There has been growing concern in the higher education sector in South Africa about the high number of students with low academic literacy (AL) levels who are gaining entry into the sector. This influx necessitated the introduction of academic literacy interventions which are aimed at supporting these students in meeting the academic literacy requirements of university education. As a result, the tertiary sector has seen a growing number of AL interventions, each catering for a different context. However, the available literature reports very little substantial evidence on the impact/effectiveness of such interventions regarding the purpose for which they have been designed. The Vaal Triangle Campus (VTC) of the North-West University has also found that the majority of first year students who register at this Campus in order to attain a tertiary qualification, show inadequate levels of academic literacy in English. However, the academic literacy intervention that is currently used at this campus has never been formally assessed for its effectiveness in improving students’ academic literacy levels. The purpose of the current study was therefore to investigate the impact of the academic literacy intervention on students’ academic literacy levels. This intervention, which consists of two complementary semester modules, is offered over a one-year period to new first year students. As a first step, a comprehensive literature survey was conducted on important changes that took place in the tertiary education sector after 1994. The reason for this enquiry is based on the fact that many of these changes, such as the ‘massification’ of tertiary education, had far-reaching consequences for the tertiary sector in terms of more underprepared students who gained access to university education. Furthermore, available literature on the types of academic literacy interventions in South Africa, as well as specific sources on the reported impact of such interventions, were critiqued. The empirical part of the study made use of both a qualitative and quantitative research paradigm in order to investigate the impact of the AL intervention at the VTC. A highly reliable academic literacy test (the TALL – Test of Academic Literacy Levels) was used to determine whether students showed any significant improvement in their levels of academic literacy as a result of the intervention. This study reports positive findings in this regard. The investigation further gathered opinion-based data through the administration of three questionnaires aimed at determining student and lecturer perceptions of the impact of the intervention. The main findings of the two student questionnaires (one administered for each AL module) show that students generally see the value in attending the academic literacy modules because they feel that they derive benefit from them. The findings of the lecturer survey indicate that although mainstream lecturers are acutely aware of the low academic literacy levels of their students, they do not see the impact of the intervention on improving such levels. They are further not very knowledgeable about what the focus of the intervention entails. The main conclusion of this study is, in brief, that the academic literacy intervention has a definite effect on the improvement of students’ academic literacy levels. However, no conclusive data was found to support the idea that the improvement was due only to the influence of the intervention. / MA (Applied Language Studies), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

There has been growing concern in the higher education sector in South Africa about the high number of students with low academic literacy (AL) levels who are gaining entry into the sector. This influx necessitated the introduction of academic literacy interventions which are aimed at supporting these students in meeting the academic literacy requirements of university education. As a result, the tertiary sector has seen a growing number of AL interventions, each catering for a different context. However, the available literature reports very little substantial evidence on the impact/effectiveness of such interventions regarding the purpose for which they have been designed. The Vaal Triangle Campus (VTC) of the North-West University has also found that the majority of first year students who register at this Campus in order to attain a tertiary qualification, show inadequate levels of academic literacy in English. However, the academic literacy intervention that is currently used at this campus has never been formally assessed for its effectiveness in improving students’ academic literacy levels. The purpose of the current study was therefore to investigate the impact of the academic literacy intervention on students’ academic literacy levels. This intervention, which consists of two complementary semester modules, is offered over a one-year period to new first year students. As a first step, a comprehensive literature survey was conducted on important changes that took place in the tertiary education sector after 1994. The reason for this enquiry is based on the fact that many of these changes, such as the ‘massification’ of tertiary education, had far-reaching consequences for the tertiary sector in terms of more underprepared students who gained access to university education. Furthermore, available literature on the types of academic literacy interventions in South Africa, as well as specific sources on the reported impact of such interventions, were critiqued. The empirical part of the study made use of both a qualitative and quantitative research paradigm in order to investigate the impact of the AL intervention at the VTC. A highly reliable