Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring Perceptions Of New Media Among The Lakota Nation, Isabelle C. Kramer

Theses and Dissertations

Since its inception, the worldwide web has fundamentally altered our understanding of communications. With the rapid adoption of new media around the globe, individuals are increasingly able to communicate with people on the other side of the planet in real-time--traditional boundaries like time and space are no longer relevant barriers to intercultural communication. As such, scholars are scrambling to recognize and understand the broader implications of social media, videoconferencing, blogging, etc on more traditional definitions of culture. Additionally, researchers are beginning to study the ways in which minority cultures are utilizing new media, and the way that new media impacts …

The Oppressed African American Female Voice In Zora Neale Hurston’S Their Eyes Were Watching God And “Sweat”, Kaitlyn Levine

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Zora Neale Hurston moved to New York from Alabama in 1925, where her work contributed to the growing trends of the Harlem Renaissance and had a major impact on African American culture. During Hurston’s lifetime, the voices of African American women were often suppressed by the intersecting forces of racism and sexism. Hurston’s literary work portrayed gender struggles in American society during the twentieth century and represented the oppressed voice of African American women.

Engl 3360 - Introduction To Language Studies, Régine Pellicer

Open Educational Resources - Books

Language studies cover a large variety of situations as language is embedded in every aspect of our lives. Finding a book that would study all the possible topics related to language is impossible. Therefore, with our UTRGV librarians, we have assembled a free book that covers the basic linguistics concepts you need to know for this course and other linguistics courses. Linguistics concepts such as phonology or language acquisition are not subject to last minute discoveries and the principles remain the same. We hope you enjoy learning more about linguistics thanks to this free resource.

August 18, 2022, James Madison University

The Breeze, 2020-

The Breeze is the student newspaper of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Full-Hearted Leading: A Multiple Case Study Of Principals' Sensemaking Toward Implementing Moral Character Development In Elementary Schools, Kimberly Renee Starks

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this multiple case study was to understand how elementary school principals make sense of moral character development in their schools. The theories that guided this study were Weick’s sensemaking theory and Kohlberg’s moral development theory as it provided explanations to principals’ sensemaking regarding the effectiveness of moral character development implementation in elementary schools. The case studies, in one Midwestern school district, examined ten school administrators’ sensemaking toward implementing essential and effective moral character development programs in their schools. This study utilized a multiple case design that was critical to theory, deviated from theoretical norms, and captured everyday …

Exploratory Analysis Of Variance: Examining The Role Of Teacher Education Level On Educator Sense Of Self-Efficacy, Jonetta L. Cooper

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this causal-comparative study was used to analyze the hypothesized differences among inclusion teachers’ sense of self efficacy (TSES) based on their highest level of degree completion (bachelor’s, master's, master's plus). In an era of educational reform, students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) continue to lag behind regular education counterparts in all schooling environments. Schools in the southwestern region of Tennessee are now servicing a growing number of SLD-diagnosed students with a paucity of research addressing teacher's impact on SLD literacy scores. Participants in the study comprised 59 English language arts (ELA) inclusion teachers in 12 public middle …

Social Emotional Learning In The Choral Classroom, Courtney A. Hulsey

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Middle school is a pivotal time for many students as they navigate through mental, emotional, and hormonal changes which affect various aspects of their personal and educational well-being. A teacher’s care balancing social and emotional aspects of learning can be catalyst that makes a profound difference for students. Social-emotional learning (SEL) under this title is still in its infancy as a tool for classroom engagement and management. Additionally, there is very little research in the way of SEL specific to the middle school choral classroom. The hope is that in a content analysis of the benefits of SEL through the …

Effect Of Vertical Alignment On Elementary, Middle, And High School Music Programs, Tamekia Denise Holliday

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study examined the effects of vertical alignment on elementary, middle, and high school music programs. Thirty-five (n = 35) elementary, middle, and secondary music educators participated in the study. Of the 35 participants, 41% (n = 15) were high school music educators, 25% (n = 9) were middle school music educators, 27% (n = 10) were middle and high school music, and 2% (n = 1) taught elementary, middle, and high school. Analysis of survey data revealed significant relationships related to vertical alignment. The most significant relationship was between vertical alignment and retention (r = .643, p < .01), suggesting that student retention increases as vertical alignment increases. As well, results indicated that as vertical alignment decreases, the number of students “who wish to continue in music classes but cannot” increase (r = -.530, p < .01). Analysis of open-ended survey questions revealed valuable themes related to consistent band participation, music teacher expectations, and the effect of vertical alignment on music programs. Applying the results of this study may improve understanding of the effects of vertical alignment and enhance effective teaching and learning in music.

