Linguistics Commons^™

Executive Order On The Safe, Secure, And Trustworthy Development And Use Of Artificial Intelligence, Joseph R. Biden

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Section 1. Purpose. Artificial intelligence (AI) holds extraordinary potential for both promise and peril. Responsible AI use has the potential to help solve urgent challenges while making our world more prosperous, productive, innovative, and secure. At the same time, irresponsible use could exacerbate societal harms such as fraud, discrimination, bias, and disinformation; displace and disempower workers; stifle competition; and pose risks to national security. Harnessing AI for good and realizing its myriad benefits requires mitigating its substantial risks. This endeavor demands a society-wide effort that includes government, the private sector, academia, and civil society.

My Administration places the highest urgency …

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes: Children And The Formation Of The Rio De La Plata Spanish Address System, Israel Sanz-Sánchez, María Irene Moyna

Languages & Cultures Faculty Publications

This paper analyzes the effects of child language acquisition as a critical factor in a morphological change, namely, the replacement of the etymologically singular second person paradigm (tuteo) by its plural counterpart (voseo) in 19th century Rio de la Plata Spanish. The account applies a sociohistorical model which proposes that young children can function as language change agents in environments characterized by unpredictable input variation, lack of normative mechanisms, and the emergence of peer networks among young learners. The model is then applied to explain the rapid generalization of voseo in the late 1800s, a well-documented but poorly understood process. …

Critical Analysis Of Anti-Asian Hate In The News, Benardo Douglas Relampagos

Dissertations and Theses

Since 2019, the United States has had an increase in violence against Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities along with an increase of mainstream anti-Asian racist rhetoric. Between 2021 and 2022, The Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism reported an overall 164% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes. While racism against black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) communities has been the topic of an ever-growing body of critical discourse, prior to 2019 few publications had addressed racism and injustice regarding language choices and discourse in the context of anti-Asian rhetoric in the US, specifically regarding the intersection of language …

Perceptual Salience And Structural Ambiguity Resolution, Jeffrey Witzel, Naoko Witzel

Cambridge University Press Open Access Agreement Publications-Archive

This study investigates whether the perceptual salience of grammatical morphemes influences the online processing of temporarily ambiguous sentences during adult first- language (L1) comprehension. In a bidirectional self-paced reading task, adult L1 English participants (N = 44) read sentences with time adjuncts that were in a structural position in which they could attach either to the most recent verb phrase (VP) or to a VP in a higher clause. Consistent with previous findings, the reading times on these sentences indicated processing difficulty when this adjunct allowed only for high attachment. Crucially, this effect was modulated by the perceptual salience of …

Artificial Intelligence Applications For Social Science Research, Megan Stubbs-Richardson, Lauren Brown, Mackenzie Paul, Devon Brenner

SSRC Publications

Our team developed a database of 250 Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications useful for social science research. To be included in our database, the AI tool had to be useful for: 1) literature reviews, summaries, or writing, 2) data collection, analysis, or visualizations, or 3) research dissemination. In the database, we provide a name, description, and links to each of the AI tools that were current at the time of publication on September 29, 2023. Supporting links were provided when an AI tool was found using other databases. To help users evaluate the potential usefulness of each tool, we documented information …

The Language Of Nuclear Security: New Case Studies Exploring Online Open-Source Information From Turkey, India, And Jordan, Zenobia S. Homan, Shraddha Rane, Yara Shaban, Fadime Ö. Özkan, Eunha Yun

International Journal of Nuclear Security

This paper presents a novel internet search methodology and new data on the language of nuclear security. Through three case studies (Turkey, India, and Jordan), it describes what openly accessible information exists about nuclear security in a given national context, where more information is needed, and why. In doing so, the paper highlights the importance of documenting the social and geopolitical context of key nuclear concepts. It also examines the role of language and publicly available information on nuclear security and safety to facilitate the articulation and adoption of international best practices.

