Digital Commons Network^™

Emotional Disclosure: Does Writing Differ From Speaking?, Kevin Michael Newton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Writing and speaking about a traumatic event have been shown to produce physiological and psychological benefits. However, there is evidence that the mechanisms of change may differ between the mediums. The current study examines cohesion through the language used (i.e., causal, insight, conjunction, tentative, positive and negative emotional words) as a possible indicator of why the disclosures are helpful. The results indicate that those who speak are initially more coherent than those who write and that this coherency is negatively related to distress for those in the spoken comparison group. However, by the second session of disclosure the relation to …

Constructing Helen Frankenthaler: Redefining A 'Woman' Artist Since 1960, Alexandra P. Alberda

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

This thesis addresses how academics, curators, and art writers in the popular press reviewed Helen Frankenthaler during her major retrospectives of 1960 (The Jewish Museum), 1969 (The Whitney Museum of American Art), and 1989 (The Museum of Modern Art). Included is an examination of how she has been written about after her death in 2012, with analysis of the changes in the language used to critique the artist and her work as influenced by the advent of feminist theory, social history, and gender theory. I examine recent exhibitions on Frankenthaler at the Gagosian Gallery, New York City, and the Albright-Knox …

Prosodic Phrasing In Adolescents With High Functioning Autism: Production Following Intervention And Under Dual Load Conditions, Jessica Mayo

Doctoral Dissertations

Atypical expressive prosody is reported as a consistent challenge for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and is associated with a broad set of clinical impairments including perceptions of oddness from others. Theories of atypical prosody in ASD have attributed these impairments to the broader symptoms of ASD, particularly in the social domain. Using precise analysis of speech timing, the current study examined associations between expressive prosodic phrasing and more general cognitive processes in a group of adolescents with High Functioning Autism (HFA) and an age- and IQ- matched typically developing (TD) control group. Participants completed a psycholinguistics task during …

"That Flesh-Locked Sea Of Silence”: Language, Gender, And Sexuality In Beckett’S Short Fiction, Emily F. Oliver

Honors College Theses

This paper asserts the interconnectedness of language, gender, and sexuality in the short prose of Samuel Beckett. “Assumption,” “First Love,” and “Enough,” are used as specific examples of Beckett’s fiction, selected because they assist in understanding Beckett’s participation in, and inversion of, the hegemonic privileging of the masculine. This interpretation focuses on the use of gendered language, verbalization as a sexual expression, and the manipulation of the “male” and “female” voice. The analysis is both informed by, and seeks to nuance, the linguistic criticism established by second-wave French feminists Kristeva, Irigaray, and Cixous.

Tell Us Your Story: Investigating The Predictive Ability Of Trauma Narrative Linguistic Features, Jeremy Luno

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Linguistic features can predict several aspects of human behavior. Little is known, however, whether syntactic, semantic, and structural language features can also predict psychological disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder. The current study investigated whether the linguistic properties in trauma narratives written by survivors of a Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA), change as a function of the intensity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. A short form diagnostic tool known as the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL) was used to determine the severity of participant PTSD symptomatology. Scores were then compared to linguistic variables from seven different computational algorithms. In an …

Linguistic Minority Educational Rights In Canada: An International And Comparative Perspective, Edward H. Lindsey Jr.

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Does Being Bilingual Make You Better At Math?, Enxhi Elezi

Honors Projects in Mathematics

The purpose of this study is to examine if there is any relationship between being bilingual, defined as speaking your native language at home and another language in school, and your mathematical ability. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health was used to compare the math grades of students who were not born in the US and speak English, Spanish, or Other at home. Also, data from the Bryant University first year students was used to test if students who speak a different language at home have a higher mathematical average than their monolingual peers. Results show that …

The Parental Involvement Of Non-English Speaking Latino Parents In Secondary Education, Bianca M. Andrade

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This study characterized the ways in which non-English speaking Latino parents demonstrate their commitment to secondary education and investigated the factors that cause non-English Latino parents to feel unwelcome at a public secondary education institution. The 33 participants of the study were self-identified non-English speaking Latino parents of students enrolled at a middle school in the central coast valley of California. The parents participated in one of three ways: (a) a one-on-one interview, (b) group interview or (c) they completed a home-sent questionnaire. After analysis, the qualitative data revealed non-English speaking Latino parents participate in the education of their children …

