scholarly journals Potential Effect of Informal Learning of English Through Watching a Medical Television Series on the Development of Maritime Medical English Competence

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 445-465
Author(s):  
Violeta Jurkovič

As a result of the widespread use of online technologies and vast opportunities for the use of English in everyday online life, the field of online informal learning of languages, in particular English, has attracted a new wave of research attention. Nevertheless, the number of corpus studies in this field remains low. More specifically, to date no research study has focused on the suitability of the language input to which online users are exposed while performing online activities with regard to the development of language skills in English as a language for specific purposes. In order to bridge this research gap, the objective of this paper is to apply the corpus approach to examine whether watching a medical television series may have an effect on the development of medical Maritime English for future deck officers. The results indicate that in terms of lexical density, lexical diversity, terminology, and word clusters, watching a medical television series may have a limited effect on the development of medical Maritime English for future deck officers. However, future research should examine whether watching television series may have an effect on the acquisition of typical speech patterns in spoken maritime communication, which are closely related to everyday spoken communication. Importantly, the results also seem to indicate that online informal learning of English cannot replace all segments of the formal learning of English for Specific Purposes, but can significantly contribute to the development of general English competence, which is a precondition for the further development of discipline-specific language competence.

Author(s):  
Hairul Azhar Mohamad ◽  
Muhammad Luthfi Mohaini ◽  
Pavithran Ravinthra Nath

This research investigated into the lexical density and frequencies of five types of lexical chunks located in 300 online business letters. Top 10 websites on business correspondence had been identified in terms of traffic visitors and bounce rate under one million web rankings worldwide. Criterion Sampling method was identified prior to extracting the sample letters from the websites. The data was then run with Antconc Concordance Program (ACP) for lexical density and frequency analysis. Top 15 lexical chunks in online business letters (OBL) were compared against those top 15 in Business Letter Corpus (BLC). Findings revealed that there was a total of 39 916-word tokens and 939 counts of lexical chunks found in this corpus. It was found that more lexical words do not imply more lexical chunks used in based on types of business letters.  All 5 types of lexical chunks were identified and ranked in descending order; Sentence Builders (SB) as the most frequent type, followed by Collocations (COL), Deictic locutions (DLs), Polywords (POLs) and Institutionalized Expressions (IUs) as the least frequent type of lexical chunk. Sub-divisional analysis indicated that Grammatical Collocations (GCs) were more common than Lexical Collocations (LCs). Majority of lexical chunks were formed more at sentence level than phrasal level. Comparative analysis between top 15 lexical chunks in OBL and BLC discovered that most top lexical chunks in online business letters are representative of those corporate business letters in BLC. Pedagogical implications in terms of the reliability of online business letters for academic reference and future research considerations are also addressed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Huoyin Zhang ◽  
Shiyunmeng Zhang ◽  
Jiachen Lu ◽  
Yi Lei ◽  
Hong Li

AbstractPrevious studies in humans have shown that brain regions activating social exclusion overlap with those related to attention. However, in the context of social exclusion, how does behavioral monitoring affect individual behavior? In this study, we used the Cyberball game to induce the social exclusion effect in a group of participants. To explore the influence of social exclusion on the attention network, we administered the Attention Network Test (ANT) and compared results for the three subsystems of the attention network (orienting, alerting, and executive control) between exclusion (N = 60) and inclusion (N = 60) groups. Compared with the inclusion group, the exclusion group showed shorter overall response time and better executive control performance, but no significant differences in orienting or alerting. The excluded individuals showed a stronger ability to detect and control conflicts. It appears that social exclusion does not always exert a negative influence on individuals. In future research, attention to network can be used as indicators of social exclusion. This may further reveal how social exclusion affects individuals' psychosomatic mechanisms.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-61
Author(s):  
Francesc Fusté-Forné ◽  
Tazim Jamal

