Informal Contact with English. A Case Study of Italian Postgraduate Students

Informal Contact with English. A Case Study of Italian Postgraduate Students PDF Author: Maria Pavesi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788846759368
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Informal Contact with English. A Case Study of Italian Postgraduate Students

Informal Contact with English. A Case Study of Italian Postgraduate Students PDF Author: Maria Pavesi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788846759368
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description


Cross-culturally Speaking, Speaking Cross-culturally

Cross-culturally Speaking, Speaking Cross-culturally PDF Author: Christine Béal
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443855278
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Did you know that, to get a job in Australia, it is important to use the right balance of informal and formal language during the interview? Did you know that student advising in Wu Chinese (spoken around Shanghai) is not a face-threatening activity, contrary to general perceptions about the nature of advice giving? Did you know that the use of minimal eye contact and flat intonation by Japanese speakers is interpreted by native English speakers as a lack of interest and willingness to communicate? Did you know that French and Australian English speakers show a surprising number of similarities in the way they use conversational humour in social visits? Think you know how to address your Italian lecturer or tutor? Think again! These are some of the findings arrived at in this exciting new collection of papers from an array of international scholars who represent different theoretical perspectives, but who all study communicative behaviour across languages and cultures, including English, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Wu Chinese. Adopting a comparative or cross-cultural approach, the majority of the contributions draw on authentic examples from a wide range of corpora, including social visits among friends, advising sessions involving recent high school graduates and/or their parents, simulated employment interviews and interactions involving second language learners. Contributions of a pedagogical approach offer practical assistance to the cross-cultural learner through a range of classroom activities. These include: a cross-linguistic comparison of conceptual metaphors; an applied ethnolinguistics framework; and ethnographic critical cultural awareness and reflexivity exercises. All of these activities are designed to equip the learner to study the communicative behaviours and cultural values of the target language. This edited volume is an important contribution to the growing body of work dedicated to better understanding the linguistic and pragmatic aspects of cross-cultural competence required for successful communication across cultural boundaries. It will appeal to readers interested in linguistics, interactional styles and communicative behaviour, cross-cultural pragmatics and intercultural communication.

The Ecology of Arabic

The Ecology of Arabic PDF Author: Muhammad al-Sharkawi
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004191747
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
This book offers a comprehensive account of Arabicization in the Middle East and Egypt in the early period of the Arab conquests. Drawing on material from ancient Arabic grammarians as well as modern studies in second language acquisition, it analyzes the linguistic and non-linguistic ecological factors that contributed to the development of Arabic during the early period after the Arab conquests. It describes the pre-Islamic linguistic and sociolinguistic situation and traces the development in this period. The sociological, cultural, and sociolinguistic context is sketched to determine the nature and quality of the process of learning Arabic in the early period. The work further discusses the process of learning Arabic as a second language and the input provided by the native speakers, which both affected the structure of the emerging dialects.

English as a Lingua Franca in Cross-cultural Immigration Domains

English as a Lingua Franca in Cross-cultural Immigration Domains PDF Author: Maria Grazia Guido
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039116898
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
This book explores the cognitive and communicative processes involved in the use of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) within cross-cultural specialized contexts where non-native speakers of English - i.e. Western experts and non-Western migrants - interact. The book argues that the main communicative difficulties in such contexts are due precisely to the use of ELF, since it develops from the non-native speakers' transfer of their native language structures and socio-cultural schemata into the English they speak. Transfer, in fact, allows non-native speakers to appropriate, or authenticate, those English semantic, syntactic, pragmatic and specialized-discourse structures that are linguistically and conceptually unavailable to them. It follows that there are as many ELF varieties as there are communities of non-native speakers authenticating English. The research questions justifying the ethnographic case studies detailed in this book are: What kind of cognitive frames and communicative strategies do Western experts activate in order to convey their culturally-marked knowledge of specialized discourse - by using their ELF varieties - to non-Westerners with different linguistic and socio-cultural backgrounds? What kind of power asymmetries can be identified when non-Westerners try to communicate their own knowledge by using their respective ELF varieties? Is it possible to ultimately develop a mode of ELF specialized communication that can be shared by both Western experts and non-Western migrants?

