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With the purpose of understanding plausible reasons as to why Hispanics learners of Spanish, or heritage language learners (HLL), tend to obtain lower grades than their non-Hispanic counterparts (L2) in the same courses, forty-four students of Spanish (17 HLLs and 27 L2s) provided written production once a week for a period of six weeks. The data collected was analyzed in terms of error frequency in two main areas: orthography and morphology. The hypothesis proposed was that HLLs would have poorer orthographic performance than L2s given the informal aural input they have received at home before learning the language formally in an academic setting. Conversely, given the more complex nature of language morphology, which is believed to be acquired through long periods of time, HLLs, regardless of the informal context in their Spanish learning should show a more mature set of morphological constructions. Within the HL group, I looked at the correspondence between the orthographic and morphological performance of HLLs to the generation to which they belong. Although, the correspondence was not in the direction expected, there seems to be a correspondence in the opposite direction. The further away from the first generation the better orthographic and written performance HLs showed. One third generation HLL had fewer errors than first generation speakers. This tendency suggests that the term "heritage" has a referential value that goes beyond the linguistic realm. When comparing the written performance of the two groups, results did not show radical differences: orthographically L2s had fewer errors by 7% and morphologically HLLs had fewer errors by 14%. These results, however, to suggest that there is a difference in the Spanish competence of the two populations of learners that imply their learning of Spanish involve different needs, which should be considered for Spanish course design and curricula. The goals of this research is to point out that the teaching of Spanish as an HL should not be viewed as the teaching of Spanish as an L2. / Spanish

In relation to other Hispanic populations in Philadelphia (e.g. Puerto Rican, Dominican, etc.), the Mexican community reflects a more recent wave of immigration in the city that began in the early 90s. Since its initial establishment, the community has continued to grow and to integrate into the greater Philadelphian society. In comparison to other areas of the United States that have received immigrant groups predominantly from northern Mexico, Philadelphia has been the destination for a significant proportion of immigrants from the state of Puebla. Although those from Puebla represent a substantial portion of the Mexican immigrant population, the city has become home to other groups of Mexican origin, two of which will form part of this study: those from the capital, Mexico City, and those from the east coast, Veracruz. Diverging from common sociolinguistic practices, this dissertation focuses solely on the speech of male immigrants due to a significant larger population of Mexican men who have migrated to Philadelphia. Utilizing social factors such as length of residence in Philadelphia, age, level of education, and region of origin, this study examines the phonological behavior in the speech of 30 male speakers from Mexico City, Puebla and Veracruz. Specifically, the phonological features included are the /s/, /n/, and /r/ in final word position, as well as /e/ and /o/ in final syllables. Using Rbrul, this study analyzes correlations between the above social factors, specific linguistic factors, and variation in the above variables including their maintained and reduced forms. The results from the multivariate analysis not only shed light on the linguistic behavior of each group, but also allow comparisons between the linguistic practices of speakers from each region. Having identified the general tendencies of consonant maintenance in the central regions of Mexico, and their reduction in the coast, as well as vocalic weakening in the center, and maintenance in the coast, this study confirms the continuation of these patterns in Mexican speech after residence in Philadelphia for multiple years. Recognizing the prestige associated with the Mexico City variety as well as the prevalence of central Mexican speakers in Philadelphia, this study analyzes the impact of language change through contact between speakers from the coastal region (Veracruz) and those from the interior (Mexico City and Puebla). Specifically, this project utilizes results from the multivariate analysis to determine if findings reflect a shift form the coastal variety to the more standard, central varieties typically associated with linguistic prestige in Mexico. The dissertation concludes that, despite contact over time, Mexican immigrants are conserving characteristic linguistic features of their local regional varieties. These observations are revealing of how Mexican immigrants are renegotiating notions of linguistic capital and identity after having emigrated from their home country to reside elsewhere. / Spanish

YouTube is a website which attracts children of different ages. Many children spend a lot of time watching YouTube every day. The interest in YouTube creates learning opportunities in children’s spare time and this knowledge is brought to school. Since the purpose of this essay is to analyze Youtubers’ speech variation and whether they reinforce gender stereotypes. We have chosen to carry out a sociolinguistic analysis of four Youtubers, and relate this to possible language learning, based on a sociocultural perspective on learning. Our analysis showed that these Youtubers actually reinforce gendered speech stereotypes, even though there were some deviations. These results indicate that YouTube and Youtubers could have a big influence on children because of the number of hours children spend on the website. Children may look up to these youtubers, identify with some of them, and imitate their language and attitudes. The language and attitudes children learn from watching YouTube will be brought to school, which means that teachers need to have this in mind when planning English lessons. This may help reinforce language learning and also keep the English subject interesting.

