Digital Commons Network^™

Comparing Malleability Of Phonetic Category Between [I] And [U], Reiko Kataoka, Hahn Koo

Faculty Publications

This study reports differential category retuning effect between [i] and [u]. Two groups of American listeners were exposed to ambiguous vowels ([i/u]) within words that index a phoneme /i/ (e.g., athl[i/u]t) (i-group) or /u/ (e.g., aftern[i/u]n) (u-group). Before and after the exposure these listeners categorized sounds from a [bip]-[bup] continuum. The i-group significantly increased /bip/ responses after exposure, but the u-group did not change their responses significantly. These results suggest that the way mental representation handles phonetic variation may influence malleability of each category, highlighting the complex relationship among distribution of sounds, their mental representation, and speech perception.

Applying Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis To An Unrestricted Corpus: A Case Study In Indonesian And Malay Newspapers, Sara Luanne White

Theses and Dissertations

In 2008, Baker et al. proposed a nine-step method that combines quantitative corpus linguistics with qualitative critical discourse analysis. To date this cycle has only been used to analyze a single language with a restricted corpus. Can this method, originally designed for this narrow focus, be applied cross-culturally to an unrestricted corpus? There are two over-arching goals for this paper, one linguistic and one methodological. The first goal is to learn about language ideologies in Indonesian and Malay newspapers; the second goal is to evaluate the efficacy of a mixed-methods corpus-driven approach to discourse analysis using the methods proposed by …

A Latent Class Analysis Of American English Dialects, Stephanie Nicole Hedges

Theses and Dissertations

Research on the dialects of English spoken within the United States shows variation regarding lexical, morphological, syntactic, and phonological features. Previous research has tended to focus on one linguistic variable at a time with variation. To incorporate multiple variables in the same analysis, this thesis uses a latent class analysis to perform a cluster analysis on results from the Harvard Dialect Survey (2003) in order to investigate what phonetic variables from the Harvard Dialect Survey are most closely associated with each dialect. This thesis also looks at how closely the latent class analysis results correspond to the Atlas of North …

Mobile Augmented Reality: Hyper Contextualization And Situated Language Usage Events, Steven L. Thorne, John Hellermann

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Language use, second-language development, and technology mediated human activity are complex processes situated in, and in some cases demonstrably interwoven with, specific material and social contexts. Our presentation describes a project that focuses on the contextually embedded nature of communicative action. Building upon recent research on ethnomethodological analyses of talk-in-interaction while walking (Haddington et al., 2013), analyses of how communicative activity mediates our understanding of objects and environments (Nevile et al., 2014; Latour, 2005), principles of extended and embodied cognition (Atkinson, 2010), and existing research on the use of mobile place-based augmented reality (AR) techniques for language learning (Holden & …

From Digital Literacies To Digital Problem Solving: Expanding Technology-Rich Learning Opportunities For Adults, Tyler Frank, Jill Castek

Presentations and Publications

A window into an adult basic education (ABE) class shows several learners typing essays on laptops. Suddenly one student throws her hands up in the air loudly exclaiming, “I didn’t do anything! The computer just erased everything! It wasn’t me, it was the computer!” This scenario is all too familiar with new-to-computer users. Over time, this learner has developed more confidence and digital literacies, and has since passed the Language Arts GED test. However the technology skills needed in the workplace and in daily life go beyond those needed for test taking. Yet computers in adult education classrooms are most …

Second-Language Acquisition And Motivation: A Literature Review, Pat Goodridge

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

This literature review traces the development of motivation in second-language acquisition, a field that has evolved from basic associations between affective factors and second-language performance to nuanced approaches of how motivation is shaped by a learner’s subjective cognition. With this review, we see that motivation’s role has always been central to language learning, and the development of our understanding of this role has mirrored the development of our understanding of second-language acquisition’s psychological and cognitive aspects. Such understanding contributes to many areas of second-language pedagogy, developmental psychology, and applied linguistics, all of which are relevant to our practical research goals …

Adverbial Clauses And Speaker And Interlocutor Gender In Shakespeare’S Plays, Theresa Mcgarry, Kelsey Kiser

ETSU Faculty Works

This study draws on previous findings regarding adverbial clauses in relation to speaker and interlocutor gender in a corpus of current actual speaker data. Our aim is to examine those same relations in a corpus of Shakespeare’s comedies and histories. Mondorf (2004) investigated four types of adverbial clauses in a corpus of modern speech and found that the women used more causal, conditional and purpose clauses than the men, while the men used more concessive clauses. Mondorf’s explanation for this difference is that women use the three clause types that mitigate the speaker’s commitment to the truth of the proposition, …

