Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The History, Evolution, And Maintenance Of Violin Strings, Iva Pecotić

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Encouraging Equal Musical Collaboration : A Guide For Collaborative Pianists In Facilitating Effective Rehearsals, Michelle Ann Henning

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Preparation, Performance, And Experience Evaluation Of "Symmetrical Structures" By Giorgi Papiashvili, Ana Galdavadze

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Examination Of The Bass Trombone Works Of Eric Ewazen, Zhangzejie Xu

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Conductor’S Study And Resource Guide Of Four Band And Chamber Wind Compositions, Juana Caballero Casas

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Graduate Recital : Analysis Of Performed Works, Mary Morales

Theses and Dissertations

This independent study serves as an educational resource regarding the pieces which I performed for my graduate recital. It includes information about the works and their composers, as well as an analysis of each work that was performed, and overview of my experiences while learning the works. In my reflection of my experiences, I offer insight which may be used in the instruction of these works and advice for what students may find most difficult pertaining to them. This paper is organized in the program order of the recital. Each section will begin with information about the composers and historical …

An Introduction And Performance Guide To Libby Larsen's The Peculiar Case Of Dr. H.H. Holmes, Devlan Thomas Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Iconicity And Non-Arbitrariness Of Body Locations In Four Unrelated Sign Languages, John Samson

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I show that universally, there is a strong tendency for signs located on the body to have an iconic or non-arbitrary motivation, especially in their original form. I analyze sign language dictionaries from four unrelated sign languages and establish an iconic or non-arbitrary link between the form of the signs and their meaning, and classify those links according to 8 categories of body location iconicity and 3 categories of non-arbitrariness. The strength of this tendency depends on the percentage of signs that are shown to have an iconic or non-arbitrary link. For the data analyzed here this …

Contemporary Commercial Music And The Young Singer, Kali L. Sonnenburg

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Participant Reference In Colombian Sign Language Narrative, Martha Lois Gateley

Theses and Dissertations

Much of the research on discourse in sign languages thus far has been carried out on American Sign Language. With this thesis, I add to the current research by comparing what is known about participant reference in American Sign Language with Colombian Sign Language.

This thesis analyzes six separate stories totaling 72 minutes, signed by 5 different native signers of Colombian Sign Language. ELAN (a computer software for annotation) was used to mark all of the referring terms in the subject position and categorize the terms by type (nominal reference, pronominal reference, zero-anaphor, and classifier) and by function (introduction, reintroduction …

Fanny Mendelssohn: The Quandaries Of A Female Composer In The 19th Century, Isabella Mariana Kumagai De Oliveira

Theses and Dissertations

Gender inequality, such as inequality regarding salary and different treatment for men and women in the workplace, has been a polemic topic in various areas and for diverse reasons. In the music environment, the scene is not different, and the issue has been there for centuries. Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847) was a skilled pianist and composer who grew up in a culturally sophisticated home. Although Fanny and her younger brother, Felix Mendelssohn, shared a common music education, Fanny, like many women at the time, was not encouraged to become a professional musician, unlike her brother. Despite her unconditional support to …

A Classical Approach To The Traditional Sound Of Serbia As Captured During The Time Of Former Yugoslavia, Galina Dordevic

Theses and Dissertations

This independent study serves as an introduction of the Serbian folk music from the time of former Yugoslavia to classical musicians unfamiliar with its style. It provides research about its characteristics, heritage, and development, as well as the introduction to a few of many folk songs popular to this day. Furthermore, it offers arrangements and an explanation of the arranging process from the perspective of a classical music performer, which can serve as an inspiration and guide to other musicians interested in arranging music, as well as different styles of music.

