Developmental dyslexia is widely believed to be caused either mainly or in part by an impairment of phonological representations. Although this hypothesis predicts that individuals with dyslexia should show deficits in tasks which require the use of implicit phonological knowledge, this has not yet been directly tested, as the evidence cited in support of this hypothesis usually comes from metalinguistic tasks which demand explicit awareness of phonological units. Additionally, since the ability to perform metalinguistic tasks which involve phonological segments can be enhanced by an individual’s competence in alphabetic literacy, the possibility remains that phonological skills may have been inadequately isolated from the influences of literacy acquisition in many cases. The study reported in this thesis investigated both the representations and the metalinguistic skills of a group of adults with a history of developmental dyslexia, examining areas of phonology which do and do not have orthographic counterparts. To isolate phonological skills from orthographic skills, the representations of conventional segmental contrasts (e.g. /k/ vs /g/) were compared with the representation of suprasegmental contrasts (as seen in minimal pairs such as ′toy factory and toy ′factory), which have no orthographic counterpart. Basic metalinguistic skills were tested by means of a phonological awareness task targeting both segmental and suprasegmental units, and phonological manipulation skills were tested using a Pig Latin task and a Spoonerism task, where participants were required to manipulate both segmental and suprasegmental units (e.g. extracting the segment /b/ from consonant clusters and the main stress from SWW or WSW stress patterns). The results showed that although the performance of the dyslexic group was weaker than that of the control group when tasks required the manipulation of either the segmental or suprasegmental components of words, no evidence was found for a deficit in the tasks which drew on implicit representations or basic metalinguistic skills. These findings suggest that the phonological deficit in dyslexia may be restricted to the ability to manipulate phonological units rather than in the representation of them per se.

Metalinguistic awareness skills (i.e., phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, morphological awareness) contribute to children’s spelling as well as reading. Although the multidimensional nature of these metalinguistic awareness skills has been acknowledged, little research has been conducted on the simultaneous investigation of these three metalinguistic skills, and it is especially true for Korean Hangul. The purpose of this study was to simultaneously examine these three inter-related constructs and the unique and shared contributions of each construct to English spelling as well as Korean spelling of typically developing fourth, fifth and sixth grade Korean-speaking students (n= 287). Korean metalinguistic awareness skills represented by three-first order factors (i.e., phonological, orthographic, morphological awareness) predicted 83% of the total variance in Korean spelling, and 52% of the total variance in English Word Spelling. It was particularly noteworthy that Korean metalinguistic awareness skills determined 12% of the variance in English Word Spelling, even after controlling for English vocabulary, demonstrating that there was a transfer effect between the two different orthographies. Findings from the present study provide strong support for the relationships between first language and second language literacy skills in terms of spelling and the concrete relationship between morphological awareness and spelling.

The purpose of this master's project was to write a resource book that demonstrates how teachers can use data-driven learning methods to teach vocabulary. First, a brief overview of corpus linguistics, data-driven learning, and the corpus used in this book (COCA) is given. Then, the book presents different aspects of vocabulary learning in the context of a corpus. Topics included are frequency knowledge, part of speech knowledge, morphological knowledge, synonym knowledge, collocational knowledge, and register knowledge with a chapter on each topic. For each aspect of vocabulary learning there is a section that introduces the topic to the teacher, followed by instructions on performing topic related searches in the corpus. Each chapter also includes examples and ideas for application to the vocabulary classroom. Additional chapters provide information on individual language learning, and an evaluation of the project. The goal of this project was to provide teachers with specific knowledge of vocabulary and corpus-linguistics to be able to teach less-frequently addressed aspects of vocabulary instruction and to encourage more use of corpora in the language classroom. It is hoped that after reading this book, teachers will be able to improve their vocabulary teaching and ability to use the Corpus of Contemporary American English and DDL methods in the ESL/EFL classroom. The evaluation of this project will consist of teacher reviews of the book after reading. Specifically, the questionnaire addresses readers' feelings of increased knowledge and understanding of these areas and desire to use them in the classroom.

