Search results for "Linguistics"
showing 10 items of 8097 documents
The Stability-Plasticity Dilemma: Investigating the Continuum from Catastrophic Forgetting to Age-Limited Learning Effects
2013
The stability-plasticity dilemma is a well-know constraint for artificial and biological neural systems. The basic idea is that learning in a parallel and distributed system requires plasticity for the integration of new knowledge, but also stability in order to prevent the forgetting of previous knowledge. Too much plasticity will result in previously encoded data being constantly forgotten, whereas too much stability will impede the efficient coding of this data at the level of the synapses. However, for the most part, neural computation has addressed the problems related to excessive plasticity or excessive stability as two different fields in the literature.
Language Learning Methodology for Adults: A Study of Linguistic Transfer
2014
Abstract The purpose of the present research is to bring together the evidence on transfer in adult L2 and L3 language acquisition and investigate the use and the relationship between languages in contact. The role of linguistic transfer ( Odlin, 1989 ) i.e. the imposition of previously learned patterns onto a new learning situation, has a facilitation or inhibition effect on the learner's progress in mastering a new language (L2 or L3). Our findings reveal that the cross-linguistic influence occurs both from the direction of the L2 to the L3 and from the L3 to the L2 ( Odlin, 2003 , Jarvis and Pavlenko, 2008 ). In the case of our participants, in the acquisition of L2 as the foreign langua…
Problemas Descriptivos de Fracciones
2016
Resumen En este trabajo se presenta un estudio sobre los problemas verbales de fracciones que ha transmitido la tradición escolar. Se trata de problemas descriptivos, porque su contexto es una historieta o narración pseudorealista que no pretende dar respuesta a ninguna situación verdaderamente práctica. Mediante el análisis didáctico e histórico-epistemológico se aporta claridad metodológica sobre estos problemas de fracciones, al identificar sus distintos tipos, sus estructuras, sus lecturas analíticas, sus reglas, fórmulas y métodos de resolución.
English writing instruction in Norwegian upper secondary schools
2015
AbstractThis article presents a study of current English writing instruction practices in a selection of Norwegian upper secondary schools and discusses how this draws upon ideas within genre-pedagogy. The data comprises individual and focus-group interviews, observation reports and some teaching material. The study shows that English teachers focus on teaching genre requirements and adjustment of language to task and context. However, despite agreeing on the importance of teaching how to write specific text-types and to adjust to the situation at hand, there seems to be different opinions about how detailed instruction should be. Some teachers fear that too explicit instruction may hinder …
Reading Skills, Acquisition of: Cultural, Environmental, and Developmental Impediments
2015
Reading acquisition is under the influence of the structure and function of the language itself, the individual's capacity to learn and the differential methods of instruction. Alphabetic languages vary from the bidirectionally consistent phoneme–grapheme–phoneme units of Finnish, to English as the most inconsistent for small units, but the latter of which increases in consistency as a function of increasing size of the unit (e.g., rime). Nonalphabetic Chinese places a heavy learning load through its inherently meaning-based logographic structure. Computer-assisted literacy training (e.g., GraphoGame) tailored to language features, teaching practices, and learner specific requirements can p…
The Nature of and Factors Related to Reading Difficulties Among Adolescents in a Transparent Orthography
2013
We examined the nature of and factors related to adolescents’ reading difficulties in a highly transparent orthography. We compared word, pseudoword, and text reading speed and accuracy, rapid naming (RAN) and phonological processing between poor readers (n = 80) and normally developing readers (n = 189). Reading problems were manifested in reading speed and in timed pseudoword reading accuracy. RAN predicted speed, and phonological processing predicted accuracy of reading in both groups. Among poor readers, RAN also explained reading accuracy. For the normally developing sample, phonological processing also predicted reading speed.
Don’t miss your train! Just follow the computer screen animation: Comprehension of animated public information graphics
2014
Computer graphic animated information displays have the potential to communicate public information in situations where normal announcement types are ineffective. This study used eye tracking techniques to analyze comprehension mechanism of event-related information on railway traffic disruptions presented via different graphic formats presented on computer screen. 86 participants were asked to understand series of traffic disruption messages delivered via four purely visual formats: Static simultaneous, Static sequential, Animated simultaneous and Animated sequential. Across these four conditions, and contrary to the most common materials used in the studies on animation comprehension, the…
Blending in Hybrid Games: Understanding Hybrid Games Through Experience
2016
The meaning of what hybrid games are is often fixed to the context in which the term is used. For example, hybrid games have often been defined in relation to recent developments in technology. This creates issues in its usage and limitations in thinking. This paper argues that hybrid games should be understood through conceptual metaphors. Hybridity is the blending of different cognitive domains that are not usually associated together. Hybrid games usually blend domains related to games, for example digital and board games, but can blend also other domains. Through this type of thinking, designers can be more open to exploring how their games can be experienced.
The Multimodality of Digital Longform Journalism
2016
Digital longform journalism has recently attracted increased attention among both academics and professionals. This study contributes to the growing body of research by dissecting the multimodal structure of digital longform journalism, that is, how the emerging genre combines written language, photography, short videos, maps and other graphical elements, and joins them together into a seamless narrative using subtle transitions. The data consist of 12 longform articles published in 2012–2013, which have been annotated for their visual and verbal content, their underlying principle of organization and the transitions that hold between them. The annotation is stored into a digital corpus, wh…
How Body and Soul Interact with the Spiritual Mind: Multimodal Cognitive Semiotics of Religious Discourse
2008
Cognitive Linguistics as an enterprise provides new theoretical and methodological instruments in understanding the relationship between people's thoughts and the language they use. Spiritual and religious experiences (particularly the ones involving some type of revelation from or communication with a transcendent being) are especially interesting since they involve some type of external, physically invisible force or agent, contributing an "ineffable" quality to the phenomenon. However, people can and do describe such events, and metaphors and blends pervade the representations of certain concepts of the transcendental when attempting to talk about such abstract ideas. One of the main ten…