This paper attempts to articulate contributions from the language sciences, psychology and educational sciences to address, in a strongly interactionist perspective, the question of the role of language in human functioning. This reflection lead us to return to central notions such as sign, meaning, interaction, development, activity, from a theoretical and methodological point of view. The methodological point of view give us the opportunity to problematize the unit (or units) of analysis capable of allowing a non-reductionist seizure of language dynamics (...) within human functioning. We base our reflection on the contribution of several authors, including Saussure, Bloomfield, Coseriu, Vygotski, Piaget, but also contemporary works in connection with our own research. (shrink)

This paper is focused on the analysis of two documents (the Council of Europe's Bioethics Convention and the Additional Cloning Protocol) inasmuch as they refer to the relationship between human dignity and human genetic engineering. After presenting the stipulations of the abovementioned documents, I will review various proposed meanings of human dignity and will try to identify which of these seem to be at the core of their underlying assumptions. Is the concept of dignity proposed in the two documents coherent? (...) Is it morally legitimate? Is it, as some might assume, of Kantian origin? Does it have any philosophical roots? (shrink)

Despite external environmental changes in walking, such as manipulating gait speed, previous studies have shown that the underlying muscle synergy structures (synergy weights or vectors) rarely vary. The purpose of this study is to examine if external environmental changes to the walking task influence muscle synergies in children with cerebral palsy (CP) and/or typical development (TD). To identify muscle synergies, we extracted muscle synergies from eight children with CP and eight age-matched TD in three treadmill walking conditions, e.g., baseline (adjusted (...) to individual comfortable walking speed), variable speed (VS), or restricted foot width (RW). Then, we grouped similar muscle synergies using k-mean clustering and discriminant analyses from all datasets of individual synergy structures. Proportion tests exhibited six clusters of muscle synergies predominantly arising from children with CP and four clusters from children with TD. Also, the proportion of muscle synergies was significantly different in four of the CP-preferred clusters across conditions. Specifically, the proportion of the baseline condition was significantly different from VS and RW conditions in one and two clusters, respectively. The proportion was significantly different between VS and RW conditions in four clusters. Cadence and step lengths differed across conditions but not groups which makes the group differences in proportion even more notable. In contrast, step width, while significantly lower in CP, did not differ across conditions. Our findings demonstrate that muscle synergies in children with CP are more sensitive to changes in the external walking environment than in typically developing children. (shrink)

Neste artigo, investigamos práticas de citação de literatura científica na escrita reflexiva do gênero relatório de estágio supervisionado, produzido por professores em formação, em disciplinas de estágio obrigatório em Ensino de Língua Inglesa numa Licenciatura em Letras. Analisaremos, especificamente, como esses professores se representam a partir de citações de literatura científica, e caracterizaremos algumas funções exercidas pelas citações na escrita reflexiva emergente na esfera acadêmica. Utilizamos a abordagem dialógica da linguagem dos estudos bakhtinianos como referencial teórico de base, além de (...) aportes teórico-metodológicos acerca de tipos de sequência e de discurso propostos por Adam e Bronckart. Os resultados da pesquisa mostram que a prática de citação da literatura científica é uma invocação de autoridade com função de erudição, amplificação e ornamentação do discurso produzido, podendo orientar a ação pedagógica desenvolvida pelo professor em formação no estágio supervisionado.In this paper we investigate citation practices of scientific literature in reflexive writing from the genre of supervised pre-service training report produced by pre-service teachers enrolled in the mandatory pre-service training subject of English Language Teaching, at an undergraduate language teaching course. The aim of this research is to analyze how these pre-services teacher represent themselves based on citation practices of scientific literature, and characterize some of the functions deployed by the citations in the reflexive writing emerging in the academic sphere. We use the dialogic approach to language from Bakhtinian studies as a theoretical base, as well as theoretical and methodological contributions regarding types of sequences and of discourse proposed by Adam and Bronckart. The results of this research show that the practice of citation of scientific literature is an invocation of authority as a form of erudition, amplification and ornamentation of the discourse produced. This practice can also guide pedagogical action developed by pre-service teachers in their supervised training. (shrink)

Written argumentative discourses were produced by 7 to 14 year-old children in two debate situations: one concerning a scientific issue (“Discours Formel”: DF,) and another concerning an opinion issue (“Discours Naturel”: DN). We had made the following developmental hypothesis: a specific discourse representation would be gradually built up by children in each situation, and would enable them to produce two different discourses, particularly with regard to the implication marks used by the writer. The two debate situations had been set up (...) to be only differentiated by the type of proposed issues. All the remaining situational characteristics had been made identical (social scenario, announced goal, addressee, etc.).Children's verbal products were divided into utterances. Each utterance was coded with regard to whether the following implication marks were present or not: the assuming by the writer of its assertive content; the writer's linguistically expressed reference to him- or herself; the evaluative or prescriptive value of the utterance; and the certainty modalities.The main results were: writer's assuming the assertive content specifies more and more DN, with a clear opposition between the two discourses realised by 13–14 children. While decreasing with age in both situations, the writer's self references are found to only occur in DN from 13–14. Prescriptive and evaluative types of utterance appear only in DN, at all the ages; the first ones decrease and the second ones increase from 7 to 14. At the opposite, DF proves to consist exclusively of constative utterances. At last, certainty modalities mainly occur in DN utterances. Differentiation between the two discourses has so begun by 7–8. But it becomes complete, for all the implication marks, at 13–14. The results observed at 13–14 join those shown by two reference adult groups, which performed the same discourse tasks.Finally, results are discussed with respect to parts of conceptions developed by Grize and by Bronckart. Given the many controls brought to bear in setting up the two discourse situations, children seem really to have been led, by the one representation of the argumentative issue, to produce more and more differentiated discourses. (shrink)