In this thesis, the three hypotheses on the nature of early L2 acquisition (the Full Transfer/Full Access view of Schwartz and Sprouse (e.g., 1996), the Minimal Trees view of Vainikka and Young-Scholten (e.g., 1996), and the Valueless Features view of Eubank (e.g., 1996)), are discussed. Analysis of the early French production by two native speakers of Moroccan Arabic is done to determine if the L1 grammar is transferred onto the L2 grammar. In particular, the phenomena of verb-raising (as determined by the verb's position vis-a-vis negation) and finiteness are examined. The results of this study indicate that the relevant structures of Moroccan Arabic do not transfer onto the emerging French grammar.

The purpose of this study is to discover if there exists a difference between the perceived roles and functions of intensive English program (IEP) directors and what they actually are. The study is a partial replication of Matthies (1983). A total of 46 subjects participated in a nation-wide survey which asked the respondents to rate the importance of functions and skills in good job performance and in self-assessment of ability. The findings indicated that IEP directors rate the activities associated with administration higher in importance than teaching skills, yet rate themselves better at teaching overall. Additionally, the respondents have more and higher degrees in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics than previously seen by Matthies (1983).

The critical introduction to this collection of short fiction argues that writing is reading and that reading is writing. The argument draws descriptions of writing as reading from such diverse sources as Sherwood Anderson, Roland Barthes, Neil Simon, J. Hillis Miller and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, as well as from the author's own experience. Descriptions of reading from phenomenological and subjective criticism, including the theories of Georges Poulet, Wolfgang Iser, Stanley Fish and David Bleich, affirm the creative role of the reader, show that the reader, in fact, writes the text in the process of reading. The introduction concludes that reader, writer and text are all constructs of language, that both reading and writing are, ultimately and primarily, thought.

Anatomy of Loss contains a foreword, which discusses the place of autobiography in fiction, and five original short stories.

Using Ethnography of Communication, Conversational Analysis, and surveys, Thai students' participation in group work was studied to determine how they interact with native English-speaking students. Issues discussed are: (1) behaviors Thai students display during group work; including comparisons and contrasts to native students' behaviors, (2) prejudices native students have about including Thai students in group work, (3) Thais' strengths and weaknesses in group work, and (4) perceptions native and Thai students and their professors have regarding group work and its importance to successful course completion. The study concludes by recommending ways that both Thai students and their professors can enhance the learning outcomes of courses that heavily emphasize group work.

This study traces archetypal images in selected prose fiction by Edgar Allan Poe and shows his consistent use of such imagery throughout his career, and outlines the archetypal images that Poe uses repeatedly throughout his works: the death of the beautiful woman, death and resurrection, the hero's journey to the underworld, and the quest for forbidden knowledge. The study examines Poe's use of myth to establish and uphold archetypal patterns. Poe's goal when crafting his works was the creation of a single specified effect, and to create his effects, he used the materials at hand. Some of these materials came from his own subconscious; however, a greater portion came from a lifetime of study and his own understanding of the connections between myth and archetypal images.

Red Dresses for Funerals contains a scholarly preface concerning the nature of factuality versus credibility in the writing of fiction. Four original short stories are included in this thesis. "A Night With Lawrence Welk" explores the relationship between a patient and student intern psychologist. "Red Dresses for Funerals" is about a wedding that plays a significant role in a variety of the characters' lives. "Trace Elements" is the only story involving young children. "Trace Elements" explores the beginning of understanding of some of the grimmer aspects of reality. "Expectations, Great and Otherwise" addresses the issue of denial. These stories are linked by their setting, a small town in Texas.

Walt Whitman was a feminist, and this assertion can be supported by excerpts from his prose, poetry, and conversation. Furthermore, the poet's circle of associates, chronology, and place of residence also lend credence to the hypothesis stating Whitman's subscription to feminist credos. A pro-feminine attitude is evident in much of Whitman's work, and his ties to the women's rights movement of the nineteenth century do influence the poet's portrayal of women. But the section of poems titled "Children of Adam" proves to be an anomaly in Walt Whitman's feminist attitudes. Instead of portraying women as equals, able to walk a path of equanimity with males, the women of "Children of Adam" are often obscured in linguistic veils or subjugated to the poet's Adamic rhetoric.

