Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Makwe language'

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 1999.
Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 30 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 29-30).

Orientador: Lucy Seki
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
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Resumo: Esta dissertação apresenta um estudo fonológico da língua Sateré-Mawé, classificada como membro único da família Mawé, tronco lingüístico Tupi. A língua é falada por aproximadamente 8.000 indígenas que habitam a Terra Indígena Andirá-Marau, localizada na divisa dos Estados do Amazonas e do Pará. O trabalho inclui cinco capítulos, conclusão e bibliografia. O primeiro capítulo é introdutório e contém informações gerais sobre a metodologia de trabalho de campo e o referencial teórico adotado na pesquisa. Ainda neste capitulo é apresentado um apanhado de trabalhos existentes relativos à língua Sateré-Mawé. O segundo capítulo apresenta informações etnográficas sobre o povo Sateré-Mawé e algumas notas sobre a classificação da língua e sobre sua situação de bilingüismo. O terceiro capítulo é dedicado à definição dos fonemas e alofones da língua, tendo por base o modelo de análise fonêmica de Pike. Abordamos ainda alguns processos morfofonêmicos que ocorrem em fronteira de morfema e palavra. O quarto capítulo analisa a estrutura silábica, levando em consideração a hierarquia de sonoridade para a definição dos tipos silábicos e a distribuição dos segmentos. Também neste capítulo tratamos do processo de silabificação, das seqüências de segmentos ambíguos e da quantidade silábica para a definição da palavra mínima. O quinto e último capítulo trata do acento em palavras simples e compostas. Analisamos também o acento a partir de uma abordagem métrica, bem como a constituição da palavra fonológica
Abstract: This dissertation presents a phonological study of the Sateré-Mawé language, classified as the unique member of mawé family, in the Tupi linguistic branch. Sateré-Mawé is spoken by approximatily 8.000 people, in the indigenous area of Andirá-Marau, located in the frontier of Amazonas and Pará states. This work includes five chapters, conclusion and bibliography. The first chapter is an introduction and contains general informations about the metodology of fieldwork and the theoretical fundamentals employed in this research. Besides that, works about Sateré-Mawé are briefly shown. ln the second chapter I present ethnographic informations about Sateré-Mawé people and some notes about linguistic classification and bilingualism. The third chapter is dedicated to the definition of the phonemes and the allophones of the language, based on Pike' s phonemic analysis model. I also broach some morphophonemic processes in word or morpheme frontiers. The fourth chapter deals with the syllable structure, considering the sonority hierarchy to the definition of the syllabic types and the segments distribution. I also discuss the syllabification process, sequences of ambiguous segments and the syllabic quantity in order to define the minimal word. The last chapter presents the stress pattern in simple and compound words. I analyse this stress pattern founded on the metrical approach and the constitution of the phonological word
Mestrado
Linguas Indigenas
Mestre em Linguística

This study explores the application of principles from game design, and the motivational psychology it is founded upon, to the domain of second language acquisition. A gameful design process based on playtesting andanalysis with design lenses is adapted and used to iteratively design and develop a system for conversation practice with the goal of creating a motivating and engaging experience.The results indicate effectiveness of the process, but generalizing the results would require further research with bigger sample sizes and studies with varied core activities.

This longitudinal study explored the language and temperament profiles of a cohort (N= 72) of young children (2;00 - 3;09) who had a diagnosis of Early Language Delay given by a Speech and Language Therapist. The study investigated associations between aspects of the children’s temperament, their main carer’s (parent) temperament and their language progress over one year. Standardised assessment of receptive and expressive language skills took place at entry to the study and again after one year to profile the natural history of their early language delay within a community context. All the participants continued to access speech and language therapy services, as appropriate to their needs, during the period of the study. Temperament data was collected using standardised questionnaires completed by the child’s main carer. A series of linear regression analyses were used to predict one year performance from initial language skills at the start of the study alongside child temperament, socio-demographic factors and a measure of child-parent ‘goodness of fit’. The final model for receptive language skills, predicted 78% of the variance in outcomes and included auditory comprehension (76.5 %) and distractibility (1.6%). For expressive language skills the final model, which predicted 59.5% of the variance, involved five variables: auditory comprehension (34%), expressive communication (13.8%), adaptability (5.6%), persistence (3.1%) and negative family history of language difficulties (3%). Ratings of goodness of fit were significantly (p < .010) associated with auditory comprehension skills, such that children with higher auditory comprehension scores were rated as easier to manage then children with lower scores. This association did not hold for expressive communication skills. Early language delay is a high prevalence condition and this study provides data that suggest that aspects of temperament may confer a degree of protection or risk to children in relation to their language development, once identified with an early language delay. The implications are discussed along with the need for further research in this area.

Language and education are interrelated because all teaching is given through the medium of language. Language is considered to be both a precondition for thought and a bearer of thought and therefore influences the extent to which a child’s intelligence is actualised. In the South African context linguistic diversity is a complex issue. It has increasingly become the task and responsibility of educators to develop strategies in an attempt to facilitate quality education for their learners. In this study, the researchers developed an ‘aid’ that would assist learners to relate mathematics terms and concepts in English with terms in their own languages. The study determined whether a visual multilingual learner companion brought change in learners’ performance in mathematics. Also what the educators’ views were about this. A combination of a quasiexperimental study and an interview schedule was conducted. The quasiexperimental study was conducted among learners while the interview schedule was with their educators. The sample comprised 2,348 learners in Grade 4, Grade 5 and Grade 6 from 20 schools as well as 20 educators from the treatment schools. The results indicated that the mathematics marks of the treatment group improved. Also, the educators were complimentary about the learner companion and indicated that they would utilise this going forward in their teaching. It is recommended that the multilingual visual explanatory mathematics learner companion be used and investigated on a larger scale to corroborate the efficacy reported here.

In South Africa, the medium-of-instruction (MOI) debate has continued to demand the attention of educators and academics, particularly after the promulgation of the 1997 multilingual language-in-education (LIE) policy and the introduction of the OBE-NCS curriculum in the schools. Using a survey questionnaire, classroom observations and focused interviews, this study aims at establishing how teachers in selected urban and rural high schools in the Mthatha District understand, interpret and implement MOI policies within their practice. It also seeks to establish reasons for implementing the MOI policies in the ways they do. The study utilizes Phillipson’s English Linguistic Imperialism Theory, Brock-Utne’s Qualification Analysis, and Vygotsky’s Social Constructivism to explain the findings. The main findings of the study are that MOI policies are not implemented uniformly in urban and rural contexts or within each context. Learner linguistic profiles, mismatch between a teacher’s home language (HL) and that of his/her learners, the subject being offered, the need to promote understanding of content, teachers’ understandings, misconceptions and beliefs about the role of language in education: all these were found to be factors which may influence a teacher’s language choice during lesson delivery. Generally, teachers endorse the use of English as a language of learning and teaching (LOLT) at high school, together with the learners’ HL. Although some teachers believe that they use English mainly for teaching, indigenous languages are also used extensively, especially in rural and township schools; code-switching, code-mixing, translation, repetition, and township lingo all make the curriculum more accessible to learners. The anomaly is that assessments are conducted only in English, even in contexts in which teaching has been mainly in code-switching mode. An English-only policy was employed in the following situations: in a desegregated urban school; in a rural high school where there was a mismatch between the teacher’s HL and that of his learners; and also in a rural high school where English was offered as a subject. The most cited reasons for using English only as an LOLT were: school language policy, teachers seeing themselves as language role models, the use of English as a LOLT at tertiary level, and past teacher training experiences. The study concludes that the major factors influencing school language policies in a multilingual country such as South Africa are the school context and the teacher and learner profiles. In addition, teaching and assessing learners in languages with which they are familiar, as well as using interactive teaching strategies, would develop learner proficiency, adaptability and creative qualifications, resulting in an improved quality of education.
Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011.
Education Management and Policy Studies
unrestricted

L'etude presentee ici porte sur la morphosyntaxe du satere-mawe, langue du groupe tupi parlee en amazonie bresilienne. Le premier chapitre est consacre a l'etude de la classe des lexemes nominaux et de leurs determinants, des pronoms personnels, possessifs et demonstratifs. Le second chapitre porte sur les verbes. On y etudie les differents sous-ensembles de lexemes verbaux et leur construction predicative, l'aspect lexical, l'orientation (voix), la construction agentive et non-agentive des verbes de proces, et quelques marqueurs temporels et aspectuels. Le troisieme et dernier chapitre traite de la constituition des bases complexes, soit par incorporation, soit par derivation.

