Theses and Dissertations

Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2022/3086

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 683

IDENTITY AND CODE-SWITCHING: A SOCIOPHONETIC STUDY OF BILINGUALS OF MEXICAN HERITAGE
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-07) Colina-Marin, Andreina Isabel; Díaz-Campos, Manuel, Ph.D.
The objective of the present study is to analyze word-initial voice onset time (VOT) in the context of code-switching (CS). More specifically, this study combines research methods from sociolinguistics and phonetics to investigate how 32 heritage Spanish speakers (HSSs) of Mexican descent, living in Indiana, produce VOT for /p t k/ in word-initial stops in CS contexts. There is a scarcity of work in his area and by adopting a sociophonetic approach the investigation provides new insights into the phonological system of bilingual speakers. The methodology included four tasks: a demographic and language attitudes questionnaire, a reading task, an image naming task, and an opinion task. A total of 4,608 tokens were analyzed, for which several crosstabulations and logistic regressions were run in R. Participants’ VOT values were compared to their perceptions of their heritage identity, their language use, and their language attitudes. The present study advances the field of sociophonetics regarding the existing understanding of five main topics. First, it shows that for the community of heritage Spanish speakers that live in Indiana, the most relevant variable that predicts the type of VOT production seems to be switch direction. According to the results, switching to Spanish promotes shorter, Spanish-like VOT, and switching to English promotes longer, English-like VOT, supporting Bullock et al. (2006), Piccinini & Arvaniti (2015), Olson (2016), and Ronquest (2016). Second, the results show that there is a higher variability of VOT in the image naming task. Third, the results show that the amount of Spanish and CS used, as well as the languages spoken by the participants’ parents, are related to production. Fourth, the results indicate that participants’ attitudes toward CS are mostly neutral in Indiana, and they are not related to VOT. Lastly, the results show that the higher use of CS, as part of translanguaging, does not hinder the resemblance of phonetic production of /p t k/ VOT to monolingual parameters. The results suggest that the use of CS as part of the pedagogical approach of translanguaging in the classroom may be beneficial.
NEGOTIATING GENDER ACCOUNTABILITY ACROSS CONTEXTS: THE CASE OF THE FORMER COLLEGE ATHLETE
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-07) Russian, Anna Elyse Acosta; Cha, Youngjoo, Ph.D.
The purpose of this dissertation is to uncover the nuanced ways individuals make sense of shifting gender accountability norms as they transition out of a unique social context and into broader U.S. society. This dissertation examines how 84 former Division I college athletes use the socialization they acquired through college sport in their lives once they are no longer student-athletes. I ask: When is being a former college athlete utilized as an asset, and when is it seen as a liability? How does race and gender impact these choices? I use the case study of former Division I college athletes to investigate three key things. First, to explore how women and men translate the skillset acquired in the previous context of college athletics to their current workplace context that associates such skills with the masculine-typed ideal worker image. Second, to uncover the degree to which women and men can use a gendered status marker to their advantage at work. Third, to explore the extent to which broader cultural gender norms impede or facilitate the maintenance of one’s athletic identity—a social identity cultivated and rewarded by all genders in the college athletics context, still seen as masculine by broader U.S. society. Results show all former student-athletes use the social skills learned through college athletics in their work life today, but men can benefit from these skills to a greater degree than women because they more directly embody the ideal worker image. Respondents are more likely to use their college athlete credential in workplace contexts that share similar values and norms as college athletics. These workplace contexts are more likely to be predominantly white and men-dominated spaces than not. Thus, unsurprisingly, white men were more likely than Black men and Black and White women to use their athlete credential to their advantage at work. Furthermore, I find men have a smoother transition to recreational sporting life than women because broader gender norms continue to view athletics as a predominantly man-centric activity. I argue the case of the former D1 college athlete serves as an appropriate site to explore the ways in which people use or reject social practices previously learned in an overarchingly masculine institution as they navigate the contexts surrounding work and sport in their lives today.
THRIVING OR SURVIVING IN NEW YORK CITY: THE BLACK TEACHER EXPERIENCE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-06) Hawkins, Jasmine N.; Danns, Dionne, Ph.D.
