The English Equivalents of Cantonese Sentence-final Particles: A Contrastive Analysis (original) (raw)

(Majors in Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence) Acknowledgments

2004

Even though many words have been written within this thesis in order to justify a symmetric access to (linguistic) knowledge both from a production and from a comprehension perspective, the story of these pages should point out that there could be much more work from the comprehension side than from the production one. I suppose this to be true because of two (minimalist, cf. 2.2.2) fundamental points: 1. we should produce something ONLY when we are sure that we comprehended our knowledge fragment, that is, we tried to evaluate if it is coherent, robust, complete and interesting and therefore worth producing; 2. this is because the complexity of the world is so high (due to the huge “space of the problem”, cf. §1.4), that producing something runs the risk of simply being ignored (best case) or making others waste their precious time trying to comprehend our (incomplete) knowledge fragment (worst case); Following these rules of thumb, I spent almost-four-years just comprehending the ...

My Syntactic Journey Through Voices

The art of speaking and language is a unique form of communication that allows human beings to exert power, authority, needs, and goals. By speaking a combination of sounds, we can articulate words to describe our basic needs and wants. Language, while it is easily learned in our progression through life, is an enormously complex system that baffles the experts who study it. The English language, formed by combinations of German, French, and Latin, is unique in its rules based on the heavy reliance of syntax and structure. While many other languages rely on affixes and morphology, English relies on the positioning of adjectives and verbs in relation to the noun they modify and describe. Because of this reliance on positioning, there can be numerous ways to create a sentence. One choice to think about is the difference between passive and active voice. Using an active voice means the sentence emphasizes an action done by a noun, while passive voice emphasizes the object affected by the noun. I have been an English speaker all of my life. The longer I live and speak the language, the more I realize how the complex combinations and structures within English have affected me, my choices, relationships, and goals throughout life.

Chen, S. (2017). Review of "Being and Becoming an Applied Linguist" by Rod Ellis. Linguistlist.org.

Linguistlist.org.

The study of life histories is quite limited in applied linguistics. While many of us are interested in how the field's leading scholars established their careers and research trajectories, usually such anecdotes are only to be found during conference socials or intimate conversations. In response to such curiosity, the publication of " Becoming and being an applied linguist " edited by Rod Ellis brings us a fascinating read that summarizes the individual paths of 13 well-established applied linguists. Through these personal stories, the volume also sheds light upon several general trends in applied linguistics' own development over the past five decades.

The writer and the sentence: A critical grammar pedagogy valuing the micro

2011

This inquiry was a journey, a journey that included past students, teachers, friends, and family. This dissertation would not have been possible without the students who were enrolled in Basic Writing during Fall 2009. I could never have thought this hard and done this much without each one of them. Also, thanks to my past Basic Writing classes, particularly the Fall semester of 2006. These students' enthusiasm during sentence workshops compelled me to continue my inquiry. Thank you to my teachers and friends in the Writing Program at UMass who continue to shape my intellectual curiosity and commitment to literacy work. Leslie Bradshaw for her anytime of day or night conversation. Leslie, thanks for the careful editing and awareness to micro-macro meaning. Also, thanks to Deirdre Vinyard, Linh Dich and the Diversity Committee, whose commitment to difference, teaching, and learning inspires and challenges me. Thank you also to Haivan Hoang, David Fleming, and Peter Elbow. Thank you to my dissertation committee. Foremost, thank you to my advisor Anne Herrington. I'm especially grateful for the close reading and recognition of my potential. If this dissertation has "readability," it is thanks to Anne. She worked hard pushing me to unpack and rethink many of sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. Donna LeCourt and Lisa Green also greatly shaped my thinking. Both Donna's and Lisa's questions helped me better understand my project and have helped me recognize the potential for future research. v Thanks to my family because they encouraged me at every step of this process. My parents, John and Connie, were my first teachers. My siblings David, Mandy, and Andrew taught me group dynamics, something that came in handy when I was analyzing my transcripts. Last, thank you to Nate who has been my husband for three days at the time of this defense. His thoughtful patience and sense of humor kept me honest, motivated, and humble during my graduate school experience.