R-3 Repository :: Browsing by Author "Englebretson, Robert"

Browsing by Author "Englebretson, Robert"

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A grammar of Belep
(2013-06-05) McCracken, Chelsea; Willis, Christina M.; Englebretson, Robert; Oswald, Frederick L.
This dissertation is a description of the grammar of Belep [yly], an Austronesian language variety spoken by about 1600 people in and around the Belep Isles in New Caledonia. The grammar begins with a summary of the cultural and linguistic background of Belep speakers, followed by chapters on Belep phonology and phonetics, morphology and word formation, nouns and the noun phrase, verbs and the verb group, basic clause structure, and clause combining. The phonemic inventory of Belep consists of 18 consonants and 10 vowels and is considerably smaller than that of the surrounding languages. This is due to the fact that Belep consonants do not contrast in aspiration and Belep vowels do not contrast in length, unlike in Belep’s closest relative Balade Nyelâyu. However, like-vowel hiatuses—sequences of heterosyllabic like vowels—are common in Belep, where the stress correlates of vowel length, intensity, and pitch do not generally coincide. Belep morphology is exclusively suffixing and fairly synthetic; it is characterized by a large disconnect between the phonological and the grammatical word and the existence of a number of proclitics and enclitics. Belep nouns fall into four noun classes, which are defined by their compatibility with the two available (alienable and inalienable) possessive constructions. Belep transitive verbs are divided into bound and free roots, while intransitive verbs are divided between those which require a nominative argument and those which require an absolutive argument. While the surrounding languages have a split-ergative argument structure, Belep has an unusual split-intransitive nominative-absolutive system, with the further complication that transitive subjects may be marked as genitive depending on the specificity of the absolutive argument. Belep case marking is accomplished through the use of cross-linguistically unusual ditropic clitics; clitics marking the function of a Belep noun phrase are phonologically bound to whatever element precedes the noun phrase. In general, Belep lacks true complementation, instead making use of coordinate structures with unique linkers as a complementation strategy.
A grammar of Dzongkha (dzo): phonology, words, and simple clauses
(2018-09-13) Watters, Stephen A; Englebretson, Robert
This dissertation is a description of phonetics, phonology, and word and clause-level morphosyntax of Dzongkha (dzo), a Southern Tibetic language within the Central Bodish branch of Tibeto-Burman. Dzongkha is spoken as a native language by about 160,000 speakers in Bhutan. The dissertation draws primarily on conversation data, and makes use of elicited and monologic data as noted in specific examples. The dissertation begins with an overview of the language situation of Dzongkha and its speech community, then turns to an overview of the phonetics and phonology of Dzongkha, followed by chapters on select aspects of morphosyntax. Dzongkha has incipient tonal characteristics with contrastive pitch only on words with certain onset series. Pitch effects are also evident as a result of vowel length, and these effects are assimilated across disyllabic words, giving evidence of pitch as an independent phonological contrast within the language. Dzongkha has two limited noun classification systems. One class marks gender on a small subset of human nouns, and the other class categorizes a closed set of words for purposes of honorifics. Verbs are typed on three basic event schemas that profile agents, themes, and locations, and can be further differentiated on the basis of whether theme or location receives prominence. There is no lexical class adjective. Rather, property concepts are lexicalized with descriptive nouns and verbs and various constructions with expressives. Dzongkha has an abundance of copular and existential verbs that in addition to clausal function also code egophoric, endophoric, and exophoric evidential distinctions. These verbs may also combine with one another extending the evidential distinctions to such categories as inference and speculation. The copulas and existentials function periphrastically in the tense aspect system where they also serve as evidential markers. Case marking in Dzongkha is shown to be probabalistically dependent on and functionally motivated by genre. In constructed examples, Dzongkha exhibits a split-ergative case system, but in conversation takes pragmatic marking, suggestive of speaker perspective. Tense, aspect, and evidentiality are coded by a complex system of suffixes, auxiliaries, and post-verbal enclitics each of which take evidential values in addition to temporal contrasts.
