This study examines the efficacy of Auditory Integration Training (AIT) as a means of perceptual training for adult native and nonnative speakers of English. AIT differs from other methods of auditory training that use either synthetic or human speech as the training stimulus, by using music as its stimulus. During AIT, the music can be altered in two ways. First, optional filters can be selected to eliminate specific frequencies. Second the music is always modulated at random by 20 dB during AIT. The effect of the filtering is that the music sounds less than clear and, from the modulation, the volume increases and decreases very quickly. Currently, this training method is used for children with a variety of language impairments, including hypersensitive hearing and learning disabilities. Developed by Berard (1993), it is considered an exercise of the perceptual system by its proponents who report improvement following AIT in both perception and production. The 43 participants in this study were native speakers of English, Japanese, and Korean and included both students and professors at the University of Arizona. The effect of perceptual training was evaluated by comparing performance in a pretest and posttest administered before and after AIT. Four tests were used: (1) Speech Perception in Noise (SPIN), (2) R-L word identification, (3) Synthetic /ra/-/la/ consonant discrimination, and (4) Synthetic /e/-/epsilon/ vowel discrimination. AIT was administered for one hour per day for 10 days. The first experiment examined the effect of AIT on monolingual English speakers. The results from the first experiment revealed significant improvement in the SPIN test, and changes in the synthetic /ra/-/la/ and /e/-/epsilon/ syllables. The second experiment examined the effect of AIT on native Japanese and Korean speakers and found one significant change---the manner in which native Japanese speakers categorized [e]. However, a control group of native English speakers who listened to unaltered music revealed improvements in the SPIN test similar to those in the first experiment. The improvements from AIT appear to be from the music itself and not from any filtering or modulation.

This study tested the hypothesis that oral bound-morpheme impairment is characteristic of school-age children with a language-based learning disorder. Ten school-age children (Mean age: 10:3) classified as language-learning disabled and ten controls (Mean age: 9:9) classified as "normal language" were presented with four tasks that assessed oral bound-morpheme skills. A two-way analysis of variance revealed significant group and task differences. Fisher a priori tests indicated significant group differences on three tasks: a measure of English bound-morpheme skill levels, a measure of ability to generalize English bound morphemes, and a measure of ability to learn novel bound morphemes. The findings suggest that the core deficit underlying the oral bound-morpheme impairment does not resolve with maturation and experience.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 37-07, Section: A, page: 4325. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1976.

A word's indeclinability in Arabic is determined by its similarity to the particles, which are considered to possess the defining characteristics of indeclinability. This similarity is found in four categories: similarity in terms of structure; similarity in terms of meaning; similarity by being ungoverned by a regent; and similarity by requiring a complement. A substantive's indefiniteness is determined by its ability either to accept the definite article ا ل in those cases where the latter is able to induce definiteness, or to take the place of that which accepts the definite article in the same cases.

The theory of language articulated in Plato's Cratylus anticipates many of the points of the contemporary language theories in the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and Jacques Derrida. The Cratylus is the only dialogue in the canon of Plato's work devoted exclusively to the study of language signs, called by him "names," and I will argue that it contains Plato's primary theory of language. I will also argue that passages of the Cratylus are misread by Derrida. My argument is divided into four parts. The first part is devoted to tracing out the traditionally read metaphysics of language in Plato's Phaedo and placing it in context as the basis for the metaphysics to which and against which Saussure and Derrida respond in their work, Course in General Linguistics and Speech and Phenomena, respectively. Chapter II elucidates Plato's theory of the sign in the synthesis of the Cratylus. My point in this chapter is that the theory is not metaphysical and that it has several features in common with the theories of Saussure and Derrida. Also in this chapter I cite specific passages from the Cratylus which I believe Derrida has misconstrued. The third chapter consists of the thesis and antithesis of the dialogue. The thesis of the dialogue, Cratylus' argument, is that the signifier is bound naturally to what it signifies. The antithesis, Hermogenes' counterargument, is that language signs are radically arbitrary and that each individual speaker can make up his own names for things. The last chapter is an analysis of the praxis of the dialogue in which Socrates tests Cratylus' thesis by means of etymological analysis of words, names. In this section, Socrates demonstrates the instability of language signs and the unreliability of meaning inferred from signs. This is the last persuasion that language signs are conventional, differential, ambigous traces of other signs, not things.

