Applied Linguistics Commons^™

The Home-School Connection: Parental Influences On A Child's Esl Acquisition, Catharine Jauhiainen

Dissertations and Theses

Few would dispute the tremendous impact that parents have on the intellectual, emotional, and social development of their children. An important issue in child second language acquisition is whether, or to what extent, parental attitudes and behaviors are associated with the success of language minority children in elementary ESL and mainstream classroom settings. The effects of parental educational values and expectations, and parental perception of ability to assist in the educational journey of their offspring, have been the focus of much research regarding majority language children. However, research exploring the beliefs and behaviors of language minority parents and their relationship …

Opening Doors: Culture Learning And Conversational Narratives With First Generation Hmong Refugee Women, Lucy Vincent Kimbro

Dissertations and Theses

The life experiences of two first generation Hmong refugee women form the basis of this study. Through loosely structured but guided interviews, memories of their lives in Laos and in refugee camps in Thailand, as well as their perspectives, feelings, and opinions about current aspects of their lives, the effects of American culture on their family; and their engagement in the language and culture learning process are explored.

An examination of the involvement of Hmong women in research and ethnographic accounts concerning Hmong culture, history, and experience, show that Hmong women's perspectives have often been overlooked or disregarded. One purpose …

Analysis Of Rhetorical Organization And Style Patterns In Korean And American Business Fax Letters Of Complaint In English, Mi Young Park

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to find out if Korean and American business people use different rhetorical patterns in business writing, and if so, how these patterns differ. Specifically, this study examined rhetorical organization and style patterns of Korean and American business letter writing in English to determine differences.

The data used in this study consisted exclusively of fax transmitted business letters of complaint written in English obtained from seven companies in Korea. The sample consisted of seven letters written by American business people and fourteen by Korean business people. They were analyzed according to a predetermined set of …

The Importance Of Time For Processing In Second Language Comprehension And Acquisition, Jennifer Lee Watson

Dissertations and Theses

Research findings on the positive impact of interaction on comprehension have led to questions regarding both the connection between comprehension and acquisition and the qualities of interaction which facilitate understanding (Ellis et al. 1994). Ellis et al. found that a high degree of comprehension on an activity which contained unknown words correlated with a high rate of vocabulary acquisition. The present study replicates the activity and testing procedures used by Ellis et al. The main focus of the Ellis et al. study was the connection between second language comprehension and acquisition. This study differs from Ellis et al. in that …

English As The World's Language, Eugene Chen Eoyang

文學與翻譯研究中心 論文叢刊 Centre for Literature and Translation Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Towards A Taxonomy Of Linguistic Jokes, Robert Lew

Robert Lew

A classification system for linguistic jokes is proposed: (1) verbal, (2) syntactic, (3) phonological, (4) orthographic, (5) deicitc reference, (6) specific vs nonspecific interpretation, (7) pragmatic ambiguity, (8) type of modality, & (9) multiple ambiguity. Under (3), it is noted that dialect differences can contribute to the relative success or failure of these jokes. In discussing (4), it is noted that this type may increase in popularity, due primarily to the pervasiveness of electronic communication & Internet access. Additionally, it is maintained that (4) should be considered a subtype, because other categories may also apply, making this a weaker taxonomic …

Video Self-Monitoring As An Alternative To Traditional Methods Of Pronunciation Instruction, P. C. Noble

Dissertations and Theses

Japanese students of English have difficulty pronouncing /f/, Ir/, /1/, /v/ and "th", sounds that are either not present in their language, or as in the case of /r/, articulated in Japanese more like an English /di. Their difficulty with these sounds seems to affect their comprehensibility in English to native-speakers of English.

The purpose of this partial replication of a 1994 study by MacDonald, Yule and Powers was to test three different methods of pronunciation instruction ( and a control) to determine which promoted the greatest improvement in the pronunciation of the five target sounds among Japanese speakers. The …

A Comparison Of Two Second Language Acquisition Models For Culturally And Linguistically Different Students, Karen Dorothy Kuhn

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this thesis research was to determine if there were significant educational advantages in terms of sociocultural development for culturally and linguistically different students enrolled in a two-way bilingual education program as compared to those directly mainstreamed. Eighteen third-grade students were selected from two schools in the same school district. Half of the subjects spent their third grade year in a two-way bilingual educational program while the other half were mainstreamed into a submersion education program. Each subject was culturally (Hispanic) and linguistically (Spanish was the dominant language) different from mainstream students. A qualitative summary and statistical analyses …