A position paper on researching braille in the cognitive sciences: decentering the sighted norm
(Cambridge University Press, 2023) Englebretson, Robert; Holbrook, M. Cay; Fischer-Baum, Simon
This article positions braille as a writing system worthy of study in its own right and on its own terms. We begin with a discussion of the role of braille in the lives of those who read and write it and a call for more attention to braille in the reading sciences. We then give an overview of the history and development of braille, focusing on its formal characteristics as a writing system, in order to acquaint sighted print readers with the basics of braille and to spark further interest among reading researchers. We then explore how print-centric assumptions and sight-centric motivations have potentially negative consequences, not only for braille users but also for the types of questions researchers think to pursue. We conclude with recommendations for conducting responsible and informed research about braille. We affirm that blindness is most equitably understood as but one of the many diverse ways humans experience the world. Researching braille literacy from an equity and diversity perspective provides positive, fruitful insights into perception and cognition, contributes to the typologically oriented work on the world’s writing systems, and contributes to equity by centering the perspectives and literacy of the people who read and write braille.
An Interactional Account of Multilingual Usage Patterns in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - a High Contact Area
(2015-04-06) Lee, Sarah; Achard, Michel; Englebretson, Robert; Ward, Kerry
This thesis provides an interactional account of some multilingual usage patterns found in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur, the capital city and major commercial center in this internationally-focused country, can be described as a ‘high contact’ area, where several languages (the major ones being Malay, Sinitic (especially Cantonese, Southern Min and Mandarin) and Tamil) are in intensive and extensive contact. The approach taken here argues that an important aspect of exploring language usage patterns, especially in understudied locales such as Kuala Lumpur, necessarily involves situating the investigation in the wider local context, since emergent patterns of language use also reflect reflexivity between speakers as social actors and salient macro-level conditions (Agha 2007, van Dijk 2008a,b, Stroud 2004, Gumperz 1992, 1982, amongst others). I first elaborate on two salient social conditions in Kuala Lumpur: (1) pluralistic organization of Malaysian society through three ethnic constructs – Malays, Chinese and Indians, and (2) expression of cosmopolitanism of mainstream Kuala Lumpur. Next, using procedures from interactional linguistics developed to account for code-switching elsewhere (Gafaranga 2005, Auer 1985), I demonstrate how such social conditions as schematic representations can organize language selection patterns. I then apply these procedures to the exploration of usage patterns of specific language units. Some of them, e.g., discourse particles lah and ah24, person reference forms, and topic prominence, are well-researched, but typically from the context of particular languages. Others, such as the entry of English discourse marker like into KL speech, have not been researched in any depth. What these usage patterns share in common is that they regularly occur across more than one language. Departing from a language-particular approach, I demonstrate that we can analyze usage patterns through another dimension - a multilingual usage perspective. I propose that alongside other considerations, there are also interactional reasons for such convergences. Interactional reasons can emerge from local context of the text or from situational aspects, such as participant backgrounds and discourse topic. I show that in these multilingual usage patterns, traces of social conditions are present, via indexation of social schemas, or indirectly, through the action of actually selecting multilingual patterns.
Lou Harrison's Concerto for Piano with Javanese Gamelan
(2015-03-27) Angkasa, Linda; Loewen, Peter; Connelly, Brian; Brandt, Anthony; Englebretson, Robert
Lou Harrison’s compositions for Indonesian gamelan and Western instruments have served as representations of Harrison’s distinctive transcultural voice. His Concerto for Piano with Javanese Gamelan represents a fascinating musical synthesis between two great classical traditions. More than blending Eastern and Western instruments within a single composition, hidden beneath this juxtaposition lies a Harrison’s complex creative method. The purpose of this study is to examine Harrison’s method of forging Western and Javanese idioms within a single work. In order to gain a better understanding through musical analysis, I include chapters concerning the development of exoticism in twentieth-century Western music, with brief historical background on traditional Javanese gamelan, and Harrison’s compositional trajectory toward his Concerto for Piano with Javanese Gamelan. In this concerto, I provide critical understanding of his compositional process using both in Eastern and Western elements. The analysis covers both the macrocosmic and microcosmic structures of the musical form in each movement, pitch-class sets, and rhythmic complexity. Through this method, one can see how Lou Harrison synthesizes the piano successfully with the gamelan idiom by blending two distinct musical cultures, while also emphasizing and reconciling their idiosyncrasies.
