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Reduction Of The Vocalic Sequence /Ea/ In Tapatío Spanish, Karol Ibarra Zetter

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Reduction of the Vocalic Sequence /ea/ in Tapatío Spanish

This study investigates reduction in the vocalic sequence /ea/ in spontaneous conversational Tapatío Spanish from CCT: El Corpus Conversacional Tapatío (Martínez Gómez & Ibarra Zetter, 2017). An example of this phenomenon is the vocalic sequence /ea/ in the word in teatro ‘theater,’ which is often produced as [ˈtja.tɾo]. However, the word azotea ‘rooftop’ is usually pronounced [a.so.ˈte.a] by CCT speakers. The lexical frequency of these words is one factor that influences the degree of /ea/ reduction. Typically, there is a correlation between the frequency of lexical items and their phonetic reduction …

Euphemism In Ai Discourse As Colonial Harm & Effect: Learnings From Subaltern Puerto Rico, Jacqueline Oquendo

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Through three integrated studies, this dissertation explores complex human-AI interactions by comparing the perceptions of two groups of U.S. citizens: subaltern Puerto Ricans and stateside Americans’ interactions with ChatGPT. This corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis or CLCDA, triangulated with 1:1 semi-structured interviews, validates scholars’ concerns about the biases inherent in generative AI. Contributing to those concerns, this dissertation reveals that ChatGPT deploys discourse strategies that, when executed, facilitate digital colonialism. Euphemistic language is prominent among its discourse strategies, replacing controversial words, phrases, and topics with more palatable ones. When prompted on events of historical significance, I find that ChatGPT’s discourse obscures …

Intensification Strategies Of Southern Arizona Bilinguals, Sadie E. Seilhan

LSU Master's Theses

The present thesis explores the intensification strategies employed by bilingual Spanish-English speakers in Southern Arizona, focusing on six distinct devices: lexical, phrasal, repetition, reformulation, hyperbole, and code-switching. While previous research has largely centered on adverbial and lexical intensifiers in monolingual contexts, this study broadens the scope by examining how bilingual speakers leverage their unique linguistic repertoire to amplify their speech. Using a sociopragmatic framework, the analysis reveals a marked preference for lexical intensification, which accounts for more than half of the recorded instances, with phrasal intensification and repetition following closely. Despite its lower frequency, code-switching stands out as a particularly …

Exploring The Efficacy Of Transcutaneous Auricular Vagal Nerve Stimulation On Post-Stroke Aphasia: A Single-Subject Design Study, Aswathy Anakkathil Pradeep

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Background: Anomia or word-retrieval difficulty is a common long-term language impairment for individuals with post-stroke aphasia. Several behavioral interventions like semantic feature analysis (SFA) have shown positive results in naming outcomes, but continue to face difficulty in generalizing the treatment effects to untreated items. With recent advancements in technology, researchers are developing newer neuromodulation devices that aim at promoting neuroplasticity and neural reorganization in post-stroke individuals. Transcutaneous auricular vagal nerve stimulation (taVNS) is a relatively new technology that aims at stimulating the auricular branch of the vagal nerve to promote neuroplasticity. Studies have shown taVNS to potentially facilitate positive improvements …

Understanding The “L” In Cslp Within The Literacy Conundrum, Julia Lynch, Andrea Perrone

Michigan Reading Journal

Rooted in culturally relevant pedagogy, culturally sustaining literacy practices (CSLP) focus on equity in education (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Paris, 2012). Our view of CSLP emphasizes integrating the arts into literacy instruction to leverage students' cultural assets, stimulating their cognitive processes and recognizing literacy's interdisciplinary role in learning. As we align literacy practices with state standards, high-stakes testing, and research-based methods, it's crucial for educators and society to embrace them. Traditionally, literacy instruction has prioritized written language, creating hierarchical structures that lead to learning gaps and inequitable opportunities. An arts-based CSLP framework addresses these issues by ensuring literacy includes diverse …

A Global Comparison Of Communication Intervention Strategies For Justice-Involved Youth, Sophia Janeiro Martinez

