In this pilot study we investigated the vocal strategies of Cantonese women when addressing an attractive vs. unattractive male. We recruited 19 young female native speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese ...who completed an attractiveness rating task, followed by a speech production task where they were presented a subset of the same faces. By comparing the rating results and corresponding acoustic data of the facial stimuli, we found that when young Cantonese women spoke to an attractive male, they were less breathy, lower in fundamental frequency, and with denser formants, all of which are considered to project a larger body. Participants who were more satisfied with their own height used these vocal strategies more actively. These results are discussed in terms of the body size projection principle.
This book takes you into a common-law courtroom which is in no way similar to any other courtroom where common law is practised. This uniqueness is characterised, in particular, by the use of English ...as the trial language in a predominantly Cantonese-speaking society.
The importance of quality interpreting in legal and healthcare settings can never be stressed enough, when any mistake - no matter how small - can compromise the delivery of justice or put someone's ...health at risk. This book addresses issues arising from interpreting in legal and healthcare settings by presenting cutting-edge research findings in interpreting and interpreter education in a number of countries around the world - including those which are relatively new to the field. It contains selected papers from a conference dedicated to such themes - the First International Conference on Legal and Healthcare Interpreting - as well as other invited papers related to the fields of legal and healthcare interpreting. This book is useful not only to scholars and educators, interpreters and translators working in legal or healthcare settings, but also to legal and healthcare professionals who work with interpreters in their day-to-day work, including judges, lawyers, police officers, doctors, midwives and nurses.
Abstract
The right to a fair trial for defendants in the criminal process is internationally recognised as a fundamental
human right that, among others, includes the right of defendants to have the ...free assistance of an interpreter if they cannot
understand or speak the language used in court. The failure to provide the required interpreting service or a deficiency in the
service provided can be raised as grounds of appeal for potentially denying or compromising defendants’ right to a fair trial.
This article discusses the limitations of
chuchotage
, a mode of interpreting commonly used in domestic courts.
These limitations potentially compromise interpreting accuracy, and, specifically, the absence of a record of the interpretation
can spell problems for appellate courts dealing with appeals advanced on the ground of the deficient interpreting provided in this
mode. This study reviews four such appeals in Hong Kong and reveals inconsistencies in the appellate courts’ rulings and the
reasoning behind their decisions. This study argues that these inconsistencies can lead to problems with implementing the
principle of
stare decisis
, while at the same time sending confusing messages about the standard of interpreting
required to safeguard a defendant’s right to a fair trial and about the future use of
chuchotage
in court.
Trials heard by a foreign ear Ng, Eva
The international journal of speech, language and the law,
01/2022, Letnik:
29, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Previous studies into jury comprehension have focused on Anglo-American courts and highlighted concerns about lay English-speaking jurors’ ability to understand jury instructions. Such studies have ...pointed to the use of legalese as the major cause of the problem and overlooked the impact of the manner of delivery on jury comprehension. This study sets out to examine Chinese jurors’ ability to understand trials conducted in English, which they speak as a second or even a foreign language (L2), and to explore what L2 speakers of English find problematic for their comprehension of courtroom discourse. A random sample of local Chinese eligible for jury service (n=53) are recruited from the community to take part in a comprehension test of courtroom discourse using authentic audio recordings of two jury trials from the High Court of Hong Kong. Taking the Voice Projection Framework (Heffer 2018) as a point of reference, this study demonstrates that, while discursive voicing is to blame for the participants’ comprehension problem, as manifested by studies with native English-speaking jurors, in the case of L2-speaking jurors, the speakers’ physical voicing of courtroom discourse is found to be a significant factor in impeding jurors’ comprehension of the discourse. This article argues that making courtroom discourse accessible to L2 speaking jurors requires more than improving discursive voicing. Physical voicing matters as much, if not more.
This practical resource will allow interpreters and translators to quickly read up on healthcare settings, familiarizing themselves with anatomy, physiology, medical terminology and frequently ...encountered conditions, diagnostic tests and treatment options.
