This current study investigated bilingual and second language (L2) lexical processing in sentence context. There is overwhelming evidence from bilingual word recognition studies to support the notion that both languages are active during lexical processing (e.g., Van Heuven, Dijkstra, & Grainger, 1998; Dijkstra, Timmermans, & Schriefers, 2000, etc.). While the 'default' setting for lexical access may be non-selective in nature, there are instances in which lexical access is more selective. Past research found that bilinguals process more selectively when sentences are constrained for semantics. Other studies found that individuals use grammatical class information (i.e., noun or verb status) to guide lexical access. While it appears the semantic context of a sentence or word class effects may constrain selectivity, an often-overlooked dimension that could potentially affect selectivity is syntax. The current study examined how the cues of semantics and syntax interact and jointly affect lexical processing. In the first experiment, I investigated whether bilinguals and L2 learners processed words selectively or non-selectively in sentences constrained for semantics and syntax. The results showed cross-linguistic effects for intermediate L2 learners only. In the second experiment, I examined whether bilinguals and L2 learners showed sensitivity to grammatical class in sentences constrained for semantics. The findings showed that verbs were processed differently than nouns regardless of sentence context. The results from these experiments give implications for models of bilingual word processing, such as the Bilingual Interactive Activation+ (BIA+) model (Dijkstra & Van Heuven, 2002). / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2014. / April 30, 2014. / Bilingualism, Lexical Processing, Second Language Acquisition, Sentence Context / Includes bibliographical references. / Gretchen Sunderman, Professor Directing Dissertation; Michael Kaschak, University Representative; Michael Leeser, Committee Member; Lara Reglero, Committee Member.

In this study, I explore how Christine de Pizan challenges misogamist thought through the use of exemplarity in her works. Christine's defense of women in the late medieval period has been well-documented by scholars. Yet, she also addresses the criticisms of marriage prevalent in contemporary literature, which are founded on the principle that women are inherently immoral. In keeping with Christine's stated belief in the moral responsibility of authors, she directly condemns misogamist authors and their works that appeal to medieval readers. During approximately the same time frame that Christine records her opinions as a literary critic of these works, she features positive marital exemplars in her own writings that support her point of view. I first examine the autobiographical elements of Christine's works that highlight her personal marital experience. Christine draws authority from her first-hand knowledge of marriage, which supersedes the flawed assumptions of scholars lacking this life experience. She creates an intertextual memorial to her late husband's good character and recounts her story as a wife and widow. Christine's exemplary narrative promotes the idea of a perfect friendship in marriage, a notion that upholds marriage as a religious and natural union. Furthermore, her close marital relationship contests the veneration of extramarital affairs as seen in the renewed interest in courtly love literature. To further substantiate her views on marriage, Christine recalls the exemplary stories of legendary wives and widows from France's cultural memory. Through these exemplars, Christine promotes the communal benefits of marriage. In particular, I analyze the advantageous impact of marriage in political, domestic, and spiritual contexts. / 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, 2009. / March 3, 2009. / The Romance of the Rose, Jean de Meun / Includes bibliographical references. / Lori J. Walters, Professor Directing Dissertation; Anne E. B. Coldiron, Outside Committee Member; Reinier Leushuis, Committee Member; Nancy Warren, Committee Member.

The reason for researching the narrative of Juana Manuela Gorriti and Clorinda Matto de Turner is to understand the role they performed in a patriarchal society at the end of the 19th century and how they are able to project through their voice in pro of modernity not only in their respective countries, but also be able to go beyond borders and visualized a 'supranación'. In chapter 2, Juana Manuela Gorriti is presented as a woman and professional who creates differences in relation with other intellectuals of her time by the force and exquisites poetic prose created by memories in combination with fiction, moreover her autobiography is filled with its inventions, an original style, that during her time was object of criticism. On the other hand, Clorinda Matto de Turner has been studied as a representative of the indigenist and naturalist Peruvian literature. As we will see in chapter 3 her effort goes beyond being focused in one marginalized group. Therefore, in order to rebuilt society a change is required, by the participation of intellectuals in the more direct and aggressive approach. This change will also imply a situation of survival that is reflected in their writings such as: essays, discourses, dairies and chronicles. At the end of their lives, both authors remained in Argentina, which was the center of progress in Latin American during the last quarter of 19th century. The Argentinean system was fervently following the ideas of the United States industrialization and capitalism. However, the Latin-American woman continued being a marginalized subject in that period which, according to the patriarchal discourse a woman should be: a wife, a mother and a housewife. Both authors write on 'men affairs ' and doing it implies a dispute with the hegemonic institutions as well as with their own colleagues of the profession. They pursue a communion of ideas among the working intellectuals, for that we establish a connection with José Martí's thought who envisions a united America. In order to analyze and to demystify certain categorizations established by the literary canon, chapter 4 will be dedicated to power, sexuality and defiance in relation to women. In summary, there will be a review of the modern imaginary of the Latin-American society dominated by the male idea and the woman discourse or "contradiscurso" will be included in the same level. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Modern Languages in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2006. / June 9, 2006. / Nacion Y Progreso, Mujer, Discurso Del Exilio, Gorriti, Matto / Includes bibliographical references. / José Gomariz, Professor Directing Dissertation; Robinson Herrera, Outside Committee Member; Brenda Cappuccio, Committee Member; Juan Carlos Galeano, Committee Member.

