Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Until these days, the violence practiced by exaltation of youth discourses convey a model of devaluation of aging, as if desire and access to fundamental rights were forbidden for aging people. It is more meaningful for women who, until the XIX century, had the menopause as the edge of their reproductive life and the end of their womanhood. However, the ―grandma s‖ image is not the same. Many of them have the autonomy to enjoy both cosmetic advances and feminists achievements from the last decades. Post-modernity evidences such fast and deep social transformations, which create a tension that on one hand pumps the continuous establishment of a new social order and on the other hand presses continuously for changes. Although the rigidity of stereotypes themselves do not imply necessarily a false perception of reality, as they acquire high social stability and conventionality degree along time, even when the social actors who possess them have ulterior information which invalidate their content, they are rarely altered. Concerning the identity, understood as a continuously replaced description of ourselves, in the case of women it relates to hard and slow social changes, since each alteration must deconstruct historical processes from centuries of prejudices and beliefs that are solidly stratified. The way in which identities are built through language is fundamental for the definition of how we engage and engage others in discourse and create meanings. In this sense, media has a preponderant role in building new stereotypes and reinforcing old ones, reflecting ideas which make part of everyday social life, refracting concepts, distorting them in a way that they approach readers with the voice of an institution. A critical and feminist discourse analysis places discourses that intend to maintain power relations which favor men as a social group while exclude and weaken women as such. Though media is a space in which impartiality is believed to exist, we can evidence grammar forms present in such texts that signal the control on a social occasion, in this case, on the reportage genre, which is a favored place for social actors discursive confrontation. The methodology - which has a polyphonic character, because it is open for critical, systematic and dialogical voices, has combined Systemic Functional Linguistics, Dialogical Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis approaches. The qualitative analysis revealed the existence of centripetal forces which search for closing, as well as discursive patterns so-called ―male‖, still directly responsible for mature women identity. / Ainda hoje, a violência exercida por discursos de exaltação da juventude supõe um modelo de desvalorização do envelhecer, como se não pudesse mais existir o desejo nem o acesso a direitos elementares. Isso é mais significativo para as mulheres que, até o século XIX, tinham na menopausa o marco final da vida fértil e o término da feminilidade. Entretanto, a imagem das ―avós‖ não é mais a mesma, muitas têm autonomia para usufruir tanto dos avanços cosméticos quanto das conquistas feministas das últimas décadas. A pós-modernidade evidencia essas transformações sociais rápidas e profundas, as quais criam uma tensão que ora pressiona no sentido da estabilização de uma nova ordem social, ora pressiona continuamente pela mudança. Embora a rigidez própria dos estereótipos não implique necessariamente em uma percepção falsa da realidade, como eles adquirem alto grau de estabilidade e convencionalidade social no tempo, mesmo quando os atores sociais que os detêm dispõem de ulteriores informações que invalidam o seu conteúdo, são dificilmente alteráveis. Quanto à identidade, sendo uma descrição continuamente substitutiva de nós mesmos, no caso da mulher são árduas e lentas as mudanças sociais, pois cada alteração deve desconstruir processos históricos de séculos de preconceitos e crenças, solidamente estratificados. O modo como são construídas as identidades através da linguagem é central na definição de como nos engajamos e engajamos os outros no discurso e construímos significados. Nesse sentido, a mídia tem um papel preponderante na construção de novos estereótipos e reforço de antigos, refletindo ideias que circulam no cotidiano social, e refratando conceitos, distorcendo-os, de maneira a chegar aos leitores uma história construída pela voz da instituição. Uma análise crítica e feminista do discurso localiza discursos que tentam manter relações de poder que privilegiam os homens como grupo social e excluem e enfraquecem as mulheres como tal. Apesar da linguagem da mídia ser um espaço onde se acredita haver imparcialidade, verifica-se formas gramaticais presentes nos textos que sinalizam o controle exercido sobre uma ocasião social, no caso, sobre o gênero discursivo reportagem, lugar privilegiado para o confronto entre os discursos dos atores sociais. A metodologia, de caráter polifônico por estar aberta a vozes sistemáticas, críticas e dialógicas, combinou as abordagens da Linguística Sistêmico-Funcional, da Análise Dialógica do Discurso e da Análise Crítica do Discurso. A análise qualitativa revelou a existência de forças centrípetas que aspiram ao monologismo e buscam o fechamento, bem como padrões discursivos ditos ―masculinos‖ ainda diretamente responsáveis formação identitária da mulher na maturidade.

