Bilingual Dictionary Drafting. The Example of German-Basque, a Medium-density Language Pair

Edited by Andrea Abel, Chiara Vettori, Natascia Ralli.

Experimental Economics Meets Language Choice

Roughly one half of World's languages are in danger of extinction. The endangered languages, spoken by minorities, typically compete with powerful languages such as En- glish or Spanish. Consequently, the speakers of minority languages have to consider that not everybody can speak their language, converting the language choice into strategic,coordination-like situation. We show experimentally that the displacement of minority languages may be partially explained by the imperfect information about the linguistic type of the partner, leading to frequent failure to coordinate on the minority language even between two speakers who can and prefer to use it. The extent of miscoordination correlates with how minoritarian a language is and with the real-life linguistic condition of subjects: the more endangered a language the harder it is to coordinate on its use, and people on whom the language survival relies the most acquire behavioral strategies that lower its use. Our game-theoretical treatment of the issue provides a new perspective for linguistic policies.

A Brief Grammar of Euskara, the Basque Language

This is a short grammar of the Basque language, or Euskara as it is called by its speakers. What follows is a partial description of the syntax of Euskara. The text has been arranged in the following fashion: there is an index where you can find the distribution of topics. Within each of the topics, an effort has been made to arrange information from general to specific, so that as you read into a given section, you will get into more details about the topic being under discussion. This grammar hopes to be useful to a wide variety of users. Therefore, it will probably not satisfy anyone completely: Those who want a quick 'feel' for the language will be disappointed by the slow and messy details the text dives into. Those who want a detailed, professional description will be disappointed by the lack of depth in the discussion. The text hopes to sit somewhere in the middle, and if it tells too much to those who want to know a little, and too little to those who want to know a lot, then it will have done its job.

La lucha de bandos en el País Vasco: de los Parientes Mayores a la Hidalguía Universal. Guipúzcoa, de los bandos a la Provincia (s. XIV a XVI)

La historiografía tradicional acuñó el término Lucha de Bandos para referirse a los enfrentamientos internobiliarios que tuvieron lugar en el País Vasco entre el bando de los oñacinos y el de los gamboínos durante los siglos XIV y XV. La renovación historiográfica que fue cuajando durante los primeros años 70 demostró, sin embargo, que semejantes enfrentamientos ocultaban otros que contraponían a los grupos sociales antagónicos tanto en el mundo rural como en las villas en una amplia tipología de conflictos hasta el punto que, en la actualidad, tendemos a equiparar Lucha de Bandos y conflictividad social. Los trabajos que recoge este libro son el resultado de un nuevo acercamiento al problema, a la luz de las nuevas propuestas que durante los últimos años han aportado otros autores en el tratamiento de problemas similares en otras latitudes. En su mayoría fueron presentados los días 4 y 5 de diciembre de 1997 en Vitoria durante un Symposium sobre la Lucha de Bandos en el País Vasco. Con una especial atención al caso guipuzcoano, se abordan, entre otras, distintas cuestiones relacionadas con la historiografía, las fuentes, la definición y significado de Pariente Mayor, las bases materiales de su poder, la constitución de oligarquías municipales en las villas, los movimientos migratorios, la “revolución de los precios” o la dimensión política de la hidalguía universal. En conjunto se ofrece una visión diacrónica que observa las transformaciones sociales, económicas y políticas que conoció la sociedad guipuzcoana al final de la Lucha de Bandos, al compás del nacimiento y de los primeros pasos de una “sociedad igualitaria”.

The role of syllables in sign language production

The aim of the present study was to investigate the functional role of syllables in sign language and how the different phonological combinations influence sign production. Moreover, the influence of age of acquisition was evaluated. Deaf signers (native and non-native) of Catalan Signed Language (LSC) were asked in a picture-sign interference task to sign picture names while ignoring distractor-signs with which they shared two phonological parameters (out of three of the main sign parameters: Location, Movement, and Handshape). The results revealed a different impact of the three phonological combinations. While no effect was observed for the phonological combination Handshape-Location, the combination Handshape-Movement slowed down signing latencies, but only in the non-native group. A facilitatory effect was observed for both groups when pictures and distractors shared Location-Movement. Importantly, linguistic models have considered this phonological combination to be a privileged unit in the composition of signs, as syllables are in spoken languages. Thus, our results support the functional role of syllable units during phonological articulation in sign language production.

A Game-Theoreteic Analysis of Minority Language Use in Multilingual Societies

This chapter studies multilingual democratic societies with highly developed economies. These societies are assumed to have two languages with official status: language A, spoken by every individual, and language B, spoken by the bilingual minority. We emphasize that language rights are important, but the survival of the minority language B depends mainly on the actual use bilinguals make of B. The purpose of the present chapter is to study some of the factors affecting the bilingual speakers language choice behaviour. Our view is that languages with their speech communities compete for speakers just as fi rms compete for market share. Thus, the con ict among the minority languages in these societies does not take the rough expressions such as those studied in Desmet et al. (2012). Here the con flict is more subtle. We model highly plausible language choice situations by means of choice procedures and non-cooperative games, each with different types of information. We then study the determinants of the bilinguals ' strategic behaviour with regard to language. We observe that the bilinguals' use of B is shaped, essentially, by linguistic conventions and social norms that are developed in situations of language contact.

Frame-level features conveying phonetic information for language and speaker recognition

150 p.

Intercultural Management and Leadership in the Context of Language Academies

Throughout this undergraduate thesis, a study of intercultural management and leadership will be carried out with a special focus on language academies. We begin by analyzing the importance of cultural values and their effects on the perception of a leader. We then study the role of Strategic Human Resources Management in an intercultural environment. Finally, as an original contribution to this thesis, an investigation is performed that examines three local language academies and their management practices. After reviewing the findings, we hope to propose a sort of ‘best practices’ for language academies that could lead to a more harmonious relationship between teachers and their managers.

Auge y caída del principio de justicia universal en el ordenamiento español

El presente trabajo se propone analizar desde una perspectiva internacionalista el recorrido del principio de justicia universal en nuestro ordenamiento: inicialmente configurado como un principio de carácter absoluto y cuyo alcance se ha visto drásticamente reducido tras las reformas llevadas a cabo por el legistlador en la última década, especialmente la última de ellas realizada en 2014, hasta el punto de acabar con la misma esencia de esta figura. Expuesto lo anterior, se abordan también las consecuencias que ha traído esta última modificación y las reacciones que la misma ha provocado. Para terminar, trataremos de esclarecer cuáles son las posibles vías de actuación dado el escenario actual.