Matching Items (37)
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Description
The subject of bilingual language use in the southwestern United States has been widely researched. However research pertaining to the Phoenix Metropolitan area is lacking. Studies have shown that language choice is governed by linguistic as well as social constraints (Gumperz, 1977; Poplack 1980; 1981). This study examined and compared

The subject of bilingual language use in the southwestern United States has been widely researched. However research pertaining to the Phoenix Metropolitan area is lacking. Studies have shown that language choice is governed by linguistic as well as social constraints (Gumperz, 1977; Poplack 1980; 1981). This study examined and compared the code-switching behaviors of two communities in the southwestern United States: Antonito, Colorado and the Phoenix Metropolitan area in Arizona. The study explored the social and linguistic factors that are said to govern code-switching behaviors such as the type of switches made (intra-sentential or single lexical switches), the position in the utterance where the switch occurs (final or other), the direction of the switch (an utterance beginning in English and ending in Spanish, or beginning in Spanish and ending in English), the gender and level of education of the participants (college or above; high school or below), the ethnicity of the interviewer (Anglo or Hispanic), as well as which of the aforementioned social and linguistic factors most favored intra-sentential switches. The study used corpus data, with four participants from each community for a total of eight interviews. Participants from each corpus were selected to control for gender, the highest level of education achieved and the ethnicity of the interviewer. The study found that in the corpora looked at, linguistic factors such as position of the switch and direction of the switch affected intra-sentential switches more than social factors, although in terms of frequencies within individual factor groups, social factors such as the ethnicity of the interviewer, and the participant's level of education were found to be significant in affecting code-switching behavior.
ContributorsCésar, Mariana (Author) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Thesis advisor) / Lafford, Barbara (Committee member) / García, Carmen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Complaints, characterized by LaForest (2002), are expressions "of dissatisfaction addressed by an individual A to an individual B concerning behavior on the part of B that A feels is unsatisfactory," (p. 1596) have been studied in the language of English speakers since the 1980's (Boxer, 1993a; 1993b; 1996; House &

Complaints, characterized by LaForest (2002), are expressions "of dissatisfaction addressed by an individual A to an individual B concerning behavior on the part of B that A feels is unsatisfactory," (p. 1596) have been studied in the language of English speakers since the 1980's (Boxer, 1993a; 1993b; 1996; House & Kasper, 1981; Murphy & Neu, 1996; Trenchs, 1995; Vázquez, 2011; Wolfe & Powell, 2006). However, only a few studies on Spanish-language complaints have been carried out (Bolívar, 2002a; Márquez Reiter, 2005; Pinto & Raschio, 2008). Due to the lack of studies analyzing complaints among second generation Mexican-American Spanish-English bilinguals in the United States, role-plays were collected from 21 participants, ten males and eleven females, who interacted with a female interlocutor. The data was analyzed using Spencer-Oatey's (2005) Rapport Management in order to gain a better understanding of this population's politeness strategies used in complaining both in Spanish and English. In addition to acting out the role-plays, the participants were asked to fill out a Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q), in order to assess language proficiency. Upon completion of the role-plays, the participants completed a post role-play questionnaire, which evaluated their impressions of the interactions. The strategies used in the complaints included, but were not limited to: complaining/accusing, reason/explanation/ justification, threatening, suggesting/requesting/commanding, and providing information. The results showed that for the Spanish complaints the participants preferred the use of reason/explanation/justification, while they preferred suggesting/requesting/commanding in the English complaints. In addition, in both situations the participants chose to respect the association principle, however, this result was not statistically significant. With respect to face sensitivities, the participants chose to enhance the interlocutor's identity face in both the English and Spanish. It is concluded that these participants do not demonstrate a transfer of strategies from one language to another. Furthermore, no significant gender differences were observed. Moreover, the participants show a tendency toward positive politeness, which falls in line with other Hispanic cultures such as Cubans, Spaniards, Argentineans, Uruguayans, Peruvians, and Venezuelans. Although this study adds to the literature of Spanish in the U.S. pragmatics, further study of this population is needed.
ContributorsElias, Mariam (Author) / García Fernandez, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Lafford, Barbara (Thesis advisor) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
This study investigates the effectiveness of the use of Concept-Based Instruction (CBI) to facilitate the acquisition of Spanish mood distinctions by second semester second language learners of Spanish. The study focuses on the development of Spanish mood choice and the types of explanations (Rule-of-Thumb vs. Concept-based) used by five students