Spectral Analysis Of Multiscale Cultural Traits On Twitter, Chandler Squires, Nikhil Kunapuli, Yaneer Bar-Yam, Alfredo Morales

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

Understanding and mapping the emergence and boundaries of cultural areas is a challenge for social sciences. In this paper, we present a method for analyzing the cultural composition of regions via Twitter hashtags. Cultures can be described as distinct combination of traits which we capture via principal component analysis (PCA). We investigate the top 8 PCA components of an area including France, Spain, and Portugal, in terms of the geographic distribution of their hashtag composition. We also discuss relationships between components and the insights those relationships can provide into the structure of a cultural space. Finally, we compare the spatial …

Fall Faculty Conference 2022, Academic Affairs

Fall Faculty Conference

The Fall Faculty Conference featured a talk entitled Healing Through Connection: Lessons Learned from the Frontlines of Healthcare by Dr. Laurie Hommema, Senior Medical Director, Provider and Associate Well-Being, Ohio Health, Kristi McClure, MSN, RN, and Lois Sallee, MA, CCC-SLP.

Following the community conversation, faculty broke into different sessions that dealt with helping students become ready for Otterbein, advising success, immersive experiences, launching, and succeeding. After the breakout sessions, several faculty members showcased topics they had been working on. Jennifer Merkowitz (Music, 2022 Teacher of the Year) presented Making a Melody, Leesa Kern (Sociology, Criminology & Justice Studies) presented …

Increasing Student Success By Integrating Career Education Into The Classroom, Dannon Loveland, Cindy Higgins

Empowering Teaching Excellence Conference

During the last several years of upheaval and change, equity become an increasingly important topic of focus and research in higher education. Studies have found that the number one reason students list for pursuing higher education is to get a better job. Students who don’t access career services are often those who would benefit the most. This has caused a rethinking in the way that career education is delivered to students from a service model which only reaches a small percentage of students to integration into the student experience. Faculty are in a unique position to promote career development in …

International Students’ Perception Of Intercultural Communication From Official University Sources, Liseth Hubbard

Communication Theses

Research on intercultural communication has centered on the difficulties that international students experience during their adjusting journey in their new residence away from home. However, there are relatively few in-depth studies that report on international students’ perceptions of communicative practices from university officials. Following a social phenomenological approach, this study focuses on understanding the impressions and experiences of 12 international students. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews centered on three sensitizing concepts: intercultural sensitivity (IS), intercultural communication competence (ICC), and intercultural learning (IL). Data were analyzed using an iterative phonetic approach as described by Sarah Tracy (2019). The findings were …

A Rhetoric Of Sustainable Development, Jeff Todd

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Developing Linguistic And Intercultural Competence Through An International Engineering Program: Rationale, Procedures, Lessons Learned, Michel R. Gueldry

Global Advances in Business Communication

Language education for STEM and especially engineering presents opportunities for student recruitment and retention, for curricular and scholarly innovation, and for interdisciplinary initiatives. Therefore, this article is inspired by the relative paucity of resources on language education and intercultural studies for engineering and its potential for expansion. It presents a case study of the development of a global engineering program with study in France and explores transferability to other languages and institutions by offering a “how-to” guide. This article may serve as a vade mecum for curriculum and program developers since it includes the multilayered rationale for offering a GEP, …

A Case Study Of Workplace Language Use Within Micro, Small, Midsize, And Large Companies: Insights From Language School Students In Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Steven J. Sacco, Steven De Koffi

Global Advances in Business Communication

Africa is experiencing explosive economic growth that will continue unabated into the next decades. Despite Africa’s economic ascendance and its paucity of native English speakers, Business English as Lingua Franca (BELF) researchers have largely bypassed it, focusing instead on Europe and Asia. BELF researchers such as Neeley (2012, 2017) and Kankaanranta & Louhiala-Salminen (2013) have declared English the world’s language of business despite contrary evidence of multilingual franca workplace settings within multinational corporations (Ehrenreich, 2009; Janssens & Steyaert, 2014; Angouri, 2014; Lüdi, Meier & Yanaprasart, 2016; Sacco, 2017, 2019, 2022). The present study explored workplace language use among 22 managers …

