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This dissertation advances research on evaluation (RoE) through a trio of studies focusing on the role of context and the innovative use of Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software in formative evaluation in a qualitative research project. The first article extends Coryn et al. (2017) and elucidates how various contextual dimensions--evaluator, stakeholder, organizational/program, and historical/political--impact the quality and outcomes of evaluations. It underscores the intricate relationship between these dimensions and the evaluation process. The second study leverages LIWC to scrutinize the potential interviewer effects on data collection quality, particularly focusing on the authenticity and emotional tone of interview responses. It intriguingly finds that the demographic alignment between interviewer and interviewee does not significantly alter these LIWC summary variables, challenging assumptions about demographic influences on data quality. The third article expands the application of LIWC to identify linguistic patterns that signal the richness of data, aiming to refine data collection methodologies. This article advances formative evaluation techniques by demonstrating how LIWC can uncover nuanced linguistic indicators of data quality. Collectively, this dissertation highlights the critical role of contextual understanding in RoE and establishes LIWC as a formidable tool for improving the ethical and effective evaluation of qualitative research. The dissertation advocates for a nuanced, context-aware, and technologically informed approach to evaluation that promises to elevate the standards and efficacy of formative evaluation of qualitative research. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) focused on the experiences and beliefs of teachers of the deaf about bilingual American Sign Language (ASL) and English education and their teacher preparation programs. It was grounded on situated learning theory, specifically on the principles of legitimate peripheral learning theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Data was collected through a semi-structured interview of four teachers of the deaf working in a school for the deaf in Northeastern United States. Four main themes emerged from this data: 1) meaningful exposure to human diversity during teachers' childhood and early adult life; 2) development of a strong belief in cultural and linguistic equity; 3) students' unmet needs move teachers to innovation and supplementation of their own professional development needs; 4) dissonance between a teacher training program philosophy and teachers' practice. Implications are discussed, emphasizing the need for focused research on the ongoing challenges in bilingual deaf education. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this research study was to investigate how minority First-Year Writing (FYW)/Composition faculty in the United States theorize and bring the notion of linguistic justice into their teaching. In other words, this study sought to examine pedagogies/practices minority faculty use to incorporate linguistic justice in their FYW/Composition courses from their standpoint, the very population whose language varieties, practices, and voices continue to remain on the periphery. Findings from the study would support composition faculty (new and seasoned) and writing programs across the United States to discover groundbreaking teaching practices from their colleagues of color. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

As teacher education programs encourage more candidates to pursue bilingual certification, a need exists to improve the ways that preservice teachers (PSTs) are prepared to teach in bilingual classrooms. Research suggests the importance of preparing PSTs in the area of linguistic ideological clarity. Scholars define ideological clarity as an ongoing process through which individuals can critically consider their ideological orientations as well as dominant ideologies that favor those in power, with an aim of becoming agents of change through this process (Alfaro & Bartolome, 2017). This case study sought to understand the opportunities that bilingual PSTs have to develop ideological clarity during a teacher education program, as well as the ways their own linguistic histories might interact with the language ideologies in circulation and development in the program. Drawing from the theoretical lenses of language ideologies (Kroskrity, 2004; Woolard, 1998) and dynamic bilingualism (Garcia, 2009), this study analyzed the ways that bilingual PSTs in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands have come to understand bilingualism and what is necessary to become a bilingual teacher in this context. PSTs reported moments in which their bilingualism was framed in a monoglossic manner during their K-12 schooling, but the teacher education program had afforded opportunities to reframe it through a heteroglossic lens. Participants also described the ways that standardized testing had come to define success for them as bilinguals, both during their K-12 years and again during the teacher education program. Pedagogies implemented during an introductory bilingual education course provided opportunities for PSTs to notice, name, reflect on, and apply ideologies that were evident in their linguistic histories and in current educational practice. The findings of this study indicate ways that ideological clarity may be developed through teacher education, informing the field through implications in teacher education programs, K-12 bilingual education, and state policy. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Equity in education has become increasingly prioritized, due to the growing mainstream recognition of the inequitable practices that historically have and presently continue to exist in K-12 education. With the K-12 student population diversity continuously increasing in areas such as abilities, race/ethnicities, socioeconomic status, languages, immigration status, and more, ensuring equitable access to education is vital. One such unique student group needing equitable access to education are multilingual learners or MLL. Located within schools, school counselors are uniquely positioned to equitably serve MLL students. Overall, while the research on school counselors serving MLL students (at the pre-service and practice level) is evolving- more research is needed, to ensure school counselors are equitably serving this population, especially given their unique needs. This study took a phenomenological approach to capturing the lived experiences of 11 school counselors who primarily support their schools' MLL student populations. This study resulted in six themes: (a) advocating for equity; (b) unique challenges and responsibilities within the MLSC role; (c) linguistic nuances; (d) collaboration is crucial; (e) mutual respect and empathy with MLL students; (f) adapting interventions specific to MLL students. Implications for practice, preparation, advocacy, and future research are explored. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Intro. A full account of speech perception requires explaining how listeners organize the acoustic signal into speech objects (perceptual organization) and how listeners use their memory for language to impart meaning to the speech objects (linguistic memory). Traditionally these mechanisms have been investigated separately, and thus theorized as two independent, sequentially- applied mechanisms. The prominent view of perceptual organization defines it as an early, low-level process, one that occurs prior to linguistic processing of speech. However, recent studies have found influences of organizational cues on linguistic percepts, indicating that the two mechanisms might not be sequential and independent. This dissertation attempts to explicate how perceptual organization and linguistic memory (lexical memory for words and sentential memory for context) interact when organizing and perceiving speech. Methods. I presented participants with complex, un-organized speech scenes, with a stream of [s]s occurring in one ear and a sentence in the other. I asked participants to listen for the last word and report whether it started with a voiceless (p/t) or voiced (b/d) sound. Due to the phonotactic properties of English, the perceived identity of the target word changes from voiced to voiceless if the listener organizes it with a [s] from the s-stream ("[s]+base" perceived as "space"). By manipulating the grouping strength of the [s] stream and the linguistic biases embedded in the sentence (lexical and sentential), I tested whether and how perceptual organization and linguistic memory mechanisms interact during speech perception. The response time and cue weighting strategies of participants were also examined, to give more in depth information about the processing ease and cue tradeoffs. Results. Experiment 1 compared categorization of target words with lexical biases (voiced, unbiased, voiceless) to s-streams with grouping strengths (strong, weak) and found independent effects of both manipulations on perception. Cue weighting analysis found a consistent trade-off in cue reliance by participant, with most but not all relying more on memory cues than organizational cues. The response time data indicated that the speed of response was dependent on the cued organization: it was easier to make responses that agreed with the organization implied by the s-streams. Experiments 2-4 tested the interaction of organization and sentential processing (sentences biased by context) and found an effect of grouping strength that varied (but was never eliminated) based on the presence of sentence. Cue weighting data showed that sentential context cues were almost universally relied upon for categorization, while response time data supported the findings of Experiment 1, that response speed was influenced primarily by organization cues. Conclusions. Taken together, my results imply that that linguistic memory and organizational information are both applied in an overlapping fashion, with an interactive juncture at the level of lexical processing and a much weaker interactive juncture at the sentential level of processing. In all experiments, both linguistic and organizational cues influenced the perceived target word, clarifying the organization of the two overlapping auditory streams. The combined results of the dissertation experiments bring together the two literatures on auditory perception: linguistic and perceptual organization cues are integrated together to inform the speech percept. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study examined the differences and similarities among the writing of three types of developmental English and advanced ESL United States community college students, comparing the writing of resident English learners (RL2), whose home language was not English but who attended United States public schools for five years or more, to that of monolingual native English speakers (L1), and international English learners (IL2), primarily educated in their home countries. A systemic functional linguistics framework (SFL) was employed to analyze 90 essays, RL2 (n = 30), L1 (n = 30), and IL2 (n = 30) for linguistic features present under the three metafunctions of SFL: ideational, interpersonal, and textual, through both a quantitative and a qualitative investigation. Key findings displayed a great number of similarities among the three types of writers in most features of SFL, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Areas of major difference for RL2 writers included limited use of embedded clauses and nominalizations, and strong use of the mood adjunct of intensity, with particularly strong use of very informal words. In the reflective narrative genre employed in this study, all writer tended toward writing as they spoke, rather than using academic writing. In the reflective narrative genre employed in this study, all writer tended toward writing as they spoke, rather than using academic writing. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation presents four iterative experiments which explore the quantitative benefits of introducing linguistics to language learners. Previous work has connected exploration of linguistic with improved morale and engagement in language classrooms, as well as reduced language discrimination and validation of students' languages and experiences (Ginsberg et al., 2011; Stewart Jr. & Cardenez, 2010;Honda et al., 2010). Using an artificial language experiment, these experiments indicate that learning to analyze language data also results in quantitative differences in language learning outcomes. Each experiment evaluates the efficacy of a different type of linguistic training (university level linguistics classes, miniature linguistics lessons, self-guided puzzling with language data).Chapter 3 provides evidence that participants who have taken several classes in linguistics at the university level are more successful when learning an artificial language compared to those who have taken one class or no classes. This led to the development of further experiments to determine whether this effect could be achieved with more practical (and less lengthy) linguistic training via miniature lessons on linguistics. Chapter 4 introduced short introductory linguistics lessons via video. Groups with linguistic interventions were compared to groups who received non-language puzzles or no intervention. Results indicate that solving general puzzles resulted in higher accuracy at test, but short linguistics lessons were relatively ineffective, which led to the development of self-guided, short language puzzles to encourage hands-on data analysis. The experiment in Chapter 5 presented participants with short, varied language puzzles. Compared to groups in the previous experiment, results suggest that self-guided puzzles effectively improve learning performance. Additionally, self-guided practice with puzzles helped learners take a more active, hypothesizing role in the language learning activity. In Chapter 6, a two-day experiment investigated if performance linearly increases when exposed to successful interventions. This experiment revealed that aptitude or engagement with puzzles was key to success in the language learning activity. This body of work suggests that boosts in language leaning performance can be achieved by encouraging learners to treat language as a puzzle. Directing learners to identifying regularities in language data can result in deeper understanding of language structure and higher attendance to form-meaning relationships, which improve their learning experience and outcomes. Additionally, the most useful puzzles were self-guided. Therefore, implementation does not require educators to be experts in linguistics, but rather requires linguists to develop widely accessible and engaging language data puzzles that can be easily incorporated into language classrooms or app-based learning. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study explores learners' sense of community in the linguistics department at a Christian university in Western Canada. Since sense of community is an important factor in students' satisfaction, retention, and learning, it is important for educators to know how to support their students' feelings of community. Theological research on Christian community and its implications for learners' sense of Christian community affirmed the social and academic dimensions of learners' sense of community found in social science literature while suggesting the need for a third dimension, Christian community. Qualitative analysis of 25 interviews with current students and recent alumni, along with two focus groups with faculty and staff, revealed six themes on the dynamics of sense of community (connection and interaction, social belonging, support, Christian community, shared purpose, and academic competence) and one theme on the outcomes of learners' sense of community. Correlational analyses of quantitative data from an online survey of 84 students across the Spring and Summer 2022 semesters revealed associations between students' departmental involvement and sense of departmental community, between departmental involvement and the use of strategies for social regulation of learning, and between sense of classroom community and strategies for social regulation of learning. Structural equation modeling revealed that students' sense of shared student engagement and shared goals and responsibility in the classroom predict the use of two strategies for social regulation of learning: collective evaluation of progress and collective decisions for method change. While the results of the qualitative research may have limited transferability given the unique context of the study, the multidimensional description of learners' sense of community that emerged provides a framework for staff and faculty in higher education to plan strategies for enhancing and supporting sense of community for learners in their departments or institutions. And while the results of the quantitative research may have limited generalizability to other institutions given the highly context-specific nature of sense of community, these results call for educators to foster learners' sense of community in both the department and the classroom to support students' use of strategies for social regulation of learning and ultimately student learning. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The onset of the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020 gave way to a precipitous transition to online learning in colleges and universities across the globe. Learners and teachers alike were forced to adapt to new procedures and norms within a matter of days. Among the many questions regarding the development of rigorous courses that can adequately replace face-to-face learning, there was a need to examine and understand the complex ties between identity and second language (L2) classroom discourse in the ever-expanding sphere of online learning. Thorne et al.'s (2015) study demonstrates that there is a considerable body of work that sheds light on the role of L2 identity in online contexts, with some studies focusing on platforms that are not entirely synchronous but that contain synchronous capabilities (Thorne et al., 2015). Despite this, few studies have focused on the manifestation of learner identity using exclusively synchronous video communication for L2 instructional purposes in educational contexts. The present study aims to fill this gap in the literature on L2 identity in synchronous online courses that utilize video web conferencing platforms using qualitative methodological approaches. This study relied on data from one-on-one interviews with five focal participants, classroom transcripts, and weekly written reflections to demonstrate relationships between recurring themes in their data to theoretical constructs that were relevant to the research questions being examined. The theoretical constructs that were used to interpret the data were activity theory (Engestrom, 1987, 2001), Lave and Wenger's theory of communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998), and Norton's theories of identity and imagined communities (Norton-Peirce, 1995; Norton, 2000, 2001, 2013; Norton & Toohey, 2011). Activity Theory was used to understand how learners made use of the affordances of the online classroom to accomplish their individual goals of learning about Spanish linguistics. The communities of practice (CoP) framework was used to examine how learners negotiated their identities within this community and how their identity or role within the online classroom community impacted their participation. Regarding investment and imagined communities, this research focused on how learners were able to draw connections between class activities and their personal and professional goals. Theoretical and practical implications for this study outline how instructors can constructively negotiate the use of technological affordances for communication in the online classroom to meet the learning goals of their courses. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this study was to better understand multimodal usage in teacher professional learning. Thus, this qualitative phenomenology study was created and executed to better understand how leaders of teacher professional learning understand and implement modes in courses designed for teacher scholarship. Focusing on leader influences, curricular designs, learning ecologies, systemic functional linguistics, and teachers as students, modalities support learning by providing individuality through universal design. Thematic analysis illuminated four main themes and 10 subthemes were identified. The findings are of interest to a wide range of educators-teachers, professional learning leaders, principals, students, and policy makers. My paper discusses the findings as they relate to multimodalities, agency, and equity, while providing avenues for future research. Finally, multimodalities are forming new grammars that are open to many learners to understand, implement, and remix for themselves, society, and future educators and students. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The interpretation of numerals has been traditionally debated across disciplines including, but not limited to, Linguistics, Developmental Psychology, and Philosophy. A big portion of the debate concentrates on the ontology of numerals, i.e., their basic meaning, and the mechanisms by which (non) exact interpretations (e.g., at least) are derived. While I adopt the Scopal Analysis of numerals where their semantic denotation is exact (Kennedy 2013, 2015), one question that remains rather underexplored is the relationship between our Number System and our Language System. In this dissertation, I propose the Lexical Refraction Hypothesis (LRH) in which numerals and other number-related morphemes, draw their denotative meaning from the Number faculty, with our language faculty mediating this process. Evidence from pre-verbal infants shows that humans, as well as non-human animals, possess a non-linguistic Approximate Number System (ANS) that allows us to make non-exact quantity judgments. What makes human vs non-human animals different? I propose that the natural lexicon is the vehicle by which the ANS representations are expressed as exact numerosities. Results from Experiment 1 confirm a relationship between Number and Language via Path Analysis. I then conducted a Mediation Analysis to determine if the lexical measure mediates between the two numerical systems. Results show that 75.5% was mediated by lexicon. The results are consistent with my hypothesis that the lexicon mediates between ANS and natural language quantifiers. In addition, I test whether children's estimation on the Number Line Task predict their interpretation of numerals. Unlike previous research (Musolino 2004), numerical cognition is a central variable in my dissertation not only to prove a connection between Number and Language, but also to determine whether our Number System has an impact in linguistic interpretations. As expected, children's numerical cognition significantly predicted their acceptance of numeral interpretations. While I adopt the Scopal Analysis of numerals, I also include Executive Function measures to rule out an implicature analysis of numerals. Based on previous literature, executive functions, such as inhibition, affect participants' interpretations in calculating scalar implicatures. If numerals have a basic exact semantic meaning, then we should not see a significant effect of executive function measures on numeral interpretations. In contrast to earlier work on conversational implicatures, results shows that neither lexicon nor the Executive Function measures were predictive of children's exact interpretations of numerals (p > 0.05). Finally, I test adults' interpretations of numerals in the absence of a modal. The between-subjects Truth Value Judgment Task experimental design consisted of three conditions: an Exact Condition (number of objects matches the target sentence), More Than Condition (number of objects is more than the quantifier in the target sentence), and a Less Than Condition (number of objects is less than the quantifier in the target sentence). Participants were equally divided into the three conditions Results from experiment 3 show that no adults were not willing to relax the exactness restriction in the absence of a modal, consistent with the proposal of Kennedy. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study is an investigation of the effects of linguistic features on quality of second language (L2) writers' essays for writing course placement at Indiana University Bloomington (IUB), and by implication at other universities and colleges. This study addresses the following research questions: (1) To what extent do selected linguistic features of narrative (Model I) and argumentative (Model II) essays predict L2 students' performance on a representative university holistic writing placement test?; (2) To what extent is the writing topic related to L2 students' argumentative writing quality as revealed by holistically scored ratings?; (3) Can differences of linguistic features predict performance in the production of narrative and integrated argumentative writings of L2 students? The ordinal logistic regression method was employed to answer the questions. The results demonstrated that there was no evidence that selected linguistic indices had statistically significant effects on the quality of L2 students' narrative writings. The results presented that there was evidence that type-token ratio (TTR), adjacent overlap noun sentence, synonym overlap sentence noun, synonym overlap paragraph noun, and repeated content lemma were significant linguistic features on the effects of L2 students' integrated argumentative writing quality. Statistical effects of topic on L2 students' argumentative writing were not identified. The results of this study shed significant light on more rationale for including integrated argumentative writing tasks on a L2 writing placement test. The results provide meaningful insights into helpful L2 writing teaching and assessment. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Words contain multitudes. This multiplicity of meanings raises two key questions, both of which this thesis attempts to address. First, are word meanings categorical or continuous? The results of Chapters 2-4 support a hybrid model, in which word meanings occupy a continuous state-space (Elman, 2009), which is further discretized along the boundaries of distinct senses. And second, does the amount and distribution of homophony in real lexica reflect a pressure to concentrate meanings in the most efficient, optimal wordforms? The results in Chapters 5-7 suggest that homophony can emerge without a direct pressure for efficiency--and further, that real lexica might select "against" homophones, particularly among the most frequent wordforms of a lexicon. This pressure could even explain other properties of human lexica, such as their large phonological neighborhoods. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this research was to gain understanding and awareness of the perspectives of Black teachers who were raised in Africana Vernacular English (AVE)-speaking households and how they used their upbringing to navigate home and school settings. The specific linguistic and cultural needs of AVE speakers are not being adequately accommodated in the nation's schools. Unfortunately, there is a widespread lack of awareness among teachers about the ways in which the racial, linguistic, and cultural identities of Black students influence their academic performance. This research involved analyzing Black AVE-speaking teachers' attitudes on the significance of their language to their identity and culture. To gain an understanding of how Black AVE-speaking teachers process their lived experiences of navigating home and school, I analyzed narratives presented by these teachers. Conducting one on-one interviews with participants and analyzing their personal narratives using a qualitative research approach were the two most crucial parts of the data collection process. To raise awareness of the absence of AVE in schooling and the need to disrupt linguistic injustice, I used Critical Race Theory (CRT) to frame my research and illuminate the ways in which anti-Black linguistic racism has deep roots in institutionalized educational practices. Using CRT as a theoretical framework, I designed my research to gain a deeper understanding and awareness of these oppressive and marginalizing processes and then advocate for systemic transformation. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

As there is a growing population of non-native speakers worldwide, facilitating communication involving native and non-native speakers has become increasingly important. While one way to help communication involving native and non-native speakers is to help non-native speakers improve proficiency in their target language, another way is to help native listeners better understand non-native speech. Specifically, while it may be initially difficult for native listeners to understand non-native speech, the listeners may become better at this skill after short training sessions (i.e., adaptation) and they may better understand novel non-native speakers (i.e., generalization). However, it is not well-understood how native listeners adapt and generalize to a novel speaker. This dissertation investigates how speaker and listener characteristics affect generalization to a novel speaker. Specifically, we examine how acoustic characteristics and talker information interact in generalization of adaptation, how accentedness of non-native speech affects generalization to a novel speaker, and how listeners' linguistic experience affects generalization of adaptation. The results suggest that acoustic similarity between speakers may help generalization and that listeners' reliance on talker information is down-weighted, as long as speakers that listeners are trained with and tested with have similar acoustic characteristics. Furthermore, the results show that exposure to more accented non-native speech disrupts generalization of adaptation compared to exposure to less accented non-native speech, suggesting that having exposure to non-native speakers does not always help generalization. The results also show that having extended linguistic experience with non-native speakers may disrupt generalization to a novel non-native speaker. The results of the present study have implications for how speaker- and listener-related factors affect generalization of adaptation. Specifically, we suggest that, at least in the early stages of learning, generalization of adaptation is constrained by acoustic similarity and that generalization to a non-native speaker utilizes mechanisms that are general to speech perception, rather than specific to this type of adaptation. We suggest that exposure to non-native accented speech that is too different from the speech that listeners are familiar with may disrupt generalization. Further, we suggest that the representation of non-native accents becomes less malleable with extended linguistic experience. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Sentence comprehension requires both syntactic prediction and working memory processes. Evidence suggests that both are impaired in agrammatic aphasia, and can independently contribute to comprehension breakdowns, but the relationship between them, especially during real-time sentence comprehension remains unclear. Two EEG studies investigated on-line processing of sentences with non-local long-distance dependencies in nine individuals with agrammatic aphasia and groups of neurologically unimpaired controls. Study 1 examined syntactic prediction and working memory storage using an animacy-mismatched paradigm, with ERP measures corresponding to each process; respectively N400 for prediction, and Sustained Anterior Negativity (SAN) for online working memory storage. This study addressed the questions (1) whether agrammatic individuals actively predict an upcoming licensing element during long-distance dependency processing, and (2) whether participants show real-time evidence of storing the unresolved dependency in working memory. Results showed evidence of a timely SAN but delayed N400, indicating that agrammatic individuals show normal-like working memory processing but delayed structural prediction. Study 2 further investigated online working memory storage by manipulating processing complexity, and addressed whether increased processing demands affect online working memory processing. Participants performed a word-by-word sentence reading task with short- vs. long- dependency conditions, again using SAN as the online working memory measure. Results revealed that while the agrammatic group showed SAN in both short- and long- dependency conditions, the effects in the long-dependency condition were weaker, with evidence of memory decay, suggesting that working memory processing in agrammatic aphasia is more vulnerable when processing demands increase. These findings indicate a top-down parsing strategy in agrammatic aphasia where working memory resources are used to facilitate active linguistic prediction during dependency formation and provide support for the deficient lexical-semantic integration account of asyntactic comprehension in aphasia. This research advances our understanding of the linguistic and cognitive mechanisms underlying agrammatic sentence processing, and provides directions for further studies. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Adult learners often have difficulty reaching high proficiency levels in a foreign language, and curriculum experts are on a constant quest for innovative practices in foreign language learning. The problem addressed by this study was that even with the implementation of different pedagogical approaches, including immersion and technology integration, students are not graduating with the proficiency levels needed for the increasing demand for highly qualified linguists for national security and global military corporations. Through the lens of diverse Spanish and Indonesian foreign language learners at a prominent language institute in central California, the approach to and experience with learning a foreign language was in an arts-integrated intervention was explored. Guided by Dewey's arts-based pedagogy and Pearson and Gallagher's (1983) Gradual Release of Responsibility framework, the purpose of the qualitative exploratory case study was to reveal students' experiences with an arts-integrated foreign language course. Data were collected via observations, surveys, and individual and focus groups interviews. Employing thematic analysis and with assistance from NVivo software themes indicated that students perceived an arts-integrated language pedagogy as supportive of their language proficiency, engagement, motivation, critical thinking skills, higher-level discussions, and development of target culture knowledge. The findings of the current study reinforced the necessity of exploring unconventional methodologies such as arts-based pedagogy to foster building rational inquiry and cognition while at the same time expanding FL proficiency. Hence, the first recommendation for practice is that art-based instruction should be actively included in the foreign language learning curriculum. Future research should explore different dimensions of arts-based pedagogy concerning student achievement using a quantitative longitudinal study. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The semantics and pragmatics of polar questions remain undertheorized. Standard proposition-set accounts (Hamblin, 1976; Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1984), which take question meanings to be identifiable with the (appropriately defined) set of their answers, have been developed mostly for wh-questions; when applied to polar questions, they predict massive synonymy, and therefore struggle to account for the differential acceptability of polar questions across contexts. For instance, imagine that your interlocutor sees you writing with your left hand. They ask: (1) a. Are you left-handed? b. #Are you right-handed? c. Are you not right-handed? d. #Are you not left-handed? On the basis of this and other evidence, a number of authors have recognized the need to distinguish the radical proposition in some way (Krifka, 2001; Romero and Han, 2004; Roelofsen and Farkas, 2015) and identified epistemic and evidential conditions on polar question felicity (Buring and Gunlogson, 2000; Sudo, 2013). But no account derives the felicity of these questions in various contexts from their systematically different meanings. This dissertation presents an analysis of polar questions on which they express the speaker's conditional preference for doxastic update with the radical proposition. This preference is structured by an ordering source consisting of the speaker's goals and the necessary conditions to achieve those goals. This combination provides an account for fine-grained polar question felicity across contexts, as well as the "functional heterogeneity" (Kaufmann, 2012; Condoravdi and Lauer, 2012) of polar questions, which sees them able to perform various speech acts like offering, requesting, conversation-starting, and more (Bolinger, 1978). In the second part of the dissertation, this analysis of polar questions is applied to what I term neg-biased polar questions, more commonly called 'high-negation questions' (Ladd, 1981), such as the following: (2) a. Aren't you right-handed? b. Aren't you not left-handed? The major puzzle is how the "high negation" of these questions gives rise to an inference of speaker bias without contributing propositional negation of the radical (Goodhue, 2018). I argue that negation scopes over the entire attitudinal meaning of the question, expressing the speaker's lack of a preference for doxastic update. These two components conspire to guarantee that the speaker has a prior belief in the radical proposition. Here I also discuss negative polarity items in polar questions, which have been a sticking point in the literature on neg-biased questions especially. I argue that a long-assumed "inner/outer" ambiguity in neg-biased questions is an illusion owing to the independent ability of NPIs to appear in polar questions, and in particular the pragmatic effect of choosing an NPI contributing domain-widening (Kadmon and Landman, 1993). Zooming out to consider broader consequences, this analysis is one on which polar questions primarily serve as a strategy for belief management. It also implicitly problematizes the concept of polar questions as a cross-linguistically stable phenomenon; languages may--and do--have different strategies for expressing speaker interest of various kinds in the truth of a proposition, or the answer to a question, of which the canonical English polar question is just one. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In this study, I focus on the personal experiences of Latinx students who have attended San Francisco Bay Area public high schools. My research illuminates the positive and negative experiences within the public school system for Latinx, allowing students to have a voice and share their truth. I conducted used semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and Testimonio activities with five participants, four of whom made the initial transition from high school to college and one other who graduated high school but took a career pathway instead. The research highlights four components: 1) educational experiences, 2) socioeconomic status and social environment, 3) culture, and 4) linguistics. The study highlights how these five low-income, first-generation Latinx students faced many challenges during their education, but they were very resilient and did not give up. This resiliency, which derived from social, cultural, and economic circumstances extending back to students' parents' generation, enabled them to keep trying and ultimately thrive, regardless of all the oppressions and barriers. Family and neighborhood connections were seen as a positive and necessary benefit for the transition to work or college. At the same time, low economic status prevented access to innumerable college preparatory activities and resources, and participants often did not have the dominant socio-cultural capital to help them navigate smoothly beyond their high school lives. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The current racial homogeny in the United States K-12 public school teacher workforce can be traced to the dismissal of Black teachers and administrators in the name of desegregation following the 1950s supreme court Brown vs. Board of Education ruling. The resulting raciodemographic mismatch persists today, and determinations about the performance of a largely minoritized student population are filtered through texts, policies and instruction centered on the white middle-class monolingual women who predominate both K-12 and teacher preparation spaces. In recognition of the challenges this presents, the teacher preparation program at Franklin University, like many across the U.S., has recently shifted its mission and vision to center racial equity and social justice. Through two qualitative studies and a critical essay, this dissertation addresses the research question, how does an urban social justice teacher preparation program shape racial ideologies? The first study, via raciolinguistic genealogy, traces racialized discourses of cultural and linguistic capital across policy and academic texts published approximately 30 years apart. Results suggest these texts, which undergird the teacher licensure exam both at Franklin and more broadly, brand Black cultures and languages as a subhuman deviant threat to U.S. society. In the second paper, I conduct a critical analysis of a canonical teacher preparation text, and through counterstorytelling as method, reveal flattened class-centric representations of Black communities as devoid of culture rather than as drawing from community-knowledge both to affirm their humanity and to navigate white institutions. The final paper is a critical case study investigating the understandings of and practical approaches towards teaching about culture and identity on behalf of three language educators at Franklin. Results suggest implicitly racialized understandings of culture and a largely theoretical understanding of race and power which fails to translate to the preparation of language educators in a practical sense. As explored through the conceptual framework of culturelessness, the findings from these studies suggest that antiBlackness is maintained rather than disrupted at Franklin largely through the euphemization of race principally as capital, class or culture. Implications for race-visibility and critical race-reflexivity are offered. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Previous studies show that linguistic information and talker information interact during processing. Familiarity with a language facilitates talker processing, and familiarity with a talker's voice facilitates linguistic processing. To probe the factors involved in talker processing, researchers examined how individual differences in reading skills interact with talker information and found that individuals with poorer phonological processing also have poorer talker processing skills. However, these studies did not control for task demands. In addition, it is unclear how individual differences in reading and language ability, and talker variability, influence word learning. In this dissertation, I examine how talker and linguistic properties interact during processing with the goal of understanding how individuals with poor reading and language skills process talker information, how they use this type of information in word learning, and how we can improve word learning by manipulating talker variability. Using experiments that carefully controlled for lexical information, phonological information, task, and talker variability, I compared performance of individuals with a range of reading and language abilities. Together, the findings in this dissertation highlight the important role of talker processing in speech processing and how individual differences in reading and language ability impact word learning. Following these findings, I present some clinical implications we can draw from these experiments, and future directions in the area on talker processing and reading. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In this ethnography, I examine how 17 Latinx bilingual education teacher candidates (TCs) completing a teacher education program at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HIS) in Southwest Texas negotiate circulating raciolinguistic ideologies across social and institutional spaces. Data for this dissertation consisted of classroom observations, individual interviews, multiple classroom artifacts, and group member-checking sessions. Drawing on the raciolinguistic perspective to language ideologies, I analyzed the ideological infrastructures these TCs navigate at school, in the home, at work, and in social/public spaces. Drawing on the concept of linguistic citizenship, I examined the subtle and overt ways they have pushed back against these infrastructures. Findings reveal that these TCs have experienced a number of "raciolinguistic metacommentary" that not only index difference but also mobilize and reinscribe raciolinguistically enregistered figures of personhood and notions of language. These "raciolinguistic metacommentary" constrain their ethnolinguistic subjectivities, to the point that they experience (1) linguistic insecurity/shame, (2) language shift/loss, and (3) a heightened sense of hypervigilance on language correctness. Findings also reveal that despite these metacommentary, TCs manage to articulate and forge alternative identity positions and understanding of language and bilingualism that are rooted in their experiences in the Latinx communities in which they grew up on the Southside of San Antonio and border towns. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation provides an in-depth linguistic description and analysis of the discourse in a target domain of digital games, a domain referred to as "single player offline role-playing games." Gaming discourse from this domain is represented by a 4.8-million-word corpus of spoken and written language extracted from the digital files of four popular and commercially successful titles: "Fallout 4," "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim," "Divinity: Original Sin II," and "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt." Within these four games, six registers were identified, and a multidimensional analysis reveals four dimensions of gaming discourse. Each dimension identifies sets of co-occurring linguistic features. The game registers' use of each dimension's features shows the characteristics that make each register linguistically unique which are functionally interpreted through their situational characteristics. These game registers are also compared to real-world situations of language use. Findings show strong evidence that games represent language exposure that compares quite similarly to several real-world language use situations. These findings give strong support that (1) register variation in games should not be ignored in L2 gaming contexts, (2) register variation in games represents a wide range of real-world registers, and (3) more research is needed that targets specific game designs and mechanics so that their unique discourse can be better understood and leveraged for L2 learning purposes and the development of L2 educational technology. The motivation for this research stems from the praise that applied linguistics researchers and practitioners have given to digital games for their meaningful and engaging second language (L2) input. Despite this praise, little research has thoroughly investigated and documented this language input in targeted domains of digital games. This dissertation aims to fill that gap by applying the register analysis framework detailed by Biber and Conrad (2019). [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Language is one of the essential tools used to segment the continuous stream of experience into events. In this process, the choice of words and grammar frames events in different ways. Grammatical aspect plays an important role in representing an event as a complete whole (perfective: peeled) or as a dynamic process (imperfective: was peeling). Aspect systems differ crosslinguistically in terms of aspect grammaticalization, the correspondence between temporal meanings and aspectual forms, as well as grounding of aspectual forms in perceptual characteristics of events. This dissertation research investigates the relationship between aspect and mental representations of events in two aspectual languages, English and Russian, across three domains of language and cognition: (1) event conceptualization; (2) processing of aspect temporality; and (3) event memory. The findings reveal that language-specific aspectual systems have a profound impact on event cognition. Specifically, fully grammaticalized aspect with strict correspondence between aspect forms and distinct temporal distributions in Russian resulted in stronger sensitivity to event stage in event conceptualization, elicited grammatically-oriented processing of aspect temporality, and increased the salience of event stage for memory. In English, where aspect is partially grammaticalized and the correspondence between temporal meanings and aspectual forms overlaps, subjective perspective on an event played more important role than event stage for event conceptualization, aspect was processed as a source of information for event model update, and event memory was impacted by aspect at the level of event construal, rather than event stage. In sum, stricter aspect enhances the salience of perceptually available event stage in mental representations of events; flexible aspect contributes to the information provided by perceptually available event stage to form an event's mental representation. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This work examines how social media users learn language alongside their progression of becoming active participants in online social spaces. Using an ecolinguistic view, it explores how the process of posting and commenting on Reddit (one of the world's most popular social sites) is both afforded and constrained by the unique sociocultural histories of online spaces, previous interactions with users in those spaces, and personal values. The results, in turn, also help to provide clear illustrations of ecolinguistic principles. Thereafter, it addresses how that process of participation can result in language learning by using examples drawn from the public data available on Reddit. The participant pool of this work is comprised of 21 non-native English speakers who visited and contributed to Reddit while learning English. Their posting habits, their contributions, online participation statistics, and open-ended interviews make up the data for this project. Qualitative analyses demonstrate how users feel they learn language and highlight the position that community belonging relates to and encourages online participation. Users initiate their participation on Reddit by interacting with others in peripheral roles. Once they begin contributing and voting in specific communities, new actions are afforded. Using previous posts, comments, and experiences as co-authors, the users begin to modify the language in their contributions to both adhere to the sociocultural norms in the space and to effect predicted outcomes. This work looks deeper at how these modifications can then result in the agentic development of learners. The online behaviors of one focal participant are highlighted to provide specific examples of modified linguistic behaviors. Fine-grained cognitive event analyses reveal several measurable developments in language. However, the kind of change and the language learned which social media users experience is not readily assessed by standard measures of language acquisition, such as operationalizations of constructs like complexity or accuracy. This work applies both existing and new methods to help explain and measure the complex system of systems that make up language in online spaces. The results of this study add to a growing body of evidence supporting claims made by ecolinguists in the field of second language learning. In addition, a new concept of agentic development is highlighted and defined. Learners who participate in activities that afford agentic development are shown to modify their real-world behaviors while, at the same time, learning language. Examples of language learning observed also demonstrate how new wordings are able to, in turn, afford new actions in a cycle of perception and action. The work finishes with a brief discussion aimed at helping practitioners apply some of the principles found in this project to encourage students in their agentic development. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study examines associations between writing instruction with a focus on explicit sentence syntax and reading comprehension in a sample of students receiving special education services. While the outcome data does not show direct causation between student enrollment in a treatment writing course using Systemic Functional Linguistics and reading scores on state testing, the significant associations between variables imply possibilities for improvements in reading pedagogy. Reading comprehension depends on how accurately readers capture an author's intended meaning while reading. Current research shows this has less to do with decoding words in a sentence, and more to do with recognizing communicative cues hiding in the syntax of sentences (Kush et al., 2015; Roberts, 2017; Hellbernd & Sammler, 2016). An awareness of how sentence parts correspond to the length and patterns of stressed syllables in words and phrases that appear in sentences helps readers control their voice inflection, allowing them to pause when necessary and regulate the pace of their reading, so that it emulates spoken speech (Buxo-Lugo & Watson, 2016). This is paramount since, as action theories of language suggest, tone of voice conveys intention, and meaning is found in underlying intentions (Hellbernd & Sammler, 2016). When writers learn the grammar behind speech functions, they make more informed choices to affect meaning while increasing their metalinguistic awareness of reading. Therefore, this study examines the reading performance of 75, 6th-grade participants after receiving 16 weeks of writing lessons focusing on the deliberate language choices of writers (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Until recently, second language writers were typically separated from their peers in mainstream composition courses. However, as the field considers the possibility of integrating second language writers into mainstream composition classrooms, important questions arise. For instance, how are teachers of First Year Composition (FYC) prepared for valuing and responding to the linguistic resources of students representing a range of linguistic backgrounds? Also, what would happen if teachers of FYC had a broader view of multilingualism in the mainstream composition classroom (one that includes fluent bilinguals, English-dominant bilinguals, and second language writers)? This study addresses interests and questions such as these by examining whether and how new Teaching Assistants/Associates (TAs) take up or respond to critical perspectives on language and race introduced during their first semester teaching. Specifically, I analyzed how a group of new TAs are thinking about language and race in relation to learning and writing. Through surveys, observations, and interviews, I documented and analyzed how they engaged in conversations about language, writing and race; made sense of readings and activities on the theoretical concepts of raciolinguistics and translanguaging; and responded to information presented during two workshops on these topics. I also explored what these TAs said about the relationship between their own critical perspectives on language and their teaching practices (current and future). Findings show that participants' critical language awareness and their ability to envision a critical language pedagogy grew over the course of the semester. Findings also show that, even though they expressed uncertainty about the precise meaning of theoretical terms such as raciolinguistics and translanguaging, their stated beliefs align with the central claims of scholarship advocating such perspectives. The findings of this study shed light on ways to help new teachers of FYC support multilingual students from a range of backgrounds--especially those TAs who work in contexts where ideologies of race and language devalue multilingualism and nonstandard varieties of English and influence what counts as academic writing. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate linguistic variation within ESL/EFL reading textbooks and between EAP reading textbooks and lower-division university textbooks. Specifically, within ESL/EFL reading textbooks, lexical, lexico-grammatical, and formulaic variation was measured within series of textbooks, across textbooks at the same proficiency level, across the various proficiency levels, and across text types. The research of this study was based on a corpus of 563 ESL/EFL reading textbook passages representing five complete series and five proficiency levels. Additionally, a subcorpus containing high-level ESL/EFL reading textbooks represented EAP reading textbooks, which was compared to a corpus representing university textbooks used in the first two years of university containing text excerpts from a variety of disciplines. To assess lexical variation, I calculated the normed number of word types per textbook, high frequency vocabulary coverage, and general academic vocabulary coverage. An additional keyword analysis was conducted to identify salient semantic themes. The lexico-grammatical analysis consisted of mapping the corpora onto the first three dimensions from Biber's (2006) lexico-grammatical study of university language. Formulaic variation was assessed by identifying lexical bundles and comparing structural and functional distributions across levels. I found that in most cases, textbooks series did not have complete incremental progression, meaning textbooks did not become more linguistically from book to book within a series although there was generally progression from the lowest to the highest textbook. Additionally, intra-level inconsistency was observed as books of the same level varied linguistically. An interaction effect was observed between textbook publisher and proficiency level as it appeared that each publisher adhered to a different standard for leveling books. Text type was also found to be an important factor, which interacted with proficiency level. That is, informational texts tended to be more linguistically challenging than non-informational texts, and informational texts progressed across proficiency levels whereas non-informational texts tended to be more linguistically homogeneous and displayed less variation across levels. Moreover, considerable linguistic gaps were observed between EAP reading textbooks and lower-division university textbooks with EAP reading textbooks being less linguistically complex. These findings can be used to inform educators in their textbook selection process as they strive to match learners with appropriate texts. Furthermore, materials designers can use the findings to inform future textbook iterations. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation argues that indigenous language revitalization and reclamation projects are best understood as multigenerational and multi-participant conversations, which I will frame as language conversations. Language revitalization and reclamation relies on relationships, access, and accountability within indigenous frameworks. This model of a language conversation fits within broader indigenous scholarship. Such language conversations enable ancestors and contemporary communities to communicate through time as well as through real and perceived social restrictions. They can also act as a focal point for developing and grounding engaged indigenous scholarship. A language conversation will: (1) use academic and community intermediaries to introduce speakers and language learners to language materials; (2) assemble a broad range of language materials from multiple points in time from one or more individuals; (3) act with community engagement as an end goal. Language conversations blur the boundaries between formal linguistic scholarship and indigenous scholarship. Because language conversations link the past and present, previous generations of linguists, ethnographers, anthropologists, and historians who studied an indigenous community invariably become part of the conversation. In the early 1900s, ethnographer and linguist Roland B. Dixon (1875-1934) collected field notes about the Shasta, an indigenous group in northern California. During his fieldwork he consulted with Sargent Sambo or Ik?ya·hampik (1865-1963), who became one of the most prominent figures in Shasta linguistics and ethnography. While conducting her dissertation field research on the Shasta language in 1958, Shirley Silver also worked with Ik?ya·hampik. Staring in 2007, the present author worked with Silver on updating transcriptions of texts collected in the late 1950s (presented in an appendix to this dissertation) and over the past decade has begun sharing information about the language with the broader community of Shasta people as preliminary steps towards Shasta language reclamation. This multi-generational collaboration involving multiple nodes of transmission -- Dixon- Ik?ya·hampik, Silver-Ik?ya·hampik, Silver-Sarmento and Sarmento-Shasta community -- becomes a case study of a language conversation for this dissertation. These conversations represent a continuous discussion of linguistic field methods, and indigenous ideologies. In the present, this dissertation creates new testimony for how indigenous communities can engage in multi-generational and multi-participant language conversations that span time. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Even though engineering and science are tasked with developing solutions and knowledge for a diverse population, Black and Brown communities remain severely underrepresented in these disciplines. The problem exceeds easy solutions like "a seat at the table" and requires rethinking with whom and for whom the field designs ideas and technologies. Traditionally, underrepresented groups have felt the pressure to assimilate into dominant ways of speaking and knowing because their own languages and experiences are rarely legitimized. As a result, engineering and science have missed opportunities to draw on the creative insights which diverse individuals contribute. This situation often leads to imperfect solutions with real-life consequences for those who are overlooked and society at large. Building a team with a range of experiences is more than checking a demographic box but a necessity to avoid a future with unjust technological solutions. The education of engineers and scientists thus needs to be explicit about the benefits and practices of incorporating the perspectives of multicompetent individuals and their communities. This dissertation suggests moving beyond representation by centering the language and cognitive resources of culturally and linguistically diverse groups. Drawing upon sociocultural frameworks in science education and translanguaging scholarship, the first study of this dissertation argues that factors beyond mere flexible language boundaries influence students use of their full idiolect in engineering and science. This work provides empirical backing to the question of what would happen if we created linguistically inclusive environments for learning engineering in the early grades. The children recruited for the study participated in equivalent lessons about engineering design with three different language contexts: English, Spanish and both languages. The findings suggested the influence of broader social norms in engineering learning, particularly on students availing themselves of opportunities to draw on their repertoire. Though the learning environment afforded possibilities for students to draw on their language resources, many learners did not tap them when engaged in design. Educational and social expectations about language use made engagement in disciplinary discourses through translanguaging difficult for students. The results signal the relevance of investigating how power structures shape norms about technical and scientific talk, particularly the impact of audience. Building on the arguments from the first manuscript, the second study brings attention to the relationship between audience and language use in engineering, specifically the influence of diversity in the professoriate on choices about ways of speaking. This work uses a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design to identify the factors undergraduates consider in claims of language use in private (home) and public (school) spheres. The data included responses to a national Language Use Survey from Latinx students in STEM fields (primarily engineering) who grew up in Spanish-speaking households. The findings illustrated factors (other than adherence to language boundaries) influencing the ways people speak in the disciplines. This study documented a strong effect of audience on language choices (i.e., who STEM undergraduates talk with shapes how they use their repertoire). Students also reported making decisions about language contingent on topic and place, but the influence of these factors comes from associations with particular audiences. The interlocutors and listeners in engineering, particularly those in positions of power, exert an enormous amount of influence in language use. Inspired by the literature on audience design from sociolinguistics and justice-centered science education, this paper exposed the link between the lack of representation of faculty of color (particularly Latinx professors) and language preferences in engineering education. This work draws attention to the messages that students received from disciplinary audiences because of the lack of diversity in the professoriate. The third study investigates the relationship between language, cognition, and idea generation through the lens of situated learning traditions and frameworks of design justice in engineering. It explores the role of language in creating equitable engineering solutions by indexing the diversity of experiences within multicompetent communities. Through a virtual experiment about design, engineering students were randomly assigned to implicit instruction in the form of language conditions. All participants then received explicit instruction through a prompt. Undergraduates generated features for the next-generation household appliances either in a Spanish and English or English-only condition. After their first design, participants were explicitly prompted to think about culture and language in their considerations. Results suggested that language conditions, in alignment with the linguistic resources of students, led participants to bring into design a set of cultural and linguistic values associated with their communities. Students in the English-only condition were less predisposed to draw on the experiences of their private spheres when thinking about components for the appliance, whereas those in the both languages group were more inclined to contemplate aspects of their own communities in their work. Regardless of the condition, all students benefited from explicit instruction to incorporate culture and language features in their project considerations. Through implicit or explicit instruction, treating the ways of knowing and speaking of multicompetent students as assets for engineering resulted in design considerations that incorporate cultural and linguistic aspects of traditionally underrepresented communities. The conclusion of this dissertation presents the implications of this body of work taken as a whole for researchers and practitioners regarding language use and cognition in engineering and science as well as future scholarship in design justice. It emphasizes the importance of (i) factors (beyond flexibility in language boundaries) influencing student use of their linguistic range, (ii) audience (particularly diversity of the professoriate) when thinking about language in engineering, and (iii) diversity of experiences (indexed through language) for generating equitable design solutions for a just society. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The works collated here provide evidence of the benefits of viewing communication with people with aphasia (PWA) as a joint interactional process and of applying linguistic methodologies to the study of discourse and interaction in aphasia. They specifically point to the need to reconceptualize familiarization and speaking for behaviors in healthcare and allied healthcare fields with the objective of enhancing PWA's communicative access. Study 1 gave voice to PWA about their experiences, goals and objectives, and interactions with healthcare professionals. It also investigated collaboration in triadic interactions in which the person with aphasia has a post onset time of 10 or more years through the use of Croteau "et al.'s" (2007) procedure to analyze contributions and participation in interview settings. Findings suggest that deficit-oriented measures of contributions may obscure how certain communicative behaviors can actually enhance or maintain the participation of PWA, at least in experienced pairs. Study 2 investigated the use of collaborative forms of talk between healthcare students and PWA, through a conversation analytic approach, with a focus on information exchange. Findings show that students were able to engage in collaborative behaviors even without formal training. However, occasions in which turns were left incomplete, no candidate understandings were provided, or no joint production or repair sequences were initiated led to issues with progressivity, missed opportunities to check understanding, and possibly even loss of information. Through an analysis of presuppositions and implicatures, Study 3 explored how the members of a care team in a skilled nursing home perceive communication with PWA. Findings suggest that institutional culture shapes the general goals of practice and thus may uniformly mold the way providers perceive facilitators and barriers of those goals. Perceptions and opinions on training and interprofessional collaboration, on the other hand, did not appear as uniform within the team. Conclusions about some of the barriers to communicative access in healthcare settings are framed within discussion of reasons for limited engagement in collaborative forms of talk by providers. Suggestions are given on how these results and the linguistic methodologies which helped uncover them can be used to rethink concepts and practices. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This qualitative, multi-case study investigates veteran, dual-language teachers in urban elementary schools in the Southwest United States and how these teachers manage to continue teaching despite education "reforms" that have contributed to increased attrition among their peers. Each participant contributed qualitative data through a narrative questionnaire, two interviews, two focus groups, and physical artifacts. Coding and analysis of each case was inductive and involved the identification of patterns and themes that emerged from the data. A cross-case analysis was conducted. Modern Critical Theory served as the theoretical lens. Teachers as advocates for their students' cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic well-being emerged as the most salient factor contributing to their resilience. Also important were personal traits, education and professional credentials, dedication to dual-language education, and successful resistance against "reforms." The findings could be of use to schools, districts, and states interested in retaining veteran teachers in urban contexts where "reforms" are often applied with greater scrutiny and accountability than other contexts, and where the consequences of "reforms" are the most severe. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Is there a way of reading literature that is specialized for teaching? Research into the teaching of mathematics has identified a specialized form of content knowledge (SCK, Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008) that is significantly linked to student learning (Hill, Ball, & Rowan, 2005). Despite the centrality of literature to the teaching of secondary English Language Arts (ELA), study of specialized knowledge for the teaching of literature remains an understudied area. If it does exist, it is likely also important for student learning. This study investigates the literary reading practices of pre-service secondary ELA teachers during a period when the demands upon their reading change: they must read with other people in mind and learn to respond. What kinds of reading practices can be observed when they are developing from English majors into English teachers? In this study, seven secondary ELA teacher candidates read a short, unfamiliar text before, during, and after student teaching. Anticipating student engagement with that text, they are asked, "What in this text seems worth teaching?" Participants narrated their thinking while reading and were interviewed afterwards. During the student teaching semester, participants' performances of reading literature become increasingly complex. This study documents an increase in consideration of students and text that differs from disciplinary ways of reading literature (Rainey, 2016; Goldman et al., 2016) and draws upon increasingly complex linguistic resources (Halliday & Hassan, 1985). I term this emergent complexity the practices of "reading with others in mind" (ROM). The practices of ROM can be observed in three categories: (1) working to anticipate student engagement with text, (2) offering meta-commentary on reading, and (3) asking questions/talking about the text as if speaking "with," "to," or "as" students. Three participants with more experience teaching demonstrated ROM practices in Task 1; all seven did so by the end of the semester. The practices of ROM increase over time for all participants, and recede when participants perceive the literary text to be more difficult. Because ROM emerges during the student teaching period and has particular linguistic features, it presents an important opportunity for teacher educators. They can note the presence or absence of ROM to (1) identify and remedy gaps in content knowledge, (2) challenge potential deficit conceptions of student literacies, and (3) cultivate reading practices that may be important for teaching literature. This study reinforces prior findings of a more other-oriented way of reading literature that can develop during ELA teacher education programs (Grossman, 1990). Observation of ROM during this period raises questions about how teachers' content knowledge may develop during this period, and how language might function as a tool to help develop teaching practices. This study contributes a preliminary step towards identifying aspects of knowledge for teaching literature that may matter for student learning. Further research of ROM in practice is needed, to explore whether ROM and "reading for teaching" (Alston & Barker, 2014) may be components of the "more" and "different" specialized content knowledge for teaching literature (Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008). [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

