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 SPEAKING OF TOPIC INTRODUCTIONS IN THE LADIES AUXILIARY: A SINGLE-GENDER AND MIXED-GENDER COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS. Author: THERESA MCGARRY This study examines topic introductions in the all-women and mixed-gender business meetings of an outdoor sports club in the Midwestern U.S. Previous research on gender and language has identified certain features that tend to occur with different frequency in the speech of women and men. However, gender-indexing language has also been shown to be instantiated differently in different contexts. To gain more understanding of how gender, context, and language usage interact with regard to topic introductions, I compare the introductions made by the women club members in the two meeting types and the men members in the mixed-gender context. The three-way comparison is carried out with regard to multiple aspects of topic introductions. In addition to frequencies of topic introductions and changes among the three groups, I examine types of introductions distinguished according to specific kinds of topic relevance and types of topic changes distinguished according to the interaction immediately preceding them. I also analyze the processes of topic introduction that occur in the meetings, i.e. types of interaction sequences that effect introductions. Finally, I compare the frequencies of specific elements of introductions, such as questions and new-topic pre-signals. The results of these analyses are interpreted with attention to the functions of the introduction utterances in the meetings. LANGUAGE, AND IDENTITY: L2 ACQUISITION IN POST-SOVIET MOLDOVA Author: MATTHEW H. CISCEL Abstract: The study draws on diverse fields from second language
acquisition theory and linguistic anthropology to history and
language policy. It focuses on two research questions: (1) To
what extent do attitudes toward languages correlate to competing
notions of national and social identity within the Republic of
Moldova? (2) How does the variability in these attitudes
and identities affect the acquisition of second language (L2)
proficiency in standard Russian, Romanian, and English? The first
question is addressed using ethnographic and psychometric methods,
including the matched guise technique and follow-up interviews.
Survey respondents include over one hundred students of English
in Moldova's capital city. The second question is tested by comparing
attitude data with measures of L2 proficiency in a small subset
of the survey respondents. Together with qualitative explorations
of Moldova's recent history and its social milieu, the quantitative
results of the surveys suggest that language attitudes and social
identities create predispositions with regard to the acquisition
of a particular L2. Specifically, evidence is found for a post-colonial
effect that continues to maintain the status of Russian, despite
policy efforts to establish a stronger role for Romanian. In addition,
the role of English, as an international language associated with
ideologies of progress, is argued to further complicate the dynamics
of multilingualism and identity crisis in the country. The use
of multiple methods and models related to linguistic and social
identity creation contribute to a textured, complex presentation
of socially situated L2 acquisition in Moldova, informing both
language policy in the region and the often overlooked social
aspects of L2 acquisition theory. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. THE PRO-DROP PARAMETER IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION REVISITED: A DEVELOPMENTAL ACCOUNT Author: LARRY LAFOND Abstract: This dissertation applies a particular theory of language acquisition and representation, Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993, Grimshaw 1997), and a particular learning algorithm within this theory, the Constraint Demotion Algorithm (Tesar and Smolensky 2000), to the problem of how second language acquisition of pro-drop takes place for learners whose first language does not instantiate the grammatical properties traditionally associated with pro-drop. The overarching goal of this study is to provide an account of the developmental stages in the second language learning of three grammatical properties: null subjects, inversion, and that-trace. Although there is no lack of such accounts from earlier generative perspectives, the need remains for a comprehensive developmental account from an Optimality-theoretic perspective. This dissertation begins to address that need. The study here is based on several empirical tests (a translation task, a pilot study, and a grammaticality judgment task) that were administered to 370 adult native English speakers studying Spanish at the University of South Carolina or the Pennsylvania State University. Each task was designed to investigate learner competencies regarding null subjects, inversion, and that-trace. A key conclusion from these studies is that the acquisition of Spanish by native speakers of English involves a reranking of universal syntactic and discoursal constraints in these languages. Specifically, this dissertation argues that acquisition of Spanish occurs through the demotion of certain syntactic constraints in the English native grammar so that these constraints are dominated by discoursal constraints in the Spanish second language grammar. This cross-sectional study not only tracks learners through developmental
stages, but it is also theory driven, because the theory of grammar
used in this dissertation permits specific predictions about the
interaction and relative importance of constraints in Spanish
and English and, ultimately, of the acquisitional route learners
take. The application of Optimality Theory to interactions between