Adults' Engagement In Reading, Writing And Numeracy Practices, Stephen Reder

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Analyzing information from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), this paper explores the frequency with which adults engage in reading, writing and numeracy practices and the relationship between these practices and a range of social and economic outcomes. Results are examined for the general adult populations as well as adult populations with low literacy or numeracy proficiencies. For most social and economic outcomes, levels of engagement in literacy practices appear to be as strong predictors as proficiency measures are, indicating the importance of encouraging more intense engagement in literacy and numeracy practices both in and outside of work.

Back To The Future: Logic And Machine Learning, Simon Dobnik, John D. Kelleher

Conference papers

In this paper we argue that since the beginning of the natural language processing or computational linguistics there has been a strong connection between logic and machine learning. First of all, there is something logical about language or linguistic about logic. Secondly, we argue that rather than distinguishing between logic and machine learning, a more useful distinction is between top-down approaches and data-driven approaches. Examining some recent approaches in deep learning we argue that they incorporate both properties and this is the reason for their very successful adoption to solve several problems within language technology.

“They Ate Macaroni-And-Cheese Or Tv Dinners; My Mother Made Curry Instead ”: A Narrative Inquiry Of South Asian American Writers’ Identity Negotiation, Su Yin Khor

Theses and Dissertations

As the demographic and linguistic landscape in the United States is shifting—the Asian population has increased significantly in the last decade, particularly the South Asian population—these changes are reflected in the classrooms all over the country. As such, it becomes imperative to investigate who these multilinguals are, and as several scholars have pointed out, the Asian population has not been studied to the same extent as other minorities. In addition, the notion of a homogenous Asian identity persists and hides the internal differences that exist within the Asian population.

Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to challenge the notion …

Embodying Rhythm Nation: Multimodal Hip Hop Dance As A Site For Adolescent Social-Emotional And Political Development, Lauren M. Roygardner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This exploratory study employed qualitative methodology, specifically values analysis, to learn more about how being involved within Hip hop dance communities positively relates to adolescent development. Adolescence was defined herein as ages 13-23. The study investigated Hip hop dance communities in terms of cultural expertise (i.e. novice, intermediate and advanced/expert) to look specifically at dance narratives (i.e. peak experience narratives and “I dance because” essays) and hip hop dance performances. The primary purpose of this dissertation was to (1) explore how adolescents use multimodal Hip hop dance discourse for social-emotional development and critical consciousness, and to (2) understand how values …

Aspects Of Quantifier Float In Thai, Khanin Chaiphet

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research on Thai Q(uantifier)-float attempts to manifest the problems for each of its analysis. For the adverbial analysis, the Japanese data show that the floating quantifiers can be associated with both distributive and plurality-of-events readings while Thai does not distinguish between these two readings. For the stranding analysis, the differences from English-Thai comparative data show that Thai floating quantifiers often occur in positions where their associated NPs could not have previously occupied or have been moved from, and thus cannot be analyzed as resulting from stranding. As a solution, Thai Q-float is postulated as an instance of rightward movement (extraposition) …

First And Second Generation New York City Bilinguals: What Is The Role Of Input In Their Collocational Knowledge Of English And Spanish?, Ingrid T. Heidrick

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study compares monolinguals and different kinds of bilinguals with respect to their knowledge of the type of lexical phenomenon known as collocation. Collocations are word combinations that speakers use recurrently, forming the basis of conventionalized lexical patterns that are shared by a linguistic community. Examples of collocations typically used by speakers of English in the United States are make a decision, take a step, and have a coffee. Examples of collocations typically used by speakers of Spanish in Latin America and Spain are tomar una decisión ('make a decision', lit.: take a decision), dar un …

Escribiendo Para Desahogarme: Release And Resistance In A Middle School Bilingual Writing Workshop, Carla Espana

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines a teacher’s language ideologies, their impact on curriculum modifications and bilingual Latinx middle schoolers’ storytelling, to understand how a bilingual pedagogy builds on their cultural and linguistic resources. This qualitative study was conducted in a sixth grade writing workshop class in New York City as the focus teacher taught the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project Personal Narrative Unit of Study. The first two findings center on the factors that influence a teacher’s stance on language practices and bilingual pedagogy, and how these contributed to curriculum modifications that included using students’ full linguistic and cultural repertoires, integrating …

