Textual Differences in Game Reviews Written by Men and Women

The aim of this essay is to examine the differences in language use between the genders in game reviews, to find whether there are differences in the use of the language depending on gender. Both sexist language and technical aspects are examined, the technical aspects of writing have been chosen from previous research about gendered differences in writing. The reviews are randomly chosen but the games are selected. There is an equal amount of games with male and female main characters, and the number of reviews is chosen according to the number of reviews written by females, as there are fewer of them, and thus easier to find a matching number of reviews written by males rather than vice versa. The reviews are then examined to find sexist language and differences. This essay finds that there is sexist language in the writing of both genders, such as marked language, but only when the main character of the game is female. Both genders tend to focus on the appearance of female characters and the characteristics of male characters, but there is no known previous research about male and female game characters to compare these results to. However, the technical differences remain consistent with previous research on the same subject, such as female reviewers using more pronouns than male reviewers, and male reviewers using fewer verbs than female reviewers.

About Collaboration, Interaction, and the Negotiation of Meaning in Synchronous Written Chats in L2-German

Open Access

Short Communication: A compelling argument for the gravity p-median model

The p-median model is used to locate P facilities to serve a geographically distributed population. Conventionally, it is assumed that the population always travels to the nearest facility. Drezner and Drezner (2006, 2007) provide three arguments on why this assumption might be incorrect, and they introduce the extended the gravity p-median model to relax the assumption. We favour the gravity p-median model, but we note that in an applied setting, Drezner and Drezner’s arguments are incomplete. In this communication, we point at the existence of a fourth compelling argument for the gravity p-median model.

A Linguistic Analysis of the Written Production of Second Language Learners : The Variation of Article Usage by Adult Chinese Learners of English

This study aims to test Robertson’s lexical transfer principle, which posits that Chinese learners use demonstratives (particularly this) and the numeral one as markers of definiteness and indefiniteness. This is tested by analysing Chinese learners’ written production collected from the Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners 2.0 (SWECCL 2.0). The purpose is to understand the variation of article usage by adult Chinese learners of English. More specifically, the study examines to what extent articles, possessive and demonstrative pronouns are used in Chinese learners’ English and how definite and indefinite articles are used by the Chinese learners. Findings suggest that Robertson’s lexical transfer principle was corroborated by the present study. In addition, Chinese learners prefer to use demonstrative determiners, the possessive determiner our, and the numeral one to perform the function of marking definiteness and indefiniteness. In particular, the learners try to use the demonstrative determiners that and this in the anaphoric function instead of the definite article, and the demonstrative determiner those is frequently used in the cataphoric function. What is more, the learners use the numeral one as a marker of indefiniteness, and it is also used as a marker of definiteness in the anaphoric function. Further, the possessive determiner our is used as a marker of definiteness in larger situation uses referring to something unique. To this end, the study is able to show that the definite article is used to perform the function of marking indefiniteness, and in some particular contexts the definite article functions as a Chinese specifier in Chinese learners’ English. Also, the indefinite article is frequently used in quantifier phrases but is rarely used in other functions. There are three main reasons that may explain why Chinese learners use determiners variously. Firstly, the choice of determiners by Chinese learners is influenced by linguistic contexts. Secondly, because of learning strategies, Chinese learners try to ignore the anaphoric function and cataphoric function that they are not yet ready to process in article usage. Thirdly, interlanguage grammar influences the optionality in the use of articles. 

Professional and Non-Professional Written Travel Texts – Do They Have Common Features? : A Comparative Investigation on Travel Texts on Trysil, Norway

This study aims to investigate possible distinctions between professional and non-professional written travel texts all treating the same destination: the Norwegian ski resort Trysil. The study will investigate to what extent the different texts correlate with the genre of travel texts, as the travel texts are treated as personal narratives, and how they conform to a given structure for narratives and with guidelines for professional writers. Furthermore, the investigation aims to explore to what extent there are similarities and differences between the texts regarding the given structure. The texts will first be analysed and organized separately by macrorules and a news schema that are constructed specifically for these sorts of texts, in order to reveal their discourse structure, and then compared to each other. As the discourse structure of the different texts is revealed, it is seen that there are certain differences between the two different text types. Finally, seen that the text types differ in their structure, this study will show that despite the fact that journalists write stories, and that non-professional written stories are narratives, they do not share the same structure, and are constructed in different ways.

"Spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" : romantic imagery in Mary Shelley's Frankstein

Romantic English literature – written at a time when prose fiction was predominantly a medium for sheer entertainment – is rooted in poetry. One or two novelists may exceptionally be granted the adjective “Romantic”, but Mary Shelley is not ranked among them. For centuries, her work has been restricted to that section in handbooks reserved for exotic Gothic literature. This thesis argues that literary criticism has failed to recognize Frankenstein’s obvious relation with the movement. The argument will be fostered by a brief look at such handbooks, and developed through the analysis of the imagery of the novel, so as to trace the Romantic elements there contained. The analysis relies mainly on the frame developed by Northrop Frye concerning the nature and function of imagery in literature. The concept of intertextuality will also be useful as a tool to account for the insertion of images in the novel, and for the novel’s insertion within the Romantic context. The work is divided into three parts. The first contextualizes the main issues set forth by Frankenstein, establishing connections with the life of the author and with the Romantic movement. The second exposes the theoretical basis on which the thesis is grounded. The last presents my reading of the novel’s web of images. In the end, I hope to validate the thesis proposed, that Frankenstein embodies the aesthetic and philosophical assessments of the English Romantic agenda, and therefore deserves to be situated in its due place in the English Literary canon as the legitimate representative of Romanticism in prose form.

Paulo Freire e a pedagogia do oprimido: afinidades pós-coloniais

The main objective of the present research is to reflect on the affinities between post-colonial theories - analytical perspectives directed toward the discussion of colonialism and its effects on the contemporary social fabric - and Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire‟s (1921-1997) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, written at the end of the 1960‟s. The study aims to make the argument that the present reflections on the featured work is an example of a post-colonial theoretical framework, delineating a critical modus operandi of colonialism, particularly in its cultural and epistemic dimensions, delineating a problematization of the processes of cognitive domination set, above all, by the European colonization of the Latin American continent, with the formation of the modern-world-system (WALLERSTEIN, 2007), dated from the 16TH Century forward. From this stand point, and especially supported by the contributions of Boaventura de Sousa Santos on the sociology of absence, the present work accentuates Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a set of reflections that bring the possibility of a pedagogy of absence (SANTOS, 1996), having in mind that, this book deals with, the presuppositions of an educational action, which considers the plurality of knowledge and social practices by way of the establishment of a pedagogical practice of collective construction, emancipator and dialogic that arises from the encounter to the indolent reason (SANTOS, 2009) in which the silencing of the voices of the oppressed, construct their conditions of invisibility, promoting also the absence of the social questions inherent to the processes of teaching and learning. It is with this perspective, however, that post colonialism is considered a theoretical site for the affirmation and the reinvention of the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, an obligatory reference in the construction of a prudent knowledge for a decent life (SANTOS, 2006)

Escafandristas do tempo: narrativas de vida e regeneração da memória em São Rafael-RN

