Matching Items (5)
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- All Subjects: Linguistics
- Genre: Masters Thesis
- Creators: Peterson, Tyler
- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Description
The use of blogging tools in the second language classroom has been investigated from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives (Alm, 2009; Armstrong & Retterer, 2008; Dippold, 2009; Ducate & Lomicka, 2008; Elola & Oskoz, 2008; Jauregi & Banados, 2008; Lee, 2009; Petersen, Divitini, & Chabert, 2008; Pinkman, 2005; Raith, 2009; Soares, 2008; Sun, 2009, 2012; Vurdien, 2011; Yang, 2009) and a growing number of studies examine the use of microblogging tools for language learning (Antenos-Conforti, 2009; Borau, Ullrich, Feng, & Shen, 2009; Lomicka & Lord, 2011; Perifanou, 2009). Grounded in Cultural Historical Activity Theory (Engestrom, 1987), the present study explores the outcomes of a semester-long project based on the Bridging Activities framework (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008) and implemented in an intermediate hybrid Spanish-language course at a large public university in Arizona, in which students used microblogging and blogging tools to collect digital texts, analyze perspectives of the target culture, and participate as part of an online community of language learners with a broader audience of native speakers. The research questions are: (1) What technology is used by the students, with what frequency and for what purposes in both English and Spanish prior to beginning the project?, (2) What are students' values and attitudes toward using Twitter and Blogger as tools for learning Spanish and how do they change over time through their use in the project during the semester course?, and (3) What tensions emerge in the activity systems of the intermediate Spanish-language students throughout the process of using Twitter and Blogger for the project? What are the underlying reasons for the tensions? How are they resolved? The data was collected using pre-, post-, and periodic surveys, which included Likert and open-ended questions, as well as the participants' microblog and blog posts. The quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and the qualitative data was analyzed to identify emerging themes following the Constant Comparative Method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Finally, three participant outliers were selected as case studies for activity theoretical analysis in order to identify tensions and, through their resolution, evidence of expansive learning.
ContributorsAlvarado, Margaret (Author) / Lafford, Barbara (Thesis advisor) / González, Verónica (Committee member) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
The purpose of this thesis is to provide an in-depth examination of the syntactic rules and pragmatic structures that govern the construction of Thai nominal phrases. There is a current debate among linguistic researchers of the Thai language (and others within the Tai-Kadai family) contemplating whether the inherent syntactic structure of nominal phrases projects a Determiner Phrase [DP] or a Noun Phrase [NP] (Birmingham, 2020; Jenks, 2011; Piriyawiboon, 2010; and Singhapreecha, 2001). An examination of the grammatical and pragmatic features that dictate the formation of Thai nominals, as well as an investigation of the prevailing linguistic theories focused on nominal phrase construction supporting each structure, has been conducted and is presented within this thesis. This extensive research, performed to address the dilemma “Does the Thai language project a DP or an NP?”, has resulted in the conclusion that the Thai language, with its free word-order and its fascinating pragmatic structures, projects an underlying NP phrase structure that allows for an optional determiner, used to indicate specificity.
ContributorsBirmingham, Sabrina A (Author) / Van Gelderen, Elly (Thesis advisor) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Committee member) / Peterson, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Languages have long been studied through the rhythm class framework, which discriminates them into separate classes on the basis of shared rhythmic properties. Originally these differences were attributed to the isochronous timing of different prosodic units, such as stress intervals in “stress-timed” languages and syllables in “syllable-timed” languages. More recent work has turned to durational metrics as a means of evaluating rhythm class, by measuring the variability and proportion of segmental intervals in the speech stream. Both isochrony and durational metrics are no longer viewed as correlative with natural language rhythm, but durational metrics in particular have remained prevalent in the literature. So long as the conclusions of durational metrics are not overextended, their analysis can provide a useful mechanism for assessing the compatibility of a language with a given rhythm class by way of comparative analysis. This study therefore presents a durational-metric comparison of Scottish Gaelic, a language which has frequently been described as stress-timed but has never been empirically tested for rhythm class, with English, a prototypical and well-studied example of a stress-timed language. The Gaelic metric scores for %V (percentage of vocalic content), ΔV (standard deviation in vocalic interval length), and ΔC (standard deviation in consonantal interval length) (Ramus et al. 1999) are shown to be very similar to those measured for English, indicating that the language displays similar patterns of durational variability and segmental proportion typically ascribed to a rhythmically stress-timed language. This provides clear support for the classification of Scottish Gaelic as stress-timed.
ContributorsKellogg, Jackson (Author) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Thesis advisor) / Gelderen, Elly van (Committee member) / Peterson, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
The purpose of this thesis is to identify the ways neurodivergent people engage with tone and intent, in spaces where the expression of such things is missing the audible and visual cues that exist in face-to-face communications. Interviews were conducted with four participants who self-identify as neurodivergent, with each of the interviews seeking to understand their experiences with the written expression of tone and intent. The interviews shed light on how direct, semi-direct, and indirect tone indicators are used as tools for understanding the intent and tone of a message, as well as which of the three types of tone indicators are the most helpful in practice. The interviews also touched on how social interactions in digital spaces are often viewed through a neurotypical lens, and thus make understanding the sociolinguistic rules of digitally-based interactions difficult for neurodivergent individuals who are expected to know said rules without being told. Through the course of the interviews, participants expressed a desire for people as whole to be clearer about their tone and intent when communicating in digital spaces, and that tone indicators are vital for communicating such things.
ContributorsHadden, Sydney (Author) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Peterson, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
In this thesis, I explore Cognate Object Constructions COCs (e.g. The clown "laughed" a creepy "laugh") through three research questions: (1) What verbs can accept Cognate Objects COs? (2) Why can these verbs accept COs and other verbs cannot? and (3) How are COCs derived? I demonstrate that Sorace's Hierarchy sheds light on which verbs can accept COs and which cannot by explaining the discrepancies in grammaticality judgments that exist in the literature. I then argue that Hale and Keyser's Conflation account of COCs is not minimalist because it relies on a phenomenon that can be reduced to Merge. After commenting and repairing their account, I provide an outline for a more minimalist framework, which I refer to as "Problems of Projection Extensions" PoP+, that focuses on MERGE, workspaces, labeling theory, phases, and determinacy. Inside this framework, I then develop my own account that depends on only Internal Merge and the constraint in English against stranded articles. With my account situated in this PoP+ framework, I am able to approach the research questions from a syntactic perspective, arguing that the Unergative Restriction on COCs is a result of a determinacy violation in the derivation of Unaccusative COCs. Finally, I point out that, being situated in the PoP+ framework, my account opens COCs up to further investigation not possible before.
ContributorsWillson, Jacob (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Committee member) / Peterson, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019