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The study is based on qualitative research which aimed to show how four teachers interact in book talks with the students i connection with Swedish lessons in first grade. The study has focused on teachers´ questions to analyze the types of conversational genres that arise in connection with book talks in first grade.  Data was collected through interviews and observations. The interviews and observations were made at a school in the county of Stockholm. Four teachers´ Swedish lessons were observed and they were interviewed about how they describe and explain their use of book talks in Swedish lessons. Hultin´s categorization for speech genres and rhetorical and non-rhetorical questions´ (2006) served as main theoretical frameworks for analyzing the empirical material. From the interviews, I have come to the conclusion that the teachers are aware of different speech genres, and they use rhetorical and non-rhetorical questions for different purposes. The results of the study show that, depending on their purpose with book talk, teachers use different conversational genres.  The reults of the study show that a conversational genre dominated in the book talks that were examined but they also showed elements of other genres to a certain extent. It appears that two conversational genres were dominant in the teaching of teachers, that is, the teaching examination and the text oriented talk. On the other hand the culturally oriented talk and the informal book talk only appeared as compliments to the dominant genres. The study shows that teachers´ awareness of these genres is of great importance for developing the pupils´ reflective minds and skills.

Syftet med denna studie var att analysera vetenskapliga föreläsningar på onlineplattformen TED (technology, entertainment, design) och försöka förstå hur föreläsarna använder sig av klassiska retoriska begrepp. Anledningen var att vi ansåg att denna form av retorisk diskurs kan vara en potentiell lösning till några av de problem som existerar inom vetenskapskommunikation. Vi undersökte TED eftersom det i nuläget är den populäraste föreläsningsplattformen på internet.Vi har analyserat fyra vetenskapligt orienterade föreläsningar med hjälp av retorikanalys. Genom detta perspektiv har vi undersökt föreläsningarnas kontext, hur föreläsarna använder sig av klassisk retorisk disposition, hur de använder argumentationsmedel och vilka stilfigurer de lägger mest fokus på. Vi förhöll oss även till retorisk situationsteori för att förstå helheten bakom föreläsningarna.Vi sammanställde sedan materialet för att se vad alla föreläsningarna har för gemensamma aspekter. Resultatet visade att föreläsarna delade ett antal retoriska aspekter i sina tal. Från ett dispositionsperspektiv visade föreläsarna likheter med placering av tes och brist på motargument i talet. Föreläsarna lade också mest fokus på övertalningsmedlet logos och de använde mer frekvent stilfigurerna exempel, liknelse, och metafor.

Inledning Bildsamtal i samspel mellan vuxna och barn i förskolan kan skapa möjligheter för barns tidiga språkutveckling. Bilden kan utgöra en utgångspunkt för samtal där barnet i sociala sammanhang kan få möjlighet att kommunicera sina tankar, idéer, erfarenheter och känslor. Förskollärares medvetna förhållningssätt i arbetet med bilderböcker och bildsamtal kan uppmuntra och stimulera barns nyfikenhet för bilder och berättelser i barnlitteratur.Syfte I vårt examensarbete ville vi undersöka förskollärares upplevelser och erfarenheter av bildsamtalets betydelse och möjligheter för barns tidiga språkutveckling. Vårt fokus var bilder i bilderböcker.Metod Studien bygger på en kvalitativ undersökning med self report som metod för datainsamling. Den metodansats som valts är den hermaneutiska.Resultat Resultatet visar att samtliga förskollärare i undersökningen använder bilder i bilderböcker som utgångspunkt för samtal och kommunikation med barn redan i tidig ålder. Undersökningen visar att förskollärarna är medvetna om vikten av bildsamtal som de upplever påverkar barns tidiga språkutveckling. Förskollärarna beskriver några betydelsefulla faktorer som påverkar barns möjligheter att utveckla sitt språk. De belyser förskollärares förhållningssätt, arbetssätt samt att barn får möjlighet att ingå i sociala sammanhang i samband med att de möter bilder i bilderböcker.