[pt] A maioria das unidades escolares públicas brasileiras adota a estrutura de organização seriada, que permite a retenção do aluno na mesma série no término do ano letivo. Na escola onde esta pesquisa foi realizada, como professora de Língua Inglesa, tenho lecionado para um grupo de alunos que permanece no 6. ano há três, quatro, ou até mesmo cinco anos. Com base neste fato, minha motivação em conduzir o presente estudo se dá pelo interesse em investigar: (1) de que maneira os alunos avaliam o contexto escolar no qual se encontram? e (2) que identidades são construídas durante a interação entre alunos/participantes e professora/pesquisadora?. A abordagem sociossemiótica de linguagem da Linguística Sistêmico Funcional fundamenta o trabalho, alinhada a pressupostos socioconstrucionistas de identidade que a concebem como um fenômeno fluído, emergente, interacional e sociocultural. A coconstrução das identidades é observada, principalmente, em pequenas histórias surgidas espontaneamente em Grupos de Discussão. Duas perspectivas direcionam a análise das avaliações nas narrativas: o ferramental de análise textual do Sistema de Avaliatividade e os construtos teóricos seminais e contemporâneos que propõem o estudo das avaliações no discurso narrativo. Seguindo a metodologia qualitativa de pesquisa, dez alunos do Ensino Fundamental e da EJA (Educação de Jovens e Adultos) foram entrevistados pela pesquisadora/professora acerca de sua visão da prática escolar. Histórias contadas pelos participantes retratam situações do cotidiano da escola que sugerem relações de conflito entre alunos, professores, coordenadores e diretores. A coconstrução das pequenas histórias sinaliza fortes atitudes de identidades coletivas, por meio das quais os participantes engajam-se em um processo discursivo de culpabilização do outro, construindo-se como vítimas de um ambiente escolar que não propicia a qualidade de vida necessária à efetivação do processo de ensino-aprendizagem. / [en] The majority of Brazilian public schools adopt a system which keeps students who fail at the end of the school year in the same grade. As an English language teacher in the school where this study was guided, I have been teaching a group of students who have remained in the sixth grade for three, four, or even five years. Based on this fact, my motivation to conduct this research derived from an interest in investigating: (1) how do students evaluate the context in which they find themselves? (2) which identities are constructed during the interaction among students/participants and teacher/researcher? The study is based on the sociosemiotic approach of language, as proposed by Systemic Functional Linguistics, aligned with socioconstructionist paradigms of identity which conceive it as a fluid, emerging, interactional and sociocultural phenomena. The construction of identities is observed in small stories spontaneously told during Discussion Groups carried out with the participants. Two perspectives lead the analysis of evaluative moments in the narratives: the analytical tools of the Appraisal Theory and the seminal and contemporary theoretical concepts related to narratives, which emphasize the study of evaluation in narrative discourse. Following a qualitative methodology, ten students from secondary school and EJA ( Educação de Jovens e Adultos ) were interviewed by the researcher/teacher about how they see their school practice. Stories told by the participants portray situations of everyday school life which suggest relationships of conflict among students, teachers, coordinators and principals. The coconstruction of small stories indicates strong attitudes of collective identities through which participants blame the other, constructing themselves as victims of a school environment that does not provide the necessary quality of life for an effective learning process.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This research is in the area of lexicography and investigates the relationship between Shona terminology development and the culture of the language community for which the terminology is intended. It is a contextual analysis of compound nouns found in Shona terminological dictionaries. The study specifically explores how lexicographers together with health, music, language and literature specialists make use of their knowledge about Shona cultural contexts in the creation of compound nouns. Thus, this research foregrounds Shona socio-cultural contexts and meaning generation in terminology development. This study employs a quadruple conceptual framework. The four components of the framework that are utilised are the Traditional Descriptive Approach (TDA), Cognitive Approach (CG), Systemic Functional Approach (SFL), and Semiotic Remediation (SRM). TDA is used in the linguistic categorisation of Shona compound nouns. In addition, it provides the metalanguage with which to describe the constituent parts of Shona compound nouns. As TDA is mainly confined to the linguistic dimension, this research employs CG, SFL, and SRM to explore the cultural and socio-cognitive dimensions of terminology development. / South Africa

