This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Introduction The Inscrutability of Objectual Reference Empiricism, Naturalism, and Provincialism References.

Besides serving us at the growing edge of science and beyond, metaphor figures even in our first learning of language; or, if not quite metaphor, something akin to it. We hear a word or phrase on some occasion, or by chance we babble a fair approximate ourselves on what happens to be a pat occasion and are applauded for it. On a later occasion, then, one that resembles the first occasion by our lights, we repeat the expression. Resemblance (...) of occasions is what matters, here as in metaphor. We generalize our application of the expression by degrees of subjective resemblance of occasions, until we discover from other people's behavior that we have pushed analogy too far and exceeded the established usage. If the crux of metaphor is creative extension through analogy, then we have forged a metaphor at each succeeding application of that early word of phrase. These primitive metaphors differ from the deliberate and sophisticated ones, however, in that they accrete directly to our growing store of standard usage. They are metaphors stillborn. It is a mistake, then, to think of linguistic usage as literalistic in its main body and metaphorical in its trimming. Metaphor, or something like it, governs both the growth of language and our acquisition of it. What comes as a subsequent refinement is rather cognitive discourse itself, at its most dryly literal. The neatly worked inner stretches of science are an open space in the tropical jungle, created by clearing tropes away. W. V. Quine is the Edgar Pierce professor emeritus of philosophy at Harvard University. His many influential works include Methods of Logic, Word and Object, and The Roots of Reference. "On the Nature of Moral Values," his previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, appeared in the Spring 1979 issue. (shrink)

In this first lecture Quine argues for a physicalistic monism and examines how mentalistic discourse can be located in that framework. He defends the following standard: a mental event qualifies as physically genuine if it is specifiable strictly by physiological description, presumably neurological, without any appeal to mentalistic terms. He further characterizes the basic mentalistic level that his view can accept: the learning process involving perception, expectation, action and pleasure, which all have important neural analogues. It is from (...) this starting point that he further speculates how it is possible to move from such perceptual events to our knowledge of nature. Lastly, he reflects more generally on what epistemology looks like when it is placed within this physicalist framework with its focus on language. (shrink)

Motivation has been recognized as a vital component in successfully learning a second or foreign language. However, research on language learners’ motivation in a study abroad context requires more attention in an era in which international mobility is becoming a new normal. This study investigated 217 Chinese overseas university students’ L2 motivation during their one-year postgraduate study in the United Kingdom. by examining a range of motivational variables in relation to their motivated English language learning (...) behaviors. Integrating results from both questionnaires and interviews from nine participating students, the study revealed that international posture showed the strongest positive power, followed by the ideal L2 self, in explaining the learners’ willingness to communicate, frequency of communication, and intended learning effort. Additionally, instrumentality and parental encouragement exerted prominent promotional influence in shaping their intended learning effort. However, the ought-to L2 self-displayed a significant negative impact on their L2 learning in this study abroad context, and the role of attitudes toward L2 speakers/community and culture was not evident in this case. The findings shed light on a more comprehensive understanding of L2 motivation in a study abroad context, and offer insightful implications for English as a Foreign Language education in cultivating language learners’ motivation to prepare for study abroad. (shrink)

Quine has been charged with eliminating the normative dimension from his naturalized epistemology. The aim of the paper is to look at the role of empathy in Quine's language learning situation, which in its simplest form is constituted by the parent-child relation. We will explore the normativity of the role of empathy thereof by exploiting the sociality of the language learning situation. Since the sociality of Quine's notion of empathy is implicit, to explore (...) the normativity expression thereof, we will examine the explicit sociality of Wittgenstein's language learning situation-also constituted in its simplest form by the master-novice relation-and the normative character of it. By explicating the normativity of the calibrating role of the master and of rule following generally, we will parse the social dimensions of the empathizing role of the linguist in Quine's language learning situation. Finally, by examining the nature of normativity in empathizing, we will establish that the normativity of empathizing involved in Quine's language learning situation is socially grounded without denying its individual dimension. We will conclude that the normativity objection against Quine's naturalism thus stands refuted. (shrink)

In this third lecture, Quine returns to the mentalistic language accompanying perception and wonders to what extent it is physically defensible and respectable. He explains that even at the level of observation sentences we have a device for ascribing perceptual events. There is a bifurcation between physicalistic and mentalistic talk with basic observation sentences as seen in the difference between ‘It is raining’ and ‘Bob perceives that it is raining’. He explains how the relation of perception between humans (...) and objects can fit his physicalistic framework while remaining very disjointed. What holds its disjointed nature together is a trait of a higher order found in the learning process itself. Each class of perceptual events, be they auditory, visual or otherwise, is a class by which a subject can be taught to name the object in question. (shrink)

Debating on Second Language Acquisition is not merely in terms of concept but also the real phenomena which postulate each research result. It needs more investigation on SLA due to the various realities on how children and adults acquire and learn any language. This research aims to describe how children and adults acquire and learn their first and second language. Participants consisted of children and adults whose ages determined by the researcher based on the purposive sampling technique. (...) They were all six persons and chosen based on certain characteristics. Content analysis technique was applied in order to analyze all data gained. The result showed that since human alive inside mother’s womb especially at up to the age of three months, a fetus has tried to acquire sounds subconsciously. Language proficiency is really determined by three factors of Phased Process Approach namely Subconscious Acquisition, Conscious Acquisition, and Learning. The ideal time for learning something is begun from the age of 2 or 3 years old, by the fact that children have had the ability to bear a meaning on any input that they catch. The learning process has been begun within the process of acquisition. Based on the findings, it is clear that the children acquire the language step by step based on the development of the brain. Children acquire language is just the same as adult in acquiring the language although there will be some constraints faced by adult concern with the first language because adult has had the strong basis of the first language just than children. (shrink)

Analyzing and evaluating legal case reports are labor-intensive tasks for judges and lawyers, who usually base their decisions on report abstracts, legal principles, and commonsense reasoning. Thus, summarizing legal documents is time-consuming and requires excellent human expertise. Moreover, public legal corpora of specific languages are almost unavailable. This paper proposes a transfer learning approach with extractive and abstractive techniques to cope with the lack of labeled legal summarization datasets, namely a low-resource scenario. In particular, we conducted extensive multi- (...) and cross-language experiments. The proposed work outperforms the state-of-the-art results of extractive summarization on the Australian Legal Case Reports dataset and sets a new baseline for abstractive summarization. Finally, syntactic and semantic metrics assessments have been carried out to evaluate the accuracy and the factual consistency of the machine-generated legal summaries. (shrink)

