Browsing by Subject "Discourse"
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Item Authoritative discourse in the middle school mathematics classroom: a case study(Texas A&M University, 2005-11-01) Harbaugh, Adam PaulAccording to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standard of communication, ??Instructional programs from pre-kindergarten through grade 12 should enable all students to...communicate their mathematical thinking coherently and clearly to peers, teachers, and others?? and students need to learn ??what is acceptable as evidence in mathematics?? (NCTM, 2000, p. 60). But do teachers have a clear understanding of what is acceptable or do they believe that the only acceptable explanations are the ones that they themselves gave to the students? Can teachers accept alternative forms of explanation and methods of solution as mathematically accurate or do they want students to simply restate the teachers?? understandings of mathematics and the problem? The focus of this dissertation is the authoritative discourse practices of classroom teachers as they relate to individual students and large and small groups of students. In this case study, I examine the interactions in one eighth-grade mathematics classroom and the possible sharing of mathematical authority and development of mathematical agency that take place via the teacher??s uses of authoritative discourse. A guiding objective of this research was to examine the ways a teacher??s discursive practices were aligned with her pedagogical intentions. The teacher for this study was an experienced eighth-grade mathematics teacher at a rural Central Texas middle school. The teacher was a participant in the Middle School Mathematics Project at Texas A&M University. Results of an analysis of the discourse of six selected classes were combined with interview and observation data and curriculum materials to inform the research questions. I found that through the teacher??s regular use of authoritative discursive devices, mathematical authority was infrequently shared. Also the teacher??s uses of authoritative discourse helped create an environment where mathematical agency was not encouraged or supported. The teacher??s use of various discursive devices helped establish and maintain a hierarchy of mathematical authority with students at the lowest level reliant on others for various mathematical decisions.Item Commenting on "quality" : an analysis of 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation and Parenthood as socially constructed tenants of the “quality tv” discourse(2012-05) Shelton, Brittany Lee; Kearney, Mary Celeste, 1962-; Kackman, MichaelIn order to better understand how viewers, critics, journalists and series producers help shape the “quality TV” discourse and position shows within it, this project uses case studies of 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation and Parenthood to dissect how style, narrative and paratexts influence public discourse about “quality” programs both in print and on the Internet. Using Kristen Marthe Lentz’s theories on “quality TV” and “relevance programming,” I examine how each show uses a cinematic style in combination with various strategies such as special episodes, narrative complexity, intertextuality, patriarchal narrative and feminism to align themselves with other “quality” series more readily found on basic and pay-cable, while also allowing viewers and critics on popular culture sites like the A.V. Club to make “quality” comparisons.Item Conflict mediation discourse examined through a Girardian lens : weapons and wounds in conflict talk(2012-05) Green, Erik William; Maxwell, Madeline M.; Browning, Larry D.; Dailey, Rene M.; Vangelisti, Anita L.; Richardson, Frank C.Mediation promises a way for conflicting parties to address differences and reach an agreement to settle their dispute. This study looks at mediation discourse of five cases from a university conflict resolution center through the lens of Girard’s (1977) theory of mimetic desire. Girard (1977) suggests that we are all in a pattern of mimesis. Antagonism that is prevalent in conflict develops, in Girard’s view, from the cycle of desire when one person wants an object and another person copies that desire for the object. The two parties quickly forget the object, but antagonism emerges as the mimetic desire continues. Girard argues parties have a tendency to place blame on a scapegoat to break the antagonism pattern. Alternatively, in her application of Girard’s theory, Cobb (1997, 2003, 2010a, 2010b) advocates a social constructionist perspective where disputants work on turning thin conflict stories into thicker ones to break the pattern. This project addresses a need for research on cycles of antagonism in discourse constructed by disputants during real mediation sessions. Knowing how disputants construct discourse lends insight into how people handle their most challenging interpersonal problems. The analysis of discourse through the guiding frameworks of conflict tactics, production format, and tenor of discourse sheds light on how disputants construct perpetuated mimicked antagonism and how they break the pattern. Additionally, findings