Digital Commons Network^™

Cross-Linguistic Queerness: A Phonetic Study Of How Bilingual Mandarin-English Speakers Index A Sapphic Identity, Malena L. Sparano

Scripps Senior Theses

The comparative lack of research about Queer identities among speakers of other languages limits cross-linguistic and cross-cultural understanding of Queerness within an increasingly globalized community (Cameron and Kulick, 2003). Moreover, the focus on Monolingual, Western, men’s repertoires excludes important nuances that shape identities falling outside the heteropatriarchy, significantly neglecting Sapphic people and Lesbians (Leap, 2008). Sapphic identity helps broaden the scope of traditionally very gendered labeling, stemming from Zita’s (1981) definition as a person identifying as a woman/non-man and experiencing attraction to women or non-men. Bilingual research is key in understanding the specific roles of multivariable cultural and phonetic analysis …

Cfl Learners’ Real-Time Processing Of Chinese Radicals: An Eye-Tracking Study, Yihsuan Wood, Jeffrey Jack Green, Ellen Knell, Yu Liu

Faculty Publications

This study used eye-tracking to investigate the real-time processing of phonetic and semantic radicals (components of Chinese characters that give clues to their pronunciation and meaning) by intermediate-level university Chinese foreign language (CFL) learners. Additionally, the study examined how knowledge and awareness of radicals affect real time character processing. Real-time radical processing involves identifying radicals and understanding their phonetic or semantic roles, while real-time character processing includes recognizing radicals and instantly comprehending entire characters’ meanings and pronunciations. This study’s first task focuses on radical processing, where CFL learners use radical knowledge to interpret multiple characters simultaneously. The second task extends …

Linguists: Our Evolving Role, Patricia Macgregor-Mendoza

International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest

As linguists, we play many roles in and out of the classroom. In our classes, we strive to educate students about the nuances of linguistic systems, encourage them to expand upon their innate knowledge of language and inspire them to use this knowledge to enhance their lives, their careers, and their communities. However, as Bucholtz et al. (2014) remind us, “scholars should not simply speak out as expert advocates on behalf of marginalized groups, as important as this responsibility is, but they must also help empower their research participants to take action themselves (Cameron et al. 1992, 1993)” suggesting that …

Book Review - Language Ideologies And Linguistic Identity In Heritage Language Learning., Michelle F. Ramos Pellicia

International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest

No abstract provided.

Testing The Effect Of Speech Separation On Vowel Formant Estimates, Joseph A. Stanley, Lisa Morgan Johnson, Earl Kjar Brown

Faculty Publications

While recent advances in sociophonetic data processing have made it possible to analyze large datasets and audio not originally intended for linguistic analysis, overlapping speech in recordings with multiple speakers continues to be an issue that results in lost data. We evaluate whether current source separation models produce audio that is clean enough to produce reliable measurements for sociophonetic analysis. We compare formant estimates from a pair of pristine recordings and merged-and-separated versions of those same recordings using the Libri2mix, Whamr16K, and WSJ02mix source separation models. Based on auditory inspection of the separated files, visualization of vowel formant estimates, and …

La Integración De La Literatura Chicana En La Enseñanza Del Español Como Lengua Adicional Hacia La Competencia Cultural Y Lingüística En Ee.Uu., Marina Linares Klauke

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Los enfoques tradicionales para la enseñanza del español como lengua adicional en los Estados Unidos han dependido en gran medida de perspectivas eurocéntricas que priorizan las variedades peninsulares y latinoamericanas, presentando el español como una lengua extranjera desconectada de su realidad sociolingüística dentro del país. Este enfoque obsoleto ignora la presencia histórica y contemporánea del español como una lengua viva utilizada por comunidades hispanohablantes en todo EE. UU., lo que contribuye a una desconexión cultural y lingüística tanto para los estudiantes de herencia como para aquellos que aprenden español como lengua adicional. Esta tesis examina el impacto de la integración …

Listening To Cursive: The Roles Of Regional Identity And Folk Beliefs In Perceptual Cue-Weighting, Stella Takvoryan

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Listeners use knowledge acquired from experiences to weight phonetic-level cues to phonological contrasts. Phonetic knowledge is imbued with expectations about the contexts in which cues covary, speakers of a variety, and identity categories or constructs, so it can be challenging to distinguish expectations about variation from expectations about speakers. This study aims to explore the extent that expectations about iconic vowel quality variation in Southern American Englishes can drive cue-weighting. Listeners categorized stimuli with vowel qualities synthesized from an [ɛ]-[eɪ] continuum from a Southern and a non-Southern talker, with duration manipulated in tandem. Half of the participants saw a label …

How Raciolinguistic Ideologies Shape Afro-Anglophone Caribbean Students' Negotiations Of Their Linguistic Identities, Merlyn Andrea Vanderstarre

