Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Major Research Papers

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Access status: Open Access ,
Shifting Sibilants: Spectral Sensitivity of the Lombard Effect in L1 English Speakers
(2025-08) Lubanszky, Andrew; Narayan, Chandan
This paper examines the spectral sensitivity of the Lombard Effect in L1 English speakers with respect to sibilant consonants. Though previous literature has examined Lombard Speech produced under various noise conditions, no study to date has examined a ‘second-order’ Lombard effect by eliciting speech under speaker-specific noise designed to approximate a speaker’s typical Lombard Speech—that is, speech already produced under broadband noise conditions. Doing so elucidates possible different manifestations of the Lombard Effect and how such a noise condition might elicit speech which is differentiable from broadband Lombard Speech. Results from spectral analysis indicate a weak-to-moderate sensitivity to the spectral characteristics of noise in the majority of speakers in this study, as demonstrated by adjustments to speech characteristics in both the temporal and frequency domains. Notable changes from broadband to speaker-specific noise include raising of peak frequency, increased segment duration, and decreased skewness. In conjunction, these changes do indeed differentiate speech between noise conditions in those speakers who first demonstrated acoustic changes from quiet to broadband noise conditions. Degree and manner of change in the frequency domain are highly speaker-specific, however, and occasionally segment-specific. These findings may suggest that acoustic augmentations which differentiate the speech signal from tailored noise may be accompanied by articulatory changes meant to increase segment stability. Further work is needed to verify articulatory changes as well as the statistical significance of spectral trends for other measures across different noise conditions.
Access status: Open Access ,
Intertextuality in Castle Rock v. Gonzales: Legal language and the perpetuation of intimate partner violence
(2025-07-28) Lee, Hannah; Angermeyer, Philipp S.
Gender-based violence is a public health crisis in the United States, yet there is a limited response within the legal system (Rosenfeld, 2022). This is particularly clear in certain Supreme Court cases that deny women the right to challenge gender-based violence under federal law. Specifically, the case Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005) determined that victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) have no right to the enforcement of a court issued restraining order even if they live in a state with a law mandating that enforcement. Research on language and the law has examined how language is used to effect power (Conley et al., 2019). With respect to the connection between language and gendered violence in the legal system and the language of court decisions, many researchers have investigated intertextuality in the reproduction of patriarchal ideologies and the construction of legal authority (e.g., Andrus, 2011; Bakhtin, 1981; Conway, 2003; Ehrlich, 2012, 2016; Mertz, 1988). Thus, in the current study I investigate the use of intertextuality in the opinions of the case Castle Rock v. Gonzales to determine if and how language practices perpetuate the lack of response to IPV within the legal system.
Access status: Open Access ,
On the prosody of reported speech in Seoul Korean
(2025-08) Johnston, Makaila; Elfner, Emily
A romantic description of prosody is to call it the melody of speech. Though this is not altogether wrong, a linguistic definition would state that prosody is concerned with the suprasegmental features of languages– with intonational features such as tonal structure, pitch, duration, and intensity (Féry, 2016). Elements such as pitch, tonal structure, and intensity imply that prosody is restricted to spoken languages. This is, in fact, not the case; Sandler et al. (2020) claim that prosody exists in signed languages, signalled through manual or non-manual gestures, such as repetition or duration of a sign. Prosody can be organized into a hierarchical structure, which Féry (2016) defines as “[...] the parsing of continuous speech” into “organized prosodic domains.” Though moras, syllables, and feet are all a part of the prosodic structure (Féry, 2016), these lower-level prosodic constituents are not of interest for the current study. Instead, the interest lies in the higher-level prosodic constituents, namely the phonological phrase and intonational phrase. The role of prosody in speech is multifaceted. It can aid in disambiguating structurally ambiguous strings, indicate different sentence types through pitch contours, indicate