Search results for: low resource minority language

Authors: Thelma Mort

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This empirical, qualitative research uses interviews of four intermediate phase English language student teachers at one university in South Africa and is an exploration of student teacher learning on their teaching practicum in their penultimate year of the initial teacher education course. The country’s post-apartheid language in education policy provides a context to this study in that children move from mother tongue language of instruction in foundation phase to English as a language of instruction in Intermediate phase. There is another layer of context informing this study which is the school context; the student teachers’ reflections are from their teaching practicum in resource constrained schools, which make up more than 75% of schools in South Africa. The findings were that in these schools, deep biases existed to local languages, that language was being used as a proxy for social class, and that conditions necessary for language acquisition were absent. The student teachers’ attitudes were in contrast to those found in the schools, namely that they had various pragmatic approaches to overcoming obstacles and that they saw language as enabling interdisciplinary work. This study describes language issues, tensions created by policy in South African schools and also supplies a regional account of learning to teach in resource constrained schools in Cape Town, where such language tensions are more inflated. The central findings in this research illuminate attitudes to language and language education in these teaching practicum schools and the complexity of learning to be a language teacher in these contexts. This study is one of the few local empirical studies regarding language teaching in the classroom and language teacher education; as such it offers some background to the country’s poor performance in both international and national literacy assessments.

Keywords: language teaching, narrative, post apartheid, South Africa, student teacher

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Authors: Sainbilegt Dashdorj, Delgerekhtsetseg Tsedev, Odontuya Mishigdorj, Bat-Uchral Ganzorigt

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To develop a content-based recommendation of foreign language teaching for foreign language majoring and non-majoring classes at domestic universities by comparing the current situation, the environmental conditions, the curriculum, the plan, the content and so on of Mongolian foreign language teaching with the ones at the universities in the education development leading countries was set as the main goal and thus, it is considered to become an important step not only for solving an urgent foreign language teaching issue at Mongolian higher educational institutions but also for enhancing the foreign language knowledge of the national human resource in the globalizing world.

Keywords: CEFR, content standart, language curriculum, multilingualism

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Authors: Lipaz Shamoa-Nir, Irene Razpurker-Apfeld

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This research examined the impact of subliminal exposure to religious content on the mutual attitudes of majority group members (Jews) and minority group members (Muslims). Participants were subliminally exposed to religious concepts (e.g., Mezuzah, yarmulke or veil) and then they filled questionnaires assessing their stereotypes towards the out-group members. Each participant was primed with either in-group religious concepts, out-group concepts or neutral ones. The findings show that the Muslim participants were not influenced by the religious content to which they were exposed while the Jewish participants perceived the Muslims as less 'hostile' when subliminally exposed to religious concepts, regardless of concept type (out-group/in-group). This research highlights the influence of evoked religious content on out-group attitudes even when the perceiver is unaware of prime content. The power that exposure to content in a non-native language has in activating attitudes towards the out-group is also discussed.

Keywords: intergroup attitudes, stereotypes, majority-minority, religious out-group, implicit content, native language

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Authors: Shamm Kidane, Ibrahim Abdella, Fitsum Gaim, Simon Mulugeta, Sirak Asmerom, Natnael Ambasager, Yoel Ghebrihiwot

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The call for natural language processing (NLP) systems for low-resource languages has become more apparent than ever in the past few years, with the arduous challenges still present in preparing such systems. This paper presents an improved dataset version of the Nagaoka Tigrinya Corpus for Parts-of-Speech (POS) classification system in the Tigrinya language. The size of the initial Nagaoka dataset was incremented, totaling the new tagged corpus to 118K tokens, which comprised the 12 basic POS annotations used previously. The additional content was also annotated manually in a stringent manner, followed similar rules to the former dataset and was formatted in CONLL format. The system made use of the novel approach in NLP tasks and use of the monolingually pre-trained TiELECTRA, TiBERT and TiRoBERTa transformer models. The highest achieved score is an impressive weighted F1-score of 94.2%, which surpassed the previous systems by a significant measure. The system will prove useful in the progress of NLP-related tasks for Tigrinya and similarly related low-resource languages with room for cross-referencing higher-resource languages.

Keywords: Tigrinya POS corpus, TiBERT, TiRoBERTa, conditional random fields

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Authors: Inuwa Danladi Bawa

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One of the challenges of African states in the development of education in the past and the present is the problem of literacy. Literacy in the first language is seen as a strong base for the development of second language; they are mostly the language of education. Language development is an offshoot of language planning; so the need to develop literacy in both first and second language affects language education and predicts the extent of achievement of the entire education sector. The need to balance literacy acquisition in first language for good conditioning the acquisition of second language is paramount. Likely constraints that includes; non-standardization, underdeveloped and undeveloped first languages are among many. Solutions to some of these include the development of materials and use of the stages and levels of literacy acquisition. This is with believed that a child writes well in second language if he has literacy in the first language.

