The Importance of Modeling Social Factors of Language: Theory and Practice

Natural language processing (NLP) applications are now more powerful and ubiquitous than ever before. With rapidly developing (neural) models and ever-more available data, current NLP models have access to more information than any human speaker during their life. Still, it would be hard to argue that NLP models have reached human-level capacity. In this position paper, we argue that the reason for the current limitations is a focus on information content while ignoring language's social factors. We show that current NLP systems systematically break down when faced with interpreting the social factors of language. This limits applications to a subset of information-related tasks and prevents NLP from reaching human-level performance. At the same time, systems that incorporate even a minimum of social factors already show remarkable improvements. We formalize a taxonomy of seven social factors based on linguistic theory and exemplify current failures and emerging successes for each of them. We suggest that the NLP community address social factors to get closer to the goal of human-like language understanding.

The Social Family Factors and Its Influence upon The Son's Academic Excellence A field research for students of the Elites' School in Lattakia

The goal beyond this research is to highlight the influence of the social family factors on the academic excellence of sons. This research sample was on (240) of (408) male and female students who are in the first, second and the third secondary stages for the school year 2016-2017. For reaching the intended goals of this research, a questionnaire was adopted as a tool for collecting both the preliminary data and the data related to the variables of this research. The results of the research assured that the number of the family members does not have that clear effect on the academic excellence and most of the students do not get negatively affected by the parental divorce or even by the absence of one of the parents so this factor does not affect the sons' academic excellence. Also, the birth order in any student's family does not affect positively or negatively the student's academic excellence. The good and healthy relationship between the father and the sons has a clear effect on their academic excellence but, on the other hand, the relationship between the mother and the sons does not have that clear effect on their academic excellence. Moreover, this research stated that there is a positive link between the parents' moderate control and treatment practiced inside the family towards the sons and the sons' academic excellence. On the other side, this research stated that there is no link between the parents' dominating control and treatment towards the sons and the sons' academic excellence.

Studying the impact of social factors on household spending classification in Syria during (2000-2010)

This study aimed at using Multi-Variables Analysis in classifying household spending in Syria and identifying which of the social factors considered in the study influence significantly this classification and which do not. The most prominent results were: the possibility of classifying household spending into three levels (high, medium and low), there is a statistical significance of the factors (the percentage of urban population to total population, university education and above, number of married people and those in marriage age ) on the household spending classification. There is no statistical significance of the factors (educational levels below university education, non-married people, divorced or being widowed) on the household spending classification.

Assisting social factors in spread of school violence phenomenon in basic education schools in Latakia city from students perspective

This study aims to identify the social and cultural factors that cause violent behavior among school students, the study population included students at the basic education level Episode II (seventh, eighth and ninth grade at secondary level) in Lattakia State schools in Syrian Arab Republic. The study reveals a correlation between the methods of punishment used by parents with students and their acquisition of violent behavior, and also reveals a relationship between social deprivation in the family and the emergence of violent behavior among students. The study results show that the weakness of the relationship between teacher and pupil affects the emergence of violent behavior among students, and also show that the majority of students in the first group who had violent behavior and the second group who did not exercise their violent behavior, assert the existence of the media role in the acquisition of pupils for violent behavior.

Social Factors Lying Behind The Decline of Educational Achievement A Field Study on The Students of The First Phase of The Basic Education Stage in Lattakia City

The research tries to define the most important social factors which contribute to the decline of educational achievement in the schools of the first phase of the basic education stage. These factors have been clarified through a theoretical study and a field study that was conducted in Lattakia city in the academic year (2011-2012). The theoretical study includes an explanation of the concept of social upbringing of the children, and the educational role that the family plays in the student’s life via the surrounding environment, and the methods of upbringing. The research also shows the importance of social relations at school between the teacher and students, the relation among friends at school in general and the influence of these relations on the students’ achievement. It yielded many results as to the social factors which contribute to the decline of educational achievement, the most prominent of which are: the low social level of the family; separation within the family; incorrect methods of upbringing; the negative effect of the television; abnormal relations with the friends; the passive character of some teachers.

أثر مواصفات المنتج و العوامل الشخصية و الاجتماعية للمستهلك نحو الولاء للعلامة التجارية دراسة ميدانية لمشتري أجهزة الهاتف المحمول في مدينة دمشق

يعد الولاء نحو العلامات التجارية لمنتجات منظمات الأعمال و خدماتها مؤشراً مهماً على نجاح تلك المنظمات في تقديم منتجات تتوافق مع حاجات و رغبات المستهلكين، و في هذا الإطار هدف هذا البحث إلى دراسة أثر مواصفات المنتج و العوامل الشخصية و الاجتماعية للمستهلك نحو الولاء للعلامة التجارية من خلال دراسة ميدانية لمشتري أجهزة الهاتف المحمول في مدينة دمشق.