Browse Results

Showing 56,451 through 56,475 of 56,862 results

Victories Never Last: Reading and Caregiving in a Time of Plague

by Robert Zaretsky

A timely and nuanced book that sets the author’s experience as a nursing home volunteer during the pandemic alongside the wisdom of great thinkers who confronted their own plagues. In any time of disruption or grief, many of us seek guidance in the work of great writers who endured similar circumstances. During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, historian and biographer Robert Zaretsky did the same while also working as a volunteer in a nursing home in south Texas. In Victories Never Last Zaretsky weaves his reflections on the pandemic siege of his nursing home with the testimony of six writers on their own times of plague: Thucydides, Marcus Aurelius, Michel de Montaigne, Daniel Defoe, Mary Shelley, and Albert Camus, whose novel The Plague provides the title of this book. Zaretsky delves into these writers to uncover lessons that can provide deeper insight into our pandemic era. At the same time, he goes beyond the literature to invoke his own experience of the tragedy that enveloped his Texas nursing home, one which first took the form of chronic loneliness and then, inevitably, the deaths of many residents whom we come to know through Zaretsky’s stories. In doing so, Zaretsky shows the power of great literature to connect directly to one’s own life in a different moment and time. For all of us still struggling to comprehend this pandemic and its toll, Zaretsky serves as a thoughtful and down-to-earth guide to the many ways we can come to know and make peace with human suffering.

Albert Camus: Elements of a Life

by Robert D. Zaretsky

Like many others of my generation, I first read Camus in high school. I carried him in my backpack while traveling across Europe, I carried him into (and out of) relationships, and I carried him into (and out of) difficult periods of my life. More recently, I have carried him into university classes that I have taught, coming out of them with a renewed appreciation of his art. To be sure, my idea of Camus thirty years ago scarcely resembles my idea of him today. While my admiration and attachment to his writings remain as great as they were long ago, the reasons are more complicated and critical.—Robert Zaretsky On October 16, 1957, Albert Camus was dining in a small restaurant on Paris's Left Bank when a waiter approached him with news: the radio had just announced that Camus had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Camus insisted that a mistake had been made and that others were far more deserving of the honor than he. Yet Camus was already recognized around the world as the voice of a generation—a status he had achieved with dizzying speed. He published his first novel, The Stranger, in 1942 and emerged from the war as the spokesperson for the Resistance and, although he consistently rejected the label, for existentialism. Subsequent works of fiction (including the novels The Plague and The Fall), philosophy (notably, The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel), drama, and social criticism secured his literary and intellectual reputation. And then on January 4, 1960, three years after accepting the Nobel Prize, he was killed in a car accident. In a book distinguished by clarity and passion, Robert Zaretsky considers why Albert Camus mattered in his own lifetime and continues to matter today, focusing on key moments that shaped Camus's development as a writer, a public intellectual, and a man. Each chapter is devoted to a specific event: Camus's visit to Kabylia in 1939 to report on the conditions of the local Berber tribes; his decision in 1945 to sign a petition to commute the death sentence of collaborationist writer Robert Brasillach; his famous quarrel with Jean-Paul Sartre in 1952 over the nature of communism; and his silence about the war in Algeria in 1956. Both engaged and engaging, Albert Camus: Elements of a Life is a searching companion to a profoundly moral and lucid writer whose works provide a guide for those perplexed by the absurdity of the human condition and the world's resistance to meaning.

Speech Accommodation in Student Presentations

by Alla Zareva

This book examines student presentations as a genre of English for Academic Purposes (EAP), and analyses the elements of speech and audience accommodation which make a successful presentation. Offering an antidote to the audience-centric approach to presentation design and delivery promoted by numerous books and manuals on the subject, each chapter tackles an under-researched aspect of student presentations, and presents data-based evidence for practical recommendations within the genre. The language analyses presented in the book are based on a real-life corpus of student presentations, providing clear examples of successful oral academic discourse. This book will be of interest to students of applied linguistics, EAP, TESOL and language education.

