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With the prevalence of large data stored in the cloud, including unstructured information in the form of text, there is now an increased emphasis on text mining. A broad range of techniques are now used for text mining, including algorithms adapted from machine learning, NLP, computational linguistics, and data mining. Applications are also multi-fold, including classification, clustering, segmentation, relationship discovery, and practically any task that discovers latent information from written natural language. Classical mining algorithms have traditionally focused on shallow representations such as bag-of-words and similar feature-based models. With the advent of modern high performance computing, deep sentence level linguistic analysis of large scale text corpora has become practical. In this dissertation, we evaluate the utility of dependency parses as textual features for different text mining applications. Dependency parsing is one form of syntactic parsing, based on the dependency grammar implicit in sentences. While dependency parsing has traditionally been used for text understanding, we investigate here its application to supply features for text mining applications. We specifically focus on three methods to construct textual features from dependency parses. First, we consider a dependency parse as a general feature akin to a traditional bag-of-words model. Second, we consider the dependency parse as the basis to build a feature graph representation. Finally, we use dependency parses in a supervised collocation mining method for feature selection. To investigate these three methods, several applications are studied, including: (i) movie spoiler detection, (ii) text segmentation, (iii) query expansion, and (iv) recommender systems. / Ph. D.

The concept of the Linguistic Landscape (LL) is a relatively new and developing field, but it is already proving to illuminate significant trends in sociocultural boundaries and linguistic identities within heterogeneous areas. By examining types of signage displayed in public urban spaces such as street signs, billboards, advertisements, scholars have gained insight into the inter and intra-group relations that have manifested as a result of the present top-down and bottom-up language ideologies. This paper will apply LL theory to the current situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories through a discussion of the various policies that have shaped the Linguistic Landscape. It will begin by examining the Hebraicization of the toponymy after the creation of Israel, then discuss the conflict over the linguistic landscape, which can be seen in several photographs where the Arabic script has been marked out or covered. Moving forward, this work will address the grammatical errors on Arabic language signs, which reflect the low priority of Arabic education in Israel. Finally, this project will expand upon the LL framework by looking at the economic relationship between Israel and the Palestinian territories and how it is reflected in public places, such as supermarkets, which display an overwhelming presence of Hebrew. Through the use of photographic evidence of the LL from the region, which shows the prevalence of Hebrew place names, Israeli economic goods, and negative attitudes towards the use of Arabic on signage, this paper will take a multidisciplinary approach at examining the history and policies that shape the language used in public urban spaces. The relationship between the state and the Linguistic Landscape sheds light on the power dynamics of a multilingual space. As Hebrew is given preferential treatment, despite the official status of both Arabic and Hebrew, Israel continues to dominate the social space with the use of Hebrew in order to assert their claims to the land. In addition to investigating the power dynamics that are reflected on visual displays of language in this region, this work serves as a meaningful contribution to the Linguistic Landscape by expanding its methodology and units of analysis. / text

This thesis deals with gradience in grammar, i.e., with the fact that some linguistic structures are not fully acceptable or unacceptable, but receive gradient linguistic judgments. The importance of gradient data for linguistic theory has been recognized at least since Chomsky's Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory. However, systematic empirical studies of gradience are largely absent, and none of the major theoretical frameworks is designed to account for gradient data. The present thesis addresses both questions. In the experimental part of the thesis (Chapters 3-5), we present a set of magnitude estimation experiments investigating gradience in grammar. The experiments deal with unaccusativity/unergativity, extraction, binding, word order, and gapping. They cover all major modules of syntactic theory, and draw on data from three languages (English, German, and Greek). In the theoretical part of thesis (Chapters 6 and 7), we use these experimental results to motivate a model of gradience in grammar. This model is a variant of Optimality Theory, and explains gradience in terms of the competition of ranked, violable linguistic constraints. The experimental studies in this thesis deliver two main results. First, they demonstrate that an experimental investigation of gradient phenomena can advance linguistic theory by uncovering acceptability distinctions that have gone unnoticed in the theoretical literature. An experimental approach can also settle data disputes that result from the informal data collection techniques typically employed in theoretical linguistics, which are not well-suited to investigate the behavior of gradient linguistic data. Second, we identify a set of general properties of gradient data that seem to be valid for a wide range of syntactic phenomena and across languages. (a) Linguistic constraints are ranked, in the sense that some constraint violations lead to a greater degree of unacceptability than others. (b) Constraint