Education at last! Taiwanese grandmothers "go to school"

Language socialization is a life-long process in which individuals are continuously socialized into new roles, statuses, and practices. This process becomes more complex in multilingual contexts. However, we know little of the language socialization of older adults and we know even less of minority-speaking elders' experiences of linguistic marginalization in contemporary communicative milieus. In this ethnographic and discourse-analytic study, I examine the language socialization of non-Mandarin-speaking elderly Taiwanese women in senior adult education programs in a rural township in Taiwan. Through examining autobiographical narratives, master narratives about elders, and classroom discourses, this study explores the historical construction of their sociolinguistic marginalization and their negotiation and resistance of such marginalization. The majority of the elderly women were denied education when they were young. Some received Japanese education during the Japanese colonization period. While the uneducated and illiterate elders have a strong aspiration for learning, they are dismissed as "unable to learn" by their teachers, peer students, and community leaders. By contrast, the Japanese literate exhibit a strong learning identity associated with colonial modernity. These two groups, however, have to contend with the social stereotype associated with their non-Mandarin speaking status. Under a Mandarin-only ideology that links Mandarin with modernity, discourses that have actively mobilized the category of “illiterate” to reference the older population are part and parcel of Taiwan’s modern identity. By demonstrating how these women are treated, in official discourses and in classroom interactions, as children for their lack of Mandarin abilities, I argue that the literacy education that set out to “compensate” these women for their earlier lack of educational opportunity has paradoxically reinforced their marginalization. Further, in recent years, they have become even more marginalized as the government has prioritized the education of recent young female marriage immigrants from Southeast Asia, who are considered in charge of educating the “future sons and daughters of Taiwan.” This research demonstrates how language socialization is a contested and life-long process and calls attention to the effects of language ideologies on literacy and language education. The findings have policy implications for improving literacy and language education both within Taiwan and elsewhere in the world.

Effect of citrus peel chemicals on Bactrocera tryonilarval survival

Queensland fruit fly, Bactrocera tryoni (Froggatt) (Diptera: Tephritidae) is a major horticultural insect pest in Australia which significantly limits domestic and international market access for Australian horticultural produce. Citrus is one of the industries seriously affected by the fruit fly problem in Australia. This research investigated the effect of citrus peel essential oil chemicals on B. tryoni larval survival in five different commercially important Citrus species and cultivars as a way of better understanding fruit susceptibility. The fruits used were Murcott Mandarin, Navel orange, Eureka lemon, Valencia orange and yellow grapefruit. The essential oils of each citrus type were extracted using hydrodistillation and then mixed, at different concentrations, with artificial larval diets to which B. tryoni eggs were added. Surviving larvae were counted after five trial days. The same process was repeated for six essential oil components. Regression analysis of increasing oil concentration against larval survival showed that the crude oil blends of Navel orange, Eureka lemon and yellow grapefruit had significant negative effects on B. tryoni larval survival, but no such effects were seen for Murcott Mandarin and Valencia orange. Of the individual essential oil fractions, only D-limonene had a significant effect on B. tryoni larval survival, with this chemical being highly toxic at very low concentrations. The results of this study open up opportunities for incorporating B. tryoni resistance mechanisms into citrus through minor peel property changes which would not impact on the eating attributes of the fruit.

The effect of borders on the linguistic production and perception of regional identity in Louisville, Kentucky

A great deal of scholarly research has addressed the issue of dialect mapping in the United States. These studies, usually based on phonetic or lexical items, aim to present an overall picture of the dialect landscape. But what is often missing in these types of projects is an attention to the borders of a dialect region and to what kinds of identity alignments can be found in such areas. This lack of attention to regional and dialect border identities is surprising, given the salience of such borders for many Americans. This salience is also ignored among dialectologists, as nonlinguists‟ perceptions and attitudes have been generally assumed to be secondary to the analysis of “real” data, such as the phonetic and lexical variables used in traditional dialectology. Louisville, Kentucky is considered as a case study for examining how dialect and regional borders in the United States impact speakers‟ linguistic acts of identity, especially the production and perception of such identities. According to Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006), Louisville is one of the northernmost cities to be classified as part of the South. Its location on the Ohio River, on the political and geographic border between Kentucky and Indiana, places Louisville on the isogloss between Southern and Midland dialects. Through an examination of language attitude surveys, mental maps, focus group interviews, and production data, I show that identity alignments in borderlands are neither simple nor straightforward. Identity at the border is fluid, complex, and dynamic; speakers constantly negotiate and contest their identities. The analysis shows the ways in which Louisvillians shift between Southern and non-Southern identities, in the active and agentive expression of their amplified awareness of belonging brought about by their position on the border.

