Thesis (DLitt)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / On title page: Doctor of Literature in Biblical Languages. Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Nigeria is one of the most multilingual nations in Africa which consists of over 450 languages (Adegbija, 2004; Danladi, 2013). It has a population of more than 150 million people, with three major languages, namely Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, and a number of minority languages. Despite its linguistic and cultural diversity, English is the main medium of instruction from primary to tertiary education. The negative effects of learning through the medium of English second language (L2) are evidenced in the learners’ poor achievement in the external examination results of the National Examination Council (NECO) and the West African Examination Council (WAEC). There is an assumption that learners’ poor performance in English (L2) is due to little attention given to English writing in schools, and the use of less appropriate or effective teaching approaches (Babalola, 2011). There is a special concern about the poor writing proficiency levels of learners, particularly in the Junior Secondary School (JSS) phase which is an exit to Senior Secondary School level where learners are expected to show strong academic literacy skills. Writing is a process which is central to learners’ learning across the curriculum and it enables learners not only to access knowledge from different sources, but also to display the acquired knowledge in different domains. Learners’ poor writing skills are a great concern given that English (L2) is the main medium of instruction at all levels of education in Nigeria. In light of the above, this study set out to explore the pedagogical strategies and problems encountered by both teachers and learners in English (L2) academic writing in Junior Secondary School (JSS 3) classrooms in the Ekiti State, Nigeria. Guided by Second Language Acquisition theory, the study explored the factors that influence second language learning, in relation to the sociocultural and contextual factors that influence learners’ writing abilities. Through the lens of the Genre Pedagogical Theory and the Social Constructivist theory, it investigated teachers’ pedagogical strategies in English (L2) writing, and analysed learners’ written texts in order to understand the extent to which they reflected the features of specific genres that support learners’ writing skills. Four JSS3 teachers in three schools were purposively selected to participate in the study. The study employed a qualitative research paradigm, underpinned by the interpretive theory. Through the use of an ethnographic design, the day-to-day happenings such as thoughts and engagements of both teachers and students in the English (L2) lessons were observed and recorded by means of an audio-recorder in order to build a comprehensive record of the participants’ practice in the classroom. In addition, both semi-structured and unstructured interviews were conducted with the individual teachers. The students’ written texts and other relevant documents were collected and analysed for the purpose of data triangulation. Ethical considerations such as informed consent, voluntary participation, respect and anonymity of participants were observed throughout the study. In this study, the findings show that the teaching of English (L2) writing is still a challenge to many teachers due to a variety of factors which include linguistic, pedagogical and structural factors. As a result, learners’ academic writing suffers, especially writing to learn at secondary school level. Specifically, the findings of this study indicate that the teachers made use of traditional teaching approaches in the teaching of English (L2) writing as against the approaches recommended in the curriculum. The study also reveals that most of the JSS(3) students’ level of proficiency in English writing is below the expected levels stipulated in the curriculum document, although some of them displayed good basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS), Other contributing factors to the learners’ low academic writing proficiency in English (L2) include teachers’ limited understanding and application of the Genre-Based Approach in teaching writing, inadequate language teaching and learning resources, learners’ limited exposure to English (L2) and limited writing opportunities. The study concludes that while the use of the Genre-Based Approach is not the only strategy to enhance learners’ writing skills, the teaching of writing remains crucial as it is central to language use in different knowledge domains. Students’ writing proficiency is critical for cognitive and socio-economic development as it has implications for students’ access to knowledge and academic literacy which spills over to tertiary education. In a country like Nigeria where the main language of instruction is English, there is a need to prioritise teacher development and to revisit the curriculum to determine how it meets the academic needs of learners in this century.

Studien baseras på en kvalitativ och kvantitativ läromedelsanalys med fokus på vilket språkbruk som används i problemlösningsuppgifter i matematikläroböcker. Studiens syfte är att undersöka och analysera ur ett flerspråkigt perspektiv problemlösningsuppgifter i matematikläroböcker ämnande för årskurs tre.   Studien fokuserade på att ta reda på vilka språkliga utmaningar som finns för flerspråkiga elever och om det finns multimodala resurser som stödjer de språkliga utmaningarna.  Som tidigare forskning påvisat tar det längre tid för flerspråkiga elever att utveckla språkkunskaper på sitt andraspråk jämfört med elever som lär på sitt första språk. Flerspråkiga elever kan därav möta utmaningar i språkbruket i problemlösningsuppgifter. Språkbruket och de multimodala resurserna som analyserades i studien var vardagsspråk, egennamn, skolspråk, matematiskt register, homonymer, bilder och matematiska symboler. Studiens forskningsfrågor var Vilket språkbruk används i problemlösningsuppgifter i matematikläroböcker och hur utmanande är problemlösningsuppgifterna i ett flerspråkigt perspektiv? Finns det multimodala resurser och hur stöttar de texten? Och Hur skiljer sig matematikläroböckerna åt ur ett flerspråkigt perspektiv? De utvalda matematikläroböckerna för denna studie var Favoritmatematik 3 (2018), Nya Prima matematik 3A (2020), Singma matematik 3A (2015) och Triumf 3A (2021).    Analysen utgick från två teoretiska utgångspunkter: Cummins (2017) teori om Basicinterpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS) och Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency CALP samt Selanders och Danielssons (2021) teori om multimodala resurser.   Resultatet visade att flera problemösningsuppgifter innehar ett utmanande språkbruk för flerspråkiga elever samt att problemlösningsuppgifterna visade sig sakna multimodalt stöd i form av bilder och matematiska symboler som stöttar de språkliga utmaningarna som överensstämmer med tidigare forskning. Studiens slutsats är att problemlösningsuppgifterna innehåller i olika utsträckning ett kognitivt krävande språk för flerspråkiga elever. De språkliga utmaningarna som de flerspråkiga eleverna står inför behöver synliggöras: då kan läraren förebygga de språkliga utmaningarna som finns i matematikläroböckerna innan eleverna arbetar “tyst” i matematikläroboken.

