Digital Commons Network^™

Native Speakerism In Egypt: The Perceptions Of Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (Nnests) And Their Employability, Dina Bebars

Theses and Dissertations

Discriminatory hiring practices toward non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) have been researched, debated, and criticized globally. Yet, such recruitment practices are still prevalent in the TESOL field due to perceptions of the linguistic prowess of the native English-speaking teacher (NEST). Given the existence of such practices, this study aims to identify the criteria that employers look for when hiring English language teachers in Cairo, to examine how nativeness is ranked within these criteria, and to investigate if there is a connection between the perceptions of administrators, parents, and teachers regarding NNESTs and hiring practices. A mixed-methods research design was employed to …

Segmental Error Gravity In L2 Arabic Speech Comprehensibility And Accentedness: L1 Consonant Age Of Acquisition As A Predictor, Mark Papai

Theses and Dissertations

Second language (L2) pronunciation studies have found that the intelligibility (i.e., listeners’ actual understanding) of L2 speech is most closely related to its comprehensibility (i.e., listeners' ease of understanding) rather than to its overall nativelike pronunciation. The segmental errors that are most detrimental to communication are predicted by phoneme Functional Load (FL): mispronouncing high FL segments affects speech comprehensibility more negatively than mispronouncing low FL ones. However, no data are available on the FL hierarchy of Arabic segments. On the other hand, FL correlates highly with consonant age of acquisition (CAoA) in languages that rely heavily on consonants to contrast …

Self-Assessment As A Learning Tool In Efl Writing Classrooms: Perceptions Of Egyptian Teachers And Adult Learners, Hazim Abdelaziz

Theses and Dissertations

The principal aim of this study is to examine the perceptions of adult Egyptian EFL learners and Egyptian EFL teachers on the use of self-assessment as an assessment-for-learning tool in adult EFL courses offered at a private language institution in Cairo, Egypt. It is centered around three main areas of investigation pertaining to the perceptions of adult Egyptian EFL learners and Egyptian EFL teachers on the usefulness of self-assessment, the challenges they face when using self-assessment in adult EFL writing classes, and the affordances that should be given to both groups to ensure the successful application of self-assessment in EFL …

Drawing About Writing: Exploring Egyptian Middle School Students’ Writing Motivation And Perceptions, Maryam Elbayady

Theses and Dissertations

The principal aim of this study is to explore Egyptian middle school students’ perceptions of their writing experiences using artistic expression, specifically drawings. It also aims to understand their levels of writing motivation using the Self-Beliefs, Writing-Beliefs, and Attitude Survey (SWAS) (Wright et al., 2019). Finally, it examines the relationships among participants’ perceptions, motivation, and their narrative writing performance. The view that students’ voices are valuable to research geared towards school improvement has largely propelled this study (Bland, 2018; Zumbrunn et al., 2017). In addition, due to the limited literature about middle school students enrolled at private Egyptian schools, this …

Multimodal Vocabulary Learning Through Manga In Japanese As A World Language, Atsuko Suga Borgmann

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the effect of manga, a form of Japanese comic strip, on vocabulary learning among college-level Japanese as a world language (JWL) learners. Vocabulary acquisition through reading in the context of world language education has been researched widely, but less attention has been devoted to multimodal literature with image and text such as manga. This research examines how manga’s multimodality affects learners’ context building, inference for unknown words and how manga affects retaining vocabulary. The study raises three research questions. First, to what extent does manga influence one’s ability to infer the meaning of unknown words compared to …

Is That A Rhetorical Question?: A Pragmatic Analysis, Jacklyn Ryan

Theses and Dissertations

There has been much work on the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of questions.While the argument herein is that rhetorical questions do not function like typical information-seeking questions, it remains the case that they are, if nothing else, syntactically interrogative. This fact is explored by examining different types of rhetorical questions through various lenses, including question semantics, Gricean pragmatics, and Speech Act Theory. A pragmatic framework is proposed to explain the effects that rhetorical questions have on the conversational scoreboard. Their illocutionary force is also considered, as it, along with contextual factors, can affect how rhetorical questions are interpreted. This paper …

