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Task-Based Language Teaching and Assessment: Contemporary Reflections from Across the World
by N. P. Sudharshana Lina MukhopadhyayThis book provides interdisciplinary perspectives on task-based language teaching (TBLT) and task-based language assessment (TBLA) in English as a second language (ESL) context. It discusses theoretical and experimental insights of TBLT and TBLA from cognitive, cognitive linguistic, and psycholinguistic viewpoints. The chapters, written by leading language teaching specialists in the field, introduce the reader to a comprehensive range of issues related to TBLT and TBLA such as curriculum design, materials development, and classroom teaching & testing. With interdisciplinary appeal, the book is a valuable resource for researchers in task-based language teaching and assessment. It is equally useful for teachers to whom it offers practical suggestions for designing tasks for teaching and testing.
Space, Place and Capitalism: The Literary Geographies of The Unknown Industrial Prisoner
by Brett HeinoThis book is an original contribution to literary geography and commentaries on the work of David Ireland. It plots the relationship between the spaces and places of 1970s Australian capitalism as it evolves through Ireland’s 1971 Miles Franklin prize-winning novel The Unknown Industrial Prisoner. In particular, the book theorises the relationship between space and place in literature through two highly innovative arguments: a focus on the spatial unconscious as a means to assess and track the spatiality of capitalism in the novel form; and the articulation of a regime of space through the perceived, conceived and lived constitution of space. Drawing together concepts from radical geography and structural Marxist literary theory, it explores the dominance of the regime of abstract space in the Australian context. The text also examines the nature and possibilities of place-based strategies of resistance, and concludes by suggesting opportunities for future research and plotting the ways in which The Unknown Industrial Prisoner continues to speak to contemporary Australia.
Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting: A Corpus-assisted Approach (New Frontiers in Translation Studies)
by Xiaodong LiuThis book addresses a controversial issue regarding SL-TL transfer in the translation process, namely the question as to the dominant route in English-Chinese and Chinese-English professional consecutive interpretations, respectively: the form-based processing route or meaning-based processing route. It presents a corpus-assisted product study, in which the interpreting processing patterns of culture-specific items (CSIs) are analyzed. The study reveals that the dominant route in English vs. Chinese consecutive interpreting varies under different circumstances. Four factors are proposed to account for such differences: linguistic variables (e.g., grammatical complexity of the unit), type of CSI, language direction, and extra-linguistic variables (e.g., multilateral or bilateral settings). In summary, the book systematically introduces a corpus-assisted approach to translation process research, which will benefit all readers who are interested in translation process research but cannot employ neuroscientific measures.
New Perspectives on Corpus Translation Studies (New Frontiers in Translation Studies)
by Defeng Li Lily Lim Vincent X. WangThe book features recent attempts to construct corpora for specific purposes – e.g. multifactorial Dutch (parallel), Geasy Easy Language Corpus (intralingual), HK LegCo interpreting corpus – and showcases sophisticated and innovative corpus analysis methods. It proposes new approaches to address classical themes – i.e. translation pedagogy, translation norms and equivalence, principles of translation – and brings interdisciplinary perspectives – e.g. contrastive linguistics, cognition and metaphor studies – to cast new light. It is a timely reference for the researchers as well as postgraduate students who are interested in the applications of corpus technology to solving translation and interpreting problems.
