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This study examines the interactional functions of an evidential marker -tay in the Korean language. Despite the frequent use of -tay in everyday interactions, the role of this marker in spoken communication has not been sufficiently explored, compared to other Korean quotative expressions. By analysing telephone conversations, this study shows that -tay conveys not only another's utterances but also indicates interaction-oriented functions in various contexts: as a marker of presenting evidence, detailing context in telling a story and introducing a new topic. In addition, this paper will discuss how speakers use this marker to facilitate interaction with hearers by incorporating multiple voices into spoken discourse and creating new meanings, including the "voice" of a third party and also speakers' own "metamessages". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the design, development, and usability assessment of a mobile system for producing hydrological predictions and sending flood warnings in response to the desire for human-centered technology to better the management of flood occurrences. Our work acts as a bibliographic reference for understanding what others have attempted and found, as well as gives an integrated set of recommendations. Furthermore, our guidelines offer guidance to aid in the design of mobile GIS-based hydrological models for mobile devices. We concentrate on the full design of a human–computer interaction framework for an effective flood prediction and warning system. In addition, we analyze and address the current user needs and requirements for building a user interface for mobile real-time flood forecasting in a methodical manner. Although a functional prototype was created, the primary objective of this research was to comprehend the complexity of possible users' demands and actual use situations in order to solve the problem of comparable systems being difficult to use. After consulting with possible consumers, application design standards were established and implemented in the initial prototype. Focusing on user demands and attitudes, special consideration was given to the usability of the mobile interface. To develop the application, a variety of assessment methods are added. The conclusion of the examination was that the system is efficient and effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of interactional metadiscourse markers in opinion paragraphs written by A2-level English learners was investigated in this research. Although metadiscourse is commonly studied in discourse analysis, pragmatics, and language teaching, there has been limited attention given to the writing of beginner-level language learners. Metadiscourse is typically associated with advanced English learners' writing behavior. However, this study recognizes that English learners at lower proficiency levels can also employ interactional metadiscourse markers, such as hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, and engagement markers. The study scrutinized the opinion paragraphs of 20 university students at A2-level during the period of emergency remote teaching caused by the pandemic. The analysis of metadiscourse was carried out using Hyland's model for academic texts. The paragraphs of 10 students who attended online writing classes and 10 who did not were compared. The results showed that students who attended online classes attempted to use the metadiscourse markers they had learned in their writing lessons. On the other hand, students who did not attend online classes tended to use fewer interactional metadiscourse markers. The study proposes that students' writing and communication with their readers can be considerably impacted by teachers' attitudes, lesson materials, and sample paragraphs. Therefore, metadiscourse analysis can assist teachers and material developers in selecting appropriate materials for writing instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how professional and student writers manifest their authorial identities and project their gender voices in their academic texts. To this end, 38 male-authored and 38 female-authored articles published in seven leading international journals were selected. Moreover, 38 articles written by male students and 38 articles authored by female students were collected from two universities in Iran. Taking an academic writing course, these students handed in their papers as term projects. These academic writings were analyzed based on Hyland's metadiscourse framework comprising two major resources: interactional and interactive metadiscourse resources. The findings indicated the male authors mainly attended to discourse organization using more interactive resources while the female authors mostly solicited solidarity by employing more interactional resources. The professional authors engaged in a more critical stance using self-mentions and attitude markers and the students focused on discourse organization. Attitude markers and self-mentions, as markers of stance-taking, were absent in the students' writing. The professional authors made use of their gender identity to promote their authorial identity instead of suppressing it. These results suggest that EAP programs should inform students how to employ both metadiscourse resources and their gender-based discourse choices to express their authorial identity more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the feasibility of a mobile robot navigating and discovering its location in unknown environments, followed by the creation of maps of these navigated environments for future use. First, a real mobile robot named TurtleBot3 Burger was used to achieve the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technique for a complex environment with 12 obstacles of different sizes based on the Rviz library, which is built on the robot operating system (ROS) booted in Linux. It is possible to control the robot and perform this process remotely by using an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance service. Then, the map to the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) cloud was uploaded. This provides a database to display maps and use them at any time for navigation without the need to redraw the map. This map can be accessed by using an authentication process (username and password) supervised by the cloud server administrator. After that, using the serverless image handler (SIH), with