Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons^™

Bella Figura: Understanding Italian Communication In Local And Transatlantic Contexts, Denise Scannell Guida

Publications and Research

Bella figura—beautiful figure—is an idiomatic expression used to reflect every part of Italian life. The phrase appears in travel books and in transnational business guides to describe Italian customs, in sociological research to describe the national characteristics of Italians, and in popular culture to depict thematic constructs and stereotypes, such as the Mafia, romance, and la dolce vita. Scholarly research on bella figura indicates its significance in Italian civilization, yet it remains one of the most elusive concepts to translate. Among the various interpretations and references from foreigners and Italians there is not a single definition that captures the …

Remaking Identities, Reworking Graduate Study : Stories From First-Generation-To-College Rhetoric And Composition Phd Students On Navigating The Doctorate., Ashanka Kumari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation responds to the decreasing number of first-generation-to-college doctorates in the humanities and the limited scholarship on graduate students in Rhetoric and Composition. Scholars in Rhetoric and Composition have long been invested in discussions of academic and/or disciplinary enculturation, yet these discussions primarily focus on undergraduate students, with few studies on graduate students and far fewer on the doctoral students training to become the next wave of a profession. In this dissertation, I argue that if we engage intersectional identities as assets in the design of doctoral programs, access to higher education and academic enculturation can become more manageable …

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 Exploratory Study Of Acculturation Experiences Of Graduate Student Immigrants At The University Of San Francisco, Courtney Lamar

Master's Theses

This study explores the shared challenges during the acculturation process of graduate student immigrants pursuing higher education in the United States. 13 graduate student immigrants at the University of San Francisco discuss their experiences of cultural adjustment into U.S. culture. Through qualitative interviews and thematic analysis, this study seeks to understand the acculturation experiences of graduate student immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area of the United States. This analysis is based on the individual-level experience examining attitudes and acculturation strategies in the dominant society. Analysis, possibly policy implication for institutions of higher education, and possible directions for future research …

Voices Of Notators: Approaches To Writing A Score--Special Issue, Teresa L. Heiland

Journal of Movement Arts Literacy Archive (2013-2019)

In this special issue of Voices of Notators: Approaches to Writing a Score, eight authors share their unique process of creating and implementing their approach to notating movement, and they describe how that process transforms them as researchers, analysts, dancers, choreographers, communicators, and teachers. These researchers discuss the need to capture, to form, to generate, and to communicate ideas using a written form of dance notation so that some past, present, or future experience can be better understood, directed, informed, and shared. They are organized roughly into themes motivated by relationships between them and their methodological similarities and differences. …

Indigenous Language Revival: The Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project As A Case Study In Indigenous Identity, Representation, And Place-Based Knowledge, Kyle Woodward

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

Indigenous societies face issues related to cultural preservation, representation, and declining autonomy in resource and land management. For most indigenous groups, native languages serve as the medium through which culturally unique identities are expressed, and allow a highly contextualized environmental knowledge base to be passed down intergenerationally. Native language preservation therefore facilitates the overall survivability of an indigenous group’s culture, traditions, and collective knowledge. Unfortunately, many indigenous languages today are in danger of extinction or have already been lost. The Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project serves as a prominent example of native language revival in the United States. Wampanoag progress in …

“At War For Oppa And Identity”: Competitive Performativity Among Korean-Pop Fandoms, Brittany Tinaliga

Master's Projects and Capstones

Literature surrounding K-Pop is mostly focused on the reactionary, participatory, promotional, consumer and identity-forming roles of the Korean-Pop fandom. However, this research sheds a light on the dark side of the K-Pop fandom and the structures that sustain it: namely toxic practices and values. The study determines what practices and beliefs are at the core of competitive performativity and subsequently toxic fan conduct among international Korean-Pop fans and whether fans engage in reflexivity regarding these practices. To address this gap, this study incorporates a multi-methods approach, including CDA analysis, online corpus analysis, qualitative and quantitative data. The results reveal that …

