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Title: LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY AND MULTILINGUALISM.
Creator: Casorio, Nicholas, Reyes-Foster, Beatriz, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Over the last decade, linguistic relativity has seen a resurgence in research and discourse on thought, language, and culture. One particular facet of this research, multilingualism, has been relatively sparse in comparison to the wealth of research available focusing on individual languages and monolingual speakers. This study represents a preliminary investigation that enters this arena by focusing specifically on how speakers of English as a second language use English basic color terms in...
Show moreOver the last decade, linguistic relativity has seen a resurgence in research and discourse on thought, language, and culture. One particular facet of this research, multilingualism, has been relatively sparse in comparison to the wealth of research available focusing on individual languages and monolingual speakers. This study represents a preliminary investigation that enters this arena by focusing specifically on how speakers of English as a second language use English basic color terms in respect to monolingual speakers. This is done by using a modified methodology from the World Color Survey as a comparative model of a speaker's division of colors. Participants in this study illicit responses for 160 color tiles taken from the Munsell color chart used as the basis of the World Color Survey. The results of this study show that three of the ten multilingual participants division of the color space per English color terms falls outside of the normal range of variation between the monolingual English speakers who participated in this study. Though future research is needed to definitively posit the reasons for those participants color maps, this study provides a new window and inquiry into an under-researched area of linguistic relativity.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: CFH0004885, ucf:45431
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004885

Title: Expansive Learning in FYC: Using Linguistic Discourse Analysis to Measure the Effects of Threshold Concepts in Facilitating Generalization.
Creator: Morrow, Allison, Wardle, Elizabeth, Roozen, Kevin, Hall, Mark, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This study examines how and if threshold concepts enable expansive learning and generalization. Expansive learning and generalization are part of the highly contested conceptions of transfer, and these specific conceptions offer a more complex conception of transfer that deals with knowledge transformation (Tuomi-Gr?hn and Engestr?m, Beach). One way that we can see expansive learning and generalization transform knowledge is through the teaching of threshold concepts. In the last decade,...
Show moreThis study examines how and if threshold concepts enable expansive learning and generalization. Expansive learning and generalization are part of the highly contested conceptions of transfer, and these specific conceptions offer a more complex conception of transfer that deals with knowledge transformation (Tuomi-Gr?hn and Engestr?m, Beach). One way that we can see expansive learning and generalization transform knowledge is through the teaching of threshold concepts. In the last decade, there has been a movement toward using threshold concepts in FYC's that take up writing studies as their curricula (Wardle and Downs, Dew). Even though using threshold concepts seems to be one interesting way of specifically studying expansive learning and generalization, we have no studies examining whether or not teaching threshold concepts encourages expansive learning. The studies we do have do not seem to offer any methodologies that would enable us to study threshold concepts and generalization. Past methods, such as case studies, interviews, and surveys have included small sample sizes to collect their data from (Wardle, Dively and Nelms, Nowacek). A lot of the transfer data does not actually focus on the writing or the texts themselves or the reoccurring moves that students use in those texts. Linguistic discourse analysis offers a promising avenue for examining the generalization of threshold concepts. Using research methods like linguistic discourse analysis in marriage with the best qualitative methods of transfer, like case studies or interviews, could allow for a larger sample size of data collection and allows for us to see how students use these threshold concepts in their writing. Through linguistic discourse analysis and interviews, this study suggests that students' perceptions of writing change after being introduced to some threshold concepts from the Writing About Writing curriculum. The threshold concepts that students are presented to in the Writing About Writing curriculum at UCF tackles misconceptions and helps students change how they view writing. Once they can change this view, they are able to generalize the knowledge they have into their own writing. If students do not use the exact terminology from the curriculum, they are able to generalize those threshold concepts through using their own language or even through analogies. ?
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: CFE0005849, ucf:50937
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005849

Title: A Comparative Analysis of Present and Past Participial Adjectives and their Collocations in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA).
Creator: Reilly, Natalia, Folse, Keith, Mihai, Florin, Vitanova-Haralampiev, Gergana, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: ESL grammar books have lists of present and past participial adjectives based on author intuition rather than actual word frequency. In these textbooks, the (-)ing and (-)ed participial adjectives derived from transitive verbs of state and emotion are presented in pairs such as interesting/interested, boring/bored, or surprising/surprised. This present study used the Corpus of Contemporary American English http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/ (COCA) to investigate the overall frequency of participial...
Show moreESL grammar books have lists of present and past participial adjectives based on author intuition rather than actual word frequency. In these textbooks, the (-)ing and (-)ed participial adjectives derived from transitive verbs of state and emotion are presented in pairs such as interesting/interested, boring/bored, or surprising/surprised. This present study used the Corpus of Contemporary American English http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/ (COCA) to investigate the overall frequency of participial adjectives in use as well as their frequency within certain varieties of contexts. The results have shown that among most frequently used participial adjectives there are not only the participial adjectives derived from transitive verbs of psychological state, such as interesting/interested, but also the participial adjectives derived from transitive verbs of action with their intransitive equivalents, such as increasing/increased. The data also revealed that many participial adjectives lack corresponding counterparts and thus cannot be presented in (-)ing/-ed or -en pairs (e. g., existing, ongoing, concerned, supposed). Finally, a majority of the differences between participial adjectives, including the differences between present (-ing) and past (-ed or -en) participial adjectives, are reflected in their collocations. This study suggests that a new approach of teaching participial adjectives along with their collocations in relation to their frequencies in particular contexts can help second language learners develop awareness of how and when these participial adjectives should be used to convey an individual's intended meaning in a native-like manner.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: CFE0005051, ucf:49967
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005051

