English Language and Literature Commons^™

Finding Hart: The Lost Text And Biography Of Hart Stilwell, Brandon D. Shuler

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Hart Stilwell was a noted newspaperman, journalist, outdoor writer, and political activist. He is most noted for the books Border City (1945), Uncovered Wagon (1947), and Campus Town (1950), which were, as confessed to J. Frank Dobie, Stilwell’s life story. Finding Hart: The Lost Text and Biography of Hart Stilwell pieces together the most inclusive biographical sketch of this enigmatic man of Texas letters to date through his correspondences and autobiographical novels. The author has also included an edited and footnoted version of a previously unpublished Stilwell manuscript, Glory of the Silver King, a history of Texas and northeast Mexico …

The Attic And The Wheelchair V.C. Andrews's Accident And The Dollanganger Series, Angela H. Rice

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Author V.C. Andrews became known in 1979 with her first novel Flowers in the Attic and continued the series with Petals on the Wind, If There be Thorns, and Seeds of Yesterday. Problematic themes such as sudden accidents, romantic rape, incest, and mother daughter rivalry emerge continuously in each novel. In her interview with Douglas E. Winter, Andrews explains that since her debilitating fall down the stairs at the age of fifteen she lived with and depended on her mother. Unable to fulfill the goals of her childhood, Andrews read fairy tales, and romance novels and wrote her fantasies in …

Chicana Identity: Recognizing The Hybrid Self In Demetria Martínez's “Mother Tongue”, Cathy Ann Cortina

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This study argues that although borders divide and fragment identity, there can be an embracement of a hybrid identity. Mártinez's novel, Mother Tongue, uses the representation of a Mexican-American female who has recognized and endeavored to cross a border to better understand the complexities of her hybrid identity. This journey is represented through Mary, a young woman who resides on a physical border between the United States and Mexico and lives on a cultural border between New Mexico and El Salvador. Martínez presents the cultural, historical, linguistic, and psychological aspects of living on a border between the United States …

Touching The Truth: Applying Literary Realist Theory To Jose Rizal's “Noli Me Tangere” (Touch Me Not), Francesca T. Falqueza

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

When criticized for exaggerating events written in Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not), Jose Rizal claimed that he was "ready to match every incident in his novel with one from life" (Guerrero 10). This thesis attempts to prove the validity of this statement using literary realist theory. Moreover, the novel's factual aspect proves to be not as important as its faithful depiction of Filipino life during Spanish rule. A close reading of the text examines specific incidents within the novel which reveal Rizal's intent for the novel as well as the message he desired to convey to his people. Further, …

Exile: The Implications Of Separation From Language During Genocide, Kehan Desousa

Honors Papers

This essay examines the function of language during a time of genocide as displayed in Imre Kertesz's novel Fatelessness, the story of a young Hungarian's experiences in Auschwitz. Language provides the tool for fate's imposition, here the imposition of an identity, a history, and a future upon an individual that does not necessarily cohere with the experience of the individual. Since language provides the mechanism for the unwinding of fate, a fate ultimately hostile to victims of genocide, the old language (the native language of the victim, whether it be French, Yiddish, Hungarian, etc.) becomes an inadequate vehicle of communication—but …

Rethinking The Historical Lens: A Case For Relational Identity In Sandra Cisneros's The House On Mango Street, Annalisa Wiggins

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis proposes a theory of relational identity development in Chicana literature. Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera offers an interpretation of Chicana identity that is largely based on historical models and mythology, which many scholars have found useful in interpreting Chicana literature. However, I contend that another text, Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street, not only illustrates the need for an alternative paradigm for considering identity development, but in fact offers such an alternative. I argue that Cisneros shows a model for relational identity development, wherein the individual develops in the context of her community and is not determined solely …

Sugar Nine: A Creative Thesis, Emily L. Dyer

Theses and Dissertations

This collection of short stories explores the different ways women tolerate violence in exchange for some form of validation. The narratives focus on women and the reverberations of small moments which carry violent mass. While the violence occasionally includes physical elements, the collection is more concerned with the ways women accept emotional and psychological violence—specifically from men. Themes, motifs and symbols from the Clytie-Helios myth are threaded throughout the collection as well as a concern for space and touch, art and the creation of art, silence and voice. All of these elements involve control as the women characters in these …

Colonialism And Language, Tony Crowley

Scripps Faculty Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Marxism And Language, Tony Crowley

Scripps Faculty Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Nationalism And Language, Tony Crowley

Scripps Faculty Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The In Pulse, William L. Hall

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

A collection of poems composed as an exercise with imagination and the attempt to convey the mind as medium for experience without forgetting the reader remembers something else.