Telling Room: Color In Action, Ryan Poag, Meaghan Gonsior

Thinking Matters Symposium Archive

The Telling Room is a nonprofit writing center in Portland that helps young writers ages 6 to 18 build confidence, strengthen literacy skills, and provide real opportunities for students to display their creativity for audiences. Every year they approach creative writing through a unique theme to help keep young writers engaged. Their anthology’s theme this year is COLORS. Colors can symbolize and illustrate various aspects of life including human emotion, energy levels, and cultural phenomena. Using the connection between color and creativity, we have embarked on a project to produce a series of six short videos based on the colors …

Coalitions Matter: Citizenship, Women, And Quota Adoption In Africa, Alice J. Kang, Aili Mari Tripp

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

We provide new theory and evidence of the role of domestic women’s coalitions in the adoption of gender quotas. Previous research has shown the importance of women’s movements to policy change. We show that specific types of mobilization, often multiethnic in character, are a more precise way of describing these influences. Using a new dataset of coalitions in 50 countries in Africa (1989–2014), we first examine where coalitions are likely to emerge. Controlling for factors that correlate with their formation, we find that when domestic women’s organizations form a coalition for quotas, governments are more likely to adopt them and …

Listening To Earth Stories: An Interview With Swarnalatha Rangarajan, Sufina K, Bhuvaneswari R

The Goose

In this interview with Dr. Swarnalatha Rangarajan, a well known Indian ecocritic and a pioneer of Indian ecocriticism, discusses ecocriticism, her novel The Final Instructions, and a wide range of Indian environmental writing.

Reflections Of A “Pitiyanqui”: My History With Latcrit, Roberto L. Corrada

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

One of our longtime LatCrit leaders in progressive and emancipatory pedagogy, Roberto Corrada (Denver), reflects on LatCrit’s role in awakening and developing his interest in critical scholarship and critical, community-based, pedagogy. In doing so, he also puts on display how our programmatic work, again, twines the personal with the collective, and the human with the intellectual. He reminds us, again, that our work is rooted in difference, and in learning from it.

Role Model Stories That Unite Children Of Oaxacan Immigrants, Erica Juarez Lopez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Through my internship at Castroville Library Homework Center I endure power by telling stories to unite with children of Oaxacan immigrants while helping them with homework. Dacher Keltner power principles helped me have a trusting communication to learn the success and struggles in the children of Oaxacan immigrant’s education.

Bilingual (Spanish-English) Marketing As A Catalyst For Cultural Awareness: The Effect On Parents In The Toy Market, Margo K. Bailey

Honors Scholar Theses

Due to globalization, multinational companies are increasingly cognizant of the language used in marketing materials. The growing Hispanic population in the U.S. and the increasing desire to learn and consume English in Spain makes marketers think twice about how they use language. This research is multi-method, using in-depth interviews and an experiment to learn more about how languages are used in advertisements to target monolingual and bilingual consumers within a country, and how consumers respond to monolingual and bilinguals advertisements.

I started by interviewing two marketing managers with experience in bilingual advertising in various media to better understand their decisions …

Hebrew Typography: A Modern Progression Of Language Forms, Shayna Tova Blum

Faculty and Staff Publications

Influenced by studies in traditional Ashkenazi and Sephardi scripts. The typeface had been designed for the printing of the Koren Tanakh, a first edition printed Jewish Bible processed through an all-Jewish collaboration for the first time in centuries. Koren’s project was inspired by the revival of Hebrew initiated by Haskalah writers in the 18th century. Haskalah writers utilized the language and scripts of written and printed literary texts. Influenced by philosophical and political ideologies of the European Enlightenment, the Haskalah explored Jewish identity through language by defining the secular context through traditional Jewish symbolism and narratives. The Zionist movement of …

