Attitudes toward Tetun Dili, A Language of East Timor.

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2017

The local experiences of reformist Islam in a “Muslim” town in colonial India: the case of Amroha

Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008. Published version reproduced with the permission of the publisher.This article discusses shifts within Islamic life, ritual and practice in the town of Amroha in the United Provinces of India, during the eventful period of approximately 1860-1930. Based primarily upon Urdu writings produced about or by residents of the town during this period, it examines the ways in which wider religious reformist movements such as those associated with Aligarh, Deoband and Bareilly were received and experienced within nearby smaller, supposedly marginal urban settlements. The article argues that broader currents of religious reform were not unquestioningly accepted in Amroha, but were often engaged in a constant process of dialogue and accommodation with local particularities. The first section introduces Amroha and its population, focusing upon how the town’s integrity was defined and described. The second section examines a plethora of public religious rites and institutions emerging during this period, including madrasas and imambaras, discussing how these were used by eminent local families to reinforce distinctly local hierarchies and cultural particularities. A third section considers public debates in Amroha concerning the Aligarh movement, arguing that these debates enhanced local rivalries, especially those between Shia and Sunni Muslims. A final section interrogates the growing culture of religious disputation in the town, suggesting that such debate facilitated the negotiation of religious change in a transitory social environment

Modelação de diálogos com o Midiki: um gestor de diálogo do tipo Information State Update

Nesta dissertação investigamos a problemática da criação de sistemas e interfaces que permitam a interacção entre pessoas e máquinas através de linguagem natural(LN), recorrendo a Gestores de Diálogo (GD). Esse tipo de interacção concretiza-se através do estabelecimento de diálogos entre uma pessoa (cliente ou utilizador de um serviço) e a máquina, por exemplo, e em particular, através da fala. Quando disponibilizado da forma tradicional, o acesso ao serviço exige um intermediário Humano ou a adaptação da Pessoa a interfaces menos naturais, tais como linhas de comandos num computador, digitadas através de teclado ou o recurso (usual) a janelas, cliques de rato e preenchimento de formulários. Os sistemas que possibilitam a intermediação com esses serviços através de LN chamam-se Sistemas de Diálogo (SD), no núcleo dos quais se encontram os chamados Gestores de Diálogo. A implementação de SDs robustos ainda constitui um desafio, dada a complexidade, problemas e dificuldades que apresenta. Um SD, e em particular um GD, tem de ser configurado para levar a cabo um diálogo em linguagem natural com um Humano, por mais restrito ou mais genérico que seja o domínio (ou tarefa) considerado. Infelizmente, existem poucas metodologias e ferramentas de autoria que possibilitem a modelação fácil e intuitiva de tais diálogos (sobre os GDs). Nesta dissertação apresentamos uma metodologia [Quintal & Sampaio, 2007] e uma ferramenta para a autoria de diálogos com base no Gestor de Diálogo MIDIKI [Burke, 2005b]. A ferramenta de autoria automatiza as partes mais importantes da geração de código com vista à execução de um diálogo nesse GD.Orientador: Paulo N.M. Sampai

Understanding Socially Engaged Arts as Discourse and Experience: Discursive structures of inequality, and art as experience

