En esta tesina se reporta una investigación sobre las expectativas y la motivación que los alumnos tienen en la escuela obligatoria, noveno grado, con respecto a la asignatura de español como lengua extranjera. El estudio se basa en un cuestionario y cinco entrevistas. El resultado, que ha sido analizado en base en la teoría de las expectativas y la teoría de la motivación, se presenta con la ayuda de gráficos de barras y muestra que las expectativas de los alumnos cambian a medida que cambian sus notas a lo largo de los años que estudian. Así pues, algunos resultados indican que la mitad de los alumnos están motivados para aprender más español, ya que el interés por viajar es una motivación que aporta más allá del objetivo y de las metas establecidas en el plan de estudio. También la relación entre el profesor y el alumno es un factor importante que contribuye a cumplir con las expectativas que crea el alumno. Con una buena relación y comunicación se pueden cumplir las expectativas y conducir a una actitud positiva. Una actitud positiva a menudo afecta positivamente la motivación de los alumnos y puede conducir a la continuación de los estudios en la asignatura. / This study investigated the expectations and motivations of ninth grade students towards learning Spanish as a foreign language. The study is based on one questionnaire and five interviews. The analyzed results are based on the expectancy theory and the motivation theory and are presented in columns to show that the students’ expectations gradually change alongside their advancement through the grades during the years they spend studying the subject. The results indicate that half of the students are more motivated to expend their knowledge of Spanish, travelling being the main driver contributing to a rise in motivation, rather than the curriculum´s purpose and goals. An additional contributing factor to raise motivation among students was found to be how well the relations between teacher and student are developed and maintained. A well maintained relationship between teacher and student, with room for communication and expectations leads to a positive attitude towards the subject. A positive attitude often leads to motivational gains towards expanding its knowledge in the subject.

<p>Music, like language, is a universal means of communication unique to humans, and the overlap of music and linguistic cognitive and neurological processes is well established. Performers and listeners alike are drawn to music as an avenue of emotional expression, as music is recognized for its rich emotional content. The study of affective priming indicates the communication of emotion-based concepts: stimuli that are related by affect give rise to response facilitation, an effect not observed to stimuli that are unrelated by affect. The measure of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) reveal, with exquisite temporal accuracy, that music clearly conveys emotion concepts in a manner commensurate to written language and prosody. To date, ERP studies of affective priming with music have involved written language and prosody, and have focused on the N400, an indication of semantic cognitive integration. The current study is the first to measure ERP responses in an affective priming paradigm of music and speech. In addition to the N400, the current study is the first of its kind to measure the N300, indicating cognitive categorization and the P300, reflecting recognition. Three sets of analyses – based on categorically correct responses, behaviourally correct responses and subjective responses – reveal N300 and N400 affective priming effects, corresponding to deliberate cognitive categorization and conceptual integration, respectively.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)

I de gymnasieprogram där moderna språk ingår som ett obligatoriskt ämne kan elever antingen fortsätta med språket som de läste på grundskolan eller börja om med ett nytt språk på steg ett. Denna uppsats fokuserar på dessa elevers målsättningar, attityder och målorienteringar för språkinlärning utifrån perspektiven av självbestämmande teori och målorienteringsteori. Ett urval av gymnasieelever som läser moderna språk steg 1 på en gymnasieskola i Malmö fick besvara ett frågeformulär om deras motivation för språkkursen som de går. Resultaten visar att autonoma målsättningar samt en känsla av kompetens och samhörighet är nödvändiga för hög motivation. Urvalsgruppens målorientering visar däremot att även högmotiverade elever tenderar att uppvisa kontrollerade motivationsmönster vilket tyder på att moderna språk förblir, i många elevers ögon, ett skolämne snarare än en möjlighet att utvidga sina språkliga och kulturella horisonter. Det görs flera språkdidaktiska rekommendationer för att arbeta motivationsfrämjande med elever som läser moderna språk på steg 1 på gymnasiet. Det rekommenderas bland annat att skapa betydelsefulla kommunikationssituationer eller att arbeta strategiutvecklande för att öka elevernas självupplevda effektivitet och känsla av kompetens. / In high-school programs where a second language is included as a compulsory subject, students can either continue with the language they studied in middle school or start anew with a new language at level one. This paper focuses on these students' goals, attitudes, and goal orientations in relation to language acquisition from the perspectives of self-determination theory and goal orientation theory. A selection of high-school students studying a second language at a beginner level in a high school in Malmö answered a questionnaire about their motivation for the language course they were taking. The results show that autonomous goals, as well as a sense of competence and relatedness, are essential for high motivation. However, the goal orientation of the selected group indicates that even highly motivated students tend to exhibit controlled motivation patterns, suggesting that the second language remains, in the eyes of many students, a school subject rather than an opportunity to broaden their linguistic and cultural horizons. Several didactical recommendations are made to enhance students’ motivation when studying a second language at a beginner level in high school. This includes, among other things, creating meaningful communication situations or working to help students develop learning strategies that will enhance their self-efficacy and feeling of competence.

