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- Creators: Arizona State University
Description
Anthropological attention to landscapes has revealed them to be more than where people subsist: landscapes are inherently social entities. People create landscapes in their interactions with the environment and each other. People conceptualize, or imbue the landscape with meaning such that given places serve to impart cultural knowledge, identity, and social order. The link between people and their landscape thus underscores the importance of a landscape focus in the attempt to understand people. Furthermore, as a product of cultural behavior, the landscape constitutes a form of material culture that may be marked in ways that are consistent with how it is conceptualized. The material dimension of people's relationship with their landscape renders it a fruitful focus of archaeological inquiry. The main goal of this study is to identify how the Wixárika of Jalisco, Mexico, conceptualize the landscape, and to assess its relevance to understanding the ancient past. As adherents of a Mesoamerican tradition, the Wixárika offer a distinctive perspective on the landscape, and one with potential to elucidate the ancient past.
Given that a major share of a society's culturally significant cognitive features is expressed most productively by means of language, in this study I rely on aspects of language to ascertain Wixárika landscape conceptualization and materialization. Through the linguistic analysis of placenames and place-talk, I determine the meanings with which the Wixárika landscape is imbued. Through the analysis of the utterance of placenames, I provide examples of how the landscape is instilled with meaning. Utilizing native terminology, I characterize the content of the Wixárika landscape, and describe the process, in terms of movements, whereby the landscape is actualized.
Results indicate that the Wixárika conceptualize their landscape in diverse ways, including as a dwelling, a repository of memories, and a source of identity. The process and manifestation of Wixárika landscape conceptualization yield insights pertinent to understanding ancient landscapes, especially with regard to content and scope. This study is significant in that it represents the landscape from an indigenous perspective. It also sheds light on the construction of a living landscape, and thus is a useful framework for contemplating the past.
Given that a major share of a society's culturally significant cognitive features is expressed most productively by means of language, in this study I rely on aspects of language to ascertain Wixárika landscape conceptualization and materialization. Through the linguistic analysis of placenames and place-talk, I determine the meanings with which the Wixárika landscape is imbued. Through the analysis of the utterance of placenames, I provide examples of how the landscape is instilled with meaning. Utilizing native terminology, I characterize the content of the Wixárika landscape, and describe the process, in terms of movements, whereby the landscape is actualized.
Results indicate that the Wixárika conceptualize their landscape in diverse ways, including as a dwelling, a repository of memories, and a source of identity. The process and manifestation of Wixárika landscape conceptualization yield insights pertinent to understanding ancient landscapes, especially with regard to content and scope. This study is significant in that it represents the landscape from an indigenous perspective. It also sheds light on the construction of a living landscape, and thus is a useful framework for contemplating the past.
ContributorsKantor, Loni (Author) / Nelson, Ben (Thesis advisor) / Hegmon, Michelle (Committee member) / Isaac, Gwyneira (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This thesis offers a contrastive analysis of the causative alternation phenomenon in English and Standard Arabic variety. This phenomenon has received a lot of attention in the literature on argument structure. It has traditionally been presented in terms of the causativization of inchoative verbs/unaccusatives. It is argued here that this analysis conflicts with the way the causative alternation is molded in Arabic. Causative alternation in Arabic is not only limited to inchoative verbs, but it incorporates unergative verbs as well, which play a vital role in this alternation. The implication of this observation is that the different syntactic behaviors between English and Arabic may reflect people’s different perception of events and lead to different syntactic computation. Therefore, this thesis highlights the role of this subset of intransitives/anti-causatives in the Arabic causative alternation and answers one of the highly considered questions on the causative alternation; that is, which version of the alternation is the lexical base, and which one is derived? This thesis also reveals that there is some significant difference between English and Arabic in terms of the alternatability of unaccusative verbs. Therefore, this study shows that most of the Arabic unaccusative verbs, except denominal verbs, have a causative alternant. This thesis also addresses the vital role of the Arabic verbal template in clarifying this phenomenon. In sum, this thesis provides an overview of the semantic, syntactic, and morphological properties of Arabic verbs undergoing the causative alternation. Besides employing the researcher’s native-speaker intuition, the English/Arabic Lexicon Dictionary and Arabicorpora are consulted to support the validity of the argument.
