Linguistics Commons^™

Phonetic Adaptations Of Spanish Loanwords In Triqui, Ruth E. Scipione

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study focuses on the results of increased language contact on Spanish loanword adaptation in Copala Triqui at the segmental and prosodic levels. Data from field notes and publications from the 1960s and 1970s were compared to modern 21st century loanword adaptations in 80+ hours of radio broadcasts and recorded elicitations in personal fieldwork in Mexico, Central California and Albany, NY. The overarching goal is to identify a wide range of possible phonetic adaptations at the segmental and prosodic levels and track the possible effects of increased bilingualism on these adaptations. From there it attempts to hypothesize what phonetic variation …

Linguistic Realization Of Refusals In Persian By Iranian Farsi Speakers., Farzaneh Zilaie

Student Works (2010-2019)

This study investigates variations in the linguistics realization of the speech act of refusal in Persian language. It also aims at exploring the role of two social variables; namely ‘social distance’ and ‘power’ in the production of refusals. The data were collected using ethnographic observation, and were both field noted and recorded wherever possible. The results yielded 208 acts of refusals. These refusals were classified according to the refusal classification semantic formulae proposed by Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss- Weltz (1990). The results showed that Iranian Farsi speakers employed indirect strategies and a combination of direct and indirect strategies more than …

Cross Linguistic Differences In The Immediate Serial Recall Of Consonants Versus Vowels, Elizabeth M. Kissling

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

The current study investigated native English and native Arabic speakers’ phonological short term memory (PSTM) for sequences of consonants and vowels. PSTM was assessed in immediate serial recall tasks conducted in Arabic and English for both groups. Participants (n=39) heard series of 6 CV syllables and wrote down what they recalled. Native speakers of English recalled the vowel series better than consonant series in English and in Arabic, which was not true of native Arabic speakers. An analysis of variance showed that there was an interaction between first language (L1) and phoneme type. The results are discussed in light of …

Review Of Transparent Spanish, Premium Edition, Elizabeth M. Kissling

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Transparent Spanish, Premium Edition is designed as a stand-alone, comprehensive introductory Spanish course. The material it contains is equivalent to that covered in one college semester of beginning Spanish. Learners are encouraged to spend 30-45 minutes on Transparent Spanish activities each day and complete each lesson in approximately one week. The goal of the program is to develop conversation skills in an immersion environment through a variety of communicative activities and lessons. The main screen presents four virtual books: Beginner Lessons, Fundamentals, Conversations, and An Adventure with Andrés.

Los Procesos Metodológicos De La Enseñanza-Aprendizaje De Lenguas Mediante Tareas (Book Review), Elizabeth M. Kissling

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

This volume outlines the principle methodological procedures used in task-based (TB) language courses. TB courses are organized around 'tasks,' where 'task' is generally defined as an activity having a precise objective, requiring learners to use language, and maintaining primary focus on meaning rather than form (see Ellis, 2003, pp. 1-5 for a review of researchers' differing definitions of 'task'). The volume will be of use to teachers who have committed to a task-based language teaching (TBLT) approach, have designed their curriculum accordingly, and are now ready to focus on the procedures they will follow to implement each task. Another volume …

Impact Of Imagine Learning English In Two Northern Mississippi Schools, Dawn M. Waddell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The study, Impact of Imagine Learning English in Two Northern Mississippi Schools, describes an effectiveness study of the impact that the computer program Imagine Learning English (ILE) has on English language learning. The study sought to determine the impact of ILE on the annual yearly progress and reading skills of mid-level English language learners (ELL). The objective of the study was to see if ILE was successful in raising the reading comprehension skill scores of English Language Learners (ELL) who worked the program as a language training tool. This study is the result of data that was collected from students …

The Present Past - A Middle Swabian Dialect In The 21st Century, Stefanie Hirscher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dialects throughout the Federal Republic of Germany not only vary greatly among themselves, but also tend to show internal variations with regard to dialect speaker groups, due to the influence of Standard German along with other regional factors. Medium-sized towns seem to be at the center of this dialect-standard continuum, as speakers from both rural and more urban areas come together in these towns. This study sought to investigate the state of the Middle Swabian dialect as spoken in Schwäbisch Gmünd, a medium-sized town in Southwestern Germany. Previous studies of this dialect have focused on rural areas and found only …

Speaking The Part - Is Black English In The Workplace A Detriment To Climbing The Corporate Ladder? A Sociolinguistic Study Regarding Black English In The Workplace, Kanika Nicole Jackson

Wayne State University Theses

This study aims to explore how African Americans who speak Black English (BE), particularly members of Generation X, function communicatively in corporate America, where the dominant language spoken is Standard American English (SAE). Much of the literature theorized African Americans as being resistant to speaking SAE in mainstream settings in fear of compromising their identities or "acting white." Using in-depth interviews with six African Americans across the country who work in corporate America, this study examines their lived communicative experiences in the workplace and how they learned language balance (the ability to codeswitch).

