Linguistics Commons^™

Improving Reading Through Fine Motor Skill Development In First Grade, Tyler West-Higgins

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Children who struggle with learning to read in first grade, fall behind, and have difficulty catching up with their peers. Research has shown students who struggle to read in first grade, also struggle to read in later years. The purpose of this study was to determine if an intervention to enhance fine motor skills to a select group of students in one class room increased their reading abilities. This was a mixed methods research study which assessed the quantitative data from the running record assessments, and the qualitative data taken by teacher-aide during assessment process post fine motor intervention. This …

Effects Of Dialogic Reading In A Special Day Class, Donna Senn

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Early Childhood Special Education provides services to children aged three to five years. A predominant identifier is very low communication skills (Shevell, et al, 2003; Kaiser & Roberts, 2011; Robertson & Ohi, 2016). Dialogic Reading techniques have demonstrated successes in various settings (Hargrave & Senechal, 2000; Whitehurst et al., 1988; Trivette & Dunst, 2009). The rationale for this study was grounded in Rogoff’s, “apprenticeship in thinking” (1990, p. 7) theory. The research literature reviewed centered on three primary lines of inquiry namely, 1) The social aspect of language learning; 2) Speech and language interventions; and 3) Dialogic reading strategies. This …

Idioms Or Open Choice? A Corpus Based Analysis, Kaitlyn Alayne Vanwagoner

Theses and Dissertations

The ambiguous nature of idioms has been a persistent challenge for English language learners and researches alike. Problematic issues include identifying which idioms are most pertinent for study, and the question of how frequently idiom forms found in dictionaries and other canonized resources actually function as idioms in real language use. This study differentiates between idiom forms used idiomatically (idiom-principle) versus literally (open-choice principle), and provides quantitative data to assess this difference. The data was obtained through a corpus analysis of 1,000 randomly-selected idioms in 10,000 randomly-selected contexts (10 contexts per idiom), and revealed that the majority of idiom forms …

Multilingual Trends In Five London Boroughs: A Linguistic Landscape Approach, Shayla Ann Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Although multilingualism has been investigated in London, no studies have addressed the multilingual linguistic landscape of this linguistically diverse globalized mega-city. In addition, no previous research has addressed the linguistic impacts of colonialism on the colonizer with respect to signage in the linguistic landscape. With increasing rates of immigration and globalization in London, it is advantageous to fully document and research the nature of the linguistic landscape in order to create a baseline for future comparison. Consequently, aspects of the linguistic landscape of five London boroughs were collected and analyzed in terms of 2,062 signage items. The study noted multilingual …

Code-Switching And Its Challenges: Perspectives On Translanguaging In The Efl/Esl Classroom, Michael Spooner

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

Structured in sections that represent the author’s teaching perspectives and research perspectives, the portfolio comprises reflective pieces written at the end of the Master of Second Language Teaching program and other pieces written as coursework during the author’s study in that program. In the first section, the author describes the principles that guide his own teaching and, in light of those principles, he reviews his experience as a learner, reports on observations of other teachers, and assesses his own performance based on observations done by others. The second section offers a set of four research papers that progressively develop and …

Student Expectations And Motivation In Spanish For Heritage Speakers Programs, Sergio A. Guzman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The changing demographics in the United States and the growing need for multilingual individuals originated by globalization, among other reasons, have contributed to the emergence of a new field within the area of Applied Linguistics: The Teaching and Learning of Heritage Languages. Due to historical and geographic causes, Spanish for Heritage Speakers (SHS) is currently the largest and most established of these programs. However, the curricula, like those of most college courses, has been developed from professors’ perspectives, largely ignoring what students want to learn and/or their motives for enrolling in these classes. The lack of student input is especially …

Studies In Words: Laborious Ben Jonson's Lexicon, Steven Hrdlicka

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation examines significant words in Ben Jonson’s poetic lexicon that the poet inherited, borrowed, and shaped from antiquity and through the Middle Ages. Jonson used etymology as a means to rhetorical inventio, a common practice in the Renaissance. Etymology comprehended more than mere word derivation in the Renaissance but also notably included philological study. Ben Jonson’s extensive knowledge of language, history, architecture, the plastic arts, and philosophy is well known, but the extent to which Jonson’s knowledge of these subjects contributed to his understanding and use of poetic language is not. Thus this dissertation seeks to explore the intellectual …

