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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

Disentangling Fluency, Comprehensibility And Coherence: Toward A Better Understanding Of Oral Proficiency Profiles, Haiying Cao Oct 2014

Disentangling Fluency, Comprehensibility And Coherence: Toward A Better Understanding Of Oral Proficiency Profiles, Haiying Cao

Open Access Dissertations

This study is an empirical attempt to examine how removal of all possible disfluency markers can help disentangle proficiency components assessed by the Oral English Proficiency Test (OEPT) in order to help build empirical foundations for establishing OEPT profiles. Silent and filled pauses, false starts and repetitions were removed from 50 test recordings in WAVEPAD SOUND EDITOR. Five trained OEPT raters rated the original and edited speeches. Statistical analyses addressed three research questions: 1) do fluency, comprehensibility and coherence ratings significantly change after the disfluency manipulation; 2) do correlations between fluency, comprehensibility, coherence and coherence subcomponents change after the disfluency …


Methods Of Revision In Sixteenth-Century English Cycle Drama, John Case Tompkins Oct 2013

Methods Of Revision In Sixteenth-Century English Cycle Drama, John Case Tompkins

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation contends that guilds-folk in sixteenth-century England made their own changes to the play-texts of civic drama and that these changes remain visible to us in the manuscripts which preserve the plays. Further, it argues that the actors and pageant-makers themselves often made these revisions, rather than the civic or ecclesial authorities traditionally credited for rewriting the pageants. These changes, introduced in production and transferred into the texts, helped keep the plays vibrant and successful throughout most of the sixteenth century and reflect the practical and local concerns of their participants. This work continues the historical investigations into pageant …