Towards a spatial language for mobile robots

We present a framework and first set of simulations for evolving a language for communicating about space. The framework comprises two components: (1) An established mobile robot platform, RatSLAM, which has a "brain" architecture based on rodent hippocampus with the ability to integrate visual and odometric cues to create internal maps of its environment. (2) A language learning system based on a neural network architecture that has been designed and implemented with the ability to evolve generalizable languages which can be learned by naive learners. A study using visual scenes and internal maps streamed from the simulated world of the robots to evolve languages is presented. This study investigated the structure of the evolved languages showing that with these inputs, expressive languages can effectively categorize the world. Ongoing studies are extending these investigations to evolve languages that use the full power of the robots representations in populations of agents.

Language change in socially structured populations

Language contact is a significant external social factor that impacts on the change in natural languages over time. In some circumstances this corresponds to language competition, in which individuals in a population choose one language over another based on their social interactions. We investigated the dynamics of language change in two initially separate populations of agents that were then mixed with levels of influence determined by the social classes of the two populations, with 16 different combinations tested. As expected, the study found that how the communities interact with each other impacts on the communal language developed. However, it was also found that the acquisition of new words was substantial even with limited interaction between populations and low levels of influence, and that comprehension could be well established across language groups even when production of words from the other language group was low.

Language and literacy in mathematics: stepping stones or stumbling blocks in accelerating junior-secondary students

The authors have collaborated in the development and initial evaluation of a curriculum for mathematics acceleration. This paper reports upon the difficulties encountered with documenting student understanding using pen-and-paper assessment tasks. This leads to a discussion of the impact of students’ language and literacy on mathematical performance and the consequences for motivation and engagement as a result of simplifying the language in the tests, and extending student work to algebraic representations. In turn, implications are drawn for revisions to assessment used within the project and the language and literacy focus included within student learning experiences.

Teaching persuasive texts : building a language of evaluation through hedging and moderated intensification

We identify two persuasive writing techniques – hedging and intensification – that pose difficulty for students in the middle years. We use examples of student writing from 3000 work samples collected as part of a larger Australian Research Council Linkage Project, URLearning (2009–2013). To realise the effective power of rhetorical persuasion, students need to be explicitly taught a range of hedging techniques to use to their advantage, and an expanded lexicon that does not rely on intensifiers. Practical teaching tips are provided for teachers.

Narrative and multimodality in English language arts curricula : a tale of two nations

In this policy column within this special edition on "The Arts in Language Arts", we critique the current place of multimodality and narratives in research and curriculum policy. This is a vital issue of significance for literacy educators, researchers, and policy makers because the narrative texts that circulate in our everyday lives are multimodal, tied to the ever-broadening range of narratives forms in digital sites of display. Here, we critically evaluate the place of multimodality and narratives in the language arts or English curriculum policies of two nations, the USA and Australia. In particular, we highlight the silence on multimodality within the Common Core State Standards, USA, and the contrasting centrality of multimodality in the National Curriculum: English, Australia.

“Well, hang on, they’re actually much better than that!” : disrupting dominant discourses of deficit about English language learners in senior high school English

This paper explores how four English teachers position their English language learners for critical literacy within senior high school curriculum in Queensland, Australia. Such learners are often positioned, even by their teachers, within a broader “deficit discourse” that claims they are inherently lacking the requisite knowledge and skills to engage with intransigent school curricula. As such, English language learners’ identity formation is often constrained by deficit views that can ultimately see limited kinds of literacy teaching offered to them. Using Fairclough’s (2003) critical discourse analysis method, analysis of 16 interviews with the teachers was conducted as part of a larger, critical instrumental case study in two state high schools during 2010. Five competing discourses were identified: deficit as lack; deficit as need; learner “difference” as a resource; conceptual capacity for critical literacy; and linguistic, cultural and conceptual difficulty with critical literacy. While a deficit view is present, counter-hegemonic discourses also exist in their talk. The combination of discourses challenges monolithic deficit views of English language learners, and opens up generative discursive territory to position English language learners in ways other than “problematic”. This has important implications for how teachers view and teach English language learners and their capacity for critical literacy work in senior high school classrooms.

