TITLE: Morphological Variation in Spoken and Written Communication of Pupils from the Sixth to the Ninth Grade in the Central Bohemian Dialect Region AUTHOR: Pavel Sojka DEPARTMENT: Czech Language Department, Faculty of Education in Prague SUPERVISOR: PhDr. Ladislav Janovec, Ph.D. ABSTRACT This dissertation presents the results of the research in the morphological variation in the spoken and written expression of primary-school pupils (sixth-to-ninth graders) within the central Bohemian dialect region. The impetus behind this research is the long-standing requirement for linguistic examination to pay attention not only to the language of adults, but also to that of pupils and students. From the viewpoint of pedagogy, it establishes the extent to which the speech of children and youth features typical morphological tendencies of contemporary Czech, from the viewpoint of linguistics, it verifies the extent to which schooling manages to fulfill one of the crucial goals of linguistic education, i.e. appropriation of the standardized form of national language. The examined material comprised three specimens: transcriptions from lessons, recordings of a radio show and internet advertisements. The analysis of the specified linguistic material yielded that from the viewpoint of the usage of standard morphology,...

A rubric specifically for speaking skills was recently implemented and practiced in an English classroom for grade 6, in a school in the south of Sweden. The predetermined effected results of how the rubric works is debated among many schools and researchers, but no research have been done on the actually effects specifically in this area recently. Therefore, the overall aim for this study is to analyse how this specific tool for the spoken language learning works in practice. The study includes theory and previous research, which will be presented and moreover discussed in relation to the findings. Semi-structured interviews will be used and the participants are two teachers who teached year 6 at the same school in a city in the south of Sweden; both used the rubric in the English classroom. I investigated why and how it was implemented and used in the English classroom. Moreover, I answered the questions of what kind of rubric was used; and by comparing the rubric to the knowledge requirement in the syllabus, I determined how it outlined the knowledge requirements. In addition, by analysing the teachers’ answers, I investigated how the rubric affected the students’ learning and how it facilitated the learners’ self-awareness of their language development. The conclusion demonstrates that the rubric for speaking skills is beneficial for the majority of the students, but it has a negative effect on the students who are on a lower knowledge level than the rubric includes.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(情報学) / 甲第18614号 / 情博第538号 / 新制||情||95(附属図書館) / 31514 / 京都大学大学院情報学研究科知能情報学専攻 / (主査)教授 河原 達也, 教授 黒橋 禎夫, 教授 鹿島 久嗣 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Informatics / Kyoto University / DFAM

This study is set to explore the theory of speech acts with special reference to Zulu. This is done with the motive of discovering the applicability of this theory to the utterances that are issued by the speakers of this language. Particular attention is given to the performatives as a special kind of speech act. Their examination reveals that in Zulu, there are acts, which could be performed by saying something. We distinguish between explicit and inexplicit performatives. Explicit performatives contain a verb in their main clause which names the act that is performed when a performative is issued. The inexplicit performative on the other hand does not contain this verb. Acts that are restrained as far as the explicit performative is concerned, would rather be expressed by means of the inexplicit performative. Utterances such as those that express commands, customarily make use of the imperative, which is an inexplicit performative. A closer examination of how performatives are realised in Zulu, reveals that in order for the performatives to be understood as intended by the speaker, the illocutionary force, of what the speaker intends or means by the issuance of the utterance in question, comes to the surface. It is the illocutionary force which connote that an utterance is a request, a command, a warning, etc. Performatives can also be double-natured in function. One performative could be a request which is intended as an order. In this case it is the responsibility of the addressee to use contextual information in order to determine that which is the speaker's intention. In this investigation, what has surfaced as well, is that one speech act could be expressed in various different ways. For instance, a request, could be expressed by the use of a performative, an imperative, a question and a statement. Another factor which we came across in this study, and which has a significant bearing on the performative, is that they should comply with the conditions of felicity, if they are to be successful and understood as intended by the addressee. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

