Matching Items (18)
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- All Subjects: Linguistics
- Creators: School of International Letters and Cultures
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
The use of discourse markers (DMs) is present in speech to both structure and organize the discourse (Fung & Carter, 2007). However, despite the different studies about the use of DMs, less attention has been paid to specific Spanish DMs such as pues, ‘so, well’ luego, ‘then, therefore’ and entonces ‘so, then’ about their reduction. The focus of this study is on the phonetic variation of these DMs from a corpus of speakers of Mexican Spanish from Salinas, California (Brown & Alba, 2017). This paper analyzed dependent and independent variables to show their influence on the reduction of DMs. Also, chunking phenomena and special reduction were part of the study as they can reflect patterns of change in the language.
ContributorsQuimbaya, Yazmin (Author) / Gradoville, Michael (Thesis director) / Fernández, SofÃa (Committee member) / Brown, Earl Kjar (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
The current study investigated emotional language use in middle aged and older adults in interviews in which they were asked questions relating to Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. Participants were split into two groups, one that attended Memory Clinic to have their cognition assessed, representing information seekers, and those who did not attend. These interviews were then transcribed and run through LIWC2015 software to determine linguistic differences between the two groups. Results did not indicate statistically significant differences between language use in those who attended Memory Clinic compared with those who did not. Further study with a sample that has higher levels of anxiety related to Alzheimer's disease and related dementias may produce statistically significant results.
ContributorsKalman, Talya (Author) / Maxfield, Molly (Thesis director) / Updegraff, Kimberly (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
This grammar describes the inner workings of the language of the Fwonnel Peninsula, known in its English translations as Fwonnel, Arojaunzan, or, most succinctly, Arojun. Contained within this 288-page paper are sections dedicated to Phonology, Phonetics, Morphology, Syntax, Example Texts, and various other elements of the world that I have created. Arojun is a moderately analytic language that features a Verb-Object-Subject word order, a pronoun-tense auxiliary system, and two orthography systems with historic significance. Connected to the language and included within this paper are sections on original Calendar Systems, Music Theory and Notation, Naming Traditions, Geography of the Fwonnel Peninsula, Religions, Two Dictionaries, a collection of common phrases important to learning the language and interacting with the people, and an in-depth look at the full political and linguistic history of the Fwonnel Peninsula. The Sample Text section includes several lines of interlinear glosses translating popular scenes from television shows from English(or Japanese) into Arojun, videos of which were posted to my YouTube Channel, Agma Schwa, over the course of the past year. This language, and in essence, the entirety of the fictional nation of El Fwonk Casanosia, has been building up to this point since 2007, when I was only seven years old. I may have needed to occasionally bend over backwards to make the less logical, yet emotionally significant, parts of this language and history reach a point of satisfactory suspension of disbelief, but I believe that it turned out wonderfully. Either way, this project took a great deal of effort, by far the largest project that I have worked on in my life.
ContributorsCole, Robert Joseph (Author) / Van Gelderen, Elly (Thesis director) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Committee member) / Bjork, Robert (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Psychological studies and feminist theories have determined the existence of many forms of
male bias in the English language. Male bias can be traced through American history in the form of laws of coverture and the categorization of women in law. Taking into account the connections between sexist language, history, and law, this paper investigates 1) how and why legal language is biased, 2) why male bias has persisted in law over time, and 3) what impact male-biased law has on women. The works of ancient philosophers, feminist historians, psycholinguistic scientists, and modern philosophers of law are used to explain the patriarchal gender hierarchy’s influence on law. Case law and legal policies demonstrate that sexism has been maintained through history due to the preservation of male-biased language and the exclusion of women from the public sphere. Today, the use of masculine generics continues to taint the legal profession by reflecting, rather than denouncing, its patriarchal roots.
male bias in the English language. Male bias can be traced through American history in the form of laws of coverture and the categorization of women in law. Taking into account the connections between sexist language, history, and law, this paper investigates 1) how and why legal language is biased, 2) why male bias has persisted in law over time, and 3) what impact male-biased law has on women. The works of ancient philosophers, feminist historians, psycholinguistic scientists, and modern philosophers of law are used to explain the patriarchal gender hierarchy’s influence on law. Case law and legal policies demonstrate that sexism has been maintained through history due to the preservation of male-biased language and the exclusion of women from the public sphere. Today, the use of masculine generics continues to taint the legal profession by reflecting, rather than denouncing, its patriarchal roots.
