A corpus-based and systemic functional analysis of syntactic complexity and nominal modification in academic writing

Writing quality has been considered a significant indicator of success in education (McNamara, Crossley, & McCarthy, 2010). One way to understand the predictors of proficient writing is to document the linguistic characteristics of quality writing. Syntactic complexity, defined as the sophistication of writing production through the range or variety of linguistic resources (Ortega, 2003, 2015), has been widely used to determine the complexity/maturity of writing in both first and second language writing research. Despite references to the variety, diversity, or richness of linguistic resources for syntactic complexity (e.g., Bulté & Housen, 2012; Norris & Ortega, 2009), a great majority of the past research on syntactic complexity has focused on the length of the production, viewing clausal subordination as a key indicator of syntactic growth (e.g., Hunt, 1970; Loban, 1976). Although syntactic complexity is a multi-dimensional construct, most measures have examined it at the sentence or T-unit level, ignoring the complexification at the phrase level (Biber, Gray, & Poonpon, 2011; Bulté & Housen, 2014; De Clercq & Housen, 2017). Yet the nominal style of academic writing characterized mostly at the sub-clausal level through embedded phrases has largely been overlooked in most of the operationalizations of syntactic complexity (De Clercq & Housen, 2017), and the grammatical features of phrasal complexity have been relatively ignored in educational practice. Thus, considering the construct multidimensionality of syntactic complexity (Norris & Ortega, 2009), and the critical role of phrasal complexity features (e.g., noun phrases) in the construction of academic writing such as science discourse, this dissertation adopted a complementary approach, incorporating both clausal and phrasal complexity measures to analyze written academic language across three disciplines. Drawing on the premises of corpus linguistics methodology and systemic functional theory, this dissertation investigated syntactic complexity measures in science research writing contexts across three disciplines (agronomy, applied linguistics, and industrial and manufacturing systems engineering) and between two registers (journal research articles and master’s theses). A specialized corpus with nearly 1.9 million words was compiled. After the corpus preparation stage, the whole corpus was tagged, and normed rates of occurences for each linguistic feature in each text were obtained. A 2x3 factorial design was modeled, and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed to measure to what extent six syntactic complexity indices were distributed across the disciplines and between the registers. Moreover, a two-way between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to measure to what extent discrete linguistic features differed across the disciplines and between the registers. Finally, a more qualitative functional approach was employed, drawing on the premises of SFL-based discourse analysis and corpus-based phrasal complexity research to investigate the ways nominal modifiers are used in academic writing and the roles they take in the science discourse of these disciplines. The overall findings of the study appeared to validate the arguments that science research writing is highly characterized by a dense nominal style. The results indicated that while discipline and register had a statistically significant main effect on syntactic complexity measures, the interaction between the two was minimal. For example, clause length was found to be significantly longer in agronomy than in the other disciplines. The results indicated that clausal subordination was mostly represented in master’s theses, while phrasal elaboration occurred more frequently in published journal articles. The findings also showed that discipline rather than register exerted a main effect on the occurrences of linguistic features in the corpus. The results showed that phrasal complexity features such as nouns and nouns as nominal premodifiers appeared more frequently in agronomy while clausal complexity features such as finite complement clauses occurred more frequently in applied linguistics. The analysis of individual linguistic features revealed that some features such as adjectives as prenominal modifiers and nominalizations were influenced by the combined interaction effect of discipline and register. The functional analysis of phrasal complexity features suggested that nominal modifiers allowed for the expression of reality in science by packaging informational content in phrases rather than clauses. The analysis revealed that nouns and NP modifiers were heavily used in the disciplines in highly technical and abstract terms, increasing the informational density of the texts. In sum, the findings of this study contribute to the syntactic complexity research through its complementary approach to constuct definition and operationalization. While the findings present an overarching investigation of global syntactic complexity measures, the study addresses syntactic complexity via specific grammatical features, explicating the linguistic bases of phrasal and clausal complexity. A more functional analysis of nominal modification in academic writing complements the quantitative results of syntactic complexity measures. The findings in this study as well as the research methodology have the potential to inform future research on syntactic complexity in written academic discourse

