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Towards More User-Friendly Education For Speakers Of Aboriginal English, Ian G. Malcolm, Yvonne Haig, Patricia Konsignberg, Judith Rochecouste, Glenys Collard, Alison Hill, Rosemary Cahill

Research outputs pre 2011

The project reported on here set out, on a basis of cooperation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal investigators working in university, educational system and classroom contexts, to lead to understandings which would enable a more accessible ("userfriendly") education to be provided for students in primary and secondary schools who are speakers of Aboriginal English.

Specifically, in the context of schools of the Education Department of Western Australia, the project sought to:

1. extend knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal English and its areas of contrast with standard Australian English;

2. provide clarification in the following under-researched areas of Aboriginal English:

a) semantic …

The Impact Of E-Mail Use On Fourth Graders' Writing Skills, Carole Greb Nix

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

The growing interest in computer use at home and in the workplace has led to the incorporation of computer skills into school curricula. Numerous claims assert the benefit of computers, but questions remain concerning the nature of that benefit. The increasingly widespread use of telecommunications raises further questions regarding the effect of computer-mediated communication on language development. Unfortunately, few rigorous studies have been conducted to provide evidence of the actual effect of e-mail on children's writing skills. The data for this study are handwritten compositions, e-mail messages, and surveys/interviews collected from two schools, matched for demographic and academic variables. The …

Recruitment On Paper, Recruitment On The Web: An Examination Of The Rhetorical Strategies Used In Each Medium, Danielle Amorena Glanzer

Student Work

This study examines the rhetoric of college and university recruitment on paper and on the Internet. In particular, the centers on the difference between the two media in relation to their readers, writers, and final texts. A triangulated research approach was used: text analysis, interviews with writers and readers, and reader surveys that include open- and closed-ended questions. The printed and electronic recruitment materials of three peer institutions of the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) formed the basis of the research. Those institutions included the University of Northern Iowa (UNI), the University of Texas at San Antonia (UTSA), and …

Differences On The Alphabet, The Ideograph, And Political Difference: Commentary And Reply, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article presents the commentary of a reader and an IBPP editorial board reply concerning the consequences of language differences for political differences among populations.

A Sociolinguistic Survey Of Bilingual Education Among The Shipibo Of Amazonian Peru, Kathleen Ann Tacelosky

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

In the 1950s, the trend worldwide in public education was for classes to be conducted in the national (prestige) language. In Amazonian Peru however, an alternative was being considered: Bilingual Education (BE). Since monolingual education in Spanish in Peru had been unsuccessful, the government was looking for a way to educate indigenous Peruvians. Therefore, the government of Peru, together with the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), implemented a BE program that incorporates vernacular indigenous languages and Spanish. The BE experiment was designed on a transition model: children are introduced to school and new concepts and skills such as reading in …

Against Common Sense: Why Title Vii Should. Protect Speakers Of Black English, Jill Gaulding

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The speech of many black Americans is marked by phrases such as 'we be writin"' or "we don't have no problems." Because most listeners consider such "Black English" speech patterns incorrect, these speakers face significant disadvantages in the job market. But common sense suggests that there is nothing discriminatory about employers' negative reactions to Black English because it makes sense to allow employers to insist that employees use correct grammar.

This article argues against this common sense understanding of Black English as bad grammar. The author first analyzes the extent of the job market disadvantages faced by Black English speakers …

Neuro Fuzzy Reasoning For Pattern Classification And Object Recognition., Jayati Ghosh Dr.

Doctoral Theses

In real world, pattern classification and object recognition problems are faced with fuzzi- ness that is connected with diverse facets of cognitive activity of the human being. An origin of sources of fuzziness is related to labels expressed in feature space as well as to labels of classes taken into account in classification and /or recognition procedures. Though a lot of scientific efforts have already been dedicated to pattern recognition problems, especially to classification procedures, still pattern recognition is confronted with a continuous challenge coming from a human being who can perform lot of ex- tremely complex classification tasks by …

Issues Of Engendered Entitlement: Who Owns The Classroom? Who Owns Knowledge?, Dorothy Radius Kasik

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the ways in which first year female college students have been prepared by educational systems in our culture to handle knowledge and the acquisition of knowledge during the first year of college experience. It is the contention of the author that women are not actively encouraged in our culture to take ownership of educational concepts in the same way as men. This happens for two reasons, first that because women's methods of interaction in the classroom might differ from men's those methods might not be perceived as acceptable or taken seriously; and second that a woman's discomfort …

Character Prominence And Perspective In Narrative Comprehension, Jennifer G. Halleran

Doctoral Dissertations

Current theories of narrative comprehension assume that readers attend to information about the protagonist, including his/her goals, location, and emotions. However, such a Limited view of narrative comprehension does not adequately address the complexity of text. Typically, the reader is exposed to an array of important secondary characters and their relations to the protagonist(s) in narratives. Also included in this story dynamic may be the beliefs or opinions of the secondary character(s) regarding the protagonist.

