Linguistic Anthropology Commons^™

The Automation Of Aesthetics: Artificial Intelligence And Commercial Artists In North Brooklyn, Devin Sudweeks

Theses and Dissertations

Corporate elites expect generative AI to replace commercial artists but overlook their social and aesthetic expertise. This ethnographic study explores how Brooklyn-based commercial artists narrate their value amid automation, emphasizing embodied presence in cultural scenes, visual language, style, and authenticity, skills not easily mechanized but vital to aesthetic economies.

Féminas Speaking Up: Three Papers On Feminine Transgender Identities, Gender Identity Activism, And Language Reform In Lima, Peru, Ernesto Cuba

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this three-paper dissertation, I explore the linguistic and discursive practices of Féminas, a leading transgender rights activist organization based in Lima, Peru. Building on scholarship on language ideologies (Irvine & Gal, 2000), queer linguistics (Motschenbacher, 2011), and socio-onomastics (Ainiala & Östman, 2017), I analyze the role that language beliefs and language-in-use plays in performing local (trans)gender identities and shaping grassroots politics within this specific community of practice (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 1992). Based on an extensive corpus of semi-structured interviews and ethnographic material gathered during my long-term investigation with Féminas, I present three studies exploring distinct –though related– ideologically-driven sociolinguistic …

Prurient Nature: Sex Work And Ethics At The Margins Of Finance, Esra S. Padgett

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an ethnographic and semiotic examination of the relationship between payment processing, transactional technologies, and the US adult industry. Based on twenty-four months of fieldwork in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, and Washington D.C., the dissertation demonstrates that transactional infrastructures, including payment processors, credit card systems, financial institutions like banks, as well as novel technologies like cryptocurrency, have become a key site for an ongoing ethical war around the politics of sex and sex work in the United States. On one hand, ethical fears around sex work have become qualifications for economic exclusion by financial institutions and private …

Language And Gender Dialogue Journal, Sgokcora D. Gokcora

Open Educational Resources

This is an introductory material to get learners oriented on the topic of language and gender.

Language Play And Racial Dysphemism In The Marrakchi Language Space, Spencer Fausel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study seeks to divulge the meaning and popular usage of two phonetically similar yet reportedly distinct dysphemisms spoken and understood in the Marrakchi dialect of Moroccan Arabic (Darija). Darija speakers across the North African lingua-space use the term "qlawi" to denote testicles. In Morocco, speakers utter "qlawi" to express negation or pejorative notions of being, the term commonly wielded to disparage or vituperate a frustrating person or object—drawing connections to the subaltern, the lowly, the destitute, the stupid, the possessionless, and potentially to the racialized (non)object. The word itself can stand as a syntactic substitute for “nothing” in certain …

Representaciones Ideológicas De La Lengua, La Conversación Y La Comunicación En Manuales De Urbanidad Del Siglo Xix En México: Guías Para La Civilización, El Orden Y El Progreso Nacional, Luis B. Quesada Nieto

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study explores the main ideological representations of language, language use, conversation and communication found in a set of five etiquette manuals that were published and used in Mexico during the 19^th century. Following a glottopolitical perspective for the study of normativity, language policies, and sociolinguistic practices, the main hypothesis developed establishes that the ideas about language contained in these texts are strongly connected with the social, political, and economic period in which they are elaborated and enunciated, that is, the moment in which the nation is still defining itself, struggling to consolidate its viability and its value facing …

No Ela Without Ella: Understanding The Naming And Crafting Of Gendered Subjectivities In Puerto Rico, Carmín Quijano Seda

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At the beginning of the 20th century, the official metadiscourses about gendered job titles sedimented the idea that names or indexes pointing to women should be interpreted as unskilled, cheap, or even free labor in Puerto Rico (Azize, 1985; Muñiz Mas, 1998; Baerga-Santini, 1999). For this reason, Puerto Rican women organized and fought for equality in work settings. Furthermore, they became more active in politics and the government. Nevertheless, the Estado Libre Asociado (ELA) and local media discourses and interpretations about women’s labor discouraged them from participating in more senior positions (Acevedo Gaud, 2012).

