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The Lackadasical Defender: management of stigmatized professional life
No full textThe public defender is often represented as incompetent and overburdened, working in\ud
collusion with the government to over-incarcerate, and as morally bankrupt because of\ud
who they defend. Despite being lawyers, and thus professionals, who we would think\ud
would enjoy a level of prestige and high esteem, they are stigmatized because of their\ud
professions. There is not an abundance of literature of public defenders, and that which\ud
exists does not give much attention to the autonomy of public defenders and the\ud
meaningful qualitative analysis that is possible. I describe the stigmatization of public\ud
defenders and possible management techniques for these representations. I discuss\ud
how these representations are managed by analysis of interviews conducted with\ud
current assistant public defenders. The importance of paying more respect to the\ud
management required of public defenders is argued well by sociologist Lisa J. McIntyre,\ud
whose theory I use as a starting point; public defenders legitimize the judicial system\ud
and to achieve this, their legitimization of them through deeper representation is\ud
imperative
Devil's Advocate? Using Argumentation as a Curriculum Organizer for an Evolution Unit in a 10th Grade Biology Course
No full textEvolutionary theory is a significant concept in biology because of its implications in genetics,\ud
organismal development, and organismal changes over deep time. It is also an important part of\ud
understanding issues within modern medicine and agriculture. Although evolution is an\ud
important concept in biology education, its teaching in primary and secondary schools is still\ud
controversial in many parts of the United States. This controversy surrounding evolutionary\ud
theory, as well as understanding the concept itself may hinder students' engagement in the topic.\ud
This evolution curriculum draws on cognitive educational theory and argumentation as a strategy\ud
for teaching science, as well as addresses the sociocultural aspects of teaching and learning\ud
evolutionary theory in scientific and nonscientific contexts
Seminar in Cryptology
No full textThis half-course aims to broaden your perspective on what it means to do math. You will encounter math beyond calculus and linear algebra. You will formulate problems, develop strategies for solving them, and explore the mathematical literature. You will improve your ability to think rigorously and communicate mathematical information. We’ll pursue these goals while applying number theory to public key cryptography. You use public key cryptography when you enter your credit card number on a web page whose URL begins with https, like when you buy a book from Amazon. Any communication over the internet can be intercepted during transmission, but information entered on secure page (that’s what the s in https means) is enciphered before it is transmitted. In RSA cryptography, information is enciphered using a public key n that is a product of two primes.Amazon publishes n, the public key, so that your browser can encipher your credit card number. When n is hard to factor, your information is secure even if the communication is intercepted
Negotiating Hindu Identities in the United States: Diaspora, Geography, and Sacred Authenticity
No full textGiven the central importance of sacred geography in Hindu traditions, how is it possible for members of the Hindu diaspora to practice their religion “authentically” while abroad? To address this question, my thesis examines the analytical tools and assumptions that Hindus in the United States use to fashion their understandings of American Hinduism. Focusing on rhetoric, architecture, and media materials, it examines how Hindus understand and negotiate religious power and authenticity in American temples, institutions, and academic contexts, as well as what types of assumptions underlie their articulations of “true” Hinduism in an American setting. In my thesis, I identify two major logical frameworks that American Hindus use in articulating their visions of diaspora Hinduism. One analytical approach imagines American Hinduism as a new node in the web of global Hinduism, which remains centered in South Asia. In this vision, sacrality and authority may radiate outward from the center of the web to the periphery, and American Hindus may actively import and impart authority to their new homes by drawing divine power from the original center. Crucially, this understanding is not an ideology, but rather an analytical framework--American Hindus rarely explicitly state this “sacred South Asian” notion of Hinduism nor do they defend it against other schools of thought as one would an ideology; rather, the particular conception of sacrality and geography I describe here provides a logical framework that some American Hindus sometimes draw upon when they must translate their imagined understandings of American Hinduism into the concrete world, be it in the form of temples, texts, or other media. I call a second major analytical approach the “universalist” understanding of Hinduism (here, American Hinduism, but as we will see, the universalist understanding relegates locational and national distinctions to the background in its articulation of a de-localized authoritative Hinduism.) In the universalist approach, no place has inherently more Hindu authority than another; anywhere can be