Linguistics Commons^™

Trop De Soleil Tue L'Amour : Une Expression De L'Écriture Du Mal-Être De Mongo Beti, Rodolphine Sylvie Wamba

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The classical and dissident African writer Mongo Beti perpetually uses the theme of man’s quest for freedom in everything he does. In fact, the philosophy of “Rubénism” is found in each of his works. Given that man must survive in the “ocean of shit” he lives in, the writer, using a popular language, freely chooses to add some humour to everyday life. Thus, the text we studied appeared as a genuine thriller, complete with comedy and tragedy, which presents a deviation from more formal writing. This is the main idea of this analysis, which consists of showing Trop de soleil …

Information Structure In Narrative Texts In Byali (A Gur Language Of Benin), John J. Berthelette

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an application of Knud Lambrecht’s 1994 work, Information structure and sentence form, to Byali, a Gur language of northwestern Benin (West Africa). In particular, it concerns an analysis of how the different focus structures are marked in Byali, according to Lambrecht’s framework.

Given that this is an application of a theoretical framework in order to describe a language, the thesis has three purposes: (1) to provide an overview of Lambrecht’s framework; (2) to provide an analysis of Byali data using this framework; and (3) to evaluate the suitability of Lambrecht’s framework for analyzing Byali focus structure.

A Learner-Centered And Participtory Approach To Teaching Community Adult Esl, Haley Lynn Wiggins

Theses and Dissertations

This MA project examines the creation, implementation, and effectiveness of the guidebook, Moving Forward: A Learner-Centered and Participatory Approach to Teaching Community Adult ESL, designed to help adult English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers base their classes on the specific needs of community adult education students. This guidebook was created in response to the need for lesson plans and activities that help teachers focus on learner needs. The activities in the guidebook are based on the National Institute for Literacy's (NIFL) adult literacy initiative, Equipped for the Future (EFF) because it focuses on the tasks adults must perform …

A Dialect Study Of Oregon Norms, Lisa Wittenberg Hillyard

Dissertations and Theses

The pioneers and settlers of the Oregon Territory were not of one ilk. They came from various places and brought their separate speech patterns with them. This study sought to identify which major North American English dialect was present in the first half of the 20^th century in Oregon. Analysis relied on the descriptions for the Southern, Northern, Midlands, and Western dialects. Some dialect features have acoustic measurements attached to their descriptions, and others do not. The analytical process was based on acoustic measurements for vowel classes and individual tokens, as well as global observations about the place of …

The Role Of Identity In Language Acquisition: A Cross- Generational Perspective., Darlene Annette Snider

MA TESOL Collection

In this paper I will reflect on the role of identity as it relates to second language acquisition. My hypothesis is that second language acquisition can be slowed or even halted when students cannot adapt to the culture of the language they are studying. Student’s facing cultural conflict tend to distance themselves from the community thereby creating barriers in the learning process. This hypothesis is based upon my own experience as a third generation Canadian. I believe the effective classroom will work to reduce cultural conflict by affirming the learner’s cultural identity and sense of self as they explore the …

Ich Rede, Wie Ich Mich Wohl Fühle: Language And Ethnic/Cultural Identity Among German-Born Young Adults Of Turkish Descent In Berlin, Emily R. Jenkins

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

My study consisted of ethnographic interviews with young adults ages 19-28, who were born and raised in Germany to parents emigrated from Turkey. My main research question was, “What role does language play in the subjects’ conception of ethnic/cultural identity?” Specifically, I focused on the role of language in how subjects identify with or distinguish themselves from: (1) the ethnic/cultural majority in their country of residence, i.e. Germans; (2) the ethnic/cultural majority in their parents’ country of origin, i.e. Turks in Turkey; and (3) others of similar immigration background, i.e. other German-born people of Turkish descent. Originally I only intended …

The Spanish Language Presence In Tangier, Morocco: A Sociolinguistic Perspective, Lotfi Sayahi

Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Scholarship

While research on the presence of the Spanish language outside Spain and the Americas has made considerable advances in recent years, it has concerned itself primarily with the Philippines (Quilis 1992, Lipski 2001), Equatorial Guinea (Granda 1991, Lipski 1985), and less frequently with other regions where Spanish is acquiring importance as a foreign language (Quilis 2000). North Africa, on the other hand, has failed to attract similar attention in spite of its close geographic and historical links with Spain and the uninterrupted presence of the Spanish language there since the 15'h century. Few references signal such presence (Heath 1989, Silva-Corvahin …

