scholarly journals Constructing Cohesive Meaning: A Textual Analysis of Diseases in an 11th-Grade U.S. History Textbook

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-215
Author(s):  
Edgar Díaz

Social studies texts often pose a challenge for readers because of their complex linguistics features, which can cause comprehension issues. Drawing upon Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), this study examines how authors create cohesive messages and meaning in an 11th-grade U.S. history textbook in relation to the history of diseases. Findings reveal four main cohesive resources: (1) referring words, (2) ellipses, (3) lexical cohesion, and (4) text connectives, are utilized to construct a message that holds together and builds from clause to clause. Consequently, a responsibility is placed on the reader to track the participant(s) while also forcing them to track the events in the rest of the clause. Although the function of cohesive resources helps the writer to express their ideas, it may also impede novice readers, such as emergent bilinguals, from keeping track of all the participants and information. Implications provide ways social studies teachers can take up a role as a language teacher to support comprehension of social studies content and language development.

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-43
Author(s):  
Abdelaziz Berghout

The paper examines the importance of designing a framework for studying worldviews within the parameters of contemporary Islamic thought. It briefly reviews both selected western and Islamic stances on worldview studies. The literature reveals that research on this topic and its application to different spheres has become a topic of some interest to many intellectual circles, particularly in the western context. Hence, the possibility of forming an Islamic civilizational framework for an inquiry into people’s worldviews needs to be assessed. This article follows a textual analysis and inductive approach to analyze the prospects of formulating an Islamic framework for research on worldviews and its applications. It concludes that western scholars have made considerable efforts in treating people’s worldviews as a field of study, while Muslim scholars have not. In this respect, many western researchers have contributed to developing worldview studies as a separate field of inquiry, including the history of concept, subject matter, objectives, kinds, methods, and applications. Therefore, the need to enhance the Islamic input and research pertaining to this field by introducing an Islamic civilizational framework and approach of inquiry becomes apparent.


Diachronica ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Westergaard

In the history of English one finds a mixture of V2 and non-V2 word order in declaratives for several hundred years, with frequencies suggesting a relatively gradual development in the direction of non-V2. Within an extended version of a cue-based approach to acquisition and change, this paper argues that there are many possible V2 grammars, differing from each other with respect to clause types, information structure, and the behavior of specific lexical elements. This variation may be formulated in terms of micro-cues. Child language data from present-day mixed systems show that such grammars are acquired early. The apparent optionality of V2 in the history of English may thus be considered to represent several different V2 grammars in succession, and it is not necessary to refer to competition between two major parameter settings. Diachronic language development can thus be argued to occur in small steps, reflecting the loss of micro-cues, and giving the impression that change is gradual.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-122
Author(s):  
Maarten S. Sibinga ◽  
C. Jack Friedman

The incidence of delay in language development and difficulties in speech articulation was determined in 71 children selected because of a history of prior physical immobilization. Ten children were referred for psychological evaluation after contact with a speech department, 44 presented with a variety of learning and behavioral difficulties, and 17 children were known through social contacts. Nine children were clearly brain damaged while 13 showed questionable evidence of brain damage. Language delay and speech articulation problems occurred in at least 55% of the children in the various groups. Young age (4.7 months) at the time of the initial restraint experience, but not the duration of the initial restraint experience, was positively related to the presence of language delay and articulation problems. Interference with sensorimotor function not directly involved in receptive or expressive speech functions might well he implicated in language and speech disturbances.


Author(s):  
Wan Faizatul Azirah Ismayatim ◽  
Sridevi Sriniwasss ◽  
Nadiah Thanthawi Jauhari

This paper reports on a study on Experiential meaning particularly the main process types used in the reporting of the airstrike event launched by Malaysian security forces on March 5, 2013 during the intrusion of “Sulu Sultan” followers in Lahad Datu. Data for the study comprised text reports pertinent to the airstrike event published in four different English newspapers which are The News Straits Times (NST), The Star (TS), The Philippine Daily Inquirer (TPDI) and The Philippine Star (TPS). A total of 8 texts were analysed. Various methods have been developed to study newspapers representation and stance of controversial issues which include content analysis, critical discourse analysis, lexical cohesion, the use of metaphors, transitivity and thematic analysis among others. However, the framework of transitivity has not been widely used. Hence, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), in particular, the System of Transitivity propounded by M.A.K. Halliday (1994) was used to bridge the gap in research and the methodology of text analysis was deployed. The study revealed that NST was the only newspaper which highlighted the sorrow and the grief of Malaysians and its Prime Minister in which this newspaper accounts for the most in employing the Mental Processes, while TS, TPDI and TPS highlighted more on the physical actions and the resoluteness of both countries in handling the Lahad Datu conflict when Material Processes were dominant in these newspapers.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-136
Author(s):  
Patrick Manning ◽  
Mary Ellen Avery ◽  
Alan Ross

The paper by Kaplan and colleagues in a previous issue starts by emphasizing the unusually high incidence of otitis media among Eskimo children. Forty-one percent of their cohort of 489 Alaskan Eskimo children, followed for ten years, had perforations or scars of the tympanic membranes; significant hearing losses were present in 16% of the group. Among the 374 children with a history of otorrhea, 291 (78%) had their first attack before their second birthday. The adverse effects of hearing loss in early life on language development were underscored by the authors, who quite properly point out the need for special educational programs.


