SYNTACTIC SYNONYMY AS ONE OF THE PECULIARITIES OF AUTHOR’S IDIOSTYLE (based on French fiction of the XXth – the beginning of the XXIst centuries)

In this article the syntactic synonyms as one the characteristics of the author’s idiostyle are defined as the co(n)textually preferential options formed in the continuum language → discourse as a result of the phased phenomenological cognitive polyoperations at the levels of primary and secondary consciousness: destruction and reconstruction of being and its structures and categories → sublinguistic schemes → primary (pivotal) structures → secondary reduced, extended and quantitatively equacomponential one-basis and two-basis synonymic transforms. Transformational processes and the primary structure are revealed by means of the procedure of inverse reconstruction (discourse → language). The author’s idiostyle is considered as the correlation of different degree of individual and collective cognitive spaces that conditions the choice and actualization of some synonymic structures. Three types of author’s idiostyle are distinguished: 1) diffuse (dominance of the collective cognitive space over the individual one which is revealed through the realization of synonymic structures characteristic to a certain epoch; 2) personal (prevalence of the individual cognitive space over the collective one, that is the actualization of grammaticalized synonymic utterances appropriate for another epoch, of typical agrammaticalized synonymic structures characteristic to another epoch or non-characteristic to the described epoch, of non-typical agrammaticalized synonymic structures. The french writer’s idiostyle of the XXth – the beginning of the XXIst centuries is analyzed using the examples of different semantic-structural types of synonymic preferential options (reduced mono- and polypredicative constructions with the participial and gerundial head lexemes, asyndetic conditional structures and extended with the predicates and presentatives synonymic structures) and it is proved the coexistence of two phenomena: reduction and extension in the modern French fiction despite of the general tendency of the economy of means of expression of author’s thought

Plugged or Unplugged Teaching: A Case Study of Students’ Preferences in the Teaching of Programming

This study is an investigation of the effects of plugged and unplugged activities in a programming course using the Programming in Seven Steps (PSS) model on pupils' satisfaction and activity type preferences. A case study method was used in the classroom was the case. Data included students' diary, their responses on semi-structured interview forms, and semi-structured interviews with a selected sub-set of students. The collected data were analyzed by content analysis technique. It has been found that there are different factors that positively affect student satisfaction for "Conditional Structures", "Variables" and "Loops" courses that are processed according to YAP model. In addition, students' preferences and reasons for activity type differ. Study results show that training students with their preferred activity types increases their satisfaction and enable them to overcome associated difficulties more easily. It is concluded that because the PSS model is effective with students with different learning environment preferences, it can be used as a model to increase learner satisfaction with programming instruction.

Sinnräume

The paper introduces the concept of “spaces of meaning,” distilled from the work of political theorist Hannah Arendt, and used as an interpretative tool to understand some central theoretical moves in the The Human Condition. By focusing on activities which actualise conditional structures and which thereby generate experiences and meaning, I present a phenomenological re-interpretation of Arendt’s three basic activities of labour, work, and action, which actualise the conditions of life, worldliness, and plurality. The term “spaces of meaning” indicates how the unfolding of certain activities simultaneously creates and structures spaces and meaningful orientation which involves a certain temporality, spatiality, corporeality, and intersubjectivity. I differentiate between activity-based and visibility-based spaces of meaning and present a dynamic interpretation of their interplay. In doing so, I challenge Seyla Benhabib’s view that part of Arendt’s methodology contains what Benhabib calls “phenomenological essentialism.” Furthermore, this analysis aims at developing an analytical tool and flexible framework also beyond Arendt scholarship. Phenomenologists can use this model of “spaces of meaning” for the task of reclaiming experience as world-building and world-opening, also in a normative sense, and of demonstrating how structures and orders are lived while they condition and form spaces of meaning. If we want to understand, criticise, act, or change something, this subjective and intersubjective perspective will remain indispensable.

If-Conditionals and Modality: Frequency Patterns and Theoretical Explanations

It has often been claimed that conditionals have a special relation to modality. This study tests this claim empirically by examining the frequency of modal marking in a number of conditional and non-conditional structures using a corpus-based approach. It then seeks to provide explanations for the emerging frequency patterns in light of the tenets of two linguistic theories: Lexical Grammar and Construction Grammar. This juxtaposition was motivated by the substantial overlap in their tenets: both take into account meaning (semantic and pragmatic), as well as lexical and grammatical factors.