The aim of the present study is, firstly, to investigate the amount of Swedish and French that is produced by teachers and students in the foreign language classroom and, secondly, to examine in which situations the interlocutors code-switch and for what purposes the two languages are used. The study is based on empirical data consisting of audio recordings of interactions taking place in two different classrooms in Sweden. The study is carried out within an interactionist perspective on language teaching and learning, stressing that learning is situated in learners’ social and interactional practices. The empirical material has been categorized into five different groups according to the participation structure of each interaction and then analysed in two different parts, one quantitative and one qualitative. The quantitative analysis of the corpus established that the Swedish language is present in each of the categories. The results of the count of every turn and word pronounced in each language in the corpus show that many turns expressed by both teachers and students consist of a mixture of Swedish and French. This switching between different codes is the main object of the qualitative analysis of the corpus. The results of the qualitative analysis indicate that the participation structure and the choice of activity types and how these are organised in the classroom are decisive for teachers’ and students’ code-switching. Furthermore, the teachers’ actions concerning the choice of language for the interaction as well as their strategies to deal with the presence of both languages are conclusive for the students’ oral production of French in class. The analysis also reveals that the more the teachers use the target language in a consistent way, the more the students try to express themselves in French even if they often code-switch. The study points out the complexity of speaking French in a classroom context, where the teachers have to deal with the fact that the Swedish language is almost always present and used by the learners for different purposes. / IPACLE

Un banco del tiempo (BDT) es el nombre formal que se le da a unas instituciones comunitarias que operan con horas de tiempo personal y laboral como moneda oficial. Son sistemas organizados de moneda social que permiten a sus usuarios intercambiar su propio tiempo y destreza en forma de créditos de servicio. La unidad de moneda es una hora de trabajo. Los BDT son parte de la categoría de moneda alternativa social y representan una evolución moderna de entidades clásicas como los trueques. Los BDT valoran conceptos como compartir, igualdad y mutualismo. Así, funcionan como un sistema alternativo a los bancos tradicionales, y pueden así complementar a la moneda oficial de un país. El mercado no valora o recompensa muchos tipos de trabajo imperativo, como criar niños, constituir familias fuertes, revitalizar vecindarios y preservar el medio ambiente entre otros. Los BDT proveen un vehículo para recompensar, honrar y registrar este tipo de trabajo imperativo. Un caso contemporáneo que retrata perfectamente la implementación y los beneficios de los BDT se encuentra con España. En este país, los BDT se están usando para combatir los efectos de su reciente recesión y la crisis económica de los últimos seis años. Esta tesis tiene el propósito de examinar los beneficios de la adopción progresiva de los bancos del tiempo por todo el mundo, y en ella se analizará el caso de España como modelo ideal. Ya que estos bancos constituyen instituciones bastante nuevas, el propósito principal es estudiarlos para promover más investigación.

This thesis presents an investigation of the interpretation and application of the concept "communicative competence" in a lower secondary school in the south of Sweden. The reason for this investigation is that the author is in the teacher training programme and seeks to learn more about this important feature of language teaching. The aim is to investigate how the teachers interpret and apply, i.e. teach this oral and written competence, and what exercises the teachers estimate help the development of the communicative competence. The primary material and method of this case study consist of interviews with four teachers of modern languages.The results reveal that the teachers are well acquainted with the concept of communicative competence and that the methods applied help the students develop their oral and written competence. However, the teachers do not use the target language sufficiently, which has also been confirmed in previous research in the field. The results further reveal that the teachers find it somewhat difficult to interpret the course syllabus, especially concerning the teaching of grammar. The conclusion of this study is hence that there is a need for clearer instructions in the course syllabus, as well as more team-work between colleagues in interpreting it. Furthermore, the teachers need to use the target language more efficiently and better adapted to the students’ linguistic level in order for the students to be able to develop their ability to understand the spoken language. The results and the conclusions of this study may be of significance and interest for other teachers and education researchers.