prominence, convey direct versus indirect speech acts, and signal turn-taking in conversation (Hirschberg, 2002). It is the communication of direct and indirect speech acts which is the focus of the current study. This paper is concerned with the intonational phonology and prosodic structure of Seoul Korean, specifically with the use of reported speech. There is a structural element in Korean that indicates “quote,” and the interaction of this structural element, or rather morpheme, with intonational elements of the utterance is the focus of this paper. This morpheme (glossed as QUOT below) is illustrated in the examples of indirect and direct reported speech in Korean in (1). (1) a. Indirect speech: yecin ssi-nun cikum ka-ntako haysseyo Yejin HON-TOP now go-QUOT do “Yejin said that she’s going now.” b. Direct speech: yecin ssi-nun cikum ka lako haysseyo Yejin HON-TOP now go QUOT do “Yejin said ‘I’m going now.’” How this structural element may influence the intonational elements, and vice versa, is of great interest. Consequently, this paper is not only concerned with prosody, but the interface between syntax and phonology. My goal is to uncover the extent that prosody is used to convey that a segment of an utterance is a reproduction of speech produced at another time, in another context, by either the current speaker or someone else. In the context of Korean, how will a structural element, the quotative morpheme, influence the use of reported speech prosody? It seems likely that the presence of what could be considered a structural “unquote” (indicating the end of the reported speech) within the utterance would reduce the need for the speaker to use other tools, such as prosody, to inform the listener that what they’re hearing is a quotation. A description of the prosody of reported speech in Korean may provide insight into how prosodic elements interact with syntax, and how prosody may be used in disambiguating not a syntactically ambiguous structure, but rather a disembodied element of a conversation, attributed to another time (and potentially another speaker).
Access status: Open Access ,
Investigation into Mauritian Creole Plosives
(2025) Hutchcraft, Mikhail; Kettig, Thomas
This experiment assesses plosive voice onset time (VOT) and constriction duration, and following vowel F0 (fundamental frequency), in Mauritian Creole. Existing studies on Mauritian Creole have not documented these metrics. This experiment involved recording speakers of Mauritian Creole living in Canada, processing the recordings in Praat (Boersma and Weenink, 2025), calculating the averages of the results, then tabulating and comparing the averages. The results generally indicate that VOT is negative for voiced plosives and positive for voiceless plosives, that constriction duration is shorter for voiced plosives than for voiced ones, and voicelessness is correlated with raising of F0 in the following vowel, as in the lexifier, French. In word-medial position, these cues may be neutralized effects on these phonetic metrics. The data lend support to existing theories about voicing effects on F0.
Access status: Open Access ,
The Avestan Xvarənah-: A Chronology of Proposed Origins and Meanings of the Pan-Iranian Concept
(2025-08) Graham, Jacob; Narayan, Chandan
The origins and meanings of the mysterious Avestan xvarənah- have captured the minds of Iranicist scholars for many years. Though commonly defined as ‘glory, splendour’ by those interested in translating the content of the Avesta, the primary meaning of xvarənah- has been thoroughly debated. This paper chronologically outlines significant claims regarding the etymological development of xvarənah-, the evidence provided for and against them, and the methods the researchers used to develop their theories. This paper also highlights doubts scholars have had toward xvarənah- as a word originating in Avestan. Av. xvarənah- does not adhere to Avestan sound changes brought on by the RUKI sound law of the satem Indo-European languages. The identification of xvarənah- as an outlier in Avestan phonological rules illustrates the potential for xvarənah- to have be considered a loan word adapted into Avestan some time after the split of the common Proto-Iranian language. Both linguistic and historical evidence will be drawn upon to demonstrate not only potential primary meanings but the relation Avestan xvarənah- has to the way in which its cognates are used across various other Iranian cultures as well as the ties it has as a religious concept to those described in the Vedic texts of the early Aryan peoples of India.
Access status: Open Access ,
A Critical Discourse Analysis of Nigerian Women's Suicide Notes as a Lens on Gender Ideology
(2025) Ejiaso, Vivian Kaosisochukwu; Angermeyer, Philipp S.