This work is a reflection on the relationship between the use of language and presence. The guidelines given by the Royal Spanish Academy, which advocatesthe use of male generically, are questioned. It seems that being a girl is possible  as long as there is not a boy present, at that time her feminine identity is invisible. The rules of the Royal Academy, made from a vision of purely linguistic language, are refuted by several authors who argue that the language has a strong ideological charge. The article gives information about our sexist society, for this reason it defends a language who nomine both sexes, and thus contribute to a culture that values them in the same way; and, therefore, if you opt for a genre in the language, made visible the sex that is marginalized.
Este trabajo es una reflexión sobre la relación entre el lenguaje y la presencia.Se cuestionan las directrices de la Academia Española, que defiende el uso del masculino para referirse a ambos sexos. Da la impresión que ser niña es posible mientras no hay un niño presente, pues entonces se invisibiliza su ser femenino. Las normas de la Academia, hechas desde una visión del lenguaje meramente lingüística, son refutadas por autoras que tienen en cuenta la carga ideológica del mismo.Se presenta información de una sociedad todavía machista. Se defiende unlenguaje que visibilice ambos sexos, para aportar al fortalecimiento de una culturaque los valore de la misma forma; y si se opta por un género en el lenguaje hacerlopor el que desvele al sexo marginado.
Este trabalho é uma reflexão sobre a relação entre linguagem e presença.Questiona-se as diretrizes da Real Academia Espanhola que defende o uso dogênero masculino para referir-se a ambos os sexos. Parece que “ser menina” somente é possível enquanto não há um menino presente, pois a presença masculina torna invisível o ser feminino. As normas da Real Academia Espanhola, estruturadas a partir de uma visão meramente linguística, são refutadas por várias autoras que defendem a importância de levar em consideração a carga ideológica das mesmas.As informações apresentadas demonstram uma sociedade ainda dominadapelo machismo. Portanto, defende-se uma linguagem que mencione ambos ossexos, fomentando assim uma cultura que os valorize da mesma forma. Nestesentido, e em caso de optar por apenas um dos gêneros, dever-se-ia dar mais visibilidade ao sexo marginalizado.

The aim of the study was to find out whether or not there is a difference in the type and number of errors made by L2 intermediate learners and beginners of English. Texts were gathered from two age groups, 9-10 year olds and 16-18 year olds, 16 texts from the younger beginner level learners and 9 from the older intermediate learners. From the errors made in the texts five categories were formed (six for the beginners): Grammatical errors, word missing errors, morpheme errors, word order errors and spelling errors that is unique to the beginners. It was found that intermediate learners make fewer errors overall but that they make the same types of errors as the beginners when they do make an error.

Many school districts consider literacy and oral language as a top priority for pre-kindergarten students. In the district under study, pre-kindergarten English language learner (ELL) students are encouraged to attend a special summer school program to increase their oral language ability in English. This study compared three groups of children: ELL students attending summer school v. ELL students not attending summer school v. English speaking students not attending summer school. The students' primary reading inventory scores from the end of pre-kindergarten to the middle of kindergarten in the areas of reading, writing and oral language were compared. As expected, ELLs who attended summer school showed significant growth in oral language development from the beginning of summer school to the end of summer school. While it was hypothesized that ELL students attending summer school would show more improvement in oral language than other children over time, there was no significant difference between summer school and non-summer school children's scores by the middle of kindergarten.

English learners come from a variety of backgrounds and are predominantly taught using teaching methodologies that downplay the importance of culture for teaching. The extra-linguistic side of these courses is mainly limited to discussions of ‘culture’ in English-speaking countries. Due to the complex relationship between language and culture (e.g., Hua, 2014; Risager, 2007) and the added difficulty in case of English as a lingua franca (Baker, 2011a, 2011b), finding a definite answer to the question of culture representation while teaching language is not a straightforward task (e.g., Kramsch, 2006; Byram, 1997). Iran, the context of this study, presents a relatively culturally homogenous context, which offers learners little opportunity to experience intercultural interactions. The language learners are exposed to two English teaching systems. English is as an obligatory subject at state schools with the cultural side focusing on Islamic values in line with policy-makers’ wishes. Additionaly popular private language institutesfollow the dominant worldwide approach. To what extent the learners will eventually be prepared for possible participation in intercultural communication is questionable. The overarching aim of this study is to establish a course to increase Iranian teenage language learners’ cultural awareness based on their language learning objectives and within the possibilities of the Iranian context. This Action Research thesis involved a group of ten students, aged between sixteen and eighteen, studying English at private institutes and state schools in Iran. A general structure of two action research phases was followed. For the first phase, four focus group interviews (overall student number = 17) were conducted and qualitatively analysed. These were designed to gain insight into the cultural aspect of learners’ objectives. Additionally, two exemplar English textbooks that are used in the two systems were analysed. The results suggest that students’ English ‘ideal selves’ (e.g., Dörnyei, 2009) mainly involved intercultural communication encounters; however, neither of the textbooks suffices to meet students’ learning objectives. The second phase consisted of a ten-hour teaching intervention with ten students over a period of five weeks, aimed at increasing the learners’ level of cultural awareness. Different data collection tools, i.e., classroom recordings and transcriptions, students’ reflective writings at the end of each session, and written assignments during the course were used., The findings suggest an overall increase in the language learners’ cultural awareness. In addition, individual differences among the learners were found to influence the process of development, an intresting route for further investigation to maximise learners’ progress. This Action Research thesis involved a group of ten students, aged between sixteen and eighteen, studying English at private institutes and state schools in Iran. A general structure of two action research phases was followed. For the first phase, four focus group interviews (overall student number = 17) were conducted and qualitatively analysed. These were designed to gain insight into the cultural aspect of learners’ objectives. Additionally, two exemplar English textbooks that are used in the two systems were analysed. The results suggest that students’ English ‘ideal selves’ (e.g., Dörnyei, 2009) mainly involved intercultural communication encounters; however, neither of the textbooks suffices to meet students’ learning objectives. The second phase consisted of a ten-hour teaching intervention with ten students over a period of five weeks, aimed at increasing the learners’ level of cultural awareness. Different data collection tools, i.e., classroom recordings and transcriptions, students’ reflective writings at the end of each session, and written assignments during the course were used., The findings suggest an overall increase in the language learners’ cultural awareness. In addition, individual differences among the learners were found to influence the process of development, an intresting route for further investigation to maximise learners’ progress.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Kent State University, 2007.
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed July 15, 2008). Advisor: Nancy Padak. Keywords: Curriculum; reading; standards; adolescent literature. Includes survey instrument. Includes bibliographical references (p. 206-217).

