Digital Commons Network^™

Adaptation And Augmentation: Towards Better Rescoring Strategies For Automatic Speech Recognition And Spoken Term Detection, Min Ma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Selecting the best prediction from a set of candidates is an essential problem for many spoken language processing tasks, including automatic speech recognition (ASR) and spoken keyword spotting (KWS). Generally, the selection is determined by a confidence score assigned to each candidate. Calibrating these confidence scores (i.e., rescoring them) could make better selections and improve the system performance. This dissertation focuses on using tailored language models to rescore ASR hypotheses as well as keyword search results for ASR-based KWS.

This dissertation introduces three kinds of rescoring techniques: (1) Freezing most model parameters while fine-tuning the output layer in order to …

Exacerbating Inequality: Public Schooling In The Era Of Neoliberal Standardization, Johanna Panetti Barnhart

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work is inspired by Jean Anyon’s (1981) landmark ethnographic study, “Social Class and School Knowledge” in which she detailed the differential and class-based constructions of knowledge across five elementary schools. While this research study in no way aims to be a revision of Anyon’s work, it uses her findings to set a foundational premise that curriculum and instruction often work to contribute to the reproduction of social class. Further, this research builds on these findings to examine and analyze social class reproduction in the current neoliberal policy context of standards-based reform. A key policy shift since Anyon’s research is …

Symbols Purely Mechanical: Language, Modernity, And The Rise Of The Algorithm, 1605–1862, Jeffrey M. Binder

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In recent decades, scholars in both Digital Humanities and Critical Media Studies have encountered a disconnect between algorithms and what are typically thought of as “cultural” concerns. In Digital Humanities, researchers employing algorithmic methods in the study of literature have faced what Alan Liu has called a “meaning problem”—a difficulty in reconciling computational results with traditional forms of interpretation. Conversely, in Critical Media Studies, some thinkers have questioned the adequacy of interpretive methods as means of understanding computational systems. This dissertation offers a historical account of how this disconnect came into being by examining the attitudes toward algorithms that existed …

Describing Doggo-Speak: Features Of Doggo Meme Language, Jennifer Bivens

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Doggo-speak is a specialized way of writing most commonly associated with captions on Doggo memes, humorous images of dogs shared in online communities. This paper will explore linguistic features of Doggo-speak through analysis of social media posts by Doggo fan pages. It will use the discussed features as inputs to five machine learning classifiers and will show, through this classification task, that the discussed features are sufficient for distinguishing between Doggo-speak and more general English text.

Perspectives From The Streets And The Classrooms In The Same 'Hood: Linguistic Landscapes Of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Luis Guzman Valerio

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation studies the linguistic landscape of the neighborhood of Sunset Park, in Brooklyn, New York by taking into account both a main commercial avenue and a public school with a dual language bilingual program in English and Spanish. Sunset Park is a multi-ethnic and immigrant neighborhood (Hum, 2014). While research has been done into the linguistic landscape of streets, cities, and communities, on the one hand, and about the linguistic landscape in education, on the other, the co-existence of these two in the same context has barely been studied (cf. Maldonado, 2015). This dissertation makes a contribution to the …

Persistence Of Cultural Heritage In A Multicultural Context: Examining Factors That Shaped Voting Preferences In The 2016 Election, Anna M. Schwartz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The prevailing discourse about the myth of the “melting pot” of American culture implies that heritage cultures are eliminated in favor of a homogenous “American” norm. However, this myth belies the persistence of our cultural heritage in forming our attitudes, morals, and habitual patterns of thought, each of which shape how we participate in our democracy through voting. By contextualizing voting predictors such as authoritarianism, social dominance, and sexism in developmental and ecological theories, this dissertation shows how they are shaped by culture and transmitted through consumption of media and interaction with members of one’s community and family. In an …

Examining The Effects Of A Content-Based Peer Feedback Writing Intervention In Community College Classrooms, Jennifer M. Gilken

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research has documented that low-level writing skills among postsecondary students are an ongoing concern and contribute to the lack of persistence and degree attainment for community college students (Karp, 2011; Perin, 2013). Since academic writing is a process that develops over time (Perin, 2003), many students require writing support beyond remedial course work for long-term success in more advanced courses (Karp, Hughes, & O’Gara 2010; Perin, 2013; Tapp, 2013). The current study used a Community of Practice (CoP) framework (Lave & Wenger, 1991) to create a content-based peer feedback intervention to examine two key ways in which a content-based peer …

The Exceptional Case Of Plancia Magna: (Re)Analyzing The Role Of A Roman Benefactress, Barbara F. Caceres-Cerda

