In 1984, Stephen North said of writing center research: "There is not a single published study of what happens in writing center tutorials" (433). In the eighteen years since then, writing center practitioners and scholars have produced impressive research and development work, but few empirical studies have added to the sub-field of computer-mediated writing conferencing, though there are more than 300 online writing labs, OWLs, listed on the National Writing Centers Association website. This study started with the understanding that there are significant behavior, communication, and tutoring technique differences between online tutoring and face-to-face tutoring that can affect tutor training, which the research from the fields of computers and composition, computer-mediated communication, and writing centers shows. The purpose of this research was to describe the nature of the online writing lab tutorial. Qualitative analysis was used to prepare a full picture of the online tutoring sessions of three tutors over a six-week period in the Radford University Writing Center. The researcher took the role of participant/observer/interviewer for the sessions. Interviews and talk during conferences with the tutors, were transcribed, coded and contextualized, adding to the understanding of the tutor?s online work. Using a functional analysis model created by Gere and Abbott (1985) and applied by Hewett (1999), transcripts of the tutorial conferences were divided by linguistic idea units and coded according to function, intent, and consciousness. Additionally, a coding scheme was created out of the interview transcripts and from the tutorial responses of this study that focused on the technical and social aspects of the online conferencing, which helped objectify the nature of computer-mediated conference. / Ph. D.

Le romani, ou romanes, est une langue parlée historiquement par des communautés qui s’autodénomment « Roms », « Sintos » et « Calos ». Dans cette thèse, on se propose d'analyser une page du réseau social Facebook, comportant de nombreux messages en langue romani. Dans un premier temps, nous identifierons les dialectes présents sur la page et étudierons la diversité des pratiques orthographiques. Puis, on analysera comment la variation est prise en compte par les locuteurs, en évoquant les problématiques d'intercompréhension, d'identité et de revitalisation. Le but de notre recherche est de faire un état des lieux des besoins, réussites et représentations des locuteurs du romani afin d’accompagner ce qui pourrait être un processus d’autogestion langagière. / Romani, also known as Romanes, is a language historically spoken by communities who call themselves “Roma”, “Sinti” and “Kalo”. The purpose of this thesis is to study a page of the social network Facebook which includes many messages written in Romani language. First of all, we will identify the dialects used on the page and we will describe the diversity of spelling practices. Then, we wil analyze the way variation is taken into account by the speakers, discussing the issues of mutual understanding, identity and revitalization. Our research focuses on determining the needs, successes and representations of the Romani speakers in order to support a possible linguistic self-management.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Os diários de escrita íntima constituem tipo de texto do domínio confessional. Apresentam narrativas pessoais com características específicas ao gênero, como datação, marcas de subjetividade, escrita informal e coloquialidade. Durante muitos anos, eram escritos em cadernos e guardados a sete chaves por seus autores para que não fossem lidos por outras pessoas. Por volta dos anos 80, surgiram as agendas de adolescentes. Aproveitando o modelo pré-definido industrialmente, as agendas eram preenchidas dia a dia, como um diário, mas com a novidade do acréscimo de elementos semióticos, como fotos, papéis de bala, recortes de revistas, entre outros. Além disso, traziam como diferencial a presença de um leitor participativo: os textos eram compartilhados com amigos, e bilhetes e comentários eram escritos nas páginas das agendas. Com o advento da Internet, o diário e a agenda se fundem no blog que aproveita os recursos do suporte virtual para tornar o gênero interativo, hipertextual e multimídia, acentuando o processo de leitura e de escrita nos jovens produtores de blogs. Paralelamente, a escrita se torna grande ferramenta de comunicação no ambiente virtual, adquirindo características peculiares em função da rapidez na comunicação e da economia de digitação. A partir da teoria de Bakthin sobre gêneros do discurso e do conceito de gêneros digitais de Marcuschi, a pesquisa apresenta como objeto perceber e elencar categorias pertinentes aos gêneros diário e blog para analisá-las e compará-las, na intenção de mapear um possível percurso dos diários aos blogs de adolescentes, discutindo o contraste público-privado na escrita íntima, bem como