Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Individual Differences In Non-Native Phonological Contrast Learning: The Role Of Perceptual Sensitivity To Sub-Phonemic Variation In Native Categories, Jieun Lee

Theses and Dissertations

The current study explored individual differences in sensitivity to sub-phonemic variation of acoustic cues in the perception of a native language (L1) category in order to test the hypothesis that second language (L2) learners’ different sensitivity to the L2-relevant acoustic dimension in L1 perception could explain individual variability in nonnative phonological contrast learning. In addition, this study also investigated whether the modified High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) paradigm could aid in nonnative phonological contrast learning. The cue-attention switching training was added to the typical HVPT paradigm with multiple talkers, expecting to reallocate learners’ attention away from the less relevant acoustic …

The Syntax And Semantics Of Non-Standard Wh-Constructions In Korean, Okgi Kim

Theses and Dissertations

The following is an investigation of the syntax and semantics of two types of non-standard wh-construction in Korean: one concerns so-called why-like what-interrogatives, where what-questions are construed as why-questions asking for cause/reason/purpose, and the other concerns what-exclamatives, which are used to express a speaker’s emotive attitude toward a certain state of affairs or degree. Both of these wh-constructions are viewed as nonstandard in the sense that they behave differently from standard what-questions. In this dissertation, I aim to provide a syntactically and semantically precise characterization of the two non-standard wh-constructions in Korean.

Korean why-like what-interrogatives, namely mwe-l-interrogatives, raise many theoretical …

The Acquisition Of Morphology And Morphosyntax Of Persian (Farsi) Heritage Language As An Independent Variety In The United States: New Perspectives, Hamideh Sadat Bagherzadeh

Theses and Dissertations

There is a growing body of research from various perspectives in heritage language (henceforth HL) acquisition as an emerging field. Some studies proposed that HL acquisition is a differential acquisition compared with the baseline language (i.e., the language spoken by the parents or caregivers) (Kupisch & Rothman, 2018; Dubiel & Guilfoyle, 2021; Makarova & Terekhova, 2021; Caloi & Torregrossa, 2021; Nagy, 2021), while some other studies focus on a comparison of heritage speakers (henceforth HSs) with monolingual speakers and suggest that HSs acquisition of the baseline language is either incomplete, deficient, or arttrided (Benmamoun, Montrul, & Polinsky, 2013; Montrul, 2005, …

The Effect Of Shadowing In Learning L2 Segments: A Perspective From Phonetic Convergence, Ruqayyah Althubyani

Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to investigate the role that phonetic convergence plays in the acquisition of L2 segments. In particular, it examined whether phonetic convergence towards native speakers could help Arabic-speaking second-language (L2) learners of English improve their pronunciation of four problematic English segments (/p, v, ɛ, oʊ/). To do so, the study went through several phases of experimental studies. Phonetic convergence was first explored in the productions of Arabic L2 learners towards five different English native model talkers in non-interactive setting. Five XAB perceptual similarity judgments and acoustic measurements of VOT, vowel duration, F0, and F1*F2 were used to evaluate …

The Development Of Case Morphology And Sentential Word Order In Arabic As A Second Language: A Processability Perspective, Abdullah Alsubhi

Theses and Dissertations

Processability theory argues that the development of interlanguage syntactic and morphological structures is guided by general principles, which make up a “language processor”. These principles develop gradually and are implicationally ordered. The theory claims that interlanguage syntactic and morphological structures develop in the order the principles responsible for their production become available to the learner (Pienemann, 1998; Pienemann et al., 2005). This study used these principles as reflected in processing procedures and mapping principles to investigate the acquisition of Modern Standard Arabic case morphology and sentential word order. The goal of using these principles was to hypothesize a developmental route …

The Syntax Of Negation In Iraqi Arabic, Saja Albuarabi

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a study of negation in Iraqi Arabic. It investigates the syntactic properties of negation in this dialect by presenting some previously unnoticed empirical facts about this phenomenon and by analyzing its theoretical significance for Arabic syntax in particular and Human language in general. Iraqi Arabic is a cluster of subdialects that show an interesting systematic microvariation in the use of negative expressions. The first goal of this dissertation is to present the syntactic properties of negation in all these subdialects through a detailed description and comprehensive survey. Based on this survey and description, these subdialects, are divided …