Suicide notes offer a window into the emotional, psychological and social worlds of suicide note writers. Initial linguistic studies on suicide notes have focused on analysing the genuineness of written suicide notes against fabricated or simulated ones (see e.g. Tan 2011, Harris et al. 2024). These studies on suicide notes approached their investigation from a forensic perspective where the findings could be used as evidence in court to make claims about authorship. However, more recent studies on suicide notes have transcended only studying for the authenticity to analysing intricacies about the lives of suicide note writers (e.g. Sanni 2021, 2022, 2024; Tanusy 2022). Some studies connect their findings to the general social practices that exist where the suicide decedents originated or lived (Sanni, 2021). The study of suicide notes exists in Nigeria. Researchers including Ugwu and Nnamani (2022), Nnorom (2019), and Sanni (2021), for example, have contributed to the linguistic enquiries on suicide notes in Nigeria. Nigeria is a patriarchal society that enables male dominance and women’s subjugation or relegation to the background (see for example Airaoje et al. 2023; Ejiaso 2024; Santaemilia and Maruenda 2014). The Nigerian society is a place where gender roles, ideologies and expectations are deeply rooted in cultural and political frameworks. Thus, suicide notes by women can reveal not only the personal despair but also the weight of gendered or social ideologies they bore. This current study explores linguistic features in Nigerian women’s suicide notes to investigate how Nigerian women who died by suicide (or even survived suicide1.) represent themselves and others in their notes, as well as represent the gendered or social expectations including ideologies. By examining these final messages or notes, this current study seeks to unravel how ideologies of family duty, social and gender expectations are pronounced, projected or resisted.
Access status: Open Access ,
A Linguistic Analysis of Trash Talk Using Examples from the Ultimate Fighting Championship
(2025-08-13) Brooks, Jill; Angermeyer, Philipp S.
This paper aims to provide a linguistic analysis of trash talk based on the sociolinguistic theories of face, politeness, and impoliteness. Experiences in martial arts environments and a love of sociolinguistics inspired me to explore language, gender, and sports more closely. Martial arts, specifically mixed martial arts (MMA), is the selected sport not only for personal reasons but also because it exemplifies that which sport is so often associated with - masculinity and machismo. In the world of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) this machismo is partly indexed through the use of trash talk. After proposing a linguistic definition of trash talk, examples from UFC athletes Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor will be analyzed. These particular speakers were chosen due to their high level of success within UFC as well as being well-known for their trash talk. Their examples will be analyzed in terms of strategies used, whether they are within the bounds of acceptable impoliteness and are acceptably entertaining (based on an analysis of YouTube comments), and whether they involve practices that focus on making the speaker look good (“self-elevating”) or making the opponent look bad (“other-lowering”). The next level of analysis concerns audience reception to the use of trash talk by the speakers. Comments from YouTube videos will be analyzed as a means to access their attitude toward the trash talk of the speakers. They may also provide insight into language ideologies around gender in a hyper-focused and intensely masculine environment, as the audience reactions.
Access status: Open Access ,
Language Attitudes of the Mongolian Diaspora in Canada
(2024) Ganbaatar, Minjee; Kettig, Thomas; Hoffman, Michol F.
The Mongolian diaspora in Canada is relatively recent with the majority of migration occurring after the implementation of the 2001 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Previous research on minority languages and dominant languages among immigrant communities demonstrates complex relationships between language attitudes and identity formation (Canagarajah, 2013; Lustanski, 2009). However, while studies exist on various immigrant communities' language attitudes in Canada, the Mongolian diaspora's linguistic dynamics remain unexplored. This study investigates the effects of age, residency duration, and socio-economic factors on language attitudes among Mongolian Canadians, examining how these variables influence the construction of their identity in various social settings. The study uses quantitative analysis of survey data collected from 30 first-generation Mongolian immigrants in Canada, representing 2% of the total Mongolian diaspora population. The survey examines language attitudes across multiple domains: social solidarity, occupation, education, media consumption, and domain-specific usage. For example, the data reveals a clear pattern where older immigrants maintain stronger connections to their heritage language, particularly in home and social settings, while younger immigrants prefer English (see Table 6.1). Results reveal three key findings: First, the participants exhibit what Fishman (1977) terms "folk bilingualism," where the Mongolian language exists alongside English as a minority language with lower social status but a strong cultural connection. Second, unlike Polish-Canadians studied by Lustanski (2009), who view their mother tongue as less critical when not threatened in their homeland, Mongolian-Canadians maintain a strong attachment to their mother tongue despite its minority status. Third, similar to Canagarajah's (2013) findings with Tamil families, Mongolian-Canadians demonstrate fluid identity construction, with 43% of families using both languages in parent-child communication, as well as 54% of them reporting using both languages with friends.