the aid of this solution, you can change the size of images, change the color of the background, format them, or add watermarks. Experiment results demonstrated the ability to build a map of an unknown location in a complex environment and use it for navigation tasks on a real mobile robot via remote control. It also showed the success of the process of storing the map for future use and the process of modifying the map using SIH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic writing in general and writing research articles in particular have long been considered a crucial mode of discourse, which is due to its challenging requirements for writers. Metadiscourse resources aid the reader in reading comprehension through coherence and cohesion. This study attempts to analyze research article discussion sections written by native authors regarding metadiscourse markers. To this end, 40 research article discussions by native writers from humanities were selected and analyzed. The purpose of the study is to discover the number and types of metadiscourse markers and rhetorical techniques used in composing these texts. The study continues on a qualitative research design, through text analysis, on the basis of Hyland's (2005) Metadiscourse Model. The findings indicated that the writers used the interactive metadiscourse markers twice as often as the interactional ones. This research could have a direct bearing on teaching writing and material design to enable EFL learners to use an optimal extent of these resources effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metadiscourse markers (MDMs) are lexical resources that writers employ to organize their discourse and state their stance towards the content or the reader. This study investigated the frequency with which interactive and interactional MDMs were employed in biological research articles (RAs). It also explored the possible relationship between the frequency of these markers and Impact Factor (IF) of journals as an index of quality. Moreover, it aimed at finding out the difference(s) between two groups of authors (Iranian and American) in their use of these markers. Forty biological RAs published in years 2008-2011 written by Iranian non-native authors and published in four ISI journals with different IFs and 40 articles with the same characteristics published by American native authors were selected and examined for the use of the markers. The results showed that there was a strong positive correlation between the frequency of MDMs and IF of the journals. Regarding the frequency of MDMs, it was observed that Iranian authors employed interactive and interactional markers slightly more than their American counterparts. These results may provisionally confirm the considerable role of MDMs in enhancing the coherence and organization of articles for possible publication in high-impact journals. © 2016 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 44(4):349-360, 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives This study aims at presenting an updated state-of-the-art review of the most relevant approaches to gender identity, stance taking, and political communication, highlighting the way in which society contributes to constructing gender identity, intersubjectivity, and discourse practices in the electoral communication. . Material and methods. Relevant articles published between 1995 and 2020 on stancetaking, identity, intersubjectivity speech acts were searched in two access platforms to the scientific literature. The main concepts indexing identity markers and intersubjectivity (interactant pronouns, stances, non- figurative and figurative syntagms, speech acts) were preserved. The research shed light through a quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis how speech acts, modalities, grammatical tools and figures of speech were used as a resource for taking a stand, as well as a strategy for the gender identity constructing. The corpus were composed by three categories of addresses delivered by the ex-prime minister Viorica Dăncilă during the 2019 presidential electoral campaign. Results. The analysis identified at the macro and micro level the construction of the positions, themes and interactive markers in the speeches delivered between August, 2019 and November 22, 2019 in the light of the positioning theory appraisal theory and the concept of conversational history. Conclusion. The double opening (micro and macro level) allowed us to bridge the intersubjective and gender dimension of positioning with epistemic and emotional aspects, highlighting also differences and similarities with the masculine presidential style.

Many scholars have investigated metadiscourse use in academic settings, but they have mostly explored written data, such as academic essays and research articles. However, spoken discourses like student presentations are rarely explored. Extant studies tend to focus on metadiscourse investigation in either native or non-native English learners' writing or speaking respectively. We argue that a comparative investigation of non-native English learners' speaking and writing permits understanding their lexical choices for making their discourse coherent. This study examines written and spoken metadiscourse markers of Indonesian EFL students, highlighting potential similarity and or differences as well as their distinctive features. In doing so, we refer to Hyland's (1998, 2004) metadiscourse markers: the interactive and interactional taxonomy. This attempt is necessary given that writing or speaking is a social practice where speakers or writers' need to provide audiences with a "channel" to understand the message. Hyland's taxonomy of metadiscourse markers enables us to shed important light on "social engagement" among speakers, writers, and audiences in the respective context. In terms of research method, we employed a quantitative approach. The data were gathered from eight student presentations and seventy writing tasks in an Academic Writing class. The findings demonstrate that interactive markers are used more frequently than interactional devices in both spoken (1616) and written discourse (278). The interactional markers, on the other hand, are reported to happen only 855 times in spoken and 133 times in written discourses. It also echoes Indonesian EFL students' communicative strategic preference that tends to connect and highlight the arguments in lieu of displaying participants' involvement.

