Ph.D. - Second Language Studies

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10125/36921

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A sociocultural approach to facilitating online graduate student writing groups
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Qayyum, Rabail; Gilliland, Betsy; Second Language Studies
Using sociocultural learning theory, this comparative case study research and practitioner inquiry offers my account, as the researcher-facilitator, of organizing three, separate, semester-long writing groups (WG), providing insights into ways the peer facilitation scaffolded the peer review, in what ways is the facilitation different across the three groups, and what the main challenges are to facilitation in this space. As writing support for graduate students is diversifying, WGs have emerged as important liminal spaces where members learn how to participate in academic discourses through writing and especially learn about peer review. As the researcher-facilitator, I facilitated three groups where monolingual English and multilingual graduate students at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa met on Zoom to peer review each other’s drafts, shared through Google Docs. The first two groups were multidisciplinary, while the third was discipline-specific. Primary data included 26 screen-captured video recordings of the meetings and audio-recordings of nine retrospective participant interviews. Secondary data encompassed my reflection journals, email correspondence with participants, and shared Google Drive documents, which I utilized for triangulation purposes. Primary data was qualitatively analyzed in two phases through methods of open coding, constant comparative method of analysis, subsumption, feedback analysis, and comparative thematic analysis. Secondary data was analyzed through open coding. The findings suggest that the peer facilitation scaffolded the peer review in three main ways: setting the multimodal feedback format, imparting instruction on peer review, and participating in peer review. Further, differences were observed in facilitation, with particular reference to the facilitator utilizing some scaffolding strategies in the multidisciplinary groups, but not in Group 3, and imparting less instruction in Group 3, indicating that facilitation may be tied to disciplinarity. This finding also underscores the importance of members’ prior feedback literacy that appears underrepresented in the literature. In terms of challenge to facilitation, analysis uncovered graduate students’ exhaustion and one monolingual student’s deficit perception of L2 English speakers’ feedback. This practitioner inquiry proposes a socioculturally-informed model of peer facilitation, taking into consideration the disciplinary composition of the groups and mediated by members’ prior feedback literacy, their linguistic diversity, the online environment, and the process of peer review. The findings endorse a multifaceted research approach for broadening current understandings of facilitation by foregrounding disciplinarity and linguistic diversity, accompanied by the modes and modality of peer review in an online environment. Further, there is a need to cultivate more supportive, conscientious, responsible, and socially just ways to engage in WGs. Findings hold pedagogical implications for writing instructors and program administrators for creating online communities of writing in distance-based learning environments and better understanding multimodal feedback.
Touch and talk in residential caregiving in Taiwan
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Lin, Yu-Han; Kasper, Gabriele; Second Language Studies
Interpersonal touch, or skin-to-skin contact, is a fundamental interactional resource in ordinary and institutional interactions. Previous research has examined interpersonal touch in diverse contexts such as family interactions (e.g., Cekaite, 2010; M. H. Goodwin & Cekaite, 2018), dance (e.g., Keevallik, 2021), sports (e.g., Meyer & Wedelstaedt, 2020), martial arts (e.g., Lefebvre, 2020, 2023; Råman & Haddington, 2018), medical and healthcare encounters (e.g., Guo et al., 2020; Nishizaka, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2017, 2020a, 2020b), and therapeutic settings (e.g., Merlino, 2021). In care settings, it is critical to monitor interpersonal touch to avoid abuse and misconduct (Cekaite & Mondada, 2021). Recent studies have begun to explore how participants use touch in care interactions, particularly in mundane care activities like drinking (Majlesi et al., 2020), eating (Ekström et al., 2022; Hydén et al., 2022; Majlesi et al., 2020; Wiggins et al., 2024), and moving from one place to another (Hippi, 2021; Majlesi et al., 2021, 2022; Marstrand & Svennevig, 2018). Yet most findings are based on single-case analyses or a limited number of participants. Moreover, little is known about care interactions involving multilingual participants, especially in East Asia. This dissertation addresses this gap by examining interpersonal touch in multilingual institutional care interactions in Taiwan. Using multimodal conversation analysis (C. Goodwin, 2000; Mondada, 2016, 2018a, 2019; Robinson et al., 2024; Streeck et al., 2011), it investigates how caregivers and elderly residents, whether sharing or not sharing a first language, use interpersonal touch and other interactional resources to accomplish everyday care activities. The data come from approximately 96 hours of video- and audio-recorded interactions collected at a private residential home in Taiwan. Participants include 86 Taiwanese residents and care staff (from Taiwan and Vietnam) in 2018, and 104 similar participants in 2019. The 2 analytical focus is on two interactional phenomena that involve the most recurrent use of touch: drinking and walking. Additionally, the study examines residents’ resistance during these activities and the corresponding responses by care staff. The findings reveal that care staff primarily coordinate touch with talk and organize their spatial orientation to prompt residents to drink proffered fluids or walk, support walking in progress, and lead or guide movement. While caregivers use both successive and simultaneous configurations of talk and touch in drinking, they predominantly employ successive configurations in walking. The engagement of talk suggests that care staff treat residents as partners in the interaction. In the absence of talk, the interaction often reflects habitual patterns between participants; however, the lack of talk in prompting residents to drink or walk may also indicate that care staff position residents as passive care recipients rather than active coparticipants. When residents refuse to drink or walk, care staff generally persist in seeking compliance rather than attending to the residents’ wishes. In general, international and Taiwanese caregivers employ similar multimodal practices. Contrary to previous studies and a recent national survey reporting language barriers between international caregivers and Taiwanese care recipients, this study did not observe such barriers. This study advances knowledge about interpersonal touch in coordination with other interactional resources in care interactions. It also contributes to the literature on touch and agency in intercorporeal interaction, specifically, how participants sense, interpret, and respond to one another through touch, and how residents execute agency in their responses to caregivers’ embodied directives (Hydén et al., 2022; Majlesi et al., 2022; Meyer et al., 2017). Lastly, it expands our understanding of care delivery in multilingual interaction.
