Browsing by Department "Slavic and Eurasian Studies"
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Item A nation in transition : language policy and its impact on Russian-language education in Ukraine(2016-08-11) Chilstrom, Karen Lynne McCulloch; Garza, Thomas J.; Lutsyshyna, Oksana; Pesenson, Michael; Boas, Hans; Callahan, Rebecca; Liu, AmyIn its transition from a Soviet republic to an independent nation, Ukraine has struggled to bridge a centuries-old political, cultural, and linguistic divide that in the twentieth century alone has spawned deadly protests, two revolutions, the ousting of a president, the annexation of Crimea by Russia, and an ongoing war in eastern Ukraine. Current political tensions between Russia and Ukraine threaten to split the country in two, so questions of language policy and national unity have taken on even greater urgency since 2014. This dissertation examines the evolution of policy related to Russian-language education in Ukraine at the primary and secondary levels and explores the impact of changes in policy on the teaching of Russian in that country. Based on data collected through interviews with seventeen teachers of Russian in Ukraine, this study presents an ethnographic portrait of Russian-language education after Maidan and answers three broad questions: 1) How have policies related to the role and status of the Russian language in Ukraine evolved since Ukraine became an independent nation, and how has this evolution in language policy affected the teaching of Russian there?; 2) How do geography and political conditions in contemporary Ukraine affect language policy, attitudes toward the Russian language, and the teaching of Russian?; and 3) How has the geopolitical relationship between Ukraine and Russia affected the status of, and attitudes toward, the Russian language and the study of Russian in Ukraine? An analysis of the data leads to several major findings: 1) Modifications to language policy in post-Soviet Ukraine have resulted in sweeping changes in the role of the Russian language within the education system and led to an end to compulsory Russian language studies, a drop in the prestige of the Russian language within the education system, and increasingly negative attitudes toward the study of Russian. 2) Political conditions and the historic cultural and linguist divide between western and eastern Ukraine continue to influence attitudes toward the Russian language in predictable ways. 3) Attitudes toward the Russian language in Ukraine worsened considerably following Euromaidan and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and negative attitudes persist due to Russia’s ongoing support of the war in Donbas. These findings suggest that language issues in Ukraine will continue to be of critical importance in the years to come and, if left unresolved, may lead to further division and conflict on a national and international scale.Item American male fantasies and the articulation of Slavic women’s bodies and sexualities in American popular culture : a study of feature and gonzo pornography(2018-12) Switala, Rebekah Lucille; Campbell, Craig, Ph. D.; Heinzelman, Susan SageThis thesis examines representations and perceptions of Slavic women and sexuality in American popular culture from the nineteenth century to the present, including contemporary feature and gonzo pornography. I argue that since the late 18th century, the U.S. has racialized and sexualized Slavic women’s bodies, specifically marking the Slavic body as ‘off-white’ with a ‘deviant’ sexuality, rather than as ‘fully white’ with a ‘pure’ sexuality. In both feature and gonzo pornography, which I argue to be distinct styles of pornography, this is articulated through emphasis being placed on the economic and cultural privilege and sexual prowess of white, Western, heteromasculine identity over Slavic women. However, gonzo pornography’s technical uses of the camera and reliance on improvisation create a participatory rather than strictly voyeuristic gaze for the spectator, opening some possibilities for Slavic women to reclaim and rearticulate both American and Soviet stereotypes and silences about their bodies and sexualitiesItem Bridging east and west: Czech surrealism's interwar experiment(2003) Garfinkle, Deborah Helen; Píchová, HanaBridging East and West: Czech Surrealismís Interwar Experiment is a cultural and intellectual history of the Czech Surrealist movement from 1934- 1938. This work traces the movementís development from its avant-garde beginnings in the 1920ís represented by Devětsil, an aesthetic program that united Soviet constructivism and the Czech poetism, to the point in 1934, when poet Vitezslav Nezval announced the formation of the Prague Surrealist group. The study goes on to examine Czech Surrealism in relation to France and the Soviet Union. Although they looked to Paris and Moscow for direction, not being from the center afforded the Czechs the freedom to integrate ideas from a variety of sources without having to answer to a higher authority. As citizens of a small nation, the members of the Czech group were able to bridge the divide between politics and poetry that kept the Surrealists from attaining the sought after united front to combat fascism. Because of their special cultural position off-center