<p> Haitian and Antillean literatures are written in French. However, certain linguistic deviations are noticed in the works of Francophone writers from the Americano-Caribbean region. Even though linguistic creativity is one of the most salient characteristics of these literatures, critics tend to analyze the messages of those authors through historical and cultural lenses. However, when one houses the layout of the text, one is able to discover in it a message that is not always accessible to the francophone reader unfamiliar with Haitian and Antillean cultures. That is the reason why this dissertation analyzes the language in the works of Haitian and Antillean authors not only as a medium of communication, but also as a message in itself. To conduct this study, the dissertation examines, in the first chapter, the theories of researchers such as Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Baissac, Jules Faine, Suzanne Sylvain, Robert Chaudenson, and Albert Valdman. The second chapter takes into consideration the historical aspects of the development of the French-based Creoles and their status in Haiti and the Antilles through the texts of Thomas Madiou, Jean Fouchard, Gabriel Debien, Dani B&eacute;bel-Gisler, Frantz Fanon, Maryse Cond&eacute;, and Edouard Glissant. The third chapter investigates texts of Haitian authors from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the last quarter of the twentieth century. The writers studied include Ignace Nau, Oswald Durand, Justin Lh&eacute;risson, Jacques Roumain, and Marie-Th&eacute;r&egrave;se Colimon. The fourth chapter analyzes the Antillean writings through the three main literary periods: Negritude, Antillanit&eacute;, and Cr&eacute;olit&eacute;. The works of authors such as Aim&eacute; C&eacute;saire, Joseph Zobel, Edouard Glissant, Simone Schwarz-Bart, Maryse Cond&eacute;, and Rapha&euml;l Confiant are investigated. To determine whether and how the linguistic innovations are still reflected in the works published, the fifth chapter studies contemporary Haitian and Antillean novels. To a certain extent, this dissertation emphasizes the importance of the role and the significance of language in these territories. It provides new tools and opens up new research avenues to scholars interested in exploring the written work produced in this area of the Francophone world.</p><p>

M.A. (Afrikaans) / The purpose of this dissertation is to give a Iinguistic and sociolinguistic description of the Afrikaans spoken in the Argentine, henceforth AFR A. The study was undertaken to complement the numerous studies already done of local varieties of Afrikaans as well as the brief study of Strydom (1963) of the Afrikaans spoken by the Angolan "trekkers" who left South Africa before the standardization of Afrikaans. In this study the typologies for the classification of language classification are refined to faciIitate the linguistic classification of AFR A. A group of South Africans left South Africa to settle in the Argentine at the turn of the century. Initially conditions were very severe and the" settlers kept themselyes isolated from the Spanish community. Gradual acculturation resulted in the replacement of AFR A by Spanish, a process that has not been completed yet. To investigate this atrophying linguistic form, sociolinguistic fieldwork based on the work of Haugen (1972), Labov (1972) and Milroy (1980) was undertaken. Data in the form of phonetic transcriptions and tape-recordings was collected during March and ApriI 1986 while a social network was built up. The data was sorted and interpreted after repeated replaying and phonetic transcriptions of the recordings under supervision of the supervisors. Linguistically AFR A can be regarded as an unstable variety of Afrikaans. Variation of vowels and consonants in AFR A are often encountered in dialectal forms of Afrikaans. The influence of Spanish is evident in the vocabulary of AFR A, particularly in the formation of verbs that. are Africanerisms of Spanish infinitive verbs. Hybrids and loanwords in AFR A occur in particular vocabulary domains namely plant and animal life, topography, transport and communication, illness and domestic and civic affairs. The vocabulary of AFR A is, however, an impoverished vocabulary which cannot be used for scientific and abstract discussion. semantically AFR A differs from Afrikaans in that approximately thirty-five words that are used in Afrikaans are used in different contexts in AFR A. Beside numerous expressions that are unique to AFR A, the syntactic markers of AFR A are the over-generalization of ge- as past participle, pronominal repetition and the use of Spanish conjunctions. To classify AFR A Iinguistically existing typologies were refined to facilitate the distinction between different varieties of language on the basis of relevant sociolinguistic parameters. These parameters are represented in pseudo-mathematical form in a formula by which a variety of a language can be classified linguistically. AFR A is classified as an atrophying variety of Afrikaans.

