博士 / 淡江大學 / 英文學系博士班 / 104 / The thesis examines the representation of Mary Magdalene in saint’s legends, devotional writings, and plays in the area of East Anglia from mid fourteenth century to the early sixteenth century. Three major texts will be discussed in the thesis including Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love, Margery Kempe’s Book of Margery Kempe, and the Digby Mary Magdalene. The thesis attempts to re-capsulate a moment in time in which via Mary Magdalene as cultural symbol, religious women could be empowered with a voice, writers and playwrights could explore the boundary of gender roles for women and the ecclesiastics and laity could respond to socio-political issues concerning practices of lay piety at the time. Most important of all, through the representations of Mary Magdalene embedded in the associated community of female saints in East Anglia, we are enabled to observe how St. Mary Magdalene is interrelated with images of other saints worshipped in East Anglia. It is also through the veneration of Mary Magdalene and the community of female saints in East Anglia, we get a glimpse of how saints as the intercessors between heaven and earth are conceived as religious and cultural symbols and how these symbols in the surveyed texts are perceived, appropriated and interpreted by writers, playwrights, readers, and audiences so as to respond to socio-political religious issues in East Anglian communities The thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter One provides a concise survey of the development of the images of Mary Magdalene from the earliest biblical accounts to a wide dissemination of the legends and literary texts in Europe and in England. Chapter Two explores the representation of the three female saints, Mary Magdalene, Virgin Mary and St. Cecilia, in relation to Julian of Norwich’s positive theology and social milieu of East Anglia during Julian’s lifetime. Chapter Three examines the making of St. Margery Kempe in the Book of Margery Kempe in relation to various kinds of imitatio and the images of female saints. Chapter Four investigates the ways the playwright weaves the biblical image of Mary Magdalene, her life in post-ascension legend and the elements from morality plays to represent a version of Mary Magdalene, who is not only a lady, a hero but also the apostle to the apostles. Lastly, with the survey of the representation of Mary Magdalene and the community of female saints, the thesis argues that parallel with the Chaucerian tradition that emulates the ancient Greco-Romano tradition, there exists a marked trend of literary and religious movement in East Anglian communities, which is attentive to the worship of female saints and from the representations of female saints, they find a ground that enables their voices to participate in discourses on religiosity, society and politics in late medieval England.

碩士 / 淡江大學 / 英文學系碩士班 / 104 / Speaking training is always a core issue in the field of English learning. Many studies have thus been devoted to exploring prospective, efficient pedagogical treatments for EFL teachers to teach and students to learn speaking. However, rare research has focused on the potential effects of the rapid-developing Web.2.0-based approach (e.g., the use of YouTube) in English speaking classes, especially in the context of Taiwan. This thesis, therefore, aims at investigating the effectiveness of YouTube assisted language learning in Taiwan’s EFL speaking classroom by conducting a 17-week experiment where 92 non-English majored freshmen were involved. The participants’ speaking proficiency and learning attitudes (i.e., self-efficacy and motivation) before and after the experiment were investigated, using both quantitative and qualitative inquiries. The quantitative results show that the participants made significant progress in their speaking ability via YouTube use. Also, their learning attitudes were elevated after the experiment. Qualitatively, although students had different perceptions of YouTube use, generally the results still support Youtube’s affordance as an effective pedagogical tool in EFL speaking classes in Taiwan.