Conducting and disseminating humanities research is fast becoming a highly technological endeavor. The variety of multimedia options for presenting information changes the questions we ask and the answers we find as well as the problems we encounter and the solutions we devise. The following essays provide an account of creating a digital edition of John Cleland's The Dictionary of Love using XML. The project utilizes traditional literary research methods while working toward an untraditional digital final product, a characteristic that highlights the feedback loop between form and function. Thus, the purpose of this project is twofold: to provide students and scholars information and analysis on The Dictionary of Love and, in the process, to examine and discuss the challenges, drawbacks and benefits of producing the content as a web-compatible resource. / Master of Arts

Research into the dialects of the New England states (Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont) has traditionally split the region into distinct geographic regions based upon variations in production, primarily along an East-West border. Generally, such regions have been considered relatively stable in terms of their variation (Labov, Ash and Boberg 2006); however, recent work in the area has found that the traditional dialect boundaries have begun to shift (c.f. Stanford, Leddy-Cecere and Baclawski 2012). Such research has focused on very specific regional changes in production, ignoring the perceptual salience of the features observed to be in flux. To date very few studies (Ravindranath and Fernandes 2014) have examined how New Englanders perceive the regional divisions, with emphasis on the collected regions while not focusing specifically on how regions view each other in terms of difference and similarity. This study examines regional perceptions of dialects in the New England states as seen by a small subset of New Englanders, predominantly residents of Maine and Massachusetts, through two studies: one conducted using a new web-based approach and another using the traditional pen-and-paper method of perceptual dialectology. Speakers have been asked to identify areas with differing varieties through the draw-a-map task (Preston 1989). These responses are then aggregated using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), contrasting results between the two methods. Results are used to identify areas of salient dialectal features across New England, informing contemporary and future research into language change in a region considered as stable. Additionally, methodological concerns and advances are addressed.

A breakout star among American progressives in the recent past, Elizabeth Warren has quickly gone from a law professor to a leading figure in Democratic politics. This paper analyzes Warren’s speech from before her time as a political figure to the present using the quantitative textual methodology established by Jones (2016) in order to see if Warren’s speech supports Jones’s assertion that masculine speech is the language of power. Ratios of feminine to masculine markers ultimately indicate that despite her increasing political sway, Warren’s speech becomes increasingly feminine instead. However, despite associations of feminine speech with weakness, Warren’s speech scores highly for expertise and confidence as its feminine scores increase. These findings relate to the relevant political context and have implications for presumptions of masculine speech as the standard for political power.

Social media has become a large part of today’s pop culture and keeping up with what is going on not only in our social circles, but around the world. It has given many a platform to unite their causes, build fandoms, and share their commentary with the world. A tool in helping group posts together or give commentary on a thought is the hashtag. In this paper I explore the evaluative roles of hashtags in social media discourse, specifically on Twitter. I use a sample of randomly selected tweets from the Twitter API stream I collected and compiled myself. I collected a total of 200,000 tweets and filtered out Re-tweets. Looking at each individual hashtag I sorted them into the categories outlined by the Appraisal Theory proposed by Martin and White (Martin & White, 2005). I explore the types of evaluation expressed in hashtags, the relationships between evaluative hashtags and how users negotiate evaluations using meme hashtags.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Faculty of Human Sciences, Department of Linguistics, 2009. / Bibliography: p. 210-223.

This thesis investigates native speaker attitudes towards English loanwords in Japanese and the ways in which these loanwords are used. The imperialism and hegemony of English can often cause anger or worry for the preservation of the cultural identity of the borrowing language. However, the results from a 9-page sociolinguistic questionnaire suggest that English loanwords are overwhelmingly seen as useful and necessary and are generally associated with positive attitudes. Additionally, many native Japanese speakers feel that loanwords provide more options for expression, both functionally and as a possible pragmatic tool for performing Japaneseness. On the other hand, overuse of loanwords—especially less common ones—can also exemplify the power imbalance between Japanese and the powerful and hegemonic English. The study also revealed how powerful the Japanese linguistic systems are at assimilating English into the Japanese language. With established and institutionally supported phonological and orthographic conventions in place, foreign-derived vocabulary can easily become nativized, assimilated, and considered to be Japanese in the minds of speakers.