Digital Commons Network^™

Re/Framing The Hispanic/Latino Nonprofit Identity, Jasmine Villa

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The focus of my Dissertation is to examine how an organizational identity is constructed rhetorically by three Hispanic/Latino based non-profit organization. By looking at how a non-profit organization's online presence contributes to the transformation of the organization as a public, we are able to see rhetoric as a discursive and material practice taking place.

Public School Based Early Childhood Teachers' Beliefs And Their Approaches To Curriculum: A Naturalistic Case Study, Jessica D. Slade

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study explores the beliefs about teaching approaches and classroom practices of public school-based early childhood pre-kindergarten and kindergarten teachers on the U.S. -Mexico border. Additionally, introduced in this work is a new framework for making visible the belief and practices of classroom teachers, as well as theories and approaches to Early Childhood Education, called the process-product continuum. This naturalist multi-case study utilized semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, artifact collection, and construction of visual timelines from three participants; participant narratives are presented, classroom practices and belief statements are analyzed, and mapped on the process-product continuum. Findings indicate that in addition to …

Process Evaluation Of The Batterer Intervention And Prevention Program Of The Center Against Sexual And Family Violence In El Paso, Texas, Kathleen Anne O'Connor

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant public health issue. One in five women and one in seven men will experience severe physical violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime in the US; and one in three women globally (Breiding, Basile, Smith, Black, & Mahendra, 2015; World Health Organization, 2017). Notwithstanding such stark statistics, there is a gap in research on batterers and on batterer intervention and prevention programs (BIPP). Purpose: Program processes related to follow-up of clients were evaluated at the Center Against Sexual and Family Violence Batterer Intervention and Prevention Program (CASFV BIPP) through a mixed-methods …

Using Baby Sign As A Facilitating Technique To Segment Speech With 4-18-Month-Old Monolingual And Bilingual Hearing Infants-An Extension Study, Johanna Puga-Martinez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The intricacies involved in learning language are astounding, nonetheless, infants are more than capable of accomplishing this feat within their first few years of life. This unbelievable achievement is carried out through numerous milestones and exposure to multiple modalities of stimuli all around them. Through the use of these modalities, be it auditory or visual, infants begin their journey to learn language with the task of extracting words from fluent speech, speech segmentation. Researchers have found that infants as young as 6-months can segment words from the speech stream by using their own name or highly familiar words like momma …

Juggernaut: A Memoir In Pieces, Leeann Olivier

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This experimental memoir is a collection of lyric essays that address the link between place (bodies of water in particular) and identity. They also examine my experiences being married to (and eventually divorcing) a man with a traumatic brain injury that led to drug addiction, domestic violence, and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

Technological Literacy Across Disciplines: Examining Graduate Instructors' Experiences, Sidouane Patcha Lum

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation critically examines graduate instructors’ technological literacy across disciplines in a four-year university, in order to explore avenues through which their challenges teaching with classroom technologies can be met. It also investigates the possibility that non- resident instructors and resident instructors’ difference in cultural orientations (patterns, norms and ways of doing) influence instructors’ ability to use technology for their specific functions. For this purpose, Multi (modal) literacy theories and the TPACK framework (technological, pedagogical and content, knowledge) are used as theoretical underpinnings which foster a better understanding of instructors’ technological literacy, while grounded theory developed by Glaser and Strauss …

Anaphora Resolution In Spanish-English L2 Learners An Analysis Of Different Discourse Context, Ohood Asiri

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

While in null subject languages, overt pronouns refer to non-salient antecedents and mark a topic-shift, in non-null subject languages, overt pronouns indicate reference maintenance to the current discourse topic.

It has been shown that learners of a null subject language whose L1 is a non-null subject language show some optionality in the interpretation of null and over subjects in the L2. To account for these results, the Interface HypoThesis (e.g., Sorace, 2011) proposed that interface structures between syntax and pragmatics (as in the case of anaphoric expressions) require an increase use of cognitive resources and are therefore less likely to …

The Impact Of Animacy And Positioning On The Production Of Second Language Referring Expressions, Adonis De Carvalho Borges

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Researches have investigated how referring expressions are produced based upon second language acquisition and psycholinguistics theories. A study of monolingual English speakers demonstrated that referent's salience and discourse factors might impact referring expression choice between noun phrases and pronouns. Participants demonstrated a higher production of pronouns when the referent expression was animate rather than inanimate and a preference for noun phrases when the referent was the second noun phrase of the referent's context sentence (Fukumura & Van Gompel, 2011). In addition, an investigation with Hispanic bilinguals, whose L2 is English, demonstrated, in general, a greater preference for pronouns rather than …

