Browsing by Author "Delahunty, Gerald, advisor"
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Item Open Access An analysis of discourse markers and discourse labels as cohesive devices in ESL student writing(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Yuhas, Brandon J., author; Delahunty, Gerald, advisor; Reid, Stephen, committee member; Kaminski, Karen, committee memberThis study analyzes the use of two types of cohesive device, discourse markers (Fraser, 2005) and discourse labels (Francis, 1994), in the academic arguments of native-speaking (L1) Chinese English as a second language (ESL) first-year composition (FYC) students. Discourse markers (DMs) are lexical expressions which signal that a semantic relationship of elaboration, contrast, inference, or temporality holds between adjacent discourse segments. Discourse labels are a type of nominal group lexical cohesion which makes use of unspecific abstract nouns to label and organize stretches of discourse. Using a qualitative text analysis, the use of these cohesive devices is examined in each case in terms of the discourse requirements of the text in question. An analysis of native speaker (NS) writing is used for comparative purposes to determine possible gaps between these two groups of student writers in the ability to use these devices to construct cohesive texts, as well as to determine potential similarities and/or differences in instructional foci for these two groups of student writers. The result of this study suggests that these ESL student writers do not tend to have problems using DMs or retrospective labels, but that they do tend to underuse advance discourse labels in their writing. Underuse of advance labels was not found to be a problem in the NS arguments analyzed. These results indicate that a knowledge gap does in fact exist between these non-native speakers (NNSs) and NSs with regard to the tools available to them in English for constructing cohesive academic texts. Annotated examples from the samples analyzed and specific teaching suggestions are provided to help FYC instructors address this knowledge gap.Item Open Access An analysis of the developing se passive construction with a por-phrase(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Rauch, Jacwylyn Laci, author; Delahunty, Gerald, advisor; Grim, Frédérique, advisor; Pedrós-Gascón, Antonio, committee member; Berry, Nancy, committee memberThis research proposes to characterize a particular type of se construction as a developing se passive construction with a por-phrase and attempts to address what linguistic niche it inhabits. The construction addressed has an argument as its subject that is the patient of the clause and a por-phrase that contains either an instrument or an agent that contributes to the event denoted by the verb phrase. In this paper, I give an overview of the different se constructions, followed by a discussion of voice. Next, I review literature on the passive and adopt a working characterization of the Spanish passive. I then look at development of the passive over time and the constraints typically associated it. For this research, I use a corpus to get a data set of fifty entries that I analyze qualitatively and compare using simple percentages. Those data entries are then analyzed using three separate analysis tools that were adapted from Hopper and Thompson's transitivity categorization and Dowty's Proto-Agent Properties. Those tools allow me to develop theories on the niche that the developing se passive with a por-phrase inhabits with respect to the periphrastic passive. This research suggests that the developing se passive construction with the por-phrase fills some gaps left by the periphrastic passive. For that reason, it does not seem unlikely that the developing se passive construction with a por-phrase will become more common over time. Whether or not it will become a part of every variety is yet to be seen, but at the very least it is becoming a part of some varieties.Item Open Access English information packaging constructions in Vietnamese students' essays(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Nguyen, Nhat, author; Delahunty, Gerald, advisor; Becker, Anthony, committee member; Correa, Maite, committee memberMastering English information packaging constructions is essential for Vietnamese students in language departments in universities and colleges in Hanoi. Previous research on English grammatical constructions has focused on the analysis of the structure at word and sentence level. The present study aims to investigate the way Vietnamese students use English information packaging constructions (subject-dependent Inversions, clefts, passives, existentials, and extrapositions) in their essays. The study is intended to examine the structures the students used and the syntactic and pragmatic errors they made. The following research questions were addressed: "How do Vietnamese students use the five English information constructions which were taught in grammar lessons in their essays?" "What are the common syntactic and pragmatic errors they made while using these constructions?" Fifty first year students of Hanoi University participated in this investigation. A writing test served as the principal tool to collect data. The results show