Linguistics Commons^™

Individual Differences In Perspective-Taking During Language Comprehension, Kanan Benjamin Luce

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has found mixed results for a link between executive function and perspective-taking. One proposed reason for this is that perspective-taking during comprehension tasks may not be internally reliable. This dissertation presents two large individual differences experiments with multiple perspective-taking during comprehension and executive function measures. We aimed to see (1) whether people were consistent in their ability to take perspectives during comprehension, (2) if the typical tasks used in this area were reliable, and (3) whether executive function measures predicted perspective-taking ability. We found a lack of reliability of some of the most commonly used perspective-taking during comprehension …

The Fall And Rise Of Bengali Muslim Conciousness: Conceptualising The Identity Of The Bangla Universal, Habib Khan

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of modern-nation states saw the end of the empirical era of exploitation and exercise of inherent racist tendencies towards the 'other'. However, the effect of that colonial system is still ever-present in the creation and governance of these newly independent states. While every new state aims to be 'modern', they adopt the international legal framework of the West as their own - a system they had initially wanted to escape. The concept of Muslim universality in the form of the ummah should have freed Pakistan from the shackles of its former colonial masters. Instead, this phenomenon was replaced …

Historical Trauma: Literary And Testimonial Responses To Hiroshima, Mariam Ghonim

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of trauma is controversial in literature. While one may be able to come up with ways to describe trauma in fiction, representing historical trauma is a hard task for writers. Some argue that trauma can not be described through those who did not experience it, while others claim that, provided some elements are added, one can represent trauma to the reader. This thesis focuses on twentieth-century historical traumas related to a nuclear catastrophe and explores the different literary and testimonial responses to the catastrophic man-made event of Hiroshima (1945). In this thesis, Kathleen Burkinshaw’s historical fiction The Last …

The Effect Of Word Predictability On Proofreading Accuracy And Reading Time, Sam Prasad

Theses and Dissertations

Proofreading, or reading with the purpose of finding and correcting errors, has been used in psycholinguistic research to study the relationship between bottom-up and top-down cognitive processes. The current study examined the effects of word predictability on reading time using a word-by-word self-paced reading (SPR) task. A sample of 102 native English speakers read sentences containing letter transposition errors in predictable and unpredictable contexts. Half of the sentences were followed by a question asking if there was an error in the sentence they had just read. Participants’ accuracy in detecting the errors and the time they spent reading the error-bearing …

Tied Together, Eiko Nishida

Theses and Dissertations

The paper is about a site-specific installation that questions a viewer’s norms and perspectives, through the use of multilingual newspapers as a sculptural material.

Negative Polar Questions And Answers In English And Korean, Keunhyung Park

Theses and Dissertations

The meaning of positive polar questions (PPQs) is relatively straightforward, so the truth conditions of PPQs can be decided easily. In contrast, the meaning of negative polar questions (NPQs) may vary, and simple yes-no answers to NPQs have seemingly unpredictable interpretations. For example, a simple yes answer to a PPQ like ‘Did you have lunch today?’ is easily interpreted as ‘I ate lunch.’ In contrast, the same yes answer to an NPQ like ‘Did you not eat lunch today?’ is not obvious out of context. Why are NPQs more ambiguous than PPQs? Based on our empirical observations of the difference …

The Effects Of Feedback And Prior Knowledge On The Processing Of L2 French, Lesley Erin Smith

Theses and Dissertations

The strand of feedback research within the field of Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA) examines the effects of feedback on the development of second language (L2) knowledge and learning behaviors. While findings often make claims about the relationship between feedback and language processing, much of this research has not measured learners’ concurrent responses to feedback. By and large, the effects of feedback have been inferred from test scores collected after feedback is provided, with few studies analyzing how feedback affects L2 learning behaviors in real time (i.e., during a task). Consequently, we know little about how feedback affects language processing. …

Ideologies Of Race, Gender, And Religion In Pronunciation Perception At Evangelical Esl Programs, Ruthanne Joy Wenger Hughes

