Digital Commons Network^™

Basil Bunting And The Challenges Of Literary Translation From Persian Into English: A Case Of Rūdhakī, Emadeddin Naghipour

Languages and Cultures Publications

The purpose of this study is to analyze Basil Bunting's literary translation. It turns to the theories of translation by Steiner, Benjamin, and Eco, among others, to study Bunting’s translation of Rūdhakī’s ‘Dandaniyyeh’ poem, a 10th century qaṣīdah replete with mesmerizing musicality and with a form galvanized in its originating language, time, and locale. A deep contrastive analysis of its translation into English by the poet, Bunting, shows the difficulties that can arise from literal translations of classical Persian poetry.

Contemporary Painting: Autopoietic Improvisation And A Relational Ecology, Philip James Gurrey

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Contemporary painting as a form of research-making and knowledge acquisition through applied practice calls for a re-evaluation of the relationship between painter and painting. This dissertation examines the complexity of this relationship by displacing authority over the artwork and its meaning from the artist. From this poststructuralist starting point the thesis expands upon Derridean ideas of deconstruction by folding them back into Martin Heidegger’s concepts of earth and world. The aim is to reintroduce the physical materiality of paint back into the relationship between painter and painting, prompting a reassessment of the importance of a wider ecological context. Through an …

Exploring The Quality Performance Of Ethno-Specific And Mainstream Not-For-Profit Long-Term Care Homes In Ontario, Lanei Amein

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this retrospective study was to determine how ethno-specific not-for-profit long-term care (LTC) homes in Ontario perform in comparison to mainstream not-for-profit LTC homes using nine RAI-MDS 2.0 quality indicators. Publicly available data from three sources: the Canadian Institute for Health Information "Your Health System: In Depth" database from the Continuing Care Reporting System, data on Ontario ethno-specific not-for-profit LTC homes from the Home and Community Care Support Services, and data on home and ownership records from the Ministry of Long-Term Care “Public Reporting” website, between 2017-2022, were retrieved and analyzed. Descriptive analysis suggests that for all quality …

Bioarchaeological Knowledge Mobilization And The Museum As Knowledge Broker, Teegan Muggridge

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Knowledge mobilization – the process of creating, disseminating, and using knowledge to generate real-world value and impact – is essential in research. The highly contextual nature of human remains poses unique challenges for successful bioarchaeological knowledge mobilization, requiring these projects to address historico-cultural, sociopolitical, and ethical contexts in order to mobilize knowledge in a way that is both accurate and appropriate for diverse communities. This thesis considers the way that museums, as places of community heritage and engagement, may serve as knowledge brokers, facilitating meaningful interactions between researchers and the wider public. Exploring museum professional perspectives in conjunction with an …

Traumatic Brain Injury And Aggressive Behaviour In Low-Income Communities In Canada, Mohammed H. Habib, Sweta Jeyakanthan, Salma Mayamuud

Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences (IMS) Capstone Projects

Introduction:
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a prevalent neurological injury in Canada that disproportionately affects individuals from low-income communities, specifically those facing homelessness. People suffering from TBI can exhibit behavioural changes, namely violent and aggressive behaviours, some forms of which are more common in low-income communities. We sought to understand the barriers and disparities in health for low-income communities in relation to the bidirectionality of TBI and violent behaviour to propose an interdisciplinary intervention for this target population.

Methods:
A systematic review was conducted using PubMed and Google Scholar databases to identify relevant articles from 2019 to 2023. Published articles …

Older Adolescent Perspectives On The Use Of Research Within Online Communities, Ahrrabie Thirunavukkarasu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study explores the attitudes of older adolescents (aged 16 to 19) regarding researchers collecting personal information from Social Networking Sites (SNSs) through passive observation to support Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI) research. The aim of this study is to add to the ongoing discourse in the scientific community, by providing a unique perspective on how researchers can uphold ethical conduct throughout their research process. This study adopts a mixed-methods approach and incorporates a Qualtrics^XM survey and online focus groups (FGs). The findings reveal that participants have reservations toward passive, hidden observational researchers. Despite their concerns, participants support researchers using their …