Reading Malaysian Literature in English: Ethnicity, Gender, Diaspora, and Nationalism (Asia in Transition #16)
by Mohammad A. QuayumThis book brings together fourteen articles by prominent critics of Malaysian Anglophone literature from five different countries: Australia, Italy, Malaysia, Singapore, and the US. It investigates the thematic and stylistic trends in the literary products of selected writers of the tradition in the genres of drama, fiction, and poetry, from its beginnings to the present, focusing mainly on the postcolonial themes of ethnicity, gender, diaspora, and nationalism, which are central to the creativity and imagination of these writers. The book explores the works of not just the established writers of the tradition but also those who have received little critical attention to date but who are equally gifted, such as Adibah Amin, Edward Dorall, Rehaman Rashid, and Huzir Suleiman. The chapters collectively address the challenges and achievements of writers in the English language in a country where English is widely used in daily life and yet marginalised in the creative domain to elevate the status of writings in the national language, i.e., Bahasa Malaysia. The book will demonstrate that in spite of such recurrent neglect of the medium, Malaysia has produced a number of outstanding writers in the language, who are comparable in creativity and craftsmanship to writers of other Anglophone traditions. The book will be of interest to readers and researchers of Malaysian literature, postcolonial literatures, minority literatures, gender studies, and Southeast Asian studies.
Formal Analysis for Natural Language Processing: A Handbook
by Zhiwei FengThe field of natural language processing (NLP) is one of the most important and useful application areas of artificial intelligence. NLP is now rapidly evolving, as new methods and toolsets converge with an ever-expanding wealth of available data. This state-of-the-art handbook addresses all aspects of formal analysis for natural language processing. Following a review of the field’s history, it systematically introduces readers to the rule-based model, statistical model, neural network model, and pre-training model in natural language processing. At a time characterized by the steady and vigorous growth of natural language processing, this handbook provides a highly accessible introduction and much-needed reference guide to both the theory and method of NLP. It can be used for individual study, as the textbook for courses on natural language processing or computational linguistics, or as a supplement to courses on artificial intelligence, and offers a valuable asset for researchers, practitioners, lecturers, graduate and undergraduate students alike.
Challenges Encountered by Chinese ESL Learners: Problems and Solutions from Complementary Perspectives
by Mable Chan Alessandro G. BenatiThis book provides a blended approach in outlining the properties of grammatical knowledge that have been causing difficulty to Chinese speaking learners, including tense and aspect, articles, passives, unaccusatives, plurality and motion verbs. It explains from different linguistics perspectives how these constraints/difficulties might be dealt with. It also offers readers a comprehensive account of these problems, and outlines the possible pedagogical solutions teachers can try in the classroom. These topics are selected because they bring substantial challenges and difficulties to Chinese English as a Second Language (ESL) learners. This book bridges the gap between acquisition theory and language pedagogy research, benefiting not just language learners but language teachers around the world, and all those who would like to witness collaboration between second language acquisition theory and second language teaching practice in general. It initiates future work in which researchers from different fields with diverging theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches will be able to develop studies that are compatible with each other. This overall can facilitate our understanding of second language acquisition, and how instruction might help.
History of Chinese Folk Literature (Understanding China)
by Zhenduo ZhengThis book mainly addresses the position, function, influence, and values of folk oral literature in the history of Chinese literature. Divided into 14 chapters, it systematically covers central aspects of folklore literature such as ballads, folk songs, Bianwen, Zajuci, Guzici, Zhugongdiao, Sanqu, Baojuan, Tanci, Zidishu, and so on from the Pre-Qin to the late Qing Dynasties, filling several gaps in literary history studies. It is a comprehensive literary work, and many of the materials cited here are rare and difficult to find. In addition, the book proposes some important theories, especially six highly generalized qualities of folk literature, namely that it is: popular, collective, oral, fresh, effusive, and innovative.With detailed, extensive materials, and quotations, the book represents the most systematic and comprehensive work to date on ancient Chinese folk literature. It is mutually complementary with Guowei Wang’s A Textual Research of the Traditional Chinese Opera in the Song and Yuan Dynasties and Xun Lu’s A Brief History of Chinese Fiction; all three works are regarded as the most essential classics for researching the history of Chinese literature.
