This study is an initial attempt to identify the most common Afrikaans diction challenges experienced by non-Afrikaans mother tongue speaking choirs, and to explore means of confronting these challenges. No dedicated source exists for choral diction in Afrikaans as a foreign language. This study reviews personal views and literature from various fields that would inform several key elements necessary for the creation of such a source. The primary data for this study was collected through study questionnaires, completed by expert choral conductors who are highly regarded for their success in teaching and performing Afrikaans diction in non-Afrikaans mother tongue speaking choirs, in performance settings such as the ATKV-Applous Choir Competition. Through its proposition of methods for the improvement of Afrikaans diction practices in the non-Afrikaans choral setting, the study promotes the prolific composition of Afrikaans choral literature, and its ubiquitous inclusion in choral repertoire both in South Africa and abroad.

No description available.

Many scientific claims being made today are not based on established scientific principles. They are a result of motivating factors that include media, political influences, legal and social issues, economic pursuits, the experimental procedure itself, peer review, and, central to this thesis, the lack of science education of the public. Intelligent Design, a much discussed potential theory of biological origins is one of these claims. Intelligent Design offers an array of scientific and probabilistic arguments supporting the concept that an intelligent agency better accounts for certain aspects of the natural world. The response and reaction to this theory within the science, political, education and religious communities has been increasingly expressive. Some believe that Intelligent Design is a threat to Darwinian evolution, some argue that teaching ID as an evolutionary theory is "only fair." And all believe the stakes are high--to the victor goes the privilege of teaching their theory as biology in the public school classroom. This study of Intelligent Design is not an extensive quantitative review of primary materials in the scientific debate, or qualitative reviews of sweeping breadth of religious-based theories. Rather, a quantitative content analysis with selected primary sources was conducted to acquire data to discover which arguments constitutes effective presentation of Intelligent Design, to whom they are presented, and which arguments are promulgated and which are not. The study analyses what rhetorical devices (such as use of selective word choices and framing techniques) are utilized, whether consciously or unconsciously, in the presentation of these arguments. / Master of Science

No description available.

Specialized training in English diction for singers became increasingly prevalent in the twentieth century. Along with this growth, a small but significant literature on the subject developed. There are divergent practices recommended for American singers, displayed by nine authors in ten books published between 1900 and 1971. A comparative study yields pedagogies of vowel and consonant production. Issues of sounds in context, including proper linkage and stress, adjustments from speech to song, and practices dictated by musical style, are paramount. The literature demonstrates an increased use of International Phonetic Alphabet symbols as a pedagogical tool. The areas of kinesiology and acoustical research are suggested for further study.

In most of the optical interferometry techniques, one often get interferometric fringe patterns which include noises, and these noises will cause analysis difficulty. The method of median filter is used to sort the data in the region, and use median value to replace the center value of the region. Therefore, the median filter technique can find central tendency of the region, and less affected by the presence of a minority of aberrant value. So the median filter technique is used frequently in image processing of many optical fringe patterns The median filter technique is effective in removing noise with high frequency, but tends to smooth out details such as summits if the window size is large. So there are many improved methods developed corresponding to different properties of signal. Even though each of the improved methods has different considerations, such as to consider different integer weights, or different window size etc., their purposes are all the same, that is to make results more accurately. On the basis of these viewpoints, this thesis will use concept of least¡Vsquares fitting on 2-D interferometric fringe patterns. By finding the trend of the region, and avoid unnecessary signal consideration, make the results more accurately. In order to study the effect of the proposed technique, two sets of fringe patterns obtained from the phase-shifting speckle interferometry will be used as examples. They showed that the proposed technique presents a better result than traditional technique.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of two significant impression management strategies, thematic and reading ease manipulation, across a range of distinct corporate communications and explore the determinants of such practices. While previous studies have examined thematic and reading ease manipulation, these have viewed such impression management techniques in isolation. This research is the first to simultaneously examine the prevalence of these impression management strategies across such a range of corporate communications. In particular, no previous studies have looked at the thematic and reading ease manipulation of standalone CSR reports or compared the various sections/disclosures included within the same annual report. Of significance are the inclusion of several additional themes, namely Activity; Optimism; Certainty; Realism and Commonality, advancing the scope of thematic manipulation research from the limited positive and negative themes. It is important to examine a range of correspondence because no one form of correspondence is the same. Financial notes are heavily regulated and audited and thus should be less susceptible to manipulation. CSR disclosures have little to no regulation or audit process and as such are very susceptible to manipulation. Likewise, the two distinct reports service different audiences, who can be expected to have different expertise. This research discovers what firm characteristics are determinates of the readability and thematic content in particular specific disclosure types, industries and country of listing. Financial performance tests reveal that there is evidence of manipulation of readability to obfuscate the disclosures of poor performing companies while the themes of these poorly performing company’s disclosures closely mirror those that are performing well. In addition to the traditional performance based tests, a novel new test that combines the traditional thematic positivity variable and readability shows that positive disclosures are significantly more readable than negative ones, strengthening the obfuscation hypothesis. This research also motivates the need of a purpose built reading ease formula based on corporate disclosures that outputs a result that allows the comparison of disclosures. Indeed a very basic example of such a formula is developed as a starting point for additional research.