Robotic systems are evolving to include a large number of sensors and diverse sensor modalities. In order to operate a system with multiple sensors, the geometric transformations between those sensors must be accurately estimated. The process by which these transformations are estimated is known as sensor calibration. Behind every sensor calibration approach is a formulation and a framework. The formulation is the method by which the transformations are estimated. The framework is the set of operations required to carry out the calibration procedure. This paper proposes a novel calibration framework that gives more flexibility, control and information to the user, enhancing the user interface and the user experience of calibrating a robotic system. The framework consists of several visualization and interaction functionalities useful for a calibration procedure, such as the estimation of the initial pose of the sensors, the data collection and labeling, the data review and correction and the visualization of the estimation of the extrinsic and intrinsic parameters. This framework is supported by the Atomic Transformations Optimization Method formulation, referred to as ATOM. Results show that this framework is applicable to various robotic systems with different configurations, number of sensors and sensor modalities. In addition to this, a survey comparing the frameworks of different calibration approaches shows that ATOM provides a very good user experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a text mining tool that can automatically extract information using Hyland's analysis model as a theoretical framework to analyse the use and characteristics of metadiscourse in large quantities of academic texts. To verify its validity, we present the results obtained using this tool on various bachelor's degree theses with a particular focus on the field of engineering. Our results on a 6.9 million-word corpus extracted from 680 bachelor's theses available online show that interactive metadiscourse markers are prevalent in engineering bachelor's theses as well as in the authors' metadiscourse patterns. In addition, we compared our results with previous research on metadiscourse markers. Our study can be used to identify the usage of various types of metadiscourse markers during the production of texts and for the development of software applications involving quantitative linguistic methods for the production of academic texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metadiscourse markers and their importance to academic writing are essential research subjects nowadays. The current corpus-based study aims at identifying interactional and interactive metadiscourse markers in terms of frequency and function in the abstract section of published research articles in applied linguistics developed by Algerian, Saudi, and Native researchers. 20 research articles for each group, with a total of 60 articles have been randomly selected and compiled as the research corpus for this study, then analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively using AntConc.3.2.4 relying on Hyland's classification of metadiscourse markers. As a comparative study, the research considered the abstracts written by natives as a benchmark and attempted to find an answer to the main inquiry related to the frequency of use of metadiscourse devices by Algerian and Saudi researchers in comparison to their Native counterparts. The main research results showed how close were Algerian abstracts to native ones in terms of using endophorics, frame markers, code glosses, hedges, attitude markers, and self-mentions. While Saudi abstracts were close to the benchmark only in two markers that are transitions and engagement markers. The rest of the devices were shown to be far from the native norm in both cases. The findings also revealed that the use of metadiscourse markers is not the only indicator of papers' publication rate in indexed journals by comparing the corpus analysis results to the source of the articles (journals), to find that even if Algerian researchers publish less in high indexed journals in comparison to Saudis, they are still closer in using markers to the natives as a benchmark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent decades the interpersonal nature of written academic communication has been widely studied in various linguistic/cultural contexts, including Lithuanian. To gain new insights into how knowledge is negotiated interpersonally in Lithuanian scientific texts, the present paper explores the distribution and use of interactive and interactional features of metadiscourse in Lithuanian research articles in a single discipline, i.e., linguistics. For the classification of metadiscourse resources, the study employs the interpersonal model of metadiscourse (Hyland 2005a). Based on the analysis of 30 Lithuanian research articles in the field of linguistics, this exploratory investigation reveals rhetorical strategies utilized by professional authors to construct a coherent text and engage their audiences in the chosen disciplinary domain. The dominance of interactive metadiscourse features over interactional ones in the corpus examined shows that Lithuanian authors of research articles in linguistics are generally more concerned with organizing discourse and guiding readers through the text than with expressing attitudes and commitment to their arguments. The most common interactive resources are transitions and evidentials, and the most frequent interactional devices include boosters, engagement markers, and hedges. The analysis offers a number of methodological steps necessary for applying the interpersonal model of metadiscourse to Lithuanian data, and complements numerous investigations into Lithuanian academic discourse by illustrating and discussing the writer-reader interaction in linguistics in a larger corpus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language features used by BIPA teachers become one of essential parts during online teaching process. This study incorporated interactive metadiscourse (IMD) proposed by Hyland (2005). It was aimed at describing the functions of the categories and understanding the ways teachers employing IMD markers in BIPA digital classes. The data