With data compiled into case studies and …

A Weighted Finite State Transducer Implementation Of Phoneme Rewrite Rules For English-To-Korean Pronunciation Conversion, Hahn Koo

Faculty Publications

Words change their phonetic as well as orthographic form when they are borrowed and used by speakers of another language. A formal model that properly captures this change has theoretical implications in phonology and practical applications in speech processing and machine transliteration. This paper describes a method for developing a finite- state model that predicts how English words and named entities are pronounced in Korean. The model predicts nativized pronunciation using weighted finite-state transducers implementing context-dependent phoneme rewrite rules derived from English-to-Korean pronunciation pairs and syllable phonotactics in Korean.

Second Language Development Theories And Technology-Mediated Language Learning, Steven L. Thorne, Bryan Smith

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Information and communication technologies have never been more interesting due in large part to their intimate integration into everyday life. Second and foreign language researchers and educators have long recognized ...

Communicating Vision : A Linguistic Analysis Of Leadership Speeches, Debrah J. Martin

Dissertations

Leadership literature contains ample recommendations that leaders need to have a vision and be competent in visioning. A small subset of that literature recommends that leaders communicate their visions. There are few resources, however, that guide leaders how to communicate their visions. This study consists of an application of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), including Genre Theory, and an extension of SFL, Appraisal Theory, on four visionary speeches in the field of political discourse—Lincoln‘s Gettysburg Address, Churchill‘s ―We Shall Fight on the Beaches,‖ Kennedy‘s inaugural, and Martin Luther King Jr.‘s ―I Have a Dream‖—to discover how these leaders were able to …

Effects Of Lexical Class And Word Frequency On The L1 And L2 English-Based Lexical Connections, Alla Zareva

English Faculty Publications

Three groups of participants—L1 speakers of English, L2 advanced, and intermediate users of English—responded in writing to a word association test containing words balanced for lexical class (nouns, verbs, adjectives) and frequency of occurrence (high, mid, low). The questions addressed in the study concerned the way two word-related factors (i.e., lexical category and word frequency) interplayed with two learner-related characteristics (i.e., proficiency and word familiarity) and influenced 1) the participants’ knowledge of vocabulary, 2) their preference to build specific types of lexical connections among the words they know, and 3) their ability to maintain networks of associations as an indicator …

Linguistics As Structure In Computer Animation: Toward A More Effective Synthesis Of Brow Motion In American Sign Language, Rosalee Wolfe, Peter Cook, John C. Mcdonald, Jerry Schnepp

Visual Communications and Technology Education Faculty Publications

Computer-generated three-dimensional animation holds great promise for synthesizing utterances in American Sign Language (ASL) that are not only grammatical, but well tolerated by members of the Deaf community. Unfortunately, animation poses several challenges stemming from the necessity of grappling with massive amounts of data. However, the linguistics of ASL can aid in surmounting the challenge by providing structure and rules for organizing animation data. An exploration of the linguistic and extra linguistic behavior of the brows from an animator’s viewpoint yields a new approach for synthesizing nonmanuals that differs from the conventional animation of anatomy and instead offers a different …

Resetting Vot In A Bilingual Region, Dan William Morgan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In order to test the claims that English speakers have an advantage over Spanish while learning their L2, a study of comparative and contrastive data from native English L2 Spanish speakers and native Spanish L2 English speakers was initiated. This study attempted to prove if in fact and to what extent such an advantage exists for either group of people.

