Orientador: Solange Aranha / Banca: Lília Santos Abreu-Tardelli / Banca: Fernanda Correa Silveira Galli / Banca: Marília Mendes Ferreira / Banca: Vera Lúcia Menezes de Oliveira e Paiva / Resumo: A presente pesquisa - com apoio financeiro da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES - código de financiamento 001) e da Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP - processos número 15/11088-1 e 16//06589-4) - teve por objetivo desenvolver uma pedagogia que, sensível às especificidades do contexto de pós-graduação brasileiro, fosse aplicável a distância e possibilitasse a promoção do letramento acadêmico (FERREIRA, 2015) dos alunos. A pedagogia crítico-complexa foi, então, desenvolvida com bases na perspectiva crítica do ensino de inglês para fins acadêmicos (CEAP) (BENESCH, 2012) e da metodologia complexa para a elaboração de cursos de EAP (VIEIRA, 2014). Essa pedagogia contempla a realização do curso em três estágios: elaboração, execução e reflexão. Esses três estágios, no entanto, são inter-relacionados e recursivos, de modo que o curso é constantemente (re)desenhado em resposta aos resultados da avaliação de cada unidade já aplicada. Ademais, para assegurar o ensino crítico do(s) gênero(s)-alvo, a união entre duas perspectivas de análise e ensino de gêneros foi proposta: sociorretórica (SWALES, 1990, 2004, 2009) e nova retórica (MILLER, 1984, BAZERMAN, 1998, 2004, 2011), de modo a manter igual atenção às dimensões textuais e contextuais de usos do discurso. Essa proposta foi implementada em um curso de CEAP, aplicado a distância, a brasileiros pós-graduandos da área de ciência da computação. Os resultados indicam que a... / Abstract: This research - sponsored by CAPES (001) and FAPESP (processes n. 15/11088-1 and 16/06589-4) - aimed to design a sensible pedagogy to the reality of Brazilian post-graduation, which is, at the same time, applied at a distance and potentially able to contribute to students' academic literacy (FERREIRA, 2015) development. Critical-complex pedagogy was, then, designed on the basis of Critical English for Academic Purposes (CEAP) (BENESCH, 2012) approach, and on the complex methodology for EAP course design (VIEIRA, 2014). This pedagogy proposes the realization of a course through three stages: in the first one, the course is designed, in the second, it is taught, and in the third, evaluated. These three stages, however, are inter-related and recursive, once the syllabus of the course is constantly (re)designed as a response to the results of the evaluation of the units previously taught. Moreover, the target genre(s) are critically taught by means of an interrelated work with two different genre analysis perspectives: the sociorhetoric (SWALES, 1990, 2004, 2009) and the new rhetoric (MILLER, 1984, BAZERMAN, 1998, 2004, 2011) ones, in order to keep the same level of attention to the textual and to the contextual dimensions of discourse uses. This proposal was implemented in an online CEAP course to Computer Science Brazilian graduate students. Results indicate that the complex methodology adopted assures the adaptation of the course to the specificities of the teaching and ... / Doutor

Research in the field of Chinese second/foreign language (L2) acquisition, at present, does not match the increasing demand to learn Chinese as an L2, given that Chinese is the fastest growing foreign language (FL) in countries such as Japan, South Korea, the United States, Canada and Australia. There is a significant gap between Chinese L2 acquisition research and the large body of literature in second language acquisition (SLA), which mainly focuses on English L2. The need for more research in Chinese SLA is compelling. Particularly, research in Chinese L2 word order acquisition requires more attention because word order plays a more complex role in Chinese than in English. Chinese relies heavily on word order for information structuring of a sentence because this language lacks other means, such as verb endings indicating tense and aspect, to accomplish this function. Due to the different roles word order plays in Chinese and English, adult English-speaking learners find Chinese word order acquisition very challenging. Chinese L2 word order errors frequently occur in learners’ L2 production. However, Chinese L2 researchers and teachers are left with no means to adequately describe and explain these errors for instruction purposes. This dissertation develops such a means — a comprehensive taxonomy of Chinese L2 word order errors. This taxonomy organizes these errors into a logical system of classification. Through the classification, explicit description of various Chinese L2 word order errors is achieved, and specific sources of these errors are traced. Data was collected from 116 native-English-speaking learners of Chinese at a large university in Australia. The Chinese L2 learners were divided into three proficiency levels based on their institutional status. Four hundred and eight word order errors were extracted by qualitatively analyzing the learners’ written samples. Among the 408 word order errors, 404 (99%) are successfully classified into different categories according to a new criterion proposed in this dissertation. The new taxonomy provides a principle-based description and explanation of various Chinese L2 word order errors. A word order error is deemed to constitute an error when it violates a relevant word order principle (or sub-principle). These principles not only explain why an error is an error but also provide a means for correcting the error. In a pedagogical sense, the directness and explicitness in explaining word order errors achieved by employing this taxonomy cannot be achieved by relying on any other sources of errors available in the literature. The new taxonomy overcomes the limitations of existing taxonomies in the literature that are either superficial, or unsystematic, or not empirically testable. For example, it