No description available.

Regular aerobic exercise has a wide range of positive effects on health and cognition. Exercise has been demonstrated to provide a particularly powerful and replicable method of triggering a wide range of structural changes within both human and animal brains. However, the details and mechanisms of these changes remain poorly understood. This thesis undertakes a comprehensive examination of the relationship between brain plasticity and aerobic exercise. A large, longitudinal experiment was conducted in which healthy but sedentary participants were scanned before and after six-weeks of monitored aerobic exercise. Increases in the volume of the anterior hippocampus were observed, as previously reported in an older cohort after a longer exercise intervention. Multimodal imaging methods allowed an in-depth exploration of the mechanisms underlying this volume change, which proved to be dominated by white matter changes rather than the vascular changes that have been previously reported. A surprising global change in the balance of CSF, blood, and brain tissue within the cranial cavity was also observed. Cross-sectional differences in memory and brain structure associated with fitness were also observed. The volume of the anterior hippocampus was shown to correlate with a measure of working memory. Higher cerebral blood volume throughout the brain was found to correlate with greater fitness and better working memory. Focal associations between fitness and magnetic susceptibility, a measure of iron content, were also observed in the basal ganglia. These findings demonstrate that aerobic fitness is associated with improved cognition and brain structure throughout the lifespan rather than simply acting to mitigate age related brain atrophy or accelerate brain development. Finally, a new pipeline was developed for analysing hippocampal morphometry using high-resolution, 7 Tesla scans. Striking variability in the convolution of the hippocampal surface is reported. This technique shows promise for imaging the precise nature of the change in hippocampal volume associated with aerobic exercise. This thesis adds to the evidence that aerobic exercise is a potent catalyst for behavioural and brain plasticity while also demonstrating that the mechanisms for those plastic changes are likely different than previously supposed. Future work will refine these measurement techniques, perhaps to a point where brain changes can be monitored on a single subject level. This work will provide an important tool to understand how best to utilize aerobic exercise to facilitate adaptive behavioural changes, mitigate the negative effects of ageing and disease on the brain, and maximize the benefits of active lifestyles.

Negation is a part of language that humans engage in pretty much from the onset of speech. Negation appears at first glance to be harder to grasp than object or action labels, yet this thesis explores how this family of ‘concepts’ could be acquired in a meaningful way by a humanoid robot based solely on the unconstrained dialogue with a human conversation partner. The earliest forms of negation appear to be linked to the affective or motivational state of the speaker. Therefore we developed a behavioural architecture which contains a motivational system. This motivational system feeds its state simultaneously to other subsystems for the purpose of symbol-grounding but also leads to the expression of the robot’s motivational state via a facial display of emotions and motivationally congruent body behaviours. In order to achieve the grounding of negative words we will examine two different mechanisms which provide an alternative to the established grounding via ostension with or without joint attention. Two large experiments were conducted to test these two mechanisms. One of these mechanisms is so called negative intent interpretation, the other one is a combination of physical and linguistic prohibition. Both mechanisms have been described in the literature on early child language development but have never been used in human-robot-interaction for the purpose of symbol grounding. As we will show, both mechanisms may operate simultaneously and we can exclude none of them as potential ontogenetic origin of negation.

Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 46-06, page: 3258. Adviser: Scott T. Walters. Includes bibliographical references.

