Reading and Language Commons^™

Hemispheric Specialization For Emotion Within First And Second Languages : Emotion Word Processing In Monolingual And Bilingual Speakers, Jennifer Mary Martin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Emotion representation in monolingual speakers is complex, and for bilinguals the relationship between emotion and language can be even more intriguing. The present study examined reactions to words of six types, including positive, negative, and neutral words varying in concreteness. Words and nonwords were intermixed in a lexical decision task using hemifield presentation. In Experiment 1, participants were English monolinguals and all stimuli were presented in English. In Experiment 2, participants were Spanish-English bilinguals who were presented with both English and Spanish stimuli. Results revealed a general left hemisphere advantage. Overall, reaction times for positive words were faster than for …

Understanding The Role Of Literature In The Reading Lives Of Secondary English Students, Tracy Pontin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Students’ perspectives on their high school reading experiences can provide great insight into the long term influence literature has in the lives of adolescents; however, students’ voices are seldom prioritized in the current research and in the conversations about curriculum and educational policy. This dissertation presents and analyzes the narratives of high school students nearing graduation as they reflect on the texts and social practices of English. The conceptual framework of this study is informed by Louise Rosenblatt’s transactional theory and Mikhail Bakhtin’s belief that an individual’s interaction with literature inspires rethinking and reevaluation of the reader’s “inconclusive present.”

The Effect Of A Dual Coding Elucidation Technique On Idiom Comprehension In Esl And Efl Learners, Denis Samburskiy

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study relied on the assumption that literal meaning of some idiomatic expressions (i.e., their conceptual motivation) could have a positive effect on the comprehension of their correct figurative sense. To test this hypothesis, a Dual Coding elucidation technique, in which important elements of correct figurative meaning were mapped onto literal ones, was designed to facilitate the comprehension of 15 highly imageable idioms. This technique was administered in the form of an online questionnaire to Russian- and Korean-speaking EFL and ESL learners. The facilitative effect of this technique was assessed taking into account several relevant variables: the learners’ levels of …

Specters Of Kurdish Nationalism: Governmentality And Counterinsurgent Translation In Turkey, Nicholas S. Glastonbury

Publications and Research

This essay examines translations of the Kurdish epic poem Mem û Zîn into Turkish, tracing the logics behind these state-sponsored translations and examining how acts of translation are also efforts to regulate, translate, and erase Kurdish subjectivities. I argue that the state instrumentalizes Mem û Zîn’s potent nationalist currency in order to disarm present and future claims of Kurdish national autonomy. Using translation as a counterinsurgent governmental tool, the state attempts to domesticate Kurdish nationalist discourses even as it reproduces them, thereby transforming Kurdish nationalism into a specter of itself. Attending to this specter, however, allows us to see how …

English Vocabulary Acquisition Of Bilingual Learners At The Primary And Secondary Levels, Ruja Pholsward, Donrutai Boonprasitt

PASAA

This paper reports research findings of English vocabulary acquisition of bilingual learners at the levels of Primary 6 and Secondary 3 at Satit Bilingual School of Rangsit University. The purpose was to find out the extent to which learners at these levels have acquired English vocabulary to communicate their ideas about themselves and their school life. The subjects were 34 Primary 6 students and 18 Secondary 3 students. All subjects were individually interviewed by two bilingual researchers of Thai and English: one Thai and one American. A set of ten questions was used in a 15- minute interview in English …

Teaching English Writing For A Global Context: An Examination Of Ns, Est And Efl Learning Strategies That Work, Rebecca K. Webb

PASAA

This study, examines two well-known writing pedagogies from the fields of Composition and Rhetoric, and Second Language Acquisition (SLA) for teaching literacy, or reading and writing skills1 in order to identify intersections for the English Language Learner (ELL) in an EFL learning environment. In addition, I present both quantitative and qualitative data in order to identify the learning strategies that are most effective from the Native Speaker (NS), English as a Second Language (ESL), and the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning environments. The data is as follows: 1) a survey of the perceptions of both ELL and NS …

