Volume 1, Number 1 Fall 2007

F o u n d e d 2 0 0 6
E d i t o r
K r i s t y l K e p l e y
E d i t o r i a l C o o r d i n a t o r
C a r o l i n a S e i d e n
R e v i e w E d i t o r
B r o o k e R a i n s E m l e y
F a c u l t y A d v i s o r
R o b e r t T r a m m e l l
A d v i s o r y B o a r d ,
P r i s c a A u g u s t y n
J o h n C h i l d r y
G w y n n e G o n z a l e z
M i c h a e l H o r s w e l l
M a r t h a M e n d o z a
M y r i a m R u t h e n b e r g
R o b e r t T r a m m e l l
~Boca~ is published bi-annually by:
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Printed in the United States of America
ISSN: 1935-9071

~ B o c a ~
Volume 1, N umber 1 Fall 2007

As I was beginning my graduate studies, a colleague asked me when I was first “seduced” by linguistics. Of course, I understood the intent, and answered quickly; but I thought this, at first, to be a funny way of asking the question. Thinking on it later, however, I recognized the accuracy of the analogy: for discovering your academic passion is not so very different from encountering your first love.
At first, linguistics—like love—is overwhelming. It seems that there is so much you don’t know. You realize that there is this whole world that, up until now, has been passing you by. It isn’t like other subjects that you have been repeatedly exposed to throughout your scholastic career; and, yet, it isn’t at all unfamiliar, either. You begin to walk this fuzzy line between recognizing that you know nothing, and feeling as though the whole field is somewhat second-nature.
And, as you become more familiar with it—‘it’ being linguistics or love—you begin to see it everywhere. Your whole world becomes colored by the experience of this encounter. And, the more you learn about it, the more you find there is to learn.
It was with this kind of fervor for the study of linguistics that, in the
Spring of 2006, we began discussing the possibility of establishing a linguistics journal at Florida Atlantic University. Though we are each enchanted by a different facet of linguistics, we wished—through our journal—to embrace linguistics as a broad and bewitching science.
That, necessarily, meant that in our first issue, we would celebrate the

diversity of our field by accepting submissions dealing with any of linguistics’ many subfields.
The call for papers went out in the Summer of 2006, and we were delighted with the response we received from our colleagues at other universities, and the support we received, in the form of submissions, from the scholars at our own institution. We are thrilled with this end product, as we believe it is emblematic of not only the diversity of our field, but also the ways in which scholars from one subfield of linguistics can be informed, encouraged, and pushed in new directions by the work of linguists in other subfields. It is our hope that this first issue accomplishes these lofty goals.
While we intend, each year, to publish one issue following this format, we will also reserve one issue to focus on a specific topic that we believe is of particular interest to the field of linguistics in general.
Thus, our second issue will address the issue of Bilingualism and
Culture, and the impact of linguistics in this framework. Please see our ‘Call for Papers’ at the end of this issue for more information.
Lastly, we would like to thank the faculty of the Languages,
Linguistics and Comparative Studies Department for their time and interest in this project; and, we wish to specifically thank Dr. Robert
Trammell for his characteristic support and guidance throughout this process.
Kristyl Kepley
5

Gwynne Gonzalez
The University of Arizona
The United States is home to more than 35 million Hispanics who make up 12.5 percent of the total U.S. population—this number doesn’t include the 3.8 million Hispanics living in Puerto Rico (U.S.
Census Bureau, 2000). On a daily basis, the Spanish speakers that comprise the Hispanic communities of the United States communicate, think, and provide and receive information in two languages—Spanish and English. This co-existence of two languages has created a situation in which Spanish, as the subordinate language, is more susceptible to lexical borrowings (Zentella, 1990).
Furthermore, the dominant English speaking community exerts a cultural influence over the Hispanic communities which can also be evidenced linguistically in the Hispanics’ use of Spanglish.
Spanglish is defined in Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary as: “Spanish marked by numerous borrowings from English; broadly: any of various combinations of Spanish and English.” Though broad, this definition is fairly accurate. In more specific terms, Spanglish is a language 1 that comes about through the combination of several linguistic speech acts, which include consistent code-switching
1 The word ‘language’ instead of ‘dialect’ is used here because Spanglish covers several different dialects found in different regions of the United
States.

between English and Spanish, semantic extensions of English words into Spanish translations, and the use of lexical borrowings all within
Spanish syntax. Though Spanglish is linguistically based on Spanish syntax and morphology, it is not generally considered a legitimate dialect of Spanish by Hispanic communities within or outside the
United States. Instead, these communities often perceive Spanglish as a bastardized form of Spanish used in the United States by poorly educated immigrants. Furthermore, it is also viewed as evidence that the Hispanic communities in the United States have lost much, if not all, of the culture and heritage that links them to their countries of origin:
“At home, this kind of stuff, like, it’s really forbidden…Always, none of us would dare us it at home, never… Spanglish isn’t even a fully formed language. It is used by common people, la prole, people without education, gente iletrada [illiterate people]… My Pop’s dream was to improve on our family condition. And language, I guess is a lot about our own self, isn’t it? Like, what you speak is what you are” (Stavans, 2003).
In this statement, a young college student is explaining his family’s views of Spanglish. He clearly has an aversion to the use of the language, as (to him) it denotes a lack of education and appears to somehow blur the identity of the speaker by disassociating the speaker from their native community.
The perception of Spanglish by the English speaking communities is not much better, often linking the use of Spanglish with lack of assimilation:
7

“Spanglish, the purists suggest, is the result of a bankrupt system of [Bilingual Education] 2 : when teachers and parents forget how to delineate the line between one language and the other, the outcome is verbal chaos. Other reasons are added to its existence, among them a general state of “laziness” among Hispanic immigrants to learn proper [English completely] 3 and the endorsement of multicultural programs that encourage cultural hybridity rather than discourage it” (Stavans, 2003).
Like the Hispanic communities, the English speaking communities who oppose Spanglish, clearly perceive it as lacking roots within a specific linguistic community. Moreover, because Spanglish is often viewed as a type of halfway point between English and Spanish, the
English speakers see it as evidence of the Hispanic community’s resistance to assimilation.
Much of the hostility and negative perception towards
Spanglish stems from issues of assimilation and cultural identity, though these concepts often stand in opposition to each other. The
Hispanic communities resent the fact that Spanglish pulls its speakers away from their Hispanic origins; while the English speaking communities believe that the speakers of Spanglish are simply refusing to assimilate. When it comes to cultural identity, it’s a loselose situation for Spanglish speakers. However, Spanglish serves as a unifying tool in the United States for the many different Spanish speaking nationalities that co-exist in specific geographical areas.
Unlike many other immigrant communities in the United States, the
2 Actual text written in Spanish: “ Educación Bilingüe”
3 Actual text written in Spanish: “ ingles completamente”
8

Hispanic community is comprised of a wide variety of nationalities, cultures and dialects (mutually intelligible for the most part). This diversity gives rise to a socially accepted linguistic hierarchy that creates the perception of linguistic deficiencies for some Hispanic communities. A case in point is that of the Dominican community whose dialect of Spanish is considered highly deficient. The
Dominicans’ use of Spanglish allows them to identify with a linguistic community that, although still low on the totem pole of
Spanish, is of higher status than their own. Additionally, many countries have different names for the same items or concepts, making communication difficult between members of different nationalities. The use of Spanglish allows for the use of English loan words, or calques, that are more easily understood by a wider variety of Spanish speakers than the words which only have meaning in a specific national dialect of Spanish.
The lexical make-up of Spanglish also touches upon the issue of assimilation. Many of the lexical items in Spanglish are considered loan translations by some, and semantic extensions by others—as they have their ‘roots’ in English lexicon. These Spanglish lexical items can be said to reflect the U.S. Hispanic’s assimilation into American culture, while at the same time appear to distort or replace similar lexicons that already exist in Spanish. This point is better illustrated through the following examples: El día de dar gracias and
de contestar .
“El día de dar gracias, used by U.S. Hispanics to refer to the holiday that is celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday
9

of November… would have no referent and serve no purpose in Spain or Latin America” (Otheguy, 1993). The Spanish meaning of the ‘act of giving thanks/ dar gracias ’ was thus extended to the semantic concept of ‘Thanksgiving’ in Thanksgiving Day. This usage of the term dar gracias , however, does not have any true meaning in standard Spanish; in fact, it makes little sense. As a clear result of assimilation, the Hispanic community used Spanish lexicon, morphology and syntax to give reference to a celebration that does not exist outside of the United States. Therefore, although the phrase is consistent with standard Spanish, the mere construction of the term
“El dia de dar gracias” is considered Spanglish for non-U.S. Hispanic communities.
An even more telling example is that of the term maquina de contestar (answering machine). The construction of this term is
“based on the verb contestar ‘to answer’ and on maquina ‘machine’”
(Otheguy, 1993). In standard Spanish, the term used is “ contestador , or contestador automatico , a formulation based on a noun derived from the same verb contestar ‘to answer’, combined with the word automatico ‘automatic’” (Otheguy, 1993). While both terms refer to the same appliance, they are formed from different “cultural conceptualizations” (Otheguy, 1993). In standard Spanish, functions that were once manual acts performed by people but have since become automated through technology are designated as such through the addition of the word automático. Examples of this semantic representation can be found in the functions of answering the phone/ contestador automático and washing dishes/ lavadero
10

automático . By contrast, in English the automated function is traditionally designated through the perspective that a machine now performs that function. Thus, English adds the word ‘machine’ to a base word that then designates its specific function. Examples of this are ‘answering machine’, ‘teller machine’, and ‘washing machine.’
The Spanglish use of the English ‘formula’ illustrates the cultural assimilation of the Hispanic community, not because the lexical items themselves linguistically resemble their English counterparts, but more importantly, because they are conceptualized from a different perspective than that of the Spanish lexicon. Clearly, the contact situation of Spanish in an English environment allows for such semantic extensions to arise. However, it should not be ignored that standard Spanish also has lexical constructions that are similar to
English when referring to conceptualizations such as maquina de escribir /typewriter and maquina de coser /sewing machine. The influence of the fact that such constructions already exist in Spanish, along with the repeated influence of the English conceptualization, may also have much to do with these semantic extensions found in
Spanglish. This too, may have much to do with the difficulty in defining these terms as either loan translations or semantic extensions.
Another important issue within the discussion of Spanglish and its general perception is its immense diversity. As mentioned before, Spanglish is the code-mixing of English and Spanish.
However, the code-mixing manifests itself in different ways throughout the country. As is expected, the largest concentration of
11

