Sandra Beyer – författare

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1 (A), San Francisco State University (Englsih Department), course: San Francisco, language: English, abstract: HISTORICAL BACKGROUNDIn the late 1800 s traveling to San Francisco has not been easy. By sea the city was always readily accessible, from the south, land travelers could journey uninterrupted up the peninsula that separated the Pacific from the Bay. But travelers from the north and east did not have such ready access to the city. They could turn southward when they came to the water and make the arduous two-day journey around the Bay and up the peninsula, or they could seek conveyance by water across the unpredictable and sometimes treacherous tides of San Francisco Bay. There was a ferry service provided and the boats ran on a regular, planned basis and carried tens of thousands of people across the Bay to work in the morning and returning home in the evening. However, the ferries were quite slow and unpredictable. If the seas were high ferries might not sail or at least be terribly offschedule. The tricky Bay fogs sometimes made the journey frightening and dangerous. In heavy seas and high winds, the ferryboats sometimes pitched and tossed wildly, leaving the passengers ill and terrified. The need for a bridge over the Golden Gate was obvious and many people might have wondered at that time if the narrow passageway of sea between Lime and Ford points would be ever bridged.

Seminar paper from the year 2000 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2 (B), University of Tubingen (English Seminar), course: Introduction to English linguistics, language: English, abstract: Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the present extract from Anthony Burgess' "e;A Clockwork Orange"e; is its language. Alex, the writer of the book, uses a great number of unusual words that seem to be freely invented by the author. By having a closer look at them, it can be noted that many of them have their origin in the Russian language. In this essay I will survey these unusual words and try to expose if they are phonetically, morphologically, syntactically or semantically different from "e;real"e; English words or if they could be called Anglicism according to one of the above topics. Therefore I am going to try to give a phonetic transcription of some of the new words and their corresponding Russian expressions and compare them. Then I am going to have a closer look at the word order of the present extract and try to put the new words into their corresponding syntactical categories. I will as well show how the sentences are connected and what lexical or grammatical properties make the extract coherent. In addition I am going to specify some of the Anglicism in the text and intend to explain how they are built .I also will try to make clear the thematic roles of one example sentence to facilitate its interpretation. Finally I am going to present what in my opinion could be said about the author's background and education, according to the text.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Romance Studies - Spanish Studies, grade: 1,3 (A), Kingston University London (Spanish Institute), course: Spanish Cinema, language: English, abstract: IntroductionAlmodovar s first three films Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del monton (1980), Laberinto de Pasiones (1982) and Entre Tinieblas (1983) can be seen as a breaking of all the taboos that were forbidden under Franco s regime: there is drug use, "e;abnormal"e; sexuality, crude language, adultery, religious blasphemy. The films clearly mirror the new freedoms enjoyed by a generation of film-makers belonging to Spain s la movida movement of the late 1970 s and early 1980 s. Born in 1951, Almodovar mainly grew up in the rural Extremadura, but left for Madrid at the age of sixteen. He originally wanted to attend the national film school, but due to the closure of the school by the Dictator Franco's repressive government he was unable to go. He instead took a job at a telephone company to make the money to buy himself a Super-8 camera. Almodovar began filming short films in the early 1970s, and quickly became associated with la movida . This essay will be evaluating Almodovar s role as a post-modern director, including a brief demonstration of the development of the post-modern culture after Franco s death. The essay is especially interested in the juxtaposition of homo- and heterosexuality in Almodovar s films and will evaluate the different ways in which Almodovar presents homosexuality. It will also have a close look at the mediums Almodovar uses to make his audience take his absurd film worlds for granted, and accept the happenings and characters as normal .

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2005 in the subject Speech Science / Linguistics, grade: A-, University of London (School of Languages, Linguistics and Culture), course: Linguistic Anakysis, language: English, abstract: Children all over the world seem to acquire their first language in much the same manner. The stages in their highly structured First Language Acquisition (FLA) process that involve making hypotheses and testing them against the linguistic input they are exposed to, appear to be universal in all children. However, Chomsky's nativist theory of a Language Faculty that is innate in every healthy human being has been challenged vigorously - especially by advocates of the behaviouristic school. Alas, there are certain arguments that strongly support the Innateness Hypothesis (IH) and the existence of a Language Faculty1:1. FLA is uniform2. FLA is untutored3. FLA is underdetermined by exposure/data4. FLA draws from degenerated input5. FLA features no negative evidence6. FLA is always successful

Master's Thesis from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, Birkbeck, University of London, language: English, abstract: AbstractGiven the existing relations between language attitudes and linguistic competence, and places in the bilingual context of the Republic of Ireland (Irish/English) the goal of the present study is twofold: first, attitudes towards the Irish language are described, and second, variables that can explain such attitudes are studied. These include: family language, linguistic proficiency in Irish, residence (Gaeltacht vs. Galltacht), cultural identity, socio-educational background and gender. In addition, attitudes towards Irish and English will be compared. A questionnaire that had been successfully used in other areas was adapted and used in a sample of 62 adult speakers of Irish, about half of them (N=27) coming from traditionally Irish-speaking areas, or Gaeltacht, and the other half (N=35) coming from English-speaking areas, or Galltacht. 33 females and 29 males took part in the study. The mean age was M=35.5, SD=10.35. All participants had undergone secondary education in the Republic of Ireland. Globally, results show neutral attitudes towards Irish and somewhat unfavourable attitudes towards English. The information of the participants attitudes to the Irish language proved not to be correlated with any of the independent variables. Possible intervening variables, unaccounted for in the questionnaire design, were suspected to be responsible for shaping the respondents Irish language attitudes. An open-ended question in the survey revealed great dissatisfaction over the way Irish is taught in schools as well as lament over the lack of opportunities to use the language in an everyday context.