Banks and sovereigns: An econometric analysis of an entangled relationship

In this discussion OLS regressions are used to study the factors that influence sovereign yield spreads and domestic bank indeces for a set of euro area countries. The results show that common factors explain changes in bank indeces better than in the yields. Moreover, although there is some country differentiation, a common pattern among all is visible. A contemporary spillover effect between banks and sovereigns emerged after bank bailouts and became stronger with the burst of the sovereign debt crisis. The vicious cycle between the two has contributed to the escalation of spreads and to painful austerity measures.

Língua escrita e língua real: o que um corpus oral permite descobrir

Esta comunicação, baseando-se num extenso corpus oral que está a ser recolhido, procurará refletir de que modo a língua realizada oralmente nos permite perceber o que realmente são e como funcionam as línguas para além da dimensão formalizada da escrita. Pretende-se demonstrar que é a linguagem em uso que melhor evidencia muitos aspetos impossíveis de perceber por uma designada do sistema. Assim, procurar-se-á verificar até que ponto a verdadeira realização linguística da oralidade respeita a noção de frase e de norma, bem assim como especificamente realiza várias dimensões lexicais e pragmáticas.

Prácticas comunicativas forenses: Las relaciones intertextuales en el examen de testigos. Forensic communicative practices: intertextual relations in examination of witnesses.

Inscripto en el análisis del discurso interaccional de tradición angloamericana y optando por un abordaje metodológico etnográfico, este proyecto plantea investigar las relaciones entre textos orales y entre textos orales y escritos vinculados en cadenas textuales en un acontecimiento comunicativo institucional en el que tales relaciones tienen consecuencias directas en la confiabilidad de la información e intervienen en la construcción del conocimiento oficial. La situación comunicativa elegida es el examen y el contraexamen de testigos comunes durante procesos penales orales, de formato común no abreviado, en la jurisdicción de Córdoba capital. En las interacciones verbales con litigantes y jueces en las que emerge el testimonio se ponen en juego otros textos orales (en forma de citas de lo dicho antes por el mismo testigo u otras personas, referencias a rumores u opiniones colectivas, etc.) y textos escritos (actas de secuestro, informes periciales, actas de las declaraciones testimoniales en la etapa de instrucción, etc.). El foco de atención son las prácticas asociadas a la intertextualidad puesto que condicionan el carácter de la prueba testimonial producida ante el juzgador. Postulamos que los litigantes despliegan tácticas locales y estrategias globales reconocibles y recurrentes vinculadas al tratamiento de diversas categorías de textos previos. Además, planteamos averiguar si la participación de los jueces en interacción con los testigos es de suficiente injerencia como para ser un modo importante de generación de prueba testimonial. El enfoque metodológico general es etnográfico y analíticodiscursivo. Se seleccionará una causa por delito grave, se presenciará el debate en la cámara y se registrará el audio de todas las audiencias. Los datos a analizar serán los segmentos en las interacciones en los que se incorpora la lectura o se cita las actas de las declaraciones indagatorias o testimoniales anteriores, y los segmentos en los que se requiere, en calidad de prueba testimonial, la reproducción de dichos. Se procederá a partir de los detalles de la superficie textual y la pragmática de los intercambios y aprovechando el valor heurístico del concepto de voz, buscando identificar patrones recurrentes y los mecanismos generales que los rigen. Sobre esa base, se considerarán los intercambios verbales como interacción social que emerge moldeada por condiciones situacionales e institucionales y otros factores, tales como la incidencia de la pertenencia a grupos sociales o profesionales. Con el estudio se obtendrá una visión de prácticas cotidianas asociadas a la intertextualidad que son de crucial importancia para el carácter de la prueba testimonial producida ante el juzgador. Este paso nos acercará a conocer cómo se lleva a cabo efectivamente la administración de justicia penal y permitirá valorar los patrones de conducta a la luz de las normas procesales. In line with the Anglo-American tradition of situated discourse analysis, this project aims at tracing the links between oral texts and between oral and written texts related in textual chains which are present in an institutional event in which such relations have a direct consequence on the reliability of the information given and have an impact on the construction of what counts as official knowledge. The communicative situation under study is that of the direct and cross-examination of lay witnesses during a criminal trial in the city of Córdoba. During the face-to-face interactions between trial lawyers and judges in which the testimony takes place, other oral texts and written texts get incorporated. The focus of this research is centered on practices of intertextuality as they condition the nature of the oral evidence produced. It is argued that trial lawyers use recurrent local tactics and global strategies that are related to the treatment given to different categories of previous texts. Another aim of this study is to examine if judge’s interventions have an impact on the generation of the oral evidence. The data will come from a criminal trial that will be audio-taped in its entirety. Ethnographic observations of a criminal trial will be made. The focus of analysis will be on segments of interactions in which previous texts are read aloud or incorporated as quotes. After carrying out a detailed analysis of the surface of texts and the pragmatics of the exchanges, recurrent patterns and the general mechanisms that condition their emergence will be described. In this way, verbal exchanges will be considered social interactions that unfold conditioned by situational, institutional and social factors. This study will examine the relationship between intertextuality and the institutional practice of providing oral evidence. This will help understand how justice is actually administered and how patterns of behavior are valued according to institutional norms.