This study investigates the effectiveness of the use of Concept-Based Instruction (CBI) to facilitate the acquisition of Spanish mood distinctions by second semester second language learners of Spanish. The study focuses on the development of Spanish mood choice and the types of explanations (Rule-of-Thumb vs. Concept-based) used by five students before and after being exposed to Concept-Based Instruction regarding the choice of Spanish mood following various modalities .The students in this study were presented with a pedagogical treatment on Spanish mood choice that included general theoretical concepts based on Gal'perin's (1969, 1992) didactic models and acts of verbalization, which form part of a Concept-Based pedagogical approach. In order to ascertain the effectiveness of the use of concept-based tools to promote the ability to use Spanish mood appropriately over time, a pre and post-test was administered to the group in which students were asked to respond to prompts containing modalities that elicit the indicative and subjunctive moods, indicate their level of confidence in their response, and verbalize in writing a reason for their choice. The development of these abilities in learners exposed to CBI was assessed by comparing pre and post-test scores examining both forms and explanations for the indicative and subjunctive modality prompts given. Results showed that students continued to rely on Rule-of-Thumb explanations of mood choice but they did expand their use of conceptually-based reasoning. Although the quantitative and qualitative analyses of the results indicate that most students did improve their ability to make appropriate mood choices (forms and explanations) after the CBI treatment, the increased use of conceptually-based explanations for their mood choices led to both correct and incorrect responses.
ContributorsBeus, Eric (Author) / Lafford, Barbara (Thesis advisor) / Beas, Omar (Committee member) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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A number of studies have been carried out on Spanish pragmatics and the speech act of refusals (Félix-Brasdefer 2006; García 1992). Many studies have also been conducted on the teaching of pragmatics and speech acts in the classroom (García 1996; Koike 1989). However, to date, not many studies have been

A number of studies have been carried out on Spanish pragmatics and the speech act of refusals (Félix-Brasdefer 2006; García 1992). Many studies have also been conducted on the teaching of pragmatics and speech acts in the classroom (García 1996; Koike 1989). However, to date, not many studies have been conducted analyzing the acquisition of Spanish refusals in the classroom. To the author's knowledge, no study has investigated the acquisition of Spanish refusals at the various different levels in a university. Therefore, this study will analyze whether there is a significant effect of the level of Spanish instruction of intermediate and advanced university L2 learners on their ability to carry out appropriate refusals. Through discourse completion tests, data from students at the Spanish 202 and 314 levels will be analyzed to see how closely they compare to native Spanish speakers in their refusals. The results will be compared with previous studies on refusals in order to create a teaching plan for acquiring this speech act.
ContributorsSnider, Derek (Author) / Lafford, Barbara (Thesis advisor) / García, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
This study investigates the uses of English in advertising in Brazil and the attitudes of Brazilians towards the use of different difficulty levels of English in advertising. Using a two part, mixed-methods approach, drawing from quantitative and qualitative methods, I utilized a corpus study to examine English uses in Brazilian

