EFL Learners’ Formulaic Language Use in Writing: an Action Research Account

The present study exemplifies an action research-based approach for addressing the extent to which a process of explicit instruction of formulaic language supports the use of this type of vocabulary in middle school students’ short narrative written texts. The study was conducted at a private school in Chile, as a plan to help learners use different forms of expression in a written format. Data were obtained from a group of 23 Spanish-speaking learners of English before and after the intervention period. The action research methodology was implemented in order to collect and analyse written compositions as well as a survey for evaluating the treatment from the students’ perspective. The observation and reflection process led to positive outcomes in relation to the use of formulaic expressions in writing, and students’ opinion about the process also proved favourable. The pedagogical innovation is reflected upon theoretical and pedagogical perspectives. Implications applicable to teachers working in this and other contexts are also considered.

DEGREES OF LATENCY OF ECOLOGICAL DISCOURSE AGENT (A CASE STUDY OF BRITISH ONLINE NEWSPAPERS)

This article proposes a study of degrees of latency of the agent, which is a semantic role performed by a participant of the communicative situation described in a sentence; this role correlates with the instigator of the action. The agent can be expressed explicitly, so that everybody understands who the action is performed by, or in a hidden, latent way. Drawing on Goatly’s (2018) research which demonstrates that degrees of agent’s latency can vary, we modify his scale of latency by taking into consideration non-verbal (visual) means. A great societal concern for environmental issues around the globe nowadays, together with the ecolinguistic vector of this research account for its timeliness. The purpose of this research is to identify the degrees of latency of the agent of environmental discourse. Syntactic constructions, lexical units, and visual images that render the agent were chosen as the object-matter of analysis, while the degrees of latency – as its subject-matter. The methods comprise general scientific methods, such as induction and deduction, synthesis and analysis, observation and contrast, as well as linguistic methods proper: critical discourse analysis, semantic analysis, and multimodal analysis. The sample is selected from online versions of most widely read British newspapers, both broadsheets and tabloids, The Guardian and Metro respectively. A modified scale of degrees of agent’s latency is suggested, where six categories of linguistic means are differentiated according to the degree of their latency. Explicit predication is characterized by a zero degree of latency; its measure increases in grammatical constructions, tropes, nominalizations, ellipsis, and indefinite agent respectively. The prospects of this research lie in comparison and quantitative counts of the agent’s latency in different types of British media.

ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCERS ON INSTAGRAM: CONNECTIONS AND FRICTIONS BETWEEN ACTIVISM, LIFESTYLES AND CONSUMPTION.

Environmental crisis is one of the main issues on the current social, political and media agenda that has spread to citizens engaging environmental activism in many ways. This paper focuses on the emergence of a very specific type of environmental activism in social media that we named as “eco-influencers”. Drawing on our findings of an ongoing digital ethnography (Pink et al. 2016; Hjorth, Horst, Galloway, Bell, 2017) among Instagram profiles devoted to disseminate contents related to sustainability and climate change, our aim here is to explore some controversial issues regarding how they understand independence in relation to activism, lifestyle, consumption and work. We named these environmental activist eco-influencers as these profiles develop similar strategies as those that, according to Leaver, Hihghfield and Abidin as influencers are characterized by: 1) applying positive self-branding strategies, 2) managing their visibility 3) cultivating their community of followers adopting storytelling techniques consistent with their lifestyles (Leaver, Hihghfield, Abidin, 2020: 106). The fieldwork consists in participant observation in Instagram since July 2020 following the profiles through a collective research account to maintain interaction and expand our field site until we have an intentional sample of 60 profiles that allowed us to create a first typology and beginning in-depth interviews. In this paper we highlight some features that have been raised regarding their activity as activists and the very notion of “eco-influencer”.

Accountabilities of posthuman research

What constitutes ‘good’ posthuman research? This article offers three dynamics to help assess the value of posthuman-inspired inquiry. We propose that a good posthuman research account should show evidence that the researcher: (1) attended to their own more-than-humanness and made explicit how they interviewed and attuned to the nonhuman things of their inquiry; (2) reassembled resemblings of the posthuman world by inventively weaving and fusing human and nonhuman storylines; and (3) offered analytic insights into the liveliness of posthuman research work as the performativity of difference.

