Review of Bernard Cerquiglini, In Praise of the Variant: A Critical History of Philology.

Bernard Cerquiglini, In Praise of the Variant: A Critical History of Philology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. 112 pp. ISBN 0801861268

The Great Vowel Shift

An innovative Web site helps explain the development and significance of a complex linguistic phenomenon

Phonological Awareness and Foreign Accent: A Handbook for German EFL Teachers

Foreign accent, or the deviation from non-native speech, has a direct impact on communication and may even result in undesirable consequences for the speaker. Instead of perceiving statements as more difficult to understand, native speakers often perceive them as less trustworthy. However, the pronunciation of adult second language (L2) learners is extremely difficult to change, and L2 native-like pronunciation is rarely achieved after early childhood. The latest research suggests that explicit instruction about phonological awareness can contribute to better spoken comprehensibility even in adult L2 learners. There is a direct relationship between the L2 learners’ language awareness and the quality of L2 pronunciation. Following the Matthew effect, which is already known to apply to the development of reading skills (the more a child reads, the faster the reading skills will develop), researchers believe that the more L2 learners speak, the more attention they will pay to spoken input. By becoming more attentive to spoken input, L2 learners notice the ‘how and what’ of what native speakers actually say. This field project offers a “Handbook for German EFL Teachers” and exemplifies how phonological awareness can be raised while teaching two selected suprasegmental aspects of American English pronunciation: word stress and sentence stress

Review of Bernard Cerquiglini, In Praise of the Variant: A Critical History of Philology.

Bernard Cerquiglini, In Praise of the Variant: A Critical History of Philology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. 112 pp. ISBN 0801861268

Treatment of Injuries and Conditions of the Distal Clavicle: A Review

Several trauma-related injuries and degenerative conditions affect the distal end of the clavicle. Fractures of the distal clavicle and separations of the acromioclavicular (AC) joint are common, resulting from direct impact onto the shoulder region. Osteolysis and osteoarthritis of degenerative processes of the AC joint are caused by repetitive activity and overuse of the shoulder. To help identify options for treating the distal end of the clavicle, this review highlighted notable anatomical locations and biomechanics; findings of physical examinations; classification systems of injuries; and standard operative and nonoperative methods used for treatment. Although distal clavicle fractures, AC joint separations, osteolysis, and AC joint osteoarthritis can be treated nonoperatively, severe injuries may be successfully treated using operative techniques

Group Norms and Intimacy Among Best Friends: A Normative Cross-Sectional Developmental Study

The focus of the current dissertation was on 1) the prevalence and nature of observed gossip behavior in the friendships of children in grades five and six, and 2) the associations of observed gossip behavior and perceptions of friendship quality. Scholars have argued that gossip is a normal part of communicative development and it also has been linked to perceptions of close and positive friendship (Gottman & Mettetal, 1986). The findings of the current dissertation indicated that gossip was prominent in children's conversations with their best friends, and that different forms of gossip behavior were evident. Results also confirmed the association of gossip and perceptions of friendship quality (Parker & Gottman, 1989; Sullivan, 1953), and that these relations were stronger for girls than for boys (Foster, 2004; Gottman & Mettetal, 1986; Leaper & Holliday, 1995). In addition, these relations varied depending on other contextual factors, such as whom the gossip was about. Generally, gossip functioned in two apparently contradictory ways for the friendships of girls. On the one hand, gossip was associated with positive aspects of friendship quality. On the other hand, gossip was also associated with negative aspects of friendship quality, such as conflict. Perhaps gossip was more important for the friendships of girls due to the motivations and importance of friendships for girls. In other words, girls are argued to focus their relationship efforts on building close dyadic relationships that involve high levels of disclosure and conversation whereas boys are argued to engaged in more activities that do not require as much disclosure or conversation (e.g., sports, video games; Findlay & Coplan, 2008; Leaper & Smith, 2004; Schneider & Tessier, 2007). Moreover, it may be that conflict resulted from greater engagement and higher frequencies of interaction within the friendship and thus may not necessarily indicate relationship difficulties. The results of the current dissertation highlighted the complexity of the ways in which gossip and perceptions of friendship quality were inter-related in the friendships of children, as well as provided direction for further investigations of the general functions of gossip

Discovering Rock Features with Geophysical Exploration and Archaeological Testing at the Mississippian Pile Mound Site, Upper Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee

The Pile Mound survey includes magnetometry paired with targeted ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and electromagnetic induction (EMI) surveys of the mound and testing of associated features over the ca. 6.5 ha site. The GPR survey discovered six rock features (five large rock features within the mound and one marking the outside of the mound). Knowledge of mounds in the Upper Cumberland Plateau (UCP) is lacking—the closest other studied sites are at the Corbin Site, Croley-Evans, Bell Site, and Beasley Mounds, approximately 75 – 100 km away. However, the most similar mound construction is found at Corbin and Cherokee sites, some 175 – 275 km away. In addition, the associated ceramic assemblage appears to reflect more similarity to the East Tennessee Valley rather than the Middle Cumberland region. These data provide a unique opportunity to better understand the Mississippian occupation in the UCP of Tennessee

The Water Is Wide

A successful swim means staying atop the surface, but the ritual of swimming goes much deeper

Not Your Typical Morning Dip

On June 12, 1962, three men engineered a notorious escape from Alcatraz, San Francisco\u27s island prison. Almost 50 years later, a Furman professor takes on the challenge of the Alcatraz swim