Linguistics Commons^™

Paradigmatic Peer-Pressure: Word-Medial, Syllable-Initial /S/ Lenition In Dominican Spanish, Earl K. Brown

Faculty Publications

Usage-based phonology (Bybee 2001, 2006, 2010), which is based on exemplar theory (Pierrehumbert 2001, 2003), proposes a memory capacity so expansive that, in theory, all tokens experienced in life could be mapped onto their respective exemplar clouds. However, if a token is similar enough to an existing one, it is simply mapped directly onto that existing token, reinforcing it in memory. This model proposes a very limited need for generative rules to produce the surface form, as the surface forms themselves are stored whole in memory and therefore can be directly accessed during production. It follows that derived words need …

Elicited Imitation For Prediction Of Opi Test Scores, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Kevin Michael Brooks Cook, Jeremiah Lane Mcghee

Faculty Publications

Automated testing of spoken language is the subject of much current research. Elicited Imitation (EI), or sentence repetition, is well suited for automated scoring, but does not directly test a broad range of speech communication skills. An Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) tests a broad range of skills, but is not as well suited for automated scoring. Some have suggested that EI can be used as a predictor of more general speech communication abilities. We examine EI for this purpose. A fully automated EI test is used to predict OPI scores. Experiments show strong correlation between predicted and actual OPI scores. …

Revisión De Estudios Sobre Las Funciones De Las Citas En Textos Académicos Escritos Por Estudiantes De Posgrado Nativos Y No Nativos Que Aprenden Una Lengua Extranjera, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

El estudio de las citas, los motivos por lo que se cita un trabajo y las funciones retóricas que las citas cumplen en el discurso escrito, han sido materias abordadas desde distintas disciplinas, entre ellas la Lingüística Aplicada. En el presente trabajo se rastrean los orígenes de estos temas y se revisan más concretamente los estudios llevados a cabo en el contexto académico universitario sobre citación por aprendientes nativos y no nativos de una lengua extranjera.

Summary: The study of citations, the purposes for which a work is cited, and the rhetorical functions that the citations carry out in the …

Una Aproximación Teórica A La Definición Del Modo Verbal Español, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Contribution Of Set Switching And Working Memory To Sentence Processing In Older Adults, Mira Goral, Manuella Clark-Cotton, Avron Spiro Iii, Loraine Obler, Jay Verkuilen, Martin Albert

Publications and Research

This study evaluates the involvement of switching skills and working memory capacity in auditory sentence processing in older adults. The authors examined 241 healthy participants, aged 55 to 88 years, who completed four neuropsychological tasks and two sentence-processing tasks. In addition to age and the expected contribution of working memory, switching ability, as measured by the number of perseverative errors on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, emerged as a strong predictor of performance on both sentence-processing tasks. Individuals with both low working-memory spans and more perseverative errors achieved the lowest accuracy scores. These findings are consistent with compensatory accounts of …

The Case For Fewer Cases In Pre-Chukotko-Kamchatkan: Grammaticalization And Semantics In Internal Reconstruction, Dibella Wdzenczny

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This work internally reconstructs the case system of Pre-Chukotko-Kamchatkan from the comparative reconstruction of Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan. Using the comparative and etymological dictionaries by Fortescue (2005), Mudrak (2000), and Zhukova & Kurebito (2004), I demonstrate that in many instances, groups of cases in Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan have developed from a single case. I outline the paths of grammaticalization that led to the expanded case system in Proto-Chukotko- Kamchatkan, and I use semantic typology to support the plausibility of these developments. Examples of similar phenomena in other language families are used for comparison as well. I conclude that six grammatical cases (and a more regular …

I Can Has Thesis? A Linguistic Analysis Of Lolspeak, Jordan Lefler

LSU Master's Theses

Lolspeak, which I characterize as an internet dialect of English that is used in conjunction with images of cats, exhibits distinctive variations and patterns which differ from those of standard English. Lolspeak has influenced other language use and may have a significant impact on the English language, due in part to the internet’s role in the evolution of English (Crystal “Language and the Internet,” 2006:26-27). To approach this data, I created a multi-modal discourse transcription technique for analyzing Lolspeak utterances within the context of their images based on Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss “The Discovery of Grounded Theory” 2007:9). I …

