This thesis explores the leadership styles of three female presidents in Latin America: Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (Argentina) y Dilma Rousseff (Brazil). These three women were chosen because each has been the first generally elected female president in their respective countries. Each woman’s profile is divided into two parts: 1) an expository evaluation of the life and career of each woman, and 2) a case study of her specific leadership style based on a particular event or challenge faced during her presidency. It is important to understand the political trajectories of these women because they demonstrate how certain cultural, structural, and institutional barriers have broken over time, allowing more women to ascend to the highest political offices. On the other hand, each case serves to enrich our holistic understanding of some of the current female presidents and in what ways they have been successful leaders. In general, Bachelet has been a transformational leader, Fernández de Kirchner has been a charismatic leader, and Rousseff has been an authentic relational leader. Through these case studies, we see that there is no one “feminine” leadership style, a conclusion which coincides with the existing literature.

English is taught as a compulsory subject in general education and some higher education institutions in Sudan. Students are totally dependent on the five to six hours per week of language input provided through formal classroom instruction. Besides limited exposure to the language, there are other factors confounding the teaching and learning of English such as large classes, lack of books, untrained teachers, examination _oriented teaching and learning, and teaching grammarians' grammar. Such factors have contributed to the decline of standards in English to the extent that the pass mark in English has been reduced to 30 percent in the secondary school certificate examination. The students' interlanguage exhibits features indicating heavy reliance on literal translation from Arabic. At least 50% of their errors could be attributed to this interlinguistic transfer, a strategy which is frequently employed due to the lack of the requisite knowledge of the target language. Of all the detrimental factors, the teaching of grammar seems to be the one that is most directly related to the deterioration of the standard in English. It usually takes the form of giving rules, facts and explanations couched in metalinguistic terms, which is at variance with the learners' hypotheses formation process. Reciting rules and facts about the language is the only one thing that untrained teachers can do. Trained teachers also resort to giving rules and facts due to the fact that the situation in the schools and universities is not conducive to developing the language as a skill. Based on the fact that the effectiveness of foreign language teaching in general and the teaching of grammar in particular is greatly reduced when the focus is on giving rules and complicated grammatical analysis, it is the purpose of this study to explore the possibility that the teaching of grammar could profitably be based on the findings of recent studies on interlanguage and learning strategies. The study focusses on the interlinguistic transfer strategy through translation errors in an attempt to arrive at a learnercentred technique of teaching grammar. Based on the analysis of errors, providing students with simple contrastive comparisons between the native and the target language was articipated to be more effective than giving them abstract rules and metalinguistic explanations. The study provides empirical data verifying the effectiveness of simple interlinguistic comparisons in minimizing translation errors. An experiment was conducted in eight secondary schools and the University of Gezira in Wad Medani, Sudan. A total of 714 male and female Arabicspeaking students were pretested, matched and divided into two equal groups in each school. Based on the results of error analysis, two lessons, one normal and one experimental, were developed to teach the relative clauses in English. The normal lesson followed the traditional format of examples, rules and explanations couched in metalinguistic terms. The experimental lesson included terminology-free comparisons of relative clauses in English and Arabic. The two groups were taught by the same teacher in each school and the university. The same pretest was administered as a post-test. The matched group t test was used to compare the means of the active object relative clauses correctly produced by the two groups in each school. A significant difference was observed between the two groups. The experimental group performed better than the normal group. The t values were 6.387 (df=83), 3.240 (df=54), 1.969 (df=29), 1.758 (df=28), 3.043 (df=41), 4.586 (df=35), 2.651 (df=23), 3.030 (df=14), and 3.747 (df=41). The probability that the difference was due to chance was less than 5% in all cases. The findings supported the hypothesis that the error-based interlinguistic comparisons techniques would be more efficient than the currently used traditional technique in minimizing negative transfer errors. The implications of the findings on the teaching of grammar, error correction, materials development and teacher training are discussed together with the limitations of the study and the need for further research to confirm the findings before they can be generalized.

Thesis (M.A.T.) -- School for International Training, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-93).

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Mississippi State University. Department of Curriculum and Instruction. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

This investigation focused on the treatment of English deictic verbs of motion by Spanish-English bilinguals in Miami. Although English and Spanish share significant overlap of the spatial deixis system, they diverge in important aspects. It is not known how these verbs are processed by bilinguals. Thus, this study examined Spanish-English bilinguals’ interpretation of the verbs come, go, bring, and take in English. Forty-five monolingual English speakers and Spanish-English bilinguals participated. Participants were asked to watch video clips depicting motion events and to judge the acceptability of accompanying narrations spoken by the actors in the videos. Analyses showed that, in general, monolinguals and bilinguals patterned similarly across the deictic verbs come, bring, go and take. However, they did differ in relation to acceptability of word order for verbal objects. Also, bring was highly accepted by all language groups across all goal paths, possibly suggesting an innovation in its use.

The relationship between literature and the visual arts is ancient and it has been studied from different conceptual frames. Scholars agree that both have a descriptive function and therefore share the common goal of portraying a fictional or nonfictional reality. Based on this correspondence between two different modes of artistic expression, the Roman poet Horace coined the well-known simile ut pictura poesis --as is painting so is in poetry-- which in turn functions as the theoretical underpinning of ekphrasis, a rhetorical device through which one medium of art tries to describe the essence and form of another medium of art, with the purpose of enhancing the original work described. Spanish post-romantic poet and writer Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870) mastered this rhetorical strategy by expertly weaving all of his artistic interests into his prose. The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze how Bécquer makes his readers both see and hear through his prose. My semiotic research encompasses the various forms of ekphrasis used by Bécquer in the “Leyendas”. It shows how both images and symbols produce in readers sensory experiences that enhance their role as active participants in the creation of meaning. Thus, Bécquer´s prose is like a painting which not only tells a story, but also reflects reality through the eyes of the reader’s imagination. By using these ekphrastic strategies in his collection of short stories, Bécquer makes words, paintings, and music converge and collide with iconography, visual culture, and intertextuality. These components must be read, seen, heard, and understood to be more than just complementary to the text, but rather crucial elements, equal in importance to verbal expression. This analysis shows how Bécquer’s “Leyendas” not only tackle notions such as fantasy, figuration, and imagination, but also the importance of the reader´s gaze. Bécquer integrates processes such as imaginative action, iconization and visualization, into a semantic web whereby the reader creates his own particular hermeneutic image.