Keywords: first language, second language, literacy, english language, linguistics

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Authors: Xiaoxu Liu, Yuwen Chen

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In this study, we investigated ethnic minority students’ perception of the implementation of preferential policies in China. Using a mixed methods design, we surveyed 320 students from an institute of education for ethnic minorities and conducted further in-depth interviews with seven respondents. Although interviewees were from 30 ethnic groups, most of them were from mainstream high schools. We found that minority students from preparatory classes have an overall positive attitude towards preferential policies and preparatory class but lack sense of belonging to the university for various reasons. Findings indicate that although preparatory class is regarded as being helpful for minority students’ academic development, there are differences of attitude mainly depending on the high schools they graduated from and their ethnic identities. Our analyses suggest that ethnicity, high school graduated from, hometown and family income are more important than gender, religion, and political affiliation when accounting for their perceptions of the implementation of preferential policies in China.

Keywords: Chinese minority education, higher education, preferential policies, survey analysis

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Authors: Daniela Panico

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Framed by language socialization and family language policy theories, the present study explores the ways the language choice patterns of bilingual siblings contribute to the shaping of the language environment and the language practices of Italian/English families residing in Sydney. The main source of data is video recordings of naturally occurring parent-children and child-to-child interactions during everyday routines (i.e., family mealtimes and siblings playtime) in the home environment. Recurrent interactional practices are analyzed in detail through a conversational analytical approach. This presentation focuses on the interactional trajectories developing during the negotiation of language choices between all family members and between siblings in face-to-face interactions. Fine-grained analysis is performed on language negotiation sequences of multiparty bilingual conversations in order to uncover the sequential patterns through which a) the children respond to the parental strategies aiming to minority language maintenance, and b) the siblings influence each other’s language use and choice (e.g., older siblings positioning themselves as language teachers and language brokers, younger siblings accepting the role of apprentices). The findings show that, along with the parents, children are active socializing agents in the family and, with their linguistic behavior, they contribute to the establishment of a bilingual or a monolingual context in the home. Moreover, by orienting themselves towards the use of one or the other language in family talk, bilingual siblings are a major internal micro force in the language ecology of a bilingual family and can strongly support language maintenance or language shift processes in such domain. Overall, the study provides insights into the dynamic ways in which family language policy is interactionally negotiated and instantiated in bilingual homes as well as the challenges of intergenerational language transmission.

Keywords: bilingual siblings, family interactions, family language policy, language maintenance

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Authors: Ya-Ching Wang, Yi-Maun Subeq

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Background: There is a lack of evidence to understand differences in risk for developing breast cancer between sexual minority women and heterosexual women in Taiwan. The purpose of this study is to compare differences in risk for developing breast cancer between the two groups of Taiwanese women. Methods: An online cross-sectional survey was used to collect data. A total of 238 Taiwanese women (mean age 30.69 years old, SD=8.231, range 20-60) were recruited between December 2016 and February 2017, including 115 heterosexual women and 123 sexual minority women. Results: There were no significant differences between heterosexual women and sexual minority women in body mass index, history of non-malignant breast disease, age at menarche and menopause, use of hormone replacement therapy, use of hormone replacement therapy, nor the prevalence of breast cancer. The sexual minority women had higher rates of current drinking, smoking and using breast-bindings and also reported exercise more a week; the heterosexual women had higher rates of pregnancy, children, breastfeed, miscarriages, abortion and use of birth control pills. Discussion/Conclusion: There were significant differences between heterosexual women and sexual minority women in reproductive factors and behavioral risk factors for the development of breast cancer. In particular, the finding that the sexual minority women had higher rate of using breast-bindings (56.6%) than the heterosexual women (4.7%) should be further explore, in order to understand whether long-term breast compression is associated with the development of breast cancer.

