<p> Marital naming choices are inevitably made from within the framework of the historical sociopolitical contexts and carry the potential to index particular social, cultural, and political meanings or to be made on the basis of personal, individual, or relationship-bound rationales. While same-sex couples may draw upon the choices and discursive frames put forth in the rationales provided by opposite-sex couples, there is no precedent of tradition for same-sex marital naming, allowing for flexibility and variety in the choices made and rationales invoked by married same-sex couples. This paper demonstrates that the reflexivity necessitated by being a member of a marginalized group newly entering into a normative practice influences naming decisions. Same-sex couples present highly nuanced rationales for naming choices and draw from but rework the traditional, heteronormative frame of marital naming by incorporating novel naming choices. Same-sex couples often make appeals to what &ldquo;makes sense&rdquo; for a particular couple in their own relationship in the context of traditional practice, whether regarding children and being seen as a family, biological factors in parenting, or resistance to heteronormative practice. </p>

<p> The effects of time and occupational prestige measured in this study had more of an impact than gender on how often witnesses hedged on the stand. A corpus of transcripts from 1893 to 2013 was assembled to test the variables of time, gender and occupational prestige on witnesses&rsquo; production of hedge constructions (e.g., <i>I think, sort of).</i> Results showed no significant differences between female and male hedge production over this 120-year period, yet significant differences were found in the production of phrases between earlier and later testimonies. Furthermore, a significant correlation was found between hedge production and occupational prestige. The more prestigious a witness&rsquo;s occupation, the fewer hedges s/he used. These findings support previous research that suggests a similarity between female and male speech in other genres of discourse and emphasizes social and environmental factors as areas worthy of deeper investigation for the contextual assessment of function in language.</p>

<p> This thesis used group and individual interviews to collect and study discourse produced by both self-defined heterosexual and self-defined homosexual males, living in a socially progressive region of the United States, in order to evaluate how the male subjects appease male gender expectations, as is still socially expected today, while also abstaining from expressing homophobia, as is also expected today in such environments. While the analysis suggests that self-defined heterosexual subjects in this research indeed produced hegemonic, discriminatory utterances toward the homosexual and female community, a positive aspect of this discrimination is the fact that the same males who produce utterances in line with homophobia often do so in a way that is indirect and even seemingly unintentional due to a proposed lack of understanding. Implications and suggestions derived from this research thus include a need for more education and awareness in the areas of gender, sexual orientation, and particularly the subtleties of discursive forms of discrimination and dominance that maintain hegemony and victimization even in more progressive locations in space and time.</p>

<p> Video games represent the future of storytelling, changing the impact of cultural narratives in important ways through a process of learning and internalization of game content that alters players&rsquo; perceptions of self and reality. Continued rigorous research of interactive media is necessary because of the speed at which technology changes its capabilities and the dominant nature of its format&mdash;it is how many people will tell, hear, and experience stories, culture, and values in the coming years. This dissertation argues that a deeper understanding of how people play video games and what these play experiences mean must rely on interdisciplinary lenses of analysis that value player reports, programming choices, and cultural narratives equally. I establish a theoretical and methodological approach that defines elements of what it means to play video games, and study the qualitative influence of game-play on thought and behavior through pragmatic analysis of interview data. Samples of masculine discourses of game play in the United States provide a starting point for this exploration of video game impact through discussions of play theory, narratology, game programming and interaction with interactive media hardware.</p><p> Common social concerns regarding increased violence, aggression, or de-socialization as a result of this medium were not represented in the population presented in this dissertation. Players recognized the allure of the so-called negative aspects of video games, but ultimately expressed a decided disconnect between the real world and virtual experiences of play, describing cathartic and therapeutic reasons for their enjoyment of those elements. An interdisciplinary approach to video game research must be embraced, despite a constant call for quick, universal answers to their most common critiques. Foundational themes for understanding the influence of interactive digital play experiences on personal identity and ideology construction are demonstrated through thematic and sociolinguistic analyses of in-depth interview data. These include play theory, narratology, human-computer interaction theory, and player report data. I draw on the established theoretical backgrounds of these disciplines to suggest a new term, ergodic ontogeny, to describe this complex process of personal development resulting from influences of interactive digital media gaming that reach beyond play experiences.</p>