Penggunaan Mubtada'nakirat Dan Khabar Ma'rifat Dalam Bahasa Arab : Satu Analisis Dalam Surah Al-Baqarah., Ku Zaimah Che Ali

Student Works (2010-2019)

This research has been conducted to analyse in detail the usage of mubtada’ nakirat and khabar ma‘rifat in Arabic language. In this research the writer has thoroughly investigated the opinion and the paper work of the Arabic language nahus on the significant of the usage of mubtada’ nakirat and khabar ma‘rifat . This research also has been conducted to analyse in detail the usage of mubtada’ nakirat and khabar ma‘rifat in Arabic language nahu. The researcher in this research has investigated the opinions and the paper work of other researchers to identify the reasons of the less usage of mubtada’ …

Teacher Codeswitching In An Esl Classroom : Linguistics Patterns, Functions An Student Pereceptions., Ernie Adnan

Student Works (2010-2019)

This study aims to describe linguistic patterns and functions of teacher’s code-switching and student perceptions towards the teacher’s code-switching behaviour in an ESL classroom. The sample of the study consists of a teacher from a selected school in Kedah who teaches a form four class which consists of 26 students. Audio recordings, interview and questionnaires are utilised as research instruments in obtaining the data required for the study. Findings demonstrate that the teacher applies code-switching during the English lesson, adequately switches from English to Malay and vice versa while teaching the target language, which is English. It is also discovered …

A Study Of Communication Strategies Among Foreign Waiters In Malaysia., Azadeh Shobeiri

Student Works (2010-2019)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the communication difficulties foreign waiters with low English proficiency face upon arrival in Malaysia. For achieving this goal, three newly arrived foreign waiters employed in the food service industry (as waiters) in Kuala Lumpur were selected as participants, based on a pre-determined set of criteria. The study began with definitions of the notion of communication strategies and the explication of some relevant language learning theories in order to understand (1) how foreign waiters with little proficiency in the target, second language perform communication acts and (2) how they manage to improve their …

Inter-Gender Code Switching Among Primary School Learners., Theanmolzhi Rajoo

Student Works (2010-2019)

This study termed code switching as using two or more languages within gender and inter-gender speech and it is fairly common between two of the most used languages in this country which are the national language (Bahasa Malaysia) and the international language (English). The term code switching here looks at Gumperz (1982)‘s work which suggests that code switching has important discourse functions for bilinguals. They construct social meanings in their interactions and in particular during inter gender interactions as in this study. Men and women have different styles of communicating with one another where they decode same things differently. Hence, …

Politeness Strategies In The Context Of Selling-Buying., Wan Hassan Wan Mamat

Student Works (2010-2019)

The purpose of this study is to examine the use of politeness language in the sellingbuying interaction at Kedai Payang Market, Kuala Terengganu. The study involving fourteen customers and ten sellers, in eight selling-buying events, is used Grice's Pragmatics Theory (1975), indirectness in language (Asmah: 1992), Nor Hashimah's selling-buying strategies (1994) and Jamaliah's behavioural aspects in the Malay community (2000). As the frameworks fifteen strategies occurring with politeness elements were found to have been employed by the sellers and customers. Of the fifteen strategies identified, nine were employed only by the sellers. These nine strategies are comparison strategy, confidence strategy, …

Impact Of Imagine Learning English In Two Northern Mississippi Schools, Dawn M. Waddell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The study, Impact of Imagine Learning English in Two Northern Mississippi Schools, describes an effectiveness study of the impact that the computer program Imagine Learning English (ILE) has on English language learning. The study sought to determine the impact of ILE on the annual yearly progress and reading skills of mid-level English language learners (ELL). The objective of the study was to see if ILE was successful in raising the reading comprehension skill scores of English Language Learners (ELL) who worked the program as a language training tool. This study is the result of data that was collected from students …

The Development Of Two Units For Btr Tesol: "Basic Principles Of Second Language Acquisition" And "Communicative Language Teacher And Information Gap Exercises", Paul A. Scholes

