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This dissertation, "Electronic Outlaws:w(r)iting the repressed," is an attempt to work in ecriture feminine, or "woman writing," as defined by Helene Cixous in "The Laugh of the Medusa," with a pedagogical strategy as an implication for the writing. The method of writing I have developed is called scripting. The dissertation is based on a performance art piece by the same name as the dissertation and I ground my ideas in the theoretical framework utilized for the performance. / The preface sets forth the ideas for the theoretical framework of scripting and suggests that scripting is a way to express the repression this culture imposes. The introduction and next two chapters are essays explaining the theoretical basis for chapter three. Chapter three is a transcription of a performance piece by the same name as the dissertation and is the experiment in woman writing. Chapter four is a discussion of how scripting may be used in the classroom. Appendix A is a video of the entire dissertation and Appendix B contains programs from the performance of "Electronic Outlaws." / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-09, Section: A, page: 2836. / Major Professor: Sheila Taylor. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

This study was a rhetorical analysis of two black Louisiana newspapers during the Civil War and Reconstruction era, L'Union and the New Orleans Tribune. / L'Union, a French-English publication, emerged in 1862 as the first black owned newspaper in the South. The paper was founded in New Orleans by a group of free blacks of Creole heritage (African, French and Spanish) who wanted to agitate for equal rights. Mounting negative pressure from its adversaries caused the paper to discontinue on July 19, 1864. / Two days later, one of L'Union's owners, Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez, purchased the stock and the equipment of L'Union and started the New Orleans Tribune. The Tribune became the Louisiana Republican Party's organ in the South, and in October, 1864, it became the first black owned daily in the United States. Conflict among staff members and problems with the Louisiana Republican party contributed to the paper's suspension in March, 1870. / This dissertation answers insofar as possible the following research questions pertinent to L'Union and the New Orleans Tribune. (1) What issues did L'Union and the Tribune cover most frequently in their editorials? (2) What arguments did L'Union and the Tribune advance in support of their positions on these issues? (3) How were the rhetorical proofs of logos, pathos, and ethos (both artistic and nonartistic) used to support the arguments? (4) What was the philosophical basis of the L'Union-Tribune movement? / The investigation revealed that Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez provided the rationale for the political thrust of the two newspapers. As a result of his philosophy, L'Union's argued for emancipation, employment and fair treatment of black troops, and suffrage. The Tribune argued for suffrage, opposed the "free" labor system, and promoted the Freedmen's Aid Association. / Although some of L'Union's arguments for black suffrage were similar to those of the Tribune, each newspaper had a unique argument for each policy that it supported. While both newspapers used all three types of proof (logos, pathos, ethos) to support their arguments, L'Union's arguments were less diverse than those of the New Orleans Tribune and its editorials relied more on emotional rather than logical proof. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-01, Section: A, page: 0012. / Major Professor: Thomas King. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.

This project responds to a call for research in the field of second language (L2) composition. Specifically, it concerns teacher response. One way for teachers to verify if they are reaching their objectives in a writing course is to make the connection between their attitudes toward writing and their comments on student papers. / The present study presents the results of a national survey of 107 ESL composition teachers. Participants were asked to do the following: (1) to respond to The Emig-King Attitude Scale for Teachers (instrument #1), which measures attitudes of preference, perception and process of writing, (2) to respond to a first draft of a sample ESL composition (instrument #2), and (3) to explain their comments and describe how they would proceed in subsequent drafts. / The survey was analyzed to see to what degree teachers actually respond to those aspects of writing that they believe to be most important. Teachers' comments were classified into the following categories: content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanics. / Results indicate that respondents' preference, perception and process of writing did not correlate with the number of responses to the above five categories. That is, teachers' response styles varied even though they had similar attitudes toward writing. However, many teachers did respond to the student writing based on their own definitions of good writing; therefore, the conclusion drawn from this study is that teacher training in ESL composition will help teachers practice annotation styles which guide the student through the entire writing process and effectively communicate the goals of the assignment. / My belief is that if teachers become aware of their preference for writing, perception of good writing, and process in writing, they will be better prepared to communicate the goals of the assignment at each stage during the drafting process. However, more research which includes the context of the classroom and multiple drafts of one student essay is needed to make such an assumption. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-12, Section: A, page: 3725. / Major Professor: Frederick L. Jenks. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

