The purpose of this study was to examine selected effects of using workbooks in the teaching of eighth-grade English grammar.

by Xu Yulong. / Thesis (M.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1984 / Bibliography: leaves 170-176

Intensive college-level ESL programs typically focus on building students' academic skills in English. Yet many ESL students leave the intensive programs only to find that they cannot sufficiently comprehend conversations with native English-speaking classmates or understand freshman-level lectures. While the students frequently perceive the problem as relating to the rapid speech tempo used by native speakers, an integral part of the comprehension problem is the pervasive use of modified forms of English, commonly called reductions, contractions, and assimilations. The present research investigates whether comprehension of certain modified forms of spoken informal English can be used to measure students' level of proficiency. The research, based on an integrative approach to learning, hypothesizes that successful identification of informal forms may be as reliable and valid as standardized tests currently used to measure students' proficiency in grammar and listening comprehension. The instrument for conducting the research is a contextualized taped dialogue presented as a cloze exercise which depends on redundancy features of English in addition to knowledge of grammatical structures to help the subject reconstruct missing grammatical elements of the dialogue. Research data were not statistically significant to support the original hypothesis because of small sample size, but some general conclusions can be drawn. Conclusions and recommendations are discussed with attention to current trends toward content-based classes.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

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This dissertation has three main goals: 1. To provide an analysis of the syntax and semantics of Salish determiners and quantifiers. 2. To provide an account of differences in the determiner and quantification systems of Salish and English which reduces cross-linguistic variation to a minimum, in line with a restrictive theory of Universal Grammar. 3. To assess the theoretical consequences of the analysis of Salish, including implications for the range of possible cross-linguistic variation in determiner and quantification systems, and the nature of the relationship between syntactic structure and interpretation. I give evidence that one common method of expressing quantificational notions in English is absent in Salish. While English readily allows quantifiers to occupy the syntactic position of the determiner (as in every woman, most women), Salish languages do not allow such constructions (see also Jelinek 1995). I propose that Salish and English exemplify opposite settings of a Common Ground Parameter, which states that Salish determiners may not access the common ground of the discourse. This parameter accounts not only for the absence of quantificational determiners in Salish (since quantifiers presuppose existence, and therefore access the common ground), it also derives several other differences between Salish and English determiners, such as the absence of a definiteness distinction in Salish. I further demonstrate that Salish possesses a robust system of DP-internal quantification, and that quantificational DPs in Salish function as generalized quantifiers at logical form. This means that the strong hypothesis that languages do not differ with respect to the presence or absence of generalized quantifiers is upheld (cf. Barwise and Cooper 1981). Simple DPs in Salish, unlike in English, do not function as generalized quantifiers. This result follows from the Common Ground Parameter. I give further evidence from St'at'imcets (Lillooet Salish) on the strong/weak quantifier distinction; I argue that the interpretation of weak quantifiers is derivable directly from the overt syntactic position of the quantifier.

The present study analysed the use of hedges in English medical research articles written by Japanese and American researchers. The study also examined the relationship between Japanese medical professionals' employment of hedges and their writing process. Sixteen English medical articles: eight written by Japanese and eight by Americans were examined. Four of the Japanese authors discussed their writing process through questionnaires and telephone interviews. / The overall ratio of hedges in articles written by the two groups differed only slightly; however, analyses revealed a number of specific differences in the use of hedges between the groups. For example, Japanese researchers used epistemic adverbs and adjectives less frequently than the American researchers. The results were discussed in relation to the problems of nonnative speakers' grammatical competence, cultural differences in rhetorical features, and the amount of experience in the use of medical English.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-141).