The purpose of this study has been to analyze the language of the popular lyrics of the seventies to determine if sexism is used to communicate in various musical genres. Three manifestations of sexist language developed by the Sexism in Textbooks Committee of Women at Scott, Foresman have been used in this study. The lyrics analyzed include 100 lyrics selected from songwriter-singers noted as articulate musical artists of the seventies, 90 songs reaching the "Top Ten" charts (1970-1978), and the top 100 songs of 1978. Chapter I defines sexism and explains three manifestations of sexist language. Chapter II includes examples from seven talented lyricists which illustrate sexism. Chapter III presents an evaluation of sexism in the "Top Ten" lyrics (1970-1978). Chapter IV reveals changes in stereotypic language appearing in the 1978 top 100 lyrics. Chapter V offers summaries and reasons for the findings.

Margaret Atwood speaks about a now common and yet still predominant question of female identity. Eye images, appearing frequently, correlate with ideas of observation, perception, and reflection as the woman seeks to understand herself. Introductory material examines three female archetypes, five victim positions, and male-female worlds. Eye imagery in early poetry expresses female feelings of frustration and submission to unfair roles and expectations. Imagery in the middle poetry presents causes for male-female manipulations. In later poetry eye imagery underscores the woman's anger and desire to separate into a new self. Concluding this study is an analysis of female options. From denial and anger the poet moves to recognition of choices open to today's woman, offering a possibility of wholeness.

Poems contains fifty-two poems and an afterword that explains some of the ideas that prompted the poems as well as some information about the poetic techniques and allusions. Their primary purpose is to communicate the experiences of a woman living in a patriarchal society, which contemporary American society certainly is. The poems expose how a young woman fits into such a society as a human being and an artist . They stress the need for women writers to play ever-increasing roles in society.

The overt teaching of the Monitor, or conscious rule awareness, to native Spanish-speaking ESL students was examined to note possible benefits to the students' oral English production. Native Spanish-speaking students of English (the experimental group) were taught an awareness of their ability to self-correct their spoken English. They were then compared to another group of native Spanish-speaking ESL students (the control group) in four areas: Ilyin Oral Interview score, total words produced, errors produced, and interference errors produced. The results of the study lend support to the theory that overt Monitor teaching could be beneficial to native Spanish-speaking students of English. The experimental group showed a significant gain in Ilyin scores and a significant reduction in the number of errors produced.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate Pope's treatment of Lewis Theobald and Colley Cibber in their roles as the king of dunces in the Dunciad. After an introductory chapter that treats the battles between Pope and Theobald and Pope and Cibber, the second chapter gives a short factual biography of Theobald emphasizing the events relating to his battle with Pope. The third chapter analyzes the caricature of Theobald in the Dunciad Variorum, showing its variations from fact. By comparing Theobald and Cibber, the fourth chapter investigates the extent and effectiveness of the changes made in the Dunciad of 1743 to accommodate the change from Theobald to Cibber as the king of dunces. This paper attempts to demonstrate that Theobald and Cibber were treated unfairly by Pope, whose decision to enthrone both was based on a desire for personal revenge.

This study provides a detailed analysis of the confession motif in Dostoevsky' s Crime and Punishment. It discusses Dostoevsky's use of the sacramental concept of confession, in which the estranged person is reunited with the human community through contrite confession. Throughout the novel, Raskolnikov wavers between desiring estrangement and seeking union. These two poles are shown in his encounters with Sonya and Porfiry (who represent union) and Luzhin and Svidrigaylov (who represent estrangement). Sonya and Porfiry tell Raskolnikov to confess and accept responsibility for his life; Luzhin and Svidrigaylov show him how to continue passing responsibility to others. This study also demonstrates that the epilogue is not merely a tag, as some Dostoevsky critics have argued. Rather, Raskolnikov' s redemption is the only thematically and psychologically valid conclusion.

Edith Wharton structured her novels using a technique that relies on what she called "crucial episodes" or "illuminating incidents" to reveal theme and develop character. In Wharton's novels this technique attains a rare perfection as subject matter, circumstance, and dialogue are repeatedly connected by succeeding episodes. In addition, Wharton's fictional method allowed her to stage a series of incidents that essentially foretell the nature of a novel's outcome, creating a dramatic sense of inevitability that is often mistaken for determinism or naturalism. Wharton used the same technique throughout her career, lending strength to her published theories of fiction. The House of Mirth (1905), Ethan Frome (1911), and The Age of Innocence (1921) are representative not only of her best work, but also of her basic structural technique.

