Linguistics Commons^™

An Analysis Of Tone Perception Differences Of Native English Speakers Between Beijing And Taiwan Accented Mandarin Chinese, Tehya Banach , '26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

Indigenous And Online: Implications For Contemporary Zapotec Language Acquisition And Heritage Learning In Central Oaxaca, Esénia Bañuelos , '26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

Within the Indigenous communities of the United States and Mexico, combating language loss in a moment of exponential language loss is one of working in conjunction with contemporary tools – or creating the future of language preservation itself from them. Technological advances of the 21st century– including the expansion of instant messaging, video streaming, and photography sharing platforms– have sometimes been considered antithetical to language reclamation practices and Indigenous cultural maintenance more generally (Chibrow and Meighan-Chibrow, 2021; Warschauer, 1998). One example of this is made visible in concerns expressed by First Nations Elders in that technology may be depended upon …

Colonial Christianity: The Language Of Evangelization Through The Levanto 1766 Joyful Mysteries Of The Rosary Poems, Lillian E. Chan , '26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

This thesis presents a translation from Colonial Valley Zapotec to English of the five poems based on the biblical Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary found in the 1766 Christian catechism attributed to Dominican friar Leonardo Levanto. I analyze the construction of the linguistic strategies revealed by the translation (periphrasis, semantic bifurcation, neologisms, calques, and metaphors) as well as examine the extent to which these constructions were poetic innovations versus drawing on already-established language. Together, the translation and analysis of the Levanto (1766) Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary poems illustrate how language was used as a tool for evangelization in colonial …

¿Soy Bilingüe? ¡Soy Bilingüe!: How Bilingual Proficiency Influences Code Switching, Natalie S. Cortez , '26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

Postcolonial Policies And Practices Towards Language In Algeria And Côte D’Ivoire, Charlotte Anne Dutcher , '26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

This thesis discusses language policies and practices in Algeria and Côte d’Ivoire. These two countries were both colonized by France in the 19th century, and under their rule, French was enforced as an official language across French colonies. After their respective decolonizations in the mid-20th century, Algeria and Côte d’Ivoire diverged in their language policies. Côte d’Ivoire kept French as an official language, and Algeria instead chose Arabic, pursuing a national policy of Arabization. This thesis aims to analyze the factors contributing to these differing policies, while also addressing the language practices, and how they vary from the policies. To …

Mama, Appa, And Titi: What Makes Words Sound Parental? A Phonological Exploration Of Parental Terms In And Beyond The Gender Binary, Madeleine C. S. Kruckemeye , '26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

This paper addresses the following research question: What phonological components make a word sound ‘parental’ cross-linguistically and (how) do those components relate to the social genders associated with the word? The goal in answering this question is to extend Jakobson (1960) and Murdock’s (1959) work to be inclusive of our current understanding of gender and gender roles, and to create more options for queer parents and other families that are recognizable as parental terms, an important factor as found by Frank et al. (2017). The research consists of a literature review, an analysis of cross-linguistic parental terms, and an online …

Between Opposite And Unity: A Cross-Linguistic Study Of Contranyms In Classical Chinese, German, And English, Che Lu , '26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

This thesis aims to contribute to the study of contranyms — a special kind of polysemy where one word, character, or even morpheme, has two contradictory meanings — from a comparative perspective by examining representative examples in Classical Chinese, English, and German, with a brief consideration of the absence of such phenomena in Modern Chinese. With the help of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and Hegelian dialectics, this study will analyze how such words encode semantic dialectics and the evolution of meaning.

The selection of these three languages reflects their distinct typologies and approaches to meaning formation. Classical Chinese, as an …

“He’S Here, He’S Not Queer”: The Indexical Potential Of Pronoun Use On American Drag Reality Television, Finn Verdonk , '26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

When English speakers talk about drag performers, what factors impact the pronoun that is used? Pulling data from two seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race (Season 4 and Season 14) and one season of Dragula (Season 5), this thesis attempts to understand the ways in which drag performers use pronouns in discourse about fellow drag performers. Building from Myers’s 2018 proposal that using he/him pronouns for drag queens can index shadiness or criticism, I expand her sample to see if her findings hold up over time and across franchises. I find that he/him pronouns on RPDR no longer index shadiness and …

