A escrita dos professores de língua portuguesa: desvelando dizeres e saberes

This documental research in a qualitative and interpretative nature is inserted in the field of Applied Linguistics and its object of study is teachers‟ writing in a literacy event (public exam) held for teachers of Portuguese Language by municipality in Natal city - RN in 2008. Overall, we have aimed to investigate the textual production of these teachers, considering their knowledge about writing, their sayings in relation to themselves and their views on new technologies and teaching. Specifically, we have chosen the following objectives: a) identifying what knowledge about writing have emerged from teachers' written text; b) analyzing the written text production of teachers, considering the knowledge they have revealed about themselves; c) mapping the sayings of the teachers about the teaching profession and new technologies. Our discussion is grounded theoretically by Bakhtin studies of language (BAKHTIN [1934], 1990; [1952-1953], 2000; BAKHTIN; VOLOSHINOV [1929], 1999); in studies of critical literacy as formulated by STREET (1984, 1995, 2006, 2010, 2014); KLEIMAN (1995, 2005, 2006, 2008); (BARTON, HAMILTON, 1998; BARTON; Ivanic, 1991); studies on teacher training in critical educational perspective (GIROUX, 1986; 1987; 1997; 1999) FREIRE, 1999; 2001). The corpus of this study is consisted of written texts by participants of this examination about the Writing Test, in which they were asked to produce an opinion paper. The research has allowed us to realize that, in relation to the writing, despite the recurring negative discourse on literacy teachers, especially the Portuguese ones, these, in the fabric of their texts, both have revealed to have dominion over the formal structure, particularly in respect to prototypical schema of argumentative sequence, as proposed by Adam (1992, 2008) and the mechanisms of textualization postulated by Bronckart (2007), and on those enunciation-discursive strategies relating to opinion genre. The relevance of this research is justified by seeking to understand the teacher‟s writing beyond the language system, i.e, writing as speech, assuming it as a contrapalavra (BAKHTIN, [1934], 1990) to those voices that insist on underestimating literacy teachers and they do so much harm to society, to the extent that foster a sense of disbelief in the qualification of teachers' work and distrust of the social role of these professionals in the preparation of future generations

Differing bodies, defying subjects, deferring texts : gender, sexuality, and transgression in Chinese Canadian women's writing

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Differing bodies, defying subjects, deferring texts : gender, sexuality, and transgression in Chinese Canadian women's writing

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Eclipses, razón y superstición en las vidas de Nicias y Dión de Plutarco

A partir de un abordaje retórico-literario, nuestro objetivo es indagar las representaciones discursivas de los elementos supersticiosos en la biografía de Nicias y en la de Dión. Tomaremos como ejemplo el eclipse de luna narrado en Nicias 23 y reiterado en Dión 24, para demostrar que mediante la repetición del ejemplo en dos contextos distintos Plutarco nos invita a reflexionar sobre la superstición de un modo más atractivo que la mera exposición teórica de doctrinas filosóficas.

The Testing Effect for Learning Principles and Procedures from Texts

The authors explored whether a testing effect occurs not only for retention of facts but also for application of principles and procedures. For that purpose, 38 high school students either repeatedly studied a text on probability calculations or studied the text, took a test on the content, restudied the text, and finally took the test a second time. Results show that testing not only leads to better retention of facts than restudying, but also to better application of acquired knowledge (i.e., principles and procedures) in high school statistics. In other words, testing seems not only to benefit fact retention, but also positively affects deeper learning.

Classifying Written Texts Through Rhythmic Features

Rhythm analysis of written texts focuses on literary analysis and it mainly considers poetry. In this paper we investigate the relevance of rhythmic features for categorizing texts in prosaic form pertaining to different genres. Our contribution is threefold. First, we define a set of rhythmic features for written texts. Second, we extract these features from three corpora, of speeches, essays, and newspaper articles. Third, we perform feature selection by means of statistical analyses, and determine a subset of features which efficiently discriminates between the three genres. We find that using as little as eight rhythmic features, documents can be adequately assigned to a given genre with an accuracy of around 80 %, significantly higher than the 33 % baseline which results from random assignment.

Comparison of Authentic and Simplified Texts : A case study of Wuthering Heights

The aim of this essay is to explore in what way Graded Readers are different from authentic texts against the background of English as a Second Language (ESL) and the use of authentic and simplified text in ESL teaching. The material used for this purpose is the authentic text of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and two upper-intermediate Graded Readers from two different publishers. The study uses the software readability-score and manual analysis to examine the texts with regards to lexical choice, language structure and story. The study showed that the Graded Readers are simplified in all aspects studied. Moreover, the Graded Readers differ from each other as well, most notably in the style of the text due to sentence structure and story simplification. This could imply that different authors of Graded Readers adopt different styles when simplifying text and that the grading levels are not comparable between different publishers.

Un-Editing Alfred: Rethinking Modern Editions of Pre-modern Texts from a Post-modern Sensibility

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

An?lisis de los problemas en la argumentaci?n escrita en espa?ol de estudiantes de tercer semestre de la licenciatura en lenguas extranjeras de la Universidad del Valle [recurso electr?nico]

This study identifies and analyzes the problems of academic and argumentative writing in third semester students of the Bachelor of Foreign Languages at the Universidad del Valle, in order to determine which are the most common difficulties arisen in the process of writing. Formal aspects of language and rhetorical elements will be analyzed in the written productions of students. This is a qualitative ethnographic study that aims to determine how the relationship between the pedagogical intervention, classroom interactions and classroom activities in the course of Composition II, help to overcome these difficulties. The research shows that students have many difficulties in the academic writing as the use of an appropriate lexical, cohesion between paragraphs of a text, use of punctuation, citation and conjugation of verbs. In relation to the construction of the argument, it was found problems in students? texts: students fail in prevailing an argumentative sequence, there is not an approach and continuation of a thesis throughout the text, there is no consistency between the thesis and the arguments developed throughout the production, problems in the use of rebuttals and backings in the argumentation. In addition to these, and although they are not the most common problems, interference of words from a foreign language (English or French) and orality marks were found in the students? argumentative essays. Finally, this work demonstrates that educational intervention and classroom interactions help to improve the different versions of the written productions, though, some problems remain unsolved at the end of the intervention.

Queering religious texts: An exploration of British non-heterosexual Christians’ and Muslims’ strategy of constructing sexuality-affirming hermeneutics.

Religious authority figures often use religious texts as the primary basis for censuring homosexuality. In recent years, however, non-heterosexual Christians and Muslims have begun to contest the discursively produced boundary of sexual morality.Drawing upon two research projects on non-heterosexual Christians and Muslims, this article explores the three approaches embedded in this strategy.While acknowledging that homosexuality is indeed portrayed negatively in some parts of religious texts, the participants critique traditional hermeneutics by highlighting its inaccuracy and socio-cultural specificity, and arguing for a contextualized and culturally relevant interpretation. They also critique the credibility of institutional interpretive authority by highlighting its inadequacy and ideology, and relocating authentic interpretive authority to personal experience. Finally, they recast religious texts to construct resources for their spiritual nourishment.This strategy generally reflects the contemporary western religious landscape that prioritizes the authority of the self over that of religious institution.