Language and thought in a multilingual context: the case of isiXhosa

Situated within the grammatical aspect approach to motion event cognition, this study takes a first step in investigating language and thought in functional multilinguals by studying L1 isiXhosa speakers living in South Africa. IsiXhosa being a non-aspect language, the study investigates how the knowledge and use of additional languages with grammatical aspect influence cognition of endpoint-oriented motion events among L1 isiXhosa speakers. Results from a triads-matching task show that participants who often used aspect languages and had greater exposure to English in primary education were less prone to rely on endpoints when categorising motion events.

Long-term conditioning of soil by plantation eucalypts and pines does not affect growth of the native jarrah tree

Plant species can condition the physico-chemical and biological properties of soil in ways that modify plant growth via plant–soil feedback (PSF). Plant growth can be positively affected, negatively affected or neutrally affected by soil conditioning by the same or other plant species. Soil conditioning by other plant species has particular relevance to ecological restoration of historic ecosystems because sites set aside for restoration are often conditioned by other, potentially non-native, plant species. We investigated changes in properties of jarrah forest soils after long-term (35 years) conditioning by pines (Pinus radiata), Sydney blue gums (Eucalyptus saligna), both non-native, plantation trees, and jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata; dominant native tree). Then, we tested the influence of the conditioned soils on the growth of jarrah seedlings. Blue gums and pines similarly conditioned the physico-chemical properties of soils, which differed from soil conditioning caused by jarrah. Especially important were the differences in conditioning of the properties C:N ratio, pH, and available K. The two eucalypt species similarly conditioned the biological properties of soil (i.e. community level physiological profile, numbers of fungal-feeding nematodes, omnivorous nematodes, and nematode channel ratio), and these differed from conditioning caused by pines. Species-specific conditioning of soil did not translate into differences in the amounts of biomass produced by jarrah seedlings and a neutral PSF was observed. In summary, we found that decades of soil conditioning by non-native plantation trees did not influence the growth of jarrah seedlings and will therefore not limit restoration of jarrah following the removal of the plantation trees.

Turning a Bourdieuian lens on English teaching in primary schools: linguistic field, linguistic habitus and linguistic capital

The research project used to frame discussion in this chapter was a doctoral study of the experiences of English primary school teachers teaching pupils whose home language was not English in their previously monolingual classrooms. They taught in a region in the south of England which experienced a significant rise in the population of non-native English speakers following Eastern European member states’ accession to the EU in 2004 and 2007. The study focussed principally on the teachers’ responses to their newly arrived Polish children because Polish families were arriving in far greater numbers than those from other countries. The research aims focussed on exploring and analysing the pedagogical experiences of teachers managing the acquisition of English language for their Polish children. Critical engagement with their experiences and the ways in which they did or did not adapt their pedagogy for teaching English was channelled through Bourdieuian constructs of linguistic field, capital and habitus. The following sections explore my reasons for adopting Bourdieu’s work as a theoretical lens, the practicalities and challenges of incorporating Bourdieu’s tools for thinking in data analysis, and the subsequent impact on my research activity.

Online orthographies

The representation in online environments of non-Roman-based script languages has proved problematic. During the initial years of Computer-mediated Communication, the American Standard Code for Information Interchange character set only supported Roman-alphabeted languages. The solution for speakers of languages written in non-Roman scripts was to employ unconventional writing systems, in an effort to represent their native language in online discourse. The first aim of this chapter is to present the different ways that internet users choose to transliterate or even transcribe their native languages online, using Roman characters. With technological development, and consequently the availability of various writing scripts online, internet users now have the option to either use Roman characters or their native script. If the latter is chosen, internet users still seem to deviate from conventional ways of writing, in this case, however, with regards to spelling. The second aim, therefore, is to bring into light recent developments, by looking at the ways that internet users manipulate orthography, to achieve their communicative purposes.

Imágenes de Hispanoamérica : Un análisis crítico de material didáctico de ELE

This paper investigates how Latin America and its cultures are represented in textbooks on Spanish as a foreign language. The study aims at investigating how much attention and of what type is dedicated to Latin America in the investigated material, whether the textbooks contribute to giving a varied and nuanced image of the Spanish-American cultures and how this relates to the educational goal of promoting an intercultural competence.A qualitative method of analysis has been applied in order to carry out the analysis of three textbooks for intermediate levels of language studies: Caminando 3, Alegria and De acuerdo.The results of the investigation show that the investigated textbooks mostly present a simplified, ethnocentric, homogenized and sometimes postcolonial image of the Spanish-American cultures. Texts where the culture constitutes the context and not the subject can promote a process of identification and consequently an intercultural competence.The study’s main conclusions show that Spanish-American cultures are underrepresented in the investigated material and that a non-native perspective dominates in the majority of the texts. This combined with the lack of variety and profundity, may have consequences for the promotion of an intercultural competence and for teachers’ work with textbooks and cultural content.

