Multilingualism and local-global identities: Japanese language education in rural Australia

The purpose of this article is to examine the value accruing to a regional area in Australia from the location of an undergraduate Japanese language education program in a university in that area. The focus is on the manner in which the inclusion of such a program enhances the sustainability of the area. Sustainability is here defined as the resilience demonstrated by social subjects in the absence of the full range of services available in more densely populated and resource advantaged areas. Such resilience implies an ongoing capacity on the part of subjects to contribute productively to social and economic networks in the area. The discussion includes two cases of graduates of the program under review. On the basis of these cases, the argument is advanced that local regional and rural area access to a tertiary sector second language program offers a unique and valuable strategic dimension to the personal and professional development of social agents in regional areas and to the sustainability of these areas generally.

Rapport-building through call in teaching Chinese as a foreign language: An exploratory study

Technological advances have brought about the ever-increasing utilisation of computer-assisted language learning ( CALL) media in the learning of a second language (L2). Computer-mediated communication, for example, provides a practical means for extending the learning of spoken language, a challenging process in tonal languages such as Chinese, beyond the realms of the classroom. In order to effectively improve spoken language competency, however, CALL applications must also reproduce the social interaction that lies at the heart of language learning and language use. This study draws on data obtained from the utilisation of CALL in the learning of L2 Chinese to explore whether this medium can be used to extend opportunities for rapport-building in language teaching beyond the face-to-face interaction of the classroom. Rapport's importance lies in its potential to enhance learning, motivate learners, and reduce learner anxiety. To date, CALL's potential in relation to this facet of social interaction remains a neglected area of research. The results of this exploratory study suggest that CALL may help foster learner-teacher rapport and that scaffolding, such as strategically composing rapport-fostering questions in sound-files, is conducive to this outcome. The study provides an instruction model for this application of CALL.

A tool for a formal pattern modeling language

This paper presents a formal but practical approach for defining and using design patterns. Initially we formalize the concepts commonly used in defining design patterns using Object-Z. We also formalize consistency constraints that must be satisfied when a pattern is deployed in a design model. Then we implement the pattern modeling language and its consistency constraints using an existing modeling framework, EMF, and incorporate the implementation as plug-ins to the Eclipse modeling environment. While the language is defined formally in terms of Object-Z definitions, the language is implemented in a practical environment. Using the plug-ins, users can develop precise pattern descriptions without knowing the underlying formalism, and can use the tool to check the validity of the pattern descriptions and pattern usage in design models. In this work, formalism brings precision to the pattern language definition and its implementation brings practicability to our pattern-based modeling approach.

English language education in policy studies

Content-based instruction (CBI) is increasingly important in curriculum development for second-language acquisition (SLA), as language and non-language departments in universities are finding the integration of core-content as part of the second language curriculum to be beneficial. With this in mind, this paper describes the English program at Nanzan University’s Faculty of Policy Studies and examines the synergy presently being developed between core-content and English language instruction there. Specifically, this paper seeks to shed light on how instructors can reflect on the meaning of language instruction at higher education through an illustration of our activities.

Timing analysis of assembler code control-flow paths

Timinganalysis of assembler code is essential to achieve the strongest possible guarantee of correctness for safety-critical, real-time software. Previous work has shown how timingconstrain ts on controlflow paths through high-level language programs can be formalised using the semantics of the statements comprisingthe path. We extend these results to assembler-level code where it becomes possible to not only determine timingconstrain ts, but also to verify them against the known execution times for each instruction. A minimal formal model is developed with both a weakest liberal precondition and a strongest postcondition semantics. However, despite the formalism’s simplicity, it is shown that complex timingb ehaviour associated with instruction pipeliningand iterative code can be modelled accurately.

Computer-aided programming using formally specificed design templates

This paper describes a formal component language, used to support automated component-based program development. The components, referred to as templates, are machine processable, meaning that appropriate tool support, such as retrieval support, can be developed. The templates are highly adaptable, meaning that they can be applied to a wide range of problems. Some of the main features of the language are described, including: higher-order parameters; state variable declarations; specification statements and conditionals; applicability conditions and theories; meta-level place holders; and abstract data structures.

A lifetime of language experience at each click!

