Law in a Linguistic Battlefield: The Language of the New State Versus the ‘Language of the Oppressors’ in Ukraine

Article 10 of the 1996 Ukrainian Constitution proclaims that “The state language of Ukraine shall be the Ukrainian language” but continues: “Free development, use, and protection of Russian and other languages of national minorities of Ukraine shall be guaranteed in Ukraine.” Consolidating the position of the state language was at the centre of the "Orange Revolution", but President Yanukovich, elected in February 2010, has committed himself to a defence of the Russian language, as a regional language of Ukraine, and the battle is on to replace the Law on Languages of the Ukrainian SSR of 1989, which is still in force. Ukraine has ratified the Council of Europe’s European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. This article reflects on the relation between language and law, and endeavours to bring clarity to a situation which at times resembles an overheated kettle about to explode.

Development of Values after Compulsory School: Work comes first, then family

During school-to-work transition, adolescents develop values and prioritize what is im-portant in their life. Values are concepts or beliefs about desirable states or behaviors that guide the selection or evaluation of behavior and events, and are ordered by their relative importance (Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987). Stressing the important role of values, career re-search has intensively studied the effect of values on educational decisions and early career development (e.g. Eccles, 2005; Hirschi, 2010; Rimann, Udris, & Weiss, 2000). Few re-searchers, however, have investigated so far how values develop in the early career phase and how value trajectories are influenced by individual characteristics. Values can be oriented towards specific life domains, such as work or family. Work values include intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of work (e.g., self-development, cooperation with others, income) (George & Jones, 1997). Family values include the importance of partner-ship, the creation of an own family and having children (Mayer, Kuramschew, & Trommsdroff, 2009). Research indicates that work values change considerably during early career development (Johnson, 2001; Lindsay & Knox, 1984). Individual differences in work values and value trajectories are found e.g., in relation to gender (Duffy & Sedlacek, 2007), parental background (Loughlin & Barling, 2001), personality (Lowry et al., 2012), educa-tion (Battle, 2003), and the anticipated timing of school-to-work transition (Porfeli, 2007). In contrast to work values, research on family value trajectories is rare and knowledge about the development during the school-to-work transition and early career development is lack-ing. This paper aims at filling this research gap. Focusing on family values and intrinsic work values and we expect a) family and work val-ues to change between ages 16 and 25, and b) that initial levels of family and work values as well as value change to be predicted by gender, reading literacy, ambition, and expected du-ration of education. Method. Using data from 2620 young adults (59.5% females), who participated in the Swiss longitudinal study TREE, latent growth modeling was employed to estimate the initial level and growth rate per year for work and family values. Analyses are based on TREE-waves 1 (year 2001, first year after compulsory school) to 8 (year 2010). Variables in the models included family values and intrinsic work values, gender, reading literacy, ambition and ex-pected duration of education. Language region was included as control variable. Results. Family values did not change significantly over the first four years after leaving compulsory school (mean slope = -.03, p =.36). They increased, however, significantly five years after compulsory school (mean slope = .13, p >.001). Intercept (.23, p < .001), first slope (.02, p < .001), and second slope (.01, p < .001) showed significant variance. Initial levels were higher for men and those with higher ambitions. Increases were found to be steeper for males as well as for participants with lower educational duration expectations and reading skills. Intrinsic work values increased over the first four years (mean slope =.03, p <.05) and showed a tendency to decrease in the years five to ten (mean slope = -.01, p < .10). Intercept (.21, p < .001), first slope (.01, p < .001), and second slope (.01, p < .001) showed signifi-cant variance, meaning that there are individual differences in initial levels and growth rates. Initial levels were higher for females, and those with higher ambitions, expecting longer educational pathways, and having lower reading skills. Growth rates were lower for the first phase and steeper for the second phase for males compared to females. Discussion. In general, results showed different patterns of work and family value trajecto-ries, and different individual factors related to initial levels and development after compul-sory school. Developments seem to fit to major life and career roles: in the first years after compulsory school young adults may be engaged to become established in one's job; later on, raising a family becomes more important. That we found significant gender differences in work and family trajectories may reflect attempts to overcome traditional roles, as over-all, women increase in work values and men increase in family values, resulting in an over-all trend to converge.