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

Purpose: This paper explores the intricate relationship between communication disorders and delinquent youth behavior. It will explore the detrimental impact of zero-tolerance policies and their contribution to the school-to-prison pipeline. It will introduce issues, such as complex Miranda warning diction, and the benefits of including speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to aid in youth comprehension. Additionally, it will propose the integration of SLPs within the juvenile justice system to assist in communication between justice-involved youth (JIY) and justice professionals during conversations, questioning, and trials or hearings. Furthermore, this paper examines the roles of SLPs within juvenile justice systems abroad, including Canada, …

A Feedback Loop Of Exclusion: The Treatment Of Bilingualism In The Courtroom, Simone Stover

Northwestern University Law Review

In the 1991 case Hernandez v. New York, the United States Supreme Court characterized bilingualism as a race-neutral trait that can be used to exclude individuals from jury service. This Note proceeds by demonstrating how the current state of the law undermines the interests of bilingual individuals and then proposes a solution. Focusing specifically on Hispanic bilingual Spanish speakers, this Note first employs Professor Jennifer Lackey’s multi-directional credibility model to show that bilingual Spanish speakers suffer injustice in the courtroom due to both credibility deficits and excesses. Following this analysis, it proposes a possible solution to this issue: an …

How Multilingual Writers Talk About, Write About, And Engage With Sources In First-Year Composition, Mary Ann Zehr

English Theses & Dissertations

This study makes a contribution to the rhetoric and composition field by documenting the research and writing processes of a diverse group of 15 multilingual writers in first-year composition (FYC) at a small private southeastern university. I collected and analyzed data from three assignments: 1) a video think-aloud capturing participants’ first online search for sources, 2) a two-page reflection on the use of sources in the first full draft of students’ research paper, and 3) their first full draft of the research paper. The study is the first to systematically examine how multilingual writers in FYC at a U.S. university …

Minimal Wordlist Size For A Phonological Profile: New Evidence From Kra-Dai Languages, Kanyarin Boonkongchuen , '25

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

This study replicates, and extends to Kra-Dai languages, earlier work on minimal wordlist size needed to make a phonological profile of a language. Previous work on Australian languages recommended approximately 400 randomly sampled words to comprise a minimally complete profile in terms of reliably capturing every phoneme, and with accurate distribution. We survey 55 Kra-Dai languages to show that a longer minimal list is necessary, which we attribute to typological differences like larger consonant/vowel inventories. Given the widespread use of short wordlists in fieldwork, these results hold significance for designing language documentation surveys as well as projects that use legacy …

Sound Symbolism Of Vowel Metaphors In Choral Pedagogy, Olivia A. Colace , '25

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

Singers face the daunting task of learning how to precisely control parts of their body that they cannot see. As a result, vocal pedagogy relies heavily on metaphorical language. This thesis will investigate 10 such adjectives used to describe, teach, and elicit vowel sounds in choral singing: “bright”, “dark”, “wide”, “narrow”, “open”, “closed”, “warm”, “harsh”, “rich”, and “thin.” This thesis seeks to discover if these vowel metaphors have specific acoustic and thus corresponding articulatory correlates in a sound symbolic capacity. A survey was conducted to assess judgments of sung vowels with respect to each vowel metaphor. Judgments were analyzed with …

The Effects Of Guided Induction Completed Individually And In Groups On The Development Of Negation In Palestinian Arabic An Analysis Of Accuracy, Processing, And Rule Structure, Hana Baalousha

Theses and Dissertations

The effectiveness of different instructional interventions and the various ways such interventions promote L2 learning and processing has been the topic of recent research in the subfield of Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA). Previous research on the effects of guided inductive instruction (GI) in the second language classroom has left various lacunae to be addressed, such as the effect(s) of linguistic complexity, proficiency level, modality of instruction, and the target language (Ranta, 2022). A plethora of studies in the current literature compares the efficacy of GI to deductive instruction as students work individually in computer-assisted language learning contexts (CALL) revealing …

Syntactic, Semantic, And Stylistic Variation In Old English Periphrastic Passives, Anyssa Joann Murphy

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation establishes a new method for better understanding the Old English (OE) periphrastic passive (PerPass) system by bridging the gap between traditional qualitative methods and contemporary corpus-based methods in Historical Linguistic research. In doing so, this research resists the tendency in modern scholarship to extract agency and personhood from OE speakers, and instead approaches them as agentive and creative participants in their language and its grammar.