Title: Understanding the Effect of Formulaic Language on ESL Teachers' Perceptions of Advanced L2 Writing: An Application of Corpus-Identified Formulaic Language.
Creator: Youngblood, Alison, Nutta, Joyce, Folse, Keith, Xu, Lihua, Purmensky, Kerry, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: A quantitative study was conducted to determine if the amount of formulaic language influenced ESL teachers' perceptions (n=102) of non-native writing skill, as evidenced by composite and sub-scale scores on the ESL Composition Profile (Jacobs et al., 1981). Formulaic language was operationalized as 25 three-word strings sampled from the writing sub-list of the Academic Formulas List (Simpson-Vlach (&) Ellis, 2010) and further validated as frequent in the Michigan Corpus of Upper Level...
Show moreA quantitative study was conducted to determine if the amount of formulaic language influenced ESL teachers' perceptions (n=102) of non-native writing skill, as evidenced by composite and sub-scale scores on the ESL Composition Profile (Jacobs et al., 1981). Formulaic language was operationalized as 25 three-word strings sampled from the writing sub-list of the Academic Formulas List (Simpson-Vlach (&) Ellis, 2010) and further validated as frequent in the Michigan Corpus of Upper Level Student Papers. The target formulaic sequences were divided into three experimental groups representing a low, mid, and high amount of formulaic language. Four advanced non-native writers generated argumentative, timed writing samples that incorporated the target sequences. The writing samples were then assembled into data collection packets and distributed at eight Intensive English Programs across the southeastern United States. A repeated measures ANOVA indicated that there was a significant difference in composite score (p(<).05) between the control and three experimental conditions; however, the essays that incorporated 16 and 25 formulaic sequences scored significantly lower than those with zero or eight target sequences. When the amount of syntactical and semantic errors were strictly controlled for, the composite scores also fell between the control and experimental conditions, but the decrease in score was not significant (p(>).05). The content, organization, vocabulary, language, and mechanics sub-scales were also compared using a repeated measures MANOVA. In content, organization, and language, the control and low essays outscored the mid and high conditions (p(<).05). For the vocabulary sub-scale, the control and low condition were not significantly different, but the control essays only outperformed the mid level essays. The low essays outperformed both the mid and high essays. In terms of mechanics, there was only a significant difference between the low and mid level essays. The results of the MANOVA were consistent when the amount of syntactic and semantic errors were controlled.Implications for teaching suggest that the Academic Formulas List would not benefit academically-oriented L2 learners preparing to enter a university. While corpus tools are valuable in helping teachers, material writers, and publishers improve vocabulary instruction in the English classroom, not all statistically salient lexical combinations are important for non-native writers to master and incorporate in their academic discourse.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: CFE0005447, ucf:50397
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005447

Title: THE EFFECTS OF HEGEMONIC SUPPORT OF ENDANGERED LANGUAGES ON LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES.
Creator: Box, Christy, Reyes-Foster, Beatriz, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Endangered languages are those that are spoken by a very small percentage of the population and are at risk of disappearing with all the knowledge and diversity they contain. Endangered languages often become endangered because the speakers and the society perceive the language as low status or of little use, and a positive change in perception of the language could aid in revitalizing the language. Institutions such as governments, businesses, and universities have recently begun supporting...
Show moreEndangered languages are those that are spoken by a very small percentage of the population and are at risk of disappearing with all the knowledge and diversity they contain. Endangered languages often become endangered because the speakers and the society perceive the language as low status or of little use, and a positive change in perception of the language could aid in revitalizing the language. Institutions such as governments, businesses, and universities have recently begun supporting endangered languages in several areas, and this support could greatly affect language ideologies, perceptions of and attitudes about the language. In this research project, I intend to explore the effects on how an endangered language is viewed by both speakers and non-speakers when it is supported by linguistically dominant institutions such as business and higher education. This research was conducted in various areas of Scotland and Ireland and consists of survey data, ethnographic interviews, and participant observation. Specifically, this research aims to answer the following research questions: 1) What is the relationship between institutional support and language ideologies? 2) How do different forms of institutional support affect language ideologies? Institutional support of endangered languages could provide these languages with validity and recognition as a language, as well as offer economic and status advantages to speakers, creating positive attitudes about speaking and learning the languages. This positive change in the way these languages are perceived could be a crucial step in revitalizing endangered languages and preserving the linguistic diversity of the world.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: CFH2000177, ucf:45999
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000177

