In this commentary, I discuss why, despite the existence of gradience in phonetics and phonology, there is still a need for abstract representations. Most proponents of exemplar models assume multiple levels of abstraction, allowing for an integration of the gradient and the categorical. Ben Ambridge's dismissal of generative models such as…

As modern deep networks become more complex, and get closer to human-like capabilities in certain domains, the question arises as to how the representations and decision rules they learn compare to the ones in humans. In this work, we study representations of sentences in one such artificial system for natural language processing. We first present…

Automatic item generation can rapidly generate large volumes of exam items, but this creates challenges for assembly of exams which aim to include syntactically diverse items. First, we demonstrate a diminishing marginal syntactic return for automatic item generation using a saturation detection approach. This analysis can help users of automatic…

Recently, discovering learner behaviour has taken more attention in the field of e-learning. It aims to gain useful insights into the learning process of students despite the absence of direct interaction with teachers. In fact, the only available source of information in such environments is the log file that represents all possible interactions…

Text classification has allowed researchers to analyze natural language data at a previously impossible scale. However, a text classifier is only as valid as the the annotations on which it was trained. Further, the cost of training a classifier depends on annotators' ability to quickly and accurately apply the coding scheme to each text. Thus,…

The present study attempted to examine the effect of using the connectivist approach on developing secondary-stage students' cross-cultural awareness and translation performance. The study comprised thirty-two first-year secondary stage students enrolled in El-Jalawea Institute, Sohag Governorate. The study adopted the quasi-experimental design.…

Since its first adoption as a computational model for language learning, evidence has accumulated that Rescorla-Wagner error-correction learning (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) captures several aspects of language processing. Whereas previous studies have provided general support for the Rescorla-Wagner rule by using it to explain the behavior of…

The present study examines the impact of implementing video captioning and subtitles on listening comprehension with special reference to the speaker's speed. A total of 64 undergraduate Saudi EFL learners were assigned into six groups: fast speaker with full captioning, fast speaker with subtitles, fast speaker with no captioning nor subtitles,…

Investigating links between temporal features of the writing process (e.g., bursts and pauses during writing) and the linguistic features found in written products would help us better understand intersections between the writing process and product. However, research on this topic is rare. This article illustrates a method to examine associations…

We test children's distributive and collective sentence interpretations and the variables that predict them. In our first experiment, we establish that adult English collective sentences with "the" or "some" in the subject are categorically collective in their interpretations. We further demonstrate that children's collective…

The war in Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, has led to a significant civilian involvement in Israel, particularly among immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who began to provide humanitarian assistance, including interpreting. Highlighting the interrelation between translation and migration, I argue that the war strongly affects…

This study investigates for the first time the comprehension of rhetorical questions (RhQs) in bilingual children. RhQs are non-canonical questions, as they are not used to request information, but to express the speaker's belief that the answer is already obvious. This special pragmatic meaning often arises by means of specific prosodic and…

This essay shows how one professor teaching "Introduction to Buddhism" sought to counteract his students' view that Chinese and Tibetan forms of Buddhism represented a deviation from a "pure" Indian Buddhism rather than worthwhile forms of creativity and religiosity in themselves. A simple comparative assignment that asked a…

This study focuses on the relationship between teacher-text-child interactions during shared picturebook reading and its effect on children's narrative comprehension. Using a micro-analytic approach, we studied nine large-group bookreading sessions of one experienced teacher and her classroom of 17 preschoolers from low-income backgrounds over a…

This paper examines links between perfect rhymes and text readability and decoding using a measure of English rhymes called the Perfect Rhymes Dictionary (PeRDict). PeRDict is based on the Carnegie Mellon University Pronouncing Dictionary (the CMUdict) and provides rhyme counts for ~48,000 words in English and for the most frequent 1,000, 2,500,…