Alternations In Murui: A Morphological Approach, Amy Havlicek

Theses and Dissertations

Murui is a Witotoan language spoken in Colombia and Peru. This thesis focuses on alternations of voiced and voiceless alveolar and velar stops in Murui that occur at some morpheme boundaries in verbs. The alternations of the voiced and voiceless alveolar stops occur in the active indicative suffix allomorphs [‐dɯ] ~ [‐tɯ] ~ [‐d] ~ [‐t] and the alternations of the voiced and voiceless velar stops occur in the passive indicative suffix allomorphs [‐ka] ~ [‐ɡa]. These stops may also become voiced or voiceless when other suffixes are present in the verb. I focus my analysis on the inflectional morphology …

Tone In Acatlán Mixtec Nouns, Esteban I. Méndez-Hord

Theses and Dissertations

Varieties of Mixtec (an Oto-Manguean language group spoken in southern Mexico) have often been analyzed as having a three-way tonal distinction: Low, Mid and High. I present evidence from original research on simple, alienable nouns, that only two lexical tones, /H/ (corresponding to the traditional Mid tone) and /L/, where some H tones are floating, are needed to describe noun roots in Acatlán Mixtec. In essence, the extra-H tone (corresponding to the traditional Hi tone) only occurs in derived environments, which involve the interaction of tones from two or more morphemes. The bulk of the analysis uses H and L …

Referring Forms And Cognitive Status In Non-Narrative American Sign Language Texts, Tamara Michelle Grosso

Theses and Dissertations

In their work on referring expressions and cognition, Gundel et al. (1993) propose a model called the Givenness Hierarchy which suggests that there are basic referring expressions in languages which can signal the cognitive status of their referents. Supported by cross-linguistic research, the theory proposes six cognitive statuses which have forms associated with them such that if that form is used (successfully), the referent must have at least that status on the scale. In 2002, Swabey published a doctoral dissertation researching the Givenness Hierarchy for American Sign Language (ASL) in narrative texts. She compared the distribution of referring forms cross-linguistically …

Multilingualism And Multiculturalism: Opinions From Spanish-Speaking English Learners From Mexico, Central America, And South America, Cailey Catherine Moe

Dissertations and Theses

Within the population of adult English-language learners in the United States, the largest portion is comprised of Spanish speakers from Mexico and Central and South America. At the same time, Spanish is the second-most commonly spoken language in the U.S., and an increasing presence in U.S. media and culture. This puts English learners from this demographic in a unique position with respect to language and culture acquisition and the experience of working towards their goals within U.S. society at large.

The purpose of this study is to explore motivations and beliefs about language and culture held by a small number …

The Use Of Evidentials In Hearsay Contexts In Japanese And English, Tomomi Matsumura

Dissertations and Theses

Evidentials are one of the language codes that convey the speaker's beliefs in terms of the degree of reliability of information and how the speaker obtained information (Chafe, 1986; Ishida, 2006; McCready and Ogata, 2007). Evidentials play an important role in communication since they also function to show the speaker's attitude toward the interlocutors by making a sentence softer (Trent 1998). In his theory of territory of information, Kamio (1990, 1997, 2002) proposed that pragmatic rules of evidentials are different in Japanese than in English. Ishida (2006) studied these differences and argued that learners of Japanese (JF learners) face difficulties …

Neural And Behavioral Mechanisms Of Clear Speech, Jenna Silver Luque

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Clear speech is a speaking style that has been shown to improve intelligibility in adverse listening conditions, for various listener and talker populations. Clear-speech phonetic enhancements include a slowed speech rate, expanded vowel space, and expanded pitch range. Although clear-speech phonetic enhancements have been demonstrated across a variety of talkers, only a subset of these changes may be required for listeners to benefit perceptually from clear speech. Furthermore, while current literature has provided some understanding of the phonetic enhancements that are typical of clear speech and the improvements in intelligibility resulting from its use, less is understood regarding how listeners …

Thinking-For-Speaking And The Efl Mind: Face-To-Face Dialogue To Talk About Vertical Space, Kunisawa

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Studies of thinking-for-speaking (Slobin, 1987) and of linguistic relativity (Gumperz & Levinson, 1996) in multilinguals have been attracting more attention (Ortega, 2015). I propose the incorporation of sociocultural theory and linguistic relativity as a novel research approach in second language acquisition (SLA). Japanese learners of English go through a process in which word meaning develops from a single to binary semantic categorization as they learn to express vertical spatial operations in their second language (L2). Japanese has a nonobligatory distinction between contact and noncontact relationships when expressing vertical space (single semantic categorization), whereas English has an obligatory contrast (binary semantic …