Author(s):  
Elza-Bair M. Guchinova ◽  

Introduction. The proposed publication consists of an introduction, texts of two biographical interviews and comments thereon. Both the conversations took place in Elista (2004, 2017) as part of the research project ‘Everyone Has One’s Own Siberia’ dedicated to the important period in the history of Kalmykia though not yet sufficiently explored by anthropologists and sociologists — the deportation of Kalmyks to Siberia (1943–1956) and related memories. Goals. The project seeks to show the daily survival practices of Kalmyks in Siberia. In the spontaneous biographical interviews focusing on the years of Kalmyk deportation, not only the facts cited are important — of which we would otherwise stay unaware but from the oral narratives — but also the introduced stories of inner life: feelings and thoughts of growing girls. Methods. The paper involves the use of textual analysis and the method of text deconstruction. Results. The transcribed texts show survival and adaptation strategies employed by the young generation of ‘special settlers’ in places of forced residence. For many Kalmyks of that generation, high school was a ‘glass ceiling’, a limitation in life choices. In the narrative of R. Ts. Azydova, we face a today unthinkable social package for KUTV students with children — this illustrates how the korenization policy for indigenous populations in the USSR worked, and provides insight into daily practices of pre-war Elista. The story of T. S. Kachanova especially clearly manifests the ‘language of trauma’, first of all, through the memory of the body, vocabulary of death and displays of laughter. The texts of the interviews shall be interesting to all researchers of Kalmyk deportation and the memory of that period.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 515
Author(s):  
Emi Emilia ◽  
Nurfitri Habibi ◽  
Lungguh Ariang Bangga

The paper reports on the results of a study aiming to investigate the cohesion of exposition texts written by eleventh graders of a school in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. The study used a qualitative case study research design, especially text analysis, involving 32 students. In the interest of space, the paper will present the data obtained from six texts written by 6 students, representing low, mid, and high achievers. The texts were analyzed using systemic functional linguistics (SFL), especially in terms of schematic structure and linguistic features, especially those contributing to the cohesion of the texts, such as Theme progression and cohesive devices. The results show that all texts show students’ grasp and understanding of the schematic structure of an exposition, including thesis, argument, and restatement of the thesis. All texts also successfully use the zig-zag and the Theme reiteration patterns, which indicate the students’ emerging capacity to create a text with cohesion at the clause level. However, only texts written by high achievers employ the multiple Theme pattern, indicating the students’ emerging capacity to create a text with better sense of connectedness, unity, and flow of information at the global level. High achiever texts also employ discourse features which allow the reader to predict how the text will unfold and guide them to a line of understanding of a text as a whole. Moreover, in terms of cohesive devices, all texts use some simple cohesive devices—reference, lexical cohesion, and conjunction. It should be mentioned that all texts are rudimentary with some inappropriate word choices and grammatical problems. This suggests that the students still needed more guidance and time to do research on the topic in focus, to go through the process of writing as professional do, to allow them to create a better text with more elaboration and characteristics of written language with consistency and accuracy. It is recommended that further research on different perspectives and foci of analysis of different text types using systemic functional linguistics, with more representative samples, and studies on the teaching of writing be conducted.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-120
Author(s):  
Paul Moody

Verity Lambert's brief period as Director of Production at Thorn-EMI Screen Entertainment (TESE) was responsible for the in-house development of five films: Morons from Outer Space (1985), Restless Natives (1985), Dreamchild (1985), Link (1986) and Clockwise (1986), although she had left the company before the last three were released. There has been limited critical engagement with these productions and Lambert's tenure in general, with the existing literature on this material tending to emphasise the eclectic nature of what were to be TESE's last releases before the company's sale to Cannon ( Hill 1999 ; Moody 2018 ; Park 1990 ; Walker 1985 ; Walker 2004 ; Wickham and Mettler 2005 ). Drawing on a series of detailed interviews with former TESE Production Executive, Graham Easton, along with previously unreleased archival documents from the Film Finances archive, this article develops a more detailed textual analysis and production history of these releases, in order more clearly to map TESE's complexities during this period. By engaging more coherently with the themes and aesthetics of TESE's output, the article argues that there is a consistency to Lambert's productions which can be seen at both a thematic and a stylistic level, centred on notions of constraint and obstacles to communication, and that this was nurtured by the environment created by Lambert and the Film Finances completion bond for each film.


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