Digital Commons Network^™

Foreign Language Houses: Identities In Transition, Jennifer Brown, Dan Dewey, Rob A. Martinsen, Wendy Baker

Faculty Publications

This study examined the lived experience of students participating in foreign language houses to improve their skills in Russian, French, or Japanese. American students residing in apartments with other language learners and a nativespeaking resident facilitator were required to speak with one another exclusively in the target language and participate in activities such as preparing and eating dinner together. Data sources for the study included interviews, observations, and video recordings. The data, which were analyzed qualitatively, revealed that the central experience of living in the foreign language house was the creation of a livable community and that use of the …

The Gradient Nature Of S-Lenition In Caleño Spanish, Earl K. Brown, Richard J. File-Muriel

Faculty Publications

Whereas previous studies of Spanish s-weakening have relied on impressionistic coding, the present study examines temporal and gradient acoustic details in the production of /s/ by eight females from Cali, Colombia, during sociolinguistic interviews. We propose a metric for quantifying s-realization by employing three scalar-dependent variables: s-duration, centroid, and voicelessness. The results of linear regressions indicate that the dependent variables are significantly conditioned by local speaking rate, word position, following and preceding phonological context, stress, and lexical frequency. This study sheds light on how each independent variable influences s-realization acoustically. For example, as local speaking rate increases, duration, centroid, and …

The Benefits Of Living In Foreign Language Housing: The Effect Of Language Use And Second-Language Type On Oral Proficiency Gains, Wendy Baker-Smemoe, Rob A. Martinsen, Jennifer Brown, Cary Johnson

Faculty Publications

Many colleges and universities in North America employ foreign language housing (FLH) as a means of exposing students to a second language (L2). However, little research examines the effectiveness of these houses on L2 use and gains. The purpose of this study was to examine whether L2 learners living in FLH use the L2 more and whether they make greater language gains than classroom-only learners. This study also evaluated what kinds of tasks predict greater gains and whether such gains are related to the L2 studied. FLH learners of French, German, Russian, and Japanese were matched with classroom-only learners based …

Elicited Imitation For Prediction Of Opi Test Scores, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Kevin Michael Brooks Cook, Jeremiah Lane Mcghee

Faculty Publications

Automated testing of spoken language is the subject of much current research. Elicited Imitation (EI), or sentence repetition, is well suited for automated scoring, but does not directly test a broad range of speech communication skills. An Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) tests a broad range of skills, but is not as well suited for automated scoring. Some have suggested that EI can be used as a predictor of more general speech communication abilities. We examine EI for this purpose. A fully automated EI test is used to predict OPI scores. Experiments show strong correlation between predicted and actual OPI scores. …

Automating The Scoring Of Elicited Imitation Tests, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Carl Chritensen

Faculty Publications

This paper explores the role of machine learning in automating the scoring for one kind of spoken language test: elicited imitation (EI). After sketching the background and rationale for EI testing, we give a brief overview of EI test results that we have collected. To date, the administration and scoring of these tests have been done sequentially and the scoring latency has not been critically important; our goal now is to automate the test. We show how this implies the need for an adaptive capability at run time, and motivate the need for machine learning in the creation of this …

Word Frequency And Processing: Why The Brain Stores Some Words Whole And Others In Parts, Jeffrey R. Parker

Faculty Publications

Discussion about the structure of the lexicon has primarily focused on morphologically complex words. Theories about the lexicon assume that certain items are stored, such as morphologically simple words, e.g. hero and govern, and derivational suffixes, e.g. -ism and - ment. Given these assumptions, the majority of arguments discuss the status of morphologically complex words, e.g. heroism and government. Theories posit different levels of parsing and storage. The extent to which theories accept parsing as a active process during lexical access ranges from classical approaches which assume all morphologically complex words are parsed, to theories which suggest all …

Effects Of Automated And Participative Decision Support In Computer-Aided Credibility Assessment, Matthew L. Jensen, Paul Benjamin Lowry, Jeffrey L. Jenkins

