This study explores the discourse generated by English as a foreign language (EFL) learners using synchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) as an approach to help English language learners to create social interaction in the classroom. It investigates the impact of synchronous CMC mode on the quantity of total words, lexical range and discourse functions of EFL learners’ writing from di...

Affirmative particles are often employed in conversational speech to convey more than their literal semantic meaning. The discourse information conveyed by such particles can have consequences in both Speech Understanding and Speech Production for a Spoken Dialogue System. This paper analyses the different discourse functions of the affirmative particle hã (“yes”) in Hindi and in explores the r...

This paper proposes a fusion model to reinforce fuzzy association rules, which contains two main procedures: (1) employing the cumulative probability distribution approach (CPDA) to partition the universe of discourse and build membership functions; and (2) using the AprioriTid mining algorithm to extract fuzzy association rules. The proposed model is more objective and reasonable in determinin...

We present a connectionist model for the interpretation of discourse particles in real dialogues that is based on neuronal principles of categorization (categorical perception, prototype formation, contextual interpretation). It can be shown that discourse particles operate just like other morphological and lexical items with respect to interpretation processes. The description proposed locates...

Since the 1980s, the functions of non-traditional LIKE have been extensively examined (Romaine and Lange, 1991; Dailey O’Cain, 2000; Fuller, 2003; D’Arcy, 2005). Functions of LIKE have most commonly been positioned in two subgroups—a discourse introducing or quotative LIKE (Romaine and Lange, 1991), and a discourse (also, pragmatic, focuser) LIKE (Underhill, 1988; Andersen, 2001; D’Arcy, 2005)....

as a member of larger familyof formulaic sequences , lexical bundles play different discourse functions in written research articles. this study investigated the use of four-word lexical bundles in published research articles in medicine via natural language processing by computational linguistics. a corpus of 2,420,914 words was extracted from 790 research articles in 33 medical disciplines. f...

It is generally agreed that different categories of adverbial clauses—temporal, conditional, and causal clauses may have their different performances of distribution and functions in different positions as preposed vs. postposed. and Wang (1996), temporal and conditional clauses in both English and Chinese tend to occur in the initial position (preposed) while causal ones tend to occur in the f...