Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Open-Source Consistency Evaluation For Chinese Word Segmentation, Blake Smith, Robert Reynolds

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Chinese in its written form, whether typed or penned, does not separate its characters by spaces. Imagine if this were the case with English, and a sign for a job fair were to display “opportunityisnowhere.” Regardless of the intent being to announce that “opportunity is now here,” the ambiguity caused by the lack of spacing also enables a negative reading. Figuring out where the spaces, or word boundaries, belong in Chinese can even be tricky on occasion even for native speakers. Imagine then how difficult this task is for computers. And so, machines need to be able to decipher word …

A Summer In Moscow, Ellie Vance, Thomas K. Edlund

Journal of Undergraduate Research

My summer in Moscow was amazing, but not what I expected it to be. Rather, it was filled with unexpected but wonderful surprises and changes along the way. The original plan was to secure an internship in a Moscow archive in order to learn more about how archive systems functioned and along the way, gather information about taxation and property records. Unfortunately, upon arrival in Moscow, internship coordinators working in conjunction with the BYU Moscow Internship program were unable to secure an archival internship for me. They insisted that due to feelings of ill will between the United States of …

History Of Latter-Day Saint K-12 Education, Eric Tonini, Casey Griffiths

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Republic of Kiribati is a nation consisting of thirty-three coral atolls. While twenty-one of the atolls are inhabited, a majority of the population lives on the main island known as South Tarawa. This major population on South Tarawa have moved from outer islands in the past few decades in search for economic and educational opportunities that are found on the main island. Primary education is free and expected for all kids, with schools located on most islands, while secondary and university education is limited to mostly South Tarawa.

Religion, Mental Health, And The Latter-Day Saints: A Review Of The Literature (1995-2017), Adrienne Rogers, Daniel K. Judd

Journal of Undergraduate Research

There are over 4,000 religions in the world today. One of the core functions of religion is to help individuals find meaning and purpose in life. Several researchers have found that this religious function impacts psychological well-being, often for the better. This relationship between religious belief, practice, affiliation, and mental health has been an ongoing conversation that has generated controversy and debate.

Our research focuses specifically on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and how this religion affects the mental health of its members. Several studies have shown positive outcomes regarding Latter-day Saint membership and mental health. Also, …

The Economics Behind The Construction Of The General Relief Society Building, Kiersten Robertson, Mary Jane Woodger

Journal of Undergraduate Research

A building designated specifically for the use of the women of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was first proposed in 1893, shortly after the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple. In response, the First Presidency offered a lot just east of the Salt Lake Temple for this purpose. Fundraising began in 1900 and continued for years to earn a required $20,000 amount. However, to the great disappointment of the Relief Society, the First Presidency decided that a Presiding Bishop’s building was to be built on the lot instead, with the Relief Society given offices in it.

Improving High School Students’ Workforce Literacy Through Collaborative, Online Alternative Reality Games, Jon Balzotti

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This project analyzed student engagement in a high school setting using digital learning environments based on a semi-realistic workplace simulation. The research team explored the challenges of high school student engagement in both traditional and digital learning environments. Data from student surveys suggest that traditional role-play in the classroom can be as effective as digital simulations in engaging student learners. While previous scholarship has focused on the advantages ARGs offer technical fields, very few have created short-term, adaptable simulations that take full advantage of the available technologies that people use regularly (texting, email, interviews through video clips, etc.) to explore …

Remembering “The Good Life”, Colby Sanford, Joseph Ostraff

Journal of Undergraduate Research

They’re selling the family farm. In the summer of ‘73 my Grandparents left their home in Connecticut to follow the ideologies of Helen and Scott Nearing “to take [their] life into [their] own hands and live it in the country, in a decent, simple, kindly way” (Nearing, 11). My Grandparent’s intentional lifestyle has always been a standard for my own. I’ve long wanted to be with them and paint from their everyday lives. Because of their age and the farm’s physical demand, they have been considering moving to the Midwest to be closer to family so, I didn’t have long.