Simple Subject-Verb Agreement: A Morphosyntactic Path To Arabic Variations, Turki Alwahibee

Theses and Dissertations

The analytic object of this dissertation is to formally model the Arabic subject-verb agreement aspects, more particularly, the verbal agreement with simple subject DPs. It aims to define how φ-agreement is formally manifested across the Arabic varieties, more specifically, Standard Arabic and the current dialects, and hopes to draw the latter varieties’ interrelation. In other words, this thesis hopes to advance the overall understanding of subject-verb agreement in Arabic and contribute to a clearer and simpler view of a number of specific syntactic phenomena. Most important of all, the subject DP relative order with respect to the verbal predicate influences …

Remarks On Modern Standard Arabic Construct State And Quantification, Mohammed Abuhaib

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the interpretations of genitive and quantificational forms that Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) unifies under a complex DP, namely Construct State (CS). Despite the linguistic differences between these phenomena, the PF form of this structure neutralizes all indicated types and their sub-types into a head-complement form (possessum-possessor or quantifier-domain restriction), where the whole structure’s definiteness is recovered from the complement that is distinguished for this value overtly. However, the internal syntactic and semantic components such as the source of relations and definiteness value of the whole structure that contribute to the CS its various interpretations are always concealed …

Descripción Y Caracterización De Los Fenómenos Que Afectan La Producción Del Ritmo En Español Por Hablantes Nativos De Inglés Norteamericano. Un Estudio Descriptivo A Partir Del Aula De L2, Leire Martin Perez

Theses and Dissertations

El presente estudio muestra los resultados de una investigación centrada en la producción del ritmo español por hablantes nativos de inglés, aprendientes de español como L2. En general, la adquisición de una segunda lengua es un proceso complejo en el que se deben dominar diferentes áreas. Entre estas áreas, la comunicación oral destaca, ya que es la primera disciplina que se pone en práctica cuando nos comunicamos con alguien. Sin embargo, el proceso de adquisición de la fonética resulta el más complejo para muchos aprendientes, especialmente la adquisición del ritmo, pese a ayudar a hablar de manera más fluida evitando …

Information Structure In Standard Arabic Verbal Sentences, Salem Albuhayri

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates Information Structure (IS) in relation to the clausal architecture in Standard Arabic (SA). The attention is confined to word order variation and its role in structuring discourse. The structural positions with potential information structure import are argued to appear at the edg-es of phases, namely vP and CP. It presents an analysis which brings together the minimalist scheme as embodied in Chomsky (2000, onwards) and the cartographic approach to discourse as embodied in Rizzi (1997, 2001) and Cinque (1999). First, in chapter (‎2) a distinction is made be-tween VSO and SVO clauses, in which I propose that …

Expository Language Sample Assessment Of Spanish- English Bilingual Middle-School Children, Rachel Ann Eggert

Theses and Dissertations

Because of the possible bias and limitations in using standardized assessments, it is advantageous to assess school-age children who are bilingual using additional descriptive assessments, including language sampling. Choosing expository discourse language sampling to assess this population is beneficial because it is the standard form of discourse in a classroom setting and provides a more complex language sample. Using expository discourse language sampling, this study assesses the oral expository discourse language skills of Spanish- English bilingual middle school students who have learned English as a second language. The study found that expository discourse was a feasible way to assess the …

Modality, Control And Restructuring In Arabic, Yasser Albaty

Theses and Dissertations

The dissertation examines theories of modality and control with data from Standard Arabic (SA). In particular, I show that complementations of particular modal and control verbs in SA are not clausal, but smaller phrases. This challenges proposed accounts in the literature of modality in SA as well as theories of control within Minimalism. I alternatively argue for a novel account of both constructions that posits a monoclausal (i.e., restructuring) structure.

