Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, Teaching and Learning

Training in spoken grammatical accuracy at professional levels in English teacher education programs to ensure teaching quality is a program component. However, English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher education programs typically do not focus on this area in Taiwan. The present research employed a pretest-posttest control group experimental design to investigate the effects of an explicit grammar teaching method on a group of English teacher candidates' spoken grammatical accuracy. The main purpose of the study was to investigate if the proposed teaching method would improve the teacher candidates' oral English proficiency with respect to grammaticality, and if so, to what extent? Moreover, in light of concerns that second language speakers' attention to accuracy may impaired their fluency, the research also studied if explicit grammar instruction would impair speaking fluency of the teacher candidates. The research site was the Children English Teacher Education Program housed within National Taipei University of Education. Thirty-six participants were randomly assigned to two levels of the treatment on English conditional structures for five sessions of grammar instruction. The instrument used to measure the participants' performance on the pretest and posttest was the one-on-one oral interview. The data was analyzed using the ANCOVA procedures, controlling for any initial difference between two study groups. The study findings suggested that grammar instruction could improve spoken grammatical accuracy of English teacher candidates in Taiwan, who are advanced English learners. In addition, the increased grammatical accuracy was not obtained at the expense of fluency.

Committee: Charles Hancock (Advisor) Subjects: Education, Language and Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, English

This project responds to disciplinary calls from within Composition Studies to take up socially just, linguistically just (Baker-Bell) pedagogies of “languaging” (Inoue). Specifically, it examines the potential for one integral, yet largely unaddressed pedagogical site for furthering such goals: grammar instruction. Through a two-stage, mixed methods study, I first analyze generalizable trends in contemporary grammar pedagogy and training practices through a national survey. I second evaluate receptivity to and potentials for developing and circulating anti-racist, liberatory grammar curriculum and training through a college-wide case study. Overall, my project seeks to examine the ways that Composition instructors and writing program administrators might understand, develop, and circulate grammar pedagogies in ways consistent with contemporary disciplinary ideologies on languaging. After articulating the exigency for the project in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 reports on a nationwide survey that was completed by over 130 Composition instructors across the U.S. on their grammar pedagogy training, attitudes, perspectives, goals, and practices. Out of findings that revealed the presence of both historically established pedagogies and an emergent, grassroots grammar pedagogy responsive to anti-racist perspectives, this chapter proffers an ideological framework for categorizing and understanding grammar pedagogies. This frames Stage Two of the project, which applies the framework as an administrative and analytical tool for localized curriculum development and training. Chapter 3 situates Stage Two's case study, which was a collaborative project between me and Linn-Benton Community College English faculty member Dionisia Morales. Chapter 4 discusses the results of our Feminist Writing Program Administration and critically pedagogies-based participatory action research, which supported Morales' project by surveying over 200 students, faculty, and staff, conducting 14 indi (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Beverly Moss (Advisor); Jonathan Buehl (Committee Member); Evonne Kay Halasek (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Curricula; Higher Education; Teaching

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2020, EDU Teaching and Learning

The role of grammar instruction and error correction in English language learning classrooms is a closely watched debate within second language acquisition (SLA) research. Additionally, research in teacher and student beliefs and preferences about grammar instruction also vary across studies and instructional contexts. However, second language learner beliefs are vital to explore due to correlation with proficiency, motivation, anxiety, and independent learning (Songhori, 2012; Loewen et al., 2009). This study considers what students recognize as grammar instruction in their learning experience and if it matches teacher perceptions of the organization of their grammar instruction. Additionally, it looks into learners' and teachers' preferences on the organization of grammar and their stated reasons behind these preferences. Using a questionnaire and field notes to inform lengthy exit interviews and later member checks, six major themes emerge from the data centered on student and teacher preferences beliefs. The findings from these themes suggest that learners and teachers preferred isolated FFI over integrated, although, both had conditions to this preference. In terms of oral error correction, there were differing beliefs among learners and teachers: students preferred teacher corrective feedback, while the teachers had more reserved views based on their beliefs about SLA theory and research. Furthermore, students were hesitant towards oral peer corrective feedback, while teacher participants had split views. Implications of the study include the necessity to factor in student demographics and the common instructional practices used within them, and student expectations into instruction choice. In addition, explanations of some integrated activities may be beneficial for students to understand their full potential. For teachers and learners, further research is needed to clarify the best evidence-based practices for teacher and peer grammar-related corrective feed (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Leslie Moore PhD (Advisor); Alan Hirvela PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; English As A Second Language; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1978, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Language