The role of technology in education has expanded to a near universal reality. In foreign languages the field of Technology-enhanced Language Learning, has long sought to effectively implement instruction with these tools, and often to great success, often through the guise of Computer-assisted Language Learning. However, most studies investigating the student perception of class structures incorporating technology are based on what instructors have implemented. Students, the counterparts of instructors, often own more than one technological tool and will often employ these tools in their studies. For learners of foreign languages, certain aspects of technology are selected for various tasks based on personal beliefs on how effective these modes of technology may be. This study seeks to discover which technologies students of Japanese select, how they employ those tools and if it makes them feel more confident in their studies. This study also seeks to answer how much technology students wish their instructors would use and hopefully inspire foreign language instructors to adopt technology in a way that aligns with student preference.

In contemporary Taiwan, Mandarin language proficiency and literacy in Han characters are not only key skills needed for success in academic institutions and employment markets, but they also carry meaning as symbolic markers of national and supranational Chinese identity. This study examines how Taiwanese-language medical studies curriculum planners are promoting alternative linguistic practices as a means of resisting the influence of Chinese nationalism in Taiwan and striving to replace it with a rival Taiwanese nationalism. I conducted research for this study during the 2010-2011 school year in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. I collected data for this study by engaging in participant observation research at Taiwanese-language curriculum-editing meetings; auditing Taiwanese-language courses at Kaohsiung Medical University; and conducting interviews with both curriculum planners and students at KMU. The role of official languages, literacy, and historical narratives are examined as symbolic components of a Chinese nationalist hegemony, which was constructed through the policies of the Kuomintang's Republic of China administration in post-war Taiwan. This study also examines the relationship between occupation, language skills, and national identification in the context of the contemporary Greater China regional economy. The curriculum planners who are the subjects of this study are employed in the field of medical care, where Taiwanese language skills are valued resources for communicating with patients from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition, medical doctors have historically been vocal opponents of the Kuomintang administration's pro-Chinese nationalist policies. Therefore, this case study illustrates how the curriculum planners' occupations and language practices are utilized as resources in their efforts to foster Taiwanese autonomy in the Greater China region. This study also examines current limits to the effectiveness of language preservation and revitalization policies in Taiwan due to the importance of Mandarin-language literacy in the majority of high-status occupations in Greater China and to changing conceptions of the relationship between language practice and national identity. This study contributes to the fields of linguistic anthropology and Asian studies by examining relationships between nationalism, employment, language practice, and literacy in the context of Taiwan's ambiguous status as a national entity. It also analyzes ways in which language practices and literacy forms are created and modified as strategic acts to both identify people with competing nationalisms and allow them access to employment opportunities in the context of shifting administrative and economic power structures in the Greater China region.

The life of André Gide is divided into four periods: his early life which he considered his period of darkness, his adolescence which was his period of mental confusion, his early mature years which was his period of defiance, and his later years which was his period of leadership. By studying his life the growth of his individualistic approach to everything and his reasons for not conforming to the pattern established by tradition will be traced.

The eye witnesses against MacArthur were members of the Truman Administration. Acheson and Marshall were the principal critics of MacArthur’s stand. Secretary Acheson testified that MacArthur had done a fine job in Japan and our allies agreed without policy there. Acheson replied to the alleged lack of policy by making a distinction between our policy and our war aims. Our policy in Korea looked to a unified, independent democratic government, but our war aim was to stop the attack on South Korea. Regarding the proposal that the United States take unilateral action if our allies did not support us, he said that our collective-security system could not survive if we took action other members of the system disapproved. He opposed the use of Nationalist troops on the grounds that it would weaken the defense of Formosa, and was complicated by other nations fighting in Korea that did not recognize the Nationalist Government. Finally Acheson denied that MacArthur was not allowed to issue battle communiques on the real military situation in Korea. However he felt that the General’s release of March 20 concerning truce negotiations gave the impression that the United States was speaking with two voices. Secretary of Defense George Marshall has a military point of view and at the same time a global picture of the situation. He believed that the Nationalist forces would not be effective in Korea. He testified that MacArthur’s removal was necessitated by his public disagreement with the foreign and defense policies of the United States. He made it clear that MacArthur had not violated any military policy, but he had made public his disagreement with it to such a degree that it interfered with the carrying out of that policy. All of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marshall testified, concurred in the relief of General MacArthur. General Bradley’s testimony was probably the most damaging to MacArthur. The principal point bought out by Bradeley was that MacArthur’s strategy would involve us in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy. He pointed out that we also had sanctuary since the Chinese did not bomb out ports and supply bases. He felt that a blockade would involve the ports of Hong Kong and Dairen, and therefore would not be tenable. Furthermore, MacArthur was not in agreement with the decision to limit the conflict to Korea, and his actions, Bradeley said, jeopardized the civilian control of the military authorities. Both Generals Breadeley and Collins agreed that they would have to resign and speak out in case they were involved in a conflict in which duty and the best interest of the country could not be reconciled.