Temporal indicators of language dominance in bilingual children

In the field of bilingualism it is of particular interest to stablish which, if any, of a speaker’s languages is dominant. Earlier research has shown that immigrants who acquire a new language tend to use elements of the timing patterns of the new language in their native language. It is shown here that measurements of timing in the two languages spoken by bilingual children can give information about the relative dominance of the languages for the individual speaker.

O gênero crônica na sala de aula do ensino médio

In this work we present the results of a research that aims to study the chronicle gender produced in a class of native language. The texts were written by students of a high-school class, under the orientation of the teacher who conducted a didactic sequence in order to explore this gender. In our analysis we observed aspect such as the structure of the general structure of the texts, types of speech and linguistic sequences, some mechanisms of textualization and the characteristics of the gender. In order to attain that, we adopted the theoretical presuppositions of Textual Linguistics and of the Socio-discursive Interactionism, grounding the study of texts and gender in Bronckart (2003; 2006) and Koch (2002; 2004). As a background of the Chronicle Gender we used the studies of Coutinho (1987); Moisés (2003); Sá (2005); Bender; Laurito (1993); Melo (1994); Cândido et al. (1992) among others. The corpus, made up of 15 texts, showed that the narrative is the most used linguistic sequence in the producing of the texts, the discursive world prevailing in the narrative and some instances of the world of exposing. As for the gender characteristics, the daily life was used in order to amuse the reader and make him to reflect upon the daily life. Humor, irony, social criticism and colloquial language were also observed in the texts produced by the students. Although some texts presented the characteristics of the gender, explored in the classroom, some were typically school narratives. That make us believe that a work with textual production under the approach of a text gender is viable, but it is not consolidated yet in many schools as the main object of the central teaching of the Portuguese language. This make us defend a better systematization of the teaching contents having as the main point the reading practice and text production in order to contribute for the growing of the students´ discursive potentialities and, therefore, their effective participation in the language social practices

Aggressiveness Overcomes Body-Size Effects in Fights Staged between Invasive and Native Fish Species with Overlapping Niches

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Vizinhança global ou proximidade imposta? Impactos da comunicação intercultural mediada por computador sobre o papel da cultura no ensino de língua inglesa

Muitas práticas educacionais no ensino e aprendizagem de línguas parecem ainda dominadas por uma visão de cultura essencialista, na qual os alunos, suas habilidades e atitudes de aprendizagem são caracterizadas por estereótipos problemáticos e/ou imaginários de suas culturas religiosas, étnicas e nacionais. As novas ferramentas e aplicativos para comunicação trazidos pela internet têm contribuído para o aumento de práticas comunicativas entre indivíduos de diferentes culturas e o uso da língua inglesa entre falantes não nativos, o que também tende a trazer impactos sobre a maneira como entendemos e ensinamos cultura na aprendizagem de tal língua. Este artigo pretende explicitar a visão de cultura presente nos conceitos de competência comunicativa e competência intercultural, e discutir a necessidade de reformulação do componente cultural no ensino e aprendizagem de línguas, para que ele objetive a exploração da complexidade advinda do pragmatismo dos encontros interculturais na contemporaneidade.

Análise do uso dos conectores discursivos nas produções escritas em Espanhol por aprendentes brasileiros

Pós-graduação em Letras - FCLAS

Distribuição de lei de potência gradualmente truncada aplicada na educação: vestibular da Academia da Força Aérea

Pós-graduação em Física - IGCE

A interação oral de uma professora não-nativa em aulas de língua estrangeira (inglês)

Pós-graduação em Estudos Linguísticos - IBILCE

Características da interação no contexto de aprendizagem in-tandem

Pós-graduação em Estudos Linguísticos - IBILCE

Autonomia na aula de português da 3ª etapa da educação de jovens e adultos

Esta pesquisa investigou as atitudes de uma professora de língua portuguesa de uma escola pública e de seus alunos da 3ª etapa da Educação de Jovens e Adultos (EJA). Procurei observar indícios de comportamentos autônomos tanto por parte da professora quanto por parte dos alunos para verificar em que medida a professora colaboradora fazia a transferência da responsabilidade para o aprendente e como se dava este processo de transferência. Teoricamente, a compreensão da problemática baseia-se nos postulados sobre autonomia, em conformidade com Benson (2001), Dam (2003), Dickinson (1994), Melo (2007), Magno e Silva (2008), e nos Documentos Oficiais como os Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (1998). Os resultados apresentados apontam, nas atitudes dos sujeitos investigados, a parca preocupação com uma transferência de responsabilidades que poderia levar á autonomização dos alunos. Dessa forma este estudo abre a possibilidade de se pensar as práticas da sala de aula, enquanto espaço no qual o exercício da autonomia seria possível.

Traçando um perfil de usuários de dicionários- estudantes de letras com habilitação em língua inglesa: um novo olhar sobre dicionários para aprendizes e a formação de um usuário autônomo

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)