The Role Of Cross-Language Activation In Syntactic Ambiguity, Li-Hao Yeh

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

There is much evidence demonstrating that bilinguals activate lexical representations from both of their languages in a non-selective manner even in sentence context. Comparatively less research has examined the extent to which bilingual lexical representations interacts with syntactic processing in sentence context. The purpose of this study is to examine whether bilinguals' cross-language lexical activation could influence their resolution of syntactic ambiguity (e.g. relative clause attachment). Proper attachment of relative clauses (RC) to noun phrases is critical for accurate interpretation of syntactically ambiguous sentences. For instance, the sentence The robber shot the secretary of my husband who goes to work …

Rhetorical Weapons: The Social And Psychological Influences Of Language And Labeling In Instances Of Genocide, Emma C. Jones

CMC Senior Theses

It is difficult to understand why genocide continues to occur, even when the international community pledges never to let it happen in the future. Techniques such as moral disengagement and dehumanization have consistently resulted in genocide. These techniques can be greatly amplified through the careful use of language and labeling. The purpose of this paper is to examine the roles that language and labeling play in genocide. Social and psychological influences that use language will be investigated through the examination of the Holocaust, the Cambodian genocide and the Rwandan genocide. These influences are many times unintentionally or unknowingly exercised and …

Sign Language Humor, Human Singularities, And The Origins Of Language, Donna Jo Napoli, R. Sutton-Spence

Linguistics Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Deaf Around The World: The Impact Of Language, G. Mathur, Donna Jo Napoli

Linguistics Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

I Can Has Thesis? A Linguistic Analysis Of Lolspeak, Jordan Lefler

LSU Master's Theses

Lolspeak, which I characterize as an internet dialect of English that is used in conjunction with images of cats, exhibits distinctive variations and patterns which differ from those of standard English. Lolspeak has influenced other language use and may have a significant impact on the English language, due in part to the internet’s role in the evolution of English (Crystal “Language and the Internet,” 2006:26-27). To approach this data, I created a multi-modal discourse transcription technique for analyzing Lolspeak utterances within the context of their images based on Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss “The Discovery of Grounded Theory” 2007:9). I …

Learning Through Standard English: Cognitive Implications For Post-Pidgin/-Creole Speakers, Ian Malcolm

Research outputs 2011

Despite their (albeit limited) access to Standard Australian English through education, Australian Indigenous communities have maintained their own dialect (Aboriginal English) for intragroup communication and are increasingly using it as a medium of cultural expression in the wider community. Most linguists agree that the most significant early ancestor of Aboriginal English is New South Wales Pidgin, which developed in the first decades after the European occupation of Australia in 1788. Influence of present or past Aboriginal languages can be traced in Aboriginal English both directly and by way of NSW Pidgin and other contact varieties. Recent work in Western Australia …

Principled Pragmatism: A Guide To The Adaptation Of Ideas From Philosophical Disciplines To Conceptual Modeling, Deryle W. Lonsdale, David W. Embley, Stephen W. Liddle

Faculty Publications

The synergism among the traditional disciplines of ontology, epistemology, logic, and linguistics and their potential for enhancing conceptual-modeling applications is not fully understood. Better understanding how to adapt ideas from these disciplines should lead to improved serviceability of conceptual modeling. We argue in this position paper, however, that application objectives, rather than philosophical tenets, should guide the adaptation of ideas from these disciplines. Thus, an appropriate balance of discipline-based theory and pragmatism should temper adaptations. We evaluate the principled pragmatism we advocate by presenting several case-study examples. Each illustrates that an appropriate adaptation of ideas from the disciplines of ontology, …

Learning Without Awareness Reconsidered: A Replication Of Williams (2005), Mandy Faretta-Stutenberg, Kara Morgan-Short

CISLL Publications

Researchers in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) disagree as to whether or not learning can take place in the absence of awareness (e.g. Leow, 2000; Tomlin & Villa, 1994; Robinson, 1995b; Schmidt, 1990, 1993; Williams, 2004, 2005). On one hand, many researchers have found that some level of attention or awareness is necessary for linguistic development to occur (e.g. Leow 1997, 2000; Robinson, 1995a; Rosa & Leow, 2004; Schmidt, 1990, 1993). On the other hand, research has found evidence of implicit language learning, or learning in the absence of awareness (e.g. Williams, 2004, 2005). Hama and Leow (2010) …

Prosodylab-Aligner: A Tool For Forced Alignment Of Laboratory Speech, Kyle Gorman, Jonathan Howell, Michael Wagner