The Power Of Ridicule: An Analysis Of Satire, Megan Leboeuf

Senior Honors Projects

Satire is an art form that has existed throughout recorded history. Examples of satirical work exist from long before the genre had even been defined, and this powerful tool for social critique is alive and well today, perhaps even more prevalent than ever. The use of absurdity and often humor to demonstrate the problems with a particular human behavior, vice, or social issue makes satire engaging and persuasive in a way that a direct statement of the facts is not. These qualities make satire the perfect tool for advocating social and political change in times of unrest. In recent years, …

When Saturday Comes: The Boundaries Of Football Rudeness, Tony Crowley

Scripps Faculty Publications and Research

There seems then to have been a modification to the 'structure of feeling' associated with this aspect of rudeness in British society. But there is one place in Britain which has been almost automatically linked with forms of rudeness which are socially unacceptable; a location where offensiveness, crudity, insulting behaviour and nastiness constitute not so much the exception as the norm. Or at least this is how it appears in the social imaginary. The aim of this chapter will be to explore this arena in order to determine what it reveals about both British society and its boundaries of rudeness. …

Maintaining An Immigrant Heritage Language Other Than Spanish Or English In The Bilingual Culture Of The Rio Grande Valley Of South Texas, Sonia A. Shepherd

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

A 2005 study in the bilingual Spanish/English Rio Grande Valley of South Texas investigates the language strategies used by immigrant families from China, Greece, Hungary, Japan, the Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, and the Ukraine to preserve their heritage languages and pass them on to their children. Personal interviews determine that all the parents are well-educated and from an above average socio-economic level. This investigation categorizes the various strategies used by the parents. All the immigrant parents emphasize that the main reason they want to preserve the heritage language with their children is to insure that the children can continue to communicate …

The Importance Of Continuity In First Language Education For Learning A Second Language, Stephen M. Shepherd

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Scores from the Texas Reading Proficiency Tests in English (RPTE) for ninety-four Newcomer ESL students were analyzed to understand the differences between students who had attended school continuously and those who had discontinuity in their first language (LI) education in their home country. This research was performed in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, a few miles from the border with Mexico. The hypothesis is that students who have gaps in their L1 education will not learn to read as quickly in English as those who had none since the former are lacking cognitive skills which the latter already …

Lvn: A Fiction, Jacqueline S. Gill

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This is a creative thesis, the first 87 pages of an original novel divided into 14 chapters. This story takes place along the Mexican-American border and has elements of humor, mystery, witchcraft, and murder. It is written in first person from the point of view of the main character, Matt. Matt's normal life begins to change when he becomes best friends with a flamboyantly gay hairdresser who introduces him to Celeste - a mother of four, Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN), and a self proclaimed witch. Celeste practices the dark side of the craft; and when she feels the need for …

Lizards And Bugambilias, Jose A. Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This is a creative-writing thesis, a collection of poetry. The poems are divided into three sections, which share thematic content. In this collection, the poetry explores issues of place, family and identity, all closely tied to the geographic/cultural area of South Texas. The critical introduction explains both the organization of and the influences on the poems.

Re-Envisioning George Washington Gómez: A Historical And Biographical Verification Of A South Texas Novel, Diana Noreen Rivera

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The late Dr. Américo Paredes, in addition to his exemplary scholastic contributions to Mexican American scholarship, has achieved critical acclaim for his fiction. While scholars proclaim Paredes' fictional texts, which were written and set amidst a racially intensified social structure during the first half of the twentieth century, as remarkable portrayals of South Texas life, this paper calls for a “re-envisioning” of his literary works. Rather than a mere portrayal of South Texas society, using Paredes' most influential novel, George Washington Gómez , I explore the work's autobiographical content and assert that, because of its factual basis, scholars re-access his …

Américo Paredes: Uncovering The Multifaceted Life Of The Scholar And The Man, Sonia Salinas

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis aims at providing scholars with a personal and intimate look at the professional and private life of Américo Paredes, an individual whose dedication and passion for his culture and people led him to become a renowned figure in Chicano scholarship and beyond.

The audience will acquire a deeper knowledge of who Paredes was through this thesis which will delve into the different but important marking points of his professional and private life. In the end, it is this author's desire that readers gain a broader perspective of who Américo Paredes was and what he meant for this Border …

The Death Of The Subject-Impossible: An Analysis Of The Subject In Deconstruction And Psychoanalysis, Melinda Mejia

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Referring mainly to works of Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan, but also drawing from other major theorists of deconstruction and psychoanalysis, this study focuses on the role of language in the formation of the subject. It also addresses prevailing arguments which call into question the political dynamism of poststructuralist theories of the subject.