suas principais marcas linguísticas, percebendo vantagens e desvantagens de sua utilização como ferramenta auxiliar no processo de aprendizagem da escrita e da leitura de Língua Portuguesa. A pesquisa foi motivada pela discussão de que a escrita digital pode prejudicar o desenvolvimento da produção textual de jovens em formação, o que não se confirmou, visto que a estrutura sintática da língua se mantém, e que a variação acontece apenas no nível vocabular, não interferindo na comunicação. Os resultados apontam para a utilização de blogs na educação como complementação do material pedagógico e como incentivo à leitura, à escrita, à construção da argumentação e do posicionamento crítico, aproximando a escola da vida cotidiana dos estudantes / Intimate writing diaries represent a text of a confessional nature. They show personal narratives with specific characteristics of the genre, with dates, subjective marks, informal writing and colloquialism. For years they were written in notebooks and locked up and hidden by the authors so no one else would read them. Around the 80s, the adolescent planners came out. Using an industrially predefined model, the planners were filled out every day as a diary, but included new semiotic elements, such as photos, candy wraps, magazine clips, among others. They also differed in the presence of a participative reader: the texts were shared with friends, and notes and comments were written in the planner pages. With the arrival of the Internet, the diary and planner merged into the blog, which uses virtual resources to become an interactive, hypertext, and multimedia genre, emphasizing the reading and writing process for young blog producers. At the same time, writing is the major communication tool in the virtual environment, acquiring peculiar characteristics due to a faster communication and less typing. According to Bakthins theory on the discourse genres and Marcuschis digital genre concept, the purpose of this study is to perceive and bring out categories inherent to the diary and blog genres to analyze and compare them with the purpose of mapping a potential route for planners and blogs of teenagers, discussing the public-private contrast in intimate writing as well as their main linguistic features, noticing the advantages and disadvantages of their use as an auxiliary tool in the learning process of writing and reading in the Portuguese language. The study was motivated by the debate that digital writing can harm the development of text production of young adults, which was not observed, since the syntax structure is maintained and the variation occurs in the vocabulary, which doesnt interfere with communication. The results point at the use of blogs in education as a supplement to the learning material and as an incentive to reading, writing, building critical argumentation and standpoint, bringing the students closer to the daily school of life

Thesis (DAppLing)--Macquarie University, Faculty of Human Sciences, Dept. of Linguistics, 2009. / Bibliography: p. 208-233. / Introduction -- Conceptual frameworks: language competence and the acquisition of modality -- Generic frameworks: speech, writing and electronic communication -- Linguistic frameworks: modality and related concepts -- Research design and methodologies -- FTDs in the ACAD and BB corpora -- Learner's use of FTDs in discoursal context and their individual repertoires -- Conclusions and implications. / While natural interaction is one of the important components that lead to successful language learning (Vygotsky 1978, 1986), communication in classroom practice in Thailand is mostly teacher-centered and not genuinely interactive. Online group communication is different because it allows learners to exercise interpersonal communicative skills through interaction and meaning negotiation, as in reciprocal speech situations. At the same time it gives learners time to think and produce language without having to face the kind of pressure they feel in face-to-face classroom discussion. The language learner's competence is thus likely to be enhanced by opportunities to communicate online, and to be more visible there than in academic contexts, although there is a dearth of experimental research to show this. One way of investigating the pedagogical potential of bulletin board discussions is to focus on the interpersonal linguistic devices used in textual interactions (Biber 1988). -- The purpose of this research is to find out whether students communicating online in bulletin board writing will exercise their repertoires of linguistic fine-tuning devices (hedges, modals, and intensifiers) more extensively than when writing academic essays. This was expected because hedges, modals and intensifiers are likely to be found in interactive discussions (Holmes 1983), while academic tasks do not create such an environment. Though hedges and modal devices are also found in academic genres (Salager-Meyer 1994, Hyland 1998), those used