Fair Copies

by Matthew Zarnowiecki

In the latter half of the sixteenth century, English poets and printers experimented widely with a new literary format, the printed collection of lyric poetry. They not only investigated the possibilities of working with a new medium, but also wrote metaphors of human reproduction directly into their works. In Fair Copies, Matthew Zarnowiecki argues that poetic production was re-envisioned during this period, which was rife with models of copying and imitation, to include reproduction as one of its inherent attributes.Tracing the development of the English lyric during this crucial period, Fair Copies incorporates a diverse range of cultural productions and reproductions - from key poetic texts by Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, Gascoigne, and Tottel to legal breviaries, visual representations of song, midwives' manuals, and commonplace books. Also included are fifteen facsimile reproductions of poems in early printed books, with explanations and discussions of their importance. Calling upon these diverse sources, and examining lyric poems in their earliest manuscript and printed contexts, Zarnowiecki develops a new, reproductively centred method of reading early modern English lyric poetry.

TransCanadian Feminist Fictions: New Cross-Border Ethics

by Libe García Zarranz

In this contradictory era of uneven globalization, borders multiply yet fantasies of borderlessness prevail. Particularly since September 11th, this paradox has shaped deeply the lives of border-crossing subjects such as the queer, the refugee, and the activist within and beyond Canadian frontiers. In search of creative ways to engage with the conundrums related to how borders mould social and bodily space, Libe García Zarranz formulates a new cross-border ethic through post-9/11 feminist and queer transnational writing in Canada. Drawing on material feminism, critical race studies, non-humanist philosophy, and affect theory, she proposes a renewed understanding of relationality beyond the lethal binaries that saturate everyday life. TransCanadian Feminist Fictions considers the corporeal, biopolitical, and affective dimensions of border crossing in the works of Dionne Brand, Emma Donoghue, Hiromi Goto, and Larissa Lai. Intersecting the genres of memoir, fiction, poetry, and young adult literature, García Zarranz shows how these texts address the permeability of boundaries and consider the ethical implications for minoritized populations. Urging readers to question the proclaimed glamours of globality, TransCanadian Feminist Fictions responds to a time of increasing inequality, mounting racism, and feminist backlash.

Technology and the Psychology of Second Language Learners and Users (New Language Learning and Teaching Environments)

by Nourollah Zarrinabadi Mark R. Freiermuth

This edited volume brings together large-scale research as well as case studies from a range of geographical contexts and represents a variety of educational settings involving second language learners and users. Its aim is to explore the interrelated issues of psychology and technology use in second language learning settings as well as in more autonomous environments. As language learning professionals continue to devote more time and attention to making various technological tools an integral part of the classroom, it is just as important to understand the influences that these tools have on the psychological state of the learners who use them. In consideration of this objective, the volume examines factors such as learner attitudes and motivation, emotion and behaviour, and the cognitive processes that are at play in the minds of the language users. This volume will be of interest not only to language teachers but also to researchers working in second language acquisition (SLA), applied linguistics, and educational psychology.

New Perspectives on Willingness to Communicate in a Second Language (Second Language Learning and Teaching)

by Nourollah Zarrinabadi Mirosław Pawlak

This edited collection provides a state-of-the art overview of research on willingness to communicate (WTC) in a second and foreign language. In particular, it includes innovative studies seeking to demonstrate the ways in which WTC can be examined within the framework of complex dynamic systems, how the construct is related to self-assessment, reticence and extroversion, and what is signifies in the case of immigrants. Another group of papers is related to the role of technology in fostering WTC in different contexts. The volume also comprises papers that touch on methodological issues in the study of WTC such as experience case sampling, the network approach or the integration of the macro- and micro-perspective. The book will be of values to researchers interested in the study of WTC but will also provide inspiration for students, teachers and materials writers.

