2024-03-28T16:20:21Zhttp://oai-repositori.upf.edu/oai/requestoai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/60102018-01-24T08:14:49Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Murillo Garcia, Núria
author
2009
Gran parte de la lectura que se realiza en una lengua extranjera es a través de Internet y desde contextos muy distintos a los que han dado origen a los textos. Este trabajo se basa en la convicción de que el éxito en el aprendizaje de una lengua distinta a la materna radica en comprender el sentido que tiene el uso de la lengua en una sociedad determinada, es decir, en poder interpretar el significado –o los significados- que los discursos adquieren en sus contextos. Internet es un nuevo ámbito para la lectura, que multiplica las posibilidades (los textos, los contextos, los autores, etc.) y que introduce también nuevas incógnitas (menos control de calidad de lo publicado, ubicuidad de los discursos, reducción de los índices de contextualización, etc.). Conocer en profundidad las características de la comprensión en la lectura en línea es un reto para todo el que pretenda contribuir a mejorar el aprendizaje de una lengua extranjera.Por ello, este estudio pretende investigar en qué medida algunos estudiantes de ELE -con un conocimiento avanzado de la lengua y que acostumbran a leer en Internet- son capaces de leer de forma crítica en Internet, entendiendo la ideología que subyace a los discursos. Se estudian los procesos de comprensión, y se evalúa y analiza la comprensión de los textos, con el objetivo de obtener datos que puedan contribuir, en un futuro, a mejorar la metodología de enseñanza de la lectura crítica a través de Internet.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/6010
La lectura crítica en ELE: análisis de la comprensión crítica de los discursos virtuales
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/12562018-12-19T17:47:33Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Merino Jular, María Elena
author
2007
The present study examines the development of interculturality and changes of beliefs, by analyzing 106 compositions produced by 53 advanced level university students of translation studies at a university in Spain before and shortly after a stay-abroad (SA) period. The study draws on data collected at two different times: before (T1) and after the SA (T3). In addition, we compared the results with the writings produced by a control group of 10 native English speakers on SA too. Data were collected by means of a composition which tried to elicit the learners’ opinion about cultural habits maintenance. The results reveal significant changes between T1 and T3 in the degree of better attitudes and intercultural acquisition.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/1256
The development of intercultural awareness and changes of beliefs: the effects of studying abroad on learners of English as a second language
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/63222018-01-24T08:22:14Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Zárate Pérez, Adolfo
author
2010-09-15T13:46:45Z
La presente investigación propone comparar y analizar la concepción y la forma cómo abordan la lectura crítica los libros de texto del Ministerio de Educación y las editoriales privadas de educación secundaria en el Perú. El estudio se desarrolla desde la perspectiva de los Nuevos Estudios de Literacidad y la Literacidad crítica, que conciben la lectura como una práctica social situada. La metodología es descriptiva y explorativa; se sustenta en el análisis cuantitativo y cualitativo. El corpus de análisis lo constituyen los textos de lectura y las actividades de comprensión crítica de 4 manuales del Ministerio de Educación y 3 de las editoriales Norma y Santillana. Los resultados demuestran que tanto los objetivos como el tratamiento de los textos de lectura se desarrollan desde la perspectiva psicolingüística y lingüística de la lectura. Leer críticamente significa opinar sobre el texto y la práctica de la literacidad crítica es aún incipiente, porque las actividades siguen concentradas en la comprensión literal del texto y, generalmente, se callan las ideologías y las relaciones de poder. En conclusión, no existen diferencias significativas entre los dos tipos de manuales.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/6322
La Lectura crítica en los libros de educación secundaria : concepción y tratamiento metodológico
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/53422018-01-24T08:22:41Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Martínez Alonso, Héctor
author
2009-12-15T16:34:07Z
A medida que el tamaño de un corpus aumenta, aumenta también el número de concordancias obtenidas al consultar una forma. Un número muy elevado de concordancias, de cientos o de miles, dificulta la sistematicidad de la tarea del lexicógrafo. La propuesta del artículo consiste en el uso de un sistema automático de agrupación de concordancias según su similitud léxica (es decir, qué elementos léxicos comparten), con el objetivo de presentar dichas concordancias agrupadas y asociadas a un único representante de todo el conjunto de las que son consideradas como léxicamente similares, de manera que la cardinalidad efectiva de los datos de corpus se vea reducida. El sistema se ha desarrollado teniendo en cuenta las ventajas de una arquitectura distribuida, por lo que cada una de las partes del sistema (stemming, identificación de stop words, cálculo de similitud entre concordancias, ordenación final de los datos, etc.) se ha desarrollado en módulos diferentes que pueden estar alojados en servidores, ya que las necesidades de cálculo del sistema harían que su uso desde un ordenador personal resultara muy lento.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/5342
Agrupación de resultados de una consulta de corpus según medidas de similitud léxica
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/12572018-01-24T08:34:20Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Massó Sanabre, Guillem
author
2007
En aquest treball analitzem l’estat de la qüestió dels sistemes de traducció automàtica per a llengües de signes. Les principals diferències respecte als traductors que treballen exclusivament amb llengües orals es deriven del processament de la llengua de signes, amb les dificultats que comporten l’escassetat de documents escrits i la mancança d’un sistema d’escriptura normalitzat. Com que haurem de treballar amb dades gestuals i visuals, és necessari tenir en compte l’estat dels sistemes de reconeixement i síntesi dels signes de què disposem. També repassarem els sistemes de transcripció i anotació emprats en les llengües de signes, ja que les mancances en la descripció de les dades lingüístiques afectaran el resultat de la traducció. Per últim, analitzarem els diferents projectes que han treballat fins ara en la traducció automàtica de llengües de signes i intentarem establir els paràmetres bàsics per al desenvolupament d'un traductor per a la llengua de signes catalana.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/1257
Traducció automàtica aplicada a les llengües de signes : estat de la qüestió
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/53432018-01-24T08:22:27Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Nguyen Vo, Antonia
author
2009-12-15T14:48:15Z
En este trabajo presentaremos un estudio de caso para examinar las estrategias más recurridas de negación del racismo en el discurso periodístico. Tomando las herramientas del Análisis Crítico del Discurso (ACD), examinaremos una serie de noticias nacionales que negaban una misma acusación de racismo referente a un hecho acontecido durante los Juegos Olímpicos de 2008. Exploraremos las formas y efectos que tiene la negación por parte de la prensa deportiva y veremos cómo refleja a su vez estrategias etnocentristas de representación social. Reflexionaremos también sobre el papel que esta forma de discurso puede desempeñar posteriormente en la opinión pública, relacionándolo finalmente como una manifestación discursiva del llamado “nuevo racismo”.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/5343
Estrategias de negación del racismo. Un estudio de caso sobre la negación en la prensa deportiva
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/199412021-12-14T13:44:25Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Martin Vigo, Eugenio
author
2012-12
This paper attempts to give an account of the syntax of quotation from an LFG perspective. I claim that quotes are inserted at N’ positions by making use of a special phrase structure rule that makes the quote’s f-structure the PRED value of the mother f-structure. However, in order to reach to this conclusion, the concept of quotation has to be restricted to only include metalinguistic and direct reported speech quotes, by making use of the property of grammatical opacity, i.e. only subsegments whose ungrammaticality does not affect the grammaticality of the whole sentence are quotes. The main advantage of this is this distinguishes the syntax of direct quotes from the one of other citational but not quotational structures like Davidson’s (1979) and Cappelen and Lepore’s (2007) mixed quotation.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/19941
An LFG approach to the syntax of quotation
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/206672018-01-24T08:29:42Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Labèrnia, Aina
author
2010-10-08T14:35:15Z
En aquest treball es fa una proposta metodològica per avaluar la implantació de la norma dels pronoms relatius en català. La proposta permet mesurar el grau d’implantació de les estructures analitzades i veure quins són els factors que afavoreixen o desafavoreixen la implantació d’aquestes estructures. Consta d’una descripció lingüística (fonètica, morfològica, etc.) de les estructures analitzades, d’una anàlisi dels criteris segons els quals les formes lingüístiques estudiades s’han establert com a normatives o no, d’una descripció de l’estatus (normatiu o no normatiu) de les formes lingüístiques analitzades, del càlcul del grau d’implantació de cada estructura i de l’observació de l’existència o l’absència de criteris de codificació o de característiques lingüístiques que apareguin significativament en la prescripció de les construccions amb un coeficient d’implantació molt alt (aleshores es podrien considerar factors afavoridors de la implantació) o molt baix (aleshores es podrien considerar factors desafavoridors de la implantació).
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/20667
Proposta metodològica per a l'avaluació de la implantació de la norma dels pronoms relatius en català
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/212592018-01-24T08:34:22Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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García Corredor, Daniel Felipe
author
2013-11-11
En este trabajo se estudia cómo el periódico El Tiempo representó la toma de la embajada de la /nRepública Dominicana ocurrida en Bogotá en 1980. Siguiendo la propuesta del Análisis Crítico /ndel Discurso se analizó cómo El Tiempo diferencia entre Nosotros y Ellos para determinar las /ncaracterísticas de estos actores y las acciones que realizan. Posteriormente se realizó un análisis /nde las macroestructuras semánticas para establecer los temas más importantes para el periódico. /nFinalmente, se realizó un análisis de las estrategias de legitimación discursiva que utilizó el /nperiódico para legitimar su discurso. De esta forma se pudo establecer que: a) el periódico /nrepresenta positivamente a Nosotros y negativamente a Ellos; b) que El Tiempo utiliza la toma /nde la embajada para introducir otros problemas de la agenda pública como la votación; y c) que /nel periódico legitima discursivamente el discurso de Nosotros y deslegitima el de Ellos.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/21259
Anàlisi del discurs
Premsa--Bogotà (Colòmbia)
Castellà -- Semàntica
El discurso de El Tiempo frente a la toma de /nla embajada de la República Dominicana. /nUn estudio de caso desde la perspectiva del Análisis Crítico del /nDiscurso
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/212602018-01-24T08:30:19Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Richtarcikova, Veronika
author
2013-11-11
This thesis investigates epistemic indefinites (EIs), elements noteworthy for their /ngrammaticalized ignorance implicature, i.e. inability to provide further information about /nthe identity of the expression's referent. This work contributes to the effort of finding /na unified account of the cross-linguistic repertoire of EIs. It comprises a corpus survey /nand a semantic analysis of Slovak voľa- and -si, EI items not studied until now. First, /nthe following hypothesis was tested: the semantic/syntactic functions expressed by an /nindefinite will fall into contiguous areas on an implicational map (Haspelmath 1997). /nThe results of the corpus analysis revealed that the map does not entirely capture the /nSlovak EIs' functional distribution and interpretations. Secondly, the semantic analysis /nwas developed within the alternatives-and-exhaustification framework (Chierchia 2013). /nI show that some of the EIs' behavior can be explained as a consequence of an assumed /nsensitivity to parameters proposed by Chierchia. I situate voľa- and -si with respect to the /nframework’s typology and offer a critical assessment of this theoretical perspective.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/21260
Eslovac--Semàntica
Corpus (Lingüística)
Ignorance and Indifference: Epistemic Indefinites in Slovak
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/221452018-01-24T08:26:14Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Igualada Pérez, Alfonso
author
2012
The present study investigates the predictive value of the early appearance of simultaneous pointing-speech combinations. An experimental task was used to obtain a communicative productive sample from nineteen children at 1;0 and 1;3. Infant’s communicative productions, in combination with gaze joint engagement patterns, were analyzed in relation to different social conditions. The results show a significant effect of age and social condition on infants’ communicative productions. Gesture-speech combinations seem to work as a strong communicative resource to attract the adult’s attention in social demanding communicative contexts. Gaze joint engagement was used in combination with simultaneous pointing-speech combinations to attract adults’ attention during social demanding conditions. Finally, the use of simultaneous pointing-speech combinations at 1;0 in demanding conditions predicted greater expressive vocabulary acquisition at 1;3 and 1;6. These results indicate that the use of gesture-speech combinations may be considered a significant step towards the early integration of language components.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/22145
Llenguatge i llengües -- Adquisició
Significació (Psicologia)
Multimodal Strategies in Development./nPredictive Value of early simultaneos/ngesture-speech comination
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/227992018-01-24T08:04:25Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Alegrí Reixach, Albert
author
2014-11-04
En terminologia, els especialistes afirmen que els textos especialitzats contenen molts termes estructurats conceptualment d'una forma determinada. L’objectiu principal d’aquesta recerca és crear patrons lingüístics que evidenciïn la relació malaltia-símptoma i que puguin servir per detectar semiautomàticament o automàtica aquesta relació, mitjançant una metodologia concreta proposada. Un cop obtinguts i analitzats uns determinats contextos, s’extreuen marques lingüístiques que evidenciïn la relació i serveixin per realitzar una generalització de patrons lingüístics. En l’estudi observem que molts dels símptomes no apareixen en les definicions dels recursos terminogràfics mèdics, però sí als textos especialitzats del corpus. També detectem que molts dels símptomes apareixen mitjançant col·locacions especialitzades.
