Linguistic Distance

Abstract
Assessing one's abilities accurately is a valuable skill because it ensures that further learning happens. Individuals with accurate self-assessment skills can monitor their learning or lack of learning and they direct their time and effort to learn strategically. One way to develop learners' accurate self-assessment is asking them to predict their exam scores before or after
an exam. However, most studies on exam score prediction show that students are generally inaccurate in their predictions. This result suggests that getting students to do self-assessment by predicting exam scores alone is insufficient. This study discusses why teacher feedback after an exam and students' affective responses to feedback are essential in helping students predict their future performance correctly.
The study participants are twenty-five university students who were asked to predict their exam scores across multiple exams in a one-semester-long instruction period. Based on students' prediction accuracy, calibration scores were calculated. After each exam, the students received individual and collective feedback on their exam performance. After each feedback session, students were asked to report how the feedback made them feel. The students who predicted their exam scores correctly and incorrectly were compared in terms of their affective responses to feedback. To examine the relationship between students' affective responses to the teacher feedback and the accuracy of their predictions, students' calibration scores and affective responses were analyzed by computing statistical procedures such as t-tests and correlations.
The results showed that students' affective responses to teacher feedback play a key role in predicting future exam scores correctly.
Key Words: Affective Response to Teacher Feedback, Calibration Score, Exam Score Prediction

The calculation of aggregate linguistic distances can compensate for some of the drawbacks inherent to the isogloss bundling method used in traditional dialectology to identify dialect areas. Synchronic aggregate analysis can also point out differences with respect to a diachronically based classification of dialects. In this study the Levenshtein algorithm is applied for the first time to obtain an aggregate analysis of the linguistic distances among 88 diatopic varieties of Croatian spoken along the Eastern Adriatic coast and in the Italian province of Molise. We also measured lexical differences among these varieties, which are traditionally grouped into Čakavian, Štokavian, and transitional Čakavian-Štokavian varieties. The lexical and pronunciational distances are subsequently projected onto multidimensional cartographic representations. Both kinds of analyses confirmed that linguistic discontinuity is characteristic of the whole region, and that discontinuities are more pronounced in the northern Adriatic area than in the south. We also show that the geographic lines are in many cases the most decisive factor contributing to linguistic cohesion, and that the internal heterogeneity within Čakavian is often greater than the differences between Čakavian and Štokavian varieties. This holds both for pronunciation and lexicon.

We determined subjective mutual intelligibility and linguistic similarity by presenting recordings of the same spoken passage in 15 Chinese dialects to naive listeners of the same set of dialects and asking them to rate the dialects along both subjective dimensions. We then regressed the subjective ratings against objective structural similarity measures (lexical, phonological) for the same set of dialects as published in the literature. Our results show that subjective distance is better predicted than subjective mutual intelligibility and that the relationship between objective and subjective measures is logarithmic. Best predicted was log-transformed subjective similarity (excluding the Beijing dialect, which is identical to the standard language) with R 2 = .64.

We determined subjective mutual intelligibility and linguistic similarity by presenting recordings of the same spoken passage in 15 Chinese dialects to naive listeners of the same set of dialects and asking them to rate the dialects along both subjective dimensions. We then regressed the subjective ratings against objective structural similarity measures (lexical, phonological) for the same set of dialects as published in the literature. Our results show that subjective distance is better predicted than subjective mutual intelligibility and that the relationship between objective and subjective measures is logarithmic. Best predicted was log-transformed subjective similarity (excluding the Beijing dialect, which is identical to the standard language) with R 2 = .64.

We determined mutual intelligibility and linguistic similarity by presenting recordings of the same fable spoken in 15 Chinese dialects to naive listeners of the same set of dialects and asking them to rate the dialects along both subjective dimensions. We then regressed the ratings against objective structural measures (lexical similarity, phonological correspondence) for the same set of dialects. Our results

Linguistic corpora have been used in a wide range in recent years. Different types of linguistics analyses in both spoken and written discourses are being conducted using the corpus linguistics approach. Among these, academic writing has received considerable attention. Corpus linguistics has provided insights into the academic writing of both native and non-native English language learners and writers in general. Nevertheless, relatively few studies have investigated this topic in the Arab EFL setting. Consequently, there is a relative paucity in corpora of Academic written English by Arab speakers. To address this gap, we compiled the Arab Scholars' Academic Written English Corpus (ASAWEC) which is a specialized corpus of Arab scholars' academic written English. We collected the corpus texts according to specific criteria, and then we normalized and cleaned the data. The texts were then tokenized and tagged and the corpus underwent initial tests which yields insightful findings on Arab scholars' academic written English such as the low lexical diversity and the utilization of various discourse techniques. The present paper introduces the corpus, provides details on its compilation, presents initial results and statistics, and discusses potential limitations and future perspectives for updating the corpus. It is envisaged that this project will encourage the use of the ASAWEC and help in launching similar initiatives to advance research in Arab corpus linguistics.

