Margaret Thomas
Biographic Data
| ID | 3766770 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Margaret Thomas |
| GIVEN NAMES | Margaret |
| FAMILY NAME | Thomas |
| SIGNATURE | THOMAS M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Boston College |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7731-6642 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 57 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 74 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 57 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1925 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Adjusting for Underreporting of Child Protective Services Involvement in the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study and Assessing Its Empirical Implications Through Illustrative Analyses of Youn…
Child protective services (CPS) involvement is common among American families; more than a third of all children and more than half of Black children experience at least one investigation by age 18. However, studying the causes and consequences of CPS involvement is challenging. National data on children involved with CPS lack a counterfactual group, and state-level administrative data often miss key family and child factors. The Future of Famili…
Representation of the history of linguistics in American college textbooks, 1950–2020
Many students of linguistics get their first classroom exposure to the field in courses with titles like Introduction to Linguistics or Survey of Linguistics. Such courses commonly employ textbooks that communicate the scope and methods of the discipline, and tacitly set students’ standards for what the discipline values. This article examines textbooks that have been employed from the 1950s to the early 21st century in U.S. college courses that …
A History of Modern Linguistics
Diachrony and Diachronica
Nonresident Fathers and the Economic Precarity of Their Children
This study examines the relationship between nonresident fathers and their children's economic precarity. We use a racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse sample of children in large U.S. cities and consider a comprehensive set of measures of the involvement of nonresident fathers in their lives. We evaluate both voluntary and involuntary (court-ordered child support) involvement of fathers, and we look at material hardship and income…
Towards healthier food choices for hospital staff and visitors
Objective: To determine the impact of a healthy food and drink policy on hospital staff and visitors’ food purchasing behaviours, and their awareness and support for the changes introduced. Design: Two repeated cross-sectional surveys, consisting of intercept interviews and observations of food items purchased, were conducted before (March–July 2018) and after (April–June 2019) the target date for implementation of thirteen food and drink practic…
Healthy Lifestyle Behaviours Are Associated with Children’s Psychological Health
Protecting children's mental health is important and studies have shown that diet and exercise can have a positive impact. There are limited data available, however, from representative populations of children on the relationship between regular healthy lifestyle behaviours and psychological health. Data were obtained from the New South Wales Child Population Health Survey, 2013-2014. Parents were asked about diet, physical activity and screen ti…
The monolingual approach in American linguistic fieldwork
In the first decades of the 20th century, fieldwork - collection of language data through direct interaction with a native speaker - was foundational to American linguistics. After a mid-century period of neglect, fieldwork has recently been revived as a means to address the increasing rate of language endangerment worldwide. Twenty-first century American fieldwork inherits some, but not all, of the traits of earlier fieldwork. This article exami…
Overcoming disparities in organized physical activity
Organized physical activity through sport and recreational activities is beneficial for physical and psychosocial well-being and community connectedness. However, many who could gain significantly from this have lower participation, especially the socioeconomically disadvantaged, Indigenous people, culturally diverse communities and people with a disability. This study examined barriers to participation by these underserved groups and the success…
Informed consent in research on second language acquisition
The practice of securing informed consent from research participants has a relatively low profile in second language (L2) acquisition research, despite its prominence in the biomedical and social sciences. This review article analyses the role that informed consent now typically plays in L2 research; discusses an example of an L2 study where complex issues of informed consent surfaced; and summarizes debates about informed consent that are underw…
A Three-Way Approach to Evaluating Partnerships
An increasing number of initiatives are delivered through cross-sectoral or cross-jurisdictional partnerships. Methods to evaluate partnerships have also proliferated, but tend to focus only on particular aspects of partnerships. None alone provide a comprehensive picture of how a partnership is working. Working on commissioned evaluations of partnership initiatives, we have faced the challenge of selecting appropriate methods to gather informati…
Air Writing as a Technique for the Acquisition of Sino-Japanese Characters by Second Language Learners
This article calls attention to a facet of the expertise of second language (L2) learners of Japanese at the intersection of language, memory, gesture, and the psycholinguistics of a logographic writing system. Previous research has shown that adult L2 learners of Japanese living in Japan (similarly to native speakers of Japanese) often spontaneously produce highly articulated movements of the fingertips or hands when learning or recalling Sino-J…
Voice and Community in the Corporate Academy
This article is the story of the simultaneous feminization and corporatization of universities, themes that emerged in a test of a collective biography, a qualitative research method. Organizers brought together 12 macro social work academic women across generations and, through sampling, attempted to avoid the intergenerational splitting that seems to be leaving junior faculty to be socialized by administrators while simultaneously isolating sen…
