Uncovering the Range of Intentions and Interpretations Associated with N-Word Usage in American Film by Nneka Logan Under the Direction of Michael Bruner ABSTRACT This thesis is an analysis of contemporary N-word usage. Key points are that there is more than one N-word in circulation, and that “nigger,” the racial slur, is only one conception of the N-word. A second point is that “nigga” is a separate word with a separate scope of meaning. I also argue that usage of “nigga” is a complex communicative phenomenon that cannot be essentialized in terms of race, socioeconomic status and other social factors. I argue that contemporary N-word usage is not an exclusively black cultural endeavor, but in fact a multiracial phenomenon. To support my assertions I employ communication, race and N-word scholarship, and I apply the scholarship to the text of American film. A study of this kind is significant because increasing numbers of people are being exposed to the N-words in a variety of contexts, but many are unaware of their important semantic differences. INDEX WORDS: Nigger, Nigga, N-word, Race, Interracial Communication, Hip Hop, Pop Culture

Two semantic priming experiments in the context of lexical decision are reported that examine the joint effects of stimulus quality, semantic context, and strength of association when all these factors are intermixed in a block of trials. A three-way interaction is seen in both experiments in which the typical interaction between semantic context and stimulus quality is eliminated when the strength of association between prime-target pairs is weak. The results support a role for a control mechanism that makes use of local information available within a trial, in addition to a global control mechanism that operates across a block of trials. The interaction between semantic context and stimulus quality when prime-target pairs are strongly related is attributed to the presence of feedback from the semantic system to the lexical system whereas additive effects of semantic context and stimulus quality is attributed to this feedback being eliminated such that semantic and lexical levels are functionally separate modules.

WORD READING STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT OF DEAF AND HARD-OF-HEARING PRESCHOOLERS by Victoria Burke Siegler’s (1996) overlapping waves model of strategy development applied to reading posits that children use multiple strategies to read words from the earliest stage of reading development, that these strategies coexist over a long period of time, and that experience results in gradual change in the strategies children use and the effectiveness with which they are executed. Phonological recoding is one of the most effective early developing reading strategies and is predictive of future reading success for hearing children (Ehri, 2005; Juel & Mindencupp, 2000; Share & Gur, 1999). However, less is known regarding the extent to which young children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) develop and use phonological strategies to read words. Due to technological advances such as cochlear implants and digital hearing aids, many DHH children have sufficient functional hearing to be able to perceive and represent spoken language. For these children, beginning reading strategies may resemble those of hearing children (Geers, Tobey, Moog, & Brenner, 2008; Lederberg, Schick, & Spencer, in press). The purpose of this study was to describe changes in the word reading strategies of 15 DHH preschoolers with functional hearing. These children received explicit instruction in alphabetic knowledge, phonological awareness, and early reading strategies in a year-long intervention. Instruction was videotaped and children’s overt behavior while independently reading words was coded for reading strategy and accuracy. The preschoolers used multiple reading strategies at all times including two phonological recoding strategies (segmenting phonemes only, segmenting and blending phonemes) and retrieval. Gradual change was observed in strategy choice, execution, and accuracy. Children’s use of segmenting only decreased while segmenting and blending phonemes increased between the beginning and middle of the year. Retrieval use increased between the middle and end of the year. Execution of phonological strategies gradually improved over the year. These results suggest young DHH children who have functional hearing develop and use strategies in a manner similar to hearing children and benefit from explicit instruction in the alphabetic principle.