The Effects Of Nonverbal Communication In Online Learning Formats, Hannah Paraiso

Brescia Psychology Undergraduate Honours Theses

This study experimentally investigated the effects of nonverbal communication in online learning formats, and whether there was an impact on working memory. Participants (N = 40) were randomly assigned to watch 1 of 3 different online video formats. Each video had identical slide show and audio content, but different visibility of the speaker. All videos were 10 minutes long and followed by a 15 multiple choice questionnaire based on the video content. Following the experiment, participants also completed demographic questions to obtain data on prior online learning experience, age, and undergraduate years. Results of this study indicated that there was …

A Comprehensive Study Of Neural Entrainment In Developmental Language Disorder And Reading Disability, Christine Moreau

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Prior research has suggested that reading disability (RD, dyslexia) and developmental language disorder (DLD) stem from deficits in rhythmic auditory processing, specifically in synchronizing neural oscillations (Cumming et al., 2015; Goswami, 2011). Speech relies on rhythmic patterns for signaling linguistic information at multiple timescales (e.g., phonemes, syllables; Giraud & Poeppel, 2012). The disruption of regular neural entrainment is hypothesized to lead to difficulties in processing fast acoustic changes in speech, negatively affecting phonological processing, and speech segmentation. In this dissertation, I studied neural entrainment to uncover possible areas of impairment related to speech tracking, which could help inform interventions. In …

Beyond The Portable Classroom: Investigating Portable Classrooms From Secondary Sources And Reframing Spatial Needs In Canadian Schools, Marzieh Forozantabar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Despite the prevalence of portable classrooms in Canadian schools, research on their characteristics, utilization, and effects is limited. This study investigates portable classrooms in Canada through a two-stage research approach. First, it explored news articles to identify common concerns about portable classrooms in Canada. The dataset comprises 243 news articles. The analysis revealed three overarching concerns about these structures: 1) The factors that lead school districts to use portable classrooms; 2) Safety and comfort in portable classrooms; 3) Strategies to alleviate accommodation issues. Then, Nair’s (2014) principles of contemporary school design were used to critically interrogate the utilization of portable …

Working Towards Recommended Terminology In The Canadian Preschool Speech-Language Pathology Context, Alison Csercsics, Lisa Md Archibald, Barbara Jane Cunningham

PRECISe Preschool Speech and Language Publications

Purpose: This quality improvement project aimed to address the inconsistent use of clinical labels across a preschool speech and language program in Ontario, Canada. The study investigated whether a multi-component knowledge translation intervention could increase speech-language pathologists’ (SLPs’) knowledge about the recommended clinical labels, motivate their intentions to use the labels, and facilitate practice change during a three-month pilot period.

Method: The Diffusion of Innovations Theory was utilized to identify and address known and suspected barriers and facilitators that could influence the adoption of consistent terminology. The intervention was evaluated using a pre-experimental study design (with pre-post-follow-up testing) and included …

Experiential Learning In Language Revitalization, Anthony Tran

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

Language revitalization plays a crucial role in preserving cultural diversity and identity. It serves as a conduit to reconnect communities with their ancestral roots, promoting cultural continuity and helping create a sense of belonging. Furthermore, it offers a stand against the often destructive impacts of colonization and globalization, which frequently result in language loss. In this report, I narrate my enriching journey as a student researcher, working on language revitalization alongside Dr. Tania Granadillo during an my summer internship. This unique experience extensively involved language study, understanding colonialism, and significant personal growth in self-management skills, epitomized by a challenging yet …

Vibes At The Village Vanguard: Hauntings, History, And The Construction Of Jazz Place, Mark Mccorkle

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

There are ghosts that haunt the Village Vanguard. Or at least that’s what people say.