Women Of The Grand Tour: Travel, Space, And Representation Of Women In Eighteenth-Century Grand Tour Portraiture, Anne Totten, Dr. Martha Peacock

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Grand Tour was a quintessential part of eighteenth-century English culture. A trip that lasted from six months to three years, the purpose of this journey was for young men to supplement their education with exposure to the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance as well as Ancient Greece and Rome. While the Tour was traditionally traveled by young men, many women also took the journey to the “continent.” The purpose of this project is to explore the experience of eighteenth-century English female travelers during the Grand Tour through artist Pompeo Batoni’s portraits of female grand tourists, and to …

Slam Poetry In Suburban Schools, Madelyn Taylor, Christopher Crowe

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Since the birth of hip-hop culture as youth culture in the 1970s, exploration of hip-hop influenced pedagogies in formal schooling has grown increasingly popular (Hill, 2009). By centering classrooms on elements of hip-hop arts such as spoken word, graffiti culture, and hip-hop music, educational research has seen notable improvements in student attendance and critical engagement with literature and popular media (Petchauer, 2009). Most studies of hip-hop pedagogies have examined the qualitative benefits of teaching critical hip-hop literacies in urban public schools, but since the popularization of performance poetry on social media platforms, there is a growing use of slam poetry …

Developing And Utilizing The Vsfp Database: Atalanta And Girls’ Adventure Fiction, Isaac Robertson, Leslee Thorne-Murphy

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The original purpose of my project was two-fold: 1) to expand the Victorian Short Fiction Project, a peer-reviewed database compiled from Victorian periodical fiction housed in Brigham Young University’s special collections library; and 2) to utilize this database in order to perform a literary study of nineteenth-century colonial fiction. In accordance with growing scholarly interest in digital tools as a means of conducting literary scholarship, I wanted to promote BYU’s own digital and print resources in order to discover important trends in Victorian literature. With the help of Dr. Leslee Thorne-Murphy, who has worked tirelessly over the past decade to …

Acoustic Phonetic Analysis Of Tol, Micah Wood, Dr. Chris Rogers

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Tol is one of the languages belonging to the language family referred to as Jicaquean in the linguistic literature. It has roughly 200 speakers remaining in a single community in northern Honduras, called Montaña de la Flor. Some relatively recent grammatical descriptions of the language provide useful but incomplete information on the grammatical principles of Tol (Holt, 1999; Dennis, 1992; Dennis & Dennis, 1983), and they contradict each other. The need for a correct understanding of Tol is increased by the fact that Tol is an endangered language. Additionally, it is currently a language isolate and is not similar to …

Morphological Parsing And Segmentation, Kyle Roth, Deryle Lonsdale

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Morphological parsing is a task where a computer recognizes the meaning that parts of a word contribute to its overall meaning and role in the sentence. Morphological segmentation simply means splitting words up into their component parts, and is simpler than parsing.

The result of my research is two-fold: I applied a VoCRF to morphologically parse a new Basque corpus, and demonstrated the e ectiveness of a paradigm-based approach to morphological segmentation. Initially, I set out to improve upon the VoCRF algorithm to account for previously-known information; unfortunately, the expected improvements to the VoCRF algorithm could not be made because …

Yellowstone National Park: Photography Then And Now, Tressa Roberts, Robert Graham

Journal of Undergraduate Research

My project was inspired by something I learned in my history of photography class; we learned about the first people to discover some of the national parks, including Yellowstone. No one had traveled to The West, and the way people around the world were able to see what it looked like was through photography. With National Parks becoming more a tourist destination, I wanted to compare what the parks looked like when first discovered to how they look now.

The Sophie Mentored Research Project: Red Vienna Sourcebook And The Critically Annotated Collected Works Of Elisa Von Der Recke, Rob Mcfarland, Michelle S. James

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Without funding there would be no Sophie project, which is why the first item in this report on the Sophie activities during 2017 must be an expression of our gratitude to both the ORCA office and to the College of Humanities, on behalf of the faculty members involved, and particularly, on behalf of the many students whose lives have been enriched in numerous ways by their Sophie work. We are aware of the many projects vying for your attention and funding, and are particularly grateful for the support you have given this project over the years. Your grants have enriched …

2017 Archaeological Excavation – Ataruz, Jordan, Aaron Schade

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In January 2017 I received a MEG totaling $20,000 to conduct a multi-faceted project associated with the excavations at Khirbat Ataruz in Jordan, including capturing images of ancient artefacts and inscriptions using Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI). I am happy to report that the project was a success, and that we were able to include and train 6 BYU undergraduate students to participate in the excavations, two of which were trained and assisted in our imaging work.

