This linguistic study is an attempt at investigating the use of adjectives in Victorian fiction. The focus of the investigation is on semantic peculiarities of this particular word class so as to provide insights into the use of different lexical fields in three problem-oriented novels dealing with unexpected or unconventional aspects of nineteenth-century Britain, these being The Time Machine by Herbert George Wells, The Lifted Veil by George Eliot and My Lady s Money by Wilkie Collins. The study aims to show that adjectival descriptions as reflected in the use of...

This volume is a result of the conference -Islamic Textbooks and Curricula in South East Europe- held in Sarajevo, 21st to 25th October 2010. One of the aims of the conference was to critically assess the existing curricula and textbooks for Muslim education in Europe and to discuss the directions textbook and curricular development needs to take in the near term. This critical assessment and visioning took place in dialogue with the experiences of long-established churches and religious communities. The conference concluded that an emphasis on the European characteristics of Islam is...

Die in der Festschrift versammelten Beitrage konzentrieren sich auf ausgewahlte Schwerpunkte der anglistischen Forschung. Das Spektrum reicht von der spatmittelalterlich-fruhneuzeitlichen Antikenrezeption uber Shakespeare, die englische Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts und die klassische Moderne bis hin zu Romanwerken des 21. Jahrhunderts. Ungeachtet der Vielfalt der Gattungen und der methodischen Zugriffsweisen kennzeichnet die Aufsatze das Bestreben, die behandelten Autoren und Gegenstande in einem europaischen Kontext zu situieren, um auf diese Weise die europaische Dimension der englischen...

Numerous studies indicate that learning is most effective in terms of persistency when it addresses the whole person rather than merely the intellect. A set of promotive activities that foster significant learning have been extensively researched in classroom settings. The major scientific goal of this work is to investigate whether and how promotive activities may be applied in technology-enhanced learning settings. Besides transferring existing activity patterns to the online context, this work presents new opportunities that could only emerge with technology enhancement. This work draws up...

Every society has its own definition of a normal and an abnormal human condition. For persons living with mental disorders, these concepts have a tremendous impact. This study investigates how the abnormal mind is culturally defined in Malawi, South-Eastern Africa. Based on anthropological techniques such as interviews, participant observation, and archive research, it explores the different social dimensions of mental disorder - e.g. its reflection in traditional dance rituals, in behavioural rules during pregnancy, or in the healing ministry of independent churches. It demonstrates how...

It has long been noted that high-stakes language exams exert a powerful influence on teaching and learning, a phenomenon known as the washback effect (Alderson and Wall, 1993). However, due to the complex nature of the phenomenon, little research has been conducted in the field so far. This book, which is based on empirical research into the washback effect of First Certificate in English (FCE, Cambridge ESOL), discusses and elaborates on the complexity of the phenomenon and accounts for the intervening factors that mediate the process of test washback. The book concludes with...

Participatory approaches to project planning and implementation have been hotly debated in development cooperation and policy circles since the 1980s. This book contributes to the debate by focusing on international, development-oriented agricultural research. Based on fieldwork in rural northern Vietnam and interviews with researchers in Vietnam and Germany, the book analyzes the manifold meanings associated with the concept of participatory research, and the hurdles participatory research must overcome in practice. It demonstrates the need to recognize multiple meanings of participation in...

Modals and related phenomena are without doubt one of the most complicated issues in the grammar of language. This study provides a reappraisal of the modals in Shakespeare s language from the pragmatic viewpoint, both micropragmatic and macropragmatic. The material selected for analysis are modals SHALL, SHOULD, WILL, WOULD, and their contracted forms. Micropragmatic aspects such as speech acts seem relatively easily accessible to historical researchers; however, this study moves further into the macropragmatic dimensions of language use than the earlier ones and covers politeness, dialogue,...

This volume is a collection of German and English papers presented at a symposium for young researchers on Norms in Educational Linguistics, which was held in Giessen (Germany) in 2008. The proceedings represent a multitude of philologies, theoretical frameworks and applications and are structured in thematic sections ranging from Language policy as a reflection of cultural norms to Norm, standard, deviation and Target norms in foreign language teaching.
Dieser Band ist eine Sammlung von deutsch- und englischsprachigen Beitragen, die bei einem Symposium fur...

At the end of compulsory schooling, a quarter of European adolescents do not meet the minimal standards in reading literacy required for life-long learning and a satisfactory private and professional life (cf. the PISA-surveys). Funded by the European Commission (2006-2009), the ADORE Project -Teaching Struggling Adolescent Readers A Comparative Study of Good Practice in European Countries- involved researchers and practitioners from the following 11 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Switzerland. During a...