and geographic location at the heart of Europe, they became the bridge linking East and West, a center in their own right. The study focuses on the Czech movementís key figures, VÌtězslav Nezval and Karel Teige. Teigeís and Nezvalís dialectical union of criticism and lyric functioned as the dynamic force that made Czech Surrealism one of the most highly original and vital expressions of the interwar avant-garde. But as external events exerted pressure on the group, its center could not hold. As Teige turned away from Moscow because of the Communist Partyís assault on free expression and Nezval turned away from Paris to embrace Stalin and socialist realism, the first wave of the Czech Surrealism came to its end. Their bitter polemic on art and politics doomed the movement from the start, reflecting in microcosm the contradictions inherent to the avant-garde as a whole. However, the end proved to be a beginning; Czech Surrealism in its next manifestation managed to survive war and communism. Despite the preeminence of France in the history of Surrealism, it is off-center, in Prague, where the experiment still lives on as testament to the genius of its founding membersItem Bridging the gap : self-assessment, e-portfolios, and formative assessment in the foreign language classroom(2013-08) Gossett, Nicholas Stanford; Garza, Thomas J.Despite the amount of empirical evidence available to validate the claim that language learners have the ability to evaluate their own abilities in a foreign language, many educators feel that self-assessments are unreliable and do not fit into the foreign language classroom. However, the move towards a proficiency-based student-centered classroom over the past two decades has caused many educators to rethink the use of self-assessment measures in the foreign language classroom. At the same time, portfolios have emerged as assessment tools for both educators and learners. Most recently, with the technological advancements in the past decade, Internet-based e-portfolios have become increasingly popular in education. However, there are very few studies on the use and implementation of e-portfolios, specifically in the foreign language classroom. This dissertation examines the role of self-assessment in the foreign language classroom. It utilizes an e-portfolio platform with pre-loaded can-do statements to create an evidence-based self-assessment for an intensive Russian language class. This dissertation presents self-assessment as a teacher-validated process utilizing formative assessment to create a learner-centered environment outside of the classroom. The study correlates results from three separate foreign language assessment tools to determine their relation to one another. The study promotes a holistic approach to language assessment and provides a process for holistic approach in the foreign language classroom. The process outlined in this study is easy to replicate and can be incorporated into foreign language courses with a limited amount of resources.Item Cultural Warfare: Balkanization, Turbo-Folk, and the Croatian Response to Serbian Nationalism(2021-05) Rostami, Hasti (Aryana)Following the death of Josip Broz Tito in 1980 Yugoslavia was faced with a series of political and social uprisings and challenges that lasted for nearly two decades. The struggle for independence as well as nationalistic movements transformed the Balkan region not just in its politics and the economy but also in its culture. With the rise of nationalism, the music industry of the Balkans took a new route and a new music genre emerged to be known as Turbo-Folk. The paper examines the rise of Turbo-Folk alongside Serbian nationalism, its impact on the culture and music of the region, and the Croatian response to Turbo-Folk and Serbian aggression and aims to offer a better understanding of this music genre’s use during its political period and study the artistic aspects of the cultural movements that it caused across the Balkan region.Item Defining self : negotiating cultural, gender, and ethnic identity in a short-term study abroad program in Russia(2008-12) Segura, Tatiana Borisovna, 1974-; Garza, Thomas J.Study abroad programs are a common component of many foreign language programs across the United States. Of these university-based study abroad programs, short-term language-focused programs are becoming increasingly popular in the United States. Despite the growing popularity of short-term study abroad programs, there is little research on students’ sociocultural experiences under these short, intensive language-immersion conditions. Relatively few studies have addressed the issue of gender in the study abroad context. Brecht et al. in their longitudinal study on the effects of a study abroad stay on language proficiency gains in Russian found that gender was one of the significant predictors of language learning. The impact of gender on the process of second language and culture acquisition becomes particularly important in countries like Russia where perception and construction of gender roles is very different from that in the United States. These gender-related differences may cause students to have negative attitudes towards the Russian language and culture. Students belonging to ethnic minorities have different study abroad