Mariguano, Juan Ochoa

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This book is in many ways autobiographical, but at the same time attempts to tell the story of the many silent characters that have long been omitted from most works on border life. By “silent characters” I am referring to those who operate on the margins of a marginalized society. The reader will be allowed to glimpse inside the life of a social group that values silence and indifference as basic survival skills.

It is this value on silence and indifference that have forced these stories to go unrecorded for so long. Aside from meeting my thesis requirements, it is …

Attitudes Of Mexican Nationals Toward The Use Of Code Switching In The Rio Grande Valley, Jennifer M. Vojtko

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The purpose of this study is to establish the beliefs and attitudes of Mexican Nationals living in the Rio Grande Valley toward the use of code switching, or the use of two or more languages during a speech act. Because of the high influence of the Spanish language in the Rio Grande Valley, code switching is more commonly referred to as Spanglish. Researchers have been studying code switching since the early fifties; however, limited research has been conducted on attitudes toward code switching. The goal of this study is to offer a comprehensive look at the attitudes demonstrated by Mexican …

Natural Trouble, Scott Hightower

Poetry

Natural Trouble continues Scott Hightower’s investigation begun in Tin Can Tourist. Themes of inheritance extend through changes of landscape and bad weather to hungers, urgencies, inequities, and bereavements. Hightower also reminds us that the practice of writing is at the core of democracy: poetry seeks a foundation in the truth of the individual, guaranteed and restored through the integrity of language.

All The Elephants Faced The Door: Fiction And Poetry, Stephanie B. Thome

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

All the Elephants Faced the Door is a collection of fiction and poetry. The first section, “The World is Nice to Butterflies,” is a collection of six short stories. The collection focuses on the Solis family. The family consists of six sisters and the stories follow their journey of falling in love, forming romantic relationships and the eventuality of marriage. The second half of my manuscript is composed of poems and is divided in three sections. The first, “The Stuff of the World is Love-Stuff,” is a sequence of love poems. The second section entitled, “Domestic Anxiety,” is a series …

The Red-Light District Of The Heart, Octavio Quintanilla Jr.

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This is a creative thesis, a collection of fifty-seven poems. The poems are divided thematically into four sections. Family, identity, and human relationships are some of the themes I write about. The critical introduction outlines the history of Chicano poetry and shows how my work fits within this context.

The Hollow Spot: A Collection Of Fiction, Jose Rene Martinez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This is a creative thesis, specifically a collection of fourteen short stories and a critical introduction. Most of these stories showcase characters caught in times of change and turmoil. The critical introduction explores the influence that three contemporary writers, J. D. Salinger, Raymond Carver, and Michael Chabon, have had on my work. The purpose of this thesis is to provide an outlet for my creative energy.

Igbo As An Endangered Language, Chukwuma Azuonye

Africana Studies Faculty Publication Series

At first sight, the question "Is Igbo an endangered language," would appear to be grossly misplaced, since the survival of the language seems to be well guaranteed by its status both as one of the three main languages of Nigeria and one of the major languages of literature, education, and commerce in Africa. Furthermore, with its well over 25 million native speakers who live in one of the most densely populated areas of the world with an exceptionally high fertility rate and a traditional world view and culture that promote the raising of large families, it would appear that there …

Word Is Born: Critical Gaps And The Poetics Of Hip-Hop, Kabir Hamid

Honors Papers

I grew up listening to hip-hop music. Although I lived across the country from its birthplace, I would immerse myself in its sounds during the day and especially at night when my brother would play tapes before we fell asleep in our bunk beds. At a certain point in high school, I became obsessed with the music's lyrics. I was continually astonished by the cleverness, rhyme ability and edginess of the emcees I listened to. My admiration for hip-hop music developed alongside my admiration for the great authors I was reading at that time: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Herman Hesse and …

Teisho Of A Tree In Light: A Collection Of Poems, Samuel Arizpe

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

No abstract provided.

Poems As Mnemonic Devices To Aid Grammar Recall, Carolin A. Metzger

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This study was implemented to explore the extent to which students' performance on grammar editing exams might be affected by exposure to poems used as mnemonic devices intended to aid recall of grammar rules. The poems were used as mnemonic tools to assist subjects memory of specific grammar points. The place of grammar in writing instruction, the use of mnemonics, and the use of rhyme and rhythm are reviewed. The subjects for this study came from developmental level classes at the university level and from advanced level English as Second Language classes. The results emphasize the need for teacher-student interaction …