Russell Hoban, born in Pennsylvania in 1925, is the author of fifty children's books and eight novels. This thesis provides a critical reading of his novels Kleinzeit (1974), The Medusa Frequency (1987), Riddley Walker (1980) and Pilgermann (1983). The thesis argues that the alienation of the protagonist from his society -- a theme common to the novels above -- is the result of the operation of the Derridean process of displacement. Hoban's novels work deconstructively to undermine binary oppositions (such as "reality" versus "fantasy"). I argue that the novels aim to recuperate the marginal by displacing the centre. In Kleinzeit and The Medusa Frequency, reality itself is figured as an absent centre. Through a discussion of magical realism, I show how Hoban questions the idea of a "consensus reality". I argue that by denying authority to the authors in these texts, Hoban privileges the uncertain authority of language itself. Using Derrida's concept of différance, I show that language in Kleinzeit is figured as an endless deferral of meaning. In Chapter II, I turn to an analysis of the invented post-atomic language of Riddley Walker, and examine how the neologisms and futuristic orthography of the text contribute towards significant wordplay. I argue that Riddley's attempts to read his culture's past offer a critique of the contemporary reader's assumptions, both about her present and about reading itself. I rely on Mircea Eliade's The Myth of the Eternal Return (1965) in discussing the nature of myth-making in Riddley Walker. In the final chapter, I discuss in detail the mechanism of displacement in Pilgermann. By examining the role of the grotesque in the novel, I argue that Pilgermann can be read hymeneutically. Derrida's figure of the hymen becomes the emblem of marginalisation. Using the example of the mode of the grotesque {which is prominent in the novel), I argue that the marginal is always already present in the very centre which would expel it. Pilgermann is read as an attempt to recuperate the margin in spite of "the confusion between the present and the non-present" (Derrida, 1984: 212) which is the hymen. Finally, I conclude that Hoban's works, while focussing on displacement, unwittingly displace women, by figuring them as absences whose existence is primarily metaphorical.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc
This thesis investigates the modelling and animation of virtual humans for real-time sign language visualisation. Sign languages are fully developed natural languages used by Deaf communities all over the world. These languages are communicated in a visual-gestural modality by the use of manual and non-manual gestures and are completely di erent from spoken languages. Manual gestures include the use of hand shapes, hand movements, hand locations and orientations of the palm in space. Non-manual gestures include the use of facial expressions, eye-gazes, head and upper body movements. Both manual and nonmanual gestures must be performed for sign languages to be correctly understood and interpreted. To e ectively visualise sign languages, a virtual human system must have models of adequate quality and be able to perform both manual and non-manual gesture animations in real-time. Our goal was to develop a methodology and establish an open framework by using various standards and open technologies to model and animate virtual humans of adequate quality to e ectively visualise sign languages. This open framework is to be used in a Machine Translation system that translates from a verbal language such as English to any sign language. Standards and technologies we employed include H-Anim, MakeHuman, Blender, Python and SignWriting. We found it necessary to adapt and extend H-Anim to e ectively visualise sign languages. The adaptations and extensions we made to H-Anim include imposing joint rotational limits, developing exible hands and the addition of facial bones based on the MPEG-4 Facial De nition Parameters facial feature points for facial animation. By using these standards and technologies, we found that we could circumvent a few di cult problems, such as: modelling high quality virtual humans; adapting and extending H-Anim; creating a sign language animation action vocabulary; blending between animations in an action vocabulary; sharing animation action data between our virtual humans; and e ectively visualising South African Sign Language.
South Africa

This study regards the importance of exposure to English in English education. The study identifies factors of education proven to be effective when learning a language, such as exposure, the pupils’ lives as a platform, repetition, a calm and secure environment, learning connected to physical action and use of pictures and body language to aid verbal language. Lessons were designed in accordance with existing previous research and literature on exposure to the language. The lessons were carried out among first-graders to determine whether they were successful or not. The success was measured through results from a pre-test as well as a post-test which were both followed by interviews with the pupils. The differing results from the pre- and post-tests as well as the interviews with the pupils indicate the lessons are successful as the scores were higher in the post-test and the pupils could identify their own progress.

PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO
COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTS. DE ENSINO
Esta dissertação investiga a interface linguagem-matemática, com foco em tarefas de resolução de problemas de divisão partitiva e por quotas. Investigamos se dificuldades nesse tipo de tarefa podem estar relacionadas à complexidade linguística dos enunciados. Discute-se em que medida o padrão composicional e as estruturas linguísticas utilizadas nos enunciados podem afetar o desempenho dos alunos nesses dois tipos de problemas. Para realizar essa investigação, foram conduzidos três experimentos com alunos do segundo ano do Ensino Fundamental de uma escola da rede pública federal de ensino no Rio de Janeiro. No primeiro experimento, foram utilizados como itens experimentais os enunciados dos livros didáticos e os resultados indicam diferença significativa entre as condições, com maior número de acertos em divisão partitiva. No segundo experimento, novos enunciados foram criados, controlando-se tanto a estrutura informacional quanto a complexidade gramatical nos dois tipos de problemas. Os resultados mostram desempenho similar nas duas condições. No experimento 3, investigamos o tipo de interpretação preferida para enunciados ambíguos com sujeito composto. Verificou-se clara preferência por leituras coletivas e constatou-se que, quando estruturas ambíguas são utilizadas, o desempenho dos alunos volta a diferir entre as condições, com pior desempenho na divisão por quotas. Esta pesquisa indica que a dificuldade dos alunos em enunciados de divisão pode ser reduzida com o controle da complexidade gramatical, o que mostra o papel fundamental da observação de variáveis linguísticas na aferição de conhecimento matemático e na elaboração de materiais didáticos.
This work investigates the interface of language-mathematics, focusing on partitive and quotative division problem solving tasks. We investigate whether the difficulties students face when solving mathematical verbal problems can be related to linguistic complexity of the commands. We also discuss how the composition and linguistic structures that are used in the verbal problems can affect student s performance. We conducted three experiments with students of the second year of a primary school in Rio de Janeiro. In the first experiment, we used problems extracted from textbooks as experimental items; the results indicate a significant difference between the partitive and quotative conditions, resulting in a bigger number of correct answers regarding partitive division. In the second experiment, we created new commands, controlling their informational structure as well as their grammatical complexity. The results show a similar performance in both conditions. As for experiment 3, our aim was to investigate the type of interpretation students would prefer in ambiguous propositions, in which the subject of the sentence is a compound subject (coordinated structure). A preference for collective readings was observed. Also, when ambiguous structures are present, the performance of the students tends to vary depending on the conditions, declining on quotative division. Thus, the results of this research indicates that the difficulties students usually face in mathematical verbal problems can be reduced when the grammatical complexity is controlled - pointing towards the central role of linguistic variables in mathematical knowledge and in the elaboration of school materials.

In this thesis I argue for a repositioning of Edith Wharton’s short stories in relation to both the twentieth century and modernism. Whilst Wharton was acclaimed for her novels, I argue that the short story, the genre in which she felt most proficient as a writer, yet is still habitually overlooked by critics, presents Wharton at her most experimental and "renovat(ive)", to use her own words. I consider how the restrictive confines of the short story, both in terms of its brevity and commercial value, particularly in relation to the magazine market, were exploited by Wharton to her own advantage, and how her literary craft flourished in such a contained form. I do not argue for a re-envisioning of Wharton as a modernist writer, rather for recognition of her modernist tendencies both in terms of her narrative technique and her interaction with the literary marketplace. Accordingly this thesis is divided into two parts; the first considers Wharton's poetics: her use of myth, modes of narration, creation of narrative gaps, and her notable use of ellipsis points (closely associated by critics such as Henry with modernist writing). The second part of this thesis explores Wharton's modernist practices outside her texts. Here I investigate Wharton's short story magazine publication history, outlining the uneasy balance between her challenges to editorial policy in both the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and her businesslike attitude toward the profession of writing. Finally, given recent critical reassessments of modernism and its relationship with both the short story and the magazine industry, I argue for the timely recognition of the distinctly modernist nature of Wharton's popular, mass marketed short fiction.