Although the notion of “distance”, especially linguistic, cultural, and temporal, dots the discourse of Translation Studies (TS), it has never been given due consideration and it thus remains under the radar. In this context, the present thesis explores the concept of “distance”, particularly between languages and cultures, from a firmly translational and translatological perspective. The starting postulate is that it is possible to express the complex nexus of divergences and convergences between two linguistic-cultural systems through a simplified representation, that is a “distance”. Thus, the main question posed in this thesis can be summed up as follows: what influence does distance between languages-cultures exert on translation, and what relevance does the concept have for TS?

En premier lieu, je remercie Mme Mathilde Fontanet, ma directrice de recherches, pour son aide et ses précieux conseils tout au long de ce travail. Je lui suis très reconnaissante pour le temps qu'elle m'a consacré au cours de cette année universitaire. Je remercie chaleureusement mon frère Arnaud ainsi que Julien, qui m'ont beaucoup aidée pour la mise en page générale de cet ouvrage, ainsi que pour l'élaboration des tableaux d'étude de séquences. Je tiens ensuite à remercier Takumi, un étudiant japonais qui m'a été d'un grand secours, puisqu'il m'a proposé une traduction possible d'un passage du film qui était en japonais non sous-titré. Je remercie mes parents de m'avoir toujours encouragée pendant mes études, quels qu'aient été mes choix. Je remercie ma mère de m'avoir soutenue et de ne m'avoir jamais autorisée à baisser les bras. Je remercie de tout mon coeur Iris et Florence, pour le soutien qu'elles m'ont apporté dans les moments difficiles. Enfin, je tiens à remercier tout particulièrement mon oncle Christian, professeur de français, qui a eu la gentillesse de bien vouloir relire ce mémoire. Aussi avons-nous voulu proposer une étude du film qui soit axée sur la communication tant verbale (les mots) que non verbale (la proxémique). À travers cette étude, nous examinerons de quelle façon Coppola démontre que, si les mots et le fait de parler la même langue et d'appartenir à la même culture facilitent certes la communication, souvent, la communication, la complicité véritable peuvent se passer de mots. Parce que la communication est avant tout verbale, nous commencerons par donner un aperçu de la traduction audiovisuelle, son historique, son évolution et des différentes techniques employées dans ce contexte. Cela nous aidera dans l'analyse des aspects de communication verbale (les sous-titres, dans le cas présent). Ensuite, nous introduirons la notion de communication et plus spécifiquement de communication non verbale, et nous commenterons les différences en matière de communication non verbale entre les cultures américaine et japonaise, qui sont présentes dans ce film. Enfin, nous passerons à l'analyse du film à proprement parler, en examinant dans le détail son affiche, des séquences clés et des dialogues qui nous paraissent révélateurs des aspects de la communication verbale et non verbale qui sont abordés. Il faut savoir qu'un film, comme toute autre oeuvre d'art, peut être interprété de diverses manières, selon l'approche choisie. Nous voulons rappeler que notre point de vue est ici celui d'une étudiante francophone cinéphile. Aussi sommes-nous consciente que notre analyse aurait été différente si nous avions été anglophone, par exemple.

En premier lieu, je remercie Mme Mathilde Fontanet, ma directrice de recherches, pour son aide et ses précieux conseils tout au long de ce travail. Je lui suis très reconnaissante pour le temps qu'elle m'a consacré au cours de cette année universitaire. Je remercie chaleureusement mon frère Arnaud ainsi que Julien, qui m'ont beaucoup aidée pour la mise en page générale de cet ouvrage, ainsi que pour l'élaboration des tableaux d'étude de séquences. Je tiens ensuite à remercier Takumi, un étudiant japonais qui m'a été d'un grand secours, puisqu'il m'a proposé une traduction possible d'un passage du film qui était en japonais non sous-titré. Je remercie mes parents de m'avoir toujours encouragée pendant mes études, quels qu'aient été mes choix. Je remercie ma mère de m'avoir soutenue et de ne m'avoir jamais autorisée à baisser les bras. Je remercie de tout mon coeur Iris et Florence, pour le soutien qu'elles m'ont apporté dans les moments difficiles. Enfin, je tiens à remercier tout particulièrement mon oncle Christian, professeur de français, qui a eu la gentillesse de bien vouloir relire ce mémoire. Aussi avons-nous voulu proposer une étude du film qui soit axée sur la communication tant verbale (les mots) que non verbale (la proxémique). À travers cette étude, nous examinerons de quelle façon Coppola démontre que, si les mots et le fait de parler la même langue et d'appartenir à la même culture facilitent certes la communication, souvent, la communication, la complicité véritable peuvent se passer de mots. Parce que la communication est avant tout verbale, nous commencerons par donner un aperçu de la traduction audiovisuelle, son historique, son évolution et des différentes techniques employées dans ce contexte. Cela nous aidera dans l'analyse des aspects de communication verbale (les sous-titres, dans le cas présent). Ensuite, nous introduirons la notion de communication et plus spécifiquement de communication non verbale, et nous commenterons les différences en matière de communication non verbale entre les cultures américaine et japonaise, qui sont présentes dans ce film. Enfin, nous passerons à l'analyse du film à proprement parler, en examinant dans le détail son affiche, des séquences clés et des dialogues qui nous paraissent révélateurs des aspects de la communication verbale et non verbale qui sont abordés. Il faut savoir qu'un film, comme toute autre oeuvre d'art, peut être interprété de diverses manières, selon l'approche choisie. Nous voulons rappeler que notre point de vue est ici celui d'une étudiante francophone cinéphile. Aussi sommes-nous consciente que notre analyse aurait été différente si nous avions été anglophone, par exemple.

