Linguistics Commons^™

January 4, 2013: Bonnie Jo Campbell Chosen As Mlive Kalamazoo Gazette Book Club, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

English Loan Words In Japanese: Exploring Comprehension And Register, Naoko Horikawa

Dissertations and Theses

English loan words (ELWs) have become a considerable part of the contemporary Japanese vocabulary. Meanwhile, it has been shown that there are individual differences in the rate of ELW comprehension. Among the factors for low comprehension is age; people over 60 years old have been shown to comprehend fewer ELWs than the overall age group. As Japan is expected to soon enter the era of an aging society, the issue of ELW comprehension is likely to present serious social and personal problems. The purpose of this study was to identify the current state of frequently used ELWs in contemporary written …

The Beast Had To Marry Balinda: Using Story Examples To Explore Socializing Concepts In Ugandan Caregivers’ Oral Stories, Valeda Dent, Geoff Goodman

Brooklyn Library Faculty Publications

Within the context of storytelling as oral tradition, this paper uses a grounded theory approach to explore a single research question about the socializing concepts found in examples of stories told to young children by their mothers and grandmothers in a rural Ugandan village. These story examples were gathered during the implementation of a socio-educational intervention project. The aims of this paper are to provide a descriptive analysis of the emergent themes and constructs in these story examples against the backdrop of a relevant theoretical framework and life in this rural Ugandan village.

Historical And Contemporary Development In Lakhota Infixation, Kevin Schaefer

Linguistics Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

The Paradox Of Amnesia: Tondelli's Un Weekend Postmoderno, Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

Tondelli opens his Un weekend postmoderno. Cronache dagli anni Ottanta declaring an intention opposite to the display of amnesia. In the long table of contents of his book, he writes down everything, in an excruciating streaming of details, so that the table of content becomes an exhaustive index of names and ideas. Yet, hidden within the hundreds of analytical snapshots, one of its many characters mentions the importance of dissimulation. Dissimulation, according to Tondelli, hides what is known, to protect the dissimulator and to mask the truth. Also, amnesia is a voluntary practice that can be enacted in order to …

La Psicología De La Justificación, Angeles Erana, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

This essay considers the connections between, on the one hand, two kinds of justification, namely pragmatic and alethic, and on the other hand two cognitive systems, S1 and S2.

Herder And Pragmatics, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

No abstract provided.

“But That Actually Happened!” Exploring The Speech Genre Of Brainstorming, Jennifer Herbert

Slavic Studies Student Projects and Publications

No abstract provided.

Future Contingents, Freedom, And Foreknowledge, Mohammed Abouzahr

Wayne State University Dissertations

This essay is a contribution to the new trend and old tradition of analyzing theological fatalism in light of its relationship to logical fatalism. All results pertain to branching temporal systems that use the A-theory and assume presentism. The project focuses on two kinds of views about branching time. One position is true futurism, which designates what will occur regardless of contingency. The opposing view is open futurism, by which no possible course of events is privileged over others; that is, there are no soft facts.

A contextualist theory of temporal standpoints, standpoint inheritance, is designed to enhance Priorian temporal …

Politeness Devices In The Tuvan Language, Vitaly Voinov

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

Whereas a few core areas of the Tuvan language (such as phonology and morphology) have been fairly well described by linguists, pragmasemantic topics in the language, including politeness, have until now not been probed deeply. Using insights from theories of linguistic politeness proposed by Brown & Levinson (1978, 1987) and by their numerous critics (e.g., Ide 1989; Nwoye 1992; Watts 2003; Lakoff & Ide 2005; LPRG 2011), in this dissertation I investigate the morphosyntactic, pragmatic and sociolinguistic aspects of some of the primary verbal means that Tuvans use in conversation to express politeness to each other. The language material is …

