Linguistics Commons^™

The Academic And Cultural Adaptation Of Chinese International Students At Umass Boston: The Struggles And Progress From The Perspectives Of Students And Professors, Pingping Chen, Theodora Chocos, Lorena Fuentes

English Faculty Publication Series

This panel will articulate the struggles and progress of Chinese international students in their learning processes at UMass Boston. Additionally, the challenges some professors have faced in teaching Chinese international students and the pedagogical practice they have used to engage these learners in their courses will be addressed.

This panel was presented as part of the 2014 8th Annual University Conference on Teaching, Learning, and Technology on May 15, 2014. The theme of the conference was "Teaching both What and How for Deep Learning at Every Level."

Order Of The Major Constituents In Sign Languages: Implications For All Language, Donna Jo Napoli, R. Sutton-Spence

Linguistics Faculty Works

A survey of reports of sign order from 42 sign languages leads to a handful of generalizations. Two accounts emerge, one amodal and the other modal. We argue that universal pressures are at work with respect to some generalizations, but that pressure from the visual modality is at work with respect to others. Together, these pressures conspire to make all sign languages order their major constituents SOV or SVO. This study leads us to the conclusion that the order of S with regard to verb phrase (VP) may be driven by sensorimotor system concerns that feed universal grammar.

May 6, 2014: Newberry Grad Seminar, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

The New Normal: Goodness Judgments Of Non-Invariant Speech, Julia R. Drouin

Honors Scholar Theses

Previous research has found that perceptual learning, or normalizing the idiosyncratic phonemes of speech, causes a shift in speech sound category boundaries. The present study examined if perceptual learning was limited to the boundary or if also caused a shift in internal category structure. Seventeen individuals participated in three behavioral tasks to explicate this question. In the Lexical Decision task, participants were trained in either /s/-biasing or /ʃ/- biasing context. In the Goodness Judgment task, participants rated a continuum of sounds on perceived /s/ goodness using a designated scale. Finally, in the Phoneme Identification task, participants listened to the same …

Alice's Adventure Through Second Language Acquisition: An Educator's Perspective, Jessica Pryor Lee

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The author employs narrative writing to illustrate annotated bibliographies, classroom observations, research and research proposals, and self-reflections for second language learning. Elementary, secondary, adult, and college-level teachings are addressed. The author focuses on communicative language teaching, brain-based teaching, and dual language immersion with content based instruction. She addresses the importance of writing, authentic materials, task-based activities, communication, and the recognition of heritage learners. The main character is Alice and she travels through Argentina and Chile. Footnotes are used to keep the narrative style of the portfolio coherent. While the storyline is fictitious, all information included is based on the author’s …

The Effects Of Gender On Interruption Among Peers, Kelsey R. Stubbs

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Studies of mixed-gender conversation have established that the gender of speakers plays a role in talking power, conversational dominance, topic control, and perception of the speaker’s communicative ability. The purpose of this study was to expand upon previous research of interruption by examining its function and frequency in conversation among peers. While previous research in this area has focused on interruption in the workplace or the home, this research examines its place in mixed-gender conversation between university students. Participants in this study were recorded in group conversation and the transcription was later analyzed for general trends of interruption with relation …

Teaching Arabic And English To Speakers Of Other Languages: The Application Of Theory-Grounded Methods, Mohammed Hussein

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is a collection of artifacts that represent the author’s beliefs and ideas about teaching a second language. The first section is the author’s teaching philosophy statement, in which he explains how to apply the three modes of communication in the second language classroom. The second section is a literacy artifact that addresses how to use literature to heighten learners’ level of second language literacy. The following two artifacts are on two basic applications of sociocultural theory: concept-based instruction and dynamic assessment. The cultural artifact addresses the pedagogical implications of code-switching in the Arabic language classroom. The third artifact …

Language Learners, Inequality Regimes, And Secondary Schooling: Dilemmas Of The New South, Karen Gober

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores the structure of the secondary education system in Northwest Arkansas and how it shapes the culture of education for newly arrived Latino immigrants. Significant achievement gaps remain between non-Hispanic white students and Latinos within secondary education. Uncovering possible causes for this gap is necessary in order to allow equal educational opportunity for all students. While prior researchers debate the method of language instruction as a barrier to education, there has been little attention to the relationship between organizational structure and levels of achievement. In-depth interviews with teachers and administrators reveal a consistent theme: large amounts of time …

An Examination Of High School And College Students' Chatspeak Use In Twitter And Tumblr, Megan Jeanette Charters