Master of Arts in English, Youngstown State University, 2011, Department of Languages

Over the years, many teachers have abandoned teaching grammar due to its inability to improve student writing. However, students are still being held responsible for the knowledge on state tests as well as in college. The problem of how to address the growing problem of grammar instruction in a more efficient and effective manner has been addressed by experts in the field, Constance Weaver, Jeff Anderson, and Harry Noden, who have been touting the benefits of in-context grammar instruction for years. In-context grammar instruction means to use student reading and writing to teach the conventions of grammar. This study investigates the effects of using this method of grammar instruction an inner-city charter school for 7th through 12th grade children with ADD, ADHD, and Asperger's Syndrome. This study used primarily qualitative data to show that students were more motivated to write and their attitude toward the act of writing was improved by this manner of instruction over the course of a year. In conclusion, while students showed minimal improvement in regards to mechanics, their content showed great improvement and students were more willing to attempt the process of writing, specifically drafting and revision. More research needs to be done with this method of grammar instruction, especially taught by teachers experienced with in-context grammar and over a longer period of time, to provide a more definitive answer about its effectiveness in teaching grammar.

Committee: Jeffrey Buchanan PhD (Advisor); Patricia Hauschildt PhD (Committee Member); Steven Brown PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Theory; Language Arts; Secondary Education; Special Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, Linguistics

This dissertation presents a formal theory of Serbo-Croatian grammar. The theory predicts acceptable form/meaning pairs for a substantial chunk of Serbo-Croatian. In particular, we analyze Serbo-Croatian declarative and interrogative main clauses, embedded clauses, a couple of different types of nominal modification, control and predication, as well pro- and encliticization. Linguistic expressions are represented as triples of typed terms, with each typed term modeling one of the following sets of properties of a linguistic sign: semantic (i.e. truth-conditional meaning), tectogrammatical (i.e. syntactic combinatorial properties), and, finally, phenogrammatical properties which specify the expression's linearization possibilities. The focus of our work is on word order in Serbo-Croatian, which is very free in some respects but extremely rigid in others. With phenogrammar and tectogrammar as distinct components, we can isolate word order problems from tectogrammatical and semantic combination, and state theory-internal phenogrammatical generalizations. This is particularly important for the analysis of 2P enclitics, whose placement cannot be adequately characterized tectogrammatically. The most elaborate component is phenogrammar. We postulate many different phenogrammatical types and modes of combination. This enables us to create islands of fixed word order, while still allowing free reordering of higher-level phenogrammatical objects. Of special significance are phenogrammatical terms which denote sets of strings. Such terms represent possible pronunciations of expressions which can be linearized multiple ways without a change in meaning. Essentially, we are modeling semantically insignificant reordering as phenogrammatical indeterminacy. Our choice of grammatical architecture is empirically motivated, but methodological in nature. This dissertation purports to show that a decent theory of Serbo-Croatian word order can be given in a framework which does disting (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Carl Pollard (Advisor); Brian Joseph (Committee Member); Michael White (Committee Member) Subjects: Linguistics; Logic; Slavic Studies

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2002, Linguistics (Arts and Sciences)

Research suggests that language learners taught with the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach tend to have trouble acquiring semantically less salient grammatical forms such as subject-verb agreement and past-tense markers. This paper describes an experiment in input enhancement which compares which of two sets of materials are better at teaching the past tense form of Spanish: Traditional CLT-compatible grammar materials, or input-enhanced software material in the form of a computer game. Forty-four high school learners participated in the experiment and test results indicated that participants of both instructional groups increased significantly in their ability to apply the target form correctly on three different test tasks. However, inter-groups differences were not statistically significant. It is concluded that computer games using input enhanced material are a valuable addition to the CLT curriculum. Recommendations for their inclusion are made as well as suggestions for future research on this topic.