Metalinguistic awareness (MA) in the context of the present study is the ability to deconstruct and analyze a language's intricate systems, and by doing so, better understand how these systems work. More specifically for the present study, the investigation focused on preservice teachers' MA in relation to grammar and its importance for their future students' understanding of language. Language is at the core of any content area in students' academic lives and it will continue to permeate all aspects of their studies at all ages. As such, language-related issues should be at the front and center of preservice teachers' preparation. The present study, a quasi-experimental one-group pretest-posttest (Shadish, Cook & Campbell, 2002) investigated the metalinguistic awareness of preservice teachers who were enrolled in a face-to-face, undergraduate applied linguistics course at an urban research university in the United States. The metalinguistic awareness in the scope of the present study was directly related to the grammar knowledge of participants, and it was measured by an adapted instrument called ALAT. The results of the current study demonstrate that overall increase of MA is feasible (as attested by the results from research question 1). Nevertheless, further investigations (research questions 2, 3, 4, and 5) demonstrated that teachers' levels of metalinguistic awareness vary significantly. These results echoed previous findings that demonstrated that preservice teachers are not language-knowledgeable enough to deal with myriad issues that involve language, both in relation to students who are native speakers of English and also concerning ELs (Kolln & Hancock, 2005; Nutta et al., 2012; Pappamihiell, 2007). Preservice teachers' lack higher level metalinguistic awareness, as evidenced by their limited ability to explain grammar errors and use proper metalanguage while doing so. The main implication of the present study lies in the recommendation that more can and should be done in order to ensure that preservice teachers are receiving the appropriate amount of language-oriented preparation during their college years. The present study offers a confirmatory perspective to previous research findings which found that preservice teachers are not knowledgeable enough in relation to language. Previous studies also pointed out to this lack of preparation as a generator of feelings of inadequacy and anxiety in preservice teachers while foreseeing their future students' language struggles. Nonetheless, the present study also demonstrates that improvement can be achieved in regard to MA teacher preparedness in relatively little amount of time, especially for recognition of grammatical items such as parts of speech and parts of sentence. However, the findings demonstrate that more time is needed to ensure better results for complex grammar analyses such as explanation of grammatical errors.

No description available.

Research has shown that theory of mind tends to develop in typically-developing children at about the age of 4 years. However, language appears to play a great role in this, particularly as deaf children, particularly those born to hearing parents, display extreme delays in theory of mind development, while bilinguals have been found to develop at a somewhat faster rate than monolinguals. Additionally, effects of culture on theory of mind development remain somewhat unclear, as there have been mixed results in past research. Theory of mind has also been correlated with metalinguistic ability and executive functioning skills, leading to multiple hypotheses regarding what drives theory of mind development. The aim of this doctoral thesis was to examine the relationships between theory of mind, metalinguistic awareness, and executive functioning, as well as to evaluate how language and culture play a role in these relationships. Four studies were conducted in an attempt to seek answers to six research questions surrounding this aim. Study1 evaluated theory of mind, metalinguistic awareness, and executive functioning among hearing nursery children in Central Scotland. Study 2 was aimed at evaluating these same skills among deaf children in the U.S. and U.K., as well as developing a scaling of theory of mind abilities among deaf children. Study 3 assessed these skills among deaf Ghanaian children, as well as evaluating theory of mind abilities among a group of hearing Ghanaian children. Finally, Study 4 compared monolingual and bilingual children on theory of mind, metalinguistic awareness, and executive functioning. Results show that there is a strong link between theory of mind and metalinguistic awareness among hearing children that is not explained by executive functioning skills. This relationship was not apparent among deaf children, who struggle more with theory of mind than metalinguistic awareness. The deaf children in Ghana were delayed compared to their Western peers; hearing Ghanaian children were delayed compared to their Western peers as well, but only slightly. Bilingual children and monolingual children performed similarly on false belief and set-shifting tasks; however, monolingual children outperformed bilinguals on metalinguistic awareness and inhibition tasks, possibly due to low verbal mental age among the monolinguals. Results of the four studies suggest that language does play a part in the relationship between theory of mind and metalinguistic awareness. Due to limited data, cultural effects remain unclear. It is proposed that deaf children’s struggle with theory of mind stems from their difficulty with abstract concepts.

