The purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of Same-Language Subtitles (SLS) on the subject-specific comprehension and the academic literacy levels of EAL students on the Vaal Triangle Campus of North-West University (NWU). Essentially, the study aimed to determine whether exposing students studying through English as an Additional Language (EAL) to subtitled lectures (live or recorded lectures) would help improve their comprehension of the academic content as well as their receptive academic literacy skills, compared to students who were not exposed to subtitled lectures. This study stems from the identification of an academic performance-related issue on the Vaal Triangle Campus of NWU. Indeed, campus statistics show that the throughput rate of EAL students remains low, and that these students‟ academic literacy levels are inadequate. In other words, EAL students on this campus are underachieving and seem to have difficulties in mastering academic English. Based on various studies that showed SLS to be a valuable tool in terms of learning and academic literacy, this study proposed to introduce SLS (both live via respeaking and offline) in the university classroom as a learning aid, thus optimising the time students spend in lectures. Very little information was available in South Africa on the impact of SLS on the subject-specific comprehension of EAL students in a tertiary academic context. Furthermore, it had been anticipated that a certain number of technical constraints were likely to be encountered during the empirical investigation. These two factors made it difficult to predict what other factors could influence the outcome of the study. As a result, the study was based on the principle of Action Research, a research method characterised by the fact that the research is carried out in as many cycles as may be necessary in order to achieve the optimal conditions for a specific intervention. Three cycles were necessary to reach the optimal design of the present study so that a confident conclusion could be made regarding the impact of SLS on comprehension and academic literacy. For each cycle, the intervention was carried out over an academic semester. In the first cycle, a test group composed of EAL first-year Economics students was exposed to live SLS via respeaking during class, while a control group (also composed of EAL first-year Economics students) attended the same class at a different time, without SLS. In the second cycle, the live SLS via respeaking were replaced with offline SLS. The intervention was taken out of the regular classes and was carried out in the context of practical revision classes scheduled specifically for the purpose of the intervention. The test group viewed subtitled videos of lectures, while the control group viewed videos without subtitles. After each viewing, all participants were required to complete a short comprehension test. This cycle was also conducted in first-year Economics. The basic design of the third cycle was similar to that of the second cycle, but for the fact that the intervention took place in the context of a Psychology module, which, unlike the Economics module, was taught without the lecturer making use of slides. After these three research cycles were completed, it could be concluded that offline SLS indeed have a positive impact on the subject-specific comprehension and the receptive academic literacy skills of EAL students in a tertiary academic context. This conclusion was supported by the following findings: 1. The first research cycle pointed towards a slight, but statistically insignificant benefit in terms of both comprehension and academic literacy. However, at this stage of the empirical investigation, the technical constraints made it difficult to draw a precise conclusion in that respect. 2. In the second research cycle, the SLS seem to have had a significant impact on the receptive academic literacy skills of the test group, compared to the control group. However, no such impact could be noted in terms of subject-specific comprehension. This was attributed to the presence of a confounding variable, namely slides used during the lectures. This once more made it impossible to draw a confident conclusion regarding the impact of SLS on comprehension. 3. The third research cycle made a more confident conclusion regarding the impact of SLS on subject-specific comprehension possible. Indeed, the results of the statistical analyses show that the test group performed significantly better in their semester test (covering the work done in all the recorded lectures) than the control group, which was not exposed to any videos at all. On the basis of these findings, it was concluded that SLS in their offline form have a positive impact on the subject-specific comprehension and the receptive academic literacy skills of EAL students in a tertiary academic context, specifically if the students are given sufficient time to get used to the mode. This study seems to indicate that the benefits of SLS for comprehension can be recorded provided that students are exposed to the intervention over a longer period of time. However, there may be further scope for refinement as far as this study is concerned. It is therefore important that the topic be investigated further. / MA, Language Practice, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012

