This dissertation examines the dynamic relationship between written language and literary fiction in modern and contemporary Japanese-language literature. I analyze how script and narration come together to function as a site of expression, and how they connect to questions of visuality, textuality, and materiality. Informed by work from the field…

This dissertation studies the acquisition of Mandarin relative clauses (RCs), including the distributional pattern of different RC types in adult child-directed speech (study 1) and four-year-old Mandarin-speaking children's comprehension of different RC types (study 2). An RC is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun and is embedded within a…

This dissertation investigates a typologically rare linguistic phenomenon found in Irish from three different perspectives: how it challenges phonological theory, how it is used by contemporary speakers, and how its written representation affects its acquisition. Initial consonant mutation (ICM), as it appears in the Celtic languages, is known to…

This dissertation is a descriptive grammar of Potawatomi, a critically endangered Algonquian language now only spoken as a first language by a handful of elders in northern Wisconsin. Throughout, the goal is to present an authoritative linguistic description of Potawatomi by drawing on direct elicitation, a corpus of new texts gathered in close…

Adult second language (L2) learners often experience difficulty with novel L2 phonological contrasts, limiting their ability to establish contrastive lexical representations of L2 words. It has been demonstrated that the availability of orthographic input (OI), and variables interacting with OI, can shape the inferences learners make about L2…

The phonological inventory of Old Okinawan is often reconstructed according to modern Ryukyuan languages. Although the importance of historical resources is never ignored in the study of Okinawan historical linguistics, reconstruction based on historical sources is not well investigated yet, due to the two reasons that a) authors of previous…

Despite the growing sophistication of digital technologies, it appears they are contributing to language extinction on a par with devastating losses in biodiversity. With language extinction comes loss of identity, inter-generational cohesion, culture, and a global wealth of knowledge to address future problems facing humanity. Linguists estimate…

Across the centuries, the question of the origin of language has captivated the human imagination. Many theories have been proposed to address fundamental questions such as: Where do languages come from? How do they evolve? What are the societal drivers of this change? Historically, one of the biggest challenges in addressing these questions has…

This study explores the relationship between language selection and identity construction in contemporary Indonesia through an examination of the function of English, a language that still receives stigma from many Indonesians and the government, particularly in Indonesian popular texts published after 1998. Utilizing hybrid critical approaches…

The triad dimensions of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) has been widely used for assessing second language performance and development. Unlike accuracy and fluency, the construct of Chinese syntactic complexity has not been comprehensibly conceptualized or operationalized. Moreover, not tailored to the typological differences such as the…

Previous research shows that American learners of Japanese (AJs) tend to differ from native Japanese speakers in their compliment responses (CRs). Yokota (1986) and Shimizu (2009) have reported that AJs tend to respond more negatively than native Japanese speakers. It has also been reported that AJs' CRs tend to lack the use of avoidance or…

The purpose of this study is to track the diachronic development of exemplar clusters formed by the adjectives in the Spanish expression of becoming "quedar(se)" + ADJ (e.g. "quedar(se) solo" "to be left alone", "quedar(se) espantado" "to get scared"). This approach applies the same system of analysis used by Bybee & Eddington (2006) in their…

It is generally believed that study abroad (SA) is the most efficient and successful way to acquire proficiency in a second language (L2). SA is a crucial component of students' second language acquisition (SLA) process, for it puts them in situations in which they can use the language on a daily basis and interact with native speakers. More than…