<p>This corpus-based study examines adjectives and adjectival expressions used to describe characters in British children’s fiction. The focus is on diachronic variation, by comparing Victorian (19th-century) and contemporary (late 20th-century) children’s fiction, and on gender variation, by comparing the descriptions of female and male characters. I adopt a qualitative as well as a quantitative approach, and consider factors such as lexical diversity, adjectival density, collocation patterns, evaluative meaning, syntactic function and distribution across semantic domains. Most findings are related to a dichotomy set up between an idealistic and a realistic portrayal of characters. The study shows that an idealistic portrayal of characters is typical of the Victorian material and a realistic portrayal of characters typical of the contemporary material. Further, gender differences are much more pronounced, and reflect traditional gender role patterns more in the Victorian material than in the contemporary material. For instance, a pleasant appearance is typically described for Victorian female characters and social position for Victorian male characters. Moreover, descriptions of mental properties of Victorian female characters are conspicuously rare. Such gendered patterns are less distinct in the contemporary material, although appearance is still more extensively described for female than male characters. As regards how the qualities are attributed to characters, the descriptions of Victorian female characters were found to be the most formulaic compared to the descriptions of Victorian male, contemporary female and contemporary male characters.</p>

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This corpus-based study examines adjectives and adjectival expressions used to describe characters in British children’s fiction. The focus is on diachronic variation, by comparing Victorian (19th-century) and contemporary (late 20th-century) children’s fiction, and on gender variation, by comparing the descriptions of female and male characters. I adopt a qualitative as well as a quantitative approach, and consider factors such as lexical diversity, adjectival density, collocation patterns, evaluative meaning, syntactic function and distribution across semantic domains. Most findings are related to a dichotomy set up between an idealistic and a realistic portrayal of characters. The study shows that an idealistic portrayal of characters is typical of the Victorian material and a realistic portrayal of characters typical of the contemporary material. Further, gender differences are much more pronounced, and reflect traditional gender role patterns more in the Victorian material than in the contemporary material. For instance, a pleasant appearance is typically described for Victorian female characters and social position for Victorian male characters. Moreover, descriptions of mental properties of Victorian female characters are conspicuously rare. Such gendered patterns are less distinct in the contemporary material, although appearance is still more extensively described for female than male characters. As regards how the qualities are attributed to characters, the descriptions of Victorian female characters were found to be the most formulaic compared to the descriptions of Victorian male, contemporary female and contemporary male characters.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:06:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MKM.pdf: 917584 bytes, checksum: cea833f5d98c17ebc0535d899cf9f518 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-07-07 / This present work has as objective to analyze the interpretation of the syntactic and semantic meaning performed by third graders in the nominal groups (NGs) with attributive adjectives in the English language in a text of the final exam in the ESP (English for Specific Purposes) discipline. The corpus is made up of 30 exams of two classes from a third grade institution of the biomedical area, corresponding to the basic and advanced levels of the second term in 2006. The text has 24 NGs of different lexical content, a total of 27 NGs in the whole text summing up to 810 analyzed occurrences. The analysis is carried out at the morphologic, syntactic and semantic levels using as theoretical background the traditional and functional grammars (QUIRK et al, 1985; CELSE-MURCIA et al, 1998; TUCKER, 1998), in their semantic aspects, the Semantics (FRAWLEY, 1992) and the Cognitive Linguistics (TAYLOR, 2002). We concluded that the main difficulties were due to the lack of vocabulary and to the use of mother tongue strategies instead of using the top-down strategies for reading a text in English to compensate this gap. We also observed that even when the vocabulary was known, there were difficulties in establishing the semantic and syntactic relations between modifier and noun head. We suggested improvements for the teaching of reading English texts at the third grade grounded in the obtained results such as a more comprehensive study of the several different morphologic and syntactic structures of the NGs with premodifiers and their semantic consequences, an approach of the morphologic, syntactic and semantic aspects of the NGs and the use of both top-down and bottom-up strategies when reading a NG in the English language / Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar a interpreta??o do significado sint?tico e sem?ntico realizada por alunos universit?rios de Ingl?s Instrumental nos sintagmas nominais (SNs) com adjetivos atributivos na l?ngua inglesa em um texto da prova de final de semestre. O corpus ? constitu?do por 30 provas de duas turmas de uma institui??o de n?vel superior, da ?rea biom?dica, do segundo semestre de 2006, do n?vel b?sico e avan?ado. O texto da prova ? composto por 24 SNs de conte?do lexical diferente, num total de 27 SNs presentes no texto, totalizando 810 ocorr?ncias analisadas. Usamos como pressupostos te?ricos as gram?ticas tradicional (QUIRK et al, 1985) e funcionalista (CELSE-MURCIA et al, 1998; TUCKER, 1998), em seus aspectos sem?nticos, a Sem?ntica (FRAWLEY, 1992) e a Ling??stica Cognitiva (TAYLOR, 2003). Conclu?mos que as maiores dificuldades deveram-se ? falta de vocabul?rio, ao uso inadequado de estrat?gias da L?ngua Materna no lugar de se usar as estrat?gias descendentes de leitura para suprir esta falta. Observamos tamb?m que, mesmo quando se conhecia o vocabul?rio do SN, muitas vezes houve dificuldades em se perceber a rela??o sem?ntica e/ou sint?tica entre os modificadores e o n?cleo do SN acarretando inadequa??es de interpreta??o. Sugerimos melhorias para o ensino da leitura de textos em l?ngua inglesa nas universidades com base nos resultados obtidos, como um estudo mais detalhado das v?rias estruturas morfossint?ticas dos SNs com modificadores antepostos e suas conseq??ncias sem?nticas; uma abordagem conjunta dos aspectos morfol?gico, sint?tico e sem?ntico dos SNs com adjetivos atributivos na l?ngua inglesa e o uso das estrat?gias descendentes juntamente com as ascendentes ao se ler um SN na l?ngua inglesa

