Modern Languages Commons^™

Quemando Leña En Guatemala: Salud, Sostenibilidad Y Costumbres, Sydney Underhill

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

In the Central American country of Guatemala, firewood is an important fuel source. Eighty-eight percent of households in rural areas use wood stoves and open fires to cook and heat their homes. This tradition has fundamental roots in the culture and customs of Guatemala. Unfortunately, these methods contribute to air pollution. Consequently, it also results in smoke inhalation, which causes health problems. Additionally, the massive agriculture of other crops decreases the amount of firewood available to these households, affecting the sustainability of the resource. Some communities resist changing their use of firewood due to the profound nature that firewood holds …

Los Intérpretes Médicos Son Un Derecho, No Un Privilegio, Morgan Uesseler

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

This essay explores medical interpretation as a right, not a privilege. It argues that medical interpretation is a vital service that should be required in all healthcare settings, not just in those that are funded by the government. Themes addressed include the difference between interpretation and translation, face-to-face interpretation versus telecommunication, liabilities and risks associated with untrained and uncertified medical interpreters, and the federal law Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Challenges experienced during any medical session are underscored, while giving special focus to limited English proficient Hispanic patients whose healthcare literacy is in Spanish, not English.

"Speak Arabic!": Arabic Dialect Comparison Videos And The Reconfiguration Of The Maghreb-Mashreq Language Ideology, Jacquelyn Stewart-Kuhn

Honors Theses

There is a hidden power imbalance in the Arabic-speaking world. It is not related to warfare, politics, or oil, but language. For decades, Egyptian and Levantine (Mashreqi) dialects have been over-represented in Arabic language media, to the detriment of North African (Maghrebi) dialects. This imbalance has played a crucial role in reinforcing what Hachimi (2013) refers to as the “Maghreb-Mashreq language ideology,” i.e. the belief that Mashreqi dialects are superior to Maghrebi dialects. Yet in an era of social media, Mashreqi voices and dialects are becoming less dominant, and Arabic-speakers across the region are being increasingly exposed to Maghrebi voices …

Language Learning Simulation Using Duolingo Assignment Description, David Wolff

Open Educational Resources - Teaching and Learning

It is likely that preservice teachers will work with students learning English as their second (third, fourth, etc.) language. For preservice teachers to better understand the language learning process, Duolingo was used to simulate the learning experience. The assignment description outlines how preservice teachers can reflection pre-simulation and post-simulation about what they learned about language learning.

Teaching Hispanic Culture, Diversity, And Tolerance Through Hispanic Dances And Music: Two Approaches For Flamenco & Caribbean Dances, Chita Espino-Bravo Ph.D., D. Nicole English

Modern Languages Faculty Publications

A Sociology Approach: Dance can be a useful tool for teaching students about culture and community. Through the language of Dance and Music (Caribbean Dance), context is given to social facts, which engages and informs students about such social issues as history, Colonialism,social class, gender, race/ethnicity, and social justice. The added bonus of using Dance as a lens is that it involves active, embodied learning (Dewey, English, Mead), making the material more memorable, meaningful, and relevant to the learner. A Communicative Approach (Task-based Learning Activity) & Language for Specific Purposes:Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) is a derivative of the Communicative Approach …

The Impact Of The First Language Transfer On English Language Syntax For Arab Esl Students At Private Language Center In Mid-Size University Town, Mohammed A. S. Abdalhadi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the Impact of the First Language Transfer on English Language Syntax for Arab ESL Students at Private Language Center in Mid-Size University Town. The research population was 12 participants from Spring International Language Center through Intensive English Program and 7 participants from Adult Education center. The writing samples and interview were the main two instruments to analyze the data. I used constructive Analysis (CA), Error Analysis (EA), and coding to analyze the writing samples and the interview. The study focused on the syntax transfer between Arabic L1 and English L2, so Adjective/noun order, Subject/verb order, Number/numbered order, …

