Wittgenstein was a very important philosopher of the early twentieth century. One of his most important points was that which has been known as the Private Language Argument. This argument was given a new interpretation by Saul Kripke in 1982, which stirred up much debate. This essay investigates Kripke´s so called “skeptical challenge” and his “skeptical solution” to that challenge. To further enlighten the subject this essay also discusses a critique to Kripke´s interpretation, provided by the main critics, Baker and Hacker (1984). The conclusion of the essay is that Kripke´s theory takes up some interesting and important issues, although there are some serious flaws in Kripke´s solution that needs to be addressed if the solution is to be taken seriously.

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The aim of this study is to prove that there is a need for innovative teaching methods in the foreign language classroom. This need arises from the fact that traditional and more conventional teaching methods tend to focus on analytical learning and left brain hemisphere activity, thereby alienating learners that are more inclined to holistic, right brain learning. The current study addresses this problem by showing in which ways the learner of German as a foreign language can benefit from the inclusion of language games in lessons. The research is directed towards indicating that games provide a basis for stimulating all the senses, thereby facilitating total learning. Many learners of German as a foreign language seem to get stuck somewhere in the process of foreign language acquisition, seemingly unable to progress to an acceptable level of communicating/expressing themselves effectively in the foreign language. The objective of this study therefore is to show how the implementation of language games can dynamically work against this problem. Specifically, the goals of this research project are: 1 To show in which ways language games can be used not only to motivate foreign language learners, but also to lift the barrier where motivation has been blocked, 2 To show in which ways language games fulfill the requirements of total learning / holistic learning (using all the senses, stimulating both brain hemispheres etc.), 3 To show in which ways language games form part of a communicative approach, simulating real-life situations, thereby enabling foreign language speakers to communicate more effectively. The type of study conducted in this mini-dissertation is of an interpretive nature. Theories on motivation, total learning, communicative approaches and the didactic value of games/playing are discussed in the various chapters. Information, gathered from various literature sources, has been organized so as to facilitate comparison as data-analysis technique. From the resulting comparisons, the findings of various researchers/authors have been synthesized in order to draw conclusions regarding the role of language games. Some practical recommendations follow to indicate how foreign language lessons can be structured in such a way that language games can be implemented to the benefit of students of German as a foreign language. / Dissertation (MA (German))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Modern European Languages / unrestricted

Videogames are an audio-visual instrument with a strong educational potential that, nevertheless, have not been considered as such yet. The goal of this work is to encourage teacher and researchers to exhaust the didactic possibilities of this new instrument which constitutes as well a nowadays real social phenomenon, in order to achieve thus its integration at the language teaching classrooms and, more precisely, at the Spanish as a Foreign Language ones. With this purpose in mind, we will delimit the main features of videogames contrasting it with other two elements with which it shares key characteristics and which are properly taken into account within the teaching sector: movies and games. Once this is accomplished, we will meditate on the pros and cons to which the use of videogames as didactic materials lead, we will provide certain keys for its proper usage and, eventually, we will gather up these thoughts and considerations which will be afterwards poured into a didactic proposal based on the graphic adventure game Hollywood Monsters 2.

In this dissertation, I explicate how scholars implicate themselves in the subfield of organizational communication studies by engaging in antinomic language-games which make the conduct of research (and textwork in particular) possible. My analysis suggests that the studied scholars enact these games to understand a more or less common object of knowledge, but also to constitute a more or less identifiable position in this given social space. Reflection on the ontological complicity between these position and subfield occurs uncommonly, however. I illustrate, in turn, that this lack of reflexivity hinders discussion about the way academic research practices induce breaks with the social realities which these scholars are trying to understand. In light of this argument, and based predominantly on a translation and extension of Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas, this dissertation thus illustrates how the language-games of scholars in organizational communication studies sustain a limited practice of reflexivity and considers its effects on their production of knowledge.

