Akademisk avhandling--Gothenburg. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement inserted. "The GUME project." Bibliography: p. 247-257.

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Reprint of Thesis, Cornell University, 1961. / Bibliography: p. 81-82.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin, 1966. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

ABSTRACT Although it is acknowledged that Portuguese has a phonemic contrast between oral and nasal vowels, few acoustic studies examine their acoustic traits and differences. Some of these studies include Kelm (1989), which focuses on the difference between oral and nasal /a/ in southern Brazil, Gigliotti de Sousa (1994), which investigates nasal and oral monophthongs in southern Brazil, and Moraes et al. (2002) gives an acoustic description of oral vowels from various regions of Brazil. The present study contributes to the investigation of vowels in Portuguese with an acoustic study of oral and nasal vowels in 6 speakers from various regions of Brazil. In addition, it examines the acoustic realization of oral and nasal vowels in 4 L1 speakers of Spanish learning Portuguese as an L3, on which there are no previous studies. The main objectives are (i) to compare articulatory differences between oral and nasal vowels, such as height, advancement, and duration and (ii) to examine whether L2 Portuguese speakers are able to contrast between oral and nasal vowels in Portuguese. Data was analyzed using Praat (Boesrma and Weenink 2012). Results for vowel duration reveal a significant effect for type of vowel (oral or nasal) for all cases except /a/. The difference between oral and nasal vowels was mediated by the L1 only for /i/. There was also a significantly longer duration within both L1 groups for nasal /i/ when compared to oral /i/. Because the production of nasal vowels includes velic lowering (Kelm 1989), it is expected that nasal vowels differ in height from oral vowels. Analysis of formant frequencies showed a significant height difference for nasal /a/, but not the other vowels examined. Anti-resonance frequencies showed high amounts of variation, which could be due to the small sample size or individual differences in vocal tract size. There were no significant differences due to L1 for nasal murmurs, formants, or anti-resonances, which suggests that the L1 Spanish participants are at a level of competence which allows for inhibition of their L1 and near-native production of vowels in a typologically related language. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Summer Semester, 2012. / June 11, 2012. / Acquisition of phonology, Linguistics, Phonetics, Phonology, Portuguese, Spanish / Includes bibliographical references. / Carolina González, Professor Directing Thesis; Michael Leeser, Committee Member; Gretchen Sunderman, Committee Member.

In this dissertation, I will identify and compare the various ways in which food imagery is used in both descriptive and proscriptive ways in the fiction of three Caribbean diasporic women writers in the 1990s--Edwidge Danticat, of Haiti, Gisèle Pineau, of Guadeloupe, and Lakshmi Persaud, of Trinidad. I will examine how these authors treat several aspects of Caribbean identity in the age of migration and exile by writing about food. Those aspects include but are not limited to: evolving gender roles, mother-daughter relationships, and family structures; social injustice both within the Caribbean and also throughout the Caribbean diaspora; Caribbean thinking about the medicinal qualities of food and alternatives to North American or European relationships to food; overturning colonial dichotomies by valorizing the cuisine of oppressed peoples and forming alliances between minority groups through sharing food; and the connections between writing and cooking for Caribbean women. This dissertation will demonstrate that in Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994), Krik? Krak! (1995), and The Farming of Bones (1998) by Edwidge Danticat, in Un Papillon dans la Cité (1992) and L'Exil Selon Julia (1996) by Gisèle Pineau, and in Butterfly in the Wind (1990) and Sastra (1993) by Lakshmi Persaud, the authors use food as a sort of parallel code, sometimes reinforcing and sometimes contradicting the ostensible narrative as it might be understood without this additional input. Reading that code yields a richer and more complete understanding of these fictional works and, by extension, of the cultural phenomena that make up their main themes. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2013. / April 1, 2013. / diaspora, food, globalization, identity, motherhood, post-colonial / Includes bibliographical references. / Martin Munro, Professor Directing Dissertation; Maxine Montgomery, University Representative; Alec Hargreaves, Committee Member; Lisa Wakamiya, Committee Member; Lori Walters, Committee Member.

