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Eine harte Nuss? A longitudinal investigation of L2 learners' phrasal development in German
No full textWithin the field of second language acquisition (SLA), there is agreement on the importance of fixed combinations of words – also known as formulaic sequences (FS) – for obtaining second/foreign language (L2) proficiency. FS are ubiquitous in human discourse, facilitate idiomatic, fluent and accurate speech and are integral to communicative competence (Wray, 2002). At the same time, mastery of FS has been found to be a major challenge for L2 learners, especially regarding their production (Boers & Lindstromberg, 2012). Despite the importance of FS in L2 learning, longitudinal and/or qualitative studies on L2 phrasal development are scarce, and target languages other than English are underrepresented. The aim of this dissertation is to explore L2 learners’ productive phrasal development in German longitudinally.
In the first study of this dissertation, L2 learners’ productive collocation development is investigated over a 3-year period, taking into account various item- and learner-related variables. We found a progressive improvement in collocation knowledge, although there were instances of attrition. With regard to the item-related variables, congruency had a statistically significant positive effect on learners’ collocation learning. We also found that students’ knowledge of congruent collocations remained relatively stable over time, while the knowledge of incongruent collocations improved each year. Regarding the learner-related variables, learners’ L2 prior single-word productive vocabulary size predicted L2 collocation knowledge.
In the second study, the influence of host country and social interaction on students’ development of FS (collocations and pragmatic expressions) during study abroad (SA) is explored. The study presents longitudinal case studies of four participants who spent a semester in a German-speaking (n=2) or a non-German-speaking country (n=2). The findings indicate that access to social interaction in the target language fosters phrasal development, especially the development of pragmatic expressions, regardless of the host country.
The third study builds on the first one and looks at L2 learners’ collocation development over a 3-year period from a students’ perspective. The qualitative analysis was based on interviews with five contrasting cases of learners, i.e., learners whose collocation learning trajectories showed marked differences. It was found that the effective learners showed a higher intrinsic motivation, more engagement in informal learning activities, more extensive social interaction in the L2, more awareness towards collocations and a higher degree of self-regulation than the less effective learners.
In the fourth and last study, the perception of L2 learners’ non-target-like formulaic expressions by L1 German business professionals was looked into in terms of appropriateness, acceptability, and writers’ communicative competence. Results showed that, while non-target-like expressions did affect L1 professionals’ perception negatively, their general judgment was quite positive on average. Expressions containing a grammatical error were judged as least acceptable, followed by those containing a pragmatic infelicity. The findings suggest tolerance of L1 users towards L2 non-target-like expressions in an intercultural workplace context.
Binnen het domein van de tweedetaalverwerving bestaat er consensus over het belang van meerwoordcombinaties of formulaic sequences (FS) in het verwerven van een tweede/vreemde taal (L2). Meerwoordcombinaties zijn alomtegenwoordig in het menselijk discours, dragen bij tot idiomatisch, vlot en accuraat taalgebruik en zijn onontbeerlijk voor communicatieve competentie (Wray, 2002). Tegelijkertijd blijkt het beheersen van meerwoordcombinaties een grote uitdaging voor tweedetaalleerders, vooral inzake taalproductie (Boers & Lindstromberg, 2012). Ondanks het aangetoonde belang van meerwoordcombinaties in tweedetaalverwerving, zijn longitudinale en/of kwalitatieve studies naar de ontwikkeling van fraseologische competentie schaars en is onderzoek naar andere doeltalen dan het Engels ondervertegenwoordigd. In dit proefschrift wordt de fraseologische ontwikkeling van tweedetaalleerders Duits longitudinaal bestudeerd.
In de eerste studie van dit proefschrift wordt de productieve collocatiekennis bij taalleerders Duits over een tijdspanne van 3 jaar onderzocht, waarbij verschillende item- en leerdergerelateerde variabelen onder de loep worden genomen. We vonden een progressieve vooruitgang in collocatiekennis, hoewel er soms ook attritie was. Met betrekking tot de itemgerelateerde variabelen bleek dat congruentie een significante rol speelde in het leren van collocaties. We vonden ook dat de kennis van congruente collocaties vrijwel stabiel bleef over de jaren heen, terwijl de kennis van incongruente collocaties elk jaar verbeterde. Wat de leerdergerelateerde variabelen betreft, voorspelde de voorkennis van de leerders op vlak van productieve Duitse woordenschatkennis de collocatiekennis.
In de tweede studie wordt de invloed van het gastland en van sociale interactie op de ontwikkeling van meerwoordcombinaties (collocaties en pragmatische uitdrukkingen) bij studenten Duits tijdens hun buitenlandsemester bestudeerd. De studie presenteert de longitudinale casestudies van vier participanten die een semester doorbrachten in een Duitstalig (n=2) of niet-Duitstalig land (n=2).