This dissertation explores the various discursive and representational strategies that Cuban American artists create to reproduce the issue of displacement and deterritorialization among the diasporic communities in the United States. Female writers such as Achy Obejas and her novel Memory Mambo, Loving Che by Ana Menendez and Alina Troyano and her play Leche de Amnesia reconstruct multiple connections between the Caribbean and specifically Cuba and United States. Such connections go beyond national boundaries to become a transnational imaginary configured under the ideas of multiculturalism and hybridity These writers redefine traditional conceptions of identity, gender, culture and representation by opening a discursive space for themselves within hegemonic discourses. Through this process they move from politics of identity to politics of representation. These topics are examined from a Cultural Studies standpoint giving special interest to issues related to gender studies and performance. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2009. / March 5, 2008. / Cuban-American, Transnational Communities / Includes bibliographical references. / Delia Poey, Professor Directing Dissertation; Mathew Childs, Outside Committee Member; Santa Arias, Committee Member; Roberto G. Fernández, Committee Member.

The purpose of this dissertation is to show the need for language change according to current French feminist criticism and to demonstrate the reappropriation of traditionally phallocentric language to assert female subjectivity in works of Caribbean women writers of the last three decades of the twentieth century. According to French feminist criticism, a key element of oppression is language. Therefore, the use of language is important in examining the writing of these three women authors. In this project, the idea of language reappropriation is seen in the short story, "The Youngest Doll" (1976) by Rosario Ferré; the short story "Solutions, Inc." (1987) by Ana Lydia Vega (1987); and the novel, I Gave You All I Had (1996) by Zoé Valdés. The French feminist critical framework also serves to show how Caribbean woman writers have used language not to just break through ideological constraints inherent in it, but have found language to be an important instrument to bridge the gap between the masculine and the feminine. Thus, they can supersede the traditional phallocentric word in order to assert their own feminine voice. The continuum of the use of language, as demonstrated in this study, begins in the 1970s with Rosario Ferré using silence in her work as a way to communicate, making what is not written a powerful voice. In the 1980s, Ana Lydia Vega skillfully decodes the patriarchal ideal of the female/wife and uses it as a tool to regain control in order to destabilize societal constructs in her short story "Solutions, Inc.". It is with Zoé Valdés in the 1990s that one can see that silence and subtlety give way to salacity in her use of the taboo. This project elucidates how contemporary Caribbean women writers, despite their differences in socio-economic, educational, and familial backgrounds, have reappropriated misogynistic language in keeping with their own personal history to privilege the feminine voice that was once hidden in literature. In addition, this study situates these texts in relation to the idea of l'écriture feminine as originated by Hélèn Cixous in French feminist criticism. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2006. / May 24, 2006. / Valdés, Vega, Ferré, Caribbean Women Writers, Language / Includes bibliographical references. / Delia Poey, Professor Directing Dissertation; Virgil Suarez, Outside Committee Member; Roberto Fernández, Committee Member; Brenda Cappuccio, Committee Member.

