Linguistics Commons^™

Relationship Between Empathy And Language Proficiency In Adult Language Learners, Mika Sakai

Dissertations and Theses

This study reviews concepts and the mechanism of empathy, and the relationship between empathy and language proficiency, focusing on the aspect of cognitive empathy. It also discusses whether empathy levels could be developed by learning language to a highly proficient level. I compared the empathy levels between high and low proficiency second-language learners to determine if there was correlation between empathy and other factors such as gender, studying abroad, education background, and usage of a second language. I found that there was no relationship between empathy level and language proficiency level; however, there was one between empathy and gender. For …

Engaging In A Rural Deaf Community Of Practice, Kara Gournaris

Dissertations and Theses

The number of students taking American Sign Language (ASL) at the post-secondary level continues to increase as more Deaf-related graduate programs and employment settings require fluent ASL skills. Western Oregon University (WOU) is one of the few existing programs in the United States that offers four years of ASL instruction; however, as a rural university it has limited access to a Deaf community. The problem of practice is that students often have little exposure to rich language models who are fluent in ASL, which impacts their legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) in the local Deaf communities of practice (CoPs) and reduces …

The Semantics Of Article Acquisition, Emily G. Renie

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

Accurately using articles has consistently been a difficult task for English language learners as articles are often treated as solely grammatical forms rather than also recognizing as representatives of complex semantic properties. This paper aims to synthesize individual research on semantic factors which influence article acquisition and explore how they interact with each other. This paper especially focuses on how native and second language speakers of English acquire and understand the concepts of definiteness and specificity and explores these features within the framework of Chomsky’s theory of Universal Grammar. This paper examines the Fluctuating Hypothesis (FH) and its use as …

“‘Well I Don’T Like Abortion’ Well Then Don’T Have One”: A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis Of The Stance Functions Of Some Discourse Markers In Mediated Abortion Debate, Kristen Fleckenstein

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation examines the use of discourse markers as a stance-taking resource in written discourse on abortion. Drawing from four corpora collected from editorials, blogs, Twitter, and Reddit, I focus on the discourse markers I mean, of course, okay, and well and their use in concessive repair sequences, as prefaces to constructed dialogue, and as interpersonal stance markers. Within the corpora, both concessive repair and constructed dialogue serve to reinforce a positive-self, negative-other evaluative split, although they differ in the types of stance objects that writers position themselves in relation to. Writers use concessive repair to evaluate distal stance objects …

Constituent Order And Participant Reference In Napo Quichua Narrative Discourse, Larinda Moffitt

Theses and Dissertations

Napo Quichua is a Quechuan language variety spoken along the Napo River in Northern Peru and Southern Ecuador. This thesis presents a description of the constituent order and participant reference system of oral narrative discourse. The primary data source for this study consists mostly of folk tales told by native speakers, with a few autobiographical accounts.

Napo Quichua is an SOV language with a relatively high degree of variation in constituent order. Constituent order variations are motivated by the guiding principles of information structure, including showing focus, highlighting information, and backgrounding information. Constituent order and participant reference also interact to …

Morphological Decomposition In Heritage Language Speakers, Juliet Thuy Phuong Huynh

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation investigates the grammatical processing in a heritage language (HL), or the first language (L1) in a home or minority setting that has become a non-dominant language, and a more dominant second language (L2). Five experiments were conducted to examine (i) whether grammatical processing in L1 Vietnamese (Experiments 1 and 2) and L2 English (Experiments 3, 4, and 5) is different in Vietnamese HL speakers from those who are late Vietnamese-English bilinguals, and, if there is a difference, (ii) how it differs between these two types of bilingual speakers. In order to test the grammatical processing, morphological decomposition of …

Machine Translation For Crimean Tatar To Turkish, M. GöKırmak, F. M. Tyers, Jonathan North Washington

Linguistics Faculty Works

In this paper a machine translation system for Crimean Tatar to Turkish is presented. To our knowledge this is the first Machine Translation system made available for public use for Crimean Tatar, and the first such system released as free and open source software. The system was built using Apertium, a free and open source machine translation system, and is currently unidirectional from Crimean Tatar to Turkish. We describe our translation system, evaluate it on parallel corpora and compare its performance with a Neural Machine Translation system, trained on the limited amount of corpora available.

