Extraposition in learner and expert writing

Until now, there has been no study which has systematically compared anaphoric procedures used by children in different text types. Studies concentrated on sentence level or analyzed only stories. The present article describes the anaphoric procedures used in four text types (argumentation, explanation, account of a recent personal experience, and story) written by children 10, 12, and 14 years old. It shows that each text type is characterized by specific means to create anaphoric cohesion. From an ontogenetic point of view, one can observe important changes in the explanation. For the other text types, no important differences appear.

Metadiscourse is fundamentally the interaction that takes place within a text between the author and the reader. Previous studies have established the importance of metadiscourse in both the traditional monograph PhD theses and the academic research article, regardless of academic discipline. There has been some initial research to understand the particular genre requirements of the Retrospective PhD by Publication, but little work has been done to understand the rhetorical task of writing the commentary text where the task is to synthesise and reflect on one’s own work to produce new understanding and knowledge. The goal here is to compare the metadiscourse in the commentary texts that comprise a major part of the retrospective PhD by Publication to doctoral dissertations written in the more traditional way. Detailed analysis of two corpora of the different texts was done using ANTCONC software and the results were then evaluated using the chi-square test to check for significance. Finally, a functional model of metadiscourse was used to better understand the implications of the findings. Results suggest that there are significant variations in the way that metadiscourse is deployed in these two text types. The most important differences were in the overall reduced use of metadiscourse features and in particular, engagement markers and endophoric reference were significantly less prevalent. Self-mentions, however, were a much stronger feature of the Retrospective PhD by Publication commentaries. The functional analysis of the findings allows us to draw some initial conclusions about the meaning of these differences.

This paper is aimed at testing an important linguistic difference between two kinds of humorous text in Italian language, jokes and funny stories, via the concept of implicit. This goal has been reached by means of an experiment: 9 funny personal anecdotes has been analysed and selected (Study 1) and then 7 humor authors have been asked to turn the 9 funny stories into 9 jokes (Study 2). The texts analysed in Study 1 and the texts written by the authors and analysed in Study 2 have been examined following the principles of the General Theory of Verbal Humor (Attardo/Raskin 1991; Attardo 2001) and of the Graded Salience Hypothesis (Giora 1991, 2003). These theories have been taken into account in order to find out which information is implicit in jokes and explicitly verbalized in funny stories and in order to experimentally verify the distinction between the two types of text.

ABSTRACTCausal sequences can be segmented into cause and effect. However, some argue causal relations in discourse are by default in effect–cause order. Others claim cause–effect order is easier to process and the default way of expressing causality, due to iconicity. We conducted experiments testing participants’ production choices in two different contexts—narratives and safety/warning signs—to see whether genres/discourse types differ in their preferred cause–effect order. We find that while narratives (which involve temporally anchored events) elicit iconic cause–effect order, safety signs (with generic statements rather than specific temporally anchored events) show a bias toward effect–cause. The present work highlights the importance of differences in text type and communicative purpose and suggests that there is no single answer regarding the primacy/salience of cause versus effect.

This chapter studies equity in reading performance in PISA 2000–2018 in three Nordic countries: Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Using regression analyses, the study investigates how the reading performance trend for groups of students with different genders, home backgrounds and minorities has developed. The study is contextualised through an up-to-date description of reading comprehension instruction in the countries. In addition to trend analyses of general reading performance, the study examines if the differences between groups of students are consistent across different text formats in the digital version of the PISA test, distinguishing between static text types (e.g., articles, letters, stories) and dynamic text types (e.g., websites, forums and e-mails, etc.). We find a consistently high reading literacy performance in all Scandinavian countries compared with international development. There are large gender differences in the average reading performance in all three countries, disfavouring boys, especially low-performing boys from low SES home backgrounds. We find a huge and stable gap between minority and majority students’ reading achievement, even when corrected for SES. Taking these findings into account, we assert that there is no basis for concluding that the school systems give more equitable learning conditions for groups of students now than when the PISA assessments started. However, it appears that the new online text formats in PISA 2018 might shrink the differences between student groups. Based on our findings, we argue that it is highly doubtful if one can still speak of a Nordic model of education, both as an idea of equity and fairness and as a model that is united across the Nordic countries.