academic literacy test (the TALL – Test of Academic Literacy Levels) was used to determine whether students showed any significant improvement in their levels of academic literacy as a result of the intervention. This study reports positive findings in this regard. The investigation further gathered opinion-based data through the administration of three questionnaires aimed at determining student and lecturer perceptions of the impact of the intervention. The main findings of the two student questionnaires (one administered for each AL module) show that students generally see the value in attending the academic literacy modules because they feel that they derive benefit from them. The findings of the lecturer survey indicate that although mainstream lecturers are acutely aware of the low academic literacy levels of their students, they do not see the impact of the intervention on improving such levels. They are further not very knowledgeable about what the focus of the intervention entails. The main conclusion of this study is, in brief, that the academic literacy intervention has a definite effect on the improvement of students’ academic literacy levels. However, no conclusive data was found to support the idea that the improvement was due only to the influence of the intervention. / MA (Applied Language Studies), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of Same-Language Subtitles (SLS) on the subject-specific comprehension and the academic literacy levels of EAL students on the Vaal Triangle Campus of North-West University (NWU). Essentially, the study aimed to determine whether exposing students studying through English as an Additional Language (EAL) to subtitled lectures (live or recorded lectures) would help improve their comprehension of the academic content as well as their receptive academic literacy skills, compared to students who were not exposed to subtitled lectures. This study stems from the identification of an academic performance-related issue on the Vaal Triangle Campus of NWU. Indeed, campus statistics show that the throughput rate of EAL students remains low, and that these students‟ academic literacy levels are inadequate. In other words, EAL students on this campus are underachieving and seem to have difficulties in mastering academic English. Based on various studies that showed SLS to be a valuable tool in terms of learning and academic literacy, this study proposed to introduce SLS (both live via respeaking and offline) in the university classroom as a learning aid, thus optimising the time students spend in lectures. Very little information was available in South Africa on the impact of SLS on the subject-specific comprehension of EAL students in a tertiary academic context. Furthermore, it had been anticipated that a certain number of technical constraints were likely to be encountered during the empirical investigation. These two factors made it difficult to predict what other factors could influence the outcome of the study. As a result, the study was based on the principle of Action Research, a research method characterised by the fact that the research is carried out in as many cycles as may be necessary in order to achieve the optimal conditions for a specific intervention. Three cycles were necessary to reach the optimal design of the present study so that a confident conclusion could be made regarding the impact of SLS on comprehension and academic literacy. For each cycle, the intervention was carried out over an academic semester. In the first cycle, a test group composed of EAL first-year Economics students was exposed to live SLS via respeaking during class, while a control group (also composed of EAL first-year Economics students) attended the same class at a different time, without SLS. In the second cycle, the live SLS via respeaking were replaced with offline SLS. The intervention was taken out of the regular classes and was carried out in the context of practical revision classes scheduled specifically for the purpose of the intervention. The test group viewed subtitled videos of lectures, while the control group viewed videos without subtitles. After each viewing, all participants were required to complete a short comprehension test. This cycle was also conducted in first-year Economics. The basic design of the third cycle was similar to that of the second cycle, but for the fact that the intervention took place in the context of a Psychology module, which, unlike the Economics module, was taught without the lecturer making use of slides. After these three research cycles were completed, it could be concluded that offline SLS indeed have a positive impact on the subject-specific comprehension and the receptive academic literacy skills of EAL students in a tertiary academic context. This conclusion was supported by the following findings: 1. The first research cycle pointed towards a slight, but statistically insignificant benefit in terms of both comprehension and academic literacy. However, at this stage of the empirical investigation, the technical constraints made it difficult to draw a precise conclusion in that respect. 2. In the second research cycle, the SLS seem to have had a significant impact on the receptive academic literacy skills of the test group, compared to the control group. However, no such impact could be noted in terms of subject-specific comprehension. This was attributed to the presence of a confounding variable, namely slides used during the lectures. This once more made it impossible to draw a confident conclusion regarding the impact of SLS on comprehension. 