Search results - CEJSH

1

Measuring Syntactic Complexity in Spoken and Written Learner Language: Comparing the Incomparable?

100%

Lintunen P., Mäkilä M.

Research in Language

|

2014

|

vol. 12

|

issue 4

377-399

EN

Spoken and written language are two modes of language. When learners aim at higher skill levels, the expected outcome of successful second language learning is usually to become a fluent speaker and writer who can produce accurate and complex language in the target language. There is an axiomatic difference between speech and writing, but together they form the essential parts of learners’ L2 skills. The two modes have their own characteristics, and there are differences between native and nonnative language use. For instance, hesitations and pauses are not visible in the end result of the writing process, but they are characteristic of nonnative spoken language use. The present study is based on the analysis of L2 English spoken and written productions of 18 L1 Finnish learners with focus on syntactic complexity. As earlier spoken language segmentation units mostly come from fluency studies, we conducted an experiment with a new unit, the U-unit, and examined how using this unit as the basis of spoken language segmentation affects the results. According to the analysis, written language was more complex than spoken language. However, the difference in the level of complexity was greatest when the traditional units, T-units and AS-units, were used in segmenting the data. Using the U-unit revealed that spoken language may, in fact, be closer to written language in its syntactic complexity than earlier studies had suggested. Therefore, further research is needed to discover whether the differences in spoken and written learner language are primarily due to the nature of these modes or, rather, to the units and measures used in the analysis.

2

Holdings’ Level of Complexity During the Crisis[1]

100%

Mierzejewska W.

Journal of Management and Financial Sciences

|

2014

|

vol. 18(4)

35-47

EN

The article presents the way the level of complexity of holdings was changing. The qualitative research made it possible to verify whether holdings modify their structure in response to the worse performance during a crisis period. 1 The article presents results of research carried out as a part of the National Science Centre research project 2011/03/13/HSR/04922 entitled “Determinants of Polish Enterprises’ Resistance to the Macroeconomic Crisis”.

3

Requirement of New, Effective Educational Programs – Necessity for Future Development of Society

100%

Kováčik P.

Journal of Education, Technology and Computer Science

|

2020

|

vol. 11

|

issue 1(31)

79-85

EN

The article analyses demands of new concepts of student education on the level of secondary schools with technical focus. It urges the necessity to create new educational programs that prepare new future technical operators towards requirements of the labour market in future years in harmony with specifications of Industry 4.0. Many of job specializations is possible, at present time, to estimate only as a frame, but considering a length of study it is necessary to realize predictions at sphere of education needs consistently, expertly and continuously to introduce their results into innovations of existing educational programs or to introduce completely new, perspective educational programs by needs rising at production sector.

4

The effects of bankruptcy on the predictability of price formation processes on Warsaw’s Stock Market

100%

Fiedor P., Hołda A.

Finansowy Kwartalnik Internetowy e-Finanse

|

2016

|

vol. 12

|

issue 1

32-42

EN

In this study we investigate how bankruptcy affects the market behaviour of prices of stocks on Warsaw’s Stock Exchange. As the behaviour of prices can be seen in a myriad of ways, we investigate a particular aspect of this behaviour, namely the predictability of these price formation processes. We approximate their predictability as the structural complexity of logarithmic returns. This method of analysing predictability of price formation processes using information theory follows closely the mathematical definition of predictability, and is equal to the degree to which redundancy is present in the time series describing stock returns. We use Shannon’s entropy rate (approximating Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy) to measure this redundancy, and estimate it using the Lempel-Ziv algorithm, computing it with a running window approach over the entire price history of 50 companies listed on the Warsaw market which have gone bankrupt in the last few years. This enables us not only to compare the differences between predictability of price formation processes before and after their filing for bankruptcy, but also to compare the changes in predictability over time, as well as divided into different categories of companies and bankruptcies. There exists a large body of research analysing the efficiency of the whole market and the predictability of price changes enlarge, but only a few detailed studies analysing the influence of external stimulion the efficiency of price formation processes. This study fills this gap in the knowledge of financial markets, and their response to extreme external events.

