Digital Commons Network^™

Altered States Of Style: The Drug-Induced Development Of Jack Kerouac's Spontaneous Prose, Eric M. Izant

Theses and Dissertations

Jack Kerouac's spontaneous prose method was inspired in part by his use of drugs while writing. While there is abundant biographical evidence that Kerouac used drugs frequently, little attention has been paid to their effects on the development of his style. This thesis attempts to demonstrate that the altered states of consciousness produced by Kerouac's drug use should be considered in conjunction with historical, cultural, and biographical forces in tracing the evolution of Kerouac's creative growth. As a member of the Beat Generation, Kerouac used drugs both as a social statement of rebellion and for artistic insight. In fact, he …

Marital Problems And Marital Satisfaction: An Examination Of A Brazilian Sample, Nalu De Araujo Nunes

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study is to examine the types of problems faced by Brazilian couples in the sample, the gender differences in the perception of marital problems, and the associations between marital problems and marital satisfaction. The sample used in this study was part of the third wave of data collection of a longitudinal study of 126 families living in Porto Alegre, a city in southern Brazil. The RDAS was the instrument used to assess marital satisfaction. Marital problems were identified by asking participants to check the problems they perceive in their marriage from a list of common marital …

Psychometrically Equivalent Thai Monosyllabic Word Recognition Materials Spoken By Male And Female Talkers, Chela Williams

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to develop, digitally record, evaluate, and psychometrically equate a set of Thai monosyllabic word lists to use in the measurement of word recognition ability. A native male and female talker from Thailand, who were judged to have a standard Thai dialect, participated as talkers in digitally recording familiar Thai monosyllabic words. Twenty native Thai participants were used as subjects to determine the percentage of correct word recognition for each word at 10 intensity levels ranging from --5 to 40 dB HL in 5 dB increments. The 200 words with the highest raw scores were …

The Relationship Among Emotion Understanding, Language, And Social Behavior In Children With Language Impairment, Lara Lynn Goldie

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the influence of emotion understanding, language, and working memory on reticence and prosocial behavior in children with language impairment (LI). The Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL; Carrow-Woolfolk, 1999) and The Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test (UNIT; Bracken & McCallum, 2003) were administered to 39 children with LI and 39 typical age-matched peers. A nonword repetition task and two tasks measuring emotion understanding were also administered. Each of the participant's classroom teachers completed The Teacher Behavioral Rating Scale (TBRS; Hart & Robinson, 1996). Structural equation modeling was used to estimate models of the data using a maximum likelihood …

Self-Determination For Students With Disabilities From A Hispanic Background In Transition From School To Work, Elin Cortijo-Doval

Theses and Dissertations

the author did not submit an abstract

The Phonology And Morphology Of The Dar Daju Daju Language, Arthur J. Aviles

Theses and Dissertations

A recurring theme among linguists is the need for more languages to be analyzed and more descriptions to be available for a variety of reasons. The main purpose of this thesis is to provide essential information on the Daju Dar Daju language of Chad, Africa that will assist in future language development work among the Daju Dar Daju people as well as to provide additional information for possible future work among related languages.

Very little work has been done on the Daju languages as a whole and to date almost nothing on the Dar Daju Daju. The Dar Daju Daju …

Constituent Order And Participant Reference In Dolnia Hani Narrative Discourse, Karen L. Gainer

Theses and Dissertations

Hani is a language in the Loloish family, spoken primarily in Yunnan Province of southwest China. This thesis presents a description of constituent order and participant reference in written Hani narrative discourse. The primary data source for this thesis consists of three narratives, which are included in the appendices.

Constituent order in Hani is largely constrained by the principle of natural information flow. In order to conform to this principle, some constituents may appear in two or more different positions in the clause, depending on the information structure of the assertion being made. Information structure also influences the use and …

Verbal Tone In Mpyemo, Bradley D. Festen

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes the tonal patterns and alternations present in the Mpyemo language (Bantu A.86c – ISO code mcx), with special attention to the verbal system. Rules and autosegmental representations are used to clarify and provide a formal analysis. A tone raising rule causes the underlying two-tone system to display three phonetic levels at the surface. This thesis explores nominalized verbs and verbs in the imperative. In addition, inflected verbs are described, although only a limited set of inflectional morphemes are treated. Thus, I look at verbs with inflectional prefixes for subject agreement, the perfect, and a single verbal auxiliary …

Subordination, Grounding And The Packaging Of Information In Gojri, Kara Suzanne Fast

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is based on a collection of narratives told by Gujar women in northern Pakistan. It majors on the structure of subordinate clauses, the discourse functions of relative clauses and conjunctive participial clauses, and the function of the most common connectives: tɛ, fir, bas and ǰī.

