This study presents a linguistic profile of a heritage speaker of Russian and recounts the efforts to revitalize his Russian after he had nearly stopped speaking it. The study was conducted over the course of almost two years, starting when the subject was twelve years old and ending when he was fourteen. Although this study found that the subject displayed many of the linguistic features typical of heritage speakers, the subject's Russian had suffered less attrition than is common for heritage speakers of Russian in the United States. This study presents its linguistic findings under the rubrics of phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics/pragmatics. This study also describes the pedagogical efforts to improve the subject's reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills in Russian. Finally, this study includes some reflections on the psychological factors that influenced the methodology and outcome.

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This thesis concerns the revitalization of the Roanoke City Market Building, an historic structure in the heart of downtown Roanoke, Virginia. Generated in two parts, this thesis first explains the rationale for saving the building and the strategy developed to that end. Secondly, the building design is presented, showing in physical terms, the possibilities of the Roanoke New Market, a building adapted for re-use. / Master of Architecture

Urban catalysts are new redevelopment strategies comprised of a series of projects that drive and guide urban development. Redevelopment efforts in the past, such as urban renewal and large-scale redevelopment projects, have often jeopardized the vitality of downtowns. The difference between the urban catalyst and these redevelopment strategies is that catalytic redevelopment is a holistic approach, not a clean-slate approach, to revitalizing the urban fabric. Many cities have considered urban catalysts as a means for revitalization. Among the most noted catalytic projects are sports stadiums and arenas: however not all catalytic projects have to be designed at such a grand scale, nor do all cities possess a threshold of support to successfully sustain such developments. This thesis design project examines the significance of the urban catalyst as a means of urban revitalization. The urban catalyst theory says design can be linked to place through the study of contextual factors in urban design. These factors include: morphological, social, functional, perceptual, visual, and temporal. For the urban catalyst to respond to its setting it also must possess a strong sense of place and authenticity. Each component of my research supports my position that each city has unique attributes that can serve as basic models or seeds for urban redevelopment. These components are used as a basis for developing a design framework that is applied to two sites in Memphis, Tennessee. This position is tested through the contextual analysis and design of two projects that are of major significance to Downtown Memphis, Tennessee. The first demonstrates the role that Court Square plays as a critical social and spatial element in the revitalization of the center city. The second is the revitalization of the South Side Neighborhood, an area full of history and character. / Master of Landscape Architecture

This study examines the relationship between tonal phonetics, tonal reduction and orthographic patterns produced by Me'phaa Vátháá speaking teachers. It discusses these patterns in the context of Indigenous education in Mexico and of the language ideologies held by the teachers, which have parallels to those held by speakers of Spanish and practitioners of language revitalization. Its main finding is that tones undergo phonetic changes which reduce their relative psychoacoustic distances, and this combines with the writing practices of the teachers (in which they repeat the words to themselves at varying speeds) to produce hesitation when writing the tonal markers. This is framed in an ideological process of privileging writing as the ideal form of language revitalization, and of rejection of variants and spelling 'mistakes', which results in further linguistic insecurity by the teachers. This has repercussions for the revitalization of the language, in that teachers sometimes choose not to write in Me'phaa Vátháá, particularly in contexts involving technology such as social media, out of fear of making 'mistakes'. In studying these phenomena, this study also describes the processes of tonal reduction in Me'phaa Vátháá and describes its similarities and differences with the reduction described for other tonal languages such as Mandarin, Thai and Triqui. Tonal reduction processes in Me'phaa Vátháá are not an exact match to any of these languages, which suggests that, while reduction is universal, it has language-specific expressions, which suggest that reduction typologies should be further studied. In addition to this, the study offers a report on the process of tonal spelling learning by adults who didn't receive this training as children. This is relevant to both educational and language planners, as well as to practitioners of language revitalization.