Brave New GES World:A Systematic Literature Review of Gestures and Referents in Gesture Elicitation Studies

How to determine highly effective and intuitive gesture sets for interactive systems tailored to end users’ preferences? A substantial body of knowledge is available on this topic, among which gesture elicitation studies stand out distinctively. In these studies, end users are invited to propose gestures for specific referents, which are the functions to control for an interactive system. The vast majority of gesture elicitation studies conclude with a consensus gesture set identified following a process of consensus or agreement analysis. However, the information about specific gesture sets determined for specific applications is scattered across a wide landscape of disconnected scientific publications, which poses challenges to researchers and practitioners to effectively harness this body of knowledge. To address this challenge, we conducted a systematic literature review and examined a corpus of N=267 studies encompassing a total of 187, 265 gestures elicited from 6, 659 participants for 4, 106 referents. To understand similarities in users’ gesture preferences within this extensive dataset, we analyzed a sample of 2, 304 gestures extracted from the studies identified in our literature review. Our approach consisted of (i) identifying the context of use represented by end users, devices, platforms, and gesture sensing technology, (ii) categorizing the referents, (iii) classifying the gestures elicited for those referents, and (iv) cataloging the gestures based on their representation and implementation modalities. Drawing from the findings of this review, we propose guidelines for conducting future end-user gesture elicitation studies

Language and gender in the Saudi Shura Council

The Saudi Shura Council (SSC) is the consultative assembly of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Its members debate proposals for new laws, scrutinise the operations of the civil service, and advise the King of legislative matters. In 2013, women joined the Council for the first time. This thesis offers a first account of the linguistic practices of the Saudi Shura Council as a whole, and more narrowly, focusses on the linguistic performance of female members and considers ways in which it diverges from the established practices of male members of the council. I do this by investigating the constraints placed on speakers in this quasi-parliamentary setting and by analysing the macro-functions of the council in general before conducting microanalyses of individual contributions of debates in the Council. The thesis takes a pragma-rhetorical approach to the analysis of two particular linguistic features of debates, namely: questions and pronouns. These features were chosen for more scrutiny through an emergent, bottom-up process after the transcription and close analysis of 16 sessions of the Council’s business amounting to 11.93 hours (and 76,096 words). In looking at both pronouns and questions, the tensions between form and function are explored, as are the rhetorical uses of these features. I seek to apply developments in parliamentary discourse analysis in the emerging Western tradition to a new setting, that of a deliberative, non-executive institution in Saudi Arabia. I discuss the challenges this presents.In this setting, questions do not have obvious recipients and are used for persuasive purposes rather than having a clear interrogative function. Female members pose twice as many questions as men and these are qualitatively different from those asked by men. The questions posed by women are often highly critical of the processes and procedures of the Council. Female members appear to be setting themselves apart from the ‘business as usual’ of the Council. The lack of political parties in Saudi Arabia likely accounts for the fact that more first-person singular pronouns are used in this setting than has been found in Western parliaments. Female members use first person plural pronouns to signal their (collective) gender identity and to build the persuasiveness of their arguments

Hope as a Journey: An Ethnographic Study of the Phenomenon of Hope as Experienced by Hindu and Christian Members of the Indian Diaspora in the Metropolitan Chicago Area

This research explores hope in the lives of Indian diaspora in the US. through the ethnographic lens of qualitative research. Using participant observation, visual methods and interviewing, an 18-month study was focused on the experience of hope in the lives and reflections of Hindu and Christian Indian diaspora in and around Chicago. Through this research, this ethnographic data portrays hope as a journey over a chasm where vectors of influence converge and must be negotiated. The ethnographic accounts of hope in the lives of the Hindu and Christian diaspora suggest three main foci of hope in the population studied: the hope to be accepted, the hope to make a contribution and the hope to be true to oneself. Through the ethnographic narratives explored in three thematic chapters, this study presents new data and analyses on the roles of women in transmitting cultural and religious tradition to the next generation, on South Asian Christians in the US diaspora, and it offers “close attention” to the Indian diaspora as called for in recent literature on South Asian Diaspora

Origins and development of representational systems in early childhood

It is argued in Chapters 1 to 4 that in cognitive psychology in general, and in the disciplines of language acquisition and cognitive development in particular, there is substantial benefit to be derived from distinguishing between two representational systems, one system being deployed in long-established or highly-practiced functions, and the second deployed in novel tasks, or where difficulties interrupt the first system. It is also argued that the proper subject of cognitive development is the second of these systems. Chapters 5 and 6 are concerned in different ways with the origins of language in the individual, in particular with the question of what innate knowledge of language might be justified. It is concluded that many questions regarding innate knowledge remain open, and that a source in human evolution for knowledge of language is no more likely than sources in individual or social development. In Chapter 7 it is argued that representational drawing emerges late in the 4th year of life, and some new techniques are described for studying early representational drawing. Following these treatments of external systems of representation, Chapter 8 offers a general developmental theory of forms of representation, extending Piaget's insight that mental representation is co-extensive with thought, and that the main axis of cognitive development is the content of thought and representation. Chapters 9 to 12 apply this theory to the representation of belief and desire, and of extrinsic and intrinsic qualities of objects, by 11/2 to 4 year-old children. Chapter 13 introduces a new method for analyzing the free classification task, a task sometimes used to assess children's ability to think about intrinsic qualities, and applies this method to various data sets. Chapter 14 applies these insights and results to the problem of characterizing concepts and concept development and favourably discusses the idea that more precise knowledge of this aspect of development may help to explain certain features of early language acquisition

How do they communicate? A comparative study of the communication strategies in English of some Malaysian and British university undergraduates.