Variations and application conditions of the data type "Image" : the foundation of computational visualistics

Visualistics, computer science, picture syntax, picture semantics, picture pragmatics, interactive pictures

Caregiver's interpret infants' early gestures based on shared knowledge about referents

Gestures are the first forms of conventional communication that young children develop in order to intentionally convey a specific message. However, at first, infants rarely communicate successfully with their gestures, prompting caregivers to interpret them. Although the role of caregivers in early communication development has been examined, little is known about how caregivers attribute a specific communicative function to infants' gestures. In this study, we argue that caregivers rely on the knowledge about the referent that is shared with infants in order to interpret what communicative function infants wish to convey with their gestures. We videotaped interactions from six caregiver-infant dyads playing with toys when infants were 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 months old. We coded infants' gesture production and we determined whether caregivers interpreted those gestures as conveying a clear communicative function or not; we also coded whether infants used objects according to their conventions of use as a measure of shared knowledge about the referent. Results revealed an association between infants' increasing knowledge of object use and maternal interpretations of infants' gestures as conveying a clear communicative function. Our findings emphasize the importance of shared knowledge in shaping infants' emergent communicative skills.

Reliability of serological methods for detection of leishmaniasis in portuguese domestic and wild reservoirs

A direct agglutination test (DAT) and an immunofluorescence technique (IFAT) were compared for detection of Leishmania infantum infection in 43 dogs and five foxes from Alto-Douro and Arrábida, two known endemic areas in Portugal. In four dogs with proved canine leishmaniasis, both DAT and IFAT showed positive readings (titres >1:320 and >1:128). Of 34 samples collected from apparently healthy dogs, ten were positive by both serological tests and eight were serologically positive by one test or the other. Three foxes out of five captured in this area, scored titres indicative of leishmaniasis in both DAT and IFAT. The concordance between DAT and IFAT in all collected samples (48) was 81.25%. Considering these and previous studies in the adjacent Mediterranean areas, the seroprevalence of L. infantum infection in the canine and vulpine populations appear to be of high magnitude.

Social rationality and scales of action: inter-ethnic relations in cockfighting and game-fishing, Raiatea, French Polynesia

This article challenges the notion of economic rationality as a criterion for explaining ethnic boundary maintenance. It offers an ethnographic analysis of inter-ethnic relations in the context of games (cockfights and game-fishing contests) in the island of Raiatea (French Polynesia). Although all players engage in the same basic gambling practices, money is differentially scaled and mobilized by the Tahitian and Chinese participants. Building on recent pragmatic approaches to rationality, it is shown that the players' rationalities differ not from the point of view of economic maximization, but only in so far as they participate in social relations at different scales.

