Formal Context Research Articles

Language Teaching, Language Learning, and Virtual Exchange in an Age of Complexity

As the introduction to this special issue on virtual exchange (VE), this paper presents a glimpse back at the development of VE through the lens of the central definitions that have been historically associated with VE and how these have had an impact on the evolution of VE practice and research. Next, the role of intercultural competence (IC) is discussed. IC is a prominent aspect of VE in foreign language education and also emerges as a primary topic in the articles in this special issue. Given that VE is most commonly identified within formal education contexts, the article then foregrounds recent debate on whether VE is an educational approach or method and how this may impact teacher education. Finally, looking forward, the text outlines the importance of VE for upcoming generations and how VE might keep pace with anticipated technological advances.

ANALISIS DEIKSIS PERCAKAPAN MAHASISWA DI UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH TANGERANG PADA PENDIDIKAN BAHASA INDONESIA

The purpose of this research is to define some deixis and examine how Indonesian students interact. The methodology used in this research is descriptive. The conversation of Indonesian language education students is described in this study using data deixis, which includes persona deixis, place deixis, time deixis, discourse deixis, and social deixis. The primary data source for this research comes from conversations among students of Indonesian language education in both formal and informal contexts. National lectures, conversations with other students, and casual conversations are examples of informal activities. Discussions between students and lecturers are formal activities (in canteens, boarding houses, rice stalls, etc.). Data collection techniques involving recording and wiretapping. Research data analysis was carried out using a descriptive approach. Persona deixis (plural first person singular) is one of the conclusions of the study.

Concept lattice simplification with fuzzy linguistic information based on three-way clustering

Numerous linguistically valued facts from the actual world have been modeled using the fuzzy linguistic approach. Concept lattice theory has the potential to be used in information processing in imprecise language environments as a methodology for data analysis and knowledge representation. The concept lattice with linguistic values can manage fuzzy linguistic data which are either comparable or incomparable. However, the acquired conceptual knowledge is difficult to understand due to the substantial amount of linguistic concept knowledge in the concept lattice with imprecise linguistic information. This work proposes a linguistic-valued layered concept lattice simplification method based on three-way clustering to reduce the scale of the linguistic-valued layered concept lattice. In order to create the linguistically valued layered concept lattice, a reconstruction function is first used to produce an attribute selection model in fuzzy linguistic formal contexts. Second, the intent similarity and extent similarity are employed to achieve the concept similarity measure in linguistic-valued layered concept lattices, taking into account the relationship among various layers of fuzzy linguistic values. To get the initial concept hard clustering results, the linguistic-valued layered concepts are then clustered using k-modes clustering. In addition, we explore the classification of boundary linguistic-valued layered concepts and achieve the three-way clustering findings of linguistic-valued layered concepts to deal with the ambiguity of linguistic expressions. Finally, experimental findings on real-world datasets show how effective the proposed method is for simplifying linguistic-valued layered concept lattices.

Discourse markers errors performed by EFL Iraqi learners

Discourse markers are words and phrases that play role as linking words or linking phrases, they develop ideas and relate them to one another. People use most of the discourse markers in formal context when presenting complicated information in discourse. Discourse markers contribute to discourse cohesion and coherence, at the same time the using too much of them make the discourse heavy or artificial. The problem of this study is that most EFL Iraqi learners find difficulties in selecting the suitable discourse marker in order to link two ideas or sentences. As for aims, the study tries to put a basis to treat with this topic. The data is limited to (30) students who are in third year Iraqi EFL learners/ Tikrit University/ College of Education for Humanities/English Department. In order to perform the aim of the current study, it is hypothesized that students' ability to use discourse markers is limited. It is also hypothesized that the most common errors that are committed by Iraqi EFL learners in using discourse markers are related to textual class.

