One of the specific characteristics of Austrian Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) abroad is that a large part is carried out by firms, which themselves are affiliates of foreign Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). Such investment is termed indirect FDI in order to distinguish it from direct FDI, made by Austrian-owned firms. The objective of this paper is to analyse, whether the relatively better domestic employment performance of domestic firms (direct FDI) compared to foreign-owned firms (indirect FDI) can be linked to FDI abroad. Based on an analysis of the sales and trade structure of a sample of Austrian investors in Central and East European Countries (CEECs), this paper tests the hypothesis that these two groups of investors have different motives to invest in CEECs and therefore their activities in CEECs differ by type (sales affiliate, production abroad) and consequently the employment effects at home. Regression results confirm that direct FDI are more strongly determined by labour costs and exhibit an employment pattern related to a deeper international division of labour (including production), while indirect FDI is based relatively more on market seeking investment. Empirical results also confirm that employment effects at home differ. The positive (negative) effect of one additional unit of parent (affiliate) sales on domestic employment for indirect FDI compared to direct FDI is larger (smaller). The - despite this empirical fact - relatively better domestic employment performance of direct FDI is explained by their superior sales performance, resulting from restructuring their international division of labour. / Series: Working Papers Series "Growth and Employment in Europe: Sustainability and Competitiveness"

This study aims to investigate the developmental ability of beginning and advance L1 English learners of Arabic to pronounce standard Arabic geminate consonants when enrolled in a full time L2 program. The results showed that English learners produced shorter closure duration when pronouncing geminates. In particular, the beginners lengthened singletons more than the advanced learners did, while both groups of learners shortened geminates much more so than native speakers of Arabic. The advanced L1 English learners of Arabic produced longer geminate duration than beginners. The ultimate result was a smaller ratio between singleton and geminate consonants in comparison to native speakers of Arabic.

Previous research done in sociophonetic variation of second language speakers has often looked at constraints of formality affecting degree of foreign accent and how this degree of formality can have effects on what speaking styles speakers choose to employ. Furthermore, other social constraints of convergence and divergence of speech affect speaker speaking style. However, no known previous research has examined interdental fricative /θ ð/ substitution based on each speaker's interlocutor. This study explores second language speakers' English interdental fricative substitution sounds in terms of sociophonetic variation of formality and speaker interlocutor(s). Five native language pairs of Arabic, Cantonese, French, Portuguese, and Vietnamese origin were part of the study, comprising ten participants in total. The study finds age of English onset, as verified by the literature, to be the most determining factor for accurate articulation of these marked fricatives. However, other constraints for substitution choice are at hand including phonological limitations and estimated linguistic experience based on demographic information given by survey participants. The primary aim of the study is to associate some of the interdental fricative substitutions with a social variable. Data for the study include recordings of each participant reading a poem by him/herself, a dialogue with the other same native language participant, and a dialogue with a native speaker of American English. The data analysis examined the replacement sounds in terms of native language background, linguistic experience variables, and phonological constraints. In addition, quantities and ratios of specific replacement sounds for each participant per recording and per native language pair were compared and contrasted to find if speech accommodation theory (SAT), as proposed by Giles et al. (1991), played a role in any of the participants' choices for substitution. The study finds both convergence and divergence of interdental fricative substitutions to be characteristic of speakers with less linguistic experience in English. An additional stronger finding is that most participants' most common sound substitutions for the voiced and voiceless interdental fricatives were independent in place and manner, the voiced most commonly replaced by dental and alveolar plosives [ḏ d] and the voiceless most commonly replaced by labiodental fricative [f], which could be an indication of each fricative's acoustic and phonemic representation in each non-native speaker's phonological component, supported by findings of Brannen (2002). Some literature suggests that varying values of [continuant] in speakers' native languages are the means by which speakers choose the replacement sounds they do. However, such an explanation cannot be the only valid one when inherent variability comes into play and different places and manners of articulation are chosen for both interdental fricatives.