sacred because the pervasive force of the divine permeates everywhere. Like the sacred South Asian approach, the universalist framework is not a set of defined political or religious beliefs; rather, it is a conception of sacrality and authority that American Hindus may draw on to form their beliefs and guide their actions. After elucidating these two American Hindu modes of articulation and assumption through the case studies of the Penn Hills Sri Venkateswara Temple and the Himalayan Academy monastery and publishing organization, my thesis explores a meta-academic conflict, the dispute over how Hinduism should be taught in California public school textbooks, to reveal some of the ways beliefs based on the sacred South Asian and universalist frameworks manifest alongside each other and guide concrete debate over the “what,” “where,” and “who” of authentic Hinduism. I conclude by summarizing my findings and speculating on their broader implications for Hindus in the United States and worldwide, as well as for the general study of diasporic religion
Hamza bin Laden, Son of Usama, Promotes Lone-Wolf Attacks in West as Means to "Liberate" Jerusalem
No full textA Winter Count Documents Changes in Identity
No full textThe Lakota are an American Indian tribe in South Dakota. Throughout history, the Lakota have faced many changes with the onset of settler colonialism. The Lakota have had to face many changes to their lifestyle, and in spite of these changes the Lakota have found a way to survive and resist assimilation and complete loss of their culture and identity. This thesis analyzes Dallas Chief Eagle’s, a Lakota author and activist in the mid-1900s, Winter Count. The story follows the Teton (Lakota) Turtleheart as he undergoes changes from contact with settlers, formation of reservations, and missionaries. The novel Winter Count reimagines Lakota identity as flexible and adapting to the changes that are occurring. Lakota identity is able to reshape itself by subsuming new facets into their existing identity. Despite the oppression, the Lakotas’ continued survival reveals the strength, which I would characterize as adaptability, which they possess. It is a story of survivance, a survival and resistance. The narrative acts as a resistance to the claims that Lakotaness has been erased, and instead highlights the flexibility intrinsic to their identity as Lakota that allow them to survive these intense and many times destructive changes
'I Am a Perpetual Underdog': Lady Gaga's Use of Creaky Voice in the Construction of a Sincere Pop Star Persona
No full textCreaky voice. a vibratory phonation produced when the cartilage from the front and back of the\ud
larynx are pressed closely together (Zirnrnan 2013), has received significant media attention\ud
in recent years, particularly for its prevalence in the speech of female American pop stars,\ud
such as Kesha, Brimey Spears, and Lady Gaga. Recent studies (Yuasa 2010; Podesva 2013)\ud
have found that the phonation is more pervasively employed by American women than men,\ud
which is in contrast to earlier studies showing its associations with upper-class males in the\ud
UK (Henton-Bladon 1988; Esling 1978; Stuart-Smith 1999). Ye~ until recently (Zirnrnan\ud
2015; Levon 2015), few smdies have extensively analyzed its potential social meanings from\ud
an intraspeaker perspective. Additionally, none examine its usage among the women noted\ud
above. Firmly situated within the realm of third-wave intraspeaker variation studies, this thesis\ud
considers Lady Gaga's use of creaky voice across four different speech samples - two interviews\ud
and two speeches - to discern her possible stylistic usage of the phenomenon. ] find that the\ud
calculated percentage of creak is highest in the most personal of the samples and lowest in one\ud
of the speeches. Considering these results along with the conversational contexts in which creak\ud
is most prevalent, I argue that she employs creaky voice to take an affective stance of intimacy\ud
and convey character traits of openness and sincerity. Further, I argue that these meanings arise\ud
out of creak's iconicity with a 'contained' emotional state. This thesis (1) adds to the growing\ud
body of literature examining the indexical meanings of creaky voice in American English, (2)\ud
offers evidence for stance-based persona construction, and (3) emphasizes the importance of\ud
considering variation in interaction
Mandarin language learning by American students: A research study on orthographic influences on pronunication accuracy in second-language learners
No full textThe Critical Age Hypothesis states that language acquisition is inherent to humans, but that\ud
humans lose this ability over time after passing through several critical age periods (Lenneberg\ud
1967). One of these periods of particular importance is around the age of ll-14, after which\ud
adolescent speakers who begin to study another language will struggle to develop the\ud
competence of a native speaker, with particular difficulty in learning the phonetic inventory\ud
(Krashen 1981). Furthermore, the theory of phonetic transfer suggests that aspects of the\ud
phonetics of one's native language naturally influence the learning of the phonetics of a target\ud
language (Gass and Selinker 1992).\ud
This study finds significant evidence for language transfer in four adult, native Englishspeaking\ud
learners of Mandarin Chinese. The similarity between Mandarin and English vowels [i]\ud