Title: IMPROVING PARENT INVOLVEMENT FOR CULTURALLY AND LINGUSTICALLY DIVERSE PARENTS OF MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES FROM URBAN SETTINGS IN SUBURBAN SCHOOLS.
Creator: Urquhart, Michelle, Dieker, Lisa, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This study was designed to address the need for improved collaborative experiences for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) parents of students with disabilities. Historically, these individuals have had limited interactions with special education services and professionals, particularly at the middle school level. To improve the collaborative relationship between CLD families and schools, the study offered collaborative training sessions designed to provide opportunities for parents...
Show moreThis study was designed to address the need for improved collaborative experiences for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) parents of students with disabilities. Historically, these individuals have had limited interactions with special education services and professionals, particularly at the middle school level. To improve the collaborative relationship between CLD families and schools, the study offered collaborative training sessions designed to provide opportunities for parents to build on their current knowledge base and skills for effective partnerships with school personnel. The goal of the training was to increase the types and frequency of school involvement by CLD parents. The participants for this study consisted of teachers and parents of culturally diverse groups of middle grade students in special education transitioning from an urban elementary school into a suburban middle school. Hence, the researcher evaluated parent perceptions of the collaborative experience to determine the effects it had on future efforts to collaborate. Student perceptions of both the collaborative process and the teacher's ability to provide services that embrace cultural differences and reflect high expectations were also assessed. Overall evaluation of Parent Collaborative Training (PCT) demonstrated a direct influence on the behaviors of parents as well as students and teachers, who were indirectly affected by the parenting behaviors. The training influenced parents' knowledge and skills, opinions of students regarding their parents and teachers, and showed higher ratings for students across three domains: student behaviors, student capabilities, and teacher expectations.
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Date Issued: 2006
Identifier: CFE0001310, ucf:47016
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001310

Title: PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT: TEACHERS' AND PARENTS' VOICES.
Creator: Shearer, Karen, Brown, Susan, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Parents have been involved in the education of their children since the early days of our nation. Their roles have evolved from teaching the basics of reading writing and arithmetic in Colonial times to overseeing the selection of teachers and designing the curriculum during the early 1800s to providing academic support in the home up through the present time. Although educators are generally viewed as professionals and in charge of their students' education, the importance of parental...
Show moreParents have been involved in the education of their children since the early days of our nation. Their roles have evolved from teaching the basics of reading writing and arithmetic in Colonial times to overseeing the selection of teachers and designing the curriculum during the early 1800s to providing academic support in the home up through the present time. Although educators are generally viewed as professionals and in charge of their students' education, the importance of parental involvement is readily acknowledged. Confusing to both parents and educators is what constitutes parental involvement. The research revealed numerous definitions for the term, but none that were universally agreed upon. This lack of a clear delineation of roles has both parties struggling to make sense of their separate and joint responsibilities. Add to this confusion the complex issues surrounding linguistic and cultural diversity and both sides become mired in their differences rather than building upon their commonalities. Barriers to parental involvement can come from the family as well as the school. The purpose of this study was to examine those barriers from the perspective of educators as well as parents. A convenience sample was taken from the population of elementary schools in a Central Florida county. Parents of students from ethnic minorities were asked to complete a survey questionnaire regarding their experiences with the classroom teacher as well as involvement in their child's education. Elementary school teachers from the same county were given the opportunity to respond to an online survey questionnaire regarding their attitudes about cultural and language diversity and parental engagement at school and with learning. Five hundred and fifty parent surveys and one hundred sixty-six teacher surveys were completed. The data analysis will show which factors influence parent involvement and how similarly parents and teachers feel about parent involvement.
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Date Issued: 2006
Identifier: CFE0001506, ucf:47127
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001506

Title: HEBREW AND COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION: THE EFFECTS OF A LANGUAGE MANIPULATION ON PERCEPTION, IDENTITY, AND PRESERVATION.
Creator: Nir, Tamar, Sims, Valerie K., University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This study aimed to explore the ways in which Hebrew is currently being manipulated online through a linguistic deviation called Fakatsa. In this study, participants were asked to rate random statements of frivolous or serious topics in either standard grammatical Hebrew or Fakatsa Hebrew conditions on specific judgment values. It was hypothesized that participants would rate the Fakatsa writer negatively on certain characteristics, such as intelligence, education, religiosity, and...
Show moreThis study aimed to explore the ways in which Hebrew is currently being manipulated online through a linguistic deviation called Fakatsa. In this study, participants were asked to rate random statements of frivolous or serious topics in either standard grammatical Hebrew or Fakatsa Hebrew conditions on specific judgment values. It was hypothesized that participants would rate the Fakatsa writer negatively on certain characteristics, such as intelligence, education, religiosity, and nationalism and positively on other characteristics, such as femininity and creativity. Twenty-four participants completed this experiment. Results showed that participants responded as expected for certain negative attributes typical of Fakatsa and deviations to computer-mediated communication and did not respond as expected for any the positive attributes typical of Fakatsa. The results showed that fluent Hebrew speakers viewed users of the Fakatsa manipulation differently than users of standard Hebrew and may suggest personal biases and perceptions when encountering computer-mediated communication.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: CFH2000043, ucf:45531
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000043

Title: FEMINIST, LINGUISTIC, AND RHETORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE REFORM.
Creator: Dorner, William, Young, Beth, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: As people become aware that society treats women unfairly, they also perceive related shortcomings in the way that Modern English references women. For example, many have objected to the so-called generic he, the third-person masculine pronoun employed to refer to a person of unknown gender, and provided several alternatives, few of which have been widely adopted. Nonetheless, change is evident in the case of they becoming an increasingly common solution to refer to a person of unidentified...
Show moreAs people become aware that society treats women unfairly, they also perceive related shortcomings in the way that Modern English references women. For example, many have objected to the so-called generic he, the third-person masculine pronoun employed to refer to a person of unknown gender, and provided several alternatives, few of which have been widely adopted. Nonetheless, change is evident in the case of they becoming an increasingly common solution to refer to a person of unidentified gender. The intentional reform of the Modern English language, both in the past and present, has been a result of peopleÃ‚Â's reactions to what is often perceived as a bias or a deficiency with what is possible to say given the words at their disposal. The rhetorical significance of reform is profound, and scholars continually broach the subject from the perspective of different disciplines. Explored here are the approaches of three of those fields, feminism, linguistics, and rhetoric; how each reacts to and even influences reform is an important part of the study. What is evident is that, regardless of the particular field, reform remains a force of change, even while it may not be broadly recognized. Further, traditional grammatical rules provide an insufficient means for tackling inequalities in Modern English, and are in part responsible for such imbalance. As such, writers must be aware of the present expectations of their audience and the situation of particular words.
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Date Issued: 2010
Identifier: CFE0003007, ucf:48363
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003007

