Discourse and Text Linguistics Commons^™

Some People Need Killing: Power Of Metaphors In Shaping And Challenging Political And Educational Realities, Rebecca Cyrene J. Lorenzana

Journal of English and Applied Linguistics

This study examines the significant role of metaphors in shaping and challenging political and educational discourse, focusing on the narratives from Patricia Evangelista's Some People Need Killing. Through Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA), the research dissects how metaphors of war and criminality, dehumanization, salvation, and resistance function within the context of Rodrigo Duterte's War on Drugs in the Philippines. The study reveals that metaphors are not merely rhetorical devices but powerful tools that construct and perpetuate hegemonic structures, legitimizing state-sanctioned violence and dehumanizing individuals involved in drug-related activities. Conversely, metaphors of salvation and resistance offer alternative narratives that challenge these …

Integrating Corpus Linguistics In Vietnamese English Education: A Qualitative Inquiry Into Scholarly Perspectives And Practices, Thi Thuy Tran, Trut Thuy Pham, Thanh Thao Le

Higher Learning Research Communications

Objective: Our qualitative study investigated the integration of corpus linguistics in English education research among Vietnamese scholars, focusing on the experiences and perceptions across different career stages.

Methods: Employing semi-structured interviews, we engaged nine linguistics scholars, including novices as well as those at mid-career and near-end career stages, from two prominent Vietnamese institutions.

Results: Thematic analysis revealed three key themes: (1) challenges in incorporating corpus linguistics into teaching practices, (2) perceived benefits in enhancing language proficiency, and (3) the importance of institutional support for corpus linguistics research. The findings indicated that despite recognizing the pedagogical benefits of corpus linguistics, scholars …

Caracterización Lingüístico-Discursiva De Los Mecanismos De Despersonalización Y Posicionamiento Del Autor En El Género Médico Ficha Clínica, David Sanchez-Jimenez, Paulina Meza

Publications and Research

El dominio de géneros especializados es una competencia que representa gran dificultad para los estudiantes en formación. Su falta de dominio puede impedir o retrasar el proceso de enculturación de un individuo en una comunidad. Para formar adecuadamente a los estudiantes en las prácticas discursivas disciplinares, son necesarios datos empíricos sobre las características lingüístico-discursivas de los textos que deben producir. El objetivo de esta investigación cualitativa es describir los recursos lingüístico-discursivos de despersonalización y posicionamiento del autor en el género médico Ficha clínica. El corpus está constituido por 52 Fichas clínicas producidas por estudiantes de medicina de una universidad chilena. …

Reduction Of The Vocalic Sequence /Ea/ In Tapatío Spanish, Karol Ibarra Zetter

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Reduction of the Vocalic Sequence /ea/ in Tapatío Spanish

This study investigates reduction in the vocalic sequence /ea/ in spontaneous conversational Tapatío Spanish from CCT: El Corpus Conversacional Tapatío (Martínez Gómez & Ibarra Zetter, 2017). An example of this phenomenon is the vocalic sequence /ea/ in the word in teatro ‘theater,’ which is often produced as [ˈtja.tɾo]. However, the word azotea ‘rooftop’ is usually pronounced [a.so.ˈte.a] by CCT speakers. The lexical frequency of these words is one factor that influences the degree of /ea/ reduction. Typically, there is a correlation between the frequency of lexical items and their phonetic reduction …

Euphemism In Ai Discourse As Colonial Harm & Effect: Learnings From Subaltern Puerto Rico, Jacqueline Oquendo

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Through three integrated studies, this dissertation explores complex human-AI interactions by comparing the perceptions of two groups of U.S. citizens: subaltern Puerto Ricans and stateside Americans’ interactions with ChatGPT. This corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis or CLCDA, triangulated with 1:1 semi-structured interviews, validates scholars’ concerns about the biases inherent in generative AI. Contributing to those concerns, this dissertation reveals that ChatGPT deploys discourse strategies that, when executed, facilitate digital colonialism. Euphemistic language is prominent among its discourse strategies, replacing controversial words, phrases, and topics with more palatable ones. When prompted on events of historical significance, I find that ChatGPT’s discourse obscures …

Understanding The “L” In Cslp Within The Literacy Conundrum, Julia Lynch, Andrea Perrone

Michigan Reading Journal

Rooted in culturally relevant pedagogy, culturally sustaining literacy practices (CSLP) focus on equity in education (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Paris, 2012). Our view of CSLP emphasizes integrating the arts into literacy instruction to leverage students' cultural assets, stimulating their cognitive processes and recognizing literacy's interdisciplinary role in learning. As we align literacy practices with state standards, high-stakes testing, and research-based methods, it's crucial for educators and society to embrace them. Traditionally, literacy instruction has prioritized written language, creating hierarchical structures that lead to learning gaps and inequitable opportunities. An arts-based CSLP framework addresses these issues by ensuring literacy includes diverse …

