Theses and Dissertations from UMD

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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

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    EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF AUDITORY INPUT ON INCIDENTAL VOCABULARY LEARNING BY L2 JAPANESE SPEAKERS
    (2020) Hillman, Kyoko Kobayashi; Ross, Steven J; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Research on advanced L2 adult learners and viable classroom instruction for them has become increasingly important along with increasing global connections. This study investigated the effects of different kinds of spoken input modification on listening comprehension and incidental vocabulary learning by 106 advanced Chinese speakers of Japanese in Japan. The participants were randomly assigned to four types of input (genuine, simplified, elaborated, modified elaborated) used in four short academic talks by Japanese professionals. Each talk contained eight low-frequency nouns, each appearing three times. Learning outcomes were assessed using three different measures: form-recognition, meaning recognition with contextual information, and meaning recognition via L2 definitions. Participants responded to three types of comprehension questions (replication, synthesis, inference) while listening to the talks. Scores from an online proficiency test and two working memory (WM) tasks served as moderator variables.Results showed that elaborated input was the most effective of the four types for both comprehension and incidental vocabulary learning. Results also showed that modified elaborated input, a novel input modification type that contained the same elaboration but with shorter sentences, was more effective when higher WM was available. In contrast, elaborated input was least influenced by WM capacities. Regarding the relationships between input modification and type of comprehension questions, modified elaborated input had a marginally significant effect on replication items. For synthesis and inference items, statistically significant effects for input type were not found, contradicting previous results in the literature. Proficiency showed significant effects on all tests, whereas WM showed interaction effects with simplified and modified elaborated input. In light of these findings, the study concludes that (a) elaborated input is more beneficial for advanced L2 learners than genuine input regardless of WM, (b) modified elaborated input with short sentences requires WM, (c) input elaboration is more effective than input enhancement for incidental vocabulary learning for both form and meaning recognition, and (d) enhanced incidental vocabulary conditions using greater input elaboration are likely to provide L2 learners with better input and opportunities to learn more lexical items incidentally.
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    Publication and Censorship of Popular Song During the Allied Occupation of Japan, 1945-1949
    (2014) Gailey-Schiltz, Nathanial Lyn; Witzleben, J. Lawrence; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    During the Allied Occupation of Japan, General MacArthur's SCAP administration ran a system of censorship of all publications and public broadcasts, lasting from September 1945 through late 1949. Included in the censored publications were sheet music and hit song collections of ryukoka and doyo, popular songs and children's songs. The Gordon W. Prange Collection at the University of Maryland holds an extensive collection of the proofs and publications that the censors collected, complete with their markings if material was to be deleted or suppressed. The sentiments expressed in the collection of songs in general, and in the items that censors marked for deletions, reflect the new cultural hegemony of the Occupation. Publishers and censors both contributed to the reinforcement of hegemonic ideas, through the addition and removal of specific sentiments from the popular discourse of the time.
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    THE SEMANTICS OF PROPER NAMES AND OTHER BARE NOMINALS
    (2012) Izumi, Yu; Pietroski, Paul M; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This research proposes a unified approach to the semantics of the so-called bare nominals, which include proper names (e.g., `Mary'), mass and plural terms (e.g., `water', `cats'), and articleless noun phrases in Japanese. I argue that bare nominals themselves are monadic predicates applicable to more than one particular, but they can constitute complex referential phrases when located within an appropriate linguistic environment. Bare nominals used as the subjects or objects of sentences are some or other variant of definite descriptions, which are analyzed as non-quantificational, referential expressions. The overarching thesis is that the semantic properties of bare nominal expressions such as rigidity are not inherent in the words themselves, but derived from the basic features of complex nominal phrases.
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    Reflexives in Japanese
    (2011) Kishida, Maki; Hornstein, Norbert; Linguistics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The purpose of this dissertation is to reconsider reflexives in Japanese through the following three steps: (a) separation of genuine reflexive elements from elements that are confounded as reflexives, (b) classification of reflexive anaphors into subtypes based on their semantic difference, and (c) classification of predicates that occur with anaphors. Many researchers have worked on the reflexive element zibun (self), but Japanese has other reflexive elements as well. These elements including zibun have not only the reflexive anaphor usage but also other ones. All the instances are, however, often lumped together under one category: reflexive. I distinguish genuine reflexive anaphors in Japanese from elements that are confounded as reflexive elements, by scrutinizing their syntactic and semantic properties and behavioral differences. Further, I claim that reflexive anaphors are classified into two subtypes as Pure reflexive anaphors and Near reflexive anaphors (Lidz, 1996, 2001a,b) based on their semantic property. Observing several languages from different language families, I propose that there is a parametric variation with respect to the two-type distinction of reflexive anaphors among languages. In languages like Japanese, anaphors in the form of affix are Pure reflexive anaphors, while non-affixal anaphors are Near reflexive anaphors. On the other hand, in languages like Dutch, the morphological composition (complexity) of anaphor corresponds to the two-type anaphor distinction. What yields this variation is also discussed. In considering reflexives, it is important to know the nature of reflexive anaphors, but it is also essential to understand the nature of predicates that occur with an anaphor. One of the unsolved questions in the research of reflexives in Japanese is that the anaphor zibun cannot take a local antecedent when it occurs with a certain type of verb, although anaphors should be locally bound. Several studies have demonstrated that the availability of local binding of an anaphor depends on the property of its cooccuring predicate (Reinhart and Reuland, 1993, Bergeton, 2004, among others). Discussing how the type of reflexive and the type of predicate relate, I propose a way to categorize predicates in Japanese into subtypes based on the analysis in Bergeton (2004). By going through the three steps, I give an answer to the unsolved question.
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    Thematically Driven Movement in Japanese: A Study of Psych Verb Constructions
    (2004-04-30) Motomura, Mitsue; Hornstein, Norbert; Linguistics
    The general aim of this thesis is to provide support for the claim that movement can be driven by theta-features, advanced by Bokovič (1994), Hornstein (1999, 2001), Manzini and Russo (2000), and O'Neil (1997) among others, through a study of Japanese Psych Verb constructions that exhibit interesting peculiarities. In some psych verb constructions, theta-roles are projected in an order that diverges from the canonical order found in other dyadic constructions. The theme role of Object Experiencer (OE) verbs is realized in the subject position of the sentence, while the experiencer role is linked to the object position. On the other hand, Subject Experiencer (SE) verbs map the theme role to the object position while the experiencer role is realized in the subject position. Given that in general experiencers are mapped to the subject/external argument position, OE verb constructions raise some critical issues for the Principles and Parameters theory (Chomsky, 1981), in particular for the theories of argument structure. The first goal of the thesis is to provide a solution to this linking puzzle as well as other peculiarities of OE verbs in Minimalist terms. In particular, I claim that the subject of an OE verb sentence is derived by thematically driven movement. By allowing such movement, the inverse linking pattern, backward binding phenomenon, and scope patterns of OE verbs can be accounted for straightforwardly. The second goal is to investigate the structures of SE verbs and OE verbs and how they are related one another. I propose that an OE verb is a mono-clausal causative, composed of an SE verb base and a causative morpheme -sase, and that SE verbs are bare VPs without vP projection. This amounts to saying that SE verbs do not project the external argument. It is shown that SE verbs do not allow passivization, supporting the claim that SE verbs do not project the external argument.