Title: LATINATE WORD PARTS AND VOCABULARY:CONTRASTS AMONG THREE GROUPS COMPRISINGTHE COMMUNITY COLLEGE PREPARATORY READING CLASS.
Creator: Bellomo, Tom, Taylor, Rosemarye, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Students enrolled in a college preparatory reading class at one particular community college were categorized based on language origin. Native English speaking students comprised one group and foreign students formed two additional groups--students whose language origin was Latin-based (i.e. Romance languages) and students whose language origin was not Latin-based (i.e. Japanese). A pretest assessment measure was used to quantify the extent that pre-existing knowledge of Latinate word parts...
Show moreStudents enrolled in a college preparatory reading class at one particular community college were categorized based on language origin. Native English speaking students comprised one group and foreign students formed two additional groups--students whose language origin was Latin-based (i.e. Romance languages) and students whose language origin was not Latin-based (i.e. Japanese). A pretest assessment measure was used to quantify the extent that pre-existing knowledge of Latinate word parts and morphologically complex vocabulary differed among groups based on language origin. The identical instrument served as a posttest to measure the extent that direct instruction in morphological analysis resulted in change among the same groups after one semester of instruction. Two sections on both the pretest and posttest yielded a total of four distinct mean scores that formed the primary basis for comparison. Categorizing students within the college preparatory reading class based on language origin revealed distinctive strengths and weaknesses relative to group identity when learning Latin-based word parts and vocabulary. Results of a one-way fixed-factor analysis of variance, in conjunction with multiple comparison procedures, indicated that the Latin-based group performed the strongest. This group had the greatest mean score on all four measurements; however, only for the word part section of the pretest was the difference statistically significant. The non Latin-based group performed the poorest as evidenced by scoring the lowest on three of the four measures, with a statistically significant difference for the vocabulary pretest. Additionally, a disproportionately large number of students within the native English-speaking group had difficulty mastering word parts. Though the lower group mean was statistically significant for the word part section of the posttest, practical significance was not observable from the descriptive data. A follow-up frequency tabulation revealed a dichotomization within the native English speaking group between those who proceeded to master word parts and those who did not. Furthermore, results from a pretest/posttest comparison for each respective group indicated that all three groups made significant gains on both sections of the test instrument as a result of direct instruction in Latinate word parts and vocabulary. However, there was an incongruity between word part and vocabulary mastery as all three group means were markedly better on the word part section of the instrument. The results of this study suggest that college preparatory students, regardless of their language origin, enter higher education with limited knowledge of Latinate word parts and vocabulary. The results further suggest that students comprising the heterogeneously populated college preparatory reading class can profit from direct instruction in morphological analysis--regardless of language origin. Prior research has demonstrated that college-level content words tend to be morphologically complex, singular in meaning, and likely to be Latinate in origin. Reading is the salient skill utilized across the curriculum and often the primary means of content dissemination. Reading, in turn, is principally linked to the extent of one's vocabulary. Consequently, teaching morphologically complex vocabulary at the college preparatory level along with providing a working knowledge of morphemes can assist students toward college readiness.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: CFE0000444, ucf:46384
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000444

Title: THE PROBLEM OF POLYSEMY IN THE FIRST THOUSAND WORDS OF THE GENERAL SERVICE LIST: A CORPUS STUDY OF SECONDARY CHEMISTRY TEXTS.
Creator: Clemmons, Karina, Sivo, Stephen, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Vocabulary in a second language is an indispensable building block of all comprehension (Folse, 2006; Nation, 2006). Teachers in content area classes such as science, math, and social studies frequently teach content specific vocabulary, but are not aware of the obstacles that can occur when students do not know the basic words. Word lists such as the General Service List (GSL) were created to assist students and teachers (West, 1953). The GSL does not adequately take into account the high...
Show moreVocabulary in a second language is an indispensable building block of all comprehension (Folse, 2006; Nation, 2006). Teachers in content area classes such as science, math, and social studies frequently teach content specific vocabulary, but are not aware of the obstacles that can occur when students do not know the basic words. Word lists such as the General Service List (GSL) were created to assist students and teachers (West, 1953). The GSL does not adequately take into account the high level of polysemy of many common English words, nor has it been updated by genre to reflect specific content domains encountered by secondary science students in today's high stakes classes such as chemistry. This study examines how many words of the first 1000 words of the GSL occurred in the secondary chemistry textbooks sampled, how often the first 1000 words of the GSL were polysemous, and specifically which multiple meanings occurred. A discussion of results includes word tables that list multiple meanings present, example phrases that illustrate the context surrounding the target words, suggestions for a GSL that is genre specific to secondary chemistry textbooks and that is ranked by meaning as well as type, and implications for both vocabulary materials and classroom instruction for ELLs in secondary chemistry classes. Findings are essential to second language (L2) researchers, materials developers, publishers, and teachers.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: CFE0002034, ucf:47590
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002034