sources were 4 online BIPA learning videos. Aside from employing a qualitative-descriptive method, this study also used documentation technique and content analysis for collecting and analyzing the data through the process of transcribing the video, coding the data, inputting the data in AntCont 3.4.3, selecting the target words, calculating the occurrences and average, interpreting the data, and drawing conclusion. The results of this study revealed that BIPA teachers incorporated all five categories of IMD markers. The most common IMD markers used are: ok, nah, jadi, lihat, coba, dan karena, kalau,and misalnya. The discourse markers mostly assisted the BIPA teachers to direct students, to point on the slides, to shift from one topic to another, and to express agreements. The findings of this research are expected to give benefits theoretically for scholars and practically for BIPA teachers in conducting online learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of College of Languages is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

There is very little research on the use of metadiscourse markers in abstracts across different disciplines (especially in a single study) in the research of undergraduates as novice researchers, and little qualitative research has been done on the topic in EFL and ESL contexts altogether. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the use of metadiscourse markers in EFL and ESL undergraduates' abstracts in social sciences across three disciplines (English Language and Communication, Mass Communication, and Psychology) in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Liberal Arts at UCSI University, a Malaysian private university. We adopt Hyland's (2005) interpersonal model which involves two main categories – interactive metadiscourse and interactional metadiscourse – to analyse all 62 abstracts collected from the 2016 Colloquium held at the faculty. The method used is qualitative to categorize the metadiscourse markers accordingly as well as counting their frequencies. The findings showed that the interactional metadiscourse markers were used nearly twice as often as the interactive discourse markers for the three disciplines, and the most used markers are boosters. The most used interactive metadiscourse markers are transitions, followed by frame markers, evidentials, code glosses, and endophoric markers. The findings can be used by ESL and EFL instructors when teaching students learning argumentative writing and research writing to use metadiscourse markers to make arguments and write proper critiques to reflect their stance and voice. This research adds some insights into this neglected genre of academic discourse at the undergraduate level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Automatisierungstechnik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Robots show impressive flexibility and reliability in various applications. This makes them suitable to help and support humans in hazardous environments. They can handle dangerous, unknown objects with no risk for the operator's health. In this work we present a shared operation approach for the identification and localization of unknown hazardous objects as well as a 3D mapping approach for mobile robots in challenging environments. A shared control force-based grasping approach complete these two components and makes it easy for a human operator to grasp and retrieve unknown hazardous objects. Including the human expertise in the operation and control is additionally supported by providing intuitive visualization on different levels of abstraction. The presented approach was successfully evaluated with two different mobile robots within a field test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory research compares the interactive metadiscourse use by native English-speaking English for academic purposes (EAP) writing teachers in the United Kingdom and their non-native counterparts in the Chinese contexts. The analysis is based on a self-compiled corpus, including two sub-corpora, which were composed of instructor contributions to classroom discourse: eight sessions of EAP lessons from the Chinese context and eight sessions of EAP lessons from the British context. Adopting an interpersonal model of metadiscourse, the two sub-corpora were compared to examine the similarities and differences in their use of interactive metadiscourse. Findings of the comparative analysis reveal that EAP teachers from both contexts rely heavily on transition markers and frame markers to organize their teaching but differ in particular linguistic realizations. This may indicate the impact of a range of factors such as logical preferences, development order of acquisition, discourse community, and speech community on teachers’ interactive metadiscourse strategies. The article concludes with a few implications for metadiscourse research in spoken academic genres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a theoretical point of view, this paper offers a new framework for the analysis of discourse markers: a pragmatic-perceptive model that emphasizes the point of the communication process in which such particles become more relevant. Furthermore, this approach tries to give an account of the modal expressions (attenuators and intensifiers) that speakers use in oral speech. The quotients of absolute and relative frequency with regard to the use of textual, interactive and enunciative markers - focused on the message, the addressee and the addresser respectively - are compared in two samples of 20 subjects with typical development and other 20 with Asperger syndrome. The general results of this research suggest that these latter speakers display a suitable command of textual markers, whereas they overexploit the enunciative ones in conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the monograph "Persuasion in Specialized Discourses" by Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova and colleagues, which compares the language of persuasion from two complementary viewpoints: the discourse/genre perspective and the cross-linguistic perspective. The authors analyze and compare the linguistic means of persuasion in four professional domains represented by different genres in English and Czech.

