A prolegomenon to the construct of the native speaker: heritage speaker bilinguals are natives too!

This Forum challenges the generally accepted position in the linguistic sciences—conscious or not—that monolingualism and nativeness are essentially synonymous in an exclusive way. We discuss two consequences of our position that naturalistic bilinguals and multilinguals exposed to a language in early childhood are also native speakers: (i) that bi-/multilinguals have multiple native languages;and (ii) nativeness can be applicable to a state of linguistic knowledge that is characterized by significant differences to the monolingual baseline.

Individual differences in early language learning: a study of English learners of French

The present longitudinal study examines the interaction of learner variables (gender, motivation, self-efficacy and first language literacy) and their influence on second language learning outcomes. The study follows English learners of French from Year 5 in primary school (aged 9-10) to the first year in secondary school (Year 7 aged 11-12). Language outcomes were measured by two oral production tasks; a sentence repetition task and a photo description task both of which were administered at three time points. Longitudinal data on learner attitudes and motivation were collected via questionnaires. Teacher assessment data for general first language literacy attainment were also provided. The results show a great deal of variation in learner attitudes and outcomes and that there is a complex relationship between first language literacy, self-efficacy, gender and attainment. For example, in general, girls held more positive attitudes to boys and were more successful. However, the inclusion of first language ability, which explained 30-40% of variation, shows that gender differences in attitudes and outcomes are likely mediated by first language literacy and prior learning experience.

Family language policy in the Chinese community in Singapore: a question of balance?

This paper focuses on the language shift phenomenon in Singapore as a consequence of the top-town policies. By looking at bilingual family language policies it examines the characteristics of Singapore’s multilingual nature and cultural diversity. Specifically, it looks at what languages are practiced and how family language policies are enacted in Singaporean English-Chinese bilingual families, and to what extend macro language policies – i.e. national and educational language policies influence and interact with family language policies. Involving 545 families and including parents and grandparents as participants, the study traces the trajectory of the policy history. Data sources include 2 parts: 1) a prescribed linguistic practices survey; and 2) participant observation of actual negotiation of FLP in face-to-face social interaction in bilingual English-Chinese families. The data provides valuable information on how family language policy is enacted and language practices are negotiated, and what linguistic practices have been changed and abandoned against the background of the Speaking Mandarin Campaign and the current bilingual policy implemented in the 1970s. Importantly, the detailed face-to-face interactions and linguistics practices are able to enhance our understanding of the subtleties and processes of language (dis)continuity in relation to policy interventions. The study also discusses the reality of language management measures in contrast to the government’s ‘separate bilingualism’ (Creese & Blackledge, 2011) expectations with regard to ‘striking a balance’ between Asian and Western culture (Curdt-Christiansen & Silver 2013; Shepherd, 2005) and between English and mother tongue languages (Curdt-Christiansen, 2014). Demonstrating how parents and children negotiate their family language policy through translanguaging or heteroglossia practices (Canagarajah, 2013; Garcia & Li Wei, 2014), this paper argues that ‘striking a balance’ as a political ideology places emphasis on discrete and separate notions of cultural and linguistic categorization and thus downplays the significant influences from historical, political and sociolinguistic contexts in which people find themselves. This simplistic view of culture and linguistic code will inevitably constrain individuals’ language expression as it regards code switching and translanguaging as delimited and incompetent language behaviour.

Back to basics: how measures of lexical diversity can help discriminate between CEFR levels

This study contributes to ongoing discussions on how measures of lexical diversity (LD) can help discriminate between essays from second language learners of English, whose work has been assessed as belonging to levels B1 to C2 of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). The focus is in particular on how different operationalisations of what constitutes a “different word” (type) impact on the LD measures themselves and on their ability to discriminate between CEFR levels. The results show that basic measures of LD, such as the number of different words, the TTR (Templin 1957) and the Index of Guiraud (Guiraud 1954) explain more variance in the CEFR levels than sophisticated measures, such as D (Malvern et al. 2004), HD-D (McCarthy and Jarvis 2007) and MTLD (McCarthy 2005) provided text length is kept constant across texts. A simple count of different words (defined as lemma’s and not as word families) was the best predictor of CEFR levels and explained 22 percent of the variance in overall scores on the Pearson Test of English Academic in essays written by 176 test takers.

