This thesis will describe a system for the production of generative music through specific methodology, and provide an approach for the delivery of this material. The system and body of work will be targeted specifically at the personal listening audience. As the largest current consumer of music in all genres of music, this represents the largest and most applicable market to develop such a system for. By considering how recorded media compares to concert performance, it is possible to ascertain which attributes of performance may be translated to a generative media. In addition, an outline of how fixed media has changed how people listen to music directly will be considered. By looking at these concepts an attempt is made to create a system which satisfies societies need for music which is not only commodified and easily approached, but also closes the qualitative gap between a static delivery medium and concert based output. This is approached within the context of contemporary classical music. Furthermore, by considering the development and fragmentation of the personal listening audience through technological developments, a methodology for the delivery of generative media to a range of devices will be investigated. A body of musical work will be created which attempts to realise these goals in a qualitative fashion. These works will span the development of the composition methodology, and the algorithmic methods covered. A conclusion based on the possibilities of each system with regard to its qualitative output will form the basis for evaluation. As this investigation is seated within the field of music, the musical output and composition methodology will be considered as the primary deciding factor of a system's feasibility. The contribution of this research to the field will be a methodology for the composition and production of algorithmic music in realtime, and a feasible method for the delivery of this music to a wide audience.

Thesis (MPhil (Modern Foreign Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / Concern surrounding the low levels of academic literacy amongst incoming first year students has prompted universities and other tertiary education institutions in South Africa to implement tests of academic literacy. At Stellenbosch University, the English version of this test is known as TALL (Test of Academic Literacy Levels) and was developed to assess reading and writing abilities in an academic context. The results are used to ‘stream’ students into programmes which assist them in acquiring the various skills deemed necessary for their academic success. This study examines, on the one hand, the significance of listening in the assessment of academic literacy levels; on the other hand, it explores the potential for an academic listening test (ALT) to assist TALL in more accurate screening of students, particularly the borderline cases. The design and operationalisation of ALT is based on the theories and approaches of several researchers in the field. The study began with the compilation of the test specification and design of ALT. This was followed by empirically piloting a project where qualitative data concerning the validity of ALT was collected by means of a questionnaire. The next phase involved assessing the academic listening competency of a sample of first year university students. This assessment comprised an initial test administration followed by a second administration of the same test a month later in order to ascertain consistency of measurement over a period of time. The quantitative results obtained from both administrations were then statistically analysed to determine the reliability and validity of ALT. The final phase of the study involved the correlation of these results with those of TALL to determine the level of criterion-related validity as well as to establish whether ALT could be a useful added dimension to TALL.

Thesis (MPhil (Afrikaans and Dutch))—University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / This study contributes to the growing field of CALL. The Authorware programme focus on postbeginner students’ listening skills in an attempt to increase the number of students that complete their studies at Stellenbosch University. The study investigates different types of listening, which forms the backbone for the accompanying programme.

Thesis (DTh (Practical Theology and Missiology))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / In the Reformed tradition the autonomy of the local congregation - as the concrete community of people who interpret the Gospel with their words and deeds - as well as the maturity of the ordinary believers, rest precisely in the fact of their knowledge of and in their being formed by, as well as having been brought up by the Gospel, and that they not stay dependent on the clerical office for ever. It was exactly against any form of sacerdotalism that the Reformation aimed their protest, because they saw that that would estrange ordinary believers from their God-given task to take up their office as believers in God’s interpretative community in the world. It is therefore regrettable in the Dutch Reformed Church19 to have to admit that - after so many centuries - the official church has for the greater part still failed its members in this regard, and are still not trusting them enough and engaging them fully as theologians in their own right into the congregation’s discerning process in general, and the sermon making process in particular. It is our belief that the stagnation of the congregation as the primary hermeneutic of the Gospel20 arises to a great extent from the church's inherited style of pastorship as well as it's process of sermonmaking, being solely the responsibility of the all-knowing and all-doing pastor. The pastor centered homiletical situation exclusively holds the dominee responsible for inter alia the whole sermon making process, the exegesis of the Biblical text, the understanding of the message of the Scriptures, to even discerning the will of God for the congregation! This leads the ordinary church members to sit passively and eventually loose their confidence to personally engage with the Scriptures as a whole. Their participation as theologians in any conversation usually ends up in “the sharing of ignorance by well-intentioned but ill-informed people”21. There is still today, to a great extent, a total lack of handling skills of, as well as a wisdom perspective on the Bible as a whole, although many would be most competent in reciting a number of impressive Bible verses. While biblical scholars have moved into a postmodern and post-structuralistic phase, we find that many ordinary members are still stuck in a pre-modern phase, which makes teaching with regard to their equipment as interpretative community extremely difficult. ...

