O desenvolvimento de capacidades de linguagem para a formação de leitores em língua inglesa: uma análise dos Cadernos do ensino médio da rede pública de São Paulo

Pós-graduação em Estudos Linguísticos - IBILCE

A História segundo Xenofonte: Historiografia e usos do passado

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

A História segundo Xenofonte: Historiografia e usos do passado

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Complex networks analysis of language complexity

Methods from statistical physics, such as those involving complex networks, have been increasingly used in the quantitative analysis of linguistic phenomena. In this paper, we represented pieces of text with different levels of simplification in co-occurrence networks and found that topological regularity correlated negatively with textual complexity. Furthermore, in less complex texts the distance between concepts, represented as nodes, tended to decrease. The complex networks metrics were treated with multivariate pattern recognition techniques, which allowed us to distinguish between original texts and their simplified versions. For each original text, two simplified versions were generated manually with increasing number of simplification operations. As expected, distinction was easier for the strongly simplified versions, where the most relevant metrics were node strength, shortest paths and diversity. Also, the discrimination of complex texts was improved with higher hierarchical network metrics, thus pointing to the usefulness of considering wider contexts around the concepts. Though the accuracy rate in the distinction was not as high as in methods using deep linguistic knowledge, the complex network approach is still useful for a rapid screening of texts whenever assessing complexity is essential to guarantee accessibility to readers with limited reading ability. Copyright (c) EPLA, 2012

Literacy Practices in and out of School in Karagwe : the Case of Primary School Literacy in Rural Tanzania

This study has investigated the question of relation between literacy practices in and out of school in rural Tanzania. By using the perspective of linguistic anthropology, literacy practices in five villages in Karagwe district in the northwest of Tanzania have been analysed. The outcome may be used as a basis for educational planning and literacy programs. The analysis has revealed an intimate relation between language, literacy and power. In Karagwe, traditional élites have drawn on literacy to construct and reconstruct their authority, while new élites, such as individual women and some young people have been able to use literacy as one tool to get access to power. The study has also revealed a high level of bilingualism and a high emphasis on education in the area, which prove a potential for future education in the area. At the same time discontinuity in language use, mainly caused by stigmatisation of what is perceived as local and traditional, such as the mother-tongue of the majority of the children, and the high status accrued to all that is perceived as Western, has turned out to constitute a great obstacle for pupils’ learning. The use of ethnographic perspectives has enabled comparisons between interactional patterns in schools and outside school. This has revealed communicative patterns in school that hinder pupils’ learning, while the same patterns in other discourses reinforce learning. By using ethnography, relations between explicit and implicit language ideologies and their impact in educational contexts may be revealed. This knowledge may then be used to make educational plans and literacy programmes more relevant and efficient, not only in poor post-colonial settings such as Tanzania, but also elsewhere, such as in Western settings.

Teaching and learning discourse analysis: some ideas on the use of ICTs

[EN]ICTs have played a major role in transforming the way we teach and learn. The purpose of this paper is to present some ideas on how ICTs can be implemented in the teaching and learning of discourse analysis. ICTs offer valuable material to help explain key theoretical concepts of discourse analysis and to examine linguistic and social reality. A tweet, a video song, a speech, an advertisement or a hoax-mail may enhance students’ motivation and stimulate critical thinking.

Creazione e sviluppo di corpora multimediali. Nuove metodologie di ricerca nella traduzione audiovisiva

