Browsing by Subject "Style"
Now showing 1 - 10 of 10
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Authorship attribution applied to the Bible(Texas Tech University, 2003-08) Mills, Donna EudoraIn this thesis, we make a statistical comparison between the biblical book of Ephesians and four Pauline Epistles, namely, I Corinthians, Romans, II Corinthians, and Galatians. Using the frequency distribution of nouns, we perform two kinds of statistical analysis: a frequentist and a Bayesian analysis. Using the frequentist approach, we compare measures of vocabulary connectivity for the five books. Using the multivariate delta method, we derive the standard errors of these measures, and compute their values for the five books. For the five said books, we calculate three measures of vocabulary richness cited by Holmes (1992). Then we construct the corresponding theoretical parameters for these measures and we find the posterior means and posterior standard errors of these parameters by utilizing Bayesian analysis.Item The cross-cultural classroom in the context of radical language shift : humor, teasing, and the ethnolinguistic repertoire in the Blackfeet Nation(2013-05) Seifert, Nicole Rae; Woodbury, Anthony C.In this dissertation, I analyze classroom interactions between a White, nonlocal high school English teacher and American Indian students on the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. I focus on the participants' strategic use of humor and distinctive linguistic features in these interactions, particularly teasing as a cultural activity among the students, the teacher's immersion and adaptation to that culture, and the affective and sociocultural importance of the ethnolinguistic repertoire to the students. I argue that the main functions of the humor and teasing are threefold: (a) to build rapport, (b) to accomplish interactional goals in the classroom, and (c) to negotiate teacher-student power struggles in a socioculturally acceptable way. I show that the students' humor and discourse is constitutive of local culture and often counterhegemonic, implicitly and at times explicitly critiquing mainstream educational practices and the marginalized status of the students. My analysis considers the data from a discourse level as well as examines the indexical and patterned use of microlevel linguistic resources from the student's ethnolinguistic repertoire--specifically, distinctive interjections and scooped-accent intonation. The primary data is naturally occurring classroom discussions, complemented by individual and group interviews and ethnographic observations. This study points to the importance of sociocultural factors in language variation and change in communities undergoing or having undergone radical language shift. It thus adds to the literature that considers how cultural practices are disrupted and may be restructured as the linguistic code changes. This research also contributes to the research that details the difficulties nonmainstream students face in public schools when their home culture and language practices are at odds with those of the school, and it examines humor and teasing as student strategies to navigate these differences. This study aims to help paint a more complete picture of the contemporary social and linguistic contexts in which American Indian speakers live, with a mind toward how this understanding can be applied to the real-world circumstances of these youth.Item Early career experience and optimism spillover(2012-05) Law, Kai Fung; Starks, Laura T; Clement, Michael B; Han, Bing; Kumar, Alok; Sialm, ClemensUsing a long panel on employment history, I exploit a novel setting to examine if sell-side analysts carry over their early career experience into their future professional careers. I find that analysts' early mentorship experience has a long-lasting impact on their professional styles. Analysts are more optimistic if they work with optimistic mentors in their first jobs as junior analysts: they issue more strong buy recommendations and upgrade jumps, and they are also more optimistic in earnings forecasts and price targets. While it is easy to pick up their mentors' styles, I show that it is apparently harder for them to learn their mentors' skills, as indicated by the lack of spillover in forecast accuracy. Only talented superstar mentors can unwind this pattern, passing their skills and reputation to their proteges. The market—especially sophisticated institutional investors—is smart in identifying the apprentices of optimistic mentors as short-run market reactions to their forecast revisions are weaker. Collectively, these results have important implications for financial economists and regulators (on a new source of optimism), for analyst profession (on talent management and portability), and for market participants (on information dissemination and optimism debias).Item Flamboyant markers : gay style in urban spaces(2011-08) Nevarez, Abel