The ability to write in a second language is one of the major skills required in academic settings. However, research about the effectiveness of academic programs on second language writing in long term perspective is rather scarce and the findings are mixed (e.g. Archibald, 2001; Elder & O’Loughlin, 2003; Hu, 2007; Knoch et al., 2014, 2015; Storch 2007). The present study aimed to contribute further empirical evidence about the effectiveness of academic training on the development of the writing skills of Vietnamese second language learners enrolled in an undergraduate English program. The investigation was designed in view of the L2 writing standards set by the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) and in reference to the specificities of the Vietnamese English language educational system. The sample involved a total of 90 participants, 30 from each of the following CEFR English language proficiency levels: B1, B2, and C1. The instrument was modeled after the IELTS Academic Module Writing Task 2 which requires test-takers to write a minimum of 250-word essay on a given prompt. The participants’ essays were scored by two independent raters following the IELTS Writing Task 2 Band Descriptors. The data was analyzed through 5 one-way ANOVAs, which aimed to compare the three levels of proficiency, B1, B2, and C1, on their overall writing scores, and on each of the two macro (Task Response and Cohesion and Coherence) and micro sills (Lexical Resources and Grammatical Range and Accuracy) The results revealed two main trends. First, it was found that the writing skills of Vietnamese L2 learners of English have shown a significant improvement in the course of their study, across proficiency levels. Second, the development was of a bigger magnitude between levels B1 and B2 and on a smaller scale between levels B2 and C1. The latter trend appears more meaningful when juxtaposed with the expected IELTS writing band score ranges for each of the three CEFR levels investigated in the present study. Specifically, the obtained scores matched the CEFR standards at level B2, but were above the expected minimum score for level B1 and below the minimum expected score for level C1. These findings carry valuable implications for the specific Vietnamese educational context, highlighting both the strengths and lacks of the English language writing curriculum. They pinpoint issues related to the placement of students in CEFR levels without specific empirical data as well as raise questions about the time, effort, and teaching practices necessary to secure learners’ progress from lower to higher proficiency, particularly after level B1. Another contribution of the study is that it examined developments in L2 academic writing both on the macro and micro level, and has, thus, offered a more comprehensive picture of the different components of the writing skill and their development through a course of study. In contrast, existing research has either looked at the writing skill in a holistic way or focused on one or some of its elements, but has rarely approached writing as a balanced composite of macro and micro skills.

The increasing interest in how stance is expressed specifically in academic writing in English has generated extensive research in the past decades. Focusing on the grammatical marking of stance, this comparative study investigates the use of stance adverbials by native (L1) and nonnative (L2) speakers of English in a corpus of student academic writing. The aim is to examine the most distinctive differences and similarities in the use of adverbial stance markers by each student group. The material comes from the British Academic Writing in English (BAWE) corpus, a collection of proficient writing by English L1 and L2 students from different firstlanguage backgrounds. Using quantitative methods and a semantically-based classification, the forms and types of stance adverbials most frequently used by the two student groups are identified and compared. The findings indicate that L1 students employ more adverbial stance markers overall, which contradicts results from previous research, but that both L1 and L2 students make use predominantly of a limited number of stance adverbials. The analysis of the most frequently used adverbials indicates underuse (e.g. perhaps) and overuse (e.g. kind of, mainly ) of specific markers on the part of the L2 group. The results partially invalidate the hypothesis tested that L2 students both rely on a narrower range of stance adverbials and employ them more frequently than L1 students.