Individual Differences In Perspective-Taking During Language Comprehension, Kanan Benjamin Luce

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has found mixed results for a link between executive function and perspective-taking. One proposed reason for this is that perspective-taking during comprehension tasks may not be internally reliable. This dissertation presents two large individual differences experiments with multiple perspective-taking during comprehension and executive function measures. We aimed to see (1) whether people were consistent in their ability to take perspectives during comprehension, (2) if the typical tasks used in this area were reliable, and (3) whether executive function measures predicted perspective-taking ability. We found a lack of reliability of some of the most commonly used perspective-taking during comprehension …

The Fall And Rise Of Bengali Muslim Conciousness: Conceptualising The Identity Of The Bangla Universal, Habib Khan

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of modern-nation states saw the end of the empirical era of exploitation and exercise of inherent racist tendencies towards the 'other'. However, the effect of that colonial system is still ever-present in the creation and governance of these newly independent states. While every new state aims to be 'modern', they adopt the international legal framework of the West as their own - a system they had initially wanted to escape. The concept of Muslim universality in the form of the ummah should have freed Pakistan from the shackles of its former colonial masters. Instead, this phenomenon was replaced …

Historical Trauma: Literary And Testimonial Responses To Hiroshima, Mariam Ghonim

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of trauma is controversial in literature. While one may be able to come up with ways to describe trauma in fiction, representing historical trauma is a hard task for writers. Some argue that trauma can not be described through those who did not experience it, while others claim that, provided some elements are added, one can represent trauma to the reader. This thesis focuses on twentieth-century historical traumas related to a nuclear catastrophe and explores the different literary and testimonial responses to the catastrophic man-made event of Hiroshima (1945). In this thesis, Kathleen Burkinshaw’s historical fiction The Last …

The Effect Of Word Predictability On Proofreading Accuracy And Reading Time, Sam Prasad

Theses and Dissertations

Proofreading, or reading with the purpose of finding and correcting errors, has been used in psycholinguistic research to study the relationship between bottom-up and top-down cognitive processes. The current study examined the effects of word predictability on reading time using a word-by-word self-paced reading (SPR) task. A sample of 102 native English speakers read sentences containing letter transposition errors in predictable and unpredictable contexts. Half of the sentences were followed by a question asking if there was an error in the sentence they had just read. Participants’ accuracy in detecting the errors and the time they spent reading the error-bearing …

Tied Together, Eiko Nishida

Theses and Dissertations

The paper is about a site-specific installation that questions a viewer’s norms and perspectives, through the use of multilingual newspapers as a sculptural material.

From Antiracism To Abolition: The Role Of University Culture Centers In Black Students' Academic Identities And Language, Kristin Demint Bailey

Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on focus group, interview, and participant-observer data collected as part of this IRB-approved [19.177] qualitative research project, this dissertation provides insights about how Black American students develop academic identities through coursework and extracurricular involvement in a Black culture center on the campus of a historically white institution (HWI). I apply the lens of “abolitionist education” (Love) to explore the languaging that students and faculty in the Black culture center do to create community and racial uplift in a type of institution where racial identity historically has been marginalized and obscured—and where, the collected data indicate, such occlusion continues despite …

Mobilizing Resources: Towards A Transnational Orientation In The Composition Classroom, Gitte Frandsen

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I present two studies on transnational, multilingual undergraduate students which focus on students’ rich, complex communication patterns across contexts. First, I examine the linguistic, literate, rhetorical, and cultural resources they deploy to make meaning across non-academic contexts as they take care of everyday tasks, navigate different linguistic and cultural landscapes, build relationships, and broker meaning for others. Next, I explore how the students mobilize their multiple resources and strategies to learn, write, and co-construct meaning with others in academic contexts. I discuss how these strategies are often constrained by English Only discourses and policies in the classroom …

