Constraining the time when language evolved

The precise timing of the emergence of language in human prehistory cannot be resolved. But the available evidence is sufficient to constrain it to some degree. This is a review and synthesis of the available evidence, leading to the conclusion that the time when speech in some form became important for our ancestors can be constrained to be not less than 400,000 years ago, thus excluding several popular theories involving a late transition to speech.

ACTITUDES HACIA LA VARIEDAD CANARIA : Un estudio sociolingüístico de estudiantes universitarios en Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

En este estudio se analizan las actitudes lingüísticas hacia la variedad canaria en comparación con la variedad español peninsular considerado estándar de veinte estudiantes universitarios en Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. La investigadora utiliza una versión modificada del método matched guise que consiste en una grabación de cuatro versiones de un mismo texto leído por dos hablantes de la variedad canaria y dos hablantes de la variedad español peninsular considerado estándar. Los informantes escuchan el texto grabado y contestan consecutivamente un cuestionario, evaluando las voces de la grabación. Según el resultado obtenido existe una diferencia entre la valoración de la dimensión de estatus y la dimensión de solidaridad. Los informantes valoran más positivamente a la variedad español peninsular estándar al nivel estatus, mostrando actitudes desfavorables hacia la variedad canaria. En la dimensión de solidaridad se manifiestan actitudes contradictorias hacia la variedad canaria, indicando una posible oposición entre una variedad culta y una vulgar.

Tu dis et je murmure! : Une analyse des verbes de parole dans la littérature suédoise pour enfants et leurs traductions en français

This study presents a description of the role of verbs in introducing the direct dialogue in literacy and of the way they are translated from Swedish to French in children’s literature. In order to adapt the text to the target language, these verbs sometimes change and lose their impact on the tone and character of the dialogue. This can be problematic in texts aimed for children where readability depends on a child’s language capacity. Another aim of this study is to expose des difficulties encountered in the transfer of values and emotional effects when translating children’s literature from source language to target languageOur conclusion is that the Swedish children’s literature translated to French is often subject to modifications rather than translation of verbs that introduce direct dialogue. Consequently, dialogue meaning and character personalities are modified within the text translation. In our analysis of four Swedish children’s books and their translation to French we have seen that these adaptations are not made for adapting to the intended reader’s capacities in the target language or to the literacy of the source text but rather to adapt to certain linguistic norms relative to the style of French language.

Marketing Automation – en studie om ett modernt marknadsföringsverktyg i en svensk kontext

I takt med att digitala medier har utvecklats under de senaste åren har köpresan för-ändrats till att kunder idag i ett mycket senare skede släpper in leverantörer i dialogen. Marketing Automation adresserar den problembilden och har växt fram som en brygga mellan sälj- och marknadsprocessen. Systemet ger möjlighet att effektivt och automatiserat utveckla leads (potentiell kund). Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur Marketing Automation påverkar sälj- och marknadsprocesserna. Vilka förutsättningar krävs för en implementation? Ökar lönsamheten? Vi har därför valt att i det teoretiska ramverket beskriva Marketing Automation och bland annat undersöka om ett införande av Marketing Automation medför att sälj- och marknadsorganisationerna slås samman till en organisatorisk enhet. I studien har vi dessutom kartlagt och beskrivit den moderna köpresan och det som ibland kallas intäktsorganisationen. Vi har funnit att Marketing Automation är relativt outforskat i en svensk kontext. För att utröna om teorin, som i stor utsträckning bygger på internationell litteratur och internationella undersökningar, går att överföra till en svensk kontext har vi valt att genomföra en kvalitativ studie i form av en fallstudie av leverantörer av produkter och tjänster inom området samt företag, med den gemensamma nämnaren att de re-presenterar ett kunskapsintensivt erbjudande och har implementerat lösningar för Marketing Automation. I vår analys finns en samsyn mellan leverantörer och kunder i förutsättningar för ett införande, men vi kan även se hur resultaten divergerar och pekar på implikationer, inte minst avseende måluppfyllnad och samverkan mellan sälj- och marknadsorgani-sationerna. Vår slutsats visar bland annat att Marketing Automation kan leda till uppfyllnad av mjuka värden i företaget men har inte bevisats leda till ökad lönsamhet per automatik. Vi ser lönsamhet och Return on Investment (ROI) som ett område som bör utforskas vidare.

