Modern Languages Commons^™

The Impact Of The First Language Transfer On English Language Syntax For Arab Esl Students At Private Language Center In Mid-Size University Town, Mohammed A. S. Abdalhadi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the Impact of the First Language Transfer on English Language Syntax for Arab ESL Students at Private Language Center in Mid-Size University Town. The research population was 12 participants from Spring International Language Center through Intensive English Program and 7 participants from Adult Education center. The writing samples and interview were the main two instruments to analyze the data. I used constructive Analysis (CA), Error Analysis (EA), and coding to analyze the writing samples and the interview. The study focused on the syntax transfer between Arabic L1 and English L2, so Adjective/noun order, Subject/verb order, Number/numbered order, …

Publishing The Pan-Jewish: The First Hebrew Newspaper And Its Modernities, Philip E. Keisman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Publishing the Pan-Jewish emerges from a question about sites of synthesis between claims of sacred continuity and novel forms of communication. It centers on the first ten years of Hamagid (1856-1866), acknowledged within the historiography as history’s first Hebrew-language newspaper. Eliezer Lipman Silberman, an Orthodox butcher founded Hamagid in East Prussia as a bulwark of his vision of traditional Judaism. The first chapter of this dissertation examines the formal elements of the newspaper as a medium, demonstrating the myriad ways in which it presented novel experiences for its reading public. Chapter two narrates an untold history of the newspaper’s early …

Insights Into Chinese Second Language Acquisition: The Relationship Between Glossing And Vocabulary Recall In Reading, Steven S. Devellis

Masters Theses

Reading enhancement strategies are an important tool utilized by foreign language teachers. One of the most common types of during-reading assistance is the marginal gloss, which provides first language (L1) translations of selected foreign language (L2) terms in the margins of a text.

Glossing is an inherently individual approach to reading. It is predominantly motivation-driven, and provides as much assistance to the learner as he or she is willing to use it. Studies to this point have been largely inconsistent in regards to the exact usefulness of glossing, analyzing many variables such as the size, scope, and type of gloss, …

Citizens Of The English Language: Sociolinguistic Perspectives On Postcolonial India, Prateek Shankar

Masters Theses

This paper introduces the concept of "extralingual citizenship," which I define as an expansion of translingualism to include the ethnoracial logic of the nation-state and demonstrates the entanglement of language, governance, and education in the policing of knowledge infrastructures and discursive practices. I am interested in the codification of postcolonial disparity into the teaching, social performance, and material assessment of English language users, and the infrastructural disqualification of World Englishes (and their amalgams) in favor of a standardized English. I frame extralingualism as a kind of citizenship, shifting the focus of English pedagogy/practice from the syntactical/etymological concerns of language …

Other Oceans, Other Skies, Sharlene Lee

MFA in Visual Art

I create immersive installations, performances, and time-based media artworks that delve into stories of belonging, feminism, and language as power. These stories offer a potential for transformation from viewer to participant and a shift in how our world is seen and experienced. Through an exploration of perception and affect, I challenge dominant narratives, prompting a contemplation of contemporary power struggles for control.

In this text, I examine the impact of historical borders and migration on my life while also investigating questions of home, shared values, and rituals that contribute to one’s sense of belonging. I also highlight my commitment to …

Multilingualism And Memory: Investigating Possible Differences In The Abilities Of Monolingual And Multilingual College Students, Clara E. Barned

Honors Projects

This study investigated whether there is a difference in the memories of monolingual and multilingual undergraduate students using simple memorization tasks. There were 46 participants, 30 of which were monolingual (only knew one language) and 16 of which were multilingual (knew two or more languages). There was found to be no significant difference between the performance of the two groups, with the data generating a p-value of 0.557. This study further suggests related avenues of research and ways in which the study could be improved in the future.

Del Ornitorrinco A La Radio Ambulante: La Nueva Crónica Latinoamericana En La Era Neoliberal, Ulises Gonzales

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the presence of neoliberal hegemonic imaginaries in narrative journalism written in Latin America between 1995 and 2021.