ContributorsAl-qadi, Mona (Author) / Gelderen, Elly v. (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Set in South Texas, the poems of “Before the Body” address the border, not of place, but in between people. Following a narrative arc from a grandfather who spoke another language—silence—to a young boy who drowns in silence, these poems are expressions of the speaker’s search for intimacy in language: what words intend themselves to be, what language means to be.
ContributorsEspinoza, Lauren (Author) / Rios, Alberto A (Thesis advisor) / Ball, Sally (Committee member) / Hogue, Cynthia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This qualitative study investigates the experiences of ten focal youth who came to the United States as refugees and were placed in Structured English Immersion (SEI) programs in Arizona high schools. The educational language policy for Arizona’s public schools (during the 2014-2015 school year) mandates SEI include four 60-minute classroom periods devoted to reading, writing, grammar, oral English exclusively. Students in SEI thus have restricted access to the full-range of general education courses required for graduation, as well as limited opportunities for social interaction with peers enrolled in the “mainstream” curriculum.
The study investigates how youth understand and navigate the school language policy, practices and discourses that position them, and specifically seeks to learn how being identified as an “English Language Learner” interacts with youth’s construction of academic and social identities. Adopting a critical sociocultural theory of language policy (following McCarty, 2011), employing ethnographically-informed research methods, and using social-positioning as an analytic lens, I aim to learn from an emic youth perspective and to amplify their voices. Eight Somali and two Iraqi students took part in two individual in-depth interviews; five students participated in a focus group; and all engaged in numerous informal conversations during 22 researcher site visits to an ethnic community-based organization (ECBO) and a family apartment.
Narratives recounting the participants’ lived experiences in the socio-cultural context of high school provide powerful examples of youth asserting personal agency and engaging in small acts of resistance to contest disagreeable positioning. The findings thus support the conceptualization of youth as creative producers of hybridity in response to their environments. This work also confirms the perennial significance of social categories and “othering” in high school. Though the institutional structure of separate classrooms and concomitant limited access to required courses hinder the study participants’ academic progress, the youth speak positively about the comfort of comradery and friendship in the shared safe space of the separate SEI classroom. The dissertation concludes with participants’ recommendations for educators, and the people refugee youth interact with in the context of high school, to improve refugee youth’s experience.
The study investigates how youth understand and navigate the school language policy, practices and discourses that position them, and specifically seeks to learn how being identified as an “English Language Learner” interacts with youth’s construction of academic and social identities. Adopting a critical sociocultural theory of language policy (following McCarty, 2011), employing ethnographically-informed research methods, and using social-positioning as an analytic lens, I aim to learn from an emic youth perspective and to amplify their voices. Eight Somali and two Iraqi students took part in two individual in-depth interviews; five students participated in a focus group; and all engaged in numerous informal conversations during 22 researcher site visits to an ethnic community-based organization (ECBO) and a family apartment.
Narratives recounting the participants’ lived experiences in the socio-cultural context of high school provide powerful examples of youth asserting personal agency and engaging in small acts of resistance to contest disagreeable positioning. The findings thus support the conceptualization of youth as creative producers of hybridity in response to their environments. This work also confirms the perennial significance of social categories and “othering” in high school. Though the institutional structure of separate classrooms and concomitant limited access to required courses hinder the study participants’ academic progress, the youth speak positively about the comfort of comradery and friendship in the shared safe space of the separate SEI classroom. The dissertation concludes with participants’ recommendations for educators, and the people refugee youth interact with in the context of high school, to improve refugee youth’s experience.
ContributorsCorley, Kathleen M (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa L. (Thesis advisor) / Swadener, Elizabeth B. (Thesis advisor) / Warriner, Doris (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Although there are millions of Nahuatl speakers, the language is highly threatened. The dominant language of Coatepec de los Costales, a small village in Guerrero, Mexico, was historically Nahuatl, a Uto-Aztecan language, referred to by some as “Mexicano” (Messing, 2009). In the last 50 years, there has been a pronounced shift from Mexicano to Spanish in the village, and fewer than 10% of the residents currently speak Mexicano. Without intervention, the language will be lost in the village. The ultimate cause of language shift is a disconnect in transferring the Indigenous language from the older to the younger generations. In Coatepec, older Nahuatl speakers are not teaching their children the language. This recurring theme appears in case studies of language shift around the world. Using a conceptual framework that combines (1) a critical sociocultural approach to language policy; (2) Spolsky’s (2004) definition of language policy as language practices, ideologies or beliefs, and management; (3) the ethnography of language policy, and (3) Indigenous knowledges, I collected and analyzed data from a six-month ethnographic study of language loss and reclamation in Coatepec. Specifically, I looked closely at the mechanisms by which language ideologies, management, and practices were enacted among members of different generations, using a combination of observation, archival analysis, and in-depth ethnographic interviews. Seidman’s (2013) three-part interview sequence, which includes a focused life history, details of experience, and reflections on meaning, provided the framework for the interviews. What are the language ideologies and practices within and across generations in this setting? What language management strategies – tacit and official – do community members of different generations employ? This in-depth examination of language ideologies, practices, and management strategies is designed to illuminate not only how and why language shift is occurring, but the possibilities for reversing language shift as well.