Post-marketing safety studies of medicines often rely on administrative claims databases to identify adverse outcomes following drug exposure. Valid ascertainment of outcomes is essential for ...accurate results. We aim to quantify the validity of diagnostic codes for serious hypocalcemia and dermatologic adverse events from insurance claims data among women with postmenopausal osteoporosis (PMO).
We identified potential cases of serious hypocalcemia and dermatologic events through ICD-9 diagnosis codes among women with PMO within claims from a large US healthcare insurer (June 2005-May 2010). A physician adjudicated potential hypocalcemic and dermatologic events identified from the primary position on emergency department (ED) or inpatient claims through medical record review. Positive predictive values (PPVs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) quantified the fraction of potential cases that were confirmed.
Among 165,729 patients with PMO, medical charts were obtained for 40 of 55 (73%) potential hypocalcemia cases; 16 were confirmed (PPV 40%, 95% CI 25-57%). The PPV was higher for ED than inpatient claims (82 vs. 24%). Among 265 potential dermatologic events (primarily urticaria or rash), we obtained 184 (69%) charts and confirmed 128 (PPV 70%, 95% CI 62-76%). The PPV was higher for ED than inpatient claims (77 vs. 39%).
Diagnostic codes for hypocalcemia and dermatologic events may be sufficient to identify events giving rise to emergency care, but are less accurate for identifying events within hospitalizations.
The genus
Listeria contains the two pathogenic species
Listeria monocytogenes and
Listeria ivanovii and the four apparently apathogenic species
Listeria innocua,
Listeria seeligeri,
Listeria ...welshimeri, and
Listeria grayi. Pathogenicity of the former two species is enabled by an approximately 9
kb virulence gene cluster which is also present in a modified form in
L. seeligeri. For all
Listeria species, the sequence of the virulence gene cluster locus and its flanking regions was either determined in this study or assembled from public databases. Furthermore, some virulence-associated internalin loci were compared among the six species. Phylogenetic analyses were performed on a data set containing the sequences of
prs,
ldh,
vclA, and
vclB (all directly flanking the virulence gene cluster), as well as the
iap gene and the 16S and 23S-rRNA coding genes which are located at different sites in the listerial chromosomes.
L. grayi represents the deepest branch within the genus. The remaining five species form two groupings which have a high bootstrap support and which are consistently found by using different treeing methods. One lineage represents
L. monocytogenes and
L. innocua, while the other contains
L. welshimeri,
L. ivanovii and
L. seeligeri, with
L. welshimeri forming the deepest branch. Based on this perception, we tried to reconstruct the evolution of the virulence gene cluster. Since no traces of lateral gene transfer events could be detected the most parsimonious scenario is that the virulence gene cluster was present in the common ancestor of
L. monocytogenes,
L. innocua,
L. ivanovii,
L. seeligeri and
L. welshimeri and that the pathogenic capability has been lost in two separate events represented by
L. innocua and
L. welshimeri. This hypothesis is also supported by the location of the putative deletion breakpoints of the virulence gene cluster within
L. innocua and
L. welshimeri.
The Gram‐positive bacterium Staphylococcus aureus infects diverse tissues and causes a wide spectrum of diseases, suggesting that it possesses a repertoire of distinct molecular mechanisms promoting ...bacterial survival in disparate in vivo environments. Signature‐tag transposon mutagenesis screening of a 1520‐member library identified numerous S. aureus genetic loci affecting growth and survival in four complementary animal infection models including mouse abscess, bacteraemia and wound and rabbit endocarditis. Of a total of 237 in vivo attenuated mutants identified by the murine models, less than 10% showed attenuation in all three models, emphasizing the advantage of screening in diverse disease environments. The largest gene class identified by these analyses encoded peptide and amino acid transporters, some of which were important for S. aureus survival in all animal infection models tested. The identification of staphylococcal loci affecting growth, persistence and virulence in multiple tissue environments provides insight into the complexities of human infection and on the molecular mechanisms that could be targeted by new antibacterial therapies.
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