Linguistics Commons^™

Word Counts In Response To Cognitively Demanding Essay Prompts As Reflections Of General Cognitive Ability And Broad Cognitive Abilities, Michael Beaumont Armstrong

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Natural language processing techniques can be used to analyze text and speech data. These techniques have been applied within many domains to date but have only recently been examined in the domain of personnel assessment. By linking workplace-relevant constructs such as general cognitive ability (GCA) to natural language processing outcomes such as word counts, a foundation for language-based psychological assessment of those abilities can be laid. Over 400 participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk to write cognitively demanding essays and complete a battery of cognitive tests. Essays were analyzed using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). Structural equation modeling …

Voices Of Notators: Approaches To Writing A Score--Special Issue, Teresa L. Heiland

Journal of Movement Arts Literacy Archive (2013-2019)

In this special issue of Voices of Notators: Approaches to Writing a Score, eight authors share their unique process of creating and implementing their approach to notating movement, and they describe how that process transforms them as researchers, analysts, dancers, choreographers, communicators, and teachers. These researchers discuss the need to capture, to form, to generate, and to communicate ideas using a written form of dance notation so that some past, present, or future experience can be better understood, directed, informed, and shared. They are organized roughly into themes motivated by relationships between them and their methodological similarities and differences. …

The Effect Of Idiomatic Language On Event Processing, Katrina Turick

Honors Scholar Theses

Mental representations of object states are necessary to keep track of changing objects in the world. When the object undergoes change and there are two representations, it creates competition between the object states. This is seen in sentences during which an object changes and is then subsequently referred to again (e.g. “The chef will chop the onion. And then, he will sniff the onion.”). When there is a larger degree of change between the states of the object, there is more competition, which is indicated by an increase in reading time when the object is referred to for the second …

Multimodal Depression Detection: An Investigation Of Features And Fusion Techniques For Automated Systems, Michelle Renee Morales

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Depression is a serious illness that affects a large portion of the world’s population. Given the large effect it has on society, it is evident that depression is a serious health issue. This thesis evaluates, at length, how technology may aid in assessing depression. We present an in-depth investigation of features and fusion techniques for depression detection systems. We also present OpenMM: a novel tool for multimodal feature extraction. Lastly, we present novel techniques for multimodal fusion. The contributions of this work add considerably to our knowledge of depression detection systems and have the potential to improve future systems by …

Fresa Style In Mexico: Sociolinguistic Stereotypes And The Variability Of Social Meanings, Rebeca Martinez Gomez

Linguistics ETDs

This dissertation examines the flexibility in the social meanings of sociolinguistic stereotypes and how linguistic and non-linguistic information affect these meanings. The investigation consists of four empirical studies surrounding the case of fresas in Mexico –members of the upper class that are perceived as using a unique linguistic style.

Study 1 investigates the linguistic and non-linguistic characteristics associated with the fresa stereotype. Through a qualitative analysis of 64 webpages and 3 performances of the style, it is shown that fresasare perceived as the counterpart of another construct, nacos,and that their linguistic style is linked to English due to …

Reasoning With Pseudowords: How Properties Of Novel Verbal Stimuli Influence Item Difficulty And Linguistic-Group Score Differences On Cognitive Ability Assessments, Paul Agnello

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Pseudowords (words that are not real but resemble real words in a language) have been used increasingly as a technique to reduce contamination due to construct-irrelevant variance in assessments of verbal fluid reasoning (Gf). However, despite pseudowords being researched heavily in other psychology sub-disciplines, they have received little attention in cognitive ability testing contexts. Thus, there has been an assumption that all pseudowords work equally and work equally well for all test-takers. The current research examined three objectives with the first being whether changes to the pseudoword properties of length and wordlikeness (how much a pseudoword resembles a typical or …

The Impact Of Animacy And Positioning On The Production Of Second Language Referring Expressions, Adonis De Carvalho Borges

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Researches have investigated how referring expressions are produced based upon second language acquisition and psycholinguistics theories. A study of monolingual English speakers demonstrated that referent's salience and discourse factors might impact referring expression choice between noun phrases and pronouns. Participants demonstrated a higher production of pronouns when the referent expression was animate rather than inanimate and a preference for noun phrases when the referent was the second noun phrase of the referent's context sentence (Fukumura & Van Gompel, 2011). In addition, an investigation with Hispanic bilinguals, whose L2 is English, demonstrated, in general, a greater preference for pronouns rather than …

Development And Assessment Of The Korean Author Recognition Test, Hyosun Lee, Eunjin Seong, Wonil Choi, Matthew W. Lowder