The Yin And Yang Of Conflict Management And Resolution, Guo-Ming Chen

Communication Studies Faculty Publications

The increasing interaction among cultural groups due to the impact of globalization has not only made the relationship between conflict and culture more interdependent and complicated, but also demands that a new way be found for studying conflict management and resolution from a more dynamic perspective. Eastern and Western cultures are distinct societies in terms of axiological, epistemological and methodological assumptions. The axiological assumptions are especially useful for understanding the differences between Eastern and Western conflict behaviors. From the perspective of human interaction, the dynamic nature of culture can be more specifically displayed intraculturally by internal variations and interculturally by …

Powerful Words: An Exploration Of Linguistic Hierarchy In Moroccan Hospitals, Ellelan Degife

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Morocco is a country of distinct diversity, which exists as a result of the settling of multiple peoples and European colonization. As a result of this diversity, many languages are employed in different settings and spaces, and of these languages, French represents remnants of colonialism and continual elitism in the country. One of the spheres that French commands in Moroccan society is medicine, which creates a dichotomy between the educated health care providers and the underprivileged patients in public hospitals. The aim of this paper is to explore the effect of French on the doctor-patient relationship in urban, public Moroccan …

Cerdded, Fay Stevens

The Goose

Poetry by Fay Stevens

The Importance Of Music Festivals: An Unanticipated And Underappreciated Path To Identity Formation, Kimberly F. Rudolph

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this study is to understand and explain the growing popularity of music and art festivals around the world. Music festivals are events consisting of a variety of bands and musical artists performing shows, on numerous stages, over a period of days to a large audience in outside and inside venues. Through field research, participant-observation, personal interviews, and survey research at the 2015 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, this study suggests that they are much more than simple entertainment venues. Because humans desire to belong and music functions in the capacity as a global language, music festivals are …

"Do Not Fashion The Other": Representing Contemporary Haudenosaunee Literature 2016, Michael Patrick Brewster

Master's Theses

Historically, the issue of representation in postcolonial studies is one of some contention. While scholarship might recognize the necessity for highlighting the plights and struggles attendant to postcolonial societies, the primary literature being studied is most often written by natives of those societies themselves. This gap is especially evident with Indigenous cultures, because there are relatively few Indigenous scholars working in the academy. We are at the point now when we have a multiplicity (but not a plurality) of Indigenous voices writing literature (poetry, memoir, fiction, film, etc.) and academic criticism. However, there is value in non-Natives reading and writing …

A Companion To Australian Aboriginal Literature Edited By Belinda Wheeler, Jose-Carlos Redondo-Olmedilla

The Goose

José-Carlos Redondo-Olmedilla reviews A Companion to Australian Aboriginal Literature, edited by Belinda Wheeler.

Design Research: Typography Within The Israeli Linguistic Landscape, Shayna Tova Blum

Faculty and Staff Publications

A linguistic landscape signifies language used within a physical or virtual public space, in which communication is presented in typographic form, portraying a message to an audience. Within the state of Israel, the linguistic landscape presents a unique situation in which it is common to view municipal and commercial multilingual signs that are designed using Hebrew, English, and Arabic letterforms. By studying the diverse linguistic landscape within Israeli urban environments, the article offers perspectives on the use of multilingual visual language, based on discussions with five Israeli designers in the summer of 2015.

Fealess Friday: Kelsey Chapman, Christina L. Bassler

SURGE

Kelsey Chapman ’15 fearlessly advocates for human rights, peace, and justice, focusing on the Middle East. An economics major and Middle East and Islamic Studies (MEIS) minor, Kelsey is the house leader for the MEIS House, an Arabic PLA, and the founder of Gettysburg’s chapter of J Street U. [excerpt]

Parental Perception On The Impact Of Continued Use Of Baby Sign On Stress And Parent-Child Interaction: Follow-Up Survey One Year Post Hoc Of A Baby Sign Workshop, Brenda G. Compean

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Introduction: Past research has indicated that teaching baby sign language to infants can be stressful for parents. Thus, a previous study to test this assertion was conducted. A baby sign workshop was conducted and consisted of teaching the parents approximately 200 signs and information on implementation. Results indicated that parents did not report stress as a result of using baby sign with their children. The current case study administered a modified version of the baby sign workshop survey one year post hoc. Purpose: To observe continued use of baby sign, as well as parental perception of the impact of baby …

