Stay Signed In
Do you want to access your site more quickly on this computer? Check this box, and your username and password will be remembered for two weeks. Click logout to turn this off.
Stay Safe
Do not check this box if you are using a public computer. You don't want anyone seeing your personal info or messing with your site.
This study investigated the relative clause formation and the coding of tense in the English interlanguage of thirty-two Palestinian students at the six colleges of the Islamic University of Gaza.
Three composition topics were designed to elicit the learners' expression of the various English tenses and relative clauses.
Findings: The data show that Palestinian learners' switching of tense results from using English morphology to express an aspectual system similar to that of Palestinian Arabic. The English past tense and present tense are used to mark Palestinian perfective and imperfective aspects, respectively. The subject-verb agreement marker and the concord markers 's/is and 'm/am are omitted in relative clauses and when there is a change in aspect.
In the area of relative clauses, the data show that relative clauses are ninety percent independent of the Palestinian Arabic structuring of relative clauses. The learners use resumptive pronouns not only in clauses where the predicate incorporates a noun, adjective, or a prepositional phrase, but also before verbs.
Conclusions:
1. There is a large amount of influence from the Palestinian aspectual system on the learners' use of English tense.
2. Subject-verb agreement problems can be solved when the problem of tense shift is solved, because of the cooccurrence of these phenomena.
3. EFL teachers in Gaza Strip should not over-react to their students' tense usage in narrative passages and should not require them to write in a particular tense in an artificial manner.
4. The learners' errors should be tolerated and should not be considered as indications of faulty learning.
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
A39_2001AbstractAhmedA
Abstract
The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe and report the relationship between teaching and research as experienced by twelve faculty members at a medium sized, doctoral granting, state assisted university in the Midwest. Research review revealed that the relationship between research and teaching in higher education was supportive, conflicting, or neutral (Marsh & Hattie, 1996).
Twelve faculty members from five different departments at Teachers College participated in this study. Evidence was gathered using semi-structured interviews. Analysis of evidence revealed several findings.
Faculty members in this study described activities needed to produce publishable research, which included participating in professional meetings (conferences, workshops, and seminars), contributing to professional associations, reading publications, and writing activities. Faculty members engaged in research projects, and worked with students on their dissertations and research papers. Many of faculty members' research ideas came from their reading and their participation in learning activities needed to produce quality teaching.
In this study, faculty members reported that research and teaching were intertwined activities that produced two different products. Faculty members reported that some of the activities in both teaching and research were similar and overlapping. They found ways to make progress in both activities at the same time. The activities used to produce quality teaching were influenced by the demands of producing publishable research and vice versa.
For faculty members, many of their activities as scholars produced both research and teaching. While teaching was identified as the highest form of scholarship, research was considered also an important form of scholarship. Scholarship includes discovery of new knowledge, looking for connections, and building bridges between theory and practice. Teaching is scholarship applied.
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
A44_2003AbstractAl-HadlaqM
Abstract
This study investigated the effectiveness of four vocabulary learning tasks on 104 Saudi EFL learners' retention of ten previously unencountered lexical items. These four tasks were: 1) writing original sentences (WS), 2) writing an original text (i.e. composition) (WT), 3) filling-in-the-blank of single sentences (FS), and 4) filling-in-the-lank of a text (FT). Different results were obtained depending on whether the amount of time required by these tasks was considered in the analysis or not. When time was not considered in the analysis, the WT group outperformed the other groups while the FS group obtained the lowest score. No significant differences were found between WS and FT. The picture, however, changed dramatically when time was considered in the analysis. The analysis of ratio of score to time taken revealed no significant differences between the four groups except between FT and FS, and it was in favor of FT. The differences in vocabulary gains between the four groups were ascribed to the level (or depth) of processing these tasks required the subjects to do and to the richness of the context available in two of the four exercises, namely WT and FT. The researcher concluded that composition writing was the most helpful task for vocabulary retention and also for general language learning, followed by FT. Sentence fill-in was considered the least useful activity in this regard.