Maintenance or loss of dialect Andalusian features: Internal and external factors

In the last sixty years a steadily maintained process of convergence towards the Castilian national standard has been occurring in Southern Spain affecting urban middle-class speakers’ varieties, particularly phonology and lexis. As a consequence, unmarked features characterising innovative southern pronunciation have become less frequent and, at the same time, certain standard marked features have been adapted to the southern phonemic inventory. Then, urban middle-class varieties have progressively been stretching out the distance separating them from working-class and rural varieties, and bringing them closer to central Castilian varieties. Intermediate, yet incipient koineised varieties have been described including also transitional Murcia and Extremadura dialects (Hernández & Villena 2009, Villena, Vida & von Essen 2015). (1) Some of the standard phonologically marked features have spread out among southern speakers exclusively based on their mainstream social prestige and producing not only changes in obstruent phoneme inventory –i.e. acquisition of /s/ vs. /θ/ contrast, but also standstill and even reversion of old consonant push- or pull-chain shifts –e.g. /h/ or /d/ fortition, affricate /ʧ/, etc. as well as traditional lexis shift (Villena et al. 2016). Internal (grammar and word frequency) and external (stratification, network and style) factors constraining those features follow similar patterns in the Andalusian speech communities analysed so far (Granada, Malaga) but when we zoom in on central varieties, which are closer to the national standard and then more conservative, differences in frequency increase and conflict sites emerge. (2) Unmarked ‘natural’ phonological features characterising southern dialects, particularly deletion of syllable-final consonant, do not keep pace with this trend of convergence towards the standard. Thus a combination of southern innovative syllable-final and standard conservative onset-consonant features coexist. (3). The main idea is that this intermediate variety is formed through changes suggesting that Andalusian speakers look for the best way of accepting marked prestige features without altering coherence within their inventory. Either reorganisation of the innovative phonemic system in such a way that it may include Castilian and standard /s/ vs. /θ/ contrast or re-syllabification of aspirated /s/ before dental stop are excellent examples of how and why linguistic features are able to integrate intermediate varieties between the dialect-standard continuum.

La lengua de las inscripciones métricas del Peloponeso (siglos VII- IV a.C.)

Many works deal with the study of Greek epigrams. These texts gather precious historical, religious and epigraphic content whose analysis has been addressed from a literary point of view. The degree of dependence of Hellenistic epigrams of earlier period epigrams are of great interest, as shown by recent and numerous papers on this matter (Harder et al . 1998; 2002; 2006; 2012; Bing and Bruss 2007; Baumbach et al. 2010). Another major line of research is focused on the origin of epigrams and their relation to elegy (Gentilli 1968; Passa 1998b) or to hexametric poetry and the oral-formulaic language inherited from Homeric tradition (di Tillio 1969; Moranti 1971, 1972; Gentili and Giannini 1977). Furthermore, other authors, such as Day (2010), have pointed out the significance of the performative and ritual nature of epigrams. Likewise, this field of study has undergone a renewal because of new papyrological findings enriching the existing epigram collection corpora. Compared to all these works, monographs and studies dedicated to the analysis of the language of the verse inscriptions are fewer. Many of them explore the linguistic differences between literary epigrams and those epigrams preserved by epigraphic means, as well as the degree of intervention of later tradition on such texts (Tiberi 1996, del Barrio Vega 2008; Kaczko 2009). The first exclusively linguistic reviews were published by the end of the 19th century (Wagner 1883; Fengler 1892), however, they are descriptive analyses lacking from an independent methodology. Kock(1910) was the first researcher who systematized and suggested a linguistic hypothesis and upheld the use of epichoric dialects by poets. His theory was supported by adepts such as Kretschmer (1913; 1915) although some discordant voices appeared soon, such as Buck (1923) who denied the existence of a linguistic standard and endorsed the importance of the Ionic model over the epichoric one. Traditionally, Greek language manuals point out the significance of the Ionic model and accept the adaptation of Homeric language to epichoric dialect. The study of verse inscription language was not systematically resumed until Mickey's publications (1981a; 1981b). According to this researcher, epigraphic poetry consists of a tempered version of the epichoric dialect where the dialect-characteristic features are avoided. Following the same line but with some differences, Alonso Déniz and Nieto Izquierdo (2009) conclude that the most distinctive features of Argolic are not avoided, at least at the metrical inscriptions from Argolid...