This dissertation probes children's metalinguistic awareness of syntactic ambiguity (as in the sentence The man is poking the monkey with a banana, where the PP with a banana can be understood in two ways, associated with either the monkey or the poking). Several studies suggest that children do not spontaneously detect syntactic ambiguity until the second grade (e.g., Wankoff, 1983; Cairns et al., 2004). However, syntactic ambiguity detection contributes to reading comprehension skills in second and third graders (e.g., Cairns et al., 2004; Yuill, 2009). This research suggests the hypothesis that syntactic ambiguity awareness should contribute to reading development. Specifically, the theoretical model known as the Simple View of Reading posits that the main components of reading are decoding and linguistic comprehension. Syntactic ambiguity detection could contribute to linguistic comprehension because it helps a listener to overcome comprehension difficulties caused by misinterpreting an ambiguous sentence. Thus, it is important to better understand the early development of syntactic ambiguity awareness. If its connection to reading begins younger than second grade, it might be incorporated into early reading curricula and intervention strategies, which are more effective when applied earlier. This dissertation includes three manuscripts that are or will be submitted for publication. The first manuscript reports on a study that laid the foundation for the following two by testing whether 3- to 5-year-olds access both interpretations of a syntactic ambiguity using a truth value judgment task. The results showed that children do entertain both interpretations, indicating that comprehension should not be an impediment to syntactic ambiguity detection. This study is currently in revisions at First Language (Zimmer, 2016a). The second manuscript reports on a study that tested whether 4- to 7-year-olds can detect ambiguous sentences using a task that differs from those used in previous studies. My study used a picture selection task that tested for conscious awareness by having children teach a puppet why multiple pictures could match one sentence. I developed a scoring system for children's explanations that allowed for more gradient measures of early ambiguity awareness than previous research. The results showed that a small proportion of 4- to 7-year-olds are aware of syntactic ambiguity, and many others are beginning to show indications of such awareness (e.g., they select both pictures but their explanations are not yet adult-like). This manuscript is submitted to The Journal of Psycholinguistic Research (Zimmer, 2016b).The third manuscript reports on a study that tested whether 6- to 7-year-olds can learn syntactic ambiguity detection and whether the learning correlates with improvement at reading readiness measures. Participants were divided into two groups: an ambiguity group that did four weeks of games to teach syntactic ambiguity detection, and a control group that did four weeks of math games. I found that children in the ambiguity group improved more at ambiguity detection and at reading readiness tests than those in the control group. This showed that syntactic ambiguity detection is a learnable skill for children as young as 6 and suggests that its connection to reading is in place that young as well. Thus, this skill could be a valuable addition to early reading curricula and intervention strategies. This manuscript will be submitted to Applied Psycholinguistics (Zimmer, 2016c).

No description available.

