Apperceptive patterning: Artefaction, extensional beliefs and cognitive scaffolding

In “Psychopower and Ordinary Madness” my ambition, as it relates to Bernard Stiegler’s recent literature, was twofold: 1) critiquing Stiegler’s work on exosomatization and artefactual posthumanism—or, more specifically, nonhumanism—to problematize approaches to media archaeology that rely upon technical exteriorization; 2) challenging how Stiegler engages with Giuseppe Longo and Francis Bailly’s conception of negative entropy. These efforts were directed by a prevalent techno-cultural qualifier: the rise of Synthetic Intelligence (including neural nets, deep learning, predictive processing and Bayesian models of cognition). This paper continues this project but first directs a critical analytic lens at the Derridean practice of the ontologization of grammatization from which Stiegler emerges while also distinguishing how metalanguages operate in relation to object-oriented environmental interaction by way of inferentialism. Stalking continental (Kapp, Simondon, Leroi-Gourhan, etc.) and analytic traditions (e.g., Carnap, Chalmers, Clark, Sutton, Novaes, etc.), we move from artefacts to AI and Predictive Processing so as to link theories related to technicity with philosophy of mind. Simultaneously drawing forth Robert Brandom’s conceptualization of the roles that commitments play in retrospectively reconstructing the social experiences that lead to our endorsement(s) of norms, we compliment this account with Reza Negarestani’s deprivatized account of intelligence while analyzing the equipollent role between language and media (both digital and analog)

Multiliteracies pedagogy promoting young children’s ecological literacy on climate change

Peer reviewe

Preparing Asian ESOL Teachers to Respond to Student Writing: A Systemic Functional Linguistic Perspective in Action

L2 teachers generally lack the ability to respond to student writing in productive ways, because L2 teacher education has typically not developed teachers’ understanding of how language works in constructing meaningful texts. To address the need for preparing teachers to give meaningful feedback, this study investigates the professional experiences of Asian English language teachers (ELTs) who participated in a professional development program informed by Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics (SFL). This program attempts to apprentice teachers to becoming critical text analysts who are able to analyze the linguistic features of their students’ emergent writing practices and provide informed feedback. The research question guiding this study is: How does coursework in SFL influence Asian ELTs’ approach to responding to student writing? This study uses qualitative case study methods, and focuses on two specific time frames for data collection: 1) over 28 weeks (two semesters) of a SFL-based professional development course; 2) over ELTs’ teaching practicum conducted eight months after the completion of the course. Multiple types of data were collected, including the researcher’s fieldnotes, interviews, ELTs’ course assignments and written responses to student writing samples. The data were analyzed inductively, using multiple layers of coding, theme identification, and relational analysis. The findings indicate that ELTs progressed from offering decontextualized reactions to lexical and syntactic issues (e.g., correcting errors, calling for a wider vocabulary) to providing feedback aimed at strengthening meaning in a text. Specifically, ELTs were able to identify students’ ineffectual register choices for constructing texts relevant to specific genres and writing tasks, and offer linguistically-precise guidance for improvement. However, since ELTs’ uptake of SFL was highly influenced by their exam-oriented, formalism-informed language education and socialization in Asia, they usually addressed the issue of genre stages in student writing prescriptively. They also emphasized students’ language choices in constructing content (ideational meaning) and managing information flow (textual meaning), while overlooking features of voice (interpersonal meaning) in student text. The study contributes to research and practice of L2 writing teacher education by providing empirical information regarding the opportunities and challenges of using SFL to support Asian ELTs’ professional development in responding to student writing

Formal Analysis of Network Protocols

Today’s Internet is becoming increasingly complex and fragile. Current performance centric techniques on network analysis and runtime verification have became inadequate in the development of robust networks. To cope with these challenges there is a growing interest in the use of formal analysis techniques to reason about network protocol correctness throughout the network development cycle. This talk surveys recent work on the use of formal analysis techniques to aid in design, implementation, and analysis of network protocols. We first present a general framework that covers a majority of existing formal analysis techniques on both the control and routing planes of networks, and present a classification and taxonomy of techniques according to the proposed framework. Using four representative case studies (Metarouting, rcc, axiomatic formulation, and Alloy based analysis), we discuss various aspects of formal network analysis, including formal specification, formal verification, and system validation. Their strengths and limitations are evaluated and compared in detail