College of Architecture
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
A45_2002AbstractAl-JarrahR
Abstract
The overall purpose of this study is to analyze the acquisition of English word-stress by Arabic speakers in light of advancements in Optimality Theory. It has been reported that Arab second language learners of English have difficulty in acquiring the various patterns of English word stress. According to OT, the reason for this difficulty is that although these speakers, like native speakers, have full command of the universal and violable constraints that are operative in determining where stress falls in the word, they fail to capture or induce the exact ordering of these constraints. The basic premise of OT is that each grammar is a unique way of ordering the set of universal and violable constraints that determine the actual output form of a certain linguistic feature, say word-stress in this case. In other words, whereas Arabic word-stress and English word-stress are both subject to the same set of universal and violable constraints, they differ in one respect: the ordering of these constraints. The sole task of the learner then is to capture the correct ordering that determines which syllable in each word carries main stress.
This study consists of four chapters. In chapter one, we introduce the problem of the study and the basic background information for an OT analysis, the task we undertake for word stress in subsequent chapters. Chapter two reviews word-stress placement in three competing models: linear approach (Chomsky and Halle 1968), nonlinear approach (Liberman and Prince 1977; McCarthy 1979; Hayes 1980, 1982, 1991), and finally Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993; McCarthy and Prince 1993a, b). In chapter three, we introduce the set of constraints that are relevant for predicting the place of stress, not just in English and Arabic, but in all languages. Hence, these constraints are literally present in all languages, though their ranking is language-specific. Then, we develop a ranking of the set of constraints particular to Arabic and another one particular to English. In chapter four, we set out to compare the two constraint rankings in order to (1) predict stress errors in the interlanguage of native speakers of Arabic when learning English, and (2) demonstrate how, by making use of the notion of constraint demotion, those learners can make their English more native-like with respect to stress placement.
This study has diverted from a standard OT analysis in at least two ways. First, we allow for some alignment constraint (namely MAIN-RIGHT) to be interpreted as a nongradient constraint. Second, we allow for constraint parameterization. NONFINAL is parameterized to account for Arabic word stress; and WSP is parameterized to account for English word stress.
This study has shown that there are significant differences between Arabic and English as far as the ranking of the universal and violable constraints is concerned. Among the major differences are the following. (1) WSP is irrelevant for stress placement in Arabic. (2) Arabic requires that FOOT-BINARITY be interpreted under a moraic analysis, but English requires it to be interpreted under a syllabic analysis. (3) Arabic requires constructing metrical feet from left to right (i.e. ALL-FEET-LEFT >> ALL-FEET RIGHT), English require that it be the other way around (i.e. ALL-FEET¬RIGHT >> ALL-FEET-LEFT). (4) In. ploysyllabic words, whereas a final syllable that weighs two or more moras is parsed in English, only a final syllable that weighs three moras is parsed in Arabic. (5) Arabic requires that PARSEσ dominates FOOT¬BINARITY, but English requires the opposite ranking.
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
A45_2004AbstractAL-MansoorM
Abstract
In this study, form-to-meaning mapping of the bilingual mental lexicon is investigated. Sixty native speakers of Arabic, divided into intermediate and advanced ESL groups, served as the participants of the study. They performed a semantic relatedness rating task of sixty high frequency semantically related English word pairs on a 6¬point scale. While thirty word pairs had the same translation (ST) word in Arabic, the other thirty had a different translation (DT) word. Fifteen of the word pairs in each of the two word pair categories were abstract, while the other fifteen were concrete nouns. The vast majority of these word pairs were synonyms. The results showed that there was a significant difference in the word pair ratings between the intermediate and advanced ESL groups. The intermediate group rated all word pairs higher than the advanced learners. Both groups, however, rated the ST word pairs higher than the DT word pairs.
Nonetheless, the rating mean difference score between the ST and DT was significantly lower in the advanced group than it was in the intermediate group. In addition, both ESL groups rated the abstract word pairs higher than their concrete counterparts. Overall, the results support the claim that beginning ESL learners map their bilingual lexicon to Ll translation, and as they become advanced move toward mapping form-to-meaning directly. This is particularly evident in the higher rating of ST and the lower rating of DT as well as in the higher rating mean difference score between ST and DT in the intermediate group.