The Effects Of Sign On Speech Segmentation In Infants, Alma Rosa Acosta

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Introduction: The ability to extract words from fluent speech (speech segmentation), perhaps one of the greatest obscure achievements for the purpose of learning language, is dependent upon imperceptible endeavors. Remarkably, infants are active participants from the moment they are born, using auditory and visual information to assist them segmenting speech. As motivated parents attempt to use baby sign to bridge communication gaps, visual information in the form of baby sign may benefit children in extracting words from speech. To examine the effects of baby sign on speech segmentation, a systematic replication of the Hollich et al. (2005) study, a within-subject …

Identifying Professional Development Opportunities For Remote Healthcare Interpreters On A Shared Network, Suzanne M. Couture

Instructional Design Capstones Collection

Many healthcare organizations are faced with the challenge of complying with an unfunded mandate to provide language services free of charge to individuals with limited English proficiency or those who are deaf or hard of hearing. One method of increasing efficiencies and reducing disparities for these vulnerable populations is to provide access to remote audio/video interpreters on a shared network. The Health Care Interpreter Network (HCIN) is a non-profit organization based in California that comprises more than forty member hospitals and offers service in twenty languages. To support the need for on-going professional development of HCIN’s interpreters, a front-end analysis …

Stories In A New Skin: Approaches To Inuit Literature By Keavy Martin, Allison K. Athens

The Goose

Review of Stories in a New Skin: Approaches to Inuit Literature by Keavy Martin.

English In South Asia And Pedagogical Implications, Brittany R. Ehret

Senior Honors Theses

English at present maintains a significant role as a second or foreign language in the region of South Asia as well as globally. In a discussion of this topic, it is important to explore a brief history of the expansion of English and its origins in South Asia. It is also essential to provide a background of South Asian English and its unique linguistic characteristics as well as its use in different contexts of South Asia. The perspectives of linguists and educators who are native to the region of South Asia should be included as much as possible in this …

World Theatre, Michelle Hayford

Communication Faculty Publications

When approaching the topic of world theatre, it is necessary to first dispel some popular myths about theatre forms that are outside the traditional Western theatre aesthetic or canon. For the purposes of this chapter, selected examples of world theatre, including theatre of the Western world, are explored. However, there is a focus on the historical trajectory of traditional performance forms of non-Western countries. With the exception of efforts to preserve these traditional forms, it is important to note that “world” theatre is not code for static performance that resists evolution. Nor is world theatre “primitive” or simple. In this …

Science-Fictional North Korea: A Defective History, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

Kafkaesque, Orwellian, eerie, surreal, bizarre, grotesque, alien, wacky, fascinating, dystopian, illusive, theatrical, antic, haunting, apocalyptic: these are just a few of the vaguely science-fictional adjectives that are now associated with North Korea. At the same time, North Korea has become an oddly convenient trope for a certain aesthetic – an uncanny opacity; an ominous mystique – that many writers and artists have exploited to generate striking science-fictional effects in texts with little or no connection to North Korean reality. (The 2002 Bond film Die another Day, for example, draws from North Korea’s science-fictional aura to animate North Korean super-villains who …

Strategic Deployments Of ‘Sisterhood’ And Questions Of Solidarity At A Women’S Development Project In Janakpur, Nepal, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

Linguistic uses of ‘sisterhood’ provide a window into disparate understandings of relationality among virtual and actual interlocutors in women’s development across vectors of caste, class, ethnicity and nationality. In this essay, I examine the trope of ‘sisterhood’ as it was employed at a women’s development project in Janakpur, Nepal, in the 1990s. I demonstrate that the use of this common signifier of kinship with culturally disparate ‘signifieds’ created a confusion of meaning, and differential readings of the politics of relationality. In my view, ‘sister,’ as used at this project, was a multivalent, strategically deployed, and divergently interpreted term. In particular, …