that the students used passive, cleft, existential, and extraposition structures, but they did not use the subject-dependent inversion construction in their writing. The results also show that the students made a small number of syntactic errors; however, they made a wide range of pragmatic errors, probably on account of rather limited instruction on how to use these English structures pragmatically. These findings suggest that to help Vietnamese students use English grammatical constructions accurately and appropriately in various contexts, the inclusion of pragmatic features into the teaching and learning of English grammar is essential.Item Open Access Instrumental and integrative motivation among undergraduate Libyan students of English as a foreign language(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Zanghar, Ahmed, author; Delahunty, Gerald, advisor; Ehlers-Zavala, Fabiola, committee member; Feller, Rich, committee memberThe study examines instrumental and integrative motivations among undergraduate Libyan students of English as a foreign language (EFL). It investigates whether EFL Libyan students are instrumentally or integratively motivated to study English. The study also looks at the relationship between EFL Libyan students' motivation and their achievement in English. Forty Libyan students studying English as a foreign language at the College of Arts Bani Walid, Libya, participated in the study. The participants are in different levels of their four-year university program as ten students were chosen from each year. All of the participants completed a questionnaire that included 14 items reflecting their instrumental and integrative motivations for studying English. The questionnaire data was analyzed using SPSS version 21. The findings of the study showed that EFL Libyan students were highly instrumentally as well as integratively motivated to study English, and they their integrative motivation appeared to be a little higher than their instrumental one. These unusual results of the study were attributed to the Libyan students' interest in knowing more about the English-speaking peoples and learning about their societies and cultures, and that was due to the strong positive attitude Libyan students have had towards them. The findings also revealed that there was no relationship between the Libyan students' motivation and their achievement in English as a foreign language.Item Open Access Language variation in electronic text-based messages: the social differentiation of representing speech and orality in EMC(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Howe, Chris, author; Delahunty, Gerald, advisor; Cloven, Beth, committee member; Grim, Frederique, committee memberThis investigation presents a sociolinguistic interpretation of the extralinguistic factors that play a role in language variation among users of electronically-mediated communication (EMC). EMC scholarship routinely comments on the nature of written language use to represent speech and orality in EMC. Often the use of reduced colloquial variants to represent speech in EMC, such as gonna, ima, diz, etc., is associated with younger users and medium variables. Despite popular perceptions about language use in electronic environments, however, little is known about the extent to which age differentials and stylistic variations shape language use in EMC. Analysis of email and mobile phone text message data gathered from 33 participants between the ages of 18-38 indicates that the decision to represent speech and orality in EMC with the use of colloquial variants is not significantly correlated with younger participants. Instead, analysis of the data from 2,542 electronic text-based message (ETM) transmissions containing 47, 739 words reveals that only logographic features (e.g. acronyms and abbreviations) can be associated with age. The findings indicate that members of the oldest age group have retained the use of logographic features in their electronic encounters from the time when they were the most remarked feature in EMC. As with the dimension of stylistic variation, the level of formality appears to be the greatest indicator of language variation in EMC. The implications suggest that EMC scholarship needs to broaden its view of language use in ETMs regarding the use of informal variants. The practice of representing aspects of speech and orality may no longer be a phenomenon that can be primarily associated with medium variables or with teenagers and young adults.Item Open Access Learner-centered comparison study between American native speakers and Saudi English language learners in forming English requests and refusals in academic setting(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Alqarawi, Nahlah, author; Delahunty, Gerald, advisor; Becker, Anthony, committee member; Abdel-Ghany, Salah, committee memberNative speakers of a language may not consider cultural differences when performing speech acts which can lead to misunderstandings between people from different cultures. Therefore, this study investigates differences between Saudi Arabic learners of English and American English speakers in how requests and refusals are realized. Specifically, the goal of this research is to look at different factors that go into forming a request or