Bioactive compounds of citrus as health promoters

Citrus are a group of fruit species, quite heterogeneous in many aspects, including chemical composition of the fruit. Since ancient times, some citrus fruits were used to prevent and cure human diseases. In the recent decades, it has been demonstrated that fruits can actually help prevent and cure some diseases and above all, they are essential in a balanced diet. Citrus fruits, as one of the groups of fruit species, with greater importance in the world, have been studied for their effects on human health. Some species of citrus were referred as potential antioxidant based therapy for heart disease, cancer and inflammation. Fruit peels and seeds have also high antioxidant activity. The health benefits of citrus fruit have mainly been attributed to the high level of bioactive compounds, such as phenols (e.g., flavanone glycosides, hydroxycinnamic acids), carotenoids and vitamin C. These compounds are present in the fruit pulp and hence in the juice. But some bioactive compounds can be found in parts of the fruit which usually are not used for human food. The content of bioactive compounds depends on the species and cultivar, but also depends on the production system followed in the orchard. Citrus fruits, their derivatives and their by-products (peel, pulp and oil) are reach in different bioactive compounds and its maturity, postharvest and agroindustry processes influence their composition and concentration. The aim of this chapter was to review the main bioactive compounds of the different components of citrus and their relationship to health.

Conhecimento e uso do dialeto/falar madeirense dos jovens em escolarização da Região Autónoma da Madeira : análise de enunciados dialetais : léxico

Este trabalho de investigação insere-se no âmbito da sociolinguística e debruça-se sobre a perceção quanto à variação dialetal do Arquipélago da Madeira, que os jovens em escolarização da Região Autónoma da Madeira detêm face a alguns traços particulares do léxico. Neste sentido, o corpus de trabalho baseou-se nos dados recolhidos em inquéritos por questionário sobre o léxico, realizados a uma amostra de 40 alunos naturais do arquipélago, a frequentarem o 3º Ciclo do Ensino Básico e distribuídos por dez alunos em quatros escolas localizadas: a norte (Santana-São Jorge) e a sul (Funchal e Câmara de Lobos) da ilha da Madeira e na ilha do Porto Santo. Para podermos, efetivamente, determinar quais as influências extralinguísticas ou quais as variáveis socioculturais responsáveis pelo conhecimento e uso dos dialetos, foi também importante analisar alguns fatores de ordem social, tais como, o meio familiar, a idade, o nível de escolaridade dos alunos, a naturalidade e o contacto destes com os meios urbano vs rural. Com efeito, e com base nos instrumentos de análise recolhidos, este estudo mostra-nos que os jovens madeirenses em escolarização ainda evidenciam um interesse em usar e manter a sua identidade dialetal, numa dinâmica intergeracional, dado que os mesmos consideram importante não deixar desaparecer um legado linguístico que tem sido herdado pelos seus antepassados. Contudo, constatamos que o domínio dos dialetos madeirenses juntos destes jovens começa a estar um pouco ausente nas suas conversas do quotidiano, principalmente quanto contactam com falantes fora do arquipélago, moldando os seus discursos em norma/padrão, por assim entenderem tratar-se de uma forma comunicacional, dotada de mais prestígio social. Em contrapartida, verificámos que o meio familiar e o meio rural contribuem, portanto, para um uso mais frequente da variação dialetal, provando-se esta realidade, sobretudo, nos jovens em escolarização residentes nos concelhos a norte da ilha da Madeira e na ilha do Porto Santo. Por considerarmos importante novas investigações, sobretudo pela temática que aqui foi abordada, consideramos que seria deveras pertinente surgirem futuros estudos. Assim, estes poderão explicar a origem do extenso léxico dos dialetos madeirenses e no caso particular da variação dialetal na pequena ilha do Porto Santo, considerando-se, para o efeito, também a vertente sociolinguística.

