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STEPHENS, DEBORAH ANNE. "LINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF CODESWITCHING AMONG SPANISH/ENGLISH BILINGUAL CHILDREN (SOCIOLINGUISTICS, PSYCHOLINGUISTICS, APPLIED LINGUISTICS)." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/188166.
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Codeswitching between languages is a uniquely bilingual mode of communication. The purpose of this dissertation is to enhance the current body of knowledge dealing with the phenomenon by analysing samples of speech produced by twenty-six Spanish/English bilingual children ranging in age from eight to twelve. Methods of analysis include theoretical linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and educational linguistics. A discussion of relevant codeswitching research covering the past thirty years is presented. The data were collected during a reading study focusing on miscue analysis. The children read stories in English and retold them in both Spanish and English. The analysis considers the data from the four previously mentioned points of view. The linguistic analysis looks at the locations of switched constituents within the sentence and the frequency with which those constituents are switched. The data of this study are compared with that of other researchers, and a consideration of a formal grammar of codeswitching is presented. The sociolinguistic analysis addresses the effect of social and stylistic variables on codeswitching. The psycholinguistic analysis of codeswitching covers lexical storage, editing phenomena, and developmental aspects. Finally, some aspects of the education of bilinguals are considered by analysing the effect of the printed word on language switching and dialect shifting . The application of the results of the analysis to both theoretical issues and practical concerns is explored along with suggested areas for future research. The analyses show that young children's codeswitching initially favors less complex structures and is influenced by few social variables. As they grow older, they become more comfortable with switching grammatically complex structures, and they become aware of a greater variety of social factors. A separate grammar is not necessary for a complete description of codeswitching; a modified interdependance model of the two grammars can account for the codeswitching mode. Lastly, the written language becomes part of the speech situation in the classroom and affects the choice of language or dialect spoken.
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Berghoff, Robyn. "Dimensions of space in sociolinguistics." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/96056.
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Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Within the social sciences and humanities, adequate definitions and understandings of the concept ‘space’ have been debated for some time. However, until recently, this debate been neglected within linguistics, although it is generally acknowledged that understandings of space within sociolinguistic research specifically have not remained uniform over time. The research presented in this study focuses on the varying conceptions of ‘space’ in the development of variationist sociolinguistics. It specifically seeks to address the lack of a coherent account of the influence that the various dominant conceptualizations of ‘space’ have had on research design throughout the history of the field. Previous work on this topic, which until recently has been relatively scarce, has pointed out some fluctuations in the understanding of space that has been employed within sociolinguistics. Still, these changes over time have not yet been investigated in a systematic and chronological manner. Additionally, previous investigations of the concept ‘space’ in sociolinguistics did not situate themselves within the broader spatial rethinking that has occurred in the social sciences, and thus tend to employ the relevant spatial terminology in isolated and unstandardized ways. The present study examines the conceptualization of ‘space’ in variationist sociolinguistics in a systematic and chronological manner, and situates changes in the understanding of this concept within the so-called “spatial turn” that occurred in the social sciences in the late 1970s/early 1980s. By examining the influential literature within four different variationist sociolinguistic paradigms and identifying the changes in dominant spatial understandings that have occurred over time, the impact of each dominant spatial conception on research design in variationist sociolinguistics is explicated. Ultimately, the study aims to clarify a topic that has previously been treated in largely incomplete and unsystematic ways. By presenting a partial chronicle of the history of ‘space’ in variationist sociolinguistics, the study will moreover serve as a basis for those working in the field to reflect on the directions this relatively young discipline has taken.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Binne die sosiale en geesteswetenskappe is toereikende definisies en begrip van die konsep ‘ruimte’ al vir ’n geruime tyd gedebatteer. Hierdie debat is tot onlangs binne die taalwetenskap afgeskeep, alhoewel dit algemeen erken word dat die begrip van ruimte binne spesifiek sosiolinguistiese navorsing met verloop van tyd verander het. Die navorsing wat in hierdie studie aangebied word, fokus op veranderinge in die konseptualisering van ruimte in die ontwikkeling van variasionistiese sosiolinguistiek. Daar word spesifiek aandag gegee aan die gebrek aan ʼn samehangende beskrywing van die invloed wat verskillende dominante begrippe van ‘ruimte’ gehad het op navorsingsontwerp in die veld se geskiedenis. Vorige werk wat oor dié onderwerp handel, en wat tot onlangs relatief skaars was, het daarop gewys dat daar wel veranderinge was in die manier waarop die begrip ‘ruimte’ binne die sosiolinguistiek gebruik is, maar hierdie veranderinge is nog nie op ʼn sistematiese en chronologiese manier ondersoek nie. Vorige studies van dié onderwerp is ook nie binne die breër ruimte-debat in die sosiale wetenskappe aangebied nie. Daar is dus die geneigheid om die relevante ruimte-terminologie op geïsoleerde en nie-gestandaardiseerde maniere te gebruik.
Die huidige studie ondersoek die konsep ‘ruimte’ binne variasionistiese sosiolinguistiek op ʼn sistematiese en chronologiese manier, en plaas veranderinge in die begrip van ruimte in die sosiolinguistiek binne die konteks van die sogenaamde “spatial turn” wat in die laat-1970’s/vroeë-1980’s binne die sosiale wetenskappe plaasgevind het. Deur ʼn ondersoek van invloedryke literatuur binne vier verskillende variasionisties-sosiolinguistiese raamwerke, en die identifisering van die veranderinge in die konseptualisering van dominante ruimte-begrippe wat met verloop van tyd plaasgevind het, word die impak van elke dominante ruimte-begrip op navorsingsontwerp in variasionistiese sosiolinguistiek duidelik gemaak. Die uiteindelike oogmerk van die studie is om duidelikheid te verskaf oor ʼn onderwerp wat voorheen grootliks onvolledig en onsistematies aangespreek is. Deur ’n gedeeltelike kroniek van die geskiedenis van ‘ruimte’ in variationistiese sosiolinguistiek te bied, dien die studie voorts as ’n basis vanwaar taalwetenskaplikes kan besin oor die rigtings waarin hierdie relatief jong dissipline ontwikkel het.
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Barr, Regina L. "Sociolinguistics and Bilingualism." University of Toledo / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1512423875160549.
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Stubbs, Kelsey R. "The Effects of Gender on Interruption among Peers." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2014. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/195.
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Studies of mixed-gender conversation have established that the gender of speakers plays a role in talking power, conversational dominance, topic control, and perception of the speaker’s communicative ability. The purpose of this study was to expand upon previous research of interruption by examining its function and frequency in conversation among peers. While previous research in this area has focused on interruption in the workplace or the home, this research examines its place in mixed-gender conversation between university students. Participants in this study were recorded in group conversation and the transcription was later analyzed for general trends of interruption with relation to each gender. From these results, it was concluded that while men and women interrupt each other in different ways, both genders interrupt frequently and exercise control over the floor. We hypothesize that greater awareness of the patterns of interruption and conversational dominance between genders will improve the inclusion of all speakers in discussion and topic development.
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McGregor, William Graham. "Third person interpretation and the sociolinguistics of verbal communication." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/922.
