This dissertation highlights the importance of vocal registration/production in the ongoing discussion of how the material qualities of the singing voice transmit socially constructed meaning. Using the modern-day countertenor as an example, I show how falsetto singing can act as a marker for gender/sexuality. The first chapter of the project explains the anatomy and physiology of the singing voice, particularly as it applies to the falsetto register and the contemporary countertenor. Then, a brief look at how singing and gender fit within the burgeoning field of voice studies ensues. Chapter 2 inspects theories of vocal gender, identity, and sexuality in regards to vocal embodiment and applies them to the voice, singing, and the contemporary countertenor. Chapter 3 looks at the reception theories of Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser in order to pinpoint ways in which social norms can be inscribed on the voice, especially that of the countertenor Klaus Nomi. The last three chapters apply the theories purported in the first half of the dissertation to the contemporary countertenor in three countries–the United States, England, and Japan. Examining the use and appreciation of the countertenor in these different societies provides examples of how the falsetto register, singing, and norms of gender/sexuality are connected in the different social contexts. The epilogue projects how this type of academic inquiry can extend to other types of singing and societies.

This dissertation for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition and Theory consists of a seventeen-minute work for two clarinetists and electronic media. A Negative of Knowledge is based on a secular song by the 15th-century Burgundian composer, Gilles Binchois. His song, titled Triste Plaisir, is at moments heavily abstracted but can be heard throughout the work in the pre-recorded, countertenor voice of Wee Kiat Chia. The piece was premiered by David Angelo and Shannon Leigh at Boston University’s Marsh Chapel on April 30, 2018.

The few studies on African preaching tend to focus on various aspects of sermons, with minimal attention to preachers and their formation. This study, by contrast, centers on the “small voice”—the unnoticed, unnamed, silenced, marginalized, neglected, and rejected perspectives—of diverse preachers who self-identify as African Christian preachers. The dissertation employs this hermeneutical lens to focus on the experiences and practices of African Christian preachers and to draw out the theological implications of their homiletical activities. The study uses a three-part framework of African perspectives (voices); the African context and culture; and care and critique. Using a “small voice”-informed mixed-methods research to address the limitations of previous studies and with the western region of Kenya as a point of focus (due to the diversity of Christianity within it), this research addresses the questions, “How and why do African Christian preachers become preachers (formation, reflection, and preaching roles); and how do they define and describe their preaching (description)?” Through oral interviews with 17 preachers, 150 extensive survey questionnaires, participant observation, and literature reviews, this study yields thick descriptions of African preaching in context. The results of the research highlight the person and life of the preacher and offer a rare glimpse into the perspectives of women and young preachers. The study reveals that the majority of African preachers feel “called” to preaching. Also, they live, preach, and are educated within their own communities; and they remain within the religious tradition in which they were raised. The preachers speak multiple languages with varying degrees of fluency. They preach in diverse settings, though women preachers are hindered due to domestic duties and youth are limited due to their age. The findings of the study illuminate the dedication of African preachers to preaching, despite lack of financial compensation. They attain the highest level of education that they can afford and are open to continued training/mentoring. The study suggests that the education/mentoring of African preachers must be culturally and linguistically relevant. The findings anticipate that similar perspectives may exist throughout similarly situated contexts within other parts of Africa. / 2025-10-10T00:00:00Z

Sitting at a rarely examined intersection between aging, disability, and popular culture, this project explores how the aging body becomes the disabled body in the context of popular music. In what follows, I trouble the distinction between bodies and mediation, between lived-experience and cultural product, and I argue that the voice of the aging artist engages with his lived-experience even as he performs socially-constructed conceptions of aging and disability. I read Johnny Cash’s 2002 cover of Trent Reznor’s “Hurt” on American IV: The Man Comes Around as a performance of the singer’s age and disabled condition. Through pain- saturated lyrics, music filled with unresolved tension, a damaged voice, and a video that puts his aged body on display, Cash performs a disability script that presents his age and personal health as disabling burden. I explore how country music, Cash’s performance past, and strategies pursued by his producer, Rick Rubin, all contribute to a performance that is both successful popular song and a manifestation of the singer’s declining condition. The project invites subsequent explorations of the intersection of age and disability in popular music, and highlights several artists whose voices and performances of old age and disability demand attention. The project aligns with an interactive approach to disability research, breaking down the dialectic between social and individual priorities in disability studies and foregrounding how each influence the overall performance.