Committee: Marmo Soemarmo (Advisor) Subjects: Language, Linguistics

MA, Kent State University, 2010, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

This case study aims to investigate a teacher's beliefs and actual practices regarding the instruction of grammar in ESL classrooms. The purpose of this research was three-fold: explore the relationship between the teacher's perceived beliefs and classroom practices; compare the interaction between the teacher and the two classes of students; and survey the students' learning satisfaction. The participating teacher was from the United States and had taught ESL classes for two years. The participating students were enrolled in the teacher's two sections of the same grammar course. Both classes consisted of lower-advanced level students. The first class had 28 male and 5 female students, while the second class had 22 male and 7 female students. The data collection included semi-structured interviews, participant observation, field notes, and questionnaires. The research revealed that twelve different beliefs were arranged from the concept of grammar to the ideal classroom practice. These beliefs include the role of grammar, the role of the instructor in grammar teaching, the methodology of grammar teaching, feedback, strategies between the two classes, and the teacher's difficulties in class. Most of the beliefs were transferred into the actual classroom practices, which were then categorized into nine approaches. The primary consistencies of teaching methodologies and the inconsistencies of techniques between the two sections were also defined and reflected in the students' satisfaction after the grammar course. The researcher discovered three possible factors that lead learners to successful grammar learning. One is the consistent relationship between the teacher's beliefs and classroom practices. Another is the consistency of the teacher's and the learners' beliefs and that his classroom practices have affected their learning motivation and beliefs. The last is how the teacher adjusted his classroom practices, which in turn helped the learners attain satisfaction.

Committee: Klaus Gommlich PhD (Advisor); Karl Uhrig PhD (Committee Member); Kristen Precht-Byrd PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: English As A Second Language

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1969, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2007, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2024, East Asian Languages and Literatures

The connective shi in Japanese makes a connection between reasons or between reasons and a conclusion. English-speaking learners of Japanese learn the connective shi through a variety of simple grammar instructions with a few examples, and they are often said to use it erroneously. Previous studies have explained how Japanese speakers use the connective shi, but few have compared the connective shi used by native speakers of Japanese and English-speaking learners of Japanese based on large-size conversation data. I used the International Corpus of Japanese as a Second Language (I-JAS) (Sakoda et al., 2020) to examine how native speakers and learners use the connective shi in the interview task about the same topics in the same amount of time. I found that both native speakers and learners used the connective shi equally well, providing reasons first and then giving a conclusion. However, when giving a conclusion first and then providing reasons, learners could not add reasons accurately with the connective shi compared to native speakers. I analyzed learners' errors and found that they made these errors due to coming up with more than one conclusion or providing wrong reasons for a conclusion. I propose that we can understand what learners are doing in those errors if we use Schiffrin's (1987) idea structure, which divides a paragraph into a position and supports. A position is the speaker's commitment to his opinion, and supports are the explanations of his commitment. I also propose that we can assist learners in explicit instruction. The instructor can explicitly present different patterns of the connective shi in the basic grammar rules with examples. After learners can use the explicitly presented information to identify a conclusion and reasons at the sentence level, they can organize the idea structure with the connective shi and other connectives at the paragraph level. They can express their opinions about debatable topics in the idea structure.