The OE PerPass is understood to be constructed with a BE-verb (beon and wesan ‘be, was’ or weorðan ‘become’) and a coordinated past participle (ex. 1-2).

1. And wearð sona gehæled þurh þæs …

A Step Into Khmer’S Double Negation Mystery: Clause-Final Marker ទេ[Te:] As Negative Polarity Focus, Panhavoan Reth , '25

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

In Khmer, basic negation is formed using two negation elements: the preverbal marker មិន [mɨn] and the clause-final marker ទេ[te:]. However, there are cases where [te:] is optional with the utterance still retaining its negative meaning; when it is present, it is claimed that the utterance can have two readings: plain negation and emphatic negation (Saparova, 2020). Thus, there is speculation as to what function [te:] serves and what it contributes to the semantic meaning of a sentence. This thesis examines the optionality of [te:] through the lens of polarity focus, drawing on Wilder’s (2013) and Goodhue’s (2018, 2022) observations. …

Losing Identity Or Regaining Confidence? A Collaborative Autoethnography On Teachers' Self-Efficacy, Geraldine Jiménez Grajales, Mariana Arias Torres, Keren Hapuc Guisao Bohórquez, Leslie J. Lopera

The Qualitative Report

This collaborative autoethnography analyzes the role of self-efficacy within our teacher identity crisis. As English teachers in training, we have experienced situations inside and outside the classroom that motivated a professional identity crisis and led us questioning our efficacy as teachers. Through this study we explore the intricacies of our very own selves as prospective English teachers. We blended storytelling and analysis through a set of data generation procedures that included collaborative witnessing, written personal narratives and semi-structured interviews, which allowed us to co-construct our stories. Our findings reveal three main themes that display the roles of self-efficacy within the …

Gsep Research Symposium Proceedings - 2024

GSEP Research Symposium

The 8th Annual GSEP Research Symposium, was themed "Dismantling Barriers between Research and Practice: Shining a Light on Global Interdisciplinary Solutions," took place on July 18-19, 2024, at the picturesque Château d'Hauteville in Saint-Légier-La Chiésaz, Switzerland.

The annual symposium is hosted by the Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology (GSEP). The symposium served as a dynamic platform for students, faculty, alums, and staff to come together and explore innovative ideas across multiple disciplines. Featuring 69 selected presentations under five distinct tracks, the proceedings showcase groundbreaking research, foster meaningful discussions, and promote professional development.

The symposium aimed to bridge …

“Not The Player Nor The Coach”: Considerations For Peer-Tutor Education In Heritage Language Writing Centers, Agustina Carando, Claire J. Lozano

The Writing Center Journal

This study analyzes the experiences of undergraduate peer-tutors in a heritage language writing center (HLWC) located at a large public university in the United States. As former heritage language (HL) students themselves, tutors have to navigate the complexities of being bilingual advocates for their tutees while promoting the linguistic ideals of the academic community, where literacy expectations can be more rigid. In order to delve into their experiences at the center, this qualitative investigation examines the end-of- term reflections of 19 Spanish HL tutors working at a Spanish HLWC, addressing the following questions: (1) How do tutors perceive their role …

Preschoolers’ Generation Of Quantity Implicatures, André Eliatamby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation uses the developing child as a window into the mechanisms and representations that allow us to understand the meaning of utterances in their contexts. I present three studies investigating 4- and 5-year-olds’ ability to generate two types of “quantity implicatures,” classic scalar implicatures with some that imply not all, and free choice inferences that arise with sentences like “Larry is allowed to have cake or ice-cream.” Together, the studies suggest a close relationship between pragmatic development and word learning, something not appreciated in existing literature. In the first study investigating some, I show that preschoolers interpret …

Cognitive Flexibility And Stability In Bilingual Older Adults, Lia Pazuelo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Lifelong bilingual individuals develop expertise in language-switching, requiring a delicate balance between cognitive stability—safeguarding goals from interference—and cognitive flexibility—adapting goals to changing demands. While some studies demonstrate the transferability of these skills to non-linguistic tasks, signifying bilingualism's impact on cognitive processes, others find no direct correlation between non-linguistic task-switching and bilingualism. Our study investigated the cognitive processes underlying bilingual speakers' performance on a switching task, exploring whether varying degrees of bilingual experience in older adults result in different tendencies towards stability (e.g., lower mixing cost and response congruency effect) or flexibility (e.g., smaller switching costs). By treating the bilingual experience …

