<p> This dissertation contributes to the variationist understanding of the process of phonetic accommodation through the analysis of syllable-final consonant weakening in the speech of native speakers of New York Dominican Spanish (NYDS) during their interactions with second language learners of Spanish. The principal objective is to examine the inner workings of the accommodation phenomenon by using Dominican Spanish as a medium. The data analyzed in this dissertation come from conversations between the informants&mdash;native speakers of NYDS&mdash;and four different interlocutors, one of whom is a fellow native speaker of NYDS and three who are second-language learners of Spanish with varying degrees of Spanish-language competence. Not only does this dissertation help to fill a large gap in the current research regarding the phenomenon of accommodation as it happens in Spanish by analyzing natural speech in dyadic conversations, but it will also track the accommodative process as it happens in real time by taking measurements from various time points during such conversations. </p><p> The informants in this study are bilingual first- and second-generation Dominicans currently living in New York, and their interlocutors are one fellow native speaker of NYDS and three second-language learners of Spanish. The L2 Spanish-speaking interlocutors are divided into three categories based on their proficiency in Spanish: Intermediate interlocutors (those who have taken two years of university-level Spanish), Advanced interlocutors (those who have declared Spanish as a major, have studied abroad in a Spanish-speaking country, and have taken four to five years of university-level Spanish) and Superior interlocutors (those who hold advanced degrees in Spanish and teach Spanish classes at the university level). Data are collected through a series of interview-based conversations between each informant and their four interlocutors. Each conversation is divided into three sections and a maximum of 350 contexts in which variation could occur in the articulation of syllable-final consonants /s/, /l/, /r/ and /n/ are extracted from each segment of each recorded conversation. The articulation of each token is impressionistically coded as either weakening or retention based on a series of auditory and acoustic cues. Once coded, the data are input into statistical analysis software for descriptive statistical analyses. </p><p> The results from this dissertation study show that during interactions with the most- and least-proficient speakers of Spanish, NYDS speakers nearly exclusively retain syllable-final consonants, but the same speakers frequently weaken final consonants during interactions with fellow NYDS speakers and with mid-proficient nonnative interlocutors. The principal contribution that this dissertation makes to the field of language study is that speakers in fact do meter their use of highly salient, emblematic speech features to navigate social relationships and index their belonging to a given group, both with native and nonnative speakers of the language variety in question. In the general study of language varieties in contact, studies such as these that quantify accommodation in real-time conversations are paramount for furthering the discussion of contact phenomena, such as dialect levelling and cross-dialectal convergence.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

<p> This study investigates why and how bilinguals speakers tend to code switch on social media such as; Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Bilingual speakers who were born in the US, who adapted English as their second language or who have learned Spanish as their second language in school, usually tend to combine the two languages, English and Spanish, in order to get across their point of view to others. For this reason, this investigation was created to analyze how code- switching can influence people when it's exposed on media. There were three social medias with the total of 37 participants who had posted comments, status, pictures, videos in English, Spanish or mixing both where a good amount of people got influenced by. Therefore, the leading results were the following: (1) at every code switching done on any social media, users code switch or use the same style as a way to expand and influence others. (2) Users code switch as a way to expand a new culture and identity as being one big group.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: S Keith Walters. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

<p> This dissertation will demonstrate that a variety of Dominican Spanish in contact with St. Thomas English Creole (STTEC) revealed many features which are consistent with Dominican Spanish in other contact environments and some new features which are emerging as the result of uniquely STTEC influences. The most notable feature is the appearance of the vowel [&epsiv;] in Dominican Spanish, which in STTEC is highly indexical to St. Thomian identity. In the present sociolinguistic analysis, it was found that the variability of [&epsiv;] was significantly influenced by the following phonological segment, syllable stress, the language of the token, and the speaker's&rsquo; social network ties and self-ascribed identity. This dissertation also includes a socio-historical background of St Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, a description of St Thomas English Creole, and a history of immigration patterns of people from the Dominican Republic to St Thomas, U.S.V.I.</p>