Errors by ESL writers involving connectives show a need for changes in the current teaching approach of composition teachers, an approach which reflects a lack of attention to the discourse function of connectives on the part of linguists and rhetoricians. More recent studies in text and functional grammars reveal that factors other than syntax control conjunctive use. These include pragmatic differences between spoken and written language, the role of semantics in defining dependency, and discourse functions of connectives. Conjunction is seen as part of a continuum of semantic dependency that is manifested as degrees of syntactic complexity. Teaching methods should take into account semantic and pragmatic factors and encourage learning of connectives through activities such as revision of student writing for content as well as mechanics.

The purpose of this research was to develop and test a three-section cloze test of English proficiency and to norm it for use as a means of level placement. The study sample consisted of ESL students at Brookhaven Community College and the Intensive English Language Institute of North Texas State University, as well as a group of native speakers. Four types of statistical analysis were used: analysis of variance, Pearson product-moment correlations, a t-Test, and a multiple comparison procedure, the Scheffé test. The cloze test was sensitive to significant differences between every level at both schools. Subsequently it was normed to a four-level system and score ranges for each level were suggested.

This thesis traces Margaret Atwood's uses of three major elements of fairy tales in her novels. Atwood creates a passive, fairy-tale-like heroine, but not for the purpose of showing how passivity wins the prince as in the traditional tale. Atwood also uses the binary system, which provides a moralistic structure in the fairy tale, to show the necessity of moving beyond its rigidity. In addition, Atwood's novels focus on transformation as the breaking of a spell. However, the spell to be broken arises out of the fairy tales themselves, which create unrealistic expectations. Thus, Atwood not only presents these fairy tale elements in a new setting, but she also changes their significance.

Gothicism is the primary feature of Nathaniel Hawthorne's fiction, and it is his skill in elevating Gothicism to the level of high art which makes him a great artist. Gothic elements are divided into six categories: Objects, Beings, Mental States, Practices and Actions, Architecture and Places, and Nature. Some devices from these six categories are documented in three of Hawthorne's stories ("Young Goodman Brown," "The Minister's Black Veil," and "Ethan Brown") and three of his romances (The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, and The Marble Faun). The identification of 142 instances of Hawthorne's use of Gothic elements in the above works demonstrates that Hawthorne is fundamentally a Gothic writer.

This paper concentrates on the viability of using metaphor as a teaching tool in the English as a Second Language classroom. In doing so, a semantically-based theory of metaphor, like that presented by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), is employed as a base for the examination. Such a theory of metaphor presents a dramatic shift from theories, especially Aristotle's, of the past. The theory of metaphor proposed by Lakoff and Johnson contends that language is essentially metaphorical and that much of our 'commonsense' knowledge about the world is derived from interpretations of reality and is manifested in metaphors central to a culture and its language. If this theory is true, then it stands to reason that a student attempting to learn English as a Second Language could profit greatly from metaphor instruction because such instruction would aid all areas of the language acquisition process.

Hemingway's dialogue and the texts of politeness and literature -- Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies -- The face of honesty in "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife -- The face of bravery in "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" -- The face of love in "Hills Like White Elephants" -- Interpretive implications of politeness theory.

Many Twain scholars believe that his skepticism was based on personal tragedies of later years. Others find skepticism in Twain's work as early as The Innocents Abroad. This study determines that Twain's atheism is evident in his earliest writings. Chapter One examines what critics have determined Twain's religious sense to be. These contentions are discussed in light of recent publications and older, often ignored, evidence of Twain' s atheism. Chapter Two is a biographical look at Twain's literary, family, and community influences, and at events in Twain's life to show that his religious antipathy began when he was quite young. Chapter Three examines Twain's early sketches and journalistic squibs to prove that his voice, storytelling techniques, subject matter, and antipathy towards the church and other institutions are clearly manifested in his early writings.

Shelby Hearon's eight novels--Armadillo in the Grass, The Second Dune, Hannah's House, Now and Another Time, A Prince of a Fellow, Painted Dresses, Afternoon of a Faun, and Group Therapy- -are unified by the theme of the fairy-tale princess and her quest to assert her autonomy and gain self-fulfillment while struggling with marriage, family, and the mother-daughter relationship. This study traces the development of Hearon' s feminist convictions in each of her novels by focusing on the changing quests of her heroines. This analysis of Hearon's novels attests to their lasting literary significance.

The purpose of the research presented here is to discover the central concept of "The Rhyming Poem," an Old English Christian work known only from a 10th-century manuscript, and to establish the poem's natural place in the body of Old English poetry. Existing critical literature shows little agreement about the poem's origin, vocabulary, plot, or first-person narrator, and no single translation has satisfactorily captured a sense of the poem's unity or of the purposeful vision behind it. The examination of text and context here shows that the Old English poet has created a unified vision in which religious teachings are artistically related through imagery and form. He worked in response to a particular set of conditions in early Church history, employing both pagan and Christian details to convey a message of the superiority of Christianity to idol-worship and, as well, of the validity of the Augustinian position on Original Sin over that of the heretical Pelagians.

