This diploma thesis deals with the crucial impact of the neutral vowel schwa on creating prominence contrasts in English pronunciation teaching, i.e. a schwa-centred approach. The theoretical part focuses on the complex description of the target sound with regard to the suprasegmental level, including Czech speakers' difficulties to recognise and pronounce this vowel and prominence patterns it participates in. Furthermore, it defines the essence of the schwa-centred approach. The practical part presents the implementation of the schwa-centred approach in teaching practice in the form of a set of activities aimed at perception, production and raising students' awareness of this phenomenon. The effectiveness of the activities is evaluated by means of the analysis of audio recordings made before and after the teaching and assessment of students' questionnaires. The thesis also contains all worksheets with task descriptions applying the schwa-centred approach. KEY WORDS schwa, full vowel, prominence contrasts, perception, production, raising awareness

L’accent en français est considéré comme un accent post-lexical marquant le niveau du groupe de mots plutôt que le niveau du mot lui-même. L’Accent Final (AF) primaire, cooccurrent à la frontière prosodique, s’effacerait perceptivement en frontière prosodique majeure. L’Accent Initial (AI), dit secondaire et optionnel, serait un accent rythmique apparaissant sur les longs constituants. Dans ce contexte, seuls deux niveaux de constituance sont communément admis en français : le Syntagme Intonatif (IP) et le Syntagme Accentuel (AP). L’existence d’un Syntagme Intermédiaire (ip) est en revanche controversée. Enfin, la prise en compte du Mot Prosodique (PW) (i.e. mot lexical) comme unité de planification, ou de réalisation des règles accentuelles, en structure de surface ne semble pas envisagé. L’objectif de cette étude est d’explorer l’organisation du phrasé prosodique en français. Dans ce cadre, nous proposons une étude perceptive, via un corpus de parole contrôlée manipulant des structures syntaxiques ambiguës, où 80 participants ont effectué 3 tâches de perception : proéminence, frontière et groupement. Les événements prosodiques perçus ont ensuite été mis en relation avec leurs réalités acoustiques. Les résultats montrent que les auditeurs sont capables de percevoir des niveaux de granularité de frontières plus fins que ce que les descriptions traditionnelles du français prédisent. Par ailleurs, les mots lexicaux sont systématiquement réalisés par un marquage bipolaire (AI+AF) de même force métrique. AI joue également un rôle plus structurel que rythmique, en marquant la structure prosodique de manière plus privilégiée qu’AF. Enfin, AF ne s’efface pas perceptivement en frontière prosodique majeure, et garde au contraire une trace métrique au niveau du mot lexical, qui ne varie pas strictement en fonction du niveau de constituance. / In French, accentuation is said to be post-lexical, marking the phrase rather than the word. That is, the primary final accent (FA) is considered to be perceptively weakened when co-occurring with a major prosodic boundary, while the Initial Accent (IA), regarded as a secondary and optional accent, is thought to hold merely a rhythmic function in balancing longer constituents. Consequently, only two levels of prosodic constituency are accounted for in French: the Intonational Phrase (IP), and the Accentual Phrase (AP). The existence of a third level, the Intermediate Phrase (ip), while advanced by some authors, remains controversial. Moreover, the Prosodic Word (PW) (i.e. lexical word) as a phonological unit, or as the domain of accentual rules, is disregarded altogether. The aim of our study is to investigate the organization of prosodic phrasing in French. We propose a perception study on a corpus in which syntactically ambiguous structures were manipulated, and asked 80 participants to perform 3 distinct perception tasks: a prominence, boundary and grouping task. The perceived prosodic events were then related to their acoustic realization. Taken together, our results indicate that listeners are able to distinguish finer-grained grouping levels than those predicted in traditional French descriptions. Moreover, lexical words are systematically realized by an accentual bipolarization (IA+FA), with each accent carrying the same metrical weight. The function of IA is shown to be more one of structuration than rhythmic balancing, with IA even marking structure more readily than FA. Finally, our results indicate that FA is not perceptively weakened when co-occurring with major prosodic boundaries, but instead remains a metrical mark at the level of the lexical word, in a manner independent from the level of constituency.