Traumatic Transitions
This article presents traumatic experiences among 21 women residing in budget hotels after housing displacement. Framed in feminist and cumulative trauma theories, the purpose of this study was to explore types of trauma and adversity prior to and during housing at budget hotels. In this qualitative study, narrative and categorical content-analysis approaches were conducted to identify common themes across women’s narratives. Findings revealed tr…
The doctorate in Second Language Acquisition
This article surveys nine graduate programs that confer doctoral degrees in Second Language Acquisition, the first of which was founded in 1988, 25 years ago. I examine warrants for the establishment of PhD programs in second language acquisition, the array of institutional bases on which they rest, and their curricula. I also point out distinctive features of particular programs, and report some of the ways in which this relatively new option fo…
Examining the impact of family services on homeless children
This study examined the impact on children of services delivered through a collaborative initiative designed to provide supports to working poor families who are homeless or at immediate risk of becoming homeless. Overall, a number of positive findings can serve to inform the development of promising intervention strategies for children in homeless families and highlight areas for further research. Along with improved housing status, there was a …
Otto Jespersen and "The Woman", then and now
Danish linguist Otto Jespersen's (1860-1943) Language, its Nature, Development, and Origin was published more than 90 years ago, in 1922. This article focuses on Jespersen's often-cited Chapter 13, entitled "The Woman", a text that has served since the 1970s as a touchstone for feminist narratives of the history of discussion of language and gender. The author of the present article shows that modern treatment of the chapter sometimes misconstrue…
An Exploratory Examination of a Grant-making Project in Social Work Education
Educators secure funding for MSW students to become a grant-making entity and provide monies to address local needs. An exploratory research design is used to obtain quantitative and qualitative data from students participating in the course-based project. Feedback suggests that students perceived increased abilities in the area of community needs assessments, grant writing, grant making, fund raising, public relations, and professional interest …
Names, Epithets, and Pseudonyms in Linguistic Case Studies
This article explores the use of names, epithets, and pseudonyms as they have been employed since the late eighteenth century to label subjects in linguistic case studies. I focus on two kinds of case studies: those of normal language learning, and those of persons with unusual language profiles. Various naming practices attested in this literature imply a range of relationships holding among authors, readers, and the subjects of case studies. Mo…
Faith and Collaboration
As faith-based organizations and congregations are increasingly relied upon for social service provision in the United States, the collaborative relationships formed for human service purposes regularly include one or more faith-related organizations. Despite the growing attention on faith-based organizations and their history of participation in social service delivery, research concerning their interaction with others in the public and private …
Units of comparison' across languages, across time
Lardiere's keynote article adverts to a succession of `units of comparison' that have been employed in the study of cross-linguistic differences, including mid-twentieth-century structural patterns, generative grammar's parameters, and (within contemporary Minimalism) features. This commentary expands on the idea of units of cross-linguistic comparison, first by developing Lardiere's observations about recent scholarship and, second, by identifyi…
Grounded Theory
The authors examine one of the earliest systematic forms of qualitative inquiry to identify some of the boundaries needed in grounded theory designs to provide a small corner of clarity in the discourse about what is acceptable science from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) perspective. Beginning with an overview of grounded theory research as it was originally conceived and extended, the challenges for establishment of a uniform standard are …
The evergreen story of Psammetichus' inquiry into the origin of language
Herodotus recounts the attempt of the pharaoh Psammetichus I to determine which among the peoples of the earth was the oldest. He isolated two children at birth, assuming that their spontaneous speech would reveal the identity of a primordial human language. Although Psammetichus' inquiry was not explicitly designed to address linguistic issues, it has long been passed down in western reflection on language. This article reviews some of the most …
Research synthesis and historiography
Living in Britain
Grounded Theory
The authors examine one of the earliest systematic forms of qualitative inquiry to identify some of the boundaries needed in grounded theory designs to provide a small corner of clarity in the discourse about what is acceptable science from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) perspective. Beginning with an overview of grounded theory research as it was originally conceived and extended, the challenges for establishment of a uniform standard are …
Assessment of L2 Proficiency in Second Language Acquisition Research
Traumatic Transitions
This article presents traumatic experiences among 21 women residing in budget hotels after housing displacement. Framed in feminist and cumulative trauma theories, the purpose of this study was to explore types of trauma and adversity prior to and during housing at budget hotels. In this qualitative study, narrative and categorical content-analysis approaches were conducted to identify common themes across women’s narratives. Findings revealed tr…
Acquisition of the Japanese reflexive zibun and movement of anaphors in Logical Form
