Digital Commons Network^™

Samoan Speech Audiometry: Developing Word Recognition Materials For Native Speakers Of Samoan, Emma Lilian Kruger

Theses and Dissertations

Hearing can be evaluated through the presentation of tones or speech. Speech audiometry determines an individual's speech recognition threshold and word recognition score. Traditionally these materials were developed using familiar, frequently used, monosyllabic words. Currently, there are various types of word recognition materials including those which use word lists, short half-lists, and materials which use sentences level stimuli with competing noise. Word recognition materials were first developed in Standard American English; today, materials are now readily available in many other languages. When possible, word recognition materials are developed digitally to standardize their presentation. Currently, no recorded word recognition materials are …

Difference In Scores Between Teacher Certification Program Students With And Without Paraprofessional Experience, Sarah Caroline Dunn

Theses and Dissertations

Demand for highly effective, qualified teachers grew as legislation such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) raised the requirements for teachers and paraprofessionals. One suggestion for meeting this demand for teachers who can bring about the required classroom outcomes is to encourage paraprofessionals to become certified teachers—with the expectation that paraprofessionals' prior experience in the school environment will make them likely to excel as teachers. This study examined whether Brigham Young University Special Education teacher candidates with paraprofessional experience differed from candidates without paraprofessional experience in terms of performance scores during a …

A Midsummer Night's Dream On The Radio: Technology In Voice And Speech, David Becker

Theses and Dissertations

Recent advances in sound technology have had significant implications for the teaching of voice and speech that are only now becoming apparent. As more students become “plugged in” it becomes more difficult, both for the instructor and the student, to communicate, let alone find a voice. We are becoming increasingly addicted to communicating through our devices, rather than through the traditional and accepted modes of the past: using the human voice. In light of these rapid and various new developments, voice training, especially at the introductory level, needs to be examined anew. A number of traditional approaches and teaching methods …

Brain Mapping Of The Mismatch Negativity And The P300 Response In Speech And Nonspeech Stimulus Processing, Skylee Simmons Neff

Theses and Dissertations

Previous studies have found that behavioral and P300 responses to speech are influenced by linguistic cues in the stimuli. Research has found conflicting data regarding the influence of phonemic characteristics of stimuli in the mismatch negativity (MMN) response. The current investigation is a replication of the study designed by Tampas et al. (2005), which studied the effects of linguistic cues on the MMN response. This current study was designed to determine whether the MMN response is influenced by phonetic or purely acoustic stimuli, and to expand our knowledge of the scalp distribution of processing responses to within- and across-category speech …

The Design Of Specifications For The Development Of Broadcast English Materials In Academic Listening/Speaking Courses, Amy Barlow

Theses and Dissertations

ESL students in academic listening/speaking courses often listen to long audio recordings similar to a lecture or other academic passages. When listening to these passages, students can lose their interest which impedes their learning of new strategies for understanding academic language. Students in the Level Four Listening/Speaking classes at Brigham Young University's English Language Center (ELC), under the previous curriculum, would experience this challenge. All of the passages were available only in audio and were long in duration. The students would lose interest and improve little in their listening skills. Under the new curriculum at the ELC, students in Academic …

Improving Undergraduate Education In Psychology Using An End-Of-Major Standardized Assessment And A Teaching Resources Wiki, David L. Mason

Theses and Dissertations

Traditionally, appeals for improving the teaching of psychology at the post-secondary level have focused on increasing teacher training and motivation. However, wide-scale success may be limited because both approaches involve significant demands on teachers' time. I describe two recommendations that may improve teaching while requiring minimal time investment from individual teachers. The first is the development of an end-of-major assessment taken by undergraduate psychology majors that would provide valuable feedback to teachers on which areas of the curriculum need improvement. The second recommendation is to create a new database of research on teaching and learning that focuses on streamlining relevant …

A Comparison Of The Effects Of Instruction Using Traditional Methods To Instruction Using Reading Apprenticeship, David Carlton Lowery

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to compare the effects of literature instruction using traditional methods to literature instruction using Reading Apprenticeship (RA) to determine if outcomes of attitude and achievement of students enrolled in World Literature courses are changed. Participants included 104 students from 1 junior college in a southeastern state. Of these 104 students, 68 were taught using a traditional method of instruction, and 36 were taught using the RA method of instruction. Students were administered the Rhody Secondary Reading Attitude Survey to determine attitude scores at the beginning of the semester and attitude scores at the …

