Refereed Journal Papers

[brine-01:2010]

Marcia Johnson, Joseph Ramanair, and John Brine. It's not necessary to have this board to learn English, but it's helpful': student and teacher perceptions of interactive whiteboard use. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 4(3):199-212, 2010.

The use of interactive whiteboard (IWB) technology has great potential to invigorate not just language teaching, but any subject in which students and teachers interact with learning content, sound or video in the classroom; however, few research projects have examined and documented IWB implementation in tertiary-level Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) classrooms. In order to address gaps in existing CALL literature, this qualitative research project sought to capture and illuminate both students' and teachers' perspectives of what worked and what needed to be improved. In particular, we aimed to discover the types of changes that teachers made to their pedagogy and whether or not students' motivation and response to the CALL environment were affected, and in what ways. The research findings provided us with valuable insights into the types of personal transformations that both teachers and learners made within the IWB context and lead to a discussion in this paper of the mediation of praxis, affect and motivation. Implications of the findings for the conduct of future multimedia CALL research studies are also examined and discussed

[droy-01:2010]

Debopriyo Roy. India as an Outsourcing Destination for Technical Writing Projects: The Dynamics of Language, Culture, Education and Business. International Journal of Arts and Sciences, 3(11):317-337, 2010.

This article explains the dynamics of the outsourcing business in India. Specifically, the focus is on how technical writing has gradually developed into a business in India and whether India has the infrastructure to support and expand on this kind of business.

[droy-02:2010]

Debopriyo Roy. Is there a Significant Pattern in the way Readers use Procedural InformationProcedural Information? A Case Study in Technical Communication. International A Case Study in Technical Communication. International Journal of Arts and Sciences, 3(14):176-194, 2010.

This journal article explains how procedural visual information is used to explain procedures. The article deals with spatial text types and how well the users respond to text-graphics coordination.

[droy-03:2010]

Debopriyo Roy. Concept Maps for Teaching Technical Writing to Computer Science Majors. A Case Study in a Japanese Technical Institute. International Journal of Learning, 17(1):421-442, 2010.

This journal discusses how concept map could be used as a useful tool for teaching technical writing to EFL students. The structure of the documents, the course itself and concept map is discussed. An experimental study is also reported on how students respond to the use of concept maps for technical document authoring.

[kaneko-01:2010]

E. Kaneko. The Effects of the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy and Other Factors on Spontaneous Production of L2 Relative Clauses at Different Proficiency Levels. JACET (Japan Association of College English Teachers) Journal, 52:31-50, 3 2010.

The production of a relative clause (RC) by second language (L2) learners in relation to the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (NPAH), which refers to an implicational relationship among different types of RCs, is a well researched area in second language acquisition. However, how L2 proficiency affects spontaneous use of RCs is relatively unaddressed. This study investigates how the NPAH effects (Comrie, 2007) interact with learner proficiency in spontaneous speech. RC samples created by learners at four different proficiency levels were excerpted from a spoken corpus compiled in Japan, and accuracy and frequency of these RCs were examined. The results indicate that overall, L2 learners tend to use a less marked (or easier) RC type. However, it has further become evident that the NPAH has a differential influence on the production of RCs depending on proficiency levels. In the present research, learners at a particular level overuse a formulaic template, "generic noun + (relative pronoun) + animate subject + verb, " thus creating a more marked, or difficult type of RC with higher accuracy. This can be characterized as a communicative strategy by an adult L2 speaker who has to maintain face-to-face communication.

[palyddon-01:2010]

P.A. Lyddon. The efficacy of corrective feedback and textual enhancement in promoting the acquisition of grammatical redundancies. Modern Language Journal, pages 00-00, May or August 2012. to appear; 57 pp.

[rozycki-01:2010]

N. H. Johnson and W. Rozycki. Textual analysis of the target genre: IEEE Best Papers in computer science and engineering. OnCUE Journal, 4(2):80-109, 2010.

In this paper we study the authorial presence and other metadiscoursal factors in a corpus of six IEEE Best Papers from the years 2006-2008 published in the Transactions of three different societies.

[rozycki-02:2010]

W. Rozycki. The changing world of research presentation: Rethinking the principles. International Transactions on Elearning and Usability, 1(1):1 4, 2010.

Observation of presentations at an international conference in the field of computer and electronic engineering is reported. The communication styles adopted in oral presentation of research findings, including high PowerPoint slide word count, the readaloud delivery of slide text, and a strategy of mentored Question and Answer sessions, are reported and analyzed. This paper concludes that such non-canonical strategies of presentation are effective in reaching presentation audiences, considering that communication at international conferences in science and engineering is predominantly carried out by and for non-native speakers of English.

