Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Restorative Practices In English Language Arts: My Journey Towards Linguistic Justice, Ariana Skeese

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

In this final portfolio, I examine anti-racist pedagogy in English Language Arts Education.

Cultic Studies Cultivate Libertory Language, Todd Heckathorn

University Honors Theses

Coercive abuse at its most extreme manifests in cultic groups. These groups abuse their members using the same tactics that a domestic abuser or totalitarian government would to make their victims completely dependent on and subservient to them. Cultic studies investigate these tactics to define cults, coercive control, thought reform, indoctrination, and group psychological abuse behaviors. This fairly recent area of study has significant overlap with abolition feminist studies, which compare interpersonal and systemic abuse to liberate oppressed Americans, such as Black and Indigenous people, queer and disabled people, and women. This thesis combines cultic studies and abolition feminist studies …

Language Ideologies In First Year Composition Textbooks, Joanna Clevenger

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis examines how standard language ideologies are perpetuated in the five most frequently assigned first year composition textbooks from four higher education institutions in Southern California’s Inland Empire. Standard language ideologies position one variation of a language as superior, correct, appropriate and the normal variation of a language which everyone should be able to speak. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, the five textbooks were analyzed in order to uncover the embedded power and hegemony over women, people of color, and those from a lower socioeconomic status which are prevalent throughout society because they are unchallenged and widely accepted as the …

Finding Their Chrysanthemum: Linguistic Representation In Children's Literature, Marielena Zajac

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Children in America today struggle with finding themselves in the books they read due to societal expectations. From an early age, children are dictated on the correct way to speak and write in “American,” which can leave children and their home languages feeling unseen and dismissed. To help further the conversation and promotion of linguistic diversity in American society, this capstone analyzes dialectal representation in children’s books, with a heavy focus on attitudinal linguistic principles rather than prescriptive mechanics. The secondary research explores current literature and resources that discuss literacy acquisition in adolescents, trends in dialects in America, and childhood …

A Claiming Of Kin: A Linguistic Analysis Of Southern Appalachian English In Melissa Range's Scriptorium: Poems, Jolee White

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The research studies the Southern Appalachian dialect present in five poems in Melissa Range’s Scriptorium: Poems. The linguistic phenomena characteristic of Southern Appalachian English observed and analyzed in the poems include lexicon, grammatical features, and phonological aspects. The research seeks to bring attention to this Appalachian woman writer as well as to bring understanding of her reasoning behind incorporating the dialect in her poetry. It establishes that the five poems by Range contain the lexicon, grammatical features, and phonological aspects of the SAE dialect. It holds meaning both grammatically and pragmatically within the context of the poem and Appalachia.

The Poetry Of Revolution: The Legacy Of A Written Rebellion, Eva Erickson

Honors Theses

In Solmaz Sharif’s debut poetry collection Look, she incorporates United States Department of Defense terminology in order to simultaneously revolt against forced erasure and reclaim words that were once used for violent and oppressive purposes. This thesis argues that poetry is an inherently politicized, revolutionary tool that possesses the ability to radicalize and incite rebellion against silencing, dismissive power structures. Sharif’s identity, as an Iranian-American immigrant woman, is omnipresent in her own interpretation of familial trauma at the hands of American imperialist forces. In addition, the events of the late twentieth-century Iranian revolution that resulted in the deaths of many …

Setting The Stage And Building Homes: Architecture Metaphors And Space In Donne's First Caroline Sermon, Alexander S. Laws

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Through his use of "foundation" and "house" metaphors in his "First Sermon Preached to King Charles at St. James, 3 April 1625," John Donne discreetly presents his ideologies and principles before the new king, while simultaneously criticizing his contemporaries' misguided bickering over religio-political factions. This essay seeks to unpack the history surrounding, as well as the casuistical logic found within Donne's first sermon preached during the Caroline period, which both explicitly and implicitly addresses the foremost anxieties of the people of the changing age.

Extending The Morpheme Order Studies: Acquisition Of Modal And Non-Modal Verbal Morphemes By Esl Learners, Amal Alshehry

All Master's Theses

The morpheme order studies have long prevailed in the field of second language acquisition. However, these studies are often undermined by their extent and focus on a limited number of morphemes. Thus, the present study extends the scope of morphemes to include modal verbs within other verbal morphemes and studies the order of their acquisition. Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs) were used to examine a total of twenty-seven ESL learners from a wide range of L1 backgrounds: Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Thai, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu, and Vietnamese. The study reveals a universal pattern in ESL learners’ acquisition of English verb morphology. …

Linguistics In Secondary Education: Teachers' Perceptions Of Linguistics In The Classroom, Ayla Aizza Galvan

