Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Examining Differences In Self-Concept And Language Between Monolingual And Bilingual Undergraduate Students, Marilyn Vega-Wagner

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The literature is lacking in studies that examine self-concept and language status among individuals older than adolescence. The purpose of this study is to conduct a quantitative nonexperimental comparative design to examine differences in self-concept and language status (monolingual or bilingual) between male and female undergraduate students in California. A total of 97 participants were examined in the study. The researcher conducted descriptive statistics on the demographics as well as a MANOVA and an ANOVA to answer the proposed research question. Based on the findings presented, the researcher failed to reject the null hypothesis of research question 1: There is …

How Phonological And Syntactic Overlap Impact Cognate Processing Speeds In Bilinguals, Ella Marie Peterson

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This paper investigates individuals who are proficient in two languages (bilinguals) and the speeds at which bilinguals process cognates (words with comparable form and meaning across languages). This paper cites two ongoing experiments: The Language Identification (LID) task and the Self-Paced Listening (SPL) task. Findings from the LID suggest that phonological overlap in cognates facilitates bilingual language processing speeds, when cognates are presented in isolation. Findings from the SPL suggest that syntactic overlap in cognates also facilitates bilingual language processing speeds, when cognates are presented in sentences. These findings are significant in that the tasks present cognates to participants in …

Ya Llegamos | We Are Here, Audrey Hermila Salgado

Senior Projects Spring 2023

ya llegamos | we are here, a Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College, is piece on gender and migration. It is a play that explores how family dynamics, class issues, education, and gender play a role in why people leave their home country. It explores the journey and relationship of Saturnina and Francisco as they travel across the Mexico/U.S. border.

Intelligence Testing In The New (Langu)Age: Effects Of Item-Type And Assessment Medium Features On Fluid Intelligence Test Linguistic Group Score Differences, Paige R. Alenick

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As fluid intelligence tests are an integral part of modern employee selection protocols, assessment designers are tasked to ensure the construct is measured accurately for all test-takers regardless of their demographic traits. Disparities in bilingual and monolingual working memory capabilities, which are critical for successful fluid intelligence test performance, might make it challenging for test designers to accomplish this goal. Best design practice in such cases is to identify assessment conditions that allow for equitable expression of the test construct. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine whether the content of items present on a fluid intelligence test …

The Language-Dream Relationship In Multilinguals, Brittany Dishaun Burkes

Dissertations

According to the United States Census Bureau, the United States alone is host to around 350 languages. When it comes to investigating languages in dreams by multilinguals, some studies have focused heavily on only two languages—Spanish and English. The purpose of this study was to add to the understanding of how language use relates to the dream content of multilinguals. This study recruited the assistance of nine polylingual individuals. The participants were instructed to record their dreams in the languages in which they occurred for 2 weeks. After 2 weeks, the participants translated their dreams into English in order for …

Effect Of Instruction Language On English-Spanish Bilinguals' Speech Perception, Alexa Andrade

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Throughout the years, researchers have investigated the various advantages that may exist of being bilingual; however, it is unknown how switching between languages affects a person’s basic perception of speech sounds. The goal of this thesis was to determine whether Spanish-English bilinguals respond to auditory stimuli differently based on the language in which they receive task instructions. Participants were randomly assigned to receive instructions and complete the study entirely in English or Spanish, thus thinking in the language that they were assigned. In the study, participants listened to three different sets of recordings, which could be perceived as a word …

A Survey Of Practitioner Methods And Decision-Makng In Evaluation Of Diverse Students, Noelle Ferrara

Theses and Dissertations

It is estimated by the year 2060, minority students will make up more than 50% of the United States population (Ding, Cho, Wang & Yu, 2019). The importance of correctly identifying and placing students in special education is becoming crucial as the population of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse students (CLD) and English Language Learners (ELL) is increasing. Bilingual school psychologists are few in number across the nation. Moreover, the most significant problem with regard to bilingual assessment is the lack of a set of standards or guidelines by which practitioners can be held responsible for their assessment practices. The Standards …

La Adquisición De Los Verbos Posicionales En Niños Bilingües De Zapoteco-Español En Un Contexto De Pérdida Lingüística, Ana D. Alonso Ortiz