Experts in terminology state that in specialized texts there are many terms that have a specific structure regarding its meaning. This project focuses on the development of language patterns that show the relationship disease-symptom. Following a specific methodology, these marks should be useful to detect this relationship. Once we have obtained and analysed certain contexts, we obtain linguistic marks that show this relation. Results show that most of symptoms are not included in the definitions given in medical terminological resources, but they are indeed included in the medical corpus /nthat has been analysed in this project. Moreover, most symptoms are described by specialized collocations.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/22799
Detecció de la relació malaltia-símptoma entre termes de l'àmbit mèdic: una aproximació basada en corpus
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/228102018-01-24T08:04:34Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Moreno Carral, Manuel
author
2014-11-10
This document presents a comparison of the conservation state of the most relevant phenomena in the vowel system of the Pasiegu Dialect, spoken in some valleys of Central-Eastern Cantabria, in Northwestern Spain. We do so by taking Penny’s (1969) model and comparing it with data from two groups of present-day speakers, the most conservative speakers and the most conservative school-age speakers. The interview has two parts, a directed conversation and a linguistic questionnaire; the former searches for different various phenomena, while the later is focused on the henomenon known as vowel metaphony, characteristic of some Asturleonese dialects. This /ndocument includes the first qualitative date from the conservation interview as well as qualitative and quantitative data from the linguistic questionnaire, both showing a rapid retreat of most dialectal features, replaced by Castilian Spanish.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/22810
Diachronic Change of the Vowel Harmony in the Speech of Pas
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/234282018-01-24T08:06:41Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Briesmaster Forner, Judith
author
2014
La presente investigación tiene como objetivo conocer cómo adolescentes latinoamericanos de la generación 1.5 de inmigrantes, conceptualizan su identidad socio-cultural a través de sus narrativas. La metodología narrativa fue utilizada en este estudio dado que la práctica de narrar implica “hacer” nuestra identidad y mostrar nuestro verdadero yo mediante los relatos, creencias, sentimientos, etc. que salen a la luz durante el relato. Los resultados demuestran que a través de sus narrativas, los adolescentes inmigrantes latinoamericanos caracterizan la membrecía a la cultura catalana por el dominio del catalán y la mentalidad catalana. Por otra parte, la membrecía a la cultura de origen es conceptualizada por la participación en costumbres y tradiciones, la apariencia física latina, el tener recuerdos o conocimiento del país natal, y el mantener la lengua materna. El mecanismo narrativo más frecuentemente utilizado para hablar de la identidad cultural es la satisfacción comunitaria y el menos utilizado es el sentido de continuidad. Las narrativas de los adolescentes entrevistados demuestran que un 50% de ellos se ha asimilado completamente a la cultura, y el otro 50% de ellos está en la etapa de aculturación. Las conclusiones destacan la falta de una fuerte identidad cultural en base a la cultura de origen y la poca satisfacción con la cultura catalana.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/23428
La conceptualización de la identidad socio-cultural en narrativas de adolescentes inmigrantes que viven en Barcelona
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/234292018-01-24T08:06:39Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Asor, Eli
author
2014
Purpose: previous studies in the field of prosody-gesture alignment have found that/nprominent parts of gestures are temporally aligned with prosodically prominent parts of /nthe utterance. Yet, little is known about the precise alignment of gestures with respect to /nthe prosodic structure of the associated speech. Hypotheses: in confirmation utterances (a) the position of the nuclear accented syllable with respect to an upcoming prosodic boundary influences the timing of the intensity peak within that syllable, (b) the position of the nuclear accented syllable with respect to an upcoming prosodic boundary influences the timing of the associated head nod gesture, and (c) the apex of the head nod gesture is temporally aligned with the intensity peak of the nuclear accented syllable. Method: 11 Catalan speakers performed a Discourse Completion Task involving confirmatory contexts. /nRecordings of spontaneously occurring co-speech head nod gestures were acoustically and gesturally analyzed. Results: head nod apexes and intensity peaks are temporally associated with the end of the accented syllable in words with penultimate and antepenultimate stress, while they are temporally retracted in monosyllables and iambs when immediately preceding a prosodic boundary. Conclusions: these results expand the findings by Esteve-Gibert & Prieto (2013), showing that the timing of gesture apexes in head nod gestures produced in semi-spontaneous speech is conditioned by the proximity to prosodic boundaries, as well as by the metrical structure of the prominent word in the utterance. Moreover, this study shows that in addition to the intonational peak of the nuclear accented syllable, its intensity peak also highly correlates with the gesture apex.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/23429
The timing of head nods is constrained by prosodic structure
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/248052018-01-24T08:09:35Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Martínez i Bou, Mireia
author
2015-10-06
Language choice in multilingual societies may be determined by the presence of a diglossic situation (Ferguson 1959, Fishman 1967), or by the language attitudes shared by the population, which configure language norms more flexible than diglossia, but shared across the speech community (Cargile et al. 1994). Attitudes are a key factor in the perception of a language’s ethnolinguistic vitality, which in turn is a good predictor of language maintenance. This study looks into the language choices of social movements in the Barcelona metropolitan area, and the language attitudes behind them, taking into account that these grassroots movements sit between the public and private domains. The methodology used were semistructured interviews to a total of 12 activists, representing 9 cells of PAH (Mortgage Victims’ Forum), 15M and Marees Ciutadanes (Citizens’ Tides). The findings show that Catalan is overrepresented in formal outward communications if compared to its presence in ingroup communication. The reasons for this are mostly related to Catalan’s status as the language of official institutions, and to cultural and historical reasons.
La tria lingüística en societats multilingües pot venir marcada per la presència d'una/nsituació de diglòssia (Ferguson 1959, Fishman 1967), o per les actituds lingüístiques/ncompartides per la població, que configuren normes lingüístiques més flexibles que la/ndiglòssia, però compartides per la comunitat lingüística (Cargile et al., 1994). Les/nactituds són un factor clau en la percepció de la vitalitat etnolingüística d’una llengua,/nla qual al seu torn és un bon predictor de manteniment de la llengua. Aquest estudi/nexamina les tries lingüístiques dels moviments socials a l’àrea metropolitana de/nBarcelona, i les actituds lingüístiques que les motiven, tenint en compte que aquests/nmoviments ciutadans es troben a cavall entre els àmbits públic i privat. La/nmetodologia utilitzada van ser entrevistes semiestructurades a un total de 12/nactivistes, en representació de 9 cel·les de la PAH (Plataforma d’Afectats per la/nHipoteca), el 15M i les Marees Ciutadanes. Els resultats mostren que el català està sobrerepresentat en les comunicacions externes formals si es compara amb la presència que té en la comunicació intragrupal. Les raons estan principalment relacionades amb l’estatus del català com a llengua de les institucions oficials, i amb qüestions culturals i històriques.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24805
Attitude is everything: language attitudes and language choice in the formal communications of social movements
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/248282018-02-19T09:40:34Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Barnes, Jeremy
author
2015-10-09
The detection of emotion and sentiment analysis are very hot topics at the moment and the detection of emotion from written text still remains a difficult subject of this area of research. The main approaches to this task are knowledge-based approaches and machine-learning approaches. This paper examines the performance of two approaches (a knowledge-based and a machine-learning approach) on a small corpus of chat text annotated with emotion labels. It will be shown that the machine-learning approach used in this experiment outperforms the knowledge-based approach in all aspects.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24828
Comparing the performance of knowledge-based and machine-learning approaches for the detection of emotions in an english Text
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/248292018-01-24T08:09:45Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Cañas Peña, Sara
author
2015-10-09
The purpose of this study is to provide a formal description of polar interrogatives clauses in LSC and, moreover, propose a syntactic analysis that can take account for any form this kind of structure can acquire. This study includes an overview of what is known so far about polar interrogatives in both oral and sign language modalities, paying especial attention to those linguistic devices that are used to mark this sentence type. LSC is not out of ordinary: as a SL, nonmanual marking is required in order to perform the sentence. Furthermore, a Q-sign (i.e. YES-NO) can be add sentence-finally to explicitly mark the utterance as a polar interrogative. Notwithstanding, this Q-sign carries some pragmatic meaning. Therefore, in order to provide a syntactic analysis that could explain polar interrogatives in LSC, the proposals which have tried to explain the same sentence type and carried out by Wilbur & Patsche (1999), Šarac & Wilbur (2006) and Šarac et al. (2007) for ASL, HZJ and ÖGS polar interrogatives; and Neidle et al. (1996, 2000) for ASL, are presented. Thus, some important information about the analysis of Pfau & Quer (2002, 2007) for negative constructions in ASL, LSC and DGS; and the analysis of Prieto & Rigau (2007) for polar interrogatives in Catalan are provided; since they support the proposal provided on this work for LSC polar interrogatives. Thus, it stands that the feature [+y/n Q], realized through NMMs, is a featural affix that needs to be attached to manual material; moreover, the Q-sign is located inside Cº. In any case, this work represents an undeniable contribution to SLs knowledge, while it is contributing to the debate of typological variation within SLs. In addition, it can be conclude that polar interrogatives could be an area of macrotypological variation between oral and signed languages. Notwithstanding, in order to determine this, further research needs to be done.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24829
The morphosyntax of polar interrogatives in LSC
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/248302018-01-24T08:09:43Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Gluhareva, Daria
author
2015-10-09
This study investigates the impact of beat gesture observation on the acquisition of native-like speech patterns in English by examining the effect of a brief training with or without beat gestures on participants’ ratings of accentedness. In a within-subjects design, twenty Catalan-dominant undergraduate students learning English as a Foreign Language at an upper-intermediate level were shown a training video in which a native speaker of English gave short responses to 12 prompts. For half of the responses, the instructor used co-speech rhythmic beat gestures, while in the other half, she did not gesture at all. Participants’ answers to the prompts were recorded before and after training and evaluated by five native speaker judges. The results demonstrated that while beat gesture training did not significantly improve the participants’ accentedness ratings on the entire set of items, their performance on initially difficult items improved significantly as a result of beat gesture training.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24830
Brief training with rhythmic beat gestures benefits L2 pronunciation
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/248312018-01-24T08:09:45Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Kamp, Vanessa
author
2015-10-09
Depending on the task at hand, pointing has been shown to sometimes help, sometimes hinder, or to simply have no effect on learning and memory. In this study we directly compared the effects of pointing and action in two visuospatial memory tasks. Twentyseven participants were asked to remember geometrical figures in three different/nconditions: 1) Visual Observation – e.g., looking at the figures, 2) Action – e.g., placing dots on the vertices of the figures, and 3) Pointing – e.g., pointing towards the vertices of the figures. Our results show that there is no significant difference in performance between pointing and action in recall and recognition of the geometrical figures nor did pointing for longer or shorter amounts of time affect performance. These results give direct evidence that pointing is not significantly different than action in this kind of visuospatial memory task. Our experiment did not directly involve language or problem/nsolving but it did use stimuli that are not only coordinates but are also concrete forms. In this sense this study attempts to explore the boundaries between current research that has looked at pointing in the context of language and pointing independent of language. Although we predicted better performance for pointing in comparison to both visual/nobservation and action we propose that the additional information that pointing may provide was not powerful enough to surpass and outperform the information acquired through visual observation and thus hindered performance.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24831
Pointing and action: performance efects on remembering geometrical figures
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/248322018-01-24T08:09:45Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Machin, Elizabeth Anne-Marie
author
2015-10-09
The purpose of this study is to examine study abroad in relation to intercultural awareness. If a key goal of study abroad is to generate an interculturally conversant workforce, is there clear evidence that this is actually happening? It is obvious: students on study abroad programmes have more opportunities to engage with people from another culture(s) than if they had stayed at home. If learning the target language in location is also thrown into the mix (providing a linguistic key with which to unlock additional/naccess to individuals from other cultures), how could they possibly fail to be more interculturally aware than their peers who stay at home? However, not all study abroad students choose to seize opportunities for intercultural contact, and not all choose to learn the language of the country they arrive in. Some go through a period of culture shock (Zhou, Jindal-Snape, Topping, Todman, 2008). Indeed, recent research has blown wide open the idea that the process of acquiring intercultural awareness is an automatic/nconsequence of simply being present in another culture, and calls for appropriate modifications to study abroad programmes. Not so obvious after all then. Given the need for interculturally aware workers in our global knowledge economy, and the/nlevel of investment in facilitating the mobility of students, there is a clear and present need for empirical evidence that study abroad students are or are not, as the case may be, benefiting interculturally from their sojourns in other countries. This study therefore investigates intercultural awareness amongst a group of students (n=30) enrolled in various faculties at a Catalan university and seeks to understand whether, in a snapshot in time in May 2012, there was a significant difference in their cultural attitudes and/nbeliefs (expressed in compositions written in English), depending on whether or not they had experience of study abroad, whether they were studying abroad now or had studied abroad in the past, and also whether they were studying a language as a second language or as a foreign language. Whether their level of English was associated with their level of intercultural awareness is also considered, as arguably this would allow them to express themselves in more subtle ways.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24832
Intercultural awareness at home and abroad: a retrospective study of snapshot compositions
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/248342018-01-24T08:31:31Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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McCarroll, Colleen
author
2015-10-09
While spoken and signed languages express linguistic meaning through distinct modalities – t he former makes use of the audiooral modality, whereas the second operates through the visualgestural modality– both build meaningful structures through phonological systems composed of meaningless substructure units. When the process of second language acquisition involves learning to communicate in the other modality, one must acquire a new phonological system. Some research has been conducted on the subject, but it has not yet been asked what role phonological knowledge might play in the acquisition process that takes place when hearing/nadults attempt to acquire a sign language. The present paper considers this issue, and through a pilot study attempts to examine the effects of the activation of phonological knowledge on perception and production accuracy of sign parameters. Additionally, a proposal for a future study is made, with the added goal of investigating the pedagogical methods of sign language as a second language.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24834
Mastering a new modality: the influence of/nphonological knowledge on the acquisition of sign/nparameters by hearing adults
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/248372018-01-24T08:09:58Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Míguez, Vítor
author
2015-10-13
En gallego, un amplio conjunto de verbos transitivos muestra una alternancia diatética, de tal modo que su objeto directo puede ser realizado como un complemento oblicuo introducido por la preposición en. En esta contribución, analizo la sintaxis y la semántica del fenómeno. Por una parte, defiendo que se trata de una alternancia entre funciones sintácticas distintas y no entre variantes de una misma función. Por otra parte, examino el fenómeno desde el punto de vista del aspecto léxico, para concluir que el alternante oblicuo expresa un evento agentivo del tipo actividad./nLos modelos basados en la afección y en la descomposición de predicados no son ca-paces de explicar el fenómeno en su conjunto. Para dar cuenta de la totalidad de los datos, propongo un análisis basado en la agentividad./nPor último, tras examinar otras alternancias transitivo/oblicuo, concluyo que los he-chos del gallego son manifestación de una operación, muy extendida entre las lenguas, de degradación del segundo argumento.
