Digital Commons Network^™

Illusory Vowels And The North Kyungsang Korean Vowel Merger In English Loanword Adaptation Into Korean, Jiyeon Song

Theses and Dissertations

Our auditory perceptual processing is optimized for the sound patterns of our native language. Consequently, when non-native segments are perceived, speech “illusions” often occur. This well-known phenomenon, known as the perception of illusory vowels, occurs when listeners of a borrowing language (BL) perceive vowels that do not exist underlyingly in the source language (SL).

Illusory vowels have often been considered to be the default vowel in a language: /ɨ/ in Korean, /u/ in Japanese, /ə/ in English, /e/ in Spanish, and /i/ in Brazilian Portuguese. This raises the question of how vowel systems affect the quality of illusory vowels. For …

A Study Of South Texas English Learners’ Academic Achievement: A Function Of Sense Of Belonging, Acculturation, And Student Perception Of Teacher-Student Relationships, Cynthia B. Olivarez

Theses and Dissertations

This study looks at a group of Hispanic English Learners from a region in deep South Texas that is situated along the U.S.-Mexico border, and how their sense of belonging, acculturation, and their perception of the teacher-student relationship impacts academic achievement on the STAAR End-of-Course state assessments for English I and English II.There are limited studies on this population of students and these independent variables. Results from this study would help educators and school leaders assess student needs to improve student learning and close academic achievement gaps.

An Analysis Of Income And Healthcare Disparities Across Minority Populations By Incorporating Community Resource Collaboration In Public Policy, Ohioze O. Obadan

Theses and Dissertations

There is widespread literature on the connection between public policy, resource allocation, and income and health inequalities among minority communities. While various services are created to help communities, the distribution and allocation of these services remain elusive, without any collaboration towards a common objective among public policy leaders. This paper investigates the disparities in the access to healthcare within Florida, a state selected because of its documented problems with healthcare access. This thesis research analyzes the income and health inequalities in minority populations in Florida by integrating community resource collaboration into public policy. The study used secondary data from public …

Measuring Orthographic Influences On Phonological Processing In Beginning Readers: An Eyetracking Study, Emily Grace Fisher

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose – Both orthographic and phonemic awareness are essential to reading. However, the role of orthographic knowledge in phonemic awareness has not been thoroughly investigated in beginning readers until recently. The purpose of this study was to examine if orthographic knowledge influenced phonological processing in beginning readers and to establish a proof of concept for the use of eyetracking measures to examine these skills in young children.

Method – 22 participants, aged 6-7 years, completed norm-referenced assessments of language and reading ability as well as experimental measures of orthographic and phonological awareness while their eye movements were monitored.

Results – …

Increasing Practical Verbal Behavior In Esports Players, Victoria Perry German

Theses and Dissertations

Verbal behavior, sports, and performance skills have been targeted in behavior analytic research in the past. However, no research to date has targeted Esports as a setting, nor has there been a substantial focus on communication as a target as opposed to more technical skills in sports, organizations, or similar settings. Esports is a large, growing industry of competitive videogaming, with a variety of games represented at different levels, many of which are team-based and require significant coordination and cooperation between players on a team. Thus, in this study we targeted verbal responses in a team of collegiate Esports players …

Methodological Mutability: Shifting Research In The Rhetoric Of Health And Medicine, John Schuler Benson Iii

Theses and Dissertations

The Rhetoric of Health and Medicine (RHM) is a growing body of scholarship that pulls from technical communication, rhetorical theory, and a number of other disciplines to inquire about the capacities of rhetoric at the intersection of medical practitioners and scholars, the medical humanities, and the publics they inform and treat. Among RHM scholars there is a consensus that the field’s methodological diversity is one of its greatest strengths; indeed, field leaders articulate one of RHM’s exigencies as “encouraging methodological collaboration and experimentation” (Melonçon and Scott, Methodologies 4). This dissertation takes up these calls with the introduction of shifting, a …