Interaction and Persuasion:An analysis of the use of rhetorical devices in Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour Party Conference, on September 25, 2006

This essay has identified and analysed rhetorical devices in Gordon Brown’s speech delivered at the Labour Party conference on September 25, 2006. The aim of the study was to identify specific rhetorical devices which are described as interactional resources, analyse their uses and discuss possible effects that they may have when included in a political speech. The results are based on my own interpretations but are supported by information provided in current literature by analysts and researchers of rhetoric use. The result findings could probably serve as evidence of the need for better understanding of the devices used by politicians in their relentless endeavours to influence audience decisions.

Persuading the Public : A Linguistic Analysis of Barack Obama’s Speech on “Super Tuesday” 2008

This essay examines the persuasive side of language in a speech given by Senator Barack Obama on Super Tuesday in February 2008. It studies how Senator Obama utilizes language to convince and persuade his audience. This is done from an Aristotelian point of view, meaning that the study focuses foremost on how the senator’s word choices relate to Aristotle’s three means of persuasion, ethos, pathos and logos. Those basic guiding principles are relevant to use since Aristotle’s work on the subject of rhetoric is still today one of the most relevant works in that field. The analysis is basically performed through personal observations guided by previous studies, within the frame of Aristotelian rhetoric. The results show how Senator Obama enforces the three means of persuasion through language and how it can be considered persuasive. The study might add to rhetoric studies from a linguistic perspective since it reaches a better understanding of language used in the field of politics, where rhetoric is a prominent component.

A corpus approach to discursive constructions of a hip-hop identity

This chapter is an analysis of a 100,000-word corpus consisting of message-board postings on hip-hop websites. A discourse analysis of this corpus reveals three strategies employed by the posters to identify themselves as members of the hip-hop community in the otherwise anonymous setting of the internet: (1) defined openings and closings, (2) repeated use of slang and taboo terms, and (3) performance of verbal art. Each strategy is characterized by the codification of non-standard grammar and pronunciations characteristic of speech, as well as by the use of non-standard orthography. The purpose of the discourse is shown to be a performance of identity, whereby language is used and recognized as the discursive construction of one’s hip-hop identity.

Speech Assessment for the Classification of Hypokinetic Dysthria in Parkinson Disease

The aim of this thesis is to investigate computerized voice assessment methods to classify between the normal and Dysarthric speech signals. In this proposed system, computerized assessment methods equipped with signal processing and artificial intelligence techniques have been introduced. The sentences used for the measurement of inter-stress intervals (ISI) were read by each subject. These sentences were computed for comparisons between normal and impaired voice. Band pass filter has been used for the preprocessing of speech samples. Speech segmentation is performed using signal energy and spectral centroid to separate voiced and unvoiced areas in speech signal. Acoustic features are extracted from the LPC model and speech segments from each audio signal to find the anomalies. The speech features which have been assessed for classification are Energy Entropy, Zero crossing rate (ZCR), Spectral-Centroid, Mean Fundamental-Frequency (Meanf0), Jitter (RAP), Jitter (PPQ), and Shimmer (APQ). Naïve Bayes (NB) has been used for speech classification. For speech test-1 and test-2, 72% and 80% accuracies of classification between healthy and impaired speech samples have been achieved respectively using the NB. For speech test-3, 64% correct classification is achieved using the NB. The results direct the possibility of speech impairment classification in PD patients based on the clinical rating scale.

Assessment of PD Speech Anomalies @ Home

Background: Voice processing in real-time is challenging. A drawback of previous work for Hypokinetic Dysarthria (HKD) recognition is the requirement of controlled settings in a laboratory environment. A personal digital assistant (PDA) has been developed for home assessment of PD patients. The PDA offers sound processing capabilities, which allow for developing a module for recognition and quantification HKD. Objective: To compose an algorithm for assessment of PD speech severity in the home environment based on a review synthesis. Methods: A two-tier review methodology is utilized. The first tier focuses on real-time problems in speech detection. In the second tier, acoustics features that are robust to medication changes in Levodopa-responsive patients are investigated for HKD recognition. Keywords such as Hypokinetic Dysarthria , and Speech recognition in real time were used in the search engines. IEEE explorer produced the most useful search hits as compared to Google Scholar, ELIN, EBRARY, PubMed and LIBRIS. Results: Vowel and consonant formants are the most relevant acoustic parameters to reflect PD medication changes. Since relevant speech segments (consonants and vowels) contains minority of speech energy, intelligibility can be improved by amplifying the voice signal using amplitude compression. Pause detection and peak to average power rate calculations for voice segmentation produce rich voice features in real time. Enhancements in voice segmentation can be done by inducing Zero-Crossing rate (ZCR). Consonants have high ZCR whereas vowels have low ZCR. Wavelet transform is found promising for voice analysis since it quantizes non-stationary voice signals over time-series using scale and translation parameters. In this way voice intelligibility in the waveforms can be analyzed in each time frame. Conclusions: This review evaluated HKD recognition algorithms to develop a tool for PD speech home-assessment using modern mobile technology. An algorithm that tackles realtime constraints in HKD recognition based on the review synthesis is proposed. We suggest that speech features may be further processed using wavelet transforms and used with a neural network for detection and quantification of speech anomalies related to PD. Based on this model, patients' speech can be automatically categorized according to UPDRS speech ratings.