En gallec, un ampli conjunt de verbs transitius mostra una alternança diatètica, de tal manera que el seu objecte directe pot ser realitzat com a un complement oblic introduït per la preposició en. En aquesta contribució, analitzo la sintaxi i la semàntica del feno-men. D’una banda, defenso que es tracta d’una alternança entre funcions sintàctiques dis-tintes i no entre variants d’una mateixa funció. D’altra banda, examino el fenomen des del punt de vista de l’aspecte lèxic, per concloure que l’alternant oblic expressa un esde-veniment agentiu del tipus activitat./nEls models basats en l’afecció i en la descomposició de predicats no son capaços d’ex-plicar el fenomen en el seu conjunt. Per a donar compte de la totalitat de les dades, pro-poso un anàlisi basat en l’agentivitat. Finalment, després d’examinar altres alternances transitiu/oblic, concloc que els fets del gallec són manifestació d’una operació, molt estesa entre les llengües, de degradació del segon argument.
In Galician, a large set of transitive verbs displays a diathesis alternation, in such a way that its direct object can be realized as an oblique complement introduced by the preposition en. In this contribution, I analyze the syntax and semantics of the phenome-non. On the one hand, I argue that this is an alternation between different syntactic func-tions, and not between variants of the same function. On the other hand, I analyze the phenomenon from the point of view of lexical aspect, concluding that the oblique alter-nant expresses an agentive, activity event./nModels based on affectedness and predicate decomposition are unable to explain the phenomenon as a whole. In order to account for all the data, I propose my own analysis based on agentivity./nFinally, after examining other transitive/oblique alternations, I conclude that the Gali-cian facts are a manifestation of a widespread phenomenon among languages: the demo-tion of the second argument.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24837
Los complementos con preposición "en" del gallego: una alternancia transitivo/oblicuo
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/248382018-01-24T08:31:31Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Ortiz de Antonio, Jordi
author
2015-10-13
El Parlament escocès va aprovar l’any 2005 la Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act, per la qual es dotava el gaèlic escocès d’estatus oficial i s’iniciava una política lingüística nacional. El present treball descriu la llengua cèltica d’Escòcia en una aproximació sociolingüística, a partir del model de Spolsky (2004, 2009) de política lingüística; analitza els criteris de definició i els models que s’han proposat per definir el concepte de comunitat lingüística i els aplica al gaèlic d’Escòcia; i defineix la concepció que n’assumeixen els tres sectors implicats en la política lingüística gaèlica: els agents, els teòrics i els usuaris. Amb aquesta recerca s’arriba a la conclusió que a nivell nacional o local es pot parlar d’una comunitat lingüística gaèlica en termes de delimitació sociopolítica restringida a Escòcia i de diverses comunitats de pràctica on conflueixen usuaris de gaèlic escocès i d’altres llengües. Així mateix, la divergència en la concepció que tenen els agents, els teòrics i els usuaris no suposen, deu anys després de l’inicide la política lingüística oficial, cap fracàs de les polítiques aplicades.
The Scottish Parliament passed in 2005 the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act, a regulation that/nendowed the Scottish Gaelic language with official status and upon which began a national/nlanguage policy. This paper describes the Celtic language of Scotland in a sociolinguistic/napproach from Spolsky’s (2004, 2009) model of language policy; it analyses the defining/ncriteria and models that have been proposed to define the concept of the language community/nand it applies them to Scottish Gaelic; and it defines the concept assumed by the three sectors of/npeople implied in the Gaelic language policy: the agents, the theorists, and the users. This/nresearch concludes that the language community in the Scottish Gaelic language can be/nconceived as a national or local socio-politically bounded community limited to the territory of/nScotland and also as diverse communities of practice in which users of Gaelic and other/nlanguages converge. Moreover, the divergences in the vision of the community the agents, the/ntheorists, and the users have do not suppose, ten years after the beginning of the official/nlanguage policy, any failure in the already applied policies.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24838
La comunitat lingüística en el gaèlic escocès: una aproximació teòrica i aplicada
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/248402018-01-24T08:09:59Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Pocostales Mercè, Joel
author
2015-10-13
Vector Space Semantic models (VSMs) have gained attention over the last years in a great variety of computational language modelling tasks. Some of the most popular approaches to computational semantic models use various training methods based on neural-networks language modelling to obtain dense vector representations, which are commonly known as neural embeddings or word embeddings. These/nneural models have been proved to capture what Turney (2006) calls attributional similarities as well as relational similarities between words. The goal of this master’s thesis is to explore the extent and the limitations of the word embeddings with regards to their capacity to encode the complex coherence relations that Discourse Markers signal along a given text. To that end, we have built different vector spaces of DMs using new Log-linear Models (CBOW and Skip-gram). The subsequent DMs representations have been evaluated by means of data mining techniques such as clustering and supervised classifications. The results obtained in this research show that only those DMs where the lexical effect is greater can be represented efficiently by word embeddings. Likewise, comparing both data mining techniques (clustering and supervised classification), we conclude that the relations among similar DMs can be induced better with a supervised methods previously trained on a given data.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24840
Representation of discourse markers in vector spaces
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/248412018-01-24T08:09:59Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Torres Rivera, Andrés
author
2015-10-13
El uso de herramientas informáticas para facilitar la tarea de detección y extracción de neologismos se ha vuelto indispensable en el campo de la terminología. Sin embargo, las aplicaciones disponibles para la localización y extracción continúan en etapa de desarrollo y mejora, y se enfocan principalmente en la extracción de neologismos formales antes que otro tipo de neologismos, como los semánticos y los sintagmáticos. El siguiente trabajo tiene tres objetivos principales: 1) presentar un inventario de las herramientas empleadas en la actualidad para realizar estas tareas; 2) realizar un análisis contrastivo lingüístico e informático para mostrar las ventajas y desventajas de cada una; y 3) con los datos obtenidos, presentar las primeras bases para diseñar una herramienta de detección de neologismos semánticos mediante una aproximación estadística, complementada con estrategias lingüísticas y de minería de datos.
The use of computer applications to improve the detection and extraction of neologism within/nthe field of terminology has become essential. Nevertheless, available applications for/nlocating and extracting neologisms, are still on the improvement and development phases,/nand are primarily focused on the extraction of formal neologisms rather than other types, such/nas semantic or syntagmatic neologisms. This work has two main objectives: 1) to present a/nstate of the art of the currently used applications to carry out these tasks; 2) to perform a/ncontrastive analysis to show the advantages and disadvantages of each one; and 3) with the/nobtained data, a methodological design for detecting and extracting semantic neologisms/nimplementing a statistical approach, complemented with linguistic and data mining strategies,/nwill be presented.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24841
Herramientas de detección y extracción de neología: estado de la cuestión
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/248422018-01-24T08:09:58Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Romero, Julio Marcelo
author
2015-10-13
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24842
An LFG analysis of Swedish double definiteness expressions
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/248472018-01-24T08:10:06Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Vidal Sabanés, Laia
author
2015-10-14
Aquest estudi se centra en la comunicació entre metges i pacients en processos oncològics per detectar els principals problemes que causen les barreres lingüístiques i cognitives que existeixen entre especialistes i llecs en la matèria. La descripció d’una mostra de documentació mèdica, l’anàlisi d’alguns recursos lingüístics destinats a pacients i familiars i un estudi de necessitats són els objectius principals de la recerca d’aquest treball. Els resultats obtinguts ens mostren que l’ús de la terminologia mèdica és un dels factors que impedeixen la bona comunicació en aquest tipus d’actes comunicatius, ja sigui a causa del baix nivell d’alfabetització per a la salut del pacient o familiar, o bé a causa de la complexitat lingüística del discurs mèdic especialitzat.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24847
La comunicació metge-pacient en processos oncològics: problemes i necessitats /nrelacionats amb la terminologia
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/248612018-01-24T08:10:24Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Wong, Tsz Yin
author
2015-10-20
This study compares the vowel production of Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese by Macao and Hong Kong Cantonese speakers. There are 5 volunteers of Macao native Cantonese speakers and 5 volunteers of Hong Kong native Cantonese speakers. The 10 Mandarin vowels and the 11 Cantonese vowels are pronounced by these groups. And there are 5 volunteers of native Mandarin speakers produce the same Mandarin vowels. All participants are female speakers. The acoustic vowel qualities of formant one (F1) and formant two (F2) values of these two languages were measured and analyzed. Result shows that Macao speakers have good performance on F1, the height of the tongue is closed to the F1 of Mandarin vowels. They can identify new vowels and pronounce Mandarin vowels more native-like than Hong Kong speakers as Hong Kong speakers adapted their native vowels to produce some Mandarin vowels.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24861
Acoustic Analysis of Mandarin Vowels Pronounced by Macao and Hong Kong Cantonese Speakers
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/276672020-06-04T06:56:56Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Vilà-Giménez, Ingrid
author
2016
There is consensus evidence that gestures and prosody are important precursors of children’s early language abilities and development. Previous literature has investigated the beneficial role of beat gestures in the recall of information by preschoolers (Igualada, Esteve-Gibert, & Prieto, under review; Austin & Sweller, 2014). However, to our knowledge, little is known about whether the use of beat gestures can promote children’s later linguistic abilities and specifically whether training with beat gestures can boost children’s narrative skills in a narrative discourse./nForty-seven five and six-year-old children, three of whom were excluded from the analysis, participated in a between-subject training study with a pretest and posttest design (i.e. children were presented with two wordless cartoons in each test). They were exposed to a training phase which contained a total of six stories, presented under two between-subject experimental conditions: 1) No-Beat condition, e.g., narratives performed with prosodic prominence and no beat gestures in target positions; and 2) Beat condition, e.g., narratives performed with prosodic prominence and beat gestures in target positions within the story. Results demonstrated that children who undertook the Beat training condition showed a higher gain in the quality of their posttest narratives of wordless cartoons; that is, better narrative structure scores, better fluency scores, and more co-speech gestures performance. Therefore, there is evidence that a short training with beat gestures has positive effects on the development of children’s/nnarrative discourse abilities.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/27667
Does training with beat gestures favour children's narrative discourse abilities?