Magister Educationis - MEd / South Africa in the past-apartheid era has undergone a series of curriculum changes that collectively have not yet yielded the desired results. Evidence of this is to be found in the continued low pass rates and poor performance in the annual National Senior Certificate (Grade 12) examinations, including the subject English as a First Additional Language (EFAL). Apart from language policy considerations, reasons related to the teaching approach used in EFAL may have a bearing on the results.The Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) recommends the use of a text-(genre) approach, alongside a communicative approach, to the teaching of languages in schools to replace the old content-based methods with their aims and objectives. While the old curriculum did advocate communicative language teaching, the addition is a text-based approach. This study focuses on investigating the various approaches teachers employ in the teaching of English writing and specifically seeks to identify the extent to which a text-based approach is realized in the teaching of EFAL in Grade 9 in two schools in the Western Cape. The study does so, amongst other ways, by analysing the various texts learners are exposed to in English lessons and taking note of how teachers introduce and negotiate the different stages of writing. This study uses genre theory and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) in combination with social constructivist approaches to language learning. This theory is based on the premise that language is functional and cannot be detached from the social context of the learner.A qualitative research paradigm is used and the study is underpinned by interpretive theory.According to Richards (2003), qualitative research is the study of human action in its natural setting in the context of people’s daily lives. In this case the school classroom has to function as the natural setting. The qualitative data collection instruments for this study include interviews,(particularly open-ended interviews), classroom observation schedules and audio recordings. The teaching processes in the classroom and interview sessions are recorded.The research participants for this study were two qualified English teachers. Secondly, samples of notebooks including class exercises of a selected numbers of learners of English Language in Grade 9 were collected for analysis with regard to the implementation of a text-based approach.The findings revolve round the themes derived from the analysis chapter, and are expected to provide ways of promoting the teaching of English using this approach. They reveal that the teachers in this study do not have sufficient understanding of the theories that underpin the teaching of writing in the English FAL curriculum. They attend to the use of text-based approach superficially but they apply other teaching strategies in their lessons during the teaching of English as a first additional language. The study concludes by summing up the main findings,and by spelling out some implications for further research.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Working with Arab students pursuing a degree in English Language and Translation at the Taiz University, Republic of Yemen, has brought to the researcher‟s attention a number of errors or problems encountered in Arabic to English translation. This study aims to investigate the problems encountered by student translators (STs), novice translators (NTs) as well as more experienced translators (Ts) while translating from Arabic into English. The study starts with the assumption that Arabic and English belong to different families of languages and thus there is rarely a word-for-word equivalence in both languages. The present study is cross-sectional in nature. It is based on empirical data collected from several categories of translators. In other words, the data was collected from fourth-year students in the department of English and Translation in the Faculty of Arts, Taiz University, as well as five NTs who have previously graduated from this department and are currently working in a number of accredited translation offices in Taiz. The study also investigates the challenges faced by Ts. For this purpose, a novel, a tourist brochure, an editorial, and three academic abstracts all translated by established publishing houses and translation centres in and outside Yemen are examined. These texts are analyzed to determine to what extent the