The most recent trend in the studies of LF intervention effects makes crucial reference to focusing effects on the interveners, and this paper critically examines the representative analyses of the focus-based approach. While each analysis has its own merits and shortcomings, I argue that a pragmatic analysis that does not make appeal to syntactic configurations is better equipped to deal with many of the complex and delicate facts surrounding intervention effects.

The 10th volume of the working paper series contains two papers contributed by SFB-members. The first paper “Single prosodic phrase sentences” by Caroline Féry (A1) and Heiner Drenhaus (C6, University of Potsdam) investigates the prosody of Wide Focus Partial Fronting in a series of production and perception experiments. The second paper “Focus Asymmetries in Bura” by Katharina Hartmann, Peggy Jacob (B2, Humboldt University Berlin) and Malte Zimmermann (A5, University of Potsdam) explores the strategies of marking focus in Bura (Chadic).

The paper investigates focus marking devices in the scarcely documented North-Ghanaian Gur language Konkomba. The two particles lé and lá occur under specific focus conditions and are therefore regarded as focus markers in the sparse literature. Comparing the distribution and obligatoriness of both alleged focus markers however, I show that one of the particles, lé, is better analyzed as a connective particle, i.e. as a syntactic rather than as a genuine pragmatic marker, and that comparable syntactic focus marking strategies for sentence-initial constituents are also known from related languages.

New evidence is provided for a grammatical principle that singles out contrastive focus (Rooth 1996; Truckenbrodt 1995) and distinguishes it from discourse-new “informational” focus. Since the prosody of discourse-given constituents may also be distinguished from discourse-new, a three-way distinction in representation is motivated. It is assumed that an F-feature marks just contrastive focus (Jackendoff 1972, Rooth 1992), and that a G-feature marks discoursegiven constituents (Féry and Samek-Lodovici 2006), while discoursenew is unmarked. A crucial argument for G-marking comes from second occurrence focus (SOF) prosody, which arguably derives from a syntactic representation where SOF is both F-marked and G-marked. This analysis relies on a new G-Marking Condition specifying that a contrastive focus may be G-marked only if the focus semantic value of its scope is discourse-given, i.e. only if the contrast itself is given.

The papers collected in this volume were presented at a Graduate/Postgraduate Student Conference with the title Information Structure: Empirical Perspectives on Theory held on December 2 and 3, 2011 at Potsdam-Griebnitzsee. The main goal of the conference was to connect young researchers working on information structure (IS) related topics and to discuss various IS categories such as givenness, focus, topic, and contrast. The aim of the conference was to find at least partial answers to the following questions: What IS categories are necessary? Are they gradient/continuous? How can one deal with optionality or redundancy? How are IS categories encoded grammatically? How do different empirical methods contribute to distinguishing between the influence of different IS categories on language comprehension and production? To answer these questions, a range of languages (Avatime, Chinese, German, Ishkashimi, Modern Greek, Old Saxon, Russian, Russian Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands) and a range of phenomena from phonology, semantics, and syntax were investigated. The presented theories and data were based on different kinds of linguistic evidence: syntactic and semantic fieldwork, corpus studies, and phonological experiments. The six papers presented in this volume discuss a variety of IS categories, such as emphasis and contrast (Stavropoulous, Titov), association with focus and topics (van Putten, Karvovskaya), and givenness and backgrounding (Kimmelmann, Röhr).

The purpose of our study is to examine how parents experienced their participation and their involvement in a solution-focused parenting group. The parenting groups are a part of the social welfare system in a town in south of Sweden. The study is conducted as a qualitative study with focus groups. 11 parents have participated. The study´s theoretical framework considers solution focused theory, social constructionism and process within groups.In the study we found that participants generally perceived their participation as positive and that they received confirmation by meeting other parents in the same situation. Participants’ expectations for practical tips and advice were fulfilled indirectly through their participation, but the focus of the parent group was to strengthen the participants themselves by thinking solution-focused. Although the participants did not receive the practical advice they initially expected, the parent group's approach felt to be positive and the participants have understood the idea behind the solution-focused approach. Overall, participants felt that they have become stronger as people and thus also as parents.The study shows that based on the parents’ statements the group leaders have throughout the parenting groups been faithful to the solution focused idea and have implemented this way of thinking within its participants.This study can be seen as a contribute to the development of future solution focused parenting groups. It also shows that there is a need for parenting groups and that this kind of activity can generate positive effects for participants.

Previous studies have shown that learners' individual differences have dissimilar impacts on their improvement in accuracy in the target language (DeKeyser, 1993; Mackey, Adams, Stafford, & Winke, 2010; Mackey & Sachs, 2012; Sheen, 2007). The present study focused on a learner variable (i.e. extraversion) and examined whether more extraverted learners engaged in a greater number of focus-on-form episodes in class and whether this involvement could further lead to immediate improvement in accuracy of a target language. A total of 28 English-as-a-second-language students in an advanced and an upper-intermediate class participated in the study. They filled out a personality questionnaire, and each class was observed for four class sessions for a total of eight sessions. Out of a total of 16 hours of observation, only 12 hours from three obseravtion sessions from each of the classes were analyzed due to the focus of the present study. Based on the three class observation sessions from both classes, individualized post-tests were created, and the participants completed the tests six to ten days after the final classroom observation. The data were then analyzed using statistical methods including Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient and Spearman's rank-order correlation coefficient depending on the normality of the data. The results revealed that in the advanced class, more extraverted learners were more likely to engage in interaction where learner attention was directed to linguistic elements. On the other hand, more introverted learners were found to produce more successful uptake in the upper-intermediate class. The findings partially support the role of extraversion in learners' participation in focus-on-form episodes as well as immediate L2 development. However, the findings did not suggest that the learners' self-reports and the teacher's perception of his learners' levels of extraversion were significantly correlated. / Graduate / 0282

