Topic Review
Subject–Verb–Object
In linguistic typology, subject–verb–object (SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first, the verb second, and the object third. Languages may be classified according to the dominant sequence of these elements in unmarked sentences (i.e., sentences in which an unusual word order is not used for emphasis). English is included in this group. An example is "Sam ate oranges." The label often includes ergative languages that do not have subjects, but have an agent–verb–object (AVO) order. SVO is the second-most common order by number of known languages, after SOV. Together, SVO and SOV account for more than 75% of the world's languages. It is also the most common order developed in Creole languages, suggesting that it may be somehow more initially "obvious" to human psychology. Languages regarded as SVO include: All Bantu languages, Albanian, Arabic dialects, Assyrian, Bosnian, Bulgarian,[a 1] Chinese, English, Estonian, Finnish (but see below), French, Greek, Hausa, Icelandic (with the V2 restriction), Igbo, Italian, Javanese, Khmer, Latvian, Macedonian, Malay (Indonesian, Malaysian), Modern Hebrew, Norwegian (with the V2 restriction), Polish, Portuguese, Quiché, Reo Rapa, Romanian, Russian (but see below), Slovene, Spanish, Swedish (with the V2 restriction), Thai and Lao, Ukrainian (but see below), Vietnamese and Yoruba. Ancient Greek has free syntactic order, though Classical Greeks tended to favor SOV. Many famous phrases are SVO, however.
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  • 29 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Sustainable Development of Chinese High School English Learners
Since the establishment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), countries all around the globe have been working together toward an inclusive, sustainable, and resilient future. However, there is still a long way to go before meeting the aim of sustainable development on time. Providing quality education and promoting gender equality are important tasks encompassed by the UN development goals. Quality education is a key component of the SDGs, yet little is known about how to accomplish the SDGs’ quality education targets. Second language learning plays an essential role in cultivating international innovators, and it is also an important way of achieving sustainable development. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many countries to close schools, posing a huge challenge to the sustainability of quality education. Managing the relationship between quality education and sustainable development in this new era is our top priority. In this special period, it becomes particularly important to study students’ motivation to learn a second language.
  • 414
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Taboo Language in Audiovisual Translation
Translating taboo language is a daunting task and solving it with spatial-temporal constraints makes it even more challenging. Taboo language, or emotionally charged language, is often toned down in audiovisual translation (AVT) by deleting the words and expressions, if space is limited, or by using euphemisms. Studies have focused on increasingly diverse subtitling strategies and techniques in rendering taboo language in professional and non-professional subtitling (NPS). Some scholars noted the fluidity, heterogeneity, and fuzziness of NPS. One of the main issues is that this NPS term implies the lack of professional training and thus poor translation quality, neglecting the creative and flexible nature of this kind of subtitling practice.
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  • 23 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Teachers’ Perceptions and Appropriation of EFL Educational Reforms
Educational reforms and educational policy changes have favored the learning of English as a foreign language (EFL) in public education. Empirical research has examined how EFL specialist teachers in urban public schools perceive these changes or the extent to which they adopt a new curriculum. Nonetheless, the new EFL policies have also had an impact on rural schools where generalist teachers are forced to teach English along with other areas of the curriculum.
  • 376
  • 07 Aug 2023
Topic Review Video Peer Reviewed
The Human Passion for Music
Music is a universal feature of human societies, which suggests that an evolutionary perspective should help people understand the appreciation. The reward (pleasure) system of the brain offers a suitable framework. The primary evolutionary advantage is probably related to the importance of language; features of sound, such as purity, harmony, complexity, and rhythmicity, are useful for facilitating oral communication. One would expect evolution to associate rewards with these qualities in order to stimulate the development of brain regions involved in interpreting and producing relevant sounds. There are additional adaptive aspects of music, such as relaxation, social coherence, and sexual selection. Music can be regarded as a superstimulus that accentuates and exploits rewards associated with hearing. As such, music is not necessarily adaptive in a biological sense, but serves the purpose of improving quality of life. 
  • 873
  • 09 Jun 2022
Topic Review
The Language of Deception
Digital forensic investigations are becoming increasingly crucial in criminal investigations and civil litigations, especially in cases of corporate espionage and intellectual property theft as more communication occurs online via e-mail and social media. Deceptive opinion spam analysis is an emerging field of research that aims to detect and identify fraudulent reviews, comments, and other forms of deceptive online content. 
  • 440
  • 09 Jan 2024
Topic Review
Timor–Alor–Pantar Languages
The Timor–Alor–Pantar (TAP) languages are a family of Papuan (non-Austronesian) languages spoken in Timor, Kisar, and the Alor archipelago in Southern Indonesia. Holton and Klamer (2018) classify Timor–Alor–Pantar as an independent language family, since they find links with Trans-New Guinea too unconvincing.
  • 368
  • 10 Oct 2022
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Tracking Eye Movements as a Window on Language Processing: The Visual World Paradigm
This entry overviews the pioneering experimental studies exploiting eye movement data to investigate language processing in real time. After examining how vision and language were found to be closely related, herein focus the discussion on the evolution of eye-tracking methodologies to investigate children’s language development. To conclude, herein provide some insights about the use of eye-tracking technology for research purposes, focusing on data collection and data analysis
  • 447
  • 03 Mar 2023
Topic Review
Trique Language
The Triqui (/ˈtriːki/), or Trique, languages are Oto-Manguean languages of Mexico spoken by the Trique people of the state of Oaxaca and the state of Baja California (due to recent population movements). They belong to the Mixtecan branch together with the Mixtec languages and Cuicatec.
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  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Ural–Altaic Languages
Ural–Altaic, Uralo-Altaic or Uraltaic is a linguistic convergence zone and former language-family proposal uniting the Uralic and the Altaic (in the narrow sense) languages. It is generally now agreed that even the Altaic languages most likely do not share a common descent: the similarities among Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic are better explained by diffusion and borrowing. The term continues to be used for the central Eurasian typological, grammatical and lexical convergence zone. Indeed, "Ural-Altaic" may be preferable to "Altaic" in this sense. For example, J. Janhunen states that "speaking of 'Altaic' instead of 'Ural-Altaic' is a misconception, for there are no areal or typological features that are specific to 'Altaic' without Uralic." Originally suggested in the 18th century, the genealogical and racial hypotheses remained debated into the mid-20th century, often with disagreements exacerbated by pan-nationalist agendas. It had many proponents in Britain. Since the 1960s, the proposed language family has been widely rejected. A relationship between the Altaic, Indo-European and Uralic families was revived in the context of the Nostratic hypothesis, which was popular for a time, with for example Allan Bomhard treating Uralic, Altaic and Indo-European as coordinate branches. However, Nostratic too is now mostly rejected.
  • 2.1K
  • 31 Oct 2022
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