Research Institute for the Study of Language in an Urban Society, CUNY Graduate Center

Projects

Meeting the Needs of Long-Term English Language Learners in High School

Professor Kate Menken
Funded by the Office of English Language Learners of the New York City Department of Education

The purpose of this research project is to explore the characteristics and educational needs of Long-Term English Language Learners (LTELLs), students who remain engaged in the process of learning English after 6 years or more in the United States. While there are significant numbers of LTELLs in the New York City public schools, comprising approximately one-third of all high school English Language Learners (ELLs), very little research has been conducted about these students. Though often orally proficient in English, Long-Term ELLs are characterized by low levels of academic literacy in both English and their home language, and typically score below grade level on assessments. Traditional English as a second language and bilingual education programs at the secondary level were designed to meet the needs of newly arrived ELLs who are literate in their home language, but such programs often fail to meet the needs of Long-Term ELLs. To gain a clearer understanding of this population and learn how high schools can best meet the needs of these students, a descriptive qualitative study will be conducted in three New York City high schools serving LTELLs.

The Interaction Of Language And Dialect Contact: Variable Statement Of Spanish Subject Pronouns In Six Spanish Dialects In New York City

Professors Ricardo Otheguy and Ana Celia Zentella

Spanish speakers in New York City (NYC) are experiencing language and dialect contact on an unusually large scale. This project investigates the consequences of such contact through a sociolinguistic study of the alternation between presence and absence of subject personal pronouns (SPPs) with finite verbs in Spanish. We ask whether Spanish dialects are undergoing leveling or hyperdifferentiation and/or whether they are converging with English. Leveling may indicate the rise of a NYC Spanish, suggestive of a new NYC Latino identity; hyperdifferentiation may suggest the emergence of transnational identities that tie immigrants and language minorities to their distant communities of origin more than to speakers of other dialects in the immigrant setting.

Supporting Language Skills in Immigrant Pre-Schoolers: An Innovative, Structure-based Program Intervention

Professors Gita Martohardjono and Ricardo Otheguy

Previous literacy research has shown a correlation between the development of cognitive-linguistic competence and abilities, and success in the acquisition of literacy skills, both in L1 and in L2. Good comprehension in certain syntactic areas, namely knowledge of tense, complex sentence structure, and pronoun reference, correlates significantly with L2 English reading attainment, as demonstrated in a previous RISLUS study (2001-2). The ability to detect lexical and syntactic ambiguity also appears as a strong predictor of early L1 reading ability (Cairns, Waltzman, & Schlisselberg, 2001).

The role of syntax in reading comprehension: a study of bilingual readers

Professors Gita Martohardjono and Ricardo Otheguy
Previous research on monolingual readers has extensively studied the importance of phonemic indices of language development (Bradley & Bryant,1985; Ehri & Wilce,1980,1985) as well as the importance of vocabulary (Anderson & Freebody,1983), but empirical research into the relationship between syntax and reading abilities is relatively rare (cf. Waltzman & Cairns, 2000). This study investigates the relationship between syntactic knowledge in the first (L1) and second language (L2) and reading ability in the L2 at early stages of development. Participants were Spanish speaking learners of English enrolled in two inner-city kindergartens (ages 5;7-6;5).

Personal Experiences With Literacy Of Bilingual Para-Educators and Their Impact On Teaching and Learning

Professor Victoria Rodriguez

The purpose of this ethnographic study is to examine both the literacy experiences and the support system of a group of para-educators in order to develop strategies to support their academic development at the college level while building on their unique linguistic and cultural resources and support system.

Language Variation In a New York Public Secondary School

Professor Michael Newman

My current research project is a variationist study of Latino English in New York. It is focused on the role of peer subculture, particularly hip-hop and geek/computer-associated groups on differences in language.

The Comparative Morpho-Syntax of Appalachian English

Professors Judy Bernstein, Marcel den Dikken, Christina Tortora and Raffaella Zanuttini

Appalachian English is a group of linguistic varieties, or dialects, spoken roughly in the central and southern part of the Appalachian Mountain range. These dialects differ from standard English in a number of respects, including several structural properties of sentences and the words inside them (the 'morpho-syntax'). Thus, they allow sentences like “The girls likes pizza”, where a third person plural subject occurs with a verb carrying the –s suffix (which is reserved for singular subjects in standard English); and they permit examples like “At first, you wouldn't believe the characters come knocked on my door”, in which “who”/“that” is omitted, something that is not possible in standard English. In a collaborative research project developed by Judy Bernstein, Marcel den Dikken, Christina Tortora and Raffaella Zanuttini, a team of researchers from four different academic institutions (including two CUNY colleges: The Graduate Center and the College of Staten Island), these phenomena are investigated for two of specific varieties of Appalachian English, those spoken in Dante, Virginia and Mountain City, Tennessee. The aim of this research is to reach a deeper understanding of grammatical variation, particularly in the areas of the syntax of subjects and subject-verb agreement.

Use of Less Commonly Spoken Languages by Bilingual Parents

Professor Thomas Ihde

With an increased appreciation of the advantages of bilingualism, a number of parents are consciously deciding to raise their children in more than one language in the New York City area. The practice of using the One Parent/One Language approach is of interest (Döpke, 1992; Barron-Hauwaert, 2004) notably where parents have different native languages or where one parent speaks a native language and the other the host language and/or non-native language. However, in the New York City area, the use of English by one parent and the use of a less commonly spoken language by the other parent appears to present a wide variety of challenges to the family. This research seeks to document those difficulties in addition to charting best practices among parents. Data is being collected through digitally recorded observations of parent/child and sibling/sibling interactions, parent journaling, and older children recalls. Findings to date have been shared with the scholarly community through conference papers and with bilingual parents through a sponsored website.

Language Processing in Hebrew-English Bilinguals

Professor Mira Goral

The project uses data from speakers of Hebrew and English to investigate the mental organization of the lexicon of bilinguals, focusing on the difference between the two languages with regard to the ordering of constituents in compound words (goldfish vs ‘fish-gold’). Data comes from bilinguals with different levels of exposure to the two languages. The project raises questions regarding the role that morphological structure plays in the organization of the bilingual lexicon; the changes that might occur in the bilingual lexicon with changes in the proficiency of the first and the second languages; and the relative importance of constituent position and morphological headedness in the processing of compound words. The project also investigates differences between bilinguals living in Israel or in NYC and between those with greater or lesser proficiency in the two languages.