The calculation of aggregate linguistic distances can compensate for some of the drawbacks inherent to the isogloss bundling method used in traditional dialectology to identify dialect areas. Synchronic aggregate analysis can also point out differences with respect to a diachronically based classification of dialects. In this study the Levenshtein algorithm is applied for the first time to obtain an aggregate analysis of the linguistic distances among 88 diatopic varieties of Croatian spoken along the Eastern Adriatic coast and in the Italian province of Molise. We also measured lexical differences among these varieties, which are traditionally grouped into Čakavian, Štokavian, and transitional Čakavian-Štokavian varieties. The lexical and pronunciational distances are subsequently projected onto multidimensional cartographic representations. Both kinds of analyses confirmed that linguistic discontinuity is characteristic of the whole region, and that discontinuities are more pronounced in the northern Adriatic area than in the south. We also show that the geographic lines are in many cases the most decisive factor contributing to linguistic cohesion, and that the internal heterogeneity within Čakavian is often greater than the differences between Čakavian and Štokavian varieties. This holds both for pronunciation and lexicon.

This doctoral thesis, accepted at the University of Zurich in 2013, is a most competent discussion of the representation of dialect features on maps. Since the first attempts by Alexander Ellis and Prince Louis-Lucien Bonaparte in the 1870 s, there have been a great many undertakings at illustrating dialects cartographically. While it has been clear ever since then that isoglosses inadequately simplify or even distort the reality of dialectal distribution, the conclusions drawn from this insight have been erratic and generally escapist. They range from the use of heteroglosses (i. e. fuzzy borderlines between dialect areas) instead of isoglosses to a one-sided specification of the level of language, for example, phonology at the cost of morphology, lexis and syntax. Some dialectologists have avoided atlases altogether (Joseph Wright's English Dialect Grammar, 1905), others have suggested measuring quantities of distribution rather than qualities, and similarities rather than differences of dialect areas. Above all, scholars have often generalised the results of their studies on individual or very few features of dialects, so that the analytic results have been questionable. In 2018, state-of-the-art English dialectology is still controversial and unsatisfactory. The main reasons are: (a) lack of agreement on which dialectal features should be analysed and which linguistic levels should be taken into account; (b) disagreement on whether the features and the levels all have the same weight as characteristics of dialect or whether they should be ranked; (c) disagreement even on the term 'dialect', given that sociolect criteria have increasingly become of interest in the course of the 20th century due to their overlaps with the traditional areal lects. Furthermore, dialectologists have been at odds on whether and how the characteristics of dialects should be quantified and measured. In this context one should remember that the collection of raw material for dialect studies is extremely labour-intensive and has, therefore, usually been selective and fragmentary in some way. A basic problem of dialect studies as an academic field at present is that they have been margin

The paper describes the communicative and cognitive signs of literary discourse and its interpretations in linguistics. Different interpretations of discourse in modern linguistic research are considered. The author's literary discourse is described in terms of the conception, with respect to which the researcher positions himself. The world view of the writer is often manifested in the framework of the verbalization of a number of concepts that are organically included in idiosphere of individual author's works. Reconstructing a hypothetical generalizing model of a linguistic identity of the author is based on the description and analysis of linguistic material use as the basis for interpretation of the semiotic discourse space. Individual concept sphere and the author's thesaurus can be considered as an epistemological base of language personality of the writer. It is conjectured that the literary discourse serves to highlight the relevant objects and essential features of language personality of the writer. Language personality of the writer is treated as a model element of national linguocultural community.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien did not create his many fictional languages so that his fiction may live, but rather created the fictional stories so that his languages may live. It could then be argued that his Middle-Earth saga is predominantly a language study. Deeming it thus, the question I pose is whether the languages Tolkien created for his series of novels are intrinsically related to the language of the common speech, English, and if so, how does this common speech affect the development of the fictional languages? If we regard the language of the Rohirrim as a linguistic mutation of English, how might it be crafted for, say, a French audience with French as the common speech? This dissertation will investigate the extent to which Tolkien's mother tongue influenced the creation of his series of fictitious languages. We shall see how each of his invented languages relates to the language in which the books are written. Examining and disputing some of the findings of other Tolkien scholars, we will discover the purpose of his languages and how translation of the books ought to see translation of the fictional languages. This will lead us to the conclusion that his languages were created first with Middle-earth having been created to give the former somewhere to exist. Pursuing equivalent effect, a translation without altering Elvish et al. will not see this brought to fruition.

