Effects of Implicit and Explicit Focus on Form on L2 Acquisition of the English Passive

Learning a second language (L2) is essential in today’s globalized world. However, learners generally have low sensitivity to grammar, as L2 acquisition proceeds largely through functions. Thus, pedagogical assistance appears to be necessary to trigger learners’ attention to L2 grammar, but research shows no consensus on which type of instruction best promotes it. Moreover, few empirical studies have examined 'acquisition' of target constructions, which entails mappings between form, meaning, and function. To address this gap, the present study investigated the effects of implicit and explicit instruction on L2 acquisition of the English passive. The passive was chosen as the target construction due to the intricate mappings between form, meaning, and function encompassed in it. The study employed an experimental design including a pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest, with five treatment sessions between the pretest and posttests. Participants were 99 Korean English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners, randomly assigned to two experimental groups that received implicit or explicit instruction, respectively, or a control group. Implicit instruction comprised typographically enhanced passive constructions to increase perceptual saliency; explicit instruction comprised a grammar activity to raise the participants’ consciousness about the passive construction. Five measurement tasks were employed to examine any changes in the participants’ knowledge of, and ability to use, the passive: a grammaticality judgment task (GJT), a sentence pair task, a closed discourse completion task (DCT), and spoken and written production tasks. Results from quantitative and qualitative analyses of the data yielded three main findings. First, implicit instruction had a more significant, beneficial effect than explicit instruction on the overall mappings between the form, meaning, and function of the passive. Second, the difference appeared to be more salient for meaning and function, whereas both types of instruction had almost equal benefits for form; yet, the production tasks seemed to exhibit a greater score decrease as for meaning and function over time in both treatment conditions. Finally, each type of instruction had similar effects on the performance of high- and low-level learners. Overall, these findings suggest that both types of instruction are beneficial for L2 acquisition but implicit instruction is more effective than explicit instruction

The application of computer-assisted translation tools to the teaching of scientific and technological translation English to Chinese

This research project investigates the function and potentiality of translation technology – including computer assisted translation tools, electronic corpora and internet search engines – in the teaching of scientific and technological translation. English into Chinese is the language pair under discussion in this study. The research is conducted on the basis of empirical methodology, which in this particular case consists of the following procedures: discussing and highlighting the key features of scientific and technological texts; analysing the ways in which translation technology are used in the teaching of translation; positing hypotheses on how the training in the use of translation technology influences the student’s ability to translate; conducting experiments with control and experimental groups in order to test the validity of these hypotheses. The author designed and implemented a controlled experiment on two groups of Master’s students of Translation, in which the experimental group was trained with access to computer-assisted translation tools while the control group was not. Before their training, a translation test was given to students from both groups so as to define their level of translation competence at that time. Afterwards, the experimental group was trained with access to computer-assisted translation tools for four months, while the control group was not exposed to such training. On finishing the training, the students from both groups sat another test which was of approximately the same difficulty as the first test. In addition, a questionnaire was attached to each of the two tests in order to understand the factors behind the students’ performance. The scores obtained for both tests were collected and analysed across horizontal and longitudinal dimensions, with the horizontal analysis comparing the scores of the same test between the two groups and the longitudinal analysis comparing the scores of the two tests done by the same group. The horizontal analysis yielded two major and some minor findings, while the longitudinal analysis led to three major and two minor findings. The ultimate purpose of the thesis is to investigate the impact of translation technology training on the students’ translation competence when dealing with scientific and technological texts.Open Acces

Exploring teachers' views about native language instruction and education in Taiwanese elementary schools

This study explores teachers' views and experiences with native language education and instruction in Taiwan. These teachers are involved in Taiwan's current native language program and also experienced the Mandarin Movement which started several decades ago. Children were usually not allowed to extensively speak their indigenous languages at school throughout that period. Data for this qualitative study was collected from multiple, in-depth, semi-structured and unstructured interviews with 10 Hakka teachers involved in Hakka language instruction in elementary schools in Taiwan. The research findings indicate that teachers need to put great emphasis on motivating students to learn their mother tongue, that the native language program reinforces the value of Hakka culture and Hakka identity, and that parents and schools also play influential roles in maintaining and revitalizing Taiwan's native languages. In addition, this research shows that the Mandarin Movement demonstrated the elementary school's important role in the cultivation of students' language use habits and perceptions toward the various Taiwanese languages. The study also presents suggestions for continuing to implement successful native language learning for elementary school students in Taiwan.Curriculum and Instructio

