Idiom Comprehension of Chinese Patients With Aphasia: A Case Study

Previous studies on idiom comprehension of patients with aphasia(PWAs)mainly focused on Indo-European speakers,examining whether PWAs could correctly extract the target meaning of idioms,while among Chinese PWAs,idiom familiarity,context and other variables affecting idiom comprehension were rarely studied.Hence,this study aims to explore whether Chinese PWAs can correctly comprehend the target meaning of idioms,and further investigate the role of familiarity and context.For three Chinese PWAs,this study adopted the string-to-word matching task,taking Chinese four-character idioms as the experimental stimuli,and provided decoy words containing target meaning,literal meaning,unrelated abstract meaning and unrelated concrete meaning as the matching words of idiom items by manipulating the familiarity and contextual presence of idiom items.The results suggested that the PWAs could not correctly extract the target meaning of idioms and presented both the literal meaning tendency and the weak abstract meaning tendency,and the influence of familiarity on the comprehension of idioms was stronger than that of context.These results support the Graded Salience Hypothesis.

Analysis of the Role of Syntactic Complexity in Students’ Reading Comprehension: A Teacher’s Perspective

This study examines the role of the syntactic complexity of the text in the reading comprehension skills of students.Utilizing the qualitative method of research,this paper used structured interview questions as the main data-gathering instruments.English language teachers from Coral na Munti National High School were selected as the respondents of the study.Finding of the study suggests that the syntactic complexity of the text affects the reading comprehension of the students.Students found it challenging to understand the message that the author conveyed if he or she used a large number of phrases and clauses in one sentence.Furthermore,the complex sentence syntactic structure was deemed the most challenging for students to understand.To overcome said challenges in comprehending text,various reading intervention programs were utilized by teachers.These interventions include focused or targeted instruction and the implementation of the Project Dear,suggested by the Department of Education.These programs were proven to help students improve their comprehension as well as their knowledge in syntactical structure of sentences.This study underscores the importance of selecting appropriate reading materials and implementing suitable reading intervention programs to enhance students’comprehension skills.

面向机器阅读理解的高质量藏语数据集构建

机器阅读理解是通过算法让机器根据给定的上下文回答问题,从而测试机器理解自然语言的程度。其中,数据集的构建是机器阅读理解的主要任务之一。目前,相关算法模型在大多数流行的英语数据集上都取得了显著的成绩,甚至超过了人类表现。但对于低资源语言,由于缺乏相应的数据集,机器阅读理解研究尚处于起步阶段。该文以藏语为例,人工构建了藏语机器阅读理解数据集(TibetanQA),其中包含20000个问题答案对和1513篇文章。该数据集的文章均来自云藏网,涵盖了自然、文化和教育等12个领域,问题形式多样且具有一定的难度。另外,该数据集在文章收集、问题构建、答案验证、回答多样性和推理能力等方面,均采用严格的流程以确保数据的质量,同时采用基于语言特征消融输入的验证方法说明了数据集的质量。最后,该文初步探索了三种经典的英语阅读理解模型在TibetanQA数据集上的表现,其结果难以媲美人类,这表明藏语机器阅读理解任务还需要更进一步的探索。

Linguistic knowledge and reading comprehension

The human beings can express the outside world and their mental feelings by languages, they know the materials＇ nature by comparing with their similarities. The languages are not only tools in understanding,communication and thinking, but also one element of the cultures. Thinking is a kind of abstract skill, and the language is the vehicle of thinking, through which people can understand the human beings＇ thinking methods and cultural characters. The languages are decided by the culture. Reading comprehension is the readers＇ own behavior, during which the schema plays a key role and readers must combine the new information with their former cultural knowledge, rebuilding the new information so as to understand the deep meanings of the articles.

Barriers and strategies in listening comprehension

A variety of barriers to listening comprehension are illustrated in this paper. They are analyzed respectively and several effective strategies are also presented afterward. The barriers to listening are those of psychological quality, language knowledge, cultural background, Chinese interference and so on. The strategies should be as follows: training students' psychological quality,strengthening the teaching and learning of language knowledge,comparing cultural differences, using student-centered teaching method and combining intensive listening and extensive listening.

Improving of Students‘ Listening Comprehension

对中国学生来说 ,听力理解一直是一件头痛的事 ,“聋子英语”、“哑巴英语”一直困惑着学英语的中国学生。因此 ,在英语教学中 ,教师如何进行听力教学 ,如何掌握听力教学的各种技巧显得十分地重要。笔者分析了英语口语与书面语的不同之处 ,指出了英语口语中语言行为的变异 ,阐述了中国学生在听力理解上的困难和原因 ,比如 :语音辨音能力差 ,长短音不分 ,不习惯于语音上的同化作用等。在此基础上 ,笔者介绍了通过语音辨别、语义猜测等方法 ,来克服学生在听力理解上的困难 。

The Significance of Background Knowledge on Students' English Listening Comprehension

The background knowledge has the stimulating function in English listening comprehension; it can reduce the psychological pressure before listening, strengthen the confidence and enhance the predictive ability. Therefore, the paper mainly discusses the importance and influences of linguistic background knowledge and non-linguistic background knowledge in listening comprehension. The author also gives some suggestions on teaching English listening according to the analysis of significances of background knowledge in the paper.

Research on Content Validity of Reading Comprehensions in 2005 MET

This paper examines reading comprehensions in 2005 MET. Statistic analysis shows that the MET in 2005 have certain validity,but there are some problems existing in these tests. The paper lists the problems and suggests some methods. The writer hopes that test-designers can pay much attention to them so as to improve the tests quality.