A Finding Place: Social Justice Poetry Toward Empathy In The Secondary English Language Arts Classroom, Patricia Vicino

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effects of a combined reader-response and close reading approach to social justice poetry on the empathy levels of secondary level English Language Arts students in my classroom. This action research study occurred over a six-week period during a Fall 2021 English elective course with six student participants in a high school within South Carolina. Research was conducted via a mixed methods approach that analyzed both quantitative and qualitative data from prestudy and poststudy Likert scales along with surveys, interviews, observation notes, and artifacts. The data revealed that student empathy levels were elevated after the study unit …

Old High German And Gothic Breaking: A Comparative Study, Olivia C. Paglia

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is intended to be a comparative study of Old High German and Gothic breaking. The process of breaking is unique in both Old High German and Gothic compared to the other Germanic languages in that it does not result in diphthongization, but rather the raising and lowering of accented vowels. The intent is to integrate research detailing the process of breaking in Old High German and Gothic in order to better understand how it may be related in both languages. The issue of the Gothic digraphs and the debate over their phonemic values will also be explored, namely …

Afro-Diasporic Literatures Of The United States And Brazil: Imaginaries, Counter-Narratives, And Black Feminism In The Americas, David E. S. Beek

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores contemporary Afro-diasporic literatures by black cultural producers in the United States and Brazil that resist, subvert, and dismantle the persistent myth of Brazilian racial democracy. From the US, I investigate John Keene’s 2015 collection of stories and novellas Counternarratives, in addition to Gayl Jones’ 2021 novel Palmares. Conversely, from Brazil, I examine Conceição Evaristo’s 2003 novel Ponciá Vicêncio, as well as the black trans musician and slam poet Bixarte’s social media performance art. Although these Afro-diasporic literatures deconstruct the myth of racial democracy in Brazil, at the same time, each is entangled with what …

Reaching The Standard: An Action Research Study On Standards-Based Grading Practices And English Learners, Dylan D’Anthony L. Orot

Theses and Dissertations

With the advent of standards-based education and its focus on English proficiency, English learners are at-risk of falling further behind when compared to their English adept peers because educators find themselves ill-equipped to meet the rigorous demands of such a curricular shift. This study aimed to identify pedagogical practices that bolster a standards-based grading (SBG) curriculum for sheltered English learners. Qualitative data from teacher participants and students, such as interviews and observations, were used to create a novel curriculum for sheltered English learners, centered on standards-based grading practices, and examine that curriculum’s effectiveness in helping teachers and their sheltered English …

Development Of Micro-Sized Algan Deep Ultraviolet Light Emitting Diodes And Monolithic Photonic Integrated Circuits, Richard Speight Floyd Iii

Theses and Dissertations

III-Nitride materials-based visible emission LEDs have emerged as a disruptive technology in the fields of lighting,ⁱ) communications,^ii,iii,iv) and displays.^v,vi) Shorter wavelength LEDs in the DUV spectral region (210nm – 360nm) with ultra-wide bandgap (UWBG) Al_xGa_1-xN active layers are now poised to displace toxic Mercury-based light sources.^vii) Over the past decade AlGaN LEDs operating in the deep ultra-violet (DUV) spectral region (200 nm < λ_emission < 300 nm) have been deployed in novel applications including autonomous drone-based sterilization and sanitization systems, ^viii) point-of-use water purification systems, ^ix) photo-therapeutics,x) gas sensors,xi) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) communications.^xii) Similarly, DUV light detectors using ultra-wide bandgap (UWBG) Al …

Using Visual Arts To Teach Beginning Literacy Skills, Stacy Phaxaysithideth

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effect of using visual arts to teach rhyming words and word family words. Two interventions were used, both utilizing the use of visual arts to learn both literacy skills. The interventions were then assessed with a pre- and post-test to see the if the interventions were successful. A student attitude survey was also given at the end of the study to see how the students felt about the interventions. A semi-structured interview was done at the end of the interventions as well to collect the thoughts of my co-teacher on the interventions. Lastly, my teacher observations …