Design of a Controlled Language for Critical Infrastructures Protection

We describe a project for the construction of controlled language for critical infrastructures protection (CIP). This project originates from the need to coordinate and categorize the communications on CIP at the European level. These communications can be physically represented by official documents, reports on incidents, informal communications and plain e-mail. We explore the application of traditional library science tools for the construction of controlled languages in order to achieve our goal. Our starting point is an analogous work done during the sixties in the field of nuclear science known as the Euratom Thesaurus.JRC.G.6-Security technology assessmen

Essays on Experimental Economics for the Environment and Economics of Privacy

Im 21. Jahrhundert bestehen zwei Hauptherausforderungen der ökonomischen Forschung darin, effektive Lösung für die Gestaltung der digitalen Transformation und für die Eindämmung des menschengemachten Klimawandels aufzuzeigen. Die Forschung zur digitalen Transformationen ist eng mit verschiedenen Datenschutz- (oder Privatsphäre-)relevanten Fragestellungen verbunden, die sich vorwiegend auf die Präferenzen und Entscheidungen von Einzelpersonen beziehen. Im Gegensatz dazu befasst sich die Forschung zum Klimawandel damit, welche Faktoren eine effektive Kooperation zwischen mehreren Individuen erschweren und wie gemeinsame Ziele, wie die Begrenzung des Klimawandels, erreicht werden können. Die Verbindung zwischen Datenschutz- und Umweltökonomie besteht darin, dass viele digitale Technologien das Potential haben, positive externe Effekte zu erzeugen, die zur Bereitstellung oder Erhaltung öffentlicher Güter beitragen können. Oftmals sind diese digitalen Technologien jedoch dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass ihre Nutzung die Offenlegung persönlicher Informationen erfordert. Der potentielle Erfolg dieser Technologien und institutionellen Mechanismen hängt daher weitgehend von der gesellschaftlichen Akzeptanz gegenüber diesen Technologien und institutionellen Mechanismen ab. Jeder Artikel in dieser kumulativen Dissertation leistet einen Beitrag zu der übergeordneten Fragestellung, inwiefern ökonomische Experimente dazu beitragen können, die Effizienz von Institutionen und Technologien, die öffentliche Güter bereitstellen oder erhalten können, zu evaluieren und potentiell zu steigern. Im ersten Artikel wird untersucht, ob der Publikationsprozess von Fachzeitschriften im Bereich der experimentellen Ökonomik verbessert werden kann. Die weiteren fünf Artikel befassen sich direkt oder indirekt mit unterschiedlichen, aber miteinander verbundenen Problemstellungen zu öffentlichen Gütern, die eng mit Fragen zum Datenschutz oder Umweltfragen verbunden sind. Methodisch sind die sechs Artikel dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass sie die experimentelle Methode entweder direkt für ihre individuellen Forschungsfragen anwenden oder die Ergebnisse der experimentellen Literatur nutzen, um Hypothesen abzuleiten und empirische Ergebnisse in spezifischen Datenschutz-relevanten Kontexten zu erklären. Im Bereich des Datenschutzes werden in der Dissertation Faktoren identifiziert, die die Weitergabe von Daten in verschiedenen Smartphone-Apps aus Schlüsselindustrien der digitalen Transformation und auf Arbeitgeberbewertungsplattformen beeinflussen. Im Bereich der Umweltökonomie wird im ersten Artikel ein institutioneller Mechanismus vorgeschlagen, IV der die Bereitschaft erhöhen kann, zu Recyclingsystemen beizutragen und im zweiten Artikel wird gezeigt, dass die Möglichkeit, ein öffentliches Gut auszubeuten, die Kooperation zur Eindämmung des Klimawandels erschweren kann.In the 21st century, two main challenges for economic research are to propose effective solutions to shape the digital transformation and mitigate human-induced climate change. Research on digital transformation is closely linked to various privacy-related issues, which mostly relate to the preferences and decisions of individuals. In contrast, climate change research examines which factors impede effective cooperation among multiple individuals and investigates how common goals, such as limiting climate change, can be achieved. The link between economics of privacy and environmental economics is that many digital technologies have the potential to generate positive externalities that can contribute to the provision or maintenance of public goods. However, in many cases these digital technologies are characterized by the fact that their use requires the disclosure of personal information. The potential success of these technologies and institutional mechanisms therefore largely depends on social acceptance towards these technologies and institutional mechanisms. Each paper in this cumulative dissertation contributes to the broader question of how economic experiments can contribute to evaluate and potentially increase the efficiency of institutions and technologies that can provide or maintain public goods. The first paper investigates whether the publication process of journals in the field of experimental economics can potentially be improved. The remaining five papers focus directly or indirectly on different but related public goods problems which are closely linked to privacy or environmental issues. Methodologically, the six papers share the feature that they either directly apply the experimental method for their individual research questions or use the results of experimental literature to derive hypotheses and explain empirical outcomes in specific privacy-related contexts. In the field of privacy, the dissertation identifies factors that influence data sharing in several smartphone apps from key industries of the digital transformation and on employer review platforms. In the area of environmental economics, the first paper proposes an institutional mechanism that can increase the willingness to contribute to recycling systems, and the second paper shows that the ability to exploit a public good can impede cooperation to mitigate climate change

