Digital Commons Network^™

Es-Esa: An Information Retrieval Prototype Using Explicit Semantic Analysis And Elasticsearch, Brian D. Sloan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many modern information retrieval systems work by using keyword search to locate documents in an inverted index by matching those documents based on terms in a user’s query. While highly effective for many use-cases, one notable drawback to simple keyword-based searching is that the contextual knowledge surrounding the user’s underlying information need may be lost, particularly if the user’s query terms are ambiguous or have multiple meanings. Research in the field of semantic search aims to make progress towards resolving this. One methodology in particular, explicit semantic analysis, works by modeling a document not only as a set of …

Contesting Victimhood: A Linguistic And Legal Anthropological Analysis Of Defendant Experiences In New York’S Human Trafficking Intervention Courts, Mark T. Romig

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Human Trafficking Intervention Courts (HTICs) have been operating in New York City in an effort to connect victims of human trafficking to treatment programs. Unfortunately, the net that the courts cast was too wide and people who did not identify as victims of human trafficking were coerced into treatment programs that they did not need or want. Through textual discourse analysis and ethnographic observation, this paper explores the contestation of victimhood in HTICs by focusing on the experiences of defendants and how they are perceived by the police, judges, and other agents of the HTICs. Before entering the HTICs, defendants …

Words Of Change: How Linguistic Shifts Over The Course Of A Short-Term Exposure Therapy Represent Movement Towards Psychological Health, Zachary A. Kahn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Exposure therapy is currently considered the “gold standard” in treating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Though exposure therapy has been increasingly used and studied as an intervention for PTSD in recent years, little is known about the mechanisms of change in this type of treatment. The Trauma and Addiction Project at the City College of New York ran a clinical research trial for individuals with co-morbid PTSD and Substance Use Disorders (SUDs). Participants randomized into the experimental group, Concurrent Treatment with Prolonged Exposure (COPE), participated in a twelve-session therapeutic intervention that combined exposure therapy focused on the participant’s primary trauma with …

Culturally And Linguistically Humble: A Preparation For Living Abroad, Diana Gonzalez

Northwestern Review

Presented in 2016 at Baekseok University in Cheonan City, South Korea at the 8^th international conference of the International Association for the Promotion of Christian Higher Education (IAPCHE), this paper lays out the rationale for the approach taken in Northwestern College’s required preparations for students studying abroad. Elements in the preparation include getting students to identify influences on them of their home culture; to talk about their motivations and goals for studying abroad; to engage with Duane Elmer’s Cross-Cultural Connections and David Smith’s Learning from the Stranger; and perhaps most importantly, to engage with E. Hockett, L. Samek, …

Design And Facilitation Of Problem-Based Learning In Graduate Teacher Education: An Ma Tesol Case, Cynthia Ann Caswell

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

This exploratory, evaluative case study introduces a new context for problem-based learning (PBL) involving an iterative, modular approach to curriculum-wide delivery of PBL in an MA TESOL program. The introduction to the curriculum context provides an overview of the design and delivery features particular to the situation. The delivery approach has established multiple roles that contribute to the design and facilitation of the learning environment: lead instructors, collaborating instructors, and students as peer teachers. These roles also identify milestones on a collaborative instructional skills trajectory for professional development. In this mixed methods study, qualitative data were collected from collaborating instructors …

Teacher And Student Perceptions Of World Englishes (We) Pronunciations In Two Us Settings, Marie Arrieta

Dissertations and Theses

The present study investigated the perceptions and attitudes of two groups each of ESL teachers and students in the United States regarding World Englishes (WE) pronunciations before and after watching a video on WE accents. Data gathered via online surveys were analyzed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The results show that the perceptions of the teachers in the study ranged from somewhat negative to mildly positive, both pre- and post-video, which is consistent with Brown's (1993) findings that teachers' perceptions changed little if at all after being briefly exposed to WE stimuli. The education of the teachers …

