Digital Commons Network^™

Humor Detection, Manan Jain

Dissertations and Theses

Humor is a very complex characteristic concept that defines us as human beings and social entities. Humor is an essential component in personal communication. How to create a method or model to discover the structures behind humor, recognize humor and even extraction of humor remains a challenge because of its subjective nature. Humor also provides valuable information related to linguistic, psychological, neurological and sociological phenomena. However, because of its complexity, humor is still an undefined phenomenon. Because the reaction that make people laugh can hardly be generalized or formalized. For instance, cognitive aspects as well as cultural knowledge, are some …

Culturally Responsive School Leadership For Latino/A Students Success, Victor H. Vergara

Dissertations and Theses

Historically, education in the United States has been tailored to fulfill the needs of White students. As the Latina/o population increases in the United States, we must prepare teachers and school administrators to provide opportunities for an equal education for minority students of all races, cultural backgrounds, or ethnicities. School leadership plays an important role in the effectiveness of educational access for minority students. Leaders must review and modify their practices to ensure that minority students have the opportunity to be productive citizens in our society. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the characteristics of effective high school …

Using The Task Analysis Process With Teachers To Uncover Language Demands Within An Eight-Week Ngss Summer Course, Leah Plack

Dissertations and Theses

The state of Oregon has adopted the Next Generation Science Standards as well as the English Language Proficiency standards, both of which affect elementary school teachers. These standards adoptions challenge teachers and professional developers to rethink how they approach science conceptual understanding and language acquisition. The Math Science Partnership K-6 Instructional Specialist Grant made the decision to incorporate a Task Analysis process, which asks the participant to analyze the demands of a content-based task in the domains of content knowledge, analytical skills and language, into six eight-week summer courses focused on the Next Generation Science Standards. A pre and post-assessment …

Shouts Of The Khori-Challwa: Andean Mythological And Cosmological Reconsiderations Of The American Identity In Gamaliel Churata’S El Pez De Oro, Stephen Delaney Mcnabb

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the possible creation of a new categorization of American Literature as presented in the Andean novel El pez de oro: Retablos del Laykhakuy (1957) by Gamaliel Churata. In El pez de oro, Gamaliel Churata presents a strategy for the recuperation of native Andean cultural agency that enables the Andean subject to reclaim traces of their ancestral past under more verisimilar and verifiable terms. Churata argues that through a recuperation of native language and its infusion into the body of the major colonial language, Spanish, the Andean subject is equipped with a new culture producing tool that …

"Neither Of The Boxes": Accounting For Non-Binary Gender Identities, Erin Patricia Savoia

Dissertations and Theses

This research examines the ways in which individuals who identify with nonbinary gender identities 1) understand and perform their gender identities and 2) navigate the workplace, intimate partner relationships, friendships, and the LGBTQ+ community. Prevailing understandings of gender rely on a gender binary; identification with a binary gender is compulsory. Individuals are assigned a gender at birth and are expected to identify fully with that gender for their entire lives. However, despite significant social pressures to identify as man or woman, there exist individuals whose identities bring into question the stability of the gender binary. Non-binary is sometimes used to …

The Voices Of Special Educators: How Do Special Educators Teach English Language Learners Who Are Receiving Special Education Services?, Elizabeth Ann Dubois

Dissertations and Theses

Disproportionality in special education has been examined from various perspectives over a 50-year period. English Language Learner (ELL) students have been included in the discussion among researchers in the past two decades as a disproportionate number of ELL students are referred to special education. Though the problem of disproportionality has been acknowledged, documented and discussed over a period of decades, there is a lack of research from the voices of special educators. The purpose of this study was to describe special education teachers' experiences teaching students currently or previously enrolled in an English language learner program who are receiving special …

Middle School Teacher Beliefs About Classroom Diversity And Their Influence On Differentiated Instructional Practices, Marcus Fredrick-Lynn Wenzel

Dissertations and Theses

Diversity across U.S. classrooms is on the rise which is leading to renewed calls for teachers to meet individual learning needs. Studies indicate the failure to address individual learning needs can lead to higher rates of student disengagement, off-task behaviors, and diminished learning outcomes. Differentiated instruction is an approach to teaching that meets the growing diversity of individual learning needs by considering students' readiness, interest, and learning styles. Differentiated instructional approaches help teachers meet individual learning needs by allowing them to modify instruction as needed. However, despite the apparent benefits of differentiated instruction, teachers are hesitant to abandon other educational …