What’S In A Name (Order): Linguistic And Extralinguistic Constraints In Fandom Ship Names, Glory Zhang , '26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

Learning New Neopronouns Or Task Adaptation?, Emilia Pike-Acosta , '25, Juyeon Seo , '25, Vic Wen ,'26, Finn Verdonk , '26, Kirby Conrod

Linguistics Faculty Works

English neopronouns have been reported difficult to learn or use because of their low frequency, and because pronouns are a closed category, and are rated below ceiling in acceptability surveys. Hekanaho (2022) reports that metalinguistic commentary about neopronouns includes themes of prescriptivism, unfamiliarity, ‘weirdness,’ and confusion. In this study, we examine whether exposure to neopronouns during a survey increased acceptability ratings. Neopronouns were rated higher when seen later in the survey. We analyze metalinguistic comments from the survey in which participants report their experiences in the survey as educational or instructive, suggesting that some order effects may be reflective of …

Space And Attention In The Kyrgyz Demonstrative System, E. Ótott-Kovács, T. Kubatova, H. Saunders, Jonathan North Washington

Linguistics Faculty Works

Based on novel empirical work on the Kyrgyz (Turkic) nine-term demonstrative system, this paper investigates the spatial uses of demonstratives and the relationship between demonstratives' attention-drawing and spatial denotations, which has been a fundamental question for the study of demonstrative semantic content (Skilton 2019, Levinson 2018). While Kyrgyz, similarly to Turkish (Küntay & Özyürek 2002, 2006), appears to have a specialized attention-drawing demonstrative indicating that attention-drawing and spatial denotations can be entirely distinct, careful elicitations reveal that attention drawing is derived from a (joint-attention) sociocentric distal meaning.

Minimal Wordlist Size For A Phonological Profile: New Evidence From Kra-Dai Languages, Kanyarin Boonkongchuen , '25, Rikker Dockum

Linguistics Faculty Works

This study replicates, and extends to Kra-Dai languages, earlier work on minimal wordlist size needed to make a phonological profile of a language. Previous work on Australian languages recommended approximately 400 randomly sampled words to comprise a minimally complete profile in terms of reliably capturing every phoneme, and with accurate distribution. We survey 55 Kra-Dai languages to show that a longer minimal list is necessary, which we attribute to typological differences like larger consonant/vowel inventories. Given the widespread use of short wordlists in fieldwork, these results hold significance for designing language documentation surveys as well as projects that use legacy …

Spoken Melodies: A Black Languaging Ela Curriculum, Taylor Gray , '26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

An Approach Designed To Fail Deaf Children And Their Parents And How To Change It, T. Humphries, G. Mathur, Donna Jo Napoli, C. Rathmann

Linguistics Faculty Works

The matter of raising and educating deaf children has been caught up in percepts of development that are persistently inaccurate and at odds with scientific research. These percepts have negatively impacted the health and quality of life of deaf children and deaf people in general. The all too prevalent advice is to raise the child strictly orally and wait to see what happens. Only when the child is seriously behind is a completely accessible language – a sign language – introduced, and that is far too late for protecting cognitive health. The medical profession, along with others, needs to offer …

Minimal Wordlist Size For A Phonological Profile: New Evidence From Kra-Dai Languages, Kanyarin Boonkongchuen , '25

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

This study replicates, and extends to Kra-Dai languages, earlier work on minimal wordlist size needed to make a phonological profile of a language. Previous work on Australian languages recommended approximately 400 randomly sampled words to comprise a minimally complete profile in terms of reliably capturing every phoneme, and with accurate distribution. We survey 55 Kra-Dai languages to show that a longer minimal list is necessary, which we attribute to typological differences like larger consonant/vowel inventories. Given the widespread use of short wordlists in fieldwork, these results hold significance for designing language documentation surveys as well as projects that use legacy …

