Narrow Reading Research Articles

The Effect of Narrow Reading on L2 Learners’ Vocabulary Acquisition

Narrow reading has not received much attention from researchers regarding its contributions on L2 learners’ background knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, and writing styles. This study therefore investigated the effect of narrow reading on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ vocabulary learning. Twelve graded readers were selected and categorized into four sets: same author (Tim Vicary), same genre (crime and mystery), same title ( The Railway Children) and random readers. Each set contains three graded readers: one Level 1, one Level 2, and one Level 3. Fifty-six students were divided into four subgroups and each group took turns reading each set of the graded readers. Twenty-five unknown target words were selected to be tested in each category. After students had read a set of three graded readers, their vocabulary knowledge was assessed on three dimensions: form-meaning recall, sources, and use. The data were analysed using linear mixed-effects models (LMM), with the participants as the random effect, and text organization, vocabulary dimensions, time order, and reading text sequence as fixed effect variables. The results show that more vocabulary words were acquired from texts by the same author or random texts than from texts of the same title; the L2 learners recalled 61% of the source and 50% of the meaning, and 41% of the target words were used correctly. Students scored the lowest at Time 1 and the highest at Time 4, indicating that learning rates increased as they read more. Pedagogical implications are discussed, and future research directions are suggested.

Trauma and Existentialism in Cormac McCarthy’s <i>The Road</i> (2006)

Since its publication in 2006, The Road has attracted the attention of many academics. The book has been understood by some as a conceited response to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center of September 11, 2001. Although the novel undoubtedly shares some of the characteristics which are typical of 9/11 novels, approaching it exclusively from this perspective can lead to a very narrow reading because, as I aim to show in this paper, the message that the novel conveys goes beyond one of non-violence. This paper analyzes the novel from the combined perspectives of trauma studies and Camus’ existentialism and shows that the novel’s strength lies in both the portrayal of the emotional consequences of a collective trauma and the existentialist message that it conveys in the face of devastation, while also offering reverberations of our (preapocalyptic) times.

Effects of two post-reading tasks on English learners' use of vocabulary in writing

The present study investigated the relative effectiveness of two types of post-reading tasks for improving English learners’ vocabulary use in their writing. The two post-reading tasks examined were (a) narrow reading (reading a series of relevant texts to build topic-related vocabulary) and (b) sentence production (creating a sentence with a set of topic-related vocabulary). Sixty high school students were assigned to two experimental groups (narrow reading, sentence production) and a control group. After completing pre-writing and pre-target vocabulary tests, the experimental groups read a text and then completed one of the two post-reading tasks designed to draw their attention to target words. The control group only completed the tests. Upon completion of the tasks, they took the same writing and vocabulary tests. Their essays were analyzed in terms of vocabulary use via the lexical frequency profile (LFP). Results showed that the narrow reading and sentence production groups included higher-level target vocabulary in their compositions than the control group. In addition, the LFP of the narrow reading group significantly improved. It was found that the repeated encounters with thematically related vocabulary items through narrow reading appeared to be beneficial in improving learners’ use of higher-level vocabulary in writing.

The Role of Narrow Reading in L2 Learners’ Reading Rate and Text Comprehension

Researchers have suggested that reading thematically related texts, referred to as narrow reading, can allow second language (L2) learners to process textual information more efficiently due to the repetition of content and content-related words. Although the benefits of narrow reading have been proposed in the literature, these ideas have not been widely investigated empirically. This quasi-experimental study investigated whether narrow reading can facilitate English language learners’ reading rate and text comprehension. Sixty-eight Korean high school students from two intact classes were assigned to either a narrow or a comparison group. While the narrow reading group engaged in theme-based reading, the comparison group read about various topics. After treatment sessions, each participant took reading comprehension tests, and their reading rate was measured. All participants also completed an exit questionnaire on their experiences in the reading sessions. The findings revealed that topically linked narrow reading aided text comprehension of the topic. In addition, narrowly reading about one topic promoted L2 learners’ reading rate, even though the mean reading rate of the narrow reading group was not significantly higher than that of the comparison group both on the immediate and delayed post-tests. The study concludes with pedagogical implications for L2 reading instruction.

