Normative inferentialism on linguistic understanding

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matej Drobňák
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Understanding

The importance of language and culture to the growing Sino-Caribbean commercial relationship

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helene Zamor ◽  
Alicia D. Nicholls ◽  
Albert Christopher Lee
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Culture ◽  
English Language ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Cultural Barriers ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Linguistic Understanding ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The 19Th Century

Language and culture play a critical role in international commercial relations. Since the 19th century, the English language has undeniably held the prominent position as the global lingua franca to facilitate communication between nations. However, China’s contemporary re-emergence as an economic superpower has expanded its global influence. Consequently, awareness of Chinese culture and language is becoming important not only globally, but also in the Caribbean, where China’s economic footprint has expanded considerably in recent years. This article conceptually explores the important role of language and culture within the growing Sino-Caribbean commercial relationship. Specifically, it discusses the potential impact of language on the trade and tourism sectors, which are two key industries that drive the economies of English-speaking Caribbean small island developing states. It does this by charting the development of the English and Chinese languages as dominant languages. It then briefly looks at the current level of Chinese engagement with the region in trade and, more contemporarily, the potential of greater Chinese tourism in the Caribbean. It discusses the value of deeper cultural and linguistic understanding in nurturing and expanding these relationships. Finally, the article concludes by providing meaningful recommendations on ways to mitigate cultural and linguistic barriers in order to promote deeper Sino-Caribbean trade and tourism.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>Language and culture are two important factors in commercial relationships, especially trade and tourism.</li><br /><li>This article adds to the growing literature on budding Sino-Caribbean relations by exploring the importance of linguistic and cultural understanding to nurturing this relationship.</li><br /><li>It argues that Caribbean countries cannot take for granted that English will always be the lingua franca for Chinese-Caribbean relations given China’s expanding global footprint.</li><br /><li>The article makes recommendations on ways to mitigate linguistic and cultural barriers in order to deepen Sino-Caribbean commercial ties.</li></ul>

scholarly journals Secondary School Teachers Don’t Have Time to Engage in the Most Important Aspects of Information Literacy Due to Curricular Pressures

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
David Herron ◽  
Lotta Haglund
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Secondary School Teachers ◽  
Independent Learning ◽  
School Teachers ◽  
High Learning ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Making Meaning ◽  
Linguistic Understanding ◽  
Student Information

A Review of: Williams, D. and C. Wavell. “Secondary School Teachers’ Conceptions of Student Information Literacy.” Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 39.4 (2007): 199-212. Objective – To examine school teachers’ understanding of student information literacy and to look at the implications of the findings for developing information literacy in students. Design – Qualitative research design (group discussions; verbal and written reflections). Setting – Secondary schools in the United Kingdom. Subjects – Secondary school teachers with various subject specializations. Methods – The study initially involved 31 secondary school teachers; 24 from seven schools in Scotland and seven from two schools in England. Participant teachers were self-selecting. The study took a phenomenographic approach. Teachers’ perceptions of their students’ abilities and their experiences and perceptions of their role in developing these abilities were examined through data collection in three stages. During the first stage, group discussions established the teacher’s initial conceptions of information literacy. Participants also filled out an information task grid which, together with focus questions, ensured that discussions were kept in the realm of practice. During the second stage of data collection, teachers observed and reflected on their students’ use of information in classroom activities. This was accompanied by informal site visits during which 26 of the participants were introduced to information literacy frameworks and definitions in order to contextualize reflections and discussions. Field notes were used to record these informal meetings. Six participants provided written feedback on reflections. In the third and final stage, a summary of themes from the first two stages was sent to 23 of the participants prior to a second group discussion in order to try to stimulate further reflection. Discussions were audio recorded and transcribed. The transcribed data were analyzed for the dimensions of variation of teachers’ conceptions of student information literacy and key elements associated with each category of description were determined. Main Results – The data revealed six main conceptions of student information literacy among the teachers: “finding information,” “linguistic understanding,” “making meaning,” “skills,” “critical awareness of sources,” and “independent learning.” There was no particular hierarchy in their conceptualization, although independent learning seemed to be the ultimate goal. Teachers’ conceptions in the beginning of the study focused on the ability to find information, whereas after a period of reflection and further discussions, a broader and more complex understanding of information literacy appeared. Table 1 simplifies some of the data from the table in the article and shows conceptualizations as well as some of the contextual elements. [Table 1] Teachers felt that they had at least some control over the development of student ability to find information, develop skills, and critically appraise sources, even though these were not the highest learning priority outcomes. However, in the three areas of ability which the teachers regarded as of high learning priority (linguistic understanding, making meaning and independent learning), they felt that they had little control over the development of these abilities in the students. Conclusion – The teachers’ conceptions of student information literacy overlapped with the ideas in existing models and frameworks for information literacy. However, some areas of information literacy were not addressed by the teachers, i.e., ethical issues in the use of information. In the categories of description of high learning priority, the main reason for the low sense of control by the teachers seemed to be curricular pressures – “our content is prescribed and time allocated doing each of these things is prescribed so we have got limited room for maneuvering” (206). The teachers tended to regard information literacy as process and skills-orientated, with little connection to learning. The authors note that other research also suggests that school librarians also have difficulty relating information finding to learning in specific subject disciplines. There is a clear gap here as the authors point out that “there is a danger that students will not understand the significance of learning with information for academic achievement or for independent learning” (209). The authors suggest that the way forward for further development of information literacy in the classroom and library is through dialogue and that “librarian-teacher collaborations needs to be founded on shared understanding of the complex inter-relationship between information and learning” (209).

