Search results for: language picture of the world

Authors: Bernice Badal

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The South African English curriculum emphasizes the adoption of the Communicative Approach (CA) using Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) methodologies to develop English as a second language (ESL) learners’ communicative competence in contexts such as township schools in South Africa. However, studies indicate that the adoption of the approach largely remains a rhetoric. Poor English language proficiency among learners and poor student performance, which continues from the secondary to the tertiary phase, is widely attributed to a lack of English language proficiency in South Africa. Consequently, this qualitative study, using a mix of classroom observations and interviews, sought to investigate teacher knowledge of Communicative Competence and the methods and strategies ESL teachers used to develop their learners’ communicative competence. The success of learners’ ability to develop communicative competence in contexts such as township schools in South Africa is inseparable from materials, tasks, teacher knowledge and how they implement the approach in the classrooms. Accordingly, teacher knowledge of the theory and practical implications of the CLT approach is imperative for the negotiation of meaning and appropriate use of language in context in resource-impoverished areas like the township. Using a mix of interviews and observations as data sources, this qualitative study examined teachers’ definitions and knowledge of Communicative competence with a focus on how it influenced their classroom practices. The findings revealed that teachers were not familiar with the notion of communicative competence, the communication process, and the underpinnings of CLT. Teachers’ narratives indicated an awareness that there should be interactions and communication in the classroom, but a lack of theoretical understanding of the types of communication necessary scuttled their initiatives. Thus, conceptual deficiency influences teachers’ practices as they engage in classroom activities in a superficial manner or focus on stipulated learner activities prescribed by the CAPS document. This study, therefore, concluded that partial or limited conceptual and coherent understandings with ‘teacher-proof’ stipulations for classroom practice do not inspire teacher efficacy and mastery of prescribed approaches; thus, more efforts should be made by the Department of Basic Education to strengthen the existing Professional Development workshops to support teachers in improving their understandings and application of CLT for the development of Communicative competence in their learners. The findings of the study contribute to the field of teacher knowledge acquisition, teacher beliefs and practices and professional development in the context of second language teaching and learning with a recommendation that frameworks for the development of communicative competence with wider applicability in resource-poor environments be developed to support teacher understanding and application in classrooms.

Keywords: communicative competence, CLT, conceptual understanding of reforms, professional development

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Authors: Deyu Yuan

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Discourse analysis as an interdisciplinary approach has more than 60-years-history since it was first named by Zellig Harris in 'Discourse Analysis' on Language in 1952. Ferdinand de Saussure differentiated the 'parole' from the 'langue' that established the principle of focusing on language but not speech. So the rising of discourse analysis can be seen as a discursive turn for the entire language research that closely related to the theory of Speech act. Critical discourse analysis becomes the mainstream of contemporary language research through drawing upon M. A. K. Halliday's socio-semiotic theory and Foucault, Barthes, Bourdieu's views on the sign, discourse, and ideology. So in contrast to general semiotics, social semiotics mainly focuses on parole and the application of semiotic theories to some applicable fields. The article attempts to discuss this applicable sociosemiotics and show the features of it that differ from the Saussurian and Peircian semiotics in four aspects: 1) the sign system is about meaning-generation resource in the social context; 2) the sign system conforms to social and cultural changes with the form of metaphor and connotation; 3) sociosemiotics concerns about five applicable principles including the personal authority principle, non-personal authority principle, consistency principle, model demonstration principle, the expertise principle to deepen specific communication; 4) the study of symbolic functions is targeted to the characteristics of ideational, interpersonal and interactional function in social communication process. Then the paper describes six features which characterize this sociosemiotics as applicable semiotics: social, systematic, usable interdisciplinary, dynamic, and multi-modal characteristics. Thirdly, the paper explores the multi-modal choices of sociosemiotics in the respects of genre, discourse, and style. Finally, the paper discusses the relationship between theory and practice in social semiotics and proposes a relatively comprehensive theoretical framework for social semiotics as applicable semiotics.

Keywords: discourse analysis, sociosemiotics, pragmatics, ideology

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Authors: Linette van der Merwe