This dissertation examines the role of the contemporary jazz club as a site of heritage and meaning making in jazz cultures. I take New York’s revered jazz club, the Village Vanguard, as a case study, as it is the subject of many fanciful tales. These stories describe the club’s history as alive; the spirits of the legendary musicians from a bygone era of jazz who once performed at the Vanguard are said to haunt the present club’s soundwaves. Often described by writers as the club’s …

Chilean Canadian Literature In English: Memories Of Home And Belonging, From The Postcolonial To Decolonial Practice, Luis Jaimes-Domínguez

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation aims to present a compelling exploration of identity and cultural hybridity, and of the intricate tapestry of diasporic experiences. As such, it delves into the significance of Chilean Canadian literature written directly in English, with a specific focus on the works authored by female writers as part and parcel of an emerging diasporic literature. Employing a postcolonial and hemispheric lens, this research employs a multidimensional methodology embedded in cultural memory, border studies, and representational intersectionality. Within this framework, this study attempts to unravel how Chilean Canadian literature written in English might contribute to a repository of Chilean Canadian …

Differentiated Performance In Native And Instructed Nonnative Spanish: The Impact Of Task Demands And Individual Differences During Performance With Grammatical Gender, Martha Black

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Adult language learners demonstrate extensive variation and are believed to rely largely on explicit knowledge and declarative memory, directly impacting how target language input is processed, represented, and retrieved. The overarching aim of this thesis is to identify and better understand the factors that are most important for adult language acquisition by examining how linguistic features, task demands, and individual learner differences may impact performance with Spanish grammatical gender. This research seeks to draw principled conclusions about what knowledge types and memory systems language users exploit as proficiency develops. 115 language users of Spanish from diverse language backgrounds, including native …

The Sense Of Waste, Sean Sokolov

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis begins with the observation that waste is to an outsized degree subject to the modal verbs; we might say that waste gives way to the sense of waste. As a result, waste appears as an unusually animate–and animating–actant, producing in those who apprehend it the impulse to put that which is wasted to use. The introductory chapter establishes this fact and provides a brief overview of scholarly approaches to the study of waste, asserting that in order to transcend mere description of the phenomenon it is necessary to establish how waste as an actant entered into its present …

Transformational Leadership Approach For Encouraging Historically Marginalized Communities To Access Admission To Naturopathic Medicine, Baljit Khamba

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

Many healthcare training institutions lack cultural diversity, including naturopathic medicine. One potential reason is a lack of historically marginalized individuals applying to these medical schools. Attracting communities of colour to healthcare professions, like naturopathic medicine is important for improving healthcare access and delivery across all individuals within North America. This OIP explores the lack of diversity in applicants to the naturopathic medical program at a large multi-centre institution. The role that education and mentorship of faculty members can play to improve implicit biases and eventually encourage historically marginalized individuals to apply to the program is explored. Moreover, the OIP presents …

My Embodied Transformative Educational Journey As An East Asian International Student Learner: A Self-Study Approach, Yixuan Pang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis is my personal, educational, and embodied journey of a female Chinese student learner who has travelled across contexts for education in both Canada and my home country China. Using a self-study approach, this thesis examines how embodied knowledge informs my educational experiences and learning in different contexts. I question the taken-for-granted knowledge (Greene, 1995) existing in the education I have received, and challenge the assumptions I have toward my learning. Through processes of creative writing, new knowledge and understandings emerges and I explore possibilities of how knowledge can be considered, in fluid and malleable ways shaped by different …

Acquisition Of Main-Clause Wh-Questions In Egyptian Arabic-English And Spanish-English Bilingual Children, Riham H. Mohamed

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines the production and judgment of Egyptian Arabic (henceforth EA) main-clause wh-questions in EA-English bilingual children living in Ontario, Canada, or in the United Kingdom. The three comparison groups are EA monolingual children and EA monolingual adults living in Egypt, and first-generation Egyptian immigrants. The results are compared to previous research on the acquisition of obligatory subject-verb (S-V) inversion in Spanish wh-questions.