This study aims to explore the experiences of Black teachers in New York City within the context of neoliberal urban reforms. It seeks to understand how these teachers articulate their ideas of freedom in the classroom and how neoliberal policies such as gentrification and accountability affect their experiences. By centering the voices and experiences of Black teachers, the study aims to shed light on the complex relationship between race, economics, and liberation, ultimately informing policy and systemic solutions informed by their insights. The literature on Black teachers in both the North and South regions, spanning historical and contemporary contexts, reveals systemic challenges rooted in racial and economic policies. These issues, historically known as slavery and Jim Crow, have evolved into contemporary manifestations under neoliberalism. Neoliberal ideologies exacerbate disparities for Black educators, leading to displacement, job insecurity, and underrepresentation. Prioritizing market-oriented approaches in education exacerbates inequalities and weakens community connections. Gentrification worsens these challenges by displacing long-time residents, including Black teachers, favoring corporate interest over community needs and wants. The study’s framework integrates Critical Race Theory (CRT) with an emancipatory perspective, emphasizing legal, subjective, and socio-economic liberation to understand the experiences of Black teachers in New York City. Drawing from CRT’s focus on normalizing racism and storytelling, the study aims to illuminate the complexities of racism and liberation. The methodology employs qualitative research techniques, primarily in-depth interviews, to capture the diverse voices within the Black teaching community. Sixteen teachers were interviewed. The findings reveal Black teachers’ deep commitment to teaching as a contribution to liberation, emphasizing the importance of representation in schools for both students and educators. Despite challenges such as affordable housing and accountability, Black teachers aspire to go beyond mere survival, seeking authentic representation, connection, and leadership opportunities within educational institutions. Addressing the challenges faced by Black teachers requires transformative approaches that center their voices and experiences, challenge systemic inequalities perpetuated by neoliberalism, and prioritize equity, justice, and empowerment.
BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE RHOTIC VARIATION AND DELETION IN SALVADOR AND SÃO PAULO
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-05) Jagiella, Francis Edward III; de Jong, Kenneth, Ph,D.
Brazilian Portuguese has two rhotic phonemes: the alveolar flap /ɾ/ and the historically long version which previous publications variously call velar, uvular, or glottal fricatives, or alveolar trills or approximants. This variation occurs both within and across dialects. Deletion is also common, most notably in word-final position. This word-final deletion has been attributed to African influences on Brazilian Portuguese. Salvador is the largest Brazilian city with a population predominantly self-identified as being of African descent (Brazilian census categories preto “black” and pardo “brown” or “mixed race”). Given these factors, there is a question of how race may be tied to deletion of the rhotic in this variety. For this dissertation, 35 participants (self-identified as 21 preto, 6 pardo, 7 white, 1 indigenous) from Salvador were recorded reading predetermined stimuli of isolated words and sentences. Additionally, 10 participants (1 preto, 3 pardo, 6 white) from São Paulo were recorded and demographically matched to a subset of participants from Salvador. There are 6,383 total instances of the rhotic phoneme. Productions were classified as exhibiting deletion or for voicing, frication, flapping, and place characteristics. The results indicate that the surface forms of the phoneme are more variable than previously cited, with palatal fricatives common in Salvador and flap + fricative variants common in São Paulo, along with other less frequent forms. Furthermore, participants identifying as preto or pardo delete the phoneme more frequently than those identifying as white. This difference is further complicated by the fact that most Brazilians, regardless of identification, have a mix of African, Indigenous American, and European ancestry, and a lack of consistent classification of individuals into racial categories. In Salvador, glottal fricatives predominate across the board with higher deletion rates. In São Paulo, glottal fricatives predominate in onset position, but alveolar trills and approximants and flap + fricative variants predominate in coda position. When demographically matched for race, age, gender, and socioeconomic class, deletion rates are higher in Salvador, suggesting that African influences are stronger there than São Paulo. Deletion is the most common word-finally, but it occurs in all environments.
EVALUATING THE PERFORMANCE OF BIOMETRIC APPROACHES FOR VERIFICATION AND MONITORING IN COMMERCIAL FOREST CARBON ACCOUNTING
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-05) Cala Suarez, Daniela; Novick, Kimberly, Ph.D.
Of the strategies to increase land carbon storage and avoid GHG emissions through natural ecosystem management, Forest-based Climate Solutions (FbCS) are believed to offer the greatest mitigation potential. As more funds are allocated towards FbCS deployment, questions arise regarding their actual mitigation potential and the extent to which status-quo approaches can quantify or verify the FbCS efficiency. Carbon accounting methodologies currently attribute climate benefits to projects whose ex-ante change in aboveground biomass stocks is expected to be additional to a business-as-usual static carbon baseline derived from forest inventories and species-specific allometric models. However, stock-centric carbon baselines fail to capture all carbon sources and sinks, and dynamic meteorological conditions drive carbon uptake and forest growth. A combination of high temporal and spatial resolution monitoring of land-atmosphere carbon fluxes (flux towers) and stand-level biometric approaches (increment cores and forest inventories) provides a better understanding of the movement (or flux) and storage of CO2 between ecosystems and the atmosphere from which the net ecosystem productivity (NEP) is estimated. Thus, performing an intercomparison of NEP estimates from flux towers (NEPEC) versus biometric methods (NEPBM) provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the performance of static carbon baselines in response to interannual climate variability on tree growth. Here, we performed static carbon baseline scenarios from a forest inventory approach in three flux sites in the Eastern United States. Carbon stock-centric baselines were confronted with flux tower data from those AmeriFlux sites and tree rings data to assess the representativeness of interannual climate variability on tree growth. Differences in magnitude between NEPEC and NEPBM were sensitive to variations in meteorological conditions, tree species composition, stand age, and biases in allometric equations. Furthermore, NEPEC and NEPBM estimates show a weak correlation over time, with tower-derived estimates averaging 28% to 71% higher than those derived from biometric methods. This study highlights the representativeness of temporal variability in static carbon baselines, and the research needs to evaluate and assess the performance of allometric equations for commercial carbon accounting.
