Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons^™

Defining Critical Thinking For The 21st Century World Language Classroom, Bethany Rae Daniel

Theses and Dissertations

Critical thinking has long been recognized as a valuable skill, both in education in general and within the world language teaching field specifically. In recent years, critical thinking has been identified as one of the 21st century skills that students need to succeed in modern society (Partnership, 2009). However, there is no clear, unifying definition of the term itself (Paul, 2004), and the definition of critical thinking is debated in many different fields without support from empirical data (Kuhn, 1999). Similarly, critical thinking has been often discussed in the literature as having great potential to facilitate language learning, and particularly …

Revisioning A Japanese Spiritual Recovery Through Manga: Kobayashi Yoshinori’S ‘Gōmanism’ As Aesthetics And Ideology, James Mark Shields

Faculty Journal Articles

This essay provides a critical analysis of the aesthetic ideology of “Gomanism” in the manga of Kobayashi Yoshinori (b. 1953), particularly Yasukuniron (On Yasukuni, 2005) and Tennōron (On the Emperor, 2009), in order to flesh out the implications of the author’s “revisionist” approach to Japanese religion, politics and history.

For The Love Of Music: A Story Of Organizational Culture And Change, Malii Brown

Capstone Collection

For the Love of Music: A Story of Organizational Culture and Change is an examination of culture and possibilities for change at an organization that manages one top-tier, U.S. classical music orchestra. The research was carried out for the purpose of making and refining meaning from collective employee experiences at a canon cultural organization whose practices reflect and influence our society beyond the context of music. The inquiry at the heart of the work is, ‘How does the organizational culture of the subject organization, Orchestra, Inc.[1], affect its readiness for organizational change?’ The research methodology consisted of organizational culture assessments …

Why Do Teachers Hate Ai N'T? Eighteenth-Century Ideologies And Attitudes In Twenty-First-Century Classrooms, Robin Elise Halsey

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the impact of various historical events on the development of the English language and its grammar. Specifically, this project highlights how the ideologies about language held by eighteenth-century grammar-writers have influenced the pedagogical approach of teachers of English, persisting into the twenty-first century. Further, the rationale behind these language ideologies is explored in order to gain important insights into the seemingly prescriptive nature of the majority of grammar texts produced in the eighteenth century and beyond.

The origins of four particular points of grammar and usage that are commonly attacked by teachers, grammarians, and others are examined. …

Bilingual And Esl Pre-Service Teachers Learn About Effective Instruction For Ells Through Meaningful Collaboration, Alma D. Rodríguez

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

This article presents the results of a study conducted to identify the perceptions of bilingual and ESL pre-service teachers regarding the integration of a collaborative service learning project in a key course of their teacher preparation program. Pre-, process, and final reflective essays were written by participants as they engaged in the development of an ESL unit to teach language through content to ELLs. The analysis of participants’ reflections revealed that preservice teachers connect the learning they acquire in their teacher education program with their life experiences, which contributes to their identity formation as prospective teachers of ELLs. In addition, …

External Projection Of The Basque Language And Culture: The Etxepare Basque Institute And A Range Of Public Paradiplomacy, Sho Hagio

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

This study discusses the establishment of the Etxepare Basque Institute in 2007 as a way of investigating the status of the Basque language Euskara, which was once looked down on and labeled as a lesser-used minority language, but which is now coming into greater prominence in the international arena in an era of globalization. The mission of the institute is external projection of Basque language and culture. Such projection, on one hand, presupposes the existence of a standardized language and culture to be diffused and that there is a distinction to be made between “interior” and “exterior” on the other. …

Science Classroom Discourse For Fourth Grade English Language Learners' Scientific Literacy Development, Shu-Wen Lan

Open Access Dissertations

Recent research has shown that the construction of science knowledge involves students' development of science understanding and science language, particularly as it relates to intertextual connections to science terminology and concepts that teachers and students make in science classroom discourse. However, up to now, there is little research exploring this development in upper elementary students, including English Language Learners (ELLs). Through a qualitative case study of a fourth grade science classroom with ELLs, this research project investigated science classroom discourse, using the frameworks of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) discourse analysis and intertextual analysis, to understand the nature of science classroom …

Liberation As Revolutionary Praxis: Rethinking Buddhism Materialism, James Mark Shields

Faculty Journal Articles

While it is only in recent decades that scholars have begun to reconsider and problematize Buddhist conceptions of “freedom” and “agency,” the thought traditions of Asian Buddhism have for many centuries struggled with questions related to the issue of “liberation”—along with its fundamental ontological, epistemological and ethical implications. With the development of Marxist thought in the mid to late nineteenth century, a new paradigm for thinking about freedom in relation to history, identity and social change found its way to Asia, and confronted traditional religious interpretations of freedom as well as competing Western ones. In the past century, several attempts …