discourse and syntax in second language learning represents a
new and potentially productive line of inquiry that may advance
our understanding of both second language learning and grammatical
theory. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. A SOCIOPRAGMATIC APPROACH TO THE USE OF META-DISCOURSE FEATURES IN EFFECTIVE NON-NATIVE AND NATIVE SPEAKER COMPOSITION WRITING Author: EUNITA D.A. OCHOLA Abstract: Issues of writing revolve around effective writing. Many instructors are concerned that their students do not write effectively, while most students are concerned that they do not know how to write so they are understood. Furthermore, some non-native writers write more effectively than others, including some native-writers. This dissertation examines factors that determine effective writing by non-native and native speakers. The study assumes that text production involves satisfying a text at three related levels: the schematic superstructures, the propositional content, and messages of intentionality. <italic>Meta-discourse features</italic> (such as <italic><underline>By this I mean</underline></italic>…) express messages of <italic>intentionality</italic> that convey attitude toward the subject matter (including interpersonal and intrapersonal involvement). The study investigates how writers use schematic superstructures and <italic> meta-discourse features</italic> in effective writing. Meta-discourse features in 64 compositions were examined: 32 ESL compositions by Dholuo first language subjects, in their third year at Kenyatta University, Kenya, and 32 compositions by English native-speaker freshman at Midlands Technical College, Columbia, SC. Prior to the analysis, three native-speaker composition instructors independently rated the compositions as effective or ineffective. A sociopragmatic approach based on the theory of intentionality and a rational choice model as explicated in the Markedness Model (Myers-Scotton 1993 & 1998), the theory of Generalized Conversational Implicatures (Levinson 2000), the Cooperative Principle (Grice 1975), and Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson 1986) was adopted for data analysis. The results show that both non-native and native writers conformed to the target language's schematic superstructures; they also used meta-discourse features to express messages of intentionality. A major result of this study shows that effective writers used more meta-discourse features to express messages of intentionality than ineffective writers; results were almost identical for both native and non-native speakers. The study claims that effective writers exploit their linguistic
repertoire to maximize audience awareness and indications of their
own awareness to achieve maximum communicative reward, and concludes
that meta-discourse features structure discourse at a higher level
than propositional content. Consequently, instructors should sensitize
their students to the use of meta-discourse features, and writers
should view writing as an interactive enterprise between themselves
and their reader and between themselves and their text. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. BENEATH THE SURFACE: SIGNS OF LANGUAGE ATTRITION IN IMMINGRANT CHILDREN FROM RUSSIA Author: ELENA SCHMITT Abstract: This longitudinal study focuses on changes in the grammatical structures produced by Russian pre-adolescent speakers under the circumstances of language attrition in the English dominant environment. The central goals are: (1) to identify processes involved in language attrition; (2) to determine the mechanisms that underlie language attrition; and (3) to discuss the relative hierarchy of stages of language loss. A total of 2,182 CPs are analyzed for the presence of signs of language attrition which may be present overtly through ‘classic’ codeswitching, bare form production, generalization of certain morphemes, etc. and/or covertly in the form of convergence, bare form production, reduction, simplification, and others. All the analyses are carried out within the frame work of the Matrix Language Frame model (Myers-Scotton 1993a, 1997), the 4-M model (e.g., Myers-Scotton & Jake 2000a, 2001), and the Abstract Level model (e.g., Myers-Scotton & Jake 1995, 1998). The analysis of the data has shown that the amount of convergence and bare form production increases in the second data set. The levels of codeswitching remain rather stable; however, the patterns of codeswitching substantially change between the first and the second recordings. The difference between ‘classic’ codeswitching, convergence, and bare form production is discussed in terms of the availability of the matrix language predicate-argument structure and morphological realization patterns that lead to the production of integrated forms. The diminished access to forms and convergence. The findings further indicate that some types of morphemes (e.g., content and early system morphemes) are lost more easily from the language than others (late system morphemes). It is also demonstrated that the underlying language at various levels depending on the stage of language attrition. Finally, it is shown that all the processes of the first language attrition involve the mechanisms of codeswitching and convergence. Overall, an integrated account of mechanisms, processes, and
stages of language attrition resulting from a close contact of
English and Russian languages in the English dominant environment
is proposed. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. SIMPLIFIED INPUT: AN IVESTIGATION OF FOREIGNER TALK/TEACHER TALK ON COMPREHENSION AND VOCABULARY ACQUISITION Author: RICHARD HALLETT Abstract: This dissertation addresses the following research
questions: (1) Does simplified input (SI) facilitate L2 comprehension?
