This thesis examines ideological influence on lexicography. Since dictionaries can be viewed as a form of ideological commentary, what do they say about the different groups that society marginalizes either because of these groups' minority status or because of the norms and values of the majority? How do dictionaries reflect society's persistent prejudices and stereotypes? These questions prove to be important because language and words shape our thoughts and expression and dictionaries are viewed as the authority on their use. This research is of added interest because the dictionary is ostensibly scientific, objective and neutral and many users are not aware that the dictionary might mirror the values and prejudices of the dominant ideology of the society in which it is produced. First, the thesis examines the conceptual framework of the relationship between the dictionary and dominant ideology. Then, I analyze a variety of dictionaries (three English and three French unilingual and three bilingual English-French) and their treatment of 67 lexical items that refer to the lesbian, bisexual and gay communities based on this conceptual framework. The results of this research reveal (a) that the dictionary excludes many words that do not represent the dominant ideology, and (b) that for those words that are included, little information is provided and what is provided reveals sociocultural bias.

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This dissertation explores a typological puzzle within the Romance language family: How is it that French could have evolved so divergently from the rest of the family that it has apparently lost two of the most characteristic features of Romance languages, i.e., (1) a highly inflected verb paradigm and (2) optional nominal and pronominal subjects? Using a ±60,000-word corpus of Everyday Spoken Swiss French (ESSF), comprising 14 educated, middle-class speakers conversing with family and friends, I examine the subject clitics and subject NPs from the theoretical framework of grammaticalization, since the data are gradient and represent change in progress. This type of data collection is crucial given the increasingly diglossic situation that exists between Spoken and Written French. The corpus shows that the subject clitics have fully morphologized 100% into prefixes in all but a few, predictably trailing, environments of the 3rd person. Thus the former clitics are no longer subject pronouns but person/number inflectional morphemes on the verb. To fill the void in the subject pronoun paradigm, a set of true, personal pronouns (moi, toi, lui, etc.) has moved in. But they, like other full NP subjects, are highly optional. Just as in Spanish and Italian, these overt subjects are used only sparingly, i.e., for contrast, emphasis, and disambiguation. When they do appear, they are most likely to occur pre-verbally, thus maintaining the traditional SVO word order of French, although alternate word orders also occur. The redevelopment of a highly inflected verb paradigm, albeit prefixal, not suffixal, and the consequent restructuring of the personal pronoun paradigm has allowed for the reemergence of null pronominal and nominal subjects in ESSF. The corpus also reveals a new, markedness-driven, morphological change starting in certain 3Sg. impersonal verbs, i.e., the development of a zero-morpheme. Based on these findings, two classic tests from generative grammar, Montalbetti's (1984) Overt Pronoun Constraint and Chomsky's (1981, 1982) Pro-drop Parameter are applied and show that ESSF behaves like other Romance pro-drop languages. This reanalysis of ESSF is discussed from the perspective of Romance typology, French Creoles, and first and second language acquisition. Finally, pedagogical implications are proposed.

The purpose of this field linguistics research is threefold: (1) To identify the different linguistic structures and the language functions the speakers of Miami Cuban Spanish produce to communicate a given semantic content in a stated social context, (2) to establish the degree of occurrence of these structural realizations and language functions, and (3) to determine the degree of influence of the English language on the Spanish form. / The language data, which have yielded the linguistic corpus for this research, were provided by 200 informants that are speakers of Cuban Spanish living in the city of Miami. / Four demographic variables are considered in this study: age group of arrival in the United States, geographical area of origin (Camaguey, La Habana, Las Villas, Matanza, Oriente, Pinar del Rio), year of arrival in the United States, and sex. / An interview-schedule of 21 notional categories of language was constructed to elicit the grammatical realizations of the language functions performed by the respondents. The utterances were recorded on tape to account for the intonation patterns, the hesitations, self-corrections, pauses, and digressions. The language data have been coded and transcribed verbatim, and in each instance the selected examples have been glossed into English. / Analysis of the language data reveals the following: In only two notional categories is there a direct relationship between a grammatical form and a language function. Additionally, there are some unanticipated language functions performed by the informants in response to a specific language situation. / Of the four demographic variables considered in this research, namely age group, geographical origin, sex, and year of arrival in the United States, the data reveal that sex and age group classification are the dominant variables in the variation of grammatical patterns, communicative functions, and influence from English. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-05, Section: A, page: 1296. / Major Professor: James L. Wyatt. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.