Theses and Dissertations

Theoretical linguistics is an area of English study focusing on the abstract components of language: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. By 11th and 12th grade, students in the United States have been tested on linguistic concepts, as per state examination standards. English Language Arts teachers can introduce theoretical linguistic investigation and terms to their students, but this is not happening. The paper reviews why theoretical linguistic analysis is not thoroughly implemented in classrooms, successful classroom linguistic investigation in other countries and some U.S., and how linguistic investigation can be part of classroom curriculum. The research incorporates survey data from …

(Un)Welcome To America: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric In Trump’S Speeches And Conservative Mainstream Media, Erika Sabrina Quinonez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This project makes the empirical assertion that U.S. President Donald Trump and conservative news media outlets contribute to a national narrative of xenophobia that frames immigrants, particularly those of color, as parasitic and dangerous to the American way of life. Through this study, I assert that the use of demagogic and dehumanizing language along with more subtle discursive strategies, such as positive representation of ‘us’, negative representation of ‘them,’ and metaphorical constructions are being used to stoke fear and anti-immigrant sentiment and to strip individuals of their humanity for the purpose of rendering them unworthy of dignity and of the …

Dialogue And "Dialect": Character Speech In American Fiction, Carly Overfelt

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the linguistic construction of race and place in turn-of-the-century American novels and short stories. Literary analyses of character speech continue to reinforce the old dichotomy of Standard versus nonstandard/dialectal English. I challenge the ideology of Standard English in my readings of works by Mark Twain, Charles Chesnutt, Sarah Orne Jewett, and little-known Cherokee author, Ora V. Eddleman Reed, among others. I argue that these texts create their own standards that interact with (and sometimes resist) the language ideology of their time. By analyzing all variation, rather than only what has been traditionally viewed as “dialect,” I reveal …

Conrad's Pronoun Usage As A Stylistic Marker And Its Relation To His Density Of Text And Themes, Jennifer K. Onishi

English Department Theses

In this thesis I perform a close examination of Conrad’s use of pronouns. Before this data is related, a brief overview of Conrad’s linguistic history and the history of his criticism is presented. This overview allows for the data to be placed in the context of his linguistic interference. It also lays out what aspects of Conrad’s language have already been explored. Pronouns are analyzed by word, type, and distance from the referent. The results of this study are then combined with statistical data from previous studies of Conrad’s grammar and linguistics. This combined data is used to explain one …

Cross-Linguistic Phonosemantics, Raleigh Anne Butler

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Lingua Franca: An Analysis Of Globalization And Language Evolution, Abigail Watson

Honors Projects

This project details the evolution of languages and how globalization and advances in communication have effected smaller language groups. A world community in which communication is standardized by a Lingua Franca is in most cases harmful for isolated language groups without many speakers. The extinction of language is harmful for human society and culture, and there are many different ways to help prevent language extinction.

This project includes an essay, an animation, six illustrations, and a coloring book that all relate to endangered languages.

Phonemic Inventory Of The Shor Language, Uliana Kazagasheva

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis describes the phonemic inventory and morphophonological properties of the Shor language. Shor is a Turkic language spoken in southwest Siberia, in the area designated as Mountainous Shoriya. It is one of more than 100 minority languages spoken in the territory of Russia, and it is currently on the verge of extinction. The language is characterized by agglutinative morphology, vowel harmony, and consonant assimilation typical of Turkic languages, which are discussed in the project. The main phonological processes, morphotactics, and some aspects of grammar are described and discussed in this thesis. Along with the discussion of the morphophonology of …

Haec Fortis Sequitur Illam Indocti Possident: A Linguistic Analysis Of Demonstratives In Genres Of Early Latin Fragments, Erica L. Meszaros

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the claim that demonstratives are used more frequently in Latin comedies than in other genres (Karakasis, 2014; Palmer, 1975), as well as additional hypotheses regarding the use of demonstratives within this language. To examine these claims, I created a corpus composed of fragments of Early Latin authors of comedic, tragic, and non-dramatic works. I examined demonstratives within this corpus for frequency, form, syntactic role, affective force, co-occurrence with personal pronouns, and use in multimembral demonstrative sets. This study provides the first quantitative evaluation of demonstrative use for often neglected authors of Early Latin. It also identifies those …

Shakespeare's Dictionary: One Playwright's Influence On The Modern English Lanugage, Jennifer Walton

Undergraduate Distinction Papers

William Shakespeare is considered to the be the father of Modern English, but what most people do not realize is that he influenced much more in English than just the language. The number of phrases and words he created is over-exaggerated, he borrowed from many other languages, and he was one of the first people to document modern medical disorders. Not to mention Shakespeare was writing during one of the most lexically innovative time periods, so he helped aid in the transition from using “thee” to using “you” when addressing another person. Moving away from language specifically, Shakespeare’s writing has …

A Public Duty: Medicine And Commerce In Nineteenth-Century American Literature And Culture, Heather E. Chacon