Spanglish speakers are in the areas of the country that have historically had more Spanish speaking immigrants: “Logically, more intense exposure to English over longer periods of time tends to result in the incorporation of more loanwords” (Zentella, 1990). These areas include Texas, the southwestern region of the United States (Arizona,
New Mexico, southern California), South Florida, and New York.
Also, the more extended the contact between the two languages, the more morphological changes and semantic extensions can be expected. The more prominent and identifiable dialects of Spanglish are found in these regions of longer contact. However, the contact situations which give birth to Spanglish almost always differ from region to region, influenced by the dialect of Spanish which has come into contact with standard English. For example, the Spanglish spoken in Texas, known as Chicano, is influenced by Mexican
Spanish and is very different from the Spanglish spoken by Puerto
Ricans in New York, known as Nuyorrican. And both these varieties of Spanglish are different than the variety spoken in Miami, known as
Cubonics, which is mostly influenced by Cuban Spanish. Because the syntax of Spanglish is based on Spanish and much of its morphological constructions are similar across the board, these varieties are for the most part mutually intelligible. However, the major difference in these dialects can be easily found in the regional lexicon. For example, in Chicano the word washateria is easily understood as a laundromat, but neither Cubonics nor Nuyorrican employ this word. It should be noted that the English root of the word ‘wash’ and its Spanish suffix ‘ria’ allow for easy interpretation
12

by different Spanglish dialects. A less easily understandable term would be impacto , which in standard Spanish means ‘shock’, but in
Nuyorrican means ‘consequence’. The great diversity found in
Spanglish has not yet given way to a standard of the language. To date, no dialect of Spanglish is perceived as more correct than any other. Unfortunately, all its versions are still considered a misuse of the Spanish language.
In order to fully understand the way in which Spanglish manifests itself (and to appreciate why it is considered so controversial) it is important to illustrate more of its morphological constructions, semantic extensions and lexical items. Following are some examples of Spanglish with linguistic explanations to accompany them. A common morphological process observed in
Spanglish is the attachment Spanish suffixes to English words being used as the root of a lexical item as in the following: 1) Parquear
(alternate spellings: parkear or parkiar ) [parkεar]– this word takes the
English root ‘park’ /park/ and adds the phoneme /ε/ and the Spanish suffix ‘ar’ which forms the infinitive of a word in Spanish creating the meaning ‘to park’ (Stavans, 2003). The word in standard Spanish which means to park is estacionar from the root word estacion . 2)
Switche [‘swit ʃ ε] – this word take the English root ‘switch’ and adds the final vowel sound /ε/ after the [t ʃ
] because [t ʃ
] is not normally final in Spanish, creating the meaning of ‘electrical light switch’. The word in standard Spanish used to refer to an electrical light switch is interruptor (Trager & Valdez, 1937).
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As mentioned before, Spanglish also manifests itself in semantic extensions. A common example of the semantic extensions found in Spanglish is the use of the word saber.
In standard Spanish, saber is defined as ‘to know something or have knowledge of something.’ However, in Spanglish, the definition of the English word ‘know’ has been extended to saber in that saber is also used to refer to being acquainted with a person, as in the following construction: “
Mami,¿ Cómo ese niño sabe a Eric?
/Mami, how does that child know Eric?’ (Otheguy, 1993). In standard Spanish, the word conocer would be used instead of saber .
The most evident way of identifying Spanglish is through its lexicon. Following are some lexical items found in Spanglish, with their respective Spanish and English counterparts:
Spanglish Spanish word English word Other information…
El maus raton
Printear
Coolisimo
(culisimo) imprimir interesante/ chévere mouse print cool
Derived from its English counterpart and made gender specific (male)
“”
“”
Wachiman guardia
Nitido guard A phonological combination of the English words ‘watch’ and ‘man’.
To one’s liking In Standard Spanish means clean, clear
Because Spanglish is not accepted by either of its contributing languages, it has a long way to go before it is accepted as
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a legitimate language with its own culture and identity. Until then,
Spanglish speakers will undoubtedly continue to grow and struggle with the misconceptions attached to its use.
References:
Mathews, P.H. (1997). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics .
New York: Oxford University Press.
Otheguy, R. (1993). A reconsideration of the notion of loan translation in the analysis of U.S. Spanish. In A. Roca, J.M.
Lipski, (Ed.), Spanish in the United States: Linguistic Contact and Diversity (pp.21-45). New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Romaine, S. (1989). Bilingualism (2 nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Stavans, I. (2003). Spanglish: The making of the new American language . New York: HarperCollins.
Trager, G. L., & Valdez, G. (1937). English Loans in Colorado
Spanish. American Speech , 12 (1), 34-44. Retrieved on
October 3, 2005, from JSTOR database.
U.S. Census Bureau (2000), Summary File 1 (SF 1) and Summary
File 3 (SF 3); generated by Gwynne Gonzalez; using
American FactFinder; <http://factfinder.census.gov>; (26
November 2005)
Zentella, A. C. (1990). Lexical Leveling in Four New York City
Spanish Dialects: Linguistic and Social Factors. Hispania,
73(4), 1094-1105. Retrieved on October 3, 2005, from
JSTOR database.
15

Patricia MacGregor-Mendoza
New Mexico State University
1. Introduction
Many public institutions of higher learning promote the liberal arts approach to learning, providing students with a broad selection of courses, drawing from a multitude of disciplines. This broad range of General Education courses is designed to provide students with not only a strong foundation of knowledge from different fields, but also an introduction into specific areas of inquiry.
Introductory courses in Linguistics typically housed in English,
Language, and/or Anthropology departments, are often offered to fulfill an area of such requirements.
Institutions differ in their treatment of these basic level courses. Some are farmed out to non-tenure track adjunct faculty, while others are handed off to graduate students with little more training than a book and a classroom assignment; even less oversight is provided with regard to accountability for the course content
(Buerkel-Rothfuss & Gray, 1990). According to a recent report by the American Association of University Professors, 65% of all instructors at post-secondary institutions are non-tenure track faculty in either part or full time positions (Curtis, 2005). This diverse composition of instructors with differing levels of teaching

experience can promote discontinuity from section to section of the same course.
In addition to personnel challenges, the nature of providing the necessary knowledge in introductory classes has evolved, given the ever-changing complexity of the world and the increasing number of channels through which students receive information. It is therefore incumbent upon instructors of basic courses like introductory linguistics to constantly adapt their teaching methodologies and improve their means of delivering lessons to meet the goals of General Education.
The internet is a tool that provides advantages to instructors in all of these areas, affording access to materials of various formats outside of class hours, allowing students to review and/or work on materials at their own pace. Nonetheless, web-based materials are not a pedagogical panacea; rather, they are tools that should be used thoughtfully and purposefully. Furthermore, while there has been a great proliferation of linguistic materials on the internet in the last several years, McBride (n.d.) notes that there has been little evaluation performed regarding the application, effectiveness, and utility of such materials in a classroom setting. McBride observes that while technological resources do provide instructors with a broader range of pedagogical assets, they cannot substitute basic principles of learning, and that students need to be guided in their use of these materials.
It should also be noted that access to the resources available on the internet is often subject to the limitations associated with the
17