In the late 1970s, the semi-arid region of Rio Grande do Norte was the setting of Projeto Baixo-Açu whose highlight was the building of the dam Eng. Armando Ribeiro Gonçalves, designed to collect 2.4 billion cubic meters of water. Presumably, such an initiative would bring economic and social development for thousands of potiguares who suffered the hardships of drought. However, the dam would reach several cities in the region, reaching to cover one of them: São Rafael. As a result, the early years of the 1980s, nearby, a new town was built by DNOCS. This thesis aims to discuss how the population of São Rafael recalls this fact and reconstructs its history by speaking, writing and computing, after three decades. Based on the prospect moriniana method as a strategy, visits were made to the city of São Rafael and open interviews (individual and collective) with two groups of subjects: one composed of those who lived in their ancient homeland, and another, with young people who were born in the new city. Besides the reports of these subjects, they were observed the visual narratives presented by images, mostly photographic, available on a profile created for the city in the orkut social network. As sources for this study, they were also considered the dialogues between rafaelenses accessing the above profile. Having as a central observation by Edgar Morin about what does not regenerate, degenerates . This study is the central argument that the idea of orkut has performed, today, a dual and interdependent role: being a tool that promotes a collective intelligence through cooperation, exchange of ideas and reconstitution of visual and written narratives. Far from a frozen conception in a historical perspective, it has defended the thesis that orkut has regenerated, repaired, reproduced, restored, reorganized and renewed the memory and history of a city that has succumbed to the immensity of the waters of a dam for almost thirty years

Guiando almas femininas: a educação protestante da mulher em impressos confessionais no Brasil e em Portugal (1890-1930)

This paper treats confessional printings as a non formal space for the female education. It reflects on the importance of the woman s role to the diffusion of Protestantism in general, and its Presbyterian trend in particular, besides commenting on the proliferation of printings at the First Republic and its relation with education. In this study, Brazilian Northeastern is seen as a relevant space to the diffusion of Protestantism in Brazil; especially on what concerns the relations between Rio Grande do Norte and Pernambuco. Thereby some fountains were fundamental, as the confessional printings, that is, newspapers, magazines, prospects and other materials recollected in archives located in Natal/RN and Recife/PE, and São Paulo. It was also provided a brief incursion on Portuguese confessional printings kept in Oporto, PT. New Cultural History was chosen as theoretic-methodological guide, franchising ways inside the history of book and reading with the help of concepts like Interdependence, Social Configuration (ELIAS, 1993, 1994) and Representation (CHARTIER, 1990), considering that the survey worked out culture-manufactured products that is, intentional materials. It is well known that publishing, or better, the dissemination of printed material used to be associated to Protestants missionary practices since Reform began and, as what concerns the investigated period, in Portuguese and Brazilian lands indistinctly. Printing material in general books, booklets, fragments, as well as the press itself played a central role in divulging reformed ideas, their social options and the means of being and intervening in the world. In this regard, the confessional printings established themselves as an educative, although non schooled, informal space, but, all considered, relevant, seen that they dialogue with another important demand of that social group: formal, literate education. Because it dealt with the diffusion of a printed culture supported by the written word, it required of that group a different modus operandi: formal education. The first letters schools at first, then the high schools later represented spaces established for the circulation of printing material in order that they should be read, divulged and comprehended. This survey intends at last to take a look at Protestantism which, in this context of self-affirmation, reserved a specific place to woman by working out a non formal educational proposal disseminated by printing material. Three models were highlighted in the reformed proposal: Christian education in itself, household education, whose references of motherhood and care towards the neighbor were present and, at last, education to the public space, with emphasis on the practice of teaching. This study also offers a brief dialogue between Brazil and Portugal because, when some periodic printing, book or something like that got to be published in one margin of the Atlantic Ocean, the other margin surely was affected by that feat, received it, divulged it, corroborating the argument in support of the circulation of these printings. It was not only the same language that survived in both maritime coasts; some protestant specificities also crossed out along that sea

Os artigos de Euler sobre os números amigáveis

Among the many methodological resources that the mathematics teacher can use in the classroom, we can cite the History of Mathematics which has contributed to the development of activities that promotes students curiosity about mathematics and its history. In this regard, the present dissertation aims to translate and analyze, mathematically and historically, the three works of Euler about amicable numbers that were writed during the Eighteenth century with the same title: De numeris amicabilibus. These works, despite being written in 1747 when Euler lived in Berlin, were published in different times and places. The first, published in 1747 in Nova Acta Eruditorum and which received the number E100 in the Eneström index, summarizes the historical context of amicable numbers, mentions the formula 2nxy & 2nz used by his precursors and presents a table containing thirty pairs of amicable numbers. The second work, E152, was published in 1750 in Opuscula varii argument. It is the result of a comprehensive review of Euler s research on amicable numbers which resulted in a catalog containing 61 pairs, a quantity which had never been achieved by any mathematician before Euler. Finally, the third work, E798, which was published in 1849 at the Opera postuma, was probably the first among the three works, to be written by Euler

