Within instructed second language acquisition (SLA), Processing Instruction (PI) has enjoyed a rigorous research agenda for more than 15 years. Research comparing PI (with or without explicit information about a target linguistic structure) with either traditional, production-based instruction (e.g., Cadierno, 1995; VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993) or meaning-based output instruction (e.g., Farley, 2000; Morgan-Short & Bowden, 2006) has shown that PI activities are as good as, if not more effective than, other types of instruction. The effectiveness of PI has been attributed to the way in which PI seeks to alter learners' non-optimal input processing strategies via structured input (SI) activities for the creation of richer intake data (Sanz & Morgan-Short, 2004; VanPatten, 2004; Wong, 2004). However, to date no studies have compared SI with other types of input-based treatments to determine whether the effectiveness of SI is due to (a) altering learners' processing strategies, or (b) simply providing learners with meaning-bearing input. Therefore, this dissertation compares the effects of various input-based treatments (input flood, input flood + text enhancement, focused input, and structured input), along with a control group, on the interpretation and production of Spanish 3rd person accusative clitics. Participants included 290 adult learners enrolled in an intermediate Spanish course. Learners completed a pretest, a computer-based treatment, an immediate posttest, delayed posttest (3 weeks after treatment) and an extended delayed posttest (6 weeks after treatment). Assessment tasks measured both interpretation and production of accusative clitics. Results for the interpretation task revealed that although all treatment groups (except the control group) showed significant gains over time, only the SI group significantly outperformed the control group at the second delayed posttest. On the production measures, all input-based groups (except the control group) showed improvement; however, no significant differences emerged among the four input-based treatments. The findings for the production measures are not so straight forward; however all groups significantly improved or approached significance. The theoretical, methodological and pedagogical implications of these findings are discussed, along with limitations to the study and avenues for future research. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2008. / Date of Defense: May 19, 2008. / Input Flood, Processing Instruction, Input Processing, Second Language Acquisition, Linguistics, Text Enhancement / Includes bibliographical references. / Michael J. Leeser, Professor Directing Dissertation; Michael Kaschak, Outside Committee Member; Lara Reglero, Committee Member; Gretchen Sunderman, Committee Member.

This work explores the life of the Afro-German writer May Ayim by analyzing her writings as well as by discussing the social circumstances in which she lived. Chapter 1 provides a look at the Ayim's life, with special emphasis on major factors influencing her childhood. The effects of the personal as well as social pressures that Ayim dealt with as a child and young adult are also discussed. Chapter 2 focuses on the history of Afro-German children born shortly after World War II. Chapter 3 includes an explanation of Minor Literature and an examination of May Ayim as an author of such literature. Her importance as such is established. Due to Ayim's position outside the mainstream of German society social factors that greatly affected her life as a result of this situation are discussed in Chapter 4. These factors are: identity, culture, and ethnicity. In Chapter 5 Ayim's attempts to incorporate both the white and black aspects of herself despite the deeply rooted history of racism in Germany also discussed. Chapter 6 includes an examination of the toll that Ayim's familial and social experiences played on her feelings of romantic love, especially toward another Afro-German. In Chapter 7 there is an examination of the exhaustion that Ayim felt toward the end of her life. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2005. / April 1, 2005. / Blacks in Germany, Afro-deutsche, Afro-Germans, May Ayim, May Opitz / Includes bibliographical references. / Birgit Maier-Katkin, Professor Directing Thesis; Winnifred Adolph, Committee Member; John Simons, Committee Member.

Thesis--Tübingen. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 381-387) and index.

No description available.

This study is a synchronic descriptive analysis of the morphology of the Arabic dialect spoken by natives of the city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Hereafter, the dialect will be abbreviated 'DD' and also referred to as 'the dialect' or 'this dialect'. The central focus of this study is the morphological component of DD as it interplays with phonological processes. Definitions of words are provided in the form of English glosses and translations, and are elaborated upon when the need calls for it. Layout of Chapters. This dissertation is presented in the following order. Chapter one is introductory. The historical background of the Arabic language and Arabic diglossia are discussed in this chapter. In the same vein, four descriptive models that treat the development of the Arabic dialects are discussed. The present linguistic situation in the U. A. E. is also touched upon. The aim of this research process and the methodology followed in it are also explained in it. Additionally, chapter one contains a review of the literature on Gulf Arabic, of which DD is a dialect, or subdialect, and a review of related literature. Chapter two deals with the phonological system of DD. It covers consonants and vowels and their distribution, in addition to anaptyxis, assimilation, elision, emphasis, etc. Morphology is treated in chapters three through six. The morphology of DD verbs, including inflection for tense, number and gender, is dealt with in the third chapter. Because DD morphology is root-based, the triliteral root system, which is extremely productive, is explained in some detail. Chapter four deals with the morphology of DD nouns, including verbal nouns, occupational nouns, nouns of location, etc. Noun inflection for number and gender is also discussed in this chapter. The morphology of noun modifiers is treated in chapter five. This includes participles, relative adjectives, positive adjectives and the construct phrase. Pronoun morphology, and the processes associated with it, are covered in chapter six. The seventh chapter is the conclusion. It delineates the limitations of this study and contains specific comments on observations made in the process of this research. The contributions of this dissertation and suggestions for further investigation and research are also discussed in chapter seven.

