E-mail forensic authorship attribution

E-mails have become the standard for business as well as personal communication. The inherent security risks within e-mail communication present the problem of anonymity. If an author of an e-mail is not known, the digital forensic investigator needs to determine the authorship of the e-mail using a process that has not been standardised in the e-mail forensic field. This research project examines many problems associated with e-mail communication and the digital forensic domain; more specifically e-mail forensic investigations, and the recovery of legally admissible evidence to be presented in a court of law. The Research Methodology utilised a comprehensive literature review in combination with Design Science which results in the development of an artifact through intensive research. The Proposed E-Mail Forensic Methodology is based on the most current digital forensic investigation process and further validation of the process was established via expert reviews. The opinions of the digital forensic experts were an integral portion of the validation process which adds to the credibility of the study. This was performed through the aid of the Delphi technique. This Proposed E-Mail Forensic Methodology adopts a standardised investigation process applied to an e-mail investigation and takes into account the South African perspective by incorporating various checks with the laws and legislation. By following the Proposed E-mail Forensic Methodology, e-mail forensic investigators can produce evidence that is legally admissible in a court of law

Imaginings of identity: the construction of national identity in German integration discourses in print news media, 2010-2015

This thesis investigates the discursive constructions of national identity in (migrant) integration discourses in the German print news media between 2010-2015 and examines whether these constructions are inclusionary or exclusionary to migrants/ethnic minorities. Drawing on the interdisciplinary, multi-theoretical and multi-methodological framework of critical discourse analysis, I approach discourse as social practice and as a ‘discursive battlefield’, in which powerful actors construct national identity based on dominant ideologies and unequal power structures. Through an extensive analysis of the German media, I examine constructions of national identity and test two theories as to whether they can explain the inclusionary/exclusionary nature of identified boundary drawings. The key argument is that recent constructions of German national identity are rather exclusionary and show remarkable (historical) continuity despite different situational contexts. The findings further illustrate that constructions of national identity are inherently based on the co-constitutive nature of the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’, and that a more inclusionary approach cannot solely focus on improving the representation of ‘Others’ but needs to break from existing dialectics. Moreover, while the explanatory value of the two theories is confirmed, I argue that a further mechanism for theorising the inclusionary/exclusionary nature of German reactions towards diversity is required

Negotiating cultural values in bi-national relationships : a comparative research on children from German-Chinese families

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Geistes-, Sozial- und Erziehungswiss., Diss., 2012von Chong Jiong Wan

Language learning motivation and the discursive representations of German, the Germans, and Germany in UK school settings and the press

Language learning in UK secondary schools is in sharp decline. Of the three most commonly taught languages, French, Spanish, and German, German uptake is dropping at the fastest rate. Societal attitudes towards languages and the target language communities of speakers are commonly blamed for the decline, however, few previous studies have investigated this area via empirical evidence. The current study explores the relationship between motivation for German learning in adolescent language learners in England, and the representations of German, the Germans, and Germany in private and public UK discourses. Through a mixed methods, cross-sectional research design, private grassroots discourses in a school setting and public discourses in the national press are examined to gain an insight into how beliefs and attitudes around German are constructed and conceptualised, and results are related to the factors that underlie learner attitudes, motivation for German learning and language uptake decisions. The study’s theoretical framework draws on a range of key concepts from second language (L2)-specific and mainstream psychological motivation theories, such as Gardner’s socio-educational model, as well as on aspects of cognitive-situated and self-based models. Main participants were 506 13 to 16-year-old German learners from a range of four secondary schools at the time they were asked to decide whether to continue or drop German. Further respondents included four German teachers and four head teachers from the participating schools. For the school settings strand, learner data were collected via focus groups and a questionnaire combining items which generated quantitative (such as motivation mean scores) as well as qualitative (such as metaphor) data; teacher and head teacher data were collected via interviews. For the public discourse strand, a specialised corpus of 40,000 UK national newspaper articles around German, the Germans, and Germany was compiled, and explored using discourse analysis techniques. Four research questions investigated the motivational dimensions relating to learners’ choices to continue or discontinue with the study of German, how German is represented in discourses of key players in school settings, how German is represented in newspaper discourses in the press, and the relationship between public and private discourses around German, the Germans, and Germany in the UK. Contrary to what is commonly thought about motivation for language learning, results suggest that adolescent learners in England are motivated to continue German not by instrumental rationales, but rather by their enjoyment of the classroom learning situation, and by a sense of personal relevance. The growing elitification in language learning in the UK manifests in the study’s data, in that a higher socio-economic background is associated with continuing German, more conducive attitudes, a higher sense of personal relevance, and a view of language learning as a worthwhile process which requires effort and persistence. In press discourses, German is mainly represented in terms of politics and war, Germans mainly in terms of war, and Germany mainly in relation to other countries and football. The wider discourses in the press are reproduced in a reciprocal relationship with private discourses in the school setting. The study contributes to knowledge by presenting new insights into the motivation of adolescent German learners in the UK, and by validating elements of pre-existing motivation models, such as self-determination and self-worth theory. Furthermore, through its novel design of bringing together private and public discourse domains, it provides empirical evidence for previously unsubstantiated claims of links between the representation of target language speakers and communities in the mass media, and language learner motivation at English secondary schools