Metacognition and engagement in second language task-based interaction: A comparative interrupted time series study
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Phung, Huy; Ziegler, Nicole; Second Language Studies
Research in second language acquisition underscores the crucial impact of the language environment, especially conversational interaction, on learners' L2 development (Long, 1996, 2015; Mackey, 2012, 2020). While conversational interaction offers opportunities for comprehensible input, modified output, and corrective feedback through meaning negotiation, learners often do not fully utilize these opportunities during peer interaction in foreign language contexts (Adams, 2007; Foster & Ohta, 2005; Moranski et al., 2024; Toth, 2008; Ziegler et al., 2025). Therefore, researchers have explored teaching learners to better exploit the developmental opportunities available from peer interaction under the metacognitive instruction (MCI) framework (Fujii et al., 2016; Moranski et al., 2024; Sato & Loewen, 2018; Sippel, 2024, 2019). However, findings on the efficacy of such instruction have been mixed. While some studies report improved corrective feedback and grammar learning (Sato & Loewen, 2018; Sippel, 2019, 2024), others found no impact on interaction or task engagement, particularly in technology-mediated environments (Moranski et al., 2024; Ziegler et al., 2025). These discrepancies may stem from substantive issues (e.g., MCI quantity/quality, outcome estimates) or methodological issues (e.g., estimation methods, statistical models), which underscores the importance of rigorous research designs and analytic strategies. In Applied Linguistics, there remains a pressing need for systematic comparisons of intervention frameworks, estimation techniques, and statistical models to generate reliable, generalizable evidence for classroom practice (Gass et al., 2021; Plonsky, 2013, 2024)This dissertation examines both the impact of a metacognitive instruction on L2 learners’ task engagement and the methodological consequences of alternative statistical model specifications in a quasi‐experimental context. Thirty‐four dyads (n=68) from two intact university‐level language classes in Vietnam completed a series of communicative homework tasks over a 15‐week semester. Beginning in Week 11, the treatment group received metacognitive instruction on how interaction, tasks, and corrective feedback aid learning, while the control group continued with standard instruction. Using a comparative interrupted time series (CITS) framework, I estimated intervention effects on time-on-task (an operational proxy for task engagement) under multiple mixed-effects model specifications, including level-only, trend-adjusted, and fully flexible interaction formulations. Results indicate a small, non-significant increase in time-on-task following metacognitive instruction (? = 0.18, 95% CI [-2.25, 2.62], t(497) = 0.15, p = 0.882). Methodological analyses demonstrate meaningful variation in effect estimates and inferential conclusions across model forms, underscoring the critical role of specification choice in CITS studies with short time series. These findings contribute to the ongoing methodological innovations in instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) by (a) empirically evaluating the efficacy of metacognitive instruction, and (b) identifying optimal analytic approaches for causal inference in short time series, longitudinal intervention research. Implications for applied practice and future research on both metacognitive instruction and robust quasi-experimental modeling are discussed.
Handwritten versus typed notes: The impact of note-taking modes in second language listening tests
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Kim, Jieun; Isbell, Daniel R.; Second Language Studies
Lecture comprehension is a critical academic skill for both first language (L1) and second language (L2) speakers, often accompanied by note-taking. With the increasing portability of computers and their growing integration into education, technological advancements have influenced note-taking practices in classrooms as well as their consideration in standardized language assessments. Some tests, such as IELTS administered on paper and the TOEFL iBT, permit handwritten notes, while IELTS administered on computer allows typed notes. Tests like TOEIC and the Duolingo English Test prohibit note-taking altogether. However, these policies have largely been implemented based on practicality or security concerns, without considering empirical evidence related to impacts on listening comprehension. This study investigates the effects of different note-taking modes on listening test performance and the content of notes.A total of 305 L1-Korean L2-English adults were recruited to take a listening test and randomly assigned to one of three note-taking conditions: handwriting (n = 102), typing (n = 102), or no note-taking (n = 101). Participants completed four listening testlets from official research forms of the TOEFL iBT; each testlet consisted of a five-minute lecture followed by six multiple-choice questions. Listening test performance was analyzed using linear regression at the test level and uniform and non-uniform Differential Item Functioning (DIF) analyses at the item level. Handwritten and typed notes were compared on measures of word count, information units, verbatim writing, translanguaging, and nonlinguistic elements using Mann-Whitney U tests. The results indicated no significant differences in overall test scores between note-taking modes. Uniform DIF analyses revealed that one item requiring inference favored handwriting, while another item focusing on main ideas favored typing. No DIF was observed when comparing no note-taking with handwriting or typing. Non-uniform DIF emerged only among lower-ability test takers, with the same items flagged in uniform DIF analyses showing discrepancies between handwriting and typing. Analysis of note content showed no significant differences between handwritten and typed notes in terms of word count and translanguaging. However, handwritten notes included more information units from the passage, verbatim text from the passage, and nonlinguistic elements than typed notes. Based on regression analyses, for the handwriting group, information units were the only significant predictor of test scores, while for the typing group, information units positively predicted scores and verbatim writing and translanguaging had negative impacts. Although listening test scores did not differ significantly across note-taking modes, the findings suggest that listening processes may vary depending on the note-taking mode, as reflected in the note content. These results call for test developers to reassess their note-taking policies, considering the extent to which test scores accurately reflect the intended construct, align with the target language use domain, promote positive educational consequences, and ensure a pleasant test-taker experience while ensuring fair treatment of test takers. While varied concerns influence decisions about note-taking policies in standardized listening tests, empirical evidence on how note-taking might (not) impact test scores and test-taking processes should not be ignored.
Second language program administrators: Critically-oriented values and practices
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Holden, Daniel; Crookes, Graham V.; Second Language Studies
This dissertation investigates how second language program administrators (SLPAs) conceptualize and enact critically-oriented values—democracy, action-orientation, and critical dialogue—within their institutional roles. Drawing on Critical Pedagogy (Freire, 1973, 1974) and extended through Critical Language Pedagogy (Crookes & Abednia, 2021), the study explores how administrators navigate institutional constraints such as financial pressures, political resistance, and bureaucratic demands (Eaton, 2013; Panferov, 2012), while striving to maintain their stated values within their programs. Using a multi-method qualitative approach—including surveys, semi-structured interviews, and limited observations—the study gathers perspectives from SLPAs working across O‘ahu (Hawai‘i) and the U.S. continent. Participants come from a range of institutional contexts, including university-affiliated programs, private language schools, and charter schools. Analytical methods include grounded theory-informed coding (Hadley, 2017) and hierarchical cluster analysis, which was used to identify three typologies of administrative orientation: Cautious Advocates, Strategic Reformers, and Open Advocates. Findings indicate that while administrators express strong commitments to democratic governance, action-oriented problem-solving, and fostering critical dialogue, these values are frequently influenced by systemic challenges, such as resource constraints, institutional norms, and the pressure for compliance with standardized procedures (Begley, 2000; Eaton, 2013; Osborn, 2006). The study highlights how critical orientation is not a fixed identity but a set of practices shaped by context. This research contributes to the field by offering a comparative framework for understanding how administrators’ critical values are enabled or constrained by institutional context. It underscores the need for professional development models that prepare SLPAs to navigate complex educational environments while promoting socially responsive and equity-oriented language education.
SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING AND PREDICTIVE PROCESSING OF THE MANDARIN DATIVE ALTERNATION
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Zhu, Yanxin (Alice); Grüter, Theres; Second Language Studies
This dissertation investigates the second language (L2) learning and predictive processing of the dative alternation in Mandarin. It has been proposed that predictive processing can support language learning through the computation of prediction error (Chang et al., 2006; Goldberg, 2019). Young adult native speakers are found to engage in prediction in many processing situations (Pickering & Gambi, 2018), whereas L2 learners tend to show slower and weaker prediction effects in more limited circumstances (Schlenter, 2023). As a result, L2 learners may have less opportunity to learn from prediction error (Hopp, 2021). Studies on the relation between (reduced or different) L2 prediction and learning are thus crucial for a better understanding of L2 acquisition, yet have been initiated only very recently and chiefly restricted to L2 English (e.g., Coumel et al., 2023; Grüter et al., 2021; Kaan & Chun, 2018). To contribute to the research on the connection between L2 prediction and learning and to extend this inquiry beyond European languages, this project investigates the predictive processing and learning of the Mandarin dative alternation among adult classroom learners, framed within error-driven learning accounts, using structural priming to supply language input which participants might learn from. This dissertation consists of three experiments. Experiment 1 employs written structural priming and acceptability judgment tasks to examine whether structural priming can facilitate the L2 learning of the dative alternation in Mandarin. Results show that structural priming can increase not only classroom learners’ production of acceptable verb-dative pairings but also their acceptability ratings for these pairings. The observation of such longer-term priming effects beyond the priming phase, together with an inverse frequency effect of priming observed among classroom learners, aligns well with error-driven learning accounts. However, we find no evidence for statistical preemption, in that participants do not decrease ratings for unacceptable pairings as a result of exposure to their competing alternatives. Experiment 2 utilizes a visual world eye tracking task to probe predictive use of dative verb constraints in Mandarin among native speakers and classroom learners. Results indicate that native speakers and classroom learners make anticipatory looks to the upcoming argument following categorical restrictions of non-alternating verbs and gradient bias of alternating verbs before the acoustic onset of the disambiguating noun. Crucially, no delay or reduction in the prediction effects is observed among classroom learners in comparison with native speakers. Experiment 3 investigates whether structural priming can lead native speakers and classroom learners to adapt their productions and real-time predictions of dative constructions. Participants completed a visual world eye tracking + structural priming (VWSP) task as well as written sentence completion tasks before and after the VWSP task. Results reveal no immediate priming effects or longer-term adaptation in real-time prediction. Nevertheless, the priming treatment leads to longer-term adaptation in production in a one-day delayed posttest. This dissertation examines the L2 acquisition of the dative alternation in Mandarin, a phenomenon rarely studied despite numerous previous studies on the dative alternation in L2 English. It thus contributes to the field of second language acquisition (SLA) by extending the empirical basis to lesser studied yet widely learned and taught languages like Mandarin. This dissertation is the first study to test structural priming effects in real-time prediction, production and acceptability judgments of the Mandarin dative alternation among classroom learners from an error-driven learning perspective, and the first study to probe the predictive processing of the dative alternation in Mandarin during real-time listening among classroom learners. Therefore, the dissertation also contributes to the emerging research strand in the wider field of cognitive science that seeks to understand the critical connections between (second) language processing, prediction and learning.
TUTORING GUIDELINES AS A DEONTIC RESOURCE AT A WRITING CENTER
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Matsutani, Yuka; Kasper, Gabriele; Second Language Studies
Most institutions maintain institutional guidelines based on specific professional beliefs in order to establish social order within the setting and accomplish their institutional goals (Heritage, 2005; Heritage & Clayman, 2010). Therefore, a key research issue in institutional Conversation Analysis (CA) is to examine how institutional guidelines are "produced, maintained, and transformed through participants' routine interactional work" (Kasper & Wagner, 2014). This topic has been researched in such contexts as psychotherapy (e.g., Parry, 2005; Peräkylä, 1995, 2005; Weiste & Peräkylä, 2013), medical consultations (e.g., Collins, 2005; Lindfors & Raevaara, 2005; Ruusuvuori, 2005), and classrooms (Amir & Musk, 2013; Bonacina-Pugh, 2012; Gynne, 2019; Jakonen, 2016; Rosén & Bagga-Gupta, 2015). Building on this body of research, the current study adopts multimodal CA to investigate how participants comply with, resist, and negotiate institutional guidelines in Writing Center (WC) tutorials. Based on theories and pedagogical approaches developed in composition studies and writing center scholarship, WCs employ tutoring guidelines that prescribe how tutors should interact with tutees. As reported in previous research, tutors frequently express concerns about deviating from normative tutoring practices (Blau & Hall, 2002; Dixon 2017; Nicklay, 2012). However, previous research has not shown how tutoring guidelines surface in the tutors' observable conduct in their interaction with tutees. Building on Peräkylä and Vehviläinen's (2003) observation that practitioners' theories inform professionals' practices as professional Stocks of Interactional Knowledge (SIKs), this study respecifies WC tutoring guidelines as a deontic resource, that is, as having the capacity to determine participants' actions (Stevanovic, 2011; 2015; 2018; 2021; Stevanovic & Peräkylä, 2012; 2014). The setting for this study is the Hawaiʻi Writing Center (HWC), located at a university in Hawaiʻi. The primary data consist of 39 tutoring sessions, in which the primary activity is revising drafts of diverse writing projects, such as term papers, scholarship application essays, and statements of purpose. Throughout the corpus, recurrent misalignments are noticeable between the tutors striving to adhere to the tutoring guidelines and the tutees acting contrary to these guidelines. Two tutoring guidelines are particularly salient in these misalignments: the guideline for participation frameworks and the guideline against proofreading/editing. First, the analysis delineates how the participation frameworks for the revising activity are established in the opening of the writing tutorials, focusing on the participants' orientation to the guideline regarding participation frameworks in WC tutorials. Analytic focus is given to cases where the tutor and tutee negotiate who takes on the role of writing on the printed draft, each participant proposing competing participation frameworks. During this negotiation, two inherently contradicting guidelines—the guideline for the use of pens/pencils and the guideline regarding the tutees' agency—become relevant for the tutors. In resolving the dilemma, the tutors comply with the former guideline through their embodied conduct while complying with the latter guideline through the linguistic format of their turns. Second, the analysis details how requests for grammar assistance are formed by the tutees and responded to by the tutors, focusing on their respective orientations to the guidelines against proofreading/editing. In their responses to the tutees' requests for grammar assistance, the tutors display sensitivity to the formation of the request. Requests interpretable as seeking error correction confront the tutors with conflicting guidelines, the proscription of proofreading/editing, on the one hand, and the prescription of supporting the tutee as an ally and counselor, on the other. The analysis reveals how the tutors skillfully manage the dilemmatic demands through their response practices. Lastly, the analysis also sheds light on the tutee's orientation to the guideline against proofreading/editing in their socialization process towards becoming a knowledgeable member of the HWC community. The study contributes to CA research on institutional interaction by uncovering how professional guidelines work as a deontic resource in situ and how that deontic authority shapes professional-client interaction. It also advances research in Writing Center Scholarship by responding to a longstanding call for empirical studies and by complementing the limited but growing body of CA research on writing tutorials at WCs. More particularly, the conversation-analytic findings can usefully inform the development of alternative tutoring guidelines and in this way advance WC pedagogy.