Arriving as indentured laborers during the latter half of the 19th century, the East Indian diaspora in the French Caribbean occupies a marginal space in literary and critical writings emerging from this region. This diaspora, the majority of whom were recruited from Indian settlements under French possession at the time, constituted a cheap source of labor replacement for the plantation owners during the post-slavery epoch. Contracted to work for a minimum period of five years, these laborers, unlike African slaves, had the right to repatriate at the end of their service. For those who decided to stay in the already socio-economically and racially hierarchized French Caribbean society, it meant that they were then positioned de facto at the lowest echelon of the pyramid. The Indo-French Caribbeans’ historical and social marginalization coupled with their ethnic minority status – to date persons of East Indian descent account for approximately 15% and 3% of the Guadeloupean and Martinican populations respectively – bled into their non-recognition in literary and critical writings. Admittedly, canonical cultural identity paradigms shaping French Caribbean discourse – such as Négritude and Antillanité, which focus predominantly on the African diaspora or even Créolité, which, though paying more attention to “minority” cultures, subsumes cultural difference into a homogenous creole identity – results in the sidelining of the Indo-French-Caribbeans’ cultural and physical presence. In my dissertation, Locating Indianité: Representations of the East Indian diaspora in selected novels by Moutoussamy, Condé, Confiant, and Minatchy-Bogat, I analyze literary depictions of Indo-French-Caribbeans in five novels by both well known (Maryse Condé and Raphaël Confiant) and lesser-known (Ernest Moutoussamy and Arlette Minatchy-Bogat) authors. I specifically examine the writers’ treatment of the East Indian diaspora’s exilic experience, its cultural identity formation and interaction with the surrounding cultural diversity characteristic of the French Caribbean to call into question and revise existing cultural identity models. I, therefore, examine the following questions in my dissertation: How does the East Indian diaspora in the French Caribbean add to or destabilize prevailing identity paradigms and processes such as Créolité and créolisation? How do authors imagine the East Indian diasporic identity in the French Caribbean novel? What role does space play in constructing and/or situating the East Indian identity in the French Caribbean novel? How do authors of non-East Indian origin represent this community in their fiction? How do their representations remodel cultural identity paradigms to render them inclusive of Indianness? Where do their representations position the East Indian identity in the broader cultural identity framework of Créolité and créolisation at work in the French Caribbean? How do characters of mixed East Indian descent, specifically mixed race female characters, figure in this literature? How does the mixed race identity challenge exclusivist identity constructs based on race and color? The theoretical framework for this dissertation draws on Francophone and postcolonial scholarship and pays particular attention to studies on identity construction, exile, diaspora as well as hybridity. The dissertation will, additionally, consider race theory, spatial theory, feminist theory, and affect theory in order to place East Indian identity in relation to the already existing body of literary and critical works on identity construction in the French Caribbean. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2017. / July 18, 2017. / East Indian diaspora, French Caribbean literature, Indianité, kala pani narratives, postcolonial studies / Includes bibliographical references. / Martin Munro, Professor Directing Dissertation; Pat W. Williams, University Representative; Aimée M. Boutin, Committee Member; Jeannine Murray-Román, Committee Member; Corbin McKenzie Treacy, Committee Member.

Thesis (M.S.)--Central Connecticut State University, 2003. / Thesis advisor: Gloria Marie Caliendo. " ... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Spanish." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-92). Also available via the World Wide Web.

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Thesis (M.S.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 2008. / Thesis advisor: Matthew Ciscel. "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in TESOL." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-63). Abstract available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1927. / Published also as Teachers college, Columbia university, Contributions to education, no. 256. Vita.