This thesis explores childhood, relationships, teaching, and god.

La langue étant un système formel par rapport à l’interaction verbale, cette étude s’intéresse à illustrer comment le sujet se construit dans le langage par la parole. L’être humain n’a d’accès à lui-même que dans l’ordre symbolique qui le reçoit sous la forme du langage. En dépit de la médiation de l’institution symbolique qui fournit des repères aidant le sujet à reconnaître non seulement des enchaînements opératoires à exécuter mais aussi des postures à adopter favorisant sa réalisation, le contact avec autrui et l’interaction avec la langue fait valoir le sujet comme divisé par son propre discours. L’expression orale, quant à elle, est comprise non seulement comme moyen de communication mais aussi comme intermédiaire à l’apprentissage. L’étude explicite davantage la place accordée non seulement à la production de nature orale mais aussi à sa pratique dans le contexte éducatif spécifique au Kenya / Having conceptualised language as a formal system with respect to verbal interaction, this study focuses on illustrating how the subject develops in language through the spoken word. Human beings have no access to themselves but through the symbolic which grants him an audience in the form of language. In as much as the mediation of the symbolic institution provides indications that help the subject recognise not only the series of operations to perform but also the attitudes favourable to achievement, contact and interaction with language results in a subject divided by his own speech. As concerns oral expression, the study takes it as being not only as a means of communication but also an intermediary to learning. This study has gone to lengths to explain the status accorded to oral production and practise in the educational context specific to Kenya

This project foregrounds the work and perspectives of spoken word poets of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent in connection to the NYC slam poetry scene. I trace the parallel racialization of MENA diaspora communities in the US and the development of slam poetry as a space for raising “othered” voices. Through ethnographic analysis, I consider slam poetry as a site of intersectional struggle, arguing that the engagement of MENA diaspora poets with this scene reveals the ways in which poetry both constitutes resistance to discursive violence through representation and works to mobilize audiences against tangible structures of violence.

Today, the definition of literature has changed. Walter J. Ong talks about the secondary spoken language that has surfaced as a result of new technical innovations to our writing tools. This also transforms our attitude towards literature and we can see a return to literature based on verbal characteristics. According to Hans Hertel the verbal renaissance reflects a modern man need to come closer to each other and create togetherness. This master thesis adheres to these views and states that Poetry Slam is a manifestation of these theories. It also argues that Poetry Slam can not only be viewed upon as a literary movement. Besides providing literary teaching practices for large quantities of individuals, performing Poetry Slam also facilitates personal development. The master thesis is an interview based study, which aims to ascertain the importance of Poetry Slam as literature and its effect on the identity defining processes of those participating in Poetry Slam contests. The foundation for the essay’s line of questioning is based on the literary theories of Pierre Bourdieu. It also incorporates the theories of identity creation in a modern day society by Thomas Ziehe. The subjects interviewed have a thorough understanding on how to assess verbal art forms. It is also a common understanding that poetry is a wider art form than literature. Despite this, there is a positive interpretation and evaluation of the literature in question. Several of the subjects supplying the underpinning information firmly believes that participation in Poetry Slam sessions will further their carriers as poets. This consequently leads to a conflict between their goals and the aim and purpose of Poetry Slam. / Uppsatsnivå: D

All current theories of spoken word recognition (e.g., Allopenna et al., 1998; McClelland & Elman, 1986; Norris, 1994) suggest that any part of a target word triggers activation of candidate words. Visual world paradigm studies have relied on the linking hypothesis that the probability of looking at the referent of a word directly tracks the word’s level of activation (e.g., Allopenna et al., 1998). However, how much information is needed to trigger a saccade to a visual representation of the word’s referent? To address this question, the present study manipulated the number and location of shared segments between the target and competitor words. Experimental evidence is provided by two visual world paradigm experiments on Japanese, using natural and synthesized speech. In both experiments, cohort competitor pictures were not fixated more than unrelated distractor pictures unless the cohort competitor shares the initial CVC with the target. Bayesian analyses provide strong support for the null hypothesis that shorter overlap does not affect eye movements. The results suggest that a listener needs to accumulate enough evidence for a word before a saccade is generated. The human data were validated by an interactive computational model (TRACE: McClelland & Elman, 1986). The model was adapted to Japanese language to examine whether the TRACE model predicts competitor effects that fit human data. The model predicted that there should be effects when words share any amount with a target which confirms the current theory. However, the model did not fit the human data unless there is longer overlap between words. This indicates that eye movements are not as closely tied to fixation probabilities of lexical representations as previously believed. The present study suggests that looking at a referent of a word is a decision, made when the word’s activation exceeds a context-specific threshold. Subthreshold activations do not drive saccades. The present study conclude that decision-making processes need to be incorporated in models linking word activation to eye movements.

This Statement of Purpose does not give a history of hip-hop or hip-hop poetry but rather how this particular poet fits into the current phase of hip-hop and performance poetry. In it, I discuss and explain the new pro-working class hip-hop performance poetic. This includes extensive discussion of how rap poetry conveys meaning through sound. Also discussed is the socioeconomic context for the suburban southwestern topics found in the manuscript. This statement is a parallel piece to the manuscript itself in that it explains a brown kid from San Bernardino’s journey of connecting words and music for purposes of personal expression and potentially the betterment of his community. This statement also discusses my aesthetic beliefs and preferences as a sound poet with a background in performance and music.