The position of the relative pronoun indicates whether a relative clause is referring to an activated or a new participant. Relative clauses that appear superfluous indicate that the referent has a significant role to play in the subsequent discourse.

Conjunctive participial clauses may convey information of the same storyline status …

The Professional Development Of Teachers For International Contexts: A Case Study Of Concordia Language Villages' Study Abroad Programs, Michelle L. Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

In the face of globalization, educational institutions the world over have developed institutional learning outcomes that seek to graduate students who are culturally competent. To accomplish this goal, colleges and schools must have a faculty who is prepared to facilitate student growth in this regard or provide the faculty with professional development opportunities to achieve that end.

Concordia Language Villages, an intensive language and culture education program sponsored by Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, is intentional in its mission to prepare young people for responsible citizenship and has professional development opportunities available to personnel in their programs and educators; however, …

Know Your Audience: An Assessment Of Preferred Learning Styles Of Freshman Students At Red River High School In Grand Forks, North Dakota, Kelly D. Peters

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research was to identify theories and describe characteristics of learning styles, assess characteristics of freshman students at Red River High School using data from the CAPSOL (Computerized Assessment and Prescription Styles of Learning) Style of Learning Assessment, MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) Scores, GPA (Grade Point Average), and North Dakota STARS (State Automated Reporting System), and justify a pedagogical and philosophical change in instruction to adapt instructional strategies to match and strengthen students' learning styles.

The research investigated the relationships between learning style scale scores, GPA, gender, RIT (Rasch Unit) Scores, and socioeconomic factors. This study …

Assessment And Accountability: An Exploration Of Teachers' Practices In Assessing English Language Proficiency, Mari B. Rasmussen

Theses and Dissertations

Assessment is an important component in an education program. Current educational policy includes large scale assessments with stringent accountability requirements. All students are expected to meet standards for achievement, including those who have historically not been successful.

Students from non-English language backgrounds are one of the populations of students who do not achieve academic success at the same rate as other students. This population of students is increasing in our nation's schools, causing this achievement gap to be of greater concern. Added to the concern is the requirement that English Language Learners (ELLs) must meet rigorous standards in both academic …

A Meta-Analysis Of Adolescent Rampage Shootings And The Potential Interconnectivity To Gifted/Talented Children With Emotional/Behavioral Disorders, Meghan M. Salyers

Theses and Dissertations

On the tenth anniversary of a series of school rampage shootings in Springfield, Oregon, Littleton, Colorado, and Conyers, Georgia, the purpose of this study was to determine whether there were indications of intellectual, academic, or creative giftedness with emotional/behavioral disorders in the perpetrators. In addition, through historiographical methods, this study was designed to allow for themes to surface from the authentic writings of the adolescent shooters.

Similarities in previous research results are reported in the meta-analysis, and categories derived from my analysis of the writings of Kip Kinkel, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, and T.J. Solomon are indicated in the analysis …

An Investigation Of The Technological, Pedagogical And Content Knowledge Framework In Successful Chinese Language Classrooms, Su-Ling Hsueh

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative case study investigates whether technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPCK) is balanced and integrated in Chinese language classrooms. Three expert Chinese teachers in technology-enhanced classrooms, as well as their students, were observed and studied. Four and a half months of data were collected in the form of classroom observations, interviews, reflective journals, and document analysis. Four basic findings were derived from the study. First, the TPCK framework reflected an observable instructional process for communication between teachers and students. However, teachers did not knowingly integrate technology, pedagogy and content in technology-enhanced classrooms. Second, content was the focal point during …

Effects Of Lexical Simplification And Elaboration On Esl Readers' Local-Level Perceived Comprehension, Beth Ann Brewer

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the effects of single word modification on the perceived comprehension of individual sentences. A test was created by randomly selecting sentences from a college level American history textbook. Each sentence was analyzed using Nation's Range program, and the lowest frequency verbs were selected for modification. Each target verb was simplified (replaced with a higher frequency equivalent) or elaborated (left in the sentence, but followed by a parenthetical definition). Subjects received both treatment types and unmodified control items in a fifty-sentence test. Each sentence was rated by the subjects, as it was read, according to the amount of …

The Effects Of Homography On Computer-Generated High Frequency Word Lists, Athelia Graham