The Polish Elite and Language Sciences: A Perspective of Global Historical Sociology

by Tomasz Zarycki

This book revisits the modern history of Poland, from the perspective of its social sciences. The book makes this case study a model for the application of Bourdieu’s approach to the historical analysis of non-core Western societies. The book is, in other words, a reflexive study of the application of Bourdieu’s social theory. At the same time, it also critically studies the application of Western social theory in Poland, which is largely seen as a peripheral country. The study of Polish social sciences, with particular emphasis on linguistics and literary studies, points to the peculiar dynamics of peripheral intellectual and academic fields and their external dependencies. These insights offer a critical extension of Bourdieu’s theory of state and social elites beyond the Western core focusing on how the theories can be used in the reinterpretation and expansion of post-colonial theory, global history and comparative studies of post-communism. The book will be suitable for scholars and students of all those interested in the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu, global historical sociology, societies in Central and Eastern , socio-linguistics, literary studies and political sociology.

En el lugar de los hechos

by Jorge Zarza

El lector encontrará en este libro lecciones de periodismo de primer nivel, así como el rostro más humano del reportero que con igual rigor implacable cubre las secuelas de una matanza de inocentes o la pasión religiosa de una Semana Santa en algún lugar del mundo. Jorge Zarza es uno de los reporteros con más prestigio internacional de México: sus coberturas respecto a un atentado terrorista, la tragedia humana ante un desastre natural o la voz rasgada de quienes sobreviven a un enfrentamiento armado confirman su rigor periodístico y su tenacidad para informar desde el lugar de los hechos. El destacado comunicador comparte en estas páginas qué hay detrás de cada reportaje, qué obstáculos deben superarse para informar desde el corazón de la catástrofe. Cuenta su experiencia terrible en Estados Unidos cuando asistió a la ejecución de un acusado mexicano; cuáles fueron las emociones captadas durante el rescate de los mineros en Chile en 2010; su dolor ante los cadáveres de mujeres, ancianos, niños, durante una matanza paramilitar; el rostro de la desolación después de los atentados de Atocha; cómo informar ante el legado sombrío de los huracanes Paulina o Jova. En estas páginas se encuentra la trayectoria de más de 25 años al servicio de la información: testimonios, anécdotas, confesiones, que el reportero asimila con profesionalismo para lograr la nota; el detalle de las horas de hambre y miedo en zonas de devastación, la ilusión en los rescates de vidas humanas, el fervor de los creyentes durante las visitas del Papa o las exigencias de los políticos, todo en un libro lleno de pasión e intenso amor al periodismo.

La prisión del amor y otros ensayos narrativos

by Hernán Lara Zavala

La prisión del amor y otros ensayos narrativos explora la relación entre la literatura y la vida; propone al lector un viaje por la condición humana a través de la revisión de algunas de las obras más destacadas de la literatura moderna. De Hernán Lara Zavala, ganador del Premio Real Academia Española. Un viaje por la condición humana a través del análisis y la celebración de algunas de las mayores obras de la literatura moderna. La inagotable variedad de la vida es la materia de las obras literarias. (Sin amor no habría polvo enamorado.) Pero lo contrario es igualmente cierto: la literatura alimenta nuestra vida, la modifica, la inventa. El lenguaje con el que contamos y cantamos también nos condiciona. El autor nos guía por el entramado de epifanías y erotismo de la obra Joyce, por la atribulada vida de Malcolm Lowry, por la estética del fracaso de F. Scott Fitzgerald, por las cercanas distopías Orwell y Huxley, así como por las desembocaduras literarias de Nietzsche. En el camino también aparecen Wilde, Faulkner, Hemingway, Stevenson y Proust, el divorcio entre ciencias y humanidades, la alianza entre alcohol y escritura. Los ensayos de este libro son paseos, ejercicios de asombro. Constituyen una constelación de afinidades electivas, una galería de espejos donde el autor se reconoce y nos invita a encontrar los puentes secretos entre obras, escritores, motivos, palabras y cosas.