Effective Integration Of Technology In A High School Beginning Japanese Class, Yo Azama

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Technological advancement is rapidly changing our daily lives. Many teachers seek ways to implement technology to improve students’ learning experiences. How do we determine what types of technological tools to use to maximize learning? This research investigated the effectiveness of the integration of the Substitution Augmentation Substitution and Redefinition (SAMR) model and other web applications in learning Japanese at the high school level. Fifty-one students in first-year Japanese language classes participated in a technology-integrated lesson. Technology-enhanced activities were selected with the SAMR model and were developed for students to learn and demonstrate Japanese language skills and cultural knowledge in a …

The Evolution Of Vocabularies And Its Relation To Investigation Of White-Collar Crimes: An Institutional Work Perspective, Abhijeet K. Vadera, Ruth V. Aguilera

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

White-collar crimes are illegal and unethical actions by agents of an organization. In this paper, we address two related research questions concerning white-collar crime-how did the language of white-collar crime evolve? And how did this language co-evolve with the investigation of white-collar crime? Building on research on institutional work, we find that key institutional actors such as the Presidential Office are likely to use frames and adopt a particular language (i.e., the term "white-collar crime") in order to legitimize institutional practices (i.e., investigation of white-collar crimes). Conversely, less powerful actors such as the law enforcement agencies are then likely to …

Inciting Genocide With Words, Richard A. Wilson

Michigan Journal of International Law

During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, observers emphasized the role of media propaganda in inciting Rwandan Hutus to attack the Tutsi minority group, with one claiming that the primary tools of genocide were “the radio and the machete.” As a steady stream of commentators referred to “radio genocide” and “death by radio” and “the soundtrack to genocide,” a widespread consensus emerged that key responsibility for the genocide lay with the Rwandan media. Mathias Ruzindana, prosecution expert witness at the ICTR, supports this notion, writing, “In the case of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the effect of language was lethal . …

Negotiated Interaction In The Learning Of Written Discourse Conventions, Brian A Guthrie

Open Access Dissertations

This study examines how two Japanese students learning to write in English negotiate the variations in written discourse conventions they encounter in an all-English program at a university in Japan. Textbooks, samples of the students' essays, and written feedback from instructors were analyzed, and interviews were conducted with the students in order to demonstrate the varieties of descriptions and interpretations of written academic introductions the students encountered in their first year of study at the university. Using an approach to learning that draws from ecological theories of composition, alternative approaches to second language acquisition, and actor-network theory, the students' academic …

The Semantics Of Repression: Understanding The Continued Brutality Towards Lgbtqa Individuals In The Russian Federation, Joseph C. Recupero

Student Publications

This work serves to examine the linguistic style and choices used by Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin as it pertains to issues of the LGBTQA community in the country and the Anti-Propaganda Law. Using the methodology of Critical Discourse Analysis, the author compares the speeches of Vladimir Putin to those of Western leaders Barack Obama and Ban Ki-moon, drawing conclusions as to why brutality towards LGBTQA individuals in Russia has been allowed to continue relatively unopposed. The author suggests that it may be Vladimir Putin's careful choice in words and speaking styles that allows the issue to persist.

The Development Of English And Chinese Oral Language Through Drawing For Primary Grade Students, Minzhi Yu

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This research explored how the drawings of five-to seven-year-old children reflect their interests and emotions. This research also evaluated the role these drawings played in their literacy education and development. Two groups of students were compared in regards to the impact drawing had on their literacy development. The experimental group received the drawing intervention while the control group received literacy instruction only. Teachers were interviewed to ascertain whether the intervention affected the students’ literacy development, as well as to gain insight into children’s thinking emanating from their drawings. It was found that the students who used drawing as a complement …

Language As The Foundation Of Identity Among Sherpa Youth In Nepal, Joshua H. Ginder

Student Publications

This paper explores how young Sherpas in Nepal use their language as a tool for identifying themselves as uniquely Sherpa in a mutlicultural Nepal. By analyzing the way Sherpas use their language in social settings and at a radio station, the author suggests the Sherpa language is perhaps the only truly unique quality that delineates Sherpas from other Nepalis.