Comparing The Teaching Of Culture In Esl/Efl Classrooms, Daniela Silva

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present research is interested in investigating if culture is approached in efl and esl classrooms. If it is, we want to know the differences in curriculum (textbooks and syllabi), especially as it pertains to cultural knowledge, in an efl class in Brazil, compared to an esl class in the united states. We will also investigate the classroom practices for incorporating culture into the English language classrooms in those contexts. Finally, we will check which cultural teaching approaches are evident in those efl and esl classrooms. Although it is difficult to define precisely what is meant by the term "culture", …

What Could Be Gained In Translation: Legal Language And Lawyer-Linguists In A Globalized World, Samantha Hargitt

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Translation and interpretation have long played a vital role in many legal contexts, from providing equal rights to defendants to facilitating mutual understanding among the members of the United Nations. Legal language, though, is incredibly complex and even faithfully equivalent translations can fail to meet the high standards required for operation in international legal contexts, where a lack of understanding over a single term could mean the difference between a material and non-material breach in a treaty or transnational contract. Branches of linguistics, such as comparative legal linguistics and forensic linguistics, study the characteristics and functions of legal language across …

The Relation Of Socioeconomic Status, Parental Education, Vocabulary And Language Skills Of Children Who Stutter, Corrin G. Richels, Kia N. Johnson, Tedra A. Walden, Edward G. Conture

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to investigate the possible relation between standardized measures of vocabulary/language, mother and father education, and a composite measure of socioeconomic status (SES) for children who do not stutter (CWNS) and children who stutter (CWS).

Methods: Participants were 138 CWNS and 159 CWS between the ages of 2;6 and 6;3 and their families. The Hollingshead Four Factor Index of Social Position (i.e., Family SES) was used to calculate SES based on a composite score consisting of weighted values for paternal and maternal education and occupation. Statistical regression analyses were conducted to investigate the relation …

Linguistic Minorities And The Right To Languages (Minorías Lingüísticas Y Derecho A Las Lenguas), Eva NúÑEz-MéNdez

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Resumen: Esta contribución se centra en la noción de minorías lingüísticas y en el derecho a las lenguas desde una perspectiva sociopolítica y cultural. Se ofrece una definición de lo que se considera “minoría lingüística” con ejemplos representativos de lenguas bajo esta consideración así como datos que ratifican la existencia, vitalidad y extinción de éstas según el contexto moderno de la globalización. Además se incluyen situaciones de multilingüismo y diglosia y cómo el estado ha respondido constitucionalmente a las necesidades de estas comunidades, incluyendo programas educativos, legislaciones internas y derecho de lenguas. Para ello se han escogido una selección de …

Syllabification Of American English: Evidence From A Large-Scale Experiment. Part I, Dirk Elzinga, David Eddington, Rebecca Treiman

Faculty Publications

4990 bi-syllabic English words were syllabified by about 22 native speakers who choose between different slash divisions (e.g. photon: FOW/TAHN, FOWT/AHN). Results of the regression analyses of the items with one medial consonant are discussed. Consistent with previous studies, consonants were drawn to stressed syllables, and more sonorant consonants were more often placed in the coda. A model in which syllables are made to be as word-like as possible is supported; syllables were often created that begin and end in the same phonemes that are legal word-initially and finally, and syllabifications tended to follow morpho-logical boundaries. Orthographic conventions, such as …

Aplicación Pedagógica De La Lingüística De Corpus A Una Clase De Gramática Avanzada De Español Como Segunda Lengua, Yanira B. Paz

Hispanic Studies Faculty Publications

Este estudio recoge las experiencias de la enseñanza de un curso de gramática avanzada de español como segunda lengua usando la lingüística de corpus (LC) como herramienta pedagógica. Si bien el uso pedagógico de LC en lenguas como el inglés ha sido ampliamente reportado, son escasos los estudios relacionados con el español. Como se desprenderá de estas experiencias, la LC permite el estudio de las estructuras de la lengua (objetivo de una clase de gramática avanzada) y, al mismo tiempo, permite ver estas estructuras y sus usos en producciones reales y naturales aparte de presentarlas en contextos textuales y culturales …

