Orientador: Raquel Salek Fiad / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-04T15:16:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Pereira_MarciaHelenadeMelo_D.pdf: 1216999 bytes, checksum: 7d348b76655855542b40e3bdb05a094f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: Esta tese parte da consideração de Bakhtin (1997) [1952-1953] de que o estilo individual está ligado ao enunciado e aos gêneros do discurso e procura discutir essa relação contígua com base em dados do processo de construção de textos escritos por alunos do ensino Médio. Para Bakhtin, todo e qualquer gênero de discurso constitui um estilo próprio de enunciação, a que ele denomina de estilo funcional. O estilo individual é construído no interior de estilos socialmente compartilhados. Logo, há uma estreita relação entre estilo individual e gênero. Alguns gêneros, no entanto, permitem mais contribuições estilísticas do que outros, como é o caso típico da literatura. A maior contribuição que este trabalho pode dar para o enriquecimento das discussões que ora têm sido feitas sobre essa relação entre estilo individual e gênero está no material de pesquisa que possuímos. Ele é de natureza processual, o que nos permite fazer uma análise que transcende o produto final, o texto. Citando a metáfora do iceberg, podemos dizer que o texto definitivo é apenas a ponta do iceberg, que esconde o efeito da própria gênese do texto. Até chegar ao texto considerado pronto, o escrevente apaga, substitui, acrescenta palavras, frases, parágrafos inteiros, promove novas ordenações etc., operações estas que, se registradas, podem constituir-se em dados privilegiados para a compreensão da relação que esse escrevente mantém com o texto e com o discurso que o envolve, além de poderem ser uma importante fonte de informação para se averiguar a existência de traços de estilo, tanto individuais quanto genéricos, em textos de escolares. Entendemos por estilo o trabalho de escolhas (Granger, 1968; Possenti, 1988) realizado na linguagem. Bakhtin (1997) enfatiza que essas escolhas lingüísticas estão extremamente atreladas ao gênero do discurso utilizado. Dentro da perspectiva Bakthiniana, pelos dados que analisamos, postulamos que o trabalho com os gêneros do discurso é que fundaria e fundamentaria os trabalhos estilísticos. Na conclusão da tese, procuramos pensar nos indícios estilísticos individuais encontrados na análise dos dados como possíveis traços de autoria, tomando por base a definição de autoria de Possenti (2001, 2002a). O autor aponta a 'singularização¿ ao lado de 'tomada de posição¿ como competências que definiriam autoria. Em decorrência, o conceito estaria associado ao estilo, o que nos permitiu fazer tal discussão / Abstract: This thesis develops under Bakhtin¿s consideration (1997) [1952-1953] in which the individual style is connected with the enunciation and with the discourse genres and seeks to discuss such contiguous relationship based upon data derived from the construction process of texts written by secondary students. For Bakhtin, all and any discourse genre constitutes a particular style of enunciation, which he denominates functional style. The individual style is constructed within the socially shared styles. Therefore, there is a close connection between individual style and genre. Some genres, however, allow more stylistic contributions than others, as the typical case of literature. The greatest contribution this work can offer to the enrichment of the discussions carried out so far about the relationship between individual style and genre lies in the research material we possess. They are of a processual nature, what allows us to conduct an analysis that goes beyond the final product, the text. Citing the iceberg metaphor, we can affirm that the ultimate text is only the iceberg tip which hides the effect of the text¿s own genesis. Before arriving at the definitive text, the writer erases, substitutes, add words, phrases, whole paragraphs, tries new order, etc, procedures which, if recorded, could constitute privileged data for the understanding of the relationship between the writer and his text, as well as the discourse involving it. Moreover, they can be an important source of information in order to verify the presence of stylistic marks, both individual and generic, in school texts. Style, as we regard it, is the work of choices (Granger, 1968; Possenti, 1988) carried out in language. Bakhtin (op.cit.) emphasizes that these linguistic choices are thoroughly linked to the discourse genre used. Having analysed the data within Bakhtin¿s perspectives, we claim that the work with discourse genres is indeed the foundation and fundament of the stylistic works. In the thesis conclusion, we sought to consider the individual stylistic evidences found in the data analysis, as possible authorship traces, regarding Possenti¿s (2001, 2002a) authorship definition. He points out the 'singularization' along with 'position taking¿ as competences which would define authorship. Therefore, the concept would be associated to style, what allowed us to promote such discussion / Doutorado / Ensino-Aprendizagem de Lingua Materna / Doutor em Linguística Aplicada