Citizens Of The English Language: Sociolinguistic Perspectives On Postcolonial India, Prateek Shankar

Masters Theses

This paper introduces the concept of "extralingual citizenship," which I define as an expansion of translingualism to include the ethnoracial logic of the nation-state and demonstrates the entanglement of language, governance, and education in the policing of knowledge infrastructures and discursive practices. I am interested in the codification of postcolonial disparity into the teaching, social performance, and material assessment of English language users, and the infrastructural disqualification of World Englishes (and their amalgams) in favor of a standardized English. I frame extralingualism as a kind of citizenship, shifting the focus of English pedagogy/practice from the syntactical/etymological concerns of language …

Morphosemantic Integration Of -Ing Anglicisms Into Russian And Kazakh In The Context Of Trilingual Code-Switching, Timur Akishev

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current dissertation is an attempt to determine and describe the characteristics of the process of linguistic integration of English noun loans into Russian and Kazakh. One of the main objectives that my study was guided by was the analysis of the relationships between or across the linguistic and quantitative parameters of the loans based on the data drawn from the Russian National Corpus, an online database containing multiple examples of using the Russian language. Another important objective of the research conducted was to provide a holistic interpretation to the process of secondary adaptation of the nominal Anglicisms from Russian …

Other Oceans, Other Skies, Sharlene Lee

MFA in Visual Art

I create immersive installations, performances, and time-based media artworks that delve into stories of belonging, feminism, and language as power. These stories offer a potential for transformation from viewer to participant and a shift in how our world is seen and experienced. Through an exploration of perception and affect, I challenge dominant narratives, prompting a contemplation of contemporary power struggles for control.

In this text, I examine the impact of historical borders and migration on my life while also investigating questions of home, shared values, and rituals that contribute to one’s sense of belonging. I also highlight my commitment to …

Du Undergraduate Showcase: Research, Scholarship, And Creative Works, Caitlyn Aldersea, Justin Bravo, Sam Allen, Anna Block, Connor Block, Emma Buechler, Maria De Los Angeles Bustillos, Arianna Carlson, William Christensen, Olivia Kachulis, Noah Craver, Kate Dillon, Muskan Fatima, Angel Fernandes, Emma Finch, Colleen Cassidy, Amy Fishman, Andrea Francis, Stacia Fritz, Simran Gill, Emma Gries, Rylie Hansen, Shannon Powers, Jacqueline Martinez, Zachary Harker, Ashley Hasty, Mykaela Tanino-Springsteen, Kathleen Hopps, Adelaide Kerenick, Colin Kleckner, Ci Koehring, Elijah Kruger, Braden Krumholz, Maddie Leake, Lyneé Alves, Seraphina Loukas, Yatzari Lozano Vazquez, Haley Maki, Emily Martinez, Sierra Mckinney, Audrey Mitchell, Kipling Newman, Audrey Ng, Megan Lucyshyn, Andrew Nguyen, Stevie Ostman, Casandra Pearson, Alexandra Penney, Julia Gielczynski, Tyler Ball, Anna Rini, Christina Rorres, Simon Ruland, Helayna Schafer, Emma Sellers, Sarah Schuller, Claire Shaver, Kevin Summers, Isabella Shaw, Madison Sinar, Claudia Pena, Apshara Siwakoti, Carter Sorensen, Madi Sousa, Anna Sparling, Alexandra Revier, Brandon Thierry, Dylan Tyree, Maggie Williams, Lauren Wols

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

DU Undergraduate Showcase: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Works

Curriculum, Instruction, And Leadership As A Practice Of Reflexivity In World Language Education: A Systematic Review Of Literature, Jerry L. Parker