German Immigrants In Church Records In The State Of Kentucky, Deborah Mocke, Roger P. Minert, Phd

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of this project was to assist in the furthering of German genealogical research, by making German Protestant church records in America more accessible to people with German ancestry. In the 2000 U.S. Census, nearly one in six people reported their ancestry as German. “42.8 million people (15 percent of the population) considered themselves to be of German (or part-German) ancestry,” making Germans the largest ancestral group in America. 1 Since the eighteenth century about seven million Germans immigrated to North America. The most challenging task in Germanic family history in the United States is the identification of the …

“The Evolution We Believe In … Is Not Darwin’S”: Evolution, Science, And Latter-Day Saint Education, 1875-1911, Ian Mclaughlin, Dr. Rachel Cope

Journal of Undergraduate Research

My project was designed to answer one question and ended up answering several others. The original question was: Why has so little been written on Latter-day Saint responses to evolution prior to 1909? Darwin’s Origin of Species was published way back in 1859, a full fifty years prior. Surely somebody had said something important during that time, but if so, the secondary literature passed over it in almost total silence. Although my project has undergone several shifts in emphasis since I began it, resulting in two distinct papers, both already presented, one slated for publication in the near future, this …

Prejudice Against Religion In Japan -And Its Influence On Proselytism Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints-, Shawna M. Lawlor, Dainan Skeem

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Despite missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints sharing the Gospel in Japan since 1901, its membership reaches only a little over 128,000, which is approximately one in every 1000 people living in Japan. There have been numerous theories concerning the relatively slow progress of the Church there. However, as I analyzed interviews of Japanese converts, I noticed a common theme in each of their stories; each convert had mentioned that before their conversion to the Gospel, they viewed religion to be something strange and suspicious. Having been born and raised in Japan, I agree that this …

America's Hope, Cassie Prettyman, Paul Adams

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Being able to come up with this project, plan it, execute it, and have a gallery show was one of the most fulfilling experiences in my artistic career. There were definitely some challenges along the way but I have learned so much that I will now be able to apply for the rest of my life, especially in the professional atmosphere. I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to be mentored and to learn from one of my professors in a one on one situation and it was incredibly valuable to have that experience. This project was not …

City Of Nothing: Architectural Simulation & Las Vegas, Rachel Playstead, Daniel Everett

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In my proposal, I wrote that the purpose of this project was to construct my final BFA show, in which I would display a large-scale installation exploring the uncanny through architectural simulation with Las Vegas as a case study. I was interested in how reality and imitations of that reality were becoming integrated and even indistinguishable. I proposed that I would take a trip to Las Vegas, photograph and try to understand the architecture there, and then make a replication of a roadside motel. While the final product changed drastically from what I initially proposed it to be, the things …

American College Dance Association Northwest Regional Festival: Presentation Of “That Time”, Rachel Kearl, Whitney Ellis, Graham Brown

Journal of Undergraduate Research

March 24-25th, 2018, Graham Brown’s choreographic work “That Time,” an excerpt from his professional evening-length work Sonder, was set on a group of BYU students and presented at the American College Dance Association Northwest Regional Festival (ACDA). American College Dance Association exists to foster creative potential, to promote excellence and diversity in choreography and/or performance of dance.

A New Turkish Voice: Culture, Politics, And Expression In The Cello Works Of Ahmed Adnan Saygun, Max Olivier, Luke Howard

Journal of Undergraduate Research

A few years ago, I happened upon a little-known recording of the cello concerto of 20th-century Turkish composer Ahmed Adnan Saygun (1907-1991), and I immediately knew that I had discovered a gem. From the opening bars, Saygun drew me into his unique soundworld and captured my attention. Since then, my interest in this unduly unknown composer deepened, culminating in this grant-funded project. Saygun is especially interesting as an area of study because of his direct and enduring connections to reform politics and his role in the creation of a new Turkish national identity. His music also provides a rich case …

Media Music Composition And Production, Shane Myers, Aaron Merrill

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This project is a collection of four pieces of original music that will be used for professional demo purposes. It represents some of my best compositional and songwriting work and shows that I have the capacity to compose music in a broad variety of genres suitable for placement in film, television, or other media. The genres included in this project are indie rock, jazz, electronic hybrid, and orchestral. The recording of these pieces involved the collaboration of many different students: those who helped me run the recording sessions and the musicians that played the pieces.