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It is known that visual artists, performing artists, and literary artists have inspired each other since time immemorial. The enduring, symbiotic relationship between the various art genres is evident where words, colours, lines, and sounds act as metaphors, a physical separation of the transcendental reality of art. Simonides of Keos (c. 556-468 BC) confirmed this, stating that a poem is a talking picture, or, in a more modern expression, a picture is worth a thousand words. It can be seen as an ancient relationship, originating from the epigram (tombstone or artefact inscriptions), the carmen figuratum (figure poem), and the ekphrasis (a description in the form of a poem of a work of art). Visual artists, including Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Goethe, wrote poems and songs. Goya, Degas, and Picasso are famous for their works of art and for trying their hands at poetry. Afrikaans writers whose fine art is often published together with their writing, as in the case of Andries Bezuidenhout, Breyten Breytenbach, Sheila Cussons, Hennie Meyer, Carina Stander, and Johan van Wyk, among others, are not a strange phenomenon either. Imitating one art form into another art form is a form of translation, transposition, contemplation, and discovery of artistic impressions, showing parallel interpretations rather than physical comparison. It is especially about the harmony that exists between the different art genres, i.e., a poem that describes a painting or a visual text that portrays a poem that becomes a translation, interpretation, and rediscovery of the verbal text, or rather, from the word text to the image text. Poetry-film, as a form of such a translation of the word text into an image text, can be considered a hybrid, transdisciplinary art form that connects poetry and film. Poetry-film is regarded as an intertwined entity of word, sound, and visual image. It is an attempt to transpose and transform a poem into a new artwork that makes the poem more accessible to people who are not necessarily open to the written word and will, in effect, attract a larger audience to a genre that usually has a limited market. Poetry-film is considered a creative expression of an inverted ekphrastic inspiration, a visual description, interpretation, and expression of a poem. Research also emphasises that animated poetry-film is not widely regarded as a genre of anything and is thus severely under-theorized. This paper will focus on Afrikaans animated poetry-films as a multimodal transposition of a poem text to an animated poetry film, with specific reference to animated poetry-films in Filmverse I (2014) and Filmverse II (2016).

Keywords: poetry film, animated poetry film, poetic metaphor, conceptual metaphor, monomodal metaphor, multimodal metaphor, semiotic metaphor, multimodality, metaphor analysis, target domain, source domain

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Authors: A. Nawaz

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The present study uses Halliday’s transitivity model to analyze and interpret ideological stance in PM Nawaz Sharif’s political discourse. His famous speech at the 71st UN assembly was analyzed qualitatively using clausal analysis approach to investigate the communicative functions of the linguistic choices made in the address. The study discovers that among the six process types under the transitivity model, material, relational and mental processes appear most frequently in the speech, making up almost 86% of the whole. Verbal processes rank 4th, whereas existential and behavioral are the least occurring processes covering only 2 and 1 percent respectively. The dominant use of material processes suggests that Nawaz Sharif and his government are the main actors working on several concrete projects to produce a sense of developmental progression and continuity. Using relational and mental processes the PM, along with establishing proximity with masses and especially Kashmiri, gives guarantees and promises. The linguistic analysis concludes Kashmir dispute as being the central theme of the address, since it covers more than half of the discourse. The address calls for a strong action instead of formal assurances and wishful thoughts. The study establishes that language structures can yield certain connotations and ideologies which are not overt for readers. This is in affirmation to the supposition that language form performs a communicative function and is not merely fortuitous.

Keywords: Hallidian perspective on language, implicit meanings, Nawaz Sharif, political ideologies, political speeches, transitivity, UN Assembly

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Authors: Sandra Valdez-Hernández

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Motivation is one of the most important factors when teaching language. Most institutions at least in Mexico, pay low attention to the types of motivation students have when they are studying English; however, considering the motivation they have, may lead to better understanding about their needs and purposes for learning English and the professors may understand and focus on their interests for making them persist in action through the course. This topic has been widely investigated in different countries, but more research needs to be done in Mexico to shed light on this area of potential impact. The aim of this research is to focus on the types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic, instrumental and integrative and the attitudes students have about English language to identify aspects that are alike to other contexts and research areas based on the theory of Dörnyei (2013) and Gardner (2001). It was carried out at a Mexican University in a small village in Quintana Roo. The potential implications, the findings as well as the limitations are presented.

Keywords: attides of motivation, factors of motivation, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, instrumental and integrative motivation

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Authors: Nyasha Agnes Gurira, Patrick Ngulube

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Heritage as an asset can be used to achieve cultural and socio-economic development through its careful use as a tourist attraction. Cultural heritage sites, especially those listed as World Heritage sites generate a lot of revenue through their use as tourist attractions. According to article 5(a) of the World Heritage Convention, World Heritage Sites (WHS) must serve a function in the life of the communities. This is further stressed by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) charter on cultural heritage tourism which recognizes the positive effects of tourism on cultural heritage and underlines that domestic and international tourism is among the foremost vehicles for cultural exchange, conservation should thus provide for responsible and well-managed opportunities for local communities. The inclusion of communities in the world heritage agenda identifies them as the owners of the heritage and partners in the management planning process. This reiterates the need to empower communities and enable them to participate in the decisions which relate to the use of their heritage divorcing from the ideals of viewing communities as beneficiaries from the heritage resource. It recognizes community ownership rights to cultural heritage an element enshrined in Zimbabwe’ national constitution. Through the use of contingency valuation approaches, by assessing the Willingness to pay for visitors at the site the research determined the tourism use value of Great Zimbabwe (WHS). It assessed the extent to which the communities at Great Zimbabwe (WHS) have been developed through the tourism use of the WHS. Findings show that the current management mechanism in place regards communities as stakeholders in the management of the WHS, their ownership and property rights are not fully recognized. They receive indirect benefits from the tourism use of the WHS. This paper calls for a shift in management approach where community ownership rights are fully recognized and more inclusive approaches are adopted to ensure that the goal of sustainable development is achieved. Pro-poor benefits of tourism are key to enhancing the livelihoods of communities and can only be achieved if their rights are recognized and respected.