How does cultural and linguistic background influence communication style? This topic is examined through the [I + verb] belief construct before the expression of an opinion. Since opinions carry inherent notions of speaker belief, these constructions may at first appear superfluous. However, [I + verb] forms may actually fulfill various pragmatic functions depending on prosodic variation. Unfortunately, there is little congruent data on universality vs. cross-linguistic variability of pragmatic-prosodic mappings (prosodic variation as a cue to pragmatic interpretation) of [I + verb] belief constructs before an opinion. Thus, a Proof of Concept perception test was first implemented, followed by a production task investigating the effect of sociolinguistic background on a speaker's frequency of usage for various [I + verb] forms in expressing opinions, and how this relates to perceived speaker confidence. Usage of various forms and functions of this construct was analyzed and compared between native Mandarin (CHI) and English (US) speakers, as well as EFL Mandarin speakers. The Proof of Concept task supported hypotheses overall, suggesting a possible universal pragmatic-prosodic mapping for [I + verb]. In addition, while as predicted sociolinguistic background did not have a significant effect on universality of pragmatic-prosodic mapping in terms of confidence rating, it did have an observable effect on semantic interpretation of 'speaker confidence', thus indicating that sociolinguistic background may play a role in influencing these interpretations. Results from the production task supported predictions that frequency of functional [I + verb] usage corresponded to culturally specific attitudes of each culture. Based on confidence rating calculations for each [I + verb] variation from pragmatic-prosodic mapping of the perception task, it was determined that Native US individuals were most confident in expressing self-opinions but least confident in expressing opinions of others whilst Native CHI individuals were most confident in expressing opinions of others and least confident in expressing self-opinion, with the EFL group in the US more closely mirroring the Native US group and the EFL group in China more closely mirroring the Native CHI group. Additionally, going against theories of previous research, Time immersed in a new L2 environment and L2 proficiency did not significantly influence performance. Through investigating pragmatic-prosodic mappings of [I + verb] forms vs. functions, this study aimed to demonstrate the bi-directional link between language, thought and culture. By understanding and familiarizing oneself with the root of pragmatic differences, there is hope to better understand the cause of cross-cultural miscommunications between native and foreign speakers in conversation and to minimize any such discrepancies in pragmatic knowledge and sociocultural norms.

Orientador: Maria Sylvia Simões Bueno. / Banca: Raimunda Abu Gebran / Banca: Iraída Marques Barreiro / Resumo: O presente trabalho objetiva verificar contradições e ambigüidades na definição do protagonismo juvenil e o uso desse conceito forma de adaptação dos jovens à excludente ordem social capitalista atual. As diretrizes educacionais, como a Reforma do Ensino Médio, explicitam o culto ao Protagonismo como via promissora para dar conta tanto de uma urgência social quanto das angústias pessoais dos jovens, de forma a transferir a responsabilidade de superação de tais questões aos próprios jovens, por esforços individuais, potencialização da resiliência e realização de ações sociais solidárias. Nessa perspectiva, o conceito adquire um valor político-ideológico voltado para a despolitização da juventude em relação às causas macro sociais da pobreza. A conceituação de Protagonismo Juvenil é um grande desafio para a produção científica, visto as divergências e ambigüidades que o permeiam, tais como perspectivas diferenciadas de cidadania, participação, responsabilidade social, entre outras. A metodologia do trabalho consiste em pesquisa bibliográfica e pesquisa de campo, com uso de questionários e grupos de diálogos, compostos por alunos do ensino médio de uma escola do município de Umuarama-PR. Sua análise revelou que ambigüidades conceituais, sendo que os jovens em muitas falas associam o protagonismo juvenil à ações de caráter social e voluntário. No entanto, revela, também, a expressão de uma