The paradox of culture in a globalized world

Much of the work in intercultural communication studies in the past decade, especially in the field of applied linguistics, has been devoted to ‘disinventing’ the notion of culture. The problem with the word ‘culture’ as it has been used in anthropology, sociology, and in everyday life, it has been pointed out, is that it is used as a noun, conceived of as something ‘solid,’ an essential set of traits or characteristics of certain people or groups, something people ‘have’ rather than something they ‘do’ (Scollon, Scollon, & Jones, 2012). Among the most famous statements of this position is Brain Street’s classic paper ‘Culture is a Verb’ (1993), in which he argues that culture should be treated as ‘a signifying process the active construction of meaning rather than the static and reified or nominalizing’ sense in which the word is often used in anthropology, some linguistics circles, and in everyday conversation.

Doing well by talking good? A topic modelling-assisted discourse study of corporate social responsibility

Using the novel technique of topic modelling, this paper examines thematic patterns and their changes over time in a large corpus of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports produced in the oil sector. Whereas previous research on corporate communications has been small-scale or interested in selected lexical aspects and thematic categories identified ex ante, our approach allows for thematic patterns to emerge from the data. The analysis reveals a number of major trends and topic shifts pointing to changing practices of CSR. Nowadays ‘people’, ‘communities’ and ‘rights’ seem to be given more prominence, whereas ‘environmental protection’ appears to be less relevant. Using more established corpus-based methods, we subsequently explore two top phrases - ‘human rights’ and ‘climate change’ that were identified as representative of the shifting thematic patterns. Our approach strikes a balance between the purely quantitative and qualitative methodologies and offers applied linguists new ways of exploring discourse in large collections of texts.

Relative entropy measures applied to healthy and pathological voice characterization

Nowadays, noninvasive methods of diagnosis have increased due to demands of the population that requires fast, simple and painless exams. These methods have become possible because of the growth of technology that provides the necessary means of collecting and processing signals. New methods of analysis have been developed to understand the complexity of voice signals, such as nonlinear dynamics aiming at the exploration of voice signals dynamic nature. The purpose of this paper is to characterize healthy and pathological voice signals with the aid of relative entropy measures. Phase space reconstruction technique is also used as a way to select interesting regions of the signals. Three groups of samples were used, one from healthy individuals and the other two from people with nodule in the vocal fold and Reinke`s edema. All of them are recordings of sustained vowel /a/ from Brazilian Portuguese. The paper shows that nonlinear dynamical methods seem to be a suitable technique for voice signal analysis, due to the chaotic component of the human voice. Relative entropy is well suited due to its sensibility to uncertainties, since the pathologies are characterized by an increase in the signal complexity and unpredictability. The results showed that the pathological groups had higher entropy values in accordance with other vocal acoustic parameters presented. This suggests that these techniques may improve and complement the recent voice analysis methods available for clinicians. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Práticas de letramento digital de professores em formação: demandas, saberes e impactos

Over the last decades, the digital inclusion public policies have significantly invested in the purchase of hardwares and softwares in order to offer technology to the Brazilian public teaching institutions, specifically computers and broadband Internet. However, the teachers education to handle these artefacts is put away, even though there is some demand from the information society. With that, this dissertation chooses as an object of study the digital literacy practices performed by 38 (thirty-eight) teachers in initial and continuous education by means of the extension course Literacies and technologies: portuguese language teaching and cyberculture demands. In this direction, we aim at investigating the digital literacy practices of developing teachers in three specific moments: before, while and after this extension action with the intent to (i) delineate the digital literacy practices performed by the collaborators before the formative action; (ii) to narrate the literacy events made possible by the extension course; (iii) to investigate the contributions of the education course to the collaborators teaching practice. We sought theoretical contributions in the literacy studies (BAYNHAM, 1995; KLEIMAN, 1995; HAMILTON; BARTON; IVANIC, 2000), specifically when it comes to digital literacy (COPE, KALANTZIS, 2000; BUZATO, 2001, 2007, 2009; SNYDER, 2002, 2008; LANKSHEAR & KNOBEL, 2002, 2008) and teacher education (PERRENOUD, 2000; SILVA, 2001). Methodologically, this virtual ethnography study (KOZINETS, 1997; HINE, 2000) is inserted into the field of Applied Linguistics and adopts a quali-quantitative research approach (NUNAN, 1992; DÖRNYEI, 2006). The data analysis permitted to evidentiate that (i) before the course, the digital literacy practices focused on the personal and academic dimensions of their realities at the expense of the professional dimension; (ii) during the extension action, the teachers collaboratively took part in the hybrid study sessions, which had a pedagogical focus on the use of ICTs, accomplishing the use of digital literacy practices - unknown before that; (iii) after the course, the attitude of the collaborator teachers concerning the use of ICTs on their regular professional basis had changed, once those teachers started to effectively make use of them, promoting social visibility to what was produced in the school. We also observed that teachers in initial education acted as more experienced peers in collaborative learning process, offering support scaffolding (VYGOTSKY, 1978; BRUNER, 1985) to teachers in continuous education. This occurred because of the undergraduates actualize digital literacy practices were more sophisticated, besides the fact being integrate generation Y (PRENSKY, 2001)