博士 / 淡江大學 / 英文學系博士班 / 104 / The identity of medieval Robin Hood is still controversial. To move out of this deadlock, I, following Stephen Knight and others, argue that the study of alterity is a new critical direction for Robin Hood Studies. Alterity is not identity; conversely, it means “alternative self.” For me, this medieval “alternative self” of Robin Hood should not be ignored, and his alterity cannot be constructed if Robin Hood is not outlawed. In the process of outlawry, Robin Hood is an outsider and becomes otherized. This dissertation studies how the medieval Robin Hood represents a knightly outlaw in light of the application of Michel Foucault’s heterotopias to Robin Hood’s alterity in the forest. Since Robin Hood’s historical and literary identity is still open to debate, applying the heterotopic discourse can narrow this problem down to locate a central feature of Robin Hood’s identity through his alterity. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with the forest space where Robin Hood’s “alternative self” is shaped and his knightly behavior is developed. Structurally speaking, the dissertation is divided into five parts. In my Introduction, I explain how this dissertation could contribute to current Robin Hood studies and how Robin Hood’s alterity appears after his social identity is suspended by the law. When outlawry makes Robin Hood an outsider, Robin Hood starts to situate himself in the forest. In Chapter One, “The Function of Space in the Forest,” I look at the medieval forest as a space of contestation, politically, socially, and culturally. This chapter also discusses the bestial space where Robin Hood loses his human nature and breaks the boundary between human and animal. These discussions show how Robin Hood develops and maintains his alterity in the forest space in order to survive and thrive. Chapter Two, “Heterotopias and the Forest” investigates how the outlaw Robin Hood retrospectively manages the heterotopic forest and intends to create an ideal society by recovering the traditional doctrine of oath. Chapter Three, “Knighthood in the Heterotopic Greenwood,” continues to discuss Robin Hood’s code of chivalry, and I suggest that the medieval Robin Hood orientates his alterity through conducting himself as a generous and honorable knight. This knightly orientation is discussed with the themes of “impoverished knight” in medieval romances in conjunction with how livery and maintenance in the changing feudal system affects the status of knight and leader which Robin Hood attempts to be. Chapter Four, “Carnivalized Heterotopia” focuses on how the disguised King crosses the boundary to withdraw the outlaw from the forest heterotopia and ends Robin Hood’s alterity through recruiting and giving him an official identity. Meanwhile, this chapter continues to discuss how the medieval audiences perceive the carnivalized heterotopia created by Robin Hood and how the function of spatial displacement is operated in the medieval Robin Hood ballads. In conclusion, the dissertation makes two suggestions. First, the medieval Robin Hood should be read as a conservative and knightly outlaw, and his final return to the forest is mainly driven by his shame and failure of coping with the commercialized feudal system and not his love of nature. Secondly, the traditional values he embraced make the audiences from different social classes reminisce about the past as a form of escapism; therefore, the knightly Robin Hood only exists in the heterotopic forest where he can maintain his alterity and build an ideal community.

博士 / 淡江大學 / 國際事務與戰略研究所博士班 / 104 / Although China is an old actor in the field of foreign aid, the scope and style of its foreign aid have, recently, undergone major changes that have attracted diverse academic attention. By investigating the emergence and progress of Chinese aid in Côte d’Ivoire, this dissertation attempts to highlight the different aspects of this new evolvement in the field of foreign aid in comparison with the previous French aid in this country. Following the literature review majors trends, the thesis hypothesizes that French and Chinese aid are respectively rooted on realism and idealism initiatives. In order to refute or corroborate these hypotheses, the dissertation uses a comparative method that combines qualitative and quantitative data from history, development economics and International Relations main paradigms. The findings partly corroborate the thesis hypotheses by unveiling the dualistic nature of French and Chinese aid strategies: they are both realists in the core, and idealists in the peripheries. This instigates more positive than negative inputs to Côte d’Ivoire’s economic development, secures natural resources/new markets for China’s ongoing domestic development and impulses French and multilateral aid trends. The final work is a set of eight chapters. It starts with the study rationale, follows by the review of the literature on French and Chinese aid in Africa and Côte d’Ivoire. These pre-requisites present the reasons behind the study; the methodology and showed the necessity to compare Chinese and French aid strategies progress in Côte d’Ivoire. Then, chapters three to six, bold French and Chinese aid strategies development, objectives, contents, organization and implementation style in Côte d’Ivoire. Subsequent chapter seven illuminates the two aid approaches similarities and dissimilarities and explains the factors of such occurring.

