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Articles 1 - 27 of 27
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Some Features Of Participant Reference In Xochapa Mixtec, Laura J. Cline
Some Features Of Participant Reference In Xochapa Mixtec, Laura J. Cline
Theses and Dissertations
Many works have been published about the grammar and phonology of Mixtecan languages, but relatively little has been written about the discourse features of these languages. One of these areas of discourse where relatively little research has been done is that of participant reference.
This thesis explores the features of participant reference in one Mixtec language, Xochapa Mixtec, by examining the use of nouns, pronouns, and deictic phrases in eight Xochapa Mixtec texts. The texts used in this research were transcribed from audio recordings and then analyzed with respect to the participant reference forms they employed. The thesis begins with …
Reference Tracking In Ethiopian Sign Language, Katelin Jo French
Reference Tracking In Ethiopian Sign Language, Katelin Jo French
Theses and Dissertations
Very little has been written about Ethiopian Sign Language, but the language has obvious differences from more well-studied signed languages. This thesis focuses on striking differences in reference tracking: looking at all the different referring types—lexical items, points, eye gaze, body shift, agreement, and zero reference—and their distribution throughout narrative texts. Through this process, Ethiopian Sign Language has proved different from expectations based on previously studied signed languages. This language uses loci with much more flexibility, depending on role shift alone to strongly establish loci for entities. Another way this language differs from other languages is its lack of entity …
Segmental Contributions To Speech Intelligibility In Nonconcatenative Vs. Concatenative Languages, Yahya Aldholmi
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 …
The Effects Of Teacher Background On How Teachers Assess Native-Like And Nonnative-Like Grammar Errors: An Eye-Tracking Study, Wesley Makoto Schramm
The Effects Of Teacher Background On How Teachers Assess Native-Like And Nonnative-Like Grammar Errors: An Eye-Tracking Study, Wesley Makoto Schramm
Theses and Dissertations
Studies have shown that composition and L2 writing teachers give different scores (Golombek, Weigle, Boldt, & Valsecchi, 2003) and focus on different features (Brown, 1991) when assessing student writing, which is assumed to be due to the differences in their background and training (Santos, 1992; Atkinson & Ramanathan, 1995). Error gravity is thought to be one reason why composition and L2 writing teachers give different scores (Rifkin & Roberts, 1995). Common methods for examining error gravity were to analyze scores and responses given by the raters and to have raters reflect on the rating process and analyze their responses. Only …
Second Language Semantic Retrieval In The Bilingual Mind: The Case Of Korean-English Expert Bilinguals, Janice Si-Man Lam
Second Language Semantic Retrieval In The Bilingual Mind: The Case Of Korean-English Expert Bilinguals, Janice Si-Man Lam
Theses and Dissertations
The present study aims to explore the relationship between proficiency level and semantic retrieval in the second language. A group of Korean bilinguals who speak English with high proficiency performed semantic relatedness judgement tasks of two hundred English word pairs. Unbeknownst to the participants, half of the words in both the related and the unrelated categories contained a "hidden prime"—a common first syllable shared by the two words, if translated into Korean. Each participant's event-related potential (ERP) was recorded while reading the words. While a former study by Thierry and Wu (2007) found that Chinese-English bilinguals were affected by the …
Italian As A Heritage Language Spoken In The Us, Maria Teresa Bonfatti Sabbioni
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 …
A Phonology Of Hill (Kone-Tu) Asho, Daniel Tignor
A Phonology Of Hill (Kone-Tu) Asho, Daniel Tignor
Theses and Dissertations
Asho (ISO 639-3: csh) is a Tibeto-Burman language in the Southern Chin branch of Kuki-Chin. It is spoken by about 170,000 people, primarily in western and west-central Myanmar (Simons & Fennig 2018). Although Asho received some early attention in the studies of Tibeto-Burman languages (Houghton 1892; Joorman 1906), it has remained mostly unstudied for the past century. Current data confirm the traditional distinction of two basic dialects of Asho (Hill and Plains), and this paper focuses on the Hill or "Kone-tu" dialect. The Hill dialect has 26 consonants (compared to 29 in the Plains dialect), and both dialects have 14 …
Modest Dress As Literacy Practice In English-Speaking Conservative Mennonite Groups, Megan Lois Mong
Modest Dress As Literacy Practice In English-Speaking Conservative Mennonite Groups, Megan Lois Mong
Theses and Dissertations
English-speaking conservative Mennonites exercise a distinct set of dress practices that are not often understood by people outside the community. Advances in New Literacy Studies pave the way to understand their dress practices as a type of literacy. Multiple literacies work together to inform conservative Mennonite dress practices. One of these literacies is the reading and writing of religious texts. A second literacy is a form of heritage literacy where clothing functions as a multimodal text. Conservative Mennonites use their clothing to codify their Christian identity, gender roles and church affiliation. They intend their clothing to represent who they are …
