"Knock, knock! Is it english or portuguese sign language?"

A presente investigação mostra a importância do contacto de crianças muito jovens com línguas estrangeiras. Este trabalho concentra-se na tentativa de investigar, numa abordagem plurilingue, com enfoque para a Língua Inglesa e a Língua Gestual Portuguesa, a sensibilização de um grupo de alunos do 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico para uma língua diferente da sua língua materna. Nesta pesquisa, adotou-se uma postura de investigação-ação, apoiando-se com grande particularidade numa metodologia qualitativa e com menor relevância numa metodologia quantitativa, onde os alunos, através das várias atividades que desenvolveram foram adquirindo diferentes competências nas duas línguas. Isto permitiu aos alunos despertarem todas as suas potencialidades para a aprendizagem destas duas línguas (Língua Inglesa e Língua Gestual Portuguesa), tendo como ponto de partida a sua sensibilização e a aprendizagem de alguns vocábulos. Acreditamos que esta abordagem plurilíngue poderá auxiliar os alunos no desenvolvimento de habilidades linguísticas, cognitivas e pessoais tais como: a intercompreensão, o conhecimento de características específicas de diferentes línguas existentes em seu redor, a comparação linguística entre elas, a sua compreensão lexical, e por fim a competência em relacionar as línguas a culturas, e acima de tudo, o respeito e valorização da diversidade linguística e cultural. Foram utilizadas nas aulas atividades de nível de compreensão e produção oral, num processo de sensibilização e aprendizagem de alguns vocábulos destas línguas, sendo que os resultados foram posteriormente analisados, através de grelhas de observação das atividades, de dois inquéritos por questionário e fotos. Das observações e conclusões retiradas desta análise, confirmou-se que a sensibilização quanto à Língua Inglesa assim como quanto à Língua Gestual Portuguesa promove o desenvolvimento da criança, assim como a valorização da respetiva diversidade linguística e cultural.

The rebirth of an old language: issues of gender equality in Kazakhsstan

The existing language situation in Kazakhstan, while peaceful, is not without some tension. We propose to analyze here some questions we consider relevant in the frame of cultural globalization and gender equality, such as: free from Russian imperialism, could Kazakhstan become an easy prey of Turkey’s “imperialist dream”? Could these traditionally Muslim people be soon facing the end of religious tolerance and gender equality, becoming this new old language an easy instrument for the infiltration in the country of fundamentalism (it has already crossed the boarders of Uzbekistan), leading to a gradual deterioration of its rich multicultural relations? The present structure of the language is still very fragile: there are three main dialects and many academics defend the re-introduction of the Latin alphabet, thus enlarging the possibility of cultural “contamination” by making the transmission of fundamentalist ideas still easier through neighbour countries like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (their languages belong to the same sub-group of Common Turkic), where the Latin alphabet is already in use, and where the ground for such ideas shown itself very fruitful.

Signalling in an international cournot model

We consider a trade policy model, where the costs of the home firm are private information but can be signaled through the output levels of the firm to a foreign competitor and a home policymaker. We study the influences of the non-homogeneity of the goods and of the uncertainty on the production costs of the home firm in the signalling strategies by the home firm. We show that some results obtained for homogeneous goods are not robust under non-homogeneity.

Environmental policies in an international mixed duopoly

The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of environmental and trade policies in an international mixed duopoly serving two markets. We suppose that the firm in the home country is a welfare-maximizing public firm, while the firm in the foreign country is its own profit-maximizing private firm. We find that the environmental tax can be a strategic instrument for the home government to distribute production from the foreign private firm to the home public firm. An additional effect of the home environmental tax is the reduction of the foreign private firm's output for local consumption, thereby expanding the foreign market for the home public firm.

Simultaneous decisions or leadership in an international competition

In this paper, we study an international market with demand uncertainty. The model has two stages. In the first stage, the home government chooses an import tariff to maximize the revenue. Then, the firms engage in a Cournot or in a Stackelberg competition. The uncertainty is resolved between the decisions made by the home government and by the firms. We compare the results obtained in the three different ways of moving on the decision make of the firms.

Desirable role in an international duopoly model with tariffs

In this paper, we study an international market model in which the home government imposes a tariff on the imported goods. The model has two stages. In the first stage, the home government chooses an import tariff to maximize a function that cares about the home firm’s profit and the total revenue. Then, the firms engage in a Cournot or in a Stackelberg competition. We compare the results obtained in the three different ways of moving on the decision make of the firms.

Licensing in an international triopoly

We study the effects of entry of two foreign firms on domestic welfare in the presence of licensing, when the incumbent is technologically superior to the entrants. We consider two different situations: (i) the cost-reducing innovation is licensed to both entrants; (ii) the cost- reducing innovation is licensed to just one of the entrants. We analyse three kind of license: (lump- sum) fixed-fee; (per-unit) royalty; and two-part tariff, that is a combination of a fixed-fee and a royalty. We prove that a two part tariff is never an optimal licensing scheme for the incumbent. Moreover, (i) when the technology is licensed to the two entrants, the optimal contract consists of a licensing with only output royalty; and (ii) when the technology is licensed to just one of the entrants, the optimal contract consists of a licensing with only a fixed-fee.

Phonological and articulation treatment approaches in Portuguese children with speech and language impairments: a randomized controlled intervention study

Background: In Portugal, the routine clinical practice of speech and language therapists (SLTs) in treating children with all types of speech sound disorder (SSD) continues to be articulation therapy (AT). There is limited use of phonological therapy (PT) or phonological awareness training in Portugal. Additionally, at an international level there is a focus on collecting information on and differentiating between the effectiveness of PT and AT for children with different types of phonologically based SSD, as well as on the role of phonological awareness in remediating SSD. It is important to collect more evidence for the most effective and efficient type of intervention approach for different SSDs and for these data to be collected from diverse linguistic and cultural perspectives. Aims: To evaluate the effectiveness of a PT and AT approach for treatment of 14 Portuguese children, aged 4.0–6.7 years, with a phonologically based SSD. Methods & Procedures: The children were randomly assigned to one of the two treatment approaches (seven children in each group). All children were treated by the same SLT, blind to the aims of the study, over three blocks of a total of 25 weekly sessions of intervention. Outcome measures of phonological ability (percentage of consonants correct (PCC), percentage occurrence of different phonological processes and phonetic inventory) were taken before and after intervention. A qualitative assessment of intervention effectiveness from the perspective of the parents of participants was included. Outcomes & Results: Both treatments were effective in improving the participants’ speech, with the children receiving PT showing a more significant improvement in PCC score than those receiving the AT. Children in the PT group also showed greater generalization to untreated words than those receiving AT. Parents reported both intervention approaches to be as effective in improving their children’s speech. Conclusions & Implications: The PT (combination of expressive phonological tasks, phonological awareness, listening and discrimination activities) proved to be an effective integrated method of improving phonological SSD in children. These findings provide some evidence for Portuguese SLTs to employ PT with children with phonologically based SSD