Language and executive functioning: Children’s benefit from induced verbal strategies in different tasks

The interplay of language and cognition in children’s development has been subject to research for a long time. The present study followed up on recently reported deleterious effects of articulatory suppression on children’s executive functioning (Fatzer & Roebers, 2012), aiming to provide more empirical evidence on the differential influence of language on executive functioning. In the present study, verbal strategies were induced in three executive functioning tasks. The tasks were linked to the three central executive functioning dimensions of updating (Complex Span task), shifting (Cognitive Flexibility task) and inhibition (Flanker task). It was expected that the effects of the verbal strategy instruction would counter the results of articulatory suppression and thus be strong in the Complex Span task, weak but present in the Cognitive Flexibility task and small or nonexistent in the Flanker task. N = 117 children participated in the study, with n = 39 four-year-olds, n = 38 six-year-olds, and n = 40 nine-year-olds. As expected, results revealed a benefit from induced verbal strategies in the Complex Span and the Cognitive Flexibility task, but not in the Flanker task. The positive effect of strategy instruction declined with increasing age, pointing to more frequent spontaneous and self-initiated use of verbal strategies over the course of development. The effect of strategy instruction in the Cognitive Flexibility task was unexpectedly strong in the light of the only small detrimental effect of articulatory suppression in the preceding study. Implications for language’s involvement in the different executive functioning dimensions and for practice are discussed.

Chipping Away at the Monolith: Dispelling the Myth of Father Noninvolvement in Children's Early Literacy Development

Current research stresses the importance of parent involvement in their children 's academic development. Parents reading and writing with their young children is shown to prepare them for the benefits of for ma I education. Studies completed on parent participation in early literacy activities have tended to look at mothers ' role. Few researchers have investigated the contributions fathers have made. The results of a study completed on father-child early literacy practices are presented. Fathers reported engaging in reading and writing activities with their children for three reasons: To prepare their children for school, to bond with their children, and to assist their children in language skill development. Recommendations are provided on how to encourage fathers to participate in early literacy practices

Simulating Cortical Development as a Self Constructing Process: A Novel Multi-Scale Approach Combining Molecular and Physical Aspects

Current models of embryological development focus on intracellular processes such as gene expression and protein networks, rather than on the complex relationship between subcellular processes and the collective cellular organization these processes support. We have explored this collective behavior in the context of neocortical development, by modeling the expansion of a small number of progenitor cells into a laminated cortex with layer and cell type specific projections. The developmental process is steered by a formal language analogous to genomic instructions, and takes place in a physically realistic three-dimensional environment. A common genome inserted into individual cells control their individual behaviors, and thereby gives rise to collective developmental sequences in a biologically plausible manner. The simulation begins with a single progenitor cell containing the artificial genome. This progenitor then gives rise through a lineage of offspring to distinct populations of neuronal precursors that migrate to form the cortical laminae. The precursors differentiate by extending dendrites and axons, which reproduce the experimentally determined branching patterns of a number of different neuronal cell types observed in the cat visual cortex. This result is the first comprehensive demonstration of the principles of self-construction whereby the cortical architecture develops. In addition, our model makes several testable predictions concerning cell migration and branching mechanisms.

Language ideologies: the formation and legitimisation of New Zealand English

New Zealand English first emerged at the beginning of the 19th century as a result of the dialect contact of British (51%), Scottish (27.3%) and Irish (22%) migrants (Hay and Gordon 2008:6). This variety has subsequently developed into an autonomous and legitimised national variety and enjoys a distinct socio-political status, recognition and codification. In fact, a number of dictionaries of New Zealand English have been published1 and the variety is routinely used as the official medium on TV, radio and other media. This however, has not always been the case, as for long only British standard norms were deemed suitable for media broadcasting. While there is some work already on lay commentary about New Zealand English (see for example Gordon 1983, 1994; Hundt 1998), there is much more to be done especially concerning more recent periods of the history of this variety and the ideologies underlying its development and legitimisation. Consequently, the current project aims at investigating the metalinguistic discourses during the period of transition from a British norm to a New Zealand norm in the media context, this will be done by focusing on debates about language in light of the advent of radio and television. The main purpose of this investigation is thus to examine the (language) ideologies that have shaped and underlain these discourses (e.g. discussions about the appropriateness of New Zealand English vis à vis external, British models of language) and their related practices in these media (e.g. broadcasting norms). The sociolinguistic and pragmatic effects of these ideologies will also be taken into account. Furthermore, a comparison will be carried out, at a later stage in the project, between New Zealand English and a more problematic and less legitimised variety: Estuary English. Despite plenty of evidence of media and other public discourses on Estuary English, in fact, there has been very little metalinguistic analysis of this evidence, nor examinations of the underlying ideologies in these discourses. The comparison will seek to discover whether similar themes emerge in the ideologies played out in publish discourses about these varieties, themes which serve to legitimise one variety, whilst denying such legitimacy to the other.