Cognitive Sociology, Michael W. Raphael

Publications and Research

Cognitive sociology is the study of the conditions under which meaning is constituted through processes of reification. Cognitive sociology traces its origins to writings in the sociology of knowledge, sociology of culture, cognitive and cultural anthropology, and more recently, work done in cultural sociology and cognitive science. Its central questions revolve around locating these processes of reification since the locus of cognition is highly contentious. Researchers consider how individuality is related to notions of society (structures, institutions, systems, etc.) and notions of culture (cultural forms, cultural structures, sub-cultures, etc.). These questions further explore how these answers depend on learning processes …

Making Sense Of Making Meaning, The Semiotic Way: Emotional Journey Of A Novice Learner, Papia Bawa

The Qualitative Report

I write this auto-ethnography as homage to my teachers and peers, both in the classroom and in scholarly realms, who inspired me to soar beyond the horizons of self and find meaning within the cosmic consciousness that surrounds us. As a novice learner in an introductory semiotics course, I learned about the process of meaning making. This paper is a product of my learning and understanding of a semiotic worldview. Encouraged by my professor, I delved deeply into the “thinkings” of two semiotic masterminds: Charles Sanders Peirce and Jakob von Uexküll, whose philosophies, ideologies and beliefs helped make sense of …

January 7, 2017: Mlk Day Teach-In Event: A Day Of Learning And Action, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

Addressing Threats to Justice, the Climate, and Civil Rights: A Day of Learning and Action

Tblt And L2 Pronunciation: Do The Benefits Of Tasks Extend Beyond Grammar And Lexis?, Laura Gurzynski-Weiss, Avizia Long, Megan Solon

Faculty Publications

Introduction to the Special Issue.

Rethinking Mono-Sensory, Implicational Approaches To Ideophones In Pastaza Quichua, Janis B. Nuckolls, Sydney Jensen, Emily Peterson, Matthew Millar

Faculty Publications

This paper will evaluate a claim about a possible areal bias for the semantic typolgies of ideohone systems. According to this claim, ideophone systems of the Americas are mainly dedicatied to encoding sound and motion, while for Africa and Asia, they cover a broader range of sensory imagery , including visual patterns, textures, and cognitive states. Additionally, and implicational hieracry for ideophone systems' se,amtics has been posted. We demonstrate with data from Pasta Quichua, that ideophones' semantics span the full range of senory and cognitive possibilities. Further, the mono-sensory schematization of ideophones' semantics make the implicational hierarchy problematic as presently …

Robot Perception Errors And Human Resolution Strategies In Situated Human-Robot Dialogue, Niels Schütte, Brian Mac Namee, John D. Kelleher

Articles

Errors in visual perception may cause problems in situated dialogues. We investigated this problem through an experiment in which human participants interacted through a natural language dialogue interface with a simulated robot.We introduced errors into the robot’s perception, and observed the resulting problems in the dialogues and their resolutions.We then introduced different methods for the user to request information about the robot’s understanding of the environment. We quantify the impact of perception errors on the dialogues, and investigate resolution attempts by users at a structural level and at the level of referring expressions.

Going Beyond The Text: The Inferencing Processes Of Skilled Readers In L1 And L2 Across Reading Tasks, Angela Meyer Sterzik

Faculty & Staff Publications - ELI

This small exploratory study investigated the inferencing processes of skilled first language (L1) and second language (L2) readers for two academic tasks. The goal was to examine possible effects of language and task, or reading purpose, on the frequency and distribution of inferences. Participants (n = 10) were native speakers of German enrolled at a large university in Hessen, Germany in a B.Ed. program. Participants read two expository texts (one written in German and the other written in English) in two task conditions: summary and position-paper. Think-aloud protocols while reading and stimulated recall immediately after reading were recorded, transcribed, coded, …

Formal And Functional Linguistic Properties Of Esl Textbooks, Jessica Shea Lewis

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Based on the formal and functional perspectives espoused in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), the main purpose of this thesis was to investigate the extent to which such lexico-grammatical features as lexical density, choice of nominal groups, and grammatical metaphor are used in ESL texts to scaffold target language proficiency levels. Of the number of lexico-grammatical metafunctions and their functional constituents, interpersonal metafunctional categories were analyzed from these three functional features in this thesis in order to reveal the ways in which interpersonal categories and the lexico-grammatical features are correlated as the level of difficulty of each text increases.

