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- All Subjects: Spanish Language
- Creators: Gelderen, Elly van
Description
This study is about Thai English (ThaiE), a variety of World Englishes that is presently spoken in Thailand, as the result of the spread of English and the recent Thai government policies towards English communication in Thailand. In the study, I examined the linguistic data of spoken ThaiE, collected from multiple sources both in the U.S.A. and Thailand. The study made use of a qualitative approach in examining the data, which were from (i) English interviews and questionnaires with 12 highly educated Thai speakers of English during my fieldwork in the Southwestern U.S.A., Central Thailand, and Northeastern Thailand, (ii) English speech samples from the media in Thailand, i.e. television programs, a news report, and a talk radio program, and (iii) the research articles on English used by Thai speakers of English. This study describes the typology of ThaiE in terms of its morpho-syntax, phonology, and sociolinguistics, with the main focus being placed on the structural characteristics of ThaiE. Based on the data, the results show that some of the ThaiE features are similar to the World Englishes features, but some are unique to ThaiE. Therefore, I argue that ThaiE is structurally considered a new variety of World Englishes at the present time. The findings also showed an interesting result, regarding the notion of ThaiE by the fieldwork interview participants. The majority of these participants (n=6) denied the existence of ThaiE, while the minority of the participants (n=5) believed ThaiE existed, and one participant was reluctant to give the answer. The study suggested that the participants' academic backgrounds, the unfamiliar notion of ThaiE, and the level of the participants' social interaction with everyday persons may have influenced their answers to the main research question.
ContributorsRogers, Uthairat (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Mailhammer, Robert (Committee member) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Spanish-speaking (SS) dual language learners (DLLs) have shown differential developmental profiles of the native language (L1). The current study examined whether or not the Spanish acquisition profile, specifically accusative clitics, in predominantly SS, Latino children continues to develop in an English-language contact situation. This study examined (1) accuracy rates of clitic production, total substitutions, and total omissions across 5-, 6-, and 7-year-olds; (2) accuracy rates of clitic production, total substitutions, and total omissions across low and high English proficiency groups; and (3) whether or not there was a trend to use the default clitic lo in inappropriate contexts. Seventy-four SS children aged 5;1 to 7;11 participated in a clitic elicitation task. Results indicated non-significant effects of age and proficiency level on the accuracy of clitic production. These results suggest dual language learners are in an environment that does not foster the maintenance of the L1, at least in the accuracy of accusative clitic pronouns.
ContributorsFigueroa, Megan Danielle (Author) / Restrepo, María A (Thesis advisor) / Gelderen, Elly van (Committee member) / Ingram, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Past research has isolated an extension of the copular verb estar into the domain previously sanctioned for its counterpart, ser. This extension has been found in areas of contact between American English and Spanish speaking Mexican immigrants. A similar situation of contact is in occurrence in Arizona, and this study endeavored to evaluate if this same extension was present, and to what degree. This study also explores the framework of linguistic hegemony in order to relate language attitudes in Arizona to language change in Arizona. The findings revealed minimal extension. This may be due to language maintenance in response to hegemony.
ContributorsBonnell, Jamie (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Major, Roy (Committee member) / Ryan, John (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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
Adult second-language learners of Spanish struggle with the acquisition of preterite and imperfect selection due to the overtly morphological representation of grammatical aspect. Prior studies have documented the effect of a default encoding without influence of the lexical aspect in the emergence of aspectual morphology, and have proposed the Default Past Tense Hypothesis (DPTH).
This study investigates the emergence of aspectual morphology by testing the DPTH and the effect of adverbials at interpreting grammatical aspect in this process of acquisition. Twenty-eight English-speaking learners of Spanish (beginning, intermediate and advanced) and twenty native-Spanish speakers are tested with two written comprehension tasks that assess the interpretation of habitual/imperfect and episodic/preterite readings of eventive verbs. The truth-value judgment task incorporates forty short stories with two summary sentences, from which participants must choose one as true. The grammaticality judgment task presents sixty-four sentences with temporal adverbials of position and duration, thirty-two are grammatical and thirty-two are ungrammatical. Participants must accept or reject them using a 5-point likert scale.
The findings indicate that the DPTH is partially supported by the statistical data showing a default marker, imperfect for beginning learners, and preterite for intermediate learners. This provides support to the argument of unsteady aspectual checking of [-bounded] in the spec of AspP and not necessarily by only checking [+past] in the TP for intermediate learners. The influence of the lexical aspect value of the verb is partially evident with advanced learners. Temporal adverbials play an important role at interpreting grammatical aspect with intermediate and advanced learners. Results show that beginning learners are not influenced by the presence of adverbials due to their inexperience with the Spanish aspectual morphology.
