Browsing by Autor "Florencia Reali"

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Acceptability of Dative Argument Structure in Spanish: Assessing Semantic and Usage‐Based Factors
(Wiley, 2016) Florencia Reali
Multiple constraints, including semantic, lexical, and usage-based factors, have been shown to influence dative alternation across different languages. This work explores whether fine-grained statistics and semantic properties of the verb affect the acceptability of dative constructions in Spanish. First, a corpus analysis reveals that verbs of different semantic classes occur naturally in alternative dative constructions, a pattern quite different from English. The fact that dative alternation appears independent of semantic classes challenges traditional semantic-based approaches. Second, acceptability rating tasks reveal that dative constructions containing highly entrenched word combinations and frequent word order are judged more acceptable regardless of the verbs' semantics. The results are interpreted in favor of usage-based accounts: Acceptability of dative constructions may be language-specific and depend on patterns of use and conventionalization.
Are metaphorical classes essentially abstract?
(John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2023) Omid Khatin‐Zadeh; Zahra Eskandari; Florencia Reali; Hassan Banaruee; Fernando Marmolejo‐Ramos
Abstract This article compares abstract concepts and metaphorical classes in order to emphasize the abstract nature of metaphorical classes. Sam Glucksberg (2003) used the expression “abstract superordinate categories” to refer to metaphorical classes. Drawing on this proposal and George Lakoff & Mark Johnson’s (1980) conceptual metaphor theory, this article suggests that metaphorical classes and abstract concepts share three essential features: (1) members of abstract concepts and metaphorical classes are highly diverse and heterogeneous; (2) both metaphorical classes and abstract concepts are highly reliant on situations and culture; (3) both metaphorical classes and abstract concepts are reliant on semantic associations and external concepts rather than intrinsic properties. Therefore, it may be claimed that metaphorical classes are a special group of abstract concepts with a special type of behavior.
Comunicación aumentativa y alternativa y construcción narrativa en niños con parálisis cerebral
(2020) Andrea Viera; Florencia Reali
El presente trabajo constituye una revision exhaustiva que tiene por objetivo establecer la importancia de los Sistemas Aumentativos y Alternativos de Comunicacion (SAAC) como herramientas de asistencia para la produccion narrativa en ninos y adolescentes con paralisis cerebral (PC). En particular, se analizaron las practicas educativas relacionadas a la elicitacion narrativa que incluyeron el uso de SAAC en el contexto de poblacion escolar. La metodologia utilizada para la revision de la literatura incluyo una busqueda sistematica y una seleccion de articulos de acuerdo con criterios establecidos, que incluian que fueran estudios originales que incluyeran el uso de SAAC. La revision y analisis fue realizada de acuerdo a los principios de revision documental planteados en Flick (2009) que incluyen la verificacion de autenticidad, credibilidad, representatividad y significado de los documentos seleccionados. Seguido, se realizo un analisis de acuerdo a la organizacion tematica motivada por los objetivos de la revision. Los articulos fueron sistematizados e integrados de acuerdo a las siguientes categorias: (a) descripcion general de los SAAC; (b) uso de SAAC y sus limitaciones; (c) efectos del uso de SAAC en la interaccion comunicativa; (d) evaluacion de SAAC en intervenciones que fomentan la elicitacion narrativa. Los resultados obtenidos en este trabajo permitieron concluir que, debido a su diseno, si bien los SAAC favorecen significativamente la comunicacion inmediata, estos sistemas presentan limitaciones importantes a la hora de maximizar los procesos de elicitacion narrativa en contextos de interaccion. Se concluyo que, para garantizar la efectividad de los SAAC, es clave que estos sistemas sean capaces de potenciar la productividad de lenguaje en todos sus niveles, incluyendo los aspectos semanticos, sintacticos y pragmaticos. En este sentido, el diseno y desarrollo de SAAC requiere de una exploracion sistematica de su uso en contextos de produccion del lenguaje que vayan mas alla de la comunicacion inmediata. Por otra parte, se observo que el uso de tecnicas de elicitacion narrativa mediadas por SAAC en ninos con PC podria potenciar la construccion espontanea si se usan las estrategias de andamiaje adecuadas.
