Arts and Humanities Commons^™

An Exploratory Survey Of Code-Switching In The Coachella Valley, Ca, Allan K. Escobar

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis surveyed a group of second generation Mexican-American Spanish-English bilingual speakers in the Coachella Valley, California to determine common motives for code-switching in speech. In previous studies, motives or triggers to code-switching have been identified and recorded in major urban cities such as Los Angeles and New York, and this thesis seeks to identify this phenomenon in the rural and agricultural cities of the Coachella Valley, with focus on Indio and Coachella, CA. Furthermore, another goal of this study was to analyze research on code-switching in a sample of older adults ages 45-75 as compared to much of the …

Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Spanish Wines (And A Few Things You Did), John Phillips Wacker

Senior Theses

The Spanish wine scene is incredibly diverse, and an immense number of different wines are made in the country. Likewise, Spain is incredibly rich in culture, with a wide array of languages, histories, cultures, and cuisines found throughout the nation. The sheer number and variety of Spanish wines and the incredible variety of cultures found in Spain may be daunting to the uninitiated. Thus, a guide to Spanish wine and culture, which not only details the two but links them, as well, may prove very helpful to the Spanish wine newcomer or perhaps even a sommelier.

This thesis-guide was compiled …

The Introvert's Guide To The Galaxy: A Reflective Guide Of Solo Travel And Study Abroad, Hope Patterson

Senior Theses

Oringinally meant to be a much longer volume, The Introvert’s Guide to the Galaxy is a creative anthology of works that explores one person’s Study Abroad and solo travel experiences. The main goal is to open a space to talk about unique experiences that cannot be anticipated, but should be learned from later. Topics include culture shock, sexism, alcohol culture, family, freelance tutoring, and risky outdoor activites.

Travel with our trusty guide as she fills you in on the things to know while traveling abroad, including finding perfect outdoor sleeping conditions because you missed all the taxis, dealing with the …

Brazil And Bashō: Negotiating Japanese-Brazilian Hybrid Identity Through Mujōkan In Adriana Lisboa’S Rakushisha, Suzanne Noelle Shibuta

Theses and Dissertations

Hybrid identities occupy a unique space within the field of identity and culture. Due to the instability and transitory nature of hybrid identities, individuals who fall within the category of hybridity often struggle to recognize and accept their identities. Do such individuals identify with one culture, the other, neither, or both? Adriana Lisboa’s novel Rakushisha offers new insight into the realm of hybridity through the exploration of mujōkan, a uniquely Japanese awareness of impermanence that also helps to explain the cycle of suffering, continuity, and regeneration that Lisboa’s characters experience. Although hybrid identities by nature are unstable, constantly in motion …

The Second Coming Of Don Quixote: Painting And The Quixote As Eucharistic Art, Scott Hawkley Raines

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines a new reading of Cervantes’s immortal Don Quixote: reading the Quixote as eucharistic art. Just as the Catholic Eucharist, when consumed by the believer, is transubstantiated into the literal flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, so too is this proposed reading of the Quixote. Using Michel Foucault’s work in The Order of Things, the author employs Foucault’s statement—that Don Quixote is “the book in flesh and blood” (48)—to explore a eucharistic reading of the novel as the reader’s internalization of Don Quixote’s being. The end of the novel is read not as Don Quixote’s return to sanity, …

Marcela: Emociones, Geografía E Intelectualidad, Maria D. Garcia De La Torre

LSU Master's Theses

By positioning Marcela at the field because she prefers honest conversation with young women instead of the superficiality of the court, Cervantes invites us to consider the debate of “disregard of the court and worship of the small village” from a different perspective. Marcela’s set out towards the field entails a much complex meaning which until now has been recognized. Her set out from the court turns out to be part of a Cervantine strategy which seeks to display the field as a natural space whose self-development makes possible “culture” or the speech of reason and not only as the …

