Language enables communication among human beings and according to Vygotskian theory it performs two important functions. First, it performs an interpersonal function. Subsequently, when language is internalized, besides promoting interaction, it guides people in the construction of their thoughts and becomes the basis for the emergence of conscience, having an intrapersonal function. In this context, mastering a considerable amount of words in a target language may contribute to a clear communication among the interlocutors and may be one of the resources to acquire the ability of writing good texts. In this sense, we have done a research with students of the course of Languages Portuguese/Spanish in order to verify to what extent a framework approach, among which we have opted for process-writing, has contributed for lexical acquisition of Spanish as a foreign language through textual productions. The main theoretical base was the Holistic Theory of Activity (RICHTER, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008), so all the theoretical and methodological foundation adopted to analyze the corpus proceeded from this base. The corpus is composed by answers to a questionnaire and by texts produced by the students through process-writing, by White & Arndt (1991). The results obtained through the corpus analysis led us to conclude that there was an expansion of lexical items in the students texts and that they related this expansion to process-writing. During all this process, we observed that the students were at the same time expanding their vocabulary and then improving their writing as they noticed what was happening to them in each stage, i.e., the difficulties they had, the resources they sought and the strategies they used made them reflect on what may occur with their future students and then help these in their Zone of Proximal Development. In this view, the students not only wrote texts but also obtained grants to become mediators of this process. / A linguagem possibilita a comunicação entre os seres humanos e, segundo a teoria Vygotskyana, ela exerce duas funções importantes. Em um primeiro momento, ela exerce uma função interpessoal. Posteriormente, quando a linguagem é internalizada, além de promover a interação humana, ela passa a guiar as pessoas na construção de seus próprios pensamentos, torna-se a base para o surgimento da consciência, tendo uma função intrapessoal. Nesse contexto, dominar um número considerável do léxico de uma língua-alvo pode contribuir para uma comunicação clara entre interlocutores, bem como ser um dos recursos para adquirir a capacidade de escrever bons textos. Nesse sentido, realizamos uma pesquisa com acadêmicos do curso de Letras Português/Espanhol com o intuito de verificar em que medida uma metodologia de enquadramento, dentre as quais, optamos pelo Process Writing, contribuiu para a aquisição do léxico do Espanhol como Língua Estrangeira em produções textuais de acadêmicos. A principal base teórica foi a Teoria Holística da Atividade (RICHTER, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008), por isso todo o referencial teórico e a metodologia adotada para a análise do corpus partiram desse princípio. O corpus é composto pelas respostas a questionários e pelos textos produzidos pelos acadêmicos, gerados por meio da escrita-processo, o Process Writing de White & Arndt (1991). Os resultados obtidos através da análise do corpus nos levaram à conclusão de que houve um aumento em ítens lexicais nos textos dos acadêmicos e que estes estavam relacionando esse aumento na aquisição do léxico à escrita-processo. Desse modo, no decorrer de todo esse processo, verificamos que os acadêmicos, ao mesmo tempo em que estavam ampliando o léxico e melhorando, portanto, a escrita, percebiam o que acontecia com eles em cada etapa, ou seja, as dificuldades que sentiam, os recursos que buscavam e as estratégias utilizadas. Assim, essa consciência por parte dos acadêmicos, fê-los refletir, na prática, o que posteriormente pode ocorrer com seus futuros alunos e assim ajudá-los na Zona de Desenvolvimento Proximal. Nessa concepção, os acadêmicos não apenas produziram textos, mas obtiveram subsídios para tornarem-se mediadores desse processo.