Sociophonetic studies of speech perception have demonstrated that the social identity which listeners attribute to a speaker can lead to predictable biases in the way speech sounds produced by that speaker are linguistically categorized (e.g., Strand & Johnson 1996; Niedzielski 1999; Hay, Warren & Drager 2006). This has been observed where listeners use available social information about a speaker to resolve lexical ambiguity. However, less is known about the role of sociophonetic knowledge in speech perception when listeners are not faced with global linguistic ambiguity. Drawing on Strand's (2000) study of the processing effects of gender typicality, this dissertation investigates whether sociophonetic knowledge can facilitate or inhibit unambiguous spoken word recognition. Based on a survey of sociophonetic variation in the Houston metropolitan area, predictions are formulated for the processing of words containing four vowels: /ei/ and /[varepsilon]/ in the speech of older and younger Anglos, and /α/ and /Λ/ in the speech of young Anglos and young African-Americans. Houston listeners identified words containing variants of these vowels in a congruent condition and in an incongruent condition. In the congruent condition the combination of speaker identity and vowel variant was designed to match the listener's knowledge of local language variation. In the incongruent condition, it was designed to contradict it. A congruency effect was found for some but not all vowels. The results indicate that social information about a speaker can also affect speech perception in the absence of lexical ambiguity, but only where words are at least temporarily ambiguous. Where there is no linguistic ambiguity at all, perception can be unaffected by sociophonetic knowledge. These results are discussed in the context of Luce, McLennan & Charles-Luce's (2003) time course hypothesis and in the context of exemplar-based models of sociophonetic knowledge (Johnson 1997, Pierrehumbert 2001).

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Viral marknadsföring har på senare tid blivit allt mer uppmärksammat då många har insett fördelar med att kommunicera sitt varumärke via sociala medier. Idag kan ett budskap spridas oerhört snabbt via olika kommunikationskanaler och därmed skapa en "snackis", vilket naturligtvis är ett önskvärt läge för företagen. Det innebär dock inte att denna spridning är lätt att uppnå. För att ett innehåll ska bli viralt måste det helt enkelt förtjänas. Termen "viral marknadsföring" och därmed dess användning kan upplevas som tvetydig då några anser att det är möjligt att i förväg utforma en viral kampanj medan andra menar att det aldrig i förväg går att veta om någonting kommer att bli viralt eller ej. Idag flyter även vår fysiska yta samman med den digitala vilket skapar en dynamisk miljö som företag är verksamma inom och som vidare leder till att det krävs ett nytt förhållningssätt för att kunna möta denna dynamik. Vi har i undersökningen valt att med hjälp av sense, seize och transform ur ramverket Dynamic Capabilities skapa en ökad förståelse och bidra med ett nytt förhållningssätt till denna dynamik inom den virala marknadsföringen.

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Scandic Plaza i Umeå är ett av de 160 hotell som ingår i Nordens ledande hotellkedja Scandic. Umeå är en stad med stark tillväxt och har blivit utnämnd till kulturhuvudstad 2014, något som väntas locka tusentals besökare. Vidare har även IKEA bestämt sig för att etablera sig i det kommande köpcentraprojektet Entré Syd. Detta skapar goda chanser för Scandic Plaza att ytterligare växa och stärka sin position på hotellmarknaden i Umeå.   Det finns en rad olika faktorer som påverkar en konsuments förväntningar, samt upplevelse och utvärdering av en hotellvistelse. Varför det gör som de gör, hur de gör det samt vad de har för förväntningar och behov, är några viktiga aspekter att kartlägga för att förstå konsumenters beteende. Kopplat till konsumentbeteende finner vi tillfredsställelse och lojalitet som två faktorer vilka spelar en viktig roll för att ett företag ska växa. Dessa aspekter tillsammans med word of mouth och konkurrens, har också fokuserats på i denna uppsats.   Vi vill på uppdrag av Scandic Plaza i Umeå studera det nuvarande kundsegmentet och deras beteende samt de faktorer som påverkar dem i sina val av hotell. Vidare vill vi identifiera vilka tänkbara förbättringar Scandic Plaza kan göra för att upprätthålla, förstärka och skapa nya kundrelationer och på så sätt växa sig starkare på marknaden. Detta har vi gjort med hjälp av en enkätundersökning där vi kartlagt hur konsumenternas hotellvanor ser ut, i vilket syfte de bor på Scandic Plaza idag, vad som påverkar deras val av hotell samt vilka förväntningar och behov de har vid sin vistelse samt hur lojala de är gentemot Scandic Plaza.   Resultatet baserat på 140 enkäter visar att affärsresenärer är Scandic Plazas största segment, och att läget, priset samt frukosten är de viktigaste faktorerna vid val av hotell. Vår studie visar att Scandic Plaza i många fall lyckas med att uppfylla dessa kriterier men det finns delar som kan förbättras. Priset ses för många av konsumenterna som en av de viktigaste faktorerna vid val av hotell - dock visar vårt resultat att ett flertal är missnöjda med priset när de kommer till Scandic Plaza. Vidare visar resultatet att Scandic Plaza uppfyller konsumenternas förväntningar och behov, men att majoriteten är ”latent lojala”, d.v.s. kunderna har en positiv attityd till Scandic Plaza men återkommer inte frekvent till hotellet. Dessa faktorer har tillsammans inflytande på aspekter kopplade till word of mouth och konkurrens, där våra resultat visar att word of mouth är av stor betydelse för de allra flesta och därför en marknadsföringsstrategi som bör tas i beaktande.