busca de autonomia e a necessidade de ser concebido como sujeito social. O resultado desta pesquisa sugere que o protagonismo juvenil seja desvelado pelos pesquisadores de forma crítica, principalmente no que se refere à sua ambiguidade conceitual. / Abstract: This work aims to very contradictions and ambiguities in the definition of Young leadership and use this concept means to adapt to the exclusion of Young social order today. The educational guidelines, and the Reformo f Secundary Education, explain the Cult of prominence as a promissing way to account for both na urgent social and the personal anguish of Young people in order to shift responsibilityfor overcoming this issues to Young people themselves, by individual efforts, enhancement of the resilience and anchievement of social solidary actions. This perspective the concepto f education is a political and ideological toward the politicization of youth in relation to macro social cause of peverity. The concepto f Prominence Youthis a great challenge that permeat such as different perspectives of citizenship, participation, social responsability, among others. The metodology of the work is in literature and Field research, using questionnaries and dialogue groups, composed of high school students at a school in the city of Umuarama - PR. Their analysis revealedthat conceptual ambiguities, and the Young people in many lines associated with youth involvement in social activities and volunteer. However, italso reveals the expression of a quest for autonomy and need to be designed as a social subject. The resulto f this research suggests that youth involvementis unveiled by researchers in a critical way, speccially with regard to its conceptual ambiguity. / Mestre

In a production experiment and two follow-up perception experiments on read German we investigated the (de-)coding of discourse-new, inferentially and textually accessible and given discourse referents by prosodic means. Results reveal that a decrease in the referent’s level of givenness is reflected by an increase in its prosodic prominence (expressed by differences in the status and type of accent used) providing evidence for the relevance of different intermediate types of information status between the poles given and new. Furthermore, perception data indicate that the degree of prosodic prominence can serve as the decisive cue for decoding a referent’s level of givenness.

This study examines whether corporate transparency about a restatement influences the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) decision to issue an enforcement action. I consider corporate transparency to be higher when firms initiate an independent investigation into the restatement, display the restatement in a more prominent press release location, and/or report the restatement in a more visible SEC filing (i.e., Form 8-K). My sample of restatement observations spans nine years, 1997-2005, and is taken from the databases compiled by the General Accounting Office. For each restatement observation, I hand-collect information on SEC enforcement actions from the SEC's website and information on corporate transparency from company press releases and SEC filings. In order to determine the influence of corporate transparency, I develop a model predicting which restatement firms will be sanctioned by the SEC that includes measures of restatement severity, restatement characteristics, firm characteristics, and all three measures of corporate transparency. I find that, on average, greater restatement transparency increases the likelihood of an SEC sanction. This result is strongest before the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), where all three proxies for corporate transparency are positive and significant predictors of SEC enforcement actions. After SOX, however, more visible SEC filings decrease the likelihood of an SEC sanction, suggesting that the SEC rewards this type of transparent behavior. In addition, the SEC also rewards corporate transparency by reducing monetary penalties when an enforcement action is issued. These results extend prior research (Bowen et al. 2005; Files et al. 2008; Gordon et al. 2008; Myers et al. 2008) by providing the first evidence on how corporate transparency affects the SEC's decision to issue an enforcement action. The results may be useful to managers of restating firms and academics researching SEC enforcement actions.