<p> Within the field of K&ndash;12 education, collaborative partnerships between research institutions, state and local school systems, and intermediary actors are becoming more prevalent, especially in some of the largest urban school districts in the United States. Despite their growth, very little is understood about the internal working dynamics of these partnerships and the discursive processes explaining how these institutions, with very different cultures, histories and missions are coming together to bridge professional knowledge. The purpose of this study was to understand the similarities and differences between the researchers, developers, and practitioners in one such partnership, The National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools (NCSU). Drawing from key documents, six months of design team meetings, field notes, participant feedback and reflection forms, debrief meeting notes, progress reports, meeting agendas and notes, and participant cognitive interviews, I used Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and positioning theory to understand the partners&rsquo; interacting &lsquo;activity systems&rsquo; and how they positioned themselves and one another in the evolving context of the NCSU&rsquo;s design work as they worked as a District Innovation Design Team (DIDT). This also helped me understand the contradictions that led to the tensions that unraveled within the partnership. Positioning provided key insight about the cultural and historical contexts of the partners. It also informed how the partners gradually evolved into community, despite the variety of boundary spanning strategies used somewhat prematurely by the developers in an effort to accelerate their formation into a collective identity. Evidence suggests that once the design team engaged in school and district-level data collection and analysis to inform the similarities of their school contexts, they were able to see themselves as a collective. During design team meetings the researchers and developers functioned successfully as boundary spanners. However, outside of the meetings they tended to struggle much more to find a &lsquo;lingua franca.&rsquo; This relates to the first tension that emerged within the partnership over time &ndash; attaining the object with adequate expertise. Each partner had a specific area of expertise that served as a critical tool in the design of the prototype. The real expertise however, was in how different individuals positioned themselves to access this valuable expertise. All three of the partner institutions held fast to their original role designations, assumptions and expectations about the obligations of themselves and one another, which was in conflict with the fluid nature of the design work in which they were engaged that necessitated an openness to evolving roles. The second tension that emerged was attaining the object with adequate resources, including: time, human resources, and district support. The concepts of boundary spanning and boundary objects were central to understanding my findings related to how the different partners crossed institutional and hierarchical lines. The long-term nature of many partnerships in education provides the opportunity for participants from diverse institutional backgrounds to establish a shared knowledge base and range of shared experiences to draw from; thus &ldquo;leveling the playing field&rdquo; of expertise over time. As a result, this encourages a more egalitarian mindset, and decreases the potential for an imbalance of power. This expertise became a vital cultural tool for the new community of the School Innovation Design Teams (SIDTs) to draw from as they then took the prototype design and used it as their key tool and rule for development and refinement. How the partners positioned themselves, given their institutional role served as either a tool for boundary crossing or hindered it with &lsquo;boundary blocking.&rsquo; Intermediaries bring a new dimension to partnerships for education researchers to explore in the context of school improvement. This dissertation is one of the first of its kind to look at intermediaries in this way and provides timely insight into how education partnerships function when harnessing the expertise of these less understood organizations.</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>