Africanizing The Curriculum: African Diaspora Literacy Instruction In Elementary Classrooms, Jarvais Javon Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

Using a Critical Case Study design, this study examines the implementation of African Diaspora Literacy (ADL) in three elementary classrooms in order to understand successes, challenges, and student outcomes. African Diaspora Literacy (ADL) refers to becoming literate about African Diasporic peoples, histories, cultures, languages, epistemologies, cosmologies, and axiologies (King, 1992; Boutte et. al., 2017). Against the backdrop of worldwide and systemic anti-Black racism--the most dominant and virulent form of racism (Dumas & Ross, 2016), there is a need for instructional and curricular antidotes in K-12 schools and in the academy (Boutte et. al., 2017). African Diaspora Literacy offers a promising …

Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation As An Adjuvant For Nonfluent Aphasia Therapy: A Proof-Of-Concept Study, Lynsey Mcgrath Keator

Theses and Dissertations

Identifying effective and efficient rehabilitation tools is crucial to improve language outcomes for persons living with chronic aphasia. Speech entrainment has proved to be particularly successful in improving speech output in nonfluent aphasia. It is hypothesized that, for patients with aberrant oscillatory synchronization between anterior and posterior language regions of the left hemisphere, speech entrainment may act as an external gaiting mechanism to bolster an impaired efference copy and improve synchrony between these regions. Theoretical and empirical evidence supports this idea that speech production relies on anterior-posterior connectivity in the left hemisphere.

Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) delivers low, periodically-alternating …

Trans-Atlantic Composition: The History Of British Academic Writing, Gareth George Rees-White

Theses and Dissertations

I author a revisionary comparative history of British Academic Writing and American Composition studies. My core argument is that the Composition story has always, ultimately, been a Trans-Atlantic one. This project serves two key goals: 1) it offers a comprehensive history of UK writing education; while 2) simultaneously offering a revisionist US history that fights the claim that uniquely American exigencies led to a uniquely American education system that therefore has little to learn from other global Compositions. This project tracks the history of university level writing education in the UK from the 1200s to the modern day, and follows …

“When You Out In Open Spaces”: Copula Absence In Afro-Texan English And The Origins And Development Debate, Brandon Davis Cooper

Theses and Dissertations

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is perhaps the most studied variety of American English, and interest in its origins and development has raised enough questions to launch a thousand studies. Naturally, positions on AAVE’s origins and development have become increasingly nuanced since the debate’s inception. Increasingly, AAVE is treated less like a monolith, and interest in the dimensions of its regional diversity has grown. No position on AAVE’s origins and development can be taken seriously if it fails to consider its capacity for areal differentiation. Indeed, most positions on AAVE’s origins and development now strongly assert the likelihood of multiple …

Unintended Consequences Of The Electronic Health Record And Cognitive Load In Emergency Department Nurses, Carolyn S. Harmon

Theses and Dissertations

Background: The electronic health record (EHR) was rapidly implemented to improve patient safety. However, this rapid and widespread EHR implementation negatively connects to patient safety. Clinician cognitive overload is also thought to be negatively connected to patient safety, especially in the chaotic emergency department (ED) setting. Limited research has been conducted on unintended consequences of the EHR (UC-EHR) and cognitive load (CL) in ED nurses. Understanding the UC-EHR and CL in ED nurses facilitate informed interventions to improve nursing practice and patient safety.

