Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Semiotic Analysis Of Two Linear A Inscribed Ladles, Leah Rosen

Honors Projects

On the peak sanctuary Agio Georgios on the island of Kythera, and at the archaeological site of Troullos on Crete, two Linear A (LA) inscribed ladles have been found. They are unique in that they are the only inscribed Minoan ladles found to date. Because inscription is not a common feature of Minoan ladles, the purpose of these two inscriptions is of particular interest. However, Linear A, the writing system of the Minoans, remains undeciphered and is unlikely to be translated for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, other approaches to studying Linear A inscriptions can still provide insight into …

The Yellow Qipao, Feibi Wang

Honors Projects

This is a creative project centered around the pre-production of a short film about queer Asian American Christianity and the research that went into it. The synopsis of the script written for the short film is a life in the day of Aspen. Aspen prepares for church and is indecisive of the clothes they want to wear, because they are gender non-conforming. They come out to their mom and there is conflict. My research going into this project consists of researching media representation of queerness, Asian American identity, and Christianity, and how the three identities intersect in Aspen’s life and …

Why Study Language? Discussing Language And Its Influence On Gender Discrimination, Katelyn Eisenmann

Honors Projects

An applied research project, with the culminating piece being a panel discussion that focused on the ways in which language use and structure contribute to attitudes and perceptions of gender within our society, and the politics that surround concepts of gender.

An American Student’S Transformed View Of French Culture, Julie Kessler

Honors Projects

The goal of this project is to compare American stereotypes of French culture to a student’s interactions with French culture during a yearlong education abroad program at Ècole de Management Strasbourg in Strasbourg, France, to see which commonly accepted stereotypes deserve to be dispelled, and explain those which may be acceptable from a more informed perspective.

Lingua Franca: An Analysis Of Globalization And Language Evolution, Abigail Watson

Honors Projects

This project details the evolution of languages and how globalization and advances in communication have effected smaller language groups. A world community in which communication is standardized by a Lingua Franca is in most cases harmful for isolated language groups without many speakers. The extinction of language is harmful for human society and culture, and there are many different ways to help prevent language extinction.

This project includes an essay, an animation, six illustrations, and a coloring book that all relate to endangered languages.

Pushing The Limit: An Analysis Of The Women Of The Severan Dynasty, Colleen Melone

Honors Projects

By applying Judith Butler’s theories of identity to the imperial women of the Severan dynasty in ancient Rome, this paper proves that while the Severan women had many identities, such as wife, mother, philosopher, or mourner, their imperial identity was most valued due to its ability to give them the freedom to step outside many aspects of their gender and to behave in ways which would customarily be deemed inappropriate. Butler’s theories postulate that actions create identities and that these identities then interact to form new possibilities for action. Using Butler’s theories, this paper first examines the actions of the …

Las Sendas Del Desencanto: Los Mares Del Sur De Manuel Vazquez Montalban, Rachel Slough '07

Honors Projects

Manuel Vazquez Montalban (Barcelona 1939-Bangkok 2003), uno de los escritores espanoles contemporaneos mas prolificos, es conocido no solamente por sus obras literarias sino tambien por su ideologia politica de izquierda y por su entonces aguda critica a la incipiente sociedad democratica espanola de los setenta y ochenta. Escribio quince novelas detectivescas entre 1972 y 2000 que tienen como protagonista a Pepe Carvalho, un detective privado al que Ie gusta la comida gourmet y sieve como un alter ego de Montalban-escritor-intelectual de izquierda y anti-franquista declarado. La cuarta novela de esta serie, Los mares del Sur (1979) que gano el Premio …

Atypical Estar: Innovative Vs. Conservative Uses Of Estar In Guadalajara, Mexico, Alissa Hoffenberg

Honors Projects

The Spanish copula of seriestar has not only been a heavily investigated topic In Hispanic linguistics throughout the past century (Crespo, 1946; De Mello, 1979; Franco & Steinmetz, 1983), but it has actually been receiving much attention for more than eight hundred years (Vaii6-Cerda, 1982). The serlestar verb copula is equivalent to only one verb in many other languages, such as English, in which both ser and estar are translated as 'to be.' Whereas in English we explain and describe existence, location, and state with the use of the one simple verb, 'to be,' Spanish speakers face a decision between …

Analysis Ofthe Future Tense In Two Argentinean Cities, Denise E. Miller '02

Honors Projects

The Spanish language has many dialects throughout the world, which vary on phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical levels, among others. The Argentinean national dialect of Spanish readily distinguishes itself from others primarily through: (a) the use of vos instead of tit as the 2nd person singular subject pronoun, (b) the use of the [~] and [i] phonemes instead of the peninsular standard [y], and (c) the use of lunfardo, a national form of slang originated in Buenos Aires. Not only does vos replace tit as a subject, but it also has its own series of verb conjugations, specifically in the …

The Benefit Of Code Switching Within A Bilingual Education Program, Susan Pollard '02

Honors Projects

In this study, I explore the effects oftwo types of education (bilingual and immersion) on Spanish dominant students in two cities in the U.S. Specifically, I examine the role of codeswitching (the use of both Spanish and English within the same discourse) in bilingual and immersion settings. I explore the effects of code switching on bilingual students and whether subject matter can be discussed more effectively in classrooms where code-switching is allowed and encouraged due to the language freedom it provides.

