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The aim of this essay is to try and describe the linguistic features, and the social practices, that characterize the so-called climate advice genre, as well as, how the genre seems to influence the recipients attitude, and potential actions, in Sweden. The goal is also to compare how imperative the different texts, and the genre, tend to be, based on modality. In this essay, eight different texts from authorities, non-profit organizations, commercial businesses, and municipalities, are compared with the goal of finding potential genre features. The result shows that a common sequence is hard to find when analyzing the texts, which means that the speech acts, generally, do not follow a distinct pattern. The most prominent genre features in the texts are, however, that the speech acts, claims and prompts are dominant. Claims often have the function of explaining why the prompts are worth accepting. It is also clear that headlines, with the function of a prompt, almost always, are concritiziced in a paragraph below. This is mostly done by using claims or other prompts. Henceforth, the commercial texts use modality metaphors the most, while some of the non-profit organizations, authorities, and municipalities, use prompts the most. This may potentially be due to the actors' different communicative goals, which means that a commercial business, and an authority, perhaps, communicate advice with different intentions. Therefore, a commercial business may try to mitigate their communication, trying not to “force” their customers to accept their advice, which can be perceived as presumptuous. This also means that an authority is “allowed” to use more face-threatening communication because of their communicative goal of informing the general public. In addition, the majority of the texts include a small amount of modal verbs and interpersonal sentence adverbials. They also have a low degree of demand. In fact, this leads us to the conclusion that the climate advice genre tends to oblige by avoiding uncertain communication, such as “perhaps”, but it also tends to use a low degree of demand to make people accept their advice.

Research in the area of multimedia instruction has yielded results that indicate that learning is better when verbal information is presented auditorily instead of visually (i.e. modality effect) and when redundant on-screen text is removed from the instructional environment (i.e. redundancy effect). The present study aimed to extend these findings by exploring the effects of presentation modality and redundancy of verbal information on students' ability to apply and recall a historical inquiry strategy. Fifty-six students were randomly assigned to three treatment groups, which differed according to the presentation mode combination used to present the strategy instruction. Specifically, students received the instruction either as animation and narration, animation and text, or animation, narration, and text. The students were engaged in a multimedia strategy intervention for a total of five days, for approximately 25 minutes a day. Three strategy application tests (i.e., pre-test, post-test, maintenance test) and a recall test were used to measure the students' learning. Data attained through the strategy application tests and recall tests were analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) procedures. The results of the study revealed significant differences in the training main effects analysis indicating that strategy instruction can be effectively provided in a multimedia learning environment. However, no significant differences were found for the modality and redundancy main effects indicating that there was no difference in strategy application or recall between the groups. Although the results did not provide the statistical significance that supports the literature on the modality and redundancy effects, the implications of the findings of the research provide several viable areas for future research. / Ph. D.

Empirical studies of general aviation (GA) pilot performance are lacking, especially with respect to envisioned future requirements. Two research studies were conducted to evaluate human performance using new technologies. In the first study, ten participants completed the Modified Rhyme Test (MRT) in an effort to compare the intelligibility of two text-to-speech (TTS) engines (DECtalk and AT&T's Natural Voices) as presented in 85 dB(A) aircraft cockpit engine noise. Results indicated significant differences in intelligibility (p £ 0.05) between the two speech synthesizers across the tested speech-to-noise ratios (S/N) (i.e., −5 dB, -8 dB, and −11 dB S/N) with the AT&T engine resulting in superior intelligibility in all of the S/N. The AT&T product was therefore selected as the TTS engine for the second study. In the second study, 16 visual flight rules (VFR) rated pilots were evaluated for their data link performance using a flight simulator (ELITE i-GATE) equipped with a mixed-modality simulated data link within one of two flight conditions. Data link modalities included textual, synthesized speech, digitized speech, and synthesized speech/textual combination. Flight conditions included VFR (unlimited ceiling, visibility) or marginal VFR (MVFR) flight conditions (clouds 2800 feet above ground level [AGL], three miles visibility). Evaluation focused on the time required accessing, understanding, and executing data link commands. Additional data were gathered to evaluate workload, situation awareness, and subjective preference. Results indicated significant differences in pilot performance, mental workload, and situation awareness across the data link modalities and between flight conditions. Textual data link resulted in decreased performance while the other three data link conditions did not differ in performance. Workload evaluation indicated increased workload in the textual data link condition. Situation awareness (SA) measures indicated differences in perceived SA between flight conditions while objective SA measures differed across data link conditions. Actual or potential applications of this research include guidance in the development of flight performance objectives for future GA systems. Other applications include guidance in the integration of automated voice technologies in the cockpit and/or in similar systems that present elevated levels of background noise during normal communications and auditory display operations. / Ph. D.