highlight the emergence of weapons and wounds in the discourse suggesting that communicative violence is constructed whether or not there was actual physical violence. Components of thin conflict narratives are evident in findings from all five cases. Yet, while two cases are characterized by discourse of perpetuated mimicked antagonism, three represent a break in that pattern without placing blame on a scapegoat or constructing a thicker conflict narrative. The distinctions between a perpetuated and broken cycle are unpacked through the discussion of: a) animator-only position; b) indirectness and presumptive attribution; and c) shift in footing between talking to the other disputant and the mediators. This project provides a more nuanced understanding of the Girardian perspective relating to conflict mediation to contribute to the extant literature on conflict discourse and mediation practice.Item County hospital : remembering and place-making in Chicago(2009-12) Buckun, Ann Louise; Stross, BrianThrough diachronic examination of communicative acts, this dissertation explores intertwined processes of social memory, remembering, forgetting and place-making that have involved the former Cook County Hospital, located in Chicago, Illinois. With emphasis on narratives, nomination practices, and social contexts, this project illuminates and examines discourse conveyed during three 'moments' of material rupture and transformation of the Cook County Hospital facilities. A central perspective of this dissertation is that discourse articulated during these 'moments' reveals social remembering and memory with regard to place-making involving the former hospital and Main Building, as well as evidences social forgetting occurring between the years 1873 to 2007. For purposes of this project, three 'moments' of material transformation are regarded as bracketed by the years 1873 through 1876, the years 1910 through 1914, and the year 2002 through a year that is, as of yet, undetermined. These 'moments' were identified through examination of articulation and recoding of labels that could be regarded more informal than official for the county hospital facilities. This project illuminates the importance and complexity of naming in place-making processes, and the necessity of diachronic approaches to exploring social remembering and forgetting relevant to place. In highlighting the fluidity of social remembering, this dissertation emphasizes value of making primary source materials accessible in public domain, for future generations. Further illuminated is the value of newsprint as channels of mass communication through which aspects of social remembering, forgetting, and place-making can be investigated. Whether to demolish or re-use the now vacant Main Building became an issue of public contestation in 2002. This project was inspired, in part, by contestation concerning the proposed demolition, by senses of the city, and by the diverse and proliferating interdisciplinary ‘corpus’ of scholarship that articulates notions of social memory, remembering, and forgetting.Item Digital intifada : a discourse analysis of the Palestine solidarity groups in social media(2016-08) Almahmoud, Meshaal Abdullah; Atkinson, Lucinda; Love, BradfordThis thesis investigates the discourse adopted by Palestine solidarity groups utilizing Facebook. Three pro-Palestine groups were highlighted as a case study for this thesis: Palestine Solidarity Campaign, International Solidarity Movement and Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement. The research questions address the methods of discourse Palestinian solidarity groups' employ, utilization of different contents and themes, level of engagement, selection of format, news resources, and impact of 2014 Gaza war. This study analyzes variations among the three groups and components influencing differentiations. The literature review highlights transformation in both individual and collective communication and social media's changing social and political structures. Research includes the usage of social media to frame social movements’ platform and social media benefits for collective action and how framing is achieved and collective identity developed. Lastly, it illuminates the trend of connective action and personalization. The discourse analysis approach was applied to investigate the set of selected Facebook posts in 2014. The results show that the three solidarity groups generally applied resource mobilization theory. Posts reporting some form of a violation contained the most correlating content. Human rights theme rose to the majority of the total number of posts. The most used contents in the posts aim for audience sympathy, responsibility and being connected, as for a shared pursuit to occur. Reporting a violation, the most used content, triggers sympathy. Responsibility is motivated by calling followers for action, which is the second most used content by all groups. Reporting news as applied to many types of top used contents, resulted in the group member's feeling connected. The total average engagement for the three groups multiplied highly during the war in Gaza, but sank considerably after