There are strong connections between a period of decline in the readership of some of the authors of the so-called “Latin American Boom,” the penetration of neoliberal economic policies in the region (with the privatization of State companies and the expansion of the telecommunications industry), and the renewed interest in non-fiction writing published by a number of print publications in the region during the last decade of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st Century, as in magazines …

Bilingual Behaviors: Learning Context In Second Language Acquisition, Sydney M. Fulton

Honors Thesis

Language separates human beings from other species in the animal kingdom. Not only does language provide humans with a means to communicate, but it represents one’s family, cultural identity, and personality. There are over six thousand spoken languages in the world today, and around half of the earth’s inhabitants speak more than one language. First language acquisition is a natural process for all humans that begins before birth. The human brain can acquire multiple languages during infancy, but many people acquire a second language after the brain has fully developed. Knowledge of more than one language allows one to make …

Desarrollando Las Destrezas De Conversación De Una Estudiante Universitaria, Evelyn Loya

World Languages and Cultures

This project attempts to showcase a method for improving conversational language skills by having weekly sessions over the phone or by videoconference. A fellow Cal Poly student and I spoke over the phone for a number of weeks in Spanish during the course of Spring Quarter 2020 with the goal of bettering her overall language skills and gaining proficiency in aspects such as grammar, vocabulary acquisition, and sentence structure. We took on this project with hopes of mutually helping each other gain a better understanding of each other's cultural backgrounds and thus utilizing that to enrich our conversations. From the …

Kinesthetic Language: A Dialect Of Kinesics, Terrill Suzanne Corletto

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Human communication requires the disciplines regarding physical fitness, codified language, and the performing arts to overlap, and exist symbiotically. Within the realm of artistic performance, the three disciplines working together deliver a deliberate message in a way unique to performing artists. The general tendency to compartmentalize sports, communication, and the performing arts into their pigeonhole categories of Kinesiology, Linguistics, and Theatre Arts is impractical, particularly for performing artists simply because all of the disciplines are mutually dependent in the context of all kinesthetic communications.

The purpose of this paper is to define and discuss several concepts and the ways in …

The Translator-Function: Translating Bande-Dessinée For The Anglophone Reader, Ryan C. Gomez

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This thesis focuses on the question of translator roles in literary theory. I characterize these roles between positions that have traditionally been described by literary and philosophical theorists such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault. By examining the products of translation (French-language bandes-dessinées and their English translations), and considering critical literary and translation theories, I demonstrate the unique position held by translators and their work through the proposal of what I call the translator-function (modeled after Foucault’s author-function). The principal aim of this thesis is to problematize preconceived ideas about translators and to examine the unique position of the …

Memory Bread, Nisiqi

Art + Design Masters Theses

Memory Bread, constituting a daily performance ritual and the post-action objects, seeks to address the generational decline of mother language use in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, a post-colonized province of China. I chose to eat sliced white bread in the performance and later casted concrete sculptures as the extension of the action for both substances’ capitalistic nature. Being an invasive material that took over the traditional architectural lifestyle, the use of concrete mirrors the pervasive cultural and ethnic assimilation in China. Meanwhile, the materiality of concrete being a mixture of various substances also metaphors the mixed culture that Chinese-Mongolians …

'Choose A Language Like A Wedding Ring': Polysystems, Norms And Pseudotranslation In Lea Goldberg’S Poetry & Prose, Benjamin Rangell

Masters Theses

Lea Goldberg [1911-1970] is one of modern Hebrew literature’s most significant poet/translators. This thesis approaches her early poetry and prose from the perspective of three theories of translation. ‘Polysystems’, ‘norms’, and ‘pseudotranslation’ grew from the scholarly and translation-lineage in Hebrew literary studies that Goldberg herself contributed to. Utilizing these three methods of reading, this thesis argues that translation’s thematization in Goldberg’s creative work is evidence for the poet’s ideal for a cosmopolitan, multilingual, national literature in the new Jewish State. This receptive stance to previous and concurrent literary traditions was met with much skepticism and criticism from Goldberg’s colleagues, and …

Dmt And “The Man Box:” Provoking Change And Encouraging Authentic Living, An Arts-Based Project, Steven Reynolds

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This thesis explores the mind-body experience through an arts-based research approach to examine, and redefine the emotional capacity and usefulness of males through societal determinants that limits and hinders men from living their authentic selves. Through the lens of a metaphoric “Man Box” 112 men participated in a workshop recreating their personal narratives of socialization through, style of dress, coping mechanisms, belief systems and who they should be as men through society's standards. In the “Man Box,” male bonding, and emotional feelings are discouraged, while the objectification of women, material property and physical/emotional strength are encouraged. This research investigates the …

An Exploratory Study Of Acculturation Experiences Of Graduate Student Immigrants At The University Of San Francisco, Courtney Lamar

