Thematic Text Research Articles

Unbounded place meanings and embodied place identities for conservation volunteers in Scottsdale, Arizona

Following Williams' (2014) call for a more thoughtful approach to the study of place meaning, the present study employs a phenomenological research paradigm to elicit deeply personal meanings formed through conservation volunteerism. A photovoice protocol (n = 18) and life history interviews (n = 53) explore meaningful places for volunteer “stewards” in Scottsdale, Arizona's McDowell Sonoran Conservancy. Inductive thematic text analysis reveals how these volunteers form identity-expressive meanings that transcend and traverse geographic place scales. Results suggest that the concept of place identity is more than a sub-construct of place attachment, and requires further theorizing as a phenomenologically-embodied experience. Nonprofits and municipalities can learn from the organization's success in fostering an environmental steward identity as a means of community building.

Thematic Structure in Reading Comprehension Texts in English Textbooks

Theme choice in academic texts plays an important role to the reader’s comprehension as it facilitates the coherence and cohesiveness of the text. However, research on thematic structure in academic settings in developing world has still received less attention. This paper reports findings on the use of thematic structure in four English textbooks in a book series used in tertiary education in the Vietnamese context. It employed functional grammar as the main theoretical framework to the analysis of different types of themes including simple themes, multiple themes and clausal themes in the 24 reading comprehension texts across four levels, specifically elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate and upper-intermediate. The analysis revealed three main findings. First, simple themes, which include topical/unmarked and marked themes, were used most across levels, while multiple themes took the second position, and clausal themes were used the least. Second, the number of multiple and clausal themes increased in accordance with the textbook levels from low to high, though that of simple themes demonstrated a decreasing pattern. Third, among components of multiple themes, the frequency of experiential and textual themes was significantly high in all four books, compared with that of interpersonal themes. It is concluded that a variety of theme types were employed in reading texts across levels, contributing to the coherent organisation of the texts.

Capital Budgeting Theory and Practice: A review and agenda for future research

The main purpose of this research was to delineate unearth lacunae in the extant capital budgeting theory and practice during the last two decades and ipso facto become springboard for future scholarships. It has analyses of various approaches, such as Web of science search and iCat search were used to locate research papers published during the last twenty years. Four criteria have been applied in selection of research papers: be an empirical study, published in English language, appeared in peer reviewed journal and full text research papers. These papers were collected from multiple databases including OneFile (GALE), SciVerse ScienceDirect (Elsevier), Informa - Taylor & Francis (CrossRef), Wiley (CrossRef), Business (JSTOR), Arts & Sciences (JSTOR), Proquest ,MEDLINE (NLM), and Wiley Online Library. Search parameters covered capital budgeting, capital budgeting decision, capital budgeting theory, capital budgeting practices, capital budgeting methods, capital budgeting models, capital budgeting tools, capital budgeting techniques, capital budgeting process and investment decision. Thematic text analyses have been explored to analyses them.
 Keywords: Capital budgeting theory and practices, capital budgeting tools for incorporating risk, discount rate

Trustingly bewildered. How first-year medical students make sense of their learning experience in a traditional, preclinical curriculum

ABSTRACTBackground: Traditional preclinical curricula based on memorization of scientific facts constitute learning environments which may negatively influence both factual understanding and professional identity development in medical students. Little is known of how students themselves experience and interpret such educational milieus.Objective: To investigate first-year medical students’ view of the physician role, and their perception of the relevance and quality of teaching in a science-based preclinical curriculum.Design: Focus group interviews with thematic text analysis.Results: Students portrayed the good physician as communicative, humble, and open, combining biomedical knowledge and moral strength. When asked how medical school supported the development of such characteristics, two partly contradictory discourses emerged. The critical discourse identified decontextualized knowledge, poor pedagogy, lack of critical thinking, and contact with faculty. Students who voiced critical comments also articulated trust that the system would provide the competence they needed, that basic biological knowledge is needed before clinical practice, and that being on your own conveys freedom and responsibility, and helps you grow up.Conclusion: Trust in the educational system, within a substandard learning environment, created cognitive dissonance that students resolved through rationalization, whereby they negated that factual overload and lack of relevance, reflection, and personal feedback was problematic. The cost of this mechanism is possibly that inferior teaching is perceived as normal, necessary, and good enough. If so, these future physicians’ ability to critically evaluate and create quality in medical education and practice, may be weakened.