The construction and use of multimedia corpora has been advocated for a while in the literature as one of the expected future application fields of Corpus Linguistics. This research project represents a pioneering experience aimed at applying a data-driven methodology to the study of the field of AVT, similarly to what has been done in the last few decades in the macro-field of Translation Studies. This research was based on the experience of Forlixt 1, the Forlì Corpus of Screen Translation, developed at the University of Bologna’s Department of Interdisciplinary Studies in Translation, Languages and Culture. As a matter of fact, in order to quantify strategies of linguistic transfer of an AV product, we need to take into consideration not only the linguistic aspect of such a product but all the meaning-making resources deployed in the filmic text. Provided that one major benefit of Forlixt 1 is the combination of audiovisual and textual data, this corpus allows the user to access primary data for scientific investigation, and thus no longer rely on pre-processed material such as traditional annotated transcriptions. Based on this rationale, the first chapter of the thesis sets out to illustrate the state of the art of research in the disciplinary fields involved. The primary objective was to underline the main repercussions on multimedia texts resulting from the interaction of a double support, audio and video, and, accordingly, on procedures, means, and methods adopted in their translation. By drawing on previous research in semiotics and film studies, the relevant codes at work in visual and acoustic channels were outlined. Subsequently, we concentrated on the analysis of the verbal component and on the peculiar characteristics of filmic orality as opposed to spontaneous dialogic production. In the second part, an overview of the main AVT modalities was presented (dubbing, voice-over, interlinguistic and intra-linguistic subtitling, audio-description, etc.) in order to define the different technologies, processes and professional qualifications that this umbrella term presently includes. The second chapter focuses diachronically on various theories’ contribution to the application of Corpus Linguistics’ methods and tools to the field of Translation Studies (i.e. Descriptive Translation Studies, Polysystem Theory). In particular, we discussed how the use of corpora can favourably help reduce the gap existing between qualitative and quantitative approaches. Subsequently, we reviewed the tools traditionally employed by Corpus Linguistics in regard to the construction of traditional “written language” corpora, to assess whether and how they can be adapted to meet the needs of multimedia corpora. In particular, we reviewed existing speech and spoken corpora, as well as multimedia corpora specifically designed to investigate Translation. The third chapter reviews Forlixt 1's main developing steps, from a technical (IT design principles, data query functions) and methodological point of view, by laying down extensive scientific foundations for the annotation methods adopted, which presently encompass categories of pragmatic, sociolinguistic, linguacultural and semiotic nature. Finally, we described the main query tools (free search, guided search, advanced search and combined search) and the main intended uses of the database in a pedagogical perspective. The fourth chapter lists specific compilation criteria retained, as well as statistics of the two sub-corpora, by presenting data broken down by language pair (French-Italian and German-Italian) and genre (cinema’s comedies, television’s soapoperas and crime series). Next, we concentrated on the discussion of the results obtained from the analysis of summary tables reporting the frequency of categories applied to the French-Italian sub-corpus. The detailed observation of the distribution of categories identified in the original and dubbed corpus allowed us to empirically confirm some of the theories put forward in the literature and notably concerning the nature of the filmic text, the dubbing process and Italian dubbed language’s features. This was possible by looking into some of the most problematic aspects, like the rendering of socio-linguistic variation. The corpus equally allowed us to consider so far neglected aspects, such as pragmatic, prosodic, kinetic, facial, and semiotic elements, and their combination. At the end of this first exploration, some specific observations concerning possible macrotranslation trends were made for each type of sub-genre considered (cinematic and TV genre). On the grounds of this first quantitative investigation, the fifth chapter intended to further examine data, by applying ad hoc models of analysis. Given the virtually infinite number of combinations of categories adopted, and of the latter with searchable textual units, three possible qualitative and quantitative methods were designed, each of which was to concentrate on a particular translation dimension of the filmic text. The first one was the cultural dimension, which specifically focused on the rendering of selected cultural references and on the investigation of recurrent translation choices and strategies justified on the basis of the occurrence of specific clusters of categories. The second analysis was conducted on the linguistic dimension by exploring the occurrence of phrasal verbs in the Italian dubbed corpus and by ascertaining the influence on the adoption of related translation strategies of possible semiotic traits, such as gestures and facial expressions. Finally, the main aim of the third study was to verify whether, under which circumstances, and through which modality, graphic and iconic elements were translated into Italian from an original corpus of both German and French films. After having reviewed the main translation techniques at work, an exhaustive account of possible causes for their non-translation was equally provided. By way of conclusion, the discussion of results obtained from the distribution of annotation categories on the French-Italian corpus, as well as the application of specific models of analysis allowed us to underline possible advantages and drawbacks related to the adoption of a corpus-based approach to AVT studies. Even though possible updating and improvement were proposed in order to help solve some of the problems identified, it is argued that the added value of Forlixt 1 lies ultimately in having created a valuable instrument, allowing to carry out empirically-sound contrastive studies that may be usefully replicated on different language pairs and several types of multimedia texts. Furthermore, multimedia corpora can also play a crucial role in L2 and translation teaching, two disciplines in which their use still lacks systematic investigation.