First, Chapter 2 investigates modality verbs in SA and shows that subjunctive complements of modality do not exhibit the properties of clausal complementation. I examine the syntax-semantics properties of modality …

Poetics, Not Pragmatics: Understanding Metaphors In A Poetic Context, Savannah Marciezyk

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this paper is to explain why the leading theories of metaphor fail when applied to metaphors which appear in poems. The ability to understand the true meaning of a metaphor in conversations relies on understanding speaker intention and extralinguistic context. This paper argues that because such material is not available to the reader of a poem, theories which rely heavily on pragmatics to explain metaphors cannot be successfully applied to metaphors which appear in poems. This paper makes use of the views on metaphor by John Searle and Paul Grice, and discusses how meaning is constructed in …

Logical Form In The Second Language: An Investigation Into Quantification In Interlanguage, Abdel-Rahman Abu Helal

Theses and Dissertations

In coping with variability in morphological production in L2 acquisition, which represents a

challenge for the parameter (re-)setting theories, Lardiere (2008) proposed the feature reassembly hypothesis in which sequential difficulty in L2 acquisition of morpho-syntactic features

is captured by the processes of (re-)assembly and mapping of features onto their morphological

realizations. Slabakova (2009, 2013) incorporated Lardiere’s proposal in establishing a scale of

difficulty in learning semantic properties (e.g. definiteness) which is based on whether

reassembly is needed and whether the universal meaning is obtained by overt morphology or

context (See also Ramchand & Svenonius, 2008). In considering the truth-conditional aspect …

The Acquisition Of Morphology In Moroccan Heritage Speakers In France, Amal El Haimeur

Theses and Dissertations

There are two major perspectives regarding heritage speakers’ (henceforth HS) ultimate attainment. Some researchers on HS in the U.S. conclude that HS have incomplete grammars (Benmamoun, Montrul & Polinsky, 2013). It is argued that heritage languages (henceforth HL) do not fully develop (Montrul, 2016), and they are not completely acquired because of shifting to a dominant language (Benmamoun et al., 2013). Other researchers argue that HS’ grammars are complete, but simply different as monolingual and HS experience different linguistic realities (Pascual y Cabo & Rothman, 2012). While there is abundant research on Arabic as a HL in the U.S., research …

Segmental Contributions To Speech Intelligibility In Nonconcatenative Vs. Concatenative Languages, Yahya Aldholmi

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the contributions of segments (consonants vs. vowels) to speech intelligibility in Arabic and English. In these two languages, consonants and vowels play crucially different grammatical roles. Arabic is a nonconcatenative language that primarily assigns lexical information to consonants and morphosyntactic information to vowels, while English is a concatenative language that does not assign distinct roles to either class of segments. On this basis, we hypothesized that consonants and vowels would play very different roles in the intelligibility of the two languages. Five laboratory experiments were conducted, three on Arabic and two on English. Participants listened to words …

Italian As A Heritage Language Spoken In The Us, Maria Teresa Bonfatti Sabbioni

Theses and Dissertations

The present study focuses on Italian as a heritage language spoken in the US by individuals bilingual in Italian and English, exposed to both language since birth. The subjects of the study are the members of six family nuclei, for a total of seven children as heritage speakers of Italian and as input receivers, and 6 parents as native speakers of Standard Italian and as input providers, living in different cities in Wisconsin and Illinois. The study specifically investigates the following structures: a) Gender assignment and gender agreement between determiner, noun and adjective; b) Auxiliary selection in the Italian compound …

The Role Of The Syllable Contact Law-Semisyllable (Scl-Semi) In The Coda Clusters Of Najdi Arabic And Other Languages, Reham Alhammad

Theses and Dissertations

Final consonants in Arabic are semisyllables; that is, moraic unsyllabified segments that are attached to the prosodic word (Kiparsky, 2003). If this is the case, optional vowel epenthesis in Najdi Arabic final clusters cannot be attributed to violations of the Sonority Sequencing Principle, because sonority restrictions apply within syllables only. In a new perspective, this dissertation argues that the existence of vowel epenthesis in Najdi coda clusters that have rising sonority, and its absence in clusters that have a falling sonority, are instead due to violations of the Syllable Contact Law (SCL), where sonority must drop between syllable codas and …

Speaking Of Existence: A Previously Unmentioned Meta-Ontological Dispute Between Quinean Ontologists, Charles Norwood Thorne Perkins

