Orientador: Sylvia Bueno Terzi / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-04T15:22:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Carneiro_MariaAngelicaLauretti_D.pdf: 5147845 bytes, checksum: 3fdbf7c08a5ab3d2fede4fa640c19599 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: Esta pesquisa em Lingüística Aplicada tem como tema o desenvolvimento de leitura de alunos do sexto período de um curso de licenciatura em Letras de uma faculdade particular do interior paulista. O objetivo é investigar o processo de construção da reflexão metadiscursiva desses sujeitos, com histórico restrito de letramento, em uma situação didática de leitura de textos jornalísticos que privilegiava a co-relação entre a teoria e a análise empírica de textos. A reflexão metadiscursiva implica o reconhecimento dos aspectos lingüístico-discursivos envolvidos na construção dos sentidos dos textos. Os dados, coletados no decorrer do curso ministrado pela professora- pesquisadora, referem-se às respostas a roteiros de leitura de textos jornalísticos e foram analisados a partir de uma abordagem interpretativista de cunho etnográfico. As análises foram baseadas nos fundamentos teórico-metodológicos da Análise Crítica do Discurso e da perspectiva dos estudos etnográficos do letramento. Recorreu-se além disso, à teoria da argumentação, focalizando a persuasão. As descrições das produções dos alunos, ancoraram-se nas teorias da análise enunciativo-discursiva e da Análise Crítica do Discurso. Foram identificadas duas concepções de língua, como representação do mundo e como ação entre sujeitos, além da emergência dos processos de reflexão metadiscursiva em direção a uma postura mais crítica do aluno, pela consciência de que o texto pode abarcar o posicionamento do autor. A conclusão a que chegamos foi que as mudanças na concepção de língua e de texto surgiram como uma conseqüência da reflexão metadiscursiva desenvolvida durante as práticas analíticas de textos. Constatamos, além disso, que a situação de ensino que privilegiou os processos reflexivos foi preponderante para o desenvolvimento de leitura desses sujeitos. A partir dos resultados alcançados, efetuamos uma avaliação das teorias que nos serviram de base teórica e metodológica e apontamos as implicações que decorrem deste trabalho / Abstract: The aim of this Applied Linguistics research is the reading development of low literacy students from the sixth term of Language Graduation of a private college in the inland of São Paulo State. This investigation analyses the meta-discoursive processes of these students in reading tasks of journalism texts at a didactic context which favored the co-relation between the information conveyed in the language theories and the empiric analysis of the linguistics and discoursive aspects of the texts. The theoretical and methodological framework came from Critical Discourse Analysis and the prospects of the Literacy studies. Besides this, we focused on the persuasive aspect of the language based on the argumentation theory. The description of the students¿ productions was anchored on Critical Discourse Analysis theories and on enunciative analysis studies. Two language concepts were highlighted in the analyses, so as to represent the world and as an interaction among the subjects, besides the emergency of the meta-discoursive reflection towards a more critical posture of the students and also of the teaching approach effects. It was conclued that the meta discoursive reflexions were important for changes of language concepts as well as depended on reading context's construction. From this point on, we made an evaluation of the theories that helped us to outline the theoretical and methodological basis and we nominated the implications resulting thereafter / Doutorado / Ensino-Aprendizagem de Lingua Materna / Doutor em Linguística Aplicada