Cette thèse permet d’apprécier le fonctionnement cognitif de collégiens sourds locuteurs de la Langue des Signes Française, dans leur rapport à la langue française écrite. Une approche psycholinguistique des apprentissages est adoptée et fait référence aux concepts de bilinguisme, de cognition, de production écrite et de Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication. Une première étude s’intéresse aux habiletés déployées dans des supports d’écriture variés (SMS, blogs, écrits scolaires, prises de notes) et révèle la capacité des adolescents sourds à décomposer les mots en unités sublexicales tout en s’adaptant aux contextes de production. Une seconde étude sur le traitement des unités morphologiques de mots, via un entraînement informatisé, donne un aperçu de leurs performances de réussite, de temps et de stratégies de réponses. La dernière étude, sur les prises de notes et les productions écrites en temps réel, fournit des informations sur le réinvestissement des connaissances issues de l’entraînement et sur le comportement de scripteur de ces adolescents sourds. Un effet de transfert, ou degré de signabilité, entre langue des signes et français est constaté. Lorsque la décomposition sublexicale est ambiguë, le recours aux unités orthographiques semble masquer les traitements morphologiques. La question des supports et des approches pédagogiques de l’écrit en situation de surdité est posée. L’écriture spontanée, les apports du multimédia et la considération des unités sémantiques sublexicales pour installer des automatismes dans le traitement de l’écrit, semblent être des pistes prometteuses. / This thesis allows us to appreciate the cognitive functioning of deaf college students, speakers of French Sign Language, in their relation to written French. It takes a psycholinguistic approach to learning, using the concepts of bilingualism, cognition, written production and Information and Communication Technologies. A primary study explores various types of written work (SMS, blogs, written school works, note-taking) and shows that deaf students decompose words into sublexical units and adapt to the writing context. A second study of the morphological decomposition of words during a computer training session provides an overview of their performance in the treatment of these units. A final study on note-taking and real-time written production provides information on how students reuse the learning from the training session and their behaviour in the act of writing. An effect of language transfer, or degree of signability, from sign language to French is noticeable. When sublexical decomposition is confusing, the use of orthographic units appears to mask morphological processing. This raises the question of educational training materials and the teaching of writing skills. Spontaneous writing, the contribution of multimedia, and sublexical semantic units for generating automatic gestures in the writing process, appear to be promising avenues.

Este trabajo analiza un acontecimiento político lingüístico singular en el marco de la Nueva política lingüística panhispánica (RAE y ASALE 2004): la publicación del Diccionario de americanismos (2010). Se adopta una perspectiva  glotopolítica que considera los diccionarios como intervencionesen el espacio público del lenguaje, advirtiendo la relación que estos entablan con requerimientos históricos más amplios. La obra estudiada opera como un gesto complementario de la idea de “español global”, que iría en detrimento de variantes léxicas concebidas como localismos. Es decir, ambos modelos de lengua, con énfasis en lo global o en lo local según el caso, argumentos y discursos metalingüísticos diferentes, participan de un juego signado por los mismos intereses económicos, ansiosos de captar un mercado más rentable. / This paper analyzes a singular political-linguistic event in the framework of the New panhispánica language policy (RAE y ASALE 2004): the publication of the Dictionary of Americanisms (2010). One glottopolitics perspective that considers dictionaries as interventions in public space of language, noting the relationship they establish with broader historical requirements is adopted. The work under study operates as a complementary gesture of the idea of “global Spanish” which would undermine lexical variants conceived as localisms. That is, both models of language, withemphasis on the global or local as appropriate, different meta-linguisticarguments and discourses, participate in a game denoted by the same economicinterests, eager to capture a more profitable market.

Il y a (au moins) deux questions fondamentales que l’on est amené à se poser lorsqu’on étudie le langage: comment acquiert-on le langage? —le problème d’apprentissage —et pourquoi les langues du monde partagent certaines propriétés mais pas d’autres? —le problème typologique. Dans cette thèse, j’entreprends de relier ces deux domaines en me focalisant sur le lexique, l’ensemble des mots de notre langue et leur sens associés, en posant les questions suivantes: pourquoi le lexique est-il tel qu’il est? Et est-ce que les propriétés du lexique peuvent être (en partie) expliquées par la façon dont les enfants apprennent leur langue? Un des aspects les plus frappants du lexique est que les mots que nous utilisons sont ambigus et peuvent être confondus facilement avec d’autres. En effet, les mots peuvent avoir plusieurs sens (par exemple, les homophones) et sont représentés par un ensemble limité de sons qui augmentent la possibilité qu’ils soient confondus (par exemple, les paires minimales). L’existence de ces mots semble présenter un problème pour les enfants qui apprennent leur langue car il a été montré qu’ils ont des difficultés à apprendre des mots dont les formes sonores sont proches et qu’ils résistent à l’apprentissage des mots ayant plusieurs sens. En combinant une approche computationnelle et expérimentale, je montre, quantitativement, que les mots du lexique sont, en effet, plus similaires que ce qui serait attendu par chance, et expérimentalement, que les enfants n’ont aucun problème à apprendre ces mots à la condition qu’ils apparaissent dans des contextes suffisamment distincts. Enfin, je propose que l’étude des mots ambigus permet de révéler des éléments importants du mécanisme d’apprentissage du langage qui sont actuellement absents des théories actuelles. Cet ensemble d’études suggère que les mots ambigus et les mots similaires, bien que présents dans le langage, n’apparaissent pas arbitrairement dans le langage et que leur organisation reflète (en partie) la façon dont les enfants apprennent leur langue. / Modern cognitive science of language concerns itself with (at least) two fundamental questions: how do humans learn language? —the learning problem —and why do the world’s languages exhibit some properties and not others? —the typology problem. In this dissertation, I attempt to link these two questions by looking at the lexicon, the set of word-forms and their associated meanings, and ask why do lexicons look the way they are? And can the properties exhibited by the lexicon be (in part) explained by the way children learn their language? One striking observation is that the set of words in a given language is highly ambiguous and confusable. Words may have multiple senses (e.g., homonymy, polysemy) and are represented by an arrangement of a finite set of sounds that potentially increase their confusability (e.g., minimal pairs). Lexicons bearing such properties present a problem for children learning their language who seem to have difficulty learning similar sounding words and resist learning words having multiple meanings. Using lexical models and experimental methods in toddlers and adults, I present quantitative evidence that lexicons are, indeed, more confusable than what would be expected by chance alone. I then present empirical evidence suggesting that toddlers have the tools to bypass these problems given that ambiguous or confusable words are constrained to appear in distinct context. Finally, I submit that the study of ambiguous words reveal factors that were currently missing from current accounts of word learning. Taken together this research suggests that ambiguous and confusable words, while present in the language, may be restricted in their distribution in the lexicon and that these restrictions reflect (in part) how children learn languages.