Psychology Faculty Publications

This research reports the development and evaluation of a Korean Author Recognition Test (KART), designed as a measure of print exposure among young adults. Based on the original, English-language version of the Author Recognition Test (ART), the KART demonstrates significant relationships with offline measures of language ability, as well as online measures of word recognition. In particular, KART scores were related to participants' responses on the Comparative Reading Habits (CRH) checklist, suggesting that KART is a valid measure of print exposure. In addition, KART scores showed reliable correlations with offline measures of vocabulary knowledge and language comprehension. Finally, results from …

Perception Of American–English Vowels By Early And Late Spanish–English Bilinguals, Miriam Baigorri, Luca Campanelli, Erika S. Levy

Publications and Research

Increasing numbers of Hispanic immigrants are entering the US and learning American–English (AE) as a second–language (L2). Previous studies investigating the relationship between AE and Spanish vowels have revealed an advantage for early L2 learners for their accuracy of L2 vowel perception. Replicating and extending such previous research, this study examined the patterns with which early and late Spanish–English bilingual adults assimilated naturally-produced AE vowels to their native vowel-inventory and the accuracy with which they discriminated the vowels. Twelve early Spanish–English bilingual, 12 late Spanish–English bilingual, and 10 monolingual listeners performed perceptual-assimilation and categorical-discrimination tasks involving AE /i,ɪ,ɛ,ʌ,æ,ɑ,o/. Early bilinguals …

The Modulatory Effect Of Expectations On Memory Retrieval During Sentence Comprehension, Luca Campanelli, Julie A. Van Dyke, Klara Marton

Publications and Research

Memory retrieval and probabilistic expectations are recognized factors in sentence comprehension that capture two different critical aspects of processing difficulty: the cost of retrieving and integrating previously processed elements with the new input words and the cost of incorrect predictions about upcoming words or structures in a sentence. Although these two factors have independently received substantial support from the extant literature, how they interact remains poorly understood. The present study investigated memory retrieval and expectation in a single experiment, pitting these factors against each other. Results showed a significant interference effect in both response time to the comprehension questions and …

Linguistic Correlates Of The Quiet Ego In Narratives About The Self, Katherine Maurer

Masters Theses

Increasingly, research has shown that the drive to elevate the self and the excessive pursuit of self-esteem have negative effects on well-being and mental health. In addition, many of the defensive and aggressive tendencies seen in psychological research can be seen as efforts to defend and elevate the self. In contrast to these tendencies, the quiet ego construct describes a state of ego balance characterized by an inclusive sense of identity, perspective-taking, detached awareness (mindfulness), and growth orientation. The quiet ego and related qualities have been associated with many positive outcomes. A body of research using the Linguistic Inquiry and …

Sign Modulation By Chimpanzees To Produce Interrogatives, Kailie Dombrausky

All Master's Theses

Native signers of American Sign Language produce interrogatives by holding signs for an extended duration while employing the questioning look. The questioning look is defined as raised eyebrows, a tilted head, and direct eye contact maintained for the duration of the utterance. Chimpanzees who communicate using signs have demonstrated modulation of signs including held sign, raised brow, and eye gaze. The present study used archived video data to compare the duration of signs when the chimpanzees did or did not employ the questioning look. In both single and multi-sign utterances, the chimpanzees held their signs for a mean of 0.6 …

A Single-Subject Evaluation Of Facilitated Communication In The Completion Of School-Assigned Homework, Nancy A. Meissner

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Few projects have combined quantitative and qualitative approaches in the analysis of facilitated communication as did this study of a 17-year-old nonverbal autistic male responding to homework questions using facilitated communication. Findings were consistent with prior studies: Tim was minimally able to produce correct responses independent of facilitator influence under controlled conditions; whereas, at least some typed messages in the spontaneous narratives appear to be his authentic communications independent of facilitator control.

An overview of the history of facilitated communication, its related research, and the heated debates around its validity are presented. Disparate findings between controlled and non-controlled circumstances are …

Seeing Witchcraft, Bernhard Udelhoven

Journal of Global Catholicism

When Christians in Zambia struggle with witchcraft, they also struggle with African cultural and religious concepts that deal with life’s ambiguities and that require discernment. It is not by working against the cultural and religious heritage, but by working with it, as far as possible, that the pastor can identify the broken relationships towards which many witchcraft discourses point. However, before we place the concepts of witchcraft into the realm of superstition (as are the trends of mission Christianity) or the demonic (as are the trends of charismatic Christianity), the Church has the duty to look at the concepts, stay …

Language Experience With A Native-Language Phoneme Sequence Modulates The Effects Of Attention On Cortical Sensory Processing, Valerie L. Shafer, Monica Wagner, Jungmee Lee, Francesca Mingino, Colleen O'Brien, Adam Constantine, Mitchell Steinschneider