termination of the war. However, the average engagement subsequent to the war remains markedly higher than pre-war levels. The patterns of posting revealed tendencies not to post only text, without attaching another format. Posts with links or photo account for a higher proportion. The majority of the three solidarity groups' news resources come from five pro-Palestinian major news websites. Yet, numerous international sources, either mainstream or independent media, were utilized as well.Item Discourse and identity in Guatemala: imaginaries of indigeneity and Luis de Lión’s decolonial grito/llanto(2015-05) Olen, Amy Therese; Arias, Arturo, 1950-; Del Valle Escalante, Emilio; Carcamo-Huechante, Luis; Romero, Sergio; Speed, ShannonThis dissertation examines Guatemalan discourses of identity and indigeneity from the colonial period to the mid-1980s. Through the theoretical lens of the coloniality of power and by means of a genealogical approach to discourse, I argue that Maya Guatemalan writer Luis de Lión’s (1939-1984) literary project decolonizes Guatemalan discursivities regarding Mayas in the nation. His work does so by problematizing the violence of the social myths and discursive “truths” about indigeneity circulating in Guatemalan society and literature, such as the “glorious Indian of the past” and the “miserable Indian of the present” binary. Additionally, Luis de Lión’s literary work articulates a discursive, emancipatory decolonial project for Mayas in the nation that moves beyond “clasista” and “culturalista” approaches to Guatemalan revolution during the armed conflict period by underlining both the coloniality of spirituality and gender racializing Indigenous subjectivities. I begin with an analysis of the political conceptualizations and policy debates regarding national identity and Mayas’ place within it from Criollo, Ladino (mixed Spanish-Indigenous), and Maya perspectives to evidence the construction and contestation of the notion of Mayas in the nation as a “problem”. Next, I trace how the social myths of indigeneity developed in the political sphere are articulated in literature from the colonial period to the mid-20th century in order to understand how literary discourses normalize social myths into imaginaries asserting discursive “truths” about Mayas. Finally, I consider a sample of Luis de Lión’s narrative production to argue that his work commences a veritable decolonial turn in Guatemalan discourses of Indigenous identity through the creation of a counter-discourse complicating the racial and gendered framing of Mayas in the nation, what I call his decolonial “grito/llanto”. I further evidence the different, “other” versions of Maya identity de Lión offers in his “rewriting” of a Maya cosmovision and his intertextual plays with the Popol Wuj, the Maya classical book. For his contestation of “truths” of indigeneity, de Lión’s work emerges as a complex, multifaceted, discursive emancipatory project for Mayas in Guatemalan textualities.Item Discourse forms and social categorization in Cha'palaa(2010-05) Floyd, Simeon Isaac; Epps, Patience, 1973-; Sherzer, Joel; Hale, Charles R.; Pierre, Jemima; England, NoraThis dissertation is an ethnographic study of race and other forms of social categorization as approached through the discourse of the indigenous Chachi people of northwestern lowland Ecuador and their Afro-descendant neighbors. It combines the ethnographic methods of social anthropology with the methods of descriptive linguistics, letting social questions about racial formation guide linguistic inquiry. It provides new information about the largely unstudied indigenous South American language Cha’palaa, and connects that information about linguistic form to problems of the study of race and ethnicity in Latin America. Individual descriptive chapters address how the Cha’palaa number system is based on collectivity rather than plurality according to an animacy hierarchy that codes only human and human-like social collectivities, how a nominal set of ethnonyms linked to Chachi oral history become the recipients of collective marking as human collectivities, how those collectivities are co-referentially linked to speech participants through the deployment of the pronominal system, and how the multi-modal resource of gesture adds to these rich resources supplied by the spoken language for the expression of social realities like race. The final chapters address Chachi and Afro-descendant discourses in dialogue with each other and examine naturally occurring speech data to show how the linguistic forms described in previous chapters are used in social interaction. The central argument advances a position that takes the socially constructed status of race seriously and considers that for such constructions to exist as more abstract macro-categories they must be constituted by instances of social interaction, where elements of the social order are observable at the micro-level. In this way localized articulations of social categories become vehicles for the broader circulation of discourses structured by a history of racialized social inequality, revealing the extreme depth of racialization in human social conditioning. This