Cross-Cultural Pedagogical Research And Diversity In Global Business Communication, David A. Victor

Global Advances in Business Communication

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Instruction Language On English-Spanish Bilinguals’ Speech Perception, Alexa Andrade, Laura M. Getz Phd

Creative Collaborations: Annual Showcase of Undergraduate Research

Abstract: Compared to monolinguals, bilinguals have an advantage in faster reaction times during task switching (Hernández et al., 2013). However, it is not known how switching task language affects basic perception of speech sounds. The goal of this project was to determine whether Spanish-English bilingual participants respond to auditory stimuli differently based on the language in which they receive task instructions. Participants were randomly given experiment instructions in English or Spanish, and then were presented with minimal pairs of words varying in voice onset time (VOT) along a continuum (e.g., belly/peli). Both endpoints of the stimuli were words in Spanish, …

Ronald E. Mcnair Scholars Program Profiles And Abstracts 2022, Motutama Sipelii

McNair Symposium

This is the complete event program and provides presentation abstracts and biographies of McNair scholars and their mentors.

Supporting Teachers With Project-Based Learning Implementation Through Professional Development, Anna Shamery

Masters Projects

Project-Based Learning (PBL) has been proven to positively impact motivation, academic achievement, the acquisition of 21st century skills, and classroom community. Though many teachers are enthusiastic about this teaching and learning method, educators struggle with PBL implementation. Both teachers and students have a difficult time adapting to the new roles required in this learner-centered approach. Time constraints and curriculum demands also make PBL implementation challenging. However, high-quality professional development which incorporates adult learning theories can lead to successful PBL use in the classroom. This project outlines a year-long PBL professional development plan designed for K-5 teachers. During a week-long summer …

Exploring The Semantics And Functionality Of Ghanaianisms, James Nsoh Adogpa

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

Ghanaian users of English have developed a variety of English that includes, among other things, lexical items whose usage and meanings are impregnated with cultural values, concepts and meanings. In this thesis I call these items Ghanaianisms and argue that their significance is to allow an institutionalized second language to acquire new meanings in the new context, in order to function effectively and to express new identities. The new norms that have arisen in the Ghanaian context include both feature norms and behavioural norms, and both were investigated as part of the study. The methodology used is ethnographic in nature. …

Age Of Diagnosis, Service Access, And Rights Of Autistic Individuals In Argentina: Caregivers Reports Of Changes And Similarities Across Time, María Cecilia Montenegro, Estefani Bernal, Sebastián Cukier, Daniel Valdez, Alexia Rattazzi, Gabriela Garrido, Analía Rosoli, Cristiane Silvestre Paula, Ricardo Garcia, Cecilia Montiel-Nava

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

Background: Many countries have developed health initiatives to protect those with disabilities and developmental concerns in the past few years. However, the needs of autistic individuals are still short of being fulfilled. Partially due to limited research expenditure, which would allow bridging the gap between evidence and practice, the long time it takes to implement passed laws, and the limited operationalization of inclusive policies.

Objective: To quantitatively examine changes in the child's age at the time of caregiver's first developmental concerns and age of diagnosis of their autistic child across 5 years. Also, to address challenges experienced by caregivers (e.g., …

Fredric Jameson And Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’S Periodizing The Black Internal Colony, Jeremy Matthew Glick

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In “Fredric Jameson and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s Periodizing the Black Internal Colony,” Jeremy Matthew Glick reads these authors’ coupling of Black radical struggle with wars of decolonization as engaging against a twenty-first century war on revolutionary memory. This essay examines Jameson’s brief “Maoist Digression” in “Periodizing the Sixties” and discussion of Cuban Revolutionary Foco-theory as “neither in […] nor of it” and Spivak’s planetary turn’s link to Black internal colonialism analysis as a way to talk about the intersections of revolutionary politics and literary form. It concludes with a brief meditation on Amiri Baraka on the centrality of space for …

Periodizing The Residuality Of A Composite Protest Art Form: The Case Of Telangana Dhoom Dham, Vamshi Vemireddy, Sasi Kiran R. Mallam