The Hermeneutics of Birdsong is an examination of the tensions, boundaries, and interplay between creative and critical writing. Composed principally of free-verse lyric poems grouped by theme into four chapters, the collection also includes a parallel text consisting of critical commentary, quotes from theorists, and at times, more poems. The parallel text, in its discussion of the nature of language, intentionality, intertextuality, authorship, anxiety of influence, imagination, and the creative process, attempts to make explicit the hidden theoretical assumptions which are the invisible "center" of any mode of discourse, including a poetry collection. / The primary and parallel texts function simultaneously as a collage or ideogram, in which the individual poems and critical commentaries coalesce to create a unified, though seemingly fragmented, whole. In keeping with this blending of the creative and the critical, quotes from other sources are used in both a traditional and non-traditional manner. At times, the outside critical commentary is formatted typographically as poetry or as an epigraph for a primary-text poem. The goal for this non-traditional use of source material is to explore and explode the traditional conception of the antithetical positions of the "creative" and the "critical" by challenging the reader's expectations. / Indeed, by forcing the reader to experience criticism as poetry, or poetry as criticism, the primary and parallel texts seek to demonstrate the arbitrary generic distinctions often used to label or judge writing, and thus offer the reader new positions from which to experience and assess the nature and interaction of critical and creative writing. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-03, Section: A, page: 1132. / Major Professor: Wendy Bishop. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1996.

This dissertation attempts to determine the physiognomical characteristics of the main characters in Cervantes' Don Quixote, in particular of the hero, Sancho Panza, Aldonza/Dulcinea, Don Quixote's horse Rocinante, and Sancho's donkey. This is achieved by comparing the characters' tangible and intangible attributes to those established by books on physiognomy available to Cervantes, especially Juan Huarte de San Juan's Examen de ingenios, Alfonso Martinez de Toledo's Corbacho; and Jeronimo Cortes' Libro de fisionomia natural, of which an edition of the first 31 chapters appears in the appendix. Close analysis of the descriptions of the physical appearance and emotional reactions of the aforesaid characters indicates that Don Quixote exhibits a choleric nature throughout the novel, except for the final chapters of each Part, when his hot and dry nature cools to a melancholic state. Sancho Panza, on the other hand, is eternally sanguine (hot and wet). The two protagonists' steeds are both phlegmatic, although they often participate in the physiognomic characteristics of their masters. Aldonza/Dulcinea, curiously, is the humoral equivalent of the particular imagination that embodies her, and so shifts physiognomy throughout the novel. In all these cases, Cervantes followed unerringly the prevailing beliefs of his time concerning physical appearance and character. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-03, Section: A, page: 0828. / Major Professor: David H. Darst. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

Prepositions are a source of error for English-speakers learning Spanish throughout many years of study. Other than contrasts of por and para, very little emphasis is given to the semantics of prepositions in current SLA practices. However, a preposition in either Spanish or English may have several meanings associated with it which a native speaker would know and use. Since prepositions in both languages have multiple meanings which do not entirely equate to the most similar preposition in the other language, at times there is a match (equivalency) and at other times there is a mismatch between the two languages. English-speaking learners of Spanish may attempt to equate the prepositions across languages if unaware of the differences in spatial relations coded by the prepositions in the two languages. / This dissertation examines the prepositions en, a, and de in consideration of the subset of spatial relations that they form within the Spanish language, their primary meanings, and the semantic network of meanings associated with them. By using illustrations and explanations of spatial relations for the three Spanish prepositions as determined by Whitley, explanations of the system provided by Bull, semantic descriptions provided by the Diccionario de la Real Academia Espanola and the Diccionario de Construccion y Regimen de la Lengua Castellana, and by applying the model of principled polysemy for analyzing English prepositions proposed by Tyler and Evans, the current work provides a thorough description of en, a, and de from a cognitive perspective, that is, in terms of the concepts they convey. In order to provide a more complete analysis for the learner and educator, this work also includes a very brief description of grammaticalized usages of these prepositions. / From the detailed examination of en, a, and de, this work concludes with a summary of the various potential spatial configurations of the entities (trajector and landmark) in a relation conveyed by these prepositions, a summary of their network of senses, and some suggestions for application of this knowledge in the classroom. While approaches to vocabulary acquisition are many and varied, knowledge of the potential spatial configurations conveyed by en, a, and de may facilitate and hasten what is often a lengthy process of acquisition.