This study investigates the uses of English in advertising in Brazil and the attitudes of Brazilians towards the use of different difficulty levels of English in advertising. Using a two part, mixed-methods approach, drawing from quantitative and qualitative methods, I utilized a corpus study to examine English uses in Brazilian magazines and a survey to investigate the difficulty of English slogans as a determinant for people's attitudes towards English in advertising. For the first part, three major Brazilian news magazines, Veja, Época, and ISTOÉ were used. From three issues of each magazine, results showed that 57% of the advertisements in all nine magazines contained English in different parts of the advertisements, with most occurrences in the product name, followed by the body copy, headline, subheadline, and slogan. English was used to advertise a number of different product types, but was especially used for advertising cars, electronics, events, and banks. It was also found that the majority of English was used for its symbolic representations of modernity, prestige, globalization, and reliability. Using a survey for the second part of the study, I investigated how Brazilian participants judged four advertisements that featured English slogans that were comparable to slogans judged to be easy or difficult to understand in a similar study conducted by Hornikx, van Meurs, and de Boer (2010). Participants were offered attitudinal choices to mark off on a 4-point Likert scale, where they indicated their attitudes towards the English slogans provided. They were also asked to determine if they understood the slogans and to translate them to indicate their actual understanding of the slogans. Participants showed more positive attitudes towards the uses of English than negative attitudes. The survey provided evidence that with the very low numbers of correctly translated slogans, many participants believed they understood the slogans, which could prove to be more of an indicator of positive attitudes than their actual understanding of the slogans. This project provides an example from one Expanding Circle context touched by the far-reaching influences of World Englishes.
ContributorsMontes, Amanda Lira Gordenstein (Author) / Friedrich, Patricia M (Thesis advisor) / Matsuda, Aya (Committee member) / Lafford, Barbara (Committee member) / Anokye, Akua Duku (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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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;

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
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This study examines the effect that the modality (volition, doubt, emotion, belief, knowledge, etc.) of matrix noun clauses has on the ability of intermediate (second-year) Spanish L2 students (n=56) to properly produce the subjunctive and indicative moods, the relative order in which students tend to most accurately produce the subjunctive

This study examines the effect that the modality (volition, doubt, emotion, belief, knowledge, etc.) of matrix noun clauses has on the ability of intermediate (second-year) Spanish L2 students (n=56) to properly produce the subjunctive and indicative moods, the relative order in which students tend to most accurately produce the subjunctive in response to the modalities of volition, doubt, and emotion, and students' level of syntactic ability and mood development. Each participant took a test consisting of twenty questions containing various modalities intended to elicit either the subjunctive or indicative mood. Participants also filled out a questionnaire that was designed to ascertain the participants' level of formal and informal experience with Spanish. The results of this study show that a) when the subjunctive was the target response most participants favored the unmarked indicative mood significantly more than the marked subjunctive mood, b) students most accurately produced the subjunctive to the modality of volition (VL), followed by doubt (DT), and emotion (EM), which is consistent with Collentine's study, and c) students were able to process complex syntax when producing the unmarked indicative mood but not when they were prompted to produce the marked subjunctive mood. The results of this study show that pedagogical expectations regarding the acquisition of the subjunctive mood by second-year Spanish students may be unrealistic as these students were operating somewhere between the pre-syntactic and syntactic stages.
ContributorsKaufman, John Henry (Author) / Lafford, Barbara (Thesis advisor) / García Fernandez, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Elorrieta, Jabier (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Using Spencer-Oatey's rapport management approach, the present study evaluates the interlanguage pragmatic development of 17 native English-speaking American learners over the course of a semester in Spain, specifically in terms of the strategies they used in their second language (L2) to manage rapport in an advice-giving, oral role-play situation at