Insides and emotion in Koromu

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 243-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Priestley
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
The Body ◽  
Linguistic Understanding ◽  
The Relationship

This paper describes several emotion expressions in Koromu, a language of Papua New Guinea. As in other languages, emotions can be expressed by reference to body events and processes. Bodily images are used for common and pertinent emotion expressions in Koromu and the alternative grammatical constructions in which some of these expressions occur enable speakers to express varying emotions while still indicating that there are shared semantic components between the expressions. In addition, as the emotion expressions are examined and their meanings explicated, a number of universal concepts and components of meaning can be observed. A study of these language specific expressions therefore contributes to a cross-linguistic understanding of the relationship between emotion and the body.

Het Belang Van Taalkunde Voor de Toegepaste Taalkunde

1981 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 246-257
Author(s):  
A.G. Sciarone
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Foreign Language Teaching ◽  
Linguistic Understanding ◽  
Language Courses ◽  
The Difference ◽  
And Linguistics ◽  
Task Division

Applied Linguistics is generally regarded as a multidisciplinary field in which didactics, psychology and linguistics participate. It is remarkable that within the context of foreign language teaching the focus is mainly on the didactic experiment and on the construction of psycholinguistic hypotheses. Yet for a linguistic-didactic experiment to be relevant, insight in what is to be taught, viz. language,is necessary. Many variants of language teaching could have been avoided with a better linguistic insight. Moreover, a better linguistic understanding in applied linguis-tics leads to a better distinction between the views of linguists on language didactics and psycholinguistics and the descriptions of language they give. In this paper the relation between grammar and vocabulary is discussed. It is argued that this distinction is based more on definition than on reality. Stressing the importance of the role of vocabulary does not imply denying or minimising the importance of grammar. On the contrary, the traditional task division in linguistics between grammar and lexicology has led to a sterile grammatical description. Recent tendencies in linguistics now show a more integrated description of grammar and vocabu-lary. Finally, with regard to the didactically important problem of vocabu-lary selection, some remarks are made concerning the difference between selection on the basis of linguistic properties and selection on the basis of usually arbitrary non-linguistic idiosyncrasies of words and the influence of this on teaching material. This is illustrated with examples from language courses.

Plato on Conversation and Experience

Philosophy ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-369
Author(s):  
David Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Model ◽  
Inner Experiences ◽  
Usual Assumption ◽  
Linguistic Understanding ◽  
Discourse Strategies

AbstractPlato's dialogues show discourse strategies beyond purely intellectual methods of persuasion. The usual assumption is that linguistic understanding depends on a match of inner experiences. This is partly explained by an underlying engagement with the historical Gorgias on discourse and psychology, as well as Parmenides on philosophical logos. In the Gorgias and the Symposium, speakers cannot understand alien experiences by philosophical conversation alone. There is no developed alternative model of understanding in the Platonic dialogues. The difficulties in bringing ‘philistine souls’ into Socratic alignment are the result of possessing an inferior soul, suffering misdirected passions, or missing the philosophy bug.

scholarly journals Connecting OER With Mandatory Textbooks in an EFL Classroom: A Language Theory–Based Material Adoption

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaodong Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Educational Resources ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Linguistic Understanding ◽  
Language Knowledge ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Materials Used

Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) theory focuses on developing language learners’ meta-linguistic understanding of the interrelation among linguistic form (grammar/vocabulary), meaning, and context. Guided by SFL when using a mandatory textbook and open educational resources, this study investigates how exposure to this blended teaching and learning context may impact English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners’ adjustment to materials used in their learning, as well as their learning practices. By drawing on the written documents of four students written, and on interviews conducted with these students over an academic semester in an EFL writing course, this qualitative study, through content analysis and discourse analysis, shows that the SFL theory-based material adoption did a good job of supporting EFL students in their internalization of language knowledge from both open educational resources and traditional textbooks, while also enabling students to use materials flexibly instead of passively following along with the content in the mandatory textbook. The flexibility of the students participating in the study was particularly reflected by their ability to construct principled knowledge informed by SFL and to independently apply such knowledge to effectively navigate literacy practices (e.g., critical construction and deconstruction of discourses).

