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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Phonology And Syntax Of Grammatical Tone In Copala Triqui, Jamillah Shantel Rodriguez Aug 2021

The Phonology And Syntax Of Grammatical Tone In Copala Triqui, Jamillah Shantel Rodriguez

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Copala Triqui is an Otomanguean language of Oaxaca, Mexico with a highly complex tone system. In Copala Triqui, the lowering of tone from an upper register tone to a lower register tone acts as a conveyor of grammatical information. Tone lowering occurs across many syntactic environments in the language (Hollenbach, 1984; Broadwell; 2011; Broadwell, 2016; Broadwell & Clemens, 2017; Rodriguez & Clemens, 2020). In this thesis, I consider two aspects of tone lowering: i) the representation of tone lowering in the phonology and ii) the syntactic trigger for tone lowering across multiple environments.


Learning Phonology With Sequence-To-Sequence Neural Networks, Brandon Prickett Jun 2021

Learning Phonology With Sequence-To-Sequence Neural Networks, Brandon Prickett

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation tests sequence-to-sequence neural networks to see whether they can simulate human phonological learning and generalization in a number of artificial language experiments. These experiments and simulations are organized into three chapters: one on opaque interactions, one on computational complexity in phonology, and one on reduplication. The first chapter focuses on two biases involving interactions that have been proposed in the past: a bias for transparent patterns and a bias for patterns that maximally utilize all of the processes in a language. The second chapter looks at harmony patterns of varying complexity to see whether both Formal Language Theory …


Singing And Pronunciation: A Review Of The Literature, Kassidy Joyner May 2021

Singing And Pronunciation: A Review Of The Literature, Kassidy Joyner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Observed differences exist in the pronunciation abilities of individual language learners, especially adult learners. Musical ability and experience are possible factors that have been attributed to language pronunciation abilities. Although there has been a large amount of research concerning the effects of general musical ability and training on language abilities, very few studies have investigated the musical sub-category of singing. Research on the use of songs in the language classroom has largely tested the effects of song on vocabulary acquisition, while very few studies have explored the effects of song on pronunciation. Given that singing and pronunciation both use similar …


The Effect Of Dialect On Lexical Recall, Chandler Douglas May 2021

The Effect Of Dialect On Lexical Recall, Chandler Douglas

Honors Theses

Investigating the performance of listeners as they attempt to recall words in both a familiar and unfamiliar dialect could likely lend some insight to the cognitive processes concerning speech perception. Specifically, the current study investigates whether speech spoken in an unfamiliar accent in a listener’s language influences comprehension and, therefore, memory recall of content. To test this, a group of speakers of General American English speakers and a group of speakers of Southern American English listened to two sets of words: one in General American and one in Southern American English. Participants were then asked to write down or type …


(Not) Speaking Spanish: Explicit Pronunciation Instruction In The Online High School Classroom, Brahm Vanwoerden Apr 2021

(Not) Speaking Spanish: Explicit Pronunciation Instruction In The Online High School Classroom, Brahm Vanwoerden

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Students in the language classroom often face a variety of challenges inherent to the process of learning a second language as an adult. These range from lack of sufficient motivation to structurally uninspired curriculum and are often amplified in the case of a drastic shift in environment. Such a shift took place rapidly over the course of 2020, transforming thousands of classrooms into virtual versions of themselves in a matter of weeks. Students began to receive vastly different quantities and types of language input and interacted with the language in substantially affected ways. Factors that previously played a large role …


Theory And Practice: Phonological Awareness Instructional Methods Used In Deaf Education, Mary Cantino Jan 2021

Theory And Practice: Phonological Awareness Instructional Methods Used In Deaf Education, Mary Cantino

Theses and Dissertations

An inequality in literacy rates exists between deaf children and their hearing peers. Research indicates that visual phonic interventions such as Visual Phonics used alongside a phonics program enhances grapheme-phoneme correspondence. That practice in turn improves overall literacy achievement. However, as rates deaf literacy continue to lag ongoing research indicates that teachers may be ill prepared to use research-based interventions. This study seeks to identify the frequency of teacher implementation of Visual Phonics interventions as well as their exposure to these interventions via teacher education and professional development. This study will investigate if the presence of these elements by using …