Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2025, Interdisciplinary Programs

Literature is known to reveal not only the power and versatility of language but also the emotions, meanings, and social contexts intertwined within both the culture and the language. Literature highlights the author's insights and understanding of society by showcasing how language is performed in social contexts. Using a novella as a corpus, this thesis examines how the characters in Geling Yan's White Snake use language to construct their individual gender identities. In Standard Chinese, there are particles called sentence-final particles (SFPs) (句末语气助词) that are placed at the end of utterances to convey speaker's intentions, emotions, cognition, stance, and attitude to what is being said. At times, sentence-final particles contain grammatical functions while other times, they do not. For example, the sentence-final particle 呢 ne in truncated questions (你呢? Ni ne What about you?) has a grammatical function. Yet, in question word questions (WH-questions) (你为什么不去呢? Ni weishenme bu qu ne Why aren't you going?), sentence-final particle 呢 ne does not have a grammatical function. In recent studies, scholars have researched the social meanings of sentence-final particles have found that excessive use of sentence-final particles has been linked to the expression of ‘feminine speech.' In contrast, less use of sentence-final particles, among other factors, is attributed to masculine speech. In Geling Yan's 1999 novella White Snake (Baishe 白蛇), her two characters, Sun Likun and Xu Qunshan, use language and their bodies to construct their gender identity. Both Sun and Xu are born females, but Xu cross-dresses as a man and in doing so, utilizes stereotypical nuances of masculine language to be recognized and acknowledged as a powerful man. In contrast, Sun embodies the feminine ideal not only through her dancer body but through her playful language. To perform femininity, Sun implements many sentence-final particles into her speech whereas Xu Qunshan rarely uses s (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2025, EDU Teaching and Learning

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the EFL university teachers' language ideologies and practices towards World Englishes (WE) in English language teaching in the Indonesian university context. This study also aimed to reveal how the teachers' stated language ideologies aligned or misaligned with their teaching practices. This study involved eight teacher educators from teacher education universities in Indonesia. Data were collected through a three-series of interview and video recordings of English lesson. A qualitative data analysis was employed to analyze the data. The findings are presented thematically from the perspective of language ideologies and World Englishes as theoretical frameworks. The findings suggest the complexity of multiple practices and ideologies surrounding World Englishes in relation to English language teaching. First, the study revealed the teachers' practice of correcting students' pronunciation. The study also revealed that the majority of teachers employed American English variety in their pronunciation when speaking English in the classroom. At the same time, some teachers also demonstrated that they used their own localized pronunciation features in pronouncing English words. Second, the findings suggest the ideology of native speakerism, standard English language ideology, and the favouritism for American English and British English. Teachers in general have a deep-rooted ideology of native speakerism with a widely shared aspiration for native speakers' variety of English rather than World Englishes where they believe in the privilege of native speakers of English and native English as superior to those who speak it as a second, foreign, or an additional language. Native English is also considered as a legitimate, best models and a target variety of English for learning English. The teachers also believe that standard varieties of English exist and they referred to native English varieties. The participant (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2025, East Asian Languages and Literatures

This study analyzed nau, a Japanese internet slang, examining its syntactic and semantic differences from ordinary temporal adverbs. We hypothesized that nau indicates speech time, while other temporal adverbs denote event time, and that nau has a wider syntactic scope. The hypothesis was tested in a survey experiment with an acceptability judgment task, which included various sentence structures with different tenses and aspects. Results partially supported the hypothesis, with only specific sentence types being accepted. As participants' background and their acceptance tendency did not show any correlations, it was concluded that the nau and other temporal adverb combinations are generally perceived as unnatural and unacceptable, and only the sentence with nau at the sentence final position is regarded as having a wider syntactic scope as a speech time marker. Given this, we suggest that nau is a grammaticalized sentence-final particle that indicates the vivid moment of the speech time.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2025, Spanish