(2) Does SI facilitate L2 comprehension across learners at different
levels of proficiency? and (3) If SI does facilitate L2 comprehension,
do the learners retain this acquired knowledge over a period of
time? In the main study, 75 ESL learners enrolled in an intensive
English language program at an American university were divided
into two groups. Subjects in the experimental group watched a
videotaped SI lesson on specific lexical items in addition to
viewing a videotape of a news segment. Subjects in the control
group received no SI; rather, they simply viewed the same news
segment. The study found that (1) SI does facilitate L2 comprehension
and acquisition of lexical items in the oral mode, (2) SI does
facilitate L2 comprehension and acquisition across learners at
different levels of proficiency, (3) SI appears to be used in
the same basic manner by all L2 learners, regardless of their
level of proficiency, and (4) L2 learners retain the knowledge
acquired from SI over a period of time. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. LANGUAGE CONTACT AND COMPOSITE STRUCTURES IN NEW IRELAND, PAPUA NEW GUINEA Author: REBECCA SUE JENKINS Abstract: This dissertation examines language contact phenomena in New Ireland Province of Papua New Guinea. It discusses a wide range of such phenomena including codeswitching (CS); borrowing; convergence; language shift, attrition, and death; and pidgin/creole formation within the theoretical framework of the related extended Matrix Language Frame, Abstract Level, and 4-M models. The concentration of languages in New Ireland, the widespread use of Tok Pisin as a lingua franca, and an educational system using English as the medium of instruction creates an environment of extensive language contact. The primary focus of the study is a comparison of Tok Pisin with the Austronesian (AN) substrate languages, using Tigak as a typical AN language. The hypotheses tested propose that the AN substrate provides the morphosyntactic frame for Tok Pisin and that this frame is a composite Matrix Language (CML) based on those very similar Austronesian languages, that the (CML) and constituent types change as the linguistic situation changes, that morpheme type restricts the source of morphemes in a pidgin, and that the direction of influence can change as a contact language stabilizes. The results provide extensive evidence of the composite nature of the morphosyntactic frame of Tok Pisin and of its AN source and demonstrate current changes in constituent types and the (CML) structure in Tok Pisin due to renewed English influence. The results verify that content and early system morphemes may come from any language contributing to a pidgin, but that late system morphemes are restricted in predictable ways. The variability produced by L1 interference is also documented. A secondary focus of the study is the analysis of other contact
situations in northwestern New Ireland. The results show that
the languages have influenced each other in the past but that
the strongest current influences are those exerted by Tok Pisin
and English on the indigenous languages. The influence of these
two languages is producing extensive CS, borrowing, language change
due to convergence to Tok Pisin and English, and language attrition.