This thesis, “Make-Believe: Uncertainty, Alterity, and Faith in Nineteenth-Century Supernatural Short Stories,” illustrates the confluence in nineteenth century America of a philosophical investment in uncertainty and the emergence of a genre suited to its expression. I argue that supernatural short story collections, characterized by stories with explicit fantastical elements or which leave open that possibility, helped voice and explore uncertainty as a critique of prevailing master narratives of both Enlightenment rationalism and religious orthodoxy. My study examines Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Mosses from an Old Manse (1846), Herman Melville’s The Piazza Tales (1856), Charles Chesnutt’s The Conjure Woman, and Other Conjure Tales (1899), and Mary Wilkins Freeman’s The Wind in the Rose-Bush (1903), whose fantastic elements question the confident subjectivity shored up by rationalism and the sense of totality it projects. The genre’s insistent uncertainty conditions a reader into an alternative posture of openness to possibilities—an openness which, at its most ethically effective, describes a means to approach alterity without the totalizing certainty which so often reduces the other. The terms of faith are crucial here, as a means to lend numinous or transcendent meaning to the world beyond the reach of, and therefore setting limits on, rational materialism. But faith also functions on an ethical and interpersonal level, in the act of believing the testimony of an other despite the assumptions of the self. As the century progresses, this genre was taken up by authors with identities more vulnerable to society’s master narratives and the power structures they uphold. My final two chapters demonstrate how the supernatural uncertainty in these collections provided not just a theoretical model for approaching otherness but a specific articulation of the oppressions which certainty enables and the openness which the supernatural helps to found.

This essay is a study which is intended to explore how a well-known makeup company, M.A.C., uses semiotics and pragmatics in their advertisements and how the consumer’s reaction corresponds with what is proposed in the theories. Three printed advertisements were analyzed by the author and six qualitative interviews were conducted with Swedish women of different ages. The analysis of the advertisements identified semiotic and pragmatic features including linguistic and non-linguistic signs, cultural myths, metaphors, similes, pronouns, deixis, visual parallelism as well as the use of Relevance Theory such as enrichment. The results revealed that M.A.C. Cosmetics marketing strategies correlate to, or can be explained by, key theories within pragmatics and semiotics. The results of the interviews show that the majority of the interviewees react correspondingly with what is proposed in the Theoretical Background chapter and the research has validated the theories and confirmed them as useful and effective analytical tools for examining advertising texts. It was also established that the ​advertiser appears to be aware, consciously or not, of​ the cognitive processes involved​ ​in the interpretation of advertisements which Relevance Theory explains, such as enrichment.

This research addressed the nature of mainstream counsellors' attitudes towards their culturally different clients. This investigator conducted two separate studies in which all of the subjects were students in the Department of Counselling Psychology at The University of British Columbia. The counsellors in the first study were in the first year of the counselling program (novice) while those in the second study were in their final year (mature). The research design was an experimental post-test only control group. Counsellors' attitudes towards their culturally different clients were investigated by presenting a client who had a foreign accent. In each study one group was exposed to a non-accented client in a counselling situation and the other group was exposed to a foreign-accented client. A matched-guise videotape of a client presenting a counselling problem was shown to the two groups of counsellors in each study. Each counsellor in the control group viewed a non-accented client and each counsellor in the experimental group viewed the same client but with a foreign accent. To measure the attitudes of counsellors towards their clients, a Semantic Differential Attitude Scale was constructed utilizing 50 bipolar adjectives. In addition, the counsellors responded to a written Interview Questionnaire designed to investigate what may influence the attitudes of the counsellors, such as: similarity of beliefs; perception of the client's motivation and an awareness of cultural differences. In both studies all counsellors rated the client in the accented and non-accented situations with an overall positive attitude on the Semantic Differential Scale. However, the counsellors exposed to the accented client, in Study One responded with a more positive intensity of attitude than the counsellors who viewed the non-accented client (p≤.001). The counsellors in the second study did not differ in their attitudes towards the accented or non-accented client (p>.05). In response to the Interview Questionnaire, the novice, beginner counsellors in Study One generally reacted to the client on a more personal level with the mainstream counsellors in the accented situation reporting more affinity towards the client. Those more mature counsellors in Study Two were less involved and attended to the external influences on the client (accented or not). Recommendations for future counselling research are suggested in the areas of the attitudes of counsellors towards their accented clients; similarity of experience as a variable which influences the cross-cultural counselling process; and the utilization of the matched-guise videotape in training and education.
Education, Faculty of
Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of
Graduate

Social network development has been studied in the social sciences for the last several decades, but little work has applied social network theory to study-abroad research. This study seeks to quantitatively describe factors that predict social network formation among study-abroad students while in the host countries. Social networks were measured in terms of the number of friends the students made, the number of distinct social groups reported, and the number of friends within those groups. The Study Abroad Social Interaction Questionnaire was compared against these pre-trip factors: intercultural competence, target-language proficiency, prior missionary experience, gender, study-abroad program, neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, openness to new experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Results showed that pre-trip oral proficiency in the target language was the strongest predictor of the number of friends made in-country. Certain programs showed stronger predictive statistics in terms of size of largest social group, number of social groups, and number of friends made. A distinction is made between total number of friends and number of friends who are more likely to be native speakers. Neither intercultural competence nor personality showed a significant correlation with the number of friendships made during study abroad.

Parental involvement has been at the forefront of many studies leading to the conclusion that increased parental involvement improves academic achievement. Despite findings suggesting the benefits of parental involvement, research reveals a lack of parental involvement among Spanish-speaking parents. The overarching objective of this qualitative case study was to explore how Spanish-speaking mothers make sense of the construct of parental involvement. This qualitative study was comprised of three cases: one Guatemalan mother and two Honduran mothers each with children attending elementary school. My methodology allowed me to explore and depict historical and sociocultural factors that influence how the mothers view their role in their childrenâ s education. I collected data through semi-structured interviews, informal observations, and extensive fieldnotes and I conducted on-going analysis on these data. Data provide evidence that the mothers in the study hold a different perspective of parental involvement from that of school personnel. Their views stem directly from their own historical and cultural knowledge, which differs from that of middle-class, White Americans. They are involved in their childrenâ s overall education in ways not acknowledged by educators.
Ph. D.

This Master thesis examines the L2 acquisition of Spanish reflexive passives and reflexive impersonals by French and English-speaking adults at the University of Ottawa. Reflexive passives and reflexive impersonals have been chosen over other constructions because they are superficially very similar and possess an idiosyncratic lexical, morphological, and syntactic behavior: no equivalent of these constructions exist in English or French, which may entangle their acquisition. Subjects in this study included two experimental groups made up of 13 native speakers of English and 16 native speakers of French, and one control group made up of 27 native speakers of Spanish. The two experimental groups were first administered a grammaticality judgment tasks of 64 questions, after which they were provided with 3 hours of explicit grammatical instruction on reflexive passives and reflexive impersonals. A second grammaticality judgment task was administered one week after instruction. The results of the two grammaticality judgment tasks were compared to the results of one grammaticality judgment task completed by the Control group. The performance of subjects on both tasks indicated that explicit grammatical instruction had some impact on the L2 acquisition of reflexive passives and reflexive impersonals, though this influence was not found to be significant on every sentence type. The findings also revealed that the subjects' L1 (French and English) had an effect on the L2 acquisition of both constructions on items where transfer from L1 to Spanish was possible.