Aims: Guided by the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) 2.0 framework, the aims of this …

Knowledge-Infused Learning, Manas Gaur

Theses and Dissertations

In DARPA’s view of the three waves of AI, the first wave of AI, symbolic AI, focused on explicit knowledge. The second and current wave of AI is termed statistical AI. Deep learning techniques have been able to exploit large amounts of data and massive computational power to improve human levels of performance in narrowly defined tasks. Separately, knowledge graphs have emerged as a powerful tool to capture and exploit a variety of explicit knowledge to make algorithms better apprehend the content and enable the next generation of data processing, such as semantic search. After initial hesitancy about the scalability …

Investigating The Impact Of Nonlinguistic Cognitive Reserve On Naming Pre- And Post-Treatment, Lillian Jarold

Theses and Dissertations

Background: The relationship between linguistic and nonlinguistic cognition in persons with aphasia is complex and often debated in the literature. Furthermore, the impact of nonlinguistic cognition on aphasia treatment outcomes is unclear. The present study sought 1) to examine the relationship between WAIS scores and performance on a test of naming and 2) to examine the relationship between WAIS scores and change scores on a test of naming between baseline and post-treatment in persons with chronic aphasia.

Method: This retrospective study utilized data from participants (N=102) who were recruited for a multi-center cross-over trial (POLAR: Predicting Outcomes of Language Rehabilitation). …

The Impact Of An Interactive Simulation Program On English Language Learner Achievement In A Middle School Science Classroom, Scott Sutherland

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine how a particular technology program, Gizmos, would impact English language learner students in demonstrating their verbal and written comprehension of science content at a proficient level. Gizmos were incorporated as an intervention to facilitate the teaching of two different topics, convection cells and hurricane motion. This study involved three English language learner students with varying World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) proficiency levels between one and four. Semi-structured interviews, semi-structured observations, and work samples were conducted and collected from each of the participants. My analysis demonstrated a strong correlation between the use …

Towards A Relational Understanding Of Food, Identity, And Diversity In Children’S Literature, Katy Lewis

Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation extends existing work on food in children’s literature to examine the different narratives strategies that texts for young audiences use to connect cuisine, identity, and diversity. Three areas of scholarship—foodways scholarship, children’s literature scholarship, and feminist care ethics work—inform my project. Overall, I am interested in how a variety of genres for young readers use food to represent ethnically diverse identities in complex ways as well as the ethics surrounding those representations, so it is worth delineating here the different concepts and how they are used to make sense of various representations. I theorize three categories of texts, …

Home-Shared Reading Influences On Phonological Awareness Abilities Of Primary Students Who Experienced An Interruption Of Classroom Literacy Instruction Due To A Catastrophic Event, Alisa Maxine White

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study was conducted to explore emergent literacy and phonological awareness abilities of primary students who experienced an interruption of classroom literacy instruction due to a catastrophic event. Participants included four primary students and their parents. The students participated in home-shared reading regularly and missed the last nine weeks of classroom instruction during their pre-kindergarten or kindergarten school year due to a catastrophic event. The participants were observed during home-shared reading. Three research questions were used to explain the study: 1) When children are read to at home and miss the last nine weeks of school, what phonological behaviors …

War, Love, And Journeys: A Comparative Analysis Of Conceptual Metaphors In Political Speeches, Kelly N. Woods

Theses and Dissertations

In convention speeches and inaugural addresses, presidential candidates and newly-elected presidents attempt to persuade listeners to vote for and support them. One persuasive tool that they use in these speeches is metaphor, considered a fundamental form of reasoning (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). The present study focuses on three conceptual metaphors (POLITICS IS WAR, POLITICS IS A JOURNEY, and POLITICS IS LOVE) used in 40 speeches given by American presidents from 1944 to 2021 in order to see if there are differences in metaphor usage across political party (i.e., Democrat and Republican) and across speech type (i.e., nomination acceptance and inaugural …

It's The Focus On Black Girls For Me: A Mixed Methods Inquiry Into Perceptions Of School Climate, Eshe Price

Theses and Dissertations

Local and national context, along with some educational research, indicate the racialized and gendered challenges Black girls are facing in schools. Although there has been an increase in research centered on Black girls' schooling experiences, few studies investigate the realities Black girls face in rural communities. Accordingly, the aim of this three-article dissertation is to deepen our understanding of Black girls' schooling experiences in order to improve the climate in schools for Black girls in predominantly white, rural communities. The first article is a conceptual paper that unpacks the four tenets of critical race quantitative intersectionality (CRQI). The second article …