This work re-assesses the heroic character of Huckleberry Finn in light of the inherent problems of discourse. Walter Ong's insights into the differences between oral and literate consciousnesses, and Stanley Fish's concept of "interpretive communities" are applied to Huck's interactions with the other characters, revealing the underlying dynamic of his character, the need for a viable discourse community. Further established, by enlisting the ideas of Ernest Becker, is that this need for community finds its source in the most fundamental human problem, the consciousness of death. The study concludes that the problematic ending of Twain's novel is consistent with the theme of community and is neither the artistic failure, nor the cynical pronouncement on the human race that so many critics have seen it to be.

The effect of constituent division of reading texts on ESL students was examined to note possible benefits to reading comprehension. An experimental group in each of three ESL proficiency levels was tested on a reading passage divided at the ends of lines at major constituent boundaries. Within each level, the experimental group was compared to a control group in three areas: reading time, test time, and test results. Results of the study do not support the theory that constituent division of reading texts could be beneficial to ESL students. The differences in reading time, test time, and test results of the experimental group and the control group in each level were insignificant.

This study arranges symptoms of polarity into a causal sequence# beginning with the origin of contrarieties and ending with the ultimate effect. The origin is considered as the fall of man, denoting both a mythic concept and a specific act of betrayal. This study argues that a sense of separateness precedes the fall or act of separation; the act of separation produces various kinds of fragmentation; and the fragments are reunited through paradox. Therefore, a causal relationship exists between the "fall" motif and the concept of paradox.

Contemporary analysis of Wuthering Heights necessitates a re-appraisal in light of advancements in the study of incest in non-literary fields such as history, anthropology, and especially psychology. A modern reading suggests that an unconscious incest taboo impeded Heathcliff and Cathy's expectation of normal sexual union and led them to seek union after death. John Milton's Paradise Lost provides a paradigm by which to examine the consequences of incest from two perspectives: that of incest as a metaphor for evil, as represented in Heathcliff; that of incest as symbolic of pre-Lapsarian innocence, as represented in Cathy. The tragic consequences of Heathcliff and Cathy's incestuous fixation are resolved by the socially-condoned marriage of Hareton and Catherine, which illuminates Bronte's belief in the Miltonic theme that good inevitably triumphs over evil.

This thesis examines the ministerial call in three novels by William Golding, specifically The Spire, Darkness Visible, and Rites of Passage. The central character of each novel, a Christian minister, has a vision, or series of visions, which dominates his life. The call and vision(s) of Golding's ministers are examined in light of Jacques Ellul's The Humiliation of the Word, a work examining the differences between the word and the image. The ministerial call, in this thesis, is linked to Ellul's ideas about the word; the vision, in this thesis, is linked to Ellul's ideas of the image. As a result of following their vision(s) rather than their call, the ministers fail, and their lives end in despair and ruin.

Outer Edges of the Middle Kingdom is a narrative by the author about his two years as a teacher in the People's Republic of China. Organized chronologically, the account begins in August, 1985, and ends in June, 1987. The narrator describes meeting students at Tianjin University, Tianjin, China, designing English classes for English majors, daily episodes in the classroom, and interaction with Chinese colleagues. The narrative alternates between life on a university campus and extensive trips the narrator made to various cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Kunming, Guilin, Harbin, Hohot, and Guangzhou. Also recounted are the narrator's reactions to the student demonstrations of December, 1986, and the resulting anti-bourgeois liberation campaign of January-April, 1987.

This work argues that the dynamics of the oral and of the literate consciousness play a vital role in the characterization of Bleak House. Through an application of Walter Ong's synthesis of orality/literacy research, Krook's residual orality is seen to play a greater role in his characterization than his more frequently discussed spontaneous combustion. Also, the role orality and literacy plays in understanding Dickens's satire of "philanthropic shams" is analyzed. This study concludes that an awareness of orality and literacy gives the reader of Bleak House a consistent framework for evaluating the moral quality of its characters and for understanding the broader social message underlying Dickens's topical satire.

Christina Rossetti and Dante Gabriel Rossetti both suffered from ambivalent feelings concerning the role female sexuality plays in the salvation of the soul. These ambivalent feelings ranged from seeing female sexuality as leading men to salvation, to seeing it as a trap for the destruction of women's souls as well as men's. The contradictory feelings of the Rossettis' typifies the Victorian people's experience and was caused by the nature of the times. Using the analysis of the period by Walter E. Houghton in The Victorian Frame of Mind: 1830-1870, this paper describes the affect the Victorians' religious zeal, their "moral earnestness," and their "woman-worship" had on the two Rossetti poets.