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<p>This thesis addresses the question of how speakers adapttheir language when they interact with a spoken dialoguesystem. In human–human dialogue, people continuously adaptto their conversational partners at different levels. Wheninteracting with computers, speakers also to some extent adapttheir language to meet (what they believe to be) theconstraints of the dialogue system. Furthermore, if a problemoccurs in the human–computer dialogue, patterns oflinguistic adaptation are often accentuated.</p><p>In this thesis, we used an empirical approach in which aseries of corpora of human–computer interaction werecollected and analyzed. The systems used for data collectionincluded both fully functional stand-alone systems in publicsettings, and simulated systems in controlled laboratoryenvironments. All of the systems featured animated talkingagents, and encouraged users to interact using unrestrictedspontaneous language. Linguistic adaptation in the corpora wasexamined at the phonetic, prosodic, lexical, syntactic andpragmatic levels.</p><p>Knowledge about users’linguistic adaptations can beuseful in the development of spoken dialogue systems. If we areable to adequately describe their patterns of occurrence (atthe different linguistic levels at which they occur), we willbe able to build more precise user models, thus improvingsystem performance. Our knowledge of linguistic adaptations canbe useful in at least two ways: first, it has been shown thatlinguistic adaptations can be used to identify (andsubsequently repair) errors in human–computer dialogue.Second, we can try to subtly influence users to behave in acertain way, for instance by implicitly encouraging a speakingstyle that improves speech recognition performance.</p>

The contemporary experiences of racially marginalized people in the West are affected deeply by the hegemonic capitalist Orthodox cultural codes, or episteme, in which blackness operates as the symbol of Chaos. As it relates to people of African descent, these affects are marked by a denial of the black person's full status as an unproblematic subject, by ontological voids arising from the practice of enslavement over the past centuries, and by problems of representation within the West, where examples and points of reference for black identity are always tied up with conflicting interests. Utilizing Sylvia Wynter's model of the Ceremony as one means of describing the ways in which blacks in the West maneuver the extant psychological and philosophical perils of race in the Western world, I argue that the history of black responses to the West's ontological violence is alive and well, particularly in art forms like spoken word, where the power to define/name oneself is of paramount importance. Focusing on how art shaped black responses to ontologically debilitating circumstances, I argue that there has always existed a model for liberation within African American culture and tradition. This work takes an approach that is philosophical and theoretical in nature in order to address the wide breadth of the black experience that lies beyond the realm of statistics. The goal of this approach is to continue the work of unraveling hidden or under-discussed aspects of the black experience in order to more clearly find possibilities for addressing problems in the construction of race and marginalized people within the Western episteme. This work attempts to redefine the struggle for a healthier ontology within the framework of a process of liberation that transcends Orthodox limitations on the marginalized subject.

Radical feminism is often associated with the 1970s and 1980s in the United States. Although powerful in its goals of solidarity and coalitions, the movement is often criticized for its lack of attention to intersecting systems of power. However, several contemporary feminist spoken word poets are reconceptualizing radical feminism in their political projects, using the theories and activist strategies while paying attention to race, class, and sexuality. This piece traces some of the history and literature of radical feminism, Woman of Color feminism, contemporary Islamic feminism, and spoken word poetry. Using these frameworks, I close-read three poems: "Womyn Before" by Alix Olson, "The Herstory of My Hips" by C.C. Carter, and "99 cent lipstick" by Suheir Hammad to discuss the manner in which each uses coalitions. Olson's poem provides an analysis of the performative and textual aspects of the poem as a way to envision an activist project grounded in old social movements. Carter's poem connects history and archives, using a Woman of Color framework, and through Hammad, the structural critiques of an unjust system that disadvantages minority youth are seen through lenses of Women of Color and Islamic feminism. While these poets gain some knowledge from radical feminism, they interpret it in their poetry in ways that address the intersections of identity. / text

