Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics Commons^™

The Negotiated Identities Of Refugee-Background Women During Resettlement, Iuliia Fakhrutdinova

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Refugee-background women experience unique challenges while resettling in the U.S. as they navigate complicated transnational gender roles, education gaps, migration trauma, learning a new language, and literacy in the adaptation process during resettlement, which can derail the productive paths they are on. Therefore, ignoring refugee-background women’s unique experiences and failing to understand their identities prevents our society from doing social justice and creating a space for a smooth adaptation to the new context. Language plays a paramount role in identity formation, as it moves away from the belief that identity is an essential concept. For refugee-background women during resettlement, their …

You Can't Teach Kids From A Book: Language, Authority And Revitalization In Jicarilla Apache Life, Mariann Skahan

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation examines how Jicarilla Apache is learned, taught, and used across community life, with particular attention to contemporary language revitalization. Based on ethnographic research with elders, educators, language workers, families, and community institutions, it follows language practices across classrooms, culture camps, homes, ceremonial settings, and collaborative archival projects. I show that linguistic knowledge does not carry the same authority or consequences in every setting. Words may be recognized without being taken up, speakers may possess linguistic knowledge without being authorized to teach or correct, and archival texts may preserve linguistic forms without preserving the relations needed to interpret and …

Creative Constructions In Asian And World Englishes - And What They Teach Us, Edgar W. Schneider

Journal of English and Applied Linguistics

"Creative constructions" are defined as patterns which deviate slightly but noticeably from grammatical, fully licensed structures in English (and are therefore sometimes branded as "wrong"), inviting specific cognitive associations to make sense of them. It is argued that such structures offer a window into the nature of the cognitive manipulation of linguistic innovations and change. The concept is related to creativity in literature and lingua franca English, and it is surveyed theoretically by asking how established grammatical theories (like traditional grammar, structuralism or generativism) or more recent approaches to the nature of grammar (usage-based linguistics, construction grammar, and complex systems …

“The Least You Can Do Is Start A Meeting With A Karakia”: Challenging The Culture Order In A New Zealand Cricket Organisation, Stephanie Foxton, Tame Pere

Journal of Global South Sport Studies

Previously, it was documented that cricket operated as a tool of colonisation, serving to spread British culture and values across the empire, reinforcing British identity and asserting cultural superiority (Baucom, 1999). In places like Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ), cricket became a cornerstone of colonial social life, solidifying the dominance of British culture. Employing the Colonial Matrix of Power framework (Mignolo, 2007; Quijano, 2007) alongside the concept of the culture order (Holmes, 2018), this article aims to understand how Aotearoa NZ’s ever-evolving cricket culture sustains, and in some cases challenges, the dominance of Pākehā/British norms. By weaving these theoretical …

Learning A Second Language In A Second Language: Bi/Multilingual Students’ Experiences In Stem, Lara L. Spence

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Drawing on qualitative interview data from undergraduate students at a public university in California, this thesis conducts a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the experiences of bilingual and multilingual STEM students as they navigate language barriers in higher education. Specifically, it examines how disciplinary sublanguage, defined as the specialized vocabulary and communication practices unique to an academic field of study, and dominant language ideologies (e.g., monoglossic ideology, the English-only movement, etc.) gatekeep students’ access to knowledge, participation, and academic success. To do so, this thesis employs Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of CDA to connect individual experiences with broader institutional and societal …

El Maya Yucateco En El Paisaje Lingüístico De Cancún (México): Entre Invisibilidad Y Comodificación De Autenticidad, Jannis Harjus, Benjamin Peter, Linda Yoksulabakan-Harjus

Journal of Maya Heritage

The goal of this contribution is to analyze the presence of different languages in the linguistic landscape of Cancún, Quintana Roo. Cancún has a population of about 650,000 inhabitants. As a main tourist destination, the city also remains a top migration destination for Mexicans from other (rural) Mexican areas. Therefore, in addition to autochthonous speakers of maya yucateco, speakers of other indigenous languages, e.g., tzotzil and chontal, also migrate to the Cancún metropolitan area. In this paper, we analyze to which extent Cancún’s linguistic superdiversity is reflected in its urban landscape. In order to achieve that, we first created photo …