Effects Of Multimedia Instruction On L2 Acquisition Of High-Level, Low-Frequency English Vocabulary Words, Euna Cho

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study examined the effects of multimedia enhancement in video form in addition to textual information on L2 vocabulary instruction for high-level, low-frequency English words among Korean learners of English. Although input-based incidental learning of L2 vocabulary through extensive reading has been conventionally believed to be appropriate for high-frequency words, intentional or explicit vocabulary learning is suggested to be more sensible or realistic for the acquisition of low-frequency academic words. Multimedia support in foreign language instruction has revealed benefits in promoting direct teaching and explicit learning of L2 vocabulary; moreover, adding textual information to video seems to boost students’ …

Letter To The President: Longitudinal Critical Discourse Analysis Of Academic And Hip Hop Genres In A Rap Narrative Program, Debangshu Roygardner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The objective of this study was to examine an in-school rap narrative workshop through critical discourse theory (Bamberg, 2012; Daiute, 2014). Twelve youth from a public school serving youth in urban Houston, TX were recruited from an in-school and after-school Hip hop/Rap narrative program to participate in a two-year cohort research study. The primary research question guiding the study was “How do young people participating in a school-based Hip hop/Rap program use a wide range of narrative genres for literacy and psycho-social development over two years in the program?”

The data-intensive study involved assessments of literacy and psycho-social development via …

Directionals In Ngaanyatjarra, Conor Pyle

The ITB Journal

This paper looks at directional morphemes in Ngaanyatjarra, a language spoken in Western Australia. This is part of the suffixing subdivision of Australian languages with both nominals and verbs having rich sets of inflectional and derivational suffixes. Despite this typological categorisation, there are a small number of directional prefixes. Using a Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) account, we look at directional elements, both prefixes and local peripheral case marking suffixes. RRG posits two types of directional operator, at the nucleus and the core. We find that the prefixes are nuclear operators describing the direction of the verb itself; while the …

A Third Number: Discussing Duals In Lithuanian Language, Jone Bruno

The ITB Journal

Modern Lithuanian has two grammatical numbers: singular and plural, nevertheless literature sources note the existence of the dual number residue in Lithuanian. This phenomenon is prominent in Austronesian languages as stated by Schwartz (1989:237-238) and there are different types of duals. However, in European languages this phenomenon is not as widely spread. This paper overviews the constructions of such phenomenon and presents results of a small research which looked at the frequency of the usage of dual pronouns and demonstratives in the Lithuanian language. Data for the research was taken from the Corpus of Lithuanian Language compiled by Vytautas Magnus …

Computing The Lexicon Morphological-Phonological Interface For Irish Sign Language Sign Realisation, Irene Murtagh

The ITB Journal

The first modern linguistic analysis of a signed language was published in 1960 by William C. Stokoe, Jr., a professor of English at Gallaudet University, Washington DC, the only college for the deaf in the world. Nearly sixty years on, research in the area of sign language linguistics has established that signed languages are fully developed natural languages with their own syntax, morphology and phonology. The morphology and phonology of signed languages is concerned among with manual and non-manual features. These include handshapes, head, torso, eyebrow, eye, cheek, mouth, nose, chin and tongue movement and also movement of the shoulders. …

Editorial, Brian Nolan

The ITB Journal

I am very pleased to have to the opportunity to introduce the papers in the 27th edition of the ITB Journal.

How Data-Ink Maximization Can Motivate Learners – Persuasion In Data Visualization, Judith Gottschalk

The ITB Journal

This paper discusses both the macro- and the micro-level of persuasion in data visualizations in persuasive tools for language learning. The hypothesis of this paper is that persuasive data visualizations decrease reading time and increase reading accuracy of graph charts. Based on Tufte’s (1983) data-ink maximization principle the report introduces a framework for persuasive data visualizations on the persuasive micro level which employs Few’s (2013) conception of de-emphasizing non-data and emphasizing data-ink. This way persuasive data visualizations for a performance optimizing tool called Learning Journey Online (cf. Gottschalk and Winther-Nielsen 2013) is presented.

