Literature in semiotics lacks consideration of the elements in symbols that communicate specific concepts. Prohibition was the concept chosen for study. Potential prohibitors were represented by line configurations superimposed on background symbols. Seven prohibitors coupled with symbol backgrounds to form 49 experimental symbols were studied through a symbol inventory. Prohibitors constituted the independent variable, while dependent variables were verbal responses by 105 college students to the experimental symbols. Two hypotheses were tested: a) Prohibitors differ in effectiveness in communicating prohibition and b) Prohibitors differ in frequency of distortion of symbol meaning. Chi square analyses and comparisons of proportions showed diagonal lines most frequently elicited prohibition responses. A chi square analysis displayed no significant relationship between prohibitors in distortion of symbol meaning.

Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of African Languages at the University of Zululand, 2001. / The scope of this study will cover twenty one-act radio plays that Ntuli has written from 1965 to 2000. Most of these plays have been broadcast by Ukhozi FM over the years and are available on tapes at the S.AB.C. archives in Durban. Fortunately, most of Ntuli's plays that were broadcast on the radio were later adapted, with very slight changes, and published in various books, thus making them easily accessible. There are, however, some plays that have never been broadcast before and only appear in book form. In analyzing all these one-act radio plays, emphasis will fall on how Ntuli gives symbolic qualities to theme, setting and characterization in a radio play. We propose to approach this study in this manner: Chapter 1 will provide an introduction to this study. An outline of the aim and scope of study will be covered as well as the research methodology and the approaches that will be used in this study. The biographical sketch of D.B.Z. NtuIi will also be provided so as to acquaint us with the man who has created the one-act plays that are the focus of our discussion. Chapter 2 deals with the nature, history and characteristics of radio drama. In this chapter, our focus will be on how Ntuli uses the nature and technical requirements of this medium to portray symbolic attributes of the play. Chapter 3 examines themes and subject matter that Ntuli conveys in his one-act radio plays. In this chapter we will discuss the recurring comments that NtuIi makes through different types of themes and how he depicts symbolism to enhance meaning and message of these themes. Chapter 4 will concentrate on setting as we generally know it. The aim of this chapter is to determine the extent to which Ntuli uses symbols to enhance the significant role of setting in his plays. Chapter 5 shows the literary techniques through which Ntuli depicts characterization in his plays. This chapter will deal with the symbolic features that characters adopt and how this impacts on the plot of the play. Chapter 6 provides a concluding statement. In this chapter we look back at discussions in preceding chapters, comment on our findings and give recommendations and suggestions for future research endeavors. / Shuter and Shooter