Accent In Uspanteko, Ryan Bennett, Robert Henderson

English Faculty Research Publications

Uspanteko (Guatemala; ∼2000 speakers) is an endangered K’ichean-branch Mayan language. It is unique among the K’ichean languages in having innovated a system of contrastive pitch accent, which operates alongside a separate system of non-contrastive stress. The prosody of Uspanteko is of general typological interest, given the relative scarcity of ‘mixed’ languages employing both stress and lexical pitch. Drawing from a descriptive grammar and from our own fieldwork, we also document some intricate interactions between pitch accent and other aspects of the phonology (stress placement, vowel length, vowel quality, and two deletion processes). While pitch accent is closely tied to morphology, …

Eyeth: A Novel For The Deaf, Kelsey Young

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

Kelsey Young’s science fiction novel Eyeth, to use Tom Humphries’ phrase, is important for deaf literature because it exemplifies “culture talking” not the proof (“talking culture”) of a monolithic culture apart from the mainstream but complex deaf life on its own terms. It also focuses on a wide range of deaf people involved in intra-­deafcentric conflicts; deaf sub-­‐groups include a range of communication preferences (speaking, cued speech, signing) as well as multiple physical differences (deaf-­blind, cerebral palsy, wheelchair users) though not ethnic diversity. A critical introduction to the novel explains that science fiction allows the creation of a world that …

A Comparative Study Of The Apocalyptic Kingdom Of God In Second Temple Jewish Literature And The Teachings Of Jesus In Matthew, Jeremiah Stallman

Masters Theses

The apocalyptic kingdom of God is a common theme in Second Temple Jewish literature. This kingdom is often presented differently in the various literary works of this era. This first chapter of this thesis considers the various aspects of the kingdom in relation to God's coming judgment and the coming messiah who is often seen as the one bringing judgment and setting up the kingdom of God. The second chapter elaborates upon Jesus' teachings about the apocalyptic kingdom of God and compares and contrasts them with the teachings of the kingdom in His day as understood through the Second Temple …

The Effects Of Pre-Speaking Planning On Students' Performance During Speaking Tasks, Celine Gaillard

Theses and Dissertations

Research has explored the impact of various planning types (i.e. different ways to help students prepare for a language task by, for instance, giving them time and/or specific instructions) on the fluency, complexity, and accuracy of second language learners (e.g., Ellis, 2009). However, results have been mixed and studies have never investigated the impact of pre-speaking activities such as those proposed by Thompson (2009), a teacher-led planning focusing on both form and content with students. Previous research suggests that this type of planning could benefit students: Foster & Skehan (1999) believe that teacher-led planning is effective in comparison to other …

"As Our Elders Taught Us To Speak It": Chinuk Wawa And The Process Of Creating Authenticity, Kylie N. Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Chinuk Wawa (also called Chinook Jargon) began as a trading language of the Pacific Northwest in the late eighteenth century. As it developed, it became the major heritage language of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, an intertribal nation located in Oregon. Now, as older speakers of the language pass on, there is an effort by the Grand Ronde to revitalize this language not only on the Grand Ronde Reservation, but also in nearby Portland, Oregon. However, revitalization can be a complicated process, as tribal leaders attempt to define Chinuk to maintain its traditions while adapting its vocabulary for …

El Poder De La Tutoría En Pares Bilingües Durante La Enseñanza De Ciencia: Diseñando Oportunidades Para Explicar, María G. Arreguín-Anderson, Zulmaris Diaz, Jose A. Ruiz-Escalante

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

En este artículo se propone la utilización de la tutoría en pares como estrategia para facilitar la elaboración de explicaciones mientras se aprende la ciencia. Los autores argumentan que, sistemáticamente incluida dentro de la instrucción, la tutoría en pares permite que un estudiante con mayor dominio de la materia auxilie a un compañero en el aprendizaje de la ciencia al mismo tiempo que ambos se involucran en la práctica de todas las destrezas del lenguaje. A manera de ilustración, los autores narran cómo una lección de ciencias naturales se enriqueció con dos estrategias de tutoría: parejas de discusión guiada y …

Paradox On The Playa: Uncovering The Contradictions Embedded In Burning Man, Shelby Anne Rothman

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project examines the contradictions embedded in the stated goals and organizational structure of Burning Man. Burning Man is something that is portrayed as positive in an alternative community; but in reality has its own hegemony and hierarchical bureaucracy. Through a discourse analysis and participant observation, this project shows that the ideologies of the culture are partially liberatory while most other aspects of Burning Man are hegemonic. The social contradictions of Burning Man are pointed out through employing theories of ideology, hegemony, place and space, heteronormativity, and subculture theory.