Dialects, Orthography And Society, John M. Clifton

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

While there is broad consensus that both linguistic and non-linguistic factors play a role in orthography, there is disagreement as to the relative weight played by the two sets of factors. In this paper, I present case studies from four languages, two from Papua New Guinea and two from Bangladesh, in which orthography interacts with dialectal differences. In two of the studies, orthography is used to show the unity of the communities, while in the other two it is used to establish separate identities. This interaction of orthography and group identity follows naturally from the claim that orthography is primarily …

English Language Learners: The Impact Of Language And Socio-Cultural Factors On Learning, Lori Navarrete, Silvana M. R. Watson

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Our daily educational experiences can be enriched by learning in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms because we learn from others whose experiences and beliefs are different than ours. We learn to communicate effectively and respectfully with individuals of varied backgroundsand then may then think twice about stereotypes, prejudices, and discriminatory behaviors because we grow as individuals, as stewards of knowledge, and as change agents. We become good citizens in a pluralistic society.

Shiwilu (Jebero), Pilar Valenzuela, Carlos Gussenhoven

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Articles and Research

Shiwilu (a.k.a. Jebero) is a critically endangered language from Peruvian Amazonia and one of the two members of the Kawapanan linguistic family. Most of its nearly 30 remaining fluent speakers live in and around the village of Jeberos (District of Jeberos, Province of Alto Amazonas, Loreto Region), at approximately 5° S, 75° W. The documentation of Shiwilu is scarce and no survey grammar is available. Until very recently, the only trained linguist who had worked on Shiwilu was John Bendor- Samuel, who carried out fieldwork in 1955–1956 and completed a doctoral thesis in 1958 (see Bendor-Samuel 1981 [1958]). An abridged …

International Adoption Discourse Analysis : Interdisciplinary Approaches To Media Discourse, Youngae Lee

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research is focused on media discourse analysis with interdisciplinary perspectives in language, culture, and gender studies. The purpose of this study is to analyze the media discourse of live interpreter-mediated events with distinctive perspectives involving socio-cultural, structural, and linguistic approaches. The discourse used as data is collected from a live Korean TV program called “I Miss That Person” (IMTP). From IMTP, I titled the first clip “Han, Youngwoong’s Discourse” as Data 1 and the second clip “Lee, ChunShik’s Discourse” as Data 2. Two clips of each data can be seen at www.youtube.com. The analysis of the media discourse is …

Grammatical Typology And Frequency Analysis: Number Availability And Number Use, Dunstan Brown, Greville G. Corbett, Sebastian Fedden, Andrew R. Hippisley, Paul Marriott

Linguistics Faculty Publications

The Smith-Stark hierarchy, a version of the Animacy Hierarchy, offers a typology of the cross-linguistic availability of number. The hierarchy predicts that the availability of number is not arbitrary. For any language, if the expression of plural is available to a noun, it is available to any noun of a semantic category further to the left of the hierarchy. In this article we move one step further by showing that the structure of the hierarchy can be observed in a statistical model of number use in Russian. We also investigate three co-variates: plural preference, pluralia tantum and irregularity effects; these …

Review Of Repertoires And Choices In African Languages By Friederike Lûpke And Anne Storch, George Tucker Childs

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Repertoires and Choices in African Languages (RCAL) will interest not only Africanists but also specialists in other geographical areas and those generally concerned with language endangerment and language documentation. In short, this is a timely book for readers of this journal. The authors, Friederike Lüpke and Anne Storch, are two of the finest scholars working on African languages today and two of the most reflective thinkers in this field. The breadth and depth of their research records (they call themselves, somewhat modestly, ‘fieldworkers’) are both exemplary, and together constitute a whole that any two other scholars would find difficult to …

Automatic Identification Of Learners’ Language Background Based On Their Writing In Czech, Katsiaryna Aharodnik, Marco Chang, Anna Feldman, Jirka Hana

