Teaching Technical Writing to Non-Native Speakers of English

1983 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest J. Parkin, Jr.
1981 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
Mohan R. Limaye

This article emphasizes four syntactic-rhetorical imperatives which make written messages easier to read. 1. Keep subjects and their verbs close together. Since native speakers of English expect verbs to follow subjects closely, any intervening element makes the processing of information difficult. The longer the intervening element, the more difficult the comprehension of the message. 2. Use appropriate prepositions between nouns to explicitly indicate their semantic relationships. Long nominal phrases are hard to understand because these implicit relationships create ambiguity. What compounds the difficulty of the message is that all the nouns in the phrase, except the last one, assume the function normal to adjectives namely, modification. 3. Help readers to segment syntactic units correctly. The obstacles to readability in this area are the omission of commas and of the signals of subordination, and the misplacement of modifiers. 4. Match textual sequence with chronological sequence. If the sequence of the events does not match the sequence of their reporting in a piece of technical writing, that piece of expository prose is bound to communicate poorly.


1983 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest J. Parkin

Teaching technical writing to non-native speakers of English is complicated by their special needs. Central to the discussion is the idea that expository writing ought to be a key element of any program purporting to teach English. The nature of proper preparatory training is discussed with specific reference to the language groups American trainers are likely to encounter working in the U.S. or abroad. The justification for specific practices is discussed and should enable instructors to develop further strategies for training. Once the preparatory work is completed, effective technical writing instruction for non-native trainees requires modification of a good program for native speakers. Training is most effective if material is presented in culturally familiar and intellectually compatible ways.


GEOgraphia ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (36) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Joseli Maria Silva ◽  
Marcio Jose Ornat

Este artigo tem por objetivo evidenciar alguns dos elementos que sustentam a lógica de centralidade do discurso científico anglo-americano nas redes mundiais de conhecimento, bem como destacar as mazelas da influência desta hegemonia científica nos processos de identificação das sexualidades no Brasil. Os argumentos do texto estão baseados nos princípios epistêmicos expressos na Sessão Publishing for Non-Native Speakers of English, que fez parte do Encontro Anual da Association of American Geographers (AAG) realizado em Tampa, Flórida, em abril de 2014. A organização das redes mundiais de conhecimento científico tem reforçado o lugar de enunciação anglo-americano que cria as representações de mundo que extrapolam o cenário acadêmico, atingindo também as experiências cotidianas e os movimentos sociais e políticos de travestis e transexuais brasileiras.


Interpreting ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ena Hodzik ◽  
John N. Williams

We report a study on prediction in shadowing and simultaneous interpreting (SI), both considered as forms of real-time, ‘online’ spoken language processing. The study comprised two experiments, focusing on: (i) shadowing of German head-final sentences by 20 advanced students of German, all native speakers of English; (ii) SI of the same sentences into English head-initial sentences by 22 advanced students of German, again native English speakers, and also by 11 trainee and practising interpreters. Latency times for input and production of the target verbs were measured. Drawing on studies of prediction in English-language reading production, we examined two cues to prediction in both experiments: contextual constraints (semantic cues in the context) and transitional probability (the statistical likelihood of words occurring together in the language concerned). While context affected prediction during both shadowing and SI, transitional probability appeared to favour prediction during shadowing but not during SI. This suggests that the two cues operate on different levels of language processing in SI.


1995 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 380-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naoyuki Takagi ◽  
Virginia Mann

AbstractTo evaluate the effect of extended adult exposure to authentic spoken English on the perceptual mastery of English /r/ and /l/, we tested 12 native speakers of English (A), 12 experienced Japanese (EJ) who had spent 12 or more years in the United States, and 12 less experienced Japanese (LJ) who had spent less than one year in the United States. The tests included the forced-choice identification of naturally produced /r/s and /1/s and the labeling of word-initial synthetic tokens that varied F2 and F3 to form an /r/-/l/-/w/ continuum. The F.Js’ mean performance in both tasks was closer to that of the As than the LJs, but nonetheless fell short. Extended exposure may improve /r/-/l/ identification accuracy; it does not ensure perfect perceptual mastery.


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