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This thesis is addressed to analysts of talk in social scenes. Its principal aim is to develop a framework for systematically investigating third person interpretations of what communicates and what is communicated in the data products of everyday verbal exchange. The programme of research that is designed to meet this aim is based on analytic and descriptive techniques adopted from a wide range of disciplines concerned with the study of verbal communication, and particularly those associated with the work of John Gumperz (1982a; 1982b). By focussing on the nature of third person descriptions of what goes on and who is involved in various tape recorded products of talk, the research seeks to explore the nature of members' interpretive resources for recovering and warranting communicative norms that are not normally verbalised as talk is in progress. The investigative method developed for this purpose provides professional observers with an empirical means of citing evidence in support of their own analytic claims about what participants are doing in talk. It also provides an enabling device for generating and testing hypotheses about the communicative salience of different sociolinguistic factors, much as Gumperz (1982a) suggests. On the basis of the work presented, it is argued that whatever the disciplinary motivation of the analyst or the sociolinguistic contexts in which talk occurs third person interpretive methods offer a powerful descriptive tool. The research potential of this tool is evaluated in terms of its utility for not only investigating the interpretive resources of different individuals within a specific culture, but also for developing culturally sensitive theories of communicative language use in general.
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Zumrawi, Fatima Mohamed Ali. "The sociolinguistics of Arabicization : the case of the Khartoum Polytechnic." Thesis, University of Salford, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.304587.
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Altamimi, Abdulaziz. "The effects of bilingualism on inhibitory control and divergent thinking| Investigating the roles of proficiency and frequency of use." Thesis, California State University, Long Beach, 2016. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10137429.
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<p> Despite the vast research on the relationship between bilingualism and cognition, no consensus has been reached about the positive impact of bilingualism and how various bilingual parameters may be effective to varying degrees. Thus, the purpose of this research is to examine the effects of bilingualism on inhibitory control and divergent thinking by assigning language learners to groups reflecting different bilingual background experience. To address this issue, 114 second language learners, assigned to three groups based on L2 frequency of use and L2 proficiency, were compared to 38 monolinguals in their performance at the Simon task (inhibitory control test) and the Alternate Uses Test (divergent thinking test). Inhibitory control results demonstrated that the positive effect of bilingualism was only found among the L2 group exhibiting the most frequent and regular use of L2. Findings of the divergent thinking task indicated similar performance across different L2 groups compared to the monolingual group. Results are discussed in light of how frequency of L2 use may improve inhibitory control by engaging similar mechanisms recruited for language control. Light is also shed on how different bilingual variables, such as the age of acquisition, may obscure the advantage of bilingualism on divergent thinking. Implications for this study are its relevance to the larger population of language learners and its contribution to the advancement of our understanding of the research gap surrounding how different linguistic parameters may influence the bilingual advantage.</p>
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Aldosaree, Osamh M. "Language attitudes toward Saudi dialects." Thesis, California State University, Long Beach, 2016. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10141516.
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<p> The aim of this study is to reveal and analyze language ideologies and stereotypes associated with the three main regional dialects of Saudi Arabia: Najdi, Hijazi, and Janoubi. The research questions were “How do Saudi speakers with different educational levels perceive other regional dialects?” and “Does experience and exposure to other dialects play a role in terms of their perception?” Since college students typically have more opportunities to interact with speakers of different dialects, I hypothesized that their evaluations of other dialects would be different from high school students’ perspectives. The study participants consisted of 66 college subjects and 69 high school subjects; they came from different regional backgrounds. Lambert's Matched-Guise Test (1960) was implemented in order to examine the language attitudes toward these dialects. Interviews were also conducted to probe participants’ reasons and justifications for their judgments and opinions and also to support statistical findings. I found significant difference between college and high school subjects in the measures of five items. High school subjects tended to have a hard time guessing the speaker’s background, which indicates they lack awareness of other dialects. College participants also applied more positive adjectives to Hijazi and Najdi speakers. On the other hand, high school subjects tended to judge the Hijazi speaker as a very slow speaker. In the interviews, I found that college interviewees tended to provide more details than high school interviewees, which showed college participants are more aware of other dialects. This study tried to determine whether or not discriminatory attitudes existed among the participants. The results indicate that certain dialect speakers could be judged negatively based on which dialect they speak, and that there are implications for their social and work lives. This study may help scholars better understand some of the language ideologies held by high school and college students in Saudi Arabia.</p>
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Lavender, Andrew Jordan. "Code Switching, Lexical Borrowing, and Polylanguaging in Valencian Spanish| An Analysis of Data From Conversational Corpora and Twitter." Thesis, State University of New York at Albany, 2017. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10281503.
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<p> This study examines lexical borrowing, code switching, and polylanguaging in Valencian Spanish to better understand how each is used differently in oral conversation in comparison with online communication on Twitter. This study compares data collected from three published corpora of oral interviews of speakers of Valencian Spanish with data collected from Twitter profiles of individuals residing in Valencia. In each of the sources Spanish is the preferred code into which Valencian material is inserted. A unique feature of data from the published corpora is the high frequency of code switching (CS) into Valencian in instances of reported speech. With regard to frequency, Twitter users switch from Spanish into Valencian, followed by from Valencian into Spanish and then from Spanish into English. On Twitter, the most frequent type of switch found is the tag switch, which includes exhortatives, greetings and farewells, happy birthday wishes, and a variety of other types of tags and other idiomatic expressions used in a highly emblematic fashion as a way of preforming identity. Both intrasentential and intersentential switches also appear online and reflect how discourse might be organized differently online than offline. In looking at lone vs. multiword insertions, the importance of turn taking is noted and instances where speakers are not in a naturalistic conversation evidence traits which influence patterns of CS and polylanguaguing. Additionally, lexical economy is suggested as a motivating factor for CS on Twitter given the platform’s technological limitation of 140 characters per tweet.</p><p>
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Charpentier, Dylan T. "Why Dey Talk Like Dat?| A Study of the Status of Cajun English as a Dialect or an Accent." Thesis, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10622943.
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<p> This thesis empirically asks whether Cajun English, a variety of American English spoken in South Louisiana, is an accent or a dialect. Because dialects are phonologically and syntactically and/or semantically different from a language’s standard form, this thesis examines one feature within each of those domains: the realization of interdental fricatives as stops, the use of perfective aspect on past tense verb phrases, and manner salience in descriptions of motion. In each domain, I ask if Cajun English is different from Standard English and, if it is, if that difference could be attributable to influences of Cajun French.</p><p>
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Rodriguez, Gabriel R. "The Enregisterment of Dialects in Japanese YouTube Comments| A Comparative Analysis." Thesis, Georgetown University, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10788816.
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<p> This study contextualizes the explosive valorization and commodification of dialect in Japan since the 1980s, known as the “dialect boom”, in terms of Japanese social and economic issues and the growing public interest in diversity within Japan. While the dialect boom has been widely studied in sociolinguistics, little work has related it to the growing valorization of diversity, and most recent work has focused primarily on the Kansai dialect. To these ends, I analyze the enregisterment of six Japanese dialects, those of Osaka, Hakata, Nagoya, Aomori, Okinawa, and K?sh?. I analyze a corpus of YouTube comments responding to videos of dialect usage, using stance (DuBois 2007) to break down the social acts that produce enregisterment (Agha 2003). I draw on the theories of indexicality (Johnstone and Kiesling 2008, Eckert 2008) and the discourse analytic concept of dialect performance (Schilling-Estes 1998, Coupland 2007) as guides to interpreting the micro-social interactions I observe, connecting them to a macro-social context through the theories of Standard Language Ideology (Lippi-Green 1997), identity construction (Bucholtz & Hall 2005), and folklorization (Fishman 1987). </p><p> I examine evaluations of dialect based on attractiveness, humorousness, intelligibility, folklorization, and country-ness, evaluate their relative prestige by investigating the willingness of speakers to debate dialect performances’ fidelity, and finally examine the political conflicts dialects are implicated in by looking at how they are related to questions of diversity and nationalism. The similarities between evaluations of the dialects of Okinawa and Aomori, particularly in the category of folklorization, suggest that the dialects of Aomori have accrued affective traits of an Indigenous language (such as nostalgia or sentimentality) despite being spoken by members of the ethnic majority. However, the conflicts that arise over the cases of Okinawa and Osaka suggest that the use of dialect as a marker of regional identity is now being integrated into a nationalist Japanese self-image as a country with rich internal diversity. This provides a means by which Japan can engage with the discourses of liberal multiculturalism and diversity without seriously threatening the hegemony of Japanese ethno-nationalism, suggesting a need to reevaluate the past focus on <i>nihonjinron</i> in building critiques of Japanese nationalist ideology.</p><p>
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Latimer, Elizabeth. "Variation in the use of prepositions in Quebec French." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/30160.