Transnational Education Systems In Morocco: How Language Of Instruction Shapes Identity, Sarah Robertson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The North African country of Morocco boasts a rich history of linguistic diversity, which was further compounded with the introduction of the French language under the protectorate in 1912. Through a complicated mix of Fus’ha (Modern Standard Arabic), Darija (Moroccan Dialectical Arabic), French (historically the language of the protectorate), and most recently, the introduction of English, the system of education with respect to linguistic instruction is left in a bind. The divide between the public schools, private schools, traditional Arabic schools, and well-­‐ established French schools only grows, as the Moroccan Education system hurts for change. If language shapes education, …

Speaking Their Language: Textisms In Today's Communication, Adam Lloyd Drum

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study is an exploratory look into the use of text-based slang, or textisms, in modern communication. People use textisms in multiple media of communication, whether it is in text messages, emails, and various types of social media. This study asked a focus group about their uses and gratifications from textisms. The focus group delved into their appreciations as both users and receivers. Participants reflected on their personal experience and preferences with textisms for their personal communications as well as their opinion for various types of businesses using them in their larger message design efforts.

The participants were comprised of …

Modeling Children's Acquisition Of Grammatical Word Categories From Adult Input Using An Adaptation And Selection Algorithm, Nicole Adele Stenquist

Theses and Dissertations

It is understood that children learn the use of grammatical categories in their native language, and previous models have only been partially successful in describing this acquisition. The present study uses an adaptation selection algorithm to continue the work in addressing this question. The input for the computer model is child-directed speech towards three children, ages ranging from 1;1 to 5;1 during the course of sampling. The output of the model consists of the input words labeled with a grammatical category. This output data was evaluated at regular intervals through its ability to correctly identify the grammatical categories of language …

Silencing Our Elders, Debra Lyn Bassett

Nevada Law Journal

Lawyers, and the practice of law generally, tend to focus on words and speech. As wordsmiths, lawyers take great pains to choose the precise word that reflects the specific meaning they wish to convey, and they pride themselves on their ability to persuade, especially in the contexts of oral advocacy in the courtroom and negotiation. Lawyers, correctly, view words and speech as powerful. But there is another powerful tool in a lawyer’s arsenal that receives virtually no recognition or attention: silence. As a general matter, Americans tend to be uncomfortable with silences, and thus rush to fill them. This general …

Machiavelli And Ariosto: Language, Power, And The War Of Words, Rosanne H. Pelletier

Master's Theses

Machiavelli and Ariosto, the two contemporary giants and ideological opposites of the Italian Renaissance, diverge on the realm of power’s operation. For Machiavelli, power operates within society; here, one wields power over, or else cedes it to, others. By contrast, for Ariosto the locus of power is one’s own mind, where mighty forces swirl and sometimes overtake the individual from within. Whereas in Machiavelli’s view, power is asserted over others, the Ariostan view posits dizzying internal passions over which the individual is often powerless.

Against such a background, I anatomize two sets of linguistic details, and show that they in …

Regulating Electricity-Market Manipulation: A Proposal For A New Regulatory Regime To Proscribe All Forms Of Manipulation, Matthew Evans

Michigan Law Review

Congress broadly authorized the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) to protect consumers of electricity from all forms of manipulation in the electricity markets, but the regulations that FERC passed are not nearly so expansive. As written, FERC’s Anti-Manipulation Rule covers only instances of manipulation involving fraud. This narrow scope is problematic, however, because electricity markets can also be manipulated by nonfraudulent activity. Thus, in order to reach all forms of manipulation, FERC is forced to interpret and apply its Anti-Manipulation Rule in ways that strain the plain language and accepted understanding of the rule and therefore constitute an improper extension …

From Aporia To Identity Formation: The Perilous Passage Of African American Women's Dramatic Discourse, Thallam Sarada

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper analyses the dramatic discourse of two African American women dramatists, Sonia Sanchez and Ntozake Shange. It uses as its critical framework Erik Erikson’s theory of identity formation to examine their discourse, which challenges patriarchy and contemporary Anglo American feminist writings. It analyses the multiple ways in which Sanchez and Shange invent standard American English to present a unique African American women’s perspective. Their discourse, this paper argues, thus challenges the prevailing notions of power, truth, knowledge and ideology to give voice to the previously silent black women.