De bevindingen tonen aan dat toegang tot sociale interactie in de doeltaal de ontwikkeling van meerwoordcombinaties, in het bijzonder van pragmatische uitdrukkingen, bevordert, ongeacht of het leren plaatsvindt in een gastland waar de doeltaal de hoofdtaal is of niet.
De derde studie bouwt voort op de eerste en kijkt naar de ontwikkeling van collocatiekennis bij taalleerders gedurende 3 jaar, vanuit het perspectief van de leerders zelf. De kwalitatieve analyse is gebaseerd op interviews met vijf gevalstudies van leerders wiens collocatieleertrajecten sterk verschilden. De studie toonde aan dat de effectieve leerders in vergelijking met de minder effectieve leerders een hogere intrinsieke motivatie bezaten, meer betrokkenheid bij informele leeractiviteiten vertoonden, meer sociale interactie in het Duits hadden, een groter bewustzijn ten aanzien van collocaties aan de dag legden en over een hogere mate van zelfregulatie beschikten.
In de vierde en laatste studie wordt onderzocht hoe vaste uitdrukkingen die afwijken van de normen van het doeltaalgebied, geschreven door gevorderde leerders van het Duits, gepercipieerd worden door Duitse business professionals in termen van gepastheid, aanvaardbaarheid, en communicatieve competentie. Hoewel afwijkende uitdrukkingen de beoordeling negatief beïnvloedden, toonden de resultaten aan dat het globale oordeel over het algemeen vrij positief was. Uitdrukkingen met een grammaticale fout werden als het minst aanvaardbaar beoordeeld, gevolgd door die met een pragmatische fout. Tenslotte suggereerde het onderzoek dat moedertaalsprekers tolerant zijn ten aanzien van afwijkende uitdrukkingen van tweedetaalleerders in een interculturele zakencontext
Fictionalizing the sixth mass extinction : roots, exclusions, biases
No full textThis thesis explores how contemporary literature in English engages with what has come to be known as the sixth mass extinction, the ongoing extinction event as a result of human activity that is causing a devastating loss of biodiversity not seen since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Building on existing environmental humanities scholarship, the thesis demonstrates and tests literature’s capacity to complement or counter the spectacular, apocalyptic, and exclusionary modes through which species extinction is often portrayed in popular culture, and thereby to contribute to understanding and ameliorating our dire environmental predicament. Drawing on materialist and multispecies theories, the study pursues two avenues of research: it examines species extinction as both, and simultaneously, a material reality and a cultural discourse. In the first part of the thesis, I investigate how fiction mediates and registers the structural drivers of biodiversity loss, which tend to be neglected in coverage of the extinction crisis. Here, my investigation centres on the link between species extinction and what Nicole Shukin has described as a twofold circulation of animal life under capitalism, where animals are rendered as both disembodied signifiers and as products for consumption. I argue that literature that attempts to dramatize species extinction risks participating in a process I call animal fetishism, i.e., acts that contribute to the dissemination of extinct and vulnerable species as “undying” images and that obscure the historical conditions of their exploitation and endangerment. I further show how whaling fiction can be used to illumine the other side of this process, namely the slaughter and commodification of whales and other animals in what Jason W. Moore has termed the capitalist world-ecology. In such fictional works, the twin endangerment of whales and Indigenous cultures finds formal expression in irrealist narrative styles, as the texts convey the bewildering effects of colonial capitalism’s socio-ecological destruction.
