Linguistics Commons^™

From Canterbury To The Conference: Chaucer’S First 18 Lines Reborn, Charles X. Li, Tony Liang, Anika Saphiloff

Journal of the Symposium of University Research and Creative Expression

Project Mentor(s): Charles X. Li, PhD

This presentation examines the phonological shift from Chaucerian Middle English to Modern English, focusing on the Great English Vowel Shift. Using the first eighteen lines of Chaucer’s “General Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales as a case study, we demonstrate how vowel sounds in Middle English transitioned to those in Early Modern and Modern English. By analyzing specific words from these opening lines, we illustrate the vowel changes that marked the shift and their impact on pronunciation. Our presentation will conclude with a recitation of Chaucer’s first eighteenth lines, intertwined couplet by couplet by their …

From Old English Genitives To Modern English Possessives: Tracing Grammar Evolution Through Biogrammar And Grammatical Biology, Charles X. Li

Journal of the Symposium of University Research and Creative Expression

Project Mentor(s): Charles X. Li, PhD

This paper presents a biologically grounded and historically informed framework, Biogrammar, as a means to explain grammatical evolution and cognitive processing. It compares Biogrammar with two foundational theories in the study of language: the Nature-Nurture Hypothesis and Chomsky’s Universal Grammar. As a case study, the paper examines the historical evolution of English plural and genitive constructions, focusing on morphological developments such as the -as/-es mergers, his-genitives, group genitives, and the rise of the of + noun phrase pattern. These diachronic changes are interpreted as evidence of grammar functioning as a biologically adaptive system shaped …

"Our River Is Full Of Trash And Many Fish Die" Children's Voices From Pasuruan, Indonesia: Discursive Strategies In Positive Discourse Analysis For Sustainability, Bambang Prastio, Ahsani Maulidina, Agung Rinaldy Malik, Achmad Tantowi Azis

The Qualitative Report

Addressing river pollution and understanding the role of children in environmental conservation are essential for maintaining ecosystem health and sustainability. This study used positive discourse analysis to explore children's discourse about river pollution in Pasuruan, East Java, Indonesia. Data were collected using walk-and talk ethnographic interviews with 15 children aged 7 to 11 years. The findings reveal that these children employed five discursive strategies: (1) nomination: metaphor, comparison, and cultural practices; (2) predication: positive attitude in the forms of disposition and behavior; (3) argumentation: contrast and parallelism; (4) perspectivisation, involving a type of religious representation that includes references to the …

Academic Dispositions Of Undergraduate Students: A Comparison Of Students With And Without Learning Disabilities, Gabriel Jones

McNair Scholars Research

Students with learning disabilities face complex emotional, psychological, and academic challenges, though prior research presents mixed findings. Some studies highlight negative outcomes, such as heightened shame, emotional distress, and diminished self-efficacy. In contrast, others identify positive traits, including resilience, higher achievement drive, and reduced stress compared to peers without learning disabilities (LDs). The present study aimed to clarify these inconsistencies by employing a mixed methods design to examine differences between undergraduate students with and without learning disabilities. Specifically, the study assessed shame-proneness, self-efficacy, hope, motivation style, and attribution style, while also exploring linguistic patterns through narrative analysis using the Linguistic …

Structured Discussions About Linguistic Diversity: Student Voices And Campus-Based Cultural Mapping, Adrienne Jankens, Nicole Guinot Varty, Anna Elise Lindner, Linda Jimenez, Marni Lorenz, K. M. Begian-Lewis, Colleen Hart, Anita Mixon, Ma'idah Shiekh, Lena Hakim

English Faculty Research Publications

The study presented in this chapter foregrounds student voice research and students as participants in identifying locations on our urban research campus where linguistic diversity can be acknowledged and developed as a tool for knowledge-making. Beyond acknowledging the presence of diverse languages and linguistic practices on our urban campus, this study takes steps toward ensuring that linguistic diversity is recognized by faculty and administrators as a rich and active feature of campus life that crosses academic boundaries.

The study asks the following questions:

● How do Wayne State University (WSU) students experience diversity on campus?

● How do they experience …

The Georgian Of Heritage Speaker Children, Cass Lowry

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation presents three research articles united in the goal of describing the Georgian language as it is spoken by heritage speakers in the Brooklyn diaspora. The Georgian heritage speaker subjects recruited for these studies were children due to immigration patterns at the time when experimental data was collected. Their production of morphosyntactic inflection and pronouns is compared to adult and child homeland speakers.