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Speech and Hearing Sciences / Master / Master of Science in Audiology

The present study investigated the effects of concurrent reading and listening--in the form of the Reading While Listening (RWL) technique--as a means of improving word recognition and reading comprehension among intermediate L2 readers and compared these effects to a distinct top-down reading pedagogy in the form of Extensive Reading (ER) approach, an integrated pedagogy of both RWL and ER and a Control pedagogy of silent in-class reading. Drawing upon innate acquisitional mechanisms of phonological recoding as articulated by Jorm & Share's (1983) Self-Teaching Hypothesis (STH), the present research suggested the simultaneous presentation of identical orthographic and aural input as an ideal protocol for the exploitation of such a route to fluent word recognition in reading. Drawing upon innate acquisitional mechanisms of cognitive inferencing and whole language development as proposed by Goodman (1967, 1988), Krashen (1995, 2007) and Day & Bamford (1998), the present study also proposed the ER pedagogical approach as an effective top-down mechanism for cognitive inferencing in reading and whole language development as well as a tool for addressing L2 reader affect. In order to investigate the efficacy of RWL and ER respectively, while also as an integrated composite pedagogy of both RWL and ER, the present study employed a mixed-methods quasi-experimental design incorporating longitudinal classroom treatments of RWL, ER, RWL-ER and Control reading pedagogies over five weeks and among 51 intermediate ESL readers. Univariate and multivariate statistical analyses, alongside qualitative data reduction and display, supported the respective and significant efficacy of RWL and ER reading pedagogies over Control treatments on measures of reading rate, comprehension, vocabulary and grammatical knowledge gains as well as reader affect. Moreover, the composite RWL-ER treatment group demonstrated superlative gains above all other treatment types in a manner that supports the distinct advantages of such an integrated reading pedagogy, which pairs acquisitional approaches to both bottom-up word recognition and top-down cognitive skills development in tandem. Pedagogical implications for these findings are discussed alongside limitations and area for future research.

許多ESL及L1學生認為做筆記是有利於學術聽力的策略。本研究的目的在於重新檢視有否做筆記對於英語非母語的學習者在學術聽力理解以及回憶上的影響。此外，本研究也比較程度高與程度低學習者所做之筆記，並調查個人對於做筆記的信念及習慣。 本研究一共有225位大一學生參與從TOEFL-IPT之中所篩選出的學術演講聽力測驗。過程中，學生依個人習慣決定是否記下筆記。於聽力測驗結束後，隨即讓有寫筆記的學生填答回溯問卷。於一星期後， 所有做筆記及不做筆記學生在沒有複習機會的情況下，進行回憶測驗。所有學生也填答關於做筆記之信念與習慣的問卷。 本研究的結果如下: 1)即使大多數學生對於做筆記皆認為有助其聽力理解，在本研究中，做筆記幾乎沒有發揮效益。2) 對於程度高的學生而言，做筆記並未對其聽力理解產生幫助。3) 對於程度低的學生而言，做筆記仍然沒有顯著的效益。4) 在記憶測試方面，做筆記與否似乎也沒有顯著差異。5)程度高的學生傾向於選擇寫下重要概念，程度低的學生傾向於隨意記下聽到的單字。 本研究根據以上五個方向所得結果，進一步提供相關建議，作為教育學者， 教師，以及學生們參考。 / Note-taking for ESL and L1 learners is widely recognized as one of the potentially beneficial academic listening strategies. The purpose of the present study was to re-examine the effect of note-taking for L2 learners in listening comprehension and retention on note-taking/non-note-taking conditions. Besides, the comparison between the notes from the high and low proficiency L2 learners was conducted. Some note-taking beliefs and habits from the L2 learners were also investigated. This study adopted a quantitative method, and the subjects were 225 freshmen in one university who took the listening comprehension test from the TOEFL-IPT lectures and took notes when they felt necessary. Following the lecture comprehension test, subjects who took notes were given a retrospective questionnaire. One week later, all subjects took a retention test which was derived directly from the lectures without review. After the retention test, all subjects were asked to complete a general perception questionnaire on note-taking. The major findings were summarized as follows: 1) Note-taking exerted little facilitative influence on comprehension performance even though most learners assumed the positive effect was there. 2) Note-taking did not help high proficiency subjects on comprehension of the TOEFL-IPT lecture listening. 3) Note-taking seemed to have limited merits for low proficiency subjects in comprehension. 4) No significant mean difference of the retention scores was found between note-taking and non note-taking group. 5) The high proficiency note takers were initiated to take notes by listening to discourse signals ahead of the upcoming of the main ideas, while the low proficiency note takers tended to jot down trivial words randomly. Finally, pedagogical implications and suggestions derived from previous discussions were presented mainly for teachers and learners.

