Press releases serve as a major influence on public opinion of a politician, since they are a primary means of communicating with the public and directing discussion. Thus, the public’s ability to digest them is an important factor for politicians to consider. This study employs several well-studied measures of linguistic complexity and proposes a new one to examine whether politicians change their language to become more or less difficult to parse in different situations. This study uses 27,500 press releases from the US Senate between 2004–2008 and examines election cycles and natural disasters, namely hurricanes, as situations where politicians’ language may change. We calculate the syntactic complexity measures clauses per sentence, T-unit length, and complex-T ratio, as well as the Automated Readability Index and Flesch Reading Ease of each press release. We also propose a proof-of-concept measure called logical complexity to find if classical Boolean logic can be applied as a practical linguistic complexity measure. We find that language becomes more complex in coastal senators’ press releases concerning hurricanes, but see no significant change for those in election cycles. Our measure shows similar results to the well-established ones, showing that logical complexity is a useful lens for measuring linguistic complexity.

The Hispanic/Latino population in Southern California is quickly becoming the majority in many communities. As a result, social work professionals need training and education in cultural and linguistic skills to work effectively with this diverse population. The purpose of this study was to examine the linguistic competency and comfort of social work students when working with Spanish-speaking clients who speak little to no English. The study used a quantitative, self-administered, online survey to assess 106 social work students’ Spanish language abilities, comfort working with Spanish-speaking clients, and desires to improve their Spanish language skills. Results indicated that students who identified as native Spanish-speakers with and without formal language education, scored better on the objective assessment of Spanish-language skills and reported feeling more comfortable working with Spanish-speaking clients. Students with little to no Spanish-speaking ability scored very low on the language quiz, and yet reported feeling very comfortable working with Spanish-speaking clients. The majority of participants expressed interest in Spanish-language social work curriculum within the CSUSB School of Social Work. The findings of this study suggest that social work students would benefit to receive Spanish social work courses as part of the social work curricula.

