Applied Linguistics Commons^™

Text Contention Behind Sharia Supervisory Board Reports: A Critical Discourse Analysis, Ari Ermawati, M Nur A Birton, Irfan Tarmizi, Muhammad Muttaqin

Jurnal Akuntansi dan Keuangan Indonesia

Sharia Supervisory Board Reports (SSBRs) have an interest in convincing the public that entities supervised by a Sharia Supervisory Board (SSB) are sharia-compliant and reflective of Good Corporate Governance (GCG) practices. Failure in public convincing will be detrimental to Islamic banks’ reputation as well as the SSB’s image and credibility. This study aimed to critically assess how the SSB produces reports as texts to persuade the public using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). We analyzed four SSBRs from two Islamic Commercial Banks (ICBs) and two Islamic Business Units (IBUs) owned by other ICBs as well as interviews for data triangulation. We …

Collaborative Digital Problem-Solving: Power, Relationships, And Participation, Gloria E. Jacobs, Jill Castek

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The study examines the collaborative nature of problem solving as dyads and triads of adults were grouped to solve digital problems using online resources. Digital problem solving involves the nimble use of skills, strategies, and mindsets to navigate online in everyday contexts using novel resources, tools, and interfaces, in efficient and flexible ways, to accomplish personal and professional goals. Findings address the nature of collaborative talk during digital problem solving through three interrelated categories of themes gleaned from discourse analysis: (a) power, (b) relationships, and (c) participation. These themes offer a nuanced understanding of collaborative interactions during digital problem solving. …

Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis Of Movie Reviews, Samuel Onalaja, Eric Romero, Bosang Yun

SMU Data Science Review

This study investigates a comparison of classification models used to determine aspect based separated text sentiment and predict binary sentiments of movie reviews with genre and aspect specific driving factors. To gain a broader classification analysis, five machine and deep learning algorithms were compared: Logistic Regression (LR), Naive Bayes (NB), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Recurrent Neural Network Long-Short-Term Memory (RNN LSTM). The various movie aspects that are utilized to separate the sentences are determined through aggregating aspect words from lexicon-base, supervised and unsupervised learning. The driving factors are randomly assigned to various movie aspects and their impact tied to …

Collateral Damage: How Expanding Public Charge Policy Influences Adult Esl Enrollment, Allison M. Eckert

Master's Theses

This study used statistical analysis of enrollment records for ESL programs at community colleges throughout California from 2015-2019 to determine whether adult immigrants’ participation in public ESL programs was reduced under President Donald Trump. Immigrant families’ lesser use of public education services and means-tested federal benefits has been widely documented in the wake of Trump’s expansion of the public charge rule, which counted immigrants’ use of a wider array of public benefits against their case for residency in the United States than had any previous iteration of the rule. Failing the public charge test can block an immigrant’s entry into …

Book Review: Intercultural Perspectives On Research Writing, Edited By Pilar Mur-Dueñas And Jolanta Šinkūnienė (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2018), David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Everybody Does It: The Pragmatics And Perceptions Of International Chinese Graduate Students And Their American Peers Regarding Gossip, Miriam Eisenstein Ebsworth, Timothy John Ebsworth, Chencen Cai

Journal of Multilingual Education Research

Integrating natural observation, interviews, and quantitative analysis, we used a mixed design to compare the socio-linguistic judgments of international Chinese students at a private University on the East Coast of the United States (US) with those of their native English-speaking peers regarding a critical incident involving gossip. Ninety-two participants evaluated alternative sociolinguistic strategies offered in addressing the incident on semantic differential scales. Judgments by each group regarding four alternative responses were surveyed and compared. Twenty participants, ten from each group, participated in semi-structured interviews. Themes were developed through a recursive process: interpretations were validated by a bilingual bicultural expert. Several …

Considering Who Has Opportunities For Training And Advancement, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

The three working learners featured in this blog post represent contrasting experiences that help us to understand the level and quality of support from such mediators as has become evident in our research, and the resu Its on the careers of these learners. Al I names used are pseudonyms.

