Linguistics Commons^™

The Role Of Pronunciation In Speaking Test Ratings, Rui Ma

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the weight of pronunciation in a speaking proficiency test at an English as a Second Language (ESL) Intensive English Program (IEP) in America. As an integral part of speaking, beliefs, practices, and research of pronunciation teaching have experienced shifts over the decades (Morley, 1991). Most studies concerning speaking have focused on intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness of speaking, with attempting to address the role of pronunciation in oral communication. However, the degree to which pronunciation is weighed in determining speaking proficiency levels is unclear (Higgs & Clifford, 1982, Kang, 2013). In an effort to contribute to the understanding …

Conditional Sentences In Egyptian Colloquial And Modern Standard Arabic: A Corpus Study, Randell S. Bentley

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the difference between conditional phrases in Egyptian Colloquial (EC) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). It focuses on two different conditional particles 'iḏa and law. Verb tenses featured after the conditional particle determine the difference between EC and MSA usage. Grammars for EC and MSA provide a prescriptive approach for a comparison with empirical data from Arabic corpora. The study uses data from the ArabiCorpus along with a corpus of Egyptian Colloquial that were compiled specifically for this study. The results of this study demonstrate that each particle (‘iḏa and law) and register (EC and …

Parameters That Affect The Comfort Levels Of Native English Speakers Communicating With Non-Native English Speakers, Kayla Marie Nymeyer

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores how native English speakers (NESs) are affected by the backgrounds of non-native English speakers (NNESs) when it comes to being comfortable interacting with then in English. Speech samples of 12 NNESs were gathered from the Level Achievement Tests conducted at Brigham Young University's English Language Center. There were six speakers who spoke Spanish as their first language (L1) and six speakers who spoke Chinese as their L1. In each L1 group, there were two Low proficiency speakers, two Mid proficiency speakers, and two High proficiency speakers. The speech samples were included in a Qualtrics survey which was …

A Diachronic Analysis Of North And South Korean Monophthongs: Vowel Shifts On The Korean Peninsula, Jessica M. Morgan

Theses and Dissertations

The linguistic situation on the Korean peninsula is one ripe for research. For the past 70 years the two halves of the peninsula have been isolated from one another, thus creating two very different environments for development and change within the Korean language. It is hypothesized that due to conflict, divide, and social turmoil on the peninsula, the Korean language will have undergone a period of change in the last 70 years. This particular investigation looks at North and South Korean monophthong systems for evidence of a phonological shift. Studies of North Korea's language planning (Yong, 2001; Kumatani, 1990) will …

A Motivational, Online Guide To Help English Language Learners With The Development,Implementation, And Evaluation Of Their Individual Pronunciation Improvement Plans, Sofia Laura Carreno Galdame

Theses and Dissertations

Intelligibility is one of the major concerns among ESL learners due to its impact on their ability to communicate with native speakers of English (Derwing & Munro, 2005). Even though pronunciation is often addressed in classrooms, it is difficult to tackle all intelligibility issues relevant for each student. Therefore, it is crucial for ESL learners to spend some extra time outside of class improving their pronunciation. Faced with a daunting task of regulating and taking charge of their own learning, they often have questions with respect to what exactly they need to work on, what activities will help them achieve …

Language Use At Rid Conferences: A Survey On Behaviors And Perceptions, Cassie Lang

Journal of Interpretation

This study examines the language and communication dynamics at national conferences of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID). RID conferences typically have thousands of attendees who vary in language background, type of linguistic experiences, and fluency. Data in this study were gathered through an online survey and, among other topics, included questions about behaviors, choices and perceptions of communication in structured and unstructured conference activities and language regulation at conferences. Findings indicate the majority of participants reported the perception that spoken English is used more prevalently than American Sign Language (ASL) at RID conferences. Further, 80% of respondents …

Disfluent Pausing Effects On Listener Judgments Of An Asl-English Interpretation, Stephen Fitzmaurice, Kim A. Purdy