The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. THE ROLE OF ABSTRACT LEXICAL STRUCTURE IN FIRST LANGUAGE ATTRITION: GERMAN IN AMERICA Author: STEVEN GROSS Abstract: in first language attrition in a language contact setting. Framed within the extended Matrix Language Frame model, this study seeks to explain the patterns of linguistic variation that lead to language change in the speech of German immigrants under long-term contact with English. To do this, a group of six elderly bilingual German immigrants who have been living in the United States for at least 40 years were interviewed. These interviews took the form of informal conversations in the participant's native German dialect and generated approximately eight hours of linguistic data. This dissertation argues that the changes occurring in the linguistic system of the German immigrants come from the innate organization of the mental lexicon and the way in which a linguistically-encoded message is generated. Under the psycholinguistic pressures of language contact, an individual's first language will be reorganized on the basis of how and when linguistic units become available to language production. structure: lexical-conceptual structure, predicate-argument structure, morphological recombined to from a composite structure. The morphosyntactic features present in the immigrants' linguistic
system indicate that the system has changed to the extent that
a composite Matrix Language projects the grammatical frame. However,
these effects are not uniform throughout the system. The data
indicate that morphemes that are activated early in the production
process, at the level of lexical-conceptual structure, are the
most vulnerable to the effects of language attrition. Morphemes
that are activated at a later stage, those that encode language-particular
grammatical distinctions, are the most resistant to attrition.
These findings challenge the results of a number of other language
attrition studies that indicate that attrition is most evident
in the early loss of distinctions such as case assignment, gender,
and subject-verb agreement. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. WHAT KIND OF PEACE IS THIS? METAPHOR IN THE U.S. PRESS COVERAGE OF ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN NEGATIONS Author: CATHLEEN BRIDGEMAN Subject Code: Language-Linguistics (0290); Mass-Communications
(0708); Journalism (0391); Political-Science-International-Law-and-Relations
(0616) This study examines the metaphors for peace used in the American press coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian, peace process. Metaphors are considered within the framework of conceptual metaphor theory as discussed in Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and Lakoff (1993). The study seeks to answer four research questions concerning, metaphor frequency, type, variation, and range in an effort to explore the understanding of peace inherent in the metaphors used in the press coverage and to contribute to empirical and discourse level considerations of conceptual metaphor theory. It is argued that conceptual metaphor theory offers a way to account for the range of metaphors used systematically and concepts like peace. It is also argued that considering metaphor in actual discourse indicates areas in need of further development in conceptual metaphor theory and demonstrates the need for more attention to the political and social implications of metaphor choice. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN ENGLISH AND KOREAN: DIRECT OPTIMALITY THEORY APPROACH Author: CHANG-KYUM KIM Source: VOLUME 61-04A OF DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS INTERNATIONAL. PAGE 1379 The purpose of this study is to analyze certain Korean and English
phonological processes and to examine sound replacement in L2
learners using Direct Optimality Theory (DOT). DOT has its roots
in Standard Optimality Theory (SOT) which in turn has its roots
in Generative Phonology. It allows constraint violations and evaluation.
However, this theory is different from Standard Optimality Theory
in that it represents phonological forms with pure markedness
and requires phonological information to be uniform in all levels.
The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. NEGOTIATING POWER IN BUSINESS MEETINGS Author: MELANIE MOLL Abstract: The purpose of this dissertation is to qualitatively
examine discourse practices within business meetings held by the
representatives of the South Carolina BMW Manufacturing Corporation
and two of its leather suppliers, Draexlmaier Automotive of America
(DAA) and Sommer Allibert Industries (Allibert). The situational
requirements of the three companies involved in these meetings
are such that the interactions can be seen as intrinsically competitive.
In other words, each company presumably seeks to achieve the best
possible outcome for itself and its members. Against the backdrop
of this scenario, I examine the construction of directives, evaluations,
and agency assignment as these relate to conversational styles.