The objective of the thesis is to describe and compare the modifying uses of two adjectives which can appear both as premodifiers as well as bare postmodifiers, namely available and responsible. Both modifying positions are examined with respect to the textual environment, the complexity of noun phrases and adjective phrases in which the adjectives function, reference and other features in order to outline the patterns in which these two adjectives appear. The data for the analytical part have been extracted from the British National Corpus using the basic query and limiting the search to the written part of the corpus. After manual assessment of the initial samples of 500 concordance lines, 154 concordance lines containing the adjective available and 147 containing the adjective responsible proved to be suitable for the analysis. The final samples of the data are further categorized and analysed concerning the complexity of the noun phrase, premodification, postmodification and complementation of the adjectives, semantic preference of the head nouns, and the motivation for the pre- or postnominal placement of the modifiers. Key words: adjective, adjective phrase, premodification, postmodification, complementation, attributive function, predicative function, postpositive function, bare adjective,...

Le choix de compétences dans le contrat de travail international, permet une véritable valorisation du rôle de la volonté des parties dans l'insertion des clauses contractuelles désignant la compétence d'une loi ou d'un juge, étatique ou privé. Des conditions de fond et de forme sont exigées pour l'admissibilité de cette dérogation volontaire à la compétence naturelle des règles applicables. Mais, le déséquilibre qui caractérise la relation de travail, exige un encadrement stricte de ce choix par des mécanismes protecteurs de la partie faible. L'intervention des règles impératives du lieu de l'exécution habituelle du travail permet d'atteindre cet objectif par l'application, soit d'un critère de faveur qui consiste à appliquer la loi la plus favorable pour le salarié, soit à mettre en œuvre un critère de proximité qui permet d'appliquer la loi qui entretient les liens les plus étroits avec la situation litigieuse. / In international contracts of employment, the parties’ will is significantly enhanced by the choice of competences through the insertion of clauses referring to the competent law or competent judge (private or public). But the eligibility for this voluntary exemption to applicable natural competences requires formal and substantial conditions. Indeed, the disequilibrium that inherently characterizes the employment relationship calls for a strict scrutiny. Assuring the choice made by the weaker thus necessitates protective mechanisms. The intervention of mandatory rules of the place where the employee habitually carries out his work allows the achievement of the aforementioned objective. This is done so by the application of two alternative criteria, in either the law that is the most favourable law to his interests or the law that is most closely connected to the particular situation.

Cette recherche-action vise à déterminer par quels moyens les enseignants de français peuvent contribuer à favoriser le transfert de connaissances grammaticales en situation d’écriture chez leurs élèves de niveau secondaire. Nous avons d’abord constaté que, chez les élèves du secondaire en général, les accords sont plus facilement réussis en contexte d’exercice qu’en contexte de production écrite. Sur la base de propositions didactiques pertinentes concernant l’orthographe grammaticale et/ou le transfert de connaissances, propositions fondées notamment sur une approche inductive, centrée sur le questionnement de l’élève et sur l’analyse de phrases, nous avons conçu et élaboré une séquence didactique portant sur l’accord du participe passé employé avec être ou avec un verbe attributif. Dans un deuxième temps, nous l’avons mise à l’essai auprès d’un groupe d’élèves de troisième secondaire, puis nous en avons vérifié les effets à l’aide d’un prétest et d’un posttest composés respectivement d’un questionnaire, d’un exercice et d’une production écrite. Les résultats révélés par l’analyse des données démontrent l’efficacité de la série de cours. En effet, le taux moyen de réussite des accords en contexte d’exercice passe de 53% à 75%, alors que, pour les productions écrites, il est de 48% avant la série de cours contre 82% après. Les questionnaires recueillis nous portent à attribuer en partie cette forte augmentation du taux de réussite des accords en contexte de production écrite au bon déroulement du processus de transfert grâce au travail effectué en cours de séquence sur les connaissances conditionnelles. / This action research aims to determine by which means French teachers can contribute to help their secondary students in transferring their grammatical knowledge in writing situations. We first noticed that, for secondary students in general, agreements are more likely to be successful in exercise context than in writing context. Based on didactical propositions of researchers interested in grammatical spelling and/or transfer of knowledge, notably propositions consisting in an inductive approach, centered on student questioning and sentence analysis, we conceived and developed a didactical sequence about the agreement of past participle used with être or with an attributive verb. Then, we implemented it in a third grade secondary student group, and we observed its effects by pretesting and posttesting, using questionnaires, exercises and written productions. Results revealed by data analysis show the efficiency of the lessons built. Students succeeded a lot more often in making agreement of past participle used with être or with an attributive verb after the implement of the didactical sequence than before. The mean rate of successful agreement in exercises came from 53% to 75%, while agreement in written production is 48% successful before, against 82% after. The questionnaires collected incline us to believe that this augmentation of successful agreement rate in written productions is related to the right progress of the transfer process due to work done during lessons on conditional knowledge.

