This paper describes a case study of a non-native speaking (NNS) dental hygienist in her work environment. The subject learned English by learning to become a dental hygienist rather than through formal language education. Participant observation and discourse, event/network, and componential analyses were the methods used to analyze the subject's communication in her work setting. The philosophical question as to how ESP differs from ESL is raised and elements of the work setting and the NNS workers' communication with interlocutors in that setting are identified to aid educators in teaching ESP courses. Questions ESP educators might address in designing and teaching ESP courses are given as well as suggestions for future research.

This research examined whether bilingualism would accelerate or hinder the cognitive as well as academic development of the Korean American individuals in an Oregon school district by analyzing the standardized test scores at grades 3, 5, 7, and 9. Eleven monolingual and 27 bilingual students released the Survey of Basic Skills (SBS) as well as Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) scores for this study. The analyses of the test scores revealed that the Korean-American students in this school district were performing at a much higher level against the national norm (the 50th percentile), or the school district norm (the 75th percentile). The bilingual Korean-American students made far greater progress both cognitively and academically from grades 3 to 9 (CogAT: 76.0 %ILE- 87.0 %ILE, SBS Composite: 77.0 %ILE- 87.0 %ILE) than their monolingual counterparts who hovered around the 85th percentile against the national norm. It was learned that the bilingual Korean-Americans were both cognitively and academically as developed as their monolingual counterparts by the time they were in 5th grade. Telephone interviews conducted with 46 bilingual and 23 monolingual Korean-American high school students as well as 30 written questionnaires returned by their parents revealed that the Korean-American students in this particular school district could not become naturally bilingual, but that a commitment both by the students and their parents was necessary to maintain their ethnic language. The parents of the bilingual students were making more efforts to pass on the Korean language to their offspring than the parents of monolingual students. The Korean-American families were very much integrated into the social mainstream, and were trying to achieve educational as well as economic successes on American's terms while maintaining their ethnic identity.

The relationship of language and culture is explored in this thesis for the purpose of better understanding why all sojourners, regardless of preparation, experience some degree of culture shock. The author begins with a review of literature on culture shock establishing that the native language of sojourners is not considered to be of any consequence to the sojourning experience. The fields of intercultural communication, social psychology and psychology are then explored to establish the link between language and culture and to introduce the notion of linguistic identity. Evidence found in each of these fields leads the author to conclude that linguistic identity must become a focal point of language instruction and that both language and linguistic identity must be addressed more effectively in pre-departure orientations. Also included is a research proposal which is designed to test pre-departure orientation strategies which introduce students to linguistic identity and to track their transition experiences over the course of a year-long study abroad sojourn.

Virtually all future teachers _of ESL/EFL have been foreign- or second-language learners themselves. However, reflection on their own past language-learning experiences is usually not integrated into the coursework of professional TESOL preparation programs and there has been little published research in TESOL in which students in professional TESOL preparation programs reflect on their past language learning experiences. The purpose of this research was to explore the effects on TESOL Methods students of revisiting a past language-learning experience. The subjects were students in a TESOL Methods class. This study examined an assignment given to these students to write a short "language learning narrative" (LLN) describing a past language learning experience. The data base of this qualitative study included included thirty-one LLNs, thirty-one free-writes and eleven interviews with these TESOL students. The results indicate that the students' memories of affective factors such as nervousness about speaking in class and feeling successful or unsuccessful as language learners were prominent in their minds, as was a strong focus on the teacher. The benefits to the TESOL students of writing the LLNs included increased sensitivity to the perspective of the learner, willingness to engage in reflection, and an understanding of the connections between their past experiences and the kinds of experiences they wanted to create in future language classrooms. While the TESOL students seemed to have mastered the latter skill, they did not see their past language learning experiences as a resource that could give them insights into particular teaching dilemmas. Also, they tended to make direct generalizations based on their own past reactions as language learners to what they imagined their future students' reactions would be. They wanted to recreate for their future students experiences that had been positive for them and do the opposite of what the teachers of language classes they had experienced as negative had done. The study concludes that the LLN assignment is recommended for use in other professional TESOL training programs, with modifications that would encourage the students to become aware of variations in learner preferences and to view their past language learning experiences as a continuing resource.