Using Spencer-Oatey's rapport management approach, the present study evaluates the interlanguage pragmatic development of 17 native English-speaking American learners over the course of a semester in Spain, specifically in terms of the strategies they used in their second language (L2) to manage rapport in an advice-giving, oral role-play situation at semester start and semester end. To allow for a more in-depth analysis of the effect that a semester abroad has on Spanish L2 advice-giving behaviors, the learners were grouped into two distinct proficiency levels. Group 1 (n=9) represents learners who entered the semester abroad with a beginning to intermediate-low proficiency level and group 2 (n=8) represents learners who entered the semester abroad with an intermediate-high proficiency level. The results indicate that both learner groups had similar overarching behavioral expectations in this context. Specifically, both sets of learners expressed empathy, involvement, and respect for the interlocutor, while at the same time they used advice-giving strategies of varied illocutionary force to claim authority in addressing the interlocutor's dilemma. Both groups also balanced face sensitivities through strategies that both enhanced and challenged the interlocutor's identity face. However, it is argued that in this context claiming authority and challenging the interlocutor's identity face were permitted behaviors that emphasized the relational goals of the participants. Additionally, when developmental differences between the two proficiency levels were analyzed, the results showed that learner proficiency had an impact on specific strategy choices.
ContributorsBaca, Evelyn C. (Author) / García, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Lafford, Barbara (Thesis advisor) / Elorrieta, Jabier (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Description
Current research shows a positive relationship between the use of written synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and oral production (Isenberg 2010; Kern 1995; Payne & Whitney, 2002). No prior investigations specifically analyze the effect of SCMC on the conjugation of simple present tense verbal forms in narratives produced by learners of

Current research shows a positive relationship between the use of written synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and oral production (Isenberg 2010; Kern 1995; Payne & Whitney, 2002). No prior investigations specifically analyze the effect of SCMC on the conjugation of simple present tense verbal forms in narratives produced by learners of Spanish in online environments. This semester-long study addressed this issue by systematically analyzing the effect of written SCMC on the oral production of present-tense verb conjugations in two different oral tasks by students in two different intermediate level online Spanish courses. Written chat (WC), a type of synchronous group discussion, was used in the treatment group in order to examine the crossover effects of written SCMC on present tense forms in oral production tasks among intermediate Spanish students in online courses. Both online groups engaged in 30 minutes of concentrated interaction with the instructor and other students each week. The control group engaged in 30 minutes of oral interaction per week while the experimental group was exposed to 15 minutes of oral chat and 15 minutes of WC in the 30 minute session of interaction. Specifically, this study employed a pretest/posttest quasi-experimental design and tested the differential effects of a combination of oral and written SCMC online interaction and SCMC solely oral online interaction on the acquisition of Spanish present tense verb forms. The findings show a significant difference in oral gains among the experimental group.
ContributorsRiley, Holly Kristen (Author) / Lafford, Barbara (Thesis advisor) / García, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Elorrieta, Jabier (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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ABSTRACT This thesis analyzes the Spanish (SPA) and English (ENG) code-switching (CS) at Latino Vibe (LV), a bilingual radio station in Phoenix; Arizona from a sociolinguistic perspective. Using Gumperz's (1982) Conversational Functions of CS, Myers-Scotton's (1993) Markedness Model, and Bell's (1984) Audience Design model, this thesis intends to evaluate which

ABSTRACT This thesis analyzes the Spanish (SPA) and English (ENG) code-switching (CS) at Latino Vibe (LV), a bilingual radio station in Phoenix; Arizona from a sociolinguistic perspective. Using Gumperz's (1982) Conversational Functions of CS, Myers-Scotton's (1993) Markedness Model, and Bell's (1984) Audience Design model, this thesis intends to evaluate which one of these sociolinguistic models is the most accurate to explain the SPA-ENG CS at LV. In January 2009, the data were collected in a two week period of programming of the show "José y Tina en la mañana" (José and Tina in the morning), and then transcribed. This qualitative study consisted in analyzing the same subset of the data, corresponding to ten days. The model with the greater predictably of the types of CS and their causes would be considered the most appropriate for the data studied. The results show that CS is common and that codeswitched utterances are the most representative at LV. The conclusion also states that out of the three models, Gumperz's accounts better for the data than the other two. It explains more clearly the reasons why LV announcers code-switch in particular social contexts, and the important role of these switches during their interaction in this bilingual radio station. KEYWORDS: Code-switching, bilingual radio, Spanish-English
ContributorsBocanegra, Olga Lucía (Author) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Thesis advisor) / García, Carmen (Committee member) / Lafford, Barbara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012