Linguistics Commons^™

Acceptability Of Variation In Modern Hebrew Spirantization, Michal Temkin Martinez

Mary Ellen Ryder Linguistics Lab

Modern Hebrew spirantization is an allophonic distribution where the stops [p], [b], and [k] regularly alternate with [f], [v], and [x], respectively, with the fricatives surfacing post-vocalically. There are exceptions to spirantization, with stops occurring post-vocalically and fricatives surfacing elsewhere. Additionally, variation has been attested in the regularly alternating pairs. Seventy-four native Hebrew speakers rated the acceptability of variation in regularly alternating pairs and exceptional segments. Results showed that, as hypothesized, variation was less natural than the expected form of a given word. Furthermore, variation in exceptional segments was rated less natural than variation in regularly alternating segments.

La Enseñanza De La Escritura De Textos Académicos Para Los Estudiantes BilingüEs: Prácticas Pedagógicas De Dos Preparatorias En México Y En Los Estados Unidos, Maria Luisa Spicer-Ecalante

Languages, Philosophy, and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Con base en observaciones de clases, en el análisis de programas de estudio y en entrevistas individuales con los directores, maestros y estudiantes, este artículon tenta exponer la situación actual de la enseñanza de la escritura de textos académicos para los estudiantes bilingües en dos escuelas preparatorias de México y de los Estados Unidos. Esta investigación describe los métodos pedagógicos que senstrumentan en el aula para la enseñanza, la preparación académica y/o práctica de los maestros en cuestión de instrucción de la escritura y el efecto que estan instrucción tiene en la percepción que los estudiantes asumen respecto a sus …

How Kindergarten English Language Learners "Come To Know" Written Language, Teresa Renee Morris

Theses Digitization Project

This project explored some of the methods and strategies used by teachers to teach writing in the classroom. The writing development of ten kindergarten English language learners was analyzed. These students interacted in a meaningful manner with their teacher, through use of interactive dialogue journals, over the course of the school year.

A Critical Analysis Of L1 And L2 Composition Scholarship On Instructor Feedback, Danny Elbar Marenco

Theses Digitization Project

This study focuses on what the scholarship indicates about students' attitudes toward instructor feedback and strategies of instructor feedback. This thesis presents a critical analysis of L1 and L2 composition scholarship instructor feedback.

Hegel's Philosophy Of Language, By Jim Vernon, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

No abstract provided.

On The Presence Versus Absence Of Determiners In Malagasy, Ileana Paul

French Studies Publications

No abstract provided.

On A Different Plane: Cross-Language Effects On The Conceptual Representations Of Within-Language Homonyms, Ana Areas, Ana Schwartz

Departmental Papers (Psych)

We examined whether bilinguals’ conceptual representation of homonyms in one language are influenced by meanings in the other. 117 Spanish-English bilinguals generated sentences for 62 English homonyms that were also cognates with Spanish and which shared at least one meaning with Spanish (e.g., plane/plano). Production probabilities for each meaning were calculated. A stepwise multiple regression revealed that whether a meaning was shared with Spanish or not accounted for a significant portion of the variance, even after entering production probabilities from published monolingual norms. (Twilley et al., 1994). Homonyms classified as highly polarized based on monolingual responses became less polarized if …

Children’S Insensitivity To Information From The Target Of Agreement: The Case Of Xhosa, Sandile Gxilishe, Mantoa Rose Smouse, Thabisa Xhalisa, Jill De Villiers

Philosophy: Faculty Publications

The paper presents an account of number agreement phenomena arguing that the target of agreement may be bleached of number information. This would explain why English-speaking children have difficulty relying on the target alone as a clue to number, despite producing it correctly. Xhosa has a very rich subject-verb agreement system and pro-drop, and there is theoretical dispute over its properties. An experiment with Xhosa-speaking children revealed that they, too, are unable to use the morpheme on the verb as a cue to subject number. It is argued that this may be further evidence that the morpheme is agreement rather …

Variability In L2 Acquisition Across L1 Backgrounds, Malena Weitze, Jeremiah Mcghee, C. Ray Graham, Dan Dewey, Dennis L. Eggett

