ABSTRACT
The present study, which is based on the Competing Values Framework （i.e. CVF:a framework to identify the organizational effectiveness and to define organizationalculture）， aims to investigate English teachers, teaching motivation at universities, theirperception of the organizational culture in the target university,their professionalaspiration and how they affect each other. The research questions to be addressed are asfollows: （1） How do the English teachers perceive the organizational culture at theirworkplace? （2） How much effort will the teachers pay for their professionalengagement and aspiration? （3） What kinds of motivation do the English teachers in thetarget university appear to have? （4） How will the organizational culture and theprevious experience affect teachers' motivation?
This study employed four different questionnaires as the research instruments,including one demographic questionnaire and three research questionnaires, i.e. thedemographic questionnaire, the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument （i.e. theOCAI） （Cameron & Quinn, 1999），the Professional Engagement and CareerDevelopment Aspiration-scale （i.e. the PECDA-scale） （Watt & Richardson, 2008b），andthe Work Tasks Motivation Scale for Teachers Teaching （i.e. the WTMST） （Fernet et al.,2008），to investigate the above mentioned research questions. The whole investigationtook roughly 12 weeks and involved three stages: the preparation stage,the pilot study,and the main study.
The findings of the present study show that most of the teachers are intrinsicallymotivated and with identified regulation influenced by the performance culture and theclan culture which are the dominant culture types of the target research site. Results alsoindicate that the overseas experience and length of teaching experience affect teachers'perception of tixe organizational culture and motivation. The participants who haveoverseas experience tend to be more with the sense of professionalism, moreintrinsically motivated and be more confident with their competence in the academicarea; and the ones who have longer years of teaching experience are with moreidentified regulation and introjected motivation and are more committed and moreassured of staying in the education field. The participants in the target universitybasically belong to the highly engaged persisters,and the male teachers expect to be theleadership.
Key Words: Organizational culture; Competing Value Framework; English teachers atuniversities; teachers5 motivation; professional aspiration.
Abstract
Louise Erdrich is one of the most prolific and important writers of contemporary NativeAmerican literature. In 2012,her new novel The Round House was published to the intensiveattention from critics and general readership alike. The novel won the National Book Award.
The Round House is centered on a rape case, telling a story of striving to survive whilepursuing justice through the jungle of discrimination and despair. Erdrich draws from Ojibwemyths,storytelling technique and skillfully merge with western mainstream culture to explorethemes such as subversion to colonial discourse, the loss and reconstruction of ethnic identity.
In this thesis, postcolonial theory is applied to analyze the loss and reconstruction ofethnic identity of the native people and Louise Erdrich's strategies to resist white colonialdiscourse. To the Natives struggling between two cultures and traditions, the loss of identityis inevitable, yet it is possible and necessary for them to reconstruct their ethnic identity.
Through the novel,Erdrich shows how different characters make efforts to reconstruct ethnicidentity, represent the national self-esteem and subvert the white hegemony. Throughanalyzing the text and the strategies of the author, the thesis suggests the way to reconstructethnic identity-surpass the ethnic boundary, recuperate traditional culture, embrace hybridity,mix with advanced culture of the mainstream society and make changes accordingly to gain abetter ground for survival and thriving.
The thesis first introduces the research background, the organization, and thesignificance of an interpretation of The Round House from the perspective of postcolonialismand the object of the thesis. Then it presents the critical reviews on Louise Erdrich's worksfrom three perspectives. Besides, it provides a brief introduction to the development and mainframe of postcolonialism, among which Edward Said's notion of “otherness”,GayatriSpivak's notion of “subaltern” and Homi Bhabha's notion of “hybridity” are the key termsemployed in the thesis. The central part of the thesis is devoted to analyzing the loss andreconstruction of ethnic identity embodied in the lives of different characters. In theconclusion part,the thesis reveals that for people living between two cultures, neitherretreating to the tradition nor yielding to the white society is a good choice. In themulticultural world, the native people should unite the community power to embracehybridity and recuperate brilliant traditional culture. Only in this way, can they survive andreconstruct their ethnic identity successfully.