James Joyce And Post-Imperial Bildung: Influences On Salman Rushdie, Tayeb Salih, And Tsitsi Dangarembga, Robert Michael Kirschen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" functions as an axis around which writers from former British colonies--Salman Rushdie (India), Tayeb Salih (Sudan), and Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe)--construct their own Bildungsromans. This nodal point is possible because Joyce's Bildungsroman represents a unique rendering of the genre which has proven useful for narratives of growth and development in newly independent nations. This dissertation focuses on a single narrative paradigm which acts as a common thread among the four authors. In each text (Rushdie's "Midnight's Children", Salih's "Season of Migration to the North", and Dangarembga's "Nervous Conditions"), the use of …

My Life Examined & Tweaked, Shana-Kay Smith

Honors Projects in English and Cultural Studies

My project is an exploration into my love of poetry. It consists of a collection of twenty-seven poems that I have written and revised over the course of a year. Over that time period, I have worked on approximately forty-five poems, but I chose only twenty seven for my final portfolio. To demonstrate what my writing process is like, I have kept a book (separate and apart from the final portfolio) of all my thoughts, inspirations, drafts and revisions for the poems I write, so that the growth of each can be seen.

The majority of my poems are in …

The Use Of Intercultural Competency And Culture-Bound Syndromes In Mental Health Services For Latino Americans, Tina Siganporia

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

By 2050, it is estimated that 97 million people or one-fourth of the U.S. population will be of Latino descent. Yet, often mental health therapists have inherently Western approaches to treatment that may not effectively aid culturally diverse groups. This presentation is a literature review of successful therapies for treating Latino Americans. It investigates empirical studies that have been peer reviewed and are published in scholarly journals. The findings indicate two essential concepts: intercultural competence and culture-bound syndromes for Latino American mental health services. Intercultural competence includes recognizing how migratory and acculturative stress may play a role in a person’s …

A Study Of The Musical Culture Of The Algonquin Indigenous Peoples Of North America, Corbin Clark

Senior Honors Theses

The study of the music of the indigenous peoples of North America has been a topic of research since the late nineteenth century. These studies have mainly focused on the American Indians that lived west of the Mississippi. The Native American groups that lived on the eastern border of North America, known as the Eastern Woodland American Indians, have received much less attention than these other groups. This project focuses on one of the groups associated with the Eastern Woodland tribes, the Algonquins. The purpose of this study is to research their musical culture by focusing on the musical instruments …

Sensual Cultures: Exploring Sensory Orientation, Lauren Sonnenstrahl Benedict

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

We use our senses every day, consciously or unconsciously, based on our cultural needs and preferences. These sensory orientations shape and are shaped by what a given culture defines as acceptable. For this reason, different sensory orientations result in different strengths and areas of emphasis and de-emphasis. Becoming aware of different sensory orientations and their associated cultures allows us to realize what we are missing in our own sensory orientations that inform our cultural habits. Familiarity with various sensory orientations may cultivate greater cultural acceptance as well. To analyze and illustrate such differences, an educational app for iPads was created …

An Investigation Of Ancient Hebrew Music During The Time Of The Old Testament: Especially The Role Of Music In The Lives Of Israel's First Two Kings, Saul And David, Holly J. Delcamp

Senior Honors Theses

Music has always been an inextricable component of Jewish culture from its beginnings. Even before the construction of the Temple, music was used for worship, feasts, festivals, and various other cultural activities. Since much of this music involves the singing of texts, poetry was also a central part of the Jewish music culture. Singing in ancient Israel often involved instrumental accompaniment. The Bible records the texts of much musical activity. Instrumental music, vocal music, and accompanied vocal music are found throughout the Bible. Instrumental music is found in 1 Samuel 16 when David played his harp to soothe Saul and …

Are You Man Enough? A Look At The Attitudes Of Young Male Professionals On Notions Of Masculinity And Male Gender Norms In Modern India, Sanggeet Mithra Manirajah

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Indian society has traditionally adhered to very strict gender roles and norms that dictate the appropriate behaviors and attitudes of men and women in the private and public sphere. In the advent of a rapid urbanization and globalization, these rigid notions of appropriate masculine and feminine behaviors are changing in large metropolitan cities of India. This study explores the attitudes of young Indian male professionals regarding masculinity and masculine gendered norms in Bangalore, the epitome of metropolitan and modern India. Being a man is hinged to the notion of being the head of the family, and the appropriate traits to …

Through Women’S Eyes The Development Of Lijiang And Nakhi Cultural Change, Wyatt Gordon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper is an analysis of the current state of Nakhi minority culture as practiced by Nakhi women living in the city of Lijiang and its surrounding areas. This analysis presents a historical assessment of the cultural, economic, historical, and political factors that have lead to the creation of the Lijiang Old Town that we see today and the current state of Nakhi culture surrounding that development. As well, this paper presents a field assessment of the current state of Nakhi cultural practice in light of the internalized discourses of the Chinese state and the indigenous discourses of the Nakhi …

