Sociolinguistics II: Deviance, Dystopia, And Democracy (LING82) Syllabus

This course builds upon foundational concepts in sociolinguistic theory to examine discourses of news and entertainment media, across science fiction and politics. Drawing upon contributions in applied linguistics, media studies, cultural studies, and archival research, we ask which realities are mirrored in our everyday language and in the fictional and sensationalized worlds we engage in through the media we consume. What role does science fiction play in our explorations of social difference, deviance, control, disability, sexuality, and normativity? Can science fiction assist the goals of social justice and democracy? How does language surface in the biopolitics of human and non-humans? Together, we will explore key film and television, and select novels by authors Max Brooks, Octavia Butler, and Philip K. Dick. Students will learn advanced methods and theories in multimodal critical discourse analysis and digital humanities

Airline Passengers’ Pre-­‐Purchase Decision-­‐Making: A Case Study of International Tertiary Students in New Zealand : A thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Aviation at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand

The number of students studying overseas is growing rapidly, driven largely by the desire for cultural exposure and greater access to higher quality institutes. With over 100% growth in the past 15 years, this sector also represents an increasingly valuable contributor to the global economy. However, until this point, there is yet to be any research on how this industry acts as consumers and whether they represent a distant airline customer segment in their own right. Airlines represent a significant facilitator of international study. This is particularly true in countries such as New Zealand, which receives 99% of its international visitors by air. Over 100,000 international students currently study in New Zealand, with nearly a third studying at a tertiary level, representing a significant number of generally independent and informed consumers. The aim of this study was to determine if international students represent a unique and distinct customer segment for airlines. This was assessed by how they purchase airline tickets online and whether they conform to the behaviour of more generic customer groups such as leisure or business travellers. This included an examination of how information is searched for and how various purchase criteria are evaluated to make a final decision. A dual-­‐phased, qualitative methodology was adopted with a sample of 40 international students from the Massey University Manawatū Campus. The first stage of the study involved an online observation where participants where asked to search for and purchase airline tickets as if they were doing so for their next journey to or from their home country. This was screen recorded and analysed to show the search patterns and information evaluation that lead to the final purchase decision. Stage two consisted of a semi-­‐structured interview asking participants to explain their search and evaluation process, including the factors that were most influential in their purchase process and why. The results indicate that the unique preferences of international students render them a distinct customer segment for airlines. The majority searched through online travel agents or indirect distribution channels. There were three levels of evaluation criteria were established, with price being the most influential factor in purchase decisions, followed by stopovers (number and length), schedule of international flights and baggage allowance. Definitive flight characteristics (aspects that can be completely defined prior to purchase) and brand appeared to be more influential than more intangible service attributes, which were largely expected or taken for granted and not considered by many participants. Generally, the international students in this study were found to be highly price sensitive, disloyal and not overly patient with respect to travel duration

Zombie Analysis For Web

Part 1 of assignment - Authoring your critical discourse analysis on zombies (Essay 3): 800-word essay that examines language and communication as used in Max Brooks’ novel World War Z. This essay comprises your original contribution to the [ZOMBIES REIMAGINED] project. Part 2 of the assignment - Create a Timeline or StoryMap to accompany your essay as a visual aid and presentation for readers. This animated visual presentation will be published with your essay to the project website. Part 3 of the assignment - After revision, use Markdown language to ready your essay for upload to the project webpage. To access the webpage, sign into your Github account, access prose.io, and upload your essay (in Markdown) with any images

The evolution of a visual-to-auditory sensory substitution device using interactive genetic algorithms

Sensory Substitution is a promising technique for mitigating the loss of a sensory modality. Sensory Substitution Devices (SSDs) work by converting information from the impaired sense (e.g. vision) into another, intact sense (e.g. audition). However, there are a potentially infinite number of ways of converting images into sounds and it is important that the conversion takes into account the limits of human perception and other user-related factors (e.g. whether the sounds are pleasant to listen to). The device explored here is termed “polyglot” because it generates a very large set of solutions. Specifically, we adapt a procedure that has been in widespread use in the design of technology but has rarely been used as a tool to explore perception – namely Interactive Genetic Algorithms. In this procedure, a very large range of potential sensory substitution devices can be explored by creating a set of ‘genes’ with different allelic variants (e.g. different ways of translating luminance into loudness). The most successful devices are then ‘bred’ together and we statistically explore the characteristics of the selected-for traits after multiple generations. The aim of the present study is to produce design guidelines for a better SSD. In three experiments we vary the way that the fitness of the device is computed: by asking the user to rate the auditory aesthetics of different devices (Experiment 1), by measuring the ability of participants to match sounds to images (Experiment 2) and the ability to perceptually discriminate between two sounds derived from similar images (Experiment 3). In each case the traits selected for by the genetic algorithm represent the ideal SSD for that task. Taken together, these traits can guide the design of a better SSD