The analysis …

Welcome To Ilead: An Introduction To Intercultural Communication For Intensive English Program Students, Sharon Tjaden-Glass

Center for International Programs Publications and Presentations

Presentation introduces participants to the rationale, curriculum, and outcomes of the iLEAD intercultural communication program.

Pirandello And Satire. The Imaginary Journey Of Four Authors In Search Of A Character According To Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff (1889-1930), Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

Drawing on a little-known work by Scott-Moncrieff, this article investigates Luigi Pirandello’s intellectual and literary reach across genres and space, from theater to pamphlets, from Italy to the English-speaking world. A talented writer and translator, Charles K. Scott-Moncrieff published “The Strange & Striking Adventures of Four Authors in Search of a Character” by P. G. Lear & L. O in 1926. The title of the pamphlet, and the acronym of the fictional author are references to Pirandello and to his Six Characters in Search of an Author. Scott-Moncrieff had all the documents in order to write about, or in …

The Postposition 'Bok' In The Arara Language, Shirley De Souza

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

In languages, the category of adpositions typically comprises a small class of morphemes that serve to locate one entity, the 'trajector', with reference to another entity, the 'landmark' within three-dimensional space. Adpositions tend to be highly polysemous. In this paper I consider the postposition bok in the Arara language. This postposition has a variety of disparate usages. My goal is to show how the meanings illustrated by these usages are related within a network.

Subject Pronoun Expression In Second Language Learners: The Case Of First-Person Subject Pronoun, Falcon Restrepo-Ramos

World Languages & Cultures Department Publications

No abstract provided.

Creating New Synergies: Approaches Of Tertiary Japanese Programmes In New Zealand [Review], Michiko Kaneyasu

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

Review of Creating New Synergies: Approaches of Tertiary Japanese Programmes in New Zealand, Edited by Masayoshi Ogino, Penelope Shino, and Dallas Nesbitt. Auckland: Massey University Press, 2016. 302 pp.

Indexing 'Entrustment': An Analysis Of The Japanese Formulaic Construction [N Da Yo N], Michiko Kaneyasu, Shoichi Iwasaki

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

Japanese conversations are known to contain a large amount of unexpressed information. When a speaker speaks with elliptical information, he or she assumes that the addressee will understand what is not overtly expressed based on the knowledge that is supposed to be shared textually, personally or culturally. The addressee, on the other hand, must determine what is not being expressed overtly using such shared knowledge. At the heart of this kind of communication is the existence of trust assumed among the interlocutors. Using the term 'entrustment', we will examine how one particular Japanese formulaic construction, [Noun (da) yo Noun ], …

"Revolution In Religious Language": The Relevance Of Julia Kristeva's Theory Of 'Signifiance' For Theology, Timothy O. Inman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation applies Julia Kristeva's theory of revolution in the practice of signifiance to religious discourse. In particular, it argues that the salient features of signifiance are present and active in religious speech as well as poetic language, the subject of Kristeva's doctoral thesis Revolution in Poetic Language. Signifiance describes the process in which meaning is produced in linguistic utterance, and its intentional practice is subversive not only in terms of language but culture in general.