Integrating human communication strategies with project management for effective outcomes

Project managers' email in-boxes often contain hundreds of emails in which project related conversations are captured. The conversations are written records of team members' feedback regarding activities and their experiences performing these activities. They may also contain problems, expectations, emotions and lexical patterns (PEEL). Identifying these elements of project communication from email text and using them for the purpose of project management is a complex process. From the review of the existing literature of email analysis and project communication we identied four signicant shortcomings made up of: (i) lack of communication features, (ii) limited communication metrics, (iii) no link of email analysis to project monitoring, and (iv) limited understanding of how knowledge from email analysis can help improve functioning of a project. The study was set out to address the four shortcomings with the aim of addressing the need for a methodology that integrates knowledge from incoming email communication into project management practices. The research found that measurable characteristics of incoming communication through observations of both factual (technical) and personal (human) factors can generate signicant insight into indicators for the state of project health which in turn can be used to draw the project manager's attention to areas that worked well and areas that need consideration. In this study we developed a better understanding of various factors of incoming communi- cation in projects by in-depth analysis of email communication from ve projects with over a thousand emails. This included identication of multiple features embedded in emails, as well as coding and analysis of feature values for the purpose of identifying various measurable character- istics of incoming communication. This enabled implementation of communication metrics where \communication metrics" were linked to project \critical success factors". We demonstrate that by linking of two areas of research focus is on the observations of actors and their activities and experiences performing these activities. We were able to identify measurable characteristics of communication which could be used to provide signicant insights into indicators for the state of project health. We used this approach to generate communication reports which assisted the managers in identifying areas that worked or were critical to the project progress. Our theoretical contribution relates to the \Email Feedback Analysis" (EFA) model used for processing of project email communication in order to identify important elements of project activity useful for project managers; the insights into the e ectiveness of communication within a project as well as a metric for comparing communications across projects. Our model focuses on two types of information: information about team members (actors) activities and experiences while performing those activities in the context of communication and the same information in the context of project tasks. Our practical contributions relate to a framework and a vocabulary for the analysis of incoming communication, instructions of \how to code" incoming communication records in projects such as emails sent to project managers, \ProCommFeedback" software that can be used to simplify and expedite the process of communication analysis, and communication reports. This research aims to make a signicant contribution to conceptual understanding of the role that incoming communication plays in the context of project management as well as practical implementation of linking knowledge from incoming email communication with project success for the purpose of project management. Our approach has the potential to be highly benecial for large projects with many teams and resources (locally or globally dispersed) where project managers do not have su cient day-to-day contact with all their staff members to gauge their problems, feelings and emotions which are a strong indicator of sound project progress.Doctor of Philosoph