There is a limited amount of research that has evaluated all three types of modalities and consequences during stimulus preference assessments (SPA) or examined problem behavior during preference assessments with individuals with tangible maintained problem behavior. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to extend this line of research in two ways: (a) compare results of SPAs across three modalities and two consequence, (b) evaluate problem behavior during these SPAs with individuals with problem behavior maintained by access to tangible items. The results indicated that for all participants, there was preference stability across modalities and conditions. For all participants, problem behavior occurred during the no access condition or removal regardless of modality.

Orientador: Roberto Gomes Camacho / Banca: Gisele Cássia de Sousa / Banca: Angela Cecília de Souza Rodrigues / Resumo: A sílaba átona em final de palavra é a posição mais sujeita à perda de segmentos consonantais no Português do Brasil, afetando tanto palavras monomorfêmicas quanto bimorfêmicas. No caso das últimas, essa perda ocasiona a não-concordância entre todos os elementos do sintagma nominal, contrariando, assim, as normas prescritas pela gramática. Ainda que fatores fonéticos de natureza articulatória contribuam para a perda de marcas explícitas de pluralidade, a queda dessas marcas está certamente sujeita a outros fatores internos ao sistema e também externos (fatores sociais e situacionais). A esse respeito, já foi documentado (SCHERRE, 1988; SCHERRE e NARO, 1993, 1998), principalmente em relação à oralidade, que a marcação de pluralidade no sintagma nominal representa uma regra variável em diversos dialetos do território nacional. A partir disso, o presente estudo submete dados de marcação variável de plural no sintagma nominal a um tratamento variacionista, de base quantitativa. Os dados de análise foram obtidos a partir de subamostras de dois córpus, um representativo de língua escrita e um representativo de língua falada, compostos por informantes de idades e níveis de escolaridade equivalentes, coletados na região de São José do Rio Preto. O trabalho procura examinar se as modalidades escrita e falada apontam para comportamentos diversos em relação à marcação de pluralidade e se os fatores linguísticos e sociais que a condicionam são distintos para cada uma delas. A análise geral dos resultados mostra que os fatores extralinguísticos "modalidade", "gênero" e "idade" são selecionados para as duas perspectivas - atomística e não-atomística e para ambas as modalidades - fala e escrita. Já o fator linguístico "posição linear e classe gramatical" é relevante, na perspectiva atomística, para ambas as modalidades... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Weak syllable at the end of word is the most susceptible position to consonantal segment loss in Brazilian Portuguese. This loss affects monomorphemic and bimorphemic words. In the case of the last ones, this loss causes the non-agreement among the noun phrase constituents, opposing normative grammar rule. Although phonetic factors of articulatory nature contribute to the loss of explicit marks, this loss is certainly subject to other linguistic and extralinguistic factors (social and situational factors). About this, it was documented (SCHERRE, 1888; SCHERRE e NARO 1993, 1998), mainly to the orality, that plurality marking in noun phrase represents a variable rule in different dialects of the national territory. Start from this variability, this research employs a variationist and quantitative method to analyse noun phrase data taken from two corpora collected in the area of São José do Rio Preto. The sample of these corpora employed comprehends informants with the same age and education level. This work aims to investigate if the writing and oral modalities point to different behaviors in relation to plurality marking, and if linguistic and social factors that regulate the variation are diverse for each one of the modalities. The general analysis shows that extra-linguistic factors "modality", "gender" and "age" are selected to both atomic and nonatomic perspectives and to both modalities. The linguistic factor "linear position and grammatical class" is relevant in atomic perspective for the two modalities. The writting also selected "education level" and "noun and adjective formality", and the talk selected "syllable number of singular lexical item" and "analysed constituent precedent marks". In nonatomic perspective, "plurality context" was selected to the two modalities; "syntagmatic cohesion" and "education level" were... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

