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Coming Home Hybrid: Returned Sojourner Identity In Everyday Life, Jon Benjamin Mcnair Jun 2014

Coming Home Hybrid: Returned Sojourner Identity In Everyday Life, Jon Benjamin Mcnair

Theses and Dissertations

Sojourns, or extended periods of time during which people travel and live abroad with the intention of returning to their home countries, are becoming ever more normal parts of the human experience around the globe. In the US, sojourners who travel as foreign aid workers, corporate employees, missionaries, educators, and military personnel and dependents, among others, make up an increasingly broad spectrum of the population. The experience of living abroad is often necessarily accompanied by some sort of identity change that affects how well one integrates into one's host culture (and, conversely, rejecting local customs and norms affects one's potential …


Ontosoar: Using Language To Find Genealogy Facts, Peter Lindes Jun 2014

Ontosoar: Using Language To Find Genealogy Facts, Peter Lindes

Theses and Dissertations

There is a need to have an automated system that can read family history books or other historical texts and extract as many genealogy facts as possible from them. Embley and others have applied traditional information extraction techniques to this problem in a system called OntoES with a reasonable amount of success. In parallel much linguistic theory has been developed in the past decades, and Lonsdale and others have built computational embodiments of some of these theories using Soar. In this thesis we introduce a system called OntoSoar which combines the Link Grammar Parser using a grammar customized for family …


Parent Reasons For Enrollment At One Dual-Language Chinese Immersion Elementary School Program, Aaron W. Andersen Jun 2014

Parent Reasons For Enrollment At One Dual-Language Chinese Immersion Elementary School Program, Aaron W. Andersen

Theses and Dissertations

While foreign language immersion programs have been increasing in number and popularity throughout the United States, their growth in the state of Utah has been particularly dramatic. Utah contains more foreign language immersion programs than any other state and is home to one-fourth of the nation's elementary school Chinese immersion programs. This descriptive study explored the reasons why parents of children enrolled in Utah's Long Hill Elementary School Chinese Immersion program chose to enroll their child. Long Hill Elementary's Chinese Immersion program is 4 years old, with over 200 children enrolled across 4 grade levels. A household survey was developed, …


"Making Ourselves Over In The Image Of The Imagery": Overcoming Alienation Through Poetic Expressions Of Experience, Jacqueline Aquino Teusch Jun 2014

"Making Ourselves Over In The Image Of The Imagery": Overcoming Alienation Through Poetic Expressions Of Experience, Jacqueline Aquino Teusch

Theses and Dissertations

My focus for this essay is on understanding the rhetorical process that occurs when people come together despite their differences—that is what rhetoric is all about. Kenneth Burke argues that this process, for alienated people especially, happens poetically, more than semantically because there are too many differences to overcome semantically between alienated people and the dominant community. This essay is about how the rhetorical process of identification as described by Burke helps us to explain how we cross barriers that divide people who are different to create moments of mutual understanding—identification. In this essay, I look at the experience of …


With So Little Time, Where Do We Start? Targeted Teaching Through Analyzing Error Egregiousness And Error Frequency, Katie Fredrickson Jun 2014

With So Little Time, Where Do We Start? Targeted Teaching Through Analyzing Error Egregiousness And Error Frequency, Katie Fredrickson

Theses and Dissertations

Why do so many students confuse good writing with simply error-free writing, and what can writing instructors do about it? In order to answer this question, the present study first undertakes an exploration of the different meanings associated with grammar and how those definitions have influenced composition instruction. These influences range from an over-emphasis on grammar in the first half of the twentieth century to allowing it to disappear almost completely from the composition curriculum in the second half of the century. However, because research demonstrates that students over this same time period make errors in writing at a fairly …


Children's Adaptation To Electropalatography: Evidence From Acoustic Analysis Of /T/ And /K/, Kara Brianne Knapp Jun 2014

Children's Adaptation To Electropalatography: Evidence From Acoustic Analysis Of /T/ And /K/, Kara Brianne Knapp

Theses and Dissertations

Electropalatography (EPG) is a computer-based device that uses a fitted pseudopalate (similar to an orthodontic retainer) with embedded electrodes to track tongue-to-palate contact during speech for the purposes of providing treatment for a variety of communication disorders. This study evaluated six elementary school-aged children's ability to adapt their speech to the presence of the pseudopalate in their mouth. The participants' adaptation for the consonants /t/ and /k/ was examined over eight time intervals throughout a two and half hour time period. Adaptation was evaluated by measuring the duration, spectral mean, spectral variance, and relative intensity of the target sounds. The …


