Download or read book Evaluating Theories of Language written by Karen Dodd and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-30 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One approach to the study of language has been to describe people whose ability to communicate is impaired. Some researchers have argued that it is possible to identify the component mental processes that contribute to the ability to communicate by describing the ways in which language can break down. Other researchers have expressed doubts about the extent to which data from impairment reflects normal language function. This volume reflects the problems of constructing theory of how the normal brain deals with language from data from impaired individuals from the perspective of a range of disciplines: psycholinguistics, linguistics, neurophysiology and speech-language pathology. The chapters include critiques of methodology; application of new technology; the study of bilingual people; and cross-linguistic studies. A range of language skills is discussed (phonology, prosody, syntax, semantics, reading and spelling) in the context of both developmental and acquired impairments (hearing loss, cerebellar dysarthria, sub-cortical aphasia, cortical aphasia, phonological disorder, and dyslexia). This book icludes contributions from researchers and clinicians on both sides of the Atlantic as well as from Australia and Hong Kong.
Download or read book The Cambridge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition written by Julia Herschensohn and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is language and how can we investigate its acquisition by children or adults? What perspectives exist from which to view acquisition? What internal constraints and external factors shape acquisition? What are the properties of interlanguage systems? This comprehensive 31-chapter handbook is an authoritative survey of second language acquisition (SLA). Its multi-perspective synopsis on recent developments in SLA research provides significant contributions by established experts and widely recognized younger talent. It covers cutting edge and emerging areas of enquiry not treated elsewhere in a single handbook, including third language acquisition, electronic communication, incomplete first language acquisition, alphabetic literacy and SLA, affect and the brain, discourse and identity. Written to be accessible to newcomers as well as experienced scholars of SLA, the Handbook is organised into six thematic sections, each with an editor-written introduction.
Download or read book Theory of Language written by Steven Weisler and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Along with coverage of phonics, phonology, morphology, semantics and syntax, the text covers more unconventional topics including language and culture, and language evolution."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Language Assessment Literacy written by Dina Tsagari and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of language testing and assessment has recognized the importance and underlying theoretical and practical underpinnings of language assessment literacy (LAL), an area that is gradually coming to prominence. This book addresses issues that promote the concept of LAL for language research, teaching, and learning, covering a range of topics. It brings together 14 chapters based on high-stakes and classroom-based studies authored by academics, professionals and researchers in the field. The text examines diverse issues through a multifaceted approach, presenting high-quality contributions that fill a gap in a research area that has long been in need of theoretical and empirical attention.
Download or read book The Language of Evaluation written by J. Martin and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-09-27 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first comprehensive account of the Appraisal Framework. The underlying linguistic theory is explained and justified, and the application of this flexible tool, which has been applied to a wide variety of text and discourse analysis issues, is demonstrated throughout by sample text analyses from a range of registers, genres and fields.
Download or read book Language Program Evaluation written by Brian K. Lynch and published by Ernst Klett Sprachen GmbH. This book was released on 1996 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combines qualitative and quantitative approaches to second language program evaluation.
Download or read book Critical Thinking in Psychology written by Robert J. Sternberg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores key topics in psychology, showing how they can be critically examined.
Download or read book Generating Creative Language Theories Practice and Evaluation written by Mika Hämäläinen and published by Mika Hämäläinen. This book was released on 2020-10-08 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis presents approaches to computationally creative natural language generation focusing on theoretical foundations, practical solutions and evaluation. I defend that a theoretical definition is crucial for computational creativity and that the practical solution must closely follow the theoretical definition. Finally, evaluation must be based on the underlying theory and what was actually modelled in the practical solution. A theoretical void in the existing theoretical work on computational creativity is identified. The existing theories do not explicitly take into account the communicative nature of natural language. Therefore, a new theoretical framework is elaborated that identifies how computational creativity can take place in a setting that has a clear communicative goal. This introduces a communicative-creative trade off that sets limits to creativity in such a communicative context. My framework divides creativity in three categories: message creativity, contextual creativity and communicative creativity. Any computationally creative NLG approach not taking communicativity into account is called mere surface generation. I propose a novel master-apprentice approach for creative language generation. The approach consists of a genetic algorithm, the fitness functions of which correspond to different parameters defined as important for the creative task in question from a theoretical perspective. The output of the genetic algorithm together with possible human authored data are used to train the apprentice, which is a sequence-to-sequence neural network model. The role of the apprentice in the system is to approximate creative autonomy. Evaluation is approached from three different perspectives in this work: ad-hoc and abstract, theory-based and abstract, and theory-based and concrete. The first perspective is the most common one in the current literature and its shortcomings are demonstrated and discussed. This starts a gradual shift towards more meaningful evaluation by first using proper theories to define the task being modelled and finally reducing the room for subjective interpretation by suggesting the use of concrete evaluation questions.
