Examining Language, Speech and Behaviour Characteristics: A Cross-Sectional Study in Saudi Arabia Using the Arabic Version of Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-Third Edition.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibits diverse manifestations influenced by demographic factors. This study evaluates these variations within Saudi Arabia, aiming to investigate language, speech and behaviour characteristics across different demographics in Saudi Arabia using the Arabic Version of the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-Third Edition (A-GARS-3). Employing a cross-sectional design, 178 participants were stratified by developmental status (n = 124 school settings, n = 54 clinical setting), sex (Females = 77, Males =101), age (range = 3-22), and geographical region (different provinces in Saudi Arabia). The A-GARS-3 measured ASD manifestations across six subscales. The study identified significant differences in ASD manifestations by developmental status, with higher ASD likelihood and severity in clinical settings. Younger children showed more pronounced ASD characteristics, and males were slightly more likely to be diagnosed with ASD. Geographical analysis revealed regional differences in severity. The findings underline the importance of demographic considerations in ASD assessment and diagnosis, suggesting the need for age-specific and culturally sensitive approaches. The A-GARS-3 is a reliable tool for the Saudi context. Regional disparities in ASD prevalence and severity indicate a need for tailored health policies and resources across Saudi provinces.

Environmental sustainability in the online media discourses of Saudi Arabia: A corpus-based study of keyness, intertextuality, and interdiscursivity.

This paper investigates the online discourses on "sustainability" and explores how environmental sustainability has been constructed within the Saudi online discourse. In doing so, the study focuses on the potential of the Saudi Green Initiative (SGI), along with Green Riyadh and King Salman Park, to promote sustainability awareness in the kingdom. The corpus of the study comprises news articles and Twitter hashtags. In addition, the study uses corpus-based discourse analysis to examine the keyness and intertextuality. The results of the study convey a contextualized national identity while communicating internationally within discursive circles. It is also identified that interdiscursivity is central in the corpus, although the discourse of action especially dominated other smaller discourses, such as consequences/risks, economy, and tourism. The results also indicate the prominent construction of officials, which could be linked to the dynamics of change in the Saudi scene. Finally, the study emphasizes the action-oriented nature of such discourse while drawing attention to some of the challenging issues to long-term advocacy in the country.

Cognitive Linguistics: Analysis of Mapping Knowledge Domains.

Language acquisition, processing, comprehension, and production encompass a complex mechanism. Particularly, the mechanisms by which we make sense of language, including perception, conceptualization, and processing, have been controversial topics among cognitive linguists and researchers in cognitive sciences. Cognitive processes such as attention, thought, perception, and memory play a significant role in meaningful human communication. This study aimed to apply the science mapping method to detect and visualize emerging trends and patterns in literature pertaining to cognitive linguistics. In order to accomplish this, eight bibliometric and eight scientometric indicators were used in conjunction with CiteSpace 5.8.R3 and VOSviewer 1.6.18 for scientometric analysis and data visualisation. The data were collected and triangulated from three databases, including 2380 from Scopus, 1732 from WOS, and 9911 from Lens from 1969 to 2022. Among the findings were the visualization of eight bibliometric indicators regarding the knowledge production size of cognitive linguistics based on year, country, university, journal, publisher, research area, authors, and cited documents. Second, we presented scientometric indicators with regard to cognitive linguistics development, including the most important authors in the field, co-citation networks, citation networks, sigma metrics to detect works with potential citation growth, and clusters to group related topics to cognitive linguistics. We conclude the study by emphasizing that cognitive linguistics has evolved from the micro level where it focused on studying cognitive aspects of language in relation to time, language, and modality dimensions, to the macro level, which examines cognitive processes and their relationship to the construction of meaningful communication using both sensation and perception.

Biolinguistics: A Scientometric Analysis of Research on (Children's) Molecular Genetics of Speech and Language (Disorders).