3. The third research cycle made a more confident conclusion regarding the impact of SLS on subject-specific comprehension possible. Indeed, the results of the statistical analyses show that the test group performed significantly better in their semester test (covering the work done in all the recorded lectures) than the control group, which was not exposed to any videos at all. On the basis of these findings, it was concluded that SLS in their offline form have a positive impact on the subject-specific comprehension and the receptive academic literacy skills of EAL students in a tertiary academic context, specifically if the students are given sufficient time to get used to the mode. This study seems to indicate that the benefits of SLS for comprehension can be recorded provided that students are exposed to the intervention over a longer period of time. However, there may be further scope for refinement as far as this study is concerned. It is therefore important that the topic be investigated further. / MA, Language Practice, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012

Students’ argumentative writing is substandard in the sense that the necessary relations, amongst other things, are not indicated in their texts. These texts also often lack an author’s voice. In a module such as academic literacy, it is important to pay attention to the means in which these particular problems can be solved. Part of the aims of a course in academic literacy is to equip students with the necessary academic literacy abilities (which include reading and writing ability) and in doing so, teach them to function properly in a tertiary discourse community. In this study, only the written component of academic literacy will be considered. Following the above mentioned problems, the focus will be specifically on items of metadiscourse, which may form part of a possible solution to improve students’ writing. Hyland (2004) distinguishes between two main categories of metadiscourse, namely the interactive and the interactional categories (which each consists of five subcategories). The aim of these categories is to guide the reader through the text in a specific way, and also to actively involve the reader with the textual content and the reading process. If these aspects of metadiscourse are applied effectively, the text may be more cohesive and coherent and a stronger reader-writer-relationship may be established. A corpus-linguistic approach has been followed in the investigation of the frequency of the occurrence of the subcategories of metadiscourse, as well as the functional suitability thereof. The data analysis is based on Hyland’s (2004) analytical framework of metadiscourse categories, which has been adapted according to the data that has been processed with WordSmith Tools (version 6.0). In this study, the focus group is Afrikaans L1 first-year students at the North-West University’s Vaal Triangle Campus in the year 2010. All 109 participants in the study were registered for AGLA111 (Introduction to Academic Literacy) and AGLA121 (Academic Literacy). The texts that were gathered from AGLA111 are represented in corpus 1 whereas the texts gathered from AGLA121 are represented in corpus 2. The data that was provided by these two corpora was measured against an honours corpus (consisting of 39 texts), which served as the norm for this study. The data interpretation can be divided into four categories, namely phenomena that show a statistically significant change in the correct direction, phenomena that were correct from the start and did not show any change between corpus 1 and corpus 2, phenomena that did not show any change between corpus 1 and corpus 2 but that differed from the honours corpus, as well as phenomena that show incorrect development. Recommendations, which have been based on the literature review and text analysis, are made with regard to specific aspects relating to metadiscourse and the teaching of academic literacy modules (on which this study is founded). These recommendations primarily focus on how students’ attention can be focused on the requirements proposed for writing an argumentative text. / MA (Afrikaans en Nederlands), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

This dissertation examines Swedish writing centers’ pedagogical positions in relation to surrounding conditions through a case study of organization, attitudes and learning potential in a pedagogical collaboration project on writing with many multilingual students. The data consists of steering documents, students’ texts, interviews, observations, and recorded tutorials. The general aim of the thesis is to explore the learning potential for participants in the collaborative project. The theoretical framework has a sociocultural approach drawn from New Literacy Studies, Wenger’s Social Learning Theory and Dialogism. Three studies are included. The first study examines organizational conditions in the specific context and shows that the writing center and its tutors have marginalized positions separated from relevant research. The second study finds that conceptions of writing as a skill, alongside those of writing as a process limit students’ opportunity for meaning-making and contesting. The third study focuses on tutorial interaction and results show that  tutors support students by i) discussing norms and conventions, ii) strengthening students as writers and second language learners and iii) stimulating meaning making and participation, which seems to increase potential for negotiation and developing academic writing. General conclusions suggest that writing centers have potential to be sites for pedagogical development where tutors can share, with students and staff, their expertise gained when working with a diverse student population. To strengthen writing centers’ position at universities professionalization of tutors is needed and most importantly research needs to be conducted in writing centers. Students from diverse backgrounds are entering higher education and to value their knowledge and experiences is crucial, not least from a democratic perspective. The writing center can play an important role in this effort.