Recent research suggests that psychological techniques may facilitate injured athletes' rehabilitation, yet little is known about the psychological techniques trainers currently employ and how they view these interventions. In this study, 206 athletic trainers assigned Likert scale ratings to 11 psychological techniques indicating how much they valued a specific technique, how skillfully they employed it, and how often they utilized it. Trainers also responded to an open ended question asking how they would deal with the psychological aspects of an injury described in a short scenario. Results revealed a tentative model for the way trainers view psychological techniques. Categories of techniques included techniques involving the modification of physical and psychological states (goal setting, pain management, relaxation, imagery, and breathing techniques), techniques involving verbal cognitive techniques (communicating openly, changing negative self talk, emotional counseling, and crisis counseling), and non-recommended techniques (encouraging heroism and screening negative information). The study explored trainers' perceptions of each of the 11 psychological techniques in depth and discussed these findings. The study found that although trainers highly value psychological interventions in their work with injured athletes, they assigned low ratings to the techniques they knew little about. However, as exposure to sport psychology information increased, ratings assigned to the techniques that modify physical and psychological states also increased. Similarly, the longer trainers had worked in their field, the more highly they valued the verbal cognitive interventions. In contrast, neither exposure to sport psychology information or athletic training experience proved predictive of ratings assigned to the non-recommended psychological techniques. These findings suggest the importance of introducing skills training for psychological techniques early in the athletic trainers' educational curriculum so that trainers can gain awareness of the efficacy of certain psychological techniques and skill at using these techniques. Moreover, trainers could benefit from course work explaining potential negative consequences of employing harmful or ineffectual psychological interventions.

The problem investigated in this study is the following: “What is the nature and function of the theme of God’s speech in the book of Hebrews and within the whole of the revelation in Scripture?”. This problem can only be solved if the unfolding nature of God’s speech from the Old to the New Testament is taken into account (cf. Heb 1:1-2), the theme is researched grammatical-historically, and then placed revelational-historically within the whole of Scripture. The introductory questions of the book of Hebrews are investigated for the potential light that answers to these questions can shed on the appearance, function and interpretation of references to God’s speech in the book. Subsequently, the structure of Hebrews is investigated and analysed to determine the position which the theme of God’s speech assumes within the sermon. This goal is achieved through a literature study on suggestions for Hebrews’ structure, followed up by an independent thought structure analysis of Hebrews according to the method of Coetzee (1988a:19-37). From the position of the theme of God’s speech within the structure of the sermon the nature and content of the author of Hebrews’ references to the theme of God’s speech as introductory formulae, and as part of Old Testament quotations themselves, are determined. This is done by examining the 38 introductory formulae in Hebrews in detail on the basis of a literature and independent study. Subsequently, eleven pericopes in Hebrews where keywords of the theme of God’s speech come together as part of the argumentation of the sermon are researched grammatical-historically using a combined method of Coetzee (1997), Tolar (2002), Jordaan (2004a) and Fee (2009). Ultimately it is determined how the theme of God’s speech unfolds in the book of Hebrews regarding manner, nature and content by giving an overview of the collected material by means of analysis, interpretation and synthesis. From this overview it is determined how the author of Hebrews’ theme of God’s speech fits into the whole of God’s revelation in Scripture. This is achieved by doing a cursory revelational-historical study using a combined method of Coetzee (1995) and Jordaan (2003) on six topics that form the overview of the theme of God’s speech in Hebrews. Finally, a general conclusion is reached by answering the problem of this study by way of enumeration: The revelational-historical importance of the theme of God’s speech in Hebrews is that the author shares the presupposition of other biblical authors that the Old Testament is divinely inspired and therefore absolutely authoritative, but then with the explicit emphasis that God is presently still speaking directly and urgently with man through it. The unfolding of God’s revelation also has a specific accentuation in Hebrews by means of the author’s emphasis that God revealed Himself superior and finally in his Son. The author of Hebrews’ emphasis on the greater responsibility of the hearers to listen faithfully and obediently because of God’s superior revelation in his Son, is also unique. For these reasons alone Hebrews has an indispensable role within the Canon. / PhD (New Testament), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The field of swarm robotics has been growing fast over the last few years. Using a swarm of simple and cheap robots has advantages in various tasks. Apart from performance gains on tasks that allow for parallel execution, simple robots can also be smaller, enabling them to reach areas that can not be accessed by a larger, more complex robot. Their ability to cooperate means they can execute complex tasks while offering self-organised adaptation to changing environments and robustness due to redundancy. In order to keep individual robots simple, a control algorithm has to keep expensive communication to a minimum and has to be able to act on little information to keep the amount of sensors down. The number of sensors and actuators can be reduced even more when necessary capabilities are spread out over different agents that then combine them by cooperating. Self-organised differentiation within these heterogeneous groups has to take the individual abilities of agents into account to improve group performance. In this thesis it is shown that a homogeneous group of versatile agents can not be easily replaced by a heterogeneous group, by separating the abilities of the versatile agents into several specialists. It is shown that no composition of those specialists produces the same outcome as a homogeneous group on a clustering task. In the second part of this work, an adaptation mechanism for a group of foragers introduced by Labella et al. (2004) is analysed in more detail. It does not require communication and needs only the information on individual success or failure. The algorithm leads to self-organised regulation of group activity depending on object availability in the environment by adjusting resting times in a base. A possible variation of this algorithm is introduced which replaces the probabilistic mechanism with which agents determine to leave the base. It is demonstrated that a direct calculation of the resting times does not lead to differences in terms of differentiation and speed of adaptation. After investigating effects of different parameters on the system, it is shown that there is no efficiency increase in static environments with constant object density when using a homogeneous group of agents. Efficiency gains can nevertheless be achieved in dynamic environments. The algorithm was also reported to lead to higher activity of agents which have higher performance. It is shown that this leads to efficiency gains in heterogeneous groups in static and dynamic environments.