Acquiring Native-Like Norms Of Making A Request In Spanish During Short-Term Study Abroad In Argentina And Spain, Christine H. Song

LSU Master's Theses

The current study examines if L2 learners of Spanish acquire native-like norms of making a request during short-term study abroad in Argentina and Spain via Discourse Completion Tasks (DCT). The investigation included 3 groups of the participants: an experimental group of 15 U.S. students who studied in Argentina or Spain; a control group of 12 U.S. students who had not studied abroad; and a control group of 7 native speakers of Spanish. The results show that students in the study abroad group became more native-like in making a request to a certain extent. Firstly, the students in the experimental group …

"La Llorona": Evolución, Ideología Y Uso En El Mundo Hispano, Raquel Sáenz-Llano

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis studies the evolution, ideology and use of the myth of La Llorona through time in the Hispanic World. Considering this myth as one of the most known traditional narratives of the American continent, I begin by providing visual, ethnohistorical and ethnographical insights of weeping in Mesoamerica and South America and the specific mention of a weeping woman in some Spanish chronicles to say how western values were stablished in “the new continent” through this legend. I suggest that during the postcolonialism the legend did not tell anymore about a mother that cries and search a place for their …

Pragmatics And Pedagogy In University Level Spanish Second Language Textbooks, Vanessa M. Cardenas

LSU Master's Theses

This pragmatic and pedagogical investigation analyzes six university level Spanish second language textbooks (L2Ts) used in the classroom setting. The materials used in this investigation include three beginning level textbooks Dicho y Hecho (2012), Experience Spanish (2012), and Puntos de Partida (2012), and three intermediate level textbooks ¡Avance! (2008), Conexiones (2010), and Interacciones (2013). The purpose of this investigation is to closely examine if the L2Ts communicatively present the speech acts of requesting, refusing, and apologizing, and address forms, with sufficient pragmatic context for the L2 learner to acquire native-like production. The results have shown that the speech acts under …

Quality Of Hispanic Oral Health In The U.S.: Perceptions Of Dentists And A Call For Improvement, Mitchell Merrill

Undergraduate Honors Theses

An examination of the perceptions of U.S. dentist’s regarding the quality of Hispanic oral health in the United States. This thesis investigates both the dentist’s potential for making positive change and the challenges that stand in the way of improving the state of Hispanic oral health. Twelve dentists were spoken with by phone to discuss three main questions. Those chosen for the calls practice in the ten states with the highest percentage of Hispanics. An analysis was conducted of the recorded calls that consisted of comparing each response with patient demographics, practice location and years of experience. Responses were categorized …

¡Che Gallego!: Relaciones Transatlánticas Entre Galicia Y Argentina En El Siglo Xx, Fabio Suárez Garcia

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this thesis is focused on demonstrating the strong influence that Galician immigrants exerted on the Argentinian society at the beginning of the 20th century. In this transatlantic literary study, the bonds between the old and the new continent will be established by analysing some of the authors who became affected by immigration and exile conditions: Xosé Neira Vilas, Luis Seoane and Alfonso Rodríguez Castelao. The thesis will also examine the Argentinian literature related to immigration, and how some relevant authors accepted or rejected stereotyping. Both views, the one from exiles and the one from local authors, were …

Afecto Impropio Y Estética Huacha: Relatos Íntimos De Alejandra Costamagna, Nona Fernández, Andrea Jeftanovic, Andrea Maturana Y Lina Meruane, Nan Zheng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work examines selective novels and short stories about Chile during and after Augusto Pinochet’s the military regime, written by five contemporary female writers that share generational traits: Alejandra Costamagna, Nona Fernández, Andrea Jeftanovic, Andrea Maturana and Lina Meruane. Their intimate stories on family relations that the common society brands as non-ideal and deviant, epitomize the aesthetics defined as symbolically huacho. This is a term that originally refers to the mestizo orphans or illegitimate children born during the European conquest and colonization, but appropriated by the author of this work to address the prevailing discontent and malaise that contradict …

