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- All Subjects: Linguistics
- Creators: James, Mark
- Creators: Department of English
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Description
Abstract
Grammaticalization theory provides a framework for analyzing language change. This thesis uses the concepts relevant to grammaticalization theory in an examination of ‘only’ and ‘just’ to determine how changes in their usage conform to the theory. After an introduction providing a sampling of the myriad ways ‘only’ and ‘just’ are used in Modern English, I provide an overview of grammaticalization theory in Chapter 2. Included in this chapter are a history of the major concepts of grammaticalization theory, an explanation of the commonly-accepted parameters and tools used to test and demonstrate grammaticalization, and a brief discussion of current arguments against grammaticalization theory. Chapter 3 presents my analysis of ‘only’ and ‘just’. I show that ‘only’ has grammaticalized from an adjective to a more grammatical adjective, from an adjective to an adverb, and from an adjective to a complementizer. I then show that ‘just’ has grammaticalized from an adjective to a more grammatical adjective and from an adjective to an adverb. Although some proponents of grammaticalization theory question the grammaticalization pathways leading from adjective to adverb and from adjective to complementizer, I argue that in the cases of ‘only’ and ‘just’ these pathways do indeed exist. I use the Oxford English Dictionary and corpora to support and demonstrate the validity of my argument.
Grammaticalization theory provides a framework for analyzing language change. This thesis uses the concepts relevant to grammaticalization theory in an examination of ‘only’ and ‘just’ to determine how changes in their usage conform to the theory. After an introduction providing a sampling of the myriad ways ‘only’ and ‘just’ are used in Modern English, I provide an overview of grammaticalization theory in Chapter 2. Included in this chapter are a history of the major concepts of grammaticalization theory, an explanation of the commonly-accepted parameters and tools used to test and demonstrate grammaticalization, and a brief discussion of current arguments against grammaticalization theory. Chapter 3 presents my analysis of ‘only’ and ‘just’. I show that ‘only’ has grammaticalized from an adjective to a more grammatical adjective, from an adjective to an adverb, and from an adjective to a complementizer. I then show that ‘just’ has grammaticalized from an adjective to a more grammatical adjective and from an adjective to an adverb. Although some proponents of grammaticalization theory question the grammaticalization pathways leading from adjective to adverb and from adjective to complementizer, I argue that in the cases of ‘only’ and ‘just’ these pathways do indeed exist. I use the Oxford English Dictionary and corpora to support and demonstrate the validity of my argument.
ContributorsBrubaker, Heidi (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / James, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
The study of Spanish instructors’ beliefs is a recent development and the body of work is
small with little research conducted on their insights on the acquisition of any grammar form. Still, Spanish grammar includes the notoriously difficult subjunctive, a grammatical irrealis mood that is affixed to verbs. A national survey was conducted on Spanish professors and instructors (N=73) who teach at institutions randomly selected from a representative sample of American institutions of higher education. The survey was conducted to inquire on their beliefs regarding the most complex forms in Spanish, the causes of the subjunctive difficulty, and their preferred methods of teaching the form. The results first indicate that participants rated the subjunctive the most difficult grammar form. They attributed the cause of difficulty to be primarily interference from the first language and its abstractness. For instructing the subjunctive, participants generally supported form-oriented instruction with a metalanguage approach that focuses on forms. However, the participants disagreed greatly on whether meaning-focused instruction was valuable and dismissed drilling instruction of the subjunctive. Data from the participants provides a distribution of overextended tense, moods, and aspects in lieu of the Spanish subjunctive. However, instructors indicated that their students’ competence of the subjunctive was higher than their performance and that comprehension was not necessarily reliant on correct usage of the subjunctive as it was for proficiency. Moreover, they provided qualitative data of effective methods and pedagogical challenges of the subjunctive. This study illuminates some of the contributing factors of subjunctive difficulty and preferred pedagogical approaches for teaching it. It also has implications that meaning may not be obstructed if students do not use subjunctive.
small with little research conducted on their insights on the acquisition of any grammar form. Still, Spanish grammar includes the notoriously difficult subjunctive, a grammatical irrealis mood that is affixed to verbs. A national survey was conducted on Spanish professors and instructors (N=73) who teach at institutions randomly selected from a representative sample of American institutions of higher education. The survey was conducted to inquire on their beliefs regarding the most complex forms in Spanish, the causes of the subjunctive difficulty, and their preferred methods of teaching the form. The results first indicate that participants rated the subjunctive the most difficult grammar form. They attributed the cause of difficulty to be primarily interference from the first language and its abstractness. For instructing the subjunctive, participants generally supported form-oriented instruction with a metalanguage approach that focuses on forms. However, the participants disagreed greatly on whether meaning-focused instruction was valuable and dismissed drilling instruction of the subjunctive. Data from the participants provides a distribution of overextended tense, moods, and aspects in lieu of the Spanish subjunctive. However, instructors indicated that their students’ competence of the subjunctive was higher than their performance and that comprehension was not necessarily reliant on correct usage of the subjunctive as it was for proficiency. Moreover, they provided qualitative data of effective methods and pedagogical challenges of the subjunctive. This study illuminates some of the contributing factors of subjunctive difficulty and preferred pedagogical approaches for teaching it. It also has implications that meaning may not be obstructed if students do not use subjunctive.