Contact, Mobility and Authenticity: Language Ideologies in Koineisation

New Zealand English first emerged at the beginning of the 19th century as a result of the dialect contact of British (51%), Scottish (27.3%) and Irish (22%) migrants (Hay and Gordon 2008:6). This variety has subsequently developed into an autonomous and legitimised national variety and enjoys a distinct socio-political status, recognition and codification. In fact, a number of dictionaries of New Zealand English have been published1 and the variety is routinely used as the official medium on TV, radio and other media. This however, has not always been the case, as for long only British standard norms were deemed suitable for media broadcasting. While there is some work already on lay commentary about New Zealand English (see for example Gordon 1983, 1994; Hundt 1998), there is much more to be done especially concerning more recent periods of the history of this variety and the ideologies underlying its development and legitimisation. Consequently, the current project aims at investigating the metalinguistic discourses during the period of transition from a British norm to a New Zealand norm in the media context, this will be done by focusing on debates about language in light of the advent of radio and television. The main purpose of this investigation is thus to examine the (language) ideologies that have shaped and underlain these discourses (e.g. discussions about the appropriateness of New Zealand English vis à vis external, British models of language) and their related practices in these media (e.g. broadcasting norms). The sociolinguistic and pragmatic effects of these ideologies will also be taken into account. Furthermore, a comparison will be carried out, at a later stage in the project, between New Zealand English and a more problematic and less legitimised variety: Estuary English. Despite plenty of evidence of media and other public discourses on Estuary English, in fact, there has been very little metalinguistic analysis of this evidence, nor examinations of the underlying ideologies in these discourses. The comparison will seek to discover whether similar themes emerge in the ideologies played out in publish discourses about these varieties, themes which serve to legitimise one variety, whilst denying such legitimacy to the other.

Pangea: A Workbench for Statically Analyzing Multi-Language Software Corpora

Software corpora facilitate reproducibility of analyses, however, static analysis for an entire corpus still requires considerable effort, often duplicated unnecessarily by multiple users. Moreover, most corpora are designed for single languages increasing the effort for cross-language analysis. To address these aspects we propose Pangea, an infrastructure allowing fast development of static analyses on multi-language corpora. Pangea uses language-independent meta-models stored as object model snapshots that can be directly loaded into memory and queried without any parsing overhead. To reduce the effort of performing static analyses, Pangea provides out-of-the box support for: creating and refining analyses in a dedicated environment, deploying an analysis on an entire corpus, using a runner that supports parallel execution, and exporting results in various formats. In this tool demonstration we introduce Pangea and provide several usage scenarios that illustrate how it reduces the cost of analysis.

Universal ontology: attentive tracking of objects and substances across languages and over development

Previous research has demonstrated that adults are successful at visually tracking rigidly moving items, but experience great difficulties when tracking substance-like ‘‘pouring’’ items. Using a comparative approach, we investigated whether the presence/absence of the grammatical count–mass distinction influences adults and children’s ability to attentively track objects versus substances. More specifically, we aimed to explore whether the higher success at tracking rigid over substance-like items appears universally or whether speakers of classifier languages (like Japanese, not marking the object–substance distinction) are advantaged at tracking substances as compared to speakers of non-classifier languages (like Swiss German, marking the object–substance distinction). Our results supported the idea that language has no effect on low-level cognitive processes such as the attentive visual processing of objects and substances. We concluded arguing that the tendency to prioritize objects is universal and independent of specific characteristics of the language spoken.

Development of meta-representations: Procedural metacognition and the relationship to Theory of Mind

In several studies it was shown that metacognitive ability is crucial for children and their success in school. Much less is known about the emergence of that ability and its relationship to other meta-representations like Theory of Mind competencies. In the past years, a growing literature has suggested that metacognition and Theory of Mind could theoretically be assumed to belong to the same developmental concept. Since then only a few studies showed empirically evidence that metacognition and Theory of Mind are related. But these studies focused on declarative metacognitive knowledge rather than on procedural metacognitive monitoring like in the present study: N = 159 children were first tested shortly before making the transition to school (aged between 5 1/2 and 7 1/2 years) and one year later at the end of their first grade. Analyses suggest that there is in fact a significant relation between early metacognitive monitoring skills (procedural metacognition) and later Theory of Mind competencies. Notably, language seems to play a crucial role in this relationship. Thus our results bring new insights in the research field of the development of meta-representation and support the view that metacognition and Theory of Mind are indeed interrelated, but the precise mechanisms yet remain unclear.

