L’objectif de la thèse a été d’étudier la structure, la fonction et la plasticité au cours du temps du chant d’un oiseau mâle adulte, la fauvette à tête noire Sylvia atricapilla. L’influence de différents comportements migratoires sur les caractéristiques du chant, sur la maintenance des dialectes et sur l’apprentissage a également été étudiée chez deux populations, une migratrice (représentée par 2 groupes à Paris) et une sédentaire (représentée par 3 groupes en Corse). Le chant de cette espèce est constitué de deux parties aux caractéristiques acoustiques bien distinctes, le warble et le whistle. Nos expériences de diffusion montrent que chacune des deux parties peut provoquer une réponse territoriale des mâles. Ce chant en deux parties permet probablement aux fauvettes de transmettre des informations différentes, destinées à différents auditoires, proches et lointains, mâles et femelles. Nos analyses génétiques par microsatellites ne montrent pas de structure génétique des groupes et populations. Néanmoins, nous avons montré l’existence de variations micro-géographiques au niveau de la composition en syllabes et en séquences de syllabes de cette seconde partie du chant. Bien que le renouvellement des individus soit plus important chez les migrateurs que chez les sédentaires, les 2 populations ont un taux de partage de syllabes et de phrases équivalent au sein des groupes. Nous avons cependant observé que les individus migrateurs ont un répertoire de syllabes 2 fois plus grand mais une diversité de phrases partagées 2 fois moins grandes que les sédentaires. Le suivi d’individus sédentaires sur plusieurs années consécutives a permis de montrer que l’espèce faisait preuve d’une plasticité vocale puisqu’on observe un plus grand partage de syllabes et de phrases intra année qu’inter année au sein des groupes. Même si les individus semblent modifier le contenu de leurs chants chaque année, nous n’avons pas réussi à mettre en évidence par des expériences de diffusion en milieu naturel un apprentissage à l’âge adulte de nouvelles syllabes ou de nouvelles phrases. / The aim of the thesis was to study the structure, function and plasticity over time of the song of a male adult bird, the blackcap Sylvia atricapilla. The influence of different migratory behaviors on the song characteristics, on the dialect maintenance and on learning has also been studied in two populations, a migratory one (represented by two groups in Paris) and a sedentary one (represented by 3 groups in Corsica). The song of this species consists of two parts with distinct sound characteristics, the warble and the whistle. Our playback experiments show that both parts trigger male territorial response. Such a song in two parts probably allows blackcaps to transmit different information for different audiences, close and distant, males and females. Genetic analyzes with microsatellites show no genetic structure of groups and populations. Nevertheless, we have shown the existence of micro-geographical variations in the composition of syllables and sequences of syllables in the whistle part. Although the turnover of individuals is higher among migrants than among sedentary populations, the two populations have similar syllables and phrases sharing within groups. However, migratory birds, compared to sedentary ones, have a syllable repertoire size twice as large and a repertoire of phrase sharing much smaller. The survey of sedentary individuals over several consecutive years has shown that the species show a vocal plasticity since a greater sharing of syllables and of phrases is observed intra year than between years within groups. Although individuals seem able to modify their songs every year, we didn’t succeed in showing with playback experiments in natural environment that adults males were able to learn new syllables or new phrases.

This study, called Dialect caipira, deals with one of the dialect of Brazilian Portuguese language, its historical and sociological formation and its linguistic characteristics. The first chapter contains the interpretation of dialect and dialectology in line with studies undertaken in this area. It represents the evolution of dialectological research from neogrammarians until today. It includes theory of variability of William Labov, who departs from the traditional synchronous approach to language as it was a homogeneous subject of study, and carries out researches, which include variable use of language and its linguistic, stylistic, and social determinants. According to Chambers and Trudghill are introduced social strata with which we encounter in the study of language, and which have in some circumstances, the general tendency to use certain styles of speech. At the end of the first chapters are set out terms that will be used during the work. The second chapter deals with the colloquial Brazilian Portuguese. It outlines the historical formation of the language in Brazil and social factors that influenced it. It represents the emergence of language lingua geral, an artificial language created by Jesuit missionaries for evangelization. This language has been widely used in the first centuries...