An “Other” Tongue: Nadsat As Anti-Language In A Clockwork Orange, Ian Hugo

The Graduate Review

In this essay, I explore how “Nadsat” is used in Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novella A Clockwork Orange. “Nadsat” is a constructed language that suffuses English vernacular with words and phrases of Russian origin, and it can often prove a significant obstacle to reader comprehension of the overall narrative. However, apart from merely acting as a whim of experimentalism, I argue that Nadsat serves a functional purpose in the text, drawing on research from a variety of fields including literary studies, psychology, philosophy, and linguistics. I begin by showing how Nadsat excludes those who do not “speak” it or (in …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

“Let Me Be A Bridge”: Language Brokering Among Emerging Adult Latina Professionals In The Midwest, Elise M. Dubord

Faculty Publications

In immigrant families, bilingual children and adolescents regularly act as translators and interpreters for family and community members who are not fluent in the dominant language. These childhood language brokers later shift the focus of their translation activities as they transition into adulthood and develop professional skills. This research explores narratives of language brokering trajectories of three bilingual Latinas who were emerging adult professionals in three cities in Iowa. Based on a series of interviews collected over a 15 month period, this analysis examines how participants described realigning their family language responsibilities while simultaneously transferring their language brokering skills to …

A Navajo Corpus Of Historical Narratives, Lukas Denk, Melvatha R. Chee

A Navajo Corpus of Historical Narratives

The Navajo Corpus of Historical Narratives is a digital compilation of morphologically annotated narratives. They were first published by Robert W. Young and William Morgan in the 1950’s in the volumes Navajo Historical Selections (1954) and The Trouble at Round Rock (1952). Nine out of 28 narratives are included in the corpus, totaling over 10,000 Navajo words. The corpus contributes to the understanding of the Navajo language by offering interlinear glosses of words, morphemes, morphs, and a free translation. These different interlinear tiers bridge the gap between the original Navajo text and the free translation provided by Young and Morgan, …

British Latino: Investigating Discourse-Stylistic Variables And The Construction Of Persona Within Podcasting, Jonathan A. Pye

International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest

This study expands upon previous work (McIlwaine et al., 2011; McIlwaine & Bunge, 2016) by analyzing how the Latin American community in the UK constructs identity through podcasting. The sociolinguistic construct of the persona (Campbell-Kibler, 2008; Coupland, 2007; D’Onofrio, 2020; Eckert, 2019; Podesva, 2007) is operationalized to understand how the persona of the British Latino is discursively constructed in the podcast of the British Latino Network. Using qualitative discourse analysis and values coding (Saldaña, 2013), this analysis finds that the British Latino persona is indexed in the podcast as a bricolage of four principal attributes: (1) aspirational, (2) educated, …

Trashing Gender Scripts: Indexical Misrecognition In The Zine "Galatea's Naked", Jules Blank

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Zines, short for ‘fanzines’ or ‘magazines,’ refer to physical, printed, self-published creations that can consist of a single sheet of paper or many, fastened together. These artifacts are rich with meaning—and, thus, can be read as tangible manifestations of the ideologies and identities of the creator(s).

This thesis focuses on the way zines are used as tools of resistance. Additionally, it shows that the creation and circulation of zines are highly pragmatic acts that solidify social bonds and enable individuals to perform and reinforce their emergent identities within a collective—explicitly making a claim about who they are and what they …

Principal Agency 50 Years After The Lau Decision: Building And Sustaining Bilingual Education Programs For Asian Languages, Kevin M. Wong, Zhongfeng Tian

