Linguistics Commons^™

Language Learners: Tutors' Perspectives, Jill Castek, Gloria Jacobs, Kimberly D. Pendell, Drew Pizzolato, Stephen Reder, Elizabeth Withers

Research Briefs and Case Studies

The Tutor Perspective Brief shares the insights of tutors who worked with English language learners in a digital literacy acquisition program, along with instructional supports they used to support learning. The Research Briefs series highlight key findings about how underserved adults acquire digital literacy skills, and include quotes from participants and practitioners. The Briefs are designed to be accessible by practitioners, program administrators, and policy makers to inform and enhance digital literacy programs.

Volunteers In An Adult Literacy Library Program: Digital Literacy Acquisition Case Study, Jill Castek, Kimberly D. Pendell, Gloria Jacobs, Drew Pizzolato, Elizabeth Withers, Stephen Reder

Research Briefs and Case Studies

This case study describes how one library, in its role as a community anchor institution, served to connect people through volunteerism to the community through the digital literacy acquisition program. The case study describes the setting, how the digital literacy acquisition program fit within the mission of the library, and how the program functioned within the community. The digital literacy acquisition process is described as a people centered process. Volunteering as a tutor in the program was found to contribute to a sense of belonging and connection, provide a way for individuals to serve the community, and provide opportunities for …

A Corpus Study Of Requests In Naturally Occurring Spoken American English: A Context Analysis Approach, Lynnelle Rhinier Brown

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

Given the variety of ways that speakers of American English can make requests, relatively little has been discovered on why speakers choose the forms they do. Using data from the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English, this study investigates what requestive forms American speakers use as well as the contextual conditions that occur with these forms. The study identifies categories of requestive forms, including let statements, if statements, modal statements, need/want statements, imperatives and modal interrogatives and the contextual parameters that occur with them, including social distance, social power, contingency, entitlement, sequential positioning, among others. These forms demonstrate patterns …

I Told Him/Her/It/Them?: The Problem Of Epicene Pronouns, Natalie Hall

Undergraduate Research Journal

To determine how Americans have naturally been using epicene pronouns, as opposed to the dictates of prescriptive grammar rules, this study focuses on speech patterns and informal writing. Because of their natural resistance to prescriptions, these two forms of communication tend to be more indicative of the epicenes most commonly used by Americans. 1 In this study, I seek an answer to the question of which epicene is used the most by Americans in speech and informal writing. I will use this information to determine the effectiveness of efforts to change prescriptions and traditions of epicene pronoun usage. After presenting …

Laki Verbal Morphosyntax, Sedigheh Moradi

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Most western Iranian languages, despite their broad differences, show a common quality when it comes to the verbal agreement of past transitive verbs. Dabir-moghaddam (2013) and Haig (2008) discuss it as a grammaticalized split-agreement to encode S, A, and P, which is sensitive to tense and transitivity, and uses split-ergative constructions for its past transitive verbs. Laki shows vestiges of the same kind of verb-agreement ergativity (Comrie 1978) by using a mixture of affixes and clitics for subject and object marking.

In this thesis, I investigate how the different classes of verbs show agreement using four distinct property classes. Considering …

Queering The Production Of Sexual Knowledge: Narrative Strategies, Gender Politics And The Promise Of Feminist Focus Groups, Madeline J. Hunsicker

Honors Theses

Dominant public discourses structure our interpretations of sexual acts in decidedly gendered ways, shaping our understandings of sexual experiences and embodiment. As a result, current understandings of term such as “virginity” evoke cultural standards of womanhood, whiteness, monogamy, and tradition that both reflect and reinforce contemporary society’s hetero-patriarchal relations of power. The narratives available for girls and women to make sense of the first sexual experiences are policed by dominant sexual discourses that privilege male pleasure (Kozma, 56-59), which can limit the narratives of actual sexual experiences and subjugate gynogentiric discourses of sexual knowing (Medley-Rath 26). In the absence of …

Spanish-English Bilingual Adolescents' Attitude Towards Home Language: Effects On Narrative Language, Rebecca M. Hunt

Masters Theses

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relationship between use of English as a second language in academic and social settings, and attitude towards home language (Spanish) in bilingual adolescents in a Central Illinois high school. In addition, the study evaluated the possible relationship between home language attitude and the structure of a personal narrative. Participants included include 11 Spanish-English bilingual high school students who resided in Spanish-speaking homes. Participants completed a questionnaire pertaining to self-rated proficiency of English and Spanish, frequency of use in various settings, and attitude towards English, Spanish, and bilingualism. English narrative samples …

Providing Objective Metrics Of Team Communication Skills Via Interpersonal Coordination Mechanisms, Celine De Looze, Brian Vaughan, Finnian Kelly, Alison Kay

Conference papers

No abstract provided.