tend to be academic in function rather than communicative. -- In order to compare the frequency and variety of the fine-tuning devices used by learners in the two mediums, data was gathered from 39 Thai students of English at Kasetsart University, from (1) their discussions in online bulletin boards and (2) their academic essays. Tasks were assigned on parallel topics in three text types (narrative, explanatory, argumentative) for both mediums. The amount of writing was normalized to create comparable text lengths. Measures used in the quantitative analysis included tallying of the types and tokens of the experimental linguistic items, with the help of the AntConc 2007 computer concordancer. Samples of written texts from the two mediums were also analyzed qualitatively and compared in terms of their discourse structure (stages, moves and speech acts), to see which functional segments support or prompt particular types of pragmatic devices. -- The findings confirm that in electronic bulletin boards the students exercise their repertoires of fine-tuning devices more frequently, and use a greater variety of pragmatic functions than in academic essays. This is probably because online discussion fosters interactions that are more typical of speech (Crystal 2006), and its structure allows for a series of interpersonal moves which have no place in academic tasks. Text-type also emerged as a significant factor: writing argumentative texts prompted greater use of modals and intensifiers than the narrative and explanatory ones. Thus students' communicative competence showed itself most fully in the argumentative online assignments, and was not so evident in academic and expository essays. Frequent use of modal and intensifying elements was also found to correlate with the students' English proficiency grades, and how regularly they wrote online. This incidentally shows the importance of exposure to L2 in language acquisition, and that lower-proficiency learners need more opportunities to exercise their L2 resources in interactive discourse, in order to develop competence in using them. -- These research findings support Long's (1996) 'Interaction Hypothesis', that learners learn best in situations that cater for interaction; and Swain's (1985) 'Output Hypothesis', that learners need the chance to exercise their language naturally in a variety of contexts -through academic tasks as well as social interactions, which are equally important for language education. Extended performance opportunities undoubtedly feed back into the learner's communicative competence. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / xi, 389 p. ill

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Os diários de escrita íntima constituem tipo de texto do domínio confessional. Apresentam narrativas pessoais com características específicas ao gênero, como datação, marcas de subjetividade, escrita informal e coloquialidade. Durante muitos anos, eram escritos em cadernos e guardados a sete chaves por seus autores para que não fossem lidos por outras pessoas. Por volta dos anos 80, surgiram as agendas de adolescentes. Aproveitando o modelo pré-definido industrialmente, as agendas eram preenchidas dia a dia, como um diário, mas com a novidade do acréscimo de elementos semióticos, como fotos, papéis de bala, recortes de revistas, entre outros. Além disso, traziam como diferencial a presença de um leitor participativo: os textos eram compartilhados com amigos, e bilhetes e comentários eram escritos nas páginas das agendas. Com o advento da Internet, o diário e a agenda se fundem no blog que aproveita os recursos do suporte virtual para tornar o gênero interativo, hipertextual e multimídia, acentuando o processo de leitura e de escrita nos jovens produtores de blogs. Paralelamente, a escrita se torna grande ferramenta de comunicação no ambiente virtual, adquirindo características peculiares em função da rapidez na comunicação e da economia de digitação. A partir da teoria de Bakthin sobre gêneros do discurso e do conceito de gêneros digitais de Marcuschi, a pesquisa apresenta como objeto perceber e elencar categorias pertinentes aos gêneros diário e blog para analisá-las e compará-las, na intenção de mapear um possível percurso dos diários aos blogs de adolescentes, discutindo o contraste público-privado na escrita íntima, bem como suas principais marcas linguísticas, percebendo vantagens e desvantagens de sua utilização como ferramenta auxiliar no processo de aprendizagem da escrita e da leitura de Língua Portuguesa. A pesquisa foi motivada pela discussão de que a escrita digital pode prejudicar o desenvolvimento da produção textual de jovens em formação, o que não se confirmou, visto que a estrutura sintática da língua se mantém, e que a variação acontece apenas no nível vocabular, não interferindo na comunicação. Os resultados apontam para a utilização de blogs na educação como complementação do material pedagógico e como incentivo à leitura, à escrita, à