LinguisticFX Parallelog

Boy, interrupted. (by teacher)

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Tue, 27 May 2008 03:22:00 +0000

Krashen and Brown recently published this research paper in the Singapore Tertiary English Teachers Society journal: What is Academic Language Proficiency? [download PDF]

Their paper flies in the face of current popular pedagogical 'wisdom' that suggests that nearly everything needs to be taught explicitly to students.

Specifically, they suggest that metacognitive strategies (supposedly designed to assist students with creating a deeper understanding of material) may actually be getting in the way of students' learning. They quote the experience of one middle school teacher who had encouraged students to pause at intervals during their reading to create visual associations:

After a few weeks, her students rebelled, and told her that "Metacognition was interfering with the reading zone ... (it) disrupted the flow of a great story; ate up precious hours that could have been devoted to living inside another great story, and wasted their time as readers ... not one student could name a positive effect of the strategies on his or her reading performance".

'Conventional wisdom' usually looks at tools that have the potential to be useful, and advance the implementation of these tools or strategies in day-to-day contexts. However, 'common sense' (which is possibly closer to 'enduring wisdom') might be worth considering when 'useful' tools and strategies are actually creating unnecessary detours from the simple enjoyment of learning. Sometimes spending too much time on the scaffolding may unnecessarily slow down the building process.

...some strategies are teachable and useful to learn. Others are less useful, limited only to conscious language learning and deliberate memorization. Still others, those that all humans naturally possess and use, may be counterproductive to teach.

Ref: Krashen and Brown (2007). STETS Language and Communication Review, Singapore Tertiary English Teachers Society.

Cognitive Machines

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:22:00 +0000

The scope of projects that are emerging from the Cognitive Machines group at MIT's Media Lab is fascinating and inspiring. Current projects include the Human Speechome Project, which is possibly the most complex longitudinal study of language development that's ever been undertaken: the language and behavior patterns of a single child have been recorded continuously in several hundred thousand hours of video and speech recordings.

Recently I've encountered questions about the viability of "The Semantic Web" (Web 3.0) on forums such as Internet Evolution, and a question has been raised as to how rich content without accompanying metadata can be catalogued and contextually searched on the web. In projects like, "Situated Natural Language Processing for Sports Video" I think we see the tip of the iceberg, in what Michael Fleischman and Deb Roy categorize as, "exploiting aspects of the non-linguistic context, or situation, conveyed by the accompanying video."

I highly recommend MIT's Cognitive Machines arm of the MIT Media Lab to anyone who's interested in emerging linguistic and sociological analysis, and the development of artificial intelligence technologies.

Corpus Linguistics for the Cloud Crowd

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:02:00 +0000

Recently cloud/cluster representations of online data have been emerging in popularity, and they're now progressing from a wider 'art form' to personally-accessible utilities. The innovative work of Jonathan Harris has produced personally-accessible such as Wordcount, an evolving graphic representation of lexical frequency in the English language. Even more accessible and playful is Tweet Clouds by John Krutsch and Jared Stein, which quickly grabs public 'tweets' from Twitter streams like mine, and generates a graphic representation of word frequency.

Marketing Language Learning

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 05:16:00 +0000

Phobaphobia - let's just be afraid of everything.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:45:00 +0000

In the process of doing some light research for a piece about fear of information and technology, I stumbled across a rather long list of phobias. I've decided to keep a record of those that I find intriguing, both linguistically and phenomenologically.

Apparently we have the potential to be afraid of just about anything. Moreover, your fears are not at all unique.
[the emphasis is for 'LinguisticFX' and general artiness]

Acousticophobia - the fear of noise (also phonophobia)
Agateophobia - the fear of insanity
Allodoxaphobia - the fear of opinions
Apeirophobia - the fear of infinity
Asymmetriphobia - the fear of asymmetrical things
Atelophobia - the fear of imperfection
Atomosophobia - the fear of atomic explosions
Atychiphobia - the fear of failure
Autophobia or Monophobia - the fear of being alone

Barophobia - the fear of gravity
Bibliophobia - the fear of books

Cacophobia - the fear of ugliness
Cancerophobia or Carcinophobia - the fear of cancer
Cardiophobia - the fear of the heart/heart disease
Catagelophobia or Katagelophobia - the fear of being ridiculed
Chrometophobia or Chrematophobia - the fear of money
Chromophobia or Chromatophobia - the fear of colors
Coitophobia - the fear of coitus
Commitmentphobia - the fear of commitment to relationships

Decidophobia - the fear of decisions or making decisions
Deinophobia - the fear of dining and dinner conversations
Dementophobia or Maniaphobia - the fear of insanity
Demophobia, Enochlophobia or Ochlophobia - the fear of mobs or crowds
Dipsophobia - the fear of drinking
Doxophobia - the fear of expressions opinions or receiving praise
Dysmorphophobia - the fear of deformity or unattractive body image
Dystychiphobia - the fear of accidents

Eleutherophobia - the fear of freedom
Ephebiphobia - the fear of teenagers
Epistemophobia - the fear of knowledge
Eremiphobia, Orlsolophobia - the fear of oneself, or of being alone
Ergophobia or Ponophobia - the fear of work