It is a dark future, where corporations have taken the place of governmental bodies, and Earth is a myth, forgotten in the reconstruction after the Second Dark Age. One man--a clone--investigates a murder [that] leads him deep into a spirit quest of his own that will answer the questions of Man's heritage as well as his own identity. This story is a science fiction, but it is similar in structure to a Coyote tale and involves quite a bit of Navajo mythology. The use of Native American imagery is not an attempt to capitalize on another culture, but rather to study the culture and use allegorical elements that transcend many cultures. It must also be noted that non-Native American writers wrote all texts available on the subject. This fact should be taken into consideration by the reader.

The thesis begins with an introduction, followed by six short stories. The stories that follow span three or four regions of the American landscape and three or four decades of the twentieth century. What drives each story is the isolation of both narrator and main character (when these are not the same) from the world of the story. In each story, there is either a sense of wanting to belong or an urge to escape, or both. The paradox--also the writer's paradox--is that if one belongs, one has no need to escape; if one escapes, one can never belong.

A part of Charles Dickens's genius with character is his deftness at creating an appropriate idiolect for each character. Through their discourse, characters reveal not only themselves, but also Dickens's comment on social features that shape their communication style. Three specific idiolects are discussed in this study. First, Dickens demonstrates the pressures that an occupation exerts on Alfred Jingle from Pickwick Papers. Second, Mr. Gradgrind from Hard Times is robbed of his ability to communicate as Dickens highlights the errors of Utilitarianism. Finally, four characters from three novels demonstrate together the principle that social institutions can silence their defenseless constituents. Linguistic evaluation of speech habits illuminates Dickens's message that social structures can injure individuals. In addition, this study reveals the consistent and intuitive narrative art of Dickens.

Sociolinguists working in Northern urban areas have shown that Hispanics who come in contact with African Americans sometimes acquire features of African American vernacular English (AAVE). However, the acquisition of AAVE features by Hispanics in the South has yet to be documented. Specifically, no one has studied the kind of English that Hispanics in Texas are acquiring. The present study investigates this issue through research in an inner-city area of Dallas: Oak Cliff. During the past twenty-five years, the population of Oak Cliff has changed from a largely African American community to include a substantial number of Hispanics. Though their neighborhoods remain fairly separate, sports and gangs provide an arena for extended contact. This study investigates the extent to which AAVE grammatical features are being acquired by bilingual Hispanic adolescents who hang out with African Americans. The analysis for this paper focuses on the relationship between contact and depth of acquisition of AAVE syntactic constraints on the use the copula (is/are, be). Preliminary results show that be+V+ing as an habitual form has been incorporated into the grammar of these subjects, suggesting fundamental changes towards an AAVE grammatical system.

In my preface I have tried to show what a diary is, why they might be of interest to others, why I think they are valid and should be considered as such. I have defended my diary as being worthy material for a thesis, or myself as worthy of being called a writer. (Traditionally, writing in a diary doesn't qualify one as being a writer, even though you might write millions of pages and spend your entire lives doing it.) Edited selections of my diary make up the body of the thesis. These selections are divided into four main sections which suggested themselves during editing. To summarize the diary as a whole, I would say it's about human relationships.

In this study, I show that three major areas of Mark Twain's personality—conscience, ego, and nonconformist instincts—are represented, in part, respectively by three of his literary creations: Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, and No. 44. The origins of Twain's personality which possibly gave rise to his troubled conscience, need for attention, and rebellious spirit are examined. Also, Huck as Twain's social and personal conscience is explored, and similarities between Twain's and Tom's complex egos are demonstrated. No. 44 is featured as symbolic of Twain's iconoclastic, misanthropic, and solipsistic instincts, and the influence of Twain's later personal misfortunes on his creation of No. 44 is explored. In conclusion, I demonstrate the importance of Twain's creative escape and mediating ego in the coping of his personality with reality.

Trapped in the Body of a Cheerleader is a feature-length comedic screenplay using juvenile witticisms and black-comedy to tell the story of a teenaged girl accepting her own identity. The introduction, a personal essay, offers the author's personal views towards screen writing, teen-oriented films, and contemporary screen comedy.

This analysis of Tan's first two novels reveals that her female characters suffer from the strains critics like Amy Ling say result from the double paradox of filling the roles of mother or daughter as minority women in a white, male society. Recognizing this double paradox offers Tan's characters, and her readers, the opportunity to resolve the conflicts between mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club. Using the theories of psychologist Kathie Carlson helps readers understand how the protagonist of The Kitchen God's Wife resolves similar conflicts with her daughter and her own mother by seeking support from a mythic mother-figure, a Goddess of her own making.