Traducción comentada de “Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs): Transgenic Crops and Recombinant DNA Technology”

The purpose of this paper is to provide a translation into Spanish of a review articleabout genetically modified organisms (GMOs) entitled “Genetically ModifiedOrganisms (GMOs): Transgenic Crops and Recombinant DNA Technology” publishedby the well-known scientific journal Nature. In a world where English has become thelingua franca when it comes to transferring scientific knowledge and information, itmust be taken into account that not everyone—from scientist to the general public—hasa good enough command of English so that they can feel comfortable enough reading inthis language. Translators are consequently needed resulting from a great demand oftranslation activity into, for example, Spanish. This is the reason why the proposedSpanish translation is followed by a detailed analysis emphasizing the difficulties andproblems that characterize scientific—and also general—translation (i.e. terminology,syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and ideology), for which different approaches as how tosolve them are provided. On the basis of the analysis, it can be concluded thatexperience will be of much help to scientific translators, given that specificterminological knowledge and style requirements must always be born in mind whentranslating in this field. Moreover, this paper is intended to serve as a guide forTranslation students specializing in the field of science and the expectation is to helpthem make the right decisions when it comes to translating. However, it is clear that itcan only be thought of as an introduction that should be completed with further researchand documentation tasks in order to offer a complete reference tool: the ultimatehandbook of scientific translation.

L'adquisició de l'entonació en català, castellà i anglès

El principal objectiu del projecte és analitzar el desenvolupament de l’entonació de tres llengües, el català, el castellà i l’anglès. Pretenem investigar el desenvolupament dels diferents patrons entonatius que trobem en la producció primerenca, avaluant si, efectivament, aquests primers contorns produïts pels nens reflecteixen o no les propietats prosòdiques específiques de la llengua input dels adults. En resum, l'objectiu és poder esbrinar com l'infant va configurant la seva gramàtica entonativa així com el significat que va associat a aquestes produccions entonatives. Pretenem analitzar dos tipus de dades. Per una banda, un corpus d’entonació que conté els diàlegs controlats entre 36 nens i 36 adults (12 nens de cada llengua de 2, 4 i 6 anys) i que permet de comparar les mateixes frases produïdes pels adults i pels nens. Per altra banda, els corpus longitudinals de CHILDES que ens permeten analitzar dades sobre actes de parla i formes entonatives (corpus Serra-Solé per al català, corpus Ornat i Llinàs-Ojea per al castellà i el corpus Providence per a l'anglès americà i el Forrester per a l'anglès britànic).

Episteemisyys, yksilö ja yhteisö : eräiden modaali-ilmausten pragmatiikkaa

Summary: Epistemics. The individual and community, the pragmatics of certain modal expressions

Aproximaciones a la lectura crítica: teoría, ejemplos y reflexiones

Dentro de las ciencias del lenguaje, el Análisis Crítico del Discurso (ACD) aprovecha las aportaciones de los recientes estudios sobre el texto (análisis del discurso, pragmática, sociolingüística, etnografía de la comunicación, teoría de la enunciación, etc.) para definir los propósitos y la metodología del análisis crítico. Ante el mundo multicultural y globalizado en el que vivimos, la única respuesta educativa posible es la necesidad de formar a una ciudadanía, que tenga habilidades críticas de lectura, escritura y pensamiento y participe de modo constructivo en el desarrollo de una comunidad plural, respetuosa y progresista. El artículo explora en la teoría y en la práctica la lectura crítica, para reflexionar sobre la necesidad de fomentar este tipo de práctica lectora en el aula. Para ejemplificar el funcionamiento de la lectura crítica, se trabajan lingüísticamente desde el ACD algunos fragmentos breves de discurso. Se analiza el grado y el tipo de comprensión lectora crítica que muestran 25 exámenes de universitarios españoles de 20 años, estudiantes de Traducción e Interpretación en la Universidad Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona, que habían tenido 80 horas de instrucción sobre lengua escrita y análisis deldiscurso en castellano y catalán (con varias sesiones sobre Análisis Crítico del Discurso), en las que se habían analizado cooperativamente textos parecidos al propuesto en el examen.