Las Buscadoras: Madres que buscan personas desaparecidas en México

by Noé Zavaleta

Ellas buscan a sus hijas, sus hijos, maridos y familiares. Es una historia cotidiana en nuestro país. Les empezaron a decir &“tesoros&”, a los restos óseos hallados en las múltiples fosas clandestinas de nuestro país. Principalmente en las entidades de Veracruz, Sinaloa, Guerrero, Jalisco, Michoacán y recientemente en Guanajuato. Este libro recopila, el viacrucis endemoniado de la búsqueda en vida y en muerte de los desaparecidos en México. Más de 70 mil ausencias y contando, acumulando, por cientos, por miles.Sus familiares se agruparon en &“Colectivos&”. No los une una filiación política, ni un gustos personales, tampoco una creencia religiosa, ni un estatus social, sino la &“ausencia&” de un ser querido. Un familiar &“tragado por la tierra&” en los cientos de agujeros negros que existen en México.The SeekersThey look for their daughters, their sons, husbands and relatives. It is an everyday story in our country. They will say "treasures" to the skeletal remains found in the many clandestine graves in our country. Mainly in the entities of Veracruz, Sinaloa, Guerrero, Jalisco, Michoacán and recently in Guanajuato. This book compiles the demonic via crucis of the search in life and in death for the disappeared in Mexico. More than 70 thousand absences and counting, accumulating, by hundreds, by miles.His relatives were grouped into "Collectives". They are not united by a political affiliation, or a personal taste, or a religious belief, or a social status, but the "absence" of a loved one. A relative "swallowed by the earth" in the hundreds of black holes that exist in Mexico.

Courage and Cowardice in Ancient Greece: From Homer to Aristotle

by Andrei G. Zavaliy

The book offers the first comprehensive account of the debate on true courage as it was raging in ancient Greece, from the times when the immensely influential Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, were composed, to the period of the equally influential author, Aristotle. The many voices that contribute to this debate include poets, authors of ancient dramas and comedies, historians, politicians and philosophers. The book traces the origin of the earliest ideal of a courageous hero in the epic poems of Homer (8th century BCE), and faithfully records its transformations in later authors, which range from an emphatic denial of the Homeric standards of courage (as in comedies of Aristophanes and some Dialogues of Plato) to the strong revisionist tendencies of Aristotle, who attempts to restore genuine courage to its traditional place as an exclusively martial, male virtue.Without attempting to cover the whole of the Western history, the book is able to explore the most important primary Greek sources on the subject matter in greater details, and provide the reader with a comprehensive picture of the changes in both popular and philosophical conceptualizations of the standards of courage from the Archaic period to the middle of the 4th century BCE. A deeper understanding of the history of the debate on courage should help to shape the modern discussions as well, as it becomes obvious that many of the questions on courage and cowardice that are still raised by the contemporary authors from different fields, have been thoroughly considered during the early stages of Greek culture. The book seeks to undermine a common stereotype of a single, unified view on courage and cowardice in Ancient Greece and shows that the current debates on what constitutes genuine courageous character can be traced to the various direct and indirect discussions on this subject matter by the ancient authorities.

Allegories of Neoliberalism: Contemporary South Asian Fictions, Capital, and Utopia

by Sarker Hasan Zayed

Simultaneously a critique of Foucauldian governmentalist interpretations of neoliberalism and a historical materialist reading of contemporary South Asian fictions, Allegories of Neoliberalism is a probing analysis of literary representations of capitalism’s “forms of appearance.” This book offers critical discussions on the important works of Akhtaruzzaman Elias, Amitav Ghosh, Aravind Adiga, Arundhati Roy, H. M. Naqvi, Mohsin Hamid, Nasreen Jahan, Samrat Upadhyay, and other writers from South Asia and South Asian diaspora. It also advances a re-reading of Karl Marx’s Capital through the themes and tropes of literature—one that looks into literary representations of commoditization, monetization, class exploitation, uneven spatial relationship, financialization, and ecological devastation through the lens of the German revolutionary’s critique of capitalism.