5

Diachronic complexification and isolation

100%

Baechler R.

Yearbook of the Poznań Linguistic Meeting

|

2014

|

vol. 1

|

issue 1

EN

One may hear that over time languages tend to simplify their grammar and notably their morphological system. This intuition, probably based on linguists’ knowledge of the rich inflectional systems of older Indo-European languages, has been challenged, particularly by sociolinguistic typologists (e.g. Trudgill 2011; Braunmuller 1984, 2003; Nichols 1992). They hypothesise that languages spoken by small and isolated communities with a dense network may complexify their grammar (Trudgill 2011: 146-147). The present article investigates the nominal inflection systems of 14 varieties of German in order to survey whether there is any such diachronic tendency towards simplification and whether instances of complexification can be observed, too. The varieties under analysis include present-day Standard German, Old High German and Middle High German (two older stages of German) and eleven present-day non-standard varieties which make part of the Alemannic dialect group. First, it will be shown that there is a diachronic tendency towards simplification if we consider the total complexity of nominal inflection. Second, however, we can identify instances of diachronic complexification too if we take a closer look at single categories. Interestingly, diachronic complexification appears only in the non-standard varieties, not so in the standard variety. This may support the hypothesis that isolated varieties are more complex than non-isolated ones.

6

ON THE NATURE OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM

100%

BARANOWSKI P.

Przegląd Strategiczny

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2018

|

issue 11

45-57

EN

Author discussed various theoretical difficulties connected with the concept and dynamics of international system. He claims that many misunderstandings in political science, including inaccurate predictions as well as real-time-analysis, are caused by lack of precise theory of international systems within international relations as well as failure to adapt some concepts regarding systems from General System Theory, Cybernetics, Chaos Theory and Catastrophy Theory (or paradigm of complexity as a whole), that seem to be used with success in other disciplines like biology or physics. The author proposes five essential dimensions where structure of the system could be successfully measured. He argues that systemic approach based on various theories concerning complexity can lead to resolving some essential questions concerning the nature of the system with the most important one concerning mechanisms at various levels of the system, need to be answered.

7

Measuring Syntactic Complexity in Spoken and Written Learner Language: Comparing the Incomparable?

100%

Lintunen P., Mäkilä M.

Research in Language

|

2014

|

vol. 12

|

issue 4

377-399

EN

Spoken and written language are two modes of language. When learners aim at higher skill levels, the expected outcome of successful second language learning is usually to become a fluent speaker and writer who can produce accurate and complex language in the target language. There is an axiomatic difference between speech and writing, but together they form the essential parts of learners’ L2 skills. The two modes have their own characteristics, and there are differences between native and nonnative language use. For instance, hesitations and pauses are not visible in the end result of the writing process, but they are characteristic of nonnative spoken language use. The present study is based on the analysis of L2 English spoken and written productions of 18 L1 Finnish learners with focus on syntactic complexity. As earlier spoken language segmentation units mostly come from fluency studies, we conducted an experiment with a new unit, the U-unit, and examined how using this unit as the basis of spoken language segmentation affects the results. According to the analysis, written language was more complex than spoken language. However, the difference in the level of complexity was greatest when the traditional units, T-units and AS-units, were used in segmenting the data. Using the U-unit revealed that spoken language may, in fact, be closer to written language in its syntactic complexity than earlier studies had suggested. Therefore, further research is needed to discover whether the differences in spoken and written learner language are primarily due to the nature of these modes or, rather, to the units and measures used in the analysis.

8

Independent evaluation of social housing operations : Challenges and lessons to be learned

100%

Cuna L.