Imaginative Geography, And The Perspective Of The Other In Russian Literature, Joshua Wansley '01

Honors Projects

In 1839, the Prince Odoevsky wrote a piece of fantasy, entitled The Year 4338. It was a surrealist forecast of a distant future, and was narrated by the "voiceless one," who purports to be a Chinese student writing from Russia. The world has been divided chiefly between Russia and China in the year 4338. The English have long diminished in strength, and the Americans have auctioned their cities "on the public market," in fact the latter are the only benign menace in this utopian future. Love of humanity is so prevalent that all misfortune has been removed from even literature. …

Code-Switching In The Hispanic Community Of Bloomington, Illinois: A Case Study, Rachel Dziallo

Honors Projects

This present case study of code-switching is a quasi-replication of Valdes' (1976) research on code-switching patterns, in which one individual is studied in various conversational situations. In the study carried out by Valdes, the focus was on the presence of code-switching patterns in different situations in order to determine the significance of one native speaker with various interlocutors. By realizing this study she concluded the following: (1) the use of code-switching by the principal infonnant does not suggest a lack of language skills; (2) bilingual speakers take full advantage of rhetorical devices to dramatize their speech; (3) regularity of patterned …

Vse Luchshe Detiam: All The Best To The Children, Soviet Ideology In Children's Fairy Tale Cartoons, Matthew Boyd '00

Honors Projects

I have chosen as a focus the analysis of fairy tale cartoons in the Soviet Union and have attempted to establish the specific ideological use of five films spanning 1947-1979. For the analysis of these cartoons as ideological tools I have established a theoretical apparatus. This apparatus is based upon a thorough definition of ideology as it applies to these films taken from Terry Eagleton's book Ideology. I have adopted Vladimir Propp's theoretical apparatus on the classification of fairytales from his book Morphology of the Folktale. To aid both in interpreting the history of the 1920s to 1970s Soviet Union …

Writing Russian Women's Lives: Exploring The "Unwritten" Autobiographies Of Karolina Pavlova And Olga Berrgoltts, Kristen Bleakley '95

Honors Projects

In the Soviet Union we see yet another aspect of society which severely restricted the introspection of the individual. This particular suppression was not gender based, however. Rather, it was based on the gender-indifferent ideology of socialism and the belief that the wants, needs, and desires of the individual must be subordinated to the best interests of society as a whole. The Soviet Party sought to incorporate a mass consciousness in a Utopian setting. This they hoped to accomplish by controlling the thoughts and ideas of the entire nation, making spiritual property public just as they had done with material …

The Duality Of Soviet Culture: Manufactured And Organic Cultures, Mark Thomas Fletcher '95

Honors Projects

In place of what actually existed -a still industrializing country with very many workers living in privation, a peasantry in a new enserfment, a huge caste of slave laborers in concentration camps, a priviledged service nobility living in relative luxury minus security of tenure, a similarly insecure court circle at the top functioning at the pleasure of a new tsar-autocrat, a heavily terrorized society honeycombed with police informers, in which an overheard careless word or anecdote was a potential ticket to hell -Stalinist culture depicted a democratic Soviet Russia whose nonantagonistic classes of workers and peasants and intelligentsia "stratum" lived …

Advertisements: Mirrors Of The Soul The Reflections Of Current Social Change In Russian Advertising., Laurel Nolen '94

Honors Projects

The function of an advertisement is to make the advertised product (or service) appealing to an audience; the larger the audience, the less specific the ad must be in its appeal. An advertisement can be a very clear indicator of the societal values and norms of its country of origin -a sort of "mirror of the soul" of the nation that produced it. There are many cultural references that are made, consciously or unconsciously, through which others may gain insight into the workings of a particular society or culture.

Theory Of Prosaics In Literature And History: Leo Tolstoy And Lion Feuchtwanger, Angelica Ushatova '94

Honors Projects

In this paper, I intend to explore the theory of prosaics, which offers a quite different approach to life and historical events in particular. This theory was introduced;by the American scholar Gary Saul Morson. Morson coined the term prosaics in order to describe a concept that permeates the work of Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975), a Russian literary critic and philosopher. The most important concepts developed by Bakhtin are prosaics (Morson's and Emerson's term), unfinalizability, and dialogue. Bakhtin created also various theories: a comprehensive theory of literature that privileges prose and the novel, theories of languages, and of literary genres. Bakhtin was …

The Greek Language: An Historical Study, Richard C. Leonard '60

Honors Projects

The Greek alphabet has been in constant use since the eighth century B.C., and was derived from the Phoenician alphabet. Greek colonists in Italy gave the Romans a modified version of the Greek alphabet, which became the Roman alphabet in which English is written.