Linguistics Commons^™

Phonological Awareness And Its Affect On Second Language Acquisition, Mallory Ann Ruiz

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the role phonological awareness plays in the second language (L2) classroom among English as Second Language (ESL) learners. In order to better understand the reasons behind second language (L2) student's phonological improvements, phonological awareness was tested to see what affect, if any, it had on student's intelligible speech. Six English as Second Language (ESL) college students participated in the study in which they provided three audio recordings of their English speech over the course of ten weeks.

Bridging The Gap: Composition Studies And Applied Linguistics/Teaching English As A Second Language In The Writing Center, Chloe Anne De Los Reyes

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis offers a critical comparison of how the fields of Composition Studies and Applied Linguistics and Teaching English as a Second Language inform the tutoring of second language writers in writing centers. It examines where the two fields diverge and intersect in order to identify what knowledge can be useful from each working with the other. The thesis discusses implications of the findings as well as offers reccommendations for a richer tutoring of second language writers (L2 writers) in the writing centers.

Identity Through Change And Substitutivity Salva Veritate, Ray Elugardo, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

This paper has three modest aims: to present a puzzle, to show why some obvious solutions aren’t really “easy outs”, and to introduce our own solution. The puzzle is this. When it was small and had waterlogged streets, Toronto carried the moniker ‘Muddy York’. Later, the streets were drained, it grew, and Muddy York officially changed its name to ‘Toronto’. Given this, each premise in the following argument seems true. Yet the conclusion is a contraction. P1: Muddy York = Toronto P2: Muddy York evolved into Toronto P3: The context “__ evolved into Toronto” is transparent, i.e., it allows substitution …

Philosophy Of Language, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

No abstract provided.

Specification And Inversion: Evidence From Malagasy, Ileana Paul

French Studies Publications

This paper analyzes specificational sentences in Malagasy and shows that such sentences involve obligatory inversion, marked by the topic particle dia. I argue that the topicalized element is a small clause predicate that inverts with its subject. Two competing analyses of this inversion are compared and contrasted. I conclude with a brief comparison of Malagasy and Tagalog.

The Contribution Of Domain Specificity In The Highly Modular Mind, Axel Barcelo Aspeitia, Angeles Erana, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

Is there a notion of domain specificity which affords genuine insight in the context of the highly modular mind, i.e. a mind which has not only input modules, but also central ‘conceptual’ modules? Our answer to this question is no. The main argument is simple enough: we lay out some constraints that a theoretically useful notion of domain specificity, in the context of the highly modular mind, would need to meet. We then survey a host of accounts of what domain specificity is, based on the intuitive idea that a domain specific mechanism is restricted in the kind of information …

Differential Pragmatic Abilities And Autism Spectrum Disorders: The Case Of Pragmatic Determinants Of Literal Content, Jessica De Villiers, Brooke Myers, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

No abstract provided.

Contextualism In Epistemology And The Context Sensitivity Of 'Knows', Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

The central issue of this paper is whether contextualism in epistemology is genuinely in conflict with recent claims that ‘know’ is not in fact a context sensitive word. To address this question, I’ll first rehearse three key aims of contextualists and the broad strategy they adopt for achieving them. I then introduce two linguistic arguments to the effect that the lexical item ‘know’ is not context sensitive: one from Herman Cappelen & Ernie Lepore, one from Jason Stanley. I find these and related arguments quite compelling. In particular, I think Cappelen & Lepore (2003, 2005a) show pretty definitively that ‘know’ …

Clinical Pragmatics, By Louise Cummings, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

No abstract provided.

Language Matters: A Guide To Everyday Questions About Language, Donna Jo Napoli, V. Lee-Schoenfeld

Linguistics Faculty Works

Is Ebonics really a dialect or simply bad English? Do women and men speak differently? Will computers ever really learn human language? Does offensive language harm children? These are only a few of the issues surrounding language that crop up every day. Most of us have very definite opinions on these questions one way or another. Yet as linguists Donna Jo Napoli and Vera Lee-Schoenfeld point out in this short and thoroughly readable volume, many of our most deeply held ideas about the nature of language and its role in our lives are either misconceived or influenced by myths and …

Cover Puzzle, Jeremiah Farrell

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Crossword Puzzle featured on the cover of "The Playful Brian: The Surprising Science of How Puzzles Improve your Mind".

Talking To Strangers--A Sociolinguistic Experiment: Variation In Initial Dyadic Interactions Between Spanish-Speakers In Early 21st Century Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mary Ann Dziugis

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

What are the chances of a dyad of Spanish-speaking strangers using informal address in casual, initial interactions in Buenos Aires, Argentina, today? To discover the pattern(s) of contemporary address, the Principal Investigator (PI) conducted a sociolinguistic experiment focusing on strangers' initial interactions to minimize the influence of Brown and Gilman's (1960) dimensions of power and solidarity on address variation. To gather natural and reported speech, the PI used mixed methodologies: participant observation, TV news, survey questionnaires, and interviews. She enhanced the authenticity of reported speech via the use of her new tool--a photo interlocutor prompter sheet. The research consisted of …