The paper reveals linguo-didactic potential of infographic texts when teaching Russian as a foreign language to distant learners. The article examines the advantages of using infographics when teaching Russian to foreign students. Scientific originality of the study involves a comprehensive approach to the use of infographics as a means of educational material visualization in a mixed level class under the conditions of distant Russian language learning. The research findings are as follows: the author justifies the efficiency of using different types of infographic texts at different stages of teaching Russian as a foreign language, special attention is paid to the specificity of distance learning.

Czytanie i pisanie to od dawna cenione umiejętności; wokół których w ostatnim czasie toczą się ciekawe dyskusje i spory. W tym samym bowiem momencie; gdy niektórzy boleją nad spadkiem czytelnictwa w naszym kraju; inni zwracają uwagę na fakt; iż nigdy wcześniej nie czytaliśmy tyle; co dziś (oczywiście obie strony mają na uwadze różne rodzaje czytanych tekstów). Podobnie wokół pisania toczą się dysputy np. zwolenników pisma odręcznego; kaligraficznego; z tymi; którzy za jedyne sensowne dziś narzędzie pisarskie uznają klawiaturę komputera; ipada czy iphona. Mimo tych i innych kontrowersji; większość z nas docenia znaczenie umiejętności czytania i pisania; a niektórzy nawet dostrzegają jego wyraźny wzrost we współczesnym świecie. Myślę tu np. o tych rodzicach; babciach czy dziadkach; którzy szukają możliwości; metod oraz narzędzi przyspieszających i wspierających naukę czytania i pisania ich dzieci; wnucząt. Myślę o badaczach szukających optymalnych warunków dla uczenia się i nauczania tych ważnych kompetencji. Innym efektem popularności myślenia o umiejętności czytania i pisania są też zapewne decyzje polityków odpowiedzialnych za funkcjonowanie oświaty; którzy w ostatnich latach nauczycielom wychowania przedszkolnego i edukacji wczesnoszkolnej; czyli osobom profesjonalnie odpowiadającym za budowanie fundamentów dziecięcych umiejętności czytania i pisania; zafundowali cały ciąg zmian. Pytanie – czy aby na pewno dobrych zmian? Artykuł ma na celu dokonanie analizy wątpliwości i dylematów; które muszą dziś rozstrzygać osoby nauczające czytania i pisania.

A refutation text is designed to promote conceptual change by explicitly acknowledging commonly held misconceptions about a topic, directly refuting them, and providing an accurate explanation. In this study, we determined the impact of different types of refutation texts on adolescent readers’ conceptual change learning in science. Specifically, we manipulated the way the correct conception was justified and explained following work in epistemic cognition. Three different types of justification were compared to a control condition: justification by authority, justification by multiple sources, and justification by personal opinion. The findings showed that learning effects were optimized when the correct conceptions were presented in terms of a corroborated consensus among multiple sources.

Making the Web More Useful as a Source for Linguistic Corpora

Similar to the research in Chap. 5, which explored educator’s perspectives of children’s learning in the infant/toddler years, this study investigated the perspective of early childhood educators in Australia and China on children’s learning and optimal conditions for learning for preschool children. The same structured questionnaire used for the infant/toddler study was also conducted in both countries and four main questions were investigated; what situations can be characterized as learning? What activities are important for learning? What are the best conditions for children’s learning? How do early childhood educators understand participation in relation to children’s learning? Internationalization of education has seen relationships develop between countries and an exploration of educator’ theories on children and learning can provide a nuanced approach to comparative research. The findings suggest there is significant sharing of ideas as well as important differences across the contexts of Australia and China.

Applying an abductive mixed‐methods approach, we investigate the informal status systems in three women's prison units (across two prisons) and one men's prison unit. Qualitative analyses suggest “old head” narratives—where age, time in prison, sociability, and prison wisdom confer unit status—are prevalent across all four contexts. Perceptions of maternal “caregivers” and manipulative “bullies,” however, are found only in the three women's units. The qualitative findings inform formal network analyses by differentiating “positive,” “neutral,” and “negative” status nominations, with “negative” ties primarily absent from the men's unit. Within the women's units, network analyses find that high‐status women are likely to receive both positive and negative peer nominations, such that evaluations depend on who is doing the evaluating. Comparing the women's and men's networks, the correlates of positive and neutral ties are generally the same and center on covariates of age, getting along with others, race, and religion. Overall, the study points to important similarities and differences in status across the gendered prison contexts, while demonstrating how a sequential mixed‐methods design can illuminate both the meaning and the structure of prison informal organization.