Department of Linguistics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The Penn Forced Aligner automates the alignment process using the Hidden Markov Model Toolkit (HTK). The core of Prosodylab-Aligner is align.py, a script which performs acoustic model training and alignment. This script automates calls to HTK and SoX, an open-source command-line tool which is capable of resampling audio. The included README file provides instructions for installing HTK and SoX on Linux and Mac OS X, and can also be run on Windows. During training, the model is initialized with flat-start monophones, which are then submitted to a single round of model estimation. Then, a tied-state 'small pause' model is inserted …

The Tower Of Babel Keeps Getting Smaller, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

User Profile Construction In The Twin Personality-Based Recommender System, Alexandra Roshchina, John Cardiff, Paolo Rosso

Conference Papers

The information overload experienced by peo- ple who use online services and read user- generated content (e.g. product reviews and ratings) to make their decisions has led to the development of the so-called recommender systems. We address the problem of the large increase in the user-generated reviews, which are added to each day and consequently make it difficult for the user to obtain a clear picture of the quality of the facility in which they are interested.

In this paper, we describe the TWIN (“Tell me What I Need”) personality-based recom- mender system, the aim of which is to select …

Modal Past Tense: An Applied Linguistics Approach, Whitney R. L. Krause

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This paper investigates the ways in which English employs non-temporal past tense morphology to convey a modal meaning (modal past) and then applies this analysis to the development of English language pedagogy. I have endeavored to produce an account of modal past which is based in the scientific principles of linguistics while also remaining accessible to practitioners such as language teachers. I argue that modal past is an element of the Universal Grammar of human language, and - following the Full Transfer / Full Access Hypothesis of Second Language Acquisition - that all students have inherent access to this principle, …

Ten Lectures On Mind And Language, Mark Bernard Turner

Faculty Scholarship

Ten Lectures on Mind and Language By Mark Turner
/="/">马克·特纳 心智与语言十讲
/="/">Copyright © Mark Turner 2009
/="/">These lectures were delivered by Mark Turner in May 2009, when he was the forum speaker for the Seventh China International Forum on Cognitive Linguistics. They were originally published as a book in the Eminent Linguists Lecture Series, 世界著名语言学家系列讲座。It includes the slideshows and handouts from the talks.

Contents 目录
/="/">Summaries of the lectures in Chinese 汉语导读
/="/">Lecture One: Human Meaning 人类的意义
/="/">Lecture Two: Conceptual Integration 概念整合
/="/">Lecture Three: Double-Scope Cognition 双域认知
/="/">Lecture Four: Mental Packing and …

Revisión De Estudios Sobre Las Funciones De Las Citas En Textos Académicos Escritos Por Estudiantes De Posgrado Nativos Y No Nativos Que Aprenden Una Lengua Extranjera, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

El estudio de las citas, los motivos por lo que se cita un trabajo y las funciones retóricas que las citas cumplen en el discurso escrito, han sido materias abordadas desde distintas disciplinas, entre ellas la Lingüística Aplicada. En el presente trabajo se rastrean los orígenes de estos temas y se revisan más concretamente los estudios llevados a cabo en el contexto académico universitario sobre citación por aprendientes nativos y no nativos de una lengua extranjera.

Summary: The study of citations, the purposes for which a work is cited, and the rhetorical functions that the citations carry out in the …

Beliefs, Concerns, And Methods Of Parents Raising Children Bilingually: A Study Of Hispanic Iowa Mothers Attempting To Maintain Heritage Language In Their Children, Briana Vera

Honors Program Theses

The purpose of my thesis was to discover more about parents who are raising their children to be English-Spanish bilingual, particularly their beliefs, concerns, and methods regarding this issue. I focused specifically on mothers in Iowa whose native language was Spanish and who had at least one child in the household between the ages of four and sixteen. A point of interest I focused on were the beliefs, concerns, and methods these mothers have and use to maintain their children‟s heritage language (Spanish) as the community language (English) becomes more prominent in their children‟s lives. This information is important for …

Foreign Language Houses: Identities In Transition, Jennifer Brown, Dan Dewey, Rob A. Martinsen, Wendy Baker

Faculty Publications

This study examined the lived experience of students participating in foreign language houses to improve their skills in Russian, French, or Japanese. American students residing in apartments with other language learners and a nativespeaking resident facilitator were required to speak with one another exclusively in the target language and participate in activities such as preparing and eating dinner together. Data sources for the study included interviews, observations, and video recordings. The data, which were analyzed qualitatively, revealed that the central experience of living in the foreign language house was the creation of a livable community and that use of the …