The topic of identity is a highly debated topic among Jewish scholars as well as a recurrent theme in works of literature written by Jewish authors throughout the world. In the twentieth century several historical events have shaped and transformed the way Jewish people regard themselves, notably the Holocaust and the formation of the State of Israel in 1948. Latin America experienced waves of Jewish immigration from colonial times to the present. Most of these immigrants integrated into their societies and, as occurred elsewhere, this specific population produced writers who are, to varying degrees, both members of the dominant culture in which they live and members of the Jewish culture. Moreover, the experience of cultural hybridization opened new spaces where the works of these writers gained visibility outside traditional Jewish circles. Their themes address issues of Jewish identity and the experience of minority identity in a Latin American society. Whereas their work reflects the multicultural and multiethnic culture of Latin America, it also examines issues such as memory, assimilation, trauma, holocaust, and other questions of concern to those of Jewish heritage in the context of their adopted countries. In this dissertation entitled "Issues of Identity in the Narratives of Jewish Authors from the Southern Cone: Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay," I examine three novels by Jewish authors at the beginning of the twenty-first century: Marcelo Birmajer from Argentina and his novel "No tan distinto"; Francisco Dzialovsky from Brazil and his novel "O Terceiro Testamento" and Teresa Porzecanski from Uruguay and her novel "Perfumes de Cartago." I explore the presence of Judaism and Kabbalah in the lives of non-religious people of Jewish heritage, examine the ways in which Birmajer, Dzialovsky, and Porzecanski depict Jewish characters in their search for identity and self-knowledge, and consider the theme of the Jews vis a vis other topics such as immigration, assimilation, integration and the loss of culture. Studying these characters through religious, sociological, and linguistic lenses allows for a more complete understanding of the experiences of Latin American Jews. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor in Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2005. / April 1, 2005. / Diaspora, Jewish Immigration, Holocaust, Kabbalah, Southern Cone, Assimilation, Identity, Latin American Literature, Latin American Jews / Includes bibliographical references. / Peggy Sharpe, Professor Directing Dissertation; Morton Winsberg, Outside Committee Member; Brenda Cappuccio, Committee Member; Delia Poey, Committee Member; Ernest Rehder, Committee Member.

An on-going debate in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) concerns the role of explicit information (EI) about language in language acquisition. This study explores the role of EI in how instructed second language learners of Russian interpret case morphology. Russian language has free word order, and learners have to rely on grammatical case markings instead of defaulting to the non-optimal strategy of tagging the first noun in the sentence as subject. The study examined how 59 learners of Russian process 30 Russian sentences with canonical (SVO) and inverted (OVS) word order. In order to interpret these sentences correctly the participants had to make use of case morphology and adopt a new processing strategy. The learners were divided into two groups by the type of treatment: (1) full PI treatment group; (2) Structured Input (SI) only group. The PI group received explanation about the importance of case morphology in interpreting Russian sentences, the SI group did not. The reaction times, trials to criterion and accuracy on OVS sentences were measured. The results of the experiment revealed a significant beneficial effect of EI for processing Russian OVS sentences: the PI group processed them more accurately and started doing so sooner than the SI group. There were also two individual differences tasks used in this study: the Simon task, which measured inhibitory control, and the Operation span task, which was used to measure the participants" working memory capacity (WMC). The results revealed that greater internal resources were related to superior performance: high WMC individuals more accurately processed OVS sentences, and weaker inhibitory control was correlated with slower reaction times. / 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, 2010. / April 2, 2010. / Sentence Processing, Processing Instruction, Russian / Includes bibliographical references. / Michael Leeser, Professor Co-Directing Thesis; Robert Romanchuk, Professor Co-Directing Thesis; Nina Efimov, Committee Member; Gretchen Sunderman, Committee Member; Lisa Ryoko Wakamiya, Committee Member.

Esta disertación analiza los temas del budismo zen, el yin-yang y la ecología en la obra completa del poeta mexicano Alberto Blanco (1951) para comprobar que todo en el cosmos está conectado y forma parte de un Gran Ser y a la vez que este Ser forma parte de algo más grandioso. A Blanco se le ha estudiado desde una perspectiva visual y poética, se le ha incluido en la 'Generación del desengaño' por su innovativo uso del lenguaje pero nunca antes se ha hecho una investigación desde la influencia oriental y ecológica. En este trabajo se examina la obra poética de Blanco según las siete características del budismo zen como lo son la asimetría, la simplicidad, la sublimidad, la naturalidad, la delicadeza, la libertad de ataduras y la tranquilidad. También se hace un estudio desde el punto de vista ecológico puesto que Blanco expone en su obra poética la preocupación por el maltrato, la humillación y la irresponsabilidad de los seres humanos hacia la naturaleza. Y por último se estudia la obra del poeta desde la filosofía china del yin-yang donde todo lo existente tiene una dualidad, pero Blanco demuestra todo lo contrario al unir las dos fuerzas y así formar la unidad y decir que sin luz no hay oscuridad o sin la vida no existiría la muerte. Esta investigación ayuda a entender más sobre el equilibrio de todo lo visible y lo invisible y para decir que Blanco pertenece a un nuevo movimiento o escuela: la generación del espacio del vacío o de la nada. Este estudio es importante porque se ve la heterogeneidad de oriente y occidente y a la vez se considera la vida de una manera homogénea. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2004. / May 28, 2004. / El Orientalismo En La Obra De Alberto Blanco, Ecopoesía Era Del Espacio, Ecipota, Poema Ecológico, El Budismo Zen, Yin Yang, Alberto Blanco, Poesía Mexicana Contemporanea, Haikú, Poesí Zen, Poema Ecologico, Era Del Vacío Y De La Nada / Includes bibliographical references. / Delia Poey, Professor Directing Dissertation; Virgil Suarez, Outside Committee Member; Santa Arias, Committee Member; Brenda Cappuccio, Committee Member.

