In Chapter 4, the author introduces the concept of validity. The chapter begins with an exploration of approaches to defining a construct. These approaches include using language theory, a language needs analysis, corpora, and curriculum objectives to help test developers determine what specific language ability they desire to measure. The chapter emphasizes the importance of alignment, which relates to how well the test content and test taker response processes match the construct’s content and the response processes that the test aims to measure. The author uses a detailed example of assessing children’s ability to communicate on a playground in a second language. The major point of the example is that the assessment should require children to use the same kinds of language they use when they communicate on the playground. This alignment helps ensure that the assessment measures the targeted language ability and will lead to positive washback on teaching and learning.

As scholars and activists seek to define and promote greater corporate political responsibility (CPR), they will benefit from understanding practitioner perspectives and how executives are responding to rising scrutiny of their political influences, reputational risk and pressure from employees, customers and investors to get involved in civic, political, and societal issues. This chapter draws on firsthand conversations with practitioners, including executives in government affairs; sustainability; senior leadership; and diversity, equity and inclusion, during the launch of a university-based CPR initiative. I summarize practitioner motivations, interests, barriers and challenges related to engaging in conversations about CPR, as well as committing or acting to improve CPR. Following the summary, I present implications for further research and several possible paths forward, including leveraging practitioners’ value on accountability, sustaining external calls for transparency, strengthening awareness of systems, and reframing CPR as part of a larger dialogue around society’s “social contract.”

This chapter reviews the existing Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) work on diachronic syntax and morphosyntax and shows how the tools of language description developed by RRG can also be used to account for several aspects of language change. Drawing evidence from developments which have occurred in a wide range of languages, it is argued that RRG allows for a more fine-grained analysis of diachronic processes than theoretically neutral approaches, that it answers fundamental questions about the nature and causes of syntactic change, and that it is not a mere tool of linguistic description, but a theory that makes falsifiable empirical predictions.

In this chapter, two languages spoken far apart from one another – Basque and Ch’ol – jointly show that once one considers sentences expressed in the progressive aspect, the entire theory of ergative case as lexically determined begins to unravel. In particular, verbs that are not supposed to be lexically assign ergative end up with ergative-marked subjects (and vice versa) as a result of the larger clausal structure. Ergative case cannot solely be chalked up to a semantic encoding of agentivity or volitionality of the predicates involved. It is the details of the structure wrought around such predicates that will predestine their arguments to be ergative or not.

Tone in Chinese languages is distinct in two aspects: (i) the complexity in the tonal make-up and (ii) widespread sandhi. The former is often attributed to underlying complexity in tonal inventories and the latter to triggers immediately adjacent to the sandhi site. Morphosyntax, though highly relevant, is often left unarticulated in the description of tonal inventories and processes. This chapter unravels four major aspects in which morphosyntax condition tonal processes (a) the licensing and/or generation of tonal contours, (b) the neutralization of tone, (c) the triggering and blocking of sandhi; and (d) the impact on tonal prosody. While phonological patterns in other languages are sensitive to the word- and post-lexical levels divide, it is the structural constituency that is often more relevant than syntactic category in Chinese tonal processes. Lest one overstates the power of morphosyntax, note also that morphosyntactic conditioning of tonal processes is likely mediated through alignment and interface with prosody structure. Thus morphosyntax plays not a deterministic role, but a substantially contributive one in the intricacies of tonal processes in Chinese.

A predication prototypically predicates an event. Events have multiple participants in their semantic frame. Some participants are more central than others. The information packaging of event participants construes certain participants as core arguments and others as oblique arguments. Transitivity constructions are defined in terms of the prototypical expression of central participants as core argument phrases. ‘Subject’ and ‘object’ are defined crosslinguistically in terms of degree of topicality (salience) and force dynamics (subject acting on object). Basic argument encoding strategies are flagging, indexation, and word order. An exemplar approach to defining transitive constructions is taken, using the agentive change of state event of breaking as the exemplar event, following Haspelmath. Subject generally precedes verb and object in word order. Variation in alignment is based on the system of transitive and intransitive constructions, in terms of which core argument of the transitive construction the intransitive argument aligns with, including the rare case where the core arguments of intransitive constructions are split between transitive subject and object.