Rethinking Multimodality In First-Year Composition: Applying Theories Of Digital Rhetoric, Procedural Rhetoric, And Electracy To Multimodal Assignments, Jennifer Falcon

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

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Auditory Selective Attention Performance In Older And Younger Bilingual Adults, Ninive Corina Gomez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Recent research has suggested that bilinguals may have enhanced cognitive abilities resulting from the constant management and maintenance of their two language systems. This cognitive advantage has been evidenced in studies showing that bilinguals outperform monolinguals on tasks of visual selective attention. However, very little is known regarding how bilingualism influences selective attention in the perception of auditory information. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of bilingualism on auditory selective attention. A total of 61 participants were recruited to participate and divided into four participant groups: 15 younger monolinguals (between the ages of 18-25), 15 …

Communication Barriers Between Patients And Healthcare Providers Regarding Disclosure Of Herbal Product Use, Armando S. Gonzalez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A considerable portion of our international border Hispanic population traditionally uses medicinal herbs as an alternative option for treating various chronic diseases and may take them alongside prescribed medications. More in-depth research is very necessary to determine why and under what conditions patients use herbs concomitant to medications, and why many do not discuss this with their physicians. Barriers to communication between patients and healthcare providers can encourage non-disclosure of herbal product use, which may interfere with prescribed medications, placing patients at serious risk for various herb-drug interactions. This qualitative descriptive study utilized purposive sampling, employing six focus groups consisting …

Literacies Of The Disaster Zone: New Media Genres And Participatory Rhetorics After The 2010 Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill, R. J. Lambert

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

On April 20, 2010, explosions at the British Petroleum (BP) Macondo Project in the Gulf of Mexico initiated what would become the world's largest accidental release of oil into the ocean. This ecological disaster, a unique combination of natural and human causes, is one of many significant traumas over approximately the last two decades that various stakeholders have documented, participated in, and responded to largely through the expanding and increasingly ubiquitous media of the internet, computers, cell phones, and other networked communicative technologies, which both enable and constrain the variety of responses to traumatic events.

This Dissertation improves our understanding …

Speech Recognition In Noise Performance In Younger And Older Spanish-English Bilinguals' L1 And L2, Elisa Guadalupe Barraza

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Background: Previous research has shown that Spanish/English speaking bilinguals have difficulty understanding English speech in background noise compared to their monolingual counterparts. However, the effects of age on bilinguals' speech understanding performance remains unclear.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether older Spanish/English bilingual speakers are at an increased disadvantage understanding speech in the presence of background noise compared to older English monolinguals.

Methods: 15 younger Spanish-English (S/E) bilinguals, 15 older S/E bilinguals, 15 younger English monolinguals and 15 older English monolinguals participated in the study. Speech recognition performance was measured using the Spanish and English versions …

The Validation Of A Screening Instrument For Preschool-Aged Children In El Paso, Cassandra Curtis

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Background: Culturally and linguistically diverse children often produce linguistic features that may mask or mimic characteristics of language impairment (LI) (Gutierrez-Clellen & Simon-Cereijido, 2009). Language screening instruments are time efficient tools used by Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) to distinguish children who may need additional language assessment (Guiberson & Rodriguez, 2010). A previous survey conducted in the El Paso, TX region determined that only 30% of SLPs felt that screenings instruments, for English-Spanish bilingual children, produced accurate results (Cutis, Summers, Smith, & Stubbemann, 2016). Additionally, the study found that SLPs often used non standardized screening tools due to the lack of …

Development And Testing Of A Culturally Tailored Intervention To Promote Hpv Vaccination Intentions In Latina Young Adults, Erica Landrau

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States and a known risk factor for cervical cancer. Several HPV vaccines have been approved as a primary prevention option. Vaccine administration is recommended for individuals between the ages of 9 and 26. Despite recommendations to vaccinate and a disproportionately high rate of cervical cancer among Latinas, rates of vaccination remain low among this population. The HPV vaccine consists of three doses applied six months apart. Vaccination initiation and completion rates are particular low among Latina young adults (18-26 years of age) and adolescents (13-17 years …

