Inclusive Keyboard Sample Assignment #1: Chord extensions in R&B

This is a supplementary file for an article published in Engaging Students: https://doi.org/10.18061/esm.697

Interview of Mike McCurry by Katie Saucer

In his oral history interview, Mike McCurry reflects on his childhood in Northern California, education at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School), and early career as press secretary for Senators Harrison Williams (New Jersey) and Daniel Patrick Moynihan (New York). He describes his involvement with John Glenn’s 1984 presidential campaign including Glenn’s surprising, yet visionary, answers to press questions, campaign trail experiences and challenges, and the transition back to Senate duties after the campaign ended. The interview also examines McCurry’s broader career trajectory, including communications roles with the campaigns of Bruce Babbitt, Lloyd Bentsen, Bob Kerrey, and John Kerry. He discusses his work as communications director for the Democratic National Committee, his tenure as spokesman for the U.S. Department of State, and his appointment as White House Press Secretary to President Bill Clinton. McCurry reflects on the distinctive challenges of each position, from the substantive demands of foreign policy communications to the political pressures of the White House during Clinton’s presidency, including the misconduct investigation. McCurry describes his later service on the Commission on Presidential Debates and his second career teaching public theology. Throughout, he emphasizes the influence of his experiences with Glenn and the lessons they carried forward into public life.This oral history was conducted in partnership with History Associates, Inc. and the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at the Ohio State University

Detecting Faint Companions to Bright Stars Using SHARK-VIS

STEP Category: Undergraduate ResearchDetecting and characterizing stellar mass black holes helps us learn about the physics of massive stars and supernovae. To efficiently discriminate between stellar binaries and binaries with black holes, we use archival data and high-contrast imaging observations. There is plenty of archival data about the velocities at which certain binary systems orbit each other, called radial velocities (RVs). We make use of this existing data, while combining it with adaptive optics (AO) images, to make better estimates of the orbital parameters of such star systems. Notably, we better estimate the mass of the companion star and the orbital inclination. For HD 104438, we observe a luminous companion and rule out black holes.The Ohio State University Second-year Transformational Experience Program (STEP)Academic Major: Astronomy and AstrophysicsAcademic Major: Physic

Integrating Grammar into Language Communication: A Reform of Novice-level Chinese Grammar Instruction with the Performed Culture Approach

Grammar is an essential component of language communication and should be taught to enhance learners’ communicative competence. However, an analysis of a widely used Chinese textbook for beginners reveals that the grammar explanations often focus on form and may not always be comprehensible, even when presented in the learners’ native language. Learners’ prior grammar knowledge in both English and Chinese is not fully utilized. The drills primarily focus on mechanical form substitution, and do not actively engage learners. The Performed Culture Approach offers a solution by presenting grammar within social-cultural contexts to help learners better understand the communicative intent. Grammar rules are interconnected with language meaning and language use. The learning material is designed to enhance input and facilitate language intake. Through language practice, learners can further internalize language communication with embedded grammar structures. ACT and FACT classes are designed to help learners hone accurate and appropriate language communication skills

Telicization of Resultative Morphemes in Mandarin Chinese

Empirical findings have shown that the counterparts of dynamic verbal predicates across languages exhibit variations regarding their aspectual interpretations, in particular, a culmination reading that is expected for accomplishments predicates (e.g., drink a glass of water) does not always obtain for all languages. For these languages that exhibit non-culmination accomplishments, they usually implement additional grammatical forms to telicize the predicates, ensuring endpoints obtained for the denoted events. (Mandarin) Chinese is one such language. In this talk, I focus on a productively used construction in Chinese known as Resultative Verb Compound (RVC, 动结式), which was discussed in previous studies as a grammatical form comparable to culmination-entailed accomplishments. The inventory of the resultative morphemes is fairly large and thus it is impossible to exhaust them all in this talk. Instead, I will focus on three resultative morphemes that are commonly used to describe, though not limited to, consumption events, namely, -wan (完), -diao (掉), and -guang (光). While presenting some intuitively available semantic readings associated with each of the three morphemes, I will also show how we may analyze the telicization effects they bring out in a formal semantic framework (i.e., the homomorphical approach by Krifka 1989, 1992, 1998), capturing their nuances in forming event structures that give rise to culmination entailment