The chapter provides guidance on course design and pedagogical practices that are essential, not only for effective teaching but also for making the case to hiring and promotion committees regarding your ability to reach to students and help them learn. The chapter introduces approaches that are inclusive and broad-minded in their choice and framing of content as well as in their classroom practices. Readers will also find guidance for practicing their craft on remote and hybrid teaching platforms.

All too often, we see the leadership above us as obstructionist, miserly, or otherwise misguided or misaligned. This is usually not the case, but there are often communication issues up and down that create that impression and sometimes lead to an adversarial relationship. Both groups benefit by aligning their goals, and the earlier they do so, the better. This chapter will speak mostly to aligning your goals with that of your hospital, with some time at the end devoted to the medical school. They have many similarities, but some important differences. Understanding their priorities will help you to align yours. We discuss the paramount importance of understanding the finances both of your group and the group above you, hospital or medical school. There are ways to maximize your productivity to a mutually beneficial end, and being overt with leadership about this is always welcome. You should gain an understanding of what a “return on investment” or ROI means to the leadership above you, as this is a central concept to their willingness to invest in you and your group. You will gain an understanding of the downstream effect of your group’s efforts, particularly financial. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the key individuals you communicate with and how to approach situations where you are having communication issues. It concludes with how to align goals with the leadership above your group.

This chapter looks at a spectrum of paediatric clinical cases ranging from generalised conditions such as Ehlers– Danlos syndrome to tibial bowing and foot disorders. Skeletal dysplasia and rotational and other malalignments are also covered. The emphasis of the cases shown is to demonstrate how clinical features can contribute to management.

Chapter 2 tackles aspects of cognitive processing that can be observed in the course of a translation task, from the moment a translator begins to read a text-to-be-translated until the translation has been finalized. It begins by recording the historical development of research into the translation process and how the task of translation has been modelled. It moves on to examining how advances in methodological approaches have contributed to the development of early models, providing empirical evidence from verbal reports, keylogging and eye tracking. Contemporary translation process research focuses on text reading, segmentation and production; and advances in computational linguistics have enhanced descriptions and identification of translation units, attention, production and alignment.

Water provision and wastewater treatment are crucial for the survival of human beings. Having access to safe drinkable water responds to an essential human need. This chapter builds on our alignment framework, in order to investigate the second layer of our framework, which concerns the alignment between the technological design of a network infrastructure and the meso-institutions that regulate its domain of action. As argued in the previous chapters, we consider governance to be a key concept in understanding the alignment or misalignment within this layer. We investigate the issues at stake through a careful study of the Singaporean water and wastewater infrastructures. Indeed, beyond its spectacular success, Singapore provides a rich example for better understanding modalities that allowed an initially poor country to align the institutional rules framing the organization of its water and wastewater network with the variety of technological solutions selected to overcome the dramatic scarcity of its resources. Through this analytical narrative, our chapter shows the combination of entities and devices that underpin the modalities of governance, through which context-specific technologies and specific institutional norms and rules can be either successfully aligned or suffer from misalignment.

In this concluding chapter, we evaluate our framework and reflect on the core questions we set out in the introductory chapter. First, we summarize the main conceptual contributions of our framework and its ability to specify and operationalize the interdependence between institutions and technologies, and its implications for the provision of expected services. The main building blocks of our comprehensive framework comprise the identification of critical functions, the interdependent dimensions of institutions and technologies, and the modalities of their alignment. Second, we reflect on the empirical cases detailed in the second part of the book, in order to learn lessons about what we gained from our framework when dealing with “real world” situations and potential ways that the framework could be improved. Through the variety of cases we selected, these empirical explorations showed the capacity of our framework to identify and analyze characteristics and difficulties proper to the network infrastructures investigated. Finally, we consider how our approach can provide guidance for public policy and private sector initiatives against the background of ongoing transitions in network infrastructures. We explore how the issues of coordination and alignment could be managed by private agents (consumers, firms, and other organizations) as well as public authorities.

