Emergência e desenvolvimento da relação de causalidade em narrativas de crianças

Neste trabalho defendo que as narrativas podem ser instrumentos para avaliar a competência linguística e comunicativa de crianças na escola por serem bons indicadores da complexidade sintáctico-semântica, darem informação preciosa sobre competências discursivas, particularmente construção da referência (nominal e temporal), continuidade tópica, frases complexas. Por ser o primeiro tipo de texto que as crianças adquirem, deve ser encarado como um meio importante para desenvolver a consciência meta-textual.

Tradução para português das obras russas de Vladimir Nabokov: um caso de deturpação pela via do inglês

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada ao Instituto de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Tradução e Interpretação Especializadas, sob orientação de Doutora Maria Helena da Costa Alves Guimarães Ustimenko e Doutora Maria Manuela Ribeiro Veloso.

Topological Complexity and Predictability in the Dynamics of a Tumor Growth Model with Shilnikov's Chaos

Dynamical systems modeling tumor growth have been investigated to determine the dynamics between tumor and healthy cells. Recent theoretical investigations indicate that these interactions may lead to different dynamical outcomes, in particular to homoclinic chaos. In the present study, we analyze both topological and dynamical properties of a recently characterized chaotic attractor governing the dynamics of tumor cells interacting with healthy tissue cells and effector cells of the immune system. By using the theory of symbolic dynamics, we first characterize the topological entropy and the parameter space ordering of kneading sequences from one-dimensional iterated maps identified in the dynamics, focusing on the effects of inactivation interactions between both effector and tumor cells. The previous analyses are complemented with the computation of the spectrum of Lyapunov exponents, the fractal dimension and the predictability of the chaotic attractors. Our results show that the inactivation rate of effector cells by the tumor cells has an important effect on the dynamics of the system. The increase of effector cells inactivation involves an inverse Feigenbaum (i.e. period-halving bifurcation) scenario, which results in the stabilization of the dynamics and in an increase of dynamics predictability. Our analyses also reveal that, at low inactivation rates of effector cells, tumor cells undergo strong, chaotic fluctuations, with the dynamics being highly unpredictable. Our findings are discussed in the context of tumor cells potential viability.

As práticas educativas em contexto Pré-Escolar e 1º ciclo do Ensino Básico: a consciência fonológica e a aprendizagem da leitura

Mestrado (PES II), Educação Pré-Escolar e Ensino do 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico, 3 de Julho de 2014, Universidade dos Açores.

An Interface to Retrieve Personal Memories Using an Iconic Visual Language

Relevant past events can be remembered when visualizing related pictures. The main difficulty is how to find these photos in a large personal collection. Query definition and image annotation are key issues to overcome this problem. The former is relevant due to the diversity of the clues provided by our memory when recovering a past moment and the later because images need to be annotated with information regarding those clues to be retrieved. Consequently, tools to recover past memories should deal carefully with these two tasks. This paper describes a user interface designed to explore pictures from personal memories. Users can query the media collection in several ways and for this reason an iconic visual language to define queries is proposed. Automatic and semi-automatic annotation is also performed using the image content and the audio information obtained when users show their images to others. The paper also presents the user interface evaluation based on tests with 58 participants.

Construction of womanhood in the bengali language of Bangladesh

The subject-matter of this essay is gender justice in language which, as I argue, may be achieved through the development of a gender-related approach to linguistic human rights. The last decades of the 20th century, globally marked by a “gender shift” in attitudes to language policy, gave impetus to the social movement for promoting linguistic gender equality. It was initiated in Western Europe and nowadays is moving eastwards, as ideas of gender democracy progress into developing countries. But, while in western societies gender discrimination through language, or linguistic sexism, was an issue of concern for over three decades, in developing countries efforts to promote gender justice in language are only in their infancy. My argument is that to promote gender justice in language internationally it is necessary to acknowledge the rights of women and men to equal representation of their gender in language and speech and, therefore, raise a question of linguistic rights of the sexes. My understanding is that the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights in 1996 provided this opportunity to address the problem of gender justice in language as a human rights issue, specifically as a gender dimension of linguistic human rights.

