Linguistics Commons^™

Mere Wudu Legend, Alexis L. Campos, Ixchel Mireles, Bryon Haynes, David Kamal, Zachariah Gonzalez

Team - Mere Wudu - Documents

A story written in Ietic that discusses climate change and how it has impacted our society and land. An English version, Ietic version and a version written in our own alphabet is provided

Mere Wudu Semantics And Pragmatics, Alexis L. Campos, Ixchel Mireles, Bryon Haynes, David Kamal, Zachariah Gonzalez

Team - Mere Wudu - Documents

The Semantics and Pragmatics of our language. Descriptions and explanations of our religious and cultural values and beliefs.

Mere Wudu; Phonological Inventory, Alexis L. Campos, Ixchel Mireles, Bryon Haynes, David Kamal, Zachariah Gonzalez

Team - Mere Wudu - Documents

Display of the Consonants and Vowels used to create our language.

Theshrahk Thwath Poem, Mary Arnolds, Sofia Farias, Alexandra Renteria, Nicholas Denmark

Team - Theshrahk Thwath - Documents

This is an original poem written in Theshalshe’s romanized form and orthography and translated into English. The personification of a plant reflects the Theshrahk Thwath society’s close identification to nature.

Theshrahk Thwath Syntax & Grammar, Mary Arnolds, Sofia Farias, Alexandra Renteria, Nicholas Denmark

Team - Theshrahk Thwath - Documents

This document contains different sentence structures that can occur in Theshalshe, highlighting the subject-verb-object pattern. There are examples of plurals, different tenses, conjunctions, adjectives and adverbs. There are also syntactic tree diagrams.

Theshrahk Thwath Semantics And Pragmatics, Mary Arnolds, Sofia Farias, Alexandra Renteria, Nicholas Denmark

Team - Theshrahk Thwath - Documents

This document contains some semantic fields and pragmatic conventions of the Theshalshe language, including apologies, story openings, and conversational turn-taking.

Theshrahk Thwath Swadesh List, Mary Arnolds, Sofia Farias, Alexandra Renteria, Nicholas Denmark

Team - Theshrahk Thwath - Documents

This document contains some the lexicon, verb conjugation patters, plural structures, and nominalization pattern of Theshalshe. The lexicon entries are presented in Theshalshe, romanized form, and a pronunciation guide using the IPA.

Muzibogun Pragmatics, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This shows how and when certain language elements and politeness strategies are used.

Spoken Melodies: A Black Languaging Ela Curriculum, Taylor Gray , '26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

Aceptación De La Variedad Hispanounidense: Un Paso Hacia La Descolonización De La Lingüística Española En Los Estados Unidos, Wendell J. Shank

International Journal on Responsibility

Resumen

La emergente variedad de español que se habla en los Estados Unidos (EE. UU.). carece de prestigio entre la lingüística española a pesar de que cualquier crítica dirigida a ella pueda ser dirigida a otras variedades aceptadas. Esto lleva a la conclusión de que los lingüistas no reconocen la variedad hispanounidense a causa de la historia de colonización y la mente colonizada de ambos: los hablantes de esta variedad y los lingüistas que la estudian. Hay que tomar un paso hacia la descolonización de la lingüística española para producir grandes cambios positivos tanto personales como sociales en los EE. …

An International Framework And A Local Standardised Test: A Former Item Writer’S Autoethnography, Xuan Minh Ngo

The Qualitative Report

A recent trend dominating education worldwide is the enactment of external accountability frameworks and standards-based assessment. Likewise, in language education, international standards like the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) have been increasingly used for local standardised test development and alignment. However, there has been little research into the application of the CEFR in item writing, the activity of creating new items and associated materials, in local standardised testing contexts. To bridge this gap, this autoethnography shares my firsthand experience of writing items for a locally-developed, CEFR-aligned standardised English test in Vietnam. By combining evocative and analytic autoethnography, I aim …

Competitive Language Use: A Linguistic Analysis Of Speech And Debate, Gina Iberri-Shea

Studies in Debate and Oratory

This study explores linguistic variation in competitive debate and prepared speech. A corpus of competitive public speech was collected and the situational characteristics of two contexts were analyzed. The linguistic characteristics of texts in each category were calculated along five dimensions of variation found across texts in English, and placed among other types of texts. Results show that three of the dimensions were able to distinguish between the two registers. The results indicate a clear direction for future work and implications for English for Academic Purposes instruction.