Las lenguas no son solo sistemas de comunicacion, sino tambien vehiculos culturales que reflejan las identidades de sus hablantes. En un mundo cada vez mas globalizado, el contacto linguistico es cada vez mas comun; lo que en ocasiones genera cambios en los idiomas e incluso puede llevar a la desaparicion de algunos. En el contexto de contacto linguistico, especialmente entre el espanol y el ingles, se han dado fenomenos como el llanito en Gibraltar y el spanglish en Estados Unidos, concretamente en este estudio el enfoque se centra en la zona norte de Nuevo Mexico. Esta tesis analiza ambos casos desde una perspectiva sociolinguistica, explorando como en las comunidades de ambos territorios, debido al contacto linguistico, se han desarrollado formas hibridas de comunicacion y los procesos de estigmatizacion que han tenido que enfrentar. Para conducir el estudio se han utilizado conceptos como la identidad, la teoria del translenguaje y el tercer espacio para comprender estas dinamicas. A traves de la comparacion de ambos contextos se observa que estas formas de hablar no son excepcionales, sino que son parte de una realidad global en la que todos los usuarios de la comunicacion translenguan e indexicalizan sus multiples identidades. Comprender el translenguaje y su papel en el mantenimiento y revitalizacion de las lenguas minoritarias y minorizadas, puede ayudar a evitar su desaparicion. Por tanto, este trabajo no solo describe las realidades linguisticas y culturales de las zonas de estudio, sino que aboga por la defensa y la proteccion de las mismas.

Doctor of Education (Educational Leadership), Youngstown State University, 2024, Department of Teacher Education and Leadership Studies

Teachers are committed to meeting the individual needs of their students, and despite challenges such as a lack of preparedness and formal training, they rose to the occasion and adapted to provide remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study contributes to the existing literature on the impact of COVID-19 on students, with a specific focus on those identified with special needs. As a survey-based research study, it aimed to gather insights from educators regarding their efforts to provide remote instruction for these students using Universal Design for Learning (UDL). The results of the study indicate that there were no significant associations between remote learning and grading leniency or student outcomes nor between systemic inequities (e.g., digital divide) and student outcomes. The application of UDL principles, based on reported training levels, showed no significant associate with modified teaching approaches or student outcomes. Additionally, UDL's impact on diverse learners did not yield significant improvements in academic outcomes. Lastly, while teachers reported mixed perceptions of their efficacy during and post-pandemic, no significant statistical associations were found. Overall, while educators adapted and responded to the challenges, the study found limited statistical significance regarding academic outcomes.

Doctor of Education (EdD), Wright State University, 2024, Leadership Studies

This dissertation focused on a novel improvement to the current method for adapting assessments into American Sign Language (ASL). Bilingual Deaf adults participated in back translations across the United States, and those back-translation decisions were assessed by human experts to judge similarity in meaning. Translations were compared to original text samples using two types of Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) models to compute semantic textual similarity (STS) scores, and to calculate weighted Youden Index (WYI) Scores. These scores were used to determine the ideal cutoff to be used when making judgments and compared to human expert decisions. The results revealed that WYI scores calculated using the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) model performed best and effectively predicted expert decisions for 25% of items, thus substantially reducing the need for human review for many items. These results suggest that while there is great promise for using these methods to reduce cognitive load for back-translation tasks, there is still a crucial need for human attention in such tasks. This research points to the potential of machine learning for streamlining the creation of ASL assessments and increasing accessibility for the Deaf community. However, it also underscores the essential role of human experts in ensuring accuracy and cultural sensitivity. While future advancements in machine learning may one day replicate similar human capabilities, a combination of technology and skilled professionals remains crucial for bridging these communication gaps and providing equitable access to services for Deaf individuals.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, EDU Teaching and Learning