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis analyzes the extravagant renovation of the Hellenistic gate complex funded by Plancia Magna, an elite woman from Perge, a city in the Roman province of Pamphylia. By using Plancia Magna as a case study, I hope to use her patronage of an outstanding architectural program to examine the dynamic roles elite women held under the Roman Empire in the late 1st century to 2nd century CE. Euergetism played a key role in developing cultural standards and civic obligations. Predominantly a male dominated practice, Plancia Magna stands out as one of its active and independent participants by commissioning the …

The Pragmatic Strategy Of Main-Clause Omission In Japanese: Its Contrast With Hebrew, And Its Learnability, Maayan Barkan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Typically, linguists study things that people actually say, but this dissertation focuses on what people do NOT say; specifically, it deals with main-clause omission. This paper presents an empirical study on main-clause omission constraints in Japanese after the concessive particle ga (‘although’/’but’), the first known controlled experiment of its kind in the literature. It investigates, from a pragmatic and discourse-analytic perspective, intuitive judgments regarding the allowance of main-clause omission in Japanese, in an attempt to reveal whether Japanese Native Speakers (JNS) use main-clause omission as a pragmatic strategy, as is suggested in the literature. If they do, then what triggers …

The Juridical Communities Of Apulia: Communal Identity And Municipal Belonging In The Aragonese Kingdom Of Naples, Vincenzo Selleri

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study intends to make a contribution to the debate concerning Jewish citizenship in Renaissance Europe by suggesting that de jure status does not provide sufficient information on the municipal belonging of individuals and groups. Citizenship in Renaissance Italy was an equivocal concept. Political rights were usually granted on the basis of wealth and “respectability” (measured in terms of lineage, and education). Jews, women, the poor, and “debased” groups may have not enjoyed such rights; nonetheless they were part of the social, economic, and cultural life of the Renaissance city.

Municipal belonging is better assessed by individuals’ de facto enjoyment …

Development Of Realistic Stimuli For The Evaluation Of Listening Effort Using Auditory Evoked Potentials, Christie Hoo Yee Leung

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Purpose – Listeners often report difficulty perceiving speech in background noise, such as when listening in a restaurant. A common complaint of difficulty perceiving speech in noisy restaurants leads to the development of the present study, where audio recordings of connected discourse mixed with restaurant noise at different signal-to-noise ratios were made to determine the effect of restaurant noise on listening effort. Listening effort has previously been examined with psychophysiological measures, a dual-task paradigm, and qualitative measures using a variety of auditory stimuli ranging from simple tonal stimuli to complex speech stimuli, such as consonant-vowel syllables, words, and full sentences, …

Affecting Civil War: The Poetics Of Fear In Lucan’S Bellum Civile, Irene R. Morrison-Moncure

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation argues for the importance of fear in the Bellum Civile, Lucan’s Neronian epic narrating the civil war between Caesar and Pompey (49 – 48 BCE). Previous scholars have acknowledged the centrality of fear in Lucan’s poetic program, having related it to the Aristotelian theory of pity and fear (catharsis) and to the use of affective rhetorical devices in historiographic writing. However, there has been no extended analysis on the programmatic role of fear in Lucan’s historical epic. I examine therefore how Lucan represents fear in its multifaceted forms and analyze how the representation of these forms complicates Lucan’s …

Tangible Things: The Matter Of Susan Howe, Thomas Lewek

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Tangible Things: The Matter of Susan Howe” examines materiality in two books, That This (2010) and Debths (2017), by the contemporary American experimental poet Susan Howe. More specifically, this examination finds a double movement in both collections between foregrounding the materiality of writing and of the text and meditating on the vibrant nature of matter itself. To frame the first part of this double movement, the thesis draws on recent digital humanities scholarship from Matthew Kirschenbaum and Johanna Drucker that highlights the technologically and materially mediated nature of writing processes and the texts they produce. Then, to frame the second …

Purepecha Aspirated Consonants And Their Phonetic Variants, Lluvia Camacho Cervantes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study describes phonetic realizations of aspirated phonemes in Purepecha [pua] from Azajo. The distribution of aspiration in Purepecha is limited to roots, a small number of spatial suffixes, one argument structure changing suffix, and clitics. Aspiration is never contrastive for inflexional suffixes, which occur in word final position. There are three basic allophones of aspirated segments: (i) post-aspirated; (ii) unaspirated, (iii) pre-aspirated, with pre-aspiration showing 4 distinct phonetic forms, depending on dialect, and phonetic context. Strengthening of pre-aspiration has been documented in the Lake and Sierra dialects as well as vowel lengthening in the Lake dialect. In Azajo Purepecha …

