Análisis de la Comunicación no Verbal en el discurso de Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. Un acercamiento a las nuevas estrategias de comunicación política en Colombia. Período 1944 - 1948

Esta investigación busca demostrar cómo las estrategias comunicativas no verbales, empleadas por Gaitán, influyeron de manera positiva en su discurso político. Así, el dominio consciente e inconsciente de elementos no verbales funciona estratégicamente para complementar su discurso.

Reinventar un héroe: narrativas sobre los soldados rasos de la Guerra de Corea

Esta investigación se pregunta sobre las diferentes narrativas históricas que se han construido sobre la figura de los soldados rasos de la guerra de Corea, y por cómo ellos han generado estrategias en su relato que se ajustan a unos procesos históricos determinados.

La pelota no se mancha: Un estudio histórico sobre el desarrollo y la política en FIFA

Esta investigación se centra en la Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) como organización política. Intenta responder dos interrogantes primordiales: 1) ¿cómo la FIFA ha constituido el poder que tiene actualmente y, así, hacerse del monopolio indiscutido del fútbol? Y 2) ¿cómo ha cambiado en el tiempo la política interna de FIFA y su vínculo con la política internacional? Para lograr esto, se realiza un estudio histórico, basado principalmente en documentos, que intenta caracterizar y analizar los cambios de la organización en el tiempo. Se enfatizan las últimas dos presidencias de FIFA, de João Havelange y Joseph Blatter, como casos de estudio.

Postcolonial language : rejection and subversion

Postcolonial literature is often depicted as a form of cultural translation, a privileged space from which to rewrite history and retroactively reflect upon the colonial experience. Based on this notion of cultural translation, the article seeks to examine, respectively, Aimé Césaire’s Une Tempête (1969) and J. M. Coetzee’s Foe (1986) as regards the “written-back” characters Caliban and Friday. Both characters will be compared and contrasted concerning their peculiar use of language as an instrument of power, subversion, and rejection of the European ruling.

Why language matters: insights and challenges in applying a social determination of health approach in a North-South collaborative research program

Focus on “social determinants of health” provides a welcome alternative to the bio-medical illness paradigm. However, the tendency to concentrate on the influence of “risk factors” related to living and working conditions of individuals, rather than to more broadly examine dynamics of the social processes that affect population health, has triggered critical reaction not only from the Global North but especially from voices the Global South where there is a long history of addressing questions of health equity. In this article, we elaborate on how focusing instead on the language of “social determination of health” has prompted us to attempt to apply a more equity-sensitive approaches to research and related policy and praxis.

Human language as a culturally transmitted replicator

Human languages form a distinct and largely independent class of cultural replicators with behaviour and fidelity that can rival that of genes. Parallels between biological and linguistic evolution mean that statistical methods inspired by phylogenetics and comparative biology are being increasingly applied to study language. Phylogenetic trees constructed from linguistic elements chart the history of human cultures, and comparative studies reveal surprising and general features of how languages evolve, including patterns in the rates of evolution of language elements and social factors that influence temporal trends of language evolution. For many comparative questions of anthropology and human behavioural ecology, historical processes estimated from linguistic phylogenies may be more relevant than those estimated from genes.

Frequency of word-use predicts rates of lexical evolution throughout Indo-European history

Greek speakers say "ovpa", Germans "schwanz'' and the French "queue'' to describe what English speakers call a 'tail', but all of these languages use a related form of 'two' to describe the number after one. Among more than 100 Indo-European languages and dialects, the words for some meanings (such as 'tail') evolve rapidly, being expressed across languages by dozens of unrelated words, while others evolve much more slowly-such as the number 'two', for which all Indo-European language speakers use the same related word-form(1). No general linguistic mechanism has been advanced to explain this striking variation in rates of lexical replacement among meanings. Here we use four large and divergent language corpora (English(2), Spanish(3), Russian(4) and Greek(5)) and a comparative database of 200 fundamental vocabulary meanings in 87 Indo-European languages(6) to show that the frequency with which these words are used in modern language predicts their rate of replacement over thousands of years of Indo-European language evolution. Across all 200 meanings, frequently used words evolve at slower rates and infrequently used words evolve more rapidly. This relationship holds separately and identically across parts of speech for each of the four language corpora, and accounts for approximately 50% of the variation in historical rates of lexical replacement. We propose that the frequency with which specific words are used in everyday language exerts a general and law-like influence on their rates of evolution. Our findings are consistent with social models of word change that emphasize the role of selection, and suggest that owing to the ways that humans use language, some words will evolve slowly and others rapidly across all languages.