Heritage speakers of Georgian demonstrate the following divergences from homeland and standard language comparisons. Nominal case inflection is most affected in heritage production, as heritage speakers use a default case or collapse Georgian's split-ergative and inverse …

The Salience Of Function Words In Implicit Statistical Linguistic Learning: An Erp Investigation, Daniel M. Schwartz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research has indicated that children and adults can implicitly learn language patterns; however, questions still remain regarding the role and nature of implicit learning, particularly of sequential patterns. Implicit statistical learning is a type of unconscious learning of sequential patterns, which may be especially relevant to phrase structure learning. Prior studies have highlighted the differential processing of function words (FWs), such as determiners, relative to content and nonsense words and have also pointed to particular neural response patterns (specifically, Anterior Negativity, or AN) to early syntactic violations. To date, there is relatively little work directly investigating the role of FWs …

Processing Of Diphthongs By Turkish English Bilinguals: An Erp Study, Ecem Kopuz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines how native phonological experience influences the brain’s response to speech sounds in Turkish-English late bilinguals and English monolinguals. We asked whether neural responses reflecting encoding of auditory information would be sensitive to language specific experience. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), and specifically, the Acoustic Change Complex (ACC) we measured neural responses to four stimuli, /u/, /ua/, /iu/, and /ia/, where vowel quality changes for three of these. A change from /u/ to /a/ or /i/ to /a/ within a syllable (as in [ua] and [ia]) represents a clear vowel quality shift. All participants were expected to show sensitivity …

Scientific Multimodal Summarization : Integrating Knowledge Across Textual, Visual And Auditory Content, Zusheng Tan

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

As scientific publications increasingly incorporate multimodal content, ranging from textual descriptions to figures, tables, presentation videos, and audio, there is a growing need for summarization systems that can effectively process and integrate information across these diverse modalities.

This work presents a comprehensive exploration of Scientific Multimodal Summarization, introducing a series of novel architectures and datasets aimed at advancing this emerging field. 1): We begin by introducing CMT-Sum, which integrates multimodal scientific source content (i.e., primarily paper text and figures) to generate high-quality textual summaries and identify representative graphical abstracts. We refer to this task as Scientific Multimodal Summarization with …

Some Puzzles Concerning Gujarati Nominalized Verbs In Before And After Sentences, Priya P. Patel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Aspect, which relates events to time periods, interacts in complex ways with temporal operators. This complexity is exemplified in the Gujarati language, where certain imperfective nominalized verbal forms are considered unacceptable with the temporal operator pachi (after) but not with pehlaa (before). This paper aims to shed light on this semantic unacceptability by combining insights from prior studies relating to aspect in other Indo-Aryan langauages with previous work done on English before and after.

From Homeland To Hostland: Language Ownership Of Heritage Dialect And Narratives Of Third Culture Kids Of The Gulf, Maryam Aref

Theses and Dissertations

The main purpose of this study is to examine Arab Adult Third Culture Kids’ sense of heritage language ownership and their identity constructions in relation to their transnational Arab Gulf context. The present study has three main aims: to ascertain their sense of ownership towards their heritage dialects, to understand the basis for their claimed or denied ownership, and to investigate the positions they ascribed to themselves and others in relation to their belonging and transnational and linguistic experiences. The study aims to fill the gap where there is a scarcity of sociolinguistic research around Arab Third Culture Kids in …

Dari Editor Vol. 15 No. 2 (Agustus) 2025, Rahayu Surtiati Hidayat

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Dengan gembira kami menerbitkan sepuluh artikel dan dua timbangan buku dalam edisi ini; terbitan rekor untuk jurnal ini. Kami berharap dapat menerbitkan banyak artikel dalam setiap edisi. Isi tulisan yang kami terbitkan juga meningkat mutunya baik dari segi penelitian maupun penyajian. Tiga artikel menarik perhatian dengan menunjukkan berbagai karya yang menjadi lambang kejayaan suatu negara dan keguyuban suatu komunitas (Titik Pudjiastuti, Muhamad Alnoza, Nur Aini Setiawati). Tiga artikel lain membahas kehadiran pendatang yang mengubah sistem dalam negara (Dien Rovita Rovita, Mela Maulina Putri, Rudi Ekasiswanto). Tidak kalah menarik empat artikel bertemakan karya sastra (Asri Pratiwi Wulandari, Raka Darmawan, Haikal Haikal) …