Refereed Proceedings Papers

[brine-02:2010]

John Brine, Fuyuki Murasawa, and Patricia Cortez. Developing an eReader for university computer science English texts in Japan. In Proceedings of the GLOCALL 2010 Conference, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, pages 1-4, December 2010.

Recent research in second language acquisition finds that supplementing language learner input with vocabulary, form and structure improves learning. Learners can be made aware of linguistic form through a process referred to as noticing. This paper considers the design of a touch display eReader to support noticing in reading tasks for use in both individual and social contexts. Several phases of development and implementation in this project are described

[droy-04:2010]

Debopriyo Roy. A Discussion of the Pedagogical Issues in Designing Collaborative Systems in EFL-based Business and Technical Writing Courses. In Proceedings of the International Technology, Education and Development Conference, page Online. INTED, 2011.

How coordination between multiple interfaces and the structure of technical writing courses focusing on the interfaces used for classwork might help with English language proficiency and develop the social design of group work.

[droy-05:2010]

Debopriyo Roy. An Argument on the Use of Eye Tracking and Thinkaloud Protocols as Mutual Support Systems for Usability Testing. In Proceedings of the International Technology, Education and Development Conference, page Online, 2011.

How different usability methods might support each other for better online behavior analysisanalysis?

[jginsbur-01:2010]

Erwin Chan, Jason Ginsburg, Brian Ten Eyck, Jerzy Rozenblit, and Mike Dameron. Text analysis and entity extraction in asymmetric threat response and prediction. In Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, ISI 2010, pages 202 207. IEEE, IEEE, 2010.

The Asymmetric Threat Response and Analysis Program (ATRAP) is a software system for intelligence fusion, visualization, reasoning, and prediction. ATRAP consists of a set of tools for annotating and automatically extracting entities and relationships from documents, visualizing this information in relational, geographic, and temporal dimensions, and determining future courses of action of adversaries by creating situational threat templates and applying customized prediction algorithms. In this paper, we first describe the task of analyzing data in intelligence reports, and then provide an overview of major system components: the Text Highlighter tool, the ThoughtSpace visualization environment, and the Template Builder and prediction tool. Subsequently, we describe linguistic characteristics of intelligence reports, and describe ATRAP's named entity recognition system.

[jginsbur-02:2010]

Jason Ginsburg. A Phase Theory-based computational model of sentence generation. In IECE Technical Report: Thought and Language August 5-6, 2010, pages 93-98, Tokyo, 2010. IECE, Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers.

This paper presents a computational model of sentence generation, based on Phase Theory, that attempts to model on a computer the innate structures of the human mind that are utilized for language generation and processing. This model automatically constructs the derivation of a sentence from a numeration, which is a set that consists of subnumerations (language chunks) that contain lexical items. This model presents a simple algorithm for selection and Merge of lexical items from subnumerations to create sentences of English and Japanese.

[jginsbur-03:2010]

Jason Ginsburg. A computational model of language generation applied to Japanese wh-questions. In Ryo Otoguro, Kiyoshi Ishikawa, Hiroshi Umemoto, Kei Yoshimoto, and Yasunari Harada, editors, Proceedings of the 24th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation (PACLIC 24), pages 133-142, Tokyo, 2010. Institute for Digital Enhancement of Cognitive Development, Waseda University.

This paper discusses a computational model of language generation, based on work in Phase Theory, that attempts to shed light on how the human mind generates sentences. This model presents explicit algorithms that a) determine selection and merger of Lexical Items, b) determine the labels of Merged elements, c) account for movement of Lexical Items within a derivation, and d) account for when chunks of a sentence are sent to Spell-Out. We demonstrate how this model accounts for generation of a wh-question in Japanese.

[jginsbur-04:2010]

Jason Ginsburg. A computational model of language generation applied to English wh-questions. In Aboul Ella Hasannien, Ajith Abraham, Francesco Marcelloni, Hani Hagras, Michela Antonelli, and Tzung-Pei Hong, editors, Proceedings of the 2010 10th International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications, pages 1077-1082. IEEE, IEEE, 2010.

This paper presents a computational model of language generation, based on Phase Theory, that automatically constructs sentences from underlying numerations. This model incorporates explicit algorithms that determine selection and merger of Lexical Items from a subnumeration, determine the labels of Merged syntactic elements, account for movement of elements within a derivation, and account for when phrases are sent to Spell-Out. This paper shows how this model automatically produces the derivation of an English wh-question.

