A corpus-assisted study of the discourse marker well as an indicator of judges' institutional roles in court cases with litigants in person

In this paper, I concentrate on court cases with litigants in person (lay people who act on their own behalf in legal proceedings without a counsel or solicitor) and discuss the challenges of building a corpus of courtroom discourse where it is crucial to distinguish between speakers due to their distinct institutional roles. The corpus incorporates seven sub-corpora of verbatim transcripts from different court cases with litigants in person and comprises over eleven-million tokens. The focus of this paper is on the interplay between the legal and lay discourse types and how judges project their institutional roles through well-initiated turns directed at litigants in person and counsels. As a versatile discourse marker, well provides a good opportunity to explore how judges have to adapt their roles to ensure lay litigants in person receive the necessary support and that their lack of competence does not impede on the fairness of the proceedings. Given the breadth and importance of the topic of litigation in person, I discuss how the tools and approaches of corpus linguistics can be helpful in this multi-disciplinary area where multiple functions and uses of individual linguistic features need to be explored in depth.

A Statistical Approach for Multilingual Document Clustering and Topic Extraction from Clusters

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 62H30

Making sense of microposts (#MSM2013) concept extraction challenge

Microposts are small fragments of social media content that have been published using a lightweight paradigm (e.g. Tweets, Facebook likes, foursquare check-ins). Microposts have been used for a variety of applications (e.g., sentiment analysis, opinion mining, trend analysis), by gleaning useful information, often using third-party concept extraction tools. There has been very large uptake of such tools in the last few years, along with the creation and adoption of new methods for concept extraction. However, the evaluation of such efforts has been largely consigned to document corpora (e.g. news articles), questioning the suitability of concept extraction tools and methods for Micropost data. This report describes the Making Sense of Microposts Workshop (#MSM2013) Concept Extraction Challenge, hosted in conjunction with the 2013 World Wide Web conference (WWW'13). The Challenge dataset comprised a manually annotated training corpus of Microposts and an unlabelled test corpus. Participants were set the task of engineering a concept extraction system for a defined set of concepts. Out of a total of 22 complete submissions 13 were accepted for presentation at the workshop; the submissions covered methods ranging from sequence mining algorithms for attribute extraction to part-of-speech tagging for Micropost cleaning and rule-based and discriminative models for token classification. In this report we describe the evaluation process and explain the performance of different approaches in different contexts.

Analyzing lexical emergence in Modern American English online

This paper introduces a quantitative method for identifying newly emerging word forms in large time-stamped corpora of natural language and then describes an analysis of lexical emergence in American social media using this method based on a multi-billion word corpus of Tweets collected between October 2013 and November 2014. In total 29 emerging word forms, which represent various semantic classes, grammatical parts-of speech, and word formations processes, were identified through this analysis. These 29 forms are then examined from various perspectives in order to begin to better understand the process of lexical emergence.

Candidate knowledge? Exploring epistemic claims in scientific writing:a corpus-driven approach

In this article I argue that the study of the linguistic aspects of epistemology has become unhelpfully focused on the corpus-based study of hedging and that a corpus-driven approach can help to improve upon this. Through focusing on a corpus of texts from one discourse community (that of genetics) and identifying frequent tri-lexical clusters containing highly frequent lexical items identified as keywords, I undertake an inductive analysis identifying patterns of epistemic significance. Several of these patterns are shown to be hedging devices and the whole corpus frequencies of the most salient of these, candidate and putative, are then compared to the whole corpus frequencies for comparable wordforms and clusters of epistemic significance. Finally I interviewed a ‘friendly geneticist’ in order to check my interpretation of some of the terms used and to get an expert interpretation of the overall findings. In summary I argue that the highly unexpected patterns of hedging found in genetics demonstrate the value of adopting a corpus-driven approach and constitute an advance in our current understanding of how to approach the relationship between language and epistemology.

La référence temporelle au futur dans les bulletins météo en France et au Québec:regard variationniste sur l’oral préparé

The distribution of variants used to express future temporal reference has been the object of many studies, focused on conversational speech or on written data. This article sheds new light on the issue by studying future markers in a communicative setting which consists of prepared speech (the televised weather forecast) from a diatopic perspective (comparison of French and Québécois corpora). The distributional analysis points to a distribution of variants specific to this discursive setting. Furthermore, the Goldvarb X multivariate analysis reveals diatopic variation and the influence of some linguistic factors, most notably the type of verb, as well as the effect of constraints specific to the two speech communities under study.