In the research on literacy learning the concept of language awareness has come forward as a unifying framework for understanding the underlying knowledge that supports ability in reading and writing. Consensus is gathering around the idea that language awareness is an essential foundation. If subsequent work in this area confirms it, this factor may turn out to be the key cognitive-domain explanation for successful literacy learning in school (and for academic purposes in general). In this review (...) we examine two cross-cultural comparisons regarding this claim. The comparisons point to the need to examine cases that juxtapose contrasting conditions. Relevant contrasts place side by side examples that appear to be typical and examples that appear to be exceptional. Taking what appear on the surface as sharply diverging cases, how is access to requisite underlying competencies similar, and how different, from one instance to the other? (shrink)

Spam electronic mails (emails) refer to harmful and unwanted commercial emails sent to corporate bodies or individuals to cause harm. Even though such mails are often used for advertising services and products, they sometimes contain links to malware or phishing hosting websites through which private information can be stolen. This study shows how the adaptive intelligent learning approach, based on the visual anti-spam model for multi-natural language, can be used to detect abnormal situations effectively. The application of this (...) approach is for spam filtering. With adaptive intelligent learning, high performance is achieved alongside a low false detection rate. There are three main phases through which the approach functions intelligently to ascertain if an email is legitimate based on the knowledge that has been gathered previously during the course of training. The proposed approach includes two models to identify the phishing emails. The first model has proposed to identify the type of the language. New trainable model based on Naive Bayes classifier has also been proposed. The proposed model is trained on three types of languages (Arabic, English and Chinese) and the trained model has used to identify the language type and use the label for the next model. The second model has been built by using two classes (phishing and normal email for each language) as a training data. The second trained model (Naive Bayes classifier) has been applied to identify the phishing emails as a final decision for the proposed approach. The proposed strategy is implemented using the Java environments and JADE agent platform. The testing of the performance of the AIA learning model involved the use of a dataset that is made up of 2,000 emails, and the results proved the efficiency of the model in accurately detecting and filtering a wide range of spam emails. The results of our study suggest that the Naive Bayes classifier performed ideally when tested on a database that has the biggest estimate (having a general accuracy of 98.4%, false positive rate of 0.08%, and false negative rate of 2.90%). This indicates that our Naive Bayes classifier algorithm will work viably on the off chance, connected to a real-world database, which is more common but not the largest. (shrink)

Some of Quine’s critics charge that he arrives at a behavioristic account of linguistic meaning by starting from inappropriately behavioristic assumptions (Kripke 1982, 14; Searle 1987, 123). Quine has even written that this account of linguistic meaning is a consequence of his behaviorism (Quine 1992, 37). I take it that the above charges amount to the assertion that Quine assumes the denial of one or more of the following claims: (1) Language-users associate mental ideas with (...) their linguistic expressions. (2) A language-user can have a private theory of linguistic meaning which guides his or her use of language. (3) Language learning relies on innate mechanisms. Call an antecedent denial of one or more of these claims illicit behaviorism. In this paper I show that Quine is prepared to grant, if only for the sake of argument, all three of the above claims. I argue that his claim that there is nothing in linguistic meaning beyond what is to be gleaned from overt behavior in observable circumstances is unscathed by these allowances (Quine 1992, 38). And I show that the behaviorism which Quine does assume should be viewed as a largely uncontroversial aspect of his evidential empiricism. I conclude that if one sets out to dismiss Quine’s arguments for internal-meaning skepticism, this dismissal should not be motivated by the charge that his conclusions rely on the illicitly behavioristic assumptions that some have suggested that they do. (shrink)

SummaryQuine uses the notion of ‘quality space’ in Word and Object and in ‘Natural Kinds' as a means of characterizing similarity recognition, which in turn is seen as basic to induction and to language acquisition. In this paper it is argued that ‘quality space’ is too simplistic a notion to bear the explanatory weight given to ‘similarity’. Similarity is explanatorily plausible only because it contains much covert complexity and is essentially mentalistic. The attempt to expunge this mentalism by the (...) behavioural mapping of quality spaces simply loses the explanatory force of similarity.RésuméQuine utilise dans ≤Word and Object≥ et dans ≤Natural Kinds≥ la notion ?on; ≤espace des qualityés≥ comme une façon de caractériser la reconnaissance de la similitude, qui est à son tour considérée comme fondamentale pour ľinduction ct pour ľacquisition du langage. auteur montre que la notion ?on; ≤cspace des qualityés≥ est trop simpliste pour fournir une base suffisante à la valeur explicative attendue de la ≤similitude≥. La similitude ňest plausible comme explication que parce qu'elle cache une grande complexité et čest une notion essentiellement mentale. La tentative de remplacer ce mentalisme par une projection behavioriste sur ľespace des qualites fait perdre à la similitude sa valeur explicative.ZusammenfassungIn ≤Word and Object≥ und in ≤Natural Kinds≥ benutzt Quine den Begriff ≤Eigenschafts‐raum≥ als Mittel um die Wahrnehmung der Ähnlichkeit zu charakterisieren, welche ihrerseits als grundlegend für Induktion und Aneignung der Sprache betrachtet wird. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird argumentiert, dass dieser ≤Eigenschaftsraum≥ zu arm ist, um den Erklärungsgehalt des Begriffs ≤Ähnlichkeit≥ zu tragen. Die Erklärung durch Ähnlichkeit ist nur deshalb plausibel, weil sie versteckte Komplexität enthält und wesentlich mentalistisch ist. Bei dem Versuch, diesem Men‐talismus mithilfe der behavioristischen Abbildung der Eigenschäftsraume auszuweichen, geht die Erklärungskraft des Begriffs der Ähnlichkeit einfach verloren. (shrink)

Contents: Introduction. NATURALIZED EPISTEMOLOGY. Ton DERKSEN: Naturalistic Epistemology, Murder and Suicide? But what about the Promises! Christopher HOOKWAY: Naturalism and Rationality. Mia GOSSELIN: Quine's Hypothetical Theory of Language Learning. A Comparison of Different Conceptual Schemes of Their Logic. THE NATURE OF PERCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE. Jaap van BRAKEL: Quine and Innate Similarity Spaces. Dirk KOPPELBERG: Quine and Davidson on the Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Eva PICARDI: Empathy and Charity. ONTOLOGY. Sandra LAUGIER: Quine: Indeterminacy, ‘Robust Realism', and (...) Truth. Roger VERGAUWEN: Quine and Putnam on Conceptual Relativity and Reference: Theft or Honest Toil? Igor DOUVEN: Empiricist Semantics and Indeterminism of Reference. Lieven DECOCK: Domestic Ontology and Ideology. Paul GOCHET: Canonical Notation, Predication and Ontology. About the Authors. (shrink)