Theses and Dissertations

Nonnative English speakers are often judged based on their accent, but accent is perceived as well as produced. Race, gender, and religion interact to create complex and nuanced figures of personhood (Agha, 2005) impacting teachers' perceptions of students. Teachers' individual differences, including language proficiency, exposure to language, and previous training, also affect pronunciation ratings (e.g., Kang, 2008, 2012; Kang & Rubin, 2009). This dissertation investigated English as a second language teachers at evangelical English programs in South Carolina, addressing how teacher backgrounds interacted with institutionally circulating ideologies of race, gender, and religion, and these factors' impact on ratings of student …

Oppa-Ng Gamsahamnita-Ng~~~: The Phonetics Of Nasal Cuteness In Korean Aegyo, Drew Michael Crosby

Theses and Dissertations

The term aegyo is often defined as a form of performative cuteness comprising a range of linguistic and non-linguistic behaviors (K. Moon, 2013; Puzar & Hong, 2018). Previous anthropological, discursive, and linguistic investigations (K. Moon, 2013; Puzar & Hong, 2018; H. Jang, 2021) identify it as a gendered practice associated with “modern and trendy young women in Korean mainstream culture” (K. Moon, 2017, p. 42), often used for requesting favors, maintaining social harmony, and gaining economic advancement (Manietta 2015; Puzar & Hong 2018). K. Moon (2013) asserts that the features that most prominently index aegyo are: rising-falling intonation (LHL%), the …

Stylistic Variation Of Gullah Geechee Language Practices In Coastal Tourism Contexts, John Kibler Mccullough

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the language practices and ideologies of Gullah Geechee (GG) tour guides in Charleston, South Carolina, particularly analyzing how language stylization is used by tour guides in the construction of personae as intercommunity culture and language brokers. Often, indigenous cultural artifacts are commodified through the setting of the tourism industry for consumption by outsiders; Gullah Geechee, a Sea Island creole language spoken along the southeastern United States coast, is directly affected by this characteristic of tourism. GG has been exposed to rapid de-isolation in the past 80 years; this exposure has brought isolated enclaves of GG communities into …

Language Ideologies In Transgender Communities In The U.S. South, Archie Crowley

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how metalinguistic discussions within transgender communities in South Carolina are shaped by experiences, identities, and ideologies related to intersecting social dimensions, specifically, gender, age, race, and regional identity. Based primarily on 20 ethnographic group and individual interviews with 41 transgender individuals living in South Carolina, as well as over 24 months of participant-observation in two trans organizations, the analysis illustrates how trans South Carolinians simultaneously navigated changing norms of community language use, expectations of regional linguistic practices, and mainstream discussions of trans linguistic affirmation. I draw on these sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological methods to examine how discourses …

The Lived Experiences Of Esl Nontraditional Rrts While Preparing To Challenge The National Board For Respiratory Care Clinical Simulation Exam, Jose A. Lammoglia

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to provide information to respiratory therapy graduates from two-year associate in science programs, faculty, and administrators about the cognitive and noncognitive strategies employed by graduates to prepare and pass the CSE. To date, no available information on the role played by the lived experiences of Rt graduates while preparing to challenge the CSE. The researcher developed a questionnaire to conduct a qualitative phenomenological descriptive lived experience survey of ESL Hispanic nontraditional graduates from associate of science programs in South Florida who took the NBRC national board examinations between January 2015 and March 2022. An analysis …

Evolutionary Cartographies Of Language Diversification: Quantitative Approaches To The Geolinguistic Mapping Of The Kayanic Languages (Central Borneo), Deandré A. Espree-Conaway

Theses and Dissertations

Why are there so many languages in the world and how did this diversity come about? Every day, humans around the world speak over 7,000 languages. One of the most impactful theories describing the processes and mechanisms of language diversification is that of the Linguistic Niche Hypothesis (Lupyan & Dale 2010). The Linguistic Niche Hypothesis suggests that languages adapt to their environments (Lupyan & Dale 2010: 1). Lupyan and Dale describe it, stating that "just as biological organisms are shaped by ecological niches, languages structures...adapt to the environment (niche) in which they are being learned and used" (2010: 1). Taking …