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
A4_1998AbstractAl-WatbanA
Abstract
This is a psychoacoustic study investigating experimentally the role of intonation as indicative of the human phenomenon of emotion in both Arabic and English. It
studies both the acoustic properties of emotion in speech and their impact on intonational contours.
Utterances representing five emotions (anger, fear, happiness, sadness, and neutral) in both the declarative and interrogative modes were collected from the speech of eight professional actors (4 Arabic, and 4 English) as they performed roles in movies and drama series. Two types of judges were used: viewers and listeners. The former watched the clips carrying the utterances and identified their emotional content. Their responses determined which utterances were included in the acoustic analysis. The listeners listened only to the utterances chosen by the viewers, and their responses were used to determine the acoustic clues for emotions. The acoustic analysis involved measuring the parameters of fundamental frequency (FO), intensity, and duration of four units of analysis: utterance as a whole unit, the initial and the final syllables of the utterance, and the syllable with the highest FO value (the peak). The ANOVA statistical test was run on the acoustic data. The listeners' responses were used in the Kappa test to determine their emotion recognition accuracy.
The results showed that no single parameter can be taken as the sole marker or clue to a certain emotion. Rather, the expression of emotion is viewed as a complicated process involving the three parameters combined. Profiles for each emotion involving the levels of the three parameters at both the utterance and syllable levels are provided. The data analysis did not show emotion to have an impact on international contours. The KAPPA test showed a high degree of emotion recognition accuracy in both languages. The comparison of Arabic and English showed differences in the three parameters between the two languages. The most remarkable feature distinguishing the people of the two languages speech is intensity, with Arabic speakers showing higher decibel levels.
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
A85_2004AbstractAtkinsA
Abstract
This dissertation addresses three distinct areas of composition: literacy,
technology, and teacher training. The research questions I investigate are as follows:
• Are graduate programs in rhetoric and composition offering preparation for teaching new literacies, especially with digital technology? If so, what is the nature of that training?
• Does the faculty within a program perceive that training to be effective? Is that
training perceived to be effective by graduate students?
• How do individual programs shape their graduate technology training to reflect
and manifest specific programmatic agendas and goals?
The first two sets of research questions are investigated using survey research methods. The last research question is addressed via case study methods.
Using a multi-methodological research design that includes a national survey and two institutional case studies allows me to combine methodologies to draw meaningful conclusions from the data. For example, the survey helps to provide a brief sketch of the state of technology training in rhetoric and composition programs as well as universities, while detailed case studies provide a context that illustrates how the integration of technology into both the university and rhetoric and composition program affects teacher ¬training. The survey demonstrates that many programs do not require courses or workshops that extend special help to those teaching in computer classrooms especially as technology relates to new literacies. Information from the survey also indicates that rhetoric and composition programs have no procedures in place to assess the state of technology training for new teachers and TAs. This dissertation offers one way of assessing technology training.
The case studies reveal that the two universities have grand visions and broad technology initiatives. However, a closer look at university mission statements and specific rhetoric and composition programs reveals that the integration of technology is sometimes a less than smooth one. In one case, the department struggles to implement technology at the grass roots level, while another department, despite the inconsistencies apparent at the university level, seems to succeed at both integrating technology and training new teachers to address the new literacies produced by those digital technologies.
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
B43_1999AbstractBhattraiA
Abstract
This dissertation has two main purposes: (a) to provide an analysis of the past tenses in Nepali and compare them with those of English from a discourse pragmatic perspective; and (b) to investigate how Nepali learners of English use the English past tenses in terms of forms, meanings, and functions.
A major claim of the dissertation is that tenses and aspects play various discourse functions in Nepali. Although Nepali has various past tenses as in English, their actual use is different from those of English. A significant difference between the use of the past tenses in English and Nepali is revealed in the use of the past perfect tense. In Nepali, unlike in English, the past perfect does not always require the existence of the past reference point between the event time and the speech time. Although used in similar as well as different contexts, the past perfect in both languages is found to express background information. In the analysis of the Nepali past tenses, one of the major arguments is that the traditionally termed `unknown past' does not have `past' as part of its basic meaning. The main function of this verb form is to express the speaker's unawareness of a situation at the time of its happening, whether in the past or the future.
