title: Slim and scum: Natural products from land and sea

authors: Prinsep, Michèle R.

subjects: chemistry

abstract: To a natural-products chemist, the term "natural products" does not refer to all compounds from natural sources, as the name might imply. It is specifically used to refer to compounds known as secondary metabolites, structurally complex molecules, often of unknown function, with very limited biological distribution.

text: Slim and scum: Natural products from land and sea To a natural-products chemist, the term "natural products" does not refer to all compounds from natural sources, as the name might imply. It is specifically used to refer to compounds known as secondary metabolites, structurally complex molecules, often of unknown function, with very limited biological distribution.

year: 2000

title: A case for paid surrogate motherhood

authors: van Zyl, Liezl

subjects: commercial surrogacy

abstract: It has become commonplace to distinguish between altruistic and commercial surrogate motherhood. Altruistic surrogacy refers to cases where the surrogate mother is motivated by care or concern for an infertile couple, usually friends or relatives, to bear a child and then to transfer parental rights to them. Although she may be reimbursed for expenses associated with the pregnancy, she is not paid. Commercial surrogacy, on the other hand, is arranged through an agency which puts potential surrogates in contact with people wishing to employ their services. In addition to her expenses, the surrogate mother is paid a fee. Although both forms of surrogacy are morally controversial, the dominant view is that altruistic surrogacy is morally superior to, or at least less problematic than, commercial surrogacy.

text: A case for paid surrogate motherhood It has become commonplace to distinguish between altruistic and commercial surrogate motherhood. Altruistic surrogacy refers to cases where the surrogate mother is motivated by care or concern for an infertile couple, usually friends or relatives, to bear a child and then to transfer parental rights to them. Although she may be reimbursed for expenses associated with the pregnancy, she is not paid. Commercial surrogacy, on the other hand, is arranged through an agency which puts potential surrogates in contact with people wishing to employ their services. In addition to her expenses, the surrogate mother is paid a fee. Although both forms of surrogacy are morally controversial, the dominant view is that altruistic surrogacy is morally superior to, or at least less problematic than, commercial surrogacy.

year: 2008

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