Digital Commons Network^™

Neo-Whorfian Examination Of Cross-Linguistic Temporal Discounting Behavior, Piper Connelly

Scripps Senior Theses

This study examines differences in temporal discounting tendencies in German and French participants (recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk) through the lens of Neo-Whorfian cognition and the Linguistic Savings Hypothesis (Chen 2013). The LSH proposes that tendencies towards future-oriented economic decisions can be cognitively explained by literal morphosyntactic conventions of one’s native language. Our experiments (sooner-smaller/larger-later choices, endowment-investment task) failed to produce results aligning with the LSH, but uncovered the importance of controlling for risk appetite when specifically investigating intertemporal choice. There are several fruitful improvements to consider for the future, such as stricter sampling, taking richer detail of time preferences, …

Multiple-Choice Reading Behaviors Of Esl Students: An Eye-Tracking Study, Juan Escalante, Grant Eckstein, Troy L. Cox, Steven Luke

Faculty Publications

Only recently has eye-tracking been used to investigate test-taker reading behavior, and results have been primarily used to confirm a range of cognitive tasks elicited by test items. This study explores test taker reading behavior for its own sake by describing how ESL readers of different proficiency levels behaviorally view multiple-choice passages and test items at different difficulty levels. Data were gathered from 51 students at three proficiency levels attending a university-sponsored intensive English program (IEP). Participants read eight validated reading comprehension items at varying difficulty levels while their eye movements were recorded on the passage, multiple-choice stem, correct answer, …

Validation Of The English And Swahili Adaptation Of The Patient Health Questionnaire–9 For Use Among Adolescents In Kenya, Albert Kimtai Tele, Liliana Carvajal, Vincent Nyongesa, Jill W. Ahs, Shillah Mwaniga, Joseph Kathono Kathono, Obadia Yator, Simon Njuguna, Ian Kanyanya, Manasi Kumar

Brain and Mind Institute

Purpose: Our study aimed to validate culturally adapted English and Swahili versions of the Patient Health Questionnairee9 (PHQ-9) for use with adolescents in Kenya. Criterion validity was determined with clinician-administered diagnostic interviews using the Kiddie Schedule of Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia.

Methods: A total of 250 adolescents comprising 148 (59.2%) females and 102 (40.8%) males aged 10e19 years (mean ¼ 14.76; standard deviation ¼ 2.78) were recruited. The PHQ-9 was administered to all respondents concurrently in English and Swahili. Adolescents were later interviewed by clinicians using Kiddie Schedule of Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia to determine the presence or …

Rapid Prediction Of Verbs Based On Pronoun Interpretation Is Modulated By Individual Differences In Pronoun Processing, Jeffrey Jack Green

Faculty Publications

How quickly can pronoun interpretation affect the prediction of a following verb? Readers were presented with implicit causality contexts in which a specific pronoun and following verb were predictable. N400 and reaction time results indicated that predictable verbs were facilitated relative to unpredictable verbs when following predicted pronouns, suggesting that verbal predictions were rapidly updated based on pronoun interpretation. There was also some evidence for rapid updating of verb predictions after unexpected pronouns, but this was modulated by individual differences. Some readers appear to have placed higher weight on top–down implicit causality predictions to interpret unexpected pronouns, and others on …

Surzhyk: Attitudes & Usage Among Ukrainian People, Kateryna Kravchenko, Joseph A. Stanley

Faculty Publications

What is Surzhyk?

• refers to a range of macaronic (mixed) sociolects of Ukrainian and Russian languages
• originally meant mixing of two different types of flour (wheat and rye), which is considered a lower grade flour
• there is no unifying set of characteristics
• the term is used for norm-breaking, non-obedience to or non-awareness of the rules of the Ukrainian and Russian standard languages
• it is not Russian-accented Ukrainian

Solving The Cherry-Picking Problem In Legislative History Use – A Corpus-Based Approach For Empirical Intentionalist Legal Interpretation Analysis, Brett James Hashimoto, James Heilpern