Faculty Publications

For a number of decades now, a widely accepted belief of language acquisition researchers is the so called natural order hypothesis (Dulay, Burt, & Krashen, 1982; Ellis, 1994; Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991). According to this hypothesis, certain grammatical morphemes emerge in a universal order in learners of English as a second language. Most of the data collection in this line of research was done in the 1970’s against a backdrop of theory which espoused the notion of L1 transfer to L2 acquisition on the one hand and a universal grammar perspective on the other. Most dealt with oral language production …

Introduction: Humor In Contemporary American Poetry, Denise Duhamel, Salvatore Attardo

Faculty Publications

Introduction piece to a special issue of Humor: International Journal of Humor Research.

Are We Speaking The Same Language? The Use Of The Mother Tongue By Native English Speaking Teachers In English As A Foreign Language Classrooms, Presley Doyal Mcfadden

Linguistics & TESOL Theses - Archive

The question of whether or not to use students' first language in second language acquisition is not a new one (Harbord, 1992; Duff and Polio, 1990). However, the way this question is addressed by the students themselves is rarely found in linguistic publications. This study discusses three dependant variables: The attitude (positive or negative) of EFL students towards their native English speaking teachers' attempts at using students' mother tongue in the classroom; the preferences concerning which pedagogical areas (vocabulary translation, error correction, grammar instruction, etc.) the students find the use of the first language more necessary for, and finally, the …

What Happens To Class When A Language Dies? Language Change Vs. Language Death, George Tucker Childs

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper presents the first documentation of the noun class system of the dying language Mani (buy), Bullom So in Ethnologue, a.k.a. Mmani, Mandenyi, etc. spoken in Guinea and Sierra Leone. Mani has some few hundred speakers, all of whom speak either Soso (sus) or Temne (tem) as their everyday language. The Mani are concentrated in a restricted coastal area straddling the border between Guinea and Sierra Leone near the town of Morebaya, Kambia District, in Sierra Leone. A few other speakers are scattered in the littoral region from Conakry to Freetown.

Phonological Processes In Contemporary Spoken Bulgarian, Zdravka Radkova

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This study investigates a number of phonological processes observed in the speech of 24 educated Bulgarian speakers. The speech of all subjects was recorded during 30 minute interviews conducted in 2004. Three speech styles were elicited - reading passage, interview and phone conversation - and later transcribed for analysis. Statistical Variable rule analysis was used to investigate the observed patterns of variation in speech. Different internal and external linguistic variables were found to impact the processes of vowel and consonant deletion in speech. Overall, what this study has established is that although certain socio-linguistic factors such as speaker's sex, regional …

The Acquisition Of Chinese Nominal Classifier Systems By L2 Adult Learners, Szu-Yen Liang

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

The present study explores how L2 adult learners of Chinese acquire Chinese classifiers and provides pedagogical suggestions for more effective teaching of Chinese. 29 native speakers of Korean, 29 native speakers of English and 10 Taiwanese native speakers of Chinese were recruited to take part in three empirical tests to identify L2 learners' acquisition of various classifiers denoting shape, animacy, function, and event. The three tests are 1) Classifier Comprehension Test; 2) Classifier Production test; 3) Classifier Prototype Test. In the first test, subjects were asked to match an object that can be denoted by a Chinese classifier listed among …

Narrative Storyline Marking In Safaliba: Determining The Meaning And Discourse Function Of A Typologically-Suspect Pronoun Set, Paul Alan Schaefer

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This study examines the meaning and discourse functions of a typologically unusual set of pronouns (the "N-pronoun" set) in Safaliba, a little-studied Gur language of western Ghana. The phonological structure of the N-pronouns suggests derivation from the regular pronoun form joined to a subject focus marker, rendering suspect the hypothesis that the N-pronoun exists as an independent form. In isolated sentences, substitution of N-pronouns for those of the regular set produces no immediately obvious difference in meaning, suggesting a discourse or pragmatic function.Three main areas of investigation are pursued: the grammatical contexts where the N-pronouns can and cannot occur; the …

