Digital Commons Network^™

A Critical Analysis Of L1 And L2 Composition Scholarship On Instructor Feedback, Danny Elbar Marenco

Theses Digitization Project

This study focuses on what the scholarship indicates about students' attitudes toward instructor feedback and strategies of instructor feedback. This thesis presents a critical analysis of L1 and L2 composition scholarship instructor feedback.

Hegel's Philosophy Of Language, By Jim Vernon, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

No abstract provided.

On The Presence Versus Absence Of Determiners In Malagasy, Ileana Paul

French Studies Publications

No abstract provided.

On A Different Plane: Cross-Language Effects On The Conceptual Representations Of Within-Language Homonyms, Ana Areas, Ana Schwartz

Departmental Papers (Psych)

We examined whether bilinguals’ conceptual representation of homonyms in one language are influenced by meanings in the other. 117 Spanish-English bilinguals generated sentences for 62 English homonyms that were also cognates with Spanish and which shared at least one meaning with Spanish (e.g., plane/plano). Production probabilities for each meaning were calculated. A stepwise multiple regression revealed that whether a meaning was shared with Spanish or not accounted for a significant portion of the variance, even after entering production probabilities from published monolingual norms. (Twilley et al., 1994). Homonyms classified as highly polarized based on monolingual responses became less polarized if …

Children’S Insensitivity To Information From The Target Of Agreement: The Case Of Xhosa, Sandile Gxilishe, Mantoa Rose Smouse, Thabisa Xhalisa, Jill De Villiers

Philosophy: Faculty Publications

The paper presents an account of number agreement phenomena arguing that the target of agreement may be bleached of number information. This would explain why English-speaking children have difficulty relying on the target alone as a clue to number, despite producing it correctly. Xhosa has a very rich subject-verb agreement system and pro-drop, and there is theoretical dispute over its properties. An experiment with Xhosa-speaking children revealed that they, too, are unable to use the morpheme on the verb as a cue to subject number. It is argued that this may be further evidence that the morpheme is agreement rather …

Introduction: Humor In Contemporary American Poetry, Denise Duhamel, Salvatore Attardo

Faculty Publications

Introduction piece to a special issue of Humor: International Journal of Humor Research.

Are We Speaking The Same Language? The Use Of The Mother Tongue By Native English Speaking Teachers In English As A Foreign Language Classrooms, Presley Doyal Mcfadden

Linguistics & TESOL Theses - Archive

The question of whether or not to use students' first language in second language acquisition is not a new one (Harbord, 1992; Duff and Polio, 1990). However, the way this question is addressed by the students themselves is rarely found in linguistic publications. This study discusses three dependant variables: The attitude (positive or negative) of EFL students towards their native English speaking teachers' attempts at using students' mother tongue in the classroom; the preferences concerning which pedagogical areas (vocabulary translation, error correction, grammar instruction, etc.) the students find the use of the first language more necessary for, and finally, the …

Phonological Processes In Contemporary Spoken Bulgarian, Zdravka Radkova

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This study investigates a number of phonological processes observed in the speech of 24 educated Bulgarian speakers. The speech of all subjects was recorded during 30 minute interviews conducted in 2004. Three speech styles were elicited - reading passage, interview and phone conversation - and later transcribed for analysis. Statistical Variable rule analysis was used to investigate the observed patterns of variation in speech. Different internal and external linguistic variables were found to impact the processes of vowel and consonant deletion in speech. Overall, what this study has established is that although certain socio-linguistic factors such as speaker's sex, regional …

The Acquisition Of Chinese Nominal Classifier Systems By L2 Adult Learners, Szu-Yen Liang

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

The present study explores how L2 adult learners of Chinese acquire Chinese classifiers and provides pedagogical suggestions for more effective teaching of Chinese. 29 native speakers of Korean, 29 native speakers of English and 10 Taiwanese native speakers of Chinese were recruited to take part in three empirical tests to identify L2 learners' acquisition of various classifiers denoting shape, animacy, function, and event. The three tests are 1) Classifier Comprehension Test; 2) Classifier Production test; 3) Classifier Prototype Test. In the first test, subjects were asked to match an object that can be denoted by a Chinese classifier listed among …