Faculty Publications

The use of legislative histories under intentionalist/purposivist theories of statutory interpretation is frequently criticized because it can be easily biased (see, e.g., Scheppele, 2012). To date, corpus-based statutory interpretation has relied almost exclusively on textualist theory of legal interpretation. However, corpus linguistic methods are not necessarily bound to any one theory (e.g., Biber & Reppen, 2015). The present study analyses two legislative histories as corpora and compares them against a general corpus of English to determine if interpretative theory makes a meaningful difference in two example cases (Costello v. United States, 2012; Taniguchi v. Kan Saipan Pacific, 2012). Senses of …

Turkish-German Heritage Speakers’ Predictive Use Of Case: Webcam-Based Vs. In-Lab Eye-Tracking, Onur Özsoy, Büsra Çiçek, Zeynep Özal, Natalia Gagarina, Irina A. Sekerina

Publications and Research

Recently, Özge et al. have argued that Turkish and German monolingual 4-year- old children can interpret case-marking predictively disregarding word order. Heritage speakers (HSs) acquire a heritage language at home and a majority societal language which usually becomes dominant after school enrollment. Our study directly compares two elicitation modes: in-lab and (remote) webcam- based eye-tracking data collection. We test the extent to which in-lab e��ects can be replicated in webcam-based eye-tracking using the exact same design. Previous research indicates that Turkish HSs vary more in the comprehension and production of case-marking compared to monolinguals. Data from 49 participants–22 Turkishmonolinguals and …

Self-Censoring On Social Media Sites, Talia A. Feshbach , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

Many users of social media sites self-censor by using character replacements or euphemisms to obscure the language they are using. The reasons for doing so vary from trying to avoid other users finding their posts in searches to evading censorship from site administration to adapting to site culture. This paper seeks to answer whether or not there is an association between reasons for self-censoring and tactics used for self-censoring. It also examines three sites where self-censoring is in different forms and amounts - Tumblr, Twitter, and TikTok - and how the tactics and reasons for self-censoring appear on those sites. …

The Contribution Of Phonological Overlap To The Cognate Effect: An Event-Related Potential Study Of Persian-English Bilinguals, Zahra Fotovatnia

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the contribution of phonological overlap to visual word recognition. More specifically, this study aimed at testing the phonological account of the cognate effect (i.e., faster and more accurate mental processing of cognates than noncognates) in visual word recognition in Persian and English, which are languages with different scripts. The phonological account attributes the cognate effect to the phonological similarity of cognates (form and semantically related words) in addition to the conceptual similarity that cognates and noncognates (semantically related words) have and to the degree of phonological similarity between cognates in two languages. …

Brazilian Portuguese-Russian (Braporus) Corpus: Automatic Transcription And Acoustic Quality Of Elderly Speech During Covid-19 Pandemic, Irina A. Sekerina, Anna Smirnova Henriques, Aleksandra Skorobogatova, Natalia Tyulina, Tatiana V. Kachkovskaia, Svetlana Ruseishvili, Sandra Madureira

Publications and Research

This article presents the Brazilian Portuguese-Russian (BraPoRus) corpus, whose goal is to collect, analyze, and preserve for posterity the spoken heritage Russian still used today in Brazil by approximately 1,500 elderly bilingual heritage Russian–Brazilian Portuguese speakers. Their unique 100-year-old variety of moribund Russian is disappearing because it has not been passed to their descendants born in Brazil. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we remotely collected 170 h of speech samples in heritage Russian from 26 participants (Mage = 75.7 years) in naturalistic settings using Zoom or a phone call. To estimate the quality of collected data, we focus on two methodological …

Is Idaho English Really “The Epitome Of Average English”?, Joseph A. Stanley, Katrina Jackson

Faculty Publications

“Epitome of Average English”?

Preston (1989:64–65) chapter 3: “Where they speak correct English”

• Indianans ranked all 50 states’ English from most correct to least correct
• Mississippi’s ratings clustered low.
• Indiana’s ratings clustered high
• New York’s was bimodal.
• Florida’s was uniform.
• Idaho’s was normally distributed, centered around the middle.