Learner-centeredness in the Teaching of Listening Comprehension

In the teaching of listening comprehension, teachers should be guided by a learner-centered philosophy. Decisions about what will be taught, how it will be taught, when it will be taught, and how it will be assessed will be made with reference to the learner. With the assistance and guidance of the teacher, learners will develop the ability of learning and therefore enhance their listening comprehension.

On the Application of Cognitive Strategy in College English Listening Comprehension——With International Talents Training as the Goal

This paper, with the training of the international talents possessing remarkable English listening and speaking ability,mainly discusses the specific application of the cognitive strategy in different stages of college English listening comprehension.It is expected that the paper can bring some useful enlightenments on the international talents training.

Second Language Lecture Comprehension: Student's Perception, Problems and Strategies

The ability to comprehend academic lecture is an important part of the necessary proficiency of tertiary level students for whom English is a second or foreign language. The purpose of this research is to investigate the lecture-perceived experience of one non-nativespeaking learner who attending her English medium lecture course in the first semester in New Zealand. It describes how the learner perceives the lecturing experience, the problems she encounters and the strategies she use to overcome these problems.

面向机器阅读理解的边界感知方法

针对现有的基于预训练语言模型的答案获取方法存在预测边界不够准确的问题,提出一种面向片段抽取式机器阅读理解(MRC)的边界感知方法。首先,在问题输入阶段引入特殊字符标记问题边界,通过增强问题语义信息的方式实现对问题边界的感知;其次,在答案预测阶段,构建答案边界回归器,实现感知的问题边界语义信息与输出的预测答案边界语义信息的语义交互;最后,通过交互后的语义信息进一步调整存在偏差的预测答案边界,实现对预测答案的校准。实验结果表明,与SpanBERT(Span-based Bidirectional Encoder Representation from Transformers)相比,该方法在公共数据集SQuAD(Stanford Question Answering Dataset)1.1上的F1值提升了0.2个百分点、精确匹配(EM)值提升了0.9个百分点;在HotpotQA(Hotpot Question Answering)数据集上的F1值和EM值都提升了0.7个百分点;在NewsQA(News Question Answering)数据集上的F1值提升了2.8个百分点、EM值提升了3.3个百分点。可见,该方法能有效增强对问题边界信息的感知并且实现对预测答案边界的校准,有利于更好地理解和分析文本数据,在智能问答、智能客服等领域的应用中提高系统的准确性。

Metacognitive Strategy Use in English Reading Comprehension

Metacogonitive strategies are in connection with the reading process. It is essential for language learners to master a series of metacogonitive strategies. Teachers should conduct metacognitive training among students. Thus, students are sure to improve their reading proficiency with some metacognitive knowledge during the reading process.

On the Comprehension in Business Translation

The course of any translation usually includes comprehension,expression and proofreading,no matter whether from mother language to a foreign language or from a foreign language to mother language,no matter what kind of translating method being adopted.Comprehending the original text accurately is the foundation and prerequisite.Incorrect comprehension of the original text will inevitably result in incorrect expression.Analyzing the causes of incorrect comprehension and the ways of getting correct comprehension of the original text can help expound the importance of comprehension in the course of translation with some examples of literature translation,technology translation,and business English translation,etc.

The Translation Problems of English Reading Comprehension

In the process of learning English, reading comprehension is a very important part. Firstly, the paper analyzes the translation's role in reading comprehension. Secondly, it considers translation could enhance English reading comprehension. Thirdly,it mainly discusses the translation problem and skills of English Reading Comprehension.

Ways on Teaching Modes of English Listening Comprehension

Ministry of Education started the project of reform on College English teaching, part of the Project of Educational Quality and Reform of Higher Education at the end of 2012, in which the Ministry of Education emphasized that the Mute English should be replaced by Practical English. This paper focuses on how to change the teaching mode of English Listening Comprehension, and how to make the lesson be more interesting, more interactive and more cultural via analyzing its current situation.

Some Methods of Improving the Ability of Doing Reading Comprehension Exercises in PRETCO-A

Practical English Test for Colleges (PRETCO) examination is very important to higher vocational college students. Reading comprehension section, moreover, is the key part in the examination because it, in some degree, influences the total score of the examination. In this passage, the author is to illustrate some reading methods to help the students master the spirit of reading comprehension and grasp the methods and strategy of then so that they could get high score in this part.

Teaching English Listening Comprehension

This article outlines an attempt to bridge the gap between 'classroom English' and 'normal English',and to improve listening comprehension.The experiment is described and examples are given.The points need paying attention are listed.

A Preliminary Analysis on Inferences in Discourse Comprehension

By analysing the nature of inference and discourse comprehension as well as the role and classification of inference, it is concluded that inference is a productive mode of thinking that decides from something known or assumed, and the inference in discourse works out the underlying propositions, necessary or elaborative, and the unsaid speaker's meaning. To derive a good inference, one has to make use of world knowledge and share some experiences with the speaker.

Inspirations of Metaphor on Discourse Comprehension

Metaphor,a pervasive language phenomenon,has been our focusing research for a long time.From rhetoricians to psychologists and linguists,we begin to realize how important metaphor is in our cognition and thought.Nearly every corner of the society is closely related to metaphor and we can use the theories of metaphor to explain many areas.The author tends to get some inspirations from the research of metaphor and seek for in what way can metaphor help improve college students'discourse comprehension.