A series of experiments was designed to investigate processes involved in written anaphor resolution. The first experiment established that lexical decisions are affected by phonological relationships between primes and targets that are presented visually. Experiment 2 explored the possibility that phonological codes are involved in processing gaps and pronouns, which are examples of surface and deep anaphors, respectively. No evidence was found to support this hypothesis. However, the complete lack of anaphor effects in Experiment 2 suggested that the lexical decision paradigm was not sensitive to anaphor processing. Experiments 3 and 4 compared the priming effects found using a probe recognition task, to those found using a lexical decision task. Results suggested that only probe recognition responses were facilitated by anaphors. Furthermore, the anaphor facilitation effect was found only for sentences containing pronouns. These results were compared to those of previous studies that have used priming methodologies.

Brillat-Savarin famously claimed that "we are what we eat," and it is the duty of thinkers and critics to articulate what can be observed about identities through one's culinary practices. Nowhere is the relationship between identity and foodways as explicit as in a nation's traditional cuisine. In this thesis, I examine how Québec's community has identified eating and cooking practices as being a signifier of its national identity. The process through which Québec elects a certain dish or set of gastronomic practices as representative of itself reveals some of the underlying ideologies that shape its national narrative. Adopting a semiological approach based on Roland Barthes work Mythologies, I investigate how food's expressive potential becomes a way to convey nationalist sentiment even as the national imaginary undergoes significant transformations. Looking at contemporary interpretations of the gastronomical canon of Québec traditional recipes, I research the restaurant Au Pied de Cochon and observed how it recuperates the narrative of Québec's cuisine to convey its current 'bourgeois-bohemian' ideologies, and therefore creates what Barthes refers to as a myth. Though the marketing strategies of the popular eatery claims to revisit the province's traditional cuisine, the actual restaurant experience seems more to embody notions of nostalgia, pride in terroir products, etc. that legitimizes the commercial aspects of the enterprise as well as the financial comfort of its customers. At Au Pied de Cochon, the myth of Québec cuisine is seamless in that it converts the contingent state of social relations and ideologies into an accepted belief and 'naturalizes' this marriage. The question then arises as to whether or not a national cuisine can escape this constant usurpation, and the answer Barthes proposes is that to expose the fallacy of myth, one must transform it into a mythology, which is, in short, an exaggeration and over-extension of the myth that reveals its fabricated nature. The chain of restaurants O Québec in France acts as an example of a mythology, where Québec cuisine is used as a theme for the franchise's menu, décor, and ambiance. Amplifying Québec elements in a manner similar to how Disney uses stories and themes to create fantastic worlds, the fiction of the myth of Québec's cuisine emerges and is simultaneously undone. Uncovering myth points to the ideologies propelling a community, and since as Socrates warns that "the unexamined life is not worth living," to achieve understanding about the narratives at play in one's society is crucial to living a fully conscious life. / Depuis que Brillat-Savarin énnonça l'adage maintenant bien connu «dis moi ce que tu manges et je te dirais ce que tu es,» plusieurs penseurs et critiques se sont penchés sur la relation complexe entre les questions identitaires et les pratiques alimentaires. L'endroit où l'on observe cette coorelation le plus visiblement est sans aucun doute dans les cuisines dites 'nationales.' Cette thèse a pour but d'examiner le processus par lequel la communauté Québécoise en est venue à indentifier certaines pratiques gastronomiques comme étant significatives de son identité nationale et propose une méthode de lecture de ce 'language gastronomique.' Adoptant une approche sémiologique, basée sur le travail de Roland Barthes tel qu'expliqué dans son oeuvre Mythologies, j'examine comment le potentiel expressif de la nourriture devient un moyen de communiquer un discours national et propose un canon préliminaire des recettes et ingrédients traditionnels du Québec. Afin d'observer les interprétations contemporaines de cet ensemble de mets élus comme étant représentatifs de la cuisine québécoise, j'analyse par la suite le restaurant Au Pied de Cochon et observe comment celui-ci récupère le narratif associé à la cuisine traditionnelle québécoise pour communiquer une idéologie 'bourgeoise-bohème' et créer ce que Barthes nomme un mythe. Les pratiques alimentaires sont rarement à l'abris des ce type d'apropriation – mais pour exposer l'imposture du mythe, celui-ci doit être transformé en mythologie. La chaîne de restaurants française O Québec sert d'example d'une telle mythologie, en utilisant la cuisine québécoise comme théme à partir duquel le menu, le décor et même l'ambiance de la franchise sont calqués. En éxagérant un peu les éléments typiquements québécois - de manière comparable à la façon dont Disney utilise des légendes et coutumes de certaines communautés pour créer des mondes 'fantastiques' – le mythe de la cuisine traditionnelle québécoise emerge de façon caricaturale, et par le fait même se détrui.