African American Teacher Recruitment: A Case Study In Oregon, Deborah Miller Allen

Dissertations and Theses

The public school teacher population of the United States is predominantly White, while the demographics of P-12 student population continue to grow increasingly diverse. Across the nation, there has been a call for the recruitment and retention of culturally and linguistically diverse teachers. The state of Oregon passed the Oregon Educator Equity Act, originally called the Oregon Minority Teacher Act, in 1991, and with recent renewed attention, the preparation of more culturally and linguistically diverse teachers in the state has gained prominence. Refocused consideration to the lack of diversity in the teaching workforce is overdue, as evidenced by the low …

Survive Or Thrive: A Mixed Method Study Of Visiting Chinese Language Teachers' Identity Formation In The U.S. Classrooms, Li Xiang

Dissertations and Theses

In recent years in the United States, an increasing number of people are learning Mandarin, the dominant Chinese language in China. Because of the shortage of Mandarin teachers, many visiting teachers from China with Chinese educational background are teaching Mandarin in the U.S. schools. In the U.S. classrooms, these teachers are challenged to adapt to a new setting. This experience can lead them to changing their teaching identity, that is, their basic beliefs, attitudes and practices about teaching. Understanding how Chinese teachers may form a new teaching identity in the U.S. context serves to inform future professional development activities designed …

Food Access Narratives In Southeast Portland, Oregon, Gwyneth Genevieve Mckee Manser

Dissertations and Theses

Since the late 1990's, "food deserts" have dominated the academic and policy literature on food access and food security. Food deserts are defined as areas that lack easy access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food, and are typically measured using Geographic Information Systems and spatial data sets. However, while food deserts may provide a useful measure for identifying food insecurity at a broad scale, they fail to account for individual definitions and perceptions of food access (Barnes et al. 2015; McEntee 2009). Furthermore, the food desert model assumes a lack of agency on the part of low-income populations (Alkon et …

Contextualization: An Experimental Model For Efl Writing Instruction In China, Guimin Tang

Dissertations and Theses

Chinese students learning English as a foreign language seem to get good marks in tests, but are poor or limited in their ability to write in English. This dilemma of China's EFL writing instruction seems to be related to the decontextualized EFL writing practices. This study aims to examine how Chinese EFL college students respond to changes in their writing instruction that pays attention to the context of EFL teaching and learning. In this study, context refers to three levels: linguistic context, situational context and cultural context.

Using the mixed methods approach, I conducted the study by engaging 60 second-year …

An Exploration Of Effective Community College Instructors' Use Of Culturally Competent Pedagogies, Aylin Bunk

Dissertations and Theses

Increasing diversity among community college students and the rising demand for a culturally competent workforce necessitate community college faculty across all disciplines to adjust their pedagogical choices to effectively serve diverse students while preparing all students for the new global era. The purpose of this narrative study was to explore what culturally competent pedagogies effective community college instructors use and reasons behind their choices. The study was conducted at a large community college in the Pacific Northwest. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with ten instructors teaching in different disciplines. In addition, the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) was used to …

An Analytical System For Determining Disciplinary Vocabulary For Data-Driven Learning: An Example From Civil Engineering, Philippa Jean Otto

Dissertations and Theses

Data-driven learning (DDL), an inductive teaching approach in which students learn through corpus interaction, has gained recent traction as way to teach specialized vocabulary in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) classes. There is little research, however, that addresses how to choose specialized vocabulary for teaching with DDL.

This study addressed this gap in research by exploring the potential of a three-part analytical, corpus-based system for determining vocabulary to teach with DDL for a specific context of language use. This system included (1) identifying words that were significantly more frequent in a specialized expert corpus than in a corpus of general …

Lexical Bundles In Applied Linguistics And Literature Writing: A Comparison Of Intermediate English Learners And Professionals, Kathryn Marie Johnston

Dissertations and Theses

Lexical bundles (fixed sequences of three to four words) have been described as building blocks of discourse, both written and spoken (Biber & Barbieri, 2007), and as a useful mechanical device for creating writing that is suited for its academic field (Hyland, 2008). Having noticed that the academic theses of my students at Longdong University in Qingyang, China seemed very different from professional writing in their fields, I created a thesis project that addressed the question of how professionals in their fields were using bundles and how the learners' use of these bundles in terms of frequency, structure, and function …

Exploring Mathematical Capital: An Essential Construct For Mathematical Success?, Marla Ann Lasswell Baber