This thesis looks at conditions for selections of fictional texts in the Swedish subject in the upper secondary school. Three different empirical materials have contributed to the understanding of what conditions there are for the texts to enter the classroom. The first material consists of national policy documents from 1970 to 2005. Here there is a tendency that the student goes from being an object for knowledge to becoming a subject that creates his/her own knowledge. With this development the contents and the given aims with the subject become more abstract, which leads to the framework of the curriculum becoming wider and more difficult to interpret. Simultaneously the focus is moved from mediation of given knowledge, to the development of an identity for the individual. The second material consists of debate and method articles from Svenskläraren, a magazine for members, published by an organisation of Swedish teachers. The study comprise articles from the same period of time as the national curricula. In the articles there are three tendencies reflecting the changes in the discourse of the Swedish subject. The first tendency shows how the overall ideological debate on the subject disappears during this period. The second tendency shows how discussions about the conceptions of the subject is replaced by more and more concrete examples of methods. The third tendency depicts that the concrete text selections have moved from being partly predetermined during the seventies to become debated during the eighties, to finally during the nineties end up in a situation where some texts has a sufficient cultural capital not to need justifications, whereas others need it. The third material consists of interviews with, and observations of, four active teachers, in order to find what conditions there are for text selections in their rhetoric and practice. The results show a clear impression of informal institutional factors and of the school culture. However, this seems to decrease with experience. There are big differences in how the teachers speak about text selections and text use and what the result becomes in practice. Here professionalism in form of knowledge in subject didactics could have a vast impact.

This study focused on the relationship between reading comprehension and academic achievement of grade 10 learners in the learning area Language and attempted to address the following primary research question: What is the relationship between the reading comprehension of grade 10 learners in their first and second language and their academic achievement in the learning area Language ? The researcher also addressed the following secondary questions: Is them a significant difference between Afrikaans and Sesotho-speaking learners regarding their achievements in reading comprehension (first and second language) and the learning area Language (first and second language)? Is there a significant difference between male and female learners regarding their achievements in reading comprehension (first and second language) and the learning area Language (first and second language) ? A total of seventy-seven (77) grade 10 learners for whom English is a second language were included in this study. The learners' reading comprehension abilities in the first language (Afrikaans and Sesotho) and the second language (English) were tested and correlated with their achievements in the learning area Language (first and second language). The reading comprehension and language achievements of Afrikaans and Sesotho-speaking learners respectively and male and female learners were compared. Resulting from the findings of this study, the following conclusions were made: A significant relationship exists between the reading comprehension of grade 10 learners in their first and second language and their academic achievement in the learning area Language. There is a significant difference between Afrikaans and Sesotho-speaking learners regarding their achievements in reading comprehension (first and second language) and the learning area Language (first and second language). There is a significant difference between male and female learners regarding their achievements in reading comprehension (first and second language) and the learning area Language (first and second language). / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