dissertation represents a contribution to the field of linguistic anthropology as well as to descriptive linguistics of South American languages and to critical approaches to race and ethnicity in Latin America.Item Discourse, social cohesion and the politics of historical memory in the Ixhil Maya region of Guatemala(2012-05) García, María Luz; England, Nora C.; Sherzer, Joel F.; Hale, Charles R.; Strong, Pauline; Epps, PatienceThis dissertation will examine the speech practices of collectives of Ixhil Mayas in post-war Guatemala. Specifically I analyze the way that historical memory of the recent period of violence, which culminated in genocide in the 1980s, is encoded in Ixhil ways of speaking and constitutes social action among Ixhil collectives. I propose an ethnographically situated framework within which to consider Ixhil historical memory which includes Ixhil concern for relationships with the dead, proper treatment of cornfields, innovations on community practices that were threatened during the war, and discourses about the injustice of an unarmed population confronted with armed soldiers of the government of Guatemala. Such a framework critiques views that see historic memory as externally imposed or as a manifestation of trauma and brokenness. Rather, the framework I offer allows us to see how discourses of historical memory make use of the resources of the Ixhil language and the conventions of various Ixhil ways of speaking in order to continue to constitute Ixhil communities and the collectives of political society. In this dissertation I likewise propose a broader view of the politics arising from Ixhil historical memory. In addition to the simultaneously spiritual and overtly political reburial ceremonies for the wartime dead, political rallies, and formal exhumations, the post-war politics of historical memory includes a proliferation of community-based organizations which have begun to take key positions in Ixhil communities. Ixhil genres of prayer, political speech, meeting talk, collective narratives, funeral speeches, and the talk used when visiting the sick provide the discursive tools to encode historical memory and new forms of community. In the aftermath of genocide that sought to destroy Mayas’ ability to exist as a collective, these acts of community-making among groups formed in response to the peace accords offer a version of post-war politics of historical memory.Item Enrollment Logics and Discourse: Toward Professionalizing Higher Education Enrollment Management(2012-10-19) Snowden, Monique LavetteEnrollment management is an organizational phenomenon that emerged in the mid-1970s and has since developed into a pervasive structure and practice at colleges and universities. The purpose of this study is to identify and trace the development of the underlying organizing principles (enrollment logics) that institutionalize enrollment management practices and professionalize the chief enrollment manager position. This study focuses on how discourses among members of a prominent professional association establish, diffuse, and sustain knowledge that promotes certain expertise, assumptions, beliefs, and shared understandings of enrollment management. This is qualitative study that uses first-person accounts of 18 chief enrollment managers, authoethnographic reflections, and historical texts to reveal the regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive elements (symbols, relations, routines, and artifacts) that signify enrollment management as an institutionalized and professionalized phenomenon. Crystallization is used as the analytical approach for discourse analysis. Institutional Theory and Structuration Theory form the theoretical and analytical frameworks for this study. Study results suggest that enrollment management is an institutionalized organizational field and an emerging profession.Item Experiencing emotional labor: an analysis of the discursive construction of emotional labor(Texas A&M University, 2007-04-25) Haman, Mary KathrynThis study analyzes how employees at a university recreation center discursively construct their experiences of emotional labor, how they conceptualize such behavior in terms of displaying unfelt emotions and faking in good and bad faith, and what these discursive constructions reveal about their perceptions of authenticity. The findings demonstrate that workers construct emotional labor as a natural ability and as performing a role. People who construct emotional labor as a natural ability depict themselves as the controller of their workplace emotion. They display unfelt emotions in good faith when they do so to uphold another??????s face, and they believe that they possess a true self. Employees who construct emotional labor as performing a role view their supervisors as controller of their workplace emotion. They fake emotions in good faith when doing so uphold their own face, and they fake in bad faith when it upholds the face of a co-worker who they feel needs to be disciplined. These people do not possess a sense of authentic self. They view themselves as multi-faceted and they say that they use social comparison to determine how to behave in particular