[pt] Esta dissertação investigou a aplicação de processos de mineração de textos a partir de técnicas de inteligência computacional e aprendizado de máquina no problema de ambigüidade de sentido de palavras. O trabalho na área de métodos de apoio à decisão teve como objetivo o desenvolvimento de técnicas capazes de automatizar os processos de desambiguação bem como a construção de um protótipo baseado na implementação de algumas dessas técnicas. Desambiguação de sentido de palavra é o processo de atribuição de um significado a uma palavra obtido por meio de informações colhidas no contexto em que ela ocorre, e um de seus objetivos é mitigar os enganos introduzidos por construções textuais ambíguas, auxiliando assim o processo de tomada de decisão. Buscou-se ainda na utilização de conceitos, ferramentas e formas de documentação considerados em trabalhos anteriores de maneira a dar continuidade ao desenvolvimento científico e deixar um legado mais facilmente reutilizável em trabalhos futuros. Atenção especial foi dada ao processo de detecção de ambigüidades e, por esse motivo, uma abordagem diferenciada foi empregada. Diferente da forma mais comum de desambiguação, onde uma máquina é treinada para desambiguar determinado termo, buscou-se no presente trabalho a nãodependência de se conhecer o termo a ser tratado e assim tornar o sistema mais robusto e genérico. Para isso, foram desenvolvidas heurísticas específicas baseadas em técnicas de inteligência computacional. Os critérios semânticos para identificação de termos ambíguos foram extraídos das técnicas de agrupamento empregadas em léxicos construídos após algum processo de normalização de termos. O protótipo, SID - Sistema Inteligente de Desambiguação - foi desenvolvido em .NET, que permite uma grande diversidade de linguagens no desenvolvimento, o que facilita o reuso do código para a continuidade da pesquisa ou a utilização das técnicas implementadas em alguma aplicação de mineração de textos. A linguagem escolhida foi o C#, pela sua robustez, facilidade e semelhança sintática com JAVA e C++, linguagens amplamente conhecidas e utilizadas pela maioria dos desenvolvedores. / [en] This dissertation investigated the application of text mining process from techniques of computing intelligence and machine learning in the problem of word sense ambiguity. The work in the methods of decision support area aimed to develop techniques capable of doing a word meaning disambiguation automatically and also to construct a prototype based on the application of such techniques. Special attention was given to the process of ambiguity detection and, for this reason, a differentiated approach was used. Unlikely the most common type of disambiguation, in which the machine is trained to do it in determined terms, the present work aimed to address the ambiguity problem without the need of knowing the meaning of the term used, and thus, to make the system more robust and generic. In order to achieve that, specific heurists were developed based on computing intelligence techniques. The semantic criteria used to identify the ambiguous terms were extracted from grouping techniques employed in lexis built after some term normalization process.

Suicide texts are the traces left by their authors for the public allowing them to understand the causes of the desire to commit suicide, regardless of whether such notes preceded successful suicide attempts or not. The types of such texts can vary dramatically in emotional expressiveness, be it a suicide note handwritten by the author or a short post typed on a web forum dedicated to suicides. While one text can be evidence of a successful suicide attempt, the other may point to a deeply depressive state which may or may not lead to a suicide attempt in future. The main questions this study aims to answer are: (1) what is the difference between the two above-named types of suicide texts (‘suicide notes’ and ‘suicide posts’) and (2) how is it expressed linguistically? Previous works on suicide texts have been of significant importance and have managed to investigate the differences between suicide notes of the attempters and those who completed suicide (Joiner 2002) as well as underline the typical features of genuine suicide notes in comparison to fabricated suicide notes. However, no studies indicating the differences between the ‘suicide notes’ of successful suicides and the ‘suicide posts’ of authors exhibiting various degrees of depressive behavior have previously been conducted. In this thesis, the comparative analysis of ‘suicide notes’ left by those successful in their attempts  and ‘suicide posts’ composed by authors with unknown fates has been carried out with the help of discourse analysis. Both types of texts have been examined from such linguistic levels as semantics, pragmatics and syntax. The results show several distinctive features peculiar to each type. While providing a clear reason for committing suicide in the one case contrasts with detailing a number of causes for depression in the other, further differences exist in regard to expressing such emotions as (1) fear of life, (2) relief, (3) lack of hope and (4) lack of doubt versus displaying such emotions as (1) fear of death, (2) preserved desire and (3) doubt. An easy to follow structure and purposeful past tense usage in suicide notes stands in contrast to the allusions to previous suicide attempts and indistinguishable pattern found in suicide posts. At the same time, specific punctuation signs were found to be peculiar mainly to the suicide post type of text.  The results of the research also demonstrate the necessity for further investigation of the characteristic features of different types of suicide text as well as their classification. Moreover, the study indicates the possibilities of tracing the probable transformation from ‘suicide posts’ to ‘suicide notes’ which may well serve for purposes of suicide prevention, especially if an additional category, i.e., notes written by survivors, is added to the analysis.

