Discourse and Text Linguistics Commons^™

The Negotiated Identities Of Refugee-Background Women During Resettlement, Iuliia Fakhrutdinova

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Refugee-background women experience unique challenges while resettling in the U.S. as they navigate complicated transnational gender roles, education gaps, migration trauma, learning a new language, and literacy in the adaptation process during resettlement, which can derail the productive paths they are on. Therefore, ignoring refugee-background women’s unique experiences and failing to understand their identities prevents our society from doing social justice and creating a space for a smooth adaptation to the new context. Language plays a paramount role in identity formation, as it moves away from the belief that identity is an essential concept. For refugee-background women during resettlement, their …

You Can't Teach Kids From A Book: Language, Authority And Revitalization In Jicarilla Apache Life, Mariann Skahan

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation examines how Jicarilla Apache is learned, taught, and used across community life, with particular attention to contemporary language revitalization. Based on ethnographic research with elders, educators, language workers, families, and community institutions, it follows language practices across classrooms, culture camps, homes, ceremonial settings, and collaborative archival projects. I show that linguistic knowledge does not carry the same authority or consequences in every setting. Words may be recognized without being taken up, speakers may possess linguistic knowledge without being authorized to teach or correct, and archival texts may preserve linguistic forms without preserving the relations needed to interpret and …

Values-Based Leadership In Public Discourse: How University Leaders Frame Character And Commitment, Heather Carroll, Jeff Fritz, Sarah Williams, Cheryl A. Maurana

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

Public leadership speech is a consequential site of ethical positioning where institutional values are named, contested, and interpreted under pressure, and where the choice of virtue language shapes where attention is directed. Analyzing published quotations from university leaders during the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, we examine how virtue language functioned as a public act of values-based leadership through a socio-ecological framework for flourishing that treats character as dynamic and relational. We find that leaders constructed ethical stances by anchoring commitment to moral virtues that named goods, intellectual virtues that narrated deliberative process, and occasionally pairing both …

Cultivating Narratives: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Higher Education Student-Led Farms And Gardens, Maximilan Sherard, Marc T. Sager

Publications

Despite extensive research on community agriculture, little attention has been paid to student-led farms or gardens (SFGs) in higher education contexts. SFGs represent a unique site for community agriculture due to their diverse stakeholders, academic affiliations, and the institutional policies they navigate. This study examines online promotional materials from 42 SFGs located on land-grant higher education campuses across the United States. Using critical discourse analysis, we (1) map these organizations’ practices and (2) identify competing discourses about community and agriculture within their promotional narratives. We identify and explain four core practices (membership, growing, distribution, and purpose) and connect these practices …

Discourse, Power, And Pedagogy In Ai And Human-Designed Efl Lesson Plans: A Clil And Systemic Functional Linguistic Perspective, Christian D. Libunao, Vincent A. Morales

Journal of English and Applied Linguistics

The integration of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) into English language teaching (ELT) raises important questions about how AI-generated lesson plans shape pedagogy, interaction, and ideology compared to human-designed materials. This study examines how ChatGPT-generated lesson plans converge with or diverge from those published by the British Council, with particular attention to teacher and learner roles, classroom power dynamics, and pedagogical scaffolding. A triadic framework combining systemic functional linguistics (SFL), critical discourse analysis (CDA), and content and language integrated learning (CLIL) was applied to three British Council lesson plans and three thematically matched ChatGPT outputs. Findings reveal that both sets of …

Propuesta Curricular Para La Asistencia Médica Bilingüe Orientada A La Concordancia De Lenguas Y La Interpretación Médica En Español, David Sanchez-Jimenez, Noemi Rodriguez, Justin Harnandan, Margarita Perez, Melissa Garcia

Publications and Research

Resumen: El presente trabajo describe el proceso para establecer una especialización secundaria bilingüe centrada en la comunicación y la interpretación médica en una universidad de Estados Unidos designada como Institución al Servicio de los Hispanos. Este nuevo título universitario brindará a los estudiantes bilingües de español e inglés especializados en el área de la salud la oportunidad de mejorar sus destrezas comunicativas para convertirse en competentes profesionales de la salud concordantes de lengua.

