Natural language contains a variety of means for expressing possibilities consistent with what is known. Particularly well-studied among them are the epistemic modal auxiliaries "might" and "must": (1) a. Ann: "Where is Peter?" b. Mary: "He {might/must} be in his office." There is broad agreement that…

In this qualitative study, I explored the lived experiences of six participants in semi-structured interviews. Marcia's (1966) ego-identity-status concept and Bronfenbrenner's (1977) ecological framework were used to analyze data. Three interconnected themes emerged in leading individuals through their understanding of gender. They were as…

The use of unidimensional scales that contain both positively and negatively worded items is common in both the educational and psychological fields. However, dimensionality investigations of these instruments often lead to a rejection of the theorized unidimensional model in favor of multidimensional structures, leaving researchers at odds for…

Using affirming language when speaking about Autism and incorporating the sensory and social preferences of Autistic individuals have been identified as important components of culturally competent care for the Autistic population. Although behavior analysts are expected to provide culturally competent care, the field has not yet established…

This mixed-methods research study examined teacher perceptions of AAVE and the ways in which different factors influence how teachers value and use African American Vernacular English in the classroom. The results of the study found that there were no significant differences in AAVE perceptions when considering the highest degree earned, grade…

This dissertation outlines three studies investigating linguistically diverse students' (including bilingual and monolingual students) language use and self-efficacy in writing. Bilingual students are those who speak a language other than English, including students with various levels of English proficiency and language experience. The first two…

An important aspect of a constructed language (conlang) is how it sounds when spoken. This dissertation designs and implements a tool to allow the user to hear how their conlang sounds when spoken. This tool will generate spoken language based on sample text in the constructed language. Further, it will enable the user to manipulate the phonetics…

A qualitative research with multiple methods, which investigates the phenomena of language shift and sustainment it of one Dine´ family. A Dine´ father was interviewed. The mother tongue should still be use at home however, the Navajo language is taught at school. I spent eighty plus hours interviewing the Dine´ father. I spent countless hours of…

The current dissertation investigates factors that influence usages of Japanese honorifics and explores how instructors can introduce honorifics more effectively to second-language learners. Apart from existing literature, my data includes a corpus of real-life usages of Modern Japanese, classroom observations, interviews with Japanese language…

Counterfactual conditional sentences (e.g., "If giraffes had fins, they would swim") involve an antecedent (e.g., "If giraffes had fins") which is false in the actual world. They also involve a consequent (e.g., "they would swim"), expressing a possibility given the antecedent. Reasoning about counterfactual…

Joint activity, or interaction, can be the basis for understanding how language use organizes both social activity as well as individual thought. These interactions can be a useful unit of analysis for studying how students use language to make sense of mathematical concepts and how students learn to appropriate specific mathematical language…

The ongoing tonogenetic sound change in Seoul Korean involves transphonologization in phrase initial position, where the fundamental frequency (F0) of the vowel following aspirated or lenis stops becomes associated with the aspirated-lenis stop contrast (phonologization), while the originally contrastive Voice Onset Time (VOT) values merge…

This dissertation examined two phonological and morphological changes in Ghamdi Arabic (GA), focusing on vowel harmony and gender distinctions. By comparing Prochazka's 1988 findings with recent data from 26 participants across two age groups. Participants consisted of 20 younger speakers (10 males and 10 females, ages 20 to 35) and six older…

A secondary analysis of PISA 2018 data was conducted to investigate the reading achievement of students with an immigrant background. While prior research suggests the importance of demographic characteristics in secondary PISA analyses, a major critique is that PISA centers destination characteristics over origin ones, limiting the study of the…

Understanding the details of how scientific breakthroughs and discoveries emerge from prior work, knowledge, and collaboration is fundamental to science history. Traditional methods of collecting such relevant information and transforming it into rich narratives have existed since the inception of the scientific method. These typically involve…