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Using the combined approach of Variationist Sociolinguistics and Cognitive Linguistics, this thesis undertakes the classification and analysis of certain prepositions in spoken Quebec French. The study examines 21 interviews that make up part of the Corpus de français parlé au Québec (CFPQ). The aim of this thesis is to examine the use of the variables expressing the concept of ‘possession’, and those equivalent to English before/in front of and after/behind. These three variables are represented as (POSS), (ANTE) and (POST). An initial quantification of the variants is carried out, which establishes the contexts of production, and helps determine the areas of linguistic analysis to be explored. For the (POSS) variable, the data is examined in terms of linguistic factors such as the reference of the possessor, the avoidance of hiatus, and inalienable/alienable possession. Interpersonal variation is also considered, including age and gender in addition to level of education. From the Cognitive Linguistic perspective, we investigate ‘reference point theory’ and how it can shed light on the alternation between the variants. The (ANTE) and (POST) variables are studied in terms of the type of reference (i.e. locative or temporal), the locating noun category, and the age, sex, and level of education of the speakers. The Cognitive Linguistic theory of ‘subjectification’ is also considered for these two variables. For the (POSS) variable, the reference of the possessor and the level of education are seen to be important factors for the use of possessive à. In addition, the ‘reference point theory’ contributes to our understanding of the use of this variant. With the (ANTE) and (POST) variables certain variants are seen to be employed both with and without an overt complement. The variant devant is predominantly found in contexts involving narrative discourse, and the variants en avant and en avant de are preferred for locative reference. Once again, the Cognitive Sociolinguistic approach highlights the possibility that the difference in variant choice is linked to the speakers’ cognitive construal of the situation.
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Clark, Lynn. "Variation, change and the usage-based approach." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/3241.
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The potential for synthesis between variationist sociolinguistics and theoretical linguistics has been recognised by researchers in both sub-disciplines (e.g. Henry 1995; Adger and Smith 2005) but it has been difficult to move beyond a description of this unified approach towards an account of variation that can explain both ‘social’ and ‘linguistic’ phenomena in the same theoretical framework. Chambers (2005: 217) suggests that such a synthesis is currently “well beyond our reach and hardly even foreseeable”. I argue that this is partly because most of the theories on which attempts to address this issue are modelled are fundamentally asocial in their design and in order to improve the synthesis between sociolinguistics and theoretical linguistics, it is necessary to first begin with a theory in which social and linguistic knowledge are inherently and inextricably linked in cognition. The aim of this thesis is therefore to consider to what extent it is possible to synthesise variationist sociolinguistic methods of data collection and analysis with usage-based models of interpretation. Using the ethnographic technique of participant observation, the data for this thesis were collected over a 2 year period from a group of 54 speakers who play together in West Fife High Pipe Band (WFHPB). These data form a corpus of 38 hours of conversation (roughly 360,000 words). Two different phonological variables are discussed in this thesis: th-fronting, which is a consonantal change in progress in this community, and variation in the BIT vowel, which is reported to be a stable variable in this variety. Using quantitative methods that are typically considered appropriate in variationist sociolinguistics (i.e. varbrul and multiple regression), this thesis correlates variation in both of these variables with a number of different ‘social’, ‘linguistic’ and ‘cognitive’ factors and shows that this is one way to explore the potential for synthesis. However, it is vital not only to incorporate these factors into a quantitative analysis of variation; it is also necessary to be able to explain the outcome of the quantitative analysis by invoking principles of the theoretical framework. By adding the theoretical assumptions of the usage-based approach to an analysis of variation that is already grounded in current sociolinguistic practices of data collection and interpretation, I suggest that it is possible to reach a more unified and insightful explanation of linguistic variation and change in this community and a more unified and insightful approach to linguistic theory; one in which “everything fits, and everything fits together” (Langacker 1987: 32).
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Knooihuizen, Remco Mathijs. "Minority languages between reformation and revolution." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/3289.
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In this thesis, I intend to further our knowledge of the sociolinguistics of Early Modern minority languages. Social and political developments in North-Western Europe in the 16th to 18th centuries caused an emancipation of vernacular languages, which took over from Latin as the main language in official domains. The sociolinguistics of this change are well known (e.g. Burke 2004); the fate of languages that did not make it to this new status, emerging ‘minority languages’, remains under-researched. Chapter 2 introduces some of the terminology used in this study. I discuss four categories of research methods into minority language shift and how they are applicable to research on historical situations, which often suffers from ‘bad data’. I then present a model of ethnolinguistic vitality that I use to survey the socio-historical backgrounds of several minority language groups in Chapter 3. Chapter 3 begins with a brief presentation of minority language groups from the Early Modern period. I choose three language groups to focus on in more depth: speakers of Norn in Shetland, of Flemish in Northern France, and of Sorbian in Germany. A survey of these three cases, with the initial wider presentation, identifies three recurring issues that are the focus of the subsequent chapters. The first of these is the influence of demographic change (Chapter 4). In the formation of nation-states in this period, many speakers of the majority language migrate to peripheral minority-language areas. I present two historical-demographic studies showing the integration of immigrants into the local community through intermarriage, based on 17th-century population registers from Shetland and Dunkirk (France). Both show a large amount of intermarriage, despite a bias towards in-group marriage. Intermarriage brings the majority language into the minority-language home; the strength of the bias against intermarriage is likely to be a factor in the rate of shift, one of the main differences between Shetland and Dunkirk. Language policies are the topic of Chapter 5. They are an important part of minority language studies in the present day, particularly with regard to language maintenance. I survey the language legislation that existed in Shetland, French Flanders, and Lusatia, its purpose and implementation, and its effects on language shift. Purpose and implementation of language policies were limited, and its effect on minority language communities therefore only secondary. Chapter 6 is about target varieties in language shift. The question of whether language shift happened through education in a standard variety or through contacts with majoritylanguage speakers from nearby areas can be answered by looking at the new majoritylanguage dialect in the minority area. I undertake two different studies in this context. The first is an analysis of Shetland Scots using theories of dialect contact. The dialect has a number of ‘standardised’ features, but I argue these are mainly due to koinéisation of various dialects of Scots immigrants to Shetland and a second-language variety of Scots spoken by the local population. The second is a study of the French dialect of French Flanders using computational methods of data comparison on data taken from dialect atlases. This dialect shares features with neighbouring Picard dialects, but we can also identify Standard French features. This pattern correlates with what we know of migration to the area (Chapter 4). Both new dialects suggest the shifting population acquired the majority language mainly through contacts with majority-language speakers in their direct environment. In conclusion, I show that language shift in the Early Modern period was an organic process, where the inception, the rate, and the result of shift were steered by the minority population’s social networks. The influence of institutions often blamed for language shift in modern situations – educational and language policies – was very restricted. In addition, I show that methods used in modern sociolinguistics can be successfully applied to historical situations, despite the bad data problem. This opens the door for more extensive research into the area.