Committee: Etsuyo Yuasa (Advisor); Mineharu Nakayama (Committee Member) Subjects: Pedagogy

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2024, English

Research on utilizing students' existing linguistic skills in their first language (L1) to learn a second language (L2) through translanguaging has received considerable attention. However, there is hesitancy in Arabic schools to integrate Arabic into English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. Arabic-speaking teachers and students have mixed attitudes toward the presence of Arabic in English grammar classes, fearing potential interference with English proficiency. Although Arabic is used in these classes, it often happens informally or spontaneously due to a lack of planning. This issue is compounded by the absence of instructions on incorporating Arabic in English grammar textbooks and teachers' limited understanding of how to utilize students' prior knowledge of Arabic grammar through pedagogical translanguaging to understand English grammar concepts. Consequently, students' full linguistic potential remains overlooked. To address this gap, five translanguaging grammar exercises have been developed, aligning Arabic and English grammar concepts. These exercises aim to enhance metalinguistic awareness among Arabic-speaking students, moving beyond traditional grammar translation methods to incorporate culture and facilitate comprehensive language learning.

Committee: Jennifer Haan Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: English As A Second Language

PHD, Kent State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

This study examines the potential effects that direct language-level instruction has on the metalinguistic awareness of students who were enrolled in stretch and co-requisite courses at two four-year, public universities. Informed by a functional view of language, the instruction made explicit the connections between conventional language-level features and the related socio-rhetorical practices of academic discourse and provided metalanguage for students to describe these connections. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participating students to determine the extent to which the metalanguage from the instruction aided their ability to articulate their awareness of these connections. A comparative analysis of students' writing samples was also conducted to examine students' use of linguistic patterns conventional of academic discourse. The findings suggest that the instruction cultivates a metalanguage that helps students verbalize their metalinguistic awareness in addition to developing students' facility to use the conventional discourse patterns valued in academic argumentation.

Committee: Jennifer Cunningham (Committee Chair); Patricia Dunmire (Committee Member); Derek Van Ittersum (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Linguistics; Literacy; Rhetoric

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2023, Engineering and Applied Science: Computer Engineering

Due to the limitations of currently available benchmarks, evaluating applications in the field of hardware security poses significant difficulties. The small size, lack of scalability, and rigidity of these benchmarks hinder comprehensive assessments. This thesis seeks to resolve these limitations by demonstrating the effective adaptation of attributed graph transformation systems for the automated generation of synthetic benchmark circuits. These circuits are designed to satisfy a number of structural constraint specifications. Using existing benchmarks, this study also emphasizes the adaptability and scalability of the proposed methodology. By extracting and utilizing frequently occurring subcircuit patterns from these benchmarks, the generated circuits can encapsulate the essence of actual designs. This thesis provides a comprehensive description of its methodology. The methodology is applied to exisiting benchmarks and real-life designs to extract subcircuit patterns and generate synthetic benchmarks. To demonstrate the usefulness of the generated circuits, the thesis concentrates on their application in hardware security, particularly trojan insertion and detection. The experimental evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness of the generated circuits in detecting and mitigating trojans. This thesis contributes to the field of hardware security by overcoming the limitations of current benchmarks and providing a systematic approach for generating synthetic benchmark circuits. The adaptability and scalability of the proposed methodology opens up new areas for comprehensive evaluations and enables researchers to investigate novel solutions in this vital domain.

Committee: Ranganadha Vemuri Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Wen-Ben Jone Ph.D. (Committee Member); John Emmert Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Engineering

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2023, Speech Pathology and Audiology

Anguilla is a small Eastern Caribbean Island where a dialect called Anguillian English (AnE) has been spoken since the 17th century. Today, speakers of AnE use unique morphosyntactic features that differ from Standard English (SE). The purpose of this study was to analyze the language samples of ten AnE speakers using a synchronic, token-based approach to calculate the dialect rate of each speaker, elucidate the salient morphosyntactic features of AnE, investigate across- and within-speaker variation, and assign each participant a place along the creole continuum. The results indicated that in AnE, copula and auxiliary linking verbs “to be” may be variably realized. The habitual aspect may be expressed through use of “does” or “does be.” Plurality may be indicated through suffixation of plural -s or with “dem/them” as a post-nominal plural marker. “Dem/them” may also be used as a third person plural subject pronoun. Variation in these features was observed across the ten language samples. The total number of dialect features demonstrated by participants ranged from zero to 53 overall. Based on dialect rate, three participants appeared to speak an acrolect, three participants appeared to speak a mesolect, and four participants appeared to speak a basilect of Anguillian English.

