Welcome to the Mary Immaculate College Research Repository and Digital Archive

Here you can access the digital archive collections, and published and unpublished works of faculty and researchers at Mary Immaculate College.

Collections

Browse research at MIRR under the following headings or use the search box for a more focused search.

To View Internal Collections:

You must register as a new user.

Communities in DSpace

Select a community to browse its collections.

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5

Recent Submissions

  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type: Item ,
    Doing meetings online: understanding variation in virtual workplace meetings
    (John Benjamins Publishing, 2025-12) Peraldi, Sandrine; Fitzgerald, Chris; Mark, Geraldine; McNamara, Justin; Knight, Dawn; O'Keeffe, Anne; Fahey Palma, Tania
    This paper contributes to previous work on workplace registers by presenting an analysis of a corpus of virtual meetings. The Interactional Variation Online corpus is comprised of recordings of virtual meetings from four different organisations. This study describes how each organisation shares similar practices when engaging in virtual meetings and how variation emerges when each organisation is compared to the other three. Corpus results show how, to establish conclusions related to this register, it is necessary to consider the influence of variation across organisations, the chairing style of each meeting, the formality of each organisational culture and the level of participant engagement in each meeting.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type: Item ,
    “We’ve lost you Ian”: multi-modal corpus innovations in capturing, processing and analysing professional online spoken interactions
    (Spanish Association for Corpus Linguistics AELINCO, 2024-02) O'Keeffe, Anne; Farr, Fiona; Fahey Palma, Tania; Cowan, Benjamin; Adolphs, Svenja; McNamara, Justin; Fitzgerald, Christopher; Mark, Geraldine; Knight, Dawn; Peraldi, Sandrine
    Online communication via video platforms has become a standard component of workplace interaction for many businesses and employees. The rapid uptake in the use of virtual meeting platforms due to COVID-19 restrictions meant that many people had to quickly adjust to communication via this medium without much (if any) training as to how workplace communication is successfully facilitated on these platforms. The Interactional Variation Online project aims to analyse a corpus of virtual meetings to gain a multi-modal understanding of this context of language use. This paper describes one component of the project, namely guidelines that can be replicated when constructing a corpus of multi-modal data derived from recordings of online meetings. A further aim is to determine typical features of virtual meetings in comparison to face-to-face meetings so as to inform good practice in virtual workplace interactions. By looking at how non-verbal behaviour, such as head movements, gaze, posture, and spoken discourse interact in this medium, we both undertake a holistic analysis of interaction in virtual meetings and produce a template for the development of multi-modal corpora for future analysis.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type: Item ,
    Caint na ndaoine in action in Gaeltacht na ndéise: code-mixing, code-switching or translanguaging?
    (Irish Association for Applied Linguistics, 2025-12) Breathnach, Caitríona; O'Keeffe, Anne; Ó Laoire, Muiris
    Code-mixing, code-switching and latterly translanguaging are concepts that are well-researched in the concept of bilingual communities, especially from a sociolinguistics perspective. This paper explores a corpus of interviews from speakers living in Gaeltacht na nDéise, in the South-East of Ireland. The data, in both Irish and English, was originally part of a mixed methods study that included a largescale community study of 497 households. Using a corpus linguistics methodology, we coded all instances of language change and analysed them systematically. Using a bottom-up approach, we explore whether current concepts of code-mixing, code-switching or translanguaging can help explain the data. Our results show, across the data, instances of code-mixing, code-switching and translanguaging occurring across both parts-of-speech, discourse items and within utterances. We note a prevalence of nouns in the English interviews and pragmatic markers in the Irish interviews, and to a lesser degree, adjectives and quotatives, as sites where language pivots appear to be more likely. In this study code-mixing, switching and translanguaging are brought together to illuminate our data and each offers a perspective that helps is better conceptualise how language is being used. Is coincheapa iad an códmheascadh, an códmhalartú agus an trasteangú atá saothraithe go maith sa taighde ar an bpobal dátheangach, go háirithe ó pheirspictíocht na sochtheangeolaíochta