In this thesis, I am concerned with the language of advertising. By analyzing advertising from a discourse perspective, this paper further examines the context of communication and the participants’ roles in the context. This study focuses on commercial advertising, based on the assumption that the intended meaning of the advertiser is to persuade the viewer to perform a purchase. Therefore this study observes persuasive messages and how they are presented in advertising. To analyze and compare real texts from a discourse perspective present an opportunityto examine social changes that might have taken place in a society due to different temporal settings. The social changes are examined by comparing assigned gender roles in advertisements published in 1956 and advertisements published in 2014. The material consists of a total of eleven transcripts description of printed advertisements collected from The New Yorker. The examples used for this study have been hand picked to illustrate theories described in the background, such as those provided by Leech (1966), Hermerén (1999), Romaine (1999), Cronin (2000) and Hillier (2004). The framework for the analysis is based on Leech’s (1966) concept of primary and secondary situations with corresponding primary and secondary participants. The findings suggest that advertisers can persuade the viewer by addressing the viewer directly and by using exophoric references, or by inserting secondary participants to convey the message. In addition, the assigned role of women seems to have changed more than the assigned role of men in advertising discourse.

An important technique for learning, feedback has been described as responses to students’ behaviors, tasks, assignments, and outcomes. In this study, the researcher used a new kind of feedback message called an Emotional Motivational Feedback Message (EMFEM). EMFEM is a feedback message which includes motivational strategies and emotional content for motivating and encouraging students to learn more and to focus on a specific topic. EMFEM is based on Visser and Keller’s (1990) motivational message design, which was influenced by Keller’s (1987) ARCS theory and emotional content strategies. Because EMFEM is primarily used in text-based, online learning environments, it is limited in its ways of adding emotional content to feedback messages. Therefore, three main strategies were used in this study to include EMFEM: using the meaning of the words; formatting the words by using colored, bold, underlined text; and adding emoticons. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of EMFEM in online learning environments. This exploratory research was conducted using mixed method single case study design (Creswell, 2005; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Yin, 2009) and guided by the following question: How effective are emotional motivational feedback messages in an online learning environment? Participants were 15 undergraduate students enrolled for an instructional technology course in a large state university located in an urban region in the southeastern part of the United States during fall 2013. The researcher used multiple data collection strategies, including a course interest survey, an instructional technology attitudes survey, open-ended questionnaires, a research journal, forum/discussion postings, emails, reflection papers and warm-up surveys. The findings showed that, in an online course using EMFEM, (a) students’ motivation increased; (b) students’ attitudes toward IT increased; (c) students liked the EMFEM and the style of the instructor’s teaching; (d) students had a closer and friendlier relationship with the instructor; (e) students were satisfied with the course; (f) students started to use more emotional content; (g) students enjoyed having personalized EMFEM and requested to have EMFEM; and (h) students reported positive overall experiences by the end of the course.

No description available.

Text communication is often perceived as lacking some components of communication that are essential in sustaining interaction or conversation. This interaction incoherency tends to make text communication plastic. It is traditionally devoid of intonation, pitch, gesture, facial expression and visual or auditory cues. Nevertheless, Instant Messaging (IM), a form of text communication is on the upward uptake both on PCs and on mobile handhelds. There is a need to rubberise this plastic text messaging to improve co-presence for text communications thereby improving synchronous textual discussion, especially on handheld devices. <br /> <br /> One element of interaction is gesture, seen as a natural way of conversing. Attaining some level of interaction naturalism requires improving synchronous communication spontaneity, partly achieved by enhancing input mechanisms. To enhance input mechanisms for interactive text-based chat on mobile devices, there is a need to facilitate gesture input. Enhancement is achievable in a number of ways, such as input mechanism redesigning and input offering adaptation. This thesis explores affective gesture mode on interface redesign as an input offering adaptation. This is done without a major physical reconstruction of handheld devices.<br /> <br /> This thesis presents a text only IM system built on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE). It was developed with a novel user-defined hotkey implemented as a one-click context menu to &ldquo / fast-track&rdquo / text-gestures and emoticons.<br /> <br /> A hybrid quantitative and qualitative approach was taken to enable data triangulation. Results from experimental trials show that an Affective Gesture (AG) approach improved IM chat spontaneity/response. Feedback from the user trials affirms that AG hotkey improves chat responsiveness, thus enhancing chat spontaneity.

Thesis (M.S.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Computer Science, Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--York University, 2007. Graduate Programme in Computer Science and Engineering. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-88). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR29276

Thesis (M.S.C.I.T.)--Regis University, Denver, Colo., 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Feb. 03, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Ap.C.T. & M.)--Cleveland State University, 2009. / Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on June 17, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 55-69). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center. Also available in print.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2008. / "May, 2008." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 42-46). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 10, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-71).