While Quine clearly states his position regarding the difference between the methodology of ethics and that of science, he is less clear on the nature of ethical language. Variously, he treats ethical sentences as cognitive and noncognitive. If ethical “sentences” are noncognitive, they do not admit of truth or falsity and therefore have no claim to be occasion sentences or observation sentences. And moral theory is thereby clearly demarcated from science. If ethical sentences are cognitive, however, we could (...) have ethical occasion sentences. It would be easier, on this interpretation, to make sense of Quine's insistence that ethics is subject to a coherency theory of truth, and that we may have real derivative and ultimate moral conflicts. I argue that, as Quine's system now stands, there are good reasons to take either interpretation. I do not demonstrate that one of these two positions is incorrect, but rather that Quine has yet to clearly state his position on the matter. I then consider some of the ramifications of taking a cognitivist interpretation of Quine's system by sketching a role empathy, newly emphasized in Quine's work, might play with respect to the cognitive status of ethical sentences. If we accept that ethical sentences are cognitive, empathy may allow us to learn moral occasion sentences from our fellow language users and justify or modify those moral occasion sentences through the use of social evidence. (shrink)

Many discussions of holism fail to see the scope ambiguity and the subject ambiguity involved in the doctrine. With the different scopes or sizes, there are both moderate and extreme versions of holism. With respect to the different subjects, meaning holism can be distinguished from holism about confirmation or disconfirmation, about belief-fixation or belief-content, or about interpretation or understanding. The principal aim of this study is to disentangle the distinct doctrines involved in holism and to characterize and assess meaning holism (...) in the works of Quine and Davidson. ;The Duhem-Quine thesis is generally considered as the origin of holism. Following Duhem's thesis concerning scientific confirmation or disconfirmation, Quine put forth a stronger and wider claim that our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not individually but only as a corporate body. The views held in common by Duhem and Quine have come to be called "confirmation holism". ;In addition to the epistemic thesis of confirmation holism, it will be shown that Quine holds the distinct semantic thesis of meaning holism. Quine's new nonreductivist perspective on the verification theory of meaning is a bridge from confirmation holism to meaning holism. Quine also argues for what he calls "moderate" meaning holism by proceeding through a naturalistic account of children's language learning and the thought experiment of radical translation. ;Davidson's disagreement with Quine's behavioristic approach toward semantic studies leads him to construct his own holistic theory of meaning--an "extreme holism" which employs a Tarski-style theory of truth as part of its fundamental structure. According to Davidson, if we can put appropriate formal and empirical constraints on the theory as a whole, a satisfactory theory of meaning will finally emerge as a result of applying the theory of truth in interpreting or understanding the utterances of others. ;Finally, a response is given to Fodor's criticisms of meaning holism. It will be explained that Fodor's worries about the disastrous consequences of meaning holism can be addressed; and it will also be shown that his arguments against meaning holism, especially when directed at Quine and Davidson, are unfounded. (shrink)

The “observational categoricals” constitute a very special set of sentences of great importance in the last phase of Quine’s work. According to Quine, the grammatical structure and therefore the role played by these sentences considered by the philosopher as the neutral empirical content of theories would solve several difficulties in semantics and epistemology. Most urgent among them would be: the incommensurability of theories, their empirical verifiability, as well as explaining the language learning process. In consequence of (...) the importance of their task and their rather late appearance, we consider quite relevant to investigate in details the origin of these choice, as well as the structure and function of these sentences, very peculiars to Quine’s semantical approach. (shrink)

In a recent issue of this journal Dr. Cartwright attempted to defend some views of Professor Quine's by arguing that my criticism [5] of these views was based on “serious misunderstandings of Quine,” “confusions,” and “mistakes.” I shall here attempt to show that in spite of Dr. Cartwright's vigorous characterizations my criticism of Quine was well founded and neither confused nor mistaken. First, I shall briefly discuss the notion of an ideal language.

With his customary incisiveness, W. V. Quine presents logic as the product of two factors, truth and grammar--but argues against the doctrine that the logical truths are true because of grammar or language. Rather, in presenting a general theory of grammar and discussing the boundaries and possible extensions of logic, Quine argues that logic is not a mere matter of words.

With his customary incisiveness, W. V. Quine presents logic as the product of two factors, truth and grammar-but argues against the doctrine that the logical truths are true because of grammar or language. Rather, in presenting a general theory of grammar and discussing the boundaries and possible extensions of logic, Quine argues that logic is not a mere matter of words.

Language was at the heart of philosophical inquiry for Plato and Aristotle, and in contemporary discussion it is no less central. In addition to the history of philosophy’s extensive investigations of language, analytic and continental philosophy too have focused intensively on the matter. But since most inquiries into language remain enclosed in their own methodology, terminology, and tradition, the multiplicity of approaches is often accompanied by their mutual isolation. This book shows, however, that these traditions can speak (...) meaningfully to each other on language: rather than preventing dialogue, their differences provide opportunities for fruitful inquiry. -/- The essays in this volume each treat a central topic in the contemporary study of language. Part One addresses how expression determines thought according to Humboldt, the use of paraphrase in Quine’s semantic ascent, and the non-ambiguity of the Frege-Russell senses of ‘is.’ Part Two includes treatments of the possibility and impossibility of promising in Nietzsche, and Derrida’s re-working of Saussure’s distinction between language and world. Topics in Part Three include the origin and end of language for Heidegger and Foucault, and the mutual sharpening of logic and ordinary speech in Anselm. -/- This book fills a gap in current scholarship by bringing together nine essays that, through rejecting the debilitating yet often unquestioned divisions between disciplines, are able to illuminate the fundamental nature of language. -/- Contributors: Jaakko Hintikka, Jo-Jo Koo, Geoffrey Bennington, Sarah Hansen, JohnChristopher Adorno Keller, Vernon Cisney, Alina Beary, Jeffrey Golub, Eileen Sweeney -/- In each part of this thought-provoking volume on the nature of language, there are essays that demonstrate the immense intellectual potential of writing that refuses to see any decisive distinction between the present of philosophy and its history, or between the ways in which Kant’s work has been inherited in Anglo-American and Franco-German traditions. —Stephen Mulhall, New College, Oxford University -/- With its robust range of complementary topics, each subjected to penetrating examination, this collection of essays makes a welcome contribution to the philosophy of language, past and present. —Daniel Dahlstrom, Boston University -/- The contributions to this impressive volume ignore traditional divides between “analytic” and “continental,” historical and systematic philosophy. This enables the authors to put a number of key issues in the philosophy of language into a striking new light…. Fully accessible to the advanced undergraduate in philosophy, the book also contains many provocative ideas for the specialist. —Martin Kusch, University of Cambridge -/- TABLE OF CONTENTS | INTRODUCTION -/- On Speech and Language, Mark Sentesy, Boston College -/- Structure and Overview of This Volume, Jon Burmeister, Boston College -/- PART ONE: HOW DO WE THINK WHAT WE ARE SAYING? -/- The Expressivist Conception of Language and World: Humboldt and the Charge of Linguistic Idealism and Relativism, Jo-Jo Koo, University of Pittsburgh -/- What Can We Learn About Language From Thinking About Philosophy? JohnChristopher Adorno Keller, University of Notre Dame -/- It All Depends On What ‘Is’ Is: A Brief History (And Theory) Of Being, Jaakko Hintikka, Boston University -/- PART TWO: HOW DOES LANGUAGE WORK IN THE WORLD? -/- The Ironic Stance and the Limitations of Philosophy, Jeffrey A. Golub, New School for Social Research -/- Nietzsche’s Scandalous Body and the Promise of Metaphor, Sarah Hansen, Vanderbilt University -/- The Limits of My Language, Geoffrey Bennington, Emory University -/- PART THREE: CAN WE SPEAK ABOUT EVERYTHING? -/- Gathering and Contestation: The Place of Silence in Heidegger and Foucault, Vernon Cisney, Purdue University -/- Religious Language in Jacques Derrida, Alina Beary, Criswell College -/- The Asymmetry Between Language and Being: The Case of Anselm, Eileen Sweeney, Boston College . (shrink)