Education Division Scholarship

This study examined how three champion principals of Asian language dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs—Cantonese, Korean, and Mandarin—in California have navigated the oscillating language-in-education policies after the Lau decision. We explored principals' various roles through a lens of agency in a social justice leadership framework, specifically considering the opportunities and challenges for agentive leadership from three different phases: foregrounding and engaging, planning and implementing, and evaluating and sustaining. Findings demonstrate that the success of DLBE programs goes beyond the overarching language policies that supposedly enable bilingual education; rather it hinges on the bottom-up commitment, collaboration and resilience of principals, …

Discourse Analysis Of Ethnonyms For Black Italians On Youtube, Kaithlyn Massiah

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There have been various studies on the intersection of race and national identity for the African diaspora, but there has not been many on how language is used to evoke a stance on identity. This project focuses on the how ethnonyms, or names given to an ethnic group, are assigned to Black Italians in online discourse on YouTube. In this research, comments were analyzed from two YouTube videos that comprise of Black Italians who discuss their identity and the ethnonyms they prefer. ZERO is the first Netflix Italian series that centers the Black Italian experience. In the videos “Black [Italian] …

Gaeilge In Éirinn: Irish Language Ideologies And Attitudes In A Divided Island Nation, Skyler D. Newhall

Linguistics Honors Projects

Sociolinguistic research on Irish has predominantly examined language dynamics within either the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland, neglecting the connected experiences of language communities across both territories. Drawing on media and interview data, this paper investigates the significance of a shared 'language=identity' ideology. The results reveal that despite most Irish identifying individuals operating within this framework, diverse controversies regarding attitudes towards language legitimacy, speaker agency, and perceived 'usefulness' affect native and new speaker language use and motivation. These findings underscore the need for language reclamation and revitalization projects to address language ideologies and attitudes.

Spanish As A Heritage Language Across Disciplines: Assessing Spanish And Bilingual Courses At An Hsi In South Texas, Katherine Christoffersen, Dania López García, Javier Cavazos

11th National Symposium on Spanish as a Heritage Language (Archived)

Long-standing research has confirmed the many benefits of Spanish as a heritage language in dual language in K-12 classrooms (Collier & Thomas, 2017, 2019). However, in higher education, there are very few exceptions to the English-only monolingual norm (García & Li, 2014). This study explores one exception, a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in South Texas where certain classes are taught bilingually (Spanish/English) and in Spanish across various disciplines. In this study, we examine 1) how these courses impact success through a quantitative analysis of cumulative grade point averages (GPAs) and 2) how students perceive these courses through a qualitative analysis …

She Speaks For Millions: The Emergence Of Female Diplomatic Voices In The Russo-Ukrainian War, Amber Brittain-Hale, Amber Brittain-Hale

Education Division Scholarship

This research critically investigates the public diplomacy strategies deployed by a cohort of influential female European leaders on Twitter during the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022-2023. The study comprises eight leaders - Kallas (Estonia), Marin (Finland), von der Leyen (President of the European Commission), Metsola (President of the European Parliament), Sandu (Moldova), Simonyte (Lithuania), Zourabichvili (Georgia), and Meloni (Italy) - representing millions of constituents. By mirroring the analytical attention given to Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, this study scrutinizes the distinct approaches and dif erences in emotional, cognitive, and structural language use between these influential female figures and President Zelenskyy in their …

"And I / Am The Arrow": The Narrative, Personae Construction, And Language Ideology Of Confessional Poets' Identity Performance, Madison Fuchs

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

This thesis argues for consideration of linguistic features in service of raising the postmodern confessionalist poet identity as an utterance and an act of loyalty to performance. The embodiment of the confessionalist identity, attributed to the features used to adhere to the confessional mode, is realized through the invention of confessional personae. These confessional personae merge the responsibilities of the speaker and the narrator to convey a pseudo-autobiographical utterance to a designated audience. In this thesis, I analyze a sequence of poems that either possess taboo subjects or utilize linguistic functions, like indexicality and audience design, that mark its mode. …

Unveiling Spanish Language Attitudes In A Los Angeles School And A Third-Generation Multigenerational Mexican-American Family, Eric Alvarez