Angel; Brummett, Barry, 1951-; Cloud, Dana L.This thesis explores gay style within urban spaces in downtown Austin, Texas. Employing style as a rhetorical and communicative approach and method, I investigate and analyze how gay style markers are read off the built material environment of urban spaces. Through an application and analysis of a rhetoric of style, I demonstrate how particular downtown Austin districts and neighborhoods can be read as de facto gay districts through a reading of the gay style marker flamboyance. The focus of the thesis is an analysis of the systematic and rhetorical signification of gay style markers, which function to define and constitute particular urban spaces as “gay” districts or neighborhoods. Through of an examination of flamboyance in downtown Austin’s Warehouse District and surrounding districts, I demonstrate gay style is indeed present in a “non-gay” urban space. Ultimately, I argue that gay sexual style markers are capable of being read off the built environment of urban spaces; furthermore, it is these same gay style markers that come to define and constitute gay urban spaces, districts, and neighborhoods.Item Gentrification by design : rhetoric, race, and style in neighborhood "revitalization”(2016-05) Stimpson, Kristin Svea, 1982-; Brummett, Barry, 1951-; Gunn, Joshua; Jarvis Hardesty, Sharon; Faber McAlister, Joan; Bolin, PaulStories about communities being displaced by gentrification in the name of revitalization and redevelopment are commonplace today and despite its many drawbacks, gentrification remains a pervasive mode of city growth and strategy for development. An analytical and interventionist project, my research is concerned with illuminating the disparities gentrification engenders, questioning the common assumptions and general wisdom shared on the topic, and ultimately critiquing this increasingly accepted form of urban change. At the heart of my dissertation I ask how gentrification has become such a powerful hegemonic force and aim to examine how rhetoric and communication have been employed in an agenda that marks serious change for neighborhoods with grave consequences for community members and public life. With this goal in mind, I develop a theoretical lens for exploring gentrification at the intersection of hegemony, whiteness, and style and develop a methodological approach for studying the rhetorical style of gentrification. Austin’s gentrifying East Riverside Drive and 11th and 12th Street Corridors serve as case studies for this research and I examine a range of artifacts and texts from community meetings, to slide presentations, architectural renderings, community surveys, articles in local publications, and neighborhood planning strategies. The analyses conducted in both case studies highlight the power of style in shaping discourses, opinions, the articulation of problems and solutions, and public sentiment about gentrification. I ultimately argue that gentrification is a rhetorical style that has been put to use to legitimize displacement and wholesale redevelopment, perpetuates inequalities, and has lasting impact.Item The Leo Castelli Gallery in Metro magazine : American approaches to post-abstract figuration in an Italian context(2012-08) McKetta, Dorothy Jean; Shiff, RichardBetween the years 1960 and 1970, New York gallerist Leo Castelli was closely involved with Milanese editor and publisher Bruno Alfieri's Metro magazine--an international review of contemporary art. By placing his artists in Metro, Castelli inserted them into the world of Italian art criticism and theory. This recontextualization familiarized the American artists of Castelli's gallery to a European audience and positioned them at the end of a succession of modern European styles. Specifically, Castelli's artists, each of whom engaged in a form of pictorial figuration, were seen as ending the dominance of the "pure" abstraction of the French informel style. This thesis uses the archive of correspondence between Bruno Alfieri and Leo Castelli to examine Castelli's contribution to Metro during the 1960s. Departing from this chronology, it also seeks to understand the unique brand of figuration that each of Castelli's artists brought to Metro, given cues from contemporary Italian theory and criticism--particularly that of Gillo Dorfles, who wrote on several of Castelli's artists.Item Possible Influence of Language on Music and Perfomers:Surveys of Chinese-Speaking Pianists, English-Speaking Pianists and Piano Professors(2011-08) Tsai-Lin, ElizaThis study aimed to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between language and music, a rapidly growing area of inquiry. By way of surveys, I sought to (1) directly gauge the opinions of students whose primary languages are non-Western ones and who are actively engaged in the process of learning appropriate Western musical stylistic expression, and (2) compare these opinions with those of their peers and professors. It was