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the significance of semantics in computer-generated word frequency counts in response to a call for new word lists (Read, 2000; Gardner, 2007). Read claims that no corpus projects to date have produced any "definitive, stand-alone word-frequency lists" (p. 226). Many researchers are wary of the fact that the concept of a word is never clearly defined in most studies that have dealt with word frequency counts. It is clear from the research that one universally acceptable construct for the concept of word does not exist. In fact, many past word frequency counts only examine word forms without …

An Analysis Of Document Retrieval And Clustering Using An Effective Semantic Distance Measure, Nathan Scott Davis

Theses and Dissertations

As large amounts of digital information become more and more accessible, the ability to effectively find relevant information is increasingly important. Search engines have historically performed well at finding relevant information by relying primarily on lexical and word based measures. Similarly, standard approaches to organizing and categorizing large amounts of textual information have previously relied on lexical and word based measures to perform grouping or classification tasks. Quite often, however, these processes take place without respect to semantics, or word meanings. This is perhaps due to the fact that the idea of meaningful similarity is naturally qualitative, and thus difficult …

The Influence Of Production Accuracy On Suprasegmental Listening Comprehension, Adriana Romanini

Theses and Dissertations

One of the major questions in second language (L2) phonological learning is whether perception precedes (and therefore guides) production. This question is important for knowing what types of training most benefit L2 learners. While most theories assume that perception always precedes production (e.g., Best, 1995; Flege, 1995), several recent studies have found that production may precede perception (e.g., Baker & Trofimovich, 2006; Beach, Brunham, & Kitamura, 2001; Goto, 1971; Sheldon & Strange, 1982; Underbakke, 1993), demonstrating that this complex relationship may differ depending on how and when the L2 is learned. The current study seeks to further explore this relationship …

An Evaluative Case Study Of A Mathematics Program At A Deaf School In Ghana And An Ecological Explanation For Challenges Preventing Deaf Students Access To Quality Education, Hilary Ann Melander

Theses and Dissertations

The two purposes of this study are first, to provide an evaluation of an after-school basic mathematics program at the Demonstration School for the Deaf Junior Secondary School (DemoDeaf) in Mampong-Akuapim, Ghana. Second, it provides an ecological discussion exploring why DemoDeaf students do not have access to quality education. I designed and piloted the math program in 2005 and 2007 as an action researcher and volunteer with the Non-Government Organization (NGO), Signs of Hope International. The program was developed after finding six students in one JSS class could not count to one-hundred and all other students struggled with addition and/or …

The Effects Of Experience On The Perception Of German Rounded Vowels By Native Speakers Of American English, Bradley J. York

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the effects of experience in German on the categorical perception of German rounded vowels, namely /uː/, /ʊ/, /oː/, /ɔ/, /yː/, /ʏ/, /øː/, and /œ/, by native speakers of American English (AE). Of special interest is whether more experience in German leads to more accurate perception of German front rounded vowels, namely /yː/, /ʏ/, /øː/, and /œ/, which do not have correlates in American English and are well known to cause perceptual problems for native AE speakers (Strange, Bohn, Trent, & Nishi, 2004). Subjects in this study were students at Brigham Young University that were divided into 4 …

Semantic Role Agency In Perceptions Of The Lexical Items Sick And Evil, Nathan G. Simmons

Theses and Dissertations

Inspired by an ongoing debate in the clinical sciences concerning the value of evil as a label for human behavior (Mowrer 1960, Staub 1999, Wellman 2000, Williams 2004 etc.), this thesis examines the semantic role of AGENT in the lexical items sick and evil. Williams makes the argument that the label evil removes responsibility from the doctor, whereas, the label sick empowers the doctor in bringing about a cure. While this view is not universally accepted in the field, it does bring to light an interesting question in applied linguistic semantics as to the assignment of agency with respect to …

The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints Enters Albania, 1992-1999, Nathan D. Pali

Theses and Dissertations

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints entered Albania in 1992. Albania was a unique and difficult place to establish the LDS Church. Under the communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha religion was systematically eliminated from Albania and replaced with atheism. Additionally, missionaries were twice evacuated in the first decade in the country and the Book of Mormon was not available in Albanian until 1999. Despite these setbacks the LDS Church grew at a steady rate in Albania due to native Albanian interest and individual attention by missionaries.