a refusal such as formality, social status, and scale of directness. Using a Discourse Completion Task, this study examined the significant differences between American Native Speakers (n=15) and Saudi Native Speakers (n=15) to explore the frequency of request and refusal strategies. Overall, findings in the study resulted in statistically significant differences in participant's requests. It was also found that ANSs used significantly more requests than did SNSs. Additionally, ANSs used way more sub-strategies than did SNSs. For refusals however, no statistically significant difference was found. There was a wider use of refusal strategies by SNSs; ANSs used certain refusal strategies more extensively. Some implications for the findings include identifying authentic requests and refusals selected from an American academic spoken corpus or by role plays with hypothetical request and refusal situations.Item Open Access Stress and vowel reduction by Korean learners of English(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Park, Ha Lim, author; Delahunty, Gerald, advisor; Marques, Luciana, advisor; Knarvik, Nyssa, committee memberWith regard to teaching a second language, it has been controversial what a language teacher should focus on in developing intelligibility versus native-like production. Having a foreign accent is unavoidable for late second or foreign language learners because it becomes harder to acquire and produce the native-like pronunciation in a second language, essentially because older learners already have a well-established first language, which mediates the acquisition of a second language. A consequence of this mediation is negative transfer from the L1 to L2, which occurs because of phonological system differences between the L1 and L2, influencing language learners on their production of segmental and suprasegmental aspects of pronunciation. The purpose of this thesis is to examine patterns of vowel reduction in Korean accented English, with the goal of finding pronunciation issues in the English for Korean learners that might be due to transfer effects from an acoustic-phonetic standpoint. In terms of methodology, a corpus linguistics approach is used since the corpus approach enables access to a sufficient amount of digitized recordings of the participants easily and economically. Scripted recorded speech samples from native English and Korean speakers of the Wildcat Corpus which was shared by Ann Bradlow from Northwestern University (Bradlow, n.d.) were used for data analysis. The data analysis will be divided into two parts. One is focused on the duration ratios of the unstressed vowels produced by Korean and English speakers, and the other is focused on the formant values of the unstressed vowels. Results showed that the duration ratios of the unstressed vowels produced by Korean speakers were bigger than native English speakers, indicating that Korean speakers do not reduce the unstressed vowels as English speakers do. Also, there were discrepancies in the qualities of the unstressed vowels between native Korean and English speakers although the formant values were very similar. Korean speakers tend to assimilate English unstressed vowels into similar vowels in their vowel inventory and produce them as full vowels. Therefore, vowel reduction does not occur by Korean speakers of English in the same way as native English speakers do, consequently it causes Korean accented English. Based on the literature review related to the hypotheses and the findings of the current study, pedagogical suggestions will be provided regarding suprasegmental instruction that might help Korean learners of English to be aware of spoken English stress patterns focusing on vowel production that strongly relates to the intonation in English.Item Open Access The production of English vowels by native Arabic speakers(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Alqarni, Hanan, author; Delahunty, Gerald, advisor; Holland, Cory, advisor; Hirchi, Mohammed, committee memberWhen Arabic learners first delve into the English language, they may find many difficulties in pronunciation due to the fact that there are vast differences between English and Arabic, especially regarding the number of vowels and their acoustic realizations. Very few studies have investigated this area of English language acquisition. The aim of this study is to examine the production of English vowels by Arabic speakers and to examine if there are gender differences in the production of English vowels by Arabic English learners. By using the phonetic software Praat, the values of duration and formant of vowel sounds was measured and obtained. English vowels produced by the subjects were recorded and analyzed using Praat, and were compared to results from a research project looking at English native speakers in Colorado. Since the participants were exposed to English and had lived in Colorado, USA, differences in vowel production were discussed and an analysis was conducted. The result of this study displayed that there are significant differences between Saudi ELLs and Colorado English native speakers in almost all the vowels. In addition, this study revealed the significant role of gender and regional dialect in producing English vowels by Arabic speakers.