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/276692018-02-26T10:36:30Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Bou Tanios, Jennifer
author
2016
This paper investigates language use online by speakers of Lebanese Arabic, focusing in particular on their language choice in online contexts, and the Romanization of this variety of Arabic. Three Lebanese Arabic speakers with different linguistic backgrounds were interviewed, and samples of their online activities were collected and analysed. The findings show that the language choice of Lebanese Arabic speakers online generally resembles their offline linguistic practices and preferences, with Lebanese Arabic maintaining its informal character online in contrast with English and Standard Arabic, and displaying code-mixing among youth. The results also show that Romanization is inconsistent among speakers, and that one possible factor causing this inconsistency is the speaker's L2.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/27669
Language Choice and Romanization Online by Lebanese Arabic Speakers
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/276702018-01-24T08:16:12Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Zivkovic, Ema
author
2016
The thesis contributes to the existing literature on at-issueness by focusing on the atissue status of appositive relative clauses (ARCs). It assumes a discourse-based model developed by Jasinskaja (2016), which accounts for at-issue status by making/nuse of general discourse mechanisms such as the Right Frontier Constraint (Polanyi, 1988). This approach yields many interesting predictions, one of which is that final discourse-structurally coordinate ARCs should express more at-issue behavior than final discourse-structurally subordinate ARCs. This prediction was tested in the current study. The experiment involved the manipulation of coordinating and subordinating rhetorical relations between the main clause and the final ARC, and it relied on the direct rejection test as a diagnostic for being at issue. The obtained results indicated that coordinate ARCs were targeted by rejections more frequently than subordinate ARCs, thus suggesting that the discourse-based approach is on the right track in describing the at-issue status of ARCs.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/27670
The at-issue status of appositive relative clauses: evidence for a discourse-based approach
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/276712018-01-24T08:16:12Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Navarrete González, Alexandra
author
2016
Information structure (IS) notions are present in all human languages, spoken or signed, and are the key to understand how we human organize information in discourse. Due to the fact that signed languages research is very recent, IS notions, such as the focus-ground and the topic-comment distinctions, have not been not described in such an accurate way as they have been in many spoken languages. For Catalan Sign Language (LSC), few studies are found regarding IS notions. Hence, the main goal of the present study is to provide a basic description of the main syntactic and prosodic strategies used to express focus in Catalan Sign Language (LSC). The data analyzed in this study have been collected through elicitation tasks and also through consultation of the LSC corpus, which is currently being annotated. In addition, an overview on the main linguistic studies on IS in SLs is offered.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/27671
Focus constructions in Catalan Sign Language (LSC)
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/276832018-01-24T08:16:14Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Baills, Florence
author
2016
Research in second language acquisition has described the positive effects of observing iconic gestures on vocabulary acquisition (Kelly, McDevitt, & Esch, 2009; Macedonia, Müller, & Friederici, 2011; Tellier, 2008) and recent studies have also proven that observing speech with beat gestures can improve L2 learners’ production of suprasegmental features in a foreign language (Gluhareva & Prieto, in press), as well as in word recall (Kushch, Igualada, & Prieto, submitted). However little is known about the role of a specific type of metaphoric gesture that mimicks melody in speech (e.g. the so-called pitch gestures) in the learning of L2 intonational variations across languages. Recently, Morett & Chang (2014) demonstrated that the production of visuospatial features of pitch gestures by English learners of Mandarin enhanced discrimination between the meanings of Mandarin words differing only in tone. However, it is not clear whether the specific gains obtained in this study can be mostly attributed to the production or to the perception of these gestures by second language learners. The goal of this investigation is to explore the gain of observing vs. producing pitch gestures during a short multimodal training of Mandarin Chinese tones on tonal discrimination abilities and on learning newly presented Mandarin words that only differ in tone. Fifty-seven Catalan-dominant native speakers participated in a short training on Mandarin Chinese tones where the instructor produced pitch gestures. The results show that producing gestures favors tone discrimination and word recall more than merely repeating the word and viewing the gesture. Accordingly, the production of pitch gestures by beginning learners of Mandarin Chinese can serve as a facilitator for learning tones and vocabulary.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/27683
Producing pitch gestures enhances the acquisition of Mandarin Chinese tones
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/276842018-01-24T08:16:13Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Porras Garzón, Jorge Mario
author
2016
Este trabajo pretende hacer una aproximación al uso que se le da a la neología especializada en el ámbito de las enfermedades raras, en los textos dirigidos a especialistas y en los textos dirigidos a pacientes y sus familiares. La finalidad de este trabajo era construir dos corpus diferentes para hacer una detección de las unidades terminológicas nuevas y luego un análisis que permitió observar cuáles eran los recursos de formación de neologismos especializados más utilizados. Además se pudo observar que en ámbito hay una gran dependencia denominativa del inglés. Los resultados también nos mostraron que en los textos dirigidos a pacientes y familiares, las unidades terminológicas nuevas no se introducen como nuevas, sino que se utilizan como si ya fueran conocidas por el usuario de estos textos. Esta es una interferencia lingüística adicional que impide una asimilación completa y satisfactoria de la información que se pretende dar en estos textos.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/27684
Una aproximación al uso de la neología especializada en el ámbito de las enfermedades raras
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/276852018-02-26T10:34:37Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Arias Rodríguez, Laura
author
2016
Malgrat els diversos estudis que tracten dels verbs psicològics, encara no s’ha arribat a un consens en la seva anàlisi. D’una banda, no s’han descrit les propietats sintàctiques i semàntiques d’aquests verbs de manera exhaustiva en moltes llengües, entre els quals es troba el català. D’altra banda, el present treball mostra que les anàlisis actuals estan condicionades per la bibliografia tradicional./nAmb la finalitat de complementar els estudis existents, es proposa aplicar un nou criteri per a l’anàlisi: descriure les alternances pronominals que permeten els verbs psicològics. A partir d’un corpus format per cent verbs psicològics en català, s’analitzen aquestes alternances diatètiques i s’estableixen subclasses verbals segons les configuracions sintàctiques en què es poden projectar els arguments. Les principals conclusions a les quals arriba l’estudi és que les classes que s’han establert per als verbs psicològics no abasteixen la realitat dels verbs catalans, i que les fronteres entre les classes són difuses./nParaules clau: verbs psicològics, classes verbals, estructura argumental, alternances de diàtesi, transitivitat, català/nKeywords: Psych verbs, verb classes, argument structure, diathesis alternations, transitivity,
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/27685
Aspectes de la sintaxi i la semàntica dels verbs psicològics en català
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/276862018-01-24T08:16:14Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Suárez González, Nerea
author
2016
Very few SLA studies have investigated the benefits of pitch gestures in Chinese language learning (see Chen 2013, Morett and Wang 2014).The present MA thesis is concerned with (a) assessing the contributions of observing pitch gestures in tonal contrast awareness, (b) exploring the potential reduction of the cognitive effort resulting in word recall facilitation triggered by observing the pitch gesture, and (c) with investigating the relative benefits of observing pitch gestures in those who already have well-developed auditory skills (i.e. musical training). Two between-subject experiments, with two experimental conditions (Gesture-Observe, No-Gesture), were conducted among 50 participants. Results indicate that observing pitch gestures significantly strengthens both participants’ identification of Mandarin lexical tones and vocabulary learning. Nonetheless, for those with already good auditory skills, pitch gestures do not seem to enhance their tone identification accuracy. These findings have methodological implications in CSL (Chinese as a Second Language) pronunciation practices.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/27686
The effect of perceiving pitch gestures in the acquisition of Mandarin Chinese tones and words
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/276872018-01-24T08:32:43Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Monje Sangüesa, Victoria
author
2016
The present study has aimed at assessing the effects of an 8-week FI period lacking explicit attention to phonology preceded by a 3-monthSA term on the VOT production of English voiceless stops in initial stressed position by Catalan/Spanish EFL learners through two tasks. Speech samples were collected from 13 participants upon their return from SA (T1) and immediately after an 8-week period of FI (T2). Three native speakers served as a baseline group. Results failed to yield a significant effect of the FI period preceded by a SA term on informants’ VOTs. Proficiency level was examined too: it was found to play no significant role in the VOT production of participants. The effects of factors reported to influence VOT production such as speaking style, vowel height and place of articulation were also explored. Analyses revealed that they did significantly affect VOT production of voiceless stops for the non-native group. The native showed the same numerical tendency.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/27687
The second time around: the effect of FI upon return from SA
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/277772018-01-24T08:17:41Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Yuan, Chenjie
author
2016
Recent studies have demonstrated the positive role of co-speech gestures in enhancing word memory recall in both first and second language acquisition (e.g., Quinn-Allen, 1995; Tellier, 2008; Kelly et al., 2009), and also the positive effects of using pitch gestures in the learning of L2 lexical tones (e.g., Jia & Wang, 2013a, b; Morett & Chang, 2015). However, it is not clear whether co-speech pitch gestures are beneficial for the learning of L2 intonation. Sixty-four native-Mandarin speakers with basic level of proficiency in Spanish were asked to learn three Spanish intonation patterns with a low tone on its nuclear accent (specifically, L*H%, L*HL%, and L*H%). A pre- and post-tests experiment design was used, where half of the participants were trained in the control No-Gesture Condition; and the other half with the Gesture Condition (i.e., pitch gestures marking the nuclear pitch movements). The results confirm (i) that Mandarin speakers tend to produce a high tone on the nuclear accent instead of a low tone (e.g., Liu, 2003; Ji & Li, 2009; Ji, 2010; Hong, 2012); and (ii) that Mandarin speakers in the experimental group produced the target pitch patterns significantly better than those in control group. Thus, observing pitch gestures does benefit L2 intonation learning. The findings support the embodied cognition paradigm and also has some implications for the teaching and learning of L2 intonation.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/27777
Learning of Spanish intonation by Mandarin speakers: effects of observing pitch gestures
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/277782018-01-24T08:17:42Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Geoghegan, Leah
author
2016
In the context of Study Abroad (SA), where English has become the international language of communication, researchers have called for a more refined analysis of students’ personal motivations, and the effects that an intensified globalisation has on such. One aspect of this globalisation is the spread of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), which has led to an exponential increase in learners of English, and has consequently changed the learner’s motivations for learning as well as the way they identify with the language. The present study investigates the motivation and identity of undergraduate Spanish-Catalan bilinguals, learning English, as well as either German or French, comparing those spending a SA in an English speaking country with those in a German or French speaking country. The thesis adopts a cross-sectional, mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative research tools in order to gain a more detailed picture of the role of ELF in SA.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/27778
Motivation, identity and ELF in a SA context
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/281082018-02-26T10:38:27Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Codina Canal, Marta
author
2016
This project, which blended two fields of linguistics, language technology and dialectology, accomplished three main goals. Firstly, it improved TexAFon, a rule and knowledge based speech processing tool and upgraded it to handle eight northwestern Catalan varieties. Secondly, it enabled the tool for ASR use. Thirdly, it prepared TexAFon for use as an automatic pronunciation training system. The dialects were chosen as a result of a thorough research both in dialectology and language technology so as to define phenomena for Text-To-Speech (TTS) and Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) modeling. The result of this project is an updated version of TexAFon, which can now be used for TTS and ASR in several Catalan dialects, and provide the basis for its use as an automatic pronunciation training/nsystem. Furthermore, this work also shows the upcoming need for updated dialectological studies in order to get present information about phenomena in different Catalan dialects.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/28108
Automatic phonetic transcription of dialectal variance in Catalan
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/281092018-02-26T10:40:23Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Serrano Morales, Mónica
author
2017
In the last few years, there has been an increase of the interest on Modern Standard Arabic. There is where computational linguistics fits in. This paper analyses the intersection between Arabic and computational linguistics, focusing on text processing and the tools developed for this purpose. The fundamental functions of Arabic computational processing are: sentence segmentation, tokenization, morphosyntactic tagging, lemmatization, diacritization and base phrase chunking. After analysing each of these tasks, a study has been carried in order to elaborate a selection of tools into two groups: computational morphology (BAMA, ALMORGEANA, ELIXIRFM, MAGEAD, MADA+TOKAN and AMIRA) and computational syntax (The Penn Arabic Treebank, The Prague Treebank, and The Columbia Arabic Treebank). Finally, the evaluation of those tools establishes the differences among them, showing their advantages and disadvantages. The conclusion of this paper opens a window to future work regarding information extraction, information retrieval, summarization, question answering or Arabic as second language.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/28109
What is modern standard Arabic NLP? Definition and tools (or how to understand Arabic even if you do not know a word)
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/281102018-02-26T10:45:25Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Diz Pico, Jorge
author
2016
En este trabajo se dibuja una relación ideológica entre la norma de una lengua y las desviaciones que se producen respecto a ella. Se plantea el estándar que la norma fija como reflejo de una serie de valores y, en consecuencia, todo aquello que le disputa autoridad como un comentario a dichos valores. Aprovechando la metodología neológica de extracción léxica, se realiza un examen de los textos de las viñetas de O Bichero. Los resultados cuantitativos sirven de cimientos para una abstracción de los factores ideológicos que provocan dichas violaciones de la norma.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/28110
Variación e innovación léxica: estudio de los factores ideológicos
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/281112018-11-27T11:30:10Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Yang, Fengrong
author
2017
This current study provides an LFG approach to the resumptive pronoun phenomenon in Chinese relative clauses. We first reclassify the relativization in Chinese according to grammatical functions and then give a detailed syntactic analysis to the puzzles that arise, mainly, the optionality of overt resumptive pronouns/nof some grammatical functions, the Highest Subject Restriction (HSR) and the ANM Feature Hypothesis in the relativization of objects. Through our analysis we find that the optionality of overt RPs only occurs with/ncore functions. A [PRED ‘pro’] value will be given to the corresponding grammatical function when an overt RP does not appear. We thus extend the Nonthematic Condition on Structure-Sharing to Anaphoric Binding and give a good explanation for the HSR phenomenon. Lastly, the ANM Feature Hypothesis challenges McCloskey’s generalization, namely, that resumptive pronouns are just ordinary pronouns.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/28111
On resumptive pronouns in Chinese relative clauses: an LFG approach
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/281122018-02-26T10:29:42Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Lupurovic, Gorana
author
2016
In this paper, four Serbian verbs (cepati „tear‟, otcepiti „tear off‟, pocepati „tear (up)‟ and iscepati „tear up‟) are analyzed in terms of their argument realization and their use (figurative and literal). The research explores the hypothesis of manner/result complementarity (Levin and Hovav Rappaport, 2011), according to which verbs can lexicalize either manner or result, but not both. It is suggested that cepati lexicalizes a result meaning, but additional result/manner meaning is yielded through cocomposition with different arguments and/or prefixation, as each prefix has an effect on the verb semantics. Verb phrases with otcepiti and iscepati do not allow for anticausatives when used literally and have demonstrated a very restricted figurative use, unlike the verb pocepati, which has a wide argument selection and can be used figuratively. The research confirms the hypothesis by McNally and Spalek (2015) that figurative uses (other than conceptual metaphors) go only with result predicates.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/28112
Lexicalization of Serbian verbs: evidence from literal and figurative uses of Serbian verb cepati
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/281132018-02-26T10:31:27Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Latter, Rebecca
author
2016
This study examines communication by healthcare professionals (HCPs) with experience in palliative care (n= 24) and health sciences students (n=31) when raising difficult issues in patient-HCP encounters. Data was collected using a questionnaire, designed in collaboration with a palliative care nurse. Said data included demographic information, frequency of general communicative acts and the use of 8 politeness strategies when raising 7 difficult topics with patients. The findings were that HCPs use a greater number of positive politeness strategies and are also more likely to avoid performing the face threatening act entirely, that is, they were more cautious during/npatient encounters. This leads us to believe that through experience, the HCPs have learnt to be more cautious in patient interactions than their natural instinct, here represented by unexperienced students, would suggest. This is most likely due to the repercussions that a breakdown in communication could have on the patient’s health outcomes.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/28113
Pragmatic corpus analysis of patient interviews in palliative care
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/357902018-11-27T15:37:32Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Morgensteren Derfel, Alon
author
2018
Code-switching research has largely been characterized by the efforts to propose constraints which define it syntactically, investigate its sociological and psycholinguistic causes, and compose an over-arching linguistic framework under which the entire phenomenon could be placed. Many such attempts are continuously met with various counter-examples and arguments which have led to a persistent process of adjustments and modifications of previously held assumptions and suggested theoretical models. This case study looks at code-switching in the context of two typologically different languages, namely Hebrew and Spanish, and consider any observed instances in which earlier models may be challenged. Two Hebrew-Spanish bilingual families who code-switch regularly were invited to participate in this study, and a variety of spontaneous instances of code-switching were recorded and analyzed. Findings, although limited due to the data sample, contradict several statements by earlier CS researchers, and suggest that code-switching as a linguistic phenomenon, would require a much larger systematic investigation of many different linguistic contexts in order to be fitted into one all-inclusive theoretical model.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/35790
Code-switching, a comparative case study of Hebrew-Spanish bilingual families
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/358642018-11-28T02:30:56Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Pichler, Anna Malena
author
2018
Morphology often plays a tangential role in foreign language classes, and recent studies suggest that Morphological Awareness can be very helpful when it comes to learning a language. In this context, the purpose of this study is to examine the compounding skills of learners of German as a foreign language. Since noun compounds are a very productive phenomenon in German, adjective+noun compounds, which have not received a lot of attention so far, were used for this study. A compounding production task was issued to thirty-four participants who were native speakers of Spanish and/or Catalan and had an A2 to B1 level in German. Later, an error analysis was used in order to assess the data. Results indicated that the participants exhibited a high level of Morphological Awareness. They performed mostly well on the morphological part but had greater difficulties with semantic aspects.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/35864
Morphological awareness in German as a foreign language: the case of adjective + noun compounds
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/360412018-12-13T02:31:47Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Roche, Malena Verónica
author
2018
The relation between language and thought is a far from resolved question in both linguistics and cognitive science. A language disorder like aphasia can shed light on this question by using it as a model to explore cognition with impaired access to language. In this study, our research question was whether people with aphasia would succeed in a task that requires generalizing across a series of 32 reversible transitive events that exhibit visual differences, while still falling under the same general event concept (e.g. dog pushes car where the cars and dogs change). We explored this question with an eye-tracking paradigm. This study reports findings from an initial pilot with five people with post-stroke aphasia and 5 matched neurotypical controls. Results showed that the aphasia group was able to make the event generalization, but differed in the time course of processing, with initial insights not maintained longitudinally. We speculate that this may be due to problems with working memory. These preliminary findings suggest that while language impairment does not necessarily interfere with event generalization, may play a crucial role in information management with respect to what we perceive.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/36041
Language and non-verbal cognition in aphasia: insights from an eye-tracking paradigm
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/361132018-12-21T12:48:55Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Apetrei, Teodora C.