As evidence of intimate music-language relations grow, a certain connection between the use of tone language and the ability of absolute pitch has been found. Genesis of absolute pitch has long been a controversial topic among scientists. While interest of learning the tone language Chinese increases, it is, from a pedagogical perspective, relevant and engaging to specifically study this connection. The purpose of this essay is to study a small group of young beginners in Chinese at close quarters. By implementing a pitch-based hearing test, their pronunciation skills in Chinese were compared with sense of pitch shown in the test. The findings point to complex interactions between several factors, and show for instance a significant importance of musical training and learning motivation. / Samtidigt som vetenskapliga bevis för en intim relation mellan musik och språk växer, har ett visst samband mellan användning av tonspråk och absolut gehör också upptäckts. Uppkomsten av absolut gehör har länge varit ett kontroversiellt forskningsämne. När intresset att lära sig tonspråket kinesiska ökar globalt, är det ur ett pedagogiskt perspektiv motiverat att studera just detta samband. Syftet med föreliggande uppsats är att på nära håll studera en liten grupp elever i nybörjarkinesiska. Genom ett gehörstest, baserat på förmågan att uppfatta tonhöjder, har dessa testresultat jämförts med de tidigare observerade uttalsförmågor hos eleverna. Studien pekar på komplexa interaktioner mellan många faktorer, och visar till exempel musikträning och studiemotivation som avgörande faktorer. / 提要：随着越来越多的研究证明音乐与语言之间的密切关系，也有证据显示声调语言的使用与绝对音高感之间有着一定的互动关系。绝对音高感的成因一直是一个科学上有争议的话题，如今，学习声调语言普通话的兴趣已是国际性，从教学的角度来看，这两者之间的互动关系是个值得研究的话题。 此研究对一小群中文初学者做了近距离的观察，并对她们进行了音高感的听力测试。通过比较测试数据和她们已表现的中文发音能力及敏感性，本文发现了多种因素之间的复杂关系，比如音乐培训以及学习积极性的关键性。

This study explores the effects of surgical reconstruction and nerve repair on sensorimotor function and quality of life (QOL) for patients with base of tongue (BOT) cancer compared to healthy, age-matched adults. Sensations were tested on the anterior two-thirds of the oral tongue for two-point discrimination, light touch, taste, temperature, form and texture on 30 patients with BOT reconstruction with radial forearm free-flap and on 30 controls. Results indicated sensation for the unaffected tongue side and affected side with lingual nerve intact was comparable to controls, with poorer sensory outcomes for nerve repair. However, lingual nerves repaired with reanastomosis provided superior results to cable-grafting and severed nerves. Patients had decreased motor function only when the hypoglossal and lingual nerves were affected. Patients' QOL responses on the UW-QOL and EORTC QLQ-H&N35 revealed involvement of lingual and hypoglossal nerves resulted in poorer QOL outcomes. QOL interviews revealed additional problematic issues in this population not identified by standardized questionnaires. / Speech-Language Pathology

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:43:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 643723 bytes, checksum: ea471e07eff860bcd328ff25a2e24be2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-06-20 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The teaching-learning process of mother tongue should be seen as a continuous process and accomplished by the use of different texts, for reading and for production. The school lettering is the opportunity that the student has in the school to develop his linguistic abilities and, mainly, textual. As the texts are organized in the form of genres of texts, these should be adopted as object of study/teaching, once they materialize the language actions imputable to an agent-producer, social and historically delimited, always in a social-interactional vision of the language. Those language actions suffer influences of the production contexts and they correspond to the speakers' communicative needs, in a certain social-discursive formation and they interfere directly in the textual production that is the linguistic materialization of those actions. Based on this theoretical-methodological perspective, the present study had for general objective to observe the activities of writings developed by the teachers in the classes of mother tongue, taking for base their educational formation concerning to the teaching in the perspective of the lettering. For this, we have selected six teachers who work in public and private schools and we gave them a questionnaire containing questions about the lettering practices that they develop in classroom, in other words, the writing activities that they provide to the students. We also questioned them about their educational formation. Ally to all this, we observed four classes of each one of the participant teachers in order to confront