La Clasificación De Los Hablantes De Herencia De Español En Los Eeuu: Generación, Simplificación Modal Y Mantenimiento Del Español, Maria Martinez-Mira

Modern Languages & Literatures Articles

A study of the” Enciclopedia del español en el mundo: Anuario 2006-7 " carried out by the Cervantes Institute (http://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/anuario/anuario_06-07/lengua.htm) presents a comprehensive picture for the future and development of the Spanish language in the world and in the United States in particular. According to the data provided by Cervantes, approximately 14 million people study Spanish in the world, of which 6 million study Spanish in the United States. It is precisely in this country that the study and presence of the Spanish language has a special significance.

NOTE: This abstract is a translation from the original Spanish

Computing In The Field: Automated Elicitation & Documentation, Andrew R. Hippisley, Gregory Stump, Raphael Finkel

Linguistics Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Implications Of Language Documentation For An Endangered But Vibrant Language Community: A Historical Perspective, Stephen A. Marlett

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

Documentation of an endangered language may be a short project that is carried out with urgency and with primarily academic benefits because the speakers are not passing on the language to others. This paper presents historical perspective on a quite different kind of situation. The documentation of the Seri language has taken place over a considerable period of time and with goals that were primarily community-focused. It documents some of the challenges that have been present during those years and also the benefits of that documentation that are just now beginning to be felt by the speakers of that language.

Slavic Sociolinguistics In North America: Lineage And Leading Edge, Mark Richard Lauersdorf

Linguistics Faculty Publications

This article provides a general overview of North American research in Slavic sociolinguistics from the beginnings of the field at the start of the 1960s up to the present day.  The work of North American scholars published in a selection of journals, series, and special collections, as well as in monographs and dissertations, is reviewed to illustrate the research trends and the overall coverage of languages and sociolinguistic subfields as Slavic sociolinguistics developed and matured in a North American context.  This study is intended to serve as a historical backdrop for the new research presented in this volume, and it …

Practices For Dispreferred Responses Using "No" By A Learner Of English, John Hellermann

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Responding in a manner that does not align with an action or affiliate with a stance implicated in just prior talk is potentially sensitive work. Conversation Analysis (CA) has shown that participants orient to the sensitive nature of sequences of talk used to project responses that do not align, or, are dispreferred (Pomerantz 1984) in some way. This paper examines such responses, especially with the use of no tokens. The talk comes from the interactions of one adult learner of English in a language learning classroom over the course of five ten-week terms. The findings show that the participant’s use …

‘Community’, Semiotic Flows, And Mediated Contribution To Activity, Steven L. Thorne

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article begins with an overview and problematization of the term community through a brief assessment of its history, diverse uses, core attributes, heterogeneous elements, and collocational companions. Following this, I describe demographics and processes associated with collective engagement in digitally mediated environments. Utilizing select alternatives to the term ‘community’ and incorporating the cultural-historical notions of mediation and activity, I then present research describing exogenous influences affecting educational uses of technology in L2 settings, the use of instant messaging and blogging for out-of-class FL interaction at the secondary school level, and a pedagogically focused example of a remixing text posted …

Qualitative Information In Annual Reports & The Detection Of Corporate Fraud : A Natural Language Processing Perspective, Sunita Goel

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

High profile cases of fraudulent financial reporting such as those that occurred at Enron and WorldCom have shaken public confidence in the U.S. financial reporting process and have raised serious concerns about the roles of auditors, regulators, and analysts in financial reporting. In order to address these concerns and restore public confidence, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 was enacted. However, SOX has not lived up to its promise. Numerous cases of fraudulent financial reporting have surfaced in the post-SOX era. So far, the major thrust of research has been on examining fraud that has already been discovered. This dissertation …

The Representation Of Multiple Translations In Bilingual Memory : An Examination Of Lexical Organization For Concrete, Abstract, And Emotion Words In Spanish-English Bilinguals, Dana M. Basnight-Brown