Access status: Open Access ,
Wh-movement in British Sign Language
(2024-08-07) Williams, Britton; Alboiu, Gabriela; Avery, Peter
British Sign Language (BSL) is the language of the D/deaf community of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland (UK)1. BSL serves as the language of a thriving, vibrant D/deaf culture in the UK, in which it is used in the same range of genres as any other natural language; in formal settings, day-to-day conversations, the arts, and so on. BSL enjoys a high degree of institutional support, and there are a number of entities which encourage the language’s continued use (Deuchar, 1984: 33-45); it is estimated that between 80 000 and 100 000 D/deaf people use BSL in England alone (Rogers et al., 2018: 2). The linguistic study of BSL began in the late 1970s, when prominent researchers such as James Kyle, Bencie Woll and Margret Deuchar described aspects of BSL syntax and phonology previously unrecorded. These efforts were initially to augment education opportunities for D/deaf individuals in the UK (Woll et al., 1981: 105), though BSL linguistics would eventually become an independent area of study, spearheaded by those first researchers, and later prominent linguists such as Rachel Sutton-Spence. Contemporary BSL linguists have established themselves at the forefront of sign language research and documentation: one of the most impressive achievements in sign language documentation, the British Sign Language Corpus Project (BSLCP), aims to document and transcribe various aspects of BSL linguistic variation. The team behind the BSLCP is composed of Kearsy Cormier, Adam Schembri, Jordan Fenlon, Gabrielle Hodge, Sannah Gulamani, Neil Fox, Heidi Procto, and Matt Brown. Following in the footsteps of these researchers, this project describes aspects of wh-movement in BSL. As is to be seen, wh-movement is a particularly controversial facet of sign language syntax; my objective in the analysis of BSL wh-movement is to determine whether it may provide further insight into key points of interest discussed in recent sign language literature, as well as describe some of its features.
Access status: Open Access ,
Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the Normalization of Norman
(2024) Terveen, Isaiah
Shakespeare’s plays have been widely praised by critics, and endure in the popular consciousness to this day. Although all of his works were written at least 500 years after the Norman invasion, his language, as well as our Modern English, includes vocabulary that was introduced to English through the Norman conquest. In our modern speech, words that have Norman origin such as “famous”, “error”, and “deliver” are fully integrated into the language along with words of native Germanic origin, and using them does not convey an aristocratic background. However, these words must have been novel in the language at some point. The first writers of Middle English literature must have encountered at least mild confusion from readers who encountered newly-borrowed Norman vocabulary for the first time, or perhaps it carried an air of sophistication. In fact, it was often the practice that a Norman legal term would be glossed with an Anglo-Saxon equivalent to help reading comprehension (Mellinkoff 1963:120). Although this novelty in usage has faded with the passage of time, it is still possible that the novelty of Norman vocabulary was present in the dialogue of an Early Modern English work, such as William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This leads us to our research question for the paper; in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, how can we see the diffusion of vocabulary inherited from the Norman conquest of England in the text of Shakespeare’s Hamlet? Is there a difference in the usage of Norman and Non-Norman vocabulary by characters? And how do characters of different social backgrounds use English words of Norman origin differently, if there are identifiable differences in their speech at all? The specific impact of the 1066 Norman Invasion of England has been an underrated influence on Hamlet’s linguistic identity. In this paper, I will argue that the overthrow of the Old Anglo-Saxon order of England by Norman French speakers led by William the Conqueror had far-reaching linguistic consequences on English that had fully taken root among the common English of Williams Shakespeare’s Hamlet, to the point that overall rates of the relative usage of Norman-origin vocabulary no were no longer treated as a marker of social meaning. By that I mean, a person or literary character using a Norman word rather than a Germanic one no longer had a clear correlation with their social standing, which can be demonstrated in the text of Hamlet by providing examples of simultaneous use of Germanic and Norman words with the same or similar meaning, such as “carry” and “bear”. In this paper, I will first provide historical context to the languages of Old English and Norman French in anticipation of their contact and conflict. Then I will draw on existing scholarship on language contact and borrowing between the two languages, and summarize the current state of research of Shakespeare’s language and vocabulary. In the following two sections, I will present the data I have collected on the vocabulary of Hamlet, the methods I intend to use to analyze it, and the results of that same analysis. The paper will conclude with remarks on the findings of the data analysis, and will present my conclusions on the ultimate impact of Norman French on Hamlet.