The core of the present master's thesis is a comparative analysis of means of expressing epistemic modality on the background of Spanish and Czech journalistic texts. Initially, the discourse analysis and the concept of theory of enunciation are presented. Secondly, the author defines the term modality and its concept in terms of modal logic and linguistics. She concentrates on different typologies of modality presented by foreign and Czech authors as well. Further, the works focuses on the category of evidentiality and means of expression (especially lexical) of epistemic modality. The proper research is based on qualitative and quantitative analysis. The aim of this investigation is to compare the frequency of occurrence of the epistemic markers between the aforementioned languages.

Orientador: Marize Mattos Dall'Aglio-Hattnher / Banca: Flávia Bezerra de Menezes Hirata Vale / Banca: Sebastião Carlos Leite Gonçalves / Resumo: Neste trabalho, sustenta-se a hipótese de que, em relações assimétricas entre falante e ouvinte, a posição hierárquica superior ocupada pelo falante favorece a interpretação de uma expressão volitiva como uma manifestação deôntica. Com base em uma abordagem funcional da modalidade, foram analisados verbos volitivos e verbos deônticos nos discursos proferidos pelo presidente Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (2003 a 2006) a interlocutores com os quais mantém diferentes relações hierárquicas. Os objetivos deste trabalho foram: (i) descrever a manifestação da volição, buscando sua caracterização como um subtipo deôntico ou como um tipo de modalidade; (ii) analisar a relação entre volição e ordem e descrever os efeitos de sentido decorrentes de seu emprego nesse tipo específico de interação e (iii) analisar a relação entre a ordem hierárquica dos interlocutores, a expressão e a interpretação da modalidade. Observou-se que verbos volitivos podem apresentar dois valores semânticos, correspondendo a uma interpretação prototipicamente volitiva e uma interpretação deôntica, quando um determinado conjunto de fatores sintáticos, semânticos e pragmáticos é preenchido. Pôde-se constatar também que volição constitui, de fato, um tipo de modalidade diferente da Modalidade deôntica. / Abstract: This work is based on the hypothesis that, in asymmetrical relationships between the speaker and the hearer, the upper hierarchical position occupied by the speaker favors the interpretation of a volitive expression as a deontic manifestation. Based on the functionalist approach of modality, the present thesis analyzes volitive verbs and deontic verbs in the speeches of Brazilian President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2006), in situations in which hearers corresponded to different hierarchical degrees in relation to the speaker. Thus, the objectives of the present work are (i) to describe the manifestation of volition in an attempt to characterize it as a deontic subtype or as a type of modality; (ii) to analyze the relationship between volition and order and to describe the effects of meaning resulting from the use of these modal qualifications in this specific type of interaction and (iii) to analyze the relationship between the hierarchical order of the speakers, the expression and the interpretation of the modality. It is possible to observe that the volitive verbs can present two semantic values: a prototypically volitive interpretation and a deontic interpretation when a given set of syntactical, semantic and pragmatic aspects is reached. It is also possible to verify that the volition actually constitutes a type of modality which is different from the deontic modality. / Mestre