This study aimed at investigating learners&rsquo / attitudes towards English language and English speaking societies. The study also explored the historical and sociopolitical factors that might have influenced learners&rsquo / attitudes. In order to collect data, a language attitude questionnaire was designed adapting several questionnaires which were prepared with the goal of collecting information about learners&rsquo / attitudinal predispositions towards language and language learning in various countries around the world. The study sampled 219 students studying at the preparatory schools of two state and three private universities in Ankara. In addition to the quantitative data obtained from the questionnaire, qualitative data were obtained from the open ended items in the questionnaire and the interview sessions. Interview sessions were conducted at the sampled universities, and 10 students (5 male 5 female) were asked their opinions about their reasons to learn English, their opinions regarding the current status of English in Turkey and their feelings towards English and towards their native language. After the data collection procedure, inferences were made according to the data obtained from the questionnaire and interviews so as to make quantitative and qualitative analysis. While the quantitative findings of the data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics via SPSS 11.0 (Statistical Package of Social Sciences), qualitative data were analyzed through the content analysis. According to the factor analysis of the responses in the pilot and the actual study, the parallel statements were categorized into a factor. Consequently, five factors which ultimately formed five &lsquo / themes&rsquo / were obtained. The research findings were interpreted with reference to these five themes-native language loyalty, instrumental orientation, cultural interest, appreciation of intercultural contact and attitudes towards British and American people respectively. According to the research findings, Turkish learners of English at sampled universities have favorable attitudes towards the English language due to their interest in the cultural products of the English speaking societies and the instrumental value of English as a global language. On the other hand, they have developed ambivalent attitudes towards the target societies due to the intercultural contact with these societies throughout Turkish history, current sociopolitical concerns regarding the British and American state policies and finally their perceptions regarding their native language and culture. Alternative solutions at individual and institutional levels have been proposed in order to change negative attitudes into favorable ones, and prevent the generalization of stereotypes and attitudes into individual levels. In order to achieve the acquisition of favorable attitudes at individual level, intercultural contact should be promoted so that learners will have personal experiences and personal contacts rather than relying on indirect sources such as press and cultural products which might generate biased assumptions.

A brief account of the work of the Strathy Language Unit (Queen's University)to produce a corpus suitable for supporting the publication of Guide to Canadian English Usage (Oxford 1997, 2nd ed. 2007)

Les mouvements nationalistes flamands et québécois divergent en concernant leur structure; par exemple le nationalisme flamand s'est développé comme un mouvement chrétien-démocrate, alors que le nationalisme québécois contemporain s’est galvanisé autour d'une idéologie laïque de gauche. Par ailleurs, il existe un contraste entre les poids sociodémographique, politique et économique portés par la région de Flandres en Belgique, et ceux portés dans la province du Québec au Canada. Cependant, malgré les influences divergentes structurelles et systémiques, les mouvements nationalistes flamand et québécois ont développé et maintenu des profils très similaires. Par exemple, les deux mouvements nationalistes se définissent par une distinction ethnolinguistique, les deux ont un discours nationaliste parallèle axé sur la nécessité de préserver et de protéger la langue et la culture de la communauté nationale, et les deux se concentrent sur l'obtention d'une redistribution des pouvoirs culturels et politiques. Dans ce mémoire, nous proposons que le profil nationaliste ressemblant du mouvement nationaliste flamand et québécois puisse être expliqué par le développement d'un « nationalisme ethnolinguistique de contestation », qui était initialement mis en place par les nationalistes flamands et québécois cherchant à corriger les effets d'une « division culturelle du travail ». Ce sentiment d’un nationalisme de contestation ethnolinguistique est instrumentalisé et perpétué par les nationalistes flamands et québécois en évoquant certains « souvenirs partagés », qui sont trouvés dans le récit historique de la communauté nationale. Ces souvenirs partagés, ainsi que leurs représentations symboliques, reflètent les sentiments de protestation, injustice et victimisation, qui sont vitaux pour les nationalistes flamands et québécois dans le maintien de leur expression parallèlement à un nationalisme de contestation ethnolinguistique en Flandres et au Québec. / The Flemish and Québécois nationalist movements diverge in terms of their structural nature; for example, Flemish nationalism developed as a Christian democratic movement, whereas contemporary Québécois nationalism was galvanized around a secular-leftist ideology. There is also a significant contrast in the