Concept and attribute reduction based on rectangle theory of formal concept

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Based on rectangle theory of formal concept and set covering theory, the concept reduction preserving binary relations is investigated in this paper. It is known that there are three types of formal concepts: core concepts, relative necessary concepts and unnecessary concepts. First, we present the new judgment theorems for relative necessary concepts and unnecessary concepts. Second, we derive the bounds for both the maximum number of relative necessary concepts and the maximum number of unnecessary concepts. Third, based on rectangle theory of formal concept, a fast algorithm for reducing attributes while preserving the extensions for a set of formal concepts is proposed using the extension bit-array technique, which allows multiple context cells to be processed by a single 32-bit or 64-bit operator. Technically, the new algorithm could store both formal context and extension of a concept as bit-arrays, and we can use bit-operations to process set operations "or" as well as "and". One more merit is that the new algorithm does not need to consider other concepts in the concept lattice, thus the algorithm is explicit to understand and fast. Experiments demonstrate that the new algorithm is effective in the computation of attribute reductions.</p>

The Role of Metalinguistic Negation in Interpersonal Communication

Metalinguistic negation is a good tool in interpersonal communication, as it is perfect for formal register and could be used as a politeness strategy. It is used to object to a previous statement, but not its truth-conditional meaning, so it may be used in the communication when the speaker wants to avoid directly denying the previous utterance, which is viewed not as criticism, but as a challenge, which makes it rather polite. Drawing from theories of pragmatics, the article highlights the possible reasons for the speaker to choose this type of negation. Pragmatic functions, complexities and implications of MN are researched. In Business English people tend to use MN as a politeness strategy, it may be used as well to avoid being direct. The study shows the crucial role of metalinguistic negation in resolving conflicts, expressing modesty and suggesting alternatives. The aim of the research is to show the significance and pragmatic implications of metalinguistic negation, as well as its usage in formal contexts. In the article case studies and examples are provided, such as the usage of MN to soften criticism, indirectly disagree, avoid giving the direct answer, soften face-threatening situations, soften criticism, negotiate. MN allows the speaker to remain polite and maintain business-like environment, it may also be the way to avoid directness. Almost nothing has been done on such topic, so the study is quite exceptional, as well as it is topical. In the modern world delicacy and tolerance are most valued, so such linguistic phenomenon is helpful. The study may be interesting for scholars, who research communication strategies, pragmatics, negation, formal register and politeness.

An emerging qualitative study on Project management as a bridge between cognitive learning and employability

The paper presents one of the results of an innovative research on the training value of Project management. The research was realized in the field of the Ph.D. in Education and Psychology at the University of Florence.The research has investigated the potentiality of Project management for the development of those transversal skills useful for employability. The main focus of the research has been the effects of learning Project management in formal contexts, as well as the embedded training value of Project management itself.The paper focuses on learning enablers and learning benefits of Project management in tertiary education

Cultivating Visualization Literacy for Children Through Curiosity and Play.

Fostering data visualization literacy (DVL) as part of childhood education could lead to a more data literate society. However, most work in DVL for children relies on a more formal educational context (i.e., a teacher-led approach) that limits children's engagement with data to classroom-based environments and, consequently, children's ability to ask questions about and explore data on topics they find personally meaningful. We explore how a curiosity-driven, child-led approach can provide more agency to children when they are authoring data visualizations. This paper explores how informal learning with crafting physicalizations through play and curiosity may foster increased literacy and engagement with data. Employing a constructionist approach, we designed a do-it-yourself toolkit made out of everyday materials (e.g., paper, cardboard, mirrors) that enables children to create, customize, and personalize three different interactive visualizations (bar, line, pie). We used the toolkit as a design probe in a series of in-person workshops with 5 children (6 to 11-year-olds) and interviews with 5 educators. Our observations reveal that the toolkit helped children creatively engage and interact with visualizations. Children with prior knowledge of data visualization reported the toolkit serving as more of an authoring tool that they envision using in their daily lives, while children with little to no experience found the toolkit as an engaging introduction to data visualization. Our study demonstrates the potential of using the constructionist approach to cultivate children's DVL through curiosity and play.