Observations and theories: cognitive mechanisms of discovery
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-05) Dubova, Marina; Goldstone, Robert L.
This dissertation research lies at the intersection of cognitive science, psychology, machine learning, and philosophy, aiming to enhance our understanding of how theories and data are—and should be—integrated to arrive at understandings of the world. In the first part, I empirically examine how our everyday concepts and theories shape our perception of the world. I further investigate the impact of scientific conceptual systems, such as the taxonomy of brain regions, on scientific experimentation. I conclude this part by conducting a computational study examining the effectiveness of different theory-motivated experimentation strategies at guiding agents towards useful theories of the world. In the second part, I explore the construction of theories based on observations, emphasizing the human and scientific bias towards relatively simple representations. I critique this preference for simpler accounts and introduce the concept of learning with excess capacity, or a complexity bias, as an alternative approach that allows learning systems to develop useful representations of the world in many contexts. Then, I build on this insight to re-examine the principle of model parsimony in science, identifying contexts where the preference for simpler scientific models could either facilitate or impede scientific progress. The third part broadens the scope by analyzing social aspects that influence the emergence and evolution of useful concepts in a community of interacting agents. Here, I identify the conditions that promote the development of stable communicative conventions, including the role of social network structure, supervision, and the strategy of starting small and gradually expanding one’s vocabulary. Finally, in part four I reflect on the mutual interactions between concepts and observations in science by drawing insights from empirical research on human concept learning and conceptual influences on human perception. I conclude by suggesting that progress in science can be facilitated by both empirical (with psychological experiments) and formal (with mathematical and computational models) examinations of the cognitive processes of observing and representing the world.
QUEER EXPERIENCES IN HISTORICALLY WHITE FRATERNITIES: A NARRATIVE INQUIRY INTO THE LIVES OF GAY AND BISEXUAL FRATERNITY MEN
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-05) Dominguez, Anthony Michael; LePeau, Lucy, Ph.D.
Queer students have been notably absent in qualitative studies involving historically White fraternities (HWFs). To address this gap and work toward a more inclusive representation of diverse identities within HWFs, it is essential to understand the challenges and opportunities that impact the experiences of current Queer members within these social structures. Consequently, this dissertation aimed to investigate the experiences of Gay and Bisexual members in HWFs and assess the progress made in accepting and including members whose identities extend beyond the hegemonic masculine norm. This study places particular emphasis on how Gay and Bisexual members derive meaning from their experiences within HWFs and how these experiences contribute to their understanding of their own identity. The study is underpinned by two theoretical frameworks, including gender order theory, which examines the various forms of oppression faced by all, and inclusive masculinity theory, which argues that embracing diverse forms of masculinity promotes healthier relationships. While employing narrative inquiry with a critical epistemological approach, I recruited each participant to join in one to two individual semi-structured interviews. In these interviews, they shared their experiences in their fraternity chapters at a Southern research-intensive institution and connected these experiences with their perceptions of fraternity culture, homophobia, and masculinity. Seeking to answer if Gay and Bisexual students join HWFs, why, if fraternity environments influence identity formation, and how fraternity membership informs ideas of masculinity, I discovered four key themes from the research data. These themes shed light on how participants navigate the homophobic and heteronormative structure of HWFs, how they shape their identities within HWFs, how these environments develop their multiple intersecting identities, and how Gay and Bisexual members in HWFs engage in performative masculinity. The implications of this research for future studies and higher education practice stress the importance of research, training, and assessment in matters concerning Queer students by professionals in fraternity and sorority life. This approach aims to facilitate the inclusion of various identities within HWF communities.
MIGRATION, ETHNOGENESIS AND TRADITION. ZAPOTEC URBAN ORGANIZATION IN POSTCLASSIC GUIENGOLA, TEHUANTEPEC, OAXACA
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-05) Ramón Celis, Pedro Guillermo; King, Stacie M., Ph.D.