Big Data Analytics Correlation Taxonomy

Big data analytics (BDA) is an increasingly popular research area for both organisations and academia due to its usefulness in facilitating human understanding and communication. In the literature, researchers have focused on classifying big data according to data type, data security or level of difficulty, and many research papers reveal that there is a lack of information on evidence of a real-world link of big data analytics methods and its associated techniques. Thus, many organisations are still struggling to realise the actual value of big data analytic methods and its associated techniques. Therefore, this paper gives a design research account for formulating and proposing a step ahead to understand the relation between the analytical methods and its associated techniques. Furthermore, this paper is an attempt to clarify this uncertainty and identify the difference between analytics methods and techniques by giving clear definitions for each method and its associated techniques to integrate them later in a new correlation taxonomy based on the research approaches. Thus, the primary outcome of this research is to achieve for the first time a correlation taxonomy combining analytic methods used for big data and its recommended techniques that are compatible for various sectors. This investigation was done through studying various descriptive articles of big data analytics methods and its associated techniques in different industries.

Enabling Environments? Examining Social Co-Benefits of Ecosystem-Based Adaptation to Climate Change in Sri Lanka

Climate change vulnerability and social marginalisation are often interrelated in and through environments. Variations in climate change adaptation practice and research account for such social-ecological relations to varying degrees. Advocates of ecosystem-based approaches to climate change adaptation (EbA) claim that it delivers social co-benefits to marginalised groups, although scant empirical evidence supports such claims. I investigate these claims in two EbA interventions in Sri Lanka, interpreting social benefits through an empowerment lens. I use qualitative methods such as focus groups and narrative interviews to study the conduct and context of the interventions. In both cases, marginalised people’s own empowered adaptive strategies reflect how power relations and vulnerabilities relate to dynamic ecologies. The findings show that EbA enabled social benefits for marginalised groups, especially through support to common-pool resource management institutions and the gendered practices of home gardens. Such conduct was embedded within, but mostly peripheral to, broader and deeper contestations of power. Nevertheless, projects acted as platforms for renegotiating these power relations, including through acts of resistance. The results call for greater recognition of the ways that marginalised groups relate to ecology within empowered adaptive strategies, whilst also highlighting the need to recognise the diverse interests and power relations that cut across the conduct and contexts of these nominally ecosystem-based interventions.

Næringslivets samhandling med universiteter og høgskoler i og utenfor regionen: Funn fra en undersøkelse av norske bedrifter

The chapter examines collaboration with universities from the perspective of firms, drawing on survey data from 1200 Norwegian firms. Around one in five firms collaborate with a university. The firms provide various motives for collaborating, including access to knowledge, access to students and staff, and improving their reputation. The collaborations span a wide variety of different mechanisms, including research, teaching and other activities. Frequently used indicators of university-industry interaction, such as joint research projects and contract research, account for less than half of all collaborations, while informal consultations and training or educational programmes emerge as important areas of collaboration. In two-thirds of the cases, the local university is the most important partner for university-industry interaction, while the national technical university NTNU accounts for more than half of the most important inter-regional connections. In total, 93 percent of firms involved in university-industry interaction have connections to their local universities. However, half of them also interact with universities in other regions of Norway, and 30 percent with foreign universities. Hence, local universities can act as bridges that also enable firms to reach distant research groups.

Education Leaders’ Health in the Integral Perspective. A Research Account

The article aims at presenting the integral approach to the health of Polish education leaders’ (head teachers) in light of Ken Wilber’s map (four classes of factors responsible for health), in the social-ecological model of health. Material and Methods: The Matrix of ReflectivenessDevelopment, an original self-observation schedule, was applied as a research tool. 46 head teachers were examined. Results: The results show that the respondents look after their own health the least. Relaxation is something they associate with mental health, while physical health is not high on their list of priorities. Conclusions: The respondents mainly focus on professional and family lives. Very little focus is placed on reflectionand an integral approach to health. The analysis of research results highlights the challenges that education at each level, including health education, must face.

Quaker Prophetic Language in the Seventeenth Century: A Cross-Disciplinary Case Study

This paper explores three themes: (i) a short, empirical research account of the linguistic realization of seventeenth-century Quaker prophecy using digital corpus-based tools; (ii) a practical description of how those tools can be used in interdisciplinary research such as the prophecy study; and (iii) a reflective section that considers the advantages, potential richness but also challenges of embarking on an integrated piece of research that straddles established academic disciplines. The ‘prophecy’ analysis comments on the nature of prophecy from a linguistic perspective. It includes positive and negative connotations observed in the data contrasted with non-Quaker texts (including the Bible), and also how Quaker prophetic style changed during the second half of the seventeenth century. The secondary purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the value of departing from traditional, well-established approaches in a discipline such as religion. Quaker studies scholars are familiar with the exercise of grappling with unfamiliar approaches, concepts and specialist vocabulary in order to learn about new insights that they might not otherwise encounter. The present quantitative-based study of Quaker prophesying is a fresh attempt to bring new life to this aspect of historical Quaker writings.