Department of Computer Science Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The goal of this study is to investigate whether learners’ written data in highly inflectional Czech can suggest a consistent set of clues for automatic identification of the learners’ L1 background. For our experiments, we use texts written by learners of Czech, which have been automatically and manually annotated for errors. We define two classes of learners: speakers of Indo-European languages and speakers of non-Indo-European languages. We use an SVM classifier to perform the binary classification. We show that non-content based features perform well on highly inflectional data. In particular, features reflecting errors in orthography are the most useful, yielding …

Aplicabilidad De La Tipología De Funciones Retóricas De Las Citas Al Género De La Memoria De Máster En Un Contexto Transcultural De Enseñanza Universitaria, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

The aim of this paper is to compare the rhetorical functions gathered from the citations of (14) fourteen master´s theses written by seven Spanish and seven Philippine authors. A typology of nine categories was used in order to identify the cultural rhetorical differences that exist in the use of citation from the contrast between contrasting this element in the Philippine and Spanish cultures. The methodology used is textual analysis of the linguistic context of these citations and its subsequent classification within these nine categories. The results show that there are quantitative and qualitative differences between the cultural conventions of citations …

Preschool Language And Phonological Proficiencies In Predicting Stuttering Recovery Or Persistence, Caroline E. Spencer

Open Access Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between expressive and receptive language, phonological, and verbal working memory proficiencies in the preschool years and eventual recovery from or persistence in stuttering. Participants included 40 children who stutter (CWS). At ages 3-5 years, participants were administered the Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language, 3rd edition (TACL-3), the Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test, 3rd edition (SPELT-3), Bankson-Bernthal Test of Phonology--Consonant Inventory subtest (BBTOP--CI), Test of Auditory Perceptual Skills--Revised (TAPS--R) auditory number memory and auditory word memory subtests, and the Dollaghan & Campbell Nonword Repetition Test (NRT). Stuttering behaviors were tracked …

The 'X It Up' Verb Construction: A Syntactic And Sociolinguistic Approach, Ryan Hubble

Open Access Theses

This thesis focuses on a unique and, as of yet, unstudied particle verb construction in English, referred to as the `X it up' construction (e.g. I partied it up last night). Syntactic and sociolinguistic perspectives are taken to explore this phenomenon. In the area of syntax, it is proposed that the `it' in the construction is non-referential and that `it' is an (object) expletive. It is further proposed that the construction is unergative. These hypotheses are confirmed via syntactic tests, and a potential syntactic representation based on Basilico's (2008) particle verb analysis is offered as a structure in which the …

Pragmatic Transfer In Japanese Requests In Emails, Takako Noda

Open Access Theses

The speech act of request is known as a face threatening act (FTA) in the sense of Brown and Levinson (1987) and is considered a speech act that may negatively affect human relationships when it is used against cultural norms and constraints. Requests have been investigated in various languages, including English and Japanese (e.g., Hill et al., 1986; Fukushima, 1996; Gagné, 2010). Studies about interlanguage pragmatics, such as Matsuda et al. (2008) and Wada et al. (2008), showed characteristics of requests made by learners of Japanese. However, these studies all focused on the oral speech act, and there are few …

The Abd Of Orthography Testing: Integrating Formal Or Informal Testing Into The Orthography Development Process, Elke Karan

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

Developing an orthography for a previously unwritten language or reforming an existing writing system is a complex process. It calls for consideration of all the factors that play into the process and sensitivity to stakeholder expectations. The desired outcomes are acceptance of the orthography by intended users, ease of learning, and general efficiency. Integrating evaluation processes and testing events into the orthography development process and making appropriate adjustments based on the findings will maximize chances of attaining those outcomes.

This article provides a rationale for orthography testing and recommendations for what to test and who to test. It includes a …

The Minimal Word In Seri, Stephen A. Marlett

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

Data are presented in support of the claim that the minimal word and minimal root in Seri must be bimoraic. The bimoraicity condition may be met by rhymes that are heavy in more than one way.

Optimal Diphthongs : An Ot Analysis Of The Acquisition Of Spanish Diphthongs, Alice Krause

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation investigates the acquisition of Spanish diphthongs by adult native speakers of English. The following research questions will be addressed: