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This paper examines consonant-vowel syllabic spelling in Maya hieroglyphic writing, comparing it with Japanese writing, both of which use logo-syllabograms. The central aim is to suggest a new perspective that will contribute to building testable theories for Mayan hieroglyphic spelling rules. Two research questions addressed here are: 1) how does the ancient Maya spelling system work; and 2) what is the motivation behind the ancient Mayan people's choice and use of CV syllabograms and logo-syllabic writing. I will investigate these questions from the following perspectives: 1) linguistic approaches to logo-syllabic writing systems; 2) phonetics; 3) a native Japanese speaker's intuition; 4) relationships between spoken and written languages. By using linguistic theories and methods with anthropological comparative methods, I propose the hypothesis that a word-final vowel in Maya hieroglyphic writing represents either an echo-vowel, a part of grammatical morpheme, a paragogic vowel accounting for word-final syllabification, or an underspelled word-final consonant.

This study is an investigation into the nature of the vowel phonemes of Bahasa Indonesia in monosyllabic words, under primary stress, and consisting of a consonant followed by vowel followed by a consonant. Bahasa Indonesia is the national language of the Republic of Indonesia. All of the material in the literature relating to the vowel quality of this language is highly impressionistic. Some of the descriptions are comparisons with vowels in various modern Indo-European languages rather than scientific descriptions of strictly Indonesian vowel quality.

This dissertation explores the way Kotiria/Wanano (E. Tukanoan, Kotiria hereafter) women of the Brazilian Alto Rio Negro (ARN) contrive (McDowell 1990) kaya basa ‘sad songs’ using linguistic and musical resources to construct songs that express loneliness and other private emotions, while also creating alliances and separations from other women in their lives. A central concept is the practice of linguistic exogamy, in which Kotiria marry speakers of other languages, creating a multilingual and multivocal, cacophonic sound during po’oa exchange ceremonies. I compare these songs to mythological narratives depicting the beginnings of Kotiria society and the roles of men and women within it, as well as men’s ceremonial forms of speech and unmarried women’s joking songs as a way to think about the resonances of sound and meaning married women create in their songs. Drawing on resources from linguistic anthropology, ethnomusicology, semiotics, and intersectional feminism, I demonstrate that the singing of – and listening to – kaya basa is a fundamental social structuring event. Despite previous works (e.g., Brüzzi 1962) that saw men’s expressive practices like shamanic chanting or ritual instrument playing as those upholding the social order, I argue that the social order owes its stability equally to women’s public participation in musical practice. Following Hill’s formulation of musicalizing the other (1993, 2009, 2011, 2013), I demonstrate that kaya basa reflect on inter- and intra-community relations on the macro level, while also giving women the chance to comment on important life transitions on the micro level. Moreover, my combined linguistic and spectrographic analyses of the sounds of these songs illustrate the intricate relations between the sounds of language and the sounds of music, the methods by which one understands something is true or false, and how individual singers can contrive differently within the same genre to create a well-formed song. I propose further work on this genre, and on genres that seem to be related which are produced by other groups in the area. I extend Beier, Michael, and Sherzer’s (2002) conception of the greater Amazonian discourse area to one of a greater Amazonian soundscape in which sonic ways of producing and gathering meaning (acoustemologies, Feld 1996) have been and are a major driving force in the arraying of social life across language families in the ARN.

Over the last decade, linguistic relativity has seen a resurgence in research and discourse on thought, language, and culture. One particular facet of this research, multilingualism, has been relatively sparse in comparison to the wealth of research available focusing on individual languages and monolingual speakers. This study represents a preliminary investigation that enters this arena by focusing specifically on how speakers of English as a second language use English basic color terms in respect to monolingual speakers. This is done by using a modified methodology from the World Color Survey as a comparative model of a speaker’s division of colors. Participants in this study illicit responses for 160 color tiles taken from the Munsell color chart used as the basis of the World Color Survey. The results of this study show that three of the ten multilingual participants division of the color space per English color terms falls outside of the normal range of variation between the monolingual English speakers who participated in this study. Though future research is needed to definitively posit the reasons for those participants color maps, this study provides a new window and inquiry into an under-researched area of linguistic relativity.