Gamophobia - the fear of marriage
Geliophobia - the fear of laughter
Gerascophobia or Gerontophobia - the fear of the old, or of growing old
Glossophobia - the fear of speaking in public

Hedonophobia - the fear of pleasure
Hellenologophobia - the fear of Greek terms or complex scientific terminology

Ideophobia - the fear of ideas
Kainolophobia or Kainophobia - the fear of anything new, novelty (also neophobia)

Laliophobia or Lalophobia - the fear of speaking
Logizomechanophobia - the fear of computers
Mastigophobia - the fear of punishment
Melophobia - the fear of music
Metrophobia - the fear of poetry
Misanthropy - the fear of mankind in general

Obesophobia or Pocrescophobia - the fear of being overweight, or gaining weight
Papyrophobia - the fear of paper
Phronemophobia - the fear of thinking

Sociophobia - the fear of being judged, people in general or society
Sophophobia - the fear of learning
Spacephobia - the fear of outer space
Symbolophobia - the fear of symbolism
Symmetrophobia - the fear of symmetry

Tropophobia - the fear of moving or making changes

Venustraphobia - the fear of beautiful women
Verbophobia - the fear of words

Xenoglossophobia - the fear of foreign languages

[Photo by noamgalai. CC Licenced]

Organizational Culture & Meme Therapy

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 05:12:00 +0000

This entry is by no means a synthesis, but an idea that I may pursue. This morning I received an email from my ex-principal in Shanghai, Bernadette Carmody, and I couldn't help but think about her persistent work there with constructive group culture, and how much of a difference it made to focus upon and articulate specific features of the culture.

We know that culture manifests itself in pattered and symbolic behaviors. This got me to thinking about the concept of memetics, or the "meme" that Richard Dawkins developed in 1976. Now I'm not offering any type of novel insight into the wider cultural application of a study of memetics in society, but have studies at single sites (such as a campus) been published? It seems that there could even be an opportunity to work on direct memetic engineering, as opposed just working with generalized concepts of positive interaction in a culture.

Prior to Dawkins' memetic theory, de Bono published, "The Mechanism of Mind" in 1969. In my opinion this is still his best work, as he took a functional approach to the development of memory and behavioral patterns. It's this recognition and identification of pattern formation and habituation that interests me, as his concept of "d-lines" on a "memory surface" seem to align with memetic theory, and it offers a 'mechanical' view of why 'old habits die hard.'

Ironically, I was about to also suggest that concepts of mirror neurons, as raised by Daniel Coleman in "Social Intelligence" might also be an interesting tact for an analysis of organizational culture, but directly after his book's discussion of neural mirrors and "social synchrony," he launches into a discussion of memes! Hence, this is not new thinking, but do we have models and examples of how to apply these theories of social genetics to a workplace? It may not be difficult to find an example of a 'toxic culture' with allusion to general behavioral patterns in that group, however, do we have concrete examples of memetic viruses 'infecting' a group? There may also be examples of "meme therapy," whereby a positive meme is 'released' (either intentionally or unintentionally) and then propogated within the culture.

Beyond my initial question of whether this kind of study has been completed and published previously [ie. I need to do further reading] there is actually ongoing utility that may be derived from an organizational self-study. If an organization actively studies its own behavioral patterns and is able to identify specific memes/discrete units, then they may have a targeted strategy for enhancing their culture through codification and "meme therapy." Furthermore, the same kind of group therapy could be applied as a study within the classroom and directly relate to social transmission of memes in students' actual lives.

In terms of application within the classroom, there are a number of concepts and approaches that could be used:
(1) General use in order to enhance group/student/school culture
(2) Use in Social Science/Studies to highlight sociolinguistics
(3) Interdisciplinary use in Science to parallel study of genetic transmission
(4) Interdisciplinary use in Math to study statistical analysis
(5) Interdisciplinary use in Language Arts to study language structure and the synthesis of ideas.
(6) Interdisciplinary use in Health to study physical and psychological impact of various forms of memes. In some ways, concepts that are already promoted such as, "No put-downs" could become launchpads for wider application to other memes with negative semantic loading.
(7) Literacy: at Shanghai American School 6th graders worked on a unit about "truths," which included analysis of some forwarded emails/spam. The propogation of these kinds of items is a prime example of a memetic virus.

A study of memetics and its impact upon organizational culture could either be longitudinal or it could be packaged as a short unit to simple highlight features and ideas that can be modified within the culture. Regardless, a scientific identification of specific transmissions/memes could prove to be a powerful social and linguistic lesson for any kind of organization, as long as the procedure does not target vectors (ie. those who transmit/propogate memes), but only the memes themselves.

If you happen to know of any studies or recommended reading, please get in touch with me.

Can't Parse This? Coding Analogies for Literacy

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 03:00:00 +0000

This is one of those instances where a model in computational linguistics has actually led me back to thinking about natural language processing, as opposed to thinking in the other direction. As I was attempting to extract the .flv (Flash) file of an online video using a browser plug-in, I encountered an old friend: "Can't parse this file."

Now what does this mean? Parsing a file can operate on multiple levels: lexical and syntactic, just as parsing can operate for human beings as they process natural language. Parsing is essentially the recognition of patterning and structure within encoded meaning, and this includes text/speech.