Arte d’escrita desenvolvimento da escrita em alunos de língua materna e alunos de língua não materna

Projeto de Intervenção apresentado à Escola Superior de Educação de Lisboa para obtenção de grau de Mestre em Didática da Língua Portuguesa no 1.º e 2.º Ciclos do Ensino Básico

O álbum infantil: alguns critérios de seleção

A literatura para a infância e juventude desempenha um papel fundamental na formação de leitores autónomos, isto é, leitores que queiram ler por iniciativa própria e que gostem de o fazer. Lendo e ouvindo ler literatura para a infância desde muito cedo, a criança vai descobrindo a linguagem escrita, vai-se familiarizando com ela e vai sentindo vontade de querer aprender a ler. Por outro lado, o contacto precoce com a literatura para a infância constitui-se como um fator de desenvolvimento da criança a nível social, cultural, afetivo e linguístico. Destaca-se ainda a importância deste recurso no âmbito de uma educação para os valores numa sociedade que se quer mais humana e respeitadora dos direitos de todos e de cada um. O álbum ilustrado veicula valores através das suas componentes textual e icónica, possibilitando uma discussão enriquecedora sem ser moralista, uma discussão suficientemente descentrada da criança para que a mesma não se sinta avaliada e suficientemente próxima para que a criança se sinta envolvida. Nesta comunicação pretende-se:  caracterizar o álbum de literatura para a infância;  identificar critérios que devem presidir à escolha de álbuns que contribuam para o desenvolvimento da educação literária, para odesenvolvimento linguístico e para o alargamento de horizontes no que se refere ao conhecimento do mundo em geral.  apresentar alguns exemplos de álbuns que possibitem percursos enriquecedores de acordo com o que atrás se disse

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.

The economics of language or how can language be an asset? General reflections on the European case and brief focus on the case of portuguese

In this paper, we will focus on the importance of languages as an asset to people and companies in knowledge-based society, giving special attention to the case of portuguese, not forgetting the role of Higher Education Institutions in preparing students to be part of the new creative multilingual and sucsessful class.

Transtextualidade na tradução de "Der mann im fahrstuhl / The mann in the elevator"

In an age where Babel has turned into transcultural communication, an interlingual approach – i.e. in English and in French – to the translating process from German to Portuguese appeared pertinent. Aiming at a refinement of the translating competence, this process consists in contrasting different linguistic and literary strategies through an intercultural and multi-etymological perspective. Thus, we settled upon Heiner Müller‘s play Der Auftrag. Erinnerung an eine Revolution (1980), on which the composer Heiner Goebbels has based himself to textually and musically dramatize an excerpt, Der Mann im Farhstuhl / The Man in the Elevator. A transcription of such excerpt in its source language, German, as well as its translation into English (Carl Weber, 1984, Performing Arts Publications, New York) and French (Jean Jourdheuil, Heinz Schwarzinger, Editions Minuit, Paris) can be found in the booklet that accompanies the CD – edited in 1988 by ECD (München: Records GmbH). It should be emphasized that such a creation allows a framing of Müller‘s text into a musical scenography and, therefore, encourages an intersemiotic contrast. This experience enabled us to come up with a unique imagery of Müller‘s piece of writing, by means of its dramatic and musical conversion and, simultaneously, lead us to stretch our textual consciousness to a multitude of intra-, extra- and interlinguistic elements.

