Acoustic Correlates of Information Structure.

This paper reports three studies aimed at addressing three questions about the acoustic correlates of information structure in English: (1) do speakers mark information structure prosodically, and, to the extent they do; (2) what are the acoustic features associated with different aspects of information structure; and (3) how well can listeners retrieve this information from the signal? The information structure of subject-verb-object sentences was manipulated via the questions preceding those sentences: elements in the target sentences were either focused (i.e., the answer to a wh-question) or given (i.e., mentioned in prior discourse); furthermore, focused elements had either an implicit or an explicit contrast set in the discourse; finally, either only the object was focused (narrow object focus) or the entire event was focused (wide focus). The results across all three experiments demonstrated that people reliably mark (1) focus location (subject, verb, or object) using greater intensity, longer duration, and higher mean and maximum F0, and (2) focus breadth, such that narrow object focus is marked with greater intensity, longer duration, and higher mean and maximum F0 on the object than wide focus. Furthermore, when participants are made aware of prosodic ambiguity present across different information structures, they reliably mark focus type, so that contrastively focused elements are produced with greater intensity, longer duration, and lower mean and maximum F0 than noncontrastively focused elements. In addition to having important theoretical consequences for accounts of semantics and prosody, these experiments demonstrate that linear residualisation successfully removes individual differences in people's productions thereby revealing cross-speaker generalisations. Furthermore, discriminant modelling allows us to objectively determine the acoustic features that underlie meaning differences

From DTV4ALL to HBB4ALL : Accessibility in European Broadcasting

The European Commission has had an active role in promoting research and development activities in media accessibility. Many projects have been funded in the last decade, and two have been directed to piloting accessibility services for broadcasting. While subtitling has always been identified as the access service par excellence, audio description (AD) has been gaining importance lately. Pilar Orero presents two EU projects, DTV4ALL and HBB4ALL, where media accessibility is the focus. Developments and outcomes in AD are analysed, as well as the possibilities offered for its broadcast from analogue to digital. The last part of the chapter is dedicated to the future of AD in the new media scenario, where the Internet and broadcast converge to offer new hybrid possibilities for production, distribution and interaction

Variations on the Pear Tree Experiment : different variables, new results?

Inspired by the Pear Stories Project, the Pear Tree Project has investigated how different cultures and languages describe the same film in order to apply its findings to audio description (AD). Participants from different countries were asked to "write down what they saw" in a controlled setting. This article proposes an alternative experiment, also based on the original Pear Stories Project, which aims to shed light on two issues: how different describer profiles (translation students with AD training/without AD training) and different instructions concerning the target audience profiles (blind/non-blind) could alter the final production. The results are analysed in this paper, taking into account the elements covered in the original Pear Stories Project as well as some additional elements proposed by the authors

Formulaic Language in Native and Second Language Speakers: Psycholinguistics, Corpus Linguistics, and TESOL

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89473/1/j.1545-7249.2008.tb00137.x.pd

CANELC: constructing an e-language corpus

This paper reports on the construction of CANELC: the Cambridge and Nottingham e-language Corpus.3 CANELC is a one million word corpus of digital communication in English, taken from online discussion boards, blogs, tweets, emails and SMS messages. The paper outlines the approaches used when planning the corpus: obtaining consent; collecting the data and compiling the corpus database. This is followed by a detailed analysis of some of the patterns of language used in the corpus. The analysis includes a discussion of the key words and phrases used as well as the common themes and semantic associations connected with the data. These discussions form the basis of an investigation of how e-language operates in both similar and different ways to spoken and written records of communication (as evidenced by the BNC - British National Corpus). 3 CANELC stands for Cambridge and Nottingham e-language Corpus. This corpus has been built as part of a collaborative project between The University of Nottingham and Cambridge University Press with whom sole copyright of the annotated corpus resides. CANELC comprises one-million words of digital English taken from SMS messages, blogs, tweets, discussion board content and private/business emails. Plans to extend the corpus are under discussion. The legal dimension to corpus ‘ownership’ of some forms of unannotated data is a complex one and is under constant review. At the present time the annotated corpus is only available to authors and researchers working for CUP and is not more generally available

A case of hydrated lime (CaOH)2 toxicity in

A sudden increase in mortality was observed in a fish pond stocked with 1034 6-weeks old Clarias juveniles, after exhibiting various forms of nervous disorders such as severe irritation and erratic convulsive swimming habits. A total of 165 mortality, with mean of 20.6 ± 14.8/day were recorded within the first week of stocking. A perfect positive correlation of water level in the pond R2= 0.92, with inverse mortality R2= 0.14 and pH values R2= 0.78 within the first 8 days were recorded. Carcasses exhibited various forms of skin discoloration, petechial and ecchymotic hemorrhages were observed on the cranium, base of the fins, body sides and bloated belly. Many carcasses had eroded body mucous, manifested by various forms of grayish bands of skin lesion. Mean optimal values for nitrate (0,mg/litre), nitrite (0.1,mg/litre) and ammonia (0.1mg/litre) in the water were recorded using commercial multiple water testing kit, although declining pH value of 11 to 7.5 was observed within the period. Another set of 200 Clarias juveniles of the same batch was raised in an adjacent pond, and appeared clinically healthy. Spontaneous recovery was observed upon transfer of the whole juveniles to a new pond of fresh water, with mean pH 7.5 and treated with oxytetracycline and vitaminmineral supplements. Diagnosis of acute lime toxicity was made. Normal growth was restored but, evidence of necrotic skin discoloration was retained to adulthood in 20% of the fishes.Keywords: Clarias gariepinus juveniles, hydrated lime, toxicit

Reading the face of a leader: women with low facial masculinity are perceived as competitive

In competitive settings, people prefer leaders with masculine faces. But is facial masculinity a trait that is similarly desired in men and women leaders? Across three studies, we discovered that people indeed prefer men and women leaders who have faces with masculine traits. But surprisingly, we find that people also prefer women with low facial masculinity as leaders in competitive contexts (Study 1). Our findings indicate that low facial masculinity in women, but not in men is perceived to indicate competitiveness (Study 2). Thus, in contrast to men, women leaders who rate high in facial masculinity as well as those low in facial masculinity are both selected as leaders in competitive contexts. Indeed, among CEOs of S&P 500 companies, we find a greater range of facial masculinity amongwomen CEOs than among men CEOs (Study 3). Our results suggest that traits of facial masculinity in men and women are interpreted differently. Low facial masculinity in women is linked to competitiveness and not only to cooperativeness as suggested by prior research

The spatiotemporal domains of natural climate solutions research and strategies for implementation in the Pacific Northwest, USA

Natural climate solutions have been proposed as a way to mitigate climate change by removing CO2 and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and increasing carbon storage in ecosystems. The adoption of such practices is required at large spatial and temporal scales, which means that local implementation across different land use and conservation sectors must be coordinated at landscape and regional levels. Here, we describe the spatiotemporal domains of research in the field of climate solutions and, as a first approximation, we use the Pacific Northwest (PNW) of the United States as a model system to evaluate the potential for coordinated implementations. By combining estimates of soil organic carbon stocks and CO2 fluxes with projected changes in climate, we show how land use may be prioritized to improve carbon drawdown and permanence across multiple sectors at local to regional scales. Our consideration of geographical context acknowledges some of the ecological and social challenges of climate change mitigation efforts for the implementation of scalable solutions