Abstract:This paper details the process to establish a new bilingual academic minor in health communication and medical interpretation at a United States university designated as a Hispanic-Serving …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

The Key To Acquiring The Language Of Law, Science, And Technology In The Esl College Classroom, Patricia George-Hunter

Journal of English Learner Education

Since vocabulary plays a significant role in second language acquisition, expansive vocabulary targets should be set and pursued. This paper explores the results of introducing affixes to develop vocabulary and increase motivation for beginner to intermediate-level English language learners (ELLs) pursuing academic disciplines in law, science, and technology at a New York City community college. Participants included 23 ELLs with diverse linguistic, educational, and sociocultural backgrounds enrolled in an online synchronous Integrative Language Seminar (ILS) designed to develop all areas of English language proficiency. Pre‑, post‑, delayed tests, questionnaires, and post‑intervention interviews were conducted and analyzed to establish the language …

The Label Of Low Effort: Exploring Teachers’ Effort-Related Language, Meritocratic Beliefs, And Attribution-Based Responsibility Assignments, Kelly A. Larson

Doctorate in Education

Educators play an integral role in the academic success and future educational trajectory of their students. Yet, in an unjust, hyper-individualistic education system grounded in a meritocratic myth, even the most well-intentioned teachers have a tendency to explain students’ underperformance through a self-protective, deficit-based attribution process that puts the onus of academic achievement almost entirely on students and their families. This recursive cycle is especially damaging for students who do not exhibit effort in normalized, Eurocentric ways. This study examines how teachers’ attributions and responsibility assignments for students’ perceived low-effort behavior are shaped by inequitable meritocratic beliefs and reinforced through …

Rhetorics Of Encounter: Toward A Biocentric Theory Of Discourse, Matthew D. Whitaker

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Encounters with more-than-human identities are transformative moments that stand to affect dispositional and bodily change in individuals. From close brushes with wild animals in National Parks to everyday interactions with local ecologies, encounters invite us to feel and think differently about the nature of our realities. In Rhetorics of Encounter: Toward a Biocentric Theory of Discourse, I draw from interdisciplinary perspectives to disrupt the idea of rhetoric as a representational medium, arguing that rhetoric occurs not just through textual exchanges of words and symbols, but through embodied moments of contact with other responsive beings. Invoking George Kennedy’s theory …

Advancing Equity In Financial Aid For Black Students: A Document Analysis Study Of Student Equity Plans In California Community Colleges, Edwina Williams

Dissertations

This study examined how California Community Colleges (CCCs) constructed financial aid discourse in Student Equity Plans (SEPs) and assessed whether these strategies mitigated or perpetuated racial disparities for Black students. Previous scholarship identified racial inequities in financial aid systems and explored how equity planning documents addressed race; yet, the influence of institutional discourse on financial aid access remained underexamined. This study contributed to the literature by applying critical race hermeneutics (CRH) to examine how SEPs outlined financial aid strategies, with particular attention to the framing of work–study opportunities and the extent to which the SEP intended to employ race-conscious approaches. …

Becoming A Beloved Community: A Restorative Reckoning For A Radical Conversion To Transform Discourse In Higher Education, Latasha Tomay Varlack-Butler

Dissertations

This dissertation critically examines the misappropriation of Restorative Justice Discourse (RJD) within three predominantly white institutions (PWIs), analyzing 59 institutional documents through Critical Discourse Analysis, Relational Critical Discourse Analysis, and Rhetorical Criticism (Fairclough, 1995; Vaandering, 2021; van Dijk, 2008). Tribal Colleges and Universities and South African institutions have emerged as exemplars of authentic RJD, countering co-optation within PWIs. The findings demonstrate that RJD as applied in PWIs is framed in ways that attenuate its transformative potential, perpetuating color-evasiveness (Bonilla-Silva, 2017) and obscuring the intersectional experiences of Black, Indigenous, and disabled communities (Crenshaw, 1991; Million, 2009).