Input And Output In The Acquisition Of Russian As A Heritage Language During The Third Year Of Life, Ekaterina V. Kistanova

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Heritage language (HL) acquisition is characterized by substantial variation that is claimed be the result of reduced input. HL grammars demonstrate systematic processes of grammatical restructuring and are often incomplete, divergent, and reduced in comparison to the standard language. The present study investigates the role of the quantity and quality of linguistic input in the vocabulary and grammar development of HL Russian-English children during their third year of life. Particular attention is paid to the development of the grammatical categories of Russian verbs (aspect, tense, person, and number). The current thesis employs several research tools: parental questionnaires measuring language exposure …

The French Revolution In Early American Literature, 1789–1815: Translations, Interpretations, Refractions, Courtney Chatellier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The French Revolution in Early American Literature, 1789-1815: Translations, Interpretations, Refractions, examines the meaning of the French and Haitian Revolutions in early U.S. literary culture by analyzing American novels, periodical fiction, and essays that engaged with French revolutionary politics (by writers including Judith Sargent Murray, Martha Meredith Read, Charles Brockden Brown, and Joseph Dennie); as well as translations and reprints of French texts by writers including Stéphanie de Genlis, Sophie Cottin, and Jean-Baptiste Piquenard that circulated among American readers during this period. Drawing on archival research, and the methodology of book history, this study establishes that translations—though often disregarded by …

Between Settlers And Sovereignty: Literary Solidarity And Anti-Colonial Discourse In Territorial Hawai‘I, 1887–1959, Trevor J. Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project reclaims a history of anti-colonial discourse and collaborations among Asian settlers and Native Hawaiians between 1887-1959 in Territorial Hawai‘i, drawing from archival works, including King David Kalākaua’s poetry, correspondence, and speeches regarding the Hawaiian monarch’s responsibilities toward Asian laborers, Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana‘ole’s speeches about Hawaiian land rights and Asian farmers, and texts written by local Asian authors of the early 20th century, including Fred Kinzaburō Makino, Takie Okumura, James T. Hamada, Wai Chee Chun, and Noboru Itamura. Through this recovery of texts, I show how the racialization of Native Hawaiians and Asian immigrants by the U.S. territorial …

The Communal "I": Exclusion And Belonging In American Autobiography, Melissa Coss Aquino

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Communal “I” in American autobiography emerges as an aesthetic response to the pressure of using “the master’s tools” to write from a community on the margins to disclose identity in the conflicts of exclusion and belonging. In this case “the master’s tools” to refer to several distinct elements the communal “I” is tasked with navigating: the use of what we have come to identify as standard English, the form and function of European autobiography as a celebration of individual exceptionalism, and the contradictory pressures on these autobiographies to both elevate and protect the communities in question from further marginalization. …

Speech Perception In “Bubble” Noise: Korean Fricatives And Affricates By Native And Non-Native Korean Listeners, Jiyoung Choi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The current study examines acoustic cues used by second language learners of Korean to discriminate between Korean fricatives and affricates in noise and how these cues relate to those used by native Korean listeners. Stimuli consist of naturally-spoken consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel (CVCV) syllables: /sɑdɑ/, /s*ɑdɑ/, /tʃɑdɑ/, /tʃ^hɑdɑ/, and /tʃ*ɑdɑ/. In this experiment, the “bubble noise” methodology of Mandel at al. (2016) was used to identify the time-frequency locations of important cues in each utterance, i.e., where audibility of the location is significantly correlated with correct identification of the utterance in noise. Results show that non-native Korean listeners can discriminate between …

“Yo Soy Su Mama”: Latinx Mothers Raising Emergent Bilinguals Labeled As Dis/Abled, Maria Cioe Peña

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Parental involvement in the United States has been identified in both academic and mainstream literature as a defining marker in academic achievement. Yet most of the literature regarding parents and schools are written about them without including their voice or their stories. Through the use of ethnographic case studies, this dissertation presents the experiences of immigrant, monolingual Spanish-speaking Latinx women raising emergent bilingual children who are labeled as dis/abled. This research is guided by an intersectional framework and the following questions:

1. What are the mothering experiences of Spanish-speaking Latinx mothers of emergent bilingual children labeled dis/abled?