This thesis contributes to the research on Czech dialects in language enclaves abroad. Its objective is to describe the language of the Czech minority in the villages of Repinka, Voskresenka and Novohradka in Russia, Omsk, the territory of Kalachinsk. The research is restricted only to the oldest generations, i.e. people over the age of fifty-five, whose language use is analyzed on these traditional levels of language: phonology, morphology, syntax and marginally also lexicology. The theoretical part of this research deals with the history of Czech immigrants in Tsarist Russia. The study then focuses on the history of Czech immigrants in regions connected with moving to Siberia and on the present philological researches on the Czech community in Omsk region. The following part describes the methods of the data processing. Transcriptions of recorded speeches and prayers in the Czech language set down in Cyrillic alphabet were used as the input data. They were described separately for each language level. Most attention is paid to the elements which help to classify the dialect of Repinka under one of the dialect groups of the Czech language, and furthermore to language elements influenced by foreign languages (especially by Russian). In the conclusion, the author summarizes the obtained results. On...

The diploma thesis deals with the issue of regional identity of the inhabitants of the Czech part of Teschen Silesia in connection with the documentary film Hranice po našimu. The aim of the thesis is to analyse the reaction of local inhabitants to this documentary and to trace how the topic of identity and local dialect was represented both in the discussion and the film itself. The reaction of the locals is analysed mainly using the internet discussion which developed on the Czech Television's official website after the broadcast of the film, as well as using available journalistic articles and official statements of Teschen institutions. The thesis also focuses on the inclination of some local inhabitants to create a regional form of identity which can replace the identification with cultures of the nation states. The thesis is based on the hypothesis that the creation of such regional identity is one of the possible escape strategies the locals might use to avoid a certain form of ethnic diction. This regional identity carries its own cultural elements, one of the most significant being the aforementioned local dialect which the thesis concentrates on.

The descriptive grammar analyzes the North West variety of Lovari, i.e. the Hungarized Vlax dialect of Romani. The analysis is based upon fieldwork recordings and upon few written texts. The study presents the delimitation against related varieties and dialects, the sociolinguistic situation of the speakers, phonetics, phonology, phonetic alteration, and an overview of relevant grammatical categories. One chapter is dedicated to nominal and verbal morphology, to the use of forms, word formation and morphology of the preposition. The chapter on syntax describes non-morphological onomasiology, the structure of the noun phrase, presents frequent adverbs and modal, aspect, and discourse particles. The chapter on syntax continues with the clause structure, sentence types, the word order mechanisms, subordination and coordination. From a typological viewpoint, the language of the study is flective, employing several nominal and verbal inflectional classes, and agglutinative with respect to several morphological classes, such as case and tense marking. It is fusional in a sense, that number is cumulatively coded together with other features, with gender in nominal inflection, and with person in verbal inflection.