“Idaho… [shows] a remarkably normal histogram… It is, apparently, the epitome of average English for these raters. Perhaps it is a least-caricatured state, meeting the negative definition of Standard English – the variety which displays no known non-standard elements.”

Teaching And Researching Revision: Introducing A Tool To Extract Edits From Word Documents, Matthew Baker, Jordan Smith, Scout A. Mcmillan

Faculty Publications

As instructors consider the technologies that will disrupt the future of business communication, writing tools enhanced by artificial intelligence (Al)-such as ChatGPT -are probably at the top of the list. Researchers have already begun proposing teaching strategies to overcome the challenges and embrace the opportunities of Al. For example, one study analyzed the performance of Al-generated business writing (AIAfnan, Dishari, Jovic, & Lomidze, 2023). Based on evaluations produced by human graders and plagiarism-detection software, the researchers recommended that business writing instructors use casebased assignments and adjust rubrics to more heavily weight content that Al fails at generating well (e.g., detailed …

Perceptions Of “Southern” Utah English, Chad Huckvale, Joseph A. Stanley

Faculty Publications

Utahns generally have negative perceptions of their own speech (Savage 2014, Eddington & Brown 2021, Stanley 2023).

Utahns are aware of certain features in their speech, namely pronunciation of “mountain” (Eddington & Savage 2012; Stanley & Vandiernet 2018; Eddington & Brown 2021, Stanley 2023).

Previous dialectology research (Lillie 1998; Eddington 2022; Stanley 2022) indicates that speech in some areas of Utah are described as “Southern”; this is generally found to differentiate urban vs. rural regions.

Intellect Does Not Have An Accent: The Lived Experiences Of Women Native Speakers Of Spanish With Professional Leadership Positions In United States And Have An Accented English Speech, Isabel E. Rodriguez-Mendoza

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This qualitative study examined the experiences of eleven multilingual professional women between the ages of 35 and 65 who share the following characteristics: Spanish is their first language; they speak English with an accent and migrated to the United States as adults and are required to engage in public speaking in their professional leadership careers in the United States. The study’s interview process provided participants with a platform to share their voices and stories. The findings discussed how their accents have shaped their leadership careers as well as the social-emotional aspect of their lives through a phenomenological approach.

The emergent …

Academic Acculturation, Linguistic Diversity, And Inclusivity In Online Adult Learning, Jeannie Elizabeth Headley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem of practice addressed in this study is that online writing tutors in higher education are challenged to support multilingual adult online learners in the development of standard academic writing, including learners of different English dialects. The purpose of the qualitative basic study was to explore the challenges writing tutors face while supporting multilingual adult online learners in the development of standard academic writing. Social constructivism theory was used to bridge the gap between old concepts and new concepts of writing pedagogy used by participants to mitigate linguistic diversity challenges. Seven one-on-one semistructured interviews were conducted with writing center …

Sociophonetics And Dialectology, Dominic Watt, Margaret E. L. Renwick, Joseph A. Stanley

Faculty Publications

In this chapter we explore how the investigation of phonetic detail in speech seen through a sociolinguistic lens can inform and enhance our understanding of dialectal variation in languages. We begin by examining how sociophonetics can be considered an offshoot of dialectology, later to mature into a free- standing discipline during the late twentieth century. We next discuss the reconvergence of sociophonetics and dialectology as it became clearer that the two approaches to the study of language variation are, in combination, greater than the sum of their parts, even if their agendas may place different emphases on what should be …

Editor’S Note, Deepak Shimkhada

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

This special issue of Monsoon is dedicated to the studies honoring the goddess traditions in South Asia. The onset of the Monsoon Season in South Asia typically commences in June and continues until late August and early September. The publication of this issue, therefore, has been strategically timed to coincide with that season, which is a vital source of sustenance for millions of individuals in this part of the world. This anthology consisting of five papers—written by scholars with expertise in the field of goddess and women studies—speak unequivocally about the goddesses or women for their strength, beauty, wisdom, and …

Constructing Jain Goddess Padmavātī In Gujarati Literature, Venu Mehta

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Worship of the goddess Padmāvatī emerged more than a thousand years ago. This article explores three songs about her in Gujarati by Paṇḍit Vīrvijayajī (1773-1852). By analyzing the style and form of his work, one learns a great deal about devotional liturgies that commemorate goddess Padmāvatī’s protection of the Jina Pārśvanātha and, in turn, his protection of her.