scholars who post them and their ability to regularly maintain a website; an ability constrained by institutional and individual factors.
Many university departments are limited in terms of the availability of professional development funds in their budgets, particularly with reference to increasing the instructors’ knowledge of pedagogical applications of technology. Thus, instructors are left to further their skills on their own, often in a hit and miss fashion, subject to individual time limits, motivation, comfort with technology, and initial level of expertise (Zemsky & Massy, 2004).
Moreover, educational circles are dynamic, and even faddish
(Best, 2006). The quest to improve teaching and learning often leads institutions to put the cart before the horse; that is, to adopt tools and techniques before they have a true understanding of how, when, and why to assess their efficacy. Hence, even after instructors have either been compelled or have chosen to take pains to enhance their skills, they are frequently unaware of whether or not their efforts produced any measurable outcomes in their students’ learning.
The present project proposed to develop web-based
Linguistics Learning Modules (LLMs) for an introductory linguistics class in order examine the efficacy of a new form of course delivery.
Toward this goal, the linguistics team, consisting of 2 tenure-track faculty and two full-time adjunct faculty members, designed and implemented eight LLMs. The overall questions guiding our project were: 1) Do web-based modules aid in increasing students’ mastery of the course material? and, 2) If so, what level of integration of webbased modules is optimal for achieving that goal?
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2. Methodology
To plan the format and content of the LLMs, the four team members met several times as a group during the Fall 2004 semester.
In the proposed design, each LLM was to include an introductory portion in which key terms were identified, followed by an explanation portion in which key concepts were clarified and exemplified with the aid of audio-visual material such as animations, movie and/or sound clips. An application section followed, where students were presented with problems to resolve based on the material presented. Another element in the design was a quiz, intended to assess the students’ knowledge of the material presented in the LLM. Finally, each LLM contained a brief survey to assess the module with regard to comprehensibility of the material, ease of use and effectiveness for learning about the material.
Each team member developed two web-based LLMs for use in the pilot project. The topics of the LLMs ultimately developed were: the nature of language, morphology, syntax, phonetics, phonology, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics and second language acquisition. Technical training for the development and application of the LLMs in a web environment via WebCT was provided by our institution’s Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) staff in the form of both group and individual course sessions. Additionally, one team member provided several individual tutoring sessions and troubleshooting for the other team members throughout the grant period. This team member uploaded
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the prepared modules in a separate master course section and prepared those materials for transfer into the other members’ sections.
In order to test the efficacy of the LLMs, the application of the LLMs was designed to be differentially integrated in courses during the Spring 2005 semester. In the implementation phase, the three sections of the introductory linguistics course, each taught by a different team member, were intended to operate as separate treatment conditions. One section was designed to serve as a control, using WebCT solely as a course administration tool (e.g. posting syllabus, assignments and grades), and not as a means of distributing any course lessons, including LLMs. A second section was to also use WebCT as an administrative tool, but to incorporate the LLMs as an out-of-class supplement, assigning the material and quizzes as homework. The third section was to use WebCT as an administrative tool as in the first two sections, but was to integrate the LLMs into the regular class sessions and assign only the LMM quizzes as homework.
In order to independently assess the overall linguistic knowledge of each section, Three Skills Surveys, (SS), were administered to each section at random intervals. All SS were prepared by the team member that was not teaching one of the sections to guard against any instructor related bias in the preparation of the assessment instrument.
Each SS was a 10 point test, in a multiple-choice, pop quiz format. The topics addressed in each SS were ones that all three linguistics sections covered, but, more specifically, were themes that
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had been included in the LLMs. The content of the test items ranged from definitions to examples to applications. Skills Survey I included questions on the nature of language, historical linguistics and morphology. Skills Survey II examined sociolinguistics, phonetics and phonology. Skills Survey III examined syntax and second language acquisition.
3. Results
Although each of the modules was intended to exemplify the same format, it soon became clear that this goal was greatly influenced by the existing technological skills of the team members and their willingness to overcome any technology-based apprehension. These complications altered the intended design of the project in terms of format, distribution, and assessment.
In terms of format, 6 of the LLMs were consistent with the intended design; the remaining 2 provided students with only a list of terms and definitions. Similarly, distribution was affected as team members demonstrated differing abilities to master the WebCT environment and its various component tools over the grant period
(e.g. uploading the modules from a master course to their individual section). Consequently, students in the section of Ling 200G that was originally proposed to have access to the web modules as homework assignments were not able to retrieve the information during the testing period. As a result, only one section used the modules on
WebCT, while two did not. With regard to assessment, while both the online quizzes at the end of each LLM as well as the student
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evaluation of the individual modules were potentially available for use on WebCT, two team members were unable to link them to the individual LLMs; thus, they were not able to be completed.
Despite the complications presented by the varying formats of the modules and their differential access, students in all three sections of the introductory linguistics course were given three penand-paper SSs as a form of assessment of learning. The average scores for each of the SSs for each class as well as the results of the
ANOVA are presented in Table 1 below.
As can be seen in that table, the students in the control class, which intentionally did not have course content support on WebCT as part of this project, most consistently scored higher on each of the
Skills Surveys than the other two classes. Moreover, the ANOVA results reveal significant differences between the groups on the Skills
Surveys I and II and their overall averages on the three Skills
Surveys, but not on the Skills Survey III.
A post hoc measure, Tukey’s HSD, revealed that for Skills
Surveys I and II, the significance was attributed to the differences between the control class and each of the other two classes. In the
Skills Survey Average, all three classes were significantly different from one another. The significant differences revealed by this measure are starred in the table below.
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Table 1. Mean Scores and ANOVA Results for Skill
Surveys Administered in Three Sections of Linguistics 200G
Skills
Modules in class
(Mean)
5.86
Modules as
Homework
(Intended)
(Mean)
6.13
Control
(No Modules)
(Mean)
7.50*
F
(ANOVA)
8.338 pvalue
.000
Survey
I
(N=28) (N=30) (N=30)
4.89
(N=27)
5.00
(N=30)
7.90*
(N=30)
22.279 .000 Skills
Survey
II
Skills
Survey
III
5.58
(N=19)
6.20
(N=30)
6.03
(N=30)
.738 .482
Skills
Survey
Average
4.79*
(N=28)
5.78*
(N=30)
7.14*
(N=30)
20.692 .000
*This mean was significantly different from the others on the same measure.
4. Discussion
The results of these assessments need to be interpreted cautiously. At first glance, these results would argue against the use of technology in the classroom; however, given the complications associated with the execution of the various technical elements of the present project, that conclusion could not be satisfactorily maintained.
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A more reasoned argument would suggest that there was simply not enough time in both the preparation and execution phases to successfully examine the efficacy of the web modules in this setting.
As with all pedagogical innovation, there is a period of adjustment for educators and not all instructors will acquire new skills at the same rate. In the present project, one team member had been using WebCT for six years and was highly proficient in its use.
Another team member discovered that once his horizons had been broadened through training, he began to envision a multitude of possibilities for his teaching and acted upon them. Another was fascinated by the new technology and persisted in learning, but slow to master the techniques. The last member of the group was enthusiastic and supportive of the project, but was overwhelmed and intimidated by the technology in spite of the training and support.
Given these differing levels of initial skill level and rate of learning, one semester of training and one semester of implementation was inadequate to see any real effects on the part of technology.
Instructors who are using technology for the first time in the classroom need to do a great deal of preparation in order to put those skills on display in a classroom with confidence and consistency.
Moreover, while an instructor is becoming proficient in a particular technique or technology, s/he needs to continually determine the balance between how much and what type of information can be effectively and efficiently communicated through the assistance of technology. Thus, time is also needed to explore these new opportunities and to find an optimal level of technological support.
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In the end, each institution needs to explore the best means of incorporating technology in teaching based on available skills and resources. It may be that many basic elements of classroom teaching may indeed be as effective as or even more effective than technologically enhanced instruction; however, the experiences of the team members in the project, coupled with the assessment results presented above, indicate the need of all participants to achieve a fundamental level of skill at and comfort with administering the technology before even that initial assessment can be made. Overall, the advice here is to explore the advantages that technology-enhanced learning can provide, but to incorporate assessment measures that provide feedback regarding the effectiveness of the information, and be mindful of the limitations that can present obstacles to implementing these techniques.
Regarding the limitations of the present study, it can be said that the team members’ differences in their familiarity with various aspects of computer technology was not taken into adequate consideration from the outset of the study. Also lacking was an understanding of their levels of comfort in designing and implementing web-based course materials. The team members’ differing abilities to adapt to and acquire these skills in a short period of time were similarly overlooked. Finally, unknown were the challenges that these differences in levels of both technological skill and comfort with technology would present in carrying out the project as intended. These issues are significant in that they clearly remind us that the potential of technology as a tool for teaching introductory
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linguistics courses is very much subject to the technological competence of the instructor putting these tools into practice.
In this respect, the challenges faced by the team members in this project were representative of those encountered by many departments offering linguistics courses. Instructors, while unquestionably competent in their content knowledge, have different needs, abilities and insecurities with respect to technology and its applications to the classroom. Thus, while some instructors may be willing to try new pedagogical techniques, they can struggle to implement such strategies when pushed beyond their level of comfort.
Therefore, while many departments may wish to rush to the use of technology, the knowledge gained from our project suggests that a slower paced approach, emphasizing the professional development of technology-based pedagogical skills is warranted.
Lastly, although the implementation of the project varied slightly from our original goals, the study was nonetheless fruitful in a number of ways. First, it facilitated the necessary discussion of the alignment of curriculum across sections of the same course.
Secondly, it provided an opportunity for both adjunct and tenure track faculty to collaborate on the development of tools and content to realize such an alignment. Thirdly, the work on the project increased, to differing degrees, the technological skill levels of each of the team members. Thus, aside from examining aspects of technology, the project served as a means of strengthening bonds between colleagues and establishing consistency and cohesion in the course curriculum.
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In sum, examining the impact of new technologies on teaching linguistics is essential to determine which tools are valuable and how they can best be used in a classroom. The present project, as originally proposed, did seek to examine the efficacy of such tools.
In the end, however, the value of the study was not found in the results, but rather in the process of arriving at them.
References:
Best, J. (April 14, 2006). From fad to worse.(trends of innovation in higher education ). In The Chronicle of Higher
Education , 52, pB6(2). Retrieved April 20, 2006, from Expanded Academic ASAP via Thomson Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/itx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-
Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=EAIM&do cId=A144870132&source=gale&userGroupName=nm_a_nm lascr&version=1.0
Buerkel-Rothfuss, N. L. & Gray, P. L. (1990). Graduate teaching assistant training in speech communication and noncommunication departments: A national survey.
Communication Education, 39, 292-307.
Curtis, J. (2005). Trends in faculty status, 1975-2003. [accessed May
8, 2006, available at: http://www.aaup.org/research/FacStat
Trends.htm].
McBride, N. (n.d.) The guide to good practice for learning and teaching in Languages, Linguistics and area studies [accessed
February 17, 2004, available at: http://www.lang.ltsn.ac.uk/ resources/goodpractice.aspx?resourceid=403 ]
Zemsky, R., & Massy, W. F. (July 9, 2004).Why the e-learning boom
went bust. In The Chronicle of Higher Education , 50, pB6-
B8. Retrieved April 20, 2006, from Expanded Academic
ASAP via Thomson Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/itx/ infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve& tabID=T002&prodId=EAIM&docId=A123059409&source=g ale&userGroupName=nm_a_nmlascr&version=1.0
27

Brooke Rains Emley
Florida Atlantic University
Fart, piss, shit, cock, fuck, and cunt. The Big Six.
Throughout time these have been the most offensive words a person could utter, along with a slew of religious based words and derivatives of the above six. Whether it’s a release of anger, an insult, a physical condition, or a method of establishing social solidarity or distance, cursing is an intricate part of language that has largely been ignored and avoided by researchers for hundreds of years. Due to its complicated social position and its primarily oral tradition, it is hard to trace the origin of many expletives. For some, swear words assume an almost mystical power and are highly prohibited, while others have no qualms using them.
This paper is intended to be an overview of the history, social factors, and prevailing theory in the realm of swearing. In order to avoid repetition, the terms cursing, cussing, swearing, profanity, obscenity, taboo, expletives, epithets, and vulgarity will be used interchangeably, despite the distinguishing characteristics that differentiate them.
The history of curse words is debatable and extremely complex. This is primarily due to the fact that obscenities are mainly
28

an oral phenomenon, and were rarely written or permitted to be published. The actual concept of a swear word is based on the gravity that ancient cultures placed on cursing by the name of a god, which was done to evidence that the speaker was telling the truth (Angier,
2005). If the swearer used the god’s name falsely, it was believed that the wrath of said god would fall upon him or her. Although swearing still exists today, it is rarely done by someone or something, except in court, and typically done to or at someone or something
(Hughes, 1998).
The origin of most foul four letter words is Anglo-Saxon, a tongue known for favoring pithy language (Adams, 1963). Even today, the words of Anglo-Saxon origin are considered crude, when compared with their counterpart descendant of Norman-French
(refined) or Latin/Greek (scholarly or technical). Some examples are: piss/urinate, shit/defecate, and fuck/copulate (Hughes, 2000).
During the Middle Ages, profanity was considered to be a part of speech and was permitted to be written and was encouraged in swearing matches, then known as flyting (Hughes, 2000). In the 16 th century, King Henry VIII was the first European monarch to implement censorship laws, which resulted in a list of banned books in 1529. This led to the founding of the Master of the Revels, who was in charge of evaluating and pre-approving plays. Any obscene slip of the tongue while onstage would result in fines; so to avoid that, playwrights created new euphemisms and ingenious word-plays so that the desired idea could still be expressed while circumventing language prohibitions. One such example is Shakespeare’s title Much
29

Ado about Nothing , which is alleged to be a word play on Much Ado about an O thing , in which the latter portion of the title is a euphemism for cunt .
During the late 1500s, the use of euphemisms became even more fashionable, due to the Puritan influence on the language. It was during this period that words phonetically similar to curse words also began to change. For example, the word ass (used only to refer to a donkey) was replaced by the word donkey
, due to it’s similarity with the word arse.
The same process caused the substitution of the word rabbit for cunny , which was a slang term for cunt , and the preference for rooster , instead of cock . Once this happens, any other related words are liable to change, such as haycock
→ haystack , weathercock → weathervane , or a general drop, such as cockroach → roach (Burridge, 2004). Burridge offers this as an example of
“Gresham’s Law of Semantic Change,” in which the bad connotation expels any other meaning. This often accompanies a narrowing of meaning so that once a taboo significance becomes attached to a word; it dominates, as with erection and ejaculation .
Society is cyclical and language is a reflection of society, so it is no surprise that during the Enlightenment period (18 th century) there was an influx of extreme decadence and licentiousness in both society and language. Although no standard dictionary between 1728 and 1963 contained fuck or cunt , Hughes states that the words clearly existed and were printed in underground pornography and in published slang compilations like the Dictionary of the Vulgar
Tongue (1785).
This is also the time period when asterisks were
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implemented in print, to avoid printing an actual curse word (Hughes,
1998).
According to Dr. Guy Deutscher, a linguist and author of The
Unfolding of Language, what is considered taboo in a specific language is typically a reflection of that culture’s own fears and hangups, such as sex, religion, and bodily functions (2005). The intensity of these terms and societal significance are susceptible to change, as can be seen by the following list of obscenities from particular time periods:
1300
Strumpet- a prostitute
1400
Wretch- an exile
Scullion- servant of the lowest class
1500
Punk- a prostitute
Jove- God
1600
Zounds- God’s wounds
Gadzooks- God’s hooks
Sfoot- to have sex
1700
Gosh- God
Molly- homosexual
Heck- hell
1800
Jiminy Crickets- Jesus
Shucks- darn
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1900
Zerk- jerk
Meddle- to have sex
What’s interesting is that over hundreds of years, the euphemisms come and go but the words themselves ( shit, fuck, cunt,
God , etc) have only suffered minor orthographic changes. For example, in the 1700’s golly was a blasphemous term that combined
God’s
and body but today is considered to be “comically wholesome”
(Angier).
The following euphemism diagram illustrates this point
(Hughes, 2000):
Foutra
1592
Foot
1600
Effing
1929
Fucking
1500
Footering
1753
Footling
1905
Frigging
1785
1600
In general, the longer the word has been around, the more offensive it is. Stink has existed since the 8 th century, smell since the
12 th , and scent since the 15 th . The same can be seen with terms
32