This project determined how and why Zapotec commoners accompanied elites in building new urban spaces outside their traditional home region of the highland Central Valleys of Oaxaca. Most research on the Postclassic Zapotec migration from the Central Valleys to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec has relied heavily on ethnohistoric documents that focus on the lives of nobles to understand sociopolitical dynamics. Consequently, the 13th-15th century Zapotec migration has been interpreted as the outcome of ongoing struggles and competition among elites, which portrays the non-elite Zapotecs who accompanied them as blind followers of their rulers’ political desires. The study focuses on the distribution and variability of residential architecture and material assemblages in different site zones. Detailed records on archaeological artifacts and the urban layout of the site provide the data necessary for drawing comparisons between Guiengola and other Zapotec sites, especially those in the highland Central Valleys from which the Zapotecs who lived in Guiengola may have traveled. Additionally, these data consider how the settlement differs from highland Zapotec sites and other Zapotec sites in the Isthmus in terms of the adoption or changes in everyday practices within this new environment. Finally, this research looks to encompass ethical field methods that address the relevance of Guiengola as a sacred landscape for the descendant population of Santo Domingo Tehuantepec. This research considers questions and inquiries that members from the town, especially from the Comisariado de Bienes Comunales de Lieza, landowners of the archaeological site and the mountain of Guiengola, have shared and expressed. The community has expressed significant concerns about the impact and consequences of extracting archaeological materials from their lands. This project shows how archaeological research can be improved if researchers incorporate local knowledge, respect protocols to retrieve resources from the mountain, and take community concerns into account as part of ethical scientific practice. This research shows that the use of cutting-edge technology such as LiDAR scanning or photogrammetry are not impediments for ethical research as long as there is a transparent process of consultation with the descendant communities that continue to have sacred connections with their cultural heritage sites.
Changes in Running Gait Biomechanics Under Heat Stress
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-05) Chien, Kai-Wen; Gruber, Allison H, Ph.D.
Millions of Americans regularly participate in outdoor physical activity for exercise (Statista, 2022). Running is one of the most common and popular exercises because of its accessibility and health benefits (Nystoriak & Bhatnagar, 2018). Part of running’s appeal is that it can be done nearly anywhere outdoors. Furthermore, running is a significant component to many popular sports performed outdoors including football, soccer, and many other organized and unorganized physical activities. Many organized and unorganized activities involving running and international sporting competitions are held during the summer (Fields et al., 2010). However, the hot and humid weather during summer months in many regions of the United States and worldwide makes outdoor physical activity challenging and potentially dangerous because of an increased risk for heat stress injury (Nichols, 2014). The mean global temperature in 2020 was 1.2ºC greater than the temperature during 1850-1990 (World Meteorological Organization, 2021). With sufficient exposure, exercise in hot and humid conditions poses serious health risks of heat-related illnesses, such as heatstroke which can be fatal (Bergeron, 2014). According to the US Natural Hazard Statistic report, heat is the leading cause of weather-related fatalities in the United States (The U.S. Natural Hazard Statistics, 2022). The growing effects of global climate change exacerbate the risk for heat stress injury, which makes heat stress an inevitable problem that must be overcome by elite runners and recreational athletes alike. Running and exercising in hot and humid conditions will result in physiological changes detrimental to physical performance and accelerate the occurrence of fatigue (Dill et al., 1931; Febbraio et al., 1996; Galloway & Maughan, 1995). Prolonged exercise in the heat is associated with elevated body core temperature, decreased maximal aerobic metabolic rates, and increased rates of body water loss due to sweating (Périard et al., 2021). Combined, these physiological changes and responses to exercising in the heat can reduce performance and increase perceived exertion levels compared to exercising in cold or moderate temperatures (James et al., 2017; Tatterson et al., 2000). These physiological changes are similar to the changes experienced during prolonged exercise under controlled environmental conditions, but heat exposure accelerates the rate and severity of these changes (Tatterson et al., 2000). The physiological effects of exercising under heat stress conditions likely cause functional movement changes such as altered gait biomechanics. Previous studies have primarily focused on characterizing biomechanical changes under heat stress conditions during movements such as walking lifting, striking, and pulling (Hostler et al., 2021) or investigated how footwear mechanical properties change in hot environments (Dib et al., 2005). A study investigating the relationship between running biomechanics and core temperature revealed significant increases in kinetics, such as shock, impact, and braking segmental acceleration, as well as in runners' core temperature throughout the outdoor race completed when the heat index ranged from 21–42ºC (DeJong Lempke et al., 2024). Furthermore, another study has indicated that heat stress could impair proprioception, although it also suggests that heat stress may not affect foot strike angle at initial contact. However, the lack of observed gait changes may be attributed to the fact that participants in this study were able to freely adjust their paces in both hot and control conditions, ultimately resulting in different pace and perceived exertion levels between conditions. Overall, these studies found that human movements can be affected by heat stress (Demura et al., 2010; Hostler et al., 2021). Based on this research, it can be assumed that heat stress potentially impacts running gait biomechanics. However, no studies to date have documented these changes in athletes or recreationally active individuals while running at the same pace and perceived exertion. It is particularly important to study alterations in gait biomechanics while exercising in the heat because alterations in gait due to fatigue are hypothesized to increase the risk of developing musculoskeletal injury (Winter et al., 2016). For example, prolonged running under controlled environmental conditions alters gait mechanics, such as increased foot eversion and dorsiflexion at initial contact (Urbaczka et al., 2022), which may be related to overuse injury development (Powers et al., 1995). Additionally, changes to footwear mechanical properties may affect the ability of the shock absorption of a shoe (Dib et al., 2005; Kinoshita & Bates, 1996), and thus may further exacerbate heat- and fatigue-related changes in gait. Given that the physiological response to heat stress is similar to but more severe than the physiological response to prolonged exercise (Tatterson et al., 2000), running under heat stress may result in larger alterations of runners’ movement that occur earlier during a run and thereby contribute to the risk of developing a running-related musculoskeletal injury.