Since its publication in 1898, The Turn of the Screw has been the focus of diverse critical interpretation. It has reflected shifts in critical theory that include the Freudian, psychoanalytic, mythological, structuralist, reader-response, linguistic, and new-historical schools. The majority of critical interpretations have focused on the governess's narrative and have excluded the prologue, or frame narrative, that begins the novella. The critics who did examine the prologue overlooked James's departure from the traditional use of frame narration and the importance of the structure of the frame in creating a text of insoluble ambiguity. James departed from traditional frame narration in four ways. By using only an opening frame, the reader is forced to rely on the prologue in order to determine narrative reliability. By creating a condition of reciprocal authority between the unnamed narrator and Douglas, the opening frame denies the possibility of using either character to substantiate the reliability of the other. The condition of reciprocal authority is constructed through a dialogue pattern in which the narrator and Douglas interpret each other's gestures and comments and finish each other's sentences. It is the use of the pattern in the prologue that prepares the reader to accept it in the governess's narrative. The governess repeats the dialogue pattern with Mrs. Grose and Miles. Their discussions appear to validate the governess as a reliable narrator when in fact her reliability is as impossible to determine as the reliability of Douglas or the frame narrator. The result of these departures from traditional frame narration is the construction of a text of insoluble ambiguity.

There are various approaches to the explanation of humor in the field of humor research. Some of these theories, while providing interesting insight into the phenomenon known as humor, remain limited in their ability to account for how humor is recognized. Others do not even address the issue. This thesis compares five different theories in humor research by analyzing the humorous short story "My Watch" by Mark Twain. These theories are: 1. a typological approach to humor, 2. a social- functional model, 3. incongruity theory, 4. Grice's Cooperative Principle taken from linguistic pragmatics, and 5. the General Theory of Verbal Humor devised by V. Raskin and S. Attardo. The comparative analysis, following an extensive review of the literature, first interprets the humor in the short story in the light of each theoretical model. During the course of the analysis, the limitations inherent in each theories' treatment of humor are illustrated and these argue and provide evidence for the adoption of the General Theory of Verbal Humor because of its greater sophistication in building a model of humor recognition. Furthermore, in analyzing Twain's short story this thesis establishes the generalizability of this more sophisticated theory to at least some types of literary humor, specifically the tall tale. Finally, further research implications and general connections between the theoretical approaches discussed in this thesis and the teaching of the English language to non-native speakers highlight the practicality of applying insights from humor research to the field of teaching.

Recent research has found that the use of good language learning strategies can affect students' chances of gaining proficiency in a second language. The purpose of this study was to see if there is a relationship between strategy use and language learning proficiency. It sought to answer these questions: (1) Does a successful learner use different strategies on specific tasks than does a less successful learner? and (2) Will the successful learner use more metacognitive and affective strategies while doing tasks than will a less successful learner? For the first part of the study, 17 students in an ESL program at an urban university in the northwest were selected. Using the results from a self-report survey, the Strategy Inventory for Language Leaming (SILL), and the students' scores from standardized examinations, these students were divided into two groups, a proficient group and a less proficient group. For the second part of the study, two subjects from the first part (one proficient and one less proficient) were selected to participate in a Think-Aloud protocol as they completed three tasks. The objective was to see if these two students used different strategies as they completed specific tasks and if the proficient learner used more metacognitive and affective strategies that the less proficient learner. Mean scores were computed for the subjects on the first part of the study. Two-tailed probability tests were computed to determine if differences existed between the proficient and less proficient group. A significant difference was found between the two groups strategies from the memory strategy group. Analysis of the second part of the study revealed that the successful student used more of the appropriate strategies on two out of three of the tasks than did the less proficient learner and only slightly less of the appropriate strategy on the other task. The successful learner employed more metacognitive strategies on two out of three of the tasks and she used more of these strategies overall. The successful learner also used more affective strategies on all tasks. The practical benefit of the study is that student awareness of good strategy use, tailored to specific tasks could lead to improved second language acquisition.