Sound Symbolism Of Vowel Metaphors In Choral Pedagogy, Olivia A. Colace , '25

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

Singers face the daunting task of learning how to precisely control parts of their body that they cannot see. As a result, vocal pedagogy relies heavily on metaphorical language. This thesis will investigate 10 such adjectives used to describe, teach, and elicit vowel sounds in choral singing: “bright”, “dark”, “wide”, “narrow”, “open”, “closed”, “warm”, “harsh”, “rich”, and “thin.” This thesis seeks to discover if these vowel metaphors have specific acoustic and thus corresponding articulatory correlates in a sound symbolic capacity. A survey was conducted to assess judgments of sung vowels with respect to each vowel metaphor. Judgments were analyzed with …

A Step Into Khmer’S Double Negation Mystery: Clause-Final Marker ទេ[Te:] As Negative Polarity Focus, Panhavoan Reth , '25

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

In Khmer, basic negation is formed using two negation elements: the preverbal marker មិន [mɨn] and the clause-final marker ទេ[te:]. However, there are cases where [te:] is optional with the utterance still retaining its negative meaning; when it is present, it is claimed that the utterance can have two readings: plain negation and emphatic negation (Saparova, 2020). Thus, there is speculation as to what function [te:] serves and what it contributes to the semantic meaning of a sentence. This thesis examines the optionality of [te:] through the lens of polarity focus, drawing on Wilder’s (2013) and Goodhue’s (2018, 2022) observations. …

Yiddish Intelligibility Retention Across The Jewish Diaspora: A Comparison Between Argentina And The U.S., Shannon R. Friel , '24

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

U.S. Ashkenazi Jews may call their grandma “bubbe” ([bʊbi]) in Yiddish, but in Argentina they usually call her “bobe” ([βoβe]). Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants brought Yiddish to the U.S. and Argentina, where the language was exposed to English and Spanish and Yiddish speakers lost touch with each other as they assimilated to different cultures far away from one another. This study attempts to answer whether English-Yiddish speakers can understand Yiddish words as produced by a Spanish-Yiddish speaker. U.S. participants completed a perception test, listening to a list of 20 words gathered from two Argentinian consultants and answering a series of questions …

The Sound Of Dzongkha: Recent Changes To Its Tonal Paradigm, Qiyou (Ark) Lu , '24

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

This thesis explores the evolving phonetics and phonology of Dzongkha, a Tibetic language spoken in Bhutan, a small landlocked country in the eastern Himalayas, with a particular focus on the transformation of its tonal system over the past three decades. The country has seen noticeable changes to its official language in recent decades due to language policies and migration. This research aims to provide an updated analysis of the language's sound system based on newly collected field data.

The study covers various aspects of Dzongkha’s sound system, including its vowel and consonant inventories, phonotactics and tones. In particular, the language …

Floor Organization In Dungeons And Dragons, Arlowe E. Willingham , '24

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

The floor as a concept of conversational organization is investigated in the context of the tabletop gaming environment Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). Building from Carole Edelsky’s 1981 article “Who’s Got the Floor”, I recorded and analyzed one online D&D session to explore collaborative characteristics of floor organization in a recreational, social, entertainment-focused game environment. Due to the unique power dynamic established by the role of Dungeon Master (DM) in a D&D game, a comparison is made to classroom environments to investigate similarities between the floor organization of teachers in academic settings. I observe how the environment of D&D promotes traits …

Beyond The Binary: L1 Strategies For Spoken Non-Binary French, Kate Carlyle , '24

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

French, like other Romance languages, operates on a largely binary morphological gender system, leading to many potential linguistic complications when it is used to index social genders that fall outside of said binary (Michele 2016, Kaplan 2022). Certain morphosyntactic features of French specifically make accomplishing many non-binary (NB) marking strategies in speech all the more challenging. This paper presents an interview-based study conducted with 7 L1 French speakers living in France to assess what strategies are most commonly used in practice to describe a non-binary referent in speech. Through an elicitation exercise that prompted speakers to describe various stick figure-based …

Requirement Of Variable-Introducing Elements On Event Quantification In Chinese: A Case Study Of 每 Měi–Vp Sentences, Guilherme Zeus Dantas E Moura , '24

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

Cov And Underspecified Nouns: A Syntactic And Semantic Analysis Of Hmong Classifiers, William L. Ball , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