Thesis advisor: Charles P. Proctor / This dissertation develops, theorizes, and investigates the notion of metalinguistic engagement (ME). Within the context of reading research for upper elementary bi/multilingual students, which is relatively sparse and particularly lacking in qualitative detail, there are some emerging and promising findings related to the impacts of ME on students’ overall literacy development (Proctor et al,. 2012; Silverman et al., 2014). These outcomes specifically suggest that the development of component language (semantic, morphology, syntax) knowledge, skills, and strategies through ME provides substantial support to bi/multilingual students (Proctor et al., 2015; Silverman et al., 2015). CLAVES, a quasi-experimental language-based reading intervention and curriculum project (Proctor et al., 2020), highlighted the instructional malleability of ME, demonstrating positive effects for both language proficiency and reading comprehension among the participating fourth and fifth grade Spanish/English and Portuguese/English bi/multilingual students. However, the nature of the students’ ME and the extent to which their naturally dynamic linguistic repertoires emerged and were capitalized on during learning is currently unknown. In order to address gaps in research, this dissertation theorizes and investigates ME and contributes a qualitative analysis to the larger quasi-experimental intervention from Proctor et al (2020). This dissertation presents three case studies of teachers and their fourth-grade, Spanish/English bi/multilingual student working groups. A theoretical framework of cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) (Greeno & Engström, 2014; Roth & Lee, 2007) informed by heteroglossia (Bakhtin, 1981) was employed to attend to the tensions between the centripetal forces of classrooms’ goal-oriented activity and the centrifugal aspects of multiple voices and repertoires during ME (Wertsch, 2009). Findings highlight the various actions and resources through which students and teachers participate in ME. The ‘multivoicedness’ of students’ practices were shown to mediate ME goals, while also moving alongside and against the pressures from both the curriculum structure and teachers’ facilitation. Furthermore, dialectics between the curriculum and teachers within ME activities emphasize overarching tensions related to the goals of ME and the students’ opportunities and outcomes within ME. Findings accentuate the flexibility and constraints on bi/multilingual students’ practice and participation during ME and have implications for curriculum, instruction, and teacher preparation. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Notre étude porte sur l’observation de connaissances linguistiques et métalinguistiques chez les adultes francophones apprenant l’Espagnol Langue Étrangère (ELE). Ces connaissances constituent la compétence grammaticale que les apprenants construisent au fur et à mesure qu’ils s’approprient la L2.Dans le but d’observer ces connaissances au stade intermédiaire d’apprentissage — c’est-à-dire au niveau seuil (B1) établi par le Cadre Commun de Référence pour les Langues (Conseil de l’Europe, 2001) —, nous avons procédé à une étude expérimentale auprès de 30 adultes francophones. Notre démarche comporte 2 tâches d’expérimentation : une tâche de décision et une tâche de production orale. La tâche de décision repose sur un test de jugement de grammaticalité : on demande aux participants d’évaluer, dans un temps limité, un corpus des phrases (exposées les unes après les autres, à la fois à l’écrit et à l’oral) dont certaines contenaient une erreur. Le corpus de phrases présenté à nouveau sur papier, on demande ensuite aux participants de donner un jugement définitif (sans mesure de temps de réponse), à partir duquel, s’ils jugent une phrase incorrecte, ils doivent indiquer où se situe l’erreur et l’expliquer. Quant à la tâche de production orale, il a été demandé aux participants de produire un discours descriptif et narratif en L2 espagnol à l’aide d’un stimulus visuel (bande dessinée). Les résultats de nos tâches expérimentales nous ont permis de recueillir des données sur le temps de réponse, sur la capacité de jugement de phrases, sur le type de discours employé pour expliquer l’erreur et sur les structures syntaxiques utilisées spontanément en production orale.Ces données sont analysées et discutées en vue de fournir des pistes sur la capacité des adultes francophones apprenant l’ELE à détecter des erreurs en langue cible et à en expliciter les règles transgressées ; sur les problèmes qu’ils retrouvent dans leur appropriation du système grammatical de l’espagnol ; et sur les connaissances dont ils se servent pour analyser et produire les structures de la langue objet. En outre, les résultats obtenus nous permettent à notre tour d’envisager autrement l’apprentissage de la grammaire de l’espagnol et d’avancer la perspective d’un modèle d’enseignement adapté aux capacités métacognitives et métalinguistiques de l’apprenant francophone. / The framework of our study is focused on the assessment of linguistic and metalinguistic knowledge of francophone adults learning Spanish as a foreign language. This knowledge constitutes the basis of grammatical competence built by learners as they develop skills in the target language.Our aim is the observation of linguistic and metalinguistic knowledge used by francophone adult learners of Spanish as a second language (L2). Thus, we designed and directed an experimental study to 30 French-speakers with a threshold-level in Spanish, based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe, 2001). Our approach consisted of two experimental tasks: A decision making task and a task of oral production. The first task was conducted with a grammaticality judgement test in which participants had to evaluate, in a limited response time, a corpus of 36 sentences (presented one after the other, at both written and oral). The second task was conducted with the definitive confirmation of judgments about the corpus. Participants were thus asked to give a final judgement about the correctness of sentences (without measuring response time). If they judged a sentence as incorrect, they have to specify the error and explain it. As for the oral production task, the participants were asked to produce a descriptive and narrative speech in Spanish by using visual stimuli (a comic strip). The results achieved allowed us to collect data on the response time, on the sentences judgment ability, on the type of speech used to explain the error and on syntactical structures used spontaneously in oral speech. Those data were analyzed and discussed with the aim of providing insights on the capacity of francophone adults learning Spanish as a foreign language for detecting and explaining errors in the target language; on their difficulties in acquiring the Spanish grammatical system; and on their knowledge to analyze and produce structures in target language.The results enabled us to reconsider the learning of Spanish grammar otherwise with a view to teaching models adapted to the metacognitive and metalinguistic skills of francophone learners.