A Systemic Functional Linguistics Analysis of Cohesion and Coherence in Written Nursing Care Reports

This study analyses 25 nursing care reports written by nursing students majoring in the International Class of Nursing Diploma at a higher education institution in Indonesia. The main research focus is to assess the cohesion and coherence of nursing care reports in relation to their grades. The Systemic Functional Linguistics framework, with a focus on the textual metafunction, serves as a tool for analyzing cohesion, Thematic structures and Thematic development of the texts. The analysis of text cohesion revealed that all texts predominantly used lexical cohesion and reference to build internal ties within the texts. Reiteration of the same lexical items throughout the texts and heavy use of personal pronouns indicated the exploitation of these systems. In terms of coherence via Thematic structure, it was found that textual Themes were predominantly used. All the texts relied heavily on unmarked Themes, with no evidence indicating a proportional use of marked and unmarked Themes. In terms of Thematic development, Theme reiteration was the main method of text development for all texts. However, a few instances of Zig-zag Thematic development were found in texts in the higher graded categories. None of the texts used multiple Rheme patterns as an alternative method of text development.

A Bayesian framework for large-scale geo-demand estimation in on-line retailing

Time-specific geo-demand distribution estimation of the products in the catalog is the fundamental guiding analytics for inventory allocation in any major online retailer’s supply chain operations. Although geography-specific historical sales data is available for learning the geo-demand distributions, it is extremely sparse from a view of a product $$\times $$ demand zone $$\times $$ time data cube (tensor). As a result, we have to estimate the entries in a large-scale tensor with limited amount of training data. The sheer scale of the problem makes the task challenging to solve within a limited time frame. We formulate this problem in the spirit of text theme classification and view the geo-demand distributions as underlying probability distributions that govern the historical sales observations. We develop a Bayesian framework based on mixture of Multinomials for estimating the time-dependent geo-demand distributions in a collaborative manner. As a by-product, the solution provides guidance on grouping the products by their geo-demand patterns. We also provide practical solutions to counter various scalability issues. Benchmark results are provided in comparison to basic same-class methods and a state-of-the-art R package.

A Systemic Functional Study of Thematic Organization in the English Writing of Korean College Students

Employing Halliday’s (1994) Systemic Functional Grammar approach, the present study examines the Korean EFL college students’ way of organizing thematic structures in written English texts, with special focus on the influence of learner proficiency. A total of 150 learners’ argumentative essays consisting of 50 essays each from three levels of learner groups were compared with 50 essays from its native counterparts, with inquiry focused on the thematic selection, usage of various theme features, and semantic distribution of topical themes. The results show that textual themes, multiple themes, and first person pronouns as topical themes are highly overused in the learner texts compared to the native essays. Overall, the level of proficiency significantly affects learners’ choices regarding thematic structures although the enhanced proficiency does not involve the improvement in all aspects of thematic organization. From these findings, it is suggested that the EFL writing pedagogy should pay greater attention to the effective use of thematic organization as a means of enhancing textual coherence and embrace level-specific instructions.

THEME AND THEMATIC PROGRESSION OF UNDERGRADUATE THESIS: INVESTIGATING MEANING MAKING IN ACADEMIC WRITING

This study attempts to investigate the choice of theme and thematic progression deployed in one of the considerably best undergraduate theses in a university in Indonesia. The choice of theme and thematic progression is constrained by the audience of a particular culture; therefore, the process of meaning making is culturally situated. The university, in effects, has its standard for grading academic writing, representing a culture that shapes meaning making processes. This study particularly focuses on how theme and thematic progression contributes to making meanings to meet the demands of the institution. This study employs a descriptive-qualitative research design embracing the characteristics of a case study approach. The data obtained from the best undergraduate student’s thesis were analyzed from the perspective of Halliday’s theme system and its progression. The analysis shows that the three types of theme: topical, interpersonal and textual themes, were realized in the thesis following the conventional features of good academic writings. The topical theme dominantly occupies the theme system chosen for the thesis. This study confirms that a good academic text shares its characteristics across cultures, suggesting that the teaching of academic writing in one culture could refer to the characteristics of good academic texts in other cultures.

