Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Depts. of French & Italian and Linguistics, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Nov. 17, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-12, Section: A, page: 4529. Advisers: Daniel A. Dinnsen; Albert Valdman.

Troilus and Criseyde contains surprisingly little description (only two percent of the total number of lines); nevertheless, descriptions generate numerous dramatic parallels and thematic implications. For the most part, description concentrates on cosmography and characters. Chaucer omits detailed descriptions of interior settings - they are either ignored or impressionistically suggested by mention of single items - but, rather, he dwells on generalized impressions of seasons; detailed accounts of sunrises, sunsets, and astronomical conditions; and methodically controlled pictures of the major characters. To observe the overall effect and use Chaucer makes descriptive passages - to see authorial implication in passages of description - it would be best to analyze cosmographic descriptions in the order in which they occur, separate from descriptions of characters and objects associated with them.

For Robinson Jeffers, poet-philosopher and naturalist of Carmel, California, the universe is one entity, a "being out of grasp of the mind enormous." Its parts are only differing manifestations of a single energy; all bear upon one another, influence one another. According to Jeffers we humans attain true freedom and peace by turning avmy from self, from mere humanity and human contrivances, imaginings, and dreams. This is Jeffers' Doctrine of Inhumanism: a dark philosophy which proved increasingly unpopular as Jeffers more and more adamantly insisted upon dramatizing mankind's smallness in the immense context of the universe. The biography of The Double Axe and Other Poems, published by Random House in 1948, shows that ten poems were expunged from the originally submitted manuscript. Notes and letters from this period show Bennett Cerf and Jeffers' editor, Saxe Cummins, to be disconcerted by the fierce intensity and the dark political ramifications of Jeffers' doctrine. Consequently, The Double Axe was printed with a disclaimer regarding the "political views pronounced by the poet.” To the dismay of his publishers, Jeffers’ often uses political persons - Roosevelt, Hitler, Mussolini, Truman - to represent the ideas he works with aesthetically. But when he removes these topical references, his poetry sounds propagandistic. In using these particulars as metaphors, he makes contemporary issues and personalities point up his philosophy of Inhumanism. Because this is a particularly dark philosophy, these references to living persons have the effect of indicting them all equally, whether it is Hitler or Roosevelt singled out. Jeffers undertakes the task - which is especially unenviable in the milieu of World War II America - of showing that all leaders and all nations (both Nazi Germany and the United States) are equally culpable of distorting the importance and value of human endeavor. Jeffers’ poetry addresses man’s “excessive energies.” These energies, which receive special attention in the excised poems, lead man to “superfluous activities” - activities which “are devoted to self-interference, self-frustration, self-incitement, and self-worship.” He writes so as to discover a way to minimize what he interprets to be man’s “racial disease.” Because of his motives, Jeffer’s art is especially dangerous; for he would direct it to influence as well as reflect the reader’s experience. He presents his reader with a difficult task: to relate his experience of the poem, an experience distinctive and irreductible, to the larger flow of human experience. Such a challenge requires that the reader be sensitive not only to Jeffer’s specific point in a particular poem, but also to the history of human development. And, beyond that, to the evolution of the natural universe. Poetry for Jeffers is not merely mimetic or ontological, but polemical as well. Jeffers' later poems are not necessarily or always tracts, but the materials on which they are based and the criteria by which the poet organizes them are frequently the same as the material and arrangements found in philosophical or religious statements. In one sense, it might be argued that Jeffers elevated propaganda to art by making poetry out of the stuff of argument. But in another sense, Jeffers' best poems carry an autonomy and distinctiveness that makes them irreducible; they cannot be finally understood in a complete sense by deciphering the polemic that points back to external, contemporary reality. His poetry builds and inhabits a world of its own. Thus, the statements in a Jeffers poem may not be understood or judged as if they had been made in direct, argumentative speech, for his aesthetic - when it served him best - has its own complicating norms and dramatic justifications. So Jeffers' poetry has an artistic autonomy even though it refers specifically to a moment of history, a real person, or a particular place. But the particulars are intended to point up a ''permanent human faculty," and are thus both real and poetic. When he does not use topical particulars, however, he sacrifices not only the reality, but also the poetry.