Although conversational styles have often been characterized as
powerful or powerless depending upon the various linguistic features
they contain (Brown and Levinson 1987), my data show speakers
often use a style that establishes a mutually supportive, i! The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. RELEVANCE THEORY AND THE MARKEDNESS MODEL IN SLA: COGNITIVE APPROACHES TO PRAGMATICS AND SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Author: MARY SUE SRODA This study explicates a model of pragmatic enrichment based on
Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory (1986, 1995, 1997). This
model differs from traditional Relevance Theory in two ways: (1) the
process of pragmatic enrichment is characterized as non-linear
and modular, thus describing pragmatic enrichment not as a module
but as a modular process; (2) a mechanism for evaluating
explicature and implicature relative to community-wide standards
and norms for discourse is integrated as a module in pragmatic
enrichment (Myers-Scotton (1993, 1998, forthcoming). The modified
model is referred to as the RT/MM. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. THE HIDDEN DIMENSIONS OF LANGUAGE CONTACT:THE CASE OF HUNGARIAN-ENGLISH BILINGUAL CHILDREN Author: BOLONYAI, AGNES This dissertation examines the effects of language contact and
first language (L1) attrition in Hungarian as spoken by Hungarian-English
immigrant children. It explores how and what organizational principles
of the mental lexicon play a role in determining what types of
surface structures occur in other language contact phenomena,
such as convergence and L1 attrition in bilingual language production.
Naturally-occurring bilingual speech produced by six Hungarian-English
bilingual children who are growing up in the United States form
the data base. The seven to nine years old children were English
dominant at the time of the data collection. The data analysis
examines morpheme distribution and changes in morphemic structures
in terms of three levels of abstract lexical structure and how
morphemes are elected in production. It is demonstrated that the
children produce some Hungarian morphemes less accurately than
other morphemes when speaking Hungarian. The asymmetrical distributions
of preverbs and case endings are of specific interest in this
study. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. STRUCTURAL CONSTRAINTS ON ARABIC/ENGLISH CODESWITCHING:TWO GENERATIONS Author: OKASHA, MAHA Source: VOLUME 60-04A OF DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS INTERNATIONAL.
PAGE 1107. This dissertation examines the bilingual speech of two generations
of Arab-Americans in the city of Columbia, South Carolina. The
focus of this study is on the codeswitching (CS) patterns of these
speakers. CS is a language contact phenomenon in which two or
more languages are used within the same discourse unit. Although
CS serves social functions such as indicating social status, prestige,
and language attitudes, it is not a random linguistic behavior.
Research has shown that it is subject to structural constraints
that indicate when and where CS takes place in the discourse.
The emphasis of this study is on these constraints as formulated
in the Matrix Language Frame model by Myers-Scotton (1993a) and
extended later by two submodels by Myers-Scotton and Jake (1995,
1998). The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. THE LINGUISTIC SITUATION IN VALLE D'AOSTA:A STUDY ON THE FUNCTION AND THE STRUCTURE OFCODESWITCHING AND CONVERGENCE BETWEEN ITALIAN AND FRENCH Author: SARULLO, PAOLA Source: VOLUME 60-02A OF DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS INTERNATIONAL.
PAGE 408. This dissertation examines the role Italian plays in the French
spoken by bilingual native speakers of Valle d'Aosta, a region
in northwest Italy. Valle d'Aosta presents an interesting language
contact setting because two official languages with equal status
(Italian and French) and a dialectal variety (Patois) co-exist
in the repertoire of this speech community. However, Italian remains
predominant in the region, because the region receives economic
aid from the Italian government, the media are for the most part
in Italian, and the medium of instruction in the schools is mainly
Italian. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. THE ACQUISITION OF NARRATIVE SYNTAX Author: REID, DAVID Source: VOLUME 59-07A OF DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS INTERNATIONAL.
PAGE 2476 This dissertation examines the manner in which children aged
four through eleven acquire the culturally shared structure of
narrative form. Based on the categories and general narrative
nomenclature described by William Labov, this study breaks down
narratives into abstracts (prefaces), orientations, high points
and resolutions, and examines the synchronic make-up and diachronic
development of each for children in the critical period of acquisition.