This thesis seeks to examine the translation of selected foreign film-titles in Hong Kong and Taiwan from 1990 to 2002. Lawrence Venuti’s theory on “domesticating translation” and “foreignizing translation” will be taken as the conceptual framework for the study. Building on Friedrich Schleiermacher’s perspective on translation and on his observations about the Anglo-American publishing industry, Venuti asserts that “foreignizing translation”, being a strategy to bring the target-text audience toward the original text, should be preferred over “domesticating translation” as the former would guarantee difference by introducing foreign elements to the text recipients. By doing so, people will have more chances to be exposed to cultures other than their own and thus a heterogeneous society will be formed and maintained. Since Venuti’s study has not touched upon the Asian region situated in the periphery of global culture as opposed to the Anglo-American one, his suggestion for “foreignizing translation” might not be feasible globally. Selected film-titles will be examined in this thesis. Data show that most of the translated titles in Hong Kong are domesticated. The same can be said of Taiwan in recent years, though to a lesser extent. Unlike other text types, film-titles are normally translated or adapted by the local film distributors rather than professionally or academically trained translators. With box-office sales as the major concern of the movie business, the adoption of the domesticating strategy can easily be rationalized, if not justified. Equally notable is the fact that, as recent trend in Taiwan demonstrates, domesticating strategy also reflects a stronger sense of local identity.

Anchored theoretically in critical discourse analysis and by using analytical tools from legitimization theory, this essay explores the communication within one particular kind of anti-abortion activism, called sidewalk counseling. Informed by previous research on abortion discourse, this study critically analyzes transcribed, authentic video material and accounts for legitimization strategies employed in sidewalk counselor language. The aims of this study are to investigate the linguistic make-up of sidewalk counselor communication, as well as how or to what extent sidewalk counselors motivate their activism in their speech, and to explore potential power relations in the communication. The results show that sidewalk counselors use a number of legitimization strategies in their communication, and they also indicate a power structure based in religiousness. Key findings include that appealing to interlocutors’ emotions is the most commonly used strategy by sidewalk counselors in the examined conversations, while referring to a hypothetical future is the least used strategy.

Esta dissertação analisa a construção dos solilóquios em três das principais tragédias de Shakespeare, a saber, Macbeth, Hamlet e Othello, e sua relação com a formação da consciência na construção da identidade do indivíduo, um conceito que ocorre a partir do início da Idade Moderna. A pesquisa se apoia na teoria psicanalítica freudiana e na análise da linguagem e do discurso elaborada por Foucault. Os solilóquios correspondem ao diálogo que as personagens travam consigo mesmas em momentos quando somente a plateia, ou o leitor, podem escutá-los ou lê-los. Diferentemente do monólogo – que passa pelo crivo da razão, por ser dirigido a um ou mais interlocutores em cena – o solilóquio é mais espirituoso, flui mais livremente e expressa a fala interior e os pensamentos e sentimentos mais profundos das personagens. No solilóquio inexistem o processo de censura ou a necessidade de corresponder às expectativas de outrem. Ele prende a atenção do público e pressupõe a sua conivência para com os argumentos apresentados. Minha hipótese é que no drama Shakespeariano os solilóquios têm a função de acomodar o indivíduo com a sua própria consciência, num tempo em que este não consegue mais se ver como membro de uma comunidade, que pensa e age publicamente, como ocorria na antiguidade, ou de acordo com os preceitos religiosos e morais rigorosos da Idade Média. Apresento este trabalho como um estudo sobre o momento histórico e estético em que o indivíduo moderno passa a se constituir conceitualmente. Os principais temas de fundo na dissertação são a questão da justiça e da ética frente à desgraça; e a questão do mal e de como lidar com ele. A discussão será feita a partir do questionamento das dicotomias e dos estereótipos que operam nessas três tragédias Shakespearianas. A linguagem e o conteúdo dos solilóquios serão analisados sob um enfoque filosófico e psicanalítico.
This thesis aims at analysing the appearance and construction of soliloquies in three major Shakespearean tragedies, Macbeth, Hamlet and Othello. The focus of the research lies on the relationship involving the plays and the concept of individual identity that originates at the dawn of the Modern Age. The research is grounded on Freudian psychoanalytical theory and on the analysis of language and discourse proposed by Michel Foucault. Soliloquies correspond to the inner dialogue that characters have with themselves when no one else is present and only the audience, or the reader, can hear or read them. Differently from the monologue, which is always addressed to one or more people present at the scene, soliloquies are usually witty, and express the inner speech and deepest thoughts and feelings of a character. This happens because with soliloquies there is no process of censorship, or the need to correspond to the expectation of other characters. My hypothesis is that soliloquies originate in and are related to the need of individuals to express themselves according to their own conscience, not only as members of a community who act and think publicly, as was the case in ancient times, or according to the religious precepts and strict moral codes of the Middle Ages. I hope that this work can contribute to illustrate the moment in which the concept of individuality starts to be put to use. Some of the themes discussed in the thesis address the questions of justice and ethics in face of disgrace, the origin of evil and how it is addressed. The themes are dealt with in the analysis of the dichotomies and stereotypes that operate in those Shakespearean tragedies. The language and content of the soliloquies will be analysed through a philosophical and psychoanalytical approach.

In this qualitative research, I hoped to get some impression of ways teachers and learners in five Cape Town schools deal with the process of making sense of a violent past. I offered five teachers material on the Trojan Horse Incident, partly generated by the TRC, and pondered the questions what for them and their learners is politically sensitive and how they position the people involved in the incident and how they position themselves. I understand by 'politically sensitive issues', issues centering on political and social divisions of the past and their ramifications in the present in this country. Applying a 'Foucaultian' approach to discourse analysis, I used the concepts 'indescribable' and 'undiscussable' as structuring categories, next to a differentiation between the discourse of classroom talk, and informal discourses outside the classroom situation. I also differentiated between the sense making processes of teachers, being part of a generation that lived through Apartheid, and of learners, the 'new' generation who didn't have that experience. The results of this research are: Firstly, teachers and learners in the five schools positioned themselves, the people involved in the incident and the researcher through dynamic practices of in- and excluding (shifting between 'us' and 'them') and of past and present framing (shifting between past and present tenses). Both groups seem to prefer to position themselves as 'observers'. In most classes, most of the time was spent on how exactly the Trojan Horse Incident took place (when, where, which tactics the policemen used, consequences,). Moral questions ('why' questions) were left for the end of the period or left implicit. Secondly, there was not a lot of space during classroom interactions for emotions and personal stories. The power/knowledge structure of the discourse of schooling seemed to be very strong, although it was also a matter of personal choices by teachers and learners. An 'official' image of Apartheid, with clear differentiations between victims and perpetrators prevailed. Personal stories were only situated in formal discourses of schooling before or after the actual lesson (learners speaking with the teacher about their personal experiences of or reactions to violence) or when 'others' were present, be it learners from 'another' community than the majority of learners and the teacher, or be it the researcher. Thirdly, a discourse of reconstructing personal histories and identities had more space in informal discourses (for example learners talking to one another during breaks) and during interviews with me. South African youth might have (similar to German and Irish youth) a 'fatigue' towards 'official', 'consensus' knowledge of the past and they might not to be able or not want to make sense of the 'wall' of silenced personal stories of those who have experienced the conflicts in the past. Fourthly, 'sensitive issues' were mostly expressed outside the classroom interactions. These were violence in past and present; moral stances towards violence and responsibility; schooling (teaching but also disciplining); and stereotypes people have of 'other' South Africans and the separate lives they have.