To address the language shift and potential loss of ethnic languages and regional dialects in China, and to explore the dynamics of multilingualism among ethnic minority students in rural areas, this ethnographic study examined the language use, functions, and ideologies of two Miao students and two Dong students attending a suburban boarding middle school in Jinping County, Guizhou Province. These students, known as Liushou Ertong, live with grandparents and siblings in villages while their parents work in large coastal cities for better job opportunities and higher incomes. The students possess rich linguistic repertoires, being able to speak Putonghua (Mandarin, the medium of instruction at school), Jinpinghua (the regional Han Chinese dialect), Miao or Dong (their ethnic languages), and English (an important subject at school) with varying proficiency. Given the importance of school interactions in shaping the students' multilingualism, the study investigated their language use and functions at school, as well as their language ideologies toward Putonghua, Jinpinghua, Miao, Dong, and English. Based on participant observations over six months, three rounds of individual interviews, and collected written, painted, and electronic artifacts over two years, the study found the following: (A) The four students predominantly used Putonghua in both formal and informal settings at school, sometimes using Jinpinghua. Ethnic languages were only used informally within small co-ethnic groups, and English was seldom used outside of English class. In addition, the two Dong students occasionally helped their Dong history teacher, Mr. W, by translating his expressions from the Dong language to Putonghua for their classmates. Another noteworthy observation is that the Dong students, despite having limited exposure to Jinpinghua prior to attending middle school, gradually acquired this dialect through interactions with their peers. (B) The students used language varieties oth (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, EDU Teaching and Learning

Abstract Using Self Study in Teach Education (S-STEP), this research examined the ways in which my utilization of Linguistic Landscape (LL) as a pedagogical tool contributed to developing teacher candidates as future educators. In doing so, this study aims to highlight the use of LL as an effective pedagogical tool for developing Critical Multilingual Language Awareness (CMLA) and curriculum development, while recognizing the role of the teacher educator in fostering that development. This study was conducted in a 16-week Instructional Planning and Advocacy for Multilingual Learners course at The Ohio State University. The main sources of data were teacher educator and teacher candidate self-reflections. A combination of thematic and axial coding was used to analyze and interpret the reflections. Findings demonstrate that working with the LL developed teacher candidates' CMLA through fostering their knowledge of languages, awareness of plurilingualism, and knowledge that language is socially created and changeable. Additionally, working with the LL developed teacher candidates' knowledge of curriculum creation and alignment. Utilizing S-STEP explored the role of the teacher educator, highlighting connection points used to transfer CMLA and curriculum knowledge to teaching contexts. S-STEP is necessary for bridging the gap between developing individual knowledge base and experience in the LL and transferring that knowledge to future classrooms.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Linguistics

Sociolinguistic variationism has contributed much to our understanding of identity and identity construction, including with respect to gender, showing that identity is not simply one's self-identification but constructed through sociolinguistic elements including indexicality and style. However, much research on sociolinguistic style and indexicality within variationism has studied fairly homogenous populations of language users, and even variationist language and gender research has focused primarily on speakers with only one degree of separation from the unmarked white, straight, middle class, cisgender norm (i.e., gay, cisgender white men), leaving open questions about the application of the social meaning of variables to those whose identities place them more than one degree outside of this norm. Though it is known that social meaning is shaped in the interface between production and perception within variationist sociolinguistics, little work has integrated the two, especially for marginalized speakers. Since racialized and gender non-conforming speakers must rely in large part on normative social meanings of sociolinguistic variables in order to construct their non-normative identities, ideology, power, and identity at the production-perception interface impact how these individuals navigate the sociolinguistic landscape. This dissertation thus explores how ideology and power manifest in the sociolinguistic identity construction of Black and white nonbinary speakers through both qualitative and quantitative analyses of both sociolinguistic production and perception, questioning the semiotic tools that these individuals use for resistance to hegemonic gender norms, with a focus on fronted /s/, a variable robustly tied to gender in previous work. The first study uses qualitative, grounded theory analyses of interviews with twenty Black and white nonbinary speakers to develop a picture of the styles that these individuals orient to, situating them within grea (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Spanish and Portuguese