Keywords: communities, cultural heritage tourism, development, property ownership rights, pro-poor benefits, sustainability, world heritage site

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Authors: Sarah P. Wuebbolt, Ashlee N. Sawyer-Mays

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Non-medical prescription and other drug (NMPOD) use has been a significant public health issue for the last few decades, with problematic use increasing among university students more recently. The current study focused on associations between NMPOD use and mental health, well-being, and world beliefs among young adults. Young adults (N=513) completed online questionnaires assessing stress, demographic characteristics, self-esteem, NMPOD use, coping mechanisms, and anxiety. A substantial portion of participants reported using cannabis (48.5%, n=249), while smaller portions of participants reported using stimulants (26.7%, n = 137), sedatives (17.2%, n=88), opioids (10.8%, n=55), and hallucinogens (14.4%, n=74). Five hierarchical logistic regressions were performed to determine the independent relationships between mental health, well-being, and world belief factors and NMPOD use for the five classes of substances. After controlling for demographic factors (age, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religious affiliation), depression was associated with increased non-medical stimulant, opioid, and cannabis use; coping self-efficacy was associated with increased hallucinogen use, and attendance of worship services was associated with decreased non-medical cannabis and hallucinogen use. Results suggest that depression was strongly associated with non-medical stimulant, opioid, and cannabis use, and attendance of worship services was protective against cannabis and hallucinogen use. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to investigate the relationships between mental health, well-being, world beliefs, and NMPOD use among young adults. The present study illuminates future targets for intervention, such as increased access to mental health diagnosis and treatment and the exploration of the roles of religion and shared community in the prevention of drug use among young adults.

Keywords: cannabis, mental health, non-medical prescription and other drug use, world beliefs

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Authors: Dins Sumerags, Mara Pilmane, Vita Konopecka, Gunta Sumeraga

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Reinke’s oedema is a specific type of chronic laryngitis evolving only in smokers. Our study aimed to identify the presence and interaction of the immunohistochemical markers for inflammation [IL-1α] and [IL-10], proliferation [Ki-67] and immunoreactive innervation [PGP 9.5] in the laryngeal mucosa using biotin-streptavidin immunochemical staining method. The laryngeal tissue samples were taken from the vocal cord during the surgery of the Reinke’s oedema and compared to the control group from the tissue samples of the cadavers without any visual laryngeal disease. The study results confirm increased cellular proliferation and elevation of the inflammation markers in the laryngeal mucosa in the case of Reinke’s oedema by comparing with the control.

Keywords: reinke`s oedema, immunohistochemical markers, laryngeal mucosa, biotin-streptavidin

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Authors: Shehroz Mukhtar, Maqsood Ahmed, Abdullah Mukhtar, Choudhry Shahid, Waqar Javaid

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Code switching is a common phenomenon, generally observed in multilingual communities across the globe. A critical look at code switching literature reveals that mostly code switching has been studied in classroom in learning and teaching context while code switching outside classroom in settings such as café, hostel and so on have been the least explored areas. Current research investigated the reasons for code switching in the interactive practices of students and their perceptions regarding the same outside the classroom settings. This paper is the study of the common practice that prevails in the Universities of Sialkot that bilinguals mix two languages when they speak in different class room situations. In Pakistani classrooms where Multilingual are in abundance i.e. they can speak two or more than two languages at the same time, the code switching or language combination is very common. The teachers of Sialkot switch from one language to another consciously or unconsciously while teaching English in the class rooms. This phenomenon has not been explored in the Sialkot’s teaching context. In Sialkot private educational institutes does not encourage code-switching whereas the public or government institutes use it frequently. The crux of this research is to investigate and identify the importance of code switching by taking its users in consideration. Survey research method and survey questionnaire will be used to get exact data from teachers and students. We will try to highlight the functions and importance of code switching in foreign language classrooms of Sialkot and will explore why this trend is emerging in Sialkot.

Keywords: code switching, bilingual context, L1, L2

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Authors: Sarah Hamdy Abd-Al Hamid Seyam

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The research aimed investigating the effect of using web quest on developing English reading comprehension skills for preparatory experimental school students. The descriptive design was adopted in the study. The tools of the study are represented in: a checklist for the English reading comprehension skills and a test of the English reading comprehension skills for the first year preparatory experimental school students. Results of the study were discussed in relation to various factors that affect the learning process. Finally the research presented applicable contributions according to using web quest in teaching English as a foreign language generally and improving reading comprehension in particular.

