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Teaching English for Academic Purposes: Studies from an English-medium University (English Language Education #14)
by Rachael Ruegg Clay WilliamsThis book focuses on appropriate English for Academic Purposes instructional concepts and methods in the Japanese context. It investigates a variety of pedagogical techniques, addressing the fundamental academic English skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing – as well as assessment and materials development. All the research included was conducted in Japanese university settings, thus shedding new light on the effective implementation of EAP teaching and learning activities with Japanese learners of English. This book is of interest to anyone working in an EAP context at the secondary or tertiary level, especially those which include Japanese learners.
Computational Linguistics: 15th International Conference of the Pacific Association for Computational Linguistics, PACLING 2017, Yangon, Myanmar, August 16–18, 2017, Revised Selected Papers (Communications in Computer and Information Science #781)
by Kôiti Hasida Win Pa PaThis book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference of the Pacific Association for Computational Linguistics, PACLING 2017, held in Yangon, Myanmar, in August 2017.The 28 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 50 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on semantics and semantic analysis; statistical machine translation; corpora and corpus-based language processing; syntax and syntactic analysis; document classification; information extraction and text mining; text summarization; text and message understanding; automatic speech recognition; spoken language and dialogue; speech pathology; speech analysis.
Language And Literature In A Glocal World (PDF)
by Sandhya Rao MehtaThis collection of critical essays investigates the intersections of the global and local in literature and language. Exploring the connections that exist between global forms of knowledge and their local, regional applications, this volume explores multiple ways in which literature is influenced, and in turn, influences, movements and events across the world and how these are articulated in various genres of world literature, including the resultant challenges to translation. This book also explores the way in which languages, especially English, transform and continue to be reinvented in its use across the world. Using perspectives from sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and semiotics, this volume focuses on diasporic literature, travel literature, and literature in translation from different parts of the world to study the ways in which languages change and grow as they are sought to be ‘owned’ by the communities which use them in different contexts. Emphasizing on interdisciplinary studies and methodologies, this collection centralizes both research that theorizes the links between the local and the global and that which shows, through practical evidence, how the local and global interact in new and challenging ways.
Language and Literature in a Glocal World
by Sandhya Rao MehtaThis collection of critical essays investigates the intersections of the global and local in literature and language. Exploring the connections that exist between global forms of knowledge and their local, regional applications, this volume explores multiple ways in which literature is influenced, and in turn, influences, movements and events across the world and how these are articulated in various genres of world literature, including the resultant challenges to translation. This book also explores the way in which languages, especially English, transform and continue to be reinvented in its use across the world. Using perspectives from sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and semiotics, this volume focuses on diasporic literature, travel literature, and literature in translation from different parts of the world to study the ways in which languages change and grow as they are sought to be ‘owned’ by the communities which use them in different contexts. Emphasizing on interdisciplinary studies and methodologies, this collection centralizes both research that theorizes the links between the local and the global and that which shows, through practical evidence, how the local and global interact in new and challenging ways.
Mother-Tongue in Modern Japanese Literature and Criticism: Toward a New Polylingual Poetics
by Takayuki Yokota-MurakamiThis book examines how early research on literary activities outside national literatures such as émigré literature or diasporic literature conceived of the loss of ‘mother-tongue” as a tragedy, and how it perpetuated the ideology of national language by relying on the dichotomy of native language/foreign language. It transcends these limitations by examining modern Japanese literature and literary criticism through modern philology, the vernacularization movement, and Korean-Japanese literature. Through the insights of recent philosophical/linguistic theories, it reveals the political problems of the notion of “mother-tongue” in literary and linguistic theories and proposes strategies to realize genuinely “exophonic” and “translational” literature beyond the confines of nation. Examining the notion of “mother-tongue” in literature and literary criticism, the author deconstructs the concept and language itself as an apparatus of nation-state in order to imagine alternative literature, genuinely creolized and heterogeneous. Offering a comparative, transnational perspective on the significance of the mother tongue in contemporary literatures, this is a key read for students of modern Japanese literature, language and culture, as well as those interested in theories of translation and bilingualism.