Using Multicultural Texts To Help Shape Student Perceptions Regarding Individual Beliefs And Values While Developing Empathy For Diverse Cultures, Megan N. Karpinski

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the effects of multicultural literature in a second grade classroom and how it impacts students' perceptions of other cultures, beliefs and values while showing empathy and acceptance of other cultures. Throughout the study, students read and connected to a variety of multicultural literature. They participated in activities while expressing their own experiences, thoughts and feelings while connecting with the texts. The assessment tools used throughout this study were questionnaires, surveys, observations, interviews, class discussions and student notebooks. Through discussion and analysis of the texts, students were able to make connections while …

Affirming Respect And Kindness Within A Classroom Community Through Discussion And Multicultural Literature, Angelica Gitter

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to investigate how students in a third-grade classroom can engage with multicultural texts and learn about cultures that are different from their own. Furthermore, it investigated the impact of multicultural literature on respect and kindness in a classroom community. Throughout the four-week study, students read twelve different multicultural texts and engaged in classroom discussions during Morning Meeting. Students participated in group discussions expressing their ideas, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs related to the context of the books read. The strategies used for this qualitative research were questionnaires, teacher observations, and whole group and small group …

Womanist Poetics: Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, And Audre Lorde, Aya Telmissany

Theses and Dissertations

Today, the sentimentality associated with poetry is often condescendingly dubbed in a patriarchal society as “feminine poetry.” The first women poets who dared to attempt the pen were often met with attacks on their femaleness and harsh critiques of their writing which was likened to sorcery and witchcraft. Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, and Audre Lorde are three American women poets who countered these attacks and turned them inside out in favor of their own womanist poetics. They wrote about experiencing the world as women and most importantly about experiencing poetry as women. What happens to poetry when a woman appropriates …

The Flow Of (Re)Memory In African American And Nubian Egyptian Literature: Morrison, Oddoul, And Mukhtar, Bushra Hashem

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to define the term rememory, which Toni Morrison coins in her novel Beloved, and explore its interplay with water imagery in the novel and in two Nubian short stories, namely Haggag Oddoul’s “The River People” and Yahya Mukhtar’s “The Nile Bride.” The three narratives have core common features: they centralize water bodies as key sites of events, they depend heavily on the retelling of history and mythology, and they are told predominantly from the perspective of women. How do the writers weave rememory, history, and mythology to produce these narratives? Are they attempting to …

The Apostrophic Impasse: Diacritical Remarks On The Stories Of International Law, Legal Decolonial Genealogy And Antony Anghie’S Historiography, Britt L.A.Q. (Haadiya) Hendrix

Theses and Dissertations

The (hi)stories of international law have strengthened the tentacles of coloniality in the legal regime as they continue to taunt the precarious lifeworlds of people, our planet and social imaginaries of an otherwise. The flow of coloniality has similarly rematerialized in decolonial legal theories and the postcolonial historiographical accounts of international law. I intend to demonstrate this colonial revival in the groundbreaking text of Antony Anghie Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Creation of International Law (2005) which challenged the (hi)stories of traditional jurisprudence. The latter was not necessarily a rejection nor negation of Western thought, because I argue that postcolonial historiography …

Voicing Female Servitude In Fiction: Charlotte Brontë, Jean Rhys, And Taha Hussein, Muhammed Salem

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the literary portrayal of the female servant in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1816-1865), Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1890-1979), and The Call of the Curlew by Taha Hussein (1889-1973), within the theoretical framework of subaltern and gender studies. The study shows how three female subordinates in Victorian England, Postcolonial Caribbean Islands, in addition to Bedouin Egypt bargain while trying to dismantle their intersectional subordination within the patriarchal order. The problematic yet romanticized portrayal of governessing in Jane Eyre becomes a commoditized servitude, which requires active resistance in the postcolonial setting of Wide. As for The …