“DOING IT” DIFFERENTLY? NARRATING AND NAVIGATING AUTISTIC SEXUAL DESIRE
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-05) Kizer, James Samuel; Wu, Cynthia, Ph.D.
This dissertation examines how Autistic college students conceptualize and perform sexual activities and expressions. Scholarly interest in Autistic sexuality has historically been relegated to quantitative studies on childhood and adolescence. From 2000-2022, only 18 of 741 such studies analyzed the sexual behaviors and motivations of Autistic adults, and fewer than half of those were qualitative. A majority of these also did not incorporate Autistic people into the study design. My project addresses these oversights by centering Autistic voices in research about their lived experiences with sex and sexuality. Drawing upon data from twelve semi-structured indepth interviews with Autistic college students around the United States, I argue that Autistic young adults develop notions of intimacy, temporality, and space that are uniquely theirs. Collectively, they form the foundation of a process I label “sexual logistics,” or the ways that Autists negotiate sexual activities and desires. I propose neuropleasure as a theoretical inroad towards understanding these sexual logistics in context. Broadly conceived, neuropleasure explicitly describes how Autists always and already perform sexuality in public and private, even if those performances go unrecognized by others. The theory is comprised of discrete yet tightly interwoven tenets that, when examined holistically, demonstrate how sexual logistics are pluralistic and unfixed, contingent upon their social context, and open to contestation and how these negotiations occur at individual, relational, and communal levels. In short, neuropleasure is a paradigmatic constellation of Autistic sexual desires, motivations, and practices. This framework is uniquely Autistic but can—and should—be applied broadly to expand our understandings of desire, pleasure, fulfillment, and even sex itself.
THE HADZA LANGUAGE: VITALITY, PHONETICS, AND PHONOLOGY
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-05) Coburn, Jeremy Richard; Berkson, Kelly, Ph.D.
Hadza is a language isolate spoken by approximately 1,500–2,000 people in the Lake Eyasi area of north-central Tanzania. Hadza is widely known for its robust inventory of typologically uncommon speech sounds, e.g., clicks, ejectives, and lateral obstruents. The linguistic literature on Hadza is marked by discrepancies on basic components of the sound inventory, including the number of phonemic consonants, the nature of phonological contrasts, and the role of tone. Based on primary linguistic data collected during nine months of fieldwork with Hadza speakers in Tanzania in 2022 and cutting-edge 3D/4D ultrasound data collected with a Hadza speaker in a speech laboratory in 2020, this dissertation offers a current, empirically-based description and analysis of aspects of the phonetics and phonology of Hadza. In particular, the temporal characteristics of laryngeal contrasts in obstruents (i.e., aspiration and glottalization) and a phonemic vowel length distinction are investigated with acoustic data. The description of Hadza vowels and select consonants (e.g., clicks) is augmented with articulatory information using ultrasound data. A systematic analysis of the tone system, including basic contrasts and interesting tonal processes, is also developed. This tone analysis highlights typologically unusual phenomena prevalent in the Hadza tone system. Additionally, this dissertation provides a contemporary assessment of Hadza language vitality based on ethnographic participant observation and unstructured interviews in numerous Hadza communities. This research addresses discrepancies which pervaded the literature, contributes to the typological literature on laryngeal systems and tonal phenomena, and calls attention to the endangered status of Hadza in contemporary Hadza communities.
KANT’S DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-04) Buchinski, Alexander; Wood, Allen, Ph.D.
My dissertation proposes a novel interpretation of Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism as presented in the Critique of Pure Reason. I aim to give a consensus interpretation by overcoming past errors in interpreting this doctrine. I support my interpretation through a textual exegesis of the Critique of Pure Reason with a special focus on the direct and indirect proofs of transcendental idealism. Transcendental idealism is the doctrine that objects of our experience, space, and time, when taken as they would be outside our possible experience, are nothing but mere representations. However, this does not make them into illusions. This is because Kant takes objects of our experience, space, and time to be empirically real. Empirical realism is the doctrine that objects of our experience, space, and time, when taken within our possible experience, exist independently of us. Yet, their empirical reality is not grounded in things in themselves, about whose existence Kant is agnostic. Instead, the reality of objects of our experience, space, and time depend on a standard of empirical reality that differs from the standard of transcendental reality. This separate standard of empirical reality allows Kant to hold transcendental idealism and empirical realism at the same time. Finally, while not strictly part of the doctrine of transcendental idealism, I answer the question of the relation of appearances and things in themselves. The distinction between appearances and things in themselves is a metaphysical distinction between two different ways of being, i.e., objectivity, properties, existence, reality. Yet, this is a metaphysical distinction within the same concept of an object. Thus, appearances and things in themselves are the same object conceptually that is determined metaphysically in two different ways.