ContributorsPowell, John Warren William (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / James, Mark (Thesis advisor) / Beaudrie, Sara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
For this dissertation, teacher linguistic awareness (TLingA) involves teacher linguistic knowledge, teacher language awareness (TLA), and teacher cognition for second language (L2) teachers. Teacher linguistic knowledge is an understanding of how language functions and is compiled within the different areas of linguistics. And TLA is the knowledge that educators possess of the structural and fundamental system of language. Both help L2 teachers with different aspects of teaching. Additionally, teacher cognition involves what teachers know, their beliefs, and thought processes. Lastly, TLingA includes the conscious application of teacher linguistic knowledge.
In order to understand how strong of a role linguistics plays in language instruction, I evaluate how language teachers use their linguistic knowledge, and what factors affect the application of that knowledge. This paper aims to fill this gap in understanding how much and what factors affect L2 teachers’ application of linguistic knowledge by interviewing L2 teachers at an intensive English program at a university in the Southwestern United States. To do so, the study uses interviews with open-ended questions involving hypothetical teaching scenarios that probe different areas of linguistics: phonology, grammar, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics.
The general findings suggest that teachers use their linguistic knowledge and awareness in their teaching: such as, with sociolinguistics, in how they control the classroom and interact with students; with phonology, in how they teach pronunciation; with grammar, in how they edit students’ writing and meet with students about their writing; and with pragmatics, in how they teach vocabulary usage and formal requests. Additionally, the results suggest that years of experience appear to be the largest factor in the application of linguistic knowledge and that contextual factors, like time and curriculum goals, also play a role. Moreover, in relation to teacher cognition, how a L2 teacher conceptualizes or defines linguistic terms also seemed to affect their awareness of the application of linguistic knowledge. In conclusion, it appears that L2 teachers’ linguistic knowledge and TLingA help them to evaluate their students’ needs and influence their lesson planning.
In order to understand how strong of a role linguistics plays in language instruction, I evaluate how language teachers use their linguistic knowledge, and what factors affect the application of that knowledge. This paper aims to fill this gap in understanding how much and what factors affect L2 teachers’ application of linguistic knowledge by interviewing L2 teachers at an intensive English program at a university in the Southwestern United States. To do so, the study uses interviews with open-ended questions involving hypothetical teaching scenarios that probe different areas of linguistics: phonology, grammar, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics.
The general findings suggest that teachers use their linguistic knowledge and awareness in their teaching: such as, with sociolinguistics, in how they control the classroom and interact with students; with phonology, in how they teach pronunciation; with grammar, in how they edit students’ writing and meet with students about their writing; and with pragmatics, in how they teach vocabulary usage and formal requests. Additionally, the results suggest that years of experience appear to be the largest factor in the application of linguistic knowledge and that contextual factors, like time and curriculum goals, also play a role. Moreover, in relation to teacher cognition, how a L2 teacher conceptualizes or defines linguistic terms also seemed to affect their awareness of the application of linguistic knowledge. In conclusion, it appears that L2 teachers’ linguistic knowledge and TLingA help them to evaluate their students’ needs and influence their lesson planning.
ContributorsFoltz, Karen (Author) / Matsuda, Aya (Thesis advisor) / Renaud, Claire (Thesis advisor) / James, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Yaʕni ‘lit. he/it signifies/means/intends’ is an arising linguistic and discourse-pragmatic phenomenon in many varieties and speech situations of spoken Arabic. Yet, the few scholarly investigations yaʕni has received come from restricted and limited contexts of language use. The primary aims of this dissertation were to, first, expand and broaden research on Arabic yaʕni into novel contexts of language use and to, second, explore the linguistic and the discourse-pragmatic functions of yaʕni. Therefore, the data used for this dissertation were collected, selected, and analyzed from a sample of spoken data brought from two episodes of a Saudi sports TV show Alkurah Tatakallam ‘lit. the ball speaks.’ The analytical procedures and discussions showed that yaʕni had the following types of linguistic and discourse-pragmatic functions: as (a) a verb, (b) elaboration and turn expansion, (c) repair organization, (d) managing the turn-taking system, (e) alleviation and hedging, (f) marking concessive/contrastive relations, and (g) emphatic yaʕni. The discussions seemed to suggest the gradual solidification of three views: First, there is a suggestion that the categorical status ranging from verb yaʕni to the discourse marker yaʕni can be understood in terms of scalarity, gradience, and prototypicality. Second, there is another suggestion that gradations can also be located between the discourse-pragmatic functions of yaʕni. Third, there is a suggestion that, synchronically and diachronically, yaʕni as a form has been wildly drifting from its categorical verb status, lexical source, propositional meaning, and even its discourse-pragmatic markerhood. The analysis, discussions, and suggestions invoked the idea of bridging context(s) related to the categorical status and the discourse-pragmatic functions of yaʕni. This categorical status of yaʕni puts the binary distinction between conceptual meaning and procedural meaning of relevance theory, and the studies of yaʕni following such a binary distinction, into question since this distinction seemed blurry. The bridging context(s) seemed to support the gradualness and the directionality of the evolution of DMs. Therefore, the categorical and discourse-pragmatic behavior of yaʕni seems to have support from the hypothesis and theories such as grammaticalization and pragmaticalization. It seems also that the historical development of yaʕni can be discussed in terms of the hypothesis and theories of idiomaticization and phraseology.
ContributorsMobarki, Yahya (Author) / Adams, Karen (Thesis advisor) / Gelderen, Elly van (Committee member) / James, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This is a constructed language made for fictional creatures that will be featured in a novel. The creatures are feral goblins, and they are based on Irish mythology. The novel that the goblins and the language will be featured in is titled MaddConn, and it was written by Jon Bendera. It is an urban fantasy novel. The goblins have a language in the novel because there are a number of goblin characters throughout the story. One of the main characters, Maddi, has to survive amongst the feral goblins for a portion of the novel while another main character, Connor, works his way to her. She has multiple close encounters with them, and also has to find her way around their territory, so she comes into contact with the language many times. Although the language in the story was created to have developed prior to humanity, this constructed language was made to look somewhat similar to human language. As it will be involved in fiction that will be read by humans, it needs to be easily understood by humans. The language reveals features of the goblin culture and anatomy. For instance, it can be seen in the language that their shallow, wide mouths and thin lips influence their phonology. Their physiology influences much of their language. Likewise, they have three fingers on each hand, which influences their number system. As the goblins and their language developed before humans and because they are not human creatures, the typology and word order do not follow all of the correlations found in human languages. All in all, the lexicon includes many words that have to do with three of their favorite things: violence, food, and work.
ContributorsMartinez, Randi Nicole (Author) / Van Gelderen, Elly (Thesis director) / Maring, Heather (Committee member) / Schreyer, Christine (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
The rise of Italian in Sicily contrasts with a fierce regional pride that makes it difficult to determine the possible fate of Sicilian. This project focuses on a sociolinguistic analysis of the dialect of Sicilian spoken in and around Catania, Sicily. While there are programs in place to protect the language, the institutionalization of Italian in Sicily may be encroaching on Sicilian's use, especially with younger generations. The lure of the more industrialized North creates a culture of immigration in Sicily, which increasingly rewards the use of Italian. Using information from background research, a survey analyzing sociolinguistic factors and the individual's fluency in and use of Sicilian was created. The data from the survey showed that while understanding of Sicilian was fairly universal among participants, an individual's use and proficiency in Sicilian were most influenced by age and current place of residence (inside or outside Sicily). Younger people tended to know and use Sicilian less, and older participants tended to be more confident in their abilities and to use Sicilian more often. This is slightly complicated by an additional trend among participants currently living outside of Sicily towards a lower level of use and knowledge of Sicilian. All participants placed a significant emphasis on maintaining the ability to speak Sicilian, and on Sicilian language as an integral part of Sicilian culture.
ContributorsScaduto, Leah Christine (Author) / Dal Martello, Chiara (Thesis director) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The goal of this thesis research was to figure out if there were tangible differences between the way men and women speak on Twitter, a micro blogging social media site, and to see if there ways to apply it to strategizing marketing campaigns. AntConc, a free concordance software by Lawrence Anthony, was used to help organize and analyze a corpus created from the Tweets that were collected form the public accounts of twelve different popular public figures. These individuals were chosen based on their profession or the industry that they are associated with, as well as their general popularity. The research focused on three main industries or professions that can be viewed as ‘gendered;’ which were ‘Modeling,’ ‘Fashion Publications,’ and ‘Sports.’ The data was then analyzed across five different main categories which included, ‘Additional Media,’ ‘Adjective Usage,’ ‘How are they talking?,’ ‘Who are they talking about?, and ‘What are they talking about?’ The primary data, along with secondary research was used to see if they words and language use of men and women aligned with stereotypical patterns or if there were patterns that were unique and overlooked.
What was found was that although gender did play a large part in the way men and women spoke, there were more similarities when comparing individuals of the same industry or profession, than there were if they were simply analyzed just based on gender. Additionally, there were many factors that made it difficult to say whether these were qualified patterns or simply tendencies. More research into this would be able to help marketing companies and individuals, better target the audience they want for social media campaigns, by taking into account the importance in contemporary differences in language use by men and women. However, this research would have to be done on data from sites like Twitter to provide an accurate depiction of the way men and women, on these very unique mediums, speak.
What was found was that although gender did play a large part in the way men and women spoke, there were more similarities when comparing individuals of the same industry or profession, than there were if they were simply analyzed just based on gender. Additionally, there were many factors that made it difficult to say whether these were qualified patterns or simply tendencies. More research into this would be able to help marketing companies and individuals, better target the audience they want for social media campaigns, by taking into account the importance in contemporary differences in language use by men and women. However, this research would have to be done on data from sites like Twitter to provide an accurate depiction of the way men and women, on these very unique mediums, speak.
ContributorsChan, Kayla Rose (Author) / Adams, Karen (Thesis director) / Shinabarger, Amy D. (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Contributing to the small but growing body of research on linguistic discrimination in legal settings, this thesis conducts a sociolinguistic investigation of the impact of an individual's accent on juror perceptions of defendant favorability and innocence. The study used an online questionnaire in which sixty mock jurors were each asked to evaluate the audio testimony of a defendant representing one of three English ethnolects: African American, British South African, or Caucasian American. In addition to rating the defendant's persuasiveness, honesty, credibility, trustworthiness, and guilt, participants were also asked to determine an appropriate punishment (if any) for the defendant. Results indicate a preference of participants to issue an unsure or caveat opinion for the African American speaker but not to the British South African or Caucasian American speaker. The implications of these findings, as well as the correlations between each variable are discussed. The paper concludes with a recommendation for legal training and a revision of courtroom practices.
ContributorsMaerowitz, Max Robert (Author) / Prior, Matthew (Thesis director) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
This study observes two fanfiction speech communities, Danny Phantom and Detective Conan. The members of these communities write stories based upon the canon within these two animated cartoons and interact with one another through reviews, author's notes, and story summaries. Using the speech community model, this community's unique practices and communicative repertoire will be identified and analyzed. Both of these fandoms show similarities with the overarching general fanfiction speech community, but they also possess key differences that define them as their own separate community. Fan jargon is used frequently in author's notes, reviews, and summaries to indicate fan expertise and membership within the fandom as well as exclude newcomers from understanding the information. This jargon remains largely the same across languages, and using it properly is important to being considered a true fan. Furthermore, many stories share similar elements that are not present within the source material, indicating that the fandoms possess a shared communicative repertoire. Review practices also show strong cultural norms that demand that reviewers offer praise and encouragement to the writers. Most criticism is phrased extremely kindly to avoid breaking cultural norms. Those who do not follow these cultural norms are shunned by the community, and required to apologize to maintain proper fan membership. Fan hierarchy is also examined, including the ways that big name fans and reviewers exert centripetal and centrifugal forces upon the language, simultaneously pushing it towards standardization and variation. Authors also use many face saving techniques to demonstrate their own lack of knowledge within the community, especially if they are new or inexperienced. The members of these communities share a deep cultural connection that is strengthened by their practices and repertoires.
ContributorsDial, Ashtyn Nicole (Author) / Friedrich, Patricia (Thesis director) / O'Connor, Brendan (Committee member) / Computing and Informatics Program (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor, Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
The purpose of this study is to document and analyze three women's English language learning journeys after moving from various parts of Mexico to Phoenix, Arizona. The study explores the effects of English as a Second Language (ESL) education on the social and cultural development of Mexican women students at Friendly House, whose mission is to "Empower Arizona communities through education and human services". The literature review section explores such topics as the complications and history of Mexican immigration to Phoenix and of state-funded ESL education in Phoenix. The consequent research study will entail a pair of interviews with the three beginner ESL students about their lives in Mexico compared to their lives in Phoenix, with a specific focus on aspects of their language acquisition and cultural adjustment to life in Arizona. Photos of and by the consultants add to their stories and lead to a discussion about the implications of their experiences for ESL teachers. By documenting the consultants' experiences, this study finds many gaps in ESL education in Phoenix. Suggestions about how ESL programs and teaching methods can be modified to fit student's needs form the basis for the conclusions.
ContributorsDriscoll, Ashley Marisa (Author) / Horan, Elizabeth (Thesis director) / O'Connor, Brendan (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05