This thesis used a heuristic-ethnographic methodology to understand socially engaged arts practice. In so doing, the study has identified two distinct paradigms for conceptualising and exploring socially engaged art: as discursive practice in the funded arts sector, and as aesthetic experience in amateur participation. Part One explores socially engaged arts as discursive practice in the funded arts field, revealing structures of power, exclusion and dispossession that serve to produce and reproduce hierarchies of cultural value in the interests of funded institutions and those who dominate them. This phase of the analysis uses Bourdieu’s theorising of The Field of Cultural Production (Bourdieu, 1993) and language as symbolic power (Bourdieu, 1991b) to identify how the endogenous problematisation of inequality and the exogenous pressures of policy attachment construct socially engaged arts as, primarily, a discursive practice that legitimises the inequality of funding distribution, disconnects discursive from realised practice, and marginalises the visibility and social potential of amateur socially engaged arts. Part Two explores socially engaged arts as aesthetic experience expressed through amateur participation, illuminating forms of creativity that are absent from existing scholarship and cultural policy. This phase of the analysis finds the limitations of Bourdieu’s analytical scheme, and proposes an alternative approach drawn from kinship studies and John Dewey’s conceptualisation of Art as Experience (Dewey, 1958). This alternative theoretical approach is used to probe the complexity and potential of amateur socially engaged arts practice, revealing intrinsic motivations that structure amateur socially engaged activities, and do not conform to the exigencies of competition and status that characterise the funded arts field (where discursive practices function as transmuted forms of economic capital, and are thus available to Bourdieu’s analysis) or to the commonly theorised motivations of sociability and self-interest (Stebbins, 1982; Putnam, 2000). The amateur socially engaged activities examined in this research are structured by, and organised to express, the aesthetic phase of ‘mutuality of being’ (Sahlins, 2011a) through the unity of volunteerism, nurture and creativity. Taken together, these modes of socially engaged practice reveal that cultural policy, contemporary cultural policy studies, and research exploring amateur participation have issues to address when it comes to the disconnect between discourse and practice in the funded sector, the marginalisation of amateur socially engaged activities (that do not fit with limited, and limiting, notions of what socially engaged arts should be, the forms it can take or how it can be done) and the social value of kinship as aesthetic experience realised through everyday amateur participation

The Shi'a Muslims of the United Provinces of India, c 1890-1940

This dissertation examines religious, social and political change among the Shia Muslims of the United Provinces of colonial India, c. 1890-1940. Focusing especially, upon the towns of Lucknow and Amroha but discussing the region as a whole, it traces the formation of a community identity among Shia Muslims, and questions how disparate Shi'a populations were able to construct a consciousness of solidarity. The dissertation is based on a combination of archival and printed sources in English and Urdu. The first chapter assesses processes of sectarian organisation and the formation of a number of Shia institutions and societies in Lucknow in the thirty year period from 1890, including several madrasas and the All India Shi'a Conference. The second chapter examines manifestations of religious renewal among Indian Shi'as. Forms of religious proselytisation are discussed, particularly the contribution of the printing press and the changing role of preaching. The development of religious conflict is outlined, through examinations of religious debates and the reformation of Muharram rites. A third chapter examines Shia responses to the so-called '`Aligarh movement', considering reactions to educational reform and the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at `Aligarh. A fourth chapter discusses Shia responses to the campaigns of jihad and pan-Islamism current among many Muslims in the early twentieth century. Together, these two chapters demonstrate the expansion and politicisation of sectarian differences, and the attempts by some Shi'as to organise separately from wider Muslim institutions. The final chapter assesses a series of Shi'a-Sunni conflicts in Lucknow in the 1930s. It examines some of the contributory factors and discusses the conflicts in the light of the processes of sectarian organisation discussed in earlier chapters. The conclusion evaluates the implications of the thesis for our understanding of Indian Shia Muslims and, more generally, of sectarian identities and conflicts in Indian Islam

An Autoethnography of a Bilingual Therapist Working with Haitian Clients: Reconnecting to Home

This evocative autoethnographic study is a very personalized account of my life as a Haitian American and a bilingual family therapist working with Haitian refugee earthquake survivors. The study focused on the lived experiences and challenges encountered as a family therapist trained in systemic techniques, linguistic terminology, and the Westernized psychotherapy approach to engaging Creole-speaking clients in therapy. Other challenges that existed were uncovered during the integration of the use of Haitian Creole language and Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) tenets as the preferred model. It explored this therapist’s narrative in the process of providing psychotherapy to these clients, emerged a relinking to childhood traumatic experiences, explored these experiences, and in the process found healing as well as achieved personal and professional growth. “The findings in an autoethnography are typically the stories themselves along with cultural themes and coding elements” (McIntyre, 2016, p. xiii). Their stories spanned a reconnection to the Haitian culture as a researcher familiar with the culture (an insider) as well as one assimilated into the American culture and dynamic (an outsider). My reflection on the cultural expressions in the therapeutic relationship was instrumental in my development and expanded my therapeutic lens as a bilingual family therapist in the practice of psychotherapy (Skulic, 2007). The research findings are an apparent example in an evocative autoethnographic narrative account when the reader’s emotions are evoked (McIntyre, 2016). It is a conduit to foster dialogue among psychotherapists working with clients from their culture and other cultures