Learner engagement has been considered one of the keys that can lead learners to successful learning in a multimedia learning environment such as digital game-based learning. Regarding this point, game-based learning advocates (e.g., Gee, 2003; Prensky, 2001) have asserted that digital games have great potential to engage learners. Nonetheless, there have been only a small number of empirical research studies of players' engagement, and there is little consensus on which elements of digital games critically engage people in play (Garris, Ahlers, & Driskell, 2002). Furthermore, despite the possibility that sensory stimuli can be factors influencing digital game players' engagement, there have been very few attempts to examine empirically the relationship between engagement and sensory stimuli. This study examined the effects of game characters' voice-over in digital games on players' engagement, by using a short digital role-playing game modified from Neverwinter Nights 2. A randomized control-group post-test only design was used to collect data from 74 participants (22 female, 52 male); engagement was measured by a modification of the Game Engagement Questionnaire (Brockmyer et al., 2009). Data analysis revealed that the GEQ mean scores of the participants who played the game with voice-over was much higher than that of the participants who played without voice-over. The difference of the mean scores between the two groups was statistically significant (t = 2.45, df = 72 p = .02), and the effect size, Cohen's d, was .58 (moderately significant). The results of this study will guide educational practitioners to the identification of more effective ways of adopting, developing, and modifying digital games for educational purposes, as well as furthering the research and guiding the practice in instructional multimedia design and development.

This thesis portfolio discusses my journey as a Master of English graduate student at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. I began as a graduate student in nineteenth-century American literature and switched concentrations halfway through my degree to Rhetoric and Composition. The decision to change programs was the result of my love for teaching beginning composition courses at SIUC. My passion for teaching drives each installment of this portfolio, focusing on my journey as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, my examination with a prominent theorist in the discipline of Rhetoric and Composition, and my interest in student engagement in the First-Year Composition classroom. My goal for this thesis portfolio is to offer a fresh perspective on Rhetoric and Composition, which allows me to explore my voice within the field.

Each year, thousands of international students move to the United States to pursue higher education. Over the past few years in particular, the numbers of international students enrolled at U.S.-American universities has been on a constant incline. Two of the biggest changes that international students may experience are the different expectations of classroom etiquette and participation in the U.S.-American classroom setting. Impacted by many years of exposure to West-centric approaches to pedagogical praxis, the U.S.-American classroom has been created as a privileged space in which, more often than not, West-centric epistemologies, approaches to pedagogy, and ways of knowledge production are privileged over others. For international students, the majority of whom do not come from Western cultures, this can be a very tough space to negotiate. In this dissertation, I look at the conceptualizations of voice and silence, in particular, in order to gain a better understanding of how these two concepts are experienced and negotiated by international students within the U.S.-American classroom setting at a medium-sized U.S.-American university located in a small town in the Midwestern region of the country. While many West-centric cultures conceptualize voice and silence as dichotomous, I argue that they form a continuum that is dialogic, communicative, fluid, contextual, and at times paradoxical. Furthermore, I argue that the meanings of silence and voice within the U.S.-American classroom space can have multiple meanings and be understood as different forms of communication and participation. For the purpose of this project, I selected the three meta discourses of postcolonial theory, critical (communication) pedagogy, and international student-centered research to help deconstruct the notion of international students as the “Other,” as well as the misconceptions of silence within the classroom. Postcolonial theory as the main anchor of this research, in particular, allowed me to engage in an in-depth discussion of how we can decolonize West-centric, U.S.