The focus of this study is to investigate the potential role of cross-linguistic influence in narrow syntactic structures. Until fairly recently, it was believed that only structures that exhibit syntax-pragmatics interfaces are vulnerable to cross-linguistic influence …

Hiring Criteria And Employability Of Esl/Efl Instructors In The Tesol Job Market In Canada And The United Arab Emirates, Shaden S. Attia

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study investigated the hiring criteria and employability of ESL/EFL instructors in Canada and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in higher education. It also explored challenges facing instructors and program administrators in today’s global TESOL job market, and how they both tackled these challenges. The study drew on intersectionality and Critical Race Theory and a qualitative methodological approach to answer the research questions. The research methods included an online questionnaire, analyses of online job advertisements and instructors’ journal reflections, and interviews with instructors and program administrators.

The findings indicate that educational qualifications, and teaching experience and certification constituted the primary …

Teacher Anxiety And Resilience As Socio-Ecological Experience: A Critical Ethnography Of Early-Career English As An Additional Language Teachers In Post-Pandemic Ontario, Canada, Aide Chen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This critical ethnographic study investigated the anxiety and resilience experiences of English as an Additional Language (EAL) teachers in Ontario, Canada during their early careers after the pandemic. The study drew on literature regarding the TESOL profession’s precarious nature, resilience and anxiety concepts, pandemic impacts on language education, and debates on native-speakerism. It employed four-level theoretical frameworks, including the theories of critical praxis (Freire, 1970), reflexivity (Byrd Clark, 2020), ecological systems (Bronfenbrenner,1979), and the community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) for its design and implementation. Four pre-service and three in-service English language teachers participated, providing weekly reflective journals for …

Learning To Teach For Equity, Diversity, And Social Justice: A Mixed Methods Case Study Of Initial Teacher Education In Ontario, Canada, Kate Paterson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Drawing on critical race theory, culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy, and ecological systems theory, this mixed methods case study explored the integration of equity, diversity, and social justice across one initial teacher education program in Ontario, Canada. Survey data (n=272) provided insight into prospective teachers’ endorsement of social-justice-related beliefs at program entry and exit. Demographic data were collected to obtain a current snapshot of initial teacher education representation rates, addressing a dearth of such data in the Ontario context. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with teacher candidates (n=15) and key stakeholders (n=4) to gain an understanding of how equity was conceptualized …

A Novel Multidimensional Reference Model For Heterogeneous Textual Datasets Using Context, Semantic And Syntactic Clues, Ganesh Kumar, Shuib Basri, Abdullahi Abubakar Imam, Abdullateef Abdullateef Oluwagbemiga Balogun, Hussaini Mamman, Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

With the advent of technology and use of latest devices, they produces voluminous data. Out of it, 80% of the data are unstructured and remaining 20% are structured and semi-structured. The produced data are in heterogeneous format and without following any standards. Among heterogeneous (structured, semi-structured and unstructured) data, textual data are nowadays used by industries for prediction and visualization of future challenges. Extracting useful information from it is really challenging for stakeholders due to lexical and semantic matching. Few studies have been solving this issue by using ontologies and semantic tools, but the main limitations of proposed work were …

Capacious Feminism: Intimacy And Otherness In Mina Loy's Poetry, Elise Ottavino

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation explores Loy’s interest in the “woman’s cause” to interrogate how the poet was recaptured as an early feminist figure by the academy. After Virginia Kouidis “rediscovered” Loy’s work in the 1980s, the poet has been consistently drafted as a central feminist figure despite her lack of commitment to organized feminist movements of her time. This retrospective lens offers a catachrestic view of Loy’s feminism. I use “catachresis” to refer to the slightly inaccurate use of “feminism,” tinted by current perceptions of the term, but also to hint at Loy’s capacious feminine poetics. While the rise of feminist theories …