Journal of Interpretation

Although not all spoken language pauses are purposeful or functional, there is general agreement on the function and appropriate length and placement of pauses in English. Failing to conform to this agreement constitutes a pausing disfluency. In an interpreted environment, pauses do not generally detract from the discourse event, nor do they negatively impact the participants’ perception of one another, as long as the interpreter maintains generally acceptable pausing parameters (Fors, 2011; Heldner & Edlund, 2010; Krivokapi, 2007). Listeners of any communication event invariably form opinions about the speaker’s personality and make judgments about their character and background, forming a …

Being A "Good Parent" In Parent-Teacher Conferences, Danielle M. Pillet-Shore

Communication

This research advances our understanding of what constitutes a "good parent" in the course of actual social interaction. Examining video-recorded naturally occurring parent-teacher conferences, this article shows that, while teachers deliver student-praising utterances, parents may display that they are gaining knowledge; but when teachers’ actions adumbrate student-criticizing utterances, parents systematically display prior knowledge. This article elucidates the details of how teachers and parents tacitly collaborate to enable parents to express student-troubles first, demonstrating that parents display competence -- appropriate involvement with children’s schooling -- by asserting their prior knowledge of, and/or claiming/describing their efforts to remedy, student-troubles. People (have to) …

Contextualized Views Of Practices And Competencies In Call Teacher Education Research, Nike Arnold, Lara Ducate

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

While teachers play a central role in capitalizing on the potentials of computer assisted language learning (CALL), CALL teacher education overall still appears not to be adequate and effective (Healey et al., 2011; Hubbard, 2008). Furthermore, foreign/second language teachers have expressed a desire for more and better professional development opportunities in that area (Beaven, Emke, Ernest, Germain-Rutherford, Hampel, Hopkins, Stanojevic & Stickler, 2010; Digedu, 2014; Kessler, 2006). Given the continuing and new challenges for CALL teacher education, this special issue of Language Learning & Technology on CALL teacher education further speaks to its importance for our field and ultimately our …

Busy Intersections: A Framework For Revitalization, George Tucker Childs

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Slides from a presentation given to the 4^th International Conference on Language Documentation & Conservation (ICLDC4), University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, Honolulu, Hawaii. 26 Feb – 1 Mar., 2015.

Techniques For Automatic Normalization Of Orthographically Variant Yiddish Texts, Yakov Peretz Blum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Yiddish is characterized by a multitude of orthographic systems. A number of approaches to automatic normalization of variant orthography have been explored for the processing of historic texts of languages whose orthography has since been standardized. However, these approaches have not yet been applied to Yiddish.

Using a manually normalized set of 16 Yiddish documents as a training and test corpus, four techniques for automatic normalization were compared: a hand-crafted set of transformation rules, an off-the-shelf spell checker, edit distance minimization with manually set weights, and edit distance minimization with weights learned through a training set.

Performance was evaluated by …

The Emergence Of L1 Innovations In Spanish-English Bilinguals: Evidence From Cross-Linguistic Structural Priming, Agustina Carando

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the hypothesis that structural priming is an internal mechanism motivating processes of convergence in bilinguals. The focus of the investigation is linguistic innovations in Spanish produced by Spanish-English bilinguals. Innovations involve both changes in the frequency of alternative constructions and existing patterns produced in new contexts modeled on English equivalents. From structural priming techniques that model convergence, the data assess the extent of English influence on Spanish, in a contact setting (New York, United States) and a non-contact setting (Córdoba, Argentina).

