title: Taste predicates and retraction data: An improved framework

authors: Wyatt, Jeremy

abstract: Predicates of personal taste (PPT), which include words like ‘tasty,’ ‘fun,’ and ‘cool,’ have been at the centre of a set of lively, interdisciplinary debates spanning the past 20 years. Over this period, philosophers and linguists have developed five major accounts of what PPT mean and the sort of truth (if any) for which assertions involving PPT are apt. In this talk, I will explore one of the main empirical diagnostics that should be used in evaluating the ‘big five’ analyses of PPT, which involves considerations about retraction. After setting out the ‘big five’ analyses, I'll review the most influential account of why retraction data matter in the PPT debates, which comes from John MacFarlane. I take MacFarlane’s account to suffer from two significant problems, and after identifying them, I’ll develop an improved framework for thinking about retraction data and PPT. I'll then draw on this improved framework in reframing the significance of our current empirical data.

text: Taste predicates and retraction data: An improved framework Predicates of personal taste (PPT), which include words like ‘tasty,’ ‘fun,’ and ‘cool,’ have been at the centre of a set of lively, interdisciplinary debates spanning the past 20 years. Over this period, philosophers and linguists have developed five major accounts of what PPT mean and the sort of truth (if any) for which assertions involving PPT are apt. In this talk, I will explore one of the main empirical diagnostics that should be used in evaluating the ‘big five’ analyses of PPT, which involves considerations about retraction. After setting out the ‘big five’ analyses, I'll review the most influential account of why retraction data matter in the PPT debates, which comes from John MacFarlane. I take MacFarlane’s account to suffer from two significant problems, and after identifying them, I’ll develop an improved framework for thinking about retraction data and PPT. I'll then draw on this improved framework in reframing the significance of our current empirical data.

year: 2022

title: Building literacy communities of practice across subject disciplines in secondary schools

authors: Wright, Noeline

subjects: literacy

abstract: This paper examines the relationship between communities of practice and literacy as a pedagogical focus in secondary schools in New Zealand in the light of Corson's arguments about critical conditions for effective language policy development in schools. It is also positioned within the current international emphasis (at least in English-speaking countries) on improving students' literacy in order to increase academic achievement. Part of this focus stems from an unbalanced relationship between learning mainly content (what) and learning processes (how and why) through content in secondary school classrooms. If teachers' work is centred on equipping students with the learning and thinking tools that allow them to navigate, make sense of and critically examine subject content, then literacy as a pedagogical focus can be seen as supporting that shift. However, shifting secondary teachers to a focus on learning and thinking processes can be difficult, because it implicates their pedagogical values, practices and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). How schools in New Zealand have developed this focus and made efforts to sustain it are examined through the concept of communities of practice.

text: Building literacy communities of practice across subject disciplines in secondary schools This paper examines the relationship between communities of practice and literacy as a pedagogical focus in secondary schools in New Zealand in the light of Corson's arguments about critical conditions for effective language policy development in schools. It is also positioned within the current international emphasis (at least in English-speaking countries) on improving students' literacy in order to increase academic achievement. Part of this focus stems from an unbalanced relationship between learning mainly content (what) and learning processes (how and why) through content in secondary school classrooms. If teachers' work is centred on equipping students with the learning and thinking tools that allow them to navigate, make sense of and critically examine subject content, then literacy as a pedagogical focus can be seen as supporting that shift. However, shifting secondary teachers to a focus on learning and thinking processes can be difficult, because it implicates their pedagogical values, practices and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). How schools in New Zealand have developed this focus and made efforts to sustain it are examined through the concept of communities of practice.

year: 2007

title: Te whakahuatanga i te reo Māori: Kua ahatia e tātou i roto i ngā tau 100 kua hipa nei? (The pronunciation of Māori: What have we done to it in the last 100 Years?)

authors: Harlow, Ray

subjects: Te reo Māori

abstract: In the words of the proverb: 'The land remains, but humankind vanishes.' One should perhaps extend this to read: 'The land remains, humankind vanishes, and language changes.' For languages are old, handed down from one generation to another, but no matter what, they change. Present-day English is not Shakespeare's or Chaucer's language. The pronunciation has changed, new words have entered the language, some words have been lost, the grammar is now different. Māori is like that as well. Over the last two centuries, many aspects of the language have become different. Many words have been borrowed from English, and become part of the language. Many new words have been created in recent years to accommodate the new topics now being spoken about in Māori. Many words have changed their meaning, e.g., 'pūtea' originally a type of basket, but now a 'fund', source of money. In the grammar, there are now constructions being used which were not correct in earlier centuries.So far as the pronunciation is concerned, how is one to observe its development? That is the substance of a research project which has only just now begun, and it is the purpose of this paper to explain the nature of that research and show some of the preliminary findings. Hence the title: The pronunciation of Māori: What have we done to it in the last 100 years? The project is supported by the Marsden Research Fund.

text: Te whakahuatanga i te reo Māori: Kua ahatia e tātou i roto i ngā tau 100 kua hipa nei? (The pronunciation of Māori: What have we done to it in the last 100 Years?) In the words of the proverb: 'The land remains, but humankind vanishes.' One should perhaps extend this to read: 'The land remains, humankind vanishes, and language changes.' For languages are old, handed down from one generation to another, but no matter what, they change. Present-day English is not Shakespeare's or Chaucer's language. The pronunciation has changed, new words have entered the language, some words have been lost, the grammar is now different. Māori is like that as well. Over the last two centuries, many aspects of the language have become different. Many words have been borrowed from English, and become part of the language. Many new words have been created in recent years to accommodate the new topics now being spoken about in Māori. Many words have changed their meaning, e.g., 'pūtea' originally a type of basket, but now a 'fund', source of money. In the grammar, there are now constructions being used which were not correct in earlier centuries.So far as the pronunciation is concerned, how is one to observe its development? That is the substance of a research project which has only just now begun, and it is the purpose of this paper to explain the nature of that research and show some of the preliminary findings. Hence the title: The pronunciation of Māori: What have we done to it in the last 100 years? The project is supported by the Marsden Research Fund.

year: 2005-05