Keywords: English as a second language, preparatory experimental schools, reading comprehension, WebQuest

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Authors: Masanori Kimura

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The “founding spirit” of a Japanese university is similar to the mission statement of a Western university, but the difference between the two is that the former more closely reflects the founder’s inner world because it usually originates from the strong personal beliefs that the founder held when establishing the university. To find how much this ideology actually valued in today’s higher education, this paper surveys 2091 job openings for foreign language full-time faculty positions, posted by Japanese private universities from 2012 to 2016. The results suggest that women’s universities and universities with religious affiliations have a tendency to request that successful candidates observe their founding spirit, or at least demonstrate some understanding of the ideology after being hired. On the other hand, co-ed universities and universities with no religious affiliations do not show such a distinct tendency. A chi-square test revealed that this difference between the two groups was statistically significant (p<.01). Furthermore, the paper argues that it is not always appropriate for universities to evaluate themselves based on a single evaluation scale such as university rankings, and that both faculty and staff members need to be more aware of the founding spirit to improve the quality of the education the university provides.

Keywords: founding spirit, higher education, university administrative management, university evaluation

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Authors: Handan Ertaş

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The subject of government reform which is started to be discussed all over the world today has also deeply affected Turkey. Turkey, who aims to come to the level of the developed countries and not to fall behind the change must immediately complete the reform issue. For this, the government needs to be redefined and changed in accordance with the new public administration. In the first part of this study, the new public administration reforms in the world are generally explained and then the reforms in Local Government Regulations in Turkey are evaluated with the method of Content Analysis.

Keywords: reform, local administration, neo-liberalism, globalisation

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Authors: Gechbaia Badri

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The paper discusses in today's world of economic globalization and development of innovative economic integration is one of the issues of the day in the world. The article analyzes the innovation economy development trends in EU, showed the innovation economy formation of the main problems and results, also the development of innovative potential of the economy. The author reckons that the European economy will contribute to the development of innovative economic space of speech in recent years developed a financial and economic crisis.

Keywords: European Union, innovative system, innovative development, innovations

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Authors: Rim Messaoudi, Nogaye-Gueye Gning, François Azelart

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Automatic text classification applies mostly natural language processing (NLP) and other AI-guided techniques to automatically classify text in a faster and more accurate manner. This paper discusses the subject of using predictive maintenance to manage incident tickets inside the sociality. It focuses on proposing a tool that treats and analyses comments and notes written by administrators after resolving an incident ticket. The goal here is to increase the quality of these comments. Additionally, this tool is based on NLP and machine learning techniques to realize the textual analytics of the extracted data. This approach was tested using real data taken from the French National Railways (SNCF) company and was given a high-quality result.

Keywords: machine learning, text classification, NLP techniques, semantic representation

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Authors: Sophie Whittle

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Prior to present day, English syntax historically exhibited an inconsistent verb-second (V2) rule, which saw the verb move to the second position in the sentence following the fronting of a type of phrase. There was a high amount of variation throughout the history of English with regard to the ordering of subject and verb, and many explanations attempting to account for this variation have been documented in previous literature. However, these attempts have been contradictory, with many accounts positing the effect of previous syntactic changes as the main motivations behind the decline of V2. For instance, morphosyntactic changes, such as the loss of clitics and the loss of empty expletives, have been loosely connected to changes in frequency for the loss of V2. The questions surrounding the development of non-V2 in English have, therefore, yet to be answered. The current paper aims to bring together a number of explanations from different linguistic fields to determine the factors driving the changes in English V2. Using historical corpus-based methods, the study analyses both quantitatively and qualitatively the changes in frequency for the history of V2 in the Old, Middle, and Modern English periods to account for the variation in a range of sentential environments. These methods delve into the study of information structure, prosody and language contact to explain variation within different contexts. The analysis concludes that these factors, in addition to changes within the syntax, are responsible for the position of verb movement. The loss of V2 serves as an exemplar study within the field of historical linguistics, which combines a number of factors in explaining language change in general.