This dissertation is a variationist account of two non-standard relative clause (RC) structures in Spanish: resumptive pronouns (RPs) and prepositional-phrase (PP) chopping. Previous typological studies considered RP explanations based on difficulty of processing (Hawkins, 1994), while Spanish-specific quantitative studies proposed a number of factors regarding the relationship between the RC and its antecedent (Silva-Corvalan, 1996; Bentivoglio, 2003; Samper et al., 2003). To my knowledge, there are no previous studies of PP-chopping in Spanish RCs, and the only study of a Romance language, Portuguese, suggests that RPs and PP-chopping stand in complementary distribution (Tarallo, 1986). I argue that the factors favoring RP presence vary according to the syntactic position relativized, and that oblique RPs and PP-chopping are processes independent from each other. / Early in the development of variationist methodology, Labov (1972) had pointed out the difficulties in studying syntactic variables; in particular, their low frequency, compared to phonological variables. RP-containing RCs in Spanish are very infrequent: they represent only 14.5 per cent of the total number of RCs in my data. In order to study the occurrence of RPs in subject, direct object (DO), and oblique RCs separately and extensively, I gathered data from two different sources: (1) twenty-six hour-long sociolinguistic interviews of native speakers of the Lima (Peru) Spanish dialect; and (2) data from twelve hours of sessions of the Peruvian Congress. / Since 70 per cent of the proposed factors did not equally affect the presence of RPs in subject, DO, and oblique RCs, this study suggests that RP occurrence is favored by different factors depending on the syntactic function relativized within the RC. However, some factors are common to the three syntactic positions relativized, in particular, sentential antecedent, a factor that was omitted in most of the previous studies. In addition, the results show that there is a subject-specific type of RP that performs the pragmatic function of contrast. With regard to PP-chopping in oblique RCs, the results suggest that, unlike Brazilian Portuguese, this strategy is not in complementary distribution with RPs, but rather obeys factors related to the characteristics of the RC antecedents. / This study contributes to the understanding of non-standard RC structures in Spanish, and supports the general variationist assumption (Labov, 1972) that linguistic variation can hardly ever be explained by a single factor. Regarding RPs, this study presents evidence against implicational universal proposals like Comrie's (1981) and Hawkins.s (1994), suggesting that language-specific constraints must not be overlooked. With respect to PP-chopping, this is the first study of such a phenomenon in Spanish, and it shows that PP-chopping is favored by different factors than those shown to be valid for Portuguese, and that it is a structure completely independent from RP occurrence.

Inaug. Diss.--Munich. / Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation is about the acquisition of temporality in the Chinese language by adult native English speakers. The major objective is to chart the course of development of temporality by adult English-speaking learners of Chinese and explore the universals in the acquisition of temporality. The dataset used for this dissertation study consists of the Pear Story narratives produced by twenty native speakers of Chinese and the Pear Story narratives produced by twenty-one English-speaking adult second language learners of Chinese, grouped into three different proficiency levels--the low, the intermediate and the high level. It is found that both native speakers of Chinese and adult learners have available at their disposal a repertoire of explicit and implicit encoding devices in which grammatical means is among the least often used. However, in comparison with native speakers, learners' repertoire is smaller and contains less varied items. Regarding the use of a particular aspectual particle, perfective le, it is found that both native speakers and learners are constrained by multiple factors. However, some factors affecting native speakers have not been acquired by learners yet and even the same type of factors affecting both native speakers and learners have different constraining strengths for the two groups. Clear developmental patterns are found in learners' acquisition of temporality in narrative discourse. As learners gain proficiency in the target language, they grow from preferring implicit encoding to preferring explicit encoding, their use of grammatical means increases against lexical means, and their reliance on the discourse context decreases. These universal developmental patterns are observed in both the foreground and the background clauses. What is found in this analysis highlights the role of input, as most of the development tendencies reflect the grammar and language use by the native speakers. However, there is evidence that L1 transfer could additionally play a role in learners' acquisition of some temporal properties of the target language. The implications of the findings of this study for the teaching of Chinese as a second language and for the acquisition study of aspectual particles in Chinese will also be discussed.