Committee: Amber Franklin (Advisor) Subjects: Linguistics; Sociolinguistics; Speech Therapy

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2022, Computer Science and Engineering

The internet and mobile devices allow us to consume digital data at every corner. We also encounter data in the real world between these interactions with the virtual world. When we see movie posters, pass street signs, or fill out a medical form, we observe data in the real world instead of the virtual world. The rise of augmented reality (AR) technologies allows us to consider how we can improve interactions with this real-world data. For example, consider a restaurant-goer who wishes to find which items are popular on the menu they are looking over. Currently, the person must look up the ratings online themselves. In this thesis, we propose methods that enable the person to view the menu with their mobile device and query for the menu item ratings by interacting directly with the real-world view of the menu. The work in this thesis enables systems that capture real-world data through an AR device, enhance the real-world data with data from remote sources, and allow a user to query real-world data in augmented reality interactively. The first part of this thesis describes a visual querying grammar and the implementation of a system for querying tabular data in the real world. The second part of this thesis showcases a declarative framework for developing applications that join real-world data with data from remote stores.

Committee: Srinivasan Parthasarathy (Advisor); Arnab Nandi (Advisor) Subjects: Computer Science

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2021, Musicology

Dance is famously ephemeral, and historians of dance must therefore grapple with an astounding number of gaps and uncertainties in the historical record. Often, researchers focus their attention on cultural context, reception history, or the musical score of a dance as the best ways to get close to a choreographic work that has not survived. I propose an alternative approach that centers on the theoretical frameworks that shaped these works. Through an exploration of technologies of representation that were used to record dance in France between 1852 and 1912, including notation, scientific graphs, photography, and film, I demonstrate how dance theory interacted with broader historical discourses concerning representation, temporality, and the body. Attempts to record dance, I argue, reveal how dancers, theorists, and choreographers situated their art in the context of these developments. I also show how methods of dance notation can be taken as a part of a larger history of media and representation in the years around 1900. Chapter One examines three texts that interlock to strengthen our understanding of the world of dance theory and notation: Arthur Saint-Leon's La Stenochoregraphie, which was re-imagined decades later in Friedrich Albert Zorn's Grammatik der Tanzkunst and Enrico Cecchetti's Manuel des exercises. Stepanov notation, the subject of Chapter Two, turned away from the fashioning of dance theory as grammar. Author Vladimir Ivanovich Stepanov justifies his methods through reference to the ideas, words, and inventions of two French scientists, the neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and Etienne-Jules Marey, champion of graphical representation. In Chapter Three, I consider the role of cinematic technologies as a medium used to record dance in the first twenty years of its existence. A case study, the comic film Le Piano irresistible (1907, dir. Alice Guy Blache) illustrates my arguments concerning dance, silence, and humor. I conclude in Chapter Four with (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Francesca Brittan (Advisor); Susan McClary (Committee Member); Daniel Goldmark (Committee Member); Andrea Rager (Committee Member) Subjects: Dance; Film Studies; History; Music

Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 2021, Communication Disorders