Event Semantics: A Husserlian Critique, Andres Colapinto

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Perspectives On Effective Teaching In Dli And Foreign Language Classrooms, Karin Dejonge-Kannan, Maria Luisa Spicer-Ecalante, Elizabeth Abell, Aaron Salgado

Languages, Philosophy, and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Toggling The Switches, Zach Thomas

Bridges: A Journal of Student Research

In this paper, I use Richard Lanham's work within the field of rhetoric to explore the rhetorical implications of multilingualism and code switching. Specifically, I will discuss and question some of the basic assumptions of employing another language: What is at stake when we communicate with others in another language, especially native speakers? How might using an L2 language and recognizing/using different dialects within that language cause a speaker to reconsider their native tongue? What does the presence of numerous regional peculiarities and nonstandard varieties within languages say about our desire for "ideal" or "standard" speech?

Speech Equality: A Gendered Analysis Of Children’S Television Shows, Rikki N. Bergen

Anthropology Presentations

Childhood is an exciting time and kids are just learning who they are and who they are expected to be. The role television plays in their understanding of gender, racial, cultural, economic and social identity cannot be denied and it is therefore important for scholars to examine the types of ideas that are being presented. The gendered attitudes portrayed both explicitly and implicitly in children’s television shows can have a negative effect on childhood development and a child’s perceptions of self and the world around them.

Universal Design For Belonging: Living And Working With Diverse Personal Names, Karen E. Pennesi

Anthropology Publications

There is great diversity in the names and naming practices of Canada’s population due to the multiple languages and cultures from which names and name-givers originate. While this diversity means that everyone encounters unfamiliar names, institutional agents who work with the public are continually challenged when attempting to determine a name’s correct pronunciation, spelling, structure and gender. Drawing from over a hundred interviews in London (Ontario) and Montréal (Québec), as well as other published accounts, I outline strategies used by institutional agents to manage name diversity within the constraints of their work tasks. I explain how concern with saving face …

Reduced Structure In Malagasy Headlines, Ileana Paul

French Studies Publications

This paper examines the register associated with headlines in Malagasy. While in many languages headlines appear to have reduced structure as evidenced by the absence of certain grammatical markers (determiners, copulas, tense), Malagasy headlines show a change in word order from VOS to SVO. It is argued that like English, Malagasy headlines involve a truncated syntactic structure and that the absence of certain functional projections accounts for the change in word order.

Culminating And Non-Culminating Accomplishments In Malagasy, Ileana Paul, Baholisoa Simone Ralalaoherivony, Henriëtte De Swart

French Studies Publications

Malagasy is a language with non-culminating accomplishments. There is, however, a specific prefix (maha-), which appears to entail culmination. Moreover, verbs prefixed with maha- display a range of interpretations: causative, abilitive, ‘manage to’, and unintentionality. This paper accounts for these two aspects of this prefix with a unified semantic analysis. In particular, maha- encodes double prevention, as proposed by Wolff (2007, 2014) for English predicates like enable. The double prevention configuration is associated with a circumstantial modal base, which leads to culminating readings in the past and future. As such, this paper supports a more fine-grained theory …

A Handbook And Materials For Ilead: An Intercultural Communication Program Between Intensive English Program And Teacher Education Students, Sharon Tjaden-Glass

Center for International Programs Publications and Presentations

iLEAD is an intercultural communication program for university students that focuses on developing intercultural competence through guided conversations and shared activities. iLEAD stands for “International Language Exchange and Dialogue.” It was developed through a partnership between the Intensive English Program and the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Dayton.

The educational context: There is a stark difference in how domestic and international students experience the university. The majority of university students fit into the description of traditional, residential students. However, many international students do not fit the traditional, residential student demographic. Many of our international students who come …

Rhetoric Of Typography: Cross-Cultural Perceptions Of Typefaces For Technical And Visual Communication, Michael Peterson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Since the early 2000s, scholars have been conducting research to determine whether typefaces influence a reader's response to a document. Some areas of research have included the role of gender, age, or other demographics on typeface perception. However, the role of culture in academic discourse on the rhetoric of typography has been largely underexplored, and this is concerning given the ease with which technical documents can be delivered to cultures around the world with a couple of clicks on a computer.

I developed my research topic to explore whether Koreans perceive typefaces differently from non-Koreans and to discover what typefaces …