Mother-Tongue in Modern Japanese Literature and Criticism: Toward a New Polylingual Poetics
by Takayuki Yokota-MurakamiThis book examines how early research on literary activities outside national literatures such as émigré literature or diasporic literature conceived of the loss of ‘mother-tongue” as a tragedy, and how it perpetuated the ideology of national language by relying on the dichotomy of native language/foreign language. It transcends these limitations by examining modern Japanese literature and literary criticism through modern philology, the vernacularization movement, and Korean-Japanese literature. Through the insights of recent philosophical/linguistic theories, it reveals the political problems of the notion of “mother-tongue” in literary and linguistic theories and proposes strategies to realize genuinely “exophonic” and “translational” literature beyond the confines of nation. Examining the notion of “mother-tongue” in literature and literary criticism, the author deconstructs the concept and language itself as an apparatus of nation-state in order to imagine alternative literature, genuinely creolized and heterogeneous. Offering a comparative, transnational perspective on the significance of the mother tongue in contemporary literatures, this is a key read for students of modern Japanese literature, language and culture, as well as those interested in theories of translation and bilingualism.
The Idea and Practice of Reading
by R. Joseph Ponniah Sathyaraj VenkatesanThis book addresses basic issues in language education and explores how reading, with a focus on meaning, contributes to the development of all aspects of language including vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and syntax. It departs from traditional methods and practices in language learning to investigate the potency of reading in improving language acquisition. The traditional practice in language classes to teach language skills explicitly through acquiring forms and structures of language is often less than successful, and teachers are gradually incorporating reading materials and practices into the curriculum. This book provides important inputs to language teachers and educators on the need to include reading as an idea and as a practice into the curriculum. Among other things, it explores the benefits of incidental learning of language properties such as vocabulary, syntax and grammar and gives adequate exposure to different types of reading strategies to promote reading among learners. It also exploits the possible transfer of L1 reading strategies and capabilities to L2 reading for language acquisition. In so doing, this book hopes to promote autonomous learning among L2 learners and guide readers in alternative strategies to solve comprehension problems.
Teaching Chinese Language in Singapore: Efforts and Possibilities
by Kay Cheng SohThis book presents the experiences of Chinese Language researchers in Singapore to Chinese Language researchers and teachers in other countries and regions, such as the USA, the UK and Asia, that are home to a large number of learners, young and old. As such, the innovative ideas it provides can be applied in practising teachers’ classrooms to promote more effective and efficient student learning. Beyond pedagogical innovations, the book also includes papers on the assessment of Chinese Language learning and teacher literacy – two areas that have been largely neglected by the Chinese Language research and teaching communities, not only here in Singapore, but also around the world. This book, the sequel to “Teaching Chinese Language in Singapore: Retrospect and Challenges” (Springer, 2016), is future-oriented, highlighting ideas that merit further attention from researchers and practitioners alike.
Researching and Teaching Second Language Speech Acts in the Chinese Context
by Cynthia LeeThis book contributes to the literature of interlanguage pragmatics by building an interface between researching and teaching speech acts in the Chinese context. It is written for researchers, language educators, classroom teachers and readers who are interested in interlanguage pragmatics research, acquisition and teaching, with particular reference to speech acts performed by Chinese learners of English, and their relationships with the learners’ first language and cultural concepts. It provides a more advanced understanding of the production and development of speech acts of Chinese learners of English from the cross-linguistic, cross-cultural, L1 and L2 developmental perspectives, drawing on relevant second language acquisition theoretical frameworks. It also recommends research-informed pedagogies that are applicable to other learners of English.
Literature, Memory, Hegemony: East/west Crossings
by Sharmani Patricia Gabriel Nicholas O. PaganThis edited book considers the need for the continued dismantling of conceptual and cultural hegemonies of ‘East’ and ‘West’ in the humanities and social sciences. Cutting across a wide range of literature, film and art from different contexts and ages, this collection seeks out the interpenetrating dynamic between both terms. Highlighting the inherent instability of East and West as oppositional categories, it focuses on the ‘crossings’ between East and West and this nexus as a highly-charged arena of encounter and collision. Drawing from varied literary contexts ranging from Victorian literature to Chinese literature and modern European literature, the book covers a diverse range of subject matter, including material drawn from psychoanalytic and postcolonial theory and studies related to race, religion, diaspora, and gender, and investigates topical social and political issues —including terrorism, nationalism, citizenship, the refugee crisis, xenophobia and otherness. Offering a framework to consider the salient questions of cultural, ideological and geographical change in our societies, this book is a key read for those working within world literary studies.
