| 1. |
- Björkén-Nyberg, Cecilia, 1962-
(författare)
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Vocal Configurations of Friday : Six Audiobook Versions of Robinson Crusoe
- 2024
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Ingår i: Nordic Journal of English Studies. - Umeå : Umeå University. - 1502-7694 .- 1654-6970. ; 23:1, s. 106-127
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Robinson Crusoe is a novel obsessed with voice. Shipwrecked on his island, Crusoe teaches a parrot to speak and engages in silent conversations with God and himself and, when he finally meets Friday, he communicates in the discourses of master, educator, and companion. In silent reading of the print text, the reader subvocalises and dramatises the grammar, syntax, and pronunciation of Friday’s speech and more or less unconsciously creates a cohesive whole out of the dialogue sections and the passages narrated by Crusoe. In audiobook narration this process is externalised in the actual vocalisation of the text. The performing narrator has to make conscious choices depending on how he construes the Crusoe-Friday relationship and in what genre conventions he places it. Moreover, since Friday does not appear until two thirds into the text, the performing narrator needs to fit the last third into the overall vocal profile to produce a cohesive effect. This article focuses on the vocal configurations of Friday as manifest in six audiobook recordings of the novel. Material voice characteristics, such as quality, rhythm, and diction, as well as contextualising aspects of ethnicity, age, and nationality are taken into account. The rhetorical situation in which the performing narrator intensifies intentionality is also foregrounded. © Cecilia Björkén-Nyberg 2024
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| 2. |
- Allan, Rachel, Docent, 1966-, et al.
(författare)
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Building a Corpus of Written Tasks of Swedish National Tests in English : Motivation, Method and Research Applications
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nordic Journal of English Studies. - : Umeå University/Nordic Association of English Studies. - 1502-7694 .- 1654-6970. ; 22:2, s. 128-154
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article describes a collaborative project involving the construction of a corpus of graded year 9 National Tests in written English. National Tests are standardized high stakes tests which are an important part of the Swedish education system because the results provide an indication of performance at national level, and also feed into pupils’ overall assessment. The grading of National Tests in written English has been found to be problematic for teachers, and a need for assessment training identified (Erickson and Tholin 2022). By providing a searchable database of graded written texts, together with the teacher feedback, this project aims to create a resource to support pre- and in-service teachers in interpreting knowledge requirements and assessment guidelines, and providing effective feedback. The corpus will also provide a resource for research into the features of student writing at different grade levels. To create the corpus, past papers from collaborating schools have been anonymized, digitized and coded. As a result, pupils’ texts can be easily sorted by a range of criteria, for example, year, gender, education type, grade achieved on the written paper and overall grade for the National Test. Teacher feedback can be accessed similarly. We outline potential research areas provided by this resource, and demonstrate how some of these might be explored. We also give examples of how the developing corpus has already been used as a resource for English teacher training programmes, and outline future plans for the project.
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| 3. |
- Allan, Rachel, Docent, 1966-
(författare)
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Reserved for Research? Normalising Corpus Use for School Teachers
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nordic Journal of English Studies. - : University of Gothenburg - Department of Languages and Literatures. - 1502-7694 .- 1654-6970. ; 22:1, s. 68-92
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There has been much discussion about the persistent gap between research and practice in the use of corpora in the classroom (Frankenberg-Garcia 2012; Chambers 2019 among others), despite strong evidence of its benefits (Boulton 2017). The majority of studies into data-driven learning (DDL) have been carried out by those with a particular interest and skill level, predominantly in higher education, and the need to complement these with a broader base of studies involving practising language teachers in a school environment has been highlighted (e.g., Boulton 2010; Chambers 2019). For such studies to take place, however, more school teachers need to be made aware of DDL and its potential for use in the classroom.This article discusses what we can learn from research into DDL with younger learners and teacher training in this context in order to shape a teacher training programme. It describes a pilot project introducing DDL to a group of secondary school student teachers (STs) of English at a Swedish university, and their responses to it regarding the feasibility of including it in their future teaching practice. The need for further training, particularly in practical pedagogical applications suitable for their learners, was apparent, echoing the outcomes of previous studies. It is suggested that integrating a range of classroom-focused DDL activities throughout their remaining course may be an effective approach. This also provides an opportunity to raise awareness of pre-prepared resources and novel approaches to DDL more likely to appeal to their learners, and practical examples of this are discussed.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Deutschmann, Mats, 1964-, et al.
(författare)
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‘To my surprise, I don’t particularly like my own opinions’ : Exploring Adaptations of the ‘Open-Guise’ Technique to Raise Sociolinguistic Language Awareness
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nordic Journal of English Studies. - : Unipub forlag. - 1502-7694 .- 1654-6970. ; 22:1, s. 113-143
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The following study describes a data-driven learning scenario aimed at raising sociolinguistic awareness of matters related to gender, language and stereotyping. The design is inspired by the matched-guise technique (MGT), a quantitative data driven experimental method that has been used extensively to investigate language attitudes. In the scenario, differences in respondents’ response patterns to two gender-manipulated versions (male-female vs. female-male dyads) of the same recorded dialogue were used as a starting point for awareness-raising activities aimed at highlighting how gender stereotypes may affect perceptions of a dialogue. The main focus of the article is a comparison of the learning outcomes of two variants of the setup: a traditional undisclosed MGT-inspired setup, where the design and purpose of the experiment was kept secret until after the response phase, and a so-called open-guise design, where respondents were informed of the design and purpose of the experiment prior to the response phase. Preliminary results suggest that respondents adjust their assessments of a speaker depending on the guise, even when they know it is the same speaker they are listening to. Moreover, the open-guise design seemed to lead to greater pedagogic impact than the scenario based on the undisclosed design. However, further studies are needed to confirm these findings.