-American classrooms and create more dialogic, inclusive, and intercultural spaces in which different epistemologies and ways of knowing and knowledge production can be included. Furthermore, I bring into dialogue the three selected meta discourses in order to create a more nuanced and inclusive conceptualization of voice and silence that moves away from West-centric binaries. I used critical complete-member ethnography (CCME), as developed by Dr. Satoshi Toyosaki (2011), as the main method for critical inquiry. CCME argues for the value that is derived from combining different ethnographic methods in order to create an accurate account of cultural practices, as well as “focus on communicative practices and processes” (p. 66). I incorporated an autoethnographic account that functions to position myself as a researcher as well as autoethnographic narratives and reflections throughout my data analysis. In addition, I extend the notion of membership as it is currently conceptualized within CCME to make the argument for CCME as a method for critical inquiry within intercultural communication, and not just intracultural communication, research. My research findings demonstrate that the West-centric, binaristic conceptualization of voice and silence within the U.S.-American educational system can create unwelcoming learning environments for international students who may feel positioned as the Other who do not fit in, or may feel excluded from dominant discourse by being silenced. The participants’ narratives indicate the meanings of and reasons for international students’ embodiments of silence within classroom settings are as multiple, contextual, and dialogic as the conceptualization of silence itself. The collected data support the argument of the complexity and contextuality of voice and silence, and further call for a reconceptualization of voice and silence as acceptable forms of classroom participation. Furthermore, the international student participants identified several reasons as to why they may choose to perform silence in the classroom. Finally, through the interviews I tried to create a dialogue among international students and instructors in order to address and deconstruct issues pertaining to the struggles of international students caused by U.S.-centric approaches to pedagogy as well as conceptualizations of voice, silence, and classroom participation. My research showed that it is imperative for us to engage in more inclusive, critical, yet compassionate dialogues across our differences in order to create glocalized, intercultural learning communities within U.S.-/Euro-/West-centric educational systems. We must attempt to create intercultural spaces within our classrooms that allow for and cherish diverse narratives, epistemologies, different ways of knowing, and different conceptualizations of voice, silence, and classroom participation within the U.S.-American classroom setting, in particular at a medium-sized U.S.-American university located in a small town in the Midwestern region of the country. This dissertation research privileges such dialogue by centering the narratives of international students, thus, moving them from the periphery to the center and allowing them the agency to address exclusionary pedagogical practices within the U.S.-American educational system that exclude them from dominant discourse.

Au XIXe siècle, alors que triomphe le texte imprimé, on assiste à une valorisation inédite de la parole : la causerie et la conversation sont érigées en mythes et considérées comme des éléments constitutifs de l’identité française, et de nombreuses formes écrites font de la parole un modèle d’écriture. La presse en particulier reconfigure des modèles discursifs pour s’adresser à un public qui se massifie au cours du siècle, et dont la captation devient un enjeu économique et politique. De 1836-1884, période considérée dans ce travail, la transposition de la causerie dans le journal renvoie tout à la fois à une modalité d’écriture influencée par les formes conversationnelles et épistolaires, dont le style se construit dans une tension entre sérialité et originalité, et, par métonymie, à des articles spécifiques. Si l’écriture causée peut être cultivée de façon macrostructurale – elle caractérise toute l’écriture du petit journal notamment –, on considérera plus spécifiquement trois déclinaisons journalistiques de la causerie : la critique littéraire (incluant la critique dramatique, forme majeure de la critique journalistique à l’époque), la chronique journalistique, ainsi que des formes originales de journalisme