This study was planned to investigate the effects of written comments on the expository compositions of eleventh-grade students using a cross section of ability groups. Data for combined groups and data for high-, middle-, and low-ability groups were used to determine whether one type of comment was more effective than another in improving the quantity and quality of student compositions and in improving student attitudes toward composition. Teachers may use the findings as a guide to what kinds of comments are most effective in reinforcing good writing skills and attitudes.

This thesis is based on the premise that questions about human affairs, including questions about art, need to be considered in the context of our deep history as a species. Darwinian theories of human existence have given scholars in evolutionary psychology the chance to analyze human cognition, emotions, and behaviour by considering the trajectory of our evolution and how that has shaped our current situation. Taking a Darwinian literary approach, this thesis tries to answer one of the main questions about James Joyce’s novel, Ulysses: What is the purpose behind a style that many find so difficult in this novel? In order to answer this question, I explore the adaptive purposes of literature (in general) and stylistic experimentation (in particular). I argue that art can be seen as a form of sexual display where stylistic difficulty and originality are ways of indicating fitness for survival. In this way, both the author and readers of Ulysses spend their time and energy to produce and consume the difficult style of Ulysses because they find pleasure in an activity that is adaptively useful. Furthermore, I suggest that earning social status could have been an evolutionary motive for both the authors and readers of difficult modernist texts, including Ulysses. To support this, I show how gaining social status is part of other sexual ornamentation that handicap the displayer by imposing excessive difficulty in terms of the time and energy needed to put on those displays of fitness. / Graduate / 2018-10-23

As clothing is the most visible type of consumption, what we wear often says a lot about who we are. We buy what we consider in line with our identity and avoid what we consider as not. Our consumption is influenced by a number of factors, whether internal or external and throughout the years we adopt a certain way of style. As our style evolves, on it depended fashion consumption is also going through a major change. In this master thesis, we present a study of young women from Generation Y, which adopted a style based on their personal needs, desires, and reflections on own body, and decided not to show their femininity in a predictable manner. Opinions on what is considered feminine vary across regions but in this research, we take an interest in Western culture consumers born and located in Europe. By adopting the modest style, women interviewed for the purpose of this study are perceived as challenging the stereotypical views of the female body, which is in the contemporary society and media often shown as an object of male desire, by wearing unisex, oversized, loose fit, deconstructed and even menswear garments. By the method of personal interviews, we asked nine young women about their opinions and reflections on their fashion consumption and views on communicating their self-identity and femininity through their individual take on the modest style. The research has, in addition to literature introducing symbolic consumption and the concept of the self, its foundation in framework discussing feminine identity and relation of the dress and the body. Based on the findings, the thesis presents an analysis of young women’s construction of feminine identity through modest style and reasons and clues influencing their fashion consumption. Through adaptation of modest style, young women purchase garments closely in line with their values and needs and are rarely influenced by opinions of their social groups. By dressing modestly, they demonstrate their femininity in an alternative way and priority in their fashion consumption is given to durable and timeless garments of high quality. In conclusion, we can see that participants are not only modest in their style, but also in the way they consume. Abandoning the presumption that Generation Y was “born to shop”, they are likely to invest in brand concepts with added value in form of appealing brand aesthetics, inspiring retail environment, outstanding personal approach or sustainable production of garments. By repairing or reselling their garments, buying them in second hand or from brands that produce their garments in an ethical way, today’s young women show that they are aware of environmental and political impacts of fashion, and their motivation to buy certain products is highly influenced by individual preferences and deeply rooted in their self-identity.