Publications and Research

Auditory evoked potentials (AEP) reflect spectro-temporal feature changes within the spoken word and are sufficiently reliable to probe deficits in auditory processing. The current research assessed whether attentional modulation would alter the morphology of these AEPs and whether native-language experience with phoneme sequences would influence the effects of attention. Native-English and native-Polish adults listened to nonsense word pairs that contained the phoneme sequence onsets /st/, /sət/, /pət/ that occur in both the Polish and English languages and the phoneme sequence onset /pt/ that occurs in the Polish language, but not the English language. Participants listened to word pairs within two …

Above, On, Or Shang (上)? Language And Spatial Representations Among English–Mandarin Bilinguals, Wei Xing Toh, Lidia Suãrez

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study investigated if exposure to spatial language could affect spatial cognition in English-Mandarin bilinguals by focusing on contact/noncontact distinctions, an area that has been a source of contention in the language-and-thought literature. Sixty-three participants were first primed with sentences containing spatial terms (e.g., above, on) before performing a spatial decision task. Approximately half of the participants (n = 33) were primed in English; for the remaining participants (n = 30), primes comprising Mandarin spatial terms―which mark spatial distinctions differently than in English (e.g., shang in Mandarin signifies both above and on in English)―were employed instead. Our findings revealed that …

How To Enhance Interdisciplinary Competence—Interdisciplinary Problem-Based Learning Versus Interdisciplinary Project-Based Learning, Mirjam Brassler, Jan Dettmers

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

Interdisciplinary competence is important in academia for both employability and sustainable development. However, to date, there are no specific interdisciplinary education models and, naturally, no empirical studies to assess them. Since problem-based learning (PBL) and project-based learning (PjBL) are learning approaches that emphasize students’ collaboration, both pedagogies seem suitable to enhance students’ interdisciplinary competence. Based on the principle of constructive alignment and four instructional principles on interdisciplinary learning, this paper proposes that students profit more from interdisciplinary PBL (iPBL) than interdisciplinary PjBL (iPjBL). A pre-post study was conducted with a sample of 95 students participating in iPBL and 183 students …

‘We Don’T Talk Gypsy Here’: Minority Language Policies In Europe, William S. New, Hristo Kyuchukov, Jill De Villiers

Philosophy: Faculty Publications

The Roma constitute an ideal case of educational injustice meeting linguistic difference, racism, social marginalization, and poverty. This paper asks whether human-rights or capabilities approaches are best suited to address issues related to the language education of Roma students in Europe. These children are disadvantaged by not growing up with the standard dialect of whatever language is preferred by the mainstream population, and by the low status of the Romani language, and non-standard dialect of the standard language they usually speak. We examine language education for Roma students in Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria, describing similarities and differences across …

Second-Language Acquisition And Motivation: A Literature Review, Pat Goodridge

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

This literature review traces the development of motivation in second-language acquisition, a field that has evolved from basic associations between affective factors and second-language performance to nuanced approaches of how motivation is shaped by a learner’s subjective cognition. With this review, we see that motivation’s role has always been central to language learning, and the development of our understanding of this role has mirrored the development of our understanding of second-language acquisition’s psychological and cognitive aspects. Such understanding contributes to many areas of second-language pedagogy, developmental psychology, and applied linguistics, all of which are relevant to our practical research goals …

Embodying Rhythm Nation: Multimodal Hip Hop Dance As A Site For Adolescent Social-Emotional And Political Development, Lauren M. Roygardner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This exploratory study employed qualitative methodology, specifically values analysis, to learn more about how being involved within Hip hop dance communities positively relates to adolescent development. Adolescence was defined herein as ages 13-23. The study investigated Hip hop dance communities in terms of cultural expertise (i.e. novice, intermediate and advanced/expert) to look specifically at dance narratives (i.e. peak experience narratives and “I dance because” essays) and hip hop dance performances. The primary purpose of this dissertation was to (1) explore how adolescents use multimodal Hip hop dance discourse for social-emotional development and critical consciousness, and to (2) understand how values …

Letter To The President: Longitudinal Critical Discourse Analysis Of Academic And Hip Hop Genres In A Rap Narrative Program, Debangshu Roygardner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The objective of this study was to examine an in-school rap narrative workshop through critical discourse theory (Bamberg, 2012; Daiute, 2014). Twelve youth from a public school serving youth in urban Houston, TX were recruited from an in-school and after-school Hip hop/Rap narrative program to participate in a two-year cohort research study. The primary research question guiding the study was “How do young people participating in a school-based Hip hop/Rap program use a wide range of narrative genres for literacy and psycho-social development over two years in the program?”