Women’S Voices From History: Gond Rani Durgawati And Rani Lakshmibhai, Nandini Sengupta, Moupia Basu

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Two strong women are compared and contrasted in this article. Gond Rani Durgawati (1524-1564) led a resistance movement in Jabalpur against the Mughal rule of Akbar. Rani Lakshmibai (1828-1858) organized the people of Jhansi against Sir Hugh Rose, an officer defending the interests of the British East India Company. Both women continue to be remembered for their bravery and their loyalty to the people they ruled.

Mai Bhago And Amrita Devi Bishnoi: Women Of Strength, Sowmya Ayyar

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Mai Bhago (1670-1720), also known as Bhag Kaur, distinguished herself on the battlefield to defend the Sikh faith. Amrita Devi Bishnoi (d. 1730) is said to have sacrificed her life with 362 others to protect the Khejari trees in the Rajasthan desert. Both women continue to inspire social justice and ecological activism.

An Examination Of Gandhian Economic And Political Thought And Its Relevance To The Empowerment Of Women, Purnima Mehta Bhatt

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) sought to alleviate poverty and empower women. His commitment to nonviolence and the economic ideal of “small is beautiful” continue to inspire grassroots movements around the globe. This article discusses the Chipko movement of northern India, the protection of rain forests in Kerala’s Silent Valley, the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), and Medha Patkar’s valiant though ultimately futile attempt to save the Narmada River from a massive government damming project. The ongoing legacy of these movements can be found in AWAG, the Ahmedabad Women’s Action Group and Women’s Shanti Sena (Peace Force).

Indigenous Stitch-Arts Of India: Tradition And Revival In A Global Age, Punam Madhok

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Stitch art allows for the creative expression and economic support of countless women throughout India. This article examines four notable styles: chikankari, flora and fauna stitched in white thread on fine white cotton, rabari, the stitching of mirrors into colorful cloth, phulkari, resplendent flowery motifs sewn into shawls in Punjab, and kantha, Bengali patch work yielding quilts and seating mats. In addition to describing each technique, this article discusses how women have been economically empowered through this art by such organizations as Self-Help Enterprise (SHE) in Kolkata and Adithi, a women’s cooperative, in Bihar.

The Relationship Between Definiteness Theories And Nominal Expressions In Thai Narratives, Nimit Kumwapee

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This objective of this study is to 1) propose the definiteness rankings of Thai nominal expressions according to different definiteness theories and 2) examine the correlation between different definiteness theories with regards to the definiteness degrees of different types of nominal expressions. This study examines the relationship between 16 types of Thai nominal expressions and four definiteness theories (Uniqueness, Familiarity, Identifiability, and Accessibility), analyzing 6,007 nominal expressions from Thai-Zlatev Corpus, Aakanee Website, and Thai Folktale Database. The distributional patterns with respect to Uniqueness, Familiarity, and Identifiability shows that zero pronouns tend to denote unique, familiar and identifiable entities while nominalization …

The Effects Of Pictorial-Based Homophones In English On Thai Consumer Judgements, Sijaporn Jenjirawattana

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

The objectives of the study are 1) to investigate the effect of pictorial-based homophone priming on the purchasing decisions of Thai consumers for products advertised in English; and 2) to examine the effectiveness of pictorial-based homophones as primes in a non-native context among Thai speakers of English, compared to native English speakers. Three homophone pairs selected for the study were “sail-sale”, “deer-dear”, and “hole-whole.” These pairs were presented in two forms including pictorial and textual. Each homophone pair, in each form, was utilized in the experiment to explore their distinct meanings and attributes. Two groups of participants consisted of 30 …

