Search results for "spoken language"

Ensikielen tunnistamisen merkityksestä suullisen kielitaidon arvioinnissa Yleisissä kielitutkinnoissa

2020

In this paper, we present a multidisciplinary study addressing fairness in the speaking test in a high-stakes language proficiency test in Finnish, National Certificates of Language Proficiency. The background of the research lies in studies on language assessment and (reversal) linguistic stereotyping and language attitudes. The focus L1 groups were Thai, Estonian, Finland Swedish, Arabic and Russian. Altogether 49 speech samples of test takers of these L1s were rated on a digital platform by 44 raters of the test system. The current paper reports on the sub-study that investigated whether the raters’ recognition of the test takers’ L1 affected their ratings and whether the effect differed…

Il linguaggio mafioso. Scritto, parlato, non detto

2017

The volume aims to show the language of the so called 'mafia'. The main task is the definition of the linguistic and pragmatic boundaries of this notion, The book starts from the paradox of the communication of the mafia. How mafia communicates even though it is an organization based on silence? The volume studies written, spoken and unspoken facts of communication of mafia. Il volume affronta il tema del linguaggio mafioso cercando di definirne i contorni pragmatici prima ancora che linguistici. Il punto di partenza è quello che potrebbe essere definito il paradosso del linguaggio mafioso: in che modo un'organizzazione che ha fatto del silenzio la sua cifra identitaria è riuscita a costrui…

Comparing speaking situations in three different language tests

2013

The purpose of this study was to compare learner outcome when five similar speaking situations were offered in the speaking subtest in Finnish, Swedish and English intermediate level tests in the Finnish National Certificates language testing system. The overall aim was to investigate the tasks by comparing learner outcomes across the three tests and to seek explanations for the outcome in the learners’ selfreported demographic, language, educational and professional background.The speaking situations were selected from the NC item bank meaning that they have undergone the Item Response Theory based analyses which indicate that the tasks function well in all tests. More information was need…

”Man vill gärna berätta”

2013

The Unnatural Naturalness of Man-Narration and Daniel Sjolin’s Autobiographical Oron Bror Daniel Sjolin’s autobiographical debut novel Oron bror (2002) is about two brothers who are searching for their childhood home. During the journey, the little brother, the I-narrator, recalls detailed episodes from his past. In these retrospective chapters, narrated in present tense, the protagonist is referred to by the indefinite pronoun man. The article focuses on this peculiar narrative feature of Sjolin’s novel. Firstly, the article examines the functions of man in autobiographical context. The analysis of Sjolin’s novel shows that, on the one hand, man functions quite similarly to the more conven…

Statistical language learning in neonates revealed by event-related brain potentials

2009

Abstract Background Statistical learning is a candidate for one of the basic prerequisites underlying the expeditious acquisition of spoken language. Infants from 8 months of age exhibit this form of learning to segment fluent speech into distinct words. To test the statistical learning skills at birth, we recorded event-related brain responses of sleeping neonates while they were listening to a stream of syllables containing statistical cues to word boundaries. Results We found evidence that sleeping neonates are able to automatically extract statistical properties of the speech input and thus detect the word boundaries in a continuous stream of syllables containing no morphological cues. …

The effects of spelling consistency on phonological awareness: a comparison of English and German.

2005

Within alphabetic languages, spelling-to-sound consistency can differ dramatically. For example, English and German are very similar in their phonological and orthographic structure but not in their consistency. In English the letter a is pronounced differently in the words bank, ball, and park, whereas in German the letter a always has the same pronunciation (e.g., Ball, Park, Bank). It is often argued that reading acquisition has a reciprocal effect on phonological awareness. As reading is acquired, therefore, spoken language representation may be affected differently for English and German children. Prior to literacy acquisition, however, phonological representation in English and German…

Brain sensitivity to print emerges when children learn letter–speech sound correspondences

2010

The acquisition of reading skills is a major landmark process in a human's cognitive development. On the neural level, a new functional network develops during this time, as children typically learn to associate the well-known sounds of their spoken language with unfamiliar characters in alphabetic languages and finally access the meaning of written words, allowing for later reading. A critical component of the mature reading network located in the left occipito-temporal cortex, termed the “visual word-form system” (VWFS), exhibits print-sensitive activation in readers. When and how the sensitivity of the VWFS to print comes about remains an open question. In this study, we demonstrate the…

An RFID framework for multimodal service provision

2009

In recent years there has been a growing interest toward the development of pervasive and context-aware services, and RFID technology played a relevant role in the context sensing task. We propose the use of RFID technology together with a conversational agent in order to implement a multimodal information retrieval service we call SensorMesh. The information acquired from RFID tags about the nearest point of interest is processed by the conversational agent that carries a more natural interaction with the user, also exploiting a common sense ontology. The service is accessible using a multimodal browser on Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs); the browser allows the user to interact with the…

A Multimodal Guide for the Augmented Campus

2007

The use of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) with ad-hoc built-in information retrieval and auto-localization functionalities can help people navigating an environment in a more natural manner compared to traditional audio/visual pre-recorded guides. In this work we propose and discuss a user-friendly, multi-modal guide system for pervasive context-aware service provision within augmented environments. The proposed system is adaptable to the user needs of mobility within a given environment; it is usable on different mobile devices and in particular on PDAs, which are used as advanced adaptive HEI (human-environment interaction) interfaces. An information retrieval service is provided that…

2018

According to the two-systems account of theory of mind (ToM), understanding mental states of others involves both fast social-perceptual processes, as well as slower, reflexive cognitive operations (Frith and Frith, 2008; Apperly and Butterfill, 2009). To test the respective roles of specific abilities in either of these processes we administered 15 experimental procedures to a large sample of 343 participants, testing ability in face recognition and holistic perception, language, and reasoning. ToM was measured by a set of tasks requiring ability to track and to infer complex emotional and mental states of others from faces, eyes, spoken language, and prosody. We used structural equation m…