The Role of Narrow Reading in L2 Learners’ Reading Rate and Text Comprehension

The Role of Narrow Reading in L2 Learners’ Reading Rate and Text Comprehension

The Effect of Narrow Reading on L2 Learners’ Perceptions

The study investigated L2 learners’ perceptions of narrow reading. Thirty-two students finished four sets of graded readers organized by the same author with the same genre and same title, or random texts. After finishing each set of three graded readers, the students answered an eight-item questionnaire and wrote their reading feedback. Linear mixed effect models were used to analyse the data gathered from the questionnaire, taking the participants as the random effect variable, and four forms of text organization, reading time order, language proficiency, and the reading text sequence as fixed effect variables. The two 10-week treatments revealed that text organization and language proficiency have significant effects on the students’ perceptions, while reading time order and text sequences do not. Students’ written feedback indicated that all texts were interesting except the texts of the same titles which were boring for having to be read three times. Students’ written feedback provided valuable information for selecting reading texts. Implications of the study are discussed.

STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS IN USING NARROW READING AND NARROW LISTENING IN SPEAKING CLASS AT THIRD SEMESTER OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT UNIVERSITAS BANDAR LAMPUNG

This reseacrh describes the student’s perceptions in using narrow reading and narrow listening in speaking class at third semester of English Department Universitas Bandar Lampung. It is to find out the student’s perception about narrow reading and narrow listening whether those methods are effective or not to be used in speaking class, and whether those methods could help them in improving their speaking ability or not. The population of this research were the third semester students of English Department Universitas Bandar Lampung. The sample of this research was taken by using purposive sampling method. The instruments used for collecting the data were observation, questionnaire, and interview. The data analysis of this research was qualitative. The result of this research show that the students’ were very interested in learning and they gave a positive attitude and good response when those methods were implemented in their classes. From the questionnaire and the interview result, it showes that mostly they said that those methods can help them to speak as well as to understand what they should say when they should tell their topic in front of the class. Based on the research, it was found that the use of narrow reading and narrow listening in speaking class was effective and it was very useful and help the students in improving their speaking skill as well as help the students in achieving their goal in learning speaking skill. Therefore, it was suggested to use narrow reading and narrow as a media in teaching English generally and teaching speaking skill particularly.

Hans Kelsen on legal interpretation, legal cognition, and legal science

ABSTRACTAs the title suggests, I take up three motifs in the article. Legal science, on a narrower reading, examines the law qua object of legal cognition. Substituting legal cognition for traditional legal interpretation, Kelsen claims that legal cognition is constitutive of its object, a claim that requires a neo-Kantian transcendental argument for support. The rub comes with legal norms that fail to satisfy the conditions ostensibly imposed by legal cognition, for they, too, pass muster. They, too, are legally valid, raising serious questions about the status of the neo-Kantian dimension of Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law. I address these questions in my concluding remarks.

Equality, Proportionality, and the All-Affected Principle

The question of who ought to be included in the demos is distinct from, and yet related to, the question of how to distribute decisionmaking power among those who are included. Political equality is the most common answer to the former question within democratic theory. In democratic practice, it is usually realized through one person one vote. Within democratic theory, there is not as much agreement as to what the answer to the latter question should be. The answer that has attracted most attention within the scholarly literature is that all those who are affected should be included. However, prominent scholars have argued that this all-affected principle is incompatible with political equality and therefore an unattractive answer to the question of inclusion. This article challenges this critique and argues that it is based on a misconception of political equality and a narrow reading of the all-affected principle.

Policing perception: postpolitics and the elusive everyday

ABSTRACTThis piece argues that urban postpolitical scholarship should pay greater attention to the everyday lives of urban residents and the everyday spaces of contemporary cities. Recent debates in urban geography have sought in part to expand narrow readings of Jacques Rancière’s politics in particular, creating space for broader and more inclusive analyses of resistance to depoliticizing regimes. This article builds on this work, extending these critiques by suggesting that the quotidian is the most pressing analytical avenue for such expansion. The piece builds on ethnographic and archival fieldwork conducted in Mexico City between 2014 and 2017, demonstrating the dependence of a postpolitical regime on the maintenance of particular relations in the everyday spaces and interactions of the city, and some of the salient ways these trends are experienced, reproduced, and contested by the city’s residents.

The German debate on male circumcision and Habermas' model of post-secularity.