Keywords: breast cancer, risk, sexual orientation, Taiwan

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Authors: Ummi Sholihah Pertiwi Abidin, Khusnul Hajar Nuansari

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Human resource is one of the most important components that can not be separated from communication fields, either in a large community like a mass or narrow ones such as an institution, office, group and even family. Human resource is an asset which is often used as a tool to achieve certain goals. Therefore, development of human resources is essential for improving skills and character of a person especially at the time that has entered globalization era. People are required to be able to compete both in the local and international arena, no matter what. This paper raised topic related to human resource development solution by a unique educational leadership and communication skill improvement through a linguistic approach. Here the authors want to go by form of public speaking method applied in Modern Islamic Boarding School Darussalam Gontor as the extracurricular activity that is using three languages, they are: Indonesian as the mother language or the nation language of the students, Arabic and English as the second language and Gontor’s mean to supply its students to be able to conquer the globalization needs. This implementation produced the establishment of great leaders through confidence growing to speak in public by adjusting the listener context. In linguistic term, it will help enhancing verbal and nonverbal communication skills and so forth in owning a lot of vocabulary.

Keywords: public speaking, Gontor, language, leadership

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Authors: Carmela Perta

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In Italy the coexistence of standard language, its varieties and different minority languages - historical and migration languages - has been a way to study language contact in different directions; the focus of most of the studies is either the relations among the languages of the social repertoire, or the study of contact phenomena occurring in a particular structural level. However, studies on contact facts in relation to a given sociolinguistic situation of the speech community are still not present in literature. As regard the language level to investigate from the perspective of contact, it is commonly claimed that the lexicon is the most volatile part of language and most likely to undergo change due to superstrate influence, indeed first lexical features are borrowed, then, under long term cultural pressure, structural features may also be borrowed. The aim of this paper is to analyse language contact in two historical minority communities where Francoprovençal is spoken, in relation to their sociolinguistic situation. In this perspective, firstly lexical borrowings present in speakers’ speech production will be examined, trying to find a possible correlation between this part of the lexicon and informants’ sociolinguistic variables; secondly a possible correlation between a particular community sociolinguistic situation and lexical borrowing will be found. Methods used to collect data are based on the results obtained from 24 speakers in both the villages; the speaker group in the two communities consisted of 3 males and 3 females in each of four age groups, ranging in age from 9 to 85, and then divided into five groups according to their occupations. Speakers were asked to describe a sequence of pictures naming common objects and then describing scenes when they used these objects: they are common objects, frequently pronounced and belonging to semantic areas which are usually resistant and which are thought to survive. A subset of this task, involving 19 items with Italian source is examined here: in order to determine the significance of the independent variables (social factors) on the dependent variable (lexical variation) the statistical package SPSS, particularly the linear regression, was used.

Keywords: borrowing, Francoprovençal, language change, lexicon

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Authors: Elaiho Osaruwense, Ajuzie Godson Chidiebere

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Nigeria of at least 250 ethnic group a have suffered a lot of social, economic and political setback especially in the regime of oil and gas, that are exploited from the minority region of the Niger south -south areas. The rate of insecurity in the north gives a lot of questioning and concern, with the series of killings by the Boko Haram in some part of the north etc. the fact still remains on how the gap and the compromise will be reconciling especially with the incoming president of Muhammadu Buhari with all the problems which was not resolve by the past administration (President Ebele Jonathan), considering the configuration and the character of the Nigerian state. This paper tends to critically evaluate all this problems, assertion, proffering possible solution.

Keywords: ethnic minority, oil theft, insecurity, the gap and the compromise

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Authors: Zakhile Somlata

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In the context of international linguistic and cultural diversity, all languages can be used for all purposes. Africa in general and South Africa, in particular, is not an exception to multilingual and multicultural society. The multilingual and multicultural nature of South African society has a direct bearing to the heterogeneity of South African Universities in general. Universities as the centers of research, innovation, and transformation of the entire society should be at the forefront in leading multilingualism. The universities in South Africa had been using English and to a certain extent Afrikaans as the only academic languages during colonialism and apartheid regime. The democratic breakthrough of 1994 brought linguistic relief in South Africa. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa recognizes 11 official languages that should enjoy parity of esteem for the realization of multilingualism. The elevation of the nine previously marginalized indigenous African languages as academic languages in higher education is central to multilingualism. It is high time that Afrocentric model instead of Eurocentric model should be the one which underpins education system in South Africa at all levels. Almost all South African universities have their language policies that seek to promote access and success of students through multilingualism, but the main dilemma is the implementation of language policies. This study is significant to respond to two objectives: (i) To evaluate how selected institutions use language policies for accessibility and success of students. (ii) To study how selected universities integrate African languages for both academic and administrative purposes. This paper reflects the language policy practices in one selected University of Technology (UoT) in South Africa. The UoT has its own language policy which depicts linguistic diversity of the institution and its commitment to promote multilingualism. Translanguaging pedagogy which accommodates minority languages' usage in the teaching and learning process plays a pivotal role in promoting multilingualism. This research paper employs mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative research) approach. Qualitative data has been collected from the key informants (insiders and experts), while quantitative data has been collected from a cohort of third-year students. A mixed methods approach with its convergent parallel design allows the data to be collected separately, analysed separately but with the comparison of the results. Language development initiatives have been discussed within the framework of language policy and policy implementation strategies. Theoretically, this paper is rooted in language as a problem, language as a right and language as a resource. The findings demonstrate that despite being a multilingual institution, there is a perpetuation of marginalization of African languages to be used as academic languages. Findings further display the hegemony of English. The promotion of status quo compromises the promotion of multilingualism, Africanization of Higher Education and intellectualization of indigenous African languages in South Africa under a democratic dispensation.