La Intensificación En Los Comentarios De Noticias: La Prensa Deportiva Digital, David Sanchez-Jimenez

Publications and Research

Las plataformas digitales de los periódicos permiten una comunicación más fluida y dinámica con y entre la audiencia, que refleja algunos patrones de la comunicación oral (Briz, 1997, 1998; Yus, 2001, 2010; Albelda, 2004; Albelda y Estellés, 2021). Entre ellos, se encuentran los recursos lingüísticos de intensificación que refuerzan la fuerza ilocutiva de los comentarios emitidos, en una clara apuesta por dotar al texto de una mayor interactividad con sus potenciales receptores. El objetivo de esta investigación consiste en conocer cómo se relacionan entre sí los participantes de estas plataformas en la prensa deportiva. En particular, se prestó especial atención …

Digital Multimodal Composing In An L2 Italian Classroom: The Effects Of Digital Video Projects On Students’ Development And Investment, Francesca Marino

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite the calls for integrating digital multimodal composing (DMC) into second language (L2) pedagogy, learners’ gains in terms of L2 development beyond writing remain largely unexplored. Additionally, while research points to the potential of DMC to promote students’ engagement and motivation in the L2 classroom (e.g., Hava, 2021; Hull & Nelson, 2005; Shin & Cimasko, 2008), learners’ investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015, 2023; Norton, 1995) in L2 learning through DMC has been underrepresented in previous literature. In addition, DMC research on investment until now has almost exclusively focused on the learning of English as a foreign or second language (e.g., …

Sociolinguistic Interview With Meriam: A Study On Multilingualism And Identity, Brian Kapustka

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This study explores how a multilingual speaker—Meriam Kilden-Pedersen, a fellow COD graduate and employee—navigates her linguistic identity across a range of social contexts. Drawing on sociolinguistic theory and a recorded interview, the project analyzes Meriam’s code-switching, identity negotiation, and style-shifting between Danish, Standardized Arabic, Tunisian Arabic, French, and English. The interview reveals how emotional context, audience, and setting shape language use, offering insight into the adaptive strategies of multilingual speakers. This analysis has pedagogical implications for inclusive teaching practices that honor linguistic fluidity.

Universal Dependencies For Amahuaca, Candy Angulo, Pilar Valenzuela, Roberto Zariquiey

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Articles and Research

This paper presents the creation of a Universal Dependency (UD) treebank for Amahuaca (Peru), marking the first UD treebank within the Headwaters subbranch of the Panoan family, spoken mostly in Peru and Brazil. While the UD guidelines provided a general framework for our annotations, language-specific decisions were necessary due to the rich morphology of the Amahuaca language. The paper also describes specific constructions to initiate a discussion on several general UD annotation guidelines, particularly those concerning clitics and morpheme-level dependencies.

Examining The Dangers Of The Digital Age, A Book Review Of Online Child Sexual Grooming Discourse, Olivia L. Villeneuve

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Heritage Language Learners In The Foreign Language Classroom, Annabel Noar

Journal of Graduate Education Research

Heritage language learners are a heterogenous group themselves, and prevalent contrasts exist between them and foreign language learners. This presents challenges for the amalgamation of heritage language learners and foreign language learners within a single language classroom. Reviewing relevant literature, this paper discusses the differences between heritage language learners and foreign language learners, and how these can be accounted for by educators. It argues that, without specific, individualised differentiation, the foreign language classroom is inappropriate for the heritage language learner due to its inability to sufficiently account for their heterogeneity, diverse backgrounds and unique motivations for language learning. The difficulty …

