Formulaic sequences in native and non-native argumentative writing in German

Whereas there is substantial scholarship on formulaic language in L1 and L2 English, there is less research on formulaicity in other languages. The aim of this paper is to contribute to learner corpus research into formulaic language in native and non-native German. To this effect, a corpus of argumentative essays written by advanced British students of German (WHiG) was compared with a corpus of argumentative essays written by German native speakers (Falko-L1). A corpus-driven analysis reveals a larger number of 3-grams in WHiG than in Falko-L1, which suggests that British advanced learners of German are more likely to use formulaic language in argumentative writing than their native-speaker counterparts. Secondly, by classifying the formulaic sequences according to their functions, this study finds that native speakers of German prefer discourse-structuring devices to stance expressions, whilst British advanced learners display the opposite preferences. Thirdly, the results show that learners of German make greater use of macro-discourse-structuring devices and cautious language, whereas native speakers favour micro-discourse structuring devices and tend to use more direct language. This study increases our understanding of formulaic language typical of British advanced learners of German and reveals how diverging cultural paradigms can shape written native speaker and learner output.

No asylum for “Infiltrators”: the legal predicament of Eritrean and Sudanese nationals in Israel

This article explores the precarious status of Eritrean and Sudanese nationals in Israel. Having crossed the Israeli-Egyptian border without authorisation and not through an official border crossing, Israeli law defines such individuals as ‘infiltrators’, a charged term which dates back to border-crossings into Israel by Palestinian Fedayeen in the 1950s. Eritreans and Sudanese nationals constitute over 90 percent of ‘infiltrators’ in Israel. Their livelihood is curtailed through hostility, sanctions, and detention, while (at the time of writing) Israel refrains from deporting them to their respective countries of origin, recognising that such forced removal could expose them to risks to their lives and/or freedom. Israel was the 10th state to ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention, and has acceded to its 1967 Protocol which removed the 1951 Convention’s temporal and geographic restrictions, yet it has not incorporated these treaties into its domestic law not has it enacted primary legislation that sets eligibility criteria for ‘refugee’ status and regulates the treatment of asylum-seekers. Israeli law also fails to accord subsidiary protection status to persons that the state considers to be non-removable, whether or not they satisfy the definition of a ‘refugee’ under the 1951 Convention. Absent legal recognition of ‘refugee’, ‘asylum-seeker’, and ‘beneficiary of subsidiary protection’ statuses, Eritreans and Sudanese nationals are left in legal limbo for an indefinite period qua irregular non-removable persons. This article takes stock of their legal predicament.

Making the tacit explicit: children's strategies for classroom writing

A key highlight of this study is generating evidence of children ‘making aware the unaware’, making tacit knowledge explicit. The research explores the levels of awareness in thinking used by eight 7–8 year-old children when engaged in school-based genre writing tasks. The focus is on analysing children’s awareness of their thought processes, using a framework originally devised by Swartz and Perkins (1989), in order to investigate ways in which children can transform their tacit knowledge to explicit within the writing process. Classroom ‘think aloud’ protocols are used to help children ‘manage their knowledge transfer’, to speak the unspoken. In their framework Swartz and Perkins distinguish between four levels of thought that they view as hierarchical and ‘increasingly metacognitive.’ However, there is little evidence in this study to show that levels of awareness in thinking are increasingly progressive and observations made during the study suggest that young writers move in and out of the suggested levels of thinking during different elements of a writing task. The reasons for this may depend on a number of factors which are noted in this paper. Evidence does suggest children in this age group are consciously aware of their own and others’ thought processes both with and without adult prompting. By using collaborative talk, their awareness of these thought processes is highlighted enabling the co-construction and integration of new ideas into their existing knowledge base.

Shani Mootoo: writing, difference and the Caribbean

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the author discusses various reports published within the issue including the essays of Donna McCormack on the story of Shani Mootoo's novel "Valmiki's Daughter," one by Rebecca Ashworth on "Cereus Blooms at Night" and one by Emily Taylor on Mootoo's work.

The effects of strategy instruction on writing strategy use for students of different proficiency levels

Learners’ strategy use has been widely researched over the past few decades. However, studies which focus on the impact of strategy instruction on strategy use, and how far learners of different proficiency levels are able to use the strategies taught in an effective manner, are somewhat rare. The focus of this paper is the impact of writing strategy instruction on writing strategy use of a group of 12 second language learners learning to write in English for Academic Purposes classes. Stimulated recall was used to explore whether this impact differed according to the proficiency level of the students, and revealed that for both high and low proficiency learners’ strategy use developed as a result of the instruction. The implications of these findings for strategy instruction design are discussed

An examination of cross-border strategies in banking

The paper examines the process of bank internationalisation and explores how banks become international organisations and what this involves. It also makes an assessment of the significance of their international operations and determines whether banks are truly global organisations. The empirical data are based on the 60 largest banks in the world and content analysis is used to categorise the information into the eight international strategies of Atamer, Calori, Gustavsson, and Menguzzato-Boulard [Internationalisation strategies. In R. Calori, T. Atamer, & P. Nunes (Eds.), The dynamics of international competition – from practice to theory, strategy series (pp. 162–206). London: Sage (2000)] and Bryan, Fraser, Oppenheim, and Rall [Race for the World strategies to build a great global firm. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press (1999)]. The findings suggest that the majority of banks focus on countries or geographic regions in which they have some sort of cultural or economic affinity. Moreover, apart from a relatively small number of very large banks, they are international rather than truly global organisations.