The invisible factors that can make the difference. Language management and knowledge transfer in multinational sites

The knowledge-based society we live in has stressed the importance of human capital and brought talent to the top of most wanted skills, especially to companies who want to succeed in turbulent environments worldwide. In fact, streams, sequences of decisions and resource commitments characterize the day-to-day of multinational companies (MNCs). Such decision-making activities encompass major strategic moves like internationalization and new market entries or diversification and acquisitions. In most companies, these strategic decisions are extensively discussed and debated and are generally framed, formulated, and articulated in specialized language often developed by the best minds in the company. Yet the language used in such deliberations, in detailing and enacting the implementation strategy is usually taken for granted and receives little if any explicit attention (Brannen & Doz, 2012) an can still be a “forgotten factor” (Marschan et al. 1997). Literature on language management and international business refers to lack of awareness of business managers of the impact that language can have not only in communication effectiveness but especially in knowledge transfer and knowledge management in business environments. In the context of MNCs, management is, for many different reasons, more complex and demanding than that of a national company, mainly because of diversity factors inherent to internationalization, namely geographical and cultural spaces, i.e, varied mindsets. Moreover, the way of functioning, and managing language, of the MNC depends on its vision, its values and its internationalization model, i.e on in the way the MNE adapts to and controls the new markets, which can vary essentially from a more ethnocentric to a more pluricentric focus. Regardless of the internationalization model followed by the MNC, communication between different business units is essential to achieve unity in diversity and business sustainability. For the business flow and prosperity, inter-subsidiary, intra-company and company-client (customers, suppliers, governments, municipalities, etc..) communication must work in various directions and levels of the organization. If not well managed, this diversity can be a barrier to global coordination and create turbulent environments, even if a good technological support is available (Feely et al., 2002: 4). According to Marchan-Piekkari (1999) the tongue can be both (i) a barrier, (ii) a facilitator and (iii) a source of power. Moreover, the lack of preparation for the barriers of linguistic diversity can lead to various costs, including negotiations’ failure and failure on internationalization.. On the other hand, communication and language fluency is not just a message transfer procedure, but above all a knowledge transfer process, which requires extra-linguistic skills (persuasion, assertiveness …) in order to promote credibility of both parties. For this reason, MNCs need a common code to communicate and trade information inside and outside the company, which will require one or more strategies, in order to overcome possible barriers and organization distortions.

Le lexique fourni et interiorisé: un moyen efficace pour construire un genre ?

Cet article présente les premiers résultats d’une recherche s’intéressant à l’articulation entre imitation et invention dans l’écriture chez les jeunes scripteurs. L’étude s’attache à observer les modes de récupération de ressources textuelles fournies par les conditions de production. L’expérimentation a été conçue pour observer l’appropriation d’un genre. Des dispositifs didactiques ont été proposés à plusieurs classes de fin d’école primaire française, à partir de textes littéraires issus de la robinsonnade mis à disposition soit simultanément à l’acte d’écriture soit lors d’une seconde écriture. L’étude montre comment les élèves ont recours à deux procédés contrastés : le réinvestissement du lexique et la reformulation. Les données recueillies mettent en évidence la reprise attendue de mots caractéristiques du genre, et révèlent l’ingéniosité des scripteurs pour restructurer des matériaux langagiers. Certaines stratégies témoignent des difficultés rencontrées par les élèves qui ont eu à interpréter le lexique littéraire puis à le transférer dans leur propre récit. Des modes de reformulation différents coexistent dont on peut offrir une première catégorisation en fonction d’une appropriation plus ou moins réussie du genre considéré.

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

Temporal lobe epilepsy in childhood – a study model of auditory processing

TLE in infancy has been the subject of varied research. Topographical and structural evidence is coincident with the neuronal systems responsible for auditory processing of the highest specialization and complexity. Recent studies have been showing the need of a hemispheric asymmetry for an optimization in central auditory processing (CAP) and acquisition and learning of a language system. A new functional research paradigm is required to study mental processes that require methods of cognitive-sensory information analysis processed in very short periods of time (msec), such as the ERPs. Thus, in this article, we hypothesize that the TLE in infancy could be a good model for topographic and functional study of CAP and its development process, contributing to a better understanding of the learning difficulties that children with this neurological disorder have.