Many research studies have shown that bilingual speakers tend to swear in their first language because it creates more emotional resonance than their second or third language. It is also found that swear words in people’s first language contain more emotional weight. Because of this, bilinguals can use second language swear words without violating first language norms. This research examines whether swearing in a second language helps bilingual speakers overcome sociocultural restrictions on swearing in their first language. Bilingual Taiwanese who are fluent in both Mandarin and English were recruited into the study. They were asked to read a combative conversation containing swear words in both Mandarin and English, and then, were interviewed about the emotional impact in reading and swearing in these two languages. In the interviews, participants reported having stronger emotional feelings in hearing first language swear words than second language; however, in the reading experiment, participants reported that their emotional response was similar for both prompts. The interview data confirmed the findings of previous quantitative analysis while adding rich detail about the decision of selecting different language swear words in various situations.

“William Faulkner’s Portrayal of Women” provides an in-depth literature analysis of the role women play in two of Faulkner’s major novels, The Sound and the Fury (1929) and The Wild Palms (1939). Following the characterization of Candace “Caddy” Compson and Charlotte Rittenmeyer, my paper confirms the meaning of being a woman in a patriarchal society. Connecting literary and social movements, such as modernism, the development and actions of the characters are explained in terms of the traditional versus modern woman. The paper also calls into question Faulkner’s motives behind not fully giving his women literary independence. We see this in Caddy who is never given a voice, but is instead shown to the reader through the eyes of dominant male characters and through Charlotte’s incapability to be a mother. The implication of this type of portrayal of women suggest that though Faulkner attempts to embrace the modernist view of women, he cannot fully let go of a tradition that dictates that women are defined by men.

In “Writing Against Culture,” Lila Abu-Lughod writes, “The process of creating a self through opposition to the other always entails the violence of repressing or ignoring other forms of difference.” This complicated discourse Abu-Lughod describes emerges from 19th century colonialist practices, which oppressed colonized peoples, and therefore rendered their "identities" troubled. As literary modernism gained traction in the 20th century, Caribbean writers such as Frantz Fanon and Jean Rhys responded to the suddenly complicated identity paradigm in which they become marked as the “Other.” How do Fanon and Rhys untangle modernist notion of the self while being deeply entwined with constantly alienating effects of colonialist practices? In this paper, I explore the extent to which “the violence of repressing or ignoring other forms of difference” causes colonized people to react loudly against these forces with their own newly constructed identities. Rhys and Fanon reacted loudly in their work, but other colonized people would react loudly through force and violent resistance. Black Power movements in the Caribbean and America, for example, feature the colonized seizing upon new identities in order to break free of colonialism and the identities it imposed. Fanon’s reaction to break free of those shackles are manifested in Black Skins, White Masks, which becomes essential for these Black Power movements. Rhys creates Wide Sargasso Sea to problematize the racism of 19th Century colonialism itself and highlight the vicious process of identity formation via a famous work of Victorian literature. Through my research, I have ultimately come to the conclusion that colonialist oppression produces identities contrary to it, whether that may be in the form of writing or other violent movements; it is that very narrative process by which colonial power breeds its own undoing.

Empirical poetics is the study of poetics through scientific research rather than theory. For example, the field of cognitive poetics, which addresses the neuroscience of the reader’s response, would fall under this definition. Our project will collect such research with two goals: the first is to defend the immanence, the existence, of poetry’s power through its basis in scientific fact, and the second is to collect prominent empirical poetics research for the benefit of likeminded people. The method of this project will be to survey the current research on psychological and physiological responses in poetry readers, then use these studies as evidence for a defense of the medium. We will collect and annotated research that addresses questions such as: how the body responds to or creates emotions, how/whether these responses are provoked during reading, how word-images are created in the brain, how sensations are understood, the role of metaphor in the creation of meaning, the emotional impression produced by different patterns of linguistic sound effects, and more. The resultant thesis paper will summarize the current trends in the empirical research of poetics, cross reference their results in hopes of forming an argument for the immanence of poetry, and finally, offer tentative predictions for future investigations into empirical poetics. Behind this project lies the belief that art is not the estranged bedfellow of science; the evidence of science proves the power of art.

As student-workers, peer-tutors often have multiple responsibilities in and outside their immediate line of work. During tutoring sessions, tutors frequently engage in emotionally strenuous challenges, one of which being the act of appropriating their outer displays of emotion to fit perceived notions of normative display rules, despite their conflicting inner emotions. This results in a stress called emotional labor (Hochschild, 1983). Although emotional labor has been shown to frequently be associated with negative job outcomes in other professions, little research has been done examining the prevalence of it in tutor roles. To investigate the extent to which tutors experience emotional labor, and the possible avenues of managing stress, student-tutors at a campus tutoring center were issued a two-part, mixed-methods survey. The first half consisted of Mann’s Emotional Requirement Inventory and Tutor Emotional Labor Scale to quantify the level of experienced emotional labor. Quantitative levels of emotional labor will be averaged and compared with published norms. Preliminary results suggest that most tutors hold implicit assumptions of obligatory positive display rules and subsequently act upon them. The second half asked tutors to qualitatively share their experience regarding their most recent emotionally laborious session and what strategies, if any, they employed to regulate the stress. Preliminary results suggest that emotional labor can be amplified from additional conflicts in and outside a tutoring session. Further analysis of qualitative results will provide means to propose various strategies in regulating stress. Combined with the pilot data, this research suggests that 1) emotional labor is a significant factor to consider in related peer-educator roles, and 2) strategies for regulating stress may include social sharing and expressive writing. Additionally, this study’s purpose is to investigate the benefits of utilizing mixed-methods in measuring replicable quantitative data and in-depth qualitative data to set a precedent for future research.