author
2018
The present study is concerned with the increasingly popular concept of gamification, and the research conducted in this field so far, with a special focus on its applications in education. Having language learning and the positive features of video games as starting points, the main aim of this paper is to explore the possibilities and outcomes of introducing game
design elements in second language classrooms. Existing literature on gamification includes plenty of theoretical frameworks, but there is still insufficient empirical data linking game elements to specific learning outcomes. While there have been some promising results of educational gamification regarding behavioral and attitude changes which might be beneficial for second language learning, the existence of negative reactions to this approach encourages us to pay close attention to planning and context. Lastly, I shall investigate three popular language learning mobile applications and how they have successfully integrated some gamification elements.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/36113
“Achievement unlocked”: improving second language learning with educational gamification
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/362112019-01-05T02:31:29Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Chapin, Kayla B.
author
2018
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of length of residency on native English speakers’ perceptions of speech sounds from their native and second languages. Based on methodology from Barrios et al.’s 2016 study, the present study tested English speakers (with Spanish as a second language) against a Spanish monolingual control group in an AX discrimination task of the phones [d], [ð], and [ɾ]. These sounds occur in both languages, but with different distributions and phonological status. After the discrimination task, and an identification test, results showed that native English speakers’ perceptions of these speech sounds had, in fact, been “remapped” to the phonological distribution found in Spanish, and that the longer the length of residency, the more similarly participants scored to the monolingual Spanish control group. These results confirm findings from previous studies regarding phonological perception and second language learning, and also contribute to the literature about the effects of second languages and immersion on the native language (L1).
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/36211
Phonological remapping in native English speakers
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/430112019-11-28T02:31:15Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Castillo Sánchez, Eva
author
2019
Previous studies have shown that gestures precede and predict children's milestones in vocabulary, sentence structure, and narratives. Yet little is known about whether multimodal imitation abilities (understood as the ability to jointly imitate gestures, prosody, and lexical content) and narratives are correlated in typically developing preschool children. To examine the potential correlations between narratives and imitation (multimodal imitation and object-based imitation), 31 typically developing 3- to 4-year-old children performed a narrative task, a multimodal imitation task and an object-based imitation task. The correlations obtained revealed that (a) narratives correlate with multimodal imitation (as well as gestural, prosodic and lexical imitation separately); and (b) object-based imitation does not correlate with either multimodal imitation or with narratives. These results show that multimodal abilities (specifically, gesture and prosodic abilities) form a tightly linked communication system that is strongly related to language, and highlight the potential importance of multimodal imitation trainings in language development.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/43011
The Relationship between narrative abilities and multimodal imitation abilities in preschool children
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/430122019-11-28T02:31:15Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Segues Majos, Gemma
author
2019
In the previous literature, the discourse marker home in Catalan has been given a plurality of functions, which are depending on its immediate specific discourse context. In order to disambiguate the multifunctionality of home, this study will investigate some of its derivable components, namely, the principal function of the marker and the function that derives from its syntactic context. To this end, I have analysed the patterns observed in the occurrences of home in a corpus of oral colloquial conversations in Catalan. The results show that its principal function conveys the speaker’s attitude of rejection towards an inappropriate contextually salient act. Further, the position of the marker in either the beginning or the end of the sentence, shape its contextually derived function. In sentence-initial position, home is used to let the addressee know about the inappropriateness of a contextually salient act. In sentence-final position, home has the same function but in this position there is another function added, namely the speaker’s expectation that the addressee should do something. Therefore, these results confirm that the multifunctionality of discourse markers is derived from its principal in interaction with contextually derived functions.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/43012
Catalan home as a discourse marker
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/430132019-11-28T02:31:16Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Valls Ratés, Iolanda
author
2019
Public speaking anxiety using virtual reality exposure (VRE) has mainly focused on distress arousal, especially with participants with social anxiety disorders (SAD). The present study has the goal of assessing the value of virtual reality training in the context of public speaking abilities with adolescents not only to assess its effects on anxiety but also on public speaking performance in front of a real audience. A total of 56 secondary-school students participated in a 3-session between-subject training experiment with a pre-test and post-test design. While the VR group produced three brief speeches within a virtual reality setting using three different virtual audience scenarios, the non-VR group performed those speeches
using the traditional method of practicing alone in a room. An analysis of the public speaking anxiety and the listener-oriented public speaking performance at pre-test and post-test revealed that a 3-session virtual reality training reduces the participants’ perception of anxiety and encourages future longer pre-/post-test experiment designs to study its implications on the anxiety self-assessments and on the public speaking performance. Education implications are also discussed.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/43013
Training with virtual reality simulations: its effects on public speaking anxiety and public speaking performance in a secondary school setting
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/430142019-11-28T02:31:18Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Flores Flores, Marc
author
2019
En aquest treball s’analitzen les relacions entre els processos d’estandardització i els processos de revitalització lingüística, amb la intenció de fer palesos els avantatges i els límits de l’estandardització per a la revitalització lingüística. Amb aquest objectiu en ment, s’hi desenvolupa un marc teòric que ha pres en consideració la literatura més representativa sobre l’estandardització i sobre la revitalització lingüística, tot aplicant-hi una mirada crítica per tal de fer paleses les relacions socials desiguals que poden acompanyar l’estandardització, sobretot de llengües minoritzades i amenaçades. En aquest sentit, s’han ponderat els beneficis de l’estandardització en relació a altres estratègies de revitalització lingüística possibles i a una jerarquia de prioritats revitalitzadores. Per últim, el marc teòric s’aplica al cas de l’aragonès per tal de comprovar-ne la solvència. Però, sobretot, per contribuir a concretar les estratègies amb més possibilitat d’èxit que cal emprendre per preservar i revitalitzar aquesta llengua en els propers anys.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/43014
Estandarditzar per revitalitzar? El cas de l’aragonès
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/430152019-11-28T02:31:18Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Grofulovic, Jelena
author
2019
Gesture accuracy has been related to the development of grammar between 24 and 30 months of age (Bates & Dick, 2002) and to the development of narrative skills (Castillo-Sánchez, 2019). However, less is known about whether narrative skills are also related to gesture frequency in younger populations in naturalistic settings and how gesture accuracy and gesture frequency differ in this context. The present study asks whether preschoolers’ narrative abilities are related to two measures of gesture use, namely (i) gesture rates, and (ii) gesture accuracy. A total of 34 3- to 4-year-old children participated in a multimodal imitation task, gesture production task and a narrative task. Results show that narrative abilities positively correlate with gesture accuracy, but not with gesture rate, proving that language and gesture are integrated systems and that complementary measures of gesture performance can help us assess the relationship between gesture and language development.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/43015
Preschoolers' narrative abilities are related to gesture accuracy but not to gesture rate
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/430172019-11-28T02:31:20Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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van Gelder, Jarna
author
2019
This study sought to contribute to all of the research done on the crossroads of language attitudes and second language acquisition, by examining attitudes towards the two most well-known accents of English: Standard British English (RP) and Standard American English, and the effects of those attitudes, as well as exposure on the constructs Listening Comprehension, Comprehensibility and perceived Teach Ability. This was done in a two part mixed test design. Forty-one EFL learners from the Netherlands were asked to rate two male native speakers, on their native British and American accents, using 11 attitude dimension Likert-scales. Part two consisted of a standard listening test in the two accents, which was used to objectively rate performance in those accents, followed by the subjective comprehensibility and perceived teach ability measures. 41 Dutch EFL participants showed an overall higher attitude score for the General American accent, in spite of a higher status attitude score for Received pronunciation. The effects of the attitudes on Listening Comprehension and Comprehensibility are as diverse and inconsistent as previous studies have been. An effect of attitude towards an accent on perceived Teach Ability is one of the most conclusive results.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/43017
The Effect of EFL learners' attitudes towards native English accents on listening comprehension and comprehensibility
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/430182019-11-28T02:31:21Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Villaécija Chavarria, Aida
author
2019
To date, there is no accurate, consistent term typology for Catalan Sign Language (LSC). Aiming to contribute to the normalization of a minority language and to provide a new lexical approach to terminology in LSC, this thesis offers a proposal of term typology in LSC. We address this topic with a description and an analysis of an LSC corpus, which we have constituted manually by different video resources of two specialized domains: the administrative and the technical domain. Our proposal is based on previous literature on sign and spoken languages and it is formed by 10 big classes; namely, prefixation,
compounding, loanwords, abbreviation, mouthings, classifiers, semantic changes, simplex specialized signs, lexicalization and others. We show that the fundamental theoretical principles of terminology and lexicon work in a similar way across sign and
spoken languages. However, due to the visual-gestural modality some specific features need to be considered with particular reference to sign languages.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/43018
Word formation in specialized domains: towards a term typology in Catalan Sign Language
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/430192019-11-28T02:31:21Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Wang, Wenyuan
author
2019
Gracias a los grandes desarrollos tecnológicos, no es difícil elaborar y publicar un diccionario electrónico. Los diccionarios electrónicos han brotado eficazmente últimamente, muchos de ellos constan de un gran renombre académico, pero otros no son tan fiables en cuanto al contenido. Frente a esta situación, es necesario realizar estudios que evalúan los diccionarios electrónicos desde la perspectiva académica. El presente trabajo hace un estudio preliminar del apartado chino-español del diccionario en línea Eshelper, con un énfasis en si las entradas de los verbos polisémicos pueden satisfacer las necesidades de los usuarios. Tras analizar las entradas de dos verbos de diferentes grados de polisemia en este diccionario, encontramos sus varios problemas. Al final, proponemos posibles soluciones y entradas mejoradas que se podrían incorporar en un diccionario electrónico bilingüe.