Come tradurre il metadiscorso letterario. Esempi di scrittura femminile nell'Ottocento austriaco

L’argomento affrontato nel presente lavoro di tesi dal titolo “Come tradurre il metadiscorso letterario. Esempi di scrittura femminile nell’Ottocento austriaco” è la versione interlinguistica di testi saggistici afferenti all’ambito del metadiscorso letterario. Nello specifico, non vengono analizzati testi di critica e/o metodologia ma scritti funzionali, di forte carattere pragmatico, che pur tuttavia rientrano tra le testimonianze di alta caratura letteraria, perché dovuti ad autrici che hanno fatto dell’espressione estetica la propria finalità primaria. I materiali scelti per l’analisi linguistico-testuale, compresi in un arco temporale tra la fine del Settecento e la metà dell’Ottocento, sono realizzati da donne che hanno operato in ambito teatrale facendo dell’attività di scrittura lo strumento della propria emancipazione intellettuale ed economica. La necessità di trovare una via alla pubblicazione le ha indotte a strategie di scrittura connotate da particolari stilemi e artifici retorici atti a favorire l’accettazione e la diffusione delle proposte editoriali di cui questi “paratesti” costituivano il momento giustificante. Il “lavoro di penna” è un’esperienza che viene ad assumere molteplici contorni, non privi di ricadute al momento della scelta delle strategie traduttive. Dal punto di vista formale, le testimonianze si collocano in una zona di modalità espressiva contigua alla testimonianza autobiografica. Il periodo storico e l’area di provenienza delle autrici hanno reso necessario un approccio capace di incrociare il piano diacronico con la dimensione diatopica, rendendo conto delle componenti diamesiche di una scrittura che nasce dal teatro per il teatro e ad esso e ai suoi frequentatori deve rapportarsi. Il modello traduttologico applicato ricava le sue linee fondamentali dalle riflessioni della linguistica testuale e dall’approccio integrato/multidisciplinare della “prototipologia dinamica”.

Linguistica Cognitiva e analisi retorica: indicazioni per un percorso sulla metafora nella didattica della lingua.

La tesi sviluppa le proposte teoriche della Linguistica Cognitiva a proposito della metafora e propone una loro possibile applicazione in ambito didattico. La linguistica cognitiva costituisce la cornice interpretativa della ricerca, a partire dai suoi concetti principali: la prospettiva integrata, l’embodiment, la centralità della semantica, l’attenzione per la psicolinguistica e le neuroscienze. All’interno di questo panorama, prende vigore un’idea di metafora come punto d’incontro tra lingua e pensiero, come criterio organizzatore delle conoscenze, strumento conoscitivo fondamentale nei processi di apprendimento. A livello didattico, la metafora si rivela imprescindibile sia come strumento operativo che come oggetto di riflessione. L’approccio cognitivista può fornire utili indicazioni su come impostare un percorso didattico sulla metafora. Nel presente lavoro, si indaga in particolare l’uso didattico di stimoli non verbali nel rafforzamento delle competenze metaforiche di studenti di scuola media. Si è scelto come materiale di partenza la pubblicità, per due motivi: il diffuso impiego di strategie retoriche in ambito pubblicitario e la specificità comunicativa del genere, che permette una chiara disambiguazione di fenomeni che, in altri contesti, non potrebbero essere analizzati con la stessa univocità. Si presenta dunque un laboratorio finalizzato al miglioramento della competenza metaforica degli studenti che si avvale di due strategie complementari: da una parte, una spiegazione ispirata ai modelli cognitivisti, sia nella terminologia impiegata che nella modalità di analisi (di tipo usage-based); dall’altra un training con metafore visive in pubblicità, che comprende una fase di analisi e una fase di produzione. È stato usato un test, suddiviso in compiti specifici, per oggettivare il più possibile i progressi degli studenti alla fine del training, ma anche per rilevare le difficoltà e i punti di forza nell’analisi rispetto sia ai contesti d’uso (letterario e convenzionale) sia alle forme linguistiche assunte dalla metafora (nominale, verbale, aggettivale).