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, …

Promoting Emergent Literacy In Preschool Through Extended Discourse: Covert Translanguaging In A Mandarin Immersion Environment, Robin E. Harvey, Kevin M. Wong

Education Division Scholarship

Rich oral language practices, including the opportunity and ability to participate in cognitively and linguistically challenging extended discourse, are foundational to early literacy development. To meet children’s needs in their first exposure to the languages of schooling, educators may engage students in extended discourse multilingually. The current study focuses on student-centered translanguaging conversations to examine strategies that preschool teachers employ to support young children’s emerging bilingual and biliteracy development in a Mandarin immersion preschool serving primarily nonheritage learners of Mandarin in the United States. Findings indicate that, despite the school’s Mandarin-only policy, teachers engaged in covert translanguaging practices to extend …

Vladimir Putin’S Leadership Traits Over 11 Years: A Longitudinal Study Of Putin’S Third Term In Office Using Leadership Trait Analysis, Payton J. Casteel

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

While an abundance of literature has studied the actions and behaviors of Vladimir Putin, the most extensive area involves leadership analysis (Semenova and Winter 2020). Various methods within political psychology have used analyses to study Putin throughout his time in office. However, no published research has studied Putin using leadership trait analysis, nor have any published works studied his changes in leadership leading up to the invasion of Ukraine. Using a mixed methods longitudinal study design on Vladimir Putin from 2012 to 2023, five periods in his third term were identified, with speeches taken and coded using the seven LTA …

Cross-Cultural And Cross-Proficiency Analysis Of Selected Cohesion Indices In Student Essays, Audrey Buenavista Morallo

Journal of English and Applied Linguistics

Cohesion is important in writing because of its role in writing quality development (Abdi Tabari & Johnson, 2023) and in making texts comprehensible (Ghasemi, 2013). It can differentiate between proficient and deficient writing (Crossley et al., 2016b, 2019), demonstrating its use as an index of language proficiency. Despite being an index of proficiency, little is known about cohesion use in second-language contexts (Abdi Tabari & Johnson, 2023; Crossley, 2020; Crossley et al., 2016a). To address this, this study investigated the use of connectives, givenness, and lexical overlap in essays from the Philippines, Singapore, and China available in a corpus. A …

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.

Liminality And Knowledge Production In Egyptian Stand-Up Comedy: Reflecting Perspectives And Defying Restrictions, Nohayer Lotfy

English Language and Literature

This paper aimed to examine how Egyptian live stand-up performances act as a liminal space where comedians present their perspectives on issues of concern, offering a different source of knowledge other than mainstream views and ideas. Data collected for this study included selected excerpts from Egyptian live stand-up shows in addition to interviews with stand-up comedians to collect more in-depth information about how they perceive stand-up comedy as a form of art and how they select their topics and develop their stand-up material. For this paper, two analytical approaches were applied: 1) A thematic approach to closely investigate the range …

Salience Of Ascription In Italian Grammar: Linguistics, Science, And Art, Joseph C. M. Davis

Open Educational Resources

This is a meaning-based, discourse-based linguistic analysis of what, in traditional terms, might be thought of as adjective-noun versus noun-adjective order in Italian. That analysis lends itself to thoughts of how, generally, linguistics relates to science and art. A grammatical system of Salience of Ascription is posited. The analysis, which is complete and comprehensive, consists of twelve sections, or chapters. It is envisioned to be a "living document," so to speak, in the sense that interested readers are encouraged to offer suggestions for improvement, including corrections and criticisms.

La Voz Del Autor En El Discurso Médico Y Sus Implicaciones En Ele, David Sanchez-Jimenez

Publications and Research

La demanda de profesionales de la salud que pueden prestar atención lingüísticamente concordante al paciente en contextos multilingües explica el aumento de los cursos de español médico en el currículo de pregrado y posgrado en instituciones universitarias de Estados Unidos en las últimas décadas. El aprendizaje de los estudiantes matriculados en estos cursos requiere el conocimiento de las características retórico-discursivas propias de los principales géneros discursivos que estudian durante su carrera para fines específicos en el campo de la salud los alumnos universitarios de español, cuyo fin último será el de replicarlos eficazmente en su práctica profesional. Por ello, en …

Exploring Attrition And Linguistic Shifts: The Impact Of Covid-19 And Anti-Asian Discrimination On The East And Southeast Asian Diaspora, Amy Wan-Ling Lin

University Honors Theses

This thesis investigates the complex interplay of language and identity among speakers of East Asian and Southeast Asian languages in the United States, within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the concurrent rise in anti-Asian hate. The study adopts a mixed-methods approach to delve into these complexities, guided by three research questions exploring changes in language use since the onset of the pandemic, changes in perspective on language identity since the onset of the pandemic, and the effect of geopolitical climate, specifically the rise in Asian hate, on language use and perspective on language identity. The qualitative methodology employed …