There are numerous children and adolescents throughout the world who are either diagnosed with speech and language disorders or manifest any of them as a result of another disorder. Meanwhile, since the emergence of language as an innate capability, the question of whether it constitutes a behaviour or an innate ability has been debated for decades. There have been several theories developed that support and demonstrate the biological foundations of human language. Molecular evidence of the biological basis of language came from the FOXP2 gene, also known as the language gene. Taking a closer look at both human language and biology, biolinguistics is at the core of these inquiries-attempting to understand the aetiologies of the genetics of speech and language disorders in children and adolescents. This paper presents empirical evidence based on both scientometrics and bibliometrics. We collected data between 1935 and 2022 from Scopus, WOS, and Lens. A total of 1570 documents were analysed from Scopus, 1440 from the WOS, and 5275 from Lens. Bibliometric analysis was performed using Excel based on generated reports from these three databases. CiteSpace 5.8.R3 and VOSviewer 1.6.18 were used to conduct the scientometric analysis. Eight bibliometric and eight scientometric indicators were used to measure the development of the field of biolinguistics, including but not limited to the production size of knowledge, the most examined topics, and the most frequent concepts and variables. A major finding of our study is identifying the most examined topics in the genetics of speech and language disorders. These included: gestural communication, structural design, cultural evolution, neural network, language tools, human language faculty, evolutionary biology, molecular biology, and theoretical perspective on language evolution.

Mourning the lost: A social actor analysis of gender representation in the @FacesofCovid's tweets.

When COVID-19 swept the world at the end of 2019, it changed life as we knew it. With about 600 million positive cases (both recovered and active) and approximately 6.5 million deaths due to the disease, people worldwide have been affected physically, psychologically, economically, and socially by the pandemic. Amid such difficult times, @FacesofCovid-a Twitter account with more than 150,000 followers-was launched in March 2020 with the mission of honoring the lives of those lost to COVID-19 instead of presenting them as mere statistics. The account is a demonstrative example of the mourning genre as primarily exhibited through concise tweets grieving the deceased. As such, it offers a novel case of a public online mourning platform through microblogging, an understudied research area that merits further examination. A self-built corpus of 280,536 words was built from more than 7,000 tweets on the public account. The analysis presented in this paper focused on how people are constructed in the language of their loved ones as they are mourned through these tweets. Drawing on insight from van Leeuwen's social actor representation and corpus linguistics, the analysis was conducted using the #LancsBox corpus processing software package. The findings indicated that gender asymmetry persists within this corpus. Therefore, this paper adds to the rich body of literature documenting gender imbalance across different genres and domains. Men are far more present than women and are constructed through functionalization for the most part, whereas women are less functionalized and represented primarily through relational identification. In light of this, it is argued that while sometimes, gender asymmetry can intentionally be ideologically loaded and may serve hidden agendas, at other times, it may inherently and subconsciously be passed on through spontaneous language use.

Deconstructing agency in the G20 leaders' declarations in the last decade: A corpus-assisted discourse study.

Investigating agency has become a pivotal issue in discourse studies, especially organizational discourse. This study aims to identify the controlling agency (who/what) behind G20 leaders' declarations in the last decade and how such agency is constructed. To this end, this study offers a concise examination of relevant literature investigating fundamental concepts like discourse and agency in light of the overlapping relationship between form and function in language studies. Further, an eclectic methodological approach has been devised to arrive at a multi-leveled analysis. Two stages of analysis were designed. First, a corpus of the declarations between 2012 and 2021 was created and analyzed using #LancsBox v.6.x. and Wmatrix. At this stage, we was established as a prime agent in the corpus and proven to collocate heavily with agentive speech acts. One sample declaration, Riyadh 2020, was used for minute discourse analysis in the second stage. Inspired by transitivity system, process type analysis, and multivalence frameworks, this stage revealed the profound presence of non-human agency alongside the human one. Nevertheless, further examination demonstrated that this sample still constrains non-human agency due to semantic and textual constraints.