Dada a importância de agentes inteligentes e sistemas multiagentes na Ciência da Computação e na Inteligência Artificial, a programação orientada a agentes (AOP, do inglês Agent-oriented programming) emergiu como um novo paradigma para a criação de sistemas computacionais complexos. Assim, nas últimas décadas, houve um florescimento da literatura em programação orientada a agentes e, com isso, surgiram diversas linguages de programação seguindo tal paradigma, como AgentSpeak (RAO, 1996; BORDINI; HUBNER; WOOLDRIDGE, 2007), Jadex (POKAHR; BRAUBACH; LAMERSDORF, 2005), 3APL/2APL (DASTANI; VAN RIEMSDIJK; MEYER, 2005; DASTANI, 2008), GOAL (HINDRIKS et al., 2001), entre outras. Programação orientada a agentes é um paradigma de programação proposto por Shoham (1993) no qual os elementos mínimos de um programa são agentes. Shoham (1993) defende que agentes autônomos e sistemas multiagentes configuram-se como uma forma diferente de se organizar uma solução para um problema computacional, de forma que a construção de um sistema multiagente para a solução de um problema pode ser entendida como um paradgima de programação. Para entender tal paradigma, é necessário entender o conceito de agente. Agente, nesse contexto, é uma entidade computacional descrita por certos atributos - chamados de atitudes mentais - que descrevem o seu estado interno e sua relação com o ambiente externo. Atribuir a interpretação de atitudes mentais a tais atributos é válida, defende Shoham (1993), uma vez que esses atributos se comportem de forma semelhante as atitudes mentais usadas para descrever o comportamento humano e desde que sejam pragmaticamente justificáveis, i.e. úteis à solução do problema. Entender, portanto, o significado de termos como ’crença’, ’desejo’, ’intenção’, etc., assim como suas propriedades fundamentais, é de fundamental importância para estabelecer linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes. Nesse trabalho, vamos nos preocupar com um tipo específico de linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes, as chamadas linguagens BDI. Linguagens BDI são baseadas na teoria BDI da Filosofia da Ação em que o estado mental de um agente (e suas ações) é descrito por suas crenças, desejos e intenções. Enquanto a construção de sistemas baseados em agentes e linguagens de programação foram tópicos bastante discutidos na literatura, a conexão entre tais sistemas e linguagens com o trabalho teórico proveniente da Inteligência Artificial e da Filosofia da Ação ainda não está bem estabelecida. Essa distância entre a teoria e a prática da construção de sistemas é bem reconhecida na literatura relevante e comumente chamada de “gap semântico” (gap em inglês significa lacuna ou abertura e representa a distância entre os modelos teóricos e sua implementação em linguagens e sistemas). Muitos trabalhos tentaram atacar o problema do gap semântico para linguagens de programação específicas, como para as linguagens AgentSpeak (BORDINI; MOREIRA, 2004), GOAL (HINDRIKS; VAN DER HOEK, 2008), etc. De fato, Rao (1996, p. 44) afirma que “O cálice sagrado da pesquisa em agentes BDI é mostrar uma correspondência 1-a-1 com uma linguagem razoavelmente útil e expressiva” (tradução nossa)1 Uma limitação crucial, em nossa opinião, das tentativas passadas de estabeler uma conexão entre linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes e lógicas BDI é que elas se baseiam em estabelecer a interpretação de um programa somente no nível estático. De outra forma, dado um estado de um programa, tais trabalhos tentam estabelecer uma interpretação declarativa, i.e. baseada em lógica, do estado do programa respresentando assim o estado mental do agente. Não é claro, entretanto, como a execução do programa pode ser entendida enquanto mudanças no estado mental do agente. A razão para isso, nós acreditamos, está nos formalismos utilizados para especificar agentes BDI. De fato, as lógicas BDI propostas são, em sua maioria, estáticas ou incapazes de representar ações mentais. O ato de revisão uma crença, adotar um objetivo ou mudar de opinião são exemplos de ações mentais, i.e. ações que são executadas internarmente ao agente e afetando somente seu estado mental, sendo portanto não observáveis. Tais ações são, em nossa opinião, intrinsecamente diferentes de ações ônticas que consistem de comportamento observável e que possivelmente afeta o ambiente externo ao agente. Essa diferença é comumente reconhecida no estudo da semântica de linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes (BORDINI; HUBNER; WOOLDRIDGE, 2007; D’INVERNO et al., 1998; MENEGUZZI; LUCK, 2009), entretanto os formalismos disponíveis para se especificar raciocínio BDI, em nosso conhecimento, não provem recursos expressivos para codificar tal diferença. Nós acreditamos que, para atacar o gap semântico, precisamos de um ferramental semântico que permita a especificação de ações mentais, assim como ações ônticas. Lógicas Dinâmicas Epistêmicas (DEL, do inglês Dynamic Epistemic Logic) são uma família de lógicas modais dinâmicas largamente utilizadas para estudar os fenômenos de mudança do estado mental de agentes. Os trabalhos em DEL foram fortemente influenciados pela escola holandesa de lógica, com maior proponente Johna Van Benthem, e seu “desvio dinâmico” em lógica (dynamic turn em inglês) que propõe a utilização de lógicas dinâmicas para compreender ações de mudanças mentais (VAN BENTHEM, 1996). O formalismo das DEL deriva de diversas vertentes do estudo de mudança epistêmica, como o trabalho em teoria da Revisão de Crenças AGM (ALCHOURRÓN; GÄRDENFORS; MAKINSON, 1985), e Epistemologia Bayesiana (HÁJEK; HARTMANN, 2010). Tais lógicas adotam a abordagem, primeiro proposta por Segerberg (1999), de representar mudanças epistêmicas dentro da mesma linguagem utilizada para representar as noções de crença e conhecimento, diferente da abordagem extra-semântica do Revisão de Crenças a la AGM. No contexto das DEL, uma lógica nos parece particulamente interessante para o estudo de programação orientada a agentes: a Lógica Dinâmica de Preferências (DPL, do inglês Dynamic Preference Logic) de Girard (2008). DPL, também conhecida como lógica dinâmica de ordem, é uma lógica dinâmica para o estudo de preferências que possui grande expressibilidade para codificar diversas atiutudes mentais. De fato, tal lógica foi empregada para o estudo de obrigações (VAN BENTHEM; GROSSI; LIU, 2014), crenças (GIRARD; ROTT, 2014), preferências (GIRARD, 2008), etc. Tal lógica possui fortes ligações com raciocínio não-monotônico e com lógicas já propostas para o estudo de atitudes mentais na área de Teoria da Decisão (BOUTILIER, 1994b) Nós acreditamos que DPL constitui um candidato ideal para ser utilizado como ferramental semântico para se estudar atitudes mentais da teoria BDI por permitir grande flexibilidade para representação de tais atitudes, assim como por permitir a fácil representação de ações mentais como revisão de crenças, adoção de desejos, etc. Mais ainda, pelo trabalho de Liu (2011), sabemos que existem representações sintáticas dos modelos de tal lógica que podem ser utilizados para raciocinar sobre atitudes mentais, sendo assim candidatos naturais para serem utilizados como estruturas de dados para uma implementação semanticamente fundamentada de uma linguagem de programação orientada a agentes. Assim, nesse trabalho nós avançamos no problema de reduzir o gap semântico entre linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes e formalismos lógicos para especificar agentes BDI. Nós exploramos não somente como estabelecer as conexões entre as estruturas estáticas, i.e. estado de um programa e um modelo da lógica, mas também como as ações de raciocínio pelas quais se especifica a semântica formal de uma linguagem de programação orientada a agentes podem ser entendidas dentro da lógica como operadores dinâmicos que representam ações mentais do agente. Com essa conexão, nós provemos também um conjunto de operações que podem ser utilizadas para se implementar uma linguagem de programação orientada a agentes e que preservam a conexão entre os programas dessa linguagem e os modelos que representam o estado mental de um agente. Finalmente, com essas conexões, nós desenvolvemos um arcabouço para estudar a dinâmica de atitudes mentais, tais como crenças, desejos e inteções, e como reproduzir essas propriedades na semântica de linguagens de programação.
As the notions of Agency and Multiagent System became important topics for the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence communities, Agent Programming has been proposed as a paradigm for the development of computer systems. As such, in the last decade, we have seen the flourishing of the literature on Agent Programming with the proposal of several programming languages, e.g. AgentSpeak (RAO, 1996; BORDINI; HUBNER;WOOLDRIDGE, 2007), Jadex (POKAHR; BRAUBACH; LAMERSDORF, 2005), JACK (HOWDEN et al., 2001), 3APL/2APL (DASTANI; VAN RIEMSDIJK; MEYER, 2005; DASTANI, 2008), GOAL (HINDRIKS et al., 2001), among others. Agent Programming is a programming paradigm proposed by Shoham (1993) in which the minimal units are agents. An agent is an entity composed of mental attitudes, that describe the its internal state - such as its motivations and decisions - as well as its relation to the external world - its beliefs about the world, its obligations, etc. This programming paradigm stems from the work on Philosophy of Action and Artificial Intelligence concerning the notions of intentional action and formal models of agents’ mental states. As such, the meaning (and properties) of notions such as belief, desire, intention, etc. as studied in these disciplines are of central importance to the area. Particularly, we will concentrate in our work on agent programming languages influenced by the so-called BDI paradigm of agency, in which an agent is described by her beliefs, desires, intentions. While the engineering of such languages has been much discussed, the connections between the theoretical work on Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence and its implementations in programming languages are not so clearly understood yet. This distance between theory and practice has been acknowledged in the literature for agent programming languages and is commonly known as the “semantic gap”. Many authors have attempted to tackle this problem for different programming languages, as for the case of AgentSpeak (BORDINI; MOREIRA, 2004), GOAL (HINDRIKS; VAN DER HOEK, 2008), etc. In fact, Rao (1996, p. 44) states that “[t]he holy grail of BDI agent research is to show such a one-to-one correspondence with a reasonably useful and expressive language.” One crucial limitation in the previous attempts to connect agent programming languages and BDI logics, in our opinion, is that the connection is mainly established at the static level, i.e. they show how a given program state can be interpreted as a BDI mental state. It is not clear in these attempts, however, how the execution of the program may be understood as changes in the mental state of the agent. The reason for this, in our opinion, is that the formalisms employed to construct BDI logics are usually static, i.e. cannot represent actions and change, or can only represent ontic change, not mental change. The act of revising one’s beliefs or adopting a given desire are mental actions (or internal actions) and, as such, different from performing an action over the environment (an ontic or external action). This difference is well recognized in the literature on the semantics of agent programming languages (D’INVERNO et al., 1998; BORDINI; HUBNER; WOOLDRIDGE, 2007; MENEGUZZI; LUCK, 2009), but this difference is lost when translating their semantics into a BDI logic. We believe the main reason for that is a lack of expressibility in the formalisms used to model BDI reasoning. Dynamic Epistemic Logic, or DEL, is a family of dynamic modal logics to study information change and the dynamics of mental attitudes inspired by the Dutch School on the “dynamic turn” in Logic (VAN BENTHEM, 1996). This formalism stems from various approaches in the study of belief change and differs from previous studies, such as AGM Belief Revision, by shifting from extra-logical characterization of changes in the agents attitudes to their integration within the representation language. In the context of Dynamic Epistemic Logic, the Dynamic Preference Logic of Girard (2008) seems like an ideal candidate, having already been used to study diverse mental attitudes, such as Obligations (VAN BENTHEM; GROSSI; LIU, 2014), Beliefs (GIRARD; ROTT, 2014), Preferences (GIRARD, 2008), etc. We believe Dynamic Preference Logic to be the ideal semantic framework to construct a formal theory of BDI reasoning which can be used to specify an agent programming language semantics. The reason for that is that inside this logic we can faithfully represent the static state of a agent program, i.e. the agent’s mental state, as well as the changes in the state of the agent program by means of the agent’s reasoning, i.e. by means of her mental actions. As such, in this work we go further in closing the semantic gap between agent programs and agency theories and explore not only the static connections between program states and possible worlds models, but also how the program execution of a language based on common operations - such as addition/removal of information in the already mentioned bases - may be understood as semantic transformations in the models, as studied in Dynamic Logics. With this, we provide a set of operations for the implementation of agent programming languages which are semantically safe and we connect an agent program execution with the dynamic properties in the formal theory. Lastly, by these connections, we provide a framework to study the dynamics of different mental attitudes, such as beliefs, goals and intentions, and how to reproduce the desirable properties proposed in theories of Agency in a programming language semantics.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the least developed countries in the world and its school system needs to be improved. The aim of this research is to find out what the Congolese state expects from language teaching (French and English), how this is described in the curriculum, and whether this differs from the curriculum of a more developed country, such as Sweden. Through a content analysis, the language view, the role of the teacher and views of pupil participation are investigated. The Swedish curriculum and the Congolese programme of French show similarities by communicative and constructivist views, while the Congolese programme of English demonstrates behaviouristic features. This study can serve as an example of how the language context, i.e., second language v. foreign language, as well as the national culture, influence the curriculum.
Demokratiska republiken Kongo är ett av världens minst utvecklade länder och dess skolsystem är i behov av en förbättring. Språk är en viktig del i utvecklingen av landet. Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att ta reda på vad den kongolesiska staten förväntar sig av sin språkundervisning, hur den beskrivs i styrdokument samt om den skiljer sig från läroplanen i ett mer utvecklat land som Sverige. Genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys har uppfattningar om uppsatsens teman; språksyn, lärarens roll och elevdeltagande, hittats. Materialet som analyserats är den kongolesiska skolans program för franska och engelska, samt den svenska läroplanen inklusive kursplanerna för franska och engelska. Analysen avser de första åren i den kongolesiska sekundärskolan och det svenska högstadiet, vilka motsvarar varandra när det gäller elevernas ålder. Skillnaden i DR Kongo mellan andraspråk (franska) och främmande språk (engelska) berörs.Den svenska läroplanen samt det kongolesiska programmet för franska visar många likheter genom att lyfta fram kommunikativa och konstruktivistiska perspektiv. Det kongolesiska programmet för engelska har däremot behavioristiska drag. Lärarens olika roller och hur elevdeltagande lyfts fram förstärker dessa språksyner. De två kongolesiska programmen liknar dock varandra när det gäller synen på hur läraren ska behandla språkliga fel i klassrummet. Studien kan ses som ett exempel på hur språkkontexten, d.v.s. andraspråk och främmande språk, likväl som den nationella kulturen påverkar läroplaner.