experiences from students who belong to the ethnic majority or mainstream culture. In the rise of terrorist attacks administered by Chechen separatists on the territory of Russia in the past several years, native Russians are becoming less tolerant with representatives of ethnic minorities and therefore, more suspicious and hostile towards individuals with non-Caucasian features. Being constantly racially-profiled can turn an otherwise pleasant language and culture learning experience into a nightmare. A better understanding of how race and ethnicity affect learning processes in a study abroad setting will result in rethinking of how learners’ differences (and the outcomes of those differences) enter the formal language teaching curriculum. The present study investigates how American college students visiting Russia on a five-week-long study abroad program perceive and describe their cultural, gender, and ethnic experiences. The results of this ethnographic case study are analyzed through the lens of critical theory that argues that human society is essentially oppressive and that societal inequality is reproduced through the dominant ideology.Item Eccentric cities: Nikolai Gogol's Saint Petersburg and Jan Neruda's Prague(2005) Mayhew, Linda Marie; Pichova, HanaIn Universe of the Mind, Yuri Lotman proposes that some cities are “eccentric”. These eccentric cities do not clearly correspond to the nation in which they are located because of discrepancies in architecture, geography, or politics, thus pushing them to the edge or beyond a country’s identity. The cities of Saint Petersburg and Prague represent two examples of cities existing beyond the boundaries of their respective cultures in the nineteenth century. Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire and “Window to the West”, represented a focus on foreign rather than native culture. Similar tensions between internal and external cultures plagued Prague, the capital of an imagined Czech nation, governed by the Austrian Empire and dominated by German language and art forms. This dissertation explores the ways in which these two eccentrically located urban spaces express the tensions between Western and Eastern Europe that arise from their geographical positioning and historical development as depicted in Nikolai Gogol’s Petersburg Tales (1833-1842) and Jan Neruda’s Prague Tales (1867-1878). These short story collections reflect the complex cultural geography of Petersburg and Prague and the complications of daily living caused by each city’s particular eccentricity. In Chapters One and Two, I explore the dualities of cultural and physical space in Petersburg and Prague as portrayed in Gogol’s Petersburg Tales and Neruda’s Prague Tales. Based on a binary system of interior and exterior, I examine the physical and semiotic space within the city, contrasting characters’ homes with streets and workplaces. In order to connect Gogol’s and Neruda’s portrayals of these cities to the actual physical space in the city, I explore architectural trends relevant to their writing. In Chapters Three and Four, I expand the binary structure of interior and exterior space into a larger context of native and foreign, as I compare Gogol’s and Neruda’s portrayal of Petersburg and Prague to their short stories and essays on Western European cities. The contrast between Western and Eastern European cities reveals how the author’s utilize themes of natural and artificial cities, belonging and alienation, and spiritual fulfillment to define cities and differentiate them from each other.Item Echoing their lives: teaching Russian language and culture through the music of Vladimir S. Vysotsky(2008-05) Jones, Ruby Jean, 1947-; Garza, Thomas J.Using vocal music in the foreign language classroom to teach language and culture can become the foundation of an approach specifically geared to encourage students to take charge of their own language learning, and thereby improve their overall language competencies. Many researchers have already noted that the usual classroom program of instruction does not provide sufficient exposure time for students to achieve a level much above the ACTFL Intermediate level. Most students who enter university language programs with plans to major in a language have certain expectations, usually elevated, and the problem is exacerbated by commercial products which promise that, “You will speak like a native in months!” The problem is compounded by the disappointment experienced when these high expectations are not met, and students cease trying before they approach the levels to which they originally aspired. One way to help students not go through this dismotivation phase of language learning, is to help them improve their language skills beyond that usually attainable through classroom instruction alone. Training in the use of learning strategies, increased time spent listening to authentic vocal music, and the anticipated personal satisfaction gained by attaining successful results can all be positively related to an increase in motivation. By introducing students to the music of Soviet bard/poet/actor Vladimir S. Vysotsky, early in their language-training career, and using his compositions as supplementary material in a syllabus, the Russian language teacher can provide versatile