If I listen to a foreign language that I have a cursory knowledge of, I am sometimes able to parse the text on a grammatical level, but not on a lexical level. In other words, I may be able to recognize the syntactic structure without understanding the meaning of all of the words. Likewise, if I know all of the lexical items, but I'm not aware of how the syntax influences the encoding of the idea, then I may not understand what is being communicated.

In terms of supposedly optimizing the language learning process, we have arguments for corpus linguistics that state that teaching words with the highest frequency first will assist in the parsing process. Many of the most frequent words are not even lexical items, but fall into the category of grammatical markers, such as prepositions, but then there are all extremely frequent morphemes that can help us parse a text, eg. "able" indicates that the word is going to be an adjective.

Now I intend to return to Halliday's functional grammar to revisit his concepts on alternative methods to parsing natural language, however, I have to wonder if adapting some of the systematic methods of codebreaking in a language learning class, and teaching code (whether computational, abstract, or another language) as a parallel in the language classroom could facilitate the language learning process.

My concept for application is parallel coding 'metaphors,' or analogies, in the second language classroom. Everyone familiar with Gardner's multiple intelligences knows that there are many ways to appeal to an individual's strengths and styles. Language learning has certainly come a long way, but I think we sometimes just get to a point of cosmetic embellishments. If reading and comprehension is essentially the process of parsing (including juggling items in memory), then wouldn't it be helpful to exercise these connections by directly connecting these processes to procedurally similar tasks?

In particular, I'm thinking about ways to make the process of learning "dry code" (vocabulary and grammar) both more stimulating and more memorable for students. However, the aim would not just be to improve language outcomes, but to increase intrinsic motivation, and the general flexibility of students' thinking.

Essentially, the more approaches, angles, connections and decoding skills that students are equipped with (including, hopefully, some that they can actually relate to), the more likely it is that they'll be able to translate those parsing skills across disciplines and into the life of natural language processing.

Before I get to some suggestions and examples, I'd like to state that my thinking on using structural analogies was motivated by my quest for an innovative way to approach grammar and syntax (that's my extrinsic motivation), however, intrinsically and more essentially I'm motivated as an educator to support and promote interdisciplinary learning and the decompartmentalization of 'knowledge domains,' as keeping them separate effectively cripples students in terms of activating prior knowledge and developing flexible thinking. The fact that there are bonuses in terms of linguistic reinforcement and utility is really just icing on the cake.

Some examples of structural analogies to develop concepts of syntax and grammar (articulated/full examples forthcoming):

(1) Using a computer language: due to the fact that computer/machine languages are usually based on strict syntax, computer languages are a way of demonstrating that if the code is flawed then it will not result in the desired function. Schema can be paralleled to the structure of a particular genre, and students may compare structures and elements to natural languages, eg. a command is like a verb; an object or a variable may be like a noun; a modifier may be like an adverb; opening and closing tags may function like the elements at the beginning and the end of a genre; non-optimized code may be compared to verbosity or redundancy.

(2) Movement sequences in video games could be compared to grammatical structure.

(in process... to be continued...)

Blogmentation ala Neurological Localization

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 08:01:00 +0000

Admittedly, the subject of this entry is probably an incomprehensible mouthful at first glance, but let me get to the point quickly. When I was in school I used to carry around a bunch of different workbooks/writing pads for each of my school subjects, eg. English, Physics, Chemistry, Math II, etc., because each book was a separate space for a separate purpose. Some people maintain different emails for different purposes, eg. one professional and one personal.

However, even though we can grasp this concept of compartmentalization for other purposes, many people still maintain a one-size-fits-all solution for their digital lives: one blog that covers everything, one Facebook account that lumps together everyone they've known, or even one YouTube account that includes representations from both professional and personal domains. There's something about this approach that seems to be somewhat unwieldly. After all, I wouldn't wear the same clothing regardless of the event, nor would I use the same register of speech, regardless of the audience, so why have we chosen to lump our communication into such an illogical model that doesn't really seem to be adapting to the number of social and professional domains that we live in?

I don't know if I'm first to coin the term, "blogmentation," but I'd like to define my use of it as "compartmentalization and fragmentation of blogging" by individual communicators. This particular 'space' is where I'm gradually coming to focus my thoughts on linguistics and communications that have more of a social/human edge, whereas I have a completely separate blog JC's Tangent where I'm gradually channelling my discussions and reflections on technology. I also have keep a personal blog where my latest creative urges or just my general movements are documented in a reasonably erratic form.

The question for the evolution of this genre/form is how will individuals choose to use blogging in the future, and how will the blogging services and platforms offer these options to them. In this sense, I'm not so concerned about people who know how to set up their own WordPress server, but how the end-user services will be presented and provided. Blogger, for example, allows a single user to set up a number of blogs, but how does the average person use this, if at all?

In the back of my mind there are some ongoing concerns that I have about the companies that are leading us into this age of "mass information management," although because that's a UI (user interface) argument, I think I'll save that for JC's Tangent, instead of LinguisticFX, as I'd really work within the boundaries and disciplines of the 'broader topics' that I've chosen, and to encourage others to "channel down" and experiment with their own experience of 'blogmentation.'