Scientific knowledge and digital democracy in Brazil: how to assess public health policy debate with applied Scientometrics

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

O ambiente virtual na formação inicial de professores de alemão como apoio para o ensino e a aprendizagem da língua e a reflexão sobre ações docentes

Estudiosos dos campos da Educação, da Linguística Aplicada e da Formação de Professores de Línguas insistem hoje na grande importância da inclusão de Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TICs) na formação inicial, bem como na necessidade de promover o desenvolvimento do pensamento crítico-reflexivo dos futuros professores. Tomando como pressupostos teóricos estudos acerca das características da sociedade de informação, dos ambientes virtuais e da formação de professores, este trabalho tem como objetivo discutir possibilidades oferecidas pela plataforma Moodle de aprendizagem na formação inicial de professores de alemão. Para tanto, apresentaremos diferentes formas de uso de ambientes virtuais e de ferramentas neles disponíveis, que demonstraram ser de grande valor no processo de formação de licenciandos, tanto em língua alemã, quanto durante suas práticas iniciais. As experiências apontam para um valor inestimável de ambientes virtuais no acompanhamento de licenciandos no processo de aprendizagem da língua e nas primeiras experiências com a docência.

Ideologia e poder no agendamento do discurso polifônico da imprensa em relação à seca no nordeste

This dissertation work is an effort to understand how the ideology and the power interferes in the signification of the speeches immersed in the context of the printed media concerning the drought in the Northeast of Brazil, weather occurrence that punishes 23 million of Brazilians, with all sort of problems. It also has specific concern about the everyday usage of the language and with the routines of the information production, without losing of sight the role of History in the formation of the identity of individuals and people. The research work is also developed in an interdisciplinary environment, applying to the formed corpus five articles from Folha de São Paulo , collected from January to July of 2005, the French Analysis method of the Speech and the theory of the polyphony of Bakhtin, in the Applied Linguistics area, accomplished with Communication beddings as the agenda-setting. The results ended to a good understanding about the ideology and power´s influence and chaining in the speeches formations as well as to comprehend peoples concept in an environment of almost-mediated interaction, bringing a media look about polyphony in the bakhtinian mold, besides showing how all these questions interferes with the half-barren the Northeast media´s vision on the subject

Inscrição discursiva da subjetividade homoafetiva na G Magazine

This thesis, which is entitled Registration discourse of subjectivity homo affective in G Magazine, is proposed to describe / interpret modes of subjectivity that is set in the discourse of homo affective confessions, recorded in letters addressed to G Magazine. The study is based on the theories of Discourse Analysis French, with a focus in the discussions Foucaultian remarkably discursive practices that produce meanings about the processes of subjectivity and sexuality. Methodologically, the research is of appreciative/qualitative character and falls in the field of Applied Linguistics (LA), at a press that the historical and cultural reality of the subject, establishing dialogues with many other fields of knowledge, which deal of the subject matter of speech and sexuality. Data analysis indicates that the magazine G Magazine works as a discursive space, where individuals on condition that homosexual, take it as the place that it gives security to talk to you, it's worrying, because the nature of the journal it suggests a belonging to the same discursive formation - that of homo affective . Thus, some of which are felt constructed for the investigation of the letters selected for this study showed that the forms of subjectivity of such homo affective are emerging in the game of the bans, the other is that as a subject of sexuality and to materialize in operation the confession. These homo affective, in a gesture of incessant registration of alternatives to be subject to its own truth of their sexuality, to seek his party in the case, the psychologist, a referral, a "light" that can guide them in an attempt to get rid of the forms of to subject. Installs itself in this way, as a point of resistance: the attempt to dissociate itself be of some states of submission, opening itself to other ways of being subject

Do dizer teórico às transposições didáticas: por um exercício da contrapalavra no ensino de língua escrita no PROJOVEM