This study is set within a national context which pointed to "a drastic decay of dialects" on the Italian peninsula, and a broader European one which indicated a resurgence of minority languages on the continent. It investigates the ideologies and practices of child language socialization of speakers belonging to a small multilingual community in the Italian Alps to determine if the community is experiencing a dialect revival, and if so, what forms such a process is taking. My analysis focuses on (1) community members' explicit theories on the community codes' values, functions, and roles in child language socialization; (2) caretaker-child interactions in Italian-oriented homes and in the schools. After years of convergence towards Italian, the community is witnessing a resurgence of its local vernacular Nones. The revival phenomenon is sustained by overt and covert communicative practices. The former include explicit support of the dialect as marker of a rediscovered cultural heritage and local identity, and the promotion of Italian-Nones bilingualism as a cognitive advantage. The latter include practices whereby in Italian contexts speakers switch to the dialect to index authority, community-mandated rights and responsibilities, and both positive and negative affect. Also, the community has witnessed the rise of "prestigious practices" which elevate the status of Nones from dialect to language. These consist in speakers' use of the dialect in more prestigious domains and for higher order functions that in a recent past were strictly reserved to Italian. Finally, the sum of overt and covert practices contribute to a resurgence of the dialect supporting its vitality and transmission.

Many misconceptions and misunderstandings about what writing is pervade in the field of literacy research and practice, and often school children from almost every household bear the brunt of misguided literacy research and inappropriate literacy practice. This dissertation examined the nature of written language generally and the nature of Chinese writing specifically from historical, linguistic, and social literacies perspectives. The problems with the evolutionary concept of writing development are discussed in depth. Several possible explanations for this evolutionary account of writing are discussed, and these are followed by some alternative ways to understand the historical change of writing. The Chinese writing system is examined in detail in order to present a prime example of a non-alphabetic writing system that has been in use and serving its language users effectively for thousands of years. The unique strategies of character formation and word formation of Chinese writing make it possible to create new vocabulary without increasing the number of signs. The use of phonetic component in semantic-phonetic compound characters builds the connection between oral and written Chinese. Chinese writing is a modern logograph that works, and it is a proof that the alphabet is not necessarily the final stage towards which all written languages must proceed. The choice of a writing system has to be understood from the linguistic and socio-cultural background of the language community. Every written language is ambiguous as it is redundant, and every written language has both phonographic and logographic elements. There is no pure written language. Different writing systems represent different linguistic levels, but all written languages of different writing principles are semiotic system in which symbols are used to communicate meaning. A distinction between word or character recognition and reading whole real text is made, and it is argued that using the experimental results of the former to suggest the process and teaching of the latter which resembles the reading in real life is misleading and very inappropriate. When researchers focus on the word or character level of reading, there are more dissimilarities than similarities among different written languages. However, when the reading of whole text in real life situation is studied, the process of making sense of print is similar across all different writings. At the end of this study, research on Chinese word recognition and reading process is reviewed, and some suggestions for literacy practice are made.

The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the use of German as a foreign language during written conversation in an intermediate German course. Specifically, the study compared the language output of intermediate students of German in the context of the innovative computer conferencing and the more traditional group journals. The dissertation aimed to serve two purposes: (1) to provide further insights into the role of computer-mediated interaction for promoting the successful development of communicative competence in foreign language pedagogy (both in theory and practice); (2) to shed light on the quality of language that learners produce in the two writing contexts, in terms of grammatical and lexical accuracy, sociolinguistic appropriateness and communicative success. For these purposes, the researcher analyzed the language output of 46 subjects at the University of Arizona during the Fall semester of 1996. Learners' language output was examined using statistical analyses (matched t-tests and multiple regression analyses), discourse analysis and the ethnography of writing. The results indicated many differences of the language produced in the two writing contexts. Although there was no difference between them in terms of lexical diversity, learners' language in computer conferencing reflects a higher level of grammatical accuracy, richer lexicon and improved comprehensibility (as rated by native speaker judges). Furthermore, learners had a more positive attitude towards the computer conferencing than towards the group journals. Learners were also found to use the two writing contexts for different communicative purposes (computer conferencing reflected interaction among participants, while group journals were monologues). Finally, learners managed conversations, and prevented or resolved instances of miscommunication, differently in the two conversational contexts. In conclusion, it can be said that the results of this study concur with previous research that supports the beneficial implementation of computer-mediated interaction in foreign language pedagogical contexts (Healy Beauvois, 1995; Kern, 1995; Leppainen and Kalaja, 1995). This dissertation was also able to contribute to our understanding of the level and quality of interlanguage of intermediate German learners, to our knowledge of how writing context and purpose interact, and to our understanding of the process of pidginization in foreign language learning contexts.

