The New English Teacher: Vol. 10. No. 2, (August 2016)

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Browsing The New English Teacher: Vol. 10. No. 2, (August 2016) by Title

  • Item
    An analysis of business discourse strategies used in email transactions: a case study of Nissan Motor Thailand
    (Assumption University Press, 2016) Pailin Kekhua
    Nissan Motor Thailand (NMT) is one of the companies that are engaged in daily operation with diverse customers especially the Parts Logistics Department. This department corresponds with customers by using email transaction. In this context, understanding different communication strategies and interpersonal devices when dealing with overseas customers can be very important to understand different kinds of attitudes and communication strategies that are negotiated in the emails. The result of the study shows that there are various communication strategies used by different customers. These are politeness, clarification, acknowledgement, relationship bonding, lead in and topic focus strategies. Various attitudes [affect, judgement and appreciation] are also identified through the use of various lexico-grammatical items and other linguistic instruments such as 'modality', 'adverbials', 'capitalization and abbreviation' and ' punctuations'. these items indicate positive and negative attitudes while modalities in most cases are used to soften or sharpen the transaction. with the impact of AEC, this research supports the current policy of the company to promote NMT mindset about 'cross-cultural function' in both internal and external organizations.
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    A critical discourse analysis of the news articles and reports about Diaoyu/Senkadu issues
    (Assumption University Press, 2016) Yujie, Tan
    The critical discourse analysis (CDA) is now a major tool for analyzing the news articles and reports. This paper uses CDA to analyze the news articles and reports concerning the Diaoyu/Senkaku issues. It aims to help English language teachers using CDA to create and improve the critical language awareness of students, and how discourse results from the social structure and power relations that serves discourse results from the social structure and power relations that serves different power groups. Through the analysis of articles of Diaoyu/Senkaku issues from Chinese newspaper the People's Daily and Japanese newspaper the Japan Times, it is clear that these two newspapers, which have two different political backgrounds, share some obvious similarities in terms of formatting. However, the differences are of much more significant as reflected in the construction of the texts and the lexical choices, modality and process types used in expressing the different views. In English language teaching, using authentic materials, such as newspaper articles and reports, makes the skill of CDA important as a teaching tool as it may help the English language learners to create and improve their language awareness and the ideology embedded in the texts.
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    English for oral transactional communication: a case study of financial office personnel
    (Assumption University Press, 2016) Kanog-On Pradaphon
    Since the 20th century, English had spread through many countries used as an international language which is frequently used for a wide range purpose in public and personal needs. This case study aimed to identify the use of language(s) for communication between staff and student and to assess possible solutions to help staff improve their English communication skills as the use of English for oral transactional communication, a case study of financial office personnel. The conversation transcriptions were collected as the data for analyzing; these conversations were analyzed by adapting the CANCODE corpus model focusing on spoken discourse analysis. The main issue was on the use of language for both L1 and L2 in the process of the transactions. By analyzing each transcription in detail, it revealed the movement of the transaction between the participants and how English and Thai were used in the communication process. The use of translanguaging seemed to help the financial personnel offcers to overcome certain difficulties in communication when faced with the level of transactional interaction required in their job. However, the lack of ability to explain financial technical term to the 'clients' lead to misunderstandings in the conversation.
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    Korean and English, language development within the context of a Korean community and international schools in Bangkok, Thailand
    (Assumption University Press, 2016) Kim, Yun Kyong
    The main purpose of this study was to identify the functional use of Korean and English, and language development within the context of a Korean Community and international schools in Bangkok from the perspective of six Korean International students in Thailand. Through the analysis of the qualitative data from the six Korean students, such as observation, measuring the number of clauses, the complexity of nominal groups in English writing and the complexity of modifiers in Korean, the findings revealed that the six students learned their L1 (Korean) and L2 (English) through cooperation, mediation, and scaffolding in their interaction as described by Vygotsky in his "Sociocultural Theory". The contexts of the Korean Community and international schools seem to have had a positive effect on development of L1 and L2 based on Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar. Moreover, the practice of translanguaging among participants helped them to understand and mediate with others more effectively. Finally, through comparing the thematic discourse analysis of the participants' English writings, the development of the L1 also seemed to have influenced the development of L2.
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    A study of motivation and strategies in learning of English by middle-aged and elderly in China
    (Assumption University Press, 2016) Fu, Yezhi
    With the development of globalization, English has become a global language. More and more Chinese want to learn English which includes middle-aged and elderly people. However, in recent research, most are focusing on children, teenagers and college students. There is little research that focuses on middle-aged and elderly and there is also a lack of comparison of study of learning motivation, learning strategies and learning barriers of middle-aged and elderly. Thus, the research objective of this study is to analyze the differences in learning motivation, learning strategies and learning barriers of middle-aged and elderly.
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    A study of reading genres and questions in Thai and English textbooks for O-NET examinations
    (Assumption University Press, 2016) Tanut Jivavorranun
    Reading is one of English skills that students have to learn since in primary school until university. However, the result of the national examination in Thailand for English subjects seems unsatisfied, which reading part occupies the largest portion. This study aims to find out the differences and similarities in reading sections of English textbooks and O-NET and GAT examinations in terms of genre and type of questions. Reading passages and questions were analyzed based on Derewianka's linguistic features of genres and Nuttall's taxonomy of questions. Text organization and linguistic features were shown in each text on the right and left respectively to identify the genres. The findings show the dominance of information report in the textbooks and examinations. Although literal comprehension questions are dominant in the textbook, reinterpretation questions also appear in the examinations. Therefore, materials writers should develop materials to help students improve their ability in reading a range of texts for their future education and functional roles in their lives.