On The Design-Build Of Small Pavilions, Agrippa Spence Kellum

Theses and Dissertations

Design-build is the process whereby a project is constructed by the same entity that designed it. Detailed narratives are provided for the collaborative, integrated designbuild of two small, relatively contemporary pavilions. The first was constructed as part of a design-build workshop taught by Steve Badanes, director of the Neighborhood Design/Build Studio at the University of Washington Department of Architecture and founder of the international architecture firm The Jersey Devil. The second, a multi-use pavilion on the site of a former junkyard, was implemented as a local volunteer community service project using Badanes' method. A third proposal is also described; an …

Paul Auster's Rhizomatic Fictions, Gary Matthew Varner

Theses and Dissertations

This project examines some of the most notable fiction of contemporary American writer Paul Auster through the postmodern lens of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s rhizome. Auster’s novels often feature characters that are also writers, characters that resurface in subsequent novels, and characters that bear a resemblance to Paul Auster himself. This thesis uses the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari to better understand the significance of these puzzling characters. Ultimately, the model of the rhizome reveals a particular connectivity between Auster’s works underpinned by multiplicities, refrains, and a dislocation of origins.

Faculty Members' And Graduate Students' Perceptions Of Multicultural Education In The College Of Education, Tinukwa C. Okojie-Boulder

Theses and Dissertations

The study examined faculty members’ and graduate students’ perceptions of multicultural education and to ascertain which demographic factors had the most influence on participants’ perceptions. This study also examined whether there were any significant differences between faculty members’ and graduate students’ perceptions of the concept. Validity of the quantitative instruments was determined by a panel of experts. Internal consistency and reliability was calculated using factor analysis, Cronbach’s alpha and test/retest reliability. A mixed method research design was used in this study which included a combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The surveys were completed by 313 graduate students and 48 …

A Hybrid System For Glossary Generation Of Feature Film Content For Language Learning, Ryan Arthur Corradini

Theses and Dissertations

This report introduces a suite of command-line tools created to assist content developers with the creation of rich supplementary material to use in conjunction with feature films and other video assets in language teaching. The tools are intended to leverage open-source corpora and software (the OPUS OpenSubs corpus and the Moses statistical machine translation system, respectively), but are written in a modular fashion so that other resources could be leveraged in their place. The completed tool suite facilitates three main tasks, which together constitute this project. First, several scripts created for use in preparing linguistic data for the system are …

George Orwell's "Depression" Novels: Laying Bare The Emotional Cost Of The Great Depression In Britain, Sonja Hathaway

Theses and Dissertations

The economic hardships that many people are facing in this the first decade of the twenty-first century have led politicians, historians, economists, and others to re-examine the 1930s in an attempt to understand their own time. The decade of the Great Depression was one of severe worldwide economic crisis and has been well documented, especially in Britain. Records compiled during the period by historians, statisticians, and social investigators have led to studies on the economic, political, and social conditions of the time. People are not, however, only physical, economic, and social beings. The challenge in studying the interwar period in …

A Phonological Description Of "Pet Talk" In Arara, Isaac Costa De Souza

Theses and Dissertations

The Arara people of Para, Brazil, as a whole, are remnants or survivors of some larger Cariban groups who descended from the headwaters of the upper Xingu to the mid and low areas of this river by the beginning of the nineteenth century. Now they live in three different villages: Maia, Cachoeira Seca and Laranjal.

The present thesis aims to describe thirteen different ludlings or "play languages" that elderly Arara people from Laranjal know and sometimes use in talking to pets. Play languages are linguistic forms that are purposely manipulated at some level. The strategies which the Arara people use …

Motion Events In Seri: Applying Talmy's Typologies, April E. Sachs

Theses and Dissertations

Leonard Talmy's typologies of motion hypothesize that in a language's depiction of Motion events, the semantic components of the event will find characteristic expression in consistent morphosyntactic structures. In the motion-actuating typology, the main verb in an event of Motion will characteristically conflate Motion with either the Path, Figure, or Manner of Motion. In the motion-framing typology, the Path component will characteristically appear in either the verb or the satellite to the verb. These typologies, proposed in their most cited forms in Talmy (1985) and Talmy (1991), have been applied over the years to dozens of languages, with varying degrees …

Word Order Typology In Modern South Arabian Languages: A Study Based On A Corpus Of Analyzed Texts, David A. Cross Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I present a typological analysis of the Modern South Arabian Languages. Typological research is often based on a six-way typology of dominant word order based on clauses containing nominal subjects, objects and verbs. However, this clause type is extremely rare in this language group, making typological analysis based on a six-way typology problematic.

