Linguistics Commons^™

Experiencias De Discriminación Lingüística En Contra De Inmigrantes De Primera Generación En El Paso, Tx, Maria Asuncion Gutierrez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

El poder simbólico del idioma, la racialización y la discriminación lingüística, no sólo afectan la forma en que las personas son tratadas dentro de una sociedad, también influencian la identidad de éstas y la manera en que son tratadas como parte de un determinado grupo. Este estudio revela las diferentes formas en que el idioma inglés es usado como poder simbólico en contra de la gente, racializándola y discriminándola porque no lo habla o lo habla con acento mexicano, ejerciendo de esta manera violencia simbólica. En este sentido, las/los inmigrantes de primera generación que no saben hablar inglés o lo …

Second Language Gesture And Acculturation In Study Abroad Contexts, Christie Marie Gardner

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Motivationis an integral part of learning; Gestures are an important aspect of human communication, and culture plays a significant role in shaping all of these human elements. This study explores the relationship betweensocial, cultural-historical activityand second language(L2) gesture acquisitionas student motivations both drive, and emanate from, the L2 learning process. Six American students participating in a study-abroad program in Chile were evaluated at three different levels of L2 proficiency (beginning, intermediate, and advanced) for L2 gesture articulations and motivational developments. During the semester-long investigation, three audio-video recorded interviews were conducted to observe L2 gestural behaviors, and two e-mail logs were …

“We Give Way:” 6 Narratives Of The Academic Negotiation Between English And Afrikaans At The University Of Stellenbosch, Alexis K. Boyer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The negotiations between the African National Congress (ANC) and the National Party in 1992 led to the creation of South Africa’s eleven national languages including English and Afrikaans. This paper discusses the intricate relationship between these two languages at the University of Stellenbosch. This project attempts to understand how undergraduate and postgraduate students have negotiated the rise of English as a universal academic language and the maintenance of Afrikaans as Stellenbosch’s core language of instruction. The project works to determine how students view the changes to the policy and how those changes affect them, looking particularly at the effect of …

Beliefs In Action: Ideologies, Motivations, And Capital Among English As A Second Language Learners, Damon Lasiter

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Language learning motivations among immigrants are tied - via language ideologies - to socio-economic position, social networks, and problems encountered by the language learners in their everyday lives. Research into immigrants' reasons for language learning has often overlooked these factors (see Klassen & Burnaby, 1993, and Norton, 1995), but I offer in this thesis that the above factors are foundations for many immigrants' language ideologies - beliefs that people have about language. These language ideologies are, in turn, the foundations upon which one's motivations to learn a language are based. Using a Bourdieuvian paradigm, where inequitable positions of power exist …

The Lived Experiences Of Native Louisiana French Speakers Entering English-Only Elementary Schools In Lower Bayou Lafourche, Jolynda H. Strandberg

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to investigate the lived experiences of native Louisiana French speakers entering English-only elementary schools in lower Bayou Lafourche, Louisiana. Native Louisiana French speakers entering English-only elementary school was defined as those whose home language was Louisiana French prior to entering elementary school. While language attrition for non-English speakers and Louisiana French culture had been explored, the in depth, lived experiences of native Louisiana French speakers entering English elementary schools were unexplored (Blyth, 1997; Ryon, 2002; Sexton, 2000). Understanding how entering English-only schools affects student perceptions and identity was important in determining school …

Gotcha: What Social Activists Can Learn From Pranksters, Janet M. Bing

English Faculty Publications

It is unfortunate that, even today, feminist messages too often go unheard and feminist issues are too often dismissed by mainstream audiences, partly because feminists continue to be stereotyped as angry and humorless. Yet some social activists use pranks to draw attention to important issues because humor is one strategic way to send messages about sexism to those who may discount ideas presented in a more direct manner. Although there have been relatively few successful feminist pranksters, humor is increasingly being used to convey women's issues in a growing number of feminist blogs and videos. This essay explores pranking and …

Just Sing What You Want To Say: The Importance Of Linguistic Tone In Bai Songs, Lisa Andrews

Masters Theses

The Bai people, a minority group in the People's Republic of China numbering at least 1.6 million, live mostly in the Dali Autonomous Prefecture in northwest Yunnan. Historically, Bai from the central region would gather annually at the base of Shibaoshan Mountain to sing partner style love songs in search for a suitable marriage partner; today, this time is marked by a three-day festival officially titled "Shibaoshan." The annual song competition invites skilled singers to spontaneously compose melodies in response to their counterpart, crafting lyrics to flatter or tease their singing partner. The study quantifies the close relationship between Bai …

