Aaron Solorio
I intend to produce a comparative study between first-generation, low-income, Latino and African-American males attending continuation high schools and those attending traditional high schools. I will conduct twenty qualitative interviews consisting of ten participants who have attended continuation high school and ten participants who have attended traditional high school- all of whom have attended their respective school within the last ten years. Although there is literature on the school environment and the challenges that students face, I aim to explore the factors that lead students to either continue into higher […]
Sonnet Phelps
Research in conceptual metaphor has established that, far from being a decorative flourish, metaphor is integral to human reasoning: we extrapolate from our immediate experience to make sense of abstract objects and processes. Climate change is such a process, happening on spatial and temporal scales far beyond our perceptual horizons. While metaphor is indispensable in every genre of climate discourse think greenhouse gas, carbon footprint, and tipping points poetry is a particularly rich generator of innovative metaphoric framings. In this project, I will put insights from cognitive linguistics in conversation […]
Amaris Blasgen Morningstar
The world we live in today is shaped by globalism. There is more exchange of ideas, artwork, and technology than ever before. We travel, inspire each other and use symbolism to transcend language and cultural barriers. However, is this really a new phenomena? Archaeological research constantly uncovers more evidence that humanity has been doing this for millennia. The Eastern Mediterranean Basin had an extensive network for the movement of goods, people and ideas between the civilizations of the Near East since before the Bronze Age. My research investigates the affect […]
Teela Huff
My research involves the collection and analysis of linguistic data on the Central Je language Xavante, an Amazonian language of central Brazil. Like many Amazonian languages, Xavante is under-documented and undergoing major changes due to increasing contact with Brazilian government and society. It contains unique qualities that are of special interest to the research community, such as a lack of velar consonants (e.g. [g, k]) and the presence of glottal consonant clusters (e.g. [p]). Documentation of these characteristics is key to expanding the field’s understanding of what is possible within […]
Audrey Phan
Impulsivity as an individual behavioral trait is a hallmark of externalizing disorders including ADHD, oppositional defiant, and conduct disorders. Impulsive individuals are thought to lack cognitive control (i.e., the ability to behave according to ones goals), which has been found to operate via two distinct modes: reactive control (i.e., goal information is triggered by a stimulus) and proactive control (i.e., goal information is sustained over time). While many studies have indicated that dysfunction of the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) is implicated in poor cognitive control, the temporal dynamics of LPFC […]
Samba Kane
My research concerns the cultural identity of the Fula people in Mauritania and Senegal, West Africa. What does it mean to be Fula in this particular region of the world? To answer this question, I will explore two volumes of poetry, written in the Fula language by Ibrahima Moctar Sarr, a Mauritanian journalist by formation who became a civil rights leader and an advocate for the preservation of the Fula language. We have much to learn from the Fula history and culture. The Fula are rarely the dominant group in […]