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing At The Local Level : A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Practices In Louisville, Kentucky., Steven P. Sizemore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative research project is an immersion into the beliefs, ideas, meanings, values, and feelings of actors engaged in shaping local housing policies. The dissertation examines how discourse constitutes and shapes the knowledge of policy actors engaged in fair housing policies and practices in Louisville, Kentucky. I argue that policy discourse is the site where social problems become framed, bounded, and transformed into action. Therefore, if the objective of the Fair Housing Act’s mandate for HUD and its recipients is to operate programs in a manner that “affirmatively furthers fair housing” (AFFH), it is essential to understand the discursive acts …

Dialect Transfer For L2 Arabic Learners, Jozeca Lathrop

Theses and Dissertations

With rising numbers of Arabic language learners studying abroad, language programs face two challenges that are unlike many other commonly-studied languages. First, dialects of spoken Arabic vary significantly across the span of North Africa and the Middle East, so in choosing a location to study abroad, learners are also choosing a particular dialect of Arabic on which to focus their attention. Second, Arabic is diglossic, so written and spoken varieties are significantly different from each other. Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is used for most written material, media, and some formal settings, while Colloquial Arabic (CA) is used for informal spoken …

Using Context To Communicate: Romanian Sign Language Learners And Their Communication Strategies, Rebecca Melville

Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on the communication strategies used by second language learners of Romanian Sign Language (LSR), including learners of different proficiency levels, and investigates whether the learner’s proficiency level affects the kinds or variety of communication strategies they use. Unlike previous studies of communication strategies by language learners, it focuses on learners of a signed rather than a spoken language.

The study consisted of two tasks—the first being a structured task where the learner was given a list of ten words to communicate to an interlocutor (a Deaf native signer). The second task was less structured and asked the …

Medieval Narratives As Meta-Constructions Used In Creating Socio-Cultural Identity, Laurie A. Price

Linguistics ETDs

This study of the distribution and function of Historical Present (HP) in Old French, Old English, and Old Norse narratives combines the methods of cognitive linguistics and corpus-based discourse analysis with insights from work in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and medieval studies. I show that HP, in combination with those other features, is a strategy to establish stance, a strategy that both constructs and reinforces a cultural persona. Although previous research on HP in narratives focused on the use of HP to foreground events and contrast marked vs unmarked events in narratives, my analysis shows that HP has an additional range …

Synthetic, Yet Natural: Properties Of Wordnet Random Walk Corpora And The Impact Of Rare Words On Embedding Performance, Filip Klubicka, Alfredo Maldonado, Abhijit Mahalunkar, John D. Kelleher

Conference papers

Creating word embeddings that reflect semantic relationships encoded in lexical knowledge resources is an open challenge. One approach is to use a random walk over a knowledge graph to generate a pseudo-corpus and use this corpus to train embeddings. However, the effect of the shape of the knowledge graph on the generated pseudo-corpora, and on the resulting word embeddings, has not been studied. To explore this, we use English WordNet, constrained to the taxonomic (tree-like) portion of the graph, as a case study. We investigate the properties of the generated pseudo-corpora, and their impact on the resulting embeddings. We find …

Weighing Up Exercises On Phrasal Verbs: Retrieval Versus Trial-And-Error Practices, Brian Strong, Frank Boers

Education Publications

EFL textbooks and internet resources exhibit various formats and implementations of exercises on phrasal verbs. The experimental study reported here examines whether some of these might be more effective than others. EFL learners at a university in Japan were randomly assigned to four treatment groups. Two groups were presented first with phrasal verbs and their meaning before they were prompted to retrieve the particles from memory. The difference between these two retrieval groups was that one group studied and then retrieved items one at a time, while the other group studied and retrieved them in sets. The two other groups …

Beneath The Surface Of Talking About Physicians: A Statistical Model Of Language For Patient Experience Comments, Taylor Turpen, Lea Matthews Md, Senem Guney Phd, Cpxp

Patient Experience Journal

This study applies natural language processing (NLP) techniques to patient experience comments. Our goal was to examine the language describing care experiences with two groups of physicians: those with scores in the top 100 and those with scores in the bottom 100 among all physicians (n=498) who received scores from patient satisfaction surveys. Our analysis showed a statistically significant difference in the language used to describe care experiences with these two distinct groups of physicians. This analysis illustrates how to apply NLP techniques in categorizing and building a statistical model for language use in order to identify meaningful language and …

The Design And Implementation Of Aida: Ancient Inscription Database And Analytics System, M. Parvez Rashid

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

AIDA, the Ancient Inscription Database and Analytic system can be used to translate and analyze ancient Minoan language. The AIDA system currently stores three types of ancient Minoan inscriptions: Linear A, Cretan Hieroglyph and Phaistos Disk inscriptions. In addition, AIDA provides candidate syllabic values and translations of Minoan words and inscriptions into English. The AIDA system allows the users to change these candidate phonetic assignments to the Linear A, Cretan Hieroglyph and Phaistos symbols. Hence the AIDA system provides for various scholars not only a convenient online resource to browse Minoan inscriptions but also provides an analysis tool to explore …