In school education, teaching-learning interaction is deemed as a core process in the classroom. The fundamental neural basis underlying teaching-learning interaction is proposed to be essential for tuning learning outcomes. However, the neural basis of this process as well as the relationship between the neural dynamics and the learning outcomes are largely unclear. With non-invasive technologies such as fNIRS, hyperscanning techniques have been developed since the last decade and been applied to the field of educational neuroscience (...) for simultaneous multi-brain scanning. Hyperscanning studies suggest that the interpersonal neural synchronization during teaching-learning interaction might be an ideal neural biomarker for predicting learning outcomes. To systematically evaluate such a relationship, this meta-analysis ran on a random-effects model on 16 studies with 23 independent samples. Further moderator analyses were also performed to examine the potential influences of the style, mode, content, and the assessment method of learning outcomes. The random-effects modeling results confirmed a robust positive correlation between INS and learning outcomes. Subsequent analyses revealed that such relationship was mainly affected by both interaction style and mode. Therefore, the present meta-analysis provided a confirmatory neurocognitive foundation for teaching-learning interaction, as well as its relation to the learning outcomes, consolidated future learning and teaching studies in various disciplines including second language education with a firm methodological reference. (shrink)

Parallel language activation in bilinguals leads to competition between languages. Experience managing this interference may aid novel language learning by improving the ability to suppress competition from known languages. To investigate the effect of bilingualism on the ability to control native-language interference, monolinguals and bilinguals were taught an artificial language designed to elicit between-language competition. Partial activation of interlingual competitors was assessed with eye-tracking and mouse-tracking during a word recognition task in the novel (...) class='Hi'>language. Eye-tracking results showed that monolinguals looked at competitors more than bilinguals, and for a longer duration of time. Mouse-tracking results showed that monolinguals’ mouse movements were attracted to native-language competitors, whereas bilinguals overcame competitor interference by increasing the activation of target items. Results suggest that bilinguals manage cross-linguistic interference more effectively than monolinguals. We conclude that language interference can affect lexical retrieval, but bilingualism may reduce this interference by facilitating access to a newly learned language. (shrink)

This paper examines the function of language in the domain of education and it‘s vice versa. As we are aware of the fact that language and education are endemic elements of human development and evolution. According to Gandhi, education is the recognition of mind-body, soul and spirit. It is the attainment of the values through morality and ethics. Gandhi accepts communicative aspect of language where as Wittgenstein accepts analytical and conceptual aspect of language. Wittgenstein realized that (...) education is the constituent of what we know, believe and learn. Gandhi asserts on Mother tongue, primary- secondary languages and national languages whereas Wittgenstein emphasis on the natural languages, meta-languages and ideal languages. In this paper I shall demonstrate the problems of language which becomes hurdles in the process of education. For both Gandhi and Wittgenstein, there are problems not in language but in its ordinary usage, speaking, writing, meaning and communication. (shrink)

This paper investigates if and to what point it is possible to trade on news sentiment and if deep learning, given the current hype on the topic, would be a good tool to do so. DL is built explicitly for dealing with significant amounts of data and performing complex tasks where automatic learning is a necessity. Thanks to its promise to detect complex patterns in a dataset, it may be appealing to those investors that are looking to improve (...) their trading process. Moreover, DL and specifically LSTM seem a good pick from a linguistic perspective too, given its ability to “remember” previous words in a sentence. After having explained how DL models are built, we will use this tool for forecasting the market sentiment using news headlines. The prediction is based on the Dow Jones industrial average by analyzing 25 daily news headlines available between 2008 and 2016, which will then be extended up to 2020. The result will be the indicator used for developing an algorithmic trading strategy. The analysis will be performed on two specific cases that will be pursued over five time-steps and the testing will be developed in real-world scenarios. (shrink)

Accession Number: WOS:A1979JM38600001 Document Type: Article Language: English Reprint Address: QUINE, WV (reprint author), HARVARD UNIV,CAMBRIDGE,MA 02138, USA Publisher: HEGELER INST, PO BOX 600, LA SALLE, IL 61301 Web of Science Category: Philosophy Subject Category: Philosophy IDS Number: JM386 ISSN: 0026-9662.