In English, there are three -s related morphemes that are represented by the same “s” grapheme but acquired at different rates in child grammatical development: plural -s, possessive -s, and third person singular present tense -s (3s). There were two goals of this investigation. The first was to explore acoustic conditions of 3s in adult speech to further explain its challenging acquisition compared to non-morphemic, plural -s, and possessive -s. The second goal was clinically driven and sought to recommend salient acoustic environments for speech-language pathologists to consider in their selection of treatment targets. Participants were native English speaking adults recruited from Bowling Green State University's campus (N = 9). Speech samples were collected of participants reading sentence stimuli that methodically controlled various contextual factors. Duration boundaries of 80 -s related morphemes per participant were labeled prior to analyses. Descriptive statistics were reported and linear mixed models were used to determine significant interactions between morpheme type, phoneme category, and sentence position for both duration and center of gravity measures. Results revealed 3s has a shorter duration than non-morphemic when in sentence-medial position and also experiences a lower CoG than non-morphemic when in sentence-final position. Lexical and grammatical factors are suspected to contribute more prominently than acoustics in explaining why 3s is difficult to acquire; however, these notable acoustic findings can be implemented by SLPs when creating treatment targets for grammar intervention.

Committee: Colleen Fitzgerald Ph.D., CCC-SLP (Advisor); Brent Archer Ph.D., CCC-SLP (Committee Member); Jason Whitfield Ph.D., CCC-SLP (Committee Member) Subjects: Acoustics; Language; Speech Therapy

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Wright State University, 2019, Computer Engineering

Human brain analysis and understanding pose several challenges due to the great complexity of the structural organization and the functional connectivity that characterizes the human brain. The ability of the brain to adapt in dynamic changes over time such as normal aging, neurodegenerative diseases or congenital brain malformations renders the brain's exploration a particularly demanding and difficult task. In recent years, advances in brain imaging modalities and lately the multimodal fusion, combined with improvements in related technologies have greatly assisted the development of brain maps by providing insights regarding the overall brain structure and functionality. Even though the existence of sensory and motor maps for the human brain is known to some degree, the formation process is still subject to research. Electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are the two mostly used non-invasive brain imaging modalities that can track the changes in brain activity. Due to their complementary nature, high temporal resolution from EEG and high spatial resolution from fMRI, the fusion of simultaneous acquired EEG and fMRI recordings aims to provide complementary information about the brain functionality. In an effort to extend the current research in the field of brain understanding, a novel Brain Mapping Model (BMM) based on EEG and fMRI is proposed within this Ph.D. dissertation. The proposed BMM is based on the synergy of state-of-the-art computational techniques to associate the brain regional activities provided by the EEG-fMRI fusion. In more details, first, a novel formal model for the EEG signals' representation is proposed. The proposed formal model enables the analysis and extraction of structural EEG features. The proposed method is based on the Syntactic Aggregate approXimation (SAX) algorithm, that in this work is improved by the Local-Global (LG) graph technique, to compose a Context Free-Grammar (CFG). Moreover (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Nikolaos G. Bourbakis Ph.D. (Advisor); Soon M. Chung Ph.D. (Committee Member); Bin Wang Ph.D. (Committee Member); Konstantinos Michalopoulos Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Engineering

Master of Arts, Case Western Reserve University, 2019, Cognitive Linguistics

The expression What are you waiting for? elicits two different meanings, either a request for information or a hortatory command. When the ground carries one of three triggers the hortatory meaning is achieved. These triggers are: conditional sentence, imperative sentence, and situational sentence. Each of these triggers sets up a mental space carrying an activity that can be acted upon. The emergent property of conceptual integration between the present speech act and the future mental space is a mental space carrying concepts of start and stop. The progressive construction is profiled by the blended mental space evoking a hortatory meaning. Therefore, the hortatory meaning of this expression is to stop waiting and start doing. This thesis presents a construction grammar analysis of What are you waiting for? as a special interest star case of the Wh+Progressive construction. To that end, the Wh+Progressive construction is presented in the analysis and triggers that prompt the hortatory meaning are delineated.

Committee: Mark Turner PhD (Committee Chair); Vera Tobin PhD (Committee Member); Todd Oakley PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Linguistics