The processing and acceptability of gapped vs. resumptive relative clauses in first and second language English
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Zenker, Fred; Schwartz, Bonnie D.; Second Language Studies
This dissertation investigates the interplay between the implicit knowledge that learners have of a nonnative language and their processing of that language, examining two types of relative clauses (RCs) in English: gapped RCs (e.g., the man that they hired) and resumptive RCs (e.g., *the man that they hired him). Resumptive RCs are considered ungrammatical in English, and yet they are not uncommon in nonnative speech/writing, even from learners whose first language (L1) also disallows them. Phenomena of this type represent a very interesting area of second language (L2) research because they cannot be straightforwardly traced to either L1 influence or target language input, thus raising questions as to whence they emerge in the first place. This project draws on innovative methods from the psycholinguistics literature on adult native speakers to investigate key questions concerning resumptive RCs in adult L1/L2 English: First, is resumption a licit option for relativization in the grammar and/or a means of managing cognitive load during real-time sentence processing? Second, if resumption does aid in RC processing, are facilitation effects observed only in production or also in comprehension? Finally, for L2 learners (L2ers), does performance vary as a function of English proficiency? The participant sample comprises English native speaker controls (ENSs), L1-Korean L2ers of English (KLEs), and L1-Mandarin L2ers of English (MLEs); note that only Mandarin allows resumptive RCs in any of the syntactic environments tested. Participants were distributed across two studies: one on direct object RCs (ORCs), the other on subject RCs (SRCs). Both have three main tasks: an oral elicited production task (EPT) probing processing during RC production, a self-paced reading task (SPRT) probing processing during RC comprehension, and an offline acceptability judgment task (AJT) testing acceptability of the sentence types in the other tasks. The conditions in each task target three increasingly complex RC environments: short-distance, long-distance, wh-island. L2ers completed two versions of the AJT—one in English, one in their L1—so that L1 transfer effects, if present, could be identified. All participants also completed a language background questionnaire, an English proficiency C-test, and a short exit survey. L1/L2 results from the EPT and the SPRT provide clear-cut evidence that resumption eases both production and comprehension of ORCs/SRCs under processing strain. For L1 adult processing, this finding contests claims in the literature (e.g., Ferreira & Swets, 2005) that resumption helps only with language production. For L2 research, clear facilitation effects for resumption emerged in both sets of the processing data even when L2ers who consistently accepted resumptive RCs in the English AJT had been removed; this finding that L2 resumption is in many cases a purely processing-based phenomenon rather than a representational one casts doubt on a traditional assumption in the L2 literature (e.g., Hyltenstam, 1984) that is often implicitly held to this day. While a sizable portion of L2ers did consistently accept English resumptive RCs, proficiency effects also arose in the AJT data: Individuals with higher C-test scores were more likely both to reject resumptive RCs—at least in the short- and long-distance environments, where English allows only gapped RCs. These results indicate that with rising English proficiency, it is possible for L2ers to become sensitive to the English prohibition on resumption in RCs.
PERCEPTUAL ADAPTATION TO FOREIGN ACCENTS BY SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Nishizawa, Hitoshi; Crowther, Dustin; Second Language Studies
Many studies evidence the flexibility of speech perception in the first language (L1), which allows rapid adaptation to unfamiliar foreign accents. Two influential studies by Bradlow and Bent (2008) and a follow-up study by Baese-Berk et al. (2013) found that increased variability as a function of the number of talkers and accents facilitated the generalization of adaptation across talkers and accents by L1 listeners. However, very few studies have examined second language (L2) learners as listeners (Baese-Berk, 2018). Thus, little is known about perceptual flexibility in L2. Critically, there has been no study directly examining the effect of increased variability on adaptation to foreign accents by L2 listeners. My goal with this study is to address this research gap by closely following these studies with L2 listeners. I examine if variability facilitates adaptation to unfamiliar foreign accents by L2 listeners. To do this, I recruited 280 Japanese learners of English for a two-day experiment that consisted of a pre-test, treatment, and post-test. For the pre-test and post-test, I used a Mandarin talker and a Vietnamese talker. The participants were randomly assigned to seven groups and received different treatments: an identical-talker group, single-medium group, single-high group, single-low group, multi-talker group, multi-accent group, and control group. The identical-talker group had the same Mandarin talker as the tests. The rest of the groups had a different talker from the tests. The single-medium group featured one Mandarin talker with a similar level of intelligibility to the test talkers, while the single-high group had a high intelligibility Mandarin talker, and the single-low group had a low intelligibility Mandarin talker. The multi-talker group had five Mandarin talkers. The multi-accent group had five L2 accents that included the Mandarin accent but not the Vietnamese accent. The talkers in the multi-talker and multi-accent groups featured similar intelligibility levels to the single-medium talker. The control group had five American L1 talkers. In the pre-test, treatment, and post-test, the L2 listeners transcribed short sentences. Accuracy of word recognition was used as a measure of adaptation. The results showed no statistically significant improvements in any of the groups. Numerically however, the control group and the single-high group improved more than others for the Mandarin talker, while the single-medium and multi-talker groups improved more than others for the Vietnamese talker. The small improvements suggest possible differences in the mechanism of adaptation to foreign accents between L1 and L2, which may be modulated by listeners’ proficiency. I discuss how speech perception theories and hypotheses that were developed within studies on L1 listeners and L2 phoneme acquisition theories may or may not explain the results.
AT AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL CROSSROADS: INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS’ SENSE OF BELONGING AT A UNIVERSITY STRIVING TO BE A HAWAIIAN PLACE OF LEARNING
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Nguyen, Ha Thi Thu; Higgins, Christina M.; Second Language Studies
The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s (UHM) most recent Strategic Plan highlights the university’s mission to be a Hawaiian Place of Learning (HPoL) while sustaining a commitment to global competitiveness. At the same time, multiple stakeholders at UHM have continued to push for greater recognition and engagement with the university as an institution that celebrates Hawaiian ways of knowing, particularly in regard to Hawaiian history, language, and culture. Students at UHM therefore encounter a discursive crossroads, as they have been admitted to a flagship, public university in the United States, which carries with it a significant degree of cultural capital due to the hegemony of north-south relations that privilege northern knowledge (Luke, 2001). Research in higher education has shown that international students in particular attend U.S. universities in order to acquire the cultural capital of studying in the global north in order to enhance their competitiveness (Connell, 2017; Kim, 2023). Consequently, international students are likely to be caught between these Discourses of internationalization and Indigenization.Building on the scholarship on international students’ belonging, engaged linguistic landscape and place in higher education, this dissertation seeks to answer two questions: (1) How do international students understand UHM’s situated place identity? And (2), How do international students who engage in learning more about UHM as a HPoL position themselves in relation to their previous experiences? Drawing on a conceptual framework consisting of positioning (Bamberg, 1997), place attachment (Scannell & Gifford, 2010), and moʻokūʻauhau, I examine how international students position themselves amidst Discourses of neoliberalism and Indigenization. Data analyzed include (a) UHM’s Strategic Plans (SPs); (b) campus huakaʻi (tour) interviews; (c) focus group interactions and (d) focus group follow-up interviews with participants. Document analysis (Bowen, 2009; Merriam, 2009) with particular attention paid to lexical chains (Paltridge, 2021) was used to analyze the three SPs. Findings suggest that international students possessed uneven understandings of Hawaiʻi and UHM, but that learning about Hawaiʻi and Hawaiian epistemologies was important for international students’ personal growth and development, their social connections, and their affection toward Hawaiʻi. Findings also indicated that the place dimension, in the context of an aloha ʻāina university, encompassed an epistemological aspect; participants’ positive alignment with Hawaiian epistemologies shows their positive bond to Hawaiʻi as a place. One conclusion is that while globalization may act as a centrifugal force propelling students to pursue education abroad, engagement with Hawaiian knowledge functions as a centripetal force, anchoring students to place. This work aspires to serve as a reference point for researchers in higher education to start understanding the role of newcomers and sojourners at universities with regard to local and Indigenous values, cultures, languages, and histories.