socio-demographic, economic, and political realities of Flanders in Belgium compared to those of Québec in Canada. However, despite the differing influences on the Flemish and Québécois nationalist movements, they have developed and maintained very similar nationalist profiles. Both nationalist movements are defined by a sense of ethno-linguistic distinctness, both have a paralleling nationalist discourse focused on the need to preserve and protect the language and culture of the national community, and both have been focused on obtaining a redistribution of cultural and political power through constructing an alternative political structure from that of the federal state. This thesis proposes that the mirroring nationalist profiles of the Flemish and Québécois nationalist movements can be traced to the development of a similar type of ethno-linguistic nationalism of protest, which was initially established by nationalists wanting to rectify the effects of a linguistically based ‘cultural division of labour’. As a means of instrumentalizing and perpetuating this sense of ethno-linguistic nationalism of protest, both Flemish and Québécois nationalists have relied on evocating and shaping key ‘shared memories’ found within the historical narrative of the national community. These shared memories, as well as their symbolic representations, reflect sentiments of struggle, injustice, and victimization, and have been vital for Flemish and Québécois nationalists in maintaining their paralleling expressions of an ethno-linguistic nationalism of protest in Flanders and in Québec.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:34:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Regina Celia Carbonari de Almeida Miranda.pdf: 1092839 bytes, checksum: fe8aba7405f6fe920d3407a3f03dce62 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-10-31 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This thesis that is now presented is situated at the Linguistic Historiography scope and has as general objective to examine the relation between historical and linguistic nationalism through the controversy established between Carlos de Laet e Camilo Castelo Branco, in the last quarter of the XIX century, indicating a confrontation of the space-duration feature of portuguese language, building diferent senses to brazilian history. To do this job, we traced these two following objectives: to search, in the selected polemics, the relationship between language, history and linguistic nationalism, and identify the construction of brazility senses to the brazilian portuguese through the historical development determinations, checking the gramatical codification process, under the Brazilian history. From XIX century, Brazil takes influences of other nations, farthes on the portuguese people, who presents new cultural perspectives, causing intelectual and material changes in the country. At this time, Brazil was taken by great libertarian ideals, which stimulated the nation throug the political, social and economical independence. Came to sight many controversies covering the naturalization related to the language in use on Brazil, because Brazil, nearly out of the independency process had a moment of nationalistic passions. This research justify itself in order to find an historical approach of the Portuguese Language, in a period of time when large number of intelectuals wanted to keep the kingdom linguistics model against a small group os those who wished a new language, entirely free of the portuguese rules, released from Portugal. We picked up a polemic established by a brazilian journalist and a portuguese writer, which shows the tensions brought at the time of our iminet Republic, unleashing a linguistic nationalism. The study of this polemic revealed the relashion between the tag of language and history, turning this document capable to remove the veil of language and a part of a man history. In such case, we were allowed to see in what way the portuguese language in use in brazil got distance from the portugal gramatical rules. Based upon Linguistical Historiography s teorical fundaments we were able to re-read and re-write the facts of our language and it s hirtory, by the pricipals of the contexture and the imanent theoretical adaptation. Examinating this polemic we found the linguistics and historical tags that revealed conflicts brought by the independency, the beggining of our linguistic nationalism, profit of miscegenation of Brazilian and Portugal history and the great number of cultures here stablished in the last quarter of XIX century / Esta dissertação situa-se no âmbito da Historiografia Lingüística e tem por tema o estudo da relação língua, história e nacionalismo lingüístico, a partir da polêmica travada entre Carlos de Laet e Camilo Castelo Branco, no último quartel do século XIX, que marcou um confronto do aspecto espaço-temporal da língua portuguesa, construindo diferentes sentidos para a história do Brasil.Para executar essa tarefa traçaram-se os objetivos de examinar, na polêmica selecionada, a relação língua, história e nacionalismo lingüístico; identificar a construção de sentido de brasilidade para o português do Brasil por meio das determinações histórico- culturais, verificar os processos de codificação gramatical, sob à luz da História do Brasil. A partir do século XIX, o Brasil recebe influências de outros povos, além dos portugueses que apresentam novas perspectivas culturais, que ocasionam mudanças nas condições intelectuais e materiais do país.Nesse período, o Brasil foi tomado por grandes ideais libertários, que impulsionaram