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.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Dphil) in the Department of English at the University of Zululand, 2016 / English is a world language. The serious concern for the study and the adaptation of English to the world in general and Nigerian and South African milieu in particular started over a century ago. The study of English has been given new dimension through debates held at conferences and workshops over the issue of standard or correctness which seemingly emerged in different countries of the world. The growing divergence and convergence of English language in the world today paved way for variations in use particularly at the level of spoken words. The present work is one of the new crops of studies that attempts to identify and characterise the varieties of spoken English of our time. The study deals with a comparative study of variation in stress and intonation patterns in the spoken Yoruba and Zulu English. It seeks to identify the nature of Yoruba and Zulu spoken English and to account for the varieties that exist within the continuum. The study also aims to generate a pedagogical approach for the presentation of the appropriate spoken English inputs which is necessary for characterizing Yoruba and Zulu spoken English. The essence is to see the growing divergence and convergence of spoken English in these two speech communities. The subjects of the study were 120 Yoruba and Zulu speakers of English. The speakers were selected using a stratified random sampling technique. The main criteria for stratification were level education in English language and the linguistic group of the speakers. Two British (male and female) were used as the control. The elicitation instruments used for the collection of data were face to face interviews and materials for reading. The materials were divided into three parts: the word list, the sentence and a continuous reading passage. The three reading materials contained the target phonological variables which the researcher was interested in. The subjects were made to read each of the materials one after another and were recorded using PRAAT, a program for doing phonetic analyses and sound manipulations by Boersma and Weenink (2010). The study employed the framework of Metrical Phonology in the representation of stress. This was based on the view of rhythm proposed by Liberman (1975) and later developed into a theory by Liberman and Prince (1977). In this theory, the syllables are represented as having strong (S) and weak (W) stresses. The assignment of strong and weak nodes is determined by two rules: a Lexical Category Prominence Rule (LCPR), which operates on simple and compound words and Nuclear Stress Rule (NSR), which covers phrases and sentences. The analysis of intonation was based on Pierrehumbert’s (1980) model of intonation which supports the independence of stress pitch. In this system, intonation contours are seen as pitch accent and are described in terms of two levels: High and Low tones. The rank of difference was calculated using Wilcoxon (1985) Statistical Test. The study revealed that the spoken Yoruba and Zulu English featured more prominent syllables than spoken British English. The difference occurred mostly at the level of syllable and utterance duration. With regard to intonation, the study showed that the spoken Yoruba English is different from Zulu counterparts and those of the British. While the British used more directional tones, the Yoruba and Zulu used unidirectional tones. The study also showed that isiZulu speakers exhibited instances of vowel lengthening system while the Yoruba speakers demonstrated the tendency to use reduced vowel system. The varieties of spoken Yoruba English are different from those of isiZulu spoken English and in some measure significantly different from the British who served as the control group (see analyses on chapters five and six). The claim that high tones are associated with lexical words and low tones with structural words as posited by Well (1982), and Gut and Milde (2000) was not conclusively accepted by the data in this study. This study contends that the observed stress and intonation patterns in the spoken of some selected Yoruba and Zulu speakers could be considered as are part of ‘Standard educated Yoruba and Zulu spoken English’. The acoustic analyses of stress and intonation clearly showed that in isiZulu spoken English, syllable duration particularly the unstressed syllables are relatively longer than in the Yoruba and those in the native variety of spoken English being represented by the control group.

No description available.