Not quite your grandmother's jam: Place, time, and identity in constructing a home-canning community of practice
(2012) Hoecker, Jennifer; Englebretson, Robert
This thesis contributes to the emerging, interdisciplinary field of food studies. Taking a qualitative, discourse-analytic perspective, I analyze the discursive strategies employed by a group of home canners in the construction of their community of practice. The community of practice framework (Wenger 1998) posits three defining characteristics: mutual engagement of participants, a jointly negotiated enterprise, and shared repertoires. Drawing on narrative analysis and adopting an anti-essentialist view of identity, I examine the way members use the discursive construction of time and place as symbolic resources in the formulation of their identities and in the maintenance of their community. Directions for further research into the complex relationships among language, identity, and food are recommended.
Palatalization in Mandarin Loanwords: An Optimality-Theoretic Approach
(2014-12-01) Ma, Ling; Niedzielski, Nancy; Englebretson, Robert; Achard, Michel
This study conducts an Optimality-Theoretic analysis on palatalization phenomenon in Mandarin loanwords borrowed from American English based on transliterated American state and city names. Because of the differences between Mandarin and American English in sound inventories and syllable structures, words introduced to Mandarin from American English may need to undergo some feature change. The present study focuses on the palatalization phenomenon of velar consonants, and the constraint-based theoretical framework provides an explanation. The constraints and their ranking accounting in this study are: 1) *COMPLEX, *VELAR-V(+front), MAX, IDENT(dorsal) >> IDENT(place), 2) *[PALATALIZATION-V(+low, +front)-n]SYLL, DEP >> *VELAR-V(+front) >> IDENT(place). However, some other factors besides phonological ones, such as character choosing, and translation conventions, may lead to some counterexamples, and thus may need to be further studied.
Status Planning and Regional Identity: The Case of Osing in Banyuwangi, Indonesia
(2019-04-03) Wittke, Jonas; Englebretson, Robert
Due to recent, state-sponsored language and status planning efforts, Osing (ISO 639-3: osi) is currently experiencing a renaissance, resulting in increased language use and the emergence of a new Osing identity. Osing has gained enough popularity in recent years that people of other (non-Osing) ethnicities have begun speaking the language and adopting Osing cultural practices (Arps, 2009: 10). Based on sociolinguistic interview data, this research examines emergent regional identities of Banyuwangians and the results of the commodification of Osing in the public sphere. Indonesia has formally tasked local governments with promoting regional languages and cultures and to “create atmospheres conducive to speaking local languages, including the empowerment and establishment of local traditional institutions, in order to increase positive attitudes so that people have an awareness, pride, and loyalty to the local language norms.” (Yudhoyono, 2009: 17). Osing is recently taught alongside Javanese and Indonesian in Banyuwangi schools (in all 25 kecamatan ‘districts’ as of 2017) and the local government recognizes Osing as a language distinct from Javanese and specific to Banyuwangi. Further, policymakers are embracing the opportunity to promote Osing culture by organizing Osing-themed cultural events and festivals as well as promoting the village of Kemiren as “Desa Wisata Osing” (‘Osing Tourism Village’) and as an adat budaya ‘indigenous culture’ tourist destination. As the government promotes Osing language and culture—elements of which are valued as commodities for achieving “semua potensi yang ada di Banyuwangi” (‘the whole of Banyuwangi’s potential’) Banyuwangians have begun to identify as Osing, a stance which influences when and how the language is used. This research finds that the social expansion of Osingness in recent years is reflected in speakers’ sociolinguistic identities: While “Osing” was primarily associated with an ethnicity as recently as 20 years ago, it now has a supra-ethnic, regional association with Banyuwangi at large. In interviews, consultants negotiate identities (their own and those of others)—determining who is and who is not Osing based on sociocultural factors and language ideologies—reflecting a very recent, state-sponsored recontextualization of Osingness.
The Effect of Linguistic Experience on the Perception of Pitch Contour
(2014-01-31) Galindo, John; Englebretson, Robert; Niedzielski, Nancy; Achard, Michel
Studies conducted in the area of tone perception suggest that experience with tonal features such as pitch height, direction, duration, and contour in the L1 of the listener affect the perception of such features. This study consists of a categorical perception experiment to investigate whether native experience with a tone language affects the perception of pitch contours. Subjects are divided into two groups: native Mandarin speakers and native English speakers. The central hypothesis of this study is that Mandarin speakers would perceive a continuum between the rising tone and the falling-rising tone categorically, while English speakers would make no such distinction. Results from a discrimination task indicate that neither the Mandarin group nor the English group perceived the tonal continuum categorically. This may be accounted for by the fact that differences between Tone 2 (rising) and Tone 3 (falling-rising) in Mandarin are perceptually ambiguous for both native and non-native listeners.