situations. These findings reveal previously unexplored complexities in scholars?????? conceptions of emotional labor and authenticity.Item The gazebo project : a look into the benefits of student discourse in learning mathematics through a process of creating, critiquing, and revising a plan(2014-08) Dahanayake, Natasha Marianna; Riegle-Crumb, CatherineThe Gazebo Project is an open ended, generative, model eliciting project that was designed to allow students to develop their own understanding of fractions rather than receiving direct instruction. The students were placed in three different sections to work on the project, a group section that allowed for collaborative work, a peer tutoring section and an individual section. All students were given a pre-project clinical interview to assess their knowledge prior to beginning The Gazebo Project. They were then separated into one of the three sections for the project. The Gazebo Project charged the students with the task of designing a gazebo that would maximize the amount of seating and minimize the size of the entrance, which needed to be a whole side length. By challenging the students to minimize the entrance they were guided to explore the relationship between side length and number of sides. Upon completion of the project all students were then given a post-project clinical interview to determine the growth in their understanding of fractions. The study suggested that The Gazebo Project was effective in helping students develop their understanding of fractions, but only when the students worked in the group section or the peer tutoring section. The element of student discourse created an environment where students could create, and critique each other’s plan and in the process student discourse contributed to revised thinking. This study challenges educators to consider the benefits of open ended generative activities and discourse in student learning and also encourages the use of regular clinical interviews to assess student reasoning.Item Globalization within sport discourse : a mixed method critical discourse analysis of the 1984, 2000, and 2008 Olympic Games’ newspaper coverage(2015-12) Kessler, Seth Adam; Hunt, Thomas M.; Todd, Jan; Bowers, Matt; Sparevo, Emily; Dixon, Marlene; Witherspoon, KevinThe goal of this study was to analyze nine different newspapers’ coverage of three separate Olympic Games (i.e., 1984, 2000, and 2008) in order to determine how the globalization of sport was discussed, how this discourse reflected the power relations within international sport, and what sport management implications could be extracted. Globalization is an axial theme of the current era and is applicable to discussions of international sport. Sport has been characterized as a highly profitable, largely popular, and globally networked cultural form (Smart, 2007) that serves both as a source and a product of globalization (Eitzen, 2012), and, on a more practical level, as a global product and service (Ratten & Ratten, 2011). Houlihan (2007) reiterates the importance of globalization, stating that it has become one of the most prominent research concepts in the social sciences, including sport studies. An additional goal of this study was to critically evaluate sport journalism, as an often-overlooked aspect of journalism, and demonstrate linkages between media coverage and sport management practices. Sport— especially international, professional, and collegiate sport—and sporting ideals are intimately intertwined and attached to the sport media, and the sport media has both beneficial and detrimental influence over sporting and social norms. Sport management scholars should continue to critically examine and further understand the interplay between sport management, the sport media, and the power of discourse. Results indicate that treatment of globalization within the sport discourse evolved over time, and the understandings and presentations of globalization and its relationship to sport became more nuanced and sophisticated. Findings provide additional support for the dynamic nature of discourse, suggest the importance of conscientious and critical monitoring, and indicate the need to adapt best practices to reflect the changes in discourse, particularly in regards to influential phenomenon such as globalization. The research findings of this study will be of interest to sport management and globalization studies scholars and sport practitioners who are interested in understanding how discourse influences concept proliferation, power relations, policy creation, organizational and economic forecasting, strategic management, and other management practices.Item Hegemony now! : an examination of the Tea Party's hegemonic project(2011-12) Daniels, Jonathan Ashley; Kumar, Shanti; Mallapragada, MadhaviThe Tea Party’s influence in the recent 2010 elections suggests that the group is making an impact within American politics. This project seeks to identify the cultural forces at work and ground them within Antonio Gramsci’s framework of hegemony. Taking a cue from Michael Bérubé’s recent book The Left at War, I perform a close analysis of the Tea Party’s project for hegemony. I focus on