Factors Affecting Pretonic Deletion In English Syllables: A Corpus Study, Whitney Barnett-Rhodes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

One type of variation in pronunciation that is associated with fast and/or conversational speech is massive reduction, in which entire syllables are deleted. We focus on a subtype of massive reduction, pretonic vowel deletion, where the vowel in an unstressed syllable is deleted and the flanking consonants form an onset cluster, V --> φ / C__C, such as the word Columbus reduced to the two-syllable pronunciation [klʌmbəs], resulting in the onset cluster [kl]. The main question asks what predictors are associated with pretonic vowel deletion. Furthermore, we evaluate the Lexicalist Hypothesis and Sonority Projection as explanations of the phenomenon. …

Young Children’S Directed Question Asking In Preschool Classrooms, Michelle Wong, Koeun Choi, Libby Barak, Elizabeth Lapidow, Jennifer Austin, Patrick Shafto, Elizabeth Bonawitz

Department of Linguistics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Question asking is a prevalent aspect of children’s speech, providing a means by which young learners can rapidly gain information about the world. Previous research has demonstrated that children exhibit sensitivity to the knowledge state of potential informants in laboratory settings. However, it remains unclear whether and how young children are inclined to direct questions that support learning deeper content to more knowledgeable informants in naturalistic classroom contexts. In this study, we examined children’s question-asking targets (adults, other preschoolers, self-talk) during an open-play period in a US preschool classroom and assessed how the cognitive and linguistic characteristics of questions varied …

Liberal Attitude Reports, Tomasz Zyglewicz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Attitude reports are sentences such as “Tomasz thinks the Earth is flat” or “Susan wantsvice cream.” It is commonly assumed that the main reason people use them is to make sense of the reportee’s behavior: to explain their past actions, or predict future ones. To play this role effectively, attitude reports have to accurately describe what is going on in the reportee’s head. Let’s call attitue reports that do not meet this condition “Liberal attitude reports.” For example: Alice is a vegan doctor who thinks that every vegan should take a B12 supplements. It is felicitous to say to your …

Controlling Emotional Text To Speech Using Complex Adverbial Phrases, Zainab T. Akande

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study investigates the usage of adverbial modifiers from audiobook data as a resource for training speech synthesizers with a greater range of speech descriptions. The Tacotron2 text-to-speech (TTS) model was used for the purposes of this study. Utilizing the LibriTTS dataset, the Tacotron2 model is trained under two experimental conditions: one incorporating adverbial modifiers into the input text and the other without. The dataset preprocessing involves embedding descriptions using word embeddings and encoding speaker IDs with machine learning techniques. Additionally, the model architecture includes a prosody encoder inspired by prior research. Evaluation of the trained models involves subjective assessments …

Aligning Human And Computational Coherence Evaluations, Jia Peng Lim, Hady Wirawan Lauw

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Automated coherence metrics constitute an efficient and popular way to evaluate topic models. Previous work presents a mixed picture of their presumed correlation with human judgment. This work proposes a novel sampling approach to mining topic representations at a large scale while seeking to mitigate bias from sampling, enabling the investigation of widely used automated coherence metrics via large corpora. Additionally, this article proposes a novel user study design, an amalgamation of different proxy tasks, to derive a finer insight into the human decision-making processes. This design subsumes the purpose of simple rating and outlier-detection user studies. Similar to the …

Musical Semiotics In Kate Soper’S Ipsa Dixit (2010–2016), Scott A. Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the six parts of Kate Soper’s Ipsa Dixit (2010–2016). While individual parts have received some music theoretical attention, this is the first analysis of the entire Pulitzer Prize-nominated work. Ambiguity and contingency are major themes of Ipsa Dixit, and by treating each part independently and in combination, I hope to honor Ipsa’s contingent status as a unified work comprised of six complete works. Soper’s libretto unifies an assemblage of texts with adaptations of Aristotle to investigate the intersections of language and music with authority, veracity, and (un)intelligibility.