the speeches with the school practice and we wanted to analyze in a more consistent way all the information collected in the research. Those analyses explained in this text are orientated by the Social-discursive Interaction (from now SDI) and by theoretical reflections that show the need of a school teaching of mother tongue in the perspective of the lettering. / O ensino-aprendizagem de língua materna deve ser visto como um processo contínuo e realizado mediante a utilização dos diferentes textos, tanto para a leitura quanto para a produção. O letramento escolar é a oportunidade que o aluno tem de, na escola, desenvolver suas habilidades lingüísticas e, principalmente, textuais. Haja vista os textos estarem organizados sob a forma de gêneros de textos, estes devem ser adotados como objeto de estudo/ensino, uma vez que materializam as ações de linguagem imputáveis a um agente-produtor, social e historicamente delimitado, sempre numa visão sócio-interacionista da linguagem. Essas ações de linguagem sofrem influências dos contextos de produção e correspondem às necessidades comunicativas dos falantes, numa dada formação sócio-discursiva e acabam por interferir diretamente na produção textual que é a materialização lingüística dessas ações. Tendo em vista, pois, essa perspectiva teórico-metodológica, o presente estudo teve por objetivo geral observar as atividades de escritas desenvolvidas pelos professores nas aulas de língua materna, em turmas do 9º ano do ensino fundamental, tomando por base a sua formação docente no que diz respeito ao ensino na perspectiva do letramento. Para tanto, selecionamos seis professores pertencentes às redes pública e privada de ensino e lançamo-lhes um questionário contendo indagações sobre as práticas de letramento que costumam desenvolver em sala de aula, ou seja, as atividades de escrita que proporcionam junto aos alunos. Também lhes questionamos sobre sua formação docente. Aliado a tudo isso, observamos quatro aulas de cada um dos professores participantes a fim de confrontarmos os discursos com a prática escolar e podermos analisar de forma mais consistente todas as informações coletadas na pesquisa. Essas análises explicitadas neste texto são norteadas à luz do Interacionismo Sócio-discursivo (doravante ISD) e de reflexões teóricas que apontam para o ensino escolar de língua materna na perspectiva do letramento.

Orientador: Célia Maria Carcagnolo Gil / Banca: Marlene Durigan / Banca: Diva Léa Batista da Silva / Banca: Vilma Fernandes Neves / Banca: Creobel Franco Maimone / Resumo: Ancorada em contribuições de diferentes correntes da lingüística moderna, esta investigação teve por objetivo verificar como ocorriam as aulas de língua materna do professor iniciante, visando a subsidiar o seu fazer pedagógico, bem como levá-lo a refletir sobre sua própria prática. Considerando a natureza do objeto, optou-se pela pesquisa qualitativa, desenvolvida por meio de uma pesquisa-ação e com o auxílio de alguns procedimentos pertinentes ao estudo de caso. O primeiro item analisado foi sobre a formação profissional dos sujeitos da pesquisa, oportunidade em que se pode constatar, por meio de seus relatos, que elas sentiam inseguranças e medo, no que se refere ao seu fazer pedagógico, em decorrência das lacunas da graduação. Em seguida, por meio de relatórios das professoras, analisou-se suas concepções de linguagem e de ensino de língua materna, oportunidade que se pode observar que, no início da investigação, algumas demonstraram uma forte tendência a desenvolver um ensino tradicional apegadas ao ensino de gramática nos moldes tradicionais; outras, no entanto, desde o início, já se apresentaram acessíveis a desenvolver um ensino de língua materna mais inovador. No decorrer da pesquisa-ação, constatou-se um movimento gradativo na formação e na ação dessas professoras: se no início, elas se mostravam inseguras, muito presas ao livro didático e apresentando poucos trabalhos com o texto em sala de aula... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Anchored in the contributions provided by modern linguistic trend, this investigation had as a veryfiing how de classes og mother thongue beginnig teacher take place, aiming to support their pedagogical pratice, as well as make them find their way to reflect their own practice.Concerning the nature of the object, we chose the qualitative research, developed by means of a research-acion and with the help of some of the procedure concerning the case study. As for the data coletinf, different techniques were adopted, such as the direct observation (systematic and participant), the applying of questionnaires and the accomplishment of fortnightly meetings with the subjects of the research - four beginning teachers. The first analysed item was about the subjects of the research, opportunity in which could veify, through their