Information Structure In Moklen, Daniel Peter Loss

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This study investigates aspects of information structure in Moklen, an endangered Austronesian language of Southern Thailand. The two objectives were to study the syntactic and informational properties of intonation units and to study the relationship between information status and changes in word-form. With respect to the first objective, Hypothesis 1 held that clausal intonation units would conform to the one-new-idea constraint, while Hypothesis 2 held that variations in argument structure could be accounted for by the given-before-new principle. Regarding changes in word-form, Hypothesis 3 held that use of monosyllabic alternants would correspond to “given” information statuses. To assess these hypotheses, …

ปัจจัยด้านวรรณยุกต์และโน้ตดนตรีที่มีต่อการใช้เสียงก้องพร่าในการร้องเพลงภาษาไทย, ธนกร อัยกร

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

การศึกษานี้ มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อ 1) ศึกษาปัจจัยระดับเสียงของวรรณยุกต์และโน้ตดนตรีที่ทำให้เกิดเสียงก้องพร่าในการร้องเพลงภาษาไทยโดยใช้เทคนิคโวคอลฟราย และ 2) ศึกษาลักษณะทางกลสัทศาสตร์ของเสียงก้องพร่าที่ปรากฏในการร้องเพลงภาษาไทยโดยใช้เทคนิคโวคอลฟราย เก็บข้อมูลจากผู้ร่วมวิจัยที่ประกอบอาชีพร้องเพลง ทั้งหมด 10 คน เพศชาย 5 คน เพศหญิง 5 คน อายุตั้งแต่ 20 – 30 ปี บันทึกเสียงผู้ร่วมการทดลอง จากการร้องเพลงภาษาไทยที่ผู้วิจัยแต่งขึ้นใหม่ที่มีการควบคุมวรรณยุกต์อย่างสมดุล ผู้ร่วมวิจัยได้รับอนุญาตให้ออกแบบวิธีการร้องด้วยตนเอง และให้เลือกใช้เสียงก้องพร่า (รู้จักในชื่อเทคนิคโวคอลฟราย) ได้ตามอัธยาศัย จำแนกเสียงก้องพร่าจากการฟังประกอบการพิจารณาแผนภาพคลื่นเสียงเพื่อวิเคราะห์การปรากฏในแต่ละวรรณยุกต์และโน้ตดนตรี ใช้วิธีการทางสถิติด้วย Man – Whitney U Test เพื่อยืนยันข้อแตกต่างที่พบ ศึกษาลักษณะทางกลสัทศาสตร์ของเสียงก้องพร่าทั้งหมด เพื่อระบุประเภทย่อยซึ่งอ้างอิงจากการศึกษาของ Keating et al (2015) รวมถึงวัดค่าระยะเวลาเสียงก้องพร่าจากเสียงสระทั้งหมด ผลการศึกษาปฏิสัมพันธ์ของวรรณยุกต์และโน้ตดนตรีต่อการเกิดเสียงก้องพร่าในการร้องเพลงไทย พบว่า เสียงก้องพร่านั้นสามารถปรากฏได้ในทุกช่วงระดับเสียง แต่ปรากฏในช่วงโน้ตเสียงต่ำมากที่สุดอย่างมีนัยสำคัญทางสถิติ และโดยภาพรวม ผู้ร่วมวิจัยเพศชายมีการเลือกใช้เสียงก้องพร่ามากกว่าในทุกช่วงระดับเสียง นอกจากนี้ ในช่วงโน้ตเสียงต่ำ เสียงก้องพร่าปรากฏมากที่สุดกับกลุ่มวรรณยุกต์ต่ำสำหรับผู้ร่วมวิจัยทั้งสองกลุ่ม แต่ในช่วงโน้ตเสียงกลาง ผู้ร่วมวิจัยเพศหญิงใช้เสียงก้องพร่าในกลุ่มวรรณยุกต์สูงมากที่สุด ผลการศึกษาลักษณะทางกลสัทศาสตร์ของเสียงก้องพร่าในการร้องเพลงไทย พบว่า โน้ตดนตรีมีอิทธิพลต่อการปรากฏของเสียงก้องพร่าในแต่ละวรณยุกต์ ส่งผลให้ประเภทย่อยของเสียงก้องพร่าค่อนข้างกระจายตัว เพื่อให้เกิดความเหมาะสมกับระดับเสียงที่แตกต่างกัน ทั้งในแง่ของระดับเสียงโน้ตดนตรีและระดับเสียงของวรรณยุกต์ และถึงแม้มีการกระจายตัวค่อนข้างมาก แต่โดยภาพรวม เสียงก้องพร่าแบบโวคอลฟราย ปรากฏในสัดส่วนที่มากที่สุด ซึ่งผู้ร่วมวิจัยทุกคนใช้เสียงก้องพร่าแบบโวคอลฟรายในช่วงโน้ตเสียงต่ำ อีกทั้งโน้ตดนตรียังส่งผลให้ค่าระยะเวลาเสียงก้องพร่าแตกต่างกัน นอกจากนี้ ในช่วงโน้ตเสียงต่ำและกลาง วรรณยุกต์เอกและโท ส่งผลให้ระยะเวลาเสียงก้องพร่ามากกว่าวรรณยุกต์อื่นๆ แต่ในช่วงโน้ตเสียงสูงกลับพบว่าวรรณยุกต์ตรี ส่งผลให้ระยะเวลาของเสียงก้องพร่านั้นมากกว่าในวรรณยุกต์อื่นๆ