Access status: Open Access ,
Second Language Acquisition of Stress Patterns: A Study on the Effects of L1 Tamil Transfer on L2 English
(2024-08) Srithayananthan, Geettana; Smeets, Liz; Elfner, Emily
Linguistic studies have observed that during second language acquisition (SLA), L2 learners tend to produce non-target like structures, resembling grammars/patterns of the learner’s L1. Schwartz and Sprouse (1996) have accounted for these observations by proposing the Full Transfer Full Access Hypothesis. This hypothesis assumes that the initial state of L2 acquisition is the L1 grammar (Full Transfer). When L2 input data cannot be assigned to L1 representations, this will force re-structuring and L2 learners will have access to the same properties of Universal Grammar that were available to them during L1 acquisition (Full Access) and therefore target-like acquisition should be possible. This study looked at the L2 acquisition of English stress patterns by L1 Tamil speakers. While English stress patterns can be predicted to some extent by rules that rely on syllable weight, Tamil has fixed stress, occurring in word-initial position. This study examined whether L1 Tamil transfer effects are observed during the acquisition of stress patterns in English and whether these effects weakened as proficiency and exposure to the L2 input data increased. The study consisted of three tasks. In Task 1, participants were asked to read aloud a list of real words in English, while in Task 2, the list consisted of pseudowords. For Task 3, participants were given two pronunciations of pseudowords, with either penultimate and antepenultimate stress, and asked to choose their preferred stress placement. All target words were tri-syllabic. The study was piloted with 13 native English speakers (control group) to account for any variability across the target words. The study then tested 14 L1 Tamil L2 English speakers, with differing levels of English proficiency – beginner, intermediate and advanced. When the results of the L2 learners were compared to the native speakers, an effect of L1 Tamil transfer was found, as L2 learners predicted stress as expected for APU words (with stress on the word-initial syllable) but not for PU words (where the second syllable was stressed) and therefore preferred word initial stress on all words. Furthermore, results showed that within the L2 groups, there was an effect of proficiency – advanced L2 learners performed most target-like, followed by intermediate and beginner speakers. These results were in line with the Full Transfer Full Access Hypothesis, showing that while effects of L1 transfer are stronger during earlier stages of proficiency, this effect weakens, and target-like performance is possible with increased proficiency and exposure to the L2 input.
Access status: Open Access ,
Analysis of Korean Word-Initial Stops: A Phonetic Study on Non-Native Speakers of Korean
(2024) Fraser, Corey; Narayan, Chandan
The present study is focused on analyzing the non-native production of the Korean three-way laryngeal contrast, particularly within the context of Korean plosives. The central aim is to investigate how non-native speakers produce this novel three-way distinction, in line with established studies such as those conducted by Chang (2009) and Seo et al., (2020). These studies have identified notable variation in how L2 learners realize this phonemic distinction, revealing that non-native speakers often exhibit diverse phonetic realizations. This research seeks 12 to expand upon these findings by providing a more nuanced understanding of these variations, particularly in relation to the phonetic cues used by non-native speakers. Furthermore, the study aims to explore the effects of proficiency on the production of the three-way laryngeal contrast. Building on the work of Ryu (2017), which demonstrated that L2 learners with higher proficiency levels in Korean are better able to perceive distinct phonemes compared to less proficient learners, this study will further investigate how proficiency influences production accuracy and the ability to achieve the novel three-way distinction. By examining these proficiency effects, the research intends to contribute valuable insights into how varying levels of language proficiency impact the acquisition of complex phonemic contrasts.
