Linguistics Commons^™

Critical Factors In Standard English Acquisition, Adam Prestidge, Dr. William Eggington

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The ability to acquire Standard English is requisite for upward mobility in the United States. As English-language-learners are able to acquire command of a higher code, society rewards them with greater opportunities for success.

Korean Language Acquisition And Syntax: Setting A Foundation For Korean Ei Testing, William Wilson, Dr. Deryle Lonsdale

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Accurate and reliable L2 testing (or second language testing) is something that many entities rely on, including educational institutions, business enterprises, and the government. Researchers over the last several decades have proposed new testing methods, and a particularly promising venue is Elicited Imitation (EI). Simply put, an EI test is a sentence imitation test. Test-takers hear a series of recorded utterances in the target language, repeat those sentences as exactly as possible, and then receive scores based on the accuracy of their repetitions.

Accent In Uspanteko, Ryan Bennett, Robert Henderson

English Faculty Research Publications

Uspanteko (Guatemala; ∼2000 speakers) is an endangered K’ichean-branch Mayan language. It is unique among the K’ichean languages in having innovated a system of contrastive pitch accent, which operates alongside a separate system of non-contrastive stress. The prosody of Uspanteko is of general typological interest, given the relative scarcity of ‘mixed’ languages employing both stress and lexical pitch. Drawing from a descriptive grammar and from our own fieldwork, we also document some intricate interactions between pitch accent and other aspects of the phonology (stress placement, vowel length, vowel quality, and two deletion processes). While pitch accent is closely tied to morphology, …

Persuasion In Political Discourse: Tunisian President Ben Ali's Last Speech As A Case Stud, Soufien Jarraya

Theses - ALL

Within a discourse analysis framework, this research investigates persuasion in political discourse in the last speech of the former Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, delivered one day before he left the country in the middle of the Tunisian Revolution that sparked the so-called Arab Spring.

Sentences are analyzed to check their illocutionary force in light of Searle's typology of Speech Act Theory. Then, an analysis of agency is carried out to investigate the persuasive dimension of the use of deictic pronouns to construct the self-image as well as the image of the Other. The speech is also examined …

Grammar Enhanced Biliteracy: Naskapi Language Structures For Facilitating Reading In Naskapi, William Joseph Jancewicz

Theses and Dissertations

The Naskapi language is the language of instruction in the early primary grades of the school in the Naskapi community. Only recently have Naskapi-speaking teachers received formal instruction in pedagogy, with a cohort of Naskapi teachers following courses for their Bachelor of Education degree towards careers teaching in the Naskapi language in their local school. These adults are highly motivated to become literate in their mother tongue in order to teach or prepare curriculum materials in the Naskapi language. This thesis explores how basic grammatical structures can be mastered, and provides insight into the form that pedagogical grammatical instruction should …

Ell Vocabulary Acquisition: How Improvement Measurements Are Affected By Text Type, English Reading Ability, And Assessment Methods, Joellen Magnus

Theses and Dissertations

Vocabulary acquisition is a crucial part of language learning. This study seeks to determine what textual and student factors affect vocabulary acquisition rates from reading English texts for high school students for whom English is a second language, as well as how assessment factors affect the measurement of vocabulary acquisition. In this study, vocabulary acquisition was measured by comparing the differences between pre-test and post-test scores from before and after reading different texts. Text type did not affect student outcomes, but the improvement rates were affected by students' pre-test scores, students' English reading ability, and the types of assessment questions. …

The Mouthing Of Verbs In Japanese Sign Language, Mark Penner

Theses and Dissertations

Analyzing four publicly available stories told by Japanese Deaf people, this paper shows that verbs are mouthed in natural Japanese Sign Language roughly 20% of the time, whereas other word classes are mouthed roughly 46% of the time. More than half of mouthed verbs are always or nearly always mouthed as one of their lexical properties. Abstract verbs tend to be mouthed more frequently than concrete verbs. When a Japanese Sign Language verb corresponds to a word that is not a verb in Japanese, it is far more likely to be mouthed. Verbs in headed relative clauses are mouthed whenever …

The Tone System Of Acatepec Me'paa, Kevin Cline

Theses and Dissertations

The tone system of Me'phaa, an Otomanguean language (or group of languages) spoken in the eastern part of the state of Guerrero, Mexico, is quite complex, largely due to the complex agreement systems used with nouns and verbs. Aspects of the tone system have been described to some degree for the Malinaltepec and Azoyú varieties, but little has been documented about tone in other varieties. This thesis focuses on the tone system of a less-documented variety, Acatepec, with the goal of broadening the understanding of the tone systems of other Me'phaa varieties.

The thesis follows the methodology set forth in …

A Structured Pc-Patr Grammar Editor And Application To Bahasa Indonesia, Trafton Fletcher Hardison

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes the development of a structured editor for grammar files for the PC-PATR syntactic parsing program and an analysis tool for its output called PC-PATR-EDITOR. It describes the difficulties with authoring plain text grammar files and reading the parser's output. The editor solves these problems by providing an editing environment where users do not have to remember the file's syntax, where users can only input content valid at the point of editing, and by processing the parser's output and displaying it in ways familiar to most linguists. The paper contains three case studies that illustrate PC-PATR-EDITOR's usefulness by …

Toward A Further Understanding Of The Extensibility Of Sign Languages, Jason Hopkins