However, this interpretation seemed to have …

Broadcasting La Presencia Latina: Tracing Identities Across Fields Of Interaction In Rural Minnesota, Anthony J. Harb

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation project traces the concerted efforts of an emergent Latinx immigrant community in Westplain, Minnesota to construct and assert their individual and collective identities within the public sphere through a range of multimodal and face-to-face communicative resources. I address enduring questions within the fields of linguistic anthropology, language education, and Latinx (media) studies through a multi-sited ethnography centered around three focal field sites: (1) a Spanish-language community radio program I call La Gran Comunidad Latina (LGCL); (2) a college-level civic engagement Spanish conversation course titled Noticias Comunitarias (NC) designed and taught in partnership with LGCL; and (3) an antiracist …

“Investment In Inertia”: Language Ideologies Of Instructors And Students Of Spanish As A Heritage Language, Michael E. Rolland

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

When the Spanish-language skills of heritage Spanish learners are disparaged in an academic environment, these learners are at high risk of abandoning further study of Spanish and shifting entirely to English. This dissertation uses mixed qualitative and quantitative research methods, including thematic and discourse analysis, to investigate the language ideologies of instructors and students of Spanish as a heritage language (SHL) and the effects of those ideologies on students’ experiences in SHL college courses. It builds on earlier research on language ideologies in the post-secondary heritage language context (e.g., Carreira, 2011; Loza, 2017; Valdés et al., 2003). I find that …

La Voz De Los Sures: Etnografía Glotopolítica Del Activismo Comunitario, Lara Maria Alonso Pinero

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The relevance of the strategic use of language and communication in the consolidation and action of a political subject has not yet been sufficiently analyzed. Drawing on a glottopolitical perspective, this research project aims to incorporate the object of study of the political dimension of voice and point out the importance of mastering linguistic and discursive practices in community activism. Based on the case of the Latino community of Los Sures in Brooklyn, NY, in this dissertation I embark on a journey through the communicative practices through which a group of people begins to conceive of itself as a community, …

The Making Of A Bilingual University In The 21st Century, Michael Mena

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At the southernmost tip of Texas, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) opened its doors on August 31, 2015 as a ‘bilingual, bicultural, and biliterate’ campus—the only one of its kind and at a scale never before attempted in the United States. This is a categorical achievement in the near 200 year-long quest for the educational advancement of Latinxs in Texas—a state historically structured by white supremacist ideologies, violent economic and political disenfranchisement, as well as a racially segregated education system designed to maintain exploitative labor practices (Montejano 1987; González 1990, 2013, 1999; Blanton 2004). This constitutes the …

Streets Of Grievance: Everyday Poetics And Postcolonial Politics In Urban Algeria, Stephanie Victoria Love

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the intersections of language, settler-colonial and postcolonial politics, and urbanism in North Africa (Algeria). It is an urban and linguistic ethnography of Oran, Algeria’s second-largest city, based on sixteen months of ethnographic, linguistic anthropological, and archival research conducted in Arabic and French. I show how contemporary Oranis mobilize language as a key resource in contemporary urban politics, which are inextricably tied to French colonialism’s material remnants, rubble, and legacies. In contemporary Oran, the connection between the colonial past and the postcolonial present remains palpable, even sixty years after independence; however, while the postcolonial Algerian state has long …

Sacred Music In Colonial Era Hispaniola: The Evangelization Of The Taino People, Tito J. Gutierrez

Student Theses

During the 15th-18th centuries, the major European religious orders; the Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, and Jeronymites, journeyed to the newly colonized American territories in an attempt to convert the multitudes of natives peoples living there. Along with prayer books, crucifixes, and religious images, these missionaries brought sacred European music to American shores in an attempt to attract the native people to the Catholic faith.The use of music as a tool for conversion of native people in places such as Mexico, South America, California, and the South West United States, have been well researched and documented. However, the research of the spiritual …

Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Benefit To Climate-Displaced And Host Communities, Gül Aktürk, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Climate change is borderless, and its impacts are not shared equally by all communities. It causes an imbalance between people by creating a more desirable living environment for some societies while erasing settlements and shelters of some others. Due to floods, sea level rise, destructive storms, drought, and slow-onset factors such as salinization of water and soil, people lose their lands, homes, and natural resources. Catastrophic events force people to move voluntarily or involuntarily. The relocation of communities is a debatable climate adaptation measure which requires utmost care with human rights, ethics, and psychological well-being of individuals upon the issues …

Ant-3700 - Introduction To Anthropology, Igor Pashkovskiy

Open Educational Resources

Movement away from the textbook model has potential to foster equitable access to course materials as well as reduce textbook costs for students. As such, transition to a zero cost/OER classroom included the curation of open access scholarly literature to cover the four-field approach presently taught in introductory anthropology courses.