Serat Yusuf: Sastra Islam Populer Di Jawa Timur, Titik Pudjiastuti, Mamlahatun Buduroh, Mu’Jizah Mu’Jizah, Rias Suharjo, Turita Indah Setyani, Dwi Rahmawanto

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Serat Yusup is one of the popular Islamic literary works in Java, especially in East Java. This literary work is a handwritten ancient manuscript written in the form of tembang macapat, in Javanese language, and using Pegon or Javanese script. Serat Yusup which create by the students (santri) is inspired by Surah Yusuf, the 12th Surah of the Quran. As a literary work, its story differs significantly from its inspirational text, and there are so many of it. In relation to this, the question arises: what are the reasons behind the creation of Serat Yusup and why is it …

Keidiomatisan Kompositum Berleksikon Hati Dalam Bahasa Indonesia, Dien Rovita, Sonya Puspasari Suganda, Untung Yuwono

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

A compound (kompositum) is a construction formed through word formation by combining two or more elements to create a new meaning. In Indonesian, compounds can be formed by combining several elements, one of which may be a nominal lexeme referring to a body part. Compound words can be distinguished from other word combinations—particularly syntactic phrases—based on grammatical and semantic criteria. Semantically, compounds can be analyzed according to the degree of idiomaticity in their meanings. Based on this premise, the present study aims to explain the idiomaticity of compounds in Indonesian that are formed by combining multiple elements, one of which …

Myth Of Happiness From The Consumerism Perspective In Simone De Beauvoir’S Les Belles Images, Joesana Tjahjani, Sekar Dewantari

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

France's post-World War II, thirty years of glory, resulted in the growth of purchasing power among the French, which triggered growth in consumerism, notably among the bourgeois— France's upper-middle-class society. People believed in a myth that objects are not solely useful for fulfilling needs but also served as a sign of social status, dignity, andcomfort. They equally believed that if the objects are consumed and the associated social standards fulfilled, they maybecome a way to obtain greater happiness. This article aims to examine the myth that happiness can be attained byconsumption and social standard fulfillment in a French consumer society …

Reimagining Arts Education: Empowering Deaf Learners Through The Visual-Musical Innovation Of Gawang Angklung, Saprudin Saprudin, Yudi Sukmayadi, Julia Julia, Rita Milyartini

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

This study examines the role of the Gawang Angklung (Galung) application, a visual-based digital tool integrating traditional angklung music with interactive visual cues, in supporting inclusive music education for deaf learners. Designed to bridge the gap between sound-based musical instruction and the learning needs of students with hearing impairments, Galung enables ensemble participation through synchronized visual signals. Using a convergent mixed-methods design, data were collected from 24 deaf students, four music educators, and two application developers through interviews, classroom observations, and questionnaires. Quantitative results showed significant improvements in rhythmic accuracy (p < .01) and tempo recognition, while qualitative analysis revealed increased motivation, collaborative engagement, and communicative confidence. The integration of Galung aligns with constructivist and aesthetic …

Umi Matsuzaki’S Representation Of War Trauma: A Semiotic Approach To Studio Ghibli’S From Up On Poppy Hill, Wedhowerti Wedhowerti

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

Japanese films that explore war trauma are relatively rare, and this research departs from that gap by analyzing Studio Ghibli’s From Up on Poppy Hill. The film reflects the conscience of Japanese society by depicting the realities of post-war life in the 1960s. Using a qualitative descriptive approach, this study examines how the main character, Umi Matsuzaki, represents war trauma through eight selected scenes and how such trauma encodes myth. By applying Roland Barthes’ semiotic theory, the findings reveal that Umi embodies symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), manifested primarily through avoidance and intrusion. Her trauma is deeply rooted …

Comparison Of Javanese Lexicon In Banyumas And Banyuwangi Dialect Bilingual Dictionaries, Muhamad Rizki Darmawan, Satwiko Budiono

