Thematic patterning in English and Spanish: contrastive annotation of a bilingual newspaper corpus for liguistic and computational applications

Thematization is recognized as a fundamental phenomenon in the construction of messages and texts by di erent linguistic schools. This location within a text privileges the elements that guide the reader in the orientation and interpretation of discourse at di erent levels. Thematizing a linguistic unit by locating it in the rst-initial position of a clause, paragraph, or text, confers upon it a special status: a signal of the organizational strategy which characterizes di erent text types playing a role as a variable in the distinction of registers, text types and genres. However, in spite of the importance of the study of thematization for message and textual structuring, to date there are no linguistic studies that have undertook the task of validating its aspects in a comparative manner, either for linguistic or computational purposes. This study, therefore, lls a research gap by implementing a methodology based on contrastive corpus annotation, which allows to empirically validate aspects of the phenomenon of Thematization in English and Spanish, it also seeks to develop a bilingual English-Spanish comparable corpus of newspaper texts automatically annotated with thematic features at clausal and discourse levels. The empirically validated categories (Thematic Field and its elements: Textual Theme, Interpersonal Theme, PreHead and Head) are used to annotate a larger corpus of three newspaper genres news reports, editorials and letters to the editor in terms of thematic choices. This characterization, reveals interesting results, such as the use of genre-speci c strategies in thematic position. In addition, the thesis investigates the possibility to automate the annotation of thematic features in the bilingual corpus through the development of a set of JAVA rules implemented in GATE. It also shows the e cacy of this method in comparison with the manual annotation results...

Revisiting the origin and development of pleonastic that in English

The origin of pleonastic that can be traced back to Old English where it could appear in syntactic constructions consisting of a preposition + demonstrative pronoun (i.e. for þy þat, for þæm þe) or a subordinator (i.e. oþ þat). Its diffusion with other subordinators is considered an early Middle English development as a result of the standardization of this item as the general subordinator in the period, which motivated its use as a pleonastic word in combination with all kinds of conjunctions (i.e. now that, gif that, when that, etc.) and prepositions (i.e. before that, save that, in that). Its use considerably increased in late Middle English, declining throughout the 17th century. The list of subordinating elements includes relativizers (i.e. this that), adverbial relatives (i.e. there that) and a number of subordinators (i.e. after, as, because, before, beside, for, if, since, sith, though, until, when, while, etc.). The present paper pursues the following objectives: a) to analyse the use and distribution of pleonastic that in a corpus of early English medical writing (in the period 1375-1700); b) to classify the construction in terms of the two different varieties of medical texts, i.e. treatises and recipes; and c) to assess the decline of the construction with the different conjunctive words. The data used as sources of evidence come from The Corpus of Early English Medical Writing, i.e. Middle English Medical Texts (MEMT for the period 1375-1500) and Early Modern English Medical Texts (EMEMT for the period 1500-1700).

Intelligibility, accentedness and emotional attitudes in English as a lingua

No language has ever diversified as much as English has over the past 50 years. The driving force of this change is a shift in the sociolinguistic identity of its users. If one considers that English is predominately used now by ‘Non-Native Speakers’ (NNSs) to communicate with other NNS speech communities, a very different picture of the English language begins to immerge. This image has catalysed a paradigm shift away from theory cloaked in NS ideologies and questioned fundamental aspects of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Framed by a theory of foreign speech adaptation, this paper looks at three factors that may contribute to the misunderstandings that occur in the English as Lingua Franca (ELF) interactions of an Australian tertiary setting. The three independent variables are intelligibility, accentedness, and the emotional attitudes one has towards language variation. The preliminary findings suggest that listeners with a shared first language (SFL) background or typologically similar first language (TSFL) background to a speaker do not experience improved intelligibility. Similarly, participants with a SFL or TSFL background do not give lower ratings of accentedness. Furthermore, ratings of accent strength were found to be strongly correlated with intelligibility scores. Lastly, ELF users tend to classify emotional attitudes towards language variation into discrete categories, and that these attitudes are influenced more so by the perceived identity of the speaker rather than their speech quality. In sum, we have only begun to scratch the surface when it comes to understanding the nature of ELF interactions.

The Processing of Preposition-Stranding Constructions in English

One of the prominent questions in modern psycholinguistics is the relationship between the grammar and the parser. Within the approach of Generative Grammar, this issue has been investigated in terms of the role that Principles of Universal Grammar may play in language processing. The aim of this research experiment is to investigate this topic. Specifically, this experiment aims to test whether the Minimal Structure Principle (MSP) plays a role in the processing of Preposition-Stranding versus Pied-Piped Constructions. This investigation is made with a self-paced reading task, an on-line processing test that measures participants’ unconscious reaction to language stimuli. Monolingual English speakers’ reading times of sentences with Preposition-Stranding and Pied-Piped Constructions are compared. Results indicate that neither construction has greater processing costs, suggesting that factors other than the MSP are active during language processing.

Cuban Literature in Exile

This flyer promotes a lecture by Zoe Valdes on recent literary trends, works, and authors of Cuban origin living outside the island. Valdes was born in Havana, Cuba and is the authors of 32 novels. This lecture was conducted in Spanish, held on October 28, 2015 at the Modesto A. Maidique Campus, Graham Center, Room 140.

Educational software in english to the awareness in a preschool education supervised context

Information and communication technologies play an increasingly important role in society, in the sense that all areas and professions make use of digital resources. The school can not be brushed off this reality, aim to create full subjects and integrated in society today. Educational software can be used very early in the education of children, but they must be carefully and monitoring. This article aims to present the results of the use of educational software in English to the awareness of context with children of pre-school education in kindergarten, nursery center Redemptorist Fathers - The smallest fox in White Castle, a 21 group children under 5 years. Early awareness of foreign language such as English can be started with digital multimedia capabilities and various software available on the market. However, the small study described the case reveals some resistance from parents and educators, in the preparation of these to choose and monitor the use of ICT by children, in addition to also highlight the self-interest of the children involved and their learning a few words in English language in different contexts of daily worked. The study opens perspectives on close monitoring needs of such uses and training of educators in the field of use of resources multilingual awareness in pre-school education.

To write for children, and to write well : Protestant mission presses and the development of children’s literature in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century China

This article uses a new historicist approach to examine the complexrelationships between translators, writers, and missionary publishersin China, and their financial supporters in the United States and Britainto demonstrate how they influenced the development of Chinese children’sliterature. It focuses on the case of the American Presbyterian MissionPress, Chinese Religious Tract Society, and Christian Literature Societyfor China, publishers of many texts for children. The article argues thatthe Western mission presses shaped Chinese children’s literature in thelate nineteenth and early twentieth century by introducing new narrativesthrough translation, highlighting the importance of including visual imagesin children’s texts by importing electrotypes and lithographic printsfrom the United States and Britain, and training Chinese students in newengraving and printing techniques which enabled them to establish theirown publishing houses.