The goal of this research was to determine the manner in which Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance construct has been incorporated into international research. Hofstede's work is often referenced in this realm of work, but how, specifically, is it used? This study provides a framework of this dimension from Hofstede's work that other researchers can use as a resource for planning articles and/or as a benchmark upon which to develop further studies. During our data gathering, we identified 118 articles in the Journal of International Business Studies (i.e., the outlet for his initial article) that used Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance. Three articles mentioned uncertainty avoidance in the research notes and 15 used uncertainty avoidance to support positions taken in the literature review. Forty-one articles used uncertainty avoidance while explaining their research hypotheses. Of the remaining 59 articles, 29 used Hofstede's data to compare countries using composite indices, and 30 used uncertainty avoidance as an independent or control variable.

The future of Catalan dialects' syntax: A case study for a methodological contribution Ares Llop Naya II Methods 5 Fuzzy dialect areas and prototype theory: Discovering latent patterns in geolinguistic variation Simon Pickl 6 On the problem of field worker isoglosses Andrea Mathussek 7 Tracking linguistic features underlying lexical variation patterns: A case study on Tuscan dialects Simonetta Montemagni & Martijn Wieling 8 A new dialectometric approach applied to the Breton language Guylaine Brun-Trigaud, Tanguy Solliec & Jean Le Dû Contents 9 Automatically identifying characteristic features of non-native English accents Jelke Bloem, Martijn Wieling & John Nerbonne 10 Mapping the perception of linguistic form: Dialectometry with perceptual data

This article suggests that the impact of long-term language contact between the languages of Irish, Scots and English in the province of Ulster led to a hybridisation of accent which challenges traditional ethnolinguistic differentiations namely, the myth that Catholics and Protestants can be differentiated by their accent. The digitisation of archive recordings from the Tape Recorded Survey of Hiberno-English (TRSHE) permitted a detailed phonetic analysis of two speakers from Atticall, a rural townland in the Mourne Mountains with a unique geographical and linguistic setting, due to the close proximity of Ulster Scots and Irish speakers in the area. Phonological features associated with Irish, Northern English and Lowland Scots were garnered from previous dialectological research in Irish, English and Scots phonologies, which aided with the interpretation of the data. Other contemporaneous recordings from the TRSHE allowed further comparison of phonological features with areas of U...

The future of Catalan dialects' syntax: A case study for a methodological contribution Ares Llop Naya II Methods 5 Fuzzy dialect areas and prototype theory: Discovering latent patterns in geolinguistic variation Simon Pickl 6 On the problem of field worker isoglosses Andrea Mathussek 7 Tracking linguistic features underlying lexical variation patterns: A case study on Tuscan dialects Simonetta Montemagni & Martijn Wieling 8 A new dialectometric approach applied to the Breton language Guylaine Brun-Trigaud, Tanguy Solliec & Jean Le Dû Contents 9 Automatically identifying characteristic features of non-native English accents Jelke Bloem, Martijn Wieling & John Nerbonne 10 Mapping the perception of linguistic form: Dialectometry with perceptual data

We study the effects of linguistic distance and lingua franca proficiency on the equity stake taken by acquirers from 67 countries in 59,092 acquisition targets in 69 host countries. We theorize and find that acquirers take lower equity stakes in foreign targets when linguistic distance and differences in lingua franca proficiency between them are high, and take higher stakes when the combined lingua franca proficiency of the parties is high. We also find that linguistic and cultural distance reduce the impact of the combined lingua franca proficiency of the parties on the level of equity taken, which shows that the effective use of a lingua franca is affected by the native tongues and cultures of the parties. Our results clearly demonstrate that governance research and international business studies can benefit from incorporating language into their explanatory models.