Duppying yoots in a dog eat dog world, kmt:determining the senses of slang terms for the Courts

I describe and discuss a series of court cases which focus upon on decoding the meaning of slang terms. Examples include sexual slang used in a description by a child and an Internet Relay Chat containing a conspiracy to murder. I consider the task presented by these cases for the forensic linguist and the roles the linguist may assume in determining the meaning of slang terms for the Courts. These roles are identified as linguist as naïve interpreter, lexicographer, case researcher and cultural mediator. Each of these roles is suggestive of different strategies that might be used from consulting formal slang dictionaries and less formal Internet sources, to collecting case specific corpora and examining all the extraneous material in a particular case. Each strategy is evaluated both in terms of the strength of evidence provided and its applicability to the forensic context.

Quantification of white matter abnormalities in neurodegenerative disease

Degeneration of white matter fibre tracts occurs in several neurodegenerative disorders and results in various histological abnormalities including loss of axons, vacuolation, gliosis, axonal varicosities and spheroids, corpora amylacea, extracellular protein deposits, and glial inclusions (GI). This chapter describes quantitative studies that have been carried out on white matter pathology in a variety of neurodegenerative disease. First, in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), axonal loss quantified in histological sections stained with toluidine blue, occurs in several white matter fibre tracts including the optic nerve, olfactory tract, and corpus callosum. Second, in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), sections of cerebral cortex stained with haematoxylin and eosin (H/E) or immunolabelled with antibodies against the disease form of prion protein (PrPsc), reveal extensive vacuolation, gliosis of white matter, and deposition of PrPsc deposits. Third, GI immunolabelled with antibodies against various pathological proteins including tau, -synuclein, TDP-43, and FUS, have been recorded in white matter of a number of disorders including frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), multiple system atrophy (MSA), and neuronal intermediate filament inclusion disease (NIFID). Axonal varicosities have also been observed in NIFID. There are two important questions regarding white matter pathology that need further investigation: (1) what is the relative importance of white and gray matter pathologies in different disorders and (2) do white matter abnormalities precede or are they the consequence of gray matter pathology?

Characterization of Juvenile Hormone Biosynthetic Enzymes in the Mosquito, Aedes aegypti

The juvenile hormones (JHs) are sesquiterpenoid compounds that play a central role in insect reproduction, development and behavior. They are synthesized and secreted by a pair of small endocrine glands, the corpora allata (CA), which are intimately connected to the brain. The enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of JH are attractive targets for the control of mosquito populations. This dissertation is a comprehensive functional study of five Aedes aegypti CA enzymes, HMG-CoA synthase (AaHMGS), mevalonate kinase (AaMK), phosphomevalonate kinase (AaPMK), farnesyl diphosphate synthase (AaFPPS) and farnesyl pyrophosphate phosphatase (AaFPPase). The enzyme AaHMGS catalyzes the condensation of acetoacetyl-CoA and acetyl-CoA to produce HMG-CoA. The enzyme does not require any co-factor, although its activity is enhanced by addition of Mg2+. The enzyme AaMK is a class I mevalonate kinase that catalyzes the ATP-dependent phosphorylation of mevalonic acid to form mevalonate 5-phosphate. Activity of AaMK is inhibited by isoprenoids. The enzyme AaPMK catalyzes the cation-dependent reversible reaction of phosphomevalonate and ATP to form diphosphate mevalonate and ADP. The enzyme AaFPPS catalyzes the condensation of isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP) and dimethylallyl pyrophosphate (DMAPP) to form geranyl diphosphate (GPP) and farnesyl pyrophosphate (FPP). The enzyme AaFPPS shows an unusual product regulation mechanism, with chain length final product of 10 or 15 C depending on the metal cofactor present. The enzymes AaFPPase-1 and AaFPPase-2 efficiently hydrolyze FPP into farnesol, although RNAi experiments demonstrate that only AaFPPase-1 is involved in the catalysis of FPP into FOL in the CA of A. aegypti. This dissertation also explored the inhibition of the activity of some of the JH biosynthesis enzymes as tools for insect control. We described the effect of N-acetyl-S-geranylgeranyl-L-cysteine as a potent inhibitor of AaFPPase 1 and AaFPPase-2. In addition, inhibitors of AaMK and AaHMGS were also investigated using purified recombinant proteins. The present study provides an important contribution to the characterization of recombinant proteins, the analysis of enzyme kinetics and inhibition constants, as well as the understanding of the importance of these five enzymes in the control of JH biosynthesis rates.