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The advent of the Internet has led to the creation of new technology, and with it, a whole new language. There has also been resistance both to the technology and to the language. The best example of this would be social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, and texting. Many articles have been written on this subject and how its use is ruining the English language, saying that teenagers are more likely to use chatspeak, such as u for you and r for are, in their writing. I take the opposite position, that the English language is evolving and chatspeak …

Comparison Of Two Word Learning Techniques And The Effect Of Neighborhood Density For Late Talkers, Shari L. Deveney, Cynthia J. Cress, Robert Reid

Special Education and Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

The investigators compared two techniques for teaching expressive vocabulary to late talkers: modeling with an expectant pause and modeling with an evoked child production. They also explored the influence of neighborhood density on children’s real word learning. Three late talkers (ages 25–33 months) received two alternating vocabulary treatments (expectant pause and evoked production) in the home. Two participants were identified as having an expressive language delay, and one participant was identified as having an expressive and receptive language delay. During the expectant pause treatment, the clinician paused several seconds after each target word model, looking at the child expectantly. In …

"Hey, Y'Guys!": A Diachronic Usage-Based Approach To Changes In American English Address, Ben Sienicki

Linguistics ETDs

This dissertation adopts a functional, usage-based perspective on language to highlight key changes in American English address over the past century, especially the development of 'you guys' and its expansion across second-person plural contexts. Based on data from the Corpus of Historical American English and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (among other corpora), the study tracks the increasing usage, gradual restructuring, semantic generalization, and shifting registers of 'you guys', including the interactions of those changes as the form has grammaticalized. This work offers an explanation, therefore, as to why 'you guys' has been uniquely reshaped into a pronominal unit …

'This Would Be Much Funner In Person': A Qualitative Grounded Theory Analysis Of Cybergrooming, Maurice Jason Gauz

Dissertations and Theses

The rather novel phenomenon of cybergrooming, or the solicitation of minors for sex via the Internet, has yet to be fully explored. This is a problem because such predatory behavior can lead to psychological and/or physical abuse of minors. The present study seeks to fill this knowledge by performing a qualitative, grounded theory analysis of naturally-occurring cybergrooming discourse. Data were drawn from the website of the online watchdog group, Perverted Justice. The first 20 lines of talk transmitted by the adults in these chat conversations were sampled from 100 transcripts published by Perverted Justice.
Multi-step coding, facilitated by the qualitative …

Ideophones In Manyika Shona: A Descriptive Analysis Of Ideophones And Their Function In Manyika (Bantu), Genevieve E. Franck

Linguistics

Ideophones are a class of words which occur in many languages throughout the world, but are relatively uncommon in English. Though often mimetic, ideophones are not to be confused with onomatopoeia since they extend well beyond the narrow scope of sound only symbolism. In the past, ideophones have been difficult for linguists to categorize and understand due to their limited usage in many of their native European languages. These words are marked due to their divergent phonology, morphology, syntax, or all of the above. Ideophones often vividly depict one or more sensory events, ranging from sight to emotion. This paper …

Adjectives, Be Verbs, And Derterminers In Manyika Shona, Grace Teubl

Linguistics

Manyika is a dialect of Shona, a Bantu language spoken in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Like many Bantu languages, Manyika has a noun class system, which affects the morphology and phonology of many parts of speech including nouns, verbs, adjectives, and determiners. In this paper, noun class is studied in relation to adjectives, stative verbs, and determiners. In addition, there is a section on the use of the be-verb in Manyika Shona, and a section on combinations of determiners and the syntax of the determiner phrases.

Effects Of The First Language On Japanese Esl Learners' Answers To Negative Questions, Kosuke Kanda

Dissertations and Theses

This study investigates how Japanese learners of English respond to English negative questions. Previous research has reported that Japanese learners of English make errors in yes/no responses to English negative questions due to the first language (L1) influence (Kang & Lim-chang, 1998; Takashima, 1989). From the perspective of L1 influence, there are two learning pitfalls: different functions of the yes/no response and different interpretations of negative questions. Both of these influences were examined in this study.