The second part of the thesis probes the web of values, biases, and exclusions that characterizes species extinction discourse. I discuss the issue of taxonomic bias and the fact that representations of endangered species gravitate towards the cute, visible, and charismatic. Specifically, I analyze how authors grapple with the representational challenges of narrating the multispecies complexities of the sixth mass extinction and the vulnerability of non-charismatic creatures such as plants and insects. I also take up the bias towards biological entities and the species category within extinction discourse, and investigate how literature responds to the extinction of non-living entities, such as snow and glaciers, that large-scale environmental change is already engendering. My discussion concludes by considering the limitations of framing and studying species extinction as a problem in isolation from a more holistic environmental context
Inherited memories : the role of epigenetics in intergenerational resistance against nematodes in rice
No full textRoot-knot nematodes are microscopic worms that can infect rice by penetrating its roots, where they will feed by draining nutrients from the rice plant. This leads to huge economic losses in rice production. Plants have multiple mechanisms by which they defend themselves from invading pathogens. One of these mechanisms is “epigenetics”, which regulates gene expression by switching certain genes on and off. Some of these genes are defence genes against these nematodes. In this PhD, rice defence against nematodes was studied, more specifically in the next generation. We discovered that the offspring is more resistant against nematodes, if the parent plants were infected. This phenomenon is partly regulated by epigenetic mechanisms such as histone modifications, DNA methylation and small RNAs (sRNAs). More specifically, the RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM) pathway is essential for this intergenerational resistance. Also the plant hormones ethylene and jasmonic acid were identified as important players. Lastly, approximately 50 000 new RNAs were annotated in infected and non-infected parent plants, and we discovered that nematode infection not only greatly influences these sRNAs in the parent, but also leads to significant changes in seed sRNA expression, and thus in the next generation
A self-regulation digital health tool to promote an active lifestyle in adults : towards a more effective and personalized approach
No full textOn space-time evolution of air transport networks and the propagation characteristics of flight delays
No full textThe happy traveler : connecting undirected trips to travel satisfaction, positive utility, and subjective well-being
No full textPromoting healthy sleep in adolescents : a participatory approach
No full textAdolescent sleep has deteriorated over the past decades. Whereas the minimum sleep norm for adolescents is eight hours per night, almost 60% of Flemish adolescents do not reach this norm on week days. Moreover, about half of Flemish adolescents are lying awake more than half an hour before falling asleep, which is an indicator of reduced sleep quality. Since poor adolescent sleep negatively impacts mental and physical health outcomes in the short and long term, interventions to promote healthy sleep in adolescents are needed. However, current healthy sleep interventions among adolescents are often not able to maintain effects on sleep parameters in the long term. To improve interventions, literature suggests to use a stepwise systematic approach and to integrate behavioural change theories and evidence-based strategies in intervention development. The theory-driven Intervention Mapping (IM) protocol guides researchers in developing theory- and evidence-based health promotion interventions. The first step of IM requires gaining insight into the most important and changeable factors related to adolescent sleep. Whereas extensive research into behavioural and environmental factors of adolescent sleep has already been conducted, very little research has been done regarding psychosocial factors of adolescent sleep. Furthermore, applying a participatory approach could ensure that the intervention is tailored to the adolescents’ needs and interests. Combining IM with the approach of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) could thus be used to include adolescents in the systematic planning of the intervention. However, literature reports a lack of evaluation studies of participatory processes and of effects of participatory developed interventions. Therefore, the aims of this dissertation were to 1) investigate adolescent sleep and influencing factors, 2) combine the IM protocol with YPAR to develop, implement and evaluate a school-based healthy sleep intervention among adolescents and 3) evaluate how the participatory process was experienced by adolescents and facilitators.
Findings of this dissertation showed that sleep is a complex behaviour influenced by a complex interplay of factors. First, sleep duration and sleep onset difficulties were found to mediate the associations of school pressure, physical activity and screen time with psychological symptoms in a large sample of adolescents across different countries. Secondly, a range of psychosocial factors was found to predict adolescent sleep: knowledge of sleep guidelines, attitudes towards healthy sleep, perceived advantages of healthy sleep, self-efficacy and barriers towards going to bed on time, modeling of peers and parents and bedtime rules imposed by parents. These are important factors to focus on in interventions to promote healthy sleep in adolescents and therefore served as a basis for the development of the interventions in this project.
Combining YPAR and IM to develop, implement and evaluate school-based healthy sleep interventions for adolescents was time consuming but feasible and resulted in interventions with a longer duration, containing more components and covering more factors than existing interventions. The healthy sleep interventions were found to be effective in improving self-reported weekend sleep duration and objectively measured week sleep duration, daytime sleepiness, use of screens in bed, physical activity one hour before bedtime, sleep knowledge and barriers towards leaving screens outside the bedroom six months after the intervention. However, unfavourable intervention effects on modeling of peers and parental mental support were found as well. Since several sleep parameters, sleep wake hygiene behaviours and psychosocial factors remained unchanged after the intervention, a process evaluation should further explore to what extent the intervention was properly implemented and reached all adolescents. Involving potential implementers of the intervention through a participatory trajectory from the start of the project could improve intervention implementation. Since performing YPAR was time and resource consuming, the added value of YPAR and the cost-effectiveness of this approach should be thoroughly evaluated. Finally, it would be interesting to explore whether the developed healthy sleep intervention can be “cascaded to” or transferred to another context by using a shorter participatory trajectory with participants in the new context.
The participatory process was evaluated as positive by participating adolescents. Adolescents overall enjoyed the process, were empowered though the process and expressed feelings of ownership towards the end of the process. Facilitators learned that a well-prepared session allowed for more flexibility during the sessions and that the facilitator was important in managing a safe, functional and positive atmosphere. Researchers performing YPAR could consider which level, form and rate of participation is desired within their project. As reflecting on the group processes and individual role as facilitator within this process was found to be helpful, YPAR facilitators could use the reflection form presented in this dissertation to improve their facilitating role