Literature, Memory, Hegemony (PDF)
by Sharmani Patricia Gabriel Nicholas O. PaganThis edited book considers the need for the continued dismantling of conceptual and cultural hegemonies of ‘East’ and ‘West’ in the humanities and social sciences. Cutting across a wide range of literature, film and art from different contexts and ages, this collection seeks out the interpenetrating dynamic between both terms. Highlighting the inherent instability of East and West as oppositional categories, it focuses on the ‘crossings’ between East and West and this nexus as a highly-charged arena of encounter and collision. Drawing from varied literary contexts ranging from Victorian literature to Chinese literature and modern European literature, the book covers a diverse range of subject matter, including material drawn from psychoanalytic and postcolonial theory and studies related to race, religion, diaspora, and gender, and investigates topical social and political issues —including terrorism, nationalism, citizenship, the refugee crisis, xenophobia and otherness. Offering a framework to consider the salient questions of cultural, ideological and geographical change in our societies, this book is a key read for those working within world literary studies.
Transnational Tourism Experiences at Gallipoli
by Jim McKayThis book offers a fresh account of the Anzac myth and the bittersweet emotional experience of Gallipoli tourists. Challenging the straightforward view of the Anzac obsession as a kind of nationalistic military Halloween, it shows how transnational developments in tourism and commemoration have created the conditions for a complex, dissonant emotional experience of sadness, humility, anger, pride and empathy among Anzac tourists. Drawing on the in-depth testimonies of travellers from Australia and New Zealand, McKay shines a new and more complex light on the history and cultural politics of the Anzac myth. As well as making a ground breaking, empirically-based intervention into the culture wars, this book offers new insights into the global memory boom and transnational developments in backpacker tourism, sports tourism and “dark” or “dissonant” tourism.
Neural Representations of Natural Language (Studies in Computational Intelligence #783)
by Lyndon White Roberto Togneri Wei Liu Mohammed BennamounThis book offers an introduction to modern natural language processing using machine learning, focusing on how neural networks create a machine interpretable representation of the meaning of natural language. Language is crucially linked to ideas – as Webster’s 1923 “English Composition and Literature” puts it: “A sentence is a group of words expressing a complete thought”. Thus the representation of sentences and the words that make them up is vital in advancing artificial intelligence and other “smart” systems currently being developed. Providing an overview of the research in the area, from Bengio et al.’s seminal work on a “Neural Probabilistic Language Model” in 2003, to the latest techniques, this book enables readers to gain an understanding of how the techniques are related and what is best for their purposes. As well as a introduction to neural networks in general and recurrent neural networks in particular, this book details the methods used for representing words, senses of words, and larger structures such as sentences or documents. The book highlights practical implementations and discusses many aspects that are often overlooked or misunderstood. The book includes thorough instruction on challenging areas such as hierarchical softmax and negative sampling, to ensure the reader fully and easily understands the details of how the algorithms function. Combining practical aspects with a more traditional review of the literature, it is directly applicable to a broad readership. It is an invaluable introduction for early graduate students working in natural language processing; a trustworthy guide for industry developers wishing to make use of recent innovations; and a sturdy bridge for researchers already familiar with linguistics or machine learning wishing to understand the other.
Diachronic Changes Underlying Synchronic Distribution: Scalar Inferences and Word Order (Studies in East Asian Linguistics)
by I-Hsuan ChenThis book deals with synchronic variation in Chinese through a diachronic lens, based on the evidence from a quantitative, longitudinal corpus study. Departing from the traditional analysis in diachronic changes in Chinese linguistics, the cognitive constructionist approach employed in this book is able to capture incremental changes by combining syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Topics such as word order, focus, scopes of quantifiers, information structure, and negation have been important issues in linguistics, but they are rarely integrated as a whole. The book makes their diachronic interactions available to the students and researchers in the fields of general and Chinese linguistics.