The Impact Of Translation On Constructed Action And Constructed Dialogue In Asl Texts, Beth C. Gray
The Impact Of Translation On Constructed Action And Constructed Dialogue In Asl Texts, Beth C. Gray
Theses and Dissertations
Depiction, a phenomenon similar to iconicity, involves representing what something "looks like or is like" (Streeck 2008:289). Because depiction is used more heavily in sign languages than spoken languages (Dudis 2007), people interpreting or translating spoken/written texts into signed languages struggle to use depiction naturally (Thumann 2011). This thesis analyzes constructed action (CA) and constructed dialogue (CD), two types of depiction in which the signer's hands represent those of a discourse participant. Using Tannen (1989) & Metzger's (1995) framework of non-directly-quoted CACD and Quinto-Pozos & Mehta's (2010) degrees of CA, I examine differences between narratives originally composed in ASL and …
The Role Of The Syllable Contact Law-Semisyllable (Scl-Semi) In The Coda Clusters Of Najdi Arabic And Other Languages, Reham Alhammad
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 …
Backward Transfer Of Apology Strategies From Japanese To English: Do English L1 Speakers Use Japanese-Style Apologies When Speaking English?, Candice April Flowers
Backward Transfer Of Apology Strategies From Japanese To English: Do English L1 Speakers Use Japanese-Style Apologies When Speaking English?, Candice April Flowers
Theses and Dissertations
When learning a second language, there are elements of a learner's native language that can transfer and are exhibited during production in the second language. This can extend not only to the way things are said but even to gestures that are language- and speech-act-specific. However, there is evidence that the same can occur backwards, that is to say that elements of a second language can be exhibited during production of one's native language (Pavlenko and Jarvis, 2002). This study focuses on English L1 learners of Japanese who have spent significant time both in country and learning the language to …
A Critical Interpretation Of Study Abroad, Participant Identity, And Second Language Learning, Laura Edwards
A Critical Interpretation Of Study Abroad, Participant Identity, And Second Language Learning, Laura Edwards
Theses and Dissertations
In this study I explore the history of study abroad as a sojourn for the privileged, notions of whiteness, institutional racism and inequality, and nationality and linguicism, and apply theory from critical applied linguistics and post-colonialism to analyze and interpret data collected from five participants of either a semester or year-long study abroad at the Centre International d’Études Françaises (CIDEF) in Angers, France. The principal research questions are: What is the nature of how students negotiate their identities (racial, national, and gender), L2 learning, and engagement (or lack of) with various communities of practice while studying abroad in a non-English …
Speaking Of Existence: A Previously Unmentioned Meta-Ontological Dispute Between Quinean Ontologists, Charles Norwood Thorne Perkins
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 …
Applying The Developmental Path Of English Negation To The Automated Scoring Of Learner Essays, Allen Travis Moore
Applying The Developmental Path Of English Negation To The Automated Scoring Of Learner Essays, Allen Travis Moore
Theses and Dissertations
The resources required to have humans score extended written response items in English language learner (ELL) contexts has caused automated essay scoring (AES) to emerge as a desired alternative. However, these systems often rely heavily on indirect proxies of writing quality such as word, sentence, and essay lengths because of their strong correlation to scores (Vajjala, 2017). This has led to concern about the validity of the features used to establish the predictive accuracy of AES systems (Attali, 2007; Weigle, 2013). Reliance on construct-irrelevant features in ELL contexts also forfeits the opportunity to provide meaningful diagnostic feedback to test-takers or …
Cultural Differences In Russian And English Magazine Advertising: A Pragmatic Approach, Emily Kay Furner
Cultural Differences In Russian And English Magazine Advertising: A Pragmatic Approach, Emily Kay Furner
Theses and Dissertations
Many American companies looking to increase sales and achieve growth targets consider expanding the reach of their product lines to other countries. However, expansion on a global scale often requires much trial and error as English-speaking companies try to market their goods to a foreign audience. In order to ease this process, localization experts are often hired to "localize" or change advertisements in order to make them more culturally relevant to consumers. Because the field of localization is relatively new, there is little research done on the degree and extent to which advertisements are localized. The purpose of this study …
Performance Self-Appraisal Calibration Of Esl Students On A Proficiency Reading Test, Jodi Mikolajcik Petersen
Performance Self-Appraisal Calibration Of Esl Students On A Proficiency Reading Test, Jodi Mikolajcik Petersen