The research for this doctoral study focused on children’s learning in mathematics and its relationship with independent pupil-pupil talk. In particular the interest was in how younger lower attaining children (aged 6-7) exchanged meaning as they talked together within a mathematical task. The data for the doctoral study had been gathered as part of the Talking Counts Project which I directed with colleagues at the University of Exeter. The project developed an intervention to encourage exploratory talk in mathematics with younger lower attaining children. Video material and transcripts of the mathematics lessons from nine classrooms that were part of the TC Project were used as the data set for the doctoral study. The focus of the analysis was on the independent pupil-pupil talk from one pre intervention session and one post intervention session from these nine classrooms. In using an existing data base, analysis was carried out in more depth and from a new perspective. A Vygotskyan sociocultural approach was maintained but analysis of the learning in the doctoral study was refocused in line with theories of situated meaning in discourse and with theories of the emergence of mathematical objects. Hence my examination of the children’s learning for the doctoral study went beyond the original research carried out in the TC Project. Within an interpretivist paradigm the methods of analysis related to the functional use of the children’s language. Interpretations were made of the children’s speech acts and their use of functional grammar. This enabled a study of both social and emotional aspects of shared intentionality as well as personal, social and cultural constructs of mathematical objects. The findings suggested that, where the talk was productive, the children were using deixis in sharing intentions and that this use could be related to the exchange of meaning and objectifying deixis.

Recently, there has been a big surge of research and public interest in increasing the math capabilities and skills of American children. This paper serves as a literature review examining how the home environment, specifically parents, can help with that. This meta-analysis delves into the factors of maternal math talk, a parent’s own math anxiety, and the relationship between a parent and child in the context of a parent’s gender stereotypes and a parent’s perception on his or her child’s math abilities. Interventions, suggestions, and future implications are also discussed. This paper will hopefully bring needed awareness to parents about their roles in their child’s math development, abilities, and achievement.

Language is power. Especially among preschool children, where one of the most coveted identities sought during social interactions is that of the leader. Leadership is not taken; it is given when individuals accept instructions from someone else and let them lead. These individuals then become followers. I decided, after reading various literature and scientific research about children’s peer talk and linguistic interactions, to study how preschool children use linguistic interactions and strategies to form the identities of leaders and followers during free play; scheduled points during the day where activities are based on the children’s interests and not led by preschool teachers, which aids in trying to see things from the children’s perspective. I did a video-enabled microethnographic study over the course of a week as a complete observer to capture the strategies used by five children (ages 5 to 6) to form the identities of leaders and followers during their peer talk and peer group interactions. After transcribing the recorded material where these social interactions were most apparent, I then analyzed at which points the children were given these identities and what strategies were used as resources from a sociolinguistic perspective. Three primary strategies were identified; speech genres, code-switching and language play. I also discovered that the children were inspired by their surroundings and the available materials in choosing what to play and base their linguistic interactions on. I concluded that leadership is closely related to expertise about various subjects and that followers allow individuals with more expertise than them to lead. This is how our society typically works. The children used their various levels of expertise regarding the subject matter and strategies like speech genres, code-switching and language play as resources to raise their own status and attempt to lower the status of others, forming the identities of leaders and followers.