Access status: Open Access ,
Power Dynamics in Police Interviews: A Comparison Between Witness and Suspect Interviews in Canada
(2024-08-29) Choi, Yan Kiu Desiree; Angermeyer, Philipp
Interviewing is a critical component in police investigation and the judicial process. As a type of institutional discourse, police interviews are asymmetrical talks, in which participants are expected to speak and act within their own institutional and discursive role (Thornborrow 2002). In general, the interviewers have more power to influence and control the interaction through different discursive practices (Fairclough 1989; Thornborrow 2002), such as the selection of topics, the choice of question types, including questioning sequences, and the overall control of the duration of talk by other participants. However, it is not uncommon to see resistance from the interviewees too. There are typically two types of police interviews: interviews of suspects and interviews of victims or witnesses. Despite the different goals and purposes, studies have shown that suspect and witness interviews in Canada share similar features, such as the dominance of the interviewers, reliance on closed-ended questions and frequent interruptions from the interviewers to name a few. These practices raise concerns as they can contaminate interviewees' memory and may lead to false confessions (Snook et al. 2012; King & Snook 2009; Wright & Alison 2004). With limited studies focusing on victim or witness interviews, the resistance strategies of interviewees and, more generally, police interviews in Canada, this major research paper explores power constructions and resistance in interviews of suspects and witnesses in Canada through a high-profile murder case. Section 2 discusses some relevant literature related to the theoretical frameworks and police interviews in Canada and defines some key concepts. Section 3 introduces the data and the data collection, transcription and coding process. Section 4 focuses on the analysis of individual interviews, with excerpts from the data. Section 5 compares the discursive features across interviews. Finally, Section 6 summarizes the findings and briefly discusses the limitations and future research ideas.
Access status: Open Access ,
Language and Identity: Perceptions and Ideologies of Calabrese in Toronto
(2023-08) McGunnigle, Liam; Hoffman, Michol
The Calabrese community of Toronto is one of the most robustly represented regional groups within the Italian diasporic community in Toronto and the GTA from its origins in the early to mid-20th century (Hagan & Rando 2007; Sinopoli 2003). Despite the size of the community, the Calabrese variety has been falling out of usage as the community shifts from multilingualism to English monolingualism across generations. It is crucial to study such speech communities as language loss becomes a potential reality (Nagy 2017). This paper is concerned with the relationship between language and identity as it pertains to the language attitudes of Italian-Canadians. Throughout this paper, I will address questions centralizing the linguistic features which index a Calabrese identity, the ways in which these markers serve to differentiate regional groups of Italians, and the interaction between language ideologies and attitudes towards regional groups. By addressing such questions, I aim to develop a deeper understanding of the community and their perception of regional language variation. In doing so, I will be contributing to ongoing documentation of regional varieties of Italian that are falling out of usage in the diasporic setting.