The Use Of Dictionaries, Glosses, And Annotations To Facilitate Vocabulary Comprehension For L2 Learners Of Russian, Elizabeth Christel Todd Jun 2014

The Use Of Dictionaries, Glosses, And Annotations To Facilitate Vocabulary Comprehension For L2 Learners Of Russian, Elizabeth Christel Todd

Theses and Dissertations

Technology is changing education. Just 30 years ago, instructors were using slow, inefficient technology such as projectors and reels of film, whereas today they have instant access to video from anywhere in the world. This capability has the potential to change the way that language is being taught and learned. Instead of students relying solely on their teacher and textbook for linguistic input, they have access to the Internet which holds a seemingly endless amount of information. This study was inspired by the belief that it is possible to maximize the potential benefit from that availability by implementing the theory …


Understanding The Experience Of Successful Study Abroad Students In Russia, Olga Iongkhionovna Ookhara Jun 2014

Understanding The Experience Of Successful Study Abroad Students In Russia, Olga Iongkhionovna Ookhara

Theses and Dissertations

The present study was designed to understand the retrospective account of the learning experience of four successful learners of Russian who made substantial oral gains as measured by the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) during a semester study abroad (SA) program in Moscow, Russia. Each participant made as much as two sublevels' improvement on the ACTFL scale, even those who began with Advanced level proficiency. Specifically, the study examines what students believe, how they exercise their agency, cope with constraints, and take advantage of affordances in out-of-class contexts. The qualitative data includes semi-structured interviews while quantitative data consists of pre- …


Dynamic Written Corrective Feedback: Achieving Manageability, Angela Shelley Jun 2014

Dynamic Written Corrective Feedback: Achieving Manageability, Angela Shelley

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides reflections on a practice of corrective feedback known as dynamic Written Corrective Feedback (dynamic WCF). First addressing 20 years of concerns regarding the highly-debated topic of feedback in second language (L2) writing and then outlining dynamic WCF as a pedagogical practice founded on four principles, the thesis finally introduces a recently developed handbook for instructors. This handbook presents the four foundational principles of dynamic WCF (timeliness, manageability, meaningfulness, and constancy) to first-time instructors and supports the implementation of dynamic WCF to optimize benefit and enhance manageability in written corrective feedback.


The Subjection Of Authority And Death Through Humor: Carnivalesque, Incongruity, And Absurdism In Cormac Mccarthy's Blood Meridian And No Country For Old Men, Ruth Ellen Covington Jun 2014

The Subjection Of Authority And Death Through Humor: Carnivalesque, Incongruity, And Absurdism In Cormac Mccarthy's Blood Meridian And No Country For Old Men, Ruth Ellen Covington

Theses and Dissertations

Cormac McCarthy's representation of the comic theories of the carnivalesque, incongruity, and absurdism by the antagonists of Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men demonstrates the unique and ostensible power of humor over (or at least, its awareness of and reconciliation to the absurdity of) death; it also emphasizes the supreme power and influence of humor as a means for destroying other institutions and philosophies which claim knowledge or authority but fail to sustain individuals in times of crisis. This makes humor a formidable factor in determining and justifying the outcome of human interactions and in defining the strengths …


Understanding L1-L2 Fluency Relationship Across Different Languages And Different Proficiency Levels, Olga Vyacheslavovna Maletina Jun 2014

Understanding L1-L2 Fluency Relationship Across Different Languages And Different Proficiency Levels, Olga Vyacheslavovna Maletina

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to better understand the relationship between L1 and L2 fluency, precisely, whether there is a relationship between L1 and L2 temporal fluency measures and whether this relationship differs across different languages and different proficiency levels. In order to answer these questions, L1 and L2 speech samples of the same speakers were collected and analyzed. Twenty-five native speakers and 45 non-native speakers of Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian were asked to respond to questions and perform picture descriptions in their L1 and L2. The recorded speech samples were then analyzed by means of …


Pre -Service School Psychologists' Racial And Weight-Related Biases And The Relationship That Taking Diversity Courses Has On These Biases, Shaerica Jackson Jun 2014

Pre -Service School Psychologists' Racial And Weight-Related Biases And The Relationship That Taking Diversity Courses Has On These Biases, Shaerica Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

Past research has shown that racial and weight-related biases are present in school settings and can have a negative impact on students. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of racial and weight-related biases upon judgments that school psychology graduate students make about Black and overweight students who were having problems in school. The problematic behaviors exhibited by the student in the case study were based on symptoms often seen in children with Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). We also examined the extent to which implicit and/or explicit attitudes moderated the degree of school psychology graduate students' attributions of …


Determining Dictionary And Usage Guide Agreement With Real-World Usage: A Diachronic Corpus Study Of American English, Amanda Kae Fronk Jun 2014