ContributorsHabib, Shanika Sabin (Author) / Stoff, Laurie (Thesis director) / Fedock, Rachel (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
In a world where people can access a foreign language as easily as they can access Netflix, looking at and comparing translations can aid in considering the differences between cultures as they are conveyed through language. The purpose of my thesis is to investigate the translation of levels of formality in American TV Shows into their French dubbed version. In particular, I survey the presence of specific lexical and morpho-syntactic French indicators of formality in the translations of five American TV Shows and how the inclusion of such features establishes the formality of a situation or relationship. Through my analysis, I explore the difficulties and concerns of translations, the effect of the translation on the audiences, and possible reasons behind the translators’ choices. When it comes to the incorporation of French lexical features, translations seem to be affected by the cultural differences between American and French society since these features deal with cultural material that is difficult to find a proper equivalence for. On the other hand, translations of morpho-syntactic features are concerned with transferring meaning from an American English structure into a French structure. When we consider these features one by one, we see how culture is filtered through language and the difficulty of translating language that is bound to a society, its institutions, and its culture.
ContributorsJordan, Emily (Author) / Bahtchevanova, Mariana (Thesis director) / Winter, Marie (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
This study expands on findings by Yu, McBeath, & Glenberg (2019) which demonstrated a relationship between the pronunciation of English vowel phonemes and emotional valence due to embodied cognition. That study found that single syllable words containing the phoneme /i:/ (as in “gleam”) were reliably rated as more positive than matched words containing the phoneme /ʌ/ (as in “glum”). The findings are consistent with the idea that the facial musculature when smiling is more conducive to making the /i:/ sound, while that of frowning or grimacing is more conducive to making the /ʌ/ sound. That study only compared the phonemes /i:/ and /ʌ/, which are opposite extremes of phoneme similarity (second formant frequency). The present study expands on this finding by testing the relative emotional valence ratings of matched single-syllable words containing /i:/ vs /ʌ/ plus two intermediate phonemes, /ɪ/ (as in “bit”), and /ɔ/ (as in “bought”). The new findings replicate the Gleam-Glum effect, and provide support for a weak ordering hypothesis for the intermediate phonemes, but not a strong ordering. The weak ordering hypothesis is that single-syllable words containing a middle vowel phoneme that is intermediate to /i:/ and /ʌ/ in musculature and acoustic features are also generally rated as intermediate in emotional valence. The strong ordering hypothesis is that the intermediate phonemes are each differentially rated in emotional valance in precisely the same order as determined acoustically. The pattern of results found is consistent with the Russell Circumplex Model of emotion at a cursory level, but individual emotions do not fully conform to a simple 2-D model that generalizes to similarity judgments of phonemes. Nevertheless, the work supports that facial musculature associated with visually discernible emotions generally relates to a phonetic acoustic continuum.
ContributorsLobato, Theresa Annette (Author) / McBeath, Michael K. (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur M. (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
This is a constructed language that is primarily based on getting rid of Morphological and Syntactical ambiguity. Much of the inspiration I took when making this language came from Latin and Ancient Greek, adopting the things that make those languages beautiful, and changing the things that make them difficult. The main thing I wanted this language to accomplish was to achieve maximum specificity, clarity, and complexity of thought, and therefore I focused heavily on clause formation and making this a highly synthetic language.
ContributorsJennings, Elisa Tamara (Author) / Van Gelderen, Elly (Thesis director) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-12
Description
Hiatus resolution, also explained by vowel sequence realization, occurs when a vowel sequence that occupies two syllables in normative speech is reduced to a monosyllabic sequence. In this study, vowel sequence realization was examined by measuring the duration of word-boundary vowel sequences in the speech of Spanish speakers from Cali and Barranquilla, Colombia. Four variables (speaker gender, regional variety, speaking rate, and two-word string frequency) were analyzed to determine their effects on the duration of the unstressed vowel sequences , , , and .
ContributorsO'Connor, Christopher (Author) / Gradoville, Michael (Thesis director) / Walton-Ramirez, Anne (Committee member) / File-Muriel, Richard (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-05