With the development of technology, nowadays it is not difficult to compile and publish an electronic dictionary. Therefore, a number of dictionaries have come out. It is the fact that some of them are of high quality, which can help learners to learn languages efficiently. But there are also some dissatisfactory dictionaries in the market. Under these circumstances, it is necessary to do a relevant evaluation from an academic point of view. The current paper attempts to examine the Chinese-Spanish part of the electronic dictionary Eshelper from the lexicographic perspective. It focuses on whether the design of entries of polysemous verbs can satisfy the demand of the users. By analyzing the entries of two polysemous verbs, we find that there are some problems in the information represented in the dictionary. We consequently suggest the corresponding solutions and propose the ideal entries.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/43019
Análisis lexicográfico de los verbos polisémicos en el apartado chino-español del diccionario electrónico Eshelper
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/430202019-11-28T02:31:22Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Palominos Flores, Claudio Antonio
author
2019
This work addresses macrostructural features of narrative of children with Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC). We analyze indicators of speech planning and use of referential devices. To do this, we compare the narratives of children with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC, 𝑛 = 18, range: 7;4-12;6 years old) with typically developing controls (TD, 𝑛 = 19, range: 6;8-12;10 years old). Results show that children with ASC produced less filled pauses and prolongations than controls, which could be related with a lack of speech planning. Also, we predicted an increasing tendency of the use of anaphoric references compared to the use of non-anaphoric and indefinite references as the story unfolds. This tendency resulted to be significant in the TD group, but not in the ASC group, when comparing anaphoric to non-anaphoric references. This shows that children with ASC are less sensitive to ways of connecting utterances with each other in narrative structure.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/43020
Narrative abilities in children with Autism Spectrum Conditions
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/433202020-01-22T02:31:14Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Liao, Xixian
author
2019
Referring expressions play an important role in object identification. This study analyzes the use of redundant color adjectives (RCAs) in reference to different object categories in largescale datasets of real-world images in order to investigate how this phenomenon displays in real-world scenes and whether it is in line with the results reported in previous artificially designed experiments. It quantitatively and qualitatively analyzes two types of data: naturalistic object descriptions and genuine referring expressions. The results on one hand confirm that the use of RCAs varies across object categories in real-world scenes; on the other hand, they also suggest that the use of color adjectives varies depending on the task settings (descriptive task compared to referential task in this study); and people may produce more RCAs for some specific subcategories of objects.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/43320
The use of redundant adjectives on object names
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/468462021-03-19T02:31:22Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Tamburini, Valeria
author
2020
Previous studies have explored the benefits of shadowing in the EFL classroom and have shown that this technique, which consists in repeating what one hears simultaneously, helps improve pronunciation skills. However, very little is known about the potential beneficial effects of performing “embodied shadowing” while mirroring rhythmic beat gestures. This study adopts a between-subjects pre-/post-test design to determine if both observing and reproducing manual beat gestures during shadowing training leads to an improvement in pronunciation in terms of fluency, comprehensibility and accentedness when compared to an onlyshadowing condition. Crucially, the study controls for shadowing performance by participants. Fifty-four students underwent six shadowing training sessions over a two-week span, in which they were asked to shadow English video recorded readings of a comic narration in two conditions, the Gesture and the No-Gesture condition. Shadowing performance was assessed, and participants were divided into two groups, according to their level in shadowing performance. Pronunciation assessments of a reading task before and after training revealed statistically significant improvements in fluency, comprehensibility and accentedness only in good shadowers and across both Gesture and No-Gesture conditions. The results suggest that both embodied and nonembodied shadowing training have a positive effect for improving L2 pronunciation when participants perform shadowing in a simultaneous way.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/46846
The effects of embodied shadowing on L2 pronunciation
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/468472021-03-19T02:31:21Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Ricart Fajula, Tània
author
2020
La gastronomia és un àmbit que ha experimentat canvis rellevants en els darrers trenta anys, marcats sobretot per la globalització i la difusió mediàtica. Aquest treball pretén analitzar diacrònicament, a través de la neologia, l’evolució del lèxic d’aquest camp tenint en compte els mecanismes de formació, les temàtiques i l’estabilització dels neologismes i considerant el context historicocultural. El treball es basa en un corpus de 532 neologismes extrets de la base de dades de l’Observatori de Neologia de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra, seleccionats amb uns criteris específics i distribuïts en quatre eixos temporals entre el 1990 i el 2019. Els resultats confirmen les diferències respecte la tendència general i el predomini dels manlleus en l’àmbit gastronòmic, on destaca l’augment recent de la influència de llengües com el japonès i el xinès, l’increment de les temàtiques al llarg dels anys i el baix percentatge d’estabilització en l’ús i de diccionarització.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/46847
Neologismes de l’àmbit de la gastronomia en català: una anàlisi diacrònica dels darrers 30 anys
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/468812021-03-23T02:30:54Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Reverté Roca, Mariona
author
2020
Aquest estudi investiga la terminologia en l'àmbit de la reproducció assistida (RA) i és una contribució a la recerca en el marc del projecte TERMMED (IULATERM, UPF). A través de la terminologia extreta d’un corpus d’articles especialitzats, s’examinen tres fenòmens: l’evolució diacrònica d’unitats terminològiques freqüents en RA, la diferència de tractament que reben aquests termes en funció del diccionari en què apareixen, i l’impacte que té aquest àmbit especialitzat en la societat actual. Les principals aportacions del treball són: primerament, la constatació que hi ha una tendència lineal on es remarca la presència de variació terminològica en els textos especialitzats i la incorporació de noves unitats. En segon lloc, l’elevada heterogeneïtat que mostren els diccionaris respecte del tractament de les unitats terminològiques estudiades, que pot fins i tot crear equívocs a l’usuari. Finalment, es demostra que la RA està connotada negativament i la seva terminologia genera confusió, tant entre el públic general com en el semiexpert.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/46881
Termes que transformen realitats: una anàlisi diacrònica i social de la terminologia en l’àmbit de la reproducció assistida
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/468822021-03-23T02:30:48Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Moran, Grace
author
2020
This study deals with a key issue in second language acquisition research (SLA), i.e. communication strategies (CS) in a specific learning context, that is, study abroad (SA) in the case of undergraduate students from a U.S. university learning Spanish over a short1 stay in the city of Barcelona (SPAIN), following formal instruction (FI) at home. It examines the development of repair strategies among university level students to determine whether L2 initial proficiency level affects the quality and quantity of repairs used. Participants (n=9) were undergraduate students from a U.S. university studying abroad in Barcelona for 9 weeks. 3 semi-structured interviews, the Language Contact Profile (LCP), Language diaries, and a sociolinguistic background questionnaire were completed to gather data. The 3 sets of semistructured interviews were analyzed for the following repairs, adopted from Smartt & Scudder (2004), in ascending order of complexity: language switch, appeal for assistance, word form search, circumlocution, utterance expansion, and global revision. Results indicated that the participants with higher level initial oral proficiency showed greater development in repair strategy use as compared to their lower initial level counterparts.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/46882
Repair strategy use during SA: the impact of initial proficiency level
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/468832021-03-23T02:30:58Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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García Balsalobre, Alberto
author
2020
Objects often belong to many different categories (e.g., a persian cat simultaneously belongs to the categories CAT, PET, MAMMAL, CARNIVORE and ANIMAL) and thus they do not have one proper name to refer to them but many names. Research on object naming and categorization has traditionally focused on hierarchical relations between the alternative names for an object and its preferred or modal name. However, objects can also be cross-classified into categories which are non-hierarchically related, attending to alternative conceptualizations (e.g., ‘dessert’ and ‘cake’). In this study, we will investigate the extent to which naming variants for visually presented objects are either hierarchically or non-hierarchically related to their modal names. For this purpose, we will use ManyNames, a dataset of naturalistic images and we will contrast our findings with those yielded by S&V and BOSS, which consist of context-free images depicting idealized objects.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/46883
To what extent are naming variants for visually presented objects hierarchically related?
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/468842021-03-23T02:31:01Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Florit Pons, Júlia
author
2020
Five-year-old children have been shown to start producing non-referential beat gestures in narrative speech. However, it remains unclear how the use of these gestures along with referential iconic gestures evolves over time in children’s narrative discourse, and how the temporal integration between gestures and prosodic prominence develops. This study examines changes in gesture production and gesture-speech alignment using a longitudinal database consisting of 332 narratives performed by 83 children who produced two elicited retellings at two different time points, i.e. at 5-6 years and two years later. Results revealed that the proportion of non-referential gestures increased during development while referential iconics decreased —total numbers did not show a decrease in iconic gestures. Also, gesture-speech alignment was found to be target-like at the two time points, both for referential and non-referential gestures, suggesting that by age five, children have acquired the ability to temporally integrate gesture and speech in narrative discourse.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/46884
Temporal integration of gesture and speech in narrative discourse: an insight into the development of co-speech gesture use
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/526372022-03-08T02:31:50Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Vázquez Sanchis, Miguel
author
2021
Actualment, els parlants de valencià tenen al seu abast més immediat dos possibilitats de normativa lingüística. D’una banda, el model anomenat convergent, promogut per l’Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana, que prioritza les formes lingüístiques compartides amb les altres varietats de la catalanofonia. D’altra banda, el model anomenat particularista, difós per l’Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, que pren com a base les formes més comunes de la varietat valenciana. La confrontació d’idees entre els partidaris d’un model i els de l’altre ha anat construint un debat acadèmic durant l’última vintena d’anys. A partir d’una extensa revisió bibliogràfica dels arguments de cada corrent, concloem que cal aprofundir en algunes perspectives (actituds lingüístiques, resolució del conflicte lingüisticoideològic, revernacularització, llengua materna dels parlants) i presentem les bases que guiaran un projecte de tesi doctoral amb què tractarem de resoldre les incògnites mitjançant un estudi empíric propi.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/52637
La multiplicitat dels models normatius del valencià: un debat entre convergència i particularisme
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/540142022-09-14T17:49:46Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Xu, Nuo
author
2022-09-07
Whether syntax feeds morphology or not remains a topic of lively debate in
contemporary linguistics. This current study adopts the LFG framework to compare the
approaches represented by two opposing views, which we use to analyze double object
constructions in Misantla Totonac, in which two object functions can control agreement
simultaneously by means of inflectional markers.
We first incorporate realization models of morphology into the interface, in
which m-features in the morphological component are mapped onto the syntactic
information in f-structures. We find that the replication of structured information in our
analysis is shown to be completely redundant. However, we achieve formal
simplification when morphological realization rules are defined directly by f-structures
to generate inflected word forms. The morphologically complex language argues for
the view that word formation is dependent on syntactic information.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54014
Is morphology before or after syntax?. Evidence for deciding
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/540152022-09-14T17:49:20Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Gómez i Martínez, Mireia
author
2022-09-07
Several narrative-based intervention programs have been designed to boost different children’s
linguistic abilities. Nevertheless, very few studies have fully assessed the role of multimodality
(e.g., embodied speech involving hand and bodily gestures, and facial expressions) in these
interventions, which could really make a difference to the involvement and the social
interaction of the children and, therefore, have an impact on the results. Thus, little is known
about how a multimodal narrative-based intervention could play a role boosting the frequency
of use of bilingual’s less-dominant language. For this, the current study will test the
effectiveness of the MultiModal Narrative (MMN) intervention –initially designed to train
macrostructure and perspective taking– in boosting Catalan, the weaker language of a group
of 34 5- to 6-year-old Spanish-Catalan bilinguals. To test the value of a multimodal narrative
training on the frequency of use of Catalan and, a between-subjects pre- and post-intervention
design was planned with the MMN 9-session intervention. Participants were assigned to either
the experimental (multimodal or non-multimodal) or the control group. Importantly, while
children in the multimodal condition were exposed to emphatic multimodal markers, and were
encouraged to embody the most relevant actions and emotions of the stories, children in thenonmultimodal
group received the same narrative-based intervention with natural multimodality.
Frequency of use was measured by assessing the percentage of use of the target language in
the vocabulary and narrative retelling pre- and post-test tasks. Results revealed that the two
experimental groups outperformed the control group, showing statistically significant gains in
Catalan frequency of use the two post-intervention tasks (mean increase of 27.65% in the
narrative retelling task, and of 11.56% on the vocabulary test).
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54015
A Multimodal narrative intervention improves the frequency of use of catalan in spanish-dominant preschoolers
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/540162022-09-08T01:32:24Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Pardo Alonso, Julia Elena
author
2022-09-07
Spanish is currently conceived as a pluricentric language—a shared pan-Hispanic norm speaks
to and about all Spanish speakers worldwide. But prescribing the language is not restricted to
institutions, people are watchful of their language themselves. A turning point came when the
RAE (Spanish Royal Academy) joined Twitter and began to exchange normative views with
the laypeople, enabling their fair share of online folk prescriptivism. This work takes some of
the most frequent questions sent to the RAE and analyses #dudaRAE tweets and retweets to
reveal their regional provenance and determine which countries are more interested in specific
linguistic uses. These figures are compared against dialectological maps built from Twitter
data, aiming to establish a relationship between people’s engagement and local use. Results
show some enlightening regional variations and that the higher use of minority variants is
occasionally associated with people’s curiosity. Questions arise about the underlying,
culturally diverse stances towards the institution.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54016
#dudaRAE: a merging analysis of folk prescriptivism and dialectology
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/540652022-09-15T01:32:06Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Rivera Bobadilla, Nicolás Esteban
author
2022-09-14
The present work describes the form, function, and distribution of pucha and chuta, two
expressives used in Chilean Spanish. The research was made using a mixed methodology. On the
one hand, a corpus-based study composed of Chilean web pages caught the contexts in which these
words appear and their possible functions. On the other hand, interviews with native speakers
elicited the use of these words, using storyboards about the delivery of good news and bad news.
The interviews served to observe the phonological aspects of these expressives and their conditions
of well-formedness and ill-formedness. The results showed that these forms function as
interjections and expressive intensifiers, and both reflect the speaker's attitude toward the
information of the sentence: pucha expresses emotive content of negative valence,
while chuta expresses an epistemic state of surprise.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54065
¡Pucha! qué lata / ¡Chuta! no sabía: a description of the form, function, and distribution of two expressives in Chilean Spanish
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/540662022-09-15T01:32:10Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Bolea Centelles, Marina
author
2022-09-14
In Catalan, relational adjectives (RAs) appear proportionally more often than qualitative
adjectives (QAs) within prepositional phrases. This study explores the reason behind this
difference by connecting it to RAs being often used to create expressions that denote complex
concepts (e.g., relacions internacionals). The hypothesis that RAs are often part of expressions
in which a PP modifies a noun to create a complexer concept (e.g., comitè de relacions
internacionals) is tested through the statistical analysis of corpus data. The results falsify this
hypothesis, and the difference in the distribution of RAs and QAs is still unexplained.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54066
Relational adjectives and prepositional phrases: the missing link
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/540672022-09-16T01:31:41Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Guerrero García, Beatriz
author
2022-09-14
El presente trabajo pretende estudiar la construcción del significado de palabras
especializadas del ámbito del feminismo y la violencia de género de estudiantes de ESO
y así poder valorar el método lexicográfico bottom-up. Para ello, se seleccionaron 10
términos y se confeccionó una propuesta de definición para cada una de ellas a partir de
las definiciones recogidas de alumnos de Secundaria. Finalmente, se realizó una prueba
de control para determinar su adecuación. Los resultados de dicha prueba de control
indicaron que el método lexicográfico bottom-up sí puede aplicarse en contextos de
diferente temática. Asimismo, esta metodología nos permitió observar que las diferencias
de conceptualización entre los alumnos de 1o y 2o, por un lado, y 3o y 4o de ESO, por otro
lado, son lo suficientemente grandes como para considerar establecer dos subtipos de
diccionarios destinados a la enseñanza superior, uno correspondiente a cada ciclo de la
ESO.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54067
Feminismo y violencia de género: el diccionario como refuerzo de una educación en igualdad
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/540682022-09-15T01:32:09Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Yao, Ting
author
2022-09-14
Recent evidence suggests that the shadowing technique (i.e., the immediate vocalization
of speech stimuli) may be an effective tool to improve L2 English learners’ pronunciation.
