Measuring meaning is a central problem in cultural sociology and word embeddings may offer powerful new tools to do so. But like any tool, they build on and exert theoretical assumptions. In this paper, I theorize the ways in which word embeddings model three core premises of a structural linguistic theory of meaning: that meaning is coherent,…

Producing written texts is a non-linear process: in contrast to speech, writers are free to change already written text at any place at any point in time. Linguistic considerations are likely to play an important role, but so far, no linguistic models of the writing process exist. We present an approach for the analysis of writing processes with a…

Many studies have utilized standardized measures and storybook narratives to characterize language profiles of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). They report that structural language of these children is on par with mental-age-matched typically developing (TD) peers. Few studies have…

In language, recombination of a discrete set of meaningless building blocks forms an unlimited set of possible utterances. How such combinatorial structure emerged in the evolution of human language is increasingly being studied. It has been shown that it can emerge when languages culturally evolve and adapt to human cognitive biases. How the…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to characterize social communication and structural language of school-age girls with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HF-ASD) compared to a matched group of girls who are typically developing (TD). Method: Participants were 37 girls between 7;5 and 15;2 (years;months)--18 HF-ASD and 19 TD. Children…

The terms "interactional competence" and "learning" are discussed in the context of recent research in the areas of cognitive science and ethnomethodological conversation analysis studies of language learning. Two data excerpts from a longitudinal case study of a beginning learner of English are presented to illustrate (1) the…

This study presents an overall review of the paradigms that contribute to the making and development of functional human linguistics and communication skills and the teaching of language.

With the accelerated globalization, domestic and international communications become more frequent than ever before. As the major media of international communication, languages contact with each other more actively by day. And in the active contact any language would gradually develop and change. Pidgin language is a unique linguistic phenomenon…

This paper investigates Spanish dyslexic spelling abilities: specifically, the influence of syllabic linguistic structure (simple vs consonant cluster) on children's spelling performance. Consonant clusters are phonologically complex structures, so it was anticipated that there would be lower spelling performance for these syllabic structures than…

Keeping in mind that traditional tests were largely insensitive to pragmatic impairment, Bishop (2003) created a second version of the "Children's Communication Checklist" (CCC-2) in order to identify pragmatic deficits in children with communication problems. Unfortunately, it was revealed that certain subscales of the Serbian version…

Prosody carries a lot of information relevant for our understanding of spoken messages. In addition, prosody plays an important role in signalling attitudes and emotions. Prosodic features also constitute an important resource that participants use to achieve mutual understanding in interaction. The aim of this study was to point to possible…

Repetition is a central phenomenon of behavior, and researchers have made extensive use of it to illuminate psychological functioning. In the language sciences, a ubiquitous form of such repetition is "structural priming," a tendency to repeat or better process a current sentence because of its structural similarity to a previously experienced…

Is the structure of lexical representations universal, or do languages vary in the fundamental ways in which they represent lexical information? Here, we consider a touchstone case: whether Semitic languages require a special morpheme, the consonantal root. In so doing, we explore a well-known constraint on the location of identical consonants…

A quantitative method is introduced for detecting and correcting artifactual signal changes in BOLD time series data arising from the magnetic field warping caused by motion of the articulatory apparatus when speaking aloud, with extensions to detection of subvocal articulatory activity during silent reading. Whole-head images allow the large,…

A phrase-structural analysis of preverbal word orders in three Mayan languages (Tzotzil, Jakaltek, Tz'utujil) is presented. At the heart of the analysis is an account of intonational phrasing and the distribution of several intonational phrase clitics in Tzotzil and Jakaltek. (70 references) (Author/LB)