Cinemas of Endurance begins by questioning the way in which critics and scholars have addressed art cinema over the last decade, specifically the films referred to as “slow cinema.” These films have garnered widespread attention since the start of the 21st century for how they deploy what many believe to be anachronistic and redundant formal techniques, often discussed in terms of nostalgia and pastiche. This dissertation argues that these films have been unfairly couched within this discourse that largely judges their validity based on their stylistic similarities to the art cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. Breaking from this direction, this project proposes we take these films and their aesthetic seriously, not for stubbornly refuting the prevailing formal trends in filmmaking, but for how it creates a critical optic that grants us a greater capacity to recognize some of the most prevailing social, political, and economic issues of the last decade. Further, by using stylistic techniques that can often register as out of place, or protracted, these films can help us to understand the way our physical, mental, and affective coordinates have shifted in this historical moment. Each chapter of this dissertation takes an exemplary film from this subset of art cinema and addresses how the aesthetic works against established modes of viewing to render visible modalities of life that often escape critical ire because they are expected. This project relies on the theories and methodologies of film and media studies, aesthetic theory, realism, materialism, accelerationism, cultural studies, continental philosophy, and political philosophy. The films and filmmakers analyzed include: The Limits of Control (2009), dir. Jim Jarmusch; Ossos (1997), In Vanda’s Room (2000), and Colossal Youth (2006), dir. Pedro Costa; Dogville (2003), dir. Lars von Trier; and, 2046 (2004), dir. Wong Kar-wai.

Recruitment is a mission-critical process for human resources management. Due to the high turnover rate and lack of specific skill requirements, the retail sector has an acute need to hire new employees to fill vacancies. Therefore, recruiting a relatively large number of new employees in a limited period of time is crucial for companies in the retail industry. Existing studies have suggested that by designing recruitment activities and utilising appropriate recruitment sources to promote and announce a job, employers are able to attract jobseekers to apply for jobs and join the organisation. The social communication theory highlights four major elements involved in any information communication: the information communicator (source), the information receiver (audience/jobseeker), the response (the receiver’s attitude towards the information received and the decision taken to apply or not) and the stimulus (the message/information content that is transmitted by the communicator). An individual’s ‘attitude’ towards the recruitment information can significantly affect their ‘intention’ of making a job application decision, and this intention can significantly influence their actual decision-making ‘behaviour’, such as accepting a job offer. Consequently, most of these studies focus on the effectiveness of the stimulus (e.g., how the design of the recruitment information content can attract more jobseekers).However, there are divergent results in the literature. For instance, numerous researchers have attempted to investigate how different recruitment information sources can impact jobseekers’ application and recruitment decisions. Some researchers claim that the formal, company-controlled, recruitment information sources, such as advertising and corporate websites, are less effective than informal. By contrast, other researchers indicate that formal sources are used and accepted more often by jobseekers because this information is regarded as considered to be more objective and reliable than the experience-based route (e.g., word-of-mouth). Some researchers suggest that employers should provide objective, hard information (confirmable information such as salary and location) and provide the message in the employer’s tone’ using company-controlled sources; thereby not to convey too much soft, experience-based information from employees. Only very limited research has considered the influences of receiver’s differences (individual differences) on the stimulus (content) and communications (source) as a moderator. The receivers’ differences could be the essential information that can be used to interpret the divergent findings in the literature. Psychologists have demonstrated that individual differences will influence personal values and will be translated into personal preferences. Decision-making research suggests that every decision-making process involves individuals’ decision habits and preferences. People tend to keep their decision habits and preferences throughout different decisions. Therefore, individual traits should be considered when seeking to understand how jobseekers evaluate information to make decisions. A well-known classification of individual differences that has been shown to affect decision-making preference is an individual’s decision-making style: maximisers (those who always try to find the best possible result and carefully evaluate all types of information from different sources) and satisficers (who aim for good-enough results and tend to save time resources). The present study aims to address the gap in the existing literature by exploring the possible reactions of different decision-making styles (maximiser vs. satisficer) in response to recruitment messages with different lengths, valences, forms and provider backgrounds that are provided from various sources. Study 1 and Study 2 are employed as groundwork studies to provide a deeper understanding of maximiser-style and satisficer-style retail-trade jobseekers’ traits. The results illustrate retail trade jobseekers’ job-information-seeking preferences and the relationship between an individual’s maximising tendency and other cognitive-based individual characteristics. The results suggest that employers should not exclude either maximiser-style or satisficer-style jobseekers because the current maximiser-style and satisficer-style employees demonstrated the same levels of job satisfaction with no particular group showed a higher or lower turnover intention. Based on the findings of Study 1 and Study 2, Chapter 5 starts with a scenario-based experiment (Study 3). This experiment assesses whether, when presented with a realistic job-information-searching scenario of receiving basic job information from a typical formal short job advertisement, maximisers and satisficers differ in their need for further information. It also explores whether further evaluation is required from informal information sources in relation to valence and tie strength. Study 3 leads to the reflection that staff ‘word-of-mouth’ (SWOM) messages were influential but could not be controlled by organisations. Study 4 expands the findings of Study 3 and tests whether employers can satisfy more maximiser-style and satisficer-style jobseekers’ information needs to encourage their perceived organisational attractiveness (OA) by providing more detailed formal job advertisement messages. The findings highlight that more details of hard information could effectively satisfy jobseekers’ information needs, even though a group of jobseekers still wanted to search for more experience-based information. However, the findings also show that more detailed messages only slightly increase maximisers’ perceived OA and do not increase satisficers’ perceived OA. By extending the findings of Study 3 and Study 4, three scenario-based experiments (Study 5.1, Study 5.2 and Study 5.3) are designed to test how employers can attract more maximiser-style and satisficer-style jobseekers by tailoring their recruitment messages. The results demonstrate that the SWOM-formed realistic job preview (RJP) messages with some negative information could best increase jobseekers’ perception of source credibility and OA. Furthermore, when maximisers and satisficers looked for different job positions they would perceive the source credibility differently if the background information of the information provider as different. A qualitative-based supplementary study (Study 6) is further conducted to delineate three issues that are not directly measured or not sufficiently clarified in the above-mentioned five studies. This complements Studies 3, 4 and 5 and theoretically enhances the understanding of how jobseekers refer to job recruitment messages and how they evaluate the job information. The results contribute to decision-making theory and social communication theory by demonstrating that the notion of maximisers and satisficers represents a significant and central individual trait in job-application information searching and decision-making in the retail trade. Furthermore, the findings suggest that an individual’s decision-making style is an influential moderator for the effectiveness of communication elements. This research also provides a fundamental basis for further studies to apply individual-differences in human resource management field.