Narrative Storyline Marking In Safaliba: Determining The Meaning And Discourse Function Of A Typologically-Suspect Pronoun Set, Paul Alan Schaefer

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This study examines the meaning and discourse functions of a typologically unusual set of pronouns (the "N-pronoun" set) in Safaliba, a little-studied Gur language of western Ghana. The phonological structure of the N-pronouns suggests derivation from the regular pronoun form joined to a subject focus marker, rendering suspect the hypothesis that the N-pronoun exists as an independent form. In isolated sentences, substitution of N-pronouns for those of the regular set produces no immediately obvious difference in meaning, suggesting a discourse or pragmatic function.Three main areas of investigation are pursued: the grammatical contexts where the N-pronouns can and cannot occur; the …

La Clasificación De Los Hablantes De Herencia De Español En Los Eeuu: Generación, Simplificación Modal Y Mantenimiento Del Español, Maria Martinez-Mira

Modern Languages & Literatures Articles

A study of the” Enciclopedia del español en el mundo: Anuario 2006-7 " carried out by the Cervantes Institute (http://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/anuario/anuario_06-07/lengua.htm) presents a comprehensive picture for the future and development of the Spanish language in the world and in the United States in particular. According to the data provided by Cervantes, approximately 14 million people study Spanish in the world, of which 6 million study Spanish in the United States. It is precisely in this country that the study and presence of the Spanish language has a special significance.

NOTE: This abstract is a translation from the original Spanish

La Expresión Escrita En La Clase De Ele, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

En esta ponencia se presentará una definición de la expresión escrita y se tratará de reflexionar sobre los objetivos que persigue su uso y la valoración social de esta destreza, así como sobre la evolución de su tratamiento en la metodología de la enseñanza de lenguas. Se discutirán conceptos fundamentales en la composición del discurso escrito, tales como la planificación, textualización y revisión, a partir de los parámetros formales de cohesión, coherencia, adecuación y corrección gramatical. En su vertiente práctica, se presentará una tipología de actividades de expresión escrita y de estrategias que se ponen en práctica en esta destreza, …

Domain-Independent Data Extraction: Person Names, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Carl Christensen

Faculty Publications

Extraction software and techniques yield good results with domain specific data extraction

Person names and information rarely domain specific

Identification and extraction difficult because of noisy data, lack of formatting

Incremental Processing And Resource Usage, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Jeremiah Lane Mcghee, Ross Hendrickson, Carl Christensen

Faculty Publications

Within the community engaged in Soar-based cognitive modeling (Newell, 1990), some work has focused on parsing natural language input text. An early version of the system (Lewis, 1993) performed syntactic analysis based largely on the Government & Binding (aka Principles & Parameters) framework, including X-bar theory for constituency.

Variability In L2 Acquisition Across L1 Backgrounds, Dan P. Dewey, Malena Weitze, Jeremiah Mcghee, C. Ray Graham, Dennis Eggett

Faculty Publications

For a number of decades now, a widely accepted belief of language acquisition researchers is the so called natural order hypothesis (Dulay, Burt, & Krashen, 1982; Ellis, 1994; Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991). According to this hypothesis, certain grammatical morphemes emerge in a universal order in learners of English as a second language. Most of the data collection in this line of research was done in the 1970’s against a backdrop of theory which espoused the notion of L1 transfer to L2 acquisition on the one hand and a universal grammar perspective on the other. Most dealt with oral language production …

The Relative Importance Of Lexical Frequency In Syllable- And Word-Final /S/ Reduction In Cali, Colombia, Earl K. Brown

Faculty Publications

The literature on phonological variation and change abounds with studies about syllable- and word-final /s/ reduction in Spanish. In fact, “the aspiration and deletion of /s/ in dialects of Spanish may be the most extensively treated of all sound changes being investigated from an empirical, variationist perspective” (Ferguson, 1990, p. 64). Many factors have been shown to significantly affect this linguistic phenomenon. Terrell (1979) finds word length to be a significant factor in his Cuban data, with more deletion in polysyllabic words than in monosyllabic ones. Additionally, Terrell shows that redundant plural markers in noun phrases (that is, all but …

