Browsing by Subject "Variation"
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Item Language use in East Austin, Texas(2013-08) Points, Kathleen M.; Hinrichs, Lars; Epps, Patience, 1973-This dissertation presents a study of African American and Hispanic speakers in East Austin, Texas, an area that has been historically segregated and is now experiencing rapid gentrification. The current literature is lacking research on minority participation in sound change. This dissertation contributes to redressing the deficit in this area by describing data from sociolinguistic interviews with African American and Hispanic speakers; the following questions are considered: How do social variables influence a linguistic system? How do the social pressures of gentrification influence linguistic variables? To what extent do minority speakers participate in sound changes present in the majority group's variety of English? Specifically, it considers GOOSE and GOAT fronting and the relative positions of LOT and THOUGHT. It has previously been suggested that only Anglo speakers participate in changes affecting these vowels. With regard to GOOSE and GOAT, in many varieties of Southern English, the back vowels become fronted in Anglo speech while they remain backed in African American and Hispanic speech (e.g., Thomas, 2001a). However, the findings discussed here show that African American and Hispanic speakers may front these vowels to achieve particular stylistic purposes. With regard to LOT and THOUGHT, these vowel classes have merged, or are undergoing merger, in many regions of the United States (Labov, Ash, & Boberg, 2006). In Texas, Anglo and Hispanic speakers exhibit the LOT~THOUGHT merger while African American speakers reportedly do not and in general resist the merger (Bailey, Wikle, & Sand, 1991; Bernstein, 1993; Labov et al., 2006; Thomas, 2001a). The findings presented here suggest a trend for LOT~THOUGHT moving towards merger among African American speakers in Central Texas. This is unexpected among African American speakers in Texas and in the U.S. at large. The findings presented illustrate the importance of ethnically diverse samples in describing speech. In Texas where there is a large population of Hispanic residents, we cannot claim to have a thorough knowledge of the regional variety of English without investigating minority speakers. The analysis presented here is a step towards describing a more diverse data set of regional American English.Item Skeletal ontogeny of Monodelphis domestica (Mammalia: Didelphidae) : quantifying variation, variability, and technique bias in ossification sequence reconstruction(2013-12) Morris, Zachary Stephen; Rowe, Timothy, 1953-The field of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) focuses on understanding the evolution of ontogeny and mechanisms of evolutionary change. Recently, taxonomic comparisons of the sequence of skeletal ossification have become prominent in evo-devo. However, most of these studies fail to consider two major issues: how the technique used to assay ossification and ontogenetic variation and variability may affect comparisons among taxa. This study focuses on the onset of ossification in the skeleton of Monodelphis domestica and quantifies the affects of variation, variability, and technique bias on reconstructions of ontogeny. Previous comparisons among mammalian taxa have used both computed tomography (CT) and clearing-and-staining (CS) to assess the presence or absence of skeletal elements (i.e., skeletal maturity). In this study, CT and CS were used on the same specimen to compare how these methods assess skeletal maturity. The comparisons of the same individual under reveal significant differences in how skeletal maturity is assessed by CT and CS techniques. Further, significant biases were recovered between techniques. CT is more likely to reveal cranial elements that CS does not, whereas CS is more likely to reveal appendicular elements that CT does not. To assess levels of variation and variability, Ontogenetic Sequence Analysis (OSA) was used to characterize the ontogeny of Monodelphis domestica. This revealed significant levels of variation with over 800 different ontogenetic pathways recovered for the onset of ossification of all skeletal elements studied. Additionally, high levels of variability were also reconstructed because the majority of specimens were found to exhibit non-modal ontogenetic sequences. This variability is more highly concentrated in the sequence of cranial ossification, suggesting potential modularity in ontogenetic variation and variability. Finally, OSA revealed that technique bias could importantly affect reconstructions of skeletal ossification sequences because no identical sequences were recovered by the CT and CS datasets. The results of this study demonstrate the importance of considering the primary nature of developmental studies, the specimen. Only by recognizing and quantifying the complexities of evo-devo research, especially natural variation and methodological biases, can more complete understandings of the evolution of ontogeny be had.Item The eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina) in time and space(2013-05) Vitek, Natasha Slonim; Bell, Christopher J., 1966-; Rowe, Tim B; Clarke, Julia A; LaDuc, Travis JVariation is a key component of the evolutionary process. However, variation often is poorly understood within species. The eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina) presents an excellent opportunity to study that topic because extant populations have high levels of variation in soft-tissue characters as well as morphological variation in skeletal characters. To explore patterns of spatiotemporal variation, I used geometric morphometrics to quantify shape within three datasets. First, I asked to what extent size explained total shape