After the discussion of the Nepali past tenses in comparison with the English past tenses and aspects, an error analysis of Nepali EFL learners' use of the English past tenses in written essays is carried out. It was hypothesized that Nepali learners would make a wide variety of errors in the use of the English past tenses. Because of differences in the use of the past perfect and the past tense in the habitual sense between Nepali and English, it was expected that Nepali ESL learners would make errors in those areas. However, overgeneralization due to difference in the use was found only in a very few cases. Most of these errors cannot be traced to Nepali influence. One area, however, where Nepali has a clear effect on the students' use of English is in indirect speech. I argue that Nepali speakers do not change tenses in English indirect speech appropriately because verb tenses in Nepali are not changed from direct speech to indirect speech as in English.
It is hoped that this dissertation will enhance the understanding of grammatical categories such as tense and aspect in general and of Nepali tense and aspect systems in particular. In general, this dissertation showed contribute to several areas of study in discourse analysis, second language acquisition, language transfer and contrastive analysis. A major significance of this dissertation is its demonstration of the role of tense and aspect in Nepali in the expression of various discourse functions.
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
B6_1981AbstractBoisvertL
Abstract
The purpose of this research was to analyze the sta¬tus of the English auxiliary system in the verb phrases of the writing of a selected group of sixth grade children to determine whether there would be measurable differences between the incorporation and comprehension of verb phrase ex¬pansions of children taught generative-transformational theory and those taught traditional theory.
The research was designed to answer four questions relevant to the effects of the experimental treatment on the writing productivity of the subjects in the study. I col¬lected writing samples from the subjects for pre-test and post-test evaluation. The first 100 verb forms collected from the subjects' pre-test and post-test writing were anal¬yzed for changes in the subjects' use of expanded verb forms. The purpose of this analysis was to determine if the experi¬mental subjects utilized fewer simple verb forms and more expanded verb forms in their post-test sampling.
The sampling consisted of fifteen Caucasians and six Blacks in each group for a total of forty-two subjects. The subjects were students attending the Henry Barnard School which serves as the laboratory setting for Rhode Island Col¬lege. The groups were equalized in terms of I.Q. and language achievement. While I collected the post-test data, the exper¬imental subjects studied generative-transformational methods of verb phrase expansions and the control subjects studied traditional methods of verb phrase expansions.
The data were analyzed by means of a two-way factorial analysis which computed the statistical differences for the experimental (Black-Caucasian)/control (Black-Caucasian), pre-test, post-test variables. In order to determine statis¬tically significant differences for the groups, t-scores and f-scores were analyzed. The following conclusions were drawn from the statistical findings.
Although none of the statistical summaries were signi¬ficant at the .05 level, the experimental subjects showed more gains in their use of expanded verb forms in their post¬test writing than the control group showed. Among the exper¬imental subjects who made gains in their use of expanded verb forms, the Black population made the greatest gains. The most complex verb forms did not appear in the post-test sam¬pling of either group. These complex forms seemed to be be¬yond the written linguistic productivity of sixth-grade children.
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
B85_2001AbstractBullockK
Abstract
This study traces spatial and temporal disturbances in the modem short story structure. Edgar Allan Poe's "indefinitiveness" and Kenneth Burke's "actualization" serve as historical foundations for this investigation, which leads to contemporary frameworks proposed by such theorists as Gerard Genette, Umberto Eco, Wolfgang Iser, Paul Ricoeur, Peter Brooks, James Phelan, and Susan Sniader Lanser. In particular, I explore how effect operates as a predominant concern of short fiction. Short fiction is a rhetorical interaction encumbered by spatial and temporal constraints, and its narrative teleology is necessarily disrupted by rhetorical techniques. Narrative's boundaries are purposefully violated, its tempo twisted and contorted, exposing a purposeful tension in the rhetorical engagement of author, text and reader. Instabilities crafted within the text disrupt time-space expectations of readers.