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem Entwicklungsprozess der Santeria im Rahmen der Afrikanischen Diaspora. Dabei werden die pluralen Formen der Orisha-Religion der Yoruba in Afrika im Hinblick auf ihre Funktion als religiöses Fundament der Santeria untersucht. Im Folgenden wird die Entstehung der Santeria auf Kuba, bedingt durch die Einfuhr einer Vielzahl von Yoruba Sklaven, analysiert. Dabei spielt die Vermischung des kubanischen Volkskatholizismus mit den Orishas der Yoruba, die in einer neuen synkretischen Religion - die Santeria - mündet, eine hervorgehobene Rolle. Auch der Einfluss von anderen Glaubenssystemen (Spiritismus) wird an dieser Stelle deutlich gemacht. Im Mittelteil der Arbeit stehen die Emigrationen zahlreicher Kubanern nach der Revolution von 1959, welche somit die Santeria in die USA exportierten. Inwiefern sich die Santeria im Kontext der USA weiterentwickelte bzw. welche neuen Religionsvarianten entstanden sind, wird an dieser Stelle untersucht. Auch die zunehmende Kommerzialisierung der Santeria-Varianten wird kritisch analysiert, besonders im Hinblick auf die wachsende Bedeutung von Botanicas. Der letzte Teil der Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit den gegenwärtigen Entwicklungstendenzen der Santeria zur Lifestyle-Kultur im Rahmen des spirituellen Shoppings und geht auf die öffentliche Wahrnehmung in den USA ein. Dabei wird auch die ‚breite Massentauglichkeit’ der Santeria im Vergleich zu anderen Immigrantenreligionen herausgestellt und ihr Potential als kulturell-religiöse Identifikationsmöglichkeit für diverse Migrantengemeiden in einer zunehmend globalisierten Welt untersucht. / This paper deals with the development of Santeria within the framework of the African Diaspora – rooting in Africa, emerging in Cuba, advancing in the USA. At first, the plural variants of the Yoruba Orisha religion in Africa are explored with regard to their function as religious basis of Santeria. In the following, the genesis of Santeria in Cuba, caused by the import of many Yoruba slaves, is analysed. In this process the blending of Cuban popular Catholicism with the Orishas of the Yoruba, which led to the emergence of Santeria as a syncretic religion, plays a major role. The influence of differing belief systems, such as Spiritism, on Santeria is highlighted as well. In the middle section of this paper the mass emigrations of Cubans, who brought Santeria to American shores, especially after Castro’s revolution in 1959, are examined in detail. The issues of how Santeria advanced within the American context and what kind of new religious variants emerged out of it are broached at this point. With particular regard to the growing importance of botanicas, the increasing character of commercialisation among different forms of Santeria is critically scrutinised. The final part of this paper deals with contemporary trends in the USA, where Santeria develops from an earlier religious character to a lifestyle-culture, clearly influenced by the process of spiritual shopping. At this point the broad attraction of Santeria, which appeals to multiple social groups in contrast to other immigrant religions, is emphasised. Due to her potential as cultural and religious opportunity for identification among several immigrant communities, Santeria advances to a source of identity among diasporic communities all over an increasingly globalised world.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 310-320). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 1980. / Title from title page screen, viewed March 23, 2005. Dissertation Committee: Max Rennels (chair), M.M. Chambers, Jack Hobbs, Ron Halinski, W. Colvin. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-84) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2001. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 310-320).

No description available.

This project will be using an Action Research methodology to reflect on my own practice as a dundun practitioner. It examines the roots of my practice in the traditions of the dundun in the Yoruba tradition in Nigeria - both from oral and literary sources - and in my experiences in Hungary. It concentrates on my work in Hampshire where I worked in a number of different contexts. It examines in detail two case studies in which I attempted to recontextualise the dundun in two separate institutions - church and prison. These will be examined and analysed using the frames of post-colonial theory and Foucauldian social constructionism. Five concepts arise from these analyses which permeate the thesis: 'cultural dialogue, understanding and integration'; 'representation and presentation of culture and notions of identity'; 'tradition, authenticity and originality'; 'construction of meanings' and 'empowerment' . An important thread in this thesis on reflexive practice in the area of recontextualisation is the part the dundun plays in identity construction, contrasting Yoruba with European practice. The conclusions reflect the complexity of the processes involved in recontextualisation, especially the role of gatekeepers, the place of plurality in value systems in openness to change, the role experience plays in approaching new contexts, the complexity of the issues involved in cultural dialogue, the different types of power found in the various contexts and the relationship between tradition, authenticity and originality in various cultures. It analyses how my own practice has been influenced by these case studies.

This dissertation argues that an undocumented member of the Defoid language family known as Àhàn should be considered a language in its own right and not a dialect of some other Yoruboid language. This conclusion is based on a comparison of several syntactic categories in Àhàn to those of standard Yoruba. An investigation of the nominal system and functional categories such as markers of tense, aspect, focus, negation and relativization are language internal evidences that support the claims of this thesis. The dissertation has both descriptive and theoretical ambitions. The descriptive part of the dissertation provides basic outline of the grammar of the language and also provides an outline of the various syntactic phenomenon that are language specific to Àhàn. The theoretical side of the dissertation examines aspect of the syntax of the language under the latest theory of generative syntax called the Minimalist Program. The applicability of Àhàn data to the claims of Minimalist syntax (Chomsky 1995, 2001 and Kayne 1994) and the modifications of the theory where necessary are part of the theoretical endeavor of this dissertation. Using the principles of microcomparative syntax (Richard Kayne 1989, 2000 2012), the thesis demonstrate how structural comparison of aspects of the syntax of Àhàn and Yoruba explicate linguistic variation, and how differences that exist between closely related languages provide data for our understanding of the properties of Universal Grammar (Collins 2013). / acase@tulane.edu