Title: AN INVESTIGATION OF LINGUISTIC, COGNITIVE, AND AFFECTIVE FACTORS THAT IMPACT ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS' PERFORMANCE ON A STATE STANDARDIZED READING ACHIEVEMENT TEST.
Creator: Strebel Halpern, Carine, Nutta, Joyce, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: The explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies has been proposed as a means to better prepare secondary school-aged students for today's information-dense, fast-paced, fast-changing global society, and to improve the academic performance of struggling adolescent readers. This proposition of a direct and positive impact of reading comprehension strategies on reading achievement for all students has not been investigated with English language learners (ELLs) who, by definition,...
Show moreThe explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies has been proposed as a means to better prepare secondary school-aged students for today's information-dense, fast-paced, fast-changing global society, and to improve the academic performance of struggling adolescent readers. This proposition of a direct and positive impact of reading comprehension strategies on reading achievement for all students has not been investigated with English language learners (ELLs) who, by definition, do not possess the same level of English language skills as their native-English speaking peers. This mixed-method study investigated linguistic, cognitive, as well as affective factors that impact adolescent ELLs' performance on a standardized state reading achievement test. The quantitative portion examined the relative contributions of second language proficiency and reading comprehension strategies to a prediction model of reading achievement in 110 ninth and tenth grade ELLs. The qualitative portion of the study involved individual interviews and was aimed at deepening the understanding of ELLs' use of strategies during the standardized reading test, while also investigating affective factors that may impact their performance on this measure of academic achievement. Quantitative findings include two statistically significant prediction models of reading achievement with reading comprehension strategies and English language proficiency as predictor variables. However, only language proficiency made a significant unique contribution to the prediction variable. Qualitative findings suggest that the participants had relatively little metacognitive awareness of their comprehension during the standardized test, had overestimated their use of reading strategies as reported on a 30-item strategy survey instrument, had concentrated on sentence-level comprehension due to unknown vocabulary, and may have been hindered by testing anxiety in being able to wholly concentrate on the task. Recommendations made for the instruction of comprehension strategies consist of the raising of metacognitive awareness through the explicit modeling of the thought processes involved in reading comprehension, including determining the meaning of unknown words.
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Date Issued: 2009
Identifier: CFE0002931, ucf:47989
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002931

Title: Passive voice usage in undergraduate STEM textbooks.
Creator: Luo, Huiyuan, Mihai, Florin, Nutta, Joyce, Folse, Keith, Bai, Haiyan, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: The present study, a corpus-based quantitative analysis, investigated the use of passive voice in terms of percentage (percentage of total passive usage), constructions (the most commonly used passive forms), and dispersion (the verbs that tended to be associated with passive usage) in college STEM textbooks, more specifically in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The corpus consisted of twenty textbooks with over 1 million running words selected from the textbooks' chapters....
Show moreThe present study, a corpus-based quantitative analysis, investigated the use of passive voice in terms of percentage (percentage of total passive usage), constructions (the most commonly used passive forms), and dispersion (the verbs that tended to be associated with passive usage) in college STEM textbooks, more specifically in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The corpus consisted of twenty textbooks with over 1 million running words selected from the textbooks' chapters. By identifying the main verbs and passive verbs used in the textbooks, the percentage of passive voice usage was calculated. The statistical difference of passive constructions between disciplines was examined by conducting a MANOVA test, and an instrument, the Compleat Lexical Tutor was used to generate a word list of the most commonly-used past participles in passive voice.Results showed that the overall percentage of passive voice usage is over 30%. The MANOVA test revealed a statistically significant difference of passive voice constructions across the four disciplines, i.e. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.Implications for teaching suggest that passive voice was an important grammar feature that needs to be taught tor the English as a second/foreign language students who major in the STEM fields. Additionally, the use of passive constructions should be taught differently in reading and writing based on the needs of the four STEM disciplines, due to the significant difference of passive forms usage in these fields.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: CFE0007047, ucf:52020
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007047

Title: The Frequency of the Twelve Verb Tenses in History Papers Written by University Native Writers.
Creator: Qahtani, Bushra, Folse, Keith, Young, Beth, Fernandez-Rubiera, Francisco, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Due to the variety and complexity of verb tenses in English, English as a Second Language (ESL) / English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners often experience difficulty in mastering English verb tense system. This corpus-based study was conducted to ascertain the most frequently used verb tenses by English native speakers (NSs), specifically in their academic writing in a history course. As this study aimed to examine the naturally-occurring language produced by NSs, specifically in their...
Show moreDue to the variety and complexity of verb tenses in English, English as a Second Language (ESL) / English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners often experience difficulty in mastering English verb tense system. This corpus-based study was conducted to ascertain the most frequently used verb tenses by English native speakers (NSs), specifically in their academic writing in a history course. As this study aimed to examine the naturally-occurring language produced by NSs, specifically in their academic writing, an original corpus of 101,713 words was assembled. The corpus consisted of 130 research papers written by 65 students. The corpus was analyzed, targeting certain linguistic items: the twelve verb tenses, modals, perfect modals, and imperatives. These targets were highlighted using a code-coloring method. Then, the items were calculated using Microsoft Excel. Excel calculations revealed the number of occurrences of each of the verb tenses, modals, perfect modals, and imperatives that was utilized in the corpus. The results revealed that the simple past tense was predominant, followed by the simple present tenses. Modals came third, as they occurred more frequently than any of the other verb tenses. The remaining targets had percentages ranging between 1.62% and zero. These findings could contribute in developing the methodology of teaching verb tenses to ESL/EFL learners in a way that reinforces their comprehension of the most important and most common items. In addition, this information is very important for materials designers and curriculum professionals.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: CFE0007293, ucf:52150
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007293