Shapeshifting Subjects: Gloria Anzaldua's Naguala and Border Arte (Transformations: Womanist studies)

by Kelli D. Zaytoun

Kelli D. Zaytoun draws on Gloria Anzaldúa's thought to present a radically inclusive and expansive approach to selfhood, creativity, scholarship, healing, coalition-building, and activism. Zaytoun focuses on Anzaldúa's naguala/ shapeshifter, a concept of nagualismo. This groundbreaking theory of subjectivity details a dynamic relationship between “inner work” and "public acts" that strengthens individuals' roles in social and transformative justice work. Zaytoun's detailed emphasis on la naguala, and Nahua metaphysics specifically, brings much needed attention to Anzaldúa's long-overlooked contribution to the study of subjectivity. The result is a women and queer of color, feminist-focused work aimed at scholars in many disciplines and intended to overcome barriers separating the academy from everyday life and community. An original and moving analysis, Shapeshifting Subjects draws on unpublished archival material to apply Anzaldúa's ideas to new areas of thought and action.

A Guide to English-Russian and Russian-English Non-literary Translation

by Alexandr Zaytsev

Lying at the intersection of translatology, cognitive science and linguistics, this brief provides a comprehensive framework for studying, investigating and teaching English-Russian/Russian-English non-literary translation. It provides a holistic perspective on the process of non-literary translation, illustrating each of its steps with carefully analyzed real-life examples. Readers will learn how to choose and process multidimensional attention units in original texts by activating different types of knowledge, as well as how to effectively devise target-language matches for them using various translation techniques. It is rounded out with handy and feasible recommendations on the structure and content of an undergraduate course in translation. The abundance of examples makes it suitable not only for use in the classroom, but also for independent study.

Language, Health and Culture: Problematizing the Centers and Peripheries of Healthcare Communication Research (Routledge Studies in Language, Health and Culture)

by Olga Zayts-Spence Susan M. Bridges

Language, Health and Culture brings together contributions by linguistic scholars working in the area of health communication in Asia—in particular, in Hong Kong, Mainland China, Singapore, Japan and Taiwan. Olga Zayts-Spence and Susan M. Bridges, along with the contributors, draw on a diverse range of authentic data from different (primary, secondary, digital) healthcare contexts across Asia. The contributions probe empirical analyses and meta-reflections on the empirical, epistemological and theoretical foundations of doing research on language and health communication in Asia. While many of the medical and technological advances originate from the ‘non-English-dominant’/‘peripheral’ contexts, when it comes to health communication, there is a strong tendency to downplay and marginalize the scope and the impact of the ripe research tradition in these contexts. The contributions to the edited volume problematize the hegemony of dominant (Anglocentric) traditions in health communication research by highlighting culture- and context-specific ways of interpreting different health realities through linguistic lenses.

Children’s Literature in the Classroom

by Matthew D. Zbaracki

Children′s literature is a powerful resource that can inspire a young reader’s lifetime love of reading, but how can you ensure that your literacy teaching uses this rich creative world to its fullest? This book gives pre-service primary teachers an in-depth guide to each major type of children′s book, examining the form, structure and approach of each. From fairy tales and non-fiction to picture books and digital texts, learn what qualities underpin outstanding children′s literature and how you can use this to inspire rewarding learning experiences in your classroom. Key features: Each chapter is full of key book recommendations to help you select excellent age-appropriate texts for your learners An international focus across English-language publishing, covering key books from Australian, US and UK authors A special focus on Australian indigenous children′s literature Busting popular myths about children′s literature to give you a deeper understanding of the form Evaluation criteria for every genre, helping you to recognise the qualities of high quality books This is essential reading for anyone training to teach in primary schools and qualified teachers looking to improve their professional knowledge. Matthew Zbaracki is State Head of Victoria in the National School of Education at ACU, Melbourne.

