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Re: [xmca] Deb Roy: The birth of a word



I have gotten so far as to download some articles by now (always a good
first step!), but haven't had the chance to read them.  It looks like some
of his recent, lone-authored pieces are the most relevant.  I'll attach a
few here if anyone is interested.
Actually, it turns out that not all of these are lone-authored--but, of
interest nonetheless.
Happy perusing,
  Lauren

On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 11:38 AM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> Seems like just the kind of suggestion a brilliant mind on XMCA such as
> yours would suggest, Lauren! Thanks for the pointed pointer. Audience
> matters a lot with respect to what is performed and the meaning created.
>
> From your reading of the written material, what most interested you?
>
> I'll take a look too.
> mike
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 10:26 AM, Lauren Zentz <laurenzentz@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> With all due respect to all the brilliant minds on this list and in this
>> discussion, I have been following along here and there since this
>> conversation started and wondering the entire time exactly what research
>> and
>> knowledge implications we should be worried about based on a 20 minute TED
>> Talk.  It seems that for us as researchers it is very important to know
>> what
>> Roy is doing with language acquisition and development research, and who
>> will be buying which ideas that he puts forth; but I feel like the
>> intended
>> message of his talk, which was given to a *very* broad, and generally
>> non-linguist, non-cognitivist, and non-social scientist audience, was
>> basically to demonstrate how amazing are the technological tools he is
>> using
>> to do this research, and to generally inspire a larger population of
>> listeners regarding how complex and precious is the nature of human
>> (language) development.
>> I wonder if maybe, if we want to discuss the implications of his research,
>> those of us interested could take a look at the actual publications he has
>> written, where he has published them, and what audiences read them:
>> http://web.media.mit.edu/~dkroy/publications/index.html.
>>
>> Lauren Zentz
>> Doctoral Candidate, Language, Reading and Culture
>> College of Education, University of Arizona
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 9:48 AM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > I wonder if criticisms of the sort voiced in this company might not
>> > influence the subsequent course of inquiry. There are a bunch of
>> critical
>> > comments below the Roy
>> > presentation that could benefit from this discussion.
>> > mike
>> >
>> > On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 9:14 AM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
>> >
>> > >
>> > > On Mar 16, 2011, at 9:16 PM, David Kellogg wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > I am not entirely sure I agree with Martin's and Jim's criticisms.
>> > First
>> > > of all, when I read Halliday's work on early language acquisition, it
>> > seems
>> > > MORE objective than Deb Roy's "space time worms". Halliday is looking
>> at
>> > > grammar and especially at function. But I am really not sure at all
>> what
>> > Deb
>> > > Roy is looking at. I can't even understand, when I am looking at the
>> > worms,
>> > > what is space and what is time, but above all I can't understand how
>> it
>> > > helps him organize his transcriptions. (I can see how it makes for a
>> cool
>> > > presentation, though!)
>> > >
>> > > Like Jim, I'd like to clarify my previous message. I didn't mean to
>> sound
>> > > as though I were rejecting any use of technology for this kind of
>> > research.
>> > > Obviously videorecording and other techniques of objectification are
>> > crucial
>> > > for the study of a phenomenon as fleeting as speech. But any
>> > investigation
>> > > of children's acquisition of language has to make use of the
>> intuitions
>> > of
>> > > speakers of that language. One needs to be able to recognize the legal
>> > > combinations of phonemes, and syllables, and the illegal combinations,
>> in
>> > > order to plot the movement from one to the other. One needs to
>> recognize
>> > a
>> > > word, and approximations to it, and what it signifies in a specific
>> > occasion
>> > > of use. The utility of computers, then, to help conduct an analysis of
>> a
>> > > child's speech depends on ones ability to program them with the
>> > equivalent
>> > > of these intuitions. The degree of success with which we have been
>> able
>> > to
>> > > program computers to recognize human speech is still very limited, and
>> > our
>> > > ability to program them to understand context has been even more
>> limited.
>> > > Yet once one collects massive amounts of data, as Roy has done, the
>> use
>> > of
>> > > computers becomes virtually unavoidable. My point about Halliday's
>> > research
>> > > was that he drew not only on his speaker/hearer's intuitions, he also
>> > drew
>> > > on what was available to him as a participant interacting intimately
>> with
>> > > the child speaker. Roy of course had the same type of interactions,
>> but
>> > > rather than build on these he chose instead the strategy of massive
>> data
>> > > collection. There is, presumably as a consequence of, apparently no
>> > > attention to semantics in Roy's analysis - not that one would expect
>> to
>> > find
>> > > the child showing an understanding of concepts, but knowing something
>> of
>> > the
>> > > adults' interpretations of his words in context would surely be
>> > tremendously
>> > > helpful in understanding the acquisition process.
>> > >
>> > > I assume that the fact that in his presentation Roy could provide only
>> > > sound bites of the child's approximations to "water" indicates that
>> his
>> > > system for automated analysis of the videos was not able to parse
>> those
>> > > events. Was the computer able to judge these utterances to be tokens
>> of a
>> > > single type? Or did humans still need to go through the recordings to
>> > make
>> > > such judgments? If the latter, then it seems to me that the
>> accumulation
>> > of
>> > > massive amounts of data made the researchers' task more difficult, not
>> > > easier, and it is not clear to me what the benefit is of Roy's
>> approach.
>> > >
>> > > Martin __________________________________________
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>
>

Attachment: Roy 2010 New Horizons Child Lg Acq.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

Attachment: Roy Reiter 2005 Connecting Lg to the World.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

Attachment: Roy 2009 3 Facets of Meaning.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

Attachment: Roy 2010 Semantic Context on Color.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

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