Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis study investigates the interwoven relationship between the metadiscourse of (im)politeness, language ideologies, and identity. It examines YouTube comments on a video recording of a controversial incident in Taiwan in which a Taiwanese American, J, insulted a bus driver in English, a marked language choice in the local context. It was found that J's abusive language and his language choice being English were the top sources of offense as expressed in the comments, and four main strands of language ideologies are identified accordingly. We see the taking of offense in the critical comments as social actions in two senses: each comment is an individual pragmatic act sanctioning a perceived moral transgression, while, collectively, the comments serve as a discursive space where language ideologies are shaped, contested, and reinforced. We further explore how various identities, such as "foreigner", "ABC", and "Taiwanese" are discursively constructed in the process of impoliteness assessment and how the perceived attack on the driver's social identity face is motivated by J's perceived identities and presumed language proficiency. We argue that the shift in focus to the evaluativity of (im)politeness makes it possible to bring (im)politeness research and sociolinguistics closer to each other.

Both ordinary least squares (OLS) and two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression methods are sensitive to multicollinearity. The standard statistical solution to the multicollinearity problem is to use one of a family of biased, variance-reduced estimation methods collectively known as ridge regression (RR). In the presence of multicollinearity, RR is usually more efficient than OLS; thus, in theory, two-stage ridge regression (2SRR) should be able to outperform 2SLS. RR, however, is not a problem-free method for reducing variance inflation. It is a stochastic procedure when it should be nonstochastic, and it does not meet the boundary condition. It is argued that the problems of RR stem from the use of the minimum mean square error criterion. An alternative called the variance normalization criterion is proposed that, in theory, copes with the dilemmas of RR while preserving the advantages of RR over OLS. Normalization ridge regression (NR) is used to estimate a nonorthogonal recursive model, and two-stage normalization ridge regression (2SNR) is used to estimate a nonorthogonal, nonrecursive model. Comparisons were made between OLS, RR, and NR estimates and between 2SLS, 2SRR, and 2SNR. On the basis of eight performance indices it was concluded that the NR and 2SNR procedures were efficient variance reduction methods, and hence, useful statistical solutions in the last resort to the multicollinearity problem.

Abstract
The emissions from cooking with a gas stove are harmful to human health, among which NO2 has been linked to an increased risk of asthma incidence. The use of kitchen hoods has been an effective solution to mitigate exposure to cooking emissions; however, information on their performance in Taiwanese households was extremely limited. This study aimed to evaluate hood performance in removing NO2 in eight Taiwanese households, using two kitchen hoods with distinct laboratory performance.
We recruited eight Taiwanese houses and conducted repeated, 3-day integrated sampling for NO2 in kitchens, living rooms, and balconies for two months per home. Two kitchen hoods with distinct performance in the laboratory tests were chosen to undergo two consecutive 4-week sampling. In the second week of each hood test, we designed a recipe-control week to ensure all the ingredients and the way of cooking for each household were in comparable conditions. Additionally, the time-activity data were collected to account for cooking activities and potential pollutant sources.
Our results showed that using different kitchen hoods impacted NO2 concentrations in the same household. However, when using the same hood, the NO2 concentration differed by cooking activities across different homes, even in the recipe-control weeks. No significant, consistent difference was found between the hoods using NO2 as the indicator, suggesting that environmental factors played an important role in influencing hood performance. Findings from this study provide insights for evaluating the hood performance in Taiwanese houses with different cooking activities and other factors in the future.