authentic language material. Selections from the prolific output of approximately 700 poems and songs by Vysotsky can be used to introduce: a) language forms, b) pronunciation, c) cultural idioms and contrast, d) historicalpolitical items, e) social customs, and f) literary works and characters. In the case of language learning and metacognitive strategies, ignorance is not bliss: ignorance is the destroyer. Students who become aware of the strategies available (e.g., memory, cognitive, compensation, affective, social, or metacognitive) and pleasurable ways to improve their own language competence are more likely to be encouraged to continue studying the language and more likely to devote the extra time to the endeavor.Item The effect of implementing an interactive reading project on reading comprehension in the third-semester Russian language class(2011-05) Zachoval, Filip; Garza, Thomas J.; Arens, Katherine; Liu, Min; Kolsti, John; Pichova, HanaIn recent years, a number of empirical and conceptual studies about Project-Based Learning (PBL) have presented consistent arguments rationalizing this approach to language learning and teaching. The most common benefits attributed to project work in the second- and foreign-language settings have been located and described in recent research. However, only a few empirical studies have been conducted to evaluate the effect of project work on language learning, and even fewer on specific language skills. This dissertation presents the results of a quasi-experimental research study that investigates the effect of incorporating a semester-long reading project into a third-semester Russian classroom and reports the measured effects of this experimental treatment on students’ reading comprehension, their reading habits and beliefs, perceived reading skills, and overall language proficiency. The dissertation provides data on a semester-long project allowing students to research a topic of their interest through a set of readings (which substituted for the textbook texts) with an ultimate goal of reporting their findings in the form of a newsletter article. The project entailed interconnected sets of sequenced tasks during which students are actively engaged in information gathering, processing, and reporting, with the ultimate goal of increased content knowledge and language mastery. The context for this project was primarily text-based (extensive readings served as a base for all activities and assignments), task-driven (creating an end-product in written form), collaborative, technology-enhanced (extensive use of the Internet), and individualized (students researched topics they were interested in). The results of the study demonstrate that students’ reading comprehension increased by using an integrated methodology where reading was taught through maximizing students’ previous knowledge of a subject matter of their interest and following the procedural model for interactive reading. Additionally, the results suggest that the project implementation had a positive effect on some reading habits and beliefs regarding foreign language (FL) learning, while no significant shifts were found in students’ perceived reading skills, or their overall language proficiency.Item Evidence of shamanism in Russian folklore(2011-12) Roberts, Jason Edward; Garza, Thomas J.; Jordan, Bella B.A wealth of East Slavic folklore has been collected throughout Russia, Ukraine, and Belorussia over a period of more than a hundred years. Among the many examinations that have been conducted on the massive corpus of legends, fabulates, memorates, and charms is an attempt to gain some understanding of indigenous East Slavic religion. Unfortunately, such examination of these materials has been overwhelmingly guided by political agenda and cultural bias. As early as 1938, Yuri Sokolov suggested in his book, Russian Folklore, that some of Russia’s folk practices bore a remarkable resemblance to shamanic practices, commenting specifically on a trance like state which some women induced in themselves by means of an whirling dance. This thesis explains the historical bias against a comparison of East Slavic folklore with shamanism; offers a brief anthropological review of shamanism and conducts a minimal comparison of elements of Russian folklore with the sine qua non definitions of two experts on the subject of shamanism.Item Exploring change : oral metadiscourse of advanced learners of Russian in extended study abroad(2017-08) Wilkins, Evgenia Mikhaylova; Garza, Thomas J.; Crane, Corinne; Hilchey, Christian; Sardegna, Veronica G; Pesenson, Michael; Abrams, Zsuzsanna; Urlaub, PerAbstract: In this dissertation, I propose to examine the oral metadiscourse of advanced learners of Russian (RAL2). The data is drawn from speech samples collected at Time 1 and Time 2 during the subjects’ yearlong residence abroad. The first oral segment portrays RAL2s’ metadiscourse (MD) after four months of in-country residence, and the second oral segment demonstrates changes in MD that result from an additional five months spent in the target language environment. Speech samples include role-play and narration, which are the tasks that RAL2 carry out in the Test of Russian as a Foreign Language level 3 (TORFL-3) Professional mastery, speaking portion. From the perspective