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

During the last and current century, the United States has witnessed an increasing upward trend in immigration from the racially and linguistically diverse English-speaking or Anglophone Caribbean (Lorenzi & Batalova, 2022). However, there needs to be more research on Afro-Anglophone Caribbean (AAC) students recounting their experiences in schools in the United States. Framed by a raciolinguistic perspective and post-colonial theory, this qualitative study captures the experiences of seven (7) student participants from four (4) academy high schools in an urban school district in the U.S. Northeast, who provided insights into their linguistic identities and experiences in high schools in the …

Welcoming Historically Under-Represented Groups In Higher Education Through Awareness Of Standard English Ideology, John Hellermann, Lynn Santelmann, Jennifer Mittelstaedt, Janet Cowal, Steven L. Thorne

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the context of changing demographics at regional universities (including our own), we highlight an ongoing project at our university that addresses the last area of acceptable bias in English-medium higher education: bias against speakers of other languages and non-standard dialects of English. We discuss the hegemonic aspect of the Standard Academic English used by default at most US institutions of higher education and its role in potential discrimination against users of languages other than English and dialects other than the Standard. Data from over 2000 surveys, 55 follow up interviews, and three focus groups from faculty, staff and students …

Production & Perception Of /S/ And Pitch Of Transgender Speakers, Connor J. Ryan

Honors Theses and Capstones

Linguistic research on how transgender speakers use speech traits commonly associated with gender, such as f0 and /s/, is still limited in scope. Past research has focused primarily on singular gender groups within the transgender community, particularly transmasculine speakers, leaving gaps in how speech differs among transgender speakers. Additionally, there has been little research on how transgender identity influences perception of gender in speech. Here, I use data from reading passages by fifteen university-age transgender speakers in New England to analyze variation in /s/ and f0 among transmasculine, transfeminine, nonbinary, and multigender speakers. I then performed a perception study using …

Complementary Pre-Lateral Mergers Across Ethnicities And Generations In Georgia, Margaret E. L. Renwick, Jon Forrest, Joseph A. Stanley, Lelia Glass

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Translanguaging: Leveraging Theoretical Shifts Toward Social Change, Sara E. Vogel, Ofelia Garcia

Publications and Research

Translanguaging posits that all people make meaning, communicate, and learn by orchestrating heterogeneous features from a unitary repertoire in ways that defy named languages and other socially constructed language categorizations. In this chapter, we share insights about translanguaging theory for applied linguistics by revisiting themes we surfaced in an encyclopedia article we authored a half-decade ago, specifically reconsidering our 2017 tenets in light of scholarship that has (a) deepened translanguaging's relationships to dismantling social and political hierarchies; (b) emphasized how translanguaging has been used to highlight the heterogeneity of all language-in-use, and not just the practices of those people recognized …

Domains Of Use And Self-Reported Proficiency: A Comparative Study Of Heritage Spanish Speakers Across Two University Campuses, Sara Castro Cantú, Salvatore Callesano

International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest

This study takes a sociolinguistic approach to exploring self-rated proficiency of Latinx, heritage Spanish speakers in Illinois. Recent studies show how dominant discourses around Spanish-English bilingualism and the educational environment in higher education institutions shape Latinx speakers’ self-perceptions of proficiency. We specifically investigate and compare two groups of college students from Chicago: students who attend a large public Predominantly-white institution in central Illinois, and students who attend a large public Hispanic-Serving institution in the heart of Chicago. Students completed an online survey about their language histories and linguistic profiles. Descriptive correlation analyses are presented that examine the relationships between self-reported …

Spanish Conquistadors As God’S Chosen People: The Role Of Biblical Metaphor In Angélico Chávez's Recounting Of Southwest History, Nicholas L. Chavez

International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest

This study presents a critical discourse analysis of Fray Angélico Chávez’s My Penitente Land: Reflections on Spanish New Mexico through a cognitive linguistic lens based on Hawkins’s notion of iconographic reference. A metaphor analysis first identifies Chávez’s framing of New Mexican history as biblical narrative, mapping Old Testament stories, locations, and characters onto Spanish colonial events. The iconographic reference analysis then demonstrates how this metaphor functions discursively: a biblical iconographic frame of reference allows Chávez to create a biblically-based heirarchy which maps onto Spanish–Indigenous relations, positioning Spaniards as a chosen people and implicitly justifying colonial atrocities by aligning Indigenous groups …

Codec-M: The Multi-Lingual Manosphere Subcorpus Of The Corpus Of Digital Extremism And Conspiracies, Rachel Mccullough, Daniel Drylie, Mindl Barta, Cass Dykeman, Daniel Smith