Got Milk?

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:24:00 +0000

It's been quite some time since I've updated this blog. Getting married and moving to a different country may have had something to do with this. Regardless, my last entry made the blog look like it was going to go down the road of computational linguistics, so I'd better take a step back and diversify. LinguisticFX was always intended as a 'playground' for ideas about language and linguistics that I found fun and fascinating, so let's take a step back as I take this back to what made me fall in love with language to begin with (that is, after I learned to demand things as an infant) - awe, wonder, and a little laughter thrown in for good measure.

Warning - I'm sometimes very easily amused, and apparently I need to delve into Greek roots more often.

Tonight I was enjoying a "shot of milk" - don't ask - it just makes drinking milk seem a little decadent, and I wondered what the origin of the word "milk" was. A quick search on www.etymonline.com revealed Old English/Saxon roots as:

"meoluc" and "milc" (Anglian), which were both related to the verb "melcan" (to milk). The noun is from P.Gmc. *meluk- (cf. O.N. mjolk, Du. melk, Ger. Milch, Goth. miluks); the verb is from P.Gmc. *melkanan (cf. O.N. mjolka, Du., Ger. melken); both from PIE base *melg- "wiping, stroking," in ref. to the hand motion in milking an animal (cf. Gk. amelgein, L. mulgere, O.C.S. mlesti, Lith. melzu "to milk," O.Ir. melg "milk," Skt. marjati "wipes off"). O.C.S. noun meleko (Rus. moloko, Czech mleko) is considered to be adopted from Germanic.

Of course, some of these roots took me back to the Korova Milk Bar in the Anthony Burgess novel, "A Clockwork Orange" (and the subsequent film by Kubrick), where various incarnations of "Moloko" were served. I've always enjoyed works like this that were so playful and inventive with language - George Orwell's dire "1984" actually made me grin.

However, as I followed the roots of "milk" further down the page I stumbled upon connections to lactation (let's not spoil this by looking for Freudian connections - this is about language, not oedipus or psychotherapy):

1668, "process of suckling an infant," from Fr. lactation, from L. lactationem (nom. lactatio) "a suckling," from L. lactatus, pp. of lactare "suckle," from lac (gen. lactis) "milk," from PIE base *glact- (cf. Gk. gala, gen. galaktos "milk").

Hang on... galaktos "milk"? As in the milky way galaxy?

Sure enough, the etymology of "galaxy" is explained as:
c.1384, from L.L. galaxias "Milky Way," from Gk. galaxis (adj.), from gala (gen. galaktos) "milk" (see lactation). The technical astronomical sense emerged 1848. Fig. sense of "brilliant assembly of persons" is from 1590. Milky Way is a translation of L. via lactea.
"See yonder, lo, the Galaxyë Which men clepeth the Milky Wey, For hit is whyt." [Chaucer, "House of Fame"]

Therefore, every galaxy is a "milky way," and apparently our own "Milky Way Galaxy" is particularly milky. I'd never really thought of the heavens as a divine mother before - maybe a Freudian analysis is actually the right way to go with this topic afterall?

Ubuntu Linux under Parallels: Native Screen Resolution

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:17:00 +0000

A number of articles have been posted in various places around the web about the problem of viewing native screen resolutions in Ubuntu when it's run in Parallels as a virtual machine. I'd like to offer my synthesis of the problem, as I noticed that some users had given up. Basically, I had to experiment and assemble a few 'pieces' in order to activate the native screen resolution of my MacBook, in order to 'conquer' the default maximum setting of 1024x768 pixels.

The whole process is run within Ubuntu - you shouldn't need to try to access any of the settings within your virtual machine:

(1) Applications > System Tools > Terminal
(2) sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.config &
(3) Enter your administrator password
(4) The xorg.config file will open in the text editor
(5) Scroll down in the file until you locate Section "Monitor"
(6) Edit the horizontal and vertical refresh rates which, by default, are inadequate for higher resolution monitors. I used the following settings:

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 28-64
VertRefresh 43-87
EndSection

(7) Now, scroll down to the next section: Section "Screen" and enter the native resolution of your monitor before each instance of lower screen resolutions. I used the following settings for my MacBook, but for a 15" MacBook Pro you'd use, for example 1440x900

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Generic Video Card"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1280x800""1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

(8) Now save your config file. Most users would also recommend that you create a backup of your original config file, in the event that you can't boot back into the OS and wind up in the command line.

(9) System > Logout > Restart

(10) In my case, as soon as I rebooted the OS (inside parallels) it instantly started displaying in my native screen resolution. Otherwise, use System > Preferences > Screen Resolution to manually select your screen res.

Good luck. I offer no guarantees that the method is foolproof, but this workflow is what I would have liked to have found on help forums in order to avoid the convoluted process I had to go through ;-)

Jonathan.

Welcome to the Angsternet?

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 07:25:00 +0000

Call me naive, but "I sense a disturbance in the Force" on the Internet. However, whether you feel it or not is entirely dependent upon what you've seen, heard, and experienced on/about the web lately.

