Student Identity Disclosed: Analysis of an Online Student Profile Tool

In the University of Minnesota’s Student Writing Support program, we gather, record, and share student and course information in order to support consultants in their work with writers; to assess and improve our own practice; and to make compelling, datadriven arguments for the center’s continued existence. Recognizing moments when these data-collection practices worked against the relationships we wanted to build with student writers, we began to critique these practices, with the goal of creating more intentional criteria and methods for soliciting client information. In Fall 2013, we developed and introduced an online Student Profile tool where clients could indicate their preferred name, provide a guide to pronouncing their name, include their gender pronouns, list any language(s) they speak and/or write, and indicate anything else they would like our consultants to know about them as writers/learners. We have become particularly interested in what students choose to share about themselves in that last open-ended prompt: When we give students opportunities to disclose aspects of their identity, what do we learn about them and about how they construct their identities in the context of a writing consultation? In this article we share our analysis of client data we collected in 2016–17, which reveals students’ awareness of their identities as writers, students, and learners as well as the complexities of these identities in a writing center context. Our findings also speak to larger conversations about the ways student identities are constructed and created within higher education.University Writing Cente

SYLLABLE WEIGHT AND SECONDARY STRESS IN ENGLISH SUFFIXAL DERIVATIVES

International audienceThis paper investigates the relationship between syllable weight and secondary stress in a corpus of 1450 English suffixal derivatives. In order to do so, two definitions of syllable weight have been used to code the data and we evaluated whether syllable weight had any impact on stress preservation, as proposed by Pater (1995; 2000). The results indicate that syllable weight has no influence whatsoever on stress preservation, in both definitions of syllable weight under examination

An optimality analysis of Malay loanwords in Japanese

This study aimed to examine and explain the phonology of Malay loanwords in Japanese using Optimality Theory. The analysis was based on secondary data extracted from the Senyum magazine published in Malaysia that utilises Japanese language in its writing. The relevant data which was selected manually, was then analysed and explained using a constraints-based approach of Optimality Theory. This article focuses on vowel lengthening and epenthesis repair strategies that occur during the borrowing process from Malay to Japanese. The vowel lengthening repair strategy followed by vowel epenthesis are evoked from the syllable structure of Japanese, particularly the coda condition. The word that ends with /CVC/ (Consonant+ar/or/ur) will be changed to /CV:CV/ (Consonant+ a:ɾɯ/ o:ɾɯ/ ɯ:ɾɯ). This kind of loanword adaptation process will undergo vowel lengthening and the coda consonant will resyllabified as an onset of the following syllable. This study has suggested a set of markedness and faithfulness constraints that are hierarchically ranked in the grammar. The interaction between the constraints has successfully been accounted for the phonology of loanword adaptation in Japanese. The increase in the number of Japanese in Malaysia since the implementation of Malaysia My Second Home programme has led to a wider exposure of Malay words to the Japanese. Therefore, this research will not only benefit linguists, it will also enhance the Malaysian society’s understanding of Japanese pronunciation as it differs from the Malay phonology. It will help to eliminate the confusion that may occur during conversation between Japanese and Malays and vice versa

A Markedness Approach to Epenthesis in Arabic Speakers\u27 L2 English

This thesis explores how Cairene Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, and Najdi Arabic speakers deal with complex syllable margins in their L2 English. While previous studies have attributed Cairene and Iraqi speakers’ pronunciations of English syllables that contain consonant clusters to transfer of allowed syllable structures from their native language, this thesis illustrates that the universal markedness of consonant clusters could be a factor that motivates L2 speakers to simplify complex syllable margins. Universal markedness has to do with the frequency that a structure occurs cross-linguistically. Languages that allow complex syllable margins, such as English, also contain simple syllable margins. Many languages contain simple syllable margins but do not allow complex syllable margins; thus, complex syllable margins are more marked than simple syllable margins. A markedness approach to second language phonology would consider the markedness of complex syllable margins to be an important factor in whether L2 learners have difficulty with this structure. By using Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993,McCarthy and Prince 1993), this thesis illustrates the role that markedness plays in Cairene Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, and Najdi Arabic. This thesis also presents the results of a study of L2 English data produced by native speakers of Najdi Arabic and uses the data to support a markedness approach for accounting for syllable errors in L2 English

DAILY VERBS: TEACHING ENGLISH VERB TENSES THROUGH A SIMPLE VIDEO GAME

This study introduces an educational game called “Daily Verbs” which teaches verb tenses to second language learners. The mechanics of the game is simple. The player moves a sprite through daily tasks and to each task there is a sentence attached stating the relevant tense. In the game, the researcher made use of Stephen Krashen’s principles of second language acquisition, namely, the acquisition vs. learning hypothesis, the affective filter, and the monitor hypothesis. Their manifestation in the game is explained in this study. Besides, the researcher made extensive use of John Gee’s 13 principles of learning embedded in video games. Their evidence in the game is also explained in the study. Article visualizations

Teaching English Stress: Can Song-Lyric Reading Combined with Mobile Learning Be Beneficial to Non-English Majors?

Although stress patterns in English and Chinese are strikingly different, most English learners in China have overlooked or ignored this difference, resulting in poor speaking performance. In an attempt to approach this issue, this study designs the mobile assisted language learning (MALL) based instruction by integrating stress lessons on the mobile application and adopting song lyric-reading as stress pattern training, aiming to help college students improve their speaking performance in terms of English stress. Two groups of Chinese freshman (N=60), non-English majors, participated in the study by separately receiving the MALL-based lyric-reading instruction and the in-classroom lyric-reading instruction. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to collect data. Quantitative data comprise scores of both pre- and post-test, and qualitative data include an interview used to gain participants’ insights after the experiment. The results suggest that students with the former instruction achieve a better learning outcome. The study also extends the theoretical sphere of English stress learning by providing empirical findings such as stricter scoring rubrics for reading-aloud tests and the Chinese pronoun-fossilization influence on stress acquisition.Keywords: English stress instruction, college non-English majors, mobile assisted language learning (MALL), song lyric-readin

The Difference between Standard American English Pronunciation and the Interlanguage of English Department Students of the Class of 2015 at Andalas University

This study discusses (1) the differences between the students’ interlanguage and standard American English pronunciation, and (2) the patterns of phonetic shift from the Standard American English into the students’ Interlanguage Pronunciation. The participants of this research were English Department students, the year of 2015, at Andalas University and were selected by using stratified random sampling with academic achievement as the criteria in choosing the sample. The data were collected by using picture description task and analyzed by using Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH) by Eckman (1977) where the markedness relation among the sounds were found by using Markedness Hierarchy by Lombardi (1995, 1998). The result of the analysis showed that the most frequent errors that the participants made were the pronunciation of [ð], [θ], and [v] where the participants replaced  [ð] with [d],[θ] with [t], and [v] with [f]. The difficulties of the participants were mostly in line with Eckman’s MDH

Edomdemo Ilidorom: Constructing the Language Duwen

Not long ago, a rune was discovered in the Cholistan Desert of modern day Pakistan. A team of archaeologists excavated the area and discovered evidence of an entire language, which they dated to the 10th century BCE. After investigating the site, linguists determined that the rune signified “heart,” inflected to the nominative singular female form of the word. The linguists decided to name the language “Duwen,” after the rune. What follows is the first attempt to codify their findings