Global ETD Search

1	A Local Grammar of Cause and Effect : A Corpus-driven Study Allen, Christopher January 2005 (has links) This thesis puts forward a specialized, functional grammar of cause and effect withinthe sub-genre of biomedical research articles. Building on research into the localgrammars of dictionary definitions and evaluation, the thesis describes the applicationof a corpus-driven methodology to description of the principal lexical grammaticalpatterns which underpin causation in scientific writing. The source of data is the 2million-word Halmstad Biomedical Corpus constructed from 589 on-line researcharticles published since 1997. These articles were sampled in accordance with astandard library classification system across the broad spectrum of the biomedicalresearch literature. On the basis of lexical grammatical patterns identified in thecorpus, a total of five functional sub-types of causation are put forward. The localgrammar itself is a description of these sub-types based on the Hallidayian notion ofsystem along the syntagm coupled with the identification of the paradigmatic contentsof these systems as a closed set of 37 semantic categories specific to the biomedicaldomain. A preliminary evaluation of the grammar is then offered in terms of handparsingexperiments using a test corpus. Finally potential NLP applications of thegrammar are described in terms of on-line information extraction, ontology buildingand text summary. Local grammar Biomedical English Corpus-driven
2	Individuální textový profil: korpusově založený výzkum idiolektu / The individual textual profile: a corpus-based study of idiolect Leško, Marek January 2012 (has links) - EN The thesis analyzes the idiolect of the then-presidential candidate Barack Obama in the specific speech situation of the televized debates on the background of the utterances of other candidates in the years 2000, 2004 and 2008. The analysis uses corpus-driven methods to compare the Obama corpus with the reference corpus. The comparison is largely based on the analysis of keywords and their use in context, supplemented by the discussion of their collocations and associated clusters. The results of the analysis, i.e. the principal features Obama's idiolect, are presented in a structured summary, divided into specific areas. Keywords: Idiolect, individual textual profile, Obama, keywords, corpus, corpus-driven
3	A Corpus-driven Approach toward Teaching Vocabulary and Reading to English Language Learners in U.S.-based K-12 Context through a Mobile App Ehsanzadehsorati, Seyedjafar 08 November 2018 (has links) In order to decrease teachers’ decisions of which vocabulary the focus of the instruction should be upon, a recent line of research argues that pedagogically-prepared word lists may offer the most efficient order of learning vocabulary with an optimized context for instruction in each of four K-12 content areas (math, science, social studies, and language arts) through providing English Language Learners (ELLs) with the most frequent words in each area. Educators and school experts have acknowledged the need for developing new materials, including computerized enhanced texts and effective strategies aimed at improving ELLs’ mastery of academic and STEM-related lexicon. Not all words in a language are equal in their role in comprehending the language and expressing ideas or thoughts. For this study, I used a corpus-driven approach which is operationalized by applying a text analysis method. For the purpose of this research study, I made two corpora, Teacher’s U.S. Corpus (TUSC) and Science and Math Academic Corpus for Kids (SMACK) with a focus on word lemma rather than inflectional and derivational variants of word families. To create the corpora, I collected and analyzed a total of 122 textbooks used commonly in the states of Florida and California. Recruiting, scanning and converting of textbooks had been carried out over a period of more than two years from October 2014 to March 2017. In total, this school corpus contains 10,519,639 running words and 16,344 lemmas saved in 16,315 word document pages. From the corpora, I developed six word lists, namely three frequency-based word lists (high-, mid-, and low-frequency), academic and STEM-related word lists, and essential word list (EWL). I then applied the word lists as the database and developed a mobile app, Vocabulary in Reading Study – VIRS, (available on App Store, Android and Google Play) alongside a website (www.myvirs.com). Also, I developed a new K-12 dictionary which targets the vocabulary needs of ELLs in K-12 context. This is a frequency-based dictionary which categorizes words into three groups of high, medium and low frequency words as well as two separate sections for academic and STEM words. The dictionary has 16,500 lemmas with derivational and inflectional forms. Mobile App Corpus-driven Vocabulary Reading Curriculum and Instruction Language and Literacy Education
