Browsing by Author "DiCamilla, Frederick J."

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    In Black and White: The American Media’s Construction of Police Killings
    (2016) Johnson, Morgan Kristine; Rossing, Jonathan; Shepherd, Susan C.; DiCamilla, Frederick J.; Lovejoy, Kim B.
    With several highly publicized police killings during the latter half of 2014, the issue of police violence has been re-ignited in the United States as emotionally charged a topic as ever, dividing Americans politically and socially and racially. From Eric Garner to Nicholas Robertson, the media has been greatly influential on public perception of police killings. Based on 163 digital news articles about cases of police killings from the top ten visited American news sites of 2015, this study analyzes how the American media’s language contributes to readers’ perception of police killings, focusing on patterns of race-related modifiers, passivization, and evaluation. Use of these linguistic features can influence public perception of the role of race, police accountability, and societal expectations. Considering the findings, I advocate for media literacy education as professional development for journalists.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    A Microgenetic Analysis of the Development of Thematic Coherence Between the Topic Sentence and Supporting Ideas in the English Academic Paragraph: A Case Study of a Saudi Female Writer
    (2019-08) Kepler, Grady; Belz, Julie A.; DiCamilla, Frederick J.; Buchenot, André
    This thesis explores the developmental pathway of thematic coherence among one Saudi female student in a foundational second language (L2) writing composition course, contributing to the field of L2 academic writing by offering a rich description of writing development. Despite a rapid increase in enrollment in the past 10 years, students from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) remain an understudied L2 learner population. In addition, although a number of studies have explored coherence among L2 learners of English, such research focuses either on the linguistic features utilized by learners to ensure cohesion or on the contrast between L2 learners’ cohesive devices and that of professional standards. To date, no studies offer insight into learners’ developmental trajectory toward greater competency in producing coherent academic paragraphs. The present study proposes an alternative approach by analyzing academic paragraphs in light of the definition of thematic coherence as a general-to-particular structure of ideas, i.e., a flow of information to form a superordinate-subordinate structure in which subordinate ideas support the abstract, overarching assertion. Further, the study uses the methodology of a microgenetic analysis to facilitate the tracing of the history of mediation and micro-changes in the focal learner’s written production over time as it relates to the proposed definition of thematic coherence. Each of the written drafts of paragraphs produced by the focal student is analyzed in sequence. An analysis of qualitative data is presented to contextualize and describe the focal learner’s experience in the instructional context and how this is interconnected to the development of her written paragraphs. The results showed an increase in the student’s ability to produce academic paragraphs with a general-to-particular structure, particularly during mediation that was rich with metalinguistic terminology that also created opportunities to collaboratively construct meanings of such terms. A main contribution to L2 academic writing this study offers is a rich description of a student’s developing skills in producing academic paragraphs. An implication is that to nurture academic writing skills, such as thematic coherence among students from KSA, instruction must be attentive to the developmental stages this student population progresses through.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Racey Bear's Legacy: Metaphor as a Bridge to Children's Understanding and Expression of Abstract Concepts
    (2010-07-19T20:04:45Z) Worthington, Dennis Paul; Shepherd, Susan Carol; DiCamilla, Frederick J.; Eller, Jonathan R., 1952-
    Over the course of five weeks, three children were engaged in various exercises involving the observance and creation of metaphors. Before and after the exercises, the children were asked a series of questions designed to determine their understanding of and ability to express their understanding of five abstract concepts. It was found that working with metaphor enhanced their abilities to grasp the concepts, in various and surprising ways. It was also found that their abilities to express their understanding was enhanced subtly.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Signifying in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Harriet Jacobs' Use of African American English
    (2010-07-19T19:26:49Z) Reynolds, Diana Dial; Shepherd, Susan Carol; DiCamilla, Frederick J.; Fox, Stephen L.
    Research on Harriet Jacobs' slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl exploded after 1981, when Professor Jean Fagin Yellin discovered textual evidence for refuting then-current claims that Lydia Maria Child was the author of this engrossing story. Child was indeed the book's editor, but Yellin discovered letters from Jacobs among the papers of abolitionist Amy Post that proved that the ex-slave was the author of her own narrative. Though the research this discovery engendered has been quite extensive, especially regarding the narrative's close adherence to the conventions of a sentimental novel, very few scholars have attempted to deal with a feature relatively unique to Jacobs" narrative: the use of African American English (AAE) in representing the speech of a number of her characters. Nor has any scholar exclusively focused on the authenticity of her representation of AAE. This paper, a first step in such an effort, demonstrates that Jacobs' use conforms to features found by linguists in their studies of contemporary AAE and Early Black English (EBE).