Review Of Bilingual Aesthetics: A Sentimental Education, By Doris Sommer (2004), Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Software "La Chaise Berçante", Lara Lomicka

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Interlanguage Lexicology Of Arab Students Of English A Computer Learner Corpus-Based Approach, Mousa Abdelghani Al-Btoosh

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

Since the very early emergence of machine-readable corpora into the linguistics scene in the 1960s, the direction of a considerable body of linguistic research began to shift from syntax and phonology, the, by then, focus of linguistic research, to a number of domains that remained mostly neglected under the umbrella of traditional approaches. Fortunately, lexicology, the target of this research, was a major beneficiary of that dramatic shift. By employing a computer learner corpus-based approach, this study addresses multidimensional lexical aspects of a machine-readable corpus of the writing of Arab students of English as a foreign language. Lexical investigation of …

Native Language And Non-Linguistic Influences On The Production Of English Vowels By Speakers Of Korean: An Acoustic Study, Ji-Eun Kim

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This study investigates the production of Korean and English front vowels by ninety-one Koreans, based on their arrival age to the U.S., length of residence in the U.S. and degree of motivation. Subjects' Korean and English productions were analyzed by measuring F1, F2 and duration. Additionally, this study observed other phonological and phonetic features, such as the number of front vowel categories, the distance between the highest and lowest front vowels (Korean /i/~/?/ and English /i/~/æ/), the distance between the lowest two vowels (Korean /e/~/?/ and English /?/~/æ/) and the lengthening effects based on the voicing of the following consonants. …

Aspects Of The Kam Language, As Revealed In Its Narrative Discourse, Tongyin Yang

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

Discourse analysis has long been understudied in Kam. This research aims to initiate the exploration of this new field by examining various aspects of Kam narrative discourse and reveal its structural properties through a functional approach within Schiffrin's discourse model. A newfound morpheme /e/ leads to discussion of phonological and syntactic variations from discourse perspective. The reduction of components in rhymes in directional verbs is related to not only semantic manifestation, but more importantly, to the building-up of narrative discourse. The classifier variants in the types CLSa and CLSb encode number difference, though not identical to numbers in Indo-European languages. …

Institutionalizing Gender And Sexuality In A Call-In Radio Advice Program: A Characterization Of Loveline, Meagan P. Storey

English Theses & Dissertations

Previous studies of advice characterized it as a discourse in which authority is afforded to the giver by virtue of being asked for advice. As an authoritative discourse, advice sets the standards by which interlocutors base their judgments of normalcy. The consequences of these judgments are multiplied when advice is given as part of public, institutional talk, such as with radio call-in programs. This thesis examines how the authoritative discourse of global advice (public, commercial advice) is used to construct and normalize human experiences, specifically gender and sexuality. This study is based on an analysis of ten audio-taped episodes, each …

The Effect Of Teachers' Error Feedback On International Students' Self-Correction Ability, Youngju Hong

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of teachers' error feedback on ESL students' self-correction ability. One hundred and nineteen international students enrolled in ESL composition classes at Brigham Young University's English Language Center participated in this research. The participants were randomly assigned to three treatment groups: (1) a coded feedback group, (2) a non-coded feedback group, and (3) a no-feedback control group. All participants were asked to write an in-class essay and to self-correct their grammatical errors during 20-minute time period. A grammar test and attitudinal survey were administered at the same time.

The Role Of Vocabulary Size In Assessing Second Language Vocabulary, Kevin John Zimmerman

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the role of vocabulary size in assessing learners from various L1 backgrounds and for institutional placement. Participants included native speakers of Spanish, Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin, who took a test that estimated the size of their productive English vocabulary. First, the vocabulary size of students from each language group was compared and the relationship between vocabulary size and institutional placement level was examined. Then, scores were analyzed to determine how cognates and loan words influenced the participants' performance on the vocabulary test. Further, students' vocabulary size scores were correlated with their placement scores that evaluated reading, writing, …

A Formal Semantic Analysis Of Autistic Language: The Quantification Hypothesis, Michael B. Manookin

Theses and Dissertations

Autism is characterized by language dysfunction ranging from mild and peculiar language usage to a total lack of expressive language function. These language oddities are manifest in the form of phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic/behavioral dysfunction. Research suggests that the autistic language deficit is focal—dealing with a specific area of language processing; however, previous research has failed to identify this language enigma. This thesis demonstrates a novel approach to the problem, showing that the autistic language deficit is tied to a particular aspect of language processing—quantification. Quantification is defined and explained in the context of autistic language and behavior.