Grounded in decolonial praxis (Smith, …

“Let Me Be A Bridge”: Language Brokering Among Emerging Adult Latina Professionals In The Midwest, Elise M. Dubord

Faculty Publications

In immigrant families, bilingual children and adolescents regularly act as translators and interpreters for family and community members who are not fluent in the dominant language. These childhood language brokers later shift the focus of their translation activities as they transition into adulthood and develop professional skills. This research explores narratives of language brokering trajectories of three bilingual Latinas who were emerging adult professionals in three cities in Iowa. Based on a series of interviews collected over a 15 month period, this analysis examines how participants described realigning their family language responsibilities while simultaneously transferring their language brokering skills to …

Integrating Corpus Linguistics In Vietnamese English Education: A Qualitative Inquiry Into Scholarly Perspectives And Practices, Thi Thuy Tran, Trut Thuy Pham, Thanh Thao Le

Higher Learning Research Communications

Objective: Our qualitative study investigated the integration of corpus linguistics in English education research among Vietnamese scholars, focusing on the experiences and perceptions across different career stages.

Methods: Employing semi-structured interviews, we engaged nine linguistics scholars, including novices as well as those at mid-career and near-end career stages, from two prominent Vietnamese institutions.

Results: Thematic analysis revealed three key themes: (1) challenges in incorporating corpus linguistics into teaching practices, (2) perceived benefits in enhancing language proficiency, and (3) the importance of institutional support for corpus linguistics research. The findings indicated that despite recognizing the pedagogical benefits of corpus linguistics, scholars …

Understanding The “L” In Cslp Within The Literacy Conundrum, Julia Lynch, Andrea Perrone

Michigan Reading Journal

Rooted in culturally relevant pedagogy, culturally sustaining literacy practices (CSLP) focus on equity in education (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Paris, 2012). Our view of CSLP emphasizes integrating the arts into literacy instruction to leverage students' cultural assets, stimulating their cognitive processes and recognizing literacy's interdisciplinary role in learning. As we align literacy practices with state standards, high-stakes testing, and research-based methods, it's crucial for educators and society to embrace them. Traditionally, literacy instruction has prioritized written language, creating hierarchical structures that lead to learning gaps and inequitable opportunities. An arts-based CSLP framework addresses these issues by ensuring literacy includes diverse …

Principal Agency 50 Years After The Lau Decision: Building And Sustaining Bilingual Education Programs For Asian Languages, Kevin M. Wong, Zhongfeng Tian

Education Division Scholarship

This study examined how three champion principals of Asian language dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs—Cantonese, Korean, and Mandarin—in California have navigated the oscillating language-in-education policies after the Lau decision. We explored principals' various roles through a lens of agency in a social justice leadership framework, specifically considering the opportunities and challenges for agentive leadership from three different phases: foregrounding and engaging, planning and implementing, and evaluating and sustaining. Findings demonstrate that the success of DLBE programs goes beyond the overarching language policies that supposedly enable bilingual education; rather it hinges on the bottom-up commitment, collaboration and resilience of principals, …

Promoting Emergent Literacy In Preschool Through Extended Discourse: Covert Translanguaging In A Mandarin Immersion Environment, Robin E. Harvey, Kevin M. Wong

Education Division Scholarship

Rich oral language practices, including the opportunity and ability to participate in cognitively and linguistically challenging extended discourse, are foundational to early literacy development. To meet children’s needs in their first exposure to the languages of schooling, educators may engage students in extended discourse multilingually. The current study focuses on student-centered translanguaging conversations to examine strategies that preschool teachers employ to support young children’s emerging bilingual and biliteracy development in a Mandarin immersion preschool serving primarily nonheritage learners of Mandarin in the United States. Findings indicate that, despite the school’s Mandarin-only policy, teachers engaged in covert translanguaging practices to extend …

Cross-Cultural And Cross-Proficiency Analysis Of Selected Cohesion Indices In Student Essays, Audrey Buenavista Morallo

Journal of English and Applied Linguistics

Cohesion is important in writing because of its role in writing quality development (Abdi Tabari & Johnson, 2023) and in making texts comprehensible (Ghasemi, 2013). It can differentiate between proficient and deficient writing (Crossley et al., 2016b, 2019), demonstrating its use as an index of language proficiency. Despite being an index of proficiency, little is known about cohesion use in second-language contexts (Abdi Tabari & Johnson, 2023; Crossley, 2020; Crossley et al., 2016a). To address this, this study investigated the use of connectives, givenness, and lexical overlap in essays from the Philippines, Singapore, and China available in a corpus. A …