The importance given to vocabulary in second language instruction and in theories of second language acquisition has increased greatly in the last fifteen years. It is thus important for second language teachers/researchers to have valid, useful methods of assessing the vocabulary needs and vocabulary knowledge of their students as well as valid and useful methods of assessing the efficacy of various methods and techniques of teaching and learning vocabulary. This study examines the usefulness and validity of a relatively new type of checklist vocabulary test method known as the 'YES/NO' method. In the YES/NO method, nonsense words are listed together with real test words. A subject's test score is calculated by applying both the percentage of real words checked and the percentage of nonsense words checked to a mathematical formula. Sixty-six students enrolled in a college-level Englishfor- academic-purposes (EAP) program took three vocabulary tests. Correlation was calculated between the participants' scores on the 'Structure' and 'Listening' subsections of the Comprehensive English Language Test (CELT) and the participants' scores on all three vocabulary tests scored both as YES/NO tests and as simple-checklist tests. The following three findings were noteworthy: (1) correlation between CELT subtest scores and vocabulary test scores was more consistent and stronger when the vocabulary tests were scored as simple-checklist tests compared to when they were scored as YES/NO tests, (2) few students scored above recommended exit-level scores on the CELT subtests but below 5,000 on the vocabulary tests, and (3) a 120-real-word vocabulary test correlated more consistently and strongly with the CELT subtests than either of two 60-real-word vocabulary tests. Three conclusions were made: (1) adult EAP students preparing to study at English-medium institutions of higher education need knowledge of the 5,000 most-frequent words [lemmas] of English, (2) the YES/NO method of testing the L2 vocabulary knowledge of adult EAP students is not better than the simple-checklist method, and (3) a good direction for work on the improvement of tests intended to measure the L2 vocabulary knowledge of adult EAP students may be to explore how to elicit valid responses on long simple-checklist tests.

Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, is estimated to occur in up to sixteen percent of people between the ages of 75 and 84. Deficits in linguistic skills that effect communication are a hallmark of the disease and have been the primary focus of past Alzheimer's research. Among other deficits, researchers have found that people with Alzheimer's often use indexical expressions without clear referents and convey less information that is relevant to the task they have been asked to perform than healthy subjects. Relatively little research has examined how Alzheimer's subjects use their linguistic knowledge to communicate with others in natural, open-ended interaction. The purpose of the present study was to identify what communication skills remain intact that enable an Alzheimer's subject to maintain conversational fluency despite lexical and pragmatic deficits. The study focused specifically on language skills that play a functional role in facilitating conversation. The data used in this study consisted of eight naturally occurring conversations between the subject and three interlocutors who had a close relationship with the subject. The interactions were recorded in the Alzheimer's wing of the subject's nursing home. The transcribed conversations were analyzed according to three types of functional language drawn from Nattinger and DeCarrico's (1992) work on lexical phrases: (1) conversational maintenance; (2) conversational purpose; and (3) familiar topics. The role played by lexical phrases in facilitating each of these functional categories was also examined. This study found that the subject had an intact knowledge of functional language skills that allowed her to successfully participate in conversation despite serious language deficits. Within the category of conversational maintenance, the subject retained skills necessary to share control in opening and closing conversations as well as nominating and shifting topics and requesting and offering clarification. In the category of conversational purpose, the subject used functional language to signal utterances intended to convey general politeness, gratitude and compliments as well as informing the interlocutor of her attitude in relation to the content of utterances. The study also found that lexical phrases played a central role in facilitating the subject's use of functional language.

Postsecondary English language education is a growing industry in the United States. While there has been considerable research on international student mobility in higher education, there is limited research on the population’s participation in U.S. English language programs (ELPs). The purpose of the study was to apply existing theories and data analysis to understand postsecondary English language program participation and create a foundation for future studies. This exploratory study examined the characteristics of international students enrolled in U.S. postsecondary ELPs. The researcher investigated the relationship between ELP enrollment with U.S. higher education enrollment as well as the relationship between ELP enrollment by destination location, ELP provider type, gender and country of origin. Finally, the researcher analyzed the completion rate of international students in U.S. postsecondary ELPs by gender and country of origin. Data from 2004-2014 were collected from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System and the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors Report. Data analysis was conducted through quantitative methods. Findings of this study may help educators reflect on the form and function of current English language programs to improve the quality of future ELPs.