Impact Of Lexical Bundles On Chinese L2 Learners’ Oral Proficiency, Corey Ketring, Rachel Yu Liu

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This study examined the efficacy of formulaic language in improving the fluency of Chinese in second-language learners. Formulaic language refers to a group of words that is cognitively stored as one linguistic unit, rather than being analyzed by each indepdent part (Simon, 1974). For instance, if one were to witnessing something shocking exclaim, “oh my goodness!”, you are exhibiting formulaic language. Because we do not use typical rules of grammar to analyze formulaic language, it is likely that we can process it much more quickly (Wray, 2002). Wray et al also suggests that it is an important part of developing …

Native Byu: Remembering Living Histories, Maren Loveland, Dr. Michael Taylor

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In collaboration with BYU’s recently founded Native American Alumni Association, BYU’s Special Collections, and Diné historian and BYU alumna, Farina King (Northeastern State University), the purpose of this project is to create a permanent physical and digital collection that documents the extensive and diverse history of BYU’s Native American students. Though the scope of this project was indeed quite large, through the ORCA grant, I was able to lay the groundwork for successive generations of student researchers to eventually complete this vital project.

Nahida Ruth Lazarus’ “Das Jüdische Weib”, Kate Menlove, Dr. Michelle James

Journal of Undergraduate Research

My ORCA project centered on the book Das jüdische Weib, written by Nahida Ruth Lazarus in 1896. This book explores the contributions that Jewish women have made to the world and celebrates their strength and culture. While Lazarus was researching and studying to write this book, she fell in love with the culture and religion of Judaism. She is one of the very unique cases of people converting to Judaism from Christianity at that time.

Russian For Professional Purposes Russ 399r Academic Internship, Tyler Larsen, Jennifer Bown

Journal of Undergraduate Research

“Russian for Professional Purposes” was a project to design a curriculum that would teach students a way to independently specialize their Russian. The course directed students to choose a professional field and then do activities. Activities built vocabulary and confidence in communicating about and for the profession. During the span of the ORCA project, we developed the new curriculum, piloted it, and implemented it as the BYU course Russian 399R Academic Internship. The course developed helped me personally, as I piloted it, develop skills and talents in life long language learning and implementation.

Russian For Professional Purposes: An Experiential And Instruction Based Approach To Advanced Competency Within The Russian Language, David Joseph, Dr. Tony Brown, Dr. Yekaterina Jordan

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Originally, this project aimed to increase Russian language fluency in the legal domain by developing an advanced-level course titled “Russian for Professional Purposes.” As progress in course development proceeded, it was moved into conceptualizing the project as a whole and then piloting it with students. This innovative curriculum broke ground in the way of assessing language proficiency within individual professional domains. The project integrated experiential learning with Russian language instruction through domain-specific language modules, e.g., business, law, medicine, journalism, international relations, chemistry, and engineering. An online portfolio was constructed that consisted of exercises designed to measure improvement in each of …

Perception Of Speech And Song In Religious Music: A Neurological Approach, Dagan Pielstick, Francesca Lawson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The relationship between speech and song has been an area of interest in evolutionary biology and neuroscience over the past two decades. Some evolutionary biologists have hypothesized that music and language descended from a protolanguage in early human communication (Brown 2000). At the same time, developments in technology have made it possible to analyze the activation of different parts of the brain, allowing us to see traces of this evolutionary history in the neural pathways of the brain (Patel 2008). Recent studies on language-music relationships both support and contradict the theory of a common protolanguage base for music and language …

Italian Politicians And Racialized Language On Social Media: The Norming Effect On Racial Attitudes And Behaviors Towards Immigrants, Janessa Garrow, Marie Orton

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Between 2002 and 2011, over 3.5 million non-citizens immigrated to Italy (International and internal migration, 2013). While there has been a decreasing trend in the number of incoming immigrants since the peak in 2007 (over 500,000), there were still over 119,000 migrants who came to Italy in 2017 (International and internal migration, 2013; International and internal migration, 2017; Operational Portal Refugee Situations, 2017). So far in 2018, over 18,000 immigrants have landed in Italy (Operational Portal Refugee Situations, 2018). Due to Italy’s geographic location in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, it is the first location to feel the waves …