People segment their continuous stream of experience into events, or temporal segments that have a beginning and an endpoint. But how are such event boundaries defined? Linguistic theories of event encoding draw a distinction between bounded events that are non-homogeneous, structured temporal developments leading to an inherent endpoint (e.g., "dress a teddy bear") and "unbounded" events that are homogeneous temporal entities with no inherent endpoint (e.g., "pat a teddy bear"). Previous studies have illustrated the importance of endpoints for event perception and memory. However, this work has only discussed events with a self-evident endpoint, and the internal temporal structure of events has not received much attention. In this dissertation, we fill this gap. We hypothesize that event cognition tracks boundedness, and the sensitivity to boundedness affects how individual temporal slices of events (such as midpoints or endpoints) are processed and integrated into a coherent event representation. In Chapter 2, we show that viewers are sensitive to event boundedness in a category identification task and distinguish it from event completion; furthermore, viewers identify bounded events more easily than unbounded events. The sensitivity to boundedness emerges even when viewers are prevented from encoding the events linguistically and thus does not depend on the online use of linguistic distinctions. In Chapter 3, we find that viewers react differently to interruptions at the end compared to interruptions in the middle of an event -- but only when perceiving events with a bounded structure; moreover, viewers are more disturbed by temporal disruptions of a bounded event compared to an unbounded event. Chapter 4 tests our hypotheses from a developmental perspective and shows continuity in mechanisms of event cognition. We demonstrate that 4-to-5-year-old children compute boundedness during event categorization and treat it as different from event completion. Furthermore, 4-to-5-year-olds evaluate interruptions at event endpoints vs. midpoints differently when exposed to bounded but not unbounded events. We conclude that event viewers are sensitive to foundational and abstract properties of event temporal structure. This sensitivity can emerge from an early age, support the acquisition of linguistic-aspectual distinctions, and scaffold the way children conceptualize and process their dynamic experience. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Whether or not we are teachers, all of us must make sense of language. In doing so, we encounter representations of language, implicit or explicit descriptions which shift over time and are always tied to social and political interests. Teachers' work necessarily depends on these descriptions, which are deeply embedded within their responsibilities to curricula and other structures of schooling through the process of "curricularization" (Kibler & Valdes, 2016; Valdes, 2015). As they plan and teach within these structures, teachers must somehow reconcile these responsibilities with their students' developing language practices. This ethnographic, discourse analytic study shows how a bilingual teacher at a K-8 school in Philadelphia made sense of language by recontextualizing representations of language in her planning and instruction. In focusing on these recontextualizations, I provide a model of how language ideologies impact the work of teachers and ultimately present consequences for students (Kroskrity, 2000a; Woolard, 1998). This model situates teachers as part of a wider infrastructure recontextualizing language ideologies, including school curricula, state educational standards, team planning, and online collaboration. Grounded in the problem orientation of educational linguistics, a commitment to address practical issues of language in education (Hornberger, 2001; Spolsky, 1974), I apply this model to explore the consequences of representations of named languages, genre categories, and linguistically typified skills. I first show the great range of planning sources from which these representations can emerge. Then, in the case of English and Spanish, I describe how redundantly distributed models of language separation and language dominance created difficulties for implementing heteroglossic or flexible bilingual pedagogy. I next describe how strict representations of the boundaries of literary genres resulted in diminished opportunities to center student understandings of texts. Lastly, I describe how representations of skills created opportunities to see students as incapable in ways that aligned with raciolinguistic discourses of linguistic deficiency. I close by considering potential practical implications of a language ideological model of teacher planning. At the same time, I argue for preserving an expanded sense of the problem orientation that values work defining problems even when those definitions paint practical solutions as elusive. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of English foreign language instructors who worked at the English Institute in Saudi Arabia. The study explored how EFL instructors transferred their own language learning experiences to their teaching and how this transfer influenced their instructional practices. Finally, the study examined the teaching methods and strategies that participants used when teaching English in a Saudi educational context. The study employed a community of practice (CoP) framework (Lave & Wenger, 1991) to understand EFL instructors' teaching practices in the traditional context of Saudi Arabian classrooms. Using CoP in the field of TESOL field is essential to understand EFL/ESL teachers' practices, experiences, and their engagement and socialization (Kim & Duff, 2012). A qualitative case study methodology was utilized to deeply understand EFL instructors' perceptions, practices, and the application of knowledge and methods in participants' classrooms. Three novice female instructors whose educational background was in Linguistics, TESOL, and English Literature agreed to participate in the study. Data were collected from lesson plans, observational notes, semi-structured interviews, and a final focus group session. These multiple data sources highlighted participants' perceptions, teaching styles, educational perspectives, and teaching identities.Research findings addressed the gap between the participants' perceptions and their teaching practices. All participants agreed that learning English was not only focusing on teaching English form and meaning, but also emphasizing the meaning of the context to help students broaden their understanding of English concepts. However, the English Institute still structured participants' teaching by specifying that particular classes teach each proficiency skill in isolation. To summarize, the English Institute offered novice instructors the freedom to use varied approaches for teaching EFL. Yet in their own classroom, these novice instructors continued to struggle with their beliefs while teaching within their instructional contexts. All believed that English instructors should focus on teaching communicative skills and grammatical structures, and all tried to challenge themselves by shifting from traditional to modern instructional methods including the use of other approaches, communicative methods, and methodology. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Some types of semantic content have a potential or a requirement to project, i.e., to get interpreted outside the semantic scope of various operators such as negation, conditional and question operators, modals, etc., despite appearing to be in their syntactic scope. But what is the exact classification of projecting content, and how do we know which type of content projects in which way? In this dissertation I argue for a composition-driven approach to projection of pieces of content that have their own nodes in the morphosyntax, and I argue that this approach applies to both spoken and gestural content. Under this approach, how a given piece of content projects is uniformly determined by how it composes in the syntax/semantics, as opposed to a variety of alternative analyses for different types of content. I show that this approach is efficient in explaining the projection behavior of a range of content types, including spoken adjectives and appositives, hand gestures, facial expressions, "phi"-features on pronouns, and certain iconic properties of directional hand gestures. This dissertation thus has two main implications. First, it offers a general economical and explanatory approach to investigating projection of compositionally integrated content. Second, it establishes the need for treating content-bearing gestures as bona fide linguistic objects at all levels of representation. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation investigates the linguistic features of engagement in spoken academic online and face-to-face instruction in mathematics on two platforms: Khan Academy and MIT OpenCourseWare. In particular, the study analyses involvement features (personal pronouns and deixis) and interactional features (response elicitors, direct hypothetical reported speech). Using corpus linguistics methodology and register analysis framework (Biber & Conrad, 2009), I investigated normed frequency of occurrence for these features and multi-word expressions which contain them to reveal patterns of use. Additionally, I investigated the function of these features in concordance lines to reveal their use to engage audience in the learning process. The findings of this study suggests that Khan Academy instruction in mathematics relies on using conversational and academic spoken features similar to those found in the MIT lecture corpus, including frequent use of personal pronouns (especially "we"), and response elicitors ("right?"). The format of online video instruction also elicits more use of spatial deixis to draw attention to the elements on the virtual board. The findings of this exploratory study add to the growing literature on language used for educational purposes in online environments, especially the online academic spoken discourse. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This thesis examines the views of a number of educational actors about the impact of a broad range of educational reforms upon philological Greek Cypriot teachers' professionalism. The empirical component of the study gathers evidence from a variety of educational professionals, and presents data from a series of focus group interviews with philological class teachers, deputy heads and head teachers as well as from a number of individual interviews with professionals in more senior positions such as inspectors, implementers and teacher trainers. The main rationale for the use of a variety of accounts to investigate philological teachers' understanding of their professionalism as well as their responses to past and future educational reforms rests within the need of the study for data triangulation. An extended literature review focuses on the international arena of debate on professionalism, includes a critical discussion of the impact of managerial and neo-liberal educational reforms upon teachers' professional identities. In addition, global as well as economic, political and cultural factors within the Greek Cypriot context are debated in the light of incoming managerial reforms. The thesis' main argument is that, given the historical, cultural and political tensions facing Greek Cypriot education, as well as future challenges, a managerialist approach would fail to provide the reflective and critical perspective that philological teachers need. Such values are highly important for educating Greek Cypriot citizens about the new European and global realities required for a possible future bi-communal and federal Cypriot state. Hence, this thesis calls for a "discourse-based" ethics and "reflexive" approach to professionalism, which is used as an ethical compass for repaying attention to what might be lost from teachers' professional repertoire in the aftermath of such reforms. Appended is the interview guide cover letter.