Critical Housing Analysis

|

2017

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vol. 4

|

issue 2

99-106

EN

In recent years, the Evaluation Department of the Council of Europe Development Bank has conducted a series of independent evaluations of CEB-financed operations in the social housing sector targeting special vulnerable groups. Building on evaluation evidence and experience, two strategic issues are presented: the high level of complexity of such operations and the various facets of their sustainability. This paper underlines the significant learning and accountability potential of evaluations of social housing operations. At the same time, it underscores the added value of a holistic approach to evaluation, in the face of a simplistic, but currently predominant, output-oriented focus during monitoring.

9

Les mots et les savoirs : complexité

100%

Blumenthal P.

Neophilologica

|

2021

|

vol. 33

1-20

EN

The contribution addresses a topic discussed since the 17th century by philosophers, logicians and lexicographers: to what extent does the semantic complexity of certain words convey knowledge of the extralinguistic world? What influence does this knowledge have on the coherence of a text? Conversely, another type of complexity must be taken into account as well, the one starting from things: what linguistic devices are adopted to express this complexity in an efficient way? The relationship between the complexity types and knowledge has been investigated by different strands of research in the humanities and is becoming a focus of multidisciplinary research.

10

Subordinate questions in Swedish by 12- and 15-year-old Finnish immersion students

88%

Nyqvist E.-L.

Folia Scandinavica Posnaniensia

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2021

|

vol. 30

15-25

EN

The present study explores how 12- and 15-year-old immersion students (n=75 and n=73) produce subordinate questions in Swedish on a written test. Previous studies are sparse, but they report difficulties with both subject-verb word order and use of the subjunctor om and the subject marker som occurring in these clauses; informants with varying ages and competence levels struggle with similar problems. However, the acquisition order between these two types of constructions, a central theme in this study, has gained less attention. Analyses of the actual data show significant differences with varying effect sizes in accuracy between the different subcategories of subordinate questions and both informant groups. Insertion of grammatical words was mastered by significantly fewer informants than word order. Also, effect sizes were large in these contexts. Older informants do better than the younger ones, but the differences are not always statistically significant, as certain constructions are already mastered at a high level by the younger informants, whereas other constructions are still difficult for the older ones.

11

Affordances theory in multilingualism studies

88%

Aronin L., Singleton D.

Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching

|

2012

|

vol. 2

|

issue 3

311-331

EN

The concept of affordances originating in Gibson’s work (Gibson, 1977) is gaining ground in multilingualism studies (cf. Aronin and Singleton, 2010; Singleton and Aronin, 2007; Dewaele, 2010). Nevertheless, studies investigating affordances in respect of teaching, learning or using languages are still somewhat rare and tend to treat isolated aspects of multilingualism. This is despite the fact that the theory of affordances can actually provide a valuable, supplementary, up-to-date framework within which a clearer, sharper description and explication of the intriguing range of attributes of multilingual communities, educational institutions and individuals, as well as teaching practices, become feasible. It is important that not only researchers and practitioners (teachers, educators, parents, community and political actors) but also language users and learners themselves should be aware of how to identify or, if necessary, design new affordances for language acquisition and learning. The aim of this article is to adapt the concept of affordances to multilingualism studies and additional language teaching, and in so doing advance theoretical understanding in this context. To this end the article contains a brief summary of the findings so far available. The article also goes further into defining the ways of how affordances work in relation to multilingualism and second language teaching and puts forward an integrated model of affordances.

12

Reconciled with complexity in research on cognitive systems

88%

Rączaszek-Leonardi J.

Avant

|

2016

|

vol. 7

|

issue 2

EN

The causes of human behavior cannot be simple. Every move we make has a nested hierarchy of causes that affect its direction, timing and form. The billiard-ball type of causality that is usually assumed to explain human action cannot give sufficient justice to this complexity. In this paper, I point to those perspectives that respect the complexity of cognitive systems and recognize that cognition involves changes on many nested time scales and in many ne- sted systems. A brief overview of methods that are suitable for dealing with such interaction-dominant complex systems is presented and used as a back- ground for describing a specific research program with the aim of clarifying the role of language as one of the nested factors shaping cognition. I illustrate this endeavor with two studies: one concerning the development of language as interaction control and another detailing how language may shape cogni- tive processes on several timescales. Reconciliation with complexity leads us to ask slightly different questions and expect different answers than when using simplified componential models of cognition and helps demarcate the limits of predictability.