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Cueva, Daniel Stephan. "El Code Switching en las redes sociales| La expansion de lengua, cultura e identidad." Thesis, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1592527.
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<p> This study investigates why and how bilinguals speakers tend to code switch on social media such as; Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Bilingual speakers who were born in the US, who adapted English as their second language or who have learned Spanish as their second language in school, usually tend to combine the two languages, English and Spanish, in order to get across their point of view to others. For this reason, this investigation was created to analyze how code- switching can influence people when it's exposed on media. There were three social medias with the total of 37 participants who had posted comments, status, pictures, videos in English, Spanish or mixing both where a good amount of people got influenced by. Therefore, the leading results were the following: (1) at every code switching done on any social media, users code switch or use the same style as a way to expand and influence others. (2) Users code switch as a way to expand a new culture and identity as being one big group.</p>
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Lin, Zi Qi. "Indentidades sociais na organização do discurso de uma jovem imigrante Chinesa no Brasil :transcontextos entre a China e o Brasil." Thesis, University of Macau, 2018. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b3953461.
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Clark, Barbara L. "Safety talk and service culture : flight attendant discourse in commercial aviation." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2012. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/8382.
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The discourse of commercial aviation flight attendants has historically received no sociolinguistic attention. To address this gap, this thesis explores how flight attendants use language in workplace-related contexts to construct their professional identity and community. I draw on interactional sociolinguistics (Goffman 1981; Schiffrin 1994; Tannen 1993) and sociological research (Van Maanen and Barley 1984; Williams 1986; Marschall 2002) to address how flight attendants use language to orient to occupationally related knowledge and practices which contribute to the discursive construction of community. Data come from two sources: 1) A corpus of 150 textual incident reports submitted by flight attendants to a US government agency which include summaries and proposed causes of the incidents in flight attendants’ own words. 2) A corpus of 105 unique discussion threads containing 4,043 posts to a website hosting several discussion forums aimed primarily at flight attendants. The forums are not affiliated with either government bodies or airline employers and are a virtual space for flight attendants to discuss aspects of their job away from occupational demands. Following Bucholtz and Hall (2004), I show how identity is contextually related and situationally constructed, and emerges from discursive orientations to professional practice, indexicality, ideology, and performance. Moreover, there are certain intersubjective relationships embedded in the discourse which emerge from and add detail to the situational identity constructed through flight attendant discourse. Indexical stances and ideologies which are grounded in institutional training frame and are heightened in the discursive performances of the reports and forum posts. These ideologies motivate and enhance the existing institutional, physical, and sociocultural divisions between flight attendants and pilots, which may have consequences for intercrew cohesion in emergency situations.
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Barnes, Sonia. "MORPHOPHONOLOGICAL VARIATION IN URBAN ASTURIAN SPANISH: LANGUAGE CONTACT AND REGIONAL IDENTITY." The Ohio State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1371475793.
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Alzebaidi, Zahra. "The Syntactic Status of NP in Guerrero Nahuatl| Non-Configurationality and the Polysynthesis Parameter." Thesis, California State University, Fresno, 2017. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10640664.
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<p> The purpose of this thesis is to examine the syntactic structure of Guerrero Nahuatl using Baker’s proposed Polysynthesis Parameter (1996). Baker (1996) claims that polysynthetic languages must have common features that aggregate to the concept of the Polysynthesis Parameter, which suggests that polysynthetic languages employ morphology for syntactic functions. Baker (1996) suggests that in polysynthetic languages, &thetas;-roles are assigned through either an agreement relationship (agreement morphemes) or a movement relation (Noun Incorporation). As a result, Baker (1996) claims that polysynthetic languages must be non-configurational due to the flexibility of the word order and the absence of true quantifiers which indicates that all overt NPs are adjuncts. Prior researchers have made competing claims regarding the structure of the Nahuatl languages and Baker (1996) Polysynthesis Parameter. In this thesis, I show that Guerrero Nahuatl is a non-configurational polysynthetic language. I provide data showing that &thetas;-roles are assigned through either an agreement relationship or through a movement relation (NI) as Baker (1996) predicated for polysynthetic languages. I also argue that Guerrero Nahuatl has free word order and no occurring true quantifiers. I provide evidence that all overt NPs are in adjunct positions rather than in actual A-positions. In addition, I show that there is an extensive use of null anaphora, and an absence of reflexive overt NPs.</p><p>
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Johnson, Shayla Ann. "Multilingual Trends in Five London Boroughs: A Linguistic Landscape Approach." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2017. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6669.
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Although multilingualism has been investigated in London, no studies have addressed the multilingual linguistic landscape of this linguistically diverse globalized mega-city. In addition, no previous research has addressed the linguistic impacts of colonialism on the colonizer with respect to signage in the linguistic landscape. With increasing rates of immigration and globalization in London, it is advantageous to fully document and research the nature of the linguistic landscape in order to create a baseline for future comparison. Consequently, aspects of the linguistic landscape of five London boroughs were collected and analyzed in terms of 2,062 signage items. The study noted multilingual signage situations in each borough with respect to the formal top-down and informal bottom-up nature of the signage. The results of this study document the significant impact of colonial and EU languages on London's linguistic landscape. These findings suggest that Britain's colonial languages make up the majority of London's multilingualism, followed by European Union languages. We suggest that future research attempt to track the changes of London's linguistic landscape by comparing future data to the data presented in this study as immigration laws change.
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Omar, Shalina. "Being Japanese in English: The Social and Functional Role of English Loanwords in Japanese." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2015. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/620.
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This thesis investigates native speaker attitudes towards English loanwords in Japanese and the ways in which these loanwords are used. The imperialism and hegemony of English can often cause anger or worry for the preservation of the cultural identity of the borrowing language. However, the results from a 9-page sociolinguistic questionnaire suggest that English loanwords are overwhelmingly seen as useful and necessary and are generally associated with positive attitudes. Additionally, many native Japanese speakers feel that loanwords provide more options for expression, both functionally and as a possible pragmatic tool for performing Japaneseness. On the other hand, overuse of loanwords—especially less common ones—can also exemplify the power imbalance between Japanese and the powerful and hegemonic English. The study also revealed how powerful the Japanese linguistic systems are at assimilating English into the Japanese language. With established and institutionally supported phonological and orthographic conventions in place, foreign-derived vocabulary can easily become nativized, assimilated, and considered to be Japanese in the minds of speakers.
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Austen, Martha. "The Role of Listener Experience in Perception of Conditioned Dialect Variation." The Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu159532560325774.
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Müller, Frank Ernst, and Margret Selting. "Kontextualisierung von Sprache : Bericht und Kommentar zum Workshop „Interpretive Sociolinguistics III: 'Contextualization of language'"." Universität Potsdam, 1989. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2010/4197/.
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Erard, Michael-Jean. "Inscribing language : writing and scientific representation in American linguistics /." Full text (PDF) from UMI/Dissertation Abstracts International, 2000. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/fullcit?p3004259.
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Schaede, Leah Rose. "#HASHTAGS: A LOOK AT THE EVALUATIVE ROLES OF HASHTAGS ON TWITTER." UKnowledge, 2018. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/ltt_etds/26.