The value of ethnoecological knowledge of the Minahasans: repositioning traditional biocultural knowledge in Indonesian environmental planning

Indonesian strategic and statutory environmental regimes have drawn directly from conventional Western models of environmental planning and natural resource management. These models are often at odds with, do not connect with, nor appreciate generational traditional biocultural knowledge and information from regionally-specific Indigenous communities in Indonesia. This knowledge, and the voice of the custodians of this knowledge, has been overlooked and circumvented in the name of broadscale nationalistic co-ordinated strategic planning. The problem is that nationalist planning, in a multicultural archipelago full of a diverse set of communities often with their own languages, dialects, cultural relationships to landscape, and mixed connectivity to different cohorts of colonial (European and Asian) and religious affiliations means that a deep understanding of environmental information at local and regional level is negated and denied legitimacy. This paper offers a platform to discuss this issue, the difficulty of nationalistic planning and its failings at the Minahasan regional level in Indonesia, and the wealth of cultural and environmental answers the Minahasan culture can bring to the table to better management its landscape sustainably and culturally. This paper’s purpose is to question conventional and generic environmental planning systems in Indonesia and charts an alternate culturally-attuned agenda that can offer to inform and better manage landscapes sustainably and culturally. The tipping points are deep questions about how to regionally manage landscapes sustainably and culturally in deference to a nationalistic agenda before the latter dooms the former producing a 'one-fits all' or generic Indonesian biogeographical landscape devoid of cultural nuances.

The Anagó Language of Cuba

This thesis investigates the socio-linguistic factors that led to the emergence of a new language in Cuba known as Anagó. This language emerged from contact between multiple dialects of the West African Yoruba language and Spanish. Language contact between the Yoruba language and Spanish took place in Cuba beginning in the nineteenth century after the introduction of large numbers of Yoruba speakers into Cuba during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. This thesis argues against the opinion that Anagó is simply a corrupted and imperfect form of Yoruba. Instead, it maintains that Anagó is a new language that emerged in Cuba and became a functional vehicle for the transmission of ideas and culture. Additionally, this study will present evidence that the Anagó speaking community was a constituent part of Cuban society since the nineteenth century, and is therefore an inextricable part of Cuban cultural patrimony. Twentieth century examples of Anagó language are examined as evidence of a vital Anagó speaking transnational community.

Effects of trunk-shaker harvester and ethephon on plant water status, leaf gas exchange, and yield of citrus cultivated under Mediterranean conditions

This work was aimed to study whether the application of ethephon as an abscission agent and mechanical harvest using a trunk shaker have any effect on plant water status, leaf gas exchange, and yield of mandarin and orange trees cultivated under Mediterranean conditions. The experiment was performed from 2008 to 2011 in five commercial orchards where parameters related to the plant water status and leaf gas exchange were measured before the application of ethephon, at harvest time and at different occasions after harvest. In addition, the effects of ethephon dose on yield in the current and subsequent seasons were also evaluated. Results showed that ethephon applications and mechanical harvest did not detrimentally affect plant water status in any of the cultivars studied. Furthermore, either had no effect or had a short temporal decrease effect on leaf gas exchange depending on the cultivar studied although with no consequences for the fruit yield obtained during the current season. Increasing ethephon doses led to fruit yield reductions in the mandarin ‘Orogrande’ trees in subsequent seasons. When trunk-shaker and ethephon applications were combined, however, yields from the late-maturing orange significantly decline in subsequent seasons. Overall, results show that using a trunk shaker is a viable technique to mechanically harvest citrus trees destined to both fresh and industry market and can be considered as an alternative to the traditional manual harvest usually performed under Mediterranean conditions. However, its use cannot be recommended for late-maturing oranges, such as the ‘Navel Lane Late’ in which mature fruit and fruitlets coexist in the tree at the time of harvest.