The primacy of morphology in English braille spelling: an analysis of bridging contractions
(Springer Nature, 2024) Englebretson, Robert; Holbrook, M. Cay; Treiman, Rebecca; Fischer-Baum, Simon
This study examines the use of braille contractions in a corpus of spelling tests from braille-reading children in grades 1-4, with particular attention to braille contractions that create mismatches with morphological structure. Braille is a tactile writing system that enables people who are blind or visually impaired to read and write. In English and many other languages, reading and writing braille is not simply a matter of transliterating between print letters and their braille equivalents; Unified English Braille (the official braille system used in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and several other English-speaking countries) contains 180 contractions—one or more braille cells that represent whole words or strings of letters. In some words, the prescriptive rules for correct braille usage cause contractions to bridge morphological boundaries and to obscure the spellings of stems and affixes. We demonstrate that, when the prescriptive rules for correct braille usage flout morphological structure, young braille spellers generally follow the morphology rather than the orthographic rules. This work establishes that morphology matters for young braille learners. We discuss the potential impact of our findings on braille research, development, and pedagogy, and we suggest ways in which our findings contribute to understanding the nature of orthographic morphemes and the place of braille in the reading sciences.
The Strong Island Sound: Sociolinguistic Evidence for Emerging American Ethnicities
(2013-08-05) Olivo, Ann; Niedzielski, Nancy; Englebretson, Robert; Bratter, Jenifer L.
This dissertation presents evidence for the usage of New York City English (NYCE) out on Long Island, NY. Many residents on this 118-mile long island are descendents of the European immigrants who moved to NYC around the turn of the twentieth century—mainly Italians, Irish, and Polish. When these groups moved out to the suburbs of Long Island half a century later, they brought their NYCE with them. Today, this ancestral connection, as well as age and gender, serves as a motivation for Long Islanders’ continued usage of NYCE. The data come from sociolinguistic interviews conducted over two years with local residents of Suffolk and Nassau counties on Long Island. Participants were interviewed about their personal histories and asked to read a word list. A discourse analysis of the personal history interviews informed the categories used for multiple regression analyses to ensure the coded categories matched onto speakers’ self-identification practices. The discourse analysis also provides evidence for the attitudes Long Islanders hold about themselves as “real New Yorkers”, about their own language usage, and about the language spoken by “people from the city”. Multiple regression analyses fit with mixed effects models were run to demonstrate the state of NYCE as it is spoken on Long Island. Results are presented for the long ingliding vowels (raised-/oh/ and the split short-a system), the long upgliding vowels, and r-vocalization. Although some younger speakers are using fewer traditional NYCE features, those who identify with their families’ ancestral immigrant pasts tend to prefer the traditional NYCE features, retaining a “Strong Island” sound to their speech.
When Laughter Fades: Individual Participation During Open-Mic Comedy Performances
(2018-06-20) Cain, Sarah Seewoester; Englebretson, Robert
Audiences have traditionally been defined and characterized by the collective responses they produce – behaviors such as clapping, laughing, booing, and the like. But during the course of speaker-audience interactions, individual contributions are also observed. And in the context of open-mic comedy audiences specifically, they quite regularly occur. Individual contributions during speaker-audience interactions are typically treated as “noise” in the interactional system, treated as problematic in some way, are seen as being un-audience-like, or may be dismissed from consideration entirely. In this dissertation, I analyze several types of individual audience member contributions, I ground this work in Conversation Analysis, which operates under the assumption that all social interaction is orderly at a minute level of detail, and I explore ways in which audience members organize themselves and their actions meaningfully. I look at five types of individual contributions – echoing (i.e. partial repetition of a previous utterance), two types of clapping, and two types of ohing – and show that not only are they well-timed, but systematic in when they occur and what they do. I consider what types of actions they pursue relative to the response in progress, what stances they display, and whether the individuals orient to their potential as autonomous individuals or collective group members through their individual participation. Finally, I suggest that collectivity is not fundamental to being an audience but rather is part of what must be managed (alongside autonomy) when participating as an audience.

Browsing by Author "Englebretson, Robert"

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