Three experiments assessed how speakers avoid linguistically and nonlinguistically ambiguous expressions. Speakers described target objects (a flying mammal, bat) in contexts including foil objects that caused linguistic (a baseball bat) and nonlinguistic (a larger flying mammal) ambiguity. Speakers sometimes avoided linguistic-ambiguity, and they…

This article examines the significance of how learning objects have come to be conceptualized and utilized, particularly in higher education. While many articles critique the term and its origins, an examination of the role metaphor plays in our conceptualization of "data", "information" and "learning objects" helps us move beyond a fixation on…

Linguistic and psycholinguistic research has documented that there exists a close relationship between a verb's meaning and the syntactic structures in which it occurs, and that learners and comprehenders take advantage of this relationship both in acquisition and in processing. We address implications of these facts for issues in structural…

This article undertakes a close rhetorical reading of the speeches given by Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Francis Collins, and Craig Venter on June 26, 2000, at the White House ceremony announcing the completion of the Human Genome Project. Specifically, it looks at the metaphors used by each speaker to describe the activity of genomic scientists.…

The challenge in designing organizational interventions lies in making explicit and available what is usually implicit. Accordingly, a contribution to the understanding of complex and implicit practices such as gossip and rumor, the conditions responsible for their origin, as well as the relation they sustain to the outcome of group survival,…

Synthesising Martha Nussbaum's study of the emotions and the capabilities approach to human development with Charles Taylor's claim that authentic identities ought to be constructed dialogically against "horizons of significance," the author identifies critical features of authenticity that are then applied to the context of adult educators,…

This submission contains the Proceedings of the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group (CMESG), held at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta. The CMESG is a group of mathematicians and mathematics educators who meet annually to discuss mathematics education issues at all levels of learning. The aims of the…

This article deals with current notions of idiomaticity. It argues that lack of adequate empirical study and scholarship has prompted some authors to apply research findings from first language (L1) to second language (L2) contexts without scrutinizing more closely the factors affecting L2 idiom understanding. As a result, certain propositions…

This article explores "prosthesis" as a metaphor of embodiment in art-based research to challenge the utopian myth of wholeness and normality in art and the human body. Bearing in mind the correspondences between amputated bodies and the cultural dislocations of art, I propose "prosthetic epistemology" and "prosthetic ontology" as embodied knowing…

Creative engagement is a vital component of the courses the author teaches. Along with a critical reading of the required texts and other related sources, she encourages students to share from their personal experiences as well as from their faith tradition, cultural heritage, family background, and even their favorite music, literature, poetry,…

Australia is a federation of six states and two territories. Each state and territory has its own legislature, which may not be of the same political persuasion as the Commonwealth (Federal) Government. Under the Australian Constitution primary control of school education is with the State and Territory Governments, with the Australian…

This narrative inquiry explores the lives of five ninth grade female adolescents enrolled in an alternative school for students who have been expelled from an urban school district. The population of female students in the school increased from 21 to 102 over five years. The same trend is evident nationally. This study uses theories that label…

When people read temporarily ambiguous sentences, there is often an increased prevalence of regressive eye-movements launched from the word that resolves the ambiguity. Traditionally, such regressions have been interpreted at least in part as reflecting readers' efforts to re-read and reconfigure earlier material, as exemplified by the Selective…

Individuals with autism exhibit significant impairments in prosody production, yet there is a paucity of research on prosody comprehension in this population. The current study adapted a psycholinguistic paradigm to examine whether individuals with autism are able to use prosody to resolve syntactically ambiguous sentences. Participants were 21…

The author, a programme leader for a Post Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (PGCLTHE), hears a complaint from her colleagues that undergraduate students require "spoon-feeding". Accepting structuralism's argument that language does things, not just describe them, the author examines "spoon-feeding" in more depth.…