This dissertation concerns aspects of Communication Strategies in\ud the interim speech of second language learners. Communication\ud strategies can be defined as attempts made by inventive learners\ud to circumvent their linguistic inadequacies in the language they\ud are learning when their limited command of target language\ud structures makes it difficult for them to say what they mean.\ud This study is innovative in that it uses both controlled\ud elicitation tasks and uncontrolled, spontaneous natural speech of\ud learners of English.\ud The study is based on 15 hours of video-taped recordings of the\ud communicative sessions of 150 Malaysian subjects at the\ud University of Malaya, Malaysia, covering three proficiency levels\ud -- Poor, Intermediate and Fluent groups of English learners at\ud the university. These video-taped sessions are comprised of\ud communication activities where the language that is generated is\ud for the communication of ideas and the exchange of real\ud information rather than for the performance of structured drills.\ud Hence the data has most of the attributes of authentic natural\ud speech. Analysis of the CSs is based on relevant parts of the\ud taped data containing instances of strategic behaviour, which\ud were transcribed along with any significant contextual\ud information. Linguistic, contextual and pausological (hesitation\ud and pause phenomenon to indicate communicative difficulties)\ud clues are used to locate and identify strategic behaviour.\ud The strategies are analysed and classified according to viable\ud taxonomic criteria. They are then compared across proficiency\ud levels in terms of their range, frequency of occurrence, and\ud popularity. A rating coeffficient showing quantity of language\ud produced as a function of time is worked out to ensure the\ud comparability of the data across the three proficiency levels.\ud The findings of the study appear to support some of the\ud conclusions of earlier studies that used elicited data of a more\ud restricted nature. However, there are also areas of differences.\ud Some new communication strategies have been identified, a revised\ud version of some earlier taxonomies has been proposed, and some\ud important pedagogic implications of some level trends in strategy\ud use have been suggested.\ud Apart from investigating the possibility of including CS in the\ud instruction and practice of L2, the findings of this study\ud contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of the\ud second language acquisition process, the effective utilization of\ud strategic behaviour in second language pedagogy, the role of\ud strategic competence in communicative competence, the\ud interrelation of the linguistic and communicative abilities of\ud the Malaysian learners of English and finally, the comparison of\ud native speakers and non-native speakers' use of the Communication\ud Strategies

Interaction in languages other than English classes in Western Australian primary and secondary schools: Theory, practice and perceptions

This descriptive study investigated the interaction of teachers and learners in ten primary and secondary school languages other than English (LOTE) classes in Western Australia, with the aim of providing a detailed picture of its nature and patterns. Teachers\u27 and learners\u27 perceptions of this interaction were also examined as part of the study, through interviews conducted with them

Beyond risk: Communitas, flow and embodiment in the practices of paragliding

Beyond Risk: Communitas, Flow and Embodiment in the Practices of Paraglidin

Ways of seeing: Conflicting rationalities in contested urban space - the N2 Gateway in the context of Langa

Includes bibliographic references.In 2005 the South African Department of Housing announced the launch of the N2 Gateway – a housing ‘megaproject’ to pilot the Breaking New Ground (BNG) housing plan in Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa, the oldest African township in Cape Town. This historically contextualised retroductive case study asks what can be learnt from the paradigmatic N2 Gateway to propose to planning theory why such projects, planned with the aim of improving the quality of life of poor and marginal urban residents of the post-apartheid city, so often fail to realise their planned improvements and result in conflict and unintended consequences. A conceptual framework provides the theoretical basis for examining how planning and implementation of the N2 Gateway exposes the underlying rationalities shaping relations amongst and between organs of state and key non-state development actors. Although the BNG policy made provision for in situ upgrading of informal settlements, in practice the state declared war on shacks and through the N2 Gateway set out to eradicate Joe Slovo and replace it with a mix of social and subsidy housing. The case provides the basis for analysis of the clash of rationalities amongst state actors who, together with their intermediaries, sought to exercise their ‘wills to govern and improve’ on the basis of simplifications of perceived problems and their solutions. These were countered by competing ‘wills to survive and thrive’ amongst groupings of Langa residents, which in Joe Slovo were closely bound to the logics of informality. Methodologically the study draws on research methods which embrace the ‘visual turn’, utilising satellite images and photographic compilations as narrative triggers for storytelling by residents, officials and civil society actors. The study draws on more than sixty image-led interview narratives which surface the multiple iv dimensions of the case, including complex interconnections between rural and urban spaces which shape social and spatial geographies of life in Langa. These expose multifaceted struggles within and between ‘molar structures’ of the state in the implementation of the megaproject, highlighting the switch points and reversals of power in state encounters with the micropolitics of local claims on space, place and belonging. The narratives reveal how diverse and concurrent resistance pathways including ‘quiet encroachment’, street protests, ‘elite capture’ and legal proceedings which went to the Constitutional Court disrupted, diverted and redirected the state’s schemes of improvement. The findings examine how the discourses and practices of the aspirant South African ‘developmental state’ show little understanding of or regard for the deep-rooted contestations and social differentiation within Langa between ‘Cape borners’ and generations of rural migrants known as amagoduka or ‘those who return home’. The conflicting rationalities and deep differences amongst and between state agents and within the broad cast of social actors in Langa extend far beyond the simple binary of state and ‘community’. The narratives highlight the fragmented and opaque nature of the state and the bifurcated Langa socialities stratified by the micropolitics of territory, differentiation and belonging. The case study speaks back to planning theory in order to provide important cautions against homogenisation and simplification at the intersection between the apparatus of biopolitics and governmentality and the strategies of struggle of groupings of the poor and not so poor to survive and thrive. It foregrounds a contingent yet historically embedded politics of encounter which eschews homogenising notions of community and a rules-governed communicative rationality in favour of more situated sense-making through agonistic conceptions of planning and development rooted in ‘the geography of what happens’