Theses and Dissertations

A team of graduate students from Brigham Young University under the supervision of the main author Dr. Lynn Henrichsen collaborated on creating a book, as well as a website, Basic Training and Resources for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (BTR TESOL). The entire project consists of 10 sections with nearly 50 units addressing topics that novice teachers should know before teaching English to non-native speakers. The BTR TESOL program provides basic material for untrained novice teachers that will help them to be better prepared to face the challenges and responsibilities of teaching English. This write-up describes …

K-12 Teacher Perceptions Regarding Hispanic Family Educational Beliefs And Language And Literacy Practices, Marisa Lee

Theses and Dissertations

Abundant research exists examining what occurs in Hispanic homes regarding educational beliefs and literacy and language practices before and after children enter the school system. What is not known is whether or not teachers are aware of these practices and beliefs. The research questions of this study focus first on what perceptions K-12 teachers have about Hispanic educational beliefs and practices, and second, on determining if those perceptions correlate with teacher training in English as a second language (ESL). To answer these questions, a questionnaire was written based on an extensive review of literature regarding three aspects: Hispanic educational beliefs, …

Research, Development And Application Of A Learning Resource For Enhancing Listening And Spoken Skills In Spanish, Elena Paz Vizcaya

Conference papers

Native speech is directed towards native listeners, not designed for comprehension and analysis by language learners. Speed of delivery - or economy of effort - produce a speech signal to which the native listener can assign the correct words — there are no discrete words in the speech signal itself. Experience of using timescaling with recorded English has highlighted the benefit of making slowED speech available to the language learner or researcher, as opposed to slow speech – i.e delivered slowly. The main contribution to knowledge of this project is to generate a unique research and analysis corpus (audio resource) …

The Development Of Two Units For Basic Training And Resources For Teaching English To Speakers Of Other Languages: Understanding And Adapting In A New Culture And Teaching Culture, Monty A. Colver

Theses and Dissertations

A team of Brigham Young University graduate students working under the supervision of Dr. Lynn Henrichsen, collaborated on the creation of a book as well as a website, Basic Training and Resources for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (BTR-TESOL). The project, which will be developed in phases over the coming years, is intended to provide novice English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers with some introductory material on nearly fifty different topics related to the field. Each unit is not intended to be a comprehensive source and is not to be seen as a replacement for formal training. …

Semantic Enrichment Of Text Representation With Wikipedia For Text Classification, Hiroki Yamakawa, Jing Peng, Anna Feldman

Department of Computer Science Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Text classification is a widely studied topic in the area of machine learning. A number of techniques have been developed to represent and classify text documents. Most of the techniques try to achieve good classification performance while taking a document only by its words (e.g. statistical analysis on word frequency and distribution patterns). One of the recent trends in text classification research is to incorporate more semantic interpretation in text classification, especially by using Wikipedia. This paper introduces a technique for incorporating the vast amount of human knowledge accumulated in Wikipedia into text representation and classification. The aim is to …

Placing İsmayilli Lezgi Among The Lezgi Dialects, Jessica Smith

Theses and Dissertations

There is a cluster of three Lezgi villages in the İsmayıllı district of Azerbaijan that is separated by the Caucasus Mountains from the three main Lezgi dialects—Standard (SL), Axti (AL), and Quba (QL) Lezgi. This study places İsmayıllı Lezgi (IL) among the other dialects by comparing many of the varieties' attributes.

Five approaches are taken in this comparison: 1) comparing the similarities and differences of IL's phonological inventory to that of SL and AL; 2) contrasting the noun case system of IL versus that of SL; 3) comparing their verbal morphology; 4) looking for lexical similarities between IL and SL/AL/QL …

Wording Effects In Moral Judgments, Ross E. O'Hara, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Nicholas A. Sinnott-Armstrong

Dartmouth Scholarship

As the study of moral judgments grows, it becomes imperative to compare results across studies in order to create unified theories within the field. These efforts are potentially undermined, however, by variations in wording used by different researchers. The current study sought to determine whether, when, and how variations in wording influence moral judgments. Online participants responded to 15 different moral vignettes (e.g., the trolley problem) using 1 of 4 adjectives: “wrong”, “inappropriate”, “forbidden”, or “blameworthy”. For half of the sample, these adjectives were preceded by the adverb “morally”. Results indicated that people were more apt to judge an act …