Articulations Of Identity Within High School Cliques: Language Choices In Boyat And Emo Filipino Youth Groups, Dalal Saleh Almubayei

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation adds to work exploring where language stands in the shaping of adolescent speakers' social identities, since identities emerge through discursive and social practices, and social selves are produced through interaction (Bucholtz 1999), but much of the literature studying the role of language in defining the adolescent's identity is insufficient (Fortman 2003). This study is based on data from five months of fieldwork in 2008-2009 with two distinct and stigmatized high school cliques in Kuwait. The first clique is well known for its Arabish name boyat 'lesbian tomboys'. The second clique is a combination of Emo subculture and Filipino …

Planteamientos Colaborativos En La Didáctica De La Composición Desde Modelos Procesuales, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

El presente artículo parte de una revisión del modelo tradicional de la enseñanza de la escritura en la clase de LE entendida como producto. Desde este punto de partida, se evidencian las ventajas de adoptar una escritura colaborativa basada en la consideración del texto como un proceso en construcción que pasa por diferentes fases creativas y en un modelo pedagógico que centra su atención en el alumno dentro de la práctica escrita.

SUMMARY: In the initial part of this article, we begin with a review of the traditional model of teaching composition in a foreign language class in which writing …

Realkeepen: Anglicisms In The German Hip-Hop Community, Matt Garley

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Round Vowel And Dorsal Consonant Epenthesis In Seri, Stephen A. Marlett

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

Recent work on markedness has claimed that round vowels and dorsal consonants are never epenthesized. However, Seri seems to present exactly these types of epenthesis. Relevant data are presented and discussed, and it is claimed that these rules are valid counterexamples that need to be taken into consideration more seriously.

A Declarative Approach To Language Change: Regularization As Realignment, Andrew R. Hippisley

Linguistics Faculty Publications

In this paper I consider how best to model lexical regularization as a type of language change, and more specifically how to capture regularization when it is a question of realigning the syntactic function with the expected morphological expression. While it seems natural to approach language change in procedural terms, I will argue that a declarative/static approach is more natural for at least certain types of lexical change, specifically change that involves a reorganization of the paradigm. This account is modeled in the defaults-based framework of Network Morphology (Corbett & Fraser 1993; Brown & Hippisley forthcoming).

Voice And Valence-Altering Operations In Falam Chin: A Role And Reference Grammar Approach, Deborah King

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation describes and analyzes voice and valence-altering operations in Falam Chin, a Tibeto-Burman language of Burma. The data is explained within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), which supplies several key concepts particularly useful for generalizing the behavior of the Falam Chin operations. The first is RRG's system of semantic decomposition, based on Dowty (1979), which is used to formulate each predicate's underlying logical structure (LS). Second is the concept of macroroles, generalized semantic roles actor and undergoer, which are assigned to the arguments of a predicate according to a hierarchy of LS positions. M-transitivity refers to …

Up To D[Eb]Ate On Raising And Control, Part 2: The Empirical Range Of The Constructions And Research On Their Acquistion, Susannah Kirby, William D. Davies, Stanley William Dubinsky

Faculty Publications

This is the second part of a two-part article that reviews a number of the current debates regarding raising and control constructions. The issues addressed in this part include the spectrum of related raising (e.g. possessor raising, further raising) and control (partial, split, generic, super-equi) phenomena; cross-linguistic typology, including backward and copy constructions; and their acquisition in child language.

The Role Of Motivation In The Learning Of English As A Second Language, Nadzrah Ahmad Bustami

Student Works (2010-2019)

Motivation is important in language learning. This present study aims to investigate learners’ motivation in the learning of English as a second language at university level and the factors that affect their motivation. The study particularly focuses on six motivation components: integrative motivation, instrumental motivation, effort, valence, expectancy and ability. The present study also aims to explore the differences in motivation level between female and male participants. 189 students participated in this quantitative study. The survey method used was the administration of the Motivation Scale (Wen, 1996 and modified by Shaaban and Ghaith, 2000). The results of this study revealed …

A Probabilistic Morphological Analyzer For Syriac, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Peter J. Mcclanahan, George Busby, Robbie A. Haertel, Kristian Heal, Kevin Seppi, Eric Ringger

Faculty Publications

We define a probabilistic morphological analyzer using a data-driven approach for Syriac in order to facilitate the creation of an annotated corpus. Syriac is an under-resourced Semitic language for which there are no available language tools such as morphological analyzers. We introduce novel probabilistic models for segmentation, dictionary linkage, and morphological tagging and connect them in a pipeline to create a probabilistic morphological analyzer requiring only labeled data. We explore the performance of models with varying amounts of training data and find that with about 34,500 labeled tokens, we can outperform a reasonable baseline trained on over 99,000 tokens and …

A Text In Speech's Clothing: Discovering Specific Functions Of Formulaic Expressions In Beowulf And Blogs, Matt Garley, Benjamin Slade, Marina Terkourafi

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Applicative Constructions In Shipibo-Konibo (Panoan), Pilar Valenzuela