Orientador: Marina Célia Mendonça / Banca: Assunção Aparecida Laia Cristovão / Banca: Jauranice Rodrigues Cavalcanti / Resumo: Esta proposta de pesquisa está embasada nos estudos bakhtinianos do discurso. De acordo com Bakhtin, pode-se depreender que em todo enunciado há diálogo, ou seja, todo enunciado apresenta uma relação de sentido com outro enunciado, e esse é o princípio do dialogismo. Entendemos que todo discurso é constituído considerando o discurso do outro, estabelecendo, assim, relações de sentido. Destarte, todos os enunciados são dialógicos, sendo todo discurso ocupado pelo discurso alheio. A partir disso, analisamos o aparecimento da palavra do outro nas redações do vestibular da FUVEST, mais especificamente na forma de citações. Focamos nosso estudo na observação do aparecimento de citações nas melhores redações da FUVEST nos anos de 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 e 2012. Em seguida, após o levantamento desses dados, procuramos entender de que modo foi feita a apropriação da palavra do outro, ou seja, se por meio do discurso direto ou indireto. Para isso, utilizamos os escritos do Círculo de Bakhtin concernentes ao discurso de outrem e sobre as questões de estilo. Nesse sentido, este trabalho justificou-se pela necessidade de descobrir de que maneira as citações aparecem nas melhores redações da FUVEST. Além disso, ainda pensando na constituição dialógica do sujeito, utilizamos escritos sobre a relação constitutiva entre leitura e escrita e como essa relação influi na elaboração do conteúdo citado pelo candidato. Como resultado, entendemos, a partir da... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This research proposal is based on Bakhtin's discourse studies. According to Bakhtin, it can be deduced that in every statement there is dialogue, that is, every statement presents a relation of meaning to another statement, and this is the principle of dialogism. We understand that every discourse is constituted considering the discourse of the other, thus establishing relations of meaning. Thus, all statements are dialogic, and every discourse is occupied by the discourse of others. From this, we analyze the appearance of the word of the other in the writing test from FUVEST entrance exam, more specifically in the form of quotations. We focused our study on the observation of quotations in the best compositions of FUVEST in the years 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. Then, after the survey of these data, we try to understand how the appropriation of the word of the other was made, that is, whether through direct or indirect discourse. For this, we use the writings of the Circle of Bakhtin concerning the discourse of others and about questions of style. In this sense, this work is justified by the need to find out how quotations appear in the best writings tests from FUVEST. In addition, still concerning the individual's dialogic constitution, we used works about the constitutive relationship between reading and writing and how this relationship influences the elaboration of the content quoted by the candidate. As a result, we unders... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Orientador: Antônio Suárez Abreu / Banca: Gabriele Damada / Banca: Aline Pereira de Souza / Banca: Carolina Sperança Criscuolo / Banca: Maria Alves de Toledo Bruns / Resumo: O objetivo desta tese foi realizar uma análise de músicas brasileiras populares, de grande sucesso, desde 1950 até o início do século XXI, para descrever a natureza e as mudanças evidenciadas no discurso amoroso durante esse período. Para isso, ancoramos a letra de cada uma das canções que constituem o corpus desta pesquisa em seu momento histórico e realizamos uma análise cognitiva e funcional (retórica), a partir dos frames do auditório da época. O referencial teórico utilizado foi a Linguística Cognitiva, principalmente o conceito de frames, exposto por Robin Lakoff (2000) em seu livro The language war, em que a autora nos fala do senso comum criado por frames semânticos, o que está ligado intrinsecamente a valores e varia de época para época. Para realizar as análises, nos baseamos também no trabalho de Forsyth (2013), de modo a perceber e explicitar a funcionalidade das figuras retóricas de construção usadas nas letras. Assim, foi possível conseguir uma descrição sobre aspectos sociais e emocionais do relacionamento amoroso e entender como as letras de música refletem o senso comum da época em que foram escritas, o que nos mostrou que alguns aspectos sofrem mudanças ao longo do tempo, enquanto outros permanecem iguais. Pudemos perceber, também, a recorrência do uso de figuras de retórica na construção das letras, o que faz com que haja, por parte do auditório, maior aproximação e identificação com as músicas. / Abstract: The aim of this thesis was to analyse Brazilian popular songs, which had great success, recorded from 1950 to the beginning of century XXI, in order to describe the nature and the changes in the discourse of love along this period. For that, we anchored the lyrics which constitute the corpus of this research in their historical moment and did a cognitive and functional (rethorical) analysis, based on the frames and public of each time. The theoretical framework used in this work was Cognitive Linguistics, mailny the concept of frames, discussed by Robin Lakoff (2000) in her book The language war, in which the author talks about the common sense, created by semantic frames, what is intrinsically linked to values and varies from time to time. In order to carry out the analises, we also used the book The elements of Eloquence, wtitten by Forsyth (2013), to help us realize and make explicit the functionality of rethorical figures This way it was possible to make a description of social and emotional aspects of romantic relationships and understand how lyrics show the common sense of the decade in which they were written, what led us to the finding of some aspects change along time, while others remain the same. It was also possible to realizethe recurrence of rethorical figures in the construction of lyrics, what causes more approximation and identificaton from the auditory. / Doutor

According the linguistic relativity hypothesis, the language one speaks affects how one thinks. Because languages differ in how they categorize color, linguistic relativity has often been tested by conducting experiments on color perception and memory. This study examines the linguistic relativity hypothesis using ecologically valid stimuli: pictures of eyes. Because Russian-speakers are more likely to describe blue/grey eyes as grey, whereas English speakers are more likely to describe them as blue, English and Russian participants were asked to match the overall color of blue eyes to a color scale. There were three conditions. In the first condition (perception), participants saw the color scale and an eye picture simultaneously and then chose the color that best matched the picture. In the second condition (memory), participants matched the color of an eye to the color scale from memory. The third condition (label) was similar to the second, except participants labeled the eye orally before matching the color from memory. A 3 (condition) x 2 (language) ANCOVA and Bayesian analysis were used to analyze the data. Overall, the ANCOVA and Bayesian analysis indicated that there was a main effect of language. Russian-speaking participants were more likely to rate the eyes as greyer than English-speaking participants. The Bayesian analysis also suggested that there may also have been an interaction, with Russian and English-speaking participants rating the eyes similarly in the perception condition, but not the memory or labeling conditions. Overall, the findings provide novel evidence for the linguistic relativity hypothesis.