Doctoral Dissertations

The present study investigates the acquisition of positional verbs on bilingual children of Zapotec and Spanish in the indigenous community of Hidalgo Yalalag in Oaxaca, Mexico. The main research question is how bilingual children of Zapotec-Spanish acquire positional verbs in a language shift and language displacement context. Ninety-four young scholars between the ages of five to ten years old took part in this study. They participated in three tasks, a vocabulary task, an acceptability task, and a production task. A sociolinguistic questionnaire was also employed. The vocabulary task goal was to recruit and identify participants for the study. The acceptability …

Creating Appropriate Clinical Guidelines For The Bilingual Population With Acquired Brain Injuries, Sophia L. Pena

Dissertations

While there is a growing bilingual demographic in the United States, relatively little is known about treating this population should they experience a brain injury. This is a growing area of interest, as research has demonstrated that the acquisition of a second language promotes neuroplastic changes that then impact brain functioning pre- and post-brain-injury. Given bilingualism’s cognitive complexity, clinicians are left with challenges on how best to tailor treatment for brain-injured bilingual populations. Therefore, the focus of this review was to provide clinical recommendations to clinicians performing assessments with bilingual individuals with acquired brain injuries. The goal was for the …

Serving Culturally And Linguistic Students Identified With A Communication Disability In The K-12 Educational Environments, Lashell Dauterman

Theses and Dissertations

As more and more students enter public schools with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds that require services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, facilitators must be more sensitive to the needs, especially in the area of communication. Augmentative and alternative communication devices and other assistive technology are required by law to be utilized with individuals identified as disabled. However, due to the challenges that exist in properly identifying and implementing intervention plans for children who require services as English language learners and special education, communication needs are often misidentified or not provided. Another issue that exists is the lack …

Educators Bailan With Policy Et Le Pouvoir In The Educação Of Multicultural And Multilingual Learners (Wida Eld Standards And The Education Of English Learners), Fernanda Marinho Kray

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The larger frame of this study contributes to the literature that examines how educators negotiate, contest, appropriate, and reconstruct federal and state-level policy in their classrooms. More specifically, the study contributes to the field of language education policy, and in particular to how educators make sense of, and implement, English Language Development (ELD) Standards. I focus on WIDA ELD Standards, as they are currently in use in 42 U.S. states, territories, and federal agencies as well as more than 500 international schools throughout the world. The literature review identifies a problem for standards-based education systems using the 2012 WIDA Standards …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of The Training And Supervision Provided To Spanish/English Bilingual Graduate Students, Sonia Venegas Mezquita

Theses and Dissertations

Spanish/English bilingual graduate students (n = 7) completed interviews evaluating language variables, training variables, and supervision related experiences. Experiences were gathered through the use of open-ended questions which focused on participants' linguistics abilities, program coursework, training experiences, and supervision experiences. A phenomenological research design was applied to analyze the collected data from the qualitative interviews. A phenomenological research design uses the collection of qualitative (open-ended) data in response to the research question (Mruk, 2010). Results indicated that the most common areas in the program which graduate students identified as most helpful in preparation for working with Spanish-speaking Latinx clients were …

Examining The Experiences Of Chinese Multilingual Therapists In Training, Stephanie Li-Wei Lin

Doctoral Dissertations

According to the 2015 Census, 44% of people ages five and older in California speak a language other than English in their household, indicating the growth of multilingual persons in California. Among the top three languages spoken at home in California, Chinese takes third following English and Spanish. The demand for multilingual mental health services may continue to grow with the increase of multilingual individuals. Although there is an increase in need for multilingual mental health services, there remains a lack of formal training and clinical supervision for multilingual trainees. This study adopted a qualitative approach and utilized semi-structured interviews …

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 …

Fictional Narrative Skills Of Preschool-Age Bilingual Children With Typical Language Development, Lydia Bias

Honors Projects

Oral narrative retells are commonly used in assessment to examine language and literacy development in young children. Due to the increasing number of bilingual children in the United States, it is necessary to understand typical development in order to assess and intervene when needed. English story retells from eight preschool-age Spanish-English bilingual children were analyzed in the present study using the Narrative Assessment Protocol. Analyses were conducted to examine differences in narrative microstructure at two time points. In the present study, a Wilcoxon Signed Rank Sum test which is a nonparametric statistical measure was used to determine whether there was …

Examining Different Patterns Of Children’S Early Dual Language Development And Nonverbal Executive Functioning, Audrey C. Juhasz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Children from non-English-speaking homes often lag behind their English speaking peers academically. However, people who speak two languages often have better executive functioning skills than people who speak only one language. Executive functions are neurologically-based skills related to managing oneself to achieve a goal. The relation between bilingualism and executive function may be due to how two languages are processed in the brain. However, it is unclear if more balanced bilinguals experience larger gains in executive function than people who are less balanced.