Is Spanish-English Bilingualism Truly An Economic Benefit In New York?, Lionel Chan

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report explores if there is truly a trend in income levels for Latinos who speak both English and Spanish compared to those of Latinos who speak English only in New York City.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: When taking into account language variables to analyze the income levels of Latinos, one notices a minor difference between bilingual Latinos and …

The Hegemony Of English In South African Education, Kelsey E. Figone

Scripps Senior Theses

The South African Constitution recognizes 11 official languages and protects an individual’s right to use their mother-tongue freely. Despite this recognition, the majority of South African schools use English as the language of learning and teaching (LOLT). Learning in English is a struggle for many students who speak indigenous African languages, rather than English, as a mother-tongue, and the educational system is failing its students. This perpetuates inequality between different South African communities in a way that has roots in the divisions of South Africa’s past. An examination of the power of language and South Africa’s experience with colonialism and …

American Sueño: Hispanic Immigrants' Cultural Adaptation In American Small Cities, Tatiana Almeida

Masters Theses

This study investigated certain aspects of the cross-cultural adaptation process of Spanish-speaking Hispanic immigrants residing in small cities in the United States. Using Young Yun Kim's cross-cultural adaptation theory as a theoretical framework, the researcher investigated the journey those sojourners undergo and how their cultural identities are shaped throughout the process. The two questions that guided the research were: (1) What are the difficulties that Hispanics that migrate to small cities in the United States encounter? (2) What are the mechanisms (media usage, language acquisition, habits, life style etc.) utilized by them in order to adapt to the new environment? …

You Sir Are A Fine Young Gentleman. Thank You, My Lady: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Eighteenth Century Conversations Regarding Gentility And Gender, Kati Overbey

Masters Theses

This study rhetorically analyzed the eighteenth century work of Richard Steele and Joseph Addison's The Spectator and Eliza Haywood's The Female Spectator using Kathleen Turner's framework for rhetorical history as social criticism integrating text and context. Ten essays from The Spectator as well as ten essays from The Female Spectator were selected based on content and subject matter regarding manners and gentility. When Turner's framework for analysis was applied to the essays, defining characteristics of gentility were revealed. A presentation of the results of the textual and contextual analysis of these twenty selected essays is provided. An analysis of the …

English-Only Policy And Belief In The United States, Lauren E. White

Honors Theses and Capstones

English-Only initiatives are commonplace in the United States. Proponents of Official English would like to make the official language of the United States English despite the prestige English already has in the United States. The motivations behind this movement are varied and have substantial effects on the opinion of the American population. This paper examines a group of American residents in the Northeast, aged 18 and older. States considered Northeastern in this study are Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. The survey distributed contains questions on the topic of English- only issues, …

Serbian/Albanian Bilingualism In Kosova: Reversal Or Entrenchment Of The Curse Of Babel?, Sarah Littisha Jansen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Dynamics of power between multiple languages in one space are indicative of and inform the relationship between the speakers of those languages. In post-conflict Kosova, two ethno-linguistic groups, Kosovar Serbians and Kosovar Albanians, live in a context where language has become politicized and long-standing linguistic, political, and social hierarchies of power have been radically disturbed. This paper describes the myriad of images of the Serbian language in the country, focusing particularly on those that come from the Serbian/Albanian bilingual Kosovar Albanian community. It then discusses how these inform language as a political tool and what the consequences of this are …

Choice, Coercion, Capabilities And Conflict: Multilingualism, Human Development And Peacekeeping In A Globalized World, Megan R. Thompson

Honors Projects

The development of English into an international lingua franca is not an inevitable result of globalizing forces. Instead, the “triumph” of the English language and the consequent decline of the world’s linguistic diversity cannot be viewed in isolation of its parallel history of conquest, violence, power and exploitation. Today, the languages privileged by the powerful—not only English, but also other dominant languages or standard varieties of those languages—determine access to social, economic and political mobility. This fact renders any discussion of language “choice” irrelevant—when a choice yields the sacrifice of basic human capabilities on one hand and the denial of …

Cultural Brokering And Bicultural Identity: An Exploratory Study, Jorida Cila, Richard Lalonde, Zohrah Haqanee

Western Migration Conference Series

Abstract: Cultural brokering refers to a process where individuals mediate between two parties that are experiencing some type of cultural misunderstanding. Our exploratory study indicates that cultural brokering is a diverse experience that spans the boundaries of one’s family and includes various norms, values and traditions.