In this dissertation, I investigate speakers' awareness of contact-induced morphosyntactic phenomena, specifically focusing on speakers of the prestigious Spanish variety of Quito, the capital of Ecuador, located in the Andean region. Through a qualitative approach to data derived from interviews conducted with speakers of the Spanish of Quito of the social elites, in this research I examine what and how they articulate their awareness of the Kichwa-Spanish contact, with Kichwa being the minoritized indigenous language with the highest number of speakers in the Ecuadorian Andean region. I show that while speakers from the social elites acknowledge Kichwa's presence in the region and its lexical contributions, they overlook its profound impact on the morphosyntax of the Spanish variety they speak. Although the speakers display different levels of awareness of the distinctiveness of contact-induced morphosyntactic features of their variety, such as gerund constructions, they are unable to attribute their origins to the Kichwa influence. I contend that this inability stems from the perpetuation of racionlinguistic and prescriptive language ideologies established in the region since the colonial period. Evidence drawn from historical documentation, the curriculum of the Spanish Language Arts course within the K-12 educational system, and speakers' accounts reveal a systematic erasure of the role of language contact, enregistering morphosyntactic outcomes as incorrect linguistic forms. The case of the awareness of the speakers of the {\SpQuito} about the Kichwa-Spanish contact demonstrates the extent to which language ideologies have an effect on the different levels of awareness of language contact outcomes. In contexts with colonial legacies, these effects extend to the point of constraining speakers' awareness of the influence of indigenous languages on dominant languages, thus reinforcing the stigmatization and erasure of the indigenous languages and underminin (open full item for complete abstract)

MA, Kent State University, 2024, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Health Sciences

This thesis investigated the interplay between foreign accent and social judgments of stuttering with a particular emphasis on American-English monolingual and Arabic-English bilingual speakers. This project underscored the importance of linguistic diversity and how speech disorders and differences are perceived by native speakers of American English. The study aimed to uncover potential biases toward and challenges faced by Arabic-English bilingual non-native speakers who stutter. To do this, an experimental design was used to evaluate contrasting perceptions of stuttering among American-English and Arabic-English bilingual speakers. It was theorized that the foreign accent may intensify negative judgments towards stuttering, potentially due to linguistic prejudices or lack of exposure and potential additive effects associated with multiple out-group features (i.e., accent and stuttering). Findings contributed to the broader discourse on language, stigma, and inclusivity, highlighting the necessity for a more precise understanding of speech disorders and differences within multicultural contexts.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, East Asian Languages and Literatures

The goal of this study is to contribute to the field of Japanese pedagogy by examining how Japanese native speakers and learners of Japanese as a foreign language with American cultural backgrounds take stances in discussions in Japanese. As stancetaking is a fundamental human behavior (Du Bois & Karkkainen, 2012; Iwasaki, 2015; Kiesling, 2022), learners of foreign languages inevitably experience stancetaking moments in the target culture. Investigating stancetaking in the context of cross-cultural discussions is meaningful because the ability to negotiate in multicultural environments is critical in a world that aims to cooperate with people from different cultures (Jian, 2021). Although how native speakers of Japanese express opinions and manage confrontational moments have been studied by a number of scholars (e.g., Watanabe, 1993; Mori, 1999; Noda, 2004), how learners of Japanese manage disagreements from the perspective of stance and stancetaking have not been investigated yet. This study explores how native speakers of Japanese and learners of Japanese at different proficiency levels negotiate stances when they manage disagreements. The research question of this study is: How do native speakers of Japanese and learners of Japanese at various proficiency levels take stances when they face contrary opinions in discussions in Japanese? Based on the answers to this question, it further argues the difference between native speakers' and learners' stancetaking in discussions, the learners' acquisition process of stancetaking, and probes the effective ways to guide learners to take stances in discussions. To investigate stancetaking in discussions by Japanese native speakers and learners of Japanese, data were collected from one-on-one mock discussions, reflections of those discussions, and questionnaires from ten subjects: two native speakers and eight learners of Japanese who are in levels 3, 4, and 5, and beyond level 5 of Japanese courses in the university leve (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, EDU Teaching and Learning