Keywords: corpora, English, language change, mixed-methods, syntax, verb-second

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Authors: Xun Sun, Le Li, Ce Mo, Lei Mo, Ruiming Wang, Guosheng Ding

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Cognitive control plays a central role in information processing, which is comprised of various components including response suppression and inhibitory control. Response suppression is considered to inhibit the irrelevant response during the cognitive process; while inhibitory control to inhibit the irrelevant stimulus in the process of cognition. Both of them undertake distinct functions for the cognitive control, so as to enhance the performances in behavior. Among numerous factors on cognitive control, bilingual experience is a substantial and indispensible factor. It has been reported that bilingual experience can influence the neural activity of cognitive control as whole. However, it still remains unknown how the neural influences specifically present on the components of cognitive control imposed by bilingualism. In order to explore the further issue, the study applied fMRI, used anti-saccade paradigm and compared the cerebral activations between high and low proficient Chinese-English bilinguals. Meanwhile, the study provided experimental evidence for the brain plasticity of language, and offered necessary bases on the interplay between language and cognitive control. The results showed that response suppression recruited the middle frontal gyrus (MFG) in low proficient Chinese-English bilinguals, but the inferior patrietal lobe in high proficient Chinese-English bilinguals. Inhibitory control engaged the superior temporal gyrus (STG) and middle temporal gyrus (MTG) in low proficient Chinese-English bilinguals, yet the right insula cortex was more active in high proficient Chinese-English bilinguals during the process. These findings illustrate insights that bilingual experience has neural influences on different components of cognitive control. Compared with low proficient bilinguals, high proficient bilinguals turn to activate advanced neural areas for the processing of cognitive control. In addition, with the acquisition and accumulation of language, language experience takes effect on the brain plasticity and changes the neural basis of cognitive control.

Keywords: bilingual experience, cognitive control, inhibition control, response suppression

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Authors: Victor E. Lopez, L. Dale Thomas

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As engineered systems become more complex, the difficulty associated with predicting, developing, and operating engineered systems also increases, resulting in increased costs, failure rates, and unexpected consequences. Successfully managing the complexity of the system should reduce these negative consequences. The study of complexity in the context of engineering development has suffered due to the ambiguity of the nature of complexity, what makes a system complex and how complexity translates to real world engineering attributes and consequences. This paper argues that the use of an ontology of engineering design complexity would i) improve the clarity of the research being performed by allowing researchers to use a common conceptualization of complexity, with more precise terminology, and ii) elucidate the connections between certain types of complexity and their consequences for system development. The ontology comprises concepts of complexity found in the literature and the different relations that exists between them. The ontology maps different complexity concepts such as structural complexity, creation complexity, and information entropy, and then relates the to system aspects such as interfaces, development effort, and modularity. The ontology is represented using the Web Ontology Language (OWL). This paper presents the current status of the ontology of engineering design complexity, the main challenges encountered, and the future plans for the ontology.

Keywords: design complexity, ontology, design effort, complexity ontology

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Authors: Kuznetsova Tamara, Sametova Fauziya

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Modern period of educational development is characterized by various attempts in higher quality and effective result provision. Having acquired the modernized educational paradigm, our academic community placed the personality development through language and culture under the focus of primary research. The competency-based concept claims for professionally ready specialists who are capable of solving practical problems. In this sense, under the circumstances of the current development of Kazakhstani society, it is inevitable to form the ability to conduct argumentative discourse as the crucial element of intercultural communicative competence. This article particularly states the necessity of the culture of argumentative discourse formation presents theoretical background of its organization and aims at identifying important argumentative skills within educational process.

Keywords: argumentative discourse, teaching process, skills, competency

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Authors: Bruna G. M. Araújo, Pedro M. M. Q. Cruz

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In this letter, we review the literature of the major concepts that govern Gaussian quantum information. As we work with quantum information and computation with continuous variables, Gaussian states are needed to better describe these systems. Analyzing a single ion locked in a Paul trap we use the interaction picture to obtain a toolbox of Gaussian operations with the ion-laser interaction Hamiltionian. This is achieved exciting the ion through the combination of two lasers of distinct frequencies corresponding to different sidebands of the external degrees of freedom. First we study the case of a trap with 1 mode and then the case with 2 modes. In this way, we achieve different continuous variables gates just by changing the external degrees of freedom of the trap and combining the Hamiltonians of blue and red sidebands.

Keywords: Paul trap, ion-laser interaction, Gaussian operations

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Authors: S. AlBustan, B. AlGhannam

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This oral presentation discusses a proposal for a study that evaluates the usability of an evidence based application named ProxTalker App. The significance of this study will inform administration and faculty staff at the Department of Communication Sciences Disorders (CDS), College of Life Sciences, Kuwait University whether the app is a suitable tool to use for CDS students. A case study will be used involving a sample of CDS students taking practicum and internship courses during the academic year 2018/2019. The study will follow a process used by previous study. The process of calculating SUS is well documented and will be followed. ProxTalker App is an alternative and augmentative tool that speech language pathologist (SLP) can use to customize boards for their clients. SLPs can customize different boards using this app for various activities. A board can be created by the SLP to improve and support receptive and expressive language. Using technology to support therapy can aid SLPs to integrate this ProxTalker App as part of their clients therapy. Supported tools, games and motivation are some advantages of incorporating apps during therapy sessions. A quantitative methodology will be used. It involves the utilization of a standard tool that was the was adapted to the Arabic language to accommodate native Arabic language users. The tool that will be utilized in this research is the Arabic Standard Usability Scale (A-SUS) questionnaire which is an adoption of System Usability Scale (SUS). Standard usability questionnaires are reliable, valid and their process is properly documented. This study builds upon the development of A-SUS, which is a psychometrically evaluated questionnaire that targets Arabic native speakers. Results of the usability will give preliminary indication of whether the ProxTalker App under investigation is appropriate to be integrated within the practicum and internship curriculum of CDS. The results of this study will inform the CDS department of this specific app is an appropriate tool to be used for our specific students within our environment because usability depends on the product, environment, and users.