This study involved 8 Japanese learners of English, 4 females and 4 males, attending Portland State University (PSU). In order to elicit data that …

April 24, 2014: Shakespeare's Jewish Women, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Implications Of Autosegmental Analysis In The Exploration Of Prosodic Phonology In Mandarin Chinese, Kristen Frazier

Senior Honors Theses

Autosegmental Phonology (Goldsmith, 1979) is a theoretical framework for understanding the phonological effects of suprasegmentals such as tone, stress, etc. Using data taken from an experiment in which Mandarin Chinese tone sandhi (the acknowledged rules governing specific tone shifts across segments) is explored, a number of phonologists, specifically Kenstowicz (2003), have shown that the relationship between the segment and the tone is autonomous. In the experiment, non-sense words with a potential tone sandhi rule are presented to the Mandarin speakers. The speakers automatically apply the tone sandhi rule which is then analyzed using an autosegmental framework. The speakers consciously separate …

Is Self-Sufficiency Really Sufficient? A Critical Analysis Of Federal Refugee Resettlement Policy And Local Attendant English Language Training In Portland, Oregon, Domminick Mcparland

Dissertations and Theses

Since the 1951 United Nations Convention, nations have dealt with refugee issues in various ways. In the United States, since the Vietnam War, there has been great debate and a significant amount of research on issues of refugee resettlement, with these discourses inherently involving issues of power and ideology. English language training and the promotion of economic self-sufficiency have been interventions used to integrate and assimilate refugees into American culture and society. These two interventions were the subject of the current investigation.

The purpose of this study was to look into the way federal refugee resettlement policy mandated by the …

April 21, 2014: The Newberry Center For Renaissance Studies Presents, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Tshiluba Language Structures, Vanessa Rosenbaum, Kelli Billings, Janessa Gohn, Libby Holcomb, Jessica Lahey, Jessica Milanez, Kelly Nuttall, Tyler Scoggins, Kristen Smith, Stephanie Todd, Jake Young, Albert Romain Bantumbakulu Mukuna, Daniel Miko-Mikyene

College of Arts and Sciences Presentations

This poster provides a preliminary description of the linguistic features of Tshiluba (also known as Luba-Kasai), a major language spoken in the south-central, Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and by several refugee families in the Boise area. Tshiluba is characterized as an Atlantic-Congo, Narrow Bantu, Central language (L31) within the Niger-Congo language family and, although it is spoken by over 6 million people and enjoys national language status in DRC, it has not received extensive recent attention in the linguistic literature. Over the course of a semester, our group has met with native speakers of Tshiluba …

The Analogical Modeling Of Variation In Russian Inflectional Morphology, Vitalijs Sadovskis, Dr. Royal Skousen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The primary purpose of this project was to explain the common and frequently occurring phenomena of variation in Russian morphology. This research is based on empirical data from the Russian language output of native speakers of Russian. The data sets were prepared for and processed by the Analogical Modeling software designed specifically for predicting language behavior. The results of computer analysis were compared with the actual language usage.

April 20, 2014: Award-Winning Writer Yoko Tawada Reading At Wmu, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 17, 2014: Newberry Graduate Scholar-In-Residence Opportunity!, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 16, 2014: Nigerian Writer Chika Unigwe Visits Wmu, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Knowing Knobe: A Linguistic Approach, Justin Stark

Journal of Undergraduate Research

People encounter and make decisions constantly. Trivially, we may need to decide which color blue better matches our eyes or, significantly, we may be asked to make a decision as participants in a jury, a decision that could affect the rest of someone’s life. Some of the more important and influential decisions we make are moral decisions. There has been a lot of interesting research analyzing and discussing moral decisions and the studies range in discipline from neuroscience to philosophy. Some of this research has suggested that language can play an important role in our decision-making processes as well as …

April 11, 2014: Where Is The Neil Degrasse Tyson Of The Humanities?, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Corpus Linguistics Of The Vernacular: “Catching A Cold” In Text Types That Complement Google Books Data, Laurel Smith Stvan

Linguistics & TESOL Faculty Publications & Presentations - Archive

Poster presented at the Texas Digital Humanities Consortium (TXDHC) on April 11, 2014

April 8, 2014: Bradburn To Participate In Neh Seminar, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Arabic Study Abroad: An Exploratory Study Of Connections Between Journal Writing And Language Gains, Kendon Kurzer, Dr. Dan Dewey

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This project explored connections between language gains and instances of positive and negative responses as recorded in pseudo-dialogue journals kept by second language learners of Arabic participating in a study abroad (SA) program to Jordan. Daily journals from seven of forty-four total participants were analyzed for this project: those of the four students who showed the most proficiency gains over the course of the program as determined by pre- and post-study abroad program Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) scores, and those of the three students who showed no proficiency gains between their pre- and post-program OPI scores. Trends noted included the …

Factors Influencing Language Gains For Chinese Speakers During Study Abroad, Spencer Ring, Andrew Westover, Dr. Dan Dewey

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In this project, we aimed to investigate factors that influence study abroad students’ development of linguistic proficiency in Mandarin Chinese. We decided to focus on Mandarin Chinese because, as Dewey (2007) observes, an understanding of what factors affect the development of proficiency in Asian languages is limited compared with European languages, which have received more research focus in second language acquisition studies.