Keywords: afro-centric model, hegemony of English, language as a resource, translanguaging pedagogy

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Authors: C. B. Abhilash, Kavi Mahesh

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Human beings are the most advanced species on earth; it's all because of the ability to communicate and share information via human language. In today's world, a huge amount of data is available on the web in text format. This has also resulted in the generation of big data in structured and unstructured formats. In general, the data is in the textual form, which is highly unstructured. To get insights and actionable content from this data, we need to incorporate the concepts of text mining and natural language processing. In our study, we mainly focus on Interesting data through which interesting facts are generated for the knowledge base. The approach is to derive the analytics from the text via the application of natural language processing. Using semantic web Resource framework descriptors (RDF), we generate the triple from the given data and derive the interesting patterns. The methodology also illustrates data integration using the RDF for reliable, interesting patterns.

Keywords: RDF, interestingness, knowledge base, semantic data

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Authors: Tracy-Ann Johnson-Myers

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Since the early 1990’s voter turnout in Jamaica has been abysmal. More troubling, the group less interested in voting are the ‘articulate minority’ (educated youths, aged 18-35). Using surveys, media commentaries and data from the Electoral Commission of Jamaica, this study explores the relationship between educated youths and traditional politics in Jamaica. Specifically, it raises questions about why the ‘articulate minority’ did not vote in the 2016 general election. This will be done by highlighting the political and socio-economic reasons affecting their participation in the electoral process, their opinions of who is responsible for low voter turnout in Jamaica, and what they think needs to be done to encourage people in general to vote. The findings reveal that lack of interest in the democratic and electoral process by the ‘articulate minority’ is due to their growing distrust of politicians and political parties, and lack of confidence in the political process.

Keywords: articulate minority, Jamaica, voter apathy, voter turnout

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Authors: Anastassis Kozanitis

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The first year of college or university can be particularly challenging for students from minority groups, who often face unique obstacles related to their cultural background, socioeconomic status, or underrepresented identities. Recognizing the importance of fostering inclusivity and supporting the success of these students, educational institutions in Quebec, Canada, have implemented a range of initiatives tailored to address their specific needs. This presentation provides an overview of four key first-year experience measures for minority groups, focusing on mentorship programs, student-lead cultural centers, walk-in support offices, and diversity training, all aimed at promoting inclusion and enhancing the academic journey and overall well-being of these students. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with individuals working in connection with the measures of interest. A qualitative content analysis allowed for the characterization of facilitating factors of the support measures identified. Hence, all four measures have proven to be instrumental in supporting the transition and success of first-year students from minority groups. These initiatives provide safe spaces where students can connect with their cultural heritage, engage in dialogue, and celebrate diversity. In conclusion, first-year experience initiatives for minority groups in college and university play a pivotal role in fostering inclusivity and supporting the success of students from underrepresented backgrounds.

Keywords: diversity, first year, minority groups, inclusion, support measures, higher education

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Authors: Diyah Atiek Mustikawati

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Language register refers to a variety of a language used for particular purpose or in a particular social setting. Language register also means as a concept of adapting one’s use of language to conform to standards or tradition in a given professional or social situation. This descriptive study tends to discuss about the form of language register in transportation aspect, factors, also the function of use it. Mostly, language register in transportation aspect uses short sentences in form of informal register. The factor caused language register used are speaker, word choice, background of language. The functions of language register in transportations aspect are to make communication between crew easily, also to keep safety when they were in bad condition. Transportation language register developed naturally as one of variety of language used.