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

The Banyumas and Banyuwangi dialects of Javanese exhibit notable lexical similarities, particularly in their retention of Old Javanese vocabulary, consonant endings, the specificity of vowel phonemes, and syllabic structures. These linguistic commonalities necessitate further research at other linguistic levels to substantiate the similarities between these two geographically distant dialects. This comparison also serves as a basis for reinforcing the hypothesis of a historical migration of Javanese speakers from Banyumas to Banyuwangi. Furthermore, this study confirms that the varieties of Javanese spoken in Banyumas and Banyuwangi constitute distinct dialects. This study employs a mixed-methods approach, integrating both quantitative and qualitative methodologies …

Piyagĕm Cikĕruh (1631 M): Simbol Relasi Kuasa Kerajaan Mataram Islam Di Priangan, Muhamad Alnoza

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

After the collapse of the Sunda Kingdom in the 16th century, most of its territory was controlled by the Islamic Mataram Kingdom. The occupation of Islamic Mataram in the ethnic Sundanese area in fact left behind several metal inscriptions known as piyagĕm. This study specifically examines the oldest piyagĕm found in the Priangan area, namely Piyagĕm Cikĕruh from Garut Regency. Based on the assumption that every inscription that is king is a symbol of power, this study focuses on science which is a symbol of power relations in Piyagĕm Cikĕruh. This study was conducted with the aim of finding the …

Transformasi Syair Dodaidi: Dari Tradisi Lisan Ke Komersialisasi Digital Dalam Sejarah Masyarakat Aceh, Haikal Haikal, Anifa Nurhayati

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Syair Dodaidi, as a form of Acehnese oral tradition, has played a significant role in the social and cultural life of the Acehnese people for centuries. It originally developed as a lullaby sung by mothers to their children, with lyrics containing prayers and praise to Allah SWT. This study aims to examine the transformation of Syair Dodaidi in the context of contemporary Acehnese society. The research methodology uses a historical approach with the stages of heuristics, source criticism, interpretation, and historiography. The results show that although Syair Dodaidi is still practiced as part of cultural heritage, there have been a …

Sharing And Preserving Sociolinguistic Corpora On The U.S.-Mexico Border, Katherine Christoffersen, Isabella Calafate, Julio Ciller, Ana M. Carvalho, Ryan M. Bessett, Brandon J. Martínez, Hannia Rojas Barreda, William Flores, Richard Quiroz

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

Since William Labov outlined the methodology for the sociolinguistic interview in 1972, sociolinguistic corpora have been used widely in the field of sociolinguistics to study diverse speech communities and linguistic features. However, most of these invaluable sociolinguistic collections have been available only to the individual researcher or research group, and these data sets usually disappear from use with that individual scholar. More recently, there has been a push towards data sharing in sociolinguistics, reflective of data sharing and the open science movement in other fields. Still, accessible online sociolinguistic corpora are few and far between, in part due to the …

Tackling Translation Problems In Short Stories, Shatha Saleh Elshehry, Zainab Abuelmaatti

Effat Undergraduate Research Journal

In the age of globalization, the fact of being exposed to different cultures and backgrounds is unavoidable and literary texts are one of the most important sources that portray people's lives and believe. Translating such texts is vital in order to achieve understanding between different societies. However, the task of translating a literal text from Arabic into English is not easy as Arabic and English belong to different semantic maps and cultural settings. Therefore, problems encountered in translating these texts are inescapable. This study addresses the major problems faced by translators during translating a literary text from Arabic into English. …

Analysis Of Linguistic Issues In Audiovisual Translation - Subtitling, Marwah Abdullah Hilabi, Ahmad Khuddro Dr

Effat Undergraduate Research Journal

Audiovisual Translation (AVT) is a term used for the translation which appears on screen. This product can be written in the form of subtitles, or spoken as in dubbing and it could be also done as a voiceover. This study discusses the AVT with subtitling as an example. Due to the massive growth of media, the need for professional translators and good translation is high. This study used an animated TV series called Fruits Basket as the main example of subtitling. This TV show is an English dubbed version of the Japanese series consisting of 26 episodes. Therefore, the first …

Essays On Economic Behaviour, Yiting Guo

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

My PhD thesis comprises three studies. The first study examines prosocial behavior; the second analyzes vaccination behavior; and the third investigates communicative behavior in the context of trade. Specifically, the first study investigates the impact of donation visibility on individual prosocial behavior. It develops a sequential-move model based on the prosocial behavior framework proposed by Benabou and Tirole (2006). In Stage 1, individuals decide whether to attend a charity event, and if so, in Stage 2, decide on the amount to donate. In this model, an individual’s decision to engage in prosocial behavior is influenced by three main factors: intrinsic …