13

Affordances theory in multilingualism studies

88%

Aronin L., Singleton D.

Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching

|

2012

|

vol. 2

|

issue 3

311-331

EN

The concept of affordances originating in Gibson’s work (Gibson, 1977) is gaining ground in multilingualism studies (cf. Aronin and Singleton, 2010; Singleton and Aronin, 2007; Dewaele, 2010). Nevertheless, studies investigating affordances in respect of teaching, learning or using languages are still somewhat rare and tend to treat isolated aspects of multilingualism. This is despite the fact that the theory of affordances can actually provide a valuable, supplementary, up-to-date framework within which a clearer, sharper description and explication of the intriguing range of attributes of multilingual communities, educational institutions and individuals, as well as teaching practices, become feasible. It is important that not only researchers and practitioners (teachers, educators, parents, community and political actors) but also language users and learners themselves should be aware of how to identify or, if necessary, design new affordances for language acquisition and learning. The aim of this article is to adapt the concept of affordances to multilingualism studies and additional language teaching, and in so doing advance theoretical understanding in this context. To this end the article contains a brief summary of the findings so far available. The article also goes further into defining the ways of how affordances work in relation to multilingualism and second language teaching and puts forward an integrated model of affordances.

14

Working with language learner histories from three perspectives: Teachers, learners and researchers

88%

Mercer S.

Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching

|

2013

|

vol. 3

|

issue 2

161-185

EN

In the present investigation, 15 first term university students were faced with 80 context-based idioms in English (L2) and Swedish (L1) respectively, 30 of which were in the source domain of animals, commonly used in both languages, and asked to explain their meaning. The idioms were of varying frequency and transparency. Three main research questions were thus addressed:1. How well do students master idioms in their L2 as compared to their L1?2. How do (a) degrees of transparency, (b) idiom frequency and (c) the choice of source domain affect students’ L1 and L2 comprehension?3. To what extent is context used when interpreting L1 and L2 idioms?Results show that while the frequency of an idiom does not appear to play a part in whether it is comprehended or not in either language, the degree of transparency is of great importance in students’ L2. Also, students make extensive use of context in their L2.

15

Discourse-Pragmatic and Processing-Related Motivators of the ordering of Reason Clauses in an Academic Corpus

88%

Rezaee A. A., Nemati M., Golparvar S. E.

Research in Language

|

2018

|

vol. 16

|

issue 3

325-339

EN

The present research is aimed at examining the relative importance of the competing motivators of the sequencing of reason clauses in a corpus of research articles of applied linguistics. All the finite reason clauses accompanied by their main clauses in this corpus were collected. Random forest of conditional inference trees is the statistical modelling in this study. The findings showed that sentence-final reason clauses outnumber sentenceinitial ones. Moreover, subordinator choice and bridging, which are discourse-pragmatic constraints on clause positioning, emerged as the two more powerful predictors of the ordering of reason clauses in this corpus. Furthermore, the complexity of the clause turned out to be a stronger processing related predictor than the length of the clause.

16

Complexity in language and in law

88%

Sampson G.

Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics

|

2014

|

vol. 50

|

issue 2

169-177

EN

Two kinds of objection are made to the claim that some languages are simpler than others. Many linguists have asserted that, as a matter of empirical observation, all languages are roughly equal in complexity, but very little evidence has been cited. A more weighty objection is that the claim is meaningless because the complexity of different languages is incommensurable. It may not be numerically quantifiable; but a comparison with the evolution of legal systems shows that that does not make claims of differential complexity meaningless.

17

The effects of length and complexity on constituent ordering in written English

88%

Wang H., Liu H.

Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics

|

2014

|

vol. 50

|

issue 4

477-494

EN

Based on the written part of the British Component of International Corpus of English (ICE-GB), this paper investigates the interrelationship between length and complexity of sentential constituents and their positions in the sentence. Results show that length and complexity affect sentential constituent ordering. Within the sentence, the longest and the most complex constituents tend to occur in the final position, and the relatively shorter and less complex constituents tend to be in the initial position. However, for sentential constituents in other positions, the length-complexity-position relationship appears to be random. Possible explanations for the findings are provided from different perspectives, especially from the distribution of given and new information.

18

Managerial Discretion and Constraints: A Bounded Leadership Model

88%

Kaciak E., Kozminski A. K.

Central European Management Journal

|

2019

|

vol. 27(2)

2-32

EN

Purpose: We propose and test a new leadership model. Our model is an extension of the leaderplex model which proposes that leader cognitive and social complexities are linked with leader effec tiveness indirectly, in a mediation scheme, through behavioral complexity. We enhance the leader plex model with a leader’s degree of managerial discretion as the moderator of the links in this mediation format. Methodology: We test our model with a moderated mediation approach (Baron-Kenny four-step procedure and Preacher-Hayes bootstrapping methods). Findings: We use results of interviews with top leaders in Poland and demonstrate that a leader’s managerial discretion is a moderator affecting the mediation scheme assumed in the leaderplex model. Limitations: The sample size is only 29 leaders. To preserve the respondents’ anonymity, their opinions were evaluated by only one researcher who interviewed them directly. The results may be country specific (Poland). Originality: We define new boundary conditions for the leaderplex model by showing importance of a leader’s real position (managerial discretion) in an organization. Specifically, we show that the nature of the relationships between the variables of interest will change when a leader operates in one physical environment (e.g., high managerial discretion) rather than another (e.g., low managerial discretion). null

19

Meta-Systemic Model of Transformation: A General Complexity-Based Approach in Political Science and International Relations

88%

Baranowski P.

Polish Political Science Yearbook

|

2023

|

issue 2(52)

113-128

EN

System-based research remains an important yet usually outdated and internally contradictory approach in political science and international relations. Based on concepts borrowed from physiology, cybernetics, and general system theory, the system-based approach popularised in the 1960s was cast away as outdated and ill-focused. Despite those systems, the theory was developed in natural sciences, eventually creating a paradigm more applicable to domestic and international politics. The weakest element of past systems (like the one proposed by D. Easton) was that they did not allow for a sudden and catastrophic transformation and lacked emergence. This paper aims to present a model that would allow for the system’s ordinary and catastrophic transformation. The complex adaptive system features were defined using relevant literature on a paradigm of complexity. Connecting it with the propositions of D. Easton, R. Axelrod, and M. Cohen, as well as R. Jervis, such a model was constructed. The theoretical introduction is supplanted with a general case study of the early phases of the Arab Spring in Tunisia. The model mirrors the complex systems’ dynamics, considering the agent-structure problem.

20

Reconciled with complexity in research on cognitive systems

88%

Rączaszek-Leonardi J.

Avant

|

2016

|

vol. 7

|

issue 2

EN

The causes of human behavior cannot be simple. Every move we make has a nested hierarchy of causes that affect its direction, timing and form. The billiard-ball type of causality that is usually assumed to explain human action cannot give sufficient justice to this complexity. In this paper, I point to those perspectives that respect the complexity of cognitive systems and recognize that cognition involves changes on many nested time scales and in many ne- sted systems. A brief overview of methods that are suitable for dealing with such interaction-dominant complex systems is presented and used as a back- ground for describing a specific research program with the aim of clarifying the role of language as one of the nested factors shaping cognition. I illustrate this endeavor with two studies: one concerning the development of language as interaction control and another detailing how language may shape cogni- tive processes on several timescales. Reconciliation with complexity leads us to ask slightly different questions and expect different answers than when using simplified componential models of cognition and helps demarcate the limits of predictability.

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