This research aims to analyze interpersonal metadiscourse in English language learning videos published on YouTube. The samples were 30 video scripts produced by native English speakers, including American, British, Canadian, and Australian. The framework was based on an interpersonal metadiscourse model by Hyland (2005) to describe their categories and functions. The data collection procedures employed an approach of Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA) suggested by Herring (2004). The steps included developing research questions, selecting data samples, defining framework concepts, applying analysis methods, and interpreting data. The results showed a greater number of interactional metadiscourse markers than interactive, indicating that the speaker prioritized engaging their audience with the video contents. Despite fewer occurrences, interactive metadiscourse markers played a crucial role in guiding the audience through the video content. The analysis results can provide a guideline for producing useful scripts for English language learning videos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Literatura y Lingüística is the property of Universidad Catolica Cardenal Raul Silva Henriquez and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

They have widely dived into secularism and secularity as central axes along which differences develop, referring both to collective social processes and to individual subjectivities and practices (Kosmin and Keysar, [21], [20]). Secularity and secularism are studied with an emphasis on the complexity of subjectivities shaped by processes of ideological perceptions, political struggles, and cultural, demographic, social, and economic changes (Kosmin, [22]; Keysar, [17]). This year, the ASSJ Marshall Sklare Award session and ceremony at the Association of Jewish Studies' Conference have brought us together, reaffirming both the will to overcome and the awareness that we are living in extraordinary times that constitute a challenge for humanity, social life, and the social sciences, times that are equally challenging Jewish life and our field of study. [Extracted from the article]

The study establishes the Malaysian chairperson statements from the socio-cognitive and professional practice perspectives. It identifies the move structure of 53 chairperson statements and metadiscourse strategies based on questionnaire and interview responses collected from 39 investors and 3 professional members. Three informational moves are used to assist investment decisions while seven non-informational moves are intended to build good image and good will, and to ensure compliance to requirements. Self-mentions, attitude markers, frame markers and transitions are also used to affectively realise the promotional and interpersonal moves. The chairperson statements are interdiscursively informational, promotional, and public relational. This research highlights pedagogy implications for English for Professional Communication (EPC) programmes, and recommendations for future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Swales' (1990) CARS model and Hyland's (2005) interpersonal model of metadiscourse, this study takes a pragmatic approach to explore the rhetorical structure and metadiscoursal features of research article introductions in a comparable corpus of 40 introductions from applied linguistics and chemistry. Specifically, this article reports on a rhetorical analysis of introduction moves and an identification of metadiscourse markers and discourse functions they were conveying and focuses on the mapping of the markers most pervasively used to signal the moves. Results showed disciplinary differences regarding both move structure and metadiscourse use which could be attributed to the susceptibility of rhetorical practices and preferences to socio-rhetorical conventions in each community. In addition to their pedagogical implications, the results of this study could be of use for novice research article writers and/or students in applied linguistics and chemistry in order to better consolidate their credence and socialisation in their community through publication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempted to investigate the persuasive meaning of metadiscourse markers in political speeches to see to what extent and how persuasive discourse is constructed in this genre through metadiscourse practices. To this aim, twenty-six political speeches given by Barack Obama, a former president of the United States, were analyzed using a discourse analytic approach and following Hyland's (2005ab) interpersonal models of metadiscourse to identify the frequency and persuasive function of interactive and interactional devices used. The findings indicated that the persuasive meaning conveyed by metadiscourse was for the most part context-dependent, which sometimes required the speaker to rely on a combination of devices to organize his discourse, persuade audiences, attract their attention and engage them in arguments. Furthermore, interactional devices were more frequently used than interactive ones, reflecting that engaging audiences in arguments and showing one's attitude and evaluation towards propositions were more likely to contribute to constructing a persuasive political speech. Findings can be discussed in terms of raising the awareness of second language speakers toward the linguistic and pragmatic conventions of political discourse and how persuasive discourse is constructed through metadiscourse