T-Glottalization In American English, David Eddington, Michael Taylor

Faculty Publications

In word-final prevocalic position (e.g., right ankle), there are various possible phonetic realizations of /t/ in American English: [t], [r], [?]. The present study focuses on the linguistic and social factors associated with the use of the glottal stop. Datat were gathered by having participants repeat sentences they were presented auditorily (e.g, She twisted her right ankle). The particular pronunciation of /t/ in the presented sentences was masked with a tone. Logistic regression analysis identified three significant factors: (1) glottal stops were favored by following front vowels; (2) younger female speakers were most likely to use glottal stops, which …

Computing In The Field: Automated Elicitation & Documentation, Andrew R. Hippisley, Gregory Stump, Raphael Finkel

Linguistics Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Implications Of Language Documentation For An Endangered But Vibrant Language Community: A Historical Perspective, Stephen A. Marlett

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

Documentation of an endangered language may be a short project that is carried out with urgency and with primarily academic benefits because the speakers are not passing on the language to others. This paper presents historical perspective on a quite different kind of situation. The documentation of the Seri language has taken place over a considerable period of time and with goals that were primarily community-focused. It documents some of the challenges that have been present during those years and also the benefits of that documentation that are just now beginning to be felt by the speakers of that language.

Slavic Sociolinguistics In North America: Lineage And Leading Edge, Mark Richard Lauersdorf

Linguistics Faculty Publications

This article provides a general overview of North American research in Slavic sociolinguistics from the beginnings of the field at the start of the 1960s up to the present day.  The work of North American scholars published in a selection of journals, series, and special collections, as well as in monographs and dissertations, is reviewed to illustrate the research trends and the overall coverage of languages and sociolinguistic subfields as Slavic sociolinguistics developed and matured in a North American context.  This study is intended to serve as a historical backdrop for the new research presented in this volume, and it …

Qualitative Information In Annual Reports & The Detection Of Corporate Fraud : A Natural Language Processing Perspective, Sunita Goel

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

High profile cases of fraudulent financial reporting such as those that occurred at Enron and WorldCom have shaken public confidence in the U.S. financial reporting process and have raised serious concerns about the roles of auditors, regulators, and analysts in financial reporting. In order to address these concerns and restore public confidence, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 was enacted. However, SOX has not lived up to its promise. Numerous cases of fraudulent financial reporting have surfaced in the post-SOX era. So far, the major thrust of research has been on examining fraud that has already been discovered. This dissertation …

The Representation Of Multiple Translations In Bilingual Memory : An Examination Of Lexical Organization For Concrete, Abstract, And Emotion Words In Spanish-English Bilinguals, Dana M. Basnight-Brown

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Tokowicz and Kroll (2007) originally reported that the number of translations a word has across languages influences the speed with which bilinguals translate concrete and abstract words from one language to another. The current work examines how the number of translations that characterize a word influences bilingual lexical organization and the processing of concrete, abstract and emotional stimuli. Experiment 1 examined whether the number-of-translations effect reported previously could be obtained in a different task (i.e., lexical decision task) using the same materials presented by Tokowicz and Kroll. Decision latencies revealed no significant differences between concrete and abstract words, which suggested …

Physician-Patient Communication About Patients' Sexual Activities And Substance Use : Information Exchange On Potentially Delicate Matters, Paul Michael Denvir

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Previous interaction-based research has shown that physicians and patients collaboratively realize the routine character of comprehensive medical histories through their communicative behavior. A primary resource in this regard is the design of information seeking and reporting actions. Physicians seek information through closed-ended query formats and patients report information in fitted, minimal formats. This organization provides a relatively efficient way to address a wide range of health-related topics. One topical domain that has been described as sensitive and difficult is patient `lifestyle,' which typically includes discussion of sexual activities and substance use. In these domains, patients engage in some special interactional …

