The KU ScholarWorks digital repository system captures, stores, indexes, preserves, and distributes digital research material. https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu:443 2018-06-26T20:26:35Z 2018-06-26T20:26:35Z Thomas, M'Balia http://hdl.handle.net/1808/26588 2018-06-26T19:59:43Z 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z

Girl Talk: A Dialogic Approach to Oral Narrative Storytelling Analysis in English As a Foreign Language Research Thomas, M'Balia Research in the fields of Applied Linguistics (AL) and Second Language Studies (SLS) has begun addressing the ways in which second and foreign language (L2) use is a “material” struggle to understand, acquire and author L2 words for one’s own creative purposes – particularly in the face of ideologies about language learning and language use (Squires 2008; Suni 2014). This struggle has implications for the subjectivity, agency and ultimate acquisition and use of the target language by L2 users. This dissertation seeks to augment scholarship in this area by demonstrating how material struggle can surface in the process of data collection (a research interview). It presents an analysis of a recorded narrative of an English as a foreign language (EFL) user, who was a second year graduate student enrolled in a university in the southwest US. She was invited by the author -- a native speaker of English -- to tell an oral narrative story in English to a group with whom she met regularly. However, in positioning the EFL subject as “non-native” in the recruitment process, the author as a native speaker failed to anticipate the manner in which her request was interpellative (Althusser 1971[2001]), thus reproducing and subjecting the “non-native” to the ideology and discourses associated with that category and setting into motion a creative authoring of response to this interpellative call. In approaching the analysis from this perspective, this dissertation adopts an approach to oral narrative story analysis that is based on the Bakhtinian-inspired notion of dialogism (Bakhtin 1981, 1986). Dialogism underscores the resultant narrative as a collection of utterances poised to respond to the request to “tell a story,” while simultaneously addressing the ideology and discourses associated with this request. Additionally, the analysis explores the dialogic nature of the narrative from the standpoint of “tellability” (Norrick 2005; Ochs and Capps 2001), thus highlighting aspects of the narrative that render this tale of friendship, an extramarital affair and a friend “in hatred” meaningful in the context of its telling. Guided by an interest in Bakhtinian dialogism and driven by a concern for narrative tellability, three differing, yet complimentary, analyses of the narrative are explored: 1) ‐ 9 ‐ genre, register and vague (“vaguely gendered”) language, 2) face work, framing and cooperation and 3) gossip, stance and the representation of speech and voice. These analyses likewise uncover three themes that underlie the narrative context of the tale. These themes are: the backgrounding of nativeness and foregrounding of gender, the simultaneous and ambiguous struggle for solidarity and power, and the display of personal style through moral stance in the presentation of a continuous self over time and place. The implication of this work for future research and assessment in AL and SLS is addressed.

2014-01-01T00:00:00Z Thomas, M'Balia http://hdl.handle.net/1808/26587 2018-06-26T18:05:58Z 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

A Dialogic Approach to Supervisions in the Practicum Thomas, M'Balia The term “dialogue” in research on classroom talk between student(s)teacher is frequently referenced in teaching and teacher education. Yet, there is considerable difference in how the concept is understood. Moreover, scholarship within this area rarely addresses classroom talk between another student-teacher dyad – that of practicum student and a supervising instructor (Waite 1995 is a notable exception). This paper seeks to explore the notion of dialogue as it applies to this dyadic relationship, considering the ways in which incorporating a specifically Bakhtinian approach to dialogue highlights unique aspects of talk and interaction within practicum supervision. Keywords: Dialogism, Bakhtin, Practicum Supervision, Observation

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z Thomas, M'Balia http://hdl.handle.net/1808/26586 2018-06-26T17:48:59Z 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z

Words As Weapons: The Metaphorical Attack of Michelle Obama in US Print Headlines Thomas, M'Balia It has been suggested that media coverage of Michelle Obama during the months leading up to the November 2008 US Presidential election in which her husband Barack Obama was a candidate, was at times unfair and biased, occasionally negative and in bad taste, and a few times arguably racist, stereotypic, and attacking in nature (The Capital Times, June 21, 2008). Those who express these ideas often cite systemic American racism and racial ideology as the cause of such press, citing as examples the July 21, 2008 cover of The New Yorker (in which Michelle and Barack Obama are featured in stereotypically charged images) and Fox News Channel’s use of the racially-loaded phrase “Baby Mama” to refer to Ms. Obama (June 11, 2008). Others suggest Michelle Obama herself is the cause of such negative press, referring to her February 2008 Wisconsin stump speech (a speech which raised questions about her “pride” in America), her active participation in her husband’s campaign, and her off-the-cuff remarks in interviews describing her husband’s personal habits. Still others posit that when wives of political candidates take an active role in their husbands’ campaigns, they are “fair game” for negative critique and scrutiny (USA Today, May 20, 2008). Perhaps all three factors played a role in the media’s attempt to shape, construct and engage the national discourse around Michelle Obama and the possibility of her becoming First Lady of the United States of America. This paper sets out to examine some of the discourse in US newspapers during the last 10 months of the 2008 US Presidential election to determine whether coverage was indeed biased, negative and attacking, as some have suggested.

2009-01-01T00:00:00Z Garwood, Russell J. Dunlop, Jason A. Selden, Paul A. Spencer, Alan R. T. Atwood, Robert C. Vo, Nghia T. Drakopoulos, Michael http://hdl.handle.net/1808/26585 2018-06-26T17:11:07Z 2016-03-30T00:00:00Z

Almost a spider: a 305-million-year-old fossil arachnid and spider origins Garwood, Russell J.; Dunlop, Jason A.; Selden, Paul A.; Spencer, Alan R. T.; Atwood, Robert C.; Vo, Nghia T.; Drakopoulos, Michael Spiders are an important animal group, with a long history. Details of their origins remain limited, with little knowledge of their stem group, and no insights into the sequence of character acquisition during spider evolution. We describe a new fossil arachnid, Idmonarachne brasieri gen. et sp. nov. from the Late Carboniferous (Stephanian, ca 305–299 Ma) of Montceau-les-Mines, France. It is three-dimensionally preserved within a siderite concretion, allowing both laboratory- and synchrotron-based phase-contrast computed tomography reconstruction. The latter is a first for siderite-hosted fossils and has allowed us to investigate fine anatomical details. Although distinctly spider-like in habitus, this remarkable fossil lacks a key diagnostic character of Araneae: spinnerets on the underside of the opisthosoma. It also lacks a flagelliform telson found in the recently recognized, spider-related, Devonian–Permian Uraraneida. Cladistic analysis resolves our new fossil as sister group to the spiders: the spider stem-group comprises the uraraneids and I. brasieri. While we are unable to demonstrate the presence of spigots in this fossil, the recovered phylogeny suggests the earliest character to evolve on the spider stem-group is the secretion of silk. This would have been followed by the loss of a flagelliform telson, and then the ability to spin silk using spinnerets. This last innovation defines the true spiders, significantly post-dates the origins of silk, and may be a key to the group's success. The Montceau-les-Mines locality has previously yielded a mesothele spider (with spinnerets). Evidently, Late Palaeozoic spiders lived alongside Palaeozoic arachnid grades which approached the spider condition, but did not express the full suite of crown-group autapomorphies.

2016-03-30T00:00:00Z