Working Towards a Proficiency Scale of Business English Writing: A Mixed-Methods Approach
by Li Wang Jason FanThis book presents an empirical study to develop and validate a proficiency scale of business English writing in the Chinese tertiary context. Through a mixture of intuitive, quantitative and qualitative methods, the book demonstrates how a pool of descriptors are collectively formulated, statistically calibrated and meticulously validated for the establishment of a proficiency scale of business English writing. The writing scale differs in significant ways from the existing language scales, most of which were constructed in English as L1 or L2 contexts and applied to English for General Purposes (EGP) domains. This book also provides important insights into the construct of business English writing as well as the methods for English for Specific Purposes (ESP) proficiency scale development and validation. It is of particular interest to those who work in the area of ESP teaching and assessment.
Travel, Translation and Transmedia Aesthetics: Franco-Chinese Literature and Visual Arts in a Global Age
by Shuangyi LiThis book examines the works of four contemporary first-generation Chinese migrant writer-artists in France: François CHENG, GAO Xingjian, DAI Sijie, and SHAN Sa. They were all born in China, moved to France in their adulthood to pursue their literary and artistic ambitions, and have enjoyed the highest French and Western institutional recognitions, from the Grand Prix de la Francophonie to the Nobel Prize in Literature. They have established themselves not only as writers, but also as translators, calligraphers, painters, playwrights, and filmmakers mainly in their host country. French has become their dominant—but not only—language of literary creation (except for Gao); yet, linguistic idioms, poetic imagery, and classical thought from Chinese cultural heritage permeate their French texts and visual artworks, reflecting a strong translingual and transmedial sensibility. The book provides not only distinctive literary and artistic examples beyond existing studies of intercultural encounter, French postcolonial, and Chinese diasporic enquiries; more importantly, it formulates a theoretical model that captures the creative dynamics between the French/francophone and Chinese/sinophone spaces of articulation, thereby contributing to contemporary debates about literary and artistic production, interpretation, and circulation in the global development of comparative/world literature, as well as intermediality studies.
From Critical Literacy to Critical Pedagogy in English Language Teaching: Using Teacher-made Materials in Difficult Contexts (English Language Education #23)
by Melina PortoWith a Foreword by Hugh Starkey and Audrey Osler, and Afterwords by Graham Crookes, Hilary Janks and Allan Luke, this book promotes critical language education and illustrates how a critical agenda can be enacted in English language education in real classrooms. It presents four cases located in primary and secondary schools in the province of Buenos Aires in Argentina in contexts that can be characterised as vulnerable or difficult. It describes the possibilities, challenges and limitations of this critical agenda using students’ drawings, posters, leaflets, artwork, classroom activities and conversational data as foundation, and including the voices of local teachers in their classrooms. Importantly, these teachers used teacher-made, locally produced, critical post-method materials, described by the author of those materials in one of the chapters. In this way, the book offers a unique balance of researcher, teacher and materials writer voices. These materials are included in the book and can help language teachers around the world to introduce critical perspectives in their specific contexts. The book is appealing to researchers, classroom teachers, teacher educators, and materials writers and developers interested in critical language education.
Controversies in Medium of Instruction Reform: The Experience of Hong Kong
by Shek Kam Tse Wing Wah Ki Mark Shiu ShumThe book is an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the case of language in education reform and language policy controversies of Hong Kong over the initial two decades after 1997. It is a scholarly monograph of conscientious educators and researchers who have been active during the education reform, collaborating with different parties on school development and classroom teaching experiments. This book provides a multiple-perspective investigation into the education and language matters. Besides socio-political perspectives, this book also emphasizes the frontline educational and practical perspectives. The book explores the benefits and effective methods of mother-tongue and multi-lingual teaching that have emerged in the period. Based on the problematic experience of language purism and bifurcation in the reform, the book argues for an inclusive multilingual education policy with mother-tongue as the core. This book provides potential solutions and good practices to tackle the complex issues brought about by medium of instruction policy reforms in post-colonial times.
