Digital Commons Network^™

2015 December 16 -- Agenda And Attachments

Agendas and Minutes

No abstract provided.

The Perceived Relationship Of Leadership Behaviors To Teacher Preparedness For Implementing Connecticut’S Core Standards In Mathematics And Use Of Math Practices Aligned With Key Shifts In The Common Core, Angela Rossbach

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the relationship between specific leadership behaviors (i.e. the extent to which principals establish goals and expectations; plan, coordinate and evaluate teaching and the curriculum; and promote and participate in teacher learning) and teachers’ self-reported sense of preparedness and self-reported use of practices that align with the key shifts in the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSSM). Data for this quantitative study are from a teacher survey that was distributed electronically to all K-8 certified Connecticut teachers in fall, 2015.

Linear regression analysis shows significant relationships between the variables. Specifically, teachers who reported higher levels of principal …

Skilled Linguistic Action In English As A Second Language Learners’ Play Of World Of Warcraft (Wow): A Distributed View, Kristi J. Newgarden

Doctoral Dissertations

This research provokes an action-oriented understanding of second language (L2) learning, as illustrated in the dynamics of World of Warcraft (WoW) gameplay. L2 learners picked up affordances for learning to take skilled linguistic actions in authentic interactions with meaningful outcomes. Agency, orientation to sociocultural norms and pragmatic competence were distributed in real-time languaging as learners coordinated actions using embodied, material and linguistic resources. Two studies examined data from a course in which English as a Second Language learners and native English speaking (NES) college students played WoW and explored its culture. Frames of ecological psychology and distributed language were applied …

Parallel Read-Alouds: A Bilingual Repeated Read-Aloud And Retelling Intervention For Kindergarten Ells, Darci Melchor

Doctoral Dissertations

Teachers working with young ELLs at risk for literacy underachievement lack research-based practices to maximize the use of picture book read-alouds to accelerate language comprehension outcomes. This study investigated the effects of 8-22 weeks of small group, bilingual repeated read-aloud and retelling intervention, the parallel read-aloud intervention, on Vietnamese ELL kindergarteners’ retelling skills, focusing on the use of story grammar elements and language complexity and productivity. The study was conducted using a multiple-baseline single subject design with 5 subjects. Students’ growth in the overall quality of narrative retelling was assessed weekly using the Test of Narrative Retell (TNR) and their …

Feature Mismatches: Consequences For Syntax, Morphology And Semantics, Peter W. Smith

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I investigate the nature of grammatical features and propose that a grammatical feature is split into two halves: one half (uF) that is legible to the morphological component and one half (iF) that is legible to the semantic component. Though these halves in general match up, the values can be distinct or one can be missing altogether. Throughout the dissertation, I investigate various phenomena where the values of the two halves of the feature do not line up, looking at the mass/count distinction, collective nouns in (British) English, and quantified noun phrases in Russian, among others.

I …

Phonetic Adaptation To Foreign-Accented Speech, Xin Xie

Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past few decades, there has been considerable effort to find the mechanisms through which adult listeners can accommodate the rampant phonetic variation in natural speech. My dissertation concerns one source of variability: phonetic variation in speech produced by individuals with foreign accents. Mounting evidence shows that listeners not only adapt to specific speakers by adjusting acoustic-phonetic mappings, they also sometimes generalize the remapping to novel talkers. In this dissertation, I present a series of experiments examining the mechanism of rapid phonetic adaptation and its generalization across talkers. I tested native-English listeners’ adaptation to Mandarin-accented English words, focusing on …

Domains On The Border: Between Morphology And Phonology, Beata A. Moskal

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I show that a difference in structure between functional and lexical items has a restricting effect on both the morphology and the phonology. Morphologically, we observe two asymmetries: (i) in lexical nouns, number-driven root-suppletion is common whilst case-driven root-suppletion is virtually unattested; (ii) in contrast, pronouns commonly supplete for both number and case. By and large, we see the same pattern in verbs, observing a contrast between lexical verbs and auxiliaries with regard to suppletion for aspect and tense. In order to account for these asymmetries, I appeal to structural differences between lexical and functional material, combined …

‘Misticall Unions’: Clandestine Communications From Tristan To Twelfth Night, George W. Eggers