The research study is on the green marketing but specifically on consumers’ attitudes and purchase intention of eco-friendly products. It has been the global concern for the purpose of the preservation of the polluting and degradation of environment. Many studies have been done on the green marketing exploring the importance of the topic and relationship to the attitude and purchasing behavior of the consumers of eco-friendly products. Through the vital information provided by the expertise, competent and experience researchers, companies have understood the importance of green marketing in order to produce eco-friendly products and these provided much rich information for the literature studies of the thesisThe objective of this research was looked into and explored the influencing of the four traditional marketing-mix elements, satisfaction and word of mouth (WOM) on attitude and purchasing intentions of consumers on eco-friendly products specifically fasting moving consumer goods (FMCG) or non-durable ones. The purpose of the study was to obtain information from consumers’ point of view. Furthermore, one perspective of the study was to look into the comparison of the Swedish and the Non-Swedish their attitudes towards eco-friendly products. A questionnaire provided to obtain the views of the Swedish and others nationalities, how they are influenced by the marketing-mix elements (4P), satisfaction and WOM concerning green attitudes and purchase intention of eco-friendly products. A quantitative approach was adopted for the study by using a questionnaire, one paper version and another online version the total sample was composed of 174 respondents, 81 were collected through internet by using Google.doc surveys and Facebook and 93 by using standard paper questionnaire form. Furthermore, convenient sample was used to collect data so the chosen boundary was Umeå University and its residents.Our findings indicated that consumers who already bought eco-friendly products and those who are satisfied by these previous purchases were willing to repeat purchases. Indeed satisfaction goes with purchase intention. Furthermore the importance of WOM and Advertising about green products the fact that consumers believe in green claim explain the variance of the purchase intention. Positive attitudes concerning willingness to pay an extra price for green products are also correlated with purchase intention. However we discovered also that positive attitudes towards green products do not always lead to action i.e. purchase of these products. Our findings demonstrated that there were differences in attitudes and purchase intention toward green products between mainly the women and men and between the Swedish and the Non-Swedish.

The economic situation and the improved technology weaken the bond be-tween banks and their customers. To adapt to the changing behavior of customers banks engage in Social Media with the aim to strengthen their relationship. However, Social Media may not have the expected effect on the banks’ customers. The purpose of this thesis is to answer whether interaction through Facebook can improve the relationship between Handelsbanken and its customers and whether the employees’ and the customers’ perceived value of interacting through Facebook is equal.  The theoretical framework focus on how to build relationships with customers, how to add customer value and what encourages consumers to engage in word-of-mouth. The concept of Social Media is explained and a description of Facebook is provided. The last section in the theoretical framework discusses the implementation of Facebook into the organization of Handelsbanken. A qualitative study was conducted through interviews with employees and customers of Handelsbanken. During the study it was revealed that both the customers and the employees had low awareness of Handelsbanken’s presence on Facebook. The content on the Facebook page does not encourage interaction or add value to the customers. The main problems for succeeding with the Facebook page are absence of marketing and no customer need for interacting on Facebook with their bank. In addition, it was revealed that implementing a centrally moderated communication tool to a decentralized organization is not successful.