Dünyada Göçmenlerin Eğitim Alanındaki Sorununa İlişkin Yasal Düzenlemeler

Göç, gelişmiş toplumlara olumlu veya olumsuz etkileri olabilen nüfusların yer değiştirme hareketi olarak tanımlanabilir. Bu nüfus hareketliliğinin çeşitleri ve etkileri değişiklik göstermektedir. Bu değişiklikler ülkelere göre de çeşitlilik gösterebilmektedir. Bu değişiklikler, beraberindeki sorunların çözümlerini ve göçün topluma olan etkilerini ortaya çıkarması açısından önemlidir. Göç alan ülkelerin genel durumlarına bakıldığı zaman ülkelerin kendilerine ait bir göçmen politikası uygulaması, göçmenleri eğitme politikası ve kendi hukuk düzenlerinde düzenlemeler yapılması zorunluluk olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Göçmenlerin sorun olmaktan çıkarılıp onların topluma uyumunun sağlanması, göçmen eğitimindeki temel yolların başında gelmektedir. Eğitim alan insanların, toplumsal kurallara uymaları ve sosyolojik olarak topluma kendilerini adapte etmeleri daha kolaylaşır. Göç insanların ister kendi ülkeleri içerisinde isterse dış ülkelere yapılsın amaç kendi yaşadıkları bölgenin kötü koşullarından kurtularak daha iyi koşullar elde etmek içindir. Göçmenler çoğu zaman karma sebeplerle göç etmiş, insanların yer değiştirmelerine sebep olan durumlar, yaşanılan yer ve zamana göre değişiklik göstermiştir. Ekonomik rahatlık arayışı, çatışma ya da şiddetten uzaklaşma, politik düzensizlikler, siyasi sığınma isteği, mevcut durumlarına göre şartları daha uygun eğitim imkânları gibi çok farklı etkenden sebebiyle kişisel veya toplu göç hareketleri oluşmuştur ve oluşacaktır. Günümüzde ırkçılık kurumsal alanlarda gözle görülmez ancak derinden hissedilir olduğu bir zamana ırkçılığın artık abartılı ve saldırgan bir şekilde kendini gösterdiği zamandan doğru değişmiştir. Oluşabilecek tepkilerden çekinilmesi sebebiyle kurumsal birçok alanda ırkçılığın devam etmesinin önüne geçilmesiyle birlikte hala bu tutumun zihinlerde yer ettiği görülmektedir. Bundan dolayı hem bireysel hem de toplumsal anlamda sivil toplum örgütlerinin rolü bu alanda daha çok hissedilmektedir Dünyadaki göçmen sorununu çözmek için ülkeler, eğitim alanına ait kendi kanunlarında yeni yasal değişiklikler ve düzenlemeler yapmaktadır. Bu yasal düzenlemeler ülke içerisinde dahi değişiklikler göstermektedir. Günümüz dünyasında göç sorununa yönelik “çok kültürlülük anlayışı“ doğrultusunda uygulamalar yapılmaktadır. Çok kültürlülük çalışmaları toplumsal algının değişmesini ve kültürel çeşitliliği sağlamaktadır. Bunun için yapılan eğitim faaliyetleri, ülkelerin ve toplumların da eğitimiyle mümkün olmaktadır. Göçmen sorunlarının çözümüne yönelik daha gelenekçi anlayışlarda ise eğitimi “asimilasyon yoluyla“ yapılan politikalar çözüm yolu gibi görünse de eğitimin hedeflenen olumlu sonuçlarından ziyade olumsuz sonuçlara yol açtığı görülmektedir

Temperature Effects Explain Continental Scale Distribution of Cyanobacterial Toxins

Insight into how environmental change determines the production and distribution of cyanobacterial toxins is necessary for risk assessment. Management guidelines currently focus on hepatotoxins (microcystins). Increasing attention is given to other classes, such as neurotoxins (e.g., anatoxin-a) and cytotoxins (e.g., cylindrospermopsin) due to their potency. Most studies examine the relationship between individual toxin variants and environmental factors, such as nutrients, temperature and light. In summer 2015, we collected samples across Europe to investigate the effect of nutrient and temperature gradients on the variability of toxin production at a continental scale. Direct and indirect effects of temperature were the main drivers of the spatial distribution in the toxins produced by the cyanobacterial community, the toxin concentrations and toxin quota. Generalized linear models showed that a Toxin Diversity Index (TDI) increased with latitude, while it decreased with water stability. Increases in TDI were explained through a significant increase in toxin variants such as MC-YR, anatoxin and cylindrospermopsin, accompanied by a decreasing presence of MC-LR. While global warming continues, the direct and indirect effects of increased lake temperatures will drive changes in the distribution of cyanobacterial toxins in Europe, potentially promoting selection of a few highly toxic species or strains.Peer reviewe