I opened up an online paper this morning to discover that a father of two had hanged himself on a videochat inside an 'insults' chatroom. Personally, I don't know why anyone who think that throwing around "humorous" insults at other people would be amusing - I mustn't possess the gene for that kind of 'entertainment?'

However, my thoughts on this topic began earlier this weekend when I noticed that a "guest editor" on YouTube was introducing all sorts of strange, negative, angst-driven material. I can certainly appreciate that documenting people's depression and 'hard times' can an 'art form,' but when it's unmoderated, condoned, encouraged, and let loose in the wild the psycholinguistic affect can be devastating.

When YouTube began, pretty much anything you posted was appreciated by its then-small audience. However, it's been increasingly developing into a scolding, judgmental playground where people find it 'amusing' to deride and criticize others... and, subsequently, it's developed a "big city mentality" where you can run and hide if you make mistakes, and just "switch crowds" if you seriously offend someone.

This seriously disturbs me. I have long been an advocate for utilizing the potential of such an amazing tool, but it seems like the democracy and open-minded spirit that originally drove the YouTube community is losing its way. This weekend one of the amusing users that I subscribed to a while back was "featured" on the front page of the site, but then she received torrents of abuse and criticism. I then followed her subsequent decline - she started making bleary-eyed "rants," as she was obviously harrowed by the experience. I've tried to encourage her, but of course, she's publicly putting on a brave face, and trying to act like none of this affected her. I beg to differ. This is dangerous territory - people are starting to script messages for other users like, "Why don't you just die, b***ch!" No matter how resilient you are, this can't be a positive experience for any human.

I composed a message to YouTube staff this afternoon:

"I am an educator, but I'm also a general user of YouTube. Over the past
week the featured videos (and where they're linked to) have plummeted into
depressing and unncecessarily weird avenues that are just going to spark
more dissent against YouTube by people who don't understand what it can
do. I teach in Asia, and I use YouTube as an educational tool, but there
are many schools across the US where YouTube has been completely banned.
I'm worried that the direction that the feature section is taking, and the
lack of ACTUAL good conduct in many areas of YouTube are going to be a
tipping point that creates even more oppositional sentiment for the site.

So is it just about controversy and revenue, or are the people in charge
actually concerned about the fact that the "mood" on YouTube might
actually affect the "mood" in wider society... that's the kind of power
the site has, so I'm pleading with the editors to not abuse it.

Don't be evil!"

...I love the potential of YouTube, but I definitely don't want to become part of what I've started to refer to as 'The Angersternet.' If a fruit store sells you enough rotten apples, then no matter how good it was in the past, you're going to decide to shop elsewhere.

Online adult behavior in the Brave New World

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:42:00 +0000

I'll make this brief, although I don't want to lose this thought, as I feel like a new tide is coming in, and somebody should at least speculate: lately I've noticed that some adult/professional behavior is starting to reflect the behavior of kids online... adults who "duck and weave" online in order to avoid conversation or confrontation. Interaction is changing, and not necessarily for the better. We teach 'netiquette' to children (the etiquette of interacting on the web), but then those who we know well in professional circles may become so absorbed in this "kids' world" that they start to emulate their behaviors, and believe that they're acceptable.

I honestly don't believe that I'm offensive online, but as with everything in life, maybe I'm on a different 'track' to you, or maybe I'm not willing to buy into your personal crusade, because my chosen focus lies elsewhere. In the pursuit of 'optimization' or whatever other nominalization you might choose to use as an excuse for poor behavior on the Internet, are you actually succumbing to poor behavior, and justifying it with the laws of the 'wild west?' This might seem lofty or 'police like,' but are we changing the rules of interaction to suit ourselves, and to further our own causes, whilst losing our humanity in the process?

If you have a process or a project that you wish to further I can fully respect that, but if you start ducking away and using an "I can't see you, and you can't see me" methodology, aren't we just playing the kinds of games that we can play with children who haven't developed beyond the "here and now" and concrete thinking?

Internet Apotheosis: a strangely familiar theme reemerges

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 03:32:00 +0000

I usually reserve thoughts on social networking issues for my "Tangent" blog, which is located on LiveJournal's servers, but it seems to have been down for at least 48 hours, so I'm wondering if LJ has become a victim of the fickle hordes, who've flocked to MySpace, Xanga, Facebook & co. Ahem - people in glass Blogspots shouldn't throw stones! Regardless, I'm pursuing an issue that I started looking at here:
"Selling Kudos: the psychology of baiting with virtual crumbs"
http://virtualjonathan.livejournal.com/2405.html

I've run across "Getting Rich off Those Who Work for Free" (Justin Fox, Time, March 5, 2007) twice now: first online, and then flipping through the print version. The article focuses upon the "gift economy" of contributors to Wikipedia, open-source software (Linux, Firefox), Digg, Flickr, YouTube... and the list goes on. My argument was that web sites are baiting users with "virtual crumbs," eg. token rewards like hit stats and award badges on their sites... things that cost these sites nothing. In the meantime, while users provide free content for these sites the cash is pouring AWAY from the content creators: advertising revenue increases for the websites, investors pour more money into infrastructure, staffing, and R&D... and eventually the goal of the majority of these companies is to go public, or to sell the the whole bundle off at massive profits: systems, staff, user base AND a cache of user-created content.