construção da argumentação e do posicionamento crítico, aproximando a escola da vida cotidiana dos estudantes / Intimate writing diaries represent a text of a confessional nature. They show personal narratives with specific characteristics of the genre, with dates, subjective marks, informal writing and colloquialism. For years they were written in notebooks and locked up and hidden by the authors so no one else would read them. Around the 80s, the adolescent planners came out. Using an industrially predefined model, the planners were filled out every day as a diary, but included new semiotic elements, such as photos, candy wraps, magazine clips, among others. They also differed in the presence of a participative reader: the texts were shared with friends, and notes and comments were written in the planner pages. With the arrival of the Internet, the diary and planner merged into the blog, which uses virtual resources to become an interactive, hypertext, and multimedia genre, emphasizing the reading and writing process for young blog producers. At the same time, writing is the major communication tool in the virtual environment, acquiring peculiar characteristics due to a faster communication and less typing. According to Bakthins theory on the discourse genres and Marcuschis digital genre concept, the purpose of this study is to perceive and bring out categories inherent to the diary and blog genres to analyze and compare them with the purpose of mapping a potential route for planners and blogs of teenagers, discussing the public-private contrast in intimate writing as well as their main linguistic features, noticing the advantages and disadvantages of their use as an auxiliary tool in the learning process of writing and reading in the Portuguese language. The study was motivated by the debate that digital writing can harm the development of text production of young adults, which was not observed, since the syntax structure is maintained and the variation occurs in the vocabulary, which doesnt interfere with communication. The results point at the use of blogs in education as a supplement to the learning material and as an incentive to reading, writing, building critical argumentation and standpoint, bringing the students closer to the daily school of life

Electronic contracts in the new technological age and electronic commerce have brought about world-wide legal uncertainty. When compared to the traditional paper-based method of writing and signing, the question has arisen whether contracts concluded by electronic means should be recognised as valid and enforceable agreements in terms of the functional equivalence approach. This study will examine the law regulating e-commerce from a South African perspective in contrast to international trends and e-commerce law from the perspective of the United States. The research investigates various aspects of contract formation such as time and place, validity of electronic agreements, electronic signatures, attribution of electronic data messages and signatures, automated transaction as well as select aspects of e-jurisdiction from a South African and United States viewpoint. / Mercantile Law / LLM

Electronic contracts in the new technological age and electronic commerce have brought about world-wide legal uncertainty. When compared to the traditional paper-based method of writing and signing, the question has arisen whether contracts concluded by electronic means should be recognised as valid and enforceable agreements in terms of the functional equivalence approach. This study will examine the law regulating e-commerce from a South African perspective in contrast to international trends and e-commerce law from the perspective of the United States. The research investigates various aspects of contract formation such as time and place, validity of electronic agreements, electronic signatures, attribution of electronic data messages and signatures, automated transaction as well as select aspects of e-jurisdiction from a South African and United States viewpoint. / Mercantile Law / LLM

Electronic contracts in the new technological age and electronic commerce have brought about world-wide legal uncertainty. When compared to the traditional paper-based method of writing and signing, the question has arisen whether contracts concluded by electronic means should be recognised as valid and enforceable agreements in terms of the functional equivalence approach. This study will examine the law regulating e-commerce from a South African perspective in contrast to international trends and e-commerce law from the perspective of the United States. The research investigates various aspects of contract formation such as time and place, validity of electronic agreements, electronic signatures, attribution of electronic data messages and signatures, automated transaction as well as select aspects of e-jurisdiction from a South African and United States viewpoint. / Mercantile Law / LLM