La Vigencia De Lo R/Real: La Memoria Traumática Y El Relato Policial Postdictatorial En Argentina Y Chile, 1996–2015, Jelena Mihailovic

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present dissertation investigates crime fiction produced in Argentina and Chile between 1996 and 2015. It offers an analytical and critical reflection on five Argentinian works (four novels and one movie) and four Chilean novels. The Argentinian corpus includes the novels El secreto y las voces (2002) by Carlos Gamerro, A quien corresponda (2008) by Martín Caparrós, El espíritu de mis padres sigue subiendo en la lluvia (2011) by Patricio Pron, and Una misma noche (2012) by Leopoldo Brizuela, and the movie El secreto de sus ojos (2009), directed by Juan José Campanella. The Chilean novels are Estrella distante (1996) …

"Si Tú No Fueras Tan Poco, Yo No Sería Tanto": El Catolicismo Español, El Fanatismo Religioso Y El Atraso Intelectual, Karl Douglas Groneman

Master's Theses

The question of Spain's stagnation with respect to other European countries has intrigued academics for centuries. In this thesis, I will be focusing on the intellectual stagnation of Spain. Some blame said stagnation on the monarchy, on economic policies, or on a lack of standardized education. Despite all of these are contributing factors, one area that is worth investigating further is intellectual stagnation due to religious fanaticism.This thesis examines 9 texts from the late 1800s until the early 1900s (1870-1930). Many themes are present in this study: censorship, ideological exaggeration, clerical corruption, Church authority, the family, and spiritual consolation. I …

“Sus Hijas Le Han Sido Arrebatadas”: Lenguaje, Deshumanización Y Resistencia En Las Negras De Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Julia Gillis

Periclean Honors Forum Scholar Award Winners

In this paper I argue that the four stories that form the collection las Negras by Yolanda Arroyo

Pizarro address dehumanization and objectification of the black body and question the role of religion during slavery. A central theme throughout the collection is whispering, which initially symbolizes the initiation into slavery and ultimately symbolizes the emancipation from it. Through careful analysis of the text, research on Puerto Rico, and examination of authors’ opinions on Arroyo Pizarro’s other works in addition to las Negras, I maintain that by focusing on stories of black slave women in Puerto Rico, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro …

The Natural Exile: A Study Of Twenty-First Century Cuban-American Narratives Focusing On The Elderly's Plight, Jasmine Parson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Developed from the similarity between exile theory and age studies, the term "exile" is expanded to a natural form of exile because of the shocking temporal shift that reconstructs social interaction, familial dynamics, and the aging body. Using Heidegger's theoretical work Being in Time, Simon de Beauvoir's The Coming of Age, and Jean Améry's On Aging as insight, this literary analysis captures how the elderly protagonists Goyo from Cristina García's King of Cuba, Máximo from Ana Menéndez's "In Cuba I was a German Shepherd," and Soledad from Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés's "Abuela Marielita" experience a natural exile among society, their family …

Poéticas Minimalistas De La Ciudad Contemporánea: Iribarren, Mínguez Y Del Val, David Delgado López

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Throughout the Spanish poetic production of the 20^th century, cities have developed a relevant role as a recurring space at the same time as society urbanized and an exodus took place from agricultural areas to the work centers offered by the cities. Since the second half of the 19^th century the city has been the meeting place for people from different backgrounds where the poet found, from his exclusive point of view, a new universe to develop in his work. However, the evolution of capitalist society sponsored the poet's transition from an artist to a worker in the …

Lost In Translation: Challenges And Solutions To Language Barriers In Healthcare In Mississippi, Galina Ostrovsky

Honors Theses

Language barriers can impede access to healthcare and compromise quality of care for limited English proficiency (LEP) patients. Although a rights-based framework would suggest and federal mandates require healthcare facilities to provide language access services, multiple factors result in the persistence of language barriers in healthcare. As the literature review shows, these factors include limitations in policy, enforcement, standardization, resources, and ability to recruit and retain professional interpreters. This thesis uses a multi-method case study entailing Mississippi in general and information from two specific sites, a rural Delta county and an urban central county, to assess the issue of language …