Submitted by Roberth Novaes (roberth.novaes@live.com) on 2018-07-17T12:16:43Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Robson.pdf: 1750260 bytes, checksum: bd1ee2f260e028a05e0040b93075ffd3 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Setor de Periódicos (per_macedocosta@ufba.br) on 2018-07-18T12:49:10Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Robson.pdf: 1750260 bytes, checksum: bd1ee2f260e028a05e0040b93075ffd3 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-18T12:49:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Robson.pdf: 1750260 bytes, checksum: bd1ee2f260e028a05e0040b93075ffd3 (MD5) / Higher education internationalization policies in Brazil have contributed significantly to boost international student mobility in the last decades. Aside from being considered a unique opportunity to acquire language proficiency, international mobility, along with its potential variables in L2 learning, has become the study focus of a new research field: Study Abroad (FREED, 1995; DUFOND, CHURCHILL, 2006). This area, which followed the trail cleared by SLA studies, started to catch the attention of applied linguists from the mid 1990s onwards. L2 identity, a key construct in this study, shows even more complex dimensions in intercultural contact in Study Abroad contexts. This study aimed to investigate how past participants of the Science Without Borders (SWB), the first Brazilian international mobility program launched by the Ministry of Education (MEC), refashioned their L2 identities. The impact of such experiences during the program in the deconstruction of language ideals held by the students was also studied, considering that linguistic exchanges took place between native and non-native speakers of English in a complex network of interactions. The research data were collected through a questionnaire and an interview, which were carried out with six past participants of the program and were eventually analyzed in the light of qualitative research. This study also approached the binarisms proposed by two SLA theoretical frameworks which have the native speaker as the only reference for the learner. The tenets of the CAT - Communication Accommodation Theory (GILES et al., 1987) and the AM - Acculturation Model (SCHUMANN, 1978), which suggest that L2 speaker linguistic competence is linked to how they adapt their way of speaking to that of the target language and culture, were approached and revisited. The results of this research indicated that, although the figure of the native speaker is still the main representation of English language and culture influencing Brazilians’ mentality, it was not the only one. Moreover, this study demonstrated that the SA experiences helped participants rethink their language learning beliefs and myths by relativizing English native speech patterns as absolute models. The interactions with speakers from different ethnolinguistic backgrounds afforded by the SWB were crucial to the reconstruction of their L2 identities through English. / As políticas de internacionalização do ensino superior no Brasil têm colaborado significativamente para a intensificação da mobilidade estudantil internacional nas últimas décadas. Além de ser considerada uma oportunidade ímpar para se adquirir proficiência linguística, a mobilidade internacional, incluindo as possíveis variáveis no aprendizado de L2 nesse contexto, se tornou foco de estudo de um novo campo de pesquisa: Study Abroad (FREED, 1995; DUFOND, CHURCHILL, 2006). Essa área, que seguiu as trilhas deixadas pelos estudos sobre Aquisição de L2, passou a chamar a atenção de linguistas aplicados a partir de meados dos anos 1990. A identidade linguística em L2, construto chave deste estudo, apresenta dimensões ainda mais complexas no contato intercultural especialmente em contextos de mobilidade internacional. O presente estudo teve como principal objetivo investigar de que forma ex-participantes do Ciência Sem Fronteiras (CSF), primeiro programa brasileiro de mobilidade estudantil internacional promovido pelo Ministério da Educação (MEC), tiveram suas identidades linguísticas em inglês reconstruídas. O impacto das experiências durante o programa na desconstrução de ideais em relação ao inglês por parte dos então estudantes também foi estudado, uma vez que a troca linguística ocorreu entre nativos e não-nativos de língua inglesa em uma rede complexa de interações. Os dados da pesquisa foram obtidos por meio de aplicação de questionários e realização de entrevistas com seis egressos do referido programa, analisados sob a ótica da pesquisa qualitativa. O trabalho problematizou ainda os binarismos propostos por dois modelos teóricos sobre aquisição de L2 que têm o falante nativo como única referência para o aprendiz. Os pressupostos da Teoria de Acomodação da Comunicação (GILES et al., 1987) e do Modelo de Aculturação (SCHUMANN, 1978), que advogam que a competência linguística do falante de L2 está diretamente ligada à forma como ele se aproxima da língua alvo e cultura meta, foram examinados e revistos. Os resultados da pesquisa apontaram para o fato de que, apesar de a figura do falante nativo como modelo a ser seguido ainda ser a principal representação de língua e cultura inglesas no imaginário brasileiro, ela não foi a única. Além disso, o trabalho demonstrou que as experiências em contextos de mobilidade internacional possibilitaram aos participantes rever crenças e mitos em relação ao aprendizado de línguas a partir da relativização dos padrões nativos de inglês como modelos absolutos. As interações com falantes de diversas origens etnolinguísticas proporcionadas pelo CSF foram decisivas para a (re)construção de suas identidades linguísticas em inglês.