Journal of Educational Leadership in Action

This article presents the findings of a systemic review of research published by Robert C. Lafayette. Lafayette was a French teacher and teacher educator who worked to revolutionize the teaching of world languages through his articles, books, textbooks, grants, conference presentations, and other scholarly work. To uncover the value of his work in today’s language schooling, this study examined 17 of his articles and book chapters. Using content analysis methodology, the findings of this study concluded that his work contributed mainly to our understanding of curriculum, instruction, and leadership in world language education. His scholarship also provides world language teachers, …

Literature And Censorship During Fransisco Franco's Dictatorship Of Spain, Adriana Cuca

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Hispanic Population At Coastal Carolina University: An Analysis Of Challenges And Adversity In Higher Education, Valentina Bermejo

Undergraduate Research Competition

This research pursues the analysis of the Hispanic Population at Coastal Carolina University. It seeks to explain the factors that shaped their journey to secondary education whether it be through intrinsic motivation or generational guilt; while also seeking to understand the hardships that come with being the first generational student to attend an American University. Through previously conducted research by scholars such as Consuelo Arbona, Amaury Nora, Laura Perna, and Claudia Kouyoumdjian, along with a series of interviews amongst self-identifying Hispanic university-goers at Coastal Carolina; the study comes to find the disparities amongst the previously grouped category of "Hispanics at …

An Assessment Of Kashmir And Linguistic Plurality In South Asia, Tess Yazvac

Undergraduate Research Competition

Kashmir is the northernmost region of India that has been under territorial dispute for centuries. In recent years, China, India, and Pakistan have all claimed to have control of a certain domain of this region. Before and after India gained its independence from British rule, fighting has ensued over which nation claims dominance over Kashmir. Out of this conflict, Kashmir became an epicenter where multiple ancient languages have joined and produced variations around the region. This research explores the linguistic importance of Kashmir by studying its religious personality and its different writing systems and vocabulary. According to a 2011 religious’ …

"Generation Mei Ming": Dual Identity Challenges For Chinese Adoptees In Spain, Karina Solis-Aguilar

Undergraduate Research Competition

In 1995, a documentary film called "The Dying Rooms," directed by British directors Brian Woods and Kate Blewett, was released to the public about the conditions in which Chinese children lived in at the adoption centers. China's "One Child" Policy caused for adoption centers to be completely filled, some of the children dying of neglect and malnourishment. This documentary would later go on to cause over 17,000 Chinese, female children to be adopted in Spain in years to come. The generation of adoptees in Spain were called "Generación Mei-Ming," also known as "Generation Mei-Ming." The individuals travel back to China, …

South Germany: Integrating German Speakers Into Latin American Societies, Logan Bellos

Undergraduate Research Competition

Argentina and Chile have always been known to be predominantly Spanish speaking countries. However, following the conclusions of both World Wars, an interesting trend in immigration has led to both countries developing a surprisingly large German population. The majority of German immigrants consisted of three groups: ethnic Germans escaping the economic hardships of the First World War, German Jews pre- World War Two, and Nazi Sympathizers fleeing the country post World War Two. While some groups of Germans have successfully assimilated into the hispanic cultures of both Argentina and Chile respectively, other groups of Germans have developed outlying colonies, distancing …

France Through The Eyes Of African Migrants In Contemporary France, Destanee Timmons

Undergraduate Research Competition

The impacts of French colonization can be felt worldwide. In the continent of Africa, numerous nations have had their native livelihoods turned on its head during and after the second French colonial empire. During France’s regime over several African nations, France has morphed the traditions of the native’s people and forever left its mark on the continent. Years after their independence, many African nations such as Algeria, Senegal, and Morocco are still affected by the changes implemented during the colonial era. These changes such as suppressing local culture in favor of French ideals resulted in internal turmoil and rampant corruption …

The Impact Of Prc Language Policies On Minority Languages Of China, Margaret Shoop

Undergraduate Research Competition

While language is often used as a tool to bring people together and celebrate differences, language can also be weaponized and used to suppress minority groups of people. There are over three hundred unique languages and dialects spoken in Mainland China, with Mandarin Chinese being the most widely spoken of the languages. Mandarin is the official state language of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and it is also the primary language taught in schools across the country. Despite official Chinese policy of teaching Mandarin Chinese alongside local dialects, Mandarin is favored over minority languages. The unequal emphasis on Mandarin …