Let’S Talk: The Dual Process Model Of Supportive Communication In Peers, Erica Marie Szkody

Theses and Dissertations

Supportive messages occur within most relationships. Researchers have found strong relationships between social support and various physical and psychological health outcomes, but the specific mechanisms at work have yet to be fully explored. Many factors contribute to whether a supportive interaction is processed as helpful or supportive by the recipient including relational factors, message content, past experiences, etc. For peer dyads, the context and supportive messages individuals provide their peer may inhibit or contribute to their perception of their peer’s supportive behavior. The current study examined the impact of contextual factors (such as family communication patterns and relationship quality) on …

Verticality Metaphors In Classical Hebrew Revisited: Refining The Analysis Using Primary Metaphor Theory, Andrew Scott Hodge

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis applies a new theory to old data. It reanalyzes VERTICALITY metaphors for distress in Classical Hebrew using Primary Metaphor Theory. Previously, this pattern of metaphors in Hebrew was analyzed by King (2012) within the general framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. This study focuses on the ways that Primary Metaphor Theory radically changes the organization of conceptual structure as dictated by Conceptual Metaphor Theory and as used by King in his analysis of Hebrew VERTICALITY metaphors. The reorganization of conceptual structure following Primary Metaphor Theory hinges on the assumption that conceptual structures with direct, independent experiential motivations also have …

Weaving Ethnic Identity: Discovering The Threads Of Multilingual Diversity In The Fabric Of Group Identity Among Karen Communities Of Denver, Colorado, Charity J. Seidler

Theses and Dissertations

How do Karen immigrants use language within Colorado communities? My thesis answers this question through narrative case studies of six S’gaw Karen women. Many Karen refugees, who flee the decades-long conflict within their homeland in Myanmar (Burma), find themselves navigating life first in Thailand, and eventually in the United States as foreign-language speakers. These refugees encounter numerous linguistic and cultural barriers in their new U.S. homeland, where it is difficult to function in many domains if they do not have the opportunity to learn much English upon arrival.

The six case studies are based on recorded sociolinguistic qualitative open interviews. …

A Phonological Analysis Of Asu, James Passetti

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides an analysis of the phonology of Asu, a small and endangered Nupoid language of Nigeria. The corpus of data used for the analysis comes from more than two hours of recordings of a word list for the language, provided to me by the historian and anthropologist Constanze Weise.

The Asu language recognizes only two syllable structures, CV and CGV. The only syllables without onsets are formed by four noun class prefixes [è-,ē-, à-,ā-], that create Asu nouns without onsets word-initially.

The phonemic inventory of consonants consists of seven pairs of corresponding voiced-voiceless obstruents at the labial, alveolar, …

The Word-Level Prosodic System Of Mangghuer, Teresa Ellen Arthur

Theses and Dissertations

Mangghuer’s prosodic system has been described as a stress system (Slater 2003), and alternately, because of a few minimal pairs, as a system that is undergoing tonogenesis. (Dwyer 2008). This thesis looks at new data to evaluate both of these claims. I analyze the prosody of native words and confirm that Mangghuer has a stress system. Duration is one of the indicators of stress, which has not been mentioned in previous literature. Potential minimal pairs are considered, including the minimal tone pairs that Dwyer found; her minimal pairs are not minimal pairs in my data. However, one set of nativized …

Illusory Vowels And The North Kyungsang Korean Vowel Merger In English Loanword Adaptation Into Korean, Jiyeon Song

Theses and Dissertations

Our auditory perceptual processing is optimized for the sound patterns of our native language. Consequently, when non-native segments are perceived, speech “illusions” often occur. This well-known phenomenon, known as the perception of illusory vowels, occurs when listeners of a borrowing language (BL) perceive vowels that do not exist underlyingly in the source language (SL).