Serial Verb Constructions In Pitjantjatjara And Yankunytjatjara, Conor Pyle

The ITB Journal

This study looks at serial verb constructions in two dialects of the Western Desert language of Australia, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara. With a Role and Reference Grammar analysis, the paradigm allows us to look at the constituents for logical structure, and marking of macroroles. We find that core and peripheral argument phrases are marked by case with ergative nominal marking and accusative pronoun marking. Dependent marking is on the phrase level and there is no verb agreement for number, gender or person marking on the verb. Simple verbs use endings for tense, aspect, mood and status. The operator projection shows the …

Emotional Facial Expressions In Synthesised Sign Language Avatars: A Manual Evaluation, Robert G. Smith Mr, Brian Nolan

The ITB Journal

This research explores and evaluates the contribution that facial expressions might have regarding improved comprehension and acceptability in sign language avatars. Focusing specifically on Irish Sign Language (ISL), we examine the Deaf 1 community’s responsiveness to sign language avatars. The hypothesis of this is: Augmenting an existing avatar with the 7 widely accepted universal emotions identified by Ekman [1] to achieve underlying facial expressions, will make that avatar more human-like and improve usability and understandability for the ISL user. Using human evaluation methods [2] we compare an augmented set of avatar utterances against a baseline set, focusing on 2 key …

Editorial, Brian Nolan

The ITB Journal

I am delighted to introduce the 24th edition of the ITB Journal, the academic journal of the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown.

The Persuasive Tutor: A Bdi Teaching Agent With Role And Reference Grammar Language Interface – Sustainable Design Of A Conversational Agent For Language Learning, Judith Gottschalk

The ITB Journal

This paper investigates how an intelligent teaching agent with Role and Reference Grammar [RRG] (cf. Van Valin 2005) as linguistic engine can support language learning. Based on a user-centred empirical design study the architecture of a highly persuasive tool for language learning as an extension of PLOTLearner (http://europlot.blogspot.dk/2012/07/try-plotlearner-2.html) is developed. Based on grounded theory it is shown that feedback and support is of greatest importance even in self-directed computer assisted language learning. Is also shown how this overall approach to language learning can be situated into traditional conversation based learning theories (cf. Laurillard 2009). It is shown that a computationally …

Headedness In Māori Reflexivity: A Role And Reference Grammar Analysis, Aoife Finn

The ITB Journal

This article will provide an introduction to the Māori language. Particular attention is paid to Māori reflexive construction, which sometimes uses a so-called support form to express reflexivity. It will familiarise the reader with Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), a functionally motivated approach to a grammatical model which accounts for both the form and function of language. RRG provides a robust framework for analysing reflexive constructions. Finally, having considered this framework, the article will account for the occurrence of a reflexive support form in reflexive constructions.

Editorial, Brian Nolan

The ITB Journal

I am delighted to introduce the 23th edition of the ITB Journal, the academic journal of the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown.

Three-Place Predicates In English: Towards A Unification-Based Computationally Adequate Approach To Role And Reference Grammar, Judith Gottschalk

The ITB Journal

This paper is concerned with a computational linguistics analysis of Role and Reference Grammar [RRG] (cf. Van Valin and LaPolla 1997; Van Valin (2005) and introduces research work in progress aiming to analyze the computability of RRG. The concept of computational adequacy is introduced as an important external principle from a philosophy of science perspective to sharpen the scientific principles of the area of functional computational linguistics. In addition, a pseudo-code-based meta-language is developed in order to semi-formalize the linking algorithm from semantics to syntax. This paper will show that RRG in its current fashion is not executable on an …

Persian Cleft Constructions: A Role And Reference Grammar Analysis, Farhad Moezzipour

The ITB Journal

The present paper embarks on the study of Persian cleft construction within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG henceforth). RRG intends to investigate the interaction of syntax, semantics and pragmatics via the constituent, logical and focus structure as independent but interrelated domains of the paradigm. To start with, an attempt will be made regarding demonstrating the specification role of the cleft construction, which is a universally semantic property of the construction, in the syntactic, semantic and information structures. In Persian clefts, despite that the clefted constituent is the semantic argument of the predicator of the cleft clause, it …

The Assignment Of Grammatical And Inherent Gender To English Loan Words In Lithuanian Discourse, Jone Bruno

The ITB Journal

The aim of this study was to analyse the gender assignment patterns and processes to English loan nouns that were inserted into Lithuanian language during the process of natural speech. Construction Morphology and the Morpheme-based Model were fused for the purpose of the analysis creating the Integrated Construction Morphology Model which allowed the detailed analysis of phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic procedures. The main focus of this research is the change that occurs in the word level while inserting an L2 item into L1 discourse. The findings revealed that masculine gender was assigned as a default gender regardless of stem …