personnel. Plus qu’un simple dispositif textuel, ou une écriture de repli pour des journaux privés de matière politique, la causerie journalistique porte des enjeux poétiques et génériques notables – l’essor du recueil, des écritures personnelles, polyphoniques ou humoristiques notamment gagnent à être reconsidérées de ce point de vue. En outre, elle participe directement aux reconfigurations du statut de l’homme de lettres au XIXe siècle, à qui elle offre un support pour gérer son image publique et orchestrer son positionnement sur la scène littéraire. / During the 19th century, while the printed text is predominant, we witness a new importance of speech : talk and conversation are erected as myths and considered elements of the French identity, and various written media make speech a model of writing. The press in particular reconfigured discursive models to reach a public that had been growing over the century, and the captivation of whom was becoming an economic and political issue. In 1836-1884, the period considered by the study, the transposition of chatting into newspaper columns recalled both a writing mode influenced by the conversation and epistolary forms, whose style builds itself in a tension between seriality and originality, and, by metonymy, to specific articles. If the spoken writing can be cultivated in a macrostructural way (it characterizes all the writing of the « petit journal » in particular), we will consider more specifically three journalistic versions of the talk : the litirary criticism (including theatre criticism, major form of journalistic criticism at the time), the journalistic chronicle as well as original forms of personal journalism. More than a simple textual device, or a fall backwriting form for newspapers lacking political content, the journalistic talk has important poetic and generic issues  the rise of collections, of personal, polyphonic, or humorous writing in particular merit being reconsidered from this point of view. Besides, it participates to the redefinition of the media writer’s status during the nineteenth century, to whom it offers a way to manage his public image and his position on literary front.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-22T20:50:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-07-28 / Objetivo: Verificar a prevalência de alterações vocais em adolescentes de 16 anos, estudantes da rede pública estadual da cidade de Recife-PE, com características de bulimia nervosa. Método: Para este estudo foram avaliados 216 adolescentes sendo 80 do gênero masculino e 136 do gênero feminino para identificar os que apresentavam características de bulimia nervosa foi utilizado o Teste de Investigação Bulímica (BITE) e a identificação dos sinais e sintomas vocais foi por meio de análises vocais subjetivas (Escala de GRBASI e Escala Analógica Visual- Escala Numérica EAV-EN) e objetiva (Voxmetria). Resultados: A prevalência de características de bulimia nervosa entre a população estudada foi de 70 indivíduos (32,4%), tendo percentual maior para o gênero feminino 52(74,3%) e menor para o masculino 18(25,7%). Quanto à análise vocal destes indivíduos com características de bulimia nervosa, na escala de GRBASI 19(27,1%) apresentaram vozes normais enquanto que 51(73,9%) mostraram alterações na voz (p<0,001); na EAV-EN 31(44,3%) apresentaram vozes no padrão normal e 39(56,5%) tinham alterações vocais (p<0,001), para o Voxmetria 37(53,6%) possuíam vozes normais e 33(47,1%) tinham algum tipo de alteração (p=0,381). Conclusão: Este estudo apresentou uma alta prevalência de adolescentes com características de bulimia nervosa das escolas públicas da cidade de Recife, com 16 anos de idade, além de encontrar neste grupo um alto percentual de sinais na voz, com isso se conclui a necessidade de que haja uma maior atenção aos riscos causados pelos transtornos alimentares nas vozes dos adolescentes. / Objective: To verify the prevalence of voice disorders in teenagers of 16 years old, students from public schools in the city of Recife-PE, with characteristics of bulimia nervosa. Method: For this study, 216 teenagers were rated with 80 males and 136 females to identify those that had characteristics of bulimia nervosa was used Bulimic Investigatory Test (BITE) and the identification of signs and symptoms vocal was by analysis subjective voice (Scale GRBASI and Visual Analog Scale-Scale Numerical- EN VAS) and objective (Voxmetria). Results: The prevalence of features of bulimia nervosa among the study population was 70 individuals (32.4%) and higher percentage for females 52 (74.3%) and lower for males 18 (25.7%). As for vocal analysis of these individuals with characteristics of bulimia nervosa, scale GRBASI 19 (27.1%) had normal voices while 51 (73.9%) showed changes in voice (p <0.001) in VAS-EN 31 (44.3%) had voices in the normal pattern and 39 (56.5%) had vocal changes (p <0.001) for Voxmetria 37 (53.6%) had normal voices and 33 (47.1%) had some type of change (p = 0.381). Conclusion: This study showed a high prevalence of teenagers with bulimia nervosa characteristics of public schools in the city of Recife, with 16 years of age, and find this group a high percentage of sings in her voice, it concludes with the need that there is greater attention to the risks posed by eating disorders in the voices of adolescents. / TEDE / BV UNIFESP: Teses e dissertações

