Linguistics Commons^™

Yolkkh: The Story Of My People, Amna Zelimkha Yandarbin

Theses and Dissertations

The name of my project is: Yolkkh, The Story of My People. With this project I present a series of scarves each one bearing an illustrated scene in order to tell a story – my story and the story of the Noxci people. Noxci are the people who are referred to as “Chechens” by Russians and are generally known by that title. As a Muslim, I have witnessed the way Western media tend to dehumanize my community. In order to contrast this dehumanizing process, I thought that telling the story of my family would help reverse Islamophobic tendencies and raise …

An Editing Process For Blind Or Visually Impaired Editors, Matt Baker, E.M. Nightingale, Suzy Bills

Faculty Publications

In the US, hundreds of thousands of individuals with visual disabilities work in occupations that typically entail editing text. Editing technologies for blind or visually impaired people have been analyzed by researchers for usability, accessibility, and feasibility. However, a tutorial is needed to provide blind or visually impaired workers with information on how to use these technologies. Key concepts: Technologies that blind or visually impaired individuals can use for editing text present challenges. Such challenges include the lack of usability in word processors’ text-editing features, navigational and sense-making issues with screen readers, limited text displayed by refreshable braille displays, and …

Inter-Generational Family Reconstitution With Enriched Ontologies, Deryle W. Lonsdale, David W. Embley, Stephen W. Liddle, Scott N. Woodfield

Faculty Publications

Enriching ontologies can measurably enhance research in digital humanities. Support for this claim is shown by using an enriched ontology to attack a well known and challenging problem: record linkage of historical records for inter-generational family reconstitution. An enriched ontology enables extraction of birth, death, and marriage records via linguistic grounding, curation of record-comprising information with pragmatic constraints and cultural normatives, and record linkage by evidential reasoning. The result is a fully automatic reconstruction of family trees. Using three historical record books containing a total of 29,229 extracted records, the enriched ontology links records with high accuracy: F-scores in the …

‘The Good English’: The Ideological Construction Of The Target Language In Adult Esol, Kelsey Swift

Publications and Research

This project problematizes hegemonic conceptions of language by looking at the construction of ‘English’ in a nonprofit, community-based adult ESOL program in New York. I use ethnographic observation and interviews to uncover the discursive and pedagogical practices that uphold these hegemonic conceptions in this context. I find that the structural conditions of the program perpetuate a conception of ‘English’ shaped by linguistic racism and classism, despite the program’s progressive ideals. Linguistic authority is centralized through the presentation of a closed linguistic system and a focus on replication of templatic language. This allows for the drawing of linguistic borders by pathologizing …

Lives In Musicology: My Life In Writings, Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

Responding to an invitation from the editors of Acta Musicologica to tell the story of his life in musicology, Kofi Agawu describes his upbringing and early education in Ghana and his university studies in the UK and the US. In a career focused on teaching, research, and writing, he outlines a number of intellectual projects involving the analysis of African and European music. He ends by acknowledging renewed discussions of race and identity in the musical academy today, and hints at his own growing interest in African art music.

Sample Size Matters When Calculating Pillai Scores, Joseph A. Stanley, Betsy Sneller

Faculty Publications

Pillai Scores

Are they good measures?

• Often supported in meta-analyses (Nycz & Hall-Lew 2013, Kelley & Tucker 2020)
• Appear to be better than Euclidean distance, mixed-effects regression, spectral overlap, SOAM, VOACH, APP, etc.
• However, Bhattacharyya’s Affinity may be better suited for vowel data since it’s robust to skewed data. (Johnson 2015)

Implications:

Mergers are probably underreported and separation is probably overreported

• It takes a lot of data (more than many studies use) to get reliably low Pillai scores
• Mergers may be more common previously reported

Statistical significance should be reported

• Reporting p -values from MANOVA tests removes the need for …

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Beyond Midpoints: Vowel Dynamics Of The Low-Back-Merger Shift, Joseph A. Stanley

Faculty Publications

Conclusions

Summary:

• Here, as the vowels lowered/retracted, their trajectories changed too.
• This is not always the case! (cf. Stanley et al. forthcoming)
• Not an artifact of modeling! Each cohort had independent model fits.