Black Lives Matter In Teaching English As A Second Language!, Kristin Lems

Faculty Publications

The Winter 2020 issue of theIllinois Reading Council Journal published a special issue focusing on “action for equity,” with thoughtful articles and abundant family and classroom resources. This issue of the “wELLcome”column, which is dedicated to topics regarding English language learners (ELLs), continues in that same vein. In this issue, we place the spotlight on ELLs of African descent, their teachers, and their schools.

University Students' Perceptions Of Writing Assessment, Hanan Alaa Hegazi

Theses and Dissertations

Instructors and students are the pillars of higher education. There is substantial interest in teachers’ beliefs, preferences, and perceptions in language assessment research, with an emphasis on writing assessment. Additionally, there is a growing body of research investigating students’ perceptions of assessment. However, research that examines how students perceive writing assessment is limited. Therefore, this study investigates two aspects: (a) students’ perceptions of their writing ability and (b) their perceptions of writing assessment in an English-medium private university in Cairo. This study adopts a mixed-methods approach for data collection, which involved distributing student questionnaires, conducting semi-structured interviews, and collecting writing …

Foundations Of Linguistics And Identity In L2 Teaching And Learning: Agency Through Linguistic Enrichment, Differentiated Instruction And Teacher Identity, Marnie Jo Petray, Rebecca Shapiro, Gladys M. Vega

Publications and Research

Language, procedure, and identity are L2 teaching/learning essentials that may promote agency and stimulate synergies among knowledge, practice, and reflection (Diaz Maggioli, 2014; Duff, 2012). This meta-report presents three studies that collectively advance agency and endorse linguistic foundations as enrichment, differentiated instruction as engagement, and teacher identity as empowerment. All of these theoretical constructs are key to successful L2 teaching and acquisition. Study 1 quantitatively reports on introductory linguistics’ presence or absence in 114 master’s programs at 54 US institutions. Findings suggest that linguistics’ curricular presence is inconsistent and training for optimal impact in the L2 classroom is lacking. Given …

Linguistic Estoppel: A Custodial Interrogation Subject’S Reliance On Traditional Language Customs When Facing Unknown Expectations For Legally Efficacious Speech, Taylor J. Smith

BYU Law Review

For various reasons, speakers often communicate indirectly, hiding their words’ true meaning beneath an apparent surface meaning. For example, a woman trying to brush off her co-worker’s date invitation might respond, “I have to prepare for a presentation tomorrow.” While the words’ surface meaning doesn’t relate to the date invitation, the hearer usually understands the underlying message—that is to say, the words’ function differs from their form. However, because the law’s language ideology requires directness and surface-level meaning, lay-speaking interrogation subjects often have difficulty effectively invoking their Miranda rights. Because the legal system’s search for determinacy often results in reliance …

Distribución De Las Funciones Retóricas De Las Citas En Los Apartados Del Trabajo Fin De Máster Escrito En Español Y En Inglés, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

This study correlates with a research study published in the journal Pragmalingüística, in which the contrastive use of the rhetorical functions of citations in master’s theses in Spanish and English was studied. The main objective pursued by this new research is to determine which rhetorical functions are used most frequently in the different parts of a master’s thesis and what these can accomplish in each part of the text. Following Petrić (2007), a computerized textual analysis of the rhetorical function of citation was used to study this phenomenon in a corpus of sixteen (16) theses of which eight (8) were …

Linguistic Discrimination In Higher Education In Vietnam, Y Dang Nhu Tran

University Honors Theses

Prof. John Baugh has remarked that "this greater linguistic unity will help us all as we move toward the future" (Baugh, 2019). This qualitative research paper addresses the causes of linguistic discrimination and the impacts on current college students in Vietnam via three students from different regions (North, Central, and South) at one university. The paper examines linguistic discrimination and how political and linguistic identity have shaped behavior and social interaction on the part of three young Vietnamese intellectuals. The literature examines a brief history of Vietnamese language and culture, research paradigms in linguistic discrimination, and learning culture.

Naomi: Learning For Future Possibilities, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

We've published 5 blog posts that present different personas of working learners. These personas are drawn from our interviews with frontline worker learners across the country who are participating in employer-supported learning opportunities. The personas characterize aspects of a set of real people - capturing and blending them in order to create one story that illustrates a broader representation of a participant in an employer-supported educational program or course.

