this paper examined disagreement in two sets of data in the context of service encounters: problem-solving interactions (doctor-patient communication) and purchase-oriented encounters (pharmacies) from a cross-cultural perspective (spanish-british english). we proposed assertiveness, a term that refers to both socio-psychological and linguistic features of communication, as a concept that may h...

In this paper we present a new computational technique to detect and analyze statistically significant geographic variation in language. While previous approaches have primarily focused on lexical variation between regions, our method identifies words that demonstrate semantic and syntactic variation as well. Our meta-analysis approach captures statistical properties of word usage across geogra...

We present a new computational technique to detect and analyze statistically significant geographic variation in language. Our meta-analysis approach captures statistical properties of word usage across geographical regions and uses statistical methods to identify significant changes specific to regions. While previous approaches have primarily focused on lexical variation between regions, our ...

This paper examines the vowel production of eight young male speakers of Mäori in order to assess whether there are pronunciation differences between those who were raised as L1 speakers of Mäori and those who clearly learnt English first. We demonstrate that the L1 speakers produce two vowel pairs, /a:/ (WÄ), /a/ (WAKA) and /ü:/ (TÜ), /u/ (TUKU) significantly farther back than the L2 speakers....

This study uses articulography, the measurement of the position of tongue and lips during speech, as a tool to quantitatively assess the differences between pronunciations of native and non-native (Dutch) speakers of English. In our study, we focus on two pairs of English sound contrasts: /s/-/ʃ/ and /t/-/θ/. Our analysis focuses on the anterior-posterior position of the tongue tip during the p...

In this paper, we show the first descriptive evidence of factors explaining gender wage differences from a unique questionnaire survey that was carried out on a representative sample for the Czech Republic. We observe large wage differences related to gender; without any reasons, Czech women earn on average 77.80% of men’s wages. The survey uncovers that there is a number of differences among m...

Studies on the role of 'given' and 'new' information in speech communication normally concentrate mainly on prosadie aspects like duration and fundamental frequency. Except for one study, no significant differences between 'given' and 'new' words are found. ln our study we included, unlike the other studies, spectral measurements tagether with duration and FO for vowels occurring in (the same) ...

The development of an industry is seen as the outcome of a differential game in which market shares flow in response to price differences. It is hypothesized that while all consumers eventually react to price differences, some are slower than others. If scale advantages have some influence on marginal costs around average market share, then, under reasonable conditions, only st'ewed size distri...