Access status: Open Access ,
Dingxi Mandarin /n/-/l/ Merger and its Transfer to L2 English
(2023-07) Jin, Dawei; Narayan, Chandan
In Dingxi, a remote place in Gansu province of China, the alveolar nasal /n/ and the lateral /l/ merge in the local Mandarin dialect. The author, born and raised in Dingxi, observes that himself and local people have difficulties in producing English words with syllable-initial [n-], e.g., Nike, nice, neighbor, noodle, national etc. Similar /n/-/l/ merger is attested in a variety of Mandarin dialects (Sichuan, Hubei, Yunnan, Shanxi, Shandong), as well as in Cantonese, South Min, and other Chinese languages. Literature on the Cantonese /n/-/l/ merger appears in English and some Chinese literature addresses the same phenomenon in Mandarin as well as its transfer to L2 English. This paper deals primarily the nasality of [n/l]-initial words in Dingxi Mandarin and L2 English using acoustic cues (F2-F1, A1P0, F3, BW1, DeltaA1, Relative RMS), and investigates the realization of the /n/-/l/ merger in various phonological environment in both Dingxi Mandarin and L2 English. To preview the results, both the acoustic and phonological analysis confirm that the /n/-/l/ merger in Dingxi Mandarin transfers to L2 English. Importantly, I introduce a velum coarticulation hypothesis that explains these phenomena-- from the reduced nasality of alveolar nasal in Dingxi Mandarin, to the reversed F2-F1 pattern in Dingxi Xi rhymes [i y] comparing with native English speakers, and to the convergence of the F2-F1 value of /n/ and /l/ in Hon rhymes [a o e u]. I also show that the nasality measurement illustrates a convergence of /n/ and /l/ to an acoustic realization that lies between /n/ and /l/, a phenomenon that has not been described previously.
Access status: Open Access ,
'Ovary Motional': Constructing Gender and Identity in Roller Derby Names
(2023-08) Hambleton, Sophie; King, Ruth
The present work is concerned with roller derby, long considered a socially transgressive sport. It began with sports promoter Leo Seltzer’s marathon on roller skates, which took place in Chicago, Illinois in 1935 (Gieseler, 2014). Seltzer sought ways to make his marathon less repetitive than the participants simply doing laps, and began to add elements of both show business and contact sport, which drew in large crowds. In a 1971 interview with the New York Times, Seltzer described the basic appeal of roller derby as ‘noise, colour, body contact’ (Harlan, 2019, p.1).
Access status: Open Access ,
The Perception of Mixed Utterances by Jamaican Bilinguals
(2023-08) Gooden, Amanda C.; Angermeyer, Philipp
Language in Jamaica is marked by high variation (Patrick, 2004 as cited in Kennedy, 2017) among speakers across all linguistic contexts (Christie, 2003). This is caused by two broad factors: firstly, by the varying linguistic repertoires among speakers, with some speakers being dominant Jamaican Creole (JC) speakers, some dominant Standard Jamaican English speakers (SJE), and some balanced bilinguals (Kennedy, 2017) and secondly, by the blurred boundary between English, the language brought to the island by British colonizers in 1655, and Jamaican Creole, the de facto National language of the country and language of the majority (Farquharson, 2013), whose genesis is attributed to language contact between speakers of English and various African languages during the period of colonization in the country. Because of the relationship between these languages in their structure and usage, they are proposed to exist on a continuum, with forms closer to Jamaican Creole being basilectal forms at one end and forms closer to Mainstream English being acrolectal forms on the other end (DeCamp, 1971). These however, are idealized forms, as most speech lies between poles, and speech found here are called mesolectal forms. These forms are likely the result of language mixing that has been present since the creation of JC (Patrick, 2013) and continued contact between JC and its lexifier, SJE. The purpose of this research project is to determine how Jamaican speakers process linguistic forms that do not neatly belong to either language by observing where they judge linguistic utterances to belong on a visual depiction of the proposed language continuum. The placement of these utterances by participants of this study will be tested against two social variables: the geographical location of speakers and their language attitudes. The first variable will be tested by including speech perception by Jamaicans living in the island and those living in the diaspora, namely various cities in Canada and the United States of America. The second variable will be tested by asking participants about their attitudes towards language use in Jamaican contexts, specifically JC that has held an inferior social status to SJE in Jamaica, because of its perception as a broken variety of English (Kouwenberg et al., 2011), associated with poverty and a lack of education (Christie, 2003).