referring to Black people: African American>Black>Negro>Colored
(Burridge, 2004).
For most Americans, fuck or cunt is considered to be the worst word one could possibly utter. According to Spears, fuck has been in use since the early 1500’s, and possibly sooner. It most likely derives from the German word ficken
, which means “to strike”
(1982). This is hard to determine accurately, however, due to its intense taboo-ness which prevented it from being recorded and, therefore, it is often claimed to come from the French word foutre or is thought to be an acronym for “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” or
“Fornication Under the Consent of the King.”
The origin of cunt is also unclear. Its first record appears in
Middle English around 1200, in the London street name
“Gropecuntlane,” although at the time there also existed streets called
“Pissing Alley” and “Shitteborwelane” (Hughes, 1998). Despite being a four letter word, it’s not certain that this vulgarity is of
Germanic descent. It is most likely a derivative of the Latin word cunnus , which has relatives in French ( con ), Italian ( conno ), and
Spanish ( coño ). It’s entry in the
Dictionary of Slang and Euphemism describes it as the most “elaborately avoided word in the English language” (Spears, 1982).
Throughout history and even now, there is one recurring culprit involved in the abstraction of profanity: society. Society determines which subjects, and therefore relating terminology, are taboo, and to what intense degree. Overtime, as society preoccupies itself with different issues, what is considered forbidden language
33

also changes. In the past, it has been religious based words that did the most damage but today, studies show that the most offensive obscenities are those related to sex and race (Hughes, 2000). For example, there are legal ramifications for the use of the word nigger or cunt in the media, but no one blinks an eye if someone is called a devil or exclaims “My God!” This explains why the elderly are more offended by religious and/or sexual epithets but young people are highly sensitive to racial slurs (Burridge, 2004). What’s even more interesting, as pointed out by Spears, is that society’s most egregious taboos, such as cannibalism and incest, have no swear words or euphemisms at all (1982). In addition to determining the prohibition of words, society also decides which words are appropriate in specific contexts. Words that are acceptable among friends in a private setting may be reprehensible in a public environment. There is a direct correlation between the intensity of a taboo in verbal practice and the degree of an actual occurrence of that taboo in public (Hughes, 1998).
The act of farting or pissing is barely socially permissible, as is the word, whereas the act of shitting or fucking is completely unacceptable in public, as is the word itself.
In terms of spreading society’s norms and perceptions, the most influential outlet is the media. This includes radio, television, internet, movies, video/audio recordings, and phone services (Jay,
1992). Despite the freedom of speech that is constitutionally guaranteed to all citizens, speech emitting from these outlets is subject to censorship laws. Of the four types of speech restricted by the government (obscene speech, defaming or libelous speech,
34

fighting words, and that which imposes an imminent danger), obscene speech is considered the most severe and common. During the 1800s, there were few laws concerning profane language and even less enforcement of said laws. It was not until 1957 (Roth vs. US) that most language restricting laws went into effect, many of which resulted from the power of the Catholic Church. In the late 1960s, a rating system for films was implemented and since that time, there has been an increase in the general explicitness portrayed.
It is no secret that language embodies gender biases and forbidden language is no different. Research has not conclusively determined if society influences language or if it’s the other way around, with respect to sexist language. Studies have shown that males are more likely to cuss than females (Jay, 1992) but that both sexes show increased profanity when accompanied by members of the same sex. Investigators have also found that men and women are affected differently by words; or, that the most offensive words for men are different from those most objectionable to women. For men, motherfucker , homosexual terms ( queer, fag, homo, cocksucker ), effeminate words ( pussy, sissy, douche bag ), and those that indicate some type of social ineptness ( bastard, prick, son of a bitch ) are the most abhorrent. On the contrary, women are most insulted by terms suggesting sexual looseness ( cunt, slut, whore ) or their semantic opposites ( tease, cockteaser ), social deviance ( bitch ), and female homosexuality ( dyke, butch, lesbo ). Interestingly, some terms are only directed at men ( prick, fag ) and others ( whore, bitch ) are primarily intended for women. Also, terms referring to the male
35

body, like prick , are normally only directed towards males while words associated with female body parts, like pussy and sissy , can be directed towards males and are more potent when done so. Dr. Jay
(1992) breaks down the severity of offense even further by gender of addresser and addressee:
Male to male: homosexual terms
Male to female: cunt
Female to female: bitch
Female to male: bastard, prick
Psychologists claim that this is a reflection of the differences in the way men and women view the world; women are concerned with intimacy, social desirability, and security, while men focus on sex, power, and physical attractiveness.
So why do people curse? Dr. Timothy Jay is the leading researcher in this specific area of language. According to him, the underlying reason is because cuss words provide an intensity that other words cannot achieve (1999). The primary function of cussing is to express emotion, whether it is anger, frustration, joy, or surprise and this may occur at the automatic or voluntary level. Among these feelings, anger is the typically the cause of the expletive and involves various factors, such as the severity of the event, relationship with offender, race, physical appearance, etc. He says that swearing follows its own grammar, which is something learned very early in life, usually through negative reinforcement, and appears in children as early as language itself appears. Since children acquire vulgarities
36

like any other linguistic component, they must be taught what is inappropriate by their family or society.
Although foul language is often a choice made in voluntary speech such as jokes, insults, and sarcasm, there are occurrences of taboo language that are beyond the speaker’s control. For example, through repetitive use, a word can become a conditioned response that speaker has automaticized. Another less common form of uncontrollable profanity is the outcome of a physiological disorder.
Although Tourette Syndrome (TS) is normally associated with this topic, only a small percentage of its sufferers actually exhibit coprolalia—or, uncontrollable cursing (Jay, 1999). Among those who do manifest coprolalia, each has their own individualized set of forbidden words. This is a reflection of the individual’s personal history, culture, and psychology and also appears in the deaf community. Aside from TS, there are types of aphasia in which the brain becomes damaged and the speaker can only utter obscenities.
Additionally, Jay says Alzheimer Disease, OCD, epilepsy, retardation, and Schizophrenia patients demonstrate various degrees of coprolalia or abnormal voluntary swearing.
Dr. Jay views the study of cursing as the study of human behavior and thought, since it’s not the word itself causing the problem, but the behavior of the speaker (1999). In an attempt to uncover and explain the reason behind this action, he is the first to offer a theory, the NPS Theory, which is a three dimensional model.
The N refers to neurological factors contributing to cursing, including brain systems, brain activity, emotional responses, and physical
37

conditions. The P represents the psychological aspects of swearing; such as the linguistic/semantic system, personal variables
(personality, religion, social rewards, age, etc), psychological development within a certain culture, and personal habits. The S encapsulates the social-cultural factors involved, like tabooness, gender roles, power, humor, context-appropriateness, offensiveness, and information on specific words. These three systems work together; however, one may dominate the other two. For example, with Touretters, the neurological system is in control but when someone tells a dirty joke, all three systems are working together equally. According to him, cussing is never random or meaningless.
It follows grammatical rules and relates a specific meaning. Since language cannot be separated from society or its speaker, the only way to thoroughly examine the behavior behind it is to take into account his or her cerebral activity, individual characteristics, and the social context in which this person exists, and that is why the NPS
Theory is so comprehensive.
So why do people cuss? The bottom line is that humans have strong emotions which require equally strong words to express them precisely. Crap does not have the same meaning, nor does it incite the same reaction in the listener, as shit . Physiologically, the brain responds to an emotion (voluntary or automatically) and draws words from an emotionally charged lexicon module that contains curse words embedded within a semantic neural network (Jay, 1999). For every instance of swearing, neurological, psychological, and sociocultural issues come in to play, like whether or not it is an automated
38

response, the genetics or childhood of the speaker, and the taboos of his or her society.
So why do we use the words that we use? There are a variety of reasons, but it is primarily based on exposure. People repeat what they frequently hear. Another reason is social; we use words that society has prescribed for specific situations. It is socially understandable if someone yells shit when stubbing a toe, but yelling cunt in that same situation would be strange. People also choose certain words based on meaning, grammar, and the effect that it will have on the listener. What is interesting is that the same words can be used to elicit humor or anger, depending on the audience and the situation (Jay, 1999).
It is clear that American English obscenities have lived a long and complicated existence. Even to this day, many vulgarities and racial epithets are not included in dictionaries or other texts and until the 1900s, were not even considered language at all (Jay, 1999).
Historically, cursing and blasphemes were used for shock effect in the
Victorian period, which gave way to obscenity and scatology by WW
I, and has now been replaced by racial slurs (Jay, 1992). The language shift from the religious to the secular is a reflection of the shifts taking place within society, and not everyone is onboard, as proven by McCoy when she wrote “Profanity bespeaks a dearth of vocabulary…[it] destroys dreams and wrecks wonder in the human heart” (1978).
Dr. Timothy Jay has offered his NPS Theory as a way to understand, analyze, and predict cursing, which results from the
39

interplay of neurological, psychological, and social-cultural systems within each individual. Until these three dimensions are better understood, the actual act of cussing may remain a mystery. Despite its tumultuous history, it is evident that whether done voluntarily or uncontrollably, a curse word conveys a precise meaning that no other word can match, all the while abiding the language’s grammatical parameters.
References:
Adams, J. D. (1963). The magic and mystery of words . NY: Holt,
Rinehart, & Winston.
Angier, N. (2005, September 20). Almost before we spoke, we swore.
The New York Times , p. F1.
Burridge, K. (2004). Blooming English: Observations on the roots,
cultivation, and hybrids of the English language.
Cambridge,
UK: University Press.
Deutscher, G. (2005). The unfolding of language: An evolutionary
tour of mankind’s greatest invention.
NY: Henry Holt and
Co., LLC.
Hughes, G. (1998). Swearing.
NY: Penguin.
Hughes, G. (2000). A history of English words . Malden, MA:
Blackwell.
Jay, T. (1992). Cursing in America: A psycholinguistic study of dirty language in the courts, in the movies,in the schoolyards, and
on the streets. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Jay, T. (1999). Why we curse: A neuro-psycho-social theory of speech . Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
McCoy, D. (1978). In words we trust. The English Journal , 67 (5), 20.
Spears, R. A. (1982). Slang and euphemism: A dictionary of oaths, curses, insults, sexual slang and metaphor, racial slurs, drug talk, homosexual lingo, and related matters.
NY: Jonathan
David Publishers.
40

Kerstin Sondermann
Georgetown University
1. Introduction
The study of bilingual education and its effects on student populations of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds has been prominent in the field of linguistics for a number of years. Despite overwhelmingly positive findings regarding the achievements of bilingually educated language minority children as opposed to those instructed solely in the language of the majority culture, bilingual education continues to be faced with numerous bureaucratic and political hurdles. Language policies are often born from erroneous or outdated conceptions of bilingualism, rather than based on conclusive research. Recent political developments in the United States, such as the passing of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in 2001, have focused researchers’ attention once again on the effects of various types of bilingualism and bilingual education on students’ development, as well as the impact political decisions like NCLB have on the maintenance of bilingual programs (Romero Little &
McCarty, 2006; Wright, 2005). Research from other countries is also frequently cited as relevant additions to the study of the effects of bilingual education (Helmberger, 2006; Hornberger, 1987; King &
41