<p> The three studies in this dissertation were carried out with the intention of showing how Indigenous communities in critically endangered language settings can &ldquo;bring their language forward&rdquo; (Hornberger, 2008) by encouraging Indigenous youth participation and integrating technology into Indigenous language revitalization efforts in and out of educational settings. Indigenous youth play a pivotal role in determining the future of their languages (McCarty, et. al, 2009). However, youth are often situated in contexts where they no longer have adequate supports to learn and use their Indigenous languages (Lee, 2009; McCarty, et.al, 2006; Romero-Little, et.al, 2007; Wyman et al, 2013) and Indigenous languages are continuously marginalized and unequally contested by other dominant languages (Tupas, 2015; Zentz, 2017). The study within was situated in a multilingual and multicultural urban area in Indonesia marked by complex dynamics of language shift and endangerment in and out of school settings, where the teaching of Indigenous language at school was managed by the local government and limited as a subject to two hours a week. However, the study also documented multiple existing and potential resources for language revitalization, and demonstrated possibilities for building language revitalization efforts on youth language activism and the availability of technology in and out of schools. In the first study, I examined the implementation of Lampung teaching in schools in Bandar Lampung, looking at the outcomes, challenges, and achievements of existing programs, and available resources for further developing and improving the programs. In the second study, I present ethnographic vignettes of three Indigenous youth and young adult language activists from three different Indigenous communities in Indonesia, highlighting how study participants initiated wide-ranging language activist efforts, and suggested new ways to encourage other youth to participate in Indigenous language revitalization. In the third study, I invited eight young adult language activists to share their stories of language activism with students in three Lampung language classrooms in Bandar Lampung, Indonesia, and help facilitate students&rsquo; Lampung language learning and use in online spaces together with Lampung language teachers. In the three studies, I triangulated quantitative data from sociolinguistic surveys and writing and speaking tests with qualitative data from interviews, focus group discussions, observations and documentation of language use in on and offline contexts. Overall findings from the three studies show how positioning youth and young adults as a resource (Wyman, et. al, 2016), and building on young peoples&rsquo; engagement with contemporary technology as a tool (Thorne &amp; Reinhardt, 2008; Reinhardt &amp; Thorne, 2017), can help youth learn, use and advocate for their Indigenous languages, offering hope for supporting language vitality in the future. Findings also demonstrate the potential for top down and bottom up language planning initiatives (Hornberger, 2005) to support youth Indigenous language learning and use beyond classroom settings, and encourage youth participation in community efforts to reverse language shift.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this thesis is to examine the syntactic structure of Guerrero Nahuatl using Baker&rsquo;s proposed Polysynthesis Parameter (1996). Baker (1996) claims that polysynthetic languages must have common features that aggregate to the concept of the Polysynthesis Parameter, which suggests that polysynthetic languages employ morphology for syntactic functions. Baker (1996) suggests that in polysynthetic languages, &thetas;-roles are assigned through either an agreement relationship (agreement morphemes) or a movement relation (Noun Incorporation). As a result, Baker (1996) claims that polysynthetic languages must be non-configurational due to the flexibility of the word order and the absence of true quantifiers which indicates that all overt NPs are adjuncts. Prior researchers have made competing claims regarding the structure of the Nahuatl languages and Baker (1996) Polysynthesis Parameter. In this thesis, I show that Guerrero Nahuatl is a non-configurational polysynthetic language. I provide data showing that &thetas;-roles are assigned through either an agreement relationship or through a movement relation (NI) as Baker (1996) predicated for polysynthetic languages. I also argue that Guerrero Nahuatl has free word order and no occurring true quantifiers. I provide evidence that all overt NPs are in adjunct positions rather than in actual A-positions. In addition, I show that there is an extensive use of null anaphora, and an absence of reflexive overt NPs.</p><p>

<p> Words are a human medium for relaying any and all psychic states, from mundane to profound, and as a medium of description language also is considered an archetype. In the practice of psychotherapy the practitioner and client must find common linguistic ground in order to collaborate effectively and facilitate the therapeutic process. This thesis utilizes hermeneutic, alchemical hermeneutic, and heuristic methodologies&mdash; interweaving mythology, philosophy, psychology, and literature&mdash;as a means of emphasizing the poetic nature of the soul and a multifaceted approach to what James Hillman referred to as "soul-making." The research is guided by the principal question: How does language shift the imaginative landscape and deepen experience? Hermes is present in this work as a mythological figure as well as the archetypal representation of shape-shifting, uncertainty, and the ability to move in and out of literal and nonliteral realms, emphasizing the importance of metaphor in the therapeutic encounter.</p><p>

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2003. / French and English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 112-117). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

<p> Holyoke, Massachusetts is not traditionally seen as a hub for immigrant experience. To the contrary, there is a rich history of diverse groups occupying Holyoke. For the purposes of this thesis, I focus on two pan-ethnoracial groups: Puerto Ricans and Indians. On the one hand, Puerto Ricans, a Latinx subgroup, comprise the majority of the downtown population of Holyoke, which is the site of the highest concentration of Puerto Ricans outside of the island. On the other hand, Indians, a South Asian subgroup, have very little visibility in the larger community fabric. Additionally, South Asians are undertheorized in the context of the east coast, and particularly in Massachusetts. Yet, despite these differences, both the Puerto Rican and Indian diasporas create their identity vis-&agrave;-vis the other. I analyze the sociolinguistic and sociocultural experiences of these two groups through a comparative, community-based examination. Through analyzing the experiences of two pan-ethnoracial groups simultaneously and in relation to each other and whiteness, I seek to bypass the white/black racial imaginary in the U.S. context. My analysis is sharpened by paying attention to the ways ethnoracial and linguistic identities come to be enacted, reproduced, and transformed in the context of mass mediatization of language and identity. Examining the construction of identity in a comparative manner of two groups who are represented varyingly in popular media and everyday discourse illuminates the profound erasures that happen when experiences of a particular group are homogenized. A theoretical lens on language adds to complexity of the analysis, as it is often a group boundary marker and through which differences are perceived. </p><p>