Lexical selection, cross-language interaction, and switch costs in habitually codeswitching bilinguals

Bilinguals dynamically activate lexical items in one or both languages depending on a number of factors. We explored the interaction effects of semantic constraints, language context, and L2-proficiency on cross-language interaction and switch costs in bilinguals who habitually codeswitch between Algerian Arabic (AA) and French. We recorded response times to French cognates and non-cognates embedded in auditory AA or French sentences. High proficiency bilinguals could restrict selection to the target language regardless of the language context. In lower proficiency bilinguals, however, selection was specific to the target language in non-switching contexts but was nonspecific in switching contexts where cross-language interaction yielded inhibitory and facilitatory cognate effects. Results of this study therefore suggest that lexical selection in codeswitching bilinguals is dynamic and is dependent on proficiency, semantic constraints and language context. This within-subject study using auditory stimuli contributes towards a more ecological methodology in investigating sentence processing in codeswitching bilinguals.

Landscape-Ecological Interpretation and Applications of Landscape Survey Results for Optimal Land Use

Landscape-ecological multidisciplinary approach is turning out to be the only suitable solution for the problem of land-use optimisation. The article puts forward a landscape-ecological methodology of landscape-ecological carrying capacity (LCC) evaluation and accounts for its interconnection with sectoral surveys. Primarily it is an interpretation of survey results of the forest ecology in forestry and the complex soil survey in agriculture within the methods of LCC. By application of the results, the process of LCC evaluation will be accelerated and remedial measures will be provided more efficiently. The result of an application of the methodics will be suitable land use in conformity to landscape potential, while landscape-ecological limits are respected. The article calls attention to the fact that LCC methods should be considered within the planning of land use of forest and agricultural landscape on the basis of the entire gravitational unit - watershed.

The Significance of Ecological Methodology of Affordance-Based Design

A variety of research approaches have emerged after the concept of Gibson's affordance was introduced in design field, for example, the relationship approach in design research and the approach of cognitive science research after Norman. The significance of affordance-based design for methodology forming ecological design theory is discussed in this article. The significances are to surmount defects resulting from function-oriented design theory and to pave the ecological approach to design theory with directness and embodiment combining perception with activities.

Apocalypse Narrative, Chaotic System: Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selborne and Modern Ecology

The catastrophic worldview, which has been formalized into various scientific theories (punctuated equilibrium, chaos, tipping points), covets disaster as its aesthetic, with entropy and negentropy as vying principles. At the close of the eighteenth century, science centered around the new findings of Geology, and scientists like Cuvier, Lamarck, and Buffon debated the predominance of gradual change through time versus sudden, widespread calamities or ‘punctuations.’ This essay investigates Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selborne (1789), a non-fiction, late eighteenth century natural history chronicle of a single parish through decades of close environmental observation. Its epistolary form conveys an aesthetic of discrete, close readings of nature through time, and the chronicle breaks off with the catastrophic effects of the Laki volcanic eruption of 1783. I suggest ways in which White’s famous work is unusually precocious in ecological methodology, a particularly fruitful angle because my reading goes against the perennial critical reception of Selborne as a tome of Enlightenment balance and economy. Instead, I argue that White’s work is a distinctly modern vision of catastrophic change in nature that foregrounds the contemporary science of Chaos Ecology.