The aim of this paper is to show some of my contributions to the exegesis of Quine’s philosophy, emphasizing the role played by notions such as empathy and transcendence in his philosophical system. I hold that Quine is a rigorous systematic philosopher, and that in order to understand each one of his theses and critiques we need to analyze them within the totality of his philosophical investigations. I believe that his system derives from what we call his epistemological (...) project and that all his philosophical theses are founded in his theory of language learning. I also maintain that Quine’s philosophy shows a very strong pragmatic aspect more closely related to Wittgenstein’s tradition and that one of speech acts theorists than to the Skinnerian tradition with which Quine is often associated. In addition I believe that the overall position of his theses has been presented in Word and Object, and that all his subsequent works served to clarify or complement his ideas, not to change them. Thus, I do not agree with those who argue that Quine changed his philosophical position in the course of time. (shrink)

I discuss a stochastic model of language learning and change. During a syntactic change, each speaker makes use of constructions from two different idealized grammars at variable rates. The model incorporates regularization in that speakers have a slight preference for using the dominant idealized grammar. It also includes incrementation: The population is divided into two interacting generations. Children can detect correlations between age and speech. They then predict where the population’s language is moving and speak according to (...) that prediction, which represents a social force encouraging children not to sound out-dated. Both regularization and incrementation turn out to be necessary for spontaneous language change to occur on a reasonable time scale and run to completion monotonically. Chance correlation between age and speech may be amplified by these social forces, eventually leading to a syntactic change through prediction-driven instability. (shrink)

Children learn their native language by exposure to their linguistic and communicative environment, but apparently without requiring that their mistakes be corrected. Such learning from “positive evidence” has been viewed as raising “logical” problems for language acquisition. In particular, without correction, how is the child to recover from conjecturing an over-general grammar, which will be consistent with any sentence that the child hears? There have been many proposals concerning how this “logical problem” can be dissolved. In this (...) study, we review recent formal results showing that the learner has sufficient data to learn successfully from positive evidence, if it favors the simplest encoding of the linguistic input. Results include the learnability of linguistic prediction, grammaticality judgments, language production, and form-meaning mappings. The simplicity approach can also be “scaled down” to analyze the learnability of specific linguistic constructions, and it is amenable to empirical testing as a framework for describing human language acquisition. (shrink)

The book consists of 6 chapters. Chapter One explains the reason why SLA researchers should study the language learning environment in space: population movements associated with internal and external migration and social mobility such as the circuits of commodity production and distribution create much space, in which language learning environment become diverse and uneven. With the spatial perspective, we can fully understand the interactions between language learners and the world or environments.In Chapter Two, by introducing (...) the brief history of Critical Spatial Theory, the author wants to tell us one of the key ideas in the theory: the social production of space, which views space as the product of the social relations of its era. Based on it, the author adds that the production of languages is an integral aspect of the production of space on a global scale. It can help us to understand how social mobility shapes language learning environments. From this perspective, the local environments in which languages are learned are outcomes of the production of space under the influence of mobility. It reiterates the key view that the global mobilities of physical objects (people, goods and information) produce space.In Chapter Three, the author introduces the mainstream views held by modern linguistics: languages are conceptualized as objects in the space. They hold that the spatiality of language is given by providing correct writing systems and standardized rules for various languages. Influenced by mainstream conception of language from modern linguistics, SLA tends to regard languages as self-contained objects in space. However, this view neglects the relation between language and the learning environments. The author holds that the distribution and circulation of languages and their varieties in geographical space produce the spatiality of language, which clears the ground for an environment or object-as-space view of language in Chapter Four.In Chapter Four, the author develops an alternative "objects-as-space" view and introduces three concepts to illustrate spatiality of language: flat ontology, assemblage and mobilities. The concept of flat ontology helps explain what language is and how it comes into being in the world; From assemblage perspective, the author develops the idea that everything is an object, so are human beings and languages. Language (the non-physical object) interacts with various physical objects, forming the language-bearing assemblage. This assemblage is the form of spatiality of language. The mobilities theory explains how language-bearing assemblages develop or change on a global scale because of social mobility, emphasizing the importance of learning environment in SLA. All in all, the author outlines how language makes its way into physical space in the form of assemblages, or assemblages of assemblages.Chapter Five centers on language learning environment. First, the author explains the relation between language learners and their learning environment from an ecological view: the learner is a part of the language learning environment, and second language learning is a spatial interaction between the learners and the semiotic resources provided by environment. Then, the author discusses language environment from two different perspectives. From an 'individual' perspective, environments are assembled by individuals from the spatial resources available; from an 'areal' view, environments are shaped both by local circumstances and global circulations of language-bearing assemblages. Meanwhile, the author also discusses other language environments like the multilingual city and online resources. What the author hopes to develop in this chapter is an environment perspective that grounds the contexts of language learning in space, which helps the readers think about language learning from a spatial perspective.Chapter Six contains three parts. In the first part, it outlines the work of a number of researchers from sociolinguistics and the contribution they made to the spatial theory. In the second part, the author wants to tell us how the idea of language learning environment emerges from his own research. The last part discusses the four main researching routes (areal studies, studies of individuals learning in settings, studies of the construction of individual learning environment and design-based studies) that might influence SLA research on language learning environments and some research methods. The book is in alignment with several recent "turns" occurring in the field of SLA, such as "social turn" (Block, 2003) and "multilingual turn" (May, 2014), both of which bring to the fore the social aspects involved in language learning. While the first "turn" accentuates the role of social context in shaping and influencing learner cognition, the latter highlights how the physical multilingual world remold language learning experiences, and how the mental multilingual world helps raise learners' language awareness, and facilitates their successful construction of an identity of legitimate multi-language users. The book under review joins up the two "turns" in acknowledging that language learners are persons-in-context with organic interaction with social learning environment (Ushioda, 2021). This view has research and pedagogical implications. From the point of doing research, spatial perspectives, advocated in the book, afford huge research potentials for both language teachers and (instructed) SLA researchers to conduct situated investigations, exploring the complex and dynamic nexus between language learners and their surrounding environment (not restricted to people) that play a part in their learning experience, and thus gaining insightful understanding of how individuals and learning contexts are coupled with each other, how they evolve together, and how they constitute an ecosystem that generates affordances, facilitating or constraining language learning. Pedagogically speaking, the spatial perspectives encourage language teachers to hold an ecological view of language teaching and learning, directing their attention to the individuality of each language learner and their complex, dynamic and multifaceted relationality with other learners and the physical realities, rather than solely focusing on the abstract systems (e.g., the development of cognitive aspect). This holistic view allows language teachers to take measures to address concrete questions emerging in and out of the classrooms, and stimulates them to design and experiment with pedagogical interventions that help to create a favorable environment for language learning. This view also invites language teachers to take learner agency into account (Xu & Long, 2020) and to design pedagogical activities that enable learners to take agentive actions to adapt their environments as they actively create and seek their own language learning opportunities, making the world their own (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). In turn, teachers' agency-enabling activities will ultimately help learners to autonomously access a range of resources in this new affordance-rich era to improve their language skills, and thus become more independent in their pathway to life-long learning.Beside the above benefits, the book is also theoretically and methodologically friendly. In illustrating the role of space in SLA, the author invokes a plethora of theories from such disciplines as sociology, sociolinguistics, psychology, etc. This orientation helps readers to build a transdisciplinary framework to capture the multi-layered nature of SLA, and to acquire a nuanced understanding of how language learning is influenced by multiple scales of environmental factors. Methodologically, the author proposes several specific methods that are especially apt to investigate language learning environment. These methods, together with the theoretical foundation laid by the book, will definitely help researchers and language teaching practitioners to further delve into the complex interplay between context and language learners.Admittedly, the book is not without weaknesses. It spends most of its words on illustrating the importance of physical environment in SLA. Another essential component, the virtual environment is insufficiently referenced and discussed. This lacking is undoubtedly a regret the book leaves with us, especially in these years of pandemic, where language learning in virtual spaces is becoming a norm.All in all, the book is an invaluable contribution to the field of SLA, and is worthy of recommending to language teaching practitioners, researchers, and postgraduates in applied linguistics. (shrink)