While it may be argued that aggression against women is part of a culture of violence deeply rooted in Spanish society, the gender-related violence that exists in today’s Spain is more specifically a legacy of Franco’s dictatorship (1939-1975). Franco’s Spain endorsed unequal gender relations, championed patriarchal dominance and power over women, and imposed models of hegemonic and authoritarian masculinities that internalized violence by rendering it a feature inseparable from manhood and virility. This dissertation provides a comprehensive analysis of masculinity and gender violence in Franco’s Spain, by analyzing the novel as the primary cultural vehicle of social criticism and political dissent against the new regime during a period (1939-1962) dominated by silence and censorship. The first part of this work defines and elucidates the concepts of masculinity and gender violence and the relationship between them. It also compares the significant social and cultural achievements of Spanish women during the Second Republic (1931-1939) with the reactionary curbing of those achievements during Francoism. The second part of this research presents a multidisciplinary analysis of masculinity and gender violence in three novels: Nada (1944) by Carmen Laforet, Juegos de manos (1954) by Juan Goytisolo and Tiempo de silencio (1962) by Luis Martin Santos. Through the literary representation of different models of masculinity and the psychological and social parameters that encourage and incite gender violence, these authors conceptualize and express their political ideology, as well as their symbolic interpretation of Francoist Spain.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:24:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertaca_isabelle_mayal.pdf: 2439429 bytes, checksum: ff74cd818a2e2723bc96b08048d9c4ae (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-03-01 / The teaching of the English language has been through many stages along the years, many methods and approaches have been created, some were abandoned, others remained with new features. But it was only through recognizing the communicative function of language, represented by the beginning of the Communicative Approach, that old and new teaching techniques became meaningful for the foreign language learners. Today it is one of the most used approaches to teaching foreign language in Recife. Another approach is being used in many schools in our town, namely, the Systemic Approach. It is comprised of Stephen Krashen´s Second Language Theory and the Content-Based Instruction (CBI) approach from the bilingual education. This paper will compare the traditional approach, language through language, represented by the Communicative Approach; and the alternative one, language through content, represented by the Systemic Approach in order to investigate the learners proficiency level upon which each approach aims to achieve; and to show that the latter approach goes further when it offers its learners the opportunity to get away from the limits of the target language structure and beyond the limited number of functions, to explore the language in use in real concrete mathematical problems or in science class experiments / O ensino/aprendizagem de língua inglesa, ao longo dos anos, passou por diversas etapas, muitos métodos e abordagens foram criados, alguns abandonados, outros permaneceram com reformulações. Porém, foi só com a valorização da função comunicativa da linguagem, representada pelo surgimento da Abordagem Comunicativa, que velhas e novas técnicas de ensino/aprendizagem ganharam significado real para os alunos de língua estrangeira. Hoje, a Abordagem Comunicativa é uma das mais difundidas no ensino/aprendizagem de língua estrangeira no Recife. Uma outra abordagem está sendo aplicada em várias escolas da nossa cidade, a Abordagem Systemic, inspirada na teoria de aquisição de segunda língua de Stephen Krashen e do ensino de língua através da integração da linguagem com disciplinas escolares como ciências e matemática, oriundas da educação bilíngue. Este trabalho consiste em uma comparação entre a abordagem tradicional, a língua pela língua, representada pela Abordagem Comunicativa, e uma mais recente, a língua através de disciplinas da grade curricular dos alunos, representada pela Systemic. Investiga-se o nível de proficiência dos alunos na língua estrangeira, de acordo com cada abordagem, partindo do pressuposto de que a Abordagem Systemic pode levar o aluno a uma maior proficiência por oferecer a oportunidade de sair dos limites da estrutura da língua alvo e de um número limitado de funções, explorando a língua em uso nas atividades curriculares, na resolução de problemas matemáticos ou no desenvolvimento de experiências nas aulas de ciências

This study explored the development of new texts by fluent non-native speakers of Chinuk Wawa, an endangered indigenous contact language of the Pacific Northwest United States. The texts were developed as part of the language and culture program of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon for use in university-sponsored language classes. The collaborative process of developing 12 texts was explored through detailed revision analysis and interviews with the materials developers and other stakeholders. Fluent non-native speakers relied on collaboration, historical documentation, reference materials, grammatical models, and their own intuitions and cultural sensibilities to develop texts that would be both faithful to the speech of previous generations and effective for instruction. The texts studied were stories and cultural information developed through research-based composition, translation from interlinear and narrative English in ethnographic sources, and editing of transcribed oral narrative. The revision analysis identified points of discussion in the lexical development and grammatical standardization of the language. The preferred strategy for developing new vocabulary was use of language-internal resources such as compounding although borrowing and loan translation from other local Native languages were also sometimes considered appropriate. The multifunctionality of the lexicon and evidence of dialectal and idiolectal usage problematicized the description of an “ideal” language for pedagogical purposes. Concerns were also expressed about detailed grammatical modeling due to potential influence on non-native speaker intuitions and the non-utility of such models for revitalization goals. Decisions made in the process of developing texts contributed to the development of a written form of Chinuk Wawa that would honor and perpetuate the oral language while adapting it for the requirements of inscription. The repeated inclusion of discourse markers and the frequent removal of nominal reference brought final versions of texts closer to oral style, while inclusion of background information and the avoidance of shortened pronouns and auxiliaries customized the presentation for a reading audience. The results of this study comprise a sketch of one aspect of the daily work of language revitalization, in which non-native speakers shoulder responsibility for the growth of a language and its transfer to new generations of speakers.

This thesis project is composed of two major parts: my English translation of No decir—a collection of short stories by Chilean author Andrea Maturana—titled Don’t Tell, and an academic introduction to that translation. The first chapter of the introduction gives biographical and cultural information about Andrea Maturana and her work, and it provides a summary of most of the criticism that has been written about her fiction. In the second chapter of the introduction I describe my translation goals and analyze challenges encountered while translating No decir. I first discuss the general problems of any translation project and then focus on several difficulties involved in Spanish to English translation. Finally I analyze a variety of specific challenges from my translation project, providing examples to both emphasize the partial nature of any translation and describe how I attempted to achieve my translation goals.