International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest

This chapter unearths some of the diverse attitudes towards Spanish of a third-generation child in Los Angeles (L.A.), California, her family members, and school personnel. L.A. is a tension-ridden contact zone (Pratt, 1991) where Spanish has traditionally been subjugated and is still a lesser-taught language (LTL) despite decades of research showing that bilingual education positively impacts student attitudes (Potowski & Muñoz-Basols, 2020). Lack of continuity (Caloi & Torregrossa, 2021) in formal instruction and inconsistent heritage Spanish use in the home may entail divergent attitudes towards Spanish, possibly hindering multigenerational transmission. Decades-long turbulent California language policies (CLP) (Macias, 2001) have consistently …

The Movie Is On!: Pragmatics Of The Video Joker In Who Killed Captain Alex?, Hunter Hulett

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

The film Who Killed Captain Alex? (WKCA) is a Ugandan film that provides an opportunity to examine the use of pragmatic and specifically deictic features to study the manipulation of borders between the film and reality. A commentator called the Video Joker (VJ) is the film’s deictic center, constantly destabilizing deictic relations and orienting the internal and external pragmatics of the film around themself. As the film’s ultimate pragmatic force, they occupy a position blurring diegesis and non-diegesis due to originating as real-time film commentators before being edited into the text. In this unique position, they shift the deixis’s organization …

Language, Hip Hop, And Identity Work On Youtube, Matt Garley, Cecelia Cutler

Publications and Research

As hip hop has evolved into the dominant form of global popular music, YouTube has become a locus of fan-artist interaction. This chapter examines how hip hop artists and fans produce their identities and engage with hip hop culture on YouTube. This identity work centers around establishing credibility, glocal and ethnic positioning, and signaling stances of resistance and simultaneous alignment with ultralocal and global hip hop personae. Building on a background of research about language and identity in hip hop, particularly in the Internet sphere, the chapter summarizes the state of the art and then highlights the authors’ own explorations …

L’Emprunt Lexical De L’Arabe Algérien À L’Amazighe : Étude Sur Un Corpus Parémiologique, Abdelaziz Berkai

Journal of Amazigh Studies

Résumé :

Une étude très récente de parémiologie contrastive entre le kabyle et l’arabe algérien montre, par-delà l’« isomorphisme » parémiologique existant entre les deux langues-cultures, qu’un certain nombre de mots de l’arabe dialectal seraient des emprunts à l’amazighe. C’est l’étude de ces emprunts au plan lexico-sémantique, et subsidiairement étymologique, qui constitue l’objet de notre proposition de contribution. Nous commencerons chaque fois par la vérification des données en arabe classique et en dialectal algérien, avant d’analyser les matériaux amazighs et d’en tirer les conclusions qui s’imposent.

Mots-clés : emprunt lexical, parémiologie, arabe algérien, et langue amazighe

Lexical borrowing of Algerian …

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

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

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

La Descortesía En Los Comentarios Digitales De La Prensa Deportiva. El Tenis, Mucho Más Que Un Juego, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

Comments on sports news published on the digital platforms of newspapers have turned these spaces into forums for debate in which homogeneous social communities are established. The aim of this research is to find out how the participants of these platforms interact in the sports press and what impoliteness strategies they use when evaluating the text of the news and the comments of other users. For this purpose, a qualitative textual analysis of a corpus of 1,000 digital comments produced on the Australian Open 2022 final in four of the most widely distributed Spanish newspapers with the highest national circulation, …

“Local, But Intelligent”: Language Ideologies In The Informant Biographies Of The Linguistic Atlas Project, Nicholas A. Passarelli

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

This thesis argues for the relevance of the Linguistic Atlas Project (LAP) for studies of language ideologies, indexicality, and enregisterment. The LAP represents the largest dialect survey of North American English to date, offering an abundance of historical linguistic data for research in dialectology, linguistic geography, and variation over space and time. Additionally, the LAP also contains additional sources of sociolinguistic data, including informant biographies — documents written by fieldworkers at the conclusion of the LAP interview that summarize an informant’s demographic profile, as well as their personality, speech, and caliber as an interviewee. Rife with subjective judgments from the …