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. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Forensic linguistics (FL) provides consultation to lawyers through the analysis of language evidence during the pre-trial investigation. Evidence commonly analyzed by linguists in criminal cases includes transcripts of police interviews and language crimes (such as bribery) and anonymous or questioned texts. Forensic linguistic testimony is rarely admitted into courts of law, however. A major reason for this is apparently impressionistic methods, which are examined for their objectivity. A further barrier to legal acceptance is that FL experts, like all experts testifying in court, support the claims of whichever side has hired them. Nonetheless, forensic linguists have an ethical and professional responsibility to provide the legal community with reliable and admissible information and help prevent unfair conviction or acquittal of criminal defendants. Legal acceptance of FL expertise should increase as methods improve and as forensic linguists adapt to legal norms. This thesis includes five parts: (1) "The Field of Forensic Linguistics"; (2) "The Evidence Forensic Linguists Analyze"; (3) "The Need to Improve Credibility in the Legal Community"; (4) "Professional and Ethical Issues and Responsibilities for Forensic Linguists"; and (5) "The Future of Forensic Linguistics." Anthrax letters are appended. (Contains 92 references.) (SM)

Lexical semantics provide many important resources in natural language processing, despite the recent preferences for distributional methods. In this dissertation we investigate an under-represented lexical relationship, that of scalarity. We define scalarity as it relates to adjectives and introduce novel methods to identify words belonging to a particular scale and to order those words once they are found. This information has important uses in both traditional linguistics as well as natural language processing. We focus on solving both these problems using lexical substitution, a technique that allows us to determine the best substitute word for a given word in a sentence. We also produce two new datasets: a gold standard of scalar adjectives for use in the development and evaluation of methods like the ones introduced here, and a test set of indirect question-answer pairs, one possible application of scalar adjectives. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Adjuncts and arguments exhibit different syntactic behaviours, but modelling this difference in minimalist syntax is challenging: on the one hand, adjuncts differ from arguments in that they are optional, transparent, and iterable, but on the other hand they are often strictly ordered, reflecting the kind of strict selection seen in argument application. The former properties mean the derivation proceeds the same way whether or not the adjuncts are present, but the latter means the derivation must know which adjuncts have already been adjoined, to avoid adjoining new ones out of order. This dissertation proposes a precise minimalist model of adjuncts that accounts for both behaviours. The second half considers the learnability of two closely related properties of adjuncts: their optionality and iterability. Many formal learning models predict a relationship between optionality and iterability, and any learning model of human language needs to be able to generalise from limited to indefinite repetition, since many languages include such sentences as "I really really really ... really love linguistics". All of the formal models I examine make this generalisation. A study of people learning an artificial language indicates that people also make this generalisation. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation study focused on a feature of emergent interactions in the L2 classroom called unanticipated student utterances (USUs), which is defined as utterances spoken by the student that the teacher has not anticipated as part of the discussion at hand. The purpose of the study was to demonstrate why USUs are significant in the L2 classroom and worthy of attention by L2 researchers, teachers, and teacher educators. There has been little investigation into the function of USUs in the English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom. The goal of the dissertation was to provide a detailed look at a study on USUs in a specific context--the ESL grammar classroom. Using Vygotsky's sociocultural theory and systemic functional linguistics (SFL), the study examined: teachers' perceptions of and responses to USUs, students' perceptions of USUs, and the function of teachers' responses to USUs. The study took place during the course of a semester in an American university's intensive ESL program with ESL teachers and university-bound international students. Data collection for the study occurred in three phases: (1) a teacher questionnaire, (2) two classroom observations, and (3) two case studies of teachers, which included video-based stimulated recall, informal teacher interviews, and student focus group interviews. Data analysis also occurred in three phases using video-based stimulated recall, general inductive analysis, and SFL analysis. Findings suggested that the ESL teachers in the study had more positive perceptions of USUs than negative, and were receptive to responding to USUs in their classrooms. Additionally, findings from the two case studies of the teachers' classrooms provided insight into the types of teacher responses to USUs, and the function of the teachers' responses to USUs. Furthermore, the students reported mixed feelings about their classroom conversations around USUs, but discussed the importance of their teachers' responses to USUs. Implications for the study include: (1) the critical role of teacher responses to USUs, (2) the critical role of teacher education to prepare teachers to respond to USUs, and (3) the power of SFL analysis as an alternative approach for understanding teacher-student interactions in the L2 classroom when USUs occur. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Interpretation is the process by which we find meaning in the things in the world around us: clouds on the horizon, bones, street signs, hairbrushes, uniforms, paintings, letters, and utterances. But where does that meaning come from and on what basis are we justified in saying a particular meaning is the right meaning? Drawing from debates in the philosophy of language, I argue that a complete theory of meaning and interpretation must be grounded in intentions. My argument employs research in the philosophy of language, aesthetics, linguistics, and cognitive science to develop a general framework of interpretation. This framework is then broadly applied to objects of interpretation across a range of fields: legal theory, history, art history, theology, literature, and archaeology. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation analyzes attitudes and perceptions of regiolects regarding the Magdeburg, Berlin, Leipzig and Standard German. Consultants listened to four recordings--one in each linguistic variety--and answered questions. The questions opened with the consultants' personal connection to each variety and opinions of the variety itself before creating a mental image of the physical appearance and the personality of the speaker in each recording. The final section elicited the consultants' attitudes about careers that would be best and worst suited for the speakers of the four linguistic varieties as well as provide an estimate of their education levels. The qualitative and quantitative data show a connection between the supposedly appropriate careers for standard and non-standard German speakers and whether Germans speak standard or non-standard varieties. The interviews also indicated that the level of education might be connected to which linguistic variety a person speaks. However, there is a set of careers requiring a social component, such as nursing or local radio broadcasting, that the interviewees believe to be well suited for speakers of non-standard varieties. The data indicate that speakers of the non-standard varieties in Magdeburg, Berlin and Leipzig can connect more easily with the general public of their cities and that the non-standard varieties themselves can create that proximity to the local population. Overall, Standard German seems to be correlating with higher education and a wide range of professions yet perhaps less social or friendly, whereas the use of regiolects of Berlin and Leipzig, which seem to be acceptable in more social settings. However, the Magdeburg regiolect speaker seems to be perceived negatively in both professional and more private settings. This dissertation contributes to a body of knowledge that can help scholars and the general public understand connections between an individual's speech and linguistic prejudices that can, for example, influence their career path. Research in perceptual linguistics, including this dissertation, can inform educational policies regarding language in schools as well as which professions a speaker may be employed in. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation examines teaching and learning issues surrounding orthography in a community college setting. Spelling materials were designed in English and given to college-level English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students, with the goal of giving learners a means to integrate the experiences of speaking and writing English. Following an introduction to the study, section 2 of the dissertation contains a review of literature, focusing on linguistics foundations and pedagogical perspectives. Section 3, Methodology, covers learning materials and strategies developed for the study, a formative evaluation of participants (n=7), and data collection. Section 4, Instructional Content, explains lesson plans used in the research and supplemental class activities. Section 5 contains an analysis of student responses, with group and individual portraits and discussions on vocabulary, lesson design, and phonological issues. Section 6 presents major findings and pedagogical implications. The study reveals that students who have difficulty with English spelling respond positively to rule-based instruction aimed at increasing their understanding of the orthographic system. Findings also indicate that students with weak spelling skills also have limited phonological and lexical competence. Results highlight the need to address spelling in ESL classes. Appended are procedures for initial interview and interview questionnaires, lessons and lesson plans, and supplementary materials. (Contains 77 references.) (AS)

This paper describes the creation of a comprehensive evaluation tool for reference librarians in adult service divisions to use in selecting World Wide Web sites as reference sources. Traditional evaluation criteria, endorsed and applied by librarians over the years, are not sufficient for the evaluation of today's hypermedia web site environment. An effective tool must incorporate criteria from the discipline of library and information science, and also from the disciplines of graphic design and linguistics. This study identifies, defines, and discusses the characteristics of a valuable web site. A series of evaluation forms organize and display critical criteria taken from the current literature using the methodologies of content analysis and feature analysis. Prototype testing was conducted on a selective sample of 30 Internet web sites. Modifications and refinements were made to the instrument and incorporated into an accompanying user's manual. This manual defines and discusses the benchmark criteria and explains proper implementation of the instrument in any adult reference setting. No single element such as graphics, content, or user interface determines the quality of an Internet web site. The evaluation instrument affords reviewers the opportunity to examine multimedia, content, and user-interface while providing a quantitative means of rating each respective section. The instrument was created to evaluate individual web sites, not search engines or catalog sites. Appendices comprising half the document consist of the evaluation instrument and User's Guide. (Contains 29 references.) (Author/SWC)

The starting point of this thesis is the hypothesis that in Spanish there are conventionalized expressions that signal both the articulation of text parts and the speaker's attitude towards the utterance. "Pragmatic Expressions" (PEs) are fixed lexical forms that contribute to text creation in relation to the context of enunciation, are oriented to general principles of cooperative interaction, and act as "deictic signals." Among the 26 forms identified as PEs and fully described are "bueno,""mira,""che,""digamos,""viste," and "no?" The findings include the function of ideational content organization, their contribution to conversational synchrony, and their association to speech acts and modality. New hypotheses are explored concerning the use of these signals to trigger inferences about the social relationship between interlocutors, their use as realizations of global discourse strategies, and the correlation between their occurrence and speaker's discourse role and repertoire. Independent evidence for the analysis comes from a case of code-switching. The implications for language teaching are discussed. There are two appendices with quantitative data from the corpus of spontaneous, nonhierarchical conversations. (Author)