A Mexican American's Passage: An Autoethnographic Exploration Of Identity And Self-Empowerment, Corina Lerma

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis presents a critical autoethnography that explores how an understanding of political and cultural events have contributed to my conflicted sense of identity. The purpose of the study was to identify genealogical and historical patterns that manifest in the traumas that have influenced and problematized the construction of my reality and to discover if personal traumas and conflicted senses of identity as a Mexican American in the United States finds any source in the social and political events that took place during the Mexican Repatriation of the 1930s. The autoethnography was conducted both through research of Mexican American history, …

Voice Onset Time Of Voiceless Stops In The English Of The El Paso Del Norte Region, Kyla Mcmillan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study analyzes the English voice onset time (VOT) for voiceless stops in stressed initial positon in the El Paso del Norte Region and compares the results to those from previous studies. This was done in order to determine if the English in the El Paso area, on the border with Juárez, México is being influenced by Spanish. VOT is a great measure to analyze voiceless stops in initial stressed positon due to the noted short lag of Spanish stops and long lag of English stops in this phonological environment. To test whether the English of this region conformed more …

A Voiced Labiodental Fricative [V] In El Paso Spanish, Roberto Israel Ortega

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A Voiced Labiodental Fricative [V] in El The present study analyzes the voiced labiodental fricative [v] as a variant of the Spanish phoneme /b/ in El Paso Spanish under the scope of language contact. The data used was elicited from thirty one participants employing a task where the influence of the orthographic representation of the graphemes and was absent. Results are compared to previous studies where the influence of orthographic representation was present. This research analyzes the following three factors: 1) the linguistic factors of stress, position in word, and previous and following segments. 2) The social factors gender and …

Language, Literacy And Project Based Learning: An Ethnographic Case Study Of A New Tech Classroom In A High School On The Us/Mexico Border, Nora Lee Paugh

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This ethnographic case study sought to understand how English Language Learners used their language and literacy practices within a project based learning (PBL) classroom to complete their PBL tasks. Studies revealed the impact of how English language learners within a PBL learning environment were able to use their language and literacy as a social practices that led to successful student engagement (Call & Sotillo, 1995; Campbell, 2012). This study was conducted at Wilson High School, located along the US/Mexico border. The focus of the case study was a 9th grade combination English/World Geography class of the school's inaugural New Tech …

Efl Teachers' Identities And Their Teaching And Assessment Practices In A Public University Of A Major City In Colombia, Diana Patricia Pineda Montoya

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This one-year long ethnographic case study seeks to add to the body of literature on EFL teachers' identities in Colombia by drawing on ethnographic methods and sociocultural theories to examine the identity construction of four EFL teachers at the university level. Specifically, this study explores how EFL teachers' identities shaped and were shaped by their teaching and assessment practices. The study was conducted at a public university and involved ethnographic participant-observation with four cátedra teachers (adjunct faculty) situated across five language programs in the Foreign Language Teaching Section (FLTS) of the Department of Languages.

The analysis of multiple data sources …

We Make Our Own Heaven Here, Allyson Whipple

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The poems in We Make Our Own Heaven Here are grouped around a series of artistic and intellectual concerns. The opening section of We Make Our Own Heaven Here covers a wide range of distances, as well as a number of topics, but ultimately, the pieces are grounded in the variegated landscape of Texas. In terms of subject matter, these are poems of ambivalence and tension. In these pieces, the speaker comes up against the beauty of the natural world, but also the danger within it. The poems in the second section of We Make Our Own Heaven Here engage …

Tracking Topical Evolution In Large Document Collections, Sheikh Motahar Naim

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A large document collection that builds up over time usually contains a number of different themes. All of these themes or topics are not equally important at the same time. One topic might have high probabilities in some years due to some relevant events, and low probabilities in other years. Analyzing the evolution of such topics has useful applications in a variety of domains, for example, helping researchers to quickly see the changes of research topics in an area, assisting intelligence agents in tracking the activities of a terrorist group, or monitoring damages caused by a natural disaster. In this …

"Wommanly Noblesse:" Female Gender Dynamics In Medieval Romance, Mary Elizabeth Shaner

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Exploring systemic, gendered power dynamics and inequalities for women within medieval Matters of Rome, France, and Britain Romances is essential to understanding real-world sociopolitical power structures and female gender roles. Diverging from most previous scholarship in my use of critics as well as in my interpretation of Criseyde and Guinevere as protagonists, my argument examines how scholars would laud the heroic bravery of Geoffrey Chaucer's Criseyde and Sir Thomas Malory's Guinevere if they were male heroes, yet because of the narrative conventions of medieval Romance, Courtly Love, Chivalry, and the Antifeminist Traditions, these fictive women are seen as the destroyers …