Exploring Textual Metafunction in Selected Nigerian News Reports: Linguistic Description and Interpretation

This article intends to provide a linguistic analysis of some Nigerian news reports. It is carried out with a view to finding out how news reporters use the language to organize their text so as to convey their message. The paper adopts the textual meaning approach advanced by Halliday (1978; 1985) and detailed by Eggins (2004). Two texts are selected purposely and patterns of Themes and cohesion have been studied. The analyses show that the two texts display high percentage of unmarked topical and textual Themes. Then, both marked Theme and dependent clauses as Themes are less predominant but they are used to draw more attention on some aspects of the message provided. The cohesive analysis has revealed that anaphoric reference chains and features of lexical cohesion have made it easy to understand the meaning conveyed by the two texts. From these analyses, it has been pointed out that the two texts, viewed from their context of production, have accounted for the release of some Chibok girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram, a terrorist and Islamic group based in the northeastern part of Nigeria, in the year 2014.

Attitudes to and implementation of video interpretation in a Danish hospital: A cross-sectional study.

Immigrants, refugees, and their descendants comprise 12% of Denmark's population. Some of these people do not speak or understand Danish well enough to communicate with the staff in a healthcare setting and therefore need interpreter services. Interpretation through video conferencing equipment (video interpretation) is frequently used and creates a forum where the interpreter is not physically present in the medical consultation. The aim of this study was to investigate the attitudes to and experiences with video interpretation among charge nurses in a Danish university hospital. An electronic questionnaire was sent to 99 charge nurses. The questionnaire comprised both closed and open-ended questions. The answers were analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic text condensation. Of the 99 charge nurses, 78 (79%) completed the questionnaire. Most charge nurses, 21 (91%) of the daily/monthly users, and 21 (72%) of the monthly/yearly users, said that video interpretation increased the quality of their conversations with patients. A total of 19 (24%) departments had not used video interpretation within the last 12 months. The more the charge nurses used video interpretation, the more satisfied they were. Most of the charge nurses using video interpretation expressed satisfaction with the technology and found it easy to use. Some charge nurses are still content to allow family or friends to interpret. To reach its full potential, video interpretation technology has to be reliable and easily accessible for any consultation, including at the bedside.

Contemporary Migration Literature in German and English: A Comparative Study

Contemporary Migration Literature in German and English: A Comparative Study

INTERPRETING THE READABILITY IN SIMPLIFIED EDITIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE FROM A THEMATIC PERSPECTIVE: A CASE STUDY ON ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

Readability formulas developed on the foundation of the structuralist approach have been proven capable of providing satisfactory indexes about the readability in most cases, but cannot explain “causes of difficulty or... how to write readably” (Klare, 1974, p. 62). This paper will explore the thematic structure under the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics as an explanation perspective for the achievement of readability in simplified editions of children’s literature. The study is based on a comparison between the original and two simplified editions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in terms of Theme composition and Theme status, respectively. The two adaptations have provided explicit conjunctions and an explicit identity chain, respectively, as the major tool to assist young readers with reading. Green (1865) has foregrounded the tactic relationship between clauses by adding Textual Theme back to the clause and by revising the clausal order in complexes. Swan (1988) has omitted most Textual Themes either on purpose or along with the deletion of plots, and rewritten marked Themes into unmarked, modifying the development of text into a linear pattern and converging the clausal order in text towards that in spoken language.