Keywords: language register, language variety, communication, transportation

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Authors: Mojdeh Mardani, Robert Stupnisky

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Microaggressions are discriminatory and degrading slights manifested from negative and often unconscious beliefs about marginalised groups, including women and people of colour. This quantitative research analyses survey data collected from 10 USA Universities. This research presents the impacts of microaggressions on productivity and motivation of Underrepresented Minority (URM) faculty, especially women and those with intersecting marginalized identities, such as women who identify with a race other than white. Results of this study revealed that on average, URM women were 50% more susceptible to gender microaggressions, which correlated negatively with autonomy and competence, and positively with a motivation.

Keywords: gender microaggressions, gender discrimination, underrepresented minority, female faculty, URM faculty, motivation, productivity, STEM

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Authors: Eleanor K. P. Kwan

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English academic writing, it has been argued, is an acquired language even for English speakers. For research students whose English is not their first language, however, the acquisition process is often more challenging. Instead of hoping that students would acquire the conventions themselves through extensive reading, there is a need for the explicit teaching of linguistic conventions in academic writing, as explicit teaching could help students to be more aware of the different generic conventions in different disciplines in science. This paper presents an interuniversity effort to develop an online academic writing resource for research students in five subdisciplines in engineering, upon the completion of the needs analysis which indicates that students and faculty members are more concerned about students’ ability to organize an extended text than about grammatical accuracy per se. In particular, this paper focuses on the materials developed for thesis writing (also called dissertation writing in some tertiary institutions), as theses form an essential graduation requirement for all research students and this genre is also expected to demonstrate the writer’s competence in research and contributions to the research community. Drawing on Swalesian move analysis of research articles, this online resource includes authentic materials written by students and faculty members from the participating institutes. Highlight will be given to several aspects and challenges of developing this online resource. First, as the online resource aims at moving beyond providing instructions on academic writing, a range of interactive activities need to be designed to engage the users, which is one feature which differentiates this online resource from other equally informative websites on academic writing. Second, it will also include discussion on divergent textual practices in different subdisciplines, which help to illustrate different practices among these subdisciplines. Third, since theses, probably one of the most extended texts a research student will complete, require effective use of signposting devices to facility readers’ understanding, this online resource will also provide both explanation and activities on different components that contribute to text coherence. Finally results from piloting will also be included to shed light on the effectiveness of the materials, which could be useful for future development.

Keywords: academic writing, English for academic purposes, online language learning materials, scientific writing

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Authors: Nicola Bentham

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Drawing on the concept of the Ideal Worker and Intersectionality as a Critical Social theory, this research examines to what extent minority ethnic female workers are excluded from the Ideal Worker concept in non-profits, specifically whilst these organizations undergo change to become more professionalized. Critical Discourse Analysis was used to analyse semi-structured interviews from 21 workers, including minority ethnic female, male and non-binary workers, who all represent a range of job roles across the non-profit sector (e.g., trustees, consultants, fundraisers, recruiters, Human Resource (HR), Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) professionals, etc.). Organizational literature, which provides the symbolic capital for the Ideal Worker concept within this sector and used by these workers within career development and recruitment practices, was further examined. Non-profits present an interesting context of tensions, given their historical ethos of philanthropic social change, whilst changing their present-day organisational practices to reflect the professionalized for-profit sector. This research aims to examine the technologies of inclusion that are used to validate the Ideal Worker concept and the tensions between the projected organisational rhetoric advocating for societal change and those internalized organizational practices that perpetuate workplace inequalities for minority ethnic females. In doing so, this research will provide an insight into the interplay between inclusion, performativity and underrepresentation; examining whether the latter can improve. This research contributes to the call for action regarding effective inclusion practices within non-profit organizations by advocating the use of a critical framework to be incorporated within organizational equity and inclusion strategies; thereby enabling effective sector-wide representation for minoritized workers.

Keywords: critical discourse analysis, professionalization, organizational change, ideal worker, non-profit, third sector, charity, intersectionality, inclusion, minority ethnic female

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Authors: Abass Suara

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Following careful observation of the Bowling Green State University Ice Hockey Arena, it became imperative to study the reason for low racial minority participation in the game of Hockey. Therefore, this research aims to better understand the factors affecting diversity in Hockey. it conducted semi-structured interviews with two unique participants: a former hockey player who is now a coach and administrator while the other is a racial minority student-athlete. Following a content narrative analysis of the data gathered from observations and interviews, three higher-order themes emerged: economic, social, and relationship factors. The administrator's perceptions of low diversity bear heavily on the sport's financial demands while he also harps on how the sport fosters stronger team relationships. The perception of the student-athlete does not differ except that he added racism as a significant factor to the less racial minority participation in Ice Hockey. So, as much as Hockey has proved to be a costly sport to play, society also needs to pay some attention to the other psychological warfare racial minorities battle that has nothing to do with financial capabilities.