Keywords: A-SUS, communication disorders practicum, evidence based app, Standard Usability Scale

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Authors: Mabel Ortiz, Claudio Díaz

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This paper explores Chilean pre-service teachers' perceptions about the provision of corrective feedback in a wiki environment during the collaborative writing of an argumentative essay. After conducting a semi-structured interview on 22 participants, the data were processed through the content analysis technique. The results show that students have positive perceptions about corrective feedback, provided through a wiki virtual environment, which in turn facilitates feedback provision and impacts language learning effectively. Some of the positive perceptions about virtual feedback refer to permanent access, efficiency, simultaneous revision and immediacy. It would then be advisable to integrate wiki-based feedback as a methodology for the language classroom and collaborative writing tasks.

Keywords: argumentative essay, focused corrective feedback, perception, wiki environment

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Authors: Mai Alharthy, Agnes Shiel, Hynes Sinead

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Objectives: The objectives of the study are to translate and culturally adapt the RBMT-3 to be appropriate for use within an Arabic-speaking population and to achieve maximum equivalency between the translated and original versions and to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the RBMT-3. Participants' numbers are 16 (10 females and 6 males). All participants are bilingual speakers of Arabic and English, above 18 years old and with no current nor past memory impairment. Methods: The study was conducted in two stages: Translation and cultural adaptation stage: Forward and backward translations were completed by professional translators. Five out of the 14 RBMT-3 subtests required cultural adaptations. Half of the faces in the face recognition subtests were replaced with Arabic faces by a professional photographer. Pictures that are irrelevant to the Arabic culture in the picture recognition subtests were replaced. Names, story and orientations subtests were also adapted to suit the Arabic culture. An expert committee was formed to compare the translated and original versions and to advise on further changes required for test materials. Validation of the Arabic RBMT-3- pilot: 16 Participants were tested on version 1 of the English version and the two versions of the Arabic RBMT-3 ( counterbalanced ). The assessment period was 6 weeks long, with two weeks gap between tests. All assessments took place in a quiet room in the National University of Ireland Galway. Two qualified occupational therapists completed the assessments. Results: Wilcox signed-rank test was used to compare between subtest scores. Significant differences were found in the story, orientation and names subtests between the English and Arabic versions. No significant differences were found in subtests from both Arabic versions except for the story subtest. Conclusion: The story and orientation subtests should be revised by the expert committee members to make further adaptations. The rest of the Arabic RBMT-3 subtests are equivalent to the subtests of the English version. The psychometric properties of the Arabic RBMT-3 will be investigated in a larger Arabic-speaking sample in Saudi Arabia. The outcome of this research is to provide clinicians and researchers with a reliable tool to assess memory problems in Arabic speaking population.

Keywords: memory impairment, neuropsychological assessment, cultural adaptation, cognitive assessment

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Authors: Suriani Oxley

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All teachers aim to conduct a successful and an effective teaching. Teacher will use a variety of teaching techniques and methods to ensure that students achieve the learning objectives but often the teaching and learning processes are interrupted by a number of things such as noisy students, students not paying attention, the students play and so on. Such disturbances must be addressed to ensure that students can concentrate on their learning activities. This qualitative study observed and captured a video of numerous tricks that teachers in Labuan have implemented in helping the students to pay attentions in the classroom. The tricks are such as Name Calling, Non-Verbal Clues, Body Language, Ask Question, Offer Assistance, Echo Clapping, Call and Response & Cues and Clues. All of these tricks are simple but yet interesting language learning strategies that helped students to focus on their learning activities.