often leads to positive transfer for the speakers. However, negative transfer is also present to a\ud
large degree for these speakers. Relative vowel differences, such as the differing sounds for [u]\ud
between English and Chinese, result in significant negative transfer and pronunciation errors. In\ud
fact, negative transfer is present to some degree for most of the Chinese vowels. The subjects of\ud
this study even mispronounce [i] on occasion, which would be impossible if relative sound\ud
similarity or difference were the only influential factor. Thus, this thesis contends that\ud
orthographic inputs also lead to negative transfer. For example, the pinyin (i) in a Chinese word\ud
such as bin (~-'guest') is pronounced as [i]. Conversely, in English, this letter in the same\ud
environment, 'bin,' is pronounced [I]. This incongruous mapping of orthography to phonetics\ud
impacts American learners, who in this way are hindered by the use of pinyin before fully\ud
mastering the Chinese phonetic system
The Role of aŋ in Ilonggo Information Structure
No full textIn Ilonggo (an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines), the article aŋ is known to mark\ud
constituents with "emphasis".\ud
To accommodate this quality of "emphasis)), the literature on Ilonggo morphosyntax has classically\ud
labeled aŋ as either a topic marker (Wolfenden 1975) or a focus marker (Wolfenden 1971, Spitz\ud
2001). I demonstrate that aŋ does not fit exclusively into either of these functions, but that it plays a\ud
role in the articulation of both topics expressions and focus marking.\ud
To evaluate the claims that aŋ is a topic marker or a focus marker, I apply Lambrechtls (1994) theory\ud
of information structure. This theory asserts that topical denotata (entities) are coded through topic\ud
expressions, which include lexical NPs and unaccented pronouns which establish a topic relation\ud
between the denotatum and the proposition of the sentence. Focus denotata are coded through\ud
focus marking, which are prosodic and morphosyntactic markers that establish a focus relation\ud
between the denotatum and the proposition.\ud
Aŋ is capable of expressing three types of topic expressions: lexical NPs with a reference-oriented\ud
function (aŋ sapat, 'the animar), role-oriented "optional)) lexical NPs (which can be dropped if\ud
assumed in context), and role-oriented specified pronouns (aŋ duwa sila, 'the two of them} This functional capacity is partially attributed to mls inherently non-implicit nature; aŋ can only appear\ud
before explicitly stated lexical NPs and pronouns that have been preceded by specifiers.\ud
Aŋ's role in focus marking is ultimately unclear. Aŋ does appear within constituents that refer to\ud
focus elements, as shown in (Cb):\ud
However, it is presently impossible to determine if V itself is marking constituents with focus, or if\ud
phrases preceded by aŋ are simply viable targets for some presently invisible focus marking (i.e.\ud
prosodic accents). Despite these unknown variables, it is established that aŋ can certainly appear in\ud
constituents that express focus elements.\ud
Through this analysis, I ultimately prove that the titles "topic marker)) and "focus marker)) are\ud
inherently inaccurate in describing how aŋ contributes to the articulation of information structure in\ud
Ilonggo. The mechanisms for expressing topic and focus appear to be more nuanced and complex\ud
than the use of a single grammatical marker
Intonational Phonology in Colloquial Singaporean English
No full textOne of the primary goals of intonational phonology is to explore how meaning is\ud
assigned to an utterance through various suprasegmental features at the word level\ud
and above. This can be modeled using Autosegmental Metrical theory which creates\ud
a hierarchical prosodic structure for an utterance. How these different levels interact\ud
with each other is dependent on the language in question (Ladd, 2008).\ud
This thesis explores Colloquial Singaporean English (CSE), a language native to\ud
the city-state of Singapore. Standard English along with Mandarin Chinese, Malay\ud
and Tamil are recognized as the official languages of the area. This puts CSE in\ud
a stigmatized role, despite its use in almost all spheres of life, barring government\ud
policy and writing in general. The dialect differs greatly from standard forms with\ud
heavy borrowing from languages such as Mandarin, Hokkien and Tamil on phonetic,\ud
syntactic and semantic levels (Harada, 2009).\ud
Within CSE, there is contention on how to accurately describe its intonational\ud
system due to the lack of empirical data. One model, developed by Ng posits that each\ud
syllable of the word is assigned a specific tone based on it's place in the word (e.g. Ng,\ud
2011). Another model, argued for by Chong, uses Autosegmental Metrical theory to\ud
break up utterances into accentual phrases (e.g. Chong, 2013).\ud
In order to test the merit of each model, I collected novel data from two consultants\ud
focusing on target words of varying syllable length. I then com pared the two\ud
models using this data. Ng's Model failed to accurately portray most of the data collected.\ud
Chong's Model was more successful but in need of modification. I proposed two\ud
modifications, one that would treat prefixes as their own prosodic unit (in line with\ud
the existing findings on the prosodic behavior of prefixes) and another that allowed\ud
for multiple prosodic units that determine intonational contours within a multisyllabic\ud
word greater than four syllables