Sociolinguistics Barriers: Constructing And Reproducing Temporary Migrants' Social Inequalities, Maria Eugenia De Luna Villalón

Western Migration Conference Series

This study explores the sociolinguistic barriers that Mexican Agricultural Temporary Workers (MATW) experience during their temporary stays in Canada. Following an ethnographic approach, some of the findings were that the sociolinguistic barriers lead to sociolinguistic dependency, increasing and perpetuating human and social inequalities of the MATW.

The Challenge Of Successful Integration For Francophone Immigrants Within Minority Communities, Suzanne N. Huot, Belinda Dodson, Debbie Rudman

Western Migration Conference Series

A critical ethnography was undertaken to explore the integration experiences of French-speaking newcomers from visible minority groups residing with the London, Ontario Francophone minority community. Findings highlight a complex negotiation process involving learning the tacit social norms characterizing the host society.

Representations Of English In France: Conflict And Opportunity In Language And Identity, Matt Brauer '11

Honor Scholar Theses

It is not hard to find English spoken in France. Amid the blue and white signs announcing different RER lines in the Paris metro, one announces: “RER A: Destination Dreams,” pointing the way to EuroDisney. Behind the lines of waiting passengers, billboards hang against the white-tiled walls. An advertising campaign for a French car maker announces a “Baby Boom chez Renault,” two well-known French soccer players pose in Nike track jackets next to the words “V is for Victory. By Claude Makele and Hatem Ben Arfa,” and a fruit juice company promises “Happy Fruit Moments,” recommending “Remixez votre After Work.” …

Talking Masturbation: Men, Women, And Sexuality Through Playful Discourse, Geoffrey Evans-Grimm

Honors Projects

This study seeks to understand the relationship between talking about masturbation and masturbation as an everyday practice in the United States. This essay is arranged in terms of a number of overlapping sections that converge to offer a clearer interpretive context for a discussion of the results of the questionnaire and interview data. The first part of my essay is an attempt to make sense of the cultural history and to situate conceptions about masturbation and attempts to regulate it up to present day. Then, as a gendered talk, it is necessary to engage in a theoretical discussion of gender …

Análisis De “Proyecto Mirlo”: Aprendiendo A Acoger Al “Desconocido”, Abigail Bissette

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

During the fall and early winter of this year, I volunteered with a program called, “Proyecto Mirlo,” which is a small part of a larger organization, “Caritas,” whose focus is providing support to marginalized groups of people in Spanish society. Proyecto Mirlo is a subsection that provides free language classes for immigrants, as well as food and, in extreme cases, financial help. In my volunteer work, I taught basic Spanish classes to an eighteen-year-old immigrant from Senegal. As my student grew in his language proficiency, I grew in my teaching proficiency, especially on the discovery of teaching resources that I …

Redefining Nairobi's Streets: Study Of Slang, Marginalization, And Identity, Mungai Mutonya

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

This study attempts an analysis of a restructured Swahili variety spoken by Nairobi's street community: Kinoki. Adapting tools of sociolinguistic inquiry and focusing on Kinoki's divergence from the dominant urban slang, Sheng, the study discusses attitudes toward divergent terms referencing the street community, street activities, and law enforcement officials. Results indicate that street children, unlike their school-going peers living in the city's low-income neighborhoods, redefine pejoratives that devalue and stigmatize street people and their lifestyle. Instead, Kinoki empowers the marginalized community to construct a positive identity, to ameliorate representations of street lifestyle, and to redefine neologisms that reference in-group ( …

How Esol Teachers Become Aware Of Communicative Peace, Josette Leblanc

MA TESOL Collection

This paper examines the implications that the relationship between teacher language awareness and communicative peace may have on educational programs for teachers of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL). The evaluation begins by analyzing proposals set out by the applied peace linguist Francisco Gomes de Matos, who suggests that ESOL teachers should teach communicative peace as an element of communicative competence, and also that education programs should provide training to support this approach. By juxtaposing current literature on structural and linguistic violence with Gomes de Matos' classroom techniques, the hypothesis is made that teachers who would teach communicative peace …

Discursive Construction Of Identities Of Young Homosexual Males., Zainon Shamsudin

Student Works (2010-2019)

This dissertation reports a study addressing the issue of identity construction of four young Malay homosexual men in Malaysia.  Through their narrative discourse of their life experiences and aspirations, this study explores these participants‟ linguistic repertoire and discursive strategies in the formation, negotiation, and establishment of their identities. The narrative data were gathered through a semi-structured interview-cum-conversation which allowed the participants to express sentiments about their lives in a heterosexual dominated society.  Using an adapted framework of discourse-historical approach of Critical Discourse Analysis proposed by Reisigl and Wodak (2009), this study analyzed the participants‟ emergent language use and discursive strategies …