Spectroknot For Orchestra, Paul Randall Schell

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Some Examples Of Twentieth Century Russian Violin Playing On The Example Of Selected Performances By David Oistrakh, Olga Kossovich

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Teach Them To Groove : Jazz Pedagogy Strategies In Undergraduate Multi-Percussion, Rachel Agan

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Integration Of Dalcroze Method Into The Musical Education Of High School Performers, Ryan Coudle King

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Romantic Cyclic Sonata As A Hidden Counterculture : Rethinking The Subdominant Through A Structural-Hermeneutic Approach, Marcelo Gabriel Rebuffi

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Reference Tracking In Ethiopian Sign Language, Katelin Jo French

Theses and Dissertations

Very little has been written about Ethiopian Sign Language, but the language has obvious differences from more well-studied signed languages. This thesis focuses on striking differences in reference tracking: looking at all the different referring types—lexical items, points, eye gaze, body shift, agreement, and zero reference—and their distribution throughout narrative texts. Through this process, Ethiopian Sign Language has proved different from expectations based on previously studied signed languages. This language uses loci with much more flexibility, depending on role shift alone to strongly establish loci for entities. Another way this language differs from other languages is its lack of entity …

The Impact Of Translation On Constructed Action And Constructed Dialogue In Asl Texts, Beth C. Gray

Theses and Dissertations

Depiction, a phenomenon similar to iconicity, involves representing what something "looks like or is like" (Streeck 2008:289). Because depiction is used more heavily in sign languages than spoken languages (Dudis 2007), people interpreting or translating spoken/written texts into signed languages struggle to use depiction naturally (Thumann 2011). This thesis analyzes constructed action (CA) and constructed dialogue (CD), two types of depiction in which the signer's hands represent those of a discourse participant. Using Tannen (1989) & Metzger's (1995) framework of non-directly-quoted CACD and Quinto-Pozos & Mehta's (2010) degrees of CA, I examine differences between narratives originally composed in ASL and …

Referring Forms And Cognitive Status In Non-Narrative American Sign Language Texts, Tamara Michelle Grosso

Theses and Dissertations

In their work on referring expressions and cognition, Gundel et al. (1993) propose a model called the Givenness Hierarchy which suggests that there are basic referring expressions in languages which can signal the cognitive status of their referents. Supported by cross-linguistic research, the theory proposes six cognitive statuses which have forms associated with them such that if that form is used (successfully), the referent must have at least that status on the scale. In 2002, Swabey published a doctoral dissertation researching the Givenness Hierarchy for American Sign Language (ASL) in narrative texts. She compared the distribution of referring forms cross-linguistically …

Structural Narratology In Romanian Sign Language Personal Experience Narratives, Jessica Sohre

Theses and Dissertations

The primary focus of this paper is to examine how personal experience narratives in Romanian Sign Language (LSR) compare to previous research in structural narratology in spoken languages and in American Sign Language (ASL). One main area of comparison is the differences and similarities in the type of information found in structural narrative categories as described by Labov and Waletsky (1967), Labov (1972), Brewer (1984), Dooley and Levinsohn (2001) and Mulrooney (2009). The second main area of comparison is the grammatical devices that correlate to certain categories, in particular, using Liddell's (2003) concepts of surrogate, depicting verb and token blends. …

Lexical Categories In Lengua De Señas Argentina, Roman Caceres

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is to identify lexical categories of Lengua de Señas Argentina (LSA). Sign languages, in general, have not been extensively researched. For example, the LSA section of the World Atlas of Language Structures only mentions irregular negatives and question particles.

The research methodology included interviews with fluent deaf signers. Different descriptions in LSA were video recorded, annotated and analyzed. The researcher made initial hypotheses about the syntactic nature of signs based on the strategy used for their elicitation. Then, the researcher tested the hypotheses through syntactic analysis.

During the analysis, the researcher identified two varieties of …

Black Power In A "Lily-White" School: The Black Campus Movement At Concordia College In Moorhead, Minnesota, Daniel D. Cooley

Theses and Dissertations

Between the mid-1950s and through the 1970s, higher educational institutions throughout the United States underwent reforms in the name of what they termed “integration.” For the colleges and universities in the upper Midwest, these reforms included minority student recruitment and the creation of programs oriented towards diversity. Over time, a number of minority students began to act and react to the actions and attitudes of the various administrations, the campuses, and the community, resulting in a demonstration directly connected to the national phenomenon of “The Black Campus Movement,” (BCM) itself a submovement of the larger United States’ Black Power Movement …

Computer-Assisted Vocabulary Learning For Deaf Learners Of Foreign Sign Languages, Benjamin J. Cavaletto