This paper considers Habermas' model of a post-secular political order in the light of the debate on male circumcision that arose in Germany after a court ruled that male circumcision was an unjustifiable act of bodily harm. Central to this model is the idea that religious reasons can only become effective in central legal institutions when they are translated into secular reasons. My paper demonstrates that there are two distinguishable readings of this proviso. On the one hand, there is a broad reading according to which it is only necessary to reach a conclusion that is in line with the democratic principle stating that all citizens can be regarded as co-legislators even if non-generalizable value orientations might then shape the interpretation of fundamental rights (in the case of circumcision, the right to bodily integrity). On the other hand, a truly secular (narrow) reading would avoid the inclusion of non-generalizable value orientations. The debate on circumcision demonstrates that these two interpretations lead to different and conflicting modes of justification. The broad reading allows for a justification of male circumcision, whereas the narrow reading makes such a justification unlikely. In addition, the filtering function of the proviso is weakened in a broad reading.

AN INTEGRATION: NARROW READING TO WEST’S GENERAL SERVICE LIST FOR VOCABULARY ACQUISITION FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL LEVEL

Attempting to consider an SLA issues on vocabulary acquisition in middle school level, this article aimed to investigate the difference in score on vocabulary test of experimental and control group; and to find the effect size of the narrow reading integrated to West’s GSL intervention on students’ English language acquisition. Forty-five middle school students in two classes were assigned in two groups, with 22 students in the experimental group and 23 students in the control group. In addition to a traditional curriculum for both groups, a five-meeting narrow reading on narrative text, fable, which was integrated to West’s GSL was conducted for the experimental group by encouraging students to read using L1 gloss which was derived from GSL, consulting different meaning in some multi-definition content words and discussing on vocabulary exercise. In contrast, the control group did not engage in any narrow reading program but a general English course. A pretest and posttest of both groups were employed to collect data. The findings of the study showed that the intervention has a large effect size on student’s SLA. The experimental group exhibited significantly better reading comprehension, acquired new vocabulary and word knowledge than the control group. Therefore, applying narrow reading integrated to West’s GSL into EFL class helps improve students’ word knowledge in terms of recognizing word meaning, identifying part of speech and producing a sentence.

Scope marking and prosody in Hungarian

The paper presents an analysis of the results of three perception experiments that aimed to investigate the scope of postverbal quantifiers in Hungarian. These experiments found no correlations between wide vs. narrow scope readings of postverbal quantifiers and their stressed vs. unstressed pronunciations, contradicting a widespread assumption. In addition to the dominance of scope interpretation that corresponds to the linear order of constituents, previously unnoticed effects of the syntactic or thematic role of the postverbal quantifier and of the type of preverbal operator in the same sentence were found. These might indicate a more complex interaction of several factors or point to a greater role of extra-grammatical effects in determining the scope of quantifiers in Hungarian than previously assumed. The paper also addresses methodological issues that arise in the course of eliciting scope judgments experimentally.

Parliamentary Disqualification for Financial Conflicts

When should holding a pecuniary interest bar someone from election to or service in parliament? In ousting Senator Day for breaching s 44(v) of the Constitution, the High Court overruled a long-standing narrow interpretation of that potentially unruly provision. This article seeks to situate the law involved in both its litigational history and in the broader policy question of managing MPs’ financial interests. Hovering behind all this is the problem of the inflexibility of constitutionalising barriers to election and parliamentary service (a problem which engulfed the Australian Parliament in 2017). Section 44(v) bars, from being elected or sitting in the Australian Parliament, anyone who: has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any agreement with the Public Service of the Commonwealth [otherwise than as a member of a company of 25 or more people]. The article is structured chronologically. It moves from the narrow reading of s 44(v) by Barwick CJ in Re Webster (1975), on to the broader reading of the High Court in Re Day (No 2) (2017) and the procedurally strangled claim in Alley v Gillespie. It concludes with reflections on the value of a hard but fuzzy constitutional disqualification like s 44(v). Given the rise of pecuniary interest registers and the unfairness of applying disqualification rules to mere candidates, a better, more flexible approach is advocated here. Such an approach would see Parliament set and audit rules about the dealings of serving MPs with the Commonwealth of Australia. That process would involve the assistance of an independent agency such as an Integrity Commissioner. MPs would be suspended, not disqualified, whilst they dealt with any significant conflicts of interest.