Orações relativas no português brasileiro em perspectiva histórica

In this study, we focus on the relativization strategies, in diachronic corpus of Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Generally speaking, we aim to investigate the use of the relative in a historical perspective on BP, focusing on semantic-cognitive and discursive-pragmatic motivations involved and the correlation with the discursive traditions. The theoretical perspective underlying our study is the North-American Functional Linguistics, inspired by Talmy Givón, Sandra Thompson, Paul Hopper, Joan Bybee, Elizabeth Traugott, Mario Martelotta, Angelica Furtado da Cunha, among others, combined with contributions of Discursive Traditions, based on authors such as Kabatek, Koch and Oesterreicher. As for the methodology, our research is eminently qualitative, in the sense that it seeks to elucidate semantic-cognitive and discursive-pragmatic motivations related to the use of relativization strategies in BP; and it has quantitative support, with respect to measurable data aspect and characterization of the object of study and its frequency of use. For this investigation, we use the corpora of the project Para a História do Português Brasileiro (PHPB), more specifically, the particular, official, reader and redactor letters written between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, from four states: Minas Gerais, Paraná, Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro. The results of this research reveal the variation in relativization strategies, in view of the increase in the relativa cortadora (prepositional chopping strategy) percentage in the corpus of this investigation, even though the occurrence of this strategy is more restricted to private letters. In addition, we found factors of cognitive nature such as reduction in cognitive cost and economy related to the occurrence of that relative strategy, principally in private letters; aspects such as the need for expressiveness and clearness related to the use, even if infrequent, of the relativa copiadora (resumptive strategy), especially in official letters; and factors of communicative order such as the public sphere of circulation of the sample letters, as in the redactor and reader letters, and the gap between the parties most directly involved in the use of the standard relative of our sample.

Physical oceanography, sea-bed photographs and videos of benthos from the Weddell Sea taken with remote operated vehicle CHEROKEE during POLARSTERN cruise ANT-XXIII/8

The marine ecosystem on the eastern shelf of the Antarctic Peninsula was surveyed 5 and 12 years after the climate-induced collapse of the Larsen A and B ice shelves. An impoverished benthic fauna was discovered, that included deep-sea species presumed to be remnants from ice-covered conditions. The current structure of various ecosystem components appears to result from extremely different response rates to the change from an oligotrophic sub-ice-shelf ecosystem to a productive shelf ecosystem. Meiobenthic communities remained impoverished only inside the embayments. On local scales, macro- and mega-epibenthic diversity was generally low, with pioneer species and typical Antarctic megabenthic shelf species interspersed. Antarctic Minke whales and seals utilised the Larsen A/B area to feed on presumably newly established krill and pelagic fish biomass. Ecosystem impacts also extended well beyond the zone of ice-shelf collapse, with areas of high benthic disturbance resulting from scour by icebergs discharged from the Larsen embayments.

Estudo contrastivo da interlíngua em corpus oral e escrito de aprendizes de ele

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo hacer una representación de los “errores” producidos por los aprendices de español del Curso de Letras (Habilitación en Español de la Universidad Federal de Uberlândia. Para este fin, fue compilado un corpus lingüístico a partir de las producciones orales y escritos de los alumnos del segundo, cuarto, sexto y octavo semestre. Los principales temas y autores que dieron sustento teórico a nuestro estudio, en cuanto a los análisis descriptivos fueron: Interlengua (CORDER, 1967; SELINKER, 1972; BARALO, 1999, 2004; DURAO, 2007), Lingüística Contrastiva (SÖHRMAN, 2007), Modelo para Análisis de Errores (DURAO, 2004; ANDRADE, 2011; SANTOS GARGALLO, 2004), entre los principales. Cabe destacar que adoptamos una perspectiva de análisis de base empírica, apoyados en los subsidios que propicia la Lingüística de Corpus (BERBER SARDINHA, 2004). Otro componente importante en esta tesis fue la metodología. Se detalla paso a paso desde el levantamiento y lectura del referencial teórico, hasta la finalización del proceso de escritura del trabajo. Presentándose de esta manera como un futuro referencial para investigaciones que se basan en la utilización de LC como abordaje metodológica, y en el análisis de errores de aprendices. Los análisis desarrollados en el transcurso de este trabajo, comprendieron primeramente el dimensionamiento de los corpora utilizados, seguido de listas de las palabras más recurrentes, análisis cuantitativos y cualitativos, los cuales constituyeron un mapeo de los “errores”, otorgando de esta manera, un valor potencial al tratarse de un estudio que podrá ser utilizado como referente para una eventual elaboración de material didáctico, pensado especialmente para las clases de español que ofrece el Curso de Letras/Habilitación en Español de la Universidad Federal de Uberlândia.