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Tokowicz and Kroll (2007) originally reported that the number of translations a word has across languages influences the speed with which bilinguals translate concrete and abstract words from one language to another. The current work examines how the number of translations that characterize a word influences bilingual lexical organization and the processing of concrete, abstract and emotional stimuli. Experiment 1 examined whether the number-of-translations effect reported previously could be obtained in a different task (i.e., lexical decision task) using the same materials presented by Tokowicz and Kroll. Decision latencies revealed no significant differences between concrete and abstract words, which suggested …

Physician-Patient Communication About Patients' Sexual Activities And Substance Use : Information Exchange On Potentially Delicate Matters, Paul Michael Denvir

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Previous interaction-based research has shown that physicians and patients collaboratively realize the routine character of comprehensive medical histories through their communicative behavior. A primary resource in this regard is the design of information seeking and reporting actions. Physicians seek information through closed-ended query formats and patients report information in fitted, minimal formats. This organization provides a relatively efficient way to address a wide range of health-related topics. One topical domain that has been described as sensitive and difficult is patient `lifestyle,' which typically includes discussion of sexual activities and substance use. In these domains, patients engage in some special interactional …

Let's Speak Bom! The First Bom Primer: A Graphic Introduction To The Bom Language Of Sierra Leone, Hannah Sarvasy, George Tucker Childs

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

A graphic introduction to the Bom language of Sierra Leone, based on the stories of Bom community elders. Compiled and illustrated by Hannah Sarvasy, with editorial assistance from Tucker Childs.

Production Of Future Forms By L2 English Learners, Sabrina Mossman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study examines forms of future expression used by L2 English learners, which can be different from those used by native English speakers. Three types of data were collected for this study--language produced daily by L2 English learners in an ESL classroom, language produced in response to open questions in an interview, and language produced in a Discourse Completion Task (DCT). Twenty-six ESL learners from multiple language backgrounds participated in the interview and DCT portions of the study. Of these twenty-six, five also participated in the classroom production portion. Twenty-seven native speakers acted as a control group. The results of …

The Distribution Of Subjects And Predicates In Bulgarian: An (Eep) V-Feature Account, Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva, Stanley William Dubinsky

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Emergence Of Pragmatic Softeners In Spanish By Instructed Learners Of Spanish In The Study Abroad And Immersion Contexts, Catharine Welch

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation explores and expands the term pragmatic softening as produced and perceived by L2 learners of Spanish. The learners included 36 intermediate-level learners studying in a U.S.-based immersion academy and those studying in a study-abroad context in Merida, Mexico. Preliminary evidence from these learners indicates that pragmatic softeners are rightly included in Anderson and Shirai's (1996) theory as a marginal member of the PAST category that is acquired after the more central member--the deictic past--has been acquired. Additionally, it is argued that the term pragmatic softening itself needs to be fleshed out so that it, too, is divided into …

Azerbaijani-Russian Code-Switching And Code-Mixing: Form, Function, And Identity, Kenneth Zuercher

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

From incorporation into the Russian Empire in 1828, through the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 governmental language policies and other socio/political forces influenced the Turkic population of the Republic of Azerbaijan to speak Russian. Even with changes since independence Russian use - including various kinds of code-switching and code-mixing - continues. This dissertation studies the language situation in Azerbaijan through a detailed analysis of naturally occurring conversational data. Approaches include corpus analysis of the transcribed data to show relative amounts of Azerbaijani and Russian, linguistic description of the types of code-switching and code-mixing, quantitative analysis of variation between subjects, …

A Longitudinal Analysis Of The Vocalic Nucleus In Modern Russian, Brett Alan Benham

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This instrumental acoustic study investigates coarticulation as the source of palatalization in Modern Standard Russian. This study posits that the nucleus is bifurcated, with nodes for a pre-kernel and a kernel. At the initial edge of a stressed vowel, coarticulation between the pre-kernel and the kernel creates the distinctive onset, attributed to preceding palatalized environments. At the terminal edge of a stressed vowel, coarticulation between the kernel and the next vocalic segment (the offglide, or the pre-kernel of the following syllable) creates the distinctive offset, attributed to following palatalized environments. In unstressed syllables, the kernel vowel is deleted, and the …