problems faced by STs and NTs reoccur in published translations produced by Ts. For its conceptual framework, the study adopts an eclectic approach that does not stick rigidly to a particular paradigm but rather draws upon multiple linguistic and translation theories. However, it is mainly based on Halliday‟s Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) and the problems have been classified along his taxonomy of meaning metafunctions into ideational, interpersonal and textual. Extra-textual problems are also analyzed. Several SFG-based translation models such as Hatim and Mason‟s (1990) sociometic model, House‟s (1977, 1997) translation quality assessment model, Hervey et al. (1992) register analysis model and Baker‟s (1990) equivalence model are also employed in the study to help the researcher examine the problems encountered in Arabic-English translation within those four categories. In addition, Nord‟s functional model to translation which is based on Skopos theory is also taken into consideration although to a minimum extent. In addition to the analysis of translations produced by various categories of translators, the study uses several triangulation research tools such as questionnaire, Thinking Aloud Protocols (TAPs), retrospective interviews, and classroom observation. These tools are employed to assist the researcher to identify the possible causes for the problems the STs, NTs, and Ts experience from the perspective of the participants themselves. The current translation programme at Taiz University is also analyzed to determine to what extent it contributes to the poor performance of the student translators and would-be translators. The study concludes that STs, NTs and even Ts encounter several problems at the ideational, interpersonal and textual levels. They also encounter problems at the extra-textual stratum. The study attributes these problems to structural and cultural differences between the two languages, the reliance on the dictionary rather than the meaning in use of lexical items, the differences in the cohesion and coherence systems of Arabic and English, the negligence of the role of context in translation as well as unfamiliarity with text-typologies and genre conventions. In other words, participants follow a bottom-up approach in translation and come close to the source text translating it literally. This approach is very damaging because it ignores the fact that the three metafunctions might be realized differently in the two languages. Furthermore, the study concludes that the manner in which translation is taught at Taiz University as well as the syllabus contribute mainly to the lack of translation competence of the student translators and would-be translators. The programme is inadequate and it needs urgent review and improvements. The present syllabus does not keep abreast with the latest theoretical and practical developments in the discipline of translation as well as neighbouring disciplines such as contrastive linguistics, text-analysis, discourse analysis, corpus linguistics and the like. As for methodology, the study concludes that it is the transmissionist (teacher-centred) teaching approach rather than the transformational (learner-centred) which is commonly used in teaching translation. As a result, the read-and-translate approach dominates the scene and no tasks, activities, or projects are given to the STs. The study provides some recommendations, which if implemented, can be useful in enabling Yemeni and Arab universities to improve the competence among student translators in order to improve translation teaching at academic level. A major contribution of this study is the description and classification of translation problems in Arabic-English translation on the basis of meaning systems. Unlike traditional descriptive error analysis, which is widely used to analyze the translation product, SFG-based text analysis provides a systematic description of translation problems which allows a precise articulation of the nature of problems that would otherwise be explained simply as translations which “sound unnatural or awkward” (Kim 2008; Yallop 1999). As far as the researcher knows, no study in the Arab world has yet tackled translation problems from this perspective. Other studies have tackled deviated forms produced by students or translators using an error analysis technique rather than a holistic approach based on solid theoretical knowledge. In other words, while most other studies focused on specific „errors‟ and error analysis and ended at that, the present study does not only looks at „errors‟ as „difference‟ (from contrastive analysis) but rather from several perspectives. It is also more comprehensive by triangulating several sources of data and pooling them together for a more informed understanding.