Talking To The Earth: A Digital Documentation Of Biodiversity In The Sherpa Language, Dvij Sharma

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Identified as a pressing matter by organizations as prominent as the UN, the conservation of minority and indigenous languages “is essential for ensuring the continuation and transmission of culture, customs, and history, but it is also important to address biodiversity loss and climate change.” This project focuses on one of the latter issues, biodiversity loss, as it relates to Sherpa, a minority language spoken primarily in Eastern Nepal. In an effort to help preserve the native vocabulary and descriptions of basic plants and animals found in Sherpa-speaking regions, primarily interview-based fieldwork was conducted in the lower Solu regions of Lumsa, …

The Role Classifiers Play In Selecting The Referent Of A Word, Weiyi Ma, Peng Zhou, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff

General Human Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

An important cue to the meaning of a new noun is its accompanying classifier. For example, in English, X in “a sheet of X” should refer to a broad, flat object. A classifier is required in Chinese to quantify nouns. Using children’s overt responses in an object/picture selection task, past research found reliable semantic knowledge of classifiers in Mandarin-reared children at around age three. However, it is unclear how children’s semantic knowledge differs across different types of classifiers and how this difference develops with age. Here we use an arguably more sensitive measure of children’s language knowledge (the intermodal preferential-looking …

Comentarios Críticos Escritos Por Estudiantes De Medicina Sobre La Evaluación Del Paciente, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

La presente investigación analiza los comentarios críticos producidos por estudiantes chilenos de 3º y 4º de Medicina en la sección Comentario/Reflexión final de la Ficha Clínica con el objetivo de conocer su opinión sobre la experiencia de su estancia hospitalaria y la práctica médica en general, así como de entender los elementos retórico-discursivos que utilizan para posicionar su voz en el texto al evaluar dicha experiencia. Para investigar este fenómeno se realizó un análisis textual computarizado de las categorías gramaticales y los contenidos semántico-funcionales valorativos desde un enfoque cualitativo inductivo-deductivo. Los resultados del estudio mostraron un predominio de los comentarios …

Type Of Glossing Affects Cognitive Load And Retrieval Of Meaning During L2 Reading, Camilo Andrés Bonilla Carvajal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The use of translation in language teaching has been a source of controversial debate, nevertheless, glossing—and, specifically, interlinear glossing—remains an understudied type of materials, despite having been used by learners and teachers of foreign languages since at least 1000 C.E. (Bata, Gwara & Porter, 1997). In the absence of a comprehensive literature review tracing the history of interlinear glossing, as well as the absence of enough empirical studies addressing the effect of glossing on cognitive effort in language learning, the present work aims at exploring the role of first language glossing in facilitating reading by describing the results of an …

“Investment In Inertia”: Language Ideologies Of Instructors And Students Of Spanish As A Heritage Language, Michael E. Rolland

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

When the Spanish-language skills of heritage Spanish learners are disparaged in an academic environment, these learners are at high risk of abandoning further study of Spanish and shifting entirely to English. This dissertation uses mixed qualitative and quantitative research methods, including thematic and discourse analysis, to investigate the language ideologies of instructors and students of Spanish as a heritage language (SHL) and the effects of those ideologies on students’ experiences in SHL college courses. It builds on earlier research on language ideologies in the post-secondary heritage language context (e.g., Carreira, 2011; Loza, 2017; Valdés et al., 2003). I find that …

Lakota Language Revitalization And The Meaning Of Life, Gabriel Bruguier

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Presentations

Lakota Language Revitalization and the Meaning of Life

Thesis: Indigenous languages reveal information about that peoples’ conception of the meaning of life.

Notes/working document from a presentation given at the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy conference, 2023.