Children’s Literature in the Classroom

by Matthew D. Zbaracki

Children′s literature is a powerful resource that can inspire a young reader’s lifetime love of reading, but how can you ensure that your literacy teaching uses this rich creative world to its fullest? This book gives pre-service primary teachers an in-depth guide to each major type of children′s book, examining the form, structure and approach of each. From fairy tales and non-fiction to picture books and digital texts, learn what qualities underpin outstanding children′s literature and how you can use this to inspire rewarding learning experiences in your classroom. Key features: Each chapter is full of key book recommendations to help you select excellent age-appropriate texts for your learners An international focus across English-language publishing, covering key books from Australian, US and UK authors A special focus on Australian indigenous children′s literature Busting popular myths about children′s literature to give you a deeper understanding of the form Evaluation criteria for every genre, helping you to recognise the qualities of high quality books This is essential reading for anyone training to teach in primary schools and qualified teachers looking to improve their professional knowledge. Matthew Zbaracki is State Head of Victoria in the National School of Education at ACU, Melbourne.

Bakhtin Between East and West: Cross-cultural Transmission

by Karine Zbinden

"Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) has had an enormous influence on literary studies and cultural theory. Bakhtin between East and West: Cross-Cultural Transmission looks beyond the concepts of carnival and dialogue and traces for the first time the transformation of the Bakhtin Circle's thought from its introduction to the West in Julia Kristeva's seminal late-1960s theory of intertextuality, through Tzvetan Todorov's landmark study and on to contemporary interpretations. The notion of sociality in all its problematic complexity provides the red thread guiding us through this historical and thematic examination of Western and Russian Bakhtin studies. As a critical evaluation of Bakhtin scholarship across various cultures and a celebration of the vigour of the Circle's legacy, this is an invaluable resource for scholars and students with an interest in Bakhtin and critical theory."

Novel and Nation in the Muslim World

by Elisabeth �zdalga Daniella Kuzmanovic

This book explores the relationship between fictional literature and nation formation in the wider Muslim world. Through twelve unique case studies, it shows how the complex entanglements of nation, religion, and modernity in the process of political and cultural identity formation are probed and verbalized in fiction. The collection of studies in the book is unique. The chapters move beyond well-researched Arab-Muslim core settings such as Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, and focus onother Arabic and non-Arabic Muslim majority countries, including Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Azerbaijan, Iraq, and Iran. The contributions link these literary narratives to the formation of national identities in culturally and linguistically diverse - even antagonistic - settings. The book is excellent reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in Middle Eastern studies, cultural studies, comparative literature, postcolonial studies, anthropology, and sociology, as well as thoseinterested in Muslim societies, and nationalism.

Reading Sounds: Closed-Captioned Media and Popular Culture

by Sean Zdenek

Imagine a common movie scene: a hero confronts a villain. Captioning such a moment would at first glance seem as basic as transcribing the dialogue. But consider the choices involved: How do you convey the sarcasm in a comeback? Do you include a henchman's muttering in the background? Does the villain emit a scream, a grunt, or a howl as he goes down? And how do you note a gunshot without spoiling the scene? These are the choices closed captioners face every day. Captioners must decide whether and how to describe background noises, accents, laughter, musical cues, and even silences. When captioners describe a sound--or choose to ignore it--they are applying their own subjective interpretations to otherwise objective noises, creating meaning that does not necessarily exist in the soundtrack or the script. Reading Sounds looks at closed-captioning as a potent source of meaning in rhetorical analysis. Through nine engrossing chapters, Sean Zdenek demonstrates how the choices captioners make affect the way deaf and hard of hearing viewers experience media. He draws on hundreds of real-life examples, as well as interviews with both professional captioners and regular viewers of closed captioning. Zdenek's analysis is an engrossing look at how we make the audible visible, one that proves that better standards for closed captioning create a better entertainment experience for all viewers.

