The phenomenon of clustering, where speakers or writers suddenly produce multiple metaphors, is widespread and intriguing. This paper presents an innovative visualisation methodology for identifying and exploring metaphor clusters, comparing it to existing methods that use cumulative frequency graphs and Poisson curve fitting, and addressing issues that arise from these. Identification of clusters from the visualisation is shown to be reliable and practical, while also offering in-depth exploration across a range of discourse parameters. Conversations aimed at conciliation between a perpetrator of violence and a victim (total 160 minutes) are analysed for clusters and their discourse functions. All techniques show clusters at two distinct time scales, of around one minute and of several seconds. Clusters in conciliation talk account for about 42 per cent of the total metaphors, and cover about 30 per cent of the discourse. Discourse work carried out in clusters includes explanation of a speaker’s perspective to the Other, appropriation of metaphors originally used by the Other, and exploration of alternative, negative, scenarios that had been possible choices for the speaker but had been rejected. The finding that metaphor clusters are sites of intensive work relating to the central discourse purpose supports cluster exploration as a heuristic tool for discourse analysis.
This paper presents an ecological model of developing researcher competence, with a particular focus on doctoral students' use of research software. The model extends on theoretical work done by Young et al. (Instructional Science 30(1): 47-63, 2002), modelling the intentional dynamics of technological learning contexts. The development of the ecological model is linked to existing ways of understanding the doctoral experience.This includes the recent emphasis on pedagogy and learning, as well as different conceptualisations of context. The experiences of three doctoral student informants are used to exemplify aspects of the ecological model. A description of an e-learning resource, designed to support Education doctoral students' use of research software, illustrates a concrete pedagogical contribution of the model. The paper concludes with a more general discussion of contributions of the model to the field of ecological psychology and the literature on doctoral education.
This paper presents an ecological perspective on the developing researcher competence of participants in the research education component of a professionally oriented master's course. There is a particular focus on the intentionality (as in 'purpose') of the participants' research education activity. The data used to develop the ecological perspective, and which at the same time is interpreted from this ecological perspective, consists of interactive, reflective and more product-like written outputs generated by two master's course participants. The analysis reveals how the participants' developing intentionality was shaped by a hybrid of professional and research-related influences, and how this developing intentionality affected the quality of the participants' research education experience. The analysis, with its particular focus on intentionality, constitutes a further development of the ecological perspective on developing researcher competence proposed by the first author, and is intended also as a contribution to the emerging literature on 'research education'. IntroductionThis paper presents an ecological perspective on the developing researcher competence of participants on a professionally oriented master's course for English language teachers at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. An ecological perspective on research education was first developed by Stelma (2011); the present contribution is particularly concerned with the intentionality (as in 'purpose') of different aspects of the participants' research education experiences.The first part of the paper provides an overview of the key features of the ecological perspective, including an explanation of the focus on intentionality. The ecological thinking is also considered alongside other perspectives on postgraduate research education, thereby anticipating the pedagogical and theoretical contributions of the paper. The next part of the paper outlines the focus on developing researcher competence in our master's course, and describes the naturalistic data available to us in our ongoing exploration of this pedagogy. A third part of the paper presents an ecological analysis of the participants' research education experiences. The purpose of this analysis is two-fold: (a) to develop understanding of the participants' research education experiences, and (b) to explicate the ecological perspective on research education.
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