British expansion to the West Indies in the eighteenth-century resulted in vast economic growth for the British Empire and a rise in literature set in the region. Examining the literature allows for an in-depth exploration of how the Caribbean has become associated as a place of relaxation and escape though its early history of colonialism is fraught with violence. My study builds on the understanding of the Caribbean region in the eighteenth-century and utilizes hospitality theory to articulate the role that cultural exchange and physical setting play in the texts and in the formation of national identity, both in the West Indies and in England. Using hospitality theory to explore how power shifts between the guest/host/witness, I explore the influence of literature on eighteenth-century perceptions of this region through an examination of the patterns that develop through prose fiction, drama, and poetry. Section one includes Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko (1696), Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and William Pittis’ The Jamaica Lady (1720). I argue that Behn’s work establishes narrative patterns that uncover what eighteenth-century travelers imagined in the West Indies—the host welcomes the outsider, the land serves as witness, and the arrival of the guest initiates a realignment of the British subjectivity—and show how these patterns reappear in the later works of Defoe and Pittis. In the section two, I show that the theatre creates a shift in these categories as a direct result of space, performance, and shared experience through my readings of Thomas Southerne’s Oroonoko (1696), Richard Cumberland’s The West Indian (1771), and John Gay’s Polly (1728). The final section focuses on the poetry of James Grainger, Nathaniel Weekes, and Francis Williams, revealing the tropes that emerged and demonstrating how the Caribbean land is visualized as a welcoming space. I argue that these genres work together to generate images of the tropics in the eighteenth-century British mindset and provide a foundation for the way we have come to imagine this region today.

Este trabajo de investigación explora una selección de poemas de los autores Nicolás Guillén (Cuba 1992-1989) y Luis Palés Matos (Puerto Rico 1989-1959) para demostrar como ambos contribuyeron a la discusión sobre la herencia negra en la identidad de sus respectivos países, si bien, sus obras tuvieron una diferente recepción. También nos proponemos probar que, aunque ambos han sido estudiados más como autores de la corriente negrista dentro de la poesía caribeña hispana, algunos de sus poemas pueden ser leídos desde las perspectivas del pensamiento de la Negritude. Por último, mediante un análisis tropológico determinaremos qué figuras retóricas predominan en el discurso de los poetas. Como conclusión, esperamos ratificar el importante lugar que ambos ocupan para entender la herencia africana viva en esas tierras.

This dissertation analyzes struggles over the development of Barbadian health and sanitation during the period between the world wars. In doing so, it examines how the British Empire tried to use development policies to maintain its power overseas during the interwar years. During this period, British policymakers sought to improve health and sanitation to pacify restive Barbadian laborers influenced by transnational pan-African and socialist ideas following the First World War. However, white Barbadian elites, influenced by ideas of eugenics and population control, opposed metropolitan efforts to develop health and sanitation in the colony. Rather than repairing the colonial relationship, British development efforts instead resulted in a protracted legislative and public battle over health reform. White creole resistance to public health policies both destabilized British reform efforts and further undermined black Barbadian understandings of imperial identity. By the 1930s, Pan-African critiques of empire, which the British government had fought to suppress following the First World War, found renewed energy in the midst of British failures to provide basic welfare services to poor black subjects. The fractures in these bonds of empire ultimately resulted in serious labor disturbances that re-emphasized the tensions of British colonialism and redirected the course of imperial policy. By focusing on these conflicts, this project reveals how struggles over colonial reforms on the ground transformed ideas of emerging nationhood, imperial identities, and British strategies of rule in the years leading up to decolonization.

Mediante de un acercamiento cronológico, esta disertación analiza la función de la ideología como herramienta poderosa para construir la nación y moldear al futuro ciudadano en la narrativa infantil cubana pre y pos-revolucionaria. Aunque una tradición y un proceso de formación de identidad nacional anteceden la literatura infantil publicada antes del triunfo de la Revolución, en los períodos posteriores existe una estrecha relación entre el contexto social de los textos y su función ideológica. Partiendo de “La Edad de Oro” (1889) de José Martí, este estudio se enfoca en los cambios socio-culturales que influyen en el desarrollo de una narrativa infantil nacional que transita del didacticismo más férreo a una variada exploración temática. Por encontrarse entre la Colonia y la etapa revolucionaria, el período republicano ha recibido poca atención crítica, marginado a veces de la herencia literaria de la nación. Sin embargo, el análisis de varios textos representativos en este período permite apreciar la integración de un pensamiento cubano desde búsquedas y posiciones muy diferentes a las del período siguiente, de 1959 a 1989. A partir de 1990 una diversificación temática fomenta objetivos muy distantes del enunciado didáctico. Este estudio concluye que en contraste con los pertenecientes a generaciones anteriores, en los escritores formados dentro de la Revolución, especialmente a partir de la década del ochenta, existe un interés especial por abordar temáticas inexploradas en la literatura infantil tradicional. El divorcio, la muerte, los conflictos generacionales y las diferencias raciales son sólo algunos de los temas que matizan la narrativa infantil posrevolucionaria, cuyos presupuestos ideo-estéticos, se encuentran intrínsecamente relacionados al contexto sociocultural.