Représentation linguistique chez les étudiants universitaires dans le Trentin-Haut-Adige

Notre étude s’intéresse à la représentation que des étudiants universitaires provenant du nord de l’Italie se font des formes dialectales et des langues minoritaires parlées dans leur région. Notre objectif premier étant de fait, à ce stade de nos recherches, de dégager les représentations que des jeunes citadins instruits se font d’objets linguistiques qui constituent, si nous nous plaçons dans une optique diglossique, la variante basse. Nous pourrions en d’autres termes parler d’une concurrence inégale dans laquelle se trouvent deux langues où nous admettons que l’italien constitue la variété haute et où les dialectes ou langues minoritaires auraient en commun d’être associés à la variété basse.

Citrus as a component of the Mediterranean Diet

Citrus are native to southeastern Asia, but are present in the Mediterranean basin for centuries. This group of species has reached great importance in some of the Mediterranean countries and, in the case of orange, mandarin and lemon trees, they found here soil and climatic conditions which allows them to achieve a high level of fruit quality, even better than in the regions where they came from. Citrus fruits are present in the diet of the peoples living on the Mediterranean basin, at least since the time of the Roman Empire. In the 20th century they became the main crop in various agricultural areas of the Mediterranean, playing an important role in the landscape, in the diet of the overall population, and also in international trade. They are present in the gardens of palaces and monasteries, but also in the courtyards and orchards of the poorest families. Their fruits are not only a refreshing dessert, but also a condiment, or even a major component of many dishes. Citrus fruits have well-documented nutritional and health benefits. They can actually help prevent and cure some diseases and, above all, they are essential in a balanced and tasty diet.

Regional variation and change in the history of English strong verbs

This thesis investigates how the strong verb system inherited from Old English evolved in the regional dialects of Middle English (ca. 1100-1500). Old English texts preserve a relatively complex system of strong verbs, in which traditionally seven different ablaut classes are distinguished. This system becomes seriously disrupted from the Late Old English and Early Middle English periods onwards. As a result, many strong verbs die out, or have their ablaut patterns affected by sound change and morphological analogy, or transfer to the weak conjugation. In my thesis, I study the beginnings of two of these developments in two strong verb classes to find out what the evidence from Middle English regional dialects can tell us about their origins and diffusion. Chapter 2 concentrates on the strong-to-weak shift in Class III verbs, and investigates to what extent strong, mixed and weak past tense and participle forms vary in Middle English dialects, and whether the variation is more pronounced in the paradigms of specific verbs or sub-classes. Chapter 3 analyses the regional distribution of ablaut levelling in strong Class IV verbs throughout the Middle English period. The Class III and IV data for the Early Middle English period are drawn from A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English, and the data for the Late Middle English period from a sub-corpus of files from The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English and The Middle English Grammar Corpus. Furthermore, The English Dialect Dictionary and Grammar are consulted as an additional reference point to find out to what extent the Middle English developments are reflected in Late Modern English dialects. Finally, referring to modern insights into language variation and change and linguistic interference, Chapter 4 discusses to what extent intra- and extra-linguistc factors, such as token and type frequency, stem structure and language contact, might correlate with the strong-to-weak shift and ablaut levelling in Class III and IV verbs in the Middle English period. The thesis is accompanied by six appendices that contain further information about my distinction of Middle English dialect areas (Appendix A), historical Class III and IV verbs (B and C) and the text samples and linguistic data from the Middle English text corpora (D, E and F).

