College of Education

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Language, Linguistics

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    The Effects of Metaphor and Blending Theory-Centered Instruction on Secondary English Students' Ability to Analyze Shakespearean Sonnets
    (2009) McHugh, Thomas Edward; Slater, Wayne H.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of metaphor and blending theory-centered instruction on Secondary English students' ability to comprehend and analyze Shakespearean sonnets. Students in three intact British Literature and Composition classes located in a high school in a suburban county received an Advanced Placement (AP) pretest poetry prompt. The treatment class received instruction in metaphor and blending theory applied to Shakespearean sonnets. The comparison groups received two variants of instruction in the language arts model, a standard and accepted curriculum focused on textual, thematic, and cultural contexts for the Shakespearean sonnets. After the three intact classes completed the instruction, students completed an AP poetry posttest. Results suggest that the inclusion of metaphor and theory-centered instruction may have positive effects on secondary students' abilities to understand complex figurative language, infer theme, and respond effectively to AP-style prompts. These results, however, will need to be validated by further research that allows for randomization and other sample treatments.
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    PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSING UNIT TRANSFER: THE IMPACT OF FIRST LANGUAGE SYLLABLE STRUCTURE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR PREFERRED SUBSYLLABIC DIVISION UNITS
    (2006-07-27) Chen, Shih-wei; Dreher, Mariam Jean; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This study investigated the potential transfer of first language (L1) phonological processing unit to second language processing. English and Chinese phonology differ mainly in the complexity of their syllable structures. English phonology allows highly complex syllable structures, whereas Chinese has been characterized primarily as a core syllable language, i.e., its syllables typically consist only of a consonant and vowel (CV). This sharp contrast is hypothesized to entail different phonological processing units in the two languages, and to result in, through L1 transfer, the poor phonological awareness often observed in Chinese speakers learning English as a second language (ESL). This hypothesis was tested by examining the performance patterns of Chinese ESL fourth graders on phoneme deletion and phoneme isolation tasks. The results suggest that Chinese ESL children do seem to process an English syllable in terms of an intact core syllable plus its appendices due to L1 transfer. This gives support to a developmental account of subsyllabic division unit preference, which suggests that core syllable is universally preferred in the initial stages of language development, only after which speakers of different languages diverge in their division unit preferences due to linguistic characteristics of their respective L1s. The presence of transfer suggested that Chinese ESL children performed differently on two item types--core-syllable items (requiring segmentation of an element within the core syllable) and non-core-syllable items (requiring segmentation of any appendices from the core syllable). As phonological awareness involves the ability to segment cohesive sound units, it was hypothesized that only performance on core-syllable items should represent phonological awareness. This hypothesis was tested by analyzing the item types' respective contribution to decoding skills. Phonological awareness has long been established as a strong predictor of decoding skills; thus the analyses served to test the two item types' respective criterion validity in tapping phonological awareness. The results confirmed the hypothesis. This implies that, methodologically, phonological awareness of Chinese ESL children could be more reliably measured if, in future studies, only core-syllable segmentation items are employed. Educationally, instruction in phonological awareness might emphasize core-syllable segmentation, which alone appears to reflect Chinese ESL children's phonological awareness.
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    Literate language feature use in preschool age children with specific language impairment and typically developing language
    (2006-04-19) Anderson, Alida Lorraine; Lieber, Joan; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This study investigated the rate of literate language feature (LLF) use in preschool age children with specific language impairment (SLI; n = 15), and typically developing language (TDL; n = 15). Language samples from two groups of children were compared in play and storybook sharing contexts with their mothers to determine whether there were differences in their LLF use. A multivariate within- and between-subjects design was used to assess preschoolers on five LLF dimensions of simple elaborated noun phrases (SENP), complex elaborated noun phrases (CENP), adverbs (ADV), conjunctions (CONJ), and mental and linguistic verbs (MLV), and on the summed LLF composite in play and storybook sharing contexts. In the LLF composite there was an interaction effect. Children with TDL had a higher rate of LLF use in play than in the story context, and children with SLI were significantly lower in their LLF use across contexts. When LLF dimensions were analyzed there was a main effect for context for the dimensions of CENP and ADV. Children had a significantly higher rate of these features in play than in the story context. In addition, there was an interaction effect for context by group for CONJ. Significance testing revealed that children with TDL used a higher rate of CONJ in play than children with SLI; however, in story, there were no significant differences between groups. The findings have implications in areas of language and literacy and assessment and measurement with children.