In this dissertation, I explicate how scholars implicate themselves in the subfield of organizational communication studies by engaging in antinomic language-games which make the conduct of research (and textwork in particular) possible. My analysis suggests that the studied scholars enact these games to understand a more or less common object of knowledge, but also to constitute a more or less identifiable position in this given social space. Reflection on the ontological complicity between these position and subfield occurs uncommonly, however. I illustrate, in turn, that this lack of reflexivity hinders discussion about the way academic research practices induce breaks with the social realities which these scholars are trying to understand. In light of this argument, and based predominantly on a translation and extension of Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas, this dissertation thus illustrates how the language-games of scholars in organizational communication studies sustain a limited practice of reflexivity and considers its effects on their production of knowledge.

Robert Brandom has provided what is probably one of the best worked out accounts of how the meanings of linguistic expressions are determined by how they are used—in particular, used in inferences. There are three different types of inferential relations in terms of which Brandom gives his account: commitment-preserving, entitlement-preserving, and incompatibility relations. Brandom also recognizes that most of the reasoning we engage in is defeasible (or deductively inconclusive). For example, the inference from ‘Tweety is a bird’ to ‘Tweety can fly’ is defeasible, because it can be defeated if there is stronger overriding reason to deny that ‘Tweety can fly’—such as Tweety’s being a penguin. Surprisingly, Brandom’s three types of inferential relations are inadequate for describing defeasible inference. In my dissertation I explain how the problem arises—it’s actually two problems—and I propose a solution that is consistent with Brandom’s overall approach. The first problem is that although Brandom's account does explain how someone can lose entitlement to a claim by committing themselves to some other claim, as in the Tweety example, it doesn’t allow subsequent recovery of entitlement to that claim by the addition of yet further information—say, that Tweety is a penguin with a jetpack. Once defeated (by some information), an inference stays defeated, on Brandom's account. The second problem is that of interpretation: when should we interpret someone as committed to the propriety of an inference that is defeasible? Brandom's account of what it is to endorse an inferential relation has no room for the important distinction between endorsing an inference in a context in which it happens to be defeated, and not endorsing it at all. In the latter portion of this dissertation I propose various modifications to Brandom’s account that will allow it overcome these problems. I solve the first problem by modifying Brandom’s account of how someone is obliged to update their beliefs in light of the inferential relations they endorse. I solve the second problem by modifying Brandom’s account of when we can appropriately interpret someone as endorsing particular inferential relations.