A corpus-based and systemic functional analysis of syntactic complexity and nominal modification in academic writing

Writing quality has been considered a significant indicator of success in education (McNamara, Crossley, & McCarthy, 2010). One way to understand the predictors of proficient writing is to document the linguistic characteristics of quality writing. Syntactic complexity, defined as the sophistication of writing production through the range or variety of linguistic resources (Ortega, 2003, 2015), has been widely used to determine the complexity/maturity of writing in both first and second language writing research. Despite references to the variety, diversity, or richness of linguistic resources for syntactic complexity (e.g., Bulté & Housen, 2012; Norris & Ortega, 2009), a great majority of the past research on syntactic complexity has focused on the length of the production, viewing clausal subordination as a key indicator of syntactic growth (e.g., Hunt, 1970; Loban, 1976). Although syntactic complexity is a multi-dimensional construct, most measures have examined it at the sentence or T-unit level, ignoring the complexification at the phrase level (Biber, Gray, & Poonpon, 2011; Bulté & Housen, 2014; De Clercq & Housen, 2017). Yet the nominal style of academic writing characterized mostly at the sub-clausal level through embedded phrases has largely been overlooked in most of the operationalizations of syntactic complexity (De Clercq & Housen, 2017), and the grammatical features of phrasal complexity have been relatively ignored in educational practice. Thus, considering the construct multidimensionality of syntactic complexity (Norris & Ortega, 2009), and the critical role of phrasal complexity features (e.g., noun phrases) in the construction of academic writing such as science discourse, this dissertation adopted a complementary approach, incorporating both clausal and phrasal complexity measures to analyze written academic language across three disciplines. Drawing on the premises of corpus linguistics methodology and systemic functional theory, this dissertation investigated syntactic complexity measures in science research writing contexts across three disciplines (agronomy, applied linguistics, and industrial and manufacturing systems engineering) and between two registers (journal research articles and master’s theses). A specialized corpus with nearly 1.9 million words was compiled. After the corpus preparation stage, the whole corpus was tagged, and normed rates of occurences for each linguistic feature in each text were obtained. A 2x3 factorial design was modeled, and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed to measure to what extent six syntactic complexity indices were distributed across the disciplines and between the registers. Moreover, a two-way between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to measure to what extent discrete linguistic features differed across the disciplines and between the registers. Finally, a more qualitative functional approach was employed, drawing on the premises of SFL-based discourse analysis and corpus-based phrasal complexity research to investigate the ways nominal modifiers are used in academic writing and the roles they take in the science discourse of these disciplines. The overall findings of the study appeared to validate the arguments that science research writing is highly characterized by a dense nominal style. The results indicated that while discipline and register had a statistically significant main effect on syntactic complexity measures, the interaction between the two was minimal. For example, clause length was found to be significantly longer in agronomy than in the other disciplines. The results indicated that clausal subordination was mostly represented in master’s theses, while phrasal elaboration occurred more frequently in published journal articles. The findings also showed that discipline rather than register exerted a main effect on the occurrences of linguistic features in the corpus. The results showed that phrasal complexity features such as nouns and nouns as nominal premodifiers appeared more frequently in agronomy while clausal complexity features such as finite complement clauses occurred more frequently in applied linguistics. The analysis of individual linguistic features revealed that some features such as adjectives as prenominal modifiers and nominalizations were influenced by the combined interaction effect of discipline and register. The functional analysis of phrasal complexity features suggested that nominal modifiers allowed for the expression of reality in science by packaging informational content in phrases rather than clauses. The analysis revealed that nouns and NP modifiers were heavily used in the disciplines in highly technical and abstract terms, increasing the informational density of the texts. In sum, the findings of this study contribute to the syntactic complexity research through its complementary approach to constuct definition and operationalization. While the findings present an overarching investigation of global syntactic complexity measures, the study addresses syntactic complexity via specific grammatical features, explicating the linguistic bases of phrasal and clausal complexity. A more functional analysis of nominal modification in academic writing complements the quantitative results of syntactic complexity measures. The findings in this study as well as the research methodology have the potential to inform future research on syntactic complexity in written academic discourse.</p

İngilizce öğretmenlerinin bilgisayar teknolojilerine olan tutumları ve dil öğretiminde teknoloji kullanımlarının incelenmesi.

