Linguistics Commons^™

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 …

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 …

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:

Mediational Effects Of Desktop-Videoconferencing Telecollaborative Exchanges On The Intercultural Communicative Competence Of Students Of French As A Foreign Language, Veronique Marie Martin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Since the early 2000s, foreign language practitioners and researchers have shown an increasing interest in exploring the affordances of multimodal telecollaborative environments for the linguistic and intercultural development of their students. Due in part to their inherent complexity, one-on-one desktop-videoconferencing contexts have not been widely explored. To this end, this study investigates if and how American students of French engaged in a telecollaborative exchange with a class of French students are able to develop their Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) through online interaction and the completion of a collaborative task. Adopting a case study approach, the video-recorded sessions of three dyads …

The Acquisition Of Sociolinguistic Variation By Study Abroad Students : The Case Of American Students In Madrid, Kathryn Lee Ringer-Hilfinger

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The current investigation seeks to contribute to the emerging body of research on second language variation in Spanish. A range of dialect-specific variables is considered, both morphological and phonological. Learner acquisition of these variables is measured within a study abroad context through oral and written longitudinal data over the course of an 8-month period. Previous studies conducted in this area have considered pronoun use (Geeslin and Gudmestad 2008a; Salgado-Robles 2012) the use of /theta/ (Geeslin and Gudmestad 2008b; Willis et. al. 2009; Ringer-Hilfinger 2012; Knouse 2012), intonation strategies (Henriksen et al. 2010), and perfective past time reference (Geeslin et al. …

The Rise Of Disyllables In Old Chinese: The Role Of Lianmian Words, Jian Li

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The history of Chinese language is characterized by a clear shift from monosyllabic to disyllabic words (Wang 1980). This dissertation aims to provide a new diachronic explanation for the rise of disyllables in the history of Chinese and to demonstrate its significance for Modern Chinese prosody and lexicalization.

A corpus of 300 Lianmian words in Old Chinese was compiled, including 96 Shuāngshēng words, 172 Diéyùn words and 32 Splitting-sound words. This study builds on previous morphological and phonological research on disyllables in Chinese and looks closely at detailed aspects of Old Chinese sound patterns and their evolution. Based on the …

Understanding And Interpreting Japanese Np1 Wa Np2 Da Sentences: Mechanism And Contextual Factors, Megumi Yoshida

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the contextual factors that affect the understanding and interpretation of one Japanese topicalized construction, NP1 wa NP2 da sentences, by native speakers of Japanese. The construction allows two possibilities in the relation between the NP1 and the NP2. When the two NPs are not syntactically connected (Type I), the sentence is generally vague, and a particular context is required to specify the meaning. When they are syntactically connected (Type II), they can refer to a semantically identical referent, and the sentence is naturally interpreted as an identity sentence. The aim of the study is to examine how …

The Effect Of Direct And Indirect Corrective Feedback Taking A Sociocultural Approach, Brenda Aromu Wawire

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Debate on the effectiveness and usefulness of written corrective feedback has centered on Truscott's 1996 article that placed a strong case against grammar correction as ineffective and harmful and therefore should be abandoned. A growing body of research has proved the value of judicious and purposeful error correction and has also put forward guidelines to guide such pedagogy. The second language acquisition process is deemed to be a very complex and slow process. Therefore it is paramount that corrective feedback be structured according to an individual learner's linguistic ability. Contributing to this research base, this study investigated whether there is …

The Relationship Between Student Self-Efficacy And English Proficiency In A University Intensive English Program, Vanessa Carrie Cook

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between learner self-efficacy and English-language proficiency in a native English environment involving participants from various non-native English backgrounds. Participants were 43 English language learners in a university-level Intensive English Program in the Southeast United States. Previous studies, including those by Idrus and Sivapalan (2010); Nasseri and Zaferanieh (2012); Rahimi and Abedini (2009); Teng (2005); Tifarlioglu and Cinkara (2009); Wong (2005); and Hsieh and Kang (2010), have examined self-efficacy and learning outcomes for students who shared a comlanguage and were studying English in the students' native language environments. Findings in these …

The Right To Language, T. Humphries, R. Kushalnagar, G. Mathur, Donna Jo Napoli, C. Padden, C. Rathmann, S. Smith

Linguistics Faculty Works

We argue for the existence of a state constitutional legal right to language. Our purpose here is to develop a legal framework for protecting the civil rights of the deaf child, with the ultimate goal of calling for legislation that requires all levels of government to fund programs for deaf children and their families to learn a fully accessible language: a sign language.