Native speakers learn their mother tongue slowly, from birth, by the constant repetition of common words and phrases in a variety of contexts and situations, within the language community. As foreign language learners, we face considerable disadvantages when compared to children learning their mother tongue. Foreign language learners start later in life, have less time, have fewer opportunities to experience the language, and learn in the restricted environment of the classroom. Teachers and books give us information about many words and phrases, but it is difficult for us to know what we need to focus on and learn thoroughly, and what is less important. The rules and explanations are often difficult for us to understand. A large language corpus represents roughly the amount and variety of language that a native-speaker experiences in a whole lifetime. Learners can now access language corpora. We can check which words and phrases are important, and quickly discover their common meanings, collocations, and structural patterns. It is easier to remember things that we find out ourselves, rather than things that teachers or books tell us. Each click on the computer keyboard can show us the same information in different ways, so we can understand it more easily. We can also get many more examples from a corpus. Teachers and native-speakers can also use corpora, to confirm and enhance their own knowledge of a language, and prepare exercises to guide their students. Each of us can learn at our own level and at our own speed.

The effective use of implicit parallelism through the use of an object-oriented programming language

This thesis explores translating well-written sequential programs in a subset of the Eiffel programming language - without syntactic or semantic extensions - into parallelised programs for execution on a distributed architecture. The main focus is on constructing two object-oriented models: a theoretical self-contained model of concurrency which enables a simplified second model for implementing the compiling process. There is a further presentation of principles that, if followed, maximise the potential levels of parallelism. Model of Concurrency. The concurrency model is designed to be a straightforward target for mapping sequential programs onto, thus making them parallel. It aids the compilation process by providing a high level of abstraction, including a useful model of parallel behaviour which enables easy incorporation of message interchange, locking, and synchronization of objects. Further, the model is sufficient such that a compiler can and has been practically built. Model of Compilation. The compilation-model's structure is based upon an object-oriented view of grammar descriptions and capitalises on both a recursive-descent style of processing and abstract syntax trees to perform the parsing. A composite-object view with an attribute grammar style of processing is used to extract sufficient semantic information for the parallelisation (i.e. code-generation) phase. Programming Principles. The set of principles presented are based upon information hiding, sharing and containment of objects and the dividing up of methods on the basis of a command/query division. When followed, the level of potential parallelism within the presented concurrency model is maximised. Further, these principles naturally arise from good programming practice. Summary. In summary this thesis shows that it is possible to compile well-written programs, written in a subset of Eiffel, into parallel programs without any syntactic additions or semantic alterations to Eiffel: i.e. no parallel primitives are added, and the parallel program is modelled to execute with equivalent semantics to the sequential version. If the programming principles are followed, a parallelised program achieves the maximum level of potential parallelisation within the concurrency model.

An investigation into the use of knowledge representation in computer-integrated manufacturing

In a certain automobile factory, batch-painting of the body types in colours is controlled by an allocation system. This tries to balance production with orders, whilst making optimally-sized batches of colours. Sequences of cars entering painting cannot be optimised for easy selection of colour and batch size. `Over-production' is not allowed, in order to reduce buffer stocks of unsold vehicles. Paint quality is degraded by random effects. This thesis describes a toolkit which supports IKBS in an object-centred formalism. The intended domain of use for the toolkit is flexible manufacturing. A sizeable application program was developed, using the toolkit, to test the validity of the IKBS approach in solving the real manufacturing problem above, for which an existing conventional program was already being used. A detailed statistical analysis of the operating circumstances of the program was made to evaluate the likely need for the more flexible type of program for which the toolkit was intended. The IKBS program captures the many disparate and conflicting constraints in the scheduling knowledge and emulates the behaviour of the program installed in the factory. In the factory system, many possible, newly-discovered, heuristics would be awkward to represent and it would be impossible to make many new extensions. The representation scheme is capable of admitting changes to the knowledge, relying on the inherent encapsulating properties of object-centres programming to protect and isolate data. The object-centred scheme is supported by an enhancement of the `C' programming language and runs under BSD 4.2 UNIX. The structuring technique, using objects, provides a mechanism for separating control of expression of rule-based knowledge from the knowledge itself and allowing explicit `contexts', within which appropriate expression of knowledge can be done. Facilities are provided for acquisition of knowledge in a consistent manner.

Goal detection from natural language queries

This paper aims to identify the communication goal(s) of a user's information-seeking query out of a finite set of within-domain goals in natural language queries. It proposes using Tree-Augmented Naive Bayes networks (TANs) for goal detection. The problem is formulated as N binary decisions, and each is performed by a TAN. Comparative study has been carried out to compare the performance with Naive Bayes, fully-connected TANs, and multi-layer neural networks. Experimental results show that TANs consistently give better results when tested on the ATIS and DARPA Communicator corpora.

Semantic search components:a blueprint for effective query language interfaces

Formulating complex queries is hard, especially when users cannot understand all the data structures of multiple complex knowledge bases. We see a gap between simplistic but user friendly tools and formal query languages. Building on an example comparison search, we propose an approach in which reusable search components take an intermediary role between the user interface and formal query languages.