings of language use, moving from bilingualism to multilingualism and (trans)languaging, have resulted in the revitalisation of the

Syntactic priming in American Sign Language.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matthew L Hall

Full Text Available Psycholinguistic studies of sign language processing provide valuable opportunities to assess whether language phenomena, which are primarily studied in spoken language, are fundamentally shaped by peripheral biology. For example, we know that when given a choice between two syntactically permissible ways to express the same proposition, speakers tend to choose structures that were recently used, a phenomenon known as syntactic priming. Here, we report two experiments testing syntactic priming of a noun phrase construction in American Sign Language (ASL. Experiment 1 shows that second language (L2 signers with normal hearing exhibit syntactic priming in ASL and that priming is stronger when the head noun is repeated between prime and target (the lexical boost effect. Experiment 2 shows that syntactic priming is equally strong among deaf native L1 signers, deaf late L1 learners, and hearing L2 signers. Experiment 2 also tested for, but did not find evidence of, phonological or semantic boosts to syntactic priming in ASL. These results show that despite the profound differences between spoken and signed languages in terms of how they are produced and perceived, the psychological representation of sentence structure (as assessed by syntactic priming operates similarly in sign and speech.

Three languages from America in contact with Spanish

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bakker, D.; Sakel, J.; Stolz, T.

2012-01-01

Long before Europeans reached the American shores for the first time, and forced their cultures upon the indigenous population, including their languages, a great many other languages were spoken on that continent. These dated back to the original discoverers of America, who probably came from the

Mutual intelligibility between closely related language in Europe.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gooskens, Charlotte; van Heuven, Vincent; Golubovic, Jelena; Schüppert, Anja; Swarte, Femke; Voigt, Stefanie

2018-01-01

By means of a large-scale web-based investigation, we established the degree of mutual intelligibility of 16 closely related spoken languages within the Germanic, Slavic and Romance language families in Europe. We first present the results of a selection of 1833 listeners representing the mutual

Written cohesion in children with and without language learning disabilities.

Science.gov (United States)

Koutsoftas, Anthony D; Petersen, Victoria

2017-09-01

Cohesion refers to the linguistic elements of discourse that contribute to its continuity and is an important element to consider as part of written language intervention, especially in children with language learning disabilities (LLD). There is substantial evidence that children with LLD perform more poorly than typically developing (TD) peers on measures of cohesion in spoken language and on written transcription measures; however, there is far less research comparing groups on cohesion as a measure of written language across genres. The current study addresses this gap through the following two aims. First, to describe and compare cohesion in narrative and expository writing samples of children with and without language learning disabilities. Second, to relate measures of cohesion to written transcription and translation measures, oral language, and writing quality. Fifty intermediate-grade children produced one narrative and one expository writing sample from which measures of written cohesion were obtained. These included the frequency, adequacy and complexity of referential and conjunctive ties. Expository samples resulted in more complex cohesive ties and children with TD used more complex ties than peers with LLD. Different relationships among cohesion measures and writing were observed for narrative verse expository samples. Findings from this study demonstrate cohesion as a discourse-level measure of written transcription and how the use of cohesion can vary by genre and group (LLD, TD). Clinical implications for assessment, intervention, and future research are provided. © 2016 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Predictors of Spoken Language Development Following Pediatric Cochlear Implantation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Johan Frijns; prof. Dr. Louis Peeraer; van Wieringen; Ingeborg Dhooge; Vermeulen; Jan Brokx; Tinne Boons; Wouters

2012-01-01

Objectives: Although deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs) are able to develop good language skills, the large variability in outcomes remains a significant concern. The first aim of this study was to evaluate language skills in children with CIs to establish benchmarks. The second aim was to

Mapping Translation Technology Research in Translation Studies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schjoldager, Anne; Christensen, Tina Paulsen; Flanagan, Marian

2017-01-01

section aims to improve this situation by presenting new and innovative research papers that reflect on recent technological advances and their impact on the translation profession and translators from a diversity of perspectives and using a variety of methods. In Section 2, we present translation......Due to the growing uptake of translation technology in the language industry and its documented impact on the translation profession, translation students and scholars need in-depth and empirically founded knowledge of the nature and influences of translation technology (e.g. Christensen....../Schjoldager 2010, 2011; Christensen 2011). Unfortunately, the increasing professional use of translation technology has not been mirrored within translation studies (TS) by a similar increase in research projects on translation technology (Munday 2009: 15; O’Hagan 2013; Doherty 2016: 952). The current thematic...

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

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

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.

Translation and Creation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paulo Bezerra

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The article begins with the differences betweenscientific and fictional translations, and focus on the second.The fictional translation works with meanings, opens itselfto the plurissignification in the purpose to create a similarity of the dissimilarity; in this process, the translator does nottranslate a language, but what a creative individuality makeswith a language. At last there is an approach to the knowledgeand skills necessaries to a translator of literature: theknowledge of the theories of the literature and of thetranslation, the capacity to preserve the national color ofthe original text and at the same time to respect the arrivallanguage, and the sensibility to his national languagevariations present in the daily and in the literary spheres.

"We call it Springbok-German!": language contact in the German communities in South Africa.

OpenAIRE

Franke, Katharina

2017-01-01

Varieties of German are spoken all over the world, some of which have been maintained for prolonged periods of time. As a result, these transplanted varieties often show traces of the ongoing language contact as specific to their particular context. This thesis explores one such transplanted German language variety – Springbok- German – as spoken by a small subset of German Lutherans in South Africa. Specifically, this study takes as its focus eight rural German communities acr...