Since Charles Jones referred to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the ‘Cinderellas of English historical linguistic study’ (1989: 279), there has been a great deal of progress in research on this period, but, as Beal (2012: 22) points out, much of this has been in the fields of syntax, morphology, lexis, pragmatics, sociolinguistics and the normative tradition. Beal argues that the availability of corpora of Late Modern English texts has greatly facilitated research in these areas, but, since creating phonological corpora for periods antedating the invention of sound recording is a challenging proposition, the historical phonology of Late Modern English has benefited much less from the corpus revolution. To redress this imbalance, the editors of this issue, with technical support from the Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield, created the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database (ECEP), which is freely available at www.dhi.ac.uk/projects/ecep/

The goal of this research was to determine the manner in which Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance construct has been incorporated into international research. Hofstede's work is often referenced in this realm of work, but how, specifically, is it used? This study provides a framework of this dimension from Hofstede's work that other researchers can use as a resource for planning articles and/or as a benchmark upon which to develop further studies. During our data gathering, we identified 118 articles in the Journal of International Business Studies (i.e., the outlet for his initial article) that used Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance. Three articles mentioned uncertainty avoidance in the research notes and 15 used uncertainty avoidance to support positions taken in the literature review. Forty-one articles used uncertainty avoidance while explaining their research hypotheses. Of the remaining 59 articles, 29 used Hofstede's data to compare countries using composite indices, and 30 used uncertainty avoidance as an independent or control variable.

The calculation of aggregate linguistic distances can compensate for some of the drawbacks inherent to the isogloss bundling method used in traditional dialectology to identify dialect areas. Synchronic aggregate analysis can also point out differences with respect to a diachronically based classification of dialects. In this study the Levenshtein algorithm is applied for the first time to obtain an aggregate analysis of the linguistic distances among 88 diatopic varieties of Croatian spoken along the Eastern Adriatic coast and in the Italian province of Molise. We also measured lexical differences among these varieties, which are traditionally grouped into Čakavian, Štokavian, and transitional Čakavian-Štokavian varieties. The lexical and pronunciational distances are subsequently projected onto multidimensional cartographic representations. Both kinds of analyses confirmed that linguistic discontinuity is characteristic of the whole region, and that discontinuities are more pronounced in the northern Adriatic area than in the south. We also show that the geographic lines are in many cases the most decisive factor contributing to linguistic cohesion, and that the internal heterogeneity within Čakavian is often greater than the differences between Čakavian and Štokavian varieties. This holds both for pronunciation and lexicon.

This short contribution discusses the term and concept of isogloss: the space where a linguistic phenomenon exists or, by metonymic extension, the line that separates a particular linguistic phenomenon from another. Although the concept is currently used as an established and canonical term in linguistics, it is reasonable to explore its scope and the real sense that it carries, as well as to consider its origins and potential ambiguity in use. The main issue with the concept is that it seems to be theoretically necessary yet at the same time is not empirically attestable, which runs contrary to essential epistemological principles. We will seek to show that a) there is no contradiction between the existence of isoglosses as discrete units and the continuity of phenomena on the empirical level, b) the supposed end of the era of the diatopic anchorage of language in times of modern migration is a myth, c) that isoglosses should not be considered as established lines but rather as projections resulting from processes of individual constructions of spaces, and finally, d) that a central task of dialectology and of historical linguistics consists of the identification of the multi-layered superposition of different isoglosses that reflects the complex history of a language or variety.

This study investigates whether potential differences in the weight of out-of-school and in-school learning environments affect the acquisition of L2 English by teenagers in two geographical contexts, more and less English-rich, and with less and more linguistic distance to English, respectively. Participants were two groups of 14-15-year-olds, from Denmark and Spain. Language measures included a listening comprehension test, a metalinguistic knowledge test, and a grammaticality judgment test. Data about out-of-classroom exposure was elicited via a questionnaire. The study showed that (a) the Danish group attained a significantly higher level in all language tests except for the metalinguistic knowledge test; (b) the Danish group engaged longer in out-of-school activities although the preference for some activities over others was similar in the two groups; and (c) the types of associations between out-of-school activities and language measures were different between the two groups....

The future of Catalan dialects' syntax: A case study for a methodological contribution Ares Llop Naya II Methods 5 Fuzzy dialect areas and prototype theory: Discovering latent patterns in geolinguistic variation Simon Pickl 6 On the problem of field worker isoglosses Andrea Mathussek 7 Tracking linguistic features underlying lexical variation patterns: A case study on Tuscan dialects Simonetta Montemagni & Martijn Wieling 8 A new dialectometric approach applied to the Breton language Guylaine Brun-Trigaud, Tanguy Solliec & Jean Le Dû Contents 9 Automatically identifying characteristic features of non-native English accents Jelke Bloem, Martijn Wieling & John Nerbonne 10 Mapping the perception of linguistic form: Dialectometry with perceptual data