A relação gramatical objeto direto : implicações para o ensino de língua materna

This paper attempts to investigate the discourse manifestations of the grammatical relation direct object with respect to the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties that underlie this element. The research adopts theoretical orientation of the functionalism from North American and Brazilian schools inspired in Givón (1995, 2001), Hopper and Thompson (1980), Chafe (1979), Furtado da Cunha, Oliveira, Martelotta (2003) inter alia. From functionalism, the research uses principles of iconicity, markedness and informativity and it analize categories of transitivity, grounding and animacy. This research is anchored in prototype model (TAYLOR 1995); construction grammar model (GOLDBERG 1996, 2002). Both theoretical orientations share the view that language is a malleable living organism subject to socio-cultural context. Grammar is then the result of created, maintained, and systematized linguistic patterns developed from and used for language use. According to a functional linguistics and cognitivist linguistics verbs are stored in the speakers lexicon in syntactic-semantic frames which are more frequent. These frames carry information concerning obligatory and optional arguments and the semantic roles these arguments take in the clause. The analysis focuses on the semantic type of the verbs and its relationship with the argument encoded as a direct object observing the aspectual nature of verbs. Direct objects are classified according to their morphology (lexical or pronominal noun phrase), semantic role, informational content and animacy. This study discusses pedagogical implications with relation to how the grammatical concepts touched on this paper are treated in school textbooks. The empirical data come from Corpus Discurso & Gramática: a língua falada e escrita na cidade do Natal (FURTADO DA CUNHA, 1998). This corpus is composed of texts that contain spoken and written modalities. These modalities are in turn organized according to different types: personal narratives, retold narrative, description of preferred place, procedural place, procedural description and report on argumentation. The sample data totals 40 texts produced by four language consultants of the last graduation date. The paper shows that the same syntactic structures (formed through Subject-Verb-Object) correspond to different semantic-pragmatic structures in relation to specific communicative purposes even verb is an event, process or state. The argument structure are not aleatory but are related to experience; that is the way humans conceptualize the world and talk about it

Linguagem e argumentação na produção escrita de vestibulandos

In this study, we analyzed the argumentative processes of written texts produced by UERN (Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte) vestibulandos : (students who apply for University Entrance Examinations in Brazil). It has as its corpus twenty compositions by such students. These compositions, collected in UFRN COMPERVE (Permanent Commission of vestibular examinations) and written in 2005 examination, were selected in a random way. The theoretical support is based on Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1999; 2002), Reboul (2004), Bakhtin (1992), Faraco (2003), Platão e Fiorim (2003) e Geraldi (1997), and other scholars. The work aimed to investigate how vestibulandos make use of argumentative techniques in order to construct their arguments in the vestibular examination. In the analysis of the corpus we considered that the used argumentative techniques, the relationship with the thesis, the sense effects students wanted to produce and the type of the required speech. It showed that in the, discourse construction of argumentative texts, students made use, with more frequency, of the following argumentative techniques: pragmatic arguments, arguments of the definition, comparison arguments, division arguments, example arguments, argument of the model and authority arguments as means to support their theses. However it was not carried out in a conventional way, reason why it leads us to believe that schools, as part of human activity, responsible for education and for the insert of learners in the literate world, have a fundamental role concerning the offer of conditions, so that, the teaching of Portuguese Language leads students to a systematic and explicit preparation of the knowledge, regarding the social and functions of the language, as well as of the strategies of the construction of argumentative texts. This can lead learners to develop communicative competence and to feel more confident when working with text production

Schwarzschild and de Sitter solutions from the argument by Lenz and Sommerfeld

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)