Faculty Publications

Historically, inaccurate credibility assessments have resulted in tremendous costs to businesses and to society. Recent research offers unobtrusive credibility assessment aids as a solution; however, the accuracy of these decision aids is inadequate, and users often resist accepting the aids’ recommendations. We follow the principles of signal detection theory to improve the accuracy of recommendations in computer-aided credibility assessment by combining automated and participatory decision support. We also leverage participation in decision-making theory to explain and predict an increased acceptance of assessment aid recommendations when perceptual cues are elicited from users. Based on these two theories, we design and test …

The Validity Of The Levitical Food Laws Of Clean And Unclean Animals: A Case Study Of Biblical Hermeneutics, Jiri Moskala

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Critical Look At The Role Of Technology As A Transformative Agent, Grinell Smith

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Phenomenological Approach To Understanding Early Adult Friendships Of Third Culture Kids, Kyoung Choi, Melissa Luke

Faculty Publications

A phenomenological qualitative approach was used to explore the experiences of six Third Culture Kid (TCK) participants regarding their early adult friendships at one midsize university in the United States. The term TCK refers to a person who has spent a significant amount of his or her childhood outside of his or her own country and culture of origin and who has assimilated these cultures into a third culture. TCK participants identified making friends as the most challenging issue in their adjustment to the United States. Four themes emerged from the participants’ narratives, with four illustrative metaphors drawn from the …

Engaging In Another Person’S Telling As A Recipient In L2 Japanese: Development Of Interactional Competence During One-Year Study Abroad, Midori Ishida

Faculty Publications

This study investigates the development of interactional competence through the analysis of conversational data collected in a longitudinal design. It examines, using conversation analysis (CA), how a learner of Japanese as a second language (L2) engages in conversation as a story recipient, and identifies changes that suggest the learner’s development.

Benefitting The Educator And Student Alike: Effective Publications Strategies For Supporting The Academic Language Development Of English Learner (El) Teacher Candidates, Katya A. Karathanos, M Aminy

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Conceptual Modeling Foundations For A Web Of Knowledge, David W. Embley, Stephen W. Liddle, Deryle W. Lonsdale

Faculty Publications

The semantic web purports to be a web of knowledge that can answer our questions, help us reason about everyday problems as well as scientific endeavors, and service many of our wants and needs. Researchers and others expound various views about exactly what this means. Here we propose an answer with conceptual modeling as its foundation. We define a web of knowledge as a collection of interconnected knowledge bundles superimposed over a web of documents. Knowledge bundles are conceptual model instances augmented with facilities that provide for both extensional and intensional facts, for linking between knowledge bundles yielding a web …

The Beauty And The Beast: Civil Society And Nationalisms In Bosnia And Herzegovina, Joan Davison

Faculty Publications

Both ethnic nationalism and liberal civic nationalism exist with historical precedents in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Many elected elites privilege extremist ethnic nationalism. The power-sharing structure of the Dayton Peace Accords institutionalizes their influence and permits the current political stalemate. Further, a legacy of authoritarianism vitiates a political culture supportive of elite accountability and mass responsibility. Yet a nascent civil society witnesses to the past and potential future of liberal cosmopolitanism. This research includes interviews with leaders and members of civil society organizations to assess the impediments to and strength of civil society as a vehicle to promote civic nationalism. While interviewees acknowledge …

The Partisan And His Doppelganger: The Case Of Primo Levi, Ilona Klein

Faculty Publications

Published in 1982, Se non ora, quando? (If Not Now, When?) is Primo Levi's first novel proper. Perhaps Primo Levi is regretted not fully living life as an Italian Jewish partisan that he re-created his lost dream through its pages, and had his partisan brigade not been captured, perhaps Levi's underground fighting might have continued until the end of the war. If Not Now, When? thus might reflect Levi's need to explore that sought-after life as a partisan, which he had been denied after only three months of activity. Did Live write If Not Now, When? as a …

Walters Ms W720: Chapters To Be Observed By The Singers Of The Cappella Giulia (1574), Ilona Klein

Faculty Publications

The manuscript W720 that bears the title Capitoli che hanno da osseruare gli Cantori della Cappella di San Pietro is an unstudied and unpublished document held in the archives of the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland. As one of the earliest surviving written texts of its kind, W720 documents in detail the rules that the singers of the Julian Chapel had to obey during the year 1574. The following critical edition of the manuscript and the accompanying English translation are intended to provide materials that will assist Renaissance specialists in a number of areas (art history, philology, history, musicology, …