Theses and Dissertations

Sign language video recordings have limited extensibility when compared with live, face-to-face communication by signers. In an effort to improve the extensibility of video recordings this study explores the possibility of leveraging a common meaning negotiation technique, depictional signing, to increase understanding of recorded texts. In an effort to gauge the understanding of depictional signing compared to lexical signing a Recorded Text Test was devised using two texts, one with a high number of visual depictions, the other with a high number of lexical signs. While a comparison of the results of the two tests did not substantiate the hypothesis …

Locative Expressions In Signed Languages: A Cross-Linguistic Comparison, Sarah E. Eberle

Theses and Dissertations

The primary focus of this paper is to examine whether sign languages organize their locative expressions similarly to spoken languages. Paving the way in the study of spatial relations by focusing on the structuring of ON and IN locatives in spoken languages, Bowerman and colleagues (Bowerman 1980; Melissa Bowerman & Eric Pederson 1992a; Bowerman 1993; 1994; 1996a; 1996b; Bowerman & Levinson 2001) found that spoken languages organize the locative phrases representing the relationships of ON and IN in a continuum which is called the ON-IN continuum.

This thesis shows that sign languages do not linguistically pattern similarly to spoken languages …

Beliefs In Action: Ideologies, Motivations, And Capital Among English As A Second Language Learners, Damon Lasiter

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Language learning motivations among immigrants are tied - via language ideologies - to socio-economic position, social networks, and problems encountered by the language learners in their everyday lives. Research into immigrants' reasons for language learning has often overlooked these factors (see Klassen & Burnaby, 1993, and Norton, 1995), but I offer in this thesis that the above factors are foundations for many immigrants' language ideologies - beliefs that people have about language. These language ideologies are, in turn, the foundations upon which one's motivations to learn a language are based. Using a Bourdieuvian paradigm, where inequitable positions of power exist …

To The Jew First: A Socio-Historical And Biblical-Theological Analysis Of The Pauline Teaching Of `Election' In Light Of Second Temple Jewish Patterns Of Thought, Anthony Thornhill

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Paul's "doctrine" of election has remained a controversial and enigmatic topic for centuries. Few studies, however, have approached Paul's doctrine through the context of Second Temple Judaism. This study examines Paul's view of election through the lens of Second Temple Jewish texts written prior to 70 CE. In doing so, it is argued that the best framework through which to view Paul's discussion of election is through a primarily corporate model of election. While such a model is rooted in Judaism, Paul departs from his Jewish contemporaries in arguing that the locus of election is in God's Messiah, Jesus.

Representing Islam In The Eyes Of The Self And The Other: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Newspaper Articles, Dewi Hermawati Resminingayu

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Since terrorism in Indonesia was associated to Moslem extremists, news regarding Islam has been mostly associated with those two aspects. In results, the concern of researches related to Islam in media only focuses on terrorism issue. Providing this background, this research is aimed to raise the issue related to Moslems and the Chinese minority in Indonesia, specifically in the celebration of Chinese New Year 2013 which is associated with Islamic issue. The data of this research are two newspaper articles. The first article is written by a journalist working for Agence France Presse (AFP) as the foreign media. Meanwhile, the …

Pronoun Production Order In A Gender-Neutral Language: A Single Case Study Of A Typically Developing Indonesian Child, Bernard A.J Jap

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Research in children with normal language development has shown that there is a certain order in the production and learning of pronominal forms. To one’s knowledge, there has yet to be a study on the pronoun development of Indonesian speaking children whose native language do not distinguish between the nominative-accusative form (e.g. in English, I/me – Indonesian, saya/saya) and at the same time being gender neutral (e.g. in English, he/she – Indonesian, dia/dia). The present study follows the personal pronoun development of a (Jakarta) Indonesian-speaking child from 24 months to 46 months of age.

Code-Mixing Among Students Of English Literature 2009 In Universitas Indonesia, Andari Ditya

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

People today are more globalized than before, and most of them are now able to speak more than one language. It also happens among the English Literature students 2009 in Universitas Indonesia who are able to speak English in their daily conversation. This may lead to the phenomenon called code- mixing. However, this code-mixing focuses more on written communication in their social media’s status. There are two major points that this paper attempts to make. First, the description of code- mixing itself according to the theory given by Wardhaugh (1986) and Hoffman (1991) and how it can be reflected into …

Fulla’S And Barbie’S Images In Relation To Women’S Beauty And Cultural Difference, Juwita Anindya

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Most people know Barbie, a doll that conveys some values about culture and about the concept of women’s beauty. However, Barbie only represents one specific culture, which is Western culture. Different with Western culture, Eastern culture needs a doll who can represent their values. Then, Fulla appears as the representative of Eastern beauty. Fulla conveys some values about Eastern culture and about the new concept of women’s beauty which are different from Barbie. Fulla’s appearance here is thought can emphasize the cultural differences among the society, but it can give another choice to shape people’s new thought about the beauty …

Identity Transformation Of Josephine Alibrandi And John Barton In The Novel Looking For Alibrandi (By Melina Marchetta), Ferdi Ferdi

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This paper examines the progress of identity transformation of Josephine Alibrandi and John Barton in the novel Looking for Alibrandi. Josephine and John come from different family backgrounds. Josephine comes from an Italian immigrant family who lives in suburban area, while, John Barton comes from a politician family in Australia. Although they come from different family backgrounds, they still have the same problems in their identities. Their desire to be seen as themselves in the society makes them intend to find their identity. The reason I intend to do a research in this novel because I think this novel is …

July 22, 2013: Cfp: Going Rogue: The Merits And Perils Of Breaking With Professional Conventions, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

July 18, 2013: Kvcc To Host Author Noviolet Bulawayo, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.