Title: THE ACQUISITION OF LEXICAL KNOWLEDGE FROM THE WEB FOR ASPECTS OF SEMANTIC INTERPRETATION.
Creator: Schwartz, Hansen, Gomez, Fernando, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This work investigates the effective acquisition of lexical knowledge from the Web to perform semantic interpretation. The Web provides an unprecedented amount of natural language from which to gain knowledge useful for semantic interpretation. The knowledge acquired is described as common sense knowledge, information one uses in his or her daily life to understand language and perception. Novel approaches are presented for both the acquisition of this knowledge and use of the knowledge in...
Show moreThis work investigates the effective acquisition of lexical knowledge from the Web to perform semantic interpretation. The Web provides an unprecedented amount of natural language from which to gain knowledge useful for semantic interpretation. The knowledge acquired is described as common sense knowledge, information one uses in his or her daily life to understand language and perception. Novel approaches are presented for both the acquisition of this knowledge and use of the knowledge in semantic interpretation algorithms. The goal is to increase accuracy over other automatic semantic interpretation systems, and in turn enable stronger real world applications such as machine translation, advanced Web search, sentiment analysis, and question answering. The major contributions of this dissertation consist of two methods of acquiring lexical knowledge from the Web, namely a database of common sense knowledge and Web selectors. The first method is a framework for acquiring a database of concept relationships. To acquire this knowledge, relationships between nouns are found on the Web and analyzed over WordNet using information-theory, producing information about concepts rather than ambiguous words. For the second contribution, words called Web selectors are retrieved which take the place of an instance of a target word in its local context. The selectors serve for the system to learn the types of concepts that the sense of a target word should be similar. Web selectors are acquired dynamically as part of a semantic interpretation algorithm, while the relationships in the database are useful to stand-alone programs. A final contribution of this dissertation concerns a novel semantic similarity measure and an evaluation of similarity and relatedness measures on tasks of concept similarity. Such tasks are useful when applying acquired knowledge to semantic interpretation. Applications to word sense disambiguation, an aspect of semantic interpretation, are used to evaluate the contributions. Disambiguation systems which utilize semantically annotated training data are considered supervised. The algorithms of this dissertation are considered minimally-supervised; they do not require training data created by humans, though they may use human-created data sources. In the case of evaluating a database of common sense knowledge, integrating the knowledge into an existing minimally-supervised disambiguation system significantly improved results -- a 20.5\% error reduction. Similarly, the Web selectors disambiguation system, which acquires knowledge directly as part of the algorithm, achieved results comparable with top minimally-supervised systems, an F-score of 80.2\% on a standard noun disambiguation task. This work enables the study of many subsequent related tasks for improving semantic interpretation and its application to real-world technologies. Other aspects of semantic interpretation, such as semantic role labeling could utilize the same methods presented here for word sense disambiguation. As the Web continues to grow, the capabilities of the systems in this dissertation are expected to increase. Although the Web selectors system achieves great results, a study in this dissertation shows likely improvements from acquiring more data. Furthermore, the methods for acquiring a database of common sense knowledge could be applied in a more exhaustive fashion for other types of common sense knowledge. Finally, perhaps the greatest benefits from this work will come from the enabling of real world technologies that utilize semantic interpretation.
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Date Issued: 2011
Identifier: CFE0003688, ucf:48805
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003688

Title: An intelligent editor for natural language processing of unrestricted text.
Creator: Glinos, Demetrios George, Gomez, Fernando, Arts and Sciences
Abstract / Description: University of Central Florida College of Arts and Sciences Thesis; The understanding of natural language by computational methods has been a continuing and elusive problem in artificial intelligence. In recent years there has been a resurgence in natural language processing research. Much of this work has been on empirical or corpus-based methods which use a data-driven approach to train systems on large amounts of real language data. Using corpus-based methods, the performance of part-of...
Show moreUniversity of Central Florida College of Arts and Sciences Thesis; The understanding of natural language by computational methods has been a continuing and elusive problem in artificial intelligence. In recent years there has been a resurgence in natural language processing research. Much of this work has been on empirical or corpus-based methods which use a data-driven approach to train systems on large amounts of real language data. Using corpus-based methods, the performance of part-of-speech (POS) taggers, which assign to the individual words of a sentence their appropriate part of speech category (e.g., noun, verb, preposition), now rivals human performance levels, achieving accuracies exceeding 95%. Such taggers have proved useful as preprocessors for such tasks as parsing, speech synthesis, and information retrieval. Parsing remains, however, a difficult problem, even with the benefit of POS tagging. Moveover, as sentence length increases, there is a corresponding combinatorial explosing of alternative possible parses. Consider the following sentence from a New York Times online article: After Salinas was arrested for murder in 1995 and lawyers for the bank had begun monitoring his accounts, his personal banker in New York quietly advised Salinas' wife to move the money elsewhere, apparently without the consent of the legal department. To facilitate the parsing and other tasks, we would like to decompose this sentence into the following three shorter sentences which, taken together, convey the same meaning as the original: 1. Salinas was arrested for murder in 1995. 2. Lawyers for the bank had begun monitoring his accounts. 3. His personal banker in New York quietly advised Salinas' wife to move the money elsewhere, apparently without the consent of the legal department. This study investigates the development of heuristics for decomposing such long sentences into sets of shorter sentences without affecting the meaning of the original sentences. Without parsing or semantic analysis, heuristic rules were developed based on: (1) the output of a POS tagger (Brill's tagger); (2) the punctuation contained in the input sentences; and (3) the words themselves. The heuristic algorithms were implemented in an intelligent editor program which first augmented the POS tags and assigned tags to punctuation, and then tested the rules against a corpus of 25 New York Times online articles containing approximately 1,200 sentences and over 32,000 words, with good results. Recommendations are made for improving the algorithms and for continuing this line of research.
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Date Issued: 1999
Identifier: CFR0008181, ucf:53055
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFR0008181