"Like a Withered Tree, Stripped of Its Foliage": What the Roe Court Missed and Why It Matters

While it would certainly be too much to argue that a fuller exposition of the multi-dimensional origins of the nation’s criminal abortion laws by the Roe Court would have somehow prevented the emergence of the “pro-woman” antiabortion position, I nonetheless contend that if the Roe Court had exposed the gendered origins of our criminal abortion laws, the deep paternalism of the woman-protective approach may well have attracted more critical attention than it did prior to 2007 when the Supreme Court’s embrace of the abortion regret trope served to focus greater public and scholarly attention on this development. In short, this historic knowledge serves to sharpen our understanding of the longstanding link between the regulation of abortion and the effort to control women’s reproductive bodies, thus making it clear that antiabortion activism has never simply been about protecting the fetus. This Article proceeds in three parts. In Part I, we take a close look at the physicians’ mid-nineteenth century campaign to criminalize abortion. Specifically, we will focus on 1) the launch of their campaign; 2) the physicians’ framing of their effort as a “bold and manly” appeal; 3) their focus on preserving and protecting women’s purity and divinely ordained maternal role; 4) their claim that abortion was rife with injurious impacts as embodied in the view that it marked the uterus with a “stamp of derangement”; and 5) the antiabortion physicians’ claim that abortion, as practiced by white, middle-class women, threatened the racial character of the nation. In Part II, we turn to the Court’s landmark decision in Roe v. Wade. Zeroing in on its examination of the historical underpinnings of the nation’s criminal abortion laws, we first take a look at what the Roe Court said about this history, followed by a discussion of what the Court missed—namely, its elision of the gendered and racialized tropes that permeated the physicians’ antiabortion campaign. In Part III, we examine the late twentieth-century emergence of the “pro-woman/pro-life” antiabortion argument. After consideration of the traditional fetal-centric “pro-life” position, we turn to the origins of this new frame. This discussion is followed by a comparison of the core themes of the nineteenth-century physicians’ campaign with the contemporary woman- protective antiabortion position. These themes include: 1) that abortion is incompatible with women’s true nature, 2) that meaningful consent is an impossibility, and 3) that abortion is inherently harmful to women. In conclusion, this Article circles back to the Roe Court’s narrow reading of the physicians’ campaign to argue that if the Roe Court had engaged in a more robust reading of this history, the gendered paternalism of the contemporary “pro-woman/pro-life” position would have been rendered far more visible as a discredited approach to pressing women into motherhood.

Contesting Automated Decisions: Limits to the Right to Human Intervention in Automated Decision-Making

Concerns about “black box” machine learning algorithms have led many data protection laws and regulations to establish a right to human intervention on decision-making supported by artificial intelligence. Such interventions provide data subjects with means to protect their rights, freedoms, and legitimate interests, either as a bare minimum requirement for data processing or as a central norm governing decision-aiding artificial intelligence. In this paper, I present contestability by design as an approach to two kinds of issues with current legal implementations of the right to human intervention. The first kind is the uncertainty about what kind of decision should be covered by this right: while a narrow reading of rules such as GDPR Article 22(3) would include all sorts of fully-automated decisions, I show how a broader interpretation can provide more effective protection for data subjects against side-effects of automated decision-making. The second class of issues ensues from practical effects, or the lack thereof, of this right to intervention: even within a clear conceptual framework, data subjects might still lack the information they need to the concrete exercise of their right, or the human intervention itself might introduce biases and limitations that result in undesirable outcomes. After discussing how those effects can be identified and measured, I then explore how the proper protection of the rights of data subjects is possible only if the possibility of contesting decisions based solely on automated processing is not an afterthought, but instead a requirement at each stage of an artificial intelligence system’s lifecycle.

Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Emilia Pardo Bazán ed. by Margot Versteeg and Susan Walter