An Examination of Some Aspects of Howard Stein's Work

Some understand Stein’s “Yes, but…” as an entry in the realism—instrumentalism debate (RID) itself, albeit one dissatisfied with then-extant positions. In this paper, however, I argue the opposite: Stein’s conception of science and his approach to its history and philosophy actually preclude the RID. First, I characterize Stein as persistently attending to his own historical and philosophical methods. I then describe his conception of science as both a dialectic and an enterprise, and I draw from this conception several conclusions about the relations between science and its history and philosophy. Finally, I provide a reading of “Yes, but…” that follows from Stein’s conception of science. On this reading, the RID is either irrelevant to or wrong of science and, moreover, distracts from a legitimate inquiry. I conclude by interpreting Stein’s remark that there is ``no difference that makes a difference’’ between a cogent and enlightened realism and a sophisticated instrumentalism

SECOND GRADE LANGUAGE AND LITERACY DEVELOPMENT THROUGH ANALYSIS OF RECEPTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE SKILLS ON THE NYSESLAT

The future success of today’s students and our nation depends on how well prepared our students are to contribute to the globalized world of the 21st century. The population of English Language Learners (ELLs) is exploding in the United States. If students are not given the appropriate language scaffolds to learn English, ELLs will struggle academically, finding themselves ill-prepared for success in the workplace and their roles as active civic participants. This quantitative study focused on three cohorts (n = 25 each) of randomly selected second grade students enrolled in Dual Language Program, Transitional Bilingual Education Program, or English as a New Language programs in New York City in the 2018-2019 school year. It explored the differences in academic achievement across these three program types, as measured by the NYSESLAT. It also explored the differences in English language skills—receptive skills (i.e., listening and reading) and productive skills (i.e., speaking and writing). The study did not find statistically significant differences across these three program types. It found more differences within group that between groups. This raises interesting and important questions for future research. Is it possible that the NYSESLAT does not capture subtle differences between programs? What is the role of variation in the student population across these program types? What is the role of variation in the teachers and teaching styles across these program types

Cerita (Stories): A Pedagogical Model for Teaching Story Genres to Lower Secondary School Students in Indonesia

Teacher professional learning programs often aim to support teachers to develop new knowledge or instructional practices in order to improve students’ learning outcomes. However, connecting these knowledge and skills to the teachers’ specific context remains a challenge. The gap is even wider in contexts of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL), such as Indonesia, where pedagogical frameworks adopted for English language curriculum have been developed for use in language settings a long way from most EFL situations (see Baker, 2016; Canagarajah, 2016; Chaaban, 2017). As such, the contents of professional learning are commonly perceived as propaganda for vested interests, and unrelated to local classroom realities (Fang, 2012). This study investigates the potential of a professional learning program based on genre theory (after Martin, 1985; Martin & Rose, 2008) a model that underpins the current English language curriculum for secondary school students in Indonesia. The design and implementation of the program in the study are drawn from Reading to Learn (R2L) (Rose & Martin, 2012), a scaffolded approach to literacy education that has developed from systemic functional theory as developed by Halliday and his colleagues (e.g. Halliday, 1975; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014; Rose & Martin, 2012). The program described in this study offered workshops, supported pedagogy and ongoing dialogue to promote a story-oriented renovation of R2L, incorporating story sharing activities such as multimodal storytelling and scripted performances as an additional learning stage in order to enhance secondary students’ control of writing story genres in English

