Empirico-Statistical Methods in Ordering Narrative Texts

This article analyses rubrics in Middle High German miscellany manuscripts of short texts in rhyming couplets (Reimpaargedichte). A corpus consisting of 1433 rubrics from 68 manuscripts was created to be able to perform this study. As rubrics in medieval manuscripts were not authorial, but composed by scribes, they offer insights into the reception of the texts. This paper analyses their features and functions as a proxy to interrogate the standing and status of Reimpaargedichte between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. The main methodology is distant reading, i.e. the application and interpretation of statistical methods on a textual corpus. The features analyzed include the length of the rubrics, their level of variation, the presence of author names, and vocabulary. Although no general patterns regarding length nor level of variation were detected, some important conclusions can be drawn: 1. there were no clear markers of literary genre in rubrics; 2. authorship was mostly absent, except for some specific cases of famous authors; 3. relatively stable keywords were used to identify particular texts, but they were more common in manuscripts with narrative texts (Erzählungen) and less common in later manuscripts dominated by the genre known as Minnereden. Furthermore, the analysis revealed that rubrics used a series of linguistic procedures to show that they participated in a different speech act than the main text – they embodied an interaction between scribes and readers, in which the former framed the reception of the work.

Download Full-text

Statistics and parallaxes

International Astronomical Union Colloquium ◽

10.1017/s0252921100073875 ◽

1978 ◽

Vol 48 ◽

pp. 7-29

Author(s):

T. E. Lutz

Keyword(s):

Experimental Design ◽

Statistical Methods ◽

Review Paper ◽

Systematic Errors ◽

Past Experience ◽

Random Errors ◽

Trigonometric Parallaxes ◽

Systematic And Random Errors

This review paper deals with the use of statistical methods to evaluate systematic and random errors associated with trigonometric parallaxes. First, systematic errors which arise when using trigonometric parallaxes to calibrate luminosity systems are discussed. Next, determination of the external errors of parallax measurement are reviewed. Observatory corrections are discussed. Schilt’s point, that as the causes of these systematic differences between observatories are not known the computed corrections can not be applied appropriately, is emphasized. However, modern parallax work is sufficiently accurate that it is necessary to determine observatory corrections if full use is to be made of the potential precision of the data. To this end, it is suggested that a prior experimental design is required. Past experience has shown that accidental overlap of observing programs will not suffice to determine observatory corrections which are meaningful.

Download Full-text

Sharing Expository Texts with Preschool Children in Special Education

Perspectives on Language Learning and Education ◽

10.1044/lle22.3.93 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 22 (3) ◽

pp. 93-102 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Allison Breit-Smith ◽

Jamie Busch ◽

Ying Guo

Keyword(s):

Special Education ◽

Preschool Children ◽

Language Impairment ◽

Listening Comprehension ◽

Expository Texts ◽

Speech Language Pathologists ◽

Narrative Texts ◽

Preschool Special Education ◽

Limited Availability

Although a general limited availability of expository texts currently exists in preschool special education classrooms, expository texts offer speech-language pathologists (SLPs) a rich context for addressing the language goals of preschool children with language impairment on their caseloads. Thus, this article highlights the differences between expository and narrative texts and describes how SLPs might use expository texts for targeting preschool children's goals related to listening comprehension, vocabulary, and syntactic relationships.

Download Full-text