Variability In L2 Acquisition Across L1 Backgrounds, Malena Weitze, Jeremiah Mcghee, C. Ray Graham, Dan Dewey, Dennis L. Eggett

Faculty Publications

For a number of decades now, a widely accepted belief of language acquisition researchers is the so called natural order hypothesis (Dulay, Burt, & Krashen, 1982; Ellis, 1994; Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991). According to this hypothesis, certain grammatical morphemes emerge in a universal order in learners of English as a second language. Most of the data collection in this line of research was done in the 1970’s against a backdrop of theory which espoused the notion of L1 transfer to L2 acquisition on the one hand and a universal grammar perspective on the other. Most dealt with oral language production …

Lexical Composition Of Effective L1 And L2 Students' Academic Presentations, Alla Zareva

English Faculty Publications

The present study set out to examine the lexical profiles of L1 (n = 30) and proficient L2 students' presentations (n = 30), aiming at finding out the overall lexical composition of successful academic presentations. It was also of interest to see how some of the presentations' lexical features compared to findings about the lexical composition of students' productively used vocabulary in writing. In addition to this, the analysis focused on the lexical composition of both groups' oral production in an attempt to uncover patterns of lexical uses that may need to be discussed in oral communication courses, specifically targeting …

The Distribution Of Subjects And Predicates In Bulgarian: An (Eep) V-Feature Account, Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva, Stanley William Dubinsky

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Emergence Of Pragmatic Softeners In Spanish By Instructed Learners Of Spanish In The Study Abroad And Immersion Contexts, Catharine Welch

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation explores and expands the term pragmatic softening as produced and perceived by L2 learners of Spanish. The learners included 36 intermediate-level learners studying in a U.S.-based immersion academy and those studying in a study-abroad context in Merida, Mexico. Preliminary evidence from these learners indicates that pragmatic softeners are rightly included in Anderson and Shirai's (1996) theory as a marginal member of the PAST category that is acquired after the more central member--the deictic past--has been acquired. Additionally, it is argued that the term pragmatic softening itself needs to be fleshed out so that it, too, is divided into …

Azerbaijani-Russian Code-Switching And Code-Mixing: Form, Function, And Identity, Kenneth Zuercher

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

From incorporation into the Russian Empire in 1828, through the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 governmental language policies and other socio/political forces influenced the Turkic population of the Republic of Azerbaijan to speak Russian. Even with changes since independence Russian use - including various kinds of code-switching and code-mixing - continues. This dissertation studies the language situation in Azerbaijan through a detailed analysis of naturally occurring conversational data. Approaches include corpus analysis of the transcribed data to show relative amounts of Azerbaijani and Russian, linguistic description of the types of code-switching and code-mixing, quantitative analysis of variation between subjects, …

A Longitudinal Analysis Of The Vocalic Nucleus In Modern Russian, Brett Alan Benham

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This instrumental acoustic study investigates coarticulation as the source of palatalization in Modern Standard Russian. This study posits that the nucleus is bifurcated, with nodes for a pre-kernel and a kernel. At the initial edge of a stressed vowel, coarticulation between the pre-kernel and the kernel creates the distinctive onset, attributed to preceding palatalized environments. At the terminal edge of a stressed vowel, coarticulation between the kernel and the next vocalic segment (the offglide, or the pre-kernel of the following syllable) creates the distinctive offset, attributed to following palatalized environments. In unstressed syllables, the kernel vowel is deleted, and the …

Handy Stories To Read And Sign, Donna Jo Napoli

Linguistics Faculty Works

Handy Stories to Read and Sign takes a bilingual, fun approach to help beginning readers, deaf and hearing, improve their comprehension of both English and American Sign Language (ASL). Charmingly illustrated, the five stories presented here increase in complexity as the children’s vocabulary and reading skills increase during the school year. Introductions to each story explain to parents and teachers the elements emphasized, such as providing helpful information on how the formation of certain signs creates ASL rhymes.