SITNO KOLO KAO ŽIVI ELEMENT NEMATERIJALNOG KULTURNOG NASLEĐA NA PODRUČJU RAŠKE OBLASTI

In the wider area of Raška, the small round, which represents a living element of intangible cultural heritage, is still performed today. The mentioned dance belongs to the kinetic-formal type of round in three, the most widespread and ersistent pattern in the dance tradition of Serbia. The small round is practiced in formal and informal contexts, i.e. at various private and public celebrations (weddings, vows, baptisms, prelo, poselo, baptism dances, etc.). The musical accompaniment of the small round can be made by a clarinet and a drum, as well as pipes. The main goal of the work is to look at the specifics of the performance of this round, to determine its basic characteristics as elements of intangible cultural heritage, as well as the scientific interpretation of this form of appearance. In addition, one of the goals of the work is to present the performance style of the Raška region, i.e., to indicate the way of dance thinking on the example of the small round. For the purposes of this work, field and historiographical research was carried out in search of data on the small round. On that occasion, the literature and work of researchers of various profiles, ethnographers, as well as amateur researchers who carried out research in this area were consulted. The results show that the name sitno kolo (small round), as a dance that belongs to the kinetic-formal type of round in three, does not exist in the literature, but based on interviews with representative practitioners, it can be concluded that it is performed in the entire area of Raška, in Podgolia, Podkopaonic and villages at the foot of Rogozna mountain. The expert explanation of the kinesic and musical text describes in detail the factors that ensure the recognizable kinetic impulse of the small round. In addition, the factors and indicators that can influence the fact that the small round, which still lives in current practice as an important identity marker of the Raška region, are characterized as part of the intangible cultural heritage

Gender-Neutral Pronouns He and They

This paper attempts to investigate the Korean EFL students’ understanding of singular they in comparison with gender-neutral he. When it comes to the choice of third person singular pronouns in gender-indeterminant contexts, prescriptive grammar prefers gender-neutral he, while descriptive grammar recommends singular they, among other alternative pronoun forms. As grammar books and guideline sources gradually adopt singular they as a proper, or a better, pronoun candidate compared to gender-neutral he, an experimental study was designed to examine how Korean learners of English acquire this recent language change in EFL contexts. In a naturalness judgment task, the Korean EFL learners judged singular they in informal contexts as less natural than in formal contexts and even as unnatural when the antecedents included ‘every/any,’ though it has been reported that native speakers prefer singular they in informal contexts rather than in formal contexts.

How COVID-19 changes the way we approach pedagogy for translation

Abstract With the rapid development of digitisation and the dominance of social streaming platforms, the way we approach pedagogy for translation has changed significantly, especially under the circumstances of COVID-19. Teaching traditionally in the classroom seems insufficient to account for today’s overall distance learning atmosphere. Combined online and offline teaching models, this paper borrows the concept of “multimodality”, developed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2001, 4), to capture “when and how technologies are specialised or multi-purpose” in the application of remote teaching and learning for translation. Therefore, this article describes a teaching project which investigates the insights into three critical components inspired by non-professional subtitling and dubbing into a formal teaching context. These are a two-step pre-course preparation: a student-led questionnaire and an in-class quiz, the teamwork production of AVT works and a final post-reflection targeted at oral presentation and written review. Pedagogically, this collaborative approach enables students to improve translator competence, cultural awareness and technological capacities.

Varieties of Chinese as heritage languages: a research synthesis

ABSTRACT Despite the range of varieties of Han Chinese, Mandarin is the most widely studied variety in research on Chinese as a heritage language (CHL) around the world. To better understand the role of other varieties of Han Chinese in addition to Mandarin, this article presents a synthesis of research on the learning of Chinese varieties in formal and informal contexts worldwide. We reviewed 25 empirical studies in CHL learning worldwide to examine 1) the definition of CHL learning, 2) varieties of Chinese as heritage languages, 3) theoretical frameworks, and 4) research trends in formal CHL learning programs, as well as informal CHL learning in families and communities. Mandarin was found to be the most studied variety, while varieties such as Cantonese, Hakka, and Hokkien are less frequently investigated. The findings highlight research gaps related to the research contexts, language varieties, and theoretical frameworks in CHL learning. This review points to the need for the exploration of CHL learners in non-English-speaking regions, wider representation of Chinese varieties in CHL research, and inclusion of a broader range of formal and informal learning contexts in the CHL research.