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This research aims at investigating the relationships between linguistics self confidence, achievements and performance and giving new pedagogical insights to the educators concerning language learning motivation by implementing a combination of task-based research and Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency (CAF) performance evaluation model. Six English as Second Language (ESL) learners were invited to participate in an oral task and complete a self confidence evaluation questionnaire. Their performance, based on the CAF framework, was then compared and contrasted according to their confidence level. It was found that the higher confident students are more accurate in their speech production, and are also better at communicative and discussion skills. However, neither did they demonstrate a large amount of talk as in some past literature, nor did they display a very complex language. They instead articulated more false starts and made more repetitions as they self-corrected their utterances during the task. Compared to the lower-confident group, these learners surprisingly contribute fewer arguments, particularly counter-arguments such as rebuttals. These behaviors were explained by Foster and Skehan’s attention theory and Levelt’s prioritization in production. In addition, the inter-dependent relationships between linguistics self confidence, achievements and performance are proposed. Finally, Dörnyei’s L2 Motivational Self System is especially addressed, as it seems applicable in solving the research findings that there is a discrepancy between the L2 ideal self and actual self of these ESL learners. / published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This dissertation follows an oral language assessment tool from initial design and implementation to validity analysis. The specialized variables of this study are the population: international teaching assistants and the purpose: spoken assessment as a hiring prerequisite. However, the process can easily be applied to other populations and assessment goals.While evaluating the TBEST (Task-Based English Speaking Test) and TAST (TOEFL Academic Speaking Test), I search for a preponderance of evidence for assessment validity that indicate the most appropriate tool for evaluating potential ITAs. The specific evidences of assessment validity that are examined are:1. Evidence of Domain (Content) Validity: Which test, the TBEST or the TAST most closely measures the actual skills needed to be an ITA?2. Evidence of Predictive Criterion Validity: Which test, the TBEST or the TAST, is more valid in predicting ITA teaching success based on end of semester student evaluation (TCEs)?Following the analyses of these points of evidence, the results of a follow-up survey of ITA impressions about the ITA training and evaluating process are reviewed. Reviewing the results of this survey places the language assessment and hiring process recommendations within its larger context, directing attention toward suggestions for improvement of ITA training and evaluating procedures.Over the course of 18 months, 335 ITAs were assessed using the TBEST. 193 ITAs took the TAST prior to taking the TBEST, and those scores are used for correlation analysis. 119 ITAs participated in a follow up survey about their ITA experience.Analysis of domain validity shows that the TBEST is better suited for assessing ITAs than the TAST due to specialized assessment content not present on the more generic TAST. The TBEST is marginally better at predicting teaching success, though the results were statistically insignificant and recommendations are made for a follow-up study. Post-hoc analysis of the discriminative utility of both tests show that the TBEST results show more useful shades of distinction between candidates while the TAST results place the majority of students in a `fair' category which requires secondary interviews to assess teaching ability.

Recent advancements in the area of spoken language processing and the wide acceptance of portable devices, have attracted signicant interest in spoken dialogue systems.These conversational systems are man-machine interfaces which use natural language (speech) as the medium of interaction.In order to conduct dialogues, computers must have the ability to decide when and what information has to be exchanged with the users. The dialogue management module is responsible to make these decisions so that the intended task (such as ticket booking or appointment scheduling) can be achieved.Thus learning a good strategy for dialogue management is a critical task.In recent years reinforcement learning-based dialogue management optimization has evolved to be the state-of-the-art. A majority of the algorithms used for this purpose needs vast amounts of training data.However, data generation in the dialogue domain is an expensive and time consuming process. In order to cope with this and also to evaluatethe learnt dialogue strategies, user modelling in dialogue systems was introduced. These models simulate real users in order to generate synthetic data.Being computational models, they introduce some degree of modelling errors. In spite of this, system designers are forced to employ user models due to the data requirement of conventional reinforcement learning algorithms can learn optimal dialogue strategies from limited amount of training data when compared to the conventional algorithms. As a consequence of this, user models are no longer required for the purpose of optimization, yet they continue to provide a fast and easy means for quantifying the quality of dialogue strategies. Since existing methods for user modelling are relatively less realistic compared to real user behaviors, the focus is shifted towards user modelling by means of inverse reinforcement learning. Using experimental results, the proposed method's ability to learn a computational models with real user like qualities is showcased as part of this work.

Darbe nagrinėjama, kaip sakytinė kalba keičiama į rašytinę, kokie pagrindiniai sakytinės kalbos bruožai, kokios klaidos daromos baudžiamosios bylos medžiagoje. Darbo šaltinis –baudžiamųjų bylų medžiaga. Dalis sakytinės ir rašytinės kalbos ypatybių sutampa – daromos panašios leksikos klaidos, vartojama terminija. Teisinei rašytinei kalbai nebūdingi intarpai, pasikartojimai, tačiau menko išsilavinimo žmonių rašytinės kalbos pavyzdžiuose jų yra. Teisinės kalbos bruožai: gausu dalyvių, ypač neveikiamosios rūšies, pusdalyvių, padalyvių,. Dominuoja ilgi beasmeniai sakiniai, daug terminų, tarptautinių žodžių, reikiamybės dalyvių, suvestinių tarinių, būdingi įvairūs netaisyklingos teisinės kalbos pasakymai. / The study analyses the main features of spoken language, the process of changing spoken language into written, describes the mistakes, which appear in material of criminal law cases. The source of the study – material of criminal law cases. It should be noted, that part of features of spoken and written languages coincide – similar mistakes of lexis are being done, similar terminology is being used. Despite the fact that inserts, frequencies are not common for written laguage, in the examples ofwritten language of uneducated people they nevertheless appear. The features of legal language: a plenty of participles, expecially passive, dominant long impersonal sentences, many legal terms, international words, gerundives, cumulative predicates, common various expressions of irregular legal language.