violations are cumulative, i.e., the degree of unacceptability of a structure increases with the number of constraints it violates. (c) Two constraint types can be distinguished experimentally: soft constraints lead to mild unacceptability when violated, while hard constraint violations trigger serious unacceptability. (d) The hard/soft distinction can be diagnosed by testing for effects from the linguistic context; context effects only occur for soft constraints; hard constraints are immune to contextual variation. (e) The soft/hard distinction is crosslinguistically stable. In the theoretical part of the thesis, we develop a model of gradient grammaticality that borrows central concepts from Optimality Theory, a competition-based grammatical framework. We propose an extension, Linear Optimality Theory, motivated by our experimental results on constraint ranking and the cumulativity of violations. The core assumption of our model is that the relative grammaticality of a structure is determined by the weighted sum of the violations it incurs. We show that the parameters of the model (the constraint weights), can be estimated using the least square method, a standard model fitting algorithm. Furthermore, we prove that standard Optimality Theory is a special case of Linear Optimality Theory. To test the validity of Linear Optimality Theory, we use it to model data from the experimental part of the thesis, including data on extraction, gapping, and word order. For all data sets, a high model fit is obtained and it is demonstrated that the model's predictions generalize to unseen data. On a theoretical level, our modeling results show that certain properties of gradient data (the hard/soft distinction, context effects, and crosslinguistic effects) do not have to be stipulated, but follow from core assumptions of Linear Optimality Theory.

The life history research reported here, explores Becoming, Othering, and Mothering experiences of Korean immigrant women with White dominant culture English speaking Canadian-born spouses, and is guided by the research questions: (1) How do the Korean immigrant women who have White dominant culture English speaking Canadian-born spouses describe their linguistic and cultural integration into their intercultural families and Canadian society? (2) How do they negotiate and reconstruct their identities? (3) How do they describe their strengths and challenges as foreign wives and immigrant mothers in intercultural families and as immigrants in Canadian society? and (4) How do they deal with their children’s dual languages, cultures and identities? Multiple life history interviews were conducted with seven participants; additionally, the researcher’s autoethnography was included. The data were examined through reflexive analysis—within-case analysis, and across-case analysis—and interpreted through an interpretivist perspective (Crotty, 1998; Mack, 2010). Emergent themes in three main categories include—becoming, othering and mothering—each of which is discussed in terms of language socialization, linguistic and cultural power relations, and the impact of linguistic and cultural integration and power relations on participants’ identities. This research brings to attention the circumstances of linguistically, culturally, and racially marginalized minority people in Canada. When the intercultural family is viewed as a microcosm of Canada’s multicultural society, this research provides to both dominant-culture Canadians and minority group people, awareness of how linguistic, cultural, and racial hegemony marginalizes minority people in Canada. / May 2016

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study investigated the semiotic resources used by Vagina Varsity, a campaign by sanitary towel brand Libresse on the social media platform YouTube to construct meanings around the female body. Vagina Varsity is a South African online advertising campaign on YouTube which marketed their sanitary products, whilst educating, as well as breaking the social stigma, around the black female body. In this study, YouTube was utilized as a space in which to analyze online identities and communication. The study was located within the field of linguistic landscape (LL) studies, including the sub-field virtual linguistic landscapes (VLL), later reformulated as virtual semioscapes. The conceptual framework was undergirded by multimodality/multisemioticity and feminist theory. The study used a mixed methods approach to data collection, and used a virtual linguistic ethnography (VLE) framework to collect the data sources, which included YouTube videos, YouTube comments, and emails. A focus group interview was also conducted, where the Vagina Varsity videos were shown to a group of diverse youth at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. The embodied discourses which emerged, as well as the discourse strategies of the commentators, were multimodally analysed. The study found that the Vagina Varsity course makes use of multiple modes, including embodied semiotics such as gestures and stylizations of voice, visual modes such as cartoon figures, as well as the strategic use of sound. In addition, the study found that educational content and marketing strategies are both embedded in this campaign, with the educational content overshadowing the advertising aspect. It is for this reason that the YouTube comments and focus group interview were centered on the program itself and not the advertisement. Furthermore, when looking at the medium this campaign used, one sees that the virtual space allows for the teaching of taboo topics, which would not be allowed in traditional educational domains. The virtual space is not only bridging the knowledge gap in the topic of sex education, it also bridges the gap between different communities, as the YouTube comment section allows for people to interact across regional, national and even cultural boundaries. This study also found that Vagina Varsity not only recontextualized the educational genre, but they have also recontextualized