A Variationist Approach To Code-Switching And Lexical Borrowing : The Case Of Limonese-Spanish Bilinguals In Puerto LimóN, Costa Rica, Ashley Laboda

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The current study aims to contribute to the body of research on variation in the speech of bilinguals in language contact situations, as well as the ongoing discussions of creoles in contact with languages other than their lexifiers. Bilingual production of lone lexical Spanish insertions and multiword Spanish insertions in otherwise Limonese Creole (Limonese) speech are analyzed, and both linguistic and extralinguistic factors are considered. Previous studies have measured lone word integration in bilingual corpora and have shown that lone lexical insertions are integrated into the recipient language as borrowings almost categorically regardless of frequency (nonce or more frequent than …

Estudio SociolingüÍStico De Las LíQuidas En El EspañOl Hablado En La Ciudad De GuantáNamo, Yaima Aimee Centeno

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Este estudio examina la variación de /l/ y /r/ mediante 32 entrevistas sociolingüísticas llevadas a cabo en la ciudad de Guantánamo, Cuba. Además, investiga la influencia del contexto fonológico, el nivel académico, la edad y el sexo en el uso de ciertas variantes de /r/ y /l/. Los factores lingüísticos internos considerados fueron: el contexto lingüístico (posición final de sílaba o final de palabra) y el segmento lingüístico. También se consideraron factores sociales tales como: el nivel académico, la edad y el sexo.

Imagining Accomplishments From Differing Visual And Temporal Perspectives, Deanna C. Hall

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The current research examined the relationship between grammatical aspect (GA) (imperfective vs. past perfect) and accomplishment verbs in event representation in Experiment 1, and then investigated the influence of visual perspective taking on this representation process in Experiment 2. Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded with slow cortical potentials (SCPs) acting as a measure of cognitive processing during the imagination period, and behavioural measure questionnaires provided ratings of vividness, temporal component, and importance of the imagined events.

It was hypothesized for Experiment 1 that imagining imperfective events would result in more negative SCP amplitudes than when imagining events with past perfect aspect, …

Student Teachers’ Cognition About L2 Pronunciation Instruction: A Case Study, Michael Burri

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In view of the minimal attention pronunciation teacher preparation has received in second language (L2) teacher education, this study examined the cognition (i.e. beliefs, thoughts, attitudes and knowledge) development of 15 student teachers during a postgraduate subject on pronunciation pedagogy offered at an Australian tertiary institution. Findings revealed that, as a result of taking the subject, student teachers’ cognition shifted from teaching individual sounds (i.e. segmentals) to favouring a more balanced approach to pronunciation instruction. That is, teaching the melody of the English language (i.e. suprasegmentals) was seen as important as teaching segmentals. Non-native speakers’ self-perceived pronunciation improvement, an increase …

The Effectiveness Of Teaching Methods In Traditional Amish Schoolhouses In Lawrence County, Tn, Ann Marie Paley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Amish community at Ethridge in Lawrence County, Tennessee is one of a handful in Tennessee, and, with a population of 1,500 and more than ten church districts, is the largest in the South and one of the top 20 in the nation. This particular Amish community was colonized when three families led by Dan Yoder, Joe Yoder, and Joseph Gingerich moved to the area from Ohio in the mid-1940s due to problems with the establishment of their own schools. Swartzentruber Amish are a subgroup within Old Order Amish society and occupy a distinct place on the conservative end of …

Virtual Rapport With Extraverted Agents, Jacqueline Brixey

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Studies from psychology conclude that "birds of a feather flock together"- or, in other words, people tend to seek companionship with those who have a similar personality to their own. Researchers in the fields of Linguistics and Psychology have found numerous markers that differentiate the dialogue of extroverts from that of introverts. Recent work in Human Computer Interaction has sought to understand the nature of creating and maintaining rapport between humans and Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs).

