Pragmatics in Academia: The Role of Gender and Power Relations in the Use of Implicatures

“Waiting to see me?” asked Dr. Beebe. Was it an implicature or a speech act? Was the utterance intended as an invitation—Come in—or as a request for information—Are you here to see me? I stood up and followed Dr. Beebe into her office. This very first encounter ushered pragmatics into my life. It was also my first step in discovering many different aspects of interaction, and later on, it allowed me to go in my research where others feared to tread, so to speak. Doctor Beebe’s passion for pragmatics, and her ability to ignite her students’ desire to pursue questions relevant to their lives, has kept many of us in her camp. The findings that will be presented in this paper come from my first research study inspired by Dr. Beebe’s class on pragmatics

Taking Stock of CUNY ESL: What a Survey of ESL Faculty and Adminstrators Says about the Past, the Present, and the Future

This report provides a summary of a survey of CUNY ESL faculty and administrators in an attempt to assess CUNY ESL programs’ achievements and to offer an insight into current challenges. In the new millennium, with educational, financial, political, and linguistic concerns on the rise, taking stock of where we are in English as a second language instruction in higher education and planning for the future are at once prudent and pressing

Application of Mindstorms sensors in monitoring the fruit ripening process

In the present study, investigations were conducted to analyse the possibility of using the Lego Mindstorms light and color sensors in agriculture. The appropriate design was made which consisting of these sensors and control units that provided the information on measured values. The changes in color of tomato fruit (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) during maturation process were registered by using the appropriate color and light sensors with the analysis of the possibility of monitoring fruit ripening process and registration of any pathological changes of color. The values measured by sensors are presented in a graphical form, providing an analogy between the results given by Lego Mindstorms color sensor and Lego Mindstorms light sensor. The reliability of sensor readings was analysed by consideration of width of range of the results, from the beginning to the end of the maturation process and comparation with results of the other studies

Deep convolutional neural networks are not mechanistic explanations of object recognition

Given the extent of using deep convolutional neural networks to model the mechanism of object recognition, it becomes important to analyse the evidence of their similarity and the explanatory potential of these models. I focus on one frequent method of their comparison – representational similarity analysis, and I argue, first, that it underdetermines these models as how-actually mechanistic explanations. This happens because different similarity measures in this framework pick out different mechanisms across DCNNs and the brain in order to correspond them, and there is no arbitration between them in terms of relevance for object recognition. Second, the reason similarity measures are underdetermining to a large degree stems from the highly idealised nature of these models, which undermines their status as how-possibly mechanistic explanatory models of object recognition as well. Thus, building models with more theoretical consideration and choosing relevant similarity measures may bring us closer to the goal of reaching a mechanistic explanation

Carbon Nanotube Quality Impact on Epoxy Composites Thermal Conductivity

Composite materials thermal conductivity is a challenging area. This is particularly applicable in the through thickness direction. Obstacles on the path of improvement are numerous. To overcome issue of carbon nanotube distribution within composite a new approach was adopted. This was achieved with employment of new method to obtain a basic building block for the layer-by-layer method. Laminate was prepared from prepreg layers utilising ancillary materials stack-up sequence optimised for thermal conductivity improvement through nanomaterials. Autoclave cured materials were examined for thermal conductivity. The highest value was achieved at 125 deg C. The highest improvement over reference carbon fibre / epoxy composite material was obtained at 25 deg C. Three different carbon nanotube materials were used in the research. Least damaged carbon nanotubes yielded the best results. Simple calculations completed on carbon nanotube / epoxy composites confirmed the least damaged carbon nanotubes – the carbon nanotubes of the highest quality - as the best heat transport medium

Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Using Holland’s DEFT Model as a Reader Response Tool in the Language Classroom

Language students tend to struggle with literature because they find psychological and socio-cultural implications embedded in literary texts difficult to understand and discuss (Kramsch, 1996). This paper suggests that psychoanalytic literary criticism may offer a reading framework that could mitigate the struggle and allow for a deeper level of personal and social exploration of literary works. The DEFT model (Defense, Expectations, Fantasy and Transformation), as one type of reader-response approach to reading that draws on the psychoanalytic framework, might make the reading of literature easier because of its potential to offer to students strategies for finding a point of entry into the text. According to DEFT, the inability to find a point of entry into a new reading may be one of the reasons for finding a literary piece difficult, for ‘disliking’ or outright rejecting it. This qualitative study shows how the DEFT approach, originally created for native speakers but thus far little researched in relationship to non-native speakers, can be used to facilitate the reading of literary works in a language course.

The Myths of Mars and Venus: Do men and women really speak different languages?

In this book, the renowned scholar and author of many texts on the topic of gender differences in language use, Deborah Cameron, presents and challenges some of the most known and spread gendered ‘myths’ such as that women are by nature more cooperative, talkative and polite than the opposite sex (p. 11). Her particular interest is language interaction so she skilfully examines data gathered from public and private settings including home, work, and urban schools.