draws on the Cognitive Functionalist Approach of L2 acquisition. Both its description and explanation of Chinese L2 word errors go beyond superficiality. The approach maintains that adult L2 learners’ conceptualization of the world is initially based on their L1. Their conceptualization of the world imposes constraints on the linguistic structures of their L2. Therefore, errors may occur when English learners of Chinese impose their conceptualization based on the English language onto the Chinese structures. The new taxonomy is systematic because it categorizes word order errors using one criterion. New categories emerging from the data and the existing categories from the literature are incorporated into one system. Finally, the new taxonomy is empirically testable because many new categories emerged from the data. It is an open-ended rather than a closed system. New categories can be added as necessary. The dissertation finds that violation of relevant word order principles has a high explanatory value for the various word order errors encountered in the data. This has clear pedagogical implications. Chinese L2 learners generally lack awareness of the word order principles (and sub-principles) on which the new taxonomy is based. These principles and sub-principles are seen to be of considerable importance to the acquisition of Chinese L2 word order. In order to improve learners’ word order performance, the results of this study indicate that it is imperative for the basic Chinese word order principles be included in a CFL curriculum.

Research in the field of Chinese second/foreign language (L2) acquisition, at present, does not match the increasing demand to learn Chinese as an L2, given that Chinese is the fastest growing foreign language (FL) in countries such as Japan, South Korea, the United States, Canada and Australia. There is a significant gap between Chinese L2 acquisition research and the large body of literature in second language acquisition (SLA), which mainly focuses on English L2. The need for more research in Chinese SLA is compelling. Particularly, research in Chinese L2 word order acquisition requires more attention because word order plays a more complex role in Chinese than in English. Chinese relies heavily on word order for information structuring of a sentence because this language lacks other means, such as verb endings indicating tense and aspect, to accomplish this function. Due to the different roles word order plays in Chinese and English, adult English-speaking learners find Chinese word order acquisition very challenging. Chinese L2 word order errors frequently occur in learners’ L2 production. However, Chinese L2 researchers and teachers are left with no means to adequately describe and explain these errors for instruction purposes. This dissertation develops such a means — a comprehensive taxonomy of Chinese L2 word order errors. This taxonomy organizes these errors into a logical system of classification. Through the classification, explicit description of various Chinese L2 word order errors is achieved, and specific sources of these errors are traced. Data was collected from 116 native-English-speaking learners of Chinese at a large university in Australia. The Chinese L2 learners were divided into three proficiency levels based on their institutional status. Four hundred and eight word order errors were extracted by qualitatively analyzing the learners’ written samples. Among the 408 word order errors, 404 (99%) are successfully classified into different categories according to a new criterion proposed in this dissertation. The new taxonomy provides a principle-based description and explanation of various Chinese L2 word order errors. A word order error is deemed to constitute an error when it violates a relevant word order principle (or sub-principle). These principles not only explain why an error is an error but also provide a means for correcting the error. In a pedagogical sense, the directness and explicitness in explaining word order errors achieved by employing this taxonomy cannot be achieved by relying on any other sources of errors available in the literature. The new taxonomy overcomes the limitations of existing taxonomies in the literature that are either superficial, or unsystematic, or not empirically testable. For example, it draws on the Cognitive Functionalist Approach of L2 acquisition. Both its description and explanation of Chinese L2 word errors go beyond superficiality. The approach maintains that adult L2 learners’ conceptualization of the world is initially based on their L1. Their conceptualization of the world imposes constraints on the linguistic structures of their L2. Therefore, errors may occur when English learners of Chinese impose their conceptualization based on the English language onto the Chinese structures. The new taxonomy is systematic because it categorizes word order errors using one criterion. New categories emerging from the data and the existing categories from the literature are incorporated into one system. Finally, the new taxonomy is empirically testable because many new categories emerged from the data. It is an open-ended rather than a closed system. New categories can be added as necessary. The dissertation finds that violation of relevant word order principles has a high explanatory value for the various word order errors encountered in the data. This has clear pedagogical implications. Chinese L2 learners generally lack awareness of the word order principles (and sub-principles) on which the new taxonomy is based. These principles and sub-principles are seen to be of considerable importance to the acquisition of Chinese L2 word order. In order to improve learners’ word order performance, the results of this study indicate that it is imperative for the basic Chinese word order principles be included in a CFL curriculum.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DXN117736.