This study investigates how Chinese College Students (CCSs) make sense of foreign films and TV series from an intercultural perspective, and then explores the theoretical and pedagogical implications of the findings on the use of foreign films and TV series in English language teaching, particularly for developing students’ intercultural communicative competence. The study employed a questionnaire survey and multiple-stage semi-structured interviews. Research subjects were second-year or above CCSs with students from 15 Beijing universities participating. The empirical findings suggest that: • In the Chinese context, foreign films and TV series are the main resource Chinese college students use, and the one they prefer to use, to learn about the U.K. and the U.S.A. • Making sense of foreign films and TV series is a highly complex and dynamic process which is culturally specific. Chinese college students’ undertake sense-making activities which fall into five main categories: 1) comprehending the plot; 2) compare: identifying differences; 3) compare: identifying similarities; 4) re-contextualizing; and 5) perceiving as realistic. These sense-making activities tend to be intertwined and occur on various levels. • These sense-making activities affect Chinese college students’ understanding of and attitudes to foreign people and culture, as well as to local people and culture. A Foreign Media Sense-Making (FMSM) model is developed based on the sense-making activities identified and the variables which influence them. This model provides a theoretical framework suggesting how foreign films and TV series can used to develop students’ intercultural communicative competence in the English language teaching classroom, and an intercultural approach to the use of foreign films and TV series in ELT is suggested. The findings give valuable insights and have practical implications for those interested in using foreign films and TV series in ELT. The FMSM model provides a conceptual framework and useful resource for the development of future research and teaching programmes.