Keywords: sport, ice hockey, diversity in sport, ethnography

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Authors: Dina C. Castro, Rossana Boyd, Eugenia Papadaki

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Immigration within and across continents is currently a global reality. The number of people leaving their communities in search for a better life for them and their families has increased dramatically during the last twenty years. Therefore, young children of the 21st century around the World are growing up in diverse communities, exposed to many languages and cultures. One consequence of these migration movements is the increased linguistic diversity in school settings. Depending on the linguistic history and the status of languages in the communities (i.e., minority-majority; majority-majority) the instructional approaches will differ. This session will discuss how bilingualism is addressed in early education programs in both minority-majority and majority-majority language communities, analyzing experiences in three countries with very distinct societal and demographic characteristics: Peru (South America), the United States (North America), and Italy (European Union). The ultimate goal is to identify commonalities and differences across the three experiences that could lead to a discussion of bilingualism in early education from a global perspective. From Peru, we will discuss current national language and educational policies that have lead to the design and implementation of bilingual and intercultural education for children in indigenous communities. We will also discuss how those practices are being implemented in preschool programs, the progress made and challenges encountered. From the United States, we will discuss the early education of Spanish-English bilingual preschoolers, including the national policy environment, as well as variations in language of instruction approaches currently being used with these children. From Italy, we will describe early education practices in the Bilingual School of Monza, in northern Italy, a school that has 20 years promoting bilingualism and multilingualism in education. While the presentations from Peru and the United States will discuss bilingualism in a majority-minority language environment, this presentation will lead to a discussion on the opportunities and challenges of promoting bilingualism in a majority-majority language environment. It is evident that innovative models and policies are necessary to prevent inequality of opportunities for bilingual children beginning in their earliest years. The cross-cultural examination of bilingual education experiences for young children in three part of the World will allow us to learn from our success and challenges. The session will end with a discussion of the following question: To what extent are early care and education programs being effective in promoting positive development and learning among all children, including those from diverse language, ethnic and cultural backgrounds? We expect to identify, with participants to our session, a set of recommendations for policy and program development that could ensure access to high quality early education for all bilingual children.

Keywords: early education for bilingual children, global perspectives in early education, cross-cultural, language policies

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Authors: Gagandeep Kaur, Sonal Chawla

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In a Cloud Computing environment, resource provisioning, resource allocation and resource scheduling is the most complex issues these days. Cloud User expects the best resource utilization and Cloud Provider expects revenue maximization by considering budget and time constraints. In this research paper, Resource Management Framework has been proposed to allocate the resources to Cloud Users and Cloud Providers in Cloud environment. The main aim of the proposed work is to provide the resources and services to Cloud Providers and Cloud Users in an efficient and effective manner. The proposed framework has been simulated and tested using the CloudSim simulator tool.

Keywords: cloud computing, resource allocation, auction, provisioning

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Authors: Sangwon Han, Chengquan Jin

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Time-cost trade-off (TCTO) is one of the most significant part of construction project management. Despite the significance, current TCTO analysis, based on the Critical Path Method, does not consider resource constraint, and accordingly sometimes generates an impractical and/or infeasible schedule planning in terms of resource availability. Therefore, resource constraint needs to be considered when doing TCTO analysis. In this research, genetic algorithms (GA) based optimization model is created in order to find the optimal schedule. This model is utilized to compare four distinct scenarios (i.e., 1) initial CPM, 2) TCTO without considering resource constraint, 3) resource allocation after TCTO, and 4) TCTO with considering resource constraint) in terms of duration, cost, and resource utilization. The comparison results identify that ‘TCTO with considering resource constraint’ generates the optimal schedule with the respect of duration, cost, and resource. This verifies the need for consideration of resource constraint when doing TCTO analysis. It is expected that the proposed model will produce more feasible and optimal schedule.