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation argues that important modes of self-definition in the Renaissance draw on the linguistic uncertainty in medieval literary constructions of lovers. Just as in Renaissance texts, medieval lovers such as Tristan and Isolde fashion themselves as a “misticall union”: a conglomerate self that shares one mind and erases all distinctions between sender and receiver as well as grammatical subject and object. This unity expresses itself in the lovers’ inexplicable ability to interpret correctly the most arbitrary of messages from one another while misleading those around them. Considering Shakespearean lovers in this context suggests how deeply this model of self-definition …

The Good Behavior Game For Latino English Language Learners In A Small Group Setting, Jennifer Ortiz

Doctoral Dissertations

The Good Behavior Game (GBG) is a group contingency intervention that has effectively reduced disruptive behavior and improved classroom management in many replications, for various settings and populations. The student composition of American public schools is changing, leading to culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms with unique psychoeducational needs. The present study used a single-subject, delayed multiple baseline design to evaluate the GBG as a targeted intervention for third grade Latino English Language Learners (L-ELLs) who participated in a small group for behavior support. Results suggest the intervention had a moderate effect on the interrupting behavior of the target students. The …

C'Est La Tour De Babel - Le Film Multilingue: Un Défi De La Traduction Audiovisuelle Du 21e Siècle, Alexander S. Croxton Mr.

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Community Development And Its Socioeconomic Impact On A Latino Enclave: A Case Study Of The Frog Hollow Neighborhood In Hartford, Connecticut, Reinaldo Rojas

Doctoral Dissertations

The topic of low-income neighborhoods and the different approaches to community development dominate the national discussion on urban revitalization and poverty reduction. The debate is ongoing, regardless of whether economic development models serve the broader interests of the community or the narrow interests of proponents and benefactors. This study analyzes the impact of urban revitalization projects in the Frog Hollow neighborhood of Hartford, Connecticut, an impoverished but vibrant Latino enclave in the city. Frog Hollow underwent a highly publicized series of revitalization projects during the 2000s, where business owners, community organizations and local government were involved in both development and …

An Embedded Planning Tool For Tier Three Reading Instruction, Yan Wei

Doctoral Dissertations

Reading, as a foundational skill for adolescents to have in order to compete in the labor market, has received great attention in the K-12 and postsecondary education research. The T-TIP (The Tier Three Instructional Planning Tool) is designed in alignment with the critical components of reading content and pedagogy for adolescents with reading difficulties in multi-tiered system of support. In the study, a single-subject AB multiple-baseline design across subjects will be utilized to investigate the effectiveness of T-TIP on teacher lesson planning, with a focus on corrective and elaborative feedback within Tier Three literacy instructional settings in secondary schools. Findings …

Pleonastic Merger, Tsuyoshi Sawada

Doctoral Dissertations

The thesis examines the structure of Japanese between tense and the main predicate, focusing on the order of the heads of the relevant phrases, appearing at the right edge of the sentence. This part of structure is superficially rather chaotic, and appears to raise serious problems for the assumption that there is a fixed universal phrase structure hierarchy, i.e. the phrases between tense and the predicate in Japanese appear to have a more complicated distribution than what can be readily explained merely by adopting fixed, universal selectional properties for the heads in question. This thesis shows that once certain factors …

Exploring Syntax From The Interfaces, Yoshiyuki Shibata

Doctoral Dissertations

Based on the scope of negation in Japanese, the dissertation establishes a generalization that all vP-internal phrases move out of NegP in Japanese. The main argument concerns reconstruction, which allows a moved element to be interpreted at the original site rather than the surface position. It is shown that reconstruction applies to moved elements quite generally except for those that occur with adjoined focus particles in both Japanese and English. A semantic explanation for this is provided on the basis of Fox’s (2003) trace conversion, an interpretive mechanism that serves to interpret movement chains. Given the mechanism, it is shown …

Transnationalism, Mobility And Identity: The Making Of Place In Flushing, New York City, Shaolu Yu

Doctoral Dissertations

'Archival abstract submitted'

Alien Comforts: The Languages And Foodways Of Chinese Americans And Hawaiian Locals In U.S. Popular Culture, Jared Demick