Die vorliegende Arbeit soll beispielhaft die Verwendung von dialektalen und hochsprachlichen Elementen im gesprochenen Arabisch untersuchen. Dabei erhebt sie jedoch keinen dialektologischen Anspruch, sondern das Hauptaugenmerk liegt vielmehr auf der interdialektalen Kommunikation gebildeter Sprecher. Im weitesten Sinne soll diese Arbeit einen Beitrag dazu zu leisten, die Frage nach einer dialektübergreifenden, gehobenen arabischen Umgangssprache zu beantworten. Bei der Wahl des Themas war die Überlegung ausschlaggebend, dass Studenten der arabischen Sprache und insbesondere des Faches Dolmetschen in ihrem Studium ausschließlich die moderne arabische Schriftsprache vermittelt wird. Außerhalb der Lehrveranstaltungen werden sie jedoch bald mit den arabischen Dialekten konfrontiert, die die eigentliche Muttersprache arabischer Sprecher darstellen. Aus diesem Grund kommen sie nicht umhin, sich zumindest passive Sprachkenntnisse in einigen dieser Dialekte anzueignen, um nicht nur Nachrichtensendungen auf Hocharabisch folgen zu können, sondern auch mit Muttersprachlern aus verschiedenen Regionen der arabischen Welt kommunizieren zu können. Besonders für Studierende des Faches Dolmetschen ist es im Hinblick auf ihre spätere Tätigkeit nicht ratsam, sich auf eine bestimmte Region festzulegen. Zudem sind für Dolmetscher in erster Linie fachliche Themen, etwa aus den Bereichen Politik und Wirtschaft, und vergleichsweise formelle Anlässe von Interesse. Für die Bearbeitung des Themas wurde daher eine Fernsehsendung ausgewählt, die nicht nur die Möglichkeit bietet, die Kommunikation zwischen Sprechern mit unterschiedlichem dialektalem Hintergrund zu untersuchen, sondern auch Themengebiete behandelt, die für die spätere Dolmetschertätigkeit der Studierenden relevant sind. Die Wahl der politischen Talkshow Ḥiwār al-ᶜArab, in der Themen von öffentlichem Interesse von Fachleuten aus verschiedenen arabischen Ländern diskutiert werden, bot sich daher an. Um den Rahmen einer Studienabschlussarbeit nicht zu sprengen, wurde nur eine Ausgabe der genannten Sendung für die sprachwissenschaftliche Analyse herangezogen. Die Redebeiträge der verschiedenen Sprecher, die in der untersuchten Ausgabe auftreten, sollen auf dialektale und hochsprachliche Elemente untersucht werden, um so Arabischlernenden einen Einblick zu verschaffen, welche Arten von Dialektinterferenzen in realen Kommunikationssituationen auftreten können. Nach Möglichkeit soll zudem bereits eine erste grobe Einteilung verschiedener Stufen von Dialektinterferenzen vorgenommen werden. Dabei konnten jedoch nicht alle auftretenden sprachlichen Merkmale berücksichtigt werden. Aus diesem Grund wurden für jeden Sprecher nur die jeweils wichtigsten phonetischen, lexikalischen und grammatischen Eigenheiten beschrieben. Auch wurden die Studenten, die sich nur sehr kurz in der Sendung äußern, bei der Analyse außer Acht gelassen. Da für die Talkshow Ḥiwār al-ᶜArab keine schriftliche Fassung vorliegt, wurde die untersuchte Ausgabe der Sendung nach Gehör transkribiert. Dabei wurde versucht, der tatsächlichen Aussprache so weit wie möglich gerecht zu werden. Um die Transkription auch ohne Kenntnis der sprachlichen Analyse so verständlich wie möglich zu halten, wurden jedoch nicht alle beobachteten phonetischen Merkmale in der Umschrift wiedergegeben. Gegebenenfalls wurden bestimmte Laute in der Analyse näher beschrieben. Die Wiedergabe in IPA-Transkription steht dabei in eckigen Klammern. Inhaltlich wurden lediglich sehr schlecht hörbare Satzteile und einzelne vom Moderator eingeworfene Wörter ohne besondere Bedeutung („Ṭayyib, ṭayyib…“) ausgelassen, die nicht zum Ziel haben, den Redenden zu unterbrechen. Satzzeichen wurden nach eigenem Ermessen und Intonation des Sprechers gesetzt und dienen lediglich der besseren Lesbarkeit.

Under the recent shadow of the Civil War and the failures of Reconstruction, popular writers mocked the national naiveté that led to major distortions in the American cultural self-image. In this dissertation, I study the socially and politically motivated satire of the era between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the First World War. For too long, scholarship in this area has focused almost exclusively on three major satirists and social critics from the Gilded Age: Henry James, Edith Wharton, and Mark Twain. Though I do include some of Mark Twain’s lesser-known later writing as a lens through which to re-examine what is arguably the greatest work of American satire, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the main objective here is to interrogate lesser-known works by other authors of the period, famous as well as relatively unknown. My dissertation aims to uncover neglected works by more famous authors like William Dean Howells and Charlotte Perkins Gilman; to refresh our thinking about writers such as Charles Chesnutt, Finley Peter Dunne, and Edward Bellamy; and to reveal the satirical depths of overlooked figures like Marietta Holley and Mary E. Bradley Lane. Given the parallels between the Confident Years and the United States in the early twenty-first century, in-depth review of the satire of the earlier period seems not only timely but vital. / 2020-11-07T00:00:00Z