Becoming A Learner: An Autoethnography, Joshua Dickinson

Dissertations and Theses

It is well understood that attitudes toward language learning impact outcomes. This thesis uses autoethnography to explore the author's experiences learning German, in-class and independently, examining the interplay between motivation, attitudes, and the learning environment. I analyze personal journals and notes, employing graphic storytelling to illustrate their emotional journey. This paper draws upon existing literature on second language acquisition, particularly focusing on Dörnyei's L2 Motivational Self System and Ushioda's person-in-context approach. The study reveals how personal beliefs, self-doubt, and the limitations of traditional classroom settings impacted my motivation and ultimately, how reflection facilitated a renewed commitment to learning. In conclusion, …

Performing Protest, Performing Memory: Speech Act Theory And January 6, Mary Lynne Gasaway Hill

Faculty Scholarship

In daily life, memory performs a staggering array of tasks. It offers reassurance, validation, legitimation, and approval. It transgresses boundaries and polices them. It confirms understandings and undermines them. It warms our hearts and chills our blood. In the realm of protest, as this article will show, memory works through intentional language use. In the context of activism, acts of memory are often performative: they aim not just to restate the status quo, but to change something about it. This chapter operationalises J.L. Austin’s Speech Act Theory (1994, SAT) as a lens through which to examine how the contentious discourse …

Navigating Trauma: A Linguistic Exploration Of Bilingual Trauma Expressions, Amira Mahmoud Othman

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the relationship between language, trauma, and emotional expression among bilingual Arabic-English speakers, focusing on code-switching patterns and euphemisms, and more broadly the emotional roles of native and non-native languages in trauma narratives. Through qualitative interviews with 20 Egyptian participants, the research reveals that code-switching serves as both a linguistic and emotional tool, allowing speakers to navigate trauma by creating distance or engaging more intimately. Such codeswitching patterns include the integration of English content words within Arabic structures, morphosyntactic innovations, and gender agreement applications, reflecting the creative adaptability of bilingual speakers in emotionally charged contexts, in line with …

Comparing The Quality Of Ai-Generated And Instructor Feedback In A University Writing Program, Hana Mohamed Nassar

Theses and Dissertations

Feedback is an undeniably important aspect of the language learning process. It helps students recognize their strengths and weaknesses and identifies ways they can improve. Over the years, feedback has been provided by teachers, peers and Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE) tools. However, in recent years, artificial intelligence applications have proliferated significantly. With abilities to analyze and generate any kind of content, these models are being used to generate scores and feedback on written assignments to help lighten teachers’ load. ChatGPT has been called “the world’s most advanced chatbot” and “a potential chance to improve second language learning and instruction” (Shabara …

Limitations In Speech Recognition For Young Adults With Down Syndrome, Franceli L. Cibrian, Yingying 'Yuki' Chen, Kayla Anderson, Cecilia Marie Abrahamsson, Vivian Genaro Motti

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Speech recognition has the potential to make technology more accessible to users. However, the accuracy of speech recognition remains limited for users with disabilities, including those with Down Syndrome, and the types and frequencies of recognition errors are poorly understood. This paper characterizes these problems, focusing on errors occurring when recognizing Down Syndrome speech. We analyze the transcripts from six speech recognition algorithms (Google, IBM, Otter.ai, Microsoft, AssemblyAI, OpenAI) using the audio content of 15 individuals with Down Syndrome (331 dialogues; 3428 words). Our analysis shows: (1) significant difference in speech recognition accuracy for people with Down Syndrome compared to …

The Effect Of Age Of Acquisition On The Development Of Lexical Attainment And Oral Proficiency In English As L2 In Adult Native Arabic Speakers, Mona Ahmed Kamar El-Zaman