Language, education and ethnicity: whose rights will prevail in an age of globalisation?

Education and ethnicity cannot be discussed without taking language into account. This paper will argue that any discussion of ethnic minorities cannot ignore the question of language, nor can any discussion of human rights ignore the question of language rights. Unfortunately, in today's globalised world, governments and minorities are faced with conflicting pressures: on the one hand, for the development and use of education in a global/international language; on the other for the use and development of mother tongue, local or indigenous languages in education. Language complexity and ethnic plurality were largely brought about as a result of the creation of nation-states, which were spread around the world as a result of European colonialism. European languages and formal education systems were used as a means of political and economic control. The legacy that was left by the colonial powers has complicated ethnic relations and has frequently led to conflict. While there is now greater recognition of the importance of language both for economic and educational development, as well as for human rights, the forces of globalisation are leading towards uniformity in the languages used, in culture and even in education. They are working against the development of language rights for smaller groups. We are witnessing a sharp decline in the number of languages spoken. Only those languages which are numerically, economically and politically strong are likely to survive. As a result many linguistic and ethnic groups are in danger of being further marginalised. This paper will illustrate this thesis both historically and from several contemporary societies, showing how certain policies have exacerbated ethnic conflict while others are seeking to promote harmony and reconciliation. Why this should be so will be explored. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

On the nature and cause of Specific Language Impairment: a view from sentence processing and infant research

This paper addresses the nature and cause of Specific Language Impairment (SLI) by reviewing recent research in sentence processing of children with SLI compared to typically developing (TD) children and research in infant speech perception. These studies have revealed that children with SLI are sensitive to syntactic, semantic, and real-world information, but do not show sensitivity to grammatical morphemes with low phonetic saliency, and they show longer reaction times than age-matched controls. TD children from the age of 4 show trace reactivation, but some children with SLI fail to show this effect, which resembles the pattern of adults and TD children with low working memory. Finally, findings from the German Language Development (GLAD) Project have revealed that a group of children at risk for SLI had a history of an auditory delay and impaired processing of prosodic information in the first months of their life, which is not detectable later in life. Although this is a single project that needs to be replicated with a larger group of children, it provides preliminary support for accounts of SLI which make an explicit link between an early deficit in the processing of phonology and later language deficits, and the Computational Complexity Hypothesis that argues that the language deficit in children with SLI lies in difficulties integrating different types of information at the interfaces.

Loss of language in early development of autism and specific language impairment

Background:  Several authors have highlighted areas of overlap in symptoms and impairment among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and children with specific language impairment (SLI). By contrast, loss of language and broadly defined regression have been reported as relatively specific to autism. We compare the incidence of language loss and language progression of children with autism and SLI. Methods:  We used two complementary studies: the Special Needs and Autism Project (SNAP) and the Manchester Language Study (MLS) involving children with SLI. This yielded a combined sample of 368 children (305 males and 63 females) assessed in late childhood for autism, history of language loss, epilepsy, language abilities and nonverbal IQ. Results:  language loss occurred in just 1% of children with SLI but in 15% of children classified as having autism or autism spectrum disorder. Loss was more common among children with autism rather than milder ASD and is much less frequently reported when language development is delayed. For children who lost language skills before their first phrases, the phrased speech milestone was postponed but long-term language skills were not significantly lower than children with autism but without loss. For the few who experienced language loss after acquiring phrased speech, subsequent cognitive performance is more uncertain. Conclusions:  Language loss is highly specific to ASD. The underlying developmental abnormality may be more prevalent than raw data might suggest, its possible presence being hidden for children whose language development is delayed.