Best Practices for the Knowledge Society. Knowledge, Learning, Development and Technology for All

Best Practices for the Knowledge Society. Knowledge, Learning, Development and Technology for All PDF Author: Miltiadis D. Lytras
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642047572
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 612

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Book Description
It is a great pleasure to share with you the Springer LNCS proceedings of the Second World Summit on the Knowledge Society, WSKS 2009, organized by the Open - search Society, Ngo, http://www.open-knowledge-society.org, and held in Samaria Hotel, in the beautiful city of Chania in Crete, Greece, September 16–18, 2009. The 2nd World Summit on the Knowledge Society (WSKS 2009) was an inter- tional scientific event devoted to promoting dialogue on the main aspects of the knowledge society towards a better world for all. The multidimensional economic and social crisis of the last couple of years has brought to the fore the need to discuss in depth new policies and strategies for a human centric developmental processes in the global context. This annual summit brings together key stakeholders involved in the worldwide development of the knowledge society, from academia, industry, and government, including policy makers and active citizens, to look at the impact and prospects of - formation technology, and the knowledge-based era it is creating, on key facets of l- ing, working, learning, innovating, and collaborating in today’s hyper-complex world. The summit provides a distinct, unique forum for cross-disciplinary fertilization of research, favoring the dissemination of research on new scientific ideas relevant to - ternational research agendas such as the EU (FP7), OECD, or UNESCO. We focus on the key aspects of a new sustainable deal for a bold response to the multidimensional crisis of our times.

Email Discourse Among Chinese Using English as a Lingua Franca

Email Discourse Among Chinese Using English as a Lingua Franca PDF Author: Yuan-shan Chen
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9812878882
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
This edited volume makes a valuable contribution to the burgeoning research field of English as a lingua franca. In a pioneering step, the collection is exclusively devoted to the English email discourse of Chinese speakers. The studies address innovative topics related to various contexts and relationships, using several different approaches and theories, which taken together shed light on how English serves as a lingua franca in multiple types of global written communication. The research topics presented are organized into four thematic sections, including emails from students to professors, emails from students to the international academic community, emails from peer to peer, and emails at the workplace. This collection of empirical research invites readers to consider the special features of apologies, requests, terms of address, politeness, and discourse organization, and how cultural differences may affect the use or interpretation of each. Throughout the book, readers will also discover how Chinese speakers use special features and strategies to construct their identity, establish relationships, and achieve successful communication in English. This highly informative, thought-provoking book also provides insights on methods for teaching email discourse using English as a lingua franca and suggests directions for future research.

Resources in Education

Resources in Education PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 756

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Book Description


The Sociolinguistic Competence of Immersion Students

The Sociolinguistic Competence of Immersion Students PDF Author: Raymond Mougeon
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
ISBN: 1847693903
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
This book reports the findings of an extensive research project on the acquisition of the native norms of spoken French variation by French immersion students who have learnt their second language primarily in an educational context. The project focused on a range of phonetic, lexical and grammatical sociolinguistic variants documented in studies of contemporary first language varieties of spoken French, and assessed the extent to which the students master the linguistic and extra-linguistic factors which govern variant choice. The book also discusses pedagogical strategies to improve the students' mastery of spoken French variation. The book represents an important contribution to an under-researched aspect of advanced Second Language Acquisition in an institutional setting.

Inclusive Education in Italy

Inclusive Education in Italy PDF Author: Simona D’Alessio
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9460913423
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
This book provides an innovative and thought-provoking analysis of the policy of integrazione scolastica from an inclusive perspective. Drawing on historical and empirical research methods the book arises out of an ethnographic study, which investigates the extent to which the policy of integrazione scolastica can be considered an inclusive policy. The author poses two fundamental questions: why are there episodes of micro-exclusion and discrimination against disabled pupils still taking place in regular schools after more than 30 years have passed since the enactment of such a progressive policy? Can the policy of integration lead to the development of inclusion in Italy? The research findings presented in the book indicate that exclusion and discrimination towards disabled pupils in education do not result from a lack of implementation of the policy at a school level, rather from the perpetuation of dominant discourses, which construct disability as an individual deficit. The book does not deny the progress made in the country following the application of this anti-discriminatory policy; rather it challenges the hegemonic abilist culture and the traditional perspectives of disability and schooling that undermine the development of inclusive education. After having investigated the theoretical premises of the policy of integration, the author argues that this progressive policy is still rooted in a special needs education paradigm and that what was once a liberating policy has been transformed into a hegemonic tool which still manages, controls and normalizes disability leaving school settings and teaching and learning routines unchanged. She finally argues for a human rights approach for the development of an inclusive school for the 21st century. The book is an essential reading for academics, policy makers, researchers and students involved in education as it links ideological pressures to practical analyses.

Discourse and Contemporary Social Change

Discourse and Contemporary Social Change PDF Author: Norman Fairclough
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039112760
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 568

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Book Description
This book draws together a rich variety of perspectives on discourse as a facet of contemporary social change, representing a number of different disciplines, theoretical positions and methods. The specific focus of the volume is on discourse as a moment of social change, which can be seen to involve objects of research which comprise versions of some or all of the following research questions: How and where did discourses (narratives) emerge and develop? How and where did they achieve hegemonic status? How and where and how extensively have they been recontextualized? How and where and to what extent have they been operationalized? The dialectical approach indicated above implies that discourse analysis includes analysis of relations between language (more broadly, semiosis) and its social 'context'.