The data, consisting of 405 narratives collected at The Hammond
School, in Columbia, South Carolina, during the 1994-1995 school
year, is a departure from (and addition to) that of Labov in that
it was produced by pre-teen children and, importantly, was entirely
naturally occurring and unelicited. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. INTERACTIONAL STRATEGIES AND THE ROLE OF QUESTIONS IN THE ACQUISITION OF ACADEMIC DISCOURSE (DISCOURSE ACQUISITION) Author: LAUNSPACH, SONJA LORENE Source: Volume 5905A of Dissertations Abstracts International.
Page 1547 . 253 pages This dissertation examines how freshman composition students
acquire the discourse of academic writing in a small group setting.
The study is grounded in 2 primary frameworks, Conversation Analysis
and the Situated Learning Model of Lave and Wenger (1991). Specifically
this research investigates the role that questions and interactional
strategies play in the acquisitional process of the students.
The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH WITH A SOUTHERN TOUCH": A THEORETICAL MODEL OF LANGUAGE CONTACT AND CHANGE (GERMAN, CODE SWITCHING, CONVERGENCE, BILINGUALISM) Author: FULLER, JANET MCCRAY Source: Volume 5806A of Dissertations Abstracts International.
Page 2182 . 229 pages This dissertation examines the role language contact plays in
inguistic change in bilingual settings. Framed within the Matrix
Language Frame model, this research seeks to describe and explain
the phenomena and mechanisms of contact-induced language change.
To do this, three data sets are used. The first and second are
corpora of interviews with twenty native German speakers who,
at the time of data collection, were living in the United States
and spoke fluent English. These interviews are divided into distinct
corpora according to the length of time the participants had spent
in the United States. In the first, the participants were students
who had spent approximately a year in the United States; in the
second, the participants were permanent residents who had lived
in America for at least five years. The third corpus consists
of eighteen interviews with Pennsylvania German speakers; these
data are the main focus of the analysis. The Pennsylvania German
data were collected among Mennonites in South Carolina. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. DISAGREEMENT IN JAPANESE: THREE CASE STUDIES (CONVERSATION, ARGUMENTATION, CROSS CULTURAL COMMUNICATION) Author: DORRILL, MASAKO AMEKURA Source: Volume 5806A of Dissertations Abstracts International.
Based on three representative case studies of disagreement in
Japanese, this dissertation argues for a fundamental disagreement
structure that is a critical element in the broader interactional
constraints of disagreement. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. ACQUISITION OF DATIVE ALTERNATION IN ENGLISH BY SECOND LANGUAGE Author: LEE, DONG-HAN Source: Volume 5803A of Dissertations Abstracts International.
In this dissertation, the effect of learning principles, the effect of first language influence, and developmental sequence of dative verbs based on semantic roles were investigated in the acquisition of English dative structures by Korean learners. Data on previous studies were reanalyzed to see the operation of learning principles based on developmental stages. The reanalysis of the previous studies showed that there were multidevelopmental sequences in the acquisition of dative structures in the target language as Hawkins 1987 claimed. In addition, three experimental tasks, a sentence construction task, grammaticality judgment test, and production elicitation task, were administered to 94 Korean learners of English at three proficiency levels to investigate the operation of learning principles (the subset principle, generalization, and preemption/loss principle), effect of L1 influence, and developmental sequence of dative verbs. The results for my studies showed that there were three developmental stages affected by the operation of three learning principles. L2 learners' initial developmental stage is introduced by the subset principle. L2 learners' second developmental stage, where learners' wrong generalization about the target grammar leading to overgeneralization errors, is explained by the generalization principle. Learners' overgeneralization errors can be reduced by the application of the preemption/loss principle in developmental stage three. L2 learners' L1 influence in SLA was also investigated. The analysis of the data showed that the influence of L1 was not prominently shown in the initial stage, rather the subset principle triggered by learners' previous knowledge can explain learners' initial acquisition of the unmarked structure in the dative structure of English. The investigation of developmental sequence of the class of dative verbs showed that recipient verbs were preferred with advance in proficiency levels. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. DEVELOPMENT OF FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES IN CHILD KOREAN (GRAMMAR, LANGUAGE ACQUISITION) Author: HAN, HO Source: Volume 5803A of Dissertations Abstracts International.