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The article will document the emergence of the composite art form of “Dhoom Dham” in the state of Telangana, a southern state from India. A mixture of folk song-and-dance routines interspersed with political speeches, Dhoom Dham emerged as a potent form of political protest during the Telangana statehood movement and dominated the cultural imaginary of the movement. It has the characteristics of a residual cultural form as conceptualized by Raymond Williams. Dhoom Dham masterfully combined the elements of folk and repurposed the left protest music traditions to help the cause of the formation of separate state of Telangana. …

Kazuo Ishiguro And The Service Economy, Kate Montague

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, “Kazuo Ishiguro and the Service Economy,” Kate Montague argues that Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels enact a poetics of work for the present moment—not just at the level of narrative but also in the kind of language used to describe the service economies his characters are doomed to inhabit. In his best-known novels, a clinical, bureaucratic, and even glorifying lexicon of “donations,” “completions,” “substitutions,” and “lifting” is betrayed by the reality of work grounded in horror. In Ishiguro’s worlds, which are very much our own, the out-sourcing of reproductive and domestic labor is enabled by a larger system in …

Expanding Theoretical Perspectives On Leadership: An Integration Of The Green And Mitchell Model Of Leader Behavior With Leader-Member Exchange Status, Constance R. Campbell, Cathy Owens Swift

Southern Business Review (Archived)

Constance Campbell is an assistant professor of management in the College of Business Administration at Georgia Southern University.

Cathy Owens Swift is an associate professor of marketing in the College of Business Administration at Georgia Southern University.

‘Dear Friend’: The Practice Of Nonviolence In Gandhi’S Letters To Hitler, Kelly R. Kraemer

Peace Studies Faculty Publications

At the onset of World War II, Mohandas Gandhi wrote two separate letters to Adolf Hitler. Though neither letter ever reached the Führer, both are readily accessible, via Internet, to 21st Century readers, for whom the content of the letters may prove both alarming and instructive. Why did Gandhi address the chief Nazi as his ‘Dear Friend’? Why did he write with such profound respect and humility when addressing a man accused of ‘monstrous’ acts? Did he really believe his appeals would persuade Hitler to end the war?

This article will examine Gandhi’s letters to Hitler as notable examples of …

Transferring Knowledge And Opening Pathways: The Unconventional Doctoral Student-Adjunct Instructor, Samantha Prado

Exploring How We Teach

• Doctoral student/adjunct instructor is a unique and important positionality that can provide perspective on the range of graduate student instructor experiences that exist.
• Positionality can be used to break down educational barriers and increase equity in the classroom.
• Transferring knowledge between contexts can be a form of advocating for social justice.
• There are both advantages and challenges to being a doctoral student/adjunct instructor.

Using A Minoritized Graduate Instructor Identity To Cultivate An Inclusive And Diverse Learning Space, Faqryza Ab Latif

Exploring How We Teach

• How to humanize the classroom climate and establish an authentic presence that can challenge the conventional Westernized classroom structure.
• How graduate instructors can use their malleable identity to their advantage in cultivating an inclusive community of diverse learners. There are experiences that are unique to graduate instructors, especially for those of us who come from underrepresented cultural backgrounds. These experiences can be utilized to construct a more inclusive and diverse learning environment, which could then encourage students to do the same.

Augmented Creativity: Leveraging Natural Language Processing For Creative Writing, Daniel Plate, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

Recent advances have moved natural language processing (NLP) capabilities with artificial intelligence beyond mere grammar and spell-checking functionality. One such new use that has arisen is the ability to suggest new content to writers to inspire new ideas by using “machine-in-the-loop” strategies in creative writing. In order to explore the possibilities of such a strategy, this study provides a model to be adopted in creative writing courses in higher education. An NLP application was created using Python and spaCy and deployed via Streamlit. The AI allowed students to see if their grammar aligned with those principles and techniques taught in …

Asian Hate Speech Detection On Twitter During Covid-19, Amir Toliyat, Sarah Ita Levitan, Zeng Peng, Ronak Etemadpour

Publications and Research

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) started in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, and after being utterly contagious in Asian countries, it rapidly spread to other countries. This disease caused governments worldwide to declare a public health crisis with severe measures taken to reduce the speed of the spread of the disease. This pandemic affected the lives of millions of people. Many citizens that lost their loved ones and jobs experienced a wide range of emotions, such as disbelief, shock, concerns about health, fear about food supplies, anxiety, and panic. All of the aforementioned phenomena led to the spread of racism and …