Proceedings of the Regional Conference on Science, Technology and Social Sciences: Social Sciences (RCSTSS #2016)
by Mohd Yusri Mohamad Noor Badli Esham Ahmad Mohd Rozaidi Ismail Hasnizawati Hashim Mohd Amli Abdullah BaharumThis book features papers addressing a broad range of topics including psychology, religious studies, natural heritage, accounting, business, communication, education and sustainable development. It serves as a platform for disseminating research findings by academicians of local, regional and global prominence, and acts as a catalyst to inspire positive innovations in the development of the region. It is also a significant point of reference for academicians and students. This collection of selected social sciences papers is based on the theme “Soaring Towards Research Excellence”, presented at the Regional Conference of Sciences, Technology and Social Sciences (RCSTSS 2016), organised bi-annually by Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Pahang, Malaysia.
English Education in Oman: Current Scenarios and Future Trajectories (English Language Education #15)
by Rahma Al-Mahrooqi Christopher DenmanThis book explores an area that has been somewhat overlooked in the literature to date – the current status and future trends of English education in Oman. It offers a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to the subject and explores areas of English education in Oman that have, until now, been little investigated. It explores these issues from a variety of perspectives: the professionalization of English teachers in the country; the implementation of novel teaching methodologies, curricula, and assessment approaches, into what are, in many ways, still very traditional education settings; the integration of learner identity into English language instruction; country- and culture-specific concerns with conducting research with Omani participants; the strategic demands of building stronger links between education and workforce needs; and developing learner autonomy and motivation.
Human-Earth System Dynamics: Implications to Civilizations
by Rongxing GuoThis book explores the factors and mechanisms that may have influenced the dynamic behaviors of earliest civilizations, focusing on both environmental (geographic) factors on which traditional historic analyses are based and human (behavioral) factors on which anthropological analyses are usually based. It also resurrects a number of common ancestral terms to help readers understand the complicated process of human and cultural evolution around the globe. Specifically, in almost all indigenous languages, the words ‘wa’ and any variants of it were originally associated with the sound of crying of – and certainly were selected as the common ancestral word with the meanings of “house, home, homeland, motherland, and so on” by – early humans living in different parts of the world.This book provides many neglected but still crucial environmental and biological clues about the rise and fall of civilizations – ones that have largely resulted from mankind’s long-lasting “Win-Stay Lose-Shift” games throughout the world. The narratives and findings presented at this book are unexpected but reasonable – and are what every student of anthropology or history needs to know and doesn't get in the usual text.“Professor Guo explores the dynamics of civilizations from the beginnings to our perplexingly complex world. There are lots of thought-provoking ideas here on the rise and decline of civilizations and nations... Anyone wishing to understand global developments should give this book serious consideration.” ----John Komlos, University of Munich, Germany, and Duke University, USA“It is interesting to see a Chinese perspective on the questions of deep history that have engaged Jared Diamond, Yuval Harari and David Christian. Guo argues that understanding cyclical threats has been the key to human progress, which is driven by the dialectic of material privation and human ingenuity.” ----Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University, USA
Tensions in World Literature: Between the Local and the Universal
by Weigui FangThis collection gives a diversified account of world literature, examining not only the rise of the concept, but also problems such as the relation between the local and the universal, and the tensions between national culture and global ethics. In this context, it focuses on the complex relationship between Chinese literature and world literature, not only in the sense of providing an exemplary case study, but also as an introspection and re-location of Chinese literature itself. The book activates the concept of world literature at a time when it is facing the rising modern day challenges of race, class and culture.
University English for Academic Purposes in China: A Phenomenological Interview Study
by Xiaofei RaoThis book uses an in-depth, phenomenological interview approach to explain the generational characteristics of today’s Chinese university youths and the critical dispositions they believe indispensable in acquiring English as an academic language in and outside school settings. By presenting the authentic voices of the recruited participants, the book clarifies how English for academic purposes (EAP), as an emerging global phenomenon and a research-informed practice, enables and empowers them for conscious self-transformation and critical awareness development through language study. The book also explores issues arising in the fields of general English language teaching as well as traditional and critical EAP, and discusses university English language learners’ learning needs and rights. The book further promotes a dynamic and transformative University EAP pedagogy of particularity, practicality, and possibility moving from the oppression of language education to its liberation, and the increasing critical consciousness among the present and future university youths in a time of great social changes.