The overall purpose of this study is to correlate features of compliments and compliment responses in Jordanian Arabic with social variables including gender, age, and traditionalism. This research project sets out to investigate the following questions:1. Do men and women give and respond to compliments differently? If so, how?2. Do people of different age groups give and respond to compliments differently? Ifso, how?3. Do traditional and non-traditional people give and respond to compliments differently? If so, how?Naturally occurring examples of compliments/ compliment responses were gathered by 10 fieldworkers in the research site of Irbid, Jordan. The dependent variables that were investigated include the topics, syntactic patterns, positive semantic carriers, the format of compliments, and the types of compliment responses.The results indicate that although the complimenting behavior of Jordanian people is similar in some ways, the social variables do correlate with some systematic differences. Specifically, people who share the same gender, age, or level of traditionalism compliment each other more frequently than persons who differ in any of these categories. Moreover, females and young people primarily use the following complimenting categories: compliments on appearance, explicit compliments, exclamatory syntactic patterns, and compliment plus explanation. Women and men differ in using compliment responses in that the women prefer questions and accounts compared to the men who employ more blessings and disagreements. Explanations forthese variations are discussed, based on the functions of compliments and the nature of the Jordanian culture.This research contributes to socio-pragmatics by analyzing variation in the use of complimenting in a relatively homogenous speech community. It tackles some culture-specific features of politeness and indirectness that are crucial to any politeness theory. The research also serves pedagogical purposes in that the application of its results in the classroom will help to reduce the communication breakdowns often experienced by L2 learners. With respect to methodology, the study provides adequate data to further test the validity of natural data collection in the investigation of speech acts. / Department of English

No description available.

Research in the field of Chinese second/foreign language (L2) acquisition, at present, does not match the increasing demand to learn Chinese as an L2, given that Chinese is the fastest growing foreign language (FL) in countries such as Japan, South Korea, the United States, Canada and Australia. There is a significant gap between Chinese L2 acquisition research and the large body of literature in second language acquisition (SLA), which mainly focuses on English L2. The need for more research in Chinese SLA is compelling. Particularly, research in Chinese L2 word order acquisition requires more attention because word order plays a more complex role in Chinese than in English. Chinese relies heavily on word order for information structuring of a sentence because this language lacks other means, such as verb endings indicating tense and aspect, to accomplish this function. Due to the different roles word order plays in Chinese and English, adult English-speaking learners find Chinese word order acquisition very challenging. Chinese L2 word order errors frequently occur in learners’ L2 production. However, Chinese L2 researchers and teachers are left with no means to adequately describe and explain these errors for instruction purposes. This dissertation develops such a means — a comprehensive taxonomy of Chinese L2 word order errors. This taxonomy organizes these errors into a logical system of classification. Through the classification, explicit description of various Chinese L2 word order errors is achieved, and specific sources of these errors are traced. Data was collected from 116 native-English-speaking learners of Chinese at a large university in Australia. The Chinese L2 learners were divided into three proficiency levels based on their institutional status. Four hundred and eight word order errors were extracted by qualitatively analyzing the learners’ written samples. Among the 408 word order errors, 404 (99%) are successfully classified into different categories according to a new criterion proposed in this dissertation. The