Stylistic Variation Of Gullah Geechee Language Practices In Coastal Tourism Contexts, John Kibler Mccullough

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the language practices and ideologies of Gullah Geechee (GG) tour guides in Charleston, South Carolina, particularly analyzing how language stylization is used by tour guides in the construction of personae as intercommunity culture and language brokers. Often, indigenous cultural artifacts are commodified through the setting of the tourism industry for consumption by outsiders; Gullah Geechee, a Sea Island creole language spoken along the southeastern United States coast, is directly affected by this characteristic of tourism. GG has been exposed to rapid de-isolation in the past 80 years; this exposure has brought isolated enclaves of GG communities into …

Ideologies Of Race, Gender, And Religion In Pronunciation Perception At Evangelical Esl Programs, Ruthanne Joy Wenger Hughes

Theses and Dissertations

Nonnative English speakers are often judged based on their accent, but accent is perceived as well as produced. Race, gender, and religion interact to create complex and nuanced figures of personhood (Agha, 2005) impacting teachers' perceptions of students. Teachers' individual differences, including language proficiency, exposure to language, and previous training, also affect pronunciation ratings (e.g., Kang, 2008, 2012; Kang & Rubin, 2009). This dissertation investigated English as a second language teachers at evangelical English programs in South Carolina, addressing how teacher backgrounds interacted with institutionally circulating ideologies of race, gender, and religion, and these factors' impact on ratings of student …

Oppa-Ng Gamsahamnita-Ng~~~: The Phonetics Of Nasal Cuteness In Korean Aegyo, Drew Michael Crosby

Theses and Dissertations

The term aegyo is often defined as a form of performative cuteness comprising a range of linguistic and non-linguistic behaviors (K. Moon, 2013; Puzar & Hong, 2018). Previous anthropological, discursive, and linguistic investigations (K. Moon, 2013; Puzar & Hong, 2018; H. Jang, 2021) identify it as a gendered practice associated with “modern and trendy young women in Korean mainstream culture” (K. Moon, 2017, p. 42), often used for requesting favors, maintaining social harmony, and gaining economic advancement (Manietta 2015; Puzar & Hong 2018). K. Moon (2013) asserts that the features that most prominently index aegyo are: rising-falling intonation (LHL%), the …

Language Ideologies In Transgender Communities In The U.S. South, Archie Crowley

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how metalinguistic discussions within transgender communities in South Carolina are shaped by experiences, identities, and ideologies related to intersecting social dimensions, specifically, gender, age, race, and regional identity. Based primarily on 20 ethnographic group and individual interviews with 41 transgender individuals living in South Carolina, as well as over 24 months of participant-observation in two trans organizations, the analysis illustrates how trans South Carolinians simultaneously navigated changing norms of community language use, expectations of regional linguistic practices, and mainstream discussions of trans linguistic affirmation. I draw on these sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological methods to examine how discourses …

The Effects Of Feedback And Prior Knowledge On The Processing Of L2 French, Lesley Erin Smith

Theses and Dissertations

The strand of feedback research within the field of Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA) examines the effects of feedback on the development of second language (L2) knowledge and learning behaviors. While findings often make claims about the relationship between feedback and language processing, much of this research has not measured learners’ concurrent responses to feedback. By and large, the effects of feedback have been inferred from test scores collected after feedback is provided, with few studies analyzing how feedback affects L2 learning behaviors in real time (i.e., during a task). Consequently, we know little about how feedback affects language processing. …

Negative Polar Questions And Answers In English And Korean, Keunhyung Park

Theses and Dissertations

The meaning of positive polar questions (PPQs) is relatively straightforward, so the truth conditions of PPQs can be decided easily. In contrast, the meaning of negative polar questions (NPQs) may vary, and simple yes-no answers to NPQs have seemingly unpredictable interpretations. For example, a simple yes answer to a PPQ like ‘Did you have lunch today?’ is easily interpreted as ‘I ate lunch.’ In contrast, the same yes answer to an NPQ like ‘Did you not eat lunch today?’ is not obvious out of context. Why are NPQs more ambiguous than PPQs? Based on our empirical observations of the difference …