Download or read book The Role of Prediction in Language Learning written by Judit Fazekas and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Language Description Informed by Theory written by Rob Pensalfini and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2014-01-15 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores how linguistic theories inform the ways in which languages are described. Theories, as representations of linguistic categories, guide the field linguist to look for various phenomena without presupposing their necessary existence and provide the tools to account for various sets of data across different languages. A goal of linguistic description is to represent the full range of language structures for any given language. The chapters in this book cover various sub-disciplines of linguistics including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, language acquisition, and anthropological linguistics, drawing upon theoretical approaches such as prosodic Phonology, Enhancement theory, Distributed Morphology, Minimalist syntax, Lexical Functional Grammar, and Kinship theory. The languages described in this book include Australian languages (Pama-Nyungan and non-Pama-Nyungan), Romance languages as well as English. This volume will be of interest to researchers in both descriptive and theoretical linguistics.
Download or read book Global Perspectives on Language Assessment written by Spiros Papageorgiou and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-02-07 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sixth volume in the Global Research on Teaching and Learning English series offers up-to-date research on the rapidly changing field of language assessment. The book features original research with chapters reporting on a variety of international education settings from a range of diverse perspectives. Covering a broad range of key topics—including scoring processes, test development, and student and teacher perspectives—contributors offer a comprehensive overview of the landscape of language assessment and discuss the consequences and impact for learners, teachers, learning programs, and society. Focusing on the assessment of language proficiency, this volume provides an original compendium of cutting-edge research that will benefit TESOL and TEFL students, language assessment scholars, and language teachers.
Download or read book Reconsidering Context in Language Assessment written by Janna Fox and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-04-06 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume reconsiders the problem of context in language testing and other modes of assessment from the perspective of transdisciplinarity. Transdisciplinary assessment research brings together collaborators who draw on the strengths of their differing backgrounds and expertise in order to address high-stakes complex socially-relevant problems. Traditional treatments of context in language assessment research have generally been informed by individualist cognitive theories within measurement and psychometrics. The additive potential of alternative social theories, including theories of genre, situated learning, distributed cognition, and intercultural communication, has largely been overlooked. In this book, the benefits of socio-theoretical reconsiderations of context are discussed and further exemplified in transdisciplinary research studies that investigate the use of assessment in classroom and workplace settings. The book offers a renewed view of context in arguments for the validity of assessment practices, and will be of interest to assessment researchers, practitioners, and students in applied linguistics, education, educational psychology, language testing, and other related disciplines and fields.
Download or read book Language Testing and Evaluation written by Desmond Allison and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 1999 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together two related fields - language testing and language programme evaluation - in a way that no single introductory text has done, and seeks to encourage closer relations between the two in both academic curricula and professional practice. It introduces readers not just to basic concepts, but to some of the major social, educational and research concerns and activities that characterise language testing and evaluation. The book can serve either as a basic text for a taught course, or for self-study. All chapters include suggestions for further reading, and discussions frequently point towards possible explorations in classroom research and practice. A glossary of key concepts and a select annotated bibliography are provided. The book addresses the language teaching profession generally as well as students of applied linguistics and English language teaching.
Download or read book Language Program Evaluation written by Brian K. Lynch and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Theory Construction in Second Language Acquisition written by Geoff Jordan and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2004-02-04 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recently, many SLA researchers have adopted a postmodernist approach which challenges the assumption that SLA research is a rationalist, scientific endeavour. The resulting epistemological arguments, plus problems of theory proliferation, contradicting theories, and theory domain, hinder progress towards a unified theory of SLA. Theory Construction in SLA addresses these problems by returning to first principles; it asks whether there is such a thing as reliable knowledge, what is special about scientific method, and how we can best explain SLA. It is the first book to use the philosophy of science in order to examine the epistemological underpinnings of SLA research and evaluate rival theories of SLA. Part One explores the central issues in the philosophy of science, defends rationality against relativists, and offers Guidelines for theory assessment. Part Two examines different theories of SLA and evaluates them in terms of how well they stand up to the Guidelines.
Download or read book Language Program Evaluation written by and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Revisiting the Assessment of Second Language Abilities From Theory to Practice written by Sahbi Hidri and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-01-12 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an overview of revisiting the assessment of language abilities. It also showcases how the measurement of such constructs can result in negative or positive washback and how outcomes might be conducive to repercussions that decide on the future of many stakeholders. The 23 chapters were selected among tens of chapters received from different contexts that addressed the issue of revisiting the assessment of language abilities, such as Tunisia, Ukraine, Algeria, Russia, KSA, Sudan, Egypt, Canada, Kurdistan, UK, USA, Iran, Turkey, etc. These contexts have highlighted the necessity to revisit the different constructs which should be assessed with a clear and straightforward foundation on students’ learning objectives and their actual language ability. To do so, most of the chapters present hands-on use of relevant statistical tests that might serve in revisiting the construct definition both theoretically and operationally. Perhaps the sole and intricate question that the authors of these contributions ask is what it means to revisit the assessment of the construct of individualized language ability and how. In addition, the book accentuates the momentousness and significance of reflecting on test fairness and validation as the mainspring and backbone for democratization of assessment. This book appeals to a broad readership, such as English Language Teaching (ELT) practitioners, language teachers, students, testing organizations, policy-makers, test designers, writers of test specifications, testing experts, researchers, program evaluators, especially in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as well as other international contexts.