The concept of the Linguistic Landscape (LL) is a relatively new and developing field, but it is already proving to illuminate significant trends in sociocultural boundaries and linguistic identities within heterogeneous areas. By examining types of signage displayed in public urban spaces such as street signs, billboards, advertisements, scholars have gained insight into the inter and intra-group relations that have manifested as a result of the present top-down and bottom-up language ideologies. This paper will apply LL theory to the current situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories through a discussion of the various policies that have shaped the Linguistic Landscape. It will begin by examining the Hebraicization of the toponymy after the creation of Israel, then discuss the conflict over the linguistic landscape, which can be seen in several photographs where the Arabic script has been marked out or covered. Moving forward, this work will address the grammatical errors on Arabic language signs, which reflect the low priority of Arabic education in Israel. Finally, this project will expand upon the LL framework by looking at the economic relationship between Israel and the Palestinian territories and how it is reflected in public places, such as supermarkets, which display an overwhelming presence of Hebrew. Through the use of photographic evidence of the LL from the region, which shows the prevalence of Hebrew place names, Israeli economic goods, and negative attitudes towards the use of Arabic on signage, this paper will take a multidisciplinary approach at examining the history and policies that shape the language used in public urban spaces. The relationship between the state and the Linguistic Landscape sheds light on the power dynamics of a multilingual space. As Hebrew is given preferential treatment, despite the official status of both Arabic and Hebrew, Israel continues to dominate the social space with the use of Hebrew in order to assert their claims to the land. In addition to investigating the power dynamics that are reflected on visual displays of language in this region, this work serves as a meaningful contribution to the Linguistic Landscape by expanding its methodology and units of analysis. / text

This dissertation is a linguistic ethnography of a high school Astronomy/Oceanography classroom in southern Arizona, where an exceptionally promising, novice, white science teacher and mostly Mexican-American students confronted issues of identity and difference through interactions both related and unrelated to science learning. Through close analysis of video-recorded, naturally-occurring interaction and rich ethnographic description, the study documents how a teacher and students accomplished everyday classroom life, built caring relationships, and pursued scientific inquiry at a time and in a place where nationally- and locally-circulating discourses about immigration and race infused even routine interactions with tension and uncertainty. In their talk, students appropriated elements of racializing discourses, but also used language creatively to "speak back" to commonsense notions about Mexicanness. Careful examination of science-related interactions reveals the participants' negotiation of multiple, intersecting forms of citizenship (i.e., cultural and scientific citizenship) in the classroom, through multidirectional processes of language socialization in which students and the teacher regularly exchanged expert and novice roles. This study offers insight into the continuing relevance of racial, cultural, and linguistic identity to students' experiences of schooling, and sheds new light on classroom discourse, teacher-student relationships, and dimensions of citizenship in science learning, with important implications for teacher preparation and practice.

This practice based PhD project investigates the language ideologies which surround the specific multilingual context of rural primary education in Zambia. The project comprises of a creative documentary film and a complementary written submission. The fieldwork and filming of the project took place over 12 months between September 2011 and August 2012 in the community of Lwimba, in Chongwe District, Zambia. The project focuses on the experiences of a single grade one class, their teacher, and the surrounding community of Lwimba. The majority of the school children speak the community language of Soli. The regional lingua franca, and language of the teacher, however, is Nyanja, and the students must also learn Zambia’s only official language, English. At the centre of the project is a research inquiry focusing on the language ideologies which surround each of these languages, both within the classroom and the wider rural community. The project also simultaneously aims to investigate and reflect on the capacity of creative documentary film to engage with linguistic anthropological research. The film at the centre of the project presents a portrait of Annie, a young, urban teacher of the community’s grade one class, as well as three students and their families. Through the narrativised experiences of the teacher and children, it aims to highlight the linguistic ideologies present within the language events and practices in and around the classroom, as well as calling attention to their intersection with themes of linguistic modernity, multilingualism, and language capital. The project’s written submission is separated into three major chapters separated into the themes of narrative, value and text respectively. Each chapter will focus on subjects related to both the research inquiry and the project’s documentary film methodology. Chapter one outlines the intersection of political-historical narratives of nationhood and language that surround the project, and reflects on the practice of internal narrative construction within documentary film. Chapter two firstly focuses on the language valuations within the institutional setting of the classroom and the wider community, and secondly proposes a two-phase perspective of evaluation and value creation as a means to examine the practice of editing within documentary film making. Chapter three addresses the theme of text through discussing the role of literacy acquisition and use in the classroom and community, as well as analysing and reflecting on the practice of translation and subtitle creation within the project.