English Faculty Publications

In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General warned the public of the current “loneliness epidemic” and its potential consequences on physical and mental health. One possible consequence of this epidemic is the growth of a movement defined by loneliness and isolation: the incel (“involuntary celibate”) movement. This warning presents a worrying glimpse at the future, as the incel movement, along with other parts of the manosphere, is one that espouses violently misogynist rhetoric which is intrinsically linked to right-wing extremism. While linguistic studies have been conducted on the speech of incels and other constituent movements of the manosphere, few of these …

Indirect Requests: Sociopragmatic Aspects Of Non-Conventionalised Indirect Directives, Hammed Mohammadpanah

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

Directives are divided into three types, corresponding to different levels of explicitness. To get a hearer who has left the front door open on a cold winter night while taking off their shoes, one can use a direct directive (e.g., Close the door!), a conventionalised indirect directive (e.g., Can you close the door?), or a non-conventionalised indirect directive (e.g., It’s –15 outside.). Inherently implicit in nature, non-conventionalised indirect directives (NCIDs) have been understudied due to being the most context-dependent and form-independent type of directives, which underscores the central role of context-based inferencing and contextual salience in processing and studying them. …

Analyzing Agency In Online News Reporting Of The Events Of January 6th, 2021: A Corpus-Based Investigation, Matthew W. Abernethy

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Over the last decade or so, politics in the United States has become increasingly polarized. A central focus of this polarization has been the news media, including both traditional print news, online news, and television news. Results of this have been a rapid rise in misinformation, disinformation, the demonization of news (especially political) providers as purveyors of ‘Fake News’, and distrust in mainstream news outlets. The central focus of this thesis is bias in news reporting, leading naturally to the question of how widespread this bias really is. This thesis uses corpus linguistic and discourse analytic methods to pursue this …

Trashing Gender Scripts: Indexical Misrecognition In The Zine "Galatea's Naked", Jules Blank

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Zines, short for ‘fanzines’ or ‘magazines,’ refer to physical, printed, self-published creations that can consist of a single sheet of paper or many, fastened together. These artifacts are rich with meaning—and, thus, can be read as tangible manifestations of the ideologies and identities of the creator(s).

This thesis focuses on the way zines are used as tools of resistance. Additionally, it shows that the creation and circulation of zines are highly pragmatic acts that solidify social bonds and enable individuals to perform and reinforce their emergent identities within a collective—explicitly making a claim about who they are and what they …

Cognate Facilitation And Processing In English-Speaking Learners Of German, Kaitlin L. Young

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Within the field of second language acquisition, research finds that increased exposure to input results in improved proficiency, especially when those activities are challenging yet manageable for the language learner’s current level. Because of this, listening exercises and speech processing are considered integral to language acquisition, even leading to recommendations of frequent, authentic use of the target language (TL). Instructors’ TL authenticity is, however, sometimes stunted by the demand for comprehensible input and facilitation of classroom activities; they make use of simpler syntax, stronger enunciation, and more cognates (words sharing origins, meanings, and form across languages) than in casual speech. …

Orthographic Errors For Dysgraphic Second Language Learners In Russian And Hebrew, Kyra O. Morgan

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Students of Second Languages might be asked to learn new writing systems in the classroom. This study is interested in how dysgraphic students, that is, students with a specific learning impairment with regards to written expression, make errors in comparison to their peers. These errors revolve around orthography, spelling, and spacing. However, this study will take a turn and focus on how all of the respondents understood the prompt and what that says about their relationship with writing in the classroom.

Hugo Chávez, El Camino Hagiográfico: Religión Y Bolivarianismo En La Construcción Discursiva Del Culto A Un Presidente, Lilia Malavé Conley

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation examines the discursive construction of the political-religious cult surrounding Hugo Chávez through a theoretical and methodological approach that integrates Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA). Its central objective is to identify and interpret the incorporation of elements from the Venezuelan religious imaginary–particularly from popular Christianity–into the symbolic configuration of Chávez as a sacred figure within official discourse. The corpus analyzed includes official transcripts from the television program Aló Presidente, as well as two animated short films titled Chávez Nuestro que Estás en el Cielo (“Our Chávez Who Art in Heaven”), broadcast on Venezuelan public …

Paratum Fuit: Double Perfect Marking In Classical Latin Passives, James F. Epperson Ii

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Despite thousands of years of study, certain constructions in Latin remain insufficiently described in modern Latin linguistics. One such construction is the double perfectum, an analytic verbal construction comprising the perfect passive participle and a perfectum forms of the auxiliary esse. These forms are rare, largely absent from educational Latin materials, and receive limited attention in scientific descriptions of Latin, often focusing on their evolution into the modern Romance verbal systems. Pinkster (2015) identifies them within a broader class of resultative constructions, but acknowledges their inconsistent usage. Earlier scholars, such as Riemann (1927), interpreted them as stative, while others, like …

The Relationship Between Backgrounds And The Perception Of Tones In Mandarin, Abigail Franks

Honors Program Theses

No abstract provided.