Design, development and first evaluation of a client/server system for managing and querying linguistic corpora

This thesis is concerned with the role played by software tools in the analysis and dissemination of linguistic corpora and their contribution to a more widespread adoption of corpora in different fields. Chapter 1 contains an overview of some of the most relevant corpus analysis tools available today, presenting their most interesting features and some of their drawbacks. Chapter 2 begins with an explanation of the reasons why none of the available tools appear to satisfy the requirements of the user community and then continues with technical overview of the current status of the new system developed as part of this work. This presentation is followed by highlights of features that make the system appealing to users and corpus builders (i.e. scholars willing to make their corpora available to the public). The chapter concludes with an indication of future directions for the projects and information on the current availability of the software. Chapter 3 describes the design of an experiment devised to evaluate the usability of the new system in comparison to another corpus tool. Usage of the tool was tested in the context of a documentation task performed on a real assignment during a translation class in a master's degree course. In chapter 4 the findings of the experiment are presented on two levels of analysis: firstly a discussion on how participants interacted with and evaluated the two corpus tools in terms of interface and interaction design, usability and perceived ease of use. Then an analysis follows of how users interacted with corpora to complete the task and what kind of queries they submitted. Finally, some general conclusions are drawn and areas for future work are outlined.

Comparing genetic and linguistic diversity in African populations with a focus on the Khoisan of southern Africa

The interaction between disciplines in the study of human population history is of primary importance, profiting from the biological and cultural characteristics of humankind. In fact, data from genetics, linguistics, archaeology and cultural anthropology can be combined to allow for a broader research perspective. This multidisciplinary approach is here applied to the study of the prehistory of sub-Saharan African populations: in this continent, where Homo sapiens originally started his evolution and diversification, the understanding of the patterns of human variation has a crucial relevance. For this dissertation, molecular data is interpreted and complemented with a major contribution from linguistics: linguistic data are compared to the genetic data and the research questions are contextualized within a linguistic perspective. In the four articles proposed, we analyze Y chromosome SNPs and STRs profiles and full mtDNA genomes on a representative number of samples to investigate key questions of African human variability. Some of these questions address i) the amount of genetic variation on a continental scale and the effects of the widespread migration of Bantu speakers, ii) the extent of ancient population structure, which has been lost in present day populations, iii) the colonization of the southern edge of the continent together with the degree of population contact/replacement, and iv) the prehistory of the diverse Khoisan ethnolinguistic groups, who were traditionally understudied despite representing one of the most ancient divergences of modern human phylogeny. Our results uncover a deep level of genetic structure within the continent and a multilayered pattern of contact between populations. These case studies represent a valuable contribution to the debate on our prehistory and open up further research threads.

Il ruolo della metafora nella comunicazione della fisica contemporanea

Il presente lavoro si rivolge all’analisi del ruolo delle forme metaforiche nella divulgazione della fisica contemporanea. Il focus è sugli aspetti cognitivi: come possiamo spiegare concetti fisici formalmente complessi ad un audience di non-esperti senza ‘snaturarne’ i significati disciplinari (comunicazione di ‘buona fisica’)? L’attenzione è sulla natura stessa della spiegazione e il problema riguarda la valutazione dell’efficacia della spiegazione scientifica a non-professionisti. Per affrontare tale questione, ci siamo orientati alla ricerca di strumenti formali che potessero supportarci nell’analisi linguistica dei testi. La nostra attenzione si è rivolta al possibile ruolo svolto dalle forme metaforiche nella costruzione di significati disciplinarmente validi. Si fa in particolare riferimento al ruolo svolto dalla metafora nella comprensione di nuovi significati a partire da quelli noti, aspetto fondamentale nel caso dei fenomeni di fisica contemporanea che sono lontani dalla sfera percettiva ordinaria. In particolare, è apparsa particolarmente promettente come strumento di analisi la prospettiva della teoria della metafora concettuale. Abbiamo allora affrontato il problema di ricerca analizzando diverse forme metaforiche di particolare rilievo prese da testi di divulgazione di fisica contemporanea. Nella tesi viene in particolare discussa l’analisi di un case-study dal punto di vista della metafora concettuale: una analogia di Schrödinger per la particella elementare. I risultati dell’analisi suggeriscono che la metafora concettuale possa rappresentare uno strumento promettente sia per la valutazione della qualità delle forme analogiche e metaforiche utilizzate nella spiegazione di argomenti di fisica contemporanea che per la creazione di nuove e più efficaci metafore. Inoltre questa prospettiva di analisi sembra fornirci uno strumento per caratterizzare il concetto stesso di ‘buona fisica’. Riteniamo infine che possano emergere altri risultati di ricerca interessanti approfondendo l’approccio interdisciplinare tra la linguistica e la fisica.

