Italian items in domestic spaces Representing Italianness through objects in the fiction of Helen Barolini and Chiara Barzini

In their migration, people carry objects with them, and relocate them through physical spaces and across cultural boundaries. Handed down through generations, these objects become signs of ethnicity beyond their appearance and purpose. Examining the variety of the literary representations of objects and their subsequent translation contributes to the analysis of how material culture migrates within distant cultural systems and from one language to another. This essay focuses on domestic objects depicted by two Italian authors writing about the experience of a migrant coming-of-age in the United States: Helen Barolini and Chiara Barzini. Using diverse multilingual and (self-)translation strategies, they highlight through cultural translation the difficulties of bridging their Italian and American selfhood within an Italian household relocated abroad. In doing so, their relationship with objects underlines how their diasporic experience is entangled with their achievement of self-confidence and independence as women within the context of the Italian diaspora

Delta Narratives: Saving the Historical and Cultural Heritage of The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

From August 2014 through July 2015, the Delta Narratives project, on contract to the Delta Protection Commission, addressed two questions. First, in what ways does the historical experience of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta contribute to an understanding of key themes in regional and American history? Second, how might Delta stories gain wider appreciation within the region, throughout Northern California, and among people in the rest of California and beyond? Scholars on the project team documented ways the history of the Delta illustrates trends in land management and reclamation, technological shifts in transportation and agriculture, the impact of ethnicity and labor specialization on community building, and finally, the shifting visioning of America\u27s promise and fall from grace by artists and writers in response to the intense cultivation of the Delta and the conditions which workers there endured. Their essays testify to the intrinsic value of Delta stories and to the additional perspectives they bring to regional and national history. With these essays in hand, the project team investigated the current infrastructure for the preservation and dissemination of historical and cultural information in the Delta. It created a directory of institutions committed to promoting Delta stories. In order to stimulate conversations between these stakeholders, the team organized two workshops at which the scholars and archivists shared insights and invited commentary and conversation. Subsequently, with the support of the Center for California Studies at Sacramento State University, a conference entitled “More than H2O: Saving the History and Culture of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta” presented findings and discussed strategies with an audience of state and local stakeholders. Delta Narratives culminated with a conference organized around an American Assembly model. The conference generated a list of suggestions for further action regarding the recognition, preservation, and dissemination of Delta stories. High on the list of initiatives were adequate mapping of historically significant locations, an organization that would draw together the many cultural and historical groups in the Delta toward common action, the initiation of annual Delta Days to celebrate the region, and the creation of educational materials including web applications (apps), and a website devoted to the region

Can a Self Assessement Tool for Environmental Controls which has been Informed by Users be of Benefit to Potential Users

This dissertation looks at the area of environmental control systems (ECS) also known as electronic aids for daily living for people with disabilities. These systems allow an individual with a disability to control devices such as a television, music player, telephone as well as a door, window or curtain controllers. A self-assessment tool was developed for potential users, which was informed by the feedback of (i) users who use or who have used environmental control systems, (ii) Enable Ireland staff who were involved in the service delivery of ECS and (iii) companies who install ECS for individuals with disabilities. These stakeholders were interviewed by a guided interview based on the research on assistive technology models. Results of interviews informed the self-assessment tool development. After the self-assessment tool was developed it was evaluated by potential users to see what benefits it had for potential users

"Getting Down the Road": Understanding Stable Mobility in an American Circus

A circus, perceived as a fleeting performative event by its audience, presents a life of continuingly restored movement and work to the people that produce the performance. This is the starting point for the stable mobility concept presented in this research. The circus represents a situation of continuing and stable physical movement in which the production of movement continually creates a recognizable, yet flexible, situation. This thesis demonstrates the value of stable mobility for understanding experiences and productions of cultural geographical phenomena that are flexible, continually restored, and reworked to be stable, yet also specific, at each restoration. The thesis argues that stable mobility becomes apparent through mobile research perspectives. A mobile perspective is viewing the lived relationships and processes of mobility from the place of mobility and finding ways to recover the practices and experiences of being mobile. This is done, not by adding physical movement, but by considering the context of movement. The research presents ideas of performance and memory as the ways in which a circus manages to reproduce and transform its culture of mobility by calling on past formulations of circus mobility in ways specific to each performance. Significantly, the thesis presents a figuring of mobility, understood as constantly renewed relationships between people, materials, and memory made flexible through improvisational performances, as necessary to the maintenance and preservation of circus life. Through a five month ethnography conducted on the roads, and in the tent, of Kelly Miller Circus' 2008 season, this research discovered how, through continually restored and flexible performances of memory, this performative culture of movement maintains and preserves its mobility by continually becoming temporarily immobile. In order to reflect the varied aspects of stable mobility at work in Kelly Miller Circus, each ethnographic description and analytical engagement is written in a different performative style

Tracking the Trickster Home: The Animal Nature of Words in the Writing of Gerald Vizenor and Barry Lopez

To be uploaded later

Discourse marking in Burmese and English: a corpus-based approach

This study is a comparative analysis of discourse marking systems in Burmese and in English, using a corpus-based approach within the framework of discourse analysis. The focus of this study is a set of lexical items in a particular word class called 'particles' in Burmese, which lack one-to-one equivalents in English and are characterized by highly context-dependent semantic values. Unlike traditional comparative studies involving less commonly studied languages that tend to base their analyses on the model of well-established linguistic systems such as English, this study is Burmese-originated. It starts out with an identification of discourse functions typically associated with high frequency Burmese particles, and their equivalent realisations in English are subsequently identified. Findings indicate that Burmese particles share common cross-linguistic characteristics of discourse markers as described in the current literature. The data offers clear evidence that discourse functions of Burmese particles investigated are commonly found in spoken English, but they are not realised through the same discourse marking system. This study therefore calls for a more effective comparative methodology that can compare syntactically-oriented discourse marking systems more effectively with lexically-oriented ones, such as in the case of Burmese and English respectively. Last but not least, this study also challenges the notion of 'word' as a unit of analysis for a corpus-based approach, as the notion of word cannot be easily defined in a syllabic language such as Burmese