Lean Six Sigma As A Source Of Competitive Advantage, Alessandro Giorgio Cavallini

Theses and Dissertations

Anecdotal data affirms that companies applying Lean Six Sigma in their operations not only deliver higher quality products and services, but also obtain superior financial results. The goal of this research was to empirically verify anecdotal data. The study proposed to analyze a group of publicly traded manufacturing companies with the intent of verifying if a correlation exists between companies being lean and the attainment of superior returns on investments. The researcher performed a series of statistical tests comparing key Financial Performance Indicators (FPI) extracted from annual reports (10-K) from a large pool of companies. The outcome of this study …

A Transnational Study: Young Adult Literature Exchanged Between The Us And Germany, Kristana Miskin

Theses and Dissertations

Both young adult literature and transnational literature occupy transitional spaces and defy simple classifications. Their commonalities naturally suit the two sets of literature for concurrent study. However, the field is underdeveloped, particularly in the United States. With a concentration on the exchanges taking place between the U.S. and Germany, this thesis addresses the need to assemble primary materials and pertinent critical commentary into a single place available to educators, scholars, and researchers to acquire background on transnational YAL themes. The thesis delineates methods used in conducting and compiling research on U.S.-German YAL exchange and highlights the translation and publication concerns …

Rethinking The Historical Lens: A Case For Relational Identity In Sandra Cisneros's The House On Mango Street, Annalisa Wiggins

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis proposes a theory of relational identity development in Chicana literature. Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera offers an interpretation of Chicana identity that is largely based on historical models and mythology, which many scholars have found useful in interpreting Chicana literature. However, I contend that another text, Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street, not only illustrates the need for an alternative paradigm for considering identity development, but in fact offers such an alternative. I argue that Cisneros shows a model for relational identity development, wherein the individual develops in the context of her community and is not determined solely …

The Future Of Aesthetics In/And Visual Culture Art Education In 21st Century Art Education, Shannon Reibel

Theses and Dissertations

This grounded theory project researches and analyzes publications from 1990-2008 assessing the debate over aesthetics in/and VCAE in 21st century art education. Through a series of visual models, a working theory and its supporting evidence assess this contested subject. Within the context of Modern and Postmodern paradigm conflict, art educators’ debate over aesthetics in/and VCAE fundamentally deals with differing conceptions of identity and freedom. Although commonly sharing the goal of fostering the formation of student identity through the provision and exercise of freedom, art educators’ differing perspectives on identity and freedom result in differing prescriptions for 21st century art education. …

The Effect Of Caregiver Question Types On Disruptive Behavior In Dementia Patients, Cynthia I. Lofton

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if individuals in the later stages of dementia could benefit from their caregivers' use of language components that would assist them in gaining access to their emotional memories that had been developed throughout a lifetime of experiences. Participants in the study included 10 long-term care residents with a diagnosis of moderate-to-late stage dementia, probable Alzheimer's disease, and who were vocally disruptive. Thirty caregivers who interacted with the residents also participated in the study. The caregivers' responses to the vocally disruptive individuals were categorized as statements or questions. The language forms of caregiver …

Interoperability Measurement, Thomas C. Ford

Theses and Dissertations

This research presents an inaugural general method of measuring the collaborative and confrontational interoperability of a heterogeneous set of systems in the context of an operational process. The method is holistic, fundamental, flexible, and mathematical in nature and accommodates all types of systems and interoperations. The method relates the interoperability measurement to measures of operational effectiveness for confrontational operational processes. Extant leveling methods of describing interoperability are shown to be a special case of the more general method given in this research and the general interoperability measurement method is demonstrated through the presentation of coalition interoperability, suppression of enemy air …

Development Of A Definition, Classification System, And Model For Cultural Geology., Lloyd W. Mitchell Iii

Theses and Dissertations

The concept for this study is based upon a personal interest by the author, an American Indian, in promoting cultural perspectives in undergraduate college teaching and learning environments. Most academicians recognize that merged fields can enhance undergraduate curricula. However, conflict may occur when instructors attempt to merge social science fields such as history or philosophy with geoscience fields such as mining and geomorphology. For example, ideologies of Earth structures derived from scientific methodologies may conflict with historical and spiritual understandings of Earth structures held by American Indians. Specifically, this study addresses the problem of how to combine cultural studies with …

The Effect Of Teacher-Fronted And Group Work Techniques On Beginning Chinese As A Foreign Language Learners' Acquisition Of Grammar In A Performed Culture Classroom, Chieh-Ting Lin

Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on the effect of teacher-fronted and group work instruction on beginning Chinese as a Foreign Language learners' understanding and ability to use grammar principles correctly in a Performed Culture class setting. Three sections of beginning Chinese classes at Brigham Young University were selected to participate in the study. Each section instructor was assigned one of the following teaching techniques: teacher-fronted, group work, or a combination of both teacher-fronted and group work. Quizzes focusing on grammar were given before and after instruction to all students as pre-tests and post-tests. The results showed that students being taught with the …