La Voz Del Autor En El Discurso Médico Y Sus Implicaciones En Ele, David Sanchez-Jimenez

Publications and Research

La demanda de profesionales de la salud que pueden prestar atención lingüísticamente concordante al paciente en contextos multilingües explica el aumento de los cursos de español médico en el currículo de pregrado y posgrado en instituciones universitarias de Estados Unidos en las últimas décadas. El aprendizaje de los estudiantes matriculados en estos cursos requiere el conocimiento de las características retórico-discursivas propias de los principales géneros discursivos que estudian durante su carrera para fines específicos en el campo de la salud los alumnos universitarios de español, cuyo fin último será el de replicarlos eficazmente en su práctica profesional. Por ello, en …

Spanish As A Heritage Language Across Disciplines: Assessing Spanish And Bilingual Courses At An Hsi In South Texas, Katherine Christoffersen, Dania López García, Javier Cavazos

11th National Symposium on Spanish as a Heritage Language (Archived)

Long-standing research has confirmed the many benefits of Spanish as a heritage language in dual language in K-12 classrooms (Collier & Thomas, 2017, 2019). However, in higher education, there are very few exceptions to the English-only monolingual norm (García & Li, 2014). This study explores one exception, a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in South Texas where certain classes are taught bilingually (Spanish/English) and in Spanish across various disciplines. In this study, we examine 1) how these courses impact success through a quantitative analysis of cumulative grade point averages (GPAs) and 2) how students perceive these courses through a qualitative analysis …

Retórica Intercultural En El Discurso Académico Universitario: Las Funciones Retóricas De La Citación En Los Trabajos De Fin De Máster Escritos En Español Y En Inglés Por Hablantes Nativos Y No Nativos, David Sanchez-Jimenez

Publications and Research

This research derives from the interest in learning the cultural differences in citation practices in the academic genre of Master's thesis of native Spanish (Ee), non-native Filipino writers of Spanish (Fe), native Filipino writers of English (Fi), and American writers of English. A total of thirty-two (32) master´s theses – eight (8) for each group – were analyzed. A quantitative and qualitative methodology was used to study this phenomenon based on the computerized textual analysis of the rhetorical function of citations arranged in typological classification that modified the outline proposed by Petrić in his 2007 article. The results obtained from …

Unveiling Spanish Language Attitudes In A Los Angeles School And A Third-Generation Multigenerational Mexican-American Family, Eric Alvarez

International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest

This chapter unearths some of the diverse attitudes towards Spanish of a third-generation child in Los Angeles (L.A.), California, her family members, and school personnel. L.A. is a tension-ridden contact zone (Pratt, 1991) where Spanish has traditionally been subjugated and is still a lesser-taught language (LTL) despite decades of research showing that bilingual education positively impacts student attitudes (Potowski & Muñoz-Basols, 2020). Lack of continuity (Caloi & Torregrossa, 2021) in formal instruction and inconsistent heritage Spanish use in the home may entail divergent attitudes towards Spanish, possibly hindering multigenerational transmission. Decades-long turbulent California language policies (CLP) (Macias, 2001) have consistently …

Comentarios Críticos Escritos Por Estudiantes De Medicina Sobre La Evaluación Del Paciente, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

La presente investigación analiza los comentarios críticos producidos por estudiantes chilenos de 3º y 4º de Medicina en la sección Comentario/Reflexión final de la Ficha Clínica con el objetivo de conocer su opinión sobre la experiencia de su estancia hospitalaria y la práctica médica en general, así como de entender los elementos retórico-discursivos que utilizan para posicionar su voz en el texto al evaluar dicha experiencia. Para investigar este fenómeno se realizó un análisis textual computarizado de las categorías gramaticales y los contenidos semántico-funcionales valorativos desde un enfoque cualitativo inductivo-deductivo. Los resultados del estudio mostraron un predominio de los comentarios …

Intertextual Discourse Research On Ip Film Language From The Perspective Of Chinese Teaching, Xiao Jiang