We Can Do This / Juntos Sí Podemos: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Government-Sponsored Covid-19 Public Service Announcements (Psas) In English And Spanish, Katalina R. Peterson

Scripps Senior Theses

Communication inequities are known to negatively impact people from socioeconomically and linguistically disadvantaged backgrounds during public health crises (Gomez-Aguinaga et al., 2021). In the United States, Hispanics—especially those who speak Spanish—have been among the communities most disproportionately affected by COVID-19 (National Center for Health Statistics, 2022). The pandemic has underscored the importance of understanding the linguistic and discursive strategies implemented by institutions entrusted with disseminating public health information to reach diverse audiences, especially the most vulnerable. This paper analyzes the linguistic practices used to create public service announcements (PSA) produced in English and Spanish by health agencies at both the …

Examining The Linguistic Ideology "Throaty Sounds Are Bad For Performers": The History Of Negative Attitudes Towards Glottal Stops And Laryngealization In English, Dayle M. Towarnicky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis analyzes explicit metadiscourse (Johnstone et al 2006) on throaty sounds, primarily focused on glottal segments and non-modal constricted voice quality in English. Authors contributing to this metadiscourse are argued to be an offshoot of the speech chain network which valorized and circulated the English accent known as RP or Received Pronunciation, studied by Agha (2003). The evaluated texts center on English-speaking elocution, singing training, voice, speech, and voice care. The analysis shows glottal and guttural articulations are framed negatively and often discouraged by appeals to both health and aesthetics. Many authors in this performance speech chain network …

Misinformation And Disinformation: Detecting Fakes With The Eye And Ai, Victoria Rubin

Data and Test Instruments

How do we detect, deter, and prevent the spread of mis- and disinformationwith the human eye and AI? How does theory inform the practice, and how do theevidence-based research and best practices in lie-catching and truth-seekingprofessions—inform AI? The book looks into well-established human practicessuch as the routines and processes used in detective work, journalism, and scientificinquiry, and how they contribute toward innovative AI solutions. The book explainsthe principles, inner workings, and recent evolution of five types of state-of-the-artAI technologies suitable for curtailing the spread of mis- and disinformation:automated deception detectors, clickbait detectors, satirical fake detectors, rumordebunkers, and computational fact-checking tools.

Variación Lingüística De La Cortesía Verbal En El Discurso Académico Escrito: Atenuación E Intensificación De La Voz Del Autor En La Evaluación De Las Fuentes, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

Resumen

Como ocurre con la mayor parte de los elementos pragmáticos, la cortesía verbal cumple una función esencial en la elusión de los efectos no deseados de los actos amenazadores de la imagen, lo cual permite que se establezca una comunicación eficaz en la interpretación de los textos. Con el fin de facilitar esta labor, el escritor emplea una serie de recursos retóricos interpersonales −asociados con la expresión de la voz del autor− que se utilizan para proyectar una imagen social determinada del emisor del escrito y, al mismo tiempo, establecer un diálogo eficaz con su audiencia. En el análisis …

Code-Switching And Advising In Multilingual African Situations: An Analysis Of Radio Phone-In Programmes In Kenya And Cameroon, Billian Khalayi Otundo, Susanne Mühleisen

Journal of the Language Association of Eastern Africa

Radio phone-in programmes are relevant for linguistic analysis in multilingual contexts, like Kenya and Cameroon, because they provide relatively natural data in expert-user and user-user contexts in an often emotional interactive environment. Any topic on relationships is an emotive undertaking in any society given the varied cultural disparities. In radio phone-in programmes, speech activities such as advice-giving and advice-receiving are also performed symmetrically or asymmetrically. In this media format, code-switching is a highly important phenomenon that is an expected and unconscious part of the linguistic behaviour of multilingual speakers. Switches between languages are highly relevant since they provide evidence for …