The listener’s experience as an embodied subject is at the centre of this work. Embodied experience forms the basis for analyses of three contemporary compositions that sample bodily sound, in order to question how such works represent and mediate the body. The possible applications of this embodied methodology are illustrated through three case studies: Crackers by Christof Migone (2001), A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure by Matmos (2001) and Ground Techniques (2009) by Neil Luck. The findings of each analysis are placed within discussion of critical and theoretical concerns related to the (re)presentation, mediation and manipulation of the body both as materiality and as social construct, using, in particular, work by Hansen (2004) and Wegenstein (2006). The sampling practices of these works lead to the fragmentation of the represented bodies, in which margins between bodily interiors and exteriors are frequently crossed, bringing about a reconfiguration of the musical subject. Furthermore, the celebration of the bodily origins of these works complicates notions of recorded sound as disembodied. The analytical methodology developed in this thesis derives from a consideration of approaches in a number of fields: feminist musicology, music psychology, embodied cognition, phenomenology, music and gesture and new media theory. The sensations and affective responses of the listening body are discussed alongside an examination of how listening is shaped by processes of technological mediation. This thesis attends to both the body that is listening and the body that is listened to. I argue that it is not adequate to understand the works studied as merely representing the body, but suggest it would be more appropriate to understand the relationship between work and body as multi-faceted, conceptualising the body and recorded sound as mutually framing. This uncovers not only technology as mediation, but also the body as mediation. Finally, the case studies are used to reflect upon the limits of the embodied analysis methodology and its potential for wider application.

Weather, how we tangibly engage with climate in our everyday lives, is a central underpinning to life in Canada and around the world. This thesis investigates relating to weather through a focused exploration of wind in the everyday lives of fire lookout observers in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Stitching together approaches from anthropology, phenomenology and mountain meteorology, it brings to bear insights on coexisting with weather changes through an understanding of lived mountain climates. Perched atop the front ranges of the Alberta Rocky Mountains are located a string of mountain fire lookouts. Tasked with discerning and detecting smoke plumes that may signal the start of a wildfire, lookout observers, who inhabit these remote lookout places for five to six months of the year, are attentive to the wind’s effect on visibility, its role in wildfire processes, and as a force to contend with in their daily lives on the lookout. Through participant observation, interviews and photo elicitation, I draw on fire lookout observers’ past and present experiences of wind, and its role in larger weather processes. With many lookout observers returning to their posts season after season, the breadth and depth of their experience stretches over three decades. Over the course of a summer’s fieldwork, I hiked in, and at times lived with, lookout observers. Walking, as a contemplative research practice, continued beyond the field and into analysis, engaging in a process I call ambulant listening as an alternative to transcribing interviews verbatim. This involved walking and listening to interviews multiple times, with notes later drawn out visually using mind maps. Through this process, I learned that wind stirs up much more than simply considering air in motion. Entwined in a variety of multi-sensory engagements, wind touches on broader themes of awareness, encounter and wonder that emerge as weather consciousness. This study offers a rare lens into a way of life that has been increasingly shuttered across Canada and around the world, while at the same time exemplifying ways of being and knowing weather inherent to coexisting with increasingly uncertain and unpredictable weather patterns in the midst of climate change. / Graduate / 0326, 0334,0314,0344 / kristen.walsh@hotmail.com