Latent semantic analysis of the FOMC statements

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the content of the statements that are released by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) after its meetings, identify the main textual associative patterns in the statements and examine their impact on the US treasury market.Design/methodology/approachLatent semantic analysis (LSA), a language processing technique that allows recognition of the textual associative patterns in documents, is applied to all the statements released by the FOMC between 2003 and 2014, so as to identify the main textual “themes” used by the Committee in its communication to the public. The importance of the main identified “themes” is tracked over time, before examining their (collective and individual) effect on treasury market yield volatility via time-series regression analysis.FindingsWe find that FOMC statements incorporate multiple, multifaceted and recurring textual themes, with six of them being able to characterize most of the communicated monetary policy in the authors’ sample period. The themes are statistically significant in explaining the variation in three-month, two-year, five-year and ten-year treasury yields, even after controlling for monetary policy uncertainty and the concurrent economic outlook.Research limitations/implicationsThe main research implication of the authors’ study is that the LSA can successfully identify the most economically significant themes underlying the Fed’s communication, as the latter is expressed in monetary policy statements. The authors feel that the findings of the study would be strengthened if the analysis was repeated using intra-day (tick-by-tick or five-minute) data on treasury yields.Social implicationsThe authors’ findings are consistent with the notion that the move to “increased transparency” by the Fed is important and meaningful for financial and capital markets, as suggested by the significant effect that the most important identified textual themes have on treasury yield volatility.Originality/valueThis paper makes a timely contribution to a fairly recent stream of research that combines specific textual and statistical techniques so as to conduct content analysis. To the best of their knowledge, the authors’ study is the first that applies the LSA to the statements released by the FOMC.

Communication between oncologists and lymphoma survivors during follow-up consultations: A qualitative analysis

ABSTRACTCancer survivors often experience both short- and long-term challenges as a result of their cancer treatment. Many patients report feeling “lost in transition” following cancer treatment. The oncologist plays a key role in helping the patient to transition to survivorship. The purpose of this paper is to provide a descriptive understanding of the clinical care delivered during follow-up visits for lymphoma patients transitioning from active therapy into survivorship. We used thematic text analysis to identify themes in transcripts of audio recordings of 21 physicians and their patients in follow-up visits within 3 years of completing lymphoma treatment. Conversations between oncologists and patients during follow-up visits addressed a variety of themes, including specific health concerns, follow-up care, health promotion, prior treatment and test results, overall health status, emotional communication and affective tone, post-treatment rehabilitation, discussions occurring in the patient's physical examination, and social issues. However, the frequency with which these themes were discussed varied. In addition, there did not appear to be a consistent framework for these visits. The varied nature of the follow-up visits analyzed in this study suggests the need for increased structure in survivorship-care consultations.

Mood Structure Analysis and Thematisation Patterns in Niyi Osundare’s “My Lord, Tell Me Where to Keep Your Bribe”

One of the theories that seek to unravel how the human language functions is the Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG). SFG achieves its uniqueness by seeking to develop a theory about language as a social process and an analytical methodology for detailed and systematic description of language patterns (Eggins, 2004). Given its suitability for the analysis of any text, SFG was used in this study for the analysis of the poem “My Lord, Tell Me Where to Keep Your Bribe”. Though SFG shows how three different strands of meanings (ideational, interpersonal and textual) are expressed in the structures of clauses, the focus of analysis was on the grammar of textual and interpersonal meanings, hence the thematic and Mood structure analyses of the poem. The thematisation patterns identified in the poem included the use of textual themes (for inter-clause cohesive purposes), interpersonal themes (for the assignment of Mood labels to clauses) and topical themes, which altogether enabled the poet bring into thematic prominence the major issues of worry to an average Nigerian who had always thought judges and the courts of law should be immune from corruption. The Mood structure analysis showed the poet’s conscious choices of the indicative Mood, with alternating options of interrogative and declarative clause types. Overall, the SFG-based analysis showed how the poet made conscious paradigmatic choices and arranged them into linear (syntagmatic) structures to make the different meanings conveyed in the poem.

Rime of a metal mariner

Abstract Heavy metal has drawn inspiration from literature almost from the genre’s ­inception. Iron Maiden has fully embraced literary allusion and adaptation in its songwriting approach. This article examines one of the band’s most ambitious adaptations, ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1984) and the unique ways the band adapts Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem. Lyrically, songwriter Steve Harris conflates both Coleridge’s poem and subsequent glossing, joining the two elements to present the tale. Additionally, the members of Iron Maiden compose a lengthy song with numerous movements, the different musical themes working with the tale’s textual themes to deepen and complicate the adaptation, interpreting not just the words but also the underlying moods and philosophical and narrative themes of Coleridge’s texts in the song.