The subjunctive mood in Late Middle English adverbial clauses: the interaction of form and function

This thesis focuses on the history of the inflexional subjunctive and its functional substitutes in Late Middle English. To explore why and how the inflexional subjunctive declined in the history of English language, I analysed 2653 examples of three adverbial clauses introduced by if (1882 examples), though (305 examples) and lest (466 examples). Using a corpus-based approach, this thesis argues that linguistic change in subjunctive constructions did not happen suddenly but rather gradually, and the way it changed was varied , and that different constructions changed at different speeds in different environments. It is well known that the inflexional subjunctive declined in the history of English, mainly because of inflexional loss. Strangely however this topic has been comparatively neglected in the scholarly literature, especially with regard to the Middle English period, probably due to the limitations of data and also because study of this development requires very cumbersome textual research. This thesis has derived and analysed the data from three large corpora in the public domain: the Middle English Grammar Corpus (MEG-C for short), the Innsbruck Computer Archive of Machine-Readable English Texts (ICAMET for short), and some selected texts from The Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, part of the Middle English Compendium that also includes the Middle English Dictionary. The data were analysed from three perspectives: 1) clausal type, 2) dialect, and 3) textual genre. The basic methodology for the research was to analyse the examples one by one, with special attention being paid to the peculiarities of each text. In addition, this thesis draw on some complementary – indeed overlapping -- linguistic theories for further discussion: 1) Biber’s multi-dimensional theory, 2) Ogura and Wang’s (1994) S-curve or ‘diffusion’ theory, 3) Kretzchmar’s (2009) linguistics of speech, and 4) Halliday’s (1987) notion of language as a dynamic open system. To summarise the outcomes of this thesis: 1) On variation between clausal types, it was shown that the distributional tendencies of verb types (sub, ind, mod) are different between the three adverbial clauses under consideration. 2) On variation between dialects, it has been shown that the northern area, i.e. the so-called Great Scandinavian Belt, displays an especially high comparative ratio of the inflexional subjunctive construction compared to the other areas. This thesis suggests that this result was caused by the influence of Norse, relating the finding to the argument of Samuels (1989) that the present tense -es ending in the northern dialect was introduced by the influence of the Scandinavians. 3) On variation between genres, those labelled Science, Documents and Religion display relatively high ratio of the inflexional subjunctive, while Letter, Romance and History show relatively low ratio of the inflexional subjunctive. This results are explained by Biber’s multi-dimensional theory, which shows that the inflexional subjunctive can be related to the factors ‘informational’, ‘non-narrative’, ‘persuasive’ and ‘abstract’. 4) Lastly, on the inflexional subjunctive in Late Middle English, this thesis concludes that 1) the change did not happen suddenly but gradually, and 2) the way language changes varies. Thus the inflexional subjunctive did not disappear suddenly from England, and there was a time lag among the clausal types, dialects and genres, which can be related to Ogura and Wang’s S-curve (“diffusion”) theory and Kretzchmars’s view of “linguistic continuum”. This thesis has shown that the issues with regard to the inflexional subjunctive are quite complex, so that research in this area requires not only textual analysis but also theoretical analysis, considering both intra- and extra- linguistic factors.

El dragón chino en Angola: la diplomacia cultural como una herramienta de construcción de identidad

El creciente interés de China por África ha modificado y estructurado una nueva política exterior, en donde el fortalecimiento de las relaciones políticas y económicas se ve ligado al uso de la diplomacia cultural como una herramienta de atracción. Teniendo en cuenta lo anterior, la presente investigación tiene por objetivo principal indagar cómo China construye una identidad a través de su diplomacia cultural en Angola, demostrando así, que este país utiliza sus costumbres, principios y normas para establecer una identidad de rol en la que se asume como una potencia que debe cooperar. No obstante, sus intereses van más allá de la cooperación al profundizar en relaciones de confianza que lo beneficien política y económicamente. Haciendo un uso del concepto de Imperialismo, la investigación mostrará las limitaciones y los vacíos de la noción de identidad para explicar acciones chinas en Angola, mostrando cómo se hacen uso de herramientas imperialistas para un beneficio propio.