However, little is known about the effectiveness of embodied shadowing (i.e., the immediate
vocalization and physical reproduction of multimodal stimuli) and the role of the individual
(embodied) shadowing accuracy during training (i.e., the time-lapse or latency between the
target L2 speech/gesture and the learners’ (embodied) repetition). This training study first
investigates the impacts of embodiment during shadowing on improving L2 English
pronunciation, and secondly, it assesses the potential effects of the learners’ embodied
shadowing accuracy during pronunciation training on comprehensibility, accentedness, and
fluency gains.
The present MA Thesis used the audio-visual corpus obtained by Tamburini (2020), in
which fifty-four learners of English were trained during six sessions in two shadowing
conditions, namely Non-Embodied Shadowing and Embodied Shadowing. An analysis was
performed on embodied shadowing accuracy during pronunciation training. A reassessment of
pronunciation scores in pre-test and post-test reading tasks revealed a significant improvement
in speech fluency in the Non-Embodied Shadowing group, but no significant improvement in
comprehensibility, accentedness, or fluency in the Embodied Shadowing condition.
Interestingly, it was demonstrated that shorter speech and gesture latencies significantly
predicted better comprehensibility and fluency scores at the post-test, suggesting that
shadowing latency is a key variable when performing embodied shadowing. This study
highlights the positive effects of using non-embodied shadowing techniques to improve L2
speech fluency and encourages instructors using the shadowing technique to pay attention to
the shadowing accuracy of their students by training them on shortening their latency times.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54068
The effects of embodied shadowing accuracy during embodied shadowing training on L2 English pronunciation
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/540692022-09-15T01:32:08Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Gabanes Anuncibay, Inés
author
2022-09-14
Word embeddings represent word meaning in the form of a vector; however, the encoded
information varies depending on the parameters the vector has been trained with. This paper
analyzes how two parameters, context size and symmetry, influence word embedding
information and aims to find if there exists a single distributional parametrization for capturing
semantic similarity as well as relatedness. The models were trained with GloVe with different
parametrizations; then, they were quantitatively evaluated through a similarity task, using
WordSim-353 (for relatedness) and SimLex-999 (for semantic similarity) as benchmarks. The
results show a minimal variation when manipulating some of the analyzed parameters, in
particular between symmetric and asymmetric contexts, which leads us to conclude that it is
not necessary to train models with large contexts for achieving good performance.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54069
Analyzing how context size and symmetry influence word embedding information
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/541052022-09-20T01:32:07Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Masson, Ludovic Jacques François
author
2022-09-19
L'objectiu d'aquest treball és analitzar la construcció del significat de les persones en termes de
conceptes vinculats a la medicina, i veure com la quantitat de coneixement rebut influeix en la
seva percepció dels conceptes. Per fer-ho, hem demanat a alumnes de diferents nivells de
primària, ESO i universitat que definissin per escrit tres conceptes: virus, vacuna i PCR.
L'anàlisi d'aquestes definicions va mostrar com certs factors semblen ser més importants en un
nivell d’aprenentatge que en un altre, així com la gran influència de la pandèmia de la covid-
19, especialment per als col·lectius més joves, en la construcció del significat terminològic.
Això demostra que cal prestar atenció a aquests factors d'importància a l'hora d'elaborar
diccionaris especialitzats per als aprenents, i també com un esdeveniment important pot incidir
en la construcció del coneixement de les persones, sobretot quan es produeix en les primeres
etapes de la seva vida.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54105
La construcció del significat terminològic a partir de definicions evolutives: estudi de casos
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/541062022-09-20T07:14:43Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Makhoul, Ward
author
2022-09-19
Code-switching (CS) is known as an ubiquitous phenomenon in multilingual societies and
countries. Vernacular Palestinian Arabic variety spoken in Israel is among these languages,
informally used for day-to-day conversations only. Such conversations appear to contain code—
switched instances from Hebrew, the formal and dominant language of the country, even in
settings where the need for CS seems to be unnecessary. This study examines the CS practices in
PA and investigates the reason behind these CS instances in controlled settings and the correlation
between bilingual dominance and CS. In the production-task interviews and Bilingual Language
Profile test (BLP), there was a correlation between language dominance and CS; 13 participants
were interviewed to elicit and analyze natural speech containing CS instances, along with
undergoing a BLP test. The acceptability judgment task observed the limits and boundaries of
different code-switched linguistic structures.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54106
Code-switching practices in palestinian arabic
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/541072022-09-20T01:32:10Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Sheets, Kelly Lauren
author
2022-09-19
The autism spectrum comprises a substantial 30% of individuals said to be non- or minimally
verbal. While these produce no phrase-speech by definition, they often do vocalize. However,
their exact vocal repertoires remain unknown. The present study aimed to advance on this front
by developing a new annotation scheme for nine such individuals, adapting categories used to
profile pre-verbal neurotypical children. In a second step, vocalization variables were related
to microstructural metrics (fractional anisotropy, FA, and myelin water fraction, MWF) of a
crucial white-matter speech-related tract, the arcuate fasciculus (AF). Results revealed that at
a group level, participants produced significantly more syllabic, or speechlike, than non-
syllabic vocalizations. The proportion of words marginally exceeded that of word
approximations. Furthermore, the vowel and consonant repertoire resembled that of
neurotypical infants. There were no significant correlations between vocalization and either
FA or MWF in the AF. These new findings refute the expectation that vocalizations in
individuals with NMVA are predominantly non-speech-like and substantiate the need to look
for the neural basis of NMVA also in non-speech-related language territory in the brain.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54107
Development of vocal repertoires in non- and minimally verbal autism spectrum disorder
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/541402022-10-06T14:53:47Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Zhou, Chenyue
author
2022-09-21
The lack of parallel corpora is one of the biggest challenges hindering progress in
Machine Translation for low-resource languages. In this work, we crawl and filter
parallel sentences in Catalan and Chinese from Wikipedia in order to compile a
parallel corpus of good quality. This paper describes the processes we follow to build
the corpus, including mining the text data, computing sentence embeddings,
extracting sentence alignment and filtering for better corpus quality. We manually
audit the corpus quality based on an error taxonomy. Results show that the automatic
filtering we applied makes a great improvement in the quality of our web-crawled
corpus. The corpus is later used as training data to finetune a multilingual Machine
Translation (MT) system in both CA→ZH and ZH→CA directions. Results show that
finetuning with our corpus successfully managed to improve BLEU score in both
directions on the Flores-101 public benchmark test sets, which demonstrates the
importance of corpus in MT and the quality of our Catalan-Chinese parallel corpus.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54140
Building a Catalan-Chinese parallel corpus from Wikipedia for use in machine translation
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/541422022-09-22T01:32:42Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Liu, Xizuan
author
2022-09-21
Neural Machine Translation (NMT) is the state-of-the-art solution for automatic translation. However, the performance of NMT models on low-resource language pairs is still limited
because it relies on parallel corpora resources. The present study aims to improve the M2M100 model developed by Facebook for its MT between Chinese and Catalan, which is a European language with rather limited resources. The study uses the Wikipedia Parallel corpora
elaborated by the collaborative study of Zhou (2022) as training data. We used the full finetune method to train the model and we have an improvement of Chinese↔Catalan (+0.3-0.5
BLEU) with a bigger corpus and (+0.1-0.2 BLEU) with a smaller corpus but of better quality.
The results also show that while a small dataset is enough to improve the performance of the
already state-of-the-art baseline system, the size of the corpora determines the training results
on similar data quality conditions.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54142
Improving Chinese-Catalan machine translation with Wikipedia parallel corpus
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/543012023-03-16T08:12:59Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/543272022-10-11T01:32:28Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Tabula, Mirela
author
2022-10-10
The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the field of critical research of foreign language
textbooks. The researchers in this field have thus far focused mainly on major global
languages (with the exception of Catalan). The present study therefore seeks to explore to
what extent are the teaching materials of small scope language(s) such as Serbo-Croatian
embedded in the dominant ideologies of their historical contexts. Focusing on the topics
related to the world of work, culture and gender the goal is to analyse the socio-economic
image the teaching materials create. A critical analysis of the contents of three textbooks from
different historical periods and regimes (market socialism and neoliberal capitalism) has
revealed that the materials promote the values, characteristics and practices of the dominant
ideologies and, in the case of contemporary textbooks, position learners as consumers.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/54327
Critical analysis of textbooks of Serbo-Croatian for foreigners
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/578432023-09-09T01:30:13Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Sandler, Daniel
author
2023-09-08
Este trabajo se propone identificar los patrones principales en la morfología derivativa de los
préstamos entre el mapudungun y el castellano (en ambas direcciones) y sintetizar los de la
dirección castellano > mapudungun en una tipología. Para ello, se utilizan los diccionarios
constituyentes del corpus CORLEXIM para clasificar los distintos tipos de préstamos, destacar
las tendencias de derivación y composición y subrayar las diferencias en la lexicalización y la
derivación posterior entre las dos lenguas.
Aquest treball té com a objectiu identificar els patrons principals en la morfologia derivativa
dels manlleus entre el mapudungun i el castellà (en ambdues direccions) i sintetitzar els de la
direcció castellà > mapudungun en una tipologia. Per aquest motiu, s’utilitzen el diccionaris
constituents del corpus CORLEXIM per classificar els diferents tipus de manlleus, destacar les
tendències de derivació i composició i subratllar les diferències en la lexicalització i la
derivació posterior entre les dues llengües.
This paper aims to identify the main patterns in derivational morphology of loanwords
between Mapudungun and Spanish (in both directions) and synthesize those in the direction of
Spanish > Mapudungun into a typology. To this end, we use the constituent dictionaries of the
CORLEXIM corpus to provide an overview of the different types of loans, to highlight
tendencies in their lexicalization and the subsequent derivation and composition in the two
languages.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57843
Adaptación, derivación y composición: Una tipología morfológica de los préstamos léxicos del castellano al mapudungun
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/578442023-09-09T01:30:12Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Galbraith, Matthew
author
2023-09-08
Spoken dialogue systems have transformed human-machine interaction by providing real-time
responses to queries. However, misunderstandings between the user and system persist. This study
examines the significance of interactional language in dialogue repair between virtual assistants
and users. Analyzing interactions with Google Assistant and Siri, I explore their utilization and
response to the other-initiated repair strategy "huh?" prevalent in human-human interaction.
Findings reveal several assistant-generated strategies but an inability to replicate human-like repair
strategies such as "huh?". English and Spanish user surveys show differences in users’ repair
strategy preferences and assistant usage, with both similarities and disparities among the two
surveyed languages. These results shed light on inequalities between interactional language in
human-human interaction and human-machine interaction, underscoring the need for further
research on the impact of interactional language on human-machine interaction in English and
beyond.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57844
An analysis of dialogue repair in virtual voice assistents
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/578452023-09-09T01:30:16Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Aguilera Pérez, María Esther
author
2023-09-08
Este trabajo de fin de máster tiene como objetivo examinar cuáles son los criterios de
inclusión de nuevas palabras en el diccionario académico (DLE). Para ello, se han analizado
286 neologismos incluidos en las últimas actualizaciones del DLE y 275 neologismos que se
consideran buenos candidatos para la inclusión en el diccionario pero que aún no pertenecen a
él y que han aparecido en el blog Martes Neológico. El análisis llevado a cabo se ha centrado
en el uso social de los hablantes (actualidad, presencia, frecuencia de uso, estabilidad de uso,
etc.) y en menor medida, en criterios formales (proceso de formación, adaptación a las normas
del castellano, etc.). Se ha concluido que el DLE tiene en cuenta los criterios de uso social,
pero que en algunos casos se incumplen a favor de otros criterios (coherencia interna del
diccionario, cumplimiento de las normas gramaticales en castellano, etc.). En definitiva, este
estudio contribuye a la reflexión lexicográfica sobre la neología y a esclarecer los procesos de
selección empleados por el diccionario académico.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57845
Aproximación a la diccionarización de neologismos: un análisis del DLE y del Martes Neológico
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/579982023-09-30T01:30:45Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Mash, Audrey
author
2023-09-29
This study examines the impact of tokenization methods on
gender bias in Neural Machine Translation (NMT). Unigram,
BPE, Character, and Morfessor tokenization approaches are
compared in terms of translation quality measured by BLEU
scores and gender accuracy. Results show that Unigram achieves
the highest BLEU scores, closely followed by BPE and
Morfessor, while Character performs lower. However, all
models display a bias towards generating masculine forms more
frequently than feminine forms in gender accuracy analysis.