Have you ever felt nervous, inappropriate, insecure or worried when trying to communicate in a foreign language? Have you ever feared to make mistakes, being negatively judged or misunderstood when talking to foreigners? Do you know someone who has experienced those situations? If yes, please, keep on reading. All these negative feelings are common in many and diverse situations when using a foreign language. They are the result of experiencing Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) a situational, dysphoric and (...) debilitating anxiety coined by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope in 1986. Nowadays, multiculturalism and multilingualism are part of our daily lives as well as communication in a foreign language and with foreigners. Hence, FLA is not a problem restricted to foreign language learning scenarios anymore. This innovative session aims to inform and raise awareness of FLA presence and effects in professional and educational contexts, beyond FL classrooms and learning settings. (shrink)

For fifty years, Willard Van Orman Quine's books and articles have stimulated intense debate in the fields of logic and the philosophy of language. Many scholars in fact, regard Quine as the greatest living English-speaking philosopher; yet his views remain widely misunderstood and misinterpreted. This book provides the first major explication and defense of Quine's systematic philosophy and is ideally suited for use as a required or supplementary text in a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate (...) courses in philosophy and linguistics.The book explores the far-reaching implications of Quine's views on language for contemporary analytic philosophy. It is unique in providing a lucid and rich description and reconstruction of the historical context from which Quine's work grew, focusing in particular on the role that Russell and Wittgenstein played in shaping the problems inherited by Quine. It presents Quine's difficult later views in an accessible fashion, bringing out as no other study has the very radical nature of his position. One of the book's highlights is its careful examination and assessment of Tarski's theory of truth as it relates to the traditions of Russell and Wittgenstein and to Quine's own philosophy.George D. Romanos took his Ph.D. in philosophy under George D. W. Berry and Paul T. Sagal at Boston University. This book grew out of his dissertation with the active criticism and support of Quine himself. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss Quine’s views on language sharing and linguistic communities. It is sometimes explicitly and often implicitly taken for granted that Quine believes that speakers can form communities in which they share a language. The aim of the paper is to show that this is a misinterpretation and, on the contrary, Quine is closer to linguistic individualism – the view according to which there is no guarantee that speakers within a community share (...) a language and the notion of idiolect is more fundamental than the notion of shared language. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss language learning in Wittgenstein and Davidson. Starting from a remark by Bakhurst, I hold that both Wittgenstein and Davidson’s philosophies of language contain responses to the problem of language learning, albeit of a different form. Following Williams, I hold that the concept of language learning can explain Wittgenstein’s approach to the normativity of meaning in the Philosophical Investigations. Turning to Davidson, I hold that language learning can, (...) equally, explain Davidson’s theory of triangulation. I sketch an account of triangulation as Davidson’s response to the problem of the normativity of meaning and explain the role that language learning plays in this account. (shrink)

I discuss the ubiquity of power law distributions in language organisation (and elsewhere), and argue against Miller’s (The mating mind: How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature, William Heinemann, London, 2000) argument that large vocabulary size is a consequence of sexual selection. Instead I argue that power law distributions are evidence that languages are best modelled as dynamical systems but raise some issues for models of iterated language learning.

Arguing About Language presents a comprehensive selection of key readings on fundamental issues in the philosophy of language. It offers a fresh and exciting introduction to the subject, addressing both perennial problems and emerging topics. Classic readings from Frege, Russell, Kripke, Chomsky, Quine, Grice, Lewis and Davidson appear alongside more recent pieces by philosophers or linguists such as Robyn Carston, Delia Graff Fara, Frank Jackson, Ernie Lepore & Jerry Fodor, Nathan Salmon, Zoltán Szabó, Timothy Williamson and Crispin (...) Wright. Organised into clear sections, readings have been chosen that engage with one another and often take opposing views on the same question, helping students to get to grips with the key areas of debate in the philosophy of language, including: sense and reference definite descriptions linguistic conventions language and behaviour descriptivism and rigidity contextualism vagueness rule-following and normativity fictional discourse. Each article selected is clear, thought-provoking and free from unnecessary jargon. The editors provide lucid introductions to each section in which they give an overview of the debate and outline the arguments of the papers. Arguing About Language is an ideal reader for students looking for a balanced yet up-to-date introduction to the philosophy of language. Darragh Byrne is lecturer in philosophy at the University of Birmingham, UK. Max Kölbel is ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona, Spain. He is the author of Truth without Objectivity (Routledge, 2002) and co-editor of Wittgenstein's Lasting Significance (Routledge, 2004) with Bernhard Weiss, as well as Relative Truth (Oxford, 2008) with Manuel García-Carpintero. (shrink)

This wide-ranging book focuses upon the role that Latin was thought an ideal, universal, constructed language would play in the advancement of learning.

Holistic theories of meaning have, at least since Dummett’s Frege: The Philosophy of language, been assumed to be problematic from the perspective of the incremental nature of natural language learning. In this essay I argue that the general relationship between holism and language learning is in fact the opposite of that claimed by Dummett. It is only given a particular form of language learning, and a particular form of holism, that there is a (...) problem at all; in general, for all forms of holism, and irrespective of how language learning is understood, semantic holism is conducive to language learning. The paper has three main parts. In the first, I demonstrate with the use of a simple formal system, that the form of holism that generates the problem that Dummett draws attention to is really decomposable into three distinct components, each of which is necessary for the problem to arise. In the second part, I demonstrate that even Dummett’s strong form of holism is compatible with one natural way in which to understand the incremental nature of language learning. In the third part, I outline the reasons why all forms of holism are conducive to language learning and offer two ways in which this general fact can be spelled out precisely. I end the paper by addressing some possible objections, and in doing so I draw attention to some affinities between semantic holism and the principle of compositionality, a semantic principle which has long been assumed to be conducive to language learning. (shrink)