TOGETHER IN THE CLASSROM. CHILDREN FROM UKRAINE IN POLISH SCHOOLS. POTENTIALS AND CHALLENGES IN BUILDING A MULTICULTURAL SCHOOL IN THE CONTEXT OF THE WAR IN UKRAINE. TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVE

The aim of the study was to find out about the education in Polish schools of young people from Ukraine, who began to study there in connection with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on February 24, 2022. The research focuses on the educational processes themselves, both in terms of teaching, care and upbringing, as well as the broader conditions of these processes in the pedagogical, psychological and social perspective (as well as in the formal and legal context). The main research questions are as follows: 1. What are the previous experiences of schools and teachers in working with foreign children (including children from Ukraine)? What preparation of schools and teachers undertaken to admit children who came to Poland as a result of the outbreak of the war? 2. How is the process of educating children from Ukraine who came as a result of the war organized at the local level and at the level of specific schools? 3. How, in the opinion of teachers, are the relations between children who previously studied in Polish schools and children who came as a result of the war shaped? 4. How, in the opinion of teachers, is the mental functioning of children who came as a result of the outbreak? 5. What, in the opinion of teachers, are the relations between the families of students who came because of the war, and the families of children who previously studied in Polish schools like? 6. How, in the opinion of teachers, is the cooperation between schools and the families of children who came from Ukraine in connection with the outbreak of the war? 7. What aspects of educational work with children who came as a result of the outbreak of the war are difficult for teachers in Polish schools? The findings are interpreted in the context of describing the needs of Polish schools and teachers so that the educational process of young people with refugee experience from Ukraine is maximized and constitutes effective support for them in a crisis situation. The recommendations developed by the authors of the Report and a team of invited experts are both more general in nature, related to the philosophy, assumptions and principles of the support provided, and relate to specific substantive aspects of support that can be implemented in schools.

An updated method of granular reduct based on cognitive operators in formal contexts

Based on cognitive operators, granular reduct of dynamic formal context is studied. By using the cognitive operators, in the background of non-decision formal context, the new discernibility attribute sets in different states are given respectively when the objects and the attributes increased. According to the Boolean reasoning method, the relation between the new reduct and original reduct is proved when objects and attributes increased. Finally, we formulate updated algorithms for new granular reduct when objects and attributes are added.

Active methodologies and ICT to prevent bullying. Main study background and contributions

Bullying is a widespread problem that has caused great social alarm in recent years because of its serious effects on children. In the educational context it is one of the most common expressions of peer violence along with cyber-bullying. The aim of this research has been to analyse the scientific production about the prevention of school bullying through active methodologies and the use of ICTs in formal educational contexts. This study derives from a research project financed through the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (FPU18/00676) and is the result of a bibliometric study, in which various current articles have been analysed through the application of different indicators. The results show that scientific productivity on this subject has proliferated in recent years, which gives a glimpse of the relevance given to these issues in the scientific community. Among the conclusions of this work, the advantages of the use of gamification and the use of digital applications such as Kahoot or digital comics, which allow students to simulate experiences that would occur in the real world in order to develop new skills, critical self-reflection and greater awareness of the problem, should be highlighted. In the same way, it is essential that teachers, through the use of these teaching strategies, promote the students' protagonism, their expectations towards learning, as well as the prevention of bullying behaviour among peers.

Advancing L2 Dynamic Assessment: Innovations in Chinese Contexts

ABSTRACT This introduction to the special issue, L2 Dynamic Assessment Research in China, examines the theoretical foundations of Dynamic Assessment (DA) in the writings of L. S. Vygotsky, with particular attention to the concepts of praxis, mediation, and zone of proximal development, while also recognizing contributions from notable DA researchers such as Israeli psychologist and educator Reuven Feuerstein. Trends in the general and L2 DA research literatures are considered, including: flexible, open-ended mediation (interactionist DA) and standardized, scripted mediation (interventionist DA); formats of embedding mediation in assessment procedures (so-called ‘sandwich’ and ‘cake’ formats of DA); DA administered in classroom and group settings; DA in formal testing contexts, including computerized DA procedures; mediated scores and learning potential scores; and uses of learner profiles resulting from DA to inform instructional enrichment programs. Each article in the special issue reports original research conducted by scholars in China. How the individual studies take up and extend trends in L2 DA research is explained. Given that learning activities and the thinking associated with them are deeply saturated in specific cultural practices and norms, it is argued that extension of DA principles to new cultural contexts, such as those reported in the special issue, is informative not only for assessment researchers in China but for the international community of assessment scholars, and it is essential for the continued development of DA frameworks.

