Linguistics Commons^™

Ethnic Group Affiliation And Second Language Acquisition, Sarah Franklin, Dr. Wendy Baker-Smemoe

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Over the past forty years a significant amount of research has explored how to improve second language (L2) acquisition, most of which has examined factors that influence this ability. Little research, however, has examined how ethnic group affiliation (defined as how closely you feel attached to your native culture and language) affects this learning, especially in bilingual communities. It is hoped that the current research will not only help in understanding the many factors that influence L2 acquisition, but may also demonstrate how ethnic group affiliation can be used to preserve endangered languages throughout the world.

A Study Of Second Language Acquisition Of Glottal Ejectives Through A Comparative Phonetic Analysis Of Mayan Q’Eqchi’ Native Speakers And English L2 Learners Of Q’Eqchi’, Karl Olaw Christian Wagner, Dr. Wendy Baker Smemoe

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The research the grant from the Office of Research and Creative Activities has allowed me to perform has been a wonderful opportunity that has helped me to take my undergraduate work to a higher level. To be able to apply the linguistic knowledge I’ve gained in the classroom in real research, even research abroad at that has been of great worth to me. The entire process has been a learning experience and continues to be so as I finish my work on this project. This process, from the first rough sketches of a possible research project to the current work …

Japanese Sentence Parsing In An Artificial Intelligence System, Nathan Glenn, Dr. Deryle Lonsdale

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In this project, we created a Japanese sentence parser that functions within a cognitive modeling architecture known as Soar. It was created by modifying an existing English parser called XNL-Soar, which implements minimalist principles in syntactic parsing. Japanese lexical access is performed via GoSen and a Java interface to the Japanese WordNet, and syntactic and semantic processing is done within Soar. The ease with which the parser was modified to process Japanese input is extremely encouraging and lends support to its use as model of human sentence processing, as well as to the Minimalist Program in linguistics. The system is …

April 5, 2014: Wright Lecture Wraps Up Speakers Series, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Educational Engagement In Boston’S Vietnamese Community: Asian American Studies Program Student-Faculty-Alumni Engagement With Teachers, Students, And Families Of The Mather School (Bps) In Dorchester, Asian American Studies Program, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Founded in 1639, the Mather Elementary School in Dorchester is the oldest public elementary school in the US. In 2012, nearly 40% of Mather students were Vietnamese American from immigrant households. The Mather School’s Vietnamese Structured English Immersion (SEI) program is the largest in Boston. In 1993, Ngoc-lan (Loni) Nguyen, a Vietnamese refugee student in education and Asian American Studies at UMass Boston, was hired as a 4th grade bilingual teacher. Many of Lan’s students later attended UMass Boston where they reconnected educationally with the importance of Vietnamese American identity, community, and empowerment in AsAmSt courses. In 2007, Lan visited …

Attachment Representations And Mother-Child Dialogue, Baiba Barene

Open Access Theses

With the emerging linguistic competencies of the child, dialogue becomes a regular part of mother-child everyday interactions, and may serve as one of the mechanisms of transmission of attachment in early and middle childhood. The goal of this study was to investigate the hypothesis about the co-constructive nature of children's knowledge of secure base script. Formation of the secure base script is a result of child-caregiver interactions that have been consolidated into a unit of knowledge available for use in attachment related situations. Individual attachment narratives and mother-child co-constructed narratives were collected from 86 mother-child dyads when children were 3.7 …

Production And Consumption: A Closer Look At Adult Digital Literacy Acquisition, Gloria Jacobs, Jill Castek, Drew Pizzolato, Stephen Reder, Kimberly D. Pendell

Presentations and Publications

In this column, the authors discuss emerging research in the field of adult digital literacy acquisition. The authors argue that the field of adult digital literacy acquisition has been under researched, especially in relation to multiliteracies and multimodal literacy practices. Data emerging from a large scale mixed methods study of adults engaged with Learner Web, a selfaccess online learning system, indicate that opportunities to engage in tutor-facilitated digital literacy acquisition, among populations that have been historically left out of the digital revolution, has the potential to change lives. Additionally, the research provides insights into the shifts learners undergo as they …

Language, Cultural Competence, And Workload: Experiences Of Bilingual And Multilingual Social Workers, Kelly Schussler

Thinking Matters Symposium Archive

Qualitative study that explores the experiences of bilingual social workers.