Keywords: paying attention, observation, tricks, learning strategies, classroom

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Authors: Arlene Villarama, Micol Grace Guanzon, Zenaida Ramos

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This paper provides insights into teaching English as a Foreign Language in the Philippines. The authors reviewed relevant theories and literature, and provide an analysis of the issues in teaching English in the Philippine setting in the light of these theories. The authors made an investigation in Bagong Barrio National High School (BBNHS) - a public school in Caloocan City. The institution has a population of nearly 3,000 students. The performances of randomly chosen 365 respondents were scrutinised. The study regarding the success of teaching English as a foreign language to Filipino children were highlighted. This includes the respondents’ family background, surroundings, way of living, and their behavior and understanding regarding education. The results show that there is a significant relationship between demonstrative, communal, and logical areas that touch the efficacy of introducing English as a foreign Dialectal. Filipino children, by nature, are adventurous and naturally joyful even for little things. They are born with natural skills and capabilities to discover new things. They highly consider activities and work that ignite their curiosity. They love to be recognised and are inspired the most when given the assurance of acceptance and belongingness. Fun is the appealing influence to ignite and motivate learning. The magic word is excitement. The study reveals the many facets of the accumulation and transmission of erudition, in introduction and administration of English as a foreign phonological; it runs and passes through different channels of diffusion. Along the way, there are particles that act as obstructions in protocols where knowledge are to be gathered. Data gained from the respondents conceals a reality that is beyond one’s imagination. One significant factor that touches the inefficacy of understanding and using English as a foreign language is an erroneous outset gained from an old belief handed down from generation to generation. This accepted perception about the power and influence of the use of language, gives the novices either a negative or a positive notion. The investigation shows that a higher number of dislikes in the use of English can be tracked down from the belief of the story on how the English language came into existence. The belief that only the great and the influential have the right to use English as a means of communication kills the joy of acceptance. A significant notation has to be examined so as to provide a solution or if not eradicate the misconceptions that lie behind the substance of the matter. The result of the authors’ research depicts a substantial correlation between the emotional (demonstrative), social (communal), and intellectual (logical). The focus of this paper is to bring out the right notation and disclose the misconceptions with regards to teaching English as a foreign language. This will concentrate on the emotional, social, and intellectual areas of the Filipino learners and how these areas affect the transmittance and accumulation of learning. The authors’ aim is to formulate logical ways and techniques that would open up new beginnings in understanding and acceptance of the subject matter.

Keywords: accumulation, behaviour, facets, misconceptions, transmittance

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Authors: Chek K. Loi

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The present study has two objectives. Firstly, it investigates the rhetorical strategies employed in the body paragraphs of ESL (English as a Second Language) undergraduate students’ English academic essays. Peacock’s (2002) model of the discussion section was used as the starting points in this study to investigate the rhetorical moves employed in the data. Secondly, it investigates the writing problems as perceived by these ESL students through an interview. Interview responses serve as accompanying data to the move analysis. Apart from this, students’ English academic writing problems are diagnosed. The findings have pedagogical implications in an EAP (English for Academic Purposes) classroom.

Keywords: academic essays, move analysis, pedagogical implication, rhetorical strategies

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Authors: A. T. Zaki

Abstract:

The flipped classroom approach as a mode of blended learning was formally introduced to students of the English language modules at the British University in Egypt (BUE) at the start of the academic year 2015/2016. This paper aims to study the impact of the flipped classroom approach after three semesters of implementation. It will restrict itself to the examination of students’ achievement rates, student satisfaction, and how different student cohorts have benefited differently from the flipped practice. The paper concludes with recommendations of how the experience can be further developed.

Keywords: achievement rates, developmental experience, Egypt, flipped classroom, higher education, student cohorts, student satisfaction

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Authors: Anochao Phetcharat

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This research aims to study problems of translation basic knowledge, particularly from English into Thai. The researcher used 38 2nd-year non-English speaking students of Suratthani Rajabhat University as samples. The samples were required to translate an A4-sized article from English into Thai assigned as a part of BEN0202 Translation for Business, a requirement subject for Business English Department, which was also taught by the researcher. After completion of the translation, numerous problems were found and the research grouped them into 4 major types. The normally occurred problems in English-Thai translation works are the lack of knowledge in terms of parts of speech, word-by-word translation employment, misspellings as well as the poor knowledge in English language structure. However, this research is currently under the process of data analysis and shall be completed by the beginning of August. The researcher, nevertheless, predicts that all the above-mentioned problems, will support the researcher’s hypothesizes, that are; 1) the lack of knowledge in terms of parts of speech causes the mistranslation problem; 2) employing word-by-word translation technique hugely results in the mistranslation problem; 3) misspellings yields the mistranslation problem; and 4) the poor knowledge in English language structure also brings about translation errors. The research also predicts that, of all the aforementioned problems, the following ones are found the most, respectively: the poor knowledge in English language structure, word-by-word translation employment, the lack of knowledge in terms of parts of speech, and misspellings.