This dissertation treats the development of functional categories
in early child grammar. Based on early child English data which
lack functional elements such as verb inflections, complementizers,
and (in) definite articles, Radford (1990) among others claimed
that functional categories do not exist in early child language
prior age two but rather mature later in parallel. Early child
utterances thus have the structure of small clauses without IP,
CP, and DP. This is called the Small Clause Hypothesis (SCH).
In this dissertation, I refute the SCH and argue that early child
grammar does not lack functional categories. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. UNDERDETERMINED BINDING: AN HPSG BINDING THEORY AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF ADULT JAPANESE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE (HEAD DRIVEN PHRASE STRUCTURE GRAMMAR) Author: HAMILTON, ROBERT LEE Source: Volume 5803A of Dissertations Abstracts International.
In this dissertation I accomplish two main objectives. First,
I develop a theory of anaphoric and personal-pronominal binding
within the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG)
that is empirically more satisfying and internally more coherent
than previous accounts, including among others the standard HPSG
binding theory of Pollard & Sag (1992, 1994) and the reflexive-marking
account of Reinhart & Reuland (1991, 1993). Second, with this
theory of binding in view I report on a series of experiments
with adult Japanese-speaking learners of English (and native English-speaking
controls) designed to investigate whether adult second language
(L2) learners are sensitive to the domain of Binding Condition
A in English. In the main experiment, 85 L2 subjects and 85 native
controls were administered two tasks, a written sentence-completion
task for screening purposes and a written truth-value judgment
task for measuring subjects' acceptance of nonlocal binding in
English. The L2 learners, like the native controls, accepted significantly
more The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. (IN)DEFINITENESS AND MONOVALENT VERBS IN SPANISH (INDEFINITENESS) Author: GRIFFIN, ELAINE HUNTER Source: Volume 5803A of Dissertations Abstracts International.
This dissertation explores the cross-linguistic implications
of syntactic and semantic relationships between nonovalent verbs
and their (in)definite arguments in Spanish. Although unergative
and unaccusative verbs in French and Italian are overtly set apart
as separate intransitive classes by their auxiliaries and by the
Definiteness Restriction (DR) imposed on postverbal arguments
of unaccusatives, Spanish lacks both types of differentiation.
Several syntactic tests are administered to a corpus of Spanish
intransitives in order to identify a set of unaccusative verbs.
Because these diagnostics point to the underlying object status
of unaccusative arguments, unergative verbs invariably fail the
tests. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. VARIATION IN THE ACQUISITION OF MORPHEME TYPES IN THE INTERLANGUAGE OF CHINESE AND JAPANESE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE Author: WEI, LONGXING Source: Volume 5707A of Dissertations Abstracts International.
This dissertation addresses developmental stages in interlanguage
(IL) of adult second language acquisition (SLA). The goal of this
study is to predict how IL forms are produced in adult SLA and
the developmental sequence of IL grammars. It demonstrates that
the principles of the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model of Myers-Scotton
(1993, 1996) of describing and explaining intrasentential codeswitching
are also at work in IL development. It shows that a 'composite
matrix language' structures IL and that the non-target language
aspect of the makeup of this composite can be predicted beyond
merely referring to 'transfer'. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. PROSODIC ORGANIZATION AND AUDITORY MEMORY Author: REEVES, CAROLYN H. Source: Volume 5707A of Dissertations Abstracts International.
These studies investigated the hypothesis that a list read aloud
with a recurrent stress/intonation pattern imposed on it will
be recalled better than a list read in a monotone voice, especially
in the recency portion of the serial position curve. They further
examined whether the stress/intonation pattern improved recall
by making some items more salient than others or by dividing the
list into groups. The results from Experiments 1-12, which used
two stress patterns (anapestic and dactylic), two list lengths
(8 and 9), and three stimulus types (digits; words sampled without
replacement within each list, from a pool of nine; and words sampled
without replacement, within and across lists, from a pool of 900)
in a suffix procedure, strongly supported the grouping hypothesis.