Given its ever-increasing popularity, marketers are keen on exploring the benefits of using Twitter to create branded relationships with consumers. Central to the idea of consumer-brand relationships is the concept of commitment, which requires investment of direct resources, such as time, on the part of the consumer. The present research examines the relationship between time spent per login on Twitter and consumer-brand relationships through the constructs of brand relationship quality and brand attachment. Brand relationship quality is considered using four measures: enrichment, satisfaction, harmony, and trustworthiness. The concept of brand attachment is divided into measures of brand-self connection and brand prominence. Despite marketers’ efforts to keep consumers on Twitter for longer periods of time, results from this study were inconclusive, showing signs of little to no correlation between time and the tested variables. However, due to the limitations of this study, future research is necessary to improve the statistical quality of the findings. / text

Yucatec Maya (YM) is an indigenous language of Mexico that features both phonemic tonal distinctions and phonemic vowel length. These features are primarily associated with the phonetic cues of pitch and duration, which are also considered the primary correlates of stress in language. Though scholars have noted the existence of stress or accent since it was first documented centuries ago, no detailed account of stress as either a separate or related entity to tone or length has been made. This dissertation presents a unique view into YM prosody by looking at loan word incorporation in conjunction with native speaker intuitions, and production data. A case study of Spanish loan words into Yucatec finds that when Spanish words are incorporated into the YM prosodic system, the initial syllable undergoes lengthening. Statistical analyses performed on data from native speaker intuitions and production data, however, find no concrete pattern of obligatory stress on the word level in Yucatec Maya words.

MOTA, P. G. Educação e trabalho: uma avaliação do Plano de Ensino Médio Integrado à Educação Profissional em Fortaleza. 2011. 155 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Avaliação de Políticas Públicas) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Pro - Reitoria de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Avaliação de Políticas Públicas, Fortaleza, 2011. / Submitted by Ana Paula Paula (mappufce@gmail.com) on 2012-03-26T17:40:28Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2011_Dis_PauloGMOTA.pdf: 1431138 bytes, checksum: 4fcc7eb56b7dd4cda76bd6700257d34b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Josineide Góis(josineide@ufc.br) on 2012-03-28T16:22:09Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2011_Dis_PauloGMOTA.pdf: 1431138 bytes, checksum: 4fcc7eb56b7dd4cda76bd6700257d34b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-03-28T16:22:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2011_Dis_PauloGMOTA.pdf: 1431138 bytes, checksum: 4fcc7eb56b7dd4cda76bd6700257d34b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / The Government of Ceará State (Brazil) through its Education Department (SEDUC) launched the Integrated Plan of Professional Education in 2007. Its proposal is to link the high school curriculum with student training for inclusion in society and the labour market. This research aims 1) to evaluate the practice of this educational policy in Cid Gomes‘ management (the current Governor); 2) to check its purposes, how they will work in schools and how they will affect the lives of the students assisted by this mode of teaching; 3) to analyze the educational reform implemented by the Government of Ceará. The bibliographical and documentary research portrayed the evolution of professional education in Brazil in recent decades, presenting an analysis of the public policies proposed for this mode. Two public high schools in Fortaleza were the objects of a case study, namely EEEP Joaquim Antônio Albano and EEEP Onélio Porto. In empirical research, we used methods and techniques of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, based on the representation and active participation of the subjects studied, by means of semi-structured interviews and questionnaires administered to 234 social actors, including teachers, principals and students in both schools. The data revealed that 67% of all students set the goal of passing the University entrance exam as their chief reason to stay in school. The results indicated that the teacher mentor figure for a small number of students (one teacher for every six students) enabled them to be protagonists in their learning process and co-responsible for their education. This mode of teaching proved to be an innovative and humane option, because while the students learn how to set goals, make commitments, make plans, review their goals and get results, it also intends to meet the labor market demands. / O Plano Integrado de Educação Profissional foi lançado em 2007, na capital e no interior, pelo Governo do Estado, por meio da Secretária de Educação Básica do Ceará - SEDUC; com a proposta de articular o currículo