El Pasado Lingüístico Colonial Y Las Lenguas De Instrucción En La Educación Filipina, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Online Oral Practice On Japanese Pitch Accentuation Acquisition, Mayu Miyamoto

Open Access Theses

Even though there is a constant learners' need for pronunciation instruction in a Japanese language classroom, some teachers are hesitant to include pronunciation instruction due to time constrains or lack of knowledge on how to teach pronunciation. These problems occur due to the fact that pronunciation instructions were mostly conducted in classrooms. Computer-Assisted Language Learning is a great way to overcome these problems since learners can practice pronunciation through an online program outside of class. For this reason, this study was conducted outside of class using an online program. This research investigated the effectiveness of online oral practice on Japanese …

What Residualizing Predictors In Regression Analyses Does (And What It Does Not Do), Lee H. Wurm, Sebastiano A. Fisicaro

Psychology Faculty Research Publications

Psycholinguists are making increasing use of regression analyses and mixed-effects modeling. In an attempt to deal with concerns about collinearity, a number of researchers orthogonalize predictor variables by residualizing (i.e., by regressing one predictor onto another, and using the residuals as a stand-in for the original predictor). In the current study, the effects of residualizing predictor variables are demonstrated and discussed using ordinary least-squares regression and mixed-effects models. Some of these effects are almost certainly not what the researcher intended and are probably highly undesirable. Most importantly, what residualizing does not do is change the result for the residualized variable, …

Event Structure Of Resultatives In Asl, Ashley Kentner

Open Access Theses

The relationship between the duration and telicity of the causing predicate and the gradability and standard of comparison of the resultant predicate in resultative constructions in American Sign Language (ASL) is investigated. Two homomorphic accounts of resultative constructions are considered, the feature-based approach of Beavers (2008), and the compositional approach of Ramchand (2008). The analysis utilizes morpho-phonological and semantics interface properties in ASL in order to discriminate between the two approaches. These properties are expressed by the Visibility Hypothesis (VH) in Wilbur, Malaia, and Shay (2012), which posits that the ends of semantic scales are phonologically marked in ASL in …

The Effect Of Visual Feedback On Voice Onset Time Productions By L2 Learners Of Spanish, Heather Michelle Offerman

Open Access Theses

Research suggests that pronunciation instruction should be developed and taught in the second language classroom (Derwing & Munro, 2005; Elliott, 1997; Simões, 1996) in order to facilitate intelligible and comprehensible utterances in the L2 (Derwing & Munro, 1997). Although accentedness does not always create intelligibility issues, it can be the catalyst to negative native speaker perceptions of second language learners' speech (Derwing & Munro, 2009). One distinctive marker of accent among native speakers of English and Spanish is the duration of aspiration values for the voiceless plosives /p/ /t/ /k/ (Lord, 2005). The present study proposes the use of visual …

Software Architecture And Development For Controlling A Hubo Humanoid Robot, Anne Giulia Pellicciotti

Open Access Theses

This study considers the level of involvement of participants viewing bilingual and English language TV commercials. It analyzes results from 295 non-Hispanic participants studying at a Midwestern university. In the study, participants were asked to view four commercials. Using Zaichkowsky's (1994) 10-item Personal Involvement Inventory (PII), participants scaled the advertisements on a 7-level scale. The scale evaluated participants' emotional and cognitive involvement with the ad. This between-subjects design required that participants be randomly separated into viewing all-English or all-bilingual advertisements. Findings showed no significant difference in involvement levels between bilingual or English commercials within this demographic group. Those with higher …

Patterns Of Language Use And Language Choice Among The Cuban Community In Russia, Maria Yakushkina

Open Access Theses

The multiculturalism of a modern society involves constant interrelations of minority and dominant linguistic communities, which are reflected in language. Within this context patterns of language use and choice, language attitudes and language and identity connection have received special attention from a sociolinguistic perspective to better understand the outcomes of such language contact

The aim of the present study is to analyze patterns of language use, language choice, and language identity issues of two groups of Cuban immigrants in Russian society: individuals born in Cuba with both parents of Cuban origin (CC group) and individuals born in Cuba from mixed …

Honorific Usage In Educational And Medical Institutions, Shohko Yanagisawa

Open Access Theses

Obana (2000) and Inoue (1979) state that professors/doctors receive exalting language from administrative staff members when they refer to professors/doctors with people from outside. Similarly, Kego no Shishin (2007) suggests that administrative staff members in educational/medical institutions can use an honorary title with professors/doctors. Obana's and Inoue's claims and Kego no Shishin's recommendation is not in line with the concept of relative honorifics. Considering the fact that Obana's and Inoue's claims have yet to be supported by an empirical study, this study attempted to investigate honorific usage in educational and medical institutions in order to 1) test Obana's and Inoue's …

The Case Of Capaz In Argentina: An Epistemic Adverb With Mood Variability, Boris Yelin

Open Access Theses

This thesis examines mood selection in Argentine Spanish with epistemic adverbs considering the independent variables of certainty, temporal reference, and epistemic adverb. It is the first known study to investigate mood selection with the epistemic adverb capaz . A sentence completion task included 24 written contexts, each followed by a sentence with an epistemic adverbial to be completed with a verb, either in the indicative or subjunctive. The contexts contained information that made participants Certain (N = 12) or Not Certain (N = 12). Within the Certain and Not Certain contexts, four contexts expressed events in the future, four in …

Clausal Complements To Attitude Predicates Cross-Linguistically: Being Glad About What You Thought You Knew, Eric Anthony Follett

Open Access Theses

In this thesis I explore the syntactic structure of emotive factive predicates in Spanish, English, Tatar, and Mayangna. I analyze emotive factive predicates of the glad type, such as (1). (1) I'm glad you liked the cake.