Illusory vowels have often been considered to be the default vowel in a language: /ɨ/ in Korean, /u/ in Japanese, /ə/ in English, /e/ in Spanish, and /i/ in Brazilian Portuguese. This raises the question of how vowel systems affect the quality of illusory vowels. For …

“When You Out In Open Spaces”: Copula Absence In Afro-Texan English And The Origins And Development Debate, Brandon Davis Cooper

Theses and Dissertations

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is perhaps the most studied variety of American English, and interest in its origins and development has raised enough questions to launch a thousand studies. Naturally, positions on AAVE’s origins and development have become increasingly nuanced since the debate’s inception. Increasingly, AAVE is treated less like a monolith, and interest in the dimensions of its regional diversity has grown. No position on AAVE’s origins and development can be taken seriously if it fails to consider its capacity for areal differentiation. Indeed, most positions on AAVE’s origins and development now strongly assert the likelihood of multiple …

Assessing L2 Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (Eca) Learners’ Intercultural Communicative Competence, Ahmed Said Mohammed Elgebaly

Theses and Dissertations

This study assesses L2 Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA) Learners' Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC). The study participants were 19 L2 (ECA) learners who completed one semester at least in Egypt. The participants were only from two proficiency levels; the advanced and high-intermediate levels. The current study used a mixed methodological approach for data collection, beginning with an ICC test and concluding with a series of follow-up semi-structured interviews with ten participants. The ICC test employed in the current study was created based on a model that includes ten features of the ICC. The current study's findings revealed that although high-intermediate learners …

A Grammar Sketch Of Kinamayo, Benjamin James Schmitt

Theses and Dissertations

Kinamayo (Kamayo) is an Austronesian language spoken on the eastern part of the island of Mindanao, Philippines. This thesis presents a grammar sketch of the case system, a preliminary analysis of the voice system, reference phrase structure, and verb tense, modality, and aspect. The theoretical framework used for this analysis is Role and Reference Grammar. Within this framework, Kamayo is best analyzed as a symmetrical voice language in addition to having an antipassive voice. The case system of active and stative verbs observed in Kamayo supports this analysis. Reference phrases are marked by case, which helps identify syntactic arguments and …

Li Xei: A Phonology Of An Understudied Bahnaric Language In Central Vietnam, Stephanie Lynn Person

Theses and Dissertations

Li Xei is an understudied North Bahnaric language spoken in the province of Quảng Nam in central Vietnam. Li Xei speakers are officially considered members of the Giẻ Triêng ethnic group (also written Jeh Trieng), although Li Xei's exact position within the North Bahnaric branch is unknown. This thesis analyzes 1,591 audio recordings of two native speakers of Li Xei, consisting of single words and multiple-word compounds, to describe its phonemic inventory. In addition, Li Xei reflexes are compared to 774 Proto North Bahnaric reconstructions from Sidwell (2011) to provide a basic description of the most significant sound changes from …

Effective Communication In League Of Legends, Mia Sue Lopez

Theses and Dissertations

Video games which provide a unique system for quick and efficient communication create an ideal environment for the development of need-driven language. Players in League of Legends engage in different forms of communication to influence the behavior of their allies to achieve their goals. These players utilize and expand upon a built-in ping system which uses a combination of button presses and mouse clicks to send simple messages to allied players. They combine these pings with standard text chat features to develop a language unique to their environment.