Emotion metaphors in Spanish retain aspects of spatial meaning
(John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2018) Florencia Reali; Cesar Riaño
Abstract Previous work has shown that the abstract use of the spatial prepositions in and on retains spatial meaning, such as containment and support that includes the control relationship between a located object (the figure) and a reference object (the landmark/ground) ( Feist & Gentner, 2003 ; Talmy, 1983 ). We extend these ideas to the case of metaphorical descriptions of emotion in Spanish—some of them featuring the emotion as a located entity in the person’s body, others featuring emotion as the ground in which the person’s body stands. Two rating experiments show that people judge emotions in Spanish as more controllable when they are described as located entities (the figure) than when they are described as grounds. We conclude that functional elements of the spatial meaning of the preposition en in Spanish are extended to abstract uses in metaphor, affecting the perceived controllability of emotions.
Frequency Affects Object Relative Clause Processing: Some Evidence in Favor of Usage‐Based Accounts
(Wiley, 2014) Florencia Reali
The processing difficulty of nested grammatical structure has been explained by different psycholinguistic theories. Here I provide corpus and behavioral evidence in favor of usage‐based models, focusing on the case of object relative clauses in Spanish as a first language. A corpus analysis of spoken Spanish reveals that, as in English, the overwhelming majority of object relative clauses are pronominal. Spanish allows flexibility of order of surface constituents within the clause. The corpus data revealed significant asymmetries in the frequency of order of surface constituents in pronominal and nonpronominal object relative clauses. Two offline rating tasks and one self‐paced reading task were next conducted, showing that complexity judgments and reading processing data mirrored the fine‐grained distributional patterns revealed by the corpus analysis. I conclude that frequent object relative clauses may become easier to process as a consequence of use and repetition, and I discuss the implications of these findings for usage‐based models of language representation and access.
Mechanisms involved in the formation of metaphorical classes within the framework of the class-inclusion model of metaphor comprehension
(2022) Omid Khatin‐Zadeh; Danyal Farsani; Florencia Reali
According to Glucksberg’s class-inclusion model of metaphor comprehension, metaphors are understood by the inclusion of the topic X into a metaphorical class of the vehicle Y. But what is the cognitive mechanisms through which X is included in the metaphorical class of Y? Drawing on previous literature on the roles of semantic features, metonymy, and relations in metaphor processing, this article presents a new proposal according to which every metaphorical class is defined by one of three categories of a concept’s characteristics: semantic features, metonymic aspects, or relational aspects. Each category may consist of a large set of such characteristics. One characteristic (or at most several characteristics) usually defines the metaphorical class of Y. Additionally, it is proposed that the metaphorical class is created by the suppression of metaphorically-irrelevant characteristics, consistent with ideas from Relevance Theory. The result of this process is a metaphorical class which has a higher degree of abstractness compared to the literal class of Y. Finally, it is proposed that the three categories of characteristics may be in interaction with each other. Therefore, in some cases, two or even three categories of characteristics may be involved in the formation of a metaphorical class, but one specific category plays the main role in the process.
Psicología de las masas y democratización digital de la información
(National University of Colombia, 2024) Florencia Reali
La World Wide Web promete una vía hacia la democratización de la información. Sin embargo, si bien los medios online ofrecen espacios para la pluralidad y la diversidad de voces, las nuevas formas de difusión de noticias presentan riesgos: el colectivo tiende a constituirse en “cámaras de eco” donde los mensajes se refuerzan y distorsionan potenciando ideologías extremas de naturaleza totalitaria. Este artículo se pregunta por el goce del sujeto en el colectivo que crea y recibe noticias. Se visita “Psicología de las masas” de Freud y se revisan conceptos lacanianos sobre el riesgo de adoptar una lógica del todo fálico resonante con la promesa de armonía totalitaria en el contexto de la democratización digital.