ContributorsLagunas, Rosalva Mojica (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa L. (Thesis advisor) / Romero-Little, Mary Eunice (Thesis advisor) / Brayboy, Bryan McKinley (Committee member) / Coronel-Molina, Serafín M. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The traditional action-response perspective has largely ignored the role of language in competitive dynamics. In this study, I treat language (i.e., word response) as an alternative way to react to rivals when a firm is attacked, in addition to no reaction and action-based reaction. Word response is a specific and public announcement of a focal firm’s potential move in reaction to a competitor’s word or action attack. To explore the underlying mechanism behind word responses, I aim to answer two major questions. The first question is under what situations are responders motivated to use words as competitive responses? For this question I emphasize characteristics of the action, the market, and the actor, using measures such as action type, market dependence of the responder, multimarket contact of the responder in the market, and the competitive aggressiveness of the actor. The second question is what kinds of responders are more likely to use words as competitive responses? For this question, I focus on responder characteristics, such as firm reputation, CEO tenure, and CEO duality. According to Porter’s competitive signaling theory, I argue that responders can use words in reaction to an attack in order to test the waters, deter rivalry, and demonstrate toughness because word responses require few resources, can be accomplished quickly, are reversible, while at the same time still carrying some commitment. Besides incorporating language into the action-response perspective, my dissertation also further integrates the upper-echelons perspective with competitive dynamics research, providing a more realistic and complete understanding of competitive engagement. I test my theory in the consumer electronics (CE) industry with 20 major global CE manufacturers between 2007 and 2014.
ContributorsGao, He (Author) / Cannella, Albert A. (Thesis advisor) / Yu, Tieying (Committee member) / Mesquita, Luiz (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Ethos or credibility of a speaker is often defined as the speaker's character (Aristotle). Contemporary scholars however, have contended that ethos lies with the audience because while the speaker may efficiently persuade, the audience will decide if it wants to be persuaded (Farrell). Missing from the scholarly conversation is attention to how ethos is performed between speaker and audience under institutional structures that produce inequitable power relations subject to changing political contexts over time. In this dissertation I analyze how ethos is performed that is a function of a specific social and political environment.
My grandfather, Al Foon Lai, was a paper son. As an adult, I learned that paper sons were members of paper families that may or may not actually exist except on paper; furthermore paper immigration was the way many Chinese entered the United States to get around the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882-1943). Grandfather held legal status, but grandfather's name was fictitious and thus his entry to the United States in 1920 was illegal. Today by some authorities he would be classified as an illegal immigrant. As Grandfather's status as a paper son suggest, Grandfather's credibility as someone with the legal prerogative to reside in the U.S. was a dynamic construct that was negotiated in light of the changing cultural norms encoded in shifting immigration policies. Grandfather constructed his ethos "to do persuasion" in administrative hearings mandated under the Chinese Exclusion Act that produced asymmetrical power relations. By asymmetrical power relations I mean the unequal status between the administrator overseeing the hearing and Lai the immigrant. The unequal status was manifest in the techniques and procedures employed by the administrative body empowered to implement the Chinese Exclusion Act and subsequent laws that affected Chinese immigrants. Combining tools from narrative analysis and feminists rhetorical methods I analyze excerpts from Al Foon Lai's transcripts from three administrative hearings between 1926 and 1965. It finds that Grandfather employed narrative strategies that show the nature of negotiating ethos in asymmetrical power situations and the link between the performance of ethos and the political and social context.
