This investigation analyses current issues in the language teaching situation at the University of Durban-Westville (UDW). It defines parameters with which language educators can make choices. Effective language teaching is perceived as essential in order to have competent language learners. Language teaching (be if first, second or a foreign language) usually encompasses a body of knowledge that is drawn from linguistic and language learning theories. A practical component is also included which is based on the choice of teaching methodology. Several historical factors also played a major role in determining the manner in which languages should be taught at the University of Durban-Westville (UDW). The aim of this study was to evaluate the teaching situation at UDW. The primary focus was to investigate whether educators were applying the principles of contemporary linguistics in the language teaching situation at UDW. It became apparent that not many educators were applying the specific aspects of contemporary linguistics in their teaching. This inquiry considered the role of contemporary linguistics in language teaching and concentrates on the relevance and importance of the various components of linguistics. The chapter on some of the aspects of language teaching, including teaching strategies presented a discussion of the instructional options available for the responsive language educator. Language planning and policy was considered as a potential area of specialization. Formal and informal seminars, and workshops promoting the importance of contemporary linguistics and a genuine recommendation for language educators to pay some attention to L2 learning research was re-emphasized. / Thesis (M.A)-University of Durban-Westville, 2000.

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Extensive reviews of phonetic and phonological investigations into sex-related differences reveal a mottled history. The investigations suffer from methodological and theoretical deficits: the most serious being the misrepresentation of the interaction between variables, a lack of homogeneous data and its misinterpretation, and the widespread neglect of women's speech. Existing phonetic databases are shown to be inadequate and poorly-controlled, admitting too many unwanted variables. A very tightly-controlled database, constructed for this research, contains data for eighty female and male speakers of two accents of British English. This contribution is regarded as important per se. Digital acoustic analysis of the data permits quantification of the phonetic divergence shown by the sexes in British English. Previous attempts to normalize the acoustic effects of speaker-sex on vowels have been largely unsuccessful. Here, the application of an innovative auditory normalization procedure reflects how perceptual normalization may be achieved. It further demonstrates that male/female phonetic differences remain after normalisation, which cannot be accounted for by anatomy, but are accountable by social-role conditioning (i.e. learned). These differences are statistically significant. Speaker-sex and gender are thus shown to interact at the phonetic level. Extending this technique to five other languages/dialects corroborates the central hypothesis that the degree to which the sexes diverge phonetically will vary from speech-community to speech-community. Exploration of the possibility that contoids will reveal similar systematicity shows this to be unlikely across languages. The examination of suprasegmental sex-associated differences, however, merits further pursuit. Implications of these experimental findings are discussed for 'inter alia' speech technology, language-planning and medical aids. Using sex-linked differential voice quality as a springboard, it is suggested that sex-appropriate norms are required in speech pathology. The need for socio- phonetics to be recognized as an important new discipline is thus underlined.

This thesis is a study of the theory of meaning developed by the seventeenth century Indian Naiyāyika philosopher Gadādhara Bhaṭṭācārya. It has four chapters and an appendix. In chapter 1, I highlight some of the problems about meaning and reference thematised by the Indian philosophical tradition during its 'classical' period (third century B.C.E. to seventh century C.E). The work of the earliest grammarians proved very influential We tend to associate the name of the grammarian Vyddi with the origins of the study of singular reference in classical India, and I look at his theory, the problems it faced, and the innovations of early Nyāya, Mimāṃsā and grammarian authors. In the second chapter, I discuss Gadādhara's analysis of the semantics of nominal stems, his construction of a 'two-component' theory of meaning, and his criticisms of the work of earlier Navya-Naiyāyikas, especially Vardhamāna and Raghunātha. The main theme of this debate concerns the failure of a realist or referential theory of meaning to serve as a complete theory of meaning, one which recognises both the intensional and the context-invariant elements in the meaning of nominal expressions. The third chapter deals with Gadādhara's theory of anaphoric pronouns. I argue in particular that Gadādhara's use of a two-component meaning theory enables him to construct a theory ofpronouns which significantly improves on the proposals of earlier Navya-Nyāya authors. In the fourth chapter, I discuss the epistemological dimension to the Nyāya conception of language; the Nyāya doctrine that linguistic competence consists in the knowledge of a compositional meaning theory; the role of convention in the Nyāya theory, and their thesis that conventions are grounded in the authority of the name-giver. I have added an appendix in which I examine the technical language by means of which Gadādhara is able to give his arguments great precision. I show that this language can be translated into a certain fragment of quantified first-order predicate logic.

Since the early 1980s, attitudes toward literature in English language teaching (ELT) have undergone two major changes. First, after a long period in which literature was essentially excluded from ELT, it began to be seen in a more favourable light. Second, literature began to be viewed more as a tool in ELT, rather than as the end towards which ELT students should be led. These changes in attitude have led to a surge of interest in literature in ELT, particularly in the context of Communicative language teaching (CLT). This study examines, in several ways, the nature and the extent of this renewed interest in literature. The study explores the evolution of these changes, and puts them in perspective by creating various classifications for current types of approaches to literature in ELT and CLT. It also investigates the degree to which interest in literature in ELT has moved from research and scholarship to actual practice among teachers. In addition, it attempts to extend literature's applications in CLT by experimenting with the use of literature in a domain of CLT generally regarded as unsuited to literature-based teaching: English for Specific Purposes (ESP). The study also offers a series of proposals through which further integration of literature and CLT can take place.

This thesis develops a complex theoretical model for conceptualizing the relationships among philosophy, religion, and art and, then, examines the philosophical writings and the novels of Iris Murdoch from this perspective. The theoretical model in its most general form is based on the premiss that philosophy, religion, and art can be thought of as conventionally defined linguistic fields analogous to Wittgensteinian language-games. Relations among the linguistic fields are, in turn, analysed as exclusive ("Disparate" Model), inclusive ("Reductionist" Model), or interactional ("Dialectical" and "Tensional" Models), the latter pair being most appropriate for figurative language, the former pair for non-figurative language. The Dialectical and Tensional Models are assimilated, respectively, to Roman Jakobson's theory of metaphor and metonymy as the fundamental poles of language. Emphasis falls upon the continuum between the dialectical-metaphoric and the tensional-metonymic poles as the area in which creative, imaginative activities, such as the writing of novels or deliberation upon ethical problems, takes place. Iris Murdoch's theories of "crystalline" and "journalistic," "open" and "closed" novels and the related ways of thinking are coordinated with this continuum as a paradigm. Moreover, a creative tension is revealed in her philosophical writings between a resisted impetus towards totalizing explanations and the experience of the inherent contingency of philosophical thought. Thus, there is in Murdoch's philosophy, as in her creative prose, an exploration of the dynamics between the dialectical-metaphoric pole of thought and language and the tensional-metonymic pole, with an increasing, though never finally realized tendency towards the tensional-metonymic pole. Detailed analyses of Murdoch's aesthetic and ethical thought and of a wide selection of her novels illustrate this thesis.

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii, 1968. / Bibliography: leaves [121]-124. / x, 139 l tables

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Psychology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 39-41).

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2006. Graduate Programme in Education. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 158-169). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR19759