abstract: The English language is taught all over the world and changes immensely from place to place. As such, both L1 and L2 English Language Users all utilize English as a tool for creating meaning in their existence and to also form perspectives on how the language ought to be. What is interesting about this is that the language being used to do that is one birthed from a culture that many English speakers across the globe are separated from; that is, Anglo-Saxon culture. Since learning and using language is also learning and participating in culture the question is, then how separated are American English speakers from that of the culture that created the language they speak? Does Anglo-Saxon culture impact how worldviews are formed in contemporary English speakers? I propose that the first step to finding some answers is by investigating the language ideologies that American English speakers have through the inquiry of meanings that they prescribe to English words that derive from Old English and subsequently have Germanic origins. The following work details a study examining the language attitudes of American English speakers in hopes of shedding new light on these questions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Applied Linguistics 2016

En este artículo se analiza, con una perspectiva etnográfica y orientada por una teoría sociocultural, la construcción de los silencios en la interacción entre maestros y alumnos en una situación multilingüe, en una comunidad indígena de méxico. el análisis revela cómo los silencios de los niños hablantes del chinanteco frente a ciertos cuestionamientos escolares no siempre tienen que ver con la «no comprensión» del español escrito y oral que se usa en las clases. A veces estos silencios son respuestas que adquieren distintos significados y sentidos ante situaciones específicas. Los silencios de los niños pueden ser una forma de resistirse, una forma de ocultarse,otras veces su voz es silenciada. / This article analyzes, from an ethnographic perspective and a sociocultural framework, the construction of silences in the interaction between students and teachers in a multilingual classroom situation in an indigenous community in méxico. the analysis reveals how the silence of the chinanteco speaking children when asked to answer certain questions in class is not always due to their failure to understand spoken and written spanish that is used in class. their silences are responses taking different meanings in specific situations. the silence of the children can be a way of resisting, a way of hiding, and, sometimes, their voices are silenced.

This thesis examines the relationship between English and Romanes as spoken by the Portland Kalderash Rom (Gypsies). Examples, taken from natural conversations which were taped, translated, and analyzed, show that the intermixing follows rules which guard the linguistic integrity of both languages. Code changing, code mixing, linguistic natural setting. A lexicon of Romanes words, elicited from members of the Gypsy community, is also included. The findings of this study support the thesis that this intermixing of Romanes and English is adaptive in that it insures that all members of the community can speak both languages from an early age.

Each year, four million Americans travel abroad as participants in short-term missions (STMs), the religious branch of the billion-dollar volunteer-tourism industry. Rooted in 13 months of multi-sited ethnographic research, this dissertation examines evangelical STMs in the Dominican Republic as vehicles for evangelization and voluntarism in the contexts of postcolonial tourism and the production of sugar for the global market. In doing so, it also examines STMs as important sites of religious socialization for American participants, particularly, socialization of moral ideologies. These moral ideologies, expressed and performed through the discursive practices, religious rituals, and routinized cross-cultural interactions that are characteristic of STMs, (re)create and justify unequal power relations between Americans and Dominicans. STMs expose American volunteers to striking socioeconomic and racial inequalities, which could powerfully (re)shape their worldviews by raising their awareness, for example, of the exploitative working and living conditions behind a ubiquitous commodity, sugar. However, STM leaders and volunteers conceptualize these inequalities in ways that are inconsistent or contradictory, disconnected from their understandings of inequality back home, and decontextualized from broader processes and systems, including colonialism and contemporary global capitalism. The personal narratives and the religious and economic discourses that are (re)produced during STMs shape American participants’ understandings of inequalities and cultivate a moral subjectivity in which they are divinely charged with the responsibility of ameliorating others’ poverty, lack of social welfare, and poor living conditions. STM discourses and practices thus legitimize forms of charitable giving that may actually contribute to poverty and inequality by concealing Americans’ pre-existing socioeconomic relations with Dominicans. Amid heightened efforts to dismantle social welfare in the US, it is increasingly important to deconstruct ideologies and practices of giving in order to understand why evangelical Christians prefer charity, which provides only partial and temporary relief at best, over other methods that could provide more sustainable and transformative solutions to poverty and inequality. The research presented in this dissertation reveals that, despite what participants believe to be their moral intentions and good works, STMs work in various ways to perpetuate inequalities between sending and receiving countries. / Anthropology

This paper focuses on how the Swedish social code known as The Jante Law plays a role in the prevalence of racism in Sweden, both on the individual and societal levels. Its core message that no one is superior to another fundamentally contradicts racism and informs government policy, but also reinforces institutionalized discrimination. I use literature review, ethnographic observations and interviews to examine the ways in which racism is understood and experienced in Sweden. This paper also investigates how concepts of sameness and community have changed over time and how the shifting of these concepts have resulted in greater inclusiveness in Swedish society. I first overview the history of Sweden’s interactions with non-Swedes and the shift in attitude regarding them. I then discuss the origins and nature of the Jante Law and how it functions as a hegemonic system as well as promoting certain behaviors as a component of governmentality. Furthermore, I analyze the trend of new cultures and ideas entering Swedish society and how such changes are causing the Jante Law to decline. I investigate how a culturally engrained notion of being modest and inconspicuous alters overt and covert racist discourse in Sweden. Additionally, I include an ethnographic account of my experience in Sweden as well as those of interviewees of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds. I conclude the paper with a discussion of the implications for Swedish society as immigration increases while the Jante Law loses its influence over Swedish culture.