The bei construction has often been identified as a passive construction. This thesis uses Davis's (1983) semantic framework and Hsueh's (1989) descriptive corollaries to account for the various characteristics of the bei construction and proposes that the bei construction is not a passive construction but a more general Focus device.

A poet who is a woman and a theologian writes under three pressures, or a triple bind: individuality, spirituality, and society. The desires and drives of the ego and those of spirituality often conflict, and societal expectations which gender bestows add further stress to the poet's efforts. This constant struggle destroys some poets (Plath, Sexton) and renders silent many of the rest. The following collection of poems combats the silence in four progressive sections: The first is an introductory essay which further discusses the triple bind; the second, "Between Two," illustrates spiritual relationships from despair to disillusionment; the third section, "Life in the Mirror," describes deteriorating human relationships; the final section, "Salt," presents problems resolving to a kind of negative capability. This poetry collection continues one woman's poetic struggle toward validity and acceptance.

Eight short selections of fiction. "Inventions" consists of two invented creation myths. The three stories in "Dreams" are fantasy tales set in a common dream-world. The selections in "Imitations" are neither fantasy nor science fiction: "Time's Tapering Blade" is an experiment in form; "The Wake" concerns a group of friends dealing with a death; and "Janie, Hold the Light" is based on stories from the author's family about Christmas during the depression of the 1930's.

Terlingua includes a scholarly foreword on illusion and reality in the writing of fiction. Five short stories are contained in this thesis. "Terlingua" relates the story of two students on a road trip who give a ride to a mysterious woman. "Zoology" is the first person narrative of a zoology graduate who picks up a socialite. "What about Sonoma?" is the story of two misfits whose affair comes to an end. "Losing Ground" examines a couple's relationship that changes because of the man's bowling injury and the woman's unexpected pregnancy. "The Jury Remembers Everything" is about a woman who becomes hesitant to marry her fiancé when she learns her mother may have once run away with a mortician. "Losing Ground" is a drama, and the other four stories are comedies.

Eudora Welty's short story "Flowers for Marjorie" appears in A Curtain of Green and Other Stories, her first volume of collected stories published in 1941. Since the story's publication, literary scholars have interpreted the protagonist's murder of his wife, and the unusual events that follow, in terms of somatic realities that inform the text. This thesis is a psychoanalytic rereading/rewriting of "Flowers for Maijorie" that attempts to analyze its text as a possible dream narrative. By psychoanalytically rereading/rewriting the narrative in this story as a possible dream narrative, this thesis will attempt to demonstrate how the reader might experientially break through its previous resistance to interpretation, which should encourage a better understanding of the story's narrative ambiguities. The originality of this examination lies in its detailed analysis of the story's text from a psychoanalytic economy, thus providing perhaps the most detailed analysis of its text to date.

The purpose of this thesis is to determine whether the setting of the verb movement parameter in L2 is dependent on agreement acquisition. The Optionality hypothesis (Eubank, 1994) is tested by examining the L2 grammar of Chinese learners of English. To test this hypothesis, the sentence matching procedure originally described in Freedman and Forster (1985) is used. It is found that no current theory truly accounts for the results that are obtained.

Hemingway claims in Green Hills of Africa that "all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." If this basic idea is applied to his own work, elements of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn appear in some of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories and his novel The Old Man and the Sea. All major characters and several minor characters in these works share the quality of natural innocence, composed of their primitivism, sensibility, and active morality. Hemingway's Nick, Santiago, and Manolin, and Twain's Huck Finn and Jim reflect their authors' similar backgrounds and experiences and themselves come from similar environments. These environments are directly related to their continued possession and expression of their natural innocence.

Winnie Verloc's role in "The Secret Agent" has received little initial critical attention. However, this character emerges as Conrad's hero in this novel because she is an exception to what afflicts the other characters: institutionalism. In the first chapter, I discuss the effect of institutions on the characters in the novel as well as on London, and how both the characters and the city lack hope and humanity. Chapter II is an analysis of Winnie's character, concentrating on her philosophy that "life doesn't stand much looking into," and how this view, coupled with her disturbing experience of having looked into the "abyss," makes Winnie heroic in her affirmative existentialism. Chapters III and IV broaden the focus, comparing Winnie to Conrad's other protagonists and to his other female characters.