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Social media has become a large part of today’s pop culture and keeping up with what is going on not only in our social circles, but around the world. It has given many a platform to unite their causes, build fandoms, and share their commentary with the world. A tool in helping group posts together or give commentary on a thought is the hashtag. In this paper I explore the evaluative roles of hashtags in social media discourse, specifically on Twitter. I use a sample of randomly selected tweets from the Twitter API stream I collected and compiled myself. I collected a total of 200,000 tweets and filtered out Re-tweets. Looking at each individual hashtag I sorted them into the categories outlined by the Appraisal Theory proposed by Martin and White (Martin & White, 2005). I explore the types of evaluation expressed in hashtags, the relationships between evaluative hashtags and how users negotiate evaluations using meme hashtags.
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Jennings, Matthew. "Nevertheless, She Persisted: A Linguistic Analysis of the Speech of Elizabeth Warren, 2007-2017." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2018. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/457.
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A breakout star among American progressives in the recent past, Elizabeth Warren has quickly gone from a law professor to a leading figure in Democratic politics. This paper analyzes Warren’s speech from before her time as a political figure to the present using the quantitative textual methodology established by Jones (2016) in order to see if Warren’s speech supports Jones’s assertion that masculine speech is the language of power. Ratios of feminine to masculine markers ultimately indicate that despite her increasing political sway, Warren’s speech becomes increasingly feminine instead. However, despite associations of feminine speech with weakness, Warren’s speech scores highly for expertise and confidence as its feminine scores increase. These findings relate to the relevant political context and have implications for presumptions of masculine speech as the standard for political power.
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Scrivner, Olga B. "A Probabilistic Approach in Historical Linguistics Word Order Change in Infinitival Clauses| from Latin to Old French." Thesis, Indiana University, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3714098.
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<p> This thesis investigates word order change in infinitival clauses from Object-Verb (OV) to Verb-Object (VO) in the history of Latin and Old French. By applying a variationist approach, I examine a synchronic word order variation in each stage of language change, from which I infer the character, periodization and constraints of diachronic variation. I also show that in discourse-configurational languages, such as Latin and Early Old French, it is possible to identify pragmatically neutral contexts by using information structure annotation. I further argue that by mapping pragmatic categories into a syntactic structure, we can detect how word order change unfolds. For this investigation, the data are extracted from annotated corpora spanning several centuries of Latin and Old French and from additional resources created by using computational linguistic methods. The data are then further codified for various pragmatic, semantic, syntactic and sociolinguistic factors. This study also evaluates previous factors proposed to account for word order alternation and change. I show how information structure and syntactic constraints change over time and propose a method that allows researchers to differentiate a stable word order alternation from alternation indicating a change. Finally, I present a three-stage probabilistic model of word order change, which also conforms to traditional language change patterns.</p>
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Boussofara-Omar, Naima. "Arabic diglossic switching in Tunisia : an application of Myers-Scotton's MLF model /." Digital version accessible at:, 1999. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Vdovichenko, Susan E. C. "The Beholder’s Eye: How Self-Identification and Linguistic Ideology Affect Shifting Language Attitudes and Language Maintenance in Ukraine." The Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1305582855.
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Williams, Serena Alyce. "No una boda a la Barbie| Performativity in Wedding Narratives of Same- and Mixed-Sex Couples." Thesis, University of California, Davis, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3706707.
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<p> The basis of this investigation is the concept that identity is an emergent, or <i>performative</i> (Butler, 1990), process rather than a stable set of characteristics. Rituals such as weddings are moments when many, as individuals and as couples, socially construct identities through their interactions with others, and reflecting on one's wedding is also an event of intense identity construction. </p><p> This dissertation examines how language is used in the social construction of identity through the analysis of couples' wedding narratives. It is situated within the research domains of language and identity (Bucholtz & Hall, 2004) as well as language and ideologies (Fairclough, 1992; Gee, 2014). Interviews were conducted in English, Spanish, or bilingually with 12 mixed-sex couples and 3 same-sex couples (a total of 30 participants) about their weddings in order to identify how couples performed identity and how such performances are connected to beliefs and attitudes. </p><p> Understanding that processes of identity construction are at times deliberate and planned, such as when one plans a wedding, and at others spontaneous and unconscious, such as when one reflects on her wedding, the analysis focuses both on the wedding event as reported by couples as well as on the interview as an event. This event is one in which couples and the interviewer interact to produce identity dialogically (Bakhtin, 1981) through relative position and stance (Wortham, 2004) via indexical labeling, presupposition, orientation to stereotypes, conversation structure, narrative structure, and evaluation during social interaction. </p><p> This study demonstrates how, in interviews about weddings, individual semiotic acts that contribute to the construction of identity may reproduce prior acts, giving a sense of cohesion, belonging, legitimacy, and authenticity to our identities, or may add another layer to a partial picture of who we are. These acts might even contradict the identities that we have constructed in the past, showing that identity is always complex and incomplete in a given moment. The analysis concludes that social change, especially regarding gender roles and attitudes toward same-sex relationships, occurs through performativity at macro- and micro-levels as participants both aligned with and pushed the boundaries of social expectations about how weddings should be and who should be in them in order to locate themselves and others within the social order. </p>
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Conte, Herse Vanessa. "Hedging in the twentieth century court room| The impact of occupational prestige and gender." Thesis, California State University, Long Beach, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1602760.
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<p> The effects of time and occupational prestige measured in this study had more of an impact than gender on how often witnesses hedged on the stand. A corpus of transcripts from 1893 to 2013 was assembled to test the variables of time, gender and occupational prestige on witnesses’ production of hedge constructions (e.g., <i>I think, sort of).</i> Results showed no significant differences between female and male hedge production over this 120-year period, yet significant differences were found in the production of phrases between earlier and later testimonies. Furthermore, a significant correlation was found between hedge production and occupational prestige. The more prestigious a witness’s occupation, the fewer hedges s/he used. These findings support previous research that suggests a similarity between female and male speech in other genres of discourse and emphasizes social and environmental factors as areas worthy of deeper investigation for the contextual assessment of function in language.</p>
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Aponte, Alequin Hector A. "Desafios del espanol caribeno| el debate sobre el modo y la microvariacion modal." Thesis, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras (Puerto Rico), 2014. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3618518.