First, I analyze the basic structural configuration of these predicates, claiming that the clausal Source of Experience argument is a complement to the lexical head glad. This is similar to the configuration of canonical transitive attitude predicates like semi-factive know and intensional think. Second, I claim, following Kiparsky and Kiparsky (1970) and Krapova (2010), that factive heads select complements headed by a (null) …

English In South Asia And Pedagogical Implications, Brittany R. Ehret

Senior Honors Theses

English at present maintains a significant role as a second or foreign language in the region of South Asia as well as globally. In a discussion of this topic, it is important to explore a brief history of the expansion of English and its origins in South Asia. It is also essential to provide a background of South Asian English and its unique linguistic characteristics as well as its use in different contexts of South Asia. The perspectives of linguists and educators who are native to the region of South Asia should be included as much as possible in this …

March 30, 2014: Nagle Presents On Queer Theory In The 18th Century, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

March 29, 2014: Maisha Winn Visit A Success, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

March 23, 2014: Maisha Winn Visit To Wmu, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Equality Isn’T All It’S Cracked Up To Be: The Price Of Duality And Bilingualism, Alexandria Roberts-Mendel

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

In the province of New Brunswick, English and French have shared co-official status since 1969, with the approval of the Official Languages Act. Francophones (French-speakers) make up a little over 31% of the population, and Anglophones (English-speakers) are the majority at 69% of the population. Even with equal linguistic rights, the Francophone minority often struggles to receive equal treatment in areas such as health care and education. From May-July 2013, I worked with Professor Keating Marshall on a SURP project, collecting 17 months’ worth of op-ed articles and letters to the editor from two of Southeastern New Brunswick’s Anglophone newspapers, …

Code Switching Between Tamazight And Arabic In The First Libyan Berber News Broadcast: An Application Of Myers-Scotton's Mlf And 4m Models, Ashour S. Abdulaziz

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study is to investigate the nature of code switching between Tamazight and Arabic in light of Myers-Scotton's Matrix Frame Model (MLF) (Myers- Scotton, 1993), and the 4-M model of code switching (Myers-Scotton & Jake, 2000). Data come from the very first Libyan Tamazight news broadcast in Libya on May 2, 2011, during the uprising against the Gaddafi regime. I analyzed the broadcast in an attempt to understand the nature and implications of the switching between the two languages in the utterances of the speakers in the video. I also argued that in many ways what many …

Opportunities For Incidental Acquisition Of Academic Vocabulary From Teacher Speech In An English For Academic Purposes Classroom, Eric Dean Dodson

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teacher's speech throughout one curricular unit of an intermediate grammar and writing course in order to better understand which high-value vocabulary students might acquire through attending to the teacher and noticing words that are used.

Vocabulary acquisition is important for English for Academic Purposes students, given the vocabulary demands of academic language. The Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000) has been shown to include important vocabulary in written academic texts, and has become a standard part of English for Academic Purposes curricula and pedagogical materials. Although explicit vocabulary instruction is important, research …

Interpreting Standard Usage Empirically, Jacob F. Frandsen

Theses and Dissertations

Writers, editors, and everyday language users look to dictionaries, style guides, usage guides, and other published works to help inform their language decisions. They want to know what is Standard English and what is not. Commentators have been prescribing and proscribing certain usages for centuries; however, their advice has traditionally been based on the subjective opinions of the authors. Recent works have analyzed usage by relying wholly or partly on statistical and descriptive data rather than traditional opinion alone; however, no work has presented statistical usage data in a user-friendly and consistent format. This study presents a statistically based methodology …

March 19, 2014: New Issue Of Comparative Drama, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Automatic Readability Detection For Modern Standard Arabic, Jonathan Neil Forsyth

Theses and Dissertations

Research for automatic readability prediction of text has increased in the last decade and has shown that various machine learning methods can effectively address this problem. Many researchers have applied machine learning to readability prediction for English, while Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) has received little attention. Here I describe a system which leverages machine learning to automatically predict the readability of MSA. I gathered a corpus comprising 179 documents that were annotated with the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) levels. Then, I extracted lexical and discourse features from each document. Finally, I applied the Tilburg Memory-Based Learning (TiMBL) machine learning system …

March 18, 2014: Grad Student Featured In New Publication From The Newberry, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Age On Second Language Acquisition In Older Adults, Charisse Alaine Major

Theses and Dissertations

A primary purpose of second language (L2) research is to determine what factors hinder or help L2 acquisition. One aspect that has a strong effect on L2 proficiency is learners' age of onset of acquisition (AOA) (Johnson & Newport, 1989). These studies and others suggest that younger learners are more adept than older learners at learning an L2, especially to a near-native level. However, some older learners can become quite proficient in an L2 (Ioup, et al. 1994; Bialystok, 1997; Bongaerts, 1999), although learners who have acquired the L2 over the age of 30 are rarely studied. Why is it …