narratives, that felt insecurities end fears, concerning their pedagogical practice, due to the graduation insuffices. Afterwards, by means of the recordings of the teachers, we have analysed their language and mother tongue teaching concepts, when we could notice that, at the investigation, some showed a strong tendency to develop a tradicional teaching, attached as they were to the grammar teaching in the traditional frame; others, however, since the beginning, have presented accessibility to develop a more interactive approach to mother tongue teaching though the research-action, though. Meanwhilw the research-action, we verified a gradual movement in the formative aspect of these teachers action; if, at the beginning, they showed insecurity... (Complete abstract, click electronic access below) / Doutor

Ce travail de thèse étudie la production de la parole à l'âge de 4 ans, en comparaison avec l'adulte, sous l'angle du contrôle moteur. Un intérêt particulier a été porté à deux indices : la variabilité liée à la répétition de voyelles isolées et la coarticulation anticipatoire intra et extra-syllabique dans le cadre de la production de séquences de type V1-C-V2. Des données acoustiques et articulatoires ont été enregistrées via l'échographie linguale et le dispositif HOCUS. Les données acoustiques ont été analysées pour 20 enfants et 10 adultes et les données articulatoires ont été analysées pour 6 de ces enfants et 2 de ces adultes. En accord avec de nombreuses études de la littérature, la variabilité liée à la répétition est plus importante chez les enfants que chez les adultes. Une forte anticipation de V2 dans la réalisation de V1 a été observée pour tous les adultes. Chez les enfants, cette anticipation n'est pas systématique, et lorsqu'elle est observée, elle est d'amplitude plus faible que chez les adultes. Ainsi, seulement 5 enfants parmi les 20 étudiés montrent des signes d'anticipation, majoritairement dans la dimension antéropostérieure, manifestée dans l'espace acoustique par la dimension F2. La coarticulation anticipatoire intra-syllabique semble également être d'amplitude plus faible chez les enfants. Enfin, les gestes de parole des enfants sont plus lents que ceux des adultes. Dans leur ensemble, ces résultats sont interprétés comme la preuve de l'immaturité du système moteur pour la production de la parole chez l'enfant, selon deux perspectives : des patrons moteurs insuffisamment stables pour la production de gestes vocaliques et un manque d'efficacité dans l'anticipation les gestes futurs lors de la production d'une séquence de sons de parole. Selon une perspective empruntée aux théories du contrôle moteur optimal, nous proposons que la coarticulation anticipatoire repose sur l'usage de modèles internes, représentations sensori-motrices du système moteur de la parole dans le système nerveux central, et que son amplitude reflète la maturation progressive de ces représentations sensori-motrices à mesure que la production de la parole se développe. / This thesis work investigates speech production in 4-year-old children, in comparison with adults, from a speech motor control perspective. It focuses on two indices: measures of token-to-token variability in the production of isolated vowels and on anticipatory intra and extra-syllabic coarticulation within V1-C-V2 sequences. Acoustic and articulatory data were recorded thanks to ultrasound tongue imaging within the HOCUS system. Acoustic data from 20 children and 10 adults have been analyzed. Ultrasound data have been analyzed from a subset of these participants: 6 children and 2 adults. In agreement with former studies, token-to-token variability was greater in children than in adults. Strong anticipation of V2 in V1 realization was found in all adults. In children, anticipation was not systematic, and when observed, it was of smaller amplitude than in adults. In more details, only 5 children among the 20 studied showed a small amount of anticipation, mainly along the antero-posterior dimension, manifested in the acoustic F2 dimension. Anticipatory intra-syllabic coarticulation also seems to be of smaller amplitude in children than in adults. Last, children's speech gestures are slower than those of adults. These results are interpreted as evidence for the immaturity of children's speech motor control from two perspectives: insufficiently stable motor control patterns for vowel production, and a lack of effectiveness in anticipating forthcoming gestures. In line with theories of optimal motor control, we assume that anticipatory coarticulation is based on the use of internal models, i.e. sensori-motor representations of the speech production apparatus in the central nervous system, and that the amplitude of anticipatory coarticulation reflects the increasing maturation of these sensori-motor representations as speech develops.