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<p> This thesis focuses on the infinitive among Puerto Rican, Dominican and Cuban speakers, in contrast with Mexicans. Most grammars describe as ungrammatical some types of optative clauses in Caribbean Spanish (Bosque & Gutiérrez-Rexach, 2009): (4) a. *Nosotros estamos buscando otras alternativas, pero el director dice él tener ya todo seteao. We are looking for other alternatives, but the director says he to-have [inf] already everything checked. We are looking for other alternatives, but the director says he has already checked everything. (5) a. *Eso te pasa por tú ir demasiado rápido. That you [acus] happens because [-Q] you [nom] to-go [inf] too fast. That happens to you because of your going too fast. </p><p> Therefore, a variation phenomenon is produced (Silva-Corvalán, 2001): (4) b. Nosotros estamos buscando otras alternativas, pero el director dice que tiene ya todo seteao. We are looking for other alternatives, but the director says he has already everything checked. </p><p> We are looking for other alternatives, but the director says he has already checked everything (5) b. Eso te pasa porque vas demasiado rápido. That you [acus] happens because you [nom] go [ind] too fast That happens to you because you go too fast This project sharpens a specific look to clauses such as (4) and (5) on the basis of mood microvariation concerning the infinitive/indicative optionality, related to linguistic variables: subject type, person features, prepositions, subject specificity, subject co-references, topic-actor subject, and declaration features; and sociolinguistic variables: Caribbean sub-variety, age, and education level. Debates have arisen when studying subjunctive/infinitive optionality (Aponte, 2008; Kempchinsky, 2007; Morales, 1986, 1999). Less attention has been given to indicative/infinitive variation. This work proposes the application of procedural meaning hypothesis (Terkourafi, 2011) to explain that Caribbean speakers choose infinitive clauses because their grammar has a syntax-pragmatics micro-parameter. Using GoldVarb2001, phenomena such as (4) and (5) are analyzed from a query answered by 72 Carribeans, and 24 Mexicans; and 125 interviews. Caribbeans prefer the infinitive with first person singular, non-specific, and topic-actor subjects. This hierarchy demonstrates that Caribbean Spanish has its own structural configurations which privilege the syntactic-pragmatic interface.</p>
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Steiner, Brittany Devan Jelm. "The evolution of information structure and verb second in the history of French." Thesis, Indiana University, 2014. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3636356.
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<p> The goal of this dissertation is to address the question of the Verb Second status of Old French as well as its decline by examining the interaction of syntax and Information Structure (IS) in the Left Periphery from the 13th century through the 16th century. Old French (OFr) has long been considered to be a Verb Second (V2) language, due to the overwhelming tendency for the finite verb to occur as the second constituent in matrix clauses, the hallmark of V2. Recently, the V2 analysis OFr has been called into question, due to the relatively high rate of clauses with more than one preverbal constituent (V>2). During this same period, our understanding of what V2 is has evolved in such a way as to place less emphasis on the number of preverbal constituents, and more on the theoretical underpinnings of the clause structure. </p><p> The results, obtained using a methodology for the annotation of IS in a corpus created for this project, support the V2 analysis of 13th century French, both in terms of its syntax and its IS. From a descriptively syntactic stance much of decline of V2 occurs between the 13th and 14th centuries (e.g. the rise in V>2 clauses, the decline in postverbal subjects). However, in examining the IS changes, we find that key aspects of the V2 grammar (e.g. V to C movement, EPP) are robust into the 15th century. </p><p> Ultimately, we find that examining Old French syntax through the lens of IS provides new insight into the interaction between IS and syntax in language change, especially with respect to both the manner and the timeline of the decline of V2 in the history of French.</p>
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Armstrong, Nigel Robert. "A study of phonological variation in French secondary school pupils." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.358079.
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Shin, Priscilla Zhi-Xian. "The Semiotics and Social Practices of Constructing a "Proper" Singaporean Identity." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10982557.
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<p> This dissertation investigates the semiotic resources that Singaporeans combine, balance, and negotiate in order to enact a “proper” Singaporean identity. The analysis considers a variety of semiotic resources, ranging from fine-grained phonetic variables to language varieties to education or career paths. The meaningful organization and use of these semiotic resources are situated within Singapore’s broader sociopolitical discourses of nationhood, that is, how Singaporeans perceive themselves as a nation and citizens of that nation according to participation—or non-participation—in institutional discourses. I show how the notion of being “proper” as well as evaluations of “properness” are associated with social and linguistic practices that <i>index</i> (Silverstein 2003) meanings of being global and local, often simultaneously or in balance. Furthermore, this work extends Eckert’s (2008) concept of <i>indexical fields </i>, acknowledging that variables index multiple social meanings, any one of which have the potential to be activated in use. In the enactment of a “proper” identity, I investigate how these meanings are continuously co-constructed in interaction (Bucholtz and Hall 2005). </p><p> The (re-)production of “proper” ways of speaking and being are part of the processes of <i>enregisterment</i> (Agha 2007), via a <i>semiotic repertoire</i>, which is then available for public circulation and performable cultural models of behavior. This work examines the range and flexibility of resources that constitute a semiotic repertoire through a combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses—connecting macro-level discourses, such as the circulation of sociocultural stereotypes, to variation in speakers’ day to day language use, including micro-level investigations, such as the perception of voice onset time in Singapore English. This work highlights the many ways in which social identities and meanings are contextualized in and emerge out of interactions that regiment and discipline the behaviors of the self and others.</p><p>
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Dautricourt, Robin Guillaume. "FRENCH LIAISON: LINGUISTIC AND SOCIOLINGUISTIC INFLUENCES ON SPEECH PERCEPTION." The Ohio State University, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1269540566.
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Bauman, Carina. "Speaking of Sisterhood| A Sociolinguistic Study of an Asian American Sorority." Thesis, New York University, 2016. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10025709.
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<p> This dissertation explores language as a resource for the formation and expression of ethnic identity among the members of an Asian American college sorority. As a community of practice organized around ethnicity, the sorority provides an excellent site to examine the mutually constitutive relationship of language and ethnic identity. Two features of the sorority members' speech are analyzed in detail: their pronunciation of the mid-back rounded GOAT vowel, and their prosodic rhythm. For both variables, the behavior of the sorority members is compared with that of college peers of both Asian and non-Asian descent. The results indicate that both segmental and suprasegmental features are available as markers of Asian American ethnicity, and that the association of linguistic features with ethnicity is mediated by group membership and region, among other factors.</p><p> The community of study is an Asian-interest sorority at a large public university in New Jersey. The data are drawn from two main sources: participant observation of sorority activities and one-on-one sociolinguistic interviews. The ethnographic observations allow the behaviors and beliefs of the sorority members to be situated in the local context of the school, the state, and the region. The interview data, meanwhile, provide high-quality spontaneous speech data for phonetic analysis. It is argued that it is only through an understanding of the particular social context in which speakers exist that their linguistic behavior can be understood; conversely, examining linguistic behavior can illuminate how identity categories such as "Asian American" are construed and enacted within a given social setting.</p><p> The segmental variable analyzed in this study is the realization of the mid-back rounded vowel in the GOAT class of words. A quantitative analysis shows that the sorority members produce a more backed and monophthongal GOAT vowel than their non-Asian peers. In previous work, the fronting of GOAT has been noted as an ongoing change in certain regional dialects in the United States; however, the present analysis shows that sorority members tend to produce backer GOAT vowels than non-Asian speakers regardless of region.</p><p> The suprasegmental variable analyzed is prosodic rhythm, which refers to the relative length of adjacent syllables in speech. English is typically described as a stress-timed language, with stressed syllables being much longer than unstressed syllables. However, the sorority members' speech shows characteristics of syllable timing, with stressed and unstressed syllables being of roughly equal length. This finding coincides with those for other varieties of English, including Hispanic English and Singapore English. It is argued that syllable timing in English is likely a substrate effect from syllable-timed heritage languages, including Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean. Individual differences in prosodic rhythm are also examined with respect to age of acquisition and other inter- and intraspeaker factors.</p><p> This dissertation draws on multiple research traditions in the study of language and identity: it is an ethnographic description of a community of practice as well as a sociophonetic study of regionally and ethnically linked variables. It is also a study of young women's language at a critical stage of identity formation—the college years. Additionally, this dissertation is part of a growing body of sociolinguistic research on Asian Americans, a group that until recently has been drastically understudied. As a group with tremendous internal diversity, Asian Americans present both challenges and opportunities for the study of language and ethnicity. This dissertation thus advances sociolinguistic research in two ways: one, by shedding light on the language practices of this rapidly growing population, and two, by contributing to our overall understanding of how language interacts with various facets of identity, including ethnic identity.</p>
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Dodsworth, Robin M. "Linguistic variation and sociological consciousness." Connect to resource, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1123115802.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005.<br>Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xvi, 244 p.; also includes graphics (some col.). Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-244). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center
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Diaz-Davalos, Gabriela. "Creating and Re-Creating Political Discourse Through Government Texts in an Urban Mexican Community: A Case Study of Ciudad Satélite." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2018. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/534134.