The transition toward sustainable energy systems poses a most prominent societal challenge for decades to come. We demonstrate that the alignment framework provides a set of rich instruments for exploring this field of research. It allows us to disentangle the complex interrelations between the technologies and institutions required to provide expected services and safeguard the critical functions at the core of network infrastructures. Since the energy transition requires structural changes in the technological architecture and the macro-institutions, this chapter focuses on this most generic layer of analysis. In order to illustrate our approach, we compare and analyze three archetypes, namely, traditional, contemporary, and future energy systems. Using a comparative static approach, we identify (in)compatibilities between the technological and institutional characteristics of different coordination arrangements when it comes to safeguarding the critical functions throughout the energy transition. We show that the alignment framework provides an innovative approach for understanding and analyzing these complex changes. This analysis of future energy systems represents an important step toward understanding the consequences of the energy transition and the possible evolution of existing energy systems.

In this chapter, we specify the nature of network infrastructures from our alignment perspective. We first pay attention to the expected services that network infrastructures intend to provide: they are the backbones of the economy and deliver services essential to its citizens. We show how the infrastructures and the services they are expected to deliver are embedded in societal values. We then discuss the two dimensions of network infrastructures, the technological and the institutional dimensions, and analyze the characteristic of complementarity that underlies their components. Complementarities require tight coordination. Furthermore, we discuss in this chapter the core of our argument: the modalities providing technological coordination, on the one hand, and institutional coordination, on the other hand, should be well aligned; otherwise, the fulfillment of critical functions is endangered. We need to better understand how network infrastructures operate and under which conditions they can achieve the expected performance. We focus on the interdependencies between the technological and the institutional dimensions; on the critical functions as requirements for the system to provide the expected services; and on the necessity to align the coordination arrangements in both dimensions, in order to fulfill these critical functions. Otherwise, expected services cannot be delivered.

Notwithstanding their specificities, different network infrastructures share a fundamental property: they are embedded in and part of general institutional settings. In this chapter, we focus on this institutional dimension. The main point we make is that institutions are composed of different layers. Identifying and characterizing these layers is both challenging and essential for better understanding the alignment (or misalignment) between institutions and technologies that conditions the performance of specific infrastructures. It is challenging because the usual representations of institutions tend to aggregate and mix or even revise many distinct components such as firms, parliaments, courts, etc. It is essential because it is through the different layers that rights are defined, allocated, implemented, and monitored, thus providing the scaffolding of network infrastructures. A central hypothesis underlying the analysis provided in this chapter is that these infrastructures are socio-technological systems; although subject to physical laws through their technological dimension, their development and usage are framed by human-made rules and rights.

This book is about network infrastructures. We consider network infrastructures as socio-technological systems characterized by the interdependence and complementarity of two dimensions: institutions and technology. Relying on a combination of nodes and links, these infrastructures require coordination along both dimensions in order to fulfill functions identified as “critical.” Critical functions determine the capacity of a network to deliver expected services in line with societal values. Thus understood, network infrastructures cover a wide range of sectors, from energy, water and sanitation, urban transportation, to telecoms and the internet. These networks provide the backbone of economic as well as social activities. The key argument underlying our analysis is that alignment between the two dimensions, institutions and technology, is central to the fulfillment of the performance expected from these networks. Misalignment can generate discrepancies or gaps challenging the integrity of a network and its capacity to meet its goal. This introduction posits our core hypotheses and concepts, and draws a general picture of the theoretical as well as empirical content developed in the coming chapters.

This chapter assesses factors of alignment between institutions and the technology of network infrastructures, and how to achieve or restore alignment. This is a significant challenge, since institutions and technologies are “two worlds apart” that need to be brought together. This is accomplished in three steps. First, we specify how technology and institutions are interrelated at three layers of analysis: structure, governance, and transactions. By connecting these three layers with the services to be provided, we are able to identify the conditions to be fulfilled within each layer, in order for the critical functions to be safeguarded. Second, we focus on characterizing different problems of coordination that develop either within the technological dimension, or within the institutional dimension. Our underlying argument is that modalities of coordination adopted to solve these problems may partially differ, depending on whether we are looking at the technological side or the institutional side, but that they ultimately need to share compatible characteristics if alignment is to be reached and the critical functions satisfied. Third, when disturbances of different orders challenge the existing arrangements, we provide indications as to how alignment can be reached, or reestablished, at the three layers we have identified.