Magister Artium (Psychology) - MA(Psych) / The diversity embodying South Africa has emphasized the importance and influence of language in education and thus the additive bilingual programme is being implemented in the Eastern Cape by the ABLE project in order to realize the South African Language in education policy (LEiP). In accordance with this, the Woodcock Munoz Language Survey (which specializes in measuring cognitive academic language proficiency) was chosen as one of the instruments to evaluate the language outcomes of the programme and was adapted into South African English and isiXhosa. The current study was a subset of the ABLE project, and was located within the bigger project dealing with the translation of the WMLS into isiXhosa and the successive research on the equivalence of the two language versions. This study evaluated the structural equivalence of the English and isiXhosa versions of the WMLS on matched sample groups (n= 150 in each language group). Thus secondary data analysis (SDA) was conducted by analyzing the data in SPSS as well as CEFA (Comprehensive Exploratory Factor Analysis). The original data set was purposively sampled according to set selection criteria and consists of English and isiXhosa first language learners. The study sought to confirm previous research by cross-validating the results of structural equivalence on two subscales, namely the Verbal Analogies (VA) and Letter-Word Identification (LWI) subscale. The research design reflects psychometric test theory and is therefore located in a bias and equivalence theoretical framework. The results of the exploratory factor analysis found that one can only accept structural equivalence in the first factor identified in the VA subscale, while structural equivalence was found in the factor for the LWI subscale. The use of scatter-plots to validate the results of the exploratory factor analysis indicated that one can tentatively accept these results. The study thus contributed to the literature on the translation of the WMLS, and the adaptation of language tests into the indigenous languages of South Africa,as well as additive bilingual programmes. / South Africa

Bakgrund: Många nyblivna mödrar drabbas av olika former av depressioner direkt efter förlossningen. I de flesta fall är detta en kort övergående period av depression kopplad till förväntningar med den nya mödrarollen. I vissa fall kan depression för mödrarna bli bestående och sträcka sig över en längre tid, denna form av depression benämns postpartumdepression PPD. Beroende på hur länge denna form av depression pågår får den olika påverkan på den direkta anknytningen till barnen, därför är det viktigt att uppmärksamma detta på ett tidigt stadium för att det inte ska komma att påverka barnens kommande utveckling. Syftet: Syftet med studien var att sammanställa aktuell kunskap kring sambandet mellan mödrar med PPD och barnens utveckling. Metoden: Litteraturstudie med narrativ ansats. Resultatet: Resultatet påvisade att det fanns ett samband mellan postpartumdepression hos modern och barnens utveckling inom fyra olika områden: 1) Språkliga utvecklingen, 2) Motoriska utvecklingen, 3) Kognitiva utvecklingen och 4) Socioemotionella och Neuropsykologiska utveckling. Slutsats: Det finns samband mellan PPD hos mödrarna och barnens utveckling, det är därför viktigt att identifiera och behandla mödrarna för att främja god hälsa hos barnen / Background: Many new mothers suffer from various forms of depression immediately after childbirth. In most cases, this is a short transitory period of depression linked to expectations with the new maternal role. But in some cases, this depression can become extend over a longer period of time or become permanent. This form of depression is called postpartum depression PPD. Depending on how long this form of depression lasts, it has different effects on the direct attachment to the children, therefore it is important to pay attention to this at an early stage so that it does not affect the children's future development. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to compile current knowledge about the connection between mothers with PPD and the children's development. The method: Literature study with a narrative approach. The result: The result showed that there was a connection between postpartum depression in the mother and the children's development in four different areas: 1) Language development, 2) Motor development, 3) Cognitive development and 4) Socio- emotional and Neuropsychological development. Conclusion: There is a connection between PPD in the mothers and the children's development, it is therefore important to identify and treat the mothers to promote good health in the children

<p>The diversity embodying South Africa has emphasized the importance and influence of language in education and thus the additive bilingual programme is being implemented in the Eastern Cape by the ABLE project in order to realize the South African Language in education policy (LEiP). In accordance with this, the Woodcock Munoz Language Survey (which specializes in measuring cognitive academic language proficiency) was chosen as one of the instruments to evaluate the language outcomes of the programme and was adapted into South African English and isiXhosa. The current study was a subset of the ABLE project, and was located within the bigger project dealing with the translation of the WMLS into isiXhosa and the successive research on the equivalence of the two language versions. This study evaluated the structural equivalence of the English and isiXhosa versions of the WMLS on matched sample groups (n= 150 in each language group). Thus secondary data analysis (SDA) was conducted by analyzing the data in SPSS as well as CEFA (Comprehensive Exploratory Factor Analysis). The original data set was purposively sampled according to set selection criteria and consists of English and isiXhosa first language learners. The study sought to confirm previous research by cross-validating the results of structural equivalence on two subscales, namely the Verbal Analogies (VA) and Letter-Word Identification (LWI) subscale. The research design reflects psychometric test theory and is therefore located in a bias and equivalence theoretical framework. The results of the exploratory factor analysis found that one can only accept structural equivalence in the first factor identified in the VA subscale, while structural equivalence was found in the factor for the LWI subscale. The use of scatter-plots to validate the results of the exploratory factor analysis indicated that one can tentatively accept these results. The study thus contributed to the literature on the translation of the WMLS, and the adaptation of language tests into the indigenous languages of South Africa,as well as additive bilingual programmes.</p>