title: Seismic resilience vs. functional recovery of buildings: A critical review

authors: Li, L

abstract: Achieving functional recovery means that buildings can be safely reoccupied in a reasonable amount of time and with minimal repair following a major earthquake. It requires a paradigm shift of building standards and design practice from life-safety-centred to resilience-oriented. This paper presents a critical review of the existing methodologies and frameworks for assessing buildings' seismic resilience and modelling functional recovery. In particular, the insights about how seismic resilience contributes to functional recovery and vice versa were drawn from a comparison of these two concepts. This paper can be helpful in future research to determine the resiliency targets and identify the missing gaps to formulate a framework for functional recovery to be used in the New Zealand engineering and building sector.

text: Seismic resilience vs. functional recovery of buildings: A critical review Achieving functional recovery means that buildings can be safely reoccupied in a reasonable amount of time and with minimal repair following a major earthquake. It requires a paradigm shift of building standards and design practice from life-safety-centred to resilience-oriented. This paper presents a critical review of the existing methodologies and frameworks for assessing buildings' seismic resilience and modelling functional recovery. In particular, the insights about how seismic resilience contributes to functional recovery and vice versa were drawn from a comparison of these two concepts. This paper can be helpful in future research to determine the resiliency targets and identify the missing gaps to formulate a framework for functional recovery to be used in the New Zealand engineering and building sector.

year: 2022

title: How Favourable Attitudes are Formed when the Semantic Associations of a Logotype are Congruent with Brand Personality

authors: Mikaere, Emily Jane

subjects: Logotype

abstract: This thesis explores how favourable attitudes are formed when the semantic associations of a logotype are congruent with brand personality. By analysing the attitude response to varying brands sets, the findings from this thesis indicate that congruency within the underlying connotations of the logotype and brand personality did in fact produce positive responses in both attitude and aesthetics. Through the congruency research in this thesis, several influential factors affecting the attitude formation process towards a brand have been found. These factors include varying degrees of font appropriateness effectiveness, the over-powering effect of semantic associations and how underlying consumer behaviour tendencies affect purchasing decisions. The methodology for this project drew on two surveys completed by approximately 200 participants. Two logotypes and two brand slogans are cross-paired with each other resulting in four "brand" variants containing congruent and incongruent brand elements. Findings from this thesis emphasise the importance of underlying semantic associations in typography, as well as bringing a fresh perspective for graphic designers, typographers and type designers to assist their future work with successful logotype design.

text: How Favourable Attitudes are Formed when the Semantic Associations of a Logotype are Congruent with Brand Personality This thesis explores how favourable attitudes are formed when the semantic associations of a logotype are congruent with brand personality. By analysing the attitude response to varying brands sets, the findings from this thesis indicate that congruency within the underlying connotations of the logotype and brand personality did in fact produce positive responses in both attitude and aesthetics. Through the congruency research in this thesis, several influential factors affecting the attitude formation process towards a brand have been found. These factors include varying degrees of font appropriateness effectiveness, the over-powering effect of semantic associations and how underlying consumer behaviour tendencies affect purchasing decisions. The methodology for this project drew on two surveys completed by approximately 200 participants. Two logotypes and two brand slogans are cross-paired with each other resulting in four "brand" variants containing congruent and incongruent brand elements. Findings from this thesis emphasise the importance of underlying semantic associations in typography, as well as bringing a fresh perspective for graphic designers, typographers and type designers to assist their future work with successful logotype design.

year: 2011

title: Lost in translation or lack of nuance? Perception of (near-)synonymy of common te reo Māori loanwords in New Zealand English