Doctoral Dissertations

My project deals with how the grotesque and simplifying distortion of Chinese American and Hawaiian Local languages and foodways has been used to promote facile multiculturalist encounters and the ways in which contemporary writers from those ethnic groups have attempted to articulate other ethnic formulations free from what I call minstrel gestures. These writers instead valorize innovation and transformation over an adherence to past traditions already pillaged and stereotyped by hegemonic interests. This strategy—which I dub the creole relational mode—has worked to varying degrees of success in creating the possibilities for oppositional cultural formations. While these oppositional cultural …

Emergent Motor-Vocal Coordination In Pre-Linguistic Infants, Sarah M. Sanborn

Doctoral Dissertations

In adults, speech and gesture are very much intertwined with each other, but it remains unclear how this connection forms in the developing infant. Iverson and Thelen (1999) proposed that the speech-gesture linkage emerges between 6-9 months, when rhythmic motor movements and babbling are at their peak; however, few published studies have tested the speech-gesture theory. A major purpose of the current study is to provide support for the Iverson and Thelen theory using longitudinal data; in addition, this study explores how posture and social context affect motor-vocal coordination. Fifteen infants were videotaped in their homes at 6, 7, 8, …

The Role Of Maternal Input In Early Word Order Acquisition: The Case Of Mandarin Chinese, Margaret Ya-Ching Yeh

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examined the role of maternal input in word order acquisition of Mandarin-speaking children from the one-word to multi-word stages. Four questions about the role of maternal input were addressed: frequency effects, age-related changes, utterance type effects, and verb diversity effects. Predictions for each question were made based on the generativist and constructivist accounts. Spontaneous speech of 40 Mandarin-speaking mother-child dyads selected from CHILDES Zhou corpus, with 10 dyads in each of four age groups: 14-, 20-, 26-, and 32-month-olds, were coded for word order, utterance type, and verb type. Both maternal and child distributions were compared for analyses. …

Speech Acts And Silencing: A Social Account Of Speech Action And Restrictions On Speech, Casey R. Johnson

Doctoral Dissertations

I develop a new, socially sensitive, account of conversation and assertion. According to traditional speech act theory, an utterance is a particular conversational move, like a question or a promise, when it has a particular kind of force. Traditionally, this force – called illocutionary force – has been understood in terms of various conditions, norms, and constraints that utterances either meet or fail to meet. This tradition has led some philosophers to attempt to account for this force by way of a constitutive norm. In my first two chapters, I argue that this way of understanding conversational moves is misguided, …

A Literary And Psychological Portrait Of The Belle Epoque, James Difilippo

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation depicts the Belle Epoque (1870-1914) whose Zeitgeist was epitomized by the motto, fluctuat, nec mergitur (Willms 339). The transformation in the spirit of Europe revealed the emergence of the conscious, the influence of the unconscious and the discovery of psychoanalysis. Although the fin de siècle was a period of degeneration, the epoch also represented hope for a new beginning. The Belle Epoque in Paris displayed a coat of arms that represented a metaphorical emblem of a tumultuous, sailing ship having an unattainable destination. The national self-awareness engendered a collective pathology, self-confidence and pride that characterized the consciousness of …

A Pilot Study Investigating Comprehension Of Driving Vocabulary In Adolescents With Language Impairment, Jessica M. Pandolfe

Master's Theses

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate if adolescents with LI are at increased risk relative to unimpaired peers at struggling to comprehend driving-related vocabulary found in driving preparation material.

Method: This study included 11 adolescents with LI and 11 adolescent controls with typical language development. Participants completed a self-developed receptive vocabulary measure, the Driving-Related Picture Vocabulary Task, which consisted of simple noun, compound noun, and simple verb driving terminology.