4	La sémantique des quantificateurs vagues : étude contrastive allemand-français / The semantic of the vague quantifiers : A German-French contrastive study Delettres, Cécile 07 December 2015 (has links) Cette thèse a pour objet de décrire précisément le sémantisme des quantificateurs vagues du français quelques et plusieurs, et de l’allemand einig-, ein paar, etlich- et mehrer- afin d’en proposer une comparaison. Une analyse qualitative d’un corpus littéraire français nous a permis de dégager des critères de fonctionnement sémantique permettant de rapprocher et de différencier les deux quantificateurs entre eux. Ces critères de fonctionnement ont pu, pour la plupart, être appliqués ensuite aux quantificateurs de l’allemand, analysés à partir d’un corpus parallèle au corpus français. L’étude d’un second corpus allemand, journalistique, a permis de cerner des préférences d’emploi relatives à ce genre de discours. Tous ces quantificateurs vagues partagent un noyau dur de sens « petite quantité vague » et ce sont donc les sèmes et les traits potentiels secondaires qui permettent de connaître le profil sémantique propre de chacun, de comprendre leur fonctionnement et donc leurs préférences d’emploi. Dans une dernière partie nous rapprochons le fonctionnement des quantificateurs des deux langues, proposons des équivalences par contextes d’emploi et des améliorations de leur traitement lexicographique aussi bien monolingue que bilingue. / The purpose of this thesis is to describe precisely the semantics of the French vague quantifiers quelques and plusieurs, and of the German einig-, ein paar, etlich- and mehrer- in order to propose a comparison. A qualitative analysis of a French literary corpus has allowed us to extricate semantic operating criteria allowing to differentiate the quantifiers from each other. These operating criteria had the possibility, for the most part, to be then applied to German quantifiers, analyzed from a similar corpus to the French one. The study of a second German corpus, journalistic, has allowed to hone on the preferences of use relative to that kind of speech. All these vague quantifiers share a core meaning of “small vague quantities” and therefore the semes and the secondary potential traits allow to know each’s own semantic profile, to understand their operation and thus their preferred use. In the last part we put together the functioning of both language’s quantifiers, offer equivalencies by context and improvements of their monolingual and bilingual lexicographic treatment. Quantificateurs Quantificateurs vague Sémantique Linguistique contrastive Analyse sur corpus Lexicographie Quantifiers Vague quantifiers Semantic Constrastive linguistics Corpus driven analysis Lexicography
5	台灣報紙再現同性婚姻的語料庫與論述分析(2005-2014) / A corpus-assisted investigation to the representation of gay marriages in Taiwan's newspapers (2005-2014) 林意璇, Lin, Yi Xuan Unknown Date (has links) 本文旨在探討台灣新聞媒體對於同性婚姻議題的再現，觀察再現論述語言中的特性，包含新聞媒體如何建構同性婚姻議題，以及議題中的同志。亦試圖討論論述特性所隱含的權力關係或意識形態。接著，搭配社會政治脈絡背景，觀察再現論述隨社會變遷與婚姻平權運動發展所產生的變化，討論再現論述與社會之間的互動關係。　　本研究以《中國時報》、《自由時報》、《聯合報》與《蘋果日報》為研究文本，蒐集2005～2014年共十年間的同性婚姻相關報導，先使用量化的語料庫分析法統計新聞用語和其頻率，再以此資料為基礎，挑出兩則代表性文本進行質性的批判論述分析。　研究發現，十年間皆存在的論述特性有：（一）反對方自我建構為「多數弱勢」；（二）生育能力為婚姻授權的一大關鍵；（三）同性婚姻與同志是二元對立中的他者。而過去十年間，媒體再現中最關注的是同性婚姻合法化。前五年主要將其描述為單向攻防戰，後五年則建構為勢均力敵的戰爭及國際趨勢。同志主體主要被以「同志遊說」論述來建構，同志的圖像是爭取權利的人。女同志性別被標示的頻率是男同志的1.5倍，顯示女同志受到性傾向與性別上的雙重不平等。另外，同志被視為是一種身分，且可能因為這個身分標籤，被分類為異性戀之外的他者。　　論述變遷方面，研究發現整體而言後五年的消息來源比前五年來得多元，「異性戀」被標示的情形也增加了。再現論述的變化，代表著新聞產製與社會之間的互動，呼應了文化學者Hall提出的再現動態變化性。 / The aim of this study is to investigate the representation discourse of same-sex marriage issue on the newspapers in Taiwan. The study focuses on the discourse characters, including how media construct same-sex marriage and gays’ image in this issue, and the possible power relationships and ideology within discourses. Besides, how discourses changed along with the social change and marriage equality movement development is also discussed. It relates to the interaction between representation discourse and society. 　　The texts are the same-sex marriage related articles from 2005 to 2014, which are collected from four main newspapers in Taiwan: Chinatimes, Liberty Times, United Daily News and Apple Daily. The study method is first using corpus soft ware WordSmith6 to calculate the words appear in these texts and its frequencies, then basing on those quantitative data to further conduct qualitative discourse analysis. 　　My findings indicate that over the past ten years, the characters of discourse includes the opponents would self-construct as “the disadvantaged majority”; Infertility is a key weakness which builds a wall between gays and marriage; same-sex marriage and gay are “the others” in the binary opposition discourse. 　　