Title: The Signs We Speak: An exploration of the loss of precision and meaning in language today.
Creator: Finney, Emilie, Adams, JoAnne, Kovach, Keith, Price, Mark, Lotz, Theo, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: My interest is in the beauty and power of language. I have sought to understand language on a systemic level. I have broken language down to alter signified meaning, exalted extinct words, mourned the loss of formal language, and explored the confines of common vernacular.My artwork addresses meaning within the context of Semiotics and Linguistics. I have investigated the Semiotic theories and philosophies of Roland Barthes, Jacques Ranci(&)#232;re, Pierre Guiraud, and Erving Goffman. As...
Show moreMy interest is in the beauty and power of language. I have sought to understand language on a systemic level. I have broken language down to alter signified meaning, exalted extinct words, mourned the loss of formal language, and explored the confines of common vernacular.My artwork addresses meaning within the context of Semiotics and Linguistics. I have investigated the Semiotic theories and philosophies of Roland Barthes, Jacques Ranci(&)#232;re, Pierre Guiraud, and Erving Goffman. As outlined by Roland Barthes, our language is a semiotic system used to communicate meaning. My work is also informed by the rules of Linguistics and the research of Linguists John McWhorter and Guy Deutcher. In my work I have consistently altered the signifiers within our language (words and letters) to affect meaning. I have also broken linguistic rules of syntax, word order, and word morphology (the arrangement of grammatical units), to obscure meaning. In my thesis work I have narrowed the focus of my artwork to exploring the loss of precision in language in popular culture today.I have witnessed changes in language in our culture: changes in language itself and changes in attitudes toward language. Avenues such as the Internet, social media and texting have altered the language people use and have developed a more superficial type of communication. With a desire for ease of delivery and quickness, people have created and used acronyms and catch phrases to carry content. Thus they have created representations for themselves as well as developed a habit of using minimal content. As a result, people have divorced themselves from responsibility for full absorption and communication of information not only in their personal life, but also in their educational and professional life. My work addresses this lack of understanding and reveals the detriment of growing apathy toward clarity in understanding and conviction. My progression to using sound as a medium was a result of my history and experience with music. Through examining the work of contributing artists in sound art, I found artists Laurie Anderson, Susan Philipsz, and Janet Cardiff among the most relevant to my practice. Musicians such as Philip Glass, John Cage and Trevor Wishart, inspired my creative approach as well as how I think about my work. My exploration of sound is not only relevant to the way I work; it is relevant to the direction of the art world. The medium is growing as more museums, galleries and curators are including sound and new media within their spaces. As I continue to develop my artwork and practice, I look forward to what this medium has to offer.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: CFE0005165, ucf:50669
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005165

Title: Development of the Taiwanese Mandarin Main Concept Analysis and Linguistic Communication Measure: Normative and Preliminary Aphasic Data.
Creator: Yeh, Chun-chih, Kong, Pak Hin, Whiteside, Janet, Ryalls, John, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Aphasia is a language disorder resulting from damage to brain areas that control language expression and reception. Clinically, the narrative production of Persons with Aphasia (PWA) provides valuable information for diagnosis of aphasia. There are several types of assessment procedures for analysis of aphasic's narrative production. One of them is to use quantification systems, such as the Cantonese Linguistic Communication Measure (CLCM; Kong (&) Law, 2004) or the Main Concept Analysis (MCA...
Show moreAphasia is a language disorder resulting from damage to brain areas that control language expression and reception. Clinically, the narrative production of Persons with Aphasia (PWA) provides valuable information for diagnosis of aphasia. There are several types of assessment procedures for analysis of aphasic's narrative production. One of them is to use quantification systems, such as the Cantonese Linguistic Communication Measure (CLCM; Kong (&) Law, 2004) or the Main Concept Analysis (MCA; Kong, 2009), for objective quantification of aphasic's discourse. The purposes of this study are (1) to translate the MCA and CLCM to a Taiwanese Mandarin Main Concept Analysis (TM-MCA) and a Taiwanese Mandarin Linguistic Communication Measure (TM-LCM), respectively, and (2) to validate them based on normal speakers and PWA in Taiwan. In the pilot study, a total of sixteen participants, eight certified speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and eight normal speakers, were invited to establish the Taiwanese Mandarin main concepts related to the four sets of sequencial pictures created by Kong in 2009. The language samples from eight normal speakers were then used to determine the informative words (i-words) in the picture sets. In the main study, thirty-six normal speakers and ten PWA were recruited to perform the same picture description tasks. The elicited language samples were analyzed using both the TM-MCA and TM-LCM. The results suggested that both age and education affected the oral discourse performance. Significant differences on the measures in TM-MCA and indices in TM-LCM were noted between the normal and aphasic groups. It was also found that overall aphasia severity affected the picture description performances of PWA. Finally, significant correlations between some of the TM-MCA measures and TM-LCM indices were noted. In conclusion, both the TM-MCA and TM-LCM are culturally appropriate to the Taiwanese Mandarin population. They can be used to supplement standardized aphasia tests to help clinicians make more informative decisions not only on diagnosis but also on a treatment plan of aphasia.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: CFE0005281, ucf:50554
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005281