Take-away:

• There is more to a vowel shift than its midpoints.
• More work needed on vowel trajectories to better describe change.

Sociolinguistics of vowel formant trajectories?

• What kind of sociolinguistic meanings are associated with trajectories?
• Yes, surrounding consonants affect trajectories
• They affect midpoints too but they still carry sociolinguistic meaning.
• Are we comfortable assuming trajectories are 100% phonetic?
• Are these trajectory differences perceptible?
• Stay tuned for experimental …

The Effect Of Prompt Accent On Elicited Imitation Assessments In English As A Second Language, Jacob G. Barrows, Troy L. Cox

Faculty Publications

Elicited imitation (EI) assessments have been shown to discriminate well between speakers across proficiency levels, but little has been reported on the effect L2 accent has on test-takers’ ability to understand and process the test items they hear. Furthermore, no study has investigated the effect of accent on test-taker perceptions of EI tests. This study examined the relationships among accent, accent familiarity, EI test item difficulty and test scores. To investigate, self-reports of students’ exposure to different varieties of English were obtained from a pre-assessment survey. An EI test (63 items) was then administered in which English language learners (n …

Person-Marking In Máku, Chris Rogers Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

In Máku (an extinct language isolate), person marking is encoded by pronominal elements that are attached to bound pronominal roots, possessed nouns, and as subject and object argument agreement reference on verbs. However, when the contrasts between the various person-markers and their behaviors in the language are considered the system does not fit easily into the traditional analysis of three persons and two numbers. Rather, the organization of and relationships between the pronominal elements in Máku reveals a system based on the distinction of three persons (first, second and third), a two-way quantitative distinction (singular and non-singular), and a two-way …

Mother Goose As A Resource In Teaching Historical Linguistics, Dallin D. Oaks

Faculty Publications

Mother Goose and other nursery rhymes as authentic texts are valuable resources that can be used effectively to illustrate historical English language change. Even though these nursery rhymes contain some forms, structures, and word meanings that differ from the language of today, the texts are sufficiently recent that they are intelligible to modern audiences. This article will illustrate the relevance and usefulness of nursery rhymes in teaching about principles of language and language change, such as voicing, phonological processes, factors motivating phonological change, as well as actual changes in the phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and lexicon of English.

What Can Vowel Formant Trajectories Tell Us About Language Change?, Joseph A. Stanley

Faculty Publications

Recent Developments

Easier to extract trajectory data:

• FAVE is good, but only returns 5 points, English-only
• Fast Track has more gradience, cleaner, any language.

Easier to analyze trajectory data:

• Generalized additive mixed effects models
• "Difference smooths” can tells us where along the trajectory we see statistical significance between two curves.

We can analyze the trajectories themselves , rather than properties about them.

Overview

Vowel shifts may involve changes in trajectory:

• Data: sociolinguistic interviews in Cowlitz County
• Phenomenon: The “Elsewhere Shift”

Vowel shift might night involve changes in trajectory:

• Data: Legacy linguistic atlas interviews in the South
• Phenomenon: Southern Vowel Shift …

Langue De Bois, Or, Discourse In Defense Of An Offshore Financial Center, Samuel Weeks

College of Humanities and Sciences Faculty Papers

This article brings together trends in Critical Discourse Analysis dating from the 1980s – which examine how language use and ideologies (re)produce social inequality – with current research in the social sciences on neoliberalism and other emerging politico-economic formations. The article addresses such a problematic with an empirical case: the language strategies, dubbed langue de bois, that people affiliated with Luxembourg’s offshore financial center employ to justify their practices. The contribution herein surveys the political rationality of the country’s financial center by analyzing the langue de bois that its representatives and boosters use. These language strategies, furthermore, enable Luxembourg’s …

Serving Culturally And Linguistic Students Identified With A Communication Disability In The K-12 Educational Environments, Lashell Dauterman

Theses and Dissertations

As more and more students enter public schools with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds that require services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, facilitators must be more sensitive to the needs, especially in the area of communication. Augmentative and alternative communication devices and other assistive technology are required by law to be utilized with individuals identified as disabled. However, due to the challenges that exist in properly identifying and implementing intervention plans for children who require services as English language learners and special education, communication needs are often misidentified or not provided. Another issue that exists is the lack …