The research examined the relationships between the morphological structures and features of Arabic and English verbs. An examination of the corpus in the research, which compiled 2000 verbs and their translation from various texts, showed that correlation between verb aspects are minimal. Therefore it is admissible to say that there is no correlation between morphological aspects and categories of Arabic and English verbs. Through analysis of Arabic verb patterns, the research demonstrated the primacy of a morpheme as one of the significant linguistic structural units that incorporates semantic and syntactic features, and also as a pivotal translation unit. The data analysis also signified that genre variation in Arabic is well established and can be clearly identified through morphological aspects of the verb and their distribution in text types. / Master of Arts (Hons)

In this dissertation I explore the impact that language-migration has on Self-Identity. The thesis consists of two parts: a memoir The Strangeness of Freedom, and an exegesis. Each is intended to stand alone, but also to complement the other. In the memoir I draw on my personal recollections of my family's migrations across five countries (Czechoslovakia, West Germany, USA and Australia) and into three languages (Czech, German and English) in order to convey my particular experience of language migration. In the exegesis I analyse several memoirs written by other language migrants and examine what impact they believe migrating into a new language and culture had on their own Self-identity. I draw on postmodern and psychoanalytic theory to explore the nature of Self-Identity formation and why migrants, as well as non-migrants might experience a change in their Self-identity during the course of their lives. I attempt to tease out to what extent the change in Self-identity is a universal experience that results from living across time and moving from a known past into an unknown future, regardless of whether one physically migrates or not. I found that while language-migrants tend to describe a more intense disruption of their Self-Identity, non-migrants also experience such a disruption in their sense of Self, simply by living in a rapidly changing world. I propose that while changing locations and languages clearly disrupts the continuity we presume life entails, it is in fact the passage of time that distances us from our known past, including our familiar Self, even if we never physically or linguistically migrate.

<p>Denna uppsats behandlar förekomsten av den optionella subjunktionen <em>som</em> i svenska objektsrelativsatser. Sökningar gjordes i en svenskspråkig korpus för att hitta objektsrelativsatser med och utan <em>som</em>. Resultaten undersöktes mot bakgrund av två hypoteser gällande processningseffektivitet och tillgänglighet hos referenter. I båda fallen styrktes dessa hypoteser. S<em>om </em>tycks vara mer frekvent i relativsatser där många ord skiljer matrissatsens korrelat från relativsatsens finita verb vilket stödjer principen Maximize On-line Processing som formulerats av Hawkins och som grundar sig i teorier kring processningseffektivitet. <em>Som </em>tycktes också vara mer frekvent i relativsatser där det inbäddade subjektet var i hög grad tillgängligt, i fråga om pronominell och animat status hos referenten.</p>

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<p>Studien belyser och diskuterar hur undervisning i engelska inom grundskola och gymnasium samt antagningsregler till högskola kan påverka möjligheten att utbilda sig i tekniska ämnen för personer med dyslexi. Studien belyser att det finns en hel del som tyder på att undervisningen i engelska i grundskola och gymnasium ofta inte är anpassad till de elever som har fonologiska svårigheter, och att detta kan få avgörande betydelse för deras framtid.</p><p>I en första delstudie görs en enkätundersökning bland engelsklärare i grundskola och gymnasium för att se om de har goda möjligheter att undervisa elever med dyslexi. Undersökningen visar bland annat att det har funnits brister på lärarhögskolor när det gäller utbildningen om läs- och skrivsvårigheter/dyslexi.</p><p>81 % av de 33 lärare som har engelska i sin utbildning svarar att de inte har fått kunskap om läs- och skrivsvårigheter/dyslexi som hjälper dem i undervisningen i engelska. Undersökningen visar också att flera kommuner inte ger lärarna den fortbildning de behöver och att många lärare upplever en vardag med tidsbrist, för få alternativa verktyg och för stora undervisningsgrupper.</p><p>I en andra delstudie belyses framgångsfaktorer i engelska för elever med dyslexi. Fyra högskolestudenter som har dyslexi djupintervjuas, samtliga går fjärde året på utbildningen till civilingenjör. Två av studenterna har MVG i engelska B från gymnasiet och två har inte läst engelska B.</p><p>I en tredje studie görs en jämförelse mellan gymnasiebetygen i engelska för 30 studenter med dyslexi på civilingenjörsprogrammet och en kontrollgrupp. Studien visar bland annat att det är 10 % av dyslektikerna som inte skulle ha kommit in på utbildningen på grundval av sina betyg om de hade sökt hösten 2010 när det är nya antagningsregler med högre språkkrav.</p>