Spoken language is produced with a great deal of variability with which listeners must be able to cope. One source of variation is coarticulation, which is due to articulatory planning and transitions between segments. Recently, the temporal features of coarticulation were investigated during a picture/spoken-word matching task by using spliced stimuli carrying either congruent or incongruent subphonemic cues at the CV juncture (Archibald & Joanisse, 2011). ERPs were recorded with attention paid to the phonological mapping negativity (PMN) (Connolly & Phillips, 1994; Newman & Connolly, 2004) – a prelexical response sensitive to violations of phonological expectations. Results found that the PMN varied in response to coarticulation violations and concluded that phonetic features in spoken words influence prelexical processing during word recognition. Using a written-/spoken-word paradigm, Arbour, 2012 controlled phonological shape by using onsets that were either fricatives or stops, hypothesizing that coarticulatory information would be differentially processed due to their temporal differences. Findings supported the PMN’s sensitivity to coarticulation but also showed that temporal and physical differences between onsets modulated the effect. These results raise the question of whether acoustic distance between vowels will modulate prelexical processing of speech as reflected by the PMN amplitude: the focus of the current study. Words were organized into minimal sets such that all onset/coda combinations appeared with each vowel provided that English words resulted. Vowels were one of /i, u, æ, ɑ/, maximizing acoustic distance (height and backness). Data from 20 subjects indicate that the PMN is sensitive to the degree of difference between the original and post-splice vowels. When the number of distinctive features changing is greater, the result is an earlier, more robust PMN. This suggests that the rate of speech recognition is not static but dynamic, and is dependent on likeness of subphonemic features. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Ce mémoire situé en sociolinguistique, et plus particulièrement en dialectologie perceptive, prend un intérêt particulier pour les phénomènes de variation, de norme(s) et des attitudes de la communauté vénézuélienne envers les parlers de son pays. Au travers de l’analyse quantitative et qualitative des réponses de 380 locutrices et locuteurs de l’espagnol vénézuélien à un questionnaire sociolinguistique semi-dirigé en ligne, notre objectif final est de répondre à trois questions de recherche : peut-on observer une norme pour l’espagnol vénézuélien ? Peut-on déterminer si un domaine (phonétique, lexical ou grammatical) se prête significativement mieux à l’analyse dialectologique ? Enfin, où peut-on localiser la norme de l’espagnol vénézuélien, et comment peut-on expliquer nos résultats au regard de la littérature ? Nous commençons donc par nous demander si l’on peut observer une norme pour l’espagnol vénézuélien. En quantifiant et qualifiant les attitudes et les opinions linguistiques, nous trouvons qu’il existe des différences significatives entre nos variables phonétiques-phonologiques, lexicales et morphologiques-syntaxiques qui permettent de les stratifier et de les regrouper par variables plus ou moins favorisées pour l’appartenance à la norme de l’espagnol vénézuélien oral. Ayant été en mesure de comparer les résultats des trois domaines phonétique-phonologique, lexical et morphologique-syntaxique, nous avons déterminé pour notre deuxième question de recherche que les questions portant sur le lexique (plutôt que sur la prononciation ou la grammaire) généraient plus de réponses que le volet grammatical, et permettaient de conduire des analyses légèrement plus significatives que celles du volet phonétique-phonologique. Enfin, dans un volet différent du questionnaire, nous souhaitions localiser la norme de l’espagnol vénézuélien dans le pays et comparer ces résultats à ceux de la littérature. Nous concluons que, dans le sens des observations diverses trouvables dans les travaux antérieurs, le Venezuela semble doté d’une norme bicéphale, quoique nos données ne permettent pas de déterminer s’il s’agit des normes des deux aires dialectales auxquelles appartient le Venezuela (la caraïbe et l’andine) ou s’il existe deux normes concurrentes chez l’ensemble de la population. / This thesis in sociolinguistics, and more specifically perceptual dialectology, takes specific interest in the topic of variation; the definition of norm(s); and the attitudes of the Venezuelan community towards the speech of its country. Through quantitative and qualitative analyses of the answers of 380 Venezuelan Spanish speakers to a semi-structured online sociolinguistics questionnaire, our final goal is to answer three research questions: can we observe a norm for Venezuelan Spanish? Can we determine whether the phonetical, lexical or grammatical level yields more statistically significant results when it comes to dialectological analysis? Finally, where can we localise the norm for Venezuelan Spanish, and how can we explain our findings with regard to previous literature? We begin with addressing whether we can observe a phonetical, lexical, or grammatical norm for Venezuelan Spanish. After collecting and analysing our sample’s opinions both quantitatively and qualitatively, we find it possible to identify significant differences between our phonetical/ phonological, lexical, and morphological/syntactical variables. This finding allows us to group them into stratified groups, from least to most favoured when it comes to belonging to the norm of spoken Venezuelan Spanish. As for our second research question, once we compared results from all three domains (phonetics/phonology, lexicon, and morphology/syntax), we determined that the questions we asked about vocabulary returned more spontaneous comments than those about grammatical features, and yielded more significant statistical analyses than those about phonetic features. Finally, with a different section of the questionnaire, we aimed at locating the norm of Venezuelan Spanish within the country and comparing our results with literature. We conclude that, in line with previous studies, Venezuela seems to deal with a bicephalic norm, although our data do not allow us to determine whether we are in the presence of two norms for the two dialectal areas Venezuela is a part of (the Caribbean and the Andean ones), or if there are two competing norms for the whole of the population. / Esta tesina se ubica en sociolingüística, particularmente en dialectología perceptual. Se interesa por los fenómenos de variación, por la(s) norma(s) y por las actitudes de la comunidad venezolana acerca de las hablas de su país. Se basa en el análisis cuantitativo y cualitativo de las respuestas que 380 hablantes del español venezolano nos entregaron a través de un cuestionario sociolingüístico semiestructurado en línea. Proponemos responder a las siguientes tres preguntas: ¿puede observarse una norma para el español venezolano? ¿Puede determinarse si un campo (fonético, lexical o gramatical) produce resultados más significativos para el estudio dialectológico? Y, por último, ¿dónde se puede ubicar la norma del español venezolano, y cómo se pueden explicar nuestros resultados con respecto a la literatura previa? Empezamos por preguntarnos si se puede observar una norma para el español venezolano. Tras cuantificar y cualificar las actitudes y opiniones lingüísticas, encontramos que sí existen diferencias significativas entre nuestras variables fonético-fonológicas, lexicales y morfológico- sintácticas que permiten estratificarlas y agruparlas según si se ven más o menos favorecidas en cuanto a su pertenencia a la norma del español venezolano oral. Dado que fuimos capaces de comparar los resultados de los tres campos fonético-fonológico, lexical y morfológico-sintáctico, en el marco de nuestra segunda pregunta de investigación, determinamos que las preguntas acerca del léxico generaban más comentarios espontáneos que las de la sección gramatical, y permitían realizar un análisis levemente más significativo que las de la sección fonética-fonológica. Finalmente, en una sección diferente del cuestionario, quisimos ubicar la norma del español venezolano en el país y comparar nuestros resultados con la literatura previa. Concluimos que, de acuerdo con las varias observaciones que se encuentran en trabajos anteriores, Venezuela parece contar con una norma bicéfala, aunque nuestros datos no permitieron determinar si se trata de las normas de cada una de las áreas dialectales a las que Venezuela pertenece (la caribe y la andina), o si existen dos normas concurrentes para el conjunto de la población.