1. 'Standard English' and spoken English as opposing norms: a demonstration The populations of the British Isles have a varied, and often strained relationship with the language with which they have to engage every day in print and in the spoken media. This is the language through which they are (almost) all educated, and which, many of them are persuaded, is both correct and, in an absolute sense, good. Some are at ease with this language, others struggle to master it. A few turn their backs on it. This bald characterisation of the multiple relationships between language users and Standard English is intended to highlight, not only the diversity of the sociolinguistic setups throughout the islands, but also the wide range of beliefs, opinions and responses relating to the notion of 'Standard English' on the part of educators, policy makers and professional linguists, as well as, of course, those millions who do not belong to any of these groups. This chapter will address, first, how 'Standard English' and 'Received Pronunciation' (RP) have been conceptualised by those who have an academic, professional or policy-maker's interest in them. Second, the chapter will deal with the nature of the 'variety space' which is said to be bounded by Standard English and RP on one side and by 'non-standard', 'vernacular' speech on the other. As we shall see later, the standard-non-standard dimension is closely related to the distinction between written and spoken language. But let us begin with an illustration of how norms involving standard/written English interact with norms of spoken or non-standard usage. Sixteen adult non-linguistically trained speakers of British English were asked to perform a task judging the 'use in spoken English' of the following sentences:

Outlining the development of quantitative methods in dialectology, especially dialectometry, we show that the conventional approaches are characterized by an exclusive focus on varieties. This is due to a "lectbased" concept of linguistic space. We argue that a different approach, taking into account the individual distributions of single variants of a geolinguistic corpus, is not only possible, but desirable as a complement to the traditional approach. By introducing a statistical method that allows us to classify linguistic variables according to their distributional patterns, we illustrate this "variant-based" approach. This method may reveal as yet unknown associations between those variables, while at the same time demonstrating the feasibility and the potential of an alternative quantitative approach to linguistic variation in space.

Gabmap 2 is a web application aimed especially to facilitate explorations in quantitative dialectology-or dialectometry-by enabling researchers in dialectology to conduct computersupported explorations and calculations even if they have relatively little computational expertise. Gabmap creates various views of dialect data, from histograms of characters used to spot coding errors, to alignments of phonetic transcriptions used in measuring pronunciation distance, to colored multidimensional scaling plots intended to illustrate quantitative results insightfully. Many analyses are accompanied by facilities allowing researchers to probe further, e.g. seeking the most important linguistic bases of an areal division, or examining the results of clustering for statistical reliability. These are also intended to inform the critical discussion of quantitative techniques, i.e. a comparision between quantitative analyses and non-quantitative (qualitative) work. For this reason Gabmap also includes support for qualitative analyses, such as facilities to map the occurrence of individual features. The software is in use, and the source code is openly available. 1 The development of Gabmap was supported in 2010 by grant CLARIN-NL-09-014 from the CLARIN-NL program (http://www.clarin.nl/) to the ADEPT project (Assaying Differences using Edit Distance of Pronunciation Transcriptions), which we acknowledge gratefully. CLARIN-NL participates in the European CLARIN program (http://www.clarin.eu), whose aim is to develop a general infrastructure for scientific applications of language and text processing.

Since Charles Jones referred to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the ‘Cinderellas of English historical linguistic study’ (1989: 279), there has been a great deal of progress in research on this period, but, as Beal (2012: 22) points out, much of this has been in the fields of syntax, morphology, lexis, pragmatics, sociolinguistics and the normative tradition. Beal argues that the availability of corpora of Late Modern English texts has greatly facilitated research in these areas, but, since creating phonological corpora for periods antedating the invention of sound recording is a challenging proposition, the historical phonology of Late Modern English has benefited much less from the corpus revolution. To redress this imbalance, the editors of this issue, with technical support from the Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield, created the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database (ECEP), which is freely available at www.dhi.ac.uk/projects/ecep/

This article reports on research which seeks to compare and measure the similarities between phonetic transcriptions in the analysis of relationships between varieties of English. It addresses the question of whether these varieties have been converging, diverging, or maintaining equilibrium as a result of endogenous and exogenous phonetic and phonological changes. We argue that it is only possible to identify such patterns of change by the simultaneous comparison of a wide range of varieties of a language across a data set that has not been specifically selected to highlight those changes that are believed to be important. Our analysis suggests that although there has been an obvious reduction in regional variation with the loss of traditional dialects of English and Scots, there has not been any significant convergence (or divergence) of regional accents of English in recent decades, despite the rapid spread of a number of features such as TH-fronting.

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The future of Catalan dialects' syntax: A case study for a methodological contribution Ares Llop Naya II Methods 5 Fuzzy dialect areas and prototype theory: Discovering latent patterns in geolinguistic variation Simon Pickl 6 On the problem of field worker isoglosses Andrea Mathussek 7 Tracking linguistic features underlying lexical variation patterns: A case study on Tuscan dialects Simonetta Montemagni & Martijn Wieling 8 A new dialectometric approach applied to the Breton language Guylaine Brun-Trigaud, Tanguy Solliec & Jean Le Dû Contents 9 Automatically identifying characteristic features of non-native English accents Jelke Bloem, Martijn Wieling & John Nerbonne 10 Mapping the perception of linguistic form: Dialectometry with perceptual data

