Writer Identity Construction Of Thai Efl Students: A Phenomenological Study, Kittika Limpariwatthana

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

ABSTRACT

This empirical study uncovered Thai English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writer identity construction and revealed how Thai culture plays a role in the development using a sociocultural perspective. Data collection for analysis includes interviews with nine Thai college students, a group interview, English writing essays, and artifacts they provided throughout a 15-week English writing course. The focus of this study was to gain insight into the phenomenon of identity construction among EFL writers from perceptions of their lived experiences.

Based on the description of identity development, the research findings focus on two different ways the participants perceived their …

How Hearing Parents With Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing Children Construct Deafness Through Their Early Intervention Experience, Bettie T. Petersen

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

This dissertation explores how hearing parents with deaf/hard of hearing children come to understand deafness. This mixed methods study used an online survey and multiple case studies (volunteers from survey). Participants were asked about early intervention experiences and beliefs about deafness. The survey had 74 respondents and five families participated in the interviews. Survey participants’ beliefs about deafness were primarily medical, focusing on the perceived barriers caused by deafness and the remediation of those barriers through spoken language options. A small number of respondents adopted a cultural perspective of deafness and focused on remediation of barriers through involvement in the …

Social Verbs: A Force-Dynamic Analysis, Pavlina Kalm

Linguistics ETDs

This dissertation provides a semantic analysis of verbs that describe social events, i.e., events in which participants interact with each other on a social level. The following broad semantic categories of verbs are discussed: verbs of communication (e.g., tell, say, advise), transfer of possession verbs (e.g., own, give, buy), social role verbs (e.g., work, hire, imprison), verbs of interpersonal interactions (e.g., fight, meet, bully), and verbs that denote conceptual relations between entities (e.g., differ, symbolize, indicate). Despite their prominent status in the lexicon and frequent use in everyday situations, linguistic accounts of social verbs are …

U.S. Muslim College Students' Spatialization Of Their Muslimness: An Exploration Of Muslim Linguistic And Cultural Identities Across Social Spaces, Ibrahim Demir

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this multiple-case study was to explore how four US-born Muslim college students spatialized their linguistic and cultural identities within and across their social, academic, and religious spaces. The data were collected through detailed and in-depth data collection methods involving multiple sources of information: observations in the above-mentioned spaces, focus group interviews, autobiographies, drawings, images, and narratives. The data were analyzed through spatial analytical perspectives.

This study was drawn on Lefebvre's (1991) Spatial triad of perceived, conceived, and lived spaces, Soja's (1996) interpretation of spatiality and Thirdspace, and Bhabha's (2004) concept of Hybridity. This study presented how …

Seeing Is Believing: The Role Of The Visual Stimulus In Cognitive Knowledge Of Sound Structure, John M. Sances

Linguistics ETDs

Usage-based Phonology proposes that language users’ knowledge is stored in the form of exemplars reflecting experience of language usage. Exemplars encompass all visual and auditory information perceived during a language interaction, but few studies have examined the role that visual information plays. This dissertation addresses this question through two experiments. Experiment 1 tested perceptions of rounding via the visual signal (lip protrusion) in native French speakers. Participants perceived rounding in both visual and auditory signals, suggesting they may store the visual stimulus in their exemplars. Experiment 2 tested native American English speakers learning French on perceptions of rounding using audio …