markers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we use five complementary conceptual perspectives to describe, contextualize and explain the work and accomplishments of Rabbi Marshall Meyer (1930–1993), a dynamic American expatriate and educator, public intellectual and human rights activist in Argentina, from the 1960s to the 1980s. They are as follows: internationalism and transnationalism as a trademark of Judaism; the religious mutation of Latin America; exiles and expatriates as innovators of knowledge and agents of transculturation; the supply side of religion and the religious entrepreneur; and personal characteristics and attributes of leadership. Specifically, we analyze some mechanisms that help to explain his impact in Jewish life first in Latin America, and then in the USA, like mediation, transculturalization; the place of hybridization in the development of a Jewish liberation theology; the creation of new human resources through the establishment of the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano as a new center for the circulation of new ideas and leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a macro-social perspective on Jewish populations and societies in the Americas, arguing for a broad transnational view of several different fundamental demographic and ideational processes and trends. The goal is to detect broad commonalities versus regional differences in the Jewish experience on the American continent beyond local national frameworks. Commonalities and differences between Jews in the different parts of the Americas emerge through observing Jewish population distribution and its relation to local human development levels, inter- and intracontinental migration, levels and modes of Jewish education, and patterns of Jewish identification, socialization, and assimilation. I address Jewish interactions with the majority of society by examining frequencies of antisemitism across different countries. Interactions within the Jewish collective itself are assessed by looking at mutual influences through the worldwide institutional network. Conclusions are suggested at the pancontinental level. A variety of quantitative analytical tools are used. Sources are large-scale sociodemographic surveys, compilations of annual data series, and observations of the global networks of Jewish community organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plagiarism among university students is an important issue that affects their preparation and undermines the universities' efforts to prepare skilled graduates. Universities try to fight this problem back with strict ethics policies, but they require the proper plagiarism detection tools, at affordable costs, to implement these policies. In this paper, we present PlagZap, a cost-efficient, high-volume and high-speed plagiarism detection system built using open-source software and designed to be used on textual student assignments. We discuss the advantages of this design, plagiarism obfuscation methods and empirical results from using PlagZap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is broad consensus on the need to foster oral skills in middle school due to their inherent importance and because they serve as a tool for learning and acquiring other competences. In order to facilitate the assessment of communicative competence, we hereby propose a model which establishes five key dimensions for effective oral communication: interaction management; multimodality and prosody; textual coherence and cohesion; argumentative strategies; and lexicon and terminology. Based on this model, we developed indicators to measure the proposed dimensions, thus generating a self-report tool to assess oral communication in middle school. Following an initial study conducted with 168 students (mean age = 12.47 years, SD = 0.41), we selected 22 items with the highest discriminant power, while in a second study carried out with a sample of 960 students (mean age 14.11 years, SD = 0.97), we obtained evidence concerning factorial validity and the relationships between oral skills, emotional intelligence and metacognitive strategies related to metacomprehension. We concluded that the proposed model and its derived measure constitute an instrument with good psychometric properties for a reliable and valid assessment of students’ oral competence in middle school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metadiscourse as a self-reflective linguistic device plays an important role in both making a coherent academic text and interacting with readers. Using a sequential mixed method design, the present study investigated the use of metadiscourse markers in the abstract section of 70 master thesis abstracts written by Iranian TEFL students at the University of Mazandaran. The study further examined TEFL graduated students' (n=7) perspectives on the employment of these markers in their thesis abstracts. Based on Hyland's (2005) model, the interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers were identified in the data. Next, the whole corpus was carefully examined word by word to report on the frequency of metadiscourse marker use. The findings revealed that interactive metadiscourse markers were used three times more than interactional metadiscourse markers. Moreover, transitions and hedges were more frequently employed while evidentials, boosters and selfmentions were less frequently used. Findings from the qualitative data collected through conducting email interviews with graduated TEFL students suggested that they had positive perspectives