Dissertations and Theses

In the United States students have traditionally struggled with mathematics. Many students leave the educational system with limited mathematical literacy that can adversely affect their success as a college student, a consumer and citizen. In turn, lack of mathematical literacy affects their socioeconomic status. Through improving their mathematical literacy, students can be more successful not only in mathematics but, it seems in many aspects of their lives. Many researchers have defined mathematical literacy; yet, we need to understand more about how mathematical literacy develops. This study explores a model that identifies four key components that seem to be associated with …

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 …

Out In "The Numbers": Youth And Gang Violence Initiatives And Uneven Development In Portland's Periphery, Dirk Kinsey

Dissertations and Theses

Incidence of youth and gang violence in the Portland, Oregon metro area has increased dramatically over the past five years. This violence has recently become more spatially diffuse, shifting outwards from gentrified, inner city neighborhoods, towards the city's periphery. These incidents exist within the context of a shifting regional political economy, characterized by a process of gentrification associated displacement and growing, and distinctly racialized and spatialized, inequalities. While gang researchers have long argued a corollary between the emergence of gangs and economically and culturally polarized urban landscapes, the ongoing suburbanization of poverty in American cities suggests a new landscape of …

Disability Poetry: An Exploration In Three Parts, Daniel Sarmiento

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Struggle To Re-Establish Anglo Superiority In American Modernism And Its Collapse Into American Tragedy, Jeff Brelvi

Dissertations and Theses

A study of the impact Anglo race assertion had on American Modernism through the work of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and T.S. Eliot shaping the discourse on American cultural identity. Arthur Miller and his "Tragedy and the Common Man" put an end to Modernism's Anglo stronghold and brought about the next period of American literature, ushering it into the era of American tragedy.

Wiki-Based Collaborative Creative Writing In The Esl Classroom, Rima Elabdali

Dissertations and Theses

Despite the growing number of L2 studies examining digitally-mediated collaborative writing, the vast majority of these studies have focused on academic writing tasks. This study examined the dynamics and perceptions of groups of ESL students who used wikis to write collaborative short stories. The study also compared the short stories written in groups with posttest short stories written individually in terms of creativity, accuracy, and complexity. The study involved nine students taking a Creative Writing course in an intensive English program at a large university in the U.S. It followed a multiple case study design; the students were divided into …

Improved Sprint Results With Offshore Indian Teams, Fnu Abdul Hasheem

Dissertations and Theses

Due to the cultural and linguistic differences, different time zones, and complexities of knowledge transfer involved in IT offshoring, offshore-outsourced projects are more prone to failure than in-house and domestically outsourced projects. These inherent risks exacerbate the communication, coordination and collaboration between vendors and clients and thus affect various stages of the offshore outsourced software development (OSD).

Communication is a major factor of success or failure for any software project. In offshore software development OSD, communication is more critical than collocated software development. Frequent communication is not always possible due to challenges like time zone differences, holiday customs etc. where …

Conceptualizing The Mindful Teacher: Examining Evidence For Mindfulness Skills In Teachers' Classroom Speech And Behavior, Cynthia Lynn Taylor

Dissertations and Theses

Mindfulness-based interventions can improve teachers' capacities for attention and emotion regulation, as well as their prosocial dispositions like compassion and forgiveness. The purpose of this set of research studies (including three case studies and a larger non-randomized treatment -- control group quasi-experimental study) was to examine whether or not capacities like these, learned through participation in a mindfulness training (MT) program for teachers, become embodied and show through as changes in teachers' mindful behavior in the classroom -- specifically, their ability to be calm, clear-minded and kind-hearted in their speech and behavior with students in the classroom. These studies used …

Narratives Of Native American Women And Tribal Courts: The Framing Of The Violence Against Women Act Of 2013 In Mainstream, Native American, And Tribal Press Coverage, Alesha Marie Sangster

Dissertations and Theses

The Violence Against Women Act is a legislation created to expand more legal rights and services to survivors of domestic violence or intimate partner violence. Frame analysis was used to examine the coverage of the Violence Against Women Act of 2013 in three genres of press media: mainstream press, Native American press, and tribal press. Based on the media frames produced in the three media genres, the legislation was presented as more of a conflicting or controversial issue in mainstream press through the use of the conflict frame and the "Indian as other" frame. But all news coverage also presented …