Theses and Dissertations
Self-assessment as a placement measure or accurate assessment of skill has been scrutinized in previous research. Findings have shown a general human tendency towards overconfidence in performance (Kruger & Dunning, 1999). This study looks at performance self-appraisals in an ESL population, with participants from varying cultural backgrounds. Performance self-appraisal calibration is a measure of the relationship between an examinee's perceived skill (or confidence) and their actual skill (or ability) on a given exam item (Phakiti, 2016). Being well-calibrated is an indication that test takers know their strengths and weaknesses and thus the difference between confidence and ability is minimal, whereas …
Investigating The Perception Of Identity Shift In Trilingual Speakers: A Case Study, Elena Vasilachi
Investigating The Perception Of Identity Shift In Trilingual Speakers: A Case Study, Elena Vasilachi
Theses and Dissertations
This is a case study that examines the perception of identity shift in trilingual speakers. The participants were three females from Moldova, a country in Eastern Europe, that have moved to the U.S. Participants responded to open-ended questions during an individual interview and self-report. The questions were about (1) the way they think in their native language, (2) the way they feel in different situations while switching languages, and (3) their interactions with others, depending on their relationships with the participants, the situation, and the language they use at that moment. Primary findings suggest that trilingual speakers perceive a shift …
Switch-Reference In Pastaza Kichwa, Alexander Harrison Rice
Switch-Reference In Pastaza Kichwa, Alexander Harrison Rice
Theses and Dissertations
Pastaza Kichwa is a Quechuan language spoken in eastern Ecuador. This thesis describes its use of switch-reference which is traditionally understood to be an interclausal cross-referencing feature. Switch-reference is manifested by one of two morphemes that mark a subordinate clause as having either the same or different subject as another clause. Switch-reference has been described for other Quechuan languages and some of these studies present challenges to the theoretical underpinnings of switch reference (Stewart 1988, Dreidemie 2007) others present associated functions of switch-reference morphemes (Cole 1982). This study tests some of the propositions made about switch-reference in other Quechuan languages …
Pun Strategies Across Joke Schemata: A Corpus-Based Study, Robert Nishan Crapo
Pun Strategies Across Joke Schemata: A Corpus-Based Study, Robert Nishan Crapo
Theses and Dissertations
In the linguistic study of humor, research has largely been centered around the formulation of models and theories or the dissecting and categorization of jokes. Because of the often difficult-to-categorize aspects of verbal jokes, much time has been spent trying to create taxonomies for humor types and mechanisms. Linguists such as Raskin and Attardo have sought to categorize all verbal humor according to various functional elements (Attardo & Raskin, 1991). Such elements include, but are not limited to, the logical mechanism that drives the humor in the joke or the situation where the joke takes place. These categorizations are helpful …
Rubric Rating With Mfrm Vs. Randomly Distributed Comparative Judgment: A Comparison Of Two Approaches To Second-Language Writing Assessment, Maureen Estelle Sims
Rubric Rating With Mfrm Vs. Randomly Distributed Comparative Judgment: A Comparison Of Two Approaches To Second-Language Writing Assessment, Maureen Estelle Sims
Theses and Dissertations
The purpose of this study is to explore a potentially more practical approach to direct writing assessment using computer algorithms. Traditional rubric rating (RR) is a common yet highly resource-intensive evaluation practice when performed reliably. This study compared the traditional rubric model of ESL writing assessment and many-facet Rasch modeling (MFRM) to comparative judgment (CJ), the new approach, which shows promising results in terms of reliability and validity. We employed two groups of raters”novice and experienced”and used essays that had been previously double-rated, analyzed with MFRM, and selected with fit statistics. We compared the results of the novice and experienced …
An Analysis Of Rehearsed Speech Characteristics On The Oral Proficiency Interview—Computer (Opic), Gwyneth Elaine Gates
An Analysis Of Rehearsed Speech Characteristics On The Oral Proficiency Interview—Computer (Opic), Gwyneth Elaine Gates
Theses and Dissertations
The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines identify memorized words and phrases as a hallmark of novice-level speech. For this reason, research by Cox (2017) found rehearsed content to be a major hindrance to interviewees being rated at higher sublevels on the Oral Proficiency Interview-computer (OPIc). To further investigate, an analysis of these memorized segments to determine patterns of lexico-grammatical and discursive features was conducted. In this study, researchers utilized a Praat analysis to compare prosodic features (specifically, mean length of utterance, number of silent pauses, and articulation rate) of speech segments marked as memorized and those which were not. A qualitative analysis …