Importantly, effect is perceived as a rhetorical device within short fiction, and so in this study the text serves as a site of transference privileging equally writer and reader. Conditions of possibility and understanding are invested in the text by the author through techniques of spatial disruption and temporal discontinuity, and then reinvested in the reader by the narrative through the text's generation of uncertainty. Short fiction serves as an invitation by the author for the reader to construct explanations; devices work to disrupt the time-space constraints of the genre, establishing as they do a narrative contract between author and reader that is resolved in and from the text.
Burke considers this to be shaping prose fiction to the author's purposes, an act which "involves desires and their appeasements" - and one which purposefully aims for a particular effect. But what are the limits of purposefulness in short fiction? I examine both textual effect and reader affect, relying particularly on Iser and Eco, and turn to Brooks in conclusion to summarize the role of desire in and from the text, and to Phelan to critique the place of rhetoric in establishing and maintaining that desire. My analysis discloses that time-space disruption, employed as a rhetorical strategy by short story writers, serves to heighten rather than threaten the mediated engagement of writer/text/reader in short fiction, producing a measured effect.
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
C37_2000AbstractCaseE
Abstract
The ethnographic study reported in this dissertation examines the articulation process of six informants, three undergraduate and three graduate students, as they made the transition from an intensive English program into mainstream university courses at a medium-sized Midwestern university.
The research attempted to determine what needs students had as they made this transition, looking at several factors, including variables in the background of informants, differences in the experiences between undergraduate and graduate students, variables in the environment encountered, actions on the part of informants that helped or hindered in making the transition, actions on the part of instructors that helped or hindered in making the transition, and finally, areas in which the intensive English program could make improvements.
The primary means of data gathering for this study was through informant interviews, all of which were tape-recorded, with pertinent sections later being transcribed. The questions asked during these interviews ranged from relatively closed-¬ended questions from prepared interview schedules to more open-ended, individualized questions based on previous responses. Interviews were first conducted while informants were still studying at the Intensive English Program. Subsequent interviews were held at three to four week intervals during the semester in which informants first began their mainstream university courses.
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
C54_1970AbstractChartierR
Abstract
This study examined the literary treatment of the Indian in the works of five representative writers who, between 1820 and 1860, used the materials of King Philip's War as their narrative focus. The works are James Eastburn and Robert Sands' Yamoyden (1820), a verse romance, John Augustus Stone's Metamora (1829), a stare melodrama, James Fenimore Cooper's The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish,(1828) G. B. Hollister's Mount Hope (1851), and D. P. Thompson's The Doomed Chief (1860), all prose romances.
The above works reflect the principal trends and influ¬ences operative upon American writers who utilized Indian subjects during the Romantic era. King Philip's War appealed to these writers primarily because its remoteness in time cast, in William Tudor's words, "a shade of obscurity resem¬bling that of antiquity,"l and its events and characters were colorful enough to be of romantic interest. Primitivistic tradition had conceived the Indian as Noble Savage, presumably a creature better able to live virtuously than civilized man.
1William Tudor, Jr., "An Address Delivered to the Phi Beta Kappa Society," The North American Review, II (November,1815), 14.
Most writers felt the need, nevertheless, to accommodate this myth to historical realities. Unlike the Noble Savage of tradition, experience had shown the American Indian to have been neither "innocent" nor able to withstand the encroach¬ments of civilization. A new and paradoxical concept of the Noble Savage therefore emerged--that of a being heroic but cruel, generous but vengeful, honest but immoderately pas¬sionate, and a man, above all, fated to be crushed by a higher culture which he did not understand and which did not under¬stand him.
Stone's Metamora is closest to the primitivistic tra¬dition. The play contains little, if any, implication that the savage's way of life is inferior to that of the civilized man. In each of the romances discussed, however, just such an unfavorable implication is central to each author's treat¬ment of the Indian. Yamovden, on the other hand, is a muz¬zling work which leaves the reader doubtful that Eastburn and Sands ever had a settled conception of the Noble Savage.