This research uses an adaptation of Dorothy L. Sayers's 3-step theory of creativity to analyze the self-described creation process of contemporary storyteller Jay O'Callahan. Sayers wrote that Idea, Energy, and Power are foundational elements of the creative process. Idea is the invisible image that provides vision and unity throughout a project. The Energy is the working out of art into a medium. The Power is the connective force that binds artist to art and both to audience. (Sayers, 1987). This hermeneutical study develops subcategories within each of those 3 primary elements of creativity, then uses qualitative methods to explore connectivity to the creation process of O'Callahan. It was concluded that a high levels of correlation can be drawn between the Idea, Energy, Power model and O'Callahan's methods of story construction and delivery.

The Moth Detroit StorySLAM is one of many storytelling events staged in urban bar environments. Unlike the increasingly aged audiences attending the National Storytelling Festival and similar story festivals, the Detroit StorySLAM consistently yields at capacity crowds of college students and young professionals. Participants were informally interviewed during the September, October, and November slams of 2010 and the January 2011 slam. In addition to conducting these interviews, the researcher was a participant observer—throwing her name into the hat and being twice called to the stage. Data are presented as a thick description organized according to Richard Bauman's 6 situational factors of the performance event. Until now questions about the nature and meaning of storytelling have been largely considered from the storyteller's perspective. By redirecting those questions to the listeners, this study reveals the ethos of hundreds of story enthusiasts—an undisputed admiration for the revelation of authentic, individual truths.

This study is an examination of the role of story and storytelling within Appreciative Inquiry, a method of organizational change that orients around a consensus model building on individual and collective strengths instead of focusing on overcoming problems. Interviews with 12 Appreciative Inquiry practitioners were conducted, transcribed, and analyzed using a process of iterative coding consistent with a General Inductive method of qualitative research. Once consensus with a secondary coder was achieved, 6 themes emerged. The 6 emergent themes outlined general roles that story and storytelling plays in the Appreciative Inquiry process: relationship building, coauthoring a future, reframing narrative, narrative meaning, discovery, and engagement. No one of these categories seemed to guarantee success, and all success stories, shared during the interviews, incorporated something from all 6 of these categories. These categories also provide a possible framework for further study on how to optimize or incorporate more storytelling into Appreciative Inquiry practice.

This thesis enters the developing conversation in the linguistic domain about the culture and struggles of the Black community. It explores the collectivist perspective of the Black community in the 20th and 21st century through the umbrella of Linguistics and its subfields. Collectively, the literary and musical works in this study demonstrates the frustrations of the Black community—including its correlation to antebellum slavery—the lamentations of oppression, which showcases in a collection of poems and their syntactical aspects, and the Black pride emulating from the societies. Despite the clear correlation between Hip-Hop culture and literary works from the early 20th century, a lack of connection between the two remains. This thesis explores the linguistic connections between narratives of art, specifically Harlem Renaissance literary works (i.e., poetry, novels, etc.) and Hip-Hip culture. The bridge between Harlem Renaissance poetry and Hip-Hop music is nuanced in the Linguistics field and it warrants further research.

Uninsured and undocumented immigrants risk deportation as well as other social and financial consequences when accessing healthcare in the US. Facing these risks head-on, they do the work necessary to ensure their friends, families, and communities receive medical care. Research at the intersection of linguistic and medical anthropology understands that work to be “communicative care.” Communicative care includes any way that we use language to maintain ourselves. This dissertation utilizes a communicative care framework to demonstrate that immigrant patients are not passive recipients of whatever policymakers determine they deserve; instead, they are structurally competent experts who do communicative care at the institutional and community levels to make a more equitable, accessible, and affordable healthcare system for themselves, their communities, and all patients. The dissertation relies on ethnographic data collected during five years of Philadelphia-based research and fieldwork completed during two overlapping inflection points in the history of US healthcare and immigration – the Trump administration and the COVID-19 pandemic. Ethnographic data includes field notes from longitudinal participant observation, transcriptions of interviews and conversations with undocumented and uninsured Latinx immigrant patients and healthcare professionals, and a corpus of audio-visual materials and policy artifacts. Analysis of this qualitative data revealed that undocumented and uninsured immigrants complete various essential roles within the healthcare system beyond that of the patient. They learn through personal experience what the structural barriers to healthcare are as they navigate through Philadelphia’s patchwork of access points and build lived expertise of sociopolitically constructed inequities. Ultimately, they use this knowledge at the institutional and community level to facilitate access to healthcare in their community. Within the institutional level, they serve as educators and trainers of medical professionals who want to understand the policy-based limitations placed on different patient populations and the clinical strategies needed to improve patient services. At the community level, they serve as advocates who organize and participate in large-scale systems change and representatives for the full ratification of immigrant access to healthcare. This project contributes to anthropological research on two of the most defining sociopolitical issues of the 21st century - immigration and healthcare. Often portrayed as victims and undeserving of our charity, we have yet to fully consider the lived expertise of uninsured and undocumented immigrant patients as we draft responses and solutions to urgent and emerging problems like the simultaneous drop in US life expectancy and rise in healthcare spending. This dissertation recasts immigrant patients as experts who actively engage in healthcare reform through everyday responses to the structural barriers that subvert their access to healthcare and undercut healthcare professionals’ capacity to provide medicine. By illuminating the roles of undocumented and uninsured immigrant patients and the manifestation of their lived expertise across multiple levels of analytic granularity, this project offers new possibilities for future healthcare policies, politics, and practices in and beyond the US. / Anthropology