[jginsbur-05:2010]

Jason Ginsburg. Qu-morpheme positional variation in Sinhala yes/no constructions. In Yong-Se Kang, Jiun-Shiung Wu, Dong-Hu Choi, Jong-Yurl Yoon, Seongha Rhee, Kee-Ho Kim, Jongseon Hong, Kyoung-Ae Kim, and Hye-Kyung Kang, editors, Proceedings of the 2010 Seoul International Conference on Linguistics (SICOL-2010): Universal Grammar and Individual Languages, pages CDROM, Seoul, 2010. Hankookmunhwasa.

In Sinhala yes/no constructions, a question morpheme can either occur in a clauseperipheral position that appears to be C or in a non-peripheral position that appears to be below TP. In this paper, I argue that the distribution of Sinhala Qumorphemes results from the existence of two types of Qu-morpheme; both types contain an interpretable Qu-feature, but one type also contains an uninterpretable Focus-feature. The interpretable Qu-feature is responsible for typing a clause as an interrogative by valuing an unintepretable clausal typing feature in C, and the uninterpretable Focus-feature is responsible for giving an associated phrase scope by being valued by an interpretable Scope feature in C.

[jginsbur-06:2010]

Jason Ginsburg. Last resort movement in wh-questions. In Duk-Ho An and Soo-Yeon Kim, editors, Proceedings of the 12th Seoul International Conference on Generative Grammar: Movement in Minimalism, pages 179 194, Seoul, 2010. The Korean Generative Grammar Circle.

In this paper, I propose that movement of a Q/wh-element is the result of a process by which a Q/wh-element with an uninterpretable scope feature is reinserted into a sub-numeration as a last resort in order to avoid being sent to Spell-Out and then is re-Merged into a derivation. This proposal does away with the stipulation that EPP features are involved in the formation of wh-questions. I demonstrate how this analysis accounts for wh-questions in English and Japanese.

[kaneko-02:2010]

E. Kaneko and T. Kawaguchi. Inspiring Future Information and Communication Technology Professionals: A Report on an Initial Study of Motivation and Beliefs. In International Professional Communication Conference (IPCC) 2011 Conference Proceeding, pages 315 320, 2011.

This paper reports the results of a survey regarding motivation for learning English as a foreign language. The subjects are 64 Japanese university students majoring in computer science and engineering. Research on motivation for learning second/foreign languages, first initiated in the 1970s, has been attracting attention especially since the 1990s. The results indicate that these students, whose English proficiency is rather low, have a strong instrumental motivation. are aware of the importance of English, like English in general and have a strong desire to be fluent in English. In spite of their positive disposition toward English, they do not make any serious efforts to learn it, meaning that they are still at an early stage of the development of motivation. It is also revealed that they suffer from strong anxiety in using it orally. This research suggests the need to reinvestigate learner motivation in the context of World Englishes.

[kaneko-03:2010, wilson-02:2010]

M. Sakamoto, E. Kaneko, I. Wilson, and K. Yamauchi. Aizuchiho niokeru kakuhogen no formant bunseki [Formant Analysis of various Aizu dialects]. In Dialectological Circle of Japan, volume 90, pages 9-16, 2010.

Written and presented in Japanese

[okamoto-01:2010]

Kiyomi Okamoto. Incorporating corpora into English language teaching for undergraduate computer science and engineering students with limited proficiency. In Professional Communication Conference (IPCC), pages 152 156, 2010.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the use of corpora in foreign language education. The results of past studies suggest that it is effective for learners with high language proficiency. This study attempts to incorporate the use of corpora for teaching engineering students with limited language proficiency. Student feedback suggests that even with their limited English proficiency, they found it beneficial to use corpora in language learning.

[palyddon-02:2010]

P.A. Lyddon. An exploration of a technology-enhanced approach to teaching the concept of grammatical voice. In EUROCALL 2010 Conference Proceedings, pages 00-00, 2011.

to appear; 6 pp.

[palyddon-03:2010]

P.A. Lyddon. Training Japanese university English learners for greater autonomy. In JALT2010 Proceedings, pages 00-00, 2011.

to appear; 17 pp.

[palyddon-04:2010]

P.A. Lyddon. Demystifying learning management systems. In International Transactions on Elearning and Usability, pages 00-00, 2011.

to appear; 3 pp.

[rozycki-03:2010, wilson-01:2010]

W. Rozycki and I. Wilson. Scientific presentation at IEEE conferences in Asia: Observational and survey findings. In Professional Communication Conference (IPCC), 2010, pages 222-225. IEEE PCS, 2010.