Evaluating The Effectiveness Of A Korean Heritage-Speaking Interpreter, Yoonjoo Lee
Evaluating The Effectiveness Of A Korean Heritage-Speaking Interpreter, Yoonjoo Lee
Theses and Dissertations
The U.S. is a country of immigrants who are non-native speakers of English (NNS), yet its legal system is not always in the favor of them. One of the issues for the NNSs is not being provided with proficient interpreters in legal settings such as police interrogations or courtrooms. There are times when some NNSs are offered qualified interpreters or translators, but others are provided with heritages speakers of needed languages in the local area. The heritages speakers are often thought to have good proficiency in languages, but unfortunately thats not always the case. To investigate the need for qualified …
Los Pronombres De Segunda Persona Del Singular Y La Cortesía Verbal En Español Peninsular Y En Euskera, Gorka Basterretxea Santiso
Los Pronombres De Segunda Persona Del Singular Y La Cortesía Verbal En Español Peninsular Y En Euskera, Gorka Basterretxea Santiso
Theses and Dissertations
A través de los pronombres de segunda persona del singular se pueden establecer una serie de relaciones personales entre los hablantes en cada idioma. Abundantes trabajos han sido ya publicados en relación a esta cuestión lingüística tanto en español como en euskera, sobre todo para delimitar sus ámbitos de uso, pero en ningún caso se han realizado estudios comparativos dentro de la pragmática intercultural sobre estos dos idiomas vecinos a este respecto. Tomando como punto de partida los pronombres de segunda persona del singular del español peninsular –tú y usted– y los del euskera –hi y zu–, el presente trabajo …
Effectiveness And Impact Of The Sheltered Instruction Observational Protocol On Ell Student Academic Achievement, Gladymar Soto-Huertas
Effectiveness And Impact Of The Sheltered Instruction Observational Protocol On Ell Student Academic Achievement, Gladymar Soto-Huertas
Theses and Dissertations
This applied dissertation was designed to determine the effectiveness of using the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol with fidelity for English Language Learners (ELL) and its impact on student academic achievement through FCAT Reading and FSA scores. In a high school located in Central Florida that served approximately 2,244 students there were 1,129 (50.6%) students classified as English Language Learners (ELLs), by the 2016-17 school year the school expected to have 62% of their entire student body passing state mandated assessments in order to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) (PCSB, 2013).
In order for the aforementioned to take place it was …
Towards A Typographical Linguistics: The Semantics-Pragmatics Of Typographic Emphasis In Discourse, Jefferson Maia
Towards A Typographical Linguistics: The Semantics-Pragmatics Of Typographic Emphasis In Discourse, Jefferson Maia
Theses and Dissertations
The standard view of the effects of typographic emphasis in English is that type styles (e.g., capitals, italics) enhance memory for emphasized information to the detriment of reading speed and without contributing semantically or pragmatically meaningful information to the text. Fewer emphasis studies that have concerned themselves with reference questions offer off-line evidence that typography interacts with linguistic variables and, more specifically, that it adds a modulatory or a contrastive layer of meaning to the interpretation of referential expressions. No study to date has investigated, however, whether typographic emphasis can bring a referent into discourse focus and consequently affect the …
The Role Of Cohesion In Second Language Reading Comprehension, Alisha Biler
The Role Of Cohesion In Second Language Reading Comprehension, Alisha Biler
Theses and Dissertations
Reading in a second language (L2) is a critical aspect of language acquisition, yet gaps remain in the literature regarding the extent to which textual factors impact reading difficulty. There is consensus that complex vocabulary and grammar affect L2 comprehension (Koda, 2005), and this is evidenced through the numerous traditional readability formulas, such as Flesch-Kincaid (FKGL). However, critics argue that discourse-level features, such as cohesion, also impact reading difficulty and must be included in difficulty analyses (Carrell, 1987).
One aspect of cohesion is content word overlap, or the number of content words repeated in a text; this measure is included …
Language, Literacy, And Conscientização In American Public Schools, Julie Ward
Language, Literacy, And Conscientização In American Public Schools, Julie Ward
Theses and Dissertations
Language, Literacy, and Conscientização in American Public Schools synthesizes poststructural language theory to critique literacy teaching and assessment norms in American public schools in order to theorize a pedagogy of racial and economic justice that embraces globalization and immigration. Chapter I creates a theoretical framework for language that rests firmly on both Lev Vygotsky’s and Jacques Lacan’s sociohistorical approach to language acquisition and language use. Mikhail Bakhtin’s work demonstrates the heteroglossic nature of discourse, while Antonio Gramsci politicizes this framework through an understanding of hegemony. Chapter II sketches ethnographic research on teaching practices of various American communities, focusing on ideology …