Ciri-Ciri Wacana Penjaga Di Rumah Warga Emas., Yaw Yee Peng

Student Works (2010-2019)

This study looks at the features of the discourse in a home for elderly residents. It also determines if the care-takers use elderspeak while communicating with the residents and determines the features of elderspeak in the discourse of the care-takers. The respondents consist of 12 care-takers and 23 elderly residents. Audio-recordings, observation and field notes were the instruments used for data collection and this was for a duration of 270 hours. The analysis shows that elderspeak exists in the discourse of the care-takers. The features of elderspeak included ‘questions structures’, ‘repetitions’, ‘limited vocabulary’, ‘simple syntax’ and ‘patronizing code’. It was …

The Influence Of Family Structure And The Role Of Siblings On Early Language Development Of Latino Preschool Children, Eduardo Aguiles Ortiz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between family structure including family size, number of parents at home, and presence of an older sibling at home, and the language development of young Latino children. I used data from the Head Start--Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) year 2000, which included information on 746 Latino preschool children and their families in different Head Start programs nationwide. A subgroup of 369 children were identified as English-language learners (ELL) because they were determined to be primarily Spanish speaking. Some of the findings indicate that more than two thirds of children …

The Language Of Consent In Police Encounters, Janice Nadler, J.D. Trout

Faculty Working Papers

In this chapter, we examine the nature of conversations in citizen-police encounters in which police seek to conduct a search based on the citizen's consent. We argue that when police officers ask a person if they can search, citizens often feel enormous pressure to say yes. But judges routinely ignore these pressures, choosing instead to spotlight the politeness and restraint of the officers' language and demeanor. Courts often analyze the language of police encounters as if the conversation has an obvious, context-free meaning. The pragmatic features of language influence behavior, but courts routinely ignore or deny this fact. Instead, current …

The Coke Side Of Life:An Exploration Of Pre-Schoolers' Constructions Of Product And Selves Through Talk-In-Interaction Around Coca-Cola, Olivia Freeman

Articles

Abstract Purpose – This paper proposes the activity-based focus group as a useful method with which to generate talk-in-interaction among pre-schoolers. Analytically, it aims to illustrate, how transcribed talk-in-interaction can be subjected to a discourse analytic lens, to produce insights into how pre-schoolers use ‘Coca-Cola’ as a conversational resource with which to build product-related meanings and social selves. Design/methodology/approach - Fourteen activity-based discussion groups with pre-schoolers aged between two and five years have been conducted in a number of settings including privately run Montessori schools and community based preschools in Dublin. The talk generated through these groups has been transcribed …

Code-Switching Among Tunisian Women And Its Impact On Identity, Krista Moore

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

When France made Tunisia a protectorate in 1881, they introduced language policies that established French as the language of the public sphere and restricted Arabic to religion and the home. Until Tunisian independence in 1956, French was officially the language of social and economic mobility and even after the establishment of the republic French persisted unofficially as the language of the public sphere. It maintained this role despite the establishment of Arabic as the official language and the ultimately failed policies of Arabization. This study will focus on code-switching in Tunisia, or the habitual switching between French and Arabic that …

Does Verbal Communication Impairment Affect Quality Of Life In Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Patients?, Jason Michael Duff

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the self-perceived QOL in ALS patients. Literature will be presented on the incidence, prevalence, prognosis, diagnosis and management of ALS, QOL studies for ALS, the role of the multidisciplinary team, the impairments and dysfunction that ALS patients experience, communication issues, and the development of ALS specific instruments to measure QOL. The "bulbar dysfunction" that ALS patients experience in salivation management, speech, and swallowing were examined in detail. The objectives of this research study were to investigate the following hypotheses: 1. QOL will differ among ALS patients with varying levels of speech, swallowing, …

The Development Of Bilingual Education In Berlin’S Primary Schools, Elizabeth Buckley

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The debate on language education is flourishing in the current state of globalization and immigration. The rising amount of globalization has increased the amount of linguistic diversity present in one’s everyday life. There are between 6,000 and 7,000 languages in the world and half of them are in danger of disappearing. Therefore, it is becoming more common for the presence of many different linguistic groups within one country. For instance, in Indonesia, there are over 700 languages spoken. Although, the distribution of languages is not equal, it is nearly impossible to go through life without being exposed to another language …