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-12-11T11:54:41Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dalve Oliveira Batista-Santos.pdf: 1836572 bytes, checksum: 249ebdde26c256fbf0fe0f5290b3b48d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-12-11T11:54:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dalve Oliveira Batista-Santos.pdf: 1836572 bytes, checksum: 249ebdde26c256fbf0fe0f5290b3b48d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-11-08 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This study investigates the dialogic literacy practice known as Group Think-Aloud - GTA (ZANOTTO, 1995; 2014), that potentially advances both responsive readers’ and literacy-teaching educators’ development. The specific objectives of GTA are: a) to identify the conceptualization of reading articulated by the research participants; b) to investigate if the reading practice of GTA with a university focus group can contribute to the development of responsive and critical readers; and c) to analyze mediation and management actions of the teacher/researcher who teach readers to be responsive and critical and to examine the teacher’s instruction as literacy-teaching agent. Inherent to these objectives are the questions this study seeks to answer: 1. How do the research participants conceptualize reading? 2. Can the practice of GTA reading with a university focus group contribute to the development of responsive and critical readers? 3. How do teacher who has the aim of educating readers to be responsive and critical mediate and manage the voices of readers in group, and how have the teacher transformed as literacy-teaching agents? The underlying theory rests on studies concerning literacy practice, reading and the epistemology of language and communication from a dialogic perspective. This study employed a qualitativeinterpretive methodology (MOITA LOPES, 2006), and the methodological instruments used included Think Aloud in Groups as a method, reading diaries, and interviews. The research participants consisted of five instructors from the Freshman Support Program (PADI), students from the Literature and Linguistics Program at Tocantins Federal University. The GTA theoretical framework was used to analyze the responses to the questions posed. This study predicates participants build their academic literacy to the extent they assume the role of protagonist – that is to say, when their voices are heard and legitimated – in constructing multiple meanings during GTA practice. The data showed readers, in GTA practice, tasked themselves with being responsive and active readers. It further showed – through participants’ actions (refuting, accepting, expanding on ideas) – academic literacy improved as participants read critically, taking stands on the meanings they ascribed to texts. Moreover, the data showed how teacher developed as literacy-teaching agents inasmuch as they managed and mediated the participants / Esta tese tem o objetivo de investigar a prática de letramento dialógica, denominada Pensar Alto em Grupo – PAG (ZANOTTO, 1995; 2014), que constitui uma prática de letramento com o potencial de contribuir para o desenvolvimento do leitor responsivo e do professor letrador. Tem como objetivos específicos: a) identificar a concepção de leitura trazida pelos participantes da pesquisa; b) investigar se a prática de leitura do PAG, com um grupo focal na universidade, pode contribuir para a formação de um leitor responsivo; c) analisar como se dá a mediação e o gerenciamento do professor em busca da formação do aluno como leitor responsivo e crítico, bem como da sua própria formação como agente letrador. Atreladas a esses objetivos, as perguntas que se buscam responder são as seguintes: 1. Qual a concepção de leitura dos sujeitos participantes da pesquisa? 2. A prática de leitura do PAG, com um grupo focal na universidade, pode contribuir para a formação de um leitor responsivo e crítico? 3. Como se dá a mediação e o gerenciamento do professor em busca da formação do leitor responsivo e crítico, bem como para sua própria formação como agente letrador? A base teórica relaciona-se a estudos sobre letramento e leitura e à epistemologia da linguagem e da comunicação numa perspectiva dialógica. O quadro metodológico qualitativo-interpretativo (MOITA LOPES, 2006) caracteriza a natureza metodológica do trabalho. Os instrumentos metodológicos utilizados foram o Pensar Alto em Grupo em sua faceta de método, o diário de leitura e a entrevista. Os sujeitos da pesquisa foram cinco monitoras do Programa de Apoio ao Discente Iniciante – PADI, estudantes do curso de Letras da Universidade Federal do Tocantins. As análises foram realizadas para responder as perguntas com base no quadro teórico. Esta pesquisa compreende que as participantes desenvolvem o Letramento Acadêmico à medida que assumem lugar de protagonismo – isto é, quando suas vozes são ouvidas e legitimadas - na construção dos múltiplos sentidos na prática dialógica do PAG. Os dados revelaram que, na prática do PAG, os leitores exercitaram uma postura de leitores responsivos e ativos e, além disso, constatou-se, nas ações (refutando, acatando, ampliando ideias) das participantes, o desenvolvimento do letramento acadêmico, à medida que faziam as leituras críticas, por meio de seus posicionamentos no processo de construção de sentidos. Ainda, com os dados obtidos constatou-se também como a professora foi se constituindo agente letradora, à medida que gerenciava e mediava as vozes das participantes