Benson, 2004; Tsui, 2004; Viash, 2005). All of these studies focus on children of ethnic or cultural backgrounds that differ from the majority population. All of these accounts present evidence for greater success in an academic environment if the children are taught in their native language rather than forced to interact in the language of the majority culture.
However, one group of students is rarely addressed in the literature on bilingual education: deaf children share a number of characteristics with language minority children but are often not included in studies addressing the needs and abilities of bilingual students. With deafness being seen as a disability and deaf people, therefore, being widely regarded as disabled rather than as belonging to a community with a culture and language of its own, viewing deaf education as a branch of special education is widespread and, to some extent, justified. However, there are also some arguments for including deaf children in the category of learners of English as a second language (ESL), which will be presented in this paper.
Relevant literature on bilingual education models in the context of deaf education will be reviewed and supplemented with some examples of language policies evident in the online self-portrayals of selected schools for the deaf.
2. Deaf education in the United States
Before delving deeper into the issue of whether deaf students should be considered a language minority and how this might be reflected in the language policies adopted by schools for the deaf, it
42

seems advisable to provide some background information about the deaf education system prevalent in the United States. Briefly stated, there are three ways in which deaf children are typically educated: schools for the deaf, special programs for the deaf within mainstream education, and full mainstreaming. Schools for the deaf and full mainstreaming are the two prevalent means of education, with schools for the deaf slowly losing ground to mainstreaming (Mitchell
& Karchmer, 2006). While the traditional approach to deaf education consisted of gathering large numbers of deaf students in residential schools, where they could interact freely with their peers using
American Sign Language (ASL), more and more parents now opt for mainstreaming their deaf children in hopes of providing them with a better chance of succeeding in later life and of being fully integrated into society. Technological advances in hearing aid technology as well as in the field of cochlear implant (CI) surgery contribute to this trend in that many parents see this as a chance to enable their children to hear better and therefore choose mainstream education to make sure they develop their full potential in a hearing and speaking world.
The increase in mainstreamed education leads to a much broader distribution of deaf students throughout the United States. Without the ‘accumulating’ effect of residential schools for the deaf, students are placed in regular schools in their school district, which often results in only one to three deaf students attending a given school
(Mitchell & Karchmer, 2006). Since separate programs like the ones found for many other groups of ESL learners are virtually impossible to establish for such small numbers of students, the issue of bilingual
43

education can hardly be addressed in the context of mainstream education. While some students may rely on the presence of an interpreter, most are expected to follow the content of the classes independently and instruction in ASL is typically not provided. The issue of bilingual education, therefore, can be examined best in the context of deaf education in specialized schools for the deaf. Having been the dominant form of deaf education since the early beginnings of formal instruction of the deaf, which in the United States was marked by the founding of the American School for the Deaf in
Hartford, Connecticut in 1817, schools for the deaf have traditionally been the primary focus of research on deaf education and the effects of different language and teaching policies.
One of the primary educational goals in instructing deaf students has always been the development of literacy in the language of the majority culture (Power & Leigh, 2000). In the United States, therefore, this emphasis has been on teaching deaf students to become fluent readers and writers of English. In an effort to compensate for the students’ inability to hear and their difficulties in learning to speak which directly result from this, literacy development is generally seen as the ultimate goal to allow students to participate in a hearing society. The means to reach this goal, i.e. the instructional methods chosen by the schools have varied over the years. While deaf education in the United States started out using ASL as the language of instruction, the effects of the Milan conference in 1880, in which oral instruction was deemed most effective by an international group of educators of the deaf, would soon change this educational climate
44

to one where instruction took place entirely in English. However,
ASL continued to provide the basis of communication among students outside the classroom, where the residential design of the schools made it possible for children to converse more or less freely with their peers, thus keeping the language alive and passing it on to younger students.
In the course of the 20 th Century, the ban on sign language use in the classroom gradually started to be lifted by introducing various forms of sign systems and, on occasion, even ASL, into the curriculum. Examples of such alternative sign systems are various forms of Signing/Seeing Exact English (SEE), which takes ASLbased signs and adapts them to English grammar and word order by adding English morphology such as ‘-ing’ or the plural ‘-s’, and Cued
Speech , which uses eight distinct hand shapes in combination with mouth movements to help students differentiate between the sounds of spoken English. Popular communication models used by many schools are the ‘Total Communication’ (TC) or the ‘Simultaneous
Communication’ (SimCom) approaches. TC is the most vague in that it supposedly encompasses all forms of language use including oral
English, pure ASL, as well as various artificial sign systems, depending entirely on the language needs of each individual child.
SimCom refers to the simultaneous production of ASL and speech, and is widely used in instructional settings even in institutions like
Gallaudet University, where ASL is supposedly the language of general communication. It is very difficult, if not virtually impossible, to utter two completely different languages at the same time without
45

losing some information in one of the two, which invariably leads to a lot of ASL information being lost when the speaker is a hearing person (e.g. the instructor).
Regardless of the method of instruction, one of the primary goals of deaf education remains the fostering of English literacy. It has been shown that deaf students’ achievements in this area have traditionally been and continue to be significantly lower than those of their hearing peers (Akamatsu, Stewart, & Mayer, 2002; Cawthon, 2004; Singleton et al., 2004). However, high proficiency in ASL has been found to have a positive effect on literacy development (Prinz & Strong, 1998;
Singleton et al., 2004). This reflects findings from other studies on literacy and second language (L2) development of language minority children instructed in their native language (L1) (Helmberger, 2006;
Hornberger, 1987), insofar as a strong foundation in the native language facilitates the acquisition of an L2. Since the challenges faced by deaf students can be compared to those faced by other language minority children in terms of the benefits of a high proficiency in their L1, these students’ inclusion in the category of
ESL learners seems to merit further discussion, which will be addressed in the following section.
3. Deaf students as a language minority
When comparing the situation of deaf students in the United States to that of hearing children from language minorities, some obvious similarities immediately come to mind. The most striking one is certainly the fact that both groups are faced with the challenge of
46

learning English as a second language, and for both groups this task of gaining proficiency in English is essential in order to succeed in the ‘dominant’ culture. At the same time, learning English poses a considerably different problem for deaf students than for children whose native language is another spoken language. Their inability to hear it significantly reduces the amount of exposure, which is precisely what stops most deaf children from becoming native users of English in the first place. Since many deaf children are born into hearing American families, it is generally the lack of full access to the language that hinders its development, rather than the fact that a language other than English is spoken at home. It is to be expected, therefore, that deaf students’ development of English will take a different route than that of hearing ESL learners. This is supported in a study by Singleton et al. (2004), in which English vocabulary use by deaf children of varying ASL proficiency was compared to that of hearing ESL learners and monolingual speakers of English, revealing differences in writing styles and abilities between the deaf and hearing learners of English. Prinz & Strong (1998) also point out the importance of differentiating between deaf and hearing students’ strategies in acquiring English, particularly in its written form. This is partly due to the fact that ASL does not have an established written form, from which students might be able to transfer literacy skills into their L2. While there are some attempts at writing sign languages, such as Stokoe’s notation system, ‘Sign Font’, ‘Sign Writing’, or the
Hamburg Notation System (see Prinz & Strong, 1998, for an overview), these are rarely used in classroom instruction of deaf
47

students. Written literature in ASL does not exist, which means that the primary literacy development of deaf children must necessarily take place in their L2.
Another factor to be considered is the importance of a child’s native language as part of his/her cultural identity. Once again, the situations of hearing children from language minorities and deaf children are somewhat different. While hearing children are typically born into families who share a common language, this is only rarely the case for deaf children. Many of them are born to hearing parents, and even though some families may learn ASL to communicate with their child, they are often not likely to develop native-like proficiency in it or be involved in the Deaf 1 community to such an extent that they can serve as ‘cultural role models’ for their children. Depending on how successful parents are in installing a foundation for a strong L1 development in their deaf children, students usually enter school with varying degrees of proficiency in ASL and English, sometimes using different English-based sign systems or invented systems used exclusively in their homes. It is often at school that children first get a glimpse of Deaf culture as evident in the use of a shared language, common communication practices, and the existence of other cultural factors such as Deaf theater, Deaf art, and Deaf poetry. Deaf teachers or other students often serve as role models of a way of life that their own parents are not a part of.
1 In this paper, I will follow the established convention of capitalizing the word ‘Deaf’ when it is regarded from a cultural viewpoint, and using the lowercase ‘deaf’ when referring to the physical, audiological condition of hearing loss.
48

Deaf children of deaf parents are more comparable to children of hearing language minorities, since these parents typically use ASL as the language of communication in their homes, thus giving their children, both deaf and hearing, a strong foundation in their native language, as well as the cultural aspects that go along with it. Like immigrant children or ethnic and language minorities, these children grow up in a society that does not share their native language or many of their cultural beliefs and practices, but they are nonetheless a part of a – however small – community of people who are ‘just like them’.
The existence of a shared language as an indicator of such cultural identity is something deaf children undoubtedly share with hearing language minorities. The fact that in the case of deaf children, this cultural link is most often not a link to the culture of the parents, does not significantly impact the underlying claim that it is the language shared within a small community that sets them apart from the larger society, thus providing a strong argument for the inclusion of deaf children in the category of language minorities.
Lastly, another similarity between deaf children and children of ethnic and language minorities that presents itself when reviewing some of the studies concerned with language minorities in the United
States and abroad, is the ever-present threat of language loss. Studies on many indigenous languages show that if no measures to preserve these languages are taken, they often face ultimate extinction through the dominating effect of the majority languages (Crawford, 1996;
Romero Little & McCarty, 2006; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2002).
Monolingual education in the majority language and parents’ efforts
49