Automatic induction of lexical features

This thesis concerns artificially intelligent natural language processing systems that are capable of learning the properties of lexical items (properties like verbal valency or inflectional class membership) autonomously while they are fulfilling their tasks for which they have been deployed in the first place. Many of these tasks require a deep analysis of language input, which can be characterized as a mapping of utterances in a given input C to a set S of linguistically motivated structures with the help of linguistic information encoded in a grammar G and a lexicon L: G + L + C → S (1) The idea that underlies intelligent lexical acquisition systems is to modify this schematic formula in such a way that the system is able to exploit the information encoded in S to create a new, improved version of the lexicon: G + L + S → L' (2) Moreover, the thesis claims that a system can only be considered intelligent if it does not just make maximum usage of the learning opportunities in C, but if it is also able to revise falsely acquired lexical knowledge. So, one of the central elements in this work is the formulation of a couple of criteria for intelligent lexical acquisition systems subsumed under one paradigm: the Learn-Alpha design rule. The thesis describes the design and quality of a prototype for such a system, whose acquisition components have been developed from scratch and built on top of one of the state-of-the-art Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) processing systems. The quality of this prototype is investigated in a series of experiments, in which the system is fed with extracts of a large English corpus. While the idea of using machine-readable language input to automatically acquire lexical knowledge is not new, we are not aware of a system that fulfills Learn-Alpha and is able to deal with large corpora. To instance four major challenges of constructing such a system, it should be mentioned that a) the high number of possible structural descriptions caused by highly underspeci ed lexical entries demands for a parser with a very effective ambiguity management system, b) the automatic construction of concise lexical entries out of a bulk of observed lexical facts requires a special technique of data alignment, c) the reliability of these entries depends on the system's decision on whether it has seen 'enough' input and d) general properties of language might render some lexical features indeterminable if the system tries to acquire them with a too high precision. The cornerstone of this dissertation is the motivation and development of a general theory of automatic lexical acquisition that is applicable to every language and independent of any particular theory of grammar or lexicon. This work is divided into five chapters. The introductory chapter first contrasts three different and mutually incompatible approaches to (artificial) lexical acquisition: cue-based queries, head-lexicalized probabilistic context free grammars and learning by unification. Then the postulation of the Learn-Alpha design rule is presented. The second chapter outlines the theory that underlies Learn-Alpha and exposes all the related notions and concepts required for a proper understanding of artificial lexical acquisition. Chapter 3 develops the prototyped acquisition method, called ANALYZE-LEARN-REDUCE, a framework which implements Learn-Alpha. The fourth chapter presents the design and results of a bootstrapping experiment conducted on this prototype: lexeme detection, learning of verbal valency, categorization into nominal count/mass classes, selection of prepositions and sentential complements, among others. The thesis concludes with a review of the conclusions and motivation for further improvements as well as proposals for future research on the automatic induction of lexical features.

Ricerche sull'allungamento di compenso in greco antico. Fonetica, fonologia, dialettologia.