Dryer's Four-way typology of dominant word order is applied to the Modern South Arabian Languages and they are shown to be VS&VO. Greenberg's universals which refer to dominant word order are then reformulated in terms of the Four-way typology. These reformulated universals are shown …

The Morphology Of Nouns In The Ugoroŋmo Language (Arara Of Pará), Shirley Dias Cardoso De Souza

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I describe the morphology of nouns in the Ugoroŋmo language (Arara of Pará), which is spoken by just over three hundred people. The Ugoroŋmo people live on the bank of the Iriri river, in two villages (Laranjal and Cachoeira Seca) in the state of Pará, Brazil.

The nouns of this language can be divided in three main groups: those that are not inflected for possession, those that may be inflected for possession, and those that must be inflected for possession (inherently possessed nouns). Possession is marked by two affixes: a possessor prefix and a possessive suffix. Inherently …

Using Visualization And Breathing Techniques To Understand Perceived Distress In High-Ability Secondary Students, David M. Tack

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Berne, Indiana Swiss German: Lessons Learned From A Small-Scale Documentation Project, Gretta Yoder Owen

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a case study of a small-scale language documentation project carried out in Berne, Indiana. The goal of this project was to capture, through audio recording, samples of the Swiss German language that could be presented to the Berne community and preserved for future use. As much as possible, this project was carried out according to best practices for language documentation, so that the data will be accessible to the academic community for further research after there are no more living speakers of the Berne, Indiana Swiss dialect.

The history of the Swiss Mennonites who settled the Berne, …

24 Hour Portraits, Lee R. Cowan

Theses and Dissertations

I believe an individual can be profiled by their color preferences, but not indefinitely, for a shorter period of time, a 24-hour period of time. A person's state of mind will change continually based on their experiences. These experiences will affect their perception and preference of color. I developed a model that will map an individual's profile, a portrait, through color. Participants are given a worksheet and a list of terms describing personality traits and states of mind. The worksheet is categorized by event, time of day, duration, impact, and summed term. From midnight to midnight, a 24-hour period, the …

Examining Rater Bias In Elicited Imitation Scoring: Influence Of Rater's L1 And L2 Background To The Ratings, Min Hye Son

Theses and Dissertations

Elicited Imitation (EI), which is a way of assessing language learners' speaking, has been used for years. Furthermore, there have been many studies done showing rater bias (variance in test ratings associated with a specific rater and attributable to the attributes of a test taker) in language assessment. In this project, I evaluated possible rater bias, focusing mostly on bias attributable to raters' and test takers' language backgrounds, as seen in EI ratings. I reviewed literature on test rater bias, participated in a study of language background and rater bias, and produced recommendations for reducing bias in EI administration. Also, …

An Introduction To Major University English Tests And English Language Teaching In China, Caiping Sun

Theses and Dissertations

The purposes of this project were to introduce (1) the four main college level English tests used in the People's Republic of China to expatriate English language educators, researchers, curriculum developers, and program designers; and (2) the college English language teaching situation in China to expatriates and give them information on where and how to apply for teaching positions there. The project produced two products to fulfill these goals. First, a paper titled an introduction to major university English tests in China: Their nature, development and importance is now ready to submit for publication. It is a paper that introduces …

Physicians, Society, And The Science Fiction Genre In The Film Versions Of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers: Or Doctors With A Serious Pod Complex, Brett S. Stifflemire

Theses and Dissertations

Close textual analysis of the four extant film versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers reveals that each film modifies the original story such that it reflects changing societal attitudes toward physicians and the medical profession, as well as depictions of military and government in the science fiction genre. The changing depictions of characters and events in these films respond to changes in medical history, social history, and the science fiction genre across five decades. Each film reflects the contemporary anxieties of its time and the perceived ability of physicians to relieve those anxieties. Doctors are important semantic elements of …

Levinas, Meaning, And Philosophy Of Social Science: From Ethical Metaphysics To Ontology And Epistemology, Samuel David Downs

Theses and Dissertations

The current approach to science for mainstream psychology relies on the philosophical foundation of positivism that cannot account for meaning as humans experience it. Phenomenology provides an alternative scientific approach in which meaning is constituted by acting toward objects in the world that is more consistent with how humans experience meaning. Immanuel Levinas argues that the phenomenological approach, while more consistent with human experience, does not provide a grounding for meaning. Rather, Levinas argues that meaning is grounded in the ethical encounter with the Other, or other person, such that meaning is given by the Other in rupture. For Levinas, …

The Prevalence Of Postpartum Depression In Hispanic Immigrant Women, Nissa Breann Lucero

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of postpartum depression among Hispanic immigrant women seeking healthcare services at a community health clinic.