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the influence of the age of acquisition (AoA) on the development of lexical attainment and oral proficiency in English as a second language (L2) among adult native Arabic speakers, focusing on classroom foreign language learners within the Egyptian context. AoA, a critical variable in second language acquisition (SLA) research, is explored in relation to two key domains: lexical knowledge and oral proficiency. The study examines the role of AoA and AoA related effects, such as the order of bilingualism and the length of exposure to rich language input (LoE) as a confounding factor. Through a mixed-methods approach, …

Familiarity Of Psychiatric Terms Among College Students, Julia Pekala

CAFE Symposium 2025

Recently, there has been an increase in the usage of psychiatric terminology used among internet users. Terms such as autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are thrown around without an understanding of these words and their true meaning. These words are picked up and used in a similar context as any other internet lingo, in an ironic, joking manner, without proper consideration of their origins and meaning. Due to most content on the internet being unmoderated and seemingly endless, users are often faced with misleading information about real clinical disorders. The use of these words follows the …

The Significance Of Social Media Neologisms Across The Globe, Molly Bushong

CAFE Symposium 2025

Social media neologisms, new terms coined through digital platforms, have drastically altered human communication, and will only continue to do so as technology rapidly advances. These words and phrases develop alongside society as innovative technology, experiences, and phenomena are continuously introduced into everyday life. Although neologisms have been present throughout all time and social media's existence, research has identified that their popularity has exponentially increased in recent years. My research builds upon previous research while exploring how social media neologisms have evolved over the past five years, their impact on language formality, and the familiarity of these terms across various …

British Latino: Investigating Discourse-Stylistic Variables And The Construction Of Persona Within Podcasting, Jonathan A. Pye

International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest

This study expands upon previous work (McIlwaine et al., 2011; McIlwaine & Bunge, 2016) by analyzing how the Latin American community in the UK constructs identity through podcasting. The sociolinguistic construct of the persona (Campbell-Kibler, 2008; Coupland, 2007; D’Onofrio, 2020; Eckert, 2019; Podesva, 2007) is operationalized to understand how the persona of the British Latino is discursively constructed in the podcast of the British Latino Network. Using qualitative discourse analysis and values coding (Saldaña, 2013), this analysis finds that the British Latino persona is indexed in the podcast as a bricolage of four principal attributes: (1) aspirational, (2) educated, …

Displaced: An Ethnography Of Language And Identity Loss, Ariel Caroline Wilsey-Gopp

Dissertations and Theses

Through ethnography and personal narrative, I explore the language and identity loss of one person, my father, in order to understand the complex issues surrounding the effects of symbolic and structural violence on language and identity development. Through personal narrative, fieldwork, and interviews, I tell the story of one person, born in wartime during Nazi occupied Serbia, and follow the guiding questions: how does language get lost and what are the effects? Drawing on methodology set forth by empirical ethnographical work as well as more recent theory around epigenetics and trauma, my research synthesizes into focus three pillars of understanding …

Improving Low-Resource Translation With Finite State Grammars, Nicholas J. Uva

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Scarcity of training data continues to pose a problem for the development of neural machine translation systems for low-resource languages. This study develops a method for the incorporation of linguistic information into the training of neural machine translation models for low-resource languages, using morphological grammars created using finite state transducers. This study explores the benefits, historical background, and effectiveness of this approach. This study incorporates morphological tags into a pre-trained multilingual neural machine translation model using a dual encoder structure. This study finds an improvement in performance in the Irish-English translation scenario. This method offers promising results with low computational …

On The Ambiguity Of Wh-Expressions In Thai, Naparat Meechanyakul

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation deals with an ambiguity problem of wh-indeterminates in Thai. Thai wh-phrases are indeterminates in that their interpretations depend on licensing conditions and structural environments. In this dissertation, observed ambiguous interpretations of object wh-arguments in Thai are described and analyzed through the lens of a phase-based approach under the Minimalist Program. The ambiguity problem concerns the fact that ʔàraj ‘what’ and khraj ‘who’ receive two possible interpretations, namely indefinite/NPI and interrogative, when they appear as an internal argument of serialized verb phrases and under c-commanding negation. Other wh-phrases in the language, namely the locative wh …