Stone excepted, the writers studied were concerned about historicity and tried to base their treatment of the Indian, in part at least, upon authentic historical materials. Generally, they followed Puritan sources in order to Five a sense of realism to the background, a procedure plainly evi¬dent in the works when the narrations of several battles are compared with Puritan accounts. The writers did not hesitate, however, to depart from their sources when history contra¬dicted the characterizations made necessary by romantic themes.
The several works discussed show evidence of the influ¬ence exerted upon characterization and plot making by the literary conventions which dominated the popular writing of the early and middle nineteenth century. Most characters are stereotypes which fill roles in a standard plot in which the white heroine is endangered, rescued, then reunited with the white hero.
The study was organized as follows: chapter one des¬cribed the growth of enthusiasm for Indian subjects in America from 1815 through 1830; chapter two discussed the Noble Savage myth and its influence upon American writing; chapters three through seven examined Yamoyden, The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, Metamora, Mount Hope, and The Doomed Chief as works representative of the general trends and influences discussed in the earlier chapters; and the conclusion summarized the study and attempted to formulate the writer's conclusions concerning the Indian's Place in American romanticism.
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
C498_2005ChoS
Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to investigate Korean EFL learners' judgments of countability of English nouns because a correct judgment of noun countability is a key factor for the appropriate use of English indefinite articles and noun phrases. To investigate the subjects' judgments of noun countability and how they are related to the use of English indefinite articles and noun phrases, fourteen hypotheses were set forth and four task types were designed.
Participants were 115 Korean college EFL students and they were given four tasks: a task of judgment of countability of nouns in isolation OCT), a task of judgment of countability of nouns in context (JCC), a fill-in-the-blank task (FB), and an error correction task (EC).
Overall the subjects showed a flexible notion of countability. There was a statistically significant difference between their performance of JCI and JCC. There was a positive relation between their judgments of countability in three contexts (isolation, context, and overall context) and their performance on the indefinite articles in FB.
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
There was no relationship between their performance of JCC and OJC (overall judgment of countability) and the indefinite articles in EC.
With respect to JCI, a statistically significant difference was found between the performance of the low and advanced learners and between the performance of the intermediate and advanced learners, but it was not found between the performance of the low and intermediate learners.
In regard to JCC, no statistically significant difference was found between the performance of the low and intermediate learners and between the performance of the intermediate and advanced learners. A statistically significant difference was found only between the performance of the low and advanced learners.
The participants performed better on the count use of concrete nouns than on the noncount use of concrete nouns, whereas they performed better on the noncount use of abstract nouns than on the count use of abstract nouns.
There was an interaction between proficiency and the noncount use of concrete nouns, while no interaction was found between proficiency and the count use of abstract nouns.
C4_1987AbstractChongH
Abstract
In recent discourse-oriented studies of grammar, it has been claimed that the information structure of discourse is composed of two levels, foreground and background, and that linguistic categories such as tense and aspect have as their functions the sorting of information into these two levels. However, this study of Korean narrative finds that Korean tense and aspect distinguish not between foreground and background, but between ordinary and significant information within foreground and background. It was found that a total of five levels of information are signalled by the choice of tense and aspect in Korean narrative: ordinary background information, significant background information, ordinary mainline events, significant mainline events, and peak.
Ordinary background information is indicated by the imperfective aspects (progressive, resultative, continuative, iterative, and inchoative) with the past tense. Significant background information is indicated by either the progressive the resultative with the historical present tense. The completive or inceptive aspects, both of which are perfective, combine with the past tense to mark ordinary mainline events. These shift to the progressive or resultative with the historical present to indicate significant mainline events. Peak is indicated by the completive aspect as well as tense-shift and other stylistic and linguistic devices such as onomatopoeia, concentration of participants, change of the normal pace of the story, or change from narration to dialogue. Tense and aspect are thus interrelated in signalling function and degree of significance of information.
This study demonstrated two major points. First, Korean distinguishes five levels of information in narrative discourse. Second, these are differentiated by the choice of tense and aspect, among other devices. Two methodological consequences are that linguistic categories such as tense and aspect may be fully analyzed only in a discourse-based study and that mode of discourse cannot be analyzed without reference to tense and aspect.
Back To Home Page