Observation of presentations at a conference in the field of network and sensor engineering (ICNSC 2009), and a survey from participants at a conference on fuzzy and artificial intelligence and neural networks (19th Intelligent System Symposium), both hosted by IEEEaffiliated units in Japan, along with findings from recent research on the intelligibility of the English of non-native speakers in international contexts, are presented.

[t-orr-01:2010]

T. Orr, K. Watarai, Y. Watanabe, Y. Wakisaka, S. Yamamoto, and R. Komiya. Effective strategies for publishing as an undergraduate in science, engineering, and other fields,. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (IPCC 2010),, pages 289 296. IEEE Professional Communication Society, IEEE Press, July 2010.

ABSTRACT: This paper presents what the authors believe to be a mature approach to undergraduate publishing. It is rooted in the idea that the value which professionals bring to society comes not only from the quantity and quality of their professional knowledge but more importantly from their ability to use that knowledge for the good of others. Undergraduates who begin to apply their learning to meeting real world needs via dissemination of their ideas and findings will discover heightened motivation for learning as well as achieve greater depth in learning, thus enabling them to develop into professionals much faster. To promote this approach to professional growth at the undergraduate level, this paper presents four useful strategies for publishing as an undergraduate, based on findings from different fields as well as on the experience of some successful scientists, engineers, and educators. These strategies are applicable to students in most disciplines; however, the examples selected for this paper come primarily from science and engineering, since these are fields the authors know best, and connecting publishing to learning in these fields is particularly important for helping young scientists and engineers develop into highly employable problem solvers.

[t-orr-02:2010]

T. Orr. The basics of international negotiation in less than 30 minutes. In IEEE PCS Japan Chapter Annual Conference, page (presentation with abstract). IEEE Professional Communication Society, Japan Chapter, December 2010.

Abstract: This presentation provides an instructive overview of international negotiation principles and strategies that are appropriate for professionals in fields of science, engineering, and other professional fields. The material is condensed from a popular graduate course on International Negotiation in the Graduate School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Aizu.

[wilson-03:2010]

J. Villegas, M. Cohen, I. Wilson, and W. Martens. Influence of psychoacoustic roughness on musical intonation preference. In Proceedings of the 128th Audio Engineering Society Convention (AES London 2010), pages 8017-8027, 2010.

An experiment to compare the acceptability of three different music fragments rendered with three different intonations is presented. These preference results were contrasted with those of isolated chords also rendered with the same three intonations. The least rough renditions were found to be those using Twelve-Tone Equal-Temperament (12-tet). Just Intonation (ji) renditions were measured as the roughest and least preferred.

[wilson-04:2010]

J. Fujinuma and I. Wilson. Japanese listeners' perception of English fricatives in AMR-NB cell phone speech. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Humans and Computers (HC-2010), pages 89-93, 2010.

From the fact that Japanese listeners have difficulty perceiving English fricative sounds in natural speech, it is natural to expect that such listeners would have even more difficulty perceiving fricatives in degraded speech. This research tests the ability of 72 Japanese university students to identify fricatives in English words presented in cell phone speech simulated with the AMR-NB codec. Participants were presented with 120 stimuli 40 at CD quality speech (44.1 kHz), 40 downsampled to 8.0 kHz, and 40 resembling cell phone speech. There were 20 words, each with a fricative consonant (/s/, /sh/, /f/, /voiceless-th/, /z/, /dj/, /v/ or /voicedth/) in either word-initial or word-final position (e.g., 'sick' or 'mouse' for /s/). In addition, words were presented in two different contexts: in isolation and embedded in a carrier sentence. Results showed that the ability to correctly identify the fricatives depends not only on signal type, but also on the type of fricative and whether it is located at the beginning or end of the word. We found that voiceless sounds are more often misidentified than voiced sounds, in most contexts and across most signal types. We also found that having the stimulus word appear at the end of a carrier sentence helps perception of the fricative sound in that stimulus. An interesting point is, perceptibility of /th/ as in 'thick' was not significantly better than chance in both types of speech signal (normal and cell phone). It can be presumed that the reason for this is the Japanese language does not contain the sound /th/. Correlation of perceptibility with duration of voiceless fricatives and perceptibility with mean intensity are also described in this paper to determine what might be affecting the perceptibility rate.

Unrefereed Papers

[kaneko-04:2010]

S. Ishikawa, Y. Nakamura, N. Sugimori, Y. Ito, and E. Kaneko. A Report on Various English Tests. In A Stduy on Measurement oand Assessment for Oral English Proficiency, number 87-94, 108-111, 2010.