new taxonomy provides a principle-based description and explanation of various Chinese L2 word order errors. A word order error is deemed to constitute an error when it violates a relevant word order principle (or sub-principle). These principles not only explain why an error is an error but also provide a means for correcting the error. In a pedagogical sense, the directness and explicitness in explaining word order errors achieved by employing this taxonomy cannot be achieved by relying on any other sources of errors available in the literature. The new taxonomy overcomes the limitations of existing taxonomies in the literature that are either superficial, or unsystematic, or not empirically testable. For example, it draws on the Cognitive Functionalist Approach of L2 acquisition. Both its description and explanation of Chinese L2 word errors go beyond superficiality. The approach maintains that adult L2 learners’ conceptualization of the world is initially based on their L1. Their conceptualization of the world imposes constraints on the linguistic structures of their L2. Therefore, errors may occur when English learners of Chinese impose their conceptualization based on the English language onto the Chinese structures. The new taxonomy is systematic because it categorizes word order errors using one criterion. New categories emerging from the data and the existing categories from the literature are incorporated into one system. Finally, the new taxonomy is empirically testable because many new categories emerged from the data. It is an open-ended rather than a closed system. New categories can be added as necessary. The dissertation finds that violation of relevant word order principles has a high explanatory value for the various word order errors encountered in the data. This has clear pedagogical implications. Chinese L2 learners generally lack awareness of the word order principles (and sub-principles) on which the new taxonomy is based. These principles and sub-principles are seen to be of considerable importance to the acquisition of Chinese L2 word order. In order to improve learners’ word order performance, the results of this study indicate that it is imperative for the basic Chinese word order principles be included in a CFL curriculum.

This study examines the development of pragmatic competence in requests in two groups of Chinese EFL learners (advanced and intermediate) in a tertiary institute in Macau, China. The learners answer a written discourse completion test that contains ten scenarios where they request common services or ask for favours. The request behaviours are examined in terms of utterance length, strategy types, formulaic expressions, and modifications (internal and external). It is found that, compared with a group of native speakers of English, the learners have not developed native-like pragmatic behaviours. Although the advanced and the intermediate learner groups reach native-like distribution in STRATEGY TYPE for the scenarios taken together, statistically significant differences from the native group are observed in several individual scenarios (particularly with the intermediate learners). In addition, the two groups of learners employ formulaic expressions sharply differently from the native group in types and according to scenario. The learners do not use internal modifiers as frequently or situation-differentially as the native group: they do not show a strong preference for bi-clausal structures and conditionals in the scenarios of substantial favour asking. The learners employ elaborated external modifications and are verbose in requests. According to Bialystok’s (1993, 1994) two-dimensional model of pragmatic competence, the learners are missing analytical knowledge of the scenario-specific behaviours, and their control ability is not fully developed. This study examines adult Chinese learners of English in a foreign language environment, and extends our knowledge of the development of request behaviours in children in second language environments (Achiba, 2003; Ellis, 1992). It also relates to the research on formulae in SLA (Wray, 2000, 2002; Kecskes, 2002) by providing empirical data on formulaic expressions in learners’ requests. It is further argued that further examination of interlanguage pragmatics should be (a) scenario-based, and (b) formulae-based.