In previous linguistic research, it has been found that there is an indirect relationship between gender and language usage. It has also been found that men and women use language in a distinctive way in their work role. There is a lot of research, both in the gender sciences but also in the linguistics, which has examined the difference in how men and women express themselves in writing. How the difference between the sexes can also be seen from a writing perspective is something that interests me and so in my study I chose to look at how men and women express themselves and portray themselves in personal letters. It is an area that interests me and looking at personal letters to job ads is something that there is not so much previous science around and I believe that more science in this specific area may be supportive in recruitment in the labor market in the future. The aim of my study is to see if there are differences in how men and women portray their characteristics in personal letters. My study is based on the following questions: Are person´s characteristics portrayed in personal letters by means of material or relational processes depending on gender? How do men and women portray their characteristics in personal letters versus the job advert´s qualifications? With the help of SFG and Impression Management I got answers to my questions. My study links to theories around SFG where the focus is mainly on processes. The study also links to Impression Management and Hirdman´s (1998) theory of the gender system. The results of my study show that there are differences between how men and women express themselves in writing. Women often produce their characteristics through relational processes and thus identify themselves with their characteristics. Men have a tendency to express their characteristics through material processes, which means that they identify themselves through actions. In contrast, my results do not support previous research that says that women appear more sensitive and vague while men appear more powerful. My results also show that women express more characteristics than men who are also linked to the job advertisement qualifications.

Skrivundervisning med stöd av genrepedagogik har sedan några år tillbaka bedrivits i flera svenska skolor. Pedagogiken vilar på sociokulturell teoribildning där stöttning och samarbete är centralt. Syftet med denna intervjustudie är att bidra till kunskap om hur verksamma lärare i årskurserna 1–6 upplever arbetet med genrepedagogik. I studien besvaras följande tre frågeställningar: hur arbetar lärarna med genrepedagogik, hur ser låg- och mellanstadielärare på arbetet med genrepedagogik och vilka effekter upplever lärarna att genrepedagogiken ger? Materialet till studien består av fem lärares intervjusvar. Intervjuerna har dels analyserats med hjälp av en innehållsanalysdär svaren har tematiserats utifrån studiens frågeställningar, dels analyserats utifrån de två sociokulturella begrepp som genrepedagogiken utgår från: stöttning och samarbete.  Innehållsanalysen visar att lärarna använder cirkelmodellen som en grund i skrivprocessen när de lär ut en ny genre samt att de använder både systemisk-funktionell grammatik och traditionell grammatik i sin undervisning. De effekter av genrepedagogik som lärarna upplever är genomgående positiva och beskrivs som att eleverna utvecklas i sitt språk och får verktyg som de kan använda i skrivandet. Några lärare lyfter dock negativa aspekter från sina erfarenheter att arbeta genrepedagogiskt som att det tar lång tid och att det fria skrivandet hämmas. Resultatet från analysen som är gjord med stöd av begreppen från den sociokulturella teorin visar att lärarna stöttar sina elever genom checklistor, stödstrukturer och ämnesspecifika begrepp samt genom samarbete. Lärarna beskriver att de upplever att ett genrepedagogiskt arbetssätt skapar tillfällen för elever att samarbeta.

This study examines the female protagonist Petra von Pahlen in Agnes von Krusenstjerna’s novel Den blå rullgardinen (The blue blind). The aim of the study is to make a stylistic examination of narrative perspective, relations, and agency in several text passages from the novel, to find out how the language of the text shapes Petra von Pahlen as a female character. To see whether the linguistic choices and functions of the text form Petra as an active or passive person, her relation to four other characters in the novel are examined. The material consists of 39 passages of text taken from 10 chapters of the novel, all of which dealing specifically with Petra’s part of the story. Literary theories used for the study are narratology and systemic-functional grammar. The applied methods for analysing the passages are a selection of syntactic and semantic markers compiled by Staffan Hellberg (1985) for stylistic analysis of narrative perspective in Swedish literary texts, and a selection of the tools for investigation of transitivity and ergativity in texts available through the systemic-functional theory of grammar by Michael Halliday (2014). The results show that the narrative perspective used in the text passages are mostly internal focalization, and that the most frequently used stylistic markers are expressions for perception and reflection, similes, metaphors, and words expressing value. The results also show that Petra is most frequently realized through the participant roles of Senser in mental processes, and Goal in material processes. In the ergative analysis Petra is most frequently realized in non-ergative clauses through the participant role as Medium, both in terms of first and second participant; she is seldom realized as Agent. From the quantitative results of the study, Petra can be viewed as a passive character, however an argumentation based on previous research from the fields of literary science and feminist literary stylistics also suggests an interpretation, where the context and themes in the novel, together with an awareness of the different ‘meanings’ of linguistic features, provide a less powerless position for Petra.