This essay investigates how students studying at upper secondary level perceive the use of text and video as teaching aids as part of their English studies. Students that came from both vocational and preparatory programs completed an online survey and seven of them subsequently took part in interviews. Both the survey and the interviews show that a large majority of students would like much more video based teaching material as part of their English courses - some would even prefer all the course material to be video based. The results also show that even though the students want more video, opinion is divided when it comes to how much, and in what way video is best used or incorporated into English teaching. Many of the students that asked for more video said that they found it difficult to read and to understand longer texts, furthermore they found texts to be boring. They pointed out that video was more interesting and motivating. Video was generally seen as being the preferred choice when it came to authentic language, help with pronunciation and access to the culture of different English speaking countries. Text, on the other hand, was seen to provide a much richer and more detailed information which was especially helpful when it came to spelling and grammar. It was also clear that the preference for video was greater among the students from the vocational classes. There was also a general agreement that, although video is used as a teaching aid, it is more usually used by their teachers as a time filler or reward. Finally, even if learning English continues to be based on text and course books, there is a broad consensus among the students that more video should be used, as it is seen as a valuable and an effective complement to traditional text based material.

The aim of this thesis is to study the conditions surrounding young students’ text production in the subject of History. The study, which was performed within a class in grade 4, describes a project where the students produced individual books about the Middle Ages. The study analyzes the educational resources that the students were offered to produce a chapter on the Black Death and how nine students made use of these resources in their texts. Three resourses were analyzed: the teachers’ oral storytelling, the instructions and the designated chapter in the textbook. The material, which was collected through an ethnographic approach with participant observation and interviews, consists of field notes, films, photographs, student texts and teaching materials. The resources were analyzed through sociocultural and socio­semiotic methods. The results show that the oral communication is dominated by the teachers’ storytelling which is perceived as interes­ting and engaging by the students. This is especially true for the dramatized parts that seem to have a potential for providing a deep contextualization of the content. However, the students opportunities to formulate and discuss the content before producing their own texts are limited. The history textbook provides subject-specific knowledge as well as typical features of school history texts, but as the text is mainly processed individually the students are not made aware of this. The results indicate that both the students and the teacher perceive the project as an exercise in writing and that the content subsequently appears to be secondary. This is likely due to the fact that the instructions are general writing instructions rather than content-based or subject-specific. The texts produced by the students show a variation in length, number of headlines, images, and use of resources (written and oral, or just written). The instructions urge the students to retell the designated text ”in their own words" and explicitly forbid copying. The results show that the instruction is perceived in two different ways. Five students use the textbook as their main resource avoiding copying by developing various strategies such as exchanging or skipping words, summarizing paragraphs or combining chunks of existing sentences into new ones. Four students take a different approach and base their texts mainly on the oral storytelling, which might be seen as an example of retelling in one’s own words. The existence of two different strategies can be explained by the fact that the resources are part of two simultaneous but contradictory aspirations: the oral classroom practice which maximizes engagement and the pursuit of empathy and the written practice which aims at critical training where source awareness and avoidance of copying are stressed as important. Since there are few links between the two classroom practices the students are put in a position where they have to transform either the text book or the oral story into a new text. Previous research shows that learning in History is promoted by the ability to generalize and understand the connection between events, the ability to draw conclusions from multiple sources and the ability to relate to the content with historical empathy. Writing and text production in History therefore need to take account of the subject specific ways of communicating and creating knowledge. The results from this study also underline the importance of using and recognizing semiotic resources such as images and drama as an important part of young students’ learning in History.