The case studies demonstrate how someone may acquire …

Exploring Strategies For Modeling Sign Language Phonology, Lee Kezar, Riley Carlin, Tejas Srinivasan, Zed Sehyr, Naomi Caselli, Jesse Thomason

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Like speech, signs are composed of discrete, recombinable features called phonemes. Prior work shows that models which can recognize phonemes are better at sign recognition, motivating deeper exploration into strategies for modeling sign language phonemes. In this work, we learn graph convolution networks to recognize the sixteen phoneme “types” found in ASL-LEX 2.0. Specifically, we explore how learning strategies like multi-task and curriculum learning can leverage mutually useful information between phoneme types to facilitate better modeling of sign language phonemes. Results on the Sem-Lex Benchmark show that curriculum learning yields an average accuracy of 87% across all phoneme types, outperforming …

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 …

Towards Agile Academia: An Approach To Scientific Paper Writing Inspired By Software Engineering, Tyler Procko

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The construction of scientific papers is performed in service of the greater scientific community. This iterative process is, in effect, an academic economy, where all members benefit from well-written papers. However, many published scientific papers are poorly written; they often lack sufficient detail to allow replication, there is improper usage of citations or a lack of regard to relevant work, reporting is vague or without linked empirical data to allow verification, figures do not correspond to text or are non-sensical, literary elements, e.g., bulleted lists, are used ineffectively, formatting renders certain sections unreadable, and grammatical errors abound. The issues of …

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.

Connecting With The Outside World: Psychosocially Supportive Aspects Of Operational Communication Between Isolated Crews In Space And Mission Control On The Ground, Dennis J. Frederiksen

Journal of Human Performance in Extreme Environments

Radio-based communication between crew members in space and mission control centers on the ground has the operational purpose of supporting the safe and effective execution of missions in space. Space-to-ground communication also, however, constitutes one of the relatively few interpersonal relationships astronauts have during missions and in addition to its operational purpose, this communication can support astronauts’ wellbeing. The purpose of this paper is to identify psychosocially supportive aspects of operational space-to-ground communication between astronauts in space and spacecraft communicators on the ground. Through qualitative analysis of authentic mission communication, this paper identifies two supportive aspects and develops a terminology …

A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Nasa's Instagram Account, Danica Lynn Tomber

Dissertations and Theses

In an increasingly interconnected society where science and technology are advancing at a rapid pace, knowledge dissemination, specifically in terms of public engagement and popularization, must be both encouraged and critically evaluated. As an internationally recognized government agency that is dedicated to the advancement of space exploration and present on several social media platforms, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) provides a useful lens from which to analyze large-scale messaging of multimodal scientific information. Although there is a substantial amount of linguistic research into political and government-based messaging in social media, there is not much literature on the …

Adults’ Reading Engagement And Wellbeing In Aotearoa New Zealand, Stephen Reder

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Education and literacy have long been associated with a range of economic and social outcomes in industrialized societies. Recent research based on large-scale national and international surveys has examined effects of education and literacy on individuals’ social and economic outcomes. This paper takes a further step in understanding the importance of literacy for individuals’ economic and social outcomes by disentangling the effects of two different aspects of literacy, literacy proficiency as measured by standardized tests and reading engagement as measured by self-reports of everyday reading activities. Using recent nationally representative survey data from New Zealand, multivariate regression models estimate the …

Towards Interpretable Machine Reading Comprehension With Mixed Effects Regression And Exploratory Prompt Analysis, Luca Del Signore

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

We investigate the properties of natural language prompts that determine their difficulty in machine reading comprehension tasks. While much work has been done benchmarking language model performance at the task level, there is considerably less literature focused on how individual task items can contribute to interpretable evaluations of natural language understanding. Such work is essential to deepening our understanding of language models and ensuring their responsible use as a key tool in human machine communication. We perform an in depth mixed effects analysis on the behavior of three major generative language models, comparing their performance on a large reading comprehension …

Representaciones Ideológicas Del Lenguaje Entre La Población Mexicana En Nueva York, Maria Del Rocio Carranza Brito

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the linguistic ideologies that Mexican migrants bring when migrating and reproduce in their daily interactions with other Spanish and English speakers, as well as the representations of the language presented in their linguistic behaviors. This work presents an intersectional analysis where the factors of gender, migratory status, education, and work are determining factors in the adoption, maintenance, and reproduction of language ideologies, which affect the linguistic decisions of the speakers in their use of Spanish, learning of English and the support of bilingualism. Based on the stereotypical idea of Spanish as the …

"How" As A Signal Of An Invariant Meaning, Andrew S. Mccormick

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation aims to explain why speakers and writers use how in the communicative contexts in which they do, and its central claim is that how is a signal of one invariant meaning. The form’s diverse communicative contributions can be explained by hypothesizing a single meaning that contributes to different message effects, or contextual interpretations, on different occasions of its use.