Several recent accounts of crosslinguistic variation in the properties of anaphors have rejected Manzini and Wexler's (1987) parameterized binding principles. Pica (1987), Battistella (1989), Cole et al. (1990) and Katada (1991), among others, claim that anaphors move in Logical Form (LF) such that 'long-distance' binding can be reduced to a series of local relationships. This article looks at research on adult second language learning in the lig…
Nonresident Fathers and the Economic Precarity of Their Children
This study examines the relationship between nonresident fathers and their children's economic precarity. We use a racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse sample of children in large U.S. cities and consider a comprehensive set of measures of the involvement of nonresident fathers in their lives. We evaluate both voluntary and involuntary (court-ordered child support) involvement of fathers, and we look at material hardship and income…
Voice and Community in the Corporate Academy
This article is the story of the simultaneous feminization and corporatization of universities, themes that emerged in a test of a collective biography, a qualitative research method. Organizers brought together 12 macro social work academic women across generations and, through sampling, attempted to avoid the intergenerational splitting that seems to be leaving junior faculty to be socialized by administrators while simultaneously isolating sen…
Informed consent in research on second language acquisition
The practice of securing informed consent from research participants has a relatively low profile in second language (L2) acquisition research, despite its prominence in the biomedical and social sciences. This review article analyses the role that informed consent now typically plays in L2 research; discusses an example of an L2 study where complex issues of informed consent surfaced; and summarizes debates about informed consent that are underw…
Air Writing as a Technique for the Acquisition of Sino-Japanese Characters by Second Language Learners
This article calls attention to a facet of the expertise of second language (L2) learners of Japanese at the intersection of language, memory, gesture, and the psycholinguistics of a logographic writing system. Previous research has shown that adult L2 learners of Japanese living in Japan (similarly to native speakers of Japanese) often spontaneously produce highly articulated movements of the fingertips or hands when learning or recalling Sino-J…
Names, Epithets, and Pseudonyms in Linguistic Case Studies
This article explores the use of names, epithets, and pseudonyms as they have been employed since the late eighteenth century to label subjects in linguistic case studies. I focus on two kinds of case studies: those of normal language learning, and those of persons with unusual language profiles. Various naming practices attested in this literature imply a range of relationships holding among authors, readers, and the subjects of case studies. Mo…
The Child Language Data Exchange System in research on second language acquisition
Universal Grammar and the Interpretation of Reflexives in a Second Language
This article addresses the debate about whether adult language learners have access to the principles and parameters of universal grammar in constructing the grammar of a foreign or second language (L2). I investigate the interpretation of English reflexive pronouns by native speakers of Japanese and of Spanish, and the interpretation of the Japanese reflexive zibun by native speakers of English and of Chinese. The data suggest that L2 learners o…
A Three-Way Approach to Evaluating Partnerships
An increasing number of initiatives are delivered through cross-sectoral or cross-jurisdictional partnerships. Methods to evaluate partnerships have also proliferated, but tend to focus only on particular aspects of partnerships. None alone provide a comprehensive picture of how a partnership is working. Working on commissioned evaluations of partnership initiatives, we have faced the challenge of selecting appropriate methods to gather informati…
Examining the impact of family services on homeless children
This study examined the impact on children of services delivered through a collaborative initiative designed to provide supports to working poor families who are homeless or at immediate risk of becoming homeless. Overall, a number of positive findings can serve to inform the development of promising intervention strategies for children in homeless families and highlight areas for further research. Along with improved housing status, there was a …
Otto Jespersen and "The Woman", then and now
Danish linguist Otto Jespersen's (1860-1943) Language, its Nature, Development, and Origin was published more than 90 years ago, in 1922. This article focuses on Jespersen's often-cited Chapter 13, entitled "The Woman", a text that has served since the 1970s as a touchstone for feminist narratives of the history of discussion of language and gender. The author of the present article shows that modern treatment of the chapter sometimes misconstrue…
The evergreen story of Psammetichus' inquiry into the origin of language
Herodotus recounts the attempt of the pharaoh Psammetichus I to determine which among the peoples of the earth was the oldest. He isolated two children at birth, assuming that their spontaneous speech would reveal the identity of a primordial human language. Although Psammetichus' inquiry was not explicitly designed to address linguistic issues, it has long been passed down in western reflection on language. This article reviews some of the most …
Can the World Bank Enforce its Own Conditions
In the 1980s, the World Bank stepped up policy-based lending, making loans conditional on government policy and institutional reforms in the borrower country. In 2002, policy-based lending (or adjustment loans) accounted for 64 per cent of total commitments. Some critics have argued that conditionality has failed because borrowers do not comply with conditions, and that borrowers do not comply because donors do not enforce the conditions, due to …
Roger Bacon and Martin Joos