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

Based on the theory of intertextual discourse, this paper makes a comparative analysis of the IP source texts, Chinese subtitles and English subtitles of IP films from the perspective of Chinese teaching. The research found that Chinese subtitles of IP films which compared with the source texts reconstructed the descending language of the characters, implanted popular contemporary language and culture, strengthened the language escalation of dramatic conflicts, and increased the sense of humor and entertainment of characters' language, so as to be suitable for Chinese teaching and cultural communication. The English subtitles of IP films deleted the cultural elements of …

El Metadiscurso En La Escritura Académica: Singularidades E Investigaciones En Lengua Española, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

Dentro de la disciplina lingüística de la Pragmática, el estudio del metadiscurso ha sido uno de los temas más investigados en el mundo anglosajón en las últimas décadas. Este fenómeno se refiere al componente del discurso que sirve para hablar del discurso sin añadir significado proposicional. El metadiscurso facilita la comunicación y juega un rol central en el discurso para transmitir las ideas del autor y hacer partícipes a los lectores de estas ideas en su texto de manera efectiva, guiando al lector en la debida interpretación del texto, aumentando su legibilidad y permitiendo construir una relación más cercana con …

Posicionamiento Y Dialogicidad En La Escritura Académica Y Profesional, David Sánchez-Jiménez, Paulina Meza

Publications and Research

Esta investigación ofrece una perspectiva intercultural de los aspectos del posicionamiento y la dialogicidad en la producción de textos escritos en español y en inglés tanto por estudiantes universitarios de grado como graduados, y de autores expertos en sus respectivas disciplinas. Los conceptos de posicionamiento y dialogicidad son dos componentes esenciales de los textos académicos y profesionales, pues contribuyen a expresar la identidad, el punto de vista y la pertenencia social del autor a una determinada comunidad discursiva, a partir de los cuales se logra la credibilidad de sus juicios y la adhesión a sus ideas en la interacción discursiva …

Prüfung: A Deconstruction Of Assessment Across Three Languages, Thomas Erich Benz

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research aims at deconstructing and questioning certainties about assessment as an educational institution on its most fundamental levels. To achieve that, I am utilizing theoretical frameworks inspired by concepts on the existence of cultural and social capital, by artifact mediated cognition, and by a recently proposed discipline on pedagogy of assessment. The research operates with the application of narrative synthesis and network text analysis of material, on which they have not previously been used. As such, I aim to contribute to a methodological application of both methods on exam data, understood as the totality of curricular documents which govern …

Counterstories Of Black High School Students And Graduates Of Nyc Independent Schools: A Narrative Case Study, Kahdeidra M. Martin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Public youth resistance movements in 2019 and 2020 exposed the entrenchment of racism, sexism, heteronormativity, and classism across New York City independent schools (NYCIS). In order to support the imminent need for schools to provide effective diversity, inclusion, and equity supports that address broad issues of school climate, relationships, and pedagogy, there is a need to better understand the specific, hyperlocal experiences of Black/African Descendant (BAD) students, who occupy several unique, unexplored spaces in educational research. The following four research questions helped to conceptualize the experiences that support and hinder the academic success and long term well-being of BAD students …

Rewriting Web 2.0 Discourses Of The Local For Socio-Spatial Literacy Theory, Erin Daugherty

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to provide a framework for engaging with two spatial concepts that have been foundational to theorizing literacy across time but have often been taken for granted as passive backdrops to the social action of literacy practice: the notions of “the local” and “the global.” By interrogating the histories, both past and ongoing, of these two spatial concepts as they are interwoven into the sociocultural paradigm of literacy theory, research, and pedagogy, this project identifies new ways that literacy researchers and educators can attend to spatial concepts so as to promote and encourage literacy research and learning that …

Negotiating Multilingual Writer Identity In The Dissertation: International Perspectives On Language And Writing Practices, A. Brooke Boulton

Education Doctorate Dissertations

Globalization and internationalization of higher education have perpetuated the dominance of English as the language of production and reproduction in doctoral education. English dominance considers the status of English as a lingua franca in academia. Multilingual students for whom English is not the first language must engage in complex language and writing practices to meet university and publication standards, globally. As writing is identity work, students must negotiate thought and writing in two or more languages to achieve meaningful self-expression and to represent authentic, authoritative voices in English. Data representing students from 17 different countries and speaking 14 different languages …