This study investigates error fossilisation in the written English of Xhosa - speaking students. It is hypothesised that there is no statistically significant difference in the language errors of two groups of Grade 10 and Grade 12 students. Two randomly selected groups of 30 Grade 10 and 30 Grade 12 students in a rural senior secondary school in the Eastern Cape province were required to write two essays, of which the first two hundred words of each essay were marked. A frequency count of errors was done and comparisons were made. The findings indicate that the Grade 12s consistently made fewer errors. However, the difference is only statistically significant in the case of prepositions and concord, and is insignificant in tenses, pronouns and articles. The findings also show evidence of fossilisation given the persistence of some of the errors. Certain features in the student's language were not eradicated by the additional two years exposure to English. / English Studies / M.A. (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)

Com base nos pressupostos teóricos da Análise do Discurso pecheuxtiana, esta tese busca a construção da noção de corporeidade discursiva ao analisar os modos de dizer do sujeito no entremeio das línguas materna e estrangeira. Nesta pesquisa, entende-se a língua pelo viés de sua materialidade, isto é, pressupõe-se sua organização para se tomar a ordem da língua na sua relação com a história. Ao mesmo tempo, há o pressuposto de que o sujeito é constituído pela língua(gem) e interpelado ideologicamente. Portanto, trata-se de um sujeito com um duplo processo simultâneo de identificação, sendo um da ordem do ideológico e outro pelo viés da inscrição do sujeito em uma materialidade linguística. Nesta perspectiva, esta pesquisa apresenta como o sujeito em processo de identificação com uma língua estrangeira transforma os modos de dizer, fazendo com que haja movimentação nas redes de significação estabelecidas pela língua primeira. Tal processo possibilita ainda identificar uma alternância na postura subjetiva, ou seja, um movimento de estranhamento do sujeito diante de aspectos socioculturais e históricos presentes na língua outra. Para fins de análise, são tomadas sequências discursivas de narrativas de sujeitos em processo de identificação com mais de uma língua (materna e estrangeira). Os resultados apontam para a presença de aspectos socioculturais e históricos nos modos de dizer das línguas, além de mostrar como se dá uma reconfiguração subjetiva pelo processo de inscrição do sujeito em outra materialidade linguística. Com isso, é possível afirmar que há uma corporeidade discursiva da língua porque cada língua se apresenta ao sujeito com modos de dizer próprios, constituídos a partir de determinadas condições de produção. Por conseguinte, ao se inscrever em uma língua para dizer, o sujeito imprime a sua singularidade, fazendo com que haja uma corporeidade discursiva do/no sujeito. / Based on the theoretical assumptions of Michel Pechêux’s Discourse Analysis, this thesis seeks the construction of the discursive corporeity as a notion, mainly when it analyzes the ways of saying of subjects in between the mother tongue and foreign language. In this research, the language is understood through its materiality, that is, it presupposes its organization to think the order of the language related to the history. At the same time, there is the assumption that the subject is constituted by the language and is also put under an ideological interpellation. Therefore, this is related to a subject with a double simultaneous process of identification, the one through ideology and the other one through the inscription in a linguistic materiality. In this way, this research presents how the subject in process of identification with a foreign language changes the ways of saying, causing movements in the nets of signification, established by the first language. Such process also enables to identify a changing in the subjective posture, which is a subject’s movement caused by the estrangeness based in sociocultural and historical aspects present in the other language. For the analysis, discursive sequences of subjects’ narratives in the process of identification with more than one language (maternal and foreign) are taken. The results point to the presence of socio-cultural and historical aspects in the ways of saying of the languages, as well as they show how a subjective reconfiguration occurs through the process of inscribing the subject into another linguistic materiality. Thus, it is possible to say that there is a discursive corporeality of the language because each language presents itself to the subject through specific ways of saying, and these ways of saying are constituted from certain production conditions. Consequently, the subject imprints his/her singularity by inscribing himself/herself in a language to say and this produces the existence of a discursive corporeality of the and in the subject.