American dialect studies have progressed rapidly within the last thirty years, but the progress seems to be concentrated within the Southern and New England areas of the United States. Though there have been studies made in other areas, they are sporadic, no work of any significance having yet been published. Texas, unfortunately, is one area of rich dialectal significance which has been neglected, with the exception of Oma Stanley's work on the dialect in East Texas. Even though that work is somewhat dated in many respects, few scholars have seen fit to undertake a revision of Stanley's work or a study of other areas of Texas which would be comparable to The Speech of East Texas. Several master's theses add to the small number of studies concerned with Texas dialects, notably Roy Elders' study of the stressed back vowels in the speech of Parker County, but such studies are also too few. The present investigation was undertaken for the purpose of adding to that collection of Texas dialect studies an examination of the low-back vowels in stressed syllables, of certain diphthongs in stressed syllables, and of the change in frequency of usage of those vowels and diphthongs, occurring within recent generations in Denton, Texas.

In this dissertation I intend to apply postcolonial theory to primary pedagogical and administrative concerns of the writing program administrator. Writing Program Administrators, or WPAs, take their responsibilities seriously, remaining cognizant of both the negative and positive repercussions of the pedagogical decisions that take shape in the scores of composition classrooms they administer. This dissertation intends to infuse the WPA position with the ethos of scholarly praxis by historicizing and contextualizing the field of composition, and by placing the teaching of writing within the historical memory of slavery and colonialism. Sound WPA research is theoretically informed, systematic, principled inquiry that works toward producing strong writing programs. This dissertation provides such inquiry, drawing the field's attention to the reality of postcoloniality and presenting an understanding of the work of composition as informed by and complicit in the history of racialized forms of oppression. From this context, the dissertation analyzes three major issues faced by the WPA: the debate over standardized discourse, the influence of the job market on pedagogical decisions, and the (de)politicizing of the composition classroom. In the following sections, these issues will be related directly to critical theories from postcolonial and composition studies that assist in articulating the issues of identity politics, hegemonic struggle, interpellation and interpolation, subaltern voice, and hybridity that are so crucial to writing program pedagogy and administration in the postcolonial age, for it is my argument that the writing classroom is a crucial site of contention in which the politics of identity are manifested as students appropriate and are appropriated by discourse.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This study investigated teenage language and its functions. More specifically, after conducting a data analysis which revealed the most common features of “teen speak,” the features were dissected for their usage patterns and significance within the realm of adolescent life and development. The research was based on linguist Marcel Danesi’s model of teenage language, which provided a comparative basis for analysis and categorization.