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Spanish<br>Ph.D.<br>The present dissertation examines social stratification, as well as social inequality and its reproduction through government textual representations in a community in the outskirts of Mexico City: Ciudad Satélite. Using a Critical Discourse Analysis approach and interdisciplinary methodological tools, this study defines the type(s) and salient features of discourse used in government written communication in Cd. Satélite, as well as how some discursive strategies operate. The objective of the analysis is to illuminate how citizens interpret government communication in the subject community, and to illustrate how the Plain Language campaign has impacted such community. Chapter I demarcates the analytical background and guidelines, and it reviews several studies that focus on oral and written discourse in order to establish the basis of the communicative relationship between citizen and government. It also explains the relation of the subject community to the structure of the Mexican government. Chapter II provides a detailed description of Ciudad Satélite, the corpus and the surveyed citizens, and it also establishes the relation to the analytical guidelines. It also explains the methods used for the collection of linguistic and graphic data, and it demarcates how data was sorted and coded. The data analyses are in Chapters III and IV. Chapter III broaches linguistic accessibility of government written communication through a quantitative analysis of readability indexes as a way to shed light on accessibility of government documents. It explains the terminology, significant markers of readability and how they relate to each other. It then explores readability levels of documents, tasks, and government offices, and how and which particular social groups interact with texts using variables such as gender, age, education, occupation and identity. Chapter IV takes a multimodal approach of salient identified modes through qualitative and quantitative approaches. It considers citizens’ reaction to semiotic data and incorporates their responses in the analysis, which aim to describe the political representations in the linguistic landscape of the subject community and how citizens perceive such representations. This chapter also explores the type of persuasion used by government in the subject community through specific graphic images. Chapter V provides a discussion of all relevant data that aims towards explaining how certain meanings are perceived and thus created and maintained in the government-citizen text interaction. It explores accessibility of government linguistic resources considering readability indexes, modal representations and symbolic power, in order to show the unequal access to institutionally controlled linguistic resources.<br>Temple University--Theses
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Jones, Benjamin Graham. "PERCEPTUAL DIALECTOLOGY OF NEW ENGLAND: VIEWS FROM MAINE AND THE WEB." UKnowledge, 2015. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/ltt_etds/11.
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Research into the dialects of the New England states (Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont) has traditionally split the region into distinct geographic regions based upon variations in production, primarily along an East-West border. Generally, such regions have been considered relatively stable in terms of their variation (Labov, Ash and Boberg 2006); however, recent work in the area has found that the traditional dialect boundaries have begun to shift (c.f. Stanford, Leddy-Cecere and Baclawski 2012). Such research has focused on very specific regional changes in production, ignoring the perceptual salience of the features observed to be in flux. To date very few studies (Ravindranath and Fernandes 2014) have examined how New Englanders perceive the regional divisions, with emphasis on the collected regions while not focusing specifically on how regions view each other in terms of difference and similarity.
This study examines regional perceptions of dialects in the New England states as seen by a small subset of New Englanders, predominantly residents of Maine and Massachusetts, through two studies: one conducted using a new web-based approach and another using the traditional pen-and-paper method of perceptual dialectology. Speakers have been asked to identify areas with differing varieties through the draw-a-map task (Preston 1989). These responses are then aggregated using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), contrasting results between the two methods. Results are used to identify areas of salient dialectal features across New England, informing contemporary and future research into language change in a region considered as stable. Additionally, methodological concerns and advances are addressed.
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Finzel, Anna Magdalena. "English in the linguistic landscape of Hong Kong : a case study of shop signs and linguistic competence." Master's thesis, Universität Potsdam, 2012. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2013/6412/.
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Especially for the last twenty years, the studies of Linguistic Landscapes (LLs) have been gaining the status as an autonomous linguistic discipline. The LL of a (mostly) geographically limited area – which consists of e.g. billboards, posters, shop signs, material for election campaigns, etc. – gives deep insights into the presence or absence of languages in that particular area. Thus, LL not only allows to conclude from the presence of a language to its dominance, but also from its absence to the oppression of minorities, above all in areas where minority languages should – demographically seen – be visible. The LLs of big cities are fruitful research areas due to the mass of linguistic data.
The first part of this paper deals with the theoretical and practical research that has been conducted in LL studies so far. A summary of the theory, methodologies and different approaches is given.
In the second part I apply the theoretical basis to my own case study. For this, the LLs of two shopping streets in different areas of Hong Kong were examined in 2010. It seems likely that the linguistic competence of English must be rather high in Hong Kong, due to the long-lasting influence of British culture and mentality and the official status of the language. The case study's results are based on empirical data showing the objectively visible presence of English in both examined areas, as well as on two surveys. Those were conducted both openly and anonymously.
The surveys are a reinsurance measuring the level of linguistic competence of English in Hong Kong. That level was defined before by an analysis of the LL. Hence, this case study is a new approach to LL analysis which does not end with the description of its material composition (as have done most studies before), but which rather includes its creators by asking in what way people's actual linguistic competence is reflected in Hong Kong's LL.<br>Das Forschungsfeld der Linguistic Landscape (LL) hat sich vor allem in den letzten zwanzig Jahren als autonome Disziplin im Bereich der Sprachwissenschaft emanzipiert. Die LL eines meist geografisch eingegrenzten Gebietes – die beispielsweise aus Reklametafeln, Plakaten, Ladenschildern, Wahlkampfpropaganda, etc. besteht – erlaubt tiefe Einblicke in die An- oder Abwesenheit von Sprachen auf dem jeweiligen Gebiet. Die LL lässt dadurch nicht nur Rückschlüsse auf die Dominanz einer Sprache aufgrund ihrer Anwesenheit zu, sondern auch auf die Unterdrückung einer Minderheit durch die Abwesenheit ihrer Sprache an Orten, an denen die Minderheitensprache demografisch gesehen eigentlich sichtbar sein müsste. Wegen des Überflusses an linguistischen Daten in den LLs großer Städte sind diese ergiebige Tätigkeitsfelder für die Disziplin.
Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich im ersten Teil mit der theoretischen und praktischen Forschung, die es bislang zu diesem Thema gab. Sie prüft den Stand der Theoriebildung, fasst Methodiken zusammen und gibt einen Überblick über verschiedene Ansätze.
Im zweiten Teil wird die theoretische Basis auf eine eigene Fallstudie angewendet. Für diese wurden 2010 die LLs zweier Einkaufsstraßen in unterschiedlichen Gegenden Hong Kongs untersucht. Durch den dort lange währenden Einfluss der englischen Kultur und Mentalität und den offiziellen Status der Sprache liegt der Schluss nahe, dass die Sprachkompetenz des Englischen in Hong Kong eher hoch sein muss. Die Ergebnisse der Fallstudie basieren sowohl auf der Erhebung von statistischen Daten, die die objektive Anwesenheit des Englischen in der LL beider untersuchten Gegenden zeigt, als auch auf zwei daraus resultierenden Befragungen. Diese wurden zum einen offen, zum anderen anonym durchgeführt.
