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Description
South Sudanese refugees are among the most vulnerable immigrants to the U.S.. Many have spent years in refugee camps, experienced trauma, lost members of their families and have had minimal or no schooling or literacy prior to their arrival in the U.S. Although most South Sudanese aspire to become U.S.

South Sudanese refugees are among the most vulnerable immigrants to the U.S.. Many have spent years in refugee camps, experienced trauma, lost members of their families and have had minimal or no schooling or literacy prior to their arrival in the U.S. Although most South Sudanese aspire to become U.S. citizens, finally giving them a sense of belonging and participation in a land they can call their own, they constitute a group that faces great challenges in terms of their educational adaptation and English-language learning skills that would lead them to success on the U.S. citizenship examination. This dissertation reports findings from a qualitative research project involving case studies of South Sudanese students in a citizenship preparation program at a South Sudanese refugee community center in Phoenix, Arizona. It focuses on the links between the motivations of students seeking citizenship and the barriers they face in gaining it. Though the South Sudanese refugee students aspiring to become U.S. citizens face many of the same challenges as other immigrant groups, there are some factors that in combination make the participants in this study different from other groups. These include: long periods spent in refugee camps, advanced ages, war trauma, absence of intact families, no schooling or severe disruption from schooling, no first language literacy, and hybridized forms of second languages (e.g. Juba Arabic). This study reports on the motivations students have for seeking citizenship and the challenges they face in attaining it from the perspective of teachers working with those students, community leaders of the South Sudanese community, and particularly the students enrolled in the citizenship program.
ContributorsJohnson, Erik (Author) / Adams, Karen (Thesis advisor) / Renaud, Claire (Committee member) / James, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
This thesis examines the narratives and meta-commentary of Indonesian users of English about their English as a Second Language (ESL) experiences. It approaches interview data with ten Indonesian second language (L2) speakers of English from a narrative analysis/inquiry perspective. Each interview was transcribed according to a modified set of discourse

This thesis examines the narratives and meta-commentary of Indonesian users of English about their English as a Second Language (ESL) experiences. It approaches interview data with ten Indonesian second language (L2) speakers of English from a narrative analysis/inquiry perspective. Each interview was transcribed according to a modified set of discourse analysis (DA) transcription conventions, then coded by the researcher. The first research question addressed what linguistic devices members of this population used to achieve cohesion and coherence in their narratives, and the second research question examined how members of this population portrayed their L2 selves in their narratives. The data yielded 21 linguistic devices that fell into three levels of frequency. Connectives, discourse markers, and repetition were by far the most common linguistic devices, followed by adverbials, embedded clauses, intensifiers, and the word like (non-comparison uses), which were somewhat frequent linguistic devices. The data also showed that participants constructed their L2 selves using three main categories: agency, identity, and perceptions of English and the U.S.. In regard to identity, participants invoked membership categorization, where they portrayed their identities in relation to other individuals. The study concludes with suggestions for future research, especially relating to Indonesian L2 users of English.
ContributorsTappendorf, Rebecca C (Author) / Renaud, Claire (Thesis advisor) / Prior, Matthew (Committee member) / Gelderen, Elly van (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
This thesis compares significant linguistic features of English and Bahasa Indonesia (BI) and examines possible effects of language transfer for Indonesians who speak English as a second language (L2). The thesis first presents a description of BI: 1) phonology (vowels, consonants, stress and intonation), 2) word order (SVO and other

This thesis compares significant linguistic features of English and Bahasa Indonesia (BI) and examines possible effects of language transfer for Indonesians who speak English as a second language (L2). The thesis first presents a description of BI: 1) phonology (vowels, consonants, stress and intonation), 2) word order (SVO and other alternatives, relativization, nominalization, topicalization, questions), 3) the noun phrase (derivation of nouns, modifiers in noun phrases, demonstratives, plurals, personal pronouns), and 4) the verbal system (derivation of verbs, agreement, copulas, passive voice, negation, tense, adverbs, modals/auxiliaries). For the IRB-approved research study, the researcher interviewed ten Indonesians from diverse linguistic, cultural, and educational backgrounds about their experiences learning English and asked them to tell a story in order to elicit use of the past tense. The research sought to determine which errors Indonesian L2 speakers of English often make and which of these errors can be attributed to language transfer. Also, the study examined whether participants seem to be aware of their errors and what pedagogical implications may arise from these findings. Interviews were transcribed, then errors were coded and analyzed to see if the errors that Indonesians often make while speaking English correspond with the main differences between English and BI. The most common error was verb tense. After that, the next most common errors were articles; plurals; prepositions; other verbs; omission of "be" verbs; adjectives; omission of subjects; subject/verb agreement; and languages
ationalities. The thesis also discusses participants' perceptions of differences between BI and English and perceptions of difficulties when learning English, and how these perceptions correspond with their performance in English. While it seems that many of the errors that Indonesian L2 speakers of English are due to language transfer, others are not. Virtually no research has been carried out on language transfer from BI to English, so there is much future research that can be conducted on Indonesians learning English. Language transfer is just one of the relevant topics in the field.
ContributorsTappendorf, Rebecca Christine (Author) / Renaud, Claire (Thesis director) / Suwarno, Peter (Committee member) / Van Gelderen, Elly (Committee member) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2014-05