Results: The Driving-Related Picture Vocabulary Task was found to have strong convergent validity with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Fourth Edition (Dunn & Dunn, 2007). Strong positive correlation was …

Effects Of Auditory And Visual Variability On Word Learning In Children: A Pilot Study, Kelly A. Casey

Master's Theses

For infants, acquiring vocabulary for nouns is a dynamic, complex process that involves pairing an auditory token with a visual referent. This process is computationally complex because the acoustic information produced for a verbal production of any given noun varies considerably due to factors including the person who is speaking, speaking rate, and linguistic context. Likewise, visual referents are also variable in characteristics such as size, shape, material, and color. Research suggests that variability in either the auditory or visual domains can facilitate early word learning. However, the role of simultaneous variability in these domains on noun learning remains unexplored. …

A Pilot Study Investigating The Comprehension Of Miranda Rights By Adolescents With Language Impairment, Anne Marie Lieser

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Gradient Effects Of Reading Ability On Native And Non-Native Talker Identification, Minal A. Kadam

Master's Theses

The acoustic signal of speech cues information about who is speaking in addition to a talker’s conceptual message. Recent findings indicate that these two aspects of the acoustic signal are fundamentally intertwined in the context of speech perception. For example, listeners demonstrate a native-language advantage for talker identification, which has been interpreted as evidence that phonological knowledge is recruited for talker identification. Converging evidence for this account comes from studies indicating adults with reading disability due to deficits in phonological processing show impaired talker recognition even in their native language. Other studies suggest that the influence of phonological processing on …

Effects Of Reading Ability On Lexically-Informed Letter Perception, Alexandra T. Bohner

Master's Theses

Research on perceptual learning for speech shows that lexical information can be used to modify phonological representations. Recent findings suggest that lexically-informed perceptual learning is a domain-general learning mechanism such that lexically-guided learning is also observed in the processing of printed text. The literature on lexically-informed perceptual learning has extensively investigated the nature of the change to the prelexical representation. What this literature has yet to examine, however, is how varying levels of lexical recruitment influence this learning mechanism. Here we examine this question by comparing performance on lexically-guided letter perception between two groups of readers, average readers and advanced …

The Effect Of An Intensive Oral Reading Program On Discourse In Chronic Mild Aphasia, Marilyn Elizabeth Richard

Master's Theses

Background: There is limited research specific to deficits and interventions for people with mild aphasia (PWMA), although they have the greatest potential to return to work. Discourse and reading deficits for this population are well documented and negatively impact quality of life. Two treatment programs have used oral reading to target discourse with mixed success. Neither was designed specifically for PWMA.

Aims: The primary aim of the current study was to examine the effect of an intensive oral reading program on discourse in two participants with chronic mild aphasia. Outcome was also assessed on several other measures including oral reading, …

Electrophysiological Correlates Of Speech Perception In Young Children: Associations Among Erp, Nonword Repetition And Language, Vanessa Marie Harwood

Doctoral Dissertations

Event Related Potentials (ERP) recorded during infancy and early childhood have been used to

predict future language outcomes in children. Furthermore, there is recent evidence that

nonword repetition (NWR) can be used to identify language delay in toddlers. This investigation

assesses the relationships among ERP markers of sensitivity to phonemic stimuli, nonword

repetition, and language to determine if the aforementioned methodologies could improve

diagnostic measures for young children. Forty children between the ages of 24 to 48 months

participated in a series of behavioral speech and language measures including the mCDI-2, the

PLS-5, the GFTA-2 and conventional language sampling. ERPs …

Narrative And Horticultural Imperative: Predicting Discourse Ability In Traumatic Brain Injury From Cognitive And Communicative Factors, Karen Le

Doctoral Dissertations

Purpose: The goal of the current research study was to advance our knowledge of cognitive-communicative disorders following traumatic brain injury (TBI) by identifying the cognitive and communicative processes underlying narrative discourse ability. The study 1) examined the role of working memory (WM) and inferencing in narrative discourse, 2) tested key assumptions posited by the Structure Building Framework (SBF; Gernsbacher, 1990), a cognitive model of normative discourse comprehension and 3) attempted to disambiguate the relationship between discourse comprehension and discourse production.

Methods: Forty-four native English speakers participated, comprising 21 individuals with TBI, all with closed-head injuries, and 23 non-brain-injured (NBI) …

On Sexual Violence: Indian Artists And Public Enagement, Hannah M. Kennedy

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

“Un Pueblo Tan Dulce”: Diabetes, Depression, And Obesity Syndemics In Puerto Rico, Shir Lerman

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.