Improving cross language information retrieval using corpus based query suggestion approach

Users seeking information may not find relevant information pertaining to their information need in a specific language. But information may be available in a language different from their own, but users may not know that language. Thus users may experience difficulty in accessing the information present in different languages. Since the retrieval process depends on the translation of the user query, there are many issues in getting the right translation of the user query. For a pair of languages chosen by a user, resources, like incomplete dictionary, inaccurate machine translation system may exist. These resources may be insufficient to map the query terms in one language to its equivalent terms in another language. Also for a given query, there might exist multiple correct translations. The underlying corpus evidence may suggest a clue to select a probable set of translations that could eventually perform a better information retrieval. In this paper, we present a cross language information retrieval approach to effectively retrieve information present in a language other than the language of the user query using the corpus driven query suggestion approach. The idea is to utilize the corpus based evidence of one language to improve the retrieval and re-ranking of news documents in the other language. We use FIRE corpora - Tamil and English news collections in our experiments and illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed cross language information retrieval approach.

Diálogos culturales entre ayer y hoy : Ecos lucrecianos en la ciencia actual

Teniendo en cuenta que el motivo convocante de estos "diálogos culturales" es la naturaleza, el texto lucreciano insta a interrogarnos sobre los principios y "la naturaleza de las cosas". A partir de la consideración de Duncan Kennedy (2007: 376-377) en cuanto a la significación de la obra de Lucrecio, "haciendo un texto del universo" (Making a Text of the Universe), resulta pertinente analizar las hipótesis que el epicúreo latino expone acerca de la Física atomista. La evocación de los axiomas nullam rem e nilo gigni divinitus umquam (I.150: "ninguna cosa se engendra jamás de la nada por obra divina") y quicque in sua corpora rursum / dissolvat natura neque ad nilum interemat res (I.215-216: "la naturaleza inversamente disuelve cada cosa en sus elementos y no reduce las cosas a la nada") constituye la idea transversal del sistema, que busca contemplar la Naturaleza y obtener un saber surgido de ese acto de pensamiento. Es por ello que, según D. Sedley (2004: 37), el meollo temático del texto reside en el estudio del aspecto y la racionalidad de lo natural, procedimientos especulativos que están comprendidos en el término epicúreo physiología. Este fue el comienzo de un derrotero que, para P. de la Llosa (2000: 10-11), significó "una intuición genial" de los atomistas griegos, completándose más tarde con un segundo impulso a partir de los fundamentos "físicos" de los epicúreos. Lucrecio, sin encajar en el establishment romano, sentó las bases de este labor científico atomista que, eclipsado por varias centurias, se reavivó en el s. XIV para continuar con altibajos hasta el presente. Desde la perspectiva de esta perduración, los objetivos de esta comunicación residen en comprobar la aproximación de los postulados lucrecianos y su veracidad en relación con algunas de las concepciones científicas-físico-químicas-actuales

The Narrative Value of Dance Communication: "habitus", musicality and emotion

The richness of dance comes from the need to work with an individual body. Still, the body of the dancer belongs to plural context, crossed by artistic and social traditions, which locate the artists in a given field. We claim that role conflict is an essential component of the structure of collective artistic creativity. We address the production of discourse in a British dance company, with data that spawns from the ethnography ‘Dance and Cognition’, directed by David Kirsh at the University of California, together with WayneMcGregor-Random Dance. Our Critical Discourse Analysis is based on multiple interviews to the dancers and choreographer. Our findings show how creativity in dance seems to be empirically observable, and thus embodied and distributed shaped by the dance habitus of the particular social context.