Gender Assignment To Spanish Pseudowords By Monolingual And Basque-Spanish Bilingual Children, Rocio Pérez-Tattam, Maria José Ezeizabarrena, Hans Stadthagen-González, Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole

Faculty Publications

This study examines gender marking in the Spanish of Basque-Spanish bilingual children. We analyze data collected via a production task designed to elicit 48 DPs, controlling for gender of referents and for number and types of morphological cues to grammatical gender. The goals were to determine the extent to which participants rely on biological cues (female referent =>FEM gender, male referent =>MASC gender) and morpho-phonological cues (-a ending =>FEM, -o ending =>MASC, others =>MASC or FEM) to assign gender to pseudowords/novel words; and whether bilinguals’ language dominance (Spanish strong/weak) has an effect. Data were collected …

Cruzar Fronteras Em Espaços Acadêmicos: Transgressing “The Limits Of Translanguaging”, Brendan H. O’Connor, Katherine S. Mortimer, Lesley Bartlett, María Teresa De La Piedra, Ana Maria Rabelo Gomes, Ariana Mangual Figueroa, Gabriela Novaro, Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, Char Ullman

Publications and Research

Scholarship on translanguaging and related concepts has challenged traditional assumptions about how people use their multiple languages, urging us to move beyond the boundaries of named linguistic codes and toward conceptualizations of multilingual language use as flexible use of a speaker’s whole linguistic repertoire. Critiques of this theoretical shift have included assertions of translanguaging’s conceptual and practical limits—limits to its transformative potential as well as limits to its practical use. This paper takes up, in particular, the question of why we academics may assert the value of translanguaging in schools and communities while still largely failing to move beyond monoglossic …

Challenges Of Employing Voicethread To Enhance U.S. Collegiate Chinese Language Learners’ Oral Proficiency, Guangyan Chen, Junyu Zhang

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

The digital age in education inspires Chinese teachers to integrate Web 2.0 technologies into Chinese as a second language (CSL) curricula to enhance teaching effects. However, few studies examine the challenges that teachers face when integrating Web 2.0 technologies to improve student oral proficiency in Chinese. This study aims to investigate students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the Web 2.0 technology VoiceThread (VT). It examines the challenges of integrating VT to enhance student oral proficiency. The authors conducted two studies with 31 students responding to a questionnaire in Study 1 and 48 students responding to the same questionnaire in Study …

La Lingüística Hispánica: Una Introducción (Capítulo 1 Y 2 Disponibles, Otros Capítulos En Desarrollo), Ashwini Ganeshan

OHIO Open Faculty Textbooks

Editoras: Paige Wilson, Margaret Saine, y Anna Traini

Este libro, todavía en desarrollo, se dirige a estudiantes de español en universidades estadounidenses y pretende ofrecer una breve y simple introducción a la lingüística hispánica. Incluye conceptos básicos de la lingüística, brinda ensayos que abarcan temas de interés social conectando la lingüística con la vida diaria, y ejercicios para practicar los conceptos. También hay enlaces a materiales relevantes disponibles en la red. El libro está creado enteramente por textos escritos y materiales compartidos por estudiantes mayoritariamente de pregrado y también cuenta con el trabajo y esfuerzo de estudiantes-editoras en un proyecto …

He Spoke, I Spoke: A Usage-Based Examination Of Homophony In The Navajo Verb Complex, Michael Peter Drinkwater

Linguistics ETDs

This study examines homophony between first and third person verbs and between second and third person verbs in Navajo. The typical paradigm for person-marking in Navajo has a sh- prefix for first person, a ni- prefix in second person, and a zero-marked third person. In some phonological environments, however, the first and second person pronouns are elided, producing cases of homophony between first and third and between second and third persons.

I examine all cases of this in Navajo and also provide data from Jicarilla Apache, Hupa (a Pacific Coast Athabaskan language), and three Northern Athabaskan languages: Chilcotin, Koyukon, and …

Peculiar Features Of The Category Of Emotiveness In The Literary Texts, M. S. Abduraxmonova

Central Asian Problems of Modern Science and Education

The article deals with the literary texts which are usually characterized by the category of emotiveness. Emotiveness is regarded as one of peculiar features of fictional texts. The article also includes the examples taken from different English literary texts. Usually, stylistic devices, expressive means and others are means of revealing emotionality of the particular text.