The findings also allow the confirmation of prior results about factors that influence the interpretation of preterite and imperfect. First, the instruction of aspectual morphology co-indexed with specific temporal adverbials, and second, that learners rely on lexical cues at the sentential level, while native speakers rely on discursive ones.
This study investigates the emergence of aspectual morphology by testing the DPTH and the effect of adverbials at interpreting grammatical aspect in this process of acquisition. Twenty-eight English-speaking learners of Spanish (beginning, intermediate and advanced) and twenty native-Spanish speakers are tested with two written comprehension tasks that assess the interpretation of habitual/imperfect and episodic/preterite readings of eventive verbs. The truth-value judgment task incorporates forty short stories with two summary sentences, from which participants must choose one as true. The grammaticality judgment task presents sixty-four sentences with temporal adverbials of position and duration, thirty-two are grammatical and thirty-two are ungrammatical. Participants must accept or reject them using a 5-point likert scale.
The findings indicate that the DPTH is partially supported by the statistical data showing a default marker, imperfect for beginning learners, and preterite for intermediate learners. This provides support to the argument of unsteady aspectual checking of [-bounded] in the spec of AspP and not necessarily by only checking [+past] in the TP for intermediate learners. The influence of the lexical aspect value of the verb is partially evident with advanced learners. Temporal adverbials play an important role at interpreting grammatical aspect with intermediate and advanced learners. Results show that beginning learners are not influenced by the presence of adverbials due to their inexperience with the Spanish aspectual morphology.
The findings also allow the confirmation of prior results about factors that influence the interpretation of preterite and imperfect. First, the instruction of aspectual morphology co-indexed with specific temporal adverbials, and second, that learners rely on lexical cues at the sentential level, while native speakers rely on discursive ones.
ContributorsFistrovic, Tatiana Katy (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Renaud, Claire (Committee member) / Muñoz-Liceras, Juana (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The English language is taught all over the world and changes immensely from place to place. As such, both L1 and L2 English Language Users all utilize English as a tool for creating meaning in their existence and to also form perspectives on how the language ought to be. What is interesting about this is that the language being used to do that is one birthed from a culture that many English speakers across the globe are separated from; that is, Anglo-Saxon culture. Since learning and using language is also learning and participating in culture the question is, then how separated are American English speakers from that of the culture that created the language they speak? Does Anglo-Saxon culture impact how worldviews are formed in contemporary English speakers? I propose that the first step to finding some answers is by investigating the language ideologies that American English speakers have through the inquiry of meanings that they prescribe to English words that derive from Old English and subsequently have Germanic origins. The following work details a study examining the language attitudes of American English speakers in hopes of shedding new light on these questions.
ContributorsHickman, Paris Weslyn (Author) / Bjork, Robert E (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Karen L (Committee member) / Gelderen, Elly van (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Scholars have long debated whether Old and Middle English (ME) are different diachronic stages of one language, or whether they are two closely related languages that have different historical roots. A general assumption is that Middle and Modern English descend from Old English (OE), similar to the way Middle and Modern German descend from Old High German. Traditional scholarship places English into the West-Germanic language subgroup (which includes Old English, and continental Germanic languages) Historically, criteria used by linguists to establish genealogy of languages involve sound change from parent to daughter languages and the sharing of core vocabulary. Until recently, consideration of the influence of contact-induced change, except in the lexical domain, has been minimized, favoring generative language-internal factors. While it is generally accepted that internal motivation shapes the outcome of language change, contact may provide the catalyst for the change. The syntax of ME emerged with linguistic variation that distanced it from its Germanic relatives. In order to understand how the grammar of ME evolved and differs from its West-Germanic cousins, the syntax and morphosyntactic properties of ME, evident in The Orrmulum, an early ME work written in the Danelaw region of England, are analyzed in comparison to Old English (OE), Old Norse (ON), and Celtic, and in relation to formal grammaticalization theory, social factors and historical events. An analysis of the grammar in The Orrmulum supports current research regarding Scandinavian influence on the syntax of OE and ME, because there is extensive historic evidence regarding effects of language tangency of the relevant cultures; the properties of a grammatical lexicon influence retention of syntactic patterns, despite additions/changes in lexical categories; and The Orrmulum is a revealing source of the transition of OE to ME regional dialect variations.
ContributorsHornung, Annette (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Bjork, Robert (Committee member) / Renaud, Claire (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017