In the context of English teaching and learning in China, monolingualism has been a predominant approach for decades, exerting a profound impact on students' language practices and ideologies. However, this monolingual approach has been challenged by the emergence of translingualism, which advocates for a more inclusive, flexible, and dynamic orientation to language learning and usage. Few studies have been conducted to explore students' language practices and ideologies from the perspectives of monolingualism and translingualism. An ethnographic case study was designed to address this gap by investigating the characteristics and affordances of three Chinese college students' translingual practices, their language ideologies manifested through these practices, as well as the effects of translingual ideologies on their second language learning. Building upon the review of existing literature on translingualism and language ideologies, data were gathered through multiple instruments over the course of 21 months, including observations in and out of the classroom, interviews, field notes, documents, and artifacts. Thematic analysis, employing both deductive and inductive reasoning, was used as the primary method of data analysis. The findings of the study reveal that these students engaged in numerous translingual practices with multiple purposes, heavily relying on their native language and strategically incorporating semiotic resources into their language practices, particularly in informal settings. The findings suggest that translingual practices can provide an inclusive space for students' linguistic flexibility, alleviate language learning anxiety, facilitate communication success, and shape their cultural identity. The most significant finding of this study pertains to the dynamic and fluid co-existence of student's monolingual and translingual ideologies. Under the influence of monolingual ideologies, they strived for standard grammatical structures (open full item for complete abstract)

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

This thesis argues for the training of volunteer instructors working in Japanese language and culture classrooms across Japan to become able use a performance-based pedagogical approach with the aim of improving the overall linguistic and cultural competency of foreign-born residents living in Japan in the interest of having them become full and equal participant members of their local communities. The pedagogical approach supported in this thesis seeks to directly connect the methods being practiced in Japanese language and culture classrooms in local communities to the ultimate aims of helping foreign-born residents become participant members of their communities as stated by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), among others (MIC, 2020; Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), 2023; Agency for Cultural Affairs (ACA), 2019). To accomplish this, this thesis will offer a model for a specific training workshop in which volunteer instructors can be introduced to and given example models of a performance-based approach to acquiring linguistic and cultural competency based off of the Performed-Culture Approach (PCA) (Walker & Noda, 2000), and in which volunteer instructors can be given opportunities to practice participating in performance-based lessons themselves, gaining first-hand experience and receiving detailed feedback from a presenter experienced in this pedagogical approach. The performance-based pedagogical approach proposed here aims specifically to address the underlying cultural and social assumptions of the learner and aims to afford interactional opportunities between the learners and instructors, which is understood to be necessary for their socialization into the local ways of behaving and communicating. Through lessons based around identifying the underlying elements of context (see Appendix A) that inform proficient speakers in combination with active emulation of video models, volunteer inst (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, EDU Teaching and Learning

Chinese, as a world language, has gained popularity in the U.S., specifically within K-12 education. However, the inclusion of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) learners is rarely addressed in Chinese world language education research. This dissertation explores the experiences of a group of fourth-grade CLD learners in a Mandarin Foreign Language in Elementary School (FLES) program situated in a Midwest urban magnet school. The school serves a minority population (majority Black and Hispanic) of about 83%. Specifically, the study explores the language ideologies of parents, teachers, and CLD students regarding their experiences and learning opportunities in the program from a raciolinguistic perspective. This study employed a case study method (Stake, 2005). Data collected included classroom observations, field notes, a collection of classroom artifacts, and recordings of two fourth-grade Mandarin classes for nine months, semi-structured interviews with five CLD parents, the Mandarin teacher, and 18 CLD students during the 2021-2022 school year. To further uncover how learners' linguistic and racial identities have influenced their language ideologies and learning experiences, three focal students were chosen. Drawing on discourse analysis perspectives (Martin & White, 2005; Wortham, 2006; Wortham & Reyes, 2015), key events across data sources were identified, transcribed, and coded to conceptualize CLD learners' diverse experiences in this program. The findings uncovered a diverse range of ideologies held by parents, teachers, and students towards the Mandarin program. Parents generally supported early language learning opportunities in elementary school. However, their conceptualization of Mandarin learning as a diversity-learning opportunity also varied. The Mandarin teacher's ideologies exhibited a mix of plurilingual and monolingual discourses. Her practices shaped the opportunities of her CLD students in various ways. While she demonstrated a c (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2023, Spanish