Die Befragungen stellen eine Rückversicherung dar, die den Grad der Sprachkompetenz des Englischen in Hong Kong misst, welcher zuvor anhand der LL festgestellt wurde. Damit bietet die Fallstudie einen neuen Ansatz der Untersuchung einer LL, der im Gegensatz zu vorangegangenen Studien nicht bei der Beschreibung ihrer materiellen Beschaffenheit endet, sondern auch ihre Schöpfenden miteinbezieht und sich fragt, inwiefern die LL von Hong Kong die tatsächliche Sprachkompetenz der Menschen widerspiegelt.
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Lo, Chi-hung Terence Patrick, and 盧志鴻. "Pragmalinguistics: an analysis of power relations in speech acts." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1989. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31949575.
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Poynton, Cate. "Address and the semiotics of social relations a systemic-functional account of address forms and practices in Australian English /." Connect to full text, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/2297.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 1991.<br>Title from title screen (viewed 23 April 2008). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Dept. of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts. Degree awarded 1991; thesis submitted 1990. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.
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Alghmaiz, Bandar. "The Development of Refusals to Invitations by L2 Learners of Emirati Arabic| Language Proficiency and Length of Residence in the Target Community." Thesis, Indiana University, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10843902.
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<p> Since the majority of Arabic language institutes teach Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), studies of the speech act performance of learners of Arabic as a second/foreign language compare learners’ productions made in MSA with the productions of native Arabic speakers. However, MSA is not spoken natively, and Arabic speech acts are performed orally. Therefore, individuals in the sample group either use their own dialect or they consciously code-switch to MSA, which leads to artificial production, especially when those productions are elicited via a written DCT. The present study, however, used the closed role-play data collection method so as to investigate the development of refusals to invitations made by L2 learners of Emirati Arabic at two levels of ability, low-intermediate and advanced, and to compare their production with the production of native Emirati Arabic speakers. The goal here is to determine whether there is a positive correlation between the learners’ language proficiency and their pragmatic development. Further, the study seeks to determine whether length of residence in the target community plays a significant role in acquiring Emirati Arabic refusals to invitations. The goal of the study’s second objective is to determine whether there is a positive correlation between length of residence in the target community and pragmatic development. Regarding both objectives, the current study is interested in revealing whether or not the status of interlocutors (higher, equal, or lower) modifies the degree of directness, semantic formulas, and content of NSs and NNS’s refusals to invitations in the same way. The study used the same classification scheme of refusal strategies that was proposed by Beebe et al. (1990) but with different situations and scenarios. Findings showed differences between the NS and NNSs of Emirati Arabic in the frequency, content, and order of the semantic formulas used as well as the effect of interlocutors’ social statuses on these variables. Further, findings revealed that learners of Emirati Arabic were remarkably more direct than the Emirati Arabic NSs, while the former learners who remained longer in the target community produced refusal patterns similar to those the Emirati Arabic NSs produced.</p><p>
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Vinogradova, Zoia. "Motivational orientations of American and Russian learners of French as a foreign language." Thesis, Purdue University, 2017. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10245072.
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<p> This study seeks to examine and compare motivational orientations of French learners across different dimensions: cultural background (USA vs. Russia), educational modality and age (college students vs. private courses learners), gender, and time of studying foreign language. 613 American and Russian learners of French completed the questionnaire addressing 10 motivational factors to study French language. Despite differences in nationality, age, educational background and learning experience, all groups of participants produced nearly identical motivational rankings. The rankings are topped by the Travelling orientation, which seems to be universally appealing, followed by the orientations within the Idealistic motivational cluster (Aesthetic Factors, Culture, Knowledge, and Ideal Self). The Pragmatic motivational cluster (Instrumental orientation, which is sometimes coupled to Emigration and Friendship dimensions) is by far less important. This disposition is also confirmed by the qualitative data. With regard to specific orientations it has been found that US learners score consistently higher in Sociability motivation, whereas Russians score higher in the Peers’ Encouragement and Aesthetic categories. In regard to gender differences, this study shows that male students appear to be more personable, e.g. among American learners males consistently outscore females in the Friendship category. Referring to age differences, it was found that the overall level of motivation tends to decline with age.</p>
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Heiner, Jae Parker. "Greening the Market: the Development and Effect of Environmental Terms on Consumer Perception of Products." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2012. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/3111.
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History, discourse analysis, and corpus linguistics show the green movement (humankind's response to issues affecting the environment) to have proliferated both ecological ideologies and the linguistic tools to discuss them, (R. J. Alexander, 2002; Bang, Døør, Steffensen, & Nash, 2007; Carvalho, 2007; Mahlberg, 2007; Wang, 2009) showing the development of green or environmental language in the lexicon. The topic has also left its mark on the market, and green market research has shown effects of messages on perceptions of green brands (Phau & Ong, 2007) and profiles of m (J. A. Roberts, 1996). However , surprisingly little research has been done on how these terms are used, whether some words are more green than others, nor how effective these terms are in persuading consumers to buy green. Thus, the goal of this study is to identify the use of green terms, what consumers see as green terms and how they perceive products advertised using green language. Experiment one examined the development of environmental terms using Google Book's NGram Viewer (Google, 2011) and the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) (M. Davies, 2010) and Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) (Davies, 2008). Results revealed changes in the use of several green terms over time, including the creation of several following the 1960s, as well as increased collocation with other terms associated with the environmental movement. Experiment two examined green terms for levels of perceived greenness. Different levels of greenness for several words were identified, with words like environmentally friendly rating positively and industrial rating negatively. Experiment three examines the effects of a word's level of greenness on participants' perceptions of automobile, personal care, and cleaning products' attractiveness, effectiveness, buyability, and environmental friendliness. . Green words were shown to have a significant effect on participants' values of attractiveness and buyability for personal care and cleaning products, effectiveness for cleaning products, and environmental friendliness for both aforementioned products. Significant differences between automobile types were also found. Implications include an affirmation of the link between world view and language, the use of large corpora to view semantic shift, and application of the data in green marketing.
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Sampaio, Joanne. "American Perceptions of British Regional Dialects." FIU Digital Commons, 2013. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/959.
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Sociolinguists have discussed problematic language ideologies, such as Standard Language Ideology (Lippi-Green 1997) extensively and social perceptions of Standard English in the U.S and U.K are well documented. However, most work in this area has focused on perceptions of dialects within national contexts. This study makes a novel contribution to the study of language attitudes, investigating perceptions of British regional dialects within the U.S. A survey was created to gauge perceptions of five British regional dialects (Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Newcastle, London). 49 survey participants listened to audio clips of British regional dialect speakers and then completed a mapping activity, answered perception questions, and ranked each speaker on specific qualities. Results showed that speaker region had a significant effect on perception of almost all variables at a statistically significant rate, despite unfamiliarity with all but the London dialect. Results suggest that although participants are largely unfamiliar with varieties of English in England outside of London, they assessed them by recruiting pre-existing stereotypes about vernacular dialects.
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Strolovitch, Devon L. "The 'schizoid' nature of Modern Hebrew linguistics: a contact language in search of a genetic past." Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 1997. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1316528613.
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Whiting, Miriam. "Globalism vs. nationalism: The pragmatics of business naming in Tomsk, Russia." The Ohio State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1228718917.
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Ng, Kok Man Jeffrey. "A comparison of the language use in sports writing : soccer and golf news." HKBU Institutional Repository, 2002. http://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_ra/368.
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