Propõe-se o conceito de enquadramentos da construção dos significados nos textos, referentes às dimensões das experiências comunicativas das pessoas, manifestadas na estrutura léxico-gramatical dos textos: gênero, registro, teor, campo e modalidade. Observam-se esses enquadramentos na análise de uma redação dissertativo-argumentativa que não corresponde a nenhuma das expectativas esperadas para a natureza do material solicitado pela proposta de escritura. O mesmo texto é apresentado a 80 alunos do Ensino Médio, e a observação dos seus comentários revela a qualidade dos seus conhecimentos metalinguísticos: a compreensão dos níveis de análise linguística limitada à palavra; a percepção do registro, mas não dos outros enquadramentos; a limitação aos aspectos lineares-superficiais e rudimentares do texto: ortografia, pontuação etc., e a visão do texto na sua dimensão língua-objeto, e não metalinguagem. A análise suscita observações acerca das condições atuais do ensino de língua materna no Brasil em termos dos saberes escolares que os alunos têm construído sobre a linguagem.

Differential category learning processes: The neural basis of comparison-based learning and induction

Heritage language acquisition is the acquisition of a first language, which is a sociolinguistically minority language, in a bilingual or second language (L2) context, and takes place in a predominantly natural or informal environment Some heritage speakers receive formal instruction in their heritage language as adults, but most do not A fundamental belief in the study of adult second language acquisition over the years has been that the process of learning a second language does not depend on the context in which the language is being learned. At the same time, much of adult second language acquisition takes place in formal environments – the classroom. The subfield of instructed second language acquisition is well established, and its foundational question is whether systematic manipulation of the input and the conditions for learning facilitate the development and acquisition of additional languages. The fact that the linguistic development of instructed second language learners and uninstructed heritage speakers in their second and heritage language show many similarities in their acquisition of syntax, semantics, and morphology provides evidence of the autonomous development of language as a cognitive system in response to linguistic input but independent of specific context. However, most recent experimental research also point to important differences between heritage speakers and L2 learners in their linguistic performance in different skills, language processing, and language use that can only be explained by the context of learning and access to written/spoken language, implicit/explicit grammatical information, error correction, and different registers. This chapter will first provide a brief overview of the role of context in language learning in these two populations and discuss how linguistic accuracy, communicative competence, and fluency develop in informal language learning contexts, which today involve study abroad experiences, access to the world wide web, and gamification, among others. Because most studies on L2 learners involve instructed learners while studies on heritage speakers do not distinguish between instructed and non-instructed heritage speakers, the chapter will stress the importance of future research comparing how heritage speakers and L2 learners develop their L1 and their L2 in both formal and informal learning contexts to elucidate how context shapes and informs additional language learning at the cognitive and sociocultural level in adolescents and adults.

BackgroundHealthcare worldwide needs translation of basic ideas from engineering into the clinic. Consequently, there is increasing demand for graduates equipped with the knowledge and skills to apply interdisciplinary medicine/engineering approaches to the development of novel solutions for healthcare. The literature provides little guidance regarding barriers to, and facilitators of, effective interdisciplinary learning for engineering and medical students in a team-based project context.MethodsA quantitative survey was distributed to engineering and medical students and staff in two universities, one in Ireland and one in Belgium, to chart knowledge and practice in interdisciplinary learning and teaching, and of the teaching of innovation.ResultsWe report important differences for staff and students between the disciplines regarding attitudes towards, and perceptions of, the relevance of interdisciplinary learning opportunities, and the role of creativity and innovation. There was agreement across groups concerning preferred learning, instructional styles, and module content. Medical students showed greater resistance to the use of structured creativity tools and interdisciplinary teams.ConclusionsThe results of this international survey will help to define the optimal learning conditions under which undergraduate engineering and medicine students can learn to consider the diverse factors which determine the success or failure of a healthcare engineering solution.