Cuasi Nomás Inglés: Prosody At The Crossroads Of Spanish And English In 20th Century New Mexico, Jackelyn Van Buren

Linguistics ETDs

This dissertation investigates prosodic change in the long-term language contact setting of Traditional New Mexican Spanish (NMS). NMS prosody is perceptually distinct from other contemporary varieties of Spanish (Hills 1906, Bowen 1952, Lipski 2011), yet the features which make it unique have not been acoustically examined. This study hypothesizes that bilingualism with English has affected NMS prosody and analyzes three features which are known to differ between Spanish and English and therefore provide a quantitative point of comparison: pitch peak alignment, pitch variability, and rhythmic timing. These variables have been demonstrated to be susceptible to transfer in contact situations, including …

Producing "Fabulous": Commodification And Ethnicity In Hair Braiding Salons, Sylviane Ngandu-Kalenga Greensword

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Black women wearing fabulous braids are a striking feature of the Afro-diasporic cultural landscape. However, the braiders and salon owners who enable this aesthetic engineering are seldom acknowledged. This dissertation investigates the experience and role of Caribbean and West and Central African women in the hair braiding industry, a rapidly growing business in the U.S. I address the complexity of these women’s multiple social roles and the multiple consciousness (King, 1988) associated with their demographic characteristics (color, ethnicity, gender, nationality, and immigrant status). The commonalities between the braiders and their mostly African American customers contrast vividly with their perception of …

Language Experience With A Native-Language Phoneme Sequence Modulates The Effects Of Attention On Cortical Sensory Processing, Valerie L. Shafer, Monica Wagner, Jungmee Lee, Francesca Mingino, Colleen O'Brien, Adam Constantine, Mitchell Steinschneider

Publications and Research

Auditory evoked potentials (AEP) reflect spectro-temporal feature changes within the spoken word and are sufficiently reliable to probe deficits in auditory processing. The current research assessed whether attentional modulation would alter the morphology of these AEPs and whether native-language experience with phoneme sequences would influence the effects of attention. Native-English and native-Polish adults listened to nonsense word pairs that contained the phoneme sequence onsets /st/, /sət/, /pət/ that occur in both the Polish and English languages and the phoneme sequence onset /pt/ that occurs in the Polish language, but not the English language. Participants listened to word pairs within two …

Advancing Digital Skills For Problem Solving In Technology-Rich Environments, Jill Castek, Gloria Jacobs

Presentations and Publications

Digital and disciplinary literacies are not simply tools or cognitive behaviors. They have the potential to provide opportunities for students to better understand themselves, their communities, and their world. The presentation examines ways of conceptualizing and understanding digital literacies and disciplinary learning and consider implications for teacher education and community outreach efforts.

Nature Or Nurture In English Academic Writing: Korean And American Rhetorical Patterns, Sunok Kim

Theses and Dissertations

For many years, linguists, ESL writing teachers, and especially students have puzzled over the phenomenon where non-native English writers' sentences are grammatically correct, but their paragraphs and complete essays often appear illogical to native English speaking readers. From the perspective of Kaplan's original contrastive rhetoric theory where American rhetoric is "linear," Korean L2 writers' apparently circular rhetoric causes problems. Even though Korean writers are trying to write paragraphs that are logical for native English readers, this illogical output results in Korean ESL students being perceived as poor writers. In order to discover more about the nature of the rhetorical problems …

Above, On, Or Shang (上)? Language And Spatial Representations Among English–Mandarin Bilinguals, Wei Xing Toh, Lidia Suãrez

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study investigated if exposure to spatial language could affect spatial cognition in English-Mandarin bilinguals by focusing on contact/noncontact distinctions, an area that has been a source of contention in the language-and-thought literature. Sixty-three participants were first primed with sentences containing spatial terms (e.g., above, on) before performing a spatial decision task. Approximately half of the participants (n = 33) were primed in English; for the remaining participants (n = 30), primes comprising Mandarin spatial terms―which mark spatial distinctions differently than in English (e.g., shang in Mandarin signifies both above and on in English)―were employed instead. Our findings revealed that …