Past Theses
Class of 2020
Peri Beckerman
Advisor: Deborah Tannen
I’m kind of like a melding between a cultural and religious Jew”: How American Jewish college students self-identify as Jews
Mica Bernhard
Advisor: Cynthia Gordon
Talking about Nothing? How different generations orient their identity around humor from Seinfeld
Kareeda Kabir
Advisor: Cynthia Gordon
“There is no creature more evil and depraved than the human female:” A linguistic analysis of Incel manifestos
Katherine Russell
Advisors: Hannah Sande and Elizabeth Zsiga
Grammatical Tone in Mòoré: Phrasal Tone and TAMP Morphology
Class of 2019
Molly Cooke
Advisor: Deborah Tannen
“Those are my people:” Community engagement among cochlear implant users
Rebekah Grafton
Advisor: Ahmad Alqassas
The role of Standard Arabic in Maghrebi-Mashreqi interdialectal communication
Daniel Wheelock
Advisor: Nic Subtirelu
Shrek versus cultural translation: A comparison of language attitudes before and after Castilian dubbing
Mika Skibinsky
Advisors: Jennifer Sclafani and Cynthia Gordon
Dragons, tigers, and other fusion confusion (Oh my): A case study of identity construction in Asian restaurant menus of DC
Cory Richardson
Advisor: Cynthia Gordon
Burgers, brands, and dead memes: A linguistic analysis of brand communication on Twitter
Class of 2018
Toby Hei Nok Hung
Advisor: Ruth Kramer
A cartographic analysis of the left periphery in Chaozhou, Cantonese, and Mandarin
Juliet May
Advisor: Natalie Schilling
An Analysis of Deception Features in Realized and Non-Realized Threatening Communications
Anna Runova
Advisor: Lourdes Ortega
Actions and Beliefs: Do L3 Learners Transfer from Both Languages?
Michaela Harrington
Advisor: Cynthia Gordon
What’s in a name: Stance and identity in display names on Twitter
Margaret-Anne Rowe
Advisor: Cynthia Gordon
Friendship Across Distance: Media ideologies in threatening face and building solidarity over video calls
Class of 2017
Sophia Bauerschmidt Sweeney
Advisor: Anna De Fina
Turning Trauma into an Argument: How Immigration Lawyers Construct the Narratives of Women Seeking Asylum from Domestic Violence
Kathleen Marie Coughlin
Advisor: Jennifer Sclafani
Hamilton and Intertextuality: Constructing Coherence, Characters, and Relationships in Musical Theatre
Kaycia Voorman
Advisor: Cynthia Gordon
Translating Fidel Castro: Strategies of Spanish-English Translation in Political Texts
Mary Bridget Smith
Advisor: Lourdes Ortega
Learning a Language You’ve Never Heard: Self-Efficacy in Written English Among Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Sign-Print Bilinguals
Class of 2016
Ethan Beaman
Advisor: Amir Zeldes
This is Just a Formality: Analyzing Machine Translation for Formal Correctness
Marie Beasley
Advisor: Natalie Schilling
Assessing the Reliability of Surveys: Use of Surveys as a Source of Linguistic Authority in Criminal Cases
Emily Grau
Advisor: Lourdes Ortega
Resilience and the Refugee Learner: Trauma Exposure and Second Language Acquisition in Bhutanese Refugees
Jenna Grove
Advisor: Mark Sicoli
I Am Who I Are: How Identity Construction Relates to Non-Standard Grammar in Music Lyrics
Michelle Klein
Advisor: Jennifer Sclafani
Constructions of Power in Women’s Rap: A Qualitative Analysis of Nicki Minaj and Lil’ Kim’s Lyrics
Katerina Maylock
Advisor: Cynthia Gordon
“I have a girl brain but a boy body”: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Representation of Transgender Individuals in English Picture Books
Raquel Rosenbloom
Advisor: Anastasia Nylund
The EFL Experience: Factors Impacting Second Language Acquisition, Identity, and Motivation among Georgetown EFL Students
Lena Rothfarb
Advisor: Lourdes Ortega
“I don’t think anyone actually speaks Standard English as a dialect”: An Investigation into Teacher Perceptions of their Students’ Speech
Sarah Smith
Advisor: Cynthia Gordon
I Gotchu Man *Insert GIF Here: How Coworkers Blend Work and Play Frames in Groupme Communication
Class of 2015
John Davis
Advisor: Elissa Newport