Theses and Dissertations

Deaf people have as great or greater need and desire to learn foreign languages as their hearing peers. Currently it is difficult for these learners to find courses and materials that are appropriate for their learning needs. Especially difficult is finding courses or learning materials for learning sign languages, which are more motivating and more accessible for Deaf learners than spoken languages. Additionally, evidence is presented that learning a foreign sign language can act as a bridge to learning a spoken language from the same region. The study presented in this thesis tested the efficacy of a computer-assisted vocabulary learning …

Psychometrics And Test-Enhanced Learning In A Patient-Centered Learning Curriculum, Syed Haris Ali

Theses and Dissertations

Validity and reliability of scores obtained on Multiple-choice questions (MCQs), as well as the benefits of test-enhanced learning, have been of interest to medical educator scholars. Presented in this dissertation are four composite studies on these themes. The following hypotheses were tested:

1. Increased MCQ distractor functioning increases the validity and reliability of obtained scores.

2. Correction of item writing flaws (along with enhancement of tested cognitive level) and replacement or removal of non-functioning distractors equally improves psychometric characteristics of MCQs.

3. Repeated testing via free-response items enhances the retention of knowledge of human anatomy, compared with repeated or once-testing …

Handshapes In Afghan Sign Language, Justin Power

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents aspects of handshapes in Afghan Sign Language [afg]. Afghan Sign Language is a Deaf sign language found in Afghanistan (Lewis, Simons, and Fennig 2014).

Signs in Afghan Sign Language contrast based on the handshape parameter. Furthermore, handshapes contrast based on selected fingers, thumb configuration, arrangement, and aperture. The thesis gives evidence for the selected fingers features [one], [two], [three], and [four]; for the thumb configuration features [opposed], [radial], and [contacting]; for the arrangement features [spread], [joined], and [crossed]; and for the aperture features [open] and [closed].

Of the 22 expected feature combinations, 18 are found in the …

Resemblance-Oriented Communication Strategies: Understanding The Role Of Resemblance In Signed And Spoken Languages, Daniel R. Eberle

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is to propose that resemblance plays an important role in human communication. Saussure proposed a characteristic principle of the linguistic sign: that connections between linguistic codes and the objects they signify are arbitrary; however, I intend to show that resemblance, which I define as the visual or aural similarity between a stimulus, the thought it is intended to activate, and the real world target that utterance is about, is an important part of human communication and should be taken into consideration when defining language and proposing theories of human communication.

I have chosen Relevance Theory …

Numeral Incorporation In American Sign Language, Vanessa L. Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Numeral incorporation is a moderately productive process in ASL which combines a numeral and a base to form a compounded fully formed sign. Numeral-incorporated signs involve some sort of simultaneity of the base and the numeral. I interviewed six individuals who use ASL as their primary language in order to gather examples of numeral-incorporated signs in ASL, thus getting a sampling of variation in the American deaf community.

Traditionally, numeral incorporation has been viewed as a process of combining a numeral sign with a noun, which I call a source sign. Instead, I found that the source signs are separate …

A Survey Of Those In The U.S. Deaf Community About Reading And Writing Asl, Jennifer Keogh

Theses and Dissertations

On average, students who are deaf do not develop English literacy skills as well as their hearing peers. The linguistic interdependence principle suggests that literacy in American Sign Language (ASL) may improve literacy in English for students who are deaf. However, the Deaf community in the United States has not widely adopted a written form of ASL. This research surveys individuals in the U.S. Deaf community to better understand the opinions surrounding literacy in ASL.

The survey was presented online, containing both ASL in embedded videos and written English. The survey asked for the participants' demographic information, language and educational …

Locative Expressions In Signed Languages: A Cross-Linguistic Comparison, Sarah E. Eberle

Theses and Dissertations

The primary focus of this paper is to examine whether sign languages organize their locative expressions similarly to spoken languages. Paving the way in the study of spatial relations by focusing on the structuring of ON and IN locatives in spoken languages, Bowerman and colleagues (Bowerman 1980; Melissa Bowerman & Eric Pederson 1992a; Bowerman 1993; 1994; 1996a; 1996b; Bowerman & Levinson 2001) found that spoken languages organize the locative phrases representing the relationships of ON and IN in a continuum which is called the ON-IN continuum.

This thesis shows that sign languages do not linguistically pattern similarly to spoken languages …