M.A. (African Languages) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

This dissertation focuses on an analysis of the poem Tautona Ngaka Quett Masire printed in P. Seloma's An Analysis of the Poetry of Praise and Exhortation in Setswana (1990). The main objective of the investigation is to apply an adapted narratological model which states that there are three operational levels to a literary text, namely the content level, the plot level and the style level. The discussion poem Tautona Ngaka Quett Masire is based on these three levels. The methodological framework of the discussion is based on two main concepts namely the difference between defining and interpreting. It is strongly emphasized that these two concepts are used differently throughout the investigation since they are not synonymous in this discussion. . The content structure is discussed as having four elements, namely: characters, events, time and place. The characters are grouped into two categories namely the kind hearted person (Masire) and quarrelsome people (who are members of the opposition parties). These characters are discussed in relation to the following scheme: intention, patronage, resistance, assistance and success. They are also dealt within relation to each other and their special functions in the text. The setting in Tautona Ngaka Quett Masire is examined according to its two major aspects: time and place. Time at the content level is classified into three categories, namely: specific time, historical time and indefinite time. Place is divided into two categories which are the physical place of events and indefinite place (general locale). The plot structure is examined in respect of two major categories, namely the narrative plot and the poetic metre. In relation to the narrative plot, it is clear that events are controlled by the theme of the text, which is emphasized throughout the discussion. This poem Tautona Ngaka Quett Masire has also been discussed on the basis of the principles of plot: exposition, development, climax and denouement. Other important concepts of the plot structure include the design and the title. The techniques of the plot structure are also examined in this poem. With regard to poetic metre, the poem Tautona Ngaka Quett Masire is discussed using two rules: the rule of division and the rule of symmetrical harmony. The rule of division deals with metrical devices such as caesura, pause and enjambement, while that of symmetrical harmony concerns itself with the number of syllables, the number of penultimate summits and repetition. The discussion of the style of the poem deals with the mood and intention of the poet. In this discussion, diction as style markers and stylistic techniques are examined. It is clear that the poet Rabojalwa Keetile has used quite a number of stylistic techniques, the most frequently used being elision, conjunction and assonance. These techniques have been used to highlight the theme of the poem which is the need for modern development in Botswana. / Dissertation (MA (Setswana))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / African Languages / unrestricted