They also overwhelming generate masculine forms when no
context is provided. The Unigram method exhibits the highest
accuracy for both feminine and masculine forms, surpassing
BPE and Morfessor. These findings emphasize the need to
address gender bias in MT systems and the complex relationship
between tokenization methods, translation quality, and gender
accuracy. Further research is warranted to explore additional
factors influencing gender bias. This study contributes to the
development of inclusive and unbiased translation technologies.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57998
The impact of tokenization on gender bias in Machine Translation
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/580002023-09-30T01:30:33Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Buendía Martínez, Mélida
author
2023-09-29
Este estudio se sitúa en la intersección entre la morfopragmática, la neología expresiva humorística
y los antropónimos literarios. Gracias al análisis morfológico de una muestra representativa de 150
antropónimos inventados por René Goscinny y los demás autores de la serie de cómics de Astérix,
el objetivo del trabajo es identificar las estrategias de formación de antropónimos de Astérix en la
versión original escrita en francés. Mediante el estudio de la estructura interna de estas unidades
léxicas se ponen de manifiesto algunas consideraciones pragmáticas que intervienen en la
formación de estos nombres. El carácter lúdico y humorístico de estos neologismos radica en los
juegos de palabras y formas transgresoras, dentro del marco de la formación de palabras francesas,
a los que recurren conscientemente los autores. Este equilibrio entre el respeto y la transgresión de
la gramática permite a los lectores reconocer los vocablos como neologismos de su lengua y
entender la ironía que transmiten.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58000
De Assurancetourix a Garovirus: morfopragmática y humor en los antropónimos de Astérix
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/580012023-09-30T01:30:31Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Fröhlich, Karla
author
2023-09-29
The occurrence of referential anomalies in spontaneous speech in psychosis, and more specifically
in patients with formal thought disorder, has been documented since the late 1970s, and recent
linguistic studies have shown in several typologically different languages that the quantitative
distribution and quality of use of different types of noun phrases differs in people with psychosis,
specifically in anaphoric noun phrases that pick up a previously mentioned entity. To identify
changes in such spontaneous speech patterns, automated natural language processing (NLP)
technologies are now frequently used with the intention that this line of research may eventually
help with clinical goals of diagnosis and prognosis. Here we are taking a coreference resolution
model applicable to German and test the prediction that it will fare worse when processing
coreferential expressions from schizophrenic speech. Comparisons between patient and control
groups, as well as correlations with clinical variables, revealed statistically non-significant results,
suggesting that the referential coherence ofschizophrenic patients' speech is comparable to that of
healthy controls, from the viewpoint of this model. A post-hoc analysis of averaged semantic
similarity between consecutive words yielded similarly non-significant group differences.
Together, these results suggest semantic structure at both the referential and lexical-conceptual
level to be intact in schizophrenia, questioning the generalizability of current evidence to the
contrary.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58001
Examining coreference Resolution in schizophrenia with a language model: detection gap, model performance and clinical correlations
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/580022023-09-30T01:30:29Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Gutiérrez Martínez, Rafael Antonio
author
2023-09-29
The ProSPar model is an in-progress theory of word formation and meaning that tries to
explain how morphological relations and world knowledge shape novel word formation and
novel word meaning. In this thesis, I analyze the derived words of 40 proper names in
Spanish employing some of the notions of the model to address a challenge that this kind of
derivation poses for it. The challenge is how to make the notion of scenario, which seems to
work well with the derivation of other kinds of words, operative in the analysis of derivatives
of proper names. Data analysis suggests that one way to understand the scenarios is as models
of knowledge that group entities (or types of entities) such as intellectual movement, the
referent itself, qualities, individuals, actions, periods of time, historical events, appreciations
and linguistic expressions. Since understanding scenarios in this way allows us to explain
some inferences about the interpretation of new words, it seems a plausible proposal.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58002
Derivational morphology in proper names: scenario knowledge and the paradigmatic lexicon
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/580032023-09-30T01:30:27Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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He, Yunke
author
2023-09-29
Different names are used when people refer to the same entity (e.g., “bread” vs “bagel”).
We built on the ManyNames v2 dataset, a rich resource of real-world images annotated with
multiple English names, to create a Mandarin Chinese version: ManyNames ZH. This new
extension provides an excellent platform for analyzing variations in object naming behavior
within Mandarin-speaking communities. We investigated the relationship between people’s
naming variation and levels of familiarity, and whether this relationship varies in different
ontological domains. Our findings indicate that Familiarity influences naming variation by
two competing forces. Increasing familiarity expands vocabulary and leads to higher
variation, while greater familiarity promotes convergence on conventional names, reducing
variation. The dominant force is convergence, observed across most domains. However,
some evidence of vocabulary expansion is seen in the comparison between PEOPLE and
ANIMALS_PLANTS domains and in the low familiarity range within the CLOTHING
domain.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58003
The impact of familiarity on naming variation: a study on object naming in Mandarin Chinese
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/580042023-09-30T01:30:43Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Lu, Yingfei
author
2023-09-29
Our comparative study focuses on examining the word formation processes of English
and Spanish neologisms collected from Among The New Words in American Speech (English
data) and El Banco de Neologismos from Centro Virtual Cervantes (Spanish data) between
2005 and 2015. By analyzing lexicological characteristics and lexicographic representation,
our objective is to uncover both similarities and differences between these two languages and
these two approaches to neology.
To analyze English neologisms, we draw upon Bauer's (1983) influential work English
Word-formation and the collaborative contribution of Bauer and Huddleston (2002). For
Spanish neologisms, we incorporate the comprehensive reference Nueva gramática de la
lengua española by Real Academia Española (2009), along with Cabré's (2006) theory on La
clasificación de neologismos: una tarea compleja, which guides the Observatori de Neologia
(OBNEO) project.
Our findings reveal distinct differences in the productivity of word formation processes
between English and Spanish. For instance, English neologisms primarily manifest as
compounds and phrases, while Spanish exhibits significant productivity in suffixation and
neoclassical compounds. Additionally, borrowing words in Spanish demonstrate a prominent
presence, as opposed to the low amount of loanwords in English. These disparities can be
attributed to various factors, including the differing nature and purpose of the projects, the
inherent characteristics of the languages, and their historical origins. Furthermore, the
utilization of different classification criteria contributes to the observed results. To address the
challenges encountered during our study, we suggest revising English compound definitions
and conducting comprehensive re-evaluations of word formation process information in Banco
de Cervantes to ensure improved accuracy.
Moreover, our study emphasizes the importance of exploring unconventional
neologisms that challenge traditional morphological theories. It highlights the significant role
of word elements in generating new words and calls for future research to further investigate
their implications.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58004
Neology in English and Spanish. 2005-2015. Lexicological characteristics and lexicographic representation
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/580052023-09-30T01:30:36Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Luong, Claire Lien
author
2023-09-29
Examining the narrative microstructure of non-dominant bilinguals is crucial as it can help us
comprehend the processes of simultaneous language acquisition and how children develop
their language skills, potentially enhancing their performance in the non-dominant language.
This study aims to examine the impact of a narrative-based language intervention on the
linguistic microstructure of Catalan, a non-dominant language, in preschoolers residing in the
Spanish-dominant area of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Catalonia. The intervention follows the
MultiModal Narrative (MMN) training (Florit-Pons et al., 2022), targeting macrostructural
elements like narrative and pragmatic skills, hand and bodily gestures, facial expressions, and
prosody. Previous research suggests that macro-level interventions can influence
microstructural aspects such as lexical production and diversity. The study compares two
groups (n = 74): one receiving the narrative intervention (non-multimodal) and the other a
control group. The Intervention involves interactive retelling activities of Catalan stories over
nine sessions. Pre- and post-intervention, children retell a story, and their retellings are
analyzed. Total number of words (TNW) and total number of different words (TNDW) are
used as indices of lexical productivity and variety. Results show increased TNW and TNDW
in the lexical microstructure of Catalan after the intervention, indicating enhanced language
skills. This study contributes to the literature on narrative-based language interventions for
bilingual children and offers insights for educational practice and policy in supporting language
development in this population.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58005
The effects of an oral narrative-based intervention on the development of the non-dominant language in bilingual Catalan-Spanish preschoolers
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/580062023-09-30T01:30:44Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Murray, Jacqueline
author
2023-09-29
Heritage speakers are those whose home language differs from the language of their
inhabited region. This can include native speakers who immigrate, or parents who chose to
use their non-native language at home for various reasons. One understudied area is the
impact of these two environments on language development. This study uses the MAIN
cat/dog storytelling task to examine the narrative abilities of 2 children from each
experimental condition: receiving native or non-native input. We analyse macro- and
microstructure, where macrostructure refers to larger story elements such as: setting,
complexity, and internal state terms, and microstructure refers to the language-specific uses
of formal linguistic features. The results indicate that speakers with a native parent
demonstrate a more advanced stage of acquisition in most measures, even when seemingly
similar errors are produced. These results support the need to further investigate the impact of
the various linguistic environments heritage speakers face.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58006
Analysing narratives in Heritage English learning children with native or foreign speaker parents in Barcelona, Spain
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/580072023-09-30T01:30:41Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Pieterse, Tommy
author
2023-09-29
Recent decades have seen an increase in the prevalence of the use of computational methods in
the study of language, including in sociolinguistics. These methods allow for the study of
language variation through the analysis of social media data and even for the mapping of the
spread of linguistic variation in the real world. The goal of this study was to assess the utility
of computational methods in the extraction of Dutch Low Saxon dialect features from a large
Twitter corpus. The results indicate that these dialect features can be used successfully for the
training of classifiers and that maps generated based on these features and their associated
predictions have the potential to capture the use of Dutch Low Saxon in the Netherlands,
although methodological adjustments are advisable for future studies. The study of
socioeconomic status as it relates to Low Saxon proved feasible, although to a limited degree.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58007
Detecting and mapping dialectal variation in a Dutch Twitter corpus: examining the use of Dutch Low Saxon online
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/580082023-09-30T01:30:42Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Tütüncübasi, Ulya
author
2023-09-29
Various gesture labeling systems aim to establish guidelines on how to systematically assess and
annotate gestures. However, there is a lack of resources that provide guidance and training on the
proper use of the labeling systems. To address this gap, the present study aims to (a) collaboratively
develop an online training program for the M3D gesture labeling system (Rohrer et al., 2023) using
the ADDIE paradigm (Branch, 2009) and (b) to evaluate its usability, acceptability, feasibility and
effectiveness. Developing a training program for gesture annotation is essential for advancing the field
of gesture studies, equally important is conducting an evaluative process to ensure the program’s high
quality nature.
The evaluation will employ a mixed-methods approach, using the System Usability Scale (SUS)
(Brooke, 2013) for usability assessment, an ADDIE questionnaire and an in-house questionnaire for
acceptability, a starting-and-completion ratio for feasibility and an inter-annotator reliability
assessment for effectiveness. Thirteen participants took part in the evaluation. The results show that
the program has achieved a remarkable degree of usability, especially in terms of ease of use,
complexity and integration of functionalities, reaching an overall score of “Excellent”, with individual
scores ranging from 70-97.7 on a 1-100 scale. In terms of acceptability, it was found to enhance the
participants’ skills (M= 4.90, SD= 0.316), learning material was perceived as supporting the learning
process (M= 4.90, SD= 0.316) and value was added by visual material (M= 5.00, SD= 0.00). The
starting-and-completion ratio stands at 13:10. Effectiveness shows high inter-annotator reliability
results for Gesture Phases and Gesture Referentiality. Overall, the projects’ results represent a major
advancement for gesture studies, offering for the first time an online gesture annotation training
program which moves the field towards a more standardized approach to assessing gesture in
multimodal corpora.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58008
M3D Gesture Labeling: developing and evaluating a training program for gesture annotation - a mixed-methods study
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/580092023-09-30T01:30:40Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Wright, Jamie
author
2023-09-29
This study explores the concept of iconicity, which refers to a relationship of
similarity between sound and meaning in words. The Bouba-kiki effect, where participants
consistently associate certain phonemes with round or spiky shapes, and ideophones, which
are sensory words like zigzag, are examples of iconicity. In this study, iconicity ratings, based
on native speaker judgments, are used to assess iconicity, while semantic and phonetic
embeddings provide distributional and articulatory information about words. Linear
regression models are employed to connect these elements, investigating the extent to which
iconicity information is captured in English phonetic and semantic word embeddings. The
models successfully predict iconicity ratings to a certain degree, suggesting the presence of
iconicity information in these embeddings. Moreover, the models' predictions align with
previous research on the phonetic and semantic dimensions of iconicity. This research shines
light on the relationship between iconicity and word embeddings, and contributes to our
knowledge on the cognitive and linguistic mechanisms underlying the phenomenon of
iconicity
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58009
Examining iconicity information in semantic and phonetic word embeddings
oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/580102023-09-30T01:30:43Zcom_10230_20651com_10230_16441col_10230_20657
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Zeng, Zhao
author
2023-09-29
Previous studies have shown the beneficial role of observing pitch gestures, which refer to hand
movements mimicking pitch heights and contours in speech, in improving the perception of L2
tones by non-tonal language speakers. However, little is known about the potential benefits of
training speakers to perform pitch gestures on tone pronunciation both during training -
simultaneously imitating tone and gesture - and after training. The present study has two
complementary aims. First, to investigate whether a brief 3-minute training session with
performing pitch gestures while imitating the four Mandarin tones can improve non-tonal
language speakers’ ability to imitate the target tones after training. Second, to investigate
whether the simultaneous production of the target tones during training is more accurate when
accompanied by pitch gestures. In a between-subjects design, 50 Catalan-Spanish bilinguals
were randomly divided into two groups: (a) the No-Gesture group (NG), in which the
participants imitated tone words without gestures, and (b) the Gesture group (G), in which they
imitated the same tone words while simultaneously producing pitch gestures. All participants
underwent a tone imitation task before and after training. The results showed that a brief 3-
minute training involving pitch gestures was not more effective than training without pitch
gestures in promoting a more accurate production of the Mandarin tones after training.
However, upon closer examination of the target production of the tones during training, further
analyses revealed that producing pitch gestures did improve imitation accuracy of Tone 3,
which is considered the most challenging tone to learn.
http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58010
Effects of producing pitch gestures on the production of Chinese tones