the media discourses of the Tea Party movement, performing a close reading of two key Tea Party websites and unpacking two important televised moments relating to the Tea Party’s rise as a grassroots movement. I argue that the Tea Party uses the practice of articulation to persuade the American public that Tea Party members are the rightful heirs to the project of “America” that the Founding Fathers began centuries ago by using the theories of Bérubé, Stuart Hall, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe as reference points. Finally, I use my analysis of the Tea Party’s articulatory practices to begin exploring a way forward for the American Left, building on the groundbreaking cultural work of Bérubé, Hall, and Laclau and Mouffe.Item "How do you know god didn't start the universe and blow it up?" : using classroom talk and controversy to support scientific literacy(2014-05) Freeman, Jennifer Lynn; Schallert, Diane L.This study investigated the participant structure and content of discourse in five high-school science classrooms and their connection to scientifically literate practices for talking, reasoning, and evaluating claims. Through a detailed exploration of the way teachers introduced classes to the topic of evolution, I was able to examine how teachers used language to build a social framework for participation, examined the opportunities and challenges stemming from their various approaches, and explored how the structure and content of classroom talk contributed to framing science. This study used techniques from interactional sociolinguistics and conversational analysis to examine videos of interaction in five secondary biology classrooms on the day teachers introduced their students to lessons focused on the topic of evolution. Implications of this study focus on how teacher's discourse moves could open or close a discussion to student knowledge contributions, and emphasize how open discussions offer both challenges and opportunities to teachers wishing to facilitate scientifically literate discourse practices in their classroom.Item In school but not of it : the making of Kuna-language education(2011-05) Price, Kayla Marie; Strong, Pauline Turner, 1953-; Sherzer, Joel; Keating, Elizabeth; Foley, Douglas; Woodbury, AnthonyThis research concerns a Kuna-Spanish bilingual elementary school in Panama City, founded for Kuna children by Kuna teachers. Based on ethnographic and linguistic fieldwork, this research investigates the socio-cultural context for the emergence of the school and the ways that students, teachers and parents, together with Kuna elders, navigate the path of indigenous schooling. The process of negotiating linguistic and cultural meanings in Kuna-language education includes both "traditionalized" Kuna forms of learning and informal education in and around the home. These various foundations of Kuna knowledge, from the use of Kuna oral history to eating Kuna food in the home, are incorporated into the curriculum in various ways, highlighting the potential of schooling as a place of knowledge production for indigenous peoples that is culturally inclusive. At the same time, the manner in which Kuna identity is indexed in the school is uneven. It is liberating in some moments while very restrictive in others, reflecting similar patterns, often in relation to state-sponsored notions of "multiculturalism" in the Kuna community and in the broader context of Panamanian society. In order to fully explore the complexities of the school and its workings, this research explores the Kuna experience in Panama City, where more than half of the Kuna population currently resides. This dissertation is a contribution to the fields of linguistic anthropology and the anthropology of education, analyzing the case of an urban Kuna school that employs both Western and indigenous pedagogy and content, with specific implications for studies of language socialization, bilingual education and educational politics for indigenous peoples.Item Le Centre culturel Aberdeen : minority Francophone discourses and social space(2011-05) Keating, Kelle Lyn; Blyth, Carl S. (Carl Stewart), 1958-; Boudreau, Annette; Bullock, Barbara E.; Donaldson, Bryan; Epps, Patience; Léger, CatherineThis study investigates Discourses of language use (Gee, 2005) in a community of artists and artistic promoters associated with the Centre culturel Aberdeen in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. Members of this network are described as Acadian social actors, those who have cultural and linguistic capital, thus the potential capacity to influence Discourses of language use circulating in Acadian society, through language use accompanying their art and artistic promotion (Bourdieu, 2001; Heller, 2003; Heller & Labrie, 2004). This study specifically explores this group’s discursive constructions of their roles within social spaces (Lefebvre, 1991) in which they participate as artists, beginning with the Centre Aberdeen itself, expanding to Greater Moncton, Acadie, Canada, and finally, to the international space of la francophonie. Their discourse shows these roles to be highly dependent on the linguistic marketplace associated with each