Irrigation development in Eritrea: potentials and constraints: Proceedings of the workshop of AEAS and SLM Programme Eritrea

Development of irrigation, which is of crucial importance in Eritrea, is perceived by many as the main technique for improving the precarious food security situation in this Sahelian country in the Horn of Africa. The present publication presents the outcome of a nationwide workshop held in 2003, which brought together administrators, scientists, and members of public development agencies and NGOs. These workshop participants presented experiences, lessons learnt, and ideas about how to move forward in relation to development of irrigation in Eritrea. Specifically, the publication deals with the following broad themes, lessons learnt, and experiences in Eritrea: · spate irrigation systems and measurement of performance, as well as experience with modernisation of spate irrigation systems in Eritrea · small-scale irrigation systems and their potentials and pitfalls, including development of low-cost micro irrigation · climate and irrigation, including rainfall forecasts · socio-economic aspects of irrigation, including gender questions, institutional requirements, and irrigation and livelihoods The publication contains an extensive summary in the Tigrinya language, in order to facilitate access to the key findings by local non-English-speaking stakeholders in irrigation development.

Development and Evaluation of a New Tablet Computer Application for the Therapy of Brain-Injured Patients with Aphasia

Introduction Language is the most important mean of communication and plays a central role in our everyday life. Brain damage (e.g. stroke) can lead to acquired disorders of lan- guage affecting the four linguistic modalities (i.e. reading, writing, speech production and comprehension) in different combinations and levels of severity. Every year, more than 5000 people (Aphasie Suisse) are affected by aphasia in Switzerland alone. Since aphasia is highly individual, the level of difficulty and the content of tasks have to be adapted continuously by the speech therapists. Computer-based assignments allow patients to train independently at home and thus increasing the frequency of ther- apy. Recent developments in tablet computers have opened new opportunities to use these devices for rehabilitation purposes. Especially older people, who have no prior experience with computers, can benefit from the new technologies. Methods The aim of this project was to develop an application that enables patients to train language related tasks autonomously and, on the other hand, allows speech therapists to assign exercises to the patients and to track their results online. Seven categories with various types of assignments were implemented. The application has two parts which are separated by a user management system into a patient interface and a therapist interface. Both interfaces were evaluated using the SUS (Subject Usability Scale). The patient interface was tested by 15 healthy controls and 5 patients. For the patients, we also collected tracking data for further analysis. The therapist interface was evaluated by 5 speech therapists. Results The SUS score are xpatients = 98 and xhealthy = 92.7 (median = 95, SD = 7, 95% CI [88.8, 96.6]) in case of the patient interface and xtherapists = 68 in case of the therapist interface. Conclusion Both, the patients and the healthy subjects, attested high SUS scores to the patient interface. These scores are considered as "best imaginable". The therapist interface got a lower SUS score compared to the patient interface, but is still considered as "good" and "usable". The user tracking system and the interviews revealed that there is room for improvements and inspired new ideas for future versions.

Prometheus on Mars: Nineteenth-Century Science Fiction and the Language of Romanticism

The development of astrophysics in the nineteenth century drew mankind closer to the planets. For the first time, it was possible to give serious scientific consideration to the possibilities for life on other planets. The greatest leap, however, was in recognizing what was not known, and acknowledging the limits of human intuition. ‘Ideas,’ wrote Agnes M. Clerke, ‘have all at once become plastic’. As the scientific community tested the limits of scientific understanding, it became the role of science-fiction writers to imagine the universe beyond these limits. This paper will examine the ways in which nineteenth-century science fiction used the inheritance of the poetic language of Romanticism to reinstate the centrality of human being in the universe. I will explore the ways in which writers such as Edward Bulwer-Lytton (The Coming Race, 1871) and W. S. Lach-Szyrma (Aleriel, 1883) extended the Byronic hero to envisage extra-terrestrial utopias. The Hegelian systematic mythology described by Byron and Shelley had reimagined paradise and redemption on earth. Through science fiction, this mythology extended out towards the stars. A discourse on the possibilities of extra-terrestrial life became a Romantic discourse on the possibilities of being. The Byronic hero could now find a home not by escaping the shackles of religion, but as an angelic citizen of Venus or Mars. In this way, the paper will explore how science-fiction writers appropriated the language of Romantic poetry to build a bridge between the framework of scientific knowledge and the extent of human imagination.