Zeami: Performance Notes (Translations from the Asian Classics)

by Motoyiko Zeami

Zeami (1363-1443), Japan's most celebrated actor and playwright, composed more than thirty of the finest plays of no drama. He also wrote a variety of texts on theater and performance that have, until now, been only partially available in English. Zeami: Performance Notes presents the full range of Zeami's critical thought on this subject, which focused on the aesthetic values of no and its antecedents, the techniques of playwriting, the place of allusion, the training of actors, the importance of patronage, and the relationship between performance and broader intellectual and critical concerns. Spanning over four decades, the texts reflect the essence of Zeami's instruction under his famous father, the actor Kannami, and the value of his long and challenging career in medieval Japanese theater. Tom Hare, who has conducted extensive studies of no academically and on stage, begins with a comprehensive introduction that discusses Zeami's critical importance in Japanese culture. He then incorporates essays on the performance of no in medieval Japan and the remarkable story of the transmission and reproduction of Zeami's manuscripts over the past six centuries. His eloquent translation is fully annotated and includes Zeami's diverse and exquisite anthology of dramatic songs, Five Sorts of Singing, presented both in English and in the original Japanese.

Sonority Constraints on Prosodic Structure (Routledge Library Editions: Phonetics and Phonology #23)

by Draga Zec

First published in 1994. The goal of this study is to find the correlations between the internal constituency of the syllable and the sonority of segments. Its major claim is that valid correlations can be established only under the moraic theory of syllable-internal structure. This work thus represents an argument for the moraic theory of the syllable. This title will be of interest to students of language and linguistics.

The Violence of Reading: Literature and Philosophy at the Threshold of Pain

by Dominik Zechner

The Violence of Reading: Literature and Philosophy at the Threshold of Pain expounds the scene of reading as one that produces an overwhelmed body exposed to uncontainable forms of violence. The book argues that the act of reading induces a representational instability that causes the referential function of language to collapse. This breakdown releases a type of “linguistic pain” (Scarry; Butler; Hamacher) that indicates a constitutive wounding of the reading body. The wound of language marks a rupture between linguistic reality and the phenomenal world. Exploring this rupture in various ways, the book brings together texts and genres from diverse traditions and offers close examinations of the rhetoric of masochism (Sacher-Masoch; Deleuze), the relation between reading and abuse (Nietzsche; Proust; Jelinek), the sublime experience of reading (Kant; Kafka; de Man), the “novel of the institution” (Musil; Campe), and literary suicide (Bachmann; Berryman; Okkervil River).

Automated Speaking Assessment: Using Language Technologies to Score Spontaneous Speech

by Klaus Zechner Keelan Evanini

Automated Speaking Assessment: Using Language Technologies to Score Spontaneous Speech provides a thorough overview of state-of-the-art automated speech scoring technology as it is currently used at Educational Testing Service (ETS). Its main focus is related to the automated scoring of spontaneous speech elicited by TOEFL iBT Speaking section items, but other applications of speech scoring, such as for more predictable spoken responses or responses provided in a dialogic setting, are also discussed. The book begins with an in-depth overview of the nascent field of automated speech scoring—its history, applications, and challenges—followed by a discussion of psychometric considerations for automated speech scoring. The second and third parts discuss the integral main components of an automated speech scoring system as well as the different types of automatically generated measures extracted by the system features related to evaluate the speaking construct of communicative competence as measured defined by the TOEFL iBT Speaking assessment. Finally, the last part of the book touches on more recent developments, such as providing more detailed feedback on test takers’ spoken responses using speech features and scoring of dialogic speech. It concludes with a discussion, summary, and outlook on future developments in this area. Written with minimal technical details for the benefit of non-experts, this book is an ideal resource for graduate students in courses on Language Testing and Assessment as well as teachers and researchers in applied linguistics.

Refine Search

Showing 56,451 through 56,475 of 56,862 results