The following discussion is intended to deal with the theme of social decay as it comes to expression in the last five novels of James Fenimore Cooper.1 The method adopted for realizing this intention is to examine closely the characteristic features of the late novels in order, first, to ascertain the precise nature of the theme of social decay as an intellectual statement and, secondly, to appraise the artistic means chosen for embodying this theme in the individual books. Hence the primary emphasis of the investigation lies with the thematic study of the source, that is with the novels themselves considered both as intellectual documents and as works of literary art. Before undertaking the thematic interpretation of the late fiction, however, one must consider first the major problem presented by the low esteem in which the last five works have often held in critical circles since the time of their first publication.2 This problem is important because the quasi-official estimate of these works implies that they do not merit serious critical attention. Seen from this perspective, the late novels are insignificant works that merely restate with didactic clumsiness a social philosophy previously expressed in Cooper's fiction with considerable artistic success. The investigator therefore must attempt to ascertain at the outset whether this established appraisal of the late fiction is essentially accurate in its main outlines or whether the conventional view requires substantial modification. In order to illuminate this problem, the following two questions will be treated in this introductory chapter: First, among critics of Cooper, how widespread has been the tendency to depreciate these five novels? Secondly, what is the basis, the critical rationale, for both the unfavorable and the comparatively sympathetic evaluations of the late tales? Hopefully, the discussion of these questions will help not only to justify a new study of Cooper's last tales but also to indicate the need for a more flexible approach to the criticism of the fiction published during the novelist's last years.

While there is an understandable reticence on the part of critics of contemporary American literature to make definitive judgements, there does seem to be a general consensus that the novels of Saul Bellow represent the contemporary American novel at its best. Moreover, this consensus comes not only from critical journals with an exclusive and limited circulation, it also is to be seen in publications of wider appeal, the weekly news magazines and the book reviews of daily newspapers. What is even more astonishing is that the reading public seems to agree with the critics and book reviewers; at this writing, Bellow's Herzog is a "best-seller." To reveal the greatness of man that is founded upon his subangelic nature--this is Saul Bellow's announced intention. To the extent that he reveals such a being, and how he creates that being are the subjects of this study. It is important to understand, however, that this is not a philosophical treatise. Nor has it to do with sociology, nor with psychology. It is a literary study, and as such is concerned with the "how" of Saul Bellow's characters. We would, of course, expect to gain a greater appreciation of his people through this study, more understanding of their well springs and motivations, but the emphasis is to be on Bellow's art. In any case, with the approach of "technique as discovery," to use Mark Schorer's term, it is hoped that an examination of the novels of Saul Bellow published to date will serve to illuminate his strictures on the subangelic figure, as well as to clarify what seems to be one of the major literary achievements of our times.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation is a grammar of Rena (ISO bez), a Bantu language spoken in southwestern Tanzania by approximately 600,000 people. Bena is largely undocumented, and though aspects of Bena grammar have been described, there is no usable, detailed treatment of the Bena language. Therefore the goal of this dissertation is provide the first detailed description of Bena that discusses phonology, morphology, and syntax. The analysis described in this grammar is based on data collected in the Njombe district of Tanzania during 2008 and 2009. Data throughout the grammar is taken from both elicitation and a corpus of 23 narratives. Though Bena is spoken by over half a million people, it is threatened by Swahili (the national language of Tanzania). Swahili's prominence in Tanzania has increased drastically since independence in 1961, and many (if not most) of the approximately 120 languages spoken in Tanzania are threatened by Swahili. Bena is no exception to this. The results of a sociolinguistic survey conducted in 2009 indicate that Swahili is having a significant impact on the Bena language. Therefore the writing of this dissertation comes at a crucial time. It provides a record of Bena at a time before too many features of the language are lost due to language contact. The first chapter provides an introduction to the Bena language and people. It also discusses results from the 2009 sociolinguistic survey which had the goal of clarifying questions on both the dialectal situation and the sociolinguistic vitality of Bena. The second chapter is devoted to phonetics and phonology. Of particular interest in this chapter are Bena's "predictable" tone system and the morphophonological process of imbrication (a type of coalescence in which multiple morphemes are interwoven together). The third chapter gives an overview of Bena word classes and provides a road map of the next several chapters of the grammar. Fourth is a description of Bena nominal morphology and other elements in the noun phrase. Like other Bantu languages, Bena uses a complex noun class system; Bena's 19 noun classes and the ways in which they are used are discussed in detail in this chapter. Following this is a description of Bena verbal morphology. Of particular interest in Bena is its tense aspect system--Bena distinguishes four separate past tenses and three distinct futures; these interact with five aspects. The second major focus of Chapter 5 is the use of a series of suffixes in verbal derivation. The sixth chapter of the grammar describes adverbs and other invariable words in Bena. Chapter 7 describes major aspects of Bena syntax. Because Bantu languages have rich morphological systems, most grammars of Bantu languages either give a fairly cursory treatment of syntax or they ignore it completely. This dissertation aims to fill that gap by providing a description of a Bantu language that is more balanced and acknowledges the significant roles played by both morphology and syntax. The final chapter highlights several features of Bena from a typological perspective and discusses areas in which further research on Bena has the potential to contribute significantly to Bantu linguistics.