碩士 / 淡江大學 / 國際事務與戰略研究所碩士班 / 104 / This dissertation explores and evaluates both the theoretical and practical aspects of Russia’s post-Cold War approach to air and space defense, aiming to provide further insight as to what Russia perceives to be the primary threats to its national security from air and from space; how have these threats transformed the role of air and space defense in Russian military thinking; what has been Russia’s approach to countering these threats; and how well has Russia implemented this approach. The dissertation employs a geostrategic analytical approach and draws on an extensive list of sources, including official documents, publications by both Russian military and civilian experts, and previous works on the subject matter by leading Western analysts. Key motives for this study are the rising tensions between Russia and the West, and the extensive attention that the topic of air and space defense receives in contemporary Russian security discussions. Since the late Cold War period, the Soviet, and later Russian, military and political establishment has kept close watch on developments in US and NATO precision-strike systems and their employment in battle. Russia’s leadership has repeatedly voiced concerns that these systems undermine strategic stability by leaving the Russian Federation’s strategic nuclear forces vulnerable to a potential disarming strike. Of additional concern to Russia is the threat of aerial terrorism, the growing power projection capabilities of its geopolitical rivals in the Far East, and the unsanctioned launch of ballistic missiles by rogue regimes. As a result of these security concerns, air and space defense has come to be perceived as a key element of strategic stability. Large amounts of funds are being invested into both symmetric and asymmetric air and space defense capabilities. Yet, Russia continues to lack a coherent approach to air and space defense; the current approach, which calls for the defense of numerous military, economic and administrative targets across Russia against a wide-range of existing and emerging threats, is both prohibitively expensive and is not based on a realistic assessment of both Russia’s own capabilities and that of its potential adversaries. Russia must therefore reevaluate the force posture of its forces tasked with air and space defense, as well as resolve ongoing technical issues which continue to complicate and delay the development and introduction of new systems.

博士 / 輔仁大學 / 跨文化研究所比較文學博士班 / 104 / Translation is an influential tool. As the Jesuits arrived in China in 1583, they translated to teach the Catholic faith to Chinese people. Publications of the Jesuits’ Chinese translation of the Catholic doctrine and hagiographical accounts were available to the Chinese readers in the early seventeenth century. In attending to both the Chinese literati and common people, the Jesuits downplayed traits that were discouraged and promoted those that were valued in Confucian China in their Chinese works. The study concerns the images of Mary Magdalene trans-written by Alfonso Vagnone (1566-1640) in early seventeenth-century China. To study the images of the Magdalene, I focus on the account ‘de sancta Maria Magdalena,’ or SMM in Legenda Aurea, or LA and the first Chinese translation of the account of Mary Magdalene Magdalene, Maliya Madalena shengfu xingshi, or MMSX in Tianzhu shengjiao shengren xingshi 天主聖教聖人行實 (Biographies of Catholic saints), or SRXS hereafter (1629). The purpose of this study is two-fold. The first purpose is to bridge the study of Mary Magdalene in China with the Western Magdalenian scholarship. The second purpose is to contribute to the scholarship of SRXS with the study of MMSX from the perspective of translation. Current scholarship of SRXS suggests that Jacobus de Voragine’s (c. 1230-1298) LA might be the source text of SRXS, however, disparities between SMM and MMSX abound. For one, LA offers models of repentance and deepens the Christian faith for the laity in Catholic Europe whereas SRXS introduces Catholicism and examples of saints to the late-Ming Chinese readers. Furthermore, disparities between Mary Magdalene and her Chinese persona demonstrate the transformation of the images of the Magdalene from her birthplace to the Middle Kingdom. In addition, the differences between MMSX and SMM lead to a discovery of an additional source text Vagnone referred to in compiling SRXS. Lastly, the discussion of Vagnone’s involvement in “translating” and “narrating” MMSX explains how translation rewrites and manipulates the images of the Magdalene in China. Close textual analysis and study of factors that influence the presentation of MMSX and publication of SRXS show that by trans-writing “the original,” Vagnone “rewrote” the images of the Magdalene and created acculturated images of Madalean to the Chinese readership.