This study aimed at investigating the attitudes of English language teachers in Turkey toward computer technology and the extent to which they use technology in language instruction. The data were collected from a sample of English teachers working at public schools all throughout Turkey. In order to ensure triangulation and complementarity, mixed methods research was used combining both quantitative and qualitative research methods. A questionnaire and semi-structured, face-to-face interview were used in order to collect the data. Both descriptive and inferential statistics as well as content analysis were conducted so as to analyze the data. The results of the data analysis yielded positive findings regarding English teachers‟ attitude toward technology; their use of technology in instruction, however, do not correlate with their positive attitudes. The findings of the study revealed that a great majority of teachers attribute positive remarks for integrating technology in language teaching. However, they get difficulty in integrating technology into their instruction effectively. The interviews also showed consistent findings with the questionnaire data by pointing out that the teachers do not use computer technologies as instructional tools. The findings showed that the respondents did not have professional training on integrating technology into education. Thus, in order to have teachers who can efficiently use computer technologies in language instruction, pre-service ELT teacher education programs should provide technology related courses for their students. It is also suggested that teachers be provided with in-service training on technology integration in order to realize effective use of technology in education.M.S. - Master of Scienc

Mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) research trends and patterns through bibliometric analysis: Empowering language learners through ubiquitous educational technologies

Mobile devices and technologies have proliferated extensively and become an integral part of life and learning. Mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) has progressed as an emerging area of research corresponding to recent advances in mobile technologies and the proliferation of smartphones and tablet computers. Accordingly, this study examined MALL research between 2008 and 2020 through a bibliometric analysis using social network analysis (SNA) and text mining techniques. The SNA and text mining analysis suggest five broad research themes: (1) self- regulated language learning by defining one’s own learning objectives, (2) providing learner agency and motivation by empowering autonomy, (3) personalizing learning through artificial intelligence (AI)-supported mobile learning (m-learning), (4) MALL for learning in the wild, and (5) MALL to support higher education. The findings show that while MALL research has been considerably operationalized around linguistic factors, nonlinguistic factors relating to learners’ interactions with mobile devices or applications have been largely overlooked. It was found that MALL scholarship has recently tended to incorporate the use of mobile devices in informal learning contexts and outside the classroom due to the flexibility and anytime anywhere func- tionality of m-learning. The study concludes with several suggestions and highlights the areas that need more attention in MALL research.WOS:0008709109000012-s2.0-8513902124Social Sciences Citation IndexQ1ArticleUluslararası işbirliği ile yapılmayan - HAYIRNovember2022YÖK - 2022-23Kası

Comparison of endoloop and Hem-o-lok clip for stump closure in laparoscopic appendectomy: which one is more cost-effective. A retrospective study

We aimed to show the effect of closure of the appendix stump with different methods during laparoscopic appendectomy (LA), on postoperative complications, healing process and costs. Patients who underwent LA due to acute appendicitis in the last 5 years in Rize were retrospectively analyzed. Our study includes comparative analysis on two patient groups in which we carried LA. We used endoloop (EL) in Group 1 and hem-o-lok polymeric clip (HC) in Group 2 to close the appendix stump. Patients were compared in terms of demographic characteristics, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score, preoperative white blood cell and C-reactive protein (CRP) elevation, whether a drain was used, appendix diameter, pathological diagnosis, postoperative complications, duration of surgery and length of stay, and cost. Of 209 patients, 111 (51.2%) were male and 98 (48.8%) were female. The frequency of drain placement was higher in Group 2 (P = 0.005). No stump leakage was observed in either group, but the incidence of other postoperative complications was significantly higher in the EL group (P=0.041). The use of HC is cheaper than the use of EL. There was no significant difference in other parameters. Both EL and HC are used safely in LA. Although both methods do not have obvious advantages over each other, HC stands out one step further due to its more affordable cost and less possibility of postoperative complications

Neonatal calf meningitis associated with Streptococcus gallolyticus subsp. gallolyticus

Here, we report a case of neonatal calf meningitis due to Streptococcus gallolyticus subsp. gallolyticus (SGG). Clinical, pathological and microbiological findings were evaluated. API Strep, 16S rRNA gene sequencing, rpoB gene sequencing and sodA gene sequencing were used for the complete identification of SGG. This is the first documented report of neonatal calf meningitis due to SGG in veterinary medicine