Theses and Dissertations

In hopes of prompting a meta-ontological debate among eliminativist, Quinean ontologists, this paper shows that Trenton Merricks and Peter van Inwagen’s disagreement about the philosophy of language implies a meta-ontological disagreement. I first show that, according to van Inwagen’s philosophy of language, only artificial-language sentences assert positive existence propositions. I then use my analysis of van Inwagen’s philosophy of language to define the concept of apparent ontological commitment that he presents without a definition in his essay “Alston on ontological commitment.” I then present a previously unrecognized meta-ontological disagreement between Merricks and van Inwagen. I conclude with a discussion of …

The Syntax Of Copular Clauses In Arabic, Bader Yousef Alharbi

Theses and Dissertations

Copular clauses in several languages have received much attention in recent years, however in Arabic they have been largely overlooked. In general, copular clauses have been classified into four types: the predicational clause, the specificational clause, the identificational clause, and the identity clause. This thesis aims to characterize and analyze the various copular clause types in Arabic, and goes further to discuss the taxonomic status of the copular clause with a postcopular definite description and the nature of the pronominal element (PE) in Arabic copular clauses. The thesis then explores the predicational clause type in more depth, focusing specifically on …

Program Models, Pre-Service Teachers, And Emergent Bilingual Instruction, Hannah R. Meineke

Theses and Dissertations

It is estimated by the year 2030, over 40% of the K-12 population in U.S. schools will be children whose first language is not English (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007; Shin & Ortman, 2011). This situation has potential academic consequences for emergent bilingual students (EBS) attending schools without adequate accommodations. The issue of teachers who are underprepared to meet the needs of EBS contributes to the academic consequences absorbed by this K-12 population, and to the social and cultural cycle of oppression for this marginalized group. Thus, integrating knowledge, skills, and dispositions (KSDs) beneficial for meeting the needs of EBS becomes …

The Feasibility Of Assessing Parent And Child Letter Knowledge In At-Rrisk Families Within A Museum Enrichment Setting, Jeny Sara Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

THE FEASIBILITY OF ASSESSING PARENT AND CHILD LETTER KNOWLEDGE IN AT-RISK FAMILIES WITHIN A MUSEUM ENRICHMENT SETTING

by

Jeny Sara Thomas

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2017

Under the Supervision of Professor John Heilmann

Purpose. This study addressed alphabet knowledge with children/parents who may be at-risk using a museum environment. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the parent- and child-level assessments developed were appropriate to measure letter knowledge and children’s home literacy environment (HLE) from at-risk families and implement a museum enrichment program for the children/parents within a museum experience.

Methods. Fourteen parent-child dyads from the Family …

The Information-Seeking Strategies Of Humanities Scholars Using Resources In Languages Other Than English, Carol Sabbar

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

THE INFORMATION-SEEKING STRATEGIES OF HUMANITIES SCHOLARS

USING RESOURCES IN LANGUAGES OTHER THAN ENGLISH

by

Carol Sabbar

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2016

Under the Supervision of Dr. Iris Xie

This dissertation explores the information-seeking strategies used by scholars in the humanities who rely on resources in languages other than English. It investigates not only the strategies they choose but also the shifts that they make among strategies and the role that language, culture, and geography play in the information-seeking context. The study used purposive sampling to engage 40 human subjects, all of whom are post-doctoral humanities scholars based in the …

The L2 Perceptual Mapping Of Arabic And English Consonants By American English Learners, Zafer Lababidi

Theses and Dissertations

There has been rapid growth in Arabic learning in the United States. With that increase, many learners of Arabic often experience difficulties in learning some Arabic sounds. Among these are the Arabic plain sounds /t, d, ð, s/ and emphatic sounds /tʕ, dʕ, ðʕ, sʕ/. Many studies have proposed that these difficulties are related to the relationship between sounds in learners’ first language (L1) and those in the target language (L2) (Flege, 1987 and 1995; Best, 1995 and 1999; Best, McRoberts, & Sithole, 1988; Best & Tyler, 2007). Previous studies have examined the perceptual patterns of these sounds by relying …