21st Century Learning Ecosystem For Working Learners, Kathy Harris, Jen Vanek,, Jill Castek, Gloria Jacobs

21CLEO Presentations and Publications

• What are the experiences of working learners in employer sponsored learning?
• What motivates frontline service workers to participate in employer sponsored learning opportunities, many of which are offered online?
• What factors support working learners’ continued participation and their success?

Does Justice Have A Syntax?, Steven L. Winter

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Discourse Strategies In Selected African Suicide Notes, Oluwole Sanni

Theses and Dissertations

The present study aims to investigate the discourse strategies, positioning moves, and sociological variables that characterized the selected African suicide notes. Twenty suicide notes from different African countries constituted the data for the study. The data was deductively analysed using Davis & Harre (1999) positioning theory aside being inductively analysed. The results concluded that the discourse and structural patterns of metaphor, intertextuality, pronouns, presupposition, repetition, if conditionals, and intensifiers were deployed by the African suicide completers to demonstrate agency or/and victimhood. Also, first-order, second-order, third-order, expert and moral positioning were used in the suicide notes for self and other portrayer …

Approaches To Narrative Instruction For Second Language Learners, Mathew Peters

MA TESOL Collection

Narratives have reemerged as a dominant form of rhetoric over the last fifty years. This dominant use of narrative discourse has only increased with the rise of social media. Walther Fisher (1987) proposed the narrative paradigm as a unifying theory of human communication. His major claim is that people are inherently storytellers and that people use a narrative rationality and a logic of good reasons to inform their beliefs, values, and actions. This paper utilizes his theories, along with recent findings in neuroscience, to establish an argument for greater inclusion of narratives into second language teaching. Narratives can have a …

Motivating Language Students Through A Collaborative, Multiliteracies Approach, Joshua Richard Lamping

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio conveys some of the author’s principal views regarding second language (L2) teaching and learning. These views have been developed and informed by studying the research literature, personal language learning experience, language teaching observations, and language teaching experience.

The first section, teaching perspectives, contains an explanation of the environment envisioned by the author while writing this portfolio, his teaching philosophy statement, and a summary of classroom observations. The second section, research perspectives, contains two research papers and an annotated bibliography that support the author’s language teaching philosophy.

Methods And Effects Of Shadowing Using Online Authentic Videos On L2 Acquisition Of Mandarin Chinese Tones, Ai-Ling Lu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mandarin Chinese tones are notoriously difficult for second language (L2) learners. Previous research focuses on tone training methods that can help learners produce monosyllabic lexical tones, and studies about the production of multisyllabic lexical tones at the sentence level in spontaneous speech are limited. This study applies shadowing—a method where the learners repeat what they heard with as little delay as possible—to tone training and compares the effects of using authentic videos and textbook audios as shadowing materials for beginner L2 Mandarin learners’ tone improvement at the sentence level. Fourteen students in elementary Chinese classes at an American university participated …

Aviation English In A Bilingual Context: Bilingual Spanish-English Pilots, Seneca Doty

Honors Projects

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of English and Spanish in the applied context of aviation by researching pilot experiences in the cockpit within the register of aviation English. This study investigates pilot’s in-flight experiences in relation to language proficiency in the hopes of improving future standards of communication. Expounding on previous research with a focus on native Spanish speaking pilots, this research utilizes a Likert scale survey and demographic assessment to evaluate proficiencies inside the cockpit of bilingual Spanish-English participants. By determining each pilot´s use of English outside of the workplace as well as how …

Equity Journey To Crt, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

By thinking about racism and all social justice work as a systemic issue rather than a set of individual actions, we are led to question the underlying structures that may be undermining working learners' success despite the best efforts of all involved. Adopting the lens of CRT in our work is meant to provoke change and prompt healing. It has caused us to question our role as researchers and our place as educators in the social justice movement. It has challenged us to move out of the safety of academia and to think of our research as social action. The …

Sources Of Individual Differences In Adults’ Ict Skills: A Large-Scale Empirical Test Of A New Guiding Framework, Alexandra Wicht, Stephen Reder, Clemens M. Lechner

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We develop an integrative conceptual framework that seeks to explain individual differences in the ability to use information and communication technologies (ICT skills). Building on practice engagement theory, this framework views the continued usage of digital technologies at work and in everyday life (ICT use) as the key prerequisite for the acquisition of ICT skills. At the same time, the framework highlights that ICT use is itself contingent upon individual and contextual preconditions. We apply this framework to data from two recent German large-scale studies (N = 2,495 and N = 2,786, respectively) that offer objective measures of adults’ ICT …

So, Why Persona?, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

A colleague asked us a thoughtful and compelling question - why did we create the personas and how do these personas help employers, human resources staff, people working in workforce education, and those in adult education? We wrote this blog post to address those questions.