CONSTITUTING THE DEMOS: CONSTITUTIONALISM, CONSTITUENT POWER, AND THE ARTICULATION OF DEMOCRATIC BOUNDARIES
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-01) Briedis, Rafael Bruno Macía; Williams, Susan, J.D.
This dissertation develops a critique of the theory of “constituent power” and of its incorporation into our understanding of constitutional democracy. The theory of constituent power argues that, in a democracy, the people always retain the power to alter or replace their constitutional regime regardless of the constitution’s amendment procedures. Because of its democratic appeal, this theory has been adopted by constitutional scholars and adjudicators interested in reinforcing the link between constitutionalism and popular sovereignty. Through a case-study of revolutionary constitution-making in Venezuela, however, this dissertation looks at the more troubling implication of attributing to “the people” a constituent power that exists beyond the reach of constitutional norms. In dialogue with theorists writing on the relationship between law and democracy, it argues that any allegedly “popular” exercise of extraconstitutional lawmaking requires the intervention of a self-authorized “representative” with the power to arbitrarily decide whether (and in what sense) “the people” have spoken. It is through this power-grounded, heteronomous intervention—which allows us to definitely ascertain who gets to participate (and how) in the process of constituent will-formation—that the people are then constituted as a constitution-authorizing unity. In contrast to this “constituent” mode of democracy, the dissertation proposes a view of constitutionalism as rendering “the people” independent from ad-hoc mediation by those in power. By projecting into the future a set of stable and legible norms of democratic belonging and participation, constitutional democracy transforms the demos into a “substantiated” agent whose participants can know themselves such (and know their mode of participation) prior to the act of identification of the popular will. The dissertation then studies how this unique democratic function (along with the very integrity of the constitutional framework) can be fundamentally undermined whenever the theory of constituent power is turned into a principle of constitutional design and interpretation. It concludes by proposing the constitutional codification of participatory reform clauses as a way of preempting the recourse to constituent extraconstitutionality during times of constitutional upheaval.
CHARACTER AS NARRATIVE: MORAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CONTEXT
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-05) Williams, Elizabeth Cargile; Abramson, Katy, Ph.D.
In this dissertation, I propose a theory of moral responsibility for character, understood as a kind of narrative. Narratives of character give evaluative and emotional coherence to the judgments and choices of others understood within context. In Chapter 1, I set the stage for the project by arguing that Gary Watson’s (1996) notion of accountability, properly understood, requires some reference to the particular person, rather than merely roles or rules. In Chapter 2, I push back against R. Jay Wallace’s (1994) view of responsibility that makes us out to be responsible only for our choices or the things we can directly control. In Chapter 3, I argue that T. M. Scanlon’s (1998) view rightly captures responsibility for judgment-sensitive attitudes but wrongly underplays the distinct importance of choice and control. In Chapter 4, I consider Susan Wolf’s (1990) and Fischer and Ravizza’s (1998) historical requirements on responsibility and conclude that the former too quickly removes agency and responsibility from those who have chosen to go down evil paths while the latter isn’t something we have access to in our everyday moral practices of accountability. In Chapter 5, I draw on Peter Goldie’s (2012) work on narratives to create a novel view of character, understood not as a stable disposition but as an actively constructed narrative built from a number of elements we care about, including our choices, our judgments, our history and context, as well as other features of what we’re like. These narratives often draw out patterns that have interpersonal import, and they can range from very small character studies to narratives that span a person’s life. Finally, in Chapter 6, I argue that constructing a taxonomy that clearly delineates who is responsible from who is not is a project that is doomed from the start, and I consider what my broadly Strawsonian approach can tell us about the excuses and exemptions.
PSYCHIATRY’S SECOND VALIDITY CRISIS: THE PROBLEM OF DISPARATE VALIDATION
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-05) Zautra, Nicholas Gaddis; Ludwig, Kirk, Ph.D.