How To Catch A Con: The Rhetorical Strategies Of Fraudulent Political Leaders, Lukas Huntington

CMC Senior Theses

The United States faces persistent challenges in controlling political fraud. Government agencies exhibit the second-highest fraud rate of any industry, and corruption levels have only worsened over the last decade, contributing to declining public trust in national leadership. Current fraud detection efforts generally catch late-stage, large-scale fraud, highlighting the need for earlier-detection mechanisms. One way this could be accomplished involves identifying rhetorical patterns that are commonly used by political frauds in order to flag high-risk individuals. Leaning on the Theory of Planned Behavior, it was hypothesized that political frauds would exhibit more rhetorical appeals to fear, blame, pathos, and self-promotion …

De Acordo Com A…: Lexical Bundles And Disciplinary Variation In Academic Brazilian Portuguese, Larissa Goulart

Department of Linguistics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Research on formulaic language has shown that few lexical bundles overlap across disciplines in expert academic writing, with disciplinary writing being characterized by specific bundles. This was proven to be the case in both English (Hyland, 2008) and Spanish (Cortes, 2008). This paper explores the use of lexical bundles in Portuguese academic writing in two disciplinary groups, life sciences and humanities. Using a corpus of research articles written by Brazilian scientists, four-word bundles were extracted and compared for their function (Biber; Conrad; Cortes, 2004) and structure (Biber; Johansson; Leech; Conrad; Finegan, 1999). The results of this study indicate that writing …

Variation In Early 20th Century Rural Utah English, Joseph A. Stanley, Hallie Davidson

Faculty Publications

Utah English Pronunciation

Early 20th Century Utah English:

• Early work (Cook 1969, Helquist 1970) compares rural Utah to Salt Lake City.
• Bowie (2003, 2008, etc.) analyzes archival recordings of religious sermons.
• Primary focus in those studies: the decline of the CORD-CARD merger.

Introducing the Kohler Tapes

Background:

• Norm Kohler, a middle school teacher in Heber in 1980s–2000s.
• He had students to interview a local older person, like a grandparent.
• He provided questions to ask, akin to sociolinguistic interviews.
• Collected 1200+ cassette tapes.
• Intended to write a history based on these oral narratives.

Processing:

• Digitized in 2021 at BYU’s Office of …

A Generative Account Of English Exclamatives, Christa Niemann

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Exclamatives are an intriguing case study of the syntax-semantics interface. Despite several attempts to define them and explain their properties, there has not yet been convergence on a general theory of the exclamative sentence type. This thesis aims to unify existing approaches to exclamatives and explain a wider range of data by modifying and extending Zanuttini and Portner (2003). The critical modification allows exclamatives to be formed via operators other than wh-, which, when combined with factivity, ultimately yields exclamativity. The implications of this proposed analysis are investigated for both familiar and previously unexplored data. The modified analysis has several …

English Pronouns: Default Case And Conversion, Olivia Ziemelis

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Case is a well-defined feature of generative syntax. However, the phenomenon of default Case, while widely accepted and discussed, is less defined in its triggers and limitations. The main body of work that seeks to explore default Case is that of Schütze (2001), which presents the main principles of default Case as well as the environments in which it may occur. The purpose of this thesis is to explore default Case at a deeper level, focusing on the interactions of Case, structure, and phi-features to determine how exactly the mechanism works. To achieve this, the data set used consists of …

Metaphoric Sense Developments In The Names Of Places Of Worship In Contemporary American English, John G. Newman, Sylwester Łodej

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

This paper offers an account of the metaphorical extension of the names of religious houses of worship such as temple, church, mosque, and synagogue in contemporary American English, reflecting processes of linguistic secularization. Using data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), the study investigates how the meanings of religious terms enter into secular domains, signalling shifts in societal perceptions of religious experience. The findings show that temple and church frequently undergo metaphorization, appearing in phrases like temple of learning and church of football, where non-religious modifiers drive semantic extension. These terms increasingly denote secular places characterized by human …

Predictors Of Success In Whole-Classroom Narrative Interventions For Elementary School Children, Malia Sayavong

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

ABSTRACT

Predictors of Success in Whole-Classroom Narrative Interventions for Elementary School Children

Malia Sayavong

Purpose:

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is a neurodevelopmental communication disorder that significantly affects a child’s ability to acquire and use language for speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Children with DLD often experience persistent difficulties with vocabulary, grammar, comprehension, and narrative construction, which can interfere with academic achievement and social interaction. Classroom-based narrative interventions have shown promise in supporting language growth in this population, yet not all students benefit equally. Multiple individual characteristics—including language profiles, cognitive abilities, and environmental factors—may influence intervention outcomes. Therefore, the purpose of …