Faced with the challenges to addressing the novelties of the changing business environments (e.g., new customer requirement, changes in customers taste and preferences, the introduction of new products or services by competitors), organizations seek to build collaboration among their employees who possess complementary knowledge. Integrating complementary knowledge enhances employees' ability to address environmental challenges and foster innovation. Despite the importance of knowledge integration for innovation, integration of such knowledge becomes difficult when employees lack a shared understanding of knowledge, and when the knowledge is newly generated. Because new knowledge is tacit in nature and highly personal to a particular individual, it is difficult to articulate, making knowledge integration (KI) an arduous task. Lack of shared understanding, the presence of new knowledge, and lack of common interests in employees creates three types of knowledge boundaries – syntactic (information processing) boundaries, semantic (interpretive) boundaries, and pragmatic (political) boundaries. The presence of knowledge boundaries makes it difficult for employees to share and access their knowledge with each other. To overcome the challenges related to the knowledge boundaries, employees use boundary-spanning objects, which are common lexicons, common meaning, and common interests, to share and access their knowledge across the boundaries. Although prior studies have emphasized the importance of knowledge integration of various knowledge sources for innovations, examinations of what enhances KI capability of employees for organizational innovation remain limited. In addition, apart from Carlile, (2004) and Franco (2013), which are both case studies, other studies that examine the role of boundary spanning objects for knowledge integration are missing. The knowledge management literature also fails to measures (the success of common lexicons, common meaning, and common interests for achieving KI capability) boundary spanning objects. Therefore, in this study, new measurement items of boundary spanning objects and novelty are developed to test the hypotheses. A survey-based design was used to collect data and measure the constructs examined in this study. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the direct relationship hypotheses. The moderation effects were tested using 1) multi-group analysis using hierarchical linear regression, and 2) relative weight of each boundary spanning object determining KI capability at the different levels of novelty. Evidence suggests that while common meaning and common interests positively influence KI capability, common lexicon does not have a statistically significant relationship with KI capability. The results also revealed that KI capability positively influences organizational innovation. Moreover, the results demonstrate that the strength of the relationship between boundary spanning objects and KI capability is different at the medium and the high level of novelty.

Inspired by an ongoing debate in the clinical sciences concerning the value of evil as a label for human behavior (Mowrer 1960, Staub 1999, Wellman 2000, Williams 2004 etc.), this thesis examines the semantic role of AGENT in the lexical items sick and evil. Williams makes the argument that the label evil removes responsibility from the doctor, whereas, the label sick empowers the doctor in bringing about a cure. While this view is not universally accepted in the field, it does bring to light an interesting question in applied linguistic semantics as to the assignment of agency with respect to sick and evil. Based on the close association of the meanings of sick and evil that stems from historical, psychological, and legal perspectives, this thesis assumes that the semantic feature [+/-RESPONSIBILITY] is assigned to either sick or evil at some point along a continuum. This continuum establishes EVIL at one pole and receives [+RESPONSIBILITY] while SICK is at the opposite pole and receives [-RESPONSIBILITY]. Using a variety of prompts to survey 106 respondents, the continuum model is shown to be only partially true. There is a correlation between NON-RESPONSIBILITY and SICK. Also, a continuum exists that allows the assignment of PARTIAL RESPONSIBILITY to both terms. However, there is no definitive significant correlation between RESPONSIBILITY and EVIL. Further conclusions include the indication of adherence to a legal model of guilt, innocence, and insanity in the general conceptions of SICK and EVIL. Also, demographic variation shows little predictive potential in how people perceive SICK and EVIL. This thesis concludes with a proposal for an alternative model using a Greimas Square to represent the conceptions of SICK and EVIL that more appropriately fits the trends found in the survey data.