A Course In Legal English And U.S. Law For Undergraduate Japanese Law Students, Leonard George Leverson

Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, I discuss the design of a Legal English and U.S. Law course for undergraduate Japanese law students visiting for a semester at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s English Language Academy. I review how I went about analyzing the students’ needs and wants and the factors affecting their motivation. I explain my philosophy of second language teaching, in particular, that second language teaching should contain an element of play. I describe how I sought to introduce a play element in the course through such techniques as watching law-related movies, role play activities, Kahoot quizzes, and pronunciation drills. Course design …

Evolutionary Cartographies Of Language Diversification: Quantitative Approaches To The Geolinguistic Mapping Of The Kayanic Languages (Central Borneo), Deandré A. Espree-Conaway

Theses and Dissertations

Why are there so many languages in the world and how did this diversity come about? Every day, humans around the world speak over 7,000 languages. One of the most impactful theories describing the processes and mechanisms of language diversification is that of the Linguistic Niche Hypothesis (Lupyan & Dale 2010). The Linguistic Niche Hypothesis suggests that languages adapt to their environments (Lupyan & Dale 2010: 1). Lupyan and Dale describe it, stating that "just as biological organisms are shaped by ecological niches, languages structures...adapt to the environment (niche) in which they are being learned and used" (2010: 1). Taking …

Code Choice And Stance Taking By Two Mahragānāt Performers: A Case Of Social Identity Construction In Egyptian Public Discourse, Yasmine Abusamra

Theses and Dissertations

Mahragānāt [festivals] is a relatively new genre of Egyptian street music that broadly represents working-class values and culture. Performers are aware of their unprivileged origins and feature the concerns and interests of Egyptian slums in their songs. Their vocals are linguistically fixated on local urban realities of the working class and often express loyalty to singers’ neighborhoods. This qualitative study explores code choice in selected songs of two artists, Muhammad Ramadan and Ahmad Ali, and its relation to social class. Both performers overtly promulgate their unprivileged urban origin and employ their lyrics to reframe and negotiate their position in society …

Let’S Talk: The Dual Process Model Of Supportive Communication In Peers, Erica Marie Szkody

Theses and Dissertations

Supportive messages occur within most relationships. Researchers have found strong relationships between social support and various physical and psychological health outcomes, but the specific mechanisms at work have yet to be fully explored. Many factors contribute to whether a supportive interaction is processed as helpful or supportive by the recipient including relational factors, message content, past experiences, etc. For peer dyads, the context and supportive messages individuals provide their peer may inhibit or contribute to their perception of their peer’s supportive behavior. The current study examined the impact of contextual factors (such as family communication patterns and relationship quality) on …

A Community-Engaged Narrative Inquiry Photovoice Project Examining The Health-Impacting Experiences Of Older Adult Russian And Spanish-Speaking Immigrants In Southeastern Wisconsin, United States., Maren Hawkins

Theses and Dissertations

Background: Among the nearly 10 million older adult immigrants in the United States, most come from Mexico and speak Spanish. Moreover, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of Russian-speaking immigrants from the Former Soviet Union already residing in the United States, the current war in Ukraine is fueling mass emigration of Ukrainian and Russian-speakers from Ukraine. Thus, in this study we sought to examine the health-impacting experiences of older adult Russian and Spanish-speaking immigrants in Southeastern Wisconsin. Design & Methods: This was a Community-Engaged Participatory Narrative Inquiry Photovoice Project and applied the Older Adult Immigrant Adapted Model for Health …

Verticality Metaphors In Classical Hebrew Revisited: Refining The Analysis Using Primary Metaphor Theory, Andrew Scott Hodge