A Two-Level Engine For Tagalog Morphology And A Structured Xml Output For Pc-Kimmo, Hans J. Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

This paper presents a two-level morphological description of Tagalog for use in PC-Kimmo and a mechanism created for updating the results output from PC-Kimmo in order to meet the standards for current database and natural language processing applications.

There are two main research tasks presented in this paper which constituted this project. First, a complete morphological engine for Tagalog is presented. Next, a tool is introduced that takes the morphological engine output and stores it in XML format.

Teaching Reading To Speakers Of Non-Romanized Languages, Scott Alkire

Faculty Publications

Speakers of non-Romanized languages face special challenges in learning to read English: a new alphabet, the left-to-right direction of English text (new to many of these learners), and, most significantly, the letter-sound correspondences of English, which are relatively complex among Romanized languages. Fortunately, strategies for overcoming these challenges are presented in a text by the famous linguist Leonard Bloomfield and the lexicographer Clarence Barnhart (Bloomfield & Barnhart, 1961). Though Bloomfield and Barnhart’s text was designed for teaching native-English-speaking children to read, with minor modifications it can be used to successfully teach speakers of non-Romanized languages to read as well. This …

Combining Learning Approaches For Incremental On-Line Parsing, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Michael B. Manookin

Faculty Publications

This paper discusses the integration of two different machine learning approaches to modeling language, NL-Soar and analogical modeling (AM). The resulting hybrid system is capable of functionality that is not possible when using only one of the systems in isolation. After a brief introduction of each system, an explanation is given of how AM is used to provide information useful to NL-Soar for two tasks. Examples are given, and related issues are outlined.

Hearing The Difference: A Computer-Based Speech-Perception Diagnostic Tool For Non-Native Speakers Of English, Justin Reed Shewell

Theses and Dissertations

This project was completed to fill a need in the field of pronunciation teaching and learning by providing a computer-based, speech-perception diagnostic tool that helps determine learners' problem areas in the perception of English speech. Current diagnostic tools are few and very limited in their scope and application in the language classroom. The Perception of Spoken English Test diagnoses learners' specific speech perception problems, alerting teachers to areas that require special attention in a particular course or lesson. This project involved the development, production, piloting, evaluation, and revision of a computer-based instrument in an intensive English program. The data collected …

Is Feminist Humor An Oxymoron?, Janet M. Bing

English Faculty Publications

Is the subject of feminist humor male oppression or a celebration of the female experience? This paper argues for the latter and suggests that inclusive jokes can be more effectively subversive than divisive ones. As long as women's jokes focus on men, male definitions, and male behavior, women are marginalizing females, even if their jokes target males. In addition, divisive jokes can strengthen prevailing beliefs about essential female-male differences. However, when straight feminists make jokes and laugh about the shared experiences of females rather than on oppressive male behavior, then feminist humor, like lesbian humor, becomes an agent for change.

Language Death In Mesmes: A Sociolinguistic And Historical-Comparative Examiniation Of A Disappearing Language, Michael Bryan Ahland

Linguistics & TESOL Theses - Archive

Mesmes is a recently extinct language within the Peripheral West Gurage subgroup of the Ethio-Semitic Gurage cluster in southwestern Ethiopia. While Leslau (1979) and Hetzron (1972 and 1977), among many others, have examined the history of this cluster, little is known about the Mesmes language. The Mesmes speakers completed a shift to Hadiyya (a Cushitic language) roughly sixty years ago. This thesis considers the social history of the Mesmes in relation to the shift and death of their language and also examines the comparative evidence linking Mesmes with the Gurage cluster and, more specifically, with the Peripheral West Gurage subgroup. …

Linguistic Variation Within Gumuz: A Study Of The Relationship Between Historical Change And Intelligibility, Colleen Anne Ahland

Linguistics & TESOL Theses - Archive

The Gumuz language is spoken by roughly 160,000 people across the Blue Nile region of Ethiopia and Sudan (Grimes 2004). Gumuz is the sole member of the Gumuz family which is part of the larger Nilo-Saharan super-family (Bender 1996a) and is considered to be a single language whose several varieties are mutually intelligible (Bender 1975, Unseth 1984). Recent studies regarding intelligibility, however, suggest the latter is not the case, documenting various levels of intelligibility between varieties, some of which are asymmetrical (Ahland et al. 2002). This thesis provides an historical analysis of Gumuz spoken in eight locations within Ethiopia and …