Linguistic Productivity and Where it Fails: an Empirical Test of the Tolerance Principle
Holly DiClemente
Advisor: Cynthia Gordon
Father Knows Best?: How Adult Daughters and Their Fathers Negotiate Expert Status in Conversation
Aidan Dugan
Advisor: Aubrey Logan-Terry
Repairing (interactional) Trouble on the Front Lines: An Analysis of Multimodal Repetition in U.S. Military Contexts
Stefan Gavriloski
Advisor: Elizabeth Zsiga
Japanese Vowel Devoicing by English L2 Learners
Lauren McGarry
Advisor: Ruth Kramer
Concord in East Slavic Numerical Constructions: A Cross-linguistic Assessment of Pesetsky 2013
Katherine Murray
Advisor: Jennifer Sclafani
“I Grew up Knowing how to Talk Female:” Navigating Transmasculine Gender Identities through Communicative Changes
Candice Penelton
Advisor: George Wilson
Optimizing Coreference Resolution Systems for Dialogues
Travis Richardson
Advisor: Heidi Hamilton
Gender (Re)Assignment: How German Speakers Approach Grammatical Gender Differently
Katarina Starcevic
Advisor: Anastasia Nylund
“We are making strides:” Pronominal Variation and Audience Design in America’s Horse Racing Industry
Class of 2014
Hannah Sullivan
Advisor: Jennifer Sclafani
Multilingual Identity Construction: Examining Arabic-English Code-Switching Among Palestinians in Washington, D.C.
Alanna Hulburd
Advisor: Mark Sicoli
Labeling in Autism Discourse: Insider and Outsider Perspectives
Abigail Sherburne
Advisor: Jennifer Nycz
Farming for Features: Rhotic Variations and Identity in Maine Agricultural Communities
Eleonora Israele
Advisor: Mark Sicoli
Hollywood Remakes of French Films: A Study of Conversational Style and Gender
Harley Hirzel
Advisor: Anna Trester
“Dude” Revisited: How “Bro” Came into the Mix
Class of 2013
Anna Drabek
Advisor: Jennifer Nycz
Linguistic Identity in Advertising: Multinational Corporations and the Bilingual Context of Belgium
Marie-Sophie Guntram
Advisor: Heidi Hamilton
Perception of Teenagers’ Speech in the German Secondary School System: An Experimental Study
Tyler Holl
Advisor: Heidi Hamilton
Homophobic Slang and the Linguistic Construction of a New Gay Male Identity
Allison Melendez
Advisor: Elizabeth Zsiga
Pitch Range of Mandarin Tones in Native English Speakers
Helen Rave
Advisor: Mark Sicoli
Gender Differences in Romantic Comedy Speech
Class of 2012
Jacqueline Fogarty
Advisor: Deborah Tannen
Lead dogs and sisters of swing: The role of gender in the language of coxswains
Kelly Phillips
Advisor: Heidi Hamilton
Fighting cancer and face threats: Establishing solidarity in an online cancer support blog community
Anne Weitzenkorn
Advisor: Jeff Connor-Linton
The negotiation of all-male friendship: Interaction between the cultural discourses of dominance and male solidarity
Class of 2011
Jessie Chiang
Advisor: Shaligram Shukla
Doing as the Romans Did: Politeness in Cicero’s Pro Roscio Amerino
Alexandria Crampton
Advisor: Jeff Connor-Linton
Learning to Teach English Language Learners: A Study of Professional Development for Teach For America Corps Members
Class of 2010
Elizabeth BalLance
Advisor: Heidi Hamilton
How doctors initiate discussion with families about end-of-life care in the context of a bad prognosis
Lauren Cucarola
Advisor: Robert Podesva
Actors and athletes: Terms of address and masculinity in all-male communities of practice
Heidi Getz
Advisor: Alison Mackey
‘Un espace plurilangue’: Three case studies of instructor English use in advanced foreign language classrooms.
Christie Gibbons
Advisor: Robert Podesva
Increased [s] duration and [+anterior] [s] production by stereotypically gay characters in Mexican media
Nicholas A Miller
Advisor: James Alatis
The Action Plan to Cultivate “Japanese with English Abilities”: Evaluating language policy effectiveness
Mariel Pullman
Advisor: Michael Ullman
Language and procedural memory in ADHD
Hannah R. Yates
Advisor: Deborah Tannen
Negotiating a relationship: Shifting alignments in a father’s letters to his daughter
Sam Zukoff
Advisor: Shaligram Shukla
Reduplication and initial-vowel lengthening in the Ancient Greek perfect-tense