Human rights have become a dominant framework through which to narrate and read political violence in contemporary literature concerning Africa, the Caribbean, and the Indian subcontinent. This dissertation argues that human rights discourse depoliticizes crises that result from histories of colonialism, inequitable development policies, and the growth of transnational capital. The testimonial narrative structure of human rights treats political violence as trauma and portrays the narrator as testifier and reader as witness. It assumes that in the exchange between these figures a cathartic process takes place and that by proxy the original political violence may be resolved. The language of human rights is thus deployed to illuminate the suffering of others without interrupting processes of global capitalism or narratives of US exceptionalism. This dissertation examines the intersection of human rights discourse and postcoloniality. It analyzes the decolonial strategies through which postcolonial texts challenge human rights discourse and shift focus from trauma and catharsis to the national and international policies, business practices, and cultural narratives that sustain inequitable power structures. This dissertation begins by critiquing the concept of literary humanitarianism, which suggests that the reader may fulfill a humanitarian act by reading a story of suffering. After showing in the introduction how this literary trend is connected to changes in the nation-state system, the first two chapters analyze the narrative mechanics of the testimonial narrative structure. As these opening essays examine depictions of apartheid in South Africa, genocide in Rwanda, and slow violence in India, they problematize the expansion of the 'universal' humanist narrative voice and critique the construction of a humanitarian reader. Chapter three then compares methodological approaches to storytelling to analyze the relationship between literature, the archive, and lived reality in post-apartheid South Africa. Moving into a discussion of the economic and cultural imperialism that characterize the postcolonial condition, the final two chapters reveal how representations of old and new diasporas across Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Americas resist the language of human rights. Together, these chapters argue that the political potential of literature is not in staging humanitarian resolutions but in interrogating the frameworks that sustain inequality.

This thesis contributes to the emerging, interdisciplinary field of food studies. Taking a qualitative, discourse-analytic perspective, I analyze the discursive strategies employed by a group of home canners in the construction of their community of practice. The community of practice framework (Wenger 1998) posits three defining characteristics: mutual engagement of participants, a jointly negotiated enterprise, and shared repertoires. Drawing on narrative analysis and adopting an anti-essentialist view of identity, I examine the way members use the discursive construction of time and place as symbolic resources in the formulation of their identities and in the maintenance of their community. Directions for further research into the complex relationships among language, identity, and food are recommended.

Sociophonetic studies of speech perception have demonstrated that the social identity which listeners attribute to a speaker can lead to predictable biases in the way speech sounds produced by that speaker are linguistically categorized (e.g., Strand & Johnson 1996; Niedzielski 1999; Hay, Warren & Drager 2006). This has been observed where listeners use available social information about a speaker to resolve lexical ambiguity. However, less is known about the role of sociophonetic knowledge in speech perception when listeners are not faced with global linguistic ambiguity. Drawing on Strand's (2000) study of the processing effects of gender typicality, this dissertation investigates whether sociophonetic knowledge can facilitate or inhibit unambiguous spoken word recognition. Based on a survey of sociophonetic variation in the Houston metropolitan area, predictions are formulated for the processing of words containing four vowels: /ei/ and /[varepsilon]/ in the speech of older and younger Anglos, and /α/ and /Λ/ in the speech of young Anglos and young African-Americans. Houston listeners identified words containing variants of these vowels in a congruent condition and in an incongruent condition. In the congruent condition the combination of speaker identity and vowel variant was designed to match the listener's knowledge of local language variation. In the incongruent condition, it was designed to contradict it. A congruency effect was found for some but not all vowels. The results indicate that social information about a speaker can also affect speech perception in the absence of lexical ambiguity, but only where words are at least temporarily ambiguous. Where there is no linguistic ambiguity at all, perception can be unaffected by sociophonetic knowledge. These results are discussed in the context of Luce, McLennan & Charles-Luce's (2003) time course hypothesis and in the context of exemplar-based models of sociophonetic knowledge (Johnson 1997, Pierrehumbert 2001).