Note Taking Activities in E-Learning Environments (Behaviormetrics: Quantitative Approaches to Human Behavior #11)
by Minoru NakayamaThe main focus of this book is presenting practical procedures for improving learning effectiveness using note taking activities during e-learning courses. Although presentation of e-learning activities recently has been spreading to various education sectors, some practical problems have been discussed such as evaluation of learning performance and encouragement of students. The authors introduce note taking activity as a conventional learning tool in order to promote individual learning activity and learning efficacy. The effectiveness of note taking has been measured in practical teaching in a Japanese university using techniques of learning analytics, and the results are shown here. The relationships between note taking activity and students’ characteristics, the possibility of predicting the final learning performance using metrics of students’ note taking, and the effectiveness for individual emotional learning factors are evaluated. Some differences between blended learning and fully online learning courses are also discussed. The authors provide novel analytical procedures and ideas to manage e-learning courses. In particular, the assessment of note taking activity may help to track individual learning progress and to encourage learning motivation.
Alzheimer's Disease Memoirs: Poetics of the Forgetting Self
by Pramod K NayarThis book examines writings by people living with Alzheimer's Disease and their caregivers. Its focus areas include the construction of the self in the face of diminishing linguistic and cognitive abilities, the stigmatization of ageing, the various narrative strategies that these texts (often collaborative) employ, the health activism and advocacy generated via a 'biosociality,' and the ethics of care. It examines the 'disease writing' genre about a condition that ravages the ability to use language. It serves as a "literary" examination of the work done in this area through a critical reading of the memoirs of those with AD and caregivers and a healthy dose of literary theory. The book is a valuable resource for those interested in literary and critical theory and researchers in the field of ageing/dementia studies.
The Change of Narrative Modes in Chinese Fiction (1898–1927)
by Pingyuan ChenThis book examines the Chinese fictions (xiaoshuo) published between 1898 and 1927 – three pivotal decades, during which China underwent significant social changes. It applies Narratology and Sociology of the Novel methods to analyze both the texts themselves and the social-cultural factors that triggered the transformation of the narrative mode in Chinese fiction. Based on empirical data, the author argues that this transformation was not only inspired by translated Western fiction, but was also the result of a creative transformation in tradition Chinese literature.
A Novel Approach to China: What China Debaters Can Learn from Contemporary Chinese Novelists
by Gengsong GaoThis book explores Chinese novelists’ distinctive contributions to the China debate in terms of the key issues of Chinese language, power dynamics and Confucian tradition. As China is rising, Chinese scholars and policymakers are debating heatedly over China’s past, present and future. Who are the major debaters? How do they analyze China’s problems and figure out solutions? What are the main achievements and weaknesses of the Chinese intellectual debate and discourse? Chinese novelists also get involved in the China debate. However, their voices are rarely heard. This book argues that, by dramatizing the diversities of ordinary social actors’ everyday languages, active discursive practices and enchanted local traditions, Chinese novelists do not merely illustrate the dominant liberal, the New Left and the New Confucian ideologies, but enrich the China debate and provide a “novel” approach to our understanding of modern China.
Meta-functional Equivalent Translation of Chinese Folk Song: Intercultural Communication of Zhuang Ethnic Minority as an Example
by Yang YangThis book brings audiences the enchanting melodies passing down from generation to generation in the Zhuang community, which are on the brink of extinction. Specifically, it sheds light on the origin, evolution and artistic features of Zhuang folk song in the first place, and then it shifts to their English translation based on meta-functional equivalence, through which the multi-aesthetics of Zhuang folk song have been represented. At length, forty classic Zhuang folk songs have been selected, and each could be sung bilingually in line with the stave.This book benefits researchers and students who are interested in music translation as well as the Zhuang ethnic music, culture and literature. It also gives readers an insight into musicology, anthropology and intercultural study.