Three experiments were conducted to examine the effects of character prominence and perspective on reading comprehension for narratives. The prominence distinction between two characters, a …

The Role Of Shame In Writing: How Lived Experience Affects The Writing Process, Carol Kountz

Doctoral Dissertations

Writing fluently without disabling apprehension requires an ability to control ideas despite the occurrence of censoring thoughts or shameful sensations. Such ability is characteristically lacking in apprehensive or blocking writers, who, therefore, have difficulty in composing. To understand the psychological and social factors that impede the writing process, and to give writers and compositionists insight into the features of writing that result in "writer's block," I held conversational interviews with twenty-four people who designate themselves as apprehensive writers about their literacy experiences and writing behavior. Analysis of these interviews shows that these people, in anticipation of a real or inward, …

Learning To Learn: The Training Of Missionaries In Language Learning Strategies At The Missionary Training Center, D. Brian Kohler

Theses and Dissertations

Language learning strategies (LLS) are specific actions, behaviors, steps, or techniques that learners use to improve their rate and level of L2 development. This thesis details the development and validation of a LLS training program designed to measure if training in LLS increases LDS missionaries' awareness of LLS as potential language learning tools. Specifically, it explores the question as to whether missionaries trained in LLS use and intend to use LLS more frequently, more appropriately, and with a greater range than those not trained in LLS.

The development of the LLS training program involved selecting a set of 48 specific …

[Review Of] Toyotomi Morimoto. Japanese Americans And Cultural Continuity: Maintaining Language And Heritage, Kumiko Takahara

Ethnic Studies Review

Japanese language schools in California are chronicled from the early twentieth century until the eve of World War II based mainly on the UCLA Japanese American Research Project Collections, Japanese language newspapers, and literatures by Issei (first generation Japanese immigrant) educators. Chapters two through five which follow a brief overview of the ethnic language schools of various immigrant groups illustrate Japanese immigrants' effort in transmitting their linguistic and cultural heritage to Nisei (American-born) children by supplementing their public school education with a Japanese language school curriculum in a hostile socio-political climate. The thematic coherence of the book is disrupted unfortunately …

[Review Of] Lean'tin L. Bracks. Writings On Black Women Of The Diaspora: History, Language, And Identity. Crosscurrents In African American History, Vol I, Helen Lock

Ethnic Studies Review

In her "Preface" to this study, Lean'tin Bracks describes her purpose as being "to describe a model which may provide for today's black woman a means to take control of her destiny by retrieving her Afrocentric legacy from the obscured past" (xi). This model, which she applies through discussions of The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831), Toni Morrison's Beloved (1988), Alice Walker's The Color Purple (1982, and Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow (1984), is tripartite: "historical awareness, attention to linguistic pattern, and sensitivity to stereotypes in the dominant culture" (xi).

Some Examples Of Using Legal Relations Language In The Legal Domain: Applied Deontic Logic, Layman E. Allen

Articles

The fundamental concept of the LEGAL RELATIONS Language (LRL) is the recursively-defined notion of LEGAL RELATION (LR). As LR is defined here, there is an infinite number of different LEGAL RELATIONS, and LRL is a language for precisely and completely describing each of those infinite number of dfferent LEGAL RELATIONS. With its robust collection of dfferent names, one for each of the different LEGAL RELATIONS, LRL provides adequate vocabulary for (1) describing every possible legal state of affairs, (2) accounting for every possible change from one legal state of affairs to another, (3) representing every possible legal rule, and (4) …

The Socialization Of Indian Scientific Writers Into Western Scientific Discourse Communities., Sumita Roy

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This research studies the socialization of Indian science writers into western discourse communities. More specifically, it seeks to identify the writing problems that beginner Indian science writers face and the strategies that they adopt in overcoming them while writing dissertations or research articles. Primary information was gathered by interviewing 11 Indian graduate students and 17 faculty members from India (West Bengal) and the USA on the basis of a five-page questionnaire. Respondents were classified into three groups according to their places of training and writing skills. Three to five sets of rough drafts from each group were studied to note …