Students who speak local varieties (i.e., dialects) of English that differ from the codified variety promoted in school are at a disadvantage. Research illustrates that differences in sound systems, grammar, vocabulary, and usage can negatively affect literacy development and achievement in math and science, and lead to misunderstandings and changes in teacher attitudes toward students. Moreover, the use of inappropriate assessment tools may result in unnecessary pathologization and inappropriate pedagogical approaches. Since many Indigenous children may speak local varieties, it is reasonable to assume that the same issues that hinder school success for speakers of other varieties affect many Indigenous students in Canada in similar ways. However, to date, research concerning Indigenous Englishes in Canada is scant. Similarly, virtually no empirical evidence has been gathered on use in Canadian schools. By extension, the trajectory of use of features as children progress through grades remains unknown. The goal of this research was to begin to address the crucial necessity of learning more about Indigenous English varieties, in order that appropriate language assessment and pedagogical practices can be implemented. The research, conducted in a remote community in Northern British Columbia, Canada, concentrates on differences in grammar used by a group of First Nations school-aged children. I analyzed oral narrative language samples of Kindergarteners, and oral and written narrative language samples of students in Kindergarten to Grade 5, over a three-year period. Results reveal the presence of at least 23 distinct grammatical features, many of which may have been influenced by the structure of the ancestral language. At school entry, students used grammatical features at high rates, regardless of whether or not they later required speech-language pathology or special education services. As children progressed through the grades, the rate at which they produced features appeared to follow a curvilinear trajectory, declining until grades 3 and 4 and then gradually rising again in middle school. A preference for using shorter sentences with less use of subordination and embedding of clauses also appears to be a feature of this variety. Most of the features the children used in their speech, they also used in their writing. Children had the most difficulty switching to standard English forms of verb tense, and so verb tense may require more direct instruction. While my results may not be directly generalizable to other First Nations communities, it is anticipated that educators will use them as a guide in their practice and instruction, so they can cease confusing features of a local variety with errors requiring “correction”, avoid unnecessary pathologization, and adjust expectations regarding the rate at which children can be expected to acquire the codified standard language model. It is also hoped that this study will contribute to the preservation and celebration of the unique ways of speaking English that have evolved in northern communities. / Graduate / 2021-09-16

The warbler Prinia inornata (Plain Prinia) is a common songbird found across large parts of southern Asia, and it is currently divided into ten geographically distinct subspecies. It has been suggested by some ornithologists to possibly be a complex of cryptic species, i.e. several species so similar to each other that they have been taxonomically misclassified as being conspecific. This study used audio recordings to compare songs between individuals from different regions in order to see if there are distinct geographical differences, and if so, how these correspond to the current taxonomy. The comparison was made using two methods: A qualitative auditory analysis, and statistical models (NMDS and PCA) based on measurements from spectrograms.  The results show that two main types of song exist that are highly distinct from each other, each taking up roughly half of the geographical range. The two main types can be further divided into a few subtypes, potentially as many as seven in total. The geographical distribution of these subtypes matches that of some of the current subspecies, but the results do not support the current taxonomy as a whole. It is therefore likely that P. inornata comprises at least two species (corresponding to the two main types), possibly more.

Orthography Standardization in Arabic Dialects Abstract Christian Cayralat1 1 Charles University Spontaneous orthography in Arabic dialects poses one of the biggest ob- stacles in the way of Dialectal Arabic NLP applications. As the Arab world enjoys a wide array of these widely spoken and recently written, non-standard, low-resource varieties, this thesis presents a detailed account of this relatively overlooked phenomenon. It sets out to show that continuously creating addi- tional noise-free, manually standardized corpora of Dialectal Arabic does not free us from the shackles of non-standard (spontaneous) orthography. Because real-world data will most often come in a noisy format, it also investigates ways to ease the amount of noise in textual data. As a proof of concept, we restrict ourselves to one of the dialectal varieties, namely, Lebanese Arabic. It also strives to gain a better understanding of the nature of the noise and its distri- bution. All of this is done by leveraging various spelling correction and morpho- logical tagging neural architectures in a multi-task setting, and by annotating a Lebanese Arabic corpus for spontaneous orthography standardization, and morphological segmentation and tagging, among other features. Additionally, a detailed taxonomy of spelling inconsistencies for...