Children from low-income homes are at a disadvantage as compared to children from homes with higher incomes. …

Bilingual Family Literacy Programming In West Michigan: Points Of Alignment And Disconnect Among Learners, Instructors, And Local Partners, Thomas J. Rogers

Masters Theses

This research explores the beliefs and experiences of stakeholders in a family literacy program through the Literacy Center of West Michigan and Head Start for Kent County. The program is currently developing a curriculum to improve outcomes for learner specific goals. Therefore, one motivation behind this research is to analyze the goals, needs, and understandings for the multiple stakeholders within the program. On a national scale, there exists a need to better define the goals of family literacy programming in general. Points of alignment and disconnect for the participants in this study reflect realities that extend beyond the program at …

An Investigation Of The Loci Of Bilingual Switch Costs During Reading Comprehension, Joseph Anthony Negron

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In the present study, we examined whether the comprehension of language switches can be accounted for exclusively by activation dynamics within the lexicon, or whether there is evidence that cognitive general control processes outside of the lexicon are also engaged. In Experiment 1 we compared the fixation durations made on words embedded in either language pure or language switched sentences. The critical words were either cognates or non-cognate controls and served as the switch point in the language switched versions of the sentences. An overall switch cost was observed, which did not interact with cognate status or direction of the …

System Challenges For Bilingual Clinical Social Work In Forensic Settings, Roberto G. Arroyo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Little information exists about challenges that bilingual clinical social workers face when engaging individuals with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) in forensic settings, which may influence the efficacy of services provided. Bilingual clinical social workers in the U.S. state of South Carolina lack operational guidelines to assist people with LEP who are involved in forensic matters. The purpose of this study was to explore challenges that affect delivery of bilingual clinical social work to people with LEP in forensic settings. Ecological systems theory served as the conceptual framework for this study. Purposive and snowball sampling methods led to the participation of …

Effects Of An Elementary Immersion Program On Academic Achievement In Core Subject Areas, Marlee Schmidt

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

This study sought to find out if students who became bilingual score

higher, lower, or the same on standardized tests as their monolingual peers across

multiple disciplines. An answer was obtained by comparing the Minnesota

Comprehensive Assessment scores of Spanish language immersion students to

scores of non-immersion students for the following subject areas: reading in

grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10; math in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 11; and science

in 5, 8, and high school. The scores used came from a graduating class of 2018

with approximately 342 students. Data was analyzed …

Burnout Among Bilingual Social Service Providers, Marlene Reyes

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study focuses on burnout among bilingual Social Service Providers (BSSPs) and examines their thoughts and beliefs on the interconnection of their bilingual/bicultural skills and higher risk of burnout. The findings from this study have significant ramifications for the social service field on both Macro and Micro levels. At a Micro scale, the data validates the additional responsibilities of BSSP’s, while bringing more awareness to this group of professionals. Additional findings contribute to new policies regarding BSSPs job responsibilities; for example, accurate job descriptions and training for positions that require translation and interpretation. An exploratory study using qualitative data was …

The Emotional Effects Of Life Experience On Bilingual Speakers' Nonverbal Communications, Sarah Marie Webb

Theses and Dissertations

This research is intended to demonstrate that bilingual speakers exhibit nonverbal behavior and emotional expressions that affect their ability to communicate in their intended manner. I argue that these changes are linked to the emotional ties to experiences in those languages. The nonverbal traits that appear when bilingual speakers share personal narratives in different languages are measured through facial recognition and emotion sensory software for evidentiary support in establishing intent versus actual self-presentation. New methods of self-analysis are discussed and utilized to determine if the speakers are inherently aware of these changes or can notice them through cross linguistic self-analyses.