hoped that the initial exploration of opinions and experiences of a limited group of learners with similar backgrounds would serve as an important starting point for further research. The research stemmed from my personal experiences as a foreign-born, Chinese-speaking piano student who once struggled in executing musical phrases in a manner that is acceptable and appropriate according to Western classical standards. The primary demographic in the study was Chinese-speaking students born in Asia, with English-speaking piano students and piano professors as comparison groups. Three surveys were designed to determine whether (1) foreign-born students whose first language is a tonally inflected one like Chinese struggle in learning Western classical repertoire, (2) these challenges are influenced by language differences, (3) these challenges differ from the experiences of native English-speaking pianists, (4) piano professors raised in the West are aware of such challenges in their teaching of native Chinese speakers, and (5) respondents believe the hypothesized relationship between language and music is a fruitful one with pedagogical implications. Responses from 82 professors, 36 Chinese-speaking pianists, and 36 English-speaking students indicate that the majority of participants across the three groups believe that language and music share similar properties and that knowledge of a Western language can benefit one’s performance of Western classical repertoire. However, whereas most professor-respondents believe that language differences might cause obstacles for Chinese-speaking students learning to appropriately phrase Western repertoire, Chinese-speaking students were less likely to admit to experiencing difficulties than their English-speaking counterparts. The results suggest that Chinese-speaking piano students may perceive and process Western music differently than their English-speaking professors and peers. Although further research is needed before generalizing the pedagogical implications of these data, the findings provide evidence that one’s spoken language may play more of an influential role than earlier thought in the learning and performance of music.Item Russian hip-hop : rhetoric at the intersection of style and globalization(2012-05) Feyh, Kathleen Eaton 1973-; Brummett, Barry, 1951-; Gunn, Joshua; Streeck, Jurgen; Garza, Thomas; Seeman, SoniaIn this work, I describe Russian hip-hop as a uniquely fruitful site of investigation of cultural cycles (innovation, commodification, dissemination, consumption, and further innovation) of style as communicative practice. The sudden Transition to market democracy—the expansion of the universal market into Russia and the Eastern bloc—allows us to see exactly what is at stake in a discussion of style, rhetoric, and agency. That is, the style subcultures before the Transition—though borrowed—operated locally, communally, and with an emphasis on ideas. After the Transition, the style culture defined around hip-hop was mostly a matter of imitating forms in a way designed to garner fame and profit. In an inversion of the cultural cycle, hip-hop arrived more as the sound of neoliberalism than as a rhetorical resource for resistance. I argue that style is a form of communicative practice, a union of form, ideology, and activity whose elements cannot be separated. Style is the language of the universal market. It is the cultural currency we use to express ourselves, experience leisure, even engage in politics. Styles are also characterized by cultural cycles, which are frameworks for capturing styles at particular historical moments with each moment’s particular social and economic characteristics. Attending to specific historical context for cultural cycles is important, because each style has a history that continues to leave traces upon it. It is increasingly through style that people identify themselves and each other as denizens of a single planet, interconnected. And it is through style that those living in advanced capitalist nations connect with other regions of the globe. Globalization is also the basis for the borrowing of styles worldwide, including into Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. In Post-World War II Soviet style subcultures privileged youth were special sources of Western commodities and information, while ordinary youth often cobbled together copies of Western styles. Soviet youth consumed the West, they imitated it, and they often innovated upon it. In innovating, they created their own versions of styles, most notably Russian rock. Style subcultures in the Soviet Union were de facto political, given that the very act of diverging from the official culture was treated by the state as a kind of dissidence. Following the fall off the Soviet Union, style cultures were mostly rendered irrelevant or folded into the developing market in popular and youth culture. For example, Russian hip-hop in is a product both of Soviet