COLLABORATIVE GAMING IN L2 SPANISH: THE IMPACT OF PLAYING A TASK-BASED DIGITAL GAME ON BEGINNER LEARNERS’ LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2023) Díez-Ortega, María; González-Lloret, Marta; Second Language Studies
Research in digital game-based language learning (DGBLL) has shown support for the use of games to develop linguistic knowledge and social skills in the second language (L2) classroom (Cornillie et al., 2012c; Reinhardt, 2019; Sykes & Reinhardt, 2013). Digital games often align with the definition of tasks, but not many have been intentionally explored under a technology-mediated task-based language teaching (TBLT) framework (González-Lloret & Ortega, 2014). Additionally, research in second language acquisition (SLA) provides evidence in favor of task-based peer interaction for L2 development, from both sociocultural and interactionist frameworks (Lantolf, 2000; Long, 1996). From a cognitive interactionist perspective, the collaborative dialogue emerging in these interactions provides opportunities for negotiation for meaning, noticing, self-repair, corrective feedback (CF), and other processes facilitative of L2 learning (Gass & Mackey, 2015; Long, 1996). Even though interaction in games is considered one of their main L2 affordances, educational digital games are often designed for single players and few studies have investigated the interaction that occurs during collaborative gaming (e.g., Peterson, 2012; Zheng et al., 2009). There remains a number of under-researched areas in DGBLL. Most research has investigated the impact of gaming on intermediate to advanced language learners after a single gaming session, usually with a pre-treatment-posttest experimental design. Only a few studies have investigated gaming in languages other than English (e.g., Palomo-Duarte et al., 2019; Scholz & Schulz, 2017; Sykes, 2014). Furthermore, few studies have examined L2 development longitudinally (e.g., Piirainen-Marsh & Tainio, 2009; Rama et al., 2012; Sydorenko et al., 2019). Very little is known about how gaming and co-play impacts beginner learners’ L2 development. This study addresses these gaps by investigating collaborative and individual gaming of beginner learners of L2 Spanish playing a task-based video game, Practice Spanish: Study Abroad (PSSA), at a university program (9 intact classes, N = 156). There were two experimental conditions — 1) learners played the game individually (n = 53) and 2) learners played in dyads sharing one computer (n = 49) — and a control group (n = 54), which engaged in technology-mediated activities. This quasi-experimental study used a convenience sample to maintain the ecological validity of the curriculum. The dyad (DYAD) experimental condition engaged in five gaming sessions of PSSA in a computer laboratory, while the individual (IND) condition played four quests of PSSA at home. All learners completed a pre and post vocabulary and grammar test, and the experimental conditions also completed a self-perceptions questionnaire. The gameplay of five dyads (25 sessions, 17.5 hours) was recorded, transcribed, and coded by type and resolution of language-related episodes (LREs, Swain & Lapkin, 2001), as well as in-game triggers of LREs. Patterns of interaction, strategies used by players, and players’ attitudes of engagement and frustration while playing were also examined. The results of the linear-mixed effects models indicate that all learners scored significantly higher in the grammar and vocabulary tests after the semester, but that there were no significant differences between the experimental conditions and the control group. LRE analyses showed all dyads produced many grammatical, lexical, and orthographical LREs. The qualitative analysis of LREs serves to illustrate instances of noticing, hypothesis testing, and peer-feedback. Results also show how game features (e.g., interaction with the game, corrective feedback) triggered interaction. Finally, those playing in dyads displayed more positive attitudes towards the game than individual players based on the end-of-semester questionnaire responses and players engagement during gameplay. This study contributes new knowledge to the field of
INVESTIGATING THE EFFECT OF MOTIVATIONAL DESIGN ON SAUDI UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION AND L2 WRITING PERFORMANCE: AN EXPERIMENTAL MIXED METHODS DESIGN USING KELLER’S ARCS MODEL
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2023) Alzahrani, Raed; Crookes, Graham V.; Second Language Studies
According to Boo et al. (2015), between 2005 and 2014, the majority of L2 motivation studies focused on general learner motivation, neglecting research on motivating learners in classroom contexts. Similarly, Sudina (2021) stated that most research on motivation focused on students’ individual motivation, even though what teachers do to motivate students in the classroom is also of major interest. Although some attempts have been made to propose motivational strategies for teachers (Dörnyei, 2001), traditional motivation research in SLA rarely considered the influence of classroom materials and instructional practices as the interface between motivation and learning. To this end, the present study brought Keller’s (2010) Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction (ARCS) model from educational psychology to applied linguistics, as recommended by Crookes and Schmidt (1991) and Lamb (2019), to address how materials and associated teacher instructional practices can be motivating based on a motivational theory of instruction. It investigated the effect of teachers’ implementation of an ARCS-based motivational strategies intervention on the motivation and L2 writing development of EFL learners.The study employed an experimental mixed-methods approach, randomly assigning 82 Saudi adult EFL students to an experimental group (N = 50) or a control group (N = 32). Two teachers of the experimental group received an instructional guide for implementing 17 ARCS- based motivational strategies, while the one teacher of the control group followed conventional methods. Data collection occurred over a 7-week period, involving four pre-posttest motivation surveys and writing tests, audio recordings, observations, exit interviews, and reflection journals collected from teachers and students. The findings obtained from the quantitative analysis showed that the ARCS-based intervention had a small to medium effect on students’ instruction-related motivation, while no significant changes were found on other aspects of motivation such as intrinsic motivation, iv motivational self-evaluation, and course interest. It also showed that the intervention had a medium-sized effect on students’ overall L2 writing development, specifically on aspects of content and communicative achievement. Nevertheless, no significant changes were discerned in aspects related to organization, language, and fluency, despite more pronounced changes over time in the treatment group compared to the control group. The qualitative analysis of students’ interviews showed that the ARCS-based intervention had noticeable effects on students’ motivation and engagement in the classroom. The qualitative results also added some context and deeper insights into how students perceived the intervention, how it affected their motivation, which motivational strategies the students noticed being used consistently by the teacher, and what specific strategies they felt helped improve their writing. Additionally, interviews with teachers who implemented the intervention shed light on teachers’ motivational practices, revealing their personal growth as educators and their intent to continue implementing these strategies in their teaching while recommending them to other teachers. The study concludes with pedagogical recommendations for teachers to utilize various motivational strategies in their instruction and some recommendations for researchers to help understand more about this line of research.