Keywords: problem, student, Thai, translation

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Authors: Shanxiong Chen, Xu Han, Xiaolong Wang, Hui Ma

Abstract:

Yi is an ethnic group mainly living in mainland China, with its own spoken and written language systems, after development of thousands of years. Ancient Yi is one of the six ancient languages in the world, which keeps a record of the history of the Yi people and offers documents valuable for research into human civilization. Recognition of the characters in ancient Yi helps to transform the documents into an electronic form, making their storage and spreading convenient. Due to historical and regional limitations, research on recognition of ancient characters is still inadequate. Thus, deep learning technology was applied to the recognition of such characters. Five models were developed on the basis of the four-layer convolutional neural network (CNN). Alpha-Beta divergence was taken as a penalty term to re-encode output neurons of the five models. Two fully connected layers fulfilled the compression of the features. Finally, at the softmax layer, the orthographic features of ancient Yi characters were re-evaluated, their probability distributions were obtained, and characters with features of the highest probability were recognized. Tests conducted show that the method has achieved higher precision compared with the traditional CNN model for handwriting recognition of the ancient Yi.

Keywords: recognition, CNN, Yi character, divergence

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Authors: Qiankun Zhong

Abstract:

In a global cultural context, film festival awards become authorities to define the aesthetic value of films. To study which genres and producing countries are valued by different film festivals and how those evaluations interact with each other, this research explored the interactions between the film festivals through their selection of movies and the factors that lead to the tendency of film festivals to nominate the same movies. To do this, the author employed a two-mode network on the movies that won the highest awards at five international film festivals with the highest attendance in the past ten years (the Venice Film Festival, the Cannes Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and the Berlin International Film Festival) and the film festivals that nominated those movies. The title, genre, producing country and language of 50 movies, and the range (regional, national or international) and organizing country or area of 129 film festivals were collected. These created networks connected by nominating the same films and awarding the same movies. The author then assessed the density and centrality of these networks to answer the question: What are the film festivals that tend to have more shared values with other festivals? Based on the Eigenvector centrality of the two-mode network, Palm Springs, Robert Festival, Toronto, Chicago, and San Sebastian are the festivals that tend to nominate commonly appreciated movies. In contrast, Black Movie Film Festival has the unique value of generally not sharing nominations with other film festivals. A homophily test was applied to access the clustering effects of film and film festivals. The result showed that movie genres (E-I index=0.55) and geographic location (E-I index=0.35) are possible indicators of film festival clustering. A blockmodel was also created to examine the structural roles of the film festivals and their meaning in real-world context. By analyzing the same blocks with film festival attributes, it was identified that film festivals either organized in the same area, with the same history, or with the same attitude on independent films would occupy the same structural roles in the network. Through the interpretation of the blocks, language was identified as an indicator that contributes to the role position of a film festival. Comparing the result of blockmodeling in the different periods, it is seen that international film festivals contrast with the Hollywood industry’s dominant value. The structural role dynamics provide evidence for a multi-value film festival network.

Keywords: film festivals, film studies, media industry studies, network analysis

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Authors: George Bocean

Abstract:

In the mainstream academic spheres of thought, there is a tendency to associate the writings of Russian Marxists as being constantly against the practice of religion itself. Such arguments mainly stem from how the attitude of the Russian Marxists, specifically the Bolsheviks, towards the concept of religion supposedly originates from its own Marxist ideology. Although Marxism is critical of religion as an institution, the approach that Marxism would have on the question of religion is not as clear. Such aspect is specifically observed in the use of language of major leading Russian Marxist figures, such as Lenin and Trotsky, throughout the early 20th century, where the use of religious metaphors was widely used in their philosophical writings and speeches, as well as in propaganda posters of general left-wing movements in Russia as a whole. The methodology of the research will consist of a sociolinguistic and sociology of language approach within a sociohistorical framework of late Tsarist and early Soviet Russia, 1905-1926. The purpose of such approaches are not simply to point out the religious metaphors used in the writings and speeches of Marxists in Russia, but rather in order to analyse how the use of such metaphors represent an important socio-political connection with the context of Russia at the time. In other words, the use of religious metaphors was not only more akin to Russian culture at the time, but this also resonated and was more familiar with the conditions of the working class and peasantry. An example in this study can be observed in the writings of Lenin, where the theme of chudo (miracle) is often mentioned in his writings, and such a word is commonly associated with an idealist philosophy rather than a materialist one, which represents a common theme in Russian culture in regards to the principle of hope for a better life. A further and even more obvious example is Trotsky’s writings about how the revolution of 1905 “would be revived”, which not only resonates with the theme of resurrection, but also prophesises the “second coming” of a future revolution. Such metaphors are important in the writings of such authors, as they simultaneously contain Marxist ideas, as well as religious themes. In doing this research, this paper will demonstrate two aspects. Firstly, the paper will analyse the use of the metaphors by Russian Marxists as a whole in regards to a socio-political and ideological perspectives akin to those of Marxism. Secondly, it will also demonstrate the role that such metaphors have in regards to their impact on the left-wing movements within Russia itself, as well as their relation to the working class and peasantry of Russia within the historical context.

Keywords: language and politics, Marxism, Russian history, social history, sociology of language

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