Submitted by Elizabete Silva (elizabete.silva@ufes.br) on 2015-05-27T21:15:54Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Hibridizando o ensino de inglês na Escola de Aprendizes-.pdf: 1779971 bytes, checksum: dda12730ac67335bd1e5bfd94c7f4070 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Elizabete Silva (elizabete.silva@ufes.br) on 2015-08-05T22:15:02Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Hibridizando o ensino de inglês na Escola de Aprendizes-.pdf: 1779971 bytes, checksum: dda12730ac67335bd1e5bfd94c7f4070 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-08-05T22:15:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Hibridizando o ensino de inglês na Escola de Aprendizes-.pdf: 1779971 bytes, checksum: dda12730ac67335bd1e5bfd94c7f4070 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Esta pesquisa teve por objetivo avaliar o desempenho em inglês como L2 de alunos submetidos a atividades em uma abordagem híbrida com o uso de ferramentas da internet na Escola de Aprendizes-Marinheiros do Espírito Santo. Quarenta alunos de duas turmas intactas foram divididos em dois grupos, o experimental (ensino tradicional + ambiente virtual) e o controle (ensino tradicional apenas). O referencial teórico revisou a literatura sobre a abordagem de ensino de línguas estrangeiras baseada em tarefas, metodologias híbridas de ensino de L2, multiletramentos e novas tecnologias. A metodologia de pesquisa usada foi mista com dados qualitativos e quantitativos. O estudo avaliou o impacto de atividades on-line na aprendizagem de L2 e no desenvolvimento da autonomia e do letramento digital. Três tarefas usando variados sítios da internet foram administradas ao grupo experimental, seguidas de um questionário para cada uma, usado para a avaliação qualitativa. A análise quantitativa foi feita por meio de pré e pós-testes analisados estatisticamente. Para esta pesquisa-ação, foram utilizados questionários, entrevistas semiestruturadas e o diário da professora-pesquisadora como instrumentos de coleta de dados. De forma geral, os resultados não mostraram ganhos estatisticamente significativos no tratamento, porém a análise qualitativa das impressões dos alunos-participantes sobre as tarefas realizadas revelou que a abordagem híbrida de ensino de L2 pode ajudar os alunos a desenvolver a autonomia, motivação, um maior contato com a língua-alvo e o letramento digital. / This research endeavor aimed at investigating students’ performance in English as L2 concerning the execution of tasks in a hybrid methodology context with the use of internet tools, at the Escola de Aprendizes-Marinheiros do Espírito Santo. Forty students from two intact classes were divided in two groups, the experimental (traditional teaching + virtual environment) and the control (traditional teaching only). The theoretical background revised literature about task-based language teaching methodology, L2 hybrid teaching methods, multiliteracies, and new technologies. The methodology of the study was mixed with quantitative and qualitative data. The study evaluated the impact of online activities in L2 learning, as well as in the development of students’ autonomy and digital literacy. Three tasks using different sites on the internet were administered to the experimental group, followed by a questionnaire for each task, for the qualitative evaluation. The quantitative analysis was made with pre and post tests statistically analysed. For this action research, some semi-structured questionnaires, interviews and the research diary were used as data collection tools. In general, the results did not reveal any statistically significant gains in the treatment, however, the qualitative analysis of students’ perspectives on the tasks performed in an online environment revealed that the L2 hybrid teaching methods may contribute to the development of students’ autonomy, motivation, more contact with L2 and digital literacy.