do ensino médio com a formação de jovens protagonistas para inclusão na sociedade e no mundo do trabalho. Assim, o objetivo da pesquisa foi avaliar a prática dessa política educacional na gestão Cid Gomes; verificar os seus propósitos e como funcionam nas escolas; como impactarão na vida dos alunos assistidos por essa nova modalidade de ensino e analisar a reforma educacional executada pelo governo do estado do Ceará. A pesquisa bibliográfica e documental retratou a evolução do ensino profissional no Brasil nas últimas décadas e discutiu a avaliação das políticas públicas proposta para essa modalidade. O estudo de caso foi fundado na análise da Escola Estadual de Ensino Profissional - EEEP Joaquim Antônio Albano e EEEP Onélio Porto em Fortaleza. Na pesquisa empírica, utilizamos métodos e técnicas das metodologias qualitativas e quantitativas, com base na representatividade e na participação ativa dos sujeitos pesquisados, subsidiada por entrevistas semiestruturadas e questionários aplicados a 234 atores sociais entre aluno, gestores e professores nas duas escolas pesquisadas. Os dados elucidaram que a experiência das escolas, até o momento, vem demonstrando que mais de 67% dos alunos estabelecem a aprovação no vestibular e o primeiro emprego como a razão mais importante de sua permanência na escola. Os resultados apontaram que a figura do professor orientador para um número pequeno de alunos; um professor para cada seis alunos, os tornam protagonistas de seu processo educacional e sujeito corresponsável por sua educação. Essa modalidade revelou-se uma opção inovadora e humanizada, porque ao mesmo tempo em que o aluno aprende a estabelecer metas, a assumir compromissos, fazer planos, rever suas metas e obter resultados, ela também busca atender as demandas do mercado de trabalho.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:28:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-06-19Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:57:27Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 pereira_kaf_me_mar.pdf: 557517 bytes, checksum: 9375f717a35bb11f3f5fcabf6129c900 (MD5) / O presente trabalho objetiva verificar contradições e ambigüidades na definição do protagonismo juvenil e o uso desse conceito forma de adaptação dos jovens à excludente ordem social capitalista atual. As diretrizes educacionais, como a Reforma do Ensino Médio, explicitam o culto ao Protagonismo como via promissora para dar conta tanto de uma urgência social quanto das angústias pessoais dos jovens, de forma a transferir a responsabilidade de superação de tais questões aos próprios jovens, por esforços individuais, potencialização da resiliência e realização de ações sociais solidárias. Nessa perspectiva, o conceito adquire um valor político-ideológico voltado para a despolitização da juventude em relação às causas macro sociais da pobreza. A conceituação de Protagonismo Juvenil é um grande desafio para a produção científica, visto as divergências e ambigüidades que o permeiam, tais como perspectivas diferenciadas de cidadania, participação, responsabilidade social, entre outras. A metodologia do trabalho consiste em pesquisa bibliográfica e pesquisa de campo, com uso de questionários e grupos de diálogos, compostos por alunos do ensino médio de uma escola do município de Umuarama-PR. Sua análise revelou que ambigüidades conceituais, sendo que os jovens em muitas falas associam o protagonismo juvenil à ações de caráter social e voluntário. No entanto, revela, também, a expressão de uma busca de autonomia e a necessidade de ser concebido como sujeito social. O resultado desta pesquisa sugere que o protagonismo juvenil seja desvelado pelos pesquisadores de forma crítica, principalmente no que se refere à sua ambiguidade conceitual. / This work aims to very contradictions and ambiguities in the definition of Young leadership and use this concept means to adapt to the exclusion of Young social order today. The educational guidelines, and the Reformo f Secundary Education, explain the Cult of prominence as a promissing way to account for both na urgent social and the personal anguish of Young people in order to shift responsibilityfor overcoming this issues to Young people themselves, by individual efforts, enhancement of the resilience and anchievement of social solidary actions. This perspective the concepto f education is a political and ideological toward the politicization of youth in relation to macro social cause of peverity. The concepto f Prominence Youthis a great challenge that permeat such as different perspectives of citizenship, participation, social responsability, among others. The metodology of the work is in literature and Field research, using questionnaries and dialogue groups, composed of high school students at a school in the city of Umuarama – PR. Their analysis revealedthat conceptual ambiguities, and the Young people in many lines associated with youth involvement in social activities and volunteer. However, italso reveals the expression of a quest for autonomy and need to be designed as a social subject. The resulto f this research suggests that youth involvementis unveiled by researchers in a critical way, speccially with regard to its conceptual ambiguity.