Master's Theses

This study explores the shared challenges during the acculturation process of graduate student immigrants pursuing higher education in the United States. 13 graduate student immigrants at the University of San Francisco discuss their experiences of cultural adjustment into U.S. culture. Through qualitative interviews and thematic analysis, this study seeks to understand the acculturation experiences of graduate student immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area of the United States. This analysis is based on the individual-level experience examining attitudes and acculturation strategies in the dominant society. Analysis, possibly policy implication for institutions of higher education, and possible directions for future research …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

From Davao City To Daly City: Examining Translanguaging And Transnationalism In The 1.5-Generation Filipin(A/O) Americans Of Daly City, Rita Ewing

Master's Theses

In the field of migration studies, research on transnationalism has been well

established. Applying an intersectional framework of post-colonial narrative and

linguistic anthropology to transnational migration, this research allows us to better

understand how the transnational immigrant deploys language. Through a nostalgia

studies approach, this study is able to analyze how transnational immigrants place value

on their heritage and second languages, and reflexively deploy their language sets to

reflect their unique positionality. This paper is a case study examination of five adult

members of the 1.5-generation of Filipin(a/o) American immigrants, who immigrated to

the US before the age of eighteen …

Resistencia Y Asimilación: El Espacio Liminal En El Teatro Cubanoamericano, Michael Mardoian

Senior Theses and Projects

The Cuban Revolution that took place in 1959 sparked a mass movement of Cubans to leave the island known as the Cuban Diaspora. To live in another place, a country and within a culture drastically different is a continual internal and external confrontation that many Cubans face living in the United States. Immigration and exile are central themes that emerge from Cuban literature and art. In the field of theater, many Cuban and Cuban-American playwrights such as Matías Montes Huidobro (1931), Alberto Pedro (1954-2005) and María Irene Fornés (1930), have illustrated the effects of immigration and exile on the displaced …

Dimensions Of Online/Offline Social Communication: An Extension Of The Hyperpersonal Model, Devin Joseph Kelly

ETD Archive

With the rise of technology it becomes important to measure and analyze the communication patterns that are emerging from these changes. Technologies open up different communication patterns for individuals to use (Tomas & Carlson 2015; Walther, 1996; Wei & Leung, 1999). Thus, this study develops the “ASOHIO” perspective, which incorporates a range of new and old communication patterns, online communication, offline communication, synchronous communication, asynchronous communication, interpersonal communication, and hyperpersonal communication. This work also looks to extend the hyperpersonal model greatly by developing an actual multi-item scale to measure the construct at the individual level. Walther’s (1996) basic description of …

A Study Of Robert Schumann And His Impact On The German Song Cycle, Melissa A. Mills

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research was to gain information about Robert Schumann and his impact on the German song cycle. The specific problems of the study were as follows: 1.) To trace the origins and development of the song cycle; 2.) To identify the significance of Robert Schumann to the German song cycle; and 3.) To analyze Frauenliebe und-Leben (‘A Woman’s Life and Love’), a song cycle composed by Schumann in 1840, in terms of form, style, and vocal technique. This research investigates the return of Robert Schumann from instrumental music back to vocal music and how he helped develop …

Filling The Silence --An Iserian Reading Of Ilse Aichinger's Work, Julia Sonja Brassat

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The works of the Austrian writer Ilse Aichinger are often considered impenetrable and incomprehensible. Aichinger’s doubt about conventional language serves as the basis for her use of highly pictorial and complex linguistic constructions. Although many literary scholars have alluded to the impenetrability of Aichinger’s works, few attempts have been made to investigate the meaning of her texts. In his theory of aesthetic response, Wolfgang Iser explains that literary works contain vacancies in the system of the text that need to be filled by the reader’s imagination. They serve as an impetus for the reader, during the process of reading, to …

Language Training For Missionaries, Laurence Mcpherson Farr

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Every foreign missionary is confronted with one basic task. Without its successful accomplishment his work as a missionary will fail. It is the task of learning the language of the people among whom he is working. However laudable his motives may be, however great his consecration, and however capable he may be in many tasks, if he fails to gain the ability to understand readily speech addressed to him or to communicate his own thoughts intelligibly and accurately to them, he is working behind a closed door — a door which he failed to unlock,

It is the purpose of …

Determining The Prognostic Value Of An Artificial Language Test, Alex Turkatte

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The object of the survey about to be described, was to establish the value of the artificial language test as a prognostic basis for language aptitude. Could the artificial language test be a reliable guide for determining a student's linguistic ability? Teachers have long needed something to give them an index to pupil's capabilities so as to meet better their needs in the class room. Counselors have wanted such tests to aid them in directing young people into channels of endeavor where they can best achieve success