碩士 / 義守大學 / 企業管理學系 / 104 / Founded in 2007, Trong Nhan Service-Commerce Limited Company is a company operating in various fields but it focuses mostly on selling stationery products. As competition grows more intense, it is important for the company to study the satisfaction of its customers so that it can come up with strategy to attract and retain customers. This thesis was conducted to investigate the factors influencing customer satisfaction and the influence level of these factors. Based on the result of the analysis, several solutions to improve customer satisfaction are proposed. The research model comprises 6 factors that may have impact on customer satisfaction including reliability, service competence, tangibles, price, and product. The analysis result showed that except the factor “reliability”, all the other factors have positive influence on the customer satisfaction with the level of confidence at 95%.

碩士 / 義守大學 / 企業管理學系 / 104 / Human resources is the most important property toward an enterprise, the importance of human factor is obvious and undeniable reality. Among administrative missions, human management is the center and the most important factor because other matters depend on the success of human management. Therefore, the issue of human resources is being more considered and seen as the core management function as well as the crucial factor of management process. As Vietnam is in rapid development in every aspect, human resources has become prominent for every industry including the electricity industry. Thus, the author implements this study in order to depict basic theory about building strategy on business and management of human resources with the aims to orient the strategy. The author also measures improving the quality of human resources at Chon Thanh Electric and analyze the actual management of human resources at Chon Thanh Electric, pointing out strengths, weaknesses and reasons leading to this situation. Finally, the study is expected to recommend strategies to improve the quality of human resources at Chon Thanh Electric.

碩士 / 義守大學 / 企業管理學系 / 104 / Under Vietnam’s open policy, Vietnam’s economy has made a lot of positive changes. Its market economy usually regulated by the government has developed into a more autonomous mechanism, which can evoke potentiality and creativity of Vietnamese citizens and enterprises. Vietnam has become the 150th member of the WTO since January 11, 2007, which was a turning-point in the process of international economic integration. This new development of the country provides many opportunities as well as challenges. Globalization and international economic integration are the trends in the economic and social lives around the world. The implementation of the reform modernize taxation structure during the period of 2011-2020 has built up the foundation of a team work of Vietnamese tax staff that has virtues and talents. In this thesis, my study will focus on why the updating and enhancing tax-related knowledge have become necessary. In other words, the objective of this study is to find the factors which can influence the motivation of enhancing the taxation expertise of tax officials. The research process comprised of 2 stages: preliminary stage (qualitative research method) and official stage (quantitative research method). The qualitative method helps the author to construct the complete questionnaires for the survey. Data collected from the survey will then be analyzed using quantitative techniques to test the hypotheses and scale. At first, the author expected to run a large scale research on tax officers in different regions of Vietnam to have more generalized findings. However, due to the lack of time and resource (especially, finance), the author limited the scale of research to tax officers in the Tax Department of Ho Chi Minh City. The research model consists of 6 independent variables and 1 dependent variable. The sample size is 190 participants. The data was analyzed using SPSS software. Based on the regression analysis, the author confirmed that all the proposed independent variables have influence on the dependent variable. The influence levels of the independent variables in decreasing order are listed as the followings: (1) Promotion opportunities, (2) Colleagues, (3) Superior’s Recognition, (4) Personal need to work, (5) Training opportunities and (6) Job characteristics. The author hopes that the findings of this study may prove useful for the department and any other researcher who wishes to study in the same field.

碩士 / 義守大學 / 企業管理學系 / 104 / The service sector increasingly proves its important role in the development of a nation. Along with the process of integration and the structural transformation of the international economy, the value of the servicesector increasinglytakes the high proportion of the gross domestic product (GDP) of each country. In Vietnam, the service sector is constantly growing and it is showing the important role in the development of the general economy. It is reflected through the expansion of the service sector, especially in the context of integration and development of trade and economy. The research aims at assessing levels of customer satisfactionwith service quality at the amusement park. The results of research show that customer satisfaction with the recreation areas in Nha Trang is influenced by six factors: (1) service capacity (measured by 5 observed variables); (2) tangible facilities (measured in 4 observed variables); (3) the image (measured in 4 observed variables); (4) the reliability (measure in 3 observed variables); (5) the empathy (measured by 2 observed variables) and (6) the cost (measured by 2 observed variables).