to ensure their children’s success on the job market by encouraging the use of that language regularly lead to a trend towards monolingualism in the majority language after a few generations.
Users of ASL face related, though slightly different problems.
While most parents and all schools for the deaf are certainly intent on teaching deaf children English in order to be able to compete in
American society, this striving alone would be unlikely to lead to the extinction of ASL. Since sign languages are virtually the only practical solution for deaf people to communicate effortlessly with each other for the rather common sense reason that spoken languages do not provide a valid alternative for people whose inability to hear causes extreme difficulties both in understanding and in accurately producing spoken words. For immigrant children, on the other hand, there is no inherent difficulty in speaking and understanding English if they are exposed to it in ways similar or equal to children growing up in native English speaking homes.
The threat facing ASL and other sign languages around the world comes from a different angle. Technological and medical advances in the fields of hearing aids, cochlear implants, and prenatal diagnostics aim to eliminate not necessarily the language as such, but rather the effects of deafness itself. Recent events at Gallaudet University, where a large number of students and faculty protested the newly elected president J.K. Fernandes partly because she was not deemed
‘culturally Deaf enough’, brought about an array of concerns about the future of Deaf culture and, implicitly, the survival of ASL. The notion of genocide has been used by some when discussing the effects
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of cochlear implant technology (Fisher, 2006), thus illustrating the strong concerns some members of the Deaf community have about the possible eradication of deafness by the advent of ever more sophisticated technologies. With many parents implanting their children early in life and following the general advice of doctors and speech therapists to raise them as orally as possible to help the children get the best possible use out of their more or less restored hearing capacities, the threat to ASL is tangible. As of yet, however, there is no known cure for deafness. Even children equipped with cochlear implants rely on batteries to fuel the outside attachment of the implant, and are therefore still profoundly deaf when the batteries fail or the device is switched off. The case of ASL as an endangered language therefore has to be carefully considered from various angles, with the final judgment lying in future developments in the fields of technology and parents’ decisions regarding the best form of education for their deaf children.
Despite the differences between deaf children and children from ethnic and cultural minorities, it is apparent that there are a number of similarities regarding the use of the L1, its cultural foundation and significance, as well as its status compared to the majority language and possible implications for an impending language shift. These similarities illustrate that it is necessary to regard deaf students as more than just a group of students with a disability; their linguistic situation shares enough features with that of immigrants or ethnic minorities that an inclusion in the group of language minorities, and therefore the group of ESL learners in schools, seems warranted. The
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following section will explore how this view of deaf students is represented in education models for the deaf.
4. The role of bilingualism in language policies of schools for the
deaf
As mentioned in the previous sections, a number of studies have shown advantages in the acquisition of literacy skills in English for students with a high proficiency in ASL (Nover, Christensen, &
Cheng, 1998; Prinz & Strong, 1998; Singleton et al., 2004). These findings are used to justify frequent calls for a stronger emphasis on
ASL as the deaf students’ L1 in order to establish a strong foundation in one language before teaching English as an L2, as well as to use
ASL as the language of instruction when teaching content subjects.
This is claimed to reduce the risk of losing sight of the main educational goal of conveying knowledge in a variety of subjects by focusing too much on teaching a language. Smith & Ramsey (2004) discuss the example of an experienced deaf teacher, concluding that fluent ASL skills as well as good teaching strategies provide an excellent environment for deaf students to participate in class and learn the materials at hand. Komesaroff (2001) provides similarly positive evidence from a bilingual education model established in an
Australian school for the deaf. The conclusions generally drawn from research on bilingual deaf education are very similar to those focusing on bilingual education of other language minority children: by using the children’s L1 as the primary language of instruction and slowly introducing the L2 into the curriculum, a well-balanced education is
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fostered and high L1 skills are seen to have a positive effect on subsequent L2 acquisition. Evans (2004) also mentions some shortcomings of current practices in bilingual education of the deaf, stating that teaching is often based on a very behavioral approach in that children are taught to respond to the teacher’s expectations without being permitted to explore and develop critical thinking skills. Despite attempts to use as much ASL as possible when teaching, content knowledge is often provided out of context, which can lead to deaf students retaining little or nothing of the material presented to them because they are not taught to understand it, but rather to repeat and memorize it. This is in line with Teller &
Harney’s (2005/06) observations regarding the behaviorist nature of many programs for the deaf, as well as Akamatsu, Stewart, &
Mayer’s (2002) call for more highly qualified teachers of the deaf to battle the gap in academic and literacy abilities that continues to persist between deaf students and their hearing peers.
In an attempt to find out more about language policies in individual schools for the deaf, and to discover to what extent such findings are incorporated into their curricula, I conducted a survey of the homepages of 20 schools in the United States. Based on a list of schools provided on the website of the Laurent Clerc Center at
Gallaudet University, I decided to focus on the first 20 schools listed there. While this may not seem like a very random selection due to the alphabetic ordering of the list, the fact that the schools were ordered according to name and therefore not necessarily according to state led to a random assortment of schools in various states of the
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United States. Language policies, if they were stated, could usually be found in the schools’ mission and vision statements available on the websites. Some provided additional information about language practices in the classroom, which were also taken into consideration.
Table 1: List of schools for the deaf and their language policies
School for the Deaf (SfD) Language philosophy / policies
Alabama SfD
American SfD (CT)
Archbishop Ryan School
(PA)
Strong focus on English
Total communication (TC)
Oral education in one branch, TC with strong focus on English in another
Phoenix day school (AZ) Bilingual education / SimCom
Arkansas SfD
Atlanta Area SfD
Beverly SfD (VT)
No mention of language policies
TC
Integrated in mainstream program/ strong focus on English with some sign support
Blossom Montessori SfD
(FL)
Bruce Street SfD (NJ)
TC / one-on-one instruction
California SfD Fremont
TC with strong focus on speech
Bilingual-Bicultural education
California SfD Riverside Bilingual education
Cathedral Home for
Children (WY)
Central Institute for the
Deaf (MO)
TC
Oral education
Clarke SfD (MA)
Colorado SfD
Hearing and Speech
Center Northern California
Delaware SfD
Eastern NC SfD
Echo Center CA
Florida’s Public SfD
Oral education
TC / possibility for mainstreaming
Oral education
Bilingual education
TC
Oral education
Strong focus on English
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A brief summary of the schools and their language policies as reported on their websites is provided in table 1.
The results listed in table 1 suggest that a majority of schools for the deaf appear to follow some form of Total Communication philosophy, with some emphasizing a strong focus on the development of English in both its written and spoken form. A number of schools follow the traditional oral approach which does not permit the use of sign language in the classroom, while only very few schools explicitly mention bilingual education. While one might argue that TC encompasses some degree of bilingualism, it has been shown earlier in this paper that it is also the most vague of all possible educational philosophies, since it is impossible to determine exactly what each individual teacher considers the most appropriate way to instruct the students. The inclusion of any number of artificial sign systems in the definition of TC further contributes to the difficulty in assessing its value as truly bilingual instruction. The example of the
TC branch of the Archbishop Ryan School for the Deaf may serve to illustrate the point that Total Communication – and with it the use and definition of ASL – is often open to interpretation. In their statement of purpose, they assert that
[i]n this academy, children develop language through the use of American Sign Language – gestures, handshapes, body language, expression – together with written and spoken language exercises. (Archbishop Ryan School for the Deaf, statement of purpose)
The fact that ASL is seen as the means to develop language , i.e.
English, indicates the lack of recognition of ASL as a legitimate
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language in its own right, since deaf children using ASL apparently have not developed a language yet. This misrepresentation of the status of this language is further illustrated by its description as a mix of gestures, hand shapes, body language, and expressions. Such a description evokes the concept of a primitive communication system completely devoid of complex grammar, which is certainly not an accurate representation of ASL or any natural sign language. While this example is certainly not representative of the attitudes of many schools, it serves to illustrate how vague the proclamation of a TC philosophy is. The fact that so many of the schools listed above follow a TC approach to some degree or other indicates that no real conclusions about their attitudes towards bilingual education can be drawn without actually observing teachers in the various classroom settings.
In many cases, the idea of TC is further elaborated by placing a rather strong emphasis on the acquisition of spoken and written
English, which is nicely illustrated by the philosophy of the American
School for the Deaf in Hartford, CT, the site of the first school for the deaf in the United States. They state that
[t]he School’s total communication philosophy embraces English, American Sign Language, the integration of speech, auditory training, reading, writing, and use of assistive devices as essential parts of total education that enables students to achieve true language and communication literacy. (American
School for the Deaf, Philosophy statement)
In this case, the fact that English is mentioned before ASL, as well as the overwhelming emphasis on speech and literacy in English, serve
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as indications that the focus of this school is not so much on the development of balanced bilingualism, but rather on the achievement of proficiency in English, possibly at the cost of other academic subjects, which appear to be underrepresented in this listing of priorities.
One aspect that sometimes comes up in the descriptions of academic programs and classroom instruction is the apparent lack of qualified deaf teachers who, under ideal circumstances, might provide an important cultural link to the children and serve as adult role models. In the few cases where deaf staff members are mentioned, they usually take on the role of teaching assistants, as evidenced by a statement found on the website of the Atlanta Area School for the
Deaf, in which deaf faculty members are said to “ assist other staff members with the intricacies of teaching the deaf” (emphasis added).
There is clearly a need for qualified deaf teachers in deaf education, as stated by Smith & Ramsey (2004), but it is questionable if the administrators who shape the language policies evident in a majority of the schools examined here would be inclined to pursue this goal.
5. Conclusions
This brief survey certainly cannot claim to be in any way complete or thorough, since only a small sample of schools was examined and a much closer look at actual teaching practices would be needed to reach any valid conclusions. However, there is some evidence for stating that a number of schools for the deaf claiming to follow a somewhat bilingual approach actually put a much greater
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emphasis on the development of spoken and written English than on the development of ASL skills. This is regrettable since numerous studies have shown the effectiveness of ASL instruction both in terms of providing the children with a strong basis for future language learning, as well as in allowing a greater emphasis on the transmission of content knowledge, which often suffers when the main objective of education is the teaching of speech and English literacy. At the same time, many parents, both deaf and hearing, recognize these serious shortcomings of many schools for the deaf and are therefore further encouraged to enroll their children in mainstream schools, sometimes with the help of interpreters, thus hoping to ensure higher academic standards (Thumann-Prezioso,
2005). The resulting isolation of the children and lack of contact with
ASL and the Deaf community are seen as unfortunate, but necessary side effects. This is reminiscent of the attitudes expressed by many parents in other language minority groups, where the future career chances of their children are valued above the maintenance and fostering of their native language (Hornberger, 1987; Romero Little
& McCarty, 2006). This trend is all the more troubling for deaf children because unlike hearing children from language minorities, they stand only a slim chance of becoming fully proficient in the majority language. Regardless of technological advances in the field of hearing aids and cochlear implants, it is imperative that more schools adopt a truly bilingual approach in which students are taught at age-appropriate levels in ASL, thus providing a strong foundation in the language that comes most naturally to deaf students in the
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United States. The development of English literacy must remain a prominent goal, but it should not come at the cost of general academic and critical thinking skills, whose usefulness for the children’s future careers must not be underestimated.
References:
Akamatsu, C.T., Stewart, D.A., & Mayer, C. (2002). Is it time to look beyond teachers’ signing behavior?
Sign Language Studies, 2(3),
230-254.
American School for the Deaf. Information downloaded on 11/15/06 from http://www.asd-1817.org/ .
Archbishop Ryan School for the Deaf. Information downloaded on
11/15/06 from http://www.arsfdc.org/ .
Atlanta Area School for the Deaf. Information downloaded on
11/15/06 from http://www.aasdweb.com/ .
Cawthon, S.W. (2004). Schools for the Deaf and the No Child Left
Behind Act. American Annals of the Deaf , 149(4), 314-323.
Crawford, J. (1996). Seven hypotheses on language loss: Causes and cures. In G. Cantoni (Ed.), Stabilizing Indigenous Languages .
Flagstaff: Center for Excellence in Education, Northern Arizona
University. http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/pubs/stabilize/iipolicy/hypotheses.htm
Evans, C.J. (2004). Literacy development in deaf students: Case studies in bilingual teaching and learning. American Annals of the
Deaf , 149(1), 17-27.
Fisher, M. (2006). A lonely voice for inclusion in a redoubt of the radical deaf. Washington Post , October 19, 2006, p. B1.
Helmberger, J.L. (2006). Language and ethnicity: Multiple literacies in context, language education in Guatemala. Bilingual Research
Journal .
Hornberger, N. (1987). Bilingual education success, policy failure.
Language in Society , 16(2), 205-226.
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King, K.A. & Benson, C. (2004). Indigenous language education in
Bolivia and Ecuador: Contexts, changes, and challenges. In J.W.
Tollefson and A.B.M. Tsui (eds.) Medium of instruction policies:
Which agenda? Whose agenda? (pp. 241-261). Mahwah, NJ:
LEA.
Komesaroff, L. (2001). Adopting bilingual education: An Australian school community’s journey. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf
Education , 6(4), 299-314.
Laurent Clerc Center. http://clerccenter.gallaudet.edu/InfotoGo/schools-usa.html
: all information about the schools analyzed in this project was downloaded by following the links provided on this website.
Downloaded on November 15, 2006.
Mitchell, R.E. & Karchmer, M.A. (2006). Demographics of deaf education: More students in more places. American Annals of the
Deaf , 151(2), 95-104.
Nover, S.M., Christensen, K.M., & Cheng, L.-R.L. (1998).
Development of ASL and English competence for learners who are deaf. Topics in Language Disorders , 18(4). 61-72.
Power, D. & Leigh, G.R. (2000). Principles and practices of literacy development for deaf learners: A historical overview. Journal of
Deaf Studies and Deaf Education , 5(1), 3-8.
Prinz, P.M. & Strong, M. (1998). ASL proficiency and English literacy within a bilingual deaf education model of instruction.
Topics in Language Disorders , 18(4), 47-60.
Romero Little, M.E. & McCarty, T.L. (2006). Language planning challenges and prospects in Native American communities and schools. Education Policy Studies Laboratory; www.asu.edu
.
Singleton, J.L. et al. (2004). Vocabulary use by low, moderate, and high ASL-proficient writers compared to hearing ESL and monolingual speakers. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf
Education , 9(1), 86-103.
Smith, D.H. & Ramsey, C.L. (2004). Classroom discourse practices of a deaf teacher using American Sign Language. Sign Language
Studies , 5(1), 39-62.
Teller, H. & Harney, J. (2005/2006). Views from the field: Program directors’ perceptions of teacher education and the education of students who are deaf or hard of hearing. American Annals of the
Deaf , 150(5), 470-479.
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Thumann-Prezioso, C. (2005). Deaf parents’ perspectives on deaf education. Sign Language Studies , 5(4), 415-440.
Tsui, A. (2004). Medium of instruction in Hong Kong: One country, two systems, whose language? In J.W. Tollefson and A.B.M. Tsui