Quechua to Spanish Cross-Linguistic Influence Among Cuzco Quechua-Spanish Bilinguals: The Case of Epistemology

Throughout the course of this dissertation, I respond to three related research goals. In order to investigate these goals, I gathered data from 169 members of two Cuzco, Peru non-profit governmental agencies, the Asociación Civil 'Gregorio Condori Mamani' Proyecto Casa del Cargador, 'Gregorio Condori Mamani' Civil Association House of the Carrier Project' and El Centro de Apoyo Integral a la Trabajadora del Hogar, 'Center for the Integral Support of Female Home Workers'. The majority of my participants speaks Quechua natively and acquired Spanish as an L2 during childhood or adolescence. I collected data from these two populations through the means of ethnography, demographic questionnaires, a social network analysis, a language attitudes study, elicitation of short narratives, role play interviews and a subjective reaction test. In response to my first research goal, I examine the nature of the semantics and pragmatics of the Cuzco Quechua epistemic system, including the epistemic suffixes, -mi/-n and -si/-s, and the Quechua verb past tenses, -rqa- and -sqa-. I find the Quechua epistemics to encode meaning beyond information source and level of certainty and to be affected by a variety of discourse factors. In my treatment of my second research goal, I find 31 different phonetic, morphosyntactic, and calque Quechua to Spanish cross-linguistic influence features to occur in my participants' speech. I also examine the specific case of the cross-linguistic influence of the Quechua epistemic system on the Spanish spoken by my participants. The presence of cross-linguistic influence in my participants' speech supports a model of child SLA in which the L1 plays a significant role in the acquisition of the L2. Finally, in response to my third research goal, I find various demographic characteristics, social network characteristics, and the language attitudes of my participants to correlate with their production of the 31 Quechua to Spanish phonetic, morphosyntactic, and calque cross-linguistic features. While presenting my results for my third research goal, I suggest that my participants may purposefully use various Quechua cross-linguistic features in order to identify themselves as Quechua speakers and distinguish themselves from native Spanish speakers, thereby creating an in-group variety of Spanish

Undergraduate students' experiences with learning with digital multimodal texts.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.The study emerged from my interest in understanding the multimodal learning practices and multiliteracies of the current generation of students, especially with the increasingly new genres of texts finding their way into the education landscape. Designed as a pedagogical intervention, it sought to understand the different ways first year undergraduate students at the University of Mauritius experienced learning with and through varied forms of digital multimodal texts (DMTs) within the context of the module Mauritian History (HIST1002Y) included in their programme of studies. A phenomenographic approach was used to describe and interpret the qualitatively different ways participants experienced two learning situations (LS1 & LS2) involving the use and creation of DMTs. A purposeful sample of 19 participants was involved. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, participants’ written reflections, a focus group discussion and a consideration of the DMTs (a video assignment) they produced. The phenomenographic analysis produced two sets of categories of description, one for each learning situation, moving from least to more comprehensive ways of experiencing the phenomenon. As consumers of DMTs in LS1, participants expressed their experiences in five different ways. DMTs were seen as authentic sources of information; as a novelty to the learning approach; as an opportunity to break learning monotony; as emotionally engaging; and as effective and useful learning support. As for LS2 involving participants as authors or producers of their own DMT the findings revealed that such a task was conceived of in six different ways. Making a video was seen as an assessment to be completed for the purpose of grades; a new way of learning and assessment; a journey of ups and downs; an opportunity to widen one’s horizons; an opportunity for personal growth and development; and a process of multimodal orchestration. The categories were further analysed to highlight their logical relationship based on dimensions of variation in the way DMTs were experienced. The overall findings indicate that the implementation of pedagogical practices supported by DMTs could revitalise the teaching and learning of history despite some noted challenges. This calls for a reconceptualisation of higher education pedagogies in alignment with our students’ changing literacy practices so that from passive receivers of knowledge they become active knowledge producers

