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There are two main hypotheses examined in the dissertation. The first is that the physiology of the hand provides motivation for the claim that sign language handshapes can be considered easy, hard or even impossible to articulate. The second hypothesis is that easy handshapes occur more often than expected, hard handshapes occur less often than expected and impossible handshapes don't occur at all within a single sign language. These hypotheses are examined in the following ways: first, I provide a detailed explanation of the physiology of the hand from which I conclude that not all fingers are equal in skill and not all configurations a hand may assume are equally easy. Second, based on the physiology, I propose a metric for determining which handshapes are "easy" and which are "difficult". Third, I examine whether the "easy" handshapes occur more often than expected, while the "hard" handshapes occur less often than expected in the signs of two languages, American Sign Language (ASL) and Taiwan Sign Language (TSL). I conclude that the hypothesis that the "easy" handshapes occur more often than expected and the "hard" handshapes occur less often than expected is supported in approximately half of the cases.

No description available.

No description available.

This study explores the meanings that participants in a British ELT setting give to teachers' non-verbal behaviours. It is a qualitative, descriptive study of the perceived functions that gestures and other non-verbal behaviours perform in the foreign language classroom, viewed mainly from the language learners' perspective. The thesis presents the stages of the research process, from the initial development of the research questions to the discussion of the research findings that summarise and discuss the participants' views. There are two distinct research phases presented in the thesis. The pilot study explores the perceptions of 18 experienced language learners of teachers' non-verbal behaviours. The data is collected in interviews based on videotaped extracts of classroom interaction, presented to the participants in two experimental conditions, with and without sound. The findings of this initial study justify the later change of method from the experimental design to a more exploratory framework. In the main study, 22 learners explain, in interviews based on stimulated recall, their perceptions on their teachers' verbal and non-verbal behaviours as occurring within the immediate classroom context. Finally, learners' views are complemented by 20 trainee teachers' written reports of classroom observation and their opinions expressed in focus group interviews. The data for the main study were thus collected through a combination of methods, ranging from classroom direct observations and videotaped recordings, to semi-structured interviews with language learners. The research findings indicate that participants generally believe that gestures and other non-verbal behaviours playa key role in the language learning and teaching process. Learners identify three types of functions that non-verbal behaviours play in the classroom interaction: (i) cognitive, i.e. non-verbal behaviours which work as enhancers of the learning processes, (ii) emotional, i.e. non-verbal behaviours that function as reliable communicative devices of teachers' emotions and attitudes and (iii) organisational, i.e. non-verbal behaviours which serve as tools of classroom management and control. The findings suggest that learners interpret teachers' non-verbal behaviours in a functional manner and use these messages and cues in their learning and social interaction with the teacher. The trainee teachers value in a similar manner the roles that non-verbal behaviours play in the language teaching and learning. However, they seem to prioritise the cognitive and managerial functions of teachers' non-verbal behaviours over the emotional ones and do not consider the latter as important as the learners did. This study is original in relation to previous studies of language classroom interaction in that it: • describes the kinds of teachers' behaviours which all teachers and learners are familiar with, but which have seldom been foregrounded in classroom-based research; • unlike previous studies of non-verbal behaviour, investigates the perceiver's view of the others' non-verbal behaviour rather than its production; • documents these processes of perception through an innovative methodology of data collection and analysis; • explores the teachers' non-verbal behaviours as perceived by the learners themselves, suggesting that their viewpoint can be one window on the reality of language classrooms; • provides explanations and functional interpretations for the many spontaneous and apparently unimportant actions that teachers use on a routine basis; • identifies a new area which needs consideration in any future research and pedagogy of language teaching and learning.

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In the last 20 years, linguists and community members engaged in fieldwork with endangered languages have become increasingly aware of and vocal about the ethical dilemmas that potentially can, and often do, arise in work of this nature. One result of this can be seen in the reconceptualization of best practices and methodologies in linguistic fieldwork. There is a strong push towards collaborative, community-driven, and interdisciplinary forms of research, and a concomitant shift in the roles taken on by academic and community-based researchers. The shifts in roles in turn have led academics and community-members to rethink the responsibilities associated with these roles. The purpose of this thesis is threefold: firstly, to provide a description of a highly collaborative, community-driven project involving, as one of its components, the documentation of language associated with Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK); secondly, to consider and illustrate how the relative roles of academics and community participants have shifted and thirdly, to discuss responsibilities associated with the protection of the TEK documented through this work – knowledge that would not have been documented to the same extent if the project had not been collaborative and community-driven. These topics evolved from the knowledge and guidance of Kʷakʷaka'wakʷ Clan Chief Kʷaxsistalla (Adam Dick), as well as the ethnoecological/linguistic projects that this thesis is centred on. I propose that a) collaborative research that is community-steered can be supported by the Community-Based Language Research model developed by Czaykowska-Higgins (2009), b) within this emerging research framework unconventional research roles can be assumed by all participants, c) it is important to respect and protect the Traditional Ecological Knowledge recorded in research with Indigenous experts, and d) existing systems of Intellectual Property fall short in adequately protecting and respecting TEK. I conclude this study by relating these issues to larger movements occurring within linguistics and social science and humanities research in general. I suggest a move away from subscribing to the Intellectual Property system, and towards approaching language research through a human rights framework. The result of this thesis is an analysis of collaborative community-based language research with and within an Indigenous community in Canada. It will contribute to the ongoing discussions and evaluations of changing roles and responsibilities in field research in linguistics. / Graduate

One of the major goals of software engineering is to control the development and maintenance of software products. With the growing use and importance of the Ada programming language, control over the software life cycle of Ada systems is becoming even more important. Software complexity metrics have been developed to aid software engineers in the design and development of software systems. This research defines metrics for Ada and uses an automated analysis tool to calculate them. This tool can be used by the software engineer to help maintain control over Ada software products. The validation of this tool was performed by analyzing a medium-sized commercial Ada product. The flow of control and flow of information through the use of Ada packages can be measured. The results show that software complexity metrics can be applied to Ada and produce meaningful results. / Master of Science

Behavioral modeling of RF systems with VHDL is considered and a modeling methodology is developed for modeling the I/O response of these systems. A Pulsed Doppler radar system is chosen as a representative system, and a VHDL model for this system is presented. The modeling approach and the working of the model are explained, and some example runs are provided. Some problems that are posed by VHDL in attempting to model the behavior of RF systems are discussed, along with the solutions that we adopted. A fault diagnosis methodology for systems of this type that uses information about the behavior of the system (extracted from a VHDL model of the system) is discussed, and an example is presented. / Master of Science

In this research, a C-Based Simulation Toolkit (CBST) was developed. It supports discrete, continuous, and combined simulation. CBST is a group of simulation support functions written in the language C. CBST functions are used within a specific framework similar to that of GASP IV. It employs the event scheduling world view for next event selection. The Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg integration method is used to update state variables. The simulation framework of CBST, descriptions of CBST functions, and details of program construction using CBST are described. Four models are developed using CBST and the results are analyzed. CBST is compared to similar software packages, namely GASP IV, DISC, and CSIM. CBST has more flexibility than GASP IV because it is C-based and because it offers resource management functions. CBST supports continuous and combined simulation, whereas DISC and CSIM do not. / Master of Science