Idea Sharing: How To Maximize Participation In A Mixed-Level English Class, Gordon D. Carlson

PASAA

Teaching a class of mixed EFL/ESL levels can be problematic for both instructors and students. The disparate levels of ability often mean that some students are not challenged enough while others struggle to keep pace. Drawing on experience in the university classroom in Japan, this practice promotes good preparation, self-reliance, inclusiveness, and maximum class participation. In two parts, this paper demonstrates how independent learning can be used to bring out the best in classes of this sort. The first part of the paper explains the method students use to create a self-learning portfolio. It will explain how students construct their …

Emotion Displays In Media: A Comparison Between Mexican, Hispanic-American, And European-American Children’S Storybooks, Victoria R. Sanders, Wolfgang Friedlmeier

Student Summer Scholars Manuscripts

Cultures differ in emotions not only in the emotion display rules (Matsumoto et al., 2008), i.e., how, when, and to whom emotions are appropriate to be expressed, but also in preferences for certain type of emotions (e.g., De Leersnyder, Kim, & Mesquita, 2015; Eid & Diener, 2011). Young children acquire these culture-specific emotion norms not only through their parents’ emotion socialization strategies (Friedlmeier, Corapci, & Cole, 2011), but also through exposure to cultural artifacts such as children’s storybooks (Tsai, 2007; VanderWege et al., 2014).

The goal of this study was to compare emotion displays in European-American, Mexican, and Hispanic-American storybooks …

Scribblescholar Was Here: Confessional Notes Of A Vandal Academic, Clay Shields

Theses and Dissertations--English

As a (former) vandal-punk in the academy, I often fear succumbing to Ivory Tower Stockholm syndrome. The identities I perform, vandal-punk and scholar, ideologically clash to the point that they often feel irreconcilable. By codemeshing the high-low discourses associated with these adopted cultures, I attempt to disrupt any hierarchal privileging of either, instead searching for a way to live with and harness both.

Cumulative Index Of Clcweb: Comparative Literature And Culture (1999-), Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Speed And Resolution In The Age Of Technological Reproducibility, Shawn Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

The rate of acceleration of the biologic and synthetic world has for a while now, been in the process of exponentially speeding up, maxing out servers and landfills, merging with each other, destroying each other. The last prehistoric relics on Earth are absorbing the same oxygen, carbon dioxide and electronic waves in our biosphere as us. A degraded .jpeg enlarged to full screen on a Samsung 4K UHD HU8550 Series Smart TV - 85” Class (84.5” diag.). Within this composite ecology, the ancient limestone of the grand canyon competes with the iMax movie of itself, the production of Mac pros, …

Investigating The Use Of Google Translate In "Terms And Conditions" In An Airline's Official Website: Errors And Implications, Tya Vidhayasai, Sonthida Keyuravong, Thanis Bunsom

PASAA

In the era of globalization, the Internet is regarded as one of the most popular sources of information given the number of on-line browsers who have access to websites. The tourism industry, be it hotels or airlines, in the 21st century relies heavily on the provision of information via its official websites. Thus, it is crucial that the information be accurate so as not to cause misunderstanding, or legal and financial damage. However, when information in several foreign languages involves a complicated process of translation conducted with a translation machine, serious problems can occur. According to Newmark (1998), human translation …

Complex Interactions Of Factors Underlying Thai Efl Learners' Willingness To Communicate In English, Kamlaitip Pattapong

PASAA

This paper explores factors contributing to the willingness to communicate (WTC) in English as a foreign language (L2) in a Thai university setting. The study uses multiple methods within a qualitative research approach. Data were collected through interviews, stimulated recall, and classroom observations. Relevant contextually-related variables that emerged from the analyses were categorized into four dimensions: social- psychological context, classroom context, cultural context, and social- individual context. The findings revealed the overlapping nature of factors in all dimensions, which reflects the complex interactions among contextually dependent WTC variables within the language classroom. This paper contributes to the knowledge of WTC …

Review: The Companion To Language Assessment, Benjamas Dhammarungruang, Krittaya Ngampradit, Prathana Siwathaworn, Nattharmma Thong-Iam