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis applies a new theory to old data. It reanalyzes VERTICALITY metaphors for distress in Classical Hebrew using Primary Metaphor Theory. Previously, this pattern of metaphors in Hebrew was analyzed by King (2012) within the general framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. This study focuses on the ways that Primary Metaphor Theory radically changes the organization of conceptual structure as dictated by Conceptual Metaphor Theory and as used by King in his analysis of Hebrew VERTICALITY metaphors. The reorganization of conceptual structure following Primary Metaphor Theory hinges on the assumption that conceptual structures with direct, independent experiential motivations also have …

The Word-Level Prosodic System Of Mangghuer, Teresa Ellen Arthur

Theses and Dissertations

Mangghuer’s prosodic system has been described as a stress system (Slater 2003), and alternately, because of a few minimal pairs, as a system that is undergoing tonogenesis. (Dwyer 2008). This thesis looks at new data to evaluate both of these claims. I analyze the prosody of native words and confirm that Mangghuer has a stress system. Duration is one of the indicators of stress, which has not been mentioned in previous literature. Potential minimal pairs are considered, including the minimal tone pairs that Dwyer found; her minimal pairs are not minimal pairs in my data. However, one set of nativized …

A Phonological Analysis Of Asu, James Passetti

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides an analysis of the phonology of Asu, a small and endangered Nupoid language of Nigeria. The corpus of data used for the analysis comes from more than two hours of recordings of a word list for the language, provided to me by the historian and anthropologist Constanze Weise.

The Asu language recognizes only two syllable structures, CV and CGV. The only syllables without onsets are formed by four noun class prefixes [è-,ē-, à-,ā-], that create Asu nouns without onsets word-initially.

The phonemic inventory of consonants consists of seven pairs of corresponding voiced-voiceless obstruents at the labial, alveolar, …

Weaving Ethnic Identity: Discovering The Threads Of Multilingual Diversity In The Fabric Of Group Identity Among Karen Communities Of Denver, Colorado, Charity J. Seidler

Theses and Dissertations

How do Karen immigrants use language within Colorado communities? My thesis answers this question through narrative case studies of six S’gaw Karen women. Many Karen refugees, who flee the decades-long conflict within their homeland in Myanmar (Burma), find themselves navigating life first in Thailand, and eventually in the United States as foreign-language speakers. These refugees encounter numerous linguistic and cultural barriers in their new U.S. homeland, where it is difficult to function in many domains if they do not have the opportunity to learn much English upon arrival.

The six case studies are based on recorded sociolinguistic qualitative open interviews. …

“When You Out In Open Spaces”: Copula Absence In Afro-Texan English And The Origins And Development Debate, Brandon Davis Cooper

Theses and Dissertations

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is perhaps the most studied variety of American English, and interest in its origins and development has raised enough questions to launch a thousand studies. Naturally, positions on AAVE’s origins and development have become increasingly nuanced since the debate’s inception. Increasingly, AAVE is treated less like a monolith, and interest in the dimensions of its regional diversity has grown. No position on AAVE’s origins and development can be taken seriously if it fails to consider its capacity for areal differentiation. Indeed, most positions on AAVE’s origins and development now strongly assert the likelihood of multiple …

Illusory Vowels And The North Kyungsang Korean Vowel Merger In English Loanword Adaptation Into Korean, Jiyeon Song

Theses and Dissertations

Our auditory perceptual processing is optimized for the sound patterns of our native language. Consequently, when non-native segments are perceived, speech “illusions” often occur. This well-known phenomenon, known as the perception of illusory vowels, occurs when listeners of a borrowing language (BL) perceive vowels that do not exist underlyingly in the source language (SL).

Illusory vowels have often been considered to be the default vowel in a language: /ɨ/ in Korean, /u/ in Japanese, /ə/ in English, /e/ in Spanish, and /i/ in Brazilian Portuguese. This raises the question of how vowel systems affect the quality of illusory vowels. For …