Student Perceptions On Being Assessed By The Actfl Opi Before And After Studying Abroad, Kayla P. Vonburg

Honors Theses

In this study I investigated students’ perceptions of being assessed with the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) before and after studying abroad. This study aimed to determine if students’ study abroad experiences might affect their perceptions of being assessed by means of this exam and, if so, how. The participants were 96 college juniors and seniors who were International Studies majors at the University of Mississippi. Students in this program take a foreign language course every semester, study abroad for at least one semester, and take the ACTFL OPI before graduation. The …

La Sufrida: An Analysis Of The Social And Literary Archetype, Meleena Gil

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Latina women have been made to believe that their lives and desires are always secondary to the needs of men and children. As a result, many women have developed a martyr complex wherein the measure of their value is how much suffering they can endure in service to their family. There is subsequently a culture of self-sacrifice best exemplified by the archetype known as "la sufrida." This thesis explores the sufrida role in literature while using the history of the author's mother—a woman whose life can be "read" as that of a real sufrida— as a bridge between literature and …

Camino A La Interseccionalidad: Una Aproximación Al Desarrollo De Ideas Feministas En La España Contemporánea, Kierra Mitchell

Scripps Senior Theses

Esta tesis utiliza la interseccionalidad como lente para hacer un análisis de los textos culturales y activistas para explicar cómo se manifiestan las ideas feministas en estos dos períodos cruciales de avance del feminismo en España: el primer cuarto del siglo veinte y las primeras décadas del siglo veintiuno. La interseccionalidad sirve como una prisma de análisis que permite entender los sistemas hegemónicos de poder. Esta tesis analiza ejemplos de textos y demandas que ilustran las preocupaciones y aparatos ideológicos que sustentan diferentes aproximaciones al feminismo en estas dos épocas. Un interés específico, en especial en la segunda parte, es …

A Corpus-Based Study On The Portuguese Translations Of English Adversative Coordinating Conjunctions And Adverbs In News Texts, Marcella Cerqueira Cascione Cerqueira Netto

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study examines how adversative coordinating conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs are translated from English into Brazilian Portuguese through a parallel corpus built specifically for this research. The corpus is composed of 59 news articles extracted from the online versions of the British magazine The Economist and the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo. While the former contains the original source texts, the latter consists of their respective translations. This research aims to verify if the translations of the adversative coordinating conjunctions and adverbs provided by four online bilingual dictionaries are the same or different from the ones …

El Enclave Bananero En Las Novelas Centroamericanas De Miguel Angel Asturias, Ramon Amaya Amador Y Carlos Luis Fallas, Johana Pérez Weisenberger

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

The Central American literary community and historiographical critics maintain a constant dialogue in regards to banana literature. Authors such as Asturias, Fallas, and Amador capture the pervasive nature of the banana enclave in their works. My research reveals the ways in which capitalist power controls and redefines spaces in the banner enclave. By taking a closer look these novels reveal the monopolistic power of the United Fruit Company exploits and destroys the natural space, this manuscript becomes a geographical map of the fictionalized banana enclaves, exposing the capitalist oppressing forces, which dominate nature and control the company workers.