The Impact Of Animacy And Positioning On The Production Of Second Language Referring Expressions, Adonis De Carvalho Borges

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Researches have investigated how referring expressions are produced based upon second language acquisition and psycholinguistics theories. A study of monolingual English speakers demonstrated that referent's salience and discourse factors might impact referring expression choice between noun phrases and pronouns. Participants demonstrated a higher production of pronouns when the referent expression was animate rather than inanimate and a preference for noun phrases when the referent was the second noun phrase of the referent's context sentence (Fukumura & Van Gompel, 2011). In addition, an investigation with Hispanic bilinguals, whose L2 is English, demonstrated, in general, a greater preference for pronouns rather than …

Japanese-English Bilinguals’ Competence Of Speech Acts In Politeness, Chikako Takehara

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The perceptions and norms of speech acts vary depending on the actor’s culture and language (Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989; Rinnert & Kobayashi, 1999). Politeness also has diverse benchmarks depending on culture and language, as noted by Ide et al. (1992) who argue that the concept of politeness is different in Japanese and English. When considering the fact that it is challenging to possess bicultural competence and equal proficiency in both languages (Baker, 2011), how one retains this competence becomes a noteworthy question. Thus, this study investigated whether bilinguals who move to a L2 dominant country retain their communicative competence …

Effects Of Cultural Factors In Sports-Related Concussion Testing Performance Of Collegiate Athletes, Gabriela Andrea González Torres

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to explore potential differences in preseason baseline concussion testing between an ethnically and linguistically diverse sample of Division 2 NCAA collegiate student-athletes. A value-added second aim was to create awareness regarding the implications of multiculturalism as it relates to neuropsychological testing of sport related concussions. This study is part of a, slow yet steady, growing body of research concerning diversity issues within the sport setting. 479 Division II collegiate athletes from the Florida Institute of Technology were assessed during mandatory preseason baseline testing. The Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing, the Sports Concussion …

Multilingualism And Ego Depletion In Interference Task Performance – Are Multilingual Brains More Intelligent Than Monolingual Brains?, Dorota B. Botwina

Theses and Dissertations

Research linking multilingualism with better executive control has produced inconsistent findings. Since definitive empirical evidence is not available, this study seeks to explore whether these advantages really exist. The Flanker Task followed an ego depletion task that was introduced to participants who were monolingual, bilingual and trilingual.

Monolingual And Bilingual Children's Language-Based Social Preferences In A Predominantly Monolingual Environment, Rachel Marie Stevens

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Monolingual children consistently display Social preferences for individuals who speak their native language with a native accent compared to individuals who speak a foreign language or speak their native language with a foreign accent. Two explanations have been proposed for these language-based preferences. The first explanation is that language cues a child to in-group membership and children prefer to affiliate with individuals who are members of the same in-group. The second explanation is that children display preferences for their native language and accent because that is what they are most familiar with, and children prefer familiarity over the unknown. The …

Language-Mixing In Discourse In Bilingual Individuals With Non-Fluent Aphasia, Avanthi Paplikar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Language-mixing (LM) as defined by Chengappa (2009, p. 417) is an “intra-sentential phenomenon referred to as the mixing of various linguistic units (morphemes, words, modifiers, phrases, etc.), primarily from two participating grammatical systems”. LM is influenced by grammatical, environmental, and social constraints (e.g., Milroy & Wei, 1995; Bhat & Chengappa, 2005). Researchers have suggested that LM in patients with aphasia is a communicative strategy used to achieve successful exchanges between speakers; the effectiveness of this mixing, however, had yet to be demonstrated quantitatively.

In the current study we investigated whether LM is present in bilingual speakers with aphasia, and if …

The Understanding Of Implied Meaning In Monolingual And Bilingual Children, Kenah Linger

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The development of pragmatic language and how it is treated cognitively in monolingual and bilingual speakers is a topic of debate. Language pragmatic skills can include: knowing that you have to answer a question that is being asked, being able to participate in conversation by taking turns, and the ability to maintain a topic. Furthermore, the study of pragmatics has also focused on understanding how we comprehend language that is not explicit. For example, comprehending the sentence, "We'd love to have you over for dinner" involves deciding whether this is an invitation, a statement of desire, or even an empty …

Mandarin Chinese As A Second Language: A Review Of Literature, Wesley A. Spencer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Mandarin Chinese has become increasing prevalent in the modern world. Accordingly, research of Chinese as a second language has developed greatly over the past few decades. This paper reviews research on the difficulties of acquiring a second language in general and research that specifically details the difficulty of acquiring Chinese as a second language. Based on this research, the author also reveals some areas that should be researched further in order to advance the field.