Theories On The Pedagogy Of Asla (Accelerated Second Language Acquisition): A Piikuni Student Approach, Robert Patrick Hall

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis is an exploration in the pedagogy of ASLA to understand how and why it is successful at being a methodology that enables an instructor to teach endangered languages effectively. The paper explores the current deficits within language revitalization programs and argues that ASLA can improve endangered language programs

Translanguaging And Reading Comprehension In A Second Language, Muhammad Asif Qureshi, Ahmad Aljanadbah

All Works

The current study examined the impact of translanguaging on second language reading comprehension. The study involved an experimental and a control group. The participants in the experimental group (n = 38) were offered four opportunities to engage Arabic–their first language–in comprehending a text in English. These occasions for translanguaging included: (a) receiving Arabic glosses (i.e., only meaning) for key terms in the text, (b) employing their first language for summarizing four paragraphs from the passage, (c) using their first language in discussion for comparing summaries with peers, and (d) consulting the Arabic meanings (provided) while attempting the vocabulary items. After …

Heller (2008) And The Language Of The Second Amendment: Grammar, Meaning, And Canonical Conventions, James Vanden Bosch

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Legal scholars use linguistic tools in their work as a matter of course, and scholars of Constitutional law regularly engage in semantic analysis, trying to determine what specific words and phrases mean in context. Historical linguistics (the study of how language changes over time) and corpus linguistics (the analysis of large bodies of text, now typically aided by computers) also have roles to play in the study of Constitutional law, and these tools prove to be particularly helpful in the study of the 2008 Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment.

Putting Policy In Its Place: Policy Enactment And Engagement Through A Multiscalar Policy-Shed Framework, Barbara L. Maclennan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The objective of this research is to examine the spatial components integral to policy formation, implementation, and evaluation. The research uses solid waste as a case study to explore a multiscalar GIS policy-shed framework. To this end, the goal of this dissertation is to examine the spatial nature of public policy. The research applies spatial concepts and multiscalar methodological applications embedded within GIS and geovisualization to explore the complex spaces surrounding public policy implementation and evaluation.

Zoomprov. Improvisation Exercises For Language Learning In Online Classes With Zoom Or Similar Tech For Beginning And Intermediate Learners And Beyond, Mona Eikel-Pohen

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

The improv language exercises in this compilation are chosen from the experience I gathered 20 years ago, but also from the amazing work of Lauren Esposito and Scranton Improv & Comedy that have been more real than anything else to me this past summer, and from Jim Ansaldo, who taught me how to structure improv exercises online. They are organized by level, referring to the Common European Framework of References for Languages. That means, A1 exercises can be conducted at the beginners level but also at all other higher levels, but B2 exercises should not be imposed upon beginners or …

Krakatau On Fire, The Disaster Of 1883 In Dutch Colonial Literature: A Postcolonial Approach, Rick Honings

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

In 1883, the volcano Krakatau erupted and collapsed, causing the deaths of tens of thousands. The eruption was one of the first disasters to take place beyond the Dutch boundaries that received so much attention in the Netherlands. Although the disaster appealed to the imagination, it barely led to the publication of fiction. Only in Dutch Indies youth literature can one find something about the Krakatau. In this article, four Dutch stories and novels are analysed: “Stories of the moon” by Nellie van Kol-Porreij, The hermit of Rakata or Krakatau on fire by Robert Michael Ballantyne, “Nine Months on Krakatau” …

Revisiting Ethnicity In Southeast Asia, Dewi Hermawati Resminingayu

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

To explain ethnicity, scholars have come to an endless discussion providing a wide spectrum of ethnicity throughout the world. Various perspectives have been suggested to comprehend the notion of ethnicity. To this point, there are three most well-known perspectives to explain this term, namely primordialism, instrumentalism, and constructivism approach. Most scholars commonly apply one approach to dissect a case study related to ethnicity. Few have ombined two approaches, for each approach seems to contradict one another. However, this paper suggests that those three approaches can be simultaneously applied if critically used to discern certain case studies related to ethnicity in …