Unsettling Literacies: Directions for literacy research in precarious times (Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education #15)
by Claire Lee Chris Bailey Cathy Burnett Jennifer RowsellThis book asks researchers what uncertainty means for literacy research, and for how literacy plays through uncertain lives. While the book is not focused only on COVID-19, it is significant that it was written in 2020-2021, when our authors’ and readers’ working and personal lives were thrown into disarray by stay-at-home orders. The book opens up new spaces for examining ways that literacy has come to matter in the world.Drawing on the reflections of international literacy researchers and important new voices, this book presents re-imagined methods and theoretical imperatives. These difficult times have surfaced new communicative practices and opened out spaces for exploration and activism, prompting re-examination of relationships between research, literacy and social justice. The book considers varied and consequential events to explore new ways to think and research literacy and to unsettle what we know and accept as fundamental to literacy research, opening ourselves up for change. It provides direction to the field of literacy studies as pressing global concerns are prompting literacy researchers to re-examine what and how they research in times of precarity.
Teaching Chinese Language in Singapore: Cultural Teaching and Development (SpringerBriefs in Education)
by Soh Kay ChengThis book is cast in a Singaporean context in which Chinese Language is taught as a second language with an emphasis on communicational skills. It showcases ideas on including cultural teaching to enhance second language learning for more effective outcomes. As a collection of chapters relevant to cultural teaching, the book seeks to enthuse Chinese Language educators to incorporate elements of Chinese culture into their lessons. It is practice-oriented and provides examples using Chinese language textbooks, with suggestions for post-lesson activities. It also documents and discusses the needed developments of Singapore's Chinese culture with references to the three popular co-curricular activities of Chinese music, drama (crosstalk), and dance in schools.
Challenges and Opportunities in Health Professions Education: Perspectives in the Context of Cultural Diversity
by Mora Claramita Ardi Findyartini Dujeepa D. Samarasekera Hiroshi NishigoriThis book addresses health professions educational challenges specific to non-Western cultures, implementing a shifting paradigm for educating future health professionals towards patient-centered care. While health professions education has received increasing attention in the last three decades, promoting student-centered learning principles pioneered by leaders in the medical community has, for the most part, remain rooted in the Western context. Building from Hofstede’s analysis of the phenomena of cultural dimensions, which underpin the way people build and maintain their relationships with others and influence social, economic, and political well-being across nations, this book demarcates the different cultural dimensions between East and West, applied to medical education. The respective ‘hierarchical’ and ‘collectivist’ cultural dimensions are unpacked in several studies stemming from non-western countries, with the capacity to positively influence healthcare education and services. The book provides new insights for researchers and health professional educators to understand how cultural context influences the input, processes, and output of health professionals’ education. Examples include how cultural context influences the ways in which students respond to teachers, how teachers giving feedback to students, and the challenges of peer feedback and group work. The authors also examine causes for student hesitation in proposing ideas, the pervasive cultural norm of maintaining harmony, the challenges of teamwork in clinical settings, the need to be sensitive to community health needs, the complexity of clinical decision making, and the challenge of how collectivist cultural values play into group dynamics. This book aims to advocate a more culturally-sensitive approach to educating health professionals, and will be relevant to both students and practitioners in numerous areas of public health and medical education.
An Interpersonal Pragmatic Study of Professional Identity Construction in Chinese Televised Debating Discourse
by Chengtuan LiThis book explores debaters’ professional identity construction through implicit negation in televised debates from an interpersonal pragmatic perspective. It reveals the linguistic strategies used to indirectly negate the identity of others, and highlights three pairs of professional identity constructed through implicit negation: (1) expert vs. non-expert identity, (2) outsider vs. insider identity, (3) authentic vs. false identity. Furthermore, it proposes the Inter-relationality Principle, self-through-other identity and other-through-self identity, which contribute to Bucholtz and Hall’s theory of identity construction. Lastly, the book discusses the relations between professional identity construction through implicit negation and im/politeness, and builds a model of professional identity construction through implicit negation based on interpersonal pragmatics. By focusing on the interpersonal pragmatics of professional identity construction, the book advances the interpersonal pragmatic study of identity construction, im/politeness and implicit negation. As such, it is a valuable resource for a broad readership, including graduate students, and scholars who are interested in professional identity construction, implicit negation and im/politeness research.
