Classroom facilities : a body of creative work exploring representations of knowledge through schematic means

Bibliography: leaves 78-83.I had just turned thirteen and it was the summer before high school started. My mother and I went over to the Roberts' house. Ruby had just matriculated from the same school and was handing down her faded old checked uniforms. To my amazement, there in the lounge bathed in afternoon January sunlight, was her father Billy, kneeling, deeply absorbed in a large strange chart that had been laid out on the floor. It was a school timetable and it was his task, as vice principle, to organise the day-to-day workings of the year ahead. The timetable was scattered with various coloured shapes that he shuffled back and forth across the gridded surface, trying to make a coherent system. This anecdote is important to my body of work for three reasons. The first is that Mr. Roberts' challenging activity that day is not unlike the process of sorting and reordering that is central to my work. The appearance of the chart is mimicked in the schemata-like quality of many of my pieces, as is its conceptual framework - an urge to order a set of already existing pieces into a new, meaningful and functional relationship. Ruby's uniforms are also important. I cherished these second-hand dresses precisely because of the qualities they acquired through having been worn already. These dresses were softer to touch, had a better fit and more beauty in colour --soft pink checks as opposed to harsh maroon-- than other girls' crisp new sacks

Code-switching, Structural change and Convergence: A study of Sesotho in contact with English in Lesotho

This study investigates whether code-switching practices among Sesotho-English bilinguals promote convergence between Sesotho and English. First, the study identifies different types and patterns of code-switching between Sesotho and English and analyses them using Myers-Scotton’s (1993) Matrix Language Frame model and Myers-Scotton and Jake’s (2000) 4-M model. Second, it applies the ML turnover in order to detect convergence in Sesotho-English code-switching data and to observe which direction it takes. The study also explores other factors contributing to change in the structure of Sesotho, which are not necessarily influenced by convergence. In conducting this study, data was collected through interviews that were held with younger bilingual speakers from different tertiary institutions in and around Maseru (Lesotho) and through recorded youth-centred phone-in radio programmes. Findings from the analysis of data reveal simple to complex Sesotho-English code-switching performance of various types and strategies. Findings also show through the existence of composite language in Sesotho-English code-switching that there is a turnover in the ML, which indicates a development of an asymmetrical convergence between Sesotho and English. It was also discovered that, although other changes in the Sesotho structure are not English influenced, they are enhanced mostly by younger urban bilingual speakers’ frequent “looser” approach to Sesotho. This is an indication that Sesotho’s susceptibility to change correlates strongly with age; that is, both the length of time contact between Sesotho and English has existed, and the generation in which change is mostly found. This thesis adds and documents a different perspective to the previously recorded changes on Sesotho-English contact in Lesotho

Negotiating Arabic: Diglossic Language and Intercultural Proficiency in American Education

Diglossia refers to the coexistence of High (H) and Low (L) varieties within a language (Ferguson 1959). Arabic, a diglossic language, struggles with this division. Native speakers of Arabic communicate via their dialects (L). Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL) in the US focuses on Modern Standard Arabic (H), neglecting the dialects. US government investment in Arabic as a critical language since 9/11 has continued to prioritize the instruction and professionalization of the H variety, suppressing intercultural proficiency. Arabic Language curricula in the US must evolve to teach meta-linguistic awareness between the H and L forms of Arabic

Natural Language Processing in-and-for Design Research

We review the scholarly contributions that utilise Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods to support the design process. Using a heuristic approach, we collected 223 articles published in 32 journals and within the period 1991-present. We present state-of-the-art NLP in-and-for design research by reviewing these articles according to the type of natural language text sources: internal reports, design concepts, discourse transcripts, technical publications, consumer opinions, and others. Upon summarizing and identifying the gaps in these contributions, we utilise an existing design innovation framework to identify the applications that are currently being supported by NLP. We then propose a few methodological and theoretical directions for future NLP in-and-for design research

Основи наукових комунікацій іноземною мовою

Навчально-методичне забезпечення вивчення курсу „Основи наукових комунікацій іноземною мовою” містить добірку текстів і вправ для розвитку навичок писемного і усного спілкування відповідно до стандартів сучасного англомовного наукового дискурсу.Видання призначено для студентів-магістрів та викладачів

Teaching pronunciation:a case for a pedagogy based upon intelligibility

This thesis examines the main aim of teaching pronunciation in second language acquisition in the Syrian context. In other words, it investigates the desirable end point, namely: whether it is native-like accent, or intelligible pronunciation. This thesis also investigates the factors that affect native-like pronunciation and intelligible accent. It also analyses English language teaching methods. The currently used English pronunciation course is examined in detail too. The aim is to find out the learners’ aim of pronunciation, the best teaching method for achieving that aim, and the most appropriate course book that fulfils the aim. In order to find out learners’ aim in pronunciation, a qualitative research is undertaken. The research takes advantage of some aspects of case study. It is also supported by a questionnaire to gather data. The result of this research can be regarded as an attempt to bring the Syrian context to the current trends in the teaching of English pronunciation. The results show that learners are satisfied with intelligible pronunciation. The currently used teaching method (grammar-translation method) may be better replaced by the (communicative approach) which is more appropriate than the currently used method. It is also more effective to change the currently used book to a new one that corresponds to that aim. The current theories and issues in teaching English pronunciation that support learners’ intelligibility will be taken into account in the newly proposed course book

'Take him to the cleaners and make him do your homework': a corpus-based analysis of lexical structure used by English language learners

The present study is an empirical corpus based analysis of the use of four lexical bundles or strings by ESL students at a higher education centre in Ireland. The overall aim was to ascertain if students at both ends of the language learning spectrum used the following multi-word items in their speaking and writing: 1) Multi-word verbs 2) Delexical verbs 3) Collocations and 4) Idiomatic expressions. There are two levels of learners who took part in this study: A2 and C1. The learner’s use of language was analysed over a period of twelve weeks. Recorded interactions and oral presentations in class were analysed as well as written homework and assignments. Integral to this study is corpus linguistics and the researcher’s created Adult Corpus of English (ACE). This corpus-based methodology enabled the identification of the frequency and number of the four lexical strings used by the language learners. Overall, twenty four students agreed to take part in the research and as a result the corpus amounts to 170,000 words: 20,000 written and 150,000 spoken. The use of WordSmith Tools (2016) and manual sifting of the corpus identified that both cohorts clearly use the four lexical strings in their speaking and writing. Multi-word verbs such as come back and put in, delexical verbs such as make an effort and do your homework, collocations for example spend time and write a letter and idiomatic expressions such as the grass is always greener and black and blue were recorded, identified and tagged. It is argued that though the classroom is not the most natural of contexts the majority of language used is produced by the learner without prompting or explicit teaching. Overall, the C1 cohort was found to use the majority of opaque lexical structures while the A2 cohort used less and transparent strings.N