Keywords: time-cost trade-off, genetic algorithms, critical path, resource availability

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Authors: Priyoth Kittiteerasack, Alana Steffen, Alicia K. Matthews

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Depression is a leading cause of the worldwide burden of disability and disease burden. Notably, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations are more likely to be a high-risk group for depression compared to their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts. To date, little is known about the rates and predictors of depression among Thai LGBT populations. As such, the purpose of this study was to: 1) measure the prevalence of depression among a diverse sample of Thai LGBT adults and 2) determine the influence of minority stress variables (discrimination, victimization, internalized homophobia, and identity concealment), general stress (stress and loneliness), and coping strategies (problem-focused, avoidance, and seeking social support) on depression outcomes. This study was guided by the Minority Stress Model (MSM). The MSM posits that elevated rates of mental health problems among LGBT populations stem from increased exposures to social stigma due to their membership in a stigmatized minority group. Social stigma, including discrimination and violence, represents unique sources of stress for LGBT individuals and have a direct impact on mental health. This study was conducted as part of a larger descriptive study of mental health among Thai LGBT adults. Standardized measures consistent with the MSM were selected and translated into the Thai language by a panel of LGBT experts using the forward and backward translation technique. The psychometric properties of translated instruments were tested and acceptable (Cronbach’s alpha > .8 and Content Validity Index = 1). Study participants were recruited using convenience and snowball sampling methods. Self-administered survey data were collected via an online survey and via in-person data collection conducted at a leading Thai LGBT organization. Descriptive statistics and multivariate analyses using multiple linear regression models were conducted to analyze study data. The mean age of participants (n = 411) was 29.5 years (S.D. = 7.4). Participants were primarily male (90.5%), homosexual (79.3%), and cisgender (76.6%). The mean score for depression of study participant was 9.46 (SD = 8.43). Forty-three percent of LGBT participants reported clinically significant levels of depression as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory. In multivariate models, the combined influence of demographic, stress, coping, and minority stressors explained 47.2% of the variance in depression scores (F(16,367) = 20.48, p < .001). Minority stressors independently associated with depression included discrimination (β = .43, p < .01) victimization (β = 1.53, p < .05), and identity concealment (β = -.54, p < .05). In addition, stress (β = .81, p < .001), history of a chronic disease (β = 1.20, p < .05), and coping strategies (problem-focused coping β = -1.88, p < .01, seeking social support β = -1.12, p < .05, and avoidance coping β = 2.85, p < .001) predicted depression scores. The study outcomes emphasized that minority stressors uniquely contributed to depression levels among Thai LGBT participants over and above typical non-minority stressors. Study findings have important implications for nursing practice and the development of intervention research.

Keywords: depression, LGBT, minority stress, sexual and gender minority, Thailand

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Authors: R. M. W. Rajapakshe

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Sri Lanka, which is officially called the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is an island nation situated near India. It is a multi-lingual, multi- religious and multi – ethnic country, where Sinhalese form the majority and the Tamils form the largest ethnic minority. The composition of the population (ethnic basis) in Sri Lanka is as follows: Sinhalese: 74.5%, Tamil (Sri Lankan): 12.6%, Muslim: 7.5 %, Tamil (Indian): 5.5%, Malay: 0.3%, Burgher: 0.3 %, other: 0.2 %. The Tamil people use the Tamil language as their mother tongue and the Sinhala people use the Sinhala language as their mother tongue. A very few people in both communities use English as their mother tongue and however, a large number of people use English as a second language. The Sinhala Language was declared the only official language in Sri Lanka in 1959. However, it was not acceptable to Tamil politicians as well as to the common Tamil people and it was the beginning of long standing ethnic crisis which later became a military war where a lot of blood was shed. As a solution to the above ethnic crisis the thirteenth amendment to the constitution of Sri Lanka was introduced in 1987 and according to it both Sinhala and Tamil were declared official languages and English as the link language in Sri Lanka. Thus, a new programme namely, second language teaching programme under which Sinhala was taught to Tamil students and Tamil was taught to Sinhala students, was introduced at government schools. Language teaching includes knowledge of the culture of the target language. As all cultures are mixed and have common features students have reduced their enmity about the other community and learned to respect the other culture. On the other hand as all languages are mixed, students came to the understanding that there are no pure languages. Thus, they learned to respect the other language. In the case of Sri Lanka the Sinhala language is mixed with the Tamil language and vice versa. Thus, the development of second language teaching is the prominent way to solve the above ethnic problem and this study clearly shows it. However, the above programme suffers with lack of trained second language teachers, infrastructure facilities and insufficient funds and, they can be considered as the main obstacles to develop the second language teaching programme. Yet, there are no satisfactory answers to those problems. The data were collected from relevant books, articles and other documents based on research and forty five recordings, each with one hour duration, of natural conversations covering all factions of the Sinhala community.