In this dissertation, I examine a variety of Francophone African novels, films, and autobiographies with female and male child-soldiers as main characters. My corpus includes well-known works such as Johnny Mad Dog by Emmanuel Dongola, Allah n'est pas obligé by Ahmadou Kourouma and Ezra by Newton Aduaka, as well as lesser-known works such as Les Anges Cannibales by Jean-Claude Derey and J'étais enfant-soldat by Lucien Badjoko. After explaining the phenomenon, the identity of child soldiers and my use of trauma theory in my introduction, I dedicate a chapter to each medium. In my analysis of the fictional works, I demonstrate how the writers use textual techniques such as intertextuality, repetition, alternating narrators and repetition in order to situate the creation of child soldiers, their trauma and violence in its historical, political and socio-cultural context. I also reveal how these works underscore the need to transmit the child soldier's story orally and textually. In my analysis of cinematic works, I examine how the filmmakers use cinematic techniques such as contrasting spaces to expose the child soldier's horrific experience and its damaging effects on the child and the community, and to transform the spectator into a witness to the child soldier's trauma and violence. In my last chapter, I examine how former child soldiers use their works to exorcise their trauma and draw attention to the real life difficulties linked to the phenomenon such as the difficulties that demobilized child soldiers face and our own ethical viewing and response to the trauma and violence of the child soldier. This dissertation will demonstrate how all these works accord a voice to the child soldier (in their witnessing of his/her traumatic and violent experiences) and offer invaluable insight into the phenomenon and its implications in Sub-Saharan Africa. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2014. / April 11, 2014. / Autobiographies, Child Soldiers, Fiction, Film, Representations / Includes bibliographical references. / Martin Munro, Professor Directing Dissertation; Peter Garretson, University Representative; Alec Hargreaves, Committee Member; Reinier Leushuis, Committee Member.

It is well documented that L2 learners of Spanish have difficulty with inflectional morphology, specifically with gender agreement. Studies have shown that gender agreement is a feature of the second language that is acquired very late (Keating, 2009; Leeser et al., 2011; White et al., 2004). The majority of experimental studies that investigate gender agreement processing focus on grammatical gender agreement and fail to consider how learners process semantic or natural gender agreement. This study, therefore, examines how beginning and intermediate L2 learners of Spanish process grammatical gender agreement as well as semantic gender agreement. This study also investigates the proposal that L2 learners of Spanish will resort to a masculine form when processing gender agreement (Harris, 1991). In this study, L2 Spanish learners (n = 71) and L1 Spanish speakers (n = 12) completed a self-paced reading task to investigate processing of noun-adjective agreement. The learners were presented with sentences word by word, and were asked comprehension questions after each sentence. Half of the target sentences contained grammatical gender and the other half contained semantic gender. Also, half of the sentences were grammatical and half were ungrammatical, and to investigate a default form, half of the sentences were masculine and half were feminine. Learners reading times were compared across noun class (semantic gender or grammatical gender), gender (masculine or feminine) and grammaticality conditions. It was predicted that beginning and intermediate learners would recognize violations of semantic gender, but would not recognize violations of grammatical gender, and that they would default to a masculine form. Our results support this prediction. The findings are discussed in light of VanPatten's (2007) input processing theory, which states that learners will process meaningful grammatical forms before nonmeaningful grammatical forms, especially when that form lacks communicative value, as is the case with grammatical gender. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2010. / March 23, 2010. / Semantic, Gender Agreement, Spanish, Gender, Self-paced Reading, Sentence Processing, Grammatical, Syntax, Morphology / Includes bibliographical references. / Michael J. Leeser, Professor Directing Thesis; Lara Reglero, Committee Member; Gretchen Sunderman, Committee Member.