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Nihonggo No Benkyou: The Case of Filipino ESL Teachers in Graduate School
Get PDFIn 2010, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) institutionalized the offering of foreign languages in the curricular programs of higher education institutions to accord global acceptance of local graduates in the Philippines. In graduate school, Nihongo is one of the foreign languages commonly offered in the local university. Theoretically, the second language acquisition of adult learners (i.e., graduate students) is crucial and different from adolescent language learners. And there is a dearth of literature on Filipinos learning Nihongo; most of them involve college students and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and less among ESL teachers in graduate school. This study: (1) contributed to the limited evidence in Japanese language learning of Filipino students; showed qualitative evidence on the CPH of adult learning a third or fourth language. Results revealed that though most of the ESL teachers in graduate school were middle-aged, they partly considered their age crucial in learning Nihongo and declared that their age was not the only factor in recognizing their difficulties in learning a foreign language rather other learning limitations such as affective factors, learning environment, workload, etc.; (2) presented the ESL teachers’ difficulties in learning Nihongo language in the graduate school such as writing and translating sentences and phrases, vocabulary and pronunciation; and (3) showed their strategies in learning the Japanese language as an academic requirement were creating mental linkages, applying images and sounds, reviewing well, and employing actions. Thus, this study presented recommendations for the effective teaching of Japanese language among graduate students in the Philippines
Interlingual Subtitling of Ethno/Cultural Representation in Selected Episodes of Yahya and Kunooz Animated TV Series (2022)
Get PDFThe present study examines Audiovisual Translation (AVT) strategies in selected episodes of Yahya and Kunooz animated TV Series (2022). AVT is quite a unique sub-discipline of Translation Studies (TS) due to its polysemiotic nature in which it functions on verbal, acoustic and visual levels. Within this rationale, the study conducts an interrogation of the verbal auditory or acoustic channel, the non-verbal auditory channel, the verbal visual channel, e.g. written signs on the screen and the non-verbal visual channel. As such, the aim of the study is to scrutinize the constraints and challenges that the AVT translators face during the subtitling process within the paradigm of translation strategies. The present study is carried out within the boundaries of the target-oriented approach developed by Gideon Toury and the foreignization/domestication approaches developed by Lawrence Venuti to interrogate culture-bound characteristics. Foreignization as a translation strategy seems principally appropriate for a historical and cultural text to recreate the source text in target language in such a way that the reader or the audience would feel the cultural effect of the source text. The contribution of the research is hopefully twofold. One, it is the first-ever study of Yahay and Kunooz Series in the academia; the other, this study incites further studies in the future to develop a comprehensive and sound-based theoretical frame for AVT
The protective effects of betanin against experimental gastric ulcer by reduction of ROS and suppression of inflammatory genes via NF-κB, iNOS, COX-2 and TNF-α pathways
Get PDFBetanin, a prominent compound found in beetroot, however, the potential protective effects of this compound against gastric damage and ulceration have yet to be explored. This study aims to investigate the impact of purified beetroot betanin (Bet) on the activities of inflammatory enzymes and gene expressions associated with inflammation in gastric tissues. Gastric ulcer rats were induced by ethanol at dose 5ml/kg body weight. Ulcerated rats were treated by purified betanin or omeprazole; from which some inflammation-related genes and gastric-inflammation enzymes were investigated using RT-PCR and biochemical analysis, respectively. Bet effectively suppressed the activities of key enzymes involved in gastric mucosal inflammation, including 5-Lipoxygenase (5-LO), Hyaluronidase (HAase), and myeloperoxidase (MPO), by 58%, 50%, and 45%, respectively. Docking studies showed Bet binding to catalytic sites or key regions for enzymes’ activities, thus explaining the inhibitory capacity. Bet ingestion decreased the expression levels of inflammation-related genes, factor-kappa B (NF-ϰB) by 57%. This down-regulation subsequently led to a reduction in the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), and tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α). Bet ingestion supressed thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS) rates by 59%, augmented nitric oxide (NO) level by 107% and protected gastric tissues from damage and ulceration. Bet revealed gastro-protective effects as confirmed by a reduction in the ulceration surface area and the acidity by 75.9% and 40%, respectively, and a significant increase in the weight of mucus and the curative index by 117% and 74.5%, respectively. In conclusion, these outcomes of physiological and molecular-based investigations are indicative of potential use of Bet as a functional food additive for the prevention of gastric ulcer
Grammar Competence and Writing Performance: A Correlational Study in Higher Education
Get PDFThis research paper examined the relationship between grammar competence and writing performance among first year students studying in the second semester at Ibn Tofail University in Kenitra in Morocco. The main concern of this study is to investigate whether there is a correlation between grammar proficiency and writing. The researcher used two tests as instruments for the purpose of verifying the correlation between the two variables; one test was in grammar and the other was in writing. The participants were 37 male and female students at Ibn Tofail University who were chosen on the basis that they are in the same level of English language proficiency. They constituted an intact group. The results of the study indicated that there is a significant relationship between grammar and writing. It is also found that there is 14.7% of relationship between the two variables. These findings help university students to improve their writing skills and also assist teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to design their courses, choose their teaching materials, and teach and assess writing and grammar
EFL undergraduates’ perceptions of the use of screencast feedback in an online writing course
Get PDFThis paper is written based on action research in which screencast feedback was adopted as an alternative to traditional writing feedback in a 15-week fully online academic writing course due to the Covid-19 breakout. The data were collected from 89 second-year English majors at a public university in central Vietnam via an online survey to explore their perceptions of this feedback-giving method. The findings reveal that the surveyed students generally showed a positive attitude toward screencast feedback as this novel kind of giving feedback is said to be necessary and helpful for their writing improvement. Students also favored screencast feedback over traditional written feedback as it is more informative, understandable, interactive, and beneficial for mutual learning among students. However, they also pointed out that time consumption, a limited number of writing pieces receiving feedback, and overloaded information to retain are some major drawbacks to screencast feedback being given synchronously in online lessons. Therefore, adjusting screencast feedback delivery from synchronous to asynchronous mode, sharing both screencast feedback videos and documents on LMS for students’ revisits at their convenience, and maximizing students’ opportunities to receive feedback are some recommended ways to improve the effectiveness of using screencast feedback in online writing courses
