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Acquisition Of Main-Clause Wh-Questions In Egyptian Arabic-English And Spanish-English Bilingual Children, Riham H. Mohamed

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines the production and judgment of Egyptian Arabic (henceforth EA) main-clause wh-questions in EA-English bilingual children living in Ontario, Canada, or in the United Kingdom. The three comparison groups are EA monolingual children and EA monolingual adults living in Egypt, and first-generation Egyptian immigrants. The results are compared to previous research on the acquisition of obligatory subject-verb (S-V) inversion in Spanish wh-questions.

The focus of this study is to investigate the potential role of cross-linguistic influence in narrow syntactic structures. Until fairly recently, it was believed that only structures that exhibit syntax-pragmatics interfaces are vulnerable to cross-linguistic influence …

The Language Vitality Of Nahuatl In Santiago Tlaxco, Mexico, Grace Gomashie

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis assesses the language vitality of Nahuatl (also known as Mexicano) in Santiago Tlaxco, a rural bilingual community in the municipality of Chiconcuautla, located in Puebla, Mexico, in the face of the growing trend of language endangerment for many Indigenous languages. It explores the linguistic use and attitudes of community members, and how they contribute to language maintenance and language shift of Nahuatl. The main research questions are: a) what are the language use patterns of the community? and b) what are the prevailing language attitudes of this Nahuatl-speaking community towards its Indigenous language? Data on the language practices …

An Interventionist Approach To Language Study Abroad: Exploring Metalinguistic Awareness In The Acquisition Of Spanish Through Digital Portfolio Documentation And Expert Mentorship, Meredith Mcgregor

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Language study abroad offers the possibility of acquiring a multitude of competencies, linguistic and otherwise. While historically study abroad research has emphasized linguistic gains in isolation, it has gradually moved towards a more sociocultural approach whereby individual factors and intercultural competencies are seen as integral to the process of acquiring knowledge of a language. With remaining gaps in the literature, and as new instruments emerge, so too do new opportunities for tracking and measuring learning outcomes in innovative ways. The present study, framed by the intervention hypothesis and sociocultural theory, utilizes the social media platform Google+ as a space to …