Reviewed by: Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Emilia Pardo Bazán ed. by Margot Versteeg and Susan Walter Gabrielle Miller MARGOT VERSTEEG AND SUSAN WALTER (eds.). Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Emilia Pardo Bazán. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2017. 237 pp. In this ambitious volume, Margot Versteeg and Susan Walter assemble an expansive array of approaches to and methods of teaching the abundant and varied texts of Emilia Pardo Bazán at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The two-part volume is divided between a succinct yet thorough “materials” section and a lengthier “approaches” section, which boasts twenty-three short essays by established scholars in the field. The result is an invaluable pedagogical tool for specialists and non-specialists alike that convincingly demonstrates Pardo Bazán’s continued relevance and appeal to twenty-first century students of both Spanish and comparative literatures and cultures. The goals of this volume are twofold: to bring the Galician-Spanish author to a wider audience, advocating for her inclusion through translation in comparative, transatlantic and European literature courses; and to encourage instructors to push beyond traditional classroom treatments of Pardo Bazán, which tend to frame her as a naturalist author and accordingly privilege somewhat narrow readings of particular canonical texts. The impressive compilation of bibliographic materials provided at the beginning of the volume promotes a considerable breadth of pedagogical approaches to Pardo Bazán that take into account the diverse needs of students and teachers alike. Accordingly, Versteeg and Walter provide a helpful overview of biographies about Pardo Bazán as well as an annotated account of collections and editions of her works in Spanish and English. They also include a formidable literary review of scholarship on both Pardo Bazán and nineteenth-century Spain. The essay contributions that comprise the second part of this volume, meanwhile, represent a wide range of critical perspectives and offer truly innovative approaches, ideas and methods for incorporating Pardo Bazán’s works into the classroom. The essays are arranged thematically into five groups that roughly parallel the critical approaches to Pardo Bazán’s works identified by Versteeg and Walter in their introduction: gendered perspectives; science and medicine; nation, empire and geopolitics; realism, naturalism and literary connections; and interdisciplinary approaches. While contributors present critical claims about Pardo Bazán’s writings, every essay foregrounds the teaching of her texts. In the first section, Bieder contextualizes Pardo Bazán’s feminism while Isabel Clúa demonstrates how the Galician author’s fiction may be used to illustrate gendered and feminist theories. Nalbone shows how Pardo Bazán’s short stories and newspaper articles elucidate women’s subordinate position in the Spanish fin de siècle while Erwin details a graduate course that introduces students to masculinity studies through her novels. Missing is perhaps an essay dedicated to an ecofeminist approach to teaching Pardo Bazán, given that Versteeg and Walter identify ecofeminism as “[t]he newest trend in gendered approaches” to her work (25). In the second section, Charnon-Deustch analyzes newspaper articles and short stories that demonstrate Pardo Bazán’s ambivalent stance on issues of race while Pratt draws out the author’s often contradictory views on science and modern technology. Sutherland’s description of her project-based course foregrounds the medical discourses of Un viaje de novios (1881) through student participation in online archival research. In the third section, Tolliver proposes essay/short story [End Page 83] pairings to examine the Spanish author’s colonial/imperialist attitudes while Ingram employs Pardo Bazán’s cookbooks to discuss issues of gender, class consciousness and national identity in the classroom. Miguélez-Carballeira reads Pardo Bazán through a postcolonial theoretical lens that uncovers an Orientalizing narratorial attitude toward the Galician rural poor. González Arias arrives at a different conclusion, emphasizing Pardo Bazán’s engagement with the Galician community and reading her rural short stories as anthropological accounts. Gold opens the fourth section of the volume with an essay fundamental for instructors addressing Pardo Bazán’s approach to literary realism. Noteworthy chapters by Dupont and McKenna outline different approaches to incorporating Pardo Bazán’s...

Mass Murder: American Unexceptionalism

Is mass murder exceptionally American? If so, can America’s relatively laissez-faire gun control laws be the cause? Could a narrow reading of the Second Amendment qualify as “reasonable” or “rational” because of the social costs of this apparent American exceptionalism?

RESTORE AMERICA'S WIRE ACT: CLOUD KILLER?

RESTORE AMERICA'S WIRE ACT: CLOUD KILLER?

How cosmopolitanism reduces conflict: A broad reading of Kant’s third ingredient for peace

Kant’s theory of peace has been reinterpreted under one of the most influential research programs of our times: The so-called democratic peace theory. In particular, the third ingredient of Kant’s “recipe” for peace —the cosmopolitan right to visit—has been recognized as a powerful and effective instrument to reduce militarized interstate conflicts. In the hands of political scientists, however, this ingredient has often become nothing more than a set of rules for securing and facilitating international trade and economic interdependence. This article argues that this narrow reading mistakes international trade as the essence of the third definitive article. Kant sees economic interdependence as a means to realize what cosmopolitan right is truly about, that is, the affirmation of a set of rules for protecting humans qua humans, the creation of communal bonds among individuals beyond national or group loyalties, and the promotion of a global moral conscience modeled on the natural rights of man. An accurate understanding of cosmopolitan right is essential to avoid the popular - yet mistaken - idea that Kant sees progress towards peace as possible without individuals’ and peoples’ moral progress.