Anthropological Linguistics (LING21, ANTH020N) Syllabus

Anthropological Linguistics course description:Communication and culture mutually define one another across communities worldwide. Human linguistic diversity, language contact and language change, and face-to-face communication continue to be key areas of inquiry for both linguistics and anthropology. Colonialism, globalization, mobility, and new technologies are changing the way we transmit and conceive of cultural knowledge, community, and our selves and the natural environment. In this course we draw attention to codeswitching, creoles, language endangerment, and constructed languages as reflections of our changing societies. We also address the ethics of fieldwork as a means of investigating these important social phenomena at the interfaces of language/ecology, language/identity, Global North/South

Getting Started With COCA

In this assignment, students will learn basic methods in corpus linguistics, an emerging field at the intersection of humanities and quantitative social science. They will learn how to search large English language corpora (e.g., the 900 million word Cambridge International Corpus) to look for otherwise hidden patterns of language use. They will be able to track the emergence of new words, shifts in meaning in existing words, and note the obsolescence of some words. They will interpret their findings in light of how language usage reflects societal attitudes and social change

Preferences of the Red Flour Beetle, Tribolium castaneum, for Nutritionally Different Dog Foods

Triboliumcastaneum, known as the red flour beetle (RFB)is a common pest of stored grain and milled grain products.Thisresearch studied how RFBs orient to and lay eggs in their standard flour diet and in two kinds of dog food.We tested whether RFBs have a preference toward two different dog foods, one with low protein, the “Light” food, and the other with high protein, the “Dark” food. We predicted the beetles would prefer the Light kibble with the lower protein.When given the choice between the two foods, 60% of beetlespreferredthe Light product, which had only 20% of the protein as the dark food, which was chosen by 40% of beetles. When the beetles were given the choice between either Light or Dark kibble, vs. their regular flour-based lab diet, flour was the preferred food. However, the two-choice test showed a higher proportion of beetles were in the Light compared to Dark food. These results are important because they will help the pet food industry further understand what the RFBs prefer, and thus help us take appropriate measures to prevent infestation

Preferences of Indian Meal Moth Larvae for Different Dog Foods

Indian meal moths (IMM), Plodiainterpuntella, are persistent pests to our foods (Fasulo et al.1998; Plunkett’s Pest Control 2018). When IMMs infest a a food product the resulting value loss is the result of contamination by larvae that leave droppings and silken webs in grain and grain products (Jacob and Calvin 2001). The IMM is an important pest of high-value dog foods and the grain components of these food may influence their infestation. Experiments were conducted with eggs of the IMM to determine if moth larvae would choose and infest the grain-based dog food in comparison to dog foods with a higher meat content. IMM laboratory rearing diet was included for comparison. No-choice and choice tests confirmed the IMM diet to be the most preferred and best for larval development. Forced infestation of 50 IMM eggs on the four different dog foods found difference among them. In two-choice test that require newly hatched larvae to walk to and infest either lab diet or a dog food, the highest proportion of larvae selecting any of the dog foods was on product C, which was a medium quality, grain-free food. These results suggest that IMM infestations in warehouses or consumer’s homes could be prevalent on some dog foods more than others

Oviposition and Larval Development of the Indian Meal Moth, Plodia interpunctella, on Different Breakfast Cereals

Plodiainterpunctella, the Indian meal moth (IMM), is a common pest of grain products. Adult IMMs lay eggs on a food source and once hatched, the larvae consume the product while leaving behind large amounts of frass and silk [1, 2]. The purpose of this experiment was to identify which kind of grain products are at the highest risk of P. interpunctellainfestation by using the lab-rearing diet as a comparison to two different breakfast cereals of the same brand: a frosted cereal and a regular non-frosted cereal. Two-choice tests determined if moths prefer to lay eggs on and which of the choices would b for the larva to develop. At the end of the experiment, it was observed that adult P. interpunctella preferred to lay their eggs on the frosted cereal diet. The frosted cereal diet also proved to be the better of the two for larval survival and growth. This research suggests that frosted cereals may be preferred by this pest, and that such products need special protection during storage

Financial Solvency of the American Government.

The main topic of this paper is the financial solvency, or “the ability to pay all debts,” of the United States government (“solvency,” n.d.). The questions posed and analyzed are 1) is the American government solvent, 2) did Standard and Poor’s accurately downgrade the American debt, and 3) how does the national debt affect the solvency of the American government. To determine the solvency and effects of debt, analysis of financial information for America and nine other countries, grouped according to their credit rating is used. Solvency is determined by credit rating for this analysis; a country with a high credit rating of AAA will be considered extremely solvent, with each downgrade showing a more at risk country. The appropriate credit rating for the United States will be determined by comparing the information and noting where the United States stands in relation to the other countries for four key economic indicators. Also, analysis of standard lending rules applied to America’s financial information shows whether or not the amount of debt America holds is safe compared to what requirements are expected of individuals. Appendices show more detailed solvency analyses for the ten countries, at present and over the past thirty years. The results of the study show that solvency could be a future problem for the American government. It has only adequate capacity to repay its debt and should not have received a AA+ rating from Standard and Poor’s. A BBB+ rating would have been more appropriate. Also, applying standard lending rules to the American debt shows that it exceeds the 40% debt-to-income standard, making the likelihood of debt repayment, or solvency, low based on standards used in the financial lending sphere