Within the field of K–12 education, collaborative partnerships between research institutions, state and local school systems, and intermediary actors are becoming more prevalent, especially in some of the largest urban school districts in the United States. Despite their growth, very little is understood about the internal working dynamics of these partnerships and the discursive processes explaining how these institutions, with very different cultures, histories and missions are coming together to bridge professional knowledge. The purpose of this study was to understand the similarities and differences between the researchers, developers, and practitioners in one such partnership, The National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools (NCSU). Drawing from key documents, six months of design team meetings, field notes, participant feedback and reflection forms, debrief meeting notes, progress reports, meeting agendas and notes, and participant cognitive interviews, I used Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and positioning theory to understand the partners' interacting 'activity systems' and how they positioned themselves and one another in the evolving context of the NCSU's design work as they worked as a District Innovation Design Team (DIDT). This also helped me understand the contradictions that led to the tensions that unraveled within the partnership. Positioning provided key insight about the cultural and historical contexts of the partners. It also informed how the partners gradually evolved into community, despite the variety of boundary spanning strategies used somewhat prematurely by the developers in an effort to accelerate their formation into a collective identity. Evidence suggests that once the design team engaged in school and district-level data collection and analysis to inform the similarities of their school contexts, they were able to see themselves as a collective. During design team meetings the researchers and developers functioned successfully as boundary spanners. However, outside of the meetings they tended to struggle much more to find a 'lingua franca.' This relates to the first tension that emerged within the partnership over time – attaining the object with adequate expertise. Each partner had a specific area of expertise that served as a critical tool in the design of the prototype. The real expertise however, was in how different individuals positioned themselves to access this valuable expertise. All three of the partner institutions held fast to their original role designations, assumptions and expectations about the obligations of themselves and one another, which was in conflict with the fluid nature of the design work in which they were engaged that necessitated an openness to evolving roles. The second tension that emerged was attaining the object with adequate resources, including: time, human resources, and district support. The concepts of boundary spanning and boundary objects were central to understanding my findings related to how the different partners crossed institutional and hierarchical lines. The long-term nature of many partnerships in education provides the opportunity for participants from diverse institutional backgrounds to establish a shared knowledge base and range of shared experiences to draw from; thus "leveling the playing field" of expertise over time. As a result, this encourages a more egalitarian mindset, and decreases the potential for an imbalance of power. This expertise became a vital cultural tool for the new community of the School Innovation Design Teams (SIDTs) to draw from as they then took the prototype design and used it as their key tool and rule for development and refinement. How the partners positioned themselves, given their institutional role served as either a tool for boundary crossing or hindered it with 'boundary blocking.' Intermediaries bring a new dimension to partnerships for education researchers to explore in the context of school improvement. This dissertation is one of the first of its kind to look at intermediaries in this way and provides timely insight into how education partnerships function when harnessing the expertise of these less understood organizations. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2017. / April 3, 2017. / activity systems analysis, cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), discourse analysis, intermediary organizations, positioning theory, research practice partnerships / Includes bibliographical references. / Stacey A. Rutledge, Professor Directing Dissertation; Vanessa Dennen, University Representative; Motoko Akiba, Committee Member; Helen Boyle, Committee Member.

Note:

No description available.

The English voice system has two passive auxiliaries: the canonical be-passive, and the more recent get-passive. Accounts of the get-passive in the linguistic literature draw from descriptive, historical, corpus linguistic, and variationist perspectives. Much existing work on the get-passive from the former three traditions notes semantic dissimilarities from the be-passive, suggesting that these two forms are not interchangeable and therefore do not constitute a typical sociolinguistic variable. Nonetheless, variationist work has treated the be- and get-passives as alternants expressing the same function. This latter work has focused on social factors alone, setting aside purported linguistic differences. This thesis provides a variationist account of the be- and get-passives, considering not only social factors, but also operationalizing as linguistic factors previously noted semantic characteristics, demonstrating which factors constrain variation and providing a holistic picture of the get-passive in vernacular English. The speakers in this study span a birth range of 1865 to 1996, providing a longitudinal scope from which to view the grammaticalization of the feature. Following the principle of accountability (Labov, 1972), instances of be- and get-passives were extracted from 108 speakers born and raised in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada (N=1716). Distributional and inferential results show a substantial increase in rates of get-passive over the last 130 years, indicating an active and ongoing change in progress. Social and linguistic factors alike are shown to play meaningful roles in variant selection, revealing a (largely) longitudinally stable variable grammar. The longitudinal scope of the study illuminates grammaticalization pathways into the 20th century and reinforces attested semantic links between the contemporary get-passive and its proposed lexical source(s). / Graduate / 2023-08-17

No description available.

No description available.