The Effect Of Extended Instruction On Passive Voice, Reduced Relative Clauses, And Modal Would In The Academic Writing Of Advanced English Language Learners, Audrey Bailey

Dissertations and Theses

As more international students who are not expert users of English come to the United States to study at university, the field of teaching English for Academic Purposes grows. There are many important skills these international students must learn to become successful university students in America, but writing for academic purposes is of particular importance for these students to join the academic conversation in their respective disciplines. Corpus research has identified the grammatical features which are frequently found in different registers, and from this work it is known which structures are important in different types of academic writing. Grammatical structures …

More Than Meets The Eye: Latino Students In A Two-Way Immersion Program And Stereotype Threat, Edgar Ubaldino Solares Vega

Dissertations and Theses

Figures from the 2010 Census indicate that there are 50.5 million Latinos (16% of the total population) living in the United States (US) today. From 2000 to 2010, the Latino population experienced a very rapid growth rate of 43%, which accounted for over half the total population growth. More and more Latino students are entering our public schools and face the reality that 62 years after the Brown V. Board of Education ruling to integrate schools and equalize educational opportunities, schools are more racially and economically segregated and more unequal than they were more than half a century ago. As …

A Study Of The Intelligibility, Comprehensibility And Interpretability Of Standard Marine Communication Phrases As Perceived By Chinese Mariners, Lillian Christine Holland

Dissertations and Theses

Worldwide, mariners use a variety of English as an International Language known as Maritime English regardless of the first language spoken by the crew or port in which they enter. English knowledge and ability is therefore critical to a mariner's livelihood at sea and is also mandated by the International Maritime Organization. The ability to understand and be understood is paramount to safety at sea. This study investigated which accents of English a subset of Chinese mariners found easy or difficult to understand. The data from 39 Chinese mariners who listened to 8 Standard Marine Communications phrases was analyzed. The …

The Making Of Modern Egypt: The Egyptian Ulama As Custodians Of Change And Guardians Of Muslim Culture, Marai Boauod

Dissertations and Theses

Scholarship on the modern history of the Middle East has undergone profound revision in the previous three decades or so. Many earlier perceptions, largely based on modernization theory, have been either contested or modified. However, the perception of the Egyptian ulama (the traditionally-educated, religious Muslim scholars) in academic scholarship remains largely affected by the legacy of hypotheses of the modernization theory. Old assumptions that the Egyptian ulama were submissive to political power and passive players incapable of accommodating, let alone of fathoming, conditions of the modern world, and who chose or were forced to retreat from this world, losing much, …

Thermal Decomposition Of Electronic Cigarette Liquids, Robert Paul Jensen

Dissertations and Theses

Electronic cigarette liquid (e-liquid) is a solution of propylene glycol and/or glycerol with varying concentrations of nicotine and flavorants. Inhalation of vaporized e-liquid is a method of nicotine delivery that is growing in popularity and is commonly regarded as safe relative to smoking traditional tobacco products. The thermal decomposition of glycerol and propylene glycol is typical of alcohols and has been investigated, although not exhaustively. In this work, samples of propylene glycol and glycerol were vaporized using an electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) and were analyzed for evidence of decomposition using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. E-cigarettes are shown to degrade glycerol …

Perceptions Of Hmong Parents In A Hmong American Charter School: A Qualitative Descriptive Case Study On Hmong Parent Involvement, Kirk T. Lee

Dissertations and Theses

Parental involvement plays an essential role in the United States (U.S.) educational system. However, parental involvement poses many challenges for Hmong parents in American schools. Many assumptions are made on the parts of teachers, staff, and Hmong parents about parents' roles pertaining to their involvement in their children's education. Hmong parents struggle to reconcile beliefs, attitudes, and values that they bring with them from Laos with the expectations found in the U.S. due to their unfamiliarity with the U.S. educational system.

This study employed the used a qualitative, descriptive case study approach to examine the perceptions of Hmong parents involvement …

Japanese Dialect Ideology From Meiji To The Present, Nao Okumura

Dissertations and Theses

The intent of this study is to examine the trajectory of ideology regarding standard Japanese and dialects from the historical perspective, and also to discuss the cause of the post-war shift of the ideology. Before the war, the government attempted to disseminate hyojun-go aiming at creating a unified Japan in the time when many countries were developing to be nation states after industrial revolution. After the Pacific war, the less strict-sounding term kyotsu-go was more often used, conveying an ideology of democratization. Yet despite the difference in the terms, speaking a common language continues to play a role of unifying …