Within these ten years, the most focused issue of same-sex marriage representation is legalization. During 2005-2009, same-sex marriage legalization was constructed as a castle war, and for 2010-2014, it was constructed as an evenly-matched war and international trend. Gay images in those discourses were mostly constructed with “the gay lobby” discourse. The gender of lesbians was marked more often than gay men, which shows lesbians suffering a double inequality on sex orientation and gender. Also, Gay was considered as an identity, and gays may be classified as “other” because of this identity label. During these ten years, the biggest news source was gay. Generally, the news sources were more diversified within 2010-2014 than within 2005-2009, and the frequency of “heterosexuality” noted increased. The change of discourses represent that the interaction between news production and society, responded to the flow of representation which is raised by Hall. 同性婚姻同志再現語料庫分析批判論述分析 same-sex marriage gay representation corpus-driven analysis critical discourse analysis
6	A critical investigation of deaf comprehension of signed tv news interpretation Wehrmeyer, Jennifer Ella January 2013 (has links) This study investigates factors hampering comprehension of sign language interpretations rendered on South African TV news bulletins in terms of Deaf viewers’ expectancy norms and corpus analysis of authentic interpretations. The research fills a gap in the emerging discipline of Sign Language Interpreting Studies, specifically with reference to corpus studies. The study presents a new model for translation/interpretation evaluation based on the introduction of Grounded Theory (GT) into a reception-oriented model. The research question is addressed holistically in terms of target audience competencies and expectations, aspects of the physical setting, interpreters’ use of language and interpreting choices. The South African Deaf community are incorporated as experts into the assessment process, thereby empirically grounding the research within the socio-dynamic context of the target audience. Triangulation in data collection and analysis was provided by applying multiple mixed data collection methods, namely questionnaires, interviews, eye-tracking and corpus tools. The primary variables identified by the study are the small picture size and use of dialect. Secondary variables identified include inconsistent or inadequate use of non-manual features, incoherent or non-simultaneous mouthing, careless or incorrect sign execution, too fast signing, loss of visibility against skin or clothing, omission of vital elements of sentence structure, adherence to source language structures, meaningless additions, incorrect referencing, oversimplification and violations of Deaf norms of restructuring, information transfer, gatekeeping and third person interpreting. The identification of these factors allows the construction of a series of testable hypotheses, thereby providing a broad platform for further research. Apart from pioneering corpus-driven sign language interpreting research, the study makes significant contributions to present knowledge of evaluative models, interpreting strategies and norms and systems of transcription and annotation. / Linguistics / Thesis (D. Litt.et Phil. (Linguistics) Interpreting studies Grounded theory Descriptive translation studies Tertium comparationis Qualitative analysis Sign language interpreting Comprehension of sign language South African Sign Language Sign language interpreting studies Language variation Mouthing Interpreter signing skills Interpreter visibility Corpus-driven research Interpreting strategies Corpus design Corpus annotation Sign language transcription Deaf studies Questionnaire research Triangulation Eye-tracking Norms 418.02 South African Sign Language
7	An assessment of student's English vocabulary levels and an exploration of the vocabulary profile of teacher's spoken discourse in an international high school Creighton, Graham Robert 10 1900 (has links) In many international schools where English is the language of learning and teaching there are large percentages of students whose first language is not English. Many of these students may have low vocabulary levels which inhibits their chances of taking full advantage of their education. Low vocabulary levels can be a particular problem for students in mainstream classes where fluent English speaking teachers are using English to teach content areas of Mathematics, Science and History. Not only do students have to comprehend the low-frequency, academic and technical vocabulary pertaining to the subject, but they also need to know the higher frequency vocabulary that makes up general English usage. If students’ vocabulary levels fall too far below the vocabulary levels with which their teachers are speaking, then their chance of comprehending the topic is small, as is their chance of succeeding in