Access status: Open Access ,
The Effects of Comparative Explicit Instruction on Gender Marking of Possessive Adjectives and Pronouns
(2023-08) Beatrice, Cindy; Smeets, Liz
Learners acquiring a second language can receive input about the L2 grammar in a natural environment, and/or through explicit instruction (EI). The latter is quite common among adult L2 learners, but how necessary or useful EI is, is still an open debate. As argued by Henry, Culman, and VanPatten (2009) “not all EI is the same, not all structures are the same, and the interaction of EI, structure, and processing problems may yield different results in different studies”. Explicit instruction has been argued to be particularly beneficial for grammatical phenomena where learners continue to perform non-target like (Izquierdo & Collins, 2008; McManus, 2013; and more). The current research investigates the effects of explicit instruction on a linguistic phenomenon that has been shown to be problematic also for more advanced learners, namely gender marking on possessive pronouns and adjectives. Specifically, we compare instruction in the L2 only to a comparative approach where instruction is provided in both the L1 and L2. In this thesis, chapter one focuses on existing literature and past studies relevant to the current research, such as the generative approach to second language acquisition (SLA), L1 transfer in SLA, and theories about explicit instruction and comparative explicit instruction. Chapter two explains the focus of the research, with an outline of the topic of this study, an explanation of how possessive adjectives and pronouns work in English, and how their counterparts work in Spanish and Italian, and a presentation of previous research on this topic. Chapter three presents the research questions, methods, tasks, and participant descriptions. The results of each test are presented in chapter four, with an explanation of the two types of instructions the groups received, as well as the analysis of the final results. Finally, the conclusion is followed by the appendix with the tasks and a complete bibliography of works cited.
Access status: Open Access ,
Recontextualization of Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Textual Trajectories and Meaning in Social Media Posts about Roe v Wade
(2022-08) Michels, Victoria R.; Ehrlich, Susan L.
In this exploratory study, I investigate how Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s texts about the Roe v. Wade case are recontextualized into news and social media discourse on abortion following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Using Critical Discourse Analysis with data collected from Twitter and American news media outlets, I consider the trajectories and meanings of Ginsburg’s texts when they are recontextualized into new discursive contexts. My analysis found that both pro-choice and anti-abortion discourse recontextualize her texts, focusing on different aspects to support one of the two positions on abortion. I conclude that the trajectory of Ginsburg’s texts into pro-choice discourse may contribute to gender empowerment by referencing Ginsburg’s advocacy for individual autonomy and choice for women whereas the trajectory into anti-abortion discourse may perpetuate gender inequality by focusing on state rights and her criticisms of the decision while diminishing her support of choice and autonomy.
Access status: Open Access ,
A Minimalist Review of Current Theories on Japanese Passivisation
(2022-08) Langstroth, Zachary; Alboiu, Gabriela
The Japanese passive voice has presented challenges to a universal theory of passivisation as a process where an internal argument, usually the direct object, is promoted to the subject position. A subset of Japanese passives called “indirect” passives appear to increase the valence of their predicate, containing an additional argument, occupying the subject position, when compared to corresponding active sentences. This has led to some controversy in research assuming specific structures for such sentences, with some researchers arguing that the passive morpheme in indirect passives is merely homophonous with a counterpart in more traditional passives, while some argue that Japanese has no true passive voice. Recently, some arguments have been made that the subjects of these indirect passives in fact do have active sources which are obscured by general facts of movement in Japanese, i.e. that post-nominal elements are never left stranded. This text is intended as a critical review of prior research on the Japanese passive under current Minimalist understandings of syntactic theory. To that end, three prominent schools of thought on Japanese passive formation are examined: Non-uniform analyses, which posit two homophonous passive morphemes used in different constructions; Uniform analyses, which claim that Japanese has no true indigenous passive voice; and the recent unified passive analysis put forth by Ishizuka (2012), which posits that instances of increased valence in certain passives are in fact derived in a similar manner to English pseudo-passives, where a non-core argument is promoted to the subject position. These theories will be compared in how well they comply with given data, as well as their tenability under syntactic assumptions made in current Minimalist Program-based theory.

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