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Articles and Research

This article provides a detailed, typologically informed treatment of applicative constructions in Shipibo-Konibo, a Panoan language from Peruvian Amazonia. Shipibo-Konibo has three applicative suffixes: affective (i.e., benefactive or malefactive), dedicated malefactive, and associative. These applicative types are rather common cross-linguistically and hence the language cannot be said to be particularly rich either in terms of number or kinds of applicative constructions. Nevertheless, the Shipibo-Konibo system exhibits certain points of special interest such as the interplay between transitivity and the different applicative construction types, which include a restriction on the dedicated malefactive to combine with transitive verbs only, and the almost …

The Derivation Of Compound Ordinal Numerals: Implications For Morphological Theory, Gregory Stump

Linguistics Faculty Publications

In the domains of both inflection and derivation, there is evidence for both rules of exponence (which realize specific morphosyntactic properties or derivational categories through the introduction of specific morphological markings) and rules of composition (which determine how such rules of exponence apply in the definition of a compound’s inflected forms or derivatives). A single, general rule of composition accounts for the definition of a wide range of derivatives from compound bases; nevertheless, ordinal derivation demonstrates the considerable extent to which rules of composition may vary across languages. Evidence from a diverse range of languages is used to motivate a …

Paradigmatic Realignment And Morphological Change: Diachronic Deponency In Network Morphology, Andrew R. Hippisley

Linguistics Faculty Publications

A natural way of formally modeling language change is to adopt a procedural, dynamic approach that gets at the notion of emergence and decay. We argue that in the realm of morphological change, and notably the reorganization of a lexeme’s paradigm, a model that at a given synchronic stage holds together both the actual facts about the paradigm as well as the range of potential or virtual facts that are licensed by the morphological machinery more elegantly captures the nature of the changing paradigm. We consider the special case of morphological mismatch where syntactic function is misaligned with morphological expression, …

The Intelligibility And Comprehensibility Of Learner Speech In Russian: A Study In The Salience Of Pronunciation, Lexicon, Grammar And Syntax, Jill A. Neuendorf

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

This study of L-2 Russian interlanguage production examined the salience of phonetic, lexical and syntactical features for L-1 listener intelligibility, based on L-2recitation of written scripts (Part I) and also unrehearsed speech (Part II). Part III of the study investigated strategies used by native-speaking teachers of Russian as a Second Language and experienced Russian host families to facilitate comprehensibility of L-2Russian speech.

The respondent group consisted of 51 native-Russian speakers plus a 20-member ethnic Russian control group, whose speech samples were also rated by the informant group. The 51 respondents comprised four sub-groups based on residency (Russia/US), profession (teacher/non-teacher of …

Strategies Used In Summary Writing By Malaysian Students., Vasanthi Ramadass

Student Works (2010-2019)

Strategy use is a highly researched area, more so in the L1 context than the L2 context. On the other hand, summary writing has been rarely studied in the L2 context despite its importance to reading comprehension. This study has tried to investigate and evaluate the strategies used by Malaysian sixth formers in summary writing. The study adopted a mixed research design that used both quantitative (SILL Questionnaire) and qualitative (Modified Think-Aloud Protocol and document analysis of written summaries) research approaches. Strategies are normally used to overcome problems. Therefore, firstly the study explored the problems faced by both high and …

The Syntactic Structure Of K̕'Ichee̕' Mayan, Lachlan Duncan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Linguistic research on the Mayan languages up to the mid 1980s was almost exclusively descriptive in nature. At best, analyses were speculative and pre-theoretical. Since then, research based on contemporary theories of syntax have begun to emerge. In adopting the formal architecture of OT-LFG, I argue that my dissertation can be included amongst this body of analytical research. My overall goal is to provide a syntactic structure for K'ichee' Mayan, the most widely spoken Mayan language in Guatemala.

Toward A Theory-Based Natural Language Capability In Robots And Other Embodied Agents : Evaluating Hausser's Slim Theory And Database Semantics, Robin Kowalchuk Burk

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Computational natural language understanding and generation have been a goal of artificial intelligence since McCarthy, Minsky, Rochester and Shannon first proposed to spend the summer of 1956 studying this and related problems. Although statistical approaches dominate current natural language applications, two current research trends bring renewed focus on this goal. The nascent field of artificial general intelligence (AGI) seeks to evolve intelligent agents whose multi-subagent architectures are motivated by neuroscience insights into the modular functional structure of the brain and by cognitive science insights into human learning processes. Rapid advances in cognitive robotics also entail multi-agent software architectures that attempt …

Discursive Construction Of Identities Of Young Homosexual Males., Zainon Shamsudin

Student Works (2010-2019)

This dissertation reports a study addressing the issue of identity construction of four young Malay homosexual men in Malaysia.  Through their narrative discourse of their life experiences and aspirations, this study explores these participants‟ linguistic repertoire and discursive strategies in the formation, negotiation, and establishment of their identities. The narrative data were gathered through a semi-structured interview-cum-conversation which allowed the participants to express sentiments about their lives in a heterosexual dominated society.  Using an adapted framework of discourse-historical approach of Critical Discourse Analysis proposed by Reisigl and Wodak (2009), this study analyzed the participants‟ emergent language use and discursive strategies …