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 …

Retórica Intercultural En El Discurso Académico Universitario: Las Funciones Retóricas De La Citación En Los Trabajos De Fin De Máster Escritos En Español Y En Inglés Por Hablantes Nativos Y No Nativos, David Sanchez-Jimenez

Publications and Research

This research derives from the interest in learning the cultural differences in citation practices in the academic genre of Master's thesis of native Spanish (Ee), non-native Filipino writers of Spanish (Fe), native Filipino writers of English (Fi), and American writers of English. A total of thirty-two (32) master´s theses – eight (8) for each group – were analyzed. A quantitative and qualitative methodology was used to study this phenomenon based on the computerized textual analysis of the rhetorical function of citations arranged in typological classification that modified the outline proposed by Petrić in his 2007 article. The results obtained from …

Critical Multimodal Discourse Analysis: A Case Of A Palestinian Movement, Mohammedwesam Amer

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

The paper examines digital discourses of and on the Palestinian movement, Hamas on Twitter. The data corpus contains tweets and retweets by Shehab News Agency (Hamas’s agency), and all tweets associated with the hashtag #hamas and produced by any tweeter. The data resources were extracted in January 2022. The paper uses Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (1996 & 2006) social semiotic approach and critical discourse tools to examine online, textual and visual features of tweets. The findings show that the word occupation الاحتلال is the most frequent word in the tweets of Shehab News Agency, and it is associated with hashtags …

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 …

What’S In A Threat: A Corpus-Based, Speech Act And Lexicogrammatical Approach To Threats In English, Natalie Raun Carter

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

Threats can be made without using language at all, but previous research on the language of threats is limited and primarily examines threats with a small amount of constructed data. Building on Austin (1962) and Searle (1965; 1969)’s speech act theory and using a corpus of naturally occurring data consisting of 827 threatening texts from publicly available websites and law enforcement, this dissertation determines what constitutes a threat, as well as the interdependence between words and grammar.

Pragmatically, this dissertation identifies four required felicity conditions that must be met to constitute a threat—building on those set by John Searle, Bruce …

"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. …

Gaps And Overlaps In Conversation: Analyses Of Differentiating Factors, David W. Edwards

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

Human social behavior relies on communication, and much of that communication occurs in conversation. A crucial feature of conversation is turn-taking, the (usually) orderly pattern of listening and speaking that humans employ in conversation. In analyzing details of actual conversations, Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson (1974) launched the field of Conversation Analysis by outlining a set of observations of turn-taking behavior and by proposing a list of rules to explain that behavior. They noted that the vast majority of transitions from one speaker to another happen with very little gap or overlap (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974: 700–701). More recently, researchers …

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 …

A Computational Investigation Of English Spelling, John Winstead

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

This thesis examines the predictability and regularity of English orthography through computational methods. The primary objective is to use n-gram models to predict missing letters in English words by exploiting contextual information from adjacent letters. The study evaluates the impact of dataset size, word length, letter position, and vowel presence on the predictive accuracy of these models, uncovering patterns and structures inherent to English spelling.

The research utilizes a range of datasets, including the Carnegie Mellon University Pronouncing Dictionary, the Brown Corpus, the Corpus of Late Modern English Texts, the Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts, and the Open …

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 …

Discourses That Undermine Union Movements: A Multimodal Analysis Of Union-Busting Videos, Theresa A. Catalano, Julia Schleck

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Labor unions in the United States have experienced decades of decline, but recent years have seen a rebirth of union campaigns and successes. Because unions are once again becoming a threat to large companies, it is reasonable to assume that efforts to discourage organizing efforts will increase and become even more robust in the near future. Although traditionally, companies have worked to suspend union organizing through captive audience meetings in which unions were discussed via verbal or written modes, more recent means of reaching workers with anti-union messages incorporate a variety of communication strategies to get the message across. As …

The Past As A Colonialist Resource, Deepa Das Acevedo

Faculty Articles

Originalism’s critics have failed to block its rise. For many jurists and legal scholars, the question is no longer whether to espouse originalism but how to espouse it. This Article argues that critics have ceded too much ground by focusing on discrediting originalism as either bad history or shoddy linguistics. To disrupt the cycle of endless “methodological” refinements and effectively address originalism’s continued popularity, critics must do two things: identify a better disciplinary analogue for originalist interpretation and advance an argument that moves beyond methods.

Anthropology can assist with both tasks. Both anthropological analysis and originalist interpretation are premised on …

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 …

La Nueva Argumentación De Twitter: El Cambio De Paradigma Retórico Y La Independencia De Catalunya En Tuits, David Cortes Ferrandez

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Technology changed our world and shapes our reality in forms that widely differ from the traditional ones. Discourse and persuasion are not an exception. This study analyzes the tweets and oral discourses of eight politicians and social leaders during three of the most important days in the independence struggle between Catalonia and Spain to argue that the way people in power try to persuade their voters is changing, especially in new social networks such as Twitter.

The main object of study are the argumentative and persuasion processes that take place both in Twitter and oral discourses from the same politicians …