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of Same-Language Subtitles (SLS) on the subject-specific comprehension and the academic literacy levels of EAL students on the Vaal Triangle Campus of North-West University (NWU). Essentially, the study aimed to determine whether exposing students studying through English as an Additional Language (EAL) to subtitled lectures (live or recorded lectures) would help improve their comprehension of the academic content as well as their receptive academic literacy skills, compared to students who were not exposed to subtitled lectures. This study stems from the identification of an academic performance-related issue on the Vaal Triangle Campus of NWU. Indeed, campus statistics show that the throughput rate of EAL students remains low, and that these students‟ academic literacy levels are inadequate. In other words, EAL students on this campus are underachieving and seem to have difficulties in mastering academic English. Based on various studies that showed SLS to be a valuable tool in terms of learning and academic literacy, this study proposed to introduce SLS (both live via respeaking and offline) in the university classroom as a learning aid, thus optimising the time students spend in lectures. Very little information was available in South Africa on the impact of SLS on the subject-specific comprehension of EAL students in a tertiary academic context. Furthermore, it had been anticipated that a certain number of technical constraints were likely to be encountered during the empirical investigation. These two factors made it difficult to predict what other factors could influence the outcome of the study. As a result, the study was based on the principle of Action Research, a research method characterised by the fact that the research is carried out in as many cycles as may be necessary in order to achieve the optimal conditions for a specific intervention. Three cycles were necessary to reach the optimal design of the present study so that a confident conclusion could be made regarding the impact of SLS on comprehension and academic literacy. For each cycle, the intervention was carried out over an academic semester. In the first cycle, a test group composed of EAL first-year Economics students was exposed to live SLS via respeaking during class, while a control group (also composed of EAL first-year Economics students) attended the same class at a different time, without SLS. In the second cycle, the live SLS via respeaking were replaced with offline SLS. The intervention was taken out of the regular classes and was carried out in the context of practical revision classes scheduled specifically for the purpose of the intervention. The test group viewed subtitled videos of lectures, while the control group viewed videos without subtitles. After each viewing, all participants were required to complete a short comprehension test. This cycle was also conducted in first-year Economics. The basic design of the third cycle was similar to that of the second cycle, but for the fact that the intervention took place in the context of a Psychology module, which, unlike the Economics module, was taught without the lecturer making use of slides. After these three research cycles were completed, it could be concluded that offline SLS indeed have a positive impact on the subject-specific comprehension and the receptive academic literacy skills of EAL students in a tertiary academic context. This conclusion was supported by the following findings: 1. The first research cycle pointed towards a slight, but statistically insignificant benefit in terms of both comprehension and academic literacy. However, at this stage of the empirical investigation, the technical constraints made it difficult to draw a precise conclusion in that respect. 2. In the second research cycle, the SLS seem to have had a significant impact on the receptive academic literacy skills of the test group, compared to the control group. However, no such impact could be noted in terms of subject-specific comprehension. This was attributed to the presence of a confounding variable, namely slides used during the lectures. This once more made it impossible to draw a confident conclusion regarding the impact of SLS on comprehension. 3. The third research cycle made a more confident conclusion regarding the impact of SLS on subject-specific comprehension possible. Indeed, the results of the statistical analyses show that the test group performed significantly better in their semester test (covering the work done in all the recorded lectures) than the control group, which was not exposed to any videos at all. On the basis of these findings, it was concluded that SLS in their offline form have a positive impact on the subject-specific comprehension and the receptive academic literacy skills of EAL students in a tertiary academic context, specifically if the students are given sufficient time to get used to the mode. This study seems to indicate that the benefits of SLS for comprehension can be recorded provided that students are exposed to the intervention over a longer period of time. However, there may be further scope for refinement as far as this study is concerned. It is therefore important that the topic be investigated further. / MA, Language Practice, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012