This thesis presents a case study from an authentic school practice, where seven students, in their second year of a social sciences program in an upper sec­on­dary school, use internet texts in various learning situations. The aim of the study is to map the reading practices of students encountering internet texts. The main data con­sists of obser­vations, audio and screen recordings, writ­ten instruc­tions, and screen ­shots of the sites visited. Reading practices are ana­lysed, draw­ing on concepts from New Literacy Studies and Systemic Func­tional Grammar, inclu­ding literacy events, literacy in terms of text cul­ture, text­ual norms, abstraction, auth­o­rity and mod­ality as a scale of reliability. The results reveal that meaning making resources such as colours, amount of writing and images and choice of fonts all seem to be parts of students’ con­ceptions of reliability. These textual norms result in learning situations in which students search for texts with pre­dominantly dense writing promoting ency­clopaedic know­ledge. These highly auth­orit­ative texts can be hard to under­stand for the students, something that the text analyses indicate. In com­parison to text books, the internet texts used show, a higher level of auth­ority and abs­trac­tion, rein­forced by gram­matical meta­phors. Most situ­ations in the study include peer interaction, but the most obvious learning poten­­tial resides in situations with a clear reading goal, where stu­dents work in groups and where negotiation is part of the meaning mak­ing pro­cess. The pedagogical implications of the study suggest the potential for students to achieve a higher degree of understanding of the encountered inter­net texts, through group work, and discussions concerning the impact of different layouts and the demands of verbal language. Another potential con­cerns methods for avoiding critical literacy being reduced to trivial visual scanning, via dis­cussions focusing on criteria for reliability evaluations. It is suggested that increased teacher awareness concerning the types of internet texts the students will encounter in authentic situations may contribute to students’ field and genre insight.

Recent international surveys reveal a decline in reading performance among Swedish students during the past decade. In the light of these results, this thesis describes the reading literacy of a class of high-performing students in the Swedish upper secondary school, in order to discern characteristics of successful readers. More specifically, the aim is to describe these students’ reading literacy in terms of their reading habits, approaches to texts, reading strategies, as well as reading positions. The study is framed within a socio-cultural perspective and is based on qualitative methods such as case studies, classroom observations and a group discussion, in combination with a partly quantitative survey. A methodological contribution to the research field is the attempt to develop a method for analyzing students’ reading positions, mainly based on the concept of text movability, as used by af Geijerstam, Liberg et al. The results reveal a deep reading position towards non-fiction texts among a majority of these high-performing students. In comparison with students who adopt a surface-oriented position, these students tend to show greater textual awareness and interactive text movability, and seem to use a wider repertoire of reading strategies in order to attain reading success. This study identifies the most prominent features of high-performing students as their textual awareness, i.e. an ability to comment on content, form, function and potential readers of texts, genre awareness, i.e. an ability to identify various text genres, and metacognitive awareness, i.e. knowing what strategies to use and when to use them. These features can be related to the students’ descriptions of their reading habits which imply that they read a great variety of texts, including both fiction and non-fiction. Most of these students report that they read daily and of their own accord. Having broad textual experience helps when it comes to reading texts in specialized domains that require inferencing and/or field knowledge. There also appears to be a match between the literacy supported in school and the literacy sustained in the students’ home environment. The pedagogical implications are the need for continuous work with students’ reading development and reading strategies, making students aware of different text genres and their specific features, and the importance for students to be challenged in their reading, but naturally in combination with appropriate scaffolding methods.