Dragon Guitars And Sexy Zombies: Tracing The Meta-Motion Of The Naga Motif In Northeast Thailand, Aaron Michael Stanley

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Abstract

This thesis traces the evolving symbolism of the Naga motif (a mythic water serpent) in Northeast Thailand through a framework I call meta-motion, which maps symbolic persistence of this cultural signifier and boundary marker across four cultural horizons—animist (Z), Hindu–Khmer (B), Buddhist (A), and modern/global (C). Like electrons in quantum super position, symbolic motifs circulate as overlapping “waves” of potential meaning and are concretized into cultural “particles” only when recruited for specific ritual, commercial, or political purposes. I add a bookend extension to Chang’s Hindu-Buddhist (B/A) typology with the addition of Horizons Z and C in order to make …

The Label Of Low Effort: Exploring Teachers’ Effort-Related Language, Meritocratic Beliefs, And Attribution-Based Responsibility Assignments, Kelly A. Larson

Doctorate in Education

Educators play an integral role in the academic success and future educational trajectory of their students. Yet, in an unjust, hyper-individualistic education system grounded in a meritocratic myth, even the most well-intentioned teachers have a tendency to explain students’ underperformance through a self-protective, deficit-based attribution process that puts the onus of academic achievement almost entirely on students and their families. This recursive cycle is especially damaging for students who do not exhibit effort in normalized, Eurocentric ways. This study examines how teachers’ attributions and responsibility assignments for students’ perceived low-effort behavior are shaped by inequitable meritocratic beliefs and reinforced through …

Defining Antisemitism Or Activism?: An Analysis Of Congressional Debate Over The Antisemitism Awareness Act Of 2023, John Carpenter

University Honors Theses

Introduced amid widespread campus protests against the Israeli militarys actions in the Gaza Strip, the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (AAA) directs the Department of Education to consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism during investigations of potential discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. This study investigates congressional debate on the AAA using the Discourse Historical Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis to assess how members of Congress portray the victims and perpetrators of antisemitism and whether these portrayals align with the stated aim to "improve safety and security for Jewish Communities." Findings reveal that …

A Bilingual Jesus: Assessing Evidence In The Gospels, Jordan Lavender

Liberty Theological Review

This article examines issues of the historical Jesus’ linguistic proficiency, particularly in Greek, while providing an analysis of the use of other languages as well. Looking at recent studies on language use in Greco-Roman Palestine and new conceptualizations of multilingualism, the analysis seeks to clarify the languages used by Jesus. This study examines several case studies from the Gospels including the Aramaic sayings of Jesus, found primarily in Mark, a section of the Beatitudes in the Q material found in Lk 6:20–21, and the Lord’s Prayer in Q, with these theoretical frameworks in mind. It concludes that Jesus likely used …

Structural Models For Lyric-Setting Analysis In Popular Song, Matthew T. Hough

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

Studies of English text setting have long focused on "well-formed" examples, typically in 4/4 time, in which syllabic-stress-to-beat matching is prioritized (Halle and Lerdahl 1993, Hayes and Kaun 1996, Hayes 2009). Evidence of this prioritization has been presented in Palmer and Kelly 1992 and Girardi and Plag 2019, and such examples are ubiquitous in English-language nursery rhymes, children’s songs, and folk tunes. The present study contextualizes this type of text setting as one of four models for the structural interaction of English lyrics and music in popular song: 1) unified ("well-formed"), in which musical considerations and a preference for stress …

Learning English On The Border: Identities, Investment, And Imagined Futures In El Paso, Texas, Jennifer Lyn Mansour

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative study explores how adult English language learners living along the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas experience language learning, identity formation, and social positioning within a bilingual community. Drawing on Norton's (1995, 2013) theoretical frameworks of identity, investment, and imagined communities, the research investigates three central questions: (1) How does the relationship between English learners and the social world of a bilingual community on the U.S.-Mexico border impact their ideas about their possibilities for the future? (2) How does the use of English construct worlds that are different from those constructed in their first languages, and do learners …