Linguistics Commons^™

Toward A Further Understanding Of The Extensibility Of Sign Languages, Jason Hopkins

Theses and Dissertations

Sign language video recordings have limited extensibility when compared with live, face-to-face communication by signers. In an effort to improve the extensibility of video recordings this study explores the possibility of leveraging a common meaning negotiation technique, depictional signing, to increase understanding of recorded texts. In an effort to gauge the understanding of depictional signing compared to lexical signing a Recorded Text Test was devised using two texts, one with a high number of visual depictions, the other with a high number of lexical signs. While a comparison of the results of the two tests did not substantiate the hypothesis …

The Mouthing Of Verbs In Japanese Sign Language, Mark Penner

Theses and Dissertations

Analyzing four publicly available stories told by Japanese Deaf people, this paper shows that verbs are mouthed in natural Japanese Sign Language roughly 20% of the time, whereas other word classes are mouthed roughly 46% of the time. More than half of mouthed verbs are always or nearly always mouthed as one of their lexical properties. Abstract verbs tend to be mouthed more frequently than concrete verbs. When a Japanese Sign Language verb corresponds to a word that is not a verb in Japanese, it is far more likely to be mouthed. Verbs in headed relative clauses are mouthed whenever …

To The Jew First: A Socio-Historical And Biblical-Theological Analysis Of The Pauline Teaching Of `Election' In Light Of Second Temple Jewish Patterns Of Thought, Anthony Thornhill

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Paul's "doctrine" of election has remained a controversial and enigmatic topic for centuries. Few studies, however, have approached Paul's doctrine through the context of Second Temple Judaism. This study examines Paul's view of election through the lens of Second Temple Jewish texts written prior to 70 CE. In doing so, it is argued that the best framework through which to view Paul's discussion of election is through a primarily corporate model of election. While such a model is rooted in Judaism, Paul departs from his Jewish contemporaries in arguing that the locus of election is in God's Messiah, Jesus.

Locative Expressions In Signed Languages: A Cross-Linguistic Comparison, Sarah E. Eberle

Theses and Dissertations

The primary focus of this paper is to examine whether sign languages organize their locative expressions similarly to spoken languages. Paving the way in the study of spatial relations by focusing on the structuring of ON and IN locatives in spoken languages, Bowerman and colleagues (Bowerman 1980; Melissa Bowerman & Eric Pederson 1992a; Bowerman 1993; 1994; 1996a; 1996b; Bowerman & Levinson 2001) found that spoken languages organize the locative phrases representing the relationships of ON and IN in a continuum which is called the ON-IN continuum.

This thesis shows that sign languages do not linguistically pattern similarly to spoken languages …

Pronoun Production Order In A Gender-Neutral Language: A Single Case Study Of A Typically Developing Indonesian Child, Bernard A.J Jap

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Research in children with normal language development has shown that there is a certain order in the production and learning of pronominal forms. To one’s knowledge, there has yet to be a study on the pronoun development of Indonesian speaking children whose native language do not distinguish between the nominative-accusative form (e.g. in English, I/me – Indonesian, saya/saya) and at the same time being gender neutral (e.g. in English, he/she – Indonesian, dia/dia). The present study follows the personal pronoun development of a (Jakarta) Indonesian-speaking child from 24 months to 46 months of age.

Code-Mixing Among Students Of English Literature 2009 In Universitas Indonesia, Andari Ditya

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

People today are more globalized than before, and most of them are now able to speak more than one language. It also happens among the English Literature students 2009 in Universitas Indonesia who are able to speak English in their daily conversation. This may lead to the phenomenon called code- mixing. However, this code-mixing focuses more on written communication in their social media’s status. There are two major points that this paper attempts to make. First, the description of code- mixing itself according to the theory given by Wardhaugh (1986) and Hoffman (1991) and how it can be reflected into …

Fulla’S And Barbie’S Images In Relation To Women’S Beauty And Cultural Difference, Juwita Anindya

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Most people know Barbie, a doll that conveys some values about culture and about the concept of women’s beauty. However, Barbie only represents one specific culture, which is Western culture. Different with Western culture, Eastern culture needs a doll who can represent their values. Then, Fulla appears as the representative of Eastern beauty. Fulla conveys some values about Eastern culture and about the new concept of women’s beauty which are different from Barbie. Fulla’s appearance here is thought can emphasize the cultural differences among the society, but it can give another choice to shape people’s new thought about the beauty …

Identity Transformation Of Josephine Alibrandi And John Barton In The Novel Looking For Alibrandi (By Melina Marchetta), Ferdi Ferdi

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This paper examines the progress of identity transformation of Josephine Alibrandi and John Barton in the novel Looking for Alibrandi. Josephine and John come from different family backgrounds. Josephine comes from an Italian immigrant family who lives in suburban area, while, John Barton comes from a politician family in Australia. Although they come from different family backgrounds, they still have the same problems in their identities. Their desire to be seen as themselves in the society makes them intend to find their identity. The reason I intend to do a research in this novel because I think this novel is …

Representing Islam In The Eyes Of The Self And The Other: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Newspaper Articles, Dewi Hermawati Resminingayu

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Since terrorism in Indonesia was associated to Moslem extremists, news regarding Islam has been mostly associated with those two aspects. In results, the concern of researches related to Islam in media only focuses on terrorism issue. Providing this background, this research is aimed to raise the issue related to Moslems and the Chinese minority in Indonesia, specifically in the celebration of Chinese New Year 2013 which is associated with Islamic issue. The data of this research are two newspaper articles. The first article is written by a journalist working for Agence France Presse (AFP) as the foreign media. Meanwhile, the …