Uptalk in L2 English: the phonetic identity and perception of final declarative rises in Serbian EFL.

Uptalk has been increasingly documented in different L1 English varieties and communicative contexts, but is rarely recognized in formal L2 educational contexts, where it is still attributed to learners' inadequate mastery of intonation. This study is a cross-sectional corpus-based exploration of the phonetic realization of uptalk in Serbian EFL students' semi-spontaneous expository speech, and its perception as a sentence-finality signal. The corpus comprised all rising intonation units (IU) produced by 14 female and 9 male participants, classified by structural clues as syntactic continuation, listing, polar questions, or uptalk, to explore the relatedness of the phonetic properties to structural position and gender. Next, 100 EFL students rated selected phrases, illustrating continuation rises, uptalk, and final falls, as possibly sentence final, on a 5-point scale. The findings showed that uptalk was consistently produced as a phonetically distinct signal, characterized by a larger pitch excursion, a steeper rise slope, a higher rise peak, and a longer post-IU pause. Females produced wider pitch excursions and steeper slopes. Uptalk examples were ranked high as possible sentence-finality signals. The study suggests that EFL speakers' uptalk should be recognized as a novel socio-pragmatic prosodic device, deliberately used even in more formal academic contexts.

Sharing profits in formal fuzzy contexts

Cooperative game theory is concerned with situations where a group of agents coordinate their actions to get a common benefit. An allocation rule for these situations is a way to share the common benefit among the agents. The search for a fair allocation rule may depend on the information one has about these agents. A formal context represents information about certain attributes of a set of objects in a table, and they have been used in the literature to describe information about the agents in a game. More recently, formal contexts are extended to the fuzzy setting. Now in this paper we establish a methodology to share the profits of a group of agents that have some information about them collected in a fuzzy formal context when those benefits depend on a set of attributes.

Determination and Processing of Properties Existence Constraints in Ontological Data Analysis

The research area is an extended methodology for the derivation of formal concepts from, as a rule, incomplete and inconsistent empirical data, which are the results of observations and multidimensional measurements in an unexplored, unstructured subject domain. This methodology, called "ontological data analysis", synthesizes two successful approaches to the acquisition of conceptual knowledge: analysis of formal concepts and analysis of the properties existence constraints of subject domain. Herewith, the subject of ontological analysis is given the opportunity to perform a new cognitive act of processing empirical data normalization of the formal context at the task of deriving formal concepts, which means matching a posteriori information about the studied subject domain with a priori representations about it, expressed by the so-called "existence constraints" of the measured properties. The article substantiates the possibility and advisability of transforming the "natural" specification of the existence constraints in the form of a set of measured properties with specified existential relations on it into a set of intersecting subsets of measured properties, which are homogeneous in the form of existential conjugation of member-properties. Algorithms for identifying such subsets in the system of measured properties are presented. A basic algorithm for processing a new representation of properties existence constraints is proposed; it is designed to simplify and accelerate the normalization of the formal context. The significance of the obtained results lies in the algorithmic support of a number of stages of ontological data analysis.

Pedagogies and Practices of Teaching Girlhood Studies

Girlhood Studies, as an academic discipline, is continually growing. Since some educational institutions include girls’ studies as part of a special curriculum, an academic program, a certificate course, a minor, or as part of Women’s Studies or Gender Studies, Girlhood Studies has a presence in academia although at this stage rarely in an autonomous department. This interest in the pedagogies and practices of teaching Girlhood Studies is an important aspect of its growth as a field of study not only at the university level but also in other academic settings and outside of them, be they workshops, special programs for girls, and summer camps, among others. Depending on these formal and informal educational contexts, the discussion of approaches to teaching Girlhood Studies ranges from the theoretical to those that outline hands-on projects that invite and promote the discussion of girlhood. As Claudia Mitchell (2021) states in her editorial “What can Girlhood Studies be?” the research and scholarly work in Girlhood Studies “stands as its own theoretical and practical area” (vi) that warrants its study and teaching and that prompted the production of this special issue on teaching Girlhood Studies.