La mia tesi offre uno studio sistematico di tutti i cambiamenti fonetici classificabili come 'Allungamento di Compenso' (AC) nella storia del greco antico. L'importanza di tali allungamenti vocalici nella fonologia storica e nella dialettologia del greco è, naturalmente, ben nota, ma diversi sviluppi individuali sono ancora discussi o poco chiari. Particolare attenzione è stata riservata all'odierno dibattito sull'AC nell'àmbito della fonologia teorica, e ad applicare correttamente i principi della linguistica generale ai fatti greci. Per ciascuna istanza di AC in greco, ho cercato di proporre una soluzione che sia coerente tanto con altri sviluppi noti del greco, sia con le tendenze attestate interlinguisticamente. Il greco risulta confermare la recente visione secondo cui non c'è un'unica regola o meccanismo responsabile dell'AC, ma esistono diverse tipologie, che in parte operano direttamente a livello della struttura fonologica astratta, in parte risultano dalla fonologizzazione di cambiamenti graduali e foneticamente condizionati. Entrambi i tipi risultano ben rappresentati in greco. Tuttavia, una tipologia di AC che è stata spesso postulata per il greco (l'AC da degeminazione) non è mai esistita in questa lingua. L'ultima parte di questo studio è dedicata a quattro casi separati di apparenti irregolarità nella distribuzione dell'AC o nel timbro della vocale lunga risultante. Dopo un'analisi filologica ed etimologica di tutto il materiale rilevante, si propongono delle spiegazioni per queste irregolarità.

Altersabhängige Besonderheiten in der Entwicklung des Bedeutungsfeldes der binären Opposition von „Möglichkeit“ vs. „Unmöglichkeit“

Die vorliegende Arbeit zum kindlichen Erwerb der binären Opposition von „Möglichkeit“ und „Unmöglichkeit“ und ihrer modalen Ausdrucksweisen im Russischen ist in ihrem praktischen Teil eine Einzelfall- und Langzeitstudie, die eine Ergänzung zu den bisher veröffentlichten, durchgehend eher experimentell und statistisch orientierten Forschungsarbeiten darstellen soll.rnÜber dreieinhalb Jahre hinweg wurde kontinuierlich Sprachmaterial eines Kindes sowie einiger ungefährer Altersgenossen und Spielkameraden aufgezeichnet, geordnet und ausgewertet. Zu Beginn des Untersuchungszeitraums war die Hauptprobandin dreieinhalb Jahre alt, zum Schluß sieben Jahre. Dieses Verfahren wurde bisher für das Russische noch nicht angewandt und wird im theoretischen Teil sorgfältig begründet.rnDas Sammeln für die Fragestellung relevanten sprachlichen Materials erfordert naturgemäß einen hohen Zeit- und Arbeitsaufwand, liefert dafür aber Daten, die eine Beeinflussung durch einen vorgegebenen Versuchsaufbau ausschließen, der natürlichen, spontanen Kommunikation entspringende Äußerungen festhalten und es ermöglichen, unprovozierte Interaktion, situationsbedingte Einflüsse, das Diskursverhalten der Probanden und ähnliche, individuelle Faktoren bei der Interpretation des Sprachmaterials in angemessener Weise zu berücksichtigen.rnUm die Fülle modaler Ausdrucksweisen sinnvoll zu strukturieren, konzentriert sich die Analyse auf die kindliche Verwendung von Modalverben und Prädikative als zentrale Mittel innerhalb des „Möglichkeitsfeldes“ und richtet den Fokus dabei auf das Verb moč’. Aus diesem Grunde wurde das theoretische Fundament, das der Arbeit zugrunde liegt, zu einem nicht geringen Teil aus dem Ansatz I.V. Šatunovskijs entwickelt, der die differenzierteste Analyse der zahlreichen Bedeutungsschattierungen des Verbs moč’ vorgelegt hat. Für besonders bedeutungsvoll für die vorliegende Arbeit erweist sich die Unterscheidung von kontrollierbarer und unkontrollierbarer Möglichkeit.rnIm Rahmen der Untersuchung ließen sich die grundlegenden Entwicklungstendenzen verfolgen. Dabei wurde nicht nur versucht nachzuvollziehen, in welcher Weise sich bei einem Kind das Fundament des Sprachgebrauchs in Gestalt eines allgemeinen „Zitatenschatzes“ formiert, sondern es gelang mitunter sogar, erste Fälle der Verwendung des einen oder anderen kommunikativen Fragments mit der Bedeutung von „Möglichkeit“ / „Unmöglichkeit“ oder erste Fälle der Konfrontation des Kindes mit einer neuen Situation, die eine solche Bedeutung verlangte, und sein Sprachverhalten in diesem Moment zu fixieren.