This thesis examines the adaptation of Iranian Canadians (immigrants from Iran in Canada) to the new cultural environment with a special focus on a paradigm shift in their lingua-cultural attitudes. More specifically, it examines the attitudes of Iranian Canadians to ta’arof, an important politeness phenomenon in Farsi that has attracted the attention of many scholars of linguistics and anthropology. The actual use of ta’arof as well as attitudes to its use are compared for two groups of first generation Canadian Iranians (60 participants total), with long and short periods of exposure to Canadian culture. All the participants come from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. This thesis is informed by linguistic relativity, acculturation and politeness theories. The study employs a questionnaire survey as its methodology, commonly used in sociolinguistic studies (e.g. Makarova & Hudyma, 2015; Clement, 1986). The questionnaire contains questions about the respondents' use of ta’arof in different situations, and their attitudes to ta’arof. In addition, it included some sociocultural questions aimed at evaluating the respondents’ level of acculturation. The goal of this study is to describe the use of ta’arof and attitudes to its use among first generation Canadian Iranians, as well as to examine whether social variables such as length of stay in Canada, gender, education and English proficiency contribute to a change in attitudes to ta’arof among first generation Iranian immigrants in Canada. The results show that all the social variables in this study, namely age, gender, education, English proficiency, length of stay in Canada and acculturation can be either positively or negatively correlated with the participants’ use of ta’arof and their attitudes to ta’arof. The results also indicate that “ethnic self-identification,” in terms of “Canadian,” “Iranian,” or “Iranian Canadian,” is positively correlated with “the length of stay in Canada.” The Iranian immigrants with longer duration of stay in Canada are more likely to identify themselves as “Iranian Canadian” than as “Iranian.” Other findings suggest that the Iranian immigrants who have lived for a long perid of time in Canada provide higher acculturation-level responses and use ta’arof less in their interactions with Iranians and non-Iranians in Canada, as compared to immigrants who have lived in Canada for a short period of time. The latter group yields lower acculturation-level responses, and their attitudes to ta’arof are significantly more positive. Overall, even though the Iranian Canadian participants report the use ta’arof in Canada not only in communication within the Iranian diaspora, but also sometimes in communication with members of other Canadian ethnic groups, they dislike the pressures imposed by ta’arof, do not want to teach it to their children, and have overall rather negative attitudes towards ta’arof and its use. With the increase of the duration of stay in Canada, the attitudes to ta’arof become significantly more negative.

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Hand gestures during speech lighten the speaker's cognitive load, provide lexical access, augment the precision of memory, and identify when a speaker is ready to learn a new skill (Abner, Cooperrider, Goldin-Meadow, 2015). Much of the research that has discovered these purposes of gesture have focused on gestures produced during speech in the speaker's first language. Many researchers use these findings to argue for the same cognitive benefits of gesture in the second language, though only little research of gesture and second language speech has been done. The present study sought to fill the gap between first and second language research on gesture production by investigating the differences between the gesticulation produced by bilinguals in their first and second languages as well as discover their perceptions of those gestures. Native English speakers bilingual in Spanish and native Spanish speakers bilingual in English were interviewed in both languages and their gestures were counted and compared between their first and second languages. Results showed that even though native Spanish speaker's gestured significantly more than native English speakers, all participants significantly increased their gesture production from their first to their second language. Task type also played an important part in this increase, wherein gestures increased only in descriptive and narrative tasks, but not in conversational role plays. Gestures also seemed to increase due to a heightened cognitive load within the tasks more so than due to increased anxiety levels, agreeing with previous research done in first language contexts. Participants also tended to base perceptions of gesture use on native cultural attitudes towards gesture, causing inconclusive results on speaker awareness of their co-speech gesture in either their native or second language. Some limitations suggest that this study be repeated with modifications, such as evaluating participant proficiency before interviewing and matching all participants to a specific range of time immersed in the foreign culture.

Type II diabetes is a significant problem in the United States that had affected almost 10% of the American population and over 13% of African Americans. Although culturally competent diabetes education and treatment programs have been significantly more successful, little is known about the cultural factors affecting type II diabetes in African Americans of Caribbean descent (AACD). The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to explore the cultural factors relevant to the treatment and prevention of type II diabetes among AACD. The theoretical framework for the study consisted of cultural adaptation theory and the transtheoretical model. Data collection consisted of in-depth, qualitative semistructured interviews. For the first research question, findings indicated that AACD viewed dietary and exercise regimens as challenging to implement. For the second question, findings indicated that AACD viewed medical advice related to diabetes as valuable and helpful, and AACD fully appreciated and perhaps even exaggerated the seriousness of diabetes, a factor that might incentivize preventative behaviors. Findings from the present study could inform new diabetes treatment and education for AACD that addresses specific cultural factors, which could lead to lower diabetes rates for this population.

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This dissertation examines emerging cultural attitudes, language ideologies, and discursive practices among Navajos and Navajo speakers through the lens of new media technologies on the Navajo Nation. New media such as cell phones and the Internet are significant features of contemporary Navajo communities, and act as both a context for and medium of linguistic and cultural vitality and transformation. They have opened new spaces for Navajo language use, generated emergent uses of the Navajo language, and increased the spaces of language contact and change. This dissertation explores the ways in which ideologies of language and technology have shifted and converged, and describes multiple instances of the transformative nature of technology through the mediation of communities. New technologies do not exist in a vacuum, and novel practices emerge from a wide range of existing observable styles, registers, and norms in Navajo communities. Significant are the shifting geographies of communication, expansion of social networks, and increased circulation of bilingual Navajo hane’, or publicly shared “tellings” in the form of stories, jokes, and information that accompany them. This work analyzes the appearance of new media technologies in contemporary Navajo society within broader discourses of modernity and narratives of progress about, and among, Navajo communities. New technology is not incommensurate with existing practice; rather, emergent practices are part of the broader circulation of Navajo identities, defined here as a process linked to social activities, and emergent practices index the ways in which some Navajos are “doing” community in unexpected ways and unexpected places. New expressive forms and genres have appeared, including a migration to English emails by previously monolingual, illiterate elders, the transition of traditionally oral genres to widely circulated emails, and the appearance of locally created bilingual hip-hop music. These are crucial developments that have immediate implications for Navajo language vitality and cultural continuity. / text