Research on Tibetan Spelling Formal Language and Automata with Application
by Nyima TashiThis book applies formal language and automata theory in the context of Tibetan computational linguistics; further, it constructs a Tibetan-spelling formal grammar system that generates a Tibetan-spelling formal language group, and an automata group that can recognize the language group. In addition, it investigates the application technologies of Tibetan-spelling formal language and automata. Given its creative and original approach, the book offers a valuable reference guide for researchers, teachers and graduate students in the field of computational linguistics.
Autonomy, Agency, and Identity in Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language
by Mark Feng TengThis book discusses the importance of autonomy, agency, and identity in teaching and learning English as a foreign language, all of which are central themes in the educational domain. By linking theory with practice to appeal to researchers as well as classroom practitioners, it provides an overview of the theoretical constructs of autonomy, agency, and identity along with empirical studies that explore these constructs through life stories as told by English teachers and students. Key features include: • New ideas to inspire professionals involved in foreign language education. • Up-to-date information to showcase for English language educators how autonomy, agency, and identity can be conceptualized across various institutional, sociocultural, and political contexts.• A concise yet comprehensive review of the theoretical and practical issues characterizing English foreign language education today.
Journalistic Stance In Chinese And Australian Hard News (PDF)
by Changpeng HuanAdopting a multi-perspective ontological approach to language in social life, this book investigates the concept of journalistic stance, defining it as a nexus of social practice rather than simply linguistic realizations. It focuses on the discursive aspect of journalistic stance in news texts to analyse the ways journalistic stances are enacted in Chinese and Australian print-media, hard-news reporting. Further, using the appraisal framework, it identifies stance markers in news texts and examines the social-institutional and (inter)personal aspects of journalistic stance on the basis of insights gained from participant observation in news institutions in order to understand news-production processes. It also highlights the articulation of news values and the exercise of symbolic power in each news-production context. This book appeals to a wide range of researchers, such as discourse analysts in the field of news discourse and other scholars whose research is relevant to stance/evaluation, and those engaged in corpus-informed studies, along with those in the field journalism and communication.
Journalistic Stance In Chinese And Australian Hard News
by Changpeng HuanAdopting a multi-perspective ontological approach to language in social life, this book investigates the concept of journalistic stance, defining it as a nexus of social practice rather than simply linguistic realizations. It focuses on the discursive aspect of journalistic stance in news texts to analyse the ways journalistic stances are enacted in Chinese and Australian print-media, hard-news reporting. Further, using the appraisal framework, it identifies stance markers in news texts and examines the social-institutional and (inter)personal aspects of journalistic stance on the basis of insights gained from participant observation in news institutions in order to understand news-production processes. It also highlights the articulation of news values and the exercise of symbolic power in each news-production context. This book appeals to a wide range of researchers, such as discourse analysts in the field of news discourse and other scholars whose research is relevant to stance/evaluation, and those engaged in corpus-informed studies, along with those in the field journalism and communication.
Journalistic Stance in Chinese and Australian Hard News
by Changpeng HuanAdopting a multi-perspective ontological approach to language in social life, this book investigates the concept of journalistic stance, defining it as a nexus of social practice rather than simply linguistic realizations. It focuses on the discursive aspect of journalistic stance in news texts to analyse the ways journalistic stances are enacted in Chinese and Australian print-media, hard-news reporting. Further, using the appraisal framework, it identifies stance markers in news texts and examines the social-institutional and (inter)personal aspects of journalistic stance on the basis of insights gained from participant observation in news institutions in order to understand news-production processes. It also highlights the articulation of news values and the exercise of symbolic power in each news-production context. This book appeals to a wide range of researchers, such as discourse analysts in the field of news discourse and other scholars whose research is relevant to stance/evaluation, and those engaged in corpus-informed studies, along with those in the field journalism and communication.
Problem-based Language Learning and Teaching: An Innovative Approach to Learn a New Language (SpringerBriefs in Education)
by Loghman Ansarian Mei Lin TeohThis book investigates how problem-based learning can be implemented in language classes and how it can bring about a change in language learners' understanding of the foreign language. Based on empirical evidence, it provides readers with the theoretical background of this interdisciplinary approach in education, discusses the challenges that language teachers might encounter while implementing this approach in language classes, and offers procedures for employing the method. It also clarifies the difference between collaborative learning and problem-based learning in which certain dynamics are at work. It is of interest to researchers and instructors in cognitive learning, task-based language teaching, and content-focused courses.