PASAA

Kunnan, A. J. (Ed.). (2014). The Companion to Language Assessment. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Assessing The Relationship Between Vocabulary Learning Strategy Use And Vocabulary Knowledge, Feng Teng

PASAA

This study is an attempt to explore the correlation between direct and indirect vocabulary learning strategies along with the depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge. To this end, a sample of 145 low proficiency students who learn English as a Foreign Language (EFL) completed a questionnaire concerning vocabulary learning strategy use. Vocabulary Levels Test (Schmitt et al., 2001) and Word Associates Test (Read, 1993; 2004) were administered to measure the breadth and depth of lexical repertoire respectively. The results indicated that (a) direct strategies were frequently used by EFL students (except for direct cognitive analyzing strategy), and (b), indirect strategies …

Critical Discourse Analysis: Definition, Approaches, Relation To Pragmatics, Critique, And Trends, Linda R. Waugh, Theresa Catalano, Khaled Al Masaeed, Tom Hong Do, Paul G. Renigar

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This chapter introduces the transdisciplinary research movement of critical discourse analysis (CDA) beginning with its definition and recent examples of CDA work. In addition, approaches to CDA such as the dialectical relational (Fairclough), sociocognitive (van Dijk), discourse historical (Wodak), social actors (van Leeuwen), and the Foucauldian dispositive analysis (Jager and Maier) are outlined, as well as the complex relation of CDA to pragmatics. Next, the chapter provides a brief mention of the extensive critique of CDA, the creation of critical discourse studies (CDS), and new trends in CDA, including positive discourse analysis (PDA), CDA with multimodality, CDA and cognitive linguistics, …

A Case Study Investigating Secondary Science Teachers' Perceptions Of Science Literacy Instruction, Phyllis Ann Blackmon

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This project study addressed the lack of inclusion of discipline literacy pedagogy in secondary classrooms in a rural school district in eastern North Carolina. Discipline literacy practices are recommended in the Common Core Standards for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. The district had implemented content area reading strategies across content areas, yet no significant progress in secondary students' reading abilities had been demonstrated in statewide or national assessments. The conceptual framework that drove this study was disciplinary literacy, founded by the literacy research of Shanahan, Shanahan, and Zygouris-Coe. Within a qualitative case study method, this investigation of 8 secondary …

Promoting Information Literacy Through Teacher - School Library Media Specialist Collaboration, Pamela Denise Taylor

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Schools that support collaboration between teachers and school library media specialists (SLMS) outperform those that do not. Teachers at a rural Georgia middle school were not using the library media program or being trained on how to collaborate with the SLMS to promote student achievement. Guided by Bruner's socioconstructivist theory of learning, the purpose of this descriptive case study was to investigate teachers' experiences with integrating technology and information literacy into the curriculum and to examine the collaborative services the SLMS could provide to enhance integration. Eight teachers in Grades 6th through 8th comprised the sample. Data sources included teacher …

Analysis Of An Early Intervention Reading Program For First Grade Students, Elizabeth Nicole Matthews

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Poor early literacy performance in public elementary schools has been a concern for many years. To that end, the purpose of this study was to examine an Early Intervention Program (EIP) in a public school. First grade students at the participating elementary school struggled with reading skills and were not meeting the grade standards of the local school district. In order to remedy this problem, the school implemented early support to provide struggling students with specific and targeted small group reading instruction. This quantitative program evaluation was intended to explore the effect of the EIP used at the participating elementary …

The Myon'reader Program And Reading Proficiency Among High School Students, Tommie Kuykendall

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In the United States, educators have struggled with low student achievement in reading proficiency, which affects student success in school and leads to higher dropout rates. To address low reading proficiency scores, a local charter high school implemented the myON'reader program. The myON reader program is an electronic library that allows students to choose their own reading based on their reading level and interest. The program tracks students' reading habits and level of reading, so teachers can determine students' progress. Guided by self-directed learning and social constructivism, the purpose of this study was to review available data to determine if …