variation using an ontogenetic series of 101 specimens. Next, I examined to what extent subspecies were morphologically distinct and identifiable in the modern record, and to what degree they explained overall variation using a dataset of 200 modern specimens. Finally, I compared the patterns in the modern biota to those from the fossil record using the previous datasets as well as a fossil dataset of 44 Pleistocene shells of T. carolina. I found that in four views of the turtle shell (dorsal, ventral, posterior, and lateral), size significantly explains 10% - 31% of the variation in shape. Some of the characters correlated with size were historically ascribed to characters of subspecies. Studying the extent to which size explains overall variation in different subsamples of my data allowed me to discover a new way of classifying segments of a population in order to account for size in future studies. Subspecies identification also explained a statistically significant amount of overall shape variation. However, the results of assignments tests and CVAs indicated insignificant or unreliable differences. Results indicate that differences between putative subspecies are more statistically significant than they are biologically significant. They do not support the recognition of subspecies in T. carolina. The inability of statistical analyses to identify individuals of a subspecies based on shell shape means that subspecies cannot be identified in the fossil record. Some of the same relationships between shape and size are present in the fossil record and the modern biota, but other morphological patterns are unique to fossil specimens. Two of the morphotypes co-occur in the same strata, and represent a unique evolutionary pattern not seen in the modern biota.Item The Madrileño ejke : a study of the perception and production of velarized /s/ in Madrid(2017-05) Wright, Robyn, Ph. D.; Toribio, Almeida Jacqueline, 1963-; Bullock, Barbara E.; Nishida, Chiyo; Hinrichs, Lars; Carvalho, Ana M.Aspiration of coda /s/ has been widely studied throughout the Spanish-speaking world, although within the Madrid dialect there have only been two studies quantifying /s/ realization (Momcilovic, 2005; Turnham & Lafford, 1995). In the first, Turnham and Lafford (1995) examine the extralinguistic factors that condition /s/ realization, considering the nonstandard variants of velarized and elided /s/ in their analysis. In contrast, Momcilovic (2005) does not include the velarized /s/ as a specific category in her study, but rather quantifies rates of aspirated, elided and assimilated /s/. In this way, the actual variants present and their distribution within the Spanish of Madrid has not been clearly established. The velarized /s/, of particular interest in this dissertation, is distinct from most cases of /s/ weakening because it does not fit into the typological weaking paradigm of [s] > [h] > [ø], and furthermore may not be a case of lenition at all (Henriksen & Harper, 2016). Given the curious /s/ variant present in the Madrid dialect, the current investigation sought to learn more of the social meaning and perception of the velarized /s/, utilizing the matched guise language attitudes technique to do so. It is found that the velarized /s/ is a marker of Madrileño identity, and that it is mainly associated with negative connotations, most strongly observed among the Madrileño participants. This dissertation contributes the first language attitudes study conducted on /s/ in Madrid, revealing both the social meaning attached to velarized /s/ and the importance of the speakers’ social characteristics in their perception of this variant. Secondly, a production study was conducted in order to offer a clearer picture of the coda /s/ variants present in the Madrid dialect and their respective distribution. The significant factors found to condition /s/ realization include syllabic position, reading time, reading order and the number of Madrileño grandparents a speaker has. Most importantly here, it is seen that the aspirated variant actually appears more frequently than the velarized /s/. Together these studies contribute a greater understanding of velarized /s/, filling a lacuna in what was previously known of coda /s/ in the Madrid dialect.Item The pragmatics of greetings and leave-takings in Brazil and the United States : a cross-cultural study(2019-11-21) Flanzer, Vivian; Koike, Dale April; Toribio, Almeida J; Kelm, Orlando R; Blyth, Carl S; Carvalho, Ana MThis dissertation examines the cultural norms involved in greetings and leave-takings in different situations of social interaction as reported by university students from Brazil and the United States, investigating the differences and similarities between these norms in the two countries and if the gender of the speaker influences verbal and/or nonverbal behavior in greetings and leave-takings. Using aspects of pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and the model of frame (Terkourafi, 2005a), and following the studies of Koike and Lacorte (2017), Moraes (2001) and Schneider (2012a), I created a cultural survey that was answered by 182 Americans and 178 Brazilians. My findings show that the American and Brazilian students reported using the same greeting and leave-taking forms, indicating that they share a similar cultural frame regarding these speech acts. However, the results showed that, in most situations, the frequencies of these forms vary in both groups, suggesting that the Americans and Brazilians have different cultural norms and expectations regarding the realization of these greetings and leave-takings. A comparison of these data shows that the Brazilian university students reported a higher tendency than their American counterparts to use Body Language and Vocatives in greetings and leave-takings, and Pre-Closures in leave-takings. The Americans, on