their subjects. This study has two broad aims. Firstly, I have set out to assess the English vocabulary levels of students at an international school where English is the language of learning and teaching. The majority of students at this school do not have English as their first language. The second aim of this study is to explore the vocabulary profile of the teachers’ spoken discourse at the research school. By gaining a better understanding of the nature of teacher discourse – specifically the percentage of high, mid and low-frequency vocabulary, as well as academic vocabulary that they use – English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers will be in a stronger position to identify what the vocabulary learning task is and be able to assist students in reaching the vocabulary levels necessary to make sense of their lessons. This study revealed a large gap between the generally low vocabulary levels of ESL students and the vocabulary levels spoken by their teachers. As a result the need for explicit vocabulary instruction and learning is shown to be very important in English medium (international) schools, where there are large numbers of students whose first language is not English. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Applied Linguistics) English as a second language (ESL) First language (L1) General service vocabulary Academic vocabulary Technical vocabulary Word family High-frequency vocabulary Mid-frequency vocabulary Low-frequency vocabulary General service list (GSL) Academic word list (AWL) Content words Controlled productive vocabulary Formulaic sequences Function words Headword Lemma Word family Word frequency Technical vocabulary English for academic purposes (EAP) Incidental learning Intentioal learning Lexis Collocation Lexico-grammar Concordance Quantitative research Qualitative research Corpus-driven approach Corpus-based approach 428.1 Vocabulary -- Study and teaching English language -- Word frequency English language -- Study and teaching Communicative competence
8	A critical investigation of deaf comprehension of signed tv news interpretation Wehrmeyer, Jennifer Ella January 2013 (has links) This study investigates factors hampering comprehension of sign language interpretations rendered on South African TV news bulletins in terms of Deaf viewers’ expectancy norms and corpus analysis of authentic interpretations. The research fills a gap in the emerging discipline of Sign Language Interpreting Studies, specifically with reference to corpus studies. The study presents a new model for translation/interpretation evaluation based on the introduction of Grounded Theory (GT) into a reception-oriented model. The research question is addressed holistically in terms of target audience competencies and expectations, aspects of the physical setting, interpreters’ use of language and interpreting choices. The South African Deaf community are incorporated as experts into the assessment process, thereby empirically grounding the research within the socio-dynamic context of the target audience. Triangulation in data collection and analysis was provided by applying multiple mixed data collection methods, namely questionnaires, interviews, eye-tracking and corpus tools. The primary variables identified by the study are the small picture size and use of dialect. Secondary variables identified include inconsistent or inadequate use of non-manual features, incoherent or non-simultaneous mouthing, careless or incorrect sign execution, too fast signing, loss of visibility against skin or clothing, omission of vital elements of sentence structure, adherence to source language structures, meaningless additions, incorrect referencing, oversimplification and violations of Deaf norms of restructuring, information transfer, gatekeeping and third person interpreting. The identification of these factors allows the construction of a series of testable hypotheses, thereby providing a broad platform for further research. Apart from pioneering corpus-driven sign language interpreting research, the study makes significant contributions to present knowledge of evaluative models, interpreting strategies and norms and systems of transcription and annotation. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / Thesis (D. Litt.et Phil. (Linguistics) Interpreting studies Grounded theory Descriptive translation studies Tertium comparationis Qualitative analysis Sign language interpreting Comprehension of sign language South African Sign Language Sign language interpreting studies Language variation Mouthing Interpreter signing skills Interpreter visibility Corpus-driven research Interpreting strategies Corpus design Corpus annotation Sign language transcription Deaf studies Questionnaire research Triangulation Eye-tracking Norms 418.02 South African Sign Language

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