Submitted by Maykon Nascimento (maykon.albani@hotmail.com) on 2015-12-10T19:02:27Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Producao de sentidos da lingua portuguesa por surdos usuarios da lingua brasileira de sinais.pdf: 1051628 bytes, checksum: 2aee9c2e5eaf5fa9efe94b3cf5a46476 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Morgana Andrade (morgana.andrade@ufes.br) on 2016-01-05T13:19:03Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Producao de sentidos da lingua portuguesa por surdos usuarios da lingua brasileira de sinais.pdf: 1051628 bytes, checksum: 2aee9c2e5eaf5fa9efe94b3cf5a46476 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-01-05T13:19:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Producao de sentidos da lingua portuguesa por surdos usuarios da lingua brasileira de sinais.pdf: 1051628 bytes, checksum: 2aee9c2e5eaf5fa9efe94b3cf5a46476 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Nossa experiência ao conviver com os surdos e suas questões com a Língua Portuguesa faz-nos defrontar com falas como: eu não sei palavras. Quero aprender palavras. Então, nos perguntamos: o que é aprender palavras? Assim, a proposta deste trabalho é uma reflexão sobre a produção de sentidos na leitura empreendida por esses indivíduos, a partir de textos em Língua Portuguesa. O fato de que esses indivíduos são usuários de Língua Brasileira de Sinais (Libras), de modalidade espaço-visual, gera dificuldade nos professores ao terem que lidar com as modalidades dessas línguas no ensino de Língua Portuguesa como L2 para surdos. A fim de oferecer mais estratégias para que haja, nas salas de aula, mais possibilidades de ensino no uso dessas línguas para os indivíduos surdos, é que se cria o desafio de responder à pergunta central desta pesquisa: como ocorre a produção de sentidos na leitura de signos em uma língua de modalidade oral-auditiva como a Língua Portuguesa? Para essa empreitada, temos, como objetivo principal, compreender o processo de produção de sentidos na leitura feita pelos indivíduos surdos (usuários de uma língua visual-espacial) de determinados signos linguísticos encontrados nos textos em Língua Portuguesa (de modalidade oral e auditiva). O referencial teórico está baseado nos conceitos saussureanos trabalhados por Fiorin (2006, 2008, 2010, 2013) e Benveniste (2005, 2006) de linguagem, língua, fala, signo, enunciado, sentido, texto, discurso. A perspectiva da pesquisa situa-se em Linguística Aplicada e a sua ligação com as Ciências Sociais na reflexão sobre o problema da linguagem e seus usos. Por isso, a metodologia empregada é a de Pesquisa-ação Integral e Sistêmica, descrita por Morin (1996) e Barbier (2000), pois conta com a participação e a intervenção absolutas por parte do pesquisador e dos pesquisados. Para a análise dos dados, a proposta é a descrição das aulas com a discussão baseada no referencial teórico das categorias signo, texto e discurso. Assim, a ideia é finalizar com o levantamento de sugestões de algumas estratégias de ensino de língua portuguesa como L2 baseado na perspectiva da Linguística Aplicada, a partir dos resultados apresentados em termos de produção de sentidos. / Our experience by living with deaf people and their issues with the Portuguese language makes us face with lines like: I do not know words. I want to learn words. So we asked ourselves: What does "learning words" mean? So, the purpose of this work is a reflection on the production of meaning in the undertaken reading from Portuguese texts by these individuals. The fact that these individuals are Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) users, a visual-space language mode, creates difficulty for teachers in dealing with the modalities of these languages and teaching Portuguese as L2 for the deaf individual. In order to offer more strategies in classrooms to create more opportunities to teaching the use of these languages for deaf individuals, there is the challenge to answer the central question of this research: how does the production of meaning in signs reading of a oral-hearing modality of language, as is the Portuguese language, occurs? For this task we have as main objective to understand the process of creating meaning in reading by deaf individuals (members of a visual-spatial language), of certain linguistic signs found in the texts in Portuguese (oral and auditory modality). The theoretical framework is based on Saussure's concepts developed by Fiorin (2006, 2008, 2010, 2013) and Benveniste (2005, 2006) about language, idiom, speak, sign, statement, direction, text and speech. And the prospect of the research lies in Applied Linguistics and its connection with the Social Sciences in the reflection about the problem of the language and its uses. So the used methodology will be the Integral and Systemic Action Research described by Morin (1996) and Barbier (2000), as has the participation and absolute intervention by the researcher and researched. For data analysis, the proposal is a description of the classes with a discussion based on the theoretical framework of categories sign, text and speech. So the idea is to end with the suggestions of some strategies of teaching Portuguese as L2 based on the perspective of Applied Linguistics from the results presented in the production of meanings.