Dialogue Between Confucius And Socrates: Norms Of Rhetorical Constructs In Their Dialogical Form And Dialogic Imagination., Bin Xie

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The present dissertation consists of six parts: an introduction, four chapters and a conclusion. It is intended to recapture the rhetorical norms governing the Confucian and Socratic dialogues--their voice of credibility, proto-scientific attitude, tragic consciousness, and use of irony--so as to demonstrate how rhetoric enables them to carry out their political, philosophical and epistemological pursuits; my research aims at the description of similarities and differences between Socrates's and Confucius's rhetorical methods, which are shaped by their respective historical and cultural contexts. Specifically, my major objectives are to foreground, in accordance with Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of dialogism, the significance of the …

The Gift Of Language, Joseph Vining

Articles

Style and substance cross-are genetically related as we now might want to say. Each draws on and is implied by the other. One point at which they cross is our sense of the nature of human language, what language is and can be, what it is not and can never be. The language of law is part of human language. Law is a distinctive form of thought, but it lives in human language. "Rule" might be thought synonymous with "law," but for all its talk of rules, the practice of law does not begin with a descriptive statement, or a …

Language Games And Computer-Aided Composition, Ryan M Moeller

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Wittgenstein's theory of the "language game" looks at the specific context in which language finds meaning. This theory significantly influences composition theory and practice within the problematic context of the computer-aided classroom, a much more complex and fast-paced environment than the traditional composition classroom. Students face a challenging, semester-long language game of creating a context from learning and meaning by actively participating in the rule-making processes of language. As a result, they are responsible for creating and maintaining their own language games by negotiating their ways through chatrooms (synchronous discussions), email (asynchronous discussions), virus complications, and other technological problems. Therefore, …

A Rhetoric Of Religious Order: The Case Of The Promise Keepers., Michael Ellsworth Eidenmuller

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study employs a Burkeian critical perspective to explain the growth and impact of the evangelical movement-organization known as Promise Keepers. Specific attention is given to the strategies of identification by which Promise Keepers manages the exigencies of identity, recruitment, and opposition. In addition, this study introduces the concept of the scriptural implant, a strategy of identification by which Promise Keepers attempts to secure the truth and authority of its discourse. Data for this study were selected from a range of sources, including published literature, audio and video tapes, and Internet materials produced by Promise Keepers. Interviews with Promise Keepers' …

Rhetoric And Social Struggle: In Search Of The Topoi Of Violence., Edward Christopher Reilly

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The rhetorical study of violence tends to examine violence within larger generic boundaries such as social movements studies or war rhetoric. In order to work toward a generalizable rhetorical theory of violence and discourse, this study examines texts which justify violence across generic boundaries. Accordingly, four case studies individually examine texts which justify political violence. This study compares and contrasts the rhetorical strategies of George Bush, the Unabomber, Earth First! and Abbie Hoffman. This study concludes that there are no universal strategies among the four case studies in the justification of violence. However, there appears to be a continuum of …

Variabilidad En La Prueba De Boston Para El Diagnóstico De Las Afasias En Adultos Laboralmente Activos [Variability Of The Boston Test For The Diagnosis Of Aphasia In Active Working Adults], David Pineda, Silvia Mejia-Arango, Monica Rosselli, Alfredo Ardila, M. G. Romero, C. Perez

School of Medicine Publications

Introduction: The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of age, gender, socioeconomic status (SES), academic achievement (education), and type of occupation, on the performance of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE) Spanish version.

Material and methods: The BDAE was administered to a group of 156, 19 to 60 years old, occupationally active normal subjects.

Results: A descriptive analysis showed that some subjects (1 to 3%) scored in the pathological range of the centiles and profiles of the BDAE. A MANOVA (p < 0.05) demonstrated a significant effect of education over most of the BDAE subtests. Females outperformed males on some reading and writing subtests. SES had an effect over body part identification and naming. Significant differences were observed between younger and middle age groups in confrontation naming, oral and word picture reading. The older group scored significantly lower than the younger group in serial writing and sentences to dictation. No differences were observed between the older and the middle groups. Only oral spelling was affected by the type of occupation but a significant interaction of occupation and level of education was found.