Title: SUPPORTING HISPANIC MOTHERS WITH PRESCHOOL CHILDREN WITH SPEECH AND/ OR LANGUAGE DELAYS VIA DIALOGIC READING AND COACHING WITHIN THE HOME.
Creator: Dopson, Natalie, Cross, Lee, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Young children who are Hispanic, from low-income homes and have developmental delays are at a disadvantage for not having the basic early literacy foundation to become successful readers later in school (Ballantyne, Sanderman, D'Emilio, & McLaughlin, 2008; Hammer, Farkas, & Maczuga, 2010; Ezell & Justice 2005; McCardle, Scarborough, & Catts, 2001). These challenges can be addressed in several ways. Early intervention including parent education and collaboration along with shared book reading...
Show moreYoung children who are Hispanic, from low-income homes and have developmental delays are at a disadvantage for not having the basic early literacy foundation to become successful readers later in school (Ballantyne, Sanderman, D'Emilio, & McLaughlin, 2008; Hammer, Farkas, & Maczuga, 2010; Ezell & Justice 2005; McCardle, Scarborough, & Catts, 2001). These challenges can be addressed in several ways. Early intervention including parent education and collaboration along with shared book reading are considered best practices and critical to improving child outcomes (NELP, 2008). In addition, children who have a solid foundation in early literacy skills including vocabulary development in their native language will later transfer to the development of vocabulary in English (Ballantyne et al., 2008). Yet, research on shared book reading practices within the home of Hispanics is minimal (Hammer and Miccio, 2006). It is necessary to expand the literature on how to adapt best practices to meet the needs of Hispanic families who are economically disadvantaged. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of parent training and coaching of dialogic reading strategies in Spanish on mothers' implementation of the strategies and total vocabulary expressed by the child during shared book reading within the home environment. In addition, the researcher explored parent receptiveness towards shared book reading strategies. The research design for the study was a single-subject multiple baseline across three mother-child dyad participants. The independent variable was the intervention which consisted of parent training video on dialogic reading, parent handouts, and researcher coaching. The dependent variables were the mother's implementation of dialogic reading strategies and the children's total expressed words during shared book reading. The mother-child dyads, originally from Mexico, lived in settled migrant community in central Florida. The three children regularly attended a local federally funded preschool and received services for speech and/or language. The results indicated that the mothers' implementation of dialogic reading increased after training and coaching and the children's expressed total vocabulary words also increased. Dyad's interests in the selected books, mother responsiveness during shared book reading, and duration of shared book reading may have impacted some of the variability in the results. Furthermore, mothers were unaware of the dialogic reading strategies prior to the intervention and reported positive feedback and a desire to learn more ways to help their children at home. Implications for research and practice include the need for parent education to support caretakers of young children with speech and/or language delays, involvement of parents in the intervention planning process including coaching options, adaptation of intervention to expand upon parent's funds of knowledge, complexity of code-switching and language differences, and greater collaboration between school and home.
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Date Issued: 2011
Identifier: CFE0003961, ucf:48713
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003961

Title: The Role of Virtual Avatars in Supporting Middle School Students from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds on Science in After School Programs.
Creator: Gallegos, Benjamin, Dieker, Lisa, Vasquez, Eleazar, Marino, Matthew, Hughes, Charles, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Students who receive additional educational supports in afterschool programs were the focus of the investigation. This study was conducted to measure what effects a TeachLivE avatar, a mixed-reality virtual environment, used in combination with a video game, had on the activation of prior knowledge in science for students in rural middle school. The delivery of the biology science lessons on cell structures and processes were delivered using the video game, Cell Command. The TeachLivE adult...
Show moreStudents who receive additional educational supports in afterschool programs were the focus of the investigation. This study was conducted to measure what effects a TeachLivE avatar, a mixed-reality virtual environment, used in combination with a video game, had on the activation of prior knowledge in science for students in rural middle school. The delivery of the biology science lessons on cell structures and processes were delivered using the video game, Cell Command. The TeachLivE adult avatar was customized as a biologist who spoke to students in the treatment group about science concepts prior to playing the science video game. Unexpected attrition rates and low numbers of participants in the targeted area of research providing consent affected the original research design to conduct the research study. Therefore, a pivot was made from the original research design. The initial target population was students with a learning disability who were culturally and linguistically diverse from low socioeconomic backgrounds in rural communities. By the end of the study, only one student with a learning disability consented and completed the study, with attrition rates in the original school approaching 90% due to various factors, which are discussed. Descriptive statistics were used to measure the effects between students in the control group who only played the Cell Command video game, compared to students in the treatment condition who played the Cell Command science video game, and had four, five minute conversations with a TeachLivE avatar. The analysis indicated varied differences between the treatment and control conditions. The analysis of a STEM-CIS survey, that measures career interests, sum means were included in the descriptive analysis along with the unique challenges presented in conducting research in a rural Title I school.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: CFE0006304, ucf:51606
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006304

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