July 22, 2013: Cfp: Going Rogue: The Merits And Perils Of Breaking With Professional Conventions, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

July 18, 2013: Kvcc To Host Author Noviolet Bulawayo, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

July 6, 2013: Changes For Comparative Drama, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Pedagogía De Hablantes De Herencia: Implicaciones Para El Entrenamiento De Instructores Al Nivel Universitario, Lina M. Reznicek-Parrado

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study researches the differences in pedagogical needs between learners of Spanish as a Foreign Language (FL learners) and learners of Spanish as a Heritage Language (HL learners) at the university level. By using the UNL Modern Languages and Literatures Department as an illustrative case and based on an analysis of the Heritage Language student profile in the context of the United States, this study seeks to explore arguments in favor of providing training for university-level instructors of Spanish that responds to the specific pedagogical needs of Heritage Language Learners.

The relevancy of this study is not only based on …

Misheard Me Oronyminator: Using Oronyms To Validate The Correctness Of Frequency Dictionaries, Jennifer G. Hughes

Master's Theses

In the field of speech recognition, an algorithm must learn to tell the difference between "a nice rock" and "a gneiss rock". These identical-sounding phrases are called oronyms. Word frequency dictionaries are often used by speech recognition systems to help resolve phonetic sequences with more than one possible orthographic phrase interpretation, by looking up which oronym of the root phonetic sequence contains the most-common words.

Our paper demonstrates a technique used to validate word frequency dictionary values. We chose to use frequency values from the UNISYN dictionary, which tallies each word on a per-occurance basis, using a proprietary text corpus, …

May 14, 2013: Summer Seminar Series On Digital Research, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

May 12, 2013: Dissertation Seminar For Lit Scholars At Newberry (5/15/13 Deadline), Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Predicate Structures, Gesture, And Simultaneity In The Representation Of Action In British Sign Language: Evidence From Deaf Children And Adults, Kearsy Cormier, Sandra Smith, Zed Sehyr

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

British Sign Language (BSL) signers use a variety of structures, such as constructed action (CA), depicting constructions (DCs), or lexical verbs, to represent action and other verbal meanings. This study examines the use of these verbal predicate structures and their gestural counterparts, both separately and simultaneously, in narratives by deaf children with various levels of exposure to BSL (ages 5;1 to 7;5) and deaf adult native BSL signers. Results reveal that all groups used the same types of predicative structures, including children with minimal BSL exposure. However, adults used CA, DCs, and/or lexical signs simultaneously more frequently than children. These …

Delay Of Principle B In Spontaneous Speech, Kelcie Burns Reid

Honors Scholar Theses

There is a debate over whether children exhibit a delay in the development of Principle B, one of three chief binding principles. The present study examines spontaneous speech data from nine children and identifies Principle B errors in third person pronouns. The study uses spectrographic analysis on a sample of utterances to determine the frequency of cliticized pronoun use. The results found that children do not make Principle B errors in spontaneous speech, and that they do not use shortened pronoun forms more often than fully pronounced pronouns.

Locating Linguistic Power Relationships: A Glimpse Into Transnational Feminist Dialogue Through Comparison Of Major Feminist Publications In The Us And China (2000-2012), Shuli Han

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Does the use of English as a universal language in the transnational feminist dialogue empower women globally? In what way does English shape the flow of conversation by circulating some feminist knowledge while neglecting others? Through conducting content analysis research on major feminist publications in both China and the US, this thesis probes the limitations of English as “Lingua Franca” through comparing authors, topics, and the use of references in the Collections of Women’s Studies (CWS), the most prestigious feminist journal in China, with Signs, one of the core feminist journals in the US. Through the comparison …

The Case Of Brown, Sara Ellingsworth

Colloquy Undergraduate Research Journal

The world is understood through the formation of categories, of defining what something is and what something is not, totalizing an experience, person, or word in order to come to an understanding of its essential meaning. Associations color one’s thoughts whether they are fully acknowledged or not. Without exploring the associations, accumulated through personal experience, that determine one’s view of another individual, there is a danger of marginalizing that person, instead of allowing them to fully inhabit their identity. In the following, I aim to expose the ways in which Richard Rodriguez uses Jacques Derrida’s concept of deconstruction as a …

Classifier Constructions As Procedural Signs In American Sign Language, Stephen Perry Jones Ii

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I will be analyzing what has typically, in sign language literature, been termed classifiers and classifier constructions. I will be approaching them from the pragmatic perspective by applying Relevance Theory to explain their usage as representations that manipulate and modify their referents. The data comes from texts signed by native users of American Sign Language and are from academic lectures, interviews, narrative, and course curriculum. I have found that Relevance Theory adequately describes why and when classifiers constructions are used and that they function as a procedural referring expression.

April 26, 2013: Postcolonial Environments/Transnational Aesthetics At Notre Dame (5/3/13), Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 23, 2013: Happy Shakespeare's Birthday, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 22, 2013: Comparative Drama Is Pleased To Announce The Publication Of Our Spring 2013 Issue, Volume 47.1., Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 19, 2013: Nagle Essay On Queer Temporality Published, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 15, 2013: Mfa/Phd Festival: Wmu Creative Writing Program, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 12, 2013: "Tony's Tigers": Please Support The Relay For Life Team In Honor Of Dr. Anthony Ellis, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 11, 2013: Please Share The Following With Your Students, Subscribers And Associates:, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 8, 2013: Wmu Offers Summer Writing Workshops For Teachers, Kids, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 4, 2013: Jill M. Hebert Publishes Her First Book, Morgan Le Fay, Shapeshifter By Palgrave Macmillan, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.