The embedded mobilization in environmental protection of China : party-state-societal interactions, informal politics and issue-oriented political development

制度:新 ; 報告番号:甲3674号 ; 学位の種類:博士(学術) ; 授与年月日:2012/6/11 ; 早大学位記番号:新6042Waseda Universit

7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21)

Information and communication technologies together with new teaching paradigms are reshaping the learning environment.The International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd) aims to become a forum for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experiences,opinions and research results relating to the preparation of students and the organization of educational systems.Doménech I De Soria, J.; Merello Giménez, P.; Poza Plaza, EDL. (2021). 7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD21.2021.13621EDITORIA

Text complexity and text simplification in the crisis management domain

Due to the fact that emergency situations can lead to substantial losses, both financial and in terms of human lives, it is essential that texts used in a crisis situation be clearly understandable. This thesis is concerned with the study of the complexity of the crisis management sub-language and with methods to produce new, clear texts and to rewrite pre-existing crisis management documents which are too complex to be understood. By doing this, this interdisciplinary study makes several contributions to the crisis management field. First, it contributes to the knowledge of the complexity of the texts used in the domain, by analysing the presence of a set of written language complexity issues derived from the psycholinguistic literature in a novel corpus of crisis management documents. Second, since the text complexity analysis shows that crisis management documents indeed exhibit high numbers of text complexity issues, the thesis adapts to the English language controlled language writing guidelines which, when applied to the crisis management language, reduce its complexity and ambiguity, leading to clear text documents. Third, since low quality of communication can have fatal consequences in emergency situations, the proposed controlled language guidelines and a set of texts which were re-written according to them are evaluated from multiple points of view. In order to achieve that, the thesis both applies existing evaluation approaches and develops new methods which are more appropriate for the task. These are used in two evaluation experiments – evaluation on extrinsic tasks and evaluation of users’ acceptability. The evaluations on extrinsic tasks (evaluating the impact of the controlled language on text complexity, reading comprehension under stress, manual translation, and machine translation tasks) Text Complexity and Text Simplification in the Crisis Management domain 4 show a positive impact of the controlled language on simplified documents and thus ensure the quality of the resource. The evaluation of users’ acceptability contributes additional findings about manual simplification and helps to determine directions for future implementation. The thesis also gives insight into reading comprehension, machine translation, and cross-language adaptability, and provides original contributions to machine translation, controlled languages, and natural language generation evaluation techniques, which make it valuable for several scientific fields, including Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, and a number of different sub-fields of NLP.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Art unlimited: an investigation into contemporary digital arts and the free software movement.

Computing technology has not only significantly shaped many of the contemporary artistic disciplines, it has also given birth to many new and exciting practices. Modest, low cost hardware enabled artists to manipulate real-time multimedia data and coordinate vast amounts of hardware devices, whilst high bandwidth Internet connections has allowed them to communicate and distribute their work rapidly. For this reason, art practices in the digital domain have become highly decentralized. It is therefore not surprising that the rise of free and open source software (FLOSS) has been warmly welcomed and adopted by an increasing number of practitioners. The technical advantages in free software allows them to create works of art with greater freedom and flexibility. Its open and collaborative ideology, on the other hand, further embraces the increasingly autonomous and distributed characteristics in the artistic community. This thesis aims to examine the impact of free and open source software in the context of contemporary digital arts. It will look at the current climate of both digital arts and the FLOSS movement, attempting to rationalize the implications of such a phenomena. It will also provide concrete examples of ongoing activities in FLOSS digital arts, as an evidence and documentation of its development to date. Lastly, the practical work in this research will offer a first hand insight into developing a FLOSS project within the given context