The research question for this thesis is: How does vowel quality vary across Gitksan speakers, and what sociolinguistic factors may be influencing this variation? Answering this question requires both that I show what the variation is, and why it may be that way; I have approached these questions by conducting a study in two parts. First, I conducted a demographic survey and ethnographically-informed qualitative interview with nine Gitksan speakers. Second, I performed an acoustic analysis of vowel variation across these same speakers. The acoustic results lead me to conclude that the low and front vowels show the most variation between speakers. My findings allowed me to add to our understanding of individual variation across speakers and communities. Although further investigation is needed to come to a conclusion about the generalizability of these results, the overarching contribution of my work is to add phonetic detail to previous descriptions of variation between speakers within the Interior Tsimshianic dialect continuum. / Graduate

archives@tulane.edu / This dissertation presents the results of a tripartite exploration of English use by Latinxs in post-Katrina New Orleans, defined here as an ethnolinguistic repertoire that I call New Orleans Latinx English (NOLAE). The project considers how contemporary English use differs from that found in a pre-Katrina sample, how social network geometry influences linguistic performance, and how the localized discursive articulation of the Latinx community shapes the sociolinguistic context. I find that while vowel realization patterns provide no evidence of large-scale deviation across the pre-and-post Katrina samples, there are four vowels which exhibit statistically significant divergence. In each of these cases, the post-Katrina sample is more variable. I also illustrate that the geometry of the local Latinx social network, defined in terms of neighborhood affiliations, has a statistically significant impact on the realization of linguistic variables. Finally, I demonstrate that Spanish and Spanish-influenced English are discursively constructed as marked linguistic performance, leading local Latinxs to aspire to ‘standard’ English performance in public spaces. Differential experiences of this pressure is posited to underlie much of the linguistic variation observed in NOLAE, both across the pre-and-post-Katrina samples and within the contemporary sample. / 1 / Thomas D Lewis

Orientador: Angélica Terezinha Carmo Rodrigues / Banca: Juliana Bertucci Barbosa / Banca: Raquel Meister Ko. Freitag / Resumo: Este trabalho sociolinguístico tem como objetivo investigar o papel do gênero feminino no processo de mudança nas formas de expressão de tempo futuro (futuro sintético e futuro perifrástico) no português brasileiro escrito do século XX. Segundo Labov (1990, 2001), quando se trata de implementar uma variante inovadora na língua, são as mulheres as líderes do processo de mudança; é o que parece acontecer, por exemplo, com o fenômeno em estudo (GIBBON, 2000; OLIVEIRA, 2006). Considerando que, no português brasileiro contemporâneo, o futuro perifrástico (IR no presente + infinitivo) suplantou o uso do futuro sintético (BRAGANÇA, 2008; TESCH, 2011; ALMEIDA, 2015), não é possível avaliar o condicionamento do gênero, uma vez que a atuação social do gênero se mostra mais saliente em estágios iniciais e intermediários de mudança linguística. Nesse sentido, remontando às bases da pesquisa sociolinguística e ao papel das mulheres na implementação de uma variante inovadora, verificamos como a liderança feminina se estabelece quanto ao uso de futuro perifrástico em sincronias pretéritas (décadas de 1920 e início de 1970). Levando em consideração que a mídia tem papel fundamental na representação ideológica de grupos de indivíduos, em especial na construção social de gênero, utilizamos como corpora de análise cartas publicadas na revista A Cigarra, voltada ao público feminino. Para verificar efeitos do gênero feminino, comparamos e confrontamos os resultados obtidos com os dados de outros ... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This Sociolinguist work aims to investigate the role of the female gender in the changing process of forms of expressions of future time (synthetic future and periphrastic future) in Brazilian Portuguese written in the 20th century. According to Labov (1990, 2001), when it comes to implementing an innovative variant in the language, women are the leaders in the changing process; it is what seems to happen, for example, with the phenomenon under study. Considering that, in contemporary Brazilian Portuguese, the periphrastic future (IR in the present + infinitive) supplanted the use of the synthetic future (BRAGANÇA, 2008; TESCH, 2011; ALMEIDA, 2015), it is not possible to evaluate the conditioning of gender, as its social performance is more salient in the initial and intermediate stages of linguistic changes. In this sense, reassembling the bases of sociolinguistic research and the role of women in the implementation of an innovative variant, we verify how female leadership establish itself regarding the use of a periphrastic future in past synchrony (decades of 1920 and beginning of 1970). Assuming that the media has a fundamental role in the ideological representation of groups of individuals, especially in the social construction of gender, we use as a corpora letters published in the magazine A Cigarra targeted on the female audience. To verify the effects of the female gender, we compare the results obtained with data from other corpora, which we called "control group", ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

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This thesis examines how playful language functions in the friendship talk of preadolescent girls.By experimentation and manipulation of language, speakers negotiate turbulence to accomplish a variety of actions which highlight the talk-as-play function.The analytical focus is on speaker's negotation of talk in and out of play and non play. The methodology is synthesised from interactional sociolinguistics, ethnographic and Conversational Analysis approaches. Findings demonstrate that alliance building is accomplished in a diversity of forms which contribute to the overall game-like key of preadolescent girls' talk.Findings are relevant to applied linguistic and development psychology.The study offers new insights into the acquisition of gendered language practice. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

Framing the Public Library| The Public Perception of the Public Library in the Media

The goal of this dissertation is to increase our understanding of language variation and change by examining a particular case of linguistic variation in Rio de Janeiro. Diphthongization of back vowels before word final /s/ in words like mas "but" is a commonly noted feature of the Portuguese spoken in Rio de Janeiro. This leads to a potential merger of /a/ and /ai/ in this environment, such that mas is homophonous with mais "more." Diphthongization is examined as a conditioned sound change, and it is shown that phonetic environments that favor large formant transitions also tend to favor diphthongization, both historically and in synchronic variation. Although both /a/ and /ai/ are fully diphthongal before word final /s/ for nearly all speakers in Rio, some differentiate them by fronting and/or raising the onset of /a/. This fronting and raising appears to be a change in progress for the word mais, with younger speakers in the working and middle classes having the most advanced tokens on average. In addition, young female speakers appear to be leading the fronting and raising of the mas onset. The vowel /a/ was also examined before non word final /s/ and /z/ (eg. passa "pass") for comparison. Although /a/ in this environment is more monophthongal than /a/ and /ai/ in the pre-word final /s/ environment, it does show signs of diphthongization, again with young, working class females leading the change. These correlations are similar to those found for sound changes in many other societies, though this is the first time they have been noted in Brazil. Perceptual data on minimal pairs like mas and mais show a lack of symmetry between production and perception, with some speakers producing a distinction that they do not claim to perceive. At first glance, this suggests a case of a near merger. However, upon closer examination, it appears that lexical diffusion is a better explanation for the patterns found in the data. Specifically, words with a higher frequency of usage tend to show more fronting and raising of the vowel than low frequency words.

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