This present work is going to show some results developed in the Master Degree research and the Post Graduation project in Language studies (PPgEL) at UFRN, under the orientation of Professor Maria da Penha Casado Alves. This research has questions showed by the Programa Nacional de Inclusão de Jovens PROJOVEM. Concerned to methodology, the research is based on Applied Linguistics and it is qualitative and documental. The corpus of the research are the Manual de Orientações Gerais and the Guias de Estudo. The documents that were used for the research were Guide for general orientation and the Study Guides.The Manual de Orientações Gerais was chosen because is focused on the teacher and the Guias de Estudo was chosen because are focused on the students. The discussions and analysis were based on Bakhtin (1997; 2003), for his studies about the language in a dialogical point of view, Faraco (2001 and 2008) and Suassuna (2006) for their discussions about the Portuguese Language and Geraldi (1997; 2005 and 2006) and Antunes (2003) for their orientation and discussions about the teaching process of the written language. The analysis made in the Reference Topics point that however the program proposes a kind of rupture with the traditional way of teaching, it could not take this change to the Study Guides (Guias de Estudo). The result is a didactic material that reproduces activities based on a conception of a descriptive and prescriptive teaching. What is concerned about the proposals for the textual production, it is shown that it is given in an artificial way, without any expression and with no link to any communicative context and sometimes, with no relation to the topic it was supposed to be related to

A linguagem da reflexão de uma professora de Língua Inglesa: um estudo de caso sob a perspectiva do sistema de avaliatividade

Research about teacher education, carried out in the area of Applied Linguistics (AL), reveals the importance of reflective practices in the professional development of teachers. With the aim of contributing to this area, we present this case study conducted at a technical school in Natal, RN. The corpus of the study is formed mainly from the teacher‟s discourse, generated during a stimulated recall session and the instruments used to collect the data: an initial questionnaire, a video recording of a class and the text transcript of the stimulated recall session. The central objective is to understand the way in which the reflection-on-action (SCHÖN, 1983, 1987) can contribute to raise the awareness of an English as a Foreign Language teacher (EFL) about her actions in the classroom. With this proposal, we begin our discussion presenting the origins, the presuppositions and characteristics of the concept of reflection according to Schön (1983, 1987), and supported by other authors (PERRENOUD, 2002; GÓMEZ, 1995; IMBERNÓN, 2009, among others); of critical reflection (LISTON e ZEICHNER, 1993; PIMENTA, 2002; DUTRA e MELLO, 2004, among others); and of the process of critical reflection (SMYTH, 1992). To evidence the reflections that emerge in the teacher‟s discourse, we found support in the theories and methods of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), which was initially proposed by Halliday (1985, 1994), Halliday and Hasan (1989), Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) and followers, such as, Eggins (1994), Thompson (1996), among others. We focus mainly on the subsystem of Attitude, an integral component of the system of discourse resources, Appraisal, presented by Martin (2000), Martin and Rose (2003, 2007), Martin and White (2005). The results reveal that the actions of the teacher in the classroom reflect not only her professional experiences, but also her values and concepts about teaching/learning languages. The results also show the teacher‟s awareness of the need for changes in her practices. Faced with these findings, we believe that this study reveals important concepts that can direct teacher educators to rethink new ways of approaching teacher training courses. In addition, it also reveals the importance of discourse analysis based on a systemic functional approach.

Autoria e escrita: uma reflexão acerca do autorar em memórias de leituras de alunos de 9º ano do ensino fundamental

This paper presents results concerning studies conducted during the master's research in the area of Applied Linguistics of the Graduate Program in Language Studies - PPgEL, linked to the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. We approached this study the question of authorship, which has gained ground increasingly important in academic research, because the act of authoring, in view of the amount of circulating discourses socially, becomes increasingly questionable. We understand authorship as related to a positioning of the subject than to take responsibility, in the Bakhtinian sense, by its text, it makes their views, ideologies, beliefs and values, from ownership and restructuring of the speech of others. This research is methodologically inserted in a qualitative, interpretive in nature and has a corpus analysis of the ten productions written memoir genre of readings produced by students in 9th grade in elementary school. Research aimed to analyze the students' written productions held in the school environment, to identify these texts marks or evidence of authorship and investigate how the restructuring of ownership and voices of others in the process of authoring. We adopt a concept of language from bakhitinianas concepts and understand the text in a vision Geraldiana. The analyzes in this study showed that in most texts there is the strong presence of voices of others, either implicitly and/or explicit. That is, students, to build their sayings, if embraced the voices of others in various formats, in particular styles, namely, by what Bakhtin names as linear style and pictorial style. Some proved his statement highlighting their positions through direct quotes from authors of books, family, teachers, showing us that their voices are filled with voices of others with whom they approve, deny, analyze, think and reflect. We therefore conclude that students were constituted as subjects of their texts, authors, since they leave marked the voices of others so presentified and restructured voices of others who do not actually sounded like voices of others, but as present voices from a discursive restructuring producer