This working paper is part of a research project examining the role of culture and culture differences in foreign partnerships. We build on prior research on culture distance to explore the influence of perceptions of cultural differences on perceived relational risk. Perceived relational risk is defined here as the degree of satisfaction of being involved in business activities with nationals of a given country. Contrary to expectations, preliminary analysis suggests that cultural differences are sometimes perceived as a desirable characteristic and may be associated with lower relational risk. We speculate that culture distance is an asymmetric construct in which the perception of a cultural difference may be interpreted as positive or negative depending on the perspective from which the reading is made and the nature of the task in which the perception is formed. Plans for future research are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is two-fold. One of which is to indicate the cultural similarities as well as dissimilarities between people of different nationalities in spite of accepting and sharing a set of cultural and individual values as universal ones. This study which is based on Schwartz’s Value System (SVS) theory (1994, 1999, 2001), aims at measuring managers’ perceptions as they believe the perception of workers in regards to certain cultural values. The study covers the responses of a total of 170 managers working in four countries namely, the USA, Romania, Ukraine, and Turkey in order to show the differences between the distribution as well as the level of importance of certain cultural and individual values.

Culture influences the way people can be managed successfully according to the organizational objectives including sustainability. Hofstede´s cultural dimensions have been widely studied in different contexts. Dorfman and Howell designed an instrument in English to measure those dimensions. However, there is no validated Spanish version for this instrument. The objective of this article is to provide to the Ibero-American community a Spanish version of the Dorfman and Howell instrument. The questionnaire was translated into Spanish and adapted to the Chilean and Colombian populations. The study included 1136 participants, 500 from Chile and 636 from Colombia. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were supported by the KMO and the Bartlett tests. Results indicate a better fit of a five-factor model, in similarity with the English language original instrument, as follows: masculinity–femininity, paternalism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and individualism–collectivism....

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Linguistic Distance: A Quantitative Measure of the Distance Between English and Other Languages * This paper develops a scalar or quantitative measure of the "distance" between English and a myriad of other (non-native American) languages. This measure is based on the difficulty Americans have learning other languages. The linguistic distance measure is then used in an analysis of the determinants of English language proficiency among adult immigrants in the United States and Canada. It is shown that, when other determinants of English language proficiency are the same, the greater the measure of linguistic distance, the poorer is the respondent's English language proficiency. This measure can be used in research, evaluation and practitioner analyses, and for diagnostic purposes regarding linguistic minorities in English-speaking countries. The methodology can also be applied to develop linguistic distance measures for other languages.

In the tourist sector, visiting tourists' intention has been the subject of numerous investigations for decades. However, the determining factors of the choice of tourist destination have not been clearly defined. The culture of the country of origin has been recognised as a key element in discerning the varied behaviours that people display. In this study, the capacity of the cultural distance between the considered countries of origin and Spain, according to the model proposed by Hofstede, is evaluated to influence the intention of visiting Spain in the next years, measured as a function of the theory of planned behaviour. The results obtained allow identification of the relevant issues affecting potential tourists' intention of visiting. Analysis of the validity and reliability of the data used yields satisfactory solutions that enable the establishment of conclusions about behavioural intentions that are very different depending on the cultural distance level of the tourist. The ability of the Hofstede model to explain the intention to visit Spain is, therefore confirmed.

The calculation of aggregate linguistic distances can compensate for some of the drawbacks inherent to the isogloss bundling method used in traditional dialectology to identify dialect areas. Synchronic aggregate analysis can also point out differences with respect to a diachronically based classification of dialects. In this study the Levenshtein algorithm is applied for the first time to obtain an aggregate analysis of the linguistic distances among 88 diatopic varieties of Croatian spoken along the Eastern Adriatic coast and in the Italian province of Molise. We also measured lexical differences among these varieties, which are traditionally grouped into Čakavian, Štokavian, and transitional Čakavian-Štokavian varieties. The lexical and pronunciational distances are subsequently projected onto multidimensional cartographic representations. Both kinds of analyses confirmed that linguistic discontinuity is characteristic of the whole region, and that discontinuities are more pronounced in the northern Adriatic area than in the south. We also show that the geographic lines are in many cases the most decisive factor contributing to linguistic cohesion, and that the internal heterogeneity within Čakavian is often greater than the differences between Čakavian and Štokavian varieties. This holds both for pronunciation and lexicon.

The calculation of aggregate linguistic distances can compensate for some of the drawbacks inherent to the isogloss bundling method used in traditional dialectology to identify dialect areas. Synchronic aggregate analysis can also point out differences with respect to a diachronically based classification of dialects. In this study the Levenshtein algorithm is applied for the first time to obtain an aggregate analysis of the linguistic distances among 88 diatopic varieties of Croatian spoken along the Eastern Adriatic coast and in the Italian province of Molise. We also measured lexical differences among these varieties, which are traditionally grouped into Čakavian, Štokavian, and transitional Čakavian-Štokavian varieties. The lexical and pronunciational distances are subsequently projected onto multidimensional cartographic representations. Both kinds of analyses confirmed that linguistic discontinuity is characteristic of the whole region, and that discontinuities are more pronounced in the northern Adriatic area than in the south. We also show that the geographic lines are in many cases the most decisive factor contributing to linguistic cohesion, and that the internal heterogeneity within Čakavian is often greater than the differences between Čakavian and Štokavian varieties. This holds both for pronunciation and lexicon.