style culture and of the universal neoliberal market. The political and economic ambivalence of hip-hop as a whole and of other styles in Russia provides a lens through which we can view the effects of the development of the universal market in that country. Style is a means for people to negotiate their relationships to each other and to the state and market. The universal market is eager and quite able to take advantage of style, to package it, market it, and enforce its boundaries. Russians must go to market for the necessities of life and for leisure; it is also primarily through the market that they come to know and practice style. Still, even within hip-hop, there remains a kernel of resistance in the culture-making of ordinary people.Item Style and struggle : the rhetoric of masculinity(2009-05) Winslow, Luke A.; Brummett, Barry, 1951-This dissertation explores the role of masculinity as a component of social formation. Although research on masculinity has increased considerably since the early 1990s, the topic remains ill-defined and poorly explored. Scholars from a variety of disciplines have only been able to offer a limited amount of theoretical and practical insight on the subject primarily because masculinity has too often been conceptualized as a homogenous foundation that undergirds all social formation. Contrary to these perspectives, I suggest that masculine identities do not emerge from any single category, but rather, are constituted and reflected through a complex coherence of cultural and historical markers coming together to produce particular meanings. More specifically, I feature style as the most theoretically and politically useful grounding category capable of explaining these complex configurations. Style uses all the aesthetic dimensions of public presentation including dress, trappings, grooming, posture, body shape, stance, and voice and vocabulary to offer a clearer and more accurate answer to how identities come together in a struggled over, contested, and dynamic way and a more clear and accurate explanation for why reductive and overly homogeneous characterizations of identity are inaccurate and untenable. Utilizing style as a rhetoric, theory, and method, I analyze two case studies – the evangelical men’s movement Promise Keepers and the Presidential Style – to demonstrate how identity functions as a form of social style with important theoretical and political implications. Thus, this dissertation maps intersecting territories of masculinity, but also femininity, class, sexual orientation, and ethnic and racial identities in a way that illuminates how identity reinforces and coheres around particular stylistic markers.Item Where time & style collide: the Muslim in U.S. discourse(2016-08) Bahrainwala, Lamiyah Zulfiqar; Brummett, Barry, 1951-; Ballard, Dawna; Gunn, Joshua; Jensen, Robert; Shingavi, SnehalThis dissertation explores how the “Muslim problem” is constructed as uniquely urgent and hidden in the United States. The idea of impending Muslim attacks and the stealthy radicalization of Muslims are very real fears in the U.S. today. Sustaining these fears requires the exercise of considerable rhetorical ingenuity, and studying it requires looking beyond explicit anti-Muslim discourse to understand the momentum of this fear. I advocate the use of two new methods to understand this dual construction of “Muslim terrorism” as both urgent and concealed. I develop a temporal framework and a style-based lens to interrogate this construction. Scholarship acknowledges that counterterrorism discourse presents “Muslim terrorism” as urgent enough to justify preemptive measures. This language of urgency and preemption is deeply temporal, but there is little scholarship on the temporal component of anti-Muslim discourse. I apply my temporal framework to examine the coverage of the 2012 Sikh Temple Shooting to understand how temporal language can incite fear of Muslim in discourse completely unrelated to Muslims and Islam. Meanwhile, I apply a stylistic lens to explore the construction of the “moderate” Muslim, who acts as a foil to the hidden, non-American “Muslim terrorist.” The “moderate” Muslim discourse is produced by the status quo rather than U.S. Muslims themselves, and compels particular performances of citizenship from U.S. Muslims. Style mediates these performances of citizenship, and thus I apply my style-based lens to examine three examples of “moderate Muslims.” I examine the 2014 Miss America controversy; the stand-up comedy of Muslim comedian Azhar Usman; and the preaching style of Suhaib Webb, a renowned “moderate” American imam. By considering three case studies, I am able to present a rich analysis of the many performances of Muslim “moderation” and its role in bolstering American exceptionalism. Thus, taken together, my temporal and stylistic approaches explain the momentum of fear towards Muslims in the U.S. and their role in bolstering American national identity.