Estimating second language productive vocabulary size: A Capture-Recapture approach

This study provides validity evidence for the Capture-Recapture (CR) method, borrowed from ecology, as a measure of second language (L2) productive vocabulary size (PVS). Two separate “captures” of productive vocabulary were taken using written word association tasks (WAT). At Time 1, 47 bilinguals provided at least 4 associates to each of 30 high-frequency stimulus words in English, their first language (L1), and in French, their L2. A few days later (Time 2), this procedure was repeated with a different set of stimulus words in each language. Since the WAT was used, both Lex30 and CR PVS scores were calculated in each language. Participants also completed an animacy judgment task assessing the speed and efficiency of lexical access. Results indicated that, in both languages, CR and Lex30 scores were significantly positively correlated (evidence of convergent validity). CR scores were also significantly larger in the L1, and correlated significantly with the speed of lexical access in the L2 (evidence of construct validity). These results point to the validity of the technique for estimating relative L2 PVS. However, CR scores are not a direct indication of absolute vocabulary size. A discussion of the method’s underlying assumptions and their implications for interpretation are provided.

Learning Chinese as a heritage language in Australia and beyond : the role of capital

The benefits of learning and retaining heritage languages are well documented in the literature. Chinese heritage language learners’ commitment to their heritage language learning has gained significant research ground in social psychological and post-structural schools, with empirical evidence predominantly emerging from the North American contexts. There is scant sociological examination of similar problems conducted outside North America. The current study aims to make a contribution in this regard. The use of Bourdieu's sociological notion of capital in the Australian context complements the social psychological and post-structural work predominantly produced in the North American contexts. The initial quantitative sub-study analyses the impacts of various resources on the Chinese heritage language proficiency of 230 snowball-sampled Chinese Australian respondents to an online survey. The subsequent qualitative sub-study explores the profits of learning Chinese heritage language through interviews with a subset of the survey sample. Findings indicate that cultural, social, and symbolic capital significantly positively contributes to Chinese Australians’ Chinese heritage language proficiency, which, in return, produces profits in different forms of capital. The study suggests a reciprocal relationship between ‘capital’ and Chinese heritage language proficiency.

A meta-analysis of the correlation between heritage language and ethnic identity

The interaction between heritage language (HL) and ethnic identity has gained increasing scholarly attention over the past decades. Numerous quantitative studies have investigated and vindicated this interaction within certain contexts. Nevertheless, quantitative evidence on this interaction across contexts is absent to date. The current meta-analysis aims to make a contribution in this regard. By integrating relevant studies, this meta-analysis presents a powerful estimation of the reality in relation to the interaction between HL and ethnic identity. By virtue of certain retrieval strategies and selection criteria, the meta-analysis includes 43 data-sets emerging from 18 studies that have addressed the statistical correlation between the proficiency of HL and the sense of ethnic identity associated with different ethnic groups. When contrasted to one another, the results of these included studies are significantly different. However, when combined together, these studies point to a statistically significant moderate positive correlation between sense of ethnic identity and proficiency of HL across different ethnic groups. This result has a medium effect. The meta-analysis also inspires some methodological and theoretical discussions.

Review of "English language education across Greater China"; edited by Anwei Feng

I formally learned English from Year Four until the completion of my undergraduate study in China. Because of this personal history, I was keen to review this book and revisit English education in China. The list of contributors to the book includes Anwei Feng (editor) and his colleagues, who play an insider role in English language practice, research, and policy-making in “Greater China”. Greater China according to Feng, can be defined as geographically close, demographically Chinese-dominated, and culturally, economically, and socio-politically interrelated countries and territories where Chinese is either the mother tongue or used as an official language.

Some comparison on whole-proteome phylogeny of large dsDNA viruses based on dynamical language approach and feature frequency profiles method

There has been a growing interest in alignment-free methods for phylogenetic analysis using complete genome data. Among them, CVTree method, feature frequency profiles method and dynamical language approach were used to investigate the whole-proteome phylogeny of large dsDNA viruses. Using the data set of large dsDNA viruses from Gao and Qi (BMC Evol. Biol. 2007), the phylogenetic results based on the CVTree method and the dynamical language approach were compared in Yu et al. (BMC Evol. Biol. 2010). In this paper, we first apply dynamical language approach to the data set of large dsDNA viruses from Wu et al. (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2009) and compare our phylogenetic results with those based on the feature frequency profiles method. Then we construct the whole-proteome phylogeny of the larger dataset combining the above two data sets. According to the report of The International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), the trees from our analyses are in good agreement to the latest classification of large dsDNA viruses.