the production and consumption of a topic which would otherwise be considered taboo. In terms of the implications for the study, one finds that the stigma that is attached to this subject is removed from this content. Although one cannot say for certain that this type of education will take over the African traditional initiation ceremonies for girls, for example, it can be used to complement some of the content that traditional counselors and social workers use to teach young African women. The fact that the program is formalized in a curriculum that can be found online opens up possibilities for open dialogue across cultures and nations in terms of feminine hygiene. This study contributes to the field of Linguistic Landscapes studies, with specific focus on virtual linguistic landscapes. The study also illustrates that the affordances of the online space allows for a hybrid edutainment space where people can learn about topics which are considered taboo in the domain of formal education. This study also extends the concept of multimodality, by including notions such as semiotic remediation and resemiotization, as well as immediacy and hypermediacy, as tools of multimodal analysis. This study also contributes to studies on gender and sexuality. / 2022-08-31

Este trabalho apresenta uma análise discursiva de alguns aspectos do Diccionario integral del español de la Argentina (DIEA), produção lexicográfica publicada em 2008 na Argentina e considerada o primeiro dicionário não diferencial elaborado e publicado em um país hispano-americano. Ao tomarmos o DIEA como objeto de estudo, situamo-nos, teórica e metodologicamente, na articulação entre a Análise de Discurso de linha francesa, tal como vem sendo desenvolvida no Brasil, e o campo da História das Ideias Linguísticas. Dessa forma, concebemos o dicionário ao qual nos dedicamos como um instrumento linguístico e o abordamos como um objeto discursivo elaborado em um espaço de enunciação que, de nossa perspectiva, é atravessado por um processo de (des)colonização linguística. Tendo em conta que nesse espaço a língua espanhola funciona sob um efeito de injunção à homogeneidade, partimos da hipótese de que a análise discursiva do DIEA nos permitirá detectar marcas do modo como nesse instrumento é significada a separação ou a disjunção obrigada à qual o real da história submete uma língua em um espaço de (des)colonização. Para o desenvolvimento da análise à qual nos propomos, colocamos o DIEA em relações de sentido com uma série de outros instrumentos, em especial com o Diccionario de la lengua española, comumente conhecido como Diccionario de la Real Academia española, e o Diccionario del español de México. Como base para a construção de nossa reflexão, primeiramente, tratamos questões relativas à lexicografia em língua espanhola que entendemos como essenciais para considerar as condições de produção de nosso objeto de estudo. Abordamos, portanto, algumas obras relativas ao território político da atual Espanha; refletimos sobre a publicação de dicionários integrais na América Hispânica e construímos um panorama da produção de dicionários na Argentina. A partir das considerações acerca da conjuntura da lexicografia hispânica, analisamos alguns aspectos do paratexto do DIEA a capa, a quarta capa, a apresentação e o prólogo e um recorte de verbetes que compõem a nomenclatura da letra P do dicionário. Tratando-se de uma aproximação a esse objeto, este estudo apresenta uma leitura interpretativa do DIEA com base na qual detectamos diferentes posições que esse instrumento ocupa no processo de (des)colonização linguística e a partir das quais produz diferentes efeitos de sentido. / This masters degree study presents a discursive analysis of some aspects of the Diccionario integral del español de la Argentina (DIEA), lexicographical work published in 2008 in Argentina and considered the first non-differential dictionary elaborated and published in a Hispanic American country. As we take DIEA as an object of study, we situate ourselves, theoretically and methodologically, on the relationship between the Discourse Analysis with its French origin, as it has been developed in Brazil, and the field of the History of Linguistic Ideas. Thus, we understand the dictionary to which we dedicate this work as a linguistic instrument and approach it as a discursive object drawn in a space of enunciation that, from our point of view, is crossed by a process of linguistic (de) colonization. Taking into account that in this space the Spanish language works under the tendency to homogeneity, we assume that the discursive analysis of the DIEA will allow us to detect traces of how the separation or \"compulsory disjunction\" is meant in this instrument, in which the real of the history submits a language in a space of (de) colonization. For the development of the analysis that we propose, we put the DIEA in sense relations with a number of other instruments, in particular the Diccionario de la lengua española, commonly known as Diccionario de la Real Academia Española, and the Diccionario del español Mexico. As a basis for the construction of our reflection, first, we deal with issues related to lexicography in the Spanish language that we understand as essential to consider the production conditions of our object of study. Therefore we address some works on the political territory of present-day Spain; reflect on the publication of comprehensive dictionaries in Hispanic America and build an overview of the production of dictionaries in Argentina. From considerations about the situation of Hispanic lexicography, we analyze some aspects of the DIEA paratext - the cover, the back cover, the presentation and the prologue - and a cutting of entries that compose the nomenclature of the letter P from the dictionary. Since this is an approximation to this object, this study presents an interpretive reading of DIEA under which we detect different positions occupied by this instrument in the the linguistic (de)colonization process and from which it produces different meaning effects.