This study focuses on a consensus-based deliberative practice, known as the New York City General Assembly (NYCGA). This practice, built on the values of inclusivity and equality of voice, is a key component of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest. While political commentators have criticized the protest's lack of a singular demand, such a critique ignores the matrix of values and interactional norms that underlie communicative events occurring at the OWS camp, particularly the NYCGA. Consequently, this critique risks overlooking the ways in which the NYCGA produces, reinforces, and potentially transforms social relationships and sociocultural subjects, both within the real-time of the assembly and beyond. To investigate these processes of (re)production and transformation of social life, I conduct a linguistic analysis of two different aspects of the NYCGA. Firstly, I analyze the textual archive of the NYCGA that comprises (1) written documents passed through the consensus process, and (2) how-to guides and minutes produced about the consensus process. Secondly, I analyze performances of this discursive practice reconstructed through minutes and video footage. I suggest the NYCGA is a pedagogic ritual that equips participants to disrupt, or more ideally transform, ongoing discursive interactions by recontextualizing them and thus shifting their norms and attendant values. / Cette étude porte sur l'Assemblée Générale de la Ville de New York (AGNY), une pratique délibérative basée sur le consensus. Cette pratique, qui épouse les valeurs d'inclusion et d'égalité, est au coeur des manifestations des indignés de « Occupy Wall Street ». La critique de cette pratique générée par des commentateurs politiques et selon laquelle celle-ci ne fabriquerait pas de demande singulière néglige cependant la matrice de valeurs et de normes sociales qui sous-tend tout événement communicatif, tels que l'AGNY. Par conséquent, le risque de cette critique est qu'elle ignore les façons dont l'AGNY construit, soutient et potentiellement transforme les relations sociales ainsi que leurs sujets socioculturels, et ce non seulement pendant, mais également au-delà des assemblées. Afin d'explorer ces processus de (re)production et de transformation de la vie sociale, cette étude propose une analyse linguistique de l'AGNY en deux parties : dans un premier temps, un examen des archives textuelles de l'AGNY (composées des documents écrits retenus par l'assemblée par voie de consensus, et des guides pratiques et des compte-rendus qui décrivent ces assemblées) et dans un deuxième temps, une analyse du déroulement de l'AGNY au travers de ses comptes-rendus et de ses enregistrements vidéo. Ces analyses démontrent que l'AGNY est un rituel pédagogique qui apprend à ces participants à intervenir (par voies d'interruptions ou plus idéalement, de transformations) au cours de discours interactifs, modifiant, par un processus de recontextualisation, les normes et les valeurs de ces discours.

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<p> This thesis examines the role of an intellectual confronted with the power of a totalitarian state. It is based on a literary analysis of two literary works: Prisoner without a name, cell without a number by Jacobo Timerman and Archipelago Gulag by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. This work explores the dynamics manifested in the language used by an intellectual (a writer) at the level of discourse to challenge the status quo and question power relations established in a society with a repressive state system. The main focus of the analysis lies in establishing how social reality is reflected through discourse of an intellectual who is at the same time a writer, a former political prisoner, a witness, a victim and a judge. Furthermore, the purpose is to examine the notion of power and its relation in respect to such concepts as discourse, literature, knowledge, state and an individual and how the existing power relations affect and contribute to construction and / or deconstruction of individual and collective identity. The thesis's particular interest consists in the transformative effect of discourse on power relations (indoctrination, dominance, collaboration, etc.) which exist within a society as reflected through literary discourse. The theoretical foundation for the analysis will be partially based on the concepts proposed by Michel Foucault in his theory of power, Mikhail Bakhtin in his literary theory and Norman Fairclough in his CDA (critical discourse analysis) theory.</p>