(eds.) Medium of instruction policies: Which agenda? Whose agenda?
(pp. 97-116). Mahwah, NJ: LEA.
Viash, Viniti (2005). A peripherist view of English as a language of decolonization in post-colonial India. Language Policy , 4, 187-
206.
Wright, W.E. (2005). Evolution of federal policy and implications of
No Child Left Behind for language minority students . Educational
Policy Studies Laboratory; www.asu.edu
.
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Todd N. Valdini
Florida Atlantic University
1. Background and Key Word Definitions
1.1 Language Anxiety
‘Language anxiety’ is the preferred term used when discussing communication apprehension in L2 (Horwitz & Young,
1991, cited by MacIntyre et al., 2002). Language anxiety may play a significant role in a student’s learning and communicative process to the point where the learner is reluctant to communicate at all
(Mitchell and Myles 2004: 26-27). Anxiety is typified by “selfbelittling, feelings of apprehension, and even bodily responses such as a faster heartbeat” ( ibid.
).
Often the affective factor of language anxiety produces negative results in the language learner but studies have shown that it may also improve performance (Alpert & Haber, 1960, cited in
MacIntyre 1995: 92). “The extent to which anxiety either facilitates or impairs performance is determined by the extent to which the highanxiety subjects compensate for reproduced processing effectiveness by enhanced effort” ( ibid.
). In other words, anxiety may influence not only the learner’s language performance but also the amount of effort exerted by the learner in accomplishing a task. MacIntyre
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(1995) points out the relationship between performance and anxiety level: as the demands on the system increase, the extra effort may not fully compensate for the cognitive interference, and anxiety will begin to have a negative effect. As demand further exceeds ability, the impairment caused by anxiety worsens. Thus those who do not experience anxiety will be able to process the information more quickly, more effectively, or both compared to those who are distracted by task-irrelevant cognition (92).
It should be noted here that as MacIntyre points out, language learners will respond differently according to their threshold for anxiety. It is important to note this at the outset of this discussion because herein the research deals with a case study, an individual second language learner. The capacity for anxiety in the present study will not be the same as others.
Various factors can lead to a language learner’s increased anxiety including motivation, gender, age, and socio-cultural aspects.
The social element of learner anxiety can be summed up in the sentiment of Nobel Prize winning novelist and polyglot Elias Canetti
(1976) who knows, first hand, the predicament of second language learners:
[being a non-native language speaking person in another country is] a matter of being abandoned to the clutches of the foreign language on its own territory where everyone else is on its side, not on yours, and where they all gang up with every appearance of being in the right without care, unerringly and continually beat you up with their words (160-161).
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Canetti’s word choice here is quite telling. The implication is that the second language learner meets with a sort of belligerence in the target language society.
L2 learner anxiety can be almost paralyzing to the point that the language learner does not want to interact with the outside, native language speaking world. But in order to reap the benefits of the society, this is precisely what needs to be done. Swedish linguistics scholar Inger Lindberg (2003: 158) calls this the ‘Catch 22’ of second language learning where learners “need access to social networks of target language speakers in the dominant society in order to develop and improve their second language, but are often excluded from these networks for not mastering the majority language enough.”
1.2 Journal writing
One way for second language instructors to explore learner anxiety in their students is through journal 2 writing activities. As
McDonough and McDonough (1997) suggest, journal writing may be: a primary vehicle for process research, for getting
‘under the skin’ of the psychological, social and affective factors involved in teaching or in language development in ways that cannot readily be reached by staff meetings or tests or population sampling or experiments (135).
2 It should be noted here that the researcher has made no distinction between the terms ‘journal’, ‘diary’, and ‘log.’ For the purposes of this project these terms will be synonymous and be taken to mean a narrative written periodically/consistently for the purposes of recording personal reflections.
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Journal writing activity allows the writer to gain a sort of mastery over their subjective experiences. The act of transcribing inside thought and giving it an outside physical representation takes the subjective and makes it objective. Psychotherapist Ira Progoff
(1975:37) explains that, “the journal enables our subjective experiences to become tangible to us. Experiences that would otherwise be intangible and therefore too elusive to grasp thus become accessible to us so that we can work with them.” From this perspective journal writing appears to be not only an excellent tool for metacognition, but also a fine method for decreasing learner anxiety by empowering the writer.
2. Methodology
2.1 Subject Profile
For the past several months the researcher has developed a teaching relationship with a 28-year-old Korean woman who is eager to improve her English. The student (whose fictive name is
“KyungHee” for purposes of this introductory profile) has lived in the
United States for nearly two years with her Korean-American husband and has received some basic English education at two different language institutions.
At home, Korean is the main language spoken and KyungHee is reluctant to venture out of her home for fear of finding herself in a world made up of a language that she has yet to master. Her anxiety about interacting in that world of native language speakers is reflected
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in the Canetti quote above and has been expressed explicitly to the researcher several times in conversation.
In her homeland, KyungHee was a recognized interior designer with nearly ten years of professional experience in and around Seoul. She has proudly shared photographs of her work as well as lengthy write-ups in two different interior design magazines regarding her accomplishments. She is a self-proclaimed workaholic who claims that she feels most alive when she allows herself to be consumed by her work.
When KyungHee came to the United States to be with her husband, she left behind her established vocation and a cultural community that she understood and that understood her. One of
KyungHee’s most important concerns in this country is to reestablish her career as an interior designer; but her anxiety about the language keeps her from venturing from her home into the English-speaking world let alone applying for a job at a design firm. This echoes
Lindberg’s ‘Catch 22’ mentioned above. Indeed, KyungHee has complained that she has developed few close, English-speaking friends here and becomes the quiet outsider in group conversations.
Despite KyungHee’s impressive Korean portfolio, Lindberg’s discussion of immigrant women in an English-dominant world paints a discouraging picture of the way the dominant society does not access the wealth of talent laying beneath the surface of the second language learner (Lindberg, 2003):
… most women could not find work in their profession and had to accept unqualified jobs where the opportunities for speaking English with fellow
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workers were few and where the talents and symbolic resources they had brought with them … were not acknowledged (158).
With the obvious talent that KyungHee possesses, it would be a shame to see it go unappreciated in this way.
KyungHee and the researcher both agree that the key to her returning to work as an interior designer in this country is contingent upon her acquiring the English language and key to accomplishing this is overcoming her learner anxiety.
KyungHee has expressed her willingness to participate in this project and act as its subject of her own volition. She has further authorized the analysis and use of her writing output as it relates to the current project.
2.2 Setting
Subject and researcher met regularly three times a week
(Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays) for up to two hours each session over the course of two months. Sessions took place in the private study rooms of S.E. Wimberly Library, Florida Atlantic University.
On rare occasions, for extenuating circumstances, meetings took place at one or the other’s home.
2.3 Materials
Researcher allowed the subject to record her journal using whatever arrangement was most comfortable (pen and paper, word processor, blogging, etc.) so long as it was in a written form. The
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subject, in this case opted for the traditional pen and paper. Excerpts from her notebook are included below with permission.
Journal entries were analyzed according to some of the diary analysis features proposed by Allwright and Bailey (1991: 193) 3 as well as the researcher’s own qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the subject’s linguistic choices. Following are the five guidelines used by the researcher for journal analysis. The first two analysis guidelines are those suggested by Allwright and Bailey, the remaining are those supplemented by the researcher:
1.
frequency of mention (the quantitative examination of particular lexical items or stylistic repetitions)
2.
saliency (a qualitative evaluation of the strength of expression with which the topic is recorded)
3.
deictic command (qualitative and quantitative investigation of how the subject locates herself and the topic in the narration and how frequently)
4.
lexical quality (quantitative analysis of how often positive and negative connoting vocabulary is used)
5.
lexical confidence (quantitative analysis of the presence of vocabulary words introduced during tutor sessions and the qualitative analysis of the appropriateness of their usage)
3 Allwright and Bailey suggest an additional criterion for evaluating diaries:
“distribution of mention.” This is used when comparing the recurrence of an item across journals from several different subjects. In the current case, only one subject is being focused on so this feature will not be considered.
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The above measurements allow for this study to be a quantitative one as well as qualitative. Functional or closed class words were not considered in the analysis.
2.4 Procedure
Once a week during sessions at Wimberley Library, at least a half hour was devoted to discussing this project, specifically the subject’s journal. Researcher used this time primarily to inquire whether or not the subject was keeping up with her entries and to remind the subject to concern herself with topics relating only to the current research project.
The subject was encouraged to keep a journal to record her daily auto-observations about using the English language and her learning process in acquiring this second language. The researcher suggested that the subject make her entries consistent and frequent, at least one reflection daily. Other guidelines for the journal included: it must be written in the target language (English), it must be kept totally confidential between the subject and the researcher, and each entry must contain a blank space the bottom quarter of the page for researcher responses and recasts 4 .
Subject kept this journal over a two month period, from
September 15, 2004 through November 15, 2004. During this time the researcher did not ask to see the journal or to physically verify
4 This final guideline was intended to make the journal writing activity interactive, but it occurred to the researcher early in the course of this project that error-correction was not the goal and this detail might make the activity too formal, possibly limiting the subject’s expressiveness.
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that the journal was being maintained. This was done to forego any possible further anxiety that the researcher might have imposed on the subject by appearing too demanding. At the end of the requested journal-writing period, the subject submitted her journal to the researcher for analysis.
Analysis was performed based on the guidelines detailed above. The journal, in its entirety was transcribed into the researcher’s word processor and each entry was numbered 1 – 36 in chronological order. Each entry was categorized by the type of event it foregrounded (social, domestic, personal, or metacognitive) and whether the outcome of that event was positive, negative, or neutral.
Researcher noted saliency and deictic command in the entries at this stage of analysis. Each entry was scanned for positively and negatively charged words 5 and then color coded accordingly (blue for positively charged words; red for negatively charged words) for the convenience of the researcher. Newly introduced lexical items were highlighted in green. All content words were counted and tallied for frequency of use.
3. Hypothesis
Typically, case studies concerning journal writing are not hypothesis-driven because of their heuristic nature (Seliger and
Shohamy, 1989) meaning the outcome is dependant on the student’s personal self-discovery through the process. For the purpose of this
5 Lexical items were deemed positive or negative by virtue of their facevalue semantics and of their contextual intention.
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project, however the researcher has guided the subject to focus on particular topics rather than keeping an open-ended journal.
Specifically the subject has been informed that they should be primarily concerned with their personal reflections on their language learning experiences and on their learning process. Setting parameters on an activity which might otherwise produce mass amounts of data (that may or may not be directly related to the project goal) allows the researcher to make certain conjectures about the outcome of the task.
That said the researcher expects that by encouraging the subject to keep a regular journal focusing on her personal reflections on the use of the English language and her process of learning it, she will develop enough distance to look at her education objectively. By gaining a more outside perspective on her experience, the researcher believes that this will bolster her self-esteem and give her the confidence to continue to use and to experiment more with her new language knowledge.
By taking ownership or mastery over her experiences in this way, the subject will be learning the language meta-cognitively, evidence of which will come out overtly in the narrative reflection.
The researcher further hypothesizes that evidence of the foregoing will emerge in the subject’s linguistic choices, specifically: increased accuracy in classroom-introduced lexical usage (showing her comfort with and willingness to use new words); positively charged word choices (revealing a budding positive attitude); improved deictic narrative (reflecting the subject’s developing
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objectified perspective over her language experience); and a growing instance of positive language experiences foregrounding each subsequent entry
4. Preliminary Findings and Discussion
4.1 Limitations
The observation of journal entries necessitates a sample of writing over an extended period of time. Because of the time constraints imposed by this course structure and the calendar length of this semester, the writing sample evaluated for this research project only provides a brief glimpse into the subject’s self-reflective process.
Critics may charge that a study of this kind lacks validity because of the singularity of its subject. There is no relativity to give this study the dynamic of true scientific exploration. A more scientific study would include a pool of subject journals and seek recurrences and similarities across the sources.
The reliability of the data generated from journal writing can be limited by the fact that the researcher has given the subject specific guidelines for their journal entries. For the purposes of this project, the researcher has suggested that the subject use these journal entries to reflect on her learning process. As a result, this is not a truly openended journal for the subject.
Additionally, autobiographical writing is inherently unreliable because of its retrospective nature. There is likely to be some “decay in accuracy over time” (McDonough and McDonough,
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2004: 124) as to the information’s factual precision no matter how quickly after the event the writer records their impressions.
In general, journal oriented research is also limited by ethical and confidentiality issues and should be considered seriously by any researcher as they undertake similar studies. As noted earlier, my case study subject has given full consent to review and publish her journal entries for the purposes of this class project. For her protection her name has been changed and any further identifying information linking her to these entries has been omitted.
4.2.1 Results
The two month journal writing stint yielded a total of 36 entries. Though this is evidence that the journal was not maintained on a daily basis, the researcher is encouraged by the fact that the subject was disciplined enough to provide him with a descent research sample.
The subject’s journal entries can be broken down into categories of four topic types. They were social, domestic, personal, or metacognitive reflection. The researcher judged each reflection by their general atmosphere. They were labeled positive, negative, or neutral experiences with regard to the impression that the entries gave to the reader. 44% of the experiences depicted in the journal entries were domestic in nature; 33% was social reflection; and personal and metacognitive reflections made up 11% each. Atmosphere analysis of the journal entries were even more disproportionate with neutral and positive experiences making up 8% and 6% respectively and
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negative experiences representing an overwhelming majority of the entries with over 61 %. The graphs below represent these findings:
Social
Reflection
Domestic
Reflection
Personal
Reflection
Metacognitive
Reflection
Posititve
Experiences
Negative
Expereinces
Neutral
Experiences
Using the evaluation guidelines detailed above in the
“Procedures” section, the researcher discovered the following:
4.2.2 Frequency