Using data gathered from publicly available Twitch streams, I analyze how players …

"You Will Be Evaluated According To The Following": Language, Race, And International Students At A U.S. Predominantly White Institution, Anusha Anand

Theses and Dissertations

As sociolinguists have long noted, racial hierarchies in the United States have been maintained through a hegemonic standard language ideology that assumes white middle-class ways of speaking as “standard” and the linguistic marginalization of non-whites ways of speaking as “nonstandard” (Bonfiglio 2010). This phenomenon is well-documented in studies on the perceptions of racialized international TAs (ITAs), which show that the racializing ideologies about ITAs’ language held by predominantly white, Western undergraduates impact their perception of ITAs’ comprehensibility and teaching ability (Staples, Kang, & Wittner 2014). Other studies on international students have shown that the discrimination that they face is driven …

The Role Of Force Dynamic Schemas In The Comprehension Of Causal Language, Dawson Petersen

Theses and Dissertations

The current study is an attempt to empirically test the predictions of Talmy’s (1988) force dynamics. Specifically, Talmy argues that causal sentences are understood by reference to basic image schemas, such as Starting and Stopping. While many of the predictions of other cognitive linguistic models, such as Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) conceptual metaphor theory, have been tested empirically by psycholinguists (Fischer & Zwaan, 2008; Gibbs, 2006; Boroditsky & Ramscar, 2002), force dynamics has received very little empirical attention (I am only aware of Wolff & Song, 2003), in spite of its productivity in formal linguistics.

The current study aims to …

The Variation Of Metaphor Processing Strategies And The Effects On Reading Skills In L2 English Learners, Shana Scucchi

Theses and Dissertations

Metaphor use and meaning is deeply tied to the culturally-determined conventional use of language. To date, most research regarding metaphor comprehension exists within the realm of first language (L1) acquisition, with little research that examines how learners interpret metaphor in their second language (L2). Thus, little is known about how learners process metaphor constructions in their L2, or how these processing strategies may affect other L2 skills, such as reading abilities.

Gentner (1988) investigated how metaphors are comprehended at various ages using the nominal metaphor X is Y, where Y is the base of the metaphor and X is the …

Lexical And Syntactic Priming In Dialogue, Sarah Campbell Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

Speakers engaged in dialogue align with one another across multiple linguistic levels to ensure effective communication. The Interactive Alignment Model (Pickering & Garrod, 2004) suggests speakers align due to automatic priming mechanisms at individual linguistic levels. Syntactic priming is the tendency to repeat a syntactic structure that has been recently comprehended or produced. Although syntactic priming is regarded as an automatic, abstract structural phenomenon, other linguistic factors can influence a syntactic structure’s priming strength. Lexical repetition between structures has been shown to enhance syntactic priming, an effect termed “lexical boost” (Branigan et al., 2000; Healey, Purvery, & Howes., 2014). Another …

The Axis Of Access: A Quantitative Ethnography Of Presidential Discourse On The Construct Of College Access In The United States, Pamela M. Donnelly

Theses and Dissertations

Federal discourse pertaining to college access requires clarified definition. Use of the college access construct has become commonplace, yet no unified refinement of meaning exists. This study, which covered U.S. presidential communications from January 2009 to October 2021, addressed the abstraction of language as leaders presented ideas, policies, and opinions. Observable trends impacting social mobility for students from underserved populations were of central interest. The research methodology, Quantitative Ethnography (QE), used the tool of Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA). Eight codes were identified through grounded analysis: Affordability, Pathway Program, Underserved Populations, Class Systems, Upward Mobility, Career Readiness, Trajectory, and Career Technical …

Aprendizaje En Inglés En Línea: Efectos Sobre La Elaboración De Textos Escritos Y Relación Con La Percepción De Los Docentes Sobre La Integración De Tecnología, Yetzy Limarys Díaz Maldonado

Theses and Dissertations

Los estudiantes de una escuela secundaria del área sur de Puerto Rico presentan un bajo aprovechamiento académico en los cursos de ESL para realizar trabajos escritos en inglés. Por lo tanto, esta disertación aplicada fue diseñada con el propósito de examinar el efecto del uso del programa de aprendizaje de idiomas en línea Grammarly sobre la elaboración de textos escritos y la percepción del docente sobre la integración de tecnología.

El diseño de este estudio fue uno cuasi-experimental. El marco teórico que sustenta el estudio se basa en la teoría del procesamiento de información cognitiva de Atkinson y Shiffrin (1968). …