Student Research Grant
Purpose of this grant
The Second Language Teaching and Research Center (L2TReC) offers funding to undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Utah who are interested in studying the acquisition and/or teaching of second languages using CUDLI or MuSSeL. The purpose of the L2TReC Student Research Grants Program is to:
- Enhance the research education of University of Utah students
- Promote the research mission of L2TReC via support for student research projects.
Eligibility
- All University of Utah undergraduate and graduate students studying the acquisition and/or teaching of second languages are eligible to submit proposals.
- Priority will be given to projects that involve L2TReC’s learner corpora.
- Students working collaboratively with faculty are eligible if the student is considered to be the principal investigator/first author.
- Funds may be used to offset the cost of study participant compensation, equipment/supplies, travel to academic conferences for the purpose of presenting (graduate students should also apply for travel funding from the Graduate School: https://gradschool.utah.edu/funding/travel-assistance/index.php), or other research-related expenses.
- Research involving human research participants must be approved by the University of Utah’s Institutional Review Board (see http://irb.utah.edu for more information)
Application Deadline & Funding Period
October 15 and March 15 of each year; awarded funds must be used within one calendar year.
2023 Student Research Grant Awardees
Miguel Hernandez Alonso
Miguel is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Language Pedagogy with a specialization in Spanish at the University of Utah. He holds a position as a Teaching Assistant in Spanish at the same institution. His research primarily focuses on the acquisition of Spanish as a foreign language, specifically in Dual Language Immersion programs. Miguel's academic interests span Spanish linguistics, second language acquisition and teaching, learner corpora, and sociolinguistics.
Project title: Corpus Linguistics as a Source to Determine Constraints in Pronoun Drop: Analyzing Learners’ Written Spanish
Funding: L2TReC Student Research Grant (awarded March 2023)
Expected project completion: March 2024
This study explores the use of subject pronouns in Spanish by dual language immersion (DLI) students, focusing on the impact of Spanish being a pro-drop language and the potential overuse of pronouns by learners due to transfer from English. The project aims to identify differences in the use of null versus overt pronouns in the production of students across different stages of learning. Moreover, it intends to examine morphological features of verbs used by students in cases of pronoun drop, to determine if there are relevant patterns of influence.
The data come from the Spanish section of the corpus of Utah DLI (CUDLI), which is a multilingual corpus of second language writing. Texts in CUDLI are derived from Utah DLI students’ responses to the presentational writing portion of the Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages (AAPPL) test. The Spanish subcorpus of CUDLI contains over 80,000 texts by over 21,000 students, and it allows us to compare the Spanish language use across various proficiency levels. For this project, 174 texts by 30 different students have been analyzed.
Preliminary findings show a higher frequency of overt pronouns at advanced levels, contradicting the initial hypothesis of the study. Patterns of use are still to be determined, whilst it has been observed that pronouns tend to be dropped commonly with cases of overt use at the beginning of a paragraph, providing context. These findings could contribute to improving language teaching and learning, creating pedagogical materials, and improving educators’ knowledge of the acquisition of foreign languages.
Meng Zhou
Meng is a graduate student pursuing a Master's degree in Language Pedagogy at the University of Utah, where she currently teaches a Chinese conversation course. Her research interests include language pedagogy, second language writing, and corpus-based linguistics.
Project title: Exploring the Use of Conjunctions in Writing among Secondary-Level Learners of Chinese: A Corpus Study
Funding: L2TReC Student Research Grant (awarded March 2023)
Expected project completion: April 2024
This study aims to investigate how secondary-level (6th, 8th, and 9th grades) learners of Chinese from Utah Dual Language Immersion (DLI) programs use conjunctions in their writing production. The corpus I use for this study is a Chinese sub-corpus of the Written Corpus of Utah Dual Language Immersion (CUDLI). CUDLI is a corpus of written responses to the presentational writing portion of the ACTFL Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages (AAPPL). The study will provide suggestions to Chinese DLI teachers on how to help learners improve their writing proficiency. According to the result, the teacher can improve their teaching methods in class, such as teaching conjunctions explicitly, giving more corrective feedback on conjunctions, and adjusting the writing prompts.
Amanda Hoffmann
Amanda Oliveira Hoffmann is a master’s student in Portuguese Language Pedagogy at the University of Utah. She serves as a teaching assistant for Portuguese in the Department of World Languages & Cultures and as a research assistant for the Second Language Teaching and Research Center (L2TReC), both at the University of Utah. Her academic interests include literature, the use of literary texts in second/foreign language education, sociolinguistics, and cultural studies.
Project title: Exploring L1 Influence on L2 Acquisition: Noun-Adjective Agreement Challenges for English Speakers Learning Portuguese
Funding: L2TReC Student Research Grant (awarded October 2023)
Expected project completion: August 2024
This study explores the influence of learners’ first language (L1), particularly English, on the acquisition of Portuguese as a second language (L2), with a focus on the challenges posed by noun-adjective agreement. While previous research extensively examines the impact of L1 on L2 acquisition, a noticeable gap exists concerning English speakers learning Portuguese. Portuguese syntax, especially the requirement for adjectives to align in number and gender with the nouns they modify and typically to follow them, presents distinct challenges for English-speaking learners. This research investigates how students in immersion programs, specifically English speakers, utilize noun-adjective agreement in Portuguese and examines the extent to which their L1 influences potential errors. Authentic language samples from students enrolled in Dual Language Immersion programs, sourced from the learner corpus data provided by the Second Language Teaching and Research Center (L2TReC) at the University of Utah, form the basis of this research. These samples include both written (Corpus of Utah Dual Language Immersion, CUDLI) and spoken (Multilingual Student Spoken Language, MuSSeL) corpora. Through a comprehensive analysis, the study examines the use and production of Portuguese as an L2 by English-speaking learners, focusing on recurring errors and the impact of the learners' L1.