My grandfather, Al Foon Lai, was a paper son. As an adult, I learned that paper sons were members of paper families that may or may not actually exist except on paper; furthermore paper immigration was the way many Chinese entered the United States to get around the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882-1943). Grandfather held legal status, but grandfather's name was fictitious and thus his entry to the United States in 1920 was illegal. Today by some authorities he would be classified as an illegal immigrant. As Grandfather's status as a paper son suggest, Grandfather's credibility as someone with the legal prerogative to reside in the U.S. was a dynamic construct that was negotiated in light of the changing cultural norms encoded in shifting immigration policies. Grandfather constructed his ethos "to do persuasion" in administrative hearings mandated under the Chinese Exclusion Act that produced asymmetrical power relations. By asymmetrical power relations I mean the unequal status between the administrator overseeing the hearing and Lai the immigrant. The unequal status was manifest in the techniques and procedures employed by the administrative body empowered to implement the Chinese Exclusion Act and subsequent laws that affected Chinese immigrants. Combining tools from narrative analysis and feminists rhetorical methods I analyze excerpts from Al Foon Lai's transcripts from three administrative hearings between 1926 and 1965. It finds that Grandfather employed narrative strategies that show the nature of negotiating ethos in asymmetrical power situations and the link between the performance of ethos and the political and social context.
ContributorsCarter, Karen Lynn Ching (Author) / Long, Elenore (Thesis advisor) / Hannah, Mark (Committee member) / Warriner, Doris (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
My job in this thesis is to explore a supposedly dragon-filled area of philosophy, tropology. By 'tropology,' I only mean the study of figurative speech, or, more particularly, metaphors. It seems clear to most people that metaphors have meaning. But this fact flies in the face of several different theories of meaning. Such as, the meaning of a metaphor can't be properly conveyed by Possible Worlds Semantics or Truth-Conditional Semantics. Tropology is also an area of philosophy with very few commonly accepted theories. It is not like the study of reference, where there are two theories, each having a large following. The the various theories in tropology are so radically different, with each having relatively few followers, that the it is widely unexplored in philosophy. Some theories claim that metaphors is the exact same as another use of speech (namely, similes). Another claims that metaphors lack “meaning.” And a third claims that metaphors do 'mean' but getting at that meaning requires some special mental operations. By the end of this thesis, you will not only have my map of tropology, my theory of metaphors, but also some experimental philosophy about them to help put to rest some theories.
ContributorsSmith, Davis Alexander (Author) / Pinillos, Angel (Thesis advisor) / Kobes, Bernard (Committee member) / Reynolds, Steven (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The Hopi people have the distinct term mongwi applied to a person who is charged with leadership of a group. According to Hopi oral history and some contemporary Hopi thought, a mongwi (leader) or group of momngwit (leaders), gain their foremost positions in Hopi society after being recognizably able to fulfill numerous qualifications linked to their respective clan identity, ceremonial initiation, and personal conduct. Numerous occurrences related to the Hopis historical experiences have rendered a substantial record of what are considered the qualifications of a Hopi leader. This thesis is an extensive examination of the language used and the context wherein Hopi people express leadership qualities in the written and documentary record.
ContributorsKaye, Cliff E (Author) / Romero-Little, Eunice (Thesis advisor) / Riding In, James (Committee member) / Tippeconnic III, John (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
This thesis investigates colonialism’s legacy on contemporary Liberia’s language practices and self-understandings. Liberia was colonized by freed American slaves under the auspices of the American Colonization Society, established in 1816, which sought to establish a Christian colony in Africa as part of its plan to save the black race. The freed slaves who realized this dream imposed their master’s language and religion upon the indigenous people they encountered while establishing the Liberian nation-state. This thesis delineates and explores three distinct data sets in order to identify contemporary vestiges and legacies of these colonial strategies, including interview data from Liberian immigrants, memoirs written by Liberians, and social media posts by Liberian immigrants. The study uses discourse analysis to analyze how Liberian immigrants represent themselves and their cultural practices drawing upon both colonial and indigenous identities. Findings revealed people with light skinned color (referred to as white) were viewed as beautiful and dark skinned people (referred to Africans) were considered as ugly. The study also revealed that speaking local languages is equated with illiteracy while the ability to speak English was seen as a sign of literacy. However, there was also a contradictory imperative that demonstrated resistance against the colonizing narrative. Liberia immigrants who experienced American culture fantasized about what they called true African identity and culture, revalorizing what previously had been negated.
ContributorsWento, Christiana Tally (Author) / Nadesan, Majia (Thesis advisor) / Mean, Lindsey (Committee member) / Gruber, Diane (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017