Determining Dictionary And Usage Guide Agreement With Real-World Usage: A Diachronic Corpus Study Of American English, Amanda Kae Fronk

Theses and Dissertations

Dictionaries and, to a lesser extent, usage guides provide writers, editors, and users of American English information on how to use the language appropriately. Dictionaries, in particular, hold authority over correct usage of words. However, historically, usage guides and dictionaries were created using the knowledge of a small group of people. Lexicographers like Noah Webster set out to prescribe a proper way of using American English. To make these judgments, they often relied on a combination of study and idiosyncratic intuitions. A similar process took place in creating usage guides. Though these manuals profess to explain how the language is …


Lessons Learned: The Process Of Creating And Evaluating An Adult Literacy Curriculum For College Transition, Meredith Leigh Packard Gravett Jun 2014

Lessons Learned: The Process Of Creating And Evaluating An Adult Literacy Curriculum For College Transition, Meredith Leigh Packard Gravett

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis documents the process of developing and evaluating a curriculum written for adult literacy students transitioning from their current literacy goals to academic and occupational pursuits. The curriculum, titled the Basic College Skills Transition Curriculum (BCS Transition Curriculum), was written for students at Project Read, a non-profit adult literacy program located at the Provo Library in Provo, Utah. The model used to design this curriculum is a variation on the ADDIE model (analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation), including the reiterative steps of research and evaluation. The lesson plans and materials in the BCS Transition Curriculum include the topics …


Student Perceptions Of Strategies Used For Reading Hispanic Literature: A Case Study, Rebecca Leigh Brazzale Jun 2014

Student Perceptions Of Strategies Used For Reading Hispanic Literature: A Case Study, Rebecca Leigh Brazzale

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study investigated the experiences of students during their reading tasks for their university Spanish courses during the Fall 2013 semester at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. The purpose of this research was to explore what types of reading strategies university Spanish students use during literary readings tasks and their perceptions of the reading strategies they use. This case study employed stimulated recall protocol interviews, student reading logs and student notes in texts. Interviews were conducted within 24 hours of the reading, while reading logs and notes were completed during the reading. The data collected were analyzed for …


A Model Of Grammatical Category Acquisition Using Adaptation And Selection, Sarah Zitting Cluff Jun 2014

A Model Of Grammatical Category Acquisition Using Adaptation And Selection, Sarah Zitting Cluff

Theses and Dissertations

By the later preschool years, most children have a knowledge of the grammatical categories of their native language and are capable of expanding this knowledge to novel words. To model this accomplishment, researchers have created a variety of explicit, testable models or algorithms. These have had partial but promising success in extracting grammatical word categories from transcriptions of caregiver input to young children. Additional insight into children's learning of the grammatical categories of words might be gained from evolutionary computing algorithms, which apply principles of evolutionary biology such as variation, adaptive change, self-regulation, and inheritance to computational models. The current …


Speech Adaptation To Electropalatography In Children's Productions Of /S/ And /ʃ/, Marissa Celaya Jun 2014

Speech Adaptation To Electropalatography In Children's Productions Of /S/ And /ʃ/, Marissa Celaya

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has investigated adults' ability to adapt their speech when a electropalatographic (EPG) pseudopalate is placed in the oral cavity; however, less is known about how younger speakers who are continuing to develop their motor speech abilities might adapt their speech to the presence of the device. This study examined the effect of an EPG pseudopalate on elementary school-aged children's ability to produce the fricatives /s/ and /ƒ/. Audio recordings of six children were collected at eight time intervals including before placement of the pseudopalate, at 30-minute increments for two hours with the pseudopalate in place, immediately following removal …


Investigating The Effect Of Explicit And Implicit Instruction On The Acquisition Of Verb + Noun Collocations: A Case Of L2 Egyptian Learners, Omneya Hesham Kamal Jun 2014

Investigating The Effect Of Explicit And Implicit Instruction On The Acquisition Of Verb + Noun Collocations: A Case Of L2 Egyptian Learners, Omneya Hesham Kamal

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the effect of explicit and implicit instruction on the acquisition of verb + noun collocations. It also investigates L2 learners' attitudes about learning collocations both explicitly and implicitly. Forty intermediate level Egyptian L2 learners of English were given a collocations familiarity test from which the researcher chose the 21 least familiar target collocations to include in the study. Two experimental groups composed of 20 participants each were taught the target collocations through reading, listening and speaking activities. One group was taught with the explicit method and the other was taught with the implicit method. A post-test was …


Noticing Neighbors: Reconsidering Ancient Egyptian Perceptions Of Ethnicity, Taylor Bryanne Woodcock Jun 2014