In recent years, foreign language learning has been proposed as a possible cognitive intervention for older adults. However, the brain network and cognitive functions underlying FLL has remained largely unconfirmed in older adults. In particular, older and younger adults have markedly different cognitive profile—while older adults tend to exhibit decline in most cognitive domains, their semantic memory usually remains intact. As such, older adults may engage the semantic functions to a larger extent than the other cognitive functions traditionally (...) considered the most important. Using anatomical measurements and a cognitive test battery, the present study examined this hypothesis in twenty cognitively normal older adults, who participated in a two-month Italian learning programme. Results showed that the immediate learning success and long-term retention of Italian vocabularies were most consistently predicted by the anatomical measures of the left pars orbitalis and left caudal middle frontal cortex, which are implicated in semantic and episodic memory functions. Convergent evidence was also found based on the pattern of cognitive associations. Our results are consistent with a prominent role of semantic and episodic memory functions in vocabulary learning in older learners. (shrink)

This volume features work on learning by researchers in various disciplines who share an interest in the systematic study of cognition and in the study of the formal and semantic aspects of language acquisition. A recurring theme is that language learning involves the acquisition of certain competencies and the formation of a system of beliefs which are significantly underdetermined by the linguistic and nonlinguistic inputs available to the learner. Theories of language learning must confront (...) the epistemological problem of how it is possible to induce and fixate a belief-system on the basis of exposure to limited data. A typical strategy in dealing with this problem has been to specify various types of formal and empirical constraints on linguistic and conceptual development in terms of specific hypotheses about the character of what is learned and about the kinds of resources and strategies available to the learner. Most of the contributions in this volume are concerned with the specification and evaluation of such constraints. (shrink)

This guide accompanies the following article: ‘Logic and Divine Simplicity’. Philosophy Compass 6/4 : pp. 282–294, doi: Author’s IntroductionFirst‐order formalizations of classical theistic doctrines are increasingly used in contemporary work in philosophy of religion and philosophical theology, as a means for clarifying the conceptual structure of the doctrines and their role in inferential procedures. But there are a variety of different ways in which such doctrines have been formalized, each representing the doctrines as having different conceptual structures. Moreover, the adequacy (...) of such formalizations as such has, at least with respect to some classes of doctrines, been disputed. One reason for disputing their adequacy derives from the conceptual impact of classical theism’s doctrine of divine simplicity.Author RecommendsFrege, Gottlob ‘Begriffsschrift: a formula language of pure thought,’ trans. Michael Beany, in The Frege Reader, ed. Beany. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 47–78. The preface contains interesting remarks about the purpose of formalization as understood by the chief pioneer of modern formal logic. These remarks are also connected by Frege to his views on the relation between thought and language more generally.Russell, Bertrand, and Whitehead, A.N. Principia Mathematica, Vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.The preface and first section of the long introduction contain remarks on the purpose and advantages of formalization. Chapter 1 of the introduction contains what is probably one of the first formalizations ever of a theistic doctrine, and is given in terms of a definite description analysis.Suppes, Patrick ‘The Desirability of Formalization in Science,’The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 65, No. 20, pp. 651–64.Clear and concise discussion of some of the advantages of formalization in philosophical inquiry, written by a prominent contemporary American philosopher‐logician.Nieznański, Edward ‘The Beginnings of Formalization in Theology,’ in Advances in Scientific Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Paul Weingartner, eds. Gerhard Schurz and Gregory J.W. Dorn. Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Ropodi, pp. 551–9.A valuable paper that narrates, among other things, the programme of formalizing theistic doctrines that emerged in Poland in the 1920s under the influence of the Lvov‐Warsaw School. Various examples of formalizations are also given.Quine, W.V.O. Mathematical Logic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.In Section 27 of this classic study, Quine offers a formalization of theistic doctrines which seeks to avoid the difficulties of earlier formalizations by means of a subtle extensional singleton set analysis. The proposal has not won many adherents, but is worthy of careful study nonetheless.Woleński, Jan ‘Theism, Fideism, Atheism, Agnosticism,’ in Logic, Ethics and All That Jazz: Essays in Honour of Jordan Howard Sobel, eds. Lars‐Göran Johansson, Jan Österberg, and Rysiek Sliwinski. Uppsala: Uppsala Philosophical Studies, pp. 387–400.A concise but lucid survey of some attempts to formalize theistic doctrines and some problems besetting these attempts. Woleński also proposes his own method of formalization, which could be described as a simplified version of Quine’s method in Mathematical Logic.Bocheński, Joseph The Logic of Religion. New York: New York University Press.The first book‐length treatment of the relation between modern logic and theism. It covers much ground, and remains very readable.Alston, William P. ‘Religious Language and Verificationism,’ in The Rationality of Theism, eds. Paul Moser and Paul Copan. London: Routledge, pp. 17–34.Identifies some problems with attempts at articulating theistic doctrines by means of subject‐predicate language. Highly relevant to formalizations of theistic doctrines, even though this topic is not dealt with explicitly.Kraal, Anders ‘Logic and Divine Simplicity,’Philosophy Compass.Offers a survey of three main methods of formalizing theistic doctrines, and of some variants of these methods. Argues that certain formalizations of theistic doctrines are bound to be rejected as conceptually inadequate by all who understand the doctrines at hand within the framework provided by the traditional doctrine of divine simplicity.Sample Syllabus Week I: The Idea of Formalization and the Project of Formalizing Theistic Doctrines Reading:Frege, Gottlob ‘Begriffsschrift: a formula language of pure thought,’ trans. Michael Beany, in The Frege Reader, ed. Beany. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 47–78. Russell, Bertrand, and Whitehead, A.N. Principia Mathematica, Vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Suppes, Patrick ‘The Desirability of Formalization in Science,’The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 65, No. 20, pp. 651–64.Nieznański, Edward ‘The Beginnings of Formalization in Theology,’ in Advances in Scientific Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Paul Weingartner, eds. Gerhard Schurz and Gregory J.W. Dorn. Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Ropodi, pp. 551–9. Week II: Formalizing Theistic Doctrines: Three Alternative Methods Reading:Woleński, Jan ‘Theism, Fideism, Atheism, Agnosticism,’ in Logic, Ethics and All That Jazz: Essays in Honour of Jordan Howard Sobel, eds. Lars‐Göran Johansson, Jan Österberg, and Rysiek Sliwinski. Uppsala: Uppsala Philosophical Studies, pp. 387–400.Russell, Bertrand, and Whitehead, A.N. Principia Mathematica, Vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quine, W.V.O. Mathematical Logic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Week III: Arguments for and Against Some Formalizations of Theistic Doctrines Reading:Bocheński, Joseph The Logic of Religion. New York: New York University Press. Kraal, Anders ‘Logic and Divine Simplicity,’Philosophy Compass, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 282–94.Focus Questions1 What do Frege, Russell and Whitehead, and Suppes understand the purpose or purposes of logical formalization to be, and why do they think formalization can achieve these purposes?2 Woleński sketches some simple ways of formalizing theistic doctrines such as ‘God exists’ or ‘God is almighty’ in terms of 1‐place predicates which he subsequently abandons in favour of other methods. What reasons lead him to abandon these more simple methods of formalization?3 What are the advantages of the definite description formalization of theistic doctrines offered by Russell and Whitehead?4 Quine offers a subtle formalization of the theistic doctrine ‘God exists’ in terms of singleton sets. What problems are Quine’s formalization intended to accommodate, and how does it seek to accommodate them?5 Which relative merits or demerits are there in Bocheński’s and Kraal’s respective arguments for and against the adequacy of certain formalizations of theistic doctrines? (shrink)

