Electric resistivity of organic conductor K-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3

U ovom radu su proučavana svojstva električne otpornosti u temperaturnom rasponu od ~300K (sobne temperature) do ~20K (do kuda je dostupna aparatura davala pouzdane rezultate), organskog kristala κ-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3. Na temelju provedenih mjerenja ispitana su slaganja rezultata mjerenja s teorijom, odnosno s Arrheniusovim zakonom i teorijom preskoka promjenjivog dosega. U metodičkom dijelu rada predstavljen je jedan način kako bi se mogao održati istraživački tip nastave na temu električnog otpora u srednoj školi sa četverogodišnjim programom fizike.The subject of this study is electric resistivity in temperature range from ~300K (room temperature) to ~20K (temperature at which available apparatus was giving reliable results), organic crystal κ-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3. The study examines connection between measured results and the theory, respectively with Arrhenius law and theory of variable range hopping. Educational part shows an exploratory teaching method how to present electric resistance in high school within four year program of physics

Zulu oral narrative development from a speech and gesture perspective

Literature on child language development usually focuses mainly on early language acquisition (0 - 4 years) and on non-Bantu languages. This article focuses on 1) late language development and 2) the complete language communicative process, which includes non-verbal clues in first language Zulu oral narratives. This study brings evidence that shows pragmatic discursive ability develops with age and that spontaneous co-speech gesture develops in parallel. In a controlled language production task, oral narratives were elicited from three child cohorts (6 years, 9 years and 12 years) and one adult group. Results show a gradual increase of discursive ability in both speech and co-speech gesture. We also present quantifiable evidence that 12-year-old Zulu children are not yet as competent in complex discourse as adults, in line with current literature on late language development of other Asian and European languages. These findings are relevant for understanding how oral and writing skills develop in informal and formal learning environments

Editorial to the South African Journal of Communication Disorders special issue

No abstract available

The Discursive Strategies in the Spoken Narratives of Multilingual Sepitori and Sesotho Speakers

In linguistically diverse and multilingual South African communities, it is common to use non-standard language varieties (NSLVs), often called mixed languages, as lingua franca. These NSLVs are primarily spoken in black townships throughout South Africa. Previous studies show that the discursive production of oral narratives impacts the development and use of higher-order language processing, as they require the knowledge, language skills and abilities to produce coherent discourse. The main focus of the existing literature in oral narrative is mostly on standard languages. In this study, we explore how speakers of Sepitori, a non-standard language variety (NSLV), produce an oral narrative compared to Sesotho, a standard language. The current study investigates the oral narrative production of a total number of 20 participants who are adult speakers of Sesotho and Sepitori (ten from each language). The Sesotho speakers were bilingual speakers of English and Sesotho. The Sepitori speakers were multilingual speakers of English, Sesotho, Zulu and other languages spoken in the Mamelodi township. This study used a mixed methodology of quantitative and qualitative analysis. Narratives were annotated for language complexity in the macro- and microstructure elements: the length and type of clause, pragmatic acts, referential lexical choices and code-switched words. Sepitori speakers produced narratives characterised by interactive clauses unrelated to the narrative level and with a greater range of lexical referents, showcasing more individual linguistic variation. Sesotho speakers produced a more sequential oral narrative in line with story schema with fewer interjections to the researcher. In an increasingly linguistically heterogeneous South Africa, more research is required to gain insights into how multilingual individuals develop and refine their narrative skills, emphasising the much-needed focus on NSLV from a psycholinguistic perspective, which may ultimately inform tools of assessment for multilingual children and adults in social, clinical and academic contexts

Lexical development of noun and predicate comprehension and production in isiZulu

This study seeks to investigate the development of noun and predicate comprehension and production in isiZulu-speaking children between the ages of 25 and 36 months. It compares lexical comprehension and production in isiZulu, using an Italian developed and validated vocabulary assessment tool: The Picture Naming Game (PiNG) developed by Bello, Giannantoni, Pettenati, Stefanini and Caselli (2012). The PiNG tool includes four subtests, one each for subnoun comprehension (NC), noun production (NP), predicate comprehension (PC), and predicate production (PP). Children are shown these lexical items and then asked to show comprehension and produce certain lexical items. After adaptation into the South African context, the adapted version of PiNG was used to directly assess the lexical development of isiZulu with the three main objectives to (1) test the efficiency of the adaptation of a vocabulary tool to measure isiZulu comprehension and production development, (2) test previous findings done in many cross-linguistic comparisons that have found that both comprehension and production performance increase with age for a lesser-studied language, and (3) present our findings around the comprehension and production of the linguistic categories of nouns and predicates. An analysis of the results reported in this study show an age effect throughout the entire sample. Across all the age groups, the comprehension of the noun and predicate subtests was better performed than the production of noun and predicate subtests. With regard to lexical items, the responses of children showed an influence of various factors, including the late acquisition of items, possible problems with stimuli presented to them, and the possible input received by the children from their home environment

Chapter 7. Gesture and speech in adults’ and children’s narratives

International audienceThis chapter reports on a cross-linguistic developmental study comparing speech and gesture produced in narratives by adults and children speaking either French (a non-pro-drop Romance language) or Zulu (a pro-drop Bantu language). We asked 72 participants (French: 12 adults and 24 children; Zulu: 12 adults and 24 children) to narrate a short silent cartoon. Zulu narratives were more detailed and contained fewer comments than the French. Zulu-speaking participants produced more representational and fewer pragmatic gestures than their French-speaking counterparts. Language differences do not explain this result. Rather, the findings support the gesture-speech co-expressivity framework and suggest an impact of literacy practice norms on multimodal narrative performance during later language acquisition

Chapter 7. Gesture and speech in adults’ and children’s narratives

International audienceThis chapter reports on a cross-linguistic developmental study comparing speech and gesture produced in narratives by adults and children speaking either French (a non-pro-drop Romance language) or Zulu (a pro-drop Bantu language). We asked 72 participants (French: 12 adults and 24 children; Zulu: 12 adults and 24 children) to narrate a short silent cartoon. Zulu narratives were more detailed and contained fewer comments than the French. Zulu-speaking participants produced more representational and fewer pragmatic gestures than their French-speaking counterparts. Language differences do not explain this result. Rather, the findings support the gesture-speech co-expressivity framework and suggest an impact of literacy practice norms on multimodal narrative performance during later language acquisition

Chapter 7. Gesture and speech in adults’ and children’s narratives

International audienceThis chapter reports on a cross-linguistic developmental study comparing speech and gesture produced in narratives by adults and children speaking either French (a non-pro-drop Romance language) or Zulu (a pro-drop Bantu language). We asked 72 participants (French: 12 adults and 24 children; Zulu: 12 adults and 24 children) to narrate a short silent cartoon. Zulu narratives were more detailed and contained fewer comments than the French. Zulu-speaking participants produced more representational and fewer pragmatic gestures than their French-speaking counterparts. Language differences do not explain this result. Rather, the findings support the gesture-speech co-expressivity framework and suggest an impact of literacy practice norms on multimodal narrative performance during later language acquisition