of the current study, TORFL-3 role-play situated in a professional context most vividly demonstrates the composition of RAL2 oral metadiscourse as participants engage in organizing their message and positioning themselves in a formal setting. In order to understand whether task format bears any significance, I also consider narrative from TORFL-3 and provide a between-task comparison of metadiscourse. To explore oral metadiscourse in RAL2s’ speech, I apply the functional framework of metadiscourse put forth by Hyland (2005). Such analysis illuminates the composition of unexplored facets of proficiency by offering a description of an RAL2 metadiscourse profile. Furthermore, this dissertation addresses the question of nativelikeness by comparing RAL2s’ and native speakers’ metadiscourse in role-plays. I explore the extent to which RAL2’s and native speakers’ (NS) metadiscourse exhibit similarities. The findings herein contribute to research on long-term study abroad gains, and they offer implications for instruction in the area of metadiscourse at the advanced level of proficiency.Item From the aesthete to the pedagogue : the Yasnaya Polyana peasant school as the experimental laboratory for Tolstoy's creative transformation(2010-12) Clayton, Nadya Yurievna; Kuzmic, Tatiana; Kolsti, John; Rappaport, Gilbert; Livers, Keith; Bar-Adon, AaronThis dissertation examines Tolstoy’s reevaluation of his creative approaches to writing through the medium of his experimental pedagogical work with the peasant children on his estate. It is argued that Tolstoy’s pedagogical interlude forms an important bridge to the writer’s fiction and should not be viewed as a digression from his development as a writer, but as an integral part of it. This project explores how the educational essays Tolstoy wrote during this period facilitate his transition from championing the aesthetic theory of “pure art” in his formative years as a writer for The Contemporary to a more mature author of War and Peace, the major masterwork that is imbued with conclusions reached during his pedagogical interlude. Tolstoy’s evolution as a writer is examined in the context of his relationship to the aesthetic ideas of the 1850’s that became a springboard for Tolstoy’s later aesthetic concepts. A comprehensive textual analysis of Tolstoy’s lesser known early works such as Notes from Lucerne and “Albert” is undertaken in order to highlight some of their important stylistic peculiarities that provide a valuable insight into the authorial presence and the nature of Tolstoy’s aesthetic rhetoric. Further, it is demonstrated how the school at Yasnaya Polyana becomes the writer’s experimental workshop, a testing ground for Tolstoy’s pedagogical theories and his creative ideas, which he checks against his students’ perception. Finally, the study is concluded by examining Tolstoy’s most encompassing work, his epic novel War and Peace through the medium of his educational writings and ideas. By locating some of the main concepts of his pedagogical philosophy in the context of this monumental masterwork, we illuminate their meaning more clearly as filtered through the prism of Tolstoy’s creative thought in order to demonstrate to what extent Tolstoy’s educational ideas informed his creative writings. It is established that all the central principles of Tolstoy’s educational thought such as his pedagogy of freedom, his ideas of aesthetic education through reading, art and music, his religious and moral education found their reflections on the pages of War and Peace and commend a great deal to a modern educator.Item Kazakhstan’s multivector foreign policy and its application in combating the rise of religious extremism(2021-05-04) Guerrero, Alexandra Nicole; Neuburger, Mary, 1966-This report analyzes how Kazakhstan uses multivector foreign policy to address the rise of radical Islam both domestically and in the greater Central Asian region. It seeks to understand how Kazakhstan balances its relationships with Russia, China, the US, and other Central Asian countries to maintain stability in the region and achieve mutually beneficial outcomes for all countries involved. This report shows that Kazakhstan’s engagement in bilateral treaties and international organizations have helped it to prepare its military to counter terrorist and extremist threats. However, Kazakh government discourse on the severity of this threat is likely out of proportion to the small number of manifestations of terrorist and extremist activity. This report concludes that Kazakhstan’s multivector foreign policy helps Kazakhstan to maintain internal and external stability and successfully address the threat posed by religious extremism. Maintaining stability allows Kazakhstan to continue cooperating with its neighboring countries in other spheres of mutual interestItem Lyrics of lexicon : a study of the use of music and music video for second language vocabulary learning(2013-05) Hopkins, Mark Edward; Garza, Thomas J.; Rappaport, Gilbert; Livers, Keith; Jordan, Bella; Blyth, CarlSince proficiency oriented language instruction has become the dominant approach in university-level language education, the study of second language vocabulary acquisition has found renewed fervor in the field of applied linguistics. While much of the initial