'What They Seek For Is In Themselves': Quaker Language And Thought In Eighteenth- And Nineteenth-Century American Literature, James Peacock

Quaker Studies

This paper argues that Quakerism was an important influence on a number of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American writers. Looking at the work of, amongst others, Charles Brockden Brown, Robert Montgomery Bird, Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Greenleaf Whittier, it demonstrates that both the stereotyped depiction of Quakers and the use of Quaker ideas, such as the inward light in literature of the period, helped writers tackle some of the paradoxes of democracy in a young nation. The perceived mystery of Quaker individualism is used in these texts first to dramatize anxiety over the formation of American 'character' as either fundamentally …

Say What?: The Power Of Language And Communication Demonstrated In Chuck Palahniuk’S Lullaby, Brittany Krantz

Faculty Publications

Throughout Lullaby, Palahniuk manipulates traditional communication by obscuring the roles of speaker and recipient with the culling song, a poem that causes instant death to those who hear it. Despite the obvious incorporation of magic and fantasy, the novel reflects genuine aspects of linguistic functions and indicates authentic applications for the use of language and speech acts in the actual process of communication. The author highlights the impact that language bears upon one’s psyche, as individuals’ thoughts often transpire into words, and consequentially, into threatening actions that jeopardize others’ well-being. Palahniuk’s manipulation of traditional communication is that victims do not …

"Le Créole Est Chez Moi": Le Créole Haïtien Et Dany Laferrière, Jessica Gerdisch

French: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Ethics In Exhibitions: Considering Indigenous Art, Rachel Bonner

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

No abstract provided.

“We Believe That God Speaks Danish.” Assimilation Vs Identity In Sanpete County, Utah, Claus Elholm Andersen, Elizabeth Peterson

The Bridge

Most accounts hold that Danes in America assimilated rapidly and effectively into mainstream culture…but was that always the case? This article focuses on a small community in Utah that was home to a large proportion of Danes and other Scandinavians. A close examination of this community reveals that the assimilation process was not always as straightforward a process as we oft en hear.

Abandoning The Shadows And Seizing The Stage: A Perspective On A Feminine Discourse Of Resistance Theatre As Informed By The Work Of Susanna Centlivre, Eliza Haywood, Frances Sheridan, Hannah Cowley, And The Sistren Theatre Collective, Brianna A. Bleymaier

MA in English Theses

This thesis considers the development of a unique form of theatre - feminine resistance theatre. Through the process, this work will consider the true nature and power of theatre as an artform, the placement of the problematized female voice within society, literature, and theatre, and how the theatrical form can create a unique catalyst for the female voice to be considered and implemented. In order to fully comprehend the nature of this exploration, this thesis discusses the placement and relevancy of the foundation eighteenth century theatre provides, by examining four of the women who fought for the validity of the …

The Dictionaries In Which We Learn To Think, Timothy Flanagan Dr.

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Taking its title from the discussion of a ‘new Meno’ to be found in Difference and Repetition, through an examination of the link between learning and thinking set out across Deleuze's work this paper charts the important sense in which philosophical thought is characterised by an apprenticeship. The claim is that just as certain aesthetic and biological processes involve inscrutable and non-resembling elements that cannot be known in advance, the experience of learning is one oriented by unforseen encounters. With a view to a peculiarly heuristic use of dictionaries in the case of language learning, the paper shows how …

Reading Of/Writing Through Copy/Paste: An Examination And Practice Of Appropriative Poetry, Taylor Barton

Theses & ETDs

This senior project begins with a chronological and theoretical examination of the development of appropriative tactics in poetry and literature over approximately the past one hundred years. Following is a collection of original poetry composed by appropriative means. Following each poem is an examination of the process that brought it about, and a consideration of its theoretical and conceptual implications. I borrowed every word of each poem from preexisting material, reformatted and re-contextualized them, and made them into new works, calling into question traditional notions of authorship, creativity, and originality. I attempted to incorporate experimental, conceptual, procedural appropriation with the …