Students’ argumentative writing is substandard in the sense that the necessary relations, amongst other things, are not indicated in their texts. These texts also often lack an author’s voice. In a module such as academic literacy, it is important to pay attention to the means in which these particular problems can be solved. Part of the aims of a course in academic literacy is to equip students with the necessary academic literacy abilities (which include reading and writing ability) and in doing so, teach them to function properly in a tertiary discourse community. In this study, only the written component of academic literacy will be considered. Following the above mentioned problems, the focus will be specifically on items of metadiscourse, which may form part of a possible solution to improve students’ writing. Hyland (2004) distinguishes between two main categories of metadiscourse, namely the interactive and the interactional categories (which each consists of five subcategories). The aim of these categories is to guide the reader through the text in a specific way, and also to actively involve the reader with the textual content and the reading process. If these aspects of metadiscourse are applied effectively, the text may be more cohesive and coherent and a stronger reader-writer-relationship may be established. A corpus-linguistic approach has been followed in the investigation of the frequency of the occurrence of the subcategories of metadiscourse, as well as the functional suitability thereof. The data analysis is based on Hyland’s (2004) analytical framework of metadiscourse categories, which has been adapted according to the data that has been processed with WordSmith Tools (version 6.0). In this study, the focus group is Afrikaans L1 first-year students at the North-West University’s Vaal Triangle Campus in the year 2010. All 109 participants in the study were registered for AGLA111 (Introduction to Academic Literacy) and AGLA121 (Academic Literacy). The texts that were gathered from AGLA111 are represented in corpus 1 whereas the texts gathered from AGLA121 are represented in corpus 2. The data that was provided by these two corpora was measured against an honours corpus (consisting of 39 texts), which served as the norm for this study. The data interpretation can be divided into four categories, namely phenomena that show a statistically significant change in the correct direction, phenomena that were correct from the start and did not show any change between corpus 1 and corpus 2, phenomena that did not show any change between corpus 1 and corpus 2 but that differed from the honours corpus, as well as phenomena that show incorrect development. Recommendations, which have been based on the literature review and text analysis, are made with regard to specific aspects relating to metadiscourse and the teaching of academic literacy modules (on which this study is founded). These recommendations primarily focus on how students’ attention can be focused on the requirements proposed for writing an argumentative text. / MA (Afrikaans en Nederlands), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

La thèse porte sur le rapport à l’écrit scientifique en français langue étrangère et seconde. Notre objectif est de proposer une approche des littéracies universitaires en FLE/FLS, de décrire et de comprendre le rapport à l’écrit en FLE/FLS du groupe enquêté, en l’occurrence des doctorants syriens étudiant en France. Notre démarche est sociodidactique aussi bien dans la problématique que dans la méthodologie adoptée. Ainsi, notre recherche s’est construite autour de trois axes principaux : un cadre contextuel et théorique comprenant à la fois une étude socioculturelle, sociolinguistique, éducative et institutionnelle du contexte d’origine (la Syrie) et des modalités de la mobilité étudiante. Nous y approfondissons les notions et les théories traitant de la question du rapport à l’écrit en FLE/FLS ainsi que des littéracies universitaires. Le deuxième axe constitue une démarche qualitative accordant une priorité au terrain. Enfin, le troisième axe tourne autour l’élaboration de l’approche des littéracies universitaires.Pour mener à bien notre recherche, nous avons réalisé des enquêtes sur le terrain au sein de dix-neuf pôles universitaires en France à l’aide d’un questionnaire soumis à cent sept doctorants syriens inscrits dans sept disciplines de Sciences Humaines et Sociales : Sciences du Langage, Psychologie, Histoire, Géographie, Sciences de l’Éducation, Sciences Économiques et Sciences Juridiques. Nous avons également réalisé sept entretiens avec des doctorants inscrits dans les disciplines susmentionnées.Notre travail de thèse a abouti à distinguer deux types de difficultés que les doctorants allophones ont à surmonter : méthodologiques (de niveau micro et macro) et disciplinaires ainsi qu’à définir le rôle primordial de la culture éducative et de l’habitus académique et méthodologique dans toute formation à l’initiation de recherche pour les doctorants étrangers. Ces résultats nous ont permis de contribuer aux premières ébauches d’une didactique des littéracies universitaires en français langue étrangère et seconde. / The thesis focuses on the relation to academic writing in French as a foreign and second language (FFL/SL). Our objective is to propose an approach of academic literacy in FFL/SL, to describe and to understand the relation to writing in FFL/SL of the group investigated, in this case, of Syrian PhD students in France. Our approach is socio-didactic in the research problem as well as in the adopted methodology. Thus, our research was built on three main axes: a contextual and theoretical framework comprising simultaneously socio-cultural, sociolinguistic, educational and institutional study of the original context (Syria) and the modalities of student mobility. In the same direction, we also explore the notions and theories dealing with the question