second language vocabulary acquisition research was concerned with determining the amount of vocabulary knowledge requisite to achieve proficiency, a number of current vocabulary specialists have now shifted their focus to ascertaining the most effective explicit learning activities for the acquisition of lexical knowledge. In response to the current pervasive popularity of digital learning, this dissertation evaluated the use of music and music videos for the study of Russian vocabulary. The study implemented a mixed method approach of quantitative and qualitative analysis of data to determine the effect on the acquisition of lexical knowledge of augmenting written textual input with input from the aural modality in the form of music or from the combined input of the aural and visual modalities in the form of music videos. The data for this study was collected over five weeks during the Fall semester 2012 from volunteer participants enrolled in Russian language classes at the University of Texas at Austin. Each week, all of the participants in the study were exposed to unfamiliar Russian vocabulary in the context of song lyrics. The participants were divided into three groups that encountered the song lyrics in three different conditions. The comparison group read the song lyrics through written textual input alone, while the two treatment groups read the lyrics while listening to the song or watching the music video respectively. Through a pre- and post-test Word Translation Survey, the participants’ acquisition of target vocabulary knowledge was monitored. Additionally, a qualitative post-test questionnaire was administered to expatiate on the quantitative findings, and to evaluate the participants’ attitudes and beliefs about language learning through music and music video. While the results of the quantitative analysis were not definitively conclusive, the qualitative questionnaire indeed elucidated a number of the quantitative findings, and contributed to an understanding of the students’ attitudes and beliefs about language learning through music and music video.Item Marina Tsvetaeva's Poemy-Skazki : redefining the genre(2002-05) Karmanova, Tatiana Victorovna, 1959-; O'Bell, LeslieItem Predatory portraiture : Goethe's Faust and the literary vampire in Gogol's [P]opmpem and Wilde's The picture of Dorian Gray(2010-12) Anderson, Matthew Neil, 1983-; Garza, Thomas J.; Richmond-Garza, Elizabeth M.Despite the fact that there seems to be no direct link between the works of Nikolai Gogol and those of Oscar Wilde, Gogol’s novella, Портрет (The Portrait) and Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, share many elements in common, most notably the device of the predatory portrait. This report explores the parallels that exist between these two texts and argues that they mutually derive from elements found in Goethe’s Faust and the trope of the literary vampire.Item The role of the Holy Fool in society as portrayed in the novels Maidenhair and The Master and Margarita(2014-08) Shupala, Lindsay Anne; Garza, Thomas J.This thesis examines the role of holy fool in society in the Russian novels Maidenhair [Venerin Volos] and The Master and Margarita [Masteri Margarita] by using Platonic philosophy from The Republic. This study relies heavily on the book Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives, edited by Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, for its definition and background of the Eastern Orthodox holy fool. The point most discussed about the holy fool is the concept of the figure as a selfless, eccentric, and vagrant messenger between two groups of contrasting ideas and cultures. In addition, this thesis also looks at the journey of a figure towards becoming a holy fool and his or her effect on other individuals. In Maidenhair and The Master and Margarita, the holy fool serves as a guide for society and reveals the light and dark sides of the citizenry. Socratic dialectic assists in examining the purpose of the holy foolish characters in Maidenhair and The Master and Margarita by highlighting the importance of integrating one’s unique understanding of truth as the individual sees it in his or her own image, after one emerges from the dark cave as it is described in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. After leaving the cave of illusory reality and confronting ones past, patterns, and shadows, the characters in Maidenhair and The Master and Margarita can achieve a calmer and more peaceful state of being. Thus, they attain the ability to help others by pointing to the light and dark traits within humanity, so that society can realize its individual truths. These two very different writers, Mikhail Bulgakov and Mikhail Shishkin, describe similar ideas on the examination of historical patterns and the preservation of words, thereby demonstrating the importance and timelessness of the enlightenment aspect of Russian literature through manuscripts.Item The structure and use of collective numeral phrases in Slavic : Russian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, and Polish(2009-08) Kim, Hyoungsup; Rappaport, Gilbert C.This dissertation investigates Slavic collective numerals and their syntactic structure from descriptive and structural perspectives on the basis of the operation Agree. The