space. The findings indicate that in the space of the Centre culturel Aberdeen, formerly conceived of as a minority language space, French remains the dominant language of practice; however, many participants affirm that the use of other languages in the Centre is not censured. Some participants even refer to Aberdeen as a bilingual space. In the social space of Greater Moncton, the discourse of bilingual participants demonstrates their inner conflict between using French in their art to affirm their Acadian identity and using English in order to have a greater audience. In Acadie, the participants’ discourse focuses principally on how to represent regional varieties of French in writing, including Chiac, the variety of French local to Southeastern New Brunswick. In the space of Acadie and beyond, participants speak to the need for a normative register of French in extra-regional communications. In the national Francophone social space, participants express their frustration at lack of exposure and the essentialization of their identity in Canada’s Francophone media. In speaking of la francophonie, participants again insist on the necessity of a standard form of French for global communication, while affirming that they also assert their cultural distinctiveness in their art with regional expressions. These findings are in line with elements of Heller and Labrie’s (2004) post-nationalist discours mondialisant.Item Mitigation in Spanish discourse : social and cognitive motivations, linguistic analyses, and effects on interaction and interlocutors(2010-05) Czerwionka, Lori Ann; Koike, Dale April; Streeck, J�; Beaver, David; Kelm, Orlando; Hensey, FritzMitigation is the modification of language in response to social or cognitive challenges (stressors) in contexts of linguistic interaction (Martinovski, Mao, Gratch, & Marsella 2005). Previous mitigation research has been largely from social perspectives, addressing the word or utterance levels of language. This dissertation presents an empirical study of mitigating language resulting from both a cognitive stressor (degree of uncertainty) and social stressor (degree of imposition) in Spanish discourse, and the impacts of mitigation on interaction and interlocutors. The tripartite approach includes a: (1) quantitative analysis of discourse markers associated with mitigation (speaker-discourse, speaker-listener, and epistemic markers); (2) qualitative discourse analysis, relying on concepts from the Conversation Analysis framework; and (3) qualitative analysis of interlocutors’ perceptions of mitigation, using metalinguistic conversations. The results are discussed considering prior research on mitigation, politeness theories, and Clark’s (2006) model of ‘language use’ to address information types, interlocutor roles, and mutual knowledge. In addition, Caffi and Janney’s (1994) ‘anticipatory schemata’ and Pinker’s (2007) social psychological perspective of indirect language inform the theoretical framework. Results indicate that: (1) Mitigation devices vary depending on contextual factors prompting mitigation, significantly fewer speaker-listener markers are shown as evidence of mitigation, and epistemic markers, which are commonly analyzed mitigation devices, are infrequent overall in these data. These results provide evidence against the assumption that mitigation is associated with increased use of linguistic devices; (2) Two mitigating discourse structures were found, depending on the degree of uncertainty. Within contexts of high-imposition, the Co-reconstruction structure (CRS) is found in contexts with uncertainty and the Non-linear structure (NLS) is in contexts with certainty; and (3) The listeners’ metalinguistic comments indicate that the CRS, compared to the NLS, is preferred. Also, the results indicate how interlocutors address cognitive, social, and emotional stressors in interaction. Considering all analyses, a unifying definition of mitigation in discourse is provided. This phenomenon is characterized as the postponement of both confirmed knowledge and negotiation of the interlocutor relationship. This research contributes the first experimental investigation of mitigation as the result of cognitive and social stressors, and also the first systematic analysis of mitigation in Spanish discourse.Item The problematic application of economic discourse to the creation and transfer of information(2012-05) Johnson, Christopher Garland; Ensmenger, Nathan, 1972-; Howison, JamesIn Citizen's United v. FEC (2010) and Sorrell v. IMS Health, Inc. (2011), the Supreme Court of the United States passed down a pair of opinions which clearly show the weaknesses of economic discourse as applied to the creation and transfer of information, itself defined as speech the court's opinion in Bartnicki v. Vopper (2001). Foucoult described economic discourse in his Archaeology of Knowledge (1972) as being particularly exclusive, both in terms of other discourse as well as to the potential participants in the discourse. This paper argues for the need to incorporate alternate modes of discourse that would provide a more complete understanding of the practical, social, ethical and legal parameters surrounding