Constructing Citizenship: Americanization Efforts In The Southwest U.S. (1910-1931), Gerardo Torres

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Constructing Citizenship: Americanization Efforts in the Southwest U.S. (1910-1931)

Language Attitudes Toward Mexican Spanish-Accented And Standard Varieties Of English, Michelle Aguilar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The unique demographics of El Paso, Texas show that it is a site with intense Mexican-American ethnolinguistic contact that creates a co-existence of different English and Spanish varieties. In El Paso, approximately 80 percent of the population identifies as Hispanic or Latino and approximately 95 percent of that group has reported to be of Mexican ancestry (Statistical Atlas, 2015). As a result, Spanish is spoken by 68 percent of the population (United States Census Bureau, 2016). Yet, particular Hispanic-accented English varieties spoken in the region, (Chicano English and Mexican Spanish-accented English), are stigmatized. The focus of this study will be …

The Creation Of The Border Crisis: How The Media Influenced The Situation At The U.S./Mexico Border In 2014, Alejandra Baron

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In 2014, thousands of women and children from Central America trekked across Mexico to reach the United States border in hopes of seeking asylum. As oppose to previous immigration surges, it was the first time that this amount of asylum seekers had reached within a short period of time the border. The media in the United States took an important role in describing the occurrences at the U.S./Mexico border in the rhetoric and dialect used. The polarization of the audience mimicked the partisan government that could not agree on a solution and left the situation at the border in a …

Del Otro Lado… Y Más Allá Colección De Crónicas, Oscar Iván Zapata García

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Del otro lado... y más allá. Colección de crónicas está compuesta por 13 crónicas o textos de no-ficción que a su vez se agrupan en dos partes. La Primera Parte (Del otro lado. Crónicas Fronterizas) está compuesta por 7 crónicas donde se relata la experiencia fronteriza (Estados Unidos-México) en sus dimensiones políticas y sociales desde la perspectiva de un chilango. Para ello hago uso de las técnicas de la crónica, en su acepción de periodismo narrativo y literatura de no-ficción, y del humor y la ironía del altiplano mexicano. La pretensión es hacer agudas y relevantes observaciones geográficas y sociales …

Bilingual Novel Word Learning In Sentence Contexts, Justin G. Lauro

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

According to the Instance-based framework of adult vocabulary learning, each time a learner encounters a new word in context, an episodic memory trace, containing the word itself and the surrounding context, is formed. Previous research has demonstrated an advantage in memory for words encountered in a variety of semantic contexts. This advantage occurs because distinctive contexts generate more distinctive memory traces. While research has demonstrated that a variety of contextual characteristics are encoded (e.g. semantic context, modality, and language), it is unknown whether varying the language context in which a word is encountered has a similar benefit on memory for …

Seeds Of Neocolonialism In Development Discourse: A Study Of Neoliberal "Megarhetorics" Of Global Development And Ecofeminist Resistance, Moushumi Biswas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This paper is based on a case study of www.monsanto.com, the official website of biotech company Monsanto, and transnational voices of resistance as exemplified by eco-critical activist Vandana Shiva. My rhetorical inquiry concerns the future of the global farming sector and allows for an interdisciplinary exploration of transnational development discourse through the overlapping but complementary lenses of ecofeminism and critical discourse analysis (CDA). The purpose of my study – spanning rhetoric, composition, critical theory, cultural theory, communication studies, business ethics, and postcolonial studies – is to trace new notions of discourse creation in the 21 st century using a combination …

From The Fangs Of Monsters: Gender, Empire, And Civilization In The Pacific, 1800-1850, Michael David Chavez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

As the nineteenth century commenced, contact between Pacific Islanders and Anglo-Americans increased as did the concern for what resulted from those interactions. In the United States, antebellum restrained men––those who upheld their Protestant faith, self-reliance, and familial values––used ideals of gender to combat the perceived “savagery” of Pacific Islanders and the corruption of American sailors among them. In the mission field, restrained men consciously sought after Anglo-American women’s influence often believing them to be the moral authority of a softer form of empire. This particular form of empire was not government led; nor did it entail the immediate conquest of …