Language Shift And Development: A Case Study Of Zhongdian Southern Khams Language Vitality, Simon Peters

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The fields of language endangerment and maintenance address language shift overwhelmingly in the context of a local language being replaced by that of a surrounding oppositional dominant cultural group. There are, though, situations in which a local language is competing with the dominant variety of the wider cultural group to which it belongs. How a situation like this is dealt with by linguists and language planners depends largely on the recognition of participant tongues as their own languages or one as a dialect of another. Reversing language shift for a “dialect” is difficult to garnish institutional and financial support for …

Multiculturalism And Racialization In Latin America And The Caribbean, Bernd Reiter

Government and International Affairs Faculty Publications

This article, which is based on a keynote address, delivered for the 2nd International Congress of Caribbean Studies, held at the Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia, in August of 2012, argues that Caribbean nations are in dire need to analyze and deconstruct the foundational myths upon which their national unities were constructed after achieving independence. This process is under way in such countries as Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, but has not been carried out for most Caribbean nations, maybe with the exception of Cuba. Where such efforts have not been pursued vigorously, myths of racial harmony tend to prevail. These …

The Development Of Differential Object Marking In Spanish-English Bilingual Children, Mariluz Ortiz Vergara

Open Access Theses

In monolingual development, the acquisition of differential object marking (DOM) is completed by three years of age (Rodríguez- Mondoñedo, 2008). However, among bilingual speakers, the development and use of the marker at a young age is less predictable. Spanish marks animate and specific direct objects with the preposition-a; English in contrast does not. Based on previous studies documenting transfer in areas where Spanish and English differ, it was predicted that bilingual children would experience difficulties with the use of the preposition both in matrix and left dislocated sentences (CLLD) (Montrul, 2004, Montrul & Bowles, 2009). This study tested 14 simultaneous …

From Exquisite To Extinct: Linguistic Human Rights In The Tibetan Diaspora || Tibetan Pragmatics, Standardization Ethics And Obligatory Bilingualism, Camille Zora Inge

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This work documents a sample of the rich qualities of Tibetan language and discusses how Buddhism is embedded and woven throughout its character. From translation compounds revealing the deeper meaning of Lord Buddha to morpho-­‐ syntactic implications of the emptiness of the self, Tibetan offers a window into an insider’s understanding of Buddhist philosophy. With such a vibrant linguistic story, Tibetan language ought to be respected and upheld, taught and treasured. But, the Chinese occupation in Tibet has resulted in a physical and cultural degradation of Tibetan culture. One of the least tangible yet most affective oppressions has been upon …

“For All The Women You Are”: National Identity, Gender, And Tradition/Modernity In Indian Women’S Magazines, Dana Mclachlin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As a remarkably diverse nation of various ethnic, religious, and language groups, “Indian” identity is tenuous and ever-shifting, informed by both India’s colonial past and rapidly changing, ‘globalizing’ present. Economic liberalization within India has created vast economic changes in a relatively short period of time, sparking rapid cultural and social transformations. These changes are especially noticeable within the media, as the idea and figure of the “New Indian Women” was born from the transformations liberalization and globalization brought. This gendered construction serves to manage the conflict between modernity and tradition within post-colonial nationalisms, as the figure of the modern women …

Chicana Aesthetics: A View Of Unconcealed Alterities And Affirmations Of Chicana Identity Through Laura Aguilar’S Photographic Images, Daniel Perez

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

In this paper I will argue that Chicana feminist artist Laura Aguilar, Alma Lopez, Laura Molina, and Yreina D. Cervantez established a continuing counter-narrative of cultural hegemony and Western essentialized hegemonic identification. Through artistic expression they have developed an oppositional discourse that challenges racial stereotypes, discrimination, socio-economic inequalities, political representation, sexuality, femininity, and hegemonic discourse. I will present a complex critique of both art and culture through an inquiry of the production and evaluation of the Chicana feminist artist, their role as the artist, and their contributions to unfixing the traditional and marginalized feminine. I argue that third wave Chicana …

Tiki Kitsch, American Appropriation, And The Disappearance Of The Pacific Islander Body, Daniel Mcmullin

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

After Greenberg's famous analysis of kitsch in terms of aesthetics, Art critic James Gaywood, reasserted the question of kitsch in terms of market. (Gaywood 1997) Here Picasso and cultural appropriation were supplanted by Marcel Duchamp and the readymade. The products of art became completely non-native on all fronts, the world so reflected was postcultural. In that sense, cultural appropriation was no longer an aesthetic, it was a commodity for production, and as much as possible, production by machines. The form of such commodity, of Pacific Islander cultures, was highly variable, from a 17th century English play by John Clarke, to …