In response to the crisis of confidence in the validity of the DSM’s diagnostic categories, psychiatry has seen a proliferation of alternative research frameworks for studying and classifying psychiatric disorders in new ways. The big three alternative approaches—the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP), the Network Approach to Psychopathology, and the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)—have been characterized as healthy responses to the DSM’s crisis of validity. A yet unexplored aspect of psychiatry’s validity crisis is related to disagreements regarding the standards of validity. Each of the approaches have multiple distinct senses of validity, which point to a thornier methodological problem for psychiatry that I term the problem of “disparate validation.” This two-part problem can be summarized as follows: scientific psychiatry aims at achieving empirically informed classifications that demonstrate validity in the sense that they correspond to real attributes of psychopathology. To achieve this, alternative research frameworks are now approaching the conceptualization, testing, organizing, and validation of different features of psychopathology by their own standards in the hopes of one day informing more valid systems of psychiatric classification. The first problem is given a system of classification, by whose standard of validity should such a system be validated? Is there a single validation procedure by which validation should proceed, or some other combination thereof? Second, when we attempt to validate classifications informed by differing standards of validity, will any such validation be capable of assessing a unified fundamental sense of validity that exists across the various frameworks, or will they only be valid in their own narrow sense? In this dissertation, I offer an assessment of the problem of disparate validation through faithful reconstructions of the Holy Quadrinity of distinct senses of validity in psychiatry: starting with diagnostic validity (DSM) and proceeding with psychometric validity (HiTOP), network psychometric validity (the Network Approach), and etio-pathophysiological validity (RDoC). I introduce commonalities across frameworks that have not been previously addressed, including how each framework employs expert curation, being the selection and justification of certain elements into their model based on compromises, and how the goal of each framework eventually becomes a return to the original validators of Robins and Guze to evaluate prognosis, biomarkers, and etiology of psychiatric classifications. By evaluating psychiatry’s distinct senses of validity, I argue that despite an appearance of a shared goal of informing more valid classifications, the existence of multiple frameworks in which each employs their own standards of validity and validation is a detrimental methodology to achieve any kind of unified validation work. At its core, fundamental disagreements concerning 1) the underlying phenomenon that researchers are attempting to make inferences about; 2) the sources of validating evidence; and 3) the very nature of validity and validation, move each framework further and further toward a state of unrecognized plurality, in which these frameworks are really not at all talking about the same thing and are in fact engaged in different projects with different aims. I conclude with a positive program that suggests in what ways such different frameworks with distinct validation procedures can achieve validity in their own specific sense while also coming to inform one another through a kind of complementary pluralism.
THE ROLE OF SEMANTICS IN THE EMERGENCE AND MAINTENANCE OF SUFFIXES: AN INVESTIGATION OF OLD HIGH GERMAN -HEIT AND -TUOM
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-05) Peters, Elijah; Hall, Tracy, Ph.D.
This dissertation is an investigation of how the suffixes -heit and -tuom develop in Old High German, and how these suffixes interact with the preexisting suffixes of the language. It has long been recognized that the head of a compound may be reanalyzed as a suffix. The present study examines this phenomenon for -heit and -tuom, and emphasizes the role that semantics plays in their emergence as suffixes from independent words, how they interact with the preexisting suffixes, and how they become productive. The answers to these questions provide insight into how a derivational system changes over time and the types of information that the system is sensitive to. The data are drawn primarily from corpora and include virtually all instances in which heit and tuom occur, including glosses. They are treated qualitatively by examining the contexts in which the words are used, though quantitative methods are used to examine the productivity of the suffixes. The heit and tuom data are separated into three categories, i.e., independent, compound, and suffix, that are each analyzed in turn. Then, an analysis is proposed to account for the shift from word to suffix. Lastly, the interaction of the new suffixes with the old ones is evaluated by comparing competing pairs within the same text. The analysis proposes that semantics alone is sufficient to account for the shift from word to suffix. The meaning of the word directly influences the meaning of the suffix, the types of bases it attaches to, and its productivity. Semantics continues to play a role in the organization of the system after grammaticalization has occurred. While the new suffixes appear to compete with the preexisting suffixes, it is shown that the new suffixes assume a meaning different from that of their competitors. The results of the present investigation generally corroborate previous research on the suffixes -heit and -tuom, but they provide new insights into the behavior of these suffixes and the motivations for that behavior. The analysis provides principled reasons, rooted in semantics, for why the two suffixes developed differently, and why they interacted with the preexisting suffixes in the way that they did. Furthermore, the development of these two suffixes proposed here supports similar research conducted for historical English. Future work should examine why English and German diverge in the development of these suffixes, as well as if the present analysis can account for other grammaticalizations that occur in Old High German.
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE SOLUTIONS TO GENOCIDAL RAPE IN MYANMAR
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-05) Halbert, Chloe; Kousaleos, Nicole, Ph.D.
Although international organizations have attempted to address the complex needs of women who have suffered sexual violence in the aftermath of a conflict, their efforts have historically fallen short. Criminal tribunals, while an important tool of the international justice system, don’t always have the resources or bandwidth to adequately draw attention to the perpetration of violence against women. Women have even expressed that they felt revictimized by the justice process at the hands of outside international actors who have no connection to their history or their culture. The present analysis explores these apparent shortcomings of a retributive criminal justice framework and it establishes the importance of community-based justice mechanisms, ones which place the peace process in the hands of those who have been directly affected by the conflict. The following study utilizes the case of the Rohingya women in the ongoing conflict in Myanmar to illustrate the importance and effectiveness of this approach.