The present analysis rests on the crucial distinction in Columbia School (CS) linguistics, the theoretical framework guiding this project, between meaning and message. A meaning is a signal’s invariant semantic contribution, while messages are the context-unique interpretations that …

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 …

The Marginalised Nativism Strikes Back: Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Afd Party’S Anti-Refugee Campaign In Germany, Raihanna Athaayaa Ari Sudjono, Aditya Batara Gunawan

Jurnal Politik

Born as a Eurosceptic party in 2013, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) Party shifted its agenda to anti-refugee and anti-Islamic issues after the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe. This shift is evident in the discourse of traditional campaign posters distributed during the 2017 federal election in Germany. This article aims to map and conduct a critical discourse analysis of the refugee crisis issues constructed by the AfD Party through traditional campaign posters. The author argues that the AfD Party's anti-refugee and anti-Islam discourse is significantly influenced by factors such as interests, ideology, and social, economic, and political conditions. This research …

Toponim Wilayah Kota Pekanbaru: Etnisitas, Penggunaan Bahasa, Dan Campur Kode, Satwiko Budiono, Yenni Febtaria Wijayatiningsih, Imelda Yance

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Urban areas have developed rapidly in terms of demography and culture. This is because urban areas attract people who are searching for higher income and a better life than those in rural areas. Demographical and cultural development in urban areas often affects local culture. One example can be found in Pekanbaru City, Riau Province, Indonesia. The Riau Malays, the city’s native ethnic group, no longer dominates the city’s demographical landscape. In fact, the Minangkabaus as a migrant ethnic group actually dominate Pekanbaru City. However, there is still a limited body of documentation of and research on the language and culture …

Rekonstruksi Sejarah Dalam Kumpulan Puisi Dari Batavia Sampai Jakarta Melalui Pembacaan Jauh Berbasis Korpus, Ananda Bintang Purwaramdhona, Mochamad Irfan Hidayatullah, Lina Meilinawati Rahayu

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

By applying the mixed research methods combining new historicism and digital humanities with AntConc-assisted distant reading techniques, this research aims to explore a reconstruction of Jakarta's history offered in From Batavia to Jakarta (1619–1999), a collection of poems by Zeffry J. Alkatiri. Results show that history can be reconstructed through the physical structure of narrative poetry represented by the dominant usage of pronoun "they" and intra-sentence conjunctions and prepositions such as "and", "in", and "the" instead of licentia poetica which can violate language rules. However, in the structural analysis, AntConc was not able to detect several linguistic aspects such …

Permainan Alegori Dalam Novel O Karya Eka Kurniawan, Indah Fadhilla

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Fables typically attach human attributes to animal characters to convey moral messages and teachings, but a number of modern authors use animal characters in their literary works to criticize current sociocultural phenomena. One famous literary work that contains many forms of allegory about relationships between human and animal characters is O, a novel by Eka Kurniawan. Allegories in O are used to exhibit contradictions between humans and animals. Animal characters are presented as possessing human traits, bringing up the idea that animals can become ideal human beings (the concept of “being human”). Meanwhile, human characters are presented as possessing …

Orang Tionghoa, Perkebunan Gambir, Lada Dan Kontestasi Di Tanjungpinang Abad Ke-19, Zulfa Saumia Zs

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

The Chinese have settled in Bintan Island since Zheng He’s great expeditions in the 15^th century. However, large-scale arrivals of the Chinese did not occur until in 1740. They worked as laborers in pepper and gambier plantations that belonged to Buginese nobles. Internal and external changes in the political landscape, as well as land and territorial tenures between the Hokkiens in Tanjungpinang and Teochews in Senggarang, added a new nuance to their roles as middlemen, land owners, and coolies in pepper and gambier plantations. This gave rise to contestation between these two ethnic groups. How did the land tenure …

Perkembangan Musik Dan Budaya Hip-Hop Di Tiongkok: Eksistensi The Rap Of China Di Tengah Ketatnya Sensor, Matsnaa Chumairo, R. Tuty Nur Mutia