in English This dissertation studies su xal derivation of adjectives from nouns in French. It is based on a lexicon of about 15, 000 adjectives, 40% of which may be considered deno- minal. I rst present the data under investigation. I describe the Dénom database, which was derived from large scale lexica. In order to assess the position of denominal adjectives in the more general adjectival system, I present a classi cation of French adjectives on the basis of their morphological properties. In the process, I spot cases where the fringes of the class of denominals are unclear, and question the distributional and semantic co- hesion of the class. I nally review di erent types of formal or semantic mismatches between the adjective and its base noun. In a second step, I present a study of the formal and semantic properties of a subset of denominal adjectives where the morphological relation between base and derivative is regular. This subset is selected on the basis of the type frequency of formal patterns of alternation between base and derivative. I describe the phonological and morpholo- gical properties of base nouns, with the aim of uncovering factors that play a role in the formation of adjectives. This leads to the observation of morphological niches, that is, cases where the presence of a...

L’établissement d’un lexique dans le règne des végétaux et dans le contexte spécifique de la communauté des Beri constitue un élément important offrant un certain nombre d’informations linguistiques, culturelles, scientifiques ou techniques.

The ability to recognize handshapes in signing video is essential in algorithms for sign recognition and retrieval. Handshape recognition from isolated images is, however, an insufficiently constrained problem. Many handshapes share similar 3D configurations and are indistinguishable for some hand orientations in 2D image projections. Additionally, significant differences in handshape appearance are induced by the articulated structure of the hand and variants produced by different signers. Linguistic rules involved in the production of signs impose strong constraints on the articulations of the hands, yet, little attention has been paid towards exploiting these constraints in previous works on sign recognition. Among the different classes of signs in any signed language, lexical signs constitute the prevalent class. Morphemes (or, meaningful units) for signs in this class involve a combination of particular handshapes, palm orientations, locations for articulation, and movement type. These are thus analyzed by many sign linguists as analogues of phonemes in spoken languages. Phonological constraints govern the ways in which phonemes combine in American Sign Language (ASL), as in other signed and spoken languages; utilizing these constraints for handshape recognition in ASL is the focus of the proposed thesis. Handshapes in monomorphemic lexical signs are specified at the start and end of the sign. The handshape transition within a sign are constrained to involve either closing or opening of the hand (i.e., constrained to exclusively use either folding or unfolding of the palm and one or more fingers). Furthermore, akin to allophonic variations in spoken languages, both inter- and intra- signer variations in the production of specific handshapes are observed. We propose a Bayesian network formulation to exploit handshape co-occurrence constraints also utilizing information about allophonic variations to aid in handshape recognition. We propose a fast non-rigid image alignment method to gain improved robustness to handshape appearance variations during computation of observation likelihoods in the Bayesian network. We evaluate our handshape recognition approach on a large dataset of monomorphemic lexical signs. We demonstrate that leveraging linguistic constraints on handshapes results in improved handshape recognition accuracy. As part of the overall project, we are collecting and preparing for dissemination a large corpus (three thousand signs from three native signers) of ASL video annotated with linguistic information such as glosses, morphological properties and variations, and start/end handshapes associated with each ASL sign.

The aim of the present study was to examine receptive and expressive lexicon, as well as gesture production among children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD), using the Swedish translation of the Picture Naming Game (PiNG). The parental evaluation Swedish Communicative Development Inventory III (SCDI III) was used to determine whether the results from PiNG and SCDI III were consistent. In this study, 10 children with DLD (study group) and 11 age-matched children with typical language development (control group) between 52 and 70 months of age participated. The participants were tested with PiNG, which is a test that examines reception and production of single nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions. The guardians then completed SCDI III, which contains questions about the language abilities of the child. Gesture production in the form of deictic, iconic and conventional gestures was examined in conjunction with the use of PiNG. The results showed lower results for the study group on PiNG and SCDI III in comparison with the control group. The study group displayed a higher number of gestures than the control group, and in the former group, the use of gestures was positively correlated with the results from PiNG. In the study group, iconic gestures were used to compensate for language difficulties. The results from PiNG and SCDI III were not consistent. The age of the participants problably did not affect any results. The results from the present study indicate that PiNG may be useful when examining lexicon and gesture production among children with DLD. Both groups achieved high results on PiNG which may have affected the use of gestures and also possible correlations. For future studies, it is therefore recommended to apply PiNG on a group of younger children with DLD.