towards the use of interactive metadiscourse markers in contrast with the use of interactional metadiscourse markers in their thesis abstracts. The results of this study can offer a number of pedagogical implications for explicit instruction of metadiscourse markers in thesis abstracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution focuses on the task of guiding and supervision processes realised by human operators. The trade-off between manual manufacturing and automation is addressed by semi-automation of a mould manufacturing process, traditionally handmade. Within this process, the human operator plays a central role (i.e. knowledge and expertise), whereas the (intelligent) automation is carrying out physical operation, which is guided and supervised by the human operator. Process guiding assistance is given based on the formalisation of the human-machine-interaction. By deducing information of interest with respect to the current process goal, the established process model can be easily used for supervision and assistance. The integrated human-automation-system is initially evaluated. The results are discussed for the future work with respect to the individual process understanding and process reproducibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the diachronic evolution of doctoral dissertation writing in terms of interactive and interactional metadiscourse at three time intervals of 1966, 1986, and 2016 through examining the salient textual features and the pattern of change involved in the metadiscourse in question. One hundred and eighty authentic doctoral dissertations were retrieved from humanities and social sciences (HSS) and sciences and engineering (SE) which generated a 5.16 million words corpus. Findings show that metadiscourse has considerably increased for SE and drastically decreased for HSS. Therefore, it is claimed that academic writing tends to be moving toward more objective and audience responsible texts in HSS and less objective and more author responsible texts in SE. This suggests that the former is inclined to get less persuasive and reader-oriented while the latter appears to be more persuasive and reader-friendly. Based on the findings, a theoretical model of academic writing evolution is proposed which focuses on three writing aspects, namely, informality and subjectivity, reader-orientedness and persuasiveness in the hope of offering implications for better understanding and constructing academic writing across disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars have investigated metadiscourse use in academic settings, but they have mostly explored written data, such as academic essays and research articles. However, spoken discourses like student presentations are rarely explored. Extant studies tend to focus on metadiscourse investigation in either native or non-native English learners’ writing or speaking respectively. We argue that a comparative investigation of non-native English learners’ speaking and writing permits understanding their lexical choices for making their discourse coherent. This study examines written and spoken metadiscourse markers of Indonesian EFL students, highlighting potential similarity and or differences as well as their distinctive features. In doing so, we refer to Hyland’s (1998, 2004) metadiscourse markers: the interactive and interactional taxonomy. This attempt is necessary given that writing or speaking is a social practice where speakers or writers’ need to provide audiences with a “channel” to understand the message. Hyland’s taxonomy of metadiscourse markers enables us to shed important light on “social engagement” among speakers, writers, and audiences in the respective context. In terms of research method, we employed a quantitative approach. The data were gathered from eight student presentations and seventy writing tasks in an Academic Writing class. The findings demonstrate that interactive markers are used more frequently than interactional devices in both spoken (1616) and written discourse (278). The interactional markers, on the other hand, are reported to happen only 855 times in spoken and 133 times in written discourses. It also echoes Indonesian EFL students’ communicative strategic preference that tends to connect and highlight the arguments in lieu of displaying participants’ involvement.

The holy book for Muslims is the 'Quran.' The Quran is written in Arabic and due to its nature, is accepted as sacred, its divine revelation—it's being the word of God. The Quran, after its revelation has been translated into many languages. Whether Muslim or not, people who do not know the Arabic language are unable to read the Holy Quran, the source text in its original language, but somehow this needs to be communicated. As a result, the demand for religious or Quranic exigencies occurred and this was met through various discourse types such as interpretations, translations or translations of meaning. The present study attempts to investigate, how interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers were employed in the Surah Yaseen, in three different English translations of the Quran. These Quran translations belong to Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, Abdullah Yusuf Ali and IFTA, and Talal Itani. As can be seen from the present study, metadiscourse markers employed by these translators of the Quran, have presented the Quran readers with a sense of the translator's own identity and selected mode of interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]