“Life Is Splendid Here In The U.S.”: Intercultural Learning In Contemporary Chinese Students’ Academic Adjustment, Karolina Achirri

The Qualitative Report

The increasing numbers of Chinese learners studying at American universities and the high mobility across borders have recently challenged prevailing stereotypes of Asians in education. While studies of Chinese students are abundant, there has been scant research on how intercultural learning unfolds in these students’ adjustment to both academic and social settings. To address this research gap, I center my case study around six of my former students from China and examine their progress at different U.S. institutions. Data from their journals were coded and analyzed qualitatively. In tracing my participants’ first semester trajectory and their strategies to adapt to …

The Aki Yerushalayim Corpus: A Study Of Loanwords In Ladino, Rachel Mccullough

College of Arts and Letters Posters

Ladino (or Judeo-Spanish) is a Diasporic Jewish language spoken by Sephardi Jews. There is little existing scholarly research on Ladino, nor does it have many language learning materials. These two factors compelled me to create the Aki Yerushalayim Corpus. The initial Aki Yerushalayim Corpus of Modern Written Ladino (currently ~7,000 words) was not created to act as a reference corpus of Modern Ladino. Rather, it was created to study the composition of Ladino prose and demonstrate the utility of this type project in the subdiscipline of language documentation. In addition, the project’s focus on cultural essays and narrative prose allow …

How Indigenous-Language Court Interpreters And Clients Navigate The U.S. Court System Under Strict Court-Interpreting Guidelines, Ashten Lehwalder

University Honors Theses

In Oregon, requests for court interpreters of languages indigenous to Latin America have increased within the last few years. However, the number of available indigenous-language court interpreters in the U.S. remains low. During the 2019 U.S.--Mexico Border Crisis, many refugees seeking asylum were from Mayan communities; indigenous-language court interpreters struggled to meet the demand. Even though court interpreting is a civil right in the U.S., many individuals have been afforded inadequate language services, or have gone without interpreters altogether. This study seeks to understand the experience of indigenous-language court interpreters, who must operate according to a code of ethics, through …

Dani: Front-Line Supervisor Paid Hourly Seeking Certification For Advancement, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

In our final two blog posts we offer personas based on people who are working to earn a degree or certificate, including Regina: Healthcare worker seeking to establish a career and, here in our final persona to date, Dani, an hourly frontline supervisor who wants to earn a certificate and advance her career.

A Corpus Approach Study On The Manzanar Free Press, Danielle Jochums

University Honors Theses

Past studies on the physical environment of the Japanese-American internment camps of World War II have argued that internees were able to express their agency and identity despite the dehumanization of the camps. However, studies on the newspapers circulated in the camps have argued that internees had no agency as they worked on newspapers. In a preliminary reading, it was clear that these newspapers evidenced internee agency in their language. Utilizing de Certeau's theoretical framework of tactics, this study addressed the following questions: What tactics did Japanese-American internees use to take agency when writing and editing camp newspapers? How did …

Incidental Acquisition Of Multiword Expressions Through Audiovisual Input: The Role Of Repetition And Typographic Enhancement, Elvenna Majuddin, Anna Siyanova-Chanturia, Frank Boers

Education Publications

There has been limited research on the efficacy of captioned second language (L2) television in facilitating the incidental acquisition of multiword expressions (MWEs). The present study aims to fill this gap. Additionally, this study examined the role of typographic enhancement and repetition. One-hundred and twenty-two L2 learners were assigned to one of six conditions which differed in terms of caption condition (no captions, normal captions, enhanced captions) and the number of times they watched the same video (once, twice). The participants took a cued MWE form recall test before watching the video, and immediately and two weeks after watching it. …