2. What values, …

Famed Communities: Trojan Origins, Nationalism, And The Question Of Europe In Early Modern England, Joseph Bowling

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Throughout medieval Europe, royal families traced their genealogies back to the ancient Trojans. Beginning in the Carolingian court, this practice persisted into the early modern period, when narratives of ancient Troy—from accounts of the war to rewritings of Virgil—saturated literary production. Constituting the translatio imperii tradition, in which civilization “translates” from east to west, these legends of Trojan descent allowed European monarchs to legitimize their authority, or imperium, as derived from the Roman Empire, which Virgil famously celebrated as descending from Trojan Aeneas. This tradition formed what I call feudal cosmopolitanism: an affiliation among nobility premised on shared descent …

Who Is It For? Personal Writing And Antagonistic Readers, Dana Glaser

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Feminist accounts of how “the personal” is used in feminist critical nonfiction have theorized that the effect of the personal is to connect the writer with readers who share a sense of her investment in the subject matter. Looking at two recent, prominent works about gender and sexuality, and race, respectively that combine genres of criticism and narrative memoir – Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me – this paper considers how personal writing is shaped not by readers it wants to connect to, but by anxious, even dreadful, anticipation of being read by its …

"I Was Not Sick And I Didn't Need To Recover": Methadone Maintenance Treatment (Mmt) As A Refuge From Criminalization, David Frank

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Methadone Maintenance Treatment (MMT) has been undergoing a cultural and epistemological shift away from an approach that emphasized client stabilization and a reduction of social harms towards one grounded in values associated with the recovery movement. These changes include promoting a view of addiction grounded in the disease model as well as efforts to make abstinence and ancillary services such as recovery coaching/counseling, programs emphasizing proper citizenship, and concern for clients’ spirituality necessary parts of the program. As such, the increasing use of recovery as the dominant conceptual framework for MMT represents a change in how methadone, MMT, and those …

The Cool Medium. The Global Pedagogy Of Eportfolio In The Foreign Language Classroom, Giulia Guarnieri

Publications and Research

The student-centered and integrative pedagogy of ePortfolio finds perfect applicability in the foreign language classroom. In contrast, textbooks for Italian language elementary courses, for the most part, implement a traditional and grammatical based methodological approach which hiders the process of ePortfolio integration which instead places greater emphasis on global and integrative pedagogy. The study discusses the implications these factors hold in preparing foreign languages instructors to use ePortfolio technology underlining its role as a cool medium which provides meaningful impact on student learning and participation

Research On Communicative Practices In An Alternative Classroom, Maria Alice Bonilha

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies communications in an alternative classroom in the United States. Using an ethnographic approach and drawing from conversation analysis, the study describes the school’s model of education and analyzes students’ classroom initiations, particularly those in which students responded to the teacher’s question with a question.

Practicing Abstraction Argument And Explanation: The Little Goat And The High Priest, David Marshall

Open Educational Resources

A one page handout to illustrate and practice concepts of abstraction argument and explanation. There are suggested activities using the handout and for generating other similar assignments.

L’Agitation Du Quotidien: Une Conversation Sur La Réflexion Ⓐnarchiste Face Au Sexisme Dans La Langue, Mariel Mercedes Acosta Matos, Ernesto Cuba

Publications and Research

Ernesto Cuba interviewe Mariel Acosta au sujet des résultats de son mémoire de master, qui traite des propositions de morphèmes de genre inclusif dans des publications anarchistes de langue espagnole, parmi lesquelles le @, le x et d’autres innovations orthographiques cherchant à contrecarrer le biais androcentré de la langue.

Ernesto Cuba interviews Mariel Acosta about the findings in her master’s thesis, which investigates inclusive gender morphemes in Spanish-language anarchist publications, among which is the use of @, x and other orthographic innovations that seek to challenge the androcentric bias of language.

Macroeconomics Course Outline And Syllabus, Sean P. Macdonald

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Advocate, Spring 2018, Vol. 29, No. 1-2, Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Editorial:

- On Being Late. Nandini Ramachandran (p. 3)

Features:

- Imperialism and Class Struggle in Chagos and Mauritius. Gordon Barnes (p. 8)

- The Streets Tell What the Press Hides: Disaster Capitalism in Puerto Rico. Maria Heyaca (p. 20)

- Moral Depravity, Discontent and Socialism: The Politics of the Urban Revolution. Harry Blain (p. 35)

- Neoliberalizing Childhood and Education: WeWork’s “Entrepreneurial” Schools. Hillary Donnell (p. 46)

CUNY Life:

- CUNY-Wide Conference in Defense of Immigrants Held at Grad Center. CUNY Internationalist Marxist Club (p. 52)

- A New Era. CUNY Struggle (p. 58)

- Accessing …

Writing For The Humanities, Julia Brown

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.