Written about EIKEN Test in Practical English Proficiency by the Society for Testing English Proficiency (STEP), STEP Business Language Testing Service (BULATS), and Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) in Japanese

Chapters in Book

[t-orr-03:2010]

T. Orr. University English for science and engineering, in M. F. RuizGarrido, J. C. Palmer-Silveira, and I. Fortanet-Gomez (Eds.), English for Professional and Academic Purposes, pages 213-231. Rodopi Press, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2010.

This chapter, invited by the editors and Rodopi Press for the book English for Professional and Academic Purposes, describes English education theory and methods that are appropriate for university students in science and engineering departments. It also profiles the vision and activities of the University of Aizu's Center for Language Research as one illustrative model worth learning from.

Grants

[kaneko-05:2010]

E. Kaneko. Working Memory Span and Oral Proficiency of English as a Second Language: Implications for Automatically Graded Speaking Tests, 2010. Grant-in-Aid (C) from the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS)

Academic Activities

[droy-06:2010]

Debopriyo Roy, 2010.

I along with Prof. John Brine started a new ACM chapter on technical communication studies and elearning. I am the Chair of the chapter for the first year running.

[jginsbur-07:2010]

Jason Ginsburg, 2010.

Reviewer for the Linguistics Society of America Annual Meeting

[jginsbur-08:2010]

Jason Ginsburg, 2010.

Reviewer for the International Workshop on Natural Language Understanding, 10th International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications, ISDA '10

[palyddon-05:2010]

P.A. Lyddon, May 2011.

book review to appear in JALT Journal

[palyddon-06:2010]

P.A. Lyddon, 2010.

manuscript review for special issue of Transactions on Professional Communcation

[rozycki-04:2010]

W. Rozycki, May 2010.

presentation: Evaluating professionalism, a model from medicine, presented at IEEE Professional Communication Society - Japan spring technical meeting. Also, serving as chair of IEEE Professional Communication Society -Japan.

[t-orr-04:2010]

T. Orr, 2010.

(Jan 1, 2010 - Dec 31, 2011) President of the IEEE Professional Communication Society, Member of the IEEE Technical Activities Board, and Member of the IEEE Technical Activities Board Awards and Recognition Committee.

[wilson-05:2010]

I. Wilson, 2010.

Reviewer, International Seminar on Speech Production (ISSP).

[wilson-06:2010]

I. Wilson, 2010.

Reviewer, National Science Foundation (NSF) research proposals.

[wilson-07:2010]

I. Wilson, May 2010.

Pronunciation and ESP, Invited keynote speech presented at the 2010 International Conference on Applied Foreign Language Studies: Globalization, English(es) for Specific Purposes, and Intercultural Studies, Ching Yun University, Jhongli City, Taiwan.

Ph.D., Master and Graduation Theses

[t-orr-05:2010]

Adviser for MS student Xina Zhou. Research Area: International Negotiation in Computer Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Aizu, beginning October 2010.

[wilson-08:2010]

Mitsuhiro Katahira. Graduation Thesis: Acoustic Measurements Associated With Good Voice Harmony, School of Computer Science and Engineering, March 2011.

Thesis Adviser: I. Wilson, Referee: Prof. M. Cohen

[wilson-09:2010]

Junichi Fujinuma. Graduation Thesis: Japanese Listeners' Perception of English Fricatives in AMR-NB Cell Phone Speech, School of Computer Science and Engineering, March 2011.

Thesis Adviser: I. Wilson, Referee: Prof. K. Markov

[wilson-10:2010]

Asahi Suzuki. Graduation Thesis: Wind Instrument Tonguing: Comparison of Tongue Shape During Performance and Speaking, School of Computer Science and Engineering, March 2011.

Thesis Adviser: I. Wilson, Referee: Prof. M. Cohen

Others

[jginsbur-09:2010]

Jason Ginsburg. Review of 'Richards, Norvin. 2010. Uttering Trees. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.'.

Published online on the LINGUIST List, http://linguistlist.org/issues/21/214014.html#1

[tripp-01:2010]

S. D. Tripp. The Design of an Application for Producing Moodle Gap (Cloze) Exercises,. Conference Presentation, May 2010.

AACE Global Learn, Penang, Malaysia.

[tripp-02:2010]

S. D. Tripp. A Semantic Syllabus for Computer Science based upon Corpus Data. Conference Presentation, June 2010.

CALICO, Amherst, MA.