Identities Of Women In Indian Art And History, Nalini Rao

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

The stereotypical image of Indian women portrayed in the art of stone sculpture is often interpreted as images of beauty that are sensuous, religious as well depict social life. There are historical reasons for depicting her as such. This paper inquires into the changing depiction and social forces that influenced feminine imagery. This paper examines the portrayal of beauty through idealization of female body which has evolved over the centuries in India. It also aims to understand their changing status and explores issues of feminine identity, status, and empowerment largely in ancient and medieval India. It also provides a brief …

Qualitative Oral-Presentation Feedback: Comparisons From Business Professionals, Instructors, And Student Peers, Matt Baker, William H. Baker

Faculty Publications

Previous studies compare quantitative feedback ratings of student peers and instructors, but new presentation-feedback technologies enable qualitative-feedback comparison. This study extends previous research by comparing qualitative feedback and business professionals’ feedback. Compared to the professionals, the instructors provided similar feedback types and sentiment; students, however, de-emphasized message delivery and made fewer suggestions for improvement. The results suggest that students may need additional practice in critiquing message delivery and in suggesting needed improvements in their peers’ oral presentations. The study also provides a methodology using the new technologies for instructors to calibrate their own and their students’ feedback with professionals’ feedback.

Metaphor And Intersubjectivity: The Use Of Metaphor Within A Metaphor, Sara Jalbert

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Psychotherapists experience encounters in psychotherapy that present the opportunity for metaphor and imagery to be utilized as methods of intervention that enhance attunement in the therapeutic dyad. Working within imagery, tropes, and metaphor may facilitate experiential processing and integration of information. Metaphor has been used across cultures for many years to describe abstract concepts and to apply deeper meaning to the confines of logical thought. This paper discusses the literature on metaphor as an object of shared language, enhancing the space which minds share in the therapeutic dyad, and posits that metaphor has the ability to enhance intrapsychic levels of …

The Lived Experiences Of Esl Nontraditional Rrts While Preparing To Challenge The National Board For Respiratory Care Clinical Simulation Exam, Jose A. Lammoglia

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to provide information to respiratory therapy graduates from two-year associate in science programs, faculty, and administrators about the cognitive and noncognitive strategies employed by graduates to prepare and pass the CSE. To date, no available information on the role played by the lived experiences of Rt graduates while preparing to challenge the CSE. The researcher developed a questionnaire to conduct a qualitative phenomenological descriptive lived experience survey of ESL Hispanic nontraditional graduates from associate of science programs in South Florida who took the NBRC national board examinations between January 2015 and March 2022. An analysis …