headedness of Slavic collective numeral phrases will be focused on with three Slavic languages: Russian, Bosnian/ Croatian/Serbian, and Polish. To analyze the semantic and morphosyntactic properties of Slavic collective numeral phrases, I adopted two important concepts proposed by Rappaport (2002, 2006): i) Minimal Lexical Representation (MLR) and ii) pre-valued abstract Quantitative Case (QC). MLR represents the semantic and formal features of nouns, which selectively combine with collective numerals, while the idea of QC can predict the heterogeneous and homogeneous patterns of case assignment. The presence of pre-valued abstract QC triggers heterogeneous morphosyntax, while the absence of QC triggers homogeneous morphosyntax. The spell-out forms of collective numerals are the direct result of morphological syncretic rules. In regard of the headedness of Slavic collective numeral phrases, this research claims that nouns are the heads of Slavic numeral phrases on the grounds that numerals, adjectives, and other modifiers agree with nouns, which functions as the locus of morphosyntax (Zwicky 1985). The use of collective numerals is determined by the properties of nouns. In each chapter, Slavic collective numerals will be analyzed from the three points of view: i) semantics, ii) morphology, and iii) syntax. Collective numerals can emphasize the meaning of collectivity, totality, and cohesiveness as an aggregate. BCS and Polish collective numerals strictly specify a group of mixed gender, while Russian does not. BCS is characterized by three different types of collective numerals: i) collective numeral substantives (dvojica ‘two’, trojica ‘three’, četvorica ’four’, petorica ’five’, etc.), collective numerals (dvoje ‘two’, troje ‘three’, četvoro ’four’, petoro ’five’, etc.), and collective numeral adjectives (dvoji (m.)/ dvoje (f.)/ dvoja (n.) ’two’, etc.). Moreover, indeclinability of numerals is one of the characteristics of BCS numerals. Polish has secondary gender, so-called virile marking, which does not apply to collective numerals. Polish collective numerals are strictly used to express a group of mixed gender.Item Surviving total war in Kherson Region, Ukraine in 1941 - 1945(2013-05) Alexander, Vladyslav Christian; Wynn, Charters, 1953-; Bychkova Jordan, BellaWhile there are plenty of published materials concerning survival in Ukraine during World War II, most of those bypass the Kherson region and focus primarily on the German occupation. This thesis is an attempt to study the complex history of people's survival in Ukraine during a large portion of the twentieth century, through a micro-history of the city of Kherson and the neighboring villages, and towns of the region. The study analyzes the actions and the consequences for the various social, political and ethnic groups of changes in the ruling regimes, emphasizing the period of the return of the Red Army to the region in 1943-1944. This work attempts to provide an answer to the question of why the population of a provincial city, which endured no major combat, was reduced from about 100,000 residents in 1941 to less than a hundred on the day of return of the Soviets in 1944?Item Teaching language as culture in the foreign language classroom(2010-08) Taylor, Kathleen J., 1963-; Garza, Thomas J.; Rappaport, Gilbert C.; Horwitz, Elaine K.; Jordan, Bella B.; Pesenson, Michael A.The relationship between language and culture has long been acknowledged, defined and discussed in the literature on foreign language learning and teaching (Kramsch, 1997; Krasner, 1999; Omaggio, 2001), though the integration of culture into foreign language learning has been inconsistent. Linguistic competence alone is not enough for learners to be competent in that language, and language learners need to be aware of the culturally appropriate ways to address people, express gratitude, make requests, and agree or disagree with someone. Language must be used with other culturally appropriate behavior to be successful. Despite the critical relationship between language and culture in effective foreign language instruction, postsecondary foreign language education lacks benchmarks, best practices or empirical standards for cultural integration. This forces college instructors of foreign language without guidance about how and when to integrate culture into their instruction. This descriptive case study examines the ways in which culture is integrated into a Basic Russian language university course. Through direct classroom observation, interviews with the instructor and a review of the textbook, the researcher examined the integration of big “C” culture and little “c” culture into foreign language instruction. The observations affirmed the general assertion that cultural infusion in college-level language instruction is limited and often delivered only as incidental additions to grammar and mechanics. Further, it was noted that instructors lack guidance about how to effectively integrate culture into their teaching, and this was further affirmed through a review of the class textbook. The study concludes with recommendations for further study into effective practices for cultural infusion into foreign language instruction and recommendations for improving foreign language teaching through the integration of culture.