Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Institution
- Publication
Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
When Errors Aren't: How Comprehenders Selectively Violate Binding Theory, Shayne Sloggett
When Errors Aren't: How Comprehenders Selectively Violate Binding Theory, Shayne Sloggett
Doctoral Dissertations
It has been claimed that comprehenders use the Binding Theory (Chomsky, 1986) to restrict the search for a reflexive’s antecedent in early stages of comprehension (Dillon, Mishler, Sloggett, & Phillips, 2013; Sturt, 2003; Nicol & Swinney, 1989) However, recent findings challenge this view, demonstrating that comprehenders occasionally access antecedents on the basis of their match with a reflexive’s morphosyntactic features (Chen, Jäger, & Vasishth, 2012; Patil, Lewis, & Vasishth, 2016, Parker, & Phillips, 2017). In this dissertation, I investigate the source of this ’grammatical fallibility’ in the real-time application of Principle A of the Binding Theory. Specifically, I ask whether …
Retrieval Processes In Subject-Verb Agreement Computation, Nathaniel James Eversole
Retrieval Processes In Subject-Verb Agreement Computation, Nathaniel James Eversole
Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations
An important question in psycholinguistics is how subject-verb agreement is computed. One recent proposal is that memory retrieval processes play a key role in subject-verb agreement during sentence comprehension (Wagers et al., 2009). This model holds that when an agreeing verb (e.g., praise-s/-Ø; was/were) is encountered, a search is initiated through the memory representation of the sentence for a noun phrase (NP) with matching agreement features. When a controlling subject with matching features is available, the search ends successfully. However, in instances of a mismatch with this subject, the mechanism may (incorrectly) satisfy the agreement requirements of the verb with …
“A Show About Language”: A Linguistic Investigation Of The Creation Of Humor In Seinfeld, Lindsey N. King
“A Show About Language”: A Linguistic Investigation Of The Creation Of Humor In Seinfeld, Lindsey N. King
Undergraduate Honors Theses
This study investigates the creation of humor in the dialog of the television sit-com Seinfeld to gain a deeper understanding of humor techniques in a long format. By analyzing six episodes of the series, it is seen that the Incongruity Theory of Humor, violations of Grice’s maxims of the Cooperative Principle, and perspective clashes (such as miscommunications) are essential to the humor throughout each episode.
Cross-Linguistic Phonosemantics, Raleigh Anne Butler
Cross-Linguistic Phonosemantics, Raleigh Anne Butler
Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects
No abstract provided.
U Wot M8?: American And British Attitudes Toward Regional British Accents, Alison Smith
U Wot M8?: American And British Attitudes Toward Regional British Accents, Alison Smith
Scripps Senior Theses
This research examines the relationship between British accents and their stereotypes. It looks specifically at the ratings of British and American subjects for a variety of British regional and standard accents, and examines them in contrast with observed stereotypes about these accents. The purpose of this paper is to compare the reactions of British and American participants in order to understand whether the stereotypes associated with these accents are purely socially constructed by British society, or whether qualities of each accent support these stereotypes. Results found a similar trend in the ratings of both American and British participants, though it …
The Reflection And Reification Of Racialized Language In Popular Media, Kelly E. Wright
The Reflection And Reification Of Racialized Language In Popular Media, Kelly E. Wright
Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics
This work highlights specific lexical items that have become racialized in specific contextual applications and tests how these words are cognitively processed. This work presents the results of a visual world (Huettig et al 2011) eye-tracking study designed to determine the perception and application of racialized (Coates 2011) adjectives. To objectively select the racialized adjectives used, I developed a corpus comprised of popular media sources, designed specifically to suit my research question. I collected publications from digital media sources such as Sports Illustrated, USA Today, and Fortune by scraping articles featuring specific search terms from their websites. This experiment seeks …
Language, Rhetoric, And Politics In A Global Context: A Decolonial Critical Discourse Perspective On Nigeria’S 2015 Presidential Campaign, Yunana Ahmed
Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports
In this dissertation, I conceptualize a rhetorical and linguistic analysis of politics from a decolonial framework (Mignolo, 2011; Smith, 2012). My analysis draws on classical rhetoric (Aristotle, 2007), cultural rhetoric (Mao, 2014; Powell, et al., 2014; Yankah, 1995), and linguistics (Chilton, 2004) to reveal the different ways ideological and hegemonic struggles are discursively constructed in Nigerian political campaign discourse. The data for this study come from two speeches delivered by former President of Nigeria Goodluck Jonathan during the 2015 electoral campaign. This includes his declaration-of-intent speech and his speech marking the commencement of his formal campaign activities. My …