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<p>Neural responses to anticipatory coarticulatory cues were investigated across systematically varying phonological conditions. Congruent or incongruent subphonemic information was placed between an initial consonant and a vowel in a consonant-vowel- consonant (CVC) spoken word (Archibald & Joanisse, 2011). Due to physical and temporal differences across sound classes, the objective was to investigate whether coarticulatory information would be processed differently across controlled manipulations of onset (fricative vs. stop) and vowel type (height vs. backness). Event- related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a printed-word/spoken-word matching paradigm, in which participants indicated whether a visual prime stimulus and a spoken word matched/mismatched. The “Phonological Mapping Negativity” (PMN) component provides strong evidence that the use of coarticulatory information in speech recognition varies in strength and timing as a function of onset type (fricative vs. stop) and vowel height (high vs. low). Coarticulatory cues were more readily perceived in spoken word beginning with fricatives than with stops. Similarly, subphonemic variations were more easily detected in low vowels than in high vowels. Observed perceptual and temporal differences are interpreted to reflect variations in subphonemic and phonological processing.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)

Many Black young adults engage with poetry in its various forms on a regular basis. This interview study explores the reasons why eight Black young adults have decided to partake in poetry and examines how poetic practices have permeated the lives of those who actively engage with the art form. Critical race theories and narrative approaches were used to complete this work. These specific theoretical frameworks and research methodologies were applied as their major tenants allow for consideration of race, marginalization, social justice and storytelling. The work begins with a historical look at poetry in relation to present day poetics. The experiences of the participants involved are then featured. Finally, the author examines the most common themes expressed in the conversations she shared with the young adults. Through poetry, Black young adults were able to 1) find a release for their emotions and experiences 2) form and understand their identities and 3) have an impact their surroundings. Although the Black young adults involved in this research speak about the need for support, the lack thereof has not hindered them from sharing their poetry or speaking eloquently about how poetry has affected them. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)