We present a method to expand a linguistic resource with paraphrases, which combines two techniques whose drawbacks neutralise reciprocally. The first step over-generates sentences by using analogy, while the second step overeliminates erroneous sentences which do not meet a criterion on N -gram occurrences. In a practical experiment, we added 17,862 paraphrases to a linguistic resource of 97,7...

We present a new approach for modeling diachronic linguistic change in grammatical usage. We illustrate the approach on English scientific writing in Late Modern English, focusing on grammatical patterns that are potentially indicative of shifts in register, genre and/or style. Commonly, diachronic change is characterized by the relative frequency of typical linguistic features over time. Howev...

This paper aims at effectively identifying common English mispronunciations by Mandarin speakers and incorporating this knowledge into computer assisted language learning (CALL) to improve the learner’s accented English. For this purpose, English and Mandarin multi-channel EMA articulatory datasets collected from native English and native Mandarin speakers respectively have been used to uncover...

This paper reexamines the potential impact of the English-only movement on linguistic minorities and Anglos’ perceptions of their own and minority groups’ language vitality. Of particular interest is the Hispanic population—the fastest growing minority in the U.S. Communication scholars have paid only scant attention to the English-only movement and how it affects the social and communication c...

The present study examines the effect of language experience on vocal emotion perception in a second language. Native speakers of French with varying levels of self-reported English ability were asked to identify emotions from vocal expressions produced by American actors in a forced-choice task, and to rate their pleasantness, power, alertness and intensity on continuous scales. Stimuli includ...

October 10, 2017 Abstract We introduce ‘model migration’ as a species of cross-disciplinary knowledge transfer whereby the representational function of a model is radically changed to allow application to a new disciplinary context. Controversies and confusions that often derive from this phenomenon will be illustrated in the context of econophysics and phylogeographic linguistics. Migration ca...

Research on early word learning reveals that verbs present a unique challenge. While English-acquiring 24-month-olds can learn novel verbs and extend them to new scenes, they perform better in rich linguistic contexts (when novel verbs appear with lexicalized noun phrases naming the event participants) than in sparser linguistic contexts (Arunachalam & Waxman 2011). However, in languages like K...

We propose a reading time model for learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) that is based on a learner’s reading proficiency and the linguistic properties of sentences. Reading proficiency here refers to a learner’s reading score on the Test of English for International Communications (TOEIC), and the linguistic properties are the lexical, syntactic and discourse complexities of a sente...

We examine decision makers ’ use of tacit linguistic intuitions and explicit linguistic knowledge for brand name translations from English to Chinese. We present a market study, which reveals that managers intuitively use linguistic sound and meaning characteristics, that is, which sounds and meanings best fi t for the Chinese translation of the English names. A subsequent experiment shows that...

There are several MT metrics used to evaluate translation into Spanish, although most of them use partial or little linguistic information. In this paper we present the multilingual capability of VERTa, an automatic MT metric that combines linguistic information at lexical, morphological, syntactic and semantic level. In the experiments conducted we aim at identifying those linguistic features ...