On Rhetorically-Flavoured Speech Acts: A Case Study of Cantonese

This paper investigates the Cantonese sentence-final particle (SFP) aa1laa4, which appears in various clause types to enforce rhetorical readings. Drawing on Farkas and Bruce’s (2010) discourse model and subsequent works (e.g., Malamud and Stephenson 2015), this study examines the dynamics of discourse crises in interaction. Specifically, it identifies a scenario where Speaker X attempts to update the Common Ground (CG) with the proposition ¬, while Speaker Y remains committed to and seeks to update the CG accordingly, creating a Discourse Crisis. In such a context, the emergence of strong contextual evidence () supporting ¬ shifts the likelihood in favor of ¬ being true and being false. This resolution allows Speaker X to utter an aa1laa4 sentence, effectively leveraging the rhetorical force of the particle. The contributions of this study are threefold: (1) it refines our understanding of rhetorical question licensing by showing that aa1laa4 wh-questions rely on evidentiality rather than polarity to enforce rhetorical readings; (2) it broadens the scope of rhetorical speech act analysis, demonstrating that rhetoricity extends beyond questions to declaratives and imperatives, necessitating a unified theoretical framework; and (3) it proposes an expanded model of credence, ranging from [−1, 1], to better capture rhetorical dismissals and the rejection of alternatives in aa1laa4 utterances. These findings advance our understanding of rhetorical speech acts and the syntax-pragmatics interface

Exploring Sentence Structure, Rhythm, and Storytelling in Dialectal Writing: A Case Study of the Shanghai Dialect Novel Fanhua 繁花

Fanhua (繁花), written in Shanghainese, is set against the backdrop of over 30 years of promoting Putonghua in mainland China. Since its 2013 publication, it has sparked significant academic discussion (e.g., Mao 2018; Liu 2019; Yu 2024). However, most research emphasizes its literary significance rather than its linguistic contributions. This study examines Shanghainese’s role in the novel, focusing on its influence on sentence structure, rhythm, and narrative style. A comparative analysis of the single-volume edition and the original serialized online version reveals the author’s meticulous crafting of dialectal features. Key elements include the sentence-final particle “吧” (ba), four-character expressions, and a strong sense of rhyme, all contributing to the novel’s unique identity. The language in Fanhua is characterized by short, fragmented colloquial phrases, rhythmic patterns dominated by four-character structures, and stylistic elements aligned with Huabenti (话本体storytelling tradition). These features shape the narrative’s linguistic rhythm and deepen its connection to Shanghainese oral traditions. By integrating sentence structure, rhythm, and traditional storytelling techniques, this study highlights how Fanhua redefines the dialectal novel, showcasing Shanghainese as an integral component of its creative and cultural identity. This perspective underscores the linguistic richness of the text and its contribution to understanding dialectal innovation in contemporary Chinese literature

Inter-indexical Gender in Japanese Translation

Japanese translators construct gender by assigning different speech styles to the speech of non-Japanese characters. Their usages of speech styles show three tendencies. First, the speech of non-Japanese white women is often translated into stereotypical Japanese women’s language. Such translations serve to naturalize the reserved, polite femininity associated with Japanese women’s language as if it is shared by women all over the world. Second, the speech of non-Japanese casual men is translated into a peculiar informal style used only by non-Japanese men. Such translations, by dividing Japanese and non-Japanese masculinities, work to sustain the hegemonic status of the polite Japanese masculinity. Third, the combination of women’s language features with plain sentence-final forms is utilized to the speech of women in Europe, North America and South America more frequently than that of women in Asia and Africa. In contrast, the speech of women in Asia and Africa is often translated with the honorific sentence-final forms. Such translations reproduce and reinforce the Japanese stereotypes of women in the former regions as informal and those in the latter regions as polite