Expositions of the history of western linguistics, especially those designed for a novice readership, often refer to a passage from the writings of the twelfth-century scholar Roger Bacon. That passage is conventionally interpreted as an assertion of the existence of universal grammar, framed in the terms of early medieval language science. Among generative grammarians, the text from Bacon has been construed as evidence for the longevity of a con…
Hereditary Greatness in Canada
Journal Article Hereditary Greatness in Canada Get access Margaret A. Thomas Margaret A. Thomas Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 4, Issue 2, December 1925, Pages 305–310, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/4.2.305 Published: 01 December 1925
Women and development in Wayanad
Administrative support to socio-economic programme in rural areas
Universal Grammar and the Interpretation of Reflexives in a Second Language
This article addresses the debate about whether adult language learners have access to the principles and parameters of universal grammar in constructing the grammar of a foreign or second language (L2). I investigate the interpretation of English reflexive pronouns by native speakers of Japanese and of Spanish, and the interpretation of the Japanese reflexive zibun by native speakers of English and of Chinese. The data suggest that L2 learners o…
Universal Grammar and Language Learnability
Assessment of L2 Proficiency in Second Language Acquisition Research
Acquisition of the Japanese reflexive zibun and movement of anaphors in Logical Form
Several recent accounts of crosslinguistic variation in the properties of anaphors have rejected Manzini and Wexler's (1987) parameterized binding principles. Pica (1987), Battistella (1989), Cole et al. (1990) and Katada (1991), among others, claim that anaphors move in Logical Form (LF) such that 'long-distance' binding can be reduced to a series of local relationships. This article looks at research on adult second language learning in the lig…
The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition
Knowledge of Reflexives in a Second Language
This study addresses the debate about whether adult language learners have access to the principles and parameters of universal grammar in constructing the grammar of a second language. The data are based on two related experiments. The first examines the interpretation of English reflexive pronouns by native speakers of Japanese and of Spanish. The second experiment examines the interpretation of the Japanese reflexive zibun by native speakers o…
Early Language Development in Fullterm and Premature Infants
Language Acquisition after Puberty
Second Language Acquisition Theory and Pedagogy
Implicit and Explicit Learning of Languages
Implicit and explicit language learning - an overview the unruly world of language the input hypothesis and its rivals a theory of instructed second language acquisition implicit learning and the acquisition of natural languages implicit and explicit learning of complex tasks implicit learning and the cognitive unconscious - of artificial grammars and SLA vocabulary acquisition - the implicit ins and outs of explicit cognitive mediation second la…
Studies in Anaphora
Approaches to Second Language Acquisition
Histoire de la linguistique
Generative Perspectives on Language Acquisition
Language and Linguistics
The volume contains the texts of interviews realized with three linguists: the late Andre-Georges Haudricourt (1911-1996), Henry M. Hoenigswald (born in 1915) and Robert H. Robins (born in 1921). The book has a twofold objective: on the one hand, its goal is to bring together a number of inside testimonies on fundamental issues in linguistics; on the other hand, it is intended to provide a personalized documentation which is particularly relevant…
The Acquisition of Spatial Relations in a Second Language
Handbook of Second Language Acquisition
W.C. Ritchie and T.K. Bhatia, Second Language Acquisition: Introduction, Foundations, and Overview. Research and Theoretical Issues in Second Language Acquisition: K.R. Gregg, The Logical and Developmental Problems of Second Language Acquisition. Issues of Maturation and Modularity in Second Language Acquisition: L. White, Universal Grammar and Second Language Acquisition: Current Trends and New Directions. S. Flynn, A Parameter-Setting Approach …
Handbook of Child Language Acquisition
Research and Theoretical Issues in Child Language Acquisition: W.C. Ritchie and T.K. Bhatia, Child Language Acquisition: Introduction, Foundations, and Overview. Issues of Innateness, Maturation, and Modularity in Child Language Acquisition: N. Chomsky, On the Nature, Use, and Acquisition of Language. K. Wexler, Maturation and Growth of Grammar. B. Lust, Universal Grammar: The Strong Continuity Hypothesis in First Language Acquisition. W. O'Grady…
The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition
The Child Language Data Exchange System in research on second language acquisition
Development of the concept of “the poverty of the stimulus”
'The poverty of the stimulus' is a key concept within generative linguistics. This article attempts in three ways to better understand the nature of that concept and the context of its use: first, by narrating its history from the late 1950s to the present day; second, by analyzing the properties of a family of terms (including "the poverty of the stimulus") which generativists have developed to refer to the relationship between input to language…
Roger Bacon and Martin Joos
Expositions of the history of western linguistics, especially those designed for a novice readership, often refer to a passage from the writings of the twelfth-century scholar Roger Bacon. That passage is conventionally interpreted as an assertion of the existence of universal grammar, framed in the terms of early medieval language science. Among generative grammarians, the text from Bacon has been construed as evidence for the longevity of a con…
Linguistics (35 works) · Psychology (35 works) · Philosophy (31 works) · Computer Science (26 works) · Political science (16 works) · Sociology (15 works) · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning (12 works) · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies (9 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (9 works) · Second Language Learning and Teaching (9 works)