Understanding the impact of requirements evolution and reaction on evolution of software: a survey and comparison
Get PDFIn software systems, the continuous changing of requirements, known as requirements evolution, is considered one of the significant issues. Requirements' evolution denotes the postـdeployment changes in the requirements. This article reviews the most related requirements evolution approaches. Different approaches have been presented in modelling requirements evolution, managing requirements evolution, and relevant analysis techniques, like inconsistency detection and change impact analysis. The relevant approaches of requirements evolution can be generally classified into the impact of evolution and reaction on evolution. The article also has given a comparison among those approaches. The approaches that have been surveyed in this article exhibited many limitations. These limitations need to be addressed and coped with for the approaches to be more effective in managing the evolution of software requirements. One of the solutions to these limitations is to develop an approach that addresses the reasoning behind software requirements evolution
Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure in Moroccan EFL learners’ Requests
Get PDF“Most of our misunderstandings of other people are not due to any inability to hear them or to parse their sentences or to understand their words…. A far more important source of difficulty in communication is that we so often fail to understand a speaker’s intention”
(Miller in Thomas 1983:92)
The concern in this paper is with such situations where we fail to understand “what is meant by what is said” thus with situations of pragmatic failure especially in an area of cross-cultural communication. Undoubtedly, these are situations where the actual use of language for the maintenance and preservation of social harmony among interactants depict clearly cross-language variations and interference. The discussion will revolve around such basic issues as: a) how interactional events in intercultural communication establish relationships between participants marking dimensions of social distance, status and politeness, b) the effects which different linguistic forms in different languages can have on the performance of the foreign language learner and c) basically the implications of all this for the teaching of the pragmatic competence to the non-native speakers of English, with special reference to the teaching of English at the university level in the Moroccan context.
Keywords: Intercultural communication; politeness; pragmatic failure; Requests
Social entrepreneurship: laying the foundations of a nascent paradigm
Get PDFSocial entrepreneurship was imperative in the economic and political spheres since the 1980s, thanks to the efforts of powerful foundations such as Ashoka or the Grameen Bank, which aroused the interest of the scientific community in this phenomenon. Since the 1990s several research works concerning social entrepreneurship were born, giving birth to several definitions, conceptions, and theoretical readings, going from economics to anthropology. Nevertheless, the researchers were not able to develop a standardized theory, so leaving the field open for various interpretations of various disciplines made social entrepreneurship a metapragmatic field. The purpose of this article is to highlight the theoretical foundations of social entrepreneurship through a comparative approach. We first tried to entrench social entrepreneurship in time, after we had characterized it by the key concepts that make up the readings of the phenomenon," said we do not claim completeness our main goal is to find conceptual models allowing researchers to decipher the practices of social entrepreneurship in its different forms of socio-economic expression in different contexts, something that was achieved by our proposal of a sketch on the four conceptual pillars of social entrepreneurship
Analysis of Transaction Costs and Market Participation among Cassava Farmers in Osun State, Nigeria
No full textThis study examined the effects of transaction cost variables on market participation among cassava farmers in Osun State, Nigeria. This was with a view to providing insight into how transaction cost factors can be managed to ensure that cassava farmers in Osun State participate more in the market for the purpose of promoting cassava production and hence agricultural growth as well as reducing poverty among the rural community. Access to market information, non-farm work, road condition, credit availability, access to telecommunication facilities, personal transport, farm size, farming experience, price of cassava, market distance, transport cost, dependency ratio, as well as age were used as proxies for transaction costs. The study made use of primary data by administering copies of a well-structured questionnaire to 100 cassava farmers drawn from three local governments in the State. Data obtained were analysed descriptively using frequencies, tables, simple percentages as well as pie and bar charts. Data collected were also analysed by inferential statistical procedure using Logit regression model. Results of the logit regression showed that access to market information and farm size have significant positive effects on cassava farmers’ participation in the market (). Findings also revealed that cost of transportation and dependency ratio have weakly significant negative effects on the probability of cassava farmers participating in the market (). The study concluded that access to market information and farm size play significant positive roles in the participation of cassava farmers in the market. Thus, policies that are aimed at lowering transaction costs through the creation of an enabling environment in which farmers can easily access market information, cultivate more farmlands and incur low cost of transportation are recommended
The Influence of Closeness on Japanese-English Translation
Get PDFIn the evolving dynamics of cross-cultural communication, understanding the biases that play a role in language translation is crucial. This research, using the Critical Incident Technique, delved into the nuances of how bilingual Japanese individuals provide translations to non-Japanese speakers, based on the relationship between the translator and the recipient. The findings reveal a notable distinction: bilingual Japanese individuals tend to offer a more positive and intricately detailed translation for non-Japanese-speaking friends as compared to non-Japanese-speaking strangers. This behavior suggests a predominant inclination among Japanese to "protect the face" of those they share closer bonds with, by casting the original message in a more positive light or providing more comprehensive translations. This observed phenomenon not only underlines a cultural aspect of Japanese communication, which prioritizes harmony and face-saving, but also indicates a willingness among Japanese speakers to invest greater effort in the translation process for their friends. The study underscores the inherent biases that can shape Japanese to English translations based on relational closeness, thereby emphasizing the importance of understanding socio-cultural contexts in cross-linguistic interactions