139f. / Submitted by Suelen Reis (suziy.ellen@gmail.com) on 2013-04-11T15:39:48Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Cristiana Bastosseg.pdf: 3967830 bytes, checksum: e55daf73998d4d6e7298933cd1b15c08 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rodrigo Meirelles(rodrigomei@ufba.br) on 2013-05-16T17:57:07Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Cristiana Bastosseg.pdf: 3967830 bytes, checksum: e55daf73998d4d6e7298933cd1b15c08 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-05-16T17:57:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Cristiana Bastosseg.pdf: 3967830 bytes, checksum: e55daf73998d4d6e7298933cd1b15c08 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / A gramática do social, instituída nos discursos de Pierre Bourdieu, conforma o objeto da tese ora apresentada. Com o propósito de refletir sobre os “fundamentos” da arquitetura teórica do sociólogo francês, os pressupostos da gramática de jogos de linguagem, elaborada por Ludwig Wittgenstein, foram constituídos em instrumentos de investigação. Para tanto, são apresentadas inicialmente, algumas das principais construções de Bourdieu sobre a ciência, mais especificamente, os princípios de “seu” racionalismo aplicado e as constatações relativas às características do campo científico, estes delineando um panorama de seu pensamento que está presente nas observações sobre sua linguagem. A apresentação da gramática de jogos de linguagem, por sua vez, inclui alguns dos argumentos que constam em Investigações Filosóficas e Da certeza, e que, essencialmente, sustentam a autonomia da linguagem na constituição do sentido. Em outras palavras, nos termos do filósofo austríaco, as práticas linguísticas estabelecidas por formas de vida instituem o sentido que, deste modo, apenas pode ser desvelado na dependência dos esclarecimentos relativos aos usos de palavras e enunciados de uma linguagem. Desta perspectiva, conhecer o funcionamento da linguagem de Bourdieu tornou-se condição para desvelar o sentido de suas constatações sociológicas, por permitir o reconhecimento das regras determinadas pelas aplicações de palavras e proposições em seus discursos, estes destinados à descrição do objeto/conceito social. O que orientou as observações sobre a referida linguagem sociológica, mais precisamente, relativas às técnicas ou recursos linguísticos mobilizados para a descrição do social nas obras selecionadas. Assim, a atenção dirigiu-se aos usos de palavras que instituem as peculiaridades do modo de representação do social de Bourdieu, tendo como referência as noções de paradigma, imagem e aspecto, a exemplo dos usos de conceitos como espaço, estrutura, sistema, além de termos mais característicos, como campo, habitus e capital. A reflexão estende-se, mais propriamente, em relação aos fundamentos da sociologia bourdieuniana, com base na concepção de proposições gramaticais, conduzindo a questões sobre a possibilidade de reconhecer fronteiras entre o empírico e o gramatical em seus discursos. Portanto, este exercício de observação, assentado em tais pressupostos, permitiu uma reflexão sobre possibilidades e limites implicados no esforço para reconhecer os fins de sua justificação ou as bases inamovíveis do jogo de linguagem bourdieuniano, abrigado pelas formas de vida associadas às ciências sociais. Proximidades e distinções entre o ponto de vista sócioepistemológico de Bourdieu e a perspectiva da autonomia da linguagem sustentada por Wittgenstein, também, integram esta elaboração, como objeto das digressões que apresentam uma teia de questões e tensões relativas ao “encontro” das certezas sócio-históricas de Bourdieu com as razões wittgensteinianas sobre as “contingências” inerentes à linguagem. Este exercício, portanto, não se volta ao social como fenômeno do mundo, e sim sobre a constituição do “fenômeno social” pela gramática do objeto/conceito/prova designado pela palavra social, na gramática instituída por práticas linguísticas de Pierre Bourdieu. / Salvador

Syftet med följande studie är att utifrån en sociokulturell teori bidra med ny kunskap om hur pedagoger i förskoleklass uppfattar språklek och dess betydelse för läs- och skrivinlärningen samt att identifiera pedagogernas medvetenhet för språklekens betydelse i ett främjande och förebyggande perspektiv inom det specialpedagogiska området. Tidigare forskning bekräftar användandet av språklek och att det med stor fördel kan användas i ett förebyggande syfte för läs- och skrivinlärningen.    Studiens empiriska material är insamlat genom ostrukturerade, semistrukturerade gruppintervjuer med inspiration från fokusgruppmetoden. Som metodisk ansats ses det empiriska materialet utifrån en kvalitativ innehållsanalys för att nå olika perspektiv på innehållet.  Resultatet visar att pedagogerna har en relevant utbildning för sitt kunskapsuppdrag och för språklek. Vidare visar resultatet att pedagogernas uppfattningar förstärker sambandet mellan tidiga insatser där språkleken har en tydlig plats och där språkleken kan ses som ett främjande arbetssätt i förskoleklass.  I diskussionen betonas framförallt de möjligheter som språkleken ger och hur det kan påverka skolor på organisationsnivå där beslut fattas om extra anpassningar och särskilt stöd.

No / As growing numbers of scholars become disaffected by the research traditions laid down by leadership psychology, there is a steady turn towards treating leadership as a discursive phenomenon. In response, leadership researchers are increasingly adopting interpretive and observational methods in the search for the practices of leadership in everyday life. This article suggests that while there are many advantages to an interest in discourse and action, there are also many subtle difficulties in making leadership observable and knowable in the field. Taking Louis Pondy's notion of leadership as a language-game as its starting point, this article argues that leadership studies as a discipline suffers from a persistent category mistake; a category mistake that some recent interpretive studies of leadership reveal, but inadvertently reproduce in the search for leadership's essential character. Instead, this article takes Pondy's thesis to its logical conclusion and outlines a programme of research that confronts this category mistake, whilst demonstrating the potential for, and limitations of, treating leadership as a language-game.