Research in the field of Chinese second/foreign language (L2) acquisition, at present, does not match the increasing demand to learn Chinese as an L2, given that Chinese is the fastest growing foreign language (FL) in countries such as Japan, South Korea, the United States, Canada and Australia. There is a significant gap between Chinese L2 acquisition research and the large body of literature in second language acquisition (SLA), which mainly focuses on English L2. The need for more research in Chinese SLA is compelling. Particularly, research in Chinese L2 word order acquisition requires more attention because word order plays a more complex role in Chinese than in English. Chinese relies heavily on word order for information structuring of a sentence because this language lacks other means, such as verb endings indicating tense and aspect, to accomplish this function. Due to the different roles word order plays in Chinese and English, adult English-speaking learners find Chinese word order acquisition very challenging. Chinese L2 word order errors frequently occur in learners’ L2 production. However, Chinese L2 researchers and teachers are left with no means to adequately describe and explain these errors for instruction purposes. This dissertation develops such a means — a comprehensive taxonomy of Chinese L2 word order errors. This taxonomy organizes these errors into a logical system of classification. Through the classification, explicit description of various Chinese L2 word order errors is achieved, and specific sources of these errors are traced. Data was collected from 116 native-English-speaking learners of Chinese at a large university in Australia. The Chinese L2 learners were divided into three proficiency levels based on their institutional status. Four hundred and eight word order errors were extracted by qualitatively analyzing the learners’ written samples. Among the 408 word order errors, 404 (99%) are successfully classified into different categories according to a new criterion proposed in this dissertation. The new taxonomy provides a principle-based description and explanation of various Chinese L2 word order errors. A word order error is deemed to constitute an error when it violates a relevant word order principle (or sub-principle). These principles not only explain why an error is an error but also provide a means for correcting the error. In a pedagogical sense, the directness and explicitness in explaining word order errors achieved by employing this taxonomy cannot be achieved by relying on any other sources of errors available in the literature. The new taxonomy overcomes the limitations of existing taxonomies in the literature that are either superficial, or unsystematic, or not empirically testable. For example, it draws on the Cognitive Functionalist Approach of L2 acquisition. Both its description and explanation of Chinese L2 word errors go beyond superficiality. The approach maintains that adult L2 learners’ conceptualization of the world is initially based on their L1. Their conceptualization of the world imposes constraints on the linguistic structures of their L2. Therefore, errors may occur when English learners of Chinese impose their conceptualization based on the English language onto the Chinese structures. The new taxonomy is systematic because it categorizes word order errors using one criterion. New categories emerging from the data and the existing categories from the literature are incorporated into one system. Finally, the new taxonomy is empirically testable because many new categories emerged from the data. It is an open-ended rather than a closed system. New categories can be added as necessary. The dissertation finds that violation of relevant word order principles has a high explanatory value for the various word order errors encountered in the data. This has clear pedagogical implications. Chinese L2 learners generally lack awareness of the word order principles (and sub-principles) on which the new taxonomy is based. These principles and sub-principles are seen to be of considerable importance to the acquisition of Chinese L2 word order. In order to improve learners’ word order performance, the results of this study indicate that it is imperative for the basic Chinese word order principles be included in a CFL curriculum.

This study examines the development of pragmatic competence in requests in two groups of Chinese EFL learners (advanced and intermediate) in a tertiary institute in Macau, China. The learners answer a written discourse completion test that contains ten scenarios where they request common services or ask for favours. The request behaviours are examined in terms of utterance length, strategy types, formulaic expressions, and modifications (internal and external). It is found that, compared with a group of native speakers of English, the learners have not developed native-like pragmatic behaviours. Although the advanced and the intermediate learner groups reach native-like distribution in STRATEGY TYPE for the scenarios taken together, statistically significant differences from the native group are observed in several individual scenarios (particularly with the intermediate learners). In addition, the two groups of learners employ formulaic expressions sharply differently from the native group in types and according to scenario. The learners do not use internal modifiers as frequently or situation-differentially as the native group: they do not show a strong preference for bi-clausal structures and conditionals in the scenarios of substantial favour asking. The learners employ elaborated external modifications and are verbose in requests. According to Bialystok’s (1993, 1994) two-dimensional model of pragmatic competence, the learners are missing analytical knowledge of the scenario-specific behaviours, and their control ability is not fully developed. This study examines adult Chinese learners of English in a foreign language environment, and extends our knowledge of the development of request behaviours in children in second language environments (Achiba, 2003; Ellis, 1992). It also relates to the research on formulae in SLA (Wray, 2000, 2002; Kecskes, 2002) by providing empirical data on formulaic expressions in learners’ requests. It is further argued that further examination of interlanguage pragmatics should be (a) scenario-based, and (b) formulae-based.