Understanding the communicative intention of a speaker is the ultimate goal of language comprehension. Yet, there is very little computational work on this topic. In this chapter a general cognitive plausible model of how an addressee can understand communicative intentions is presented in mathematical detail. The key mechanism of the model is simulated role-reversal of the addressee with the s...

Since the 70s, foreign language departments have seen communicative competence as the desired outcome of the language learning process and have used communicative teaching approaches––mainly Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)––to achieve that goal. The increasing demands that learners face due to the spread of globalization have called into question the appropriateness of those goals and met...

The paper explores the quantity and quality of communication produced by teachers in Internet courses of academic English, particularly during the initial stages of course activity. The courses are entirely conducted in virtual learning environments without physical meetings, and are part of the Bachelor programme (A–C level) of English at Mid Sweden University. The pedagogic design of the cour...

This paper considers the currently fashionable notion of language awareness: what it is, where it comes from, and how far it is pedagogically valid. Awareness (of language as grammatical code) was central to language learning in grammar-translation methodology, but was played down in both structural and communicative language teaching. A communicative approach implied, however, a need to become...

Gaze following is a key component of human social cognition. Gaze following directs attention to areas of high information value and accelerates social, causal, and cultural learning. An issue for both robotic and infant learning is whose gaze to follow. The hypothesis tested in this study is that infants use information derived from an entity's interactions with other agents as evidence about ...

In both gesture and sign, objects and events can be represented by reproducing some of their features iconically. Iconic gestures do not typically appear until well into children’s second year of life, suggesting that the cognitive and/or communicative resources required are not trivial. Here we investigate how manual iconicity develops in two different communicative systems. Using longitudinal...

This paper presents PENTAtrainer2, a semi-automatic software package written as Praat plug-in integrated with Java programs, and its applications for analysis and synthesis of speech melody as communicative functions. Its core concepts are based on the Parallel Encoding and Target Approximation (PENTA) framework, the quantitative Target Approximation (qTA) model, and the simulated annealing opt...

The Grammar Translation Method and the Communicative Approach have both played important roles in grammar teaching. Which is better, the Grammar Translation Method or the Communicative Approach? This paper aims to compare the controllability and feasibility of these two approaches and find out which one is more suitable for grammar teaching in Taiwan. Two classes were selected and taught by the...