Theses and Dissertations--English

Using recent criticism on speculation and disability in addition to archival materials, “A Public Duty: Medicine and Commerce in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture” demonstrates that reform-minded nineteenth-century authors drew upon the representational power of public health to express excitement and anxiety about the United States’ emerging economic and political prominence. Breaking with a critical tradition holding that the professionalization of medicine and authorship served primarily to support and define an ascending middle class, I argue that the authors such as Robert Montgomery Bird, Fanny Fern, George Washington Cable, and Pauline Hopkins fuse the rhetoric of economic policy and public …

Give Us A Gender Neutral Pronoun, Yo!: The Need For And Creation Of A Gender Neutral, Singular, Third Person, Personal Pronoun, Elizabeth J. Elrod

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This essay outlines the problems associated with the history and current absence of a gender-neutral third-person singular personal pronoun in the English language. The combination of the social and grammatical consequences of this language gap results in pronoun choices that are either politically incorrect or verbose. Experts’ attempts to fill this language gap have failed to take root on any widespread basis; but, interestingly, middle school children in Baltimore, Maryland created and started using “yo” as their own gender-neutral third-person singular personal pronoun. Stotko and Troyer’s (2007) study on this development sheds some light on exactly how students use “yo” …

Pamela: Or, Virtue Reworded: The Texts, Paratexts, And Revisions That Redefine Samuel Richardson's Pamela, Jarrod Hurlbert

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation is a study of the revisions Samuel Richardson made to his first novel, Pamela, and its sequel, Pamela in Her Exalted Condition, published within his lifetime. Richardson, who was his own printer, revised Pamela eight times over twenty years, the sequel three times, and the majority of the variants have hitherto suffered from critical neglect. Because it is well known that Richardson responded to friendly and antagonistic "collaborators" by making emendations, I also examine the extant documents that played a role in Pamela's development, including Richardson's correspondence and contemporary criticisms of the novel. Pamela Reworded, then, is an …

Indexing And Dialectical Transcendence: Kenneth Burke's Critical Method, David Erland Isaksen

Theses and Dissertations

Kenneth Burke has been described as arguably the most important rhetorician and critical theorist of the twentieth century, and yet an important part of his scholarship has been generally overlooked by the academic community. The pentad has become the most prominent "Burkean" framework for analyzing texts, yet Kenneth Burke himself preferred "a more direct" way of approaching texts which he named "indexing." This thesis recreates this method from the pieces found in his scholarly writing, personal correspondence, and the papers his students produced for the class he taught at Bennington College. Kenneth Burke believed indexing could uncover the "pattern of …

Pragmatic Awareness And International University Students, Brigid A. Erickson

Culminating Projects in TESL

Cross-cultural communication skills have become increasingly important as more people choose to come to the U.S. as international students. Pragmatics awareness is an invaluable skill for effective cross-cultural communication. Pragmatics is an area of language which deals with the social aspects of language and language use which is dependent on context. Rather than encouraging assimilation into U.S. culture it is hoped that studies of pragmatics will increase mutual understanding of cross-cultural interactions.

This study looked specifically at how international university students and multigenerational Minnesotans from the St. Cloud area respond to questions on a questionnaire. The international students were divided …

Maintaining An Immigrant Heritage Language Other Than Spanish Or English In The Bilingual Culture Of The Rio Grande Valley Of South Texas, Sonia A. Shepherd

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

A 2005 study in the bilingual Spanish/English Rio Grande Valley of South Texas investigates the language strategies used by immigrant families from China, Greece, Hungary, Japan, the Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, and the Ukraine to preserve their heritage languages and pass them on to their children. Personal interviews determine that all the parents are well-educated and from an above average socio-economic level. This investigation categorizes the various strategies used by the parents. All the immigrant parents emphasize that the main reason they want to preserve the heritage language with their children is to insure that the children can continue to communicate …

The Composite Art Of Blake's "Laughing Song", William Robert Warner

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

During the past five years, the literary critics have discovered William Blake, helping readers to understand clearly the various stages of development and the final form of the poet's entire mythology. And recent criticism has also clarified and expressed more systematically than earlier criticism certain features of Blake's total thought. Nevertheless, much recent criticism has hindered rather than helped the serious student of Blake's poetry.] Most critics treat Blake's poems as if they were only literary, completely avoiding discussion of their visual components. Yet, Blake clearly envisioned and intended that his reader view the poetry as a new form consisting …

The Five Old Testament Plays Of The Chester Cycle: A Paradigm Of Salvation-History, Richard Floyd Norlin

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

During the nineteenth century critics looked upon the English medieval cycle drama, or "Corpus Christi plays" as colorful folk art, having value to antiquarians but not meriting systematic critical attention. Consequently, the plays were treated chiefly from the standpoint of literary history. In more recent decades scholars have been making a fresh effort to understand and judge the Corpus Christi cycles as coherent works of religious dramatic art.

Of the four English cycles extant in manuscript---from Chester, York, Wakefield, and Lincoln·-- the cycle at Chester, though considered by some to be crude and simple, is widely regarded as the most …