Discourse marking in Burmese and English: a corpus-based approach

This study is a comparative analysis of discourse marking systems in Burmese and in English, using a corpus-based approach within the framework of discourse analysis. The focus of this study is a set of lexical items in a particular word class called 'particles' in Burmese, which lack one-to-one equivalents in English and are characterized by highly context-dependent semantic values. Unlike traditional comparative studies involving less commonly studied languages that tend to base their analyses on the model of well-established linguistic systems such as English, this study is Burmese-originated. It starts out with an identification of discourse functions typically associated with high frequency Burmese particles, and their equivalent realisations in English are subsequently identified. Findings indicate that Burmese particles share common cross-linguistic characteristics of discourse markers as described in the current literature. The data offers clear evidence that discourse functions of Burmese particles investigated are commonly found in spoken English, but they are not realised through the same discourse marking system. This study therefore calls for a more effective comparative methodology that can compare syntactically-oriented discourse marking systems more effectively with lexically-oriented ones, such as in the case of Burmese and English respectively. Last but not least, this study also challenges the notion of 'word' as a unit of analysis for a corpus-based approach, as the notion of word cannot be easily defined in a syllabic language such as Burmese

Speaking Kiowa Today: Continuity and Change Through the Generations

Speaking Kiowa Today constitutes a systematic, in-depth look at language change over four generations, focusing on one language, Kiowa, during a period of intense language change, often called obsolescence. The integration of ethnolinguistic and structural linguistic research provides a more comprehensive model for examining language obsolescence, or as argued here, language change, as Kiowa cannot yet be considered obsolete due to the important roles it plays in Kiowa society. This joint research methodology reveals how language use is related to linguistic change, as well as which Kiowa forms are changing due to contact with English, and which are undergoing attrition, the eroding of the linguistic system due to disuse. In describing Kiowa as it is spoken today, this work proves that Modern Kiowa is not only a system worthy of being described, but that newer forms are not ‘compromised’ or ‘corrupt.’ Instead, it provides support to the theory that languages can evolve from polysynthetic towards more analytic in structure. Speaking Kiowa Today illustrates how Modern Kiowa speakers are creatively fulfilling necessary functions within the community today, and the language is still viable and useful. It is the end goal of this research that validating the modern form of the language will contribute to language revitalization within any community by restoring pride to speakers of all types, encouraging curriculum development, and supporting language use for more functions

Predicting Academic Success of Entering Freshmen at an Urban University Through the Assessment of Oral and Written Language Competency

In Moores and Klas\u27 (1989) definitive study on college student retention, postsecondary administrators ranked the maintenance of student enrollment second in importance on a list of twenty critical issues facing higher education. Of particular relevance to college administrators has been the retention and graduation of African-American college students (D. B. Hawkins, 1994; Western Reserve, 1991). Researchers, in considering the overall problem of student attrition, particularly, among African-Americans, have explored such questions as these: Which students are dropping out (Sherman, Giles and Green, 1994; Robinson, 1992)? Why do they discontinue their studies (Austin, 1982; Bohr et al., 1995; Kraft, 1992; Tinto, 1975)? Why is the problem especially serious among African-American students (Ball, 1992; Carris, 1995; Miller, 1990)? Are the traditional prediction and placement measures failing to accurately identify those entering freshmen students with the potential to succeed and those who may require intervention to succeed (Bridgeman & Wendler, 1991; Cole, 1987; Wambach & Brothern, 1989)? If so, are there ways to improve on the process? Would using an alternative or supplementary measure more effectively predict which college students are likely to succeed and which students are likely to succeed in college with intervention? The majority of colleges utilize prediction measures such as the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT), the American College Testing Program (ACT) and high school grade point average (HGPA); and, placement measures such as the Nelson Denny Reading Test, the Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) test and writing essays to determine the potential for academic success among freshmen entrants (Lederman et al., 1986; N. V. Wood, 1989). An investigation of the effectiveness of using an alternative language-based measure (that assesses a freshman\u27s speaking, listening, reading and writing skills), the Test of Adolescent and Adult Language (TOAL-3), for predicting academic success and assuring a fairer evaluation process and greater precision in the identification and placement of entering freshmen was the focus of this proposed study. Interestingly, colleges have traditionally ignored a student\u27s level of communication competence (e.g., speaking, listening, reading and writing) in predicting academic achievement (Rubin & Graham, 1988). The academic performance of African-American freshmen constituted a sub-theme, suggested by the higher dropout rates found among this population (Minorities in Higher Education, 1994). This study found that there was no statistically significant difference in the ability of the TOAL-3, when compared to the SAT, DRP and WSPT, to predict first semester grade point average (FGPA) based on language competency, among entering freshmen students in general. However, there was a statistically significant difference between the TOAL-3 and the WSPT in identifying entering freshmen students as either Predicted Success (PS) or Potential Difficulty (PD). There was a statistically significant difference between the TOAL-3 and the SAT as a function of race and gender in identifying freshmen students as either Predicted Success (PS) or Potential Difficulty (PD). There was also a statistically significant difference between the TOAL-3 and the WSPT, in forecasting which freshmen students identified as Predicted Success (PS) would achieve the criterion variable as a function of gender. However, because of the small sample size, caution should be utilized in interpreting these findings