For the past few years, Namibian grade 11-12 learners’ achievement level in biology has not been very encouraging. Evidence to this effect is contained in recent examiners’ reports which outline misunderstanding and various misconceptions. The causes of these misunderstandings and misconceptions may be varied, but there is credible evidence that some of it is rooted in the language problem for learners. A classroom is a social unit where many social practices are acquired, including the use of English language. Equally, it is a place where errors in language are learnt and reinforced. Triggered by these challenges facing biology learners, a qualitative case study was conducted at two secondary schools in Ohangwena Region, Namibia. Its purpose was to investigate how biology teachers scaffold learners to make sense of biological language and concepts when English is used as the mediational tool. Underpinned by an interpretivist paradigm, the study made use of document analysis, observation (lessons were also video-taped) and interviews to generate the data. Several data generating techniques were used for triangulation and validation. To further validate the data, transcripts of video-taped lessons and interviews were sent back to the research participants for member checking. The data gathering methods were also used in data presentation, analysis and interpretation to determine the extent of scaffold that teachers provide to their biology learners. The main findings of my study are that, despite efforts by participant teachers to scaffold their learners in making sense of biological language and concepts, success rates in this regard remain disappointingly low due to their (teachers) limited pedagogical content knowledge. Teachers therefore require improved mentorship, monitoring and capacity building.

Large open-source software projects involve developers with a wide variety of backgrounds and expertise. Such software projects furthermore include many internal APIs that developers must understand and use properly. According to the intended purpose of these APIs, they are more or less frequently used, and used by developers with more or less expertise. In this paper, we study the impact of usage patterns and developer expertise on the rate of defects occurring in the use of internal APIs. For this preliminary study, we focus on memory management APIs in the Linux kernel, as the use of these has been shown to be highly error prone in previous work. We study defect rates and developer expertise, to consider e.g., whether widely used APIs are more defect prone because they are used by less experienced developers, or whether defects in widely used APIs are more likely to be fixed.

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching should not only aim at providing learners with the linguistic resources to communicate in English, but also develop learners’ pragmatic competence in order for them to be able to use language efficiently and appropriately for different purposes. The present study examines what pragmatic input learners receive from two Swedish EFL textbook series regarding the speech act of request. The analysis was conducted by identifying all instances of requests and all metapragmatic information about the specific speech act. In addition, the present study also focused on finding exercises that provide learners with the opportunity to practice making requests. The findings show that the two examined EFL textbook series differ in terms of which directness levels are most frequently used, and both series lack explicit information about requests that may increase students' understanding of this speech act. Moreover, request exercises are few and practicing requests is rarely the main learning objective. Consequently, teachers will need to use supplemental material and exercises in order for learners to develop their pragmatic competence in the case of requests.
Engelskundervisning bör inte bara syfta till att ge elever de språkliga resurser som krävs för att kommunicera på engelska, utan även utveckla elevernas pragmatiska kompetens så att de lär sig att använda språket effektivt och lämpligt för olika ändamål. Det som undersöks i den här studien är i vilken utsträckning språkhandlingen uppmaning förekommer och lärs ut i två olika läromedel i engelska för högstadiet. Analysen utfördes genom att identifiera alla exempel av uppmaningar och all metapragmatisk information om den specifika språkhandlingen. Utöver detta fokuserade den här studien även på att hitta övningsuppgifter som ger eleverna möjlighet att öva på språkhandlingen uppmaning. Resultaten visar att de två läromedlen skiljer sig åt vad gäller fördelningen av direkta och indirekta uppmaningar. Dessutom saknar båda läromedlen explicit information som kan öka elevers förståelse för denna språkhandling. Övningsuppgifterna är få och fokuserar inte på att utveckla elevers förmåga att formulera uppmaningar i första hand. Följaktligen behöver lärare använda kompletterande material och övningsuppgifter för att elever ska kunna utveckla sin pragmatiska kompetens vid uppmaningar.

This dissertation examines how individuals use social media to respond to crisis situations, both during and after the event. Using both rhetorical criticism and David Boje’s theories and concepts regarding the development of antenarrative—a process of making sense of past, present, and future events—I explored how social media users make sense of and respond to a crisis. Specifically, my research was guided by three major questions: Are traditional, pre-social media image-repair strategies effective in social media environments? How do participants use social media in crisis events, and how does this usage shape the rhetorical framing of a crisis? How might organizations effectively adapt traditional crisis communication plans to be used in social media during future crisis events? These questions were applied to four case studies to provide a range of insights about not only how individuals respond to a crisis, but also what strategies organizations use to present information about it. These cases were carefully selected to include a variety of crisis types and responses and include the following: A business (H&R Block) communicating to clients about a software error A governmental organization (the NTSB) presenting information about the cause of an airplane crash and about missteps in its response A governmental group (the CDC) responding to a global health crisis with various audiences and types of responses An activist movement (Black Lives Matter) attempting to unify social media users to lobby for change and highlight the scope of the issues to the nation Analyses of these cases not only show how individuals and groups used social media to make sense of crisis events, but also how the rhetorical strategies used to respond to a crisis situation. Understanding how individuals and groups make sense of crises will provide additional understanding to information designers, public relations professionals, organizations and businesses, and individuals using social media to effect change.

The present paper investigates the use of two high–frequency verbs: make and take. These verbs are particularly interesting since they express basic meaning (the meaning of the verb is mostly determined by its combinations). Therefore, they do not constitute a problem in learners’ comprehension. However, because they have little semantic content, learning how to use them appropriately has proved to be tricky even for advanced learners (Howarth, 1998; Altenberg & Granger, 2001; Nesselhauf, 2003; Futgi et al. 2008). The aim of this study is to analyse learners’ ability to produce the two high-frequency verbs to uncover features of non–nativeness of learner language in relation to the use of these verbs, such as overuse/underuse of certain verbs, nouns, collocations or structures, focusing on Spanish and Italian learners of English. Corpus Linguistics (CL) is particularly useful for looking for this type of non–native usage patterns. Learner Corpora will be studied using CIA, Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (Granger, 1998) as a method, more specifically NL/IL comparison (native language vs interlanguage) to be able to compare native and non–native speakers’ performances in comparable situations. A second type of comparison will be made between two interlanguages (Spanish and Italian). Including a second L2 variety allows to distinguish general L2 features from characteristics that are exclusive to one particular language. Authentic learner data has been retrieved from the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE). ICLE contains argumentative essays produced by advanced second language learners of English from different mother–tongue backgrounds. The Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS) is used as a control corpus to compare it with the learner corpora. Results bring further evidence that high-frequency verbs are difficult items even for advanced English learners. In addition, the two learner groups share some of the problems, while others, despite the similarities between the two languages, are related to the L1 of the learners. These results have pedagogical implications: teachers should aim to improve learners’ productive capacities of those items that have not been fully mastered yet, such as high-frequency verbs.

This essay analysed how gender is established in students’ texts. The aim of the study was to find out if the students in a class in an upper secondary school were able to produce texts where female and male subjects were not influenced by prevailing gender roles. The analysis was based on Halliday’s Functional Grammar Theory. Furthermore, the results are interpreted in the light of the guidelines of the Curriculum and the Education Act. To fulfil the aim of this essay 32 texts were analysed from the extra linguistic factor of gender.

                      The linguistic factors examined were verbs (dynamic/stative, transitive/intransitive), if the subjects function as actors or not were the factors used to establish if there is a difference between how females and males are represented in the texts. Furthermore the use of adjectives, nouns and predicatives modifying the grammatical subjects were also taken in consideration in the analysis. The hypothesis was based on a previous study made on the teaching book Blueprint A and the results from this current study were compared to the results from that study. The study finds that in the texts examined females are established as more stative than males and because of that it is possible to draw conclusions that the teaching book can influence the student in their writing but also that school not always uphold the goals of the Curriculum and the Education Act in the issue regarding gender equality.