Treatment decision making in early-stage papillary thyroid cancer.

The purpose of this study was to develop an in-depth understanding of papillary microcarcinoma (PMC) patients' decision-making process when offered options of surgery and active surveillance. Fifteen PMC patients and 6 caregivers participated in either a focus group or individual interview. Focus groups were segmented by patients' treatment choice. Primary themes were identified in transcripts using thematic text analysis. Four themes emerged from the surgery subsample: (1) Decision to undergo thyroidectomy quickly and with a sense of urgency; (2) Perception of PMC as a potentially life-threatening disease; (3) Fear of disease progression and unremitting uncertainty with active surveillance; and (4) Surgery as a means of control and potential cure. Three themes emerged from the active surveillance subsample: (1) View of PMC as a common, indolent, and low-risk disease; (2) Concerns about adjusting to life without a thyroid and becoming reliant on hormone replacement medication; and (3) Openness to reconsidering surgery over the long run. Two themes were identified that were shared by participants from both subsamples: (1) Deep level of trust and confidence in physician and cancer center; and (2) Use of physician and internet as primary sources of disease and treatment-related information. Several factors influenced participants' treatment choice, with similarities and differences noted between surgery and active surveillance subsamples. Many of the emergent themes are consistent with research on decision making among localized prostate cancer patients. Findings suggest that participants from both PMC treatment subsamples are motivated to reduce illness and treatment-related uncertainty.

Distant reading the history of Swedish film politics in 4500 governmental SOU reports

Abstract Using computational methods, digitized collections and archives can today be scrutinized in their entirety. By distant reading and topic modeling one particular collection – 4500 digitized Swedish Governmental Official Reports (SOU) from 1922 to 1991 – this article gives a new archival perspective of the history of Swedish film politics and policy-making. We examine different probabilistic topics related to film (and media) that the algorithm within the topic modeling software Mallet extracted from the immense text corpora of all these Official Reports. Topic modeling is a computational method to study themes in texts by accentuating words that tend to co-occur and together create different topics. Basically, it is a research tool for the discovery of hidden semantic structures, exploring a collection through the underlying topics that run through it. Hence, our article captures a number of film discourses and trends within the SOU material. In conclusion, we argue that topic modeling should be recognized as a method and research aid for gathering an overview of a major material; as a way to pose new and unforeseen research questions; and as a kind of computational support that makes it possible to apprehend major patterns more or less impossible to detect through a traditional archival investigation.

Vernacular Eschatology or Eschatology in the Vernacular? The Representation of Death in Fourteenth-Century Vernacular Brabantine Writings

The goal of this article is to examine the theme of death in a representative sample of Middle Dutch texts from Brabant in the broader context of the Latinitas, in order to stimulate a discussion on the significance of eschatological themes in vernacular texts. It will become apparent that it is not possible to draw a sharp distinction between the treatment of death in the vernacular corpus analysed for this case study and the broader Latin tradition. This finding is then contextualised within the scholarly concept of ‘vernacular theology’, for it supports the recent notion that the significance of vernacular theology is in communicating theological knowledge in all its variety in the vernacular. The extended discussion of eschatological themes in vernacular writings therefore should be seen as being closely connected to the general intellectual and religious emancipation of the laity in the late Middle Ages.

Courageous Voices: Using Text Sets to Inspire Change

AbstractThis article describes how one teacher immersed her sixth graders in an intensive three‐week thematic text set unit centered on courage. Her aim was to help students discover and take action on issues that mattered to them as they learned important literacy skills and strategies. Students engaged in significant reading, writing, and discussion as they developed and enacted action plans to create positive change. Intentionally designed instruction moved from teacher‐led whole‐class lessons on the same texts to student‐led small‐group/individual learning with multiple texts. Texts included a variety of formats (e.g., picture books, songs, articles, poems) from varied reading levels.