A mediados de los años 60 y con el objetivo de proponer unos índices de avance en sintaxis de los escolares que fuesen objetivos y replicables, K. W. Hunt diseña los denominados índices de madurez sintáctica, los cuales han sido ampliamente utilizados desde entonces y con múltiples aplicaciones. Este trabajo utiliza los índices primarios (longitud de la unidad terminal, longitud de la cláusula e índice de subordinación) para determinar la influencia de varias variables sociales sobre el desarrollo sintáctico en el discurso escrito de escolares del municipio de Almería entre 12 y 18 años. Asimismo, pretende comprobar la validez como índices del desarrollo sintáctico de medidas del error diseñadas al efecto y de medidas de las expresiones nominales, así como la correlación entre extensión de los textos (medida en palabras y en unidades terminales) e índices de madurez sintáctica. Finalmente, todo ello se estudiará a través de dos tipos de elicitación de discurso escrito: escritura libre y reescritura, con el objeto de comprobar la eficacia del segundo de los métodos para el español. Para ello se ha seleccionado una muestra representativa de la población por cuotas con afijación proporcional, redundando en 337 sujetos, cada uno de los cuales escribió dos redacciones, según cada uno de los métodos de elicitación. Las variables sociales para la estratificación fueron: curso (6o de primaria, 2o ESO, 4o ESO y 2o Bachillerato), sexo, clase social (baja, media y alta; determinada por profesión y nivel educativo de los padres), zona del centro (centro, barriada, anejos y marginal) y tipo de centro (público o privado). El corpus compuesto con dichas producciones fue segmentado en palabras, unidades terminales (distinguiendo con y sin errores) y en cláusulas y se procedió a su recuento y análisis estadístico. En la introducción se describe con detalle la estructura de la tesis y sus objetivos. En los capítulos I, II y III se realiza una introducción a estos estudios: su pertinencia, su historia, sus aplicaciones, los resultados obtenidos y sus limitaciones también. Los capítulos IV y V son metodógicos, en el capítulo IV se presentan objetivos e hipótesis operativas mientras en el siguiente se expone el método empleado (muestreo, elaboración del corpus, segmentación y análisis estadístico). En el capítulo VI se exponen los resultados y en el último, el VII, las conclusiones, tanto descriptivas como metodológicas. Se incluyen además un índice de figuras, otro de tablas y anexos con los materiales empleados para el muestreo y con el corpus utilizado.

Gives a theoretical and empirical grounding for quantitative corpus linguistic research in first and second language writing development.

Language complexity has recently attracted considerable attention from linguists of many different persuasions. This volume – a thematic selection of papers from the conference Approaches to Complexity in Language, held in Helsinki, August 2005 – is the first collection of articles devoted to the topic. The sixteen chapters of the volume approach the notion of language complexity from a variety of perspectives. The papers are divided into three thematic sections that reflect the central themes of the book: Typology and theory, Contact and change, Creoles and pidgins. The book is mainly intended for typologists, historical linguists, contact linguists and creolists, as well as all linguists interested in language complexity in general. As the first collective volume on a very topical theme, the book is expected to be of lasting interest to the linguistic community.

This book is the companion volume to Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development (The MIT Press, 1996), which proposed a new theoretical framework to answer the question "What does it mean to say that a behavior is innate?" The new work provides concrete illustrations—in the form of computer simulations—of properties of connectionist models that are particularly relevant to cognitive development. This enables the reader to pursue in depth some of the practical and empirical issues raised in the first book. The authors' larger goal is to demonstrate the usefulness of neural network modeling as a research methodology. The book comes with a complete software package, including demonstration projects, for running neural network simulations on both Macintosh and Windows 95. It also contains a series of exercises in the use of the neural network simulator provided with the book. The software is also available to run on a variety of UNIX platforms.

Advancing English Language Education Edited by Wafa Zoghbor & Thomaï Alexiou This volume contains a selection of nineteen articles that focus on skills and strategies for advancing English language teacher education in several contexts where English is taught to speakers of other language. The volume focuses on the teachers and learners as the prime participants in the learning process. The papers selected for inclusion represent the diverse backgrounds, experiences, and research interests of EFL educators and showcase contribution that document theory, research and pedagogy. The volume comprises six sections: Teacher Education and Professional Development; Young Learners; Testing and Assessment; Teaching of Writing Skills; Context-Specic Issues in EFL; Teaching, Learning, and Pedagogy Contributors: Alessandro Ursic, Alison Larkin Koushki, Athanasios Karasimos, Daria Grits, David Rear, Irshat Madyarov, Ivan Ivanov, James Milton, Laila Khalil, Larysa Nikolayeva, Mariam Al Nasser, Marianthi Serafeim, Marielle Risse, Marta Tryzna, Mher Davtyan, Michael M. Parrish, Nikita Berezin, Nour Al Okla, Peter Davidson, Richard D. Miller, Syuzanna Torosyan, Talin Grigorian, Thomaï Alexiou, Wafa Zoghbor, Zainab Rashed Aldhanhani

Designing Software Architectures will teach you how to design any software architecture in a systematic, predictable, repeatable, and cost-effective way. This book introduces a practical methodology for architecture design that any professional software engineer can use, provides structured methods supported by reusable chunks of design knowledge, and includes rich case studies that demonstrate how to use the methods. Using realistic examples, you’ll master the powerful new version of the proven Attribute-Driven Design (ADD) 3.0 method and will learn how to use it to address key drivers, including quality attributes, such as modifiability, usability, and availability, along with functional requirements and architectural concerns. Drawing on their extensive experience, Humberto Cervantes and Rick Kazman guide you through crafting practical designs that support the full software life cycle, from requirements to maintenance and evolution. You’ll learn how to successfully integrate design in your organizational context, and how to design systems that will be built with agile methods. Comprehensive coverage includes Understanding what architecture design involves, and where it fits in the full software development life cycle Mastering core design concepts, principles, and processes Understanding how to perform the steps of the ADD method Scaling design and analysis up or down, including design for pre-sale processes or lightweight architecture reviews Recognizing and optimizing critical relationships between analysis and design Utilizing proven, reusable design primitives and adapting them to specific problems and contexts Solving design problems in new domains, such as cloud, mobile, or big data