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2012-05-28Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:21:36Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 mendes_lcs_dr_botfm.pdf: 1401815 bytes, checksum: f964f51ca3bbb15eba4b33e0b3d96444 (MD5) / Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) / Verificar a prevalência de alterações vocais em professores e correlacionar com as condições de trabalho. Delineamento: Estudo transversal. Participantes:381 docentes da rede de ensino da cidade de Bauru, SP., entrevistados entre 2009 à 2011, sendo 85% do sexo feminino, com idade mediana de 42 anos, entre 22 a 69 anos. Variáveis: Alterações vocal, laringológica e auditiva, variáveis de condições de trabalho. A qualidade vocal foi classificada por meio da escala GRBASI, a alteração auditiva foi medida por meio da avaliação das emissões otoacústicas transientes e as demais variáveis foram medidas por meio do questionário autoaplicável. Aleatória com alocação por cinco regiões geográfica da cidade de Bauru. A relação entre sexo, idade e condições de trabalho com as alterações foi estudada por modelo de regressão logística múltipla contendo, no modelo, as variáveis que se relacionaram significativamente de forma independente por meio do teste exato de Fisher, Qui-quadrado ou estimativa do Odds-Ratio. A reprodutibilidade inter avaliador (análise de concordância entre os juízes em relação ao estado da voz) foi realizada por teste de Kappa. A relação de professores do sexo feminino foi de 85%, com idade média de 42 anos, e com mais de 16 anos de docência. As condições de trabalho tanto física como emocionais foram consideradas como desfavoráveis, havendo associação estatisticamente significativa entre sexo, faixa etária que leciona, tempo que leciona, carga horária semanal de trabalho e, a acústica inadequada. A alteração vocal foi referida por 60% dos entrevistados, sendo a rouquidão o sintoma mais comum (83,5%), e para 48,9% a alteração vocal está presente há mais de 4 anos. O fator causal apontado foi o uso intensivo da voz para 88,4% e estresse 59,8%. A análise perceptivo-auditiva diagnosticou como... / To determine the prevalence of vocal changes in teachers and correlate with working conditions. Design: cross-sectional study. Participants: 381 teachers in the city of Bauru, SP, interviewed between 2009 to 2011, being 85% female, with median age of 42 years between 22 to 69 years. Variables: vocal, laryngologic and hearing changes, variable working conditions. The voice quality was classified by means of GRBASI, the hearing change scale was measured by assessing otoacoustic emissions and other variables were measured by means of a questionnaire. Five geographical regions of the city of Bauru were allocated randomly. The relationship between gender, age and working conditions regarding the changes was studied by multiple logistic regression model, containing in the template, the variables that significantly related independently through Fisher's exact test, Chi-square or estimate of the Odds-Ratio. Reproducibility inter evaluator (analysis of correlation between the judges in relation to voice condition) was held by Kappa test. The female teacher relationship was 85%, with an average age of 42 years, and with more than 16 years of teaching. Working conditions both physical and emotional were regarded as unfavorable, and there was statistically significant association between gender, age group, teaching time, work load, and improper acoustics. Vocal changes were referred to 60% of respondents, being hoarseness the most common symptom (83.5%), and for 48.9% vocal changes is present for more than 4 years. The main causal factor was intensive voice use for 88.4% and stress for 59.8% . A hearing-perceptual voice analysis found that 84.7% of teacher voices were altered, being 56.9% of moderate degree and there was no statistically significant relationship between working conditions. Laryngeal alteration was diagnosed... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)