The Linguistic Issues of Form and function and their Effect on Translating Conditional Structures in the Qur’an

According to Ryding (2005), "conditional propositions are ones in which hypothetical conditions are specified in order for something else to take place." He adds "there are two clauses, one that specifies the condition…" and "one that specifies the consequences or result of those conditions" (p.671). On the other hand, "the equivalent terms in Arabic are شرط /ʃartˤ/ (for the condition clause) and جواب /jawaab/ (for the consequence clause)"(p.671). The writer divides conditions into "reasonably realizable" (if you study hard, you will pass) and "simply expressions of impossible or “contrary to fact” conditions"(p.671) (If he were rich, he would buy your car). In brief, conditional sentences in both English and Arabic can be grouped into two categories, namely, real conditionals and unreal ones. Real conditionals are indicated by a speaker who believes positively about the achievement of the condition, while the speaker of the unreal ones believes negatively about this achievement. Moreover, the use of different conditional particles appoints the type of the condition in Arabic, but it is identified by the cluster of verb forms in English. In English, the conditional sentence may precede or follow the main sentence, but it generally precedes the main sentence in Arabic. The tense of the verbs used in English conditional sentences differ in most cases from their Arabic counterparts. Furthermore, the most common type of conditionals in English involves ‘if’ and ‘unless’ but there are three common conditional particles and about ten conditional nouns in Arabic. Ryding (2005) states that, "Arabic uses different particles to express possible conditions and impossible conditions"(p.671). The English conditional article ' if ' has three equivalents in Arabic: /?in/, /?iðaa/ and /law/. The verbs of the two English conditional clauses in each of the four cases are in a sort of harmony in tense, but in Arabic such tense agreement is not a must. Hence, we conclude that there is a general tense harmony between the English conditional clauses, but in Arabic, this is not commonly the case. This dissonance leads to some extent of confusion while translating the source language(SL) into the target language(TL) in general and from the Quran ( as SL) into English (as TL) in particular.

Persuading consumers: The use of conditional constructions in British hotel websites

Hotel websites display textual and non-textual strategies with the aim of turning online visitors into customers. This article focuses on two related textual aspects: how consumers are discursively construed and how conditional constructions are used in order to persuade and convince consumers of the adequacy of the hotel. The framework adopted for the analysis combines Stern’s notion of ‘implied consumer’ with a corpus-driven approach. The corpus data comprises 114 British hotel websites and totals half a million words. This is a subcorpus of COMETVAL, a database compiled at the University of València. The results reveal the importance of a number of words that address consumers directly or indirectly. These words intertwine with others to form patterns that help establish a bond between hoteliers and their clients. Further exploration of the corpus confirmed that some conditional sequences such as if you and should you are used by advertisers to speculate about the needs and wishes of consumers that the hotel can fulfil for them. The analysis suggests that conditional structures are a distinctive discursive characteristic strongly associated with the dialogic nature of the discourse hotel websites.

Increasing Intrinsic Motivation of Programming Students: Towards Fix and Play Educational Games

Aim/Purpose: The objective of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of educational games on learning computer programming. In particular, we are examining whether allowing students to manipulate the underlying code of the educational games will increase their intrinsic motivation. Background: Young students are fond of playing digital games. Moreover, they are also interested in creating game applications. We try to make use of both of these facts. Methodology: A prototype was created to teach the fundamentals of conditional structures. A number of errors were intentionally included in the game at different stages. Whenever an error is encountered, students have to stop the game and fix the bug before proceeding. A pilot study was conducted to evaluate this approach. Contribution: This research investigates a novel approach to teach programming using educational games. This study is at the initial stage. Findings: Allowing the programming students to manipulate the underlying code of the educational game they play will increase their intrinsic motivation. Recommendations for Practitioners: Creating educational games to teach programming, and systematically allowing the players to manipulate the gaming logic, will be beneficial to the students. Recommendation for Researchers: This research can be extended to investigate how various artificial intelligence techniques can be used to model the gamers, for example, skill level. Impact on Society: The future generations of students should be able to use digital technologies proficiently. In addition, they should also be able to understand and modify the underlying code in the digital things (like Internet of Things).This research attempts to alleviate the disenchantment associated with learning coding. Future Research: A full scale evaluation – including objective evaluation using game scores – will be conducted. One-way MANOVA will be used to analyze the efficacy of the proposed intervention on the students’ performance, and their intrinsic motivation and flow experience.