English Language Teaching in Pakistan (English Language Teaching: Theory, Research and Pedagogy)
by Christine Coombe Naziha Ali RazaThis book presents empirical research on teaching, learning and assessment, and teacher development practices in Pakistan. Despite extensive academic research conducted in Pakistan over the last decade, there is a dearth of internationally published literature on English language teaching in the country. This book covers current research priorities and initiatives concerning English language teaching, learning and assessment, empirical developments, and major professional development initiatives, both in Pakistan and involving the work of Pakistani scholars based in abroad. It highlights the impacts that development efforts are having in the ELT world in Pakistan. The respective chapters cover a diverse range of topics, including: continuous professional development (CPD), identity construction, English language policy, curriculum development, and innovative ELT approaches and methodologies used in Pakistan. This volume provides valuable insights for TESOL and applied linguistics scholars and practitioners working in the field of ELT, both in Pakistan and elsewhere in the globalized world.
A Study on the Influence of Ancient Chinese Cultural Classics Abroad in the Twentieth Century
by Xiping ZhangThis book presents an extensive literary survey of the influence of ancient Chinese cultural classics around the globe, highlighting a mammoth research project involving over forty countries or regions and more than twenty languages. As the book reveals, ancient Chinese culture was introduced to East Asian countries or regions very early on; furthermore, after the late Ming Dynasty, Chinese “knowhow” and ideas increasingly made inroads into the West. In particular, the translation of and research on Chinese classics around the world have enabled Chinese culture to take root and blossom on an unprecedented scale. In addition to offering a valuable resource for readers interested in culture, the social sciences, and philosophy, the book blazes new trails for the study of ancient Chinese culture.
A Systemic Functional Study of Modality in Modern Chinese (The M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics Series)
by Shu YangThis book presents a systematic and relatively comprehensive account of the system of MODALITY in Modern Chinese and the functions that realizations of modality serve in the clause and clause complex. Grounded in SFL, the research begins by introducing the system of types of modality in Modern Chinese, investigating the subtypes of modality and their realizations. The study then explores the systems of Orientations that characterize the realization of modalization and modulation in Chinese. After establishing the complete system of modality in Modern Chinese, the research finally examines the functions that realizations of modality serve in the textual structure of the clause and in the clause complex. The study finds that the system of MODALITY is an important interpersonal clause system at the lexicogrammatical stratum of Chinese. There are two distinct types of modality in Chinese: modalization and modulation. Modalization concerns the assessment of probability of the proposition; modulation is concerned with the assessment of the proposal in terms of obligation, inclination, and ability. The systems of ORIENTATIONS make a basic distinction between subjective and objective modality, and between the explicit and implicit realizations. The research also reveals that in the thematic structure of the clause, realizations of modality can serve as the interpersonal Theme in the clause, in the information structure of the clause, realizations of modality can function as the unmarked information focus of the clause or introduce the marked information focus, and in the clause complex, realizations of modality can encode modal meanings and simultaneously construct clauses into a clause complex.
Integrated Language Learning & Social Awareness: Research and Practice (SpringerBriefs in Education)
by Tushar Chaudhuri Renia Lopez-Ozieblo Valérie MartinezThis book reports on and analyses the Integrated Language Learning & Social Awareness Project, a unique project in the field of Foreign Language Learning and Telecollaboration till now in the world. It takes the existing research on telecollaborative learning, content and language integrated learning and e-learning and combines them into one coherent concept in which language acquisition and enhancement takes place through task-led research on the specific issue of “Healthy Cities” by targeting language learners from around the world. The book delivers insights into the planning and the development of the project including collaborative task design and its underlying theoretical and research frameworks. It then goes on to reflect on how these underlying frameworks are developed further to broaden the existing paradigms of research in the field of telecollaborative language learning.