This dissertation, which takes the form of a creative project as is sanctioned by the Doctor of Arts Curricular Program, is a self-instructional course in solo singers' English diction. It is designed for Freshman-level voice majors and no prior knowledge of diction is assumed. The course attempts to achieve three basic goals: to serve as an introduction to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), to alleviate the often overburdened Sophomore-level diction course, and to raise the concerns of English diction to a level comparable with those of Italian, German and French.The course falls naturally into three main divisions:Chapters III-VIan introduction to the IPA, the identification of allvowel and consonant sounds in English, the correctIPA symbols for those sounds, and simple transcriptionof English words into IPA;Chapters VII-Xa detailed analysis of the rules of English dictionand the IPA, including linkage, poetical and musicalstress, and declamation;Chapter XIthe preparation of complete song texts, applyingall the knowledge and skills learned in the course.Each chapter has accompanying exercises which require the student to use information contained in that particular chapter; self-tests for each chapter are provided at the end of the course. Answers for all accompanying exercises and all self-tests are included in the Appendixes. The Appendixes also include a listing of the sources for the extensive musical examples, a pitch nomenclature chart, and a quick-reference guide to the IPA symbols as well as the vocabulary introduced in the course. / School of Music

No description available.

Orientador: Martha Herr / Banca: Achille Picchi / Banca: Adriana Girarola Kayama / Banca: Heloisa de Araújo Duarte Valente / Banca: Lenine Santos / Resumo: Este trabalho trata dos processos fonético-articulatórios da voz cantada que se desenvolvem na justaposição entre a sílaba verbal e a nota musical, considerados como os mínimos componentes que formam a linha melódica. Em nossa hipótese, a boa formação articulatória da linha melódica depende do controle dos processos articulatórios que se desenvolvem nos âmbitos interno e externo das sílabas, acoplados aos processos articulatórios que definem as fases do envelope dinâmico das notas. Como referência para o tratamento destes processos articulatórios, no contexto dos estudos sobre a dicção aplicada ao canto, propõe-se o modelo teórico de representação da 'sílaba melódica'. Este modelo toma como base a estrutura de uma sílaba verbal constituída por três subcomponentes (ataque, núcleo e coda), acoplada a um modelo de envelope dinâmico da nota musical em três fases (ataque, sustentação, relaxamento). No contexto deste trabalho, chamamos de 'abordagem articulatória' o uso da 'sílaba melódica' como recurso para as práticas pedagógicas interpretativas do canto. Esta proposta foi desenvolvida especificamente com base nas características articulatórias do português brasileiro, de maneira a referenciar o falante natural desta língua em relação ao português brasileiro cantado e à pronúncia cantada de outras línguas / Abstract: This paper deals with the phonetic-articulatory processes of the singing voice due to the juxtaposition of the verbal syllable and the musical note, considered here to be the smallest components of the melodic line. In our hypothesis, good articulation of the melodic line depends on the control of the articulatory processes involved in the internal and external forms of the syllables, coupled with the articulatory processes which define the phases of the dynamic envelope of the notes. As a reference for the treatment of these articulatory processes, in the context of studies of diction applied to singing, we propose the theoretical representation of the 'melodic syllable'. This model has as its base the structure of the verbal syllable made up of three subcomponents (attack, nucleus, coda), coupled with the model of the dynamic envelope of the musical note in three parts (attack, sustain, release). In the context of this work, we refer to 'articulatory treatment' of the use of the 'melodic syllable' as a resource for the pedagogic practice of song interpretation. This proposal was developed specifically using the articulatory characteristics of Brazilian Portuguese, in order to give the native speaker of this language a reference in relation to sung BP for the sung pronunciation of other languages / Doutor