EXPLORING BELIEFS AND TEACHING PRACTICES USING UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING IN SPECIAL EDUCATION CLASSROOMS OF SAUDI ARABIA
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-02) Alwaqassi, Sarah Abdullah Saleh; Butera, Gretchen Ph.D.
As education policy in Saudi Arabia is beginning to implement a more inclusive classroom model which educates children with and without special needs side-by-side, teachers are struggling to find the best practices that can meet the needs of students with diverse levels of learning abilities. However, the government’s Saudi Vision 2030 has committed to improving educational curricula and practices, which will open doors of opportunity for inclusive education and for teachers to develop their knowledge and skills in this new area of pedagogy. This dissertation focuses on the special education teachers and their practices in inclusive classrooms in Saudi Arabia. The data was collected via a mixed method that included interviews and surveys to determine the current practices that the teachers apply in their classrooms. The dissertation then evaluated the teachers' practices against the principles of Universal Design for Learning. This study aimed to provide a guide for the Saudi special education teachers to follow based on the Universal Design for Learning framework, and is expected to inform, benefit, and contribute to the Saudi government’s efforts to reform and improve inclusive teaching and learning approaches in the education system.
BRINGING OPERA TO SAXON AUDIENCES IN THE AGE OF NAPOLEON 1800-1817
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2023-12) Haugland, Kirby E.; Muxfeldt, Kristina PhD
The Saxon cities of Dresden and Leipzig hosted musical theater throughout the Napoleonic era. Opera was simultaneously a form of mass entertainment, a political tool, and a business venture. In contrast to prior eras, when the region was a vibrant hub of opera composition, I argue that Saxon opera during this period was defined by the collision between local conditions and a cosmopolitan repertoire drawn from Paris, Vienna, and Central European theater networks. Saxon operatic institutions had long been entangled with the fortunes of the community and the state. These entanglements were even more evident as Saxony endured invasion, foreign domination, and eventually partition after the Congress of Vienna. Impresarios selected and adapted foreign compositions to fit their production capabilities and meet the demands of audiences, who ranged from middle-class intellectuals and rowdy Leipzig University students to visiting merchants, army officers, and monarchs. Two companies dominated the local musical theater industry: Andrea Bertoldy’s Italian opera at the Dresden Court, and Joseph Seconda’s itinerant German theater company, which alternated between a rustic theater outside Dresden and Leipzig’s more well-furnished city venue. Although they pursued different goals and had different resources, both companies relied on translations, musical substitutions, and more elaborate textual reworkings by local staff and outsiders. Their productions featured stage decorations and machinery from local artisans, who brought their own expertise and occasionally influenced audience reactions far more than the music. I provide focused explanations of each of these different aspects of adaptation through specific productions of operas by Joseph Weigl, Ludwig van Beethoven, Luigi Cherubini, Gaspare Spontini, and others. Drawing on performance materials, government documents, and a wide variety of contemporary periodicals and technical writing, I produce a vivid picture of what was required to bring opera to Saxon stages at a pivotal point in European history.
"YO DIGO 'ESTÁ' PORQUE... ": THE DEVELOPMENT AND USE OF THE SPANISH COPULA IN A STUDY ABROAD VARIETY IN CHILE
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2023-12) Evans-Sago, Travis; Geeslin, Kimberly Ph.D.
This dissertation explores Spanish copular verbs, ser and estar (both 'to be' in English), in pre-adjectival contexts within two Spanish varieties: first-language (Ll) Chilean speakers from Santiago (N = 29) and second-language (L2) English-speaking learners studying in Chile (N = 31). Bridging sociolinguistics and second language acquisition, it delves into sociolinguistic competence acquisition in an immersive context, focusing on copula development and use. The study collected data through a picture-based oral elicitation task and a written contextualized preference task at three time points for study abroad (SA) participants and a single point for Ll participants. It analyzed both linguistic factors (Adjective Class, Animacy, Experience With the Referent, Frame of Reference, Resultant State, and Susceptibility to Change) and extralinguistic factors (Age, Gender, Grammar Score, Previous Experience Abroad, Parent Origin, Spanish Major/Minor, Study Abroad Site, and social network factors like Number of Ll Contacts, Number of Contact Hours, Reported Closeness With Ll Contacts) to understand how these factors influence copula development and use over time. The findings reveal a progressive alignment of SA learners' copula use with Chilean participants, especially in terms of linguistic factors, albeit surpassing target variety norms in rates of estar use in the oral elicitation task. SA learners' development and use were also shaped by extralinguistic factors like Previous Experience Abroad and Reported Closeness to L1 Contacts. Conversely, extralinguistic factors had no significant influence on estar selection in the WCPT for Chilean participants. However, Parent Origin significantly affected estar use in the PDT, showing Santiago natives whose both parents were also from Santiago favoring estar over their counterparts. Further exploration of these factors can provide valuable insights into language acquisition, sociolinguistics, and the intricate interplay between language and context.

Browse

Recent Submissions