Research on the relationship between automation services and tourism has been rapidly growing in recent years and has led to a new service landscape where the role of robots is gaining both practical and research attention. This paper builds on previous reviews and undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the research literature to discuss opportunities and challenges presented by the use of service robots in hospitality and tourism. Management and ethical issues are identified and it is noted that practical and ethical issues (roboethics) continue to lack attention. Going forward, new directions are urgently needed to inform future research and practice. Legal and ethical issues must be proactively addressed, and new research paradigms developed to explore the posthumanist and transhumanist transitions that await. In addition, closer attention to the potential of “co-creation” for addressing innovations in enhanced service experiences in hospitality and tourism is merited. Among others, responsibility, inclusiveness and collaborative human-robot design and implementation emerge as important principles to guide future research and practice in this area.


2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Fei Chen ◽  
Duming Luo ◽  
Tao Xiang ◽  
Ping Chen ◽  
Junfeng Fan ◽  
...  

Recent years have seen the rapid development and integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing. The market is providing various consumer-oriented smart IoT devices; the mainstream cloud service providers are building their software stacks to support IoT services. With this emerging trend even growing, the security of such smart IoT cloud systems has drawn much research attention in recent years. To better understand the emerging consumer-oriented smart IoT cloud systems for practical engineers and new researchers, this article presents a review of the most recent research efforts on existing, real, already deployed consumer-oriented IoT cloud applications in the past five years using typical case studies. Specifically, we first present a general model for the IoT cloud ecosystem. Then, using the model, we review and summarize recent, representative research works on emerging smart IoT cloud system security using 10 detailed case studies, with the aim that the case studies together provide insights into the insecurity of current emerging IoT cloud systems. We further present a systematic approach to conduct a security analysis for IoT cloud systems. Based on the proposed security analysis approach, we review and suggest potential security risk mitigation methods to protect IoT cloud systems. We also discuss future research challenges for the IoT cloud security area.


Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Irati Hurtado ◽  
Kacie Gastañaga

University Spanish courses designed specifically for heritage language learners (HLLs) are becoming more common, and researchers have indicated that empirical research is needed to evaluate their effectiveness. This longitudinal study investigates the writing development of 24 HLLs as a result of instruction over the course of the semester. Nine were enrolled in a heritage-only section of a Spanish composition course, and the remainder were from mixed HL/L2 sections of the same course. Both section types were taught online. The major assignments the students produced were two 500-word essays, and students also completed bi-weekly forum posts. We examined the development of lexical density, sophistication, and diversity as well as syntactic complexity and accuracy by comparing each student’s first and final essay and forum posts. Findings indicate that there were significant differences between the scores received on the forum posts in comparison to the essays. However, there were no significant developmental differences in terms of group. Implications, avenues for future research, and pedagogical suggestions are discussed.


AMS Review ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 279-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Heidenreich ◽  
Katrin Talke

AbstractIn organizations, mandated adoption contexts are the rule rather than the exception. Individuals, who are denied the choice between adopting and rejecting an innovation, are more likely to engage in opposition behavior, particularly if the innovation conflicts with their held beliefs. Interestingly, neither the construct of forced adoption nor its consequences have received much research attention. To address this gap, we conduct a systematic literature review and provide theoretical rationales for the emergence of innovation resistance and opposition behaviors in organizations. We then develop an innovation decision model of individual adoption behavior that localizes negative outcomes of the secondary adoption process along the different process stages, providing insights into their emergence and potential consequences for the organization. Furthermore, we identify important avenues for future research and show how our innovation decision model can be used to advance theory development on forced adoption.