Noticing Neighbors: Reconsidering Ancient Egyptian Perceptions Of Ethnicity, Taylor Bryanne Woodcock

Theses and Dissertations

Ethnic identities are nuanced, fluid and adaptive. They are a means of categorizing the self and the ‘other’ through the recognition of geographical, cultural, lingual, and physical differences. This work examines recurring associations, epithets and themes in ancient Egyptian texts to reveal how the Egyptians discussed the ethnic uniqueness they perceived of their regional neighbors. It employs Egyptian written records, including temple inscriptions, royal and private correspondence, stelae and tomb autobiographies, and literary tales, from the Old Kingdom to the beginning of the Third Intermediate Period. The textual examples are organized by ethnic group and divided into four regions, beginning …


Motivations And Attitudes Of Undergraduate Students Toward Esp Classes In An Egyptian University, Waleed Emad Ali Jun 2014

Motivations And Attitudes Of Undergraduate Students Toward Esp Classes In An Egyptian University, Waleed Emad Ali

Theses and Dissertations

In the last few decades, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has become one of the most needed sub-fields of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). In Egypt, ESP courses are widely taught in both public and private universities. Also, motivation and attitude play an essential role in how well a learner understands the suggested material in an educational environment. They are considered important factors which may have an effect on the ESP educational process in Egypt. Many studies have addressed the area of motivation and attitudes in the EFL context. However, after a thorough review of the literature available …


Identifying The Topic-Specific Influential Users In Twitter, May Shalaby Jun 2014

Identifying The Topic-Specific Influential Users In Twitter, May Shalaby

Theses and Dissertations

Social Influence can be described as the ability to have an effect on the thoughts or actions of others. Influential members in online communities are becoming the new media to market products and sway opinions. Also, their guidance and recommendations can save some people the search time and assist their selective decision making. The objective of this research is to detect the influential users in a specific topic on Twitter. In more detail, from a collection of tweets matching a specified query, we want to detect the influential users, in an online fashion. In order to address this objective, we …


Food Security: At What Cost? Dietary And Behavioural Coping Strategies Of Low-Income Households In Cairo And Implications On Children’S Food Security, Radwa Saad Jun 2014

Food Security: At What Cost? Dietary And Behavioural Coping Strategies Of Low-Income Households In Cairo And Implications On Children’S Food Security, Radwa Saad

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the dietary and behavioural coping strategies employed by low-income households in urban poverty pockets of Greater Cairo in response to food price fluctuations. It investigates the impact of nutrition-related coping behaviours on the food security of households, focusing namely on children and youth. The study uses qualitative research in the form of in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and key informant interviews with mothers residing in one of the largest informal settlements of Cairo, to arrive at an in-depth analysis of the problem. The research reveals that low-income households employ poor coping strategies in response to high food …


A Tale Of Two Somali Community-Based Organizations In Cairo: Between Assistance, Agency &Community Formations, Hannah Huser Jun 2014

A Tale Of Two Somali Community-Based Organizations In Cairo: Between Assistance, Agency &Community Formations, Hannah Huser

Theses and Dissertations

Based on ethnographic field research in two Somali refugee- and migrant-initiated community-based organizations (CBOs) in Cairo, I look at their role in community formations, assistance to refugees and creating linkages to service providers to refugees. Moreover, I explore the CBOs as sites of individual agency and as expressions of collective action at the organizational level. CBOs have been explored from various conceptual angles, including networking, social capital, and integration. The manifestation of CBOs can be influenced by endogenous and exogenous factors, raising questions as to where CBOs can be located between genuine sites of identity construction and community-building and their …


Language Attitudes In An Egyptian Discourse Community, Emily Reigh Jun 2014

Language Attitudes In An Egyptian Discourse Community, Emily Reigh

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates language attitudes in an elite university in Egypt, addressing all codes spoken in the community: Fusha (Classical Arabic/Modern Standard Arabic), Egyptian Arabic, English and Egyptian Arabic-English code-switching. Some attitudinal research in the region has been conducted (e.g. Bentahila, 1983; Chakrani, 2011; Lawson & Sachdev, 2000), though most neglects to position the discourse community in larger society and uses limited methodological approaches. In this study, attitudes are interpreted with attention to prevailing language ideologies, including the notion of a standard language, tension between modernity and tradition and language as symbolic capitol. Overt and covert attitudes in terms of …


An Investigation Of Teachers' Self-Reported And Actual Written Feedback Practices In Egyptian Esl Classes, Lidya Magdy Ibrahim Farag Jun 2014