a nação para a independência não só política, como econômica e social. Surgiram inúmeras polêmicas em que se debateram questões de nacionalização relativas à língua em uso no Brasil, pois o Brasil recémsaído da independência vivia um momento de paixões nacionalistas. Essa pesquisa se justifica por buscar uma abordagem histórica da Língua Portuguesa, em um período em que grande número de intelectuais desejava a continuidade dos padrões lingüísticos do reino contra um pequeno grupo dos que desejavam uma língua, totalmente desvinculada das normas lusitanas, independente de Portugal. Selecionou-se a polêmica travada entre um jornalista brasileiro e um escritor português, por se entender que retrata as tensões geradas pela independência e iminência da República, desencadeando um nacionalismo lingüístico. A análise da polêmica revela a relação entre as marcas lingüísticas e históricas, o que a torna um documento capaz de desvelar a língua e a história do homem. Dessa forma, permite que se perceba em que medida o português em uso no Brasil se distancia da norma lusitana. Embasou-se teoricamente nos fundamentos da Historiografia Lingüística que permite uma reeleitura e reescritura dos fatos da língua e de sua história , por meio dos princípios: da contextualização, da imanência e da adequação teórica . A análise da polêmica demonstrou que as marcas histórico-lingüísticas presentes nela revelam os conflitos gerados pela independência, o desencadear do nacionalismo lingüístico e que o português em uso no Brasil pouco se distancia da norma vigente em Portugal, apresentando marcas de nacionalismo lingüístico, fruto do entrelaçamento da história do Brasil e de Portugal e das etnias e culturas aqui existentes, no último quartel do século XIX

Les mouvements nationalistes flamands et québécois divergent en concernant leur structure; par exemple le nationalisme flamand s'est développé comme un mouvement chrétien-démocrate, alors que le nationalisme québécois contemporain s’est galvanisé autour d'une idéologie laïque de gauche. Par ailleurs, il existe un contraste entre les poids sociodémographique, politique et économique portés par la région de Flandres en Belgique, et ceux portés dans la province du Québec au Canada. Cependant, malgré les influences divergentes structurelles et systémiques, les mouvements nationalistes flamand et québécois ont développé et maintenu des profils très similaires. Par exemple, les deux mouvements nationalistes se définissent par une distinction ethnolinguistique, les deux ont un discours nationaliste parallèle axé sur la nécessité de préserver et de protéger la langue et la culture de la communauté nationale, et les deux se concentrent sur l'obtention d'une redistribution des pouvoirs culturels et politiques. Dans ce mémoire, nous proposons que le profil nationaliste ressemblant du mouvement nationaliste flamand et québécois puisse être expliqué par le développement d'un « nationalisme ethnolinguistique de contestation », qui était initialement mis en place par les nationalistes flamands et québécois cherchant à corriger les effets d'une « division culturelle du travail ». Ce sentiment d’un nationalisme de contestation ethnolinguistique est instrumentalisé et perpétué par les nationalistes flamands et québécois en évoquant certains « souvenirs partagés », qui sont trouvés dans le récit historique de la communauté nationale. Ces souvenirs partagés, ainsi que leurs représentations symboliques, reflètent les sentiments de protestation, injustice et victimisation, qui sont vitaux pour les nationalistes flamands et québécois dans le maintien de leur expression parallèlement à un nationalisme de contestation ethnolinguistique en Flandres et au Québec. / The Flemish and Québécois nationalist movements diverge in terms of their structural nature; for example, Flemish nationalism developed as a Christian democratic movement, whereas contemporary Québécois nationalism was galvanized around a secular-leftist ideology. There is also a significant contrast in the socio-demographic, economic, and political realities of Flanders in Belgium compared to those of Québec in Canada. However, despite the differing influences on the Flemish and Québécois nationalist movements, they have developed and maintained very similar nationalist profiles. Both nationalist movements are defined by a sense of ethno-linguistic distinctness, both have a paralleling nationalist discourse focused on the need to preserve and protect the language and culture of the national community, and both have been focused on obtaining a redistribution of cultural and political power through constructing an alternative political structure from that of the federal state. This thesis proposes that the mirroring nationalist profiles of the Flemish and Québécois nationalist movements can be traced to the development of a similar type of ethno-linguistic nationalism of protest, which was initially established by nationalists wanting to rectify the effects of a linguistically based ‘cultural division of labour’. As a means of instrumentalizing and perpetuating this sense of ethno-linguistic nationalism of protest, both Flemish and Québécois nationalists have relied on evocating and shaping key ‘shared memories’ found within the historical narrative of the national community. These shared memories, as well as their symbolic representations, reflect sentiments of struggle, injustice, and victimization, and have been vital for Flemish and Québécois nationalists in maintaining their paralleling expressions of an ethno-linguistic nationalism of protest in Flanders and in Québec.