2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (2/3) ◽  
pp. 305-320
Author(s):  
Daniel Bishop

Purpose The purpose of this paper asks how workplace learning environments change as firm size increases, and how employees respond to this. In doing so, it looks beyond an exclusive focus on formal training and incorporates more informal, work-based learning processes. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a comparative, qualitative research design, using semi-structured interviews with an under-researched group of workers – waiting for staff in restaurants. The data were collected from six restaurants of different sizes. Findings As formally instituted human resource development (HRD) structures expand as firm size increases are more extensive in larger firms, this leaves less room for individual choice and agency in shaping the learning process. This does not inevitably constrain or enhance workplace learning, and can be experienced either negatively or positively by employees, depending on their previous working and learning experiences. Research limitations/implications Future research on HRD and workplace learning should acknowledge both formal and informal learning processes and the interaction between them – particularly in small and growing firms. Insights are drawn from the sociomaterial perspective help the authors to conceptualise this formality and informality. Research is needed in a wider range of sectors. Practical implications There are implications for managers in small, growing firms, in terms of how they maintain space for informal learning as formal HRD structures expand, and how they support learners who may struggle in less structured learning environments. Originality/value The paper extends current understanding of how the workplace learning environment – beyond a narrow focus on “training” – changes as firm size increases.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-298
Author(s):  
Pauline Degrave

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to review recent research illustrating the importance of prosody in foreign language acquisition, and to examine whether music might help in this learning process. The paper starts off by defining prosody and by examining previous research on foreign language prosody acquisition, stating the difficulties for learners and the potential effect of non-native prosody on communication, notably on comprehensibility, intelligibility and accentedness. A subsequent section focuses on prosodic characteristics of Dutch and the problems foreign language learners may encounter in acquiring them. Based on this general description of foreign language prosody acquisition, the paper then zooms in on the link between music and prosody, and on the potential effect of musical training, musical abilities or the use of music in the foreign language classroom on foreign language prosody acquisition. The paper ends with a short discussion on avenues for future research.


2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christy Haley ◽  
Ross Andel

The authors examined factors related to participation in walking, gardening or yard work, and sports or exercise in 686 community-dwelling adults 60–95 years of age from Wave IV of the population-based Americans’ Changing Lives Study. Logistic regression revealed that male gender, being married, and better functional health were associated with greater likelihood of participating in gardening or yard work (p < .05). Male gender, better functional health, and lower body-mass index were independently associated with greater likelihood of walking (p < .05). Increasing age, male gender, higher education, and better functional health were associated with greater likelihood of participating in sports or exercise (p < .05). Subsequent analyses yielded an interaction of functional health by gender in sport or exercise participation (p = .06), suggesting a greater association between functional health and participation in men. Gender and functional health appear to be particularly important for physical activity participation, which may be useful in guiding future research. Attention to different subgroups may be needed to promote participation in specific activities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esme Fuller-Thomson ◽  
Kaitlyn E. N. Howden ◽  
Lilia R. Fuller-Thomson ◽  
Senyo Agbeyaka

Factors associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) among never-smokers have received little research attention. One potential risk factor for COPD is obesity, which is of particular importance in light of the global obesity epidemic. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between COPD and levels of obesity in a nationally representative sample of non-Hispanic white never-smokers. Data were drawn from the 2012 Center for Disease Control’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). Pearson’s chi-square tests and logistic regression analyses were conducted in a large nationally representative sample of non-Hispanic white respondents aged 50 and over (76,004 women; 37,618 men) who reported that they had never smoked. A dose-response relationship was observed for both men and women: the prevalence of COPD increased from 2.5% in men and 3.5% in women who were of a healthy weight (BMI < 25) to 7.6% in men and 13.4% in women who had a BMI of 40 or higher. Even after adjusting for 7 potential confounds (e.g., age, education, and income), the odds of COPD were 3.21 higher for men (95% CI = 2.46, 4.20) and 4.00 higher for women with class III obesity (95% CI = 3.52, 4.55) in comparison with those of healthy weight. Regular screening for COPD is warranted in never-smoking obese patients who are aged 50 and over. Future research is needed to investigate plausible mechanisms for this association, including (1) the role of chronic inflammation associated with obesity and (2) the impact of central obesity on respiratory system mechanics.


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