What aspects of rehabilitation provision contribute to self-reported met needs for rehabilitation one year after stroke - amount, place, operator or timing?

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: To a large extent, people who have suffered a stroke report unmet needs for rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to explore aspects of rehabilitation provision that potentially contribute to self-reported met needs for rehabilitation 12 months after stroke with consideration also to severity of stroke. METHODS: The participants (n = 173) received care at the stroke units at the Karolinska University Hospital, Sweden. Using a questionnaire, the dependent variable, self-reported met needs for rehabilitation, was collected at 12 months after stroke. The independent variables were four aspects of rehabilitation provision based on data retrieved from registers and structured according to four aspects: amount of rehabilitation, service level (day care rehabilitation, primary care rehabilitation and home-based rehabilitation), operator level (physiotherapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist) and time after stroke onset. Multivariate logistic regression analyses regarding the aspects of rehabilitation were performed for the participants who were divided into three groups based on stroke severity at onset. RESULTS: Participants with moderate/severe stroke who had seen a physiotherapist at least once during each of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd-4th quarters of the first year (OR 8.36, CI 1.40-49.88 P = 0.020) were more likely to report met rehabilitation needs. CONCLUSION: For people with moderate/severe stroke, continuity in rehabilitation (preferably physiotherapy) during the first year after stroke seems to be associated with self-reported met needs for rehabilitation.

Dialectal Speech in Literature and Translation : Bachelor Degree Thesis in English Linguistics

This essay studies how dialectal speech is reflected in written literature and how this phenomenon functions in translation. With this purpose in mind, Styron's Sophie's Choice and Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are analysed using samples of non-standard orthography which have been applied in order to reflect the dialect, or accent, of certain characters. In the same way, Lundgren's Swedish translation of Sophie's Choice and Ferres and Rolfe's Spanish version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are analysed. The method consists of linguistically analysing a few text samples from each novel, establishing how dialect is represented through non-standard orthography, and thereafter, comparing the same samples with their translation into another language in order to establish whether dialectal features are visible also in the translated novels. It is concluded that non-standard orthography is applied in the novels in order to represent each possible linguistic level, including pronunciation, morphosyntax, and vocabulary. Furthermore, it is concluded that while Lundgren's translation intends to orthographically represent dialectal speech on most occasions where the original does so, Ferres and Rolfe's translation pays no attention to dialectology. The discussion following the data analysis establishes some possible reasons for the exclusion of dialectal features in the Spanish translation considered here. Finally, the reason for which this study contributes to the study of dialectology is declared.

Children's recall of words spoken in their first and second language : Effects of Signal-to-Noise Ratio and Reverberation Time

Speech perception runs smoothly and automatically when there is silence in the background, but when the speech signal is degraded by background noise or by reverberation, effortful cognitive processing is needed to compensate for the signal distortion. Previous research has typically investigated the effects of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and reverberation time in isolation, whilst few have looked at their interaction. In this study, we probed how reverberation time and SNR influence recall of words presented in participants' first- (L1) and second-language (L2). A total of 72 children (10 years old) participated in this study. The to-be-recalled wordlists were played back with two different reverberation times (0.3 and 1.2 s) crossed with two different SNRs (+3 dBA and +12 dBA). Children recalled fewer words when the spoken words were presented in L2 in comparison with recall of spoken words presented in L1. Words that were presented with a high SNR (+12 dBA) improved recall compared to a low SNR (+3 dBA). Reverberation time interacted with SNR to the effect that at +12 dB the shorter reverberation time improved recall, but at +3 dB it impaired recall. The effects of the physical sound variables (SNR and reverberation time) did not interact with language. © 2016 Hurtig, Keus van de Poll, Pekkola, Hygge, Ljung and Sörqvist.