de. Déanann an t-alt taighde seo iniúchadh ar chorpas agallamh le cainteoirí a chónaíonn i nGaeltacht na nDéise, in Oirdheisceart na hÉireann. Ba chuid de staidéar modhanna measctha ó thosach a bhí sna sonraí seo, idir Bhéarla agus Ghaeilge a chuimsigh staidéar pobail ar 497 teaghlach. Ag baint úsáid as modheolaíocht teangeolaíochta corpais, códaíodh gach cás den athrú teanga agus rinneadh anailís chórasach air. Ag baint úsáid as cur chuige ón ithir aníos, féachtar le míniú a sholáthar ar na sonraí, féachaint an é an códmheascadh, an códmhalartú nó an trasteangú atá i gceist. Léiríonn na sonraí i gcoitinne go bhfuil ann don chódmheascadh, an códmhalartú agus an trasteangú i gcodanna cainte, i míreanna dioscúrsa agus laistigh de ráitis. Tugtar faoi deara go bhfuil ainmfhocail le sonrú sna hagallaimh Bhéarla agus marcóirí pragmatacha sna hagallaimh Ghaeilge, agus go pointe áirithe, feidhmíonn aidiachtaí agus athfhriotail chomh maith mar shuíomhanna ina n-athraíonn an teanga. Sa staidéar seo, tugtar códmhalartú, códmheascadh agus trasteangú le chéile chun ár sonraí a shoiléiriú agus cuireann gach ceann acu faoi leith peirspictíocht ar fáil a chabhraíonn linn coincheapú níos fearr a dhéanamh ar an gcaoi a bhfuil an teanga á húsáid sa phobal.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type: Item ,
    The home play environment: the Play and Learning in the Early Years (PLEY) study
    (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021-10) Egan, Suzanne M.; Hoyne, Clara; Beatty, Chloé
    Play in the home environment is important for cognitive and socio-emotional development in early childhood. Children’s home environments are made up of multiple play activities (e.g., toys, books, screen time, outdoor play) and are influenced by multiple factors (e .g., availability of resources, parenting behaviours, parental attitudes to play, socio-economic class, parents’ education). This chapter will describe the relevant literature and rationale that led to the Play and Learning in Early Years (PLEY) Study, an online survey of over 300 parents of children aged 6 or under, which measured play activities at home in early childhood and the factors that influence it. The findings of this broad survey shed light on various elements of play in the home environment for young children, such as the time spent in outdoor play, reading/storytime, playing with toys or games and on-screen time, for weekdays as well as weekends. The data collected in this survey also highlight the level of play resources for young children in the home environment such as the number of children’s books available, access to outdoor play equipment (e.g., bicycles, trampolines) and use of screen devices (e.g., television, tablet, smartphone, laptop). This research provides a timely snapshot of the play activities of young children today and discusses the importance of the home play environment. The findings from the PLEY Study are contextualised using a bioecological systems framework, which highlights the connection between the environment and child development.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type: Item ,
    Exploring the potential of digital teaching portfolios to support in/non-formal professional development for those who teach in Higher Education
    (Irish Learning Technology Association, 2021-06) Costelloe, Laura
    This paper will explore the potential of eportfolios –and specifically digital teaching or professional practice portfolios –to support, document and evidence the wealth of non-accredited and in/non-formal professional learning undertaken by HE teachers to enhance academic practice. Drawing on 28 semi-structured interviews carried out with Irish Higher Education(HE)teachers in three institutions in the Mid-West regionand using a qualitative methodology,this paper will consider how digital teaching portfolios offer a space for evidencing and reflecting on engagement in professional learning. Findings point to the recognition of the potential of eportfolios to facilitate the gathering of evidence, artefacts and reflections over an extended period time which can be used at a later stage for accreditation or promotion. Furthermore, participants reported the affordances of eportfolios to recognise the myriad of in-and non-formal professional learning that is undertaken by HE teachers, including experiential and practice-based learning. However, while welcoming the affordances of eportfolios to support engagement in professional learning activities in order to enhance academic practice, there was a perception among some participants that the creation of portfolios is a time-consuming task for which support would be required. Therefore, this study points to the need for a targeted and institutional approaches to support the practice and process of eportfolio development for HE teachers, particularly if a portfolio is tobemaximised as a tool of criticalreflection and learning to enhance academic practice.