This study examines the eWOM effect, more specifically: how customer reviews effects consumers. The study is based on a modified version of the Regulatory Focus Theory which describes consumer behavior using consumer consumption goals. The purpose of this study was to examine how positive and negative customer review's influence consumers when analyzing products that are equally characterized by two consumption goals: promotion and prevention goals. The authors combined quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (focus groups) research methods with the sample selection for both research methods being based on students of Södertörns University. Results indicate that negative customer reviews have a stronger influence on consumers than positive customer reviews when analyzing products that are equally characterized by the promotion goals and prevention goals. The results contradict the authors hypothesis which predicted an equally strong influence from positive and negative customer reviews.

Les dimensions critiques des circuits intégrés diminuent continuellement au coursdes ans selon la loi de Moore. Les valeurs typiques sont aujourd’hui de 28nm,et seront de 22nm dans 18 mois. La photo-lithographie optique demeure encore latechnique la plus économique pour la production de masse. L’ouverture numériquedes objectifs atteint 1.30, grâce à l’introduction d’eau entre la lentille et la plaquette.La conséquence directe de ces grandes ouvertures est la réduction de la profondeurde champs de l’ordre d’une centaine de nanomètres. Le procédé photo-lithographiqueperdant de la latitude, le contrôle dimensionnel intra-cellule devient une nécessité.La variation dimensionnelle provient au premier ordre à la fois de la variation duplan focal dans le champ image, et aussi de la non uniformité de l’illumination duréticule. Pour contrôler cette variation, une boucle de régulation a été mise en placepour ajuster uniquement l’énergie des lots de production. On corrige ainsi de fait unmauvais focus par une compensation en énergie.Pour ne pas altérer l’image dans la résine, il est important de pouvoir dissocierles deux effets et adresser les causes de dégradation de l’image séparément. Le sujetde cette thèse est précisément de trouver un moyen de décorréler les deux paramètresaffectant l’uniformité de la dimension critique. L’idée principale est de trouver à lafois les motifs et les modèles théoriques pouvant conduire à discriminer des imagesselon leur sensibilité, soit au focus, soit à la dose / Following the ITRS roadmap, the critical dimension of the circuits are continuouslynarrowing. Optical Lithography still remains the cheapest way forintegrated circuits mass production. If the resists properties and the exposure wavelengthreduction had an important contribution to this result, the lens numericalaperture increase had a decisive impact. The numerical aperture is currently reaching1,30 thanks to the usage of water as immersion fluid between the lens andthe wafer. Future lens are targeting in a near future a 1,70 numerical aperture withimmersion fluids at higher refractive index. A direct consequence of these wider numericalaperture’s is the reduction of the depth of focus to few tens of nanometers,reducing the process windows and then the integrated circuits manufacturability. Inaddition the pure numerical aperture effect on focus, off axis illumination is leadingto amplify the reticle critical dimension variations, and the intrafield focus controlbecomes more and more crucial.The last scanner generation provides some tools to adjust the intrafield energy.As the two effects appear to compensate each of them critical dimension variation,it becomes very important to be able to dissociate the effect of one from the otherin order to select the most efficient mean to get the greater process windows. Moreover, the average value compensations must feed accurately the Run to Run feedback loop for the next exposed wafers.The purpose of this thesis is to find a way to un-correlate the various parametersaffecting the critical dimension uniformity. Some researchers tried to design specificfeatures whose shape modifications due to focus offset could be detected as an overlayerror measured by the appropriate tool, but the limitations seem to be actuallyreached. New tools, as scatterometers, could provide a more precise information.The desire output of this thesis would be to provide a methodology to allow an inline intrafield focus follow up for the future technologies at 20nm half pitch

The advantages of an external focus of attention are very consistent within the motor learning literature. That is, focusing on cues external to the body while performing a task will allow for greater motor skill learning and performance benefits compared to focusing internally. Likewise, there is a vast consistency within the self-regulated learning literature. Individuals that are allowed to alter or adjust a certain characteristic of their practice environment have consistently performed significantly better than individuals following a predetermined practice arrangement mirroring the schedule determined by their self-regulated counterpart. The purpose of this study was to investigate the motor skill learning and performance benefits of choice in attentional focus instructions while executing a golf putt. It was hypothesized that in practice: the self-regulated and control groups will perform similar to each other, but both will perform better than the yoked group; all participants will perform better when focusing externally rather than internally; and a majority of participants within all groups would indicate that focusing externally rather than internally elicited greater performance benefits by the end of practice on day 1. It was also hypothesized that the self-regulated and control groups will perform similar to each other on the retention and transfer tests, but both will perform better than the yoked group; and finally, a majority of participants would indicate that focusing externally rather than internally will elicit greater performance benefits by the end of the retention and transfer tests respectively. The results from this study indicated that the self-regulated and control groups performed similar to each other during practice, retention and transfer, but did not differ significantly from the yoked group. Also, approximately only 40% of all participants believed that adopting an external focus of attention would elicit greater performance benefits than an internal focus during practice, retention and transfer. This study provides practitioners with an increased understanding of how a participant-controlled learning environment affects which focus of attention is adopted by the learner. Since the advantages of an external focus of attention are robust, and there appeared to be no clear preference for using one focus over the other when given a choice, it might be appropriate to suggest that practitioners should continue to promote an external focus of attention in their learning environments until further research investigating the interactions of self-regulated practice and attentional focus are conducted.