abstract: This study investigates the uses of English in advertising in Brazil and the attitudes of Brazilians towards the use of different difficulty levels of English in advertising. Using a two part, mixed-methods approach, drawing from quantitative and qualitative methods, I utilized a corpus study to examine English uses in Brazilian magazines and a survey to investigate the difficulty of English slogans as a determinant for people's attitudes towards English in advertising. For the first part, three major Brazilian news magazines, Veja, Época, and ISTOÉ were used. From three issues of each magazine, results showed that 57% of the advertisements in all nine magazines contained English in different parts of the advertisements, with most occurrences in the product name, followed by the body copy, headline, subheadline, and slogan. English was used to advertise a number of different product types, but was especially used for advertising cars, electronics, events, and banks. It was also found that the majority of English was used for its symbolic representations of modernity, prestige, globalization, and reliability. Using a survey for the second part of the study, I investigated how Brazilian participants judged four advertisements that featured English slogans that were comparable to slogans judged to be easy or difficult to understand in a similar study conducted by Hornikx, van Meurs, and de Boer (2010). Participants were offered attitudinal choices to mark off on a 4-point Likert scale, where they indicated their attitudes towards the English slogans provided. They were also asked to determine if they understood the slogans and to translate them to indicate their actual understanding of the slogans. Participants showed more positive attitudes towards the uses of English than negative attitudes. The survey provided evidence that with the very low numbers of correctly translated slogans, many participants believed they understood the slogans, which could prove to be more of an indicator of positive attitudes than their actual understanding of the slogans. This project provides an example from one Expanding Circle context touched by the far-reaching influences of World Englishes. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Applied Linguistics 2014

The aim of this paper was to look at a group of Swedish upper secondary school students’ extramural English activities in comparison to their final grades and their grades on the National Test in English level 5. The aim was also to see what role motivation could potentially play. The method was of a mixed nature with both questionnaires and interviews. The results show tendencies, in accordance with previous research, that there is a correlation between the students’ grades and their extramural English activities. The results also show that attitudes towards English are in correlation with both extramural English and the students’ grades. / Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka en grupp svenska gymnasieelevers kontakt med engelska utanför skolan i relation till deras slutbetyg och deras betyg från nationella proven från engelska nivå 5. Syftet var också att undersöka elevernas attityder till och motivation för det engelska språket. Både en kvantitativ metod i form av ett frågeformulär och en kvalitativ metod i form av intervjuer användes. Resultaten visar, i linje med tidigare forskning, att det finns ett samband mellan studenternas betyg och kontakt med engelska utanför skolan. Resultaten visar också att attityder till det engelska språket har ett samband både med studenternas kontakt med engelska utanför skolan och deras betyg.

This research paper investigates the language that is used by upper secondary students both in gaming and in school related situations. The overarching aim is to compare the language that students in upper secondary school use during online gaming and in classroom situations and how one influences the other and what attitudes students have regarding spoken English during online gaming and in the classroom. A questionnaire was used to gather information about the students’ gamer habits and how they perceive the connection between online games and second language learning. The results provided by the questionnaire showed that there is a positive attitude among the students regarding how online games can provide opportunities for expansion of a second language vocabulary. Many of the students felt that the online sphere provided a more secure and more accessible setting for learning than what their school could give them. It also showed that second language learning through online gaming is possible, but at the same that the language provided through online games has limited use in for example a school environment. Words and phrases that the students have picked up from online gaming are in many cases not useful outside of the speech community of gamers. Therefore, the conclusion that was made was that online gaming is a large part of many students’ second language learning and that many students feel that is a more accessible way to learn a second language. Therefore, a didactic implication is that it is important that teachers start to include online gaming language in their education.

Academic achievement in the context of the school necessarily involves a whole range of factors. The education system and schools in particular, have assumed the primacy of cognitive attributions in the learner over that of any other factors in the shaping and honing of individual academic achievement. However, the literature revealed that the learning process within the school environment feeds on a plethora of explanations for academic success or otherwise. Much work by researchers has focused on factors other than the cognitive, in an attempt to explain good or weak academic achievement. Certainly the separation of the cognitive from the affective in terms of achievement is impractical, as revealed by the literature. However the literature also contradicts received wisdom which suggests the omniscience of the cognitive as an explanatory tool for academic performance. This investigation focused on factors other than the cognitive in order to seek reasons for academic success. Three important affective factors were selected from the literature in order to ascertain whether these factors played a role in academic achievement or indeed if there was a relationship between these factors and scholastic success or otherwise. An empirical investigation was conducted which consisted primarily of a questionnaire for form four students in English classes. The questionnaire consisted of four sections with a total of 81 items. It was completed by 271 students attending five schools in Mutare Zimbabwe. Statistical analyses revealed that the affective factors attitudes towards English, self-concepts of academic ability and student perceptions of their teachers of English correlated significantly. The analyses also revealed that the selected factors took up 33% of the variance and that within that 33% the area in which students lived was the most important factor contributing to academic achievement whilst I.Q. and student self-concept of academic ability followed closely. The results of the literature study and the empirical investigation demonstrated that there are factors other than the cognitive which are important in terms of academic success in school As a result recommendations were made regarding school based programmes where the aim is to enhance affective factors and therefore achievement. / Educational Studies / D.Ed. (Psychology of Education)

Academic achievement in the context of the school necessarily involves a whole range of factors. The education system and schools in particular, have assumed the primacy of cognitive attributions in the learner over that of any other factors in the shaping and honing of individual academic achievement. However, the literature revealed that the learning process within the school environment feeds on a plethora of explanations for academic success or otherwise. Much work by researchers has focused on factors other than the cognitive, in an attempt to explain good or weak academic achievement. Certainly the separation of the cognitive from the affective in terms of achievement is impractical, as revealed by the literature. However the literature also contradicts received wisdom which suggests the omniscience of the cognitive as an explanatory tool for academic performance. This investigation focused on factors other than the cognitive in order to seek reasons for academic success. Three important affective factors were selected from the literature in order to ascertain whether these factors played a role in academic achievement or indeed if there was a relationship between these factors and scholastic success or otherwise. An empirical investigation was conducted which consisted primarily of a questionnaire for form four students in English classes. The questionnaire consisted of four sections with a total of 81 items. It was completed by 271 students attending five schools in Mutare Zimbabwe. Statistical analyses revealed that the affective factors attitudes towards English, self-concepts of academic ability and student perceptions of their teachers of English correlated significantly. The analyses also revealed that the selected factors took up 33% of the variance and that within that 33% the area in which students lived was the most important factor contributing to academic achievement whilst I.Q. and student self-concept of academic ability followed closely. The results of the literature study and the empirical investigation demonstrated that there are factors other than the cognitive which are important in terms of academic success in school As a result recommendations were made regarding school based programmes where the aim is to enhance affective factors and therefore achievement. / Educational Studies / D.Ed. (Psychology of Education)