This is all called the "Carr-Benkler" wager in tech/journalist circles at present. Benkler is a Yale law professor, and Carr is a business writer. Their debate is whether this "gift economy" model can continue to operate, and at which point it will become monetized. However, this is not my focus for writing this.

We find ourselves in familiar territory in terms of what humans have been battling for eons: the struggle for power, fame, and wealth. Increasing numbers are posting videos to YouTube in search of fame, and possible propulsion into commercial wealth. One prime example is the comedy duo Barats and Bereta, who were two students studying at a Jesuit college in the US, who discovered that YouTube was a powerful launchpad into a commercial career as comedy developers. Now they have a network TV deal, and the sheep are lining the hallways of YouTube in droves in search of the same kind of success.

However, is it too late for most to achieve the same kind of success? Has YouTube become too much of an 'American Idol' for the lowest common denominator to ever break through unless they're essentially talented, original, and work well with production teams in order to attract the attention of the masses? As 'early adaptors' they utilized the technology intelligently and profited.

Millions of teens dream of becoming the next Michael Jordan, Britney Spears (OK, not so much at the moment), Justin Timberlake, LonelyGirl, or whatever "dream" they have of ultimate commercial fame. However, the majority of their efforts and contributions are currently being cannibalised by corporations, and they'll never see anything in return for their efforts. I have a cynical outlook on all of this, because anything that ultimately leads to massive fame and fortune is eventually going to be swallowed by the bellies of the corporations. There are extremely brief windows for innovators to break these rules, but once the window closes everything is back to 'business as usual' in the entertainment industry to develop a commercially viable following.

So, what can we do with this information? Direct the strategy back at the target market/most succeptible (ie. teenagers) in order to cannibalize their disposable cash...and time? The answer for most of us may be quite simple: work hard at specializing in a field with an enduring 'shelf-life' and continue to upskill in it, while upgrading our skills in peripheral technologies and strategies.

My suggestion is to continue to teach people about how to deconstruct the media, so that they can continue to focus upon core values and work ethics. There are literally millions of virtual hallways to get lost in every day, but where are the 'guiding lights' in the information age? I fear that we're losing ourselves in our own achievement - the creation of this fantastic communication network, but it's become its own "Babel." We know that we can connect the world, but many people still seem to be stumbling around in drunken wonder at this achievement.

It's time to refocus. We've created the machine, but now what are we going to do with it? Is 'it' controlling us, or are we controlling it?

TESMC Podcast Channel

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 07:38:00 +0000

Welcome to the TESMC podcast channel for teachers studying "Teaching ESL Students in Mainstream Classes" at SAS in Shanghai. Open up iTunes and click "Add to iTunes" to get automatic downloads of our audio and video programs.
Download iTunes here if you don't already have it!

If you're playing a video, then once the video has downloaded into the PODCAST section of iTunes, click on the program, and it will start playing in a small box on the bottom left hand side. Click INSIDE the box, and it will pop up in FULL SIZE.

Note: these video podcasts are not designed to transfer to a video iPod. They will only play inside iTunes.

Click here to get your own player.

Thoughts on "acceptable misuse" language policies on the web

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 02:42:00 +0000

Software and web sites are fundamentally driven by the underlying language/code that provides either the operating system or a web browser with instructions. If there are errors in spelling or syntax within the code, then the computer will reject the intent of the message/instruction, and refuse to execute the wish of the programmer. Writing works in much the same way, but with a much more unpredictable audience. Unlike linguistic parsing within a computer (which offers second chances to rewrite code if the message doesn't get through the first time), a human user may actually tolerate errors, but a human audience also has the capacity to walk away from the writer's work permanently.

Should 'of' be a preposition?

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 11:52:00 +0000

This is an excerpt from Thomas Bloor & Meriel Bloor's, "The Functional Analysis of English: A Hallidayan Approach"
(Hodder Headline Group, London, 1995)

p. 147
Prepositional phrases with 'of'

We mentioned that of is the most frequently occurring preposition in English. This information comes from Sinclair (1991), who calculates that of occurs more than twice as often as any other preposition. Sinclair's observations, which are based on a massive collection of English text, the Cobuild corpus, challenge some of the standard grammatical descriptions. As we have seen, prepositional phrases realize two main functions: Adjunct in a clause and Postmodifier/Qualifier in a Nominal group. Sinclair points out that it is generally assumed that the most typical (that is, frequent) function of prepositional phrases as a whole is the Adjunct, and for most prepositions (in, on, up, and so on) this is true. However, he notes that although OF does, like other prepositions, show up with this function (for example: 'convict these people of negligence') such occurrences are relatively rare, and the overwhelming majority of phrases of OF are Postmodifiers. He also notes that, unlike most prepositions, OF has no basic spatial sense (of direction or position); compare UP, ON, IN, OVER, UNDER. On grounds of distribution and typicality, Sinclair goes on to suggest that perhaps OF should not be classified as a preposition at all, but belongs to a class of its own. To date, this position has not gained widespread acceptance, but the argument is a powerful one.