Logic Programming: Context, Character and Development

Logic programming has been attracting increasing interest in recent years. Its first realisation in the form of PROLOG demonstrated concretely that Kowalski's view of computation as controlled deduction could be implemented with tolerable efficiency, even on existing computer architectures. Since that time logic programming research has intensified. The majority of computing professionals have remained unaware of the developments, however, and for some the announcement that PROLOG had been selected as the core language for the Japanese 'Fifth Generation' project came as a total surprise. This thesis aims to describe the context, character and development of logic programming. It explains why a radical departure from existing software practices needs to be seriously discussed; it identifies the characteristic features of logic programming, and the practical realisation of these features in current logic programming systems; and it outlines the programming methodology which is proposed for logic programming. The problems and limitations of existing logic programming systems are described and some proposals for development are discussed. The thesis is in three parts. Part One traces the development of programming since the early days of computing. It shows how the problems of software complexity which were addressed by the 'structured programming' school have not been overcome: the software crisis remains severe and seems to require fundamental changes in software practice for its solution. Part Two describes the foundations of logic programming in the procedural interpretation of Horn clauses. Fundamental to logic programming is shown to be the separation of the logic of an algorithm from its control. At present, however, both the logic and the control aspects of logic programming present problems; the first in terms of the extent of the language which is used, and the second in terms of the control strategy which should be applied in order to produce solutions. These problems are described and various proposals, including some which have been incorporated into implemented systems, are described. Part Three discusses the software development methodology which is proposed for logic programming. Some of the experience of practical applications is related. Logic programming is considered in the aspects of its potential for parallel execution and in its relationship to functional programming, and some possible criticisms of the problem-solving potential of logic are described. The conclusion is that although logic programming inevitably has some problems which are yet to be solved, it seems to offer answers to several issues which are at the heart of the software crisis. The potential contribution of logic programming towards the development of software should be substantial

Developing Metacognitive Awareness of Voice in Academic Writing in English: A Case Study of Second Language Writers

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing research (e.g., Tardy, 2009) has established the importance of building genre knowledge. This study focused on the genre of article review, in which a writer summarizes and evaluates the essential views in an article. As a simple genre that does not involve a full literature review, it is often seen as a preparatory genre that instructors use as a stepping-stone to develop other important genres, such as term papers and research articles. To write this genre, students need to move from a relatively single-voice, uncontested summary to a multi-voiced evaluation. However, the issue of how to manage evaluation in constructing multi-voiced academic texts represents a major challenge to novice writers of English as a second language (L2). This study translates the SFL Engagement framework (Martin & White, 2005) into a pedagogical scheme, exploring how the framework can serve as a heuristic to scaffold L2 writers’ knowledge of voice and how such enhanced awareness may encourage them to experiment with a wider range of repertoires in writing article reviews. This study was located within a writing course in an EAP intensive program. Nine participants came from different linguistic, cultural, and disciplinary backgrounds. Multiple data sources (semi-structured interviews, audio-taped student interactions as they engaged in text analysis tasks, students’ oral and written reflections, and student writing) were examined to contribute to a greater understanding of the case and to enhance the validity of case study research (Yin, 2014). The findings show that the Engagement constructs focused students’ attention on key voice resources and the rhetorical goals they enabled, providing a heuristic that students could use in their writing. Their varied uptake of Engagement metalanguage and the differential repertoires displayed in their writing reflected different metacognitive developments. Although the Engagement pedagogical scheme served as a major focus in the course under study, it can also support L2 writing instructors in more general ways. The Engagement scheme can be added to instructors’ feedback repertoires as they comment on student writing and offer specific suggestions. This study has the potential to make a substantive contribution to L2 writing pedagogy.PHDEducational StudiesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135902/1/ysjou_1.pd

A Study on Tricycle Sign Systems: A Reflection of Filipino Optimism, Masculinity, Religiosity, and Values

Tricycle, the most popular mode of transportation in the countryside, has served as a means to articulate one’s thoughts. The signages posted on these usually express humor, wit, spirituality and sexual thoughts. The researchers believe that the language utterances displayed on these tricycles may be influenced by a number of social factors. The paper answered these questions: What are the signages found in tricycles traversing Tuguegarao proper? What do these signages in language reflect the lived world or thoughts of the tricycle drivers? Or their social background? How do these signages correlate to social factors? This paper used the descriptive design in examining the signages that were gathered from 100 tricycle driver respondents in Tuguegarao City. Analysis of the signages is strengthened through Barthesian’s sign systems. Drawing on the social constructionism, the paper highlights the following: First, tricycles have become a medium of Filipino expression where the vehicles communicate the drivers’ worldviews.The gathered signages reflected some Filipino values and traits such as optimism and fatalism; masculinity and machismo; religiosity and social cohesion; and hard work and cultural capital. Second, the paper holds that language may be understood by looking into the relationship between the signifier and the signified. The signages used by the tricycle drivers reflect not only their explicit thoughts, but also symbolic meanings and their habitus. Lastly, language has fulfilled its metalinguistic function as the signages were analyzed to show that these were representations of one’s cultural behavior