Le travail propose d’abord trois états des lieux : celui des études sur la construction des identités de genre à la Renaissance ; celui des connaissances actuelles en matière de rapports sociaux de sexe entre le Moyen Âge central et la fin du XVIe siècle ; celui de la production textuelle de l’époque sur la question accompagné d’une annexe listant 324 textes didactiques, édifiants et polémiques imprimés entre 1475 et 1594, susceptibles d’avoir participé à la construction des identités de genre et d’avoir diffusé les normes et idéaux en matière de relations femmes-hommes pendant cette période. La deuxième partie de la thèse s’attache à décrire un corpus constitué des trois œuvres les plus diffusées de chacune des sept catégories établies au sein du premier corpus : institutions des princes et des grands, traités de bonnes mœurs et civilité, institutions des femmes, recueils de modèles/ Vies d’hommes et de femmes célèbres, et enfin textes sur, pour ou contre les femmes, le mariage et l’amour. Les œuvres retenues sont présentées dans leurs contextes de rédaction et de réception, du point de vue des discours tenus par les différentes instances qui les présentent, de leur apparence matérielle, des traditions dans lesquelles elles s’inscrivaient, des sources utilisées par leurs auteurs et des différents lectorats qu’ils visaient. La dernière partie s’attache aux injonctions émises par leurs auteurs, à leurs opinions sur la formation des individus et les relations entre les sexes. Elle montre le haut niveau de confrontation entre partisans et adversaires de l’égalité, la complexité et les contradictions des messages diffusés. / To begin, this work proposes an inquiry into three interrelated areas of interest : a review of studies on gender construction during the Renaissance period ; an overview of current knowledge concerning social relations between the sexes extending from the central Middle Ages to the end of the XVIth century ; a review of textual production of the period and the indexed cataloguing of some 324 didactic, moralizing and polemical documents printed between 1475 and 1594, which contributed to the construction of gender identities and to the codification of social norms and ideals on the question of male-female relations during this period.The second part of this thesis is concerned with the description of a corpus represented by the three most widely distributed works in each of seven distinct categories: princely institutions, moral treatises, women’s institutions, model compilations on the lives of noteworthy men and women, and finally texts devoted to the question of women, marriage and love. The selected works are presented in their historical context (publication and reception), taking into account their subjective point of view, their material nature, the traditions according to which they are inscribed, the sources available to authors, and the distinct readerships. The final part of this work will concern itself with the various injunctions formulated by authors, and with the latter’s expressed opinions on education and gender relations. This part will examine the level of intense confrontation existing between partisans and adversaries of gender equality, as well as the complexity and contradictions that characterise the selected discursive examples.

Le Secret des Secrets est l’un des textes les plus diffusés à la fin du Moyen Âge. On propose l’édition et le commentaire de la version diffusée au XVe siècle à partir des vingt-quatre manuscrits conservés. Le premier volume offre, outre le texte original, une présentation de son histoire, l’étude justifiant le choix d’un manuscrit de base, suivie des outils habituels : étude de la langue, glossaire et index des noms propres.Le deuxième volume présente des notes et des éclaircissements : comparaisons avec les versions antérieures du Secret des Secrets, éclaircissements sur des domaines de la pensée médiévale, précisions sur des références explicites ou cachées.Le troisième volume commente l’oeuvre. Une approche du substantif « secret » cerne l’importance de cette notion paradoxale, à la fois parole et mutisme, à l’intérieur d’une oeuvre qui met en avant son hermétisme pour être mieux diffusée. L’aspect publicitaire du titre du traité apparaît comme une raison de son succès. Le Secret des Secrets fait écho à un corpus de textes antérieurs et invite à suggérer la catégorie de « littérature des secrets », dans laquelle le traité pseudo-aristotélicien cherche à apparaître comme le texte hermétique par excellence. Les secrets qu’il livre, évanescents et incomplets, sont dépassés par la promesse d’une toute-puissance. L’étude de l’énonciation vise enfin à résoudre le paradoxe du secret qui doit être transmis tout en restant caché. Elle fait apparaître des choix de traduction significatifs par rapport aux versions latines et arabes antérieures : un glissement s’opère visant à faire émerger un lecteur plus autonome et moins princier. / The Secret of Secrets is one of the most spread text at the end of the Middle Ages. Our thesis gives an edition based on twenty-four manuscripts of the fifteenth-century version with a commentary. Together with the original text, the first volume presents its history, a study that justifies the choice of a manuscript, and traditionnal tools : a study of the language, a glossary and an proper name index.The second volume presents notes and explanations : comparisons with the previous versions of the Secret of Secrets, explanations on some parts of medieval knowledge, precise details on explicit hidden references.The third volume is a commentary. A study of the word « secret » shows how important this paradoxical notion is, all at once word and silence, in a work that emphasises its hermetism in order to be spread out. The title of the treaty appears to be a reason of it success. The Secret of Secrets refers to many previous texts and invites us to create a new category : the « literature of secrets », in which the Secret of Secrets tries to appear as the hermetic text. The evanescent or incomplet secrets this treaty reveals are overcomed by the promise of becoming almighty. We also study how the enunciation overcomes the paradoxe of the secret, to be hidden and shown. Some significative choices in the translation are made between the previous arabic and latin versions : a change takes place in order to turn the reader into a more autonomous and popular individual