Learning to read is one of the most crucial life tasks that the young child must acquire whilst in primary school. In modern society, much of what one does is dependant on having the ability to read. While a great deal of research has focused on how children learn to read, relatively little attention has been paid to the literary quality of the material the children are exposed to whilst learning to read. In the past few years I have become increasingly concerned with the number of teachers who use material designed for teaching children to read without being aware of the literary quality of the material. While numerous teachers are aware of the issues surrounding the learning to read debate and use up to date materials to teach reading, far too many accept the material supplied by the school without questioning its literary merit and its impact upon the young reader. This piece of research is an attempt to evaluate the literary quality of two reading schemes currently in use in Cape Education Department schools. The chief conclusion of the research is that the schemes examined fall far short of the standards required for them to be considered good literature. Although the research is limited to two reading schemes, it is hoped that a teacher using other schemes could use the framework supplied in this study to examine the literary quality of the material she is using. Furthermore, the final chapter offers suggestions as to how to replace material of poor literary quality with books of a higher literary standard. On the basis of the above findings it is suggested that there is a need for individual teachers, schools, teacher training institutions and the Cape Education Department to examine the literary quality of reading schemes and books that are used in the process of teaching children to read. It is hoped that this piece of research will create a greater awareness amongst teachers of the literary quality of reading materials and prompt further research into such materials that will be of benefit to the central character in this study; the young child learning to read

Humans have always used sketches to explain the visual world. It is a simple and straight- forward mean to communicate new ideas and designs. Consequently, as in almost every aspect of our modern life, the relatively recent major developments in computer science have highly contributed to enhancing individual sketching experience. The literature of sketch related research has witnessed seminal advancements and a large body of interest- ing work. Following up with this rich literature, this dissertation provides a holistic study on sketches through three proposed novel models including sketch analysis, transfer, and geometric representation. The first part of the dissertation targets sketch authorship recognition and analysis of sketches. It provides answers to the following questions: Are simple strokes unique to the artist or designer who renders them? If so, can this idea be used to identify authorship or to classify artistic drawings? The proposed stroke authorship recognition approach is a novel method that distinguishes the authorship of 2D digitized drawings. This method converts a drawing into a histogram of stroke attributes that is discriminative of authorship. Extensive classification experiments on a large variety of datasets are conducted to validate the ability of the proposed techniques to distinguish unique authorship of artists and designers. The second part of the dissertation is concerned with sketch style transfer from one free- hand drawing to another. The proposed method exploits techniques from multi-disciplinary areas including geometrical modeling and image processing. It consists of two methods of transfer: stroke-style and brush-style transfer. (1) Stroke-style transfer aims to transfer the style of the input sketch at the stroke level to the style encountered in other sketches by other artists. This is done by modifying all the parametric stroke segments in the input, so as to minimize a global stroke-level distance between the input and target styles. (2) Brush-style transfer, on the other hand, focuses on transferring a unique brush look of a line drawing to the input sketch. In this transfer stage, we use an automatically constructed input brush dictionary to infer which sparse set of input brush elements are used at each location of the input sketch. Then, a one-to-one mapping between input and target brush elements is learned by sparsely encoding the target sketch with the input brush dictionary. The last part of the dissertation targets a geometric representation of sketches, which is vital in enabling automatic sketch analysis, synthesis and manipulation. It is based on utilizing the well known convolutional sparse coding (CSC) model. We observe that CSC is closely related to how line sketches are drawn. This process can be approximated as the sparse spatial localization of a number of typical basic strokes, which in turn can be cast as a non-standard CSC model that forms a line drawing from parametric curves. These curves are learned to optimize the fit between the model and a specific set of line drawings. Each part of the dissertation shows the utility of the proposed methods through a variety of experiments, user studies, and proposed applications.