Data Sources: Hispanic immigrant women were recruited. Out of 116 study participants, 96 women were in the final sample. Using the Beck PDSS-Spanish version, women were screened for symptoms of postpartum depression.

Conclusions: The prevalence rate of significant symptoms of PPD was 54.2% for the entire sample of 96 women. Nearly 66% of women who screened positive for symptoms of PPD scored above the listed cutoff score for suicidal thoughts. Women were divided into …

Developing Cued Pronunciation Readings For Latter-Day Saint Missionaries Learning English, Holly A. Mueller

Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this project was to develop self-directed pronunciation materials for a specialized group of English as a second language (ESL) learners—missionaries at the Provo Missionary Training Center (MTC) of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A set of six Cued Pronunciation Readings (CPRs) were developed. CPRs are computer-based, self-directed pronunciation materials designed to help students perceive pausing, word stress, and sentence-final intonation in spoken English and practice these features through a sequence of oral reading tasks. The CPRs developed in this project were based on essential missionary communicative tasks and utilized high-frequency gospel vocabulary. These tasks …

Empirical Study Of Information Design: Four Experiments, Noel Teresa Alton

Theses and Dissertations

Current design theory sets out many rules and guidelines for designers, but good design is still difficult to replicate. Often the design principles found in the manuals are misapplied, resulting in designs that (1) do not fulfill their purpose and (2) disrupt the clarity of information. This thesis will review and provide experimental data supporting a model of visual form/visual purpose connections based on the semiotic of C.S. Peirce. This model was first used by Amare and Manning (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009) to evaluate and explain both effective and ineffective visual information design. This thesis will extend their approach, …

An Acoustic And Perceptual Investigation Of Contrastive Stress In Children, Anita Susan Dromey

Theses and Dissertations

Key aspects of prosody have been studied in adults for a number of years; however, less attention has been paid to the acoustic patterns of prosody in children. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to evaluate how a group of 20 pre-adolescent children use prosody to mark contrastive stress compared to a control group of adult speakers. It was of interest to investigate whether the children's use of prosody differed between boys and girls or the part of speech being emphasized. The prosodic patterns of contrastive stress were evaluated in terms of duration, fundamental frequency, and intensity change …

Characterization: A Content Analysis Of Pulitzer-Awarded And Traditional Features, Linda Janet Tobler

Theses and Dissertations

Characterization in Pulitzer-awarded features and traditional features was measured using a characterization typology developed by the author. Although some of the results were statistically constrained by a small n, those results which were statistically significant reflect that what separates Pulitzer-winning features from regular features are those elements of characterization particular to scene: a character's distinctive physical characteristics, clothing and possessions; the setting and environment as it defines a character; a physical description of character that is not lineament nor habitual posture or expression but bodily appearance in the immediate moment; a character's movements and actions, facial expressions, words, and …

The Effects Of Client Therapist Racial And Ethnic Matching: A Meta Analytic Review Of Empirical Research, Raquel Cabral Bowman

Theses and Dissertations

In a widely cited 2003 report, the U.S. Surgeon General criticized mental health and social services within the United States for failing to adequately serve the needs of clients of color. The report highlighted the fact that therapists often do not adequately account for cultural variables in their evaluations or interventions. Clients of color are rarely seen by therapists who adequately understand their cultural values and backgrounds. To address this discrepancy, researchers have explored a variety of therapy process and outcome variables across clients seen by therapists of their same race vs. another race (often called "ethnic matching"). Over 200 …

A Curriculum For General Academic Preparation, Teresa Ann Martin

Theses and Dissertations

The curriculum at the English Language Center (ELC) at Brigham Young University (BYU) currently has two programs: Foundations and Academic. In order for students to progress from Foundations to the Academic Program, they must pass their Level Achievement Tests (LATs), which are administered as final exams. Each semester there are students who do not pass their LATs. The question then is what should happen to these students? Should they be asked to leave the ELC, should they have to repeat the same level until they pass, or should they be promoted without passing their LATs? This project presents an alternative …