authors: Pohl, Alexander

abstract: Ongoing contact between languages and their speakers inevitably leads to a flow of words being borrowed from one language into another. Research in the field of language contact has established and documented the kinds of borrowed words that stick in their recipient language (Haspelmath 2009; Winford 2010). However, one question that has received comparatively less attention is how a newly adopted loanword relates to the structure of the existing lexicon it enters. In recent years, language contact research has thus seen a paradigm shift towards an onomasiological perspective (see Anderson et al. 2017; Crombez et al. 2022; Zenner et al. 2023). Within this approach, most studies looking at lexical variation between loanwords and their (near-)synonyms employ corpus linguistics methods (e.g. Onysko & Winter-Froemel 2011; Soares da Silva 2013). However, there is variation in how these corpus studies have investigated loanword meanings, and, to our knowledge, there has been almost no experimental research focussed specifically on the relationship between loanwords and their (near-)synonyms to date. This project presents a large-scale experimental approach from a case-study examining Māori loanwords borrowed into New Zealand English (NZE). NZE presents an unusual language contact situation because it involves a dominant language (NZE) receiving an exceptionally high amount of lexical material (words and phrases) from an Indigenous language: Māori. Further adding to the uniqueness of this contact situation is the fact that only a fraction of the population (<10%) speaks Māori fluently (Statistics New Zealand 2019). Nonetheless, Māori loanwords are ubiquitous, salient, and probably still increasing within the NZE lexicon (Macalister 2007; Trye et al. 2019). One important dimension of this set of borrowings are their semantic characteristics, which straddle three main classes of words: flora and fauna (mānuka ‘tea tree’), material culture (maunga ‘mountain’) and social culture (mana ‘power’).  Here, we report on a Qualtrics experiment devised to probe the perceived relationship between 60 Māori loanwords and their NZE equivalents, as ascertained from published sources. The synonymy judgements were elicited for pairs (e.g. whānau – family) using an analogue slider (ranging from 0 = non-synonymous to 100 = fully synonymous). Data was collected using a three-tiered questionnaire: 1) assessing synonymy of loanwords; 2) eliciting strategies for semantic assessments; and 3) collating background information about participants. Following cleaning and exclusions, the dataset showed a skew towards female participants, and for this reason, we focus our statistical analysis on the core sample containing (n = 170) young women (18-24 years). The results of the synonymy judgements analysis consist of qualitative inspections of box plots in relation to the semantic characteristics of Māori words in question, as well as sociodemographic variables of interest, specifically: years lived in Aotearoa NZ, and a composite score capturing exposure to and attitude towards Māori (TRMO). Preliminary findings suggest that many people think Māori loanwords are (highly) synonymous with NZE lexical alternatives. Our regression analyses exhibit evidence that years lived in Aotearoa NZ (p = 0.0054) and TRMO (p = 8.26e-10) can predict knowledge of Māori words. No statistically significant evidence was found for any predictors regarding the scores of the synonymy judgements; instead, we found that the random effects account for most of the variation. This is indicative of idiosyncratic loanword behaviour, in line with situations where variation is in-flux. These findings will be complemented by qualitative analyses of comments provided by participants in the open answer section (2). The talk will conclude with a summary of contributions to the general understanding of loanword meanings and contact-induced lexical change.

text: Lost in translation or lack of nuance? Perception of (near-)synonymy of common te reo Māori loanwords in New Zealand English Ongoing contact between languages and their speakers inevitably leads to a flow of words being borrowed from one language into another. Research in the field of language contact has established and documented the kinds of borrowed words that stick in their recipient language (Haspelmath 2009; Winford 2010). However, one question that has received comparatively less attention is how a newly adopted loanword relates to the structure of the existing lexicon it enters. In recent years, language contact research has thus seen a paradigm shift towards an onomasiological perspective (see Anderson et al. 2017; Crombez et al. 2022; Zenner et al. 2023). Within this approach, most studies looking at lexical variation between loanwords and their (near-)synonyms employ corpus linguistics methods (e.g. Onysko & Winter-Froemel 2011; Soares da Silva 2013). However, there is variation in how these corpus studies have investigated loanword meanings, and, to our knowledge, there has been almost no experimental research focussed specifically on the relationship between loanwords and their (near-)synonyms to date. This project presents a large-scale experimental approach from a case-study examining Māori loanwords borrowed into New Zealand English (NZE). NZE presents an unusual language contact situation because it involves a dominant language (NZE) receiving an exceptionally high amount of lexical material (words and phrases) from an Indigenous language: Māori. Further adding to the uniqueness of this contact situation is the fact that only a fraction of the population (<10%) speaks Māori fluently (Statistics New Zealand 2019). Nonetheless, Māori loanwords are ubiquitous, salient, and probably still increasing within the NZE lexicon (Macalister 2007; Trye et al. 2019). One important dimension of this set of borrowings are their semantic characteristics, which straddle three main classes of words: flora and fauna (mānuka ‘tea tree’), material culture (maunga ‘mountain’) and social culture (mana ‘power’).  Here, we report on a Qualtrics experiment devised to probe the perceived relationship between 60 Māori loanwords and their NZE equivalents, as ascertained from published sources. The synonymy judgements were elicited for pairs (e.g. whānau – family) using an analogue slider (ranging from 0 = non-synonymous to 100 = fully synonymous). Data was collected using a three-tiered questionnaire: 1) assessing synonymy of loanwords; 2) eliciting strategies for semantic assessments; and 3) collating background information about participants. Following cleaning and exclusions, the dataset showed a skew towards female participants, and for this reason, we focus our statistical analysis on the core sample containing (n = 170) young women (18-24 years). The results of the synonymy judgements analysis consist of qualitative inspections of box plots in relation to the semantic characteristics of Māori words in question, as well as sociodemographic variables of interest, specifically: years lived in Aotearoa NZ, and a composite score capturing exposure to and attitude towards Māori (TRMO). Preliminary findings suggest that many people think Māori loanwords are (highly) synonymous with NZE lexical alternatives. Our regression analyses exhibit evidence that years lived in Aotearoa NZ (p = 0.0054) and TRMO (p = 8.26e-10) can predict knowledge of Māori words. No statistically significant evidence was found for any predictors regarding the scores of the synonymy judgements; instead, we found that the random effects account for most of the variation. This is indicative of idiosyncratic loanword behaviour, in line with situations where variation is in-flux. These findings will be complemented by qualitative analyses of comments provided by participants in the open answer section (2). The talk will conclude with a summary of contributions to the general understanding of loanword meanings and contact-induced lexical change.

year: 2024