A comparative analysis of L2 service-learners' interactional practices in community-based activities and the classroom
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2023) Choe, Ann Tai; Kasper, Gabriele; Second Language Studies
Service-learning (SL) is an experiential pedagogy that engages students in working for, with, and in communities in need. While prior research has explored the effects of SL on second language (L2) users’ (perceived) language development (e.g., Gaugler & Matheus, 2019), intercultural awareness (e.g., Sánchez-Naranjo, 2021), and critical awareness (e.g., Shannahan et al., 2021), to this day, little is known about SL as a social activity (but see, e.g., Perren, 2007). Furthermore, the nexus between classroom and service site practices remains largely under- scrutinized (Overfield, 2007). To make informed pedagogical decisions for L2 service-learners, it is important to understand the linkage between classroom and service site practices. This dissertation aims to fill this notable lacuna by exploring participants’ interactional practices for achieving SL activities at service sites and in classrooms. Drawing on insights from a decade’s worth of applied linguistics research on bridging between classrooms and the wild (e.g., Lilja et al., 2019; Lilja & Piirainen-Marsh, 2019; Piirainen-Marsh & Lilja, 2019; Theodorsdóttir, 2011; Wagner, 2015), the study adopts multimodal conversation analysis (CA; e.g., Deppermann, 2013; Mondada, 2016; Streeck et al., 2011) as a robust framework to investigate SL as a social activity and reciprocity as an interactional achievement. Data consist of naturally-occurring audio- and video-recorded interaction collected across different settings: service sites (15 hours), classrooms (6 hours), and focus groups (5 hours). The study only focuses on the service and classroom interaction. Participants included 14 university- level L2 users in an SL program within an intensive English language program in Hawaiʻi, ESL teachers, and community members. The analyses center on two interactional phenomena frequently observed in the data: (a) mobilizing others and being mobilized (Taleghani-Nikazm et al., 2020) and (b) intercorporeal co-operative practices (C. Goodwin, 2018; Meyer et al., 2017). The findings uncovered some (dis)similarities between participants’ practices at the service sites and in the classroom. When mobilizing others, for example, the participants used less explicit, highly elliptical, and action-oriented mobilization designs (e.g., “cut” + an environmentally coupled gesture, C. Goodwin, 2018), contrasting with more explicit, modulated, and talk-oriented mobilization designs in the classroom (e.g., “one more time, please” + holding out an index finger). These differences indicate that the participants’ mobilizing turn designs at the service sites shows an orientation to urgency, whereas in the classroom, they orient to achieving mutual access to a knowledge object. In intercorporeal co-operative practices, the participants produced synchronized and sequentially mirrored actions to achieve various interactional outcomes (e.g., stance alignment, affiliation, co-engagement on task). At the service sites, they oriented to collaborative task completion by adopting or transforming others’ actions to achieve near-synchrony. On the other hand, in the classroom, they generally showed an orientation toward “wanting to be on the same page” by chiming into a choral co-production (e.g., Ehmer, 2021; Lerner, 2002; Pfänder & Couper-Kuhlen, 2019). These findings suggest that SL is a fertile ground for L2 users to engage in diverse multimodal practices while orienting to reciprocity as a collaborative enterprise. The study contributes to improving our current understanding of SL as a multimodal achievement. It also hopes to expand extant SL research traditions by demonstrating multimodal CA as a productive framework for scrutinizing reciprocity at various levels: interpersonal (reciprocity among SL stakeholders) as well as programmatic and community levels (reciprocity between educational objectives and community engagement). Methodological and pedagogical implications of the findings will be discussed.
DEVELOPING TECHNOLOGY-MEDIATED TBLT FOR BEGINNING VIETNAMESE: INSIGHTS FROM ACTION RESEARCH
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2023) Le, Hoa Thi Vinh; Ziegler, Nicole; Gilliland, Betsy; Second Language Studies
During the initial stages of the global COVID-19 pandemic, foreign language educators faced unprecedented challenges as all classes were suddenly forced to transition to online formats. These issues were further exacerbated for less commonly taught language (LCTL) classrooms due to the range of constraints found in this context, including the co-presence of heritage and non-heritage language learners (HLLs) as well as a shortage of established curriculum, syllabi, and materials for this diverse student population (Carreira & Kagan, 2018). In addition, although the efficacy of task-based language teaching (TBLT) has been demonstrated through empirical studies and syntheses (e.g. Chong & Reinders, 2020; Keck et al., 2006), much of this work has focused on non-HLLs, with few studies having targeted program development and evaluation for LCTLs, or online curriculums for such programs (Bryfonski & Mckay, 2019). Seeking to address this gap, the current study uses action research (Burns, 2010, 2011) to report the experience of the teacher-researcher in creating, implementing, and evaluating technology-mediated TBLT materials for a beginning Vietnamese language class at an American university. This study addresses two research questions (RQ): 1) How can longitudinal action research guide the development of an online TBLT curriculum for mixed classrooms at the novice level? 2) To what extent did students learn during the TBLT courses? The technology-mediated TBLT curriculum (Ellis, 2003; Long, 2015) for this research was developed over multiple phases, including an initial needs analysis, subsequent task design and sequencing, curriculum implementation, and evaluation. In addition, to address the unique concerns of teaching a tonal language and the distinctive variation of Vietnamese dialects, activities using applications such as Flipgrid and Quizlet were also included. All class sessions were taught using the mutli-modal features available through Zoom (including screen sharing, video-, audio- and text-chat) and were recorded. Building on the use of TBLT as the pedagogical foundation, action research was used as the methodological framework through four iterative cycles (i.e., two academic years) conducted with two mixed cohorts of HLL and non-HLL students. To answer RQ1, data consisted of students’ task exit surveys, course evaluations, semi-structured interviews, and the teacher’s reflective teaching journals were analyzed using an inductive analysis for the qualitative elements and descriptive statistics for the quantitative ones. To address RQ2, students’ task assessments were analyzed, and starting from Cycle 3 the Avant speaking and writing proficiency test results from pre- semester, post Cycle 1, and post Cycle 2 were also reported. Results indicate the improvement of the curriculum over time and, while some students were concerned with the lack of grammar drills as a result of the TBLT program, findings demonstrate that the course helped improve learner’s task performance and speaking and writing proficiency. By exploring the affordances of multimodal technology-mediated TBLT, this research stands to make valuable contributions to the larger TBLT research and teaching community as well as provide evidence-based materials designed specifically for teaching online Vietnamese classes with mixed learner populations, thereby serving as a resource for future research and pedagogical applications.
Co-Operative Instruction in Music and Sports: Language(s), Body, and Objects
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2023) Yagi, Junichi; Kasper, Gabriele; Second Language Studies
As demonstrated by past ethnomethodological and conversation-analytic research, the interactional work of teaching is inherently embodied (Hall & Looney, 2019). This is particularly true for instruction in performance-based activities such as music and sports. Adopting the theoretical and methodological perspectives of multimodal conversation analysis (Mondada, 2019), this dissertation aims to explicate how participants locally organize the work of teaching and learning embodied skills (Ehmer & Brône, 2021) to produce, and sustain, the normative order of the setting (Garfinkel, 2002). To this end, the study examines corrections, instructions, and transitions within and across three activity contexts: taiko ensemble rehearsals, Muay Thai training, and jazz/blues band rehearsals.The key findings are as follows. First, correction and instruction are contingently managed through participants’ retrospective and prospective orientations. These differences in orientation help shape the local organization of the activity-at-hand, affording unique interactional practices such as choral chanting (Yagi, 2022). Second, instructional activities in performance-based settings involve the use of activity-specific objects (Nevile et al., 2014), some of which can impose material constraints on manual mobility (Yagi, 2023). Participants nevertheless manage to work around these constraints via embodied and contextually afforded practices (Yagi, 2021b). Finally, while vocalizations figure prominently in both music and sports, they differ in terms of conventionality, with some being subject to correction and contestation (Choe & Yagi, 2023; Yagi, 2022). Based on C. Goodwin’s (2018) theory of co-operative action, the discussion argues that members’ methods for teaching and correcting may have diversified within sedimented landscapes as single instances accumulate in interaction. From an ecological perspective, a practice adapts to its surrounding environment through each path it takes. Such accumulation of diversity may then equip participants with a refined repertoire of teaching practices, through which they can effectively teach the set of embodied skills that constitute the work of their community.