Este trabalho compõe o projeto \"Formação e expansão do português paulista ao longo do Rio Tietê a partir do séc. XVII\", sendo um subprojeto do Projeto Caipira, que está desenvolvendo pesquisas relacionadas à comunidade linguística de São Paulo por pessoal ligado basicamente ao Departamento de Letras Clássicas e Vernáculas da USP. Dentre as cidades estudadas está a região de Capivari, situada a 108 quilômetros de São Paulo, cidade do imortal Amadeu Amaral, autor da obra O Dialeto Caipira (1920), primeiro estudo a preocupar-se com a diversidade do falar paulista. Esta dissertação tem como proposta a busca exaustiva de variantes fonéticas em documentos cartoriais do século XIX, de modo a expressar (ou não) os estudos dialetais feitos pelo autor em questão, demonstrando o que já pertencia à língua antes de suas observações, pois os fólios datam de anos anteriores ao seu nascimento. Embora sejam documentos que, por serem escritos por pessoas supostamente alfabetizadas, hipoteticamente podem denotar a norma culta escrita de então, é possível encontrar neles características dialetais apontadas por Amaral, como veremos. Para contemplar o estudo sobre a linguagem atual da região, também se realizou um breve exame do falar dos capivarianos, cotejando a locução atual com as variantes registradas nos fólios e mostrando, assim, o que permaneceu no dialeto após quase um século da publicação do livro. Sendo um trabalho comparativo, seguiremos o caminho feito por Amaral (1920) em seu capítulo sobre Fonética: falaremos da generalidade do falar dos habitantes, dos fonemas e suas alterações normais, das vogais, grupos vocálicos, consoantes e modificações isoladas. Assim, o trabalho objetiva mostrar que muitos dos fenômenos linguísticos que observamos atualmente no português também podem ser vistos registrados em fases anteriores da língua, como comprova os documentos do século XIX, e embora nossa língua mude, ainda guarda muitos traços de nossos antepassados. E ainda, apesar de o estudo ter sido feito tomando a cidade de Capivari e a obra de Amadeu Amaral como guia, ele também representa a realidade de muitas outras cidades de São Paulo e do Brasil, as quais mantêm em seus dialetos locais os apontamentos vistos aqui. / This essay belongs to Formation and Expansion of Paulista Portuguese through Tietê river since 19th century project, and it is also a subproject of Caipira Project, which is developing researches in the linguistic community in São Paulo by people of the Department of Classic and Vernaculars Letters of USP. Capivari is among the studied cities and it is located 108 kilometers from São Paulo, city of the Immortal Amadeu Amaral, author of the book O Dialeto Caipira (The Caipira Dialect), 1920 first study of the paulista speaking diversity this essay does an exhaustive searching for phonetic variants on register officers documents from 19th century in order to show (or not) the dialect studies made by the author, demonstrating elements that belonged to idiom after his observations, because the folios are very antique. Although the documents were written by persons supposedly literate, hypothetically they may denote the cultural norms of writing and you can find them dialects characteristics identified by Amaral, as we shall see. To complete the study about the language nowadays, it was done a brief exam of capivariano speak, comparing the actual locution to registered variants on the folios to show what has continued in the dialect before around one century of the book publication. Being a comparative dissertation, the essay was followed the chapter about Phonetic of Amarals book (1920): we talk about the generality of the capivariano speak, phonemes and its normal modifications, vowels, vowel groups, consonants and disconnected variations. Thus, the study aims to show that many linguistic phenomena that we observe today in Portuguese can also be seen recorded in previous stages of language justified on the 19th century documents and, even though our language is developing, it is keeping many characteristics of our ancestors. And although the research had seen done in Capivary and following Amadeu Amarals book, the studies show the reality of many São Paulo and Brazil cities, which have many observations in their dialects that were showed here.

As relações entre as línguas africanas e o português brasileiro é tema recorrente nos estudos linguísticos produzidos no Brasil, desde o século XIX (cf., por exemplo, Macedo Soares 1942[1874/1891]) e parece estar em evidência no panorama contemporâneo, como o demonstra o número de trabalhos recentemente publicados. Ao analisar a história desta produção linguística, Bonvini (2009) propõe que os trabalhos produzidos podem ser distinguidos em duas tendências: influência e crioulização. Segundo ele, ambas as hipóteses sobre essas relações apresentam deficiências, especialmente quanto a dois aspectos: o tratamento das fontes e a metodologia de estudos empregada. Quanto às fontes, os trabalhos teriam sido formulados sem apoio em dados linguísticos precisos e identificados. Quanto à metodologia, as análises estariam centradas em aspectos léxico-semânticos ou morfossintáticos, níveis que Bonvini julga inadequados para tratar a questão. A partir dessas críticas, cumpre indagar: quais foram as fontes usadas nos trabalhos sobre as relações entre as línguas africanas e o português brasileiro? Toda a produção sobre o tema desenvolveu-se a partir dos mesmos princípios metodológicos? Houve mudanças no tratamento do tema: da hipótese da influência à crioulização? Nosso projeto teve como objetivos mapear e analisar a produção que investigou as relações entre o português brasileiro e as línguas africanas no Brasil e discutir a periodização para a história dessa produção. Tal análise foi baseada no conceito de programa de investigação, proposto por Swiggers (1981a, 1991a, 2004). Esse conceito permite distinguir e agrupar trabalhos produzidos sob diferentes teorias e em épocas distintas, uma vez que destaca sua natureza interna, isto é, a maneira de os estudiosos lidarem com um mesmo objeto de investigação. Assim analisamos essa produção a partir dos parâmetros de análise que definem um programa de investigação: visão (concepção de linguagem adotada, tipos de materiais de destaque e modos de conceber as relações entre linguagem e sociedade, linguagem e cultura, etc.), técnica\' (conjunto de princípios e métodos adotados) e incidência (formas linguísticas de análise privilegiadas e a natureza e função preferencialmente atribuídas a essas formas). O estudo desses três aspectos permitiu sinalizar tendências gerais na área do século XIX ao XXI: uma tendência sociocultural baseada na análise lexical e uma tendência híbrida, sociocultural e descritivista, cujo centro da análise é a sintaxe e a morfossintaxe. O percurso de pesquisa ainda permitiu elaborar uma bibliografia de textos fundamentais para o tratamento do tema nesses séculos. / The relations between African languages and Brazilian Portuguese are recurrent in the linguistic studies conducted in Brazil since the 19th century (cf., for example, Macedo Soares 1942[1874/1891]) and they are in evidence in the current scenario, as many works in the field have been recently published. When analysing the history of this linguistic production, Bonvini (2009) proposes that his work can be categorised into two trends: influence and creolization. According to him, both hypotheses on those relations present inaccuracies, especially regarding two aspects: the treatment of the sources and the research methodology adopted. As for the sources, the works would have been carried out without the support of identified accurate linguistic data. With regard to the methodology, the analyses revolved around lexical-semantic or morphosyntactic aspects, level considered inadequate by Bonvini to approach the subject. Based on those criticisms, the following questions are raised: what were the sources adopted in the investigations on the relations between African languages and Brazilian Portuguese? Has all the production on the subject been developed from the same methodological principles? Have there been changes in the treatment of the subject: of the hypothesis from the influence to the creolization? Our project aimed at tracking and analysing the production that investigated the relations between Brazilian Portuguese and the African languages in Brazil, and also the discussion on the periodization for the history of this production. Such an analysis was based on the concept of research program, put forward by Swiggers (1981a, 1991a, 2004). This concept enables the historiographer to distinguish and group research works produced under different theoretical approaches and from different periods, as it highlights their inner aspects, that is, the way in which scholars deal with the same object of investigation. By doing so, we analysed this production based on the parameters of analysis which define our \'research program\': view (view of language adopted, types of materials and ways of conceiving the relations between language and society, language and culture, etc.) technique (combination of principles and methods adopted) and incidence (linguistic forms of analysis which were privileged, as well as the nature and function preferably attributed to those forms. The study of those three aspects allowed us to point out the general trends in the field from the 19th to the 21st century: a sociocultural trend based on lexical analysis and a hybrid trend, sociocultural and descriptivist, the center of the analysis is the syntax and morphosyntax. The research course have also allowed it to prepare a bibliography of fundamental texts in order to discuss the topic in these centuries.