<p> Chivalry was the dominant secular ideal of Chaucer's time and the nature of his interest in it has naturally been the subject of conjecture. Most judgments, however, have been based on an insufficient understanding of the historical background. In fact both historical and literary approaches to the topic of chivalry generally have tended to oversimplify the complex of ideas and practices associated with the term. This dissertation therefore re-examines the scope of chivalric theory and practice as a necessary preliminary to a scrutiny of Chaucer's concern with the concept. </p> The study concludes that chivalric ideas always had an importance disproportionate to the comparatively modest practical significance of actual knights and knighthood. The centrality of these ideas cannot therefore be judged by their relation to historical actualities. Their purpose was not restricted to providing a pattern of conduct for knights, nor were they in any way autonomous of medieval thought generally. The figure of the mounted warrior, thrust into prominence by early medieval military and social developments, became the focus for an accumulation of ideas and myths, and especially for theories about the use of force and of temporal power and secular life generally. </p> <p> Since Chaucer's knights are frequently lovers, special attention is paid within this broad hypothesis to the role of love in chivalric ideas. While fighting for love appears to have been of negligible importance as a factor in practical knightly motivation, writiers of discursive or specifically chivalric treatises either condemned it outright or approved of it only if it was morally irreproachable and led to the cultivation of chilaric virtues for their own sake. Fighting to gain a woman's love provides a common plot structure in the romances, but these romances usually cited as justifying a definition of chivalry in amatory terms in fact do no such thing. On the basis of analyses of several important roamnces, especially Gottfried's Tristan, Chretien's Lancelot, the Prose Lancelot, Wolfram's Parzival, the Morte Darthur of Malory, and Gawain and the Green Knight, this dissertation concludes that there was a central chivaric tradition which viewed the pursuit of love as an inversion of the knight's responsibilities to God and society. </p> <p> Chaucer's knights do not reflect contemporary social realities but rather this broader symbolic potential. A study of significance of the crusade in the late Middle Ages reveals that even the Knight of the General Prologue is mainly an emblem of right spiritual orientation rather than an endorsement of a specifically knightly duty or of contemporary crusade projects. The traditional polarity between love-service and true Christian knighthood underlies the portrait of the Knight and the Squire. As an embodiment of the duty of spiritual warfare the Knight is not just the specialised figure he appears to be. Moreover in his tale he presents in Theseus a knight who maintains the structure of society as faithfully as he himself has defended the Church, while Arcite and Palamon, like the Squire, represent a subversion of proper knightly functions. The "Knight's Tale" sets all secular power, of which kngihthood is the emblem, in a transcendental perspective. </p> <p> In other of the Canterbury Tales chivalric references are important, though not because of any interplay between knightly and non-knightly social classes. Characters such as the Wife of Bath, the Merchant and the Franklin are to be judged partly by the inadequcy of their notions of chivalry in relation to the symbolism established by the contrast between Knight and Squire. The conflict of love and knighthood also furthers our understanding of Troilus, in which the hero is shown to choose an inappropriate kind of chivalry; in addition the theme is prominent in some of the minor poems, especially the "Complaint of Mars". / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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My research focused on three projects: (1) investigation of the mental models of students of the microscopic world using a molecular dynamic visualization, (2) evaluation of an online module on students’ skills related to electron-pushing formalism, and (3) a two-part investigation of how 10 essential learning outcomes (LOs) about delocalization were intended, enacted, and achieved. Project 1: Exploring participants mental models of the sub-microscopic level after viewing a molecular dynamic visualization. The effect of two molecular dynamic simulations on students’ mental models about motion, collisions, and probabilistic thinking was investigated via a qualitative study. We administered a worksheet and interviewed the participants both before and after they viewed the visualizations. The analysis showed that (1) participants all had a motion mental model, (2) participants used different mental models depending on the situation, (3) participants had conflicting mental models of randomness of the sub-microscopic level, and (4) participants experienced cognitive dissonance when viewing the simulation. Project 2: Evaluation of OrgChem101.com online module of students’ skills using EPF. We investigated students’ skills on the electron-pushing formalism after using an online learning module called “Organic Mechanisms: Mastering the Arrows” using a quantitative experimental method. There were significant learning gains between the pre- and post-test, especially with questions that asked students to draw the products of a reaction. After using the learning tool, students used more analysis strategies, such as mapping, attempted more questions, and made fewer errors. Project 3.1: Determining essential LOs for delocalization and how they are taught, practiced, and assessed. The 10 LOs about delocalization (i.e., resonance) were determined from a textbook analysis then investigated for how they are being enacted, meaning how they were taught, practiced, assessed. We have found that five themes emerged from the analysis: (1) Several of the essential intended LOs we identified are not represented in the textbooks’ teaching explanations, practice questions, or professors’ assessments; (2) The concepts related to delocalization are often taught, practiced, and assessed without associated justifications; (3) There is a large gap between when delocalization is taught and when it is used in context; (4) The link between delocalization and other concepts (e.g., reactivity) is not explicitly explained in most teaching materials; and (5) The language used around delocalization may be misleading (e.g. resonance, stability). Project 3.2: Investigating how the 10 essential delocalization LOs are achieved on summative examination. We then analyzed how the students achieved the 10 essential LOs about delocalization on a summative assessment by analyzing 12 questions related to the concept. We found that students sometimes struggled to identify when delocalization could occur, that some of the LOs built on one another, and that some strategies (visualizing electrons, listing properties, and expanding the structures) more often led to the correct answer. We also found that when explicitly asked students in organic chemistry one was more successfully than in organic chemistry II and that the opposite occurs when asked within a mechanism. Our analysis of student reasoning showed that the dominant modes of reasoning were aligned with the related expectations and explanations in the course. When asked to justify the contribution of resonance structures to the resonance hybrid, most answers analyzed showed a descriptive mode of reasoning; when asked to explain why a given proton was more acidic than another, most answers contained relational and linear causal reasoning.

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Serpent and dragon symbolism are ubiquitous in the art and mythology of premodern cultures around the world. Over the centuries, conflicting hypotheses have been proposed to interpret this symbolism which, while illuminating, have proved insufficient to the task of revealing a singular meaning for the vast majority of examples. In this dissertation I argue that, in what the symbolist Rene Guenon and the historian of religions Mircea Eliade have called ‘traditional' or ‘archaic' societies, the serpent/dragon transculturally symbolizes what I term ‘matter,' a state of being that is constituted by the perception of the physical world as ‘chaotic' in comparison to what traditional peoples believed to be the ‘higher' meta-physical source of the physical world or ‘nature.' What is called ‘nature,' I argue, is also considered in ‘Tradition' to be a perception of, from a certain state of consciousness, that aspect of existence that is called samsara in the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta, which Guenon equivalently describes, from a broadly traditional perspective in The Symbolism of the Cross, as "the indefinite series of cycles of manifestation." ‘Chaos,' according to Eliade in The Sacred and the Profane, is "the amorphous and virtual…everything that has not yet acquired a ‘form.'" The following elements have been useful in discerning the specified meaning of the serpent/dragon symbol: 1) Guenon's interpretation of the terminology of the ‘Hindu Doctrines,' as well as his interpretation of the ‘language' of traditional symbolism and the metaphysics that underlies it; 2) Eliade's interpretation of ‘traditional'/‘archaic' societies by means of his concepts of ‘chaos,' ‘creation,' Axis Mundi (‘World Axis'), and ‘Sacred and Profane'; and 3) the insights of various other researchers of serpent/dragon symbolism. Beyond purporting to resolve some of the mystery of the ancient and varied symbolism of the serpent/dragon, my dissertation strives, to a lesser degree, to serve two related functions: 1) informing the interpretation of the symbolic meanings of a wide variety of premodern artifacts and narratives and 2) providing a rough outline for a proposed prolegomenon to the study of the origination, and ancient human awareness, of the mentioned state of ‘matter.'