What sign language creation teaches us about language.

Science.gov (United States)

Brentari, Diane; Coppola, Marie

2013-03-01

How do languages emerge? What are the necessary ingredients and circumstances that permit new languages to form? Various researchers within the disciplines of primatology, anthropology, psychology, and linguistics have offered different answers to this question depending on their perspective. Language acquisition, language evolution, primate communication, and the study of spoken varieties of pidgin and creoles address these issues, but in this article we describe a relatively new and important area that contributes to our understanding of language creation and emergence. Three types of communication systems that use the hands and body to communicate will be the focus of this article: gesture, homesign systems, and sign languages. The focus of this article is to explain why mapping the path from gesture to homesign to sign language has become an important research topic for understanding language emergence, not only for the field of sign languages, but also for language in general. WIREs Cogn Sci 2013, 4:201-211. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1212 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Social Class and Language Attitudes in Hong Kong

Science.gov (United States)

Lai, Mee Ling

2010-01-01

This article examines the relation between social class and language attitudes through a triangulated study that analyses the attitudes of 836 secondary school students from different socioeconomic backgrounds toward the 3 official spoken languages used in postcolonial Hong Kong (HK; i.e., Cantonese, English, and Putonghua). The respondents were…

Syllable Frequency and Spoken Word Recognition: An Inhibitory Effect.

Science.gov (United States)

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.

Behavioral and electrophysiological signatures of word translation processes.

Science.gov (United States)

Jost, Lea B; Radman, Narges; Buetler, Karin A; Annoni, Jean-Marie

2018-01-31

Translation is a demanding process during which a message is analyzed, translated and communicated from one language to another. Despite numerous studies on translation mechanisms, the electrophysiological processes underlying translation with overt production remain largely unexplored. Here, we investigated how behavioral response patterns and spatial-temporal brain dynamics differ in a translation compared to a control within-language word-generation task. We also investigated how forward and backward translation differs on the behavioral and electrophysiological level. To address these questions, healthy late bilingual subjects performed a translation and a within-language control task while a 128-channel EEG was recorded. Behavioral data showed faster responses for translation compared to within-language word generation and faster responses for backward than forward translation. The ERP-analysis revealed stronger early ( processes for between than within word generation. Later (424-630ms) differences were characterized by distinct engagement of domain-general control networks, namely self-monitoring and lexical access interference. Language asymmetry effects occurred at a later stage (600ms), reflecting differences in conceptual processing characterized by a larger involvement of areas implicated in attention, arousal and awareness for forward versus backward translation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The ILLC-UvA SMT System for IWSLT 2010

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Khalilov, M.; Sima'an, K.; Federico, M.; Lane, I.; Paul, M.; Yvon, F.; Mariani, J.

2010-01-01

In this paper we give an overview of the ILLC-UvA (Institute for Logic, Language and Computation - University of Amsterdam) submission to the 7th International Workshop on Spoken Language Translation evaluation campaign. It outlines the architecture and configuration of the novel feature we are

Task-Oriented Spoken Dialog System for Second-Language Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Kwon, Oh-Woog; Kim, Young-Kil; Lee, Yunkeun

2016-01-01

This paper introduces a Dialog-Based Computer Assisted second-Language Learning (DB-CALL) system using task-oriented dialogue processing technology. The system promotes dialogue with a second-language learner for a specific task, such as purchasing tour tickets, ordering food, passing through immigration, etc. The dialog system plays a role of a…

An overview of translation in language teaching methods: implications for EFL in secondary education in the region of Murcia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Teresa Marqués Aguado

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Various activities and resources have been used across time to promote and enhance the learning of foreign languages. Among these, translation has been cherished or dismissed depending on the preferred teaching method at each period. With the arrival of the Communicative approach, which focuses on communicative competence, its role has apparently become even more unstable.This article seeks to explore the role of translation in the main teaching methods used in Spain. This will in turn serve as the background against which the current educational scenario (with the communicative approach and the tenets of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages will be measured with a view to ascertaining the role that translation may currently play. The particular situation of Secondary Education in the Region of Murcia will be discussed in the light of the curricula for this stage.

How Facebook Can Revitalise Local Languages: Lessons from Bali

Science.gov (United States)

Stern, Alissa Joy

2017-01-01

For a language to survive, it must be spoken and passed down to the next generation. But how can we engage teenagers--so crucial for language transmission--to use and value their local tongue when they are bombarded by pressures from outside and from within their society to only speak national and international languages? This paper analyses the…

TRANSLATING SERVICE TECHNICAL PROSE

African Journals Online (AJOL)

language. The Application of Technical Service. Prose. To form a good idea of the appl ication .... cost lives. In this particular domain, translators must have a sound technical ... These semantic ... another language and often, in doing so, changing its meaning. The words ..... He will hand out tasks to each translator and after.

Universality versus language-specificity in listening to running speech

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cutler, A.; Demuth, K.; McQueen, J.M.

2002-01-01

Recognizing spoken language involves automatic activation of multiple candidate words. The process of selection between candidates is made more efficient by inhibition of embedded words (like egg in beg) which leave a portion of the input stranded (here, b). Results from European languages suggest

SNOT-22: psychometric properties and cross-cultural adaptation into the Portuguese language spoken in Brazil.