Aphasia, language disorder after acquired brain injury, is a chronic condition negatively impacting functional communication and quality of life. More than two million individuals in the United States have aphasia and the most common cause of aphasia is stroke. Further understanding of post-stroke aphasia will ultimately allow for development of more effective treatments for improved quality of life. Traditionally, characterization of aphasia both from a behavioral standpoint and in terms of task-based neural activation has focused on word-level tasks. However, everyday communication such as conversation and storytelling have discourse-level demands. As such, characterization of discourse in the post-stroke aphasia population will provide a more complete picture of functional communication impairment in this population. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a neuroimaging technique which uses the optical properties of hemoglobin to interrogate the hemodynamic response and task-based cortical activation. Unlike fMRI, fNIRS can be done sitting up in a clinic environment and is relatively less sensitive to motion artifacts. The current investigation uses fNIRS to evaluate cortical activity for three discourse production tasks in young neurotypical individuals, individuals with aphasia, and age-matched neurotypical individuals. Experiment 1 evaluated cortical activity and behavioral response quality during a computer-based conversation task. Results of this experiment showed greater left frontotemporal cortical activity during the experimental condition (answering questions) as compared to a control condition (sentence repetition) in neurotypical individuals, suggestive of activation of a left-lateralized language network for this discourse-level formulation task. In addition, the young neurotypical group tended to show greater cortical activity when compared to the age-matched group. Experiment 2 evaluated cortical activity and behavioral response quality during a computer-based narrative production task. Results of this experiment showed greater bilateral frontotemporal cortical activity during the experimental condition (narrative production) as compared to a control condition (counting aloud) across groups. Patterns of activity varied across groups in the temporal lobes, with an effect in the left hemisphere for the young and age-matched neurotypical individuals and in the right hemisphere for the age-matched group and individuals with aphasia. In addition, a measure of language production performance, global coherence, detected differences in behavioral responses between the young neurotypical group and individuals with aphasia in Experiments 1 and 2. Experiment 3 evaluated cortical activity while answering conversational questions from a live interlocuter. Preliminary results of this experiment show greater cortical activity during the experimental condition (answering questions) as compared to the control condition (sentence repetition) in bilateral temporal ROIs across all three groups. Taken together, these results suggest that a bilateral frontotemporal cortical language network supports discourse production, a cognitively complex task requiring the integration of phonological, lexical-semantic, morphosyntactic, and pragmatic information. Furthermore, results showed variable patterns between neurotypical individuals and individuals with aphasia. This work lays the foundation for future investigation of the cortical underpinnings of the various subcomponents of discourse as well as further characterization of cortical activity during ecologically valid functional communication tasks in individuals with aphasia.

This dissertation is a cultural analysis of Piolín por la Mañana, a Spanish-language radio talk show conducted by Eduardo Piolín Sotelo and broadcast from Los Angeles. The program expands the boundaries of the performing arts as well as the reach and elasticity of literary tropes and study. It connects often geographically disparate ―imagined communities‖ of working class Latino/as by revisiting traditional Mexican theater, joke delivery style, literary genre (e.g., magical realism and the picaresque), and taxonomies of everyday personalities. Central to my discussion of Piolín is listener participation, which stages community formation within the radio-text. The introduction and the first chapter present the trope of the Mojarra, a person that crossed the U.S. border as a mojado/a (an undocumented immigrant), usually swimming or forging a river. Mojarras suffer el Síndrome de la Mojarra, the condition of feeling persecuted, believing that their freedom depends on the ability to evade capture. Mojarra Aesthetics revolves around the representational needs of the persecuted vii immigrant community; this aesthetic is comprised of artistic techniques that use humor and in particular explosive laughter and mitote. The second chapter explores how Piolín is a medium that connects, as well as creates, Latino communities through radio; it maps ―nonce taxonomies‖ of recognizable immigrant personalities. What follows, explores how Piolín encourages new ways of making and analyzing art, including the use of cantinfleadas and albures as central elements of oral folklore, comprising connections to traditional Mexican joke delivery (e.g., colmos, parecidos, que le dijo, telones, and bombas). The program, via this tradition, includes cultural tropes such as the mojarra, tlacuaches, nopales, nacos, nacas, among others. At the center of this dissertation is the carnival and, relatively new on the scene, the radio carnival. The radio program produces a Mojarra Difrasismo, deconstructing entrenched binaries and creating a new reality, forcing new critical thinking about what reality is or could be in relation to the immigrant experience and the immigrant body.

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In this dissertation I argue that the explanatory power of the A/A-bar distinction, as it is traditionally used within the framework of Parameter Setting Theory Chomsky (1981 and ff.) is much weaker than has previously been assumed. The distinction is particularly deficient in providing a typology for types of movement and types of position. I advocate a return to a definition of Argument positions as $\theta$-positions (Chomsky, 1981). I argue that an approach incorporating the Lexical Clause Hypothesis, with a highly articulated IP structure will enable us to make this move and I suggest that 'A Movement' and 'A Binding' be redefined using notions from Case and $\theta$-theories. In Chapter One, I show that the determination of what counts as an 'A' or an 'A-bar' position is made vastly more complex by the recent work on the articulation of IP structure (Pollock, 1989; Chomsky, 1991) which favours the introduction of numerous functional projections. In Chapter Two I argue that the proposals for a highly articulated IP structure are well grounded. Chapter Three begins with a discussion of the Lexical Clause Hypothesis and the position of subjects. Following on from this, I propose a redefinition of NP Movement based on Case Theory. In Chapter Four I discuss Binding Theory and argue that its proper application need not make references to the term 'A Position'. Following on from this I propose a new approach to Wh Movement and I argue that (spec,AgrP), traditionally seen as an 'A Position', can host operators. Chapter Five compares the situation in English, with that in Modern Standard Arabic, which I argue is a language in which subjects can stay within the lexical projection they originate in.