Keywords: Louise Erdrich; The Round House; postcolonialism; the loss of identity; thereconstruction of identity
ABSTRACT
Degree adverbs play a crucial role in daily language communication. However,owing to their wide varieties and similar meanings, it is hard for language learners toreally master their meanings and usages.
With the aid of AntConc 3.4.lw and based on the corpora of FROWN （TheFreiburg-Brown Corpus of American English），FLOB （The Freiburg-LOB Corpus ofBritish English） and CLEC （Chinese Learner English Corpus）， the study aims tocompare the actual use of common English degree adverbs in terms of semanticprosody between Chinese EFL learners and native English speakers. The researchprocedures consist of two steps. First, AntConc 3.4.lw is launched to extractconcordance lines of the target node words in each corpus and the semantic featuresof the node words' collocates are analyzed; then, the semantic prosodies of these nodewords are summarized and comparisons are made between the two corpora.
The results indicate that there are differences as well as similarities betweennative English speakers and Chinese learners in their use of semantic prosody.
Chinese EFL learners tend to underuse the negative semantic prosodies of fairly,highly, and totally?,overuse the negative semantic prosodies of extremely; and misusethe semantic prosody of terribly. The results also show that some problems exist inChinese learners' use of semantic prosodies of degree adverbs, and the reasons mayinclude their first language transfer, intralingual transfer, and the lack of informationabout the semantic prosody in dictionaries and textbooks.
The study has some implications for English language teaching, vocabularylearning, as well as the textbook and dictionary compiling.
Key Words: semantic prosody; collocation; degree adverbs; corpus
Abstract
In recent years, the South China Sea issue has become a hot topic, escalatingfrom bilateral disputes into the current situation of “six countries and eight parties”.
Therefore, the issue has raised many concerns from the international community.
China-Vietnam dispute over the South China Sea is particularly noticeable. Associalist countries, China and Vietnam have deep historical relations between them.
We can even say that the China-Vietnam relations enjoy unique advantages. However,Vietnam has occupied most of the Chinese islands and reefs in the South China Sea.Different from other claimants in the South China Sea issue, Vietnam has declaredclaim to the entire Spratly and Paracel Islands, playing a leading role in the SouthChina Sea issue.
Given the important influence of Vietnam on the South China Sea issue and theuniqueness of their bilateral relations, the China-Vietnam dispute has become themost complex dispute in the South China Sea issue; meanwhile, it is also a good pointto make a breakthrough from so as to solve the South China Sea issue. China andVietnam have successfully solved through bilateral consultations and negotiations theland border issue left over from the history. We have reasons to look forward to thepeaceful settlement of their dispute over the South China Sea issue.
From the current perspective, the differences between China and Vietnam arevery big, and the United States and other outside powers have never stopped theirinterference in the South China Sea issue. Therefore, it will be difficult for China tosafeguard national interests in the South China Sea by peaceful means while ensuringsmooth relations with Vietnam. However, with China's comprehensive nationalstrength growing, the cost of interference for powers outside the region in the SouthChina Sea issue will be increasingly high, and the change in the balance of power willalso be in favor of China.
The option of military means contains lots of risks, while the option ofinternational arbitration is undesirable. On this occasion, the present study holds thatthere remains a possibly pragmatic solution. This needs the non-interference of theUS on the China-Vietnam dispute. If China wants to reach this goal, China shouldtake the benefit-sharing with US to some content into full consideration. On this basis,China could regain its sovereignty over the Nansha islands through joint development,transfer of some economic benefits, increasing economic influence on Vietnameseeconomy, and widening the power gaps, etc.
If China and Vietnam could successfully solve their maritime dispute, it wouldbe a very positive example to the final solution to the South China Sea issue.
Keywords: South China Sea issue, China-Vietnam dispute over the South China Sea,China, Vietnam, the US