Subject To Surveillance: Genocide Law As Epistemology Of The Object, Tawia Baidoe Ansah

Faculty Publications

This article analyzes the discourse on genocide from two angles: the legal genesis of the term in the 1940s and subsequent legal "capture" of the concept of genocide, and a recent socio-political critique of the legal meaning of genocide. The article suggests that a cross-disciplinary critique of genocidal violence not only describes the event and the victim, but also produces knowledge of them as discursive "objects." The key issue is the "surveillance" role of the outside observer, also produced as such in discursive relation to the object. At stake in this view of genocide law as epistemology is the capacity …

4q521 And What It Might Mean For Q 3–7, Gaye Strathearn

Faculty Publications

I am personally grateful for S. Kent Brown. He was a committee member for my master’s thesis, in which I examined 4Q521. Since that time he has been a wonderful colleague who has always encouraged me in my academic pursuits.

Religiosity, Coping, And Psychological Well-Being Among Latter-Day Saint Polynesian In The U.S., Kawika Allen, P. Paul Heppner

Faculty Publications

There is limited knowledge about coping and psychological adjustment in Latter-Day Saint (LDS) Polynesians. This study examined religiosity, collectivistic coping, and psychological well-being among 94 LDS Polynesians residing in the Midwest. As hypothesized, religiously committed LDS Polynesians were more likely to have a healthy psychological well-being and were also likely to use collectivistic coping styles, such that high helpfulness ratings on family support and religion-spirituality coping styles were significantly correlated with a positive psychological well-being. Family support also moderated the relationship between LDS Polynesians’ religious commitment and psychological well-being. Implications are discussed in terms of religiosity, culture, coping, and psychological …

Lehi Dreamed A Dream: The Report Of Lehi’S Dream In Its Biblical Context, Dana M. Pike

Faculty Publications

“Behold, I have dreamed a dream,” Lehi announced to his family one morning in the valley of Lemuel in northwestern Arabia (1 Nephi 8:2; see also 9:1; 10:16). This dream and its subsequent interpretation (given in vision to Nephi) provide a powerful Christ-centered foundation for the whole Book of Mormon.1 Of course, Lehi’s dream of his family, a tree, and its fruit was not the first revelatory dream he had received. Nephi indicates that his father, Lehi, had written an account of his own prophetic ministry that included “many things which he saw in visions and in dreams” (1 Nephi …

Foreign Language Housing In The United States: Results Of A Nationwide Survey, Wendy Baker-Smemoe, Dan P. Dewey, Jennifer Brown, Rob A. Martinsen

Faculty Publications

FOREIGN language housing (FLH), residences on or near college campuses where speakers of the same foreign language live together, have been a part of United States higher education since 1914 (Jordan). As Gregory Wolf points out, “Ideally, the language house is a hermetically sealed linguistic environment where residents agree to speak the target language” and are able to experience “everyday vernacular that is difficult for instructors to replicate in the classroom” (81). Alice Schlimbach and Emil L. Jordan note, FLH “cannot possibly be as advantageous as an extended student-tour to Germany; but it does form a second-best opportunity to come …

Annotating And Exploring Lushootseed Morphosyntax, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Hitokazu Matsushita

Faculty Publications

In this paper we provide information on an initial prototype investigation, on a modest scale, into the morphosyntactic structure of Lushootseed, a Salish language. We begin by describing language resources and tools that were instrumental for the process: an XML-encoded dictionary, a morphological parser, and a syntactic parser. We then illustrate how the output can be stored in a relational database and queried to extract relationships and statistics about them. We also sketch ongoing work to integrate these tools and render them more accessible to users with modest technical skills.

