http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3429903.stm
This article was about the country Mauritania. Traditionally, they would force-feed girls to make them fatter. Being fat was seen as beautiful, rich, and taken care of. Men wrote poems about how beautiful fat women, as big as ships, were.
The writer of the article went to a "fat farm" in Mauritania where the owner of the farm force feeds seven-year-old girls. She said that they always cry, but she didn't think force-feeding girls was cruel. She thought it was good so that they could get a husband. She also said that she had seen girls that were ten years old give birth.
* * * * *
It hard to support cultural relativism (the idea that no culture is good or bad, just difefrent) when I read about such unbelievable cruelty to children. Force feeding them and then marrying them off seems unimaginably cruel.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The Bilingual Brain: What is Right and What is Left?
by Jyotsna Vaid. Chapter 6 in the 2008 book: An Introduction to Bilingualism
http://books.google.com/books?id=87snuOaE7DwC&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=bilingualism+brain+mapping&source=bl&ots=zw8VnSFYRn&sig=csX6fsI5nqrvM14F7qM0FOLn0bY&hl=en&ei=wRteSszjOI7SMonw6L8C&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1
There is no consensus.
High spatial resolution is crucial in bilingual neuroimaging studies.
Mechelli et al 2004: bilinguals had greater grey matter density than monolinguals.
http://books.google.com/books?id=87snuOaE7DwC&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=bilingualism+brain+mapping&source=bl&ots=zw8VnSFYRn&sig=csX6fsI5nqrvM14F7qM0FOLn0bY&hl=en&ei=wRteSszjOI7SMonw6L8C&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1
There is no consensus.
High spatial resolution is crucial in bilingual neuroimaging studies.
Mechelli et al 2004: bilinguals had greater grey matter density than monolinguals.
The bilingual brain: Cerebral representation of languages
Franco Fabbro 2001
"When a second language is learned formally and mainly used
at school, it apparently tends to be more widely represented in the cerebral cortex
than the first language, whereas if it is acquired informally, as usually happens with
the first language, it is more likely to involve subcortical structures (basal ganglia
and cerebellum) (cf. Paradis, 1994; Fabbro & Paradis, 1995; Fabbro et al., 1997;
Fabbro, 2000)."
Right hemisphere is associated with pragmatics (Chantraine et al 1998)
L2 language processes (phonology, morphology, syntax) are not in the right hemisphere (Paradis 1994, 1998)
Klein et al. 1995 performed the first neuroimaging study on bilinguals
Translation and comprehension are subserved by different processes.
"When a second language is learned formally and mainly used
at school, it apparently tends to be more widely represented in the cerebral cortex
than the first language, whereas if it is acquired informally, as usually happens with
the first language, it is more likely to involve subcortical structures (basal ganglia
and cerebellum) (cf. Paradis, 1994; Fabbro & Paradis, 1995; Fabbro et al., 1997;
Fabbro, 2000)."
Right hemisphere is associated with pragmatics (Chantraine et al 1998)
L2 language processes (phonology, morphology, syntax) are not in the right hemisphere (Paradis 1994, 1998)
Klein et al. 1995 performed the first neuroimaging study on bilinguals
Translation and comprehension are subserved by different processes.
Changes in aphasic discourse after contrasting treatments for anomia
del toro and altmann, raymer, leon, blonder, and rothi
This paper introduces new discourse concept: Utterance with New Information (UNI)
Researchers interviewed aphasic subjects, hired transcriptionist to transcribe, gave treatment, then gave another interview and transcribed. They counted instances of nouns, verbs, etc. and were unable to say that treatment led to better utterances.
But they were able to find greater quality of discourse after treatment.
"These findings demonstrate that discourse analysis can be a viable adjunct for assessing word retrieval treatment outcomes, especially given that improving discourse is the ultimate goal of aphasia treatment."
This paper introduces new discourse concept: Utterance with New Information (UNI)
Researchers interviewed aphasic subjects, hired transcriptionist to transcribe, gave treatment, then gave another interview and transcribed. They counted instances of nouns, verbs, etc. and were unable to say that treatment led to better utterances.
But they were able to find greater quality of discourse after treatment.
"These findings demonstrate that discourse analysis can be a viable adjunct for assessing word retrieval treatment outcomes, especially given that improving discourse is the ultimate goal of aphasia treatment."
Monday, July 13, 2009
Retention and Writing Instruction: Implications for Access and Pedagogy
Pegeen Reichert Powell
Composition instructors should pay attention to the discourse at their institution about retention.
It has been shown (by Astin using CIRP data) that retention rates can be predicted by the characteristics of teh students the institution allows in. Unfortunately, raw retention rates are used to rank colleges without taking student characteristics into account.
"...Eleanor Agnew and
Margaret McLaughlin, who demonstrate how a writing program’s own assess-
ment practices can prevent students from graduating: their study of the results
of placement and exit exams revealed that the presence of features of African
American Vernacular English led to an alarmingly higher rate of failure (90)."
These black students have already accessed the gate, but the assessment policies and prejudices keep them from graduating.
Access and retention will become even more important as the economy worsens.
Composition instructors should pay attention to the discourse at their institution about retention.
It has been shown (by Astin using CIRP data) that retention rates can be predicted by the characteristics of teh students the institution allows in. Unfortunately, raw retention rates are used to rank colleges without taking student characteristics into account.
"...Eleanor Agnew and
Margaret McLaughlin, who demonstrate how a writing program’s own assess-
ment practices can prevent students from graduating: their study of the results
of placement and exit exams revealed that the presence of features of African
American Vernacular English led to an alarmingly higher rate of failure (90)."
These black students have already accessed the gate, but the assessment policies and prejudices keep them from graduating.
Access and retention will become even more important as the economy worsens.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
How to do things with words and gestures in comics
Ofer Fein and Asa Kasher
the gesture of hands outspread and elbows close to the body (that I would say meant "I don't know") is labeled as meaning "an explanation" or "dismissal of responsibility"; it was called an ambiguous gesture. The gesture of palm up towards the addressee that I think means wait can mean "Request to Wait" or "disapproval."
Abstract
In an attempt to explore the relationships between words and gestures in comics, the terms ‘gesticulary’, ‘ingesticulatory’ and ‘pergesticulary act’ are proposed and employed. A study is reported, in which frequent gestures from Asterix books were investigated. Ten gestures were used in the first part of the study together with their accompanied utterances in the comics, in order to examine the gesture-utterance connection. In the second part of the study, 26 subjects were presented with those gestures, along with corresponding photographed gestures. They were asked to propose utterances for the gestures and to ascribe possible meanings to them. We conclude from the results that the meaning of a gesture lies in the ingesticularly act, independently of the exact propositional content. We also argue that people have a firm comprehension of comics gestures, and that those gestures are understood to mean the same as similar ‘real life’ gestures.
the gesture of hands outspread and elbows close to the body (that I would say meant "I don't know") is labeled as meaning "an explanation" or "dismissal of responsibility"; it was called an ambiguous gesture. The gesture of palm up towards the addressee that I think means wait can mean "Request to Wait" or "disapproval."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