I theorize that Soper’s “philosophy-opera” dramatizes the formation of …

Getting To The Point: Contrasting Directness And Warmth In Motivational Embodied Conversational Agents, Michael O'Mahony, Cathy Ennis, Robert Ross

Conference papers

Enhancing long-term engagement with conversational agents remains a significant challenge. Controlling the perceived warmth or directness of an agent’s personality through the style of its generated text could be used to increase user likeability. This paper reports an investigation of a Wizard-of-Oz (WoZ) mediated study of two variants of a motivational embodied conversational agent to measure user perception of and attitudes towards warmth in interaction style. Results show a significant effect of users preferring an agent with a "more direct" personality for this scenario, though this effect is in many ways nuanced.

Makna Penamaan Sajian Ritual Kabasa Dari Perspektif Gastrolinguistik, Lilik Rita Lindayani, Rasiah Rasiah, Rahmawati Azi, Wa Ode Sifatu, Syahrun Syahrun, La Sawali La Sawali

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This article is about Munanese (an ethnic group in Southeast Sulawesi) traditional dish kabasa as a form of referential support to the gastrodiplomacy trend. Kabasa is a part of the haroa ritual that features a range of dishes with various ingredients, which is strongly connected to various aspects of the community such as social position, psychology, and environment. In this study, a combination between linguistics as language science and gastronomy which examines food within its culture is considered effective for investigating the semantics of the naming pattern of kabasa dishes in order to document this unique culinary tradition and introduce …

Upacara Adat Rambu Solo’: Antara Gengsi Dan Urgensi, Ghana Aldila Septiani G, Mochammad Mansur, Salsabila Dwi Saputri

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Rambu Solo’ is one of the most expensive traditional funerals in the world. This has created a general impression that Rambu Solo’ must always be lavishly performed, although in reality it can be adjusted to the bereaved family’s financial circumstances. This research seeks to explain how Rambu Solo’ can be motivated by both urgency and prestige using Abraham Maslow’s humanistic psychology theory. This research applied the qualitative method. Data were collected by interviewing a traditional leader named Ambe Tawang with the aid of a local interpreter, Baharuddin Palepong, who lived in Lembang Palesan, Tana Toraja, South Sulawesi. After collection, the …

Toponimi Nama Pantai Di Belitung, Filia Filia

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This research examines the toponymy of beaches in Belitung using the socio-onomastic approach. The names of beaches in Belitung Regency were studied using written and oral data. The written data was obtained from three maps, i.e., the map from the Geospatial Information Agency, the geological map of Belitung and the digital Google Maps. The oral data was obtained through interviews with resource persons and informants in Belitung. Based on map searches and interviews, seven beach names and the origin of their names have been obtained, as follows (i) Tanjung Tinggi Beach, (ii) Tanjung Pendam Beach, (iii), Penyabong Beach, (iv) Tanjung …

Kajian Konseptual Silabel Ritme Gandang Minangkabau, Aryuda Fakhleri Fallen, Yudi Sukmayadi, Tati Narawati

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This article tryes to initiate the concept of Minangkabau rhythm syllables, which is a method in music learning related to audiation in rhythm learning, the urgency in this study explores the basic elements of the audiation system that can be applied to music learning related to rhythm syllables based on local approaches, taking into account previous concepts that have been popular in recent schools. In West Sumatra, the concepts of syllable rhythm such as Zoltan Kodaly, Kannokol, American Style Syllables, and Edwin Gordon are not so popular, but environments such as schools and art studios have their own ways of …

Kendhangan Nartosabdan Pembentuk Karakteristik Gending Semarangan, Nanda Indah Nur Risqia, Suyoto Suyoto

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

The research aims to reveal the factors which contribute to the unique characteristics of Semarangan gending. Analysis involved four theories: Rahayu Supanggah’s garap theory, Stenberg’s creativity theory, C. A. van Peursen’s cultural development theory, and Marc Benamou’s rasa theory. There were three stages of data collection: literature study, observation, and interview. Results show three main characteristics of Semarangan gending: irama and laya, garap ricikan, and vocal garap. The tabuhan from this ricikan shows integration of musical styles from other areas, such as Yogyakarta, Banyumas, Surakarta, and East Java. In Semarangan gending, there are rasa …