Code switching, language mixing and fused lects : language alternation phenomena in multilingual Mauritius

Focusing on a series of multiparty recordings carried out between the months of October and March 2012 and drawing on a theoretical framework based on work of linguists such as Auer (1999), Backus (2005), Bakker (2000), Maschler (2000) and Matras (2000a and 2000b), this thesis traces the evolution of a continuum of language alternation phenomena, ranging from simple code-switching to more complex forms of 'language alloying' (Alvarez- Càccamo 1998) such as mixed codes and fused lects in multilingual Mauritius. Following Auer (2001), the different conversational loci of code-switching are identified. Particular emphasis has been placed upon, amongst others, the conversational locus of playfulness where, for instance, participants' spontaneous lapses into song and dance sequences as they inspire themselves from Bollywood pop songs and creatively embed segments in Hindustani within a predominantly Kreol matrix are noted. Furthermore, in line with Auer (1999), Backus (2005) and Muysken (2000), emerging forms of language mixing such as changes in the way possessive marking is carried in Kreol and instances of semantic shift in Bhojpuri/ Hindustani words like nasha and daan have been highlighted and their pragmatic significance explained with specific reference to the Mauritian context. Finally, in the fused lect stage, specific attention has been provided to one key feature namely phonological blending which has resulted in the coinage of the discourse marker ashe and its eventual use in the process of discourse marker switching. In the light of the above findings, this thesis firstly critiques the strengths and weaknesses of the notion of the code switching (CS) continuum (Auer 1999) itself by revealing the difficulties encountered, at the empirical level, in assigning the correct label to the different types of language alternation phenomena evidenced in this thesis. In the second instance, it considers the impact of such shifts along the language alternation continuum upon language policy and planning in contemporary Mauritius and advocates for a move away from colonial language policies such as the 1957 Education Act in favour of updated ones that are responsive to the language practices of speakers.Linguistics and Modern LanguagesD. Litt. et Phil. (Linguistics

Concepts and practices in agricultural extension in developing countries: a source book

The first chapter outlines the emerging challenges faced by agricultural R&D sectors and how paradigms are evolving in response to these changes and challenges. The second chapter traces the evolution of agricultural extension thinking and practice. It highlights some generic problems faced at various stages of evolution and approaches to address them. It highlights the factors identified in literature as contributing to successful knowledge dissemination processes and creating higher access to clients to the services. While reflecting on the challenges and opportunities, the chapter also explores the possible future of extension services in developing countries. The third chapter gives an account of the various extension models, approaches and methods that have been tried out in developing countries and the experiences. The chapter concludes with the transition being made to agricultural innovation systems from Research & Extension systems and highlights the role of extension services in this context. Chapter four highlights the importance of farmer groups in providing effective extension services and promoting innovation. It explains in detail the processes, approaches and methods involved in group formation and development, management, performance assessment and, monitoring and evaluation. Chapter five lists and describes in detail the various tools and methods used in participatory research and development processes. Chapter six focuses on the very important issues of Monitoring and Evaluation as systems for learning and for facilitating reflective action cycles. The importance of participatory approaches in M&E, process monitoring and outcome mapping are highlighted. This book can be used by students and practitioners of extension, researchers and decision-makers. This is a collation of knowledge regarding the practice of extension and is not intended to be used as a recipe or blue print. Based on the context and the requirement, the approaches and tools should be selected, adapted and used. There is a built-in flexibility that would allow the user to employ his/her experience, creativity and imagination in adapting and using the approaches and tools described in this source book