The top five most frequently used noun phrases were: o “time 6 ” (represented nearly 3.8 % of all content words) o “word” (represented about 3.3 % of all content words)
6
The lexical items listed here represent various inflectional variations of the word.
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o “person/people” (represented 2.4 % of all content words) o “TV” (represented 2.2 % of all content words) o tie between “life” and the name of her neighbor/friend
(each represented 2.1 % of all content words)

The top 3 most frequently used verb phrases (excluding “be,”
“do,” and “have”) were: o “feel” (represented 3.3 % of all content words) o “speak” (represented 2.7 % of all content words) o tie between “think” and “know” (each represented 2.2
% of all content words)
The lexical items listed above are not entirely surprising.
Concepts like “time,” “people,” “life,” and the names of our close friends are likely to populate any human’s recorded journal. One interesting item to note of the noun phrases is the second most frequently used term “words.” It would appear, and not altogether surprisingly, that the subject has a certain preoccupation with words.
This may be true of many second language learners as is evident from the Canetti quote and seems to be inherently evident.
With regard to the verb phrases, it is worthwhile to note that the three most frequent verb usages are all related to communication or cognition.
4.2.3 Saliency
Certain entries stood out more than others for their striking minimalism and strength of emotion. These entries were usually
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introverted and held an almost poetic gloominess. Here is one such entry in its entirety: “Since I live in America, many times I think about loneliness. I’m not talking just of love. Day after day, I miss all of them: my work, my family, my friends”
4.2.4 Deictic command
Though there are many examples of deictic phrasing to be found in the writing samples it appears that the sophistication of this linguistic feature may still be at an inchoate stage. Certainly, the deixis used therein did not support the hypothesis.
4.2.5 Lexical quality
In every case, the quality of lexical choices in each entry represents the overall tenor of the experience. That is, when there were more positive lexical cues contained in the entry the overall feeling of the passage was positive, when the presence of negative lexical cues was higher, the passage was generally considered negative. It may be of some interest to note here that several of the subject’s entries were only peppered with negative lexical choices or only positive lexical choices, in which case the entry’s impression was obvious.
4.2.6 Lexical confidence
As the subject’s tutor, the researcher was pleased to see that the student was experimenting with some of the vocabulary words introduced during the normal tutoring sessions. New lexical
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application represented less than one percent of all content words but their presence at all is an encouraging sign from an educator’s standpoint.
4.3 Implications
The linguistic analysis detailed above implies some interesting details about the subject’s psychology. It seems apparent that the subject is a prime example of an anxiety ridden individual.
Whether that anxiety stems from their language experience or from somewhere else is not entirely clear. What is clear is that there is an established preoccupation with ‘words’ and occasional glimpses at the metacognitive thought of the subject that extend throughout the entire journal. These details seem to suggest that the subject could very well be suffering from anxiety stemming from language.
5. Conclusion
A linguistic examination of a subject’s writing sample, while revealing on a subconscious level, is no solid ground for scientific discovery. It does have some excellent uses in the field of second language learning. Most importantly, case studies such as this one are valuable as question generators and inspiration for further related studies.
As discussed earlier, the nature of this type of research leans toward an ethnographic study of the subject. A study of this kind is simply ineffective in a brief period of time. Real findings may not materialize from journal writing for many months. Though most of
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the hypotheses proposed for this project were proved wrong, the researcher believes that the results will look far different, say six months from now. The researcher hypothesizes that the continuation of this project will yield more detailed results providing a holistic picture of the subject as she becomes more accustomed to making journal entries and the activity becomes comfortably habitualized.
Additionally, if time were not a consideration, the researcher would not have imposed a specific framework for the subject’s journal and rather let the subject make entries freely. As stated above, an open-ended journal has the propensity to provide a mass amount of unrelated data but from an ethnographic and holistic point of view this can be a profitable source of information, providing a more complete profile of the subject. Also, the fewer constraints the researcher places on the subject’s journal writing, the greater the possibility that the subject will yield valuable insights which they might not have divulged under certain writing restrictions, and thus the greater the wealth of ideas for the researcher to draw from to cater to the student’s individual needs.
The goal here is to meet the needs of this individual. The techniques used and the results that ensue will not be the same for every person. Research of this nature is not generalizable but it generates critical questions and ideas for further study.
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References:
Allwright, D. and Bailey, K. M. (1991). Focus on the Language
Classroom.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Alpert, R., & Haber, R. N., (1960). Anxiety in Academic
Achievement Situations. Journal of Abnormal Social
Psychology, 78 , 207-215.
Canetti, E. (1976) Das Gewissen der Worte . Munich/Vienna: Hanser.
Retrieved from Lindberg article September 14, 2004.
Lindberg, I. (2003). Second Language Awareness: What For and For
Whom? Lanuage Awareness, 12 (3&4), 157-171.
MacIntyre, P. D. (1995, Spring). How Does Anxiety Affect Second
Language Learning? A Reply to Sparks and Ganschow. The
Modern Language Journal, 79 (1), 90-99.
MacIntyre, P. D., Baker, S. B., Clément, Richard, & Donavan, L. A.
(2002, Spring). Sex and Age Effects on Willingness to
Communicate, Anxiety, Perceived Competence, and L2
Motivation Among Junior High School French Immersion
Students. Language Learning, 52 (3), 537-564.
McDonough, J., & McDonough, S. (2004). Research Methods for
English Language Teachers . London: Arnold Publishers.
(Original work published 1997)
Mitchell, R., & Myles, F. (2004). Second Language Learning
Theories (2nd ed.). London: Arnold Publishers. (Original work published 1998)
Progoff, I. (1975). At a Journal Workshop. New York: Dialog House
Library.
Seliger, H. W. and Shohamy, E. (1989). Second Language Research
Methods.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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The 2008 Spring Publication will have a thematic focus of Bilingualism and Culture. Topics which address this issue, from any linguistic subfield, will be considered. Papers which address any topic in linguistics will be considered for the Spring Publication.
Papers may be submitted in any language, provided we can find an appropriate editor.
Submissions should be no more than 25 pages, or approximately 7,000 words, and should follow the most recent APA guidelines.
A separate title page should include the author’s name and address.
The author’s name should not appear on the manuscript pages to allow for blind review.
Please send an electronic copy (Microsoft Word) and two hard copies of the manuscript to: bocajournal@gmail.com
Boca Submissions
Florida Atlantic University
Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Studies
777 Glades Road
Boca Raton, FL 33431-0991

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