information's creation and transfer.Item Readymaintenance : systems, feminist economics, and the immaterial readymade in the work of Mierle Laderman Ukeles(2015-08) Giordano, Rebecca Leslie; Reynolds, Ann Morris; Smith, CheriseIn 1968, Mierle Laderman Ukeles wrote the Maintenance Art Manifesto. She announced a new art making practice as well as an original economic theory from a feminist perspective. Maintenance, "the back half of life," as she once called it, has been the lens through which Ukeles has made art for more than 45 years. To enact her theory, Ukeles uses the avant-garde tradition of claiming aspects of everyday life as art.'This thesis examines two key features of Ukeles work from before 1977. Her economic theory, Maintenance, is a rich and complex view that centralizes the experience of women and those efforts and workers who keep society going and people living. Leaning on Jean Baudrillard, I argue that this subaltern feminist economic theory refutes the productivist tendencies in avant-garde art and society at large, which Ukeles refers to as "development." Because Marxism, like capitalism, privileges production and growth over all other aspects of life, understanding Ukeles' unique contributions to both economics and art requires a different approach to labor and value than has been previously discussed by historians and critics who have relied largely on Marx's theory of labor value. Beginning with Antonio Gramsci, I offer a close analysis of Ukeles' theorization from the subaltern position of maintenance that aims to reveal the essential and ever present qualities of maintenance while resisting the hegemony of development.'Building from my economic analysis, I am able to examine how Ukeles successfully performs a subaltern critique in an art practice by developing a technique using immaterial readymades. To make maintenance work visible Ukeles developed a technique that extended the readymade practices of Duchamp and others to include the non-productive labor of maintenance. Her readymades manifest as conceptual performances of labor done in the settings in which they would occur --whether that is the largest garbage dump or the oldest public museum in America. Drawing heavily from Michel Foucault and Raymond Williams, I consider how Ukeles' immaterial readymades reveal discursive constructions of value and meaning. This analysis offers a new way of understanding the functions of readymades more generally.Item Representing sexualities and eroticism : Russian literature and culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries(2010-05) Lalo, Alexei; Arens, Katherine, 1953-; Bremen, Brian; Rappaport, Gilbert; Shumway, Nicolas; Swaffar, Janet; Wynn, ChartersThe dissertation explores traditions of expressing the body and sexuality in nineteenth-century Russia and how these traditions affect the literature of Russia’s Silver Age (1890-1921). The period's modernizing intellectuals had at their disposal two strategies: – a tradition of silence, which is used to avoid the very theme of sex and eroticism; – a tradition of representation associated with the burlesque, in which the author presents carnality and eroticism in a deliberately ludicrous, grotesque way. European literatures of the era were developing highly nuanced representations of sexuality, often in relation to social functions. Conversely, the Russian authors confront notable deficits as they revert to indigenous traditions of expression. How these authors move beyond these defi-cits is the core of the project. Chapter 1 explores three historical determinants for the “strategy of silence” and the “strategy of burlesque” marking the history of Russia's literary representation. The first is a set of profound differences between Western and Russian medical science, sexology and psychopathology. The second is a divide in perceptions of sexuality between Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox traditions. The third is embodied in some of the earliest canonical representations of sexuality in literary history, including the Archpriest Avvakum’s Life (1682). Chapter 2 begins by taking up Aleksandr Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol as exemplars for Russian approaches to sexuality – with Pushkin exemplifying pro-erotic expression, and Gogol the opposite. The chapter concludes with analyses from late-nineteenth-century texts by Leskov, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Dostoevsky. Chapter 3 is focused on the ways some of the most emblematic works of the Silver Age (e.g., Sanin by Mikhail Artsybashev) emerge as deconstructions of the term “literary pornography” and as attempts to find new social representations of sexuality. Chapters 4 and 5 take up some major post-Silver Age texts and then Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955). The Conclusion argues that during the Silver Age, Russian popular culture found itself in direct confrontation with the high cultures of the nation’s upper classes and intelligentsia. This Russian version of modernization is described as a full-blown Foucauldian “bio-history” of Russian culture: a history of indigenous representations of sexuality and the eroticized body.