Web 2.0 Engineering: Site Structure

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:30:00 +0000

Here I'm not referring to "engineering" in terms of building a code base, but the implementation and integration of 2.0 tools into basic web frameworks, like a blog or a (fomerly) static site. I'm going to do this simply by providing a record of my current central structure [attached graphic].

[Click on model for full size]

The model provided here does not include hardware and software that would also 'plug in' to this structure. In fact, it's the interassembly of many different layers of negotiation of LANGUAGE that is required in order to make several websites function. At every layer, whether it's using video editing software; typing simple HTML into a blog editor; remembering where each web component is located and what its function is - there's a deeper cerebral model that could be "mapped," although chances are that a neurological model would appear to be significantly 'messier' than a simple PowerPoint! As an example, the additional software/hardware components are located here: How to build Virtual Jonathan 2.0

If I took ALL of these components and linked them (for example, my YouTube channel is reliant upon use of video editing software, sound editing, a video camera, a computer, a cable), then I'd start to create a functional model for how this system actually operates. As a two dimensional model it's extremely limited and now I'm moving toward my central point:
* Language cannot be effectively mapped in two dimensional models such as linear grammatical structure.

Brain Age: Reclaiming mental acuity

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 11:04:00 +0000

I'm going to let this one basically speak for itself. This may not be entirely 'linguistics related,' but it certainly helps if you have a sharp mind if you want to process linguistics... especially if you're a male, based upon some of the material that I've read on the BBC lately: early adolescent women are typically using language around twice as much as men.

Hence, there must be methods to offset (1) the handicap of being a male, and (2) the onset of aging. I've been reading a lot about Nintendo's "Brain Age" software recently, but nothing really twisted my mental arm to take it seriously. Joshua Green's article on Wired may, however, be the kind of 'nudge' that I need:

A 4 Week Quest to be Smarter

Incidentally, several weeks ago I set up my own "Cognitive Training Center," based upon widgets that I built into the 'fixed' segments of LinguisticFX at
LinguisticFX Cognitive Training Center. However, as Green mentions, web applications largely lack the kind of portability that truly match modern life.

You never know, by tomorrow afternoon I may actually be holding a Nintendo DS and playing Brain Age. Kickstart my heart... why is it that the majority of revolutionary thinking is done before many intellectuals are 30? It's time to turn the tide.

Ethnologue: 516 "Nearly Extinct" Languages

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 00:07:00 +0000

516 of the languages listed in the Ethnologue are classified as nearly extinct. They are classified in this way when "only a few elderly speakers are still living."

Ethnologue catalog of endangered languages

Considering that there are 6,912 known living languages, it seems that we're losing our languages (and integrally-tied cultures) at an alarming rate.

SIL: The Linguist's Shoebox

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 23:51:00 +0000

I forgot about Shoebox a long time ago. I rediscovered it early this morning, after crawling across a PhD student's website (Patrick Ye, University of Melbourne), wherein he converts verbage in movie scripts to approximations in Javascript-type markup... curious. Corpus linguistics takes strange turns sometimes! Anyway, back to the subject of Shoebox:

http://www.sil.org/computing/shoebox/mac.html

Fast Decoding and Optimal Decoding for Machine Translation

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 22:17:00 +0000

This is a link to a paper on machine translation of natural languages by Ulrich Germann, Michael Jahr, Kevin Knight, Daniel Marcu, and Kenji Yamada.

The paper is highly mathematical/algorithmic, but I'm 'saving it' for future reference, as even at a 'surface scan' level the paper offers some interesting insight into the process/future of machine translation.

Download paper [PDF]

Of course, if we investigate the complexity of machine translation models, it also raises the question of how the human mind might calculate similar probabilities/whether MT is a completely distinct 'animal'/whether processes employed in MT can be back-translated or superimposed onto natural language learning processes in newer evolutionary forms of human SLL.

Inventory of technologies explored over the past few days

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 10:50:00 +0000

A quick recap of technologies/software/websites explored over the past few days:

Second Life online interactive communities
Vivox voice chat (PC only)
Ventrilo voice chat (Mac compatible)
Blogger
Wikispaces
Thinkfree online office apps
Del.icio.us
YouTube
Google Video
Live Journal
Elluminate
Googlepages

Integrity vs. Integration - an etymological perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 09:16:00 +0000

It's interesting to see that we have educators who believe that they can maintain the 'integrity' of their programs by sticking to traditional, didactic methodologies, whilst they still want us to respect the traditional roots of language and the 'moral codes' of yore.

I present a simple argument based upon the etymological roots of 'integrity' and 'integration' (as borrowed from www.etymonline):

integrity
c.1450, "wholeness, perfect condition," from O.Fr. integrité, from L. integritatem (nom. integritas) "soundness, wholeness," from integer "whole" (see integer). Sense of "uncorrupted virtue" is from 1548.

integrate (v.)
1638, "to render (something) whole," from L. integratus, pp. of integrare "make whole," from integer "whole" (see integer). Meaning "to put together parts or elements and combine them into a whole" is from 1802.

Thus, aside from the obvious modern similarities between the words 'integrity' and 'integrate,' we find that the roots of both of these words are strikingly similar, in the sense that we are are striving toward the "whole," rather than just a disparate collection of parts.