Hmong nominal classifiers are quite complex. One clear rule however is that double classifiers are not allowed. Surprisingly, then, there is a double classifier construction involving the classifier cov and underspecified nouns that appears to break these rules. The goal of this thesis is to resolve this problem, syntactically and semantically modeling Hmong classifiers along the way. After giving background on the literature on Hmong classifiers, I develop a syntactic model for Hmong classifiers based on the Minimalist Program and Distributed Morphology, and use Link’s semantic model of plurality to make sure the syntactic model works out semantically. Then I …

Testing Current Theories Of Auxiliary Selection In German Verbs Of Motion On A 19th Century Corpus, Anna G. Karpowicz , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

German verbs of motion can use either the perfect auxiliary sein ‘to be’ or the perfect auxiliary haben ‘to have’. It has been posited that the auxiliary selection in these types of verbs is linked to the presence of a [locomotion] feature, sein ‘to be’ occurring with [+locomotion] and haben ‘to have’ occurring with [- locomotion]. Lewandowski (2018) uses empirical data from contemporary German to argue that there is further distinction than previously thought, namely that within the manner-of-motion verb category, non-directional motion verbs and directional motion verbs diverge in auxiliary selection when the [-locomotion] feature is present. I am …

Indefinite Nps With Creative- And Destructive-Type Verbs In Mandarin Ba Construction, Sijia (Ella) Wei , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

The ba construction in Mandarin is a widely studied topic. It is generally established that ba constructions can only be used with definite or bare ba NPs. This thesis, however, provides the first systematic exploration of the varying behaviors of ba construction with indefinite NPs. It explores ba construction’s preferences further from the angle of presuppositionality of indefinite ba NPs in the context of creative-type and destructive-type verbs, attempting to generalize the exceptions to ba construction’s rejection of indefinite NPs. Specifically, I propose that while ba sentences with creative-type verbs reject indefinite ba NPs, such sentences are acceptable with destructive-type …

Quaker Interpretation: The Role Of Communication And Identity In The Production Of Quaker Values, Katalina I. Kastrong , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

In this thesis, I examine the shift in Quaker language use over time, focusing on the formation of group identity, the accessibility of Quaker language, and legacy and silence in a history of racial discrimination. These aspects of Quaker practice are crucial in addressing concerns about inclusivity and justice work, providing the potential for greater metalinguistic intentionality. My research analyzes language's role in shaping such attitudes, beliefs, and action. I examine seventeenth century Quakers’ use of Quaker Plain Speech (QPS), observing that the progression towards modern Quaker language is uneven among these three areas of focus. I claim that these …

Relevance And Turn-Taking In Cross-Modal Computer-Mediated Communication: A Case Study Of Online Live Streaming Platforms, Qingyun (Catherine) Wang , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

Translanguaging Or Code-Switching?: A Case Study Of Multilingual Activities In College-Level Mandarin And Japanese Classrooms, Huayu Liu , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

Classroom translanguaging has recently gained popularity in ESL and foreign language classrooms, where students come from diverse linguistic backgrounds. In a nutshell, translanguaging researchers highlight an individual’s linguistic repertoire, which goes beyond the boundaries of named languages and focuses on all language elements that an individual knows. As a pedagogy, translanguaging advocates linguistic equity because it encourages students to access their linguistic repertoire, which is not limited to the target language in the classroom. Yet, the viability of this approach in the classroom is unclear, and its distinction from code-switching can also be ambiguous. Therefore, this thesis studies this issue …

Social And Linguistic Marginalization, And The Question Of ‘Standard’: An Analysis And Translation Of Giulio Cesare Cortese’S La Vaiasseide, Lina R. Marsella , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

Development Of Southern Interracial Marriage And Divorce: Why Our Children Are Code-Switching, Zoe R. Grant

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

The fundamental basis of my final paper will be of my own lived experience. In my paper, I will argue that as a result of an interracial divorce, mixed-race children are learning to code-switch leading to a greater sense of empathy and community. I will pull from the theoretical framework of Gloria Anzaldua’s “Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza” as well as other sources to support my claims.

By focusing heavily on a southern perspective, I will question whether or not a history of southern interracial marriage causes a strain on nuclear families. Are interracial children having new experiences, and …