Language Use And Code-shifting Among Pidgin (Hawaiʻi Creole) Speaking Children
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Schwartz, Bethany Faye; Grüter, Therese; Second Language Studies
Children who speak non-standardized language varieties are at risk for both over- and under-referral to speech-language and special education services (e.g., Morgan et al., 2016; Pearson et al., 2014). Extensive research with bidialectal (Craig, 2016; Kohn et al., 2021) and bilingual (Goldstein, 2022; Paradis et al., 2021) children has shown the importance of distinguishing between language variation and language deficit when assessing children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Unlike the extensive research available on the language development of African American Language bidialectal or Spanish/English bilingual children, research on children who speak Pidgin (Hawaiʻi Creole) is sparse and none of it is recent (Day, 1972; Purcell, 1984). This dissertation begins the process of describing the morphosyntactic features of Pidgin used currently by children in Hawaiʻi as well as how much or little children change their use of those features across different tasks and interlocutors. To accomplish this, two studies were conducted using two different data sets: Study 1 utilizes a previously collected data set of story retells collected from around Hawaiʻi in 2014 (Fiestas, 2015) and Study 2 utilizes a newly collected set of story retells and play-based conversations conducted with different interlocutors. Study 1: Because the Fiestas corpus represents samples from heterogeneous populations, a subset of the available recordings was selected to be rated by adult Pidgin speakers on a Likert-type scale from 1 (heavy Pidgin) to 4 (English) using procedures similar to Oetting and McDonald (2002). The four children whose audio clips had mean ratings closest to Pidgin (Pidgin-rated; PR) and English (English-rated; ER) were then selected from grades K through 3rd. The story retell recordings for the selected children (n = 32) were then fully transcribed and analyzed for Pidgin morphosyntax use. Results suggest that Pidgin-speaking children today may not produce “classical” Pidgin features like copula/progressive/completive ste, future/irrealis go, and clause final forms when speaking with unfamiliar adults. They also might use other classical Pidgin forms such as past tense wen and indefinite article wan with a low frequency. Results also suggest that plain form, zero-marked (zero BE), and invariant (invariant waz, invariant indefinite article a) forms are characteristics of typical Pidgin, rather than developmental forms, since only PR children used these forms in 2nd and 3rd grades, although both ER and PR children used them in K and 1st grades. Mean Pidgin feature use (Pidgin Density Measure (PDM); mean Pidgin tokens per utterance) for the PR children were statistically higher than the ER children showing that patterns of language use by PR children are distinguishable from patterns used by ER children. A statistically significant, large relationship was found between PDM and the mean rating by adult listeners. This result suggests that Pidgin/English-speaking adult listener ratings may be a relatively reliable way to identify child Pidgin speakers. Study 2: Drawing from methods and tools used with bilingual and bidialectal children, this study elicited language samples from Hawaiʻi children (n = 14) across two tasks (story retell and play-based conversation) and two types of interlocutors (White English speaker and Local Pidgin speaker). Data were gathered in two sessions: English-context where the child listened to an English story and talked with an English-speaking investigator and Pidgin-context with Pidgin story and Pidgin speaker. Additionally, each child’s Pidgin exposure was estimated from a parent interview. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, all interactions with subjects were remote (video conferencing, phone, email). Overall, children’s PDMs were very low during play-based conversation for both the English- and Pidgin-contexts. For the story retells, children showed a trend toward higher PDMs during the Pidgin-context than in the English-context. There also was an overall trend towards a positive correlation between mean PDM and current exposure to Pidgin as indexed by parent report estimates. These results provide at least tentative evidence that child Pidgin-speakers adapt their language use according to context. Parent interviews may also be helpful for identifying child Pidgin speakers with the caveat that not all parents will be fully forthcoming about this often-stigmatized variety. Taken together, findings from these small-scale studies provide a more expansive description of child Pidgin than has been available to date and shows at least tentative evidence that child Pidgin-speakers adapt their use of language to situational context. Better understanding of these children's use of Pidgin has clinical and educational implications for the unbiased assessment of language development (de Villiers, 2017) in this historically underserved population.
Let's Go! Learning Chinese with a Place-based Mobile Game
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Liu, Yang; Kasper, Gabriele; Second Language Studies
This dissertation responds to Wagner’s (2015) proposal to systematically design social infrastructures to support second language (L2) learning and use “in the wild” (Hutchins, 1995). My research began with the creation of a place-based augmented reality (AR) mobile game (cf. Holden & Sykes, 2011; Thorne et al., 2015; Zheng et al., 2018), 我们走吧 (“Let’s Go!”) and its implementation in the curricular context of a Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) program at Peking University. The game aligns with textbook materials and extends them into gaming activities around two categories of places on campus: everyday activity hubs (e.g., cafeterias, gyms) and culturally-significant sites (e.g., Boya Tower, Weiming Lake). 我们走吧 (“Let’s Go!”) was designed to dynamically augment classroom learning with the “vibrancy of linguistically and experientially rich engagement” (Thorne et al., 2021, p. 108) in the virtual-physical and social-material worlds. Building on recent advancements in Multimodal Conversation Analysis (Mondada, 2019) focusing on mobility (Haddington et al., 2013), temporality (Deppermann & Streeck, 2018) and engagement with objects in interaction (Nevile et al., 2014), this study investigates how CSL students navigate in the game and real world and cooperatively accomplish diverse place-based gaming activities. The students’ gameplay sessions were video recorded during a seven-week course. The analysis focuses on three recurrent activities: collaborative reading of the game’s instructions and dialogues, approaching local passers-by for participation in the game, and knowing and experiencing places through community-engaging social interactions. The findings show that students managed multiple digital devices (e.g., the game device, students’ personal smartphones) simultaneously as a group to accomplish game tasks. The “togetherness” (Lehn, 2013) was particularly salient when students coordinated their actions to move from one place to another on campus. Furthermore, students tracked specific linguistic resources as learning objects (Markee, 2008), such as the pronunciation, the Chinese character form, and the interpretation of lexical items in the game text. Finally, students show development of increasingly diversified linguistic and semiotic resources (Pekarek Doehler & Pochon-Berger, 2015) used in formatting actions such as self-introduction and activity-explanation over the seven-week course. This dissertation presents a model for the design, development, and institutional implementation of a mobile AR game and expands the horizon of CA-informed game-based L2 learning and interactions in the digital wilds (Sauro & Zourou, 2019).
