In pragmatics, the theory of language use, it is standard to assume that communication is a cooperative affair. Recently, this standard view has come under attack by Ducrot and Merin, and it has been proposed that an argumentative view on natural language use is more appropriate. In this paper I discuss to what extent this attack is justified and whether the alternative view can provide a more ...

the necessity of conducting more studies addressing the development of pragmatic profciency and strong pragmatic awareness for english language learners has made the role of instruction and feedback in teaching pragmatic knowledge of utmost importance. the present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of four types of instruction for teaching some pragmatic markers including topic change m...

We consider a decision-making problem to evaluate absolute ratings of alternatives that are compared in pairs according two criteria, subject box constraints on the ratings. The is formulated as log-Chebyshev approximation pairwise comparison matrices by common consistent matrix (a symmetrically reciprocal unit rank), minimize errors for both simultaneously. rearrange constrained bi-objective o...

this research compared ratings of task performance and contextual performance from three different sources: self, peer, and supervisor. participants were service industry employees in the service industries in yogyakarta, indonesia. a sample of 146 employees and 40 supervisors   from the service industries provided ratings of task performance and contextual performance. the results indicated th...

pragmatics is defined as appropriate use of language either to comprehend ideas or to interact in social situations effectively. pragmatic competence, which is processed in the right hemisphere, comprises a number of interrelated skills that manifest in a range of adaptive behaviors. due to the widespread influence of language in communication, studying pragmatic profiles, by developing appropr...

This is the fourth round in my interchange with Barbara Held about the nature and role of objectivity and causality as they relate to the rationale for scientific and scholarly legitimacy of case study knowledge. Throughout, I have found Held’s critical responses to my views collegially delivered and very helpful in stimulating me to clarify and expand upon my own thinking. In this fourth and f...

Objective: To propose a tool to assist trialists in making design decisions that are consistent with their trial’s stated purpose. Study Design and Setting: Randomized trials have been broadly categorized as either having a pragmatic or explanatory attitude. Pragmatic trials seek to answer the question, ‘‘Does this intervention work under usual conditions?,’’ whereas explanatory trials are focu...

OBJECTIVE To test the applicability of multi-criteria decision analysis preference elicitation techniques in cognitively impaired individuals. METHOD A convenience sample of 16 cognitively impaired subjects and 12 healthy controls was asked to participate in a small pilot study. The subjects determined the relative importance of four decision criteria using five different weight elicitation t...

This study focuses on developing the multicriteria collaborative filtering algorithm for improving the prediction accuracy. The approaches applied were user-item multirating matrix decomposition, the measurement of user similarity using cosine formula and multidimensional distance, individual criteria weight calculation, and rating prediction for the overall criteria by a combination approach. ...