Este estudio examina las actitudes sociales sobre el dialecto rioplatense del espanol, especificamente el zheismo o la tendencia de hablantes rioplatenses de pronunciar el doble-l como una forma de [ʃ], [ʒ] o [z], de dos grupos de hispanohablantes: hablantes nativos de espanol y los que aprendieron espanol como segunda lengua. Este estudio investiga el zheismo a traves de una encuesta en linea con preguntas sobre edades, actitudes, facilidad de comprender e identificar. Se recopilaron los datos de 15 hispanohablantes nativos y 12 angloparlantes nativos del espanol como lengua extranjera. Se analizaron los datos con analisis estadistico hecho con herramientas de Qualtrics, Social Science Statistics y Microsoft Excel. Los resultados sugieren que el grupo de hispanohablantes nativos tienen actitudes mas positivas de dialectos diferentes del espanol en general, pero que el grupo de personas de espanol como una lengua extranjera tienen una conexion mas estrecha entre sus actitudes del habla rioplatense y del habla de fuera del area del Rio de la Plata.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Spanish and Portuguese

There has been some discussion about minority academics, the acceptance of the diversity of ideas, and the promotion of these ideas in an already set-up and strict colonial academic world. In order to better understand language production and the proposed writing strategies for Imbabura Kichwa, I analyze my positionality as an Indigenous academic and as a linguistic activist and speaker of the language of study. In this dissertation, I investigate language production in Imbabura Kichwa, the distinct ideologies of speakers of this language, and the effects of such ideologies in the writing process of Imbabura Kichwa from an insider perspective. There have been discussions of maintaining a pure and rigorous academic and scientific analysis of linguistic phenomena that does not allow space for a more ideological and insightful activism perspective. I argue that for minority scholars, such as myself, there is a (very) high probability that academic studies and activism can go hand in hand or that they cannot, in fact, be detached from the person or the research when discussing pivotal issues for the survival of the language I speak. In this specific situation, being an Indigenous scholar and speaker of Imbabura Kichwa, this analysis connects the data collected from speakers of Imbabura Kichwa, the language production in casual speech, variation according to sociolinguistic variables, and the goals as a community of speakers' desire for the language regarding the promotion of writing skills for a traditionally oral Indigenous language, connected to an activist, academic framework. This dissertation provides a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Imbabura Kichwa's current situation and its speakers' ideologies. The i data for this dissertation comes from three different sources: Personal experiences in the academic field and experiences in social spaces and working with community members, 50 semistructured sociolinguistic interviews, the ALEQ-3 language background q (open full item for complete abstract)

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.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2023, Spanish

La meta principal de este estudio fue investigar el efecto combinado de region y genero en la lenicion del fonema /tʃ/, asi como el posible efecto de la lenicion en la duracion de la fricacion. Se eligio dos noticieros, uno de Sevilla y uno de Panama. Se analizo un total de 12 reporteros, 6 de Sevilla y 6 de Panama. Para cada reportero, se analizo 20 palabras que contenian el fonema /tʃ/ entre vocales. Se analizaron 240 muestras de audios utilizando el Praat (Boersma Weenink, 2022). Se encontro que la duracion de la fricacion de [ʃ] era similar a la duracion de la oclusion mas la fricacion en [tʃ]. Ademas, el efecto de genero en Panama es significativo para la lenicion. Los reporteros en los noticieros de Panama produjeron mas el fenomeno de lenicion en comparacion a los reporteros en los noticieros de Sevilla. Especificamente, las reporteras de Panama produjeron los unicos casos de lenicion. Sin embargo, no se encontraron resultados estadisticamente significativos entre regiones.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2023, Instructional Technology (Education)

This quantitative study measures the intercultural sensitivity of first-generation college students. The subjects of the study participated by responding to a Qualtrics survey that incorporated an instrument called the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale along with added items regarding demographics, contact with international instructors, and exposure to other cultures. The study found that the majority of the first-generation college students who participated in the survey expressed very high levels of intercultural sensitivity but significant findings regarding variables that affected those scores were reported. There were limitations to this study that would encourage future investigation into improving the approach to gathering data regarding intercultural sensitivity. This topic is deemed relevant in that the study also determined that the majority of first-generation college students are likely to have a class taught by an international instructor and will therefore likely find themselves in intercultural spaces with high stakes on their intercultural communication skills. Due to the intercultural nature of higher education, further research into developing instructional technology in the form of training modules that could assist in preparation for intercultural communication could benefit students and instructors alike.