The Effects Of Media Exposure And Language Attitudes On Grammaticality Judgments, Chun-Yi Peng

Publications and Research

While traditional 1st wave variationist sociolinguists resist citing media exposure as a source of language variation, this experimental study demonstrates that Mainland Mandarin speakers with reported exposure to Taiwanese TV were more likely to rate syntactic constructions found in Taiwanese Mandarin as grammatically acceptable. Data were collected through an online survey consisting of acceptability judgments, written-guise attitude tasks, reported viewing habits, and demographic questions. Principle Component Analysis was deployed to reduce data dimension, which allows for the identification of the key personality traits linked to Taiwanese Mandarin that contribute to the media effects. The results suggest an intertwined relationship in …

Poems To Open Palms: Praise Performance And The State In The Sultanate Of Oman, Bradford J. Garvey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation traces the musical constitution of moral, economic, material, and social relations between rural communities and the state in the Sultanate of Oman. I argue that communities embedded within the authoritarian state hegemony of the Sultanate form and affirm social relations with the state through its embodied proxy, Sultan Qābūs bin Ṣa‘īd Āl Bū Ṣa‘īd, via the reciprocal exchange of state-directed giving and praise poetry responses. The circuit of exchange catalyzes the social production of political legitimacy and ensures continued generous distribution by mythopoetically presenting such cyclicity as resulting from elite and non-elite mutuality. This praise poetry is rendered …

"I Have A Scream" Enunciaciones Disidentes En Torno Al 15m En España, José Del Valle, Natalia Castro Picón

Publications and Research

En este artículo analizaremos el primer Grito Mudo, gesto colectivo de desobediencia realizado por el movimiento de los Indignados en la Puerta del Sol de Madrid en mayo de 2011, como escena glotopolítica. En esta acción, que consistió en que la multitud auto-convocada guardase un minuto de silencio justo antes de la medianoche, cuando entraba en vigor la sentencia que ilegalizaba la concentración, convergen diferentes formas discursivas (que incluyen el lenguaje, el silencio y los cuerpos) que ponen en conflicto los regímenes normativos que limitan el sentido de la participación política y los límites de la democracia. Este tipo de …

The Sound Patterns Of Kachok In The Context Of Bahnaric And North-Bahnaric Studies, Emily L. Olsen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation presents a description of the sound patterns of Kachok, Austroasiatic language spoken in northeastern Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia. The language is spoken by approximately 3000 people and is considered endangered (Simons & Fennig, 2018). Kachok is undocumented, and this dissertation is the first attempt to describe the language and its sound patterns. The goals of this dissertation are twofold: to contribute to linguistics and the science of phonetics and phonological typology, as well as increase the body of work on Austro-Asiatic languages, and to create resources for the Kachok language, culture, and people that have the potential to outlive …

Graphic Representations Of Grammatical Gender In Spanish Language Anarchist Publications, Mariel Mercedes Acosta Matos

Publications and Research

This paper offers a descriptive analysis of the suffixes -@, -x, -e and other orthographic innovations as transgressions to the genderedness of Spanish language. First I discuss the grammatical rules of expressing gender in Spanish and a summary of the ongoing debates concerning linguistic sexism and androcentrism in Spanish language. Then I present some examples of the gender neutral suffixes drawn from articles found in 3 “Do It Yourself” journals published online by three anarchist collectives in Latin America.

Research On Communicative Practices In An Alternative Classroom, Maria Alice Bonilha

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies communications in an alternative classroom in the United States. Using an ethnographic approach and drawing from conversation analysis, the study describes the school’s model of education and analyzes students’ classroom initiations, particularly those in which students responded to the teacher’s question with a question.