An Investigation Of Teachers' Self-Reported And Actual Written Feedback Practices In Egyptian Esl Classes, Lidya Magdy Ibrahim Farag

Theses and Dissertations

There have been ongoing investigations on whether providing corrective feedback on grammatical errors in L2 writing is effective or not since the debate first emerged between Truscott (1996) and Ferris (1999). Research has focused mainly on students' performances and preferences as well as teachers' perceptions and beliefs regarding error correction. However, limited research has compared teachers' actual practices to their self-reported practices. Therefore, this study focused on written feedback practices in a university context in Egypt, where the researcher investigated how teachers actually corrected grammatical errors as compared to what they reported in the survey. The major error correction strategies …


Utilizing Graph-Based Representation Of Text In A Hybrid Approach To Multiple Documents Summarization, May Sayed Mahmoud Jun 2014

Utilizing Graph-Based Representation Of Text In A Hybrid Approach To Multiple Documents Summarization, May Sayed Mahmoud

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of automatic text summarization is to process text with the purpose of identifying and presenting the most important information appearing in the text. In this research, we aim to investigate automatic multiple document summarization using a hybrid approach of extractive and “shallow" abstractive methods. We aim to utilize the graph-based representation approach proposed in [1] and [2] as part of our method to multiple document summarization aiming to provide concise, informative and coherent summaries. We start by scoring sentences based on significance to extract top scoring ones from each document of the set of documents being summarized. In …


Amethyst, Apotropaia, And The Eye Of Re, Laurel Hackley Jun 2014

Amethyst, Apotropaia, And The Eye Of Re, Laurel Hackley

Theses and Dissertations

Two specific aspects of Middle Kingdom Egyptian apotropaia, amethyst amulets and inscribed ivory wands, are connected by their religious, magical, and mythological connotations. The shared significance of these objects is made clear by iconographic similarities and textual references. The wands in particular are shown to represent a particular mythological moment, the return of the Solar Eye of Re to Egypt. Both amethyst objects and ivory wands reference this important mythological event in ways that illustrate the multi-level importance of the myth in the cultural landscape of the Middle Kingdom Egyptians.  


America's Heroes And Darlings: The Media Portrayal Of Male And Female Athletes During The 2014 Sochi Games, Matthew K. Curtis May 2014

America's Heroes And Darlings: The Media Portrayal Of Male And Female Athletes During The 2014 Sochi Games, Matthew K. Curtis

Theses and Dissertations

It has been well documented that female athletes receive much less media attention than male athletes, with estimates placing coverage of male athletes at 95% of all sport-related media (Coakley, 1986). While not to that extent, studies focusing on media portrayals of Olympic athletes also confirm that the media dedicates the majority of coverage to male athletes (Duncan, 1990; Duncan & Hasbrook, 1988; Hambrick, Simmons, Greenhalgh, & Greenwell, 2010; Higgs, Weiller, & Martin, 2003; Lee, 1992; Kinnick, 1998; Pfister, 1978). Some evidence suggests that media coverage of female athletes and the recognition of their achievements are slowly increasing (Higgs et …


L2 Spanish Speakers' Attitudes Toward Selected Features Of Peninsular And Mexican Spanish, Grant Perry Stotts May 2014

L2 Spanish Speakers' Attitudes Toward Selected Features Of Peninsular And Mexican Spanish, Grant Perry Stotts

Theses and Dissertations

Many studies have been done on language attitudes, including attitudes toward languages in contact, various dialects of a language, nonnative speech, and attitudes of second-language (L2) learners toward the language that they are learning. Typically the studies of second-language learning deal with the attitudes toward the language in general rather than toward specific varieties within the language. The present study measures the attitudes of L2 learners of Spanish who lived in Spain, Mexico and Argentina toward native speakers from Spain and Mexico. The nonnative speakers listened to recordings of four native speakers, a male and a female from Spain, and …


Assessing Writing On The Job: Toward Development Of A Workplace Writing Curriculum, Betty J. Scull May 2014

Assessing Writing On The Job: Toward Development Of A Workplace Writing Curriculum, Betty J. Scull

Theses and Dissertations

In a nine-week online survey, the perceptions of 86 nonacademic workplace salaried employees concerning the kinds and frequencies of documents written, and the writing knowledge and skills needed to effectively perform writing tasks in their jobs, were studied. The primary objective was to determine if employees understood concepts of audience and audience analysis. The results suggest that the majority (64 percent) of participants are not familiar with audience or audience analysis concepts. In addition, most participants stressed the importance of Lower Order Concerns (LOCs) &mdash elements such as sentence structure, punctuation, word choice, and spelling &mdash over Higher Order Concerns …