Support for the salience hypothesis was at best ambiguous. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. JAPANESE/ENGLISH CODESWITCHING: THE STRUCTURE OF CODESWITCHING AS AN UNMARKED CHOICE AND ITS RELATION TO LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY Author: KITE, YURIKO K. Source: Volume 5707A of Dissertations Abstracts International.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate what is called 'codeswitching
as an Unmarked Choice' as explicated in the Markedness Model (MM)
(e.g. Myers-Scotton 1983, 1993b). Code-switching (CS) is defined
as 'alternations of linguistic varieties within the same conversation'
(Myers-Scotton, 1993b:1). For this study, one multilingual speech
community was selected based on the conditions set forth by the
MM to empirically test the model's predictions about the language
choices and types of CS. The languages involved in CS are English
and Japanese and the subjects are high school students ages 14
to 19. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. DISCOURSE RHYTHM IN OVERLAPPING UTTERANCES (CODESWITCHING, SOCIOLINGUISTICS) Author: BARROWS, CATHERINE GOULD Source: Volume 5707A of Dissertations Abstracts International.
This dissertation investigates and argues for the existence
of the discourse rhythmic frame as separate from individual utterance
rhythms (Couper-Kuhlen & Auer 1988). Using a primarily conversation
analysis methodology, this research focuses on the nature of discourse
rhythm as opposed to individual utterance rhythms and investigates
the interactional function of the discourse rhythmic frame and
divergence from that frame. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. THE SYNTAX OF BANTU DOUBLE OBJECT CONSTRUCTIONS Author: SIMANGO, SILVESTER RON Source: Volume 5608A of Dissertations Abstracts International.
The close connection between verbal morphology and argument
structure in Bantu languages has been at the center of much linguistic
debate in recent years. It has been noted that the presence of
certain affixes permits the verb to take more arguments than those
licensed by the verb's lexical conceptual structure. Researchers,
however, disagree on whether these affixes attach to the verb
in the lexicon or in the syntax. In this study it is argued that
transitivizing affixes are separate predicates which attach to
the verb in the syntax through predicate union. It is argued that
each predicate assigns a unique thematic role and determines a
specific initial grammatical relation for its argument in the
clause. More importantly, the study argues that initial grammatical
relations are not determined by the complex predicate, but rather,
by the individual predicates in the clause. The study claims that
the applicative affix represents unrelated predicates whose differences
are masked by surface homophony in languages like Chinsenga and
Chichewa. The different types of applicative predicates determine
different grammatical relations for their arguments. A critical
point made in this study is that the determination of grammatical
relations by individual predicates is language-specific rather
than universal. That is, although a given predicate assigns the
same thematic role universally, it may be associated with different
grammatical relations in different languages. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. STRUCTURAL SIMILARITIES BETWEEN SIERRA LEONE KRIO AND TWO WEST AFRICAN ANGLOPHONE PIDGINS: A CASE FOR COMMON ORIGIN Author: NJEUMA, BERNADETTE JOSSO Source: Volume 5608A of Dissertations Abstracts International.
This work is a comparative analysis of two pidgins and a creole.
The representative languages of the study are Cameroon Pidgin
(CP), Nigerian Pidgin (NP), and Sierra Leone Krio (SLK). Grammatical
features of the two pidgins, jointly referred to as West African
Anglophone Pidgins (WAAP), are analyzed in comparison to those
of Sierra Leone Krio. The dissertation citations and abstracts contained here are published
with permission of UMI Company. Further reproduction is prohibited
without permission. DIALECT CODESWITCHING AMONG LOWER CLASS SOCIOECONOMIC SPEAKERS IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES: A SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY |