Search results

1 – 10 of over 31000
Article
Publication date: 10 August 2018

Mohammadali Zolfagharian, Fuad Hasan and Pramod Iyer

Focused on multicultural service encounters, this paper aims to argue that the interplay between customer language preference, employee choice and use of language affects…

1222

Abstract

Purpose

Focused on multicultural service encounters, this paper aims to argue that the interplay between customer language preference, employee choice and use of language affects perceived interaction quality, which in turn influences loyalty, customer brand identification and positive word-of-mouth.

Design/methodology/approach

Using Mexican Americans (Spanish) as the focal ethnic group (language), a 3 (contexts: Fast food-English; Post office-English; Post office-Spanish) × 4 (scenarios: customer language preference adhered to; adapted to; mixed; ignored) between-subject scenario-based experiment was conducted.

Findings

Customers perceive a higher, or at least equal, level of interaction quality when the employee choice of language adheres to their preference than when the employee switches to their preferred language after missing it initially. Both of these scenarios lead to significantly higher interaction quality compared to when the employee ignores customer language preference or combines elements from two languages throughout the interaction. The adverse effects of ignoring customer preferred language or mixing it with another language are accentuated among customers with low ethnic identification and those with low level of bilingualism. Prior findings regard the interplay among interaction quality, and the remainder of outcomes variables were also corroborated.

Research limitations/implications

The findings add to the literature that examines the dynamics of intercultural service encounters and draws attention to employee choice and use of language and its impact on a host of service outcomes, with interaction quality serving as a key mediator.

Practical implications

This study highlights the need for service firms to consider customer language preferences and train and empower employees to meet customer expectations. To the extent that the increasingly viable segments of minority customers remain underserved in most developed markets, this study provides insights into cultivating a profitable customer segment.

Originality/value

This study demonstrates the role of employee choice and use of language and its consequences.

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 32 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 October 2018

Hengyi Fu

With the increasing number of online multilingual resources, cross-language information retrieval (CLIR) has drawn much attention from the information retrieval (IR) research…

2902

Abstract

Purpose

With the increasing number of online multilingual resources, cross-language information retrieval (CLIR) has drawn much attention from the information retrieval (IR) research community. However, few studies have examined how and why multilingual searchers seek information in two or more languages, specifically how they switch and mix language in queries to get satisfying results. The purpose of this paper is to focus on Chinese–English bilinguals’ intra-sentential code-switching behaviors in online searches. The scenarios and reasons of code-switching, factors that may affect code-switching, the patterns of mixed language query formulation and reformulation and how current IR systems and other search tools can facilitate such information needs were examined.

Design/methodology/approach

In-depth semi-structured interviews were used as the research method. In total, 30 participants were recruited based on their English proficiency, location and profession, using a purposive sampling method.

Findings

Four scenarios and four reasons for using Chinese–English mixed language queries to cover information needs were identified, and results suggest that linguistic and cultural/social factors are of equivalent importance in code-switching behaviors. English terms and Chinese terms in queries play different roles in searches, and mixed language queries are irreplaceable by either single language queries or other search facilitating features. Findings also suggest current search engines and tools need greater emphasis in the user interface and more user education is required.

Originality/value

This study presents a qualitative analysis of bilinguals’ code-switching behaviors in online searches. Findings are expected to advance the theoretical understanding of bilingual users’ search strategies and interactions with IR systems, and provide insights for designing more effective IR systems and tools to discover multilingual online resources, including cross-language controlled vocabularies, personalized CLIR tools and mixed language query assistants.

Details

Aslib Journal of Information Management, vol. 71 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-3806

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 December 2022

Thea Williamson and Aris Clemons

Little research has been done exploring the nature of multilingual students who are not categorized as English language learners (ELLs) in English language arts (ELA) classes…

Abstract

Purpose

Little research has been done exploring the nature of multilingual students who are not categorized as English language learners (ELLs) in English language arts (ELA) classes. This study about a group of multilingual girls in an ELA class led by a monolingual white teacher aims to show how, when a teacher makes space for translanguaging practices in ELA, multilingual students disrupt norms of English only.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors use reconstructive discourse analysis to understand translanguaging across a variety of linguistic productions for a group of four focal students. Data sources include fieldnotes from 29 classroom observations, writing samples and process documents and 8.5 h of recorded classroom discourse.

Findings

Students used multilingualism across a variety of discourse modes, frequently in spoken language and rarely in written work. Translanguaging was most present in small-group peer talk structures, where students did relationship building, generated ideas for writing and managed their writing agendas, including feelings about writing. In addition, Spanish served as “elevated vocabulary” in writing. Across discourse modes, translanguaging served to develop academic proficiency in writing.

Originality/value

The authors proposed a more expansive approach to data analysis in English-mostly cases – i.e. environments shaped by multilingual students in monolingual school contexts – to argue for anti-deficit approaches to literacy development for multilingual students. Analyzing classroom talk alongside literacy allows for a more nuanced understanding of translanguaging practices in academic writing. They also show how even monolingual teachers can disrupt monolingual hegemony in ELA classrooms with high populations of multilingual students.

Details

English Teaching: Practice & Critique, vol. 22 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1175-8708

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 November 2015

Elena Nichele

– This paper aims to explore the country-of-origin effect, specifically its potential impact on beer labeling, from a linguistic perspective.

520

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the country-of-origin effect, specifically its potential impact on beer labeling, from a linguistic perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper opted for an exploratory study using Sebba’s framework for multilingual texts (2012). Briefly, analysis developed through the observation, the use of notes taken during the phase of data collection and their comparison.

Findings

The paper provides empirical insights on how beer labels appear to signal some interesting occurring trends. First, this investigation seems to suggest a link between languages used and their potential to recall country images that producers may be willing to stimulate and enhance. Second, data appeal to products’ countries of origin, using official languages, texts and visual elements strictly interrelated with local cultures.

Research limitations/implications

Because of the chosen approach, results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to apply this framework or explore the same phenomena in other product categories and geographical markets too. Finally, deeper insights on the topic could be reached taking into consideration other financial data, for example market performance.

Practical implications

The paper includes implications for the development of further research regarding brand image and reputation, in general, and the country-of-origin effect, specifically.

Originality/value

This project is innovative for two main reasons: first, its methodological approach and, second, its combination of linguistics and marketing-related aspects. Hence, exploring possible links across the two disciplines, ultimately trying to examine potential reasons underlying their use, was the final objective of this paper. Finally, no existing publications appear to use Sebba’s framework to analyze beer labels from a linguistic perspective. Consequently, no researchers seem to have explored potential interrelations among this analysis and marketing concepts and strategies.

Details

On the Horizon, vol. 23 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1074-8121

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 November 2020

Jagroop Kaur and Jaswinder Singh

Normalization is an important step in all the natural language processing applications that are handling social media text. The text from social media poses a different kind of…

Abstract

Purpose

Normalization is an important step in all the natural language processing applications that are handling social media text. The text from social media poses a different kind of problems that are not present in regular text. Recently, a considerable amount of work has been done in this direction, but mostly in the English language. People who do not speak English code mixed the text with their native language and posted text on social media using the Roman script. This kind of text further aggravates the problem of normalizing. This paper aims to discuss the concept of normalization with respect to code-mixed social media text, and a model has been proposed to normalize such text.

Design/methodology/approach

The system is divided into two phases – candidate generation and most probable sentence selection. Candidate generation task is treated as machine translation task where the Roman text is treated as source language and Gurmukhi text is treated as the target language. Character-based translation system has been proposed to generate candidate tokens. Once candidates are generated, the second phase uses the beam search method for selecting the most probable sentence based on hidden Markov model.

Findings

Character error rate (CER) and bilingual evaluation understudy (BLEU) score are reported. The proposed system has been compared with Akhar software and RB\_R2G system, which are also capable of transliterating Roman text to Gurmukhi. The performance of the system outperforms Akhar software. The CER and BLEU scores are 0.268121 and 0.6807939, respectively, for ill-formed text.

Research limitations/implications

It was observed that the system produces dialectical variations of a word or the word with minor errors like diacritic missing. Spell checker can improve the output of the system by correcting these minor errors. Extensive experimentation is needed for optimizing language identifier, which will further help in improving the output. The language model also seeks further exploration. Inclusion of wider context, particularly from social media text, is an important area that deserves further investigation.

Practical implications

The practical implications of this study are: (1) development of parallel dataset containing Roman and Gurmukhi text; (2) development of dataset annotated with language tag; (3) development of the normalizing system, which is first of its kind and proposes translation based solution for normalizing noisy social media text from Roman to Gurmukhi. It can be extended for any pair of scripts. (4) The proposed system can be used for better analysis of social media text. Theoretically, our study helps in better understanding of text normalization in social media context and opens the doors for further research in multilingual social media text normalization.

Originality/value

Existing research work focus on normalizing monolingual text. This study contributes towards the development of a normalization system for multilingual text.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics, vol. 13 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-378X

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 15 December 2020

Noor Azam Haji-Othman

This article explores the concept of ‘linguistic landscape’ (Landry & Bourhis, 1997) and applies it to the Tutong Town Centre, which was depicted briefly in the film Gema Dari

Abstract

This article explores the concept of ‘linguistic landscape’ (Landry & Bourhis, 1997) and applies it to the Tutong Town Centre, which was depicted briefly in the film Gema Dari Menara (1968). Due to the cursory and grainy depiction on screen, a study of the present linguistic landscape of the town featured in the film is far more practical than a detailed comparison of the linguistic landscape of Tutong town then and now. In essence the film has provided a geographical scope for linguistic/ semiotic analysis presented in this paper. The study of signs ‘in a given geographical location’ (Ben Rafael et al, 2006: 14), using the distributive count approach, lends itself to a greater understanding of the ethnolinguistic vitality and sociolinguistic interactions of the language groups living in what can be described as a multilingual and multiracial small town. Such evidence of language use in the public sphere results from an interplay of various factors within the town’s societal context, that could be related to Scollon & Scollons’ (2003:2) idea of ‘the social meaning of material placement of sign and discourses'. This study challenges the notion of ethnic languages’ 'disappearance' from public sphere, and instead raises questions about their ‘initiation’ into public use. The study also concludes that the supposed multilinguality of the Tutong Town population is not represented in the linguistic landscape.

Details

Southeast Asia: A Multidisciplinary Journal, vol. 20 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1819-5091

Article
Publication date: 20 February 2020

Johann Enrique Pirela Morillo, Yamely Margarita Almarza Franco and Joel Alhuay-Quispe

The purpose of this study is to present a conceptual analysis to artistic manifestation represented through graphic and multimedia pieces that are available in social media…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to present a conceptual analysis to artistic manifestation represented through graphic and multimedia pieces that are available in social media networks as document-speeches in relation to protests in Venezuela during April-July, 2017. Also, this paper proposes the implementation of digital documentation tool that allows retrieval, organization, systematization and preservation of visual contents.

Design/methodology/approach

Semiotic analysis based on 44 artistic pieces (images and videos) posted on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to protest in Venezuela against the government of Nicolás Maduro in 2017. The authors defined a metadata group for content creation of multimedia and testing information retrieval from general data, textual contents, file formats and semiotic description using Omeka software.

Findings

The digital documentation of artivism proposed has the potential to sustain over time as documents likely to be studied. It also constitutes an important analysis and a historical reconstruction, which must be taken into consideration to conduct research in the future political and social process of Venezuela.

Social implications

Cyber-artivism, a concept related to online activism, is conceived as an artistic expression mediated by technologies and social media emerging in the context of social environments with a political–demographic character.

Originality/value

Digital preservation of multimedia contents by their semiotic and historic value as artistic cyber-activism.

Details

Digital Library Perspectives, vol. 36 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2059-5816

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 2016

Paul J. Yoder, Amanda Kibler and Stephanie van Hover

Using the systematic search and coding procedures of a meta-synthesis, this paper reviews the extant literature on English language learners (ELLs) in the social studies…

2546

Abstract

Using the systematic search and coding procedures of a meta-synthesis, this paper reviews the extant literature on English language learners (ELLs) in the social studies classroom. The 15 studies making up the corpus adhere to both topical and methodological criteria. The Language-Content-Task (LCT) Framework informed the coding and analysis of the results. Discussion of the findings provides three primary implications: (1) the need for linguistically and culturally responsive instruction for ELLs in social studies classes, (2) the need for increased training for inservice and preservice social studies teachers in preparation for teaching ELLs, and (3) the need for future research among ELLs in the social studies context.

Article
Publication date: 18 August 2021

Sally Ann Ashton-Hay, Geoffrey Lamberton, Yining Zhou and Tania von der Heidt

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of bilingual learning strategies designed to support Chinese undergraduate business students facing significant learning challenges in…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of bilingual learning strategies designed to support Chinese undergraduate business students facing significant learning challenges in an Australian university capstone curriculum delivered at their Chinese university. These challenges include the students’ difficulty understanding discipline-specific English terminology, using this terminology to discuss disciplinary concepts with their instructors and stress caused by an abnormally high study load.

Design/methodology/approach

In response to these challenges, the project team implemented a suite of bilingual strategies to reduce cognitive load and enhance learning, which included Chinese-English glossaries to build disciplinary-specific vocabularies; a bilingual teaching assistant to enable students to communicate in their language of choice; the use of WeChat to connect students to staff and to provide translanguaging opportunities; and bilateral managerial and academic support for strengthening the institutional cross-cultural relationship through staff exchange and language learning programs. A series of surveys were administered to measure the impact of these strategies on students’ learning, and WeChat logs were analysed to determine students’ linguistic preferences during discussions with staff and students.

Findings

The results of this project show strong support for each bilingual strategy, high academic performance amongst the student cohort, the positive contribution to learning and connection provided by social media technology, students’ language of choice preferences and chosen translanguaging styles and the important role of teaching staff in supporting international students’ intercultural learning and adaptation to a foreign university learning system.

Originality/value

This original evidence-based study helps to address the gap in bilingual education in Australian higher education demonstrating a successful strategy for dealing with language and discipline-specific challenges confronting EAL students.

Details

Journal of International Education in Business, vol. 15 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-469X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1990

Mary H. Beaven and Dennis J. Scotti

Argues that a cognitive bias is found in the language used todescribe services, since services are defined in relation tomanufacturing. Proposes that services should be accurately…

2796

Abstract

Argues that a cognitive bias is found in the language used to describe services, since services are defined in relation to manufacturing. Proposes that services should be accurately described as they are very different from manufactured goods. Considers service from an alternative viewpoint, highlighting this perspective′s implications for marketing thought. Draws attention to practical implications with regard to the marketing mix.

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 4 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 31000