No abstract

This study explored the impact of pragmalinguistic support on L2 users’ suggestion-giving task performance. Data came from 12 pairs of L2 users in a Zoom-mediated university course. They collaboratively wrote suggestions for improvement in their peers’ lesson plans using Office 365. Six pairs received pragmalinguistic support, while the others wrote their suggestions on their own. Audio-recorded pair discussions were coded qualitatively, and the written suggestions were analyzed in terms of linguistic and pragmatic characteristics. The results showed that pragmalinguistic support encouraged the participants to engage more in language-related and task-related episodes. Also, their suggestions contained more diverse lexical downgraders and conventional suggestion-giving expressions. By contrast, those who wrote suggestions without pragmalinguistic support engaged more in pragmatic-related episodes, relying extensively on epistemic modal verbs (e.g., would). The findings indicate that pragmalinguistic support may help L2 users to better attend to task content and language, producing lexically and pragmatically richer output.

Translanguaging is discussed widely in the literature as a new pedagogical tool for English-medium instruction (EMI) that can challenge monolingual assumptions, mitigate English language barriers, and advocate for the full use of linguistic resources in meaning making. Different EMI lecturers have been found to hold diverse translanguaging perceptions and have adopted a variety of its functions. However, more needs to be known to close the knowledge gap between how each lecturer envisions and practices their translanguaging pedagogies, if any. Employing a qualitative method using data from semi-structured interviews and classroom observation, this study investigated three Chinese tertiary EMI engineering lecturers’ translanguaging perceptions and practices. Taken together, these three cases illustrate the complex relationship between translanguaging perceptions and practices according to their interactional (e.g., students’ difficulties in understanding full EMI), socio-cultural (e.g., the socially constructed value of full EMI), and personal factors (e.g., EMI teaching experiences). We propose that the negotiation among these three domains can promote or withhold the transfer of translanguaging perceptions into practice. We use our findings to call for EMI training programs to encourage lecturers’ reflections regarding what languages are or can be used in EMI classrooms and how and why from socio-cultural, personal, and interactional perspectives.

The installation of subsea equipment is a critical step in offshore oil and gas development. A dynamic model to evaluate the lowering process is proposed. The cable–payload system is discretized as a series of spring dampers with the lumped-mass method. For the first time, not only the lowering velocity but also the rope’s structural damping and the nonlinear loads, such as drag force and snap load, are considered. The lowering velocity of the cable is considered through a variable-domain technique. Snap loads are considered by setting the internal forces in the elements to be zero when the cable slacks. A series of simulations reveals that the lowering velocity has great effects on the dynamic force in the cable. However, the structural damping of the cable has little effect on the system response. The snap load may occur in the cable when subjected to rapid downward heave motion, and decreases with the lowered depth increasing. The cable stiffness affects the system’s resonance depth, but has little effect on the peak dynamic force. The present work should be a valuable reference for future subsea equipment installation analysis.

Perforation drilling is a promising technique to mitigate the sliding risk of jack-up units installed around footprints. Based on the coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian (CEL) method, a 1/2 finite element model, including a rigid Lagrangian spudcan and a Eulerian soil part, was established, and the contact interface was modelled with the Coulomb friction model. Validated against an indoor perforation test, the model was adopted to investigate the mitigation mechanism and effects of the borehole diameter, number, depth, and the drilling range. The simulations reveal that the mitigation efficiency increases with the borehole diameter, number, and depth. However, it shows little improvement if the borehole depth increases beyond double footprint depth. The semi-drilling at the outer side of the footprint is a little more effective than the full-drilling at both the inner and outer sides of the footprint. The present work emphasizes the effects of perforation drilling parameters on the mitigation efficiency, which are of great significance to guide the engineering practice and guarantee the safe operation of the jack-up reinstallation close to existing footprints.