The aim of the given thesis is to expound the problem of syntax processing by creating adjectival compounds in dictionary entries for the Large German-Czech Academic Dictionary. Assuming that exactly these words, which belong to the complicated vocabulary items, cause difficulties for foreign speakers with text comprehension and text production. It is based on the nature of German language, which makes many compounds, as opposed to in Czech language. Not only are the meanings of these words revealed to be problematic, but also their usage. The thesis is divided into two parts. The theoretical part deals with characteristics of adjectives as word class, and because each word always has its context, attention will be primarily focused on the adjectival valency. Previously, only the valency of verbs and substantives has been discussed. When a native speaker automatically knows these syntax structures and even when, in case of foreign language, there could exist structural similarities between the source and target language, the structures ought consequently to be given in the dictionary. In some mono- or bilingual dictionary the user should find complex informations for word searched. The practical part involves analysis of ten chosen adjective compounds, which shows how the valency structures are...

Cette recherche-action vise à déterminer par quels moyens les enseignants de français peuvent contribuer à favoriser le transfert de connaissances grammaticales en situation d’écriture chez leurs élèves de niveau secondaire. Nous avons d’abord constaté que, chez les élèves du secondaire en général, les accords sont plus facilement réussis en contexte d’exercice qu’en contexte de production écrite. Sur la base de propositions didactiques pertinentes concernant l’orthographe grammaticale et/ou le transfert de connaissances, propositions fondées notamment sur une approche inductive, centrée sur le questionnement de l’élève et sur l’analyse de phrases, nous avons conçu et élaboré une séquence didactique portant sur l’accord du participe passé employé avec être ou avec un verbe attributif. Dans un deuxième temps, nous l’avons mise à l’essai auprès d’un groupe d’élèves de troisième secondaire, puis nous en avons vérifié les effets à l’aide d’un prétest et d’un posttest composés respectivement d’un questionnaire, d’un exercice et d’une production écrite. Les résultats révélés par l’analyse des données démontrent l’efficacité de la série de cours. En effet, le taux moyen de réussite des accords en contexte d’exercice passe de 53% à 75%, alors que, pour les productions écrites, il est de 48% avant la série de cours contre 82% après. Les questionnaires recueillis nous portent à attribuer en partie cette forte augmentation du taux de réussite des accords en contexte de production écrite au bon déroulement du processus de transfert grâce au travail effectué en cours de séquence sur les connaissances conditionnelles. / This action research aims to determine by which means French teachers can contribute to help their secondary students in transferring their grammatical knowledge in writing situations. We first noticed that, for secondary students in general, agreements are more likely to be successful in exercise context than in writing context. Based on didactical propositions of researchers interested in grammatical spelling and/or transfer of knowledge, notably propositions consisting in an inductive approach, centered on student questioning and sentence analysis, we conceived and developed a didactical sequence about the agreement of past participle used with être or with an attributive verb. Then, we implemented it in a third grade secondary student group, and we observed its effects by pretesting and posttesting, using questionnaires, exercises and written productions. Results revealed by data analysis show the efficiency of the lessons built. Students succeeded a lot more often in making agreement of past participle used with être or with an attributive verb after the implement of the didactical sequence than before. The mean rate of successful agreement in exercises came from 53% to 75%, while agreement in written production is 48% successful before, against 82% after. The questionnaires collected incline us to believe that this augmentation of successful agreement rate in written productions is related to the right progress of the transfer process due to work done during lessons on conditional knowledge.

The thesis New Names of Professions is divided into a theoretical and a practical part. In the theoretical part, basic terms from the world of work are defined; the essential term is profession. Furthermore, neologisms are defined in the first part in accordance with professional literature without being confined to denomination of persons. For the purposes of the practical part, new names of professions were excerpted from the list of professions of the employment office and from a list in Učitelské noviny. Their occurrence was further verified using the EDA and Newton media databases and the results of the research were compared with the created list. An alphabetical list of the excerpted professions and a thematically divided list of those professions are an integral part of this work.