This dissertation investigates second language learners' knowledge of reconstruction in English and Chinese. To tap Chinese learners' knowledge of reconstruction in English, experiments included sentences that are underdetermined (not directly available) in Chinese, namely, sentences with a reflexive (himself/herself) inside a moved NP (noun phrase) or predicate that contains a wh-element. To tap English learners' knowledge of reconstruction in Chinese, an experiment included sentences that are underdetermined in English, namely, sentences with ambiguity of antecedence of ziji 'self' inside a moved predicate and in non-movement sentences. Results of a timed judgment task indicate that in judging the grammaticality of English sentences with singular reflexives (himself/herself) inside a moved NP or predicate, Chinese learners' error rates were below the chance level. Results of a multiple-choice task, a task with a preceding context and a truth-value judgment task involving pictures indicate that Chinese learners distinguished between ambiguity of antecedence of a reflexive inside a moved NP and no ambiguity of antecedence of a reflexive inside a moved predicate. Results of a truth-value judgment task with English learners of Chinese indicate that they had knowledge of ambiguity of antecedence of ziji inside a moved predicate. These results point to second language learners' access to Universal Grammar, although evidence of L1 effects was found with both Chinese learners of English and English learners of Chinese.

This dissertation reports the findings of a study on pragmatic ability and metapragmatic judgments of native and nonnative speakers of English conducted at a public university in the United States and also at a public university in Singapore. Specifically, the research study investigated the realization of apologies, complaints and requests focusing on the production of downgraders and upgraders. In addition, the study also examined metapragmatic ratings provided by these subjects and their reasons for the ratings. Thirty-eight native and thirty nonnative speakers participated in the first phase of the study, which involved responding to a 30-item discourse completion task (DCT). In the second phase of data collection, responses to the DCT were used to construct a metapragmatic judgment task (MJT) in order to investigate subjects' metapragmatic ratings of apologies, complaints and requests. A new group of native speakers (69 total) and thirty-seven nonnative speakers (a new but comparable group) completed the MJT (the Singaporean subjects were unavailable for participation in the MJT). Fourteen native and 16 nonnative speakers participated in the interviews. Various statistical tests were conducted to analyze the coded DCT responses as well as the MJT data. Interview protocols were summarized to study opinions provided by subjects for the MJT ratings. Results of this research study indicated that native speakers used a significantly higher number of downgraders in complaints and requests than nonnative speakers. A significantly higher number of downgraders were also supplied in requests than in complaints. Metapragmatic ratings of native speakers differed significantly from those of nonnative speakers in 29/90 cases. While the two groups were significantly different in their performance on the DCT and the MJT, the subjective opinions expressed about the appropriateness of responses converged to a great extent. In conclusion, this dissertation was able to contribute to our understanding of native and nonnative speakers' use of modality markers and their perceptions about appropriate language use. The results of this study also concur with previous research that indicates the need for instruction in pragmatic aspects of the L2.

Minority language people are sometimes simplistically viewed as lacking the language of the majority, and Deaf people are simplistically viewed as lacking hearing, thus ignoring the sociocultural realities of both groups. It is only in the last two decades that attempts have been made to articulate a Deaf ideology that considers deafness as a sociocultural characteristic rather than a defect. This dissertation asserts that there are three different types of ideologies that have co-existed since the beginning of time, and that influence deaf education even today: (1) Deafness as a terminal trait: this is defined as the type of ideology that places deaf individuals on a track that leads to a dead end. (2) Deafness as a limiting trait: This ideology views the deaf as handicapped people with limited possibilities for attaining the highest possible intellectual goals; and (3) Deafness as a socio-cultural trait: This ideology views deaf people as having their own language and culture who can fully develop their intellectual capacity through their natural language and culture and the language and culture of the hearing society in which they live, thus becoming bilingual and bicultural. This dissertation will answer the following question: How have these ideologies shaped deaf education in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and Venezuela, in the areas of (a) language use; (b) educational trends; and (c) societal aims for the deaf population? The results of this research can help Latin American educators to re-evaluate deaf educational systems in use today, and educators of the deaf around the world. The Deaf in Hispanic America are witnessing the evolution of national paradigms as their languages are recognized as official in Venezuela, Uruguay, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Cuba. Governments are taking legal action to recognize and to accept other forms of communication, such as sign language for the Deaf and Braille for the blind in Ecuador. The remaining countries do not recognize their sign language as official. Educators are implementing programs different approaches, such as oralism, Total Communication, and bilingual education, and integrating Deaf students into regular classes.