Reproductive Justice And Feminism: A Comparative Legal Analysis Of The Policies And Healthcare Systems In The United States And Colombia, Samantha Cooke

Modern Languages, Philosophy and Classics Theses

This thesis seeks to offer a comparative legal analysis of the state of the laws regarding abortion and reproductive autonomy in the United States of America and Colombia. This thesis will first address a brief history of feminism and its origins in the United States and Colombia. It will also analyze the policies held by each respective nation; starting with old legislation and moving to current policies regarding abortion. It will also include a comparison between both the U.S. and Colombia; offering suggestions for the future with regards to potential policy changes. The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate …

Gender Inclusivity In Italian: Can Gender Neutrality Be Reached In A Gendered Language? Difficulties, Proposals And Public Perception Of The Phenomenon, Gaia Prunotto

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Italian is a gendered language in which reference to grammatical gender has been constant and inevitable. As language reflects and shapes society, grammatical gender reinforces binary views of social gender and the invizibilization of non-binary identities. Movements for social justice have inspired gender-fair linguistic innovations, such as the feminization of job titles and gender-neutral markers, to promote gender equity and challenge hierarchies of power and dominance in society. This research aimed to explore gender-neutral forms in the Italian grammatical system and public perceptions of these innovations through two studies with two groups of participants.

The first group of participants (n=27) …

The George Harris Show August 08, 2022, Part 5 Spanish To English Translation, Jonathan Gerweck

Honors College Theses

This thesis is an attempt at a Spanish-to-English translation of part of a comedy skit by Venezuelan American comedian George Harris performed on October 11, 2022, in Miami, Florida. As an academic, I have been captivated by foreign languages since a young age and have studied German up to the collegiate level. After moving to New York and studying at Pace University, an educational institution that does not offer German, I decided to teach myself Spanish. I reached the Advanced level of the language within my second semester of officially studying it at Pace University. I believe that the future …

Multilingualism And Memory: Investigating Possible Differences In The Abilities Of Monolingual And Multilingual College Students, Clara E. Barned

Honors Projects

This study investigated whether there is a difference in the memories of monolingual and multilingual undergraduate students using simple memorization tasks. There were 46 participants, 30 of which were monolingual (only knew one language) and 16 of which were multilingual (knew two or more languages). There was found to be no significant difference between the performance of the two groups, with the data generating a p-value of 0.557. This study further suggests related avenues of research and ways in which the study could be improved in the future.

A Transcendental Phenomenology Into How Teacher Educators Address Social And Psychological Elements Of Teachers' Professional Identity, Hussein Meihami, Naser Rashidi

The Qualitative Report

Addressing social and psychological elements of teachers' professional identities is crucially important to develop teachers’ knowledge and practice concerning social and psychological issues in their classes. Thus, this study was an attempt to investigate how Iranian EFL teacher educators addressed social and psychological elements in teacher education programs to develop teachers’ professional identities. To that end, a series of phenomenological interviews were conducted with four EFL teacher educators to delve into their past, current, and future practices. Moreover, the syllabi covered by the EFL teacher educators were analyzed as a verification of the data obtained through phenomenological interviews. Explicitation of …

Resiliency: Experiences Of African American/Black Sign Language Interpreters., Jordan Satchell, Campbell Mcdermid, Lindsey Totten, Anna Yarborough

Journal of Interpretation

There is a growing body of literature on the experiences of African American/Black sign language interpreters (Carpenter, 2017; West Oyedele, 2015), but still many challenges faced by this community in the field. For example, many experience isolation in their interpreter education programs and later in the field, and they described the programs they attended as White-centric and oppressive (Carpenter, 2017; Cokey & Schafer, 2016; West Oyedele, 2015). To understand their experiences better, a qualitative study was conducted which involved interviewing ten African American/Black interpreters. The findings indicated many barriers in the field, including racism and discrimination in systems of networking. …