L’Agitation Du Quotidien: Une Conversation Sur La Réflexion Ⓐnarchiste Face Au Sexisme Dans La Langue, Mariel Mercedes Acosta Matos, Ernesto Cuba

Publications and Research

Ernesto Cuba interviewe Mariel Acosta au sujet des résultats de son mémoire de master, qui traite des propositions de morphèmes de genre inclusif dans des publications anarchistes de langue espagnole, parmi lesquelles le @, le x et d’autres innovations orthographiques cherchant à contrecarrer le biais androcentré de la langue.

Ernesto Cuba interviews Mariel Acosta about the findings in her master’s thesis, which investigates inclusive gender morphemes in Spanish-language anarchist publications, among which is the use of @, x and other orthographic innovations that seek to challenge the androcentric bias of language.

What Does Silence = Now? An Analysis Of Past And Present Discourse Surrounding Hiv/Aids, Emily A. Moner

Theses and Dissertations

This essay examines how the HIV/AIDS epidemic was first addressed in the context of politics, media and the general public and subsequently how that compares to the ways in which it’s currently being discussed using popular forms of communication such as Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media.

T-Complex Measures In Bilingual Spanish- English And Turkish-German Children And Monolingual Peers, Tanja Rinker, Valerie L. Shafer, Markus Kiefer, Nancy Vidal, Yan H. Yu

Publications and Research

Background Lateral temporal neural measures (Na and T-complex Ta and Tb) of the auditory evoked potential (AEP) index maturation of auditory/speech processing. These measures are also sensitive to language experience in adults. This paper examined neural responses to a vowel sound at temporal electrodes in four- to five-year-old Spanish-English bilinguals and English monolinguals and in five- to six-year-old Turkish-German bilinguals and German monolinguals. The goal was to determine whether obligatory AEPs at temporal electrode sites were modulated by language experience. Language experience was defined in terms of monolingual versus bilingual status as well as the amount and quality of the …

Contesting Victimhood: A Linguistic And Legal Anthropological Analysis Of Defendant Experiences In New York’S Human Trafficking Intervention Courts, Mark T. Romig

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Human Trafficking Intervention Courts (HTICs) have been operating in New York City in an effort to connect victims of human trafficking to treatment programs. Unfortunately, the net that the courts cast was too wide and people who did not identify as victims of human trafficking were coerced into treatment programs that they did not need or want. Through textual discourse analysis and ethnographic observation, this paper explores the contestation of victimhood in HTICs by focusing on the experiences of defendants and how they are perceived by the police, judges, and other agents of the HTICs. Before entering the HTICs, defendants …

Pro-Islamic State Twitter Users In A Post-Suspension Era, Colby Grace

Theses and Dissertations

Twitters efforts to silence pro-IS users has been largely unsuccessful. I apply discourse analysis techniques to better understand why that is. The findings demonstrate that Twitter’s account suspension campaign is outmatched by a community that now values account suspensions as a right of passage. I propose a new method.

Discourses Of "Cruelty-Free" Consumerism: Peta, The Vegan Society And Examples Of Contemporary Activism, Andrea Springirth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper draws upon the principles of critical discourse analysis in order to examine the production of capitalist and consumerist discourses within contemporary nonhuman animal rights activism. The analysis presents evidence to suggest that the discourses being produced via the websites of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and The Vegan Society are consistently being constructed through market-centric ideologies that treat activists mainly as middle-class consumers. This paper argues that the consistent presence of neoliberal discourse signals an instructive entanglement with broader sociopolitical issues. Specifically, there are concerns as to how this discourse relates to what is thought …

The Price Of Cosmopolitanism: Globalization, Class Structure, And Language Endangerment In Shanghai, Fang Xu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Over the last two decades, Shanghai has experienced an unprecedented transformation, as China’s economic globalization and urban expansion have increased rapidly. Looking beyond statistics and architectural spectacles, I examine a seemingly personal choice in Shanghai, speaking Putonghua Mandarin, the official language, or the Shanghai dialect. This study contextualizes the contested urban linguistic space, and illustrates the political, social, and cultural conditions in this China’s globalizing city.

Through archival research, fifty in-depth interviews, two hundred and fifty survey questionnaires, and ethnographic fieldwork in Shanghai in the fall and winter of 2013, I document the impact of three sets of state policies …