Hence, is it 'reasonable' to educate in parallel domains without looking toward both the integrity and the integration of these parts? Is it reasonable for an educator to teach in isolation from history, sociology, technology, natural sciences, linguistics, and all of the other 'parts' that we've gradually transformed into 'specialities'?

Why do we look back at The Enlightenment and The Renaissance with their capitalized articles? Parallel programs do not make 'integrated' programs...and 'integrity' has unfortunately be nominalized to the point where it means little more than 'security' or 'lack of corruption' in modern colloquial terms.

Transitional Technologies: Why bother?

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 05:21:00 +0000

About a fortnight ago I was discussing the “Second Life” online platform with Leigh-Anne and I fobbed it off as a ‘transitional technology’ that would be soon be replaced with something more functional, engaging, and user-friendly. I made the same remark to a colleague, and they replied, “Well, isn’t everything a transitional technology?” This got me thinking – if everything is a transitional technology, and I ‘opt out’ as a result of an argument that it will soon (or someday in the distant future) be replaced, then will I completely miss out on engaging myself with the modern world?

A fortnight has passed, and after some nudging from Clay Burell I’ve now been tinkering with the possibilities of “Second Life.” In fact, people like Clay, Jeff Utecht, and I are constantly experimenting with these kinds of online tools, as are millions of people around the globe. If I look back on my year, I have to wonder which of these technologies/tools/platforms was worth bothering with in the long run, but also what the concept of “transitional technologies” means for us in this day and age, when the concept of a ‘format war’-ala-Beta Vs. VHS now looks like a walk in the park.

I need to choose a blogging format, a video publishing format, an audio compression format for my ‘mp3’ player that will survive into the future, a photo taking and publishing format, online teaching formats, offline software formats, an operating system, and so many other types of choices that are now much more abstract than they ever were in the past. In previous decades, I may have had to choose a brand of car or washing machine that seemed like a ‘good bet’ so that I could still get parts in the future, but now I’m not just looking at the future of my hardware, I’m gambling with the investment of time that I put into “flash in the pan” websites and software, and also with the prospect that I’ll have to invest double that amount of time storing or saving that information in the future if I want to keep it.

So what is a “transitional technology”…and what is not? Considering that my colleague challenged this concept entirely, I started to make a mental list of things that do not appear to be transitional technologies to me…at least not within the span of a millennium or so. The kinds of ‘technologies’ that sprang to mind included soap, the toilet, a table, glass, knives and forks, chopsticks, and many other items that have an enduring physical quality, due to their day-to-day use around the globe. As for items that are undeniably transitional technologies, I considered iPods, disc players, computers, specific software, websites, and a whole lot of items that are quite obviously in a high state of flux.

However, if a toilet now doesn’t look like a toilet 50 years ago, then isn’t it a transitional technology? Isn’t the function of the toilet what I’m really alluding to as being ‘non-transitional?’ On the flip side, isn’t the function of an iPod exactly the same as an old gramophone record player that my grandparents have – to play music? Hence, I think my colleague was completely correct – the whole point of ‘technology’ is that it’s transitional. I can create a generic term like ‘soap’ and say that it’s not transitional because it’s been around in the form of soap bars for a long time, but haven’t we changed the methods of production and the chemical compounds that go into our soap? The same applies to software: I might create version 401.3.9 of a word processor, but it’s still a word processor. How about a blog? Is my blog any less a blog because the company I chose to set my blog up on was a failed startup, and my blog disappeared?

My ability to use soap is anchored in the fact that I know what the function of soap is, as is my ability to use a word processor, and to blog. Whether or not we are dabbling in the world of ‘transitional technologies,’ it’s difficult to deny that each time we do, we’re building a skillset that allows us to adapt as the technologies themselves metamorphose and transition into their future manifestations.

I think the central question here is to look more closely at function. What do I really want to do with technology? If I want to clean myself I use soap or just water. Which is more effective? If I want to write and communicate then I can choose to use paper and a pencil, or I can choose a blog? What’s my purpose? Do I need something reliable and transportable, or am I more concerned with reaching the widest audience, or am I most concerned with the future security of my writing? A blog can disappear with a server failure, but I could also lose that paper book that I was writing in, or it could go up in a house fire.

Whether physical or digital (which is ultimately stored in a physical fashion – somewhere), it’s all transitional technology. Whether or not something may fade away is not really an excuse to not try to use something. What’s your purpose and does the technology that you choose function in a way that works for you? Furthermore, if the technology isn’t here tomorrow, are there skills that you developed from using the technology that will somehow be useful to you or others?

26 video uploads later...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Chambers) — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 15:47:00 +0000

This afternoon/evening I've spent about 12 hours clipping, compressing, and uploading videos to YouTube, and then creating blog entries for them at http://samscast.blogspot.com

They're primarily choir/band/performances pieces, but I've enjoyed the 'language' of the music, and also the 'language' of communicating with these web 2.0 systems that allow me to create an on-demand video system like this.

I wish I could upload video at higher quality, but I already seem to be skirting the acceptable boundaries of bandwidth.

Now to pack for Macau, and get ready for a holiday!