The data-intensive study involved assessments of literacy and psycho-social development via …

Details In Testimony: How Hedge Words Influence People’S Perceptions Of Victim Testimony Credibility, Justine B. Rayborn

Student Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine whether hedge words and the age of a memory can influence the way participants (mock jurors) perceive an alleged sexual assault victim’s credibility. Prior research has demonstrated many issues that can affect the accuracy of memory for childhood events such as childhood amnesia, fragmented and distorted memories, false memories and source monitoring errors and the way in which jurors’ decisions can be swayed based on verbal cues to confidence. Here, we further investigated whether jurors' decisions are sensitive to the age of the memory—an event that happened in the recent or distant …

The Power Of Prayer, Victoria Dawn Thompson

Capstone Collection

If words are arbitrary, how does prayer have power?” is the question of inquiry in this paper. An unobtrusive Content Analysis inquiry methodology was used to answer this question. The answer lies in the finding that words and thoughts are not the same thing, and our thoughts expand beyond the audible and visible. The implication for professional practice these findings present is that a deeper awareness of “Self” is needed to understand people’s miraculous way of resolving conflict via prayer.

Levels Of Emotion Valence And Arousal In American Sign Language, Sheila Bruce, Tina Sutton, Poorna Kushalnagar

JADARA

The Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW; Bradley & Lang, 1999) scale is a widely used instrument for valence and arousal response in English. A person whose first language is American Sign Language (ASL) might process the English emotion words differently. We hypothesized that ASL users might provide different valence and arousal ratings for emotion words in ASL, and a separate normative database might be necessary for this population. Forty-two Deaf adult signers completed ratings for the English and ASL conditions. Results showed that the rating for the arousal were similar for both conditions. However, the valence ratings were different, …

Individual And Group Differences In Sound Category Learning, Ben Carlstrom

Student Research Symposium

Abstract: We examined the role of procedural-, declarative-, and working-memory systems in adults learning novel sound categories. Adults have fully developed declarative-memory skills that sometimes inhibit their ability to learn implicitly/procedurally (Filoteo, Lauritzen, & Maddox, 2010). Models of impaired language like the Procedural Deficit Hypothesis suggest that procedural-memory deficits are predictive of language-learning outcomes (Lum, Conti-Ramsden, Page, & Ullman, 2011). This study tested the hypothesis that language structure is best learned implicitly/procedurally, which has implications for L2 learning and language impairment. The novel sound categories presented to participants varied along a phonologically non-native dimension, pitch, and a native dimension, vowel …

Literacy Revolution: How The New Tools Of Communication Change The Stories We Tell, Molly Gamble

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

The transmission of culture depends upon every generation reconsidering what it means to be literate. The way we consider ourselves to be a literate species is changing, which puts us at a unique turning point in human history. Verbal literacy, or the ability to read and write, is slowly being replaced by visual literacy as a primary tool for human communication. As a culture, we tend to underestimate the creative ferment of our increasingly visual world. The linear, structured pathways of traditional literacy are shifting towards a creative and participatory pursuit of unstructured information that emphasize dimensional thinking. The acceleration …

Preference Organization, Danielle M. Pillet-Shore

Communication

Conversation analytic research on “preference organization” investigates recorded episodes of naturally occurring social interaction to elucidate how people systematically design their actions to either support or undermine social solidarity. This line of work examines public forms of conduct that are highly generalized and institutionalized, not the private desires, subjective feelings or psychological preferences of individuals. This article provides a detailed and accessible overview of classic and contemporary conversation analytic findings about preference, which collectively demonstrate that human interaction is organized to favor actions that promote social affiliation (through face-preservation) at the expense of conflict (resulting from face-threat). While other overviews …

Loneliness In Pepperdine Students, Brandon Vandyke, Haley St Martin, Ayelen Lee

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

No abstract provided.

Communicative Behaviors Elicited By Leisure Activities In Memory Care Units, Tarynn Clune

Honors Projects

A wide variety of leisure activities used in reminiscence care have been studied for their merits in terms of preventing cognitive decline, and increasing quality of life; however, little is known about what different types have to offer in terms of communicative opportunities. Communication with peers is imperative for quality of life, and is crucial for maintenance of relationships between the person with dementia (PWD) and their loved ones. As a result of this importance, an exploration of communication elicited by different activities facilitated in a unit was conducted. The communication explored in this study was solely vocal, and included …

Capturing The Attention Of Caregivers: Variability In Infant Vocalizations, Catharine A. Castelluccio De Diesbach

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The effect of variability in infant vocalizations on potential caregivers’ heart rate variability (HRV), facial expressions, and subjective ratings on emotional reactions and desire to approach the baby was examined in an evolutionary context. Recordings of non-canonical, canonical, fussing, and crying vocalizations were utilized to elicit physiological and self-reported reactions from sixty participants. Breastfeeding mothers, non-mothers at high estradiol point in menstrual cycle, non-mothers at low estradiol point in menstrual cycle, fathers, and non-fathers were included in the study. Participants wore Polar RS800 heart rate monitors, were video recorded for facial expression analysis, and filled out 11 point self-rating forms …