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| 6. |
- Granath, Solveig, 1951-
(författare)
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The Syntax and Semantics of the Double-faced Prepositions besides and beyond
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nordic Journal of English Studies. - : Umeå University. - 1502-7694 .- 1654-6970. ; 22:2, s. 81-100
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Over time, lexical items are recycled and take on different or additional meanings from the ones they originally had. Somewhat surprisingly, items may take on converse meanings. This is the case with the prepositions besides and beyond, which may signal either inclusion or exclusion, depending on the context. An etymological examination shows that over time, both words have undergone semantic extension from their original spatial meanings. Syntactically, the primary functions of the two are as prepositions and adverbs. Quantitative results show that while nowadays beyond functions primarily as a preposition, besides functions equally often as an adverb and a preposition. The converse meanings of besides and beyond are shown here to depend on whether the context is assertive or non-assertive. Both words form part of a large group of prepositions of inclusion and exclusion which share both semantic and syntactic features. Syntactically, what is remarkable about all of them is their ability to occur not only with nominal complements but also with that-clauses, bare infinitives, and adjective phrases. One of the issues discussed in this article is what is the best syntactic analysis of these structures.
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| 7. |
- Holmberg Sjöling, Christian
(författare)
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A Longitudinal Study of Swedish Upper Secondary School Students’ Vocabulary Development
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nordic Journal of English Studies. - : Department of Language Studies, Umeå University. - 1502-7694 .- 1654-6970. ; 22:2, s. 59-80
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The importance of vocabulary is stressed as a central aspect of language learning. The aim of this investigation was to study how lexical input from a textbook and use of individual vocabulary notebooks affected Swedish upper secondary school students’ vocabulary acquisition by answering the three following research questions: What frequency levels are represented in the vocabulary taught in the textbook? To what extent does the productive vocabulary knowledge of the group, as measured by the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT), change after exposure to the textbook? To what extent did the students benefit from the vocabulary notebooks? Firstly, a corpus of texts from the textbook was created and analysed to establish the frequency levels of the vocabulary in the corpus. Laufer and Nation’s Vocabulary Levels Test was then used to establish the group’s productive vocabulary knowledge. Lastly, the effectiveness of the vocabulary notebook was examined. The results indicate that the particular textbook was well-suited in terms of frequency levels and the students’ knowledge of K3 words improved, but the vocabulary notebook was not found to be effective.
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| 8. |
- Ihrmark, Daniel, 1993-
(författare)
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Revisiting the Computer as Informant from a TeacherMediated Perspective : Suggested Implementation of an Automated Language Diagnostics Tool
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nordic Journal of English Studies. - Göteborg : Göteborgs universitet. - 1502-7694 .- 1654-6970. ; 22:1, s. 42-67
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article argues for considering a shift in focus toward teacher-mediated tools in English as an Additional Language (EAL) teaching. The argument is primarily carried by previous research within Data-Driven Learning (DDL) and Second Language Acquisition (SLA). A tool currently being developed as a part of an ongoing dissertation project in collaboration with EAL teachers is used to showcase how such an implementation could look, and respondent drawings collected as a part of that project are used to fit the implementation within the routines of a small sample of practicing EAL teachers at the upper-secondary level in Sweden (n=4). The results indicate that teacher-mediated data-driven tools could work within theoretical frameworks of corrective feedback, language learning models and suggested routines of practice, but also highlight that much more research is needed before a wider implementation is considered.
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| 9. |
- Nordlund, Marie, et al.
(författare)
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Teenagers’ Vocabulary Knowledge and Self-Efficacy as Elements in Effective L2 Online Searches
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nordic Journal of English Studies. - : Umeå University. - 1502-7694 .- 1654-6970. ; 22:2, s. 1-26
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- As English dominates the Internet, most education systems need to prepare pupils to perform L2 information searches. Generating efficient search terms and understanding the information retrieved requires good vocabulary knowledge. This study examined the relationship between vocabulary knowledge, L2 online searching, and attitudes towards online searching. A sample of Swedish pupils’ abilities in locating suitably difficult texts and learning words were tested by comparing their Vocabulary Size Test scores with the lexical density of their search results and subsequent text production. Long-term vocabulary recall and self-efficacy for searching online were also tested. The results indicate that pupils tended to read and write texts below their ability level. They were unaware that they could achieve more as their self-efficacy measures indicated high confidence levels despite rather modest skills. The challenge posed by the findings is to enable teenagers to recognize how much more effectively they could use the Internet, without damaging their confidence.
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| 10. |
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