of the relation to writing in FFL/SL as well as the academic literacy. The second axis is a qualitative approach giving priority to the field. Finally, the third axis revolves around the development of the approach to academic literacy.Concerning the practical part, we carried out field surveys in nineteen university poles in France. Indeed, we administered a questionnaire to 107 PhD students registered in seven disciplines of Humanities and Social Sciences: Language Sciences, Psychology, History, Geography, Educational Sciences, Economics and Legal Sciences. We also conducted seven interviews with PhD students enrolled in these disciplines.Our thesis work has resulted in distinguishing two types of difficulties that allophone PhD students have to overcome: methodological (micro- and macro level) and disciplinary, as well as to define the primordial role of the educational culture and the academic and methodological habitus in any training at the initiation of research for foreign doctoral students. These results allowed us to contribute to the first drafts of teaching academic literacy in French as a foreign and second language.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2016-10-20T12:41:14Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) noadia-definitiva.pdf: 2789193 bytes, checksum: 30e39964299371932fc7cb790aa1a744 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-20T12:41:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) noadia-definitiva.pdf: 2789193 bytes, checksum: 30e39964299371932fc7cb790aa1a744 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-25 / CAPES / Este estudo aborda o processo de letramento acadêmico de graduandos da área de Saúde cujo acesso à Universidade Federal de Pernambuco foi favorecido pelo sistema de reserva de vagas, adotado nessa instituição por força da Lei no 12.711/12. Objetivamos investigar como esses sujeitos se engajam em práticas letradas na academia no sentido de assumir identidades sociais relacionadas a tais práticas. A natureza multidisciplinar do tema foi contemplada através de um construto teórico-metodológico transdisciplinar característico de pesquisas em Linguística Aplicada (ROJO, 2006). Assim, recorremos a uma gama de autores para situar histórica e espacialmente nosso objeto, tais como: Pereira (2011), Pinto (2005; 2006), Feres Júnior & Zoninsein (2008), Santos A. (2012), Moehlecke (2004a; 2004b), Arruda & Gomes (2011). Além desses, nos fundamentamos nos conceitos de discurso como a associação entre os modos de usar a linguagem e modos de pensar, valorizar, atuar e interagir em situações socialmente reconhecidas e o de letramento como o controle de um discurso secundário, ambos propostos por Gee (1996; 2001 [1989]; 2006). Nossas análises são também consubstanciadas por resultados de estudos ligados à Perspectiva dos Letramentos Acadêmicos, segundo autores como Barton & Hamilton (2000), Lea & Street (2008), Street (2010), Ivanič (2004; 1998; 1994), Bezerra (2012) Dionísio & Fischer (2010). Em conformidade com tais abordagens, elegemos procedimentos indicadores de uma metodologia qualitativa de pesquisa, mais especificamente, estudos de casos etnográficos (ANDRÉ, 2003). Assim, ganham destaque instrumentos como entrevistas e observação de aulas, priorizando as atividades relativas à participação dos estudantes em seminários acadêmicos que aqui foram compreendidos como eventos de letramento (VIEIRA, 2005; SILVA, M. 2007; MEIRA & SILVA, 2013a, 2013b). Nossos resultados fornecem evidências de efeitos controversos neste primeiro ano de vigor da Lei de Cotas, da existência de identidades sociais relacionadas à forma de ingresso à universidade e da necessidade de alterações no ensino de práticas letradas na academia. / This study addresses the academic literacy‘s process of undergraduate students of Health Area whose access to Federal University of Pernambuco was favored by the quota system adopted in this institution by force of Law 12,711 / 12. We aimed to investigate how they engage in literacy practices in the academy to take up social identities related to such practices. The multidisciplinary nature of the topic was covered through a transdisciplinary theoretical and methodological construct characteristic of Applied Linguistics‘ research (ROJO, 2006). Then, we resort to a range of authors to situate historically and spatially our object, such as: Pereira (2011), Pinto (2005; 2006), Feres Júnior & Zoninsein (2008), Santos A. (2012), Moehlecke (2004a; 2004b), Arruda & Gomes (2011). In addition, we have considered the concepts of discourse as the association between ways of using the language and ways of thinking, value, act and interact in socially recognized situations, and, the literacy as the mastery of or fluent control of a secondary discourse, both proposed by Gee (1996; 2001 [1989]; 2006). Results of studies by Barton & Hamilton (2000), Lea & Street (2008), Street (2010), Ivanič (2004; 1998; 1994), Bezerra (2012) Dionísio & Fischer (2010), related to the Academic Literacies perspective also substantiate our analyzes. According with such approaches, we selected procedures of a qualitative research methodology, more specifically, ethnographic case studies (ANDRÉ, 2003). In this sense, we highlight instruments such as interviews and classroom observation, prioritizing activities related to student participation in academic seminars that have been understood as literacy events (VIEIRA, 2005; SILVA, M. 2007; MEIRA & SILVA, 2013a, 2013b). At once, our results provide evidences of controversial effects in this first year of Quota Law, the existence of social identities related to the form of admission to the university, and, the need for changes in the teaching of academic literacies.