Code-Switching In The Speech Of Spanish-English Bilinguals, Brianna Grohman Rauschuber

Linguistics & TESOL Theses - Archive

The purpose of this study is the investigation of (a) the motivations for code-switching; and (b) the process by which bilinguals perceive code-switching as meaningful. The empirical basis for the study is data gathered from Spanish-English bilinguals in the U.S. The results suggest that the motivations for code-switching and the conversational functions that code-switching often serves are the same. Speakers code-switch because doing so allows them to convey some meaning beyond the information contained in the proposition of an utterance. The author proposes that the communicative value of code-switching among balanced bilinguals can be explained in relation to Grice's (1975) …

Palatalization In Albanian: An Acoustic Investigation Of Stops And Affricates, Julie M. Kolgjini

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

Palatalization is a very common process cross-linguistically; it has been widely attested in both Indo-European (e.g. Slavic) and non-Indo-European languages (e.g. Bantu and Chinese). Palatalization can be broken down into velar palatalization (e.g. k, g > t?, dy/_ i, j) and coronal palatalization (e.g. t, d > t?, dy/__ j), whereby the targets tend to be velar and alveolar stops and the triggers are frequently non-back vowels and glides. The outputs of palatalization are often sounds formed in a different place of articulation than the original target segment and with a different manner of articulation than the target, which frequently results in …

Generation Gap: Explaining New And Emerging Word-Order Phenomena In Mayan-Spanish Bilinguals, Teresa Satterfield, Rusty Barrett

Linguistics Presentations

We investigate asymmetries in the behavior of NP subjects and objects in Sipakapense (Maya) across three generations of Sipakapense-Spanish bilingual speakers. Often, the two languages are typologically classified into separate groups, with SVO word order assumed as the traditional sequence in Spanish, and VSO in Sipakapense. We illustrate that this typological partition is artificial: in Spanish, as in Mayan, VSO can serve as the basic, declarative word order, where the subject maintains its internal-VP position with a neutral interpretation. Both Spanish and Sipakapense obtain the SVO configuration via subject topicalization. Thus, the key factor in the shift from VSO to …

Certainty Categorization Model, Elizabeth D. Liddy, Noriko Kando, Victoria L. Rubin

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

We present a theoretical framework and preliminary results for manual categorization of explicit certainty information in 32 English newspaper articles. The explicit certainty markers were identified and categorized according to the four hypothesized dimensions – perspective, focus, timeline, and level of certainty. One hundred twenty one sentences from sample news stories contained a significantly lower frequency of markers per sentence (M=0.46, SD =0.04) than 564 sentences from sample editorials (M=0.6, SD =0.23), p= 0.0056, two-tailed heteroscedastic t-test. Within each dimension, editorials had most numerous markers per sentence in high level of certainty, writer’s point of view, and future and present …

Discerning Emotions In Texts, Victoria L. Rubin, Jeffrey M. Stanton, Elizabeth D. Liddy

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

We present an empirically verified model of discernable emotions, Watson and Tellegen’s Circumplex Theory of Affect from social and personality psychology, and suggest its usefulness in NLP as a potential model for an automation of an eight-fold categorization of emotions in written English texts. We developed a data collection tool based on the model, collected 287 responses from 110 non-expert informants based on 50 emotional excerpts (min=12, max=348, average=86 words), and analyzed the inter-coder agreement per category and per strength of ratings per sub-category. The respondents achieved an average 70.7% agreement in the most commonly identified emotion categories per text. …

Context-Based Question-Answering Evaluation, Elizabeth D. Liddy, Anne R. Diekema, Ozgur Yilmazel

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

In this poster, we will present the results of efforts we have undertaken to conduct evaluations of a QA system in a real world environment and to understand the nature of the dimensions on which users evaluate QA systems when given full reign to comment on whatever dimensions they deem important.

National Stereotypes In Teaching English As A Foreign Language, Radmila Popovic

MA TESOL Collection

This thesis explores how to deal with lexically encoded national stereotypes in the second language classroom. I address this question starting with previous research on stereotypes, and discussing a principled approach to interrelating insights from a variety of paradigms and disciplines. Then I shift to the linguistic analysis of nationality words in English - phrases, idioms and proverbs, as well as connotations which these lexical items are capable of developing in certain contexts. Finally, I consider the implication of the findings for foreign language teaching, and suggest a pedagogical model for dealing with stereotypes in the language classroom.