the other hand, tended to mention Positive Comments in leave-takings and Status Questions in greetings. Critically, I found that these tendencies differ in terms of frequencies and/or linguistic realization according to the levels of social distance between the interactants. This knowledge is important for cross-cultural communication because it is through the choices of specific greeting and leave-taking forms and types of verbal and nonverbal expression that speakers sustain their relationships and display their identities. Moreover, this study reveals that gender variation does not play a major role in greetings and leave-takings for these students, indicating that a change might be underway toward more gender equality in both societies among this age group. By revealing the norms and expectations of speech communities in different situations of interaction, this large cross-cultural pragmatics study helps dispel blanket statements and stereotypes about peoples and cultures.Item The syntax of questions and variation in adult and child African American English(2012-05) White-Sustaíta, Jessica Bridget; Meier, Richard P.; Green, Lisa J., 1963-; Hinrichs, Lars; Bannard, Colin; Blockley, Mary; Beavers, JohnThis dissertation is the first in-depth examination of the syntax of questions and question variation in African American English (AAE). Question syntax in AAE can vary among subject-auxiliary inversion (e.g., What did you eat?), non-inversion (e.g., Why I can’t play?), and auxiliary-less questions (e.g., What he said?). Historically, AAE question syntax, when considered at all, has been dismissed as essentially identical to mainstream English. Thus, commentary on AAE question syntax is limited to observing that auxiliaries may “delete” in auxiliary-less questions, and that subject-auxiliary inversion may be “absent” in non-inverted questions. In other words, question syntax in AAE has generally been represented as a derivation or deviation from mainstream English. In the first half of this thesis I provide a syntactic analysis of the three question types, and I argue that question variation in AAE—in contrast to question variation in MAE—is the product of true syntactic variation. I show that 1) auxiliary-less questions are not necessarily cases of deletion, but are rather generated by AAE-specific parametric settings that—due to a lack of covert movement— never call upon an auxiliary, and 2) variation among different question types is tightly constrained and predicted by grammatical factors, such as negation, auxiliary verb-type, and tense. In the second half of this thesis, I examine question patterns among AAE-speaking children based on a corpus of over 50 hours of elicited and spontaneous speech data from more than 80 AAE- and mainstream English-speaking children (ages 5-7) in a New Orleans elementary school. My analysis of these data show the following: 1) by age 5, child speakers of AAE already follow the same grammatical patterns constraining question variation that are documented in adult AAE, 2) variation is inherent to the syntax of AAE questions, and not an artifact of dialect-switching or social variation, and 3) the patterns in the children’s data support the analysis of AAE question syntax presented in the first half of this thesis.Item Variation in English world-wide : varieties and genres in a quantitative perspective(2017-05) Bohmann, Axel; Hinrichs, Lars; Blockley, Mary; Hutchison, Coleman; Bullock, Barbara; Erk, KatrinThis dissertation takes a quantitative perspective on variation in English world-wide. It applies a feature-aggregational method to a corpus of 7,309 texts, representing ten national standard varieties of English and comprising a range of oral, written, and computer-mediated genres of communication. The study is designed as a testing ground for the adequacy of different models in World Englishes research. By virtue of drawing on data from the social networking service Twitter, the project also offers insights into the relationship between computer-mediated discourse and more established communicative genres. My analysis gives a unified account of different determinants of variation – the geographic and the generic-situational – and systematically compares their effects. I take inspiration both from variationist sociolinguistics and the text-linguistic view common in corpus research and demonstrate a method that brings these two traditions into productive conversation. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is used to develop ten latent dimensions of variation from 236 individual linguistic variables whose relative frequency is extracted for each corpus text. The resulting factorial structure relates systematically to both generic and geographic dimensions of variation. However, the former are established as significantly more powerful predictors of variation than the latter. Properties of genres and sub-genres at different levels of granularity are explored along the ten dimensions of variation, and relationships among varieties and groups of varieties are quantified. The dimensions developed through EFA are then applied to a new set of data, with a shift of focus from the multi-feature exploratory view to a contextualized analysis of a single case of variation. The competition between established and innovative syntactic options for because-complementation is modeled in a logistic regression analysis. Score estimates for the factors developed in EFA are included as predictors of variation in because-complementation. I demonstrate that this analytical choice improves both the goodness-of-fit and the theoretical insights generated by the model. This project emphasizes the importance of conversation and collaboration among different approaches to language variation and makes a case for methodological pluralism in the study of language variation.