Although the conceptual toolbox of translation studies (TS) has grown more and more inclusive in recent decades and despite the great variety of spatial metaphors that have been used for translation through the ages, explicit discussions of the seemingly obvious idea of distance (linguistic, cultural, temporal, etc.) are scarce in the TS literature. Why, then, should the concept now be given any thought? When I started translating from both English and Japanese into French, I soon noticed the differences between the two practices. In trying to generalize the problem beyond the case of these three languages, I quickly became interested in the concept of distance, especially linguistic and cultural, and in the effects it has on translation. In short, is distance a factor that influences translating and thus translations? As naïve as the question may seem, it is genuinely thorny as some will dismiss it right away for lack of relevance, while others will answer without hesitation in the affirmative, or in the negative. Moreover, in reading TS texts, I have noticed that although distance is quite often evoked and even invoked, paradoxically, it is rarely defined, objectified or problematized, it does not have the status of “concept” in the discipline, and very few studies overtly make use of it. Yet, I believe it is precisely the countless differences between languages and cultures—which I think of as a whole and refer to as distance—that make translation not only necessary but, above all, possible. However, while I am confident that translation is always achievable no matter the breadth of the gap to be bridged, this does not mean that the processes and the products will be “equivalent.” On a broader level, distance manifests itself in a wealth of relationships found at the very heart of translation: between languages and cultures, of course, but also between regions, periods, societies, audiences, texts, people, etc. I thus think the concept can be put to work and operationalized in various ways to better understand or explain a wide array of areas and phenomena germane to translation (language learning and teaching, machine translation, global translation flows, etc.), well beyond the “narrow” act of translating. I therefore aim to argue not only that the concept of distance (especially between languages and cultures) is relevant to translation (studies), but also that its thorough consideration is long overdue. [...]

The presentation will be divided into two main parts: first, I will give an overview of the concept of distance in translation studies and elsewhere, and second, I will share the results of an ongoing study focussing on the translation of cultural references, which I regard as local indicators (differences) of global linguistic and cultural trends (distances). The study is twofold: on the one hand, I compare the tactics used to render into Japanese and English subtitles the cultural references found in French-language Québec films, and on the other hand, I interview professional subtitlers working into either Japanese or English about their experience translating such films. I believe that combining these two complementary approaches and employing a triad of “languages-cultures” (instead of a dyad, as did other studies) allow me to gain better insight into how variations in distance between languages and cultures influence the translation processes, and thus the resulting products. Simply put, from the viewpoint of the French-speaking Québec source “language-culture,” I consider the Japanese target “language-culture” far more remote than the English-speaking North American one. This postulate, obviously fraught with epistemological pitfalls, calls not only for important caveats, but especially for a critical reflection which I also intend to initiate.

Although the cultural impact of tourism shopping has been extensively studied, prior research rarely related tourism shopping to specific cultural dimensions and distance, and tested the relationships statistically. This article fills this gap by investigating the comprehensive effects of Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions (power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance) and cultural distance on shopping. In an analysis of Hong Kong’s inbound tourism, panel regression tests support power distance and masculinity as two key cultural values in determining a country’s tourist shopping spending in a destination, while the effects of individualism and uncertainty avoidance are marginally significant. A U-shaped curvilinear relationship is found for cultural distance and shopping spending ratio, suggesting that tourists’ allocation of monetary resource on shopping decreases with cultural distance first and increases later after an optimal point. A discussion of contrib...

This paper examined how Chinese, German and American individuals' perceptions of cultural similarity/difference influence intentions to travel to New Zealand, a novel long-haul destination. The relationship was examined along with a set of potentially influential individual difference variables, including international travel experience, uncertainty avoidance, novelty seeking and ethnocentrism. Cultural similarity was a common positive predictor of travel intentions toward New Zealand across all three countries. Respondent's travel experience and novelty seeking were also important positive influences for this long-haul destination, at least for Americans and Germans. Respondent's level of uncertainty avoidance was only significant for Germany, where those with higher uncertainty were less likely to intend to visit New Zealand. Ethnocentrism was not a significant predictor in any country. These findings suggest that the perception of cultural similarity, which can be influenced by marketing campaigns, has a positive influence on travel intentions. Tourism marketers should stress elements of cultural similarity in their campaigns, especially for those markets where there may be lower levels of knowledge about the destination.