Seeking an interdisciplinary approach that combines knowledge from HCI, Linguistics, and Psychology, I sought to establish whether introverted users report the highest level of …

Being Japanese In English: The Social And Functional Role Of English Loanwords In Japanese, Shalina Omar

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis investigates native speaker attitudes towards English loanwords in Japanese and the ways in which these loanwords are used. The imperialism and hegemony of English can often cause anger or worry for the preservation of the cultural identity of the borrowing language. However, the results from a 9-page sociolinguistic questionnaire suggest that English loanwords are overwhelmingly seen as useful and necessary and are generally associated with positive attitudes. Additionally, many native Japanese speakers feel that loanwords provide more options for expression, both functionally and as a possible pragmatic tool for performing Japaneseness. On the other hand, overuse of loanwords—especially …

Overcoming Gender: The Impact Of The Persian Language On Iranian Women’S Confessional Literature, Farideh Dayanim Goldin

English Faculty Publications

[From the Introduction] The idea that language embodies patriarchal thought processes, severing women writers from the written language and from their own words, was first elaborated by the French feminist theorists Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous. Irigaray argues, for example, that language generally denies women a distinct subjectivity, with the result that the voice of women has largely been excluded from mainstream cultural discourse (Donovan). In this chapter, I juxtapose this theory to the obstacles faced by Iranian women writers of life narratives. Is it possible that Persian could have impeded Iranian women’s literary aspirations, especially in the genre of …

Tutors: Personal Qualities Of Tutors, Jill Castek, Gloria Jacobs, Kimberly D. Pendell, Drew Pizzolato, Stephen Reder, Elizabeth Withers

Research Briefs and Case Studies

The Personal Qualities of Tutors Brief highlights findings that detail the key qualities of effective tutors. These findings indicate that that patience is more important than technology knowledge in a digital literacy acquisition program The Research Briefs series highlight key findings about how underserved adults acquire digital literacy skills, and include quotes from participants and practitioners. The Briefs are designed to be accessible by practitioners, program administrators, and policy makers to inform and enhance digital literacy programs.

Tutors: The Tutor-Learner Relationship, Jill Castek, Gloria Jacobs, Kimberly D. Pendell, Drew Pizzolato, Stephen Reder, Elizabeth Withers

Research Briefs and Case Studies

The Tutor/Learner Relationship Brief emphasizes the impact that a positive relationship with tutors can have on learners’ engagement and progress in a digital literacy acquisition program. The Research Briefs series highlight key findings about how underserved adults acquire digital literacy skills, and include quotes from participants and practitioners. The Briefs are designed to be accessible by practitioners, program administrators, and policy makers to inform and enhance digital literacy programs.

Learners: Development Of Self-Confidence, Jill Castek, Gloria Jacobs, Kimberly D. Pendell, Drew Pizzolato, Stephen Reder, Elizabeth Withers

Research Briefs and Case Studies

The Development of Self Confidence Brief highlights the ways that participation in a digital literacy acquisition program improved learners’ self-confidence and attitudes towards technology. The Research Briefs series highlight key findings about how underserved adults acquire digital literacy skills, and include quotes from participants and practitioners. The Briefs are designed to be accessible by practitioners, program administrators, and policy makers to inform and enhance digital literacy programs.

Community Connections: Digital Literacy Acquisition Policy Brief, Gloria Jacobs, Jill Castek, Drew Pizzolato, Kimberly D. Pendell, Elizabeth Withers, Stephen Reder

Research Briefs and Case Studies

This case study describes how the digital literacy acquisition program in a rural community was sustained through formal and informal connections across a variety of organizations and community institutions. The case study describes the setting, the details of how tutor facilitated, self paced learning was organized, and the various ways connections were made across organizations. Five types of connections are identified: formal top-level partnerships, local connections, library/workforce partnership, school/workforce connections, informal community connections, and lab coordinator/tutor/learner connections. Implications for these findings include how policy makers and other key stakeholders may benefit from recognizing and building on the ways people in …