Iterated learning models of language evolution have typically been used to study the emergence of language, rather than historical language change. We use iterated learning models to investigate historical change in the accent classes of two Korean dialects. Simulations reveal that many of the patterns of historical change can be explained as…

The main purpose of this study is to explore and examine an early bilingual child whose use of English might be different on the account of the context the child uses English. Specifically, it was sought to find out if the child resorted to different phonological varieties as well as different interaction patterns while communicating. The relevant…

Purpose: The purpose of this clinical focus piece is to increase familiarity with Philippine English (PE) and highlight clinical implications for working with nonmainstream dialect speakers. Method: The clinical focus draws on descriptive case study data from 2 Filipino kindergarten boys who live in the United States. Multiple ethnographic data…

Variability in the form of article (i.e., a and the) omissions and stressing has been attributed to a mismatch between first (L1) and second language (L2) prosodic and syntactic structures. An overlap between the L1 and L2 systems, on the other hand, is expected to contribute to native-like article productions. This case study aims to explore the…

Over the past decades, various teaching methods adopted from time to time have placed pronunciation teaching in the forefront or in the backend. This has resulted in second language facilitators to completely disregard or relentlessly correct pronunciation depending on their intuition due to the lack of research on pronunciation teaching or proper…

Texts in Aboriginal English (AE) and creole varieties have been created by Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers for a range of purposes. In this paper, we focus on materials created in and for five educational contexts, and investigate the orthographic or spelling systems developed in each setting. Choices about orthography are guided by…

An area in need of study in child language acquisition is that of complex multilingual contexts in which there is little language separation by interlocutor or domain. Little is known about how multilingual children use language to construct their identities in each language or in both languages. Identity construction in monolingual contexts has…

Grounded in literature on the miseducation of students whose native varieties of English differ most noticeably from the standard academic variety (Delpit 2006; Labov 1972a; Rickford 1999; Smitherman 1999; Wolfram, Adger, and Christian 1999; Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 2006), this dissertation examines the links between the sociolinguistic…

This study focuses on the analysis of variation at the phonological level, specifically the variable realization of palatalization of dental stops before the high vowel /i/ and vowel nasalization in the speech of bilingual speakers of Uruguayan Portuguese (UP) in the city of Rivera, Uruguay. The data were collected in participant-observation and…

This dissertation investigates the integration of two sources of non-conformity--exceptionality and variation - in a single phonological system. Exceptionality manifests itself as systematic non-conformity, and variation as partial or variable non-conformity. When both occur within the same phenomenon, this is particularly challenging for the…

Using the Practice Theory Approach to Language, this dissertation examines how social actors use communicative practices within activities to constitute a communicative context that I call the American English Stuttering Speech Community (AESSC). Building on previous linguistic research on stuttering and sociological research on collectives of…

This study investigated the intelligibility of Chinese graduate students to their Indian, Chinese, Korean, and American peers. Specifically, the researcher sought to determine the teaching priorities for English for Academic Purposes in the US, where listeners have a wide variety of native languages. Research on Second Language Acquisition…

A discussion of the nature and process of phonological changes taking places in languages looks specifically at the merging of allophones and the reorganization of phonemes in response to pressures within the phonological system. The hypotheses of economy and reorganization are used to analyze the process of change within a phonological system.…

A descriptive study to be undertaken on the effects of contact between English and Quebec French in the French-speaking community of Welland in Ontario is also presented as a study of the "Ontarianization" of Canadian French. The first chapter summarizes previous studies of Ontario French and poses some of the salient research questions…