Among the perennial issues confronting instructed SLA researchers, as well as practitioners, is the role that corrective feedback plays in second language acquisition. This study compares two types of corrective feedback that have been examined in the past with conflicting results, prompts and recasts, and adds a third type of corrective feedback that has been called modified recasts. A total of 250 participants, from ten intact classes, were divided into four different groups that received different feedback treatments during one hour of class. The treatment consisted of two communicative activities (a story reconstruction task and an information-gap activity) that lead participants to practice noun-adjective agreement and subject-verb agreement. While completing these activities, the four treatment groups received one of the following types of corrective feedback: 1) prompts, 2) recasts, 3) modified recasts, and 4) no feedback. The treatment classes were videotaped. All participants completed two tasks, directed by their actual instructor: a spontaneous oral production task and a grammaticality judgment task, during three testing sessions in a pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest design. The results of the statistical analyses did not show any differences between groups in the oral production task, nor in the accuracy of the grammaticality judgment task. However, a second look at the in-class treatments revealed that the experimental groups received significantly different amounts of feedback. This study suggests that the question of how much feedback is given to learners is as important as the type of feedback that they receive. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2011. / April 28, 2011. / Feedback, Oral Feedback, Second Language Acquisition, Recasts, Prompts, Modified Recasts, Classroom, SLA, Linguistics, Spanish, Feedback Type / Includes bibliographical references. / Michael J. Leeser, Professor Directing Dissertation; David Gussak, University Representative; Gretchen Sunderman, Committee Member; Lara Reglero, Committee Member.

Two great contemporary writers of the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy of Russia and Emile Zola of France, were haunted by the same problem, the individual's relation to God and the universe and the purpose of his relatively short life in it. Although Tolstoy and Zola took different approaches to this problem in their literary work, both were profoundly affected by pessimism and lack of faith in institutional religion in their life-long search for answers to humanity's greatest question and to the seeming hopelessness of the individual to affect history or even his own fate. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910), after a self-admitted privileged existence full of hedonism and nihilism, at the age of fifty came to the conclusion that the purpose of an individual's life was to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, that is, to struggle to achieve the highest state of personal and individual morality, love, and faith within one's capability to do so, whatever the desperate circumstances of history or one's own existence. Tolstoy's entire creative work, from his earliest philosophical writings to his last, from CHILDHOOD to THE CAUSE OF IT ALL, was dedicated to the didacticism of this spiritual premise, and like the main characters in his works, Tolstoy came to understand that the meaning of human life is based on Christ's message of selfless love, which alone comes from God and distinguishes the individual immortal soul from each mortal, animal person who inhabits this earth. Emile Zola (1840-1902), in the era of Charles Darwin, scientific discovery, and exploration of the earth environment, took a scientific, naturalistic, and deterministic approach to the same problem. A youthful life dominated by crushing poverty and grief led the main focus of Zola's creative work, the twenty-novel saga of the ROUGON-MACQUART (1871-1893), to deal in mostly pessimistic and graphic terms with the hopeless lives and fates of individuals of the lower classes of the French Second Empire (1851-1870) and its fall. His last two series of novels, the TROIS VILLES [Three Cities] (1894-1898) and the QUATRE EVANGILES [Four Gospels] (1899-1902), have a more optimistic, sometimes utopian outlook as they treat the moral and religious problems of ordinary people in the latter nineteenth and future twentieth centuries as well as the conflict between science and religion. In the latter part of his life, especially with the advent of the Dreyfus Affair in 1894, Zola became more concerned with the moral progress of individuals, especially as examples and leaders for the spiritual and social development of humanity. For Emile Zola reason guided by science and the continual discovery of natural truths was to provide the way to the meaning of life based on the true Christian teaching of pure, or selfless love. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2005. / November 3, 2005. / Unfinished Madman, Naturalism, Resurrection, Dreyfus, Sevastopol Stories, Anna Karenina, Jesus Christ, Selfless Love, Russia, French Literature, Russian Literature, France, Nonviolence, Christianity, Philosophy, Death, War And Peace, Confession / Includes bibliographical references. / Antoine Spacagna, Professor Directing Dissertation; David Kirby, Outside Committee Member; Joe Allaire, Committee Member; Nina Efimov, Committee Member.