scholarly journals Negative Russian Pronoun Что

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-658
Author(s):  
Irina V. Trufanova
Keyword(s):  
Russian Language ◽  
Grammatical Category ◽  
Substitution Method ◽  
Linguistic Understanding ◽  
Theoretical Significance ◽  
Rhetorical Questions ◽  
First Time ◽  
Sentence Subject ◽  
The Russian Language ◽  
Genitive Case

For the first time in linguistics, the article distinguishes negative pronouns of a pronoun-noun and pronoun-adjective. Their lexical meanings, grammatical features and syntactic functions are determined. A negative pronoun is a noun that means nothing (in Russian both - ничто and ничего ), a negative Russian pronoun что meaning whatever, none. Both pronouns function as the principle sentence component, mainly in negative genitive sentences or as a predicate in a two-memberSubject-Predicate sentence. Subject of a pronoun-noun, which is expressed by the noun of any lexico-grammatical category or infinitive, with a negative pronoun-adjective, which is an infinitive. Both negative pronouns function in rhetorical questions expressing negation in the affirmative form. Subject combined with a pronoun-noun could be expressed by a noun of any lexico-grammatical category or infinitive, with a negative pronoun-adjective что , which could also be formed by an infinitive. Both negative pronouns function in rhetorical questions expressing negation in the affirmative form. The meanings of both negative pronouns are syntactically limited (by the function of the predicate or the principle component of the negative genitive sentence) and structurally determined (be found in the construction with the dative of the authorizer). The meaning of a negative pronoun-adjective is also phraseologically confined, a negative pronoun is an adjective that is always used with the Russian words like проку, толку, выгоды, пользы, прибыли, добра . Three meanings stand out for a negative pronoun ничто : 1) ontological vacuum, nonexistence, absence of an object; 2) something insignificant, insignificant, not worthy of attention; 3) denial of the significance of a person, insignificance. A negative pronoun что is a noun that means something insignificant, insignificant, not worthy of attention (or (as it were) the absence of something/someone (for the authorizer)), or absence (of benefit). A negative pronoun что is an adjective that has one of the meanings of a negative pronoun-adjective никакой meaning none of the available or possible. Despite the indeclinability, a negative pronoun что expresses the noun-meanings of the nominative and genitive cases, while being a negative pronoun-adjective to denote the genitive case, either masculine or feminine. The data collected is retrieved from the National Corps of the Russian Language (NCRL). As the main methodological technique, the substitution method was applied. The theoretical basis of the article was the work on homocomplexes, functional homonyms, poly-functional words, the differentiation of homonymy and polysemy. The theoretical significance of the study lies in the fact that the results allow us expand the linguistic understanding of the semantic and grammatical nature of the pronoun as well as the issue of pronoun syncretism in general, the differentiation of homonymy and polysemy of the classes of pronouns, as well as the varieties of genitive sentences. The data collected can be useful for lexicographic practice: compiling dictionaries of homonyms, grammatical homonyms, explanatory dictionaries, as well as to clarify the typology of one-member sentences. The relevance of the topic is determined by the necessity to establish the full list of pronouns in the Russian language, as well as the importance of studying the phenomena of functional homonymy, transition and syncretism and the importance of solving the problem of distinguishing homonymy and polysemy.

Welcome to Wales: Searle on the Computational Theory of Mind

1995 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 85-97
Author(s):  
Roger Fellows
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Blood Flow ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Computational Theory Of Mind ◽  
Computational Theory ◽  
Linguistic Understanding ◽  
Flow Through ◽  
Computational Processes

In a recent book devoted to giving an overview of cognitive science, Justin Lieber writes:…dazzingly complex computational processes achieve our visual and linguistic understanding, but apart from a few levels of representation these are as little open to our conscious view as the multitudinous rhythm of blood flow through the countless vessels of our brain.It is the aim of hundreds of workers in the allied fields of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence to unmask these computation processes and install them in digital computers.

scholarly journals HERMENEUTICS, REPRESENTATION AND VISUAL ART: LIMITS OF VISUAL (AS) LANGUAGE

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Visual Language ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Literal Sense ◽  
Linguistic Understanding ◽  
Urgent Task ◽  
Artistic Images ◽  
External Form

Clarification of the question of the legality of representing the system of artistic images of visual art as a special kind of language is a very urgent task for modern humanitarian science. An analysis of this problem shows that the composition of each sample of visual art does not need to be viewed as an “utterance” in the literal sense of the word, nor is it to speak of the “visual language of art” in the same sense in which we speak of a natural language. To be a sign means to be a representation of something, but not every representation is a sign in its special linguistic understanding. The images embodied in visual art often lack the attributes of a linguistically interpreted sign. However, if we widely interpret the concepts of sign and language, then hermeneutics and structural-semiotic analysis reveal practically inexhaustible interpretative possibilities, transforming the external form of our sociocultural existence into a kind of “text”. This “maneuver” transforms the interpretation and analysis of sign-symbolic systems into a variety of culturological studies, and in certain cases allows them to serve as a theoretical basis for social criticism in its creative and political forms.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document