In the field of language contact, convergence may manifest itself as an increase in the use …

Vocabulary Through Affixes And Word Families - A Computer-Assisted Language Learning Program For Adult Ell Students, Magdalena Kieliszek

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Vocabulary plays an important role in language learning of ELL (English Language Learner) students. This work discusses the importance of metalinguistic awareness in teaching vocabulary to adult English Language Learners at an intermediate- or advanced-level of English language proficiency with an emphasis on learning vocabulary through word families and increased morphological awareness. The main contribution is a computer-based program that guides users through a series of interactive reading and vocabulary practice exercises which allow them to explore and learn how certain words are connected through word families and how some of the most common affixes in English can affect the …

The Encoding Of Temporality In Second Language Acquisition: A Study Of Mandarin Chinese-Speaking Esl Learners, Li Ma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the influences of pragmatic factors, lexical devices, as well as the lexical aspectual properties of verbs on second language learners' encoding of temporality in their target language. The pragmatic factors being investigated include a recency effect and the number of occurrences of a tense in the previous context, and the lexical devices include past-time temporal adverbials and frequency adverbs. The role of the lexical aspectual properties of verbs is checked against the Aspect Hypothesis, which states that learners will initially restrict past or perfective marking to achievement and accomplishment verbs and later gradually extend this usage to …

Tradición Y Actualidad En La Enseñanza De La Escritura Académica En El Entorno Europeo (Reseña De Rethinking Academic Writing Pedagogy For The European University), David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Heritage Language Maintenance And Use Among 1.5 Generation Khmer College Students, Ravy S. Lao, Jin Sook Lee

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Most studies of heritage language maintenance have reported a steep attrition in heritage language use among the 1.5 and 2nd generation children of immigrants, in particular among East Asian groups. However, not much is known about the role of heritage languages and the patterns of language maintenance within refugee communities. This study focuses on heritage language use and maintenance among 1.5 generation Khmer college students. The findings show that Khmer students report a high frequency of heritage language use within the home with their parents as well as outside of the home with their co-ethnic peers. The data reveal that …

Interface Strategies In Monolingual And End-State L2 Spanish Grammars Are Not That Different, María C. Parafita Couto, Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole, Hans Stadthagen-González

Faculty Publications

This study explores syntactic, pragmatic, and lexical influences on adherence to SV and VS orders in native and fluent L2 speakers of Spanish. A judgment task examined 20 native monolingual and 20 longstanding L2 bilingual Spanish speakers' acceptance of SV and VS structures. Seventy-six distinct verbs were tested under a combination of syntactic and pragmatic constraints. Our findings challenge the hypothesis that internal interfaces are acquired more easily than external interfaces (Sorace, 2005, 2011; Sorace and Filiaci, 2006; White, 2006). Additional findings are that (a) bilinguals' judgments are less firm overall than monolinguals' (i.e., monolinguals …

A Review Of Motivation And Foreign Language Learning: From Theory To Practice, Avizia Long

Faculty Publications

A review of Motivation and foreign language learning: From theory to practice, by David Lasagabaster, Aintzane Doiz, and Juan Manuel Sierra (Eds.). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Benjamins, 2014. Pp. viii + 190.

Towards News Verification: Deception Detection Methods For News Discourse, Yimin Chen, Victoria L. Rubin, Niall Conroy

FIMS Presentations

News verification is a process of determining whether a particular news report is truthful or deceptive. Deliberately deceptive (fabricated) news creates false conclusions in the readers’ minds. Truthful (authentic) news matches the writer’s knowledge. How do you tell the difference between the two in an automated way? To investigate this question, we analyzed rhetorical structures, discourse constituent parts and their coherence relations in deceptive and truthful news sample from NPR’s “Bluff the Listener”. Subsequently, we applied a vector space model to cluster the news by discourse feature similarity, achieving 63% accuracy. Our predictive model is not significantly better than chance …

Women, Cycling, And The Public Sphere: How Discursive And Community Practices Affect Engagement, Elsa L. Roberts

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This thesis considers the impact that discursive and community practices have on women’s access to the public sphere by examining female cyclists and a cycling community in Miami, Florida via interviews and observation. In the interviews, female cyclists frequently reported fears for their safety, including concern over harassment, when riding in public space. I interviewed participants of the cycling community and observed Emerge Miami’s meetings and events, where publicly organized cycling excursions were a major component. Using the theoretical and methodological lenses of Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis and Communities of Practice, I examined the interviews to understand how participants discursively …