A Sociolinguistic Study Of Narcotrafficker Speech In Caqueta, Colombia (Estudio Sociolinguistico Del Lenguaje Del Narcotrafico En La Region De Caqueta, Colombia), Eva NúÑEz-MéNdez

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

This research comprehends a sociolinguistic analysis of Colombian Spanish which needs to be framed under the circumstances of the drug trafficking as a current practice in the region of Caqueta. The linguistic variety and lexicon in this area can only be studied according to this peculiar socioeconomic context of illegal drug trade in the rural and agricultural south of Colombia Due to this factor, numerous new words and expressions have been added to the general lexicon related to the cultivation, manufacturing, distribution and sale of drugs, especially cocaine. This new vocabulary is current in both the media and colloquial Spanish. …

The Knowledge, Experience, Skills, And Characteristics Tesol Employers Seek In Job Candidates, Caprice L. Bailey, Mark W. Tanner, Lynn E. Henrichsen, Dan Dewey

Faculty Publications

In a competitive marketplace, job candidates need to know what TESOL employers are seeking in new hires. A 12-month study of TESOL job announcements examined the types of work offered and the candidate knowledge, experience, skills, and personal characteristics TESOL employers were seeking in fulltime hires. An analysis of 169 job advertisements indicates that employers prefer applicants with knowledge and experience not only in teaching but also in curriculum development, teacher education, and program administration. Regarding candidates’ personal characteristics, employers seek individuals who have strong interpersonal and teamwork skills, as well as effective oral and written communication skills and computer …

Strategy Use Of Russian Pre-Service Tefl University Students: Using A Strategy Inventory For Program Effectiveness Evaluation, Alla Zareva, Anna Fomina

English Faculty Publications

The focus of the present study is on identifying categories of learning strategies that are mostly used by Russian university students in an English Linguistics Program with a TEFL concentration. The more specific goal of the study is to offer a model of evaluation of the effectiveness of TEFL-oriented programs in terms of the language learning strategies their students use and recognize as pedagogically applicable to their EFL environment. To this end, two groups of students were compared on their self-reported frequency of strategy use -- 1st year students (n = 23), who had just entered the program, and 4th …

Gotcha: What Social Activists Can Learn From Pranksters, Janet M. Bing

English Faculty Publications

It is unfortunate that, even today, feminist messages too often go unheard and feminist issues are too often dismissed by mainstream audiences, partly because feminists continue to be stereotyped as angry and humorless. Yet some social activists use pranks to draw attention to important issues because humor is one strategic way to send messages about sexism to those who may discount ideas presented in a more direct manner. Although there have been relatively few successful feminist pranksters, humor is increasingly being used to convey women's issues in a growing number of feminist blogs and videos. This essay explores pranking and …

Contemporary English In The Usa, Melissa Axelrod, Joanne Scheibman

English Faculty Publications

Indigenous and immigrant speakers from a variety of linguistic and sociocultural backgrounds have in different ways contributed to the development of present day American English, as have the geographical and social dimensions of the country. This paper provides a survey of contemporary usage of American English by describing and illustrating linguistic features documented for social and regional groups in the United States. The focus on variation in pronunciation, grammar, and meaning in American English highlights the diversity of dialects and styles in the U.S. as well as the centrality of sociocultural identities to language use. We group examples of variation …

The Structure Of Jarai Clauses And Noun Phrases, Joshua Martin Jensen

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation provides a syntactic account for the Jarai noun phrase and for the three regions of the Jarai clause: the operator domain, the inflectional domain, and the theta domain. Within the noun phrase, I argue that demonstrative-final word order involves phrasal movement of the demonstrative's complement into Spec,D, where it identifies null definite D. Jarai classifiers, rather than being heads in the functional spine of the DP, are shown to form a constituent with numerals, and this classifier--numeral phrase merges as the specifier of a number (plurality) head. In the operator domain, three head positions can be identified: a …

A Corpus-Based Analysis Of Discourse Anaphora In English And Korean: A Neo-Gricean Pragmatic Approach, Sok-Hun Kim

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation explores discourse anaphora in English and Korean by using a neo-Gricean pragmatic approach with corpus-based data. Very little study of Korean discourse anaphora has yet taken place at the inter-sentential level, except works looking at zero anaphor and a logophoric reflexive pronoun caki`self'. This research fills this gap by examining two types of discourse anaphora at the discourse level: discourse anaphoric patterns (by order of mention of the referent and by placement of the paragraph) and sentential anaphors. Two quantitative methods were adopted to verify the distribution and the selection of anaphora: natural data collection and a survey. …

Form Interference Effects During Silent Reading, Iya Khelm, Naoko Witzel, Jeffrey Witzel

Linguistics & TESOL Faculty Publications & Presentations - Archive

Although many studies have shown that phonological repetition causes reading comprehension difficulties, the nature of these processing costs remains unclear. Purpose of the study: to shed light on this issue by examining (i) the time-course of form interference effects, (ii) the interaction of these effects with syntactic processing difficulty, (iii) the extent to which these effects relate to phonological or orthographic overlap.

The Effect Of Sequent Input On Speech Accuracy And Fluency In Adults At The Intermediate Level, Salah Farah

Doctoral Dissertations

To help students achieve their potential, input/feedback must be sequenced by the level of complexity that immediately follows the student's actual developmental level. I assert that effective input/feedback has to follow a set of suggested but not directly expressed rules that represent basic criteria for the development of communicative competence. This study made these criteria explicit, and converted them into ready-for-use input/feedback specifications. Such specifications allow instructors to provide effective remedies to treat particular interlanguage errors. Thus, it is important that instructors understand how to sequence input/feedback to target students differentially in response to their different proficiency levels.

The study …