Investigating The Language Of Time: Evaluating The Use And Comprehension Of Before And After, Kimberley R. Henderson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Before-initial sentences are thought to be more difficult to comprehend than after-initial sentences because they structurally mismatch the temporal order of real-world events (Münte et al., 1998). Although event knowledge is known to affect how people understand before/after-initial sentences, little is known about the role of language knowledge in comprehending these sentences. A corpus analysis of before/after-initial sentences revealed that before typically is paired with a pronoun (Before he…) whereas after is paired with verb-ing (After leaving…). Participants' eyes were tracked while they read Before/After-pronoun/verbing sentences. Reading times did not match the …

Figures Of Radical Absence: Blanks And Voids In Theory, Literature, And The Arts, Alexandra Irimia

Languages and Cultures Publications

Although post-structuralism highlighted the importance of what is offstage, lost, forgotten, hidden or discarded, silent or silenced, the poetics and politics of absence (much like its ethics and aesthetics) have rarely been discussed across media and disciplines. This book proposes the concept of ‘radical absence’ to describe a certain tradition of resistance to ontology, predication, and representation, contesting their reliance on a metaphysics of presence. Apophatic speech, empty signifiers, and figural voids are some of the figures through which radical absence becomes apparent with unprecedented intensity in twentieth-century theory, literature, film, and the arts. Phantasmatic and outrageous, such figures play …

Higher Education Students And Digital Literacies: A Systematic Literature Review, Filipe Malafaia Cerqueira

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study is a systematic literature review of digital literacies and students in higher education. It sought to identify the state of knowledge on digital literacies in higher education including what studies have been conducted in this nexus and what remains to be known. The deductive themes drew on two prominent concepts of digital literacies: the Seven Elements of Digital Literacies (Jisc, 2014), and the Charter for 21st Century Literacies (Burnett & Merchant, 2018). The review’s methodology identified 23 studies published in the last five years across 21 countries. The findings suggest that researchers demonstrated interest in discussing how students …

Algorithmic Hypnosis, Suarjan Prasai

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis is about futures which are inscribed in the present. It is about the past determining the future and the future determining the present. It is also about artificial intelligence, algorithmic learning and the politics of mediums as they curate our sense of time. Today’s landscape is curated by algorithmic machines that are quickly taking over all aspects of social relations. Looking at media-theorist Wendy H.K. Chun’s analysis of homophily (i.e., love of sameness; commonality), I observe the regionality of standard critiques of capital and feel out new modes of resistance which do away with the discourse of the …

English Literacy Curricula In A Sino-Canadian Transnational Education Program: Teachers’ Implemented Curriculum, Rong Hai

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This case study explored the English literacy curricula in a Sino-Canadian Transnational Education Program that is accredited by British Columbia (BC). Underpinned by nested pedagogical orientations and critical multimodal literacies, this study focuses on how the BC English literacy curricula were implemented in three English literacy teachers’ classes. Data show that two pedagogical orientations (i.e., transmission and social constructivist) were used by English literacy teachers in the transnational education program. This study also found little evidence of transformative pedagogy in all three teachers’ English literacy teaching. The implications include missed opportunities to engage students to critically analyze and evaluate the …

Conceptual Engineering & Contextualism, Madhavi Mohan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this dissertation, I explore the relationship between conceptual engineering and contextualism in philosophy. Conceptual engineering evaluates philosophical theories about concepts against whether they meet normative and political objectives, while contextualism highlights the influence of context on meaning and truth. I argue that conceptual engineering is subject to contextualism, rendering theories about concepts applicable only in specific contexts.

The first chapter examines essentially contested concepts: concepts inevitably subject to contestation, owing to different, equally legitimate reasons philosophers may have for valuing them. Nevertheless, within specific contexts, these concepts serve particular purposes, and conceptions aligned with those purposes better capture their …

A Study To Investigate Narrative Skills, Language, And Working Memory: An Insight Into Macro And Micro Structures Of Language, Diya Nair, Dr Theresa Pham, Dr Lisa M.D. Archibald

Inspiring Minds – A Digital Collection of Western’s Graduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.