Conclusions: Language tests are influenced by demographic variables, particularly education. Normal variability on the BDAE should …

Language Proficiency And Stress: Impact On Measured Intelligence And Anxiety For Latino Children, Marlene Baldizon De Naclerio

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Non-Native Speaker Collocations: A Corpus-Driven Characterization From The Writing Of Native Speakers Of Mandarin, Robin Janine Lombard

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

Non-native speaker difficulty in producing collocations (i.e., domain-specific recurrent word combinations) is widely acknowledged (see, e.g., Bahns 19 9, Channel 1981, Farghal and Obiedat 1995, Gitsaki 1996, and Zughoul 1991). Phrases such as *a convenient price or *marketing share instead of the native speaker collocations a reasonable price and market share, for example, comprise a substantial number of advanced learner errors written by native speakers of Mandarin in a business English context. This problem has been addressed in the form of domain-specific reference and teaching materials (see Flower and Martinez 1995 and Tuck 1993). While these materials--which are based on …

Cognitive Problems, Metacognition, And Philosophy Of Language, Rossen I. Roussev

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

In this paper I argue that many of the cognitive problems (such as "low self-esteem," "permanent anxiety," "bad learning strategies," "student-teacher conflict of values," or "motivational deficit") that interfere with problem solving are rooted in individuals' philosophically naive views of how their own intelligence works and can be overcome through development of an adequate philosophical competence. Accordingly, I attempt a delineation of the scientific prescription for overcoming these problems, metacognition, in terms of concepts of contemporary' philosophy' of language. Four scientific concepts were examined, including M. V. Covington's concept of strategic thinking, J. Lochhead's concept of the role of verbalization …

Black English, Karen Tibbitts Filimoehala

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Black English has recently entered the media spotlight with the passing of the Ebonics resolution by the Oakland School Board on Dec. 18, 1996. In this resolution, the school board unanimously voted to recognize Black English or "Ebonics" (a term which combines the words "ebony" and "phonetics")(LeLand & Joseph, 1997, p. 78) as the primary language of many of its students, and to teach students in their primary language in order to maintain the "legitimacy and richness" of the language, and to help students master standard English. Needless to say, the resolution was met with highly charged arguments - some …

The Language Question In A Rainbow Nation: The South African Experience, Albie L. Sachs

Dalhousie Law Journal

In this, the twenty-second annual Horace E. Read Memorial Lecture, Mr. Justice Albie Sachs reviews the efforts to resolve problems of multilingualism in the new Constitution of South Africa. Writing from experience in the constitution-making process, he reflects on the reality of eleven different languages in South Africa. He discusses the consequent problems of legislative strategy and linguistic rights and the appropriate balance amongst language rights, policy and practice.

The Adoption Of Christian Prayer In Native Hawaiian Pule, Kalena Silva

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Comparative Power Of Three Author-Attribution Techniques For Differentiating Authors, John B. Archer, John L. Hilton, G. Bruce Schaalje

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

Over the last twenty years, various objective author-attribution techniques have been applied to the English Book of Mormon in order to shed light on the question of multiple authorship of Book of Mormon texts. Two methods, one based on rates of use of noncontextual words and one based on word-pattern ratios, measure patterns consistent with multiple authorship in the Book of Mormon. Another method, based on vocabulary-richness measures, suggests that only one author is involved. These apparently contradictory results are reconciled by showing that for texts of known authorship, the method based on vocabulary-richness measures is not as powerful in …

A Short Addition To Length: Some Relative Frequencies Of Circumstantial Structures, Brian D. Stubbs

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

In previous articles I have discussed the nature and prominence of certain linguistic structures in the Book of Mormon that are typical of hal-clauses translated from Hebrew or Egyptian. This article compares the frequencies of those structures in three works produced through the instrumentality of Joseph Smith: the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, only the first of which is a translation from an ancient Near Eastern language. The results of this preliminary investigation into styles and these linguistic structures as found in these three works …

Talk Before Writing: Oral Rehearsal As A Pre-Writing Strategy For High School Students With Difficulties In Retrieval, Valerie Sebern Aubry

Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigated the effects of oral rehearsal used as a pre-writing strategy by twenty-eight high school students (21 males, 7 females) with difficulties in retrieval. Study participants read texts, wrote summary-response essays, and revised their compositions in two conditions: with rehearsal and without rehearsal. A repeated measures (2 x 2) x (2) design with Passage and Order of Treatment as the between-subject variables, and Condition as the within-subject variable was used to assess differences in compositions.

Eight quantitative measures, with four considered primary, were used to evaluate differences in the quantity, complexity, content, and quality of compositions. Positive changes …