One-on-one language teaching holds great potential for improving students' speaking ability. Programs such as Brigham Young University's Chinese Flagship program uses a one-on-one approach to help students learn how to use the language in respect to their desired profession. The Ohio State University uses individualized instruction as an alternative to traditional classroom-based classes. However, little to no research has compared one-on-one language teaching to traditional group classroom teaching in terms of language gains. Many studies show that one-on-one teaching can lead to language improvement, but do not attempt to compare method effectiveness. Additionally, although anxiety in language learning has been well researched, a comparison of anxiety between teaching methods has not been attempted. There are few studies that investigate anxiety between one-on-one and group methods. The present study attempts to close this gap in the research. This is done by comparing speech gains between a one-on-one teaching method and a group teaching method. The one-on-one method includes weekly five to ten minute sessions, and the group method includes weekly 50-minute sessions. Speech gains are defined as gains in fluency (determined through speech rate), pronunciation (consonants, vowels, and tones), and syntactic accuracy (determined by error free T-units). Speech gains are assessed via a pre/post-test design. Furthermore, the present study attempts to compare anxiety between the two teaching methods. This is done by administering the anxiety survey Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale twice. Students were asked to respond to one survey in reference to the one-on-one setting, and respond to the other survey in reference to the group setting. Finally, students filled out a preference survey at the end of the study to determine student perception on teaching method effectiveness. Results show that there is no statistical difference in speech gains in five-ten minute one-on-one sessions compared to 50-minute group sessions. This is true for all four areas assessed: fluency, vowel/consonant pronunciation, tone pronunciation, and syntactic accuracy. This shows that short sessions of one-on-one teaching can produce the same speech gains as longer sessions of group teaching. Survey results show that anxiety levels were the same between the two teaching methods. Preference surveys show that the majority of students: 1) feel that the one-on-one method is effective in improving their speaking ability, 2) would choose to take a class that includes one-on-one teaching, 3) and enjoy coming to one-on-one sessions. It further shows that 50% of students feel that one-on-one teaching is more effective than group teaching, and feel more comfortable in one-on-one sessions than in group sessions.

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My goal of studying Chinese ambiguous sentence is to increase CFL students’ awareness about Chinese grammar as well as Chinese culture. In order to promote the CFL students’ learning enthusiasm, speed up their learning process, and assist them to meet society’s challenges, I have designed two sets of questionnaires, spent two semesters in collecting, studying, analyzing, and explaining my data. In the meanwhile, I read many related articles and books which enriched my Chinese linguistic knowledge, deepened my understanding of the reciprical reaction among Chinese linguistic issues and its culture. I was also inspired to generate some typical Chinese sentence structures. These structures could help the CFL students to produce Chinese sentences not only linguistically accurate but also culturally appropriate.

Researchers have intermittently treated the topic of the language in which reading comprehension test questions should be presented in, or language of assessment (LoA). The overall consensus has been that questions in L1 lead to better scores and that questions in L1 should be used for reading comprehension particularly at the beginning levels. However, minimal research has been conducted at the advanced level, and no research has been found where proficiency items, empirically validated, were utilized in testing instruments. Furthermore, explanatory data from qualitative analysis has been sparse. The present research endeavored to satisfy these areas of needed research. It was found that a group of advanced learners of Russian performed better when MC questions were presented in English. Student attitudes, as revealed by survey items, depicted questions in L2 as more difficult. It was additionally found that vocabulary was one of the major factors in difficulty. Matters pertaining to validity and face validity surfaced and were designated, along with gathering other qualitative data, as the recommended direction of future research.

This study examines the effectiveness of on-line video-assisted pronunciation exercises in beginning level classes of foreign-language learning. A review of the current literature on pronunciation is presented, followed by a description of a study used to test the effectiveness of computer-based exercises in improving pronunciation. The participants were a group of high school students that were members of a fourth year French class. As part of their regular class time, the students participated in two types of exercises, in-class group work and computer-lab self-directed exercises, in which the students watched videos with subtitles while repeating what they heard. Satisfaction with the program was determined by collecting feedback from the students using qualitative and quantitative surveys. The students found the videos interesting and appreciated the learning autonomy provided by the self-directed exercises. Improvement was assessed by comparing performance on pre- and post-tests measuring both free response and reading pronunciation. Significant improvements were observed in both categories, but the improvements in reading pronunciation were most striking. The results demonstrate that computer-based exercises can be engaging and effective in teaching French pronunciation, and can be readily incorporated into the high school classroom.

The purpose of this research was to test the predictions of the Accessibility Hierarchy (AH) theory (Keenan & Comrie, 1977) applying it to the Russian language. According to this theory, relative clauses (RC) are acquired in a fixed unidirectional order: from subject (S) - the highest (unmarked) and more susceptible to relativization position - to object of comparative (OCOM) - the lowest (marked) and less susceptible to relativization position. Since some researchers (Hamilton, 1994) claim that the AH is multidirectional rather than unidirectional, this study takes into consideration these findings as well. The present study attempts to determine (a) if learners of the Russian language are able to make generalizations about more unmarked RC positions after receiving instruction only on a relatively marked relative clause position (in this study it is OPR - object of a preposition), and (b) if instruction on unmarked relative clause position facilitates learners' ability to generalize that learning to marked relative clauses. Participants of the study were Brigham Young University students studying Russian as a second language. Two groups, the basic treatment group (BG) and the complex treatment group (CG) with a total of fifty-four subjects, completed pretests and posttests, each of which included two elicitation tasks: a combination test (CT) and a grammaticality judgment test (GJT). Both groups received instruction between the tests. The BG received instruction on the subject (S), the direct object (DO), and the indirect object (IO) RC positions. The CG received instruction only on the OPR position. Three types of error, incorrect adjacency, incorrect morphological RC ending, and pronoun retention, were analyzed separately. In addition, the CT investigated the acquisition of pied-piping structure in the OPR and GEN types. The results of the research support Hamilton's (1994) findings and suggest that generalization is clearly not unidirectional. Regardless of type of instruction the subjects of both groups generalized their learning in both directions.