In contrast to the empiricist view, which states how all learning involves general strategies that can be applied in various fields and learning from experience, the nativist view explains how the acquisition of some knowledge cannot be associated with the domain-neutral empiricist model. In 1960, Noam Chomsky made his claims regarding how human beings are innately bestowed of knowledge of natural languages. This chapter attempts to provide an overview of Chomsky's explanation of language acquisition and how this (...) has once again gained the attention of both American Structuralist linguistics and psychological behaviorism. Looking into such would allow the establishment of a taxonomic framework for a better examination of linguistic nativism. (shrink)

How do we become moral persons? What about children's active learning in contrast to parenting? What can children teach us about knowledge-making more broadly? Answer these questions by delving into the groundbreaking ethnographic fieldwork conducted by anthropologists Arthur and Margery Wolf in a martial law era Taiwanese village (1958-60), marking the first-ever study of ethnic Han children. Jing Xu skillfully reinterprets the Wolfs' extensive fieldnotes, employing a unique blend of humanistic interpretation, natural language processing, and machine-learning techniques. (...) Through a lens of social cognition, this book unravels the complexities of children's moral growth, exposing instances of disobedience, negotiation, and peer dynamics. Writing through and about fieldnotes, the author connects the two themes, learning morality and making ethnography, in light of social cognition, and invites all of us to take children seriously. This book is ideal for graduate and undergraduate students of anthropology and educational studies. (shrink)

Among the philosophical accounts of reference, Quine’s The Roots of Reference stands out in offering an integrated account of the acquisition of linguistic reference and object individuation. Based on a non-referential ability to distinguish bodies, the acquisition of sortals and quantification are crucial steps in learning to refer to objects. In this article, we critically re-assess Quine’s account of reference. Our critique will proceed in three steps with the aim of showing that Quine effectively presupposes what (...) he sets out to explain, namely, reference to objects. We are going to argue that sortals do not individuate, that bodies are already objects, and that the acquisition of variables presupposes a notion of identity. The result is diagnostic of a central desideratum for any theory of reference: an explanation of spatiotemporal object individuation. (shrink)

In the middle of geopolitical currents, this paper seeks to replicate the discourse on the emergence and sustainability of language acquisition. As a writer, I believe that this discussion should be continued since it draws lessons from the current global position in which Ukraine finds itself, with Russia's horrific invasion. On the other hand, the degradation of many types of languages with a linguistic background implies that global, regional, national, and local constellations are now eroding local, national, and tribal (...) languages. Because this scenario has the potential for negative treatment, such as the systematic extinction of one language for the benefit of imperialism or neocolonialism, this overview is recreated to serve as a learning resource for the whole global community. (shrink)

In this second lecture, Quine provides a further rational reconstruction of human progress from sensory stimulation to our current scientific theory. This project consists in his further speculations concerning how we have acquired cognitive language. Here, Quine talks of observation sentences and explains how he thinks they can be learned by ostension. This leads him to further speculate concerning how we could master standing sentences, predication and the use of relative clauses. At this stage the language (...) learner has acquired a grammar that is equivalent to first order predicate calculus, which Quine famously advocates as the canonical framework for the language of science. He elaborates on the nature of objective reference, emphasizing that this appears with the predication of general terms since only then are things separated from the terms that name them. (shrink)

Lateral temporal measures of the auditory evoked potential including the T-complex, as well as an earlier negative peak index maturation of auditory/speech processing. Previous studies have shown that these measures distinguish neural processing in children with typical language development from those with disorders and monolingual from bilingual children. In this study, bilingual children with Turkish as L1 and German as L2 were compared with monolingual German-speaking children with developmental language disorder and monolingual German-speaking children with TD in order (...) to disentangle effects of limited language input vs. reduced perceptual abilities in the processing of speech and non-speech stimuli. Sensory processing reflected by the T-complex was compared in response to a German vowel and a sine-wave tone in the three groups of children, ages 5 through 6 years. Stimuli were presented while children watched a muted video. Auditory evoked potentials were time-locked to the vowels and tones. AEPs to the frequent stimuli within an oddball paradigm were analyzed at the left and right temporal electrode sites.The results revealed language status, stimulus, and language test measures all influenced the T-complex amplitudes. Particularly, the peak amplitude of Ta was modulated by language status and stimulus type. Bilingual children had significantly more negative Ta responses than the monolingual children with TD for both vowels and tones while DLD children differed from TD children only for the vowel stimulus. The amplitude of the T-complex was overall more negative at the left than at the right site. The Na peak latency was longer for the bilingual group than that observed for the two monolingual groups. The Tb latency was shorter for DLD and bilingual groups than that for TD children in the vowel condition, but no such latency difference between DLD and bilingual children was found. We suggest that the attenuated T-complex for bilingual children indicates continued plasticity of the auditory cortex to allow for learning of novel, second-language speech sounds. (shrink)

In many areas, technology has facilitated many things, diagnosing diseases, regulating traffic and teaching students in schools rely on Intelligent systems to name a few. At present, traditional classroom-based education is no longer the most appropriate in schools. From here, the idea of intelligent e-learning for students to increase their culture and keep them updated in life began. E-learning has become an ideal solution, relying on artificial intelligence, which has a footprint in this through the development of systems (...) based on education without a teacher taking into account the individual differences of students. This study describes intelligent tutoring system for teaching the Data Manipulation Language (DML) Commands Using SQLite to non IT students to overcome the difficulties they face. The System was built as education system by using the researcher own authoring tool that based on mobile and web App. The basic idea of this system is a systematic introduction into the concept of Database and its DML query. The system presents the topic of DML Commands, help student to execute what they are learn from the system content using the practical part of the system and administers automatically adapted at run time to the student’s individual growth. The system was assessed by a group of teachers and students and the outcome showed as 91% from the database specialists, 94% from Diploma students group and 89% from the secondary school students group. (shrink)