Etymology Of The English Word-Stock, The Approaches And Principles On Creating Etymological Dictionaries Of English Language, D. N. Davletova

Central Asian Problems of Modern Science and Education

This article discusses the etymology of the English word-stock, the approaches and the principles of English etymological vocabularies, which are done by various linguists. It also considers different hypothesis on the matter. The article is devoted to the comparative study of creating etymological dictionaries

Alternative Assessment As Modern Requirement Of Teaching English, S. Q. Daniyarova, L. Y. Hakimova

Central Asian Problems of Modern Science and Education

This article highlights specific features of assessing students' knowledge, abilities and skills. Unlike traditional method of teaching, alternative assessment is of ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF CENTRAL ASIAN PROBLEMS OF MODERN SCENCE AND EDUCATION. MARCH, 2019-I ISSN 2181-9750 368 high importance among language teachers and students, who prefer the utilization of modern approach. Alternative assessment is characterized by aspects such as being process oriented and having authentic character. Being continuous assessment, alternative method of evaluating students has the crucial role in terms of improving students' weaknesses and monitoring their progress

Distinguishing Features Of Sources Of Borrowings In English And Uzbek Languages, N. A. Muksimova, A. A. Yusupova

Central Asian Problems of Modern Science and Education

This article deals with different sources of borrowings in two diverse languages, English and Uzbek in particular. It is necessary to note that borrowings of English words are based on 5 different historical periods. The source languages for English borrowings are mainly Latin, French and Old Norse, whereas the origins of Uzbek language borrowings are mainly Arabic, Persian and Russian languages

Comparative Analysis Of Sentences And Its Types In English And Uzbek Languages, M. M. Kasimova

Central Asian Problems of Modern Science and Education

The article deals with the comparison of sentences and types of sentences in two different system languages, namely English and Uzbek. As the aim is to investigate thoroughly and make comparisons, sentence is defined firstly, and then types of sentences according to the aim of the interlocutor and grammatical structure are compared within the examples of English and Uzbek languages

The Formation Of Synonyms In Dictionaries, G. A. Saydaliyeva

Central Asian Problems of Modern Science and Education

This article describes the formation of synonyms in dictionaries. In our era, during the great social transformations and unprecedented scientific and technological advancement, languages are developing rapidly, with a variety of words that reflect the new concepts that emerge in various fields of science, technology and culture. The use of vocabulary is а great importance in theoretical research and practical teaching of language. Creating different types of dictionaries ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF CENTRAL ASIAN PROBLEMS OF MODERN SCENCE AND EDUCATION. MARCH, 2019-I ISSN 2181-9750 403 isvery important. Synonyms dictionary includes the meaning of the language and describes close words. These dictionaries …

The Image Of The Time And Space In The Story "An Encounter" Of Joyce's Collection "Dubliners", M. Nazira

Central Asian Problems of Modern Science and Education

The article deals with the poetics of the text of the story "An Encounter" of James Joyce in short story collection "Dubliners". The Chrono tope of space and time of the story will be revealed in the article

Pedagogical And Psychological Peculiarities Of Training Future Specialists Of Primary Education To Innovative Professional Performance, G. N. Ibragimova

Central Asian Problems of Modern Science and Education

This article is about specific psychological and pedagogical features of training future primary education specialists to innovative professional performance. Furthemore, the importance of pedagogical practise , modern technologies and cooperation with parents during preparation of future specialists of primary education to innovative professional performance are mentioned below

Universal Names And Affixoids With Gender Features In Khorezm Eposes, O. M. Kuvandik, Kh. Dildora

Central Asian Problems of Modern Science and Education

This article clarified the specific features of the Khorezm eposes and proper nouns with pecularities. This article highlighted the research results collected from more than fifty of Khorezm eposes. The author analysed the content and substitutional meaning of the consistuent parts of the proper nouns, especially names of the people. Moreover, this article gave a wide range of information on the ethimology, usage, lexic, morphologic and syntactic pecularities of the Khorezm eposes’ language. Furthermore, the author analyzed the different names with gender features, the elements that expresses the people’s gender by means of giving examples from the masterpieces of the …

Ray Bradbury`S Martian Chronicles, The Usage Of Epithetic Devices In The Stories The Rocket Summer And Ylla, N. U. Nurullayev

Central Asian Problems of Modern Science and Education

The article reveals the content of adjectives. The exploitation of epithetic ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF CENTRAL ASIAN PROBLEMS OF MODERN SCENCE AND EDUCATION. MARCH, 2019-I ISSN 2181-9750 393 devices in stories that are taken from Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles will be analyzed. In addition, the meaning of the stories, their descriptive structure will be highlighted. Some examples are given to prove the author’s ideas