The contemporary experiences of racially marginalized people in the West are affected deeply by the hegemonic capitalist Orthodox cultural codes, or episteme, in which blackness operates as the symbol of Chaos. As it relates to people of African descent, these affects are marked by a denial of the black person's full status as an unproblematic subject, by ontological voids arising from the practice of enslavement over the past centuries, and by problems of representation within the West, where examples and points of reference for black identity are always tied up with conflicting interests. Utilizing Sylvia Wynter's model of the Ceremony as one means of describing the ways in which blacks in the West maneuver the extant psychological and philosophical perils of race in the Western world, I argue that the history of black responses to the West's ontological violence is alive and well, particularly in art forms like spoken word, where the power to define/name oneself is of paramount importance. Focusing on how art shaped black responses to ontologically debilitating circumstances, I argue that there has always existed a model for liberation within African American culture and tradition. This work takes an approach that is philosophical and theoretical in nature in order to address the wide breadth of the black experience that lies beyond the realm of statistics. The goal of this approach is to continue the work of unraveling hidden or under-discussed aspects of the black experience in order to more clearly find possibilities for addressing problems in the construction of race and marginalized people within the Western episteme. This work attempts to redefine the struggle for a healthier ontology within the framework of a process of liberation that transcends Orthodox limitations on the marginalized subject.

Radical feminism is often associated with the 1970s and 1980s in the United States. Although powerful in its goals of solidarity and coalitions, the movement is often criticized for its lack of attention to intersecting systems of power. However, several contemporary feminist spoken word poets are reconceptualizing radical feminism in their political projects, using the theories and activist strategies while paying attention to race, class, and sexuality. This piece traces some of the history and literature of radical feminism, Woman of Color feminism, contemporary Islamic feminism, and spoken word poetry. Using these frameworks, I close-read three poems: "Womyn Before" by Alix Olson, "The Herstory of My Hips" by C.C. Carter, and "99 cent lipstick" by Suheir Hammad to discuss the manner in which each uses coalitions. Olson's poem provides an analysis of the performative and textual aspects of the poem as a way to envision an activist project grounded in old social movements. Carter's poem connects history and archives, using a Woman of Color framework, and through Hammad, the structural critiques of an unjust system that disadvantages minority youth are seen through lenses of Women of Color and Islamic feminism. While these poets gain some knowledge from radical feminism, they interpret it in their poetry in ways that address the intersections of identity. / text

Research has shown that fine-grained consonantal phonetic information can be gradiently integrated during spoken word recognition in the L1. However, the way listeners categorize vocalic phonetic information has not been investigated as thoroughly. Furthermore, second language (L2) listeners’ processing of fine-grained information is not as well known as L1 processing. L1 Canadian French (CF) listeners and L2 listeners (native English) were tested in an eye tracking paradigm with words containing partially nasalized (CVN) and fully nasal (CṼ) vowels. Stimuli were designed to have variable nasalization duration on the vowel, and sometimes include a short nasal consonant word-finally. The main goals were to determine how nasalization duration influences word recognition in an L1 and an L2, and if variations in phonetic details are gradiently or categorically integrated. Results show that L1 listeners gradiently were able to identify the stimuli when they contained mismatching phonetic cues, while L2 listeners display more categorical patterns of recognition. When stimuli do not have conflicting phonetic cues, L1 listeners mostly identify words as CṼ, except when the vowel is not nasalized. For L2 listeners, the pattern was similar, but the rate of stimuli identification as phonological nasal (CṼ) was lower due to L1 transfer. These results support the hypothesis that L1 listeners have phonological representations that include fine-grained phonetic information and that they consider it when recognizing words. On the other hand, L2 listeners who have less experience in the L2 display more categorical recognition patterns, probably because their representations include coarser phonetic information or because they cannot access fine-grained representations, given the cognitive demands of L2 processing. When words do not contain conflicting phonetic cues, patterns of recognition of both L1 and L2 listeners seem more categorical, even though L2 listeners displayed lower rates of identification than L1 listeners overall. This uncertainty can also be due to less detailed phonological representations or to their inability to access all the necessary information to recognize words. Overall, these results suggest that fine-grained phonetic information gradiently impacts word recognition, that it is part of phono-lexical representations, and that L2 processing is qualitatively and quantitatively different from L1 processing.

abstract: This dissertation shares findings from a yearlong qualitative case study of Young Voices Rise (YVR), a diverse spoken word poetry group in the urban Southwest. The study examined the group's characteristics and practices, adolescent members' views of their writing and themselves as writers, and changes members attributed to their experiences in YVR. Data sources included interviews with six adolescent poets and two adult teaching artists, observations of writing workshops and poetry slams, collection of group announcements through social media, and collection of poems. Sociocultural theory guided the study's design, and grounded theory was used to analyze data. This study found that YVR is a community of practice that offers multiple possibilities for engagement and fosters a safe space for storytelling. The adolescent participants have distinct writing practices and a strong sense of writing self; furthermore, they believe YVR has changed them and their writing. This study has several implications for secondary English language arts. Specifically, it recommends that teachers build safe spaces for storytelling, offer spoken word poetry as an option for exploring various topics and purposes, attend to writers' practices and preferences, encourage authentic participation and identity exploration, and support spoken word poetry school-wide. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Curriculum and Instruction 2015