The Development Of Psychometrically Equivalent Cantonese Speech Audiometry Materials, Shawn L. Nissen, Richard W. Harris, Ron W. Channell, Brooke Conklin, Misty Kim, Lena Wong

Faculty Publications

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop and psychometrically evaluate speech audiometry materials that can be used to measure word recognition (WR) and speech recognition testing (SRT) in quiet for native speakers of Cantonese. Study Sample: Commonly used bisyllabic and trisyllabic Cantonese words were digitally recorded by native male and female talkers and then evaluated by twenty normal-hearing Cantonese listeners. Design: The recorded bisyllabic words were psychometrically evaluated and arranged into four WR lists and eight half-lists that are relatively homogeneous in audibility. Using logistic regression, SRT materials were developed by selecting 28 trisyllabic words with relatively steep …

Does Critical Mass Matter? Views From The Boardroom, Lissa Lamkin Broome, John M. Conley, Kimberly D. Krawiec

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Quantitative Template For Subtyping Primary Progressive Aphasia, Marsel Mesulam, Christina Wieneke, Emily Rogalski, Derin J. Cobia, Cynthia Thompson, Sandra Weintraub

Faculty Publications

Objective—To provide a quantitative algorithm for classifying primary progressive aphasia (PPA) into agrammatic (PPA-G), semantic (PPA-S) and logopenic (PPA-L) variants, each of which is known to have a different probability of association with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) versus frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD).

Design—Prospectively and consecutively enrolled 16 PPA patients tested with neuropsychological instruments and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Setting—University medical center. Participants—PPA patients recruited nationally in the USA as part of a longitudinal study.

Results—A two-dimensional template, reflecting performance on tests of syntax (Northwestern Anagram Test) and lexical semantics (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test), classified all 16 patients in concordance with a …

Written Corrective Feedback: Practitioners’ Perspectives, Norman W. Evans, K. James Hartshorn, Emily Allen Tuioti

Faculty Publications

Abstract in English:

Considerable attention has been given to written corrective feedback (WCF) in second language writing (L2) over the past several decades. One of the central questions has focused on the appropriateness of its use in L2 writing. In these academic discussions, scholars frequently describe how WCF is utilized in the classroom. However, many of these claims of teacher practice have no research base, since few studies have actually asked teachers what place WCF has in their writing classroom (Ferris, et al., in press/2011a; Ferris, et al., in press/2011b; Hyland, 2003; Lee, 2004). This paucity of data from teachers …

Operating Efficiently Post-Bilski By Ordering Patent Doctrine Decision-Making, Dennis D. Crouch, Robert P. Merges

Faculty Publications

Now that the Supreme Court has decided Bilski v. Kappos, there is an enormous amount of speculation about the case’s impact on patent applicants, litigants, and other participants in the patent system. Most of the commentary is concerned with the holding in Bilski, how this holding will be applied by courts and the Patent Office, and ultimately, the effect of the holding on inventors, and those who hold and seek patents.

Auxiliary Be Production By African American English-Speaking Children With And Without Specific Language Impairment, April W. Garrity, Janna B. Oetting

Faculty Publications

Purpose: To examine 3 forms (am, is, are) of auxiliary BE production by African American English (AAE)-speaking children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Method: Thirty AAE speakers participated: 10 six-year-olds with SLI, 10 age-matched controls, and 10 language-matched controls. BE production was examined through samples and a probe. Results: Across tasks, visual inspection suggested that the children with SLI overtly marked BE at lower rates than the controls, and all groups marked am at higher rates than is and are, with few dialect-inappropriate errors. Within the samples, the children also overtly marked is at higher rates when preceded …

Why Did Saigyo Become A Monk? An Archeology Of The Reception Of Saigyo's Shukke, Jack C. Stoneman

Faculty Publications

Though it is still impossible to know the exact reasons why the samurai and poet Saigyō西行 (1118-1190) became a Buddhist monk in the winter of 1140, there is value in asking the question one more time--not in an effort to find a definitive answer, but to see what answers have been offered and what those answers tell us about the reception of his poetry and persona. His decision to become a monk remains the great mystery of his life, and a central focus of both popular imagination and scholarly inquiry over the last eight centuries. In the process of attempting …

Critical Theory, Libraries And Culture, Jenny Bossaller, Denice Adkins, Kim M. Thompson

Faculty Publications

There are disparate notions among people within the broad field of information and library science regarding exactly what comprises information science. One broad definition is provided by Tefko Saracevic: “Information science is a field of professional practice and scientific inquiry addressing the problem of effective communication of knowledge records – ʻliteratureʼ – among humans in the context of social, organizational, and individual need for and use of information” (1055- 1056). At its most basic, it seems that information science could be a neutral science if, indeed, it studies everything that is communicated, in any form. However, as noted in the …