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Hip-hop culture and rap music originated from the African-American community that emerged around the 1970s in New York City. Hip-hop started to enter PRC in the 1990s and continues to grow among the younger generation. A hip-hop talent search show titled The Rap of China, released in 2017, became very popular, bringing hip-hop music and culture to the fore. Unfortunately, it must eventually face PRC government’s intervention in its development. This article discusses the influence of Chinese government's censorship policies on the development of hip-hop music and culture in China. This case study was conducted using the historical approach, …

Karakteristik Aksara Pakpak Berdasarkan Sumber Tertulis Di Dairi Dan Pakpak Bharat, Sumatera Utara, Churmatin Nasoichah, Ninny Soesanti Tedjowasono, Tomson Sibarani, Mehammat Br. Karo Sekali, Wahyu Rizky Andhifani, Lolita Refani Lumban Tobing

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

The Pakpak ethnic group occupy two areas in North Sumatra, namely Dairi and Pakpak Bharat, and speak a language with its own set of characters called the Pakpak script. This study discusses the Pakpak script characteristics and writing materials, and provides a compiled description of the Pakpak community in the past based on written sources. The purpose of this study is to determine the characteristics of the Pakpak script and provide a historical description of the ethnic group based on written sources. This study uses the exploratory inductive reasoning model. Results show that the Pakpak and Batak scripts share similar …

Praktik Teater Postdramatik Di Indonesia, Afrizal H, Sahrul N, Yusril Yusril

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

The article entitled "Practice of Postdramatic Theater in Indonesia", is an examination of the practice of postdramatic theater in Indonesia in the 1990s to 2000s in Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, and even West Sumatra. This practice spawned generations that continue to grow and develop through aesthetics based on performance texts, outside of the conventional drama texts that we understand so far. Each theater community, regardless of whether it is postdramatic or not, has carried out an in-depth exploration and elaboration of all possible bodies, texts and artistic materials which are used as the main capital of performances. This study uses qualitative …

Perdagangan Perempuan Indonesia Dalam Situs Pengantin Pesanan: Perspektif Feminisme Sosialis, Wabilia Husnah

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Mail-order bride websites can be easily found in cyberspace. These websites sell Indonesian women to Chinese men as wives. This study aims to explore the phenomenon of women cyber-trafficking in mail-order bride websites, especially the background of mail-order bride websites and their impacts on the victims. This qualitative research used the case study approach and the socialist feminism theory to investigate three mail-order bride websites. This study concludes that the oppression of women on mail-order bride websites is caused by long-standing patriarchy in Indonesia and China reflected in daily practices, cultural manifestations, and literary works in both countries. Capitalism has …

Tradisi Penculikan Pengantin Perempuan Dalam Film Alaa Kachuu: Representasi Ketidaksetaraan Gender Di Kirgizstan, Aprina Luzti Lubis, Mina Elfira

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This research investigates how two movies, both entitled Ala Kachuu (2018 and 2002), represent ala kachuu, i.e. a tradition of bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan. Even though the Kyrgyz government has formally banned this practice since 2016, which is considered as a form of forced marriage, it still exists and is practiced by some Kyrgyz. This research used the qualitative method coupled with the mise-en-scène cinematographic technique. By using Stuart Hall’s representation theory (1997) and Mansour Fakih’s gender inequality theory (2008) as analysis tools, this study concludes that both movies represent ala kachuu as a tradition which promotes gender inequality. …

Revealing The Power Practices And Ideology Of Pedophiles In Pedophile Community Through Transitivity Choices, Antok Risaldi, Anang Santoso, Moch. Syahri, Yuni Pratiwi

Bahasa dan Seni: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Seni, dan Pengajarannya

Among the choices of grammatical forms, the transitive system stands out in the pedophile community. The purpose of this study is to reveal the exercise of power and ideology of pedophiles through their transitive choices. In systemic functional linguistics (SFL), the transitivity system is widely used to analyze isolated clauses and contextual clauses. The data for this research was taken from conversational texts by pedophiles at WordPress Jakongsu from December 2021 to February 2022. Data were collected through netnography approach (Kozinets, 2010), which applies ethnography collection technique in the virtual world. The existed data were compiled in a digital archive. …