ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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- All Subjects: Linguistics
- Creators: Shepherd, Michael
Description
Advertisements intend to persuade the reader to invest money or time in a product or service. Newspapers contain advertisements that are space-limited, thus necessitating a concise and convincing message that will influence readers. Nord (2008) analyzed conative function (Jakobson 1960) as a persuasive tool in a corpus of Spanish, English, and German advertising texts. A portion of Nord's study focused on sender attitude indicators directed at addressees as a key element of conative function, and analyzed address forms among several attitude indicators found in print advertisements. The current study analyzed 604 Spanish newspaper advertisements in Arizona and Florida, focusing on possible independent factors related to the probability of the occurrence of various address forms. These factors included: the type of product being advertized and its cost, the nature of the advertisement, the location of the advertisement in the newspaper (main section, sports, etc.), intended audience (including age and sex), geographic region of the newspaper, and each newspaper as compared to others. These variables were categorized and statistically analyzed using a quantitative design. The study provided results indicating a strong statistical relationship between the presence of address forms and product type, a moderate relationship with audience age, and a mild relationship with product cost. Various similarities and differences were also found when comparing the data geographically.
ContributorsBorba, Andrew (Author) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Thesis advisor) / Lafford, Barbara (Committee member) / Shepherd, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The presence of two copula verbs (ser and estar) in Spanish has caused a semantic competition between the two. This semantic competition has been documented from the XII century (Vañó-Cerdá, 1982). Some scholars (Brown & Cortés-Torres, 2012; Cortés-Torres, 2004; Gutiérrez, 1992; Ortiz-López, 2000; Silva-Corvalán, 1994) have demonstrated the presence of this competition in which estar has been occupying structures traditionally reserved for ser in different Spanish varieties. This study investigates the extent to which the extension of estar to contexts previously limited to ser is present in the Spanish of Puerto Rico in adjectival structures (copula + adjective). The investigation analyzed 21 Puerto Rican Spanish speakers, who completed five different instruments (interview, description of a picture, 2 questionnaires and grammar judgment). Nine of the participants completed the five tasks and the other 12 completed the 2 questionnaires. A multi-variable and qualitative analysis were employed to examine the linguistics (class or individual frame of reference, copulas the adjective allows, animacy, susceptibility to change, and type of adjective) and social factors (sex, age, level of education, and bilingualism) that favor the phenomenon. The results showed that type of adjective, copulas the adjective allows, susceptibility to change, and type of questionnaire favored the innovative use of estar. Both analyses showed a clear tendency of the linguistics factors that favor the innovative use of estar. The results of this study concur with previous studies (Cortés-Torres, 2004; Gutiérrez, 1992; Ortiz-López, 2000; Silva-Corvalán, 1994) about the phenomenon in other monolingual and bilingual Spanish dialects. This study confirms Puerto Rican Spanish follows the internal change tendency in Spanish language about the uses of ser and estar. The use of different instruments for data collection provides a clear view of the phenomenon in Puerto Rican Spanish. The use of questionnaires with confirmed estar predictors shows that some adjectives resist the phenomenon more; even with the perfect conditions for the use of estar, the participants did not allowed its use.
ContributorsNegrón Medina, Melissa (Author) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Thesis advisor) / Lafford, Barbara (Committee member) / Shepherd, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013