Chapter one …

Las Islas En La Literatura Castellana De La Baja Edad Media, Martha Elena Granados Sáenz

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation explores references to islands in 13^th and 14^th century Iberian literature in a corpus of encyclopedias, travel books and chivalry novels from 1223 through 1396. I explore how island geography became part of the Medieval imago mundi. Many Medieval readers were interested in these faraway lands where, they believed, monstrous races flourished, sea monsters lurked, and Paradise awaited to be rediscovered. The physical and human geography featured in these narratives, gave birth to an imaginary, utopian, exotic, extravagant, and mysterious concept of “islandness” located in idyllic places to be interpreted as cognitive maps of the …

Encuentro Con La Precariedad: La Reaparición Del Gitano En El Cine Documental Español De La Crisis De 2008, María Julia De León Hernández

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

In 2008, Spain’s financial crisis had a great impact on the primary sector on which the nation’s ‘economic miracle’ was founded: housing.Land speculation, the increase in housing construction, and easy loans had become one of the hallmarks of twenty-first-century Spanish identity. The crisis del ladrillo (“brick crisis”) plunged the national economy into chaos and condemned many Spanish citizens to job insecurity, loss of earning power, threat of eviction, and put them at high risk of social marginalization. This dissertation studies the unusual proliferation of documentary films during the years surrounding this economic downturn about the ghettoization of the Spanish Gypsy …

Decolonial Resistance In Latinx Writings From Peru To The United States: A Portfolio, Isabel Norwood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This collection begins with the premise that colonial relationships manifest in ways beyond exploitation of one nation by another. It relies on the decolonial theory of Walter D. Mignolo in its assumption that imbalances of power in the realms of race gender sexuality and class are fundamentally colonial. With this more expansive understanding of coloniality in mind I examine resistance to colonial exploitation in a range of texts from across the Americas. The first essay in this collection explores the role of the guinea pig in Andean food culture arguing that the continued consumption of guinea pig represents a form …

"Our Roots:": Latinx Parents' Language Ideologies Concerning Bilingualism, Akanne S. Torres Beltran

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Language is a fundamental component of one's identity, as well as a means of surviving in a globalizing world. This study draws upon sixteen narratives of first-generation Mexican and Puerto Rican parents in Central Florida to answer the research question: What are the language ideologies of Mexican and Puerto Rican immigrant parents towards the English Language acquisition and Spanish Language retention of their children? The information was gathered through semi-structured interviews and it aimed to learn how and if they value English and Spanish bilingualism and whether it was desired for their children. On the one hand, they are aware …

A Project For A Translation Into Guarani Based On An Analytical Interpretation Of A Medieval Apologue, Nathalie Amato

Honors Undergraduate Theses

El propósito de este proyecto de tesis es presentar una traducción analítica al idioma guaraní de un apólogo escrito en español medieval con el objetivo de demostrar la utilidad de los ejercicios de traducción literaria que faciliten el aprendizaje de idiomas. La transferencia lingüística y cultural de un texto medieval al español moderno y consecutivamente al guaraní constituye un ejemplo del esfuerzo cognitivo que debe realizar un traductor/una traductora para buscar soluciones e ir articulando poco a poco el rompecabezas que posteriormente se convertirá en la nueva versión de la obra, pero siempre respetando y conservando la esencia del mensaje …

El Silencio Literario Como Artificio Narrativo En Pedro Paramo De Juan Rulfo, Florilde Rodriguez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work exposes the narrative silence as the main enunciator of the textual discourse in Juan Rulfo's novel, Pedro Paramo. Through a sociological reading, the literary silences comprised in the events are interpreted to access one of the multiple possible meanings of the story. The study inserts ideas, historical facts and human, social, psychological and material factors in the openings left by the author, thus producing a discourse that shapes the manifesto of contemporary life.

Key Performance Indicators' Effects On Public Sector Infrastructure Project Efficiency In Grenada, Kelvin Michael George

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Grenada is 1 of 15 developing countries in Caribbean Community known as CARICOM. The infrastructure capital projects in these developing countries are plagued with an array of issues: unethical practices, inadequate supervision, lack of transparency and accountability, inadequate monitoring and evaluation, cost overruns, and inefficiencies. In the 1980s and 1990s, the International Monitory Fund and World Bank introduced a balanced scorecard engineered under the structural adjustment program, but it was unable to improve infrastructure project efficiencies. This qualitative case study sought to understand the role of management key performance indicators (KPIs) on public sector infrastructure capital project efficiency on the …