Thesis--Wisconsin. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-174).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Political Science, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Berkeley, 1980. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 189-196).

No description available.

Masteropgave. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

In this paper I explore the role of ambiguity in the creation of meaning in the Urdu ghazal. Ghazal, the predominant genre of Urdu poetry, consists of a series of thematically unrelated yet metrically and prosodically related couplets, each densely packed with multiple and complex meanings. Ambiguity, both lexical and grammatical, is a key technique in the poetics of this genre. Here I not only analyze the different ways ambiguity manifests itself but also the way it has historically been and continues to be mobilized by poets and practitioners of the genre to further imbue each couplet with culture-specific, socially relevant meanings. Breaking with previous approaches to Urdu poetry and poetics, I examine ambiguity in the ghazal with reference to theoretical traditions in linguistic anthropology of ethnopoetics, performance and verbal art, and ethnographic examination of poetic praxis. Finally, addressing various phenomenologies of language, I propose a phenomenological turn in the study of this poetry in order to better theorize processes of meaning creation on both an individual and wider ethnographic level. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1974. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 498-518).

Previous research has shown that language differences can cause cognitive differences, and that. the availability of certain lexical terms can predispose individuals to certain ways of thinking. The fundamental attribution error (FAE), or the tendency to favor dispositional over situational explanations, is more common in Western, individualistic cultures than in Eastern, collectivist ones. In this study, bilingual South Asian-Americans read scenarios, in English and in Urdu, and rated the extent to which target individuals and situational variables were responsible for the events. It was hypothesized that the availability of a dispositional word in the language of presentation would predispose participants to commit the FAE. Results did not support that hypothesis. However, there was some indication that familiarity with a language increases the tendency to commit the FAE. Possible reasons for the findings are discussed. / Department of Psychological Science