Keywords: ethnic crisis, official language, second language teaching, Sinhala, Tami

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Authors: Peri Ozlem Yuksel-Sokmen, Irfan Cagtay

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Oral languages are destined to disappear rapidly in the absence of interventions aimed at encouraging their usage by young children. The seminal language preservation model proposed by Fishman (1991) stresses the importance of multiple generations using the endangered L1 while engaged in daily routines with younger children. Over the last two decades Fishman (2001) has used his intergenerational transmission model in documenting the revitalization of Basque languages, providing evidence that families are transmitting Euskara as a first language to their children with success. In our study, to motivate usage of Lazuri, we asked caregivers to speak the language while engaged with their toddlers (12 to 48 months) in semi-structured play, and included both parents (N=32) and grandparents (N=30) as play partners. This unnatural prompting to speak only in Lazuri was greeted with reluctance, as 90% of our families indicated that they had stopped using Lazuri with their children. Nevertheless, caregivers followed instructions and produced 67% of their utterances in Lazuri, with another 14% of utterances using a combination of Lazuri and Turkish (Codeswitch). Although children spoke mostly in Turkish (83% of utterances), frequencies of caregiver utterances in Lazuri or Codeswitch predicted the extent to which their children used the minority language in return. This trend suggests that home interventions aimed at encouraging dyads to communicate in a non-preferred, endangered language can effectively increase children’s usage of the language. Alternatively, this result suggests than any use of the minority language on the part of the children will promote its further usage by caregivers. For researchers examining links between play, culture, and child development, structured play has emerged as a critical methodology (e.g., Frost, Wortham, Reifel, 2007, Lilliard et al., 2012; Sutton-Smith, 1986; Gaskins & Miller, 2009), allowing investigation of cultural and individual variation in parenting styles, as well as the role of culture in constraining the affordances of toys. Toy props, as well as picture-books in native languages, can be used as tools in the transmission and preservation of endangered languages by allowing children to explore adult roles through enactment of social routines and conversational patterns modeled by caregivers. Through adult-guided play children not only acquire scripts for culturally significant activities, but also develop skills in expressing themselves in culturally relevant ways that may continue to develop over their lives through community engagement. Further pedagogical tools, such as language games and e-learning, will be discussed in this proposed oral talk.

Keywords: language intervention, pedagogical tools, endangered languages, Lazuri

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Authors: Jamshid Qodirov, Sirojiddin Komolov, Ravilov Mirahmad, Olimjon Mirzayev

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Nowadays, natural language processing tools play a crucial role in our daily lives, including various techniques with text processing. There are very advanced models in modern languages, such as English, Russian etc. But, in some languages, such as Uzbek, the NLP models have been developed recently. Thus, there are only a few NLP models in Uzbek language. Moreover, there is no such work that could show which Uzbek NLP model behaves in different situations and when to use them. This work tries to close this gap and compares the Uzbek NLP models existing as of the time this article was written. The authors try to compare the NLP models in two different scenarios: sentiment analysis and sentence similarity, which are the implementations of the two most common problems in the industry: classification and similarity. Another outcome from this work is two datasets for classification and sentence similarity in Uzbek language that we generated ourselves and can be useful in both industry and academia as well.

Keywords: NLP, benchmak, bert, vectorization

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Authors: A. Attahiru, Rabi Abdullahi Danjuma, Fatima Bint

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Language and culture are two concepts which are closely related that one affects the other. This paper attempts to examine the definition of language and culture by discussing the relationship between them. The paper further presents some instructional strategies for the teaching of language and culture as well as the influence of culture on language. It also looks at its implication to language education and finally some recommendation and conclusion were drawn.

Keywords: culture, language, relationship, strategies, teaching

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Authors: Adil Ishag

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Diglossia emerges in a situation where two distinctive varieties of a language are used alongside within a certain community. In this case, one is considered as a high or standard variety and the second one as a low or colloquial variety. Arabic is an extreme example of a highly diglossic language. This diglossity is due to the fact that Arabic is one of the most spoken languages and spread over 22 Countries in two continents as a mother tongue, and it is also widely spoken in many other Islamic countries as a second language or simply the language of Quran. The geographical variation between the countries where the language is spoken and the duality of the classical Arabic and daily spoken dialects in the Arab world on the other hand; makes the Arabic language one of the most diglossic languages. This paper tries to investigate this phenomena and its relation to learning Arabic as a first and second language.

Keywords: Arabic language, diglossia, first and second language, language learning

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Authors: Ogbu Harry Omilonye

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This paper examines protest as a literary mechanism against the unpopular political policy of the white minority regime in South Africa. It examines some of Mtshali’s poems as examples of protest poetry, showing how he deploys his artistic acumen in the popular struggle of the oppressed South Africans against the aberrations and obnoxious apartheid policy.

Keywords: protest poetry, poems, minority, oppression

Procedia PDF Downloads 517