Health Communication in Home Care for Elders in Hawai‘i
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Ho, Kendi; Gilliland, Elizabeth A.; Second Language Studies
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted both the vulnerability of elders in institutional care and the essential multilingual caregiver workforce. Currently, the U.S. does not have standardized competencies for care worker training (Browne & Braune, 2008). Nor does the patient-centered model account for intercultural communication competency needed for inferences in multicultural interactions. This Mixed Methods Research (MMR) (Johnson et al., 2007) explored various stakeholder perceptions of (un)successful communication of multilingual care workers with elders and their families. Qualitative results of the first stages of sequential exploratory MM examined (a) forty semi-structured interviews, (b) four home observations of interaction between care workers and older adults, and (c) four stimulated recalls with multilingual caregivers with thematic content analysis and discourse analysis. Triangulation of qualitative data within and across groups showed that successful multilingual care workers used sociopragmatic strategies in activities of daily living (ADLs) to (a) manage rapport (Spencer-Oatey, 2008) with older adults and (b) navigate the local cultural order (Holmes, 2020) by using the insider language, Pidgin. Moreover, analysis of observation data revealed that while some care workers used prosodic and lexical features common to elderspeak, a register that some researchers identify as socializing elders into dependence, care workers were building solidarity for more effective outcomes (Marsden & Holmes 2014). From these results, the six constructs: (a) care, (b) appropriate assessment, (c) professional competency, (d) managing rapport, (e) cross-cultural communication, and (f) language choice / prosody guided item creation for Survey 1 (S1), to identify salient communicative activities of for Survey 2’s (S2) videos. Quantitative analysis clarified the underlying structure of care through S1’s Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) (n=50) and the extent of (dis)agreement on constructs of care through stakeholders’ assessments (n=45) of S2 videos. The integration of qualitative and quantitative procedures throughout research stages added to the validity of designing two quantitative instruments in home care and the triangulation of how stakeholders co-construct care in ADLs with older adults. This research adds to the sparse amount of research on therapeutic communication in home care as multilingual care workers and older adults orient to multiple levels of context to co-construct care in activities of daily living. Results imply that involving expertise of stakeholders at every stage of instrument development increases the relevance of items. Instructors and curriculum designers in English for Medical Purposes should also consider domain experts when creating language program goals and materials.
What Gets Transferred In L3 Acquisition? Ditransitives And Passivization Of The Double Object Construction In L3 Mandarin
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Zhong, Jing 'Crystal'; Schwartz, Bonnie D.; Second Language Studies
This dissertation contributes new data to the debate on the source and manner of transfer in third language (L3) acquisition. The L1 Status Factor (L1SF, e.g., Hermas, 2010; Leung, 2002; Lozano-Pozo, 2003) maintains that the transfer source is the native language (L1), whereas the L2 Status Factor (L2SF, Bardel & Falk, 2007) maintains it is the second language (L2). The Typological Primacy Model (TPM, e.g., Giancaspro, Halloran, & Iverson, 2015; Rothman, 2010, 2011) proposes that the source of transfer is determined by (perceived) structural/typological similarity between the L3 and either the L1 or the L2; it also proposes that the transfer happens in a wholesale manner at the initial stages of L3 acquisition. Others propose property-by-property transfer, as in the Linguistic Proximity Model (e.g., Westergaard, 2021; Westergaard, Mitrofanova, Mykhaylyk, & Rodina, 2017) and the Scalpel Model (Slabakova, 2017). These hypotheses are tested in this study with less-studied L3 learner populations: L1Cantonese–L2English–L3Mandarin (CEM, n = 32) learners and L1Korean–L2English–L3Mandarin (KEM, n = 34) learners. Moreover, the dissertation also explores whether L2 proficiency―a potentially important yet understudied factor―plays a role in determining the source of transfer. The learners completed―in addition to English and Mandarin proficiency tests and a background questionnaire―acceptability judgment tasks (AJTs) in both their L2 (English) and their L3 (Mandarin). Native speakers of the four languages involved serve as controls, completing the AJT in their respective L1 as well as a background questionnaire. There are five linguistic phenomena tested: (a) the Double Object Construction (DOC, e.g., John gave Mary a letter); (b) the Prepositional Dative Construction (PDC, e.g., John gave a letter to Mary); (c) the Reverse PDC (e.g., * John gave to Mary a letter); (d) Passivization of the Recipient (POR) in the DOC (e.g., Mary was given a letter by John); and (e) Passivization of the Theme (POT) in the DOC (e.g., * A letter was given Mary by John). Crucially, the learners’ L1s (i.e., Cantonese or Korean) and their L2 Target Language (English) behave differently across these constructions. There are three principal findings in this study: First, results from both the CEM learners and the KEM learners suggest that the source of transfer is the L1 (with one exception on a single phenomenon by a KEM learner). The transfer patterns that emerged in the CEM and KEM learners of this study are therefore compatible with both the L1SF and the TPM (with, unfortunately, no way to decide between the two). Second, since the L1 is overwhelmingly implicated as the transfer language, it is thus unsurprising that no significant correlation was found between L2 proficiency and the source of transfer. Third, again as a consequence of transfer being, in essence, restricted to the L1, no evidence was found to support the property by property transfer hypothesis, and hence the transfer patterns of the CEM and KEM learners are compatible with the wholesale transfer hypothesis.
Agentic development in online affinity spaces: Reddit as a place for second language learning
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Banov, Ivan Kirov; Zheng, Dongping; Second Language Studies
This work examines how social media users learn language alongside their progression of becoming active participants in online social spaces. Using an ecolinguistic view, it explores how the process of posting and commenting on Reddit (one of the world’s most popular social sites) is both afforded and constrained by the unique sociocultural histories of online spaces, previous interactions with users in those spaces, and personal values. The results, in turn, also help to provide clear illustrations of ecolinguistic principles. Thereafter, it addresses how that process of participation can result in language learning by using examples drawn from the public data available on Reddit.The participant pool of this work is comprised of 21 non-native English speakers who visited and contributed to Reddit while learning English. Their posting habits, their contributions, online participation statistics, and open-ended interviews make up the data for this project. Qualitative analyses demonstrate how users feel they learn language and highlight the position that community belonging relates to and encourages online participation. Users initiate their participation on Reddit by interacting with others in peripheral roles. Once they begin contributing and voting in specific communities, new actions are afforded. Using previous posts, comments, and experiences as co-authors, the users begin to modify the language in their contributions to both adhere to the sociocultural norms in the space and to effect predicted outcomes. This work looks deeper at how these modifications can then result in the agentic development of learners. The online behaviors of one focal participant are highlighted to provide specific examples of modified linguistic behaviors. Fine-grained cognitive event analyses reveal several measurable developments in language. However, the kind of change and the language learned which social media users experience is not readily assessed by standard measures of language acquisition, such as operationalizations of constructs like complexity or accuracy. This work applies both existing and new methods to help explain and measure the complex system of systems that make up language in online spaces. The results of this study add to a growing body of evidence supporting claims made by ecolinguists in the field of second language learning. In addition, a new concept of agentic development is highlighted and defined. Learners who participate in activities that afford agentic development are shown to modify their real-world behaviors while, at the same time, learning language. Examples of language learning observed also demonstrate how new wordings are able to, in turn, afford new actions in a cycle of perception and action. The work finishes with a brief discussion aimed at helping practitioners apply some of the principles found in this project to encourage students in their agentic development.

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