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore what 4th-grade teachers could learn about African American students’ knowledge of social studies content through children’s drawings and to understand what they communicated through visual texts. This study was grounded in social semiotics and critical race theory (CRT). Social semiotics allowed for close readings of children’s drawings and interpretation of teachers’ interests in using art as an assessment tool. CRT challenges applying the experiences of White people as the standard by which others are measured. CRT was used to analyze structural barriers, such as high-stakes standardized testing, as primary in determining what students knew. Research questions were as follows: (a) When teachers are instructed in how to read images structurally and semantically, what do they learn about their low achieving African American students’ understanding of a social studies text through their drawings? (b) How do teachers understand and talk about images through the lens of sign systems? (c) How do low-achieving African American students demonstrate social studies content knowledge in a written assessment compared to how they demonstrate content knowledge in a visual representation of a social studies text? The setting was in an urban elementary school and the study involved 4 teachers and 7 students from their collective classes. Analysis of data included constant comparative analysis and visual discourse analysis (VDA), including student drawings and teacher/student interviews. Three findings emerged from teacher data analysis. Teachers varied in their beliefs about art as a communicative system; teachers intentionally studied their children’s visual texts differently after professional development; teachers intentionally integrated visual arts as a part of assessment in social studies. Two key findings emerged from student data analysis: Students visually represented key concepts in social studies in their visual texts and they found art to be a “fun” way to demonstrate social studies learning. The significance of this study offers insight into other communicative systems-art and specifically drawings—as a viable way to assess students’ knowledge and skills in content areas.

The objective of this thesis is to identify those specific aspects of written style which native speakers of English modify when attempting to anonymize their texts. The conclusions are based on the analysis of 20 texts by 10 authors, all of whom are native speakers of English. Two texts dealing with the same topic were produced by each participant; one was written as an official letter of complaint, and the other was written as an anonymous letter. The bulk of the results are grounded on a qualitative stylistic analysis of the individual texts, with merely a brief survey of quantitative methods.The purpose of the introductory chapter is to familiarize the reader with the subject of forensic authorship analysis, to provide a brief summary of the current state of research, and to introduce a series of empirical studies. The practical part of the thesis presents the qualitative stylistic analysis, provides a shorter summary of the quantitative analysis, and finally ventures to draw meaningful conclusions from the results. The results showed that the majority of authors manipulated with the style/register of the texts and with the specific lexical choices, whereas none of the 10 authors made alterations to spelling and only 2 authors chose to change the punctuation in the anonymous text. However,...

Apartheid may have ended formally in 1994, but its legacy endures in many aspects of South African society and in the lives of individual South Africans. One of the difficulties which post-apartheid South Africa has had to contend with is the question of justice for the victims of atrocities committed during the apartheid years, and the possibility of redress. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) was established in order to formalise a process whereby victims could tell their stories and have their pain recognized, and to grant perpetrators an opportunity to provide information and acknowledge their wrongdoing. This thesis explores the possibility of forgiveness in relation to the complexities of guilt and victimhood. Forgiveness is posited as a powerful and viable response, which has the potential to free both the perpetrators and the injured parties from the stranglehold of the past. The thesis draws on studies which approach the question of forgiveness from a moral and philosophical perspective. These include the work of historians and theorists such as Simon Wiesenthal, Hannah Arendt, Jacques Derrida and Paul Ricoeur. It then goes on to consider the ways in which a number of seminal post-apartheid texts, works of fiction and non-fiction, have dealt with forgiveness and its potential to heal. One chapter focuses specifically on texts which deal with the TRC and its aftermath, especially Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull (1999) and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela’s A Human Being Died That Night (2003). This is followed by an analysis of three important novels which foreground and problematise the issue of forgiveness: J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999), Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat (published initially in Afrikaans in 2004, and then in an English translation in 2006), and Mark Behr’s Kings of the Water (2009). Nelson Mandela will not go down in history for the 27 consecutive years that he lived imprisoned without ever renouncing his ideas. He will go down in history because he was able to draw from his soul all the poison accumulated by such an unjust punishment. He will be remembered for his generosity and for his wisdom at the time of an already uncontainable victory, when he knew how to lead so brilliantly his self-sacrificing and heroic people, aware that the new South Africa would never be built on foundations of hatred and revenge. / Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / English / unrestricted