Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, East Asian Languages and Literatures

This dissertation explores ways that home institutions —educational institutions that send their students to affiliated universities— can provide pedagogical support to maximize the learning experience of U.S. undergraduate students during yearlong education abroad (EdA) programs in Japan. The results of this dissertation suggest several features that are key to pre-EdA training. The most crucial is repeated experiential practice on inter-personal negotiations toward co-constructing a meaningful Third Space (Jian & Walker, 2017) that entails raising sensitivity to style-shifting strategies. Group, rather than individualized, format better maximizes the opportunities for negotiation. Also useful would be opportunities to hear the experience of students who have just returned from a yearlong EdA in Japan, focusing on their experience (or lack) of network building. The need for repeated practice entails that training occurs over a duration of time, such as a semester. The first phase of this research examined difficulties in building intercultural relationships that American students and local Japanese students experience in a short-term EdA program in Japan. Data collected through interviews and observation suggest that the two groups have gaps in their expectations about speech style when interacting with each other. In particular, U.S. students struggled in shifting their speech from formal to casual. Based on these findings a pre-departure training regimen was devised for students participating in a yearlong EdA program in Japan. The training focused on style-shifting skills to develop a relationship-building persona in a Japanese college setting. The second phase of the study investigated the outcomes and process of learning in yearlong EdA exchange programs. Of the seven undergraduate students who participated in this phase of the study, four went through the pre-EdA training, while the other three chose not to. Two proficiency tests and a microanalysis o (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Mari Noda (Advisor); Xiaobin Jian (Committee Member); Mineharu Nakayama (Committee Member); Quinn Charles (Committee Member) Subjects: Foreign Language; Linguistics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, Linguistics

This study investigates and compares the long and short term flexibility of participants' production and perception, by looking at the relationship between topic-based shifting, and second dialect acquisition. 97 participants in London, UK, and Columbus, OH, were recruited to participate in this study, and belonged to one of six categories: English expatriates living in the US, American expatriates living in the UK, English fans of American football, American fans of the English Premier League, and English and American controls. The study consisted of an experimental task followed by an interview. In the experiment, participants rotated between a reading and a listening task. In the reading task, participants read words containing three variables of interest (intervocalic /t/, non-prevocalic /r/, and BATH), across American and English themed topics. In the listening task, participants were played English and American speakers in noise, and were asked to transcribe what they heard. In the production data, we find evidence of second dialect acquisition for all three variables in American participants, including non-migrants with substantial second dialect contact. English participants, however, only show effects of acquisition for intervocalic /t/. I suggest, based on comments in the interview data of my participants, that this asymmetry may at least in part be due to the relative prestige of British and American English, which motivates one group of speakers to maintain, and one group of speakers to lose, their native dialects. We find a robust effect of topic on rhoticity for all speaker groups, and weaker effects of topic on intervocalic /t/ and BATH, that are carried by American fans and controls. Short and long term shifts between dialects do not show signs of being related, and a case can be made that there is actually a negative relationship between experience and topic-based shifting: we see more topic-based shifting in participants with the le (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kathryn Campbell-KIbler (Advisor); Cynthia Clopper (Committee Member); Mary Beckman (Committee Member); Donald Winford (Committee Member) Subjects: Linguistics