abstract: This project is an institutional ethnography (Smith, 2005, 2006) that examines the lived experiences of nine second language (L2) writing teachers, specifically with regard to the interpersonal, material, and spatial relationships inherent in their work. Using interviews, focus groups, and a mapping heuristic for data collection, the study investigates the current culture of L2 writing that is (or is not) created within this specialized community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and the individual participant motivations as actors within a complex and dynamic network (Latour, 2007). Because findings from the study are relevant for a variety of fields and audiences, the dissertation is separated into three freestanding but interrelated articles. Article one focuses on the data of one participant whose teaching roles/ranks in the writing program shifted over time: from graduate teaching associate to part-time adjunct faculty member to full-time non-tenure track writing instructor. Article two uses all nine participants’ data and focuses on their perceptions of and experiences with L2-specific teacher training. Results share the perceived benefits and drawbacks of teacher training to specialize in working with multilingual student populations considering various material conditions present in the institution. In addition, the article locates additional programmatic spaces where professionalization happens (or can happen), and ultimately assesses and questions the justification of specialization of teachers within the writing program and where that specialization can/should occur. Article three reflects on a specific data collection technique—a mapping heuristic—and discusses the ways in which this method is beneficial, not only for observing the different connections that L2 writing teachers create in their work lives, but also for collecting data in any institutional ethnographic study. While these three articles are intended to be independent of one another, together they comprise a dissertation-length institutional ethnographic inquiry that demonstrates the diverse voices, motivations, and experiences of second language writing teachers that inform the decisions made in an institution known as a writing program. WPAs can use the knowledge and takeaways gained in the study to learn more about how to support and advocate for this important stakeholder group. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2016

abstract: This study articulates a framework of writing strategies and validates the framework by using it to examine the writing process of researchers as they write journal articles for publication. The framework advances a definition of writing strategies and a classification system for categorizing strategies that is based on strategic goals. In order to develop the framework, I first synthesize existing literature on writing strategies found in second language writing studies, composition studies, and second language acquisition. I then observe the writing process of four researchers as they write journal articles for publication and use the framework to analyze participants’ goals, their strategies for accomplishing goals, the resources they use to carry out strategies, and the variables that influence their goals and strategies. Data for the study was collected using qualitative methods, including video recordings of writing activities, stimulated-recall interviews, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews. The study shows that the framework introduced in the study is useful for analyzing writers’ strategies in a comprehensive way. An operationalizable definition of ‘